Eros | Eric Eleutherios

Hay guys!

Okay. SO. As we are a rather large fandom here - one which has just undergone a pretty huge resurgence in the bar - I thought it might be a good idea to put this up. (And I figure I'll repost it to our plotting comm if/when it gets made.)

A little while ago we had an information-gathering post regarding what's going on with our pups and their individual canon, but we've never really discussed what's going on in canon as a whole.

The reason I think we need to have this discussion now is with all of the new people coming in, I've noticed perspectives on writing the gods and Olympus that are different - and in some cases, contrary - to what's been written in the past. I'll say right now that I don't think this is a horrible thing: of course a canon like ours evolves and changes over time, especially with characters and muns cycling in and out, that's just how things happen. I've been playing Eros since 2004, so of course I've seen changes in my time. But I do also think it's a good idea to keep track of the changes, and to make sure we're all more or less on the same page with them.

Okay? Okay!

The big thing is what's going on with Olympus right now. Previously most of us muns had written that modern-day (i.e. 2008) Olympus had been abandoned by all of the gods, who had subsequently scattered across the world. On top of that, most of the gods didn't keep in touch with each other as they previously had. In a couple of cases I remember hints that there was some kind of falling-out; some characters might have explored this in more detail, I don't remember.

Off the top of my head, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the following pups followed this - warsgod, wine_women_song, alas_alas, to_the_fairest1, mercurialist, colour_girl, the various Muses, aaand, well, Eros, and possibly some others I've forgotten.

I should also mention that this of course only applies to modern-day pups, so anyone writing about hanging out in Olympus either in ancient times or, well, some time in between? Is probably just fine.

So. Questions. What time point are you writing from? Does your character visit Olympus a lot/sometimes/not at all? Have you written anything that differs from this above? If so, how can we start to work on reconciling these different points of canon?

Thanks, guys! :D

Eros stands outside of apartment 111, and waits. And winces.

"Hub bub bub bub."

"I hope you're not drooling again," he says, hesitantly.

"Bub bub bub bub."

"You are, aren't you?"

"Bub bub!"

"What did I tell you? If you're going to argue then you're going to have to use normal words like everyone else."

There is a long pause. Then, the voice which had previously been speaking nonsense says, "Down."

"Fine."

Eros complies, kneeling down and swinging the small child off of his shoulder, letting her stand on the floor. She wobbles slightly but stands upright, using one hand to grasp his trousers. Apparently pleased with herself, she turns to look up at Eros, fixing him with a stern look through her golden blond curls.

"Bear."

Brushing off his knees as he stands upright, Eros reaches for the pocket of his finely-tailored suit jacket, which is bulging in a most unfashionable manner - stuffed as it is with plush animal. After a brief moment of wrestling and one or two snapped stitches, he, grumbling, pulls out a teddy bear. It's not quite a regular teddy bear - for one thing it's been modelled more on a grizzly than anything else, and its tiny plastic fangs and claws clearly state: Serious Business.

The child takes the bear and immediately sticks its head into her mouth.

Eros continues his wait, watching the door and looking pained.

A minute or so passes.

Finally the little girl takes the bear's head out of her mouth again. "Open," she says firmly.

"It's not quite that simple," Eros mumbles.

The girl seems to consider this. "Open!" And she swings the bear like a weapon.

"No, wait, I'm not quite ready to -!"

But it's too late. The bear strikes the door three times with surprising force, resulting in a tone that could only be described as a knock.

Eros sighs, and covers his eyes with one hand. "Oh, here we go."

The problem with Frank Sinatra is that he doesn't have many songs you can whistle the next day.

(Doesn't mean Eros isn't trying, though.)

There's sunlight shining in through the broad wall of windows that makes up one side of the cabin, more than enough to light up the open-concept kitchen. Every now and then Eros glances up and grins at the sight visible through them: a deck that leads to a sloping lawn, and just a short distance beyond that a long dock reaching out into a mirror-calm lake. Every now and then there's the sound of a loon, or the sight of a bird of prey above the pine trees.

Eros wiggles his bare feet against the ceramic tiles as he cooks. Hopefully Goldy likes bacon.

Eros is making bullets for his gun.

In the old days, this was much easier. The gold he would get from tokens meant for him, people praying for his guidance or aid. And he was a god, so he could shape it, getting Haphaestus to help with the difficult parts. There's not much shape to an arrow, after all: just shaft and head, and don't think that didn't remind him of something else. Doves he would catch by hand, plucking their tail feathers and setting them free, because doves need to be free - they just do.

The ... other kind, however, was always harder. Lead would always be heavy and hard to find - no one sends lead to a god of love. Once or twice he was reduced to sifting the impurities from the other tokens sent to him, until he had enough. And then he would have to capture an owl, and kill it, because owls must die - they just do. And he would have to apologize to Athena, who would just sigh and nod. Ah, Athena. In her wisdom, she always knew what had to be done.

He would always keep the two kinds of arrows apart. And for every hundred, or thousand perhaps, that he shot of the first - never missing - he would use maybe one or two of the second. Each time he did fire the latter, he would throw down his bow, and break it, and swear that he was done with it all. But soon he would return, and mend his weapon, and carry on.

Arrows of love, and arrows of indifference.

But now, things are different. The bow is gone. Instead, he has a gun. And he hardly spends days on Olympus anymore; it is quiet there, becoming empty, almost dead. So he doesn't need to wait for gold and lead to come to him - he just goes and buys it.

Still, gold is hard to come by, and expensive. He can afford it, but if he buys too much at once, people become suspicious, and he doesn't like to be anything but loved. Not to mention the fact that the bullets it makes are soft, and prone to almost misfiring (he never actually misfires, however. He's too good at what he does for that.) Doves are even harder to locate. Once he found a place that rented them out for weddings, and ordered a dozen. But once he plucked them, he realized that he couldn't set them free, he couldn't; they weren't his, and if he released them, people would get mad and... hate him. And so he sobbed for a while, and threw away the feathers. They were useless.

But it depresses him how easy it is to find lead now. And owls. They live on, even in cities, hiding out in the attics of old buildings; the rafters of churches. He can catch them with little problem. And he doesn't even know where Athena is, but he remembers the birds, each of them, so he can tell her sorry for each and every one when he finds her. The feathers he burns up, watching them combust until they're little more than ash - and this he uses as gunpowder. The lead makes wonderful, wonderful bullets. Small, but heavy, and cold in the palm of his hand. Each one a breaking heart.