Someonelol

@toapril-official day 6/28 - reunion/lost and found

like, on the one hand, we have a new cast of characters every book, which means a lot of characters can't be fully fleshed out or have complete character arcs. we see this most strongly with characters that were invented specifically for ToA, since we don't have the other books to help fill in the gaps. a lot of characters feel straight-up forgotten once Lester and Meg have moved on from one location to the next. My entire fanfic is based around expanding on the world of Nero's imperial household (I promise I will update soon!) because i felt we know so little about them (there are 11 demigods there and we have 4 confirmed canon names, Meg included). that kind of sucks.

but on the other, all of these connections are so important and i don't think toa would be the same if you took the characters from each novel out. a huge part of toa is apollo learning to be human, interacting with and learning from people he would've once dismissed as beneath him. for meg, who's had her entire world closed off by nero up until this quest, i think the exploration and meeting a ton of new people with different life experiences is equally vital!

toa would not be what it is without its revolving cast of characters because lester and meg would not be who they are at the end of the books if they had not been exposed to so many different people, ideas and ways of living. as much as i feel like a lot of the characters are somewhat forgettable (i may have kind of sort of forgot chiara and valentina were two different characters at all because they fall into the same archetype and have nothing beyond that besides chiara's crush on damien), the experience of meeting them and learning to sympathize is so absolutely vital to the narrative.

that's also why i like that, while lester and meg gain new companions each book, no one stays with them forever. percy agrees to get them to camp and that's it. apollo can't stay at CHB with his kids. calypso, leo and lityerses choose to stay in the Waystation. so on so forth.

i think that is especially difficult for Apollo, who as a god does not have an easy time moving on from loss. having to constantly accept that friends he bonded with won't be by his side anymore is, in my opinion, SUPER important for apollo's growth as a character because one of the things he needs to learn, for the good of himself and everybody he loves, is when it's time to let go and move on. having companions who he can still visit but can't cling to forever is, imo, a very healthy way for him to finally start processing separation.

@toapril-official day 3 - heatstroke

Also I don't think you are ment to bend them, I actually just had a pair of glasses break in the middle and that was not even a result of intended bending

Also I don't think you are ment to bend them, I actually just had a pair of glasses break in the middle and that was not even a result of intended bending

Ofc Nero and Commodus were horrible in their own ways, but all three members of the Triumvirate present their own unique brand of awful.

For Caligula, I think about how insanely invasive and creepy wanting to literally be someone is. Nero will settle for Lester killed with a little flare. Commodus's main goal was also to kill Lester (deep down I don't think that's what Commodus really wanted, but I don't think he'd realize until he'd actually done it and realized it didn't make him feel fulfilled.)

But back to Caligula. For Caligula, killing Lester is not enough. Even killing him with all the flair both Nero and Commodus wanted to is not enough. Caligula isn't planning Lester's death with all that fanfare because he wants to make a big show about it. He's doing it because he has to conduct the proper rituals, which means peeling Lester apart layer by layer and consuming every part of his essence.

He does not, of course, manage to do it. But I think so much about what it must be like to fear dying in the most invasive way physically possible. Dying at the hands of someone who is picking apart all of that which makes you you. Dying at the hands of someone who is consuming your divinity, your powers, your very soul. It will be agony and it will be so utterly exposing.

If Caligula had gotten his way, Lester would've died with every private, intimate little moment stripped from him. Every emotion, all the dread, fear, shame but also all the love and joy, laid bare for Caligula's taking.

All for someone who is obsessed with this idolization of who Apollo as a god was and what Caligula thinks that means.

That, too! Distracted by his trials and used to a lot of attention and worship, I don't think Lester quite puts together how odd Caligula's level of obsession with him is. He doesn't realize how weird it is to be the subject of Caligula's idolization, treated by Caligula as something to be claimed and consumed. Within his own inner monologue, he acts as if he finds wanting to be the sun the most natural thing for a power-hungry emperor, and sure, yeah. But like. He is obsessed, specifically, with this false version of who he thinks you to be, Lester. And he's going to kill you to become you.

Then there's horror of Caligula then intending to walk into Olympus and take Apollo's throne and the fear Lester had that the other Olympians may actually allow it to happen.

Lester was hunted down by Caligula, then lured into a trap. He began the painful experience of having his very life essence strained from him. And if that process had actually finished, he would have died fully believing his family was about to let the man who obsessed over having Apollo's identity to the point of murdering him and consuming all that he was simply take his place in the family.

Now whether or not the Olympians would've actually let Caligula be one of them is another matter entirely, but since I'm focusing on how Lester feels in all of this and what he imagines the situation is like, what matters is that Lester thinks that'd be how it would go down.

