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Reading The Dark Prophecy: Chapter 29 (SPOILERS)

I got a glimpse of the "You villain!" and "Ssssstand assssside! . . . I will ssssswallow him whole!" on the next page and immediately thought they were talking about Apollo. My bad. It was Lityerses. Coulda been either of them at this point, though.

"'I thought you--' His welding visor fell shut, making the rest of his sentence unintelligible." Lmao

"You have to wonder about your chances in combat when even your dead friends are worried about dying." Oh yeah, I forgot Brieanna's already dead. And even he thinks they should flee? Yeesh, things are not looking up. Eh, they'll be fine.

"But I hear much talk about us and them." Jamie! We're about to die! I think we can spare a little "us and them" talk.

"Hunter Kowalski brandished her screwdriver. 'Not likely.'" Death by screwdriver.

"Commodus won't leave this net alive." I hope he doesn't die in this book. Shouldn't the final battle in the final book have all three Triumvirate members there? I know it's called The Tower of Nero, but everyone should be there, right?

"They have ìgboyà." Yoruba for courage/bravery. "I would have to purchase some ìgboyà as soon as possible." Yeah, Apollo does need a little ìgboyà to strengthen his bones.

"the Hunters of Artemis had to clean the cow pens" Maybe Emmie and Jo are still salty about having to leave the Hunters.

"brothers named Deacon and Stan" I'm sorry, Stan? Ok. "IV drips of nectar." First of all. Do we know their godly parents? Second of all. I didn't know you could inject nectar directly into your blood. Isn't that supposed to be food? I don't see anyone ingesting soup via bloodstream.

"a few dozen mortal mercenaries, about the same number of demigods from the Imperial Household, a few hundred assorted cynocephali and other monsters, plus the usual hordes of blemmyae" *toaster oven dings* How many Hunters do we have?

"Leo, stop." Let him cope, Calypso! Y'all're about to die. Let him let off some steam, both figuratively and maybe literally.

"Also I should mention the giant bronze dragon in the corner" Oh, yeah. So maybe things aren't as bleak as they seem.

"what about your magic? Has it returned?" "This morning, I moved a coffee cup across the counter." clap clap clap

"I would have made popcorn and watched the bloodbath from a distance on Mount Olympus, or simply caught the highlight reel later." I wonder if that was supposed to sound as demented as it did. "But as Lester I felt obliged to defend these people" Is it because he's Lester or because he's seeing this stuff happen firsthand and in the middle of the fray? If it's because he's Lester, then once he regains his powers, will he no longer feel these things?

"not-so-little Georgina" I reiterate: are we sure she's not half Germani? Apollo could've gotten with a Germani person and had a kid. 'Cause Georgina's giant.

"bounce it off his nonexistent head." As a ghost, do you not have all your body parts if you died without them? Like, you'd think that he'd have his head reattached once he became a spirit, but no. Maybe only if they're in the Underworld. But he'd at least, like, carry his head around or keep it in his inventory or something, no? Guess not.

"Was it payback?" I hadn't even considered that. I highly doubt it. Apollo's type of payback is much more obvious than that. *eyes Halcyon Green*

Reading The Dark Prophecy: Chapter 9 (SPOILERS)

"if you value your anatomy" is such an amazing threat.

"(She loves those dramatic entrances. She is such and anime-character wannabe.)" You know what? I bet Britomartis got her love of dramatic entrances from being around Artemis.

"instead he produced a tin of breath mints" I think his belt also responds to his emotions. Whenever he's stressed or scared, especially in potentially dangerous situations, the belt always gives him breath mints like it's panicking just as much as he is.

"You must be minor." You're one to talk, Calypso. Even when you were a god, you were only the goddess of one little island in the middle of nowhere. "And he's not my rescuer . . . Although he is short and scruffy." She needs to show more appreciation to the person who rescued her from eternal imprisonment.

"The goddess gave me that coquettish smile that I hated so much" COQUETTISH (adj.): behaving in such a way as to suggest a playful sexual attraction; flirtatious Britomartis, that is your superior's brother!

