#pjo sideliner appreciation squad

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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).

[meetmyglowinthedarkboyfriend]

arent we all

im salty

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She also had wisps of black and silver hair like Paul, which I had never seen on a baby. She would be the world’s first salt-and-pepper toddler.

Wait, is this… *intense googling*

Poliosis is when a person is born with or develops a patch of white or gray hair while otherwise maintaining their natural hair color.

I think we solved that mystery. Now, how she got Percy's eyes when Percy got it from his dad… I honestly don't know.

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Estelle cooed. Paul’s eyes wrinkled around the edges. He tapped her nose. “Boop.”

The baby was stunned for a millisecond. Then she laughed with such glee I worried she might choke on her own spit.

AHHHHHHHHH!! *drowns in cuteness*

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So… Reyna's ace, in author's interpretation, but still alloromantic. Thanks for the confirmation, spread the word.

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The Traditional Chinese translation of Tower of Nero is up and I bought it. Everything else was cool, but then I found the name translations of the new Apollo kids trio.

It is very clear that whoever translated my sweet HKese child is not a HKer or has spoken to one on naming advice, so for legal reasons, I will be passing away. But before I do that, if y'all don't mind, I'm booking a flight to Taiwan to murder the translator. Painfully.

(harsh /j /nsrs)

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What are your hc's for ethan nakamura? (Also how/why do you think his family moved to America?)

I'm sorry this one took ages, I received this late at night and I went to bed before answering. I already had an Ethan headcanon list but this is the additions/updated version. Anyways:

His father is called Masahiko Nakamura (中村正彦), who is an accountant by day (credit to @jasonqrace for this part), a vigilante by night

He's a Hunger Games fan (stolen from @riordanversereyna)… and on second thought, maybe Death Note too??

His family is from Kagoshima (I did some surname distribution tracing)

He is probably the kind to go “fuck your instant ramen, I have the real deal” (read: Kagoshima style ramen)

Before leaving CHB for the Titan Army, he was friends with Drew, who bonded over their similar ancestry (I headcanon Drew's grandparents to live in Sapporo, Hokkaido) and love for certain food types (read: miso ramen). Drew was heartbroken to learn in the Battle of Manhattan that she didn't just lose her sister, but her lost adopted older brother as well (hc that all the East Asians of CHB are close and see each other as family, and Drew heard Ethan defected and thought he was just misguided… man I can probably write a fic about this)

If he had survived in TLO to future books, he would really go help Jason with his project to honour all the gods (credit to @iwastoldthishadtogo) and would be the big brother to all the Asians

He's definitely taken part in several protests - if he lived, he'd definitely be raging at Trump and would have been the one to host the “Trump got voted out” party at CHB

I'm not sure why his father moved to the US though, I've never really thought about it :/

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jason is the type to volunteer to help those middle aged asian mums in the markets. as a result he’s quickly became the favorite white boy. red envelopes and free candy galore

I mean, since Camp Jupiter is so close to San Francisco geographically, I'm pretty sure he can do that at the weekends. Like, all the weekends. He might have even found a Roman demigod or two just wandering San Fran like that.

Bonus: He knew Sherman Yang (hc that he and his mortal mother lived in San Fran) from before he started going to Camp Half-Blood because of this. Their reunion after TLH was very interesting.

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How do I say no to this? I don't. In fact, I say yes to this.

shouldn’t demeter kids be considered on par with zeus/poseidon/hades kids since they are also the grandchildren of kronos

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michael yew has (or rather, had), entomophobia aka fear of bugs

It must have been hell in summer when the mosquitoes started spawning then… and the moment he found this dancing cockroach:

His reaction was:

As in literally. (Yes, the Apollo Cabin had a Christian cross on standby, do not ask why.)

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A follow-up headcanon list to the popular fan theory that the Demeter Cabin runs a black market for weed at CHB:

Miranda runs the ring because she's from Illinois (in my hc), where recreational use is legal and so is growing it but shh, this is a modern, up-to-date mild AU because fuck all

Katie used to run it too (and is lowkey in league with the Stolls for the black market, she just doesn't like the pranking, specifically, they have this love-hate friendship/relationship) but she can only do this in the summer because she's a summer-only camper

Marijuana is only legal for medical uses in NY and they don't allow recreational use and growing it is a misdemeanor

Conversely, because of the medical use thing being legal in NY (starting 2014 for all but smoking and usage fully decriminalized in 2019, also fuck the timeline), the Apollo Cabin is surprisingly lax with it

Billie is really, really opposed to the black market weed being sold out the Cabin back door because in HK, schools have posters and MTR stations have posters and basically they can be anywhere and screaming MARIJUANA IS A DRUG AND DRUGS ARE BAD, YOU CAN GET ADDICTED!! It's not legal here and even I as a more liberal HKer have reservations for recreational weed smoking (she isn't confirmed to be a HKer in canon but I lowkey kin her because of her surname and she is a HKer in my h/c)

She can't do anything about it until she becomes Head Counselor, at which point she can probably only sigh and turn a blind eye because it's profitable as fuck

Meg, being a feral child raised in a less-than-satisfactory environment, doesn't get the weed thing at all

Neither does Lit, since he's from ancient Greece

Someone probably needs to educate him about this whole recreational drug use thing (I think it could be a Dionysus domain thing??)