All of this objectifies Apollo, both from Caligula's perspective and Lester's own. It treats being "Apollo" as some sort of thing to have instead of just... who Lester is. And Lester himself contributes to this objectification when he believes that if Caligula takes the identity of Apollo, that will be good enough to also take his family and other connections on Olympus, his sunhorses, his home. Everything. Not just everything in Apollo's memories, not just all his powers. All his connections with the people around him on Olympus and everything he owns, too! Caligula's now, as if being the Apollo the Sun God matters more than being Apollo the brother, the god, the friend, the person ever did.

I just thought of how both in this context and outside of it he himself (Lester? Apollo?) thinks of “Apollo” as this third body idea which is separated from him. He is Apollo and Apollo is him, but he keeps saying “Apollo is such” “Apollo doesn’t such” etc. He treats his own identity as a glorified (or hideous, depends) persona that is. Not him. But something else. And he does it so naturally and so mindlessly that it doesn’t even read too weirdly.

Could it be because he currently literally isn’t his old godly Apollo self but Lester the mortal? Could it be that his entire life has been a facade of intricate masking and so much of “Apollo” is now dishonest role play bullshit that he doesn’t even associate this role with himself? Could it be that he doesn’t WANT it to be himself, because that would be too painful - both for terrible things “Apollo” has done or experienced, and for how he used to be so powerful but is now (relative to that) completely helpless as Lester? Could it be because a god is more than a persona with identity, memories and experiences but also eternal, eldritch divine force which (to Cali’s delight) may be taken away from the identity and passed onto someone else, yet remaining the same thing

If your glasses are actively falling from your face, and not just sliding on your nose, it most likely means that the temples need to be bent inwards or the end pieces need to be bent in a smaller angle to grip more around the ear.

The nose pads are meant to make the glasses sit comfortably on your nose, and while they do play a slight role in the grip, it's not that manor. My glasses used to completely fall off my face before I went to a glass shop and asked them to adjust the temples, and then my glasses sat so still on my face that I barely had to push them up. I actually need to go and adjust these glasses as well since they're my backup glasses.

If you have frames made out of plastic you may not have nose pads at all. These are nose pads:

↑ these are meant to be adjustable.

If you have a plastic frame your nose pads may look like this:

↑ here the nose pads are not adjustable (there's also a chance they're not even called nose pads but I can't find what to call them if not)

There are multiple types of nose pads in wire frames as well:

As well as different types of nose pad arms:

The different types give you different levels of adjustability and comfort.

All these differences are meant to accommodate different nose types, but really the main factor you should look into is the temples and end pieces. Even if your glasses are plastic, a glass shop can bend these using heat and the change is DRASTIC. And if it doesn't fit your nose bridge what you want is probably lower nose pad arms and larger nose pads with a bit more friction, but I recommend watching this video and trying to do what she did before you go and buy a whole new pair of glasses:

Been through all that, my first glasses in 3rd grade did actually fall off my face constantly so I went right back to the optometrist to adjust the handle grip. Since then I didn’t have any problems with falling off but they do slide. I’ve had both metal frames with nose pads and plain plastic frames, both slide off.

I’ve adjusted pads many times on different pairs and found that it’s very inconvenient for me, they still never fit 100% and it takes time to get used to the new feel on the nose (very uncomfortable idk why lol). Also one of the pad wires legit broke of at a certain point so I had to get a new pair lol.

But also he's back in his abuser's household after finally getting to learn what life is like outside of his immediate control. He learns what it's like to have healthy relationships that aren't overshadowed and dominated by fear of his father. He's learned that abuse is a cycle he needs to actively decide not to participate in.

And now after all that, the best he can do is decide not to engage with Zeus when possible. But the thing with abusive parents is they're inherently irrational, and even if you don't do anything, they are going to get mad at you sooner or later. Hell, the entire point of ToA was that for all the things Apollo did that were shitty, the thing Zeus picked out as the reasoning for him turning mortal (blaming his prophecy for the rise of the giants) was one of the few things that wasn't his fault because that is simply not how the power of prophecy works. Like yes he massively fucked up with Octavian, but that's not the main reason for his punishment. The main reasoning Zeus had was that Apollo "allowing" the prophecy of the Seven to be spoken caused Gaea's rise.

Apollo also notes that he'll visit the mortal world every now and again and was privileged to be a part of it for a little bit, but knows that the ancient laws prevent him from spending too much time there. So that method of escapism exists but needs to stay largely off the table if he intends to keep those friends he made safe. They're the ones who will end up bearing the brunt of the punishment for it if he doesn't.

Apollo having a healthier mindset is great, but it isn't going to protect him from the physical abuse we know takes place on Olympus, and it isn't going to protect him from verbal/mental abuse either because those things still hurt, even if you have a great mindset about it.

Apollo can try to be better himself, but he accepts that Zeus won't. So after everything, Apollo's ending still includes him being abused and I think that's very bittersweet, especially because they are immortal and so there is no perceivable end.