"A bear trap snapped shut, ripping through stuffing and fabric like an upholstery sharknado." WTF "'Well, isn't this nice?' 'No,' the three of us chorused." I'm loving this. "Bouncing Betty" LOL that nickname's gonna stick.

"Weak mortal flesh! Even weaker than divine flesh!" Considering every myth, I highly doubt that. Apollo's shown more restraint and common sense as a mortal than he ever did as a god. "Well, I never actually said he was waiting for you in the middle of that minefield. I just let you assume." WTF BRITOMARTIS! And Apollo! Common sense! "I don't sit on their eggs and hatch them." "You convinced me to do that once" I don't think Apollo is going to have to swallow madness to go insane. He already is.

"You'd look wonderful as a northern crested newt."

"Oh, the injustice! . . . I would never again send a poor mortal on a quest. Unless it was really important. And unless I was sure the mortal could handle it. And unless I was pressed for time... or I just really didn't feel like doing it myself." Did I just witness character development and character undevelopment in a single paragraph?

"he plans to rechristen Indianapolis." I was like, What are they naming? A baby? An exotic pet? A building? No, silly! They're renaming the whole city! :D

"Death by explosion was starting to sound like a kinder fate than Briotmartis's quest." He's such a drama king.

"Don't fail me, mortals!" Okay, that was a personal insult.

"a few treble hooks snagged in the carpet." Does she have trouble walking ever? Like, if she's walking over carpet or close to curtains and her dress gets snagged... No, of course not, she's a goddess. She only leaves the hooks behind for effect.

Reading The Dark Prophecy: Chapter 16 (SPOILERS)

"In my four thousand years of life, I had searched for many things . . . and a 1958 Gibson Flying V." Image below. They sell for ~$9,999. Apollo's fine with $15,000 Tater Tots but draws the line at a rare $9,999 guitar.

"If we die here, I'd just like to say you aren't as bad as I originally thought." Aw hey, they're making progress.

"And alas, I was all out of Tater Tots." I love how his Plan B is to try negotiating with the Tots. Actually, those are pretty pricey. Maybe he can pay his own ransom money with that.

"Good cheap labor is terribly difficult to find." [Insert comment about inhumane Chinese factory wages here]

"My friends call me Lit, but my enemies call me Death!" That's not nearly as cool a line as you seem to think it is.

"I changed my mind. First, that roof collapsed on me." Fair counter. If anything were to change your mind about taking someone alive, it would be an attempt on your own life. "Then my bodyguards got swallowed by a stand of bamboo." Say what now? I was wondering why Lit was here but the Germani weren't.

"My pulse boomed like timpani" TIMPANI (n.): kettledrums, especially when played by one musician in an orchestra

"Surely Zeus would intercede." They're probably going to find a way out of this situation before it becomes too close of a call, but if Apollo were to actually die, I think Zeus would actually intercede. At worst, his intentions for Apollo's punishment might be to live and die permanently as a mortal, but dying a month into his punishment might cross the line there. Besides, if Apollo died, he'd have to find a new Sun god.

"the crossed blades of Meg McCaffrey." Knew it would be her. They've been building up the anticipation with the plants.

"Hyacinthus the time he wore that amazing tuxedo on our date night" They... did not have tuxedos back then. Whatever, Apollo has the gift of prophecy. Of course he would use it for little things like this.

"THIS is Meg?" Oh yeah, forgot they've never met. I bet Apollo's been hyping her up and all and with the way he embellishes stories, Calypso at this point probably thinks she's some great hero to rival Hercules.

"Yep . . . You're stupid." Very Meg. "Now she would stay by my side" These very words instantly convinced me that she would not stay by his side.

"Now it was clear that our master-servant relationship could not be so easily broken." Okay, so even Meg can't release Apollo from her authority.

