I’m beginning a new “gaslighting” arc in my life, and to kick it off I am going to convince you that when I told you many many months ago that I would do a summer re-read of this fic, I actually meant an autumn re-read of this fic. This was my plan all along, it makes sense, this fic begins at the end of summer, and it’s also much better to bunker down and read during cold weather times, you believe me. Okay but really what I learned this summer is that sometimes you don’t have the attention span to re-read a couple middle grade book series even within a very generous timeframe, and you don’t have to necessarily make peace with that, but you do need to move on, so that’s what I’m doing. (So if in any of my comments I say something dumb and ignorant of the canon, please forgive me and know that my demons will be lashing me for my blunders in Social Anxiety Hell)
What can I say about this fic as a whole that hasn’t already been said? It’s amazing, it’s so well thought out and real, it’s literally a masterpiece. Da Vinci could never. When I started reading this for the first time last summer (I believe I started reading around when you had 23 chapters posted) I remember sort of locking myself down in my room for hours upon hours absolutely devouring this fic. I remember reading into the night and watching the sky get light and pouring myself a cuppa joe and carrying on reading into the morning with bleary eyes. I cannot overstate how much I love this fic. I’ve re-read bits of it (mostly from the second half lol) since then, but I haven’t re-read it in its entirety.
Just for fun, here are the parts of this fic that stick in my memory the most:
- THAT PART IN THE GAIA BATTLE WHERE THAT ONE KID GETS RIPPED IN HALF - Like, all the solangelo romance stuff in the late bits of this fic - The Manhatten stuff focusing on the Apollo cabin is so fucking good and hits exactly how it should. There are so many good specific bits I could list from that, but I think what stands out is the part where the cabin is confronting Izzy and she’s all like “grrr rarara dad sucks” and they’re like “but think about us, we love you :( “ and for a moment she’s like “ooaauuhh.” I’m sure my description was very accurate and helpful - The scene soon after that where they’re back at camp and Will is I think alone for the first time since then? and the breakdown triggered by PB sandwich I think? Will and Lou Ellen friendship remains top tier - Acknowledgement that homophobia didn’t just exist in the 1930s - Keeping canon character traits while also fleshing those characters out. Like characters who exhibit asshole-ish behavior in canon keep those traits but ALSO are more fleshed out and that doesn’t mean “character is actually nice”. I WILL expand on this later - This fic made me ship Conner and Will. Hilarious - Straight people appear to be the minority at camp? Camp half blood? More like… CAMP GAY BLOOD!!! - Nico can’t listen to You Belong With Me LMMAOOOOOOOO. Actually me with several Taylor songs since The Fic That I Am Vowing Not To Bring Up Again In These Comments because I can’t bear to think about these babies ending up like that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Related, I think the funniest part of this fic is during the Three Days when (I could be foggy on the details) Sherman wakes up and asks Will, pretty innocuously imo, why Nico is in the infirmary and Will’s response is so hilariously unnecessarily hostile and defensive and Sherman just kind of lays back down - Marijuana - KAYLA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The part where (I’m 99% sure it’s her???) she makes people play warrior cats and she tells Will to be the medicine cat. Most relatable moment of this whole fic tbh
That’s just off the top of my head. But here’s another thing for real beans now, and I have many many layers to this thought (it’s an onion thought): The first time reading this fic, I remember wishing that Will was more like… a part of things? Or that like, for someone who is in canon, seemingly pretty outgoing and confident (but also has insecurities), it seemed to me that a lot of times things were just sort of happening around him and he didn’t add much to them. So during my re-read, one of my goals will be to investigate a) the purpose of that, or b) if that is even an accurate interpretation. However, I do already have several thoughts on the subject: - Character development. It would make sense for Will to grow into a person who is more confident and sure of himself. - Re: not being a part of things: growing up and outgoing things and feeling disconnected from others and feeling more On Your Own (especially in Will’s situation) is I think a theme in this fic. - As you’ve mentioned, Will is not always an accurate narrator (I’m also going to try to investigate this) and if I remember somewhat correctly, there’s a part in this fic where Will is surprised that Nico calls him popular so his narration could downplay his connection and participation with other people. (I realize I’m being pretty vague, but when I get to specific moments in the fic I’ll explain more of what I mean by this) - Related to the last point, maybe Will genuinely does feel apart from other people a lot or some of the time and that would provide a point of commonality and connection with Nico. Like sometimes in other fics Will is sort of portrayed as this extremely popular almost universally loved figure in the camp, whereas your depiction of him is someone who is more relatable. Like, this isn’t “mr happy sunshine smile guy”, this is someone who also knows what it’s like to be lonely. - In a more meta sense, perhaps there is a fear of pushing Will too hard into the canon narrative and characters, not that Will isn’t a canon character, but with such little depth and backstory in canon, he can sometimes be almost more like an OC. Like, fear of getting into Mary Sue territory. Like, “Oh, look guys, actually Will was there the whole time and SUPER important etc etc etc,” I can definitely see wanting to avoid that. - A mix of some or all of the above points. So yeah, even just writing all that, my opinion has shifted a lot. I’m excited to dig up new evidence for proving myself wrong on my investigation! To be very clear here, I’m not criticizing you, I’m criticizing me for not reading well the first time.
