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toacollabevent · 2 years

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Burning Shrouds

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Gen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family Characters: Chiron, Apollo, Will, Hyacinthus

It’s the first time in mortal memory that Apollo’s attended a shroud burning ceremony at Camp Half-Blood.

My (@tsarinatorment‘s) contribution for TOA Collab Event 2022! My match was @nyaningthroughlife and I chose the second piece of art in this post as my inspiration! It’s definitely not my usual topic, and this is my first time writing Chiron pov (or much of Chiron at all, honestly), so I hope it all worked okay.

It’s a small surprise when Apollo arrives at camp that evening. Not because Apollo doesn’t like dropping by camp, because Chiron is well aware that the god in question adores camp and everyone in it (even Dionysus, as much as the two gods present a stilted, separated front to the world). The surprise is that he chose to come tonight, of all nights.

As much as Apollo flits around on the edges of camp, peering down from his chariot if he can’t be there in person, he always, always, keeps his distance when it’s time to burn shrouds. The closest he’s come in mortal memory was in the aftermath of the Battle of Manhattan, but even then he remained near the Big House and his new oracle rather than near the pyres.

Apollo respects death and the mortal inevitability but there are some wounds that are a little too open, a little too raw, and burning shrouds – regardless of whether or not they’re empty – are a wound Chiron has noticed Apollo does his best not to poke at. Funerals, eulogies and acts of mourning are all a familiarity to the god, but the shroud in particular, he evades.

Not that he’d ever admit as such out loud. Apollo keeps certain things close to his chest; closer, often, than even Chiron with his millennia-long relationship with him, can catch even a glimpse of, but this is one that’s spilled over just enough, over the thousands of years, for Chiron to put two and two together and be reasonably sure he’s getting four, or something near enough to count.

It doesn’t help that most shroud-burnings happen at the same time of year. Not the same, exact date, but then the calendar has changed a few times in Camp Half-Blood’s lifetime and only the immortals recall the passage of time prior to the Gregorian within this Western dominated sphere of influence. Even Chiron doesn’t know, precisely, the date within this span of time that particularly stings at Apollo, but he knows it’s there somewhere, and really, that’s all he needs to know.

Hyacinthus was not Apollo’s first, last or only love – far from any of them – but he was an intense one, whose passing left unusually deep marks of grief on the god. Apollo has a reasonable handle on grief – he feels it, but he endures it and keeps going, keeps living for all those whose time came to an end – but there are a few mortals who get around his guard.

That might, Chiron suspects as he watches Apollo slip quietly into the throng of demigods around the fire, have some relevance to his unusual appearance now. The shrouds they’re burning tonight are empty – marks of a successful quest, where the number of questers that came back alive was no less than the number that left – but one of them was sewn for one of Apollo’s own children.

This is the first time in years that a golden shroud has been burned at camp without a dead child to go with it. It could so, so easily have gone differently. By all rights, it should have done. The Pit is not a place for mortals to venture, let alone survive and escape again, and the Primordial in question is no doubt furious beyond belief at yet another duo of demigods escaping his clutches, narrow though that escape had been.

Will is still a bundle of bandages and barely strong enough to get anywhere under his own power. Nico is not quite as terribly off, physically, and he’s been scaring off anyone except the most stubborn of Apollo’s children whenever anyone else tries to assist Will even though he’s hardly in the state to act as a living walking stick either, but Chiron knows the mental wounds run deep.

Apollo has been floating around camp more often than not during their recovery, and they still have a long way to go but the shrouds need to be burned as soon as possible and they’re finally fit enough for the ceremony. It doesn’t escape Chiron’s notice that Apollo has wormed his way into the heart of the throng of Cabin Seven Plus Nico and is sitting with his arm wrapped tightly around Will’s shoulders. It’s a human need, Chiron thinks, to face the what-if of losing someone and cling to them all the tighter in reassurance that they’re still there.

Most gods would be incredibly offended at the word “human” being used to describe anything that they do, but Apollo’s not one of them. Chiron still refrains from vocalising the thought, because other listening ears might have objections to it.

Other gods having issues with who and how Apollo loves has created tragedies. Chiron is not eager to invite another.

He does not know all the details of the loss of Hyacinthus. Likely, he never will. Whether Apollo attended his funeral, if he was burned in a shroud and if so how it was decorated… those are details Chiron has not been made privy to.

