#Dionysus just called Hades an old man

[bolszaja-miedwedica]

i can't believe the gods are such a sitcom bunch

[muwapsturniolo]

✯Sturniolos as Half-bloods✯

God version

warnings: mentions of drugs, and sexual escapades

goddess version

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Matt would be the son of Dionysus

Dionysus used to be the god of fertility, now being known as the god of wine, theatre, and ecstasy. Matt would eat this shit up let me tell you!! His style would deff consist of lots of red, leather, leopard print, and rings. Some of his fashion inspirations would be Freddy Mercury, Elton John, and the band Motley Crue. His father is the god of theatre, he's bound to be dramatic with his actions and style.

His cabin, number 12, would most definitely be known as the party cabin. He would throw big grand parties, each one having a theme ranging from the 70's to medieval. He would also host plays, all of them being dramatic, with dark plots. With the parties and plays, come drugs and alcohol. He has drugs of all types, weed, acid, shrooms, etc. His personal favorite is molly, the drug making him and anyone exceptionally horny. He finds that sex feels way better when he and his partner for the night are on it.

Speaking of sexual endeavors, this man is a freaky frog. The way he acts in the bedroom should be a crime! I'm talking rope, vibrators, blindfolds, ball gags, handcuffs, etc. Let's not forget, his dad is the god of fertility, BREEDING KINKKKKKK!!!!! He hates condoms due to his breeding kink, but god forbid he gets one of the girls at the camp pregnant. The only time he would let his breeding kink roam free is when he finally has sex with the girl he's had his eyes on since she arrived at the camp, the daughter of Aphrodite. He has a thing for ruining innocence.

He is known as the manwhore of the camp, most of the males hating him, but still hoping they get an invitation to his parties. The girls try to stay clear of him, knowing how he is but somehow still ending up in his bedroom. Let's get into the bedroom. It's giving Bruno Mars along with Shake & Go wig Anderson Paak. It's straight out of the 70's. It's clean and often smells like weed, wine, and cherries.

His bestfriend is Chris, the son of Hades. The two go hand in hand, partners in crime. When they first met, Matt asked Chris if he had any of his father's pomegranates so he could make wine. Chris couldn't help but laugh at the question, but Matt was being deadass. If Matt is throwing a party, Chris is right there cigarette in hand.

Dionysus's animal was a leopard and or a tiger. Matt would honor that by wearing leopard print and having tiger rugs.

I don't think Dionysus actually had children, but if he did I would imagine they had the ability to cause/cure both sexual and non-sexual madness with their words. like, imagine Matt just saying what he would do to you, and the more descriptive he got, you could basically feel him fucking you? yeah, sign me up!!

Dionysus's weapon of choice was a staff with a pinecone at the top, called a Thyrsus. I think Matt would have the same thing, but more like a cane an old-school pimp would have (thinking of Kat Williams) and it would have the head of a tiger.

His songs:

''I had a cane and a party hat, I was the king of this hologram where there's no such thing as getting out of hand" Don't threaten me with a good time- p!atd

"Hard candy dripping on me 'till my feet are wet" kiwi- harry styles

"And i crave your taste under my tongue everyday, keep the forbidden fruit coming my way." dopamine- borns

Chris would be the son of hades

Hades is the god of the underworld, defending the rights of the dead and protecting the world as well as his wife Persephone. His style would be somewhat similar to Matt's as far as color goes. Lots of black, a few white pieces, and red as well. You will always see him in a leather jacket, his feet adorned by a pair of white air forces. With his father being the god of the underworld, Chris unfortunately got his reputation. A lot of the other half-bloods steering clear of him, whispering when he walks past, not even daring to say his name. it hurt Chris at first, having his peers view him as evil, but he grew accustomed to it. Eventually saying 'fuck it' and playing into the role they made for him.

His cabin being number 13 is perfect because I would like to think he would be born on October 13th, a Friday specifically. It would be deep in the woods, the path scary-looking and eerie. The only source of light being the skull torches against the front door. The only people coming to the house were himself and his best friend Matt, the son of Dionysus. Because no one came to his cabin, Matt would use it as the storage for the copious amounts of wine and paraphernalia he keeps handy. His room is dark (duh). Silk black bedding, books strewn randomly in the room. His skateboard was always propped against the door as well as his multiple pairs of beat-up shoes. He loves music, multiple vinyls, and CDs stacked up in crates around the cabin. He had his signature black guitar right next to his bed, always ready to grab and play. He's a man of few words in this universe. He often found himself writing love songs for the girl in cabin 20, the daughter of Hecate.

Being the son of Hades, anger is unfortunately something he can't avoid. Even though he is usually quiet, all it takes is one person to set him off. One of the Zeus boys was pushing him around and he snapped, damn near killing the boy before Matt pulled him away.

As stated before, his best friend is Matt. He was the only one in the camp to speak to him. Granted he was asking for pomegranates to make wine, but he stuck with him. Matt brought him out of his shell, making sure he was the first to get an invitation to his parties and plays, encouraging his love for music, and also being there for him when his anger got out of control.

Most of Hades, children do have powers. Those powers are necromancy, shadow manipulation, the ability to manipulate the earth, and shadow fusion. Chris would have all of these, especially necromancy and shadow manipulation/fusion. He would use necromancy to fuck with the others in the camp, loving the way his peers screamed in fright. He would only use shadow fusion to spy on his crush, but he gets caught and shyly reveals himself (help I wanna write a fic on the way they meet).

Hades animal representation is a black ram, a screeching owl, and a serpent. let's not forget the three-headed dog Cerberus. Chris would have a big-ass Doberman named Orcus. That dog would hate everyone but Chris, Matt, and the daughter of Hecate.

His songs:

"It's no big surprise you turned out this way" twin-sized mattress- the front bottoms

"There's a light in the crack, that's separating your thighs, and if you wanna go to heaven you should fuck me tonight" Young god- halsey

"My church offers no absolute, she tells me worship in the bedroom" take me to church- hoizer

Nick would be the son of Hermes

Hermes was the god of trade, wealth, luck, sleep, language, thieves, and travel. His style would always consist of light blue jeans and some form of a white shirt/tank top. If he was delivering mail and or messages, he would also wear a blue jean jacket. Him being the son of Hermes is giving blonde Nick IDC idc idc!!!! He would always wear a pair of off-white Converse with wings on the side. Delivering mail can be boring, so he often wears headphones hooked up to a cassette player his best friend Chris gave him as a form of payment.

His cabin is number 11, a lucky number to most. I would imagine it to be a bit more elevated than the others. Perched on some type of high ground where the sun shines in the morning. His cabin would definitely be organized, with all the mail in a specific room in alphabetical order. All of the payments that weren't in cash were placed perfectly in the home, not a thing out of place. His bedding would be white with gold silk pillows. He loved to sleep so his bed was always unmade, blankets thrown all over the bed, even dipping onto the floor.

He often liked to cause a bit of chaos in the camp, it was his homage to his father. He would steal from the other campers, shrugging and rolling his eyes when they asked him about it. He would break into the counselor's office, picking the lock with ease to receive something of Matt's. He would do this often for the campers, but not without payment. If they weren't giving him cash, they had to pay by giving him something of theirs. The amount of jewelry he has is insane.

His best friends, despite not liking their attitudes, would be Matt and Chris. Matt had asked him to deliver invitations for a party, and Nick initially told him no after seeing the amount of invitations. He quickly changed his mind seeing the stack of cash and a gold chalice Matt offered. He and Chris became friends the day he guided Chris into the camp, much like his father guides souls to the underworld.

Most of Hermes' children have powers, those being enhanced speed, audiokensis, and Clauditiskinesis. Nick has all of these, his favorite being clauditiskinesis and audiokensis. He would use audio to listen in on everyone's conversations, it helped that he could be above them in the clouds, never being seen. That's how he figured out that one of the sons of Zeus has a crush on him.

He wouldn't have an animal in my opinion. I would imagine him to have a messenger bag that's like, never-ending lmao.

His songs:

"And i know it's no fun, when your first son gets up to no good" freaking out the neighborhood- mac demarco

"Like Peter Pan up in the sky" tongue-tied - group love

"If you could fly then you'd feel south. Up north getting cold soon." pink + white- frank ocean

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I don't think y'all get it. I'm actually foaming at the mouth writing this. plz send in requests or anything you want to read for half-blood stuniolos!!!

TAGLIST🍑

@bernardsgf @bernardsleftbootycheek @blahbel668 @mattfrfr @gdsvhtwa @sturniolo-aali @lily-loves-struniolos @kynda-avery @causeidontlikeagoldrush

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[moonchild-in-blue]

I need everyone to watch Kaos (from Netflix) right now, please and thank you. Quite possibly my favourite modern retelling of the Greek myths / Olympic pantheon.

The story revolves mainly around Orpheus and Eurydice (Riddy), and around Zeus and a certain not-so-great prophecy. Dionysus is one of our main stars and he's great and amazing and hot and absolutely babygirl.

Yes there are a LOT of references and myths and characters beyond the main Olympians (Zeus' famous kids don't even appear). Yes you see Prometheus having his liver pecked. Yes, we do get to see the Minotaur & Co. Hades and Persephone too, obviously. Yes, there is A TON of great poc and queer rep. Yes, there is blood and sex and violence and poignant society AND religious commentary. Yes, you do get old man yaoi. Yes, Jeff Goldblum as Zeus is incredible and no joke my new favourite portrayal of him (Zeus). Yes, they are faithful to the "doomed from the start" narrative of Orpheus and Eurydice. Yes, Hera does have her peacocks.

Please please please go watch it please it's so great and visually beautiful and amazing. Pirate that thang if you must.

My thoughts whilst watching the show - no plot spoilers but be warned for mild thematic/ character/ setting commentary. Generally safe to read if you haven't watched it yet and don't mind a little preview:

SOUNDTRACK IS WOW. Don't Fear The Reaper? On episode one?? The song I've been listening over and over because of a certain beloved band has made a cover of it???

Love how they portray the worship of gods as something that is part of their daily lives and culture without seeming too "gimmicky".

There are clear parallels to Catholicism in the way they conduct themselves (either in favour or against the gods; all the little rituals and traditions), and it's quite interesting to see how would modern society function if Hellenism (or rather the ancient practices. pls correct me if I'm wrong) were the primary (and as far as I got it only) established religion in the world.

The "Vero" declaration with the hand gesture as part of Olympian liturgy? Amazing. Interesting choice in using Latin rather than Ancient Greek, but very cool nonetheless.

A significant amount of casual mentions of horrifying violent acts by the gods, and even some healthy dose of violence/ blood. Thought it was very interesting to see Zeus discussing infanticide and natural catastrophes the way we discuss the weather or grocery prices. They really leaned heavily into the whole grandeur and arrogance of gods in regards to human life which I super appreciate. I'm tired of seeing passive, Cool and Hip and Benevolent Zeus & Co.

Also the amount of criticism by the god-haters (Blasphemes? Non-sympathisers?) feels very refreshing (and on the nose concerning irl organised religions), especially in contrast with the more devout and how they put their life in second place in lieu of worship (yes I'm thinking about the Tacitas AND the Celebration Ritual™ iykwim).

The subversion of the "doomed from the start" narrative surrounding Orpheus and Eurydice is done so beautifully it hurts. Right from the first moment they appear, you know how it'll go. And yet!!

You know what happens, of course. Their story was never meant have a happy ending. But the way they took that and put a modern spin on it it's just!!!! My heart !!!!

I was rooting for Orpheus the entire time, knowing damn well it was a lost cause. I can't blame Riddy, but my God is it painful to watch. LOVED the actor who played him, he just the right amount of earnest love and rockstar flair. Riddy is SO cool - there's not much I can say beyond that that isn't a spoiler but. Yeah. We love complex female characters.

I'm gonna be really petty and pedantic here, but for a show revolving GREEK mythology, set in Olympia / Krete, with sooo many little references to the myths, it is CRIMINAL that they insist on calling Heracles by his roman name (Hercules), and that they refer to Hades as God "Of Death" instead of God "Of The Dead" / King Of The Dead. There's a major difference there - Thanatos would like a word.

Troytown? Where the Trojan refugees (displaced war victims really) are *literally* segregated to (their exact words, segregation), and even use those nose lines/tattoos as way to identify them? Where they face scrutiny and police brutality and prejudice from the Kreteans? As a clear reference to minority poc urban areas and how they are unfairly mistreated and deemed as "others" by the same governments who put them there in the first place??? YES YES YES.

A lot of queer and poc rep. And I mean A LOT. The Fates alone are a whole vibe.

Again, it doesn't feel gimmicky at all, nor does it fall under the "okay they're definitely trying to hit all the quotas so everybody is gay and ethnic and uses neo-pronouns" trend some media are starting to follow, which really just end up falling flat rather than significant (looking at you Sex Ed 4). An actual diversity win.

If you're familiar with the story of Caeneus, you'll love how they portrayed him here.

Dionysus is everything and some more. I love him. Prometheus is incredible. Jeff Goldblum as Zeus goes above and beyond expectations - he brings that Goldblum Flair™ but with an intense violence and paranoia you could only pull off as King of the Gods. Hera is just wow, truly a queen.

Hades and Persephone have an *interesting* dynamic - have never seen him being portrayed like that before. Usually Hades and Persie are the "dom goth Mommy and Daddy" of mythology retellings, and yet here it's completely different. Certainly *A Choice*. I don't mind Hades, but would've liked to see "goddess of spring & dreaded" Persephone.

I understood the vision, but I don't think it worked *quite* as well as the other ones. She's still super cool nonetheless - that sandwich scene was incredible.

Also - VERY COOL how diverse the actors are. With the exception of Dionysus who is objectively Young and Hot, pretty much all the other gods (and adjacent) are middle-aged or up, with visible signs of aging (grey hairs, wrinkles, sagging skin, belly fat, etc), which is cool cus usually the gods are made to be a specific flavour of "hot".

The Furies, who could've been all snatched and sexy and token Femme Fatale characters, are actually older butch women with mean lesbian energy and I think that's very cool and awesome and wonderful.

Even the human cast is so diverse and interesting and REAL, rather than yet another yassified ensemble - it's great to see. Not everyone is conventionally hot and attractive, and THAT is sexy af.

All the little Easter eggs and references to the myths and general ancient Greece culture are SO nice to see. I giggled when Polyphemus first appeared. That first scene on the cereal aisle was very funny. Gagged at Cassandra.

Stylistic choice of the Underworld environment and on-camera portrayal is chef's kiss. That's all I'll say.

LABYRINTH AND DAEDALUS YES. Would smash the Minotaur, 1000%. That Scene™ was. Hmmmmm yeah.

Overall I loved it and high key might re-watch it again. What an amazing show. This was a win for all of us Greek Myth nerds, and I'll be truly devastated if Netflix doesn't renew it for a second season.

[hyprmemes]

hades (supergiant games) starters - pt.1 - olympians edit as you see fit

athena “i offer you my friendship, not a loan to be repaid” “my, how very generous of you, to offer me this gift” “are you testing the limits of my patience with you?” “i would very much prefer to think we both know better than to let old grudges stew forever” “yours is a brazen plan of action and i admire it”

demeter “i’ll aid your plight, why not?” “you're in the winter of your current stretch of life, aren't you” “surely you feel the warmth within you giving way?” “offend me, and i'll drain the last traces of color from those cheeks of yours” “you are entirely too young to have had meaningful experiences with loss, pray that you never have to learn”

zeus “your lapse in judgement here is not so easy to forgive, yet easily punished” “commendable of you to live through that” “you seem in dire need of some assistance, so of course i dropped what i was doing and then sought you out as quickly as i could” “such strange alliances we forge these days” “you honour me, as you well should”

poseidon “hoh you look positively in atrocious shape, there” “why, you're bleeding everywhere! here, let me try and do something for that” “you think that you've a chance in hell without my help, am i to understand?!” “it seems to me your strength outweighs your smarts, there” “ah, i can't stay angry! let us call all that unpleasantness back there water under the bridge, what say you”

aphrodite “if you lavish me with gifts, why, what am i to do but give you something in return” “ah, dearest, but it stirs my heart to know you care so deeply for our wonderful relationship” “dearest, why, your heart rate's fluctuating wildly, has it really been that bad up to this point?” “now, dearest, surely there's no way that could have been one of the wiser choices that you've lately made?” “do not anger me again, or i might come down and kill you there myself!”

ares “i trust, from time to time, you stop to ask yourself how come you choose to fight” “the hunt is but a prelude to a war, is that not so? “you interrupt me once again, you know i do not care for that, i warn you to stay out of my affairs” “a successfully conducted war is certainly a cause for celebration, is it not?” “i trust the violence i have wrought on your behalf has been quite satisfactory?”

dionysus “hey, cheers for picking up the tab, there, now, i cannot exactly pay you back, though i could give you this!” “did i do something to deserve this, man, because i thought that we were getting on just fine, better than fine, but this?” “really, man? after everything we've been through together, this is the gratitude i get?” “know what, man, i'm not even angry after that, what was i even going off about, do you recall...?” “let's say we're settled up now, and go on being best mates just like before, yeah?”

hermes “whoa you're a hot mess, there, what happened getting here?” “you ever get the feeling life's been moving all too quickly for you? “out of all special delivery recipients i've had over the ages, here, i've got to say, you're the most interesting one!” “a little awkward, having to pretend we just met” “you're rather slow, if only somebody could help you out with that”

artemis “you're being very nice to me, and that makes me suspicious, understand?” “if you're quite done with shopping, what say we cut straight to the chase from here?” “hey how'd you get your hands on a nice bow like that?” “don't be messing with my feelings, my loyalty's hard-won and quickly lost” “fine, i'm not angry anymore, not really anyway, but you just watch yourself with me, you got it?”

