I Approve

The old gods are dead

Zeus sits at the bar, he’ll buy a thousand and one drinks and the girls who he smiles at will raise their eyebrows and think of the pepper spray tucked into their sleeves.

Hera waits at home. She knows the numbers of all the girls and she has their facebooks open on the computer. Her hands hover over the keyboard., She wants to tell them that men will always lie. She wants to take her own advice. She never will.

Apollo and Artemis travel the world. They are chasing the sun. Chasing the moon. They will never catch up. Their hand are curled around each others hip bones. Never in public though. They look too similar for that now. Society has learned judgement and so they keep their caresses safe in the shadows.

Poseidon wanders the shore. He wears a plastic poncho and carries a bag of trash. His tears mix with the salt water. No one can tell the difference. A girl with hair that moves like serpents trails after him, retribution in her eyes.

Hades lies in bed, his wife curled around him. He smiles because people will always believe in death and finally, finally he has beaten his brothers at something.

Athena paces through college campuses, handing out pamphlets on architecture. She scoffs at professors who are simply going through the motions. She carries signs in her hands as she marches through the streets with the students, screaming about the newest problem. She laughs wild, these children, these fearless children are her people.

Hestia wants her family to come home. She waits in the doorway, arms outstretched and a smile like forgiveness waiting to embrace the siblings whom she knows will never return.

Demeter counts down the days until her daughter returns. She smiles when children cheer over the snow days she gives them. There was a time when she had a child like that.

Persephone kisses her husband and grins when people tremble. She is vengeful and wears flowers in her hair and she will make damn sure that the world will never forget her name.

Ares walks through the Middle East, picking his way around the ruins of an elementary school. He stopped understanding war a long time ago. This was not brave, this was not heroic. This was senseless.

Aphrodite narrows her eyes at boys in cars who yell obscene things. She’s long since stopped romanticizing love. She is gaunt and over worked but sometimes she sees a teenage girl handing her baby over to an older couple who had tried for years and she feels young again. Sometimes, she sees Ares from across the room as soldiers embrace their loved ones and they smile at each other. 

 Hephaestus limps through his shop, his hands are worn down, his back is still twisted but people don’t seem to notice anymore. He makes their furniture, their toys and trinkets and they thank him, they pay him.

 Hermes runs through the streets of New York, Tokyo, London. He is young in this time, young and beautiful and slipping between business men, his hands finding their way into their pockets. He never stops laughing. 

 Dionysus mixes Zeus his drinks. He watches his family grin and cry and get sick in the back room of the bar. He holds back their hair and hands them another drink before they even ask. He’s been here a long time. He’s seen them drunk more often then he’s seen them sober. He is watching them flicker out and fade. 

 The gods are dying. The gods are dead. The gods are us.

-L.D.

I got ambitious

Won't You Run Away With Me Chapter 1

ITS ABOUT HELION AND LOA!!! IM EXCITED FOR MYSELF

tw: noncon (not graphic)

short chapter, 1K words

Summary: Based on Helion's conversation with the IC in ACOWAR, what happened between Helion and Lady of the Autumn court (because ms sarah janet maas takes two years to finish a book and I cannot wait for her big reveal and no one wrote a fic on this so i'm doing it)

Read on AO3

CHAPTER 1: BEFORE THE WAR

“I heard her family wanted internal ties to power, and that they didn’t give her a choice before they sold her to Beron.” - Helion to Mor, ACOWAR

The fire in her blood is her damnation, for she was about to become the Lady of Autumn, the pretty, silent wife to Beron Vanserra.

There was no choice in the matter really, her father needed the political alliance that came from selling his youngest daughter to the cruel High Lord of Autumn. No matter that she was just 20- a child, barely past her first bleed- and Beron was nearly a century old. And war… war was looming, and her parents certainly couldn’t afford for their alliances with the High Lord to drift. She begged her family for more time, to wait just a few years.

-

“I’ll find another High Lord to marry,” she had pleaded on her knees, hot tears spilling down her cheeks. Her father sneered, the room heating with his rage. “What do you know about alliances? To be married to Beron Vanserra, what more could a female like you want?” She flinched. What more could a girl like you want. Love! She wanted to scream. I want to marry the male I love! But what did she know? Her sisters, watching behind a half closed door, looked at her with eyes full of pity and knowing. Knowing, for the male she had met at the equinox ball who had charmed her with his warm smile and bright eyes. The son of the High Lord of the Day Court. Helion Spellcleaver. Her father barely gave his weeping daughter another look before winnowing out of the room. He did not notice the crumpled letter she held in her hands and the unfamiliar necklace hidden beneath her dress. He did not wait for her to reveal the male that has been courting her for almost a year. She threw the letter into the fireplace and weeped. The fire eagerly swallowed up the letter. A declaration of love, a promise turned into ash. - The wedding is a relatively quiet ceremony with just Beron’s most important lords. The commoners would hear of this later, through an official proclamation. It was a relief that no one else would witness her humiliation, though she supposed no one really cared who she was as long as she kept Beron happy.

That was her job now, to keep a high lord happy. To look pretty, have a few children and pray and hope the lord would not tire of her too soon. She supposed there were worst things in the world. Beron’s servants were silent as they prepared her for the wedding, they kept their eyes down, deft hands dressing her without so much as an extra glance for the female marrying their high lord. Perhaps they were glad that with her as Beron’s wife, he would be otherwise occupied, in the bedroom at least.

