Happy Solar Eclipse Day!

Artemis and Apollo seemed rather fitting :)

Toapril Day 3: Divine Intervention

Artemis might have been the only one who showed that they were happy when Apollo became a god again, but she is happy for the wrong reasons. She believes that Apollo is now safe and is happy because of that, but she also now thinks Apollo is back in Zeus’ good graces. Apollo is never actually on Zeus’ good side, but because she does not know about the abuse she thinks everything will be good now.

How I think Meg would react to the other 11 Olympians:

This was originally on Discord in a convo between Chronic and me :3

Zeus: Would have zero (0) respect for him. I think she would be able to read between the lines and see that Zeus & Apollo have a...complicated relationship, perhaps enough to figure out the parallels between them and her & Nero.

Hera: Honestly I don't really think Meg would be that intimated by her? Maybe put off a little by her cold exterior but if she sees how Apollo acts around her she'd probably just follow his lead and dunk on her with him

Poseidon: ??? Zero clue what would happen here.

Demeter: agree with u Meg would be a little wary of Demeter.

Athena: Perhaps a bit intimated? Athena's a very reserved person who keeps her cards close to her chest, while Meg prefers to get to the point and start stabbing problems away. Athena's whole deal may make Meg wary of her, perhaps even a bit distrustful because of how secretive she is.

Ares: I wonder if she would be equally affected by Ares's whole "fight aura" as Percy is so she may get a little aggressive with him, but Ares would probably find it funny though i would like to direct his attention to the last time a twelve year old got aggressive with him lol

Hephaestus: I think they'd be pretty chill. Probably don't interact much because Hephaestus isn't really a people-person and Meg's kinda reserved too. Maybe they'd bond over some type of machine-plant invention that makes Apollo go oh no

Aphrodite: Hmm...I think she may be slightly disturbed by Aphrodite's whole "I play with your love life because I like you so much!" thing. She'd take one look and go "you fucked up Apollo's life because you like him?????" Meg's blunt personality probably wouldn't mix the best with Aphrodite's guile and subtly.

Hermes: She wouldn't like him lol summons the wall lizard I just don't see Meg really liking Hermes all that much? Though I don't know why? Just the vibe I get from her

Artemis: Mutual inner jealousy beloved haha. I think Meg would be a bit jealous/resentful of Artemis because of how much she takes Apollo for granted. Meanwhile, Artemis is jealous that Apollo "prefers" Meg's and Athena's company over hers even though her company usually involves her badgering him...tragic twins beloved. She's a huntress - she's territorial. When someone encroaches on her territory, she gets growly.

Dionysus: She'd like him lol. As seen in ToN, Dionysus likes messing with Apollo (in a good way) and she likes messing with Apollo (in a good way). They'd get along like a house on fire and Apollo fears this alliance (though is secretly pleased)

Getting one last post in before 2024 to say that Apollo has a signature dessert he taught himself to make, which is the most incredible melopita (honey pie) known to man. He makes it for every special occasion and refuses to give the recipe out no matter what he’s bribed with.

His mom is the same way. She’s makes an otherworldly galaktoboureko (phyllo and custard dessert) and Apollo and Artemis have been begging her to teach them how to make it for centuries. She’s told them the same thing since they were young, “if I teach you to make it, you’ll eat it alone and you wont like it. My recipes are for family, they only taste good because we eat them together.” The first time Artemis asked Apollo for his melopita recipe, he smirked and told her the exact same thing.

Now Artemis makes incredible pasteli (honey sesame bars) and the three of them hoard their recipes like territorial dragons. It’s like Mr. Krabs’ secret formula, they all try to sneak and find out the others recipes, but it never works. Still, when celebrations come around, every nature spirit in the Cyclades knows you stop by Delos to have your life changed by the hosting family’s desserts.

Artemis: I didn’t think you were gonna adopt another kid!!!

Apollo, holding Frank: You should always assume I’m gonna adopt another kid.

