#minth got it from her mother....

[firstpriestess]

something something mothers and daughters something something--

[spiderwarden]

Anon you just want to see her naKEY that’s all.

[none-gender-left-man]

Anyway I'm going insane does anybody need anything while I'm out

[genericpuff]

Are there any characters from LO that you actually like/don’t mind

I have a lot more appreciation for Minthe now with all the hindsight that Hades and Persephone are often way worse than she is. She still had a lot of issues on her own end that she didn't deal with well, and while I would have liked to see her actually develop properly beyond her struggles both internal and with Hades, I think the best thing we could have asked for was Minthe being written out of the story the way she was. At least then Rachel couldn't continue to use her as a punching bag (she just tagged in Leuce for that, sigh)

Helios is great, zero issue with him. This scene is a lot funnier and more relatable to read in hindsight:

like ofc Helios is gonna rat on her, he's the fucking sun who's been around for thousands of years, why would he put any more of his limited freedom on the line for macaroni art LMAO (and yes, Rachel herself confirmed that Persephone made macaroni art cards for Helios, it's like... yeah okay it's cute but Persephone and Demeter still hid a crime from Zeus, the sentimental value of the birthday cards have no bearing on that LOL)

Thanatos is also in the camp of "characters I appreciate more in hindsight and wish got better character development". Adding in the 'twist' that he was Hades' adoptive son after we just spent nearly two seasons watching Hades treat him like just a lowly employee who didn't deserve his respect was certainly... a choice. And I don't think I should have to explain why it was a very very BAD one LOL

Hephaestus is also great, I know he's an extremely minor character whose only real role was to delete the blackmail photos from Apollo's phone but, like. look at him???

amazing. precious. sweet boy. and it has absolutely nothing to do with my absent older brother issues why would you say that- (｡•́︿•̀｡) that said, there are still flaws in his design (his prosthetics especially because he's constantly wearing running blades for every occasion which I feel like Rachel only chose because they "looked cool" and were "easier to draw" but like. his poor hips and back, that's gotta be uncomfortable 😭) but even just his face on its own is ironically one of the most unique character designs across the entire cast, not for any sort of outstanding or creative reasons, you just can't possibly mistake or color swap him with anyone else LMAO and though I can't feasibly give credit to Rachel for writing a neurodivergent character - because I have no clue if that was her intention here, afaik she's never really talked about it - I can wholly relate to him being the introverted computer guy who just wants to be left alone with his work and his airpods, like that's literally just me LOL

And of course nothing Rachel could ever do would make me hate Demeter, I think it's so ironic and tone deaf that Rachel claimed she "didn't get" why Demeter was so hated by the fans and didn't "agree" with the comparisons to Mother Gothel, but like... Rachel literally wrote her that way. And while she did "resolve" it, it wasn't with any actual empathy towards Demeter's own side of things, it was just bandaids on top of bandaids and then going "yep! She's all better now! That's character development!" Out of all the characters who deserved better, she was the one who deserved the most 😔💓

[aj-thegreatest]

Why Persephone and Minthe are (or could've been) Perfect Foils:

I’m starting this off with 3 things: 1) This’ll be less of an essay and more of a ramble, so apologies if this is messy! 2) I’m framing this as a “what if this was written in a non misogynistic way,” and less(?) based on canon. And 3) If an essay like this already exists…oops!

Ok. So we can all generally agree that Persephone and Minthe, as love rivals, function as foils for each other. Persephone is the sweet, young, and naive girl who doesn’t know what sex is. Minthe is the mature, sexy, and stone cold older woman who’s too sexually active. 

They both villainize and hurt each other, ignoring the man who’s actually perpetuating their suffering. The story makes it seem like they’re completely opposed characters, with Persephone being the “better” one. And to an extent, that’s true. 

But I think we could dive deeper! And away from Hades! Because he sucks!

If we compare Persephone and Minthe’s lives and how they view each other, you could make a strong case for them being foils. It’d honestly be brilliant if they reconciled in a meaningful way, BUT-

Let’s start with the basics: while Persephone grew up with an attentive mother, Minthe grew up largely ignored by hers. Persephone grew up around a supportive community, with most of her needs met. And while we only see a peek into Minthe’s childhood, it can be inferred those needs were not easily met. Minthe had to provide for herself, shown by her jobs before Underworld Corp. 

Meanwhile, a lot of Persephone’s opportunities were “handed” to her. Artemis offers to let Persephone stay with her. She gets inducted into TGOEM without any trouble. Demeter most likely is paying for her schooling. She gets placed in Underworld Corp, despite having no experience (and out of her control. Hera what the hell). And gets paid for her internship, something she gets because of her relationship with Hades.

Minthe has continually worked for everything. Persephone hasn’t worked for any of the stuff she gets. But she wants to! Persephone so badly wants to be independent. She dreams of living on her own, dressing the way she wants, being in a relationship. And who is the first being she sees that represents all of it for her?

Minthe is the physical manifestation of everything Persephone wants to be. It’s also why she dresses like her in later seasons. And Minthe is clearly jealous of Persephone. Is it because she’s flirting with Hades? To some extent, yes. But Minthe also feels Persephone is better than her. She’s the sweet goddess who everyone loves, especially Hades’ trusted allies (Hera, Hecate, etc). 

I think if they got to know each other, they’d be envious of what the other had. Minthe would love to have a mother like Demeter: someone who took care of her and gave her what she needed. She needs a support system and people to rely on. Not a toxic friend who prays on her downfall (Thetis what the hell). 

Persephone wants a mother who won’t hover over her. Control of her life, freedom, and the ability to be her true self. Wear whatever she wants. She doesn’t want to be the kind, sweet girl all the time. She wants to have sex! After marriage apparently because uh…yeah. 

A brief deviation: Even their aesthetics are contrasts. Persephone wears white and pink, while Minthe wears reds and blacks. Minthe’s clothes are revealing and conventionally sexy. Persephone’s are cute and conventionally girly. 

Both Minthe and Persephone are stuck in roles that feel inescapable. Which are enforced by Hades, the narrative, and the fandom (at the time). Something something Madonna Whore Complex.

In an ideal story, where they equally like all the women, Minthe and Persephone would’ve reconciled. Come to some understanding of the other and grow as a result. But…that doesn’t happen. 

Really, they just switch places. Minthe becomes accepted in the Mortal Realm. She gets all the support Persephone had. While Persephone gets all the glitz and glam Minthe supposedly had. It all works out! 

…I mean, not really but-

Like Minthe barely gets mentioned at the very end. Persephone spends most of it stressed, hated by her citizens. All the things Minthe feared at the start!

But then she gets her happy ending. Isn’t this great? The character who wanted independence from her mother and everyone, ends up stuck in a marriage without truly finding herself. And with kids we, the audience, don’t know if she wanted? 

All that matters is Hades wants kids. So Persephone needs to have them. Hades wants to break up with Minthe, so she gets planted and moves from his realm. Funny how everything works out for him, right? 

This doesn’t really have an ending. All I can say is, I wish Minthe and Persephone had a chance to stand on their own. And to talk to each other without a man getting in the way…

…which is why you should read my fanfic, PomengranMints-

[cupidvision]

𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒑𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒆- 𝒈𝒐𝒅𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅

banners by @cafekitsune @dollywons @qqmariztwsse

𝒉𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚

persephone is daughter to zeus and demeter. it was said she was actually born deformed in some articles. persephone had a pretty good childhood, and played with the other children in mount olympus. her mother was also quite protective of her

before she was the goddess of the underworld, she was the goddess of fertility and agriculture. she also was called “kore” before she was married

it wasn’t until she was the goddess of the underworld when she was known as the goddess of ghost and death

𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒑𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒆

some articles say that the children persephone has are actually zeus’s, while some say they’re hades. some claim she doesn’t have children at all

similar to that claim, some say persephone cheated on hades, while other critics say she didn’t

persephone was actually quite jealous, and she was very open about her hatred for people. especially apollo, since it was said he tried to take sexual advantage of her

𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆

she was picking flowers, with nymphs. during this, the ground opened and hades took her. i’ve seen some reports that said hades got zeus’s permission, which is persephone’s dad.

only helios saw the abduction (besides zeus), and during this time demeter noticed that her child went missing. she searched for her, but she found out her daughter had been kidnapped to the underworld and stopped the harvesting and growth of the crops. she wouldn’t release this curse until her daughter was out of hades hands. zeus tried to get demeter to uplift the curse but she refused until persephone was set free.

zeus sent hermes to hades pretty much begging him to let persephone free, but before he left he made her eat pomegranate seeds which forcibly tied her to hades and the underworld. it was said that during her eating the seeds, hades said he would give persephone all of his money and how much he loves her

zeus was left in a position where he had to find a middle ground between hades and demeter’s demand for persephone. so he made persephone stay with hades for 4 months, for the 4 seeds she ate, and the rest of the 8 months with her mother.

it was said persephone fell in love with hades quite fast, since he spoiled her with gifts, love, affection, etc.

during their relationship she found out about one of hades mistresses, minthe. she got very jealous and killed her, and turned her into a mint plant

𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒔

other / nick names: kore, desponia

symbols: seeds, grain, pomegranate, flowers

asteroid meaning(my opinion): choices, choices being taken from us, cycles, abduction, falling in love with the wrong people, jealousy, how your mother is protective, beauty, fertility, agriculture, being trapped, stockholm syndrome

dwelling: the underworld

[aliciavance4228]

We already know that Adonis' beauty was a curse, considering the amount of people who were into him (Aphrodite, Persephone, Apollo, Dionysus, Heracles) and the fact that the first two mentioned here were very possessive over him to the point where dude ended up being groomed.

But the theory that I'm about to tell you is just... Yikes!

Many people are wondering how is it that Hades isn't involved at all in any myth about Adonis. He punished Pirithous and Theseus when they tried to steal Persephone, so why wouldn't he try to punish him as well?

There are three main possibilities, and the last one is the most... questionable, to say the least.

1. Persephone loved Adonis as a son

I heard a lot of people claiming that. Wheter it's because they do not want the image of their perfect Underworld couple to be ruined by the existence of a lover or because the idea of Persephone falling for a literal child is simply disturbing (though let's be honest, the same could be said about Aphrodite as well) is up to you guys to decide.

Anyway, here is the passage about Adonis' birth:

"Nine months later the tree split open and the baby named Adonis was born. Because of his beauty, Aphrodite secreted him away in a chest, keeping it from the gods, and left him with Persephone. But when Persephone got a glimpse of Adonis, she refused to return him. When the matter was brought to Zeus for arbitration, he divided the year into three parts and decreed that Adonis would spent one third of the year by himself, one third with Persephone, and the rest with Aphrodite. But Adonis added his own portion to Aphrodite's. Later on, while hunting, he was attacked by a boar and died."

Some people consider that the entire Adonis-Aphrodite-Persephone triangle is in fact similar with the whole Persephone-Hades-Demeter situation from Homeric Hymn to Demeter, and that Persephone plays the role of the mother here. However, when it comes to this theory I'm more inclined to believe that, while Persephone slowly started to perceive Adonis as a lover as he grew older, Hades saw him as some sort of an adoptive son and that's why he was tolerant with him all this time.

