i would be most intrigued to know the reason you hate nico di angelo

that sounds threatening oh god no im just gen curious

Lol you’re good and don’t sound threatening (to me)

As the self proclaimed “#1 nico fandom hater” that I am, I love this ask. Anyway, that being said, I don’t hate Nico di Angelo. My problem lies with fandom and how Nico is perceived. Before I get into it, here’s a collage of tumblr posts that represent my feelings on Nico:

And my favorite post that fully sums up my thoughts on Nico:

I’m going to be making some generalizations throughout this which I don’t love, but it gets my point across the best.

Canon Nico (specifically in pjo) = good! I like this little boy! Little cutie and a little shit. What’s not to like! (hoo!Nico = eh, he’s ok I guess. He didn’t need to have POV chapters and should have taken on a more minor role imo)

Fanon Nico ≠ not good! Please burn it with fire 😃

FYI: when I talk about canon Nico, I’m referring to the original characterization of him throughout pjo (maybe some hoo, but no toa).

So this problem happens across every fandom it seems like, and I have a dislike for every character that gets treated like this throughout all my fandoms. Not everyone is like that, but I am.

So what am I talking about? It’s the blatant fanonization of Nico to the detriment of his character and others. It’s taking popular fanon takes regarding Nico (behavior, personality, relationships, etc.) and insisting that they’re canon even when evidence shows the opposite.

A big problem for me stems from the solangelo ship. If you like it/ship it, that’s great! I personally hate it… like a lot. To me it came out of nowhere and the inclusion of it in canon has brought in fanon concepts into canon that overall damages the integrity the the wider scope of the riordanverse.

What do I mean? I can’t speak too much on canon since I only read up to The Burning Maze and refuse to read any further in toa or tsats, but generally what I’ve seen from others is that canonical events/their perceptions of them have been skewed in Nico’s favor to put down Percy and other demigods, even when Nico is more at fault. Not saying this is 100% in canon but it is in fanon. And this view is widely spread by people (not all) who like Nico, and it’s very hard to ignore if you don’t like it because it is everywhere.

Saying things like no one cared for Nico when he first came to chb is blatantly untrue and makes me think that if you have that opinion, you didn’t read botl. People didn’t hate him because he was the son of Hades because the vast majority did not know Nico was the son of Hades! He was mostly unclaimed from chub’s perspective. It’s just the people that went on the quest in ttc that knew because of Bianca.

Also like Percy straight up worried for that kid day and night. He felt responsible for Nico even though Percy himself was a child! Nico was the one that was pushing Percy and everyone else away. That was his own doing, though understandable. Don’t push Nico’s actions onto other characters to villainies them in Nico’s story.

Also, for some reason people still blame Percy for Bianca’s death and then come to the conclusion that Nico hates and (still) blames Percy for it. He doesn’t. If you don’t like Percy, that’s fine (but why are you reading the series then?) but don’t spew hate about a character on things that aren’t true. Nico isn’t going to be your bff if you do so.

There’s also the belief that Percy is like abusive to Nico because of that one scene in tlo. Please put on your thinking caps if you genuinely believe only Percy was in the wrong. Percy only lashed out at Nico because Nico betrayed his trust. Also, once again they’re both kids. They’re going to have immature reactions, but you also have to remember the stress of the situation that compounds everything that these characters do.

Ok, back to solangelo. There’s this weird codependent relationship that fans tend to force on Nico and Will. Other ships do it too but solangelo stands out to me. And maybe it’s because I just don’t like solangelo, or have a favorable opinion on Will Solace, or stopped reading toa, but I genuinely don’t think there’s much grounds to Will’s character besides being Nico’s boyfriend. I know he gets some more depth throughout toa (and possible tsats) but that only happened because he was Nico’s boyfriend. Like he was Nico’s boyfriend before he was Will Solace.

And because of this, fans generally tend to make Will this mouthpiece in fandom regarding Nico. He feels like a self-insert and not in a good way. And because of this, there’s a lot of negativity towards other characters in fandom that fans use Will’s “voice” to push in name of defending Nico or whatever. Like babes, you’re projecting. I don’t know Will, but the Will from the limited time we knew him in pjo wouldn’t speak that way/share those views.

Also the weird patient/doctor relationship solangelo has going on gives me the ick. Espresso with how it’s portrayed in fandom. Like there’s this weird power dynamic that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I’m rambling at this point, sorry. I’m only on 2 hours of sleep right now so forgive me lmao.

I won’t go too much more in depth but Nico also gets infantilized a ton by Nico/solangelo fans which isn’t cool. He’s a kid, but he’s not a fucking baby.

Also making Nico this 1-dimensional emo, sad boi type character is not cool. He’s so much more to him. When you reduce characters to a singular trait, it leads to all the issues I described. Ok I’m just going to leave it at that.

TLDR: I don’t hate Nico di Angelo, I just have a lot of problems with his fans.

tw: mention of r4pe and SA.

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I really love Medusa, outside PJO, and she is a great character of greek mythology, however i'm kinda conflicted and between the sword and the wall, with some of Rick's decision,the reaction of pjo fans and ppl who love Roman and Greek myths

I get that Rick wanted to explore the narrative of the roman version (Poseidon r4p1ng,SAd or abuse her and Athena blamed her and turned her into stone), because it got popular for the narrative of the women and victims getting blamed and villianized and punished for the actions caused by men and abusers, in religion, and it got turned into a symbol of "me too" and causes more ppl to want to raise awareness.

Nothing wrong with the purpose,I'm all for BRINGING AWARENESS to others about r4p3,SA,sexual violence,etc. Everyone who is not sick, wants those non consensual acts that harm ppl to dissapear

but I think he could have used another myth to explore those topics,because using that portrayal of Medusa and Poseidon, makes things weirder??, for these reasons:

1. The book portrays Poseidon's and Percy's father-son dynamic: Percy's anger towards his father, but VERY deep down,craving for some of his attention,shifting towards a neutral, polite leaning towards a positive relationship, and the book portrays him like a man that is trying to be a cool father,despite his mistakes. And the book sometimes praises him for that??

Having in mind, the pjo series is supposed to teach and make kids,no matter their gender,sexual and romantic orientation,race and nationality,neurodivergencies and disabilities, we all can be amazing,smart,talented in our own ways, and deserve the same respect, wouldn't the parent-child dynamic Percy and Poseidon be weird? If ur main character keeps contact with someone like that??.

Wouldn't that normalize more than already is, of ppl,but mostly men, of keeping contact with nasty men,just because he is a relative or a friend?? and didn't hurt you?.

2. Why THE Sally Jackson, dated someone like Poseidon or even finishing in good terms?? like if my ex bf was an abuser with other ppl and not me. It doesn't matter,that relationship is ending in bad terms??

"Rick said he wanted to explored it. But he didn't say Medusa got r4ped,maybe he just abused of power. Or athena blamed Medusa because Poseidon crushed on her, pg-13"

Come on, Medusa's lines and way of wording references the roman version,besides everyone even kids ranging from 10-12 know what happened to Medusa

"But myths changes and develop, just to send a message,provides awareness"

You guys literally CHANGED the ORIGINAL myth of Persephone/Hades/Demeter, which HADES KIDNAPPED PERSEPHONE, AND DEMETER SEARCHING FOR HER DAUGHTER., and rewrite it with Persephone going WILLINGLY WITH HADES, just for u to fit the narattive of a "goth bad boy scary looking with bad reputation,but is chill and dates a flower softy girls,that he treats like queen".

and the reaction that the pjo fandom had to Medusa's backstory, is similar to any other fandom when a traumatised character exists, that can be harmful, it feels like a way of romanticizing? and I'm tired of it

"I'm glad they gave Medusa more depth"

Can we as a society stop acting like being victim of mental/physical/sexual abuse?, or any kind of trauma, gives you more depth??. No, trauma doesn't give us depth or make us more complex. Our point of view, our philosophy,our interests, our talents,our personalities does.

Because of that, I have seen middle schoolers and teenagers wanting some sort of trauma,just to be complex?? Which is sad and alarming.

I'm not sure what Riordan is planning or how is going to not mess up,but I hope I can see more of the cast acting more scenes of the book.

RWRB thoughts

My thoughts after 1.5 viewings (yes, 1.5. I have watched it once and then re-watched certain scenes, but haven't made my way through a full re-watch yet.)

What I loved/like/squealed about:

nervous Alex at the wedding

Nora being all speechless when led away by Bea

The whole cake incident - it did not happened as I was expecting (don't ask me what I was expecting, I have no earthly idea), but I loved the whole thing

Zahra hitting Alex with the pillow. Perfect character moment

the silly height arguments that pop up several times. I think these are extra fun for book readers as it acknowledges the difference between the book and the actors in the movie but keeps the general teasing about height in the movie

Actually, Zahra in general was just so perfectly done

Amy being badass and also a loving dog mom (that wink at the hospital? the 'do I need to clear the room'? Amy is the best)

I still don't know what an equerry is. But I'll take a Shaan any day

The closet scene was really well done. It really allowed for the development of the rest of their relationship.

The way they did the texts with the voice overs and then Henry appearing in Alex's bed - I may have swooned a bit

The New Years party looked like what I imagine a cool party would look like (people do not invite me to cool parties and they never will).

All the representation in the film. Female black PM of the UK? Check! Gender fluid party attendees? Check? Some girl on girl flirting? Check! Trans actor? Check!

Percy's pink hair

Nora's red outfit. Damn girl.

Henry's reaction when Alex grabs his hips at the New Year's party - absolute gold

All of Henry's pining during the New Year's party was just perfectly painfully wonderful

The 'woah' of the woman who walks in when Nora and Alex are talking about his hook ups with men

Alex being totally distracted by Henry arriving at the dinner and looking every inch the son of James Bond that he is

That kiss in the red room was... hmmm... quite.... intense

Also Henry pointing at books after they were interrupted n the red room might have been the most ridiculously funny moment of the whole movie for me

Commanding Henry in the bedroom

Shots of Henry's ass bouncing on a horse being played between shots of the tack room rendevous. I think we all understand why Alex was so, motivated shall we say

The tenderness and intimacy of that Paris scene. Love making indeed.

Henry singing karaoke. Nora bopping along like all of us would like to be doing as fans no doubt

The Casey McQuinston book cameo!

Henry trying to make his burdens clear to Alex but Alex not getting it until they have their blow out. Also drenched Alex in this scene with Henry in his fancy housecoat was very visually appealing

The V&A scene made me cry. Henry talking about the only place he can find peace and have dreams of a happy life he doesn't think he'll ever have. Alex playing the song right away and making his dreams come true. Tears. Happy Tears.

The EXCHANGE! the signet ring. the house key. just kill me now

Seeing Henry's reaction to the email leak and how desperate he was to talk to Alex, how terrified he was, how betrayed. Hats off to Nicholas Galitzine for his acting (for the whole movie, but that scene in particular was just excellent)

Shaan and Zahra reveal! Yes!

Alex'a speech. Amazing.

Baby.

Stephen Fry as the king. What a choice. If you don't know how ironic this is, well go use your goggle skills.

Henry sticking up for himself. The tears in his eyes when he sees the public support

The way they show Alex's passion for politics and helping people.

The way they show Henry's passion for literature, history, etc. And also his frustration at not being able to make an impact and help people they way he wants to and how much he admires Alex for what he is doing

Things I missed/didn't love:

Alex not being a child of divorce. Also how his parent's relationship seemed ambiguous for a long time in the movie (for me anyway. Maybe I was just hoping they weren't together? like in the book?)

Not enough moments of Nora being a stats geek. She said she analyzed data but we don't get a moment where she gives Alex the odds. Sad.

Alex not having his sexual realization. I can see how this trims things down for the film, but I missed it

Not using the Miguel character as well as they could have. Again I can see this being trimmed out for time. I thought this was a reasonable replacement for the Luna subplot. Would have liked more in terms of fall out - did he have insider knowledge? Did he help get the emails leaked?

I would have loved more time of the texts to build the foundation of their relationship

I would have loved even more to have had more email time. I know this is tricky to get on film, but I really missed the sheer romance and intimacy we get in from the emails in the book. It makes the leak so much more impactful

I wanted more David. I love dogs people. I needed more beagle content!

Not enough Pez! Also why was he not Pez? Percy? Percy who? I loved when we saw him and I wanted more.

Same can be said for Nora

Did this film get an R rating from, maybe 2 'fuck's and one gay sex scene where no dicks or asses were shown? (Yes, one ass was shown, but it a completely different scene) Is that all it takes? Boo to the rating people. BOOOOOO.

