#because it is Middle Grade

[ahoyimlosingmymind]

for me- not liking Keefe has less to do with HIM and more to do with the archetype/trope he falls under. Like, sure, he has toxic traits, and he's not perfect, that's not really my issue. (aside from the lack of accountability the narrative holds him to VS other characters <- THAT does bother me.)

BUT- at the end of the day, I'm just kinda tired of the "I use humor to mask my deep dark past' trope- and I mean, obviously, people relate to that... but it's kind of tired in fiction. I don't think he's very funny either which does not help lmao

anyway- KOTLC kinda beats the trope like a dead horse too. At some point I'm just like "WE GET IT."

Because it's not a very... 'complex' trope?? Especially because it's written for middle grade. After some time, it's repetitive and predictable, it retracts from emotional beats, and I've seen it done with more depth in other stories (ie. Jesper from Six of Crows, Leo Valdez from PJO (but I read PJO when I was way younger too and I bet he'd probably annoy me now as well XD)

I've also grown out of the series in many ways, and it isn't written for me- which is definitely why I don't connect with the material the way I did when I was in early Middle-School several years ago.

all this to say, I'm aware I am no longer the target demographic, so I'm not saying Shannon should be writing it all differently. It's literally not for me. I'm speaking into the void to explain my opinion ig

but my annoyance towards Keefe doesn't really come from a place of "Fitz is better!" "Fitphie ftw!" (I used to ship Fitzphie. I don't ship anything anymore tbh)

I do find Fitz more compelling as a character as a whole, sure. But it's not really a 'ship' thing, or 'This character is less/more toxic than this character'. argument. He's just not a common archetype, and I do wish it was given more exploration in the story. Same with characters like Tam and Linh.

[thesummerstorms]

Okay, but I've been thinking about the parallels between The Last Olympian and The House of Hades.

Annabeth was the one who convinced Luke to kill himself. Obviously, it's a lot more complicated than that and ahe'd given him opportunities to change before. But in the end, it was only because of her and their promise that Luke was able to throw off Kronos's control during the battle in the throne room.

She's the one who convinced Percy to give Luke the knife. Luke killed himself with her blade and saved the world.

Then we get to House of Hades and Tartarus. And at the doors of death, Damasen tells Annabeth that she was the one who changed his mind and convinced him to fight his father. She's the one who tells Percy that they have to leave Bob and Damasen, even knowing they'll die. She cries and sobs and hugs Bob, but she makes the choice.

I'm just saying, after talking someone into to their heroic death twice, even though she had to do it, even though she mourns, even though she's not her fault-

She deserves to be a little fucked up by that.

[the-gay-prometheus]

Ok wait- on the Flatland note regarding Bill's origin story-

Everyone is out here trying to figure out what exactly makes Bill's eye weird. Like. How can he see into the third dimension while the others can't? What makes it weird other than seeing into the third dimension? Do the others in his dimension have two eyes - but how would that make it so they can't see the third dimension? Do they have no eyes at all (definitely not, cuz apparently they have evil optometrists)?

I'm about to (probably not) blow everyone's freakin minds.

Here's a poster for the Flatland movie:

What do you notice about them? Anything interesting? Perhaps something about their eye(s)?

Their eye(s) are located on one side of their face. They can only see forward, or, if they turn around, backward. And that's because, well, it's the 2nd dimension - there are is only left or right, forward or backward. I repeat - they can only see forward.

Now let's look at our beloved (beloathed, and everything in between) triangle demon:

Notice anything about his eye? Anything different? Anything... Weird? Strange?

It's in the middle of his face. Which poses an interesting issue in a 2nd dimensional world... Sure he can look left and right, but what is his default?

His default, if he is on a two dimensional plane, is to look up. "Up" is not a concept in the second dimension. There is no "up" because "up" implies depth - and depth is 3rd dimension, not 2nd.

He doesn't have any special powers that allow him to see into the 3rd dimension - I mean, obviously he has lots of special powers but... They aren't what inherently allow him to see into the 3rd dimension. It's the placement of his eye. The placement is his "defect," not the eye itself. He sees into the 3rd dimension because he has no choice. His default always was to see something that no one else in his world could see - the sky, the stars, and whatever else lay above.

The reason they tried to chemically blind him was because there was no other way to make it so he couldn't see into the third dimension. They probably thought it was a mercy - the poor kid was stuck with the default of always seeing of something that no one else in his world could ever physically see.

[queenunderthatmountain]

I am once again asking for Elwin not to be Sophies father

[the-paris-of-people]

Does anyone have any Percabeth fics that include:

1.) Percy and Annabeth not liking each other at first and slowly emotionally bonding over time like they do in the books?

2.) Exploration of Annabeth's family trauma, but Frederick Chase is not considered to be a complete villain?

3.) Also, no smut please. Thank you!

[valewritessss]

I hate it when people want the actual books to have some non-middle grade appropriate things in them.

Like, yes, I get wanting some dark Percy or whatever but realistically, Rick would never make Percy do some vile shit because it’s a middle grade book. And I’m talking about the really vile things people have written in fanfics that would make the book 10x darker.

I understand that most of us are past middle-grade ages but that age category is still the main target.

