i hope this doesn't sound like a silly or weird thing to send you, but i'm autistic and have long thought of nico and a handful of other riordanverse characters as autistic and i love your posts about why nico in particular seems intentionally autistic-coded. but i've been thinking, if rick did intend for any of his characters to be autistic, why wouldn't he say so outside of the text at least? i can't think of a good reason why not, when he goes out of his way to be explicit about so many other characters' various marginalized identities and has confirmed things like reyna being asexual outside of the original text. so it gives me this nagging sort of doubt that maybe rick just made nico come off as so extremely autistic coded by accident, somehow. if it wasn't an accident i do kind of wish he'd say so because there's next to zero explicitly stated autistic representation in, like, any media so it'd be nice to have here even if not strictly necessary. either way though, like i said, i love your posts and i agree with you 100% about autistic nico! some others i like to think are autistic are annabeth and leo.

(Most of this is gonna be kind of a tangential ramble to your point and i apologize in advance just bear with me)

This actually touches upon something I've been meaning to do a write-up on recently, which is: depending on the coding, that is our explicit statement. In most coding, actually, that's kind of the point. (Also something something Death of the Author.)

You may have noticed a recent trend across media of characters saying things directly rather than expressing them in a natural way, and often this includes incredibly stilted dialogue of characters explaining things in very politically correct, wikipedia-esque descriptions and terminology that make absolutely no sense for the characters' personalities or mannerisms. This is born out of the idea that if something is not stated in explicit terms, no amount of evidence below an outright direct exact statement will ever count - if two characters of the same gender have an explicit kiss and wedding on-screen, it doesn't matter because they never said the word "gay," etc etc.

In PJO, prior to more recent books, we get plenty of examples of characters explaining parts of their identities without direct statements. Percy never needs to say in outright terms that he has PTSD from Gabe - and it doesn't make sense that he would! He's 12! He's never been diagnosed for that. He probably doesn't even know what PTSD is really. But we, the audience, know without a doubt he has PTSD, because it is clearly expressed to us. That is coding. Tyson is coded as having down syndrome. Nico is coded as being autistic. It doesn't make sense for Nico to turn to the camera and explain that he's autistic and what that means, because he definitely never got diagnosed for it and probably doesn't know what that means cause the diagnosis literally did not exist when he was growing up - and heck, autism terminology was still kind of getting sorted out back in 2007 when TTC was published, so it's unlikely we could have feasibly gotten any exact terminology wink-wink-nudge-nudges short of something like how Percy outright mentions other students called Tyson the r-slur in Sea of Monsters. And in fact we see that same exact style of coding with Nico later on in the series. Nico never turns to the camera and says word-for-word "I am gay, I am mlm, here's me wearing my exact pride flags" (until TOA/TSATS, which... did the exact thing i mentioned about characters speaking like theyre trying to get a good grade in therapy, or giving a powerpoint presentation). But it is never unclear that HoO is telling us outright that Nico is gay. It's not just hinted at. It's there, in your face. But entirely because no one ever outright says "gay" specifically it's technically still only coding. We know he's gay, we know the characters have trauma/ptsd, etc etc. We don't need it spelled out - that's just kind of condescending. It's like if you said describing a character with "eyes like moss" means they were "green-eye coded."

Nico being autistic-coded isn't hidden. It's not a secret. It's very overt. If you know what autism looks like, well, yeah, there he is. Even if you only know very vague 2007 media presentation of autism, Nico in TTC is easily recognizable enough as autistic because that's the point. Tyson is easily recognizable as being coded as having down syndrome and it's very clearly very intentional! It's just never spoon-fed in exact terms to the reader because it's not necessary! You've already been told the information necessary to tell you what is up with this character, so just plainly going "oh they're [x] in exact terms" is very much telling-not-showing and feels redundant. And while there are places for that kind of thing, most of the time it's very unnecessary. Sometimes coding is subtle, sometimes it's obvious, and yeah there are times where writers code characters unintentionally, but the textual evidence is there, and that's the whole point.

And that's what Death of the Author is about - it doesn't matter what the author intended at the end of the day, because if it's in the text it's in the text. You can look at author intent to try and figure out what that text means, but the text is the text. A Separate Peace is a very classic example - author John Knowles denies there being homosexual subtext, and meanwhile one of the protagonists living in 1942 puts on a pink shirt while saying he doesn't mind of people think of him as gay. What the author says after the fact doesn't matter - if it's there, it's there. So Rick saying anything outside of the books is completely irrelevant. And Rick talks about this a lot - he actively tells people that his statements outside of the books are just his own thoughts, but what's in the books is what's in the books, and if the text supports it then that's all the evidence you need.