[nighttimeebony]

I just got into the Percy Jackson series, so here is a collection of my actual thought process while reading the first book that I bothered to write down. So, spoilers for Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief under the cut. I guess.

EDIT: part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

Aww, Percy. Neurodivergent rep, I am fed

Is Mr. Brunner Dionysus? I think Dionysus is a major character in this series. But then what’s the wheelchair for? And Dionysus in mythology doesn’t have a beard like that. Oh! What if he’s actually Hephaestus? That would explain the wheelchair and the bearded old man look.

HOLY FUCK IT’S THE MINOTAUR

HOLY SHIT SALLY’S DEAD WHY

Is that tree on the property line the Olive Tree from the founding of Athens myth? Because Percy is the son of Poseidon?

Percy’s dream has got to be some kind of foreshadowing about Poseidon and Zeus fighting each other. Zeus would be the bird because he’s a sky god, and Poseidon would be the horse because in a really really old myth, Poseidon turned himself into a horse to chase down Demeter. Also, the voice from underground egging them on is definitely Hades, because god of the underworld and all that

Also goddammit, Hades is the villain?? Why????? Goddammit, not again…

Mrs. Dodds was definitely a fury, but she’s called a Kindly One. Wonder what that’s about

There’s some Thing about characters dissolving when they die. Wonder what that’s about

Oh shit. I was wrong. Brunner is Chiron. Interesting. Now the whole teacher thing makes sense

Wow, Dionysus is an asshole in this one. He’s more like his older Orphic version than the newer, modern Dionysus I’m familiar with

Everyone is so in love with Luke it's embarrassing

I just adore how casually neurodivergent Percy is. All the jokey references to Dyslexia and ADHD, I just—I love it so much. And I love that it actually is dyslexia and ADHD. And that apparently all the half-bloods are dyslexic and ADHD too. We love to see it.

Oh my God, I love all of these children so much.

HOLY SHIT AUNTY EM IS A GORGON

I WAS RIGHT

I find it amusing that Hermes named the activation password for his magic shoes after his mother

I wonder what Persephone's like

Grover's gonna be the friend to betray Percy, isn't he? He better fucking not be. I love him. If Grover's the Traitor MHA-style, I'm gonna riot

One difference between Harry Potter and Percy Jackson (the characters) is that Harry marvels at every new instance of magic. But after Percy learns about the magic system, he just stops giving a shit. Once he learns that magic is real, he is surprised by absolutely nothing and does not question the irrelevant stuff, like Annabeth's invisibility hat, or how the fuck a ballpoint pen can turn into a sword.

Percy is such a sassy, sarcastic little shit and I love him so fucking much.

ECHIDNA

"Isn't that a kind of anteater?" I love this child

*Percy wondering what all the mirrors are for in the Tunnel of Love*

Me: "It's gotta be a kink thing."

*While Ares and Aphrodite were smooching with each other they could look at their favorite person: themselves*

Me: "Called it."

Wait……. Is the traitor Luke????? He's like the only other "friend" Percy has

Thank God Hades isn't the bad guy

Aw, I wanted to see Persephone. Don't worry, Percy, I'm disappointed too

You know what, from now on, anytime a protagonist has to live with an abusive parent figure, the only resolution I will accept is turning that bitch to stone and selling him on the black market.

Thank God Percy can have a nice, stable home life with his mom in between rounds of risking his life.

I'm so on-board with Percabeth, and this friend group as a whole

I FUCKING CALLED IT! LUKE WAS THE TRAITOR!

Thank God the characters in this book have a fucking brain. Percy's an impulsive little chaos gremlin, but he's not an idiot.

I'm kind of curious to see what the shipping side of the Percy Jackson fandom looks like, cuz Percabeth is great, and I'm pretty sure that's the main canon pairing, so I'm curious….

Honestly, I can't wait for Percy and Annabeth to start dating. I'm so excited to see what their relationship will be like in a romantic context

I love this book and I want more immediately.

[dicktat]

*grabbie hands* gimme the greek myth au, who’s who in the pantheon???👀👀

Hiiiiiiiiii I’m glad you asked!!!

I think I touched on this silly topic a while ago with you and it’s brief for now but really you can add to it!!!

So far we got:

Aiden/Hermes: this one is simple this boy runs fast and he’s such an icon, he’d be running around doing errands and being a little agent of chaos. And guess what? His other job is sending human spirits to Hades and spoiler! That’s his old man. Yes I’m shoving my Aiden Waltz bio son agenda here too.

Hakon/Aphrodite: because of course. He’s got four wives and no one fits his title better. Also imagine him wearing something like this. With luscious braided hair and the pretties eyes able to make anyone weak for him.

Lawan/Artemis: need I explain further with her and her stupid crossbow?

Waltz/Hades: let’s be real I’m a hades apologist, this man is the most unproblematic amongst the few options here and I think the renegades as faction is very fitting when it comes to underworldly aesthetics

Vincenzo/Hephaestus: forging! Also he needs more love, he’s fucking awesome

Sophie/Athena: she always strikes me as the intelligent type, and I can see her with very silky blonde hair in this au wearing something like this

Barney/Ares: I know you’re here for your boy so I have to include him. I’m choosing ares because of his brash and unpredictable personality and how that little rascal is eager to start a war in Villedor.

Aitor/Poseidon: okay this is mainly because of that one thing in Greek mythology where Poseidon and Athena fights each other for the role of protector for a city named “Athens” and yes can you guess where I’m going with this. It’s uncannily similar to what the game is about, plus the fact Poseidon sending a flood to punish the city is also similar to PK attacks. And he’s blue lol.

Juan/Dionysus: honestly? The idea that started this whole au. This role just fits him perfectly and I’d say he’d wear something like this

Rowe/Apollo: this is me bringing my headcanons into this but I see Lawan and him being very brother and sister like so call me biased tho I’m still going with this. Ironically he’s terrible at singing and perfect for the role of god of music/j

I also have other ideas which I haven’t finalized. Like I would like to add either Demeter or Thanatos, and possible Thalia. This is an incredibly self indulgent au with a lot of stupid headcanons but I’m hoping you’re enjoying this so far and if anyone is remotely interested with this please please please send me asks or add on to it. For real I would love to actually make this into a thing with more characters that anyone can enjoy!

[tewwor-aaa]

GREEK MYTHOLOGY INTERACTION CALL .

welp. shouldn’t surprise anyone but here i am, once again, opening the flood gates for interactions with all of my greek mythology muses like a clown. i will be defaulting them to a sgg’s hades verse, but i do have modern verses for them as well. please specify whomst you’d like and preferably for who!

MUSES .

aristaeus ( summary here ) .

hades — boon: deals with offensive attacks with wind ( bleeding from slices of air / pushback ) / able to dispel ranged attacks. keepsake: slab of honeycomb. duo: artemis, dionysus, demeter, athena, hermes. conversation: mentions of the seasons on the surface world, talk of herbology, hunting, distillery, weaving, agriculture, horticulture, etc., fun facts about those he’s related to, etc. ( he’s a chatty one ).

modern — aristaeus settles on an expanse of land to cultivate and help flourish, ever content with the doings of nature. basically, a farmer.

charon ( summary here ) .

hades — ‘charon is the boatman of the river styx, responsible for ferrying deceased souls across the river and into the underworld. in greek mythology, he required a single obol - placed into the mouth before burial - as payment for his services, or else the soul in question would be left to wander the banks of the styx for a hundred years.’

modern — in modern times, it’s rumored that he extended / changed modes of transportation. from the river of styx to the street of the surface world – charon now guides the newly deceased in a taxicab. bonus: instead of an oar, charon’ preferred weapon is the detachable steering wheel of his vehicle.

circe .

hades — boons: deals with the transmutation of enemies into swine or offers a temporary animal companion ( lion or wolf depending on stage ). keepsake: satchel of mandrake, peony, snowdrop, yarrow, poppy, and rue. duo: hermes. conversation: mentions of her distaste of athena, musings of old heros ( odysseus, daedalus, patroclus, achilles, etc. ), fleeting recognition of hermes, understanding of zagreus’ attempts to escape.

modern — tba but along the lines of the rumored ‘witch of the woods’ vibes.

daedalus ( summary here ) .

hades — ‘a master artisan who, upon his death, was hand-selected by hades to design the house of hades and the various rooms of tartarus in exchange for a place in elysium. every time one of his tasks are finished he discards his current tools, which zagreus may find to alter their infernal arms for the duration of a run.’

modern —  a niche was found within architecture, art, and invention. it sapped away just about all his time from dawn to dusk as there was always something else to create or advance. for better or for worse, where or what his creations were used for was out of his hands. aka, modern architecture man.

orpheus .

hades — ‘orpheus is a legendary musician. during his life, he lost his wife and muse eurydice and ventured to the underworld to plea for her return. although he was ultimately unable to bring her back to life, he charmed hades with his music such that after his death, hades employed orpheus as his court musician.’

modern — singer / songwriter, there’s an unmistakable sadness this talented musician carries.

patroclus ( summary here ) .

hades —  kept in elysian fields, patroclus spends his eternal days speaking to the polished pots, lush greens, and babbling river of lethe.

modern / crime —  ex-military and riddled with past trauma, patroclus falls into the line of crime ( more in summary ).

modern — still ex-military and riddled with past trauma, patroclus never fell into the line of crime. instead, he cashed in all of his efforts to adapt to society, fought tooth and nail to reap the progress he's now achieved as a well liked physical therapist for amputees.

phobetor ( summary here ) .

hades — boon: deals with paralyzing or driving away enemies as zagreus embodies their worst fear for a few seconds. keepsake: scales of a serpent. duo: none. conversation: mentions of hypnos, nyx, chaos & other primordial gods / what the speaker fears the most. 

modern — known under a different alias within the art world, phobetor oftentimes illustrates those from his visits. the shapes he had once taken, potency of how tumultuous the experience was – all shaped by masterful hands. The extent of his projects have ranged from galleries to book covers to albums and more.

[life-as-a-reincarnated-gods]

Here are the players, part 2

Ivan Vladimirovna Ivanovski

A close friend of Alex' father. He is an oil tycoon but who lives reclusively in his home in Siberia. He contains the soul of Dionysus, and thus his normally brown eyes develop a purplish hue as he grows older. The color of grapes. He was 39 years old when he took in Alex as his foster son, after the murder of his best friend, the Asian British man Michael Angelo. He did his best to guide Alex in the early emergence of his god powers and fusion with Hades at a very young age. The isolation of Siberia also prevents anyone from being damaged by Alex's premature energy outburst since the boy is still adjusting to his new powers.

Ivan lives alone in his family manor in the middle of Siberia, surrounded by a slightly barren forest, a place so cold and remote that it is rare to have visitors unless Ivan brings them. Even the closest airport is still a distance away and you will need to hike through a ton of snow to reach the manor gates. The barren forest is also guarded by a pack of supernaturally charged wolfs who are very loyal to Ivan. They are Ivan's version of the Maenads and are quick to devour any unwanted intruders on their master's territory, with the exception to Alex, who they see as Ivan's foster son and "Little Lord".

In their youth, Michael helped Ivan adjust to his god powers and new existence. Ever since Ivan felt that he owed Michael his life. This pushed him to take in Alex and help his best friend's son. The same way Michael helped him.

--------------------------------------

Michael Angelo Winchester

An Asian-British man who mainly lives in Wales. His mother is a Chinese Water Fortune Teller/Snake Sorceress while his father is a Celtic Druid practitioner with connections with the Welsh Goddess Ceridwen. He is also a 500-year-old Sorcerer who learned to fuse the Eastern magic of his mother with the Celtic & Western practices of his father. Creating a new form of Magic that even the Gods feared.

Michael is aware of the Greek Gods being reborn as humans and actively seek them out. His first plan was to just kill them to prevent the God from gaining full strength. But instead, he soon developed a way to fuse the God with the human persona they were was born with. One of them was Ivan, who he helped adjust to his newfound existence and powers.

Michael's constant interference is one of the reasons to why he was killed.

He was originally antagonistic to his future wife, Vivienne. But grew to love her and they got married. Unfortunately, they had a fall-out and divorced shortly after Alex and Alice was born.

Eventually they got back together when the twins are 9. This reunion is short-lived as months after the second wedding, Michael, along his wife was killed when armed men stormed his hidden Welsh estate. Leaving Ivan to care for the newly orphaned Alex.

--------------------------------------------------

Lady Vivienne Beauséjour-Winchester

Michael's wife and mother of the twins, Alex & Alice.

A young and beautiful French woman, she was born in Paris and lives with her aunt, Claire. She can be nice but have that French arrogance, such as when he first met Michael and called him an occult-obsessed British juvenile who should get a real job, such as being a medical doctor.

She grew to enjoy Michael's odd quirks and learned that he is actually a complete gentleman. The two fall in love. But shortly after Alex and Alice were born, she became upset and filed a divorce. He moved back with her aunt in Paris, bringing Alice with her.

She originally wanted to bring both her children, but Michael insists that he keep Alex.

After 9 years though. She meets again with Michael and the two rekindled their relationship. She moved back to Wales, much to the protest of her family. There she was murdered along with husband.

[astaroth1357]

Demigod MC Series: Athena

So. I have to deal with the virgin goddesses… By mythos, there really shouldn't ever be children of Artemis, Hestia, or Athena (yes, Athena was a virgin goddess). PJ got past that by making it canon that Annabeth and her siblings were born from cracking open Athena's skull (yes, that's also more or less the canon explanation). They gloss over it real quick but I remember, Rick. I've always remembered and that mental image has haunted me for years...

I can't, in good conscience, ignore the history around Athena's worship (call it an academic restraint) but I REFUSE to do the skull thing. So, since I make the rules here, I'm going with magic adoption. They still get magic powers, they're just more human than demigod. Cool? Cool.

Demigod MC Series: Intro, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hades, Dionysus, Demeter, Athena

Lucifer

The human that popped out of the portal seemed to have enough sense not to attack everyone in the room for a change, but even Lucifer could tell that was more of a strategic choice than for lack of ability...

Their very existence was highly unusual… and quite worrisome. He wasn't even aware Athena could have "children" of her own, but apparently she had been taking in some particularly bright humans to raise and train like her own...

Unbeknownst to him, a surprising amount of human scholars, diplomats, and generals have her to thank for their trade… and that alone should speak to the level of intrigue at play here. 

Was this an accident or Athena's attempt to plant an Olympian spy in the Devildom too…? Either way, he didn't trust them from the get go…

Look, Lucifer isn’t stupid. Athena is a goddess of Wisdom and War and war happens on more than just the battlefield… 

Since they've shown up records have been going missing, official documents keep getting misplaced, and he swears that there's some kind of bug in the student council room...!

It's infuriating watching the MC suck up to Diavolo when he's almost certain that they're running their own agenda behind the scenes! And he can't prove any of it!! They cover their tracks too well!

Lucifer has one of those corkboards covered in newspapers and string in a secret wing of the Castle - 100% dedicated to just tracking the MC's activities…. The longer they're there, the more obsessed he becomes...

He swears between Simeon, Solomon, and MC he feels like a shepherd wondering why the sheep are growling… The Devildom has never been in more danger than it is right now... Send help.

Mammon

To be honest, he kind of thought that they were just going to be Satan 2.0 but that's not really true.

They're more than just a book sponge! Though they do read, like a lot. Let’s just say from one schemer to another… Game recognizes Game.

They come up with plans and ideas soooo fast, it’s insane! Honestly, there are times where he has a new money-making plot and he just brings it to the MC first to run it over. 

Nine times out of ten, not only do they sniff out any problems but they have a solution for him in a matter of minutes! His scheme game has been on point since they’ve shown up!!

They’re also even better tutoring than Satan is, so he’s even managed to get a couple A’s for the first time in his life! Lucifer actually told him he was proud (which he secretly recorded and now uses as a ringtone much to his brother’s regret...)

So yeah, he likes them... buuut that doesn’t keep him from thinking they act a little weird sometimes... 

Mammon: *points to a unused tower close to the RAD building* Over there is the Tower of Sorrow. We use it for storage.

MC: Ah. Interesting… *starts writing in a notebook, muttering* It may need a few minor tweaks but the location is defensible...

Mammon: *stops* Ya say somethin’?

MC: *looks back up* Nope! Say, you’ve been to the Castle a lot haven’t you? Do you know any good ways in?

Mammon: Uhm… Why do ya want to know that…? *starts looking around for Lucifer*

MC: In case of emergencies. I like being prepared. 🙂

Mammon: Look, I don’t know what Lucifer might’a told ya…

MC: I’ll pay you a thousand Grimm for it.

Mammon: Well shit, ya want those maps with or without color?

... Yeeeah, that’s pretty weird… But it’s probably fine. I mean, as long as they keep giving him money, who’s he to complain? 🤷‍♀️

Leviathan

Also thought that they’d be a lot more like Satan but was pleasantly surprised that they were into more than books.

What else did they like exactly? Military strategy!!