He suspects, of course. That Apollo was there, that the shroud was as beautiful as the man it embraced, that it stole a part of the god forever when it burned away to ashes. It’s harder to believe that those suspicions might not be true, knowing Apollo as he does.

But Chiron doesn’t ask.

He celebrates with the campers as the golden and black shrouds go up in flames, devoid of any accompanying tragedy, and watches as Apollo tries to hand the floor to his children for the traditional songs only for Will to look at his father until he caves and sings for them.

Properly sings, which clearly surprises the campers who have heard tales of Apollo’s modern interest in less traditionally beautiful pieces and were preparing to grin and bear whatever he chose to come out with.

Another night, he might have done, but tonight, with the echoes of lost love and the reminder that more loss will come in time, as it always does, Apollo’s mind is clearly in one place, and one place only. The song is not a sad one; on the surface, it sounds triumphant and jubilant. There’s melancholy in the words, however, and a underlying reminder of what it means to be mortal.

It’s grief and celebration and life and death all mixed in together, and Chiron suspects he’s not the only one to hear that and more, but no-one acknowledges it out loud, not even when Apollo finishes his impromptu set and insists that it’s his children’s turn to shine, now.

Austin and Alice in particular need no more prompting, and soon Jerry is the only Apollo child left at Will’s side while the others pile onto the stage to continue leading the celebrations.

No longer the centre of attention, save for Chiron’s own musings, Apollo falls silent and unobtrusive. More than once, his eyes drift to where the embers still cling to the ashes of the shroud, and the weight of four thousand and some years don’t quite stay hidden.

There is nothing Chiron can or should do for the god and his millennia-old scars, so he turns his attention elsewhere and lets Apollo have his privacy.

#submission #toacollabevent2022 #trials of apollo #trials of apollo fanfiction #riordanverse #riordanverse fanfic #pjo chiron #pjo apollo #will solace #toa hyacinthus #tsarinatorment #nyaningthroughlife

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toapril-official · 2 months

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ToApril 2024

ToApril is once again upon us! Can you believe this is the third year this is taking place?

At this point we will assume everybody gets the concept of ToApril, but if you don’t, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Before we jump right into it, we want to emphasize the rules of toapril:

Please keep it TOA related. You can use characters from other series or your own, but the prompts were made with the characters of TOA in mind.

No NSFW. There are adults and minors alike participating and definitely browsing the internet within the fandom. Mature topics can be brought up, but anything graphic is not allowed.

Note: None of the prompts are ship based, but you are definitely allowed to include ships!

If you write a fic on ao3, please put it in the toapril 2024 collection. If you’re not sure how to do that, here are some instructions:

Option1: Go to the collection. There should be a button at the top right saying ‘post to collection’. Click that button and the rest should be as it would normally be when you post a fic.

Option 2: Post a new fic as usual, but in the associations section, type in toapril in the post to collections / challenges space and it should pop up. Make sure you add it in the 2024 one. It will stay open for a couple of weeks after April just in case you need more time to finish something.

If you want to post something on tumblr, please tag it with #toapril and #toapril2024. You can also tag this blog in your post, we would love to see all of your amazing works this year :D.

Have fun! If there’s any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

Prompts below the cut.

Text version:

Day 1: Missed Target

Day 2: Growing Pains

Day 3: Divine Intervention

Day 4: Facing The Unknown

Day 5: For The Best

Day 6: Hair Holds Memories

Day 7: Fathers Who’d Kill

Day 8: Moonlight’s Reflection

Day 9: The Hour Past Midnight

Day 10: This Isn’t Goodbye

Day 11: First Meeting

Day 12: Revenge Served Cold

Day 13: Curse of Eternal Youth

Day 14: Every Rose Has Its Thorns

Day 15: Without Requisite or Deadline

Day 16: Nymphs and Negligence

Day 17: The Cyclical Nature of Things

Day 18: In The Next Lifetime

Day 19: Haunted

Day 20: Chaos Soup

Day 21: The Sun and The Earth

Day 22: Never Forget

Day 23: Cheesecake & Demons

Day 24: Unexpected Allies

Day 25: Race Against Time

Day 26: Wilting Flowers

Day 27: Missing Objects

Day 28: Silent Thunder

Day 29: Lost City

Day 30: Fading Memories

Thank you to @okathleen, @star-flcwers, @worlds-oldest-teenager, @reostuffzies, @tsarinatorment, @nyaningthroughlife, @money-and-dandellions, @ferodactyl, @xxzephyrbreezexx, and @solahflare for submitting these prompts.

