#and Nico di Angelo's for like a week

[mydarlingdearestdead]

Trans Remus Lupin who picked a wolf name to please his father.

Trans Regulus Black who chose the heart of the Leo constellation for his favourite myth.

Trans Sirius Black who said "Fuck you!" to changing her name and kept it.

Trans James Potter who asked his mother what she would have named him should he have been assigned male at birth, and took that name for her.

[demigods-posts]

i don't know man. but sometimes i think about percy breaking the news to nico that his sister's dead. and nico plummetting into depression, screaming at the boy he once thought of as a hero to die. and percy watching this ten-year-old disappear into the shadows mid sobbing. and percy's shaking and traumatized and exhausted. but he forces that pain down his throat and accepts the role as the prophecy kid so nico has a chance to create a future he wants. while percy's is set in stone. and i don't know man.

[aroaceleovaldez]

Nico and Percy's dynamic through the series is eternally funny to me, because it's just. like.

Percy's having a constant mental struggle between his fatal flaw of loyalty with a promise he made to Bianca to protect Nico, versus his Big 3 kid desire to maim other Big 3 kids / Poseidon descendant urge to totally maim Nico specifically. He hates Nico so so much. He thinks Nico's annoying and weird at best, and creepy/sketchy when he's older. The only positive thoughts Percy has towards Nico are "He's Bianca's brother and Bianca was my friend and I owe her/He's Hazel's brother and Hazel is my friend and would kill me if I was mean to him," "He's a powerful asset and useful ally (if questionable)," and "He's kinda pathetic and I feel maybe a little bad about it." Percy has multiple occasions throughout the series where he strongly considers - and on one occasionally actually goes through with - throttling Nico.

Meanwhile, Nico is following around Percy like a lost puppy. He explicitly can never bring himself to even dislike anything about Percy no matter how hard he tries. He has a whole bit in BoO where he's mentally going "UGH he's so stupid BUT IT'S ENDEARING HOW DARE HE." He's totally smitten. He's making deals with his dad for Percy. He's making convoluted plans to help Percy stand a chance against Kronos. During the entirety of BoTL it's like he's playing tsundere - "I'm helping NOT PERCY SPECIFICALLY with this quest! Me helping Percy would be SILLY because I DEFINITELY HATE HIM." Then he proceeds to show up to Percy's birthday party to basically ask him on a weird date and spend the entire next book scrambling around trying to help him or protect him or impress him. And Percy could not give less of a shit.

Just. That dynamic is so funny to me. Percy is the founder of the Nico Protection Club in that he's the one they're all protecting Nico from and meanwhile Nico is throwing himself at Percy to the point where the literal god of gay love calls him out on it.

[ryuusei-niu]

I think I found the phrase that perfectly sums up one of my favorite ships:

[mediumgayitalian]

In his head he is brave enough to say it: gods, you are beautiful in the moonlight. He is. He has made Nico weak in the knees since they were fifteen and new and fragile as spun glass, and he does now. In the moonlight his radiance is much subtler; he is opal and pearl and quartz, he is shining and multifaceted.

Instead he traces the bob of Will’s throat, his long, freckly neck, cratered with burn scars and cupped with a raised white scar from years of endless picking; follows the wild winding wisps of his hair, barely held back by his old sunglasses, compressed in coils around his head like a pen spring squished to the size of its threads, creaking with the weight of its own potential energy, brimming with the imagined burst of its future; memorizes the fluttering flap of his feathering eyelashes, the delicate dips of his deepened Cupid’s bow, the roughened raze of his wide rowdy hands. All of him is in motion, always, but now especially, hands twitching on the wheel, head thrown back, mouth wide and shaking along with his shoulders.

“I really like your laugh,” and it’s quick, vowels tumbling over each other and tripping the consonants, a queue of clumsy hopefuls scrambling over shoulders and clasping hands. The pretty laughter fades and arched eyebrows replace it, poorly hidden surprise, twitching smile lines, and Nico looks deliberately forward, mortification cackling along each of his wire-tense muscles, dancing along the shimmering heat of his face. “It’s. Wide.”

“Wide?” asks Will carefully, craning his neck to glance in his blind spot, whispering chuckles dancing along to the beat of the blinker.

