#bibtts

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anyway sally & hope. i just. it’s the whole thesis of the series.

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v. what light tastes like

“Very well.” Zeus rises to his feet. It's like a switch is flipped; the Throne Room holds its breath. Zeus raises his hand and the Master Bolt materializes into it, crackling with pure power. Involuntarily, Apollo has to take a step back. “That closes all pending matters. I shall bestow your immortality.”

Chapter five.

(link to ao3 in title!)

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“You didn’t deserve to have to make that choice,” Apollo says. And then because he can’t help it: “Percy, you were a kid.”

“My father said you’re a man at fifteen in Sparta.”

“Well,” Apollo said. “This is not Sparta.” Percy looks faintly amused at that comment for some reason. Apollo shakes his head. “What do we know? Fifteen is a kid anyway you cut it.”

He half-expects Percy to rage against that. Say that him being a kid never mattered to the gods. He expects his expression to crumble like Will’s had. But Percy just shrugs. “Not anymore. And the older I become, the more obvious it becomes that I’ve done things others haven’t dared to do to survive. I—gods, I just. I feel so complacent. Everything is going to shit, and I just want to run away. I keep thinking about how lucky I’ve been and how selfish it’s made me. Luke— ”

Here his voice falters. Breaks.

“Luke Castellan,” Apollo says. “You are basing your shortcomings on the life of Luke Castellan?”

“Luke Castellan was seventeen when Kronos got a hold of him,” Percy says, voice small. “And he was so full of rage that he decided to stake his life on trying to make the gods pay.” Percy shrugs. “He fought back. That’s more than I can say.”

Apollo thinks about the last entry in Halcyon Green’s battered little diary. Fourteen year old Luke Castellan writing in shaky, misspelled handwriting, mind still reeling with horror as his new family slept by him.

I promise, Hal. I will learn from your mistakes. If the gods ever treat me that badly, I will fight back.

“Don’t get me wrong. He hurt a lot of good people,” Percy continues. “And there’s a part of me that will always hate him. There’s a part of me that will never ever forgive him, even if I—even if I am beginning to understand him. But at least he...he did something. He tried to change something. He made a lot of wrong choices, but he did it because he believed in his goal. He wanted to change things for the better, even if it got him killed. It did get him killed. Athena was wrong, you know? When she said my personal loyalty was my fatal flaw. She thought it was going to destroy what I cared about, and she thought that was the world. It’s nothing as noble as loyalty. It’s just my stupid selfishness to keep what is mine safe at the cost of—everything.” He swallows, “I just. I wonder sometimes. What I could have changed, if I’d torn my eyes away from my own little life to see the bigger picture and chosen immortality.”

percy’s thoughts on luke after everything, after jason...it’s something that has fascinates me SO MUCH

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i think. we should have explored what being a god meant

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tbh i need the director’s commentary of that particular Apollo-Will scene where they talk about Hal’s diary in BBTTS because YEAH but any scene is fine. gimme the director’s commentary of your fave Apollo-ish glory💃💃

HIIII! Yessss, Build It Bigger Than The Sun. Thank you for asking about this scene, it includes one of my most favourite and underutilized backstories in the RRverse: Halcyon Green’s.

Honestly, I debated a lot about what to do with the diary–if I had to include it at all, how would it come into Apollo’s hands, who should it be passed onto finally (I thought of having it stay with Apollo in Olympus as a reminder, or perhaps Thalia, or Annabeth, even Percy before ultimately settling on Will), what would be the logical emotional fallout from reading it, what could be done to honor Hal’s memory.

In the end the solutions to the first two questions seemed pretty straightforward – Hal’s punishment mirrors Apollo’s punishment in a strikingly parallel way. Both punished by their fathers for revealing visions/a prophecy (in part), both by being made less. In a story about fathers and sons it seemed just fitting to call back to it. BIBTTS was a way to reconcile the thesis of PJO with the thesis of TOA, and try to offer some sort of payoff for the conflict building from book one: the gods being the most awful parents. Hestia tells Percy and Nico about Luke in TLO, and is the keeper of the hearth of the family. Luke makes his promise to be a family in that very diary and meeting Hal was his first major turning point in what would be a month or so of so many quick turning points (rip Luke’s mental health). It made sense for her to have it. 