Without further a-fucking-do let’s! get! into! ChhhhaaAAAAAPPTTEERRR ONNNEEE (airhorns are going off)!!!!!!!
- So like the first paragraph alone establishes so much already. Like holy shit. Will loves his siblings and his mom. High value on family. Will holds back his negative emotions for the sake of other people and only cries when he’s sure he’s alone. It establishes the setting, even though we already know it. It establishes some of the people that he knows, and that he fears judgement from them. - And also right away, going back to what I was saying earlier, it’s established that Will does have some experience being lonely, being all alone in his cabin and a year-rounder “weirdo” (kids are assholes lmao). But! He has friends! Like Olivia! Who is very cool! And she also does a lot to establish (drinking game, a shot every time I say “establish”. Why am I doing that???) that Will doesn’t always have a good sense of how other people feel about him lmao. Like Will my guy… come on - VIRGO WILL SUPREMACY ALWAYS - “Were you crying?” “I’m fine [changes subject].” Woop there it is - Olivia holding his hand and Will thinking it’s comforting like when his sisters do that LMAO, oh Olivia, you poor girl. She IS a good friend though, like she obviously knows him very well… except for like, you know, a few key details. LMAO - And Will somewhat missing the comfort that comes with being one of the younger kids in the cabin is sad! That feeling of growing up and missing the comforts of childhood (I might bring this up a lot)!! And he will have to grow up so fast!! So soon!! I’m already sad just from that!!! -This: “Connor saw him holding Olivia’s hand and immediately started pointing and laughing about “Livvy has a boyfriend!”” is so funny for so many reasons. - I like how Will being sad about sitting at his table alone foreshadows (I guess? Probably a different word I could use here but it’s already getting to That Stage of the comment writing session) Nico sitting at the Apollo table later. Will’s like “this sucks.” And Thalia’s there too and she’s like “yeah this sucks.” And Will’s unknowingly like “my future boyfriend will never go through this!” - I’m very happy that you just did your own thing with the actual physical Cabin 7 because the canon description is lame and stupid and bad and dumb. I could go on a terrifically long rant (and maybe I will throughout these comments) about how weird it is that Apollo is the main character of his own series and yet Riordan just seems so determined to put as little thought as possible into anything else related to the Apollo campers. Like……….. for the love of god why - I appreciate how much thought you put into the school aspect for the year rounders. Like you really mapped it all out and were like “this is where everyone sits” and some of the details are wonderfully beautifully completely irrelevant, but that’s one of the many things that makes this fic great. You were like “I AM fleshing out this world and the reader WILL see it and appreciate it!” and we do!!! - Clarisse is awesome. Something regarding her much later in this fic has remained a mystery to me since I first read it, but I will share what that is when we get to it
(I don't know why I'm constantly surprised that my comments exceed the word count :( more incoming. I'm sorry! :( )
- I like the “””period-typical””” homophobia in this fic (not that I like homophobia, but like, you get it.) and actually I feel like if it was being entirely accurate there would be even more of that, but I’m sure you know that and I’m guessing didn’t want to go too heavy on it, I guess to not be too much of a downer and also to keep characters like Sherman and Mark ultimately very likeable. (Also we will find out many campers are also queer so like. yeah). It bothers me when people act like there’s nothing in between extreme homophobia and acceptance (either true or artificial). I was Growin’ Up Gay during this time period too and like I never experienced seriously hateful homophobia, but it’s not like it’s easy to look at your peers and media and only see yourself as the punchline of a joke. Ahh and all of Will’s thoughts during this part just make me want to give him a hug or something. I know buddy, I know. - Chiron is like “you little shits WILL read The Song of Achilles” - I like that for Will and Nico’s first meeting Nico is just some random kid to Will and he’s more concerned with his missed opportunity to meet his dad. I’m sure to Nico Will is just some random Apollo kid too. I like that, I think it’s realistic. I’ve read a lot of fics where Will’s life sort of starts revolving around Nico the moment he meets him and it’s like hey maybe it would also be fun to be a little more creative - OH GOSH SO YEAH THAT’S LIKE A WHOLE OTHER THING WITH THIS FIC- establishing that they know each other and even had a friendship before BoO. I think the canon text at least implies that they do know each other prior to then, and I really like the way you fill in those gaps. I think it makes all of their canon interactions make a lot more sense. I will be talking a lot more about those interactions when they happen. For now, just like… GOOD. GOOD. - Will is so adorably childishly glum in the part after the Hunters and co. arrival. They didn’t save him a spot on the team!! What could be worse than