yeah...

bonus annabeth bc she was the only one i started rendering before i got too tired and decided to throw these on here... shes too goreguice to keep hidden in the drafts

The terminology for city leadership changed throughout the third millennium BCE with the earliest city leaders being called en or Lord, a title that later became reserved for the priesthood, while city leaders started being called lugal or ensi, meaning things like great man or steward (Garfinkle, 2013: 108). Scholars have interpreted the evidence as suggesting the prominence of priest-leaders in the earlier periods, an interpretation supported by the role of agricultural surplus in the development of urbanism. The surplus required a central governing body to collect and redistribute it, a responsibility often believed to have belonged to the priesthood due to granaries being found in many temple complexes, allowing priests to form an early elite class exempt from physical labour (Childe, 1950: 11-13).

Secular authority began to rise in later periods, an authority that has often been assumed to be, at least initially, associated with the military. This secular kingship needed to usurp the total authority of the priesthood in order to claim a religious and ideological basis for their authority, which was done partially through military actions in the name of defending the city, which was the property of its gods (Van de Mieroop, 1997: 33). A close association with the religious leadership was also required for the secular leader to maintain authority through divine sanction. This close relationship is attested by the purported marriage ceremonies in which the king married the goddess of the city symbolically through the medium of metaphorical marriage rituals with the high priestess (Van de Mieroop, 1997: 33; Garfinkle, 2013: 108).

anyway, Ethan becomes the secular military leader of the city, maybe as an heir of big important general nemesis, and needs ideological support from Al whose the priest, and Al is slightly salty over these military bozos trying to take over some of the priesthood's power and thinks of himself as still being higher in status than Ethan, but then they have their marriage ritual and start working a lot more closely together and getting to know each other and Al starts changing his mind.

I like the idea that they're pretty much the first generation to see this shift of power, so Al grew up in a world in which the priesthood was basically the sole authority ruling over the city, and it's just as he's entering adulthood and preparing to take on greater responsibilities in the temple that Nemesis and her cohort start exerting their will, with Ethan very clearly positioned to be a prominent leader, so Al is busy sticking his nose up at these low class labourers trying to muscle in on his territory, begrudingly giving up more and more ground until Ethan is in a position to consolidate his power by 'marrying' the city's patron goddess who Al is the representative of.

maybe Al only agrees because he wants to cling to his role as the goddess's main representative because now that Ethan and Nemesis' cohort have taken over a lot of the administrative control of the city, Al's religious status is the only power he has left. so he agrees to the marriage ritual, fully intending to be cold and cruel to the low class 'king' and making it very clear who (in his eyes) has the real power, which does not last long.

Ethan still gets a lot of his power and authority from being a military commander so whenever something comes up, he has to go and fight, meanwhile Al locks himself in the temple from the minute he leaves praying for his safety. he doesn’t get up off his knees until Ethan comes back, haggard and covered in blood and too exhausted to even say anything as he goes to Al to sloppily work off the rest of his nerves and adrenaline. Al would just hug him and pet his hair and make out with him until he calms down enough to take a well deserved nap.

Ethan works himself half to death in every universe, and Al, even when he isn’t acting as a proxy for the goddess, still has responsibilities of servitude to her. His whole job at the temple is seeing to the needs of the divine and being their mediator, and Ethan is technically married to the goddess and is also her chosen specialist little boy, so whenever Ethan is too busy brooding and working to take proper care of himself, it’s Al’s job to tend to him.

The mesopotamia au would be very very good for polyshipping because mesopotamian kings often took many wives for political reasons, and the wives often ran different parts of the king's domain like a harem that acts as a presidential cabinet. so. king!Ethan, queen!Annabeth, priest!Al, maybe Percy can be another consort or just some other military commander, and there's scope for others to be included.

Percy was a peasant who joined the army of Annabeth’s state when it went to war against Ethan’s state and the reason they decided to arrange the marriage is because Ethan couldn’t get past Percy, and maybe as a way to honour his role in the battle he gets promoted to being Annabeth’s bodyguard who travels with her to live at Ethan’s state.

Ethan finds Percy psychosexually deeply interesting for being a peasant who was able to keep him at bay (and he also relates to him because his family had a very low status not that long ago), and Annabeth isn’t the most happy with the arrangement because getting fought to a stalemate and having to marry in order to resolve the conflict wounds her pride, so she uses Percy as a balm and rubs it in Ethan’s face that her peasant got so close to defeating them and now that peasant is always hanging around. Also Annabeth's favourite way of rubbing it in Ethan's face is openly making out with her bodyguard whenever Ethan is around.

Al and Annabeth were childhood friends because Annabeth’s family had a good relationship with Al’s temple before Nemesis took over the state, and Al fucking hates Percy because he’s jealous that he’s taking up so much of Annabeth’s attention and is getting lavished in praise, and also because during the conflict, Al was so so stressed about Ethan getting killed in battle at Percy’s hands.

it would be fun if Al was a major pusher for arranging the marriage because it would keep Ethan out of danger and bring Annabeth to come hang out with him, marrying your bestie in the most roundabout way by arranging for her to be married to the guy who is married to the goddess who you are the earthly ambassador and stand-in for.

ALSO, Annabeth had so many siblings back home and wasn’t likely to get a highly prestigious position which really wounded her because she had a lot of ambitions, and then when she marries Ethan he puts her in charge of city planning which helps her come around to the idea of spending her life here because it means she can do all the ambitious architectural projects she always dreamed of.

I also think it would make sense if Annabeth's state was ruled by a family much more connected to priesthood and religion than Ethan because they're still kind of doing it the old way with priests largely running the administration and organisation of city-states. Which is kind of funny because that would mean that Annabeth and her family are earthly representatives of their patron deity, which would make Ethan symbolically married to one deity and literally married to another. Also, I want to give Annabeth's state a bit of a queen Puabi's tomb vibe (iykyk) which is possibly why Ethan doesn't like them and why they felt the need to go to war against them.

AWH HELL YEAH! THANK YOU ANON

Instead of being their mother's favored children they're the least fav rn

Annabeth, still as hubristic ever, wants a throne for her mother, yes. But she doesn't particularly care about balance. She's vengeful and petty and in Nemesis's humble opinion, has wayyy too much faith in her own schemes and abilities. She doesn't like that Annabeth isn't willing to sacrifice a body part/hj

These are only for romantic pairings, not platonic.

The ships in the polls are the twelve (12) most popular ships for each character based on the number of fics on AO3.

F.A.Q.

i have an unserious ethabeth (with a side of lukabeth and lukethan) au that lives inside my head where ethan and annabeth both had crushes on luke at some point and somehow ethan survives tlo

for some reason he sticks around for hoo and he and annabeth are at each others throats all the time, sometimes about luke sometimes not idk. Eventually it evolves into some kind of hate-situationship and they spend the rest of hoo hooking up (and pretending the other is luke but that's neither here nor there). And then reverting to regularly almost killing each other and never talk about it.

maybe they fight less and percy is like 'oh good they're finally getting along :)' little does he know lmao

bonus points if luke is ressurected or smth and being like 'wtf are they doing??' and swinging from sort of freaked out to jealous

i…have no words, i just really like this a lot. annabeth + ethan + luke ot3 would be the most diabolically toxic ship around—so so much jealousy and sexual tension and layered relationships and sexual tension and…what was i saying 🧍