Jade Spiral

ooooh okay let's go:

1) Thalia wasn't in the camp she's been in a coma for years and in an act of desperation to get good press Zeus announces she's showing signs of waking up (she's not) (and it doesn't out shine the national manhunt at all) and then when she Actually wakes up a little over a year later the public doesn't believe the news at first bc of it. like they see the front page news about her miraculous recovery and the general public is like "what did Percy do this time"

2) the concept of Jason still getting raised by wolves- normal, non magical wolves this time- is KILLING ME!!! when he eventually gets discovered and rescued, Hera is his biggest supporter in helping him get readjusted to society and everyone is genuinely shocked that she's not Just doing it for good press

3) Hades actually takes custody of Nico and Bianca right away and it's not a big news story. when the press find out about HAZEL, HOWEVER,

4) Mr. D is still In The Family he's just cut off financially and out of the will and he literally does Fine for himself like he's rich in his own right between the strawberry wine vineyards and the camp he owns and runs. but every time he turns up to a family event he acts like he's a street beggar and has the hardest life imaginable. very 'woe is me I'm the only one of my siblings that can't afford TWO yachts' energy lmfao.

5) Kronos had Percy and Annabeth specifically kidnapped bc they were the two weakest spots in The Family- no one knew about Percy, so no one was protecting him, and while Annabeth grew up around the family because of her mom's job she wasn't Related to them and they never thought to extend any protection to her. Grover just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time bc he was tagging along on Percy and Sally's vacation and while Ares was okay with kidnapping and arson for his evil grandfather he decided to not be down for murder. this is why he never killed Percy's annoying ass during their cross country trip even when Percy kept fighting him and ruining his various bombing plans. AND he was mad as hell that Percy kept getting all the credit and being called the terrorist bc none of the reporters seemed to notice Ares was even there lmao

6) Annabeth was definitely missing for at least a week before Athena saw her on the news and Realized lmfao Frederick WAS trying to find her but he was more scared of telling Athena than he was for their daughter's safety

7) Amphitrite was mad about. well everything. but when she found out Sally murdered Gabe she was happy to help cover it up lmao she had a BLAST. she's like damn I married into such a shady family I can't believe I haven't had the opportunity to do this yet

8) Triton and Kym HATE Percy the beef is so immediate but Tyson adores him and Rhodes, who doesn't live at home, is nice when she stops by. Percy is literally more scared in this fuck ass family than he was when he was kidnapped lmao

9) Apollo keeps trying to get Percy to do an 'exclusive interview' with him and Poseidon keeps literally chasing him off

screaming!!

Apollo's only like in his 20s in this and publicly he's just taking a gap year before starting medical school bc Zeus doesn't wanna admit he 'had to' cut off ANOTHER kid. but this means he can't control the narrative of whatever the hell Apollo's doing when it hits the press, so it's all like

Apollo Olympian spotted dumpster diving, seemingly confused of his surroundings

Apollo Olympian has reportedly kidnapped the 12 year old daughter of his father's business rival

Apollo Olympian and cousin Percy Jackson-Olympian seen in high speed car chase with the missing 12 year old girl in the front seat

Apollo Olympian comes clean about affair he had with one of his father's business partners when he was only 16!!

CEO accused of sleeping with Apollo Olympian says the then teen tried to kill him, disputes claims of a relationship

Breaking News: the 12 year old Apollo Olympian kidnapped is actually his cousin who was kidnapped years ago??

like just shit like that and everyone's losing their minds but the only people in the family he has regular contact with are Percy and Jason (minors, not allowed to talk to the media to clear his name) and Thalia (keeps encouraging him to be even more destructive). Artemis is M.I.A. on some "wellness retreat" in the Mediterranean but it later comes out Zeus is keeping her there to be an ass. the only person who really CAN go to the press to explain he's not actually on a crime spree is Rachel, but as she's not In The Family and also regularly creates scandals of her own out of boredom, no one really believes her lmfao.

eventually Apollo gives up and posts like a six hour long YouTube video detailing all the crimes he's caught the Triumvirate red handed of, he has a full blown conspiracy corkboard behind him and looks like he hasn't slept in a year, everyone is losing their God damn MINDS!! by the time his story culminates with him talking about having to fight a giant snake the general public already have their pitch forks and torches out.

2) I just can't stop imagining a Poseidon who hasn't slept in close to 3 weeks because he's been tracking this case trying to find his insane little kid and he like, gets swarmed by paparazzi while coming out of the police station and all they wanna know is why he cheated on Amphitrite and he finally snaps and is like

I'm with you but I don't think Juno and Hera are twins I think everyone in the Olympian family has multiple fake identities for their assorted shady rich people bullshit/emergency situations. She kidnaps Jason and Percy to keep them safe from whatever the fuck her evil grandmother is plotting, they were specifically being targeted so she was just gonna lock them up in a safe house for a while, but they have weird reactions to whatever sedative she used to nab them and lost all their memories and she doesn't have the patience to deal with that so she arranges for Jason to be looked after by the same guy she has keeping an eye on her secret grandson Leo that Zeus doesn't know about, and then Tries to get Hades to keep an eye on Percy since he's more off-grid then the other family members (and Percy tends to attract more attention than Jason), but he won't do it, so Hera's like "well fuck you. now I'm involving your secret daughter that no one knows about. yeah Nico found her and told me lmao", and sure enough within the week the press has a clear picture of Hazel escaping in a private jet with legally missing teen boys Percy Olympian-Jackson and heir to the Zhang family fortune Frank Zhang, who's mansion just mysteriously exploded.

