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rynnaaurelius · 3 years

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So There's Solangelo Discourse On My Dash Again. . .

And I apparently have time to fight today, so let's talk about Solangelo and the critiques of the ship (And the critiques of that).

Disclaimer/Warnings: Extensive discussion of ableism, mentions of homophobia, discussion of forced outings.

This is a long post. I've done my best to turn my thoughts on Solangelo, the Riordanverse fandom in relation to it, and criticism of Solangelo into a coherent stream of thought, for both my reference and others', if they want.

I do my best to give credit where credit is due, and if you think I owe credit/should link to someone else, message me/leave me an ask.

NOTE: I am not saying it's immoral to ship Solangelo. I'm a Ship-And-Let-Ship person.

I am saying that this ship's canon/fanon portrayals have a lot of valid criticism surrounding it, and am breaking it down in this post. If someone hates a ship, let them hate it in peace.

I am not a Solangelo Anti. I don't like bashing. Everyone can and should leave each other alone if they've got nothing nice to say. Block who you need to for a nice time on this fair hellsite.

While I'm not about to beat up on a ship/characters themselves—because they're hardly writing themselves—I'm about to take their characterization and Rick Riordan to the cleaners.

If that's not what you want to see, blacklist the tags 'anti solangelo', 'rr crit', 'riordan critical', and get on with your day, please.

Fandom isn't activism, but it can be hella racist, sexist, ableist, and queerphobic. We need to fight that.

Now, on with the show—

I. Context

I'm queer, NB, and have been well-acquainted with Percy Jackson and the Olympians/Heroes of Olympus since I was a small child. I write a lot of PJO fanfiction.

(Yes, I'm writing this instead of an update. Don't look at me like that)

Solangelo is the canon ship of Will Solace/Nico di Angelo from the Riordanverse. As of today (08/09/2021) in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians - All Media Types fandom tag on Archive of Our Own, despite the time gap between Solangelo becoming canon—let alone Will and Nico officially sharing their first scene together—versus other ships being canonized/getting shipping material (Annabeth/Percy, Rachel/Percy, Nico/Percy, Jason/Piper, Jason/Leo, etc), it's the second most popular ship:

(Note the drop-off after Nico di Angelo/Will Solace in fic numbers. That's important)

Frankly, with Trials of Apollo complete, smart money's on Will/Nico overtaking Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson within the next twelve months.

So. Popular ship in a massive, active fandom (That's about to get a massive Disney TV show adaptation).

II. Meet The Shippers

(Disclaimer: A lot of this section is based on anecdotal data/accounts of other people in fandom. No scientific surveys have been done, and thus feel free to take this section with a grain of salt)

Maybe I should be more accurate: A massive, active, young fandom that's only known a very specific age of fannish activity. Obviously, there are outliers, but PJO/HoO/TOA is written specifically as children's lit, and unlike, say, Harry Potter, not only hasn't massively changed tone to grow up with its audience, has been written within the last decade or so, for the most part.

As such, the Riordanverse fandom skews almost unusually young, when you compared it to fandoms of similar magnitude of size (Think BBC Sherlock, Supernatural, ATLA, etc).

They've been lucky enough to only know an arguable golden age of fandom: AO3 has been and up running for over a decade now, the Anne Rices of the world are largely a thing of the past. With access to Twitter, Tumblr, and other socials, it's easier than ever to contact the writers/creators of your favorite media.

For better, but for a lot of the time, also for worse, as I think anyone who's spent any measurable amount of time on this hellsite has seen.

(If you don't know what I'm talking about, look up 'The Johnlock Conspiracy', November 5th/Supernatural—Anything Supernatural, really—or the racist backlash to The Last Jedi/resultant Rise of Skywalker, just to name a few.

Or don't. Really, don't. You're better off not knowing.)

Anyway. This also means Riordanverse shippers are also unusually young. "Awareness of what the world was like before gay marriage was legalized in the USA in 2015" is a much rarer phenomenon than other fandoms.

We don't really have active Fandom Moms, or grizzled vets who remember the heady days of Livejournal, pre-Strikethrough/Boldthrough.

We do have a young, extremely online, and often (Especially in terms of gender/sexuality) diverse fandom; something that Riordan, if anything, has actively courted since at least the publishing of The Lost Hero, where he began to debut a much more racially diverse cast than his previous series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

For many fans, Nico di Angelo was their first queer (Or, to be honest, character at least read as queer) character, and Solangelo was their first queer ship in media—canon or otherwise.

And, not to be mean, but it fits a lot of familiar surface-level stereotypes to people who've seen ship fixations come and go #OnHere.

III. A Quick Aside on the Riordanverse Fandom and Shipping

This doesn't contribute much other than a possible explanation for certain trends, but as for additional context, as someone's who been in and out of the Riordanverse fandom since at least 2015—we, as a fandom, have long had a very weird relationship with non-canon shipping.

I'm old enough to remember when Percy Jackson/Rachel Elizabeth Dare shippers were the bane of everyone's existence, because it wasn't canon. Nico di Angelo/Percy Jackson shippers, pre-House of Hades, got more of a pass, if only because they automatically were working from a non-canon framework and were therefore no "threat" to the Percy/Annabeth ship. But. . .still. Wasn't canon.

Then not only was Nico confirmed as gay, but he was saddled with a convenient boyfriend by Riordan by the end of Heroes of Olympus, with perfect traits to flanderize into a popular ship for a fandom full of preteens and teenagers.

Pretty much a perfect storm.

IV. Why Are People Shipping It?

Okay, so I'm obviously coming at this from a critical standpoint. I don't ship Solangelo, I'm here to break down why the canon portrayal of it sucks, etc.

In the interests of being fair, I trawled the Solangelo tag on Tumblr, read some of the most popular fic recs with it as the main ship, and looked into what made it tick for people, beyond my own pathetic attempts at psycho-analyzing part of a fandom.

Four most popular elements, by my judgment, regardless of how I personally feel about it: (Mind, I kept a rough tally chart on Excel for this bit)

A. It's a canon ship with two gay male protagonists, neither of whom die or are killed off for shock value (Thereby avoiding the Bury Your Gays Trope).