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Ethan’s favorite childhood movie is Pirates of The Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

How ironic it is that he gets an eye patch then…

in the au where he lives, he and nico totally bond over pirates

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*points a gl0ck at everyone else* APPRECIATE THE SIDELINERS YOU STUPID FUCKS /lh

Low quality meme

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austin has perfect pitch

Adding to this headcanon, he has chromesthesia (sound to colour synesthesia), which is how he has perfect pitch.

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OcTOAber #9: Camp Half-Blood (Minor Ships)

AO3 link

FF.net link

Alternate title: We Are Family

Summary: The East Asians of Camp Half-Blood vibing. Written for OcTOAber, hosted by @octoaber.

Content warnings: Mentions of blood and injury, Hong Kong politics, lack of accessibility and implied ableism, sex (especially one case of underage sex), and war involving child soldiers.

Chapter wordcount: 1332

This fic is written for @repriseliability and @eboylityerses — an AU where Ethan lives because f^ck canon. It also happens to be inspired by the Ethan Lives and He's Happy series by @lucaonthropy.

This is supposed to take place in the summer of ToN, so mild spoilers for the book. Several OCs appear in this chapter but they are not major characters.

This fic was beta-read by a friend with whom I am part of a Discord server with, ‘Yeebles’. Thanks for the help.

Yes, I am well aware that it has been a month since I posted and it's literally December now (even though I'm still working on writing events for October). I've just been... busy with schoolwork. And fandom discourse. And writer's block. Mainly writer's block.

Ethan awoke to enraged screeching and a loud crash. Apparently Damien had to wake up at six in the morning on a Saturday and ended up screeching while throwing his alarm clock at the opposite wall, where it smashed into the white brick wall, leaving a pile of glass shards, crooked metal and gears. Great, we need a new alarm clock. Again. Can Damien arrange those secret dates with his girlfriend at a later time of day? It’s the third time this month he smashed a clock!

Jusztina, who slept in the bunk on the opposite side of the room to Damien, had pulled a dagger from underneath her pillow, making a disturbingly accurate impression of the Cave of Wonders from Aladdin, “Who disturbs my slumber?”

“Jusztina, for cripe’s sake, put the dagger down!” Ethan snapped. Thankfully, Jusztina had enough working brain cells, even in her exhaustion, to listen to their Head Counsellor. “And get to the Infirmary, I might just have one eye, but I can see you’re bleeding from over here.”

“Wh— thanks for the alarm, Damie,” a voice rang out from the right side of the room. “I need to… get goin’. Got a visit to the museum with Cabin 6, gotta get goin’ by 7.” Then came the sound of sheets rumpling from the direction of Damien’s bunk.

“Which museum, Lysander? There’s so f^ckin’ many of them in New York,” Ethan somehow managed to yawn out.

“We’re hittin’ all of Museum Mile today, bro, so I gotta go now,” Lysander answered.

“Okay, okay, just be back before curfew tonight, or the Harpies are gonna get you,” Ethan groaned. And just as his half-brother was heading downstairs to the bathroom, he added, “Oh, and get a new alarm clock if you can!”

Even after he put his head to the pillow again, Ethan just couldn’t go back to sleep, unlike a few of his siblings. The most he could do was stare at his surroundings until 8am. The upper floor of the Nemesis Cabin had five bunk beds and a sliding glass door to the balcony, and the floors had a black and white checkerboard pattern — he was the one to choose the colour scheme of the cabin, and black and white seemed perfectly symbolic of the justice their mother doled out. There were several things about the cabin he didn’t agree with but passed through to the final design, though. The cabin held a perpetual chill within its walls — apparently because “revenge is a dish best served cold” — but he didn’t quite see the point in it.

The other main thing he opposed were the floor-to-ceiling mirrors between the windows. They were apparently installed because mirrors reflected the lookers’ true appearance, but it wasn’t particularly great for him, a one-eyed man, since he walked into those mirrors at least twice a month yet no one had had the right mind to remove them.

