#canuo

My friend and I made our Solangelo Book Bingo Boards! First is mine, second is theirs

(Yes, I know we sabotaged ourselves with stuff like #GiveWillAGun and Tartarus Pamphlet and Albania Reveal, but it was worth it, okay?)

"Sherman Yang's chariot, which was still circling the statue's legs in a vain attempt to electrocute its kneecaps." Is this the same flying chariot that the Apollo and Ares cabins were bickering over during The Last Olympian and that the Lost Hero trio were picked up by at the start of Heroes of Olympus? I have a headcanon that the Ares cabin felt bad about their lack of participation after the Second Titanomachy and gave it back to the Apollo cabin and that's why it's stated as belonging to the Apollo cabin in The Lost Hero. Now with Sherman using what I assume is the same chariot 'cause there's no way the camp has multiple flying chariots laying around, that means they share it sometimes! Awww I love this background storytelling.

"Hades used to love sneaking up on me that way and yelling, 'HI!' just as I shot an arrow of death." The way Apollo knows Hades is very, very different to the characterization of Hades we're familiar with. To Apollo, he sounds like the weird uncle who shows up every winter solstice and encourages the kids to participate in dangerous activities that their parents would never let them do.

"A plague arrow" That thing is a giant metal statue. It does not have organs, nor an immune system, nor any flesh whatsoever. A plague arrow is possibly the least effective weapon that could possibly be used against it other than maybe a feather on a stick. "disease to kill the Colossus's animating power" Mmm still dubious but okay.

"And... if you fail?" "I won't have the strength to try twice. You'll have to . . . Find an arrow, try to summon some sickness, make the shot" Y'ALL CONNED ME. We've all been going "give Will plague powers" WHEN IT'S IMPLIED THAT ALL CHILDREN OF APOLLO NATURALLY HAVE HAD PLAGUE POWERS ALL ALONG. Or at least it's common enough that Apollo has faith Kayla and Austin can pull it off if he fails! So all, most, or some children of Apollo can conjure up sickness, but they either don't know or simply choose not to. Maybe Will stands a chance in Tartarus after all. After all, Annabeth made it through and all she had was superpowered weaving and the ability to bruise any immortal deity's ego.

"Sherman Yang's chariot, minus Sherman Yang." Uhh, Canoe Duo, what did you do? Tell me Sherman Yang isn't dead. All y'all had to do was tell him you have a plan and you need to borrow the chariot. "Nico convinced them to disembark." You threw them off the chariot when it was dozens of feet in the sky because talking would have taken too long? Will, you're the medic! You know you're gonna have to get them fixed up and yet you deliberately cause them bodily harm!

"after that shadow travel, Nico is going to pass out any second." "'No, I'm not,' Nico complained, then passed out." First of all, funny. Second of all, Nico got seriously nerfed. There's no way he's still recovering from fading halfway out of existence. Even with the inconsistency of demigods' powers throughout this series, Nico could open a passage to Asphodel and drag someone (Bryce Lawrence) into it without even touching them. Now he tries shadow traveling within seeing distance and passes out. Yeah, he took Will with him, but that should be easy as pie after taking three people and a forty foot tall statue overseas. And it was within seeing distance. How's he gonna survive Tartarus again, let alone save one or more people from down there? With this new revelation, I seriously have more faith in Will making it through than Nico.

"Another time, in a Stockholm tavern, I met this god who was smoking hot, except his talking sword just would not shut up." My friend tells me this is Magnus Chase reference. I think. Or it might've been Kane Chronicles. I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure they said Magnus Chase. Neither of us have read either of those series.

"The arrow quivered." Do not apologize for that pun. Lol. Apollogize

"PRITHEE, SHOOTING IS NOT MY PURPOSE." PRITHEE (exclamation): please (used to convey a polite request)

"'FORSOOTH,' said the arrow." FORSOOTH (adv.): indeed (often used ironically or to express surprise or indignation)

Why does this arrow talk so loudly. Such a small thing, yet such large bellows.

"In a flash of silver light, the camp's magical barriers collapsed." Fuck.

