I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skills is their capacity to escalate.

Markus Zusak / The Book Thief

HOUSE OF CARDS!
( ❝ don't call me twinkle toes. ❞ )
PLAY THE CARDS RIGHT!
( ❝ i mean, if the shoe fits ... ❞ )

━━━━━ WHEN THE GREEKS BUILT, they built to last. They built for the ages — for the end of time. They built temples for the gods, and the gods were everlasting. The gods would see the world to the end. So why shouldn't the Greeks construct anything with the intent for it to last?

But nothing lasts forever. Everything eventually becomes ruins; anything can turn into just a glimpse into the past. It's all just a moment in time — blink and you'll miss it. That's how it was — no matter what the Greeks wanted. They wanted to believe they could best fate, they believed they could withstand it all. Call it hope, call it hubris.

Maybe it was both. But time will always move on, and so will the gods. The gods will outlive anything and everything. They will have to watch the temples built in their names crumble into ruins, watch until those ruins eventually just become dust, carried away by the wind.

Genevieve Archer (but please just call her Genna; Genevieve was so overly-formal) had become okay with that fact. That she would eventually die, and probably not be a name worth remembering. In fact, she longed for the days of death (but she's not saying she's going out looking for an early death, don't think that) — just no more monsters, no more having to deal with her annoying siblings, either. And especially no more days of waiting for the façade — the house of cards — she lived to finally come crumbling down.

She wasn't necessarily living a lie, per sé — she was just lying. (Which she did often, Genna has always been good at lying; just tell someone what they want to hear.) Perhaps the house of cards she was living was the fear of it all finally unraveling; her lies, her past (besides that one fight she had no recollection of, but that she knew got booted her out of California), her anger, her resentment. Especially her resentment.

Genna Archer is the human embodiment of bottled-up emotions. She's been through a lot, and has always been the one person in her own corner. She was the one building a place for herself, whether it was her old bedroom back in California, or her little bunk in Cabin Eleven. She had been the one building the wall of the character she played for others.

Building connections with others allows them to see vulnerability, so Genna always shows just what people need to see — what they want to see. And as a child of Hermes, what people wanted to see was a sly kid with sticky fingers. The troubled kid who's been to juvie more times than the amount of fingers someone has.

It wasn't hard to play that character. Genna has been known to dabble in a bit (see in: a lot) of thievery. Her dad was Hermes; daughter like father. But Genna would cut off her own nose before she'd ever admit to something like that. (Admitting to being like Hermes would be admitting she was like either parent, and that was worse than Eternal Damnation — or maybe that would be her eternal damnation.)

Genna saw right through herself. Of course, she did. She was with herself 24/7, and she was getting very sick of herself. She had seen every bad thing she had ever done, and it was weighing down on her like a king's courtroom (she imagines that would be extremely heavy).

No one has ever stayed in her corner for long. They all struggled to stay, even her own mother. Genna often wonders if their problems get too overwhelming to help her, or if she's too big a reliability. If she causes more trouble than she's worth. And she wonders if she should stop playing the child of Hermes role so much, but it's hard to stop something you've been doing since ... forever. She's been playing the "troubled kid", or "daughter of Hermes" role since her mother started treating her like a troubled kid.

(Which was the moment Genna could start talking for herself.)

The Greeks built things to last, and sure, ruins are there two thousand years later. But what happens after two thousand more? Will it all just be dust, then? Will there be anything left to say the Greeks had built temples for the gods? Or will the Greeks just be a ghost of the past, forgotten by the people of the future?

Houses built from cards were never made to last, they were made to protect people from horrible truths. But nothing lasts forever. And sometimes, it doesn't crumble to dust through the test of time — it burns to the ground through the test of malice.

WE CAN SEE THE END, IT'S VISIBLE ...

GENEVIEVE  ❛GENNA❜ ARCHER
━━━━━━ daughter of hermes

❝ my talent is blowing things up. ❞

PERCY  JACKSON
━━ son of poseidon

❝ is that figuratively or literally? ❞

COLETTE  ❛COLE❜  SLOANE
━━━━━━ daughter of ares

❝ thinking just isn't as fun. ❞

ANNABETH CHASE
━━ daughter of athena

❝ i can tell that you don't. ❞

WHY DO WE BOTHER EVEN TRYING?

as described! . . . grover underwood!
austin north! . . . luke castellan!
as described! . . . clarisse la rue!
finn wolfhard!  . . .  connor stoll!
wyatt oleff!  . . .  travis stoll!
as described! . . . sherman yang!
max barczak! . . . lee fletcher!
as described! . . . michael yew!
young!skandar keynes! . . . nico di angelo!
as described! . . . will solace!
as described! . . . thalia grace!
isabelle furhman! . . . bianca di angelo!
as described! . . . zoë nightshade!
as described! . . . rachel dare!
malina weissman! . . . silena beauregard!
kiko mizuhara!  . . .  drew tanaka!
ryan potter!  . . .  ethan nakamura!
jonathan daviss!  . . .  charles beckendorf!

i. disclaimers!   i own nothing in the percy jackson and the olympians universe besides genevieve archer, colette sloane, their stories, and any other characters i have made. everything else you see in this book that is not original to this fanfiction belongs to rick riordan. all rights go to him, besides genevieve archer, colette sloane, and any other characters i have made.
               any gifs used in the book do not belong to me, they belong to the original creators. i have simply edited the size of them to fit what i want. the graphics, although, do belong to me. but the pictures in each graphic were sourced on pinterest and such — those individual pictures do not belong to me.

ii. trigger warnings!   this book will talk about and/or include cussing, the neglection of a child, mental illness (depression, anxiety, ptsd, etc.), death, gore, daddy issues (kinda a joke, but not really), luke castellan (i'm luke's #1 hater), hermes (family issues, what can i say), just a lot of family trauma in general, and the regular percy jackson and the olympians themes that are present in the books.
               do not read this book if any of that is trigging to you. reading this is not — and never will be — more important than you and your mental health!

iii. other things!   if i get anything incorrect or come off as insensitive, please tell me and i'll absolutely fix my mistake!
               also, don't steal! that's not cool. i'll find out and i'll make you ... take it down or something.

iv. other notes!   parts of this plot came from my first ever pjo fic — around 2020-ish. i've been sitting on this plot for a year or so, but only really got a lot of inspiration for it around september.
               there's definitely still elements of the old plot in this book, but it is very different from what it once was — lowkey weird to even think of genna as that old oc of mine. like genna was built of off that oc, but has become something much different from her source material. i think it's cool to think about — but that's because i know what the old fic was 😭 i doubt anyone who reads this will know what i'm talking about.
               really excited to write this fic, lowkey because i love writing kinda unhinged ocs — genna's definitely like ... unhinged in the most daughter of hermes way possible. and cole is also extremely — daughter of ares-esque, which be fun to write with annabeth's character.

everyone to genna:

(she is chaos embodiment fr)

v. dedications!   THEY-WHO-REMAIN , fciryriots , elqctra , theivykru , -euterpes , @moonslvrs , phaedrra , @RiniBo0811 , and to old and new readers! i love you all and love to hear what you think/have to say <3