[1/2] From @heresronnie21 for @i-have-no-ideas using the prompt Meg&artimis

Apollo: My boyfriend and my daughter are both neurodivergent, and their conversations are mostly just infinite loops of “oh yeah that reminds me of-“ followed by a topic seemingly completely unrelated

Apollo: I love them so much 🥰

Artemis: Apollo, you do that too…

Apollo: Oh, yeah! That reminds me of-

artemis + apollo post toa and lester during toa

I was talking in discord about Hermes and Artemis and wanted to share it here as well.

I headcanon that Hermes at the end of toa is going into denial because he always believed gods do not change, as a sort of comfort to him failing to save Luke and the other mistakes he made. Seeing apollo be openly changed is making him doubt himself and he lashes out due to this. He doesn't want to believe apollo has changed, because that means gods were always capable of change and he no longer has his biggest defense for his actions.

he needs more character development and is a very interesting character to explore. Given how he contrasts apollo in many ways.

Mythologically he and apollo are close and I tend to borrow that as backstory when I think about them. I think between him and apollo there's a lot of stuff they haven't worked out. For two who claim to be best friends on paper, they haven't acted like it in a while.

There's probably a lot of unaddressed grudges (May castellan comes to mind immediately and that's only one from recent decades. There could be more going centuries back.)

On Artemis:

In TOA, its clear that Artemis still hasn't gotten over her delusions of Zeus and her own image of Apollo being a dramatic airhead (that apollo encouraged to protect her and himself..)

Apollo cannot be open with her because she would rebut him if he ever brings up this vulnerable topic and it would really hurt him. He just newly finally accepted the truth and her rebuttal or reiteration of past beliefs would be a terrible hit. But making her understand puts artemis in the same horrible shock apollo went through.

Hence they cannot bond properly because they always have to keep up walls around each other to sort of protect each other, in a messed up way.

Chronic: what do you think Artemis would think of Apollo's change post toa? I can't imagine her not being weirded out by it, since Apollo being loud and an idiot seems pretty baked into her perception of him

but toa altered his personality (the way she knew it at least) pretty fundamentally.

Me: I think this could work pretty well. To do initial bonding over this and then work out their misunderstandings about each other once they've gotten a degree of closeness back.

I have hope that this will encourage artemis to look at apollo through a new lense and be more open. Which is why I feel at the end of toa, they have more hope than ever before of actually understanding each other. They need to put in some work first though.

Someone once said artemis fatal flaw is righteousness and I've agreed ever since. ❤️‍🔥It also lines up nicely with mythology.

You can see her thinking her leaving Olympus and their fakeness for the hunt is her version of righteousness and she feels that she's on the right, hence she doesn't pause to examine things closely anymore. She's come to decisions about Apollo and the others. But this leaves nuances out and ended up hurting her and Apollo's relationship.

One-shot title : His Face

Characters: Will Solace and Artemis

Description: When spending her night with her hunters Artemis runs into a face she hasn't seen in years.

Word count :1,723

Note: this is the first oneshot I have ever written so it may not be the best. If you all like it though let me know I may write more in the future I have an idea for a sequel to this one-shot featuring both Apollo and Leto so let me know if you all would be interested in that as well. <3

In her thousand years of living she always found the nights of quiet to be the most impactful. After all it was a serene night like this one when she found her  lieutenant Zoe. Her poor Zoe, she was such a broken girl back then once filled with so much love only for it to be shattered by a monstrous man. She couldn’t  help but snarl at the thought of that brute.

  She was suddenly snapped out of her thoughts when she heard the noise of whimpering. She looked over at the tents full of her hunters but they were all seemingly asleep. The noise couldn't be from one of them so she looked out into the trees to find the intruder. She summoned her bow ready to strike the creature. Happily ready to kill the man or monster who dared to approach her camp, who dared to disrespect the goddess of the moon and hunt. Drawing her bow she hid behind a tree to shock the creature and once she heard the snap of a twig she jumped out to shoot the creature down.