It’s been a looong time since he’s been able to talk to someone who’s actually interested in all the battles he’s fought, both in the Celestial Realm and the Devildom, and their curiosity is kind of flattering...! Not a lot of people take his strategic prowess all that seriously anymore...

Plus, they are the BEST partner to have any turn-based strategy game. Hands down. He once got stuck on a level of D-COM for weeks until the MC walked in and mopped the floor with the AI!! They have a serious head for probability and tactics.

The House once made the mistake of letting these two be on the same team during a Hell Game and they absolutely demolished the competition. Mammon didn’t even get a single shot off before half his team was lost to a rigged paint grenade… It took a whole day to clean up… 

However, Levi’s also noticed some odd things about the human… He likes that they’re interested in his past but maybe they’re a little… too interested?

Levi: -and that’s how we defeated the Four Horsemen before they escaped from Purgatory. 

MC: Wow, Levi that’s seriously impressive!! *furiously scribbling on a notebook*

Levi: Well t-thanks… 😅 But, uhm... are you writing that down…?

MC: Hm? Oh no, just doodling. *they lift up the notebook to show a bunch of cute little sketches on the page… and not the magic-based invisible ink all over them…*

Levi: Oh you draw too? Can you do fanart???

MC: Eh, sometimes. But say Levi, can you tell me about your naval ranks again? I’m still really curious… *gets the pen ready again with a smile*

Satan

Oh, it's been a long game of cat-and-mouse between these two… and unfortunately, it’s been pretty addicting too.

He honestly had every intention of tricking the human into making a huge mess do he could bother Lucifer, but at every turn they proved just a hair too clever for him...

He once gave them a cursed book to “lend” to Lucifer, but they saw through it the moment they touched it and lifted the spell before handing it over.

He rigged a podium to spray glitter during one of Lucifer's speeches but the MC disconnected the trigger mic before he even got on stage. It was pretty dang frustrating...

At one point he got so desperate that, just as a test, he tried to trap them in the House's Music Room. Fortunately for them, it only took a few minutes to work out an escape. They even passed by him in the hallway with a wink!

It's confounding! It's infuriating!! 

...and it's so damn sexy... He should be furious but he’s just in awe!!

Add on that they know their art, literature, and multiple different crafts thanks to the tutelage of their adopted mother and that’s it. He’s finished. This boy is in love.

Truthfully though, a part of him is 90% sure that they’re also gathering state secrets… Like, they’re watching Barbs and Diavolo far too close for comfort - but he just can't bring himself to care. 🤷‍♀️

The MC could walk into his room one day and say, "Hey, do you want to help overthrow the monarchy with me?" and he dreads it because deep down he knows that he wouldn’t say no…

Take some notes, kids. Some bad influences get you to drink or do drugs. Others pull you into a centuries long conspiracy to destabilize and topple rival realms from within… But he has fallen for their brain hard. Devil help them all…

Asmodeus 

They’re pretty clever, he’ll give them that, but uh… Are they a little off to anybody else?

Asmo is a charmer by birthright so he has a bit of nose for when someone’s just a liiittttle too nice… Not much of a nose mind you, because he can be thrown off by compliments himself, but enough to think that the MC might be a little too… “kind” for their own good...

First off, who wants to spend that much time with Levi?? They don’t even seem that interested in anime! They just keeping asking him for old war stories…

Then all the sucking up they do to Diavolo and Barbatos? Look, he gets it. Diavolo is a delicious piece of man-hunk and his butler could give him a lesson or two in sweet-talk (and he has), but they seem to be just a little too… nosy.

Of course, Asmo’s suspicions disappear pretty quickly after they start to spoil him with spa nights and beauty secrets they picked up from “casual research” into the subject.

And you know, get a little Demonus in Asmo and start massaging his back? Oh, sweetie he’ll sing like a bird!! … with gossip. Singing with gossip.

Asmo: So I’ve heard that Lucifer has been spending more time at RAD than usual… His whole club is talking about it, they think he’s meeting with some witch!

MC: Hm, is that so? *works on a knot near his shoulder blades* What do you think?

Asmo: Ooh~! Right there, MC! *purrs and lays his head on his arms* Well come on, this is Lucifer we’re talking about! I’m sure he’s just working.

Asmo: Hmm... though come to think of it, I think I heard him asking Barbatos for the spare keys to the Tower of Sorrow…

MC: Oh really? Huh. *works out the knot and gets up* I just remembered that I left some papers with Satan... I’ll be right back.

Asmo: You’re going already??

MC: *waves him off quickly* I’ll be right back, Asmo. *hurries out the door to do totally on-the-up-and-up things… surely*

Beelzebub 

Honestly he doesn't like this one… But not for the reasons you'd expect.

He agrees with everyone else that they seem a little shady, but Solomon and Simeon are too so it's not like that's anything new... 🤷‍♀️

No, no. He dislikes them because they're the person who FINALLY figured out how to keep him from eating all the food in the kitchen!!

Turns out that the trick was to put a teleportation charm on the fridge door that would send all the food away if it’s opened after a certain time of night… 

And where does it go? The Purgatory Hall fridge. And where does the Purgatory Hall food go…? The HoL fridge…

It doesn’t sound so bad until you remember that it means half of their fridge is now Solomon’s leftovers…. 🤢

After they put the same kind of spell on the pantry, it was all over… He couldn't get midnight snacks from the House anymore… Everything was contaminated by Solomon…

The MC is a nice enough person, he doesn’t have a lot of complaints about them, but he wants them to leave. Now. This is inexcusable… He’s so hungry… and he doesn’t want to die by “goulash” or whatever Solomon calls his latest culinary catastrophe… He’s still too young for death… 😓

Belphegor 

In a way, he absolutely could not have asked for a better person to help him get out of that attic.

… In another way, he got one of the worst possible people to try and kill... Like. They saw through his scheme sooo fast…

How was he supposed to know that the human had training in body language and sniffing out lies???

Getting the door open was a piece of cake for them. They knew enough magic to undo the seals and just rummaged around Lucifer's stuff long enough to find the key to the door. He could not have found a more competent individual for a break out, really.

It’s just… well he didn’t expect to go from locked in a room like a prisoner to tied up in enchanted rope, still like a prisoner but now mobile. 😑 

They even used his own hug ruse against him! They caught his wrists when they got close and tied him up before he could shake them off...

Admittedly, it wasn't exactly the best look for them either - what with walking Belphegor downstairs to the others like a one-man-prison-caravan but they're as silver-tongued as they are sly so they talked their way out of it beautifully… 

And like hell was he going to trust them after that!! And not even Beel liked them so something had to be up...

Well, you want a detective? Look no farther than Belphie (no seriously, it’s in the canon). He can put things together pretty fast when he puts his mind to it and watching the MC for a while gave him enough proof to work off of...

He always knew that, humans were bad news and the MC just proved it to him all over again. They are bad news, bad bad news and they’re going to-!

Overthrow… Diavolo…? Is that what he is getting from them…? Huh…

Wait a second, MC. You might just have him interested… 😏

[antiloreolympus]

5 Anti LO Asks

1. love how the gods in LO and their environments are all the same, blindingly bright neon colors where hardly anything is decipherable   (zeus in the all purple room and hades basically just being a neon blue head in an nearly all black underworld spring to mind here) while the mortals are all the same muddly brown with muddy brown environments. i understand its to save time, but it just looks ugly and rushed over a unique palette.

2. uh ... does Rachel know dionysus was the way he was wasnt bc his mom was a "unhinged bitch" but rather the fact thats just how he was (is this being anti=partying? didnt LO literally start with a party?) as well as a dash of childhood trauma via HERA killing him as a baby? this isnt just a terribly misogynistic reading on semele, its also an offensively arrogant reading on dionysus. even the stereotypical depictions  via PJO or Disney show more respect than whatever Rachel thinks this is.

3. semele was literally a devoted but horny priestess in mythology??? are we sure rachel actually knows what she's talking about because itd be weird to claim to be a staunch feminist focusing on being against purity culture and wanting to promote female agency and being proud in their sexuality only to then frame an actually sexually liberated woman making her own choices especially in deeply regressive times as bad and evil because she just happens to like zeus and isn't hera 🤔

4. Out of curiosity how old do you think some of the mortals that the gods interact with are? Like how old is Semele supposed to be? She looks like a teenager (to me anyway).

And if thats the case, then Zeus is having an illicit affair with a teenage girl and so is Hades (the only difference is Kore has Goddess status to "make up for" the age gap).

Either way its still creepy. As far as we know the only somewhat decent brother of the triarchy is Poseidon (maybe its because hes more of a background character but he seems much more chill than Zeus + Hades).

I have a feeling if RS brought Poseidon in to the forefront more that she might ruin whatever small amount of characterization he has.

Also I'm fairly certain the brothers share 1 braincell and Poseidon has it 95% of the time. "Having an emotional affair can be just as damaging as a physical one".

Zeus definitely doesnt have it - he barely knows what's going on in Olympus and had no knowledge of Persephones crimes until someone else told him + then went into a temper tantrum to assert his dominance because he feels like no one takes him seriously (he's right, they don't. Not even Hera).

Hades has the braincell very rarely, but as soon as Persephone steps into the room it gets thrown out a window and he turns into a horndog. Also he reacts with temper tantrums as well - e.g: pulling a kids eye out for taking a photo of Persephone (granted paparazzi do kinda suck but still, Hades KNOWS hes the god of the underworld and is bound to attract attention + gossip and yet did nothing when Kore was made to feel uncomfortable and then in private ripped a kids eyeball out and Hecate helped to blind him - real good leadership there Hades, no winder the underworld denizens dont like you).

Honestly and we're supposed to be rooting for the gods? Or at least HxP?

I feel like it might be better if the narrative actually acknowledged that what the gods did was f*cked up and had lasting consequences, since RS wants them to be more "human" anyway.

Like Hades ripped a kids eye out and who gets 'punished' for it? Persephone. It damages her reputation at school and yeah she calls him out on it (saying that he did it more out of pride for himself than for her) but later its immediately forgotten as soon as she makes him fix the kid's eye.

(Not to mention that putting Hades in the room of the kid is gonna cause the kid more trauma. Was there no other healing option? Actually since when does Hades have healing powers? We've only ever see him kill plants to flirt with Persephone. And I think he should fix it, but I also doubt Persephone was thinking of the kids wellbeing in that moment - more of just fixing her reputation. Which again, does not endear the audience to her as a dread queen, if she can't make logical decisions that are going to impact the citizens shes destined to rule over). 

5. maybe the reason rachel made semele so unlikeable is because she knows itll be hard to excuse hera's action when she literally murders a pregnant woman and her baby so thats all she can manage to justify it, tho its also lowkey deranged to say someone and their baby deserves to die because hera has that easily bruised of an ego over a man, who in LO at least, she doesnt even love?? like hera would just look insane at that point, you cant "girl power" your way out of baby murder.

[lesserfandomappreciation]

Ariadne and why the Mycenaeans can fuck right off

Warning: Includes brief mentions of r*pe, cultural destruction, ancient patriarchy reminding us why no woman would ever time-travel more than 5 years into the past if that and a great deal of spite for male historians/public education history/mythology classes. 

Possible side effects may include a sudden intense rage for an ancient society equivalent to the innate rage one has for the Romans burning the library of Alexandria, a distinct hatred for ancient men not being able to let anyone have nice things, and a sudden fascination for Minoa. 

Usually, I stick to writing imagines and being happy with that. It’s fun! I love it! But every now and again, in an attempt to escape the crushing forces known as reality and responsibilities I’ll put on a few cutscenes from games I’m: A) Too lazy to play B) Too broke to play C) Too unskilled to play D) All of the above

because cutscenes are free and why torture yourself with impossible levels when its free on Youtube?* *In all seriousness please support video games and video game creators, but no shame to those of us who prefer cutscenes to gameplay.  A few weeks ago I added the game Hades made by Supergiant to the list because the cutscenes were bomb and the characters are so much fun! Intricate as all hell! Hella cute too but that’s unrelated! Now my pretty little simp patootie is especially a big fan of Dionysus and his gorgeous design so the cutscenes with him are my favorite.

I’m re-watching his cutscenes a few nights ago for fun as background when he has a certain line about Theseus. Don’t quote me on this since my memory is foggy at best but roughly it was: Dionysus: Good job with Theseus. Never cared much for him- what he did to that girl was just horrible.*

*I know that’s not his exact line but this is clearly a rant post fueled by spite and ADD-hyper-focused obsessions with ancient civilizations so let’s not worry too too much about the semantics here. 

Now, I like mythology! Personally, I prefer the Norse mythology due to the general lack of very very gross dynamics that several other ancient mythologies seem to include, but I’m decently familiar with Greek mythos. Enough to go - “Why does the God of Wine give a single fuck about the frat bro of Greek heroes being a dick to a woman? Grossness is embedded into the very DNA of all distant relatives of Zeus, a woman being harassed by Zeus or his bastard army is a typical Tuesday in ancient Greece.” 

Wikipedia confirms that Ariadne is the only woman in the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, which I kinda knew already so unless Theseus did some f’ed up shit to some other princess of Minos, Dionysus could only be referring to her. Disregarding what I know about Wikipedia and how it can suck you down the rabbit hole of rabbit holes through sheer fury I stupidly clicked the link to Ariadne’s article. 

By the time we get to the end of this shitstorm, I will have two separate plotlines for two separate stories based of Ariadne, 2k+ notes (and going) on an ancient civilization prior to a week ago I didn’t know existed and within me there will be a rage towards a different ancient civilization I vaguely recall learning about in high school. 

Here’s how this shit went down. 

First of all, apparently after Theseus abandoned Ariadne on an island to die (yep! He did that! To the one person who is the only reason he defeated the minotaur! Fuck this guy.) there are multiple storylines where Dionysus takes a single look at Ariadne and falls in love. 

“A god falls in love?” you say, aware of how most love stories in Greek mythos can be summed up with Unfortunately, Zeus got horny and Hera is a firm believer in victim blaming. “This poor woman is about to go through hell!” I thought so too! And in one variation of the story, Dionysus does his daddy proud by being an absolute tool to Ariadne. In the majority though? He woos the fuck out of her, and ultimately marries her by consent!

Her consent!

In ancient Greece!

The party dude of the Greek pantheon knows more about consent then his father and modern day frat brothers!

Okay! That’s interesting, so I keep reading. 

Ariadne getting hitched to Dionysus is a big deal in Olympus, to the point of getting a crown made of the Aurora Borealis from Aphrodite who is bro-fisting Dionysus, beyond glad she didn’t have to give him the talk about consent. The rest of the gods are pissy especially Hera who doesn’t like Dionysus much since he is the son of Zeus and Semele but they don’t do much. Ariadne ascends to godhood, becomes the goddess of Labyrinths with the snake and bull as her symbol and that’s that on that. 

Colorin, colorado, este cuento se acabado.  And they lived happily ever after. That’s the end of the post right?

NO! Because curiosity has made me their bitch and there’s more to this calling me. 

Also, I was pissed! Still am! Why the fuck-a-doodle-do did I have to learn about the time Poseidon r*ped a priestess instead of the arguably healthiest relationship in the entirety of the pantheon? Why is Persephone and Hades’ story (which has improved since it was first written and I like more modern versions of it, no hate) the only healthy-ish Greek love story I had to learn when Dionysus and Ariadne were right there? The rage of having endured several grade levels of “Zeus got horny and Hera found out” stories in the nightmare of public education led me to keep looking into this. 

There’s this wonderful Youtube channel called Overly Sarcastic Productions that I highly recommend that delves a lot into mythology, and I have seen their bombass video about Dionysus and how his godhood has changed since he was potentially first written in a language we comprehend. 

Did ya’ll know this man is the heir apparent to Zeus? ‘Cause I didn’t know that!

YEA! Dionysus, man of parties, king of hangovers and inducer of madness, is set to inherit the throne of Olympus! Ariadne didn’t husband up the God of Wine, she husbanded up the Prince of Olympus and heir apparent to the throne! Holy shit! No wonder some of the gods were against her marriage to Dionysus - can you imagine the drama of an ex-mortal woman sitting on the Queen’s throne of Olympus? Hera must have been pissed.

BUT WAIT.

There’s more.

The reason we know Dionysus is a very important god and is possibly even more important than we think is because of a handy-dandy language known as Linear B, otherwise known as the language of the Mycenaeans!

For those of you fortunate enough to have normal hobbies and interests, the Mycenaeans were the beta version of the Greeks. Their written language of Linear B is one of, if not the first recorded instance of a written Indo-European language. This language, having been translated, gives us an interesting look at what the Greek gods were like back in their beta-stages before they fixed the coding and released the pantheon. 

Interesting side facts of the Mycenaean Greek gods include:

Poseidon being the head god with an emphasis on his Earthquake aspect, and being much more of a cthonic god in general. 

Take that Zeus, for being so gross. 

The gods in general being more cthonic, as Mycenaeans were obsessed with cthonic gods (probably due to all the earthquakes and natural disasters in Greece and Crete at that time)

Several of the gods and goddesses that we know being listed, alongside some that we don’t consider as important (Dione)

The first mention of Kore, later Persephone, but no Hades because since a lot of gods were cthonic, there would be no need for one, specific cthonic god to represent the majority of death-related rituals.