B. Nico di Angelo and Will Solace, as most popularly portrayed in canon and fanon, fall into the beloved "Angry Dark-haired Tortured Goth Who Is Soft For The Extroverted Smiling Sunshine Blond" trope.

C. The "Doctor and Death" imagery that surrounds the both of them in later canon portrayals/fanon, considering their parentage (Son of Apollo v. Son of Hades).

D. . . .they're a canon gay ship featuring one of the Riordanverse's most popular characters falling for a character with enough of a framework to be identifiable out of a lineup and enough left blank for easy projection.

I tried, y'all. I swear.

Anyway, there's Solangelo and the people who ship it. Onto the dreaded criticism.

V. Critiques of Solangelo: Ableism

(Major shout-out to the bloggers I link back to. Warnings in this section for extensive discussion of ableism, mentions of PTSD, and me seeing red for a bit)

Okay, we're going to back up real quick for this one to discuss Nico di Angelo in Heroes of Olympus. Here's a list of the things he canonically has to deal with in HoO/post-HoO:

-Post-Traumatic Distress Disorder (Though I think an argument can be made that Nico is specifically suffering from C-PTSD, and oh boy, do I have a rant in me about Nico di Angelo, the only canonically queer main character, being the one to canonically suffer from PTD and being considered mentally ill)

-Chronic pain and fatigue, post-Tartarus (This one is danced around a bit because Riordan's a coward/translated as magic problems with Nico struggling to use his powers without dying, but it's a safe claim to say this is canon and not just fanon)

Here's the profession of Nico di Angelo's canon boyfriend:

-A medic.

. . .look I'm not saying this ship is impossible in canon, I'm just saying that to pull it off without looking gross, it required significant legwork/characterization that Riordan—and fandom, 'cause don't think y'all are off the hook—simply refused to put in.

This article from the Read Riordan site is an excellent distillation of the problem. It and canon fetishize Will being a very unsettling mixture of doctor/romantic partner for Nico, of the "healing power of love and connection." (Quote taken directly from article to describe the two)

And in case this isn't already clear enough, I will be blunt:

Disabled people are not people for their partners to "heal" or "fix". To build an entire romantic dynamic explicitly on the idea of someone "healing" their partner of their disabilities is to build a dynamic that is disgusting and toxic.

This is all canon. As for fandom. . .

-Portraying Will Solace as a savior figure towards Nico di Angelo, infantilizing the latter—especially in regards to writing/imagining a scenario where Will does something "for Nico's own good", or writing Nico as incapable of looking after himself in any manner without Will—is so common it's depressing.

-Look, I have a lot of problems with characterization in HoO (That we'll get to), but for now: To victim-blame Nico or portray him as silly for "imagining" the isolation Camp Half-Blood imposed on him is gross.

I'm not going to link to any specific examples here because I'm not the people who wrote that and therefore can't explain their rationale behind it and the intent of this post is not to punish "bad writing".

I will say that portraying able-bodied, medical worker Will Solace as consistently "having to save/heal" disabled Nico di Angelo and portraying it as perfectly SoftTM and RomanticTM is ableist as hell and you should re-think that fic prompt before you hit "Post".

VI. Critiques of Solangelo: Characterization

This section is going to be shorter, since we're focusing on Solangelo and not, um, the rest of the characterization in Heroes of Olympus (I'm going to write that essay one day).

Basically, it boils down to the fact that in the eyes of the reader, Will Solace and Nico di Angelo are not equal characters. Nico was a major secondary character in the original series from The Titan's Curse onwards, and becomes a deuteragonist in his own right by the end of Blood of Olympus.

-We know Nico. We've been through a lot with him, regardless of opinions on the characterization course changes (I'm dying on this hill alone but I will die on it, damn it).

-Meanwhile, Will gets a glorified cameo in TLO when the Cabin Seven counselor bites it, gets maybe one or two namedrops from then on, and then shows up in Blood of Olympus to be Nico's fix-it love interest.

-This makes for easy projection, sure, but also. . .come on. You can't do better for Nico?

-See previous section. What little characterization Will Solace gets is that.

-Mind, I think part of this is due to Riordan's desperate urge to pair everyone off, no matter the cost (Who the fuck is Shel?). If I'd been as traumatically outed as Nico had been in House of Hades, finding myself a partner in the aftermath would've been the last thing on my mind.

-Nico is solidly shown to be Not Okay and in need of some serious empathy, support, and downtime by HoH and BoO. To immediately have his head turned by Will Solace instead, when he's fresh off trying to save the world and Octavian's death is just. . .no, man. Romance isn't the end-all be-all here.

-Obviously, one can argue that Trials of Apollo is a different ballgame, but I'd argue that whatever shipping there is should come second to Nico finding the platonic/familiar love and support he needs.

VI. Backlash to Criticism: Homophobia

Saying a ship isn't perfect and has some ableist overtones to it in canon and popular fandom portrayal is not homophobia. Next!

. . .but seriously, y'all, I promise you and Riordan will survive some mild criticism. This isn't a call for you to stop shipping, and it's a call for you to look critically at what you're writing and reading.

Trust me, the white gay ship will survive some angry people on Tumblr. You do not need to justify yourself to me or anyone else.

Also, other queer ships exist in the Riordanverse, if non-canon ones, because Riordan is a coward. I highly recommend going and shipping those, too.

VII. Backlash to Criticism: Characterization

I'm including this section to point out that a lot of claims that Nico and Will, just being themselves on equal ground, actually can have a fun dynamic.

This isn't completely incorrect, if rather subjective, of course. However, I would point out that this is still a pretty surface-level analysis, and absolutely no excuse for not looking deeper at your ship and its dynamics.

This isn't a "Sail the USS Healthy Ship only" post. I would point out that you should be aware of unhealthy/toxic/hateful elements of the ship in question, so that you can scrub, say, ableist elements from the ship you're writing in question.