 She stopped before she could shoot however because she saw a sight she would have never expected. She was met with a face she hadn't seen in centuries. Before moving to America, before the Trojan war, before she was even an Olympian. She couldn't help but hold her breath because staring straight at her was the face of her baby  brother Apollo, with his. Short curly hair that glowed like a halo in the sun, his blue eyes that shone with the knowledge of the future,and his tan skin as if he had been touched by midas himself,but that was impossible. Her brother hadn't taken this form since he first left Delos. She couldn’t help the ache in her heart at the thought, back then it was just them and their mother hiding from the Hera and the rest of the gods. They were so young and joyful a content family, but then her brother left swearing vengeance on the snake that chased their mother across the earth. He left their  life on Delos  as a sweet and innocent child and came back a silent yet shaken man. It was the last she ever saw of this face.  In the years since Apollo has changed his form thousands of times his curly hair was now straight to match with  what he claimed to be America's beauty standards, his eyes while blue didn't shine like they did in their  youth now constantly covered in whatever sunglasses were quote  ‘in at the moment.’

How could his face be staring straight at her? She began looking over  his form and noticing the slight differences. The freckles that painted his round checks like the stars in the night sky and the fear in his eyes. Apollo never looked at her with true fear, maybe a look of wariness when he realized she was angry but never true fear. It looked wrong on his face. It tarnished the face she had kept so close with her. She noticed, In her shock, that her bow was still drawn and with a painful twist in my heart she realized she was the one he was scared of. quickly, she dropped her bow and got on her knees to be eye to eye with the boy.

The boy who couldn't have been her brother yet had his face couldn't be any older than 5 years old. She began to search his essence to figure out who he was. She discovered her brother's essence mixed with another, a mortal. He was a demigod that wasn't too special. Her brother had many lovers over the years, plenty of which sired children but, if they ever took after him they looked like the form he had taken when he met their mortal parent never did the kids look like his first form. She used to be happy about this. It was something special between her brother, mother, and she. It was something that Olympus and the fates could never take, yet this child was wearing a face he didn't deserve. She felt rage at the fates to steal such a precious memory from her,but at the same time she wished for nothing more than to take him away and cherish him with her mother watching his face grow up into what Apollo could have been. The life Apollo had taken from him. To be the big sister she failed to be. This child had so much potential yet the other gods would look at him and see nothing special, only another pawn for their game. This face would change. She wasn't her brother so she couldn't see to what extent. Would he have scars running across his face ruining his freckles? Maybe, his eyes will lose their brightness like his father or, Perhaps, he would have a frown permanently etched into his skin traumatized by the Horrors of this world.

She was drawn out of her thoughts at the sounds of whimpering. How long had she been staring at him? She tried smiling at him but she could still tell he was scared of her. It occurred to her  he must have been lost after all the forests were no place for a five year old boy so she asked him.

“Hello little one, what are you doing out here?” He looked at her with a calculating look, the same one her brother would have when trying to determine whether or not our. Half-brother ,Hermes, was being truthful to him or playing another trick. It's a look he will give often in the future when his life's on the line a voice whispers in the back of her head but she shakes it away. After a pregnant pause of silence filled only with the ambient noise of the forest he mumbles his response.

“I was at my mama's concert but then I saw a deer. I tried following it but I got lost.” His voice was sweet  like a bird's morning call or a crickets nightly tune yet it only cemented how he wasn't her brother. The boy's voice was  that of  a soft melody while her brother even as a child was one full of power, a ballad that could move mountains,a lullaby that could bring long dead constellations to tears. She thought it ironic that her own animal brought him to her. Perhaps the deer knew and wanted to lead him to her. But at the mention of his mother she knew she must have been looking for him. Apollo always fell for the  most kind hearted of mortals. It reminded her of her own mother ,Leto, how she would stay up at night worrying for her brother after he left or how she would worry when he was turned mortal. Despite her desire to give this boy the life the fates stole from her brother she could bear the idea of having a woman feel the anguish her mother felt.

