He Accidentally Called Him “horse”.

Me because the Percy Jackson series is actually about the different cycles of abuse, which include abuse within romantic partners (Sally and Gabe), abuse between “family” (Percy and Gabe, Meg and Nero), abuse from people in positions of power (the gods over the demigods), and so on, oppression than ranges from having adhd in the public educational system to being forced to perform quests for your entire life for people who could not care less about your well-being, how camp is both somewhere safe but also the bittersweet taste of arriving there and realizing you can never escape, you can never be normal your life will never be the same. There’s no turning back. How Luke was right on theory but not on acts, how these kids got around the idea to never make it to 18, and how there was nothing they could do about. How many of them sat in their cabins, counting down the days until their sibling/friend/partner came back, only for them to not come back at all. Was it ever their turn to leave someone waiting behind? Annabeth, Percy, Grover, Thalia, the whole deal with Nico, Bianca, Silena, and every single demigod. Children of Apollo were the camp healers, was it a choice? A moral obligation? In camp Jupiter there’s Jason, there’s Reyna, Piper’s story, Leo’s story, the way Jason and Piper’s relationship was heteronormativity pushed by Hero because both of them were queer but she wanted a perfect couple. After being gone missing, people searched for Percy, but Jason? The devastation of Leo and Jason’s relationship, how Leo never knew his feelings for him were required, how both Leo and Piper thought they knew Jason but it was all fake memories, how Jason never fully got his memories back. Hazel’s story, Frank’s story, how Nico and Leo’s mutual dislike for each other comes from a place of understatement. How they both see themselves in each other and look away as one looks away from a mirror when they dislike their reflection. They are both so similar, almost the same. They both are also autistic, except Leo is always masking, and Nico never really learnt how to. Neurodivergence, adhd and dyslexia. Being a demigod is a metaphor for neurodiversity. Was Dionysus actual punishment looking over camp? Or was it spending years and years seeing demigods come and grow and die? Knowing there was nothing he could do about it? Knowing than if he was with the gods, he would be causing their deaths, instead of grieving them? Does Chiron feel hopeless? Memory, names, ghosts. Blades, swords, arrows, blood. So many blood, blood-stained hands. Monsters follow you before coming to camp, did they hurt you family? It was all your fault. They don’t want you to come back, you bring danger, you’re more dangerous than the monster, you are a monster yourself, after all the Minotaur was a demigod too. Leo killed his mother, Zeus killed Maria, Sally got taken to the underworld, Tristan was held hostage, Fredrick and his wife and sons got attacked by monsters, and who’s fault it was? You run away you keep on running but you’ll never outrun the danger because the danger is yourself, you are at fault, how do you run away now?

The odyssey, the iliad, the statues in museums, you look at them, do you see yourself? Do you see any resemble? Your nose kinda looks like theirs, the shape of their lips, the width of their hands, but that’s a lie you’re nothing like them, never will be, is that a tragedy? Do you want to be like them? Do you want to be a hero and die a heroic death? Or do you simply wish to visit your family on Christmas and live the life your little cousins will eventually live? Maybe you’ll never see the life they’ll live, maybe you’ll die before seeing it. There’s nothing to be done about that, you just have to accept it. Don’t you feel the rage, bubbling inside of you, making your hands shake? What can you do with it? Not much, remember last time, remember Luke, what did he accomplish? Nothing, blood, screams. You remember the war, you remember the city, maybe it was the first or the second time you set a foot on it, now every single time you do (if you do) in the future, it will be tainted. Look in that corner, that used to be destroyed. Look at that building, my friend died against that wall, that road was filled with blood. Was it ours? Theirs? Is there even a difference between us? Should there be? Why were you on your side? Why were they in theirs? Who was right? Who was wrong? You can go anywhere but home, maybe you’re not welcomed, maybe there’s no home to return, maybe it’s better for everyone if you don’t return. Nico keeps Bianca’s jacket, Leo taps iloveyou on Morse code. Piper was forced to be someone she wasn’t, she thought she was someone she was not, she was forced to think that. Who is she? Is she even who she thought she was? Jason still don’t remembers everything, and him? Who is he? Nico will never get his memories back, he wonders about his mom, did he have more family back then? Grandparents, aunts? Hazel is a walking curse. Silena and Clarisse as Patroklos and Achilles. Apollo seeing the brutal reality of demigod’s life on trials of apollo.

Your hand shakes, the sword you hold moves, you feel it’s weight, do you want to hold it? Do you have to?

