ukelele-boy

[ukelele-boy]

ToApril Day 8— Echoes of Battle Cries

ToApril Day 11— Spring Rains

A storm, and some bad memories to match (set during Apollo and Meg’s road trip back to CHB, so technically not spring, I don’t think— but close enough!)

(By the way, if anyone has suggestions for better communicating Zeus’s looming presence in the first picture, I would really appreciate any advice)

[ukelele-boy]

TOApril Day12

@toapril-official

[ukelele-boy]

tfw u trying to raise a kid but ur haunted by ur dead lover who u murdered

[ukelele-boy]

Hycanith and Apollo sillys

[ukelele-boy]

TOApril Day 12 - Eyes That Glow Gold

I'll always be a fan of Apollo' eyes looking like Kronos' when he's upset. The father haunts the son who haunts the father and so on and so forth

[ukelele-boy]

Rend the Heavens

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Teen Genre: Angst Characters: Hades, Apollo, Zeus The cycle continues, and masks break. @toapril-official TOApril day 12 - Eyes That Glow Gold. This took a few different forms before I got something sorted for it. If it looks like it might be a sequel to another of my fics... well maybe it is.

There was always something telling about a god’s eyes.  Hades did not know if he was more aware of it because of the infrequency with which he saw most god’s eyes, or if all the gods saw it and chose not to comment on it, but whenever he interacted with other gods, it was the easiest way to read their mood.

Godly eyes were not like mortal eyes.  Godly eyes had depth; Hades had heard that mortals sometimes called them the windows to the soul, but it was hardly an accurate description.  A murky, foggy and cracked window, if one was feeling generous.  For gods, it was closer to a portal to their essence, a peak into the true thoughts and emotions if one knew what they were looking for.

All gods had the art of masking down to some degree, of course.  Hades was certain that he did.  He’d seen his brothers shutter more and more as the millennia passed, some emotions disappearing from sight entirely, and he was certain it wasn’t because they no longer felt those emotions.

Those shutters were falling, crumbling to pieces and burning up in flames.  For all of them.

Poseidon was a tempest, white-tipped foam roiling over the darkest green seas.  Demeter was a contradiction, scorching heats and biting blizzards.  Hera was smooth and hardened, pale alabaster and breaking eternities.  Hestia was a wildfire, consuming all in her path.

There was the bloodbath, the kaleidoscope of impossible colours.  The blazing sun and the blinding moon.  An inferno of iron, battle-steel polished until it gleamed.  A maelstrom of feathers, wine-dark insanity.

Battlelines were drawn, carved out in the earth, in the skies and the seas.  Alliances forged and changed and broke, until it wasn’t just their eyes but their essences on full display, stripped bare of all pretence until all that was left was raw nature, and the ugliness of truth.

It was war the way Hades had never experienced it before, fluid and viscous and vicious, no-one in the right and no-one in the wrong, either.  The next part of the inevitable cycle, the disposition of a king as reign turned to tyranny.

As tyranny reached the point it could be tolerated no more, as action was forced upon them all whether they liked it or not.

Hades had deposed his own father.  He remembered his brother, young and confident and born to rule.  Perhaps, somewhere inside his own essence, he had always known this day would come, although he did not think he had expected to be fighting on this side.

Kronos’ brothers had stood with Kronos.

Zeus stood without his.

That was not to say Zeus was without allies; the war would not be so messy if he was alone against the might of Olympus.  Of his brothers, though, he had no allies.  Poseidon had elected to remain neutral, albeit the aggressive neutral that retaliated against any threat or damage to his beloved oceans, no matter who they were.

Hades, well.

Hades had chosen his side some time ago, before he had even realised it.  He still could not pinpoint the moment when Apollo had gained his support, but he knew it had been before Apollo had realised he would need it.

The acknowledgement, the acceptance, of the then rapidly approaching conflict had certainly struck Hades first, but it had not been his place to instigate.  He would never have been able to instigate it with any success.  His allies within Olympus were few.

Apollo had more, and more had appeared as lies and masks were stripped away and the reality of the situation, the understanding of what had to happen, why it had to happen, spread.  Hades had done little, on that front.  The Underworld stood with Olympus, with Apollo, against tyranny, and that was the extent of his reach.

That had led them to this, to now and a war that would end an era, however it fell.

Zeus’ eyes, his bared essence, was a hurricane.  Lightning flashed, colours swirled across the spectrum, heavy green emphasising danger and sharp cracks of white threatening the same.  Everything about the storm that whirled where his brother was could only be described as dangerous and desperate.

Gold wasn’t a colour normally associated with his brother.  Zeus was always blues and greys and whites, sometimes greens.  Apollo was golds, oranges, yellows, sometimes blues.  Warm flames, hot flames, scorching, destroying flames.

Apollo burnt so brightly that Hades could see him in Zeus’ eyes, could see the gold reflecting in them, the sun eclipsing the sky.

Zeus was going to lose.  He was powerful, almost frighteningly so despite his decline the last few centuries, but it wasn’t enough.  Not now the gold had invaded his eyes, a sign of weakness amongst the aggression.  Zeus knew he was going to lose, and that would be his defeat.

