#the whole ''oh yeah no its actually kind of easy for monsters to leave tartarus it just takes them a couple of years''

[aroaceleovaldez]

i think i’ve pinned down one of the things that’s bugged me about the recent series/books - over time there’s been a slow over-saturation of the mythological aspects, at least in how they’re presented to us. The first series and TKC balance the mundane and mythological really well, but as things go on there’s more and more emphasis on mythological things as separate rather than merged with the mortal world. The best two examples I can think of for this are Tartarus (We’ll ignore Tartarus in mythology versus how it is in PJO for now, that’s a topic for another day) and MCGA -

[Under cut for length]

in the first series, Tartarus is scary and ominous because we don’t know anything about it, we’re just told it’s bad and the only things down there are Kronos and reforming monsters (who can actually relatively easily escape Tartarus, it just takes them a minute), essentially. All we ever see of it is glimpses in the first book of the edge of it and a little bit later in the Labyrinth when there’s some cracks that lead to it. In the beginning of HoO it’s still scary because we still haven’t seen it, but we know Nico went down there and it was extremely bad for him. We still know nothing else! This also adds something special - Nico now has the unique trait of being the only mortal to have passed through Tartarus and survived. All of that then immediately falls apart when Percy and Annabeth fall into Tartarus and... it’s not that impressive. They actually get through it relatively fine. They run into a friendly giant who gives them soup and we get a literal deus ex machina as Iapetus/Bob shows up out of nowhere to help them out too. So now we’ve revoked the fact that it’s a special trait to have been able to survive Tartarus, that apparently means nothing, and apparently there’s enough friendly/useful things in Tartarus to make your life easier while you’re there AND now with TSATS we’re revisiting it again and now Will gets to have survived Tartarus too, I guess, because just anybody can do that now. Not to mention the whole “Oh, btw, Nico actually also has Super Special Tartarus Vision but Percy also temporarily got that too so that’s also not special.”

With MCGA, the series is supposed to be set in Boston, right? Except, it’s not, really. It’s set in the Nine Worlds. And it’s set in the Nine Worlds in such a way that we the reader are essentially just on a convenient guided tour of the Nine Worlds for some reason. We didn’t need to see a guided tour of the Nine Worlds! It’s just shoehorning in mythology for the sake of showing it off. PJO and TKC being set in New York worked because we actually see New York and New York is important to how the story functions. The mythology stuff is in New York! Camp Half-Blood is on Long Island Sound! Olympus is in the Empire State Building! The Grey Sisters drive a taxi! Camp Jupiter works because it’s in California. TLH and SoN work because we are in different real-world locations, but mythology stuff is happening in those spots. That’s what made PJO unique! And that’s what starts falling apart later in the books - Team Statue’s trip is memorable because we get some details about the places they end up. That one scene where Hazel, Frank, and Nico are wandering through Venice is memorable because we see Venice! Most of the rest of HoO we don’t get that same description. In TOA we lose it even more - yes, we’re in these different spots, but they feel disconnected because it’s less “We’re in this location! and there’s mythology stuff here too!” and more “OMG MYTHOLOGY STUFF and we’re like, vaguely in this location, I guess.” You could essentially interchange the mundane location of those scenes in HoO or TOA or MCGA without disrupting the story at all because it doesn’t play into it at all. In the first series it matters that we’re at the Gateway Arch and the Hoover Dam and Las Vegas and Manhattan. In TKC it matters that we’re in London and Brooklyn. In TLH it matters that we’re at the Grand Canyon! In SoN it matters that we’re in California or Alaska! Heck, it matters that the Princess Andromeda was a normal cruise ship with mortal passengers still on it! But in MOA-BoO and TOA and MCGA it doesn’t! You can interchange any random place with Greco-Roman ruins because we’re just apparently on a tour of Europe anyways. You can interchange the setting of TOA because for the most part between Camp Half-Blood, Camp Jupiter, and the Labyrinth, we’re either just vaguely somewhere or some new randomly introduced demigod-or-mythological-related place. You can interchange the setting of MCGA to any large North American city because we barely see the city, it’s just a backdrop for Hotel Valhalla and spots are chosen at complete random as access points to the Nine Worlds.

