#NOT TO MENTION THE NICO STUFF. WHICH HE KNOWS IS COMPLICATED BUT HE DOESN'T KNOW HOW IT IS ACTUALLY EXTREMELY COMPLICATED

[meatmensch]

*jenny slate voice* i had to stop reading the battle of the labyrinth cuz it made me too crazy!!

[demodraws0606]

An character analysis POV as to how Hu could be the culprit (and a little bit of Nico stuff as well)

tw/ mentions of suicide

So I've seen certain Eden!Culprit truthers just not really believing that Hu could be the culprit because of her behavior during the class trial. However her committing murder against Arei and Ace makes a lot more sense than Eden does by a longshot (especially with Eden having no accomplices atp).

But I also understand why people are confused by Hu's behavior if she could possibly be the culprit. There's a lot of things that don't seem to make sense on the surface that I also accepted however digging further, you can find a version of Hu that honestly fits really well as the culprit of this chapter.

I will also throw in analysis of Nico's behavior because a lot of their behavior during this class trial is strange if Hu really is the culprit but again I think I can explain why this happened.

I also want to preface this by saying that I do think Hu is going to be a heavily flawed character but I don't think she's malicious in any way shape or form. If I find any Hu hate after she's revealed to be the culprit, I will actually fight your ass and that's a promise.

Her outburst against David :

I honestly was also in the camp of not really understanding Hu being the culprit, doesn't this go against her outburst against David ?

Well, here's the thing, I think her outburst was 100 pourcent genuine, I just think Hu is both being a hypocrite in a way but mostly she's hiding her true feelings behind her wording.

Let's take what she says in her outburst :

There's a funny thing about her wording, especially at the beginning :

"You have no right to decide wether I, whether any of us..."

I think what Hu is trying to say is being hidden by her saying "we" and "us". In my opinion, she's probably mad at David for wanting to toy with her life, not even to escape himself but simply to commit mass suicide. Which we know Hu has a very complicated history with suicide due to her secret.

I do think her anger is both a mix of projecting onto David her present (and past self) and also her genuine desire to want to continue living.

She would be mad, she's trying so hard to live and here is David who both planned to let her die not even to survive himself but simply because he gave up. Interesting to note how she interprets David's desire to stop the killing game as "Because this killing game requires us to live, you think you should just reject that notion and kill us all". She doesn't mention him wanting to end the killing game, she mentions David rejecting the notion of living itself.

If Hu was a past suicidal person who now has committed herself to continue living, of course she would be insulted by David's action, it spits in her face and reminds her of a past self that simply rejected the idea of living.

A desire to live that's shown through this outburst and also in her secret quote.

Again switching the pronouns Hu is using here with "I" really gives a new perspective that I think makes a lot of sense with her being the culprit.

"It is not and never will be your desicion as to what happens with MY life"

Because Hu wants to live now, she's no longer her past self, she won't try and throw her life away anymore.

The murder of Arei and attempted murder of Ace :

I want to discuss both the victims and method of murder here because I think it works very well with Hu. It's not really a character analysis thing as much but I didn't want to make a seperate post for it.

Hu clearly does/did not have high opinions of either Ace or Arei, like at all. They were both people that Hu reprimended heavily.

Especially with the secret motive happening, it's very possible that Hu's possible choice of culprit was done with the notion of "who deserves to be killed". Her first pick being Ace makes a lot of sense

I'm making her sound villainous when I say this but I do think it was her mindset at the time, Ace's horrible behavior towards Nico possibly being what led to her to feel allowed to take his life. However when Ace survived, she decided she was simply to deep into it and decided to go with the second best choice in her mind, Arei.

I want to also point out the method of murder...hanging

Clearly the culprit had a lot of knowledge about hanging, with it being their main method of murder. Which would make sense with Hu's past, using her past attempts as knowledge for her to take someone else's life which I find very ironic and in a way morbidly narratively compelling.

What was the motive ? :

I think Hu simply just wanted to live, it had nothing to do with the motives (and I honestly think the motives will actually not ever be involved in the murders bc it seems like they're setting it up to be a recurring trend).

I think Hu was thinking about murdering to get out ever since she was put in this killing game. However the only reason why she has never done so is because she was way too attached to her classmates.