"no child can match the Reaper of Men." Okay, so once he said this to Meg, I started wondering how old Lit was and after some Googling and being careful to avoid spoilers, I found everything I need to know about him except his age. He's also a child of Demeter! Meg's bro! That makes "Reaper of Men" a marvelous pun. He has a sister named Zoe, unrelated to Zoë Nightshade. Also, his Wikipedia page is depressingly short and part of his fandom wiki page is literally a copy-paste of the Wikipedia article. According to Wikipedia, he challenged people to harvesting contests and beheaded the contestants when they lost. Guess he's really good at that. Then Hercules came along and turned the tables on him and that's how he died. Apparently the PJO series is the only ever piece of pop culture poor Lityerses appears in. I still don't know his age.

"leaving Calypso behind to the blemmyae . . . I'd like to say that wasn't a serious thought, but it had been, however briefly." Wait, he was serious about that?!

"run over by a herd of armored ostriches." THE OSTRICHESSSSSSSS! Man, Lit's really taking a beating today. First he gets run over by a roof and then he gets run over by a bunch of big birds. Now I see where he gets all the scars from. Does this happen regularly?

"She howled in rage and the net blasted upward, ripped from its moorings" She does still have magic? Holy shit, she can do more than sing!1!!1! She seems surprised by it afterward, though. Has this never happened even once when she was in the Sea of Monsters? Surely she'd be in equally dangerous situations. Or maybe she's surprised she was able to conjure enough power to rip out the whole net.

"I was quite content to be annoyed, once again, by Meg McCaffrey." I like this ending line. I dunno, I just like it.

Also, this chapter made me realize that the cover art is not, in fact, the two of them flying under a bridge. That's netting and if I looked closer, I would have seen the arena. So sue me, the blue looked like water. I just thought the ostriches could walk on water.

Reading The Dark Prophecy: Chapter 15 (SPOILERS)

"Can't catch me!-- Oh, poop!" I can't tell if this is censoring or if they ran into the carnivorous horses or it's both. Am I too excited to see the carnivorous shit horses again?

"half a mile an hour" NOOO THEIR GETAWAY VEHICLE IS SLOWER THAN WALKING

"they probably assumed they'd have plenty of time to come after us." And they'd be right.

"My bladder sloshed." TMI.

"The choo-choo tilted sideways" I like it when they call it a choo-choo instead of a train. Idk why. It just brings me joy, no questions asked.

"those times the sun chariot had to veer to avoid . . . a Chinese celestial dragon." Lol when mythologies collide

"the packet was miraculously intact in Calypso's arms." Yeah, you'd better keep that safe. You know how much it cost?! No, of course you don't.

"He used to enjoy using them for target practice." :/ Do not use ostriches for target practice. "All these animals will be killed?" Animal activist!Calypso to the rescue!

"Their hides are impervious to all metal weapons--like the Nemean Lion" So what made the Nemean LIon special? Was it because it was a lion? Was the Nemean Lion's skin also impervious to other things like fire and pressure?

"the endangered three-eyed stoat" The definition for STOAT is too long, but it's basically a tiny weasel. The three-eyed thing is made-up.

"with egg." Yes, with egg. I think you're missing an "an" there.

"I really didn't feel like singing about all my failures again" Well, too bad. Your lives and the griffins' lives are all in danger. Beggars can't be choosers. Besides, there exist other ways to move people through music.

"Calypso handed me the packet of Tots." Oh yeah, I forgot about the Tots. I can't believe I forgot about the $15,000 Tater Tots.

"You have a decent voice." Uh, he's not gonna like that. Calypso's definitely getting smited the second Apollo regains godhood.

"when he was Kronos's cupbearer, Zeus used to entertain the court with songs." Now that is a surreal mental image. I love hearing about the lives of the gods that we never hear about from the demigods' perspective. I totally forgot that Zeus spent time in the Titan court before overthrowing them.

"why would she forgive me if I apologized now?" The point of an apology isn't for forgiveness. It is to show your remorse and prove that you've changed regardless of whether the person you're apologizing to accepts it. I want to see Apollo realize this.

"Like a true gentleman, he waited until I removed my hand before swallowing down the snack." PogChamp No one loses an arm!

"bloody and battered but still very much alive, was Lityerses" Did the vines really do that much damage? Never mind, I just checked back and turns out the rest of the canopy, lumber and all, fell on him as well.