The transition from the fight between Henry and Alex in his apartments to them leaving from to the V&A didn't feel quite right to me. It was awkward. Each scene itself was wonderful, just one right after the other felt like something was missing.

I honestly, completely, wholeheartedly loved this film. I know I will be watching it over and over. It will have a permanent place in my comfort film rotation. I think all the actors in the film did an amazing job. Both Nicholas and Taylor bought a lot of depth to their roles and really brought them to life so, so well. Their chemistry was completely believable and I rooted for them every step of the way.

For me, the book will remain my main source material for these characters and this story. But this film is such a great complement to the book. A different, but parallel story. I agree with director Matthew Lopez saying this was a work of fanfiction in its own right. It is not the same, but the heart and soul of the book and the two main characters is all there. Not sure I could have asked for much more.

(except for any missing scenes/extended scenes. i'm asking for those. please)

Just thinking about how much better the whole Hazel-Frank-Leo dynamic would have been if we just... took all the romance out of it. Like, no romance at all. Hazel and Sammy were friends, and Hazel and Frank are friends and everything else is much the same. I wouldn't mind if the whole thing was scrapped completely and see how it went from there, but at least, the doppelganger thing gave them a reason to interact and start them getting to know each other? 

Anyway, so without the plot of SoN revolving around romance between  Hazel and Frank, we can just see them as people in their own right, have more time to explore who they are as characters. When Hazel finds the photo of Sammy in her old house in Alaska, Frank is canonically just concerned that she's crying. However, Hazel felt guilty for thinking about Sammy when Frank was "being so wonderful". That wouldn't be a problem here, and she'd either let herself think and feel how she does or she'd share the memories with them. So we get more of her reaction and feelings about her past past  and the people she left behind.

As far as MoA goes, Hazel is still freaked out by seeing Leo at first, still a bit  uncomfortable, but also more thoughtful.  Like she's consumed with her memory and wondering what's going on here, asking  how is my old best friend seemingly sitting right next to me right now? 

After the attack on New Rome, in the book, Frank and Leo were actually civil with each other, Frank going so far as to say that maybe it wasn't Leo's fault. In this version,  it'd be even more so, since Frank's internal monologue (and Hazel's) have said that in the beginning, Frank made mistakes all the time. So Frank waits until the others go below deck to tell Leo that "Yeah, I know exactly what it's like to mess things up, it'll be alright."

And Leo, who's usually really uncomfortable with emotional support, is spiraling right now  because he might have just started a war, and is grateful for the reassurance. Frank tells Leo about the time he fed Hannibal the elephant peanuts and  gave him indigestion and how Reyna hadn't killed him, so she has some mercy. 

Frank asks if he's sure his name isn't Sammy, but more for a "Alright, this is my best friend's other best friend's doppelganger or whatever, I wanna make a good impression" psyching himself up kind of thing. Like landing on deck as a dragon didn't accomplish that.

When they have to split up to get supplies for the repairs, Frank is only hesitant because he's worried about how Hazel's handling the  whole 'my dead best friend' thing, while at the same time knowing it'll be good for her to have a chance to talk to Leo in private. And Leo doesn't take it so much as a challenge to win Frank's trust.  When they're talking about making sand castles, Leo still surprises Hazel by mentioning Sammy, but she's less skiddish about the whole thing. 

Not sure how this would impact the conversation with Nemesis. Probably, the goddess would still have a point about Leo being the 7th wheel, because there are still two couples, and even if Hazel and Frank aren't dating anyone on the ship, they have much more history with each other and Percy, they're their own little family unit. Maybe that would actually hurt more to Leo, because he knows that his own best friends are occupied with each other and want time without him, which is understandable but lonely.  Maybe it hurts a little more knowing that when it comes to Hazel and Frank, who are two people that he's already ruined his first impression of himself with, he has the added obstacle of being compared to someone from Hazel's past. 

When Hazel tells him not to listen to Nemesis, it's coming from the perspective of someone who's viewing Leo only as a crewmate, rather than an antagonist to someone she cares about. She's stilll wary about Leo's fire, as she's still carrying Frank's life line, but she's not so unsettled about Leo as a person.

She still takes Leo on her memory quest, and as she's less nervous about the whole thing, she can take the opportunity to revisit her old home one last time, to see Sammy one last time and say goodbye. It does reinforce Leo's idea that Sammy is much better than him, especially if he was someone Hazel would consider a friend, when all Leo's done is attack her new home. 

Later on, because Hazel has seen Sammy use humor as a tool for deflection and escaping tough spots, she can see through Leo's defenses a bit better than some of the others. She calls him on it, but doesn't try to force him to talk about things he doesn't want to, because she knows exactly what that's like. While it fills him with panic to be caught out, eventually he does settle into the idea, lets himself relax around her.

The real tension between Frank and Leo would come from Frank's wariness about Leo's fire powers and Leo finding Frank so intimidating and much more capable than himself. And their conversations are this odd mix of camaraderie and jealousy and distrust. They’re less antagonistic and that lets them get to know each other a bit more slowly and organically. 

Since the handcuff thing is important to the plot, that scene still happens, but with less beligerence and more playfulness. Since Frank isn't so combative with Leo, he recognizes that Leo doesn't mean any real harm. It's still a bit embarrassing and he does go to Annabeth afterwards. He brings up that he's intimidated by Leo's pyrokinesis. When Annabeth tells him that he can trust Leo, the fire is the main issue Frank is worried about. 

When they fall underwater, Frank isn't as antagonistic and so he takes a moment to parse out Leo's meaning when he asks if the ship is fine, because it's vital to the quest and if it goes down, then so does everyone aboard. 

It's easier to take Annabeth's advice about trusting Leo, and without having to talk about the hand holding, they have more time to talk about other things. Namely, Frank gets to tell him about his life line himself. It's a good bonding moment, where Frank is intentionally vulnerable with someone who embodies his one weakness. It means so much to Leo, who has been thinking that he doesn't deserve anyone's trust, least of all the demigods from Camp Jupiter. Even in the book, Leo took Frank's fears about his life line seriously and didn't tease him or scare him. Just imagine how much more so he'd be when they're just being open and honest with each other.

It reminds him of his mother's death, and he's like. "Yup, okay, I'm keeping this guy and I'm keeping him alive."

Leo panics like he does in the OG text, worried about whether the stick is getting smothered in sea water right now, and Frank feels reassured about telling him, and amused about Leo's sincere worry. It gives him insight into how Leo thinks and how he approaches problems logically. 

Leo does feel relieved when their hosts interrupt him, because he's reached his weekly limit for genuine emotions.

The narrative would have room to examine Hazel's grief and give her an outlet to think about or discuss her struggles at adjusting to the 21st century, since that wasn't touched on aside from the chicken nugget line and a brief line in SoN about her freaking out the first time she went to Berkley.  

There's some light hearted stuff like that, but also discussions between them about about what it's like to have so little family left. Hazel tells Leo about Nico and how she's so happy to have a brother, but it was hard at first when she knew she wasn't the sister he had set out to bring back to life. Leo's like, yeah definitely know what not being the first choice is like, and maybe he's a little bewildered at how Hazel's like... not as super affected by that anymore the way he still is. Like, fam... can't relate.

It'd be interesting to see how that would impact Leo's view on Nico and how he brings up the fact that rescuing him could be a trap. Tbh, during that convo in the book, it didn't seem so much like he was flat out refusing to go after Nico, but that he wanted to discuss all the dangers there, so they could plan on how to counteract them. Maybe that wasn't the case, but I think that would have been plausible since Leo's an logical thinker. 

Frank is definitely a part of these discussions, dead moms club, the worst club to be part of, but at least we have each other. Leo thinks about how Jason fits there as well, but it's not his place to tell the other two about that. That lends an interesting opportunity though, if Leo includes Jason in these talks, it might humanize him in Hazel's eyes.

One night it’s the two of them on watch, and they talk about the prophecy, and Leo's like "Yeah, I'm freaking out about possibly ending the world." 

And Hazel says, "From personal experience, would not recommend."

And Leo goes, "Huh?"

So Hazel explains, and Leo sits there for a moment before pulling out a notepad from his belt and adding Hazel and her mother to the list of reasons for the revenge he gonna take on Gaea.

So yeah, they talk about how much they hate Gaea, and in canon, Leo only ever told Jason that Gaea goaded him into setting the fire that killed Esperanza, but seeing that the goddess did the same to Hazel, it just gives Leo the strength to say it again, to trust Hazel with the worst moment of his life. 

Also, there wasn't enough about the fact that Hazel's power has literally killed people. Like, way more than Leo's ever did, so she'd explore that trauma, probably on her own. She's so young and has so much weight on her. She never asked for this curse and she never even had a chance to actually be angry with her parents for their decisions that put her life on the course it took. She’s even told that she herself doesn’t have the power to break her own curse. I want her to be able to feel however she needs to feel to process everything she's been through.  

It's not her fault that those people died, but she still feels responsible, and maybe it's be easier to forgive herself when she sees Leo in a similar situation, because it's usually easier to forgive others than it is to forgive yourself.  

It's a bummer that Hazel never had any real interaction with Festus. Leo introduces her to him like he did with Frank and since he's made of precious metal, she's able to like, read his history, like she could sense all the different precious jewelry and coins of travellers under the earth on the hill with Skyron. For the first time, she gets to interact with metal that isn't cursed and he's alive??  I want to know her thoughts on that. There's a lot of celestial bronze on board the ship actually, like Leo can touch a piece of machinery and get an understanding of how it works, Hazel can touch Festus's neck and get this mental image of the precious metals on board, like a sonar or that feedback she gets in the Amazon warehouse in SoN. But since it's all connected, it's like an x-ray or an image of the human nervous system. 

There'd be so many more moment like the "He reads Chinese, how cool is that?" scene. 

Hazel and Leo bring out each other’s southern accents, Piper and Frank do a double take the first time one of them pulls out a “y’all’d’ve”. Those two have known Hazel and Leo the longest and have never heard that one before.

Late night watches on deck that devolve into late night talks, Juno/ Hera comes up and Leo says to Frank, "So she visited us both as babies and did like, the inverse of what she did to you that she did to me.

"Like, she put me in the burning fire place and she told your folks to pull you(r stick) out of the fire place. I feel like she's stepping in on Hestia's territory but whatever."

Leo gets excited coming up with ideas to keep Frank's lifeline safe, and extrapolating about the whole situation-

"Alright, get this, so technically- technically- fire isn't fatal to Frank, just his fire wood-"

"I don't like where this is going," Frank says. 

"I'm just making a point, don't worry."

And-

"No, no, Hazel if we're ever all on fire, y'all should just like- jump on me, because if I concentrate real hard, I can keep other stuff I'm touching from burning, like with my clothes."

"Why would we all be on fire?"

"You think there isn't some god or monster that wouldn't want to set us on fire?"

"Touché.”

When talking about ways to protect the wood, Leo's talking about hypotheticals and ways to possibly treat the wood and Frank points out that he'd have to be careful because they don't know how such treatments would affect him.

Leo waves his concern away, because he's in Thinking Mode (TM) saying, "Yeah, of course, I know how to handle precious resources, you've only got the one piece and we've only got the one you."

Leo says it so offhandedly, but Frank is like Touched (TM).

Just- them being softer with each other, letting other issues between the three have more time to be explored, giving them more screen time to develop as characters and the three of them having more chances to just get to know each other and develop their friendships.  

So I know you're already doing a prompt from me But heroichalfblood gave me an idea (always giving good prompts this one). This one is normal prompt sized though

The whole person A gets injured and person B goes ballistic and causes chaos except reverse UNO. Percy is the one getting injured and Nico is the one doing the massacring.

Now with a twist! Percy doesn't know that Nico likes him yet. Maybe it's happening in HoO timeframe. Maybe they're in Tartarus instead of percabeth. Percy looks kinda dead but actually is kinda paralyzed and sees and hears everything. Which means he hears Nico crying and whatever he says . Adding the aftermath and how Percy takes Nico caring about him so much and witnessing Nico's badassery and Nico's reaction to Percy being alive and having heard him would be great but is optional

Nico saw it happen almost in slow motion.

The manticore launched its spines, spreading it wide so neither of them could escape. In a split second, Percy jumped in front of him, using his body as a shield.

The dracanae behind it cheered as Percy fell down, eyes wide open.