“Wide,” Nico confirms, flicking out his hands. His fingers are not nearly as long, nor as wiry or corded, but the scarring is mirrored. Nicks and scratches and burn marks and calluses, topographic maps of time spent.

Will’s turn is successful — the strawberry baskets dip dangerously from their precarious perch on backseats, but don’t fall, shifting over and around each other to burst tiny globules of stretched taut flesh, rubbing against rough reed ribbons. Nico inhales deeply, and the sweet is almost nauseating, summer fruit twisting in the air along with lavender body wash and Blistex and Texas summer sun.

“You take up space.”

“My laugh?”

Laughter in his words in his hands in his skin, in his eyes, in the coils of his hair, in his grass-stained heels, in the bends of his scar-bleached knees. In the dancing dots of his face arms chest legs. In the dip of his bottom lip, crater under his too-big front teeth. In the jut of his crooked spine and wide hips.

“What about my laugh?”

It is in his words more often than not and in Nico’s dreams even more so. It curls around the blurry edges of his dreams and weaves into daisy-strong chains, dangling from the too-high ceilings of his nightmares, coiling around his arms and chest and back and yanking with the force of breaking ribs, the force of bellows, the force of clasped bloodless hands. Dragging him across trench gouged ground to bright light and clear air and the distant memory of summer rain.

“That you like, I mean.”

“It’s snorting,” Nico confesses. Will reddens, and Nico smiles, under the heat of it grows sunflower and dandelion and tinted brown-eyes Susans. “Um. Loud.”

“Geez,” Will grumbles, “tell a guy the truth, why don’t you.”

Nico has never seen gold under silver nightlight and it fascinates him, how Will sparks and shimmers, how when the sun sets it does not fade away. How the tiny specks of precious metal weave through him like tinsel and glow in veins of sweet summer memory; how the warm night billows and blows around him lovingly, how the breeze from the open window greets him like a precious grandchild, a beloved nephew. Seedchild; beloved of the earth and sun, performer under the moon, the stars.

Will’s wide hands inch across the dash, brushing over the ancient radio dials and dipping over the skipping cassette, pausing by the base of the gearshift and resting, limply, palm open, fingers cracked and spread. Knuckles popping and chittering amongst themselves, hiding in the bent hoods of wrinkled skin. Nico lowers his heavy hands on the heated hopeful hesitance, curling his cool fingers around much longer ones, and squeezing, once, twice, thrice.

“I like your laugh,” he repeats. He rolls his shoulders, hands flexing, twitching, pulling.

Will’s hand tightens. The road opens up and the Atlantic glimmers beside them, moon whispering to its rippling waves, and he smiles, grins, wider than before, and he is laughing, again, and it is wider even this time, as wide as the sparkling silver water.

“I hear you.”

He squeezes.

You are beautiful in the moonlight. You are beautiful all the time.

Nico squeezes back.

[jztr-77]

Zagreus and his iconic nectars 😎

[willthespy]

Nico di Angelo and Will Byers

Silly gay outcasts who went through hell and back, got kidnapped, saw their crush fall in love with a girl, suffered through homophobia due to the time in which they grew up, gained a sister, had a complicated relationship with their older sibling due to the fact that said older sibling was forced into a parenting role, have a strange relationship with shadows (and stuff like that), found out the game they were obsessed with growing up is real (DnD and Mythomagic), often get babied by the fandom despite showing how capable they really are, and would do anything for their family. Oh, and they both have overprotective boyfriends who need to get a personal stylist bc… dam.

edit: dont forget the voices and visions 🙏 came up with that while eating some good old farfalle pasta

[stressedanime]

what if i start calling solangelo spaghetti western. what then.

[witchhazelevesque]

There's something about the change and progression from Leo's hesitancy to rescue Nico because it would definitely be a trap to his willingness to go back for Calypso and all the ways his death is involved in that journey.

And I don't even mean progression as in Leo's stance on Nico influenced his decision about Calypso- though that could have been a really satisfying way to take that. But they are at the core the same situation: a rescue mission, with vastly different circumstances.

(I don't like romantic ca/eo, but them as friends? Sign me up. That's the only way I can imagine them, and what I mean when I talk about them here.)

