#* narrative / leo.

[missmisnomer]

time keeps moving on

whether you want it to or not

@remedyturtles absolutely killing it with the latest chapters of their firefight fic. The last third of ch.37 was so fuckin eerie and tense and visually rich that I couldn't NOT make some art inspired by it. I've been hankering to draw something more experimental and dark lately, and this really scratched that itch!

Thanks for The Horrors™, Rem!

[aroaceleovaldez]

honestly Percy and Nico's dynamic is made even funnier when you take into account how Will is written in TSATS. Like, oh okay then, Nico just has horrible taste in men and keeps getting smitten with boys who loathe everything he stands for. Percy stopped being Nico's type because Percy started to respect him too much. Cupid is yelling at Nico to raise his standards while Nico scopes out the latest guy who will treat him wrong to take on a date to the Underworld.

[turrondeluxe]

Mikey, waking up from his slumber with a start: Something Just Happened.

Leo on the kitchen floor immediately after eating cheese from the fridge at 4am:

Based on this post where followers and me end up deducing Leo is lactose intolerant.

[riggsink]

Next

This is definitely not what I should be working on, but I was re-watching the movie and got an idea stuck in my brain.

Because in the "bad future" timeline, no one knew that the Foot opened the portal until it was too late, so theoretically, there should've been no one at the ritual site to stop the Krang from unleashing the technodrome. But according to Casey, they still did it at Metro Tower.

This is just my brain filling in the gaps to a plot hole no one probably cared about.

[autism-swagger]

Three sides of the same coin.

[Agents of SHIELD (2013-2020) // Leah Raeder, Unteachable // Bastille, Two Evils // dcvina-claires, tumblr // Richard Siken, You Are Jeff // Sarah Kane, Blasted // desnos, tumblr // Hera Lindsay Bird, Mirror Traps]

[prettygirlgerard]

the way prorev was literally just six weeks like imagine you spend six weeks fucking your guitarist in front of god and everyone and then at the end you’re like surprise!!! I’m getting married :) and everyone’s like to a woman???

[joyfuladorable]

Ch. 5 & 6 of Dragon of the Sun by @forestwhisper3

(<Ch.1-4)

He felt like this past day had helped him learn a lot about Usagi. Things had relaxed between them, and their interactions, while they had never not been friendly, felt more comfortable- as if the unspoken barrier that kept that last bit of formality between them had finally been crossed, and he was...excited. Raph had Casey. Donnie had April and sort of shared Leatherhead with Mikey, who also had the Justice Force. They all were his friends too, yeah, but...it was nice to have a friend who was his first. Who preferred his company over the others. A best friend.

Forest said "time for Leosagi" and DELIVERED!!! This fic continues to diverge beautifully from canon, with Mikey's powers creating a butterfly effect and dropping Leo into his angst arc Early. Thank goodness his Best Friend helps guide him through it! UwU

[valhallavalgrace]

Welcome to Elysiu- wait, Valhalla?

Congratulations, Leo Valdez, you're dead!

About

Welcome! This is a plot-driven askblog following events in Hotel Valhalla through Blood of Olympus, Trials of Apollo, and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard. Naturally, there are spoilers up ahead, so advance with caution!

Leo Valdez is dead. Jason Grace is about to be. Not the type of dead that they expected, though. We'll let Leo explain it.

Lore

As the blogname pertains, this is a valgrace AU set in MCGA's Hotel Valhalla. See relevant current and past lore below!

Current Blog Status: Leo’s arrival to HV, post BoO/Sos, ToA/HoT co-occurring  Blog Origins Major Canon Divergence Info

Navigate

How to ask: although there is a current “ongoing” timeline and there may be a primary character responding, please feel free to specify character(s) you are addressing and where in the timeline, if applicable, you are asking from. As the plot continues, there will be opportunities to flashback to different character statuses (such as: solo-HV!Leo, ToA!Jason, BoO!Jason, etc. The tags below will be updated to indicate such events). Unlocked characters: Leo Valdez [HV], Magnus Chase [HV], Samirah al-Abbas [HV] Locked characters (coming soon!): ,Alex Fierro [HV], Jason Grace [Midgard], Jason Grace [HV], Annabeth Chase [Midgard]

Tags

# [character, first+last] responds character, ie. ‘Leo Valdez responds’ answers your asks! # answered asks all answered asks - also tagged as # text posts and # art when relevant # headcanons lore drops that may or may not be/become an official part of the AU # art misc HV art that may or may not be a part of the AU - potentially blog ads and other non-asks # V²AU all official parts of the AU on the blog # Valhalla!Valgrace used on various blogs (mine lol) to talk about the AU, relevant reblogs (tracking) # tbt-[HoO, post-BoO, ToA, SoS] flashbacks to relevant parts of the timeline as the plot progresses

[onejellyfishplease]

My lord mosquitello, where are your brothers?