2. Persephone was very good at hiding her lover

Though let's be honest, Hades isn't stupid enough not to suspect anything and he would've figured that out sooner or later, due to the mere fact that Adonis was a living mortal. It is common sense in Greek Mythology that mortals aren’t supposed to stay in the Underworld before their time, otherwise Hades sucks at his own job.

3. Hades didn't object to Persephone's relationship with Adonis because he was in love with him too

Okay-okay! I know that it sounds weird or improbable, so let me explain.

First of all, it’s Ancient Greece. We're literally talking here about a historical period and a place where Pederasty not only that existed and was idealized by some briliant minds of the time (Looking at you, Socrates!), but wasn't explicitly prohibited even in the cities that criticized it.

Second of all, both Zeus and Poseidon had a male lover (Ganymedes and Nerites, respectively), so why shouldn't Hades have one too?

The thing is that Hades seems to respect his wife as well, to the point where he allows her to have just as much authority as him. And considering the whole Minthe incident, it’s undersandable why dude would no longer want to have any other extra-conjugal relationship so easily. So what can you do with this hot guy then? Well, it’s simple: share him with your wife! 🧠💥

Thank you for reading this shitpost. I really hope that I managed to change your entire brain chemistry and ruin your day. 👍

[lo-shouldve-been-an-email]

Okay,since I’ve just randomly randomly just reblogging Thanatos things,I decided to actually post things,more specifically an LO rewrite because f it.

At its core I do think LO is a good story,just that bad writing has squandered any potential it has to be good,so please have my take on this.(more specifically my take on Persephone,hades,and Thanatos because I have to stay on brand)

Anyways-

(The sequel)

Persephone:

She’s older.shes physically in her late 20’s/early 30’s and about seven to eight centuries older.

Her AoW only extended to those ransacking the garden.(I swear,it would have been so much more understandable to root for her if it only extended to 4-5 people instead of an ENTIRE CITY,since we know other gods have done much worse)

Her work in the underworld was mandated by Zeus as community service for the AoW.

This is more or less Zeus hitting two birds with one stone,he gets perse to make community service and maybe(hopefully) gets hades to open up to the smucks outside of the underworld because he now has an employee not from there.

Due to her guilt about the AoW,she decides that while she’s working in the underworld she’ll set out to be the best her she can be and make up for the souls she took.

At first nobody really likes her and they just think she’s someone who needed to be dragged here by Zeus and won’t amount to anything,but she ends up being the hardest working of the staff and getting a fairly infamous “employee of the month” streak,her only real fumble being Sisyphus(of which she rightfully corrected totally not being getting Hermes to drag his ass down back to the underworld and give his his infamous punishment,of which instantly gave her back any respect she lost.

She’s the type of person you think you can disrespect until she gets genuinely mad at someone,in which case everyone goes out of their way to be nice to her even though it takes a lot to get her mad.

Demeter never sheltered her,just that she heard from her mother and brother(oh yeah Plutus is in this au their twins) about the shit that happened up their(even saw it for herself a few times)and decided to nope out of that drama.

She likes the underworld a more than Olympus due to the fact people don’t get butthurt nearly as much,due to them needing to deal with crap from other gods and sometimes mortals(like Sisyphus)

Demeter was an amazing mama and nobody can convince me otherwise.

Plutus told her about the underworld so she does know a bit,but otherwise it’s a cultural shock.

She brings homemade baklava in every day of work.

She actually sent a letter to Demeter telling her about the community service…however she never got it thanks to a certain daughter of Nyx always dead set on causing discord.

Hades:

It took him two solid seconds to realize what Zeus’ plan was with Persephone so he initially looked for any reason to fire her,until he learned she was here for community service and just decided to wait out her punishment(jokes on him Zeus forgot to tell perse what her sentence was so she worked in the underworld for like a year until demeter found her when in reality she was supposed to be there for like two months)

He does eventually soften up to her(obviously) but it takes a while and a lot of baklava.

Honest to god I have no idea how to incorporate minthe in this au

Leuce is his dead wife,she died fairly recently so he’s still hesitant to connect with anyone.(“I miss my wife,Thanatos,I miss her a lot I’ll be back-“)

Recently he’s been coping via sinking into his work,Hecate and the others have taken notice but they don’t really know what to do.(their the ones that CAUSE death not deal with it)

He slowly started distancing himself from the rest of his family after the titanomachy and even more so after leuce died.

The only person he acts openly soft around is Thanatos,who he views as a son.

The only part of his extended family he interacts with is Hermes,who he actually has a really good relationship with(albeit still strained since leuce)

Fuck it.everyone has flowers symbolism.

Hades is white lilies(subject to change),perse is asphodels,thanatos(and Hypnos) is poppies,leuce is forget-me-nots,Demeter is daylilies,Plutus is orchids,Hecate is nightshades or cow parsley.

Thanatos:

He genuinely finds it hard to focus on doing his job,so people just call him lazy,so he doesn’t really try to set the bar high in return because he knows he’ll just end up disappointing everyone.

The only person who doesn’t have low expectations and wants him to try his best at his own rate is hades,who understands he finds it hard to focus but still wants him to try his best anyways.

Rotates between living with hades and Nyx(who is an extremely doting mother.

Hypnos still resides within the hr department and Thanatos helps him hide because the last thing he needs is a grumpy Hypnos.

He deals with peaceful deaths while Hermes and the keres deal with the rest.

He’s the type of person to tell himself one moment he’s gonna be really productive today and then spend the next fifteen minutes chatting away with a butterfly.

Also he can talk to butterflies.but nobody believes him except Hermes,perse,and Nyx.

The moment he finds out what Eris did she gets the “WHY WOULD YOU THINK THIS IS A GOOD IDEA?!?!!?” Of her life.then queue Thanatos and the other Nyx children present trying to get her to explain why she thought this was a good idea and her just saying “bc it’s funny”

Erebus = dad with no physical body who still interact with me via shadows.hades = dad with physical body who I want to impress but I don’t know how.

(If you didn’t catch on he has adhd)

[moony-2001]

Lore Olympus ch. 257-262 critique pt. 2

Aaaand we're back

Ch. 260

Hermes, Hebe, and trauma dumping

Jumping right into it, Hermes pissed me right the fuck off. I don't know why Demeter didn't want to accept the aid from the underworld, but I'm sure pride must be some of it. But for Hermes to call it an "in-law tiffy-tiff" was beyond wrong. I don't know or remember what, if any, beef he has with Demeter but read the fucking room, man.

I'm so glad Demeter took Hebe in though, like the absolute Queen that she is. One thing that disturbed me a little when Hebe and Demeter got to talking is how Rachel tries to pass off Hera's trauma dumping on Hebe as if it's nothing.

First of all, 18-year-olds are still kids. I know (at least for the vast majority here in the US) that 18 is the legal age of adulthood, but the human brain doesn't finish developing until around age 25. Even if that's how the rules in LO work (I have a sneaking suspicion they're not though, seeing as Persephone is technically stuck at age 19 for the rest of time) Hebe is 7 years off from having a fully developed brain.

Additionally, I don't like how Rachel frames the idea that Hebe found out all of this information from her mother as a now 18-year-old. I don't know if Rachel is forgetting her own damn timeline (not that there was a cohesive one in the first place) but Hebe wouldn't have been 18 at the time of finding out this information.

Remember the 10-year time skip? Yeah, that whole thing? And how 5 of the 6 Traitors were in a coma? For 10 years? In case you haven't picked up what I'm trying to put down, Hebe was 8 years old when her mother went into that coma. Which means that Hera dumped all this information on a literal fucking child who was 8 or potentially even younger since we have no frame of reference for when Hebe was told this information.

Demeter is right. It is wrong to burden your kids with that. I don't know Rachel, but from this writing, I would venture a guess that she's never had a parent trauma dump on her.

I have. Rachel has no idea how mentally taxing it is to have a parent trauma dump on you or have them drag you into the middle of their fights or vent about their spouse/your other parent to you behind their back. That is not something a parent should EVER do to a child and I'll be damned if I ever do that to mine.

And while there is a shred of truth to what Hebe is saying, about how that information helps her understand her mom, Hebe does not (and in fact should not) be part of her mother's journey to work on herself, especially at that young of an age. Your child is not your therapist.

Demophon, the not child of Demeter

I will say, I am glad that Demeter finally decided to open up to her somewhat adult daughter. Oh, what's this? Persephone looks upset and-

😀😐

of-fucking-course

Is this it?? Is this the moment when we finally find out what happened to Demeter in Attica all those years ago-

Anyway, what we find out is that while in Attica, Demeter supposedly fell in love with the King of Eleusis and had Demophon, a my little pony-looking abomination not worse than whatever the fuck the above pictures are supposed to be. But if you note my title for this portion of the chapter, you'll see it says "the not child of Demeter". And that, dear readers, is because Demophon is in fact not a child of Demeter in the original myths. And Rachel also spelled his name wrong. (You can read more about him here: Demophon of Eleusis)

It seems to me that Rachel is doing what most couples with a failing relationship do: throw a baby at it and hope it will fix the problems.

What technicality? Do you mean the "technicality" that Demeter was punished for insubordination (regardless of her intentions) and lived as a mortal for 10 years? And during that time as a mortal had a son who was born as and died as a mortal? Forgive me if I'm being slow here, but I don't see what this "technicality" is supposed to be. How is Demophon's death any different from the mortals that Persephone killed and asked if it was possible to bring back?

I'm gonna sound a little nitpicky here, but Hades is the god of the dead (and wealth) not the god of death. Believe it or not, there is a difference, and the brushing aside of that difference is the reason why people still get Hades and Thanatos mixed up to this day. Plus does no one remember what happened to Asclepius when he figured out how to raise the dead? tl;dr: not good things.

I have a feeling that all this is happening because Persephone and Hades are trying to buy off Demeter. They want brownie points with the woman who is rightfully upset about everything that is happening right now. And I'll be willing to bet that this smooths things right over with her.

Ch. 261

Off-topic, Demeter looked really pretty in this chapter #standemeter

The "technicality" and Hades' BS

I am glad Demeter gets this small bit of happiness but also:

Nice try, but that's not how that works. Get your smug, ugly-ass mug out of here. Once again, why is Demophon the exception? Because you're whipped for Persephone? Because you want a gold star from your MIL who has perfectly valid reasons to not like you?

Ah. I guess his name is Triptolemus now. Triptolemus who is the older brother of Demophon. Who is also not a son of Demeter. Sure.

NO DON'T FALL FOR IT DEMETER. IT'S A TRAP-

The sisters

It is nice for the most part to see Hera, Demeter, and Hestia interacting. I don't think that's something we've seen outside of flashbacks.

I don't, however, like this interaction between Demeter and Hera:

Yeah, no, that's not how that works. Demeter has every right to be mad at you for helping Hades and Persephone get around the fact that they "violated the laws of Xenia (hospitality)". It doesn't matter if Persephone was a "wild card". Hera had no right to marry them.

