#they did it in ToA iirc

[pain-is-too-tired]

Thinking about the fact that they had Maron be the saytr that brought Will to camp-

THEN WENT AND GAVE HIM A NYMPH GIRLFRIEND NAMED NAOMI?? I KNOW IT'S LIKE A ACTIVE GREEK NAME AND ALL BUT??? 😭

Idk if he keeps any contact with Will though. Cause I never thought he actually did any Protector stuff in awhile?? Maybe he was just in the area but idk hdfd

But, he just doesn't seem to be as close to any demigods as Grover and Couch Hedge. The cloven counsel in general always felt separate from over satyrs in duties.

But if he did keep in touch with Will, I'm just imagine how awkward it is to have your old protector have a gf with the same name as your mom fsgsg.

Like-common name probably and all, but it's still funny to imagine.

Poor Will XD

[aroaceleovaldez]

Tumblr kept breaking when I tried to reply to the ask about this since the post is too long, so answering this here finally:

A non-comprehensive list of misc things I’d change in HoO, since apparently people wanted me to elaborate further (Re: [This post]). Semi-off the top of my head since I don’t feel like re-reading all of HoO with notations right now. Also this will be followed up by a Things I Would Change About TOA post as well at some point, since that was also requested and kept breaking, but my brain is exhausted from getting this post set up so that will wait. I will link it [here] when I complete it.

Going under a read-more cause it’s very long. Literally Tumblr crashed like three times while I was trying to answer the original ask:

As said before (and what is a given):

1. Goes without saying - fix all the distasteful offensive character descriptions/traits. Similarly, fix the whole "these characters inexplicably look down upon their cultures" cause that's stupid and it's really annoying every time one of the Argo 2 crew brings up something about their cultures only to immediately go "but THAT'S SILLY and WEIRD."

2. Remove Calypso from the active plot, rather than the current canon retconning that doesn’t work saying that she was never actually released from Ogygia like she was supposed to be. There's no excuse for why she wasn't, unless it's supposed to be the gods sent Leo to release her to fulfill that promise, but that's not really implied to be the case at all. There's no excuse for the Olympians to just go back on their promise, since Hephaestus is established to visit Calypso regularly and basically is her only friend. It isn’t the type of thing he’d let be overlooked given all the characterization we know about Hephaestus, and given they are explicitly friends it can’t be that Olympus just “forgot” either. Also Calypso doesn't actually add anything to the plot of HoO or TOA besides serving as a love interest for Leo (not even a motive, just a love interest that "fixes him,” because he already has motive in saving Jason from being the hero of the prophecy and helping save the Argo 2 crew/camp/etc from Gaea etc etc.  Leo's romance arc completely derails the established depressive spiral/destructive character arc that's been set up for him and it basically ruins Leo's entire character. He's a tragic character! Let him be tragic until he's done being tragic and then the end of BoO and TOA can be him starting his recovery arc! (I have some thoughts for how Calypso could work removed from HoO but an active character in TOA but that’ll be for the TOA post.)

If Leo still ends up on Ogygia, then have it be clear that Calypso's already left and the island is abandoned (which imo is WAY more narratively compelling for readers of the first series, because you already know the context of the island, but for readers who don't have that context it leads to this being an interesting mystery - who was Calypso? What was this island and why do all the signs/notes left by her imply she wasn't always alone but usually was and was desperate to leave?) and Leo has to collect the scraps left behind to build an escape for himself while he goes through a fun identity crisis. At some point maybe Hephaestus shows up and Leo gets an interaction with his dad that probably does not help his identity crisis and then he goes back to the Argo 2 to have a further identity crisis about how the rest of the crew got along in his absence (a good identity crisis or a bad identity crisis? depends on how they did without him! you decide! I personally like "they managed okay" and Leo feels Really Horrible About That Cause It Feels To Him Like They Don't Need Him. I like Leo's tragic arc, okay? It's compelling.) Iirc Leo’s also the only member of the Seven who doesn’t get to have some kind of direct conversation with their godly parent, at least in-person, so yknow. It’d be nice to have. Also if you want Aro/ace Leo Valdez this is the perfect spot to put it while he's having his identity crisis on Kiss Kiss Fall In Love Island, or when he gets back.

3. Jason's stab wound in BoO is not healed by the Power Of Friendship, and instead they use the Physician's Cure for that so it doesn't feel like they're literally deus ex machina-ing their way to cheating death like 3 times in the same book. It makes more sense to use Potion Of Don't Die on Wound Of Excruciatingly Painfully Slowly Killing You instead of Whoops You're Already Dead, Just Get Better. Ctrl+Z That Real Quick.

Given they already used the Physician’s Cure on Jason, Leo doesn’t die/get revived at the end of BoO. Instead he just almost dies, probably lands in CHB’s woods somewhere, and is found and patched up with the series ending on him being on the mend and starting on the path to healing and getting help for his Numerous Issues that he was putting off for The Entire Series. Which parallels nicely to Nico basically having the same thing (overexerting his powers to near death, ends series getting medical treatment/being on the mend and the indication that he’s moving on to a happier period of his life). Again, grand happy ending rather than aggravating fake-out.

Further notes: 

- Heavily tweak Ella's character cause I get what Rick was going for, but the execution is… not awesome! Please, there's already so much ableism in HoO just. hmm. We can do better.

- Jason and Piper break up in HoO, probably around MoA when they start seeing Percy and Annabeth interacting and after they’ve had time to hang out with each other and realize their arranged relationship is Kind Of Fucked Up, Actually. (Probably something something them having gotten to spend time actually getting to know each other between TLH and MOA while they’re both at camp.) They have no problems with each other specifically and do genuinely like each other, but it just gets really awkward given all the memory manipulation and being set up as a "picture perfect couple" - emphasizing stuff like them both being children of really famous movie stars in their universe, or Jason as a son of Jupiter/Jove (an "all-father" type god) [and Juno - mother figure goddess and goddess of marriage]/"son of Rome" and Piper as a daughter of Aphrodite (goddess of love, also Aphrodite/Venus indirectly is associated as a sort of "mother of Rome" due to Aeneas). They just feel like they have too many expectations being put on their relationship and even though they do both like each other it feels too forced for them, but they’re comfortable staying just friends. This just gives way more opportunity for low-stakes character conflict among the Argo II crew outside of Monster Of The Week Chapter so things don’t feel unreasonably busy and chaotic and we actually get some consistent development. Just a nice mini-arc to follow in the downtime. Also while we’re here, more directly establish Piper’s bisexuality earlier on. If she’s already having an arc where she’s contemplating her romantic life, throw in a couple of nods to like “Piper thinking about her old childhood crush on Shel, the kid of a family friend she’d see when her and her dad visited Oklahoma” or something. Literally anything just to establish some kind of set-up to her getting a girlfriend later. Just for consistency’s sake.

- Bunkernine has a very good post about wishing the Argo II didn't have the magic plates from CHB, which I agree with in concept. Like I was just saying, MoA through BoO lacks a lot of little moments where we get to really focus in on the characters, probably in part because Rick was struggling to juggle so many parties given this was his first foray into writing a major cast that size. We can definitely cut out a lot of the random unnecessary fights and dramatic moments that don't really do anything for the plot and instead replace them with little moments of casual life on the Argo II - the scenes like those that do exist in HoO are some of HoO's most memorable moments to me! And they'd help a lot with how the characters never felt fully and properly fleshed-out. Let them exist as a cohesive group without two-to-three of them being absent at any given time! I don't think we necessarily have to remove the magic plates entirely because they do solve a fundamental problem ("where are these kids getting food?") but like, there is nothing stopping them from still cooking and just using the plates to get ingredients! Let these kids bake or something! Even just for fun! Though also I have personal headcanons about the Argo II crew's cooking skills and I really like the concept of like, during HoH or something at like 3am everybody hears something and they all suspiciously shuffle into the mess hall. And it’s just half-dead Nico standing there in his PJs making food for himself because Dammit They're IN VENICE and he’s FROM VENICE and they DON’T HAVE TIME TO STOP AT HIS OLD FAVORITE RESTAURANTS THAT MAY OR MAY NOT STILL EXIST and he Hasn't Had A Proper Meal In Weeks so By The Gods He Will Make His Mom's Old Recipes At 3am before he keels over from this quest. He just stares at everybody and goes "What are you all looking at. go away." and the rest of the crew just shuffles away awkwardly and leaves him to it. (Is Nico’s 3am meal actually good? Who knows. It is left a mystery.)

- Tweak the god characterizations. Remove the "gods splitting" thing and maybe play more with different aspects of gods/verisons of gods across history/city-states/etc presenting themselves instead. The Roman gods are not wholly equivilent to the Greek gods and it's actually really interesting from a historical perspective, and I think there's a lot you could do with that but instead it gets flatted in HoO which is sad to me. Just generally though, with the god characterizations, like. [uncomfortable pagan noises]. Which is almost impressive because it is difficult to write the Greco-Roman pantheons poorly since a good portion of them are basically just very complicated metaphors turned into personifications and characters. So they work fine for narrative purposes when applied accordingly, and yet! and yet!! Rick managed it! He managed to really bungle it in HoO and TOA. Because instead of leaning into the aspects of metaphors and dynamic characters he just fell into 2D tropes, gimmicks, and stereotypes. Off the top of my head the only deities written Okay in HoO is like. Hades/Pluto and Thanatos. (even Chiron in TOA is extremely lackluster, it's sad.) In the first series it ranges from “okay” to “actually really interesting” so it’s sad to see that drop-off and I would like it to be fixed.

Some potential examples for this: Play with the historical ties combo of like, Athena, Minerva, Enyo, Bellona, and etc! Annabeth and Reyna parallels! if the first 2 books are about the trios, let MoA be about Annabeth and Reyna and both their connections to Athena(/Bellona). Let Reyna be a second half in the Athena prophecy! It'd be cool and fit with her thematically and would set-up the whole Getting-Blessed-By-Athena thing later in BoO and make that scene feel so much cooler!

- Also retcon the whole "Hestia appears as an 8 year old for no reason" thing. And maybe also Artemis only appearing as a teen, because while Artemis has a mythological excuse, Hestia doesn't, so it just feels weird and at worst comes off as a little aphobic (depicting a character who explicitly is uninterested in relationships/romantic love as a child despite them being an immortal god with no basis for appearing as a child or even being comparatively young to other gods) with how it relates to aphobic tropes about disinterest in romance being "childish".