“Rick’s a coward for not doing this” or maybe he’s writing age appropriate stuff for the age range he specializes in. Don’t get me wrong some things would actually be cool if they happened but others, are actually too much.

This especially goes to people who want Rick to actually write ~things~ happening with percabeth and other popular ships. THEY ARE MINORS. RICK IS AN ADULT. THE BOOKS ARE FOR MIDDLE-GRADE.

Rick didn’t write “they had sex to have babies” when he was writing a book about how Greek gods came to be, what makes you think he would write something even more descriptive for his usual stories.

Yes, there are some mature topics in different stories, but they are topics that are addressed in a way that doesn’t surpass the middle-grade line.

Write fanfics about it all you want but complaining because Percy murdering his whole family in a fit of rage(I’ve seen this before okay) is not actually canon is crazy.

[junipum]

the boy is HOMEEEE ignore old plushies my bookshelf is a mess rn. why does he look so sad

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

I'm sure there are many more factors at play than merely the rise of trope publishing and booktok demand, but the older I get, the more content I am with the notion of just. never getting published?

at this current moment, posting my stories fanfic-style on some online platform for the select few who are already invested in them sounds 100 times more appealing and fulfilling than going through all the stress of getting traditionally or self- published only to never hit the shelves of a Barnes & Noble

[aroaceleovaldez]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[greenvillainredemption]

Just comparing the drafts of these covers. 💚

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Me, faced with a shiny new story idea: Save it for the Inklings Challenge, save it for the Inklings Challenge, please save it for the Inklings Challenge, I'm begging you please save it for the Inklings Challenge

[fishandshesmygills]

not even joking abt the cognitive decline anymore im actually scared. i saw the tv glow hit too hard for me everything has felt wrong and i don't even know since when, do i have long covid brain fog? residual damage from my concussion this past fall? what about my first concussion six years ago? i feel like there are pages missing. i feel the gaps in my knowledge and awareness and abilities. im scrambling around in the dark

[queenunderthatmountain]

I am 100% sure Shannon originally planned for Fitz to be the only love interest. Keefe just suddenly popped up out of nowhere and she saw that he was the only real match for Sophie...

[imnotpayingforurtherapy]

As a result of corruption and the experiments, ever since he was a child Chuuya has suffered from horrible seizures. When they happened when he was still in the sheep, Shirase and the other's would laugh at him, being children and not understanding what was wrong he got horrid nicknames like "quake/earthquake" or "Shaky boy" any time they would happen he would try to move to a comfortable spot like the grass or a box spring mattress but more times than not just collapsed on the concrete. After one resulted in a concussion and mild coma they realized that couldn't survive with out him and finally started helping him.

After he left he got better at dealing them, Doc's advice and exercises seeming to help alot but after his gate was opened and corruption use they got so much worse. The first time one happened in front of Dazai it was while they were leaving for a mission, right after getting out of the infirmary post stormbringer. They didn't even make it to the elevator after leaving Mori's office when suddenly Chuuya collapsed, Dazai barely catching him in time, before he violently started shaking, his airways seeming to lock shut and hus body failed on him. Dazai brought them to the floor, holding on tight to him to prevent him from getting a concussion until Chuuya eventually gained conciseness again. He immediately pushed away from Dazai and curled in on himself, terrified and trembling. Dazai had held him exactly how Albatross used to. Dazai figured it was about the seizure and explained what had happened, having read about it when Mori threw a medical journal at him after he said he was bored when he was 15.

After a while of this happening, Dazai somehow able to sense when Chuuya was going to have one from a chill running down his spine or seeing that oh so familiar distant look in his eyes and running to catch him Chuuya began to trust him more and often lingered in the embrace even after it was over. And even after the bad ones, he always woke up with Dazai at his bedside in the infirmary, that hilarious terrified worried look on his face become one of Chuuya new favorite sights.

After Dazai defected Chuuya stress skyrocketed and in turn his seizures got drastically worse and more common, now with no one to catch him. New scraps and bruises here or there, passing out with concussions becoming more common than he would have liked, fear setting in of possible brain damage which just made the seizures worse, getting drunk being the only way to calm himself down which again made the seizures worse.

When they reunited, Dazai instantly noticed the new scars but never had the chance to bring it up nor did he want to. Well not until they ran into eachother at a random bathhouse, Dazai's water was shut iff and Chuuya couldn't stand the post mission grime another second. In the locker room Dazai's eyes seemed to linger on the scars he didn't recognize and Chuuya eventually let out all the resentment he had be keeping in later that night sitting next to Dazai drunk at a bar before passing out. Dazai carried him home, tucked him in and snuck into Chuuya's home office to write a 10 page letter on all the apologies he never got to say, having to rewrite a few pages due to the amount of tear marks making his writing unlegible.

[leaffiii]

my computers back woooooo anyways heres some dudes i've thought about a bit because some random bl manhwa pissed me off so badly lol. sitcom with gods from mythology in the modern day.

[ravewing]

i always think to myself man i wish i had a really kick ass name instead of stupid jacob like ok basic and its like no i literally hand picked that name on my own what am i even complaining for i brought this upon my self