That’s not what we’re focusing on though! What we’re focusing on is a specific translated portion of Linear B that we have. One of the translated portions of Linear B that for the life of me I can’t find (someone please help me find it and send the link so I can edit this post) says an interesting phrase. “Honey to the gods. Honey to the Mistress of Labyrinths.”

One more time. “Honey to the gods. Honey to the Mistress of Labyrinths.”

Mistress of Labyrinths. 

Now wait a gosh darn minute. Isn’t there a goddess of labyrinths in the Greek mythos? Why yes! Yes there is! Ariadne!

Here’s a question for you. If Ariadne is but a minor god in the pantheon, a wife to a more predominant god, why is it that while all the other gods and goddesses are bunched together in a sentence of praise, the so-called ex-mortal gets a whole-ass sentence to herself singing praises?

And thus, we have arrived to Minoa!

What is Minoa, you ask? Minoa is to Rome what Rome is to us. An old-ass civilization either older than or younger by a hundred years to ancient Egypt. Egypt, that started in 3200 B.C-ish depending on who you ask. That’s old. Old as balls. They were contemporaries to their trading partner, Egypt until 1450 BC-ish. A 2000 year old civilization.

Minoa was founded on the island of Crete, and was by what artifacts we have found a merchant civilization with its central economy centered on the cultivation of saffron and the development of bronze/iron statues of bulls. Most of what we know about them comes from artifacts and frescoes found on Crete that managed to survive everything else I will mention later, but what matters is that we know a few things about them. 

Obsessed with marine life for some time, given their pottery. 

Had the first palaces in all of Europe, some of them ridiculously big. 

Wrote in Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphs, both still untranslated languages. 

Had a ritual involving jumping over a bull, for some reason. 

Firm believers in “Suns out, Tits out.”

You’d think I’m kidding on the last one but no! No no no! All the women apparently rocked the tits-out look in Minoa!

^^^^One of many, many Minoan works featuring women giving their titties fresh air. ^^^^

“Wait a second Pinks! What does this have to do with Ariadne being the Mistress of labyrinths?”

Well you see dear wonderful darling, while we know very little about Minoan religion because Mycenaeans (we will get to those bastards in a second), we do know this:

All the religious figures appear to be exclusively women.

The most important figures of their religion seem to be goddesses as there are few artifacts featuring male gods.

Because of the religion, the culture may have been an equal society or even a matriarchy! Historians who are male aren’t sure. 

A frankly ridiculous amount of their temples, including the ones in caves in the middle of fuck-all feature labyrinths. A lot of labyrinths!

Their head god is a goddess! Whose temples have labyrinths and whose main symbols are snakes and bulls. Who do we know is a) the mistress of labyrinths and b) is symbolized a lot by snakes and bulls?

ARI-fucking-ADNE THAT’S WHO!

Ariadne didn’t upgrade by marrying the prince of Olympus! Dionysus wifed up possibly the most important goddess in all of Crete and becoming her boy-toy! 

I’m not even kidding, most Minoan depictions of the goddess’ consort features a boy/man who cycles through the stages of death. Dionysus himself in several myths goes through the same cycle - life, being crushed, death, rebirth, repeat.  Cycles the consort goes through in Minoan legend depictions too!

Okay, that’s great, but what does that have to do with the Mycenaeans? Why do you want to single-handedly go back in time and strangle the beta-Greeks with the nearest belt?

Everything I just said about Ariadne being a Minoan goddess, the Mistress of Labyrinths being hella important on Minoa, is all theoretical. The Mycenaeans are partially to blame for making it theoretical. 

Minoa thrived for 2000 years but it had a lot of issues, mostly caused by natural disasters. Towards the end of their civilization (1500 BC-ish), the nearby island of Thera, today known as Santorini, decided to blow up. The island was a hella-active volcano that when erupted, destroyed a lot. 

How big was the eruption? Well when Pompeii was wasted by Mt. Vesuvius, the blast was heard from roughly 120 miles away, 200 km. 

The blast on Thera was heard from 3000 miles away. 4800 km away.

Fuck me, the environmental effects of the explosion were felt in imperialistic CHINA.

Holy shit that would waste anybody! And it did! Minoa went from being a powerhouse in the Mediterranean to scrambling to recover from losing 40,000 citizens and who knows how many cities. Tsunamis may have followed the blast, further destroying ports which for a navy-powerhouse of an island nation is a bad thing and the theorized temperature drops caused by a cloud of ash lingering for a while would have destroyed crops for the year.

Minoa was fucked. 

The Mycenaeans and all their bullshit made it worse.

Up until a few hundred years prior to Thera’s explosion, Minoan artifacts don’t depict much in terms of military power. Why would it? Crete is a natural defense post. Sheer cliffs, high mountains and a few semi-fortified areas would make it pointless to invade. It’s only when the Mycenaeans in all their bullshit decided to attack/compete that Minoa really needed any army to speak of.

Guess who decided to invade while Minoa was reeling from an incredibly shitty year? Mycenaea!

Guess who won?

Also Mycenaea!

Nobody knows how this shit went down though because wouldn’t you know it, the Mycenaeans in all their superiority-complex glory decided to destroy most written accounts about Minoa, a good junk of the temples and culturally eliminated most of Minoan beliefs. 

Minoa isn’t even the real name of the civilization! It’s just the name Arthur Evans, the guy who re-motivate interest in Minoan archaeology, gave to the civilization because the writings that would have included the name of the civilization were destroyed.

“That sucks!” Fuck yes that sucks! “What does that have to do with Ariadne though?”

Oh ho ho. Strap in because you’re about to be pissed. 

Those of us unfortunate enough to be aware of all the bullshit the Christians pulled on the European pagan belief system are familiar with the concept of cultural, religious destruction. There’s a special name for it I don’t know but if I did I would curse it to be absorbed by the horrendous will of fungi. 

An example: Christianity was not the most popular of religions amongst the Vikings. A monotheistic religion that is heavily controlled did not strongly appeal to anyone with a pantheon as rad as the Norse one. 

In order to appeal to the Vikings, what monks would do is they would write down traditionally Viking stories which up until that point were orally passed down. Beowulf, the story of the most Viking Viking to have every Vikinged, was one of these first stories. 

However! Did these monks write Beowulf as closely to the original oral transcript as possible? Of course not! They took liberties! While Norse features such as trolls and dragons and all sorts of Norse magic occur, there is a lot of Christian features added in. 

This happened across all Pagan religions that Christianity came into contact with in Europe. Stories would be altered when written down to be more Christian (this happened to the Greek Pantheon too btw), holidays that were Pagan magically lined up with ones the Vatican just happened to suddenly have. Even names of mythological figures were taken and added onto Christian figure names. Consequently, a lot of pagan religions they did this to got erased over time, with many of their traditions and details being lost forever, and the details we do know being tinted by Christianity.

The Mycenaeans were likely no different. 

Minoa and Mycenaea were as culturally opposite as can be. Minoa is theorized to be a matriarchal or equal society*. Mycenaea and most of early Greece absolutely was not. In fact, during early stages of their religion where they believed in reincarnation, the Mycenaeans believed the worst thing to come back as was a woman. 

Did you get that? With your options ranging from man to ever single animal on Earth, a woman was ranked as beneath literal animals in Mycenaean society.

Fuck the Mycenaeans.

* This is not to say Minoa was without fault, as a society that is matriarchal or equal can still have rampant issues such as privilege, classism, racism, sexism and more, but when history has a shortage of civilizations that didn’t treat women like shit, you find yourself rooting for them more. 

 What do you do then, when you take over a society that is very much the opposite of a nightmare of a patriarchy? You fold their beliefs into your own to bait them into yours. Going back to the Linear B line about “Mistress of Labyrinths” that line would/could have been an early tactic of incorporating Minoan belief into Mycenaean belief. Other goddesses and gods were made into aspects of Mycenaean gods. Bristomartis, the Minoan goddess of the hunt, would become Artmeis. Velchanos, a god of the sky, would become Zeus. 

With more time, the religion shifted more into Mycenaean and eventually into ancient Greece as we know it. Through trade other gods and goddesses would continue to shift and change, some being straight up imported (Aphrodite for example). Dionysus himself changed a lot too, going from a God representing freedom and attracting slaves, women and those with limited power into his cult, to a God of parties for the wealthy. 

Theseus and the Minotaur was a myth likely based on a Mycenaean myth based on a Minoan myth that changes Ariadne from an important, possibly the important goddess of an ancient religion and relegates her to a side character in a pantheon so vast that she would be lost within it. 

All of this brings us to today. Today, where as soon as work ended I spent most of the day, as well as the past two days, looking up everything I can on Minoan civilization and added it to my notes. Spite is fueling me to write two possible different stories for two different fandoms where Minoa dunks of Mycenaea and it is giving me life. Expect an update within the next two weeks folks as I lose control of my writing life once more. 

In summary: Ariadne deserves more respect, fuck the public education system for skipping over the good parts of Greek mythology instead of the r*pey as shit parts, the Mycenaeans can eat my shorts, and a world were Minoa became the predominant power instead of Greece would be an amazing world to live in.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. Pink out. 

[all-seeing-ifer]

Greek mythology references in Ulysses Dies at Dawn masterpost

I saw a post a while back by @spacetrashpile analysing all the arthurian references in High Noon Over Camelot, and since I know quite a bit about Greek mythology I figured “hey! I should do something like that for Ulysses Dies at Dawn!” I’m just going to go through each of the songs in order and analyse/explain the references in them - hopefully other people will find it interesting!

“The City”

Starting with the title - Ulysses is the Latin name of Odysseus, legendary king of Ithaca and hero of the epic poem The Odyssey. Interestingly, Ulysses is the only character in UDAD who is given a Latin name instead of a Greek one. There’s a couple of potential reasons for this but the most convincing to me is it’s meant to reflect Ulysses’ opposition to the Olympians, who are all based on the Greek gods.

Jonny calls the story a “labyrinthine task of a twisted tale”, referencing the Greek myth of the Minotaur, which was kept in a labyrinth to hide it from the world. This reference becomes even clearer when we later learn the City’s original name.

This one’s less a reference to Greek mythology and more to like, actual history, but the description of the City expanding to cover the whole planet is reminiscent of Greek expansion in ancient times. Ancient Greece was made up of many city-states, or poleis, which established colonies or “daughter-cities”, mostly in western Asia, or “Asia Minor” as the Greeks and Romans called it.

The story opens at a “run-down gin join” called Calypso’s - Calypso is a sea nymph who plays a fairly major role in The Odyssey, keeping Odysseus/Ulysses trapped on her island for seven years.

Fittingly enough, Calypso’s apparently pays money to Dionysus, whose mythological namesake is the Greek god of wine.

Broken Horses

Ilium is the Ancient Greek name for Troy, the city that Greece went to war against, according to myth,. Part of this war is described in the epic poem The Iliad, in which Odysseus is one of the soldiers laying siege to Troy.

Much like the Trojan War of Greek myth, the siege of Ilium is said to have lasted a decade.

Ulysses’ gambit with the horse statue sending out a signal driving the people of Ilium mad is pretty obviously a reference to the Trojan Horse - the wooden horse the Greeks built as a “peace offering” to the Trojans that they used to sneak their soldiers into the City and that brought them victory in the war. Like in the UDAD version, Odysseus/Ulysses was apparently responsible for coming up with this plan.

“Olympians”

Ulysses’ wife is named Penelope, same as Odysseus’ wife in the myths

The Acheron is the name of one of the five rivers of Hades, along with Styx, Cocytus, Lethe, and Phlegethon

As a sidenote, in Greek mythology Hades is the name of the underworld as well as the name of the God of the dead - fittingly enough reimagined in UDAD as the controller of a vast network of half-dead minds (and also Ashes)

The most powerful families in the City are called the Olympians - the name given to the twelve most important deities in the Greek pantheon

Poseidon Industries is named for Poseidon, Greek god of the sea and one of the twelve Olympians. Jonny calls them “one of the architects of the Ilium War”, which seems like an odd reference since iirc Poseidon doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the Trojan War. I guess that’s just there to give Ulysses a reason to want to rob Poseidon Industries.

In the Odyssey, Poseidon hates Odysseus/Ulysses for attacking his son, a cyclops called Polyphemus. In UDAD this is changed to Ulysses stealing the diamond from Poseidon Industries’ laser, which is also called The Cyclops.

My Name is No One

The song’s title and chorus is a reference to Odysseus’ famous trick for escaping the Polyphemus’ cave. He tells the Polyphemus his name is “no one/nobody” (depending on the translation) so that when he attacks Polyphemus and the cyclops tries to call for help, he calls out “No one is attacking me” which obviously none of the other cyclopes take seriously. (There’s also a great pun in the original Greek based on the Greek words for “no one” and “cunning” being very similar, but it loses a lot in translation)

However, just like in UDAD, Odysseus messes up this plan badly by calling out his real name when he’s still too close to the island of the cyclops. (although in the Odyssey it’s motivated by him wanting Polyphemus to know his name so he can get glory, rather than just being drunk)

Odysseus bests the cyclops by taking out his eye (there’s debate around it but cyclopes are generally depicted as having only one eye). Obviously in UDAD the cyclops is a machine not a monster, so this is replaced with the diamond at the heart of the laser being called its “eye”.

Also, I’m not sure if this is an intentional reference, but there is a fun irony to the fact that in the Odyssey, Odysseus tricks Polyphemus by getting him drunk so he can then blind him, while in UDAD Ulysses steals the eye of the Cyclops while drunk themself.

“Trial By Wits”

As well as My Name is No One, the whole concept of no one knowing anything about Ulysses’ appearance, gender etc. could also be seen as a reference to the “My name is nobody” trick, or possibly just a spin on Odysseus being a kind of “archetypal hero” - they could be anyone!

Heracles is better known by his Latin name, Hercules (son of Zeus, demigod, inhumanly strong and all that jazz)!

Ariadne is the name of the Cretan princess who helped Theseus slay the minotaur

Orpheus is another of the most well-known Greek mythological figures - the main myth surrounding him says he went into the underworld to rescue his dead wife Eurydice

Oedipus is most famous as the main character of a famous tragedy. His parents are given a prophecy that he would kill his father and have sex with his mother, and so decided to abandon him. As is so often the case with Greek oracles, he ended up doing both things anyway, seeing as how he, y’know, didn’t know who his parents were. The mechs apparently chose to reference this in the most mature of ways by having Jonny call Oedipus a motherfucker. Kind of a lot.

Aside from committing both patricide and incest, Oedipus’ other achievements in myth included winning a battle of wits against the Sphinx, a monster that was killing anyone who couldn’t solve its riddle. This monster is reimagined in UDAD as a disease that Oedipus finds a cure for.

Riddle of the Sphinx

The chorus of the song is taken almost word-for-word from the riddle asked of Oedipus by the Sphinx: “What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?” The answer to the riddle is “man” - crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult, and walks with a cane (third leg) in old age. The Mechs being the Mechs, this is made completely literal in the world of UDAD.

“Ulysses’ Will”

Like the Oedipus of myth, UDAD Oedipus also ends up killing his father and marrying his mother without knowing. Since he’s replaced his eyes with data sockets by the time he helps kidnap Ulysses, it’s pretty strongly implied that he blinded himself like mythological Oedipus as well.

The “twenty years of sirens” could be a reference to the twenty years Odysseus spends away from Ithaca in the Iliad and Odyssey

Sirens

The sirens were half-bird half-human creatures that Odysseus encountered as part of the Odyssey and that tried to lure him to his death with promises of knowledge.

As well as referencing this story, the line “let the lotus set you free” references another episode of the Odyssey, where Odysseus and his crew arrive on the island of the Lotus-Eaters. Anyone who eats the Lotus fruits falls into a state of apathy and will never want to leave the island, so it’s a fitting episode to reference in a song about Ulysses drugging themself to escape their memories of war.

“Trial By Strength”

Heracles’ backstory is essentially the same in UDAD as in the original myths: one of the many children of Zeus’ many affairs, except in UDAD Zeus has affairs with women from “the lower levels”, instead of just mortal women.

Favoured Son

The tasks Heracles performs for Zeus are a reference to the most famous myth about Heracles - the twelve labours he performs to atone for killing his family.

The song references “the ferryman” who takes people into the Underworld. In Greek mythology the dead travel to the Underworld in a boat rowed by the ferryman Charon.

In both the myth and in UDAD there are...what you might you might call “extenuating circumstances” for Heracles killing his family - in the myth he’s driven mad by Zeus’ wife Hera (bc she’s very angy about Zeus having all those bastard children with mortal women) but since Hera doesn’t play a role in UDAD this is changed to him being framed by Zeus himself.

In addition to being king of the gods, Zeus is also the god of thunder - which is where Heracles’ nickname “The Thunderbolt of Zeus” comes from

“Loose Threads”

Heracles and Orpheus “Backing up Jason on the fleece job” is a reference to the myth of Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece along with his crew (the Argonauts), which included Heracles and Orpheus.

