Floating Duck 🍑⁣

"April Sun" by Mikhail Abakumov (1986)

"We are all born so beautiful. The greatest tragedy is being convinced we are not." - Rupi Kaur

remember: don't chase the pain. if you're lucky enough to have access to an adequate supply of painkillers, use them early. if your pain is episodic, not continuous, hit the pain as soon as you notice it and your chances of avoiding a bad episode improve.

if you wait around to see if it gets 'bad enough' for painkillers, you're more likely to end up in a lot of pain that's difficult to control.

the tricky part is, if you do it right, it feels like you did it wrong. because if you catch the pain early before it gets bad, it often feels like 'it never got that bad so maybe i didn't need the medication.'

but it didn't get that bad BECAUSE of the medication! you did it right. it's okay to use the tools at your disposal. fuck the stigma.

You can only reblog this today.

anyway. onto better things

[campanula medium] canterbury bell

[lavatera trimestris] annual mallow

[tanacetum parthenium] feverfew [hieracium aurantiacum] orange hawkweed

🌙

I like to think that pre-Oracle Rachel painted scenes from both wars, but she and Percy have no idea until they go back and reflect.

Percy notices, cause Rachel shows him her art, but he just rights it off as weird, even tho something doesn’t feel right.

Like, that’s DEFINITELY a replica Achilles mourning Patroclus. Only it’s two girls, one with flowing hair and a melted face, the other kneeling over her friend, face stricken with grief. He thinks her eyes look familiar. An immortal stands over them. Although they remind more of Ares and less of Thetis.

She has another painting that reminds Percy of a story from the Gigantomachy. Hera cowers under Porphyrion, about to be attacked. Only instead of Zeus and Heracles coming to her aid, it’s a guy with blond hair. His armor and sword is distinctively NOT Greek, but he opts to not comment on it. Rachel did a good job.

There’s more in her little studio, they both dismiss them as dreams. They make Rachel uncomfortable and Percy feels bile rise the more he looks.

He doesn’t realize until months later. It hits him while on the Argo. Him, Jason, Clarisse. THEY were the heroes in those paintings. Jason was the one coming to Hera’s aid. Clarisse was mourning Selina. He was fighting giants.

It all clicked into place, and he tried to remember what else her paintings for-told.