#tbotl angst

[demigods-posts]

imagine if thalia visited percy on his fifteen birthday. an apology lodged somewhere in the back of her throat. knocking on the apartment door while holding back tears. sally greeting her with the warm smile of a mother. paul welcoming her inside with the kind tone of a father. imagine thalia surprised to see percy and nico bonding over two slices of blue cake. feeling even more alienated as a big three kid. knowing these two had a relationship without her. imagine thalia meeting percy's eyes from across the room. and for a brief second. she swears his previously gleeful gaze turns cold and bitter. and she's waiting for the anger. for the tide to drown her. and she's prepared to welcome it. but then his gaze turns remorseful. and then apologetic. and he doesn't yell at her. instead. he invites her to sit next to him and nico. and welcomes her to a slice of blue cake. because time will pass anyway. and life's way too short for kids like them to not hold each other through it.

[sleepyvib-es]

tbh all i wanted from hoo was more developed friendships

[brain-maggot1]

YAYYYYY TA EXCHANGE TIME ( @titan-army-fan )

The person I am gifting this to is @ishouldsleepbut !!

I made Ta!Pollux angst because guilt for indirectly killing his brother and the funeral scene in tbotl made me sad.pollux I love you

Then I have ethabaster and a cleaned up sketch of silena x Chris because they're so silly :3

(And yes these are from two months ago so they were done on my phone and the Pollux one still has my old watermark😭)

I'm gonna ignore how the Pollux art has the same elements as my warrior!pen au art..

[chubbybunny25]

Hello, I hope you’re doing well :D

Recently I was thinking about the “X falls first, Y falls harder” trope with specific regard to Percy and Nico and idk in my head you’d be the best at playing around with and breathing life into it so here goes:

Nico’s confession and how he does it is still canon (in vibe, maybe not word choice), Percy ponders that confession, breaks up with Annabeth (for reasons separate to the confession), builds a friendship with Nico, falls SO hard, but Nico has been trying so hard to get over this man at this point and put so much into feeling Platonic Thingz™️ only that his response to Percy’s confessions and advances is denials and soft rejections—dodging what look like one on one dates, “I love you” R being met with “I love you” P, and, when Percy outright says “I wanna be with you” Nico is like “Ummm… no you don’t?”—but eventually Nico confronts himself and they wind up very happily together?

Yeah :)

Hello! The “X falls first, Y falls harder” trope is definitely perfect for Percy/Nico. However, as sweet as it sounds, there's also a lot of potential for drama and.. angst.

One of the things that us, percico shippers usually love to delve on is the interactions between Percy and Nico in canon (tbotl is such a percico book 😏), hence their chemistry. But also, that's the thing!—they had so much history it would definitely take time (years, maybe) to fully unpack everything and realistically get them together.

This might be longer than I'd intend it to, so I'm putting more details under the cut:

It is undeniable that Nico indeed fell first. But what makes Percy fall harder? It's time—the time that has passed since Percy knew Nico (but Percy has to reflect on that) and the time Percy would only ever have after everything is over (outside quests and saving the world). Inevitably, it's also the same time that wasn't allowed for perc*beth to have (which might be the reason why Percy and Annabeth haven't fallen hard enough for each other, but that's for another time).

Going back to what makes it angsty.. What if Nico can't wait that long? What if by the time Percy wanted to be with him, Nico had already accepted that they're not meant to like each other that way?

As for Nico's self-confrontation, ig we're taking the hoo!Nico route where Percy hasn't done enough to be his friend (which again, Percy didn't have the time). Some of the reasons why Nico would dodge Percy's advances are 1) Nico thinks Percy is just being too kind to him; 2) Nico thinks Percy is still guilty and would want to take responsibility for how Nico turned out to be; or 3) Nico enjoys their friendship too much and thinks that being "more" would destroy everything between them.

I took the "mild" route in one of my fics because I gave Nico time to go away and Percy stepped back. But with your ask, if Nico and Percy are always together, and Percy is more.. forward, I think no matter what Percy does, it wouldn't be enough to make Nico believe that Percy loves him.

Again, the waiting time here is crucial. Yet we know that patience is never Percy Jackson's strong suit. So Percy just.. snaps, either by outright kissing Nico or (adding drama here) yelling something along the lines of "I love you, Nico! Why wouldn't you believe me?" Going from here, there has to be an outside intervention (e.g. Hazel or Jason or Reyna or even Persephone if Nico runs to the Underworld)—anyone or anything that would make Nico realize that he and Percy actually can have the chance.

It ends maybe with Percy finding Nico, Percy saying "Fine, if you don't believe me, just never leave like that again. I'd take what you'll give me." And that's when Nico sees himself in Percy—that somehow cements his belief, that maybe, Percy Jackson has fallen for him, too.

Whoo.. I hope you're ready for such a ramble, because I can never stfu about them. Thanks for the wonderful ask 💀🌊

[ifiamanythinginthefuture]

Hello there.

