hello my name is Very tiny flying insect i see you’ve got an uncovered beverage outdoors. Can i fall into it and kill myself please please please please please please please please please please

I post like this cause i lack nutrients

hot take: nico is the most normal character in the series. close seconds are percy and luke

i see we're all equally insane. gimme a sec

the thing about demigods, about camp half-blood in particular, is that they are all victims of conditioning. there are things they are not allowed to say, actions they are not allowed to do, and thoughts they are not allowed to think. they are monitored by semi-omnipresent beings. constantly! beings who expect subservience; subservience that is enforced by social norm. scrape off your food as a sacrifice, whether or not you want to. heal with prayer. fight each other;to train (don't ask for what), to gain attention. fight monsters; die by their hand, prove your honour. live by lineage-decided boundaries and sanctions. sing, even, during campfires, about the gods, about their triumphs. have them in your dreams. there is no fucking escape from them. they are everywhere, they are oppressive; even the most blasé and forgiving are invasive and do not accept no (think apollo pre-toa, aphrodite, hermes).

this kind of orwellian surveillance makes friendships largely foundationless. people are expecting punishment and so they cannot offer each other much more than allyship, which is subject to change. there is love, but love does not make one exempt from betrayal. think silena -- she undoubtedly loved her siblings, loved beckendorf, loved camp. and yet she was afraid, for her own life and, ironically, the lives of her siblings, of beckendorf, of the camp. demigods are, even subconsciously, more afraid of the gods than forgiving of each other. their entire lives are ruled by fear and want borne from deprivation, and they have a LOT of unspoken rules about what is an isn't acceptable in terms of dealing with this (clearly illustrated by percy's constant confusion about everything, always).

thsi dictation of acceptable emotional responses is the most diabolical weapon of the gods. demigods are, as their routines and culture constantly remind them, disposable. canon fodder. replacable, temporary, destined to die. luke was, at one point, at nineteen, one of the oldest demigods at camp. others were released in the wild and understood to be dead or, by some miracle, barely surviving, but beyond contact. deaths were common -- in camp, even, by the hands of other demigods. grief was inevitable, but grief was monitored.

grief was monitored.

sure, no one was going around saying so, but only some responses to loss were allowed. weep for your dead friends. think of your murdered siblings and fall to your knees. even better, repress, repress, repress (one thing you learn as head counselor: you have to keep it together for everyone else); don't think about it, don't mention them, don't ackowledge their absence. replace the head counsellor, again and again. adjust silently. accept irritablity, or don't, leave grudges to fester, take out your anger on each other in these war games we make. accept positions as cursed -- they are dead, one after the other, because the fates so decided. this is how it is. accept it.

there are three general branches of the fear response: freeze, flight, fight. demigods live in constant fear. they are also, via surveillance and enforced social norms, constantly barred from their fight response. this is by design: sadness immobilizes, anger activates. demigods who are emotionally fragile are easy to manipulate, and they have to be manipulable to do the will of the gods. they have to be desperate for a reason to matter, to have their short lives mean something, to have the deaths of their friends be not in vain. there has to be approval: some kind of acceptance that yes, this glory from us is worth your pain in suffering. yes, you live a life constantly looking over your shoulder, but you will be rewarded; if not with my warmth and love, however fleeting, than with the gates of heaven. trust in me because if you don't, it will be for naught. i will turn away and so will all who still strive for my love. you will be alone in your suffering. praise me, love me, fight for me; repress your hatred for me, and everything will be worth it. this is the message of the gods, passed implicitly through camp culture (and their lives' circumstances of being hunted and saved only by godly abilities, if they are saved at all).

very few demigods have ever refused this conditioning. very few demigods have looked at the culture of repression and forgetting and have decided to face the path of defiance. of rebellion; against the camp, against the gods, against the system that dictates so much of their short lives. the first to rebel, plainly, was luke. he was told, plainly: watch your closest friend die. watch her beg to her father to keep you and yours safe, and watch her all-powerful father, who does anything he wishes in his pursuit of women (damning them and his inevitable children to his wife's wrath), let her die. watch her life end in front of your eyes and listen as you are told that this is normal, a noble sacrifice that will protect the rest of your kin from the monsters that will never stop hunting you. live in haunting memory of her, in service to your father and all the gods; pray to him thrice daily, train for him, train others for him. watch more die. beg and beg for glory, and when it is granted to you as an afterthought, as a secondary concern, seethe in silence. be grateful you got any at all.

