#i really hated tsats

[regulationhottie7905]

im so sick of him getting reduced to his crushes and relationships. sometimes it feels like a decent portion of the fandom, (a major portion, if im being honest) has to mischaracterize and misinterpret him, or else they'd have to confront the other characters flaws- it's easier to think "oh nico is jealous of annabeth" then realize how cruel others have been to him, on page, even main characters. i love the other characters, but nico's been my comfort character since he was introduced and it drives me crazy to see so many of his complex motivations, or even his anger, reduced to "he's in love with percy". I feel like this problem has become even worse since tsats came out :(

[willthespy]

tsats but for the ancient

if this gets 1k notes i’ll post the original drawing from last year! (joke) (i might actually post it if someone genuinely asks but…. gulp)

(was jokingly going to say 5 or 10k at first but i didnt want to sound cocky or confident bc thats insane)

details under the cut (click for better quality because gods forbid it shows the actual image!)

[aroaceleovaldez]

it was a thing for awhile in the fandom (and still is) to focus on one demographic a character is a part of while ignoring others like they can only exist one at a time (primarily being erasing disability traits or experiences the characters describe, usually by taking a trait meant to indicate one thing and claiming it can only indicate a separate thing and never anything else)

but the absolute biggest offender will always be when Rick and Mark Oshiro just fully did that in The Sun And The Star. like. oh okay. this is what we're doing now. and fully said it too. "Nico only likes Mythomagic to look at the hot men on the cards" ah yes of course it's definitely not because. he has adhd (and autism coding) and Mythomagic is his hyperfixation/special interest. nah that couldn't be it. Because of course Nico's only trait is "Gay" and that's the only thing that can inform his character Ever. How could i be so silly as to think otherwise? (sarcasm sarcasm)

anyways the fandom could really stand to learn about intersectionality that'd be great. rick too probably. also just remember disability exists in general and is kind of very central to the series and nearly every character. thanks.

[lierenprotectionsquad]

I regret going into the tsats tag because I was hoping to see a bunch of gay nerds nerding out over the Solangelo book, but instead I mainly saw trash takes, hate and blatant misunderstanding of literally everything that happened in the book.

[soulspirit--s]

Me *spinning the random name wheel to find a romantic pair for my random pjo series* You know let me get out of my comfort zone and pair Will up with someone that ain’t Nico.

Wheel: Bianca di Angelo!

Me: *closes laptop*

[firebluewood157]

I don’t want to hear absolutely nothing about this book that isn’t compliments.

This is a series that I grew up with and has been apart of me for half of my life. I saw the beginning of Nico DeAngelo, his sisters death was one of the first book deaths I’ve ever experienced that brought me to tears. I saw the beginning of his journey as a bright innocent kid and every single thing that snatched that away from him. As I got through the books, it felt like I grew up with him and with all the pain he experienced it made him the character I related most to.

This book may have been marketed towards 10-14 but it was made for people like me who have grew up with Nico and have seen his growth that have gotten him here. I used to brim with happiness over one sentence about hearing him talk about Will. Seeing an entire book made about their relationship is amongst my wildest dreams. There was little that it could do to disappoint because knowing that he has found love and in that his own happiness and that this allowed him to heal his own demons did everything it possibly could to heal my own inner child.

[daughterofanolympian]

I was Not a fan of TSATS for several reasons (felt rushed, tired of tarturus, the resolution to the built up conflict was underwhelming, the damn coco puffs) but the thing that made me the most mad is WILL NOT BRINGING A SINGLE WEAPON TO TARTARUS

[thedragonsfate]

LMAO can you imagine reading a story where two traumatized FIFTEEN year old boys going through a consistently life threatening situation and simultaneously learning that they have a lot to navigate in their romantic relationship revealed by this time that is Very Hard because it reveals a dissonance in their understanding of the world. where they then both become separately aware of and commit to amending and understanding one another, to the point that they are able to begin discussing how one of their Perspectives has been very hurtful to his bf followed by several apologies and acknowledgements that the former didn't understand but wants to.

Where the bf who had been feeling very hurt is able to safely and healthily express how the others perspective maybe wasn't fair to him and potentially counter to a lot of what he stands for but maybe has skirted around bc of perceived judgment. Where him doing so is in direct pursuit of his own trauma recovery. Where the bf who didn't understand proceeds to show several instances of him actively trying not only to amend his judgement but to show explicitly that he is actively working in real time to expand his world view, because he didn't understand before but that doesn't mean he can't come to understand.