- Remove the "no children of Minerva" thing. Also maybe emphasize the aro/ace vibes there cause Athena being implied to be the only ace character in the entire series who a.) isn't literally a child/teen nor appears as one, and/or b.) hasn't had an unfortunate relationship that makes them disinterested in romance, but also at the same time being the only one out of herself/Hestia/Artemis to have relationships of some sort (having kids, implied to possibly be romantic but unclear) issss bad! actually! Bad tropes, don't like that. (Again aphobic tropes of disinterest in romance being “childish” and something that can be grown out of, or a result of trauma. Also it feels weird that the only a-spec characters in the series are all women. Can we have a male a-spec character please.) Just let Athena be aro/ace and vibing and occasionally having brain children cause she can do what she wants and everyone is aware of this and chill with it (And being a-spec doesn’t mean she’d be disinterested in having kids). Also maybe make her feel less cold cause "a-spec character is cold and loveless" is also an aphobic trope that PJO!Athena falls into, actually.

- Speaking of aphobic tropes, fix the Hunters! Please. Please just redo the Hunters of Artemis entirely. Holy cow. I wrote up an entire alternate oath/rules set for the Hunt because it's just so weird and poorly done. There were male Hunters of Artemis in Greek Mythology! Multiple! And most of them were chill! The "swearing off all romance" thing is also questionable, because depending on what versions of myths you’re looking at it’s potentially implied the Hunters had romantic relationships among themselves. And in Greek Mythology all the Hunters were definitely not all pre-teens. And it feels especially bad that the only adult Hunters we ever see are explicitly ex-Hunters who are heavily implied to be not ace and definitely aren't aro and are also implied to have "grown out of" being disinterested in romance. (That gagging noise you hear is me being sick of how many aphobic tropes the Hunters are juggling).

The version of the Hunters i have written up is, and I quote (from my notes): "Hunters can be any age, species, and gender identity (so long as they are comfortable enough being occasionally referred to as “Huntresses,” “Sisters,” “Maidens,” and etc). Relationships between Hunters are allowed so long as it will not endanger/distract from the Hunt or endanger any other Huntresses. Having a child is not allowed within the Hunt and any Huntresses who wish to do so must leave (purely because having a pregnant person/young child on the Hunt is dangerous, and safety is the number one priority - especially as Artemis is a protector of youth and goddess of childbirth. Once they turn like, 12 they can join, that’s fine. Everyone knows middle schoolers are the optimal combination of bloodthirstiness and ability to wield a weapon)." Also, just as like, a side-thing, I wanna see a clear-sighted mortal Huntress, because we're told thats a thing but we never see them. Closest we get is like ancient semi-immortals and Technical Nymphs, or other Huntresses who are of unspecified mortal/demigod status.

- Similar deal - fix the Amazons. they're… better but still a little wonky.

- Some slight tweaks to the Cupid Scene - Nico still has a confrontation with Cupid cause that is a very compelling scene that works well for Nico's character and informs a lot about him (and serves a purpose in a very meta way - not so much for the plot but reflecting something the first series did occasionally which was a kind of showing an example of a situation, usually a negative situation that either mirrors or directly references a type of situation a kid may find themself in, and explains and shows sympathy for the character being hurt in that situation. Which is notable because the demographic for the series is young middle schoolers and particularly neurodivergent kids, who are probably approaching a lot of new social situations or may struggle with empathy. It acts as an introduction to “unfortunately this is a bad thing that happens sometimes, and it hurts people, which is why you should be nice to this kid. Look at beloved character. Here’s an elaboration on why they’re hurt so you can understand.” So for the purposes of that, the scene of Nico getting outed would likely remain, but it would still keep the very overt “WOW THIS SUCKS, THIS IS A BAD SITUATION.” stuff) Most of the tweaks are just slight adjustments to minor prelude dialogue and/or setting, like. Jason does not forget that being gay is a thing for a second. And etc. But Nico having a very literal metaphorical conflict about grappling with how he views the concept of love by LITERALLY GETTING KICKED AROUND BY THE GOD OF LOVE is actually kinda badass from a narrative analysis perspective. This is exactly what i meant in the previous bullet points about the gods in a lot of myths and classical stories playing the roles of personifications of metaphors and that being used well. Admittedly I'm 50/50 on tweaking Cupid's general attitude in the scene itself, because a more hostile Cupid lends itself better to the meta use of the scene as described before but a more sympathetic-to-Nico Cupid who is nonetheless still kicking the shit out of him is interesting from a metaphor standpoint (something something Nico overcoming internalized homophobia but in the very literal form of it’s the god that literally presides over protecting gay love [yes that is an actual thing Eros/Cupid is the god of] beating him up).

- Remove Reyna's “prophecy” entirely. It's stupid and pointless and doesn’t make sense with her character at all. Just say she's ace. There is not a single scene in any of the series that ever indicates that Reyna believes that she can only be happy if she’s in a relationship and that’s some kind of internal struggle she needs to overcome. The closest we ever get is Reyna being upset that her best friend disappeared and when he returns she finds out he had forgotten about her completely. Which does not apply to the “prophecy” at all. We just don’t need it.

- Absence of "a character" can work! Jason's lack of personality and backstory can work but it works best if it's absence is felt and properly explored. This works best if we get more information about Camp Jupiter from SoN and from the other Roman characters, especially Reyna (and maybe even Nico referencing his trips there!) because that inherently informs us about what Jason's life was like there. Have other characters note things about Jason and highlight the fact that this is absent from Jason's own POV! He's lost that part of his life! It was taken from him! That's such an interesting dynamic to have and explore! But we don't get any of that!

Side-note: Part of the problem with Jason's amnesia is that it feels so awkward especially compared to Percy's amnesia because we already know what Percy can't remember. We have the context that informs his character, even though he can't remember it, so that absence is felt and it feels really compelling! Also, Percy is unfamiliar with Camp Jupiter, and we're unfamiliar with Camp Jupiter, so it feels new and interesting (even though we don't actually get much about it so we never actually form any real attachment to it and that's a problem later on in every subsequent scene when we're supposed to care about what happens to Camp Jupiter but we. don't). The reason it doesn't work for Jason is because we don't know what's absent and we already know CHB. Jason also already knows about demigods and stuff, so if you're a new reader starting at HoO it just doesn't work. Because Jason already knows everything and we're being led from his POV primarily for that portion of TLH, and even Piper and Leo's backstories both heavily include being pushed around by Gaea/and or Hera/Juno, so if you aren't familiar with the universe you're just being hurried along and it ends up feeling weak. At least with Percy even if you don't know the contexts of his backstory, we can feel the implications of other characters referencing things about him extremely often, so you feel the weight of his memories being gone, and he doesn't know about the roman gods and you, the reader, aren't expected to know much if anything about it either. We don’t get the full demigod debriefing (but that's also the second book) but we at least get a Camp Jupiter debriefing. The first two books are a bit messy in those specific regards with setting up the camps for the series, and we don’t really see the camps much for the rest of HoO (except for CHB, of course).

This is personally why I stand by that if we ever get a roman series it should be a three-part series from Reyna's POV, because leading with Jason is basically like trying to lead PJatO with Annabeth - a demigod raised in camp and surrounded by the knowledge of this stuff their entire life. It doesn't work as a character who's acting as an introduction to this world for the reader. There's no real clean way to work that out for HoO unfortunately, since literally all our protagonists are given established pasts involving knowledge of Greco-Roman mythology being real and half of them are either already at camp or have been to a different camp. I'd say best solution would probably actually be leading from Piper for TLH and tweak her character set-up slightly in that she Does Not Know What's Going On At All re: Gaea and the Giants. She just knows Something Happened To Her Dad and she's the POV we follow into TLH, because that mirrors Percy in beginning of TLT well (with Sally being kidnapped)! It's a fun call-back for the old readers and a good lead-in for the new readers.

- Fix Nico backstory inconsistencies caused by Rick almost making his birthday in March and confusing himself over it. He's 12 in TLO, 13 in HoO. He was born January 28th, 1929, and got put in the Lotus Hotel and Casino in 1939 (If you wanna be cute, we can specifically say May 1st, 1939, to reference the musical). Hazel is one month older than him chronologically and one year older than him post-revival. Something something also smooth out the inconsistencies about Nico being raised in Italy and how Maria met Hades and stuff. Fill in the rest as you will.

- I do stand by that the entire PJO timeline is not one-to-one with the real world. That's always been a thing with the series. We're basically condensing everything from ~1998 to ~2020 into an 18 year timeline. We don't need to be exact with things. Don't get too bogged down with it.

- Make the whole "injuries caused by celestial bronze/imperial gold for demigods makes their souls self-destruct" thing specifically relating to cursed weapons/materials or feature some more volatile abomination combo weapons like Backbiter (with Backbiter being described as unstable due to being both celestial bronze and mortal steel). (Ex.: the spear used to stab Jason in BoO is just cursed, and maybe Octavian's catapult plan is a "well i put a bunch of mortal steel and imperial gold in a pot and melted them together a bit and now it really wants to explode so im gonna just chuck the entire thing and hope it kills everyone lots and lots <3" which is tbh significantly more dastardly and fucked-up, which makes Octavian a bit more compelling). Having it just be a plain trait of celestial bronze/imperial gold doesn’t make any sense and is only referenced like twice in HoO and never again in basically the entire three series. Again: consistency.

- Make a more prominent reference to the whole "btw there are retired adult Romans just living wherever but they're legally required to help any campers who request aid" thing, cause you could totally do something really fun and cool with that but idk what.

- PICK A THEME! First series theme was family! Second series theme is….. we don’t know! It felt like maybe a theme was intended at some point but we lost it. Forging a new life for one’s self/choosing your own path/etc could be a good theme, or something similar. or found family. or both. We’ve got a bunch of characters absolutely ripe for “I didn’t think i’d get this far and now I have to like, actually consider what i want to do in life. huh” arcs! (Frank! Leo! Hazel! Jason! Percy! Nico!) Do something with that!