VIII. Queer Representation in the Riordanverse

Quick rundown of confirmed, canonical queer characters in PJO/HoO/TOA. I haven't read much of Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, so I can't speak for characters like Alex Fierro:

-Nico di Angelo

-Will Solace

-Piper McLean

Worth noting that neither Will nor Piper have made mention or had conversations about bisexuality, and Nico, as the only queer main character in HoO, was forcibly outed, and. . .look.

There is no one "good" queer representation. We're infinite diversity in infinite combinations, with "good" rep for some of us is "bad" rep for others (Excepting a few things, such as clear examples of Bury Your Gays in media, erasure, transphobia, biphobia, transmiogyny, racism and sexism, etc).

But to have your only queer character have his sexuality treated like a dark, horrible secret, and then have him be traumatically outed by Cupid is just. . .not great.

Speaking as someone for whom forcible outing was, at one point, a real threat in my life: That entire sequence left me feeling shitty.

We can do better than "One out of a dozen primary and second characters is gay and fixed up with a tertiary character, and another may/may not be a lesbian, bisexual, or pansexual now, and is dating a character without a surname."

To say nothing of Riordan's treatment of the Hunters of Artemis, or the entire mess with Reyna, where, among other things, he did an excellent job conflating aromanticism and asexuality, or the fact that his treatment of relationships is still very heteronormative in a cast that's still majority straight and cis.

(And, hell, he can't even get those relationships right)

(And "Tragically straight Percy", my ass)

(But this essay isn't about my personal headcanons of Percy Jackson's sexuality. Among other things)

No, any rep is not better than no rep. I understand that Nico might mean a lot to some people, but that rep aged. Quickly.

Rep doesn't have to be perfect or can only be written by queer people, but there should be an honest attempt made to push the boundaries of what's "acceptable", and we should do better than to shower the bare minimum of "one sad white gay cis boy from 2013" with accolades.

You had the social capital, Riordan. Use it.

IX. Disabled Representation in the Riordanverse

I will be honest in this section: I can't speak for it very well, beyond general terms. I have ADHD, sometimes-debilitating anxiety, and PTSD. I can speak for the Riordanverse's rep in terms of that—spoiler alert: most of it sucked—but not in terms of, say, the treatment of Nico's chronic pain and fatigue beyond what I've already talked about.

I can say this: Romantic partners aren't going to be fix your problems, and to portray them as such in media is gross. Riordan should be less afraid to make his characters "unattractively" scarred, considering the world they live in—and how a lot of the cast, particularly Jason, Percy, and Luke, fall into the Good Scars, Evil Scars Trope.

To say nothing of the fact that physically disabled demigods don't really, uh, exist in the canon Riordanverse. Which I find very difficult to believe.

The disabled representation in the Riordanverse is fairly minimal at best (There are demigods with ADHD, but no autistic demigods; one demigod is confirmed to have PTSD, but none of the others; and so on), and outright ableist and offensive at worst (Solangelo as portrayed in canon).

X. Conclusions

Like I said at the beginning, this is not a call to stop shipping Solangelo, or an indictment of the Riordanverse fandom as a whole. This is an explanation of a lot of very valid criticism. I hope.

I'm of the firm belief that just about any ship can work, given enough time, creativity, and effort. I don't think Solangelo is an exception of that, though I can definitely understand where the people who do are coming from.

To make ships work, healthy or otherwise, we need to have a self-awareness of the dynamics and context for the situation. The canon material is flawed. Riordan is a severely flawed author (Sayeth the penniless college student who writes fanfiction, but I don't give a shit).

I love the material anyway. I try my best to analyze it and write stories from it that I'm happy with.

This post is not a call to harass Solangelo shippers or an excuse to yell at me for internalized queerphobia or what-have-you. It's me getting some things off my chest and hopefully giving other people catharsis/some feelings into words.

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casukaga · 3 years

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👋🏻👋🏻 I just wanted to come here and say hi and compliment your top tier CR art and animation especially the Beauyasha ones because the TALENT ma'am. AMAZING. I can't get enough of them 😍😍😍. Whenever I see them here or on Insta they instantly put a smile on my face. Sidenote: my dumbass realized not so long ago that you were the same CASU who I've been following since my Hadestown obsession lmaoooo. Small world.

Lastly I wanna thank ya for reblogging my CR gifs! I was so confused why my old CR gifsets (that get buried because the tumblr tagging system sucks) have been getting tons of love lately and it was from u and ur mutuals 😄🙈.

And with that said have a great day! 👋🏻

AY THANK YOU! 💗💓

ok but literally it never really came to me that there’d be any overlap between my old fandoms,, like tbh when i transitioned from hadestown/pjo to crit role on insta, there was barely any overlap between my audience because— y’know. what are the chances majority of you watch a 500+ hour dnd show. so when i run into people here nowadays who are also into hadestown or tangled the series or something i was into a while back, i’m like “OH HEY. THAT’S PRETTY NEAT. OH, YOU REMEMBER ME FROM HADESTOWN FANDOM? THAT’S WILD DUDE HJSBDKD”

oh and yw!! :’)) 💕💕

#thank u love i appreciate the ask 💓#casu asks #damn i can’t believe people here have watched me grow and migrate to different fandoms hjGDJFN #i still have moots today who’ve been with me since i was 12 and into vocaloid #yEESH #CAN’T BELIEVE THEY’VE SEEN ME AT MY CRINGIEST I AM SO SORRY #hjdndk #wild!!

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bunkernine · 4 years

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before you try to tackle rr and pjo fandom crit, PLEASE understand the issues you are talking about. capitalizing on rr crit is disgusting and you shouldn't post for show with the barest knowledge of the problem. there's a reason why "performative activism" is being used for fans. because some of you are being performative.

#😐#im irritated by that now #anti pjo fandom

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percabeth4life · 3 years

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Even though the books are inaccurate mythologically and have a ton of other problems, is it still okay to like them? I just feel guilty now for enjoying the books but I’m not really sure what to do because I still really enjoy them (Sorry if im a bit rambly) (im a random anon I just needed to write this somewhere idk)

It's absolutely okay to like them! I only make this blog because I love these books.

