#I don't think I mentioned she's an ecological engineer

[kettle-bird]

A piece from a little while back- a little glimpse into Hopper's tragic backstory!

turns out fire and oxygen mix really, really well.

[thefirstknife]

I swear the phrase “O Guardian Mine” from the tweet about next season rings a bell, is there some lore book with that phrase or something? I might be misremembering but it sounded familiar.

It is familiar! It's a phrase used by Ahamkara, Worm Gods, Savathun and often Calus. The phrase is part of Anthem Anatheme, a sort of ability of paracausal power to make reality match what you desire. From Truth to Power:

Riven feeds on the Anthem Anatheme which is the perverse coercion of Reality to match Desire.

And here as well:

I've been correlating information on the Ahamkara and the Hive worm parasites. Both display a peculiar ability to convert the host's intent into an ontomorphic, reality-altering effect. Both use similar language in their appeal to the host. I don't think they're the same species, however. The Hive worms spawn large numbers of young from relatively few adults, always display the same physical form, and live in communal groups. The Ahamkara are solitary, elusive, and seem to alter form to suit (or confuse) expectations. The shared syntax "o _ mine" may be the key—it seems to be a shibboleth used to invoke an ontomorphic effect, placing the target in a cage of "o" (activational, specific, appealing, and naming) and "mine" (defining ownership and subordination). Ahamkara and worm may have evolved separately to exploit this effect, just as many species independently evolve eyes. This might place them in competition for the same ecological niche. I would expect a rivalry or antipathy between them.

And yes, it's Truth to Power, but Truth to Power has kernels of actual truth which is confirmed by Ikora in Hidden Dossier when she talks about it with Arach Jalaal. This is what she says about Truth to Power:

The documents are full of possible misunderstandings. One misunderstanding is that they are pointless, just complexity for the sake of confusion. The threads about imbaru and power-from-confusion point this way. This is the stance that most amateur Guardian analysts seem to have settled on: it's all a lot of nothing, and there's nothing to understand in it. This is plainly foolish. The text is full of useful intelligence, including an excellent explanation of the Anthem Anatheme and an apparently accurate description of how Riven preyed on Guardians to create the curse.

Even before that, Mara also talks about Anthem Anatheme when she first gets Riven:

It was Mara alone whose singular will and unity of purpose saved the Awoken from that which we now name the Anthem Anatheme. For there was in Mara very little division between Reality-As-Is and Reality-As-Desired; she was confident in her centuries of purpose and patient with the winding way by which the river of methods reaches the objective ocean.

Basically, the reason why Mara and Riven got along fairly well was because Mara had no desire to change reality, so Anthem Anatheme didn't work on her and Riven could not invoke it.

Worm God Xol also mentions it:

So it whispered the Anthem Anatheme, the temptation to dominate the objective universe with the subjective will. It said, I shall be an engine to make your desire hegemon over your conditions.

This is mostly just how it's defined. It's generally used/invoked by saying the phrase "O (subject) mine." Possibly the earliest mention is from Books of Sorrow; Sathona heard it from her father's dead worm:

It’s dead, but it still speaks to me. It says: listen closely, oh vengeance mine…

Sathona then later uses it on her siblings to coerce them to dive into the Fundament. Savathun also used it plenty of times on us, possibly most memorable from Season of the Lost when she used it during a cutscene describing her infiltration scheme. She also used it while talking to us while she was in a crystal.

Calus uniquely used a version "O champion mine" when talking to us.

Ahamkara use it in a variety of ways. For example "O bearer mine" from Skull of Dire Ahamkara, Sealed Ahamkara Grasps and Claws of Ahamkara (this makes sense, because we wear these items). The Ahamkara Azirim, when he tricked the Awoken into jumping off the cliffs, called them "O audience mine." Riven also famously calls us "O murderer mine." More examples as "O jailer mine" and "O seeker mine" and "O wishbringer mine."

[elliesketches]

alright kids *claps with excitement*

college PJO/HOO kids lineup thus far (plus analyses):

percy: marine biology major

percy was HARD. our boy is smart but he has, like... no academic interests. but you know that scene in TTC where he meets bessie and he mentions how he has to swim down every few days to cut mermaids' hangnails and stuff? anyway percy is just a cinnamon roll who cares too much about aquatic creatures and he would still hate studying for his major, but he would love labs and doing research that involved the actual animals.

annabeth: architecture

this is pretty obvious, I feel like I don't really have to explain. but also... can you imagine annabeth and percy pulling late nights studying in new rome and annabeth pulls out a sheaf of papers from her portfolio that definitely aren't for her project and percy is like ??? and annabeth is all embarrassed but finally she shows him and they're plans for a house they could build together and she's like "forget about it, they're no good anyway," but then percy just has to hug her because he knows that except for camp half-blood, she's never really had a home, and oops that wasn't supposed to turn into a one shot...

grover: ecology

I struggled a bit here between biology and environmental science, but I feel like grover really plays a role in uniting different nature spirits and being in tune to all these different elements of nature and I think ecology would be really good for that--learning how populations develop and influence each other as opposed to learning about how individual organisms work. plus, he and percy could take classes together which would they would love.

leo: mechanical engineering

he was definitely in charge of the team of engineering students that builds racing cars for formula sae (this competition where colleges will design and build some sort of dragster and then they all race), but then he kept on pushing really wack/dangerous ideas ft flamethrowers and he got kicked out of the president seat and now he's just their head engineer. lives on red bull, has not been seen sleeping to date.

piper: international relations

piper's diplomacy skills are 10/10, and I also feel like she would really love learning about other cultures and ultimately being able to travel a lot outside of the bubbles where she's only seen as tristan maclean's daughter or jason grace's girlfriend. and like?? could her charmspeak somehow help her speak foreign languages??

jason grace: business

this is the easiest, possibly even easier than annabeth, because as much as we love jason, he has a bland mayonnaise personality that screams business major. plus I guess he has leadership skills? that would help him in his generic business executive career?

pls add on to this ❤️