Ok no I'm not done being weird yet, here's another idea for the marriage canon event stuff
Miguel and other Spiders are getting on your ass about, "oh, how old are you now? Why aren't you looking for a husband yet? Why are you spending so much time here?" And are, you know, your friends who love you and for your own good are trying to get you to complete your canon so you, you know, LIVE, but the way you see it is, being forced to do something like that and sacrifice yourself like that isn't living. You're not going to actively pursue and seek out a relationship, you want one to happen naturally, and nothing has felt natural to you and you're afraid of being hurt like that, of being rejected, of opening yourself up to someone and not being good enough, but, O'Hara and the Society don't really want to hear that. It's escalating over time. Little comments here and there, people randomly interjecting their personal anecdotes about their family and their kids into the conversation, "oh this is just like when me and Mary Jane--" "oh my kid loves this flavor, she gets so excited, I like to be naughty and get her these as a treat"
So you reach the point where you're fed up. This is so massively fucking inappropriate of them. There's no "set age" for this kind of thing so why are they harassing you like this, acting like, oh, you gotta hurry and pursue shit right now, it's for your own good? It's just pissing you off and pushing you away. You love traveling to different dimensions and exploring new places and experiencing things that are literally out of this world but if the trade-off for that is constantly being badgered with this stupid narrative of having to sacrifice yourself, you'll happily go home and break canon and die, because at least you'll be truly living and making a choice
So anyways to get to the meat of this post: you've decided you're leaving the Spider Society and you're not going to talk to any of these bitches anymore, just haven't fully decided on when, but like, you're literally thinking within the next week, but you're still, there. And one day you're in the lobby, trying to stand around because you're supposed to go on some sort of stupid assignment, Peter B and Jess with you, the parents talking about baby stuff as you roll your eyes and Peter suspiciously needs you to keep holding Mayday until you're literally refusing, "just put her on the ground or something, you let her climb on walls and shit anyways"
And because you're in the lobby, this big open space with tons of people passing through, suddenly in walks Miguel with. Another Miguel, completely unrelated to the mission you and the others are about to do, kind of just bumping into each other as they pass through. Miguel2 just got scouted by his counterpart that he met during chasing an anomaly, and they're getting to know each other, and at some point Miguel2 is like "can my wife come too 🥺👉👈 she's also a Spider and I can't be here without her" and everyone is a little confused because there's supposed to be the whole only 'one Spider per dimension' rule besides like family, like Peter and Mayday, and you'll just never guess whose alternate universe variant is his wife :) another you comes bounding in wearing casual baggy clothes but looks so radiant and happy, all "hubby 🥰" as she kisses her husband, you're just awkwardly sending glances to 'your' Miguel as you two are, understandably feeling awkward because, you're, coworkers, and here are two people who look exactly like you being all lovey dovey "princesa 🥰" "guapito 🥰"
This other you just seems so, VIBRANT and she's introducing herself and shaking hands and she sees Peter B, "oh my god you have a baby, I'm so happy for you, she's so cute!" And she's hugging him, and you watch Peter B's eyes go kind of wide and he looks down, "OH, you're like--" and Other You just kind of laughs and parts her coat, showing off her rounded tummy, "haha yeah, there's a baby in there! Number 3, we're so excited! 🥰" and you're just. Simultaneously feeling some sort of fucked up combination of the most visceral and extreme discomfort you've ever felt in your entire life and also some kind of. Envy. Because she has everything you thought you didn't want and she seems so, SO fucking happy, with a husband who loves her, she clearly loves her babies, and she's being accepted by all of your friends instantly, like they're all gathered around talking as you're just, basically on the outside of the circle, actively putting up distance, only standing around because, uh hey guys weren't we supposed to be doing something--
Your skin is crawling as Other You uses her own watch from her husband to zip back to her own dimension and comes back with her babies on each hip, twins that she's just so happy to introduce to her new friends, who are SUPPOSED to be YOUR friends, "THIS one is Gabriella, and this one is Gabriel. Aren't they so cute? 🥰 theyre both so chunky they almost killed me but it was SO worth it" And once she realizes you're you, or, you're her, she wants to immediately chat you up and be buddy-buddy and goes to hand one of her babies to you and you. Refuse. Absolutely refuse. Suddenly you're the pariah of the group, both Miguels are sending you looks. Why are you being so fucking rude? Just put your arms out??? But you won't. You're just, soul-suckingly disgusted by this entire scenario. Not only is it putting an unspoken pressure onto you, but, seeing this other you be so fucking happy AND accomplishing all the things your "friends" have been badgering you about makes you feel SO indescribably insecure
Fine. Let it be like a revolving door. Another you enters Spider Society, one of you leaves. But you're so bitter and hurt you can't help but get in a jab at her, wanting to tarnish her "fake" happiness, feeling so personally hurt and offended by her very presence and existence in the room. "Hey so wouldn't your babies also be Spiders and have to suffer through the canon events too? And since you don't have any other family members, your kids' canon events might be YOU or Miguel dying? Aren't you glad you gave birth to your kids only to die and leave them without a mom and dad and forever doom them to a narrative where they can never make their own choices and are cosmically destined to be unhappy just because YOU wanted a cute baby? Sorry I guess I'm just built different. Hey remember how when we were little girls and we used to feel like mom only gave birth to us because she wanted someone who would love her and we resented her for bringing us into the world to have such a harsh life, aren't you so happy that's EXACTLY how your kids are going to feel about YOU?"