They're doing fine 👍

(Masterpost) (Next)

also im gonna need a new tag for the more ✨lore✨ and ✨story focused✨ episodes of this new au, cause i want them to be easily accessible.

specifically Donnie's brothers' POV (Cult shenanigans will stay under the Mosquitello tag)

i cant think of anything though

how about you tell me some of your ideas in the comments?

[shiraishi--kanade]

I have Words to Say about disabled characters in Proseka but I'm especially kind of... Eeh about Saki, because of how perfect she is.

I've talked about this before but Saki is just not allowed, by the narrative, to be flawed. We have some very, very brief moments of anger or lashing out from her (NSNF, Doll Festival in particular), but aside from that Saki is just... So cliché and surface-level regarding her disability. That especially reflects in how the writers handled her relationship with Leo/need.

Yes, she is not angry at her friends for, let's call it what it was, abandoning her (besides Ichika). She is not upset with them or feels betrayed by them. She just forgives them for doing that because she's a good friend and that kind of person, to not dwell on the past and just look forward. She's only really upset at her illness, rate, and herself.

Do you know how shitty of a story that is to sell to disabled people? Oh look, this character suffered a lot and then their friends just stopped visiting them at some point! But no big deal though, they're all good! She doesn't hold a grudge against them so it's actually totally understandable and fine and you should look up to that attitude.

Sure, Saki isn't upset with Honami and Shiho. My point is that she fucking should be. I know their reasons and I don't care about them; what they did is shitty and I hate how the story just moved on from that and we never confront that again and probably won't. Why the hell not? It would make for an interesting conflict and story. It would make Saki an absolutely stunning character, and reflect many of our struggles with loving and caring for people that don't understand us and don't stand with us. Why do we have a story we do now, where Shiho and Honami's fuck up only bothers them but not the person they hurt?

Oh wait, I know the answer: because god forbid disabled characters be anything than inspiration porn.

[malrie]

for: @jasipereo, who told me i should what: in the burning maze, apparently they fly off together after jason dies and nothing happens at all. this is the nothing. wc: 1700

-

Piper had grown out her hair since Leo saw her last. He touched the ends of it, feeling the familiar softness between his fingers.

“Did you get taller?” she asked, voice strained from having cried so much. He didn’t see her expression; she was sitting in front of him on Festus, facing only the white sky. 

“I dunno,” he said, because he didn’t. Time was strange in that other place. To him, he’d been gone for only a moment. As if he hadn’t been lost at all.

She leaned backwards. Without having to ask, Leo let the internal heat from his body migrate to her. They were just below plane altitude, maybe four or five miles in the air. It was cold, but he wouldn’t let her be.

Had Piper not been there, Leo would have pried the casket open and crawled inside to lie beside him. He was sure of it. The instinct was nonsensical, even desperate, and still it pulled him like water down a drain. He wanted to see him again. He wanted to see him with his eyes closed, as though he were only asleep. And Jason had always been a peaceful sleeper. 

Back then, Piper’s iron grip on his forearm had anchored him. Maybe she felt the urge, too. Maybe they could have all fit inside. There, they could have dreamt as one, having found peace in a place where nothing could tear them apart. Together again.

“You did,” she replied. “Get taller, I mean. Just a little.”

*

Piper had a room in her grandpa’s ranch house that she hadn’t used since she was eleven. Leo inspected the off-white lace curtains, the stuffed animals on the bookshelves. She had a pink CD player and a Hello Kitty pillowcase. It was strange to be confronted with the idea that she had lived a life before him.

He helped her unpack what little she brought with her. Downstairs, Leo heard Coach’s booming timbre, comforting in its own way. He and Mellie would stay in the guest room with Chuck, leaving Leo to fend for himself in the den.

“What’re you gonna do now?” asked Piper, folding shirts and sorting them in a dresser.

Leo laid on her carpet, eyeing the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on the ceiling. “Calypso wants to enroll in school. I tried telling her secondary education was a shithole, but she wanted to experience it herself. As for me, I’m never going back. S’one of the conditions I made for living at the Waystation.”

Piper paused in her folding. Then she started up again on a pile of sweaters. She lingered on a blue one that read: Edgarton Day and Boarding School. 

“I’m starting Tahlequah High next week,” she said. 

“I’ll be sure to make your grad party, beauty queen.”

He figured. Piper liked school enough; he knew she never missed an assignment at Wilderness. Meanwhile, Leo turned every packet he got into paper planes, letting them ride the Nevada gust out his dormitory window.