In fact, I had a conversation with anoldplace and something we discussed is how much Hera's responsibility/involvement in Persades is kinda just... brushed off. Especially if you look back at the way early chapters (I'm talking s1 early) when Hera changes her tune from "wtf, that's so gross, what is wrong with you" to "Let me get this whole ball rolling". Persephone wouldn't have even had half the interactions she did with Hades had Hera not put her in that internship for the underworld. And Demeter doesn't even know about the early stuff. Think about how livid she would be if she found out Hera was pulling the strings from the beginning. Yikes.

Different topic but the fact that both Demeter and Persephone love to swim is cute.

Ch. 262

Jfc, finally. I'm so tired lol.

Hera's prophecy

In honor of Hera's ugly highlighter-looking color, the sections shall, too, be in yellow.

I was pretty excited to see that Hera got a vision. I'm also sad that this isn't something we see utilized more often in the series. In fact, we don't really see any of the goddesses use their powers besides... oh, for Christ's sake. I don't even want to say it, it just adds to her Mary Sue-ness.

Place your bets on how long it takes for Rachel to dress Persephone in something similar, if not identical, to this.

Moving on, we see Kronos smush and kinda throw Hera away and she's left wondering:

That's cute and all, but no. Like I huffed and puffed with the whole "attempted murder" bullshit with Zeus, for one to die, they must be mortal. If gods could die, they wouldn't be gods. They would be human looking at you Demophon. I understand why the sentiment of dying is upsetting, but Hera, Zeus, whomever cannot die. I suppose similar to Egyptian mythology, they could be chopped up and have their parts scattered to the winds but from what I've seen, there's nothing in Greek mythology that details anything like that.

I did see a really funky theory that I agree with that Hera must be some kind of fertility goddess. In fact, I've seen a lot of people speculate that she was the fertility goddess on the wall of that cave that was destroyed. It would be really wonderful if that greyed-out goddess in Hera's vision was her and not Persephone. Kinda like the ultimate "taking back the power" moment. But tbh I'm not hopeful.

Persephone and Hades... yay/s

*gag* anyway-

Hades decided to give the MORTAL Demophon his whole stash of ambrosia but he doesn't really know if it will actually work and he's salty that Zeus is stingy with it.

Okay, first of all, if it's that damn important that you have ambrosia and you're going to be a salty mofo that the only person who has it is stingy with it, make your own damn ambrosia. You're telling me you've been alive for thousands of years yet the thought hadn't occurred to you once? Bffr. Watch this come back and bite them in the ass in the series finale.

Secondly, if you've never done this before, how do you know it's going to work for Demophon? I mean, it probably will because plot armor, but seriously? What would happen if Demophon just kicked the bucket all over again? Like congratulations, you re-traumatized your wife's mother who already doesn't like you.

Final thoughts

This is all just unraveling so quickly. Watch Demophon disappear and never be addressed again. I am really hoping that this series wraps up between March and May like genericpuff predicted because I am tired. I mean, I'll miss the ability to make content while the material is still piping hot, but also reading this comic is taking a toll on my health. I have never seen my blood pressure in such a state. And I'm not even the one writing the comic.

I can't imagine being in Rachel's shoes rn. I know this point has been beaten to death by everyone and their moms (myself included), but it's so clear that Rachel just doesn't give a shit about this comic anymore. And it's sad. But I also get it.

Rachel has talked about after LO she wants to do a comic along the lines of this but involving Egyptian or Norse mythology. I hope she doesn't for very obvious reasons, but if she decides she wants to step up to the plate for what will inevitably be LO pt. 2, I hope she takes the time to actually research the cultures and learn from the very egregious mistakes that she made here. I won't be there if she does.

[cherrycola27]

false god

Series Warnings: Mythology!AU. Language, alcohol, drinking. Military inaccuracies. Mutual pining, unrequited love. Allusions to and eventual smut. Minors DNI. 18+. Individual chapter warnings will come as needed. Banner Credit @thedroneranger

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Chapter 7: Centuries

It's weird—having a group of friends. You've never stayed long enough with a squadron to call them your friends. But that's what the Daggers are. If you're being honest, they are more like your family.

Sure, you have friends. Minthe, Hecate, Lyla, and the rest of the band, but they don't know you like the Daggers do.

You've been in California for seven months now. You've seen the spring, the summer, and now, the fall. Even though it's October, it's still hot. You love the West Coast and being able to wear sundresses year round, but you do miss how the East Coast gets all four seasons. Part of you longs for a fall afternoon back in Virginia. Oceana is probably your favorite place that you have ever been stationed.

You miss getting cozy in an oversized sweater, seeing the leaves change, and drinking a pumpkin spice latte. If you tried to do that here, you'd have a heat stroke.

But California was nice. For once, it felt like home.

You sighed as you stretched your muscles and got out of your bed. You grabbed your phone and checked your notifications. You sighed when you saw what day was coming up.

October thirteenth.

Your absolute least favorite day of the year. At least it fell on Friday this, and Maverick just so happened to give everyone the day off. You were grateful that you would be able to spend your day away from everyone.

You'd be able to curl up with Cerberus and Hydra and read they ever growing stack of books by your bed.

After checking your phone, you strolled into the bathroom to take a shower. You let the hot water envelope you as you mentally went over your plans for the day.

Once clean, you hopped out to feed your pets and make yourself some coffee. You were flying this morning, so you should probably eat something light for breakfast.

Normally, you lived on coffee and water all day until you got home. You were always so busy, you would forget to eat. Bradley noticed this and made a habit of asking you every day, multiple times a day if possible, if you had eaten.

You try to remind him that you are not a child and can take care of yourself, and he reminds you that you aren't a plant that can use photosynthesis to make her own food, and that that iced coffee doesn't count as a meal.

You shake your head as you toast a bagel and smear it with cream cheese. You finish it and your coffee before drying your hair and styling it into your sleek military bun. Then, you get into your uniform and pack your gym bag before grabbing your water bottle, second coffee, and keys.

As you head out the door, you text Amelia and remind her that you have a long day on base and that she needs to come by after school today to walk Cerberus, and she could hang out with Cerberus Hydra until you got home.

She had been pet sitting and dog walking for you after school to earn some extra money. She had her learners permit and was saving up for a car.

You were content as you rode the elevator down to your parking deck level. And for a fleeting moment, you thought that maybe, just maybe, you wouldn't hate October thirteenth this year.

You had just made it to your car when you heard the unmistakable sound of Bradley Bradshaw cursing. "Mother fucking son of a bitch!"

"Bradley? Are you okay?" You ask him as you round the corner of your car. He is leaning up against the Bronco with an irritated look on his face.

"Angel! Oh, thank god! I was just about to text you. The Bronco has a flat, and there is no way I can change it and make it to base on time. Can I hitch a ride with you?" He pleads.

"Sure. Get in." You chuckle. Bradley breathes a sigh of relief and thanks you before grabbing his things and scurring over to your car. Even in his haste, he doesn't forget to open your door for you before throwing his things in your back seat and getting in.

"Thanks again." He says as the two of you cruise down the highway. "Anytime, Bradley. Anytime." You sigh as you tap the steering wheel.

"Did you eat breakfast?" He asks you. You don't look over at him. Your eyes stay fixed on the road in front of you, but you know he's got a teasing smirk on his face.

"Yes, Dad. I had breakfast." You roll your eyes at him. A smile curls at the corner of his mouth.

A few minutes pass before an alarm on your phone disrupts the song on the radio.

"Can you turn that off for me? I must have forgotten about it." You ask Bradley. He grabs the device but can't unlock it. "The code is one, three, two, seven." You tell him.

He quickly types it in and dismisses your alarm. You ask him to check and make sure all of them are off. He does so quickly for you before trying to pull the music back up on your phone.

Bradley doesn't mean to, but as he is swiping through your apps, he sees your calendar open with an interesting note listed for Friday. He quickly locks your phone back before casually asking, "So, do you have any plans for our day off on Friday?" Bradley doesn't miss the way your jaw quickly tightens at the mention of the day.

"Um—no. I think I'm going to start reading one of the books that I've been putting off." You say to him almost dismissively.

"We could hang out? Maybe go to the boardwalk or get dinner or something if you wanted to." Bradley says hopefully.

"I'll probably be too busy to do that. You should ask someone else from the squad I'm sure Nat or Bob would be down." You say.

"I thought you said you didn't have plans?" Bradley counters. He wonders why you are being so dodgy and why you hadn't told him or anyone what Friday was.

"I don't, but I just want to take the day off. Not do anything. Be lazy." You say aggressively. Bradley takes the hint and drops the subject. Thankfully, you are on base now. You quickly park and grab your things to go about your day. You are testing some software this morning and won't be with the rest of the Daggers. In a way, you're grateful because it gives you a chance to breathe.

Bradley quickly makes his way to a briefing room where Maverick goes over the plans for the day. Once he's finished, he dismisses everyone to get ready for their assignments.

When everyone gets to the locker room, Bradley calls for their attention.

"Did anyone know that Hades' birthday is on Friday?" He asks the group a murmur of "no's" floats across the crowd.

"Well, it is, and seeing how we have all done something cool to celebrate each other, I think we should do something for her. I don't think she's ever had a friend group like us, and it would be nice." Bradley says. Everyone agrees, and the planning begins.

They come up with the idea for a surprise party for you at the Hard Deck after the yearly dogfight football game.

All week, you can tell something is up with Bradley. He's acting weird around you. Almost shady.

You try to brush it off, but you know something is going on with him. You just can't put your finger on it.

Maybe he's finally tired of you

They always get tired of you

You leave base Thursday, still not able to shake the odd feeling he has given you all week. You head home to shower and lock yourself away for the weekend.

However, fate had other plans.

At eight a.m. sharp, there is a loud knocking at your door. You grumble and lay in bed, hoping whoever it is will go away, but they don't. You groan as you drag yourself out of bed and slip into some sweats.

You're ready to give whoever is at your door this early on your day off a piece of your mind. Hell, you might even be able to rationalize sending their soul to the Underworld.

But when you open the door, you don't find just anyone standing there. You find Bradley, who has a vase full of bright red poppies in one hand, and a box from your favorite bakery in the other hand. He has the biggest smile on his face as he shuffles in and sets everything down.

You don't even get to ask him why his is here before he turns to you and says, "Happy Birthday!" His arms as stretched wide to pull you into a hug, but as he steps towards you, you step away.

"How—how did you know it was my birthday?" You ask him. "I—I saw it on your calendar when I was turning the alarm off on your phone on Monday. I wasn't snooping, but when I went to pull your playlist back up, I accidentally tapped on it." Bradley tells you. His enthusiasm dips as he sees that you aren't exactly thrilled that he knows what today is.

"Thank you for this, Bradley, but I don't really celebrate my birthday. It's just another day." You sigh as you turn from him. You swallow thickly as you feel the tears creep up. You can't believe his did this for you.

You can't just find poppies anywhere in San Diego, so you know he had to special order them, and your favorite bakery is a forty-five minute drive one way. This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you. You're so used to spending your birthday alone that this small act has you on the verge of balling your eyes out.

You can't help it, and the tears start to fall. You let out a small sob and bury your face in the sleeves of your sweat shirt. You don't want him to see you cry as you stand with your back still to him. But Bradley hears the whimper you let out and is instantly pulling you into his arms.