Reading The Dark Prophecy: Chapter 7 (SPOILERS)

"BEING PRODUCTIVE. Ugh." Okay, we're immediately on the same page.

"I never found out what sort of bugs were in the bug juice" A shame.

"Soon I would be stuck between Emmie and Calypso discussing kale-growing techniques and Leo and Josephine waxing poetic about carburetors." This is Leo getting revenge for the three books he spent stuck as the seventh wheel. And before we move on, CARBURETOR (n.): a device used by an internal combustion engine to control and mix air and fuel entering the engine

"Speak of the daimon" I like this substitute. "All da cows love Leo." Since cows are ladies, of course they would love Leo. "And these cows are red, man." Uhh, aren't red cows Apollo's thing? Like, these are Apollo's cows, right? This is either very good or very bad. "Red cows were my favorite. For centuries I had a herd" Oh, so not all of them. Just one particular herd. These are not his, then. Apollo getting teary-eyed about red little cows is the best freaking thing, though.

"I will make a constellation out of you. I will call it the Small Exploding Latino." "I like it!" Unfazed. Notable how turning someone into a constellation can be used as both a threat and a great honor. Or maybe the great honor is why Leo is unfazed. Also, here we have confirmation of what I was wondering earlier. Despite being the god of the sun, Apollo can still create constellations. So can other gods, probably.

"the last three millennia of popular music" That's a... lot. Does Calypso have the brain space to learn all that? Does Apollo have the brain space to remember all that to teach her?

"Leo cut the cheese. (You can interpret that any way you want.)" What other ways are there to interpret that? What does "cut the cheese" mean? CUT THE CHEESE (Canada, US, euphemistic, slang): to fart (flatulate) I'm from the US and I've never heard of this.

"bright red all the way through" Mama, where does chocolate milk come from? Why, from brown cows, of course!

"The cheddar wheel turned out to be bright red all the way through and quite tasty." "sweet red cream" I wonder if there are any blue cows out there that the Jacksons might be interested in.

"as if it were a third-place prize from a three-person competition." I'm loving these similes.

"the Triumvirate had sabotaged all forms of communication used by demigods . . . ventriloquist puppets" First of all, how did the Triumvirate sabotage all of this? What kind of arcane magic stops ALL IRIS MESSAGES along with literally everything else? Also, I want to know what demigod is using ventriloquism as a form of long-distance communication.

"Apollo, show them your talking arrow." So he did bring it!

"They dropped their forks and covered their ears." "Never before has any voice dared to utter a limerick in this house, Apollo." I WANT TO KNOW. WHAT GRIEVANCE. RICK RIORDAN. HAS AGAINST LIMERICKS. They're not that bad! They're a lot of fun, actually! Is this, like, some kind of childhood English class trauma? Stuck for hours trying to get the perfect limerick to hand in the next day and still gets a D-? Limericks as the do-now assignment starting off every class or something?

"Apollo will be forced death and madness to swallow." Isn't it Festus that has to swallow death and madness? It does say, The bronze fire-eater / Was forced death and madness to swallow.

"before the emperor moved in" So the Triumvirate took over relatively recently? Indianapolis hasn't been theirs for decades and decades?

"That cave literally drove our daughter mad." Oh no, the poor girl went crazy? Is that why she's still making crayon drawings? Will they be able to restore her sanity by the end of this book?

"might be a portent of what I would soon face." PORTENT (n.): a sign or warning that something, especially something momentous or calamitous, is likely to happen

"We used to have a dozen or so living here at any given time." There are supposed to be more people in the Waystation????? "Our griffins." That's where they get the griffins on the cover! "Heloise and Abelard." They've got namessssss!!!!!!!

"Agamethus helped her." "It was ordained" Brieanna helped Georgina sneak out without her parents' permission to go see a scary, dangerous, underwater cave Oracle? Who was it ordained by? You better not say "the emperor." Don't you turn traitor on us now, Brieanna.

"It can't be Com--" Commodus! He's from the Read Riordan quiz! "Maybe Heloise and Abelard are back?" Ma'am, I know your griffins are big, but they cannot shake the entire building and block out the sun.

