Ok, I Need To Tell All Of You Something.

Sally shouldn't have gotten pregnant

Am I the only one that thinks that Sally Jackson shouldn't have gotten pregnant? Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Estelle or Paul or Sally, but it just feels like the woman gets to be 'happy' with a new husband and child to look after-just a generic happy ending. She could've been writing and publishing a book, and while I have nothing against her getting into a new marriage and finding someone who makes her happy, I just wonder why she had to have a baby directly after-she's 41 years old, and she's going to be raising yet ANOTHER child, which isn't as nice as it sounds, and it's not clear if Percy is going to help, as he has a lot of demigod-related challenges going on.

Just an opinion of mine-it's perfectly fine if you think that her ending was happy.

Solangelo first meet rewrite-making it better

So, I've been thinking, and I really think that Will should've strongly and firmly advised Nico, but never ordered him. And in case you're wondering what I mean, just read this-

Will blew out a breath. 'Nico.......listen, can I tell you something?'

Nico frowned at the healer. 'What?'

'I'm a healer. And when I touched your hand........well, I've never felt so much darkness.'

Nico raised his eyebrows. 'And?'

'And, simply put, in my medical opinion-' here Will held up his hands, palms facing Nico, '-you're in no shape to shadow travel anywhere, much less that tent. One more shadow slip and you'd never come back. I strongly advise you not to shadow travel anymore as an experienced healer and probably the best camp medic.'

'But the camp is about to be destroyed. My powers are necessary to defeat the Romans!'

'We can stop the Romans without your powers. I'm pretty sure of it. We can do it our way-Lou Ellen can control the Mist. We'll sneak around, do as much damage as we can to those onagers. I very, very strongly advise you not to travel shadow again in the next few hours. Literally.'

Nico snarled. 'Are you ordering me not to use my powers?'

Will Solace glared daggers at him.

'Nico di Angelo. Don't ever say that to me.'

His tone make Nico stop and stare.

'I'm a healer. I'm a combat medic. And I give great medical advice. But one thing that I'm never supposed to do is order someone not to do something. Patient consent is always necessary, and doctors aren't allowed to do something that the patient doesn't want even if they're at the risk of dying. So I can give you very strong advice that I think you should follow, but one thing I'll never do is demand that you follow orders. I don't even know the extent of your powers, but right now I'm pretty sure you couldn't summon a wishbone without melting into a puddle of darkness, but if you think that your powers will help us? By all means go ahead. Please, just remember.........keep yourself safe out there. And you're not the only fighter in Camp Half Blood. There are more experienced fighters and magic users than you are, and we're all working overtime to defeat the Romans. You're not the only one fighting this battle.'

Nico stared at Will Solace. He'd never imagined that Will could be like this-sure, he had seen him in action, the best combat medic in Manhattan, but he'd never thought that he could be so firm or even say something that was actually true.

Nico wasn't the only one fighting this battle. There were Hecate kids, and even Clovis could make people fall asleep in battle, which was more dangerous than it sounded. There were so many magicians and fighters both on the frontlines and back in the camp, and all of them were doing their part too.............

Rick has a lot of terrible logic in his books, and I wanted to list an example here.

IN Trials of Apollo, Apollo is surprised that Meg is a demigod daughter of Demeter, since Demeter rarely falls in love with mortals and has children.

Ok, if that's so, then explain how she already has THREE other daughters that are all teenagers and are all older than Meg?

That means that she fell in love with mortals in in the span of 5-6 years. That's not rare.

And no, Katie's, Miranda's and Billie's ages aren't explicitly mentioned, but it's pretty clear from the text that they're all older than Meg.

This is just another critical post. Nothing special, just thought I'd point it out since it's been bothering me for some time.

How did Annabeth Chase even bag Percy?

Listen he has his flaws (like all the other characters) but he's still too good for her, especially with how she treats him.

Let me guess. Anti Annabeth Chase and anti Percabeth?

Yeah, if you're @hermesmyplatonicbeloved or @cynthiav06 in diguise, then ok. They share the same views as you.

Annabeth treatment of Percy is sometimes pretty unhealthy, to be frank. They love each other and there are many sweet moments and poetic parallels (that I can't be bothered to find, go dig through the Percabeth blogs for those theses.)

They had a pretty good friendship when she wasn't punching him or calling him a nickname that he had to grow used to simply because she wouldn't stop or making him think really hard about what he had to say or calling him a coward for the crime of *Checks notes* being stressed about a high chance of possible death!

Hm. Even their friendship was somewhat unhealthy at times.

