I love the "came back wrong" trope but from the opposite side.

Imagine you are dead. And then you are RIPPED from the embrace of decay into the world of the living again. Your memories are hazy and you don't recognize any of these people, but they act like they're close to you? Like they love you? So you try to get your memories back, to act like you belong here, but everybody tries to forget you died. And you can't. It is omnipresent. And just trying to grapple with that fact pushes the people who "love" you away, and they're incapable of understanding, and they're so confused, what's wrong N̶̄̀O̶͛͗T̷̉́ ̷͋͝Y̴̎̌Ȍ̴̈U̸̓R NÄM̴̃͑E̵̾̇? And you just need them to understand, you aren't that person! You aren't! You don't know who that person is! You don't know why any of this is happening, but they're unwilling to bend, they keep insisting you are that person, your memories will come back, everything will be normal again, and you want to scream and cry and claw yourself open to show them you're different. Your existence as a being wholly separate from whoever you "used to be" is a sin unto itself. All you can do is scrabble for life and to them, you're killing whoever they loved to do it.

just. lots of fun in that concept, you know?

Gaia and Bea moodboards

Okay, this was supposed to be uploaded a while ago, back when these two characters were first introduced at the beginning of act 2 of my WIP, Welcome to Nowhere. Unfortunately this has been sitting in my drafts, forgotten. But they're here now! Here are the moodboards for Gaia, and their monster-tracking centi-dog, Bea!

gideon nav loves like a dog who grew up with nothing but a chain around her neck and a bowl of dirty water and that knows that the hand that feeds her is the very same hand that beats her but she still can't help but wag her tail a little when she sees her owner approach

I do not now, nor have I ever, expected Gideon to take a principaled stance on the forever war. I just don't think it matters to her. Ostensibly she's on her dad's side because her dad has been on a parenting kick lately, and the best she ever got from her mum was goodbye with a stay of execution. But if she were confronted with the ethics of the situation? Asked her opinion? I don't think she'd have one. She may be a prince, but at heart she's still the abused eighteen year old girl who fought tooth and nail to join the army just for a way out

heaven gaia spring/summer 2019

i think something we sometimes ignore when we talk about tlt's themes of love is its incredible focus on familial love, like the books' romantic and sexual themes are very clear but also it truly is a series that questions what a family is from the very beginning. gideon's lack of both a biological and chosen family (at least in her eyes) and harrow's almost decade-long attempt at maintaining the illusion of one in gtn. the fifth and the fourth, filling in the missing parts of their own families with each other. coronabeth, ianthe and even naberius' entire deal. the focus within silas and colum's dynamic of their biological compatibility as a necro/cav pair. john's desire for a daughter in harrow and then discovery of one in gideon, as well as pyrrha's desire to find out why her kid had to die only to find out 1) not her kid, 2) didn't die originally, 3) still died in the end. nona and pyrrha and pal and cam, which tazmuir herself has specifically highlighted we should question if it even counts as a family at all, but has also made sure we know they loved each other anyway. kiriona as her mother's daughter and her father's son but ultimately neither and how it kills her even as a corpse. and anastasia, the series' godot who despite making no appearance is felt in its every corner, who pyrrha painted a nursery with and who started the lineage that opened the legendary tomb.

can't wait to see how this is all explored in atn, especially when nona's family is only a "dress rehearsal" for the real horrors of love.

[ OC ] gaia

a demon adept in mimicry who escaped from hell and slaughtered a magical girl. she wears her skin and uses dark magic to preserve the image of her host in order to trick unsuspecting victims.

age: 70000

mimic form: 5’1

true form: 12’0 (including horns)

species: mimic demon

sexuality: aroace lesbian

in her mimic form, she uses a variety of weapons to dispose of innocents she doesn’t deem “worthy” to inhabit. her favourite is the chainsaw due to its messy tendencies. being stuck in hell for hundreds of centuries and only now escaping to the surface, she is fascinated with man-made weaponry, and finds it satisfying to kill humans with their own creations.

in her true form, she has sharp misshapen teeth, sunken eyes, long thin hair, sharp horns and claws. she is not made to be comprehended by humans, so to mortals, her body is a thin, constantly altering and pulsing mass of black vines. this is used to disorient victims.

gaia’s mimicry can be identified by the blurry/muddied, almost glassy eyes of her hosts. she has yet to find a way to disguise eyes properly. this detail is almost unnoticeable to mortals, however to other demons and hunters from hell like lynne, its very easy to spot.

as gaia is a runaway sinner, she is actively being hunted by lynne. however, despite lynne’s orders, she seems to have formed a strange bond with gaia. whether it is genuine or simply a form of deceit to lure in and dispose of the mimic is unknown.

He should be at the club!!!

I AM VINDICATED! GIDEON IS NAIVE AND NOT USED TO PEOPLE AND A TOTAL DUMBASS BUT SHE IS NOT STUPID!!!

Glittering gold [oc]

Warm up. Ryne & Gaia

Alva as the goddess Hestia/Vesta - based in a Frederic Leighton’s painting

she visits the First every now and then to bake sweets for everybody <3

heaven gaia spring/summer 2019

the downgrade of villains from pjo to hoo is so disappointing. luke castellan was such a good villain with an interesting backstory and motivations and it HURTS to see the villain that succeeds him. because gaea, to put it bluntly, kind of sucks. 

she has no emotional heart, no theme or message to send. she doesn't have a character you can sympathise with, she's not out-there enough to be hated strongly, she's not likeable enough to be one of those charming villains. the series flip-flops between trying to give her good qualities but never expanding on any of them, and trying to make her pure evil but never making her commit to it enough to be enjoyable.

she's just there. she's little more than a plot device, the Ultra Big Bad that we have to fight. and sometimes there's nothing wrong with that! but considering how hoo fails in every other aspect, the bland villain is just another disappointment. luke was what made the original pjo so good — the themes he carried, the tragedy of his life, the base of his character which served as the main core of the story, the balance between good intentions and the corruption of self.

as a result, gaea is just... fine. she’s not an absolutely terrible villain, but she looks second-rate compared to luke and kronos, despite being a lot more powerful, simply because they were much richer in themes and storytelling. even the decent villainous chemistry she has with leo and hazel isn’t enough to carry her to being interesting. 

but credit where it’s due, i’ll say toa did much better with villains. the portrayal of abuse with nero and meg, the romance between apollo and commodus, caligula's sadism and lust for power, all had way more personality than gaea ever did. (even if i AM still bitter about how a series with the roman emperors as villains wasn't centred around camp jupiter.)

The gang having noodles for dinner 🍽