I work with words, to bend and caught them to my will to weave an excellent tale of toil and torment for the amusement of the people who enjoy watching their favorite character suffer for reason not known to them.

I am what you call a "writer"

and I write fanfics!

(more below the cut)

Hi! Sorry for waxing poetic (I do that often. I am a writer.) but, uh, this is a place where I will post fanfics I post on Ao3 (below is a link to said Ao3)

I mainly focus on Percy Jackson and the Olympians (I am done with ToA, but I haven't read TSATS), but, if I know the fiction you want to be fanficitized by me well enough, I may consider writing it. But, don't get your hopes up—one would be shocked to know how little I know about pop culture and the infinitesimal amount of media I've consumed.

Also, call me Thunder please (ask if you want to give me a nickname first)

LIMITS: I am okay with most stuff (hurt no comfort, hurt yes comfort, fluff, angst, y/n inserts, [CHARACTER] x Y\N], slash, femslash, etc.] but, with some ships, I probably won't do 'em, either because I just don't like the ship or because I can't see the two characters working well with each other. I am okay with canon ships (percabeth, frazel, solangelo (though the last one I'm kinda iffy on if I like it or not), etc.) and Y/N ships, but, writing relationships hard, so. ALSO: if you want a Y/N fic, specify if it's platonic, romantic, (perhaps even familial) and a broad summery of how this Y/N should act. (example: young and naive child of Hypos Y/N turning up at CHB right before the events of TBOTL) No smut though, I ain't that kinda writer.

TAGS! #thunder crackles: me posting a one-shot or a chapter/new work I am doing #thunder crashes: me updating a writing situation or announcing a hiatus #thunder storm: me answering an ask #thunder calls: me just posting whatever the fuck I'm thinking

[happyk44]

Maybe completely retcon isn't an accurate way to state it. But Rick does tend to forget certain traits or exaggerate others in his characters. Or chooses to ignore things he wrote before. So certain characters appear differently than they did in previous books. Like Ares becoming far more in your face agressive in the show. Even his change from child abuser in TSoM to "I'm proud of my kids" in TLO (Clarisse) and HoO (Frank). Apollo came across as kind of... simple in BoO when Leo is trying to trick him when he seemed a lot more clever in TTC. Like he's upbeat but he's not stupid.

Also I don't get why Leo had to trick him in the first place. I get it was play on the myth between him and Hermes, but Apollo shows up to help Percy in disguise in TTC with zero prompting. Sure, it's his sister in trouble, but he also drives the kids to camp and extends a blessing to Percy in TBotL when he prays for one. You get the vibe that he just likes helping people. I can't see why he wouldn't say "fuck it" to his father and help the trio when they come to him, even if he had to feign being tricked to do so.

Instead Leo coaxing him into wanting the music box is so obvious, the fact that he ends up accepting it just makes him feel kinda stupid. Given how Rick writes, if Apollo was faking falling for Leo's trick, he would've done an exaggerated wink or something. So the reader knew for sure.

Then Hades in BoO feels different than Hades in TLO. He's much more mild and his relationship with Nico is written to be positive, although awkward, wherein TLO he was literally like "nico is a weakling but he's all i got so 🤷‍♀️" and previous books showed him as this intense, merciless man willing to kill Percy on sight. See also the TV show changes - haven't watched the show, zero interest in doing, but he's a lot more gentle, far less scary.

I think these changes have a lot to do with the perception of Hades in the public eye becoming positive, especially with the rewrites of the Hades/Persephone myth. So Rick wanted to shift the view of Hades to match that compared to the whole "the underworld sucks and Hades is scary" vibes he initiated with TLT.

Not that he did well with it considering he retconned Frank from thinking the underworld and Nico were okay and kinda cool in SoN to "oh my god Nico is so spooky" in MoA. And then the whole Nyx thing. Like dude, pick a lane. Either darkness is creepy or it's not.

While I like the kinder characterization and one could argue that the events of TLO allowed him to let go of his angst over Maria so he could be nicer to their son, it's literally been under a year since he blasted a tree next to his son into melted goop because he was so enraged by his kid's incessant chattering and demands that he go help the family he felt betrayed him.

Nico also spent a good chunk of the time after TLO checking in on Hazel and then being trapped in Tartarus. I think he was also searching for Percy as well. We don't know much about how his relationship with Hades improved. Hades even jokes about almost blasting Nico to cinders for being annoying - as though that's not a real thing that nearly happened. Despite it being brought up, Nico doesn't even think about it. Instead he just gets stressed out by his dad talking about his crush on Percy.

The whole thing gives "Hades is just an awkward dad who can't relate to his kids".

I think the version of Hades becoming bitter over losing Maria and having to hide his kids so his brother doesn't kill them is fine. I think him becoming engulfed by this bitterness over the years, the anger intensifying when Zeus breaks the rules, when Poseidon breaks the rules, when Percy shows up and accuses him of stealing the weapon that murdered his girlfriend and nearly killed his kids - I think that's cool too. The idea that his grief is so strong he can't easily revert back to the kind father Nico and Bianca probably grew up with is interesting.

