#pjo sideliner appreciation squad

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Cassius Headcanons

The following list contains massive spoilers for The Tower of Nero. Reader discretion is advised.

I was prompted to make this post by a post from @haec-est-fides.

In case y'all don't remember, Cassius was that 8yo childée in Nero's imperial household. You know, the one who was forced to chop Lu's hands off -- nasty moment, that was. Meg was super soft for him and Apollo also had a moment where he goes “holy shit he looks like babey Jason”. All in all, he's an actual gift who deserves better.

He's a son of Mellona, the Roman goddess of honey

His mortal parent lived in Pennsylvania and had beekeeping as their secondary source of income and he was so happy there. Naturally, Nero made them “disappear” so that he could “adopt” babey Cassius

He can control honey and any flowers that can originate as a source of nectar for honey, and also honeybees

This is part of the reason why he gets along with dryads so well

He once generated toxic honey which was used to poison one of Nero's enemies → poor babey cried for days when he found out

Meg installed some beekeeping stuff for him in their Californian home because she knows he loves what he does

Absolutely a “save the bees” kind of person

He still finds The Bee Movie weird tho, because human/bee relationships are very very weird

He loves penguins too. Get him a penguin toy or book and he'll be happy for days

Meg once got Alice (from Hermes) to get him some penguin stuff and she got an Emperor/King(?) penguin plushie from the Osaka Aquarium and he absolutely adores it, it can even make a squeaky noise when you press down on its belly (no, this isn't me projecting about my childhood, why'd you ask?)

He (post-ToN) went through a medieval phase and basically knows a lot about the era. Of course, he also charges his siblings down in a full suit of armour because he's a child who wants to have fun, which was pretty funny

Loves playing family board games with his siblings

Basically an all-round happy cinnamon roll with a not-so-happy childhood who deserves better

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shel has a comfort beanie she refuses to leave behind or get rid of

And since I hc her to usually have a more masc presentation, whenever she ends up wearing the beanie out in public (which is pretty uncommon enough as it is) and someone thinks she is an easy target, she's gonna be like:

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hc that Ethan waited a few years after his mum told him him to join the Titan Army because he was searching for a more peaceful way to get the minor gods respect but eventually decides there is no other way and that's part of why he's so bitter in botl.

Maybe he was figuring that stuff out during his time at CHB???

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ToA: Shel Headcanons

I promised headcanons last night, now I’ll make those headcanons in my boredom. Tagging @eboylityerses because you seem interested.

Fic rec for Shelper here. I highly encourage y’all to read it and show the fic some love.

Unmarked spoilers for Tower of Nero in the headcanons under the cut.

Her full name is Shelby Lynn Chandler.

Since some people ran with her being Cherokee, I’m going to run with it too, though I suspect she might have ancestry from other indigenous tribes.

She’s the granddaughter of a friend of Piper’s grandfather, i.e. “an old family friend”, as Piper said.

She has a punk aesthetic, and her fashion choices show it.

Her favourite colours are black and blue.

She’s into hard rock and metal music, but her favourite song is Smoke and Mirrors by Imagine Dragons. Must be the “OPEN UP MY MIND” scream in the middle of the song. She enjoys pop sometimes, but not usually.

Her favourite animal is the Komodo dragon. She also likes penguins.

Reunited with Piper following an incident involving racism in high school (by timeline, in April). And their reunion is like, “Piper??? Is that you?? What are you doing in Tahle— wait, what happened to you and your dad?? Are you okay?”

They had been acquaintances of a sort prior to Piper’s demigod life and after everything they started to get to know each other?? On a deeper level??? And then they became friends... and then something more??

They only got into a relationship a couple of weeks before that scene in ToN (I headcanon that the bulk of ToN takes place in late July and THO occurred between the last couple of days in January to early February, because Rick clearly cannot into mathematics.)

She doesn’t have Clear Sight but she’s pretty understanding of Piper’s situation. A bit like a Paul Blofis scenario.

Didn’t stop Piper from making half-truth, mortal-friendly cover-ups in the beginning stages of their relationship though — it took her a good couple of months into the relationship to tell her.

It really be like:

“Wait, your absentee mom is Aphrodite?? Like the whole ass goddess of beauty Aphrodite???”

“Wait, you told me your ex-boyfriend died in a mission to take down a gang?? But the gang leader is actually some ancient Roman emperor that came back from the dead??? Wait, what do you mean that ancient Roman emperor was the Caligula????”

“Wait, that handgun you have, it’s actually a knife in disguise??”

Their first date was a pizza date.

They also go on a lot of museum and ice cream dates. And coffee shop dates.

She managed to convince Piper to dye her hair once or twice.

Piper’s decent with numbers, and Shel keeps getting her to check her homework for her.

Them listening to audiobooks together?? I think that sounds like a good idea.

She would likely never step foot in CHB but she would meet Piper’s demigod-side friends and family out in the mortal world... though seeing CHB from the perspective of a non-clear-sighted mortal would probably be very interesting.

I haven’t considered much about the distant future of these two. How long is the relationship going to last? Are they going to get married and stuff? I’ve never really thought about it and currently I don’t see them getting married, but who knows, I don’t usually think that far into the future, I don’t even know what I’m going to be doing, let alone a fictional couple. Hey, fandom, convince me.

Here are a couple of picrews that I made of Shel.

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New Apollo Kids Headcanons

This post concerns the three new children of Apollo who first appear in The Tower of Nero, so a small spoiler alert to this post for them.