"Angel, what's wrong? It's your birthday. Why are you crying? Did I do something wrong?" He asks you. His voice is dripping with concern.

"No, it's just—" You sniffle as you wipe your nose with your sleeve. "No one has ever done anything this nice for me in a very long time. I haven't had friends or partners remember my birthday, let alone do something special for me like this." You say as you gesture to the counter.

Bradley takes your face in his hands and swipes the tears from your cheeks away with his thumbs. "It sounds to me like you've not been hanging out with the right people, Angel. Now, why dont we sit down and dig into these pastries? " Bradley says in earnest.

You blink back a few tears and give him a weepy smile. "Did you get some lemon berry muffins?" You ask him hopefully.

"Of course I did. I know they are your favorite." He smiles at you.

After breakfast, Bradley tells you that the squad is getting together for a game of dogfight football. He also let's you know that he told them that it was your birthday and that they had plans to surprise you with a party at the Hard Deck, but given your reaction this morning, he didn't want to overwhelm you with that.

You appreciate that he is looking out for you.

You go get changed for football while he texts everyone to let them know that you are aware of the plan for the day. Jake tries to badger him about ruining the surprise, but when Bradley tells them about how you don't celebrate your birthday and how you were overwhelmed this morning, he immediately drops the issue.

He's sitting on your couch watching TV with Cerberus and Hydra when you come out of your room, ready for the day.

Bradley has to remind himself to breathe because even though he has seen you in a bathing suit and gym clothes, he's still taken aback by how you look in your black sports bra and electric blue running shorts.

He swallows thickly before quickly excusing himself to his car while you lock up your apartment.

You meet him at his Bronco. He's standing by the passenger door waiting for you, holding a small gift bag.

"Bradley." You say as he places it in your had. "It's not much. Just a little something." He says. You shake your head and take the bag from him. When you pull the small box out you almost cry again.

"Bradley! You shouldn't have!" You tell him as you look at the small piece of silver jewelry.

"I remember how upset you were when your flower anklet snapped and how you said you felt weird without it. So I got you a new one." He tells you.

You inhale sharply when he brings up your broken piece of jewelry. Bradley was right, it did have a flower charm on it, but not just any flower charm.

It was a narcissus flower, a daffodil, one Persephone, and grew herself before taking it to Hephaestus to have him forge it into the ankle bracelet you'd worn for centuries. It was supposed to be a physical reminder of her love, but lately you'd found that if weighed you down.

You should have taken it off decades ago, but the smallest part of you held onto the hope that she would change her mind.

But now, you didn't need that hope anymore. You had Bradley. We your old anklet broken, it was freeing, a tangible reminder that she didn't have a hold on you anymore.

You run your fingers over the silver chain and across the angel wing charm adorning it.

"Angel wings?" You ask him. "To remind you that you are one." He says.

Gods, he was so sweet

The more time you spent with Bradley, you realized that he treated you like a person, not a possession.

He didn't want to own you

He just wanted to show you he cared

Bradley stands there across from you for a moment as you admire your gift. Now would be a great time to tell him how you feel, but it isn't the right moment. This isn't what you pictured in your head when you confess your feelings for him. You want it to be perfect.

Instead, you ask him, "Care to help me put this one before we leave?" You're trying to sound flirty when you say it, and you're pretty sure it worked because next thing you know, Bradley is lifting you onto the bench seat of the Bronco and taking the anklet from your hand.

He drops to his knees on the smoothe concrete of the parking garage before carefully taking your left leg and placing it against his chest.

He gently unclasps the hook of the anklet before looping it around you. He slides it along until the wings are in the front. His fingertips ghost along your calf as his admires how the piece looks on you.

It's taking every ounce of self control he has to not place a kiss right above it. And to not trail his lips up your leg to your core until you're a moaning mess for him.

He stays there for a moment and looks up at you, grinning like a devil. "Perfect." He says. You agree with him because the view of him on his knees for you is absolutely perfect. The only way it could be any better is if your fingers were laced through his curls while his face was buried between your thighs.

"It's beautiful, Bradley. Thank you." You say as he stands up. He places a hand on your thigh to steady himself, just high enough for your breath to hitch. And he lets it linger just long enough for it to be considered more than friendly.

The drive to the beach was pleasant. You and Bradley talked, but mostly song along to a playlist he had made special for today.

He rolled to a stop at a red light and turned to you. "I never celebrated my birthday much after my mom died. I dated a few girls who tried to get me to celebrated but I wasn't a fan of it until the squad got together." He tells you, trying to be relatable.

"My last series girlfriend is the reason I don't celebrate my birthday." You confess to him.

She had ruined them for you, really

"Girlfriend?" Bradley clarifies. You can tell he's worried that he's been reading this whole situation wrong.

"Yeah. But I've had boyfriends too. I'm bisexual, Bradley." You tell him. You see his shoulders relax.

"Oh, I didn't know that. That's—cool." He says, not sure how to respond.

"I mean, I didn't really tell any of you, so how would you know. It's not really at the forefront of my mind to tell people about my sexuality unless it comes up." You say.

There is a beat of silence between the two of you. "Are you okay? I promise I'm still the same ol' Hades that I was five minutes ago." You say to him.

"Yeah, I'm good. I'm sorry, I feel like I've made this weird now." Bradley shakes his head as he drives.

"You're fine, Bradley. You aren't the first person to be curious. Some people like to order one thing off the menu, and that's cool. But why would I limit myself when I could have my pick from the buffet?" You tell him. He laughs at that.

"I don't think I've ever heard some explain their sexuality with food. But it makes sense. Hate to break it to you, but I'm an order off the menu kind of guy." He says.

"You know who you are and what you like. I respect that." You tell him. And it's the truth. Just as quickly as the conversation starts, it's over. You just hope that you haven't scared Bradley off, because by the end of the day today, you're hoping to have a slice of him for dessert.

..............

"I know that you don't have the best relationship with water, but I promise that it won't ever be deeper than your ankles, and if you are getting overwhelmed, you can sit out or let me know and we can all take a break. I also told Jake that if he tries to pull any more stunts, he can kiss his perfect teeth goodbye because I'll knock every one of them down his throat." Bradley tells you as you walk towards the spot on the beach that the gang has set up.

"Happy Birthday, Hades!" Every cheers as the two of you walk up to them. Phoenix and Halo wrap you in a tight hug.

You take and drop your things on a blanket that Bob has set up before applying your sunscreen. You don't even ask Bradley to help you, he simply takes the bottle from your hands and covers your back in it.

"You need some too." You remind him. He opens his mouth to argue with you. But a stern look over the rim of your sunglasses makes him stop. He covers his chest, arms, and legs with some. You carefully smooth some over the taught muscles of his back and across his broad shoulders.

For a fleeting moment, you trail your fingers down the length of his spine, and you swear you hear his breath hitch. You hear the rest of the team calling for you, so you clear your throat he turns around.

"Don't forget your face and ears." You remind him. "Sure thing, Mom." He needles you.

"You fuss at me over breakfast, I fuss at you over sun protection. It evens out." You chuckle as you join everyone else.

Jake goes over the rules for everyone before declaring himself a captain and making you the other one. "I'll even let you pick first." He tells you like it's an honor or something.

Naturally, Bradley is your first choice. "Of course." Jake rolls his eyes. You flip him off and turn to Phoenix. You miss Jake wagging his eyebrows and making a mock kissing face at Bradley.

Jake picks Coyote first, and then you pick Phoenix.

"Hangman, I love you, bro, but I'm not tackling my girl if she gets the ball. I know where my bread is buttered." Coyote tells him. Phoenix laughs. "C'mon Javy, don't be nervous. You know I like it a little rough." Jake fakes a gag before picking Omaha to be on his team.

When all is said and done, it's you, Bradley, Phoenix, Bob, Payback, Fanboy, and Fritz on a team. Hangman, Coyote, Omaha, Halo, Harvard, and Yale make up the other.

As soon as the game gets underway, you realize just how competitive your friends can be. You knew they were like that up in the air. You just didn't expect it to be this way on land too.

After two games, the teams are tied at one with a piece. The next score wins the game and bragging rights.

Phoenix tossed you the ball as you run down the sand looking for an opening. You dodge bodies left and right, hoping for a chance to pass it to Bradley, but you can't find him, and the setting sun glares in your eyes.

You turn to look for him, but you weren't looking where you were running, and you crashed into Bradley. You grabbed his arm to steady yourself, but instead, both of you toppled over before landing on the damp sand. Your eyes met his as he hovered over you, pressing your bodies together. Before you could do something stupid, you had to remind yourself that you were on a beach surrounded by your friends.

"That's a touchdown!" Phoenix loudly proclaims, and Bradley hoists himself up before reaching put his hand to pull you to your feet. Once you're vertical again you notice that you landed in the end zone and that your team won.

After packing up, everyone breaks to head home with a promise to meet back up in two hours for a birthday celebration.

Bradley happily takes the two of you home and informs you that he will gladly be your designated driver for the night so you can really cut loose. You tell him he doesn't have to do that, but he insisted. The poor boy didn't know that you could drink every drop that Penny had in her bar and still be sober. You relent though and take him up on his offer.

Ninety minutes later, when he comes to get you, he regrets his decision.

You're dressed in a black crop top with some blue flames stitched into the hem. You had on dark jeans that were tastfully ripped up to your thighs and some black heeled boots. Even with them on Bradley was still so much taller that you.

Of course, you wore your favorite red lipstick. It was Bradley's favorite, too. He wondered what it would look like, all smudged up after he kissed your breathless.

The drive to the Hard Deck was a pleasant one, and the place was in full swing when the two of you arrived. There weren't as many people there tonight. The Daggers, Maverick, Amelia, your bandmates, and a few other people from base.

All night, you flitted around, talking and laughing, but your eyes always found their way back to Bradley, and his were always on yours.

A few hours in, you were corralled to the piano where Bradley led everyone in off-key version of "Happy Birthday."

As the song finished, you were about to peel off when he stopped you. "I have a surprise." He said as he led you back to the piano.

You stood there, waiting as he prepared himself. He played a few keys to warm up before diving in. Soon, the familiar melody of "Miracle" flooded your ears as Bradley began to sing it to you in front of everyone. He was playing your favorite song—the same one his father played for his mother.

You swallowed thickly as you war he'd his fingers dance over the keys while he played.

He really cared about you

It was nice

It felt good

Sooner than you would have liked, the song ended. And as much as you wanted to stay inside, you needed a break to process what had just happened.

You had to get out of there for a minute. You just needed some fresh air, a moment to catch your breath. Everything was becoming too much and not enough at the same time.

You thought you could keep the butterflies at bay, but seeing Bradley sitting at the piano, swathed in the glow of the neon lights from the bar, playing your favorite song, had them erupting from the cocoons you'd placed them in.

The weeks of playful flirting, witty banter, soft touches, and lingering glances had led straight to this knot in your stomach.

What had you gotten yourself into?

You leaned up against the rough exterior of the Hard Deck and fished the well-worn pack of cigarettes from your purse. You don't know why you kept these. They didn't do anything for you, but something about the act calmed you. You pulled one from the pack and conjured a small flame on your index finger and lit it.

