Lester Papadopoulos || Aρołło ☼ ♫ (
papadopoulos) wrote2024-06-02 12:53 pm
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Entry tags:
happy pride, etc
“Uh, people were killed.”
“No one was killed at Stonewall.”
“No…body…was killed???”
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The café is looking much more colorful than it has in the past. Specifically, there are various flags draped on top of the walls – certainly it is much brighter than anything Enjolras would have cared to come up with. Directly behind the pastry case there is a rainbow flag, and scattered around there are a myriad of other pride flags. (Whatever they could scrounge up from the cupboards, basically.) There is also a small table set off to one side, with various types of beaded necklaces and colored bracelets lying atop it. There is also a small flier with descriptions and explanations of what the different flags represent. Explanations of pride in general will be freely offered, as well.
Dionysus has offered up his cd player, though instead of the same music from the party, it is playing songs from various queer artists. There’s a selection ranging from Bowie to Cole Porter to Billie Holiday, including more modern artists such as Lady Gaga, Mika, Queen, and Green Day. Apollo can be found near the music as usual; but he is currently engrossed in making more of the colored bracelets. He is seated at the table with a box full of friendship bracelet making supplies, wearing an artfully cropped version of this shirt, a hyacinth bloom set behind his ear. Dionysus is at a different table, wearing a knee-length sundress of pink, yellow, and blue stripes and one of the beaded bracelets Apollo is making, this one in yellow, white, purple, and black beads. He found a small facepainting palette with a few pride flag options and is willing to offer up his services if anyone happens to want a tiny flag on their cheek (or, well, wherever.)
Let us know if you want Apollo, Dionysus, or both for your threads!
“No one was killed at Stonewall.”
“No…body…was killed???”
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The café is looking much more colorful than it has in the past. Specifically, there are various flags draped on top of the walls – certainly it is much brighter than anything Enjolras would have cared to come up with. Directly behind the pastry case there is a rainbow flag, and scattered around there are a myriad of other pride flags. (Whatever they could scrounge up from the cupboards, basically.) There is also a small table set off to one side, with various types of beaded necklaces and colored bracelets lying atop it. There is also a small flier with descriptions and explanations of what the different flags represent. Explanations of pride in general will be freely offered, as well.
Dionysus has offered up his cd player, though instead of the same music from the party, it is playing songs from various queer artists. There’s a selection ranging from Bowie to Cole Porter to Billie Holiday, including more modern artists such as Lady Gaga, Mika, Queen, and Green Day. Apollo can be found near the music as usual; but he is currently engrossed in making more of the colored bracelets. He is seated at the table with a box full of friendship bracelet making supplies, wearing an artfully cropped version of this shirt, a hyacinth bloom set behind his ear. Dionysus is at a different table, wearing a knee-length sundress of pink, yellow, and blue stripes and one of the beaded bracelets Apollo is making, this one in yellow, white, purple, and black beads. He found a small facepainting palette with a few pride flag options and is willing to offer up his services if anyone happens to want a tiny flag on their cheek (or, well, wherever.)
Let us know if you want Apollo, Dionysus, or both for your threads!
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Dionysus holds up the small face painting palette he found. "I'm doing face paint if you want something. I can doodle on you if you'd like."
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"Hi! I don't think we've met. I'm Tally."
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"Nice to meet you, Apollo. That's totally kind offer," she says, meaning it. Handmade items are special because they represent the time and labor put into them, especially for beings who can summon stuff. "Um, what do all the different color combinations mean? Is it a god thing?"
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"Is there one for girls who only like boys, too?" she asks, wondering if she can get one for Georgia.
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"What dost thou?"
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1. "A while" is a phrase which here means, "almost two weeks of real life time because the typist didn't realize she never responded to this tag".
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He walked over to the table Apollo was sitting at and peered into the box. "A bracelet? Why not?"
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But being proud of one's identity and wanting to show that off? That resonated very clearly - it was a large part of the reason why he'd been so reluctant to give up wearing a kefta. It was the unmistakable sign that the wearer was Grisha. Whatever he had been, whatever he would be - he was always and forever Grisha first.
