the "my favorite character did nothing wrong" mindset is completely unappealing to me because i love thinking about all the things my favorite characters did wrong
If you are still doing the sentence prompt: “There will never be anyone else for me, it’s either being with you or staying a shield maiden forever” for Hiccstrid?
“There will never be anyone else for me, it’s either being with you or staying a shield maiden forever.”
It's a beautiful summer day, warm and bright, with the sun warming their skin as they lie in the tall grass, undisturbed. It's a perfect moment—that's why her statement is so shocking.
His first reaction is his heart swelling until it feels like his ribs are about to burst, because he couldn't have even hoped for a more heartfelt, a more definite confession of love—then dread sets in.
He pushes himself to his elbows and looks at her, her hair shining gold in the sunlight. "I wouldn't want that."
She cracks an eye open. "You would have me love another?"
"No—I mean… If he made you happy, happier than me, I could accep that. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I could accept that." He heaves a heavy sigh. "It's more like… If something happened to me, if I died, I wouldn't want you to remain alone, for the rest of your life. If I die, please, do find somebody else who'll make you smile."
Astrid is now looking him, her cheeks flush, the corner of her mouth twitches. Then she is moving, rising from the ground, pushing him back, leaning above him.
"You're sweet. But do you know what that actually means?"
"…Should I?" he asks, her bangs tickling his brows.
"I'll just have to make sure nothing happens to you."
He is about to make a sarcastic remark, something along the lines that then she has her job cut out for her, poor her, but he never gets to. Her lips steal his words away.
A few things I’ve learned from watching merlin from Arthur’s pov, in no particular order:
1. Arthur is in love with merlin.
2. In Arthur’s eyes merlin really is the oddest, most clumsy little weirdo, and the only reason he keeps this apparently lazy and completely incompetent servant around is because he’s in love with merlin.
3. Arthur never ever thinks twice about situations. “The immortal army that could not be killed suddenly explodes? Lucky me, I guess, let’s move on”, or “I struck this golden dragon as big as a castle and it knocked me out. Merlin said I dealt it a mortal blow and it flew off and is now dead. Sounds reasonable!” or, “this man who lives on a bridge called me Courage and said I needed Strength and Magic to complete my quest, and then later Gwaine and Merlin showed up and saved my life. Wasn’t that a fun time?”
4. Merlin is Arthur’s only true friend.
5. Arthur thinks he’s the smoothest, most valiant, heroic and romantic knight in all the lands, but he’s actually the most heartbroken, lonely, pathetic prince with daddy issues Camelot has ever seen.
it is so important to me how physically comfortable annabeth is with percy in pjo. slipping her hand in his, sitting right next to him at his dining pavilion table, crying on his shoulder. and every time percy’s internal narrative is “oh my god she’s touching me she’s TOUCHING ME 🚨”
It wasn't surprising that Merlin's attire hadn't come up as of yet. Merlin's life had been thrown so upside down recently that for a while he could scarcely acknowledge what his own name was, let alone give space for aesthetic concerns. From the moment his crew had been called out to check in on a man passed out along the riverbanks, expecting a drunk, and finding instead a very familiar blonde head and aquiline nose, Merlin's heart had both frozen and exploded, caught high in his throat and never settling back down.
There was Arthur's confusion, and Merlin's joy, but there was also grief and anger and panic and a change that Merlin had spent his centuries praying for and now that he was here, entirely did not know what to do with. He hated the fear in Arthur's eyes when a car drove by on the road, the sorrow when he read through Merlin's history books, the insecurity when he quietly asked Merlin what he was to do in a world that no longer needed kings.
So Merlin's mind is understandably distracted as he dresses, pulling on an oversize sweater that was a gift from a coworker, his favorite flowy maxi skirt, a loose scarf for the early fall chill. And really, it was Arthur's fault too, for he had something to say about the ring in Merlin's lip and the length of his hair and the size of his platform boots, and yet nothing about his dress. But when they left Merlin's terrace house with Arthur charging out the front door and insisting that Merlin was lagging behind, as always, Merlin thought no more of his clothes than what he always wore off-duty.