#toapril announcements #toapril #toapril2024 #toapril prompts #toapril 2024

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apollosgiftofprophecy · 7 months

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THE COMPLETE COPOLLO MASTERLIST

Desperately looking for fics to satisfy your obsession with the RRverse's most dumpsterfire of a ship? Look no further than this post :3

I have Copollo fics ranging from Ao3, FF.net, and here on tumblr! Each fic will be linked, and if the author has a tumblr (that I know of - if you know their tumblr let me know!), they will be tagged.

Also, before we begin, I would just like to say that when I say every Copollo fic I can find is on this list, I mean all of them. This includes fics that are canon compliant, crack, aus, and those with darker tones. If that isn't your thing, all you have to do is avoid clicking on said fics. They're all organzied very nicely if I do say so myself. Nothing more to it :3

Look below the cut for the list! If you have any fics that slipped between my grabby fingers let me know so I can add them! :3

Roman Empire Era

A Cruel Occasion by @seductivegrapethrowing

Grapes and Blood (written in German) by Buttons_Buttons (Rated G)

Fairness by mothmansaysgayrights (Rated G)

The Death of Emperor Commodus by LusiaLovegood (Rated G)

Long Life to You by kitatyourservice (Rated G)

Death's Embrace by me (Rated G)

When the Day Met the Night by me (Rated G)

When Everything's Wrong, You Make It Right by me (Rated G)

Call Me Commodus / Today I'll Be Your Ruler / I'll Also Die Here by kitatyourservice (Rated G)

Of Broken Promises by @money-and-dandellions (Rated G)

Rewrite The Stars by me (Rated G)

drunk off that love, it my head up (there's no forgetting you) by me (Rated G)

Keeping Warm by @soleil-in-retrograde (I reread the Copollo part of this over and over :3) (Rated T)

vow by @daisy-mooon (Rated T)

my teeth will only cut your lips, my dear by localcryptidlivinlife (Rated T)

Always Told You Not To Love Me (Now Look What You Made Me Do) by anxious_tofu (Rated E)

ghost of mine (you're taking up all my time) by anxious_tofu (Mainly perpollo, but I read it for the Copollo :3) (Rated E)

Trials of Apollo

Canon Compliant

As Far As I'm Concerned, You're Just Another Picture To Burn by @solahflare

It Isn't Love, It Isn't Hate, It's Just Indifference by @solahflare

A Pity by kitatyourservice (Rated G)

forget - me - not by localcryptidlivinlife (Rated G)

Song of Apollo by @tsarinatorment (For the Copollo crumb within :3) (Rated T)

Fractures of the Mind (Heart) by me :3 (Rated T)

The Devil Within (His Mind) also by me (Rated T)

Chapter 5 of some ToApril drabbles because my head is as empty as Meg's by orphan_account (Rated T)

Divinity, Fire, and Former Lovers by @seapinecone (Rated T)

Aus

All's Fair in Love & War by me (Rated G)

and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started by patsusan (Rated G) (nom nomming)

It's Be Okay by Apollo4612 (Rated Fiction T)

i loved you dangerously (more than the air that i breathe) by @okathleen (Rated T)

i will only break your pretty things by localcryptidlivinlife (Rated T)

@daisy-mooon

Taunt (Rated G)

Outnumbered (Rated T)

Blindfold (Rated T)

Spark (Rated M)

Triumvirate Wins Au by bacchis

to eros, in secrecy

den of the lion (Rated E)

there are a couple more fics in this series if you're interested but only the two above have brief Copollo moments (i will admit this au lives rent-free in my brain)

AUs

Winds of Ruin by me (Rated G)

Coward by @nyaningthroughlife (Rated T)

Moonrise by me (Rated T)

Hazbin Hotel nonlinear AUs

Stayed Gone by me (Rated T)

Hell Hath No Fury by me (Rated T)

Crack (when i say every fic, I mean every fic)

It's a Fun Time in Commodupolis! by Anonymous (Rated M)

Dark

Nothing Like The Sun by Cola_bubblegum

Day & Night by Lif61 (UltimateFandomTrash) (Rated E)

TAG LIST: @moodyseal @plastikstarz @hazardous-lightdas12 @worlds-oldest-teenager here it is! :3

#copollo #masterpost #the trials of apollo #toa #trials of apollo #apollodus #apollo x commodus #apollo #commodus #pjo apollo #toa apollo #pjo commodus #toa commodus #toa fanfiction

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tsarisfanfiction · 2 years

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TOA Collab Event Match-Ups

Looks like tumblr is shadowbanning the blog and not letting me send messages out anymore, so, if you haven’t received your match, please DM this blog and I’ll send the information out!