"Percy!" Nico shouted, desperate, but the son of Poseidon didn't even blink. "No, no, no! You'll be okay, you have to be okay! You have to... you are one of the Seven! You have to survive this, please!"

Percy didn't respond, just stayed still.

"Don't leave, Percy," he pleaded crying. "I... you mean the world to me, you can't just... just..."

"What a sshame," a dracaena said mockingly. "Demigodsss are better when they are sstill sstruggling to live."

Nico stood up. The earth shook as he brandished his sword and monster skeletons started rising.

"It'll be your struggle I'll feast on."

He had already lost his most important person. The world was already bleak enough.

It didn't need those vermin blemishing it further.

----

All in all, Percy's journey through Tartarus had been going as well as he could have expected.

Maybe a bit better, since Nico had already been through this and had been guiding him and keeping him alive, though he could not dodge every single peril, things had been going okay, aside from having to drink the gasoline-like waters of Styx or die to the noxious gas that passed as air in Tartarus.

And now a manticore had hit him with its poisonous spines.

The manticore seemed quite young, however, and instead of dying, he had become paralyzed.

He couldn't move and even his breathing had slowed to a crawl. He still had his senses intact, which meant he still felt the pain of the spines on his chest, the roughness of the soil of Tartarus, and the warm tears that came from Nico as he begged him not to die.

"He... cares for me?" The thought was almost alien, wrong, and yet it made his chest swell with warmth.

It was a known fact that Nico seemed to hate his guts, even when they were on good terms. The fact that he had chosen to rescue Annabeth and not him was proof enough.

But then... that didn't explain why he had chosen to fall with him to Tartarus, why he had been protecting him so fiercely, and why he was going feral on the monsters who attacked him.

It was both terrifying and, dare he say it, beautiful. Nico was elegant and deadly as his sword slashed away at the monsters while the bony remains of monsters mixed and matched to attack the rest (from his somewhat crappy point of view, he had spied the body of a cyclops, the head of the Nemean Lion, and the arms, legs and tails of hellhounds, Laistrygonians and even the chimera).

The monsters cowered in fear as Nico massacred them, leaving only the manticore.

"You," he said coldly. "Your fate will be crueler for what you did to Percy."

"G-get away!" The manticore shrieked, shooting at him, but the bones gathered around Nico like an armor, deflecting the spines.

"May you never reform," Nico said. Percy felt as if it was half a curse, half a judgement, as Nico raised his arm and the monster started turning into dust on its own.

The bones fell and Nico fell to his knees with them, and started sobbing.

"P-Percy!" He said between sniffles. "I... I never told you how I..."

He continued mumbling. Percy wanted to shake off, to tell Nico he was fine, maybe even to hug and reassure him, but he stayed frozen in place.

The earth shook as a new being came rushing down. Percy wanted to scream at Nico, as he seemed not to react.

His mind went to dark places. Was Nico planning on... 'following' him? Did he not care for his own life.

"Why is friend Nico crying?" The man asked. Nico turned, eyes wide.

"Bob!" Nico wailed, hugging him. Percy's memory jogged at the name. "It's Percy, he... he's not with us anymore!"

Iapetus. Nico had kept in contact with Iapetus.

The titan looked curiously around until his silver eyes rested on him.

"But Friend Percy is right there," he said, confused.

"No, he's... alive?" Nico got closer and put his head on his chest. If Percy wasn't paralyzed, he was sure he would be blushing. "It's faint, but his heart... it's beating!"

Bob got closer and with two fingers took all the spines and plucked them out in one go.

"Olympus above that hurts!" He shouted as he sat up, almost tossing Nico aside. The only thing stopping him was the son of Hades jumping back, flustered.

"That monster was very young," Bob said simply. "Hello friend Percy!"

"Hi... Bob, long time no see," he said awkwardly. He turned back to Nico, who was facing away from him. "Sorry for worrying you."

"Did you hear it?" he asked, voice cracking. "Everything I said?"

Percy debated with himself for a second before shrugging.

"Just bits and pieces," he lied. Nico relaxed. "But now I know you actually like me~"

Nico tensed up even further and looked at him, scared.

"W-well, obviously, you're... my friend, right?"

"It's always nice to hear it."

"Bob, do you know of a place where we can rest? I think both me and Percy need it."

The titan seemed to think it over for a few seconds before nodding.

"Bob remembers a place."

Percy decided to file this conversation for later, when they weren't in literal hell.

The day Clarisse almost killed another Jackson boy than Percy

...or when her daughter told her she was dating Percy’s son. Parents!Chrisse because why the heck not.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Twenty years ago, Clarisse La Rue’s morning routine consisted in being awake at 4am because of nightmares. She would go training alone in the camp’s arena, then go back to her cabin some hours later to lead her siblings at breakfast.

Now’s routine was different but still involved nightmares. Sometimes hers or, like this morning, her son’s.

“N-No! Let me go! Mommy! Mommy come save me please!”

“Jules, it’s me, wake up. You gotta wake up.”

The nine-year-old boy abruptly woke up, panic visible in his eyes until he saw his mother. Instantly, he threw himself in her arms.

“Shhh… It’s okay baby, it was just a bad dream. Mommy’s here.” Clarisse whispered, not even embarrassed of how soft her tone sounded.

She played with his curly black hair while rocking him back and forth against her chest. It took a minute but finally Julian stopped shaking.

“It was those monsters again, Mommy, and they were after you and Daddy…”

“We’re fine, Jules. They’ll never get to me and Daddy. D’you know why?”

His tears suddenly disappeared as a giant smile replaced them:

“Because you’re my mom!” he exclaimed. “And a drakon slayer!”

“The, drakon slayer, little punk!” Clarisse corrected as she started to tickle the little boy whose laugh was warming her heart.

It still amazes her sometimes how much he looks like Chris.

Letting him enjoy his bed a little longer, Clarisse left her son's room while tidying up the cluttered hall.  Because of course, she was the only one in this bloody house to clean up everyone's mess. Whether it was Lois's boxing gloves lying around on Julian's toy box, Chris' guitar that Lena borrowed from him constantly and that was about to fall down the stairs if she didn't- and what the Hades was Axe's spear doing in the middle of the bathroom?  She felt like she was back at Camp Half-Blood again where she was always cleaning up after her brothers.

Oh, by the way: Chris and her had four kids.

Their oldest daughter, Lois, or mini-Clarisse as the Stoll call her, was eighteen and currently attending her kickboxing class right now. Needless to say, she was the worthy granddaughter of the God War.

But it was nothing compared to Axel that Clarisse had hoped would look more like his father growing up. Although she was quite proud of him when he punched a boy from his class for the first time. ‘That’s my boy’ she thought with a smirk as she went downstairs to the kitchen. They didn’t call him Axe for nothing, the axe having really become his weapon of choice.

Starting breakfast, Clarisse thought about her second daughter, whom she still hadn't seen this morning.

“Good morning, mother! What a great day it is!”

…found her.

Clarisse rolled her eyes as Lena arrived in the kitchen as noisy as a herd of elephants.

“Would you be fricking quiet? Your little brother’s still sleeping, and your platform heels might wake the entire neighbourhood yet.”

Lena brought a hand to her heart, feigning hurt. “Mom, how dare you! These shoes are fabulous and were offered to me by a very special person.”

“I’m the one who bought them.”

“Exactly.” Her daughter smiled, leaning on the kitchen’s counter, facing her.

Again, Clarisse rolled her eyes but let an affectionate smile stir her lips. ‘Kid’s a smooth talker just like her dad.’

You know sometimes she wondered how funny the gods thought it would be to grace her with a feminine daughter. Lois was definitely more of a tomboy style like her, but Lena has always been the one who wanted pink dresses and make-up, growing up. Something Clarisse’s own mother was the most thrilled about. ‘What? I couldn’t do that with you when you were little, let me enjoy that with my granddaughter!’

So as Lena was messing with one of her light brown hair strands that she had probably spent an hour to straighten, Clarisse knew something was up; it was a nervous habit of hers.

“You know where Axe is?” she asked first, not wanting to drop the bomb yet.

“No idea.”

Clarisse frowned. “You don’t know where your brother is?”

Lena shrugged, eyes still down on her hair. “We shared your uterus for nine months but we’re not mind-bonded. He’s probably out with Adrien again.”

“Mmmh. Okay, what’s going on?”

Her daughter startled. “Huh? Nothing, I really don’t know where Axel is but he’s probably not in troub-“

“Not that,” Clarisse interrupted, though it wasn’t in an aggressive tone, just a worried one. “With you. You’re nervous.”

Lena then proceeded to make a move her, Julian and Chris would do very often: laughing nervously when they got caught doing or hiding something.

“Wow, mom, you really know me too well for my own good.”

“Seems like I do. Explain, now.” Clarisse requested, folding her arms and gods damned when did she start looking so much like her own mother?

Knowing her end was near, Lena started by doing what she knew best as the perfect Hermes legacy she was: deviating the inevitable conversation.

“Well, um, remember when I broke one of your favourite bronzes shields and I blamed it on Axe and you finally found out that it was me all this time?”

“Continue.”

“You kept loving me, right? ‘Cause you’re my mom, you’ll never disinherit me for anything I-“

“Lena.”

“Even if I do something that you consider really idiotic-“

“Lena.”

“And you’re probably going to faint-“

“Silena Mari Rodriguez.”

“Jeez! No need for the full name warning, fine fine I’ll tell you…”

She took a deep breath; Clarisse was sure she had never seen her daughter so worried before.

“I… I’m dating someone.” Lena finally admitted.

“Oh.” Clarisse first said, just mild surprise visible in her eyes. “Well it’s great. What, you thought I was going to react like your dad whenever your sister brings a new boy or girl home?”

“Well in his defence, Lois is a serial heartbreaker. It’s hard to keep up with her dates.”

“So. Who’s the lucky one?”

The worried expression was back again.

“Uh, that’s the tricky part.”

Clarisse frowned. Was it someone she knew? Who could she possibly date that she wouldn’t approve of?

“Again, remember that you love me uncondi-“

“Lena, I’m losing my patience he-“

“It’s Luka!”

Clarisse didn’t reply anything for a moment, she didn’t know how long, her daughter’s words sinking into her mind. She only knew one Luka. And if it was this Luka… ‘Holy fricking mother of Hera’ she screamed mentally.

Finally, she was able to utter as calm as possible:

“Luka.”

“Yes.” Lena nodded.

“As… Luka Jackson.”

“Yes.”

“Annabeth and… (she spat the last word) Percy’s, son.”

“…yes?” and she almost sounded hesitant or wanted to crawl in a hole away from her mother’s fury.

Fury that, however, never came. Instead, Clarisse managed to put on her “I’m okay” face.

“Does he treat you right? Respect you?” she asked seriously this time.

“Yes, of course! You know him.”

“Alright then.”

“W-wait, that’s it?” Lena sputtered, her eyes wide. “You’re not mad or planning a murder?”

“No. Please kiddo, I’m an adult. If you’re happy, then I am as well.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“MY BABY! HIS SON IS DATING OUR BABY!” Clarisse was yelling, and Chris was sure their poor neighbours were as deaf as he is right now.

“Out of all the boys in the world, why would she choose him? She’s perfect, she could have any boy she wants!”

“Clary…” he started, sighing.

“She’s only 15! She’s too young to have a boyfriend, what if she’s not ready for some things?”

“Clary-“

“I swear if that punk hurts her-“

“Clarisse! Gods, shut it for a minute, the gods can probably hear you from Olympus!” Chris finally exclaimed, silencing his wife.

First in shock, Clarisse did realize she was rambling and crossed her arms firmly against her chest before sitting on their bed. Usually, Chris would have taken the opportunity to point out how cute her pout was, but he could see that she was particularly upset at the moment.  Not a good idea.

“First of all, you do realize she’s dating Luka, right?”

“No shit genius, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for ten minutes!”

“So you do remember that you adore this kid?”

Clarisse opened her mouth, trying to come up with a smartass answer but got none. Fine. She might have babysat him and his sister Zoe when they were little, seen him grow and hold his first sword. And they do call her Aunt Clarisse. But still.

“I’ve never said that.” She mumbled.

“But you mean it. He could pass anytime as Percy’s brother in looks, which is probably what freaks you out the most right now, but he’s also the nicest boy we’ve ever met. He’ll never hurt Lena intentionally and you know it.”

One thing Clarisse positively hated, is when her husband was right.

“I guess.”

“And if it can make you smile a little bit: imagine Percy’s face when he’ll know about this.”

