hazel you will always be famous

I think I've posted about this before somewhere but to try and recap everything, frank is immediately introduced as a guy preoccupied with gender roles and his own masculinity

in this one paragraph we can observe his desire to be a provider for hazel and to be an "old-fashioned knight" that rescues her. I'd also like to emphasize the blue text - frank knows this is a stupid desire for him to have (especially towards hazel, one of the most powerful demigods in the franchise) but his self-awareness isn't enough to make the desire itself go away

frank is terrified of appearing weak (particularly to hazel, his female love interest), he's embarrassed of his friends seeing how much he loved his mom, his grandma is telling him outright that "men don't cry" - and the books certainly don't get into this at all but given how asian men in particular are stereotyped as nerdy and effeminate/un-masculine in the west, there's plenty of reason to see why frank, one of the only asian men in the entire series, might have cause to care about asserting his masculinity and being perceived as strong compared to other male characters. that frank is eventually able to cry in son, confess his firewood weakness to hazel, admire hazel's strength, and fight alongside her rather than treating her like a damsel in distress (I recommend this post by @hazellvsq about how son avoids framing frank as hazel's "knight in shining armor" despite him protecting/supporting her several times) represents a shift in his desires and his capacity to be okay with his own most vulnerable emotions

like this is clear, intentional messaging about toxic masculinity and shows that frank is growing out of it. I would even assert that percy is a vehicle for this general idea too; percy had a lot of distressing moments in pjo but he had never ever gotten to be quite as openly vulnerable and emotional and cared for as he was in son!!!

nonetheless I don't find it surprising that people kind of missed out on this because this isn't frank's "main" character arc in hoo or even son of neptune. his arc is more about going from being a scared, underconfident, and even at times petulant teenager to becoming a good leader who is strong enough to make hard choices - first as the leader of the son quest (people often forget that this was frank's quest, not hazel's or percy's), then as the leader of the prophecy 7 once percy & annabeth are gone, then as the new leader of the romans when he becomes praetor (though rick botched those last two things terribly. imo frank was a very solid character in son and isn't given enough credit for that, but in the second half of hoo he's one of the worst written characters unfortunately)

when Black characters become such “pure cinnamon rolls” you can’t ship them, when they “deserve so much better” you refuse to pair them with any white fave, when they’re “just so flawless” they become boring, when you insist they’re “perfect” but then utterly and completely stop there, you’re reducing them to one dimension. 

they become props for white character development, cos you’re not letting them have any character of their own.

1) It robs the character of a moral dimension.   It renders their achievements as inevitable as breathing, which means that they’re expected and thus not interesting.   

2) It renders the character vulnerable to immediate repudiation when its convenient.   A “sunshine and rainbows“ character can be rejected as unsalvageable because they commit minor crimes such as not listening to their friend’s advice or hurting someone’s feelings inadvertently.  If they were ‘true to character’ they wouldn’t do that.  Other characters can commit murder and treachery and have reams of apologia written, but we expect the ‘sunshine and rainbows’ character to be flawless.

all of this to say I hope one day I stop receiving comments like this on my fics that are clearly tagged and contextualized as post-canon character studies because this is getting ridiculous

This trio again bc I love them.

Finally a full finished piece that has lineart and effects and not my simple colors over sketch theme. I haven't done this since November lol. I actually started this in December, but here I am finishing this for pride month!