- Lean more into the characters having aspects inspired by myths, or legends being mirrored in plot points: 7 against Thebes, the Argonauts, etc etc etc. The first series leaning into it heavily worked really well! More of that! HoO and TOA suffer a lot from lack of mythological basis to lean their plots on, despite there being plenty to work from. It instead just kind of messily mashes random misc myths (haha, alliteration) together into a very incoherent plot. Annabeth is known to be explicitly based off Atalanta, Percy is mostly based off Perseus and Theseus, Leo has loose connections based off of Demophon of Eleusis and possibly also his brother Triptolemus, etc etc. There’s stuff to work with! Poke around at the mythological figures of the original Argo and maybe match them up a bit (though most of the Argonaut myths were used in Sea of Monsters, so focus more on the figures/archetypes rather than just exact myths of what they did. For more plot-things, maybe consider Seven Against Thebes, though admittedly the plot of that is just Kinda Depressing.)

- Slightly related to that - lean into Piper presumably mirroring Orpheus! Or even if she isn’t supposed to, let her do that, because it fits with her thematically SUPER well. Her charmspeak is OP and that needs to be appreciated. In canon she brings Jason back from the brink of death in TLH and just straight up gives Festus a soul/free will/sentience. Let her go Orpheus-mode on everybody. You can even tie that in with the half-hearted snake theme that Rick tried to throw in there that didn’t work at all. We can make this work, just lean into it. It’ll be fun.

- Remove scene of Nico confessing to Percy at end of BoO. it’s just. random and feels sudden and OOC. Give Nico time. You could maybe replace it by having him come out to Reyna on his own terms while they’re on their quest discussing their adventures thus far and them having a very sweet little emotional moment rather than it being a weird out-of-place afterthought comical scene.

- Remove Bob and Damacus. They’re just half-literal dues ex machinas for Percabeth in Tartarus that don’t make sense. It feels extremely cheap and doesn’t fit with the established mythos of either figure (and Bob feels extra awkward without the context of knowing Sword of Hades). If they do run into a figure who helps them out in Tartarus, Arke could possibly be a good option - especially since in SoN Percy meets Iris. There’s a lot potentially you could do there with Percy mistaking her for her twin and stuff like that. If we want a figure to more-so take the role that Bob fills (Nico encouraging an immortal to be sympathetic to Percy and thus indirectly helping him later) that role could be filled by Nyx instead of making her a minor antagonist - imply Nico encountered Nyx in Tartarus or something and she took pity on him as someone who also understands the dark, and he told her about Percy and so Nyx is willing to help Percabeth escape. Plus imagine how COOL a Nyx & her children vs Tartarus/Titans/Giants fight would be. That’d be a significantly more memorable scene than the Tartarus fight scenes we did get. (“Why would Nyx help though?” One of Nyx’s kids is LITERALLY a goddess of friendship [Philotes], we have excuses.)

- On a similar note, this is more of a TSATS thing, but for goodness’ sake STOP THROWING CHARACTERS INTO TARTARUS. You’re overusing it! It only works when we use it sparingly! In fact, just in general Tartarus works better the less we see of it! Nico going through Tartarus once in SoN-MoA, yes, that works! Especially since we have almost no idea what happened to him down there, just that it was Terrifying and Horrible and he Barely Survived. Not going into much detail means we get more out of it. The only exception to that really was when Percy realized that Nico saw Tartarus as it truly was the entire time, because that’s one hell (ha) of a punch to the gut in terms of added information! Percabeth falling into Tartarus in MoA? Eh, fine, sure, because we’ve established that Nico (who is implied to be more resilient to that environment on virtue of being a child of Hades) talked about his experiences down there so they know what to expect and how to survive. Though it does kind of just feel like Rick went “Oh wait hey I can use this to make angst!” and then overused the hell out of it. It feels way weaker in general in HoH because of how much detail we get, because Tartarus has been built up so much until that point that literally anything we get will feel lackluster in comparison, especially with how it kind of feels like Percabeth just. breezed through it with little more difficulty than they’d usually face on their quests. Solangelo jumping into Tartarus in TSATS is honestly just a blatant “Oh boy we can make Solangelo into Percabeth 2!” and it doesn’t work at all because NICO HAS ALREADY BEEN TO TARTARUS.

The only way you could make Nico going into Tartarus two times work is if he fell into Tartarus a second time to replace Percabeth falling down there. Because we’ve established he knows what it’s like down there, he survived it once, and he is actively sparing someone else he cares about from suffering his same fate. And then he can return once again even closer to death and A Little Fucked Up and it turns into a rule of threes where we know “Oh, Nico can’t go back to Tartarus again because if he does he’ll Lose Himself Completely” which is way more interesting than romance angst for the sake of romance angst. Especially since again, we don’t see it, it’s all only implied. Also it then also turns Tartarus into even more of a “Nico is probably the only demigod who could ever even hope to survive Tartarus” which keeps Tartarus as an ominous thing. Percabeth falling into Tartarus lessens that by a lot because it implies that it doesn’t matter that Nico is a child of Hades; that had absolutely no bearing on his ability to survive down there. TL;DR: Stop throwing characters into Tartarus. Either throw Nico in twice in a row and no Percabeth or Nico and Percabeth once only and never touch it again.

- More heavily set up Percy’s emotions/mood/etc being influenced by water around him. If we keep most of Percabeth in Tartaurs, then this would really make the Achlys scene pack a bigger punch. Up until HoH everything is “oh how quirky” but the minute Percy’s surrounded by the rivers of the underworld and the acid/poision you get hit with the “oh shit” realization that Percy Is About To Get SCARY.

- Maybe have Annabeth keep her blindness from Tartarus, or trade Jason having glasses to her having glasses as a result of that, since vision is actually an aspect of Athena so it kind of fits her more, thematically-speaking.

- Change the judo flip percabeth scene in MoA to Annabeth picking Percy up and spinning him around in a hug/swinging him into a dip cause that’s cuter, makes more sense given Percy’s PTSD, and still highlights Annabeth being very strong and showing off in front of the Romans while they’re still being lovey-dovey.

But also, related to that, you could potentially make a sub-arc for Percabeth throughout HoO (so that they actually have like. some type of character development that fits them rather than them feeling stagnant the entire time) about Annabeth learning she doesn’t know as much about Percy as she thought (learning about Gabe [since as far as we know she actually doesn't know much if anything about that!], seeing his behavior change with different types of water, etc) kicked off by the judo flip scene, and possibly vice versa (Percy learning more about Annabeth’s time spent traveling with Thalia and Luke, growing up at CHB, her relationship with Athena and other campers at CHB, etc) so they gain a deeper understanding of one another. If Percy keeps his curse of Achilles, that could also factor in (contrasting Percy’s “perfect” image [relationship, near-immortality] against Annabeth realizing she doesn’t know as much about Percy as she thought [could also parallel that dynamic to Jaspiper, which opens opportunities for Annabeth/Piper and Jason/Percy bonding] [Or Annabeth/Jason and Piper/Percy bonding! I want more Annabeth/Jason and Piper/Percy parallels so bad. They’re almost there but we never get them. Please.]/ the Argo II crew learning about Percy’s past) with Percy being more prone to seek out conflict or solve problems with violence due to the Curse of Achilles and eventually recognizing that [possibly after Tartarus] and it scaring him just as much as it frightens Annabeth. Maybe at that point Percy tries to make some sort of deal to rid himself of the curse.)

- Maybe also explicitly parallel Percy getting the curse of Achilles with Nico’s help to Poseidon giving his lover Caeneus iron skin. There’s no really smooth way to do it, but maybe even just a during Nico’s pov him going “I heard about this myth once and got an idea. It didn’t work.” Just for that added through-line of connecting the series and further establishing “yeah, no, Nico’s been gay this whole time. this isn’t a new thing. we aren’t pulling this from thin air.”

- Give Piper a different weapon than the knife from the beginning cause she stops using it eventually anyways. Also just... no cornucopia. That part is just stupid and there’s no point for it. If we have to keep it as a plot object, give it to someone else - Nico could work because then there’s actually at least a valid relation there regarding his godly parent (yes, Pluto sometimes has cornucopia associations). Also Nico having a cornucopia would be kinda funny in a subversion of expectations thing. Maybe even have Nico go on a little exposition-y rant complaining about Hades/Pluto versus Plutus (the Greek god of plenty/wealth, later merged with Pluto).

- Similarly, either remove Diocletian’s scepter (if we have multiple characters who can boss around skeletons, why do we need an entire separate extra object whose sole purpose is to let them boss around skeletons?) or let Nico keep it but it loses its abilities, so it’s literally just “well now he has a cool bashing stick for bashing things.” Or let him use it as a cane to highlight him being disabled!

- As I slightly touched upon in a previous bullet point, give Piper more connections to her dad’s community in Oklahoma - where’s all her family friends? Tristan is a major pop culture figure in the Riordanverse, so it’d make sense that people from the community he grew up in would like. know him? But all we ever hear about is Piper’s Grandpa Tom. Even though apparently Piper is already good enough friends with Shel presumably before Piper moves to Oklahoma that the two start dating soon afterwards. Heck, again, have Piper reference Shel specifically. Just at any point. For any reason. Just to establish that she knows people her own age that exist outside of CHB.

Similarly, flesh out the background Romans in Camp Jupiter more in SoN and possibly also BoO, particularly the ones Jason references by name but we never see anything of, besides at most maybe more background references. Highlight them either through the SoN trio interacting with more characters while at camp (and we’re left to glean specific details of Jason’s past through others, which would make Jason more compelling and how these details are absent from himself but present to those around him, playing into his memory loss more) and possibly also through Reyna (and maybe Nico)’s POV(s) in BoO. (And maybe if we get a Reyna POV in MoA, then there as well).

- Let Reyna use magic! We establish that she studied under Circe and then never see anything come of that other than referencing her Tragic Backstory™. It could be a fun point for Reyna and Hazel to bond over, even!

- Remove the random “Hunters of Artemis death fodder” scene with Orion in BoO. There’s no reason for that. It’s just kinda dumb and feels bad given it’s basically just “We’re gonna kill a bunch of nondescript allegedly a-spec coded characters now for no reason. <3” like ???. That served no purpose. It just felt weird.

