#rrverse close reading stuff

[cabin13cappuccino]

You are so right for this!!! Especially since Hades is in absent/dickhead father mode through BotL, The Sword of Hades, and TLO: he offers Nico no refuge when he runs from camp (he is literally homeless living on the banks of the Styx/in the Labyrinth) and he's never satisfied with Nico when he does give him a second thought; he lets his wife pick on his kid (turning him into a dandelion), he's constantly comparing Nico to the child Bianca could have been, and he manipulates him for his own gain. He has to find a way to gain his father's approval in order to be worthy of a home.

Then comes along a figure (Minos) who has worked in a position of power in the Underworld for millennia, who isn't dismissive or fearful of Nico, and who offers him guidance and a chance to get back the most important person in his life. Of COURSE Nico is going to jump head-first into following the only soul who has appeared to care about him. (Not that Percy didn't, but he was thirteen years old at the time with a potentially life-ending prophecy hanging over his head. Kid had no business being responsible for a grieving ten/eleven year old even though he wanted to be.) No parental support along with no other support network made Nico SO vulnerable to grooming.

The after effects on Nico of breaking out of that toxic dynamic aren't discussed/explored nearly enough imo, but I think one of the things Rick does quite well with this is characterizing Nico as incredibly closed off from other people going forward (at least until he starts to open up in HoH + BoO). Even as early as TLO, he shuts Percy out when he asks about leads on Nico's mom- and yes, that's complicated by the deal Hades cut with his son and Nico's crush on Percy, but the guy he likes is showing genuine interest in his life and Nico's response is just "NOPE can't let him in" because the last person who supposedly selflessly cared about Nico was doing it all for their own gain.

The lines about the lessons Nico learned about ghosts from Minos in BoO hits with a different sort of gut-punch from this angle:

"After his experience with Minos, Nico realized most specters held only as much power as you allowed them to have. They pried into your mind, using fear or longing or anger to influence you." (Chapter 14)

"Nico knew something about ghosts. Letting them get inside your head was dangerous. He wanted to help Reyna, but since his own strategy was to deal with his problems alone, spurning anyone who tried to get close, he couldn’t exactly criticize Reyna for doing the same thing." (Chapter 29) (bold emphasis is mine)

Nico's self-isolation has been a means of protecting himself from being manipulated further due to the grooming Minos put him through, which is honestly more tragic than it gets credit for.

does anyone wanna talk about the grooming metaphor between nico and king minos or should i continue screaming into the void

[electricalcheese]

Who is this silly goober?

→　Heyo, I’m Electricalcheese. I go by Electrical, Cheese, or somethin similar to that.

→　he/him she/her they/them pronouns for me!! i don't really care which set of pronouns you use

→　The main fandoms I am in are Keeper of the Lost Cities and the Riordanverse.

→　In general, my blog is mainly about art (with me complaining blabbering and ranting about nothing along with it). Sometimes I post my thoughts I get randomly. I also reblog things i like!!!!!

→　Generally, I post about what I'm addicted to most, which alternates a lot. Currently it's KOTLC.

→　Current profile picture credit: My art, Mr. Sunshine from Block Tales

→　Feel free to tag me in any posts!! (can you tell i dont have friends) (PLEASE I NEED FRIENDS I SWEAR I'M NOT DESPERATE THO!!)

→　I’m open to any art suggestions, just keep it within the fandoms I’m in. (I love doing art requests though please do so!!!!!)

→　Please note that It may take a while for me to get to art requests! Sometimes I get drained after doing a few, please don't mind that!

→　Tags (i might not tag some posts correctly so some things might not appear)

!cheese arts - my art

!cheese reblogs - reblogged posts (note that i don't use this tag often anymore!)

!cheese stuffs - random stuff (alt: shat post 😹)

!cheese answers - answered questions from my asks

!cheese ocs - my ocs (mainly rbs from my oc sideblog or my main persona)

→　Oh yeah my carrd and strawpage!! these links have my general informations, such as miscellaneous stuff about me.

→　My cool side blogs: @khaoticpurity @kotlc-preface-daily

I'm gonna yap a lot under here, so beware!

→　Favorite characters: i enjoy dex dizznee, fitz vacker [<- kotlc], magnus chase, apollo [<- rrverse], and skateboard [<- phighting]

(Thank you Kaiju for Skatebald image)

→　When I started my fixations if you wanna know!!!!! (is it fixation idk bro i've just been obsessed with them)

PJO - Late April 2022

PHIGHTING! - Late May 2023

KOTLC - Early September 2023

→　Other stuff I like:

solitaire (the card game) (i played it so much to the point i envisioned it when i closed my eyes)

astronomy 😈😈

weezer 🎉🎉

femtanyl (not the dwuggy wuggies i promise) (unless..)

→　Also I get free palenstine asks a lot, just a heads up, I CANNOT DONATE MONEY!!! I'm a minor!!!!

Thanks for reading, G’bye.