@booksscienceandmath @fearlessinger @nyaningthroughlife @sofia-not-sophie @literallyjusttoa @moryyteks @m-arnie-xx @asunnydreamer @falconfrost @txny-dragon @burning-moths @kit-kat-bard @im-here-maybe @fuzzystudios @hyacynta @sylver93 @ukelele-boy @nicosfavbomberjacket

#toacollabevent2022 #trials of apollo #my main also got shadowbanned and i'm not risking this blog so you guys have gotta DM me first now #tumblr why #not fic

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algumaideia · 2 years

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@nyaningthroughlife Nick and Charlie fluff:

Charlie couldn't stop giggling. It was the excitement, curiosity and happiness caused by the situation.

When Nick asked him to meet him in the park, Charlie thought they would just hang out with Nellie. He wasn't excepting any of it.

"Can I look now?"

Charlie was covering his eyes with one hand. The other was holding Nick's.

"Not yet!"

"I'm gonna fall!!"

"You are not!!"

It was possible to hear the smile on Nick's voice.

"How do you know that?"

"I'm an amazing guide!"

"What about all the times I almost fell with you guiding me?!"

"Well, you cannot blame me for you being clumsy!"

"Of course, I'm clumsy you don't let me see!!"

Charlie waited for Nick's answer. He loved the silly teasing they did. It was comfortable and brought him so much joy. But instead, Nick stopped walking and then took Charlie's hand off his eyes.

In front of him there was a picnic towel and on top of it their favorites food.

Charlie looked at Nick who was blushing and looked adorably nervous.

"It is just... that time here on the park, I was so uncomfortable to be with you... so I thought to make a new memory here where I am comfortable to be around you and be your boyfriend."

At that moment, Nick's smile was the most beautiful thing in the world in Charlie's eyes.

Kissing Nick, Charlie thought that he would cry of happiness. He liked Nick so much.

"You are amazing."

He whispered lovingly.

#nick nelson #charlie spring #osemanverse #nick x charlie #pride prompts #gay #bisexual #mlm

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txny-dragon · 1 year

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I posted 253 times in 2022

That's 225 more posts than 2021!

43 posts created (17%)

210 posts reblogged (83%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@theonewhocouldmakemestay

@sierice

@deyjahvu

@ferodactyl

@nyaningthroughlife

I tagged 205 of my posts in 2022

Only 19% of my posts had no tags

#rb - 122 posts

#trials of apollo - 27 posts

#lester papadopoulos - 12 posts

#pjo apollo - 11 posts

#meg mccaffrey - 9 posts

#apollogists - 8 posts

#the secret series - 7 posts

#ask game - 6 posts

#txny draws - 5 posts

#toa - 5 posts

Longest Tag: 136 characters

#that one artist cousin that likes the same things as you but you really only see them on very specific times like the waxing of the moon

My Top Posts in 2022:

Ok so, appearently I have a soft spot for fictional dorky brunettes that befriend people/animals that want to kill them. And it works majority of the time.

I just want to be their friends.

61 notes - Posted April 5, 2022

64 notes - Posted September 25, 2022

Imagine describing Dodana to someone who doesn't know Trials of Apollo

It's a talking arrow that speaks in bad Shakespearean. However it only speaks in the main character's head so he looks insane. It also uses Google but denies it. It's also dead

142 notes - Posted June 29, 2022

DNI: If the only reason you didn't read TOA was because Percy wasn't the main character.

318 notes - Posted March 20, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Controversial Take: Jason should have been a better swordsman then Percy. It could balance the power difference, for Jason seems to have less raw power and Percy has more, and it could emphasize how Camp Jupiter trains the campers.

It makes sense from a writing standpoint for world building.

2,786 notes - Posted June 9, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #honestly #all of these track

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solahflare · 1 year

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I posted 45 times in 2022

That's 45 more posts than 2021!