"I very much understand that feeling," he said. "To be proud of who you are and show that even in the face of people who would prefer you did not exist."
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This is not really an accurate representation of what Magnus said to him, but Lancelot also hadn't really been aware that this might be an identity, so there's a lot to consider here.
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He pauses, glancing up and looking thoughtful. After a moment he says, "I suppose that's why I did not know, for certain, my own thoughts on the matter."
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To Dionysus, he says, "Which one, again, is for those who would love both men and women?"
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"Ah, if you're looking specifically for bisexual, that's the pink, purple, and blue one. There's also pansexual though, which is being attracted to any gender, that's pink, yellow, and blue," he motions towards the dress he's currently wearing. "They're ah, pretty close in concept."
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It still counts.
"Ah, the short answer though is that bodies aren't always an indicator of what someone's gender is going to be. Or if they'll have one at all. What're you confused about?" It's a genuine question, he wants to help if he can.
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So he doesn't ask. Instead he says, eventually, "I-- that short answer serves. I find, anyway, that these are not the things that primarily concern me, if I am discerning whether or not I might hope to pursue someone."
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Is this the body he would choose, given the option to look like anything? No, probably not. He would probably look like Bernadette Peters, or Ramin Karimloo, or Yamato Yuuga, or someone like that, honestly. For the most part though he doesn't necessarily mind what he looks like, but he does wish this body had fewer aches and pains. He's a god with lower back problems and bad knees, for crying out loud. Being a little taller to reach things might also be nice.
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"You can't always use that as an excuse to win arguments, big brother." He turns back to Lancelot. "Anyway! So what other questions are you curious about?"
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Look just because it's very wildly different from how Dionysus himself is doesn't mean he is unaware of it as a concept.
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Truthfully, he doesn't even know what problem he's trying to solve. All his skills are useless now, and he's begun to think none of them were ever particularly useful. Knowing every flirtation and friendship, every grudge and motive for violence, didn't give him the ability to predict what happened. It won't help him prevent it from happening again. It's easier not to try anything, to freeze entirely, until the danger passes. And it may never pass.
Absently, he thinks he understands the chemistry here. In times of crisis, the sympathetic nervous system floods the body with the neurochemicals necessary to either fight or flee. There was no place to flee from this particular threat, which was his own yawning grief and helplessness, so he fled himself. Now he only moves in his body as an actor pacing through an empty stage, detached from his own feelings. Today he wanders down to the cafe, to put in an appearance, to keep up a routine.
But the cafe is different, today. Claudius notices the colorful flags hung on high, like at an embassy, and listens to the sound of Cole Porter playing. I truly am never going to dance with that boy, am I? It's the strongest emotion he's felt in days, and he doesn't like it. But he feels briefly connected to himself again, as a thing that sees and hears, with a heart can be moved by music.
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“Claudius! Darling how are you?” He hasn’t noticed anything is wrong yet, this is just, you know, how he is. Fortunately all of the body paint is dry enough that it shouldn’t smudge off on to any of Claudius’s clothes.
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"It seemed like it would be fun to bring some of the party here, even if almost everyone is from a much earlier time period, or just another world entirely. Well, I say 'party', Pride started as protests, there's still protests, but there's also lots of partying. Sometimes it's both at the same time, which is fun." He's talking very fast, all smiles. "Apollo's making bracelets, do you want one?"
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He's been standing and holding the pamphlet for a while, before he realizes he's been asked a question. It's not that he didn't hear it; he simply forgot to give the appropriate reaction. Pay more attention to your cues, he thinks. "I'll take a bracelet," he says. And then, to get Dionysus talking more, he says, "Tell me about the beginning of Pride. Where were these protests?"
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You'd think Dionysus Liber would be able to give a decent summary of the gay liberation movement, but then again you'd also think the god of Drama would be able to give a decent summary of West Side Story and The Wizard of Oz, and here we are.