→　Secret instagram (not really but it used to be private)

[glassamphibians]

what's your giant bucket list for the potential nico book? like plot, backstories, tropes, all that good stuff. also becky riordan said that people have to read house of hades if "rick does a nico book in the future"

this is kind of all over the place and very long so uhh sorry in advance

omg yeah wait ur right becky did say the house of hades thing. it scares me bc i don’t know if she was just being like “you find out nico’s gay in this one and that bob still exists so uhh thats important i guess now buy my husband’s book 🔪🔪” and it doesn’t actually mean anything, or if it means something huge like “remember eros? yeah nico kills him in the solo book >:)” she could have meant anything im and terrified.

what i do know is that i want both nico and will narrating in first person pov. i’ve talked about why i want both of them here. normally i dislike first person pov’s in books but riordan is a weird anomaly where his first person narration is actually better than his third person narration? like, if you pulled random pieces of text from percy, apollo, and carter’s povs, i would be able to tell who was narrating bc they all have very distinct voices. in heroes of olympus the only pov that felt distinct was leo and thats one out of nine characters :/ nico and will both have really interesting personalities and i want to have that come through in the narration.

for the plot all i know is that i dont want it to be going to tartarus to save bob, thats too straightforward and honestly its kind of a cheap move. i think the whole bob thing should just be the hook and then as the story progresses we realize its something else entirely.

maybe its someone else trying to get rid of nico bc they view him as a threat, maybe its related to the pantheon meeting chiron was at, idk!! but theres a lot going on and i think this is bigger than bob

like, remember when luke gave percy the cursed shoes? i think it could be like that. imagine them getting so close, being just about to dive into tartarus, and then realizing they were tricked and that something bigger is happening. then the real plot picks up.

bc on a more thematic level what i really want this book to be about is a continuation of toa’s “breaking abusive cycles” theme. it should be about nico putting his past behind him instead of falling back into it.

then once the real plot starts i think it should be formatted like the pjo quests!! a big fun cross country road trip where you get almost killed, make some friends, make some enemies, and all in all have a horrible great time!!

im gonna trash on heroes of olympus one more time im so sorry. Son of Neptune is the strongest book in that series and what does it have? the cross country quest format!! once we expanded into moa and they were just on a fancy boat for the rest of the series it stopped being fun. literally like look at blood of olympus. no one cares about what the fancy boat people did in that book. what we did care about was the three person quest where they had no clue what was going on and had to make hedge do interpretive dance so that they could pay for breakfast.

so yeah i think for it both to be a strong stand alone as well as fit into the rest of the rrverse it needs to have that “some goddess just showed up and told us to go to kentucky but did not tell us how to get to kentucky. will won’t let me shadow travel so now we’re on a bus. the stranger sitting next to me fell asleep on my shoulder and i dont want to be rude and move them. why does god hate me.” kinda vibe.

the cross country think is also great bc that mean’s we’d get to see all our old friends!! maybe they stop at the waystation and see reyna & the hunt!! maybe they end up in texas and see will’s mom!! maybe they end up in california see hazel & everyone else over there!! maybe they go to paris and visit rachel!!!

the trogs must be involved. idk how but they must play a major role. maybe screech-bling is the third person in their quest and they can wear hats the whole time.

i really, really want will to finally get cannon complexity. he has a such strong foundation as a character and i’m still upset we didn’t get much real depth added to it during tower of nero. i feel like each book Rick gives us ten Will related puzzle pieces and leaves us to make the rest of them ourselves?? just make the whole puzzle rick it is literally your job.

the idea of Will, someone who has been a background character for 15 books suddenly being pushed into the protagonist position is such an interesting concept that i would love to see explored in the solo book. i think that contrast him and nico, who has been a Big Deal since before will was even born, would be really fun to read.

also i want him to snap. stop being composed will go apeshit!!! throw a scalpel at someone with your amazing apollo aim!! have plague powers and kill some people!! no one is gonna tell on you Will we all want this

going back to nico, he has no idea who he is rn. i mean seriously he’s never had a home like this, he’s never had people who care about him like this, he’s never been safe. remember what percy said in house of hades?

percy’s talking about how he personally doesn’t know nico, but i think it could be applied to this situation too. he’s changed so much in the past like 15 books and i want to see nico figuring out who he is now that his life isn’t being dominated by pain and sadness. i want to see who nico becomes now that he’s finally able to take up hobbies and just be a teenager!! he know’s who he is as a son of hades, as one of the most powerful demigods alive, but he still has to figure out who he is as a person.

so maybe we get to see what cabin 13 looks like now that he’s changed it!! maybe we get to see what his favorite modern movies & musicians are!! maybe we get to see jules albert finally driving nico and his friends to the mall like hades had intended :)

the should summon jason’s ghost at least once

hades should also properly apologize for threatening to kill him that one time lol

i want hazel, reyna, and rachel to play a major role and if i they don’t i’ll steal riordan’s dog.

is this too long? it feels like its too long even tho i have no clue what i said uhh anyway i hope you had fun reading this love you all xoxo

[the-ghost-king]

You know how everyone has at least one minor rrverse character with no significance but they're you're favorite? Okay Mitchell from the Aphrodite Cabin is one of mine...

