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Name: Shannon
Contact Info: rainbowllama @ plurk
Other Characters Played: n/a
Preferred Apartment: Preferred with Leo Valdez!
Character Name: Nico di Angelo
Canon: Percy Jackson and the Olympians / Heroes of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus series is a continuation of the Percy Jackson series, so same universe, idk how you guys will want to note that on your lists)
Canon Point: right after he leaves with Reyna, the Athena Parthenos, and Coach Hedge in House of Hades
Background/History: here
Previous Game History: n/a
Personality:
Like any other demigod, Nico isn't like any other teenage kid. Being the son of Hades alone would be enough to single anyone out, but even by demigod standards he's strange. He's described by Percy as having an "intense, manic fire [in his eyes] that made you suspect that he was either a genius or a madman." He's also noted as having an aura of death; horses don't like him, other campers don't care for him because of the mere fact that he's the son of Hades. He even has the fatal flaw all Hades children have: carrying grudges. This is all thanks to having Hades as a father. So yes, Nico is abnormal even by half-blood standards.
If Annabeth's mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn't
Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (I tried not to strangle Nico for
asking this one.) Was Annabeth my girlfriend? (At this point, I was ready to
stick this kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.)
-- The Titan's Curse, Percy's pov.
Believe it or not, when Percy first met him, he was an innocent ten-year-old. He obsessively played a game called Mythomagic, and went so far as to memorize the stats of every god card he had. So when he learned that the gods were real, and that he was a half-blood himself, he was ecstatic about the idea. He had a million questions for Percy, and when they were faced with a game at camp, he was excited to start and asked if he would be able to kill people. Even though he witnessed a fight and watched Annabeth fall over a ledge, it's likely that he still didn't understand what sort of trouble he had inherited. At the time, he didn't know of his parentage, though just being a demigod alone was enough to be serious. He got swept up in the moment, excited to be part of the world he had only known through cards.
Bianca was -- and still is -- a big part of his life. She was all he had for a long time. He even tried to stand up to her to a monster when they were getting captured, and later on made Percy promise that he would keep her safe. Percy was hesitant in promising, seeing as how quests were dangerous, but Nico insisted. Finally, Percy gave in.
And...it didn't work out so well.
When Percy told Nico of Bianca's death, it took a few moments to get a reaction out of him. Percy notes that Nico took it quietly, but finally reminds him of his promise. It quickly escalates from there, and he screams at Percy to go away and he wishes that he was dead. He ran off then, and Percy didn't see or hear from him for a while.
Nico struggles with his anger for a while about Bianca's death. He tries anything to bring her back, even summoning the spirit of Minos to advise him on it. Though he's warned multiple times to stay away from him, and that he's going down a bad road, he keeps going down it anyway. All that mattered to him was getting her back, and any interaction he had with Percy afterwards resulted in a lot of yelling and stubborn attempts at trying to get himself out of trouble.
It takes a while, but he does manage to summon Bianca. She then tells him what the fatal flaw of all Hades children are -- to bear a grudge. She tells him not to fall prey to it, but it takes a long time for that to actually sink in. Actually, it takes getting saved by Percy one more time and fighting Minos to finally begin to move forward again. At the end of The Battle of the Labyrinth, he mentions to Percy that he was saying goodbye to Bianca's spirit for good.
Unfortunately, his obsession with his family doesn't stop there, no thanks to Hades. Since Nico's memories of his time before the Lotus Casino was erased, it gave his father a leverage to manipulate him into a position to capture Percy. He told Nico that if he brought Percy to him, he would tell him what happened. Surprise! Hades pulls the rug out from under Nico when he does what he's told, saying that he still won't tell him what happened, and tells him that Bianca would've done better. Eventually, he does find out what happened to his mother by other means. We don't know exactly what made Hades change his mind into going into the battle at Manhattan, but Nico's stubbornness did come into play with that. As much as his father wronged him, he recognized that he would need help if he wanted to help Percy. And he was successful.