this! Ah to be young - Also during that scene, Will wishes that Izzy and/or Renee were there. This gives me a chance to bring up another topic I find interesting with this fic: Since Lee and Michael are the only named Apollo campers older than Will, often in other fanfics Will has a very close relationship with them. It’s interesting to me that your Will has a much closer relationship and more meaningful moments (I mean to be fair, Lee also does die like, so soon, so. uh.) with these older sisters that you made for him. I had written that I didn’t know why that was and just found it neat, but then I thought about more: I’m guessing the purpose of that was to give Will those Moments with older siblings, and you couldn’t do that as much with Lee and Michael, because Lee dies like right away (f) and Michael is one of those characters I was talking about earlier where you don’t try to re-write their asshole-ish-ness. He serves a different purpose. Interesting. Okay. I think I get it. - (I cannot believe I’m not even halfway through the chapter yet, holy shit. I’ve been reading chapter one/writing this comment for two and a half hours now. I was really like, oh, yeah, I’ll probably get this done in a few nights and my comments will be bullet point notes and not nearly as long as…… Others… I have left….. but nope. probably with the first chapter I’m speaking to a lot of things with this fic as a whole and I probably won’t have quite as much to say once I get a few more chapters in) - Aw the foreshadowing with Nico and Percy and Bianca is so sad. Also Nico’s crush is so There. His “weirdly secret little smile.” That’s good - Will and his Yu-Gi-Oh cards omg. Yeah I had those. I was about to be like, “Why not Pokemon?” but Yu-Gi-Oh does feel a lot more 2000s to me and also from what I remember, it’s actually fun to play unlike Pokemon (CARDS) - Also bonding through nerdiness and bantering from the very beginning :’) that’s nice. The boyz and their bondz and bantz. I’m sorry - “I don’t know. You’re a boy, and she’s a girl, and it seems like you like each other, so.” I’m cancelling Nico on twitter - For some reason, earlier I was under the impression that Will wasn’t as bossy or like insistently helpful in this fic as he as in canon, and had some stuff written in this comment about that (not like critically, but like, oh this is probably a character development thing) but I just went back at deleted most of it because within this first chapter alone I’ve already found multiple pieces of evidence to prove myself wrong. I guess I had that impression because from Will’s POV everything he says is very rational and therefore not overly noteworthy. Like yes, tell the Ares kids to stop complaining about their injuries. Yes, the Hunters are being silly and they should let you help them. Yes, break Sherman’s leg and GO OFF kid!!!!! - Will making a point of referring to Mark and Sherman in his mind as his “school tablemates” because he doesn’t include them in the category of friends or even acquaintances (yet) is so funny and adorably immature - I think I’ve said it before, but I think you interpreted Will’s healing powers in the best possible way. Like specifically, that he CAN heal with just a touch but it’s difficult (but gets easier), and that he can’t heal himself- *chef’s kiss*! (although I will say I am also partial to the headcanon where he gets burns if he uses them too much, but that’s just me loving the drama of it all) - “One afternoon Olivia sprawled across most of Will’s bed while he sat cross-legged with his back against the slats at the foot, which probably shouldn’t have been allowed even though they weren’t alone in the cabin” Aw I just know Olivia was mentally like HOHOHOLY SHIT I’M ON MY CRUSH’S BED. Like if that were me that would’ve made my middle school life - The part where Olivia speculates if Nico could be a son of Apollo and Will is instinctively like NO is so funny - Also lol @ Will “suffering” during archery even though he’s in the better half of archers. Maybe “if I’m not the best, then what’s the point?” is a theme with Apollo campers? - Ahhhhh The very very delayed game of Mythomagic is so iconic in this fic. Literally the stuff of legends - “Bianca wouldn’t just… not come back. She wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.” :((((((((
Normally at the end of my comments I try to say more things in general about the entire chapter so I can end on a decisive conclusion but I will be leaving many more comments soon enough and I just can’t be arsed so like peace out until next time
me: I will reply sometime that is not 3 AM
me: replies at 1:30 AM which is not actually that much better
I don’t have line by line responses to everything actually but here are the thoughts I do have about your thoughts here:
- keeping the asshole kids assholes was very important to me, especially with Lou Ellen and honestly with Will himself, very much - bc in canon we see him be both really really kind and helpful even to the point of overbearing, and also a grumpy jerk! and obviously I don’t think those are mutually exclusive and never did and I remember it was important to me to establish very early on that he IS often a grumpy jerk when he’s stressed, even to people he cares about very much. even a bit of a tsundere at times one might say. so yes! I’m glad that came thru and worked well for you. thank you for noticing the thing I did I guess lol (there may be a lot of that here, it is often just… what your comments bring out in me generally)