- Also just as a like, logistics thing - change the route Team Statue takes in BoO from the huge jump over the Atlantic into Peurto Rico into them traveling up into like the UK, then over to Iceland and Greenland and then Canada and down the east coast rather than the huge jump and up the east coast. The smaller jumps make more sense given the entire POINT of their quest taking as long as it does is that Nico can’t make extremely large shadow-travel jumps at that time. Plus if they’re traveling south then they could pass through Maine and we could maybe cameo Nico’s old school and that’d be fun. The pit-stop in Puerto Rico doesn’t really give us much that we couldn’t have just gotten from Reyna explaining it anyways. If they pause in Maine that can be where Nico and Reyna have a heart-to-heart about their tragic backstories and past experiences with horrible ghosts that they had to exorcise.

- If Team Statue travels a northern route we can make jokes about Nico learning specifically 1930s British English before he moved to America. The gang goes to London and Coach proceeds to incessantly make fun of Nico for not only using British slang, but using OUTDATED British slang (which is made weirder given he doesn’t have a British accent).

- Also extremely tiny detail but a specific acknowledgement that Piper was helping out Nico once they got back to the ship when Nico’s getting rescued from the jar. Since Piper just kind of drags him off-screen. Just any kind of follow-up to that. Like Nico doing his classic “You were vaguely nice to me. I would now Die For You.” Just them having basically any kind of interaction or acknowledgement of that scene, mostly cause I think it’s funny.

- Let Annabeth keep her laptop, and get rid of the sphere of Archimedes cause it just feels kinds pointless and random? We don’t really have any emotional connection to Annabeth’s laptop (and her hat gets replaced in Demigods & Magicians anyways) so her losing it doesn’t really feel impactful at all. Maybe have Leo use Annabeth’s laptop while she’s in Tartarus and that acts as the point of guilt for him rather than weird random curse stuff with a random new introduced object. Instead of “oh no fortune cookie thing or whatever” it’s him feeling guilty he saved Annabeth’s laptop but couldn’t help Annabeth herself. Especially since Leo would also have his Ogygia identity crisis in the same book so he can feel extra bad about himself for a bit, to lead up to his role in BoO nicely (sometimes a character negatively spiraling is more narratively compelling than them having positive development for the majority of the series and that’s okay! Let him be tragic but again he gets a happy ending and an implication post-BoO that he’ll begin a road of healing/recovery surrounded by loved ones. It works out.) AND there could be a very sweet moment once Annabeth gets back from Tartarus and Leo gives her the laptop back and it’s a huge relief to her that one of her prized possessions was in safe hands while she was gone and that she has it back when she thought she might have lost it.

- Further highlight Jason’s whole Greek/Roman/etc identity crisis. Bonus points if we go further into acknowledging Jupiter/Zeus’s epithets and roles and Jason having some epiphany that the Romans look to him with the expectations of Jupiter/Juno as king and queen of the gods making him some kind of perfect leader, but he’s not that at all. He’s the son of Jove and Juno, father and mother of the gods. He doesn’t want to be a general or praetor or anything like that, he wants to spend time with his friends and family at a summer camp where they’re safe. He wants to regain the childhood he lost being raised as a perfect soldier and get the chance to go to school and learn about his long-lost family and do cheesy summer camp activities. He is a wolf but he is not a creature built for the hunt - he is part of a pack.

- Touched upon it briefly in a previous bullet point but Curse of Achilles can stay/go, does not particularly matter to me either way. I do think it’d be funny though if Percy does keep the Curse of Achilles that he also randomly gets the Nemean Lion’s pelt back. Initially maybe as like a gift from Hera/Juno to help him cover his Achilles’ Heel while he’s running around with no memory just as insurance so he doesn’t die (with bonus points of the Romans being introduced to Percy either wearing the stupidest looking coat ever or wearing just a straight up bullet-proof lion’s pelt, which would even further solidify his “Are We Sure This Guy Isn’t A God In Disguise” vibes). But then later on into the series it’s just kind of part of his outfit or maybe even a running gag. The praetors have their magic bullet-proof cloaks, Percy has a very silly looking bullet-proof fur coat that is sometimes a whole lion.

- Keep Hazel’s blackouts. There’s not really a reason for them to disappear altogether for her? They’re somewhat tied to her powers and are a consequence of her coming back from the dead, which also helps keep the concept running in the series that death is a consequence that can’t just be easily evaded, even while we’re operating with the Doors of Death being open. That way future deaths in the series don’t feel like they could be as easily negated/avoided. Also, Hazel is disabled! This is a disability of hers! Why are we somehow magically getting rid of it without even an explanation as to why? Heck, if we’re getting rid of Piper’s knife, Hazel’s dreams when she has her blackouts could be used to supplement the dagger’s insight into the future, since we’ve already established that Hazel gets prophetic dreams sometimes anyways. Also fun thematic matching for the Death Sibs with them both having disabilities and random ways to glean the future (Hazel’s blackouts, Nico talking to ghosts). Her blackouts would probably improve slightly over the course of the series but never fully disappear, and it ends up mostly a thing of she can tell when they’re about to occur and prepare quickly for that or let someone know before she passes out.

- Get rid of Frank’s curse in SoN instead of waiting until The Tyrant’s Tomb. If we’re going to get rid of it eventually anyways, do it during the big scene of him freeing Thanatos. Let him have his cool big moment of embracing his destiny and that breaking the curse the first time he does it rather than him doing it twice but it only breaking the curse the second time? Also if the curse is broken earlier on then Frank’s entire arc gets to be about him realizing he has a life to live, since in SoN a major part of his character is that he’s not afraid of death because he’s used to the idea that his curse could kill him at any point. He’s actually pretty reckless for the beginning of HoO because of that. If he realizes that he no longer is at risk of dying at any given moment because he thought about candles too hard, then that opens the opportunity of him having a whole existential crisis about what he actually wants to do with his life and him looking to the future for once.

Bonus opportunity for this - maybe Frank actually gets fire powers as a result of his curse breaking. Ares/Mars has an association with fire so it would fit for him as a son of Mars. Plus, then we could also have an even more overt dynamic of Frank and Leo acting as each other’s parallels and foils and the two of them slowly growing more used to one another and actually becoming close friends. Lots of bonding over getting used to their fire powers and overcoming their mutual fears of fire and probably also solidarity in having lost their moms. Just - the boys are bonding! The boys are bonding. Fire boys hours.

- Related to Frank’s curse, give Hazel and Frank parallel narratives of them realizing they have a future ahead of them (Hazel re: getting a second chance at life and Frank re: realizing he’s no longer at risk of spontaneously combusting) and them grappling with trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives and how they want to live them after everything is said and done. And also being motivated for once to make it out the other side in one piece because they’re determined to not waste the opportunity they’ve been given. The two of them coming to terms with realizing they have a future if they can make it through this (which is also a fun contrast to Leo and Nico actively almost sacrificing their own lives for others and having essentially an opposite character arc for the majority of the series).

- Especially while Frank (and Hazel) are having these arcs, going back to the idea of Leo getting stuck on Ogygia alone for a bit - very strongly contrasting the arcs of Frank’s mental health improving over the series while Leo’s is very steadily decreasing (until BoO at which point again the series ends with Leo getting help and beginning to improve/heal).

- Also further emphasizing Leo and Nico’s parallels throughout HoO. They’re both autistic on top of the usual adhd/dyslexia and have issues with social interactions and care a lot about Hazel and are having a majorly bad time throughout the entire quest and are pretty depressed, etc etc etc. Again, parallel narratives at the end of BoO with them healing and things looking up for them - I think I’ve mentioned that like four times now you get the idea.

- Make Frank ADHD/dyslexic. There is literally no reason for him not to be and him being the outlier for being neurotypical feels weird and doesn’t fit with the literal entire worldbuilding we have for demigods. If it’s part of “demigod instincts” or whatever then Frank should be ADHD/dyslexic! And it’s not even a “the Romans aren’t ADHD/dyslexic” because we’re explicitly told they are! They are specifically also ADHD and dyslexic! So why isn’t Frank? There’s no reason. It annoys me.

- The Frank/Hazel/Leo “love triangle” can stay but it’s significantly more one-sided. Frank is mostly just intimidated by Leo for multiple reasons (mostly fire-related reasons) and Leo is mutually intimidated by Frank (because Frank is bigger than him and Leo is scared of everyone, really, but especially people who are bigger than him, because they could beat him up. Which is basically everyone). Hazel is not romantically interested in Leo and Leo is not romantically interested in her, though they are very close and do have a very confusing time trying to figure out the whole Sammy situation. Frank still misinterprets this as Hazel and Leo being romantic. Leo does not realize Frank is misinterpreting that as them being romantic and think Frank just hates him for the general reasons that Leo has found people usually hate him for no reason over. Leo wants nothing to do with that situation though. Eventually they all sort it out and become a very strong trio.

- Again as I briefly touched upon before, maybe give Reyna a protagonist role in MOA if not an outright POV. Probably an outright POV, with the main POVs of the book being her and Annabeth. Again, themes of historical associations between Athena and Bellona and playing with that, alongside making Reyna more of a prominent player earlier on in the series and letting us see more of the Romans. Use this opportunity to heavily parallel her with Annabeth (and also highlight her parallels with Percy, and Annabeth’s parallels with Jason).

- Really I just want more Annabeth/Jason and Percy/Reyna parallels. There’s so much you can do there. The blond(e) gifted kid/smart aleck raised at camp and their best friend, the former newbie raised with a difficult home life. Percy and Reyna both have dogs (Mrs. O’Leary / Aurum and Argentium) and pegasi (Blackjack and Skippy). And a sibling they don’t see often (Tyson / Hylla).  You could have notes about Jason and Thalia and Annabeth and the dynamics within that and how those internally parallel each other. Or more about when Reyna encountered Percy and Annabeth while on Circe’s Island. Really anything more about Reyna’s time on Circe’s Island. Heck maybe you could parallel that to Percy’s difficult time in school, since Circe’s whole thing was that she was training the sorceresses living there, so that’s kind of like a school environment. Paralleling first quests between Reyna and Jason with the events of the first series with Percy and Annabeth.  Etc. etc. etc.

- We are taking BoO and just. Throwing it out the window, really. We don’t have time to unpack all of that. Just start mostly from scratch, same extremely rough overarching elements are there.

