Yeah, that's definitely more what he needs right now. Which is not to say - and I keep on stressing this with Nico, because it's really important for me with his characterization - that his queerness is the central issue with his character or that coming to terms with it will fix all his problems, because it won't. I think it all ties back to his fatal flaw, and his mental dissonance between the person he actually is and the person he wishes he was (that person being an amalgamation of a lot of traditional heroic character tropes he grew up on, a la.......Percy Jackson).
But one of the things that's so striking for me is how alone he is in canon - not just as a son of Hades but also as a queer kid, since he's the first queer main character we've seen in Riordan's works. He has allies but he has no actual queer support structure, and because loneliness is a huge factor in his self-image issues, I think having that queer support, those queer role models will help him come to terms with at least one part of the issue, and that might give him strength to start tackling the others
Which - if Steph is open about her identity as Batgirl in Exsilium, that'll be double amazing because he remembers Batman as a new, exciting thing, and Steph is a hero, and also queer.
no subject
Yeah, that's definitely more what he needs right now. Which is not to say - and I keep on stressing this with Nico, because it's really important for me with his characterization - that his queerness is the central issue with his character or that coming to terms with it will fix all his problems, because it won't. I think it all ties back to his fatal flaw, and his mental dissonance between the person he actually is and the person he wishes he was (that person being an amalgamation of a lot of traditional heroic character tropes he grew up on, a la.......Percy Jackson).
But one of the things that's so striking for me is how alone he is in canon - not just as a son of Hades but also as a queer kid, since he's the first queer main character we've seen in Riordan's works. He has allies but he has no actual queer support structure, and because loneliness is a huge factor in his self-image issues, I think having that queer support, those queer role models will help him come to terms with at least one part of the issue, and that might give him strength to start tackling the others
Which - if Steph is open about her identity as Batgirl in Exsilium, that'll be double amazing because he remembers Batman as a new, exciting thing, and Steph is a hero, and also queer.
And I just wordvomited I'm so sorry