And how could he, when it felt like the sun had finally returned after an endless winter? He knew the terror of being a man out of time, he saw it reflected so clearly in Arthur's eyes. He was prepared to protect Arthur against it all, to feed him the world in bits and pieces, morsels he could swallow.
Arthur didn't want a morsel. He was wide-eyed at indoor plumbing and email and matcha lattes and antibiotics and travel documentaries and Duolingo and breadmakers. He insisted Merlin take him to the local cafe, the thrift stores, the library, the high-end shops, the parks. He was ravenous (at times literally, when anything containing the taste of vanilla or citrus was involved) to take in the world that fate had thrust him back into.
Merlin could never deny his king anything. Every time Arthur smiled at some new flavor or appliance or disease now neutralized, Merlin felt the sun reflect its warmth on him, too. And it was impossible not to smile back.
Even when he was being a brat.
"Get the one with pine-apple," Arthur orders, looking over Merlin's shoulder at the pastry display. While Merlin's spell smoothed Arthur's Brittonic into modern english, words that didn't exist in his time sometimes came out a bit misshapen. "And three mack-a-rooms."
"Macaroons. And you didn't even eat the ones I bought last time."
"Those tasted odd. Like chewing on a sprig of wheat."
"I told you you wouldn't like pistachio. It's not my fault you couldn't resist the fact that they were bright green—"
Merlin had first managed to coax Arthur out of his house and into a public place with the promise of food finer than even the most extravagant feasts in Camelot. Ever since then, he hadn't had a single weekend without Arthur demanding some sort of confectionary. And while that certainly had its upsides (Arthur's delight at the taste of passion fruit and the sugary crumbs on his fingers when he insisted Merlin try a piece and the tranquil mornings as they sat the park and every so often Merlin would turn his head and Arthur would already be looking at him, and how long had he been—?), Merlin wasn't looking forward to seeing how Arthur would handle the dentist in the event of a cavity.
But he categorizes all of that as problems for Future Merlin, who's doing better than he has in quite some time, and right now Present Merlin is only concerned about enjoying his fruit tart. There's a peaceful silence as they leave the bakery, walking over to the park they often visit.
A pair of young men approach them, and Merlin barely notices before one steps in front of him, deliberately, and knocks his shoulder into Merlin's chest.
The tart splats against Merlin's favorite sweater, smearing custard and whipped cream.
"What the fu—" Merlin whirls, expecting to see a pair of sniggering teenage boys. But no, these are men in their mid-twenties, looking at Merlin not with juvenile amusement, but with disgust.
"It's no more of an embarrassment than you already were," one of them spits. "Either dress like a man, or take your freak ass home—"
He stops talking. Arthur's stepped forward, closer than most people are socially comfortable with. "What is the meaning of this?"
It's not a question. The other man is taller than Arthur, and clearly thinks that gives him an advantage. "What are you, his boyfriend? You into that, you sick fuck?"
Merlin's seen enough of Arthur's body language to know that he's about to throw a punch. He doesn't stop it.
Arthur hits hard, not just with his arm muscle, but with his body weight too, the way a boxer would. The man's head whips to the side, momentum nearly knocking him off his feet. Arthur aimed for the jaw, not the nose— which means the man instead goes down, out cold.
The other man for half a second looks stupid enough to charge at Arthur, but then his pants fall down around his ankles. He tries to take a step forward, and instantly falls down, not quite catching himself fast enough to avoid smacking his face against the cobblestone.
Arthur's got the look in his eye that indicates he'd like to deliver them to the police station himself, but people are already starting to give curious looks from a distance, and memory spells always leave Merlin with a migraine. "Come on," he hisses, grabbing Arthur's wrist and quickly dragging him away.
