This Is Absolutely AMAZING.

This is an amazing critique of Rick's misogyny that most of the fandom is apparently incapable of seeing-they most likely intentionally turn a blind eye to it, which is very problematic. Authors are allowed to use their versions of the myths, but we must not take the media too seriously and we DEFINITELY should not think that that was the only version. Also, the fandom needs to differentiate between the OG myths and what goes in the modern piece of media that uses them (Lore Olympus, Percy Jackson, etc).

Also, I can commiserate with you about Demeter and Persephone, as it's tiring to see their loving relationship being destroyed and twisted into something horrible.

Rick really fucked up Athena and Aphrodite too.

One thing I find so interesting about the PJO fandom is how they actually accepted how Rick fucked up 90% of the goddesses. Even when he uses a version of a myth that specifically talks about men being idiots, he villainizes women. Like, no one complained about how fucked up is that he used the story of Hephaestus trying to rape Athena and turning it into a “poor guy cried bc he was rejected by a girl” thing?

The true story is literally Hephaestus trying to rape Athena, she fights him off but his semen falls into her skirt and cleans it with a piece of cloth and tosses it into the ground (earth, which is Gaia) and from there, Erictonio is born. And Athena raised the child as her own even tho he was the product of the assault she suffered. The guy ruled Athens.

Rick turned it into Hephaestus falling in love with Athena and crying on her lap, making her reject and KICK him plus being disgusted by the tears and the dirt.

He also used all of Ovid versions he could possibly find to fuck Athena up. Arachne doesn’t happen with Greek writers and Medusa was never cursed (or assaulted) when we talk about the OG Myth. She was already born a monster and Athena only helps Perseus kill her bc yeah, Medusa killed people.

Also, Medusa’s version by Ovid is a lot alike Cassandra of Troy story, and let me tell ya, Cassandra was cursed but it wasn’t by a woman. And when she was raped by Ajax, Athena made sure that he didn’t made it back to Greece.

Now I’m gonna talk about Demeter. Demeter, who had her daughter kidnapped, raped and imprisoned, and was turned into the typical “mother in law who hated son in law bc she thinks her daughter could do better” when yeah…she has all the right to feel angry bc her daughter was KIDNAPPED.

Artemis doesn’t hate men and her followers also don’t hate men. Feminism isn’t about hating men.

Aphrodite. I cannot even describe how dirty they made Aphrodite’s children. Like be fr one of her children helped build what it would’ve been Rome. He was a fighter. And her cabin there is just so different of what she is truly like. They should have a lot of other powers.

Also, a lot of women from the books follows the same stereotype of “omg I hate makeup it’s so girlish and I’d rather fight” like you can be feminine, wear makeup and STILL FIGHT. One doesn’t erase the other.

Another thing, but this one is about MOTHERS! I truly cannot understand the way Rick creates his women. I’m serious tho. Like, I’m sorry but sometimes it seems that his thing some goddesses (Athena, for example) are personal. The “abandoning Athens” thing, the “should’ve chosen Poseidon”, the way he wrote her as being cold towards her kids…in one of the versions, Athena was the one who saved Dionysus from Hera. She raised a child and made him a king even though he was the product of her almost rapist. She was there helping heroes all along. She fought for Odysseus for ten years.

Also, this fandom is incapable of seeing the difference between Minerva and Athena. Minerva gave Annabeth the mark, Athena had nothing to do with this. Annabeth is her favorite daughter, she made her architect of Olympus, protected her through her journey to find Luke and Thalia, disobeyed her fathers orders trying to help to find Annabeth, made battle plans with her and all…and she always claimed all of her children.

I think people just don’t like her bc she doesn’t trust Percy. And she shouldn’t. I love him, but Athena IS the goddess of wisdom after all and as such, it would be pretty dumb to trust a demigod that won a battle against the god of war when he was only twelve. Not to mention that everyone kinda thought the “preserve or destroy Olympus” was on his hands. And he tortured a goddess…I’m sorry but she was pretty much right. Wouldn’t trust someone that had the power to fuck me and my family up either. She dint made the choice based on “omg I hate my rival and his children” even more so bc she was trained by one of his children and bunch of grandchildren. She made the choice based on what she thought was less risky.

