#man ...

like yeah, she would be! persephone has not seen her rapist since he threatened to expose the photos he took of her during the assault, and it caused her to break down and run away. she knows he's manipulative, she's seen first hand how apollo has warped and twisted so many people to hide his crime, she knows he's powerful and dangerous. even surrounded by so many other people, the nineteen year old girl who was asleep in her bed is still terrified of apollo.

i have zero issue with this part - in fact, i really sympathized with persephone here. the idea of not only having to play nice with your abuser, to pretend to give them an ounce of respect or kindness they do not deserve, but knowing they are not sorry for what they did, knowing they want still to hurt you in some way? you can be queen of the underworld or the mortal realm or of all the gods, and that is still a horrifying prospect.

but then we run into this:

and it's not a bad sequence, or a problematic one; the issue is that persephone has not done any of the work to get to this point.

and by work, i'm talking about therapy, about sitting down and talking to someone about this on her own terms. she had one therapy session where her assault was tacked into the last five to ten minutes of the session; there is no indication she's ever gone back. she's been confronted on her assault - hades, hera, artemis, eros, and hermes have all found out about it without persephone telling them, or wanting to tell them, and hephaestus is aware (which it seems persephone does not know) because he deleted the photos of her assault. hera and hephaestus literally saw her assault in those photos. all of those people and instances are outside of persephone's control; she has never, not once, told any of her friends or her husband of what happened to her of her own choice. in at least three of those instances, she had to comfort the other person who is finding out about her trauma.

and that leads to another issue, which is that persephone has categorically refused to bring apollo to justice. in the past, when apollo had leverage over her, and she was still coming to terms with what happened to her, it was understandable that persephone didn't want anyone to know what happened. the problem is that in the time between her rape and current time, apollo has tried to kill one of her close friends, brought demeter to zeus in exchange for persephone's hand, attempted to kill the king of the gods, and is now weaponizing the deadly winter to become king. at least three members of the olympians know persephone was assaulted, including the queen of the gods. persephone has witnesses and backup and power, and she is still not using it to put apollo away.

so this promise to protect herself, to protect the nineteen year old girl who was alone with a monster - it rings a little too hollow for me. because persephone isn't protecting herself, she's running from herself. she's running from who she used to be and what she once was and what led her to that point. and as so many abuse victims can attest to, running often feels like the easiest thing, and the most protective thing. but at some point, you have to stop running, because it isn't protecting you - it's wearing you down.