Every Fandom Is Toxic

There are blogs that love Solangelo and Percabeth

There are blogs that hate Solangelo and Percabeth

There's a blog that likes Percabeth and hates Solangelo

Now find me a blog that loves Solangelo and hates Percabeth and my life will be complete

Jude and Madoc oneshot (From Madoc's POV)

11 year old Jude looked at Madoc. 'What you want to do is evade the strike.' he said. 'You can't always evade, but it's best to learn how. Your reflexes have to be quick enough-if they strike suddenly, you'll need to jump back and preferably not fall over. I'm going to strike, and you're going to step back.' 'Ok,' she said. He took the sword and struck at her. She screamed and jumped back, tripping over her feet. 'Yes,' he said, smiling slightly. 'That's what you want to avoid.' He would not admit it, but he was growing to love Jude more than Vivienne. She was so like him-fierce, determined, ready to protect her loved ones at all costs. He saw so much of him in her, rather than Vivienne, though he had spent years thinking about the latter and imagining how she could have been if not for her untimely 'death'. Yet it was Jude whom he gravitated to. She had Eva's fierceness, determination and resilience. What he had originally been attracted to. Taryn was also there, yes, but she was more quiet and submissive. It was Jude that he really liked. And it seemed that she growing to love him as well, though she did not feel comfortable with it. He had let her sit on his lap and eat out of his plate, even though he had murdered her parents in front of her own eyes. Jude flushed. 'Sorry.' she said, darting glances at him. 'Um.' 'Let's try again.' He struck at her and this time, she stepped back expertly. 'Good. Now, it's not always good to evade-you're only putting yourself where the blade is not, which might be useful in some situations, but if you want to end the fight, you'll have to strike back. And sometimes, the enemy will be faster than you, or you will tire out and finally be struck. And if you misjudge their timing, you're done for.' She nodded. 'You want to be able to do a simple BLOCK.' he said. 'When your opponent attacks you, you raise your sword and block their thrust. Put the blade between yourself and your attacker. You can also support the blade, like this-' he grasped the blade in one of his hands while holding the hilt with the other. She practiced the block and at the end of an hour, she had mastered it. 'Amazing, Jude! You're a natural.' he said, smiling at her. 'Keep on doing this and you'll be the best swordsman in Faerie.' 'Swordswoman,' she mumbled, then nodded and smiled back at him. One of their mutual interests was sword fighting-well, their strongest mutual interest, actually. They took many lessons outside, sometimes Jude being covered in dirt and sweat after them, much to Oriana's chagrin. Everything was all right now-he might have murdered their parents, but they seemed to have gotten over them and were well adjusted to Elfhame. (Even if they had left for a brief period of time last year. Vivienne had said that they just needed a vacation from Faerie, but Madoc was glad to see that Jude and Taryn were ecstatic to be back. Even if Vivienne was sulky and depressed.) Still, sometimes he felt depressed looking at them. How could he have killed their mother? They were so young, and it had obviously affected them in terrible ways. He wondered if they still cried into their pillows when they slept. Hopefully not. He was delighted with Jude's progress, and, as time passed, hoped to make her into one of the best, if not THE best, swordsman in Elfhame. It was the least he could do, teach her how to survive in Elfhame, for her mother. Eva may not have been a good wife, but he would be a good father to Jude-and to Taryn, and Vivienne. If there was one thing he would do for his dead wife, it would be to raise her daughters in honour and give them a good life. Fate may not have smiled upon him in the Duarte house, but he was in Elfhame, and by the blood crown would he bend it to his will here.

My theory as to why Rick added the judo flip

I was thinking about how weird it was that Rick added the judo flip scene to the reunion and I have a theory for why he did it.

Percabeth's reunion was supposed to be happy and romantic, and a judo flip is the antithesis of that.

My theory (And keep in mind that this is only a theory, so don't take it as canon) is that he added the judo flip in to make the scene unique.

Listen-every reunion scene like Percabeth's is happy and romantic, right? Happy couple is separated, they go on a journey to find each other and when they do it's seventh heaven and euphoria again. They kiss, hug, laugh, cry happily and declare that they'll never leave each other again.

Rick probably wanted to do that with Percabeth but he also didn't want to make it just another generic scene-he wanted to add somethjng distinctive that made it stand out. Not just 'Oh, it was a really sweet reunion scene' but 'Yeah, she judo flipped him! Crazy, right?' Something that people would remember, not just dismiss as another lovey-dovey reunion scene.

I honest-to-god want to set up two similar, open-question and open-structure interviews with Rick Riordan, one with a girly WOC and another with a straight cis white man to study the results of both.

Quick question regarding one of your reposts.

What makes you think that Annabeth would stop Percy from having his depressive thoughts?