You wrapped your cherry-colored lips around the end and took a long drag before exhaling. The scent of the burning tobacco mixed with the scotch you'd been sipping earlier and wrapped around you like a warm blanket. You were about halfway through when a voice cut through the silence of the night.

"Those things will kill you, y'know?" Bradley said as he stepped out onto the deck and into your space. He slotted himself in front of you. Trapping you between the wall and his body. His six foot one frame loomed over you, making you feel extremely small.

"And the multi-million dollar jets we fly for a living won't?" You shot back as you placed the cigarette between your lips.

Bradley shook his head and placed one of his large arms on the wall above your head, caging you in further. He leaned down and plucked it from your lips before putting it between his own and taking a long drag of it himself. He slowly tipped his head up and exhaled, blowing a smoke ring in the process before dropping the rest of the cigarette to the ground and stomping it out with his boot.

You looked up at him through your lashes. "'Those things will kill you, y'know?" You parrot his words back to him. A low chuckle reverberates from his chest before he looks down at you and meets your eyes.

In the dim light, you could just make out the faint traces of where your lipstick had transferred off the cigarette and onto his lips. His hand, now free from your shared cigarette, came to rest on your hip. You could feel the warmth radiating off him. His thumb skimmed the small sliver of flesh that was barely visible between the waist of your jeans and the hem of your top. He hummed appreciatively as goosebumps erupted across your skin.

You quickly look down and away, but he tucks your chin between his thumb and index finger and lifts your head up, forcing you to meet his intense gaze."What are we doing, Angel?" He asks you. "What do you mean, Bradley?" You ask back.

You know what he means

"Don't play dumb on me know. You know exactly what I mean." He tells you as he leans down. His face is inches from yours. Your gaze drifts from his eyes to his lips.

"Tell me to stop. Tell me you don't want this." His hot, smokey breath fans out as his lips are just millimeters from yours.

You're just about to lean up and close the distance when the loud sound of the back doors of the Hard Deck opening startle both of you, causing Bradley to jump back and you to straighten up off the wall.

"Hey, Ha—" Jake trails off as he looks at the scene before him. "Was I interrupting something?" He asks.

"What do you want, Bagman?" Bradley asks with an edge of irritation in his voice.

"It's time for cake." Jake says as he turns to go back inside. You and Bradley both sigh. "We aren't done here." He tells you before opening the door and gesturing for you to go in before him.

After the cake is served, the crowd starts to disperse. You find Bradley and tell him you're ready to leave. The drive home is silent but tense. The events from earlier are still playing in your mind. You'd been so close to kissing him.

You wanted him so badly

Bradley walks you to your door, but stops you before you go in.

"Angel, wait." He tells you. "Yes?" You ask him. You feel your heart racing.

"I like you. A lot. As more than a friend. And I know I screwed up a few months ago, but I feel like you like me too. And I've tried to tell you, but every time I do, something happens. So, before something else stops me, I'd like to ask you something. Can I take you on a date tomorrow? Just the two of us?" Bradley asks you. You blink at him a few times.

He shifts his weight from foot to foot as he awaits you answer.

"I like you a lot too, Bradley. And I would love to go on a date with you." You smile at him.

A wide grin spreads over his face as he pulls you in for a hug.

"I'll pick you up a six. I have the perfect idea in mind. Nothing too fancy." Bradley tells you.

"I'll see you then. Goodnight, Bradley." You say as you kiss his cheek.

"Night, Angel." He says before almost skipping down the hallway.

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[sarafangirlart]

Ypu know I have seen anti hades people say in order for persephone to be fully freed she must be let go of the underworld which misses the point of the myth of marriage and erases persephone historical ties to the underworld. Sure, there are too much woobifying hades and demonizing demeter but I also think they victimize persephone too much they forget her importance in the underworld and again how powerful she became because of it.

The thing is, it’s undeniable that the kidnapping of Persephone was a forced marriage and a rape, however rape back then wasn’t viewed how it is today, if woman is given to a man by her father she’s supposed to accept it, if he rapes her then shes supposed to accept it bc that’s her job as a wife (oversimplification but you get the idea). You know how Briseis was Achilles slave but wanted to be his legal wife for the small protection and rights it would give her? Even tho he killed her family and enslaved her? That’s probably the same idea with Persephone, where she had to accept Hades as her husband bc her options are rather limited. Like there is also a myth where Demeter is the one to turn Minthe into a plant bc Minthe tried to take Hades away from Persephone, not exactly the reaction one would expect from a mother trying to protect her daughter bc why would she want Persephone to stay with her kidnapper?

So while I understand ppl being upset over Hades being woobified, I completely understand why others would want to remove the rape aspect, since after the kidnapping they seem to have a mostly harmonious marriage with Hades treating Persephone as an equal in authority and idk about you but I’d rather not read a story about a woman loving her rapist bc he’s nice and respects her. Kidnapping alone is bad enough and at least kinda forgivable since Hades lets her go. Tho that sort of revisionism could easily be done without demonizing Demeter, bc again, some say she was the one who cursed Minthe.

I probably got some information wrong tho pls kindly correct me if I did.

[deathmetalunicorn1]

Hello, I hope you have a nice day.

(/≧▽≦)/ I have a request for Hades. I already made this up (my brain is an enigma and can't be fixed), how about an Egyptian leap year goddess?

The five most outstanding great Egyptian gods (Osiris, Isis, Seth, Nephthys and Horus), only managed to be born since their mother Nut played a game of chess against Khonsu to win days and give birth to the gods, but let's say that Nut later He noticed that there was a sixth and small child, so he challenged Khonsu again, and since he did not want to lose again, he promised to make a small arrangement with the hours that were left over from the five days that he had already won, giving rise to the leap year . But Khonsu warned him that his sixth son would be the smallest and most unstable. Well, y/n is a goddess with the appearance of a teenager but she is just as old as her other brothers, and sometimes she is the strongest, the bad thing is that her own body cannot support that divine force and it is destroyed, that's why her sister Isis made her some strips of cloth that curb excess strength when she fights, and her sister Nephthys created an amulet that will help her sleep only what is necessary and wake her up, since she can also sleep for decades if her brothers forget to wake her up.

Let's say that y/n met Hades after Osiris asked him to deliver a large number of books with the log of the souls that pass through his side of the afterlife, after a small problem caused by a cataclysm in the human world that made the Souls migrate to the world of the dead massively and without order. And mistaking her for a teenager and therefore much younger than him, Hades offered her candy and a pat on the head, and/n left confused and a servant was the one who informed Hades of her true age. And / n she found Hades' attitude funny so whenever Osiris needed to take something to that side of the underworld, she asked to take the place of the person she had to go to. (she just wants free candy)

Persephone, who was the current wife of Hades, was not happy with her visits and in a mad fit of jealousy she stole her amulet and smashed it without anyone noticing, when the Egyptian goddess was enjoying a snap.

Hades went to wake up the Egyptian goddess but she did not respond, he panicked and went to the y/n brothers, who noticed that her amulet was not there. And somehow Persephone was betrayed, Hades had enough and asked for a divorce from her, Persephone had done the same or worse to the nymph Minthe just because she liked to play board games with the ruler of the underworld.

Coming back with y/n, she couldn't wake up because her body got too used to the call of the amulet and now only Apep's roar could wake her up. The problem was that only Ra knew where that colossal monster was, and old Ra went on a trip without notifying where he was going.

-Hades heard a knock on his office door and he groaned, “What?” the door opened, and he saw a stack of books instead of a person.

-He sighed softly, rubbing his temples in anguish, seeing more logbooks from Osiris.

-There had been a great calamity on earth, wiping out millions of people, and when they all descended, there was no order, the souls just filling in whatever room they could fit in, going to the different areas of the dead.

-Osiris, Hades, La Muerte and the other gods of the dead had been dealing with nonstop paperwork, trying to get all of the souls organized where they needed to be.

-Hades rubbed his eyes, his mask laying nearby, “Just put them over there.”

-He froze when he heard a little voice speak up, “Here? Okay!” he looked over and his eyes widened, not seeing Osiris or any of the other Egyptian gods that had been delivering the logs, instead seeing a little petite goddess, who only looked to be about fifteen or so.

-You blinked when you saw that he was staring before you smiled warmly at him, “Brother Osiris asked me to deliver these for you, since the others are stuck over in Hel’s area.”

-He nodded softly, sighing, feeling only a bit annoyed that you were being forced to help, not wanting a child to deal with this mess.

-He waved you over and you trotted over, the large amulet around your neck making a small clanging noise and you were surprised when he reached up and patted your head, like you were a child, “Thank you for bringing these to me.” he then gave you a lollipop and asked you to shut the door behind you when you left.

-You scratched your cheek lightly after you did as you were told, before unwrapping the lollipop, finding it was blue raspberry flavored and you headed back to Osiris.

-Charon passed you in the hall, a bit confused on where you got candy before he entered his lord’s office with a large pot of coffee, finding him rubbing his eyes, looking at the pile of new logbooks, “Where did these ones come from?”

-Hades sighed softly, “That little Egyptian goddess, I’m not sure of her name but Osiris made her deliver these since the others are having issues. A child shouldn’t have to deal with something like this.”

-Charon chuckled softly, setting the coffee down to prepare a cup, “That was Y/N, she’s the youngest of Nut, but despite being the youngest, she’s the same age as Lord Osiris.”

-Hades turned on him, blinking in confusion, you looked so young!

-Charon explained while organizing some of the paperwork while Hades downed the first cup of coffee, that you were known as the ‘leap year goddess’, which explains your youthful appearance, as a leap year only comes around every 4 years, but you were just as old as your other siblings.

-Hades couldn’t help but smile, three days later, when you returned with another stack of books, as you liked his attitude towards you, you liked being doted on like a child sometimes, and you knew he had good candy.

-He invited you to rest before heading back to your brother, as the work was slowing down, just a bit, and he noticed your amulet glow just for a moment, but you weren’t bothered by it.

-He motioned at it, “May I ask what that is, Y/N?” you looked down at the amulet with a smile on your face, “Since my body is very weak, I tend to sleep a lot, as in I could sleep for years if my brother’s forgot about me. This helps wake me up so that doesn’t happen!”

-Hades chuckled, despite your age being the same, you were rather childlike, but you were enjoyable, Hades began to like you, in a sibling type of way, thinking quietly to himself that he didn’t have a sister like you.

-You thanked Hades after he gave you another lollipop plus an extra to give to Osiris, and you skipped out, a happy smile on your face, passing by a very pretty woman, giving her a warm smile as you passed, not knowing who that was.

-Persephone had seen you around before, she knew of you, she knew that you were older than you looked, and she started to grow jealous over the time you spent with her husband.

-You were unaware of the looming storm surrounding Persephone.

-Two days later you were carrying another stack of logbooks, barely able to peek over the top and you heard a sweet voice, “Oh- let me help!” you turned to see Persephone, giving her a bright smile as you thanked her as she carefully took some of the logs, carefully snatching your amulet as well without you noticing.

-Once outside Hades’ office, a servant came to Persephone, “My lady there is an emergency!” you thanked her as she returned the books, for her help and she opened the door for you, rushing off with her servant.

