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stillcarmine · 1 year

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Just thinking about how much better the whole Hazel-Frank-Leo dynamic would have been if we just... took all the romance out of it. Like, no romance at all. Hazel and Sammy were friends, and Hazel and Frank are friends and everything else is much the same. I wouldn't mind if the whole thing was scrapped completely and see how it went from there, but at least, the doppelganger thing gave them a reason to interact and start them getting to know each other?

Anyway, so without the plot of SoN revolving around romance between Hazel and Frank, we can just see them as people in their own right, have more time to explore who they are as characters. When Hazel finds the photo of Sammy in her old house in Alaska, Frank is canonically just concerned that she's crying. However, Hazel felt guilty for thinking about Sammy when Frank was "being so wonderful". That wouldn't be a problem here, and she'd either let herself think and feel how she does or she'd share the memories with them. So we get more of her reaction and feelings about her past past and the people she left behind.

As far as MoA goes, Hazel is still freaked out by seeing Leo at first, still a bit uncomfortable, but also more thoughtful. Like she's consumed with her memory and wondering what's going on here, asking how is my old best friend seemingly sitting right next to me right now?

After the attack on New Rome, in the book, Frank and Leo were actually civil with each other, Frank going so far as to say that maybe it wasn't Leo's fault. In this version, it'd be even more so, since Frank's internal monologue (and Hazel's) have said that in the beginning, Frank made mistakes all the time. So Frank waits until the others go below deck to tell Leo that "Yeah, I know exactly what it's like to mess things up, it'll be alright."

And Leo, who's usually really uncomfortable with emotional support, is spiraling right now because he might have just started a war, and is grateful for the reassurance. Frank tells Leo about the time he fed Hannibal the elephant peanuts and gave him indigestion and how Reyna hadn't killed him, so she has some mercy.

Frank asks if he's sure his name isn't Sammy, but more for a "Alright, this is my best friend's other best friend's doppelganger or whatever, I wanna make a good impression" psyching himself up kind of thing. Like landing on deck as a dragon didn't accomplish that.

When they have to split up to get supplies for the repairs, Frank is only hesitant because he's worried about how Hazel's handling the whole 'my dead best friend' thing, while at the same time knowing it'll be good for her to have a chance to talk to Leo in private. And Leo doesn't take it so much as a challenge to win Frank's trust. When they're talking about making sand castles, Leo still surprises Hazel by mentioning Sammy, but she's less skiddish about the whole thing.

Not sure how this would impact the conversation with Nemesis. Probably, the goddess would still have a point about Leo being the 7th wheel, because there are still two couples, and even if Hazel and Frank aren't dating anyone on the ship, they have much more history with each other and Percy, they're their own little family unit. Maybe that would actually hurt more to Leo, because he knows that his own best friends are occupied with each other and want time without him, which is understandable but lonely. Maybe it hurts a little more knowing that when it comes to Hazel and Frank, who are two people that he's already ruined his first impression of himself with, he has the added obstacle of being compared to someone from Hazel's past.

When Hazel tells him not to listen to Nemesis, it's coming from the perspective of someone who's viewing Leo only as a crewmate, rather than an antagonist to someone she cares about. She's stilll wary about Leo's fire, as she's still carrying Frank's life line, but she's not so unsettled about Leo as a person.

She still takes Leo on her memory quest, and as she's less nervous about the whole thing, she can take the opportunity to revisit her old home one last time, to see Sammy one last time and say goodbye. It does reinforce Leo's idea that Sammy is much better than him, especially if he was someone Hazel would consider a friend, when all Leo's done is attack her new home.

Later on, because Hazel has seen Sammy use humor as a tool for deflection and escaping tough spots, she can see through Leo's defenses a bit better than some of the others. She calls him on it, but doesn't try to force him to talk about things he doesn't want to, because she knows exactly what that's like. While it fills him with panic to be caught out, eventually he does settle into the idea, lets himself relax around her.

The real tension between Frank and Leo would come from Frank's wariness about Leo's fire powers and Leo finding Frank so intimidating and much more capable than himself. And their conversations are this odd mix of camaraderie and jealousy and distrust. They’re less antagonistic and that lets them get to know each other a bit more slowly and organically.

Since the handcuff thing is important to the plot, that scene still happens, but with less beligerence and more playfulness. Since Frank isn't so combative with Leo, he recognizes that Leo doesn't mean any real harm. It's still a bit embarrassing and he does go to Annabeth afterwards. He brings up that he's intimidated by Leo's pyrokinesis. When Annabeth tells him that he can trust Leo, the fire is the main issue Frank is worried about.

When they fall underwater, Frank isn't as antagonistic and so he takes a moment to parse out Leo's meaning when he asks if the ship is fine, because it's vital to the quest and if it goes down, then so does everyone aboard.

It's easier to take Annabeth's advice about trusting Leo, and without having to talk about the hand holding, they have more time to talk about other things. Namely, Frank gets to tell him about his life line himself. It's a good bonding moment, where Frank is intentionally vulnerable with someone who embodies his one weakness. It means so much to Leo, who has been thinking that he doesn't deserve anyone's trust, least of all the demigods from Camp Jupiter. Even in the book, Leo took Frank's fears about his life line seriously and didn't tease him or scare him. Just imagine how much more so he'd be when they're just being open and honest with each other.