Hylas was Heracles’ servant and another member of the Argonauts. While on the quest he was kidnapped by nymphs, and depending on which version of the myth you’re looking at, either fell in love with them and stayed there forever, or was murdered by them (Hylas is also the only character referenced I had to google to even know who they were lol)

Heracles telling Ariadne that “Your dad helped me out once” is presumably a reference to the seventh labour of Heracles: capturing the Cretan bull. Now the story of the Cretan bull is actually really long and ties into a bunch of other myths but essentially it was sent to Ariadne’s father, King Minos, as proof that he was the rightful ruler of Crete. However, Minos ended up helping Heracles by letting him take the bull with him to prove that he’d successfully caught it (which seeing as the bull was destroying Crete at that point doesn’t seem like a huge favour on Minos’ part, but ok)

Trial By Song

UDAD Orpheus shares the mythical Orpheus’ main defining trait: his skill at singing that he used to help him on his journey to the underworld.

Trial By Song is a lot more metaphorical than all the others so there’s not that many direct references to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in the lyrics - probably the most direct one is “But all the landmarks moved as I walked past/Now I can’t look back”, which references Orpheus’ deal with Hades that he can take Eurydice back to the world of the living as long as he doesn’t look back at her.

“The viper town that bled me dry” could also be a reference to Eurydice’s death from a snake bite.

“Hades”

UDAD Orpheus’ motivation is the same as mythical Orpheus - wanting to bring back their dead lover from Hades.

Ulysses, Heracles, and Orpheus all visiting the “underworld” is taken directly from mythology (although unlike in UDAD, Ulysses/Odysseus never actually speaks to Hades).

Underworld Blues

In Heracles’ confrontation with Hades, he says that “I was sent here your dog to seize/Of my tasks, of my tasks/This was to be the last”. There’s a couple of points here - the mythology reference is to the last of the twelve labours of Hercules: capturing Hades’ guard dog Cerberus. However, I do wonder whether this is meant to be literal (in which case guys, why are we not talking about the fact that Ashes obtained a pet dog while in The City?), or if this is a similar case to all the mentions of ‘horses’ in High Noon Over Camelot actually being about motorbikes.

Orpheus singing to Hades and trying to convince them to release Eurydice is also taken directly from Greek myth, except instead of being moved by Orpheus’ song and agreeing to release his love like in the myth, Ashes just tells him he’s poor for a bit and then says he should go commit some crimes.

“Trial By Love”:

The general concept of Ariadne’s backstory - her helping Theseus fight the minotaur only for him to abandon her - is the same basic idea as the myth of Ariadne and Theseus. Although UDAD Ariadne is at least a bit more fortunate in the sense that she wasn’t truly in love with her Theseus, and he also doesn’t straight up leave her on a deserted island.

Ariadne’s family creating the minotaur is also part of her character in the myth. The difference is that in UDAD the minotaur was created intentionally, while the mythological minotaur was the result of Poseidon making Ariadne’s mother fall in love with the Cretan Bull as punishment for King Minos not sacrificing it to him (I said the Cretan Bull story tied into a bunch of other myths!)

The presence of the minotaur in the City is yet another thing that makes even more sense when we learn about the City originally being called Labyrinth!

Ties That Bind

Ariadne’s family name is Minos, same as the name of her mythical father King Minos.

Ariadne describes her family’s actions as casting a “dark horned shadow” over her, which references the typical depiction of the minotaur as a man with a bull’s head and horns.

In the myth of the Minotaur, Ariadne helps Theseus by giving him a ball of string that he then unwinds as he walks through the Labyrinth, letting him find his way out again. In UDAD this is changed to “strings of code”, that shut down the minotaurs programming. (And if you think that pun’s bad, just wait until we get to Torn Suits!)

The song’s title also brings to mind string or thread, so it can be seen as a subtler reference to Ariadne’s gift to Theseus. Same for Ariadne’s line about “heartstrings long since cut”.

“The Daidala”

Daedalus, the leader of the Suits, shares a name with the mythical craftsman and father of Icarus

He is rumoured to “trade as an Olympian under the name Hephaestus” - a fitting alias as Hephaestus was the god of craftsmen and artisans like Daedalus

The rumour that he killed his son for “getting too ambitious” references the myth of Icarus, who famously died after literally flying too close to the sun using wings held together with wax. The heat of the sun caused the wax to melt and Icarus to fall into the sea. The story is often interpreted as a warning about the dangers of ambition.

Interestingly, it could also reference another myth surrounding Daedalus - one in which Daedalus kills his nephew Talos because he was jealous of his achievements.

Daedalus is also apparently the architect of The City, which was originally known as Labyrinth. This once again references the labyrinth which held the minotaur, and which Minos forced Daedalus to design. Considering the labyrinth’s purpose in myth, it seems like an appropriate name for a city that keeps all its inhabitants trapped with no way out.

Presumably the Daidala in the title refers to the City: Daedalus’ finest creation. In Homeric Greek, daidala is a word that refers to finely crafted objects such as armour.

This track also has another reference to the Orpheus and Eurydice myth when Orpehus offers to sacrifice himself to open the vault - “But he can’t see it through can he? Flinches, looks back. And it doesn’t work.”

Torn Suits

This song is notable for having quite possibly the worst pun in Mechanisms history - “Ulysses pulls out their snub-nosed laser and fires the last shot, splitting the beam across twelve axes”. This references one of the climactic scenes of the Odyssey, where Ulysses/Odysseus wins an archery competition against his wife’s suitors by shooting an arrow through twelve axe heads. (get it, axes as in the weapons becomes axes as in the plural of axis do you get it?????)

Another, marginally less bad pun is Heracles getting “the lion’s share” of the beams, referencing the popular image of Heracles wearing the skin of a lion he killed as one of his labours.

“Sunrise”

The code to Ulysses’ vault: Elysium, is another word for the Elysian Fields. In certain Greek religions, this was an afterlife separate from Hades’ world where heroes and those chosen by the gods would go after they died.

Ulysses’ vault is revealed to contain the “sole surviving oak tree”, under which Penelope is buried. While it’s not as direct a reference as some of the others, this is pretty clearly inspired by the way Odysseus proves his true identity to Penelope at the end of the Odyssey - by telling her that he carved their bed from a tree still rooted to the ground, something only the two of them know.

The track ends with an homage to Homer’s use of similes in the Odyssey: “And as the weary hound, once more at its master’s feet after so long, lays down with the sunlight warming its fur, breathing its last – even so did the eyes of Ulysses close forever.” Not only is this stylistically identical to Homer’s similes, it also doubles as a reference to Odysseus’ dog Argos, who waited for him for twenty years and finally died when he saw Odysseus again.

Elysian Fields

This is possibly a bit of a stretch but the image of Ulysses lying beneath the last tree, next to where Penelope is buried, especially with how they say they’re “with my beloved” and “beside my wife” really brings to mind the scene in the Odyssey where Odysseus and Penelope lie in their tree-bed together for the first time since Odysseus’ return. Which, incidentally, is theorised by some to be the “real” final scene of the Odyssey and everything after that was added on later, but that’s another story.

That’s everything I’ve picked up on but it’s possible there’s more I’ve missed so let me know if there’s any more! I’d like to thank the Mechs for giving me an opportunity to put my useless and extremely niche knowledge to good use!

[lifeofroos]

Part 48. I like Ariadne. 

In short: Nico gets therapy from Dionysus. In this chapter, Nico takes a minute to talk to Dionysus’ wife, Ariadne. The rest of the story can be found on AO3, FanFiction.net and in Tumblr tags like Dionysus, Nico di Angelo, Fanfic etc. 

This Might Be Crazy: Chapter 48: Rosemary Tea

I lit a small incense stick. The smell of pinewood filled my cabin. Just when I wanted to begin praying to get Ariadne’s attention, I already got it. One moment, I was in my cabin, the next I was on Olympus, looking out over a massive vineyard. 

‘Nico di Angelo.’

I turned around. ‘The lady of the house, I assume.’ 

‘Yes. You called on me?’

Barely. ‘Yes. I, well…’ I shrugged. I wasn’t entirely sure. I didn’t think I’d get this far. 

Ariadne put her chin up. ‘I can’t say I wasn’t expecting you one of these days. Why don’t we talk?’

I mean, that is what I had in mind. I nodded and she gestured that I could come into the palace. 

Dionysus’ palace was big. It took a good twenty minutes to walk to a sitting room on the other side. In the meantime, Ariadne chatted about the decor for a bit. It was clear she had been responsible for most of it (it was way too stylish to be done by Dionysus). 

We sat down in two comfy chairs, with a coffee table in between. Ariadne snapped her fingers. A pot of tea appeared. ‘Sorry for the long walk. The west flank of the palace is not under control by the headmaster, so I had to bring you there.’ 

Zeus. ‘Eh, I get it.’ So. Now that we sit and we’ve got tea, I was kind of curious about how you managed to live with Dionysus for thousands of years.

‘Lets get the obvious question of your mind: You are wondering how I managed to live with Dionysus for thousands of years.’ 

I nodded, a little perplexed, but mostly glad I did not have to open the conversation. 

She poured out two cups of tea and picked up her own. ‘I don’t read minds or anything, it’s just what they always ask. The short version is that he helped me when I was going through a hard time, the same way he is helping you now. The difference is that he somehow fell in love with me.’ She took a sip of her tea. ‘And, after some more time, which he gave me, I felt the same way. Got married, stayed together, end of story.’ She picked up her cup. ‘Yet, you probably already guessed that there was more.’ 

‘Well, Yes. I would say that the support he gives you goes further than with me. He once, kind of accidently, told me about the bond.’

She nodded. ‘Accidently? Oh well. Yet, yes, we have a bond. I’d say it connects us quite well.’

‘Quite, quite well, I’d say. For thousands of years.’ I picked up my own cup. ‘Hephaestus told me Dionysus treated him like a regular human… or god, whatever. Like he was more than a tool or a piece of garbage. That is basically how my therapy works. ’

Ariadne nodded. ‘We share that sentiment, you, me and Hephaestus, among others. We feel like we are worth something. Like someone does care about us. That is how it made me feel.’ She looked at the ceiling for a second. ‘Cared for, and like I was finally free to do and go where I wanted, gods! That means something after constantly being bound to something, either my chambers in the palace, or the island, or the men I was with. I still don’t know how I did confinment for twenty years.’ Her expression soured. ‘I do know why I went with Theseus. It meant... a change of scenary, at least.’ 

I sighed and slouched in the chair a little. ‘Ah, yes, sons of Poseidon.’ 

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Sons?’

I looked up. She didn’t know? ‘I thought Dionysus would have told you. Anyway, I was in love with one of those too, once. He just wasn’t a piece of garbage about it. Did not abandon me somewhere, at least, or bully me for it. He might have been a little confused, but, you know. I get that. He seems confused about most things, actually.’

She shifted. ‘It must have been Percy Jackson.’

I took a sip. ‘Yes. And, eh, sorry.’ Didn’t want to rub it in your face. I wanted to ask what she thought of Percy, but maybe that wasn’t…

‘I do not have anything against Perseus Jackson, if you were wondering about that.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I think Dio has more problems with that than I do.’

‘I think you might just be right.’

She sighed. ‘Oh well. Yet, I did hear you were accepted like you are in camp, son of Poseidon as your first crush or not.’

‘I was! Camp overall is pretty accepting, actually, that is nice. They even learned to trust Hades kids. And idiots who fall in love with sons of Poseidon. It took a while, but they accept Annabeth now.’

She chuckled and pushed her hair out of the way. ‘So many more things are getting accepted these days, even amongst the gods. There is a shift in their behaviour. I don’t know what the trigger was, after thousands of years, but I am glad it is this way.’ She twisted a curl around a finger. ‘Sorry, entirely different subject, but how did your talk with the elder gods go?’

‘It was weird, but it went good enough. Over the last few days, I have heard less and less of the voices from Tartarus, and more and more from the voices of where the Elder Gods are.’

She smiled and nodded. ‘Luckily. You know, admitting the elder gods is a central part of becoming immortal. Because of previous lives, something, something, even the lord of the heavens is not really sure, I had to talk to them.’ She sighed. ‘Basically, part of me is also an older god, which meant that I was supposed to fill this role as a goddess right now.’ She rolled her eyes. I snickered. ‘I hardly understand what it means.’

I adjusted my jacket. ‘Still, that must be strange, though, to know that part of you is just…’ I waved my hands around. ‘Somewhere in superheaven.’

‘You get used to it.’

‘Still, it seems weird.’ 

‘To me, it seems weird that you visit the Underworld so often.’ She shuddered. ‘For me, it wasn’t a very good place. After I was killed, I was sent to Elysium. My father, king Minos, kept trying to control me and I missed Dio terribly. I would have chosen rebirth if Dionysus hadn’t taken me out of there.’ 

‘Oh yes, bringing people back to live, the thing he tells me is unhealthy to do.’

She gave me a mellow smile. ‘The difference is that he is immortal and you are not.’ 

Maybe. ‘Not yet. And I met king Minos, too. He was a nasty piece of work, sorry not sorry to say it. He tried to control me into his evil villian plans.’

‘I am not offended. He was a bad king, a bad husband to my mother and a bad father to his children.’

‘And a bad partner to raise the dead with.’

‘I am going to pretend I did not hear that.’

‘Thanks. Although my therapist is already aware of it.’ I took a sip. ‘Then we can both agree that he was a huge dirtwad.’

‘We quite certainly can. I still do not forgive him for marrying off my youngest sister to some old king who died not even a year later. She was then forced out of the palace to make room for the new king and queen, just so Minos could get the bridewealth payments.’

‘Oh yes, that is a very dirtwad thing to do.’ We both sighed.

Her expression grew dark. ‘I used to think my mother was better. She tried to protect her children, even Asterion. Yet, that was before she tried to take my labyrinth and use it against who I am. What she did a few years ago, raising it without my permission…’ she clutched her fist. ‘She had no business doing that and getting me wound up in it again. Before that, the labyrinth was a memory, safely far away from the human world. Now...’ She looked at her teacup. 

I nodded. ‘Eh… my sister was the one who handled Pasiphae in that encounter. I think she is gone, now…’

‘She isn’t, Nico, and she never will. She harnesses too much power to just be gone.’ 

I fell silent for a second. ‘I think I believe that,’ I whispered. 

‘I hope you do, but I also hope you don’t have to deal with her in your lifetime anymore.’

I was fifteen. On average, there was a lot of lifetime left to meet Pasiphae a second time. But I did not want to think of that right now.

‘If there is anything you take away from this, let it be that women in mythology, and not uncommonly men too, often fled, because the situation at home was chocking them.’ She had a flicker in her eyes, which suddenly left. She shook her head. ‘You probably don’t want to think of that right now. Say, have you ever tried this tea before?’

Now she was just trying to change the subject. I played along. ‘I recognise it. Rosemary?’

‘Yes! We grow it in the garden, actually, or better said, my garden. His garden is more or less... taken.’ She smiled again and looked out the window, at the vineyard that spread all around the castle. 

‘Guess that makes sense.’

‘I wouldn’t mind more flowers. But hey, I knew what I was getting myslef in to, back when I moved here.’ We kept looking out the window. I noticed a few panthers lazily roaming about. Ariadne didn’t even blink at seeing them. Just a regular day in Dionysus’ palace, apparently. 

‘I don’t know if I will tell Dionysus about this encounter.’

‘I think he already had a hunch it was going to happen, because I did. Bond and stuff.’ I nodded. ‘If you already told him you were in love with Percy… well, that is an easy link to me, I’d say.’

Maybe. Ariadne studied me, before she stood up. ‘If your finished, maybe you should get back. They might begin to miss you. 

I looked up at the clock and jumped up when I saw it was already past eight. Ariadne telling me the clocks were mad and did what they wanted did not calm me down. 

While we walked back to the mystic Zeus-free west flank, she said: ‘I am glad I could finally meet you. You seem like a nice, smart young man.’

‘Thanks. Eh, also, thanks for the talk and thanks for the tea. It was good tea.’

‘I’ll give you some. I am kind of proud of it, actually. It is one of the only teas that isn’t brewed by Demeter.’ 

A/N: My first draft of this felt clunky, it is better now. Still, I find it strange that it turned out the way it did. That Ariadne of all people is the goddess who keeps her distance for a bit, aside from the things she has in common with Nico.

As I said before: I need more Ariadne fanfiction I am being denied my RIGHTS the first hit when I google it is my own fanfic of two years ago and one chapter in Weezl’s drabble doc. 

Legit, Ariadne is the ‘mistress of the labyrinth.’ Don’t know how RR missed that. Be prepared because this fact WILL come back in a later chapter. 

[greekbros]

"greek-Bros: When in Rome, wait wut?; The Reboot Nobody Fucking Asked For"

*after two incidences with his sons, Zeus has recruited Hades and Poseidon to investigate why the living hell was so distracting about Rome*

Zeus: *poorly disguised as a shepard* Well, it is a mighty fine city indeed. It's almost comparable to Athens. Don't you think so?

Poseidon: *also poorly disguised as the world's most muscular fisherman* It is dear brother! Why even our statues here are incredibly beautiful!

Hades: *who's cleverly disgusted as an old lady* hmf.

Poseidon: What's the matter Hades? Disgruntled that you don't have a shrine dedicated to you?

Hades: No quite frankly I actually don't care about shrines or temples in my honor. *Looks around and sees the same issues that the Bois saw* .....why do the mortals here call me Pluto?

Zeus and Poseidon: *both laugh at that*

Hades: Hahaha, laugh all you want.

Centurion: YOU TWO! How DARE you laugh at that poor, ugly old crone! You're under arrest for harassing the elderly!

Hades: *grins*

Zeus: *having absolutly none of this BS* .......