Arthur waits until they've ducked into a little grove at the park to gently pry his wrist free, although his face is all thunder. "They should be arrested. They assaulted you—"
"Technically, you're the one that assaulted them," Merlin points out. Arthur still didn't quite grasp that dueling wasn't an acceptable practice to resolve disputes. "It's not worth the trouble."
"They were worse than Saxons," Arthur retorts, aghast. "Utterly barbaric—" And then he quiets, jaw working in the way such that Merlin knows something more is coming, something uncomfortable. "I… I don't understand. What was it that made them target you?" Then, before Merlin can try to distract him from the crucial detail, "They said you didn't… dress like a man?"
Merlin goes to cross his arms over his chest, until he realizes his sweater is still covered in custard. "They're just knobheads. They…." Merlin chews his lip, catching the cool metal of his ring. Thinking about what words he can say that wouldn't reveal more than he was ready for. "They think of dresses and skirts as woman's clothes, and don't think men should wear them."
"I see."
Merlin can't read anything in Arthur's face, and it's making his pulse quicken. "Did you… did you not wonder, before now? About what, what I wear?"
"I've seen plenty a wizened elder in a tunic. At first I assumed you were merely dressing your age."
Merlin rolls his eyes, but his hands still uneasily fidget by his side. He knows Arthur's deflecting. "But then?"
"I assumed things were different now." Now it's Arthur's turn to avoid Merlin's eyes, putting his hands over his pockets and looking out over the park. With the soft breeze, the background shrieks of children laughing, the melody of quiet conversation, Merlin could almost close his eyes and imagine himself back home. Almost. "Many things are."
"Things are different," Merlin says. "Most people used to think like those two men. Now there are a lot fewer of them."
Arthur nods, still looking over the park. Merlin watches the clench in his jaw, and waits. "You… you never wore women's clothes in Camelot. Did you want to?"
"Never occurred to me. It didn't until—" He swallows down the word hundreds, doesn't want the reminder of how much time there is between himself and everyone he's ever loved. "—quite some time had passed. And then I started, and," he shrugs, aiming for casual, "'s comfortable."
"As in more convenient?"
1500 years, and Merlin's still never braced for when Arthur's gaze zeros in, all of the attention of a hunter finding the weak spot. Like he can see where the edges of Merlin's defenses don't quite line up. Merlin takes a deep breath. "I can change my body however I wish. I can be a man. I can be a woman. I can be a bird, a cat, a snake, I once spent two decades as an oak tree. Trying to make myself match those around me only made me more aware of how different I was. So eventually I just… did as I pleased."
He's watching Arthur so carefully, looking for a twitch, a frown, anything that indicates he's stumbled too far, where not even Arthur's innate compassion can understand him. He wouldn't be upset, as long as Arthur wasn't cruel about it. He's long since learned to take whatever scraps he can salvage.
But after a moment Arthur just nods, looking back at Merlin. "I'm sorry about your sweater." He takes a step to Merlin, gingerly grabbing the hem to inspect the fabric. "Do you think it can be cleaned?"
Merlin's gaze darts around to make sure no one's looking their way, and then his eyes flash gold as the stain on the sweater disappears. "Good as new."
"I used to wonder how you always got even the worst stains out of my clothes," Arthur grumbles. "Do you want to head home? We don't have to…."
Merlin rolls his eyes. "I may not be a man, but I'm not a damsel. I don't need coddling after losing my tart."
"Well," says Arthur. He lets go of the sweater, but he doesn't step back. His hand moves slowly, courageously, to Merlin's hand hanging by his side. Their knuckles brush. "If you ask nicely I might be persuaded to split my pastry with you."
Merlin slowly curls his hand around Arthur's own, and watches as Arthur's cheeks turn pink. His gaze doesn't stray from Merlin's however, and Merlin thinks he'll never meet a braver man. "Even the macaroons?"
"Don't get greedy," Arthur retorts, and pulls Merlin along into the light of day.
(Some of these I've mentioned in other posts but whatever)
- The US Civil War was not fucking caused by Greeks vs Romans. I generally dislike "X historical figure was a demigod!" (like with Harriet Tubman) But, if you really do wanna make someone in that era a demigod, may I suggest son of Ares John Brown?