-Hades greeted you kindly, thanking you for what he hoped would be the last of the logbooks.

-You yawned quietly, and he waved his hand over to the sofa, “Take a quick nap before you head back, Y/N.” you thanked him and headed over and laid down, instantly falling asleep.

-Hours later, Hades was jolted when he looked up from his paperwork, still seeing you there asleep and he quickly got up, calling out your name.

-When you didn’t respond he resorted to shaking you, trying to get you to respond, frowning before he froze, seeing that your amulet was gone!!

-Your brothers freaked out when Hades ran in to Osiris’ office, holding your sleeping body, piggyback style, deep asleep.

-Your brothers tried everything, splashing you with water, yelling in your ears, nothing worked until Osiris shouted, “Bring Apep! His roar will definitely do the trick!!”

-However, it was discovered Apep was nowhere to be found, the same with Ra, who would be the only one to know where Apep was!!

-A knock came to the door and in stepped a little maid, one Hades recognized as one of his own, holding a bundle in her arms, her right cheek purple with a nasty bruise.

-She bowed and handed over the bundle, revealing the shattered amulet and although furious, Hades spoke calmly to the maid, demanding to know what happened.

-She explained that Persephone was jealous of you, of your visits with Hades, and she stole and broke your amulet, knowing you would fall deep asleep. Persephone had promised the maid help with her younger brother, who was very sick, but refused to do so, slapping her and told her to get rid of the amulet pieces.

-Hades was furious, immediately returning home, roaring out Persephone’s name in fury, scaring the other servants, even Charon, who had never seen his lord so furious before.

-Hades had cause, having called Zeus as well, to divorce her, after announcing her crimes, when she saw the maid peeking out from behind Hades, she tried to scream at the maid, but Hades defended her and Zeus took his daughter back, returning her to her mother, grounding her.

-Odin was called to locate Ra, who was also with Apep, relaxing on a sunny beach, ignoring their work, having a day off from everything except for sunbathing together in a rare moment of peace.

-Ra was furious when he found out what had happened to you, immediately returning home with Apep in tow.

-Nephthys was working on making a new amulet for you, which was almost done by the time Ra returned, but you needed to be awake before she could put it on you.

-Apep, grumpy that his vacation had been cut short, roared loudly, shaking the room all around everyone in attendance.

-You stirred, like you had just been nudged slightly, before you sat up, yawning lightly, “Oh Apep! Did you have fun on vacation?” he couldn’t bring himself to yell at you, just leaving the room, wanting to go back to the beach, Ra following after him after patting your head lightly.

-You were stunned to learn that Persephone had done and what had happened while you were asleep, apologizing for the trouble, but nobody, your family or Hades, refused to let you apologize, as it wasn’t your fault.

-You wanted to keep helping your brother and Hades, even though the paperwork mess had finally been dealt with, so to appease you, Osiris gave you the job of running paperwork between the Greek and Egyptian pantheons for Hades and him, which made you cheer, as it meant you still got candy, which made Hades laugh warmly.

[enrusmindara]

Today is canadian Thanksgiving, so I decided to make a more ambitious piece to celebrate.

Enrus is spending the night having a meal with his friends. Enrus has been practicing his cooking since he started to put on weight and is pretty decent nowadays. The ingredients may have come from a replicator, but the meal is still hand cooked.

Left to right:

Renzaul (Ren): a bear with an extensive history in robotics. Like Enrus, he used to work for the mega corporation Tayre Corp. They met when Enrus had to request parta for cybernetics from his workshop, leading to an accident that cost him an arm and the two scrambling to assemble a mechanical one out of spare parts before he bled out. He's a real serious, and grumpy looking guy but a big, strong teddy bear under it all. He is a loving single father to two kids and a pet dog.

Bantozeen (Bant): An ex member of the Tayre Security devision. He secretly betrayed the company sometime before meeting Enrus after his closest friends and family were black bagged. He worked undercover for the resistance and supplied them with weapons. He's a a sweet person who is always genuine l, but also a walking stream of consciousness monologuing that won't ever shut up. That may have actually helped his cover as no one would listen to a word he said and couldn't get a word in edgewise when he was around. I had no idea how to pose him here so he's bragging about going seven rounds with an MMA fighter.

Enrus: You know and love this big fat fox already. But a bit of background, his mother was actually a high-ranking official within the company. Putting immense pressure on his every action. His entire future was effectively charted for him, and it left him completely hollow inside, coasting through life unaware of his surroundings until the day he caused the accident that cost Ren his arm. This led to a lifelong friendship and enrus finally seeing the civil unrest in the country. He made contact with the resistance through a private server in one of his favorite games and worked to topple the company from the inside. This got him in contact with Bant, and through investigating the shadier dealings of the company, they found and rescued Marzelle.

During the final raid he was shot in the head and spent over 6 minths resting in an intensive trauma unit (thank god for sci fi medical tech). The blue patches are actually a side effect of a different treatment for chemical burns, the chemicals melted him down nearly to the bone and entire muscle and skin tissue had to be donated from a matching donor who happened to be a bright blue wolf. He has an artificially grown eye replacing his original right eye as well.

Marzell (Mars): Youve already seen her before, she's a Grey hat hacker, formerly black hat, that got kidnapped by Tayre corp and tortured. Enrus and Bant found her cell while investigating the company and helped her escape. She spends her time helping getting the networks integral to the city's infrastructure running again to return some degree of normalcy to the people again.

She has a girlfriend that she loves very much (she the only member to find love in the years after their victory so far). She goes to therapy to help deal with the trauma of her brief time being held captive as well.

I love my little underground freedom fighters.

[iridescentinkangel]

StH: Minthe the Rabbit

Did I make her last year & never posted her? Yes. Because I didn't wanna post a character reff without giving you all her bio. But, I started not caring about that on my DA & posted her either way. I did do her bio just a couple days ago anyway. But I will try to show more on here as far as character refs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Minthe the Rabbit Age: 23 Gender: Female DOB: Dec. 4th Species: Rabbit Occupation: Artist, Volunteers & helps others from time to time

Personality:

Sweet, kind, creative, forgiving, sympathetic, hardworking, courageous, generous, mindful, fun loving, & helpful.

Likes: 

Cute plushies, ice cream(mint chip is her fav), baking, art, crafting, fantasy stories, video games, rock/metal music, snowy days, beach trips, visual novels, & gardening. Dislikes:

Liars, manipulators, double crossers, rude/entitled people, spiders, thunder storms, walking at night. Hobbies/Talents: Baking, cooking, crafting, painting, drawing, gaming, yoga, wood work, basic repair skills, hand to hand combat, gardening. 

Facts & Bio:

Eldest daughter of Vanilla & Miso(Vanilla’s late husband).

Older sister of Cream.

Chocola is her chao buddy.

Lives in a small home on the outskirts of a small town all located in Green Hill Zone.

Joined the resistance when Sonic disappeared. She wanted to protect her family like her father once did when she was a child. Her mother was against it at first, but knew she couldn’t keep her daughter from doing what she thought was right. 

Minthe knew this was gonna be hard for her mom, since they lost her father during a botched mission when his old team was still operational. Since that happened, they’ve disbanded. But she reassured her mother that she wouldn’t let herself end up like that. Promising to stay safe during her time there. 

Months after defeating Eggman during their final battle at his old base, she comes back to it to look for scrap to use & things to possibly sell. Any parts that could be used to fix household appliances & such. That’s when she came upon a rather surprising sight. Infinite! He was out cold. Laying up against some rubble & looking rather banged up from her last encounter with him. She had thought he perished after the Phantom Ruby was destroyed. But here he was. Somehow still alive after this long. She considered leaving him there, but she just didn’t have the heart to do that. So, she brought him back to her home. 

She had laid him on her couch at the time. Looking in her bathroom cabinet for the first aid kit she had around. When she heard some commotion in her living room. When she got back in, he was awake, & rather shocked by the new environment he was somehow in. As she approached him, he looked surprised to see her. Thought she captured him. But she explained to him what happened in the final fight. At first he didn’t believe her. But when he looked over at a mirror she had hanging up, he saw how he looked. She truly wasn’t lying. But what surprised him more, was that she was patching him up. Being careful not to cause him any pain. He wasn’t used to this kind nature from her. For him…..it felt nice.

With nowhere else to go, Infinite became her new roommate. 

Minthe does a lot of volunteering & favors for others around Sunflower Cove(towns name she lives near). That & her crafts is how she keeps a steady income going.

Cream & Cheese often come over to visit. Even spending the night.

Whenever her mother needs help around her place, Minthe will come over & offer her service. It’s normal for her to fix appliances & such for her mother.

Cream will normally go to Minthe when she wants to hear stories about their dad. Sense he passed before she was born, she relies on Minthe to give her an idea of what kind of a person was like.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[genericpuff]

Can you call Tina Belcher driving through a parking lot at an anxious snail's pace a driving "style"? So why do we try to use "style" as a defense for LO's pacing problems?

There's something about how Lore Olympus engrosses people within its weekly doses of H x P content and cliffhangers that makes people not realize just how long Lore Olympus takes to get to the point of, well, anything. Many plotlines are setup, and then go untouched for weeks, sometimes months at a time, before seeing any sort of progress, much less a resolution. In this, I'm going to actually give you time ranges on some of the more egregious payoffs and continuations of plotlines that were setup - some that are now resolved, others that have yet to see the light of day.

CONTENT WARNING: I will be discussing the SA plotline, and there will be spoilers for Episode 265. I will also be showing pictures of some rancid ass tattoos, I know that sounds random for what we're discussing, but trust me on this one, I have a point to make. Also there's a Junji Ito panel from The Enigma of Amigara Fault... yeah, that one.

LEUCE

Let's start with an easy one that's not exactly tied to the main plot. The Leuce plotline. She was first introduced in Episode 201 as a 'bargaining chip' from Zeus to Hades, in a misfired attempt to get Hades to call a truce over the embargo between the Underworld and Olympus.

At the time of this episode's release, by all accounts this seemed to be a cut and dry reference to Hades' first wife, Leuce, unfortunately reduced to a mail-order bride who Hades, of course, turns down, because he doesn't want the "I can't believe it's not butter" Persephone, he wants overpriced, tastes-the-same-but-costs-more-because-of-the-brand-name Persephone.

But then she came back, 36 episodes later - in real time, this was roughly 38 weeks for free-to-read users as the series went on a 2 week hiatus near the start of S3 - only to be used as a cliffhanger leading into a recycled Minthe plotline, in which she attempted to seduce Hades in Episode 238, only to be shot down for the second time.

If you're having a tough time wrapping your head around how long 36 weeks really is, that's nine months. If you got pregnant when Leuce was first revealed, you'd be entering the final window of pregnancy by the time she returned, assuming the baby didn't come pre-term.

Another 7 weeks later, enough time to actually get pregnant again following that first baby, we got the sudden continuation of that plot, with Persephone invading her home and filling it with barn animals, with a not-so-subtle threat to Leuce to stay away from her husband.