Poseidon: Ugh but sir we-

Centurion: *takes out cuffs and chains, FuCkInG puts them on Zeus and Poseidon* You're coming downtown! *Drags the both of them*

Zeus: *glares into space completely understanding why his sons tried to destroy Rome*

Poseidon: But sir! You can't just thrown people in jail for laughing!

Centurion: *in a completely casual tone* I deeply sorry sir but as of late there has been a zero tolerance policy throughout the city, orders say we MUST make an immediate arrest and put you through the identification process.

Hades: *still as an old crone clicks heels and walks away to sight see*

*later*

Mortus: *looming in the dark corner of the interrogation room, walks slowly to the table and slams his fist*.....where were you on the day of the Coliseum's destruction... And if you weren't there where were you on the day of its reopening?

An innocent bean farmer: *shaking in fear* ugh....in my field sir?

Mortus: *glares at the farmer*

A Centurion: *walks in the room* Sir! We have more prisoners! I think you maybe interested in these two.

Mortus: *slowly turns around* ......if this is another dead end.... you're joining the rest of the scum at the crucifixion field.

A Centurion: *gulps* ....y-yes sir.

Mortus: Bring them in...oh and release this one.

Bean Farmer: *just fucking bolts out of the room*

Mortus: .....

Centurion: *brings in Zeus, whom already looks a little claustrophobic in the already small room* There's a second one outside.

*outside*

Poseidon: *apparently has attracted the attention of many young beautiful women* Fear not Roman citizens! For I Po-*thinks of a name*...uhm...Paul.... understands your infatuation, but alas I am happily married, BUT let that not stop you from admiring my very being! *Tries to flex while handcuffed*

The small crowd of women: *swooned*

A Centurion: oh shut up.

*inside*

Mortus: *actually a little intimidated by Zeus and his stone cold resting death face*....Well now....you rather large for a shepard. Retired I suppose?

Zeus: ....no.

Mortus: Than what is your occupation?

Zeus: ......I do not think you have the jurisdiction to ask me.

Mortus: *getting angry* Where were you when the Coliseum was being destroyed!?

Zeus: .... Probably with your mother, who I would be certain would be very ashamed that her son has decided to harass the elderly.

Mortus: *steaming mad* YOU WILL ANSWER THE QUESTION!

Zeus: I want to speak with my lawyer.

Mortus: WHAT?!?

A Centurion: Um sir, we have a Mr-*looks at a crudly written card* Plutonium? He's a law maker and legally represents the detainee.

Mortus: *feeling a cold sweat as if the devil has entered the building, looks at Zeus*

Zeus: *smiling*

Mortus: ....bring him in.

Hades: *now looks more like a mortal version of himself but now carries a satchel* Good evening my name is Cryus Plutonium and I have heard my client and his brother have been unlawfully detained. *Places a scroll on the table* Sir if I may infer, I've been working several weeks in the law office and I have found no evidence of this new "Zero tolerance policy". So I do believe you have no legal right to detain and must release him-

Poseidon: *from outside* AND ME!

Hades: -and his brother.

Mortus: *stares in disbelief* ....what.

Hades: *slowly walks to Zeus and unbinds him*

Zeus: thank you.

Hades: Now. Let us l-*feels a sword near his next* ......

Mortus: *has just about snapped* .....I've been after you and your mutant kin for a whole year and three months.....you owe not just me....but you owe the empire....an explanation.

Hades: ............

Zeus: ...........*lifts a finger, shocks him and tases Mortus, knocking him cold* ................you know something.......I think I finally understand why the children hate this place.

Hades: *shakes his head, as the two leave they see poseidon just flexing for a small crowd while the Centurion who was gaurding him is tied to a support beam*

A Centurion: Please help me.

Zeus: *points and sarcastically smiles* No. *Walks to Poseidon and drags him* It's time to go.

Poseidon: Awww....but I was just getting the crowd warmed up!

Hades: Let's just say they'll be warmed up with a few weeks of heavy thunderstorms.

Poseidon: .....can there be earthqu-

Zeus: You may bury the lot.

Poseidon: *smiles* Huzzah!

Hades: Or....we can be a little less intrusive.

Zeus: Fine, I shall ask Odin if he wants to help.

Hades: Yes my thoughts exactly.

Zeus: *still angry until he sees Octavia and little Caius and suddenly feels a little odd*......Hades.

Hades: yes

Zeus: I understand you don't have children...but what are the chances that one of my sons may have left something behind.

Hades: *trying to understand what Zeus meant until he saw Caius* Hmm....oh come now you're not going to take the child away from. His mother....or..... fornicate with her.....are you?

Zeus: .....oh damn it all....we can't destroy this city........

Poseidon: *in a singsong tone* I can! *Suddenly a little rumble starts until Zeus bonks him on the head* ~°

Zeus: No....the city of Rome...if officially protected.

Hades: ........all this because there's a bastard grandson around here isn't it?

Zeus: Silence Hades. Look at him, not a care in the world. Enjoying his moments with his dear mother talking to Hera a-WHAT THE?!?!

Hades: Wait Hera is here??

Poseidon: *rubbing his head* Hey look! It's Amphitrite too!

Hera: *talking to Octavia* Oh yes, married life is great but have you ever considered divorce?

Octavia: Oh heavens no, even though my husband has been rather distent. I'm positive he isn't in an adulterous relationship. That's punishable but crucifixion here.

Amphitrite: Well yes darling, for the WOMEN, men here get away with it scot-free.

Octavia: Oh heavens no.

Caius: *squirming a little*

Octavia: aww what the matter deary.

Hera: *knotices that Caius has few enough features of Zeus to be related but not directly enough to be his son* Aw what an adorable little baby boy. Who's the father?

Octavia: oh I'm happily married to General Mortus Biccus.

Hera: hmm....

Zeus: Oh there you are my beautiful, wonderful and not here to make sure I'm cheating on her wife! *Grits teeth* what are you doing here?!

Hera: ....I was wondering the same thing. I'm here shopping for some exotic fruits.

Amphitrite: *shows her basket of bananas*

Zeus: Oh.

Poseidon: *enthralled by the bananas* ohhhh.....

Hades: Well....I guess we can all go home then.

Octavia: Oh my! This must be your husband. You must be very lucky to have married such a big strong man.

Hera: *unamused* I am so blessed.

Zeus: *puts his arm around her* not as blessed as I am to be married to her.

Octavia: aww.

Caius: *kinda happy sensing he's found grandma and grandpa* c:

Zeus: *now getting a closer look, the baby literally looks like a spitting image of Hermes* oh my.

Mortus: THERE YOU ARE! *huffing and puffing from running* You are all under arrest!

Octavia: Oh Mortus, don't be so rude to these fine people they have done nothing wrong.

Mortus: This man shot LIGHTNING out of his finger! And that one *points to Hades* is...well he's just scary and THAT one is just annoying! *points to Poseidon*

Poseidon and Amphitrite: *sharing a banana and suddenly stop* hmf?

Mortus: These men are connected to the destruction of the coliseum last year and the disappearance of Gaius!

Zeus: ....Oh! You mean my sons? Oh yes they're actually harmless. You see, they're traveling magicians and they perform fantastic illusions!

Mortus: NO! FUCK YPU OLD MAN! I know what the people saw! Clearly something is going on! ...my suspensions are...that you...and your cohorts.....are demons!

Octavia: Mortus!

Caius: :c

Zeus: ....oh that's rather rude.

Hera: Now hang on a minute. Let's prove our innocence.

Zeus: Hera what are you doing?

Hera: .....you know, the gods are technically innocent....and exempt from being accused of any crime.

Mortus: *tempted to mention Emperor Caligula and his recent campaign against Poseidon but decided not to*

Hera: ...so...if we were gods...we would be innocent.

Octavia: Hmm...she does have a point.

Mortus: What are you getting at?

Zeus: *deep sigh* Fine...I lied.....me...my lovely wife and my brothers....are all gods......I'm actually Zeus, she's Hera and so on and so forth. My sons are were Apollo, Hermes and Dionysus....you see....it's likely their fault for losing their tempers, I apologize for that too. And I apologize for shocking you but you did threaten to crucify me.

Mortus: ..........*starts laughing hysterically and has officially lost his mind*

Octavia: Oh dear. Let's go honey, I must apologize for my husband's behavior. He's been working day and night. Oh sweetheart let's go.

Caius: byebye c: *waves*

Mortus: *while laughing like a mad man* HAHAHAH wait! I HAVE to know this but IS Caius here yours?!? HAHAHAHA I mean, I don't have BALLS! HAHAHAHAHAHA *gets dragged back home*

Zeus: ......you didn't help with that last portion did you?

Hera: No. I figured a man who looked as pathetic and desperate like that probably was already at his wit's end.... Speaking of which is that child yours?

Zeus: hmm....

*back at Olypmus*

Zeus: *pulls the ears of Hermes and Dionysus*

Hera: *helping with the situation and pulls Apollo's and Ares's ear*

Zeus: You boys are forbidden from returning to Rome. And as for you Hermes....it's one thing frolicking with farm maidens with incompetent husbands....but a war general with no testicles?....shame on you.

Hermes: *knows what he's talking about*.....worth it. *Feeling his ear getting pulled* ow~°

[power-of-ages-writeblr]

Gods Don’t Die

(this is a piece I wrote on my old blog as part of a 50 followers celebration - tweaked and re-uploaded! :3)

-

-

“Gods don’t die.” He protested, no longer Aetius, nowhere near Zeus. “They-! They don’t!”

The nameless being before him only laughed.

o0O0o

“Gods don’t die” is something that the whole world believes. Humans and monsters and magical creatures, bound together by this one understanding; this one law of creation. You could destroy a god, tear up their essence, break them into a thousand tiny pieces and cast them into Tartarus – it would rid you of them, but it would not kill them. They would not die. They couldn’t.

The only ones who know differently are the gods themselves. They are not immortal, as is believed by the rest of the world. As they themselves had previously believed. No – they are each the latest in a long line, selected by chance beyond even the fates.

And just as their powers were once given, so too they must eventually be given away.

o0O0o

“Gods don’t die” becomes a mantra that each one repeats to themselves as time begins to run out. That belief, held by the entire rest of the world, is one that they force themselves to indulge in. They must fool themselves. They must block out the truth. Gods don’t die, they can’t, they mustn’t-!

They won’t.

o0O0o

Gods don’t die, they agree as they gather. They are sitting in their chambers on top of Mount Olympus, overlooking the wretched world, as they have always done. And they have a plan. Because somewhere down there are their successors. Still mortal, and still unknowingly awaiting their mantles and destinies. But if the Gods can take the initiative, and strike them down before that happens… they will not have to give it all up. They will not have to cede their thrones, nor their power, nor their identities – all that they have come to claim as their own, after so long.

“It is cruel.” Cautions Hestia.

“It is dishonourable.” Admits Ares.

“It is selfish.” Explains Dionysus.

“It is childish.” Chides Hera.

Of all of them, it is Hades who ultimately casts the deciding vote. Thanatos himself stands behind him and nods approval.

“There is nothing cruel or dishonourable or selfish or childish,” he says, “about not wanting to die.”

Nobody argues.

o0O0o

Gods don’t die, Demeter believes as she moves to bring about the destruction of the girl slated to succeed her seat of power. At the very least, she believes as such until the moment where the plants she had snaked around the mortal to crush her are blasted apart. Splinters fly. Leaves crumble into ash. Even as she watches, fresh greenery sprouts up around the girl – but their curls are protective, not constrictive, and the spears of thorns they form are pointed in Demeter’s direction. Faced with her own power, she feels vulnerable in a way she has not throughout her entire Godly existence. She feels vincible.

“You, girl.” She is forced to put effort into keeping the tremor out of her voice. “What is your name?”

The girl stands up straighter upon realising she is being addressed. The terror is still apparent in her eyes – being smote by a God is just about the worst fear of every mortal in the world. But she still holds her head high.

“Ianthe.” She says, boldly. “My name is Ianthe.”

It is at this moment that Demeter can see her successor’s spirit. The girl is young and strong, and so very afraid, but she is also idealistic. No weathering through age, no nagging belief that loss is inevitable. And Demeter herself realises the truth of her own existence. She is not infinite. Much like the plantlife that she knows so well, she is seasonal. She is clonal. And she is only prolonging the inevitable.

“No, it isn’t.” She responds.

o0O0o

“Gods don’t die” is a phrase that Athena is infinitely familiar with. She knows full well that it is a lie, as well as all that that lie entails – and that knowledge weighs on her as she fights. At least, she assumes it must be affecting her, or she would not be losing at all.

Her chosen “successor” is a mortal named Gaia (and she almost laughs at the irony of being named for one goddess and usurping another), who possesses none of the cool intellect or strategical knowledge that she does. Instead, she fights with her fists. And her legs. And occasionally her head. She’d initially struck Athena as the female counterpart of Ares, and her resolve to not lose her seat to this cretin had been strengthened.

And yet, trap after trap, and feint after strike after feint after strike, are all blown through as though they’re nothing. Athena uses every battle technique that she has been blessed with the knowledge of, and the girl breathes in and out and clenches her fists and outmanoeuvres her at every turn, almost as if by accident. She raises her shield, Aegis, and the mortal closes her eyes and leaps into the air and strikes the shield so hard that it buckles under the weight of her fist. Athena is thrown backwards by the weight of the strike, and rolls against the ground for a long time before coming to a stop, weapons and body both broken.

She opens her mouth to say something – to ask how – but the girl speaks first.

“Why?” She pleads, sounding so distraught and so horrified and so very mortal, even though she is something far beyond that now. “Why did you do this?”

Athena doesn’t know what to say.

“Why did you attack me?” The girl demands. “What did I do to you?”

It wasn’t what you did, Athena wants to say. It was what you were going to do. What you were going to become. But the words die in her throat as she considers them. War is many things. It is bloody. It is necessary. It takes and it takes and it takes, and it rocks the world. And so rarely is it righteous to anyone other than the aggressor. War is the home of courage and cowardice both, and all she has done today is fight to preserve herself – to remove someone else from the equation before they know that they are a part of it, all so that she may cling to what she knows.

If a goddess of war does not stop and ask why she is declaring it, Athena thinks as her vision darkens, then perhaps her title is best lost to her after all.

o0O0o

“Gods… don’t die.” Rasps Zeus, though his mortal wounds suggest otherwise.

Looking down on him, foot planted on his chest, is… some mortal. A young man called Theophrastus who has just inherited his parent’s farm, and never strove for anything more, never will strive for anything more, despite now possessing all the powers of the lord of the skies.

The farm is now embers around them, the flames and the heat long snuffed out by the rain.

Zeus tries to move, but cannot. It is clear what will happen next.

At least, he reckons to himself, he did not go quietly. The battle between Theophrastus and himself had lasted for two straight days. The lightning had split the sky open, and the thunder had shaken the earth. In the end, it had been an old war wound that had caused his downfall – his tendons had never been the same since Typhon, and his reflexes were not what they had once been. And, after so many hours of constant fighting, he had faltered, and been unable to avoid the final bolt of lightning that Theophrastus had hurled at his chest. And so, he had fallen.

He looks up at the sky, blinking, wishing that he could shield his eyes from the rain. At the end of all things, it is all just poetry on top of poetry. The universe emphasising over and over and over again that his time is over, that he is no longer fit to be himself. To be Zeus.

“If Gods don’t die,” Theophrastus asks coldly (his parents were inside the farmhouse when Zeus blew it to pieces), “then how have I killed you?”

It is suitable that as he dies, Zeus finally understands.

“You did not kill Zeus.” Says the old God remembering what his name had been so long ago. “You killed Aetius.”

o0O0o

“But… but Gods don’t die.” Stammers the young man at the foot of Hades’ throne.

Hades rises and removes his helm. “No,” he agrees, “they don’t.”

He throws it. It rolls down the steps in front of the throne, coming to a stop as the knees of his successor. The man can only look up at him in bewilderment.

Yes, Hades muses, there is nothing cruel or dishonourable or selfish or childish about a fear of death. But there is nothing about it that is anything other than futile, either. If there’s one thing that being lord of the Underworld has taught him, it is that your feelings for death are irrelevant. It will always claim you anyway.

And yet, it is not always the end of the story.

“Gods don’t die.” Says Hades, accepting his fate with a heavy breath and a light heart. “But Gods are not what you think.”

[notfeelingthyaster]

Imagine (based on the incomplete fanfic Son of the Underworld) (Son of Hades! Percy AU) (5/5) or (5/10)

Hey so, this is the last part of PJO - I follow into HOO, so before you read this, check on the masterpost - and read the warnings before proceeding :)) Good reading!

Annabeth comes to him, at the end of his fifteenth birthday party, and shows her Daedalus laptop. There's a document open in it, and it's labeled Achilles' Curse.

Percy doesn't read it - he hates reading, in any way or form or language - but she does, out loud.

"I'll think about it"

They have a year. Most of them, even those who aren't year-rounders, are going back to camp, to draw battle plans and stock on the armory.

He feels kinda selfish - for a whole five seconds before he remembers he'll probably die next summer, so he just shrugs it off - Percy deserves this year.

They all leave to go back to camp. Nico seems conflicted over something - but Perseus doesn't question it, there's enough bad blood between them.

Paola is really cool - and Sally really loves her. It's kind of bizarre at first, to see his Mom dating his teacher - and of a subject he hates - but Paola is calm and well-tempered and she laughs at his stupid ass jokes.