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It still burns like a hot coal. He would’ve died all the same. All friends die. It’s the common theme that cries, from the the first corpse till to-day, ‘this must be so.'
He’s been silent too long again. He clears his throat. “Neither am I, I think,” he says. “I’ve been told the word is queer.”
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“Right! Well, the flags represent different identities people might feel align with themselves. There’s quite a big umbrella, and if everyone who might fit under it is just called “gay” or “queer” it can sometimes feel a little, y’know, isolating, if your specific experience is different from how you’re seeing everyone else. Someone might be attracted to every gender, including what most would consider the “opposite”. But if in their mind “queer” is just men attracted to men only and women attracted to women only, they might assume they don’t fit in. But then they learn the terms pansexual and bisexual and realize no, nevermind, there are people like them as well. Or maybe someone is asexual, a lot of my friends who are ace have talked about that specific struggle too, of feeling like they don’t fit in anywhere, until they learn of the community. Uh, that’s— that’s when you’re not sexually attracted to anyone, not “asexual” in the scientific sense of reproducing by yourself.” Claudius is pretty scientifically minded, Dionysus thinks he might need that clarification if this is the first time he’s hearing the term.
“And then there’s the whole consideration of personal gender. Lots of different flags in that realm as well. But even though there’s all the different specific identities, it’s still important to work together to try and fight back, you know?”
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"You know, if something's up, you can talk to me, right?"
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He doesn't sound angry, because he isn't angry (at Claudius, anyway), but he definitely sounds passionate, and it might be easier than normal to see why he was given the name Liberator. "Sometimes the best way to protect the safety of your immediate circle is to stand together with everyone else going through the same shit."
He's thinking about centuries and centuries worth of friends who couldn't live how they wanted, who couldn't be with who they wanted, who were forced into a life that brought them no joy, just because someone somewhere decided to pass shitty laws that allow misery and hatred to be the accepted way of things.
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"Claudius," he says, almost pleading, "you can talk to me. That's what I'm here for. What's wrong?"
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He can imagine the stark, black lines in his trauma workbook, the ones he didn’t want to fill in because it felt like confession. What triggers you or causes you to react strongly? What feelings come up when you are triggered? His voice is even. He doesn’t look Dionysus in the eye, but over his shoulder. But even detached like this, he stays in the hug. Despite everything, he wants it to make him feel something.
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They need to sit down, they need to talk. Dionysus is incredibly aware of the fact that Apollo is sitting maybe a yard away, and that literally anyone could walk in at any given moment. He doesn't think Claudius would appreciate that.
"Do you want to sit in here? My room's just a few doors away too if you would like that better."
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"Who?"
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He doesn't have time to worry about that right now. Getting Claudius stable is his main priority.
"I take it you were close with him?" It almost feels like a sense of deja vu1. How many times in his life has he needed to console someone, because the Fates decided their friend's allotment was up long before anyone else expected it to be? There's different ways people handle things, of course, but this is a role Dionysus seems to have found himself typecast as, over the millennia.
1. Deja vu, or maybe just the mansion being wibbly wobbly timey wimey...
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"I would've liked to have known Shen Yuan better," he says. "He had a fascinating mind."
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"I only met him once, at the party."
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There were no other nights. He should have asked at the first dance, should have insisted and let Luo Binghe simmer, because holding back from fear back has only ever cost Claudius. He shouldn't have had to fear.
But none of it matters, because, "I'm sure he would have refused."
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"I'm going to make you something," he says, and magics up a kylix of kykeon. Not the psychoactive kind everyone used to use back in all of Demeter's celebrations, it's not needed right now. There's a real death to deal with, not a hypothetical, religious "death" that people dealt with by getting super drugged up.
This kykeon is still very strong, in an alcoholic sort of way, due to the pramnian wine serving as its base. But that's sort of the point, to serve as a way to kickstart Claudius's emotions back into gear so he can hopefully stop looking so incredibly, painfully numb.
"It doesn't taste good," it doesn't look like it would -- a dark, almost blackish purple color, and thick like a smoothie, due to the cheese and oats inside, "but would you drink it? For me?"
