moonieloves

[moonieloves]

i gave it my all, and i hope it shows! chapter five is up.

[moonieloves]

so i was on my monthly phone call with a friend i don't live close to and while i was listening to her yapping (affectionate) my brain suddendly decided to highlight the parallels between percy and nico on one hand and nico and hazel on the other. like, nico basically idolized percy right up until he disappointed him (or he started believing he did), when he kept idolizing him with an added pinch of self-loathing and a side of disappointment in himself, believing he could never measure up to what he thought was percy's standard. remind you of someone?

[moonieloves]

we're almost there. this is chapter four!

[moonieloves]

so by now everybody and their grandma knows i heavily project on nico and i always have anyways i was wondering whether nico too ever looked up at percy and actively had to stop himself from blurting out i think you're the love of my life by the way no biggie

[moonieloves]

chapter three is up!

[moonieloves]

sometimes i think about how i would have loved to read something about percy, jason and nico interacting and bonding more. the dual relationships are pretty defined, i think, it's just a pity that they never got to be properly developed as a trio, because let me tell you, i think they would have rocked it.

[moonieloves]

second chapter is up! hope you'll like it. it does get a bit dark, but we'll get percy out of there. eventually.

[moonieloves]

this is all absolutely correct, of course, i just wanted to add my two cents. it's true that there are no nicos or niccolos in greek mithology, but there have been quite a few niccolos in italian history and literature. i'm 100% sure it's just a coincidence and i am beyond certain that rick riordan could not have known, but we have had a few people who made the difference in their respective field, and they are all named niccolò. also, i'm thinking 1930s italy and knowing how things went at the time, niccolò was probably a family name or something, maybe even maria's father's name. i'm not sure if they ever explain in the series where his name comes from, i just thought it would be cool if it was like an inherited name or something. <3

Ok so, I’ve talked about names having meaning in the pjo universe but rn I’m gonna focus on Nico Di Angelo.

Background context first

We all know that Percy got his name from Perseus, a Greek hero with a happy ending.

We also see how characters with other mythological names share the same fates (even minor characters like Castor and Pollux)

Percy spends the first five books reliving other Greek myths, (the first one I always think about is The Sea of monsters -> The odyssey) he’s retelling stories that have already happened before.

In a weird way he’s kinda proving Luke right- (that’s a rant for another day)

My actual point

What about Nico?

Nicos character signifies change, we are told this in tsats.

There is no Nico in Greek mythology. There is no Niccolò in Greek mythology.

The name Niccolò actually means “victor of people” or “people’s champion”.

Nico is in charge of his own story, unlike many of his camp mates, he’s not doomed by the narrative.

It’s his own story for the making.

A story nobody has told yet.

While we can guess what happens to others characters due to their namesake, with Nico we will never know.

All we know is that he will be different from the rest, he gets to write and tell his own story.

Nobody else’s.

Just Nicos.

<33

[moonieloves]

so... this is the house in my head percy successfully managed to get into, even though he was not supposed to. i hope the nico lovers will find it, get comfortable inside and love it as much as i do.

[moonieloves]

nico the italian speaker

so i was talking to a friend about whether nico speaks italian or not and these are the conclusions we reached.

would have nico spoken italian when he first got to the us? yes, of course he would have. i feel like maria di angelo would have put a lot of weight into carrying on with traditions, and all that stuff. up until this point, italian is all nico ever knew. somebody might argue about him speaking venetian dialect, which i think is highly likely, but the point is sometimes the language in which lullabies were sung to us sticks. once you call the person that gave birth to you 'mamma' the first time, you don't really change it up.

did bianca speak italian? obviously. i also think that she would have been taken by the american dream quicker than her other family members, and she would have been the one to speak english with nico the most.

the lotus casino must have been were nico really learnt english, i reckon. before that, there always was someone to talk to in italian if he felt too lazy to express his feeling in this other, strange-sounding idom. now, though, there's no one else, and bianca sometimes slips up but she mostly sticks to english. the occasional italian word sometimes comes up in conversation when they can't remember what the correspective in english is, but that's about it. bianca wants them to adapt, and adapt nico does.