Nico specifically is a case where yeah, he's clearly autistic-coded. It's very obvious and very obviously intentional when he's younger, and as the books progress it remains a background trait of his but is still notable (except for when it gets forgotten in TOA/TSATS like everything else, including the adhd/dyslexia, but i digress). It's a clear pattern within the first few books that Rick is intentionally including. It doesn't make sense, especially for the year the book was published, for the reader to be directly told in explicit terminology that Nico is autistic, because the reader is already being told that Nico is autistic.

And yeah, Rick doesn't mention Nico being autistic-coded outside of the text, but he also doesn't mention Tyson being coded as having down syndrome. He also said one time that Percy doesn't have PTSD at all, which is very incorrect starting from book 1. Again, Death of the Author. Whatever Rick says outside of the books does not matter, because he already said it in the books. And there's plenty of other stuff in the books that Rick doesn't touch upon, particularly relating to character identity - did you know Leo is Native? Sammy mentions that the Valdez family is Native in Son of Neptune but we don't get any specifics and then it's like never brought up again anywhere. That happens all the time in the series - and outside of the series - Rick can't possibly address every single point to confirm/deny everything from the books. That's what analysis is for! And that's why my blog exists 👍

Meeting of Two Minds survived but it did not come out unscathed . This panel got removed . Just this single panel

Seems like a random choice idk all i know is graham doesnt call ppl nerds canonically anymore die

Deacon loves two things: Ymber and digging himself a grave.

Fulj hates one thing: Deacon.

in like first grade during my first ever spelling bee I got the word 'culture' and fucked it up and I think I was the first person to get out

"weh weh Alastor is canonically aroace you're being disrespectful" I'm ace and probably aro-adjacent get the fuck out of my space and let me foam at the mouth in peace

⟢ highlight of the hour: see you in my 19th life [9/12] ⟣

at last

I’m a serial mispronouncer of words, but it’s kind of gotten to the point where it’s a bit. I’ll still never live down when i though “priest” was pronounced “prius-t”

when your favorite character makes it to the finale

As a fellow Danganronpa fan, I'd like to imagine that if Pre-game Shuichi wasn't, you know, gone forever because he'd given up his life to become an anime character like a dumbass and could somehow witness our Shuichi kick So Much Ass in Trial 6, he would be the one cheering him on the loudest. After all, Shuichi is his perfect little detective guy and the person he once hoped he could become. That's why I can hear the "You tell them!" in his voice in my head so very clearly. And in spite of being responsible for ending Pre-game Shuichi's favorite TV show in the world, at the core of it, Shuichi was ultimately fighting on behalf of his friends for what was right all the way to the end.

And who wouldn't want to get behind that?

im home and already swallowed by despair. can you believe i was in CHICAGO a few hours ago. and now im here. lol

just crying at the end of every gilmore girls ep because wow

Hate that I can prettymuch never move to any better country than America (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc) because they all hate people with autism and if you even have it they don’t let you in. Because they need all the disabled slots for the people born there, why would they take EXTRA ‘useless’ people, duhhh LIKE IM NOT USELESS I’m really good at organizing I’m not a massive burden to take on just because I cry sometimes my benefits and burdens kind of even out PLEASE guys. I don’t want to be stuck here during project 2025 onward

Seeing you interact with Hella1975 or seeing her interact with you is very silly to me because in my head you both are like really popular humble niche internet celebrities for the same reason but also completely separated from each other so the idea of y’all knowing about each others existence is like the most insane crossover ever.

@hella1975 is an internet celebrity

I’m some random person with an iPad.

We are not the same… but i am honored to know her!! She is awesome & one of the nicest people I’ve interacted with so it’s really cool to have any kind of insane crossover with her!

*waves*

HI HELLA

YOU’RE AMAZING & I SWEAR IM GOING TO READ TAMS SOON AND ITS GOING TO CHANGE MY LIFE AHHHHH IM SCARED AND EXCITED!!!!! I’ll yell at you kindly the moment I do

its not stalking its sneering at your terrible opinions and interpretations of art

New suicide squad is fucking horrible yet again (surprise, surprise). No shade specifically on Maines because she could be doing it worse (see anything TT has done w Waller & the squad) but her Waller and everything dc has done with the character the past few years makes me want to bash my head in. Also love how they changed Waller's origin to be exactly opposite to what it was before in a really major way

Absolutely no respect at all. Lovely

panels I'll never move on from, part 1

I can never look up anything about Skylar white on any site other than this one ever people really do just hate women so much ??? Even her wiki page is chock full of misogyny it's so depressing