“If you’re not finishing school,” she continued, “what’ll you do? Help Hemithea and Josephine?”

“That’s sorta the plan.” Leo rubbed his eyes. The stars were too old to hold any glow. “I guess… I guess I just want something to keep busy. Maybe teach shop for the kids for however long. After that, I don’t know. Being in one place too long… I’m not real good at that.”

“So no camp?”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “No, no camp. You?”

“No,” Piper said, then laughed along with him.

He knew she didn’t mean she hated either camp, their friends, or their community—they only needed distance, measured and in moderation. Jason was everywhere, after all. His lifeblood was camp legacy. In a way, that was what had taken him from them. The gods had owed Jason ten times over and this was how he was repaid. There was nothing for Leo there, least of all loyalty. It seemed Piper felt the same, even if only mirroring an inch of his resentment. 

They ate dinner. Tristan still had some lost pallor, but his charisma was hard to chip at, especially when his daughter needed him. Toothless Chuck gummed around a piece of squash while the rest of them ate a meal cooked by a friend of the family. People had been in and out of the house all day; their fridge was stocked for the entire week. The McLeans had roots here. They were loved and welcomed. Leo and Piper had stayed inside her room like homebodies until the visitors had all left.

While Mellie put Chuck down for bed, Tristan and Coach cleared the table and washed the dishes. Piper told Leo that they’d probably go out on the porch and smoke some of her grandad’s tobacco pipes once they were done, a vice her dad failed to keep secret from her.

Snickering, they imagined Coach hacking a lung while ambling upstairs to her grandpa’s study. Her grandfather kept books on topics that ranged from Indigenous history to psychology to science fiction. Aside from the collection, there was a desk with a swivel chair and a large claw-footed single-seater sofa in the corner of the room, just by the window.

Leo grabbed a book off the shelf just for the fun of it and plopped down on the sofa. The words swam around on the pages. Even if he could read it, he doubted he could parse analytical biochemistry jargon.

“I used to come up here when Grandpa was doing his lesson plans,” said Piper. Tom McLean was a structural biology professor. “I’d beg for him to play with me, but he’d just say, ‘My love, you cannot have what you want the instant you desire it.’ I liked that. Not even then was it easy for people to say no to me. He was the only one.”

Looking out the window, Leo saw the shine of Festus’s wings in the darkness. The dragon was hunkered down in the yard, closest to sleep as automatons could get.

“I’ll leave in the morning,” Leo said. He rested his gaze on the horizon, which bled into the night. “Calypso’s waiting for me.”

“I know.” Piper came over to him, gently pulling the textbook away from his grasp. It forced him to look at her.

A beat passed. “I’m sorry, Piper. About Jason.”

She smiled wryly, placing Clinical Biochemistry: Techniques and Instrumentation onto the side table. She asked, “Why are you saying sorry to me?”

He wasn’t sure what she meant by that. She stood over him, the moonlight from outside overlaying her skin like a filter, the image of an aching spector. Her face was unreadable, but tonight her eyes were one color. It was borrowed, and it was the color of his own heart: Electric blue, as vibrant as the sky once a storm had cleared. Jason.

Still standing, she raised a hand, placing it over his arm in an innocuous touch. “You loved him, too,” she said. Leo’s hackles rose, but it was true and—now that Jason was dead—harmless. “Leo, we weren’t together anymore. I broke up with him. After you died, I couldn’t… I couldn’t work it out. Work us out. Because without you, it was like… Like the lights had gone out.”

His hand grabbed her wrist, wanting to rip it away, but he couldn’t. “Wait. I-I don’t want to hear this,” he said.

If only she had never brought it up. Mellie had told him earlier in the day, with Chuck on her hip and wearing a worried frown. Piper and Jason had split some months ago. They never explained further than what they had told everyone.

“I thought,” she kept going, “that if you had come back, maybe Jason and I could have—with you… But we never got a chance.”

“Piper,” he said firmly, getting up from the seat to grab her shoulders. “You have to stop.”

“It isn’t fair. Don’t you think it isn’t fair?” Jason’s eyes watched him shake.

“I’m leaving tomorrow, at dawn. I’m moving to Indiana. I’ll come for birthdays, special days. We’ll see each other at reunions. I’ll Iris you—every day if you want! It’ll be good. Like we always were. Like we were before everything. Don’t do this, Piper.”

“You can’t stay,” she whispered. “I know because it happened to me, too. It hurt to be with him because you weren’t there. And I know what you see when you look at me. What color are my eyes, Leo? Whose are they? He used to see yours.”