Like yeah, I agree we can't blame her for Percy's mental state/thought process into the poison drowning scenario but she's not really completely washed out of fault?

Percy, who only ever wanted to be a normal guy, who was just desperately trying to protect himself and his girlfriend, was treated as a monster when he did. His gf instead of being happy that he's not dying anymore/dead is more focused on how terrified she was OF him, rather than, idk being happy that they are both okay?

Like, wouldn't that affect someone very badly? Realistically speaking? You try your darnest to keep yourself and someone you love safe only for that someone to essentially condemn you for doing that. When you were literally delirious in pain and dying. And just trying to survive and protect her too.

And in a world where it's either they get killed or others do, what was the logic/wisdom behind asking Percy to never do something like that again?

Idk, tbf, I genuinely do think that Annabeth is too self-absorbed to even notice that Percy might have some issues in this regard in the first place. And even if she does, and he speaks to her about it, she won't know what to do with it because in this entire series, it's always Percy comforting Annabeth— never the other way around.

Or worse yet, would see it as an attack/Percy telling her she did something wrong when Percy was only opening up/telling her how he felt.

Idk, pls let me know if you think otherwise though. I do see that you're pretty into the Percabeth/Annabeth crit side of tumblr sp ig it's a bit intriguing to see you defend Annabeth in that post. (Again, which I agree with but also, huh, this would be an interesting convo)

I think I know which repost that is though I deleted it sometime ago. This is going to be a long answer, so I'm putting it under a read more not to clog your feed up.

MY TUMBLR HISTORY

I'm going to digress here and tell you more about my tumblr history, which is necessary for this post to make sense.

The thing is, I joined Tumblr less than a year ago and I soon got into the anti Percabeth/anti Annabeth Chase discourse without looking at both sides.

Back then, I was pretty naive and barely questioned what I saw at all. I just ate up those sometimes unconvincing (and frankly ridiculous at some points) arguments. I just ate them up and made posts that supported them without really thinking my stance through.

It was only recently that I actually started to question if all the anti Percabeth and anti Annabeth Chase content that I'd been consuming and I found out that hey, not all of it is true!

I thought and called Annabeth abusive which is not the case-I think she's toxic and their relationship is unhealthy at some points, but there's a difference between toxic and abusive.

By then, a lot of damage had already been done and I felt pretty embarrassed at some of my posts which I deleted, though they had been reblogged, so I couldn't fully wipe them off. If you see a post that you don't like from me, please come and check my blog for it because chances are that I've deleted it.

The thing to be said is that I've learnt a valuable lesson on tumblr-that I should look at both sides before rashly posting and that I should really remain neutral and not blindly jump into one side without questioning their points and critically thinking about it.

WHAT DO I THINK ABOUT PERCABETH?

Ok, moving on from that-I'm hesitant to call Percabeth abusive.

I do think that the judo flip and bringing up Rachel to keep him on his toes are abuse, but abusive is a pretty strong word which is why I still don't call it abusive, though I understand why you would.

I still, however, think that it's toxic at many points. Yes, there's a difference between toxic and abusive.

REGARDING YOUR ASK

What makes you think Annabeth would stop Percy from having his depressive thoughts?

Well, canon makes a pretty good argument for this.

See, the thing is-Percy loves Annabeth. He loves her wholly, truly, completely. His love is enormous, gigantic-like the raging sea, like a blazing fire, like a calm, sunny afternoon.........eh, I'm getting poetic here, but he really, really loves her. He loves her like he's nothing loved anything before (not even Sally. I'm sorry, but the books just don't expand on Percy-Sally as much as they devote time to Percy-Annabeth).

When she comes into a room, he lights up instantly and wants to meet her. He loves her and she's not his entire world, but she's the hugest portion of it. She was with him all throughout, she's seen him at his most vulnerable (I think) she's just.........irreplaceable at this point.

Percy loves her and she loves him. They love each other and are happy with each other (because yes, you can still love someone and be toxic with them. And you can have happy moments with someone and still have a toxic relationship with them. These two are entirely possible.)

The thing about toxic relationships is that it's extremely complicated. It's not just black and white-it's varying shades of gray.

You think that toxic relationships are constantly miserable, which can be true for some of them, but a lot of toxic relationships have their happy and angry moments.

That's why people stay in them. If it was constantly bad, they'd say, 'Nope I'm out of here' but since there are plenty of good moments, they think- 'No, we can make this work, this won't happen again, it's not that bad, I can give them a second chance' multiple times.

Your toxic partner can make you anxious, but they can also make you pretty happy. They can make you feel black and white at different times. Annabeth makes Percy feel scared multiple times, but she also makes him feel warm and fuzzy and happy and content, which is entirely fitting for a toxic relationship.

So yes, Annabeth can make Percy stop having depressive thoughts, at least for intervals until he lapses back again (based on what we've seen from the books so far).