Make him Italian, probably Southern Italian I like to imagine his family immigrated from the Florentine area

Trans masc

At first he thinks he's just a gnc trans guy but after he starts medical transition he realizes he's nonbinary

Uses he/they pronouns generally

But when people he's close to talk about or to him and they're using nouns to describe him they use female gendered nouns (ex: daughter, lady, girl, etc), and yes these are a part of his gender expression

Also the type of person to hyphenate their deadname with their original middle name as their new middle name

They definitely are the type of person too who just invites invasive and awkward questions (as long as they're being asked in good faith) for educational purposes, and he'll give you the most derailed answer if that's what you want

Also he might be femme but he's not weak and he will beat you up if you're just being unnecessarily transphobic

His dad is a high quality fashion designer and because of this Mitchell is kind of spoiled (okay very spoiled) about clothes, always having high thread count clothes and also personally tailored pieces

They've got some casual plans to take over their dad's business but he thinks that he wants to expand it out into a more affordable fashion market for the average person (they like affordable and sustainable fashion too! The artistic pieces are nice but it's not a long-term sustainable business model!)

He personally dresses very camp, even the cishets look at him and go "oh he's you know... _/‾"

They love a good suit, very gender to him

Him, Nico, and Chiara all getting together to talk in Italian; and have culturefests or something

Watching Italian films, and TV shows, updating Nico on modern Italian culture, etc

Bi or Pan, but doesn't really feel the need to label himself, usually just says multisexual or mspec unless someone doesn't know what that means

His attraction to women is gay, his attraction to nonbinary people is gay, his attraction to men is gay... If you can't handle that you're not their target audience

Idk how old they are but Rick's timeline is fake and so are ages then, so him and Austin are dating

Very cute couple, very casual dynamic, probably have won "cutest couple award" or something at some point

Definitely went to all their high school dances together

Their favorite color... Probably green or pink... Yellow is also a good option

Mitchell probably wears glasses for the "aesthetic" but has worse vision with them on

Would not put it past him to be a social media influencer but have a secret Twitter account for BL

He definitely reads GL too

Very into anime, jdrama, and manga, likes manhwa and kdrama and any other variation of those things

Yeah probably kpop too

They probably like stuff like "My First First Love" and "Cherry Magic!" etc

First anime was probably one of the ones everyone seems to start with so maybe "Your Lie in April" or "Ouran High school Host Club"... His all time favorite is probably "Given"

First Manga... Probably "Orange" or something unexpected like "Black Butler"

He's definitely the person who introduces Nico to anime and such... The whole thing just sort of confuses Nico but he likes a couple of them, "Death Note" and some other psychological or horror type stuff

Definitely has some talent when it comes to hair styling, lots of people at camp are always going to him for haircuts and styles so he starts charging $2 or something for it and basically has a summer job at camp

He lives in the New York area year round (honestly, he probably goes home on the weekends sometimes from summer camp and goes to camp for the weekends sometimes in the school year)

Because of how close he is to camp other people in the area will often call him to do their hair and makeup for homecoming/prom/etc and he always agrees unless he's visiting family in Italy or he's touring with his dad

Likes to chill with Austin at the infirmary, partially to hang out but also probably because that's one of the few places in camp that has air conditioning

Will is always getting after him for sitting on the counters, something about it being unsanitary but they don't think it should matter as long as they're not in any of the operating rooms

Austin likes him too much to tell him no but yeah it's not sanitary, but to Austin the choice is a sanitary counter or a happy and comfortable boyfriend... He's picking happy boyfriend

Also Mitchell is very supportive of Austin's music career and always trying to convince Austin to let them use tracks of his music on the runways at their dad's shows

But Austin always says no because he wants to "make it big on his own" which Mitchell thinks is a bit silly but if it's what Austin wants he'll support it

Mitchell is super into camp's drama, they don't do anything with the information or all the secrets they just like knowing all of it

If you ask them to keep a secret they absolutely will

But that embarrassing story about you that went around camp five years ago that you lowkey wish everyone would just stop talking about, he's the one that keeps restarting the cycle

He babbles to Nico all the time about all the ongoings of camp because Nico is also good at keeping his mouth shut, but Nico doesn't care about the drama for the same reasons though (Nico: "Hold on, back up, you said Drew knows Sadie Kane? Interesting..." Mitchell:"okay Mr. Ominous, and also yeah, I did say that, so anyhow... ")

Very artistic person in general, he can probably play the piano okay, he's no professional and no Apollo kid but he can play some songs, and they have enough practice to learn new songs on their own!!

Definitely was voted by camp to have the worst taste in music though

Says his favorite movie is probably "Bring It On" or "Heathers" of something similar, but his actual favorite film is one of those cliche silent black and white ones that's only available in French

They definitely did dance for a few years growing up, has a ballet, tap, and hip hope background to work with but he left it behind when we was 13 or so but eventually they start to get back into hip hop and keep up with various types and lessons and places through their 20s

He's always the person to start groupchats

They think they're fun but they rarely take off without prompting from him

Also often times plays matchmaker for people ("they would be a cute couple wouldn't they? I don't know though, does she like girls? I think so?")

Those are just some ideas off the top of my head, hopefully you enjoy!