🎶 I don’t, don’t really know what I’m doing 🎶

I go by she/her. Call me Tasha, or just about whatever. Pjo sideblog. Mainly Nico-centric <3

Dated: June 26, 2013

The overturning of DOMA (Defence of Marriage Act) heralded an era of unprecedented support for queer people, a landmark in queer history.

Publication Date of House of Hades (Nico's debut as a queer character): October 8, 2013

Shoutout to queer pjo fans who found solace in Nico but grew up to feel disenchanted by realising his flaws in hindsight. Shoutout to queer pjo fans who cared deeply about Nico's character and felt deeply disappointed by how sharply his writing nosedived from House of Hades. Shoutout to queer pjo fans who-

In The Last Olympian he succeeds in helping Percy gain faux-immortality.

He succeeds in convincing Hades to help with an army of the undead.

In Heroes of Olympus, he adapts to his role as ambassador while keeping his disguise safe and maintaining the distance between both camps.

He sets out to find the doors of death, and accomplishes the same.

He leads the crew to Epirus and keeps his promise to Percy.

In Blood of Olympus he delivers the statue in time alongside Reyna and Coach Hedge.

In Trials of Apollo, he helps disable Nero's vats with the Troglodytes help.

- Trials of Apollo

*Inhales sharply*. Ok. Who exactly was raising Nico conservative catholic exactly? He's implied to only ever have lived with his mother and Bianca. Maria di Angelo, who had not one but two bastard children with the Greek god of the Underworld, conservative catholic? Maria who was in on the existence of the Greek pantheon, conservative catholic to such a great degree? Maria who openly blasphemed against the King of the gods, calling him and imbecile, cons-

(On top of that Nico struggled with his romantic orientation on account of comphet, by the way; he makes no reference to this nascent religious complex riordan pulls up):

-Blood of Olympus

Also Nico embraced his divine heritage and hellenic paganism with open arms, and he was very much in touch with the same. That boy did not relate to mortal culture in the slightest and he simply wouldn't have given two shits about Catholicism, actually. Not his religion, not his business.

Oh, and the cherry on top:

You would expect someone with bad internalized religious homophobia to have atleast some/slight conflicted emotions, but Nico doesn't.

(Excerpt 1: Blood of Olympus, Nico's PoV)

(Excerpt 2: Blood of Olympus, Nico's PoV)

Well, the implications from excerpt one are interesting: it was from a fever dream/nightmare sequence (?) - in Nico's case his dreamscape usually represents painful memories.

Additionally, the way it's framed gives that impression of being left behind; Nico simply watches from afar, he isn't even at the same table (which is big given how they spent a fair amount of time tethered to each other and now...).

Now, excerpt two makes it more interesting because Nico doesn't attribute the abandonment to Bianca's choice, he attributes it to the Hunters, essentially shifting the agency. He's right in a way of course because the Hunters did manipulate Bianca, but Nico doesn't know that. He wasn't present and he was simply told that she made the decision to join the Hunt.

It's very intriguing because Nico essentially viewed it as "they stole her" and not "she left me", probably because it would hurt less, or maybe because he could never blame Bianca for anything - she left Elysium without even informing him but he never brings that up or holds it against her (I understand that she would want a second life, and she was still young but from Nico's PoV I think this part is an interesting detail).

Oh, and also - love how in this excerpt he views people as "stolen"/'can be stolen'. That's a puerile sentiment. It's something you usually see in very young insecure children. Again, pretty intriguing because Nico is rather mature for his age but the sentiment is very fitting: he was a naive kid when it all happened and he never really got the chance to process that abandonment in a healthy way, so...

First off, Nico's character was centered primarily around platonic + familial love, identity in vastly different tempo-cultural environment from the one in which he was born, grief, abandonment and finding acceptance among others. A principle highlight of his character development was coming to terms with Bianca's death:

(Battle of the Labyrinth; in this pivotal scene Nico accepts Bianca must stay where she is: receipt 1)

However, moving on to Son of Neptune, we come across the first major (and highly unfavorable) aberration his character undergoes:

(Son of Neptune, receipt 2)

This was a major disservice to his character development. The Doylist explanation? He needed to be used as a plot device for Hazel's resurrection - which is bluntly put - unnecessary; the doors of death were open, she could've returned simply as an escaped soul.