Mom!You is instantly bursting into tears and holding her little belly for comfort as her husband looks ready to tear you to ribbons, FURIOUS, all the healthy people in the room understandably disappointed and upset with you, like what the FUCK girl, meanwhile you're opening up a portal to your home dimension and just chucking your watch straight into the floor. "Keep this. I won't be coming back" while everyone is kind of dismissive of how truly upset you are, kind of just like "come on, don't be like this 🙄" like you're throwing a tantrum when in actuality you're going home and are seriously considering selling Osborne or Doc Ock all of your radioactive eggs. You'll always be YOU before you're a Spider, and if they want to force you to put The Job above yourself your entire life, they're dead wrong.
Meanwhile after you leave, pulling each other aside for privacy, Miguel2 is asking your Miguel why he's risking breaking his own canon by not wife-ing you up yet and comparing notes from all of the other dimensions where you and him are together as your Miguel is shocked by the sheer number of same occurrences. Miguel is all on about, "what does this even mean, we're from entirely different dimensions", and Miguel2 over here just unapologetically, "so? My wife is also from another dimension, I just took her, she got used to it, it's totally fine bro, it's canon, just do it, just do whatever you want. it's fine bro I'M TELLING YOU--" and maybe even Mom!You is so, sucked into her own "it's ok I was initially forced into this because I'm happy now" world that she's even advocating, "oh gosh if I was her I'd be SO lonely, hearing how you two aren't even that close, especially not anymore, and you've all been avoiding her, and she doesn't even have a baby to care for and give her love 🥺 most 'me's are at least dating right now, so, i bet she's feeling so much pain, she NEEDS YOU right now 🥺"
Peter B is sent to give you another watch and tell you, it's ok, you can come back, they promise they're not gonna bug you about dating and stuff anymore, and you're just all "nah, I'm ok! :) you can keep it :) I've had enough of you guys :) dont let the door hit your ass on the way out :)" meanwhile Miguel 1 and 2 are comparing strategies, "see, when MY wife was refusing to come back to me, what I did was..."
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"Nico solo book should be a tragedy" disagree.
Nico was Rick Riordan's first canonically queer character, and the first book queer character a lot of my generation knew about as kids- it would be a huge slap on the face of his audience if his story ended as a tragedy, and Riordan knows that. Thats why solangelo has such a solid, healthy dynamic in the background of toa.
Of now, he's also one of very few pjo-verse characters to be basically confirmed mentally ill, and he's also really disabled in the text, whether its said or not.
Nico is a queer orphan who's entire storyline til toa was just tragedy after tragedy after goddamn tragedy, and who has JUST begun to heal. He deserves a happy ending.
More importantly, the audience- the queer, disabled, mentally ill kids who see themselves in him- deserve to see him be happy at the end.
To make his story a tragedy would be to validate Nico's (and Hades') belief that kids like him don't get a happy ending. That all we're made for is tragedy.
Rick Riordan first wrote The Lightning Thief so his adhd son could finally see himself in a hero. He keeps writing after his son is grown because he knows how much other kids need those stories- his students, even. He knows.
It's even in the narrative itself: it tells us upfront that Percy's mother called him Perseus because he was the only greek hero who got a happy ending.
Nico is the queer kid's original Perseus.
The reasoning follows that he must be happy.
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From like. a character analysis perspective. i LOVE Ashton's tendency to have some very good instincts when it comes to like human nature and fuckery that are also very clearly swayed by their own experiences and biases, because the combination of correct gut instincts with strong confidence makes it. Easy to buy in. Or easy to bristle.
Ashton tells F.C.G "This is what happens when you start externalizing every fucking problem that you have-" and, with affection towards F.C.G- well. Yeah. And then he starts breaking down the issue- how its about people with power fucking with others, how the end goal and the aim doesn't matter, their methods are clearly AWFUL and going to harm tons of people, and besides, if they had such a clear and proper image about what they're going to achieve they could just tell people. They're going to hurt people, they're killing, people, fuck that, fuck them.
"It's easy to make a nice world by killing everyone who disagrees with you. If you get down to five it'll be amazing. Fucking utopia."
Its- beautiful. And correct, in more ways than one, and probably what everyone needed to hear, and also has so much of their own experiences and resentment threaded into it, reductive to an almost dangerous point. Dangerous because he's right, in so many ways, and confident and righteous with it. Dangerous because of how the life lessons and the rage and the loss have left them with base tenets about human nature and motivations that are clear cut and resigned and simple. Because simplicity is powerful, and reassuring, and keeps them going, and is also not infallible.
I just feel like. Ashton is so, so fucking right, often and especially here, is confident in his stances and judgement in a way that has been tested by flame and resigned itself to pessimism. Ashton is so right, and the reasoning is often so sound and tempting, and there's also so much of them, their own losses and shortcomings that bleeds into their confident readings of the world and its overall nature, in ways they maybe don't even realize.
ashton is- full of solid instincts, and also flawed by having lived their life firsthand, and also confident in a way that is reassuring until you find yourself in a blindspot, up against an immovable rockface.
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