Aphrodite And Mitchell Oneshot

I'm fascinated with Rick Riordan's psyche

I've just been reading PJO's Greek Gods-

And Rick Riordan's misogyny IS RIGHT THERE.

Ok-when he says that all the other goddesses bullied Athena because she intimidated them? They tried to exclude her from their 'clique'?

Or when he writes that all the goddesses immediately hated Aphrodite just because she was the most beautiful of them all?

He literally writes, 'The women were like, I immediately hate her.'

Not the goddesses. Just the 'women'.

The way he subtly demonises Athena and Aphrodite.

THE WAY HE LITERALLY WRITES PERCY HATING THEM AND MAKING HORRIBLE COMMENTS ABOUT THEM.

Wow. Oh. My. God.

It's so fascinating. You can learn so much about an author by reading their books, and I'm learning so much about Rick Riordan right now. Has he even changed?

I'm just..........learning so much right now. As someone who studies psychology for fun, PJO is an absolute goldmine to me for learning about Rick Riordan and his views.

Especially now that I'm reading Percy Jackson's Greek Gods and Heroes. Holy shit, if anyone wants to study Rick Riordan, you absolutely HAVE to read those two books (don't take them seriously. Just use them to study Rick's psyche).

STOP ATTRIBUTING EVERYTHING TO GOD AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ONCE

Off topic but it frustrates me to no end that religious people always attribute my actions and achievements to God.

'Oh, you're so lucky, God answered your prayers-'

Noooo no no no no no no, NO.

I am the one worked hard to achieve my goals and I will not have them automatically assigned to a higher being that's nonexistent for me. No sir or ma'am, no I will not.

'Oh, but we need God to be humble-'

Maybe your pea sized little brain needs him for that, but my hulking cranium can take the weight of the fact that I can say that I'm good, great, amazing even at something and not start claiming that I can find the cure for cancer.

Seriously. If you meet an atheist, do not automatically say that everything they've achieved is due to God.

All right, ok, LISTEN. I don't know who needs to hear this, but I'm pretty sure that some people do. It's ok to hate Percy Jackson because it depicts the Greek Gods in a terrible way. Rick Riordan has the creative license to write them however he wants, but it's still fine to be annoyed at how they're portrayed.

It's ok to hate the fact that PJO wasn't in Greece and that the explanation for why it was in America was terrible.

It's ok to hate the fact that Zeus, Hera, Ares, Athena and a whole lot of other gods were portrayed in a negative light.

It's ok to be furious because Ares is a bad parent in PJO.

It's ok to tear your hair out over the way Artemis and her hunt were written.

It's ok to be angry that Athena had children with mortals when she was a virgin goddess in the myths.

It's ok to be angry that Hades cheated on Persephone in PJO (even if you like Nico and Bianca and Hazel. It's fine to do both).

It's ok to be angry that Persephone and Demeter don't have a good relationship and that Demeter is largely painted to be an overbearing, helicopter mother.

It's ok to resent the fact that Artemis, the former's hunt and Hestia, the goddess of the hearth and another virgin goddess, were portrayed as literal CHILDREN despite there being no reason for Rick to do that.

It's ok to be annoyed with the fact that Poseidon was sanitized when he could've been such a morally gray character.

It's fine to cry about the fact that Aphrodite was largely reduced to a stereotypical, modern cartoonish version of RomANtiC lOvE when she was the goddess of LOVE, not just ROMANCE, SEX AND BEAUTY.

It's ok to like Trials of Apollo but want to smash things because Apollo was depicted as an incompetent dumbass. It's ok to seethe at the fact that Zeus was portrayed as an abusive father to Apollo when in the myths, he was quite loving.

It's ok to do this because PJO is one of the if not THE MOST major media that depicts Greek Mythology. It's basically a Greek Mythology fanfiction MODERN AU. And yes, it's helped thousands of children and adults and made them feel better, and it's almost as popular as Harry Potter for a reason. But it's still fine for Greek people, Hellenistic Pagans and even people who aren't Greek or Hellenistic to be angry with how Rick Riordan is continuously bastardising the Greek Gods and making them look more and more of a joke.

A lot of people who got into Greek Mythology used PERCY JACKSON as their first reference, and while Percy Jackson is a great start for venturing into Greek Mythology- PLEASE, PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THAT PJO GODS ARE NOT AS ACCURATE AS THE ORIGINAL.

POSEIDON IS NOT THAT GOOD.

HADES IS NOT SO VILLANOUS.

ATHENA IS NOT SO COLD AND UNCARING. SHE'S A MAIN PATRON OF HEROES AND RARELY ABANDONS THEM EVEN AFTER THEY'VE COMMITTED WAR CRIMES

DIONYSUS IS NOTHING LIKE HIS PJO COUNTERPART.

ARES IS A GOOD FATHER.

DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE HAD A BEAUTIFUL, LOVING RELATIONSHIP.

