#I would never treat my lovers poorly APOLLO

[metaphorical-goblin]

WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME HOW MUCH I WAS GOING TO LOVE KLAVIER

I can just see this spunky little kid, all cocky and ready to win, heading into Prosecutor Edgeworth’s office for some advice, and then he just bonks him over the head with a file. “The defendant is clearly innocent. Expose the truth.”

But he doesn’t WANNA EXPOSE THE TRUTH, he wants to WIN so he can PROVE he’s a great prosecutor like his BROTHER EXPECTS HIM TO BE, and all the prosecutors should win, and he’s already won *so many cases—*

The slow mentorship and friendship and becoming a better prosecutor because of it

(Also he’s just… so fancy! And Apollo, /oh,/ my darling Apollo, my sun and stars Apollo, I LOVE THIS GAME SO MUCH)

[returnatdawn]

Apollo and Overcoming Guilt

I was looking through my Hidden Oracle highlights and found this:

I sang of my failures, my eternal heartbreak and loneliness. I was the worst of the gods, the most guilt-ridden and unfocused. I couldn’t commit myself to one lover. I couldn’t even choose what to be the god of. I kept shifting from one skill to another—distracted and dissatisfied.

I find it interesting that Apollo admits that he’s ‘guilt-ridden’. It’s like he already had an awareness of his human conscience before he was even turned into a mortal. I would imagine being immortal sort of allows his negative emotions to fester since there’s basically no deadline for when he needs to ‘sort himself out’. And because he’s physically detached from the people he’s wronged, he never had to deal with any of the consequences. So he lets the guilt sit at the back of his head, never acknowledged but never forgotten.

Fast forward to the present where he’s mortal, stripped away from the protections that immortality had provided him. Throughout the series, his guilt crashes down upon him all at once, brought to the forefront of his awareness. He is now living among the people who he had wronged, both intentionally and unintentionally. His children, who he had neglected, are an example of this. Apollo knows he treated them poorly, and you can see how this becomes an insecurity for him. But despite their uncertainty and wariness, they treat him with compassion. Apollo doesn’t think he deserves their kindness, but he very quickly comes to care about his children, and even risks his life for them, showing despite how selfish he was before, he has the capacity to become selfless within a short period of time. (why this change happens so fast is another separate topic that I’m not going to go into here...)

This leads me to Apollo’s conversation with Percy and Rachel about saving Meg after her betrayal towards the end of the book:

Rachel put her hand over mine. “Things can turn out differently, Apollo. That’s the nice thing about being human. We only have one life, but we can choose what kind of story it’s going to be.

Rachel tells Apollo that humans can choose their own story and that “things can turn out differently”, implying that they are capable of change. That Meg is capable of change. And that they can choose to make change happen. Apollo, deep down, believes that too (or at that point wants to believe that of Meg, as the fear of betrayal is still there). And although he doesn’t realise this then, Meg and him are more similar than he thinks (which is revealed in the following books). So if Meg can change her story, why can’t he?

Although Apollo doesn’t directly reflect on Rachel’s words in the book, I believe it is significant in Apollo’s arc. After all, the first step to overcoming guilt is believing in your capacity to change, and trusting that you are a different person than you were before. Apollo still grapples with this throughout the series, but we do see him realising this in Tyrant’s Tomb during his confrontation with Harpocrates. He treated Harpocrates horribly and he realises that now, but despite how much he believes he should be punished by the silent god, he knows that he needs to convince him to help them for the sake of the greater good. And how does he convince him? By proving his transformation.

All right! I pleaded. Kill me if you must. But I am sorry! I have changed!

At the very least, I had managed to surprise him. He had not been expecting regret or shame from me.

In all their memories, I looked so human…but in the best possible ways. Without words, my friends asked Harpocrates if I was still the person he hated so much.

This is partly why I find Apollo such a great and unique character! He’s someone who’s messed up so badly that there’s basically no righting his wrongs, but is able to overcome his guilt and grow into a better person; I think that is something that all of us can relate to at least on some degree.

[sunflowerbloomss]

actually i'm not finished i really mean it when i say the longer i think about it the worse it seems. for a few reasons:

1. i think that by far out of all the pjo characters nico is the one that was through the most (except hazel and meg). he really does not need any more trauma. i love this boy with my whole heart but that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that this boy was through enough already. outing is a traumatizing experience for people who are NOT traumatized heroes abused by gods, so really, why. why the fuck is that a good idea.

2. IT DOES NOTHING TO THE PLOT?????? his outing is used as a plot device but it's done so poorly that you can replace it with jason confessing a childhood crush or whatever and it would have the same impact. if you're really dying for eros to make nico say something about his sexuality make him give nico the thing they were after and make jason ask if there's anything he wants in return and make eros look at nico and say "the son of hades knows what i believe he should do when he's ready" and leave the choice to nico. OR any other character could go to eros with jason. like really it has no impact on the plot nico could've come out later and on his own terms and we could avoid this stupid scene.

3. it's the god of EROTIC love that's messing up with nico. with the straight characters it's always aphrodite, but with nico it's eros. (also apollo, bisexual, mentions eros when it comes to his lovers). why would you make the god of erotica bully a traumatized & closeted 14 year old gay kid. might be because you view gay love as inherently sexual hmmm 🤔🤔

4. nico's internalized homophobia was really alarming. like, really. and jason sees this when eros is forcing it out of nico, and nico even says it: "i hated myself. i hated percy jackson". and this is NOT something you do to a character that isn't comfortable in their sexuality yet. i mean NEVER out your characters, but if you want to do it, do not show them being helpless and filled with self hatred. not cool and very scary for gay people reading

5. THIS IS A CHILDREN'S BOOK?????? why would kids need to see the only gay character with a personality being outed instead of his love being treated respectfully????????

6. nico had no choice. he really had no choice. it was either let the god of erotica out you to your friend or this friend and also your other friends might die. this is NOT how you handle a coming out scene.

7. trauma porn is shit fuck off rick

8. ah yes, our traumatized gay kid was outed. he hated himself! he hated percy jackson! how unfortunate. at least there's an Older Cishet White Boy there to help him! like seriously. you shouldn't out your characters, but if you decide you must, don't do it like this. if nico must be outed, i want the people around him to be lgbt+. i want them to be rightfully angry at eros and not be like jason "well this actually is eros' business ig i'll wait to see how this escalates" grace. this is not how you handle your gay characters.

9. seriously fuck that scene i don't understand why people hype it so much it made me feel so bad when i first read it

sometimes i think about nico's outing scene in hoo and im like. what the fuck was that. who thought it's a good idea to out a traumatized 14 year old in front of his new friend when the boy he loved so much is one of the new friend's closest friends. who thought this is the coming out scene nico deserved. who thought it would make sense to just do this in the most anxiety inducing and trauma porn way possible and later just ignore it as if he hadn't been through this terrible experience. who thought that because love isn't uwu it's cool for the god of love to out a gay teenager that was through enough already. like. i read this scene before i came out and when i tell you i hated it and it made me scared i mean it. really. who even thought this is a good idea. what made rr believe that this is the way to show the audience yet another way nico struggled. the longer i think about it the most absurd it seems