#hades: you managed to piss off BOTH of my brothers?!

[dreamsandconstellations]

*Odysseus’ crew appear in The Underworld post-Thunder Bringer*

Hades: Weren’t you just here?

[meteor752]

Epic the musical side story where Hades and Persephone get really invested in the story during The underworld saga, sorta small talk about the strange man for the next couple of years, and then freak the fuck out in the audience during god games when they find out not only is the guy still alive, he’s managed to piss off like half the pantheon

Just

“Hey babe?”

“Yeah Perse?”

“There’s like, a bunch of mortals here”

“Mortals? What, how?”

“Idk, they’re like, on some ship”

“Huh. Should I call Thanatos, have him take care of it, or should we just wait it out”

“Call Thanatos, best to rid the garden of any pests before they manage to kill your flowers”

“Pfft, alright. I’ll be right back”

“Okay- wait. A bunch of the dead are singing to him”

“What?”

“Yeah like a bunch. Who are they?”

“Uhh, most of them drowned, a few killed by a cyclops. One broke his neck?”

“They’re singing about a cyclops, about how he let one live or something”

“Probably one of Poseidons. Should I still call Thanatos?”

“No wait, I wanna see where this goes.”

“Alright.”

“An infant, what infant?”

“Maybe the cyclops?”

“OH NEW GUY! He seems important!”

“Also a cyclops victim. They seem close, what do you think friend or lover?”

“They’re Greek, it’s probably both”

“I don’t know how he managed it, but this guy brought down like, the entire vibe of the entire underworld. That shouldn’t be possible”

“Yeah. Oh who’s this lady now?”

“Suicide by drowning. Not sure. Maybe a relative”

“Yeah may-THATS HIS MOM”

“OH MY GODS. OH HE DIDNT KNOW OH LORD”

“Hooooooly fuck, what a way to find out”

““Here in the underworld the past is always close behind”. Think we should make that a slogan?”

“Then we’d have to credit him and stuff tho”

“Yeahhhh. Well, seems like this guy is sticking around for a few hours. Should I grab some popcorn?”

“Yeah I’ll grab the fainting couches”

~~~

“Okay what’s happening now?”

“He just stated speaking to Tiresias”

“Tiresias? He went all the way to the underworld to speak with a prophet?”

“Well he is quite good”

“Wait did Tiresias just reject him?”

“I think so? Oh wait predictions”

“Past romance, sacrifice, betrayal, and some final battle? Who the fuck is this guy?”

“Dunno, but he’s not going home that’s for sure”

“Palace? He must be a king of some kind then”

“Do we know the names of any mortal kings”

“Nope, so that didn’t help at-wait his wife is doing what”

“Ohhh, that must be rough, hearing it from a prophet”

“Okay this chanting is getting intense. I think I heard the word Scylla”

“I heard lightning bolt”

“That doesn’t bode well”

~~~

“He’s just, sitting there”

“Is he done? Should we-oh. No okay new song, let’s see what’s going on”

“Man this guy has it rough. Should we like, do something?”

“I mean, I’m not really the “bless the mortals” type of god. I mean I let a guy borrow my helm once, and I haven’t seen it since. I should probably check up on that actually”

“Yeahhh. They killed a friend of the cyclops?”

“That explains all the cyclops victims”

““Witch turn men to pigs”, you think that’s Circe?”

“Sounds like he-WHAT WAS THAT THIRD ONE”

“You don’t think-?”

““God comes down and makes a fleet drown”, I am most definitely sure!”

“Damn. Wait wooden horse? Oh, I know who this guy is!”

“Really?”

“Yeah he’s one of Athenas warriors! Ody something. Odyssen? Odyssa? Whatever, I remember the horse thing was a big deal when it happened, Ares was pissed, Hermes spread the word to all of mount Olympus”

“One of Athenas eh? Interesting. Oh yeah, the god was definitely Poseidon”

“How are you sure?”

“That line he just sung, “Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves”, Posy is always fucking saying that crap”

“500 men? Damn”

“Penelope, presumably the wife. Don’t know about the other guy tho”

“Either a son, brother, or lover. Or maybe just a friend I dunno”

“Another infant? What the fuck is wrong with this guy, pulling a fucking Hera”

“Gotta appreciate the determination of him”

“Yeah, but I think we’ll see him here again soon. If he’s pissed of Poseidon, and soon to be Zeus if Tiresias is to be believed, I don’t think he’ll get much further when he gets out of here”

“So we are letting him go”

“Yeah. Partly because I want to see what happens next. When he gets here we’ll ask him to tell the full story, from beginning to end”