The dead come back to haunt us, Nico sees Bianca everywhere, Leo still remembers his mother’s voice, Hazel came back from the dead, Frank holds his life on his pocket, Thalia lost a brother twice, Leo didn’t really die, Jason died instead, Percy wished to drown himself, half of camp still waits for their brother to come back, even if it has been months, even if it has been years. Luke’s mother still waits, was she crazy? The campers who thought to recognize their friend’s face for a second before remembering than it couldn’t possibly be them, were they crazy too? Who was crazier? Luke’s mother who did not remember, or the campers who did? The underworld has no mercy only justice, but the world has no justice only mercy. You might get mercy, but you never will get justice. Was it fair anything than happened to them? You might be spared in a war or in a battle out of mercy, out of pity, out of recognition, but that didn’t stop you from having to fight in it, that didn’t stop you from having to wield the sword. Spare all the people you want, turn a blind eye to whatever you want, mercy? sure, but you were still holding the sword, you were still supposed to fight, you still weren’t in charge of your life. How was that justice? How was that fair? Names had power, even their names had more power than your life, even the letters making up their names were more powerful than your fists, could you ever win? Could you ever win when their names were so powerful they could not be pronounced but your life was so worthless they didn’t even care to learn yours? To learn the names of the ones than died because of them. You can’t say the name of you sister’s killer, but you’re still expected to burn an offering to them each night at dinner.

transformed repetition on laurel hell + sister post

She cried with a piercing voice,

                calling upon her father [Zeus], the son of Kronos, the highest and the best.

                But not one of the immortal ones, or of human mortals,

           heard her voice. Not even the olive trees which bear their splendid harvest.

reblog if you're ugly as fuck.

nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see

i made cupcakes

Now, rerun and snoopy are perfect too

reblog if your icon is a perfect human being

Sally brown is perfection

Demeter @Hades: YOUR ASS IS GRASS AND I'M GONNA MOW IT

Take Me To Olympus #14

Hello all! Another chapter of TMTO coming up! This is a bit of a special chapter with some deeper insight into Aphrodite.

It was a ride to write, but it's also pivotal in both Aphrodite's, Ares' and Hera's development.

TW: Suidical thoughts, violence, anxiety, panic attack, depression

The Cover

Previous chapter

Next chapter

-

Curiosity killed the cat

“What do you mean ‘you shot someone’?”

There might have been more than a little shrillness evident in Julia’s voice. But even Ares seemed to be in chock. And he wasn’t even the one who’d actually come home with blood all over their hands after just having shot someone.

“How did you even get the weapon that would make such a thing possible?”

The question hung in the air, a weapon in and of itself. Because if Julia was living with Gods from Ancient Greece who were actually armed with modern weapons, she might just pass out. Or scream. Or do whatever appropriate thing that one did in such a situation.

“I … He …” Aphrodite trailed off, their eyes wide, mouth slightly agape. Julia had to wrench her eyes away from their mouth, feeling the Deity of Love’s magnetic pull tear at her. “He had a gun. And he was right there, when Ares showed me the clinic. They were all so scared, I could feel the love in the room as they thought the thoughts that might have been the last.

“I didn’t think. Just acted.”

Ares looked at Julia, a grim smile on his face, the shock ebbing out with every second. He’d seen this before, she reminded herself. Had probably felt it in every ounce of this world and all others.

“Aphrodite lunged. I actually think it was the fiercest and fastest movement that they have ever made, quickly dismantling the intruder’s grip of the gun.” Then something dark flickered over his eyes, even as he laughed. The embers of his hands sung a song of betrayal as they flickered to life. “The bastard managed to pull the trigger as they pushed his arm away, shooting himself in the shoulder in the process - you should have heard the screams and moans he let out after that!”

It didn’t take any more information for Julia to pull Aphrodite with her, tugging gently at their arm to guide them through the house. She settled the deity into the couch, which had apparently become therapy spot number one over the course of the last few months.

“I don’t … it wasn’t on purpose,” Aphrodite kept repeating the words. That they hadn’t meant to, and they didn’t do it on purpose.

Suddenly, their eyes turned wild, and they gripped Julia’s shoulders, fingers digging into them like the claws of a beast.

“YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME I DIDN’T DO IT IT ISN’T RIGHT NO NO”

The scream almost turned her deaf, and she could do nothing but stare into the eyes of Aphrodite as the storm inside of them churned and churned, faster into the chasm that their own mind seemed to become.

She continued screaming, with Julia by her side, stiff as a board, merely staring and blubbering as they moved their arms away from her, tearing at their own skin instead. Blood was drawn, lines of red winding down their arms.