HERA IS NOT SO HORRIBLE. SHE HAD HER GOOD MOMENTS

ZEUS WAS NOT THAT BAD IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY AND HE WAS ALSO A CARING FATHER. HE SENT BLOOD RAIN DOWN TO MOURN HIS SON SARPEDON WHO WAS FATED TO DIE.

I know this sounds like I hate PJO, but I really do like the series. It's fine to like PJO and its characters while also disliking how the gods were portrayed. It's ok.

Now that I've lost my dad, I'm feeling kind of overwhelmed about next year, which is important for me. I thought he'd be there to help me, but he's gone. It feels scary honestly. I don't know what to do.

ohm god anti Percabeths like u r soo annoying legit just kill urself

I have a better idea-track me down and kill me yourself and use my soul to bring your grammar back to life.

Hi, it’s “Rick really shot himself in the foot when he tried to differentiate Greek and Roman mythology and failed” anon again, and I just learned that apparently Rick is not only misrepresenting the gods and Greek culture, but actual Ancient Greek philosophers, and that really pisses me off as someone with a degree in philosophy.

I haven’t been a part of this fandom in a long time. I never finished HoO (I dropped it before the series was even finished), but I saw something upsetting the other day. I’ve seen a few posts talking about this one passage from HoO (Or, at least, I think it was from HoO. If I read that part, I don’t remember because It was a long time ago.) talking about “a story by Plato about how male and female were created because they used to be the same being that was split in half, and now they’re two halves of a whole looking for their soulmate or whatever” and this was supposed to create angst or something because then Nico didn’t know how he was supposed to fit into that equation.

Again, I don’t exactly know the context (I tried Googling it, but I couldn’t find anything), but I do know that it’s referencing The Symposium. The Symposium just so happens to be one of my favorite pieces of philosophical writing, and once had to write over 20 pages on this bad boy for an academic paper, so believe me when I tell you - that story is a load of BS, and I will not tolerate Plato slander.

First of all, that wasn’t even Plato that said that. It was Aristophanes. Yes, The Symposium was written by Plato, but he was essentially just documenting stuff that was said at a dinner where a bunch of dudes got together and decided to philosophize about what love is (there are 6 speakers in total, that all lead up to Socrates, and Aristophanes is just one of them). People debate about whether all the people and situations Plato wrote about were even real, or if they’re just a device to bounce ideas off of each other, and there’s even this whole theory that Socrates wasn’t a real person - but I’m not going to get into all of that. What’s important is that we DO know that Aristophanes was a real person, and it’s important to note that Aristophanes was NOT a philosopher. He was a playwright and basically the Ancient Greek equivalent of a comedian. I have seen a lot of people act like it was some profound theory of how humans came to be, but it was never meant to be taken seriously.

Now, I have seen that story be taken out of context many times, and it always annoys me, but this might be the most egregious one yet. The Symposium is not heteronormative in the slightest. In fact, it is VERY queer, which is what drew me to it in the first place.

The ACTUAL story that this is trying to reference is when Aristophanes tells a story where originally humans had 2 heads, 4 arms, and 4 legs, and there were 3 genders - male, female, and androgynous (which represented the sun, earth, and moon, respectively). The gods were intimidated by the humans, so they split them in half. The ones that were originally male became men who were attracted to men, the ones that were female became women attracted to women, and the ones that were androgynous became men and women attracted to the opposite sex. That is the very short version, but needless to say, very inclusive of homosexuality.

I see how what Rick was trying to do could’ve worked for asexuality or aromanticism, however, this is only just one small part of The Symposium, and there is actually a lot of stuff in The Symposium that I would argue are very ace and aro coded, but I’m not going to get into all of that, though, because this would be very long and that’s beside the point.

(Just one thing, though, because I can't resist. It’s not relevant to this, but it’s cool, and it relates to my previous ask. At one point, one of the speakers, Pausanias, tries to define love as a complex being and says that Aphrodite is the personification of love. He acknowledges that there are two different versions of Aphrodite that the Ancient Greeks believed in, from different parts of Greece (again, this is pre-Roman), and instead of trying to determine which is the “true” Aphrodite, he embraces both of them and says they are the personifications of two different kinds of love, which eventually results in him basically figuring out the split attraction model 2000+ years before it was called that, and I love it so much.) Anyway, everyone should read The Symposium, it’s public domain.

All that to say, this means one of two things. Either Rick knew this story and intentionally changed it to be heteronormative to create angst, or he read some other version of the story, that was not a primary resource, where someone else had already changed to be heteronormative - and that really freaking bothers me, because it could not be farther from the truth.

As a queer person who found a lot of comfort in The Symposium, I find it disgusting that it was twisted for the sake of making a queer character feel bad about themself for extra angst (and don’t even get me started on how Nico’s character was handled, that is a whole other thing I can go off about, but I won’t because this is about Plato). Shame on you, Richard.