9 posts created (20%)

36 posts reblogged (80%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@ukelele-boy

@archive-of-our-own

@ferodactyl

@nyaningthroughlife

I tagged 15 of my posts in 2022

#lester papadopoulos - 9 posts

#rick riordan - 9 posts

#trials of apollo - 9 posts

#riordanverse - 8 posts

#apollo - 7 posts

#toa - 7 posts

#percy jackson - 5 posts

#pjo apollo - 4 posts

#lester/apollo - 4 posts

#apollo my beloved - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 42 characters

#please just let him be the kid he still is

My Top Posts in 2022:

(the Hidden Oracle, Trials of Apollo, page 331)

*cough* Harpocrates *cough*

Apollo, I love you, but…

22 notes - Posted June 27, 2022

Anyone remember that time when Apollo/Lester made Commodus turn to ash simply by screaming at him and it was never talked about again?

Yeah, me too

129 notes - Posted October 3, 2022

The first thing Apollo does when he becomes a god again:

137 notes - Posted December 4, 2022

And I thought I couldn’t respect the arrow of Dodona more. I should’ve known better.

333 notes - Posted July 5, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Ok, but all I really need to happen in the solangelo book is for Will to just lose his shit, because that kid has been way too calm for someone in his situation.

393 notes - Posted July 14, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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tsarinatorment · 2 years

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Tsari, Tsari, Tsari! Nyaro-chan wants an opinion on Michael's death, pwease? （＾ω＾）

Heyo, Nyan! Opinions on Michael's death? I can certainly do opinions on Michael's death :D

As those who talk to me regularly probably know, I find Michael's death absolutely fascinating on a few different levels - how he died, why he died, and if he narratively had to die. There's two things in particular I'm gonna talk about here - Michael and the Curse of Achilles and Michael's actions and thoughts leading up to his death. The latter is going to be a lot of extrapolation, as I'm wont to do, as well as some open-ended theorising, and there's extrapolation some with the former as well, but I think it narratively fits well - or at least, is the best explanation I can come up with, even though there is one small flaw with the theory.

Before I get started, though, I just want to make the distinction here that I do not blame Percy. I do not blame Percy for Michael's death, nor any of the other things that went horribly wrong during the battle. That's not to say that these things were not a direct result of Percy making several fatal mistakes, because they were, but I think it's important to remember that Percy is a woefully unprepared and inexperienced fifteen (yes, turning sixteen but that makes no difference), child during the events of the book. He does the best he can, but he's fallable and quite frankly none of these responsibilities should've been on his shoulders in the first place. Percy (and all the demigods fighting in the war) are all horrifically let down by the adults around them. He messed up, severely, but he should never have been in the position to make those mistakes anyway.

As always with my analyses, this is probably going to get a little long, but I hope it's still an interesting read! We'll start off with the first point I mentioned: Michael and the Curse of Achilles.

What, exactly, do these two things have in common? On the surface, it might seem like a really bizarre connection to draw, but his death is actually a direct result of the Curse, which leads me to the theory that Michael's death was the price of the Curse.

We know the Curse is, well, a Curse and not a blessing. Achilles himself insists as such and throws several dire warnings Percy's way when he arrives at the River Styx:

The ghost nodded. "I warned the other one not to follow my path. Now I will warn you." "Luke? You spoke with Luke?" "Do not do this," he said. "It will make you powerful. But it will also make you weak. Your prowess in combat will be beyond any mortal's, but your weaknesses, your failings will increase as well." "You mean I'll have a bad heel?" I said. "Couldn't I just, like, wear something besides sandals? No offense." He stared down at his bloody foot. "The heel is only my physical weakness, demigod. My mother, Thetis, held me there when she dipped me in the Styx. What really killed me was my own arrogance. Beware! Turn back!"

Achilles is very anti-Curse; he tried to warn Luke away from it, and then he tried to warn Percy. Firstly, he warns about an increase in failings - from a pragmatic standpoint, that could easily be a reference to more demigods dying than necessary. Secondly, he warns about arrogance, which is something that, in the end, Percy does fall foul of - on Williamsburg Bridge.

Chiron, Hestia and Hermes also all give him warnings of a similar nature, as do the river spirits themselves:

"Curse of Achilles," Hudson snorted. "They always think that'll save them, don't they?" "If only he knew," East agreed. They both laughed, dissolving into the water.