It fits the idea of "holding grudges" being the child of Hades' fatal flaw. Whether or not you believe that was Nico's fatal flaw, it's certainly Hades'. Since he's a god, the fatality falls onto other people. Like his son. And if holding grudges is a fatal flaw, I don't see him magically getting better within a year when he was stubbornly holding onto it for over seven decades. He doesn't have to slap Nico across the face, lol, but even him being put off by Nico having a crush on Percy (rather than literally any other person) would've been more in character than him seeming somewhat charmed by it.

Nico's best feature is that he's stubbornly self-sacrificing. Hades almost killing him doesn't derail his fight to get his father to act. Finding out that his mother was killed was killed by Zeus doesn't stop him. Finding out he was almost killed by Zeus doesn't stop him either. So I don't think keeping Hades as a bitter man struggling to get past his grief so he can have a positive relationship with his son would somehow impact Nico's willingness to interact or work with his father.

This also might just be a personal grievance of mine because it's annoying he's done nothing with it, but Zeus in PJO was a dick, yes, but you got the sense that many of his decisions, even when it came to attacking Bianca and Nico, were undertaken by some kind of logic, even if fucked up. "There's a prophecy about the Big Three kids possibly destroying the world, okay, time to make an oath not to have anymore babies and keep an eye on all our pre-existing kids (so we can probably kill them in one collective group), oh no Hades is refusing to hand over his kids, well, fine, I'll just get rid of them now before they potentially become a problem." Fucked up? Yeah. Makes unfortunate sense for a guy who ate a woman so he wouldn't risk being dethroned? Yeah.

Zeus being annoyed with Jason for calling him unwise at the end of BoO? Sure. Zeus punishing Apollo because of Octavian leading a war against the Greeks? No. I don't get it. To me, Zeus is paranoid, but he's not completely irrational. I don't see the lines of logic. Okay, he wanted someone to punish after everything. Why? It's finished. They've won.

The ensuing war between the Greeks and Romans didn't have anything to do with Gaea either. It wasn't even the cause of their struggles to remain in one form because the Romans didn't find out the Greeks even existed until the end of SoN. And the silence from the gods had started before Jason showed up, so its not like it was caused by the Greeks finding out about the Romans. So where's the logic? Where's the rationality? He didn't punish Ares for helping Luke steal the bolt. He didn't punish Hermes over Luke resurrecting Kronos. So what the fuck.

Also Apollo didn't tell Octavian to do what he did, and if ToA reveals that, oh, actually, he did, then that's another characterization change that doesn't make any sense. Apollo has always been on the side of the main characters. Him secretly encouraging Octavian wouldn't make any sense.

Zeus' descent into irrationality bothers me because Rick isn't doing anything with this to make it worthwhile. Nothing comes from his notably unwise decision to shut off communications with the world (except Jason fucking dying apparently). Nothing comes from the irrational decision to punish Apollo for something he didn't have a hand in. Him trying to kill Nico and Bianca is never mentioned again.

I don't think Rick would be good at writing Zeus being dethroned and I don't want him to try. But him making Zeus cruel and irrational and then not doing anything about it when he keeps writing stories about characters standing against cruel and irrational villains annoys me so much.

Tell me, how do you feel about The Trials of Apollo making the Olympians out to be a toxic family?

I haven't read ToA and have zero intention on doing so. The only PJO-verse books I've read are PJO, HoO and TKC. I have zero interest in any other books within the universe.

However, while I can't speak to the toxicity shown in ToA, I'm not really surprised by it existing. The gods aren't really shown to get along - especially the Big Three. I mean, Rick has Poseidon and Athena still beefing over an event that happened thousands of years prior at the start of the first book, and that beef is still so strong Annabeth tells Percy to his face that they're supposed to be enemies with zero prompting.

[winters-cursed-king]

oh, 'quenched (like a candle's wick in the breeze)' for the fic thing?

oh fuck this is so poetic. PJO, Nico centric. I’m a sucker for angst so it would probably be centred around Bianca’s death, Nico’s issues around chb and trying to fit in with a century that isn’t his, his fractured relationship with his father, and his crush on Percy. I have two routes; one would go down a very Angsty path and focus on self harm, trauma and suicidal thoughts, and would be set in Tartarus or the jar. The other would be more subtle in it’s discussion of the central topics and would be set while Nico is crashing at Percy’s sometime between tbotl and tlo 

[privatewizard]

#so many characters and dynamics that could've been explored #like i love the friendships we got i just wanted more #piper and percy #leo and annabeth and reyna #annabeth and jason and frank #i know they're all hesistant to trust and have to worry ab the world ending #i just wanted more interactions and developments #love angst but i want all the fluff #i got robbed of complex nico percy annabeth friendship and seeing it develop past to #didnt annabeth hug nico in tbotl be she was relieved he was okay #idc if it makes me delusional i wanted more than surface level dynamics between all of them

tbh all i wanted from hoo was more developed friendships