- Zeus said that gods aren't allowed to create money after *somebody* caused an inflation crisis. Now obviously the gods don't need money since they can magic things into existence, but this does mean that some of the gods are flat broke. Hermes monetized his delivery service, Poseidon has access to the treasury of Atlantis, and Hephaestus and Athena have both quietly filed and licensed a few patents. But Aphrodite? Apollo? Hera? What would they ever need a bank account for?
- The Little Tiber got rid of the Curse of Achilles mostly via placebo effect. Percy felt vulnerable, and believed he was vulnerable, so he was. Maybe he didn't technically lose it, his weak spot just grew to cover his entire body.
- Aphrodite is older than the kronides and was just hiding in the ocean during the titanomachy. Nobody ever brings this up because the kronides and Aphrodite both get touchy about her age.
- Ares, Athena, Hephaestus, and Dionysus all gave serious consideration to joining Kronos. Hephaestus and Dionysus because they feel slighted and bitter, Ares because he loves a good war, and Athena because she considers *every* option.
- The 12th wasn't the only legion that was commanded to go underground but the others died out over the years.
- The 12th legion was originally stationed in Southern Iberia, relocated to the Pyrenees during the Islamic conquest of the peninsula, moved close to the capital when the crowns of Castille and Aragon were unified, then one of the prophecies directed them to leave Spain during the Napoleonic Wars and settle in Mexican-ruled California, which was later conquered by the US.
- greek demigods have dyslexia due to being wired for a different alphabet. roman demigods have dyscalculia due to being wired for roman numerals.
- Grover as Lord of the Wild is…tricky. he’s becoming immortal to replace the hole pan left in the wild, but his health is reliant on the state of nature. as things like carbon emissions and oil drilling and deforestation and pollution get worse, he gets sicker.
- agreeing with my buddy up there on the civil war. also adding that wwii didn’t happen with “Zeus and Poseidon kids on the allies’ side and Hades kid on the axis side” because that’s fuckin stupid. i believe children of the big three joined the armies wherever they lived and fought and caused carnage. that caused the pact, not “heeheehoohoo let’s villainize Hades and imply hitler and mussolini were his kids and that’s why they were so evil”
- i just think it’d be really funny if Percy couldn’t talk to penguins. every aquatic animal ever except penguins. idk
- children of the big three are too powerful. as they grow and master their powers, they don’t hit a ceiling of what they can do. they just discover more and more power. eventually, they either burn themselves out and their powers consume them and they die, causing terrible natural disasters, or they burn away their mortality and become gods.
- the curse of the styx. it burns away a demigods’ mortality until there is only a single drop remaining, and it ties that drop to a point on their body. and yes, i think it can be lost in certain extreme situations. but their mortality doesn’t just come back. losing the curse has this demigod with one last speck of mortality ready to burn away and either die terribly or become a god.
- tied in to the above: if they do die, they’re shells of who they were alive. a god doesn’t have a soul, and getting so close to becoming a god corrupts their mortality and soul. they wander the banks of the styx searching its waters for their own lost dreams and memories and loves. they won’t find them. they’re just empty.
if you were to make a pjo rewrite as if you were the original author, what are some changes youd make?
i think i would've loved to see chb a lot more fleshed out. like percy's relationships with people outside of grovabeth and beckengard happened off screen and then we were just kinda told he was friends with everyone else in tlo but we didn't really see it
ouu also more emphasis on cabins four and ten!! demeter and aphrodite deserve to be revered as powerful goddesses!! and their children deserve the spotlight as powerful demigods!!!