And if you pull out the emotionally stressed card, then why didn't she apologise to him for it later? Not everything requires an apology, of course, but this does.

They also have a really nice romantic relationship when she's not judo flipping him and victim-blaming him for getting kidnapped, when she's not bringing up Rachel to keep him on his toes, when he's not almost scared to death by her and when she doesn't hit him.

It baffles me how Rick is able to write such toxicity in his relationships. Like. Rick. You know that this is unhealthy behaviour, right? You do know that having a healthy fear of your partner is not normal. It's not normal for them to hit you either (and don't get me started on the 'but they're demigods!' because Annabeth is the only one whom we see exhibit this kind of behaviour. Clarisse and her cabin don't count because this behaviour is negatively associated with them and they're called out on it while Annabeth is not.) It's not normal for you to get used to a nickname that they keep calling you (this was in TTC too, before he went off his rocket.)

You know that, right, Rick? You know it?

She was pretty much the only girl that he really interacted with throughout the series. Sally doesn't count (I'm talking about people of his age, plus she's his mom) Thalia went away after one book and Rachel came in later and left soon. Annabeth is also one of Percy's only friends (apart from Grover and Nico, who don't interact with Percy that much after HOO and then there's Rachel who drops out of his life fast after becoming the Oracle.) In fact, she's the person with whom he interacts the most. So that explains a lot of it.

I don't think that he's too good for her, but I would really like her unhealthy behaviour towards him to be called out and fixed. It would be absolutely amazing if it was treated as a character flaw, which, unfortunately, won't happen.

Jude and Madoc one shot (A year after being brought to Faerie)

Murderer, 8 year old Jude thought as she looked at the man who had killed their parents.

How long ago had it been? A year, perhaps. Time flew by before she knew it. One year ago her biggest fear had been the math test coming up, and now-well, she would take every math test in the world if it meant going back to her parents and house.

Not this horribly large mansion with its false promises of empty beauty. And the terrifying monster that resided in it. 

Her parents' murderer. The smell of wet red blood and splayed limbs on the kitchen floor was burnt into Jude's mind like it had happened yesterday-perhaps always would be.

When she first came here, she had been fully in shock. Taryn and Vivi had wailed, she had been dazed. Now, she was ready to fight-fight for both her sisters, like Vivi who would fight for them. She still cried, but she now drew her sword, eyes narrowed, baring her teeth at Madoc, her mother's former husband.

Vivienne didn't call him father. She said that Justin Duarte was her father, and that Madoc could never live up to him. Madoc's cat eyes flashed, and Taryn shrank, but Jude was glad of Vivi's ferocity and disgust, matching her own. 

Madoc sighed as he watched her try to wield her practice sword. For some reason, he had wanted to give her a sword fighting lesson one on one-without her sisters, in front of this monster, Jude felt terrified and stripped bare. 

'Adjust your grip,' he said, touching her hand, and she recoiled in horror. He adjusted it himself, then stood back. 'Try again.'

She growled and lunged at the practice dummy. Strike and thrust. 

Her practice sword broke in half-she had hit too hard.

'Well,' she said sarcastically. 'I guess that's broken, then.'

'I can see that,' he said. 'Now, cut vertically. Like this,' he said, swishing his blade down, and she flinched and jumped. He drew in a sharp breath, then shook his head.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'It must have been too soon. Cut vertically.'

She cut her sword vertically down. It was somewhat difficult. 

'Practice. Do it again. It will get easier with time, and you must hone your reflexes. You need to know how to jump back without falling and how to duck and roll.' he said.

Maybe if he hadn't killed her parents, she'd be back in the human world, learning normal human things instead of sword fighting.

She missed her parents so hard, it hurt sometimes. A part of her still believed that they might come back, that maybe someone had taken them to the hospital and they were actually alive and they were searching for them.

But wouldn't her parents have found them by now if they were still alive?

'All right, Jude, keep cutting down vertically.' he said. 'Maybe your sister Vivienne will learn the hard way of refusing to learn the ways of Faerie.'

'Don't say that,' Jude snapped at him, then shrank when he looked at her and raised his eyebrows.

'Very well.' he said. 'Keep on practicing, Jude.'

How would you write PJO and HOO?

What makes Percy Jackson so interesting-being set in America-is also what makes it problematic. Any excuse given for moving the Greek Gods out of Greece and to America would have been bullshit, but combining ancient mythological creatures and modern day culture and technology can also be a really funny gag (Rick Riordan can write comedy pretty well).

I do think that it could be set in Greece and still be interesting, though, so if I rewrote PJO, I'd do a lot of research and set it in Greece and I wouldn't make fun of the culture. Also I would add the children of Greek immigrants.