At that, Clarisse let out a chuckle. “That idiot’s probably going to faint.”

“You’re adorable,” Chris said, kissing her on the cheek. “but you don’t need to worry that much about Lena. Besides, they’re only 15 and 16, it’s not like they’re already going serious or something.”

Clarisse raised an eyebrow. “We got together at the same age. What was all your 16 years-old-self wanted to do with his first girlfriend at the time?”

Her husband’s eyes widened quite comically as he whispered: “Oh shit.”

“Exactly. Good night, babe.”

Things that people/characters judge Ron by /use as a joke that makes 0 sense to me

So as we all know. We read the books from Harry’s point of view. Here are my issues with how Ron was treated. 

1. His food habits - this has to be the most annoying part about the series. J.K Rowling is partly to blame. She is always highlighting how Ron’s on his ‘sixth chocolate frog’ or how he’s always hungry, or going further on about his food habits, that it overrides moments of when Ron shares food or plates it for other people. For instance

 'Course, once Dumbledore turned up on your side, there was no way they were going to convict you,' said Ron happily, now dishing great mounds of mashed potato on to everyone's plates. 

One sentence, simple, no elaboration, just a simple ‘on to everyone’s plates’, much easier to forget than something like this

'Oh, yes,' said Nick, who seemed glad of a reason to turn away from Ron, who was now eating roast potatoes with almost indecent enthusiasm. 'Yes, I have heard the Hat give several warnings before, always at times when it detects periods of great danger for the school. And always, of course, its advice is the same: stand together, be strong from within.'

 'Ow kunnit nofe skusin danger ifzat?' said Ron.

 His mouth was so full Harry thought it was quite an achievement for him to make any noise at all.

 'I beg your pardon?' said Nearly Headless Nick politely, while Hermione looked revolted. Ron gave an enormous swallow and said, 'How can it know if the school's in danger if it's a Hat?'

 'I have no idea,' said Nearly Headless Nick. 'Of course, it lives in Dumbledore's office, so I daresay it picks things up there.'

 'And it wants all the houses to be friends?' said Harry, looking over at the Slytherin table, where Draco Malfoy was holding court. 'Fat chance.'

 'Well, now, you shouldn't take that attitude,' said Nick reprovingly. 'Peaceful co-operation, that's the key. We ghosts, though we belong to separate houses, maintain links of friendship. In spite of the competitiveness between Gryffindor and Slytherin, I would never dream of seeking an argument with the Bloody Baron.'

 'Only because you're terrified of him,' said Ron.

 Nearly Headless Nick looked highly affronted.

 Terrified? I hope I, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, have never been guilty of cowardice in my life! The noble blood that runs in my veins -'

 'What blood?' asked Ron. 'Surely you haven't still got - ?'

 'It's a figure of speech!' said Nearly Headless Nick, now so annoyed his head was trembling ominously on his partially severed neck. 'I assume I am still allowed to enjoy the use of whichever words I like, even if the pleasures of eating and drinking are denied me! But I am quite used to students poking fun at my death, I assure you!'

 'Nick, he wasn't really laughing at you!' said Hermione, throwing a furious look at Ron.

 Unfortunately, Ron's mouth was packed to exploding point again and all he could manage was 'Node iddum eentup sechew,' which Nick did not seem to think constituted an adequate apology. Rising into the air, he straightened his feathered hat and swept away from them to the other end of the table, coming to rest between the Creevey brothers, Colin and Dennis.

 'Well done, Ron,' snapped Hermione

As you all see, J.K Rowling went out of her way to make the way Ron is eating noticed, and the way Harry and Hermione react to it. I absolutely hate this. I hate how the characters look at his food habits and I hate the way readers now remember him by. Ron is about 6′3 (maybe even taller), he is a teenage boy who is GROWING, and is also skinny. It is COMPETLEY NORMAL for him to eat like how he does. He is the YOUNGEST SON of 5 older brothers, he is used to having to eat food quickly. I don’t understand why this became a thing of judgement, he is allowed to be hungry. When other character’s are hungry, it’s fine, no one addresses it, but when it’s Ron of course Hermione has to look disgusted. Meanwhile, look at the reaction’s the occur when Harry is hungry... 

"So you persuaded Horace Slughorn to take the job?"

Harry nodded, his mouth so full of hot soup that he could not speak.

"He taught Arthur and me," said Mrs. Weasley. "He was at Hog-warts for ages, started around the same time as Dumbledore, I think. Did you like him?"

His mouth now full of bread, Harry shrugged and gave a noncommittal jerk of the head.

"I know what you mean," said Mrs. Weasley, nodding wisely. "Of course he can be charming when he wants to be, but Arthur's never liked him much. The Ministry's littered with Slughorn's old favorites, 

No looks of disgust from Mrs. Weasley? If it was Ron I bet you Mrs. Weasley would have been like, ‘slow down Ron!’ or something to shame him for being hungry and this is just not O.K. LET RON EAT. LET HIM BE A GROWING BOY. WHY DOES HE HAVE TO BE SHAMED FOR BEING HUNGRY? 

Okay onto number 2. His insecurities. 

In my opinion, it started off O.K and then after GOF it became something that was like..characters were like ‘yeah O.K Ron’s insecure we get it,’ like in GOF Hermione goes from understanding him to the point where she explains to Harry, don’t you see, it’s hard for him always being compared to people, to OOTP where she’s like shut up with your jealousy Ron you’re sooo annoying. It particularly pisses me off in HBP when Hermione is like going out of her way to compliment Harry and Ron is clearly annoyed with it. And Hermione just ignores Ron like it’s an inconvenience that he’s insecure. I personally would never go out of my way to compliment one friend and ignore the other, especially when tha other friend looks bothered. We see this trend with other characters, who make fun of him for being insecure. The whole Weasley is our King is literally a song that abuses Ron’s lack of confidence in order to make him choke up in quidditch, and no one thinks nor cares about the seriousness of just how insecure Ron is that even other houses can recognize it to use it for their advantage. They just roll their eyes at it like ‘ugh Ron stop being insecure’ and I feel like he deserved more sensitivity, rather than make it like, Ron needs to stop being an insecure prat. Harry is the KING of brushing out other peoples problems because he’s Harry Potter and he has BIGGER PROBLEMS. They ignored Ron to the point where Harry was surprised as to what was coming out of the locket, Harry should have known, he should have not treated it like a minor inconvenience. 

Number 3. His lack of ‘compassion,’ or ‘empathy’ 

We see it highlighted a few times. Harry has described Ron as lacking empathy in situations, or in being too blunt. And these situations tend to be, well, not serious situations, they’re also situations where he is 14 years old. However, when Ron is showing empathy and emotion it’s always brushed off. Like how he cried during Dumbledore’s funeral. Or how he was dealing with Harry’s tantrums, or how he was able to diffuse tension with jokes. It makes Ron appear as if he’s emotionally underdeveloped, but this is not the case, Ron lacks in lady knowledge, what teenage boys don’t? The reality is that Ron knows when to be serious, he IS emotionally mature. When Sirius dies he doesn’t interrogate Harry like Hermione does, he knows when to draw the boundary and respect space. 

Number 4. His status.

It’s often highlighted how he is poor, is a ‘nobody’, or is Harry’s friend by other characters. We see it in HBP with the slug club, we see it with the Slytherin’s. Here is my issue with this...yes he is a Weasley..but let’s look at all the Weasley’s. We have Bill, a curse breaker who married a Veela, Charlie a dragon hunter, Percy, who is high up in the ministry, Fred and George, who have a funny swagger and are popular with everyone, and Ginny, Ms. Badass. I just don’t understand why he was the only Weasley who really got made fun of for being well, a Weasley, why was it RON? Even in the slug club I don’t get it, Slughorn liked people with connections, wouldn't he have had connections by Bill being is brother, or like his aunties? Cormac was taken in because of his uncle...And of course Ginny get’s invited. 

Number 5. The downplay of his accomplishments and the highlight of when he messes up. 

By convenience we don’t get to see How Gryffindor won the quidditch cup in fifth year because of Grawp, but we got to see him failing miserably before-hand. We don’t see him duelling the death eaters in the ministry, but we see him with the brains, although we know what he’s done, due to another character, or Ron telling us what he’s done, the readers get a limited amount of how many times that is actually described. 

Number 6. The tone J.K Rowling uses with Ron’s descriptions. 

Huge pet peeve of mine was how J.K Rowling decided to describe Ron’s owls marks. She gave Harry’s all laid out, and all we get for Ron is ‘Harry saw no O’s’ only to see that next book, they’re cleared for the exact same classes, meaning he got Exceeds Expectations in everything Harry did, like wtf? With ‘Harry saw no O’s’ that could mean 11 P’s, the only reason we know this is not the case is because Ron highlights how he only failed divination and history of magic, and how Molly says he got more than the twins combined. Without this, readers could have assumed anything as all they had to go by was ‘Harry saw no O’s,’ UGH it still bothers me. 

All in all, I think there was a tone implied in the novels that tried to downplay Ron’s character. And it’s sad because I think J.K Rowling knew she created such a likeable complex character, so she downplayed it. Making Ron suffer in the process. 

Reverberation

Summary: Levi’s grey eyes watched her seriously, and with caution. He was giving her all his attention, focused on the words that were about to leave her mouth. Hanji thought that was the actual reason why they were so close. Because when no one cared to hear a word from her Levi listened to her telling stories of gods and goddesses, heroes and villains, ancient people and ancient folks, tales of love and tales of hatred. When no one bothered seeing her colours, Levi sat down in front of her and let her paint everything she ever wanted.

Chapters: 2/?

link to AO3 

link to second chapter

In short a Levihan Childhood Friends AU in which I plan to enjoy using quotes from Shakespeare a lot if I make it that far that is. 

The boy sits on top of the rooftop.  

Hanji wonders why she is so fascinated by the view of a boy about her age. All he does is watching above and there is not even a token of emotion written on his face. He looks like he is reading a book in which he is not a bit interested, yet the mere fact that he is holding pages in his palms is enough for him.

She hasn’t seen anyone who has spared just a few minutes of their precious time to watch the sky, through her eleven years of a lifetime that is. Just like she hasn’t seen anyone going crazy when they find out that there was a frog in Indonesia which had no lungs, so it breathed entirely through its skin. Oh, it was so very exciting and bewitching and she had barely slept dreaming about it. Hanji would die to see that frog. She had begged her parents for about a week for them to take her to Indonesia. Mommy, mommy, please! I want to go there. I need to see that frog. It is breathing through its skin mom. How fascinating is that? Hanji, darling you know you can’t. You have school. I don’t have school in the summer! But Indonesia is so far away honey. It on the other side of the world. Oh, oh! That’s even better. I want to go to the other side of the world! Mommy please, please!

Too bad her efforts had given no fruit. She hasn’t given up on her dream yet, though. She just had to postpone it for a little while.

She approaches the boy cautiously. Because maybe this is his area and it is her first time here, so she doesn’t want to be seen as an invader. She had been walking around the town aimlessly when she came across this abandoned building. Its construction is uncompleted, there are no windows and doors, and the orange bricks on the walls are uncovered, free of paint. Hanji knew that sneaking into a hollow, and a relatively eery building was sort of perilous, but it was also thrilling. It had made her feel like she was a member of the Paul Street Boys. Although the setting was kind of distinct and she was alone. But it had never stopped her from discovering. And when she had climbed the concrete, grey stairs she had found the mystery boy here.

There is the not-quite-unfortunate fact that she cannot get along well with boys. They are rude, and filthy and egoistic. They walk around like they are the reincarnations of Achilles like no one is good enough for them. They are no sons of gods or goddesses. How pathetic. But she senses that there is something different with this one. Because he watches the sky, and the stars stare down at him. Hanji feels like she is observing a painting or reading Percy Jackson for the first time. It causes her nerves to stand, her insides to shake and she knows she cannot hold herself back. A step away from the rabbit hole, she imagines and feels like this is Wonderland and she is fool but also curious enough to fall down.

“Hi!” She twitters suddenly.

The boy doesn’t seem surprised or taken aback at hearing someone talking to him out of the blue. Maybe he had already known that Hanji was here. It only makes him more intriguing and Hanji hardly stops herself from bouncing on her feet. For a moment he observes her. His eyes are the colour of the moon, argent but they also have a touch of blue. Not too light but not too dark either. Closer to the sky when the night just begins to settle down. More like it is right now.

“Hey,” he says, dryly.

No rejection. That’s a good start.

