The funny thing about the PJO cabin system is that everyone's always all 'oh the twelve' this and 'the twelve' that but that's absolutely not even remotely accurate. To start, right off the bat it's thirteen, not twelve, because they don't count Hades. But not really because before Percy, there were no big three kids, so we're down to ten active cabins already but it's actually eight because Artemis and Hera don't make demigods.

And of those eight, Mr. D is stuck at camp (thus not really making new demigods all that often) and his only two kids don't even sleep in a cabin, they sleep in the Big House with him.

So, pre-Percy, there are seven active cabins at Camp Half-Blood:

Glee club, the Jocks, the Nerds, the Geeks, the Farmers, the 'Sketchy Kids' and the Popular Kids.

Or, in other words, the Apollo, Ares, Athena, Hephaestus, Demeter, Hermes (and the unclaimed kids) and Aphrodite cabins.

What's cool is that you can already see the cabin dynamics in the show. For example, the Athena cabin allies with the Hermes cabin for the numbers. The Hermes kids plus all the unclaimed kids? It's the biggest cabin in the camp by far. It's a battle strategy. Luke and Annabeth's close relationship is just the cherry on top for Annabeth. It'll be really cool to see how the show develops the differences in the cabins during the series.

Since Luz and Hunter in your switched AU are born in 1600s colonial America and Luz clearly speaks Spanish in the AU (shown in a comic) and is Latina (specifically Dominican) in show cannon, is there any history stuff you’re adhering especially considering the differences between Spanish and English colonies in location and demographic or are you ✨going rogue?✨ Is Luz an indigenous-Spanish mix like many Latinos are today? How would she have gotten to mainland since a lot of Spanish claim was in the Caribbean or Florida and treatment of indigenous people by Europeans, specifically Spanish and British, was notoriously brutal? Sorry if I’m absolutely overthinking this. This is coming from a history nerd, so I’m just curious how that’s going to work considering the realities of racial divides in colonial settlements during 1600s America and the relatively small number of Spanish people that actually would’ve lived there by then. AGAIN SORRY IF I’M OVERTHINKING IT I’M JUST A NERD FEEL FREE TO JUST BE LIKE “NAH.”

OH btw, I noticed a comment in a comic that implied trans Hunter and just wanted to mention that there’s some super interesting accounts of LGBTQIA+ people from the time period if you’re interested. I know of a fan work about Caleb and Phillip where Caleb is trans that covers that extensively if you want a link.

I LOVE ASKS LIKE THIS ANON!! Because IM overthinking it but at least someone else is too! So there's a lot I can't answer due to spoilers -- and I actually will be explaining a fair bit because I just am so charmed at how we are so on the same wavelength here so if you don't want to not know literally anything even a little bit spoilery about Luz or Hunter before the comic comes out I would ignore this ask! -- but I will go into some of it!

Okay! So I tossed and turned on this exact issue for FUCKING MONTHS. Go rouge or loophole? How historically accurate did I want to go with this concept and how much of that accuracy am I sacrificing for just needing something to be a certain way? Do I want to be as accurate as possible or have a cohesive and interesting story?

The answer is a little bit of both! Im much more of an art history nerd than a straight up history nerd but I have my moments! I love the sociopolitical conundrum having a latina Dominican (ALSO half black! Love that about her but SO hard to write in!) girl in 1600s America because it can be as little or as highly complicated as you can get. I drew a lot of inspiration for a long few months pouring over what groups of people were where and when -- what languages they spoke -- wether the books that I could find could describe a day to day of these people rather than just political conflicts.

Footnote : There are certain Native American groups so fucking overlooked that they don't even have ONE BOOK of comprehensive (non war centered) history that isn't a four year old reading level. I looked for WEEKS. I tried everywhere and was even willing to start to buy reading material but it just doesn't exist? Especially around the original colonies????? HOW!! People around me started telling me I should write a book because of how much I was obsessing over it and trying to find any information but no books can be written on close to NONEXISTENT historical writings! OKAY BACK TO IT--

I looked out for the first sightings of Spanish in the west and where they were headed -- wether or not any Spanish broke away from the group to have children with the Native Americans in the area at the right time -- what the political state was between Britain and Spain -- did they occupy the same or around the same places close enough I could fudge it? Were they friendly toward each other? When were slaves from other countries brought to America? What languages would they have spoken and is there a good translator online? What kind of spanglish can come from Angola, Umbundu and Spanish speakers at the time? Or would it be spanglish with Portuguese because of who was controlling the slave trade at the time?

Tearing out my hair and a hundred more google searches later I decided it wasn't worth the misrepresentation of both languages to try and include either of them mixed together in that way in the whole comic-- just bits and pieces separate for my sanity -- although I WILL get some cultural things in there I promise!

Some things just can not stay historically accurate and one of those things is speech. That was the first thing -- so damn difficult to really pin it down properly in the older dialects so I just had to sadly put that away first. All of the languages written about will be mostly modern versions, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and others but while keeping in mind the time frame.

Next I obsessed about when and where exactly would culture mixing begin and if the people stayed in the same spots! Also unfortunate ( for this AU purpose only! )that most of the Spanish went down and not into the Americas but history will be what it is.

SO

I decided that what I was going to do is make it up a little using a lot of historical context available instead of switching up Luz's race in a serious way to make the accuracy better -- I was going to have things happen MUCH sooner. Like 2 or 3 generations sooner. The Native Americans and Spanish populate together in 1500 ish instead of 1700 or 1800. I GET THIS IS REALLY INACCURATE but it was so fucking impossible to do anything else without getting into things I didn't want to do. The British get there the same time as usual and start the colonies in the 1600s but the Spanish are already moving up into North America and have already spent a lot of time with the Native Americans there at the time. SO that means that Luz is able to have a Native Mexican/ Native American AND Spanish mix at the time of the AU start and be similar to how the population became around now -- my dad inspired this! He's got the same mix himself and I loved that I could pull from that. It's such an interesting genetic tree honestly -- there's a lot of seriously horrible things that happened do not get me wrong -- but the history is amazing.

Luz being half black however feels similarly difficult but it follows the same principles of things with everyone who is not British making things happen much earlier. Africans come to America ( Horrifically and brutally I want to make that very clear) and some in real life of course make their way out of that brutality and hide away from the British and the Spanish...with who? The mixed Natives and Spaniards. Couple of generations later and we have a beautiful mixed pot like the America we see today but hundreds of years early that allows me to keep my afro Latina!! Hunter eventually finds this group that has naturally traveled up into where the british are setting up their first settlements in Virginia and joins them for reasons I can not explain!

THANK YOU for letting me ramble about all this rich history it is incredible.

ALSO I love trans Hunter HC and I do a lot of it myself but in this comic Hunter is cisgender. ( BUT seriously if you wanna hc Hunter as trans in my story I would love it -- trans fem or masc because Hunter is one of the transest coded characters ever) Because both him and Luz are attracted to the same and opposite sex I will still be able to explore certain LGBTQIA+ issues as well!

(DISCLAIMER : Listen I completely understand if this switching around might feel tone deaf to some people but I do not intend to shy away from the brutality of the past or give it a nicer spin -- but this is not a comic focused on the nitty gritty details of the world that Luz and Hunter come from but a focus on the nastiness that comes from later in their lives in Gravesfeild and the witch trials. To have this happen and keep all characters relatively the same I had to do a lot of background but It is worth it to keep these characters with their integrity intact)