- “ooaauuhh” - Isabella López, you heard it here first folks
- ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MY SUBTLE YOU BELONG WITH ME JOKE… I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN I COULD COUNT ON YOU but that one (and the Poker Face joke that immediately followed tbh) didn’t get people as much as I’d hoped back when I posted that. but then I do always freely admit I mainly write jokes that I think are funny and I know it can be hit and miss
- this fic made you ship connor and will and then exes au made it so much worse >:)
- honestly part of mapping it all out and having a lot of detail about how their school year lives at camp as year rounders work was partly bc that’s the kind of nitpicky detail I get way too into as a worldbuilder when I write anything, including school stories - I have to know everyone’s SCHEDULES so I don’t have CONTINUITY ERRORS!!! - but also because, like, when you’re like 12 who you sit next to in school and what book you’re having to read and talk about is actually what your whole world revolves around and Extremely important, so focusing on the minutiae of stuff like that also felt true to writing a 12 year old. which was a weird experience having started this fic when I was twice that age, but I keep being told it’s something I got really right actually, which has been very gratifying - it’s all really based on my own memories of being these ages and the kind of stuff that felt like the end of the world or like it had deep profound importance in life when now as an adult I’m like well that was literally just like. a middle school seating chart. you know? and I think since we never see Percy during the school year really I also wanted to dig into that dichotomy then of demigods being kids who actually like live in a world that could end for very real divine reasons, but still being kids and not always having a fully developed sense of scale or priorities.
- I am very excited to know what Clarisse thing remains a mystery
- I agree if it was more totally accurate there would probably be more, and more violent, homophobia - I do think like my interpretation here was definitely influenced by my own experience growing up in a relatively liberal & supportive area/community at this time, which I figured it was fair to say CHB probably would be cause of Chiron and Mr. D setting the tone if nothing else, but also my lack of experience with how normie jock boys treated other boys at that time and age. I think as a result I went kind of easy on Mark and Sherman at times in terms of how shitty I had them actually be. And also yeah - not wanting it to get too too dark, because this isn’t an oh poor Will story in that way so much, I just wanted to give a counterpoint to the vibe I was getting from both TOA text (unhelped by Apollo, who one imagines never had to take homophobia very seriously to begin with since he’s a god and could just spontaneously combust anyone who tried shit with him, being the narrator) and some parts of fandom at the time (mostly on tiktok) that homophobia was solely Nico’s problem and it was all internalized because the 1930s were terrible (but implicitly everything is Fixed Now). anyway. yeah!
- have said it before and lbr will probably say it again sometime but legitimately the reason I even started writing this fic was just because I wanted to fill in the gaps that seemed obvious in canon - where Rick hadn’t actually done the work to earn the dynamic Nico & Will have at the end of Blood of Olympus. Because obviously they do know each other! Well enough for Nico to have preconceived ideas of Will, and for Will to have developed some resentment towards Nico about his loner hero complex! And I feel like a lot of analysis that leans more anti-Will sometimes misses that implication. Which I can’t say is entirely on the fans doing it, because, well, Rick pulled a really interesting and charged character dynamic, with tons of deeper implications from canon if you think about it for a few minutes (the Bianca and Michael parallels… aaaaaaaagh), fully out of his ass without actually digging into those deeper implications nor showing his work at any point outside the covers of that one book. So I was like, fine, I’ll do it myself! For myself, more than anything else. I originally planned for this to be 8 vignettes and I didn’t really expect anyone to read it other than my best friend and sibling who’ve always read my fics. But now here we are. This is the power of spite and frustration with writers who get book after book and series after series published and get their own goddamn imprints and all the while they’re just making bank off of sloppy fucking work. And now there’s a whole-ass book that I hope and pray will be better because I have a lot more faith in Mark Oshiro and their books full of post-its he posted on social media a while back to actually do all that work and do it well, but also I think so much of the credit for the fan investment rightly belongs with the fandom and writers here, not with Rick or canon at all really, and now I’m part of that even as I am still so annoyed. clown makeup dot gif.