- Also actually just. Rework the whole main prophecy too while we’re at it. It kinda sucks. It’s just kind of a weak prophecy. “To storm or fire the world will fall” or whatever; we can do better. I don’t have the brain power to write a better prophecy right now but just [see my recent post] for notes about what I think makes for a good prophecy in the series and why the main HoO one is kinda lame.

Footnotes:

Again, I will be following this up with part 2 electric boogaloo: Things I Would Change About TOA* (*That I can say without spoiling Deadangelos too much) at some point and I will link that when I make it. If you made it this far, gold star.

[byz-was-here]

I have precicely zero evidence to back this opinion up but

The Toa Metru were probably the greatest team of toa in the entire Matoran Universe.

This is not because they're the most powerful, (that's the toa nuva)

Or the oldest (Lesovikk's team), iirc the Metru were only toa for 3 years, tops.

It's because every. single. one. fights dirty, is completely unpredictable, or is just completely unhinged.

They're toa speedrunners.

They punched through the GSRs face

They took the entire population of metru nui, the largest city in the matoran universe, and flew them somewhere else.

They got the visorak horde to just get up and go home, while outwitting the most notorious backstabber in the known universe

They sucker punched the master of the xanatos gambit Makuta Teridax.

Vakama held the concept of time hostage.

They found Ko Metru's bigfoot and got him to casually un hordika them and fight the visorak

They may be dysfunctional as hell, but I dont think anyone could have gotten away with half of what they managed.

I dont think any other toa team would even believe everything the toa metru did.

Admittedly most of the crazy is Vakama's doing, but still. Wild.

And to cap all of that off, Almost no one knows that they even freakin existed.

[ithseem]

Hijabi MC Shenanigans+Headcanons in Saligia

Guy

Guy: *tries to kiss MC in the beginning*

MC, punching him: NO KISSING

Toa

Toa: This has absolutely no alcohol content. Have you ever HAD wine before?

MC: No, nor do I ever plan to because my religion STRICTLY FORBIDS EVEN GOING NEAR THE STUFF

Toa:

Fenn

MC be dodging his advances like a Bollywood action movie protagonist

Roy

MC: At least I can have some semblance of normalcy

Lynt

Lynt tryna use her as a pillow, but she politely declines, since her religion forbids her from coming into contact with men

Other Things That May or May Not Have Happened

MC draping her duvet over her head as a makeshift hijab when unexpected visitors come

MC gets caught washing her feet in the sink for wudhu

MC feeling incredibly disoriented bc she has no idea which way the Qiblah (the direction of the Kabah in Mecca) is, so offering prayer is a nightmare and a half

MC lowkey upset bc the Quran does not exist in Saligia (iirc). And Lou wishes he could help

Rio and Thoma getting worried about MC during Ramadhan (whenever that is. It's super stressful not knowing when the Islamic calendar lines up with the calendar here) bc she's going from dawn till dusk without food or drink for a month

MC happily answering her friends' questions about her religion (they are genuinely curious)

MC's S-Rank friends apologizing for what they did in the first few chapters (I cannot be certain if they fully understand the true ramifications of what they've done, but they feel bad regardless, since they don't like to see MC upset)

Lance would be genuinely curious about her religion also and try to make a safe space for her (Lance doesn't discriminate, a person in need of a safe space is a person in need of a safe space)

Sherry and Violet go shopping with MC often and they often find some really cute and modest clothes for her

J*sper is normal in this AU, so he actually respects her religion

Tino freaks out and profusely apologizes whenever he accidentally makes something haram to eat for her. Knight would also do the same

Grayson wondering why she only eats fruits and vegetables here, and she tell him that she is not sure if the meats are halal, and she does not want to take any chances and accidentally eat something haram

to all the hijabi CoD players, I write this for you

[laslow]

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing! Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

Name: Sam

Pronouns: she/her

Birthday (no year): 5/28! Cyan and I share a birthday with: Liam O'Brien, Laura Bailey, Ian Fleming, and Siegbert :)

Where are you from? What is your time zone? California, USA! PST (west coast best coast)

How long is your roleplay experience? 10+ years? Is it closer to 15 now? If you listen you can hear my joints creaking

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? None other than Wajas.com. Middle school, what a time you were

How were you introduced to TOA? iirc a FE blog I was following reblogged a ToA post and I thought "hm, that's pretty cool! I'll look into it!" and then I blinked and 5 years passed.

Do you have any pets? No :sob:

What is your favorite time of year and why?(Season, holiday, general period) Winter! The weather is actually livable

What is your IRL occupation? Office Assistant though I ask for good vibes I have some new opportunities coming up to leave my current place

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? Writing, reading, cross stitching, karate, journaling, language learning

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? Legend of Zelda, Persona, Stardew Valley, occasionally I dip my toes back into Honkai Star Rail

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: Vaporeon and Water Type!

Tell us some funfacts and trivia about yourself! Dunno if I've mentioned this in the past but I have crooked pinkies due to a recessive gene in my family! My dad has crooked pinkies as well :)

How did you get into Fire Emblem? Five/six year old Sam watched my brother play Path of Radiance on the family Gamecube and I never looked back

What Fire Emblem games have you played? Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Sacred Stones, Awakening, Fates Conquest route, 3 Houses, Engage. I have read the scripts for Genealogy and Thracia. Halfway through Blazing Blade!

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: First was Path of Radiance! Awakening is still my fave all these years later

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! Inigo, Ilyana, Dimitri, Xander, Haar

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! Ilyana! I honestly can't remember why anymore I just thought she was super cool something about the thunder magic spoke to 5 year old me's imagination

Any Fire Emblem crushes? Laslow AND Dimitri that has not changed

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? - Awakening: Chrom, still Chrom - Fates: Silas, still Silas OR perhaps Laslow if I'm feeling Spicy- Three Houses: Dimitri, still Dimitri - Engage: Diamant, still Diamant

Favorite Fire Emblem class? Assassin or Swordmaster!

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? A very mid Myrmidon who can get some good stats if you have good rng luck

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? Blue Lions pride baby!!

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? -Boon: Sword, Bow -Bane: Heavy Armor, Axe -Budding Talent: Authority

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? Brodia!

How do you pronounce TOA? Tee-Oh-Ae

Current TOA muses: Laslow, Leo, Nephenee!

Past TOA muses? Ilyana, Vanessa, Azelle!

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? Inilow is here to stay I can't make this man leave my head if I tried.

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? I love my flirts, and I also enjoy more serious characters who have a relaxed side if you know them well enough. Also youngest siblings.

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? Villains! As interesting and multifaceted as they can be, I struggle staying within that mindset for a long period of time.

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) I do still enjoy combat--nothing like getting your adrenaline pumping!--but recently I've found I enjoy some of the more emotional things, too. Relationships, grief, etc.

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? Not really; I've been extremely lucky over the years to have written pretty much every scenario I can think of. I would love to continue exploring both Lazzy's and Leo's arcs as fathers.

Favorite TOA-related memories? Oh goodness....way too many to count! Most recently, I still find myself laughing over Leo (muse) dying for Jan 2024's event plot. Iconic

Present or past tense? Present!

Normal size text, small text, no preference? No preference! I try to use small text on Leo solely for that #aesthetic, but that's it

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉  Not at the moment! I'm happy with my lineup! (But if you twist my arm.....a certain knight from SacStones still lives in my head. And there's this wyvern rider from Tellius who occasionally whispers.)

[thesungod]

Apollo in TOA mentioning that maybe Zephyros had finally forgiven him for their feud over Hyacinthus versus me recalling all that ancient artwork depicting Hyacinthus fleeing from Zephyros' advances (including using the swan chariot Apollo gifted him in order to escape)... Apollo I know this series was about you growing and changing but you've earned the right to hold onto that one. Keep Zephyros enslaved and Iris (his second and current wife iirc, can't remember what happened to his first one) away from him

LIT-ER-AL-LY that was so weird!!!!!!!

and i remember having this exact criticism about Toa at the time. basically I used to believe Rick Riordan had almost gone too hard on Apollo’s redemption? swung too much on the other side, in a way? because my boy was pretty much taking abuse from anybody and pretending he deserved it even when he didn’t.

him apologizing to Zephyrus is such a big example of that. becoming a better person doesn’t mean letting everybody walk all over you, or always taking the blame, and that mf literally killed his boyfriend😭😭

the reason why I say I used to believe that is that now I think the overkill of Apollo’s guilt was written on purpose. it’s realistic for someone who’s undergoing such an epiphany about how shitty they’ve been: they are gonna fall into self-deprecating territory very fast. it would be weird if they didn’t.

not to mention Apollo feels guilty about everything in general, so i find it hard to believe he’d never before considered the idea that he had some part of blame over Hyacinthus’ death.

one thing I will say is that as a coronation for his growth, i would have loved to see Apollo forgiving Zephyrus instead (in the way the Sybil did with him, the whole “what you did was not okay and you don’t deserve it but i’ll let it go for both of our sakes”)

[chynandri]

I finished 7’scarlet in 3 days lol big word dump to document all my thoughts and impressions

It was genuinely a unique story to me, despite the many romance cliches. I mean that’s what I expect from otomes so I’m not too critical of that. I thought the mystery was pretty well written and well paced honestly. The concept of revenants and how they are people who can’t pass on and have to kill living humans to keep existing was kinda novel to me. The story was so intriguing it gripped me and I was determined to finish it all asap. This game came out in 2016, so Chinatsu kurahana’s art is honestly kinda rough around the edges compared to 3 houses (released in 2019 iirc)… despite that, I did really like the visuals anyway.

I think Sosuke is autistic too but in a similar way dr ratio is autistic for example LOL. He got the lack of social awareness (misses social cues, one way conversations), infodumping, has to explain his own jokes, deadpan, intense and obsessive focus on things and figuring out how they work, bottom up analytical thinking traits imo. With the reveal that Toa is also a revenant a few points about him that made me think he was autistic were kinda even more ‘explained’. But… I still wanna say they’re both autism cuz why not LOL

Isora’s extreme mood swings seem to be an indicator of BPD but honestly I’m not too knowledgeable about it. Plus he’s the ‘yandere’ route and the mc doesn’t exactly encourage him to maybe try to have a healthier approach to relationships…… 💀 questionable mental disorder representation aside, hes genuinely really likeable yeah even the freaky trapping me in a basement part and murdering a guy part. lmfao I like a little crazy what can I say. I kinda wish at least one or two of the other love interests had more freak to them tbh

So yeah this game really fulfilled every love interest trope… including a incest secret route 😓😓 well I mean it’s one of those ‘he wasn’t actually her brother all along’ things. I really shoulda seen it coming.