more hellenic practises at camp? honestly i'm still thinking about that fic where demigods veiled. that was so peak. hold on i swear someone linked it in my replies. let me check. okay they're saying its "To Make a Legend" that has veiling which would make sense since i read part of the first fic but i never finished it. anyway veiling + hellenic practises being part of camp would be peak
i saw @aaaaalice and @mmavverickk's reblog of ur post so yes to everything here
more faces in the ta? we got ethan, alabaster (off screen), and silena. and technically chris. but i would've loved to see more or be introduced to characters early on only for them to go missing and appear with luke so we'd feel betrayed by them as well. them being undermined at camp and growing more and more annoyed until they're just gone? building off of the subtle power struggle within chb maybe
you've probably seen this idea before because i am blatantly stealing it from tumblr but multiple camps around the world for demigods and mt olympus still being in greece but the empire state building just serves as a portal of sorts to reach the mountain top without flying around the world. idk how you'd tie that in,, maybe an off handed mention of it or something?? or whatever lol
maybe more allure for kronos? like...as he is in canon, it's kind of obvious he's the wrong and bad choice. but i think i made a post touching on it hold on UGH i can't find it but it was something about kronos promising to bring back his golden days where there wasn't so much pain and suffering because people didn't have free will and autonomy or something so it was like he was gonna build a "better" world for humans if you consider a loss of autonomy in exchange for peace and longevity as "better" versus a world under the gods where you have free will but there is pain and suffering in abundance and a long life isn't guaranteed. something like that. like do you want to go back to the garden of eden where there's no sin but you live in ignorance and controlled (kronos) or do you want to remain outside of the garden with all your knowledge and power but you will suffer and toil (the gods). type beat. like just...making kronos's offer a lot prettier to explain why so many people made, what appeared to the majority as, the dumb decision. maybe luke himself was promised freedom and autonomy to rule at kronos's side but kronos was never going to uphold his end of the bargain but luke was too blinded by rage to see that and just wanted to hurt hermes
^ and true equality for all demigods as ethan wants comes from the lack of autonomy where a hierarchy would normally be formed but instead kronos would keep them all in line and controlled to seeing one another as equals
so it's more autonomy vs peace
and percy sides with "if my life is going to mean anything, i have to live it myself" 🙂↕️🙂↕️🙂↕️ MISS SALLY JACKSON THE WOMAN YOU ARE FOR THAT QUOTE!!!!!!!
maybe more athena during quests? like athena back in the day was helping everyyyyyy hero she came across as that's like literally one of her domains. so i know she helped during the quest in ttc, but i would've liked to see her during other quests. like botl? i know hera gets to fill that role for. some reason. but athena filling that role instead would've been so peak as that's like. her job. LMAO
you might be going with your rachabeth + aroace percy agenda in the fic but if you're not and you're going with percabeth and you decide to keep the love triangle, can it be a real triangle with rachabeth tension too? 🥹 that would be so peak
anyway
uhhhh i think i'm running out of juice
final burst of energy and motivation:
the gods being more distraught about pan's death. we only really got dionysus's reaction and it was kinda pinned on castor's death but i would've loved to see like hermes's reaction to losing his son. maybe as a foreshadow to luke's upcoming death? hermes grieving his son right before he's going to have to grieve his other son. idk anyway
honestly if aroace percy didnt completely take over my life i would 100% go with an actual love triangle- it may not be messy in the way you have these three but it would still absolutely be a mess
i actually love that you bring up multiple camps + portals all around the world because i had that idea too! theres at least 3 camps in every country (thats been influenced by greek mythology) and theres at least one portal to olympus near them, the empire state building is just one of many
more demigods being hellenistic my beloveds... i actually had the idea that annabeth veiled, and i just know she wouldnt be the only one
wait come back. charon takes apple pay. also if you download the erebus app, you can get on the waitlist and see how long it’ll take before your table is called i mean before you’re allowed in okay bye
no wait come back. zoë haunting riptide. jack calls riptide a girl in mcga and it’d be so peak if percy failed during a fight and zoë’s voice was in his ear going “lol noob get better at the game dumbass” and he goes “where did you learn modern lingo?” and she goes “i knew the whole time, i just like ragebaiting thalia. guess you could call me a master baiter huh” and percy considers throwing riptide for a solid eight seconds before jumping back into the fight
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