- I think it was important to me for Will to have older sisters and not just older brothers because tbh I kinda felt like he Needed solid older girl role models & people to turn to in order to be who fandom wants him to be. And that could’ve been more Annabeth and Clarisse, but they both have their own cabins to run (from very young ages as well), and, yeah. Some of the stuff in chapters 1-4 about Izzy and Renee are of course things I went back and added later, when I made some big revisions once I knew where the fic was actually going - because the Apollo canon OCs were supposed to be a lot more peripheral when I initially thought it would focus more on solangelo throughout than it ended up - especially Izzy. But then I got attached. and also saw the opportunity to trick people into reading about my wlw OCs and liking it. So.
- cancelling Nico on twitter for internalized homophobia
- almost everything I had Will say and do in this fic I was honestly like “does this track with a boy who would tell Nico di Angelo he’s a dumbass to his face at 6:30 AM after healing for 3 days with few breaks”. it all had to make sense with and be building up to his Blood of Olympus characterization. I don’t think I fully managed that in the end because I did cringe at times as I put the Blood of Olympus scene in there - but to be fair that was as much because a lot of Rick’s dialogue is clunky af when you try to imagine Will as more than a plot device, and having an actual coherent internal monologue, as anything else
- I am being so much meaner to Rick and Blood of Olympus right now than I have been in a solid year wow I feel so alive. this is what revisiting this work brings out in me I guess. sorry if that is a big disappointment to you or really more to anyone else reading this fic and perusing the comments lol
- I appreciate your thoughts on the healing powers & obviously agree - I think a big thing important to me to highlight was that when Apollo in TOA (iirc) is like wow Will’s better at this than me, I think the way everyone acts would have us believe that is just talent and his special magic gift, but in my mind it’s also just a result of him having had way more practice than your average demigod who didn’t have to serve in back to back divine wars would ever have gotten, and having had to become really good out of sheer necessity because of his circumstances. He always would have been a good healer but that he is so superlatively great by age 15 is just a tragic matter of so much practice and repeatedly pushing his own limits to the brink.
- lbr Will in archery is me in middle & high school math (I wasn’t actually bad at it by any normal standard and really objectively pretty good, but all my friends were the kids who were AMAZING at math)
ok now it’s 2:30 so maybe I’ll do chapter 2 in the morning? anyway as always thank you thank you!!!
alright alright I won't reply line by line, BUT I WILL SAY: re: your Riordan Rants, firstly, I love it, secondly, I am so mad at myself because, no joke, I had a huge rant in my initial comment going off about much of the same things that you did but I went back and deleted it because it got a little out of hand. But basically I was saying that it must've been so difficult to write a coherent character out of what Rick wrote because for such a minor character there's so much going on. Like for someone who appears so little it just seems like there's so many contradictions with Will's character, and it's hard to distinguish what was just shit thrown at the wall and what was intentional because there are fleeting moments where it seems like, okay, maybe Rick was going for something here? But then there are other moments where Will's clearly whatever he needs to be in the moment. And the pieces are all there for what could be a good character, but like you said, it seems like that was completely unintentional and entirely put together by the fandom. I'm very interested in the upcoming book. For the most part I've actually been a lot more optimistic than it seems like a large portion of the fandom is (not for the plot obviously but for like character development purposes I guess), but honestly since the synopsis reveal a few weeks (? time? what it time) ago I've had more doubts specifically about what they'll do with Will. The way he's described is just so........................ uhhhhhhh idk we'll see we'll see. It's just a synopsis. Anyway, I'm noting to myself now to never delete my rants. There is always a good chance they could be relevant, and if not, well, they'll be there anyway. I like your rants too.
idk my impression has been the dissenting downer voices about the solangelo book are a loud minority amplified by how many of them are the folks with some fandom clout (I say with great love for those that are my friends lol)
hiiiii emma it kinda sounds like you’re trying to gaslight yourself into believing this more than me… but I’ll go along with it! I’m just so glad you’re here to analyze & remind me of stuff I did more than a year (on this chapter more than 2 years, wow) ago and will probably have fully forgotten. looking forward to it v much and I will do a more line by line reply (if you like) sometime that is not almost 3:30 am!
I'm happy with and interested in however you'd like to reply! You can reply line by line to my comment and then I'll reply line by line to your reply and you'll reply line by line to that and so on and we'll have a grand old time
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