From her secret quote, to her outburst against David, to her secret motive. All of it hints at this strong desire to want to live.

However she couldn't bear to kill anyone in this cast until chapter 2 happened.

Ace and Arei both are probably the least likable characters in chapter 2's daily life, I don't mean that in the fandom sense but I mean that in the eyes of the cast itself. Especially Ace who truly ends up falling to horrible harmful patterns out of self preservation.

We know how toxic the cast became in chapter 2 and I think that's what led to Hu feeling more comfortable killing someone. She no longer felt as guilty when she saw Ace (and Arei but mostly Ace) acting this way. This allowed her to commit murder. When it failed, she simply ended up chosing the second person on her list that she saw as nothing more than a horrible bully.

After all who would miss Ace and Arei, they're both horrible horrible people right ? Who would cry for someone who isn't a good person.

It was a murder both driven by Hu's strong desire of survival and also her view of her fellow classmates.

Nico's behavior :

Before I get more into Hu's mindset, I want to take a little detour to why is Nico being so difficult ?

I know I've made theories about Nico being an accomplice, but looking back I don't think they actually knew Hu did it. Even if they're not telling the truth about Ace's attempted murder and Hu's false allibi.

But then why ? Why would Nico ever do this, don't they know they're potentially putting everyone's lives at risk

Well it wouldn't be the first time a character in DRDT's cast is difficult to the point of risking people's lives (i'm fucking look at you WHIT.). However I think there are both actually decent reasons as to why Nico wouldn't tell the truth alongside his issues with being non-confrontational.

First, I don't think Nico ever expected the murder of Ace to be important to the case. I think they lied because everyone else made it extremely obvious what their thoughts truly were and Nico probably thought that trying to argue against them simply would just make them look more guilty or not do anything at all.

Again I would like to pull Nico's secret quote for evidence here. Because again I think it just fits with everything here.

For the alibi thing, I think Nico genuinely didn't contest it because they probably believe Hu only did that to protect them from getting blamed. Again anything that would make Nico not get yelled at or suspected probably is something they would hold onto. They still have no reason to think Hu really did it, so again with their issues with being non-confrontational I think it would make sense for them not to contest it.

I think Nico's arc is heavily tied with Hu, and vice verca. There's an empahsis on how Nico is struggling to make their true feelings truly known because everyone talks about them and the one person who thinks they are there to protect them actually are just as bad if not worse in ignoring them.

Nico wasn't ready to come out, they were instantly labelled an attempted murderer and the one person who is here to defend them is someone who constantly interrupts them. The entirety of chapter 2 has just been them being objectified and not really giving them a voice.

Which I think comes back to a part of Hu that I think is related to the murder.

Hu's relationship with Nico and Eden :

Isn't that interesting how Hu has established relationships with both Nico and Eden, meanwhile Ace and Arei both have bullied Eden/Nico.

I don't think this is a coincidence and I think it matches Hu's misguided attempts at protecting people.

Hu wants to be useful, she desperately wants to be the strong protector of the group. However there are very clear signs here intentions aren't very glamorous.

In a fucked up way, it's very possible that she sees the murder of Ace and Arei as her helping Eden and Nico. Two people she clearly wants to protect (at least for Nico it's obvious).

However Hu's actions clearly did not help them, in fact, what she did ended up backfiring on the both of them.

Nico ends up being framed as a murderer

Eden lost a potential friend

Not only that but she had to have manipulated both Nico and Eden, to accomplish her murder. It's a flimsey self excuse for Hu to keep up her belief that she's a protector.

Obviously I don't think this was her main motivation, I've talked about it before but it's yet again something that would make it more easy for Hu to swallow the idea of being a murderer.

Is Hu evil ? :

No ! What the fuck did you think this post was for !

See I don't think Hu being the culprit suddenly makes her this horrible manipulative person. Despite the dread I feel with the likelyhood of Hu getting dragged to the ground if she's the culprit, I don't think she's remotely close to characters like...Celeste for exemple.

She's a person who was desperate to live who let herself murder by making up excuses, that she was doing this for the greater good somehow that it wasn't just a selfish desire of survival.