luke rebelled by vowing to tear the system apart brick by brick.

of course he would, right? there was no escaping the reminder of his pain and humiliation, nor was he ever allowed to be pained, to be humiliated. he was expected to be not only grateful but gracious. he had, after all, lived longer than thalia, than most demigods. his grief was kept far away from him, and what person, in his position, would not crack? would not lunge and claw for it back, would not relish in the opportunity to unleash that built-up rage and fury on the ones who, shamelessly and carelessly, caused it? anger was not luke's sin. pride, even, was not luke's sin. rebellion was not his sin. the constant surveillance would crack any normal person who lived long enough under it, and luke lived long enough under it.

luke's only sin was hunger. in his rebellion, in his natural anger, he wanted to rebuild and rule. he did not want to end zeus' rule but rather take over it. he, as the one who lived long enough under the mantra of the gods, internalised their message: you and your kin are disposable. you are trained canon fodder. he denied the gods but could not remember to deny their pride until it was too late. he used demigods in the same way they did, if not more vicious: you matter. your short life will mean something in the pursuit to end the gods. your friend's deaths were necessary, don't you see? they died to see through the new future i have built for you; one where you are not bound to serve your parentage, but where i will care for you, where i will pay attention to you, praise you, protect you. look how i have harnessed the monsters they have sent after you. look how i keep you safe, should you follow me. do not worry about heaven's gate for i will smash it open for all who bow to me. better deal, isn't it? my praise, over theirs? i see you. i am one of you, remember. my Olympus will be better. the bricks i cast will gleam gold so brightly your reflection will shine in them.

luke's rebellion was the easiest for the demigods to swallow because it was the most familiar. yes, in his rage he turned from the gods, but he became one of them. no wonder so many turned to him; turning to him was easy. yes, they know how to serve. how to die. how to strive and strive and strive for approval scarcely given. luke's lust for power soured his rebellion; his reaction was normal, his rage was normal, his rebellion was normal, but it was not revolutionary.

percy, contrastingly, was closer.

like luke, he came to camp running. he came to camp sobbing and screaming (i was crying, calling for my mother), actually, specifically for the mother he just watched get crushed, and was hardly allowed a night of rest before he was thrust into the business of the gods. no rest indeed for the wicked. nico spends the majority of his first book, entirely understandably, refusing to comply. he refuses to believe that his mother is dead, for starters, and refuses further to accept a world where she is. he also refuses to accept a world of sacrifice, where he is meant to keep his head down and let his anger out appropriately and when allowed. he fights back against clarisse and sulks when he is forced in a cabin by himself and snaps at people and questions, questions, questions. he, especially, shakes annabeth, who has not only lived an explicitly demigod life for most of her life but subscribes, cleanly, to the ideal: to the scramble for affection, for glory, for meaning. she wants nothing more than her mother's approval, for her thalia's sacrifice to mean something; for that she must play by the rules. when percy stumbles in, a break from the rules by merely existing, she is mistrusting of him. and when he confirms this disdain for the standard, when he is furious at his father, openly, when he fights against clarisse and protests his role at the entire ordeal, she distances from him. his normalcy makes her uncomfortable. he is a break from the conditioning of camp and it is frightening, first and foremost, it is a threat against her mother's approval and her eventual gates of heaven.

this refusal to comply, to be conditioned, is made even more obvious in his third quest, or when he loses annabeth. he spends that entire nightmare seething. he is downright cruel. he is homicidal and furious and snappy and openly, challengingly dangerous. anyone who stands in the way of him and annabeth is almost collateral. he is inherently kind, so he can and does check himself (and further is surrounded by people who check him, like chiron who refuses to let him and thalia annihilate each other) but he cannot be talked down and reconvinced. the gates of heaven mean nothing to him if annabeth is not returned, and his father's approval becomes less and less important the more hardened his heart becomes. the gods have nothing to offer him except annabeth's safety, which they do not have, and luke has destroyed any faith percy has had in him by jeopardizing it in the first place. percy is a twice-had hero at camp, but his refusal to play by the rules (three people to a quest; three chosen people) has much of the camp turning on him. their patience is already thinned, as he tested it when refusing to comply and risk grover's life, on his second quest, and when he not only forces his way into the camp's quest but the hunter's quest, they lose their patience entirely. he is, once again, challenging their complacency. he is a competitor for glory but he refuses even to be grateful for it, like luke, and that grates them. he does not have their allyship. hero or not, he, like luke, risks their promise of heaven. if they situate themselves with him, they too might risk the anger of the gods, and unlike luke, there is no other allegiance to which they can pledge. percy is not interested in promises. he has no future in mind -- he is focused only on fixing the present.