Jerry - Londoner son of Apollo

His full name is Jeremy Paul Mould. He doesn’t like mentioning his surname because a lot of people make fun of him for it.

His (mortal) mother, Paulina Mould, is a music festival and concert organizer. She met Apollo at some music festival.

He has auburn hair and hazel eyes.

He’s the archer of the three, and is also proficient at knife throwing.

He’s the Nerd™ of the three.

He plays a great many Pokemon games.

Most of the time, he’s probably the most nonchalant shit ever (it’s the Brit in him).

He has a pet golden retriever back at home.

His special Gift is his affinity with corvids -- whether it’s because of Apollo or the city of London (because of local folk legends about the ravens of London), we cannot be certain. (It could be both...)

He gets along better with Yan than Gracie because HK is also a Big City™, with more British influence -- Yan still snarks about the colonialism thing, though.

Gracie - Idahoan daughter of Apollo

She’s specifically from Boise, Idaho.

Her (mortal) mother is called Katrina "Kat” Aleshire. She’s a nurse who doesn’t have clear sight.

She has dark blonde hair and blue eyes.

She’s an avid cyclist and skier.

As a follow-up to the above, she can and will whack you with a celestial bronze ski pole.

She’s very interested in learning about other people and keeps a diary about things she has learnt about others. Despite this, she’s not much of a gossiper.

Being from Boise, she doesn’t really get big chain stores and big cities in general. This is part of the reason why Jerry and Yan get along better with each other than her.

As a follow-up to this one, she’s also big on independent, mom-and-pop stores, and is a small cafe kind of person.

She’s surprisingly good at pen spinning.

She knows how to use a gun.

Yan - Hongkongese child of Apollo (gender unspecified in canon, interpreted as a girl on this blog because I am a Hongkonger who speaks Cantonese as a first language, so I call the shots around here)

Her full name is Tong Wai Yan (唐惠昕), her given name roughly translated to ‘favour of the dawn’. She doesn’t use a Western name (which is somewhat unusual in HK but definitely not unheard of). [I usually use the traditional Chinese translation as a source but it isn’t released yet, so I’m going with my own interpretation here. She’s partially named after my childhood best friend, shoutout to her.]

Her (mortal) mother is a clear-sighted ENT specialist called Trina. She met Apollo at a local library and was introduced to him as ‘Apollo’, no cover names or anything. (HKers can have some really weird names, I’ve heard of a guy called Pluto pop up in my Physics textbook in a question, no joke.) [Trina] also really likes llamas and alpacas.

She inherited her father’s curls, jawline and smile. (Will also inherited Apollo’s smile, for the record.)

She knows how to roller-skate and ice-skate.

She has two rats, a blaze-coated one called Julius Cheesar and a Berkshire-coated one called Ratticus Finch.

She uses jasmine-scented body wash.

She works for the Hong Kong Red Cross (Youth League, formerly Junior Unit).

She likes chocolate-flavoured Koala’s March and her favourite fruit is the dragon fruit. She also favours Sprite instead of other soft drinks.

She plays the electronic keyboard.

One of her special Gifts is echolocation (credit for this concept goes to @thatapollogirl).

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someone who speaks polish please tell me how to work hunter's name into your language and how your language translates her name

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Ayeee

Ethan Nakamura walked as a dramatic angsty goth gay so that Nico di Angelo could run

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I'll be the person thinking about the ethnic names of characters <3

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Ida (legacy of Luna)

She was born and raised in New Rome, and she has German and Croatian ancestry. (The son of Luna she's descended from went on to establish lineage in what is now Croatian territory.)

She succeeded Reyna as the Centurion of the Second Cohort after the Storming of Mount Othrys.

Her name also happened to be super popular in the 1880s but is rarely used these days, so some of the people who are into names and stuff call her “Grandma”.

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I have henceforth decided that Ethan is from Milwaukee.

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I love this! Kayla is very underrated as an individual, and so is her… little family!

Darren teaching Kayla how to shoot with a bow and Apollo being secretly so proud of them both 🌻

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Ask me about the East Asians of the Riordanverse… 👀👀👀👀👀

Let me give you headcanons

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Ok but I'd love to see your interpretation of Nyssa doodled (if I hadn't made it clear i stan)

here's the doodle (+ the bandanna version)

and this is the gacha version of her, which i based my doodle on

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Lavinia headcanons maybe??

Her full name is Laviniya Sergeievna Asimova (Лавиния Сергеевна Асимова), presented name at CJ is Anglicized (Lavinia Sergia Asimov)

Her signature is her full name in Russian cursive, but when signing in English, she signs with “Lavinia S. Asimova”

Can braid hair

Slips into accent when tired

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This is the most tragic post I've seen for quite a while

“One thing you learn as head counselor: you have to keep it together for everyone else.”

Yeah… so…

I have a few regrets drawing this.

Not so many people remember that Will Solace is so much more than the pure innocent sunshiney boy from Apollo Cabin. He had lost a big brother over and over again and is now struggling to fill in their shoes.

Also, I do think it has been mentioned that Will is the camp’s best healer.

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Any HC's for Kayla?

Used to live in Ontario, has Irish genes

Arrived at CHB a couple of months before BotL

Has a stocky build (canon-ish based on Viria's art?)

Epithet: Apollo Hecatus - “shooter from afar”

Can shoot Birds (in Angry Birds games) perfectly without Sling Scope power-up

On good terms with Frank and Billie