"If only he knew," East said, directly implying that there will be a consequence (and note that it's the East River that the Williamsburg Bridge crosses). There's enough dire warnings floating around that it's impossible that there wasn't a price to be paid, in the end. Also, from a purely narrative standpoint, this exchange is immediately followed by Annabeth informing him they've had a call for reinforcements from Michael - and then the chapter ends. Rick could easily have put that at the start of the next chapter, but he didn't; he linked the conversation about the Curse directly to the next battle - Williamsburg Bridge.

"But wasn't the price Annabeth taking the dagger for him?" is the obvious counter-point here, so I'm going to take some time deconstructing this.

First of all: Annabeth did not die. The Curse of Achilles is fatal - in Achilles' case, it was his own life that was lost, but Achilles makes a point of that - "what really killed me". Annabeth did not die, ergo her little piece of self-sacrifice doesn't actually fulfill what we're told the Curse causes - death.

Second of all: Annabeth would have taken that dagger regardless. At this point, Percabeth is so blatantly obvious everyone knows it's there. Someone would have stabbed at Percy at some point during the battle, Annabeth would have shielded him with her body, regardless of whether or not he had the Curse - so the Curse didn't actually change anything in that scene at all (except for being the later trigger for Percy trusting Annabeth with the secret, and the realisation that Annabeth was part of Luke's tether, too, which are important plot points in their own right). There are other plot points at work here - adding in the Curse of Achilles just makes it feel clumsy and shoe-horned in.

So: Michael.

Right from the start, Percy's arrogance, no doubt brought on by the Curse, changes everything about this battle. Michael, who until this point has been shown to be aggressive, confrontational, and not at all afraid of a fight, wants to retreat. That's his game plan, that's what the Apollo kids were already doing before Percy arrived, that's still what he wants to do after they get reinforcements.

"We have to fall back," Michael said. "I've got Kayla and Austin setting traps farther down the bridge." "No," I said. "Bring your campers forward to this position and wait for my signal. We're going to drive the enemy back to Brooklyn." Michael laughed. "How do you plan to do that?" I drew my sword. "Percy," Annabeth said, "let me come with you." "Too dangerous," I said. "Besides, I need you to help Michael coordinate the defensive line. I'll distract the monsters. You group up here. Move the sleeping mortals out of the way. Then you can start picking off monsters while I keep them focused on me. If anybody can do all that, you can." Michael snorted. "Thanks a lot."

Michael is not impressed with this plan at all. He doesn't think Percy can do it, he would much rather retreat behind the traps they're setting up - frankly, he wants to fight like archers, who are not front line fighters. Melee is the worst possible match up for Apollo kids (remember how Lee died in BOTL? Giant club to the head - melee). With what he's got, that's the best option and he knows it, but Percy's got another plan - a plan he would not have considered if he didn't have the invincibility, because he even makes a point of calling it too dangerous for Annabeth - and really, Michael doesn't have much of a choice but to go along with it. It does also, admittedly, appeal to Michael's confrontational nature to take the fight to the enemy, but again - that wasn't a battle plan he was considering at all until Percy said that was what they were going to do.

This is the arrogance brought about by the Curse of Achilles changing things.

And Percy's plan works... until Kronos appears. Now, why Kronos and his big army here decided to use the Williamsburg Bridge to break through rather than any other access point is a discussion for another time (Percy would've gone to wherever the Minotaur was, Kronos/Luke would have been able to predict that, Williamsburg Bridge and Apollo cabin being targeted was not an unhappy accident), but the point of the matter is that Kronos is here, Percy has completely over-extended the Apollo cabin, and now they're in dire straits (dire straits that would not have happened if they had bottle-necked the army at the bridge's exit and picked them off with arrows from a distance while holding them in place with traps, which was Michael's plan).

I followed with the Apollo campers at my heels. "Yes!" yelled Michael Yew. "That's what I'm talking about!" We drove them back toward the Brooklyn side of the bridge. The sky was growing pale in the east. I could see the toll stations ahead. "Percy!" Annabeth yelled. "You've already routed them. Pull back! We're overextended!" Some part of me knew she was right, but I was doing so well, I wanted to destroy every last monster. Then I saw the crowd at the base of the bridge. The retreating monsters were running straight toward their reinforcements. It was a small group, maybe thirty or forty demigods in battle armor, mounted on skeletal horses. One of them held a purple banner with the black scythe design. The lead horseman trotted forward. He took off his helm, and I recognized Kronos himself, his eyes like molten gold. Annabeth and the Apollo campers faltered. The monsters we'd been pursuing reached the Titan's line and were absorbed into the new force. Kronos gazed in our direction. He was a quarter mile away, but I swear I could see him smile.