I'd definitely get rid of the weird sexism surrounding Aphrodite's daughters and cabin in the books.

I wouldn't make Artemis and her Hunt hate men, I'd make them be clueless about men and turn it into a comedy (men do THIS? No wonder you're so behind! We in the wild do [something completely absurd and simply undoable in modern say society that can be done in her Hunt because it's timeless and in the wild] Far superior).

If I could rewrite HOO, I'd get rid of all the sexism and racism entirely. The characters could actually travel over the world and it would be more impactful to focus on how pollution is affecting the world.

OR, to make it an entertaining and intriguing fictional series-FOCUS ON THE POLITICS. HOO is supposed to be for older audiences, for teenagers, right? Well, plenty of people get into politics at 15-16, so focus on introducing them to politics! See my post here (it's not fully finished but it's better than nothing).

I think that misandry is real, but it's not as bad as misogyny. Misandry is like an ant scuttling around; misogyny is a raging elephant in the wild.

I really don't understand why Thalia had to fight the monsters and sacrifice herself for Luke and Annabeth RIGHT ON THE BORDER OF CAMP HALF BLOOD.

Literally WHERE were Chiron and Dionysus? They knew that getting Thalia to camp was very important-hell, why didn't Chiron himself search for her instead of letting an inexperienced satyr guide her?

Just another one of Rick's terrible writing choices that make no sense. This has been bothering me for a long time..........

Why Zeus transformed Thalia into a pine tree

So I've seen people asking why Zeus transformed Thalia into a tree, and was that really the most powerful being's plan to save his daughter? Yes. Yes, it was! He looked down and saw an opportunity!

First of all, there's no telling if Thalia would save or raze Olympus. And now she's dying from a fatal wound, BUT he doesn't want her to die because then Hades will………well……….send her to the Fields of Punishment or Tartarus (completely untrue for the real Hades, by the way.)

And he can't exactly just interfere and save her life because then he would be accused of hypocrisy by the other gods and also the Ancient Laws, both of which he probably doesn't care about.......

But the MAIN reason he didn't save her life was most likely because she was the prophecy child and he didn't want it to come true. So, what does he do? Easy! He transforms her into a tree. Reminiscent of Greek Mythology, where people are transformed into things all the time, AND he actively ties and strengthens Thalia's tree to the magical border, thus giving her a legacy to live on at Camp Half Blood for not just one generation but EVERY generation to come. And this way, the prophecy can be averted! (He didn't know that Percy existed yet.)

anon because the fandom does genuinely scare me sometimes, especially within the caleo stan circles

love your posts. what are your thoughts on caleo? i personally greatly dislike it, but how do you feel about it? i think it's another percabeth situation, where people only defend the abuse that happens because of the gender (if calypso was male and leo was female, there would be a riot. same situation with the constant hitting/violence with annabeth. a genderswap would ruin these ships.) i dont think leo or calypso act happy in the relationship, whatsoever.

About Caleo.............

All right, I hate that ship, but my main problem is how Rick portrayed Calypso in PJO versus how she is portrayed in the actual mythology and the Odyssey.

Putting this under a cut because I don't want to clog your feed up.

I don't know how many PJO fans have read the Odyssey, but if you have read it before or after, doubtless you'll be surprised at how different the two Calypsos are.

How Calypso is portrayed in the Odyssey.

She is not a sad, helpless UWU teen girl like Calypso in PJO. She shouldn't have even been a teenager in PJO-she romanced two grown men!

She's not the type of person to understand and let someone go. She didn't do that with Odysseus-she kept him captive for seven years and only let him go when Hermes threatened her with the wrath of Zeus (not something you want to tempt, never ends well.)

Being a nymph and a minor goddess who was the daughter of Atlas, she supported him during the First Titanomachy which was why she lived on Ogygia in exile as punishment. She's a goddess, which means that she was leagues more powerful than Odysseus, who was exhausted, traumatised and didn't have any crew or supplies to sustain him. Going back into the ocean was also dangerous because, well, Poseidon and his rage (not something you want to have on your head either).

It's literally stated in the poem that Odysseus cried on the beach every morning, wishing to return home and missing it terribly. He literally just wanted to see the smoke that rose from his homeland and wants to die. Exact lines copied from Homey's Odyssey-

'By night indeed he would sleep by her side perforce in the hollow caves, unwilling beside the willing nymph.'

'At night-time, true, he slept with her even now in the arching caverns, but this was against his will; she was loving and he unloving'.