Where they learn about conflict in a relationship and how it's not always explosive but can be insidious as it creeps up in the both of you quietly if you don't actively seek resolution. Where they show incredible skill at listening to eachother to understand, and the bf who has spent this time thus far exhibited as The Good One of the two is able to admit and understand where he has gone wrong and chooses to see that the world is more complicated than he thought. To realize that darkness can facilitate growth and that harsh reactions often come from a place of hurt and it's not fair to inflict punishment onto something just because it's scary, that it's important to extend your hand first and try for understanding, even with things you've spent your life considering Inherently Bad/Evil like death.

Where the hurt bf is able to focus on embracing the hard parts of his life and how they've shaped him and lean even further into his nature of Reaching Out to those in need that other folks shy away from while also maintaining the beginnings of a healthy conversation with his bf about what that means to him. Where he is able to acknowledge how the world has hurt and judged him and use his newfound safe space to find even more people he is ready to open up to and lean on separate from his partner and his partners individual journey into understanding him.

can you IMAGINE reading this beautiful story abt two fifteen year olds learning these really hard lessons together that so many adults cannot grasp, learning to navigate conflict by understanding that they love eachother and that is enough to facilitate the conversations required to keep going if they're willing to try

can you IMAGINE reading such a poignant story about the beginnings of recovery and escaping a state of Survival to become who you are and who you want to be, of showing that recovery is not as easy as choosing to ignore the torment build into your perception of the world - but that you can get to a place where you can begin choosing to understand and accept those things in order to be able to choose your own idea of happiness, of showing light in the dark and dark in the light, of showing the strength in being true to yourself as you depend on oneanother, of having a harsh and difficult past and getting to a point where you're able to look back and say I Don't Want To Do That Anymore, of opening your eyes to the beauty of dark things and letting go of a Very Human instinct to condemn them because you're able to see how you may have been wrong and can now choose to expand how you see the world

can you IMAGINE reading that book and your take away being

"this healing teenager is Cringy and OOC in his recovery bc he acts like a dorky teenager experiencing joy and his boyfriend is Evil bc he's OBVIOUSLY against everything the other stands for TOXICALLY and should be cast aside because he doesn't deserve his partner if he doesn't immediately understand every aspect of his trauma without them discussing it as, again, a FIFTEEN YEAR OLD"

[nicoisastar]

so. I’m not saying that tsats criticism is unwarrranted. I personally have a few critiques & things I wish were done differently. But scrolling through the tags the past couple of days, there are a few posts where I can tell the critiques aren’t actually genuine and just come from a place of not liking solangelo, specifically will solace. it’s really sad to see the lengths people go to to try and twist his character and demonize him just because you want nico paired with someone else.

ship whatever, but leave will solace out of it.

[girlhelpicf]

this is so very sad its like nobody likes the book at all :( i thought it was cool nobody is talking about the cool stuff and the things i thought were cool everybody is shitting on

[thegnat]

look i’m not promising i’m gonna continue writing filling in the gaps soon but i did just start going through and editing the prose like i said i was gonna do a year ago before i continued writing

[crossdressingdeath]

The dynamic I want for Nico and Cupid in TSatS is Cupid going "This is my very favourite demigod" and Nico responding with "Literally drop dead".

[aroaceleovaldez]

okay last one for the night but. honestly i really hate how the franchise has been using loyalty to Rick as a shield for so long. If Rick was involved in a project or not doesn't matter, especially not anymore.

ReadRiordan and the publishing for the franchise has been using this tactic for ages - they obscure if any writing related to the series wasn't written by Rick unless it's special circumstances. It's near impossible to find out who the ghostwriters are (Stephanie True Peters and Mary-Jane Knight). TSATS was promoted as the first time we got a non-Riordan (Rick or Haley) author working on one of the companion novels despite having seven already existing ghostwritten books in the series. The only reason Mark Oshiro was emphasized so heavily for TSATS was because they also work as a sensitivity reader for topics such as queer identity, and Rick had received backlash in the past for being a Straight Cis Old White Guy repeatedly falling into bad habits (that he hasn't broken out of) with certain characterizations that he kept doubling-down on or retconning into oblivion. The show emphasizes that Rick was involved, but the LA Times article brings into question exactly how much he was involved, and it doesn't even really matter either way. The ReadRiordan site actively avoids putting any writing credits on their articles (or art credits...) or anywhere on their site.