percy's anger, unlike luke's, is reactionary. he is angry at the gods and at his father especially (so if my dad's a god, i'd like to know which one/he's got a lot to answer for), but it is not in the forefront of his mind as much as luke seethed. when he was fighting for his mother, he was furious and always ten seconds away from breaking away. when fighting for grover, he did break away, as he did with annabeth. in the fourth and fifth quests he spends much of his time running away from camp in general (the more serious things got at camp, the more i found myself needing to call up rachel and get away). he has never been conditioned by camp. he has never accepted the idea that to die is the way, that he must sacrifice all else in the name of glory, that he must live in fear. he finds ways to separate himself. while luke, in response to the conditioning, vowed to make the conditions anew to suit him, percy said: i will force the gods to change, and i will place myself as a constant threat of what i will do if they do not treat me and my kin with the respect they have refused us. when he refuses their gift and instead demands this respect, it is granted because he is powerful. not because they gods or benevolent or because they owe him -- he is a mortal being. a demigod, at that. he is fodder and he and his will shall not last. no, his demands are met because he has the means to make it so. should they refuse him, and cost him more than he already has, he will erupt. they have seen his simmering already, seen what he will destroy to protect his own, see how he will react when he is forced to comply. he can flatten cities and kill gods. he has a power that overcame luke's and has not been seen since achilles. he has the means and the kindness to use it in protection of others rather than in dominance, and that frightens them. by the end of his fifth quest, not only has he shaken the conditioning of the gods, but he has cemented his hold on them. he has, as he promised, bent them to the will of his and his kin. his reaction to it was normal, his rage was normal, his rebellion was normal. it was even revolutionary.

but.

and of course there is a but.

percy is tired.

percy is an excellent leader. he is loyal and kind and powerful but not power-hungry, and it potentially because of his distaste for leading that he is so well-suited for it, but percy is always, constantly running. he does not want to rule like his father does. he wants, understandably so, to rest on his laurels. enough that in the second prophecy he is involved in he has stepped back enough to let in new powers to set the balance. he is no longer the centre and he no longer chooses to be, despite what is risked; in the Great Prophecy he chose to be the centre in place of nico. but in the Prophecy of the Seven, he cannot bring himself even if that was an option. the quest is not about him and he does not make it so, even to save his friends. with hazel and frank, he lets them lead. when they turn to him he steps up, but he makes no offerings. in tartarus, it is annabeth who leads that quest. from the moment he carried juno across the river and washed his protection away, he was dragging himself along. he had, however briefly, tasted the freedom of not only changed compliance but a lack of focus. he had for months the chance to be his own person, and he missed it achingly regardless of whether or not he remembered it. percy did not, after the titan war, have the strength to maintain the end of conditioning. he forced the gods to make a promise but did not hold them accountable. he couldn't.

nico only ever holds people accountable, just by existing.

unlike luke and percy nico was welcomed into camp. things were already in the swing of change, and while there was not yet an explicit axe to the regular conditioning, there was tension. people had left and deferred to luke's side. people had died. the faith in the gods had, at that point, been weakened, and nico had more joy about the entire ordeal than post people -- his life was already so strange and transitionary, this was not some big, frightening thing. it was exciting, and for the hardest part, at least, he had his sister with him. no loss. there was no rage for the beginning, there was curiosity, there was willingness, there was bright, careless vulnerability.

and then his family, too, was murdered, and like the chasm he raised everything cracked.

nico's rage and pain were never, even once, left to question. there was not a soul who looked at him and doubted that the gods had hurt him; that the demigod life had hurt him. there was a stark contrast, to those who knew him before, to what he was after; something to make obvious that death does not change or fade. it rips things away, it leaves torn holes and outstretched hands. nico's very existence was a shameless, shouting reminder to all that looked at him that look at what your negligence cost me! your rage! look what your squabbles take, witness what you destroy! there is no gate of heaven bright enough! there is no promise worth enough! there is no glory great enough! there is no anything large enough to replace what you ripped from me, what i can never get back! i am broken and destroyed from the part of me that was whole, and it is your fault! you will have no reverence from me! you will have no silence from me! you will have nothing from me until you can replace what you stole, and you cannot! you cannot! you cannot!

