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okay damn, did not expect my shitpost to do so well - thanks a bunch y’all 😭😭😭!!!
but that’s gotten me curious, would there be any actual interest in buying a lester mouse keychain if i started selling them? i would have to do a bit more research on shipping fees, but i’m thinking of pricing them at roughly $7-8 per keychain (subject to change.)
(reposted because the first poll only went for a day, oops!!)
all that love on my last post i’m going insane LONG HAIRED LESTER IS COMMON??? WHAT THE HEY GUYS!!!!! Long haired lester, earrings lester, I HAVE SO MANY HCS!! yeah forreal just straight up request toa questions and drawings and whatever I WILL ANSWER!! here’s a paragraph of me being insane +possible ToA spoilers for all books :)
HCS UNDER THE BREAK
The new trailer had me staring at every frame to look for Apollo like
Fic concept where post-TOA Meg is sent back in time to accompany Apollo on his exile of purification after killing Python as a godling.
One of the most interesting things about TOA for me is Apollo's relationship with his father. Like, the parallels between Zeus and Nero are abundantly clear, and it's impossible to deny that Zeus has done some horrible shit to Apollo and countless others. What separates him from Nero for me, though, is that while Nero has no love in him at all, Zeus seems to have doted on his son in the past (book 2 lullaby scene), and is suggested to still worry for him even now, albeit only once his very existence is at risk (book 5 council scene).
I think that there is love in Zeus, but that eons of being a tyrant have made him so angry and paranoid that it's been buried pretty deep. Does this make him a good person? No. Does this mean Apollo should forgive him? No way! The dude's a mess, and I think Apollo's choice to distance himself from him is the best thing he could have done. All I'm saying is that I don't think Zeus is quite the bastard some fics make him out to be, and that it makes me sad to always see him portrayed as a simple villain. I think he's more complex than that. Does that make any sense?
I think a lot about Lesterpollo specifically describing Lityerses to be like an abused pitbull in The Dark Prophecy, and then I think about how one of King Midas's defining characteristics is his foolishness, something I argue carries over in Rick's portrayal of him, especially when Jason tricks him into "helping Lityerses up" and even with Lit yelling at him not to, he does so anyway. A trick that was foreshadowed, by the way, by Midas mentioning accidentally turning Lit to gold every now and then.
I think there was a severe reversal of the parent/child dynamic with Midas and Lityerses which contributed to Lityerses becoming the swordsman he is.
The reframing of Lityerses as an abused guard dog who went to Commodus because he had nowhere else to go when Midas died and Gaea was defeated makes me think Midas was incompetent and unable to look out for his own safety, even back in Ancient Greece. I like to think Midas had a tendency to let people into his house too easily (think how unconcerned he was about Jason and co. flooding in, and how the Golden Touch in the first place was a reward for his excellent hospitality).
Maybe some of these guests were dangerous. And sure, Midas could turn them to gold, but that whole thing is kind of dependent on Midas being able to touch them before they're able to hurt him. Try running up and tapping someone with a sword, or spear, or any other weapon that gives them even a little bit of extra reach than you have. It's not going to be easy to get to them before they can impale you.
But hospitality laws are also pretty strict and divinely enforced, especially back in Ancient Greece, and Lityerses can't just violate them even if he wants to.
And so, we get to his challenge; beat him in a cornhusking competition, or die by his blade. It's the perfect little xenia getaround; goad someone into a competition with a death penalty and then kill them for losing, and then argue they signed up for it.
I think that in a lot of ways, Lityerses was the one running the household. Making sure everything gets done, protecting them from invaders, and making sure his absent-minded, lazy father doesn't get them into some situation Lityerses can't drag him out of.
This doubles as a convenient explanation for why Lityerses somehow believed he'd be different after seeing Commodus burn through countless prefects for little things. After spending both of his lives working for his bumbling idiot of a father, I could easily see Lityerses coming to believe that everyone else before him really just had been that dumb. It's like being the smart kid in class and just accepting that the only way to get a good grade on the group project is to do it all yourself before you even know who your partners are. Lityerses is so used to watching Midas actually be that dumb that he totally buys all those other prefects were, too.