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"I know it's not great, but I'm glad you're drinking it. It'll help. Do you like the blanket? Doesn't it feel nice and heavy?"
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"How is Galahad handling everything?"
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"I'm glad you two have each other. Having a partner you love and can rely on helps. Even if he doesn't have --" what was it? Jesus fire? Something. "the abilities he used to have." Good save. Probably. "Most people don't have abilities like that, y'know. But that's what is so great about having loved ones. You're able to get through the rough times together. It's hard, and it can be pretty scary at times, but having people worth getting up out of bed for every day makes -- well, it makes everything easier."
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Is this the strength from faith true believers experience? The words of the church, even in times of mourning, only reminded him of his weakness. Impious stubbornness, he thinks. A fault against the dead. To be this crushed and empty speaks only to his failure to accept the inevitability of death, to say with Job, Man's days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass. But Dionysus isn't that god who chooses when sparrows fall.
And anyway, Claudius thinks more wryly, Crowley and Aziraphale stepped in with Job, and Job and his family were all happier for it. He takes another long drink of the kykeon. Like a child, he asks, "Thou wilt not leave me?"
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“Of course I won’t leave you,” he responds softly, holding him close, his own weight adding to that of the blanket. “I’m here as long as you want me. I’m stubborn like that.”
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"Part of the problem for Shen Teh is that she tried to bear every burden alone. Granted, the script was written in such a way that it would have made it difficult for her to find someone who could help her out," Wang the Water-Seller is really the best option she could have had, and, you know. Plot devices to keep the two from actually talking much, or whatever. "But we don't have to worry about that. Especially not here. It's hard right now, but we've got such a sweet little community of people. None of us have to bear anything alone. You don't need to invent a Shui Ta to get through this, Claudius, you can just be Claudius."
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Yeah, when they first met, it was a little bit like meeting a celebrity. He got to meet King Claudius, how special is that? But the actual special thing about this place is that he can get to know just Claudius. Who he is, separated from who Will wanted him to be. That's the person Dionysus cares about, not just a character in a play he already knows.
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But a play is not a prophecy. And even if it were, Dionysus is pretty sure Laius would have lived if Oedipus had been teleported to the mansion. That's clearly something that neither him nor Apollo can foresee, as evidenced by the fact that they were both taken by surprise at arriving here.
"I think you're here so that you don't live out a tragedy," he says, with full confidence. "The same way Étienne and Mercutio are here to be saved from death, the same way my brother is here to escape our father, the same way I'm here to give you monologues to learn and to make sure everyone had enough vitamins to make it through the winter."
He boops Claudius's nose, you know, for old time's sake.
"I'm not going to pretend I understand everything that's going on with this place. Anything that's powerful enough to keep me trapped -- not to mention Apollo -- that's weird. But I can't imagine they'd want to bring us all here if the plan was to have us live the same kinds of lives we all had to deal with before. If that were the case why even bring us to start with?"
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Étienne, not Galahad. Obviously.
"Whatever the downsides to this place are, we can work together to make it better. To make it bearable for each other. More than bearable. You're getting married, for goodness sake. There is so much happiness to go around."
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One hand travels down to Claudius's chest, to rest above his heart. "Grief means you had someone worth missing. To block it out entirely is to deny yourself the chance to remember the good, too."
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"I suppose when you look at it that way, it is sorta perfect," he says, as if this isn't a thought he's already had before, how it's so fitting that the person worshipping him here is one of the ones from a play. "Thank you, though," he says, grabbing one of Claudius's hands and kissing the back of his fingers. "It does mean a lot, that you'd trust me like this."
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He runs a hand through Claudius's hair, then wraps him up in a big hug. "I'm gonna be here for you, dear. Whenever you need me."
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Today, he is drawn in by sheer curiosity, an answer to the music piping from its doorway and into the hallway. He steps inside, hands tucked neatly behind his back, with a look of faint surprise, glancing around.
