Rose Wild

A couple weeks after a "hot Italian emo boy " (as so named by Cecil and Lou Ellen) walks into the coffee shop, Will Solace is ambushed by some... ominous civilians.

Surely this isn't connected to him having secretly (and emphasis on secretly) healed The Angel of Death six months ago.

Because life was bad enough for Will when he started falling for some guy he only knew by first name. He didn't need to get wrapped up in some web of identity-revealing schemes that would shatter his entire world.

This is your reminder that you do not have to look at the news. You do not have to spend all your time on Tumblr and/or social media angrily reacting to and/or reblogging endless copy-pasted tweets or articles or other outrage and terror about whatever else stupid is going on now. Your chief priority for now and the next four years is to survive and to take care of yourself and your community as best you can. Whatever that looks like for everyone will be different, but please know that if anyone is judging you for how you cope with all this orange bullshit, they are an asshole.

Also: time goes by fast. Four years will pass, perhaps surprisingly quickly. The last four years did, and so will the next four. I am not optimistic, but I am stubborn. I think we'll probably be okay. Not all of us, no, and not for the short term, but even that is not automatically destined to be terrible in all things and everywhere. Nothing is foreordained and nothing is inevitable. They are very stupid, mean, incompetent, vile, and cruel, but they are not smart. They are not evil geniuses. I am not going to assume ahead of time that they will magically be able to do everything they bluster about, or even that it will have the effect they imagine if so. Etc. etc., cardinal rule of living under fascism: do not obey in advance.

Take care of yourselves. We will get through this.*

So, when you need a break, when you need a reminder that media is skewed, please remember that **good things still happen.**

You are Percy Jackson, and you have been swapped with a boy who was allegedly everyone's favorite person, but they have decided to replace him with you. They just met you. You stand next to his best friend and the people he's known his entire life. In his home. In his cloak. In his place. They stopped looking for him.

You are Jason Grace, and you have just found out you have a long lost sister who completely replaced you in her life with this girl you just met. Your lives and personalities are mirrors. She is you, living the life you were robbed of.

You are Annabeth Chase, and you have just become starkly aware that you have been inhabiting the void left behind by your best friend's long lost brother. You and Luke were just replacements for him. Now you have to look him in the eyes when he has nothing and know you took that life from him.

You are Piper McLean, and you have just found out your relationship is fake and built entirely on the memories of Annabeth Chase. You have been given a boyfriend when hers has been taken away. You have no idea how much of it is real or not but regardless you feel like if your relationship isn't exactly in their image that you have failed.

You are Leo Valdez, and you have just learned that you are the echo of your great-grandfather. You are not your own person. You just exist to be a mirror of him. A doppelganger. An actor and stunt double facing all the danger he never had to but wearing his face. To be there for his best friend decades later simply because he couldn't. You are playing a role. A seventh wheel and a pawn for a goddess who carefully sculpted your entire life for her own purposes.

You are Hazel Levesque, and the only reason you are alive is because your brother couldn't save your his sister. You are a consolation prize. An apology. Your existence here is misplaced in every way but you inhabit it anyways.

chiron: how so?

leo: well jason is like a robot, or some fighting machine, because with all his training he’s so programmed and concise. frank is basically the bipolar animal version of the hulk. piper is weirdly calm and seductive with her “you think what i tell you to think” voice. annabeth is methodical and sneaky and alarmingly brutal. nico is just creepy as hell. and hazel’s like a freaky witch with all her voodoo magic shit

chiron: all great descriptions. and percy?

leo: oh percy’s just a crazy son of a bitch

chiron, chuckling: and you’re not?

leo: hey i may be ADHD off the walls, and i do make some crazy plans, but that dude should be deemed legally insane. i once saw him jump onto the back of a giant sea monster, stab it with a narwhal’s tusk, and then ride a great white shark around as he lassoed monsters with kelp ropes. and the entire time, he was singing a cage the elephant song

chiron, nodding thoughtfully: “ain’t no rest for the wicked?”