It takes away some of the meaning, to me, to over-emphasize the mythological aspects of the universe when it’s supposed to be this big special thing. The entire first series emphasizes how the mythological world has merged with modern mundane life, and especially that demigods struggle to locate and interact with a lot of these mythological locations. Trips to Olympus are rare and special occasions.Trips to the Underworld are difficult and extremely uncommon unless you have specific access or are summoned there, so every time we do go there it’s exciting! In TKC it takes effort and difficulty and specific circumstances to gain access to many mythological-related things and places in the first place, which in turns makes it rewarding when we do see it. There are absolutely some mythological locations we see in the series that it makes sense to repeatedly visit or have easier access to - the camps and nomes, obviously, are safe havens we expect to return to. The Labyrinth has access points everywhere. But the cool part of the Labyrinth in the first series versus TOA is that in PJO, where the Labyrinth was entered and exited was important and created interesting scenarios - such as fighting Kampe in Alcatraz, or having to guard the entrance into CHB because it was dangerous. In TOA it’s always just kind of... somewhere?

There’s also a lot of rehashing of places and monsters and beings we’ve met before - it doesn’t make sense to return to Ogygia a whole two times after Percy’s trip (which is supposed to be, yknow, impossible to reach unless you get hopelessly lost) or for Calypso to even show up again after the first series since part of Percy’s deal at the end of TLO was supposed to be for Calypso to be freed. Returning to Ogygia’s island and reintroducing Calypso there feels like a retcon more than anything at that point, when if you wanted to reintroduce her you could have just had her show up somewhere else, having been freed from her island and gone traveling to see the sights of the world. Why revisit Ogygia? Or Tartarus? These places that are supposed to be impossible to reach or survive? Every time you go back it just invalidates the intended feeling and structure of those settings. Why not revisit like, Triple-G Ranch? Which is just kind of there and a perfectly open spot with a known location that’s not difficult to find at all? Or the Amazon headquarters, which is also a known and easy to access building. Neither of those were totally explored when we were introduced to them! And we haven’t seen them again! Heck, we could even revisit the ruins of Circe’s Island, see if anything’s going on there now! What happened to all the sorceresses and pirates? Did the sorceresses become pirates and take back the island? That’d be cool to see! That’s an interesting revisitation of past mythological-based locations, not going back again and again to these impossible-to-reach places. It’s why we never went back to the Garden of Hesperides - we know where it is and under what circumstances to gain access it, but we only went there once and saw it maybe twice and that’s good! Because the less we see the mythological places the more special they are! And the more we see the mundane places and how mythological things have taken root in these modern mortal spaces, then the more grounded the universe feels! Not a random private building entirely occupied by Nero’s forces or magic grottos hidden in already magic summer camps, but furies and centaurs hiding as teachers and satyrs disguised as students. That was what made the universe feel so unique. And I’d like to see more of that instead of things feeling so disjointed like they have recently.

[remainingso]

Dead To Me

Ship: mostly one-sided Percy/Nico (there is no kissing but there is Tension and also there will be kissing in the next part 

Premise: An AU where Nico can see numbers that tell him when people will die! Also a continuation from this fic here (link opens to AO3) but you don’t have to read that one to understand this. Also Percabeth broke up sometime in here 

Summary: Nico’s been avoiding Percy for months since they both clawed their way back out of Tartarus. Jason decides to stage an intervention. 

[Read on AO3] 

Nico barely talks to Percy for a month after the whole mess with Gaea. He tells himself it’s because there’s no time, because Percy is busy doing who knows what to help Chiron out around camp and Nico himself mostly drifts from New Rome and back these days anyways, so there’s—there’s really not enough time to sit down and talk through any of this shit anyways.

Not that Nico wants to do much talking.

He wants to—well, jury’s still out on what exactly it is he wants, but it sure as hell isn’t talking.

If he’s honest with himself (and he is, sometimes, late at night when there’s no one else around to witness it), Nico has to admit that mostly he’s just mad.

It’s a familiar enough feeling, this strange, tired rage that sinks his stomach whenever the subject of Percy Jackson arises, but Nico has spent months trying to untangle his life from Percy’s and he doesn’t appreciate all that complication reaching out to ensnare him all over again.

So it’s easier to veer away from the campfire, now, quickly sidestep the training grounds, and settle up against a tree somewhere where there’s no chance of ever running into Percy Jackson.  

It’s something of a shock when Jason steps out of the trees instead.

Nico narrows his eyes. “If you’re here to drag me back to singing kumbaya with the other campers, you’re wasting your time.”

“Good thing I’m not here for that, then,” Jason says.

“Right. So you’re just here to admire the shrubbery then?”