If she was so against Percabeth, I can assure you she would’ve killed Percy and probably wouldn’t even suffer much consequences. She admires some things about Percy but she was right about his flaw. And she also helped him during one of his quest to go to college. Does she loves the idea of the relationship? No. But that’s bc she is precisely the opposite of love. She doesn’t make decisions based on what her heart says, but on what her brain says. If she succumbs to the heart, then she would seize to be goddess of wisdom, reason and all of what she values. That’s why she vowed to never marry.

And, as Helenist, I do not take the myths that seriously bc when we talk about religion, I have a clear mind that those myth were made by humans who used the gods as a tool to justify some of their actions, and I hate almost all of the retellings that those authors do, but is so wild to see how much power they have on society bc now I cannot see anything about the gods without someone saying shit about them. But I do know all about the myths and I gotta say, doesn’t make much sense to use a Roman author to talk about Greek Gods. He made them dirty. Also doesn’t make much sense to use this versions of Ovid but still change it to make it more sweet for the men. Poseidon and Athena didn’t spend that much time beefing, they even have a city together (Troezen) and she definitely doesn’t hate his children. Her best friend was literally his grandchild.

Safe to say that y’all should probably question Rick on how he treats women bc I was seeing the PJO series (the cast is amazing btw, safe to say that Leah/Annabeth is my fav) and by the looks of it, saying on how he changed Athena’s personality one more time, I legit think that Annie won’t jump to save her friends on season 3, she will probably be pushed by her mother or whatever.

Another thing: apparently only the women that like and have a friendship with Percy are treated as cool. But that’s on the fandom, not the author.

I forgot to add one thing and I’m gonna fix the grammar later but the “this is for children” excuse isn’t really valid considering that we saw Gabe being aggressive with Sally, we also saw Ares being a jerk to Clarisse (which also doesn’t make sense) and the story clearly states cheating, fights, death and a lot of other terrors. If you’re gonna use a rape version of a myth bc you chose to fuck a Goddess up, then you should state that the man is to blame. In the books we see Medusa saying she was Poseidon’s girlfriend/lover…she was his lover on the og myth, not in the version Rick chose. In the version that he chose, she was clearly raped. But he erased that and replaced rapist with boyfriend. He could’ve chosen to do another path if he didn’t want to talk about sexual abuse, I can tell y’all a hundred of ways this could go, but he chose this path and changed it, favoring the man. Again.

He could’ve gone with the theogony and said what was there that basically is: she was a monster, BORN a monster, daughter of other two monsters, no one wanted to get close to her, but he did. They slept together in a camp of flowers.

Athena only enters the story wayyy after this. And, as y’all can see, no curse. Yet, he chose to go with the rape version were Medusa is a maiden, loyal to Athena, gets raped on Athena’s temple by Poseidon and Athena curses her. And what did the author do? He made this: Medusa, loyal to Athena, fell in love with Poseidon and they did things on her temple. Athena cursed her. Again erasing the men’s fault.

The hate on Athena doesn’t make any sense at all. Y’all love some other male characters that don’t have a single sense of responsibility and possibly did everything wrong in the book. I saw people condemn Athena for her treatment of Deadalus when the guy literally killed his nephew bc he was more praised than him. And Athena gave him a mark that burned and did some shit to teach him a lesson. Poseidon wanted a trial to avenge his rapist son that was killed by Ares bc he tried to rape one of Ares daughters. A RAPIST. And Poseidon is treated like and angel bc what??? He likes Percy? Is his father and got him a gift? And Athena is being hated bc she isn’t his number one fan and her Roman part decided to give Annabeth a Mark? And mind you she’s just like that with him bc she knows more than everyone else and knows that he is dangerous. A good guy? Yes, Percy is the most amazing guy. Still dangerous. Still had the power to torture a goddess and win against the god of war. And she doesn’t dislike him, she dislikes his relationship with her daughter. And even so, she didn’t stop the relationship. So yeah I won’t ever get why the women always get more hate than the men considering this.

Again, as a Helenist, I don’t take the myths seriously when I talk about the religion in general bc the Gods are superiors. They don’t have human flaws. But, as someone who knows about the myths, is safe to say I hate those stories that uses myths like that and turns it against the Goddesses and make them out to be the worst ever. All the gods deserved way better than what they got with those retellings.