"Now," I said, "we pull back."

The Curse's arrogance has full hold of Percy in this moment, until he sees Kronos, to the point he doesn't even listen to Annabeth telling him they need to stop. None of this advance was really necessary, and it certainly shouldn't have gone on as long as it did - and this is what seals Michael's fate.

They have to retreat across almost the entire bridge suddenly, pursued by a fresh army when they're all already tired, and they struggle. Michael, for reasons I'll explore later, gives up on retreating entirely.

This is what kills him. Technically he's killed by the bridge's destruction, but he would not have still been on that bridge in the first place if not for the Curse of Achilles turning Percy overconfident and arrogant.

Now, there is a small flaw in this theory, and that's that Percy and Michael aren't close. There's some guilt on Percy's behalf, and anger, but it's very quickly washed away by ongoing events and then Michael is barely remembered again, barring a brief mention in Percy's thoughts alongside the other dead campers. The emotional impact is, quite frankly, almost entirely glossed over - but this isn't just the case about it being related to the Curse, this is also the case with Michael being one of Percy's own allies that he killed. Percy broke the bridge, and that directly killed Michael, so with the guilt and self-esteem issues Percy is shown to have, just that should have had far more impact. In reality, all we get is this:

"No!" I searched the wreckage on my side of the bridge. I stared down at the river. Nothing. I yelled in anger and frustration. The sound carried forever in the morning stillness. I was about to whistle for Blackjack to help me search, when my mom's phone rang.

and then:

I grabbed Will Solace from the Apollo cabin and told the rest of his siblings to keep searching for Michael Yew.

That's it. Then we're back in the realms of Percabeth and this kid who only appeared for one book before being killed off in what should have been an impactful way was pretty much forgotten. His body is implied to never even be found, even though he was presumably in the water and Percy should've been able to find him post-war, if not during their breaks between battling. Honestly, it's rather underwhelming, all told, but I still stick with my theory because it's the strongest one I can come up with, and the narrative does point towards it, albeit rather subtly at times.

Now, onto the other interesting thing about Michael's death: What was he thinking?

Really, there's two options surrounding Michael's death - either he thought he could get out of the danger zone in time, or he knew he was going to die if it went down and told Percy to destroy it anyway. Let's look at that moment again:

I got unsteadily to my feet. The remaining Apollo campers had almost made it to the end of the bridge, except for Michael Yew, who was perched on one of the suspension cables a few yards away from me. His last arrow was notched in his bow. "Michael, go!" I screamed. "Percy, the bridge!" he called. "It's already weak!" At first I didn't understand. Then I looked down and saw fissures in the pavement. Patches of the road were half melted from Greek fire. The bridge had taken a beating from Kronos's blast and the exploding arrows. "Break it!" Michael yelled. "Use your powers!"

There's nothing here in Michael's body language that says he's preparing to flee - he's perching on a cable (which is incredibly precarious, no wonder he fell), with a nocked arrow. That's not the posture of someone about to run, that's the posture of someone who's preparing to cover someone else's retreat.

From all of this - his lack of preparedness to run, the way he's not even on solid ground, but rather on something incredibly precarious, the fact he has a single arrow left and is preparing to use it - it seems, to me, that he knew he wasn't going to survive the breaking of the bridge.

Which then begs the question - why? Why did Michael stop running alongside the rest of his cabin - if the rest of them made it, no doubt he should have been able to, too. Why did he tell Percy to do it at all?

We don't know Michael's character well enough to give a definitive answer to this, but there are a few hints hanging around in his narrative. One of these is his pragmatic or pessimistic response to the reinforcements he gets:

"Glad you could join us," he said. "Where are the other reinforcements?" "For now, we're it," I said. "Then we're dead," he said.

He's very matter-of-fact about this; there's no complaining, no whining, simply an accepted statement - we're dead. Part of him, it seems, has given up already in the face of the army advancing on them.