They may have flaws, ranging from mythological accuracy (low on priority for most) to racial issues (much higher on priority) but they're still enjoyable to read.

When I love something I critique it, because I'm actually enough into it to see all these flaws. Most of us critiquing it are like that I think.

When I critique the books I'm trying to point out the issues, not to tell people they're bad but to inform them of the fact they exist so they're aware, and maybe open conversation about how they could be adapted too. A lot of people *don't* know his books are innacurate, especially mythologically.

Which seems a bit obvious if you think about it, but most people aren't thinking about it because they just enjoy the read.

And a lot of the other issues I see pointed out are less to say you can't enjoy it, and more to let people be aware. Because people not from those groups (race/gender/sexuality/etc.) Might just not have the experience and life view to know those are issues otherwise.

It's okay to read stories just for enjoyment, even not realizing the issues. There are plenty of books and movies that I just... Don't care enough about to note any issues in them. And it's also okay to know the thing has issues, and still enjoy it.

You will not find any media that doesn't have some sort of problem with a group of people. It might even be great rep and properly researched, but people are not a monolith and they'll still find an issue with it. What's great rep for one may be bad rep for another.

In any case:

Percy Jackson is a series with lots of problems.

Percy Jackson is a series that I love and enjoy reading.

Those statements and can do coexist.

I mean, these books are my special interest I'm not going anywhere lol.

#dont read/watch its actively offensive #anon asks #life answers #pjo #percy jackson #rr crit #sorta #you dont need to feel guilty for enjoying the book #i still love them despite my simultaneous frustration and urge to fight Rick #these books shaped me #and I love them dearly #so I hope you find peace qith loving them too #criticizing something and knowing its flaws doesnt mean it cant be enjoyed #it just means you enjoy it enough to want it to improve and be even better #you want those issues fixed because you love it so much #it's not like the shows/books that I go #rick fucked up on some things writing it #importantly race stuff and imo sexuality and gender #but hes not malicious #he did genuinely want to give rep #just didnt put in the work #and its okay #enjoying the books is what we're all here for #the more i salt on something the more I like it

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parcai · 3 years

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kit u can be a little smart at times s

o do u have any thoughts to share about nico

hmm i think i’ve shared some thoughts through the months, like i have a solangelo crit post from june and idek if i agree w everything in there anymore (and i don’t remember what it says), but let’s see 🤔 (editor’s noteslkgjlskjgsd: sorry this is so long and disjointed. i got carried away and i had too many thoughts to express in one ask)

percy and nico:

something i’ve always found v interesting about nico is his crush on/overall relationship with percy. and ik you know this, but for all the dumb dumbs out there, i would like to clarify that i do not ship pernico bc i do not condone that age gap at that young of an age.

so anyway lol, something that i think is a cool parallel that people don’t talk about enough is when nico brought percy to the underworld in tlo vs in moa when annabeth and percy are hanging at the cliff about to fall into tartarus. it’s so cool how nico tricked percy (mistakenly ofc bc his father tricked him first) into coming into the underworld and this gets him locked up and eventually percy ends up at the river styx and he’s losing the battle, right? like he’s drowning and the pain is too great and it’s his memory of annabeth that keeps him grounded. and it is so, so cool to me that in moa percabeth are the ones metaphorically drowning, and this time, instead of nico witnessing the horror before him and being too young to help or do anything, this time he’s the one pulling percy out (or trying to). it’s really the growth in percy making him of all people promise to meet them on the other side of tartarus, it’s nico being the one to originally bring him to the river styx where he could’ve died and then being the one, four books later, to help him out. v cool.

another thing that i think is really cool about him and percy is really how nico’s personality, though obvi built around the tragedy of his mother and sister, really does rely on percy. for example, percy is was the child of the prophecy in tlo, and at one point percy even says himself that if he died in the styx, nico would become the child of the prophecy. and that’s something that’s v cool to me bc i think it contributed to his private personality (which i will also mention again later bc there’s smth else i like about that too). it’s very interesting how, despite percy’s grudge against him in pjo (him making commentary about annabeth when everyone thought she was dead after falling off the cliff w the manticore lol, him tricking percy into coming to the underworld even if he had good intentions, him just overall getting in percy’s way), percy saves him time and time again, even if he doesn’t quite realize it. percy saves nico initially by rescuing him and his sister from that school. percy saves nico from being the child of the prophecy (in which case i really think nico would’ve broken down bc he had way too many burdens on his shoulders at that point in his life). percy saves nico from stopping him from joining his sister and zoe on the quest in ttc. (we can’t be sure he’d die, but it’s very likely he would’ve). percy shows him the ropes around camp, he helps him cope when his sister joins the hunters.

it’s so interesting to me that percy helped raise this kid, basically, and in the end that only strengthens nico’s adoration and idolization of percy jackson, which eventually turns into deep resentment and hatred, and in hoo, it’s nico saving his ass for a lot of the books. sure, there are instances like percy helping him out of the jar (and throwing wonderbread LMAO i love how that part of their relationship becomes more endearing with time), but nico keeps his mouth shut when percy comes to the romans. nico searches for him in tlh, nico not telling him about his past in son is him looking out for him (and all demigods as a whole), etc. (there’s more examples and ik it but i don’t remember and don’t feel like searching lol).

anyway that’s just the tip of the iceberg, but they have a cool dynamic and i always have Thoughts about them.

jason and nico:

i just think they’re neat lmao, they have a cool brotherly relationship imo (whereas him and percy are true cousins in how they act, though i’m not sure if i can explain why i feel this way when i compare jason and percy with nico), and i also always have Thoughts about them. (also for the sake of tl;dr and the fact that i spoke about him and percy for like five hundred hours, i’ll just leave it at that).

hazel, bianca, and nico:

hmm i’ll keep this short too for the same reason as jason and nico, but something that i don’t think gets talked about enough is the fact that nico brought hazel back from the fields of asphodel for personal gain of some kind. (gaea says it was “selfish reasons” somewhere, but it’s never explained what the reasons were). i don’t think it’s just that he wanted a sister or whatever, so i think this should be talked about more. interesting detail.

