I have a sinking feeling about Qifrey and where his story is headed.
MASSIVE spoilers and maybe slightly long-winded theorizing below the cut.
I believe quite certainly that Qifrey intends to reveal the complete truth to Olruggio very soon, and that while he seems to be accepting his fate, he is trying to maintain as much control over the terms of his inevitable end as possible.
Following the events of Chapter 88, after he reveals his nature as a Silverwood host to Coco, he asks to postpone his complete confession, wishing to be able to reveal the truth elsewhere, in a peaceful place beneath a wide open sky where his roots would have room to comfortably grow. He has described the land around the atelier in this way many times before.
Later, when the entire group is finally reunited and Olruggio tells Qifrey they’re going home. Qifrey’s expression looks pained for a moment, before he answers, “Alright then. Let's go home. Our atelier awaits."
His verbal recognition of the atelier as his home is a rather glaring signal that he is beginning to accept his imminent end and has chosen the atelier as his ideal final resting place. This is hinted at early on in a sequence during which Beldaruit spoke to Riliphin of the Silverwoods, and implied that he knew of Qifrey’s condition as he privately worried that his beginning to think of the atelier as his home could be dangerous for him.
At a point during their journey home, we return to the group to find the girls all asleep, while Qifrey has distanced himself from the rest, sitting on the bank of a lake to write in his book. Olruggio joins him and points out how far he’s sitting from the fire.
I think this was probably intentional in an effort to be closer to the lake to keep himself anxious, since it is my personal theory that here, Qifrey is actually writing a letter to Olruggio in which he tells him the entire truth, and that the narration through the next arc is comprised of excerpts from that letter. The lake is intended to be a failsafe of sorts, since of course, we know that vocalizing the truth to Olly is Qifrey’s greatest comfort trigger, while water touching his skin is his biggest anxiety trigger. Given this, it makes sense for him to choose this particular spot to begin to release the truth so he has a means of keeping the Silverwood at bay readily available should he need it, which he evidently does later on.
In the segments that follow, Qifrey reminisces on how he and Olruggio crossed paths at the Great Hall and became close.
Through the end of chapter 91, we watch the story unfold neutrally as though it is happening in real time, with no narration, but in chapter 92, something shifts. As soon as Qifrey’s recount reaches the part of the story that would have been lost to Olruggio’s memory, a past-tense narrator voice begins to cut in, and suddenly, it becomes clear this story is being told to someone, not merely recalled, and not just to anyone, but to Olruggio by Qifrey. This is the strongest evidence that what we’re reading is actually the contents of a letter to Olruggio.
All of this indicates to me that Qifrey is not just reminiscing, but is actively preparing for the end. The telling of the story, the physical and emotional distance Qifrey has put between himself and the others, and his now repeated framing of the atelier as both home and the kind of place where he would want to be forever, are all supportive of that.
As far as we know, Qifrey hasn’t been the one to initiate a full confession since they were kids at the Tower of Tomes. Spilling his guts in a letter written under duress is probably a new tactic, and it’s a smart one, as it ensures Qifrey can get the complete truth out on his terms without the usual interruption from the Silvertree.
We also know that Qifrey would rather die than have his transformation hurt the people he loves, so at this point, I wouldn't put it past him to leave the letter at home where the others will find it before going off to trigger his transformation alone, or waiting until the others are gone to trigger it.
This is what has me especially worried for him now, because Olruggio and the girls just left the atelier, leaving Qifrey there by himself. Maybe I'm projecting (probably), but the thought of Qifrey leaving a note and then going off to essentially kill himself makes my stomach hurt. Painfully though, it does feel in character, especially now that he's vocalized his trust in his students, particularly Coco, to carry on his mission. Olruggio, please go home now, your husband is an active danger to himself!!
Fortunately, Hiehart and Jujy pay the atelier a visit, but even upon greeting them, he does already seem on edge and uncharacteristically down.