The situation sometimes gets boiled down to 'Leo and Jason wanted to leave Nico in the jar', but there's more to it . For one thing, Leo wasn't even able to voice all his thoughts on the matter, because he was interrupted by Hazel, Frank and Jason. That doesn't negate the overall suspicion/wariness Leo has; he brings up two major points: that the giants are using Nico to bait a trap for the rest of them and that Nico hid the camps from one another. But Leo was surprised by Frank and Hazel’s reaction and question about whether Leo meant they should leave Nico. So, it seems in part 'can we trust him?', but also in part something like, 'this is a trap, we should be aware of that and be on the defensive when doing it'.

Leo's actions later also factor into this, though they were mainly for Hazel's benefit. He wanted to use Nemesis's deal to save Nico. And in a way, this decision is more reckless and dangerous than any ways death was involved in going back for Calypso. And in a way, more romantic, which is kind of funny because it could be interpreted for either Hazel or Nico. That aside, this offer was voluntary and unconnected to Leo’s other duties.

But his decision to die was connected to those duties. It wasn’t dependent on Calypso. He didn’t do it for her. Yes, he does think about how he feels his place is with her and not the rest of the seven, but that’s not the only reason. Even without her in the picture, he was going to sacrifice himself. He died because the Fates put a choice in front of him. He died to defeat Gaea, to spare Jason, to save all his friends and the world.

And to avenge his mother.

Yes, his decision to go back to Ogygia without first letting his friends know he’d be okay is not fair to them, but RR was always gonna make it happen this way, which I'll get into in a second. But working with what is here, I do understand Leo's decision. Leo explains this best when he says, "Calypso is a priority”. It’s plausible that they'd want the other to be a little selfish about them / want to be a little selfish about each other. To prioritize them. This could have been something they connected over, and it would have been cathartic for this to have played a larger role. To choose one another.

And maybe that makes more sense if you look at it in a vacuum, without the context of how their interactions were executed and just the overall shape of their intended dynamic in the story: both isolated and alone, brought together by someone else's design, connecting regardless. Someone who never felt chosen wanting to make sure someone he cared for does feel chosen after waiting so long both to be the first choice and to have her freedom.

And that might not be compelling to everyone, but it is small in comparison to the actual major reason I understand Leo’s decision to prioritize Calypso: because it’s about fulfilling the plot, not about characterization.

Which may seem obvious because these books are about fast paced plot, but it matters so much here. I would say RR wrote himself into a corner, but I don't think he actually minded being there.

But it was still a corner.

It parallels Zeus saying that Hera bringing the seven together wove fate in a way that only left so many avenues open.

It was pretty clear by the end that RR did not care about the quality of finishing the quest, since another line of the prophecy, ‘the world must fall’ was built up so much and then the final battle between ‘fire’ and ‘the world’ took six pages.

Six pages.

RR just got it done. 

The choice to have Leo's trip back to Ogygia happen at this moment ultimately is about tying up loose ends of the prophecy. Prophecy has always been made clear by the end of each book in this verse, iirc. Leo's characterization basically turned into just him thinking about Calypso, which is disappointing. But it feels, at least to me, that Leo only left before talking to his friends because it was a lynchpin for those plot requirements of the prophecy, and because RR wanted the situation the other characters ended the series in to be ✨dramatic and mysterious✨

Sort of a benefit, we at least get to see Hazel and Frank deliver the news (one of the few things they got to do in BoO).

It's also strange that Leo set the timer for 24 hours the night before the battle, maybe it was because he couldn't have anticipated Zeus sending them back to New York so fast, maybe he thought the battle with Gaea might last longer. But it was set to resurrect him long after he died and Festus flew him from camp. Leo heard Asclepius say to administer the cure as soon after death as possible. Maybe Leo didn’t know what would happen, but RR did and he set it up this way. If this time detail had stayed the same but Leo didn’t leave for Ogygia right then, I wonder how that would play out. If he hadn't gone, would the others have taken his body off Festus? Would they have been able to find where he’d put the cure? (That’s a bit of a tangent though.)

The details of how it actually worked are never addressed to maintain the ✨mystique✨ around what Leo’s plan actually was. BUT it could have made a big difference in the reception of the end of the novel if something had been explicitly set up earlier, and that’s if Leo would have needed a massive power source to 'break out of reality' so to speak, to kick start his return to Ogygia, since it doesn't exist in the real world. When Percy ended up there, it was during Mt St Helens' erupting and Hera guided his way. Leo's first trip was powered by another goddess.