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"So -- you may not know a lot, is what I'm hearing, then." He tilts his head and threads another bead onto his latest bracelet. "Unless you've been doing a lot of reading here, I don't know."
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1 Though he has on occasion failed to take responsibility for a few children himself. He's working on that.
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"These flags," he says, at some length. "They are part of the celebration?"
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He sets the basket down on the floor beside Dionysus' table, drawn to the face-painting setup.
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Galahad! Galahad thank you so much for the stars! This is my brother. Apollo. He points to Apollo.
"Apollo," he says out loud to get his attention, then switches back to signing. Come meet Galahad.
1. almost like he's the god of it, or something
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Oh! Hi. He considers a moment, then continues signing. Nice to meet you. I'm his big brother. Kind of. Complicated. He certainly does not look like a big brother, but like he just said; it's complicated.
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When Dionysus points out Apollo, he turns to look. Hi, he signs back. Complicated?
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As to the question of 'complicated', Apollo and I are from different universes. He debates whether or not he should mention that Apollo is from Magnus's universe. He knows that Galahad and Magnus are besties, but that, uh. Might backfire, considering, you know. Everything.
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I see my sweet nephew told you all about Apollo's first day.
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that he definitely had with him the whole time, regardless of whether or not the typist remembered to mention it, it's an important part of face painting, clearly.Do you want some glitter?
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Do you want paint as well? Or just glitter?
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Satisfied that any more paint would be too much, he picks up the glitters and starts in with those, adding them on top of the drawings in strategic places.
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Finally he puts the mirror down and says, tonelessly, "I love it."
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He breathes a sigh of relief and smiles. "I'm glad! I know I'm not the world's greatest artist or anything, so I'm glad you like it. Whenever you're ready to wash it off it should come off with soap and water." he pauses. "The glitter might be stubborn. It tends to stick around."
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After a hesitation he adds would you like a scone?
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Yes please! I would love one! Thank you!
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The thought that eating one (1) sweet thing would be considered an indulgence and not, just, normal damn behavior is so frustrating. Dionysus can't stand it.
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Especially if 'sin' extends all the way to eating snackies. Seriously, what a fucked up religion.
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Dionysus was pretty sure Claudius enjoyed it, considering, well. But it's still good to hear so from a trusted news source.
Just because he enjoyed it doesn't mean everyone would though.
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Thank you, he says again.
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She enters and bows politely, addressing both men. "Please excuse my ignorance. What manner of celebration is this?"
((note for those who haven't met Qi Yan before - she uses she/her in her own narration, but presents as a man and expects people to perceive her as such))
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1 There's a lot of new guys; Apollo just hasn't met everyone yet.
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He should do the math to figure outhe should ask Apollo to do the math to figure out new lyrics for Seasons of Love.no subject
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Sure enough, his arms are covered in little designs.
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"You can't put this on bones, they're on the inside, it's for external use only, dear brother."
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"So anyway, as I was saying before the baby from the opening of Teletubbies over there interrupted us, toes." He's aware that Grantaire will not know what the hell a Teletubby is, but he also hopes that there is enough context in his tone for it to be obvious that he's dragging the heck out of Apollo. He can explain Teletubbies later if necessary.
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"We were just listing out possibilities, tiny little baby big brother, we never said we were actually going to paint each other's heels."
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1 Except for that one five year old kid in Indiana who may or may not be his, Trophonius is a troll.
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1. Or... close enough to count, anyway.
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There's also all of the war crimes, but that's another thing Dionysus isn't thinking about.
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1. Ignoring the fact that this is, technically, not the same person who has ever attended one of this Dionysus' parties. He just forgets sometimes.
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She has been dressed in a festive outfit, has been given a festive beaded necklace (Auntie Sissy was very upset about this, but Sunny assured her she would not swallow any of the beads. She did not seem to hear her when she said this, and Uncle Polly had to mention how if Sunny chokes he can fix her, whatever that means), and is now sitting in a high chair with a roll of festive stickers, slowly peeling them off the paper backing one by one and placing them all over the previously mentioned festive outfit.