[ukelele-boy]

Day 12 : eyes that glow gold

Aka that one au the toa server made a while back of Kronos being in Apollo’s head for whatever reason

[ukelele-boy]

Day 12 - Eyes That Glow Gold

I've had this idea in my head for a long time and this is my perfect excuse to do it.

[ukelele-boy]

Apollo: sometimes I feel like people only like me for my money...

Hermes: but when you like someone you only gift them stuff that is worth a lot.

Apollo:

[ukelele-boy]

Day 11 - Spring Rain

[ukelele-boy]

Happy birth to him

(I'll post here again soon, I promise)

[ukelele-boy]

Two drawings? In one day? It can't be

I just couldn't not do a drawing for Lester's birthday. I think this is the first time I have drawn him smiling.

[ukelele-boy]

happy birthday to the wettest wet cat to ever exist

text from @whats-a-lester

[ukelele-boy]

ITS LATE IN THE DAY BUTTTTTTTT HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVOURITE GUY!!! LESTER!!

(dw guys he got another cake)

[ukelele-boy]

Happy b'day lester Papadopoulos☀

[ukelele-boy]

Time to drop this again, one of my favs

(its from an greek gods as memes video on youtube but I forgot which one since there's so many)

apollo would absolutely ROCK a bandana

[ukelele-boy]

So I am re-reading TOA and i have decided to write some things i noticed now that I know what is going to happen next.

THE HIDDEN ORACLE

Meg was about do develop a crush on Percy, and Apollo noticed. It was immediatly curbed by Percy mentioning his girlfriend. He did not even notice XD

Apollo actually got out of the three legged death race unscathed O.o Scared to death but unharmed

Lester is being surprisingly not pathetic??? I mean, he can't remember shit and has the constutution of a limp noodle, but he has not fainted in several chapters!!! Maybe it's because Camp Half Blood is a relatively safe space for them...

THE FORESHADOWING IN CHAPTER 26 IS DEVASTATING - he gets confirmation it is the emperors behind everything and he thinks "i would have rather tangled with Tartarus or Ouranos or Primordial Chaos" APOLLO PLEASE

Speaking of foreshadowing, Rhea?!??!? "Find your center. Enlightenment has to come from within" HELLO??!?!??

Apollo mentioning he caused an earthquake that wiped out most of Sparta and that he never liked the Spartans much??? What about HYACINTHUS???????

"I busted out some footwork the Nine Muses and I had been working on" please I want so bad to see Apollo dance. Especially Apollo as Lester

Apollo being absolutely convinced that he will never have a proper partner is tragic. "It was not in my destiny" bro

The Germani appear and the absolute first thing Apollo does is move in front of Meg. "Instinctively". This is the same guy that at the beginning of the book was evaluating which demigods would be best to keep on hand to throw at quests. I can't. Just how much exactly did he repress his protective instincts through the years and centuries?

I find so fascinating that Apollo wants to strike Nero down immediately after meeting him. Like, yes. Apollo is a god. And he would not allow anyone to threaten what he cares about. Even after his trials, he might be kinder and more attentive to demigods, but I think that anybody who crosses him (really crosses him) will have to start praying for mercy.

If there is one thing I can say about TOA is that it is certainly expanding my musical horizons, with all the songs I have to check out on youtube just to have an idea of what Apollo is singing about.

He did not suck during the confrontation with Nero?! Burst of godly strength saved the day and his dignity

"Just because she had lied about being my friend did not mean I wasn't hers. She was in danger. I was not going to leave her" man. He cares so fucking much. No wonder he never let anybody get close to him in the last years.

Didn't they say a sonnet was worse than a limerick in the next book?

"BLESS HIS CONNIVING LITTLE HEART". "Children of Hermes cannot rap". "[Cecil] was demoted to dancer" skjsjskansnkzbsnsmmsnzm

It's kind of ... sad? How happy Apollo is when flying on the giant ants. He is used to being a god who can fly whenever he wants, and a part of him is usually in the sky every day as he drives the sun chariot. And instead he has been stranded on earth, away from what is both his duty and something he greatly enjoys. "It felt so good to fly again. [...] For two or three seconds I was exhilarated".

AND THE ARROW OF DODONA IS FINALLY HERE AND TALKING FRIENDS!!!!

I cannot believe I am so happy because of a talking arrow

The arrow QUIVERED kjsnsksjsnsnzjxndnsk i love them so much

Not Apollo asking where Jason Grace is 💀

I genuinely cannot understand if this is foreshadowing or really lucky wording on Riordan's part. Rachel asks about Meg and Apollo thinks "She might as well have plunged the Arrow of Dodona into my chest". RICK. RICK DID YOU KNOW? HAD YOU ALREADY THOUGTH ABOUT THAT SCENE IN TBM OR WAS IT PURE CHANCE????

WE WERE ROBBED. I have been wondering for a few days if in TOA we ever see Apollo sing for fun (not to confuse enemies, not to open doors, not for any practical purpose. Just for the fun of it). The depressing answer seems to be no, although I might have forgotten. At the end of THO it is implied that Apollo, Leo and Calypso join the sing-along at CHB, but the fact that the books end before we actually see him sing is a travesty.