Eventually, he proceeded to curse out Damien all the way to breakfast — it had been a taxing game of Capture the Flag the night before, and he’d only barely slept three hours before being dragged awake by his stupid brother’s stupid alarm clock, among other things that made his younger half-brother so irritating.

“I thought Damien’s from Indiana,” Drew commented as she slipped into the space next to his at the Nemesis table, “not Illinois.” After the whole ‘Doctor’s Note’ fiasco last December, Chiron had reluctantly loosened the restrictions over who could sit at which table in the Dining Pavilion. Even though he still tried to reinforce the rules, it wasn’t as if anyone listened to Chiron anymore at camp. Something about ‘boomers’.

“Northwestern Indiana, part of the Chicago metropolitan area, that’s close enough to be a f^ckin’ Illinois b@stard to me.”

They spent the rest of breakfast together, talking about what had been going on with their lives. Billie saw Sherman join Miranda and her at the Demeter table and immediately left to sit between Yan and Kayla at the table behind the couple, glaring at Sherman as though she wanted to murder him with her bottle of Yakult. Drew had left Mitchell and Valentina to deal with the Aphrodite campers, since Piper had chosen not to return to Camp that summer. She had sent in a few instant photos, though, of her and another indigenous girl with short hair together, holding ice cream cones and smiling at the camera. They seemed to be doing well.

Right after breakfast ended, the Asians and Miranda all piled into the Aphrodite Cabin — thank f^ck Drew listened when I said not to scare everyone off with pungent perfume when she became Head Counsellor, Ethan mused as he plopped down on the floor of the cabin. They got through half a round of Jenga before Billie started to manipulate the wooden blocks and eventually the remaining tower tumbled onto Sherman.

“What did Sherman even do?” Miranda questioned as she picked up the fallen blocks from her boyfriend’s lap.

“His mom’s a tankie,” Billie retorted shortly. “I don’t trust people associated with Blue Ribbons.”

“Guys, can we not talk politics today?” Yan cried, throwing hands. “At least not in front of everyone else? It’s sensitive enough at home as it is.”

“Yes, sis.”

And with that, Billie had to relinquish her game choosing rights for the day for bringing up politics and everyone strapped down for a few rounds of Cards Against Olympus, essentially a custom deck of Cards Against Humanity rife with ancient Greco-Roman references in dyslexia-friendly fonts and colours.

“Okay, okay,” Drew, acting as the Card Czar, announced twenty minutes later, “Hercules is forced to do a 13th labour, which is…?” As she gathered the replies, she laughed, “...ancient Roman porn! He’d probably enjoy that labour, honestly! Who put that down?”

Alice raised her hand.

“I don’t think someone your age should be talking about porn, but whatever, this Camp is a hotbed of illegal activity anyway. I caught Alan having sex with his enbyfriend in the armory two summers ago!”

“How old was he at the time?”

“Fifteen — age of consent in New York is 17, and he’ll stay that age because he’s dead.” There was suddenly a solemn moment of silence among the group. Ethan vaguely recalled the Battle of Manhattan — the casualties included four confirmed members of the Apollo Cabin, with possibly others employed in the Titan Army that weren’t counted. He only narrowly managed to escape the clutches of Thanatos because his mother showed up while he was in the infinite fall from Olympus to fly him to Camp Half-Blood. He tried not to think about it too much.

“Anyways,” Yan coughed. “I think we should carry on playing… without talking about war or politics.” The next round involved Ouranos’ balls apparently being the person/thing that can make Zeus bottom for once. Drew asked if that meant her mother, who was born from Ouranos’ genitals, was the person who could make Zeus bottom. No one answered that question. It is better off not questioning the cards in the Cards Against Olympus deck.

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By lunch, the group had run through five games of Uno, a round of Monopoly, and three bandaids from when Sherman stabbed Alice with the plastic sticks in the Tumblin’ Monkeys set and Drew stabbed him with her stiletto heels in retaliation. All perfectly normal occurrences in the life of the East Asian Half-Blood family.

As Yan disinfected Alice’s puncture wounds with a vial of nectar, she complained, “All the stabbing and the shouting… I don’t think this is a healthy family dynamic.”

Fixing a wrong number on a shrine blueprint which Apollo had brought to Camp Half-Blood following Jason Grace's death, Ethan replied, “Give them some time. Sherman and Billie squaring off? Perfectly normal. The stabbing? Maybe not… I think we need to schedule a counselling session with Hestia tonight. I’ll go do that now. It’s normally not this bad.”

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I’m just here clowning with my Ethan headcanons.

Blue Ribbons, in Hong Kong, refer to supporters of the Hong Kong Police Force and by extension, the SAR government. Think the term ‘blue lives matter’, same symbolism behind ‘blue’. The phrase has been around since 2014 at the very least, during the Umbrella Movement. The converse is the pro-democracy Yellow Ribbons.