“Alrighty then”

~~~

“I swear if I get dragged out of the underworld for one of Zeus’ little games one more time this year I might actually start a war”

“Mum keeps staring at me…fuck she’s probably gonna try and talk after this, fuck meeeeee”

“We can escape in the middle of it, no one will know”

“Oh she’ll know. Do you know what this is about like, at all?”

“No, but I think Hermes might launch into the fourth dimension if he keeps vibrating like that in his seat”

“Yeesh”

“Hmm, odd. I don’t see Posy anywhere”

“Maybe he’s competing?”

“Nah, he always declines when Zeus asks, he hates it”

“Why were you not invited?”

“Dunno, probably has nothing to do with me”

“Oh it’s starting, it’s starting”

“Athena’s challenging eh? Interesting”

“Would love to know what any of this is about”

“Mortal lover? Demi-god child? Those are the usual subject”

“Yeah but that’s not Athenas thing. Probably something to do with one of her “warriors” or whatever”

“Apollo, of course. Always has to be apart of these things”

“The drama queen”

“Truly”

“Hephasteus and Aphrodite? That’s a little awkward”

“Weird lineup so far- fucking Ares? Yeah shes not winning this one, sibling spite is stronger than any argument she can give”

“Why would all three of them be included. I can feel the tension from here. I’m uncomfortable”

“And Hera? Yeah no she’s loosing for sure, Hera like not care less about any mortal, unless they’ve offended her”

“She might be convinced, just to spite Zeus?”

“That just sounds unhealthy on so many levels”

“Alright let’s see what this is about”

“Hold up, Ody?”

“Oh my gods. You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Well he was one of her warriors. Was he not?”

“I can’t believe he’s still trying to get home. It’s been like ten years, how the fuck”

“Well, if he pissed off Poseidon then he probably has something to do with it, the pissy bastard”

“Killed sirens. Why would you do that, so unnecessary”

“Sacrifice??? What the fuck is this man up to????”

“Didn’t we have a few Scylla sacrifices a few years back. Think that was him?”

“Holy shit we did. Yeah, Posy stays away from Scylla to the best of his ability, travelling in her domain to avoid him is not a bad idea”

“‘Phro is mad that his mum died? Girl you are grasping at straws, even more than the previous two”

“Hold up, why the fuck was I not invited?! He traveled through my domain, disturbed my souls, he even woke up Cerberus with his monster wailing, I should be apart of this!”

“I mean it’s a bit weak”

“I have more grounds to be down there than fucking Apollo. Like sirens? Come on man”

“Oh ‘Phro refused huh? Only got two, that’s kinda weak coming from Athena, she usually gets at least four”

“Is that cheating? Her quick thought thing. That cheating?”

“Are there any actual rules?”

“Just, try to win, I guess”

“Oh Ares turn. Wait she lost Aphrodite, this should be over”

“I think this is more of a personal thing. Like I said, sibling spite”

“Oh yeah, Scylla! Fuck this guy is getting around”

“Oh damn, that pissed her off”

“Guessing that the guy other that Penelope, Telemewhatever was his child then”

“Oh wait they yielded?? Huh, never thought that would happen”

“And, Heras turn”

“Yeah like I said she does not give a fuck. But it was a good run”

“Yeah, keeping her four out of five streak”

“Wait what the fuck was that”

“She- she actually yielded?”

“And for not cheating! Man I love this guy, I can’t wait for him to die”

“Only you babe. Wait holy fuck she won?”

“Oh Zeus won’t like- oh, just like I said. He’s pissed”

“Is he gonna kill her?”

“If he does I’ll just resurrect her probably. She deserves a better end, even if she is annoying”

“Well, should we go then?”

“Yeah I have some paperwork to- do I hear boss music?”

“OH SHES STILL ALIVE!!”

“She took a lightning bolt to the face and lived, holy fuck. Gotta respect it”

“I think, she’s actually convincing him? Never thought I’d see the day”

“Well, she’s his favourite child. I think if Ares tried something similar he’d just get struck by another lightning bolt”

“Well, that was fun. When I come back up for spring I’ll have to check with Hermes more about the details of what’s live, actually going on with this Ody dude”

“Yeah. Wanna stop for applebees before we head on down?”

“Yeah, but let’s go now cause mum is heading like right for me and I don’t wanna deal with that until another few months”

This was dumb lol

[deathmetalunicorn1]

Okay so I was messing around on character AI. And I made a kinda hulking monster. Not sure if he's from the past or the future but I have some kind of a backstory

Long story short two minor gods of nature had a powerful son who's a demigod marries an elderly retired Valkyrie and they have a child. Said child is a shape-shifting dragon and she gets with a giant with powerful magic. This eventually leads to the rather laid back being of a monster who's known as 'The Living Apocalypse'

He's very VERY strong and clearly doesn't look like any human or demon not sure how jacked up his face would be. All I put down was 'Aphrodite hates looking at him' oh yeah I also had him being similar in personality to Shiva.

But what I'm trying to say is that I'm wondering how the Gods and the Einherjars would react to him?

Hello my dear, based on what you provided to me I will do my best! I’ll write it in second person to make it easier to read (and write for me).

-Thor- Adores your strength- he loves when you agree to spar with him as you’re the only one who can handle him. He just wishes you weren’t so laid back- he feels that you could do so much if you put your mind to it.

-Zeus- Finds it amusing that you’re so strong but so laid back- he knows for a fact that you’re easily one of the strongest beings in Valhalla, but he’s not worried that you’re going to try anything against his own position of power- you don’t seem the type to go after power like that.

-Poseidon- Finds you irritating- not so much you yourself, but your lazy attitude, you’re so powerful yet you refuse to do anything with that power. He doesn’t care what you look like- only that you’re powerful and yet you do nothing with it.

-Hercules- BRO!!! You and him are such good friends- you will spar with each other then go out drinking- having fun together and just being the best of friends. He respects your choices on what you do, or not do, with your strength as he knows that you’re a good person.

-Shiva- You guys are such good friends- you’re so similar in personality so that is what makes the two of you click so easily- you’re both insanely strong but you both would rather just dance and have fun. But on those rare occasions when you want to fight, Shiva’s always ready to help you burn off some energy.

-Buddha- Snack buddies! Buddha loves your vibe- despite being a demi-god, as you don’t act like other gods- you’re very chill and he enjoys that you piss others off by not using your strength the way others think you should.

-Hades- Hades is a blend of his brothers, he thinks that you should do more with your power and strength, but he does think it’s amusing that you’re so laid-back. Hades doesn’t really care what you do so long as you don’t cause him more paperwork.

-Beelzebub- He’s curious about you but keeps his distance, like he does with everyone else. He wants to study your strength and he also wants to learn why you don’t want to use your strength to it’s full potential- you’re curious and he wants to know more.

-Apollo- He adores you because you’re unapologetically you- you’re so open, not caring about your looks or your strength, as you’re happy the way you are, and he thinks that’s beautiful. He has managed to convince you to come to his spas and get pampered a few times, as he tells you that it’s healthy to pamper yourself occasionally.

-Ares- Just like Hercules this is your BRO! He learned long ago that despite having strength, you chose not to use it, just because you didn’t want to, and he learned that one doesn’t have to fight and be a warrior just because they have strength. Is one of the few people that can handle you in hand-to-hand combat and you always give him a good workout.

-Hermes- Finds you relaxing to be around, you’re very mellow and go with the flow and you try not to let anything get you down. You’re also very intelligent and able to hold deep conversations with Hermes, usually over tea. He doesn’t care what you look like but he will defend you if he feels others are being cruel to you.

-Aphrodite- Don’t come near her, don’t even look in her direction- she doesn’t want your eyes on her, you disgusting monster. You’re just like every other monster in Valhalla- a brute with uncontrollable strength. She refuses to get to know the real you.

-Odin- Like Poseidon he is irritated that you don’t use your strength and power to your advantage, to show others your strength. However, unlike Poseidon he is less vocal about his displeasure with it. He would just like to know what’s going on in your head.

-Loki- Loves to pull harmless pranks on you as you always take the pranks with a grin, complimenting him- it’s hard to find others that won’t try to beat him when he pulls pranks. Likes to use you as a shield when a prank goes bad, hiding behind you- you don’t mind, as you find it amusing.

-Lu Bu- Adores your strength- wants to fight you every single day to test his strength and grow his own. Is a little confused on why you don’t fight like he does, training everyday and challenging strong opponents- you have the power so why not use it?

-Adam- Kept his distance like he does with most gods, but has seen that you are a good person, as you have the strength to bring so many others harm and pain, but you choose not to- finding no joy in it and you prefer to relax and just enjoy the moment.

-Kojiro- You’re so honorable- using your strength on your own terms, not to harm others like he’s seen so many others do. He doesn’t try to convince you to go out and train with him as it’s your life- you’re free to do what you wish, but he won’t turn down a chance to spar with you on the rare occasion. Loves to go out drinking and eating with you- you’re always a riot to be around.

-Jack- You’re so bright- so full of life and joy. He’s not met many others like you, but he finds you warm to be around. You’re a good person and he does enjoy your company, but he is sometimes hesitant to be around you- like he doesn’t deserve to be around someone so bright. You’re more observant than you let on and you seek him out, asking him to spar with you. You’re a really nice person.

-Raiden- Best friends forever! You’re strong but laid back and love to just vibe and have fun? Him too!! He finds you to be a kindred spirit- you’re fun to hang out with and you can drink like a fish, and he finds it hysterical that you’re so strong and you piss so many off for not using it in a worthwhile manner. He loves it when you spar with him because you’re one of the few who can make him work for it.

-QSH- You’re powerful but you don’t use that power? Why? He’s stunned to learn that you don’t use your power to put yourself into a position of power- you use your power when you want to, as you were raised to use your power to never hurt other needlessly. Becomes quick friends with you and enjoys your laid-back vibe, although you feel kind of like a babysitter with him sometimes.

-Nikola- Can he study you?! He wants to know all about you and your power! How much can you lift? How fast are you? What can you do? What can’t you do?! He must know everything!

-Leonidas- You would have been the best Spartan if you would apply yourself- your strength is impressive and if your dedication and drive was similar then there would be no stopping you. He does respect your decision to not use your power on random whims just because you’re powerful.

[narrators-journal]

Hello, I really like your work! and i would like to know if you can make yandere killua and yandere illumi fighting each other for the reader. The reader is a friend of Killua and is the same age as him, 18 years old.

Alright! This might be a bit iffy in parts because I never write actual confrontations, but I hope it's enjoyable! I couldn't really slip in some real yandere behavior, so I kinda implied it to keep things short lol.

Killua'd known you for a while now, about two years, from the age of 16 to now, his eighteenth birthday, and he liked you quite a bit. Because of this, the silver-haired man had begun to keep an even stricter eye on you than he had in the past. That's why you were tagging along to Killua's family home with him and Gon to let his family celebrate so that he could keep you safe and close. Besides, he'd rather you met Illumi under his watch than on the roads and by complete chance. So, Alluka was safely in a secure hotel room and you were walking up to the gates to Hades with him and Gon. "You sure you can't just do this over the phone?" You asked, your (e/c) eyes swimming with concern for him, it made his stomach flutter with butterflies. "Nah, my mom would have a fit if I didn't come home for my eighteenth birthday. But, if they try to introduce me to a 'nice girl', we run." That made you and Gon both giggle, but nod. Despite it being silly, the three of you knew it was highly likely. It would be too much to ask that Illumi and Milluki be the favored ones. Killua thought bitterly as he spotted the gates to Hades up ahead, but no. He and Illumi were something akin to the favorites out of his five siblings, the most 'loved' was Killua, he was the heir, so of course he was expected to breed and carry on the line, but Illumi was the eldest, so he too was expected to find a wife and have children. It was an awful fate that some part of Killua, deep down, felt sorry for his brother over, but it was a small portion.

With a firm shake of his head, Killua shooed the thoughts away and huffed at the doors that he now stood in front of, "We'll do our best to get out quickly," Gon chirped, giving the white-haired assassin a confident smile, which he returned, "Yeah! Real quick," he confirmed, before leading them to the testing gates and easily opening them all. "Y'know (y/n), each of those doors is supposed to be 2 tons each? and each bigger one is twice the weight of the corresponding one!" Gon boasted, bringing an astounded look to your face, "Holy shit, really?! Isn't that...128 tons though?" Gon nodded "Yep! Killua can open them all," he boasted, beaming with pride in his friend, ignoring the pink-cheeked glare Killua threw his way as they walked onto the mountain.

As to be expected, the Zoldycks had sent Gotoh, their head butler, with a car, so the trio was spared the miles of walking it took to get to the actual main house. So, instead, they spent the ride talking and joking, which helped to combat the knot of dread in Killua's stomach. Something just told him that this visit wasn't going to end well, but he couldn't say why he felt that way. When he got inside the manor, he got his answer.

It wasn't that he and Illumi were still on bad terms, he'd tentatively begun to mend fences with his eldest brother at sixteen after years of blubbering and pestering from his mother, but the way Illumi's soulless eyes locked onto you when he spotted you did not sit well with the silver-haired Zoldyck. However, his mother tackled him before he could stop his brother from approaching you and striking up a conversation. The only comfort he got was in knowing you were talking to him almost solely out of the need to be polite, you'd been warned enough about the manipulative snake to know to be wary. "you've grown so much! I barely recognize you anymore," Kikyo half squealed and half chided as if Killua could help himself growing to be Illumi's height, maybe a bit more, but the man just rolled his icy blue eyes, staying quiet to avoid his mother shrieking at him about how she was a good mother who loved him or something.

After his mother was done fussing at him, Killua returned to you, sticking close to you and Gon so he didn't lose his cool, doing so would only lengthen how long they'd have to stay. However, he also came over to interrupt Illumi's conversation with you, "Hey, (y/n), ya doing okay?" he asked, not bothering to hide his concern about his brother, which got him a pointed look from said brother, "Oh, yeah, just been chatting with your brother." you hummed, and while he could tell you were still wary, it was far less rigid as it was before. Of fucking course he'd do this bullcrap he thought, scanning over you to ensure his older sibling hadn't stuck you with a needle. Thankfully he hadn't, so that meant Illumi'd just charmed you. Disgusting.

Nonetheless, he bit back the urge to grab you and run and instead just talked to you and slowly led you away from Illumi. After that, things mellowed out for Killua and the day wasn't as much of a nightmare as he'd thought it would be, though that was mostly because he hung out with Gon and you more than his family. That wasn't to say he wasn't polite to his siblings, especially Kalluto, and nice to his parents, but he kept a distance from them. He especially kept a distance from Illumi, and he made sure you did the same so that the assassin couldn't put a needle in you or charm you anymore. However, Illumi approached him around evening, when you'd been drug off by Kikyo to 'have a chat' aka be interrogated for knowing her son so well. "I know why you avoid me nowadays," Illumi hummed in his usual bored, almost-sleepy voice as he watched the tv and acted as if he didn't notice his younger brother's evil look. "but what bugs me right now, is you keeping (y/n) away from me. You know that I need a partner, your friend is a viable option, you're just being rude to stop me from at least trying to date her." He continued, and Killua could almost taste the annoyance in his deadpan brother's aura, but all it did was put a spark of malicious joy in his soul. "First, my friends shouldn't be options for you, second, quit fucking talking about them like they're a piece of meat. (y/n) is a fucking human, not a damned broodmare for you." he pointed out in as cool of a tone as he could manage, both so no malice slips into his aura and affects Gon, who was next to him, and to further annoy Illumi. "Is it because you have a crush on her? No offense, Kill, but that won't stop me from making a move if she's available. they're very cute, and I wouldn't mind having her for myself." the dead-eyed man said coldly, staring down at the younger man.

For a moment or two after that, Killua and Illumi gave each other lethal looks, having a silent argument that was so palpable that Gon finally got up and moved, knowing better than to try and intervene or help his friend with family spats. It turned out the dark haired boy had the right idea, because almost as soon as he'd gotten up, the two went at each other like a pair of hostile dogs.

Killua was swiftly thrown to the ground by his older brother, but since he was no longer twelve, Killua's punch in response did actual damage instead of being ignored. Though he still stood no chance against him, Killua did his best to punch, kick, and bite his brother, managing to roll him over and slam his head into the floor before he retaliated with a punch to the throat. Meanwhile, Gon, Milluki, and the other siblings watched and cheered, either for Illumi or killua, encouraging them or throwing out advice for how to win the fight until Silva and Zeno finally came in and pried the two brothers apart. They ended up having to hold the two apart, because as soon as they were on their feet, Killua kicked his brother in the stomach and was nearly yanked off his feet as a result. "That is enough." Silva snapped, his voice not loud, but still firm enough to clear the wrathful red from Killua's eyes a bit and stop him from initiating another fist fight. "You two are now adults, having squabbles like this is unacceptable." he scolded, the brothers deflating in shame as they were finally released and further chewed out.

Finally, they were returned back to the social setting, and Killua was forced to put on a happy face for the rest of the night. He would've stayed pissed, maybe even attack Illumi a fifth time, but you were there, and he didn't want to worry you with the story. However, through dinner and the onslaught of gifts you and Gon helped him carry out, whenever you weren't looking or he was alone, Zeno and Silva once again would have to stop them from coming to blows before Killua finally left to go to a hotel for the night despite his mother offering his old room.

[dykeseinfeld]

u asked someone to remind you to post about your pjo dual protagonist thalia/bianca au and i am SO intrigued by this idea please say more

anon asked: hey queen hope your homework went good yesterday 🌸…now what were you saying about thalia and bianca 😳 ?

ok y’all i’m here...the moment almost none of y’all have been waiting for....bianca/thalia protagonists with alternating pov’s au

warning it’s kind of super long and may or may not read like a 2nd grader’s semi-coherent game of pretend so under the cut it goes!