I know she’s too used to calling him her brother, but I think perhaps if the mc called him by his name instead of ‘brother’ after they realized their feelings for each other it would’ve taken me out of the moment less lmao 😓😓 and also I get that he’s immortal, so he has no concept of time or age, and that he isn’t really her brother but shaped peoples perceptions so he could protect her for a good reason. but he did essentially take care of her from when she was a child… and he’s permanently stuck in the form of an adult. So… that aspect is also why their love is hard to get into in my mind 😓 well I’ll chalk it up as something that’s just not for me

Despite that, her ‘brother’ was a very interesting character being one of the first revenants ever I think and while he managed to achieve eternal ‘life’ it being more of a curse than blessing was also interesting.

AT LEAST THE BROTHER ROUTE IS NOT THE TRUE ROUTE! LMAO. I was honestly surprised Toa was the true ending and I was thinking ‘isn’t it strange to be so biased toward him’ because mc is literally every guys first love, not just his. but actually it kinda makes sense for the ‘canon’ ending and romance to be one with a good revenant and he ‘dies’ (again) anyway so not only is it the most tragic but it could open up the possibility of her moving on, and getting with one of the other guys…

I think probably the most interesting message and question this games story explored is time and eternity. It talked a lot about how humans invented time as a construct but as a result it ‘denies the existence of eternity’. In actuality time has no ‘present past or future’ - it simply just is, forever. And the concept of fate and eternity was consistently present in each route, as all the love interests were affected by the mc from a young age whether they remember or not and wish to be with her forever. She quite literally represents ‘eternity’ by her existence being extremely valuable to revenants wanting to achieve eternal ‘life’.

[johnconstantinesdick]

Personally, my in-universe issue with Artemis is more in the how she recruits rather than why. Putting aside the issues with her recruiting VERY young girls into the group (she outright states that 12 is about the average age), the bits of her sales pitch to Bianca we see/are implied come across as very manipulative, even predatory. Bianca is separated from the others right away, told how the hunters are so awesome and that she should totally join, and then is compelled to make what is literally a life-altering decision before she even has a ghost of a chance to consider the full ramifications. It comes across as Artemis goading Bianca to join up, especially when taking advantage of her (understandable) selfishness to not be tied down to Nico (yeah, she was told CHB would be safe, but she can't possibly know for sure yet regardless of what people say). Artemis's recruitment tactics are pretty sketchy to me, though sadly par for the course for the Olympians.

(p.s. sorry if this comes off as a rant, just giving my two cents)

This isn’t like. Wrong. But you’re kind of missing my whole point? My read is specifically that Artemis is like this to Bianca. Because she can tell on some level that Bianca is a child of the big three. Maybe her recruitment tactics are like this for everyone, but considering we see Annabeth with just a pamphlet, and Piper gets a calling card, plus IIRC the two former hunters that we met in TOA (have not read all of the books) seem to have left with no bad blood… it very much does not seem like across the board recruitment happens like it did with Bianca.

The only other person we see that Artemis goes to similar lengths for is Thalia. A child of Zeus who is a candidate for the Great Prophecy. It is sketchy, and borderline predatory, but I think it was heavy handed and sketchy for a reason.

Also hot take in a world of monsters where most demigods canonically make it to twelve max before being hunted down or making it to camp half blood. I do not think the age thing is that weird.

[gatesofember]

I just think the whole 'embrace your darkness' thing threw me a little. I get that he's out of his element and not having a good time but like. Maybe I need to go back through the Will scraps from previous books because I have no idea where the 'Nico is evil' thing came from. Wasn't the whole point in BoO that Will DIDN'T get scared off by Nico or think of him as evil. And then THO went back to it with Apollo being a little taken aback/ uncomfortable with Nico's aura and powers but Will was just doting on him and all the campers treated it like it was normal... then calling Will an extrovert who never wanted to be a fighter and loves being a healer felt pretty contrary to his TOA portrayal

that was not what I got out of the book at all. Will never criticized Nico or Nico’s powers. it was Nico’s home he had a problem with and he unwittingly insulted Nico a lot by criticizing it. and yeah, that wasn’t cool of him. some things he said or ways he said them were out of line, but he never said it was evil. I think that he asked Persephone “how do I love someone like this” not because he didn’t like Nico the way he was, but because he knew he was messing up. he understood it was because they were different and he didn’t get Nico’s point of view and he didn’t know what to do about it. it’s fine if you didn’t like the plot line (there were aspects of it that I also thought could have been more well-executed) and it’s fine if you’re more critical of Will than I am but I think. maybe. saying that Will thought “Nico is evil” is a little harsh.

anyway Will was not himself in the book because it was pretty clearly established that he has SAD and being in the underworld kicked that into overdrive. of course he was criticizing the underworld. that place was making his emotional disorder worse.

I think I might’ve written a post or reblogged posts that would word these thoughts better but honestly rn I’m kinda tired and don’t have the energy to look for them.

the extrovert thing I also personally disagreed with but I attributed to him being a teenager who doesn’t know himself super well and maybe doesn’t quite understand that you can be nice and friendly without being an extrovert.

the not wanting to be a fighter and just wanting to be a healer I find in character though? I think the only time he ever held a weapon was when the lost trio showed up at camp. he did a little mission in BoO that iirc was just supposed to be a recon thing but they got wrapped up into the fight. when he had a more established character in ToA he was always described as the healer.

[boyslit]

@atomsminecraft

OK SO. having finished knights whole route and thinking a little harder about the thing... and obvious warning for spoilers for Knight's book 1 and the princes' path book 3 I think

so embarrassingly I've been getting the words backwards but it's a fantasy phrase I'm allowed to mess it up lol

the sigillum arcanum embedded in his chest wasn't put there by Toa, nor does Dewi know anything about it (or so he says, but I don't have any reason to mistrust what he says about Knight bc the dude is basically his dad. awkward and gruff, sure, but he cares and iirc he was surprised to find out it was even there.)

so. Knight was with Dewi in childhood until Toa saved him and he's been with Toa since. so whenever this thing was embedded, it likely happened before then. when he was very small I imagine. perhaps 4 or 5 even, just before you're able to start forming permanent memories well enough to remember into adulthood.

we know of an organization that a.) creates sigillum arcana and b.) has 0 qualms with torturing even children for their wicked designs. Knight/Regulus was obviously not a child of Vanum, BUT who is to say Iritium isn't kidnapping homeless orphans off the street to use for human experimentation? extremely easy source of lab rats. no one's going to miss some dirty beggar child in the rookeries. I can 100% see some of those sickos trying to see if they can embed a sigillum arcanum inside a person for whatever it is theyre wanting to research. hell it could've been for fun justified by 'science'.

he's either far too young to remember this process or they do this magical surgery while he's unconscious and then toss him back out into the world to watch his progress from the shadows (or you know.. they don't get results they want and turn him loose, some annoyed superior puts a kibosh on the project to have them do something else, etc etc. lots of reasons to get rid of the kid.) that's where there starts being too many possibilities for me to nail something down tho (haven't caught up on book 4 either) but there's ways to make sure someone doesn't really remember something without using ancient magic.

but yeah when I started thinking about how sigillum arcana are made, who we know makes them, and how those greasy fucks operate, well I started connecting some dots lol

curious to see if knight will get a book 2 and if this will be revisited at all 🤔 whoever did this could possibly try to come back for their lab rat or try to use him against Qelsum/Toa somehow if it wasn't just a failed/stopped experiment they were doing to him. I have no idea. political maneuvering mystifies me 😂

[annies-scrapbook]

greg didn't write hewkii/macku or jaller/hahli, that's true. (hewkii/macku was actually in the original story bible iirc.) but he did write some pretty overt nokama/matau scenes (granted, more matau having romantic feelings for nokama than vice versa). for instance, this moment in one of the comics (after nokama got hit with a vakhi's loyalty staff and temporarily turned against the other toa metru):

or this moment in one of the books, which might be the only actual use of the word "romantic" in all of bionicle canon:

there were also some moments that may or may not have been intended as romantic, but plenty of fans (myself definitely included) read them as romantic subtext, like this description of an interaction between nokama and the other toa metru (as narrated by vakama):

or... whatever vhisola had going on with nokama:

(granted, an obsessive jealous one-sided crush certainly isn't the healthiest romantic dynamic, but the point still stands)

maybe i'm just reading too much into things, and i'm definitely open to alternate interpretations, but at least for me it's hard to look at greg's work on the metru arc without coming away thinking "dang, does literally everyone has a thing for nokama?"

"romance isn't canon"

my brother in mata nui, you wrote the canonical romance

[pain-is-too-tired]

I still feel robbed we never saw a reaction to Michael's death/fall from Clarisse.

Like, one scene. One small scene. Heck, we could've even just gotten a reaction from Chris. He was already talking to Percy in that one scene, that would've been perfect scene for at least him to find out.

I think it would've been interesting if they continue that arc somewhat into HOO. Like have Michael come up as well in some form. Have mentions of why Will is pushing pass what happen to be diplomatic with Clarisse, the rest of his cabin still can't get along with the Ares cabin. Show them and others being bitter over stuff!! Show post war tension at camp!!! We are being thrown into camp from a fresh set of eyes. Tlh trio don't know all that happened, and honestly the idea of there being more conflict than just Drew's feelings towards Silena being shown would've been so interesting.

Like the fact they just destroy the chariot, tell us that the Apollo cabin officially had it then, and then did nothing else to tell us how that went? Just insane to me. It makes that whole arc feel unfinished.

