Since it's autism acceptance month i better not see any Near hate.
The Burning Maze is my favorite TOA book and it brings me so much pain… so much pain… but I LOVE IT!!!!
I love that Grover is in it! (He is one of my favorite characters from the series) and Meg dealing with going back to her childhood home! The Arrow of Dodona was, as always, a fantastic character.
It was nice to see Piper and Jason again and that, even though they broke up, they still deeply cared for each other. Caligula was such a good antagonist and Medea was also so good, especially with Piper taking revenge and killing Medea.
Crest was such a fun character and his death is kind of traumatizing, like, Apollo is trapped, in literal pain and forgetting himself as Grover and Meg were dangled over Helios’s essence and Crest kept distracting Medea even as he was stabbed by her like… that’s SO FUCKING DARK!!
I love how it ended with Apollo vowing to keep Jason’s promise to remember to be human.
Other miscellaneous things that I enjoyed was also:
Apollo’s dreams that involved Caligula, like the one in which he ordered a guard to kill Tiberius and the one in which he basically pretended to be the Sun God.
I also liked Caligula’s motives in that Apollo was VERY valuable to him alive, but rather than being like Commodus, who wanted to kill him so that he can rename Indianapolis to Commodianapolis, he wanted to take Apollo’s remaining essence and combine it with Helios’s to become the new Sun God (not to say that I didn’t like Commodus’s motives, it’s just that Caligula is very interesting in that he wanted to become the Sun God)
Honestly Caligula as a whole was such a good character. He has such an intimidating presence throughout the book, and I loved it when he finally got to see Apollo he kind of gushed over him, being excited to finally have him in his clutches, and I love how after Apollo stabbed himself he was all ‘I won’t touch a sorceress’s purse’ and how he was so upset that Piper was knocked unconscious. Honestly if there ever is a TOA show they gotta cast the Emperors right because all the Emperors are horrible yet interesting in their own merit.
I love the conversation that Jason and Apollo had before they left his dorm. I love how Jason tells Apollo that he tried to defend him to Zeus and that Apollo was shocked. I love how Jason made him promise to remember his experience being human and how, even to the last book, Apollo is still thinking about the promise he made.
I love how Meg is just able to show Apollo her memories?? How the fuck did she learn to do that??!! Also the fact that it’s never addressed how she can do this.
Speaking of Meg, I love how revenge obsessed she is, like she was full on ready to murder Caligula and how at the end acknowledges that she was taking her anger for Nero out on Caligula instead (not to say Caligula doesn’t deserve it, but moreso that she realizes that instead of confronting her feelings for Nero, she pushed those feeling into killing Caligula) and I love how Meg is such a strong character, having to deal with going back to her childhood home and having to revisit those old, painful memories of a happier time in her life that was taken away from her, and how, in the final book, she confronts Nero and finally stands up for herself and as she says ‘defeats the Beast’. I just love Meg’s arc.
I love Apollo’s self sacrifice. He has always been a somewhat selfless character, willing to save others over him, but this truly defined his character, how he was willing to do anything to save his friends, and how he most likely would have succeeded had it not been the Arrow of Dodona. I also love how Meg calls him a hero and how his perspective of what defines a hero is being changed.
I love how Wah Wah has SUCH a hatred of Tip Toe Through The Tulips by Tiny Tim that he would rather tell Apollo and Piper where the shoes are than to bear through the music.
I also love how, to me, the kind of dark comedy of Caligula taking your very words LITERALLY!! It’s almost comical how a character vows something only for them to realize ‘oh shit’ as Caligula gleefully fulfills on that promise (like when Wah Wah would give his heart to Caligula or how he ordered for a poets tongue to be cut out and dipped in silver so that they could see his ‘silver tongue’) it’s just… Caligula is SUCH a good character!
I love how Aloe Vera is constantly fretting over anyone who has any injuries. I just like how Apollo wakes up sometimes covered in Aloe Vera’s healing slime.
I love the entire Macro’s Military Madness section. I love as Macro was talking about taking Apollo and killing the satyrs that Coach Hedge was struggling to open a pack of grenades. I love how Apollo landed in another dumpster again and how he peed himself and got himself some pink camo pants.
I love Coach Hedge, he’s such a funny character, especially when he was ready to fight the Automatons in Macro’s Military Madness and had to basically be dragged away.
The entire section of Apollo in molten chains as Medea tries to kill him is such an intense moment. It is such a dark scene, especially as Apollo is loosing himself, loosing his memories and how he is in pain and his skin is being described as being cracked open?! It’s such an intense scene and is one of my favorite moments in the book and one of my favorite moments in all of the Riordan-verse books.
I love the Meliai and how they say ‘HAIL TO THE MEG’ I just love how badass they are. I also love how after they kill Incitatus everyone is just staring at the Meliai with shock and horror.
There are so many other amazing scenes in the book! Honestly it’s one of my favorite books of all time. Honestly the TOA series is so good! I do admit that Apollo is sometimes annoying with how arrogant he is, but his character development is so good! I adore these books so much, so if anyone can recommend me any good fics PLEASE DO!!!