2) when Percy is recounting his amnesia trip, Poseidon is like "I love you but you are lying about the wolves part. there is no way that happened twice in our family. please tell me you were nowhere near wolves" but Percy describes them all in great detail and where he was when they found them and Jason is like "wait that's...my wolf pack??? that's the exact pack that raised me? #mywolves" and everyone is like. WHAT.

3) Dionysus and Ares going by their fake names solely to fuck with amnesiac Percy

4) Nico was snooping through family documents and found Hazel's birth certificate, tracked her down, found out she was in foster care and snuck her out and then told Hera so she could arrange for Hazel to live at a boarding school run by the family. Hera was so thrilled to have dirt on Hades the kids hadn't even finished explaining before she got her checkbook out.

5) Frank was not originally part of the family but after the big news story about his house blowing up Ares adopted him for clout, and just kept sending him to the school he and Hazel went to

6) Leo finding out the reason he keeps getting caught by cps is because his billionaire grandmother has security guards around him at all times but she doesn't want to just take custody of him:

7) Piper realizing her amnesiac boyfriend is actually the younger brother of the man her mom keeps having affairs with:

oooh let me think okay.

like I said above it's funniest if Annabeth somehow still gets sent on a suicide quest. so Athena's having a breakdown for reasons separate from the main plot, I don't think the specifics matter right now bc it's midnight, but let's say she's mad that her daughter is moping (over her missing boyfriend mind you) and starts yelling about how Annabeth never brings any honor to her mother's name, she only gets in the news when Percy's in trouble, dumb shit like that. and she tells Annabeth to not come home until she does something noteworthy, and instead of being reasonable and 1) just moving in with her dad or 2) starting a charity like rich people do when they want good press, Annabeth's like well fine I'm gonna do the hardest possible thing I can imagine and track down a statue of the goddess you're named after that's famously been missing for centuries. fuck you. then your name will FOREVER be associated with me bitch.

So she takes Piper, Jason and Leo with her- Jason is a big history buff, he's a good help with research, Leo is good at squeezing into weird and tight places, Piper has a lot of travel connections through her dad and is definitely able to flirt her way into getting access to dig sites. They PLAN to also take Nico, cause he's a little freak and is good at sneaking around, but when they get to the school in California they find out not only that he's been kidnapped by his evil great grandmother, but PERCY IS THERE!!

Percy's memories don't come back as fast as they did in SoN, but he does remember Annabeth so he's like immediately on board with this stupid rogue archeology trip. Hazel decides to come along bc they already had reason to believe Evil Great Grandma is in the Mediterranean, and she's hoping they can try and track down Nico while they're there. Frank tags along bc his fucking house just exploded and he has nothing better to do quite honestly.

Many, many hijinks later they get info that Gaea has an extensive collection of stolen ancient art and she Knows they're looking for the Athena Parthenos and she offers Nico's freedom in exchange for the location they think it's buried. Percy is like "bet" and then just lies about the fucking location after they get Nico back so she's on like the other side of the country once they get to the parking lot in Rome that Annabeth has narrowed down as the most likely spot. Piper manages to get some permits and Leo's on the excavator while the others just have shovels and are sifting through rubble.

They DO find the statue, obviously- but since they're also a bunch of teenagers that have no idea what they're doing, all the digging triggers a huge fucking sink hole. Percy and Annabeth fall in and everyone assumes they're dead.

Meanwhile Percy and Annabeth are having like, "journey to the center of the earth" bullshit happening to them, and after about a month manage to make it back to the surface, grab a phone from the first kind samaritan they find and call in to CNN or BBC World or whatever and are like "hey yeah we're alive. listen there's a huge fucking super volcano underneath most of Italy from what we could tell, and it really doesn't seem like it's gonna be dormant forever. heads up? yeah we entered in Rome and we're now in fuckign Sicily somehow??? huge underground and underwater volcanic network guys and it seemed pretty Awake"

and then, because they just gave away their location on live international TV, they are PROMPTLY kidnapped by Gaea's people and taken to Greece.

Meanwhile, their friends and family are all on a plane to Athens to honor their memory while officially restoring the Athena Parthenos to her rightful place. They're in the air while Percy and Annabeth are calling into the news, so they completely still think they're dead until they get to the Parthenon and find those bitches Tied To A Ritualistic Altar.

Huge brawl between the assorted Olympian family (and extended friends) and Gaea and her henchmen. Half the Parthenon gets destroyed. International scandal.