Will is one the first few campers outside of who picked Leo up that he really gets to meet. And with learning about Charles,I think would've been interesting if he some how learned about Michael in a way. Maybe he brings up the chariot being crashed and those in his cabin who were vets from titan war kinda grimace or something. Maybe show tension during the campfire with an argument breaking out and Will having to jump in to stop in it. Show the Apollo cabin still grieving. Heck, maybe the mention of another war likely about to start have the fact that the Apollo cabin took such a big hit last time be a worry because there's less available and well trained medics now. Someone, either Will or someone else at one point being like "If we have to fight a serious battle again, we're gonna be at a disadvantage. We're too far down on archers and healers"

Cause that's a realistic thing to mention when you're talking about having to go to war back to back after such a devastating blow. Sure, they got new campers in waves for the other cabins. But we know from ToA that Apollo cabin *didn't*. Unless another cabin is able to provide some form of support as healers as well(which could be likely, we also don't know what all minor gods have kids at camp-) they are down to three healers. Two of which likely don't have that much experience. Kayla and Austin were like 11-12 in tlo based off timing. And their specialized abilities are more focused on archery and music,and with them taking up Music and Archery lessons they probably are gonna be learning medical stuff slower. Obviously they probably learned a bit right after the war, but it still not gonna make them as skilled as Will who's a lot more specialized in healing. And their archery might be needed in a fight which can leave to lot more issues.

Just- there's a lot of post war stuff they could've explored. Even in tlo they don't really address it. We aren't even told what Michael's shroud looks like, we don't get to see Apollo cabin having to burn all those shrouds- heck- actually wait

Percy and Will burning Michael's shroud together like how Clarisse helped Aphrodite cabin. 😭 I've talked about this before, but Percy was literally screaming/yelling when he couldn't find Michael. He was gonna call blackjack again to try and find him. If Annabeth wasn't on worse condition he likely would've searched every inch. I also feel he at least paid more attention in small ways to the Apollo cabin. Iirc the only time he mentions a burial shroud that's set up, he focuses on an Apollo one. Idk. Just think idea of him doing his best to pay respects to Michael, having the room post war to actually stop and grieve, just be interesting.

Idk. I'm rambling gdgd just many thoughts. So many cool stuff and characters that got dropped.

[byz-was-here]

I've been thinking about your AU where Vakama accidentally gets sent first to Karzahni and matoran and fixes the other matorans' physical injuries as well as giving them new masks.

(Although he wouldn't have had yet his training in mask-making so maybe I misunderstood and he was in Metru Nui first?)

Which reminded me that he made complicated calculations about several factors regarding the Mask of Time while creating it. I love the idea that excellent mask maskers can be matoran physicians with the right training. (Maybe toa physicians, too!)

1) Thank you for unintentionally confirming that I can actually receive asks.

2) Nothing gives me more joy than people pondering on my little rambling thoughts, thank you.

3) As for the mask making, I think I mostly mentioned that as a way of saying, Hey, this guy made the Vahi, he's probably scary smart.

Vakama did rebuild the matoran of mata nui after the bohrok saga to give them better, more robust bodies. (iirc the time in the matoran spheres shrunk them down from the metru nui builds into the little mctoran forms we see in 2001)

The point of all that is that essentially, I see Vakama as the Matoran equivalent of a Renaissance Man. He's a brilliant genius who just happens to have some real self esteem issues. Does well at most anything he puts his hands to.

I also think the Vision thing may be linked to the fact that Vakama made the Vahi. the act of creating the mask effected his position in the timeline, and the visions are how that manifests.

But I think it's less "Mask Making makes you Good at Medicine" and more, "Vakama’s The Matoran Universe's Leonardo DaVinci", if that answers your question?

There's a reason I had Velika as being scared of Vakama.

[randomnameless]

I was checking the other wiki for more info on FE16′s unused content 

(is it me or the other wiki isn’t edited as easily as a snapchat selfie?)

We missed the best battalion in the game :’(

OTOH, if we’re supposed to think those battalions are random mercenaries chilling around waiting to be hired, i’d feel bad about a battallion of random crazed villagers chilling around, just waiting to be hired but apparently they cannot be healed...

From the unused map sprite, even if it doesn’t match the character’s sprite, Rhea bleaches her hair when she cosplays as Seiros, and we were robbed of the “two eyed Dimitri” map sprite.

I’ve finally found the beta “Felix’n’Annette were supposed to fight against Dimitri” convos, idk what was the beta AM, but here it seems as if Felix’n’Annette are fighting alongside Cornelia and the randoms Faerghusians in Firdhiad. Maybe they defected when Dimitri wanted to go to Enbarr, then Flèche happened, Dimitri returns home and has to fight against them? idk.

More interesting though, is the cut “trading” activity, where, apparently, we would have been able to send merchants somewhere to get rare and endemic products.

It’s interesting because it has some flavor text about the destinations!

Brigid A group of islands with abundant nature, floating in Western Fódlan. They lack in production of arms and goods, but they are excellent hunters and fishers, and are well-known for their unique cuisine.

They were unlucky in Civ and didn’t start near a mine of iron or copper? If only we could have more Brigid dishes, i’d be a happy nerd

Land of Albinea A vast land located Nothwest of Fódlan. They require a variety of resources for development. There are lots of famous foods that take advantage rich nature in the area. 

Albinea doesn’t have a lot of ressources for development (TFW no iron/copper) but apparently they have a lot of “famous food”. I think Albinean moose is used in some dishes?

Derdriu, The Aquatic Capital The capital of the Regan Dukedom, and the central part of the Alliance Territory. There are a lot of factories there, and they leverage the port to produce and export goods to build their wealth.

Look at those merchant republics exporting goods and developing factories, then what, they developed tariffs? Sleazy merchants. OTOH, from this description alone, I have the feeling the Alliance’s nobility desperatly tries to assert its authority through “ancient noble blood” and what not, because if someone is rich enough to have 70% of the factories used, and controls the trade, even if Count Gloucester recalls how Gloucester the Elite was the dudest bro in the world, rich merchants won’t give a fig about him.

Fort Merceus A fortified city, and the capital of the County of Bergliez. Extremely rich in agriculture and fishing thanks to the blessing of the fertile Gronder Field and Airmid River.

The Empire seized every fertile land in Fodlan? I remember a raunchy novel implying Cichol blessed the fields of Gronder (bla bla earth dragon magic?) but with the river + those magical fields, the Empire’s supposed to be self-sufficient, at least when food is concerned. It contrasts with the Kingdom where recolts aren’t that rad, some are forced to turn into Dagdas and Ingrid’s family deals with bad recolts.

Arianrhod, The Fortress City A fortress Kingdom city on the border with the Empire. They put a lot of effort into military preparation, but it's said that they have a surplus of equipment and due to their non-agressive defense policy.

TFW everyone works their butts to build a super fortress city but then your local nobles say it must be used to strengthen a “non-agressive defense policy” :’(. OTOH, Arianrhod being a non-agressive defensive “fortress city” near the border with the Empire means that, at least during the first part of the game, the Kingdom and the Empire weren’t at each other’s throats.

Almyra The great country to the East that has long been at war with Fódlan. The throttle on trade was loosened when the former king began his reign, and they now export many goods.

Wow, interesting bits here! Who is the former king this is talking about? Claude’s Almyrian Grandpapa? Of course greedy merchants from the alliance try to make some business (tm) and Almyra even exports goods! Maybe the pals raiding every wednesday are just a faction who doesn’t want to negociate/trade with their neighbours and only want to fight’n’feast, idk. Making peace through trade though, i’ve read it somewhere but i can’t remember where are they trading coal and steel?

Sreng Region A desolate region where the Sreng people live. It's said that Zoltan, the master swordsmith, once lived there, so there may be valuable weapons waiting to be discovered.

Alright who is Zoltan because we find his weapons in the game. Still sad that there’s nothing about the Sreng people, but talks about a swordsmith in a region where Birdie is sighted in the game makes me think a bit, maybe Zoltan is one of Macuil’s alias, like Cichol and Seteth, or Rhea and Seiros? “There may be valuable weapons waiting to be discovered” TFW you’re a thief trying to discover magic weapons in a desert but get attacked by a talking magic beast :’(

Fhirdiad, The Kingdom Capital The capital of the Kingdom located in Northwestern Fódlan. The study of magic is popular, and the people are said to be skilled at crafts, but the surrounding lands are barren.

Look the Fhirdiad magic school of sorcery gets a mention! It makes me wonder why Fhirdiaid pushes for magic studies but the Empire is supposed to have the most magic oriented army in the continent... Contrast with Bergliez again, the Kingdom’s lands are barren. And yet they still manage to have cheese. Fhirdiad randoms are supposed to be skilled at crafts, what, Cordelia asked them to craft spare parts for her Titanuses and the randoms obliged, not knowing what it would be used for? Or because they don’t have natural ressources, they had to craft a lot of things to compensate for the shitty climate and barren lands?

Morfess, City of Sorcery A desert city located far to the Southeast of Fódlan. The climate is rough, but the study of magic is popular, and it's said that their skill at weapons forging is also high.

Okay I'm pretty sure Morfis/Morfess specialities being “magic + weapons forging” was, in this version of the game, the devs trying to tell us that Macuil used to be there. Climate is rough, dude loves deserts. But as @damoselcastel​ pointed out, maybe Morfess/Morfis developed its own branch of magic and also uses it to forge weapons. TFW the only things we get from Morfis are a battalion of mole people looking mages and plums. Yes, plums.

County of Gloucester A territory of the widest plains in the Alliance territory. Agriculture and cattle-breeding are prosperous, and it's said that County Gloucester himself uses them to develop new foods.

Oh, so next to the economic mess/Fodlan’s version of Amsterdam in Derdriu, Count Gloucester rules over a pretty rural area of the Alliance? He develops new foods, like what? He tries to create fusion food? Now I imagine all kind of jokes made at Count Gloucester’s expense with various sheeps, when the Riegans just need to develop 3 more technologies to fully enter to the industrial revolution era. No wonder why he’s so salty :).

OTOH, again, more worldbuilding : apparently only the Kingdom wasn’t blessed with fertile fields? It sucks for them.

Enbarr, The Imperial Capital Capital of the Adrestian Empire that has a long history. More people there than any other city in Fódlan, and it also has a huge market that sells mostly food.