“Move it,” Hera said, her voice hard. But when Julia turned, there was something inexplicable that made her move - that made her collaborate instead of doubt the other woman.

Tension and softness and the promise of Hells to pay to whomever had done this.

It only took a few seconds for Julia to vault over the couch, Hera taking her stead. Ares stared, dumbfounded with his mouth slightly open, at the mess that Aphrodite was becoming.

Tears streamed down their face as they screamed, an ugly cry that twisted in the room, tearing at their minds. Julia took the cue that Hera sent her in the form of a long look and started herding the remaining Gods and Goddesses out of the room.

Except for Ares.

“I need to be here,” he said, his eyes never leaving Aphrodite. Flames licked at his hands. A warning.

One that Julia heeded.

Hera gripped Aphrodite’s shoulders, her hands digging into the bones beneath their skin, her eyes locking with theirs. There was something broken in the iris - the thing torn apart, darkness draining into the vibrant honeys around.

Hera soothed, her voice dripping into the tone that she had seen Artemis use with the scared children who came to her. She kept her eyes locked with Aphrodite’s whenever the other woman glanced her way.

But there was no stopping the screaming.

A thing that grew as it continued, more words stumbling through their teeth, one taking over the other until it became incoherent. A shriek from a banshee, hidden within the darkest parts of the mind.

The Queen of the Heavens stayed by her side, but encouraged Ares to come closer, too. With her hands, which would forever be stronger than those of Aphrodite with the power that Hera had in advantage, she kept her grip tight, even as they thrashed against her with all of their might, lost in their own mind.

“Tell her,” was all she said to Ares. A request and a command in one and the same, her lips pulling apart to show teeth in something that was more animal than ethereal.

There was no telling if the War God would be able to understand. No telling that the brute of a doofus would get what was going on.

But then again, the brute would be feeling each and every thing. Something that the Gods did not usually do.

But Aphrodite was lashing out in such a blind way - it had reached the levels of mortals. Their emotion had become something more than the pettiness Hera had seen among them all.

Had seen among herself.

And it had only just started to manifest - when they were all beginning to get their powers back. She had felt the same thing warping in her chest. Something beyond the things that had happened.

They were changing. But it was not by the force of others - nevermore adapting to a tyrant king.

She just hoped it was enough for when they were forced home again. She could still feel the remnants of their home. The tingling of electricity in her veins, ice coasting over her skin, fire burning a hot path through her bones. And then the last thing, the earthy element that seemed to cloud their very breathing, keeping their words tethered to the veil of the world.

The Fates must be laughing at them all now. Hera knew she would have been.

oh god it was so much too much they couldn’t take it. what had happened it was burning tearing away at their consciousness. down through veins through brain and bone and sinew and leaving their mouth in wracking words that coalesced with the foreign air outside.

“Tell her.”

The words cut against Aphrodite’s stream of consciousness, if for a moment. Then they were dragged again into the abyss.

it hurts. how could the humans deal with this pain? nothing nothing like the pain she had felt. nothing even like being cut up and torn apart and fed to the wolves. there would always be coming back from that. this-

“Aphrodite.” The words soft. And yet, they knew that voice. There was something that called them.

-this was something beyond that. shattering and burning up and tearing apart at the same time until nothing but ash remained. pain pain pain a pulsing poetry wracking through their head.

“I can feel the war raging through you. I can feel your battle, your bravery. I can feel the pain and the fury and all that is not right.”

more and more. tearing her further down. a kraken hidden within the mess of it all its tentacles gripping at their arms and legs until the only way out - the only way to reach power was the scream that tore through their bleeding lungs.

“I see, now, that you went through this once. Perhaps many times before. At my expense. I see that I have driven you over the edge.” Something ran down the side of her, something physical and soft and calloused and very much there. “I can feel the scar tissue that closes over your heart, your very soul. I wonder how much I have caused.”

Images. Screaming, flipping. Tearing themselves apart as the pain in their heart became too much to bear. Blood running in streams down their legs, like some form of twisted miracle of birth. Love and pain and something entirely strange coalescing inside of her. Growing, growing, growing-

Then the whisper. Piercing through them, scattered thoughts attempting to fall into the position. “Sorry can never be enough. Sorry will forever be lacking because I know the battle. Tearing yourself apart day after day and then rebuilding yourself. All for the sake of others.”

The thing in their mind grabbing at them, trying to drag them bag down, right when they were nearing the light - right when they were getting so close. and they feel their grip loosening waves of salty darkness forcing its way into lungs and fatesaboveshe’sdrowning.

