#THE FUCKING AUDACITY YOU HAVE TO BUST INTO MY QUARTER LIFE CRISIS LIKE THIS

[its-your-mind]

what the fuck. what the fuck what the fu k.

rick riordan I am a whole ass adult now how tf are you taking a wrecking ball to my emotions AT THIS POINT. SHOULDN’T WE BE PAST THIS.

what the fuck Meg took in all of her foster siblings to help them live a life after Nero. she’s showing them a world that can be kind, where people will say what they mean, and where mistakes don’t deserve punishment.

BUT THEN ALSO. Apollo. Went back.

And for Meg and her siblings, everything about their lives has changed and improved. But Apollo just… goes back to Olympus. Where Zeus continues to rule with an iron fist, where no one was even able to stick up for him, where every other Olympian lives in fear of Zeus’s anger. And he’s still there, he’s still in charge, but Apollo knows BETTER now. He knows that things can be different. He knows that he can be different, and he’s making the decision to be better now than he was before.

But now he doesn’t fit. He doesn’t fit with the Olympians, who weren’t a healthy family even before this, and he doesn’t fit with his new friends, either, because he’s a god again. He can go see them and talk with them and help them, but he’ll always have to leave again. He can never stay.

The last few chapters of The Tower of Nero were so beautiful and amazing - getting to see everyone else living their happy endings (as much as any demigod can), but they were always tinged with… loneliness. Apollo is separate from them all again. He can teleport at will, he can change his appearance to anything, he can separate his consciousness… and that’s all great, he wanted all of that back…

But by the end? He kind of wanted to stay human. And there’s no resolution for him. He’s gone through this incredible, difficult, terrifying, life-changing adventure… and he came back, and everything’s the same. Kinda makes me think of Luke, going off on his quest, coming back different, harder, sharper… and finding Camp exactly like how he left it, with everyone expecting him to just slot himself back into the place he had before, when that space doesn’t fit him anymore.

And Apollo has what Luke didn’t - friends who knew him as he was changing, who love this new person he’s become, and even a sister whose affection won’t change no matter what happens. He’s going to be okay, I know that.

But there’s just… something so quietly tragic in the end of Apollo’s story. He doesn’t get his own personal happy ending. His “triumph” is a return to a divine status that he’s not necessarily sure he even wants anymore. He has to forge his own path forward towards his own happiness, and we don’t get to join him on it. We got to be with him through his Trials - his future is up to him, now.

#toa #trials of apollo #toa spoilers #trials of apollo spoilers #apollo pjo #lester papadopoulos #rick riordan #FUCK. #LIKE LISTEN UNCLE RICK #IM IN MY TWENTIES TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE FUCK TO DO WITH MY LIFE #THE FUCKING AUDACITY YOU HAVE TO BUST INTO MY QUARTER LIFE CRISIS LIKE THIS #smfh #this book is for middle schoolers and it’s caused me #a middle school TEACHER #an entire emotional nuclear disaster #ugh.