Compared to the description of the other capitals, this one feels flat. So, Enbarr is old and it has more people in its walls than in any other city in Fodlan. Market sells a lot of food. Enbarr dictates food prices in the continent or what? Or maybe the huge food market is like, the biggest food market in Fodlan where food from every part of the Empire is sold (it manages to enter Enbarr thanks to the canal?). I’m kind of disappointed, otoh, Ferdie reading an agricultural treaty gives him a new light, if food/agriculture is so important in the Empire.

now the million gald question : is Enbarr exporting food to the Kingdom who’s in need or not

County of Varley This area is lacking in water sources, which is rare within the Empire. It's said that they forge precious weapons and armor using the minerals taken from the Ogma mountains.

hahaha what kind of minerals taken from the Ogma mountains are we talking about crest stones or nabatean bones i mean

Fascinating to note, again, that the Empire is the bestest place to be in Fodlan because bar Varley, every area isn’t “lacking in water sources”. So maybe we have a lot of swamps in Adrestia, but at least there are no deserts. With water, you can grow stuff, so it’s a huge bonus for agricultural development. then why are the adrestians so nostalgic about a time where they controled a frozen wasteland and want to reconquer that frozen wasteland, like, it has nothing of interest no natural ressources nothing so why

If only Bernie could forge us something OP...

Kupala This area is just a part of the Alliance's Territory of Margrave Edmund , but it's an autonomous region where the mountain people life. They produce weapons and armor, made with precious minerals.

Those tidbits were in the game before the DLC, so at that time we didn’t know was Kupala before Nemesis’s party. Interesting to note that this is an autonomous region in the Alliance, and not a part of the Alliance like any other territory (Leonie’s village). Maybe the Alliance thought it was too much of a hassle to keep an effective control over those parts of the mountains, for little benefit. Why needing to crush them when we can trade with them?

Territory of Margrave Edmund The region is almost entirely made up of coastal area or islands, and trade with far-off areas is thriving. You may be able to get something rare. 

Or maybe the Territory of Margrave Edmund is just some sort of puzzle, when the Lords needed to give him a territory because he’s a noble they thought about the most difficult, shitty place to administrate and thought about this place, islands, coasts and mountains. Totally not a difficult mess to send knights to keep order of something. Coasts + islands = pirates? But apparently, in the general Alliance trend, Edmund managed to trade with “far-off areas” instead of maintaining a military rule/dominion, and apparently, it works so well that he sometimes manages to get something rare!

Land of Dagda A vast land far west of Fódlan. Their weapons crafted with unique skill are well known. They are hungry for meat that you can only get in Fódlan.

Meat for weapons seems a good trade - I mean Dagdians weapons are supposed to be unique but also well-known. It’s such a shame we never see anything like that in the game :) IIRC Shamir doesn’t have a special Dadgdian pref bow and i hope they’re not talking about the fetters of dromi :’(

why did they cut those worldbuilding parts???

[coldgoldlazarus]

Like, with Po-Metru, there was of course the general background noise of the Metru Nui Work Ethic™ influencing things; if you slack off any amount or deviate from your role, the Vahki will come and bap you with the mind-rape staffs. (Which, as an off-topic sidenote, I have to wonder where all those were manufactured and how they were imbued with the powers they have. We know mask powers come from the disks they were made with, but that opens up questions about the rest. I digress, though.)

But in addition to that, based on comments from Onewa, particularly unspoken ones during segments from his point of view in the books, I remember picking up an impression of Po-Metru carvers as having an extremely competitive and kinda meritocratic culture, where artistic skill and social standing were linked tightly. (Ta-Metru's mask-makers seemed the most similar in that regard, but to a much lesser extent, where shared love for the craft overcame personal rivalries, such that the depth of Nuhrii's envy was a notable and alarming outlier.) Nobody would be so underhanded as to sabotage each others' works, (especially with the awareness that Kikanalo stampedes and the environment in general were problems enough to contend with as it is, in terms of the longevity of their statues.) but there was just like, an honorable but pretty intense rat race of sorts going on? One that Onewa was at or near the top of, but which Ahkmou did not fare well in, part of the reason he became Like That™ even before the amnesia and Makuta's manipulation happened. Mind you, I may be misremembering or blowing things out of proportion, but that's at least the distinct impression I remember at present.

And of course we know Onewa as a Toa. The resident sarcastic jackass, even amongst a team already full of friction, and Vakama's main bully in early 04 before Matau took the reigns later and in 05. The guy who's not egotistical, but still knows exactly how good he is, and isn't afraid to remind everyone on occasion. He's a jerk with a heart of gold, but that heart is buried deep, and he's definitely still a jerk. And he has zero patience for Ahkmou's angst or backstabbing habits. So of course he'd be the kind of guy to thrive in such a high-pressure environment.

Which makes the difference between that Onewa, and the one we saw in the Mata Nui arc, incredibly fucking fascinating. Whenua, Matau, and Nokama are all pretty consistent, definitely wiser than they once were but basically the same characters overall, but the other three are noticeably changed. Nuju of course went from Snobby Intellectual In His Crystal Tower to Eccentric Grumpy Bird Man, with a paradoxical mix of having definitely come down from the metaphorical tower to reside in the heart of Ko-Koro and be there for his matoran, while still having the whole enforced language barrier thing out of pure antisocial spite. And we all know Vakama's arc, it's fantastic, and he has aged gracefully from Neurotic Depressed Artist to Calm Wise Mentor.

But Onewa. Onewa really seems to have quietly mellowed out somewhere along the way, and while some of the potential influences on that are definitely noticeable in the Metru-Nui books, (Voyage Of Fear and Challenge Of The Hordika my beloved) there's still a big difference between the Toa Onewa we see even by the end of Web Of Shadows, and the Turaga Onewa we see in 01. IIRC he was described as the "Referee", and known for being a tough-but-fair resolver of disputes. In Mask Of Light, he's just as disappointed in the Toa Nuva's infighting as everyone else, and of course we get that line about "Gukko birds fighting over a berry." He spent the Po-Koro epidemic carving more comfortable beds for the matoran who had fallen ill! Like, some of that core toughness is definitely still present, but this is an Onewa who is all about solving problems, not causing them, and is by all accounts a pretty damn good, chill, and caring leader to his matoran.

And to kinda return to the original point, Po-Koro seems similarly much more distinct in vibes from its Metru-Nui counterpart than most of the other villages, aside maybe from Ta-Koro. It's a laid-back, friendly place much more in line with Pohatu and Hewkii's personalities. Sure, there is a big competitive sport present in Kohlii, of course, but it's the good, fun kind of competitive where we're all bros out here to have a good time first and foremost, not to win at all costs. Positive masculinity and jocks(affectionate) are the order of the day here, and even Ahkmou was welcomed in at some point, up until he brought the plague.

And while carving is still a big focus too, it's extremely noticeable that Hafu, the genuinely skillful but insanely egotistical artist who always brags about how he's the bestest ever and should have All The Accolades, that guy... is the one who's been politely but firmly shown the door and nudged to the outskirts, so him being a Sore Winner won't impede on the good vibes. He's still given a place as the Turaga's left hand, of course, but as per the pattern, the left hands are all their respective village's outcasts and weirdos, that the Turaga have appointed to this position to keep them from becoming completely isolated altogether. Hafu, as fun and oddly endearing as he is, is also exactly the kind of unbearably full-of-it sort of personality who could get pretty toxic in any other context, if given the leeway to impose himself on the scene more. Where Po-Metru's toxic meritocratic culture seems to have been washed away by the mass amnesia, he is just Like That™ naturally on his own, and no doubt was at his peak worst self back then. And again, that's what makes it so noticeable that he's the one that Po-Koro's populace and otherwise rather friendly culture, deems deserving of the cold shoulder.

And so all that is to say, I kinda have to wonder if like, when he became a Turaga, (by which I don't mean the literal transformation, but the point shortly after that, when they all stepped up as the new leaders of their matoran,) Onewa did some serious soul-searching about how to do this. And with that introspection and an honest look at what Po-Metru was, he pointedly decided then and there, that he did not want to create a repeat of the kind of excessively competitive culture that produced Ahkmou... and produced Onewa himself.

Yanno, there's something really interesting about the culture difference between Po-Metru and Po-Koro.

[thesungod]

i still cant believe they did will like that. like why did he just get bullied and harassed so fucking badly man. and why did No One take accountability for that. iirc the birds that kidnapped him never got killed, and will is on the verge of tears apologizing for asking how they grow plants without the sun and also under the belief he’s gonna get abandoned in tartarus meanwhile nico is like five seconds away from telling will to khs like oh my god leave him alone 😭 he’s being stupid can’t you just communicate that instead of subtly getting mad at him without telling him whats wrong. the writers do all that but then present will as someone with no issues and trauma at all too like girl he’s literally getting traumatized, just not by whatever’s going on in tartarus. TSATS!will needs to run FAR far away from TSATS!nico. TOA!solangelo is my best friend now i’m holding them precious in my hands knowing what will become of them. oh the horrors.

okay first of all this ask is hilarious.

second of all i must say i don’t completely agree. while i didn’t enjoy the constant arguing and disliked the way nico felt outright mean a couple of times (the scene where he makes will sob lives in my brain rent free. holy guacamole), it was an interesting choice and made them fleshed out as characters and as a couple. clearly the lack of communication, while annoying, was written intentionally and i can respect that.

it did make the book less enjoyable to me and to you, but it’s a writing choice that i can’t berate because at the end of the day it’s valid. not every relationship is all sunshine and roses and if that’s how rick sees solangelo, then that’s that.

do i mourn their ToA selves? yes lmao honestly. they felt fun and natural. but to be fair we were seeing only a 10% of them, and it was from apollo’s perspective.

the reasons i disliked the book mostly regard the plot points and the writing. which are atrocious, i’m sorry. also nico in general was done big disservices.

but yeah, while i occasionally banged my head against the wall and thought “WHY THE HELL ARE YOU TWO EVEN TOGETHER” i do see where rick and mark were going with all that. it felt a bit heavy ended at places if you know what i mean (Will pretty much spells out that they had communication issues at the end lol) and a bit too much as if the authors were trying to teach the reader a lesson about relationships instead of just letting the plot flow, but the conflict itself wasn’t a bad idea.

i even liked it!! i did like the scene where will sobs and thinks nico is gonna abandon him because it felt real. and nico was a bit of an asshole throughout so i had predicted will was gonna break at some point.

he did deserve an apology in the end, in my opinion, but many readers feel like it’s the other way around so who knows. i’ve noticed ToA fans seem to be mostly on Will’s side while people who are neutral/didn’t particularly like/didn’t read ToA are mostly on Nico’s. so that’s fun.

#teamWill