She smiled at him and said, ”tell me about her.”  she began walking to the edge of the forest hoping he knew to follow. He did and he began to animatedly tell her about his mother.  He rambled on about her caring hand and calming voice how she always knew how to fix a problem like a good mother would. His voice held a tone of admiration as if she was his divine parent rather than her brother. A tone both her and her brother used often when speaking of their mother as if she were queen of the gods and not Hera. The others will return him to her in a shroud the voice snarled in her head. She pushed it down though as she realized they were nearing the edge of the forest.  Their time while short had to come to an end as he was a Demigod boy and she was the goddess of the hunt, not a nephew and an Aunt. They will likely never see eachother again much like the sun and moon in different worlds only meeting once in an eclipse every few millennia. She turned to him and smiled.

“It looks like our time together is coming to an end. I do not know if we will cross paths again little to one but know if you are lost look to the sun and the moon to guide you and you will be safe.” he looked confused at first but then he nodded with a look of understanding you wouldn't expect from a child perhaps he held her brothers gifts of prophecy and knowledge unlike her or perhaps he was simply a trusting child  who had yet to see the horrors their world will bring to him. They began walking again. After a while she heard the voice of a woman calling for a Will; it must have been the boy's name. No, not the boy, her nephew, Will. As soon as he heard the woman's voice he smiled and broke out into a run. She  laughed. At his enthusiasm she followed him and watched as he leaped into his mothers arms. She had tears in her eyes and began telling him to never scare her like that again. The mother  looked at  the goddess and met her eyes. In the mother's eyes was a look of recognition. She knew who she was either she was a clear sighted mortal or her brother had told her who he was. it didn't matter to her. She looked down at her nephew. While she did not know what the fates had in store for him she could keep this moment with her and remember the look of joy or both her brother and her nephews face.  She decided that whatever the fates had planned for him had earned him her brother's  face. She met his mother's eyes once again, smiled and ran back into the forest to her hunters.

~

Years from now the boy will be lost again he will finally discover what the fates had in store for him when gifting him his face but there will be no sun or moon to guide him like the woman once promised for not even the gods would dare go into the pit.

I’m interested. How do Apollo and Artemis’s desire to protect each other drive a wedge between them?

I'm glad you askeddd. Thank you for being my first anon ever btw. (@crowmakeska-boom idk if you are the anon but anon, whoever you are, sorry for the wait). This is probably not a very good meta cause it's mostly vibes, gut feelings and filling in the blanks with below the bare minimum of textual evidence but oh well. 

First I'd like to talk about why I think Artemis and Apollo's relationship is kind of distant. They're a confusing duo. When you first meet them in the titan's curse it may seem they don't like each other much or atleast Artemis seems to not be paticularly fond of her brother. Calling him “irresponsible”, “lazy”, “big headed”. But reading between the lines reveals how much the two of them care for each other, especially on Apollo's part from all the illegal help he was dishing out to the questers.

But then when you read some more, their relationship just feels a tad too distant to completely take what they say as just banter. When we see them on Delos in Blood of Olympus the distance is literal. They're recycling banter that's getting old and you can tell that even if it had been lighthearted before, it’s definitely getting on both their nerves now (stolen from fsinger lmao). They’ve both been playing the part for a long time but it feels like they don’t have the closeness anymore to recognize they’re both just playing parts. 

So what happened?

I think it's their need to protect each other that's causing this rift between them. From my point of view Artemis & Apollo are protecting each other from different things but Olympus is at the core of it for the both of them.

The twins have a very different experience of Olympus. Since her introduction Artemis seems pretty critical of Olympus. According to the hunters she's the only one who can get the ball rolling during solstice meetings and she's shown to not really act the Olympian way. Taking the sky off the shoulders of a mortal girl. Shrinking herself down to make the human heroes feel more comfortable and demanding they get rewarded.

It wouldn't be far fetched to assume that she's never fit in with Olympus and doesn't agree with most of the views of her family.

Then there's Apollo.

Who fits in so perfectly with the messed up inner workings of Olympus or so people think. He's perfected his mask over the years and no one is the wiser about the abuse he's gone through or even the fact that this isn't actually who he is.