Again, I haven’t touched HoO since I was in high school and it was still being released, and I honestly don’t remember reading that part. So, if I am taking this out of context and later in the book they say “Wait, but that’s not actually how the story goes!” then I will be pleasantly surprised for once, and you can disregard all of this.

You are wonderful, anon, and I love you and this message that you've sent so much. I will definitely check out Plato's Symposium sometime soon.

Don't worry-you're not taking this out of context. What you're talking about is, unfortunately, written in either HOH or BOO-I clearly remember that.

Rick Riordan does tend to misrepresent cultures in his stories-especially Greek culture, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was true. His views on Hellenistic Paganism and Greek Gods when he was writing PJO and HOO were unfortunately very derogatory and it's clearly reflected in his writing.

The fact that he changed a story to fit his version does not surprise me at all, though it's painful to learn that he has committed yet another infraction regarding Greek Mythology.

It's terribly discouraging to me when I see how many people think that what Rick Riordan writes is true and urge them to read up on real sources regarding Greek Mythology. This twisted version of Plato's Symposium is only one of many examples in Percy Jackson.

Knowing Rick Riordan, he either read the full version and twisted it to form his own terrible version, which he has done before (Hephaestus' attempted rape of Athena) and is quite good at or he read a version that wasn't the primary resource and just took it to be the real thing (like he did when researching for Piper Mclean).

Nico's moment there was pretty poignant, very relatable for many LGBTQ readers wondering how they would fit in to heteronormative society...........

But unfortunately, a lot of nice moments in PJO come at the cost of incorrectly interpreting Ancient Greek Gods and culture. It's pretty sad, honestly. Rick really likes to slander Greece in his works. First with the flame of the West, then with slandering all the gods and all those mythological inaccuracies, now with this twisted Symposium version of his.

Rick Riordan doesn't even do his research properly, so of course he said that Plato said it and not that Plato wrote down what Aristophanes said out loud. I wonder if it would actually kill him to do some more research. Is he really that bad at it?

Anyway, I will read the Symposium to gain more insight onto how Rick could have handled it better. I really like aro-ace coded stuff, too, so I'll love this one.

I GUARANTEE you that if Rick didn't make Athena have children, he would also have made her be a child somehow.

What I like about Shelper

So those of you who've read till the very end of Trials of Apollo know that Piper has now moved on from Jason and is dating another girl who's Native and her age-Shel!

Now, many people didn't like this-I mean, I get their sentiments, since Shel was just shoved right in to make Piper bi.

And I stand by my previous statement about Piper's bisexuality being shoved in and not counting as good representation-

But I think that Shelper is awesome.

Hear me out.

So Piper is actually dating a girl who shares her heritage, her dwindling heritage, and Shel is actually helping her discover her heritage now.

I mean, that's awesome. Wanting to reconnect with your heritage AND find another partner that's also trying to reconnect to said heritage? Piper and Shel were so lucky to have found each other, because they can help each other out a ton.

Things are kind of dangerous for Native Americans trying to reconnect with their culture in the USA, so it's great that Piper will have someone to be with her if she gets threatened or disdained because of what she's trying to do.

I don't think I properly articulated all of my points so I might edit this, but feel free to reblog it.

Rick Riordan fucked up ALL the Gods in Goddesses, both Roman and Greek ngl. Also, why did he choose Neptune for the Romans to fear/dislike— they were literally a navy POWERHOUSE.

Just why, why do you do this Rick 😭

He does it because he's a fool who doesn't properly research culture, history and mythology before crappily writing it into his books. It's sad that he'll never what he wrote wrong. He really does infuriate me sometimes.

I've always thought that making the Romans hate Neptune just gave Percy unnecessary angst, which is bullshit. Imagine how much cooler it would be if he was immediately treated like a great soldier, like the potential new Praetor, like the Savior of Olympus (Though they wouldn't know it at that time.) Compare and contrast that to how he was treated at Camp Half Blood! It would have been so interesting to read about (if written properly, which we all know was not Rick's mandate at that time).

Apollo WOULD NOT let Will go to Tartarus

I don't know if Apollo made an appearance in TSATS, but if he did, he was probably butchered too, because Apollo WOULD NOT let his children go to Tartarus.

If he heard what Will and Nico were up to, he'd kidnap them and put them safely in his sun palace. He'd be like, 'OH MY GOD. NO YOU'RE NOT GOING. LEAVE THIS TO ME.'

He'd try to talk to Hades about rescuing Bob, but if he learnt that Hades was the one who sent the message?

Boy oh boy....................RUN FOR COVER.

Los Angeles wouldn't just have an earthquake, it would be decimated entirely. Apollo would not hold back, not even if Hades was one of the Big Three. Multiple gods would have to intervene, probably.

'WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU SENT YOUR OWN CHILD TO TARTARUS YOU ABSOLUTE (REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED). AND MY SON WAS GOING TOO? YOU LITTLE (REDACTED)-'

Apollo would not let Will or Nico go Tartarus. No way in hell.