Jason takes a step forward. The shadows fall over his face, making it look more sombre than Nico suspects he’d like it to be, but the next words that fall out of Jason’s mouth proves him wrong. “I wanted to talk to you,” Jason says. “It’s kind of important, so if you wouldn’t mind…”

The instinct to snap out something caustic and get the hell out of there claws its way up Nico’s throat, but he swallows hard. He’s been working on that, lately.

“Mind what?” he asks faintly instead.

Jason gestures behind him. “It might be easier if you come to my cabin.”

At that, Nico bursts out laughing. “Aren’t you afraid your girlfriend’s gonna find me lurking around your room at night?” 

“Ha, very funny,” Jason says, then rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I just thought it might be easier without the threat of someone walking in, you know. Not that this—not that it’s serious or anything, but you work so hard to keep up your mysterious son of Hades, Ghost King thing, so I figured…” He gestures behind him again, a little helplessly, and dammit Jason is one of the only people earnest enough to make Nico’s prickly shield retreat, just a little.

“Shut up, Grace,” he says, but then he pushes off the tree. “Let’s go.”

Jason beams. Nico tries not to smile in return as they make their way towards the Zeus cabin.

Of course, all bets are off when the door swings open and there, standing right in the middle of Jason’s room, is Percy fucking Jackson 

If it weren’t so pathetic, Nico would’ve lunged for the door. Instead, he tenses and turns slowly to glare at Jason. “What’s going on?” he asks, almost wishing he was fighting literal monsters instead of just figurative ones.

“You two need to talk,” Jason says. “I’ll be waiting outside.”

Then the door is clicking shut, and Nico makes another slow turn, not sure where he can go. Dammit Grace, he thinks, you could at least put up some decorations in here.  

At last, when there’s nowhere else to turn, Nico looks Percy dead on.

The son of Poseidon looks pretty gobsmacked, himself. There’s a small pleasure in how hesitant Percy looks, his hands curling and uncurling at his sides, lips pursed in a strained frown. Nico stays silent, wanting to make him squirm.

Slowly, the strange shifting numbers that Nico always looks for when he sees Percy appear. They shuffle, rearrange themselves like floating dust, and Nico breathes a small sigh of relief when they stay. He hasn’t had a chance to get enough of a good look at Percy since… well since everything, but the time is still the same. It’s the same time it’s always been. It hasn’t changed, even if everything else has.

Percy Jackson still dies somewhere in his 80s (Nico has never bothered to count the years to any sort of exactness). The numbers remain pretty steadfast on that one 

The silence stretches between them, taut and tight. Nico doesn’t want to be the one to break it 

As it happens, Percy snaps first. 

“Am I… did I… do something wrong?” he asks, faltering. He starts to pace around the room, his footsteps landing heavily as his hands fidget uselessly at his sides. “Are you mad at me for something? Because I swear, whatever it is, I didn’t mean it and I’m really really sorry, but you’ve been just… weird ever since… since…” 

“Since you came back from hell?”

Percy’s mouth snaps shut.

The laugh rips out of Nico’s throat too loudly, but once that’s out, everything else tumblrs along with it. “I don’t know how you can be so peachy keen and ready to get back to your normal life or whatever it is you’re doing now, but I’m not so ready to forgive you just yet, Jackson,” he snaps.

“What was I supposed to do, Nico?” It’s the pure simplicity of that that makes Nico want to never ever talk to Percy ever again. It’s like there was never any option. As soon as he was teetering over that cliffside with Annabeth on one side and everyone else on the other, Percy’s mind was made. Breaking up hasn’t changed the conviction in Percy’s voice.

Nico drags a hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he says, because there’s no arguing with that kind of logic.

“Then why…” Percy trails off, probably because then why are you still mad at me? is a question too stupid even for him.

“I wish I wasn’t,” Nico says through gritted teeth. “But I also wish you’d taken a moment to use your goddamn brain, Percy. Maybe thought of the rest of us instead of going ahead and doing your patented stupid self sacrificing bullshit.”

At that, Percy’s temper ignites. Some part of Nico thinks, finally. He takes three steps forward, until he’s leaning over Nico, eyes raging like the sea. “I had no choice,” he growls.

“You did,” Nico counters. “You always have a choice.”

“Well maybe I did!” Percy explodes, stalking closer and closer. “But I couldn’t—I never would’ve let Annabeth fall, and just because you can just write people off as dead doesn’t mean that I can!” He slams a hand down on the doorframe, and Nico wonders if he knows how predatory he comes off, now, how dangerous, how easy it all seems.