In summary so far, Nico's done a pretty big 180 since the first time you see him in the book. He's colder, more withdrawn, and is eager to the point of being gullible to have any connection to his family. And he has his grudge with Percy to deal with also -- something that he eventually lets go of as well. All of this is molding him into the character that he is currently.
So, onwards!
By the Heroes of Olympus series, Nico's grown up a little bit. Initially when you see him, he's not quite as volatile of a character as in the Olympians series (this changes as of House of Hades, but can still be noted). He has come to grips a little bit more with the changes in his life and where he is, though I wouldn't say he was happy about it. Bianca is still dead, he is an outcast, and his relationship with Hades is uncertain. It's not a great life, but he's accepted it.
However, he did try to bring Bianca back one more time. When the dead weren't staying...well, dead, Nico decided this would be an opportune moment to try one more time to bring Bianca back. However, he learned that she was reborn and found Hazel instead. Instead of leaving her there, he brings her with him back into the realm of the living. Though he does accidentally try to call her Bianca, he does care about Hazel. While she's still having flashbacks of her life before she died, he showed concern for her. In House of Hades, it's observed that she might even be the only person that Nico really does love. At least, she's the only person that he does love in a family-sort of way.
"It hasn't been easy, you know. Having only the dead for company.
Knowing that I'll never be accepted by the living. Only the dead respect me,
and they only do it out of fear."
"You could be accepted." I said. "You could have friends at camp."
He stared at me. "Do you really believe that, Percy?"
-- The Battle of the Labyrinth
Generally, people are wary around Nico. To animals, he smells like the dead. To people (as described in the first paragraph), he has a creepy fire in his eyes and just radiates an aura that unnerves people. He points out to Percy that he doesn't belong anywhere anyway, after being invited to go back to Camp Half-Blood. At the time of The Battle of the Labyrinth, there wasn't even a Hades cabin. Children of Hades aren't really looked on as being a good thing; probably one of the least liked out of the Big Three. Frank doesn't seem to have any problem around Nico in Son of Neptune, but it's also stated that he's one of the few that doesn't seem unnerved. He doesn't show to be very affected of it -- maybe by the time it comes up he's just resigned to the fact. He doesn't stay at either camps, either, as he travels between the two and the Underworld.
He knows when to shut up, though. Though he was caught off guard when Percy first arrived in the Roman camp, he refused to let on that he knew him. As he told Hazel, there were other things at work that needed to work themselves out. He used this same reasoning for not telling either camp about each other; a fact that made him suspicious to Jason and Leo. But Nico was told not to indulge either camp on this fact, and he complied. It wouldn't be the first secret he kept to himself for his own reasons, and won't be the last. This secret-keeping makes him seem very unpredictable, and untrustworthy in some cases.
Unsurprisingly, Nico prefers to do things by himself. Even from The Battle of the Labyrinth, he didn't want Percy's help to get him out of trouble. And still, he believes he can do things by himself. He thought he could investigate the Tartarus, and maybe even close the Doors of Death by himself, but he only ended up getting himself in trouble. He admits that it was a mistake to go down there, and that he thought he could go anywhere in the Underworld. This is where his confidence in his powers turn cocky; he thought that he could do what his father and Thanatos couldn't. Needless to say, he got knocked down a few notches.
Despite all that's been said, Nico does have somewhat of a strange sense of humor. To reflect on how his own personality had changed, his humor has turned dark and a little twisted as well. He's more prone to making sarcastic remarks, and his smile is generally regarded as creepy. Though he does tend to cast these creepy smiles at what would kind of be called a bad time. For instance, when they seem to be getting into a more dangerous situation. A real smile seems to be few and far in between; for one, if he's around Hazel, and when they began to win the battle in House of Hades.
In a social setting, he's very quiet, and easily forgotten about until he speaks up (Jason mentioned that they needed to get a bell for Nico to remember he was still there). He's not exactly the most social person, but it's still an achievement where he is pre-Mark of Athena compared to mostly being with the dead in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. He had an agenda in being away from the Underworld, sure, but he wasn't so withdrawn as he'd been previously.