"Josephine pulled out an old-fashioned machine gun" I believe this is the first character on the good side we've ever seen use a gun as their weapon of choice (excluding Sally Jackson, who had to use a gun due to extreme extenuating circumstances). "A reminder of my sordid past life." Do the Hunters sometimes use guns??? I doubt it. This is probably from her life before the Hunt, but that means she would've been in her late teens, earliest, when she joined. Tommy guns were invented in 1918 for trench warfare in WWI. Was she old enough to serve even if they allowed women to fight? "sordid past life" does not sound like she just got a gun from a relative who was serving.

Reading The Dark Prophecy: Chapter 10 (SPOILERS)

"Emmie and Jo were so resentful--not just of Britomartis but also of us" Why would they be resentful of them? Or is this just Apollo being an unreliable narrator and being upset that they had to do chores lol?

"she got to plant mung beans all afternoon with Emmie. I ask you, how is that fair?" She's recovering from breaking, like, two limbs. Cut her some slack. Also, mung bean is delicious. "'See you in the morning,' as if this was a huge concession . . . I didn't see how anyone could act so haughty" Is this actually her tone or does Apollo just hate her that much? Also, Apollo of all people has no right to call anyone haughty.

"That's right. We had to share, which I took as another sign of our hosts' displeasure." Okay, this seals the deal. Emmie and Jo aren't actually upset with them at all. It's just Apollo being a little bitch.

"If I get itchy in the middle of the night, I'll just burst into flames." Leo is a fire hazard. We already knew this, but I felt like it needed reiterating. Nobody should be letting him into their home without very careful consideration.

"You watch. Calypso will still save your sorry butt tomorrow." Either Leo has seen Calypso pull some crazy shit in the Sea of Monsters or Apollo has been acting that pathetic. Or both. Can she still do magic, though? I doubt removing your immortality would also remove your magical powers since non-immortals have also proved proficient in magic, but maybe you have to have at least some divine blood to be able to do it and that's why she hasn't tried any magic singing?

"Even my sun chariot got a bit tetchy" TETCHY (adj.): bad-tempered and irritable

"You need time for maintenance. You haven't had a chance to find out who you are as a couple without all the danger and constant movement." I knew it! I knew it must have taken a toll on their relationship. I hope these two get their much-needed maintenance time. Leo especially, because not only has he spent the past year and a half in the middle of either constant danger or preparing for constant danger, but his entire life before that was also moving from place to place in horrible conditions. Please, please, please let him rest.

"counting golden carnivorous sheep in my mind" Are we talking about Polyphemus's sheep (I remember them being regular sheep-colored) or do we have even more breeds of carnivorous sheep to look forward to?

Reading The Dark Prophecy: Chapter 42 (SPOILERS)

"But I only forgive each person once a millennium, so don't mess up for the next thousand years." This might be the first time I've seen a god use the understanding they've obtained over their vastly long lifespans and actually apply it to helping mortals redeem themselves. Good going.

"I saw a flicker of ghostly orange light." BRIEANNA! Ok, good, so he just peaced out for the battle. Understandable. Didn't think a ghost would be much help in a physical fight.

"I will petition Hades to let your soul pass on to Elysium." Is there something blocking him from passing on to any of the Underworld's fields? What keeps him in the overworld? It can't be his brother since the cave collapsed and he's still here. "I WILL GO WHERE I MUST. I WILL FIND TROPHONIUS." So it is because of his brother. Can Apollo petition Hades to let them both pass on to Elysium? Trophonius may not be a great person, but the word of a god would hold much sway in his favor.

"Agamethus dissolved into motes in the sunlight." MOTE (n.): a tiny piece of a substance So, dust.

"The soil rumbled and began to heave upward." The plant network! Grover traveled through this in The Last Olympian!

"I feared a new karpos might burst forth with glowing red eyes and a vocabulary that consisted entirely of Tomatoes!" Valid concern, but we're not here to collect the whole deck of karpoi.

"Enchiladas del Rey." I did not know Lana del Rey had an enchilada food chain.

