#dont midn me jsut. DUMPING ALL THIS ON U at 10 in the morning meg time

[megatraven]

👀👀👀 Tell me more of Zeus reincarnation instead of Hera (if you'd like of course!)

i would be THRILLED (and also i should mention it is an alex x mc au because of course it is)

After MC inherits Zeus' potential, it's kind of a shock to every Olympian that was in the know about MC's mother. That is- they expected the potential to pass to Josh, but it lands with MC instead.

There are little changes in her that follow, at first- she's a little easier to anger, and when she does get angry or upset, electrical appliances tend to short out if she's close enough. Static electricity tends to cling to her and she's constantly shocking other people- but it never hurts her.

Once she works at HERA (or ZEUS???? i still don't know about that one lmao), things get a little more complicated. She blacks out from time to time, and comes to either standing in front of the golden elevators, or she was at home and comes to halfway to the agency, not knowing how she got that far or why.

She hears Zeus' voice, too. For awhile it's rather quiet, and she learns to ignore it. She can only snap at the voice in her head so many times before a psych eval is issued, anyways, and she doesn't really want to even try to explain it.

Alex knows there are some odd things going on with her, but she doesn't tend to tell even them the whole of it. Alex themself thinks that the oddities are side-effects of her grief from when her mother died, because that's when it all started. They're not completely wrong, but they're off the mark too. They encourage therapy but she's been before, and it's never helped. Even in the rare moments that she does want to spill everything to someone, something stops her and stills her tongue.

Eventually, she learns what it is. Or rather, who.

The longer she's exposed to Olympus and remains in close proximity to it, the stronger Zeus seems to get, and the more he's able to wrest control of MC's body from her. She stops blacking out when it happens, because she's growing stronger, too, and she's often subject to watching Zeus try to maneuver her body.

It's terrifying! But gods dammit, she's not about to give up control to a god who's done nothing but give her problems from day one! Not to mention, she refuses to give up her life with Alex, her dream job, her best friend, her brother.... There's no way she's going to let him take any of that from her.

So she learns to fight back against him and his will to return to Olympus.

She fights against his control and her will and his are in a near-constant battle.

When it comes out to everyone else- by mistake, when she has no choice but to use Zeus' power to stave off a threat to not only Olympus, but the entire rest of the world- it gets.... a lot harder.

There are gods that vie for her attention and company in attempts to convince her to just let Zeus return, that she needs to or she's otherwise dooming the entire Pantheon, that she's being selfish and what an honor it is to be chosen by Zeus

And then there are gods that are, somewhat surprisingly, supportive of her and her struggle to remain herself.

Aphrodite, for one, cannot stand to see the child of one she held so dear to her suffer through Zeus' ire. Nor can she stand to watch her own child's heart break at the prospect of losing their love to the gods.

Hades, who loves his brother dearly but knows that this just isn't the way, and that an unwilling human should not have to face the consequences of a god reborn. He's often torn on what to do and stays out of it as much as he can, but he offers his silent support to MC regardless.

And, perhaps the most surprising of all- Hera. Their queen. Zeus' wife. Most have always turned a blind eye to her relationship with Zeus and thus are shocked when she refuses to vote against MC, when she stands beside her. She doesn't want Zeus to come back. Olympus has prospered in his absence, and on top of that, she cannot go against her very self and break MC's family apart any further. It was her ignorance that led to the death of MC's mother, and, subsequently, to MC having Zeus' potential. She refuses to let it happen again.

SO!!!! Hera decides to try helping MC on the down-low by working on a ritual that would allow MC to take on Zeus' power for herself rather than let Zeus overtake her.

And all the while, while ALL this Zeus shit is happening, MC is still working for HERA and fighting to make the world a better place for all involved and she's fighting to protect the Pantheon and to keep her relationship well and alive and to be herself. She's fighting monsters and half-titans and gods themselves and still dealing with Zeus on the side and it's hard but she doesn't have much of a choice, she just knows that she must keep going. Giving in isn't an option to her.

I'm not sure if this part will stay the same as I continue to think on the au, but at this moment I'd like to think that through all her struggling and refusal to give up and her seeking out justice- through all of it, she slowly convinces Zeus to let go instead. Through her actions and her heart, she is eventually able to show him that she is more than capable of defending those she cares about- those he cares about- on her own, and that Olympus is just fine as it is.

So maybe, he stops fighting against her at every turn. Maybe he starts helping her in moments where she really needs it. Maybe he decides that he doesn't need to return just then, and maybe he'll go back to sleep for some time. Or maybe Hera will figure out the ritual she wanted, and maybe Zeus will simply not resist and let his power finally return to Olympus while he leaves for a long while.

Whatever becomes of him, MC remains.