Perhaps this is what Tartarus does to you, too. Nico feels his own simmering anger, beating like a pulse under his skin. He tilts his chin up and refuses to cringe back. “Is that what you think I wanted?”

“It sure sounds like it is,” Percy snaps.

“Well, it’s not.”

“Then what do you want? What did I mess up this time? You might as well yell at me so we can both get it over with.”

“Your numbers disappeared,” Nico finally says. He closes his eyes, pushing away the frenzy he remembers from that terrifying moment where he look at Percy and saw nothing. Nothing but the blank darkness of Tartarus. “I couldn’t see them anymore. I knew you were going to let go before you actually did, you asshole.”

Suddenly, Percy looks very tired. He doesn’t back off, but he does sag a little, and Nico is suddenly aware of how that brings his face just that much closer.

“I… I didn’t know that,” Percy says, his breath blowing across Nico’s cheek. He looks fucking shattered.

“Yeah,” Nico bites out. “Of course you didn’t.”

“So you didn’t know?”

Nico laughs again, a little breathlessly. “No,” he says. “I had no goddamn clue if you’d ever manage to drag your ass back out when I let you go.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Percy furrows his brow, and, well, this close, Nico can see the sweep of his eyelashes when he blinks in confusion and it makes him want to die a little, right now, numbers be screwed.

“I just thought…,” Percy trails off, frowning harder. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“Mostly so this didn’t happen,” Nico says, but it’s missing most of his usual barb. He wants to shrug and lean away, but Percy’s arm is still on the doorframe and there’s not much room to lean into.

Then, they’re both all too aware of how close Percy is, how edged in Nico is. It’s all a mess, really, and Nico wants nothing more than to melt into the shadows, if there were any lurking around.

Percy swallows, hard, the line of his throat tight as his Adam’s apple bobs. He works his jaw as if he wants to say something, and Nico is desperately certain that he doesn’t want to hear it. It would be easy enough for Nico to tilt his face up, now, grab Percy and—and what?

(And, see, Nico doesn’t really know what went down with him and Annabeth, and he doesn’t really want to know in particular, but it’s impossible not to think about that now.)

So he blurts, “They’re back now, though. I can see your numbers again,” and winces because that was absolutely not the right thing to say.

Instantly, Percy jerks back, the numbers flickering by his face following. “Don’t tell me!” he shouts. 

“What?”

“I mean. That’s good. I’m glad. I don’t want to, er, worry you,” Percy says awkwardly, back peddling so back Nico’s head spins. “Just—don’t tell me what they say?”

Nico snorts. “You die tomorrow, Jackson. Better go get your will straightened out.”

“Just for that, I’m not leaving you anything,” Percy says, finally not panicking anymore. He settles, standing a comfortable distance away from Nico, and Nico hates himself a little bit for wanting him to come back a little closer.

“Like I ever wanted anything of yours, Jackson,” Nico says, then has to laugh at himself.

Percy looks at him with this funny little tilt to his head, as if he’s trying to figure Nico out. There’s nothing hostile about him anymore, a far cry from the instant stormy rage earlier, but the thread of tension is still taut between them. Nico wonders if it’ll ever go away.

“I am sorry,” Percy finally says.

“For what?” Nico asks, not wanting to let him off the hook this easy.

“For everything, I guess,” Percy mutters. “For not really getting it. I gotta be honest, I don’t think I ever will get what it’s like to be you.”

“Well, halle-fucking-lujah for that.”

“I still am sorry, though,” Percy says, and it’s so damn sincere that Nico feels the tension bunching up his shoulders ease up a little. “You were right. I wasn’t thinking of much then, and I guess… it’s something I have to work on, okay?”

“I guess I could’ve told you about the numbers earlier.”

Percy grins again, wide and relieved. “Damn right you could’ve, di Angelo.”

“Just don’t—don’t do that again,” Nico manages. “I don’t like. Not knowing.”

“Oh gods forbid the terrifying son of Hades deal with death like a normal person.”

Nico snorts and doesn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he eases himself off the door and grabs the handle.

“Are you going to stop ignoring me now?” Percy calls when he’s halfway out the door.

A smile works its way onto Nico’s face before he can help it. The last thread of tension loosens, uncurls, and Nico feels like he can finally breathe after months of suffocating. “Maybe if you’re lucky,” he calls back, then he slams the door behind him and walks away in the shadows. Before he leaves, he makes sure to flip Jason off.