something else that’s really cool is when bianca appears to him as a ghost in pjo, she tells him to be wary of his fatal flaw of having a grudge, and to this day, i think he’s the best demigod to actually heed fatal flaw advice. he holds almost NO grudges in hoo and it’s like he’s done a personality flip. (jason prob comes in second for having a reign on his fatal flaw, but even that took him a while). the only time his fatal flaw is kinda showing again later is with annabeth but he lets that go in boo and he doesn’t even make a big deal about it (bc annabeth was dating percy). he is SO mentally strong and tartarus and everything, just ugh. it really is the self control for me.

fanon nico:

fanon nico is hideous and i hate it. but i hate basically all fanon so what’s new in that 😎 so anyway, key things people get wrong about him that Bothers me:

as funny as it is, he really doesn’t eat mcdonalds all the time nor is he obsessed with it lol. mcdonalds was only mentioned once in pjo (idk which book) and he was feeding it to ghosts to resurrect his sister...which is...another thing in itself lol.

everyone acts like he gets angry at everything (/embarrassed also), but that’s simply not true?? nico’s one of the most calm dudes in the entire series and except for when he was a kid (which, duh, he’s a kid and kids act like that), he’s pretty stoic tbh. he rolls his eyes sometimes and that’s it lmao. like the whole nico getting angry at percy and jason and whoever else people are shipping him with atm thing is so dumb. nico’s anger is almost never unfounded (esp in hoo, when he’s all grown up), he barely yells, etc. v unfortunate that y’all would make him like this, considering his lax-ness (?) is one of my favorite things about him. (this prob stems from the uwu gay fetishization but we won’t get into that for legal reasons 💀)

i hate how everyone vilifies him for the keeping the camps secret thing. hades instructed to do this in order to prevent a full on war. like tbh hades (who was characterized horribly in pjo i might add, but that’s another rant entirely), and nico, they’re very smart, which is smth people don’t appreciate enough. part of hades’ Things is justice and balance. they are the ultimate equalizers, and i’d argue that they’re more valuable intelligence-wise than athena and their children, even without my prejudice about athena, in many cases. they are masterminds, they see the chess moves ahead of time to the point where’s it’s almost prophetic. and the REASON they’re better at it is bc they’re not blinded by pride, like athena/her offspring. their grasp on death and mortality and the idea that everything MUST end at one point makes them the MOST reasonable/grounded/mature/sane people in the entire riordanverse and greek mythology as a whole. they are so rarely tempted or swayed by mortal desires/emotions. it’s VERY cool. so just vilifying him in general, for the camp thing or otherwise, for being smart after glorifying athena for that...mm that doesn’t sit well with me.

everyone acts like he’s a cussing mess when actually he’s probably the most polite kids in the series (like jason, which might be part of the reason they get along so well, besides the cupid thing ofc). perhaps it’s because he was brought up in another time and is old fashioned, but once he’s all grown up and we’re talking about hoo and he understands social cues and manners, he’s one of the most mature, not necessarily because he wanted to be, but because he grew up too fast. (also he’s literally the one to apologize first in most cases, especially when he’s wrong, but even otherwise.) he even treats the olympians and other godly bitch asses with respect. that takes mad patience.

anyway fanon sucks, and there’s more to this, but i’ll leave it at this, even if there’s a LOT more to unpack about fanon nico.

nico’s power/abilities/miscellaneous thoughts:

he’s super powerful and it annoys me that no one talks about that and treats him as an uwu baby or whatever. he can control the earth (geokinesis), and necromancy (summoning dead souls, power over the undead, releasing souls, telepathy with the dead, sensing life auras, ghost transformation (bryce lawrence) and control, seeing the power of the doors of death), osteokinesis, umbrakinesis, thermokinesis, hypnokinesis, phobikinesis, etc. i really recommend looking at his demigod abilities on the wikia. (and everything else on the wikia about him too. his page is so interesting). there is so much people forget about him since it’s not constantly boasted about (since he’s not the main character like percy). truly, and i say this with my whole chest (capitalized and all): I really do think he could beat Percy in battle at some points.

this is v unlike hazel who just does the gem/riches thing and the earth (and mist but that's not a pluto power). he would be a great candidate for the child of the prophecy, maybe even more so than thalia (who was especially ruled by her emotions at that age (electrocuting percy) even if she’s grown from that now (telling apollo she won’t pummel him over jason grace’s death DJSLKG). she would’ve failed and died and succumbed to her emotions. nico could’ve had a fighting chance if not for all the trauma at that age (as i mentioned earlier in the percy section).

also he has incredible mental fortitude, the BEST mental strength imo, even more than annabeth, who, as i mentioned in my post about fanon percabeth, falls victim to her own emotions quite frequently. tartarus is a good example, all his aforementioned grief, his self control with both his fatal flaw and just keeping secrets and to himself in general. should be appreciated more.

also, ik i mentioned it earlier, but i like how he has a private personality. a lot of people interpret his privacy as a flaw, but i think it’s v cool actually, and might be something rick did right (even if he ends up vilifying it later, dickald riordan 🤪). so many times once a character comes out of the closet in books and media in general, their personality does a 360. like damn suddenly they’re flamboyant and extroverted, and just ??? that’s so stereotypical and even offensive, and i Hate That. the fact that he preserves that even after being openly gay and joining a relationship with will, it’s very nice to see. i wish more media did that for gay characters, truly. ik a lot of it comes from his trauma and trust issues, but it’s slowly morphed into just a part of his personality that doesn’t necessarily have to be sad, and he doesn’t treat it as something sad anymore, and i think that should be appreciated.

conclusion:

anyway sorry i’m annoying by talking a lot about this DSJDKJSD. (thinking of that one time on discord where you were like ‘i find you so funny kit, cause you don't talk, but you also talk so much, and if given the time and space, you'll ramble, how sweet.’ 😐 time to DIE IG 😭. also i didn’t read this over, so there’s prob spelling errors and there’s no tl;dr and 🙃

i bet you were expecting just one simple thing or smth idk. but nico’s one of my favorite characters despite fanon and fandom and half my mutuals thinking he’s lame (bc of fandom probably), and this is barely the tip OF the tip of the iceberg, fr. i could talk about him, hades, persephone (who i didn’t even get to, among many others!!), him and thalia, him and percy, jason, reyna, will, hazel, bianca, maria, god i could talk about the underworld/tartarus in itself forever. absolutely my favorite part of anything rick’s ever written. always really appealed to me as a kid, and even now. 🤷‍♀️ i could explain it, but i don’t want to lmao.