Have you listened to epic the musical bcs if you have I might want to ask your opinion on a little project I did🥺

I'd definitely be willing to look at your project! :D

It's an honour that you'd ask me :D :D :D I'm pleasantly surprised

I listened to some sagas of Epic the Musical, but I didn't listen to all of them-I'll do it today and let you know when I finish them

A smaller tragedy in HOO was that Hazel's golden eyes never amounted to anything. Hazel has golden eyes-Kronos' golden eyes-and nothing ever comes of this.

Percy and Annabeth never freeze when they look her in the eyes, reminded of Luke's golden eyes, Kronos' golden eyes. Pluto never avoids looking her in the eyes for this reason. Her eyes never unsettle anyone-the Olympians or the gods. It's a shame that Hazel's eyes could have been a cool minor detail that caused her more insecurity about her looks, but she could have eventually learned to overcome it and take the golden eyes back on her own accord.

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.

All right, OP, some of this is honestly ridiculous.

I don't mean to be rude and I'm not pro Annabeth Chase, but I need to point some things out.

How is Annabeth being mean to Percy here? She thought that he might have known something about stealing or the solstice. She didn't know that he didn't know. Judging by the information that she has and the circumstances that they're in, of course she'd think that he would know something about it!

Even if she was incorrect, she's not being mean here. And if you're talking about her smirking as she scraped drips off his chin, of course she'd smile-it's a little funny to spoon feed someone and see their expression when they're unconscious.

There's nothing in this scene to indicate anything mean.

2) How is Annabeth looking intimidating being mean to Percy? She's meeting him fully conscious, not just passed out. Of course she's going to look at him now that he's awake and conscious of his surroundings. Of course she's going to take note of him and analyze him. There's nothing wrong with this.

3) That's not mean. That is literally a comment on a fact. Percy drools when he sleeps and she told him so. How is that being mean?

4) As said in the second point, looking at someone critically when you're meeting them fully conscious for the first time isn't mean. Given Annabeth's surroundings and environment and how long she's been there, of course she's going to look at him critically!

5) Just because her expression hardens when she sees him looking does not make it mean or malicious. Actually, it was natural. Annabeth blushes when looking at Luke. Percy notes it. Annabeth is embarrassed when she sees Percy looking and hardens her expression. Logic.

10) Annabeth is........literally staring at him. Just staring at him. Percy says that he can't tell whether she's grossed out or angry-it's never stated or confirmed whether she's angry, and based on her reaction, she's not angry. She's impressed, actually, and she says that she wants him on her team for Capture the Flag.

11) Just because Annabeth doesn't get all sweet and reassures him that no, it's ok, you did nothing wrong, Percy, it's all fine! doesn't mean that she's being mean. She just gave him some instructions and didn't even mock his apology-she just said whatever and then left. None of that is mean.

18) You're taking this out of context to make it seem mean.

Right before this, Percy said that they had her mother to thank for fighting Medusa. He indirectly insulted Athena-that had to hurt for Annabeth. Of course she flashed him an irritated look!

She's not entirely right here, but she's not entirely wrong. Percy couldn't control meeting Medusa, but he didn't notice until it was too late while both Grover and Annabeth noticed. Of course she'd be a little mad.

19) *Sigh*. Ok, this is not being mean. There is nothing to indicate this being mean. It's a lighthearted, sarcastic joke. Nothing malicious or even unintentionally malicious.

22) Once again I ask you what is mean. Was it the fact that she ripped the love scarf away from him? It could have been a malicious object-Annabeth had enough experience to know while Percy didn't. She was warning him to stay away from it and possibly saving him!

23) You are once again taking something out of context!

They were hurtling at a very fast speed and the seatbelts were helping them. Percy, however, told Annabeth to unfasten her seatbelt! Of course she asked if he was crazy!

24) What about that is mean? She's right. What Percy did wasn't smart. Insulting a god is never smart. She stated a fact there.

26) I wondered if I'd find this here after reading the others.

This is a joke. A joke. She's not intentionally being mean-she's just cracking a joke. Percy protests, but he's not even offended by it after that. You are blowing this way out of proportion.

27) The hit here was because he was trying to get her out of her paradise. She wasn't thinking clearly-she wasn't able to think clearly because she was having fun and he was trying to pull her out of it. And it's not malicious like the gut punch at Westover Hall in TTC.

31) She's literally telling him to take care and sending him off. She has a stupid nickname for him-yes, it doesn't come from a good place, but we have to remember that she's literally twelve years old at that point. Of course she'd use a silly nickname like that for him. There's nothing wrong with it at that point in time.

