Dont Be Dicks - Tumblr Posts
YEAH!!! I saw someone saying that Rick was totally in the wrong because he was like, “creating a book that acts like a dating guide for opposite attraction….to 12 year olds” and my first thought was (my second thought was ‘dating guide? Did we read the same book?’) that would be totally normal and “cute” if it were a hetero couple, wouldn’t it?
“Shoving relationships down young readers throats” UM. DISNEY MOVIES???? *ANY* young chapter book involving a romantic subplot??? If Nico and Will were a Herero couple, this wouldn’t even be a DEBATE, I guarantee.
I came out as bi (now I’m thinking lesbian tbh) the 7th grade, the year I read House of Hades and FROZE realizing that one of my favorite characters of all time had the same thoughts as me, attraction for someone of the same gender. And I was BLOWN AWAY because that had never happened before (pivot, I also went through a period of trying to find out what gender identity I felt comfortable with, though I no longer identify as this, in middle/early-mid high school I was gender-fluid, and reading Magnus Chase and seeing Alex—I think I literally jumped around screaming, I made her my idol)
Representation is IMPORTANT. Whether that be for POC, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, those in the disabled community and so on and so forth—it is IMPORTANT. I think everyone. ESPECIALLY young readers should have the chance to see themselves and feel noticed and seen. That’s why the dedication of TSATS made me tear up a bit tbh because I was very, very happy.
TSATS isn’t a bad book. It’s very Rick, and with the introduction of Mark to the PJO universe, it’s a wonderful story that I loved deeply. People are just…UGH people are infuriating.
TLDR: TSATS is a good book. People are just being whiny and unfair dicks
(And I didn’t even TOUCH the people who are adults <like me, I’m 19> and angry that that writing style/series didn’t age with them, like, wtf guys—)
look this is gonna be a hard to swallow pill for the pjo fandom,
but the sun and the star is coming out at a really important time in the USA -- homophobia is on the rise, books like this are being restricted, and policies are being debated and passed to exterminate queer and trans people from the public sphere. having a positive example of a queer relationship in fiction, especially as part of a mega-popular middle grade series, is going to be important to a lot of the queer 10-14 year olds that make up this book's main demographic.
i have never, ever seen a percy jackson book have such a negative reception online. and it's just a coincidence that this is the first queer-focused installment of the series?
people are seeing the extent of the hate and thinking they shouldn't bother reading tsats at all, that they have already heard enough from people who hate the book. I have had people reblog my positive posts and say "maybe i'll give this book a chance, this is the first nice post i've seen about it." that's really fucking sad yall.
maybe tsats wasn't what you expected, maybe it contradicted your headcanons, maybe you prefer ships other than solangelo. you don't have to like tsats. but the amount of vocal hate for it is ridiculous. other pjo books do not get this kind of hate -- picking apart and complaining about every tiny little detail, ridiculing the writing style of both authors, mocking the attempts at sincerity, even sometimes mocking people who did like the book.
i have never seen this harsh of a response before (and i'm old -- I've been a percy jackson reader since the lightning thief came out in 2005) and especially not from such large portions of the fandom to the point where people who haven't read it are feeling discouraged from doing so.
Please look at the big picture. your opinions don't exist in a vacuum. maybe this is a hot take, but at some point the hate is indistinguishable from how homophobes talk about queer fiction. i'm just saying there are better things to turn your anger towards, and if you hated this book so much just do what the rest of us do and write fucking fanfiction to make yourself feel better. fucks sake