and, even if we joke about it, i think we’ve v much established that i’m a cabin 13 kid 😎 <3

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ocdjason · 4 years

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Okay since my crits on rr's ableism (on another blog) have been getting notes I want to make this one (which if you liked/rbd those, I ask you to please read through):

when I had a special interest in pjo/hoo, my whole kind of brand I Guess was that my favourite character was octavian. and while I don't even really think about pjo anymore I suppose he still is. the reason why is because I saw myself in him, more specifically: I, a mentally ill person, saw my symptoms in him. canonically.

im not going to say what I did when I was 14-15 and try to convince nyall to like him, what I will say is that regardless of anyone's thoughts he leans into ableist stereotypes that make him a harmful villain. hes canonically said to have delusions- in fact, delusions of grandeur are stated specifically (which you could throw away as "oh rick didn't mean it ~actually~ but hey? using mental illnesses or their symptoms as just throwaway ways to make a character seem worse is... still ableist)

theres more eplicitly said stuff that I can't remember off the top of my head that certainly hit wrong when I was big into pjo and some other more minor stuff that made me feel how I did (like him being described as looking sicky and sleep-deprived) so I'll end with this:

as a kid with schizophrenia, seeing a character with my symptoms not only as a villain, but with those symptoms being used to try and show why he's a villain was harmful. it was like being looked in the face and being told "you are bad and dangerous because you are like this", and in a children's book series too

listen. I dont want people to like octavian, I want nonpsys to address that the way hes written is one of the shitty ableist things in his books because its the ableism crit other people tend to ignore. there are more examples of ablesim against psychotics (malcolm getting visions and saying he knew something was wrong bc he was too smart and logical to get hallucinations or wtvr, apollo not wanting ppl to know about the talking arrow bc "oh no ppl will think im ~crazy~", I could get into psycho/psychopath being slurs, there'd be a lot more if I reread I bet) but I want to keep this post to one main topic and well its already longer than i meant

#pjo #hoo #rr crit #rick riordan critical #ableism #octavian #idk how well worded this is but like. address anti-psychotic ableism or dont address ableism at all

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callonpeevesie · 4 years

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Things that bother me about Percabeth

Warning: this is going to be long and I'm not even sure if this will make sense. Also don't read this if you aren't open to criticizms of Percabeth.

Percabeth is a good ship, or at least has potential as one, but it has many legit flaws (this and this go into the flaws. By the way, go check out @takaraphoenix's Riordan crit) and I have some personal grievances. I'll write this out to understand my stance better because I need to get this off my chest.

I believe most people wouldn't agree with me on all this, but this post is entirely self-indulgent and I'm doing this for catharsis, so don't come at me. This isn't an objective analysis, just me trying to clear my thoughts. But feel free to share your opinions if you want.

Evolution in PJO

This is a pretty general point. I love the evolution of their dynamic in pjo. Their bickering, them opening up to each other and becoming so important to each other, the slow and steady buildup, it's great. Heck, I love slow burn. They have some good moments in pjo: Annabeth opening up to Percy on the zoo express, the scene with the sirens, Percy doing everything he did to save Annabeth in ttc, their conversation after Annabeth took the knife for Percy in tlo. (The underwater kiss is not one of my favourite moments, I'll come to that later.)

The romantic evolution, though, I'm not sure. I enjoyed it in ttc, there were small subtle hints like Aphrodite's scarf, or Aphrodite looking like Annabeth to Percy. But it became kind of tiring in botl onwards. Annabeth was extremely possessive and awful to Rachel. And in tlo things became a bit over-the-top.

I think Rick tried to establish them as the Most Important Person to each other. I don't like that. This is more apparent in HoO. I'll come to hoo later, but there is one instance of this in tlo: Percy seeing Annabeth in the Styx. Like one of the posts I've linked above says, it's shippy nonsense. It comes from the idea that one's romantic partner must be the most important. It doesn't make sense. I think Percy should have seen his mother in the Styx. It would make sense for Sally to be Percy's anchor, considering how much she means to him.

In short, their enemies-to-friends evolution was great, their friends-to-lovers evolution started out fine but became too much for me, and their friends-to-Most-Important-Person-to-each-other evolution was unnecessary and forced.

Luke

Luke and Annabeth's romantic subplot didn't need to exist. This isn't exactly Percabeth, but I'll say it here anyway. First of all, there's a seven year age gap, so Luke returning Annabeth's feelings is creepy. And it seems pretty unnecessary to me. It's also a bit of a mess. In tlt Annabeth blushes when Luke is around, and Luke says 'She's like my little sister.' In tlo Luke asks Annabeth if she loved him, and she says 'You were like a brother to me.' This part feels like Rick trying to add last-moment tension to Percabeth by making Luke a potential 'rival' to Percy. In the Staff of Hermes Percy says Annabeth had a crush on Luke, and as she got older, Luke had a crush on her too. Just ... Why?

They and Thalia were each other's first friends. Annabeth looked up to Luke and Luke was fond of Annabeth. That is enough reason for Annabeth to be hurt and for Luke to care about Annabeth. That is enough to set up their post-betrayal dynamic. The romance thing was completely unnecessary.

Rachel

I absolutely hate the way Annabeth treated Rachel. If there is one thing I despise about romantic subplots, it's justifying bitchiness with romantic jealousy. I guess it's okay to feel a little jealous or even possessive, and I can kind of see where Annabeth was coming from, but treating someone like shit because of that, especially in the middle of dangerous quests, is not okay. It's petty and immature. (It could be argued that Annabeth was mad because Rachel got to lead her quest, but let's be honest, she wouldn't have been that mad if it were anyone else. She specifically treated Rachel like that out of jealousy.) It was never called out and Annabeth never seemed to regret it. This bothers me so much. Fanfiction is a good coping mechanism, I suppose, but I'm here to complain about canon, not cope with it.