"But what about the text messages? Were they really from Hades?" Well, if you were someone reading this comic in real time, you wouldn't have this question answered for another SIX EPISODES - that's a month and a half in real time - and the answer would ultimately be "she made it up, she was 'manifesting', none of it's real, they should call her Deleuceional!" Six weeks for a nothingburger answer to wrap up a nothingburger sideplot, all in the pursuit to 'prove' for the 1275903729 time that Hades and Persephone are truly meant to be together.

EROS AND PSYCHE

This is a big one. The Eros x Psyche plotline was one of the most popular romance subplots, second only to Hades and Persephone, throughout the comic. And yet, despite people holding their breath to see what would become of the star-crossed lovers, a mortal and a god-

-readers in September 2021 would not find out how their recent skirmish with Apollo in Episode 171 would resolve itself until Episode 218, A YEAR AND TWO MONTHS - ROUGHLY 60 WEEKS AND A MIDSEASON HIATUS - LATER, and even then it would only show us Eros, who quickly summarizes what happened to him during the entire trial and Kronos arc that his anticipated romance storyline got sidelined for - he got married and now he has a child.

And it wouldn't be for ANOTHER six weeks that his wife and the mother of his child would actually show up, not alongside Eros, but Aphrodite and Hephaestus, in Episode 224.

What happened to her after finally having her 'true form' revealed to Eros? Well, that's not shown for another three weeks in Episode 227. During this a bunch of info about how Psyche got out of that sticky Apollo situation is dumped on us and we just have to go along with it as she becomes a goddess, not because she earned a place among the Olympians, but because Zeus needs her to spy on Apollo, which was actually shown one episode prior in 226.

So let's say you got knocked up again after that Leuce baby, when Eros and Psyche were shot out of the sky. Welp, in the time it took for Rachel to get around explaining what happened to the both of them, now you just had your second baby and for all we know, you could have gone for a third and already be well into or near the end of your first trimester, if you really wanted to get busy. You'd have a Dionysus, a Melinoe, and maybe even a Demophoon. Congratulations.

And speaking of Melinoe-

MELINOE

Turns out the interloper and the child in Tartarus were one and the same, or at least that's what I'm assuming, because otherwise that would mean there's some whole ass other baby to worry about that we haven't even been introduced to yet.

Melinoe, or "the child deity", was first established in Episode 218.

But as per LO tradition, the child would only mentioned in passing every now and then until finally being revealed as Melinoe in Episode 252, a whopping... THIRTY EIGHT FUCKING WEEKS LATER.

And that waiting is still ongoing as Melinoe is, of course, still trapped in Tartarus, with no end in sight. Since then, Hades and Persephone have gotten married, kidnapped a child, Persephone has terrorized a nymph and caused yet ANOTHER genocide, and they've resurrected a child that was suddenly revealed to be Demeter's. Thirty eight weeks and counting of dragging on a plotline that we're supposed to believe is dire while the characters do sweet fuck all.

What was the name of that other dream baby that Rachel referenced from some obscure non-legitimate source?

Riiiight, Brimos. Congrats, there's pregnancy number 4. But can we find a way to make a fifth happen?

KASSANDRA

We're first introduced to Kassandra, another implied victim of Apollo's, in Episode 226 when a photo of her is found on Apollo's pen drive which was conveniently left on the ground for Psyche to swipe.

In Episode 227, they theorize on how they could track down this mystery woman, using either Eros or Aphrodite's abilities to find her through the power of

✨love✨

How will that actually work though? Has anyone ever been in love with Kassandra, or has she ever been in love with anyone else?

Any bets on how long it would be until we'd get our answer?

Episode 251. The same episode where we're finally told about Leuce's delusions, we suddenly skip to the reveal of Kassandra being Apollo's personal oracle.

And it still doesn't end up answering our question as to how Kassandra was tracked down, by the way. Eros and Psyche sorta just conveniently find her at the same time Apollo happens to be there when he's getting her to deliver her big prophecy to him.

That's twenty four weeks, meaning you're now near the end of your second trimester with child #4. Whoever the child is remains to be seen but I'm sure Rachel will find a way to shoehorn another helpless baby into the plot for Hades and Persephone to rescue who we can use for this metaphor.

But none of these come close to the greatest unresolved plotline of them all, the one plotline that has outlasted even the main H x P plotline of Lore Olympus' story-

APOLLO

Or more specifically, the SA. Rachel has tried so hard to twist Apollo into a villain of Disney proportions, through his sudden involvement with Ouranos, while also using him as a mouthpiece for her own critics by having him literally dish out word-for-word the criticisms that have been made towards Rachel's writing of Persephone-

But the core foundation of his plotline goes all the way back to 2018, when he assaulted Persephone, a plotline that has yet to resolve itself or show any progression beyond Rachel's half-baked attempts at speedrunning Persephone's healing process, while Apollo is still at large and hasn't been brought to justice.

We've seen her in very poorly-written therapy where her assault was addressed once. We've seen her grapple with the potential consequences of the SA through a gynecologist scene that, as I've discussed before, does more harm than good in helping the discussion around women's sexual health. And of course, Rachel will pepper in vague references to the SA every now and then when she's bothered to remember that it's a plotline she wrote and still hasn't resolved:

And judging by how the story has been progressing, Rachel seems far more intent on simply using Apollo as a mouthpiece for criticism and a puppet for Ouranos rather than focusing on the bigger issues, all while Persephone has helped more people cope with the assault that happened to her rather than receiving help herself.

What's really telling is that despite half of the Olympians at this point knowing what Apollo did, not one of them even tries to convince Persephone to come forward, or say something themselves. Daphne has more than enough reason to come forward. Artemis, Hera, Eros, Hermes, and Hephaestus all know what he did, and yet none of them say a thing, even when those of them who haven't been conveniently shoehorned out of the plot are still in the same room as him-

The assault scene happened in August 2018. It's been five and a half years since it was established, and while there have been small efforts made to resolve it - from Hera and Hephaestus having the photos deleted to Persephone seeking therapy - there's less reason now than ever for it to not be addressed, especially with so much at stake. I could side with Persephone not wanting to say anything in the beginning, when he was blackmailing her with the photos and her TGOEM scholarship was on the line, but now that she's a Queen, rich, and married to Hades, living in the Underworld where he can't get to her, without any schooling or scholarship or job to worry about or the photos hanging over her head, it comes across as flat out irresponsible that not a single person thinks it's worth mentioning. Even the narrative itself seems to be trying to undo the SA entirely.

At this point, I'm not confident it will be mentioned at all, and that Apollo will be conveniently dealt with as a pawn of Ouranos rather than as a perpetrator of violence towards women.

A FINAL ANALYSIS OF LO'S PACING

There are certainly far more examples of this weekly edging happening throughout LO, but I hope the ones I provided get across the point I'm trying to make about its pacing.

Of course, none of these gaps in time are happening back-to-back-to-back. This is Lore Olympus' writing "style", if you can call it that - constantly bombard the reader with separate plot points so that they'll either not remember the ones that were left behind, or so that Rachel can buy herself time to get herself out of the corner she wrote herself into. It's the equivalent of clickbait, constantly grabbing your attention with shiny new things that will replace whatever you just saw in your brain, on a constantly repeating cycle. It's the writing process of inexperienced amateurs, like what you'd see in short stories written by fifth graders - "and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened", with no theme or overarching meaning tying them together; and if you were to ask them why a certain thing happens, especially if it logically doesn't make sense, the answer is just, "well, because it does." There's no rhyme or reason, they just thought it was cool.

And I say "style" because while fans of LO have definitely defended the story's pacing as just a writing style, the actual execution of what they're implying is painful to watch and not what any experienced writer would call a legitimate style. It's not uncommon at all in long-running series like this to jump from plotline to plotline, often times longform stories like these have to balance multiple side plots at once to keep things engaging and to bulk up the plot with more actual content.

But in most cases, the reader will expect the speed of a plot's resolution to be relative to its urgency. If a casual B plot with low stakes is introduced, it's not necessarily doing any harm if it just sits there for a bit before finally being resolved. After all, it's low stakes and no one is being hurt by it existing on the sidelines. It might feel a bit like pointless fluff, but there's nothing necessarily wrong with fluff and it can offer fun and relaxed reprieves from the overarching narrative, assuming you integrate them well so they're not drawing attention away from those more urgent plotlines at the worst possible times (looking at you, Stranger Things S2 Episode 7-)

But when even the high stakes plots are being hung out to dry and treated like distractions and fluff, it comes across less like a decisive writing "style" and more just directionless pantsing from an inexperienced writer who's gotten themselves in way too deep.

And that's what really separates Rachel's writing problems from "style". Style is decisive. Style is the act of referencing over a set period of time, crafting what you like and what you've learned into something new, with rounds and rounds of fine-tuning. Style is experience put into action.

And, while I don't typically like using my own work as a comparison, LORE | REKINDLED is meant to try and recapture the original magic of Lore Olympus' art style and writing foundations - and even then, you can still see the clear difference between Episodes 14 and 44, which use the same panel from the same scene, but look vastly different due to the improvement and refinement that's happened over time.

Same style, but different levels of experience and skill, which is to be expected after weeks and weeks of fine-tuning and deliberate practice.

If you're lacking in your fundamentals, whether in art or writing, you can't equate that lack of skill to "style" because you're not choosing to be inexperienced, you just are. And that's okay! But to try and pass it off as 'style' implies that you're choosing to be inexperienced - when in reality, if you tried to put out anything beyond your skill level, you simply wouldn't be able to, because you haven't gained those skills yet. Like fifth graders writing short stories with the "and then this happened" model, "it's just my style" is often used as an excuse by young artists and writers who don't understand that style is not exclusively an end result of inexperience.

I'm gonna go on a tangent here, but there's this controversial but trendy style in tattooing called 'ignorant', and it's best defined as "tattooing badly on purpose".

These tattoos are regularly praised for their simplistic ingenuity and visual aesthetic but equally criticized for being the opposite of what many artists have worked to overcome - being "bad at art". After all, who would willingly pay for a bad-looking tattoo? It's because it's the style that's in demand. I would argue that it takes a lot of confidence and mastery of the craft to be purposefully bad at it and make it look good, as contradictory as that sounds.

As much as the lines may be wobbly and the anatomy poor, ignorant style tattoos are done purposefully by experienced artists who still know how to properly tattoo. As much as they may look like they were drawn by a middle schooler, they will still heal properly, the lines will hold up, and the client will not (or at least, should not) experience any excessive scarring or unhygienic practices as one would experience from an actual inexperienced artist-

In a genuinely poorly-done tattoo, the evidence of the inexperience is literally written all over the body. The skin swells, the ink bleeds out, the lines are inconsistent in their depth, and there's clear signs of trauma to the skin that will undoubtedly result in a poorly-healed tattoo (and that's not even getting into the larger health risks such as contracting blood diseases due to a poorly kept space). It's not hard to see the difference between a bad tattoo and a tattoo that's intentionally bad.

It's the age old saying in a different medium - only once you learn the rules can you properly break them.