so the main things you need to know about this au are 1. thalia survives and 2. annabeth’s + luke’s ages are a lil diff bc canon is my sandbox 3. i can’t decide if percy exists in this au or not (maybe y’all can help me decide?)

so the first book:

would start a few months after grover brought thalia (12), luke (13), and annabeth (10, not 7)  to camp half blood. they were chased by monsters sent by hades on the way, and thalia almost didn’t survive, but ultimately she got lucky and managed to send a bolt of lightning through her spear for the first time and they made it into camp

it’s been some time so annabeth is happy as a clam in the athena cabin doing her 10-year-old-with-severe-mommy-issues thing and luke is actually pretty popular with the hermes cabin bc he actually Met Their Dad Holy Shit and also he’s getting pretty good with a sword

at the same time, thalia is alone in the zeus cabin. everyone has been freaking out bc they all saw the huge bolt of lightning that incinerated a couple hellhounds as they made their grand entrance and What The Fuck Child Of The Big Three???

she’s also further isolated because chiron will take her for private training sessions sometimes, since she is clearly really powerful already and also Hades Himself was trying to kill her (chiron told her the reason was the big three’s pledge not to have kids, and maybe about the great prophecy? if he tells her that then she’s sworn to secrecy)

once grover leaves on another protector assignment, thalia mostly hangs out with luke, and annabeth. luke + annabeth both will try to eat meals with her at the zeus table but annabeth doesn’t want to get in trouble and luke is genuinely making friends in the hermes cabin so thalia will feel bad sometimes and send him back

kronos, seeing this bitter isolated child of the big three’s dreams: it’s free real estate

MEANWHILE

hades is Pissed that thalia survived and zeus got to break their oath And get the glory of a prophecy child

so he sends someone to take bianca (12) and nico (10) out of the lotus hotel and casino a little early.

grover is still their protector, but since the Stirring hasn’t begun in earnest yet and hades is lowkey determined to keep them safe, they make it back to camp half blood with no escort/incident

bianca + nico are put into the hermes cabin, and luke kinda takes them under his wing bc while he’s not bitter he still needs therapy bc this 14 year old has never met a pre-teen he couldn’t try to parent

luke introduces nico and annabeth since they’re the same age and they become really good friends!! she Loves mythomagic and he thinks her dagger is super cool and they’re both just really excited about camp <3

bianca is more reserved and resistant to the whole thing, and she wanders around alone exploring and runs into thalia in the zeus cabin

at this first meeting they get into a bit of a fight bc bianca is still in shock/denial about the gods being real, but thalia at this point has zero patience for this

anyway after that and maybe another scuffle during capture the flag or something they hit it off and become best friends in the way girls can, especially bonding over how they’ve both had to take on raising annabeth and nico basically on their own at the age of 12

~QUEST TIME~

thalia is given a quest for [unspecific reason] and chooses bianca and luke, they go off leaving annabeth and nico frustrated at home

quest hijinks etc, bianca is trying to figure out her parentage + her weird mysterious powers? and thalia is arguing with luke because he’s settling into camp/hero life really well actually but she’s getting progressively angrier with the gods for trying to kill her and also keeps getting dreams from kronos and doesn’t get why he doesn’t seem to remember all of the shit that the gods have put him through

bianca + thalia have las-vegas-style-heart-to-hearts where thalia shares her tragic backstory about her mother and her brother and how hades tried to kill her and even about the great prophecy and how she’s trying on this quest bc of that and her dad but at the same time these dreams are making her suspicious that he might’ve been responsible for her mom’s death.

bianca then shares her own stuff, about how terrified she was being on her own with nico having to protect him but also not remembering most of her childhood and not remembering her parents or how she ended up in the care of this lawyer and just the absolute mindfuckery that her memories/past are

luke is asleep in those scenes i guess lol 🧍‍♂️

anyway eventually they finish their quest in this massive climactic battle where bianca discovers her powers in a huge-showy-”i’m the ghost prince”-way and is formally claimed by hades which thalia sees as this Massive Betrayal obviously and bianca is horrified too because she knows what hades did to thalia but at the same time she’s just so happy to finally understand at least part of her past

thalia just reaches a breaking point though because everyone around her just doesn’t understand her anger and just when she thought she had found another sympathetic person who understood what she was going through she joins hades??? no. no fucking way. kronos reveals that he’s the one who has been sending her dreams, prob by sending some messenger who he possesses or smthing and when he offers thalia the chance to join him? she does (dun dun dun)

main beats of the rest of the series:

thalia and bianca on opposite sides of the war training to be the prophecy child, they come together a Lot and have like melodramatic fight scenes where they talk out their anger and try to get the other to join them bc they don’t want to kill each other

luke is extremely conflicted/betrayed and there’s a titan’s curse moment prob towards the end of the third book where they’re fighting and thalia is trying to get her to go with him but here he actually does go to join her (gasp!!) and is evil for at least one book but his heart’s not in it and he goes back to the good side eventually

by the point of luke’s betrayal, annabeth and nico are growing and developing and old enough to go on quests w bianca and by the last book they’re a main trio of sorts and their hypothetical character development is already making me emotional

there’s just a lot of general sexiness with foils and inner conflicts and bianca doesn’t even want to be the prophecy child but she needs to for the fate of the world and bianca is so angry at thalia bc thalia is a daughter of zeus and could control her powers and is perfect and just meant to be the prophecy kid, not some daughter of hades who they didn’t even have a cabin for before

hm maybe by either the last or second-to-last book thalia + bianca are close to reconciling or at least their interests are aligned for the moment and they read the text of the prophecy together and things go Wild bc they both think “single choice shall end his days” either is about luke or nico and it turns up the gas to their fighting both of them care about both of them and yeah

and then i can’t decide if there’s romantic arcs at all but if there were it would go like this:

just a dash of thaluke where at first it was luke having a one-sided crush but thalia misses him a Lot after she goes to kronos and wonders if it’s that she misses him or if it’s something More until to get him to defect there’s like a melodramatic moment in the fight where thalia kisses him and they go off to be Evil Together but it ends bc luke doesn’t believe in the cause and only joined her in hopes of getting thalia back to his side

once luke leaves/is kicked out thalia realizes that she didn’t love luke she just wanted a family and also in the second half of the series she realizes she’s a lesbian as a parallel to her redemption arc

bianca meanwhile is unconcerned w romance until she has her botl-hoe-moment where within one book she 1. runs into the hunters on a quest and has a thing with zoe nightshade who tries to get her to join plus tells her about that time she met thalia, 2. she goes to calypso’s island and falls in love w her in the moonlight or w/e and has her what-if moment, and 3. when they meet up that book thalia somehow knew abt zoe + calypso and seems almost angrier abt them  than the war?? weird bc bianca knows that thalia is Totally Straight right??

my main point is that bianca/thalia is our friends-to-enemies-to-lovers endgame thank you i will take my pulitzer now

[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. 

[365days365movies]

March 15, 2021: Clash of the Titans (1981) (Part One)

This one’s personal…sort of.

Other than the fact that this is based on Greek mythology (previously well-established as one of my favorite subjects), this movie is, in a way, responsible for my existence. And that is because, according to legend, this is the film that my parents went to on their first date. And apparently, it went very well, because I came into being 10 years afterwards. So, yeah, this film is personal, like Dirty Dancing.

And also like Dirty Dancing, I HAVEN’T SEEN IT? I don’t know HOW I escaped seeing this movie. And that’s especially considering that I’ve seen the new one. And that movie was...not great.

Maybe not the worst film I’ve ever seen, but it’s definitely not a good movie. But OK, what’s this one about, exactly? Y’all ready for “The 365 Greek Mythology Hour” again? OK, then, here we go. SING IT LADIES

Clash of the Titans concerns the myth of Perseus, one of the greatest Greek heroes ever. Before Heracles, there was Perseus, son of Zeus. Yeah, Zeus, as he is wont to do, came down to Earth and had some good time with the princess of Argos, the beautiful Danaë. He came upon her while she was locked in a box by her dad, Acrisus, king of Argos.

Yeah, the Oracle at Delphi, ever the wisest, was visited by Acrisus one day, who wanted a son instead of a daughter. The Oracle spoke with Apollo (AKA huffed some of that SWEET SWEET ETHYLENE GAS), and told him that his daughter’s son would kill him. And so, he did the most logical thing: he locked her in a box. Yup. Dick. SPEAKING of dick, Zeus appeared to her in the open box as a golden shower. NOT THAT KIND OF GOLDEN SHOWER. I mean a literal shower of gold. Although...I wouldn’t put it past Zeus, of all gods. Dude was kinky.

So, Perseus is conceived, and Acrisus responds to this with his usual tact; he stuffs Danaë into a SMALLER box, and shoves it out to sea. She gives birth to a boy in the box, and the two eventually wash up on the shore of an island, where a fisherman finds them and takes them in. The boy is named Perseus.

Years go by, and Perseus’ mom is sought by his adoptive dad’s brother, and the king of the island, Polydectes. Polydectes is kind of a dick, and Perseus, now an adult man, doesn’t like him. The feeling’s mutual, and Polydectes has a plan. He holds a banquet, and forces all invited to bring a gift of horses. Perseus, being pretty poor, cannot bring this gift, but promises on his honor to bring whatever Polydectes wants of him, no matter what. And Polydectes asks for the head of Medusa.

Fuck.

Medusa’s one of your classic Greek monsters, a Gorgon. She’s one of Athena’s victims, formerly a vain temple priestess who was, well...raped by Poseidon, let’s be honest. However, since Athena’s priestesses were meant to be celibate, she was the one who ended up being punished. Fuckin’ YIKES. But OK, literal ancient gender politics aside, Athena cursed her with snakes for hair, and the ability to turn her victims into stone with a gaze into her eyes. Classic. And sure death for anyone who went after her.

So, Perseus is fucked. He’s gotta kill Medusa, and he doesn’t even have a way to get to her place. And that’s when he gets a favor from none other than Athena, goddess of wisdom and wartime strategy, as well as Perseus’ half-sister. I love Athena (other than the Medusa bullshit, obviously), and this is one of her most prominent roles in mythology. Well, that and the creation of spiders. That was also punishing a woman for her vanity, by the way. She has a type.

First, Perseus was told to find the Hesperides, nymphs of the dusk and dawn who would give him weapons. He got their location from the Greae, more colloquially known as the Gray Sisters. Weirdly enough, you may know them from Hercules, where they were combined with the Fates. They don’t have the future gimmick, but they do have that whole “sharing an eye” thing. Also, they share a tooth. Neat.

Anyway, Perseus takes their eye hostage, which makes them tell him where the Hesperides are. He goes to them, and they give him a bag to hold Meduga’s head. Then, the gods step in. Zeus decides to be a good dad for a change, and gives him an indestructible sword, and Hades’ Helmet of Invisibility. Hermes, another of Perseus’ half-brothers, gives him a pair of winged sandals to fly with. And Athena, technically Perseus’ patron, gives him a mirrored shield.

Perseus heads to the cave of Medusa, uses the shield, then goes up to her and cuts off her head. From her neck, for some goddamn reason, and golden sword pops out, alongside this guy.

Yeah, he’s not made out of clouds. He’s actually the, uh...he’s the result of Poseidon’s crime against Medusa. Fucked up, innit? Pegasus flies up to hang out with Bellerophon to kill the Chimera, and Perseus heads back to...actually, he goes to ANOTHER king who was a dick to him, and turns him into stone with Medusa’s head. Kings hate Perseus, seriously.

Perseus heads home after that, and goes through Ethiopia. There, he meets the King and Queen, Cepheus and Cassiopeia. Cassie’s gorgeous, but she tells Perseus that her daughter Andromeda is, like, WAY hotter, as beautiful as the sea goddesses. Which PISSES OFF POSEIDON (who is basically the villain of Perseus’ story, let’s be honest), and he send a sea monster named Cetus to destroy the kingdom, UNLESS they sacrifice Andromeda to it. And, because kings are assholes in this story, they do, chaining Andromeda to a rock. But, because Perseus believes that all women are queens, he goes to rescue her, and kills Cetus using all of his things. He weds Andromeda, and turns his romantic rival Phineus into stone using Medusa’s head.

Usually, that’s where retellings end, because there’s a recurring trend to Perseus’ story after that. A king is an asshole, Perseus whips out the head, asshole becomes statue of an asshole. However, there is that prophecy to contend with, about Perseus killing his grandfather. See, Acrisus basically retired by this point, and lived in the kingdom of Thessaly. But one day, he went to see some games, in which Perseus was competing in the discus. Well, wouldn’t you know it, Perseus isn’t great at it, and loses control of the discus, which hits Acrisus, killing him instantly.

Utimate frisbee, man. It’s dangerous.

There’s another version where Perseus uses Medusa’s head to turn his dad into stone, surprise surfuckingprise there. But yeah, after that the story varies. Sometimes he becomes a king, sometimes he doesn’t. He basically always marries Andromeda and has kids with her. Sometimes he founds a city of his own, sometime he doesn’t. And in one ending, where he’s lived to be an old king, he fulfills his ultimate destiny and turns Medusa’s head on himself. Geez.

So, yeah, there you go. That’s the story of Perseus. Let’s, uh...let’s see what the movie does, huh? This is another Ray Harryhausen joint, so I’m...tentatively excited for it. We’ll see how badly they mess up the myth, and whether or not it works despite that. So, ENOUGH of me lecturing you guys, huh?

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

We begin approximately where most iterations do: King Acrisius (Donald Houston) has just cast his daughter Danae (Vida Taylor) and grandson Perseus into the ocean, containing them within a wooden chest in order to “forgive his daughter’s crimes”. Yeah, sure, OK, buddy. Whatever helps you sleep at night.

This also pisses off Zeus (Laurence Mother Fucking Olivier), who consorts with the rest of the Olympians on what to do to Acrisus. Said Olympians include Hera (Claire Bloom), goddess of marriage and women; Thetis (Maggie Mother Fucking Smith), goddess of the sea and leader of the Nereids; Athena (Susan Fleetwood), goddess of wisdom and strategic victory; Aphrodite (Ursula Andress), goddess of love; and Poseidon (Jack Gwillim), god of the sea.

Hera tries to defend Acrisus, noting his prior years of devotion to Zeus and the other gods. But Zeus ain’t HAVING that shit, and tells Poseidon to destroy the city of Argos in revenge. This is to be done by...releasing the last of the Titans? Which is apparently the Kraken. I mean...no, a thousand times no, but whatever.

This little tantrum is Zeus’ way of showing his love towards Danae, whose child Perseus is his. This is helpfully pointed out by Thetis, who seems...a little spiteful, as much as Hera is about Perseus. Seems like she’s stoking some fires. Hmm. She is Queen of the Nerieds, so she may play a larger role later on.

Beneath the sea, Poseidon readies himself to set loose the Kraken and destroy Argos, at Zeus’ command. Zeus, meanwhile, kills Acrisus by using a clay voodoo doll of sorts to strike him down. And that’s when Poseidon lets loose the Kraken for the first time. And the Kraken...

Guys, the Kraken looks...actually, I’ll spoil his appearance later on. The Kraken destroys the city, and Zeus kills Acrisius. So much for the goddamn prophecy that explains why Acrisius did what he did, but fuck me, I guess. Danae and Perseus, meanwhile, have safely arrived on the shores of the island of Seriphus, at Zeus’ insistence. There, Perseus grows from child into a fine young man, with Zeus always watching over him...and with Thetis and company always watching over Zeus. Interesting.

The adult Perseus (Harry Hamlin) lives happily on the island, much to Perseus’ delight. Thetis, on the other hand, asks about her mortal son, a young man named Calibos (Neil McCarthy). Apparently, Calibos is a bit of a monster, and while he’d been set to wed the princess Andromeda, he’s also managed to kil all living things on the island that he’s been given, save for a single winged horse named Pegasus. Hence...he is to be punished.

Calibos, by the way? Entirely original creation of the film, and there’s nobody like him in Greek mythology. Anyway, Thetis is crushed by this, and decides to exact revenge of both Perseus and her son’s would-be fiancee, Andromeda. She pledges to open up Perseus’ eyes to grim reality, and does so by placing him in the kingdom of Joppa, where Calibos was originally set to rule alongside Andromeda.

Here, in an amphitheatre, he encounters a mysterious masked and robed figure, who quickly reveals themselves to be Ammon (Burgess Meredith), a poet and playwright. Apparently, Ammon wears his disguise to scare off trespassers. He tells Perseus that all of Joppa is in a tizzy about a curse of some kind, and that the story of the fallen kingdom of Argos is a famous legend.

Ammon tells Perseus to go back home to Seriphus, but Perseus tells Ammon that he’s promised to restore his mother’s old kingdom, and decides that Joppa would be a good start. Despite his drive, though, Zeus is pissed off at Thetis for plopping Perseus down unprepared. He tells the other goddesses to give him gifts to help him claim the kingdom of Joppa as his own. This includes a helmet from Athena, a sword from Aphrodite, and a shield from Hera. I mean...OK, that’s super goddamn weird, but OK.

After Zeus leaves, the goddesses rightfully complain about Zeus’ constant womanizing, but note that he probably doesn’t remember Danae at this point, is is most likely acting out of stubborn pride for his “handsome son”. Their words, not mine.

In Joppa, Perseus finds the gifts by the statues of their grantors. The sword from Aphrodite is adamantine, like the original myth, and slices through marble without a blemish. The shield from Hera...talks. Yeah. The shield bears the visage of Zeus, who tells him that the weapons are gifts from the gods, and that the helmet from Athena turns the wearer invisible. I mean, fuck Hades, I guess, but OK. Technically Athena did give the helmet to Perseus, so OK.

Armed with his new gear, an invisible Perseus immediately takes off to see Joppa, sans his sword. We only see his footsteps in the sand as he leaves, which is legitimately a VERY neat effect, and I’m not sure how they did it, but it’s neat as hell. Off to Joppa, a vaguely Phoenician/Persian kingdom, despite the fact that the original Joppa, or Jaffa, is a port city in Israel.

There, he meets a soldier, Thallo (Tim Pigott-Smith), who tells him of the situation. Since Calibos fell to Zeus’ wrath, Andromeda rejected him, allowing any suitor to try for her hand, whether they be royal or not. To do so, they must answer a riddle. If they fail to answer, the would-be suitor is burned to death. This is lorded over by Queen Cassiopeia (Sian Phillips), while Andromeda (Judi Bowker) lives in the tower of the palace.