Speaking of Rachel, Perachel could have been a good ship. A demigod looking for a normal life and a mortal with clear sight. This elaborates on that pretty well. At the end of tlo it really felt like Rick had to get Rachel out of the way to make way for Percabeth.

Annabeth seems to be too demanding

Annabeth's attitude towards Percy bothers me sometimes. She's a good character and has a strong dynamic with Percy, but she's a bit tiring with regards to Percy (in a romantic sense; she's fine as his friend). I mean look at this quote from tlo:

I can't pretend I hadn't thought about Rachel. She was so much easier to be around than ... Well, than some other girls I knew. I didn't have to work hard, or watch what I said, or wrack my brain trying to figure out what she was thinking.

Percy feeling that way about Annabeth - his best friend of four years - just doesn't sit well with me. Percy straight up admits he's more comfortable with Rachel than with Annabeth.

There's more: Annabeth punching Percy when he asked who he should dance with in ttc, the way she treated Rachel, the way she behaved towards Percy regarding Rachel in botl, judo flipping him in moa. It's pretty tiring in general. Now that I think of it, this wasn't a thing before the romance showed up. Their dynamic was better in the earlier books in general.

Also personally I'm not a fan of Annabeth constantly calling Percy Seaweed Brain. This and this nicely sum up how I feel about that. Annabeth making fun of Percy's intelligence even after getting to know him makes no sense, especially as he was insecure about his intelligence. (And yes, I know she thought he was intelligent, as she said in the Demigod Files, but that doesn't cancel out the million times she called him stupid to his face.)

They became too couple coded

I've seen people say that Percabeth is better as friends than as lovers, and honestly I agree, and I've done some thinking to figure out why. I think it's because of the way they were written after they became a couple. They could have been fine as a couple, if they were written differently.

They started out not being able to stand each other, then gradually, they went through a lot together, got to know each other, learned to work together, and became a team. That was a great evolution, like I said before.

And like I also said before, everything I dislike about Percabeth showed up with the romance. Annabeth became catty and possessive. They became a couple. And it was as if the friendship wasn't there anymore, just the romance. They became like a cliche unreasonable girlfriend and clueless boyfriend. This is especially obvious in the beginning of Percy Jackson and the Staff of Hermes. Where's the friendship? Where's the comfortable bantering? Where's the known-each-other-for-years soundness? Hoo Percabeth just doesn't live up to pjo Percabeth at all.

(Also this is a personal bias of mine, but I'm partially romance repulsed. I can't stand cheesy romantic coded stuff. I only like lovers if they're also friends. So I guess I'm kind of pissed about Percabeth becoming so couple coded after becoming a couple.)

Their HoO dynamic

This is a related point. Like I said, hoo Percabeth doesn't live up to pjo Percabeth. All they care about is each other. They literally don't think about anyone else at all. Percy loses his memory and he remembers Annabeth. Why? Does Hera ship Percabeth? If he remembered anyone, it should have been his mom, like in the Styx. The only reason Percy remembered Annabeth, i.e Annabeth was made out to be more important to Percy than everyone else (including Grover and Tyson and Sally 'best person in the world' Jackson) is that she was his romantic partner. Again, it's shippy nonsense.

And there's this reveal that Annabeth had a crush on Percy all along. Are you kidding me? It completely retcons the enemies-to-friends development. Are you telling me that the Percabeth evolution in pjo where they learned not to hate each other was a lie? That Annabeth gradually opening up to Percy and coming to appreciate him was her acting out of a crush? I'm not believing that, no way.

I'm probably not making any sense, but my point is that Percabeth in hoo in cheesy and can't go one day without each other and people love it but I don't. It kind of messes up their previous dynamic, which is a shame because I liked pre-hoo Percabeth.

Rick seems to go overboard sometimes

I'm about to get a little controversial here. Many of the Percabeth posts in those tumblr screenshots going around social media are about the campers shipping Percabeth, or Arachne making Percabeth fanart, things like that. My theory is that part of the reason Percabeth is so popular is that the characters ship it. And Rick kind of goes overboard with that - not just with the in-universe shipping, with the ship itself.

Prime examples of going overboard are Percy seeing Annabeth in the Styx and remembering Annabeth when Hera took his memory, which imply that Annabeth was objectively the Most Important Person to Percy. I've already ranted about these above so moving on to the part about the in-universe shipping. Like I said, I'm not a fan of the underwater kiss. It's because of the situation involved. The campers just won a war and lost their friends and siblings, Clarisse just lost Silena, you'd think they'd have other things to care about than Percy and Annabeth kissing, at least for one day. And why did Arachne make fanart of that? How did she even know? There was also the matter of moving to New Rome - them wanting to move halfway across country to live together, away from New York, doesn't really make sense to me. This post elaborates on that and suggests better alternatives.

Of course, the author has complete control over the narrative, and the author wants you to believe they are making sense. And when the characters believe that too, it becomes harder for readers not to. When all the campers ship Percabeth, it's enough to convince half the readers to ship it too. (And of course, the pjo fandom has an unhealthy thing with canon ships.)

It's pretty much kept up by the fans

While we're at it, let's talk about the out-of-universe shipping. The fandom has always shipped Percabeth, partly just because they are the male lead and female lead of a series. Percabeth was set up to happen, so when Rick introduced Rachel, who actually made Percy feel good about himself and let him be himself around her, and whom Percy was interested in, he had to get her out of the way. I'm not sure I can explain it, but the Percabeth ending in the first series feels very fan service-y to me.

Platonic Percabeth vs romantic Percabeth

I think everything I've said above just explains why Percabeth worked better as friends. The had a great friendship arc and became two friends who know each other inside out, butt heads a lot but love and respect each other deeply. And then when the romance happened, Annabeth began to show these romanticized but actually toxic girlfriend stereotypes - being jealous and possessive, expecting Percy to read her mind and getting pissed when he can't, etc.