That is, until House of Hades. By then, after his experience in Tartarus, he's described as being even more withdrawn and eating even less. He's a little more quick with his emotions as well; combined with walking around in Tartarus and making good on his promise with Percy to meet him at the Doors to Death, he's on edge. He also volunteered the most for the lookout position because he could "see the best" out of the group, however it was doubted it was more or less an excuse to be by himself.
Nico's reactions and feelings towards Percy are...well. Complicated. In the beginning of the original series, it evolved into thinking he's cool, to being hurt and angry to the point of turning him in to his father. Though by the end of it, Percy's earned his respect in a lot of ways. He tells Hazel when asked that he's dangerous to his enemies and powerful, but someone that can be trusted.
"I'm the son Hades, Jason. I might as well be
covered in blood or sewage, the way people treat me.
I don't belong anywhere. I'm not even from this century.
But even that's not enough to set me apart. I've got to be--to be--"
-- House of Hades
However, after an encounter with Cupid himself, it's revealed that Nico actually had a crush on Percy. "Had", said by Nico himself, though he does start acting strangely after the encounter. He becomes even more irritable than he already had been, and shuts out Jason completely when he tries to talk to him about it. He tells Jason that there's no way that he could understand his feelings, he didn't ask for them, and that it's just another thing that sets him apart from the rest of the demigods. Just another reason to be an outcast. Even though Jason promises not to tell the others in the group, it doesn't seem like Nico trusts him much as it's noted that he's on guard around him afterwards. If it's possible, he actually gets more on edge after the encounter with Cupid. The others don't really understand what happened, and of course Nico doesn't explain. But it's obvious that something happened.
When they do save Percy at the Doors of Death, Hazel notices that Nico looks pained as he watches Percy and Annabeth -- and even questions if he'd been crying. Though instead of spending time with Percy after his near-death experience, he pushes both him and Annabeth away even farther. He treats Percy coldly; almost as if he had reverted to his younger self, in a way. However, he doesn't meet Annabeth's eyes either, which is a little more unusual. When it was brought up that someone needed to travel with Reyna, Coach Hedge, and Athena's statue, he jumped too quickly into it. He was eager to run away from the situation, which was something he was used to doing. He had told Jason back after he had found out about Nico's secret that he was going to leave "forever" anyway -- and the opportunity came up almost immediately after saving Percy. Nico had fulfilled his promise to Percy to meet them at the Doors of Death, and now it was time for him to leave.
Abilities/Powers:
One thing that Nico does have in common with other demigods is his keen reflexes. It's what makes them "ADHD" in the series -- it's really that their minds are fine tuned for fighting. Without his powers, he has honed in these skills as well. Most of the time, he has his Stygian Sword at his side, which he knows how to use proficiently.
He can speak Italian and Greek.
Nico can control earth, using that as a weapon as well as merely opening the ground beneath an opponent and making them fall straight to the Underworld.
He can also control, summon, and speak to the dead. He can summon just a handful of the dead, to a small army. These powers also are in tune with his mood, as when he's feeling emotionally unstable he has made bones nearby start rattling as if they were trying to come back to life.
Nico can sense when people die, and he was able to sense when Percy and Annabeth were nearing the Doors of Death.
More than once, Nico has just suddenly seemingly appeared out of the shadows. He can use them to camouflage himself, as well as travel distances in them as a way of transporting himself.
Nico can put himself into a "mostly dead" state with the help of some of Persephone's pomegranate seeds. He needs nothing more than these seeds to put him into this death trance, and he won't need anything else, not even air. When he was kept in a jar in Mark of Athena, that's how he stayed alive...ish.
Items/Weapons:
Stygian Sword
Diocletians scepter
other half of his pomegranate...?
Sample Entry: thread!