I'm not pro Annabeth. I prefer to remain neutral, but some of this is downright foolish, and it seems like you're just villainising Annabeth at some point for no reason.

If you're going to hate on Annabeth, please do it with sound reasoning and logic. Don't take text out of context to paint Annabeth Chase as this crazy mean girl when she's not.

Every Time Annabeth is Mean to Percy in the Riordanverse

This is something that I’ve been considering writing for a while but didn’t particularly want to put the work into until I was rereading The Titan’s Curse and came across a very specific line that went “She punched me in the gut.” I was so consumed with rage that I immediately began to reread the whole series and marked down every single instance that Annabeth was a dick to Percy. 

One thing to note is that I’ve marked down every instance of Annabeth calling Percy “seaweed brain” as being mean. Friendly reminder that her nickname for Percy means “stupid” and has always meant stupid and will always mean stupid and that just because he’s used to it by now, doesn’t make it okay. 

On that note, this also turned into me writing down every time someone other than Annabeth insults Percy’s intelligence just because I was curious.

Without further ado, I present to you, The Lightning Thief.

(Alternating colors for easier reading)

TLT (pg 57) -  [interrogation of Percy]   The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon. [ … ] Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.

TLT (pg 64) - [describing Annabeth’s eyes] but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight. 

TLT (pg 64) - “You drool when you sleep.”

TLT (pg 83) - When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled. 

TLT (pg 85) - She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again.

TLT (pg 85-86) - She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me. When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, “Jackson, you have to do better than that.” [ … ] She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, “I can’t believe I thought you were the one.” 

TLT (pg 86) - [Percy is annoyed] “Don’t talk like that!” Annabeth told me. “You know how many kids at this camp wish they’d had your chance?” 

TLT (pg 89) - [Clarisse is hazing Percy] Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it. 

TLT (pg 90) - [Clarisse is hazing Percy] Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers. 

TLT (pg 92) - Annabeth stared at me. I couldn’t tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.

TLT (pg 93) - “I’ve got training to do,” Annabeth said flatly. “Dinner’s at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall.” [Percy apologizes] “Whatever.” 

TLT (pg 123) - [Annabeth sets Percy up to be bait for Clarisse, Percy confronts her] Annabeth shrugged. “I told you. Athena always, always has a plan.” 

TLT (pg 128) - Annabeth still taught me Greek in the mornings, but she seemed distracted. Every time I said something, she scowled at me, as if I’d just poked her between the eyes. 

TLT (pg 147) - [Annabeth has volunteered for the quest] “I’ve been waiting a long time for a quest, seaweed brain,” she said. “Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you’re going to save the world, I’m the best person to keep you from messing up.” 

TLT (pg 157) - [Percy is being optimistic] She gave me an irritated look. “It’s bad luck to talk that way, seaweed brain.” [Percy asks why Annabeth hates him] “I don’t hate you. [Percy disagrees] “Look…we’re just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals.” 

TLT (pg 169) - She was silent for a few more steps. “It’s just that if you died…aside from the fact that it would really suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world.” 

TLT (pg 173) - [Percy lies to Medusa] “Your head is full of kelp.” 

TLT (pg 185) - [Percy doesn’t know the myths] Annabeth flashed me an irritated look. [explanation of the myth] Annabeth straightened. In a bad imitation of my voice she said: “It’s just a photo, Annabeth. What’s the harm?” 

TLT (pg 194) - [Annabeth wakes Percy after a nightmare] “Well,” Annabeth said, “the zombie lives.” 

TLT (pg 217) - [After Percy jumps off the Gateway Arch] Annabeth stood beside him, trying to look angry, but even she seemed relieved to see me. “We can’t leave you alone for five minutes! What happened?” 

TLT (pg 234) - [Percy asking Annabeth to go with him to get Ares’ shield] “Are you kidding?” She looked at me as if I’d just dropped from the moon. [ … ] “Me, go with you to the…the ‘Thrill Ride of Love’? How embarrassing is that? What if somebody saw me?” 

TLT (pg 234) - [Percy picks up Aphrodite’s scarf] Annabeth ripped it out of my hand and stuffed it in her pocket. “Oh no you don’t. Stay away from that love magic.” [ … ] “Just get the shield, seaweed brain.” 