Hopefully, whatever Hiehart has to say will get Qifrey out of his head and convince him to keep living for a little while longer. I'm guessing he's going to ask Qifrey to take on Jujy as his apprentice. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Anyways. To conclude, here is Qifrey’s directed narration/possible excerpts from a letter to Olruggio compiled:
Every day I turned my gaze away from the encroaching dread, and for as long as I was in the dark, I was happy. I greeted each morning with excitement, for with the rise of the sun came another adventure with you. I thought if I could retrieve the past I lost, my joy would be as genuine as yours, and perhaps I would have a real chance to share in your happiness. A child can dream. Like ordinary boys, we would share our visions of tomorrow with each other and we would laugh at how far away it all seemed.
Little did I know that felicity came with forgetting. It was a bliss born of ignorance. If I knew what I was… If I knew that I was never meant to be saved, I would've stayed far away from you, the sky’s kindest, most radiant star.
I once read an old poem that likened stars to boats sailing through the sky. But as far as I know, boats don’t twinkle like stars. The light doesn’t come from the vessel itself, but its guiding torch. Like your pyreball, it burns at the bow. A beacon of light in the dark.
After that fateful day, you would uncover my secret again and again. Each time you would respond with disbelief. Then your face would twist and turn in anguish. And after biting back a few words, you would show me grace, and comfort me and forgive me for lying to you. And then, without fail, the Silverwood’s roots would grow. You would offer me the same path back every time, and I would take it, adding to my mess of sins.
I had often considered leaving your side. I thought that perhaps traveling alone would save me from taking away your memories. But even that minute solace was enough for the Silverwood. I knew then that distance would do nothing but break my promise to you.
So I had another thought: A master never wants for worry with apprentices to look after. The selfishness behind my reason for taking on pupils made me ill, but they’d never have to know that. So I decided to put every fiber of my being toward becoming a good educator. If only I had known then what a joy it truly is to watch your students grow with each passing day.
It’s somewhat rare for a Silverwood to take root in people. Unlike animals, they tend to hold onto too much anxiety. Which is why the tree planted in Custus that gave him his legs raises some questions. My right eye was the only one to sprout during the experiments. It must have some connection to the Silverwood in Custas. For so long, I thought I was the only host, but now I'm not so sure. There could be more victims out there than I ever imagined.
Did I make the right choice?
Would it have been better to throw everything aside and hunt down the brimmed caps?
Doubts like these turn in my head, but the moment I see my atelier, I remember.
This is where my heart is. This is where I want to be.
Nico with only Maria’s eyes and the rest of Hades’s face.
His family and friends that are able to look into his eyes they say he looks nothing like his father but they can’t even say he looks like his mother cause nobody alive has ever seen her.
For the everyone too intimidated to look at his eyes no matter how much they try they say he’s the spitting image of his father.
Nico with a mixture of both his parents personalities but everyone that knew Maria is long gone so people only recognize his father’s traits in him and non of his mother’s.
Hades being the only one to occasionally reference him being similar to Maria. And it’s always a sad moment for them both.
Nico longing for his old big family that knew her. Nico longing for his mortal grandparents ants uncles and cousins. Nico longing for Maria herself though he barely remembers her at all.
He will only ever get to see a tiny piece of her in the mirror. He wants to see all of her face. He starts to forget what she even looked like eventually aside from her eyes. That’s all he knows. Because they’re his own. He will always wish that he looked more like her.
One thing I don’t see people talk about is—and it’s possible a lot of the current PJO fandom doesn’t recognize this probably because they’re younger—Nico knows how to act to make people socially seriously uncomfortable when they piss him off.
I’ve seen him do this thing in cannon so many times and I didn’t really realize it when I was younger either but like. He does this thing where he gets into people faces like way too close he’s inside they’re space bubble and he never breaks eye contact he stares them down intensely and even though he seems to hate physical touch and closeness and he also hates eye contact and anything intimate like his own actions he ignores his own discomfort to make other people uncomfortable and he also puts more emphasis on his voice and pronunciation of things. He gets physicaly way too close to people and gives them the cubric stare that Jinx from arcane stare when she’s confronting Vi and Cait and Silco at her little tea party. And he pays close attention to his vocabulary when he does this he seems to always use the most vulgar and crude way to word things.
As if someone has used those tactics on him before it’s like he’s copying them taking notes from whoever it was that used to be in his life that treated him like that made him feel like that he’s pretending to be them. Now who could that be that treated him like that in his adolescence? Let’s go over the possibilities.