'But Odysseus, in his longing to see were it but the smoke leaping up from his own land, yearns to die.'

And when Hermes forces her to let him go, she makes this speech saying that gods will ravish all the women they like, but the moment goddesses start doing the same, they are furious and make them stop.

That's literally just her trying to blame the gods and not herself for something she did. She's trying to shift the blame and make herself seem likeable because others did it, so why can't she?

This is something that a lot of abusers use to make them seem better. Calypso's actions are not ok, and the narrative does not tell us that it's ok. It condemns them, and so should we.

This by @katerinaaqu is a must-read, and you should check out their blog for more info on the real Calypso.

And how she's portrayed in Percy Jackson

We should not, for example, turn this adult nymph who's a rapist into a biologically and mentally 15-16 and make her a poor little girl who's sadly living on an island and then state that she's romanced grown men while somehow being 15-16 years old and ignore it.

I'm not saying that it had to be stated that she was a rapist because this is a children's book series.

But I'm not saying that she had to be portrayed as a teenager either.

The worst part is that though Calypso is depicted as a teenager, it's said that she fought in a war, the First Titanomachy which was much more serious than the Second One, and she romanced two grown men.

All of this while being a teenager? How the hell does that work? Apollo literally says that Calypso is old enough to be his babysitter! And he's millennia old! Millennia!

There is no logic in this, honestly. I mean, there's not much logic or consistency in PJO, but this really takes the cake.

And in Heroes of Olympus, more specifically the fourth book House of Hades, she appears again.........

And, well, this is where it gets really revolting.

Leo Valdez, a fifteen or sixteen year old teenager, is thrown all the way to Ogygia. And there he meets Calypso, who, as the book series states, cannot help but fall in love with every hero that appears on her island because they're just her type.

I think we all know what happens next.

Calypso, a millennia-old goddess who fought in a war and romanced grown men, gets into a relationship.........with a traumatized, mentally unstable teenage boy who's not even a legal adult. After only, what, a few weeks?

This entire situation feels like some bizzarre nightmarish distorted version of terribly-written, unfunny comedy.

THE ATROCITY OF ROMANTICISED SUICIDE

Ok, so Caleo is abusive, but I'll get to that later.

What I want to talk about-first and foremost about Caleo-is that Leo commits suicide to find Calypso's island again-and this isn't good.

...............Sorry, did I say that that wasn't good?

No, that's a fucking understatement and underestimation.

IT'S ROMANTICISED SUICIDE.

Sink that in your head people. He killed himself to find her island again and take her off of it!

And no, that's not romantic. It's not. Fucking. ROMANTIC.

it's disgusting, unacceptable, unpleasant, nasty, disagreeable, horrid, unwholesome, atrocious, awful, deficient, revolting, lacking, unwelcome, unfortunate, inferior, inadequate, lousy, flawed, pathetic, disastrous, ill, useless, worthless, gross, damnable, vile, absymal, horrendous, shoddy, abominable, crappy, faulty, trashy, substandard, nasty, terrible, dreadful, unfavourable, grim, distressing, regrettable, adverse to morality and humanity, entirely unnecessary and not up to scratch (THAT WAS THE ITCHIEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN).

How, just how am I supposed to explain how horrible this is? Especially in a children's book series?

Killing yourself just to find a loved one is never a good concept in any form of media. It's a self-destructive fantasy and suicide itself is a horrible, horrible thing-not to blame the suicidal person, but to both them and their loved ones.

And suicide should never be romanticised, never ever, period. To do so, especially in a children's book series, is absolutely atrocious writing on the author's part, no matter who they are.

He never even called it out. If he had said that it was horrible and treated it as such, it would be a little better-but no. It's cheered on and encouraged, which is a level of hell that's deeper than the Earth's core.

I don't think I've emphasized how awful this is. It's just.......let's not romanticise suicide and suicidal tendencies. Not for anything. Never.

LEO'S ARC IS RUINED

The entire point of Leo Valdez's arc was to show that being the third wheel (seventh one in this case) wasn't bad. Being single, not finding romantic love, was fine. Acceptance without romance was possible, and pure platonic love was also possible. And Calypso pretty much ruined this because in the end, heteronormativity forces romance above everything.

And he literally prioritises this random girl whom he spent a few weeks with over his friends whom he spent months with and knows them way better than Calypso.

The forced amatonormativity here is as transparent as clean air. You'' be able to see lichen growing on the trees if you look close enough.

Abuse in Caleo

Calypso is also abusive to Leo.

1) She looks into Leo's past and sees his memories. Without his permission. Which is pretty creepy and moves past boundaries in a bad way.