I actually made a Cards Against Olympus deck several months ago. Tragically, the site I made the deck on shut down and I only recovered a fraction of my deck.

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Billie Ng Headcanons

A few friends of mine might have heard some of these on Tumblr already, and some have already been explored in my fanfic Where the Bright Bauhinias Bloom.

The reason why I project on her is because of less superficial reasons like her appearance but more

Aged about 13 as of Trials of Apollo, similar in age to Austin

A Hongkonger raised in rural Fanling (northern New Territories) - I’ve considered making her a Macau resident but I decided to go with my hometown (internal bias because I know HK better than Macau so she’s easier to write)

Her legal name is Ng Pui-li (Chinese: 吳貝莉 - taken from the traditional Chinese translation)

Mortal father is an open-minded farmer who Demeter admired for his persistence (in Hong Kong, only 22% of ‘agricultural’ land is used for farming because of the low economic value of farming, and primary industries take up less than 0.5% of the GDP here). He’s not clear-sighted but he is a decent parent overall, and that’s what matters in the end

As mentioned in my fanfic, her great-grandparents and grandparents escaped the Great Leap Forward in Mao-era China (specifically the 1950s to 1960s) and sought refuge in Hong Kong. As a matter of fact, most HKers are descended from mainland refugees, in one way or another

Might have minor connections to the Chinese pantheon but definitely not in a major way - she’s quite sure Chinese myths are real too but doesn’t know how they work

(She probably suspects the appearance of jianjian ended up causing the current floods in Mainland China but shh, we’re not supposed to know the flooding is severe)

Arrived at CHB in the Easter holidays just before the Battle of the Labyrinth

Lives full-time at CHB because international travel is a bitch

Usually goes back to HK for Chinese New Year and occasionally Mid-Autumn Festival

Oriented aro/ace (wlw) or demisexual lesbian - I’m tied between the two because my thoughts on her change from time to time (I think the fact that she’s rarely shipped with a dude really helped contribute to this headcanon and influenced my thoughts on her)

Doesn’t plan on being in a queerplatonic or romantic relationship (depending on the headcanon above) until she’s at least a university student, so stop sexualizing her, you sick fucks

Speaks Cantonese, English and Mandarin (other than Ancient Greek), but learns Korean due to her interest in Korean pop culture, which makes her one of the more multilingual demigods at Camp

Spoke English with a pretty heavy accent when she arrived in the US but she’s getting better - her accent has faded quite a bit but still emerges from time to time

Can also communicate with geckos since they fall under Demeter’s domain

Actually a decently powerful demigod - she might not be Meg-level powerful, but Demeter is one of the eldest Olympians, after all

Proud foodie and horticulturist - also a good chef

A really go-with-the-flow person until you mess with those that she cares about

Her favourite books are blue, silver and gold, but she developed a healthy appreciation for yellow and black when push came to shove

A fairly avid gamer 

A reader who enjoys books like Magic Tree House and Geronimo Stilton (but the colourful and unusual fonts, as well as the non-standard vocabulary, e.g. “enormouse”, kind of messed with her mind) but doesn’t have access to them easily

Since she lived in a rural area and was on the poorer end of the scale, her books were usually borrowed from the nearest public library, school library, or second-hand

Also watched a lot of Tom and Jerry as a kid

Close friends with Kayla and Valentina

Also close with her fellow East Asians at CHB and eventually Camp Jupiter and the Hunt (she usually has to speak Mandarin with the Chinese squad instead of Cantonese because of the whole ‘common tongue’ thing - she’s not ecstatic but she lives in North District, right near the border, she’s resigned to it at this point), but kind of at odds with Sherman because his mortal parent (mother) was a pretty pro-CCP (USA-residing) Mainlander born in the Cultural Revolution (HKers are often at odd with Mainlanders for various reasons) - the two can coexist in a space without breaking out into an argument as long as you don’t bring politics into the situation

Does not appreciate being mistaken for being from a different East Asian culture - she can take being called ‘Chinese’ (even if she isn’t the biggest fan of the term) or even Taiwanese (since Ng is a Hokkien surname as well as a Cantonese one), but Olympus help you if you mistake her for gods forbid, Japanese, Korean or even Vietnamese (*glares at certain members of this fandom*)

A great singer, was probably part of the school choir before she left for CHB

Plans on returning to HK to study Bioresource and Agricultural Science at the Baptist University (it only became a programme in 2019 so this one is here to account for her trying to keep up with her local education)

Okay, since it is approaching 2am in Hong Kong here, I think I’m better off going to bed, because I have school tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed these.