1. His grandfather. Considering he grew up back in 1920—40 something (Rick has retained his age several times) his grandfather would have been a staple in his life considering he’s a boy and with how misogynistic things were back then “the boy needs a male role model a father figure” and considering none of the mortals could know who Hades is Grandfather would have been his secondary parent next to Maria. Grandfather very possibly would have considered Nico to be a evil little devil spawn bastard that helped ruin his family’s reputation even more along with Maria (sleeping with somebody her family didn’t even know and wasn’t married to and having not one but two bastard children back then this was a really bi NONO. Also considering back then punishments and consequences for children were a lot harsher because they were not thought of as people yet. Very likely that Grandfather a man to be considered a man of his time did not treat Nico (or the rest of his family) very kindly.
2. His teachers at his military school that was raising him to fight in world war 2. Similar to his grandfather they were men of their time and possible a lot of them were world war 1 veterans. They would be hellbent I’m raising the next generation for revenge. Probably just as tough and strict as grandfather maybe even more so.
3. Male teachers at Westover academy which is also a military school even if they have modern day rules to follow such as no child abuse allowed they will most likely consider screaming in children’s faces not abuse.
4. Minos. The evil king that used Nico and tricked him into bringing him back from the dead but failed. The guy could drive people insane. You remember what Chris Rodriguez was like when Clarrise rescued him from the labyrinth? Yeah it was Minos that drove him insane like that probably because he got a little too close to finding Nico or maybe he did find Nico and tried to bring him in to Luke. Minos didn’t want any of titan army finding him because he wanted Nico all to himself to work on his own wicked agenda he couldn’t have the giant army stealing his only way back power and using Nico for themselves.
5. Keli the empousa. Nico only interacts with her in that one scene in battle of the labyrinth—or I should say Keli only interacts with him because poor little 11 year old Nico looks like he’s trying his best to ignore her—just the way that Keli addresses him and ran her finger across his face was disgusting. She talked to him and treated him the same way she talked to Percy and Luke in the beginning of the book as if she’s planning Nico as her next snack. And the fact that she had captured him off screen and was with him for an unspecified amount of time before they came onto the scene where Percy was and we have no idea what Keli said to him or did to him during that time. And the fact that Nico was younger than Percy there. That’s. Disgusting. I hate Keli. Nico was too young for that.
6. Hades himself. Nico’s father. The guy who Nico is said to look so much alike to. The guy who Apollo is constantly comparing Nico to in ToA. I find this one to be the most likely actually mainly because I love it when Nico is mentioned to be similar to his father I love their complicated relationship I love how they go back and forth between being so proud and ashamed of being related to each other.
7. Nyx. I think when Nico met her he would have been in a state of awe and terror at the same time. Awe because she seems right up Nico’s alley for the type of gods that Nico gravitates to and terror because Nyx seemed too obsessed with him and wanted to keep him there in the house of night with her. She most definitely got way too close to his personal space and made him uncomfortable possibly similar to Keli.
That’s all I can think of for now if you think of someone else who treated Nico like this you’re welcome to add on I have to go help my grandmother look at our broken air conditioner now
Just saw an video of fans asking Walker Scobell about Nico’s actor and omg he said that not only the kid is a Percy Jackson super fan, but while they were talking about the books he CORRECTED Walker on facts 😭 and whispered his lines during their chemistry read
If these aren’t the most Nico di Angelo things ever 😭 we are about to be blessed guys
while we’re on the subject of frazel, can we talk about the fandoms huge reluctance to portray frank as genuinely fat. People will only make him ‘big’ in a very muscular, tall with broad shoulders kinda way. Like give the man his tummy back, you can still be super strong without visible muscle definition.
Oh yeah. I've talked before about how the fandom has major issues with body type diversity (and character diversity in general) when it comes to character designs. As Kai so aptly put it: there is an air of twinkery afoot.
A lot of the canonically fat or otherwise plus-sized characters get depicted as skinny or just slightly muscular at best. Mostly due to the fact that most of the fandom only knows how to draw one or maybe two body types at best and is hesitant to learn any others. Frank in particular gets the short end of the stick, where he more often than not gets depicted as an animal rather than people even attempting to try and draw a fat Chinese guy, and if people do actually draw him then he's usually way leaner than he should be.
