TheEmberGirl

In the end, the only one who always has my back is myself. I am my own worst enemy and yet the only one I can always rely on. No one can hurt me if I hurt myself first

No one caught me when I hurtled wingless into the sea, but I did not drown, I washed ashore, with a pile of cold, damp ashes left for a heart, waiting to spark again like a phoenix reborn

This was all my fault, the distance, I snapped at the olive branch in my hurt pride, and I don't know if I can fix it

I want to live like the sun, bright, incandescent, shining light into everyone's world, I won't stay hidden behind a tempest of storm clouds forever

This is my theory of love: I've loved but never been in love, for to be in love you have to know the feeling is mutual

I should be happy, but another year on this earth has passed and nothing has changed, I still never enough, and I'm still alone

Do I regret ruining the friendship? Maybe, but it had to be done, I misjudged, paid the price, but the worst part was it died a long slow death

Universe, I'm ready for my next lesson, hit me with it, you've never held back before

The lesson wasn't supposed to be family

I don't know if the tempest will ever leave, if I'll ever be the sun again

Do I have friends? Or am I just using people? Maybe something's broken because I don't feel as much anymore

Maybe I don't deserve love, or maybe nobody deserves my love

Apparently I’m not actually done with the angsty art yet, I’ve just moved onto Athena and Odysseus instead.

Indifferent Warrior Goddess and man

Goddess who has learnt empathy and Monster

These two break my heart. The fact they both change so much but never manage to meet in the middle is the real Greek tragedy to me.

In my head these snippets are very connected, even if the lyrics don’t entirely go together. Hence the modifications to make it make sense.

I’ve been a little mean to Poseidon with my art recently, so here’s some happy sketches

1. Trading the usual Hawaiian shirt for a Christmas present from Percy

The aftermath of Apollo putting on a production of EPIC the musical for Camp Half Blood on parents day.

aka local friendly sea god dissociates in the Cabin 3 bathroom shower after his currently least favourite nephew shows his son a musical about when he wasn’t so friendly

Basically I saw that video of Steven Rodriguez sadly singing Ruthlessness while sitting in a shower during the Ithaca Saga premiere party livestream, thought “that is absolutely something PJO Poseidon would do” and ran with it.

(Ithaca Saga spoilers ahead)

So I have another crossover idea (not the one I’m planning to write) that’s been living in my head, and it’s so self indulgent and ridiculous it was only ever meant for me. But post Ithaca Saga listening party, I want to write down my thoughts and share them for reasons mentioned in my previous post. I would also like to note that I have an unhealthy obsession with C-novels and this is part of the inspiration.

So this AU opens in the EPIC timeline with a very old Odysseus on his deathbed, thinking about his life and his deepest regrets: letting his crew die and never properly reconciling with Athena. And in true C-novel fashion, his regrets (and probably Athena’s) are enough let him be reborn and have a second chance to fix his life. So Odysseus dies and the next thing he knows he opens his eyes and he’s young again, standing on his ship sailing out of Troy and Eurylochus is telling him that they’re running out of supplies.

Meanwhile in the PJO timeline, Percy and Luke/Kronos are facing off in the battle for Olympus and as Luke decides to sacrifice himself Kronos lashes out one last by cursing Percy and throwing him backwards in time. Olympus is saved but Percy is missing and Poseidon isn’t happy with that result and finds a way to follow Percy through time. So now we’ve got a reincarnater meets transmigrater situation going on.

Back in the EPIC timeline, despite all his attempts to avoid it, Odysseus still has to resort to going to the cyclops island to find food. But now Odysseus is more careful and tricks Polyphemus into breaking guest right immediately before taking him out using archery or something. Unfortunately Polyphemus still finds their identity before he dies because some crew members start a war chant or something. Fortunately, no crew members die and Poseidon is a little distracted from sending more revenge than a storm because he senses forces intruding on his domain (Percy and PJO!Poseidon).

Anyways Percy gets yeeted onto the cyclops island after being flung through time and runs into Odysseus as he’s packing up supplies in the cave. Odysseus is immediately suspicious because Percy looks a lot like Poseidon and Odysseus is like 90% sure this is a mortal disguise and he’s being tested. Percy is also very on guard because he can sense that Odysseus doesn’t like him and tries not to reveal anything about himself aside from being lost and stranded, which doesn’t help this misunderstanding. Neither does the storm that follows them as they leave the island. Then Athena shows up and makes some cryptic comments to Ody about killing one son and picking up another. She equally cryptically mentions she’s not going to be around for a bit because she senses a disturbance in time and needs to check that out but treat the kid well and you’ll probably be fine.