Like yeah, I agree we can't blame her for Percy's mental state/thought process into the poison drowning scenario but she's not really completely washed out of fault?

Percy, who only ever wanted to be a normal guy, who was just desperately trying to protect himself and his girlfriend, was treated as a monster when he did.

His gf instead of being happy that he's not dying anymore/dead is more focused on how terrified she was OF him, rather than, idk being happy that they are both okay?

Ok, anon, here is where I am going to become pro Annabeth Chase which is probably going to give you whiplash, so I'm just going to warn you.

Annabeth's reaction was entirely realistic and understandable and there was nothing wrong with it. Yes, that's what I'm saying and I will stick to it (go ahead and debate if you want to, though. I'm open to that).

They were in Tartarus. Literal hell. Their surroundings were horrible, it was grim and there was a huge chance that they would not survive. How could she be happy in those circumstances? Let's keep in mind that a goddess just got horribly tortured in front of her. Really badly tortured.

And her boyfriend is doing it-and he's terrifying her with his look and he's reminding her of Luke, whom she loved so badly, who rebelled against the gods, who was so angry and then he died and Annabeth is just so terrified right now.

Blaming her for not being happy that her boyfriend survived and for crying because of everything that happened is extremely dense and imbecilic.

Of course, the fact that she's angry at Percy for making her feel scared when he was just trying to save both of them and was at his wits' end is questionable on her part. He was just trying to save both of them and did not mean to scare her just like she didn't mean to make him feel suicidal (which, again, is not her fault.)

I would've made her feel grateful but also feel angry and have an internal struggle because of that. Percy saved her, he saved both of them and they got out of Tartarus, so why is she angry at him?

But Luke. He looked like Luke. And he was so angry and he was choking a goddess, he was turning against her, even if the goddess was trying to kill them-he went against the divine gods, just like Luke. And look what happened to Luke. Luke shouldn't have done that. Percy shouldn't have done that. But they both did it for the greater good. And look what happened to Luke. And what will happen to Percy?

You get my drift. Of course, I understand Annabeth's reaction in Tartarus, but the fact that she was angry at him afterwards (out of Tartarus) is questionable and could have been written better.

Like, wouldn't that affect someone very badly? Realistically speaking?

Yes, it would affect them! And it does affect him because he feels horrible and tries to commit suicide. And he never actually thinks about this and it's never brought up again and no one ever talks about it because Rick is a coward.

You try your darndest to keep yourself and someone you love safe only for that someone to essentially condemn you for doing that. When you were literally delirious in pain and dying. And just trying to survive and protect her too.

Annabeth did tie Percy's hand behind his back by asking him to not use his powers again, but she didn't condemn him-rather, he condemned himself.

I want to emphasize that Percy's suicide attempts and horrible feelings were not Annabeth's fault nor would she have wanted him to feel that way. The fact that Percy didn't use his powers again is not fully Annabeth's fault.

We can't blame either of them here. Doing that would take away from the greyness and nuance of the situation. Yes, Annabeth asked Percy not to use his powers, but in the context of the situation, we can't blame her and her reaction. Yes, Percy was foolish to follow her orders and do what he did, but using something that horrible when someone you love asks you not to, when you feel horrible that you made them feel horrible, even though it wasn't Percy's fault and he had to do what he had to do.

Their feelings overpowered them and emotion took control over logic and we can't blame either of them since they're two traumatised teenagers who just got out of a horrible situation and their feelings are all over the place and.......nothing comes of it.

Nothing comes of it because Rick is a terrible writer at this point. He never expanded on this or even gave it any thought at all. They never have a scene in which they talk about or discuss it or reflect on it and nothing is learned from it. Percy's attempts suicide and everything's fine. Annabeth doesn't think about the usefulness and gravity his powers and everything's fine. In COTG and WOTTG, Percy and Annabeth........they don't talk about it at all. Everything is fine.......even when it shouldn't be.

And in a world where it's either they get killed or others do, what was the logic/wisdom behind asking Percy to never do something like that again?

This part........yeah, there's no logic in that.

I would have had Annabeth think about Percy's poison powers and realise that they weren't morally bad-they were morally neutral. They could be used do to bad things, but they could also be used to do good things. The person who uses them is morally good or bad, not the powers themselves.

I would also have her grapple with how she disliked them but how she realised that they were useful as well, because I think that her internal conflict about this would be very interesting to read.

Idk, tbf, I genuinely do think that Annabeth is too self-absorbed to even notice that Percy might have some issues in this regard in the first place.

I'm divided on this sentence. I think that she does love him, but half in a normal way, half in a weird, twisted way. Given the current state of their characterisation, when they're just ignoring everything, I don't think that they'd be able to talk it out-they'd just fight really bad and then go back to a false, toxic 'normal' state.