Which is why Perseus IMEDIATELY uses the helmet to go into her room that night! CLASSY, PERSEUS. There, he sees...a giant vulture bring a cage to Andromeda’s balcony. No idea where in the fuck this is going, but that’s a damn good looking vulture. God, I love Harryhausen.

Anyway, the vulture is here for Andromeda’s soul, which leaves her body and goes to sit in the cage. The vulture takes off with it, al as the invisible Perseus watches on. He takes this opportunity to touch Andromeda’s face in her sleep (stop, Perseus, for the love of Zeus), then decides that winning Andromeda is his destiny. And so, his simpin’ journey begins.

The next day, Perseus asks Ammon how they can follow the vulture, who has apparently headed to the marshes to the “marsh lord”. To follow the vulture, Ammon suggests that they find and capture the last of the winged horses, known as Pegasus. And we’ve officially lost the track of Greek mythology at this point. Shit.

Well, with Ammon’s help, Perseus captures Pegasus and rides him through the skies. Meanwhile, in Corinth, some dude named Bellerophon is just having a stroke, I guess, because he’s totally fucked now. Whatever. The next day, the vulture comes back to Andromeda’s place and takes her soul to the marsh. But this time, Perseus and Pegasus follow them.

In the marsh, the marsh-lord and riddle-maker is revealed as Calibos, who is still in love with the beautiful Andromeda. As she cannot love him, he provides to her another riddle to give her would-be suitors. In tears, she memorizes the riddle and its answer, Calibos touches her uncomfortably, even as Andromeda asks him to lift his curse and show pity. But he refuses, in pain from his love. Jesus, this movie should be called Clash of the Simps, goddamn.

Perseus was watching the whole thing, though, which Calibos immediately figures out when he sees Perseus’ footsteps in the dirt. As Perseus goes through the swamp looking for Pegasus, he’s found and attacked by Calibos. Calibos, by the way, is a guy in pretty solid makeup in close-up shots, and a Harryhausen model in far-away shots.

The two struggle, the helmet is lost in the swamp, and Perseus draws his sword. But we suddenly cut away to see the daily ritual of the presentation for Andromeda’s would-be suitors. Perseus steps in, having survived the attack from last night, and offers his hand to Andromeda, who recognizes Perseus from a dream. She gives the riddle, which is ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT. Here, I’ll prove it.

In my mind’s eye, I see three circles joined in priceless harmony. Two, full as the moon; one, hollow as a crown. Two from the sea, five fathoms down. One from the Earth, deep under the ground. What is it?

Any guesses? Anybody?

NO MATTER WHAT YOU FAIL. Because the answer is Calibos’ ring! HOW IN THE SHIT WOULD ANYBODY HAVE GUESSED THAT? It’s a golden ring with two pearls on it! WHO KNOWS THAT SHIT? I call complete bullshit, and the only reason that Perseus knows it is because he spied on this last night! Also, because he cut off Calibos’ hand, and made him renounce his curse, which is...never really specified, now that I think about it.

With that, Perseus has both Andromeda’s and Calibos’ hands! HA! Calibos is not as amused, as he preys to his other Thetis, at a temple of hers. He demands that Thetis take revenge on those whom Perseus loves, specifically Andromeda and the city of Joppa itself. He demands justice, but Thetis identifies this correctly as revenge. All the while, Perseus declares his love for Andromeda, and they seal their union with a kiss and ritual.

During this ritual, in which Andromeda and Perseus are essentially married, Queen Cassiopeia, LIKE A DUMBASS, says that Andromeda is more beautiful than the goddess Thetis herself. Yeah. BAD FUCKING MOVE, especially because she said that IN FRONT OF THETIS’ FUCKING SANCTUARY. At least that dumbass move was kept from the original story.

Well, Thetis tells Cassie that she can only atone for her stupidity in one way: sacrifice your daughter to the Kraken in 30 days. Later on, Perseus speaks with Ammon to figure out how they can defeat the Kraken. Ammon suggests speaking with the “Stygian Witches”, who I’m assuming are our Grey Sisters for the night. However, according to Thallo, they have a taste for human flesh. Still, Perseus is going, as are Ammon, Thallo, and Andromeda. But not Pegasus.

Well...shit, man. That changes a few things, huh? But that’ll be addressed...IN PART TWO! See you there!

[brideofcthulhu10]

What would the lost boys think if you accidentally say a different mens name like from a rockbands name. While you was having sex with them

Sure thing fang baby, lemme give it a shot! I’m gonna be honest hon, there isn’t anything romantic about this scenario though, this one is gonna be a whole lot of drama. I write them according to what I think would happen based on their personalities. And let’s be realistic here- None of the boys would respond well to this. All of them are only ever going to polyamorous between each other and their s/o’s in a best case scenario. Outsiders involved in any way, shape, or form is seriously frowned upon. You could call to the great artists of the Renaissance, you could call out Eddie frickin Van Halen, it doesn’t matter. Trust me on this. 

THANK YOU TO @imlostinsantacarla WHO IS NOT ONLY MY CO-AUTHOR BUT A FELLOW LOST BOYS WRITER, AND AN AMAZING FRIEND! I appreciate all the help you’ve been, dude I love ya like a sister! Seriously guys, check out her blog, she is amazing!

The Lost Boys’ S/O Moans a Rock Star’s Name During Sex

18+ CONTENT WARNING: Contains Offensive Language, Gore, Homicide, Violent Behaviors, Potential Emotional Triggers, Sexual Themes! READER'S DISCRETION IS ADVISED!

David 

Any name that isn't his will infuriate him. All he knows is while he's on top of you, you just said another man's name. There's a split second where the infernos of Hades ignites his entire body aflame with pure unadulterated rage. His eyes spark white hot, it takes every ounce of willpower he has to physically calm himself so he doesn't "accidentally" kill you. It's tempting, nearly impossible to resist the urge to slice you open while he's still inside you. How dare you say anyone else's name. 

There’s quite the conflict in his head. He wonders if he should pull out, and leave you there without another word. But instead he chooses to take his revenge. Your mouth won't ever make the mistake of calling to anyone but him ever again, if you’re even lucky enough to be graced with his presence once he’s finished with you. Immediately he would've grabbed you by your throat, tempted to squeeze you until you fainted as he demanded you tell him again who's name you just screamed. It's a terrifying moment, you barely choke out the words before he flips you onto your stomach

"...What was that, kitten? I don’t think I heard those lips right! You're gonna have to say that louder for me."

Make no mistake, the fact that it's the name of a celebrity as you desperately try to claim, means fuck all to him. He will punish the fuck out of you! Everything is drawn out. He'll choke your neck until you can't even moan, just barely teasing when you begin to have tunnel vision. There is no way you'll be satisfied, this is for him! He's not about to give you what you want until you're crying, pleading for him to let you orgasm. You know what he does? Just at the edge of climax covered in scratches and bites, he pulls out and leaves you. Shaken, exhausted, alone, and unsatisfied. Why the hell would he give you the satisfaction of what you want when you called another man's name when you guys were having sex?

David is one of the guys whose ego is going to be busted, and that is a very poor choice to make. He would immediately get dressed. No aftercare, he wants you to feel filthy, dirty. You didn't deserve his love that night. The guys would jump out of his way, you don't want to be in his warpath when he gets like this. As he's tearing through victims he's constantly questioning himself. Why are you thinking of another man when you guys are intimate?! He doesn't let people in, but he let you in, and you fucked it! Obliterating his trust in less than a second.

Expect him to suspect you of adultery. Give him space, because for the next few weeks he won't humor any excuses you give him. How can he be sure you aren't lying?!  Maybe it wasn't the lead singer of the band you just said. Maybe it was just some fucker with a similar first name. David's trust in you no longer exists, and his respect is gone too. Afterwards he refuses to get intimate with you. Even hugs are rejected, he doesn't want you touching him- period!

Celebrity or not, don't bother being surprised when that guy winds up dead in their precious Hollywood estate a week later. David is possessive as fuck and he doesn't take betrayal lightly, no matter how big or small. You’d hear it on TV. The rock star found with his wrists and throat slashed, presumed suicide. But you already knew who was responsible. David isn’t even phased when you storm up to him on the boardwalk with a lit cigarette in his mouth. Of course he used mind control to have the bastard stab himself and slash open his throat. He only wishes he could’ve done it himself. He’ll even tell you all the gruesome details, mocking how he greatly suffered because David made him think there were bugs under his skin. David is over 110% petty. In fact, he’ll taunt you about this after. At first it’ll come off cold, passive and indifferent before it spills over into pure aggression. If you dare try to get angry at him he’ll put that to rest real fast, looking you dead in the eyes.

"You’re damn right I killed him. And you know what? His blood on your hands, y/n, not mine. You made one grave fucking mistake, you have no one but yourself to blame. I don't know why you're crying."

He's never gonna let you forget this. The likelihood of him staying is entirely dependent on how long you two were together. That also means how angry he gets will rely on that as well. He's not gonna trust you after either. In his eyes you're both done. But even then, you're still his at the end of the day. He’s not losing to a corpse, you knew the moment you two came together that you were going to be with him- whether you fucking like it or not. If you think you're gonna dare to move on, and leave him miserable in the dust after hurting him so, think again! You’ll be making it up to him for years, and maybe, just maybe, he’ll forgive you. 

Dwayne

Low-key freezes at first. It’s almost an otherworldly feeling. He must have heard you wrong! Did he hear you right? No way! Was that someone else's name? It certainly wasn’t his! Dwayne will just full on stop the action, the look on his face just dropping! It’s confusion, fear, rage. There’s no words. You had said another man’s name. Not even said it- you screamed it out. The nervous expression furrowing your face told him all he needed to know. He would immediately get dressed and leave you still sprawled on his bed storming off before he’s tempted to scream at you.

But he doesn’t. In fact, he doesn't say anything, but when you look into his eyes he's pissed! His eyes are fucking GLOWING, his fangs are bared, utterly insulted! This is a rage you’ve never seen on Dwayne. You done fucked up mate. This was an intensely intimate moment with him that you just shattered by the mere mention of someone else. Rock band or not, it’s another man’s name. Period. He knows exactly who Steven Tyler is, he doesn’t give a fuck.

When he pulled out and got off of you it was with such speed you never thought was possible from him because of how big his stature is. But now he’s shaken. For a moment it doesn’t even seem possible. Dwayne is trying to calm down, but if his heart was still beating it would be tearing through his chest. He feels like he might throw up, his stomach is just twisting into hideous knots he never thought possible. 

Dwayne is hurt. Utterly crushed. He loves you, or rather, loved you. It’s hard for him to understand what to do with this. He would never dream of doing something this dumb like that to you. Out on the boardwalk he doesn't even see other men or women, like that because he's with you, so for you to do that to him? He's intensely wounded. You said a rock star’s name, but what’s to stop you next time from saying someone else’s name? If you were going to be screaming other people’s names during sex, how far would you go?

When he leaves, he storms off for hours. You won’t see him again until the sun is starting to rise, and even then he won’t speak to you. Well, unless it’s to tell you to get out. Yeah, he wants you gone. Go home. When he’s ready, he’ll talk to you. For now, he doesn’t even look at you. Don’t expect to see him on the boardwalk. In fact, none of the boys are there. If they see you, it's silence and dirty looks. They’ve never seen Dwayne like this. Even when Jasper died he powered through it. This made him utterly depressed, nothing made their friend smile. Paul tried everything, even dancing in drag! Nothing! 

Out of everyone, it's gonna be the hardest for Dwayne to move past this. It’s not just a major turn off, it almost feels like a betrayal. Unless you two have been together for a significant amount of time, he’d probably break up with you. If not, then he’d demand space. He isn’t ready to let go, but he’s not ready to just forgive you. He won't be able to look at you the same afterwards. How could you be thinking of another man when his dick is literally inside of you? 

Are you unhappy? Are you unsatisfied? Like what's going on? Did you not want to be with him anymore?! He’d be questioning himself, questioning anything. Probably will talk it out with you but it's difficult for him to move past. 

It'll take a long time before he can be intimate, if he even can be with you because the trust just isn't there anymore. For Dwayne to be with someone, to let them in, he needs there to be trust in order for him to be intimate. It’s so hard for him to let someone in his life outside of his brothers, especially if you’re human. Now? He doesn’t even know. He may try to patch things up but all he’d hear and see is just you crying for someone else. The damage done might be too much for him to handle. If you guys manage to revive your relationship it’d be an utter miracle because honestly the chances are viciously slim. 

Paul

Whatever band member’s name you just called is now officially ruined for Paul forever. By the time you screamed it he was pretty much finished, and mid-climax his heart just drops, utterly falls into his stomach and any horny left inside him is dead. 

That man just pulled out so fast you were winded. He won't touch you after, and if you even try to touch him he will slap your hand away! Eventually he’s so pissed he’ll try to get away from you because he's just so furious. You have to understand, he didn’t hear a band name, he hear another man’s name

"Wait what-... What the fuck-?! What the ever loving fuck did you just fucking say?!" 

A switch has gone off in his head and he's almost violently shoving his clothes on. If you won’t leave then he will, and he honestly needs to get the fuck of there pronto before he’s tempted to do something messy he might regret! 

Paul may come off as this cocky, goofy playboy himself, but he's serious about you! He may have slept around before, but he’s only ever in a relationship, a real, serious relationship, if he truly trusts you. Paul hates being vulnerable, it’s a foreign and risky task that could bite him in the ass. And it just did. All trust is gone and he immediately jumps to the conclusion that you're sleeping with other people. A wave of insecurity takes over. He has a fragile ego, that’s why he tends to be such a needy boyfriend- he always needs to know you love him and that you won’t leave him. Honestly, now he can't look at a picture of the band member you called out during sex anymore, it’s ruined for him now. Their music pisses them off, their face makes him enraged. Even sex is ruined for him for awhile. This boy is so possessive it's unreal, but you've made things all weird now and he can't shake that shit off!

He genuinely cares about you! He knows he's done some dumb shit before! Paul’s behavior can always come across as flirty, even when he’s in his most relaxed state. He’s gotten shit for it before, and he totally understood when you would get ticked off at him for it. But... he never expected that fucking shit to come from you!

Paul will try to patch things up, as best as he can. He doesn't really wanna stay mad at you; it's not his style. However, things are just... different after. He lost that deep, trusting connection with you he once had. It’s just back to square one now, he may even need some space for a few days. Even if you guys manage to pick up the pieces, you have to earn every ounce of his trust back. Part of him sees it as a challenge. Every time you have sex he is determined to make it the most incredible, mind melting, mouth watering fuck he’s ever give in his afterlife! You won’t ever, ever think of another guy again! Unfortunately it makes it hard for him to enjoy it, because not only is he not relaxed, he’s utterly focused on you and there’s still such a massive fear that you’ll do it again.

Part of him desperately wants to murder the guy, and he wouldn't feel bad about it. Not one bit.  Gets way more possessive with you than he ever had been in the past, and frankly it’ll take years before he ever learns to relax again. He may see you as untrustworthy whenever you're around other males.  His anger is uncontrollable some nights, will probably kick, punch, or throw things. His rage is fucking untamed man! This haunts him, he thought you were starting to lov-... well, now he feels like an idiot. 

If you really do stay with him, Paul will be petty. He’s immature, he’s never had this serious of a relationship. So with that, he doesn’t understand how to handle the complex emotions that come with a situation like this. Even though you hurt him, he still cares about you! And that, in a way, makes him even angrier! He should be furious with you, but more than anything he just wants you to want him. Only him! He will remind you of this constantly, even with callous side comments because he can’t let go. If you guys fuck he may start call another women's name. Part of him doesn't give a shit if it makes you uncomfortable or insecure, because you did it to him! 

Paul will blast his favorite bands that you didn't ruin for him, even the other guys can’t cheer him up. None of them have ever seen Paul like this. You wouldn’t expect it to hit him this hard, but it does. He was laying into you, he was inside you, and your mind wanted someone else. Your pleasure wasn’t for him! Your desire, your love, your mind was yearning someone else when he was giving you everything he had! He won't look at you, or talk to you for a good few days. Maybe even a week. He won’t let you come to the hotel, on the boardwalk he’ll openly give you the cold shoulder. The other guys might too. How could they be certain it even was a band name? Maybe Paul had just rationalized it as a rock name so he didn’t have to face the fact you called for some random guy. David is wholly convinced you were having an affair, Marko is just pissed you hurt his friend, Dwayne just doesn’t know what to think of it all. Anytime you try to talk to him before he’s ready, he just acts like you don't exist. He’s hurt, and his anger is the only thing keeping him from forbidden tears. Just give him some space man! 

Marko

Marko would be the most hurt out of the group. The sound is just sickening. There he was, holding you to him, deep inside when your voice said… the wrong name? The horror makes his stomach drop, he immediately lifts himself off to look at you still lost in pleasure even as he’s stopped. He's so hard to read, you don't even realize you've hurt him until he's pulled himself out and off of you. 

He wouldn’t speak, or move for a solid 30 minutes. Just silently sitting on the edge of the bed, if you tried to speak he wouldn’t even turn to look at you. His muscles are rigid, wound tight in knots. He’s imploding from the inside, it’s impossible for him to keep his vampire rage subdued, so in a fury he leaves. Marko is not fucking around right now. You’ve screwed up, majorly. He thinks you’ve been cheating on him, and if there’s something Marko takes very seriously, it’s loyalty. He needs to get to get the fuck away from you, because he’s not sure if he can control himself for much longer, and despite his suspicions he doesn't want to hurt you. 

Unlike Paul or Dwayne, when he returns Marko will not talk this out. You honestly shouldn’t have stayed, you should have left when he was gone because he’s still seething when you try to explain yourself. No. You're in the fucking wrong and he's not budging. He will not be hearing any of your bullshit excuses, whatever you throw out doesn’t matter! It's a dumb move he'd expect from Paul, but not from you. Part of him is almost tempted to just try to work things out, but Marko doesn’t trust easily and you’ve not just damaged his trust, you’ve damaged his self esteem. When he heads to the caves and you’re still here he’s had enough.