The fandom thinks those traits are okay, because they are normalised in society. People think that's how couples should work (it's not). And so the reasons I don't like Percabeth are the same reasons many people do. The date in the beginning of Staff of Hermes makes me cringe, because they were friends first and friends don't work like that. But no doubt there are many people who find it cute because society loves to romanticise the unreasonable girlfriend and clueless boyfriend trope. There are plenty of people who romanticise Annabeth judo flipping Percy or treating Rachel like shit, because things like that are normalised but I personally can't stomach them at all.

Anyway, those toxic traits come with the Percabeth romance as a package deal and there's no getting rid of them. That's why Percy and Annabeth worked better as friends, and why I feel things would be better if they just stayed friends. There was none of that tiring crap pre-romance. I can't stress this enough, I really loved their friendship in tlt or som. But when their dynamic evolved to romance, it messed up their friendship. There was a specific moment in botl when Percabeth began to feel off for me.

'She will calm down,' Chiron promised. 'She's jealous, my boy.'

'That's stupid. She's not... it's not like...'

Chiron chuckled. 'It hardly matters. Annabeth is very territorial about her friends, in case you haven't noticed. ...'

I don't know why this moment specifically, but this kind of marked a change for me. This is where Percabeth became seriously romantic, and I didn't like the related developments. This was the beginning of Annabeth's jealousy.

So what would I prefer?

I'll be honest, I shipped Percabeth for a while, probably because I love some friends-to-lovers. So I was going to make a list of things I'd change about Percabeth. I wanted to make some self-indulgent UAs (universe alterations) to fix the things I don't like. But then I started writing this thing and read up on other posts and stuff and I realised the list of things that bother me is huge and I could never make Percabeth work for me without messing everything up. So I just gave up shipping it entirely.

What I would prefer is an AU where Percabeth stays platonic forever (@elf-loving-dragon has been encouraging that idea as well). They were great as friends and I want that back. It would be so refreshing to have the male lead and female lead not end up together. Annabeth could end up alone, and still get her something permanent with her friends and camp. It would be so beautiful if something completely romance-free was specifically stated as permanent, because friendships in media deserve as much love as romance.

As for Percy, he could end up either alone or with Rachel. I don't ship him with anyone else rn. While I have made it obvious that I like Perachel, I still don't know if I actually ship it, and the idea of Percy ending up alone is not too bad either. (Update: I stan platonic Percabeth and qpp Perachel now.)

I promise I'm done now. Whew. If you've made it to the end of this long repetitive introspection, congratulations. If you agree, feel free to tell me, and if you want to argue, go ahead, I wouldn't mind listening to others' opinions. If you read this and hate me because of this just keep that to yourself. I have no patience for people who attack those who don't agree with their ship. K thanks, bye.

#pjo #heroes of olympus #hoo #tagging as #anti percabeth #so shippers can avoid this #percy jackson #platonic Percabeth ftw #rr critical #perachel #sally jackson #rachel elizabeth dare #peevesie writes #original content #annabeth bashing

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imafairycowboynotahorsegirl · 4 years

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I joined tumblr about a week ago, after honestly dreaming about it for years (I’ve been getting all of my fandom content off of Pinterest as per my bio and instagram for years, and always wanted to “be a part of it”) Since I’m rereading Percy Jackson right now that was the first tag I followed and the first thing I posted about. About a day into my mostly pjo filled tumblr experience I came across a very informative post by @finding-my-culture about how the portrayal of piper is racist. This was my first time ever hearing any sort of criticism of pjo and Rick Riordan because all of the content I’ve been getting for years is “we Stan uncle rick for writing the most diverse books ever!!!” And you know what, I didn’t know shit about representation when I was reading these books when I was 12, and I’m honestly not that much better now. I’m not very critical of anything I watch or read(mostly just applying to shows my brother says are “objectively terrible” when you know what, I still enjoy seasons after 2 of dc shows), I like everything, I take things at face level, I don’t analyze things. And that’s complacency. That’s me being a white person saying that “a native girl? A Muslim girl? Wow, awesome diversity, rick’s doing great!!” Since that first post I’ve been deep into the rr crit, probably read most everything on it. And I’m a little defensive sometimes because I still have that entrenched mindset that rick can do no wrong, that it’s all amazing representation even if it’s more like a checklist. But it’s not, and I’m so grateful for all of the thankless work that poc fans are putting into to show me that. (PSA don’t attack poc pointing this out or spam their inboxes with questions that have already been answered!!!) I’m learning, I’m realizing new things as I go back through and reread lost hero, I’m questioning things, not just accepting them. And this isn’t just the pjo fandom and Riordan’s books, I’m hoping I’ll see the media I consume in a new way, not accept all of those stereotypes and harmful representation. I’m hoping I’ll be a little less blind to these things in the future. small scale situation and practice, large scale application!

At the end of the day, after doing some research and listening to poc and maybe not relying on what you remember from reading these books at 12, you can decide what you think of Rick Riordan, of the books, what’s going to make or break it for you. It’s not black and white, you can condemn the racist writing and non apologies and mistakes but still love the books, even still appreciate some things that rick did or created. But I swear, seeing all of the people (usually white) on twitter commenting “ignore the haters uncle rick!! Your books are amazing and have perfect representation!!!” It’s infuriating. If you don’t think rick did anything wrong, keep it to yourself and don’t dismiss or ignore the call outs. If it’s not your lived experience, you don’t get to say if it’s good representation or not. You don’t get to decide if people’s concerns are valid or not

This isn’t “ruining my childhood” it’s making me look past some of my biases, relearn some things, and teaching me a lesson in listening to poc and not taking everything at face value!! I’m glad I saw that post, that myself and many others are listening now to concerns fans have had for years, even if it changed my perspective on someone who was one of my favorite authors.

basically: LISTENING TO POC MEANS EVEN IF YOU DISAGREE WITH THEM, EVEN IF ITS UNCOMFORTABLE!!

#feel free to call me out if i got anything wrong!#being a part of this conversation means being accountable!#pjo #percy jackson #rr crit #riordanverse

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