“Your love almost destroyed you then.”

nothingbutdarkness. iftheyclosetheireyestheycanalmostseetheendofitall.

“I will not let that happen again.”

inthedarkness and it is coming for them and it reaches, plunging into the murky waters. Teeth snapping at the thing that envelops them, weapons cutting at beasts too dark to spy. They look up, and it is War incarnate. Right there with them - right there by their side.

But he doesn’t keep fighting. He let’s himself be taken by the monsters around him, reaching out a hand. A hand that is not empty.

Aphrodite - yes, that is their name, they remember now - takes the sword.

And then they unleash themselves upon the thing that tries to keep them imprisoned, clawing and slashing and hacking at it with all of their might.

It doesn’t stand a chance.

It retreats, back into the depths of their mind. They know that it is still there, watching, waiting. Next time, they will be ready.

It was never too late.

And with that, they smile at Ares. A grin that is toothy and filled with the gaps that they know he likes. Gaps of secrets and friendship and promises unsaid.

Aphrodite opens their eyes.

Ares felt them. The war, the pain, the love. He was crouched over them, as if his body could reach into their mind and dull the war that was going on there. He hoped he had given enough.

Because no matter how much he enjoyed partaking in the bloodshed - no matter how fantastic the rush of victory through him was, he would always be banished to the sidelines when the war came to its climax.

The most important point, that pivotal moment.

And he was locked out. Forbidden from deciding the outcome. He supposed it was the Fates’ way of keeping power in check. Supposed that the other Gods and Goddesses had similar rules imposed.

Supposed anything to keep it from being a punishment directed at him. For all the horrible, terrible things he had done.

Bloodshed was inevitable in war. Even the silent ones - the wars with oneselves - were never without losses. Ares would forever be doomed to look at the survivors with guilt in his eyes, face and body tense as to not collapse.

Because that was another thing. Another burden.

He was War incarnate. He was the one to greet the survivors - the people who had gone through much and yet had so much more ahead of them. When the blood stopped singing in their veins and the ringing began instead, he was the one who stood in the corner, silently there for each and every subsequent battle.

Many didn’t survive the aftermath. The second and third and fourth battles with themselves, yes. But when it went into the dozens - when enemies piled up outside the door, waiting for one to be defeated for a new battalion to rush in, that was when he was there.

Death happened on the inside, too. Death much worse than whatever Hades or Persephone could do to them. Something that killed souls before they were even born anew.

And he had just watched Death come around for Aphrodite. Something that was supposed to be impossible. They could not collapse to other feelings, the Gods would not be able to succumb to anything but themselves.

And yet.

Yet they had come home, gone into shock.

Yet he had felt the war creep up on them, much like the horseman of the apocalypse he had been reading about. His counterpart looming over Aphrodite with a scythe of their own making.

Ares did not stand back then. He felt it rip something apart in him, something that was supposed to stay whole. Something that he had desperately needed.

But he could care less, in the moment. As he flung himself into their mind. Into his own death.

Aphrodite came to life beneath him with a cough and a sputter, Ares silently moving away and letting Hera give them the glass of water that she had prepared.

Alongside the broken crack, another thing stretched out. It took him a long time to discern the feeling. Relief. Relief coursed through him, warming his every limb, putting a fire into his eyes that he had never before felt.

Not just because Aphrodite was here, safe and whole. But also because of what delving into her mind had just done. He had done it. The thing that the Fates had forbidden him from - sure, he was a little beat up and broken, but that didn’t matter. He would sustain injuries any day if that meant that he could save others.

That he could help the ones at the clinic with something other than his presence and the knowledge that he would always be there, watching, waiting.

As the evening progressed and the others came milling back into the room, cooing and caring for Aphrodite, Ares felt himself smiling fondly at the group. This was not a family by blood anymore, not just, at least.

Because now, the blood of the covenant had become more powerful than the water of the womb. It could not be more true with Julia standing to the side, laughing with the best of them.

Ares never showed them his hands. His eyes, he could hide. The crack that was ripping through his chest, too.

But his hands, bruised and bloody and dark with the blood of a thousand, he never showed them.

Because there were no more embers left in the War God. The fire of War had been emptied, taken away by the same thing that had marred him down his middle, cleaving into his chest.

Justice for that would come later. For now, he was content to laugh with his family.

Traté de matar una araña con spray para cabello. La araña sigue viva, pero tiene un peinado HER-MO-SO.