"'You can't hear this arrow talking?' Judging from her wide eyes, I guessed the answer was, No, and does hallucinating run in the family?" This made me laugh. She really must've thought he'd gone mad. Too much time in the Grove of Dodona and whatnot.

"'I'm fine!' Kayla yelped . . . splattering drops of red all over the chariot's floor." This just about sums up the demigods' attitude toward injury.

"Only one of the missiles was unbroken, and its shaft was warped." But he's gonna make the shot anyway, 'cause he's awesome. Odd how he keeps calling them missiles, though. It never occurred to me that the word for missiles might have existed long before the missiles we know today were invented.

"STARTEST THOU: PLAGUEY, PLAGUEY, PLAGUEY." That friend I was talking about earlier: This was the line that took her out. THIS line. Can you believe...? Of all the jokes.

"My plan would take much too long, if I could even remember how to make a plague arrow. This was my punishment for breaking an oath on the River Styx." How does he know? Does he just... know? This is for using the whole anthill as a giant instrument and shooting arrows at the ants, right? So we know the geyser oath to save Meg doesn't supersede the oath on the Styx against using arrows or instrumental music and this is the punishment for it. I don't like how the Styx oath is just an excuse to do certain plot points. This plan not working could easily just be blamed on Apollo's faulty memory or human error (which is possible now that Apollo is human and really even if he weren't). Anyway, I wonder if he's ever gonna break a Styx oath and then, like it was said that Styx oaths could take a lifetime to wear you down and ruin you, the punishment doesn't take effect so soon after and he lives in fear of that coming back to bite him.

"Hey, Bronze Butt!" Classic weak Percy insult. "Over the Colossus's head" Shadow travel can't make new shadows. The volcano thing was a one-time incident and that was because the mountain gods working for Gaea interfered. Unless hellhounds have more advanced shadow travel than Underworld demigods.

"The weekend was here." I like that introduction for Percy. He's like "I got time on the weekend. Might drop by." And then the weekend comes and he shows up for this epic battle instead of relaxing weekend-related activities. Story of his life.

"The plague spread." These are not promising starting words.

"Strangely enough, Damien White got sick right after he learned that Chiara was sick. The two had cots next to each other in the infirmary . . . even though they kept sniping at each other whenever they knew they were being watched." OTP OTP OTP

"recruiting whales and hippocampi to help him haul away the Colossus." How're they gonna get rid of the oil? Would the seashells and sand dollars that Percy used that the Triple G Ranch and in the Manhattan rivers work in this scenario?

"his own weathered, bearded mien." MIEN (n.): a person's look or manner, especially one of a particular kind indicating their character or mood

"The canoe dock could be rebuilt." And guess who's gonna be rushing to be the first to use it? None other than our best worst Canoe Duo!

"The Colossus's footstep craters could be repurposed as convenient foxholes or koi ponds." I really like the koi pond idea.

"The only major damage was to the Demeter cabin . . . the Colossus had managed to step on it before turning around" I'll bet that was on purpose. What if Nero goes after Miranda and Billie and any of Meg's other half-siblings as a warning to her?

Oh wait, is Apollo going to get slapped in the face by the Styx for using the plague arrow on the Colossus? Ah, the Styx's slaps are relatively gentle, anyway.

"At the moment, I did not want to be Apollo. All the destruction I saw below me... it was my fault." You know, this is one of the few times when the protagonist wallows over a disaster or conflict being their fault and I actually agree somewhat. The villain being his distant descendant, he's responsible for them to a degree and his neglect of his duties as a god allowed them to grow their power. Most of the Oracles being lost is his fault, but I am hesitant to blame the loss of Delphi on him considering the lockdown state of Olympus and split personality going on when Python took it over. Lots of this is his fault, though.

"What I needed to do was to find her. I wondered if Meg had phrased her order that way on purpose, or if that was just wishful thinking on my part." 100% wishful thinking. There was too much going on at that time for Meg to think that much about her phrasing and even if she did, if she wanted to be found, she wouldn't have run away to begin with.

"I should leave Camp Half-Blood immediately, before the campers woke." Don't do that. That is unwise. Athena would never recommend that. Don't pull a Nico and suddenly disappear when no one is looking.

