Have fun!

[anilineine]

Day #?? of me reminding everyone that Nico consistently being an outcast among the outcasts (ie demigods; they dont fit in with the rest of mortals) who needs to go to great lengths to carve out his own space among them and eventually finding belonging is a very good albeit unintentional parallel to the asexuals who were excluded from the queer community for a long time and also had to do a lot to finally find acceptance within the community...

Anyways yeah, gay asexual Nico di Angelo for the win.

[anilineine]

Thinking about Nico di Angelo at a pride event stacking up all the asexual merch like a freak. That man is proud of his asexual identity, trust.

[anilineine]

Y'all know what to do right 😉

[anilineine]

Explaining the gay asexual Nico di Angelo headcanon as an ace Nico truther...

I mean 🤭

[anilineine]

THIS is so sex-averse asexual Nico di Angelo core. Be so for real this is defo something he'd wear on a tshirt.

[anilineine]

Gay aroace!Nico di Angelo is so beautiful and real once you realise his arc centers platonic love more than anything.

I know Riordan try to half-ass it later with the whole internalized homophobia, crush on Percy gimmick, but the point still stands: for most other characters, the writing often tends to center romance over platonic/familial love, but in Nico's case it's the opposite: he seeks friendship and platonic emotional bonds with pretty much everyone he can.

The pattern hits so hard because in the first series it was about Bianca and finding belonging + friendship at camp. In the second series too despite all the bad, poorly written retcons, Nico's story is about finding acceptance, friendship and a home again.

Even in his internal monologue, the contrast is sharp and visible: his platonic feelings (for Reyna, Jason, Hazel etc) are rich, compelling and deep. By contrast, his romantic monologue is superficial, much flatter by comparison and, to put it bluntly - feels rather out-of-character. In fact, while romance isn't Riordan's strongest forte, Nico's inner romantic dialogue might just be the most somnolence-inducing out of the entire cast.

Anyways, yeah. Gay aroace Nico di Angelo for the win.

[anilineine]

ONLY for the a-spec Nico di Angelo truthers : Should we make our own community to share a-spec headcanons, fanfics, analyses, fanart etc?

Yes, I'll join and contribute

Yes, I'll join and only lurk

No

Results

Voting ended onMay 21

[anilineine]

Okay, so the fact that the asexual Nico di Angelo headcanon is ancient is so funny to me. Like, here we are, celebrating the aspec Nico tags, while some old pjo fan is probably chuckling and thinking "yeah, I saw the asexual nico di angelo vision way before you guys even read the series".

In short, major shout out to the people who've headcanoned Nico as asexual for years at this point.

Oh, and if you want to reblog the post in the screenshot, it's right here.

[anilineine]

Had this headcanon that Nico di Angelo's boyfriend actually figures out he's a sex-repulsed asexual, without him ever saying anything about it and boy it's such a relief for Nico.

[anilineine]

I genuinely don't care if I'm called a conspiracy theorist for this, but - there's a reading which could support gay oriented aroace Nico.

We know he "gets over" his feelings for Percy at the end of BoO - almost by conscious choice - something along the lines of "Percy no longer looked like someone to idolise or crush on". Now if it was this really deep romantic crush - supposedly for years, he most likely wouldn't have gotten over it - certainly not by conscious choice atleast.

Now, there are pretty clear Doylist reasons for it (setting up Solangelo), but I choose to take creative liberty with the watsonian reasons - both of these make sense:

a) Nico is a grey-aro and asexual who took the the crush to be deeper than it actually was OR

b) Nico is a gay aroace who may be homo-alterous/homo-platonic (or both), and his feelings for Percy happened to be a strong alterous/platonic crush.

If you're inclined to believe the second aspect, it's not very hard to write off an alterous crush/platonic one as romantic - it's fairly common with aros. Nico, after all grew up in very amatonormative/allonormative times without information or vis- having romantic feelings for men was bad, but not having any romantic feelings was off the table.

With regards to the Cupid Scene, if we're taking the second interpretation, cupid is the god of love - and the thing with love is that it comes in all kinds. Or what if Cupid, being sadistic and cruel as he is - chose to nudge Nico deeper into his misgivings?

I believe his feelings for Will were also either a shallow romantic crush or alterous in nature.

I know everyone attributes the "don't call me boyfriend" bit to internalised homophobia, but what if Nico didn't want to be called boyfriend because for him, they weren't dating - in his head it was a qpr but he didn't have words for it?

I could read his crush on Percy as a shallow romantic one, and the one on Will as alterous. Or both of them as alterous, or both of them as shallow romantic ones.

Anyways, I'll always see Nico as asexual either way: if he's aro or homoromantic.

I know this is wild, but if there is a bizarre, highly unconventional reading of canon I like, I'll run with it. Don't mind me :)

[anilineine]

I'll work overtime for more asexual/aroace Nico di Angelo content of it comes down to that.

Because in my house, the aspec Nico fans must never go hungry.

[anilineine]

How I sleep at night knowing full well that Nico di Angelo is never beating the asexuality "allegations" against him:

All of us Ace Nico truthers know it's true 🤭

[anilineine]

In my headcanon, I'm sure Reyna would be the first one to clock the fact that Nico is a closeted asexual.

[anilineine]

Thanks, Ig 😉

[anilineine]

So, I've decided to compile Nico di Angelo's highly unintentional asexual coding/reading/interpretations from what I've come across in other people's posts. So far we have:

The Fringe within Fringe Metaphor

Nico is pretty consistently portrayed as an outcast among the demigods, who themselves happen to be marginalized i.e they're misfits as they can not belong with the mainstream mortal society (ADHD, dyslexia and being tailed by monsters makes it hard for them to lead "normal" lives). In essence Nico is an outcast among outcasts.

Now this actually mirrors the aspect of asexuals (a fringe) who were (sometimes still are) excluded from the queer community (which they happen to be a part of); the queer community itself is marginalized as they do not fit in with larger cishetallo society.

The Cupid Scene

In mythology, Cupid was often associated with physical desire. In fact, when Cupid's arrows struck someone in the heart, the victim would often be filled with physical desire for whomsoever their eyes first fall upon after being struck (examples of victims include Apollo).

But Riordan couldn't write that in a YA book, so when the arrow does strike Nico's heart, he doesn't feel any physical attraction for Jason, who is well within the former's field of vision, rather, he's filled with pain upon recollection of his romantic feelings for Percy.

Now, this was unintentional and contextual, but it does have a common alloromantic asexual theme : the subversion of physical attraction for romantic love.

Cupid and Hestia

On a similar note, it's also worth noting that Nico's interactions with Hestia (goddess of the family and hearth, aroace in the riordanverse and representing platonic, familial love) are warm and respectful - he's one of the first characters to stop and talk to her in a long time as she notes.

By contrast, his interactions with Cupid, God of love (in mythology, of lust as well) are hostile. It's an interesting contrast. If you're an aroace!Nico fan, this might be a reading you like.

If you guys have your own interpretations/ readings of Nico as asexual, feel free to add them in the reblogs.

[anilineine]

Aroace!Nico di Angelo fans, where are y'all? It's okay you can come out of hiding now.

[anilineine]

How's it going, y'all? Having fun 😉

Drop you ace-spec Nico label in the comments lol.