TLT (pg 239) - [Percy has a plan] “Are you crazy?” 

TLT (pg 244) - [Percy backtalking Ares] Annabeth said, “That was not smart, Percy.” 

TLT (pg 251) - [Discussing what side they’ll pick] “Because you’re my friend, seaweed brain. Anymore stupid questions?” 

TLT (pg 257) - [Grover can only bless wild animals] “So it would only work on Percy,” Annabeth reasoned.

TLT (pg 263) - [Percy trying to get Annabeth’s attention at the Lotus Hotel] She looked up, annoyed. “What?” [ … ] “Hey!” She screamed and hit me, but nobody else even bothered looking at us. 

TLT (pg 282) - [Percy saves Grover and Annabeth from Crusty] “Be faster next time.” 

TLT (pg 370) - [Percy wakes up after almost dying] “You idiot,” Annabeth said.

TLT (pg 374) - She pursed her lips. “You won’t try anything stupid during the school year, will you? At least…not without sending me an Iris-Message?” 

TLT (pg 374) “Take care, seaweed brain.” 

TLT total number of times Percy is called stupid: 10 

TLT number of times Annabeth calls Percy stupid: 7

TLT number of times others call Percy stupid: Gabe (1). Grover (1). Thalia (1). 

Every day, I’ll reblog this post with the next book so keep an eye out for that.

I find it deeply unsettling when Percabeth fans say that it was ok for Annabeth to judo flip Percy because he's practically invincible.

It's not ok to physically and violently take out your emotions on someone just because they're physically immune to it. This pretty much reeks of sexism because 'the girl is too weak to actually hurt the boy, so it's ok for her to hit him.'

It's not about whether he's strong enough or not. It's about the fact that she has no problem with violently, physically taking her emotions out on him and having no problem with it.

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.

what would you change about jurdan in canon to like the ship more

Well, I would make Cardan apologise and I'd make them have an actual discussion about what he did to her in TCP instead of just forgetting so soon and moving on.

It's just, rereading the Cruel Prince and seeing all of his horrific abuse of her, even if he had his reasons, was absolutely horrible.

I mean, yes, he did try to help her, but he still threw her into the river. He still watched as they made her strip and do degrading stuff. He still threatened her at the tournament. That kind of thing has effects on people. Bad effects.

Let him place his reasons in front of her, let her acknowledge this but also tell him that he hurt her badly, let him plead and grovel with her and realise that he really did fuck up even if he had his reasons and tried to save her.

Not discussing your toxic past isn't really a good thing. Couples need to clear the air, not just brush it under the carpet.

I'd make her say that they have to work on their relationship and let her forgive him over time, not all at once.

It's fictional, so it's not that bad to ship them because they're supposed to be a dark romance. But the way they turned from dark romance to perfectly ok couple at the end really made me raise my eyebrows.

You should look into your country's national suicide number and call them. They can help you and it will be good for you to talk to someone who is trained to help people like you. Please don't make a mistake by taking your own life. God bless you. I'm praying you'll get the support you need.

Thanks, but I'm not sure if I would call myself suicidal. That seems somewhat extreme, though given my posts I understand why you'd call me that.

It feels like I'm at an impasse in life due to certain reasons and given my circumstances, I don't think my future will be that good, especially with the way the world's going.

I'm not really the typical image of suicidal and I don't often think about death as much as some suicidal people do-it just feels as if my death wouldn't be that bad because there doesn't seem to be much for me in life anyway.

Honestly, talking of suicide hotlines-what would I say? What would we even talk about? My life? They're not really a therapist. And I'm not that suicidal anyway. I'd really just be wasting their time.

Thanks for the message anyway. I think I really need to help myself, which I don't know how to do.

I was just rereading The Sword of Summer and TLT by Rick Riordan, and I came to parts where the Norse and Greek gods were called 'lowercase G gods,' while the Abrahamic gods were called, 'Capital G gods.'

Jeez, Rick, you really had to add that in, huh? You do realise that there are Hellenistic Pagans who view their gods as highly as Christians view their God and Muslims view Allah? Like, holy shit, you did not have to downgrade them like that. There was no need for that. No need at all.

This just reeks of blatant Abrahamic superiority, which is annoying but sadly unsurprising.

All I'm saying right now is that I can see why so many Hellenistic Pagans and Greek people hate PJO. There's nothing wrong with hating it for those reasons.