Where’s PJO!Poseidon? Well unluckily for him he’s landed on the wrong side of the world. Luckily for Percy and Odysseus this means that EPIC!Poseidon is to busy heading that way to check out the larger domain intrusion to bother them and Percy calms the storm pretty easily. No mortal can pass Poseidon’s storm? Sure. But a demigod son of Poseidon is a loophole. By this point EPIC!Poseidon and Athena are both trying to track down PJO!Poseidon, but he keeps losing them. Not intentionally, he actually doesn’t know he’s being tracked and just haphazardly transporting from place to place because he a bit disoriented and has his powers dampened from travelling through time.

Eventually EPIC!Poseidon decides to check on that pesky mortal who killed his son… and what do you mean he’s reached his homeland? So he goes spawn camps outside Ithaca, but when Odysseus and his fleet pulls up, his attention is drawn towards Percy, the second intrusion into his domain. Which leads to this encounter

“There you are! Of course you’re with the coward”

“Hey! leave my son alone!”

“Why are there two of you!?”

That last one is Athena, who’s finally tracked down the disturbance in the force.

So they’re all doing the Spider-Man meme right outside of Ithaca.

approaches with a gift! A simple gift really.

It's a wrapped cookie with a crow feather and tag attached that says

~ Tis the season or Whatever enjoy the cookie caw from - a hooded crow

"Caw"~ A hooded crow

I was super happy and excited to see Athena again, but her reunion with Odysseus just broke my heart. She’s come such a long way and done so much for him since they parted and now there’s a chance they’ll never properly make up?

But then I thought that it kinda works perfectly with the relationship between PJO’s Athena and Poseidon. So, in my headcanon, while EPIC’s Poseidon physically appears to be in his mid to late 20s, acts more like a cruel and petulant teenager. He actually gets worse for a bit after recovering from 600 Strike; think a few centuries of record sea storms. Then he finally starts calming down, has a whole bunch more demigod kids and realises through them that mortal life is fleeting and precious, and slowly becomes a much nicer person to be around. Leading him to becoming the actually chill, fisherman dad we know in PJO who’s everyone’s favourite uncle.

…Well almost everyone. Athena certainly still doesn’t like him. And while that might just be the rivalry they’ve had since the whole Athens thing, what if it’s because Athena’s never forgiven Poseidon for what happened with Odysseus? What if Odysseus rejecting her vision of a better world in I Can’t Help But Wonder is what leads her to becoming bitter enough to go completely mad with Roman Schism and end up sending the best of her demigod children on death quests?

Picture this:

- it’s godly parents day or something at Camp Half Blood sometime between the Titan war and the Giant war. Percy says something along the lines “idk I never finished reading the Odyssey” while bantering with Annabeth and is overheard by Apollo

- Apollo is like “wdym you never finished reading the Odyssey? Oh well, Homer embellished the story in his work anyway. Lemme show you the real deal by putting on this musical I inspired one of my kids to write which depicts the real events, just with songs”

- so he immediately puts it on in the amphitheater with nymphs magicked to look the part playing the of all the characters. It’s probably an awesome production actually, think 4D magical special effects

- Poseidon is visibly uncomfortable and does everything he can to distract Percy/get him to o do something else. Unfortunately for him, Annabeth is very invested in seeing this “true version of history” promised by Apollo and where Annabeth is, Percy stays

- he probably also contemplates just sneaking away and dealing with the aftermath later once it becomes apparent Percy is going to see all of these past events he’s not exactly proud of but A) he wants to keep spending time with Percy and B) Zeus has noticed and is not planning to let Poseidon leave before the musical ends

- “wait where’d Hermes go?” “Oh he’s playing himself on stage”

- Apollo also plays himself in God Games

- Annabeth being a bit surprised at how invested her mum was with Odysseus and glaring at Zeus after God Games

- Percy getting unpleasant memories of battling the same monsters in previous quests. Also he’ll really want to talk to his dad about some of these events afterwards

- Poseidon awkwardly avoiding eye contact with Percy after Ruthlessness, and looking anywhere else but the stage as the Get in the Water approaches. Athena is also pretty amused by this

- All of the Apollo campers somehow knowing all of the lyrics to every song and singing along

Apollo’s palace/infirmary on Olympus post Vengeance Saga.

I actually started this right after the previous art I posted but then life and PhD things hit me like an avalanche and I’ve finally gotten time to finish this right before the Ithaca Saga releases! Hope you enjoy this silly idea as much as I did

The Vengeance Saga continues to live rent free in my head so here’s a coloured version of your local sea god starting to realise maybe ruthlessness isn’t the way after the sailor king he’s been tormenting finally snaps and pulls an uno reverse on him with his own weapon.

Don’t worry, he’ll think things through after a few centuries (millenia?)

Welp, this wasn’t what I expected my second EPIC: The Musical X PJO crossover to be but after listening to the Vengeance Saga here we go. 600 Strike was WILD. Sorry for the spoilers if you haven’t listened yet 😅

When you accidentally let slip to your son a bit too much about the past that you’re a bit embarrassed about and are forced to reflect on your actions (again), amirite?

Percy definitely wasn’t thinking that his dad didn’t kinda deserved what he got, he’s just shocked that it happened