"I wanted to flirt with Chiara and steal her away from Damien... or perhaps steal Damien away from Chiara, I wasn't sure yet." Please do not.

"Because I was a coward, I waited too long." Same.

"Lord Apollo." I love how Rachel still calls him Lord Apollo when he clearly looks like Lester Papadopoulos.

"The Arrow of Dodona just gives random advice." Yeah, where did that arrow come from? I'm willing to bet it's just something that exists in Greek mythology with no further explanation. It talks and gives sage advice simply because it does. No further context.

"'I appreciate the offer of assistance, but--' 'Whoa.' Percy held up his hands." He's drawing a CLEAR line. No taking chances that he might end up going unwillingly on a quest again. "'I'll go,' Rachel said. I shook my head." Aw, I wanted to see The Wacky Misadventures of Rachel the Prophecyless Oracle and Apollo the Powerless Sun God. It'd be so interesting to see a mortal go on a quest normally intended for demigods!

"I've lost too many people to bad influence . . . We almost lost Nico, too..." Bullshit. Nico never once blinked in the general direction of Kronos's army.

"I didn't want to speak the words." No, not the limerick! "A limerick?" "I know! . . . I'm doomed!" No, not the limerick!

"Percy slapped his knee. 'There you go. Happiness approaches. Happy is a name'" I get that Percy knows Festus, but how does he know that he's a three-seater? He's only seen Festus in his dragon form when he picked up Gaea. I guess it's unreasonable to assume the Lost Trio never bragged about their own quest.

Where did Leo get all that Celestial bronze to rebuild Festus's body? They had a hard enough time getting enough bronze to repair the ship that one time with Echo and Narcissus.

"What did Nero do--order it online?" Kayla, I don't think USPS has a box big enough to fit that in. Also, I thought it was a statue of Nero. Why does it look like Apollo? Did he just build a giant statue of Apollo, point at it, and say "That's me!" despite all evidence to the contrary?

"Nico and Will were floundering in the lake, apparently having been capsized in the middle of a canoe ride." Okay, so I almost overlooked this bit completely, but I was gently reminded that Apollo tasked these two paddlebrains to warn the camp of an oncoming attack EIGHT CHAPTERS AGO. Instead of anyone being remotely prepared, we fly in to see campers screaming in panic and the two people who were supposed to warn them instead having a little canoe ride IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ATTACK ON CAMP. I can just imagine (the following is not a quote from the book): "There's going to be an attack on camp." "I know. But we've got afternoon plans." "The last two attacks on camp were the Romans and the Battle of the Labyrinth." "Mhm. Perfect time to go canoeing." "Lee died that time." "I'm sure it won't happen again." These are the two scatterbrains hiking into Tartarus headfirst. They're gonna die. They're gonna go canoeing in the Cocytus and die. They're not even real people and I'm never letting them live this down. They're the Canoe Duo now. Canuo.

"every so often a beam of ultraviolet light shot from Athena's helmet like a search lamp, hitting the Colossus's chest" IT- IT ACTUALLY HAS LASERS

"I know I cannot ask you to risk your life for us." Good to see Apollo's done asking for sacrifices. Only took him four thousand years.

"its ghastly neck beard" Ah, so that's how we know it's Nero.

"when the planes were so thick in the air, I literally could not find a safe lane to drive in." It's interesting to note that mortal air traffic actually does affect the sun and moon chariots. Also disturbing to know that the sun and moon in the PJO universe fly so low in the sky.

"I never thought I'd say this about bugs, but I'm going to miss those guys." Oh, so disliking bugs is a common Demeter kid thing.

"still dripping from their swim in the canoe lake." Serves you right. "What's the plan?" You two were supposed to come up with the plan D:<

"You're thinking of Talos. This is not Talos." It better not be! We gotta stop letting all these killer automatons near Nico! They're Hades kid-killers! And judging from Nico's lack of reaction to the mention of Talos, he never even learned how his sister died, so he wouldn't know to stay away from them! Can we all agree to keep Hephaestus's inventions FAR away from Nico from now on?