And even if she does, and he speaks to her about it, she won't know what to do with it because in this entire series, it's always Percy comforting Annabeth— never the other way around.

Or worse yet, would see it as an attack/Percy telling her she did something wrong when Percy was only opening up/telling her how he felt.

I think you're right about these last two ones. They really need communication therapy ASAP.

ISN'T THERE CANONICALLY PEDOPHILIA IN PERCY JACKSON

Hold on a moment.

Isn't there canonical pedophilia in Percy Jackson.

Since Calypso is stated to have stopped aging at 16 years old physically and mentally and she was young......

And she romanced grown men like Odysseus and Francis Drake (second is a weird choice by a weird author.)

What is Rick's explanation for THAT.

How the hell did Rick not see this?

WHY would you portray Calypso like that. He did Calypso dirty, and she was already so awful in the original Odyssey, but he ruined her even further. Jesus Rick

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).

Rick really just missed the opportunity to tell us about Bianca and Nico having dyslexia and ADHD and living in the literal 1930s, huh? Were they kicked out? Did they have to move from school to school? The only thing we know is that Nico studied Dante in elementary school. Other than that? Nothing.

I bet you my whole fortune that Nico and Bianca probably had some kind of trauma from the schooling in Italy. Maybe that's why Bianca felt that she needed to take care of Nico-they were ostracized in school for their weirdness (AKA ADHD and dyslexia). And Maria was such a nice mother, but would she really understand? She didn't have ADHD or dyslexia. And even if she did know about the perils of being a demigod, even then she wouldn't really be able to understand Bianca and Nico. Sympathise with them, protect them a little, but she still wouldn't understand.

What if Gisela had been nicer to Keefe?

One thing that puzzled me was-why the hell was Gisela so toxic to Keefe?

What if she acted nice towards Keefe and gave him more love, not just small doses? Then she could have swayed him to her side way more easily!

Imagine Cassius being a terrible father, but Gisela being a kind, sweet mother-at least that's her facade.

She slowly grooms Keefe to be what she needs him to be-subtly drops hints about the injustice of the Lost Cities, pitting Cassius and Keefe against each other, playing the doting mother when Cassius is angry.

Then Keefe wouldn't have rebelled so hard-he would've been taken in. And when Gisela revealed herself, she could have told him about the injustice that she had been showing him for years.

And Keefe would have had to make a decision. Stay with the Black Swan, or join the Neverseen? And he struggles with this decision over the course of the series. Sophie or his mother?

Because clearly the Black Swan's not doing anything, but the Neverseen is trying.

But the Neverseen's methods are horrible, while the Black Swan is more passive and preferable.

Still, there's so much injustice........

It would've made the book where Keefe join the Neverseen so much juicier.

Just imagine Gisela welcoming Keefe into the ranks. Imagine her teaching him, spending time with him like the old days-

AND IMAGINE HIM BETRAYING HER AND RUNNING AWAY WITH THE STOLEN CACHES.

Imagine her disappointment, her fury. Keefe's overwhelming guilt and shame, but he did the right thing, didn't he?

Except the Black Swan's not getting closer to doing anything, and the Neverseen members weren't as evil as he thought they'd be-they actually seemed to be humane, behaving like normal elves instead of evil people. Humanise the villains.

Aah, my heart, so much ANGST.

Ok, is anyone going to talk about Gunilla bullying Samirah? This is Magnus Chase from the Riordanverse BTW.

So we know that Samirah became a Valkyrie when she was fourteen and she's 16 in the MCGA series. And it states that Gunilla actively disliked and maybe even bullied Samirah because of her father.

Gunilla was 18 when she died and had centuries of experience under her belt. She should be more mature about this. And then she decides to go and bully Samirah, a teenage minor, over her parentage, something she can't control? Samirah doesn't even LIKE Loki and Gunilla still bullies her because of the whole terrible romance with the son of Loki.

Samirah, who was 14, 15 and then 16, who was living out a very stressful double life with her grandparents who COULD NOT be exposed to the magical world as it would destroy their brains, and really wanted to keep her Valkyrie job. Are you listening to this ridiculousness? And Gunilla also sabotages Samirah further editing her video footage of Magnus. Brilliant, Gunilla. Really Valkyrie worthy!

Yeah, ok, Gunilla may have died at the end of the first book, but I don't really care for her. (IMO she died because Alex was coming and Rick couldn't let them clash. Would've been so interesting to see though.)

Why not make Gunilla a mentor to Samirah? Like, she sees this poor teenage girl who's struggling to live a double life and she could help her with it. Enroll in her high school (cue the comedy). Just make excuses for her every time and cover for her with her grandparents, saying that she's a fellow tutor. It would make Gunilla more likable and her death more tragic and meaningful.