Once upon a time… No.
Beep! The alarm clock beeped… No.
"Hey, Xeno…" No.
No, no, no, Annabeth thought. Everything thing she tried to write was so cliche, so overused. She hit the delete button, grimacing as she stared at the blank document. For some reason, she wasn't in the right stage of mind today. She closed the tab, opening a new one and going on her favorite site.
Kingdom of Fans, where all you peasants gather to waste your lives away trying to royally outdo each other in the "art" of being a fan.
She smiled at the website banner that decorated her screen. Every week, the sarcastic phrase changed to something different.
Annabeth looked to the side of her screen… one hundred and four notifications? That couldn't be right…
Fifty-two new followers? A spam of likes and comments on her stories? Annabeth shook her head and didn't look at the rest of her notifications. It was probably a glitch, anyway. Why would that even happen?
She scrolled down her feed. She was here for a pick-me-up from her fandom buddies, not a let-me-down with fake notifications. There was her friend, Thalia, who cosplayed the spunky daughter of Zeus, Willow, in the series. Annabeth didn't really know Thalia very well in real life, but on the internet they were very close.
There was Rachel, who Annabeth didn't really like, but she was a really good fanartist. She had drawn at least one picture of every canon couple in the series, and paid perfect attention to detail, right down to each and every speck she imagined in the characters' eyes.
And… there was Percy. He was the "king" of cosplaying Xeno, who Annabeth admired for being so dedicated. He cosplayed Xeno in so many situations, it was almost believed that he was the real-life reincarnation of the character.
In this selfie of Percy, he was dressed as Xeno with an edited background of a park, with a caption that Annabeth never expected to read.
"Well this is quite sudden, isn't it? I normally don't kill monsters until the third date."
Yes, I cosplayed Xeno as in rosenbergwriter's story, Demons and the Devil in You. I'm a big fan of her. Show some love?
Annabeth gaped at the screen. The spam of likes, all the new followers… this was why. Percy Jackson, the ultimate Xeno cosplayer… cosplayed Xeno, her Xeno (well, as her story had portrayed him) and tagged her.
"Thank you," she wrote as a comment to him, a giant smile overtaking her face. "Hope you enjoy the Belle character studies I'm planning to do next!" Posting the comment, she facepalmed.
Um, Annabeth, her brain reminded her, since when were you planning that? Where had that come from? She just promised the internet another whole set of fics! What with her writer's block and her lack of good story starters, how was she supposed to write something the internet would read and enjoy?
Annabeth sighed and picked up the first book, "The Lightning Thief." She flipped through, opened up a new document, and typed, "We all know Belle Rosenberg as the wise and beautiful daughter of Athena, and girlfriend of Xeno Jefferson. But there are many things we have yet to discover about her. For example, on page one hundred and fifty-two of "The Lightning Thief…"
And so Annabeth began to research and write an entire character study. Immersed in her thoughts and the ordeal of putting them into words, she typed furiously at the keys on her computer. Silently, she thanked Percy for inspiring her.
To think she had been delving into the murky depths of writer's block only moments before.