Now in House of Hades, we run into yet another bad retcon - the crush on Percy and the botched recontextualization. Overlaying a deeply platonic relationship with a major one-sided crush requires a lot of craft, thought and subtlety - work Riordan failed to put in. We can clearly see how Nico's thoughts, attitude and behaviour towards Percy are very different after the retcon; this can be illustrated very easily by drawing a comparison:

(House of Hades; Nico is implied to be deeply bitter towards Percy: receipt 3)

(House of Hades; Percy tries to thank Nico with regards to Bob the Titan and his experience in Tartarus, only for Nico to snub him: receipt 4)

Vs

(Son of Neptune; like an "incantation": receipt 5)

(Son of Neptune: receipt 6)

(Mark of Athena; Nico and Percy's conversation: receipt 7)

In receipts (3 and 4) Nico is bitter towards Percy alongside the crush, demonstrated by the way he snubbed him.

Now this really does not track at all. Note the tone and choice of words in the receipts 5 and 6- Nico describes Percy as trustworthy, a threat only to his enemies. The word "incantation" - what sentiments does this highlight? Fascination, admiration, a certain degree of reverence even. Do you see hostility or bitterness anywhere?

Note the contrast against how he addresses him in receipt 7 as opposed to the unwarranted snub - he apologizes and explains his situation. In fact, he's in a far worse mental and physical state in Mark of Athena than in the House of Hades.

Another major ham-fisted retcon is the whole "you pushed everyone away" being attributed to his internalised homophobia, instead of being attributed to the horrifying trauma which would've made a lot more sense in terms of continuity because if the former were true, Nico would've pushed everyone since Son of Neptune, but we can see there isn't any good truth to the idea:

(Son of Neptune; Frank calls Nico, a gesture Nico reciprocates with a smile receipt 8).

(Son of Neptune: receipt 9)

(Son of Neptune: receipt 10)

We can infer from receipts 8 to 10 that Nico actually tries quite well to interact with people in a environment that was decidedly averse to his parentage.

It's actually simple. Riordan pulled a lot of post hoc changes to fit in the whole crush on Percy +internalized homophobia retcon, which damaged Nico's character significantly.

Nico is a clever manipulator and talker - and a good ambassador by virtue of that quality

That was really a quick and good choice of words - interesting how Nico has been capable of manipulation since he was 12.

Nico was smart enough to realise that he couldn't disclose Percy's past in any way - the two camps had to be kept apart, hence he goes out of his way to manipulate Percy into thinking they hadn't even met before and withheld information about the existence of the Greek camp. Nico adapts very well to his role as ambassador.

A more subtle instance but as Hazel lays it out, he keeps the statement vague, giving the impression that he'd simply run into her in New Orleans - very different from the complete truth.

Additional notes: Nico not only kept his cover as a greek demigod, but also effectively tricked Jupiter's campers about how he found Hazel (as she states in the excerpt above). It's also worth noting how neither Jason nor Reyna caught on about any of Nico's concealed truths concerning Hazel and his Greek origins despite being senior and more experienced to him in social matters (and both of them are canonically implied to be good readers of people).

Nico is a quick-witted and good strategist /tactician

Nico is the one to come up with a plan to save them from lycaon.

Here he gives Dakota the idea of creating a distraction and how to do so.

And he gives the idea to redirect the onagers, which worked pretty well.

In the Tower of Nero, he is the one who to come up with a plan to disable the vats using the hint from the prophecy.

Oh anon, you've opened the can of worms, haven't you?

Well, I do ship Nico a fair bit with Apollo (they're my OTP) - only in adulthood (when he's well into his mid 20s something) and keep that decade long stretch for his healing processe. I would consider myself a very casual/occasional shipper of the other popular fanon pairs (such as Valdangelo, Jasico and Percico).

As for Solangelo, I was dead apathetic about them during the introduction and felt they were bland at best or straight up problematic moments at worst; Trials of Apollo only worsened it.

All that being said my hot take is that I primarily view Nico in light of his platonic relations over his romantic ones and I tend to fixate/think about them more. My default view of his life usually focuses on his found family (Coach Hedge, Reyna and Hazel - with Jason it's on and off depending on whether I want to leave him dead or keep him alive 🫢 and sometimes, a Percy cameo).

The underworld encompasses different region with of diverse natures - The fields of Elysium along with the Isles of Blessed represent the best, and the fields of punishment, tartarus and land of sorrow, in direct contrast, represent some of the worst things...

I don't have the words to articulate this well, but it can be read as an interesting parallel to Nico's own persona: he has great capacity for violence, destruction and a streak of ruthlessness, yet his PoVs are abrim with so much love for his friends, consideration and genuine good intent.