So does L ever show up at Wammy’s to meet the kids in your AU? I love your art so much 😭🙏
Thank you!! <3 ;^; The short answer is: Yes, he tries to visit once a year and personally met Near, Mello and Matt at least once. The long answer is this:
Hope that clears some things up :'D
i geniunely can't imagine any sort of normal tragic backstory for wolf keum. in my head this man was raised by wolves in the forest as a baby before hunters found him and returned him to civilisation.
cassano.
weapon swap, idea from @itadorifushi thanks for the ask~~ [ids in alt]
-Mello and Near call each other when they're stuck on the daily crossword. The phone calls consist of:
N: Eight letter word for stubborn. Fourth letter is U.
M: Obdurate.
N: That's the one. Ciao.
----- next day -----
M: Can you please, for the love of fuck give me a hint as to what the pissing answer for 22 across could be?? I haven't got a fucking clue. Matt insists its Impermeable but I KNOW he's wrong.
N: Matt is correct.
M: Motherfucker! Peice of shit fucking paper! Bye Near, I hope you have a terrible day. Matt says hi.
-Matt is a spontaneous gifter. Not only is he great at buying random gifts for Mello when he leaves the house, but he's also great at making them. Like out of nowhere he'll whip out a mini origami crane and give it to Mello and say something lame yet endearing like
"Hey, hi I made you something. Hope you like it. 🙂" And everytime Matt does it, Mello's heart does 10 million summersaults and he feels so loved he could cry.
But Matt also uses his gifts for 'evil' if he feels like being a little shit. He'll walk up to Mello and be all sweet like: "Hey Mels, I have a gift for you. 😇" And Mello is presented with a surprisingly detailed sketch of a butt. When he asks who's butt it is, Matt tells him it's Near's (it's not, but that doesn't stop Mello from physically recoilling at the mental image that brings up) and Mello doesn't speak to him for the rest of the day. This is Matt's favorite way of pranking Mello bc there's a 50/50 chance Mello will either laugh about it or become instantly furious with him. Either outcome is hilarious to Matt because Mello's reactions are priceless. One morning, Matt drew a mini comic of Roger as the Ice King from Adventure Time and Mello laughed so hard orange juice came out of his nose.
Mello ofc saves and cherishes all of Matt's little gifts. He has a sizable jewelry box that's filled with random origami, love notes, doodles/sketches, mini dream catchers, friendship bracelets, and a litany of other crafty gifts. Some are from when they were kids but most of them are recent. The few from the Kira case are the ones Mello appreciates the most. It reminds him of how even during the darkest moments of his life, he had Matt by his side; loving him and giving him dumb, cute little gifts.
Mello isn't very good at making stuff, but he does give Matt an occasional note or scribbly doodle. Sometimes they spend the whole day passing notes and sketches to each other. Most of the time they try to make each other laugh, but they'll occasionally slip in something romantic or sweet. Or spicy, to keep things interesting 👀
-Mello sends Matt selfies whenever he leaves the house. It's always random; most of the time they're thirst traps but sometimes he'll send a close up of him making a goofy face or rolling his eyes. When he goes clothes shopping he sends Matt pics of all the outfits he likes. Matt always responds with some kind of emoji, meme, or selfie of his own.
Matt adores all of the selfies and has a whole folder on his phone and computer dedicated to them. When he's sad or missing Mello, he'll scroll through them and it always cheers him up. He also sets them as the backgrounds on his phone and changes them like every other day bc he can never decide which one is his favorite (they're all his favorites ofc). Matt usually sets the goofy/unflattering selfies of Mello as his background bc it's rare to have a picture of him being silly, but Mello throws a fit whenever he notices it 😂
...
Enjoy some random hcs!
As some of you may know, these past few weeks were pretty rough on me and my family. Everything's alright now, but things were scary for a while. Now that everything has settled down, I'm feeling more like myself again so I've been trying to get back into writing. I'm starting out small with some dumb fluffy head canons, so I may make a few tiny posts here and there. Also I'm starting to write out the next fic request! I promise I haven't forgotten 😅 many apologies for the wait, but life got in the way.
Love you all, take care!!!
This was my Roman Empire ❤️
"But I finished [Near and Mello] together as a set, and although they aren’t particularly laid out as such, I still feel a bit like they’re twins." —Obata Takeshi
whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same:
i. low sky, mahmoud darwish. ii. the world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire, ritika jyala. iii. kadan, 2008. iv. the dreamers, gilbert adair. v. @nathanielorion vi. nagiko, 2016. vii. elektra, sophokles (tr. anne carson). viii. wishbone, richard siken. ix. inbred, ethel cain. x. the boy who, tirol. xi. monster portraits, del samatar and sofia samatar. xii. in the field, @nathanielorion xiii. death note, "use" ch77. xiv. gut symmetries, jeanette winterson. xv. mystic union; fire and wine: poems, john gould fletcher. xvi. @inukai_0055, twitter. xvii. the carnivorous lamb, agustín gómez-arcos. xviii. my sister, the serial killer, oyinkan braithwaite. xix. the beatrice letters, lemony snicket (text); a quiet visitor, holly warburton (art); @unpardonablesins (edit). xx. ada, vladimir nabokov. xxi. this is how you lose the time war, amal el-mohtar. xxii. the borgias, s3e10, showtime. xxiii. @antaarf xxiv. @vilicity xxv. @boymiffy