“May I sit?”

The boy merely shrugs then turns his gaze back at the sky. Hanji takes it as a positive reaction and sits down next to him, carefully putting some distance away between herself and the boy. She opts to watch the view spread out before her first. This is a partially remote area of the town. The buildings are disorderly, and the streets do not seem fairly clean. Hanji wants to travel her hand on top of the buildings to feel the ups and downs of the rooftops on her palm. The image makes her giggle to herself. Ah, how nice it would be, wouldn’t it? Too bad it was impossible.

She feels the boy giving her a side glance, but he makes no remarks.

“Are you counting the stars?” She asks as she tilts her head back to watch them. There aren’t so many yet, but it would be hard to keep track of the numbers.

“No,” he replies. Curt and clear. He is not the one to talk, is he? Hanji muses inside.

“My grandmother used to say that it would make calluses to appear on your skin. Have you heard about it as well? I think it is a superstition though—”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” the boy interrupts. That is the first time he has used more than a word! Success. Good for you, Hanji. She pats her shoulder in her head proudly.

Hanji opens her mouth to respond but he beats her to it. “You can’t count infinity,” he says. “It is a waste of time.”

Hanji inhales.  

At this point, she is so near the edge to burst with her bubbling excitement that she is sure he feels it too. Her head spins as she stares at his side profile. He makes her feel like she is on a carousel. Everything about him makes her dizzy as if he is one of those books on her father’s library which she cannot reach and cannot understand even if she does. He doesn’t look at her. He has an undercut, she notices, dark hair moving in harmony with the wind. His attire is clean, neat and tidy. His face has the smooth lines of a child but there is a lining of maturity underneath them. And the way he holds himself, upright but also at ease. Nothing about him is fake, superficial or ordinary.

“What’s your name?” She asks as a grin spreads on her lips uncontrollably.

He moves his sharp eyes to her at last and he travels his gaze around her face. It is so hard to read anything from his features. Like looking at the blurry surface of a mirror and trying to figure out the lines of the face in it. And she fears that he won’t answer. Was he annoyed with her? But she hasn’t even reached the peak of her usual talkativeness, yet.

“It’s Levi.”

She nearly gasps for she had been very close to convincing herself that the boy had disliked her very much. Levi. It is a nice name, and it suits his personality somehow. Despite the fact that she had only known him for what? Five minutes? Maybe even less than that. But Hanji can tell.

“I’m Hanji,” she says her name back even though he hasn’t asked. Slowly put one Lego on top of it the other. Bring them all together and there, you have a castle. “Say, Levi, would you like to learn more about the sky?”

The boy doesn’t answer with words. He looks back above and shrugs.

But that’s more than enough for her.

now

Hanji’s phone rings in the middle of an important meeting.

Frankly, it is not that big of a problem. It happens to everyone every now and then. And her phone doesn’t even ring with a melody, it merely vibrates on the wooden table. Though it does make a hell of a lot of noise. Yet, the only way to overcome the situation is to simply reach out and silence it in a cold-blooded way, like nothing ever happened. That she does, without a nuisance.

The actual problem here is the name on the screen of her phone, and the fact that her hand was trembling as she pressed the button. Suddenly the air becomes too heavy, too hot and the room too narrow to fit inside. She distinctively feels Mr Jaeger’s piercing gaze from across the table. It is always hard to hide subtle changes of behaviour from a man as sharp as him. But Hanji is a professional and there is no way she can allow a slight disturbance to avoid her from focusing on her job. She imagines herself flicking her fingers aggressively as if to wake herself up from a deep slumber like she is buried deep in thick fog. Concentrate.

The blurry whiteness disappears gradually, her vision becomes clear and the deadlock in her ears leaves. But the name remains on her screen even after the ringing stops and she has to grip her pen tight enough to make the shivers go away.

-

The next time her phone rings there are several minutes to her lunch break. She shifts her attention from her computer screen to the phone and she just stares at the name, as if she looks long enough the letters will change or they will disappear, or she will wake up from this dreary sleep.

None of those happens, the machine keeps ringing on her desk, her heart slams against her ribcage, and her hands tremble yet again as she types numbers on her keyboard.

The vibrations cease after a while, but the cramps in her stomach don’t.

-

During her lunch break, Hanji goes out to the terrace for some fresh air. It is early spring; the weather is not quite cold but it’s somewhat chilly. The wind which blows occasionally disperses her hair as she leans her elbows on the railing. The terrace is high up on the building. She can easily watch the white, mushy clouds on the smooth, blue sky. Whether it is funny or tragic she cannot decide, that after all those years whenever she looks up at the sky, she still thinks about him.

“Yo, Hanji.” Zeke Jeager comes to stand next to her putting a cigarette on his mouth and using his Zippo to light it.

“Good afternoon, Mr Jeager,” Hanji greets, smiling in return as the man takes a deep breath from his smoke. His dark, yellow hair is untidy with the wind, and his glasses reflect the midday sun.

“Just call me Zeke when we are alone,” he says and shakes the ashes of the cigarette with his index finger causing them to fall from the railing. “I hate formalities.”

“But you are my very superior,” Hanji replies with amusement.

The corners of the man’s lips curl upwards when he takes another breath from his smoke. “I don’t care. You are almost as smart as me if not more.” He sends her a playful stare as he blows the smoke and Hanji laughs, but the act makes her stomach curl onto itself. Cheerfulness is the last thing she feels at the moment.

“You seem a little bit… different,” Zeke comments, just like Hanji predicted. Nothing escapes him. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Hanji lies easily. She doesn’t feel like talking about it. She doesn’t even feel like thinking about it. It makes her uneasy, and it fills her with apprehension and distress whenever the name on the phone screen comes before her eyes. She shakes her head. She needs to convince herself first. “It’s nothing.”

“Hmm,” Zeke mutters thoughtfully. He doesn’t believe her and it’s not like she expected him to. “I mean, I won’t say no if you ever need a drink,” he shrugs, and the gest reminds her of him so much that she feels a gulp shaping in her throat.

“Are you possibly flirting with me?” Hanji asks playfully, with a need to distract her mind from the wide field of dreary thoughts and memories.

“I don’t know. Is it working?” Zeke plays along and Hanji laughs again, this time more genuinely. “But I’m your very superior, so I guess not.”

“Yeah,” she says, her smile still evident on her lips. “Don’t take it personally.”

Zeke shakes his head as he puts the smoke between his lips again. He has a nice profile. A fine line of a bearded jaw, sharp cheekbones, soft-looking, bushy hair, pretty nose and a pair of nice lips. Eyes are a light blue mixed with green. A complete opposite, Hanji notices.

“Whatever it is,” Zeke continues after blowing out the white smoke. “It’s obvious that it affects you but don’t let it affect your work.”

“Of course,” Hanji nods.

“Hanji!” A female voice cuts in their conversation. Hanji turns around to see it’s Pieck. She waves at her from the door. “What are you doing here? Let’s go have lunch!”

“Yo, Pieck-chan,” Zeke waves at her cheerfully, grinning wide as they both walk up to where she is. “How are you?”

“Hungry,” Pieck replies, then turns to Hanji. “Come on. I’ve been looking for you.”

“Sorry,” Hanji apologizes. They always have lunch together with Pieck, but with her mind a muddle of emotions she had forgotten all about it.

“See you later then ladies,” Zeke, bids them goodbye and leaves then they both start to walk in the direction of the cafeteria.

“Is he bothering you?” Pieck asks as soon as Zeke is out of their hearing zone. “I can talk to him if he does. He is not as tough as he looks, and I have the material in my hand to sabotage him.”

Hanji laughs heartily for the first time that day. Pieck and Zeke are old friends, and she uses it every chance she gets. “There is no need for that. We were just talking but thank you.”

“Talking about what?” Hanji feels Pieck observing her face, looking for a hint. “Did he also realize that your mood is kind of sour today?”

Hanji’s smile freezes on her face. She hadn’t been as subtle as she thought she had as it seems. She opens her mouth to object, to array excuses like I’m just tired or couldn’t sleep well and change the subject.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” Pieck assures, bumping her shoulder lightly to hers. “It’s just unusual to see you like this.”

“Right,” Hanji adjusts her glasses and pushes herself for a slight movement on her lips. Upwards. “There is nothing to worry about.”

Her dark eyes travel around her face, searching Hanji’s gaze and she tries hard not to look away. Pieck is suspicious and Hanji knows she is not quite convinced when she says, “Okay.” But she doesn’t press upon the matter either. “I’ll be here if you want to talk about it.”

“I know,” Hanji smiles, genuinely this time. “Thank you, Pieck.”

-

Hanji watches her reflection in the mirror and sees the reason why everyone could tell that she had been in low spirits today.

“This shouldn’t have affected me that much,” she mutters and splashes cold, icy water on her face. Her glasses rest next to the sink, the hair on the side of her face and the tips of her forehead gets wet. Her soul feels heavy to carry, her heart uneasy and her stomach like it’s wrapped with thousands of sharp thorns.

Inside her head, there is an earthquake. It rumbles, rocks and causes the old shelves stuffed with dusty memories to be dishevelled all around. Yellow paged books lie open on the ground. It has been so long since she had let herself read a word from them. Now they force her to read the tale from the very beginning. And it doesn’t help that she already knows them all by heart.

“The temperature at the sun’s core is about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit,” she whispers, gripping the edge of the cold, white marble.

“The Moon’s distance from Earth is about 240.000 miles.

The globular cluster NGC 6397 is almost as old as the universe itself.

Mercury is the fastest planet,” she continues with quick whispers. “Daytime Temperatures can reach 439 degrees Celsius and drop to -180 degrees Celsius at night.

Ceres takes 1.682 Earth days, or 4.6 Earth years, to make one trip around the sun.

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun at an average distance of about 228 million km or 1.52 AU.”

Hanji closes her eyes and imagines the space. Infinite, black and yet aglow with suns, stars and moons—galaxies, clusters and planets.

The worn pages of the books rustle in her head. A distraction, a nuisance that came out of nowhere. Why? She thinks for the nth time that day. Why is he calling me now? After all those years, why now?

“This cannot be ill, cannot be good” she murmurs.

Then laughs to herself. Quoting Shakespeare again? he belittles her in her mind.

She shakes her head as if to erase his ghost from her mind. “Cannot be good,” she repeats. But she has never run for no reason, she has never let life win over without girding herself with arms. She has never been coward enough to hide.

It might be nothing. Maybe a simple call for a quick hello. Five minutes of conversation would do her no harm. It might be nothing, but it might be something too. There is only one way to figure it out.

She straightens, puts on her glasses and adjusts her clothes. Blinks her eyes a few times until she makes sure they are not blank as an empty, grey wall. Until the fire inside that is close to dying out, flare up again. After that, she lifts her hands to either side of her face and slaps her cheeks, “Okay,” she says, nodding at herself in the mirror.

Then turns around on her heels and walks out of the door.

-

He calls again when she is out of work and waiting for a bus at the stop.

She is tranquil, somehow, as she looks at the screen. Maybe it’s because she has made her mind earlier today that if he is to call again, she would answer this time. And she does.

“Hey,” she greets.

“Hey, Hanji.” His voice is rough and coarse. It sounds older than she has last heard him. “What’s up?”

“I’m fine,” Hanji swings a leg absentmindedly. “How about you, Kenny?”

“’m fine too,” Kenny replies. She tries to imagine him with long, dark hair and a smug grin on his face. Although the years had rubbed out the picture of the man she has known it is easier than she had expected.

“Sorry, I couldn’t answer earlier,” Hanji says, half-lie, half-sincere. “I was busy at work.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it, kid,” Kenny slides over and Hanji smiles slightly at the way he calls her. “I thought you’d be busy. But, eh, you see… I had to… call you,” he sighs. “Didn’t know who else to call.”

“Why?” She starts to feel the thorns again. Her body tenses involuntarily. A car sweeps by scattering her hair and clothes. “What’s wrong? Is he—"

Kenny sighs again and she hears his breath tremble. Above, the stars are hidden behind the grey, mobile clouds. The moon is a thin crescent. Strangers pass by, a bus stops, takes a few passengers and carries on. A breeze blows and the leaves rustle.

And Hanji feels like she is eleven again, watching the stars with a boy she barely knows.

You can’t count infinity, he had said. It is a waste of time.

They are no longer there.

“Kuchel,” Kenny begins. Cannot be good, Hanji thinks again and closes her eyes as he goes on with the dreadful news she had so feared to hear. “She is dead.”