In turn, having Commodus turn on him just as quickly finally made Lityerses realize that he never stood a chance. His loyalty was not, in fact, going to be rewarded like it was with Midas. Midas would at least be proud of Lityerses and love, if not Lityerses himself, the things that Lityerses does for him. But Commodus was a whole different thing.
This whole bit at the end of The Dark Prophecy really fits into all of this:
It implies absolutely so much. Did Commodus and Lityerses really have a dynamic like this implies? I think so, because Lityerses doesn't deny Commodus having served as a father figure. They don't ever seem particularly close in the scenes before this, but giving their relationships with their birth fathers, I don't think either Commodus or Lityerses would consider emotional closeness as necessary. They both seem to understand paternity as a matter of hierarchy and power rather than instruction and love (hey, what a prevalent theme for ToA!), but the idea of Commodus personally recruiting Lityerses after Midas's death and the fall of Gaea is interesting. I might write a fic about that conversation later, because I feel like this conversation suggests so much potential that TDP didn't have the time or focus to go into.
As a toa fan I would love to know what other toa fans think Meg's fatal flaw is. We never get her pov so it's a little hard to figure out imo and I'm interested in hearing others' thoughts on the topic.
Maybe stubbornness or rigidity?
Meg has a pretty inflexible worldview that her character arc revolves around deconstructing (notably surrounding the separation between Nero and the Beast, and the prospect of a future free from abuse). While a lot of it comes down to how she processes and copes with that specific trauma, I think it’s the root cause, and her recklessness and impulsivity are just symptoms of that.
22 year old me and 10 year old me had two completely different priorities reading Blood of Olympus.
I’m rereading the scene at the Acropolis where Apollo is scapegoated for the war and I’m agonizing over the tragedy of it all with TOA in mind, whereas I remember younger me skimming through this passage for the first time and ignoring half of it because I just wanted to get back to reading Leo’s POV 😭😭😭
I was so willing to just consider it a happy ending because Leo was alive and had a girlfriend for some reason that I completely ignored/forgot about the most obvious sequel foreshadowing of all time.
Me: “That was a perfect ending! I’m so glad my favorite character made it out alive! I hope maybe one day we’ll see Leo make it back to his friends, but I don’t think Rick has any plans for a sequel. He tied up all the loose ends!”
Apollo in the fucking torment nexus:
22 year old me and 10 year old me had two completely different priorities reading Blood of Olympus.
I’m rereading the scene at the Acropolis where Apollo is scapegoated for the war and I’m agonizing over the tragedy of it all with TOA in mind, whereas I remember younger me skimming through this passage for the first time and ignoring half of it because I just wanted to get back to reading Leo’s POV 😭😭😭
I was so willing to just consider it a happy ending because Leo was alive and had a girlfriend for some reason that I completely ignored/forgot about the most obvious sequel foreshadowing of all time.
I get unreasonably irritated whenever I see discussions about TOA being watered down to it being the series where Lester pisses himself, because it had the potential to be a legitimate depiction of a character’s trauma response as they struggle with their mental health.
Unfortunately, Rick was playing it for laughs so it’s not handled with any dignity at all. I’m delusional however, so I’ll continue to interpret it as if it were.
It took maybe my seventh reread to realize that Apollo’s completely bullshitting here.
He should know who Walt Whitman is. He probably, definitely did prior to becoming mortal. Apollo is having a knee jerk reaction disparaging his work however because he’s not able to cope with the fact that he’s more disconnected with his domains than ever.
The characterization here is really intriguing. Apollo would rather make himself look completely self absorbed in front of Grover and Meg than be vulnerable and admit that he’s losing huge portions of his identity the longer he’s human. As if avoiding talking about it would stop it from happening, or at the very least keep people from worrying about him or pitying him.
I just spent the last day and a half reading through it and oh my god. yeah. yeah.