“Get out…”

“Wh-What?”

Marko flares his fangs at you, blood still staining his mouth. “GET. THE FUCK. OUT.”

You will not be back in that hotel for a long time, if ever again. Marko will avoid you for a while, and I’m talking months here. It’s not just a silent treatment, if he sees you approaching he will start up his motorcycle and ride away- with or without the other guys. He can’t even look at you. If we’re being realistic here, Marko probably won't be able to be intimate with you again. He can’t look past it. All he can see is you calling for someone else, in your heated climax in his arms, utterly exposed, and you desired someone else. He has more self respect for himself than the others, so more than likely he will break up with you! 

He’s hurt. It's a cluster of emotions, all of them feel horrid. Rage, pain, sorrow, betrayal. How could you do this? Have you seen him? (like bruhhhhhh where you gonna find a man that rocks a crop top as good as him? where?) He definitely went on a killing spree right after. He needs to release his rage, it’s so pent up he doesn’t know how else to handle it. There would be blood everywhere, there wouldn’t even be any bodies left behind. Everything is utter carnage. Marko would need some serious alone time from everyone, he wouldn't talk to the other boys for at least a few hours. 

Paul is furious at you when they find out what you did. You're fucking dead! Marko means so much to them, and you meant so much to Marko! This was his best friend! They let you into their coven, they trusted you with their brother, and you genuinely broke this poor baby’s heart! Hope you don’t have any unfinished business. Say your prayers and make amends now, because you're packing for your funeral buddy. David even hunts down anyone with the name you called and kills them, and he’ll be sure you know. You don’t hurt his friends, you’re lucky that he’s allowing you to draw breath from this miserable planet.

Afterwards, Marko does not go into another relationship for years. Maybe even a decade. It hurts him to go back on the boardwalk. Everything reminds him of you. The ferris wheel where you guys had your first kiss, the food stands he’d take you to, the arcade where he’d kick your butt at Mortal Kombat. Even more so is the sight of you. He doesn’t want to run into you at all. Even the sound of your name, anything to do with you makes him feel down or enraged. He already had trust issues before you, now he wasn’t nearly as willing to be trusting to anyone but his brothers. The next s/o he has, if he ever decides to have another, will definitely be picking up the pieces.

[tobrodachi]

Tezcaltlipoca, Ace Attorney

“And to you I bequeath....... a boot to the head.”

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to another iteration of “What the fuck is this madlad gonna butcher next?” I’m your host Eox, and this is, say it with me:

You’re absolutely goddamn right you crazy diamonds! It’s time for yet another mesoamerican shitpost! This time, the star of the show is none other than good ol’ Quetz’s elder brother, Tezcaltlipoca! Ruler of the night skies, obsidian, war (Yes, again, the believers were an undecisive bunch), hurricanes, discord, and DARKNESS! And proud owner of this cat:

As always, read the rest under the cut, shit gets long

The heelest of the heels, the baddest motherfucker  to ever set foot on this side of the pond. Or at least, that’s what a christian-infused perspective would like for you to think. You see, Tezcaltlipoca has a bit of a bad rap, much like Hades as a god of the underworld back in the greek pantheon, and he’s the only one in the family who takes care of their pet jaguar.

He’s just a softy like that.

However, as elder brothers tend to do, they’re not above causing mischief to their youngest. So, imagine if you will, a pair of young gods, fresh out of drinking their mom’s teat, and slapping each other with their baby hands.

“Ur mom suck me good and hard thru my jorts”

“... You do know she’s your mom too, right?”

“Your mom!”

“Your mom!”

Maginificent duels of light vs darkness, let me tell ya.

But I digress, for this isn’t a story about good vs evil, but rather about how they managed to (accidentally) create the world.

Before anything existed, like, ever, two deities existed. Ometeotl, and Omecíhuatl, the Terrible Duo’s parents. They gave birth to both Quetzy and Tezcat, and told them to be good and study, so they could maybe create and rule their world as a Fair Ruler would do.

“lmao, that’s lame” they thought in unison. Then, they decided to play hookie and go outside their home! Only to find out that, well...

They needed to create a world first, since at that point only the mesopotamian pantheon had managed to create something, but King Gilgamesh was a little bitch.

“That sucks.” said Quetzy, looking around the primordial goo that the ancient Mesopotamian gods left, with Huitzilopochtli following suite.

Wandering around in primordial soup isn’t a fun trip, at all. Especially when you’re bound to get attacked by a motherfucking giant sized crocodile  graded 3 on the “Fuck you” scale out of 5. So, as always with the bright ideas, Quetz took on a manic grin on his own and turned to Tezcaltlipoca himself.

“Quetz, no!”

“Quetz, YES! ALL OF THE YES!”

And that’s how Quetzalcoatl found himself wrasslin’ Cipactli, as the pair now dubbed the crocodile.

Of course, Quetzalcoatl isn’t from Australia, so he lost. Badly. And Tezcaltlipoca had to go rescue Quetzy, because absolutely no one dunks on his little brother other than him. So, this started booting up his brain juices, the brain cell shared between the two.

What was the plan? Enrage the already berserk crocodile, and lure him into a trap. And his kid mind thought “Well, the thing that pisses me off the most is mom’s La Chancla, so it should work!”

Except for one little detail: He had no chancla, and he was no mom to pull off the Super Ultra Secret Latina Mom Martial Art. However, being an absolute rascal and having received his fair share of punishments from riding with Quetz, he replicated the technique.

“Trace, On.” Tezcaltlipoca fired up his aria, his body reinforced with magic to the brim, making it go even further beyond what a child god of his caliber could do. He took an obsidian knife, and then---

Plunged it into his right ankle. He continued cutting it until he had amputated his foot, as any good mesoamerican deity should! And then, he THREW it into the Cipactli’s face with all the strength he could, making the crocodile stare at him like a delicious meal, since, well, he was.

But so enraged, and so hungry this crocodile was, that he didn’t notice he’d fallen right into Tezcaltlipoca’s trap!

They’d arrived back at their home, and turning his (not-at-all-fake-crying) face towards his mom, with Quetz still clinging to the crocodile, Tezcaltlipoca started crying.

“MOM! THE MEAN CROCODILE ATE MY FOOT!”

And there goes Omecíhuatl, armed with the fury only a mother could have, and I SHALL REFRAIN TO EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENS NEXT BECAUSE CROCODILES SHOULDN’T BEND THAT WAY!

Relieved, and sweating his ass off, Tezcaltlipoca almost did a little victory dance, he deserved it after all the brothers had to go through! Keyword: Almost. As soon as their mom finished the job on the crocodile, she turned back to the mischief makers themselves.

“Tezcaltlipoca! Quetzalcoatl! What were you doing outside, when I left you two to study!?”

Quetzalcoatl didn’t answer on account of him being knocked out earlier.

“Errrrrr... Mamita, you see--”

“Don’t you dare answer back to me! How could you do this to my trust? Have I failed you as a mother?”

Behold! Mom-fu Technique #2: The emotional blackmail waterworks, guaranteed to make even the most hardened troublemaking kids go back into the good ol’ ways.

“No, mom, don’t cry, we were trying to make the world, I swear!”

And so on, and so off, the discussion kept going. And since, they “oh-so-sanctimoniously” were trying to make the world, she’d make damn sure they used the crocodile as intended.

And so, they did! The crocodile’s spines were turned into the world’s mountains. Now they needed to find something that, y’know, isn’t Tiamat’s bath water as a sea, flat land to actually stand on, and the sky because SHIT’S DARK AS FUCK!

_________

But that’s another story, for another time. Hope you enjoyed this shitpost, and remember to take what’s written in these with a grain of salt. I’m no historian, so many liberties were taken when writing these.

[kelenia]

Bnha Percy Jackson au bc uhhhh reasons

@noerher and I have been talking about a bnha Percy Jackson au and its Very important.

-Midoriya being Zeus’s son (all might) which gets considerably funnier when you also know that that makes him Kaminaris brother

-Todorokis family are a huge family of money in New Rome but he Does not care for that roman business so instead of staying as a son of Neptune in Camp Jupiter he comes to Camp Half-blood

-Bakugou is a very, very pissed off son of Athena (what do you mean I’ve tried to get a quest and train for my whole life and this green loser just got here and got claimed by ZEUS)

-The Gods aren’t complete assholes in this au and most of the camp is pretty sure Apollo (mic) is sleeping with Hades (Aizawa) who’s also Shinsous dad

-CLASS B IS CAMP JUPITER. Except for Momo. Because she deserves to be preator

-didn’t really touch this much but Shiketsu are Egyptians

-Uraraka has been cursed on her island for millennia and is Done with heroes until this really cute daughter of Demeter that loves frogs stumbles into Ogygia

-The Bakusquad And Dekusquad always manage to find each other while they’re both doing their own quest for some reason

-Iida is a satyr, he’s the one that bought Midoriya to camp

-Kiri is a son of Ares, Mina is a daughter of Aphrodite and Sero is also a satyr (or son of Hermes, it depends)

-Bakugou is a son of Athena but also the only demigod that’s not Ares’s son that has gotten his blessing

(I think that’s the general thing????? I’m Very bad at compiling this kind of things)

[deathmetalunicorn1]

Adamas hcs? (Yandere or Not, Romantic or Platonic, Sfw or Nsfw, your choice)

I’ll do my best to write this because we haven’t seen too much of him just yet. Just some general relationship HCs.

-Is not the gentlest person out there, both physically and emotionally, can be crass at times so he wouldn’t be the most ideal partner for someone who is sensitive and gets their feelings hurt easily.

-Will TRY to be a bit nicer if you are someone who is more sensitive, but it definitely will be a slow process, so don’t expect an overnight change.

-Also, don’t try to demand that he change himself, personality wise, like telling him to be nicer, he won’t like that, and it will be the easiest way to piss him off which in turn will make him hurt your feelings.

-Hates being compared to others, especially any of his brothers, he hates that more than anything and will make his displeasure known.

-Would fit the best with a strong-willed partner, one who could put him in his place (he’s in denial when he says he doesn’t like it), but you need to match his personality or be thick skinned enough to take him down a few pegs.

-Will be nicer if he respects you, and he will respect you if you prove to him that you are worth respecting.

-Is well educated, thanks to Hades, so he can hold deep meaningful conversations about a wide array of subjects, so he’s not boring at all to talk to.

-Don’t expect big romantic gestures or fancy dates from Adamas, he’s not the most romantic person out there, and usually most of his advice comes from his brothers, except for Zeus. He knows better to not listen to Zeus about these types of things.

-Not real big on physical displays of affection, mainly because he doesn’t like others touching him, but if he’s dating you and you’ve managed to earn his respect, he doesn’t mind hugs here and there, but cuddling is definitely something that would be a slow process.

-If he respects and trusts you, he will be extremely loyal to you, but expects it in return, as loyalty and trust are important things to him.

[hycksthoughts]

𝓓𝓮𝓪𝓻 𝓒𝓪𝓽𝓱𝓻𝓲𝓷,

It’s about time I finally expose myself in 30 points. I’ve wait soo long for that moment ,, hooray

1. I don’t have second nor even third names, just one, sadly

2. I have a submechanophobia.

3. I’ve recently got a new bed.

4. My PC doesn’t have an integrated CD player

5. I tried smoking but it didn’t appeal to me so I didn’t continue.

6. I’m actually a shipper although my main interest lays in opposite gender. I don’t know how that’s even possible yet it is.

7. I get startled and annoyed when people show interest in my culture/ country I’m from. Which I can’t account for myself. In my understanding it is sick showing interest in a country that did literally every even little thing wrong. I’m sorry it failed me, so when people unaware of what’s actually going on in there admit to their fascination by it I feel agitated.

8. I think german is a cute language, so everyone who thinks otherwise can piss of. Just type those words in the google translator and let it pronounce them: Milch, Brötchen, Schönheit, Flügel, Frucht, Kirsche.

9. I develop crushes so easily, you can bring some of your folks to a hangout and I be like damn, i feel the connection, where in fact they just were being nice.

10. I’m a professional overthinker. Hand me the grant already.

11. My English pronunciation is so bad my 7.y.o. brother corrects me all the time and he isn’t even a native speaker.

12. I often forget how old I am but sadly i don’t have any wekepedia site yet to check it there HAHA.

13. Both me, my grandmother and her bestie have the same name.

14. My mother is officially a crackhead. She pulls off things that make me reconsider every life choice made so far.

15. I find it weird how people pronounce Zeus. Resembles German süß very much.

16. I hade other expectations of high school but whatever. At least someone has fun there.

17. I genuinely don’t believe some pussies in my school have the nerve to do coke in school restrooms. Nah, all talk.

18. My school is promoted as lgbt-friendly, which I assume is only due to the manager’s orientation but who knows. We’re pretty cool here indeed.

19. I’m bad at handling arguments and get all emotional and whiny.

20. Although I have never developed crushes on people who would be physically unable to like me back, I was never liked back yet. That’s so weird, like, even If the person’s also queer it ain’t different. Life’s a bitch.

21. I roast people but then get nervous and check on them just to be sure they don’t feel too bad. That’s so pathetic istg.

22. I have broken both of my arms back in the days.

23. I live by the quote “if you know the question you can figure out the answer”. Meaning that mostly we can’t solve a problem because we don’t know where to start and the second we define it, we can find a solution.

24. I hate the color red.

25. Most of my furniture is red.

26. I never learned to cook and always experiment. It turns out mostly tasty, some times not so tasty.

27. I’m not socially competent and stick to the INFP stigma.

28. I believe some ships could be real. Now don’t overreact. Of course the most of idols and stars are straight and etc. in kpop for example there have been cases with relationships within the groups. this one for example is very much like a fanfic, with betrayal and all that. So it makes it possible for other group-members be dating each other. Which most of them wouldn’t do either way bc of their bond and all that crap. But still!

29. I can play flute

30. I love mangoes.

Now, your turn to fess up

@violentvaleska

[groovyzombiellama]

Family Reunion

Title: Family Reunion Requested? Yes. Plot: You are the daughter of Hades and Artemis, Persephone being your step mother, and one day you and your boyfriend Scott go on one of your family reunions together. Word count: 2266 (longest imagine I’ve ever written so far)

—***—

“I could come with you, you know, for support?“ Your head snapped up from the message from your father on your phone to look at Scott after he uttered that sentence. Your eyes wide, he can’t be serious. Did he seriously just offer to go to your family reunion? You knew he had your best interest at heart and was trying to help you, but regardless of all the things he went through, and becoming an Alpha, nothing can prepare him for what your family reunions are like. Messy doesn’t even begin to cover it. Scott saw the disbelief in your eyes, and raised his hands up slowly, backing away a few steps, saying he just tried to help. Another beep of your phone snapped you back into reality, and you noticed it was from your step mother, informing you to bring anyone you want with you if you want to, since she knows how these things can get to you. You and Scott are in your fourth year of dating, so he’s practically family, you’ve even gone shopping for a ring, but he wanted to be the one to decide in the end and give you a surprise, so it would tehnically still be a family reunion, but was he really ready for it?

In case people are wondering why you had this reaction and why meeting your family is so dreadful, I should explain the background surrounding your birth and childhood. You are a demigod, daughter of the all powerful king of the Underworld, but if your father being Hades is not enough, there’s so much more to it. Your three mothers to be exact. Yup, three mothers, you’re that special. Allow me to elaborate. Your mother is Artemis, but since she’s a virgin goddess, a human was tasked with your birth. So that cover’s the second mother, the woman who birth you. Things were great for a while, your father sent his minions to keep an eye on you when you would walk out into the human world, and you almost had this feeling of power that you were a demigod. However, when your father fell in love with Persephone, and made a plan with his brother Zeus to kidnap her and make her his wife, things shifted, slow but sure, into a completely different world. Artemis wasn’t pleased with the new woman in Hades’ life, and even less pleased with how loving Persephone was towards you.

While in the beginning, she was miserable to say the least because of how she ended up in the Underworld, you were the one silver lining in Persephone’s life, and she loved caring for you and having you around, in a way more than Artemis, who ended up becoming a little too busy with feeling betrayed by your father. So to you, Persephone was more of a mother, but I still referred to her as the step mother in the beginning. And you wanted to see your family, you loved all of them, no matter how hot headed they can get around each other, but you just didn’t want to see them all at once. It was kinda bound to be a disaster one way or another. If they end up at each other’s throats, ready to fight, you were used to it, and you could just slip away and go home. But the bad scenario is when they are quiet, fake smiles curving their lips, and they looked as if they were glued to their face, or perhaps they were turning into stone. That’s when you know it’s really bad. So far, Scott hasn’t met anyone from your family, and if it was up to you, he never would. Maybe you’d let him meet your brothers and sisters, but as far as parents go, you were fine not exposing him to that.

A sigh escapes your lips as you lock your phone and throw it on the bed next to you, placing your head in your hands. You feel the bed sink next to you and you turn your head slightly to see Scott’s worried eyes on you as he rubbed circles on your back soothingly. You lean into him, closing your eyes when you feel him kiss the top of your head. “I’m sorry for how I reacted, it’s just that these reunions get pretty hectic at times. We’re not exactly your everyday modern family. We’re talking about actual Gods, with incredible powers. I guess something happening to you popped in my head and I got way too worried.“ Scott lets out an airy laugh at your words, pulling you tighter against him,wrapping both arms around you. He tells you that he was going to be fine, and that what mattered to him more was being there to help you calm down when you needed him. You feel a smile creep on your lips, and you lift your head up to look at your boyfriend, who in turn lowers his head and captures your lips in his.