It had to happen, just once, even if never again for the rest of their lives. It wasn’t even their first kiss, which had happened a lifetime ago, on some forgettable rooftop in a place that never loved them. He shivered a little as her hands came up to his neck. There was salt in his mouth from her tears. Piper made small noises, gasping in increments when they could bear parting. They tumbled back to a bookshelf, hard edges jutting against Leo’s spine.

It was important that he was the one to speak first. Not because he didn’t trust her not to compel him, but to prove that he knew she wouldn’t. Not for this.

“I’ll leave in the morning,” repeated Leo, thumb rolling down her jaw. “That’s hours away.”

*

Leo got up before the sun did. Oklahoma mornings were crisp and new, almost impossibly so. The fog in the distance cleared around the McLean property, grass dewing with small beads of fresh water. Standing on the porch now, Leo knew this could be a good home, one filled with love.

Tristan McLean saw him come out of Piper’s room. He didn’t react much, only telling him to be safe on his journey back. He’d also shaken his hand like a real man and said, “She’s stronger than I’d ever hoped.”

“Stronger than me,” Leo replied, smiling.

Seeing him, Festus crooned in happy creaks, shaking out his stiffness. As Leo took off, he saw the curtains in Piper’s window move, almost nothing. Just in case, he brought up his hand to wave goodbye.

[sentient-stove]

Leo was the MC of Heroes of Olympus and you can fight me on that

But Jaso— no shut up thanks. Sorry, just because we opened to his POV doesn’t mean he’s the one in charge or of the most importance.

Percy— nah nah nah that boy had his five books to himself and is basically Riordanverse jesus, sit back down.

Leo’s story intersects and is often a direct parallel with every other characters’ throughout the series, he has the most narrative points and chapters, has a POV in every single book except SON, and owns/is a catalyst for the majority of the lines in the prophecy. He built that damn warship essentially solo and was constantly isolated from the rest of the seven despite them all supposedly being on equal footing.

Gaea didn’t try to kill the other seven’s parents, Hera didn’t watch them as children despite her literally claiming Jason as a champion. Just Leo.

[somewhereincairparavel]

Just posting this for the ppl who LOVE to push the FANON narrative that Jason and Percy aren't close friends as CANON. Grover is listed as Percy's main best friend (along with Annabeth ofc but she remains in the girlfriend category) and Jason comes literally SECOND in the Official Riordan wiki fanpage, and he's even labelled as "one of percy's best friends" not just "friend" or "close friend" like the others.

I don't get why people deny this SO bad like- pls let the almost nonexistent rivalry they both had (which is mostly between Jason and Percy fans) stay fanon.

"Jason and Percy are just co workers, barely even friends" Yup. Sure. I was so mislead by this narrative before I picked up HOO and was pleasantly surprised by how genuine percy and jason's friendship was in the books.. I half expected them both to ignore eachother or something throughout the scenes with how much the fandom exaggerated their rivalry/coldness with eachother.

Fanon is awesome. But it's not when you push it as canon. Let them be two seperate things please.

[boxfullaturtles]

Leo, humiliation for the angst prompts

Leo's always loved attention.

But not like this.

Not out in the open, unwilling and with nowhere to hide. Not as a display piece, a talking point, an exhibit. A prize.

A fucking pet.

They've dressed him up like some kind of doll--silken ribbons on his arms and fancy stockings on his legs. They spread some sort of lacquer on his shell so that it's shiny and glittery, painted his plastron in swirling designs, and tied clusters of flowers to his wrists and ankles. The muzzle on his face to keep his mouth shut is covered in pretty jewels and ribbons and they've stuffed his hands into stupid mittens so he can't tear anything off.

Leo might have found it funny if he wasn't being treated like an animal. Maybe he'll be able to laugh about it later. A lot later.

When he can forget about the way these bastards coo at him like he's a dog. When he can forget about the way they catch his face in their hands or stroke his shell or pat his head. When he can forget about being forced to sit on the floor on a cushion and sit still and behave so the collar they've covered in frills and bows doesn't go off and leave his body limp and useless for the next several hours.

The worst part is that they're never mean.

If they were mean, Leo could hate them, could be bitter and savage and let his rage build until it explodes. But they never give him any fuel. When he acts out or if he does something "wrong", they just tut at him and shake their head and correct him with a little smile.

He's nothing to them, nothing but a simple toy.

He loathes what they've done to him. But he's scared of what they might do when they finally grow bored.

[autism-swagger]

*shaking you by the shoulders* DO YOU GET IT?? DO YOU UNDERSTAND????

[m-for-now]

Something that I feel like I should emphasize again about my type of shipping is that I care so much more for the dynamic and depth of a relationship than wether it's romantic or platonic or queer-platonic or some other kind of connection.

Give me the actual interactions and parallels and dynamic and i'm in