It makes sense for a chapter all about morality right ? Justifying a horrible action by justifying that well...these people she murdered weren't really good people were they ? Plus she ended up killing Eden and Nico's bullies right ? And I mean the killing game will only really end when two people are still alive right ? So maybe she's not a bad person. Maybe she deserves to live.

But people don't to be deserve murdered (99 pourcent of the time, i'm talking about DRDT's moral here) , not even horrible people. You don't know these people, if they could change, and you don't know what consequences you bring upon others by enacting justice like this.

And in a chapter about morality wouldn't it be interesting to tackle the morality of someone who would want to live no matter what. Is it fair to call Hu a bad person because she simply didn't want to die ? Somehow her attempts at killing herself in the past is wrong but letting herself be killed in a place like this is the moral thing to do ?

Is the fact that she killed people who she perceived as bad make this whole thing better. Did these people's lives matter less than her, someone who has been trying to actually be nice to others and help them ?

Or is her attempt of being a good respectable motherly figure only just a facade to feed her ego, a person who once didn't think they deserved now hanging to every possible reason to continue fighting to stay alive ? No matter what, no matter what happens, she needs to continue living.

"A pig never hopes to grow up into a human, because it knows that a metamorphisis like that is impossible"

[colorsunlikeanythingseen]

TSATS Review

Ok I have finished the sun and the star. My overall feeling is meh. Like it was okay. I wouldn't reread this and wouldn't recommend it ever, but I can somewhat see why someone might like it.

It somewhat works as a standalone book, but it doesn't work as part of a series. The next book of a series should make the rest of the story better. Tsats unfortunately makes the rest of pjo worse.

First of all it ruins Apollo's story and arc. Apollo has finally improved as a person and a god and is more willing than ever to help demigods. Call on him and he'll be there. Spoilers but he isn't there at all. Never shows up once. This is straight up out of character. Even before his character arc he was willing to help the questers find his sister, he gave Micheal his sonic arrows, and he immediately rushed into the woods to save his children risking his newly mortal life in the process. Apollo's absence is out of character.

That isn't the only part it ruins. The crux of the story is saving Bob. Which is a terrible choice narratively. Bob's death was the only part of hoo that had consequences, stakes, and was a core part of Percy's journey. Having that be reversed just sucks. We didn't need Bob back having him gone makes the story better.

I just don't like the inherent comparisons between Percabeth and Solangelo. Tartarus also just seems less scary and far more boring the second time around. We already know what it's like.

Also Bianca is back? Somehow? She chose to be reborn but I guess we are just ignoring that and the implications it has on Nico's character arc.

There are also just a bunch of stuff that just doesn't make sense. Like the camp being empty. That isn't possible. There are reasons that campers can't return to their homes. It is dangerous for demigods out there not to mention the complicated family situations many demigods are trying to escape. I do not know why they chose to do this. It doesn't make sense and doesn't really serve any purpose. But whatever.

Also, Will doesn't bring a weapon. This is stupid and just gets stupider the more you think about it. First of all they are going to Tartarus and Will brought three hoddies instead of a weapon. Will isn't a do no violence type of guy either one of his few scenes in hoo has him wish that he could shoot Octavian off of his high horse. This makes no sense character wise. Second this choice just makes Nico look worse. Like he knows just how bad Tartarus is and doesn't make sure that his boyfriend has a way of defending himself? It doesn't even make sense narratively if you don't want Will to have a weapon have him lose it in a fight. You don't need to do this.

This book just shouldn't have been written. Wish I hadn't read it. Going to ignore it going forward.

[riddlerosehearts]

🐍No worries! I'm likely going to be slower at responding too since school's getting busier again, but I always enjoy reading your answers!

Oh man I didn't even remember that part about Athena kids (it's been really long since I last read the series) but yeah that'd make things even more complicated... especially if like, Jamil has to learn to fend off these monsters on his own since a young age and be able to take care of Kalim, I'd think he'd have to quickly learn to be just far away enough from Kalim so that if any monsters attack, he'd be the only one harmed instead of Kalim, which is just awful. I love your suggestions for their godly parents though, they all fit so well but nemesis kid jamil is like extra angst: he's a child of revenge, he probably wants revenge for his life being the way it is, yet he's bound by his position and can literally do nothing about it unless he snaps from the pressure.