“No, no, no, definitely not, no, no, not in a million years...“ Finding an outfit for the party is going not so well it seems, as you sit in the middle of the floor, your clothes pilled up around you, a mild pout on your face. It made you wish that you had some powers of your own, especially time traveling powers, so that you could just skip the reuinion entirely. But no matter how you flicked your hand at Scott walking into the room, he wasn’t freezing. His brows furrowed at your actions, and he questioned what you were doing. You told him and he chuckled, lowering himself to randomly grab some clothes and throw them at you to wear. “I wore five days ago!“ You say, dangling your dress on your finger by the strap, holding it out towards him. But Scott informed you that even if you did wear it not too long ago, your family hasn’t seen you in those clothes, so why not put your worries aside where you can and just put it on.

You shook your head at his remark and got up off the floor, gathered the rest of the clothes back to the wardrobe and went to the bathroom to change. Once you were in your bra and underware, you feel Scott’s strong arms wrap around your waist, as his lips trace hot kisses on your neck and shoulder, making your eyes flutter closed. “Scott...we don’t....have time for that.“ You kept pausing in the middle of your sentance as you were tryin to supress a moan from escaping from your lips. But one did manage to slip out as one of Scott’s hands squeezed your breast and his mouth found your sweet spot. Feeling yourself melt in his hands, and that caused you to snap back into reality and turn towards him, quickly pushing him back. “Sorry, sorry, I can’t help it when I have such a hot girlfriend.“ He said looking you up and down. You respond with sending a wink his way and slipping on your dress. A low growl comes from Scott, and you know that by the time you’re home from the reunion, if they manage to stay calm, you’d be having an eventful night.

You took a deep breath before entering your father’s dining room. Everyone was already there, sitting dangerously close to each other for your liking. When they noticed you, they all stood up, glaring at each other upon noticing their synced actions, before the pressure was on you. You had to choose carefully the order of hugs. The first one was easy, as you wrapped your arms around your father’s neck, before introducing him to Scott, who shook Hades’ hand. You knew that Artemis would be holding a huge grudge if you didn’t hug her first, and Persephone would probably understand why you walk to her second. So you introduce Scott to Artemis next, and as you are about to turn towards Persephone, you can already notice the sinister smirk that Artemis would be giving her, but Persephone stayed calm and you could see it in her eyes that she didn’t mind what you did, which made you love her even more. After all of the greetings and introductions, you were finally able to sit down and eat. Of course your family asked Scott a lot of questions, looking over at you with shocked expressons after finding out you were together for four years without them knowing.

“You’re gods, I’m surprised not a single one of your minions told you about us.“ You say to your father, stating that since they are gods, they can see anyone whenever they want to. Sure, Hades rarely left the Underworld, but Artemis and Persephone left frequently. And the subtle wink you got from Persephone indicated she already knew something, but chose not to tell anyone. A part of you felt that the fact there was a new person with them, and someone so close to you at that, the three adults at the table were restraining themselves from asking too much about topics they knew they would bicker about. Artemis held her glass tighter and tighter as Persephone spoke about what you were like as a child. It was subtle, so not even you noticed it, until you all heard glass breaking and shards flying all over the table. “How would you know better than me what she was like?! You’re not her mother!“ Oh boy, here we go. You knew how this conversation went. Artemis would get pissed off by something Persephone said, and would start throwing a tantrum, while Hades tried to protect his wife by asking Artemis to calm down, and in case she doesn’t, he’d probably throw her in one of the dungeons until she cools down.

“Artemis!“ Your father’s voice boomed into the empty space around you, making you jump slightly. Scott squeezed your hand as encouragement that he was there for you no matter what, and you responded by squeezing his hand back and smiling at him for a moment, before your attention was back to your mothers standing up from their seats, throwing daggers at each other with their eyes. You and Scott were sitting next to Artemis, instead of opposite of your father, because that’s where you usually sit when you are alone, not to get anoyne angry, so you used the opportunity to grab her sleeve, and tug on it, making her turn her head towards you. “Please, sit down, both of you. We will eat in peace and talk about the new stuff in our lives, or Scott and I are leaving.“ The determination in your voice was strong, and your mothers could feel it. They knew that once you set your mind on something, you were gonna do it, no matter what.

The tension between the two women could be cut with a knife, and you could have sworn you hear every single click the utensils made in contact with their surroundings, even when your father put his fork on the napkin next to his plate, you could have sworn it was the loudest sound ever compared to anyone talking. Because they weren’t talking, and when they would, one of them would have a quick remark about something the other one said. Artemis doing so in her usual, hot tempered way, placing her hand on the table, and leaning over to the person she was targeting with her wit, Hades leaning back into his chair, and resting his hand on his staff, and Persephone acting as calm as ever, looking at her nails, or down into her plate. You regretted bringing Scott with you. Not because you didn’t want him to know every part of you, but because you are used to dinners like this, you can handle them. But he was new to this, and you could tell he felt awkward. And you didn’t blame him.

After coming back home, you let out a sigh of relief and plopped yourself onto the couch in the living room of yours and Scott’s shared apartment. “I sure am glad that’s over.“ You say, as you lift your feet on the table, tilting your head back into the cushions. Scott chuckled taking off his jacket and kicking off his shoes. He then walked over to you and kissed your nose, causing you to giggle. You loved how he always was able to bring out the happy you no matter what. He then whispered in your ear. “I know something we can do that could take your mind off tonight being so awkward.“ You knew exactly what he meant by that, and jumped to your feet, grabbing his hand and leading him to your bedroom, walking in backwards as you stared into his eyes, your bottom lip between your teeth. As you walked, you felt your bed on the back of your legs, and pulled at Scott’s shirt, falling backwards on the sheets, with him falling on top of you. He looked at you for a moment before crashing his lips onto yours. You will always love your family, no matter what, and you were glad that they didn’t wault over the table with their weapons at the ready to fight. Maybe next time, you bringing Scott will be helping things calm down, as he’ll get used to it pretty soon. All and all, you were the daughter of a few people, but the girlfriend, and a week later a fiance of only one person.

---***---

Sorry it took so long @katandnanca I hope you are happy with the plot and the length, if not, let me know and I can do a part 2 maybe? <3

The three Colson requests I have pending over inbox, and maybe a part 2 of getting engaged to Theo after he comes back from the underworld are gonna be up tomorrow I hope, or the day after that, depending on the errands I have to do with my mom, like buying some stuff for the new apartment etc <3

[masked-disciple]

OK BUT we've heard your take on the specter's relationship with Alone but what about the twin gods???? what's you onion on the twin gods + alone???

My onion on the twin gods? Well, I dunno about flavour, but I can sure try~

Firstly. We know several things, right off the bat, that’s gonna split this ask up a bit. We know that Hades is actually in Elysium recovering, Athena uses a human vessel because she’s Athena and wants to, and the twin gods - as proven definitively by TLC episode whatever (the one where Manigoldo and Fucktrumpet face off against Thanatos) - also have human vessels.

But what do we know about those twin vessels? Absolutely goddamn nothing. But, as per my rules of ‘Pale has to make everything needlessly complex because he enjoys ruleslawyering and giving Pisces Lugonis more friends’, the amount of hijinks the twin vessels of Thanatos and Hypnos could get up to before the gods got involved is rather a lot.

In Mirrorverse, I’m calling these vessels Matt and Smitty. in honour of the nicknames two of my highschool classmates named themselves while proceeding to derail an entire calculus class, for which I personally think they should be memorialized for. Smitty’s Thanatos, Matt’s Hypnos, so Matt’s the blond one.

With that out of the way, let’s focus on what’s two things here. Matt and Smitty’s relationship with Alone (and everyone else), and Hypnos and Thanatos’ relationship with both Alone and Hades.

Honestly, with when the actual twin gods would’ve had to get involved and take their vessels out of the picture, I don’t think Matt and Smitty ever would have met Hades himself. I know that Hades mostly just lets Alone do his thing and sometimes steps in to help him out of whatever pickle he got himself into while also being the one on the battlefield a good chunk of the time (because come on, Hades isn’t going to give himself a vessel and then traumatize them. Not without corrupting them into enjoying it first, and even with Saint Seiya’s alternate laws of magic and physics, it would still traumatize him), but Hypnos and Thanatos aren’t really that type.

Honestly, the only time we actually saw Matt in canon was in the first couple of episodes when he dragged Alone off to go meet Pandora, and we know it’s Matt because Hypnos doesn’t need to wear glasses. We saw Smitty’s body when Thanatos was trying to drag Manigoldo into the Hyperdimension (which also proves that cloths and surplices can survive it, even if they can’t traverse it of their own power), but he never actually got to show off his conscious existence.

So what we do know is that Hades and the twin gods have been coworkers (and also roommates, due to Elysium) for millennia. They already worked together in the Age of Myth, and now they’re fighting an endless war together. They’re probably close friends, at this point? I don’t really see them doing any actual sacrifices for each other or worship going on there, but I do know the twin gods see Hades as higher-ranked than they are, being an Olympian and all that. So they serve, and call him just Hades, and it works out all right.

As for Alone, however, which is actually what you wanted.

Matt met Alone and probably thought he was nice enough, but was also operating under Hypnos’ direct orders and so didn’t have much leeway. He and Smitty probably interact with Alone like the Spectres do, because ultimately they’re just high-ranking servants on account of being under someone more important, but you can’t just go stabbing them because they’ll go tattle on you and then you’ll get your shit wrecked.

But as for Thanatos and Hypnos, everyone’s favourite problematic twins (because the Cancer twins aren’t problematic, Hakurei has a nice ass and fucked Avenir at least twice and his brother is just, as always, unforgivable)! Let’s be real here, these two are hyper-professional gremlins at work. They exist to cast magic that the Spectres can’t manage while looking totally professional, harassing poor Pandora who deserved better in every way, and when needed, to provide an authority that exists without getting yelled at by a pissed off, exhausted Judge who has seen far too much.

Honestly, they probably act as uncles to Alone, where Hades firmly takes the dad spot. Sometimes they have to help parent, sometimes Alone has to focus all of that teenage rage on someone who isn’t going to explode under his powers when he’s not allowed to go bully his sister. So I expect the relationship to be a friendly one, if not so much where Alone trusts them with all his secrets - they don’t get along with Pandora, who is decidedly on Kagaho-level fondness and that pits Alone, if only a little, against them.

I don’t think they see Pandora as anything better than any of the other Mirrorbound, but they certainly don’t treat her very well, and because it’s kind of obvious that Alone is absolutely putting Pandora in the place in his heart that Sasha used to be in, there is that dissent.

So while he knows he can come to them if he need to, I don’t think he actually would. He’s more likely to find Pandora or Kagaho, if he needs backup, or the Judges if it’s above his ability to handle it at all. The twin gods are firmly ‘these are my dad’s friends, not mine’ territory, and he’s only going to them for backup if someone tells him he has to. 

Because let’s be real, here. Not a single teenager in this damn series is going to an adult for help. Alone asks an adult for help a hell of a lot more than literally anyone else. Sasha kind of just relies on everyone else (honestly, she’s such a static character and I wish there was more to her), Tenma straight up forgets he can ask for help literally ever, Yato is out here leading the army all by himself half the time because he can’t push it off on Regulus all the time, and Yuzuriha actually asks an adult for help a total of once, so jot that one down.

If Alone’s going to the twin gods for anything more than ‘we’re in the same room so we’re talking I guess’, it’s because he’s got orders to do so or he doesn’t have much of a choice.

That and I cannot see the three of them interacting without someone getting punched.

[strongheartmaid]

::bats away the cobwebs::

suddenly, fic. Nutcracker, to be accurate. Slowly getting my bunnies back.

-

It was slow - the return to consciousness. There was a certain stiffness to him that hadn't been there the night before but he did justify that as probably having fallen asleep in an awkward position after celebrating their victory over the forces of darkness - again.

'Call me the force of darkness just one more time.. just one more time..' came a snarl from a voice in his mind that he hadn't planned on ever hearing again.

'Hades?' he asked, or attempted to - his voice failing him for whatever reason.

'Yes,' came the wearied answer. 'And no I'm not the result of you drinking that vodka that blond haired swan was passing around. That stuff is vile. Why would you want to suffer like that?'

'Okay, so you're in my head, why? I thought Athena got rid of you,' Shun responded, already wary. Okay, so he couldn't vocally answer but mentally, well that worked. Still, it did unnerve him that Athena's enemy still lingered within him - especially after everything they had gone through. And he wasn't going to rise to the bait regarding Hyoga and that vodka he was sharing as part of the victory celebration.

'Because I am you,' Hades retorted. 'And I'm far too old and far too tired to have you drag me into a quote off from that bloody show Athena took you to on her last birthday. Fucking earworms, I'm never going to not hear that 'Murder, Murder' song.'

Shun couldn't help the strained laugh that escaped him that response. Who would have thought he'd be having a, dare he even say it, dare he even think it, pleasant conversation with Athena's mortal enemy? Certainly not him, that was sure - this would be the last thing he would have thought he'd be doing in this lifetime. 'Okay, getting back on to topic, so you and I can't be separated because we're the same person like Athena is Miss Saori?'

'Correct,' Hades said, settling down on the ground in an attempt to get comfortable. 'As for what happened,' he let out a disgusted huff as if he wasn't eager to share this tidbit of information, 'our nephew happened.'

'Nephew?' Shun asked, confused. What nephew? Better yet, which nephew - Hades had at least four that he knew about, it could have been any of them.

'Apollo,' Hades hissed, his temper fraying just a little more at the thought of that particular godling - having yet to forgive him for that stunt of his son's. 'I don't know what his game is, but I will get even with him for this.'

Shun nodded and looked at Hades. 'Okay, so, what do we know? Besides you're still here and it's nigh impossible to move. Did Shaka do something to us?'

Hades was silent as he willed himself to take a brief accounting of what had happened. 'So..' he began slowly, 'what do you know about nutcrackers?' he asked in a tone reserved for discussing the weather.

Shun sputtered a moment before groaning. 'Can we feed Apollo to Cerberus?' he asked, settling down on the ground next to Hades.

'I'm glad we're on the same page,' Hades said, a smile slipping across his pale features. 'As for the feeding, I'm not sure our darling brother will allow us to do it - especially after we tried to do it to Demeter.'

'Why did we feed Demeter to Cerberus?' Shun asked, more curious than he wanted to admit to being.

'Well, she pissed us off for starters, that and,' he paused, a dark chuckle escaping him, 'Poseidon and I wanted to know if there was anything Cerberus wouldn't eat. Turns out she's too bitter.'

Shun struggled to keep from laughing, he really did - but the mental images that his immortal self was providing him were just that amusing. 'Okay, so we're on good terms with Poseidon, good to know,' he said. He let out a sigh. Now, if he could figure out what the next step would be, that would be wonderful. He wasn't sure he wanted to spend the rest of his life (however long that would be) trapped as a little wooden toy and with only Hades as company. 'So, what do we do now?' he asked.

'Rest for the moment,' Hades said quietly. 'Nothing we can do until the story of the nutcracker begins.'

-

Julian stood in the toy shoppe,  wondering not for the first time this evening why exactly he was there. Wait, now he recalled - it was getting close to Christmas time and he was holding his first Christmas party as an adult (or well, as close as to adult as he would be - he wouldn't be reaching the proper age of majority for some time but his father did insist on it being his turn to host - to prepare him for the social aspect of the family's business - at least, that's what he recalled, he tended to tune out his father once he began his speech-making regarding what a proper Solo heir should be doing at his age). He sighed quietly and glanced over at his companions - each one browsing the variety of choices. Hopefully this wouldn't be an expensive trip but one never knew, especially with Canon currently eying several of the more expensive toys. "Even though I am the sole heir to my family's name, please don't break the bank, Canon," Julian called over to his primary guardian.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he chuckled, slanting a glance over to Julian before returning his attention to the display he had been looking at. "I was planning on picking up a few things for the orphanage you were sponsoring this year. A few learning tablets are hardly too much of an expense and something that would please your father by the same token."

"Ah," Julian said, before he turned his attention to the wall of nutcrackers that Thetis had pointed out to him the moment they had entered the shop. An old childhood friend of his had always expressed a fondness for these old things and it would be a good present for her. His eyes scanned the shelves, trying to find something that captured his eye before he froze, his gaze fixed on a particular one.

"See something you like?" Thetis asked as she appeared by his left shoulder, lightly placing a kiss to his cheek.

Julian didn't answer as he picked the nutcracker up off the shelf, carefully examining the figure. The nutcracker had a fine mane of green hair and brilliant green eyes. But it was the outfit - one that had him intrigued. For the nutcracker wasn't clad in the usual outfit one associated with nutcrackers - no, this one was clad in something that looked like a combination of both Holy Cloth of Andromeda and the Sacred Kamui of Hades, right down to the miniature chains of Andromeda on the gauntlets and the sword of hatred that Hades wielded strapped to his waist. "Thetis?" he asked, a note of confusion in his voice. "Tell me this isn't what I think it is...?"

Thetis took the nutcracker from her lord and husband, allowing her Cosmos to better examine the small figure. She let out a soft groan - clearly not pleased with the results of her examination. "Hades is going to murder our nephew at this rate," she groaned.

"More so than when his son disrupted his realm?" Julian asked, easily sliding into his role of Poseidon without batting an eye. "Well, I better buy this nutcracker and get my brother to safety," he muttered under his breath. "Damn it, Hades, why can't you make things easy for me for once? I don't ask for much from you, just one year without you giving me grief."