Now we come to the Dark Prophecy, where they star as a couple (more like a star explosion).

2) In TDP, Calypso jabs her fingers into Leo's ribs.

Why?

It's because she asked what was hiding Festus from the mortals, so he tells her what the Mist is and she says that already knows-even though she literally asked the question that provoked in the first place.

Even if she thinks he's insulting her or talking down, when he's not, she shouldn't jab her fingers into his ribs.

And that wasn't playful-Leo expressed physical pain through an exclamation. And even if Calypso thought it was playful, she didn't apologize afterwards when she saw that she caused Leo physical pain.

3) She also calls him by a name that he told her never to call him by-Leonidas.

He clearly doesn't like it, and knowing that, she still uses it, that too in front of someone they don't know very well, almost a stranger.

In the Riordanverse, names have power.

Leo chooses not to call himself that. He tells Calypso never to call him that. And she calls him that.

In this moment, she's taking his power and autonomy away from him by calling him something he doesn't like. It's probably minor to a lot of you, but honestly, it's pretty bothersome to those of us who have actually experienced this.

4) Leo often uses mechanical-related analogies, but Calypso hates them and makes him stop using them, so he doesn't even use them when she's not around.

What's wrong with him using his analogies? He uses them to help him and she makes him stop. She effectively stops him from using something that helps him. That is bad.

It's a fundamental part of him. If Calypso doesn't like it, then why is she dating him at all?

5) Leo is also bad to Calypso. He calls her Mamacita multiple times after she tells him not to. Reyna literally has to tell him to stop calling her that and intimidate him into doing it, and it's all passed off has lighthearted playfulness.

As someone who has been through this before, it's pretty damn frustrating. It's not funny or cute to do it. It's plain annoying and the person on the receiving end is completely right to want it to stop.

6) The age gap. I've mentioned this before.

But some people are saying that Calypso has the maturity of a teenager in PJO, so why shouldn't she date Leo?

All right, using that logic, let's make Apollo and Reyna date!

NO.

Calypso has lived for millennia on her island. She says that it's been three thousand five hundred and sixty eight years.

This isn't like Nico, who was in the Lotus Casino for decades but only aged a month. He was the same level of mature when he went into it and came out. Calypso was not.

Apollo has also lived for millennia. And he has a teenager's maturity. Does that mean it's ok for him to date Reyna.

No. It does not. And the same logic applies to Calypso and Leo.

I've also heard someone saying that Calypso is cursed to fall in love with whoever washes up on her island, which isn't true.

She says that the gods send her the type of person whom she can't help herself from falling in love with. Not that she's cursed to love them.

7) In TDP, Leo is working on something to try and find Georgina, a missing child.

And then when he says as much, Calypso sharply asks him if he can imagine losing his child.

He can, in fact, do that. He lost his mom, which was just as horrible if not more than Jo and Emmie losing their child, since there was a chance of Georgina coming back, but Esperanza could never come back.

He also has a little brother-Harley. He says that he would be furious if someone did something bad to Harley! So yes, he can in fact imagine what losing a child is like!

After this, Calypso for some reason gets frustrated and tells him that he can't reduce everything to a program.

He's not doing that. He's not reducing this problem to a program-he's working on a program to reduce this problem.

She tells him that Jo and Emmie don't need gadgets or jokes. They need someone who will listen.

And how is that going to help exactly? Leo is actually doing something. He's working on something to find Georgina.

A good listener is something nice to have, but a person who actually does something helpful is even better. And if Calypso thinks Jo and Emmie need a good listener, then she can listen. What else is she doing anyway?

Calypso willfully misunderstands this and wrongfully accuses him of not listening and trying to reduce everything to a machine when he's not. This is what a toxic partner does. They twist the narrative to make you think that your actions are wrong when they're not.

TO CONCLUDE

Neither Leo nor Calypso is happy in their relationship. It was built on naive dreams and false passions-the moment they became a real couple, they didn't know what to do. They thought that they loved each other, but it was only the idea of love and having a partner that was compelling to them. The moment they actually got what they wanted, which was to be in a real relationship, they didn't know how to actually be a couple. Then the problems of a real relationship began to hit both of them.

The logical solution would be to talk it out, apologise on both ends, realise that they wouldn't work out together and finally break up while remaining good friends or just stop contacting each other entirely-either one is fine.

They're taking a break now, so hopefully Rick Riordan will make them break up, but I think that he'll just never mention them again, which wouldn't be as great, but would be fine, honestly, regarding the current state of Rick Riordan.