Someonelol

And you're like well. I'd rather trust myself to the fate of the world than anyone else. And I'd rather not let anyone else suffer the Torment Nexus just because of my own feelings. That seems kinda selfish. Alright sure.

So you enter the Torment Nexus. Each level has you pressing buttons like, [abduct innocent scientists to your vat: chances of humanity's survival increases by 0.005%] [everyone disliked that] [congrats! your moral goodness has decreased!].

The later levels get even worse. [blow up Antarctica: chances of humanity's survival increases by, ummm who knows ????] [total humans negatively affected: ????] [congrats! you're an ecoterrorist!].

Then you reach the final level. It reads: [through this door you'll break the news to your friend that he needs to die.] And you're like, wait he has to die??? I have to tell him?? But that's incredibly fucked up. After I went through the Torment Nexus as well. But it's the last level. So oh well. I can do this I suppose. Rather me than anyone else.

You enter the level and you friend is standing next to a cliff. You go over to him and say, hey this really fucking sucks but I've just learnt you need to jump off the cliff. Then we might be able to save humanity for real though. Maybe billions of people can survive if this works.

@toapril-official day 6/28 - reunion/lost and found

like, on the one hand, we have a new cast of characters every book, which means a lot of characters can't be fully fleshed out or have complete character arcs. we see this most strongly with characters that were invented specifically for ToA, since we don't have the other books to help fill in the gaps. a lot of characters feel straight-up forgotten once Lester and Meg have moved on from one location to the next. My entire fanfic is based around expanding on the world of Nero's imperial household (I promise I will update soon!) because i felt we know so little about them (there are 11 demigods there and we have 4 confirmed canon names, Meg included). that kind of sucks.

but on the other, all of these connections are so important and i don't think toa would be the same if you took the characters from each novel out. a huge part of toa is apollo learning to be human, interacting with and learning from people he would've once dismissed as beneath him. for meg, who's had her entire world closed off by nero up until this quest, i think the exploration and meeting a ton of new people with different life experiences is equally vital!

toa would not be what it is without its revolving cast of characters because lester and meg would not be who they are at the end of the books if they had not been exposed to so many different people, ideas and ways of living. as much as i feel like a lot of the characters are somewhat forgettable (i may have kind of sort of forgot chiara and valentina were two different characters at all because they fall into the same archetype and have nothing beyond that besides chiara's crush on damien), the experience of meeting them and learning to sympathize is so absolutely vital to the narrative.

that's also why i like that, while lester and meg gain new companions each book, no one stays with them forever. percy agrees to get them to camp and that's it. apollo can't stay at CHB with his kids. calypso, leo and lityerses choose to stay in the Waystation. so on so forth.

i think that is especially difficult for Apollo, who as a god does not have an easy time moving on from loss. having to constantly accept that friends he bonded with won't be by his side anymore is, in my opinion, SUPER important for apollo's growth as a character because one of the things he needs to learn, for the good of himself and everybody he loves, is when it's time to let go and move on. having companions who he can still visit but can't cling to forever is, imo, a very healthy way for him to finally start processing separation.

@toapril-official day 3 - heatstroke