Thetis chuckled low in her throat. "He probably feels the same way about you," she teased.

Julian just gave her a Look, one tinged with vague irritation. "Thank you for the reminder, dear wife," he drawled, watching her cheeks pink at the use of her title. He made his way over to the counter to pay before approaching his Mariners and tapping their shoulders, telling them quietly to start wrapping up their shopping because they had to get back to the estate.

Canon looked over at Julian. "Something's troubling you," he said as he walked next to him on the right (the left was always reserved for Thetis - that was decided on years ago).

"My brother is currently a nutcracker and I'm at a loss for why," Julian said.

Sorrento perked up at the mention of a nutcracker. The young Austrian mariner had a strong fondness for the old story and peered over Canon's shoulder to look at the figure since Julian still had it out. "There was an old magician back home in Austria," he began, his accent soft. "Herr Drosselmeyer,. If anyone would know how to help Lord Hades, Lord Poseidon, it would be him."

"I'll see to the traveling arrangements," Canon said, already feeling exhausted at the thought of the logistics nightmare this was going to be. "Do you wish to go to him or do you wish me to have him brought to you?"

Isaak frowned from his spot next to Thetis. "One problem with all this," he said. "The timing. Why would Apollo choose now to play matchmaker?"

Julian stared down at the figure of his cursed brother. "I am unsure, Isaak. When we return to the estate, would you fetch me a large bowl of water?"

"Going scrying?" Isaak asked.

"Not so much scrying as using it to contact Apollo and find out what his game is," Julian sighed. "Hopefully Apollo is in an answering mood."

"If not, we could always make him," Baian said. "I have always wanted to kick a god's ass."

"Down boy," Julian sighed again. He loved Baian, he really did - but there were times when that boy just managed to exhaust him.

[icecubelotr44]

Clear and Present Danger (15/16)

I’m... still sorry?

Summary:  Homicide detective Killian Jones has been searching for a way to bring Milah’s murderer to justice. There’s only one small problem: Robert Gold is the captain of the same homicide division. Enter Emma Swan, Internal Affairs investigator, looking into Gold’s shady dealings. Between the two of them, can they unravel the web of deals and lies that have gotten Gold to where he is?

Rated:  T, for violence, some dark themes, angst, and whump (you expected different?)

TW: character death, mention of past self-harm, fatal car accident, school hostage situation

Other ships: mentions past Millian in a good light, Outlaw Queen, Snowing

Art credit/link: The totally awesome @cocohook38 made the cover you can see above and on her blog here. Later in the story, she’s illustrated some key points to the fic and I can’t thank her enough for her work! Chapter Four’s art is HERE.  The amazing art she did for chapter 14 is HERE.  Go show her some love!

Beta reader: @gusenitsaa took on this monster without probably knowing exactly what she was getting into (what do you mean 100,000 words?!) and any mistakes that you find are probably me being stubborn and ignoring her advice!  Thank you!

A/N:  Written as part of the 2018 Captain Swan Big Bang Challenge.  You can catch up with all the other fics that are complete by following @captainswanbigbang and/or subscribing to the Group Collection on AO3 and/or the C2 on FFN. This is complete in 16 parts and will be posted every Sunday from now until its completion.

Take it away, It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Word count:  ~ 6,950 (100k Total in 16 chapters)

From the beginning: AO3 / FFN

Current Chapter: ao3 | ffn

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: VIGILANTISM

The problem, it seemed, with telling Hades to go to Hell in a handbasket was that he was no longer willing to take Liam’s phone calls.  That, in turn, made it far more difficult to find the bloody bastard and take the price of Killian’s death out on his worthless hide before sending him to the Underworld.  Liam seethed, listening to the police scanner as Emma called every contact she had who owed her a favor or six. Part of him wanted - needed - to call David, to have his partner by his side for what might very well turn out to be his last suspect chase.

Liam didn’t much care if he survived this or not.

That, coupled with the questionable legality of this venture, was most of the reason Liam hadn’t let Nolan or Locksley know where he and Emma had holed up.  They’d both either jump at the chance to help and end their careers or they’d try to be the voices of reason, slowing Emma and Liam down and letting Hades get further away.

Hades wasn’t walking away from this.  Not while he was still breathing.

Emma looked nearly as furious as he felt.  Contact after contact either refused to answer the unknown number from the burner phone she’d bought or they couldn’t - or sometimes flat out wouldn’t - help.

“Son of a bitch!” she shouted as she slammed the ancient looking flip phone closed.  “Just answer the goddamned phone!”

Liam knew better than to ask, to speak, practically to breathe lest he turn her ire onto himself.  They’d both been short the past two days, had had their fair share of fights with each other over trivial things.

It seemed that Killian was the only thing he and Emma could agree on.  He didn’t deserve to die like that.  He deserved to be avenged.

Bloody hell, he deserved to be happy and healthy and alive, grousing over Liam’s needling and Emma’s… well, he deserved to be able to know the love they both shared for him.  Killian would be pissed at what they were doing.  Not that Liam thought for an instant that his little brother wouldn’t do exactly the same if their roles were reversed.

God, he wished their roles were reversed.  Killian was the good cop.  Killian was the hero.  Liam was just the baggage he had to carry around.  The worthless git who couldn’t keep up with the image his little brother had of him.  It was Liam’s job to protect Killian from the world, not to… not to murder him, himself.

Liam shut those thoughts down as quickly as he could, but not before they’d doubled him over like a sucker punch to the gut.

“Stop thinking about it,” Emma commanded, fixing him with a glare that would have cowed every instructor at the Academy.

Liam nodded, filing the emotions and the memories away for a time more suited to a glass or ten of scotch and no bloody demon to vanquish.  There would be time to mourn Killian later.

If there was a later.

“Have we learned anything new?” Liam asked rather continue to dwell on that happy thought.

Emma shook her head.  “Everyone I’ve managed to get a hold of is either a dead end or ‘will look into it’,” she said the last bit with every bit of mocking derision she could muster up.

Liam was a little impressed by it.  He’d thought his little brother had cornered the market on dramatic, but now…

No! he thought angrily at himself.  This was not the time.  Killian and all the feelings associated with him other than vengeance needed to stay locked in a box.

“Hades must know by now that I’m coming for him,” Liam threw in sadly.  “I almost wish I hadn’t-”

“Don’t,” Emma ordered again.  “You can’t do that to yourself.  You were under his thumb for far too long, Liam.  It was the right thing to do.”

“It got Killian ki-”

Emma stomped her foot and strode forward, jabbing Liam in the chest with her finger.  “Gold got Killian kil… it was Gold’s fault, not yours.  He was coming for us either way; the timing was just…” she trailed off.

“There was never going to be a good time for Gold to show up,” Liam agreed half-heartedly.  “But if Killian had been in top form… if he hadn’t been so hurt…”

“Then Gold would have changed the status quo so that Killian had no choice but to… to…”

It seemed neither of them could finish their sentences when it came to Liam’s little brother.  He scoffed, almost genuinely.  “My God, could I ever rile him up calling him ‘little brother’.  He used to love it, you know?  When we were very little, he’d go around telling anyone and everyone that he was ‘Liam Jones’s little brother’.  He’d say it like it was something to be proud of.”

“It is, Liam,” Emma allowed.  “He loved being your brother.  He always did.”

“Aye.”

They lapsed into silence for a while, both pouring over document after document on their respective laptops.  Between the information the department had on Hades and Liam’s documentation of every meeting he’d had with the man and his lackeys, they had plenty of paper trails to follow.

But none of them were worth a damn if Hades had decided to go to ground after learning that Killian Jones was dead right along with Robert Gold.  The man had far too many contacts and far too much capital to be caught if he didn’t want to be found.  Hubris might be his downfall, however, and it was Liam’s only hope at the moment.  It was all he had going for him.

If his little brother’s death was going to mean anything, then Liam had to finish what he’d started.  Had to truly finish it.

Only then could Killian rest.

Emma pounded the desk in frustration, shaking the box of pushpins and the flashlight that balanced precariously against the lamp.

“We’ll find him, Emma,” Liam tried to reassure, but it sounded hollow, even to his ears.  Hades’ bank account statements were as good as frozen, his assets untouched.  There was nothing to find on paper; they were just wasting time here.

“We’re wasting our goddamned time!” Emma echoed his thoughts as if he’d spoken aloud.

Liam nodded, shutting the laptop and folding his hands on top of it.  “We are.  Hades has no reason to do anything rash right now.  Killian’s de- he’s no longer a threat.  Nottingham’s death means that anything that ties Hades to Gold is hearsay at best.  I’m…” he trailed off, eyes wide as he stared at Emma.

“No.”

But Liam’s brain was already spinning.

“No, Liam,” Emma said again, looking angrier and angrier as he continued to stare.

Liam grinned ferally.  “It’ll work, Emma. You know it will.”

“How would we even contact him?  You’ve already tried.”  She nodded at Liam’s burner phone.

Liam shrugged.  “Turn on my actual phone.  You know he’s tracking me.  Make it seem like I’m running…”

“There’s no guarantee he’d come himself.”

Liam raised an eyebrow.  “The last man standing who can take him down?  He nearly lost everything trusting Gold to take care of Killian.  He’ll come, Emma.  He’ll be there to make sure.”

“Killian wouldn’t want this, Liam,” Emma tried.

“Well he’s bloody well not here to stop me, now is he?” Liam shouted, whirling on her.

Emma’s eyes widened, but then her nostrils flared.  “And whose fault is that?” she screamed back.

Liam felt like he’d been shot.

“I…” she gulped and shook her head.  “I’m sorry, Liam.  I didn’t mean that.”

Liam sat down - or, rather, his legs gave out and dropped him in a chair unceremoniously.  “Doesn’t make it any less true, lass.  Let me make it up to him.  Let me be the bait.”

“He’d kick my ass if I did,” Emma reminded him.

Liam laughed humorously.  “Aye, and mine, too. But he didn’t even get a chance to get closure for Milah before… I need to do this, Emma.  Please.”

Emma nodded slowly, still looking anything but happy about his idea.  “I’d rather be with you than try to stop you, I guess,” was her only answer.

“I’ll take it, lass.  Now,” he ordered, not giving her a chance to change her mind, “we have a lot of work to do.”

It was more difficult than he’d thought, however, to come up with a good place to stage the showdown.  It always worked out so well in the movies: find the equivalent of an Old West style box canyon, stash weapons behind every crevice, and then call out the bad guy in the black Stetson.

In reality, it was a lot more effort to find unregistered weapons.  For all Liam had been under Hades’ thumb, he’d never really crossed the line more than he’d had to.  Not like most of the man’s minions, and certainly not like Gold had done.  He had his own, personal weapon stashed away in a safe in the apartment, of course.  And Emma had a small arsenal to her name, apparently. But as much as Liam didn’t care what happened to him, he didn’t want this to end up with Emma rotting in a prison cell for his vendetta.

Killian would come back from the dead to murder him if Liam survived that.  And he’d haunt him in Hell for all eternity if he didn’t.

The ‘where’ was the easier option to figure out.  Hades had any number of warehouses near the Harbor that he used for shipping goods and property overseas.  Not all of them were monitored at all times and they could use his own holdings against him.  Liam knew of one, in particular, that was right on the water and had a speedboat moored just outside.  He and Hades had met there several times, the water and a rented boat of his own giving him a quick getaway if he’d needed.

Part of Liam wanted to finish this on the Jolly Roger… damnit, Killian, I’m not calling her that anymore… but he couldn’t bring himself to risk the ship.  The Jolly had meant too much to his brother, to both of them, to risk her now.

And, goddamnit, he’d keep calling her the bloody Jolly Roger for as long as she was seaworthy.  No matter how much it made him feel like a fool to captain a storybook character’s ship.

Liam still thought the Jewel of the Realm sounded much more regal, but he’d lost that bet a long time ago.

Finally, a contact of Emma’s - a woman named Lily who Liam trusted about as far as he could throw her - came through with a cache of weapons that they weren’t to ask as to the origins.  All they needed to know, she’d assured them, that any ballistics trace would lead back to some very cold cases with suspects who were either already doing life or had been shot down before they could be taken into custody.

Liam didn’t want to know anything else.

Neither did Emma.

It took them another three days to scout the area and assure that it was currently unused and unguarded.  Slowly, he and Emma began moving in the stolen weapons into blinds and slips throughout the office where they planned to confront Hades.  They mapped the exits and likely places for Hades to order his own men for backup.

They were as ready as they were going to get.

“I still don’t like this,” Emma mumbled as she rubbed charcoal over her face.  She had her own hiding spot picked out where she could be overwatch for Liam’s back.  “I’d rather be down there.”

“I’m not go-”

“I swear to God,” she interrupted, “if you say that you’re not going to risk me over this, I’ll shoot you myself.  In the ass.”

Liam gulped.  The statement was funny, but the look on Emma’s face and her tone of voice was anything but.  He nodded his acquiescence, but didn’t say anything else.

“The first sign of trouble, and I’m down there, you understand?” Emma asked, punctuating each word with a step towards him.  “I won’t sit by and watch while Hades kills you just because you think you owe some kind of penance to Killian for what happened at the cabin.”

Liam opened his mouth to deny it, to tell her to stay put, to… he didn’t even know anymore.  So he did perhaps the first smart thing he’d done since they started talking and shut his mouth.

“Good.”

God, Killian would kill him if he let anything happen to Em- no.  Killian wouldn’t kill him.  Killian couldn’t kill him.  Liam sighed, checking the clip of the unfamiliar Sig Sauer for the fourth time.  It was full, there were three extra clips stashed in various pockets, and there were a number more strategically placed throughout the warehouse.

Liam really didn’t want to know the details as to how they’d gotten their hands on so much ammunition.

“I think we’re ready,” Emma said quietly.  Liam still heard the uncharacteristic waver in her voice.  “I’m going to head out and get in position.  You’ll wait until 7:30 tonight and then turn on your phone, right?”

Liam resisted the urge to roll his eyes, checking the clip again even as he eyed the SIM card from his normal phone resting on the table.  They were both on edge, knowing what this meant and refusing to muck this up over some trivial detail.  “Aye.  And then I’ll take Storrow up to the Harbor and set up shop in the office, looking for the keys to Hades’ boat.  We’ll get him, lass.”

Emma nodded.  “We have to,” was the last thing she’d say to him before all hell broke loose hours later.

***

Liam waited by the door.  He paced the length of the hallway.  He checked and rechecked his weapon.  He brought out the cleaning kit and meticulously went over every inch of the gun Killian had given to him that day at the cabin.  He paced some more.  He made a bowl of pasta before staring at it until it cooled and then tossing it in the rubbish.

He wasn’t nervous.  No, not at all.

Finally, after what seemed like days, it was time to go.  Liam checked the clip on his Sig for the umpteenth time, pried the back of his phone open, and inserted the SIM card.  Two minutes - and a lot of cursing - later and the phone was on and broadcasting his location to whoever was looking.

Liam was positive that Hades was looking.

He left the ratty old apartment with its mice and questionable stains behind and headed down to the street, finally getting annoyed with his phone trying to explode in his pocket and turning it on silent.

There were over a hundred messages from David alone.

Liam was caught up in the need to call his partner again, wanting Nolan at his back when he did this.  But no, he wouldn’t put David through that.  Liam would rather have the man pissed at him forever than risk being gunned down - or worse - in front of him.  Besides, David had a family to provide for; Liam had nothing to lose.

It seemed the car ride took forever and yet was over in the blink of an eye.  Liam pulled into the warehouse’s parking lot and stashed the old beater deep in the shadows of the building.  Emma was here somewhere, hiding in the catwalks with as good of a view as she could find of the office.

He was trusting her - and no one else - to watch his back.  Liam hoped that Killian’s trust in her hadn’t been misplaced.

Not that it matters as long as I get Hades first, Liam thought derisively as he slid open the door just enough to squeeze inside.  This would be over before it began if he tripped some kind of silent alarm or a well-meaning patrolman saw the door opening.

It was eerie inside the building, the cold winter’s evening doing nothing to combat the chill.  The moon’s light filtering through broken window panes cast everything into sharp contrast, making Liam jump every time he moved.  What was that line? You’re not paranoid if people are actually after you.  Liam was certain that several people were after him, and any number of them could be hiding in the shadows.

Despite seeing images of hitmen and lackeys behind every box, Liam made it to the office unscathed.  He set his phone down on the desk and started rifling through the drawers.  He saw the keys under some files in the first one he looked through, but the boat wasn’t really his goal.

“Did you really think you could steal from me after turning your back on my generous offers?” an oily voice echoed through the room.

Hades.

Hades was his goal and the bloody bastard had sauntered right into their trap without a care in the world.

“You bloody bastard!” Liam shouted, coming around the desk to face the man head on and this wasn’t the plan.  “My brother-”

“Your brother was a crimp in my plans and the only thing keeping you from reaching your full potential within my organization.”

Liam stumbled to a stop.  The man was deranged. He’d thought that Killian was holding him back?  His head started shaking before the words even formed.  “If it wasn’t for my brother, I’d have put you behind bars the first time you cornered me on the Jolly Roger.  Killian was your only bargaining chip and your lap dog killed him, you… you… you demon!”

Hades shrugged.  “An unfortunate mistake and one I would have rectified myself if you hadn’t taken out Robert yourself.  He was under orders not to harm Killian, if you remember correctly.  That was part of the deal we made.  A deal that I never went back on, unlike you.”

“Don’t you dare speak his name,” Liam hissed vehemently.  “You don’t deserve to even think about my brother.”

The smirk on the bastard’s face had to go.  “Your brother was… shall we say, becoming problematic.  He and his little princess were coming far too close to discovering my ties to your depart… I’m sorry, it’s not yours any longer.” - he nodded to Liam’s side, where he’d been stabbed the year before - “Regardless.  They were going to erase my ties to Killian’s department and I wasn’t going to stand for that.  Robert got cocky.  Just. Like.  You.”

Liam heard the muffled shouting before Hades was finished and his heart sank into the pit of his stomach.  He pulled the Sig Sauer from the small of his back finally and aimed it at Hades’ heart. “I can end you; right here, right now.”