Honestly, with how strong he's described, Frank SHOULD be fat. Because that's how practical muscle works. Fat protects your muscles. "Buff" Frank should be built like a strongman at least!
I mean, just check out World's Strongest Man athletes (their profiles there also link to their instagrams and such which generally have a ton of photos of them if you need body type references). These dudes aren't skinny! They aren't built like body builders! Most of the "strong" characters in Riordanverse shouldn't have washboard abs or anything of the like. They're going to have at least some fat to protect their muscles.
And like, if we're talking body types - fat and muscle looks different depending on what you do. The distribution is going to be different for characters depending on what they focus on and how they build that muscle (and also just genetics, of course). Which is a really interesting thing to look at and use to design characters! I honestly really enjoy thinking about how different Riordanverse characters fight/train/move their bodies and how that would affect how they look. Which means you can bake a visual indication of their personalities/traits/fighting styles into their designs! That's cool!!!! And I highly recommend more people experiment with that!
we NEED to let nico be a nerdy teenage boy. he literally has the hades cabin entirely to himself, theres hundreds of posters on the wall and strange taxidermy on the shelves. he has a bone collection. he stays up until like 3am on his nintendo switch playing like animal crossing or something. he has a shit sleep schedule. he is chronically online but only to very niche and decades old media/memes. he couldn't tell you the name of any modern celebrity but he does have a collection of cat videos from 2011. he is extremely passionate in his interests and will infodump to anyone who will listen. he cannot go a conversation without bringing them up after becoming himself again. make nico di angelo autistic again 2025
Being a soushin fan and Sou/Shin stan is a constant, annoying push and pull (for me). Like, on one hand I love seeing a doomed relationship. I love seeing how there was love and affection there-- twisted, deeply unhealthy and destructively toxic, but it was still there. I love seeing a massive rift between that keeps that distance between them, but they're so intimately close all the same. I love seeing love and longing and hate and bitterness clash into an ugly, painful, confusing mess of emotions. I love seeing moments before the death game when things were "easier", where Shin was "happier", knowing that he never had any chance of winning in a friendship with a man like that. I love seeing two complicated men too obsessed with each, clinging to a scarf or a picture or an AI when they can't be together, seeking each other out to the point where'd they'd destroy each other and themselves eventually.
And on the other hand I want to see Sou be able to move on. I want to see him heal. I want him to be able have a life outside of Midori's influence. Letting go of that scarf, of taking on that persouna. Of having to be suspicious of everyone around him. Of being afraid of anyone getting too close. Of acting cruel and playing strong so no one can hurt him like that again. Of having that past trauma leak into his new relationships like it did with Kanna. I want him to be happy. To get better-- be better. Be himself. Not Shin, not even Sou. Just... him. Who ever he finds himself to be after the dust has settled on the horrors he's faced.
One part of me wants them to be impossibly close, so entangled in each other that it's sufficating, while the other want them to be as far apart as possible, of it never being able to be the same again, of Sou cutting himself free from that relationship, from him, and live freely until he forgets what it was like to have been haunted at all.
Which is funny because. Literally 95% of my Soushin experience is usually Shin, despite the abuse and manipulation Hiyori puts him through, choosing to stay. Seeing no other option but to stay. Loves him-- or wants to, thinks he wants to-- and submits to it, submits to him, stuck in that vicious cycle which he believes to be his "happy ending" yet again. And like, I love it, I love some super angsty, toxic soushin cuz I'm a soushin degenerate, but MAN it kills the Sou lover in me to see him like that. Sou, Shin, the love of my life-- RUN AWAY, get AWAY from that man, throw him off a balcony. Ditch his ass, you deserve BETTER (I say, also an avid Keisou shipper. I just headcanon he has shitty taste in men that... don't really have his best interest in mind XD poor baby)--
Btw, while I'm at it and this is about Sou anyway. I'm waving my finger and spitting in your face, Yttd fandom. I don't give a flying flip if the emotion route is more positive in tone or you believe that it's "canon" or whatever. I'm keeping Sou alive at all cost to spite the game, him and all of you guys. I will win him that second chance of happiness, prove that 0.0% a lie and carry that walking wet noodle bridal style into the moonlight to put a ring on that finger or I will DIE trying.
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