luke made his pain into hunger. percy made his pain into progess, and then into exhaustion. but nico makes his pain into nothing. he lets it sit, pulsing and bleeding outside of his chest, for all to see, and it makes people uncomfortable. nico, himself, does not make people uncomfortable, because the camp is built of people who are strange and off-putting and creepy and angry. the ares children have respect. the hermes children have fondness. the hunters do not care for either, but have both, respect especially, regardless. even percy, when he is angry, has earned respect. and nico's power alone should make him well-respected; the powerful get this privilege. he is not the first in camp to be disheveled and each of them is socially unconventional. awkwardness and oddness are the norm. what is it about him, then, that is ostracised? his orneriness? clarisse is ornery, and yet she has friends. his cruelty? drew is cruel and yet she is tolerated regardless; she is followed and even revered. beckendorf was stoic and impersonable and was still adored. these qualities are not reasons in demigod life to be ostracized.

emotion, however, plain anger and hurt, most definitely is.

demigods who cannot and will not repress are dangers. they are invitations to the gods to be made examples, to be discarded. those who cannot follow the system do not see the glorious gates when they die. those who follow the angry ones do not, either. they are buried alone without rites, to drift on charon's banks. nico did not weep when bianca was killed, he blamed. he pointed the finger at anyone who could be accused. he refused to bow to the fear and refused to stand among those who would not extend their arms with him. he snarled and shouted and ripped open the earth in protest; she died and he buried entire parts of himself. this is why will, why the camp, is irritated at his 'brooding cloud', not because he cannot handle anger, but because why does nico get to feel it? all of them have lost so much. if nico refuses to comply, refuses to be conditioned, refused to replace and wash his hands and move on, to rebuild, then why did they? why did they suffer silently every new cabin counsellor? why did they notice the pain in chiron's eye (mr. brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he’d been at this girl’s funeral), feel it in their own chests, and move on? why are there no pictures, no reminiscing, no reminders? not a soul from camp speaks about their dead friends after the titan war. they are not mentioned and if someone has the audacity to allude to their loss they swallow it back, cut themselves off, and move on. only bianca is mentioned, again and again, not even only by nico but by others close to him, his pain for her is so great and so constant. the others do not even rest to think about them. to acknowledge that pain is to admit that they have lost out on months, years, decades, even, of grieving. to acknowledge the lost is to admit that they have been doing the losing.

nico, even as he heals, refuses to let go of bianca. he refuses even his father this luxury; when they speak it is of his sister. even as hades admits his faults in raising nico, in contributing to and succumbing to the conditioning, it is in recognition that nico's screaming, his grieving, his pain is what moved him. nico refused to let her go. his dedication to her remembrance, even as it cost him, was revolutionary, because it was easy and because it was endless. he did what any rational person would do in his position and called to stark attention what the rest of his kin should be doing, as well. luke tore the palace down to bricks, percy ripped open the gate, and nico shouted from every rooftop and every mountain that not a single one of them deserved the indignity of crawling through it. he stood against people's anger, against their fury and against their fear and uncertainty and refusal and pain and confusion and like the prince of the dead said follow me into your despair. know and feel it. display it. make them each see how much they have hurt you and how much they have taken away, and refuse to give them any more. do not bow to their nonexistent power over your pain. profess it. flaunt it. remind them of their destruction, and of your grief. the dead carve the path of the living.

Rest in peace Micheal Yew and Lee Fletcher, you would have had a field day catching Will sneaking to his boyfriends cabin in the middle of the night.

my favorite scene from HoO

Rest in peace Micheal Yew and Lee Fletcher, you would have had a field day catching Will sneaking to his boyfriends cabin in the middle of the night.

I'm just curious, because I have one way to pronounce it, and some other people were disagreeing with me, so what do you all think?

Reblog for higher sample size

not to alarm anyone but there is a fictional man loose in my brain. keep an eye out.

tumblr automatically changing - > into -> is so good. honestly the best thing about this website. makes me disappointed and angry whenever i type it outside of tumblr and it remains the ugly caricature of itself instead. -> beloved