And what a convenient power source he had in himself, his body turning molten, releasing everything inside himself, this literal gift and burden from the god of fire, in a genuinely once in a lifetime event- because it was so powerful it literally killed him, created an explosion strong enough to vaporize a primordial deity. It would have been a now or never situation, when else was he going to have the power of a force of nature except the one he has inside of himself?

It's one possibility that wasn’t taken.

Maybe if this had been the case and had been explained beforehand, this plot point would have been more palatable.

But then it also could have supported the idea that Leo did die for Calypso. But it didn’t actually happen this way.

However, a driving force that is known for sure is the oath with a final breath line that RR needed to get done.

Having Leo fulfill the oath with his final breath, when he died, was necessary to deliver on everything the story had been promising. It checked off the last item in the central prophecy of the series. Prophecies have been a focal point of each book in all the PJOverse and having the meaning unfold and come to fruition plays a major role, think Rachel literally crash landing into the Battle of Manhattan to tell Percy he wasn’t the hero in the prophecy.

So, with the way HoO and BoO are written, the only piece of the prophecy missing after Leo defeats Gaea is the ‘oath to keep with a final breath’. It didn’t matter if it made sense or not, if it was a good idea or not, if it was in character or not, the oath being kept had to happen in this moment. Leo had to go back for Calypso right then. It was the plot bending the character, not the character driving the plot, which, I mean, isn't too surprising, these books aren't really deep dives into the characters.

Back to the original topic though, Leo was in very different head spaces with different circumstances in these two rescue missions. He had to take into account the safety of the entire crew and the quest when considering Nico, and when he did decide to take a risk, it was one that would only put himself on the line. With Calypso, he knew he was going to die one way or another, that in doing so he would complete the quest, and that he had to keep his oath 'with a final breath', which, again, is a narrative point that needed to be checked off. There were already multiple plot lines that didn't pay off (Frank bringing his family full circle happened off screen within six pages a g a i n Hazel's curse being washed away wasn’t explained satisfactorily, etc.) but this one had top billing, RR couldn't get away with not delivering.

Again, a plot choice, not a characterization one. RR had to write it that way because of the choices he'd already made.

This got very far away from my original thought of valdangelo pining with Nico cycling through some of these thoughts while waiting for Leo to get back to camp. Him thinking "you wouldn't do it for me, but you would for her.”

And if that was the case, then Leo dying- which would have been an extreme version of one of his worries about rescuing Nico- would make more sense as a point of contention between Nico and Leo in ToA. Maybe Nico would logically recognize all the reasons aside from Calypso that Leo sacrificed himself, but he couldn't get his feelings to understand the difference.

[thatonefandomjumper]

If you were able to make Valdangelo canon how would you write them ?

Very good question.

The thing is, Valdangelo is a relationship that I feel had so so much potential due to how the characters were individually written, but at the same time, I really don't trust that Riordan would have done them justice just on account of how Heroes of Olympus was written as a whole. To really make their relationship satisfying, I'd probobly need to make some substantial rewrites to the series as a itself.

But for simplicity sake, let's say we're keeping all big plot points and beats the same with the only difference being that Valdangelo is endgame.

House of Hades would be the most logical place for the two of them to shine, considering Nico was, uh, quite occupied during Mark of Athena. Leo is canonically very spooked by Nico's mere existence on the ship and Nico prefers to keep to himself most times. Not only that, but the two places they each spend the most time is not only the most isolated parts of the ship but also, sort of the furthest away from each other (Crows nest and Engine room).

Not only that, but these two are so bad at normal human interactions that the only way they could genuinely start to open up to each other and find that they are oh so eerily similar is for some outside factor to push for it to happen.

Whatever that is, and no matter how it happens, the biggest thing the two of them need is just a conversation. Genuinely, I think that's all that is needed for something to happen. Something romantic? Not necessarily, but hoo-boy if they opened up to each other in one way or another things would never be the same.

There will always be a terrifying thought of "Oh god, you see right though me and I see myself in you. This is awful I must stay away or I might learn something about myself that I don't want too." But at the same time, no one else will ever get it. To hate yourself so much. To feel alone all the time. To be unworthy of love and broken beyond repair.