--

The girl has stardust in her eyes.

Her hair is messy, and her clothes are dirty with mud and dust. She wears round glasses and when she smiles, he sees one of her upper teeth is slightly twisted.

And she reminds him of the first time he had seen a shooting star.

Do you want to learn more about the sky? The girl asks. Does he? He had never thought about it. He merely likes the experience of watching it while sitting or lying on his back with his arms under his head and a leg over the other in this abandoned, derelict building. It eases his mind when he is overwhelmed with school or family or friends or humans in general. He had most liked the fact that he had been alone all this time which was the actual purpose of this place anyway.

But the girl has stardust in her eyes, and she is like that shooting star, and she holds the moon in her hands.

If she reminds him that much of the sky maybe she would make him feel like he is watching it too, he thinks as he looks back above and shrugs.

Cannot be ill.

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E52 (Feb. 26, 2019)

There’s a lot to unpack here.

This week’s guests are Laura Bailey and Liam O’Brien!

Announcements:

Travis Willingham’s Yeehaw Game Ranch debuted today on CR’s Twitch channel! Travis and Brian will be livestreaming every other week at 4 PM Pacific (alternating with MAME Drop). Today’s episode will go up on YouTube on Thursday. On Monday, March 4, the Kickstarter for the VM cartoon will go live! They’ve been talking about this almost since the start. This episode of TM will be uploaded to YT on Thursday morning, and will be available on a one-week delay in podcast form!

The cowboy hat makes the rounds. Laura points out that she was actually in an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger.

Okay, on to episode 52: Feral Business. (Liam, just as the splash screen comes up: “That means masturbating.”)

Laura: “I think everybody should refer to their penis as a tiefling. Anyway, continue.”

There’s a discussion about classes for said tieflings. It gets a little out of hand.

Stats! Jester got her 5th HDYWTDT of the campaign against the shoosuva. Caleb has now dealt over 1,400 points of damage. (Liam: “Really?”) Frumpkin got his first natural 20 to perceive the rats and shoosuva. 

Laura and Liam have a heated negotiation about who gets to cuddle the Jester and Kiri plushies.

100% of the out-of-character motivation for the Disguise Self was just Liam missing being Laura’s twin. Liam: “You know, I like to have fun in my D&D games.” They enjoyed getting to sit next to each other again at the live show. 

Brian: “What were you gossiping about?” Liam: “Your tiefling.” Laura: “Specifically yours.”

Jester’s view on Caleb hasn’t changed since his backstory reveal. Laura: “I feel like it makes more sense that he’s more standoffish, and it made me feel much more guilty for the times I gave him shit for being muddy and stinky and stuff.” She points out that Jester got to see a lot of different types of people pass through, not to mention listen in on their conversations, and probably has a broader experience with a variety of people than some might expect.

Liam talks about how Xhorhas is “rough, and the customs are different, but it’s a real place” and not the bogeyman often presented to the Empire.

He objects to a question talking about how Caleb’s planning to take down people in the Empire, pointing out that he’s never confirmed that. Laura immediately concocts a theory about Caleb being a top-secret spy for the Empire.

Laura: “Jester has no idea that her charisma isn’t as high as... Beau’s or... is Beau’s very high?” She loved leading a diplomatic conversation, and didn’t know how it would turn out, but she feels like she killed it.

Snoozy Henry!

Liam: “Caleb’s not scared of being manipulated. I think that’s done.” It feels off being away from the Empire, not because he still feels loyalty, but mainly because everything that matters to him is still there.

Another round of dick jokes comes to a climax (sorry) with “Cocks Machina”.

Gif of the Week! Jester learning the ways of the goth.

If the opportunity presents itself, even in Xhorhas, Jester will 100% pull a prank and try to spread the word of the Traveler. “Nothing is sacred to Jester!”

Laura mentions that she has no backup character planned if Jester dies; she feels like having a backup will make her more likely to accept the possibility of losing Jester.

Jester doesn’t really care about the Empire vs. Krynn conflict. “Political bullshit. I don’t think the Krynn are necessarily evil, but I don’t know.” Liam points out that nobody really knows the motivations behind the conflict in the first place. Caleb mainly sees it as a big mess. “Caleb will still have emotional ties to where he was born and raised, but he knows they’re flawed and awful. They’re really terrible people.”

Laura’s theory: “The Empire stole a lot of artifacts. They stole the dodecahedron. The Krynn just want it back. And now we have it. And we’re fucking everything up.”

Big Tiefling Energy.

Jester on tattoos: “Nah, I’m not afraid of the pain! I can take it! I’m really strong!” She’d totally get a tattoo if the right idea came along.

Caleb isn’t too concerned about the group getting sidetracked, since he doesn’t really have “an agenda for where he wants to go”. He wouldn’t want to do something boring, but that’s not exactly a worry with this group. “They keep going to places with things he’s interested in.”

Laura on Jester’s changing dynamic with Nott: “It’s interesting to find out that Nott’s a mom. She knows what that relationship means, and she is just devastated for Nott that she can’t be with her son.” What seemed the worst was that she didn’t have someone who thinks of her the way Jester thinks of her mom. “I thought about so many times just her not taking a bath. It just makes me so sad.”

Fan Art of the Week! A giant city-tortoise.

Liam: “Man, get a load of Brian’s kenku.” Dani: “This has to stop.”

What the heck does “consecuted” mean? Laura: “I think it means something about being reborn.” Liam: “Yeah, reincarnation.”

Liam on potentially picking the wrong spells: “I don’t worry that I will. I just know that I will.” Marisha warned him.

Brian asks Laura about where her vote’s hovering in the vote for DnD Beyond’s president. Laura: “I feel like Liam has a stronger platform.” Liam: “Is that a dick joke?” Laura: “I’m sitting next to Liam. So Liam.”

Dani: “Contractually, as Sam’s campaign manager, I have to vote for Sam. But he’s also not paying me, so I’m just saying, Liam, if you paid me, I could maybe switch sides. Look, I’m working for exposure only, and I’m feeling very exposed.” Liam: “Listen, my shell corporation will talk to your shell corporation after the show.”

Jester’s not too worried about the group being disrespectful by hanging onto the dodecahedron. “It’s a powerful thing! Look at it! We can play with it!” Liam: “Yeah, it’s not her god.”

Liam: “I miss playing twins.” Laura: “I do too, buddy.”

Henry is moved to the couch when Liam starts literally curling up on the floor to be closer to him:

Jester would create a Magical Viagra spell. Dani: “Like the Wand of Smiles, but for dicks!” Laura: “The point of it would be to just make people feel awkward.”

On Jester checking on Fjord’s tusks: “It’s important to her that he appreciates himself as much as others appreciate him.”

Liam: “My character will probably die soon anyway.” Everyone: “LIAM O’BRIEN.”

Laura points out that Jester’s come closer to death than Caleb. “If anyone’s going to die soon, it’s me.” Brian: “Stop it! Stop!”

Search for Grog Questions (SPOILERS FOLLOW!)

The group played a private home game as Vox Machina for fun recently (”It didn’t make sense, but it was fun!”). Liam was envious of the group getting to play their characters again, so he wanted to play something at least VM-adjacent. He also loves building out the world and wanted to continue fleshing that out. “She saw VM, unbeknownst to them, a couple times.” He also wanted to be able to keep people from dying and “breaking the universe.”

Laura on playing VM again: “It was really crazy, and me and Taliesin gave each other the biggest hug after the show. I missed Percy and I missed that relationship so much!”

Having Lieve’tel around was painful, but Vex “didn’t have the same reaction to it the way Keyleth did. It was bittersweet. I think she appreciated that someone appreciated what her brother did.”

Gilmore and Allura’s voices were big moments of nostalgia. Percy-Vex banter. Scanlan wanting to kill Trinket. (Laura really thought she’d have to leave Trinket behind, and the “I can carry him” killed her.) Scanlan’s singing. Pike! Liam: “Roasting the shit out of Travis.” Laura: “Oh my god.”

Since the musical has some bootleg songs out(I can link if you ask) maybe Percy and People reacting to one of the songs? If you can. Don't stress about it. Have a nice day!

Reacting to the songs from the Percy Jackson Musical without seeing the musical by Percy, Annabeth, and Grover.

The Day I Got ExpelledPercy: This is exactly how all this god stuff started for me.Annabeth: Of course it is. This entire musical is loosely based on your point of view and your book.Percy:  A best selling book!

StrongPercy: This song really captures my mom. Grover: I know. It really shows how she was just trying to protect you and loves you.

The Minotaur/ The Weirdest DreamGrover: If your fight with the Minotaur was sung, it would go exactly like this.Percy: And my weird vision and meeting Annabeth.Annabeth: I still stand by my statement, you drool in your sleep.Percy: Thanks Wise Girl.

Another Terrible DayGrover: This is Mr. D. No questions asked.Annabeth and Percy: Yup.

Their SignPercy: I think this song captures a half-blood’s reaction when they find out that they have a godly parent. Everyone gets mad that they have been there all along and yet they just sit back and let everything happen. Especially all the bad things that happen to them.

Put You In Your PlaceGrover: Clarisse was the scariest camper here. Even the actress singing her part doesn’t fully understand how scary she is. Percy: No kidding. She actually wanted to kill me at that time. 

The Campfire SongPercy: Why can’t our Campfire song be this song?Annabeth: Because now we have a better relationship with the gods thanks to you.Percy: But its a good way to complain about our problems.

The Oracle Percy: If the Oracle sang the prophecies like this, I would run as far away as I can.

Good KidPercy: This song is the best song on this album. It captures everything I was going through when I was twelve.Annabeth: I thought this song would be after the opening number. It would make sense to go through what you’ve been dealing with then.Percy: But the song states that my mom is missing. It’s in the perfect spot!

Killer Quest!Grover: Aww, the first quest the three of us went on! Annabeth: Yes, the first time I got to leave camp and show my worth. It was great!Percy: We just babies then.

Lost!Grover: This is so unrealistic. The squirrel would have been very helpful!Percy: That’s the unrealistic part of the song?Grover: Yes!Annabeth: The most realistic part of the song is Percy saying talking to a squirrel nuts. You should have just apologized Percy!Percy: Shut it.

My Grand PlanAnnabeth: The Annabeth in this musical is perfect. The song is genius!

DriveGrover: This is such a good song to get through the boring traveling part. And I finally got a solo!Percy: I’m just glad they didn’t do that part with the water park.Annabeth: Me too.

The Weirdest Dream (Reprise)Percy: Why is this a song? I sing for like two seconds before all the talking happens.

The Tree on the HillGrover: Can we skip this song?Annabeth: But it’s such a good song! It’s also a tribute to Thalia before we brought her back.Grover: I know, but it was a sad time back then.

D.O.A.Percy: Can we agree that if this was the song to go to the Underworld, we would go all the time?Annabeth: No. I don’t want to go back down there until I have to.Percy: But the song is so catchy!

Son of Poseidon Annabeth: This is such a good turn around song. Percy: I agree. Except I don’t think I realized that the gods were good people that fast.Grover: It’s a musical, Percy.

The Last Day of SummerPercy: Luke was more menacing than what the musical portrays. When I found out he was the lightening thief, he had an evil look in his eyes.

Bring On the MonstersPercy: I wasn’t that excited to face my next quest. Annabeth: But we knew it was coming. And this song is a good rap up of the musical and what to expect if there’s another musical. 

In this episode, the owls go to war and Meredith becomes a mouse. Queenie brings Burt back into the fold, where he does exactly what Joel has always known he’d do. Joel sends Lyla to safety with Rita, but not before she meets Katherine at Bash’s house. Katherine also stages a meeting with the Phoenixes. Mixed messages and miscommunications abound.

We learn once and for all that Reprisal takes place in an alternate universe, in which many of the male characters fought in the Archipelago War and are still suffering from PTSD. Molly was a field nurse in the war and also saw things that left her traumatized. She’s probably not the only woman on the show who was affected by the War. Virtually every character has been affected by some war, whether it’s the Archipelago War or Burt’s gang wars or the unnamed, continuous wars that constitute domestic violence. Growing up surrounded by the Brawlers or the Ghouls equals growing up on the edge of a battlefield.

Recap

Episode 6 begins with newsreel footage of the Archipelago War, in honor of the anniversary of the bloody Battle of the 37th Island. The Archipelago was a country that was split in two. Some thought it should remain that way, while others thought it should be reunited into one country. Military from all over the world came to fight for the Archipelago, because it was such a beloved place and they cared so deeply about its future. Or so the newsreel announcer assures us. Whether their side won or lost, the soldiers and support staff should be proud of their efforts on behalf of the Archipelago!!