There's also the sense that he wants to keep his siblings as safe as possible - this is seen right from the start when he wants to retreat despite that not fitting his general apparent personality until this point, as I mentioned earlier. This makes sense from the point of view that he's their head counselor, and also bearing in mind that he's already lost Lee in the previous summer. There's also at least one Apollo kid death at this point at the bridge (the hellhound-dragged kid), and when Kronos shakes the bridge, other Apollo kids also fall over the side, so he's losing a lot of his siblings already. On that vein, it may well be that Michael initially fell back to protect their backs as they ran, and then saw a way to cut off Kronos' advance before they were all slaughtered - because if that army got across the bridge, Percy and his Curse of Achilles or not, none of the Apollo kids would have survived. In fact, that's almost certainly his reasoning for making Percy break the bridge - protecting his siblings.

His ongoing feud with Clarisse about the chariot is also relevant. Early in the book, when the argument is first introduced, Clarisse declared that the Ares cabin won't join the battle, and at the time, Michael considered it to be good riddance - however, as the battle loomed, he attempted to make amends (despite the fact that he was in the right, if rather ungraceful about it) in a last-ditch attempt to get the Ares cabin to join them after all:

"Nah," Michael said. "Left it at camp. I told Clarisse she could have it. Whatever, you know? Not worth fighting about anymore. But she said it was too late. We'd insulted her honor for the last time or some stupid thing." "Least you tried," I said. Michael shrugged. "Yeah, well, I called her some names when she said she still wouldn't fight. I doubt that helped. Here come the uglies!"

Of course, he didn't quite let it go gracefully, because that's not in his nature, but the fact that he bent his own stubborn pride enough to try in the first place is quite telling about his desperation. He's clearly aware that it's because of him and his temper, at least in part, that Clarisse and the Ares cabin - their best melee fighters - are absent, and it's realistic to imagine there's some guilt in his mind.

I wouldn't say that Michael specifically wanted to die - I highly doubt he did - but it does seem that he made the decision that if someone had to die, it might as well be him, as the one responsible for the cabin and the reason why they're missing a large chunk of their offensive forces.

There are other possibilities as well, of course.

He might have seen something that Percy didn't - a threat to Percy, or the cabin, that he couldn't afford to leave alone. Percy makes note of his bow later on - twenty feet away and ownerless - but there's no arrow mentioned. If it was already nocked, it's unlikely that it fell, so Michael may well have fired at something Percy never saw (if it was a threat to Percy, that's even more tragic because Michael doesn't even know for sure about the Curse of Achilles - unless Michael saw exactly where Ethan was aiming and worked out Percy's weak spot for himself and was protecting that).

He might have been too injured to retreat in time - if he took some serious damage from Kronos' strike on the bridge, that's possible, although nothing about his final appearance in the book openly suggests any sort of injury to that degree.

I also wonder if Michael has some degree of prophetic sight; as a son of Apollo, it's possible, and there's something disquieting and tragic about the idea that Michael may have known that he would die there. It also explains his general attitude on the bridge - the lack of optimism, or even any attempt at optimism, the general acceptance that death is coming for them and there's nothing they can do about it.

A lot of this is still up in the air and I haven't fully got my thoughts in order on Michael's headspace on Williamsburg Bridge yet - I plan to knuckle down on a headcanon for this at some point, but I haven't had the opportunity and time to seriously analyse it yet to work out what, to me, feels the most likely so this is just a bit of a verbal spitball of possibilities.

I am, however, going to finish with this last little section of canon, because it's heartbreakingly sad and makes Michael's death just that little bit worse:

The Titan lord studied the problem. He looked behind him at the rising sun, then smiled across the chasm. He raised his scythe in a mock salute. "Until this evening, Jackson." He mounted his horse, whirled around, and galloped back to Brooklyn, followed by his warriors. I turned to thank Michael Yew, but the words died in my throat. Twenty feet away, a bow lay in the street. Its owner was nowhere to be seen.

Michael died just as the sun rose. It feels horribly symbolic that he would die just as his father's chariot appears and Apollo takes to the sky, and also just plain cruel.

And Kronos knew this - he'd have seen Michael go down (just like the Apollo kids behind Percy, safely off the bridge, would have seen their brother fall), and he deliberately looks at the sun before turning back to Percy, who at that point doesn't know Michael is dead. That taunting mock salute - I think that was as much about Michael's death as it was Kronos signalling that Percy hasn't won anything by destroying the bridge, just delayed the inevitable.

So... yeah. I find Michael's death fascinating.

#nyaningthroughlife #michael yew #percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo #riordanverse #tsari analyses things

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