Sample Entry Two:
Even while shadow traveling the others, with how tired it made him, he couldn't sleep more than a few hours at a time. At first it was met with protests, but it seemed to make no difference one way or another. So sometimes, he kept watch while the others slept.
He sat a little distance away from the Athena Parthenos, senses heightened and nerves strained. At the very least, he was away from the others. There was no Percy, no Annabeth, no Jason to try to talk to him about things. All different things, of course, and all things he didn't want to deal with. Nico was very aware he was running from the situation, but that wasn't anything unusual, wasn't it? It's not like anyone could ever really understand him, anyway.
And if he got what he wanted, he wouldn't face them again. It didn't stop him from thinking about what Jason might say to the others, though. Would he stay quiet about it? Or if he didn't...what would Percy think?
The air seemed to grow darker around him at the thought. As if it were a habit, he started moving his skull ring around on his finger. Yes, it was necessary to stay away now. After he delivered Reyna, Coach Hedge, and the Parthenos to Camp Half-Blood, he was done for good. He had no doubt that Percy and the others could defeat Gaea, and could handle the rest.
He was going to go back to the shadows and the dead, where he belonged.
Contact Info: rainbowllama @ plurk
Other Characters Played: n/a
Preferred Apartment: Preferred with Leo Valdez!
Character Name: Nico di Angelo
Canon: Percy Jackson and the Olympians / Heroes of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus series is a continuation of the Percy Jackson series, so same universe, idk how you guys will want to note that on your lists)
Canon Point: right after he leaves with Reyna, the Athena Parthenos, and Coach Hedge in House of Hades
Background/History: here
Previous Game History: n/a
Personality:
Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (I tried not to strangle Nico for
asking this one.) Was Annabeth my girlfriend? (At this point, I was ready to
stick this kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.)
-- The Titan's Curse, Percy's pov.
Believe it or not, when Percy first met him, he was an innocent ten-year-old. He obsessively played a game called Mythomagic, and went so far as to memorize the stats of every god card he had. So when he learned that the gods were real, and that he was a half-blood himself, he was ecstatic about the idea. He had a million questions for Percy, and when they were faced with a game at camp, he was excited to start and asked if he would be able to kill people. Even though he witnessed a fight and watched Annabeth fall over a ledge, it's likely that he still didn't understand what sort of trouble he had inherited. At the time, he didn't know of his parentage, though just being a demigod alone was enough to be serious. He got swept up in the moment, excited to be part of the world he had only known through cards.
Bianca was -- and still is -- a big part of his life. She was all he had for a long time. He even tried to stand up to her to a monster when they were getting captured, and later on made Percy promise that he would keep her safe. Percy was hesitant in promising, seeing as how quests were dangerous, but Nico insisted. Finally, Percy gave in.
And...it didn't work out so well.
When Percy told Nico of Bianca's death, it took a few moments to get a reaction out of him. Percy notes that Nico took it quietly, but finally reminds him of his promise. It quickly escalates from there, and he screams at Percy to go away and he wishes that he was dead. He ran off then, and Percy didn't see or hear from him for a while.
Nico struggles with his anger for a while about Bianca's death. He tries anything to bring her back, even summoning the spirit of Minos to advise him on it. Though he's warned multiple times to stay away from him, and that he's going down a bad road, he keeps going down it anyway. All that mattered to him was getting her back, and any interaction he had with Percy afterwards resulted in a lot of yelling and stubborn attempts at trying to get himself out of trouble.
It takes a while, but he does manage to summon Bianca. She then tells him what the fatal flaw of all Hades children are -- to bear a grudge. She tells him not to fall prey to it, but it takes a long time for that to actually sink in. Actually, it takes getting saved by Percy one more time and fighting Minos to finally begin to move forward again. At the end of The Battle of the Labyrinth, he mentions to Percy that he was saying goodbye to Bianca's spirit for good.