He visits Persephone afterward - and it really feels like he has three moms to fulfill his lack of a father - well, he is absolutely grateful for the women in his life.

Percy isn't truly in good terms with his father. The man doesn't really seem to care much for him as a person - he is much more of a trophy son.

Perseus loathes being a trophy son, but at least he has someone to help with his powers - not something a lot of half-bloods can claim.

So he goes back to school with Rachel, and they pretend everything is normal. He tells her about his quests - all three of them. He thinks she understands him better now.

He opens up to her. Tells her about Annabeth - the adrenaline-fueled kiss - and Rachel stops talking with him for a week.

She apologizes when she comes back. She needed to figure some things up - firstly, the redhead tells him she is probably asexual - and maybe aromantic too, but she is not certain because the internet wasn't really clear about that.

Then Rachel confesses that she is not jealous of him in a romantic way - she is envious of his friendship with Annabeth. Percy is her first genuine friend that really appreciates her.

This is the first grudge Perseus lets go for real before it even takes place - Rachel didn't leave him because of teenage drama, she ignored him out of confusion. Everyone is allowed space - he knows this better than anyone.

They don't kiss anymore. Not because Rachel doesn't like it - no, she is all for it - but because Percy is starting to think kisses should mean something - he is saving them.

They kiss once - when Rachel father calls for the first time this year - not to ask about her, but to tell Rachel he found this amazing all-girls school. To Percy, kisses mean comfort.

They cuddle a lot, though. These past few years of fear have made Percy very touch-starved.

It's sophomore year - and Percy is in five AP classes: Macroeconomics&Microeconomics, Statistics, Calculus AB, Physics 1, and Comparative Government and Politics.

He is planning on taking both AP Computer Science classes, Psychology, Physics 2, and Calculus BC next year; leaving only Electricity&Magnetism, Mechanics, Chemistry, and World History for his senior year.

If he lives, he is working on a tight schedule here. He doesn't know what he wants yet - and if he is in constant danger, it's already pretty lucky he can do high school - but probably something with Math.

Rachel says fourteen AP courses are ambitious - that he'll burn out. But math comes to him easily enough - it's in his blood.

She is also overworking: She is taking AP Environmental Studies, Art History, Drawing, 2-D Art and Design, and English Literature and Composition.

They complete each other. Rachel is planning on taking as many Art, History, and English courses as she can - he is taking as many Physics, Math, and Science as he can handle.

(She is also going to take on Japanese studies for some reason - probably for her GPA, but Perseus just teases her that she is getting too invested in anime)

Perseus doesn't care about languages anymore - the only languages that matter to him are C++ and JavaScript now.

They study together, they take naps together, they climb to the roof together, they flee school to visit Sally together - he is the Pinky to her Brain, the Scooby to her Shaggy, the Lois Lane to her Superman, the Robin to her Batman.

They look like troublemakers - They are honor roll students, but she is always with ripped pants dirty with paint, and he is always full of flowers everywhere, even in his muddy converses - a cliche to kill all cliches.

They're both nerds - he is the classic one, all polo shirts now, the first chair for every number-related class - and she is the artsy one - there's a brush behind her ear and her hair is so messy that half the time it covers her face.

Paola gifts him a pair of cheap frames without lenses once - saying it adds to the aesthetic - he totally uses them.

Persephone just makes him flower-crowns, and giggles when he matches them with his polo shirts.

When winter comes, he goes back to his hoodies and sweaters and gloves - to find out he doesn't miss them a lot.

Rachel introduces him to polaroids - and they look eerily pretty in the winter, her hair looking like blood spilling over the snow - and he loves it.

If he survives - he can feel Rachel slapping him - when he survives, his college credits will be remarkable. The idea of doing SATs makes him want to cry - reading always does - but he'll get somewhere good - he knows it. Perhaps Stanford. Or NYU. Or the dream of his life, MIT.

He is living his life to the fullest - he starts reading comic books, he gets really (really) into Tony Stark once Iron Man 1 comes out (even if he has to kill at least three monsters just to go to the movies), he plants trees and Rachel starts teaching him how to play her ukulele - but half his mind is still on the upcoming war.

Christmas vacation comes - and he goes to visit Camp Half-Blood, before heading back to his mom. It's quite memorable, if only by the fact that Nico Di Angelo freaking betrays him.

He tells Percy to come to the Winter Solstice with him. Most of the campers are not going - the war effort is in an all-time high - but Percy has never gone before. Hades will be there - it'll be great!

Perseus should absolutely be less surprised with the outcome - seeing that Nico is inviting him in Cabin 1, post-dinner, and they don't even stop to talk to Chiron about it.

But Percy goes. Because Percy wants to make amends.

There's no time to really talk to anyone. They travel in Blackjack for the Empire State Building - and it's fine.

They go up to Olympus, Nico shows him everything in the god's land, the temples are a work of art, if not kind of old, and the meeting is kind of okay, even if the gods are squabbling children.

Then the gods leave, and Perseus thinks they're leaving too.

"My father needs a word with you"

Perseus feels the betrayal claw on him. There are no shadows in the white hall, there's no way for him to escape. Nico looks apologetic - Percy wants to clock him in the face.

"He promised to tell me more about my mother" Nico pleads "He will tell me more about where I've come from. Please, Percy."

Nico is cute. He is, for a soon-to-be fourteen-year-old. But his pretty face and exquisite white eyes don't make him any less of a freaking liar. All his handsome male straight friends betray him - it's a worrying pattern now.

He muses for a second that they also all have a crush on Annabeth - gods, the blonde attract the worst types.

It's double-crossing - Percy ends up in an all-white cell that burns his retinas without any weapons because Zeus wants praise in the middle of this freaking war - doesn't matter if a hundred demigods die, if he only has the glory.

Nico ends up with barely any information - Zeus didn't promise anything. The god of the skies is a lying-ass motherfucker - literally.

And Zeus justifies it - He says Perseus is a criminal because he awakened Typhon. So Hephaestus issues a quest so he can save a hundred demigods, he destroys a powerful titan weapon of doom, and he is the villain? Sure, Jan.

Perseus writes this grudge in his heart - that's where trust will take you. To a cell. Betrayed by a "friend". Again.

He flinches when Nico comes into his cell, pins him to the wall and promptly begins to try and strangle him. He wants to melt in the boy's shadow - to go and never give him a chance to explain - but he looks so guilty Percy waits for his repentance.

The son of Zeus saves him, but Perseus is still pissed off. The god of thunder has threatened to kill him off at least two times now, what is to say he wouldn't have killed off Percy for the sake of glory?

He half hopes Zeus had killed him off. The war is close, too close - Nico wouldn't be the Prophecy's child. There would be no child. Olympus would fall - and Percy would have seen it all from his very comfortable couch in Elysium.

He wants Kronos gone - but he kind of wants Olympus to fall with the Titan.

Nico flies him down to the Earth - the elevator is monitored. Zeus has left, like many others - not to bother with the war effort against his main enemy, but to go to the human world mess with people.

Some gods are doing something - He has heard from Annabeth that Artemis is leading the widest hunt ever, with her brother by her side; Hermes (with Hephaestus help) is delivering Celestial Bronze, other metals, old schematics and a whole lot of fuel to Camp Half-Blood every few weeks; Poseidon is fighting his own war, in the ocean; Dionysus is at Camp - and this time, he is really helpful with the battle formations; Demeter is on the Underworld - Chiron seems to think his father is preparing for war, but Percy sorely doubts it.

Percy is taking some people with him to Sally's Christmas dinner. Just Annabeth, Clarisse, Rachel, Connor, Travis, and Charles - people who don't have a present family to celebrate it with.

Grover is coordinating the dryads up in San Francisco with his second cousin, Gleeson Hedge - they are the first to fall if anything goes wrong in Mt. Othrys.

"I think you should stay." He tells Nico.

"You don't trust me anymore." It's not actually a question.

Percy doesn't trust the boy. Not at all - it's the third time he does something shady to achieve his ends based on emotional turmoil. But he is a good person - it's just his father's cursed temper and his grief.

"It's not that. You're needed for the war effort."

Both of them know it's a lie. Percy doesn't care - he deserves to be bitter a little longer.

Percy goes back home. Christmas is amazing - even if Rachel asks him where Nico is because he is talking about making amends with the boy for a while now.

He goes visit Persephone - but she is occupied, so he wanders through the Underworld after Bianca di Angelo - someone he, for some reason, never been able to reach. It's a pointless endeavor by now.

He finds her. Or else, he finds a shadow of her - she is blocked from his view. Bianca doesn't talk to him - they weren't close - but she guides him to a girl.

Her name is Hazel Levesque.

She seems lost - like most ghosts - but something in Percy calls for her. It's the color of her skin and the sparkle in her golden eyes - Hazel remembers him of himself.

He promises to visit more - even though he doesn't think she'll remember it - and leaves to go back to the surface - he will finish the sophomore year.

And Percy does. After a very distressing break, he is doing his best. His grades drop a little in English because he can barely focus - half his mind is on the war and Nico's betrayal and Hazel Levesque's golden eyes.

Miraculously, his GPA doesn't fall - he still is taking a ridiculous amount of AP classes, and barely has time to breathe - dark circles grow under his eyes, and he looks like a mess - but now he is a Junior.

That's why, as soon as the year ends, Rachel takes him on a road trip with Connor. They go all the way to Boston, then Portland, Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, Syracuse, Baltimore, and Filadelfia, before going back to NY.

They are stopped five times by the police - because Percy is black, and it's Rachel driving the Camaro, because she has a learner's permit and Connor is, somehow, an approved license holder.

They are on a pier, enjoying the view of the beach. They did the last week alone because Connor wanted to go check on one of his cousins - at least, that's what he said, with an over-exaggerated wink that both Percy and Rachel ignored for the sake of their sanity.

She tells him about Clarion Ladies Academy - but that her father is at least mildly happy with her GPA this year, even if he disapproves of her Art focused AP classes. Percy thinks Mr. Dare would love him, with his APs on Economics and Politics, if only he was rich. And white.

This time, when Charles Beckendorf arrives in a Pegasus to tell him it's time, Rachel doesn't kiss him - she justs hugs him and makes him promise to call her.

Perseus doesn't go to the Andromeda Ship - he is needed in Camp. He is useless on the water - but they do need him to improve battle strategy.

Charles Beckendorf is dead. Thalia is the one to tell them - she was in her father's palace helping with a monster under her Lady's orders - he went on the mission alone.

Percy talks briefly with Beckendorf's ghost - is his worst developed power, and he can barely hold the "seance" for more than a few minutes. He does it with only Nico di Angelo for witness - the others are the way to close to the situation.

There's a spy passing information to Luke.

They look at him. Doesn't matter how much he does, he is always the first suspect - he is a son of Hades. He was friends with a lot of people on the other side. He was gone for a year and a half, who knows where.

Perseus wants to say that he has helped to save their asses four times now - that without him in the Labyrinth, they would all be dead right now - and that Charles was basically his older brother.

Then he points out he wasn't even here - he had no idea of any plans of anything - and he told him about the spy, so he is not the freaking spy, go point fingers at each other instead of him.

When they start yelling, he stops them - this is not the time, he was just angry at their accusations. They have to burn Charles shroud. Silena is inconsolable - Percy is not very far from it, but he is not a public crier. The last time he cried in public, Luke was dead on a cliff.

Percy speeds up the line for Elysium to Beckendorf - his brother deserves it.

They read the prophecy together - Perseus already read it last summer, he doesn't even care anymore. They look at him anxiously - no one has forgotten that he abhors most of the gods.

Clarisse and Michael Yew fight, but Lee Fletcher - with a mechanical arm built by Beckendorf himself, still re-learning how to shoot arrows and forever incapable of playing the guitar again (but the keyboard is not ruled out yet) - stops them: They can share the chariot. The war is more important - is not the time for petty fights.

Chiron shows them Typhon - and Perseus has a sliver of hope that they can destroy Kronos and be free of the gods at the same time - It's a horrible hope, because he loves Persephone and some of them are even okay sometimes, but he really wants Zeus to go to Tartarus for at least a century, so Perseus doesn't meet him again in this life.

But he also wants the gods to win, because there's a lot of dead people - innocents, people who have nothing to do with this war.

He dreams of Rachel. Rachel is painting Luke - and Percy wakes up crying, for the boy the gods took away.

Annabeth takes him aside and reminds him of Achilles' Curse. He is off to May Castellan's house - the last place Luke has been - for it's his best and only chance, its what Annie thinks. And she is scarcely wrong.

Perseus hates the gods. They wrecked a family - and for what? May Castellan - forever waiting for a son that will never come back, haunted by visions of his future, plates of burned cookies everywhere.

Perseus doesn't pity her - he rages against the gods, who brought madness upon this woman and then left her to it. Where was Apollo, the god of health? Dionysus, who is supposed to control mental health? Artemis, whose job is to protect women?

Hestia is kind - but she is still a goddess. She could've prevented this - but she hides in her hearth and abstains - and that's enabling. Hestia enables the other gods to do as they please, even when she is the oldest. She says they ignore her - oh well, she ignores them right back! He has no time for the laments of another all-powerful being.

So he goes to his mother and asks for her blessing. Then, just to be sure, he asks Persephone's too.

He thinks about his anchor - where does he want it to be in his body. He doesn't want somewhere in his back - where he can't see it - or in his gut - where anyone can stick a sword. He settles for the bottom of his back - where he can at least touch it and it's well protected by armor - and dives.

Perseus hates water - and he has an uncanny fear of drowning. He feels pain - everywhere, horrible pain.

His vision now doesn't have Annabeth's face - the blonde is his link to the demigod world, Persephone is his link to the Underworld and his mom is his link to childhood - but the person who grounds him is Rachel.

He is stronger. He feel his powers at his fingertips - Perseus feels the Underworld as a whole, and it's overwhelming.

Green flames explode from his hands. Flowers made of shadows curve around his ankles - he has been training since he was 12, but now his body can sustain all of his power. This is all his.

He goes meet with his father - Perseus manipulates him. He tells Hades he'll be the hero, but the god himself can be praised for more than being his father. That he should join the battle against Typhon - That's his chance of proving himself. Also, there's less paperwork for him if there are fewer dead people.

His father is amused with his blatant bribing, but he thinks about it, Percy can tell. In a way or another, he excuses himself and goes back to the surface where he is needed.

Persephone stalls him. She asks him to stay, just for this night. He can go back in the morning - he sleeps, and dreams of Rachel again, drawing in the sand. In greek.

He is scared for her - she is having demigod dreams, but she is mortal. Something is wrong.

Typhon is getting worse - and Kronos draws closer to NYC. It's time - he calls for Blackjack and leaves - Mrs. O'Leary, who has become more or less of a mother to his own hellhound, follows. Persephone promises to convince Hades.

They have about sixty campers able to fight heading for the Empire State Building, and five healers. The ones too young to lift a sword or string a bow stayed back at Camp with Argus - fifteen children between 5 and 9 years old.

Percy knows he looks different - he looks just like his father. He has gained a godly aura - he has no scars anymore, no imperfections. Perseus looms over all of them - he went from 5'7'' to 6'2'' - it's a weird view, from up there. It's still strange when they look at him with a mix of fear and admiration.

Perseus Jackson is officially their leader. He hates Olympus - but he will give his life to defend every single one of his demigods.

The vision Hestia shows him just makes him want to tear this throne room with his bare hands - Luke was a kid. He was a kid - and the gods corrupted him. Thalia was a kid - and the gods took her life, twice. Annabeth is still a kid - they all are - and she is here planning battle strategies.

Annabeth missed an extra year of formal education - while Percy is a Junior, Annabeth barely qualifies for a Freshman - because the gods took this from her too.

Percy rages. The ground of Olympus trembles beneath him - he wants to kill something.

Then Hermes appears - like this whole war is not his fault in the first place, the literal bastard - just to relay a message from Athena that gives them a plan that Annabeth was already putting into works and tells Percy to stay away from Annabeth.

Like she cares. Like Athena has ever, ever, done anything for Annabeth.

Perseus can't punch Athena, so he punches the messager (also, because he freaking guilt trips both of them about Luke). He has nothing to lose - he is going to die by the end of the day anyway, and they need him too much.

He has punched a god before - Ares, in a desert in the middle of Los Angeles - but this time, it's satisfactory. He feels good after it.

Hermes seems strangely resigned - He feels guilty about Luke too, but Perseus doesn't think it's enough. It'll never be enough, not while the gods leave their children to rot in a cabin of rejects and May Castellan bakes cookies for a son that will never come back.

Hermes leaves, ashamed. It's only fair, Perseus thinks. They all should be ashamed.

They see the city asleep - the prophecy is in the works.

Perseus executes their strategy - every cabin is covering a tunnel, with the exception of Dionysus, because Pollux is with the Demeter kids, and the Hecate kids stay behind to use spells to overlook the city. Lincoln Tunnel is getting covered by Ares - who, this time around, is actively participating.

The undetermined who didn't desert are with Hermes - and the minor god's children are divided by specialty - most Hypnos and Morpheus children follow him directly, but the two sons of Iris go with the Apollo Cabin.

Annabeth executes Plan 23, automatons, mounting on Mrs. O'Leary (who has strict orders to take Annabeth anywhere she wants without stopping to play around) - she doesn't need his help with this, and Percy has a tunnel to defend.