It reminds him of his mother's death, and he's like. "Yup, okay, I'm keeping this guy and I'm keeping him alive."

Leo panics like he does in the OG text, worried about whether the stick is getting smothered in sea water right now, and Frank feels reassured about telling him, and amused about Leo's sincere worry. It gives him insight into how Leo thinks and how he approaches problems logically.

Leo does feel relieved when their hosts interrupt him, because he's reached his weekly limit for genuine emotions.

The narrative would have room to examine Hazel's grief and give her an outlet to think about or discuss her struggles at adjusting to the 21st century, since that wasn't touched on aside from the chicken nugget line and a brief line in SoN about her freaking out the first time she went to Berkley.

There's some light hearted stuff like that, but also discussions between them about about what it's like to have so little family left. Hazel tells Leo about Nico and how she's so happy to have a brother, but it was hard at first when she knew she wasn't the sister he had set out to bring back to life. Leo's like, yeah definitely know what not being the first choice is like, and maybe he's a little bewildered at how Hazel's like... not as super affected by that anymore the way he still is. Like, fam... can't relate.

It'd be interesting to see how that would impact Leo's view on Nico and how he brings up the fact that rescuing him could be a trap. Tbh, during that convo in the book, it didn't seem so much like he was flat out refusing to go after Nico, but that he wanted to discuss all the dangers there, so they could plan on how to counteract them. Maybe that wasn't the case, but I think that would have been plausible since Leo's an logical thinker.

Frank is definitely a part of these discussions, dead moms club, the worst club to be part of, but at least we have each other. Leo thinks about how Jason fits there as well, but it's not his place to tell the other two about that. That lends an interesting opportunity though, if Leo includes Jason in these talks, it might humanize him in Hazel's eyes.

One night it’s the two of them on watch, and they talk about the prophecy, and Leo's like "Yeah, I'm freaking out about possibly ending the world."

And Hazel says, "From personal experience, would not recommend."

And Leo goes, "Huh?"

So Hazel explains, and Leo sits there for a moment before pulling out a notepad from his belt and adding Hazel and her mother to the list of reasons for the revenge he gonna take on Gaea.

So yeah, they talk about how much they hate Gaea, and in canon, Leo only ever told Jason that Gaea goaded him into setting the fire that killed Esperanza, but seeing that the goddess did the same to Hazel, it just gives Leo the strength to say it again, to trust Hazel with the worst moment of his life.

Also, there wasn't enough about the fact that Hazel's power has literally killed people. Like, way more than Leo's ever did, so she'd explore that trauma, probably on her own. She's so young and has so much weight on her. She never asked for this curse and she never even had a chance to actually be angry with her parents for their decisions that put her life on the course it took. She’s even told that she herself doesn’t have the power to break her own curse. I want her to be able to feel however she needs to feel to process everything she's been through.

It's not her fault that those people died, but she still feels responsible, and maybe it's be easier to forgive herself when she sees Leo in a similar situation, because it's usually easier to forgive others than it is to forgive yourself.

It's a bummer that Hazel never had any real interaction with Festus. Leo introduces her to him like he did with Frank and since he's made of precious metal, she's able to like, read his history, like she could sense all the different precious jewelry and coins of travellers under the earth on the hill with Skyron. For the first time, she gets to interact with metal that isn't cursed and he's alive?? I want to know her thoughts on that. There's a lot of celestial bronze on board the ship actually, like Leo can touch a piece of machinery and get an understanding of how it works, Hazel can touch Festus's neck and get this mental image of the precious metals on board, like a sonar or that feedback she gets in the Amazon warehouse in SoN. But since it's all connected, it's like an x-ray or an image of the human nervous system.

There'd be so many more moment like the "He reads Chinese, how cool is that?" scene.

Hazel and Leo bring out each other’s southern accents, Piper and Frank do a double take the first time one of them pulls out a “y’all’d’ve”. Those two have known Hazel and Leo the longest and have never heard that one before.

Late night watches on deck that devolve into late night talks, Juno/ Hera comes up and Leo says to Frank, "So she visited us both as babies and did like, the inverse of what she did to you that she did to me.

"Like, she put me in the burning fire place and she told your folks to pull you(r stick) out of the fire place. I feel like she's stepping in on Hestia's territory but whatever."

Leo gets excited coming up with ideas to keep Frank's lifeline safe, and extrapolating about the whole situation-

"Alright, get this, so technically- technically- fire isn't fatal to Frank, just his fire wood-"

"I don't like where this is going," Frank says.

"I'm just making a point, don't worry."

And-

"No, no, Hazel if we're ever all on fire, y'all should just like- jump on me, because if I concentrate real hard, I can keep other stuff I'm touching from burning, like with my clothes."

"Why would we all be on fire?"

"You think there isn't some god or monster that wouldn't want to set us on fire?"

"Touché.”

When talking about ways to protect the wood, Leo's talking about hypotheticals and ways to possibly treat the wood and Frank points out that he'd have to be careful because they don't know how such treatments would affect him.

Leo waves his concern away, because he's in Thinking Mode (TM) saying, "Yeah, of course, I know how to handle precious resources, you've only got the one piece and we've only got the one you."

Leo says it so offhandedly, but Frank is like Touched (TM).

Just- them being softer with each other, letting other issues between the three have more time to be explored, giving them more screen time to develop as characters and the three of them having more chances to just get to know each other and develop their friendships.

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