So as much as they want to stay away, they inevitable meet again. Possibly in the night, when they are alone, because they would not want anyone around for this.

I am a dynamic girly at the end of the day, so when I ship characters I rarely actually think about the getting together part or anything that relates to that, but were they to get together at this point, it would be in a sort of fucked up self-discovery way where both of them adamantly agree to keep it a secret. They do not want anyone to find out ever that they kiss when they are on the verge of breakdowns.

But evolving from that (And after Nico's outing and Leo's stay in Ogygia, probobly with platonic Caleo or at least Leo feeling obligated to save her out of guilt for not being able to be with her) they become each others confidants. They both dislike showing true weakness, especially of the emotional kind so having someone who just gets it is not only new but terrifying. Whether that be the deaths of their family members or both of their serious cases of internalized homophobia, the other will understand.

People notice, of course, but Nico and Leo avoid each other in public to such a comical degree that it makes it almost more obvious that something is going on. They deflect like crazy when their relationship is brought up and most back off out of respect, but Piper and Percy are the two who speculate the most...

As the journey passes, little things start happening. Leo tells Nico to eat once in a while. Nico forces Leo to take a proper nap. Things the others either don't know they struggle with or aren't thinking about because there ae more important things going on. And slowly, the two start... improving? It was never the intention because they don't see themselves worthy of healing, but the other wants them to get better, and they don't want to lose the one relationship that let's them be wholly vulnerable. It's strange, but it feels good.

Now, I have always hated how angry Nico was at Leo for dying in canon because it makes zero sense in my opinion, but that's a whole 'nother conversation. But this time around, Nico would feel every right to be furious, because let's be real, Leo's secretive ass would not tell him this. There is a line to his emotional openness and telling his sort-of-dating-for-convenience-boyfriend about the fact he's actively planning his own suicide, despite the fact he's planning to bounce back from it is just a step too far. He knows it's selfish. But he just can't.

And it's in the time they're apart that they truly understand just how much they'd started leaning on each other in the time they were together. The bad habits they broke coming back and the longjng to see the other growing stronger. They both sort of hate it. Nico joins Jason and Piper in their search while Leo is trying his best to get back to camp.

No matter how the reunion would go, I like to think that Nico would have spilled the beans about their relationship to the others at that point, so Leo, who had been psyching himself up to swoop Nico into his arms and declare their love to the camp doesn't exactly get that. But what he does get is tears, angry, possibly unfair words, and reconciliation. Their back with each other, and this time, they won't screw it up.

Valdangelo is a story of healing. Of two broken people building each other back up. No matter what direction I'd go with actually making the relationship happen, they will always represent the mortifying ordeal of being known.

Anyway, they are actually impossible and there is something very wrong with them. Thank you for the ask and here's a drawing:

Also, I wrote a Valdangelo fic way back in 2021 where a similar scenario played out if you are interested:

[rosesradio]

important question for science

[aroaceleovaldez]

it was a thing for awhile in the fandom (and still is) to focus on one demographic a character is a part of while ignoring others like they can only exist one at a time (primarily being erasing disability traits or experiences the characters describe, usually by taking a trait meant to indicate one thing and claiming it can only indicate a separate thing and never anything else)

but the absolute biggest offender will always be when Rick and Mark Oshiro just fully did that in The Sun And The Star. like. oh okay. this is what we're doing now. and fully said it too. "Nico only likes Mythomagic to look at the hot men on the cards" ah yes of course it's definitely not because. he has adhd (and autism coding) and Mythomagic is his hyperfixation/special interest. nah that couldn't be it. Because of course Nico's only trait is "Gay" and that's the only thing that can inform his character Ever. How could i be so silly as to think otherwise? (sarcasm sarcasm)

anyways the fandom could really stand to learn about intersectionality that'd be great. rick too probably. also just remember disability exists in general and is kind of very central to the series and nearly every character. thanks.

[toastedstencils]

i like the book so far

[thebeigewitch]

Finished TSATS and now I need an entire new book with just Nico being with/taking care of the Cocoa Puffs actually

[musicofthenightphantomoftheopera]

I know it's a day late, but I really wanted to do something for Solangelo Week, so here's what I cooked up for Day 1: Free Day!