That left the rivers uncovered - until Thalia appears, with magical sand money, and made the rivers cooperate.

The hunters join the Aphrodite kids - who are half a dozen children between 11 and 19 - the oldest being Silena Beauregard, who uses a crossbow that looks exactly like her immortal half-brother's one.

His bridge is completely covered on skeletons - but no monster comes, even if he hears explosions. He leaves an English Lieutenant from the Battle of Yorktown in command of the bridge - with Tyene, the oldest daughter of Morpheus, to be in alert and don't let Clovis sleep through the battle. Because he did it before - and while it is funny, it can't happen right now.

Perseus mounts Blackjack - and go see where the noise is coming from. It's the Williamsburg Bridge - where are most of Apollo's Cabin.

They fight - and Percy almost cries when he sees Luke, who is not Luke anymore. Luke, who is a puppet controlled by Kronos.

Perseus kills the Minotaur and the weight of his stone spikes collapse the bridge - and Michael Yew dies. This time around, the bridge falls silently into shadows, and he doesn't bother about searching for the corpse - he saw the boy falling, and his screams will haunt all of them, forever.

This time around, Annabeth is not there to protect him - Ethan also doesn't try to kill him. The Son of Nemesis doesn't leave Kronos side for a second - but there's regret in his eyes.

After the bloodlust is gone, Perseus collapses - Will has to bride carry him back. Overuse of his powers - he summoned skeletons and produced shadows, melted enemy swords (with the bonus of incapacitating them without killing), and sprouted stone spikes everywhere - there's even a vine or ten that he used to hold his friends from falling.

Perseus doesn't sleep quickly enough to not hear the yell of anguish that comes from Lee Fletcher - the pain of losing a brother and not being able to fight beside him.

But he does sleep - and he dreams. He dreams of Hades killing Maria Di Angelo, not Hera, like Zeus told Nico. He dreams of Zeus cursing the Oracle - and he seethes, because he also sees what happened to May Castellan.

He keeps getting angrier and angrier at the gods - it's building inside of him. But his friends are still here, still fragile. He can't let them suffer more.

Perseus wakes up, checks on everyone - most everyone is either injured and/or exhausted, but he checks on every camper. He knows all of their names, their ages, their cabins. - and promises to sit up to talk with Thalia and Nico - war makes him prone to peace - and promptly goes back to sleep.

He dreams of Rachel. He wants to scream for her not to come: but she'll anyway.

Perseus dreams of a boy. He is his age - maybe a little younger. His hair is blonde and his skin is whiter - but Percy glances at his eyes, and there are waves in them.

There's a girl by his side - she is familiar to Percy, somehow. They're climbing a mountain.

The dream ends and Percy can't make heads or tails of it. He asks Thalia if she has a brother, but she says that she doesn't, looking wistful.

Prometheus is tempting - but he knows there's no Luke anymore, there's only Kronos. And the gods are horrible, vile and immature - but they never killed any of Percy's friends. Some of them died for the gods - but never by their hands, so for now, Perseus would toe the line.

He does want to punch Hermes again. He takes the Pythos - if everything goes wrong, he will not hesitate in going down for the sake of his friends - but there have been six deaths, and it's enough.

"Was it worth it?" He asks Ethan.

"Alabaster is alive" And it's all the answer Percy needs.

He dreams of Ethan and Alabaster. Alabaster is alive, yes, but he is missing half a leg - courtesy of Clarisse herself. Luke - Kronos - is indifferent, and Ethan curses the daughter of Ares - "The sword that took from us will take from you"

He contains Hyperion with his shadows. Then he helps Grover (who was half asleep, because of Morpheus) to make the Titan into a tree. It's a pomegranate tree - then he sets hellish fire to it and sacrifices it to Hades and Persephone.

A pig is in the sky - this time around, Annabeth and her frightening army of automatons kill it with Nico's help.

Perseus laughs - because Annabeth has about two hundred automatons under her command, Martin Luther King and Alexander Hamilton leading the charge with a giant bull being ridden by the Mad Hatter behind them.

It's weird to see historic figures Percy admires - like Jane Bolin, Sylvia Mendez, or Abraham Lincoln - fighting alongside people he downright despises - Thomas Jefferson and the goatfucker, herpes-ridden, Colombus. His Comparative Government teacher would have a field day.

Annabeth and Nico's pair up is amazing - They fight alongside like they have been doing it all life.

Nico is a force of nature, flying and commanding the winds to do his bidding - His eyes shine in the midst of the stormy clouds. His specialty is weather manipulation - he hasn't had much success with direct energy or electric discharges.

Annabeth has her mother's tenacity for war - and her clever mind for strategies. It's clear in her eyes - she is racking the weaker points of the Clazmonian Sow in her mind and destroying it. The automatons hold the pig in place - and she makes bacon of it.

Hercules couldn't do it. Nico and Annabeth can, because they have the power and the mind.

Perseus is still fighting off monsters - but they're too widespread, so they retreat to the doors of the Empire State Building.

Percy does a mental tally: of sixty-two campers, six are confirmed dead, twenty are injured and nine are out of commission on exhaustion. There should be 27 orange shirts here - but there's only twenty.

Percy wonders if the seven missing are injured, or dead, or under a pile of rubble somewhere with no one to help them. Is there someone being slowly eaten by monsters? Is there someone alone and injured and abandoned? He doesn't know.

He prays that those seven deserted them - at least that means they probably are alive and well.

Perseus looks at Phoebe's grief-stricken face, and he knows it's not probable - she had almost three dozen hunters with her, and now there's barely fifteen still fighting, Thalia nowhere to be seen.

They prepare for their last standing - Percy keeps conjuring skeletons, but they're no match for the sheer strength of the hyperborean giants. Nico is shoulder to shoulder with the Stoll brothers against a group of telkhines - Clarisse is bringing down a whole giant by herself.

After the Party Ponies save them - Chiron leads the charge against his own father, and Perseus is so proud of his mentor he can't even put in words how much - he goes to sleep. Fighting gets him tired quickly, and they'll come back.

He dreams of Dionysus. Perseus is not fond of any god who is not Persephone, but Dionysus is mostly okay sometimes. He seems to care about his children.

Perseus couldn't care less about the Western Civilization - but he'll care for Pollux. It's one of his demigods, after all, and Underworld people are possessive of theirs (i.e. Hades and Persephone).

He dreams of Thalia, in her father's palace, begging Poseidon to leave the underwater war and help with the invasion - His wife is none too happy with the presence of his immortal bastard daughter.

He wakes up to Rachel's helicopter falling - how is Rachel even awake, is a mistery.

The improbable pair Nico and Annabeth strike again: The girl knows how to fly helicopters, and the boy can fly himself. They save the redhead and the pilot - everything is fine.

"You're not the hero"

"Why did you risk yourself to tell me something I already know?"

Rachel doesn't explain - she can't. But she has a vision that says that he is not the hero. The hero of what? Perseus has no idea. But there's no way any of his cousins is dying for this stupid prophecy.

Suddenly, there's a drakon there. Rachel has another prophecy - Perseus fears she will walk the path that led May Castellan to destruction - that only a child of Ares will be able to kill it.

Bad news: All children of Ares are otherwise out of battle.

Clarisse is resting after a nasty concussion - and her brothers and Apollo's children are fighting yet again because Lee Fletcher is in no condition to stop them and Michael Yew is dead. Ares' side refuses to fight without the chariot - which Cabin 7 has hidden somewhere.

The best they can do is fend the drakon off until a miracle occurs. And it does: Clarisse, in full armor, manages to lead her brothers into battle.

Clarisse is dead. Something shatters inside of Perseus - and he leaves the drakon for the Ares' children to solve - he can't kill it anyway - and starts to vaporize the army behind it.

He is so caught up in bloodlust, that he almost misses Clarisse slaying a dragon. Clarisse, who has no armor. Clarisse, who is alive.

Ethan's curse rang true - Clarisse's weapon took something from her.

Silena is a traitor. She is also dead - which makes her a martyr, and probably going to reunite with her boyfriend in Elysium.

He remembers how easy is to fall for Luke's charm - he was - is - still in love with the guy. Percy thought the son of Hermes could do no wrong - and he wonders how much of his rage against the gods sprout from his influence.

Something evil inside of Perseus's mind tells him she deserved it. It tells Perseus that better her than Clarisse - but he shuts it down, and concentrates on his shining red friends.

He hates Ares. But he might just have an okay side if he can produce such a magnificent daughter.

Silena is the Patroclus to Clarisse's Achilles, and the Drakon is Hector - and the daughter of Ares is sure to parade its dead body.

It's the first time they feel like they are winning. It doesn't last - but as he hugs Clarisse tightly, he thinks he might cry of relief.

Clarisse looks tough - but she is a wonderful human being. She loves Silena with her whole heart - even more than she loves Chris, her best friend. Silena might've been in love with Charles - but she and Clarisse? They are soulmates.

The damned Pythos is following Perseus - and he is done with it. He knows where hope will survive best. Rachel wants him to give it to Hestia - but he owns the fire goddess nothing.

She has never interfered, not once, to help the dozens of demigods with no family that is abandoned in Cabin 11, and he won't forgive her for it.

He sacrifices hope to Persephone because that's what spring is. Spring is the hope of a new life. Maybe, Perseus thinks, it'll convince his father to come.

They go down to make their final stand against the forces of Kronos. There's not a lot of them - but they're not getting through those doors.

Well, his father doesn't come. But Poseidon does, with his whole army, Tyson and Thalia behind him, and the scales seem to turn.

And then Kronos cuts the barrier. Perseus can see his Mom (why is his Mom here with a handgun?!) and Poseidon fighting against the monsters under the eyes of extremely confused mortals.

Some are trying to break the barrier - but it's futile. Kronos has corraled them like sheep for the slaughter.

It's just him, Grover, Annabeth and Nico, fighting against Kronos vanguard - which is big, but not as strong as they are.

Kronos passes him without resistance - Ethan follows, but there's anger in his eyes - not for Percy, but for the monster he is leashed to. Alabaster is not there.

As soon as Kronos powers stop working on them, the four follow the titan - and some things never change, no matter the universe.

This time, it's Nico who falls because of Hera - it's her curse over all of her husband's bastards.

Ethan takes one look at Perseus, and they don't even need to fight. They have been friends for longer than they have been enemies - and they both loathe the gods, but Kronos is as much of an all-powerful controller being as any of the Olympians.

They battle against Kronos - Perseus has only his ax against his scyther - a true Underworld fight.

Ethan dies. And Perseus bloodlust consumes him - it clouds his eyes and he can only keep fighting.

"If... if we've had cabins... and they had thrones"

It's true, and more than ever, Perseus wishes Kronos wasn't such a bastard. He wouldn't bother killing the gods - but the titan is a way worse option.

"LUKE, PLEASE" It's Annabeth. He doesn't have her faith - she didn't saw his transformation. But he tries anyway because he loves Luke just as much as he hates Kronos.

"Luke, remember our summer" But his words are caught up in his throat when the titan throws him against the wall.

But the amalgamation of his friend and an all-powerful being looks confused, so props for his genius best friend.

Kronos shows them a rainbow message of Typhon - and that's where Perseus it's pretty sure he starts liking his father.

Because the Lord of the Dead opens up the earth and gets out in a black chariot guided by skeletal horses like a king. By his right side, is Persephone, in armor battle as a queen should be. By his left, is Demeter, who looks every single bit like the matron she is supposed to be.

Behind him, a hundred thousand dead roars. Charon is mounting Cerberus - and literal hell is unleashed upon the Father of Monsters.

The gods strike down Typhon, sending him back to be locked away - this time, in the depths of Tartarus instead of Mount Etna.

Kronos gets mad. Utterly, undoubtedly mad. He talks about burning Luke's body. Then he hurts Annabeth and breaks two promises in one fell swoop.

"Luke.... remember family" It's what Annabeth utters, but Perseus, already certain of their own demise, is crying now.

"That summer Luke, you promised to never hurt her again. You remember it? YOU PROMISED LUKE!!"

Annabeth's promise was already broken - he had hurt her, all those years ago, in Mt. Othrys. But the promise he made to Percy - that he would never hurt her again - is new and broken, in the river Styx no less.

Luke regains his own body, for a minute, and Perseus runs to him like a man in a desert with no water.

"Please, please tell me there's a way to undo this, Luke, please, please"

"There isn't one, Percy" And it's the first time he hears Luke call him Percy, Percy and not Perseus, in his own voice, in two years. Percy cries.

"We... we don't have much time, hellebore. Give me Annabeth's dagger. Before he... before he takes back"

Luke calls him hellebore and it makes him start crying all over again. He gives him the dagger - and Luke kills himself, taking Kronos out with him.

Luke doesn't need to ask if Percy has ever loved him - Percy kept loving Luke, one-sided as it was, even when Kronos was there.

He still crying over Luke's body when the gods arrive. Luke is dead. Ethan is dead. Silena is dead. Michael Yew is dead. Charles is dead.

He lost three of his best friends in two days. Ethan is dead. Luke is dead. Luke is dead.

Perseus can't stop crying. They take Luke's body away - but he can't stop. Annabeth explains what happened to the gods - most of it, anyway. Apollo says he is in shock - his father says he is a hero.

Perseus doesn't feel like a hero. Was this all worth it? Was it worth it the pain and the death and the suffering?

Persephone touches him - and he has no tears to cry anymore. She can't hug him here, but she'll do so later.

He stares at the walls, listening to his friends being awarded - compensated by their siblings and friends' deaths - with a blank stare. Perseus wants his mom.

They call for him. He raised his head but doesn't bother getting up. He just saved their asses - for the fifth time in a roll. He deserves to grieve.

They offer him immortality. A place between the gods.

He laughs. Zeus looks murderous, but he can't stop laughing.

"My apologies, but I have to refuse," he says. But in his mind, he is thinking about how could they even think he might want to sit between them and be an all-powerful being, be another god ignoring his children and messing with mortal lives while thousands die for him.

"Promise me, on the river Styx, that you'll give me the wish that I want."

They promise him, that if it's within their capabilities, they shall grant him his wish.

"I wish for every child at the age of twelve to be claimed. I wish for cabins in Camp Half-Blood, for every single minor god, and my own father. I wish for Calypso to be free, and to the demigods from the opposite side of this war to be given amnesty. It's not their fault. It's not any of our faults."

"You dare to-" Zeus begins, but Percy is really tired of Zeus.

"We fought your war, we won your battles. We, the unclaimed and rejected stowaways of Cabin 11. We, the children of minor and Underworld gods. We deserve respect. Just like my father deserves a throne, just like the minor gods deserve justice."

"Don't you fear us?" Athena asks, something weird shining in her eyes.

"I thought I would be dead today. At least if I die now, I'm dying for something I believe in."

It stays unsaid that he doesn't believe in them. The other demigods look at him worried - but he is not afraid of the gods.

They grant his wish. Some of them aren't happy with it, but they have to do it. He meets Calypso at the front gates of Olympus - and her smile can brighten the pits of Tartarus. He sees Alabaster talking with Lou Ellen - they are both crying.

He thinks it's the end - it's not. Thalia tells him Rachel left for Camp in her Pegasus - and his father has lift the curse, the Prophecy is gone, but he fears for his best friend.

Perseus is too tired for shadow travel - he does it anyway. He flickers, but anyway, he is too late.

It works. Rachel - his best friend - is the new Oracle. Someone jokes they can't be together anymore and Rachel lifts an eyebrow.

"We never were. Didn't you see the last few hours?" Well, he did out himself. Mostly - they might say it's just friendship, and he will hate the way they twist it. Luke wasn't a villain, and Perseus isn't a pure hero with a heart of gold.

Perseus is healing from lost love - and Annabeth is too. His crush on her was only a crush, he thinks - She is his best friend first and foremost. They cry together at the bonfire that burns away the shrouds of 43 demigods - from both sides - and 16 hunters of Artemis. Their souls all rest in Elysium now.

Alabaster comes back to Camp and helps his siblings to build the new Cabin for Hecate, full of spelled blocks and magic chimneys. Clovis and Tyene have their hands full with their own cabins - it doesn't help they keep getting sidetracked with naps.

Somehow, Nico, Thalia, and his bond over helping construct Cabin 13 - They are both way too invested in the goth vibe, mostly because Cabin 1 looks like a temple, and Cabin 3 looks like a beach cabin. And both of them are so over it.

Perseus doesn't want a goth cabin - he is fighting against the aesthetic for years - but sometimes, there are no arguments. His Cabin is made of black marble, and there are skulls everywhere, with torches shining with green fire. Outside, at least. Inside, it looks like Persephone's garden, with input from the queen herself. It's ready just shy of the end of summer vacation.

Rachel tells the next Great Prophecy. Perseus isn't such a positive person to think it won't affect him - he hopes at least it'll wait until he is done with High School.

That night, he dreams of the blonde boy again - it's his first night without nightmares since the battle. He has a scar in his lip, and his green eyes pierce Percy's soul. Perseus wonders if they'll ever meet, wonders if this boy is one of the Seven of the Prophecy.

But alas, Perseus lets it go. The summer is over - he is sixteen, somehow. He is alive and going to go back to his mortal life and his junior year, and grief. Not everything is fine - but eventually, it will be.

It's not the end. Not yet.