Tumgik
#nico is creepy in an obvious way. he's got power over death and that clings to him like a second skin. he can't hide it
thaliagrayce · 1 year
Text
y'know what we don't talk about enough? Hazel died. We talk about how she grew up in the 30's and 40's and we talk about how out of place she feels in the modern world, but! She died! She was dead! She has spent more time dead than alive, and not by a close margin!
How does that effect a person??? We got some of it in the flashbacks, but once those caught up with her present timeline and she shared them, they just kind of... disappeared. And she was a regular girl with some weird past experiences. That's one way of doing it, sure!
I think it would have been a lot cooler if she was just a touch creepier. If she felt a little bit Wrong. Yeah, in general she's more approachable than her brother, she's more sociable and less closed off, but. If you actually spend any time with her, it can be difficult to tell which child of the underworld is actually more unsettling.
Hazel is bright of personality and has a dazzling smile, but sometimes she'll just... shut down. She'll go completely blank for like half an hour and nobody knows what to do with it. Sometimes she forgets she's alive. Sometimes she'll spout the grimmest shit you've ever heard like it's nothing, she won't even notice it's weird until the room goes quiet. She spent decades in Asphodel, which is designed to make people forget about themselves and wander around for eternity, only she didn't have the luxury of forgetting! Wild! After she comes back to life, sometimes she forgets that she's allowed to Do Stuff now. She can spend so long sitting and staring at nothing. Sometimes she'll start crying on cloudless days because it hits her again that she can actually feel the warmth of the sun on her skin and she can hear birdsong. Every little mundane experience is a blessing and she will make you remember that in the most foreboding way possible.
#hazel levesque#hoo#mj talks#like. i am fascinated with characters who die and come back different and it JUST hit me that there was so much potential for hazel there#the idea of how death lingers was not explored At All in heroes of olympus#of course there's the obvious part in that there were what. 3 named character deaths total? 4 if you count leo#which i very much don't because it didn't stick! there were no consequences to this gigantic war!#the first series did well with that because we had plenty of named characters who died#even though some of them were introduced only to die like six chapters later. we still knew them on some level#and more importantly percy knew them. he felt their loss in a way that made consequences seem real#heroes of olympus didn't have any of that. hazel could have been a great way to talk about it a little more!#also i just love characters who have obviously gone through death. that has to change a person! tell me how it changed you!#anyway. i think i'll make hazel creepier from now on in my writing#she deserves it <3#nico is creepy in an obvious way. he's got power over death and that clings to him like a second skin. he can't hide it#and he's learned that he doesn't have to. there is power in being othered#hazel seems lovely when you first meet her! none of the death power all of the glitter and gold and riches#and then she'll look you dead in the eye and say 'you really don't know how lucky you are to be able to breathe until you can't anymore'#and move on like it's nothing! what!#underworld siblings
327 notes · View notes