She was not oblivious to Beron’s temper and the commoners’-- and rest of the court for that matter-- contempt toward Beron. For good reason too, she had heard of how he treated his servant, and how he ensured that people who spoke against him promptly disappeared. The few times she had gone to the countryside were even worse- though she secretly agreed that the farmers’ outright hatred for the lord was justified- they were paid barely more than what it took them to buy their crops, while Beron and other lords in the capital were drowning in finery and wasting the food that should’ve gone to the hungry people.

She was also under no illusion that the lord would grow to feel even an inkling of love for her, knew that she was nothing but a prized breeding mare. She wanted to ask the servant girls how they survived, how she could survive. But as the servants finished putting her hair into twist on her head, the words stuck in her throat. She gave them a thankful nod, and looked in the mirror. She did not recognize who stared back. She was led out by an armed sentry, as she looked back at the servant girls, she was surprised to find that there were tears brimming in their eyes. The girls caught her staring and promptly looked down, expressionless once again. She wondered whether someday she would look like that too.

Suddenly, she couldn’t help but wish that a certain amber eyed male would come a save her.

- She did not remember what happened exactly during the ceremony other than the murmured thanks to the halfhearted congratulations thrown her way. She had been lost in a crowd of lords trying to gain Beron’s favor, the dress making it her for her to disappear back into her room.

Her room.

She did not share a room with the lord, even now that they’re married. Beron had barely spared her a second glance after the crowds had dispersed. He winnowed away to cauldron knows where, as if he could barely stand the sight of her. It was a sentry who saw her confused expression and led her to her room, then told her that Beron would seek her out when he wished. Or she would be summoned to the High Lord’s quarters.

To be summoned like a dog. She almost let slip. But the sentry did not deserve her anger. So she simply nodded her thanks and went into her room.

-- The first night was the hardest. Beron had, in fact, seeked her out. She did not make a sound as Beron made her undress. She did not let out the tears that threatened to spill out. She did not let herself feel what was happening. But it was afterward when the door slammed shut and she was left alone in that cold, unfamiliar bed that she realized, truly realized, that this was her life now. She was the High Lord’s possession, his to treat however he wished.

And there was not one damn thing she could do about it.

BRO I ALSO JUST FOUND OUT THAT CRASH COURSE JOHN GREEN IS THE FAULT IN OUR STARS JOHN GREEN

how much hate would an account no one knows about get if i make a John Green tumblr remembrance post rn?

fuck it ima do it

Fourth Wing Characters And Their Red Flags (Iron Flame Spoilers)

Violet: really bad at basic math (6+1=??), constantly interrupts people when they’re about to spill the tea, caused a questionable stain on the Tyrrendor Throne.

Xaden: unresolved mommy issues, really bad at 20 questions, stuck in his emo phase, has Endgame by Taylor Swift on repeat so much it seeps into his vocabulary, inappropriate use of the communal gym showers, self-sacrificial to a fault.

Dain: patchy beard, memory thief, used his nepo baby connections to get the wingleader position even though he sucks at it, has a low key crush on Xaden (the true enemies to lovers all along).

Jesinia: writes Xaden & Violet fanfiction with explicit scenes during work hours.

Andarna: forgets to take her melatonin and makes it everyones problem.

Tairn: major exasperated dad energy, v emotional and impulsive, unresolved trauma around Naolin, superiority complex when it comes to gryphons.

Sgael: Not that good at making choices.

Nolon: HIPAA violations for sure, was the true weakest link all along.

Caroline Ashton: dared to be in the book more than Garrick???? Literally wtf.

Brennan: Faked his own death yet chose the most obvious pseudonym ever, so deep in the closet he’s living in Narnia.

Mira: the abusive sibling (she was justified tbh), really bad at getting very obvious hints.

Daddy Sorrengail: literally doesn’t have a name? Speaks in code to his children for plot reasons only. Weak heart (sure buddy).

Rhiannon: Makes every other character look bad because she’s an actual angel.

Honestly I'm tired of all acotar discourse centering on moral righteousness and who is good and who is bad. Like leave me alone and let me enjoy my shitty fantasy novels without having to justify why I like it and the characters in it. Acotar is not a moral statement, it doesn't stand for anything. It's simply just a fucking story that, let's be honest, is made for stay at home wine moms who want to imagine fucking a dark haired bat boy and if you disagree youre probably wrong.

Thinking about how "No one is ever the villain of their own story" and "We are all someone's monster" are opposites but the same.

Feyre: 🎶if you ever cared to ask🎶

Tamlin : 🎶well good for you, you look happy and healthy 🎶

Lucien : Tam, i'm begging you...

Tamlin : *throws a table at the wall* 🎶NOT ME🎶

ok no but i just randomly remembered that Lana had a hysterectomy that day so let's say future Lana and Logan adopted children.

and for those who wants to get their heart broken all over again, here's the exact quote:

"I can't have children"

"Why" (bro. wdym WHY?????)

"I lost a lot that night"

no but you all need to imagine future Lana Myers and Logan children bc child be like: so Mommy how did you and daddy get married

Lana: Oh sooooo I was a ✨serial killer✨ killing my rapists and then daddy was investigating my case. then I meet daddy and then three books later we kinda broke up because he thought I was Kennedy Carlyle, you know, the girl who's identity I stole. Oh also you never see us on *enter Lana Logan anniversary date* because daddy's finding me a criminal to torture 😌. Yeah so sleep well children that's your bedtime story for tonight.

"Arobynn once told me that second place was just a nice name for first loser."

-Celaena Sardothien