Rachel never learned these rules in her writing and it's evident to anyone who knows these rules and is viewing LO through a critical lens - or in my case, experiencing it on a week to week basis. It's a regularly occurring problem in the medium of webcomics as a whole - thinking that knowing how to draw is enough, and that writing comes dead last, if at all. When in reality, comics are a marriage of art and writing, you can't simply do one really well and allow the other to drag behind. That's not to say there aren't comics that succeed at having bad art and good writing, if anything a well-written comic can save bad art-

But if you have a comic with good art and bad writing, that's when a comic opens itself up to harsher criticism. As much as art may be the visual forefront of comics, if you want to keep your audience along for the long road that stretches ahead, you need to have a strong foundation in writing, or at least, enough of a plan to ensure you're not driving in the dark. The art can be as gorgeous as you want it to be, but if the plot is weak, then no one will have any reason to check back in week to week.

And such is Lore Olympus' biggest weakness. Much of what we praise LO for back in its first season was simply its foundation. It's very easy to praise a story's writing when it hasn't had to payoff what it's setup. Having ideas is easy, and early LO is rife with good ideas - but many of those ideas have since fallen flat, even the ones you wouldn't expect.

Ideas are a dime a dozen, but actually executing them in a way that can be engaging from start to finish and resolve itself in a way that's satisfying is a whole other challenge that many creators, including Rachel, find themselves unable to tackle; and nothing is a greater example of that than LO's third season, which is now fumbling its plotlines that have failed to resolve themselves properly after 5 years, while introducing new ones that serve as mere distractions, as if they were a laser pointer aimed at a cat.

I hear the argument, "LO is a better story if you binge read it" a lot, which - while I can certainly understand in today's culture of content that's churned out to be binged - I still fail to see how it actually makes LO a better story. Binge-reading LO doesn't remove the pointless plotlines. It doesn't fix its blatant timeline problems, its retcons, or its inability to stay focused on one topic for more than 5 panels. All it really fixes is the waiting, the ritualistic toiling over each and every cliffhanger that caps off the weekly episodes just for them to either be resolved in the next week or left behind with no in-between. And while having all that waiting removed certainly makes the reading experience a lot smoother, it doesn't make the story or its writing better.

The relationship between a story's writing and how the audience experiences it shouldn't be overlooked. Many stories depend on how the audience experiences it within the mind to succeed and leave an impression.

Junji Ito utilizes the dreaded page turn to scare his audience, an effect that can only be truly gained and appreciated if you read his books in traditional print.

Marvel spent years meticulously building up its Avengers franchise, culminating in a once-in-a-lifetime cinematic event through Avengers: Endgame, which is truly the epitome of "you had to be there", because if you watch Avengers: Endgame in 2024 in your living room, you're likely not going to experience the same level of hype as audiences experiencing it in the theater in 2019.

The same can be said for James' Cameron's Avatar, which entranced audiences with its innovative motion capture CGI and immersive 3D effects, an experience that could only be lived to the fullest if you saw it in 3D in IMAX theaters back in 2009. Without that experience, most people in 2024 find the movie to be pretty generic and uninteresting, a reverse Pocahontas with blue people in space, but when it first released in IMAX theaters in 2009, it was a cultural and technological phenomenon due to how advanced it was in its VFX. I can't even share with you clips of it, because obviously it would just be proving my point to try and show you how groundbreaking Avatar was in theaters through a bad shaky cam Youtube upload of its IMAX release on Youtube, but let's just say that it wasn't uncommon for people to brag about how many times they'd gone back to watch the same movie just to feel what they felt from the first showing all over again.

All that's to say that while Lore Olympus may offer a 'better' reading experience when binge-read - regardless of whether or not it actually helps the story's pacing problems - the reality is that LO is still being written exclusively with the weekly format in mind, and its been very much to its detriment, both in the short-term and in the long-term. Readers are often left in the dark on plotlines for weeks at a time, Rachel loses track of what she has and hasn't addressed, and the extended waiting times trick readers into believing that weeks have passed in the comic's story, when in reality it's only been a day or two, sometimes as little as hours depending on the sequence; meanwhile, if you binge episodes that had those problems in hindsight, you'll likely be a lot more quick to notice how many plot beats are either retconned or abandoned entirely, because you don't have the weekly waiting times artificially inflating the pacing of the story and causing you to forget what was established weeks before, because when binged, those weeks are reduced to hours and minutes.

And worst of all, with the assumption that you're reading on a weekly basis - as it wants you to do - Rachel tries to pull clever stunts by matching up LO's episodes with real life dates and holidays, which often just makes the story beats feel rushed or random in their execution - because to the vast majority of readers who haven't caught on to this or are reading the episodes through the physical books, they are rushed and random, and they can't exactly explain why.

Binging these episodes doesn't solve the problem, if anything it exemplifies them because, as a shining example, Hades and Persephone suddenly get married right in the middle of an ongoing issue, which isn't exactly the best time to wrap up the story's main plotline. Since then readers have become less and less interested in their story, and can you blame them? By all accounts their story is over. Everything now just feels tacked on to give them something to do in a story they no longer fit into.

There's an episode behind the FastPass lock right now, Episode 265. It unlocks for free on February 17th, three days after Valentine's Day. Guess what episode it is?

Ah yes, the episode where Hades' initiates sex without consent with his wife who's suffering from panic attacks, who also happens to be a rape victim. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

I actually made this particular discovery while writing this essay, so that was a very unwelcome surprise, but it explains the sudden random shift from Persephone being so stressed over the ongoing situation that she's passed out to Hades just deciding for the both of them that now's the time to have sex. As much as the fans will defend this as a husband and wife's last chance at intimacy before diving into a dangerous situation, they'll also still conveniently forget - just like the narrative and Rachel herself - that Persephone is a rape victim, and Hades initiating sex with her after nearly having a panic attack isn't exactly a good look.

This is why our theories as to when LO ends are so firmly cemented in one specific time range, because the story's pacing and distractions seem only intent in one thing - getting the story to last until spring, when the series will most likely conclude. It's basically been all but confirmed by Rachel, from her stating the series would be ending in early 2024, to Inklore - an imprint that seems designed specifically for Rachel and LO - launching officially in spring of this year, undoubtedly just in time for Rachel to wrap up LO for good.

(and boy, do I have some words about Inklore and its plans for "Rachel Smythe Presents", but that's another essay entirely.)

At the end of the day, LO's pacing is equivalent to paint drying on the wall, but it relentlessly convinces us to keep watching because the paint is blue and pink and maybe, maybe it'll turn into a piece of art. But as is evident in the comment sections of the newest episodes, even the fans are starting to realize that paint will not magically turn into the final piece of art they've been waiting to see if the hand that wields it doesn't know what it's doing.

Though style may be gained as an accidental side effect of one's influences and experiences, what Lore Olympus' intent is remains to be seen, and the longer the story goes on, the blurrier whatever intent it could have becomes. Unless it somehow manages to pull off a twist of Attack on Titan proportions that thoroughly explains and ties together the plotlines that have been left in the rearview mirror, the vehicle that is LO will continue to trudge along at a snail's pace, until it inevitably either crosses the finish line or crashes - but by that point, anyone waiting for it could very well be gone, their good faith left behind at the starting line when there was still plenty of time to change its trajectory or stop.

Such a time is long, long gone.

[a-french-coconut]

Travis Stoll (Part 8)

Persephone's garden is a breathtaking place, a gleaming spot amidst the grey shades of Asphodel and the charred earth of the Fields of Punishment.

It's gigantic, trees and flowers made of the most precious jewels spread further than he can see.

"Beautiful, is not ?"

"Did you do this all by yourself ?" asks Travis amazed as they walk trough the garden, each flower more exquisitely crafted than the other.

"Lord Hades gifted me this garden when I first arrived, he tried to make this place my home. As time passed, my garden grew more beautiful each winter."

They stop at a small clearing surrounded by small flowers.

"This is where grow all the medicinal flowers. Which one do you need ?"

"One that cures poison, my brother got attacked by a hellhound and he is set to die because of it. Only your flower can save him."

Persephone hums, a flower growing from her palm. It's small, fragile even. The green emeralds constituting the petals sparkling.

"This will cure your brother instantly, but unfortunately, I cannot give it to you freely."

"Why not ?" he protests, anger slowly boiling his veins. His brother's salvation is right there.

"You must understand the balance between life and death. If I were to give you the flower without receiving anything back, that balance would be broken. As Kore and Persephone, I cannot let this happen."

"What do you want in exchange then ?"

Beware of the price you are willing to pay

The prophecy echoes in Travis's mind, along with the promise he made to Will.

"What do you offer me, son of Hermes ? Your father is the god of trades, surely you didn't expect for me to hand you the flower without payment."

"Of course not." he lies, the small hopeful part of him that thought that Persephone would show compassion crushed like Minthe on the banks of the Cocytus.

It was foolish to think a divine being would understand what's it's like to lose someone they hold dear.

Not even the one who rules them and hears their sorrow constantly.

Hermes didn't show up when he prayed and prayed every night so that his mother would stop coming home drunk, passing out on the couch after screaming at Connor that he was a mistake.

Hermes didn't bother coming when he finally had the courage to call social services, his mother's screams about him being a bastard, a pathetic worthless son, resonating long after she left them.

Hermes didn't even knew they existed until they managed to steal from everyone at camp unnoticed, revealing the trick at campfire.

And despite all of that, he never hated him, never despised his father like Luke did. Because Hermes, certainly for him but nonetheless, gave him the best gift he ever received.

He gave him a brother, a person that would be there no matter what.

A reason to strive for a better life, one that wasn't on the streets or in foster homes.

A boy with the most beautiful smile and the loudest laugh, with the most unhinged plans and an atrocious crush on a son of Athena.

A boy dying ,with surely only a few hours left.

"Well ?", asks expectantly Persephone.

"Do you remember the wind, my lady ?"

"What ?"

"The wind caressing your face as you feel the sun on your skin. The wind blowing through the trees, whistling as you lay on the grass. The playful wind carrying you in the sky, making you dance with the clouds."

"I am a goddess, child. Those sensations you describe are meaningless to me."

He can see Persephone's hand trembling slightly, her eyes distant.

Liar

"Maybe now that you have grown used to Underworld my lady. But as a daughter of Zeus, have you never fly ? Perform tricks for your nymphs companions as your hear them laughing below ?"

Small, crystal tears drop on the ground, the Queen reminiscing a long time ago, one where she was named Kore.

"That's what I offer you in exchange of the flower, my wings. A divine part of me against my brother's life."

"I'm afraid it's not a fair trade little thief." whispers distantly Persephone.

"I think it is my lady. Those wings, they represent a life you lost when you became Queen of the Underworld. Not even when Lady Demeter greets you with spring do you become Kore fully again. I can help feel the wind again."

"Kore..." she whispers, "not even my mother calls me by that name anymore."

In front of Travis, Persephone shifts to a much younger girl, flowers braided in her hair, before transforming back.

Without a word, she hands him the flower.

As silent as she is, he takes it delicately and set it on the ground.

"Maia."

White wings flap on his ankles.

"Giving up a part of your godly essence is not a pleasant experience."

Travis gulps, a knot in his stomach tightening each second.

"I'm ready."

Quick as lighting, Persephone conjures a knife and cut off his wings.

Travis screams.

part 9 posted !