And I have thoughts about Qifrey as a master that I will put under a cut for WHA manga spoilers bc I am including various manga panels

Primus Tachonis is an all-purpose personal tragedy creator sure to spur your character to adventure specifically so they can get his ass. Whether you need an old money asshole muscling in on an institution beloved to your PC or an evil sorcerer to slaughter their entire family Primus Tachonis has the magic and the social station to create whatever tragedy is required to serve your backstory.

Primus Tachonis is so versatile as a backstory tool he has professional D&D players raving:

Primus Tachonis killed my character's best friend and now she has to figure out who she is without him! -Laura Bailey I wrote a light backstory because I was still feeling out the setting and my dungeon master used Primus Tachonis to turn my brother into a statue! -Travis Willingham Primus Tachonis is trying to take over my character's magic school and endangering her students, and she will not have that! -Marisha Rey I had intended my character to have a tense but ultimately repairable relationship with his father, but then my DM used Primus Tachonis to rip his skull from his head. Now my character is on a quest to kill every member of Primus' noble house! -Matthew Mercer My character was a happy and established local playwright until Primus Tachonis had his little brother executed. Now he's taken up the sword again in his brother's stead! -Liam O'Brian I needed someone to murder my character's wife and daughter and my dungeon master suggested Primus Tachonis, and I couldn't be happier with the result! -Robbie Daymond Even works on members of his own family! -Alexander Ward

I would be reluctant to use fridging in this exact context, because this isn't some imaginary scenario to generate manpain for a white hero, this is a much more common experience of Native American and First Nation people, having their wives and daughters and sisters (in particular, but not exclusively) go missing. And never getting answers, never learning what happened, and not being believed that there's a problem in the first place.

This is like how being rescued from a tower by a prince is not particularly empowering or affirming to cis physically able straight thin perisex white women and girls, but can be for basically anybody else. Particularly black girls and women, who do not get a lot of cultural messages that treat them as people who are so valuable and precious, who may not have the strength to save themselves, or may wish that they didn't fucking have to save themselves (and everyone else) all the time.

White men have this story so often happen that we have a trope name specific to one specific and particularly egregious version of this, but you don't often see men who look like Robbie dealing with this type of story in fictional settings, even though it happens for men like Robbie in real life with horrifying frequency.

Ambulance with the Rod of Asclepius on it: Good and normal

He is also surprisingly bad at being a well-behaved inmate and he has absolutely no problem with making promises he does not intend on keeping, especially when he is making them to the prison wardens. The Ninja ended up in Kryptarium Prison two times in total throughout the entire series - once in season 6 and once in Crystalized and BOTH of these times Lloyd, very specifically:

- has immediately gotten into a fight with another prisoner,

- has sworn to not cause any trouble or try escaping to someone in charge of keeping him there...

- ...and has caused trouble and/or tried escaping not long after.

Twice now, this exact scenario has played out so similarly, that it's striking.

In season 6 my boy has immediately assured the Warden that he will in fact not be causing trouble like a liar he is.

Then, when the Mechanic started picking on him he promptly escalated the conflict by talking back to him

And then he conducted an entire SUCCESSFUL prison escape of 7 people in total, one which included finding and freeing a prisoner trapped in a different cell, disabling prison cameras, conducting multiple emergency plans to slow the possible chase party in case they are noticed and somehow predicting the most likely route to the prison's sewer system.

Also, I'll have you know that this little shit has smuggled a fork to his cell after a fight in the cafeteria and managed to lockpick his vengestone handcuffs with it, to complete astonishment of all the other Ninja.

The devious little smirk, look at him

Like, clearly he learned a thing or two from Darkley's despite the teachers claiming that he was rather bad at villainy. No way he wasn't getting straight A's on prison escape excercises.

I am even more convinced after going a little foreward and seeing him found in the exact same scenario in Crystalized, I am not even joking, how similar the pattern is.

We've got, again, in very quick succession:

Lloyd arguing with another prisoner, this time with Ronin, just about ready to square up with him then and there

...then mere seconds after they are broken up he ends up promising to the warden that he won't cause any trouble

And then literally not a minute passes before he is conducting a one-person spontagneous prison escape stopped not even because he got cornered, but because in that case escaping wasn't really a goal. In this very much impriovised stunt, Lloyd has managed to seamlessly steal an access card from the prison guard, slow the chase down by destroying the access panels as he went to avoid immediate capture, get free from a dozen of officers pilling up on top of him and jump down the staircase all the way to the first floor without injury.

Also, just saying, didn't even break a sweat. Perfect complexion, perfect hair, getting cuffed down like a true diva.

It's just...Lloyd is a sweetheart. He is soft and forgiving and gentle and kind.

And he is also the son of a warlord who spent most of his childhood wanting to be a villain. He went to a school that was meant to raise him to be one. And I really like the subtle ways the show explores that side of him, that side that Lloyd himself probably rarely even thinks back to nowadays, but one that did stay with him despite it all in some way. It's the little things. The way he isn't afraid to talk back to thugs, they way he plays dirty during battle or plays little tricks on the enemy he's fighting

...or the way he acts in prison.

Little things that I like about his character and that I think the show handled very well.