“Ah ah ah,” Hades tutted, not flinching with the barrel of the gun pointed at him.  “You might no longer care about yourself, but what about…”

He turned his back on Liam as the door to the office opened again.

“Miss Swan, how nice of you to join us.”

Emma hated waiting.  For coffee in the morning, for leads to come in, for stakeouts to come to fruition, for Killian to… nope.  She hated waiting.  She hated being kept on the sidelines even more, and this… this felt a lot like being sidelined.  She shifted in the rafters again, her burner phone off but still digging into her hip where she was lying uncomfortably on it.  She should have just left it in the car - there was no one she could call now and no one who would be calling her.  Liam was the only one with the number anyway and he had no reason to get ahold of her.

They knew the plan.  They had gone over it so many times and it was a good plan.  It would work and Hades wouldn’t be leaving here alive.  A tiny part of Emma was screaming in the background about justice and vengeance and vigilantism, but the part of her that had been consumed with grief after losing Killian shut it up quicker than she could blink.  Gold may have been the reason Killian had died but Hades was responsible and she wasn’t going to give him a chance to wield his power from a prison cell.

No, Hades was going to find his end here, today, and Emma knew that of all the things they disagreed on, she and Liam were on the same page with this.

Now she just had to find a way to keep Liam alive throughout this whole mess.

Emma rolled her shoulders, trying to work out the kinks before she had to actually focus.  They’d agreed that she should get here hours ahead of time to scout out the location, but there wasn’t a soul within 500 yards of the place and nothing was moving in the cavernous room below her other than rats.

Which left Emma with far too much time to think.  She thought about what Killian would have thought about all this.  She thought about what might have happened with them if he’d had time to come to terms with Milah’s murderer being dead.  She thought about why she’d been so frightened of him and what they could be together.

She thought about the words she hadn’t said to him and if he knew she’d believed them.

Hours passed slowly, the dripping of water somewhere to her left doing nothing to speed up time.  She’d counted to a thousand and then backwards by sevens, she’d memorized the alphabet backwards in French, she’d named every capital and its state that she could remember - and would swear she got all 50 if anyone ever had reason to ask.

Finally, when it seemed like she was going to have to resort to naming every animal she’d ever heard of or something equally as ridiculous, Emma heard the warehouse door screech open.  She risked a look at her watch and frowned.  It was barely 7:30.  Liam shouldn’t have even left the safe house yet, never mind gotten through traffic and made his way into the building.

It wasn’t Liam.

Emma watched with bated breath, trying to see around an upright without moving.  She could just see the shadow of someone standing in the doorway, hands on his hips and not moving.  There hadn’t been anyone here for days; it seemed highly unlikely that Hades would - all of a sudden - decide to use it on a Wednesday night in February.  Unless…

Unless Hades already knows you’re here.  The voice in her head sounded suspiciously like Killian, which was enough to give her a moment’s pause.  He… or she, she supposed, was right, though.  If their trap was actually a trap for Liam, for them, then she had to get out of there.  She had to warn Liam.  She had to-

She had to take better stock of her surroundings.  No one could possibly know where she was in the warehouse, if they even knew she was already here.  The place was huge and the scans they’d run over the past few scouting trips hadn’t revealed any cameras or wireless signals broadcasting off site.  If there were cameras they’d missed, they were on a local feed and whoever was here hadn’t even come in the building yet.

Don’t panic, don’t give your position away prematurely; Emma’s training ran through her head even as she mapped possible exits.  She’d left herself three egress points from where she lay - the path up to the roof behind her as well as left and right along the catwalk.  Unless her interloper had friends, she had options.

Emma froze as a man finally walked around the I beam that had hidden him and stopped in a beam of light filtering through a window.  He was tall and skinny, his head darting back and forth wildly as he looked around the room.  There was something familiar about him, but Emma was sure she’d never seen him before.  He wasn’t looking up at her, though, and that allowed her to breathe a little easier.

All she had to do was wait for him to move, to figure out why he was there, and she’d be set.  She could text Liam to let him know there was an unaccounted for variable and that would be that.

It seemed to take an eternity, but finally the jumpy man left, sliding the door shut and leaving the warehouse blanketed in silence once more.

Weird, Emma thought, her own sharp gaze flicking wildly around the room below her, trying to figure out what he’d done.  Why he’d been there.  Who he was.  She slid the burner phone out of her pocket and flipped it open, glad that - for all its lack of features - it remembered her brightness preferences.  Emma squinted in the darkness, trying to make out enough of the screen to pull up the texting page and then Liam’s number.

She never expected to be blinded by every one of the warehouse’s lights coming on in an instant.

Emma couldn’t bite back the cry of surprised pain as she slammed her eyes shut against the bright light that assaulted her vision.  She blinked rapidly, shielding her eyes from as much of the light with one hand and scrabbling to find the phone she’d dropped with the other.  She’d only just brushed over it with her fingers when a sound to her right startled her.

The next thing she heard was the crash of plastic shattering against concrete after her phone careened off the catwalk.

Damnit!

Ignoring the phone, Emma rolled onto her back, pulling her sidearm and aiming it at the noise she’d heard first.

A burly man stared back, his own weapon trained on her chest and how in the hell had he gotten there without her hearing him?

“Get up,” he snarled, gesticulating with the weapon.  “Leave the gun.”

Not bloody likely, Killian’s voice echoed in her ear as Emma got slowly to her feet.  She eyed her other two exits as she stood, surprised to find the spindly man she’d been watching aiming his own weapon at her from the ladder behind her.  How had he gotten there so quickly?

“Kick the rifle off,” Burly ordered, cocking his pistol and leering at her.

Emma turned to face him, putting Panic at her left and keeping Burly in front of her.  She needed the rifle to watch Liam’s back once he got here, but she needed to not be dead in order to do that.

Emma hadn’t gotten as far as she had in life without learning how to improvise.  She took four huge steps back from the rifle instead, raising her weapon in supplication and wondering how far he’d let her go before-

BANG!

A bullet whizzed over her head and slammed into the wall far behind her.  Emma could hear the projectile ricocheting around the warehouse until, finally, it buried itself into something.

“That’s far enough, girlie,” Burly told her, his smile getting even more lewd as he blew on the barrel of the smoking gun.  “Boss wants you alive for his grand finale with Jones.”

Emma resisted the urge to hang her head.  If Hades knew who she was, and that Liam was coming, they’d never stood a chance.

She took another step back, watching Panic move steadily towards her and she wanted to swing the weapon down to bear on him, wanted him to back off, but Burly sent another bullet her way and this one nicked her ear.  Hot blood coursed down the side of her head even as she ducked away from the pain, clapping a hand over the wound and hissing when she put pressure on it.  Barely a graze, but enough to get the message across.

They had her dead to rights.

“Put.  The gun.  Down,” came the order from behind her.  A third man that she hadn’t even known was there poking his head out of the hatch from the ladder she’d climbed hours before.  His own weapon was trained on her back.

Well, shit.

Emma had no choice.  She put the gun down.

“Very good, lass,” the third man praised facetiously, grinning as he climbed off the ladder and moved towards her.  He motioned her backwards as he reached for her weapon, Panic’s own gun settling in the middle of her back.

She was trapped.

“This is some fancy hardware, love,” Burly commented idly as he picked up her rifle, swinging it around until the strap secured it to his back.

“Don’t call me that,” Emma hissed, every muscle in her body tensing for a fight.

The third man snickered and took another step forward, jamming the barrel of his gun under her chin and twisting.  If not for Panic’s gun in her back, Emma would have made the asshole eat it.

“I’m going to have some fun making you scream,” he promised, and Emma named him Pain.

“Not if I get you first,” Emma whispered back, pleased to see a flicker of fear cross his features at her tone before he lifted his chin and grinned.

“Once the boss is done with you and your… did you switch brothers so quickly?  Is that what this is?”

Emma bristled.

“Guess not,” Pain continued as if they were exchanging idle gossip.  “Either way, I’m going to have fun breaking you when Jones is drowning in his own blood.”

Emma’s sarcastic retort was cut off when he reached out and pinched her bleeding ear, twisting and giggling when she tried to suppress the cry of pain.

“Enough,” Burly commanded.  “Boss wants her quiet until Jones gets here.”

Emma didn’t have enough time to think about what that meant before the lights went out - metaphorically and physically.

***

When Emma finally came around, she was lying on her stomach with a gag in her mouth and one of the men sitting on her back.

“We’ve just got to wait for the signal, girlie,” the man sitting on her tapped the back of her head with what felt like his gun.  Burly, then, she thought.  “Then you and lover boy can be reunited.”

Emma didn’t know if he was smart enough to mean Killian or dumb enough to mean Liam.

It took a few moments but soon Emma heard the screech of the warehouse door and measured footsteps echoing over the concrete floor she was lying on.

Run, Liam!  Get out of here! she muttered angrily as she thought the commands as loudly as she could.  She could see Panic pacing the floor in front of her and hear Pain’s amused breathy chuckles to her side.  This was her last chance.  If she could just make some kind of commotion… if she could…

“Don’t even think about it,” Burly ordered as he slid the cool metal over her throbbing ear.  “You wouldn’t get two steps before we took you out and Jones is already a dead man walking.”

Emma squirmed anyway, ignoring the way Pain kicked her in the side and Burly shouted for him to be careful - he’d almost nailed the idiot in the jewels.  There was nothing for it; she’d have to wait for some more of Hades’ plan to work itself out before she could find a way to escape.

To keep herself and Liam alive until they could regroup.

All too soon, she was dragged to her feet, her hands still bound behind her and the dried blood on her neck pulling at the little hairs there.  Emma’s eyes watered as she was shoved along, Pain and Panic each taking an arm as Burly prodded her with his gun.

She was going to make him eat a bullet first chance she got.

“Ah ah ah,” she heard Hades scold someone - probably Liam.  Her heart sank.  “You might no longer care about yourself, but what about…”

Emma stumbled as Pain shoved her out of Panic’s hold and into the room.  He didn’t give her a chance to straighten up before he’d clamped one hand around her neck and jammed the pistol into the base of her skull.

“Miss Swan,” Hades continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted, brandishing - of all things - a nasty looking dagger, “how nice of you to join us.”

Liam looked broken, holding his weapon shakily on Hades but looking at her like his world had ended.  And, she realized quickly, if they didn’t find a way to turn this on its head, it very likely had. They wouldn’t survive this without some kind of intervention and Liam would never rest if he didn’t avenge Killian first.

Neither would she.

“Let her go, you bastard.  It’s me you want.”

Emma almost rolled her eyes.  Leave it to a Jones to be chivalrous to a fault.  Even when it was futile.

“Actually,” Hades spoke as if he were teaching a toddler, “it’s both of you.  Did you miss the part where Miss Swan, here, is hellbent on taking down my entire organization?”

Pain shook her as if Liam needed the reminder that she was there.  Emma’s head was spinning, stars beginning to cloud her vision.  She needed to breathe.

“Let. Her. Go.” Liam commanded again, his hand shaking more violently as he raised the point of the gun a little higher.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” Hades began conversationally.  “Miss Swan is going to keep us company for a little while. I’m sure my… associates will have some interesting things to show her.  Then-”

Burly piped up.  “Then you’re gonna-”

Hades nodded once and Pain pulled his gun away from Emma’s head long enough to put a bullet through Burly’s skull.

“I don’t like when you interrupt me,” Hades spoke to the corpse.  Panic started fidgeting, hopping from foot to foot and swinging his own gun wildly from Burly to Liam and back again.

“As I was saying,” Hades continued, “While these two imbeciles are keeping Miss Swan company, you’re going to go down to the precinct and make sure that any files on me have been erased.”

Liam shook his head.  “Not a chance.  Let Emma go.  She has access to the files; I don’t.”

Hades laughed.  “I’m sure you can get… creative.”

“And what if I don’t?  What if I” - he swung the weapon to sight in on Panic - “just take out your men one by one?”

Panic blanched, his eyes frozen on Hades while his gun hovered somewhere close to pointing at Liam’s abdomen.

Not a good shot, then, Emma thought, watching Liam warily.

Apparently he had the same idea, if the next few minutes of utter chaos were any indication.  Emma sagged completely in Pain’s grasp, falling to the floor and nearly passing out when his hand tightened around her neck.  But it gave Liam the opening he needed to shoot the bastard in the neck, killing him in the time it took Pain to sag to the ground and collapse on top of her.

“Liam!  Look out!” was all Emma could yell from where she was pinned to the floor, watching in slow motion as Hades snarled, raising the knife and charging across the room.  Panic fired his weapon, spinning Liam around and out of Hades’ direct path, but that was the only shot he was able to fire off as another bullet came out of nowhere, stopping him dead in his tracks as he looked down, comically almost, at the spreading flower of blood on his chest.  He threw one scathing look towards the door before he hit his knees and fell, face first, onto Burly’s back.

“Detective!” a voice shouted from behind her, but with the adrenaline flowing and the fear taking hold, Emma had no idea who was shouting.

Liam’s left hand clutched at his shoulder as he turned just in time to catch Hades’ arm as it arced towards his unprotected back.  They both fell to the floor in a tussle of limbs that left Emma lost as to who was whom.

“Detective?” a voice asked, booted feet in front of her as whoever it was watched the scene in front of him.  Emma tried to look up, but only got as far as jean-clad knees before Pain’s bulk halted her movements.

“Fine!” she shouted.  “Help Liam!”

Someone else kneeled next to her and Emma’s head whirled around, making something snap audibly in her neck and causing her to cry out.

“Hold on, Detective,” the other voice soothed, placing his gun on the ground in her line of sight before disappearing.  

Seconds later, the weight on her back disappeared and Emma scrambled to her feet, snatching up the gun and pointing it at whoever moved.

Robin and David both stared at her with raised eyebrows before turning back to the melee at their feet.  Every time one of them tried to get close enough to pull the grappling men apart, the knife slashed out and backed them up.  Emma tried to train her gun on Hades, but it was a lost cause; there was too much movement to ensure that she wouldn’t hit Liam.

“Help him!” she shouted again, dizzy now that she’d paused for a moment.  Adrenaline could only overcome so much and Emma had been unconscious for a considerable amount of time before this.

“We’re trying!” David shouted at her, looking as lost and terrified as she and Liam had felt after Killian was shot.

Robin peeled his gun out of Emma’s hands as she wavered, nearly stumbling into David.  She couldn’t see straight now and relinquished the weapon as she started to buckle back to the ground.  Arms held her up, slowing her descent, but couldn’t stop her fall.

She shook off the help, watching with bated breath as the two men rolled again.  “Help him, please,” she muttered, not knowing how they could do anything but watch.

David was shaking next to her, resting on one knee and gripping his weapon as if he could will it to fire the right shot.  “He needs this,” was all he muttered.

And then, it all ended in a flash of light and the smell of gunpowder and the pained shout that drowned out everything else.

Hades had gotten the advantage, one hand clasped around Liam’s as it choked the life out of him and the other raising the knife above his head.  Robin was the one who took the shot, firing through the middle of Hades’ back and not taking any chances with a head shot.  It didn’t matter; Hades was dead before he fell, but the damage was done.  The path of his knife drove it into Liam’s side as he landed on top of him, and Emma heard the clink of metal chipping concrete even as Liam screamed.

“NO!” they all shouted, and time sped up as Emma scrambled to his side, securing the knife in her hand as David peeled Hades’ corpse off of Liam’s chest.  Liam’s blood ran hot over her hand as she grabbed the shirt Robin pressed against the wound.

“Son of a bitch!” Robin muttered as he pulled out his phone.  “Killian is going to murder me for this.”

Everything stopped.

Emma started to shake.

She couldn’t breathe.

Her hands went numb.

Her eyes started to water.

She’d never been this cold.

She couldn’t hear anything.

Nothing except Robin’s words echoing.

“Killian is going to murder me.”

Killian!

Is.  Present tense.

Present.

Alive?

Emma’s eyes swiveled up, fighting off the blackness that was encroaching on her vision as she silently begged Robin to explain.

“Kil… Killian?” she croaked, her voice cracking on every syllable.

Robin nodded.  “I tried to find you two.  Bloody hell, would it have been too much to leave a damned phone on?  I didn’t have time to tell you beforehand and then, by the time we got him settled, you were gone.  He’s going to have my head for worrying you guys like this.”

Emma just shook her head, sure that it was some kind of oxygen deprived hallucination.  “Wh- what?”

Robin shrugged apologetically, holding up a finger when his phone finally connected with a dispatcher.

Emma whirled on David, snarling when he tried to move her out of the way to put pressure on the wound in Liam’s shoulder.  “What?” she screamed again, well aware that she sounded a little hysterical.

“I didn’t know, Emma.  I swear, I wouldn’t have done this to him” - he nodded at Liam - “or to you.  Robin got some credible intel from one of their sources that Hades had put a price on Killian’s head.  He didn’t have time, and he didn’t think about anything. He just… he got Whale to fake Killian’s death.  You two disappeared before we could tell you.”

Emma stared for another minute before she felt tears streaming down her cheeks.  Jones was alive!  Killian was… he was… they could…

Liam groaned, not really conscious and not aware that his life was slipping away and his goddamned brother was alive!  Emma pushed down harder around the knife, careful not to slice her hand open but unwilling to let him slip away.

It wasn’t going to be enough.  Liam went slack beneath her hands as his eyes rolled to the back of his head and then closed.

“Don’t you dare!” Emma shouted, pushing down harder on the gaping wound and ignoring the way her palm split open along the blade, their blood mingling together on the wadded up shirt.  

Liam went frighteningly limp and Emma swore.

“You self righteous asshat!  You don't get to die and leave me to tell Killian you were a goddamned hero!”

tagging: @killian-whump @gilliangrissom @nothingimpossibleonlyimprobable @courtorderedcake