We aren’t told the outcome of the war or which side our country was on. It feels Orwellian, and not terribly different from the small wars the US is almost continuously involved in.

A younger Percy Montgomery plays cards in a VFW Post and tells his companion that the whole Archipelago should have been blown up. Younger Bash, wearing a Brawlers shirt and jacket, enters. Percy tells his companion to pour another round for his big brother.

Bash wants Percy to join the Brawlers with him. Percy doesn’t think he’s the joining type. Besides, they already belong to a family. Bash insists that this is a bigger, better family. He tells Percy to come build a new car or work on his old one. But even if all Percy wants to do is drink himself to death, Bash wants him to do it nearby.

Burt Harlow wakes up in his rural cabin and lights a cigarette. He works on old clocks and tends to his garden. He’s apparently run off and joined the Watchmen, maybe on Europa. As long as I don’t have to watch Tom Mison die another thousand times, I’m okay with that.

His peaceful respite is just about over, though, because Queenie has had enough and is driving her hotrod out to see him. All this time we thought Bash and Joel were his two lieutenants, but as it turns out, the aptly named Queenie is the real power behind the throne. She’s known where he was all along. And she does keep the books- both sets. They say, “Follow the money,” for a reason.

At the cabin, Queenie looks over Burt’s current car. She’s unimpressed with it’s vintage black simplicity. Burt says, “I figured I’d give her a second life.” I could be wrong, but I think it’s the car Katherine was driving the night he tried to kill her. The black would be a form of mourning and respect, since he believes she’s dead. This would make sense to a psychopath- in his mind, she forced him to take action. He didn’t want to kill her. It also befits his status as dignified leader, godfather and perpetual semi-victim who needs revenge.

Queenie tells Burt about Percy and that they’ll do his send off, the Brawler funeral, tomorrow night. Burt is concerned about Bash’s reaction, but Queenie is satisfied that he got his revenge. It’s Joel she’s worried about, with Lyla growing up. Then she notices Burt’s garden and laughs at him. Burt is having an existential crisis over the fact that he can’t even grow cucumbers as well as his no account father.

Queenie tells him that she doesn’t care what he’s been doing for the last 2 years. He’s needed by the family he built. It’s time to come home.

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Doris tries repeatedly to call Ethan. He doesn’t answer and eventually gets rid of the phone in the woods behind the compound.

Not the smartest place to dispose of incriminating evidence.

Doris get frustrated and shows it, a momentary lapse in her composure. Earl asks why Percy called her Katherine. She walks out. Molly decides that it’s time to remove the buckshot Gregory put in his neck at the checkpoint. (I didn’t mention that he got in a shot at Earl because at that point what happened wasn’t clear to me.)

Molly was a field nurse in the Archipelago War on the 37 Island- the bad one. Earl and Cordell have new respect for her. They both fought in the war for two tours, but neither was on the 37th Island.

Once his wounds have been tended to, Earl finds Katherine in the coffee shop/bar. He tells her that the Monster Ring was originally the idea of their commanding officer in the war, Alvin. She’s surprised, because she thought Earl was also Alvin. They chuckle at how little they know about each other.

When they came back from the war, Alvin saw an opportunity and rounded up the team. Bernice was fine with it then, because she liked the extra income. Bernice and Earl had a son named Raymond and when he was 13, Alvin recruited him into the Monster Ring. Alvin took Raymond out on a job and Raymond was killed.

Katherine tells Earl that Percy was her first husband’s brother and how she was betrayed. Earl asks why she’s come back now. She says that her anniversary is coming up.

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Joel brings Lyla to Bash’s house. Bash is listening to a recording of a couple who are discussing running away together. Joel notes that it was strange, the way Percy had the Ghouls mask on his head. He and Bash exchange a knowing look, figuring out what they should have seen before Bash went on a murder spree.

Of course, Bash still had to go on a murder spree, to maintain their cover story.

Lyla tells Bash that when she’s sad, she hugs her stuffed doll, Rufus, until she feels better. Rufus asks what she has to be sad about. She tells him she has plenty.

Good for her. He’s probably not the first and he certainly won’t be the last person to dismiss her feelings and issues as trivial. The things she has to be sad about aren’t too different from his own. She hasn’t seen her mother since she was a baby. She lives in a super misogynist, enclosed cult compound which doubles as a bar and strip club. She’s surrounded by violent, alcoholic, misogynist men and her only female role models are sex workers who don’t particularly care about her.

Her father is teaching her to cope by escaping into a fantasy world, a coping mechanism which she’s smart enough to sense won’t hold up in the real world outside the compound. If she ever escapes. She’s around the Pin-Ups enough to hear them discuss the ways that they are semi-forced to stay. Who knows how many sexual and violent crimes she’s witnessed in her short life. And she has no one else her age to play with. She doesn’t seem to go to school or leave the compound.

In this episode, we’ve been given Meredith, Gertrude and Raymond as examples of what Lyla’s future probably holds. Which should she choose?

So no, Lyla has no problems at all, Bash. And, yes, 10 year old girls do think about all of the things I just listed when they are in abusive environments.

Lyla tells Bash she’ll come back to get Rufus before she goes to bed. Then she asks what happened to make him so sad. He says that there’s trouble between the owls.

Queenie convinces Burt to come back to the Brawlers. The Brawlers prepare Percy’s truck, Thelma, for his send off.

Meredith and Gertrude have a heart to heart about where they stand now that the Brawlers and the Ghouls are going to war. First, Gertrude gives Mer advice on bike repairs. Then she tells Mer that Gary is dead. Mer defends him as a decent guy. Gertrude wants to leave before the war reaches full swing. She remembers how bad it was the last time. Mer wants to wait until she fixes her own bike. She still hopes things won’t get too bad. Gertrude knows better.

Matty is suspicious about the way Percy died. He’s figured out that there’s no way Gary or the Ghouls would have broken the peace and killed Percy that way. Joel tells him not to question the official story and not to go looking for revenge on his own. He orders Matty to protect the river instead of instigating more fights. Joel manhandles Matty, again, in his attempt to get Matty to things his way.

Joel can’t see that the manhandling only makes Matty more resentful. If he wants a different kind of gang, he needs to try treating some of the members differently, starting with Matty, who has enough empathy and intelligence to see things Joel’s way, then to help influence others. But Joel is so controlling that he never wants to explain his reasoning to anyone he views as beneath him.

Burt returns to the compound and grabs a beer. Then he asks to see Bash. He tells Bash that he loved Percy as if he was one of them. Bash reminds him that Percy was one of them. Burt says they’re going to make it right. Bash says he already did. Burt says he needs to make it even righter. The Ghouls will hit back, so he needs to hit back harder, first.

Burt has one move- attack and hit so hard that you annihilate the enemy. No matter how small or large the infraction, that’s his response.

Joel meets Jukes in an isolated spot to discuss options, except there are none and they both know it. They quickly come down to hoping their friendship won’t be ruined by the war and part with the understanding that whatever happens next is just business. If they both come out of it alive, they’ll regroup.

Percy’s send off begins with a trumpet player playing Chicago’s 25 or 6 to 4. As the brawlers and Pin-Ups file out to their places, Burt shakes their hands in greeting. He stops to say hi to the Phoenixes. Matty is in awe. Johnson just looks at Burt with his usual ironically bemused calm. Ethan hangs back a little.

The stripped skeleton of Percy’s beloved truck, Thelma, is set on fire. Burt stands next to it to speak to the Brawlers. He is once again lit only by flames. Joel’s long peace has come to an end.

Burt: “I never cared much for funerals. Something made up by weak men to ease the pain of the lies that they tell themselves, that death has meaning. It does not. Family has meaning. You ever see a pack of wolves? The leader follows from behind. With our family, I’ve never needed to lead or to follow. Because our family has always been one. And when someone threatens the family that we built, we need to protect ourselves, and make them suffer. So make no mistake about it. We are now at war.”

This ritual is for the crowd. Bash is in his room, the prison cell he sentenced himself to after he betrayed Katherine. Katherine is with her new crew. Joel returns midway through it and goes straight home. Meredith sits on the other side of the compound with Tina. She hasn’t seen her father yet and contemplates leaving now, with Gertrude, instead of waiting until Queenie is “done”, as she had planned. Either way, she sees her father as weak, which is extra ironic, given his speech.

When Burt finishes, many of the men yell in agreement. The Phoenixes don’t.

Later, Meredith packs a bag while listening to Gertrude on the phone, telling her that there’s a guy they can buy some scratch from, then use the money from selling that to fund their trip out of town. Meredith packs her gun. Gertrude lost both parents in previous wars and doesn’t want to fight another.

Katherine explains to Earl that she needs to go to the compound tonight while the Brawlers are distracted by Percy’s send off, in order to make sure a seldom used back road still exists. While she’s there, she wants to drop an anniversary gift off with her ex.

Having found the back way open, Katherine makes her way into Bash’s cabin. He’s let his record play to the end and passed out, leaving the needle skipping at the end, which is a terrible, grating crime by itself. Friends don’t let friends scratch their albums and ruin their stereo needles, even when murder is on the table, so Katherine turns off the record player before she points her gun at Bash’s head.

This is undoubtedly the kind of thing that made him fall in love with her.

Bash still has Rufus curled up with him. Lyla shows up to get her toy and asks if Katherine is a friend of Bash’s. She decides they’re all one big happy friend group before trying to pull Rufus out from under her uncle the mass killer. Katherine tries to keep her gun out of sight while helping Lyla with Rufus.

I doubt guns faze Lyla at all.

Lyla notices that Katherine and Bash have matching heart tattoos on their wrists. To distract her, Katherine shows her a small carved bird in her purse and asks for help naming him. Lyla says they should leave the bird as a gift for Bash. Katherine knows that leaving the bird will give away her presence, but she indulges Lyla.

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The next day, Joel brings Lyla to the park gazebo where he met Rita. Lyla tells him that she has an idea for Harold Horpus’ story now. She thinks Harold is like an ant who’s lost their queen. He’s lost his purpose in life and needs to find it again. She explains that she thought of this when she “met the lady with the black heart and the yellow canary”- Uncle Bash’s ghost visitor.

Normally, Joel would be all over a story like this coming from his daughter and have figured out the truth of the situation within the hour. But this time, he’s distracted, trying to get her away from Burt’s war as quickly as possible, so he insists she was dreaming, even when she insists she wasn’t.

Rita arrives to take Lyla home with her. Lyla is mature beyond her years, more worried for her father than herself. He says he’ll be searching for his own “why”. Lyla says she’ll find Harold while they’re separated. Rita tells him to call when he’s done with the Brawlers.

Bash wakes up and sees the yellow canary. Katherine Harlow isn’t above a mixed message or two.

The three River Phoenixes eat in a diner, still thinking about Burt’s speech. Matty is excited that he gets to prove himself in a war with Burt. Johnson wants Matty to stop thinking so loud. Ethan is still in his own world, worrying about his own problems. His own problem turns up in the form of Katherine, who complements their jackets and pretends she doesn’t know any of them.

She scoots into the booth beside Ethan and chats them up for a minute, asking if they’re in a band or some other sort of group. Nobody is very friendly, but Johnson tells her they’re in transportation. Johnson definitely recognizes her after a second and notices how strangely Ethan is reacting, but he doesn’t tip his hand or Katherine’s.

As Katherine is leaving, she pretends to find Ethan’s phone on the floor and gives it back to him. The whole thing was a ruse to give him a new phone so he’d have to take her calls again.

Gertrude picks up Meredith from the phone booth and brings her back to the Ghouls compound. Gertrude is silent the whole ride and as they walk back to a hangout spot, where several young Ghouls are waiting. When Meredith walks in, one of the Ghouls acknowledges that she’s Burt’s daughter. Meredith pulls out her gun and points it at the female Ghoul. They all stand up, one pointing her gun at Meredith.

They are at a standoff, with the Ghouls being dismissive of Meredith, until someone else reaches into their jacket and Meredith shoots the main Ghoul in the head. Another yells to shoot Meredith, but the one with the gun says that Jukes told them to keep her alive. While they hesitate, Meredith shoots everyone but Gertrude.

Gertrude and Meredith have a standoff for a minute, Mer with an empty gun and Gertrude with a crossbow. Gertrude says that she was forced to kidnap Meredith.