Having WILL end up with it however…that was something I really had to think over. If it made sense for him to even read it, if it would unnecessarily cause irreconcilable conflict between Apollo and him (how would he come back from that you know?) but ultimately I thought it had to end up with him. For Apollo as much as for him, but also in a way, for Hal. 

After their conversation in chapter 2 where Will goes “Sometimes I have trouble not feeling shame about what YOU’VE done” (paraphrase), it's clear that Apollo’s history is something he really grapples with. Even in canon, he keeps books about his father for newbies. He clearly takes his position as a counsellor–a representative, basically–quite seriously. Apollo giving him this diary was a way to come clean, and also allowing Will the space to choose to forgive his father. A choice Apollo doesn’t truly get to make for himself on Olympus when he meets (uh, for lack of a better term) Zeus. He puts the ball in Will’s court, even if it costs him his son, because Truth is important to him. 

It’s important for the memory of Hal too. With Percy, or Annabeth or Thalia, it would mean more about that last page–about Luke. Will is just another demigod in the war, but he is also Hal’s brother; he lost his elder siblings to the war started by the boy who Hal made his final prediction about. Will will share the story of Hal with his siblings, and they can mourn together. It’s a cautionary tale–it’s a promise from their father to be better than he was.

“You read the diary?” Apollo asks Will, who hasn’t moved an inch or breathed a word.

Will exhales, slow and deliberate. “Yeah. I did.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Will looks at the ground for the longest time. Apollo waits. Will screws laughs, a little breathlessly. “Well, it’s not—it’s not okay. Not really. I just don’t get why—”

“I know,” Apollo says. “There is nothing in my actions that makes sense. I…am so incredibly sorry, Will.”

“It feels like all those other stories,” Will says. He sounds a little weepy. “About Cassandra, and Niobe and all those other horrible stories…and I thought I could compartmentalize it as ancient history, as mythology. But I knew Luke Castellan. I know Thalia and Annabeth. It was now. ” Will doesn’t look up. After a long beat, he amends: “I guess…not now now. You said you’re trying.”

“I understand if that’s not enough. I won’t make it up to Hal, ever. It doesn’t have to be enough for you.”

Will doesn’t say anything for a while. He looks split. “The thing is,” he says, “I think we’ll be okay. I don't know how to feel about it yet, but we will be okay. I just—-need a minute. To process it all.”

“I’ll be there,” Apollo says. “If you need me, want me. I will.”

“I do,” Will says. “I don’t know if it makes me selfish, ignoring everything…but I really want a Dad, you know? And I want things between us to be okay.”

And how can Apollo refuse an offer like that? He holds out an arm and Will nods, still teary, before accepting the hug and settling into his side.

The scene AFTER Will reads it now…that was a gamble I’ll admit. How would someone react to that? How should someone react to that–honorably–which is what Will is concerned with? Will is mad at Apollo, and he wants to hold him accountable for Hal’s sake, the demigods’ sake…but in the end, it has been a long time since all that. Will has been sacrificial, selfless for the sake of his younger siblings, a parent-stand in, he’s grown up too soon. His dad, who he loves, who loves him, who has tried in a way no one else has, is here. And even if he feels a twisted grief and guilt about forgiving Apollo too easily, in the end it is his one chance to be selfish. To be a kid. To not protect, but be protected. He takes that leap of faith.

Logically, the Hal plotline could have been earlier in the story– that would have given more narrative space to Will to digest it. But in the end, I decided it worked better towards the end of the story. Apollo’s whole shtick has been about earning the capacity for growth–there may still be more to atone for in his immortal life. It’s not a linear journey. It will be hard, but it can be worth it if you have good intentions like he did here. It’s a process which has no clear end.

Also, it was an unexpected kindness for Apollo. He’s just had the most horrible, triggering encounter with his father, and had to forgive him despite it all (with some power in the situation, but still bittersweet). So to receive forgiveness in return…it soothes a balm. After having ended one terrible cycle of vengeance, it means a lot to him to have some other better type of cycle for him to be a part of. 

Quite simply, in the three lessons he had to learn it was the final one–to remember what it means to be a mortal, to be a god, and to be a parent.

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i should have included more gentle slut shaming in build it bigger than the sun

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god i know i annoyed my readers with the waits between the chapters but i miss writing build it bigger than the sun. it was a fun project

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[schoolchildren egging on a fight during lunch break voice] meg! meg! meg! meg!