by the time they get to westover, nico has mostly forgotten how to speak italian, even though he still understands pretty much everything. even when bianca talks to him in italian, he answers in english. maybe he lost the ability to speak italian too quickly for it to be normal, but he's like ten, and not aware at all that he spent the last eighty years practicing his english with strangers in front of vintage video games. he really doesn't care, he just knows that this new sparkly world that is revealing itself in front of him speaks english in a nonchalant, given-for-granted way, and so he tries to do the same.

bianca was literally the only other person that even knows he supposedly speaks a whole other language. when she dies, everything wipes itself out. it hurts too much to remember how her voice sounded a bit deeper in italian than it did in english, and so he forgets it all together, along with his own ability to understand italian. the memory stays, but now that her words don't make sense in his head anymore, not really, he doesn't have to feel pain pulse inside his ribs that badly.

oh, it still frustrates him sometimes. sometimes, he won't remember how to name a certain object in italian, nor in english, and he is left to angrily sputter around. sometimes he can't wrap his mouth around the pronunciation of a certain word, because he just learned to do things another way even if he doesn't really remember. his english vocabulary could really use some improving, and his italian vanishes a bit more every day. but by the time hoo happens, i'd say, most of his accent has washed out, and he sounds properly american now. for the most part. he still dreams in italian sometimes, even if he doesn't understand half of it, and maria di angelo will always be 'mamma' in his head.

[moonieloves]

so i've been writing a little something that was SUPPOSED to be a nico di angelo character study, because i love him to pieces and i kind of see myself in him and a whole load of trauma i am not unpacking now. problem is, i'm like a few thousands words in and i realized i have already somehow managed to make this about percy. which i love, by the way, because if there's something i love to write about is deranged!percy, but mister, what are you even doing in this house? you were supposed to be sitting by the porch, and now somehow the whole place is yours.

[moonieloves]

i am guilty of having taken things for granted until now. i thought my equilibrium would last forever, and now i'm trembling with fear at the first instance of instability.

[moonieloves]

i've been object to little touches and glances i would have killed to soak up in last year. it was easier to want it then, because i thought she was never going to give me the time of the day. now, i feel skittish every time she so much as looks at me, because it's more than she has ever given me and i feel like i don't deserve it. what am i to do?

[moonieloves]

i am living my dream as far away from home but possible but then one of my friends told me on the phone 'i see you in other people's faces' and i feel like crying now

[moonieloves]

i finally moved as far away from home as possible, just like i always wanted. then why can't i stop missing it?

[moonieloves]

I managed to finally read TSATS, and it almost moved me to tears.

The first time I had the pleasure of meeting Nico Di Angelo, many years ago, I was twelve, I think, incredibly lonely without wanting to admit it out loud, bursting with rage against the world, nursing suicidal thoughts and with a crush on a girl who hated my guts, stuck between admiring her from a distance and considering myself as inferior to her. It's to no surprise that I projected on Nico, loving him when I couldn't love myself and showing him the kindness I believed I didn't deserve. I thought I was never going to get better, and he brought me comfort in his rage and profound grief, because I felt that if he was feeing that way, I was allowed to as well.

I'm twenty now, and i cautiously allow myself to think I'm better now. I am able to find something during my days to smile about, and I have somewhat of a plan for a future I started to be able to imagine. With all that being said, as soon as Rick Riordan announced TSATS, I immediately ordered the book, and I devoured it within an afternoon.

It moved me in a way I can't describe to see the grief-striken boy I left behind get better as well, like I did, and find love and companionship the way I hope to believe I deserve, one day. He's no longer alone fighting his ghosts, and he's able to accept them now, and to call them by their name. He's doing his own thing, and it has lead me to believe that maybe neither me or him will ever be okay, but we're trying our damn hardest because we want to never be stuck down there again.

So, thank you, Nico. I hope we'll both continue to get better at our own pace.

[moonieloves]

I want to fall asleep on your chest, listening to your heartbeat, while you stroke my hair. at the same time, I want to never show my face to you again. would you please just stop going hot and cold on me? everytime you touch me it feels like a brand, and I think I've been yours for a little too long.