Tbh, I really don't understand why Percy was so quick to turn on Nico in The Last Olympian. Like, Nico said multiple times that Hades just wanted to talk to Percy. He said that Hades wanted to see him before they tried the river, which means obviously Nico had no intentions of them staying with Hades for long. And he explicitly said that Hades just wanted to talk. I get being annoyed or even upset at being tricked into a surprise visit to Hades, but going as far as trying to attack Nico and calling him a traitor? As if Nico completely lied to him? As if Nico wasn't still (obviously) planning on helping him? Especially since Nico already seemed reluctant and guilty about his actions? I don't get that at all.
Seriously, so unnecessary.
And he was told, straight up, that Nico made Hades promise not to hurt him and that Nico genuinely wanted to help him.
Percy isn't dumb! At this point, it should have been clear that Nico was tricked. Nico obviously didn't want Percy captured or hurt, yet Percy is still acting and thinking awfuly towards Nico, even when he literally shows up to help him escape.
Honestly, I think Nico handled this much better than I would have. If I were Nico and Percy attacked me like that after it was clear that I was tricked, I would just threaten to leave Percy there. There is literally no other way to make it more clear that Nico didn't want to see Percy hurt. From the beginning, there was no doubt that Nico thought Percy would be safe, yet Percy still was acting like an irrational idiot and ignoring what everyone around him was telling him, for what? Just so he could feel justified in his anger towards Nico?
And then, after all that, he had the nerve to say that Nico owed him! After Nico broke him out and helped him become invincible!
I get that Percy's fatal flaw is loyalty. It only takes one instance, one breech of that loyalty, for him to turn on people, but there was literally no instance where anyone could doubt that Nico wanted Percy safe. Literally, from the first moment it was revealed that Nico brought Percy to Hades in exchange for information about his past, it was clear that Nico thought Hades only wanted to talk to him. It was clear that Nico thought Percy wasn't in any danger. It was clear that Nico never wanted Percy to be hurt, imprisoned, or killed.
Sure, I'd get it if Percy was annoyed that Nico used him as a bargaining chip for information without warning him in advance, but Nico's loyalty to Percy was never in question, and Percy was literally told that several times by multiple people.
Percy just annoys me so much in this part. It annoyed me before, just based on memory, but I thought he was kind of justified in his mistrust of Nico since Nico did trick him. Now, after rereading it? No. Percy is definitely in the wrong here.
I don't ever want to hear another person say that Percy never treated Nico unfairly ever again. He totally overreacted to this situation. If Percy should have been mad at anyone, it should have been Hades (although Percy already had unjustifiable biases against Hades even before this, but that'll be another post). Hades is the one who tricked Nico into bringing him there, and he's the one who broke his promise. Hades is the one who locked him up. Nico went out of his way and defied his father in order to help Percy escape.
Is Nico right for tricking Percy to get more information about his past? No, of course not. Nico should have at least told Percy about what he planned to do. He might have been able to convince Percy to go along with it. But was Percy justified in his actions and thoughts towards Nico during and after this? Absolutely not.
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i think one of the things that upsets me the most about velma and shaggy's relationship in sdmi--and boy there is a lot--is that not only is her constantly ''correcting'' him for minor, harmless, and usually completely reasonable things with physical and emotional abuse, well. abusive by itself. but so many of the things he does that she treats him that way over are very autistic things, and what she subjects him to is textbook abuse aimed at autistics in particular. (including the part where she gets more and more pissed whenever attempts at said emotional abuse fly over his head, because he's too bad at picking up cues for them to land fully.)
[cws: anti-autistic ableism, ABA, self-harm, physical and emotional IPV, victim-blaming, and abuse apologism. it's a lot and it's really fucking bad lmao]
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like. there's a lot of examples there; shaggy's behavior coming across as autistic is worth a whole post of its own, and a lot of media depicts abuse targeted at autistic traits because ✨️hooray ableism.✨️but she straight up tries to Fix Him (read: force him to perform a Presentable Personality) by forcing him to wear clothes that are sensory hell, and trying to condition him to self-harm every time he does some small harmless, reflexive thing she thinks is Poor Socialization until he stops. and to catch himself doing it, and punish himself, without being prompted. i cannot fucking overstate how fucked up that is.
they even got down the fun little aspect of ABA where the methods of conditioning-through-pain are presented as toys and kiddish things: she gives him a rubber band to wear on his wrist, and tells him to snap it as hard as he can every time he says 'like.' 🙃🙃🙃🙃
like. this does not begin to scratch the surface of the abuse she puts him through in general. and again, characters being abused for autistic traits with the approval of the narrative is a common thing in media, which sucks. but holy fucking shit! they really took the 'violent ableism that is done to autistics irl' to the next fucking level here!
.......and it's portrayed as kind of cringey, immature teen drama on both sides. the self-harm, his dread over how much he knows it'll hurt, and the extreme pain it causes him to the point of screaming are all supposed to be funny. and her arc is all about learning to accept that she deserves better, because she was repressed and had low self-esteem and therefore putting him through fucking DIY ABA didn't make her happy.
🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃
anyway if you couldn't tell i can't fucking stand sdmi velma and i have a lot of words in me about it. when one of your main heroes would have made a way more compelling villain as they are, on a more mundane level compared to all the wild fantastical shit they go up against, holy shit go back to the drawing board you have fucked up. she could have been genuinely good representation of a marginalized person dealing with the trauma of her experiences in some shitty ways she has to grow past, and an interesting flawed character, without being absolutely despicable--hell, she'd have made a great foil to pericles if they'd handled him decently too. they have a lot of parallels, which only gain more depth when you add their respective parallels with cassidy into the mix. and it really fucking sucks that we got this instead.
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I kinda wish Mapleshade was worse in this novella. I think she should have flat out lied about Birchface being the kits’ father instead of going “well if I say nothing then it isnt a lie and it isnt my fault”
I like the mental gymnastics Mapleshade does a lot, I think that’s a great aspect of her character that makes her unreliable yet interesting. So I’m not saying she should gloat or anything. But I don’t think it’d change much if she replied “yes, he is, I was just too nervous to say anything” because the reaction to the reveal later on will still be the same. She can easily rationalize it with “StarClan offered me this escape route through Frecklewish. I’d be a fool not to take it!” Idk it’s a small moment but it does come across like theyre trying to rationalize her a little bit?
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i feel like i got some some unintentional tea at the bank today bc i initially went to my bank near my house to figure out a Situation but their lobby was closed so i had to go through the drive through. but the teller had to get a manager for my situation and the manager was SUPER RUDE and kicked me out of the drive through bc the drive through is "only for quick financial transactions" and told me i needed to go through the lobby instead. and i was like "but the lobby is closed :(" and she said she knew, but i still had to get out of the drive through with like!! the nastiest attitude ever!! so i drove to another location whose lobby was open and told the teller abt the situation at the other location and how mean the manager was and this teller just sighs and goes "i bet it was jackie 🙄🙄🙄" like damn girl jackie must have some sort of fucking reputation! give me more tea about how shitty jackie is!
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