To me, Artemis wants to protect Apollo from Olympus' true nature. In her head she's got every part of Olympus figured out and for the most part she has. Even if it's not something that works for her I think she would want to protect her younger brother from knowing what the kind of people he surrounds himself with are truly like.

I feel like Artemis would be conflicted on it for other reasons too because if Apollo is aware of the kind of people the Olympians are and he's alright with that, what kind of god is Apollo?

So she'd much rather think of him as stupid and irresponsible cause those atleast mean that it isn't he isn't a bad person. But I feel deep down she doesn't really believe completely that what she knows of her brother is correct.

But then she sees the way Zeus loves Apollo and cares for him and in her mind it's the right decision to let him live this way. He is safer now than they ever were as children.

Apollo on the other hand wants to conceal their father's true nature from Artemis. We know that he cares deeply about appearing fine on the surface because of how others would worry and who would worry more than his older sister.

Artemis and Apollo may be the protectors of youth but the first ever youth they protected were each other. It's the foundation of their relationship and caries on into the present day. Both of them feel a desperate need to protect each other.

I would go so far as to say that this is THE relationship they have with each other. The both of them never find comfort in each other, only protection. You can tell that comfort is not something they usually derive from each other from the way they're both completely blindsided by simple things like an "I love you" , a hug and just concern in general.

Comfort from each other is not a priority for them no matter how much they crave it. The twins purpose to each other is to protect.

So of course Apollo would never tell Artemis about the way Zeus hurts him.

I also think there's a little bit of denial on Artemis' part on just how abusive Zeus is. Cause Apollo is dropping hints. Even the way Artemis talks during Blood of Olympus makes it clear that she understands Zeus is gonna massacre the guy. She just doesn't want to believe it will be permanent.

And it's got a lot to do with the fact that she wants to protect him. Because if she acknowledges this isn't a situation Apollo is gonna come out from unscathed that means that she's incapable of protecting him. That means that she's failed to protect him before and cannot protect him again.

So she'd much rather pretend that Zeus is persuadable and not that bad. That it's Apollo's fault Zeus comes down so hard on him and if he were a little better and a bit more like her he could be safe.

And this would hurt Apollo because Artemis can pinpoint exactly what Zeus is like. But instead of comforting him she confirms for him that this is his fault. That if he could be better none of this would happen. Artemis helps prevent but never helps heal because helping her brother heal means he was in a position to be hurt in the first place.

All this mess and miscommunication and disbelief stemming from the fact that they love each other and never want to see each other hurt creates an impossible distance between them.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. Slowly but surely they're trying to comfort/ seek comfort instead of just protect each other.

I wept on my sister’s shoulder. I felt like if I let go of Artemis, I would fall back into Chaos. Huge parts of my identity would shake loose, and I would never be able to find all the puzzle pieces. “Whoa, there.” She patted my back awkwardly. “Okay, little fella. You’re all right now. You made it.”

Apollo's trials sucked. But I'm glad it's given the twins the opportunity to bridge the gap between their relationship again.

Hermes and Dionysus were like ducklings who followed Apollo around when they were young. Artemis is annoyed because she’s supposed to be Apollo’s closest sibling, but now Hermes and Dionysus are taking all his time

Athena: How do you politely tell someone you want to smash their face in with a brick several times?

Apollo: One wishes the acquaint your face with a rigidly-edged object commonly used in the construction of walls. Repeatedly.

Athena: Wow. That was poetry.

Artemis: No, that was a therapy cry for both of you!

Quick messy comic based on this lil fake myth I made a bit ago and the fact that I've been blasting Bruno Mars for the past couple of days.

The myth post: here!

Also!! New little tidbit for the myth I made. I have now decided that the first wolf that Apollo asks to howl for his sister was Kitrinomavri!!! The same wolf that continues to be his companion to this day. This is why both Apollo and Artemis love Kitri so much, bc she kept them connected after Apollo's exile pulled them apart.