I went through your valdangelo tag and there's so much good stuff there! The heavy focus on romantic relationships in HoO felt like Rick just really wanted to pair everyone off before everyone had a chance to develop as an individual or explore other types of relationships with the rest of the cast. I found myself disappointed in several characters and longing for what could've been, even though the pjo series is dear to me. But the beauty of fandom is people can fill in those gaps or rewrite things and the valdangelo stuff definitely counts.

I think Leo wouldn't be putting tons of outward accessories on his uniform but he might add several secret pockets to stores things in, since in this AU I assume he doesn't have the toolbelt. If it's hotter outside he might just wear the vest unbottoned and no blazer, just bc I don't think they allow students to wear zero dorm colours haha. I do think he's likely the type to roll up his sleeves a lot though! And he likely enjoys the PE uniform far more than the usual one. Speaking of which I think Leo'd enjoy the lab classes more since they involve getting hands on and making stuff! And Nico might enjoy the ceremonial robes while Leo'd find them too bulky and stuffy and be on his way out to change the moment any ceremony is over.

I feel like I'm running out of interesting questions to ask about the AU (curse my lack of writing creativity) but I'm starting to work on some doodles and hope to show you eventually! In the meantime if you have any more headcanons for either of Leo or Nico or literally any other PJO characters in TWST please feel free to share them/make posts! I don't get lots of posts on my dash these days so it's easy to find yours, I'd love to hear more of your ideas. (Did I mention I was living vicariously through your PJO reread since I want to do it too but just can't make the time? Your commentary is great ❤)

sorry this reply took even longer LOL, if you've seen me keep posting but not replying i hope it didn't seem like i was ignoring you. just gotta find the time/energy to answer asks and messages sometimes.

yeah, annabeth talks about it when she's telling percy how much she hates her dad and her stepmom in TLT and it lowkey made me feel sympathy for frederick chase on my reread, just because i really don't know what i would do in the situation that athena put him in lol. of course, he still should've done better to make sure annabeth felt loved and secure even if he hadn't wanted a baby. but i also got to thinking about how that would affect riddle and i feel like it'd be so rough because it's like, at first his mother might think it's good that her child is blessed by the goddess of wisdom because he'll be a natural genius and easily be able to become a doctor just like she wants. but then monsters would start to attack and she'd see it as him bringing danger to their family and anyone else around them. just imagine what it would be like if when he sneaks out with trey and chenya, they get attacked and she finds out about it... also agree with what you said about athena kid jamil. nemesis kid jamil would also be crazy though, because just look at the list of powers we know nemesis herself has:

and while we've only ever seen two nemesis kids in canon, one of whom we know basically nothing about, we do know that ethan nakamura may have tychokinesis because as also explained by the riordan wiki: "this might explain his lucky hit to percy's weak point, which nobody but percy knew at the time."

so like, imagine if jamil inherited that ability too and he knew that in theory he could give himself just a little bit of good luck or give kalim a little bit of bad luck, just to get a tiny bit of revenge, but he doesn't know what exactly might happen and his position makes it too risky to try anything.

honestly, i think i would've been happy if every single romantic relationship in HoO (aside from percabeth of course because it was pre-established. and i guess maybe jasiper too just because it has relevance to piper's arc) had just been developed as a friendship, with hints of it becoming romantic toward the end. like how blood of olympus hints that nico and will like each other, but they really aren't clearly established as actually dating until trials of apollo. and speaking of trials of apollo, i know all of rick's post-PJO series are kind of contentious in the fandom, but i love TOA and this is a big part of why: while there is some solangelo and caleo stuff and of course apollo's past romances are discussed, the platonic/familial dynamic between apollo and meg is by far the most important relationship in that series. and i wish the friendships between the seven were written as well as i feel like theirs is. they all just don't feel nearly as close as they should for the most part.

this discussion about how nico and leo would wear the school uniform reminded me that i once came across a chart of how all the canon students wear it. i went back and found it just now: link. and from the looks of it, yeah, everyone, even kalim and jamil despite how much extra stuff they've added, wears either the blazer/coat or the vest so that their dorm colors are visible somewhere... except for idia lol. even ortho basically wears it post-book 6 but idia is the only student who literally wears just absolutely none of the uniform except for the pants. i agree with everything you said about leo! also, i love the cermonial robes, they are peak aesthetic. i had ceremonial robes idia on the home screen for weeks when i first started the game.