"And you, my lucky friend, have been summoned to lead us through the Labyrinth." Grover, run. Do not look back. Do not involve yourself with these hooligans. You probably don't need much persuading, but I'm warning anyway.

So, is Grover like the series' token satyr character? 'Cause we never meet any new satyrs. We got Coach Hedge playing a very minor part in the Heroes of Olympus series, but it seems like Rick Riordan wrote Grover into existence and went, "Yep, that's good enough." Please, I wanted a developed faun character. Let's meet someone new, shall we? It would be great if we had a faun helping Apollo on his quest and for the success of that quest to lead to real positive change for New Rome's faun community. Please, I love Grover, but it's like he's the only satyr we ever see.

Reading The Dark Prophecy: Chapter 40 (SPOILERS)

"Shakespeare, don't bring that / Iambic pentameter" Either the Dodona screaming arrow starts spouting poetry or Meg does. Is the ultimate goal of this series to teach kids poetry?

"'A little warning, perhaps?' Jamie called." Yeah, the greatest danger a person falling out of a window poses is to the people below they may crush. How high up is it, anyway?

"We didn't see him." Oh, so he did fall into the void. Wtf?

"He Lityerses-ly flew out the window." Leo, you pull a muscle from that stretch? A for effort, though. I'll cut him some slack for the hostage situation he was just in.

"The two bumped fists as if they hadn't just spent the last few days talking about how much they wanted to kill each other. They would have made fine Olympian gods." Omg that's literally my family! We'd make great Olympian gods!

"[Thalia's] new gray highlights from my solar blast looked quite fetching." Did anyone else get gray highlights? Do Hunters' hair grow out? And again, skin cancer?

"We're going to need a bigger notepad." Why? Is iambic pentameter usually long?

"must the Lester go;" I'm fucking sorry? That caught me so off guard. I didn't expect his name to be so bluntly stated in the prophecy.

"Apollo starts to jive." Does jive mean something different here than I'm used to? I thought it meant to be on the same page as someone. JIVE (v.): 1. perform the jive or a similar dance to popular music 2. (Informal, US) taunt or sneer at 3. (Informal, US) talk nonsense

"But a full Shakespearean sonnet, complete with ABAB rhyme scheme, ending couplet, and iambic pentameter?" Oh, the horror! Not the couplets! These prophecies and chapterly haikus are slowly convincing me this whole series was an excuse for Rick Riordan to stretch his poetry-writing muscles.

"We will parse our doom later" PARSE (v.): analyze (a sentence) into its parts and describe their syntactic roles / examine or analyze minutely

"It kept me from thinking too much about the lines of the Dark Prophecy." Ay, he said the thing!

"I redesigned him so he's like a Lego kit, built for quick assembly!" Thank-freaking-goodness! He knows Festus is gonna get crunched, so he plans ahead!

"dissolving them into light. Could a quasi-deity such as Commodus do something like that to himself?" We haven't seen much of any of the Triumvirate's godly powers yet. This could be one. I'd be surprised if he died so easily. Anyway, important thing is that the triple-threat battle is still possible!

Hey, wait, why aren't Hades, Persephone, or Thanatos on the Triumvirate's case yet? They're escaped souls! I know we've established that souls escape all the time, but this should be pretty high on the ghost-wrangling list!

"Their bodies desiccate when their spirits pass on" DESICCATE (v.): remove the moisture from (something); cause to become completely dry "Heloise's body crumbled to dust." Okay, so it was just holding together for the funeral. Maybe that means she'll regenerate eventually? Let me cling onto that hope.

"Made this for you. You can take it with you when you go away." Noooo I just know they're gonna pull at our heartstrings with this little doll later down the line.

"if you ever want to talk--" "No, I'm good." Mood.

"Yet I could no longer feel annoyed with her for giving up my gift of divinity." Yeahhhhhh he's understanding

"hide his bald pate." Probably means head or scalp. PATE (n.): a person's head

"What of the Dark Prophecy?" Did everyone just unanimously agree to call it the Dark Prophecy? Do they all just hate it because it's too long?