Unfortunately, his obsession with his family doesn't stop there, no thanks to Hades. Since Nico's memories of his time before the Lotus Casino was erased, it gave his father a leverage to manipulate him into a position to capture Percy. He told Nico that if he brought Percy to him, he would tell him what happened. Surprise! Hades pulls the rug out from under Nico when he does what he's told, saying that he still won't tell him what happened, and tells him that Bianca would've done better. Eventually, he does find out what happened to his mother by other means. We don't know exactly what made Hades change his mind into going into the battle at Manhattan, but Nico's stubbornness did come into play with that. As much as his father wronged him, he recognized that he would need help if he wanted to help Percy. And he was successful.
In summary so far, Nico's done a pretty big 180 since the first time you see him in the book. He's colder, more withdrawn, and is eager to the point of being gullible to have any connection to his family. And he has his grudge with Percy to deal with also -- something that he eventually lets go of as well. All of this is molding him into the character that he is currently.
So, onwards!
By the Heroes of Olympus series, Nico's grown up a little bit. Initially when you see him, he's not quite as volatile of a character as in the Olympians series (this changes as of House of Hades, but can still be noted). He has come to grips a little bit more with the changes in his life and where he is, though I wouldn't say he was happy about it. Bianca is still dead, he is an outcast, and his relationship with Hades is uncertain. It's not a great life, but he's accepted it.
However, he did try to bring Bianca back one more time. When the dead weren't staying...well, dead, Nico decided this would be an opportune moment to try one more time to bring Bianca back. However, he learned that she was reborn and found Hazel instead. Instead of leaving her there, he brings her with him back into the realm of the living. Though he does accidentally try to call her Bianca, he does care about Hazel. While she's still having flashbacks of her life before she died, he showed concern for her. In House of Hades, it's observed that she might even be the only person that Nico really does love. At least, she's the only person that he does love in a family-sort of way.
Knowing that I'll never be accepted by the living. Only the dead respect me,
and they only do it out of fear."
"You could be accepted." I said. "You could have friends at camp."
He stared at me. "Do you really believe that, Percy?"
-- The Battle of the Labyrinth
Generally, people are wary around Nico. To animals, he smells like the dead. To people (as described in the first paragraph), he has a creepy fire in his eyes and just radiates an aura that unnerves people. He points out to Percy that he doesn't belong anywhere anyway, after being invited to go back to Camp Half-Blood. At the time of The Battle of the Labyrinth, there wasn't even a Hades cabin. Children of Hades aren't really looked on as being a good thing; probably one of the least liked out of the Big Three. Frank doesn't seem to have any problem around Nico in Son of Neptune, but it's also stated that he's one of the few that doesn't seem unnerved. He doesn't show to be very affected of it -- maybe by the time it comes up he's just resigned to the fact. He doesn't stay at either camps, either, as he travels between the two and the Underworld.
He knows when to shut up, though. Though he was caught off guard when Percy first arrived in the Roman camp, he refused to let on that he knew him. As he told Hazel, there were other things at work that needed to work themselves out. He used this same reasoning for not telling either camp about each other; a fact that made him suspicious to Jason and Leo. But Nico was told not to indulge either camp on this fact, and he complied. It wouldn't be the first secret he kept to himself for his own reasons, and won't be the last. This secret-keeping makes him seem very unpredictable, and untrustworthy in some cases.
Unsurprisingly, Nico prefers to do things by himself. Even from The Battle of the Labyrinth, he didn't want Percy's help to get him out of trouble. And still, he believes he can do things by himself. He thought he could investigate the Tartarus, and maybe even close the Doors of Death by himself, but he only ended up getting himself in trouble. He admits that it was a mistake to go down there, and that he thought he could go anywhere in the Underworld. This is where his confidence in his powers turn cocky; he thought that he could do what his father and Thanatos couldn't. Needless to say, he got knocked down a few notches.
Despite all that's been said, Nico does have somewhat of a strange sense of humor. To reflect on how his own personality had changed, his humor has turned dark and a little twisted as well. He's more prone to making sarcastic remarks, and his smile is generally regarded as creepy. Though he does tend to cast these creepy smiles at what would kind of be called a bad time. For instance, when they seem to be getting into a more dangerous situation. A real smile seems to be few and far in between; for one, if he's around Hazel, and when they began to win the battle in House of Hades.