if you wanna ask me about anything else related to pjo or twst or other things i post about feel free to! i'm glad you don't have trouble finding my posts because i usually post so much that i worry about anons i reply to getting buried haha. also, glad you're enjoying my silly little commentary on my reread LOL. i've been going a bit slower than i'd like because i've had some stuff going on irl + started reading another book at the same time as well. but i'd been wanting to reread the series for a while and finally got started because i felt disappointed at all the stuff the tv show left out or changed. somehow the lightning thief musical still prevails as the most accurate adaptation.

hmm, as for other thoughts about the crossover... i just remembered that in one of my earlier replies i said i wanted to sort luke castellan and alex fierro into dorms but couldn't decide where to put them! so, here's some thoughts on that now:

luke - based on the dorm analysis i linked before, i keep getting the vibe that savanaclaw makes the most sense for him. he certainly has the tenacity, ambition, and athleticism to fit in there, and with how admired and respected he was at camp half-blood prior to his betrayal, i could see him becoming dorm leader. i also feel like to mirror PJO canon he would eventually overblot... and probably die from it in an incident that the school would absolutely try to cover up.

alex - she's genderfluid and is a girl most of the time but again we'll let her into NRC for AU purposes. alex is very clever, cunning and sharp-witted and is even associated with snakes. so i initially wanted to place her in scarabia before remembering that she's also pretty reckless and hotheaded lol. not exactly the embodiment of scarabia's emphasis on careful planning and deliberation. he even canonically hates big parties. i actually think he'd also fit well into savanaclaw! i can see him getting along well with ruggie.

and another random thought i had about nico: i bet he loves what a big deal halloween is at NRC. whether he stays in ignihyde or goes to ramshackle, he's going to be so ready to go all out with decorating the dorm and picking out costumes. and i can imagine him hanging out with the ghosts, trying to give them the best halloween they could have.

[swamplatibule]

Okay so lemme talk about Steel and Smoke for a second

This was actually my first paracosm, and it‘s still my favorite to this day. I have a dream to turn it into an animated show someday, and if I can do it, it’s gonna be badass.

Okay so- The world? Genre? Space opera. The system is called Xeliah, which is also the name of a para in a very different paracosm, but that’s not important right now.

There are seventeen different planets in this system. There used to be nineteen, but two got completely destroyed in the Great War. Are there different systems? Oh yeah. Absolutely. Nobody in Xeliah really cares about them, but they definitely exist.

About 100 years ago, a woman named Silver Thurberi took of Xeliah. Just built a bigass army and went “heyyyy so I’m the queen now deal with it”. Actually there was more to it than that, there was a really long war n shit, but forget that lets focus on the now, which is under the cut because its long as shit and I don’t want to completely take over anyone’s feed.

Silver’s bloodline has been ruling over Xeliah for the past 100 years, leading up to the current empress, Arayla, and her two daughters, Fang and Nucifera.

Now Arayla? She is an absolute bitch. She’s manipulative, abusive, gaslighting, just kinda of a shithole of a human being with the audacity to consider herself better than everyone else.

She raised both of her daughters to believe that if they weren’t perfect, they were worthless. Nucifera took that in and started pushing herself to be perfect, to the point where it was self-destructive and harmful, but it put her in her mother’s favor. Fang wasn’t able to do that like Nucifera was, and thus was cast to the side. She ran away when she was ten and Nucifera was fifteen.