Practically the entire fandom unanimously agrees the musical - which had zero involvement from Rick - is the best adaptation of the series so far, including the TV show. Some of the best writing to come out of the series recently was the stuff ghostwritten by Stephanie True Peters (Camp Half-Blood Confidential, Camp Jupiter Classified, Nine from the Nine Worlds, etc). And yet when promotional stuff is posted about CHB:C, there's clearly coded language used to hide the fact that Rick himself didn't write it. Yes, that's how ghostwriters work, but at this point we should really stop pretending "Rick Riordan" isn't just a pen name for a group of authors like "Erin Hunter" and that Rick is actually writing everything in the series. I can easily look up and see which Animorphs books were ghostwritten, and who those authors were. I can find every "Erin Hunter" easily listed on official sites. And yet most people don't even know the Riordanverse franchise has ghostwriters at all.

And the franchise is still trying to use the "Tio/Uncle Rick" stuff. Author loyalty and marketing parasocial relationships isn't going to save the franchise when the author himself can't hold up his own original themes or even keep basic series bible details straight, and especially not if the editors are barely if at all doing their job. And please at least get a goddamn series bible by this point.

[lierenprotectionsquad]

I really look through people’s blogs for up to five minutes just to see if I can like their tsats posts…

[forgechildofheph]

This is gonna be an Anti-Percabeth/Annabeth rant so don't come at me if you continue reading.

Can't read HOO without Percabeth being shoved down my throat (at the point in life, I forgot everything in the books, hence why I need to reread them before starting CotG), like ffs, best Percy characterization in the series is SoN and it was TTC in PJO. Guess what they both have in common? Little to no Annabeth.

Honestly, maybe I should just shelf this entire series and give up? I don't understand why I saw Percabeth as the golden standard when I was younger? Have I really changed that much to the point that I hate Annabeth now when I used to like her? Like??? Who can stand this bitch irl? She's fictional and I roll my eyes whenever I see her name written on the page.

Don't even get me started on the Percabeth fandom. I'm reading a feel-good fic with Solangelo (because tsats does not exist for me, thanks) and these people just ask why there's no Percabeth??? This is a Solangelo fic??????

Supported/bought a zine and there's barely any art that has Percy in it with no Percabeth. Thought this was Percy Jackson and the Olympians? Does Percy have no character except for the fact that he's Annabeth's boyfriend? God, fucking hate this ship now, hate their fandom with how insistent some people are to smash our face with it too

THIS fucking close to just writing a character review on why I dislike Percabeth with my entire being and I am petty enough to do it in APA format. Just out of pure fucking spite.

[somewhereincairparavel]

Dam being a Jason Grace stan in the fandom is a fucking tragedy lol. Not only do we have to deal with him being screwed over by uncle Rick, but we have to deal with the fandom hating him aswell lol, i feel like Jason Grace slander wouldnt affect me half as much if his character had gotten a happy ending. I just saw an Instagram reel about a "character's povs you skipped through'' and the comments were flooded with Jason Grace just like I'd expected lol 😭 like blud has no mercy there.

It took all my will power to not defend him under a comment that called him "homophobic", I cannot believe that comment had 4 people agreeing aswell like- did we read the same books? Did they completey skip over the coming out chapter in HOH where jason was literally the first person to tell Nico not to be ashamed of liking guys and that no one would judge him? the guy is legit one of the least problematic characters and does nothing mean, how is he even CONSIDERED in the homophobic area anyway? (he also gets slandered for being "too nice" aswell lol) so seeing him wind up in such a contradictory accusation just screams tone deaf and anti-jason bias tbh, Nico legit said he considered jason as one of his first friend/supporter (apart from his sisters) in TSATS :') its like ppl keep throwing in these false stuff bc they WANT to find a reason to hate him. (dont take this as me saying you are not allowed to hate him or something cuz that would be quite hypocritical of me, wouldnt it? i just hate that ppl make up problematic hcs of him and push them as canon, it would taint non-reader's perception of him because of false info, what if a non reader stumbled across that comment and immediately figured that jason was indeed homophobic even when he wasn't?)

Also, can we please normalize NOT judging a person for their character preferences? I like jason and i am aware that its an unpopular take, but that doesnt make me any less of a pjo fan. The fandom seems pretty aggressive when we dont follow the popular opinion. i have seen multiple ppl pretend to hate jason simply bc they WANT to fit in and "look cool", since the fandom has a tendency to use Jason as a punching bag to insult like "he's a knockoff percy" or "he thinks he's so cool but he's not". or smth, so when people do claim jason as a favourite, a huge chunk of the fandom start belittling them and go like "really? Out of all characters, why jason?" Or "Percy/Leo is better, I don't understand why you like Jason"

okay thanks for coming to my ted talk. i am aware that i was yapping here. unfair Jason Grace slander does that to me.