In a social setting, he's very quiet, and easily forgotten about until he speaks up (Jason mentioned that they needed to get a bell for Nico to remember he was still there). He's not exactly the most social person, but it's still an achievement where he is pre-Mark of Athena compared to mostly being with the dead in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. He had an agenda in being away from the Underworld, sure, but he wasn't so withdrawn as he'd been previously.
That is, until House of Hades. By then, after his experience in Tartarus, he's described as being even more withdrawn and eating even less. He's a little more quick with his emotions as well; combined with walking around in Tartarus and making good on his promise with Percy to meet him at the Doors to Death, he's on edge. He also volunteered the most for the lookout position because he could "see the best" out of the group, however it was doubted it was more or less an excuse to be by himself.
Nico's reactions and feelings towards Percy are...well. Complicated. In the beginning of the original series, it evolved into thinking he's cool, to being hurt and angry to the point of turning him in to his father. Though by the end of it, Percy's earned his respect in a lot of ways. He tells Hazel when asked that he's dangerous to his enemies and powerful, but someone that can be trusted.
covered in blood or sewage, the way people treat me.
I don't belong anywhere. I'm not even from this century.
But even that's not enough to set me apart. I've got to be--to be--"
-- House of Hades
However, after an encounter with Cupid himself, it's revealed that Nico actually had a crush on Percy. "Had", said by Nico himself, though he does start acting strangely after the encounter. He becomes even more irritable than he already had been, and shuts out Jason completely when he tries to talk to him about it. He tells Jason that there's no way that he could understand his feelings, he didn't ask for them, and that it's just another thing that sets him apart from the rest of the demigods. Just another reason to be an outcast. Even though Jason promises not to tell the others in the group, it doesn't seem like Nico trusts him much as it's noted that he's on guard around him afterwards. If it's possible, he actually gets more on edge after the encounter with Cupid. The others don't really understand what happened, and of course Nico doesn't explain. But it's obvious that something happened.
When they do save Percy at the Doors of Death, Hazel notices that Nico looks pained as he watches Percy and Annabeth -- and even questions if he'd been crying. Though instead of spending time with Percy after his near-death experience, he pushes both him and Annabeth away even farther. He treats Percy coldly; almost as if he had reverted to his younger self, in a way. However, he doesn't meet Annabeth's eyes either, which is a little more unusual. When it was brought up that someone needed to travel with Reyna, Coach Hedge, and Athena's statue, he jumped too quickly into it. He was eager to run away from the situation, which was something he was used to doing. He had told Jason back after he had found out about Nico's secret that he was going to leave "forever" anyway -- and the opportunity came up almost immediately after saving Percy. Nico had fulfilled his promise to Percy to meet them at the Doors of Death, and now it was time for him to leave.
Abilities/Powers:
Items/Weapons:
Sample Entry: thread!
Sample Entry Two:
He sat a little distance away from the Athena Parthenos, senses heightened and nerves strained. At the very least, he was away from the others. There was no Percy, no Annabeth, no Jason to try to talk to him about things. All different things, of course, and all things he didn't want to deal with. Nico was very aware he was running from the situation, but that wasn't anything unusual, wasn't it? It's not like anyone could ever really understand him, anyway.
And if he got what he wanted, he wouldn't face them again. It didn't stop him from thinking about what Jason might say to the others, though. Would he stay quiet about it? Or if he didn't...what would Percy think?
The air seemed to grow darker around him at the thought. As if it were a habit, he started moving his skull ring around on his finger. Yes, it was necessary to stay away now. After he delivered Reyna, Coach Hedge, and the Parthenos to Camp Half-Blood, he was done for good. He had no doubt that Percy and the others could defeat Gaea, and could handle the rest.
He was going to go back to the shadows and the dead, where he belonged.