As of right now, Nucifera is 21, and she’s been assigned to handle the growing revolution while Arayla does her whole tyrant of the galaxy thing. That means keeping tabs on influential people, intimidating anyone who could cause a problem, and most important to the story, taking down those who are already symbols of the revolution. Namely, her current focus is taking town the galaxy's most infamous thief, the Silver Songbird. Who happens to be her sister, Fang, behind a mask and a fancy set of armor. But she doesn't know that. But before she takes down the Songbird - who, by the way, doesn't actually have any connection to the revolution, but is thought to be a part of it because they only steal from really rich pro-Araylian people, which makes sense because not many of the revolters are very well-off - there's one person she needs to take care of first. May Eternity. She's the elected leader of one of the seventeen planets, although most of the leaders are basically just figureheads for Arayla to exercise her control through. May Eternity, however, is rumored to be an important revolution leader, and there's pretty substantial evidence of it. So Arayla needs her gone, in a way that can't be traced back to them. Nucifera sends an assassin. And he fails. But, he gets out of there before he can be captured, and he manages to place the blame on the Songbird. So that kinda works in Nucifera's favor, because it puts the Songbird on the wanted list for both pro-Araylians and revolters. Technically, it doesn’t work that smoothly, because it does solidify in a few people’s minds that May isn’t a revolutionary and the Songbird is, and stuff like that. It’s messy. It’s complicated. Another issue is that the Songbird is simply a thief, not a killer, and therefore a pretty large amount of people refuse to believe that they were behind the assassination attempt.

(look at this beautiful woman, I just want her to be happy but my brain won’t let her without a Zuko-level redemption arc)

But that comes in later.

That whole murder thing is what kicks off the whole story. May’s son, Nico, wants to go after the Songbird. His mother won’t let him, saying that it’s too dangerous, but he wants answers. So he goes to find them in secret.

Here’s Nico, by the way. I’d add a link to the Picrew I used, but I believe it’s been deleted now so I kinda can’t, sorry.

Clover is a spellcaster, someone who was born with unique paranormal abilities. Hers, specifically, would be Haemokinesis and Electrokinesis. Fun fact! Spellcasters are actually a race, not just people randomly born with powers. And another fun fact! People don’t know it’s a race, they just assume all spellcasters are dangerous individuals who developed scary powers and plan to use them to destroy the world. Final fun fact? It’s illegal for them to even just exist, and it’s punishable by death (That’s why this is tagged as ‘tw racism’). So Clover has it pretty bad. She’s kept her abilities a secret for a long time, but she loses control on her fifteenth birthday and now she’s exposed so she has to run.

[Now seems like a good time to mention that the outfits aren’t super accurate to them, it was a fantasy Picrew so I just picked what I could imagine them wearing in a fantasy AU. Xelian clothing and trends are pretty cool in my opinion, maybe I’ll make a post about that sometime in the far future]

She ends up at the Falcon Station, which is basically a really big galactic gas station and diner, except it’s mainly inhabited by those running from the law. It’s not strictly revolution or Araylian, everyone there just has a mutual understanding of ‘you leave me alone, I leave you alone’.. The Songbird happens to be there too, because they have a deal with someone who works there and also it’s one of the now few places where people don’t try to kill them.

Of course, someone has a few too many drinks and decides they’re going to try and capture the Songbird for the bounty, and a fight breaks out. Clover gets caught up in the middle of it, accidentally electrocutes the dude, and now people are trying to kill her too. The Songbird saves her, and they make it onto their ship in time to get the hell out of there unscathed.

Clover is absolutely terrified, which you would probably be too if you got stuck traveling with the most wanted person in the galaxy and weren’t certain whether or not they had tried to murder someone yesterday. She doesn’t fully trust the Songbird not to kill her, and the Songbird is trying to comfort her but it’s not working and they’re also just not great at conversations because the only reason they’ve had to talk to anyone for the past, what, two years was a deal for them to steal something.

There‘s a short exchange between them, Clover mentions something about ‘I don’t know a single thing about you I don’t even know what you look like and you expect me to just trust you I have self-preservation instincts okay’

And then they just take off the helmet, and Clover realizes a few different things at once:

- The Songbird just showed their face for her?? Um?? And they’re female, k cool we‘ll remember that

- This girl looks the same age as her, like fifteen, why is she fifteen that doesn’t make sense what

- Holy shit she’s hot

and now neither of them really know what to say, because how the fuck do you respond to that?

oh my god these two precious gays

anyway turns out they don’t actually have to say anything to each other because just then, in that moment, something bumps into the ship. Guess who it is?

Yep, it’s Nico, because he’s a terrible pilot and honestly lucky that he made it out this far without dying, but it’s okay we still love him.

Check in Sometime Later For A Part Two Because I Want To Post This Now