Meredith leaves, taking Gertrude’s bike, symbol of her independence.

Commentary

Jukes went straight for someone who he thought would be an innocent, helpless victim and a high value target. He thought kidnapping Meredith would escalate the tension but not the violence. Obviously he underestimated her. Joel understood the way Jukes thinks and was smart to get Lyla out.

This is the first time we’ve seen where the Ghouls live. It looks less fortified and more homey than the Brawlers’ compound, which is probably better for their mental health but makes their chances of surviving Burt’s insanity worse.

In episode 6 we met a few more female gang members, then watched them die at the hands of a lone, white, overly-feminized, oppressed sex worker wielding a gun. Yay for diversity and nontraditional gender presentation. Boo for the other messages this show just sent.

I’m not sure they could have done more to make Meredith physically look like an innocent and pure child who’d been defiled by the evil minorities. While I love some good symbolism, where is the purity symbolism when it comes to Gertrude and Lyla? Or Ethan and Matty? All children are born innocent, not just Meredith.

If there’s a season 2, my number 1 request is for Meredith to stop dressing like an overgrown little girl. Her clothing is beautiful, but it’s meant to put her on a pedestal above the other characters while also still making her look like a hooker. It’s the worst kind of “Lolita” mixed messaging, associated with both the sexualizing of children and infantilizing of grown women.

Earlier in the episode, Meredith and Gertrude spoke on the phone while sitting next to each other. It was only revealed to the audience that they were together at the end of the call. Before they hung up, they were even shown in splitscreen, showing how they were being torn apart while together.

During the call, Gertrude begs Meredith to run away with her now, before things get any worse. Gertrude remembers Bert’s last few wars and has been left bereft by them. She doesn’t want to watch anymore loved ones die. Meredith can’t bring herself to leave yet, saying that her bike isn’t ready. Gertrude’s bike is. She wants them both to leave on her bike, but Meredith won’t budge.

At the end of the episode, after killing several Ghouls, Meredith rides away from the Ghoul’s compound on Gertrude’s bike. Circumstances have forced Meredith to grow up and become ready, like it or not. Gertrude has become ensnared in the war, just as she feared, and she’s watched friends die at the hands of someone she cares about. Like Jukes and Joel, the two are now on opposite sides of a war and their friendship may not survive.

The hot rods represent the heart or soul or best of the person. Did Meredith take Gertrude’s heart for safekeeping or did she take away the best of Gertrude?

We see fire used twice in this episode as part of rituals. Molly uses it medically to sterilize her surgical tweezers so that she can remove the buckshot from Earl’s neck and help him heal. After she’s done, he goes to the bar and tells Katherine about his son, helping to heal that wound as well.

Meanwhile, Percy’s beloved hotrod truck/”beast” Thelma is stripped of all usable parts and then the shell is burned as a symbolic cremation. Burt takes this opportunity to return to his “family” after a two year absence and speak to them as a group. He doesn’t speak about Percy. Even when he talks to Queenie and Bash, he doesn’t say much about Percy. In fact, he refers to Percy, who’s just died in the line of duty, as an outsider to Bash.

Burt tells the assembly they are going to war to avenge the perceived slight, but he doesn’t seem to care much about the affected people. He mainly seems to sense that people are restless, leading to skirmishes, and his solution is to start another bloody war. Keeping everyone else constantly fighting each other helps to maintain his own status, since no one can think straight long enough to plan a coup.

Queenie doesn’t have a 3 River Phoenixes or a 707 tattoo. She is a unique entity in the group. As are all of Burt’s closest allies. He only values conformity in his foot soldiers. But he’s a chaotic, so people tend to make mistakes when he’s around that they wouldn’t normally make.

That’s part of how Burt beats them or keeps them under his control and why he goes straight to war- to keep everyone else off balance, a place where he functions normally, but hardly anyone else does. Katherine learned the technique from Burt and it’s already working- both Bash and Joel are making mistakes.

I think Johnson was over the Brawlers years ago, but is either protecting someone or has nowhere else to go. He certainly sees through the BS that Matty loves so much, but he lets Matty have his fun. Johnson also keeps his mouth shut and lets the chips fall where they may. He seems to have stopped choosing sides and intervening, even when he could. Thus, he doesn’t say anything, even to Matty or Burt, when he recognizes Katherine in the diner. He let’s her give Ethan the phone and continue her battle with whoever she’s come back for.

Queenie, on the other hand, sees much more than she lets on and judiciously interferes behind the scenes much more than we realize, with a well-timed word to the right person. She’s the queen bee, always buzzing around the compound and checking in on people, then leaving them with something to think about.

I don’t think we’re supposed to see Joel and Jukes as lovers, but they do love their secret rendezvous. Some of the friendships in this show are very intense. It can be hard to tell if there are repressed feelings going on.

It’s probably too late now, and maybe it always was, but I wonder what would have happened if Joel had found something else for Burt’s standing army to do to use up testosterone and adrenaline besides fight wars. Personally, I’m fond of supporting the arts beyond burlesque, such as forming rock bands and making public street art. Getting out into nature is also good- let them rebuild the infrastructure of the Archipelago or campgrounds and other infrastructure in National Parks.

Or just encourage these gearheads to restart the races at the racetrack with all of those hotrods. Right now, the gangs’ vehicles serve mainly as an artistic outlet and status symbols. Their value as tools for escape or athleticism could be increased by holding sanctioned public competitions. That’s a business opportunity that’s waiting to be exploited and it doesn’t have to involve much exploitation of women and minorities.

The record Bash listens to in his room is the same radio drama he and Percy listened to at the VFW Post when he recruited Percy into the Brawlers. Bash is feeling some regrets, or at least wondering if he’s always made the best choices.

Katherine’s back way into the compound is both an actual road and a metaphor. The first person Burt asked for when he returned to the compound was Bash. Katherine checked on Bash to make sure killing Percy had the effect she expected it to. By hurting Bash, she’s already hurt Burt and destabilized the entire Brawlers organization. Bash was close to three people: Percy, Katherine and Burt. The night Katherine was left for dead, Bash chose Burt over her. Leaving the canary began the next phase of Katherine’s plan.

Images courtesy of Hulu.

Reprisal S1E6: For Love of the Archipelago Recap-The owls go to war & Meredith becomes a mouse. Queenie brings Burt back into the fold, where he does exactly what Joel has always known he'd do. Joel sends Lyla to Rita. #Reprisal In this episode, the owls go to war and Meredith becomes a mouse. Queenie brings Burt back into the fold, where he does exactly what Joel has always known he'd do.

Thoughts on the Heroes of Olympus series (Part 1)

(Warning: The below review is brimming with spoilers.) Before I begin my review of the Heroes of Olympus series, I feel the urge to wax poetic about how gorgeous the covers of Percy Jackson books always are. I’m not an artist, so I can’t get too specific with my reasoning, but the colors and amount of detail in the book jackets above create an outstanding effect. (The artistry doesn’t surprise me, considering that the series is published by Disney Hyperion.)  As for the series itself, I’ve forgotten more thoughts and feelings about it than I’ve had about other books. Therefore, in an attempt at cohesion, I’m going to review the series first by book and then as a whole.  The Lost Hero The Lost Hero serves its purpose of establishing the villain and principal heroes of the series, but it didn’t grip me. I had to force myself to continue reading at some points, which I never had to do with the original series.  However, the book still contains Riordan’s trademark humor, which I always enjoy(ed), as well as a novel approach to a frustratingly overused trope. In any other book, children’s or adult, when Piper revealed to Jason and Leo that she had been grappling with whether or not to betray them to save her father, they would’ve responded to her confession with anger and distrust. Here, though, they’re...sympathetic? An idealistic reaction, maybe, but also less cliché than the alternative, and what’s so wrong with idealism, anyway, particularly in a children’s adventure story? Their show of support to Piper, their friend, fellow hero, and companion on their quest, is, aside from being damn refreshing, consistent with the emphasis placed on friendship both in this book and throughout the series.  The Son of Neptune I have the least to comment on in The Son of Neptune. Of the five books in the series, it is the least memorable to me, perhaps because it is, admittedly by necessity, a rehash of The Lost Hero, but with Percy in the role of amnesiac instead of Jason. It introduces Camp Jupiter and two more POV characters, Frank and Hazel, but that’s about all that’s significant about it. The Mark of Athena I’ve always appreciated Annabeth’s character for the fact that she’s neither the archetypal intelligent female nor the archetypal female hero. Not only do her interests lie in architecture rather than in the humanities, but her physical strength also certainly does not equal her cerebral strength: although she fights with her dagger occasionally, her wits are her primary weapon, and in The Mark of Athena, perhaps to an even greater extent than in the original series, they prove as effective as, if not more effective than, the other heroes’ more traditional methods of defeating villains. Then, of course, there’s her physical appearance. Annabeth is not a mousy brunette insecure about her looks, like most brainy female characters: she is, in fact, blonde and pretty, which, in addition to challenging the typical media depiction of teenage blondes as vapid, allows her to use it to her advantage in a squeal-inducing scene with Octavian by the dock in South Carolina. I’m sorry, but, spoiler or no, I have to share it: Very slowly, using only two fingers, Annabeth drew her dagger. Instead of dropping it, she tossed it as far as she could into the water. Octavian made a squeaking sound. "What was that for? I didn't say toss it! That could've been evidence. Or spoils of war!" Annabeth tried for a dumb-blonde smile, like: Oh, silly me. Nobody who knew her would have been fooled. But Octavian seemed to buy it. He huffed in exasperation. "You other two..." He pointed his blade at Hazel and Piper. "Put your weapons on the dock. No funny bus--" All around the Romans, Charleston Harbor erupted like a Las Vegas fountain putting on a show. When the wall of seawater subsided, the three Romans were in the bay, spluttering and frantically trying to stay afloat in their armor. Percy stood on the dock, holding Annabeth's dagger. "You dropped this," he said, totally poker-faced.  Annabeth threw her arms around him. “I love you!”  Earlier, we get an equally amazing interpretation of her character, this time from Leo’s POV:  He had no idea where the stereotype of dumb giggly blondes came from. Ever since he'd met Annabeth at the Grand Canyon last winter, when she'd marched toward him with that Give me Percy Jackson or I’ll kill you expression, Leo had thought of blondes as much too smart and much too dangerous.   All I can say is, YES! FINALLY. I literally grinned when I read the above two passages, which is worth mentioning because normally I - like most people who read on their commute, I’d wager - have no visible reaction to what I’m reading. It may have taken until 2012 for someone to challenge the “dumb blonde” stereotype in a meaningful way in children’s literature, but at least it’s been done at last.  The Charleston scene also constitutes one of my favorite interactions between Percy and Annabeth, because it showcases how well they’ve learned to read each other and work as a team, and hints at the reasons why they’re well-matched as a couple. There is some discussion, in this series, of how Percy needs Annabeth to keep him balanced: without her influence, the other characters argue, Percy’s raw, awesome power and tendency toward impulsiveness would become dangerous both to him and to others. I never perceived Percy as needing to be reigned in before, perhaps because the original series was written entirely from his perspective, but this view of his character and his relationship with Annabeth makes sense, given how powerful he really is: remember, Percy is a son of one of the Big Three, who so impressed the gods in The Last Olympian that they offered him a place among them. (Aside from being logical and adding depth to his character and his relationship with Annabeth, the other characters’ concerns about Percy also serve to lightly foreshadow a rather dark scene in The House of Hades. More on that scene later.)  The last comment I have about this book is: oh man, that cliffhanger! It takes a lot for a book, movie, or TV show to surprise me - ask my ex-boyfriend: I predicted most of the plot twists in Gravity Falls with only minor hints and without even actively trying - but this one surprised me for some reason. I’m not sure why, what with Percy and Annabeth constantly vowing not to be separated again and Percy’s “fatal flaw” (which never ends up being fatal, either to a hero or a quest, but I digress) of being unwilling to abandon his friends even when it would be the more practical choice, but I just never would’ve expected Percy and Annabeth to fall into Tartatus together. I expected Annabeth to succeed in convincing Percy to let her fall, which would lead to him spending the next book annoying the rest of the group with his determination to rescue her even in instances where his goal conflicted with the main quest. Though, in retrospect, the above outcome is inconsistent with his character, it would have happened that way in most other stories. I liked the alternative much, much better. Reading over what I’ve written, it occurs to me that this review is already my longest yet and it’s only half-finished. With that in mind, I’m going to stop here and resume with The House of Hades in my next blog post.  Stay tuned!