#sometimes it feels like bc it didn't send him to the infirmary it didn't count

[losergender]

we don't talk enough about tbotl nico. those six months between the ending of the titans curse and the beginning of the battle of the labyrinth had to be literally so traumatizing and yet i feel they are never mentioned. (spoilers from tbotl ahead)

he was 11 and alone in the street for god knows how long before minos found him. he had no living family whatsoever and his father wasn't even accepted by anyone. hell, we don't even know if hades claimed him after ttc or how it went. (or maybe we do, i haven't read tsats nor half of toa, but if we do know of it i have never seen anyone mention it). he had spent 3 months in the 21st century before ttc and some months in the usa, am i meant to think he did alright in an unknown country, with unknown technology and most likely not being all that fluent in english yet? all of that paired with fighting monsters, something he had a week and a half of training for, not to mention that he left camp WITH NO WEAPONS ON HIM.

EVEN BEFORE MEETING MINOS, NICO HAD ALREADY CONSIDERED/TRYING TO DIE. HE OFFERED HIS SOUL IN EXCHANGE FOR BIANCA'S. HE CONSIDERED/TRIED DYING AT THE RIPE AGE OF 11. and after he fails to do so he gets manipulated by minos for the whole book to be his hitman. he went into the labyrinth alone with, again, less than 2 weeks of proper demigod training.

i love bianca a lot but if i were nico and after months of failing to summon my sister i succeeded just for her first words to be "hello, percy" i would not do beautiful things. everything else she said i agree with and think it was neccessary for him to hear, but i was hurting when she didn't greet him first. same goes for when pan skips him.

like, okay, maybe it wasn't the tartarus, or transporting the athena parthenos or the tartarus again, but he was so young and so unprepared for anything and i have seen 0 people talk about it. so eh sorry for the rant i just had to do it myself