The world's full of lonely people afraid to make the first move

she/her, aroace, introvert :) (i do not support JKR.)

[newathens]

a quick visual on how i would style the gods in the percy jackson show

[fuckthisshit-ugh]

please read this even if you're not indian. especially if you're not indian.

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

reblog. share. don't scroll past.

[newathens]

percy watching the minotaur walk around new rome in business casual after nico & his dumbass boyfriend decided to fight for monster reform or something. idk

[newathens]

it being canon that percy is mentally ill and suicidal and wracked with guilt and doesn’t tell his girlfriend anything and has anger issues. and that’s how his story ends

[aaaaalice]

Okay so that's how Athena has kids without violating her chastity vow but has anybody ever considered Zeus being the OG brain-baby maker?

Z: "Hera, don't be angry."

H: "That sounds like there's something for me to be angry about."

Z: "I was out doing my God of Justice thing and there was this public defender-"

H: "Oh, here we go..."

Z: "And they were just so smart and passionate about being a voice for people who a jury would assume the worst of and I just kinda accidentally willed a baby into existence?"

H: "Oh, so it's emotional infidelity instead of physical."

Z: "No, not like that! If anything brain babies are intellectual infidelity."

H: "'I discovered a new type of infidelity' does not help your case, husband."

[motherofmonsters]

Ok but consider. Hera making a brain baby (perhaps even subconsciously) with a mortal she admires. Zeus is suddenly not so understanding about "intellectual infidelity."

[motherofmonsters]

@aaaaalice Continuing on from this: I can imagine that if/when Zeus finds out about the child, he flips out. Tells himself he's not a hypocrite because Hera was the one with the marriage domain. Calls a whole council meeting just to "out" her infidelity and humiliate her. The only person who really comes to her defense is Athena, who worries that condemning Hera as a "cheater" for making a brain baby would put her own chastity vow into question. Apollo and Hermes know that Hera isn't lying about never having been intimate with the mortal parent, but they have too much of a grudge against her to help her out. Hera is forced to negotiate for her child's life lest they be cursed, and the funniest outcome would be that Zeus makes the child his personal champion (like Hera took Jason as her own).

[aaaaalice]

Oh Zeus and Hera, you'll never change, will you?

You're 100% right about none of Zeus' kids stepping up to defend her except for Athena who doesn't want to set a bad precedent. Maaaaaybe Ares but why would he try to deescalate a perfectly good fight?

I could actually see Hades, Poseidon, and/or Demeter siding with Hera, though, cause she's their sister. Especially Poseidon, since they and Apollo tried to overthrow Zeus together that one time. Also, I'm pretty sure Poseidon has had some kids of his own via unconventional means; Antaeus is called a son of Poseidon and Gaea but iirc I don't think the two of them actually had sex.

This would also be an interesting event to see through Percy and Annabeth's eyes. They'd be very split between "she's tied with Ares for least favorite Olympian" and "this is some misogynistic bullshit." I reblogged a post a while back about how "I hate you but cannot tolerate what is being done to you" is a peak dynamic and this is it.

[motherofmonsters]

Totally agree about the other Kroneides (Poseidon, Demeter, Hades, Hestia) coming to Hera's defense. And YES 100% about Percy and Annabeth being able to acknowledge that Hera's being treated unfairly, in spite of her past sins against them. It really is a peak dynamic. Percy especially would have tremendous sympathy for another forbidden child and their mortal parent, doomed to a life of misery because of godly drama. And he'd also have sympathy for a woman (or goddess) stuck in an abusive marriage. He is without a doubt going to go to bat to save this kid from Zeus' wrath, and while Hera might scorn his pity for her, she'll take it if it means having him as her child's ally and protector.

[Warning for totally crack idea:]

What if the mortal parent of Hera's child was Percy. They were never together and she never saw him in a romantic light, but she found herself thinking of him way too often; she's consumed with jealousy over his perfect relationship with his mother and his loyalty to his friends and fellow demigods, and ultimately he's the son she wishes she had. He embodies her domain of family very well. And maybe this is all it takes for her to subconsciously make a baby with him. It appears on his doorstep and he spends weeks trying to figure out which god gave him this kid. The absolute drama that will come out of this when the truth comes out is just funny to me.

[aaaaalice]

Sadly I cannot find it but there was a really good fic I read of Hera being jealous of Percy and Annabeth's relationship and wondering why she can't have something like that so I don't think Percy being the dad is *that* cracky, especially since he already has Hera's attention to a degree.

[meaningxmeaning]

Okay, I had this idea with Athena and Percy, but honestly Hera and Percy is even more of a mess. Ugh now I want to write this.

[phoenixystix]

ALL OF THIS

JUST TO DO

NOTHING

WITH IT

[phoenixystix]

there are so many absolutely insane things about heroes of olympus, some of them are so good that they're bad because they don't carry enough weight in the text lol and some of them are just insane and like dropped in there and never resolved. like it makes me feel crazy look at all of this:

main characters plucked out of lives brains wiped meant to start over as a blank slate. the horror of this. and we're just like 'well that was fun! time to move on :)'

jason's mom being revealed to be a mania, restless spirit grasping, welcoming him back home, he's like 'if this is where i come from how can i trust myself to make a good decision' okay i'm shaking. this is crazy. he's sixteen.

jason being dropped off by his mommy and handed to a wolf when he's 2 and being a toddler soldier. ok what

camp of child soldiers.

young native girl grew up on a reservation but her dad is now famous she's plunged into a life almost certainly very different from the one she knew growing up. she is used to racists bullies and she obviously is lashing out at her dad and her mom and she has severe identity issues. some of these issues would appear to manifest in her chopping off her own hair (and yes i realize lack of research is probably what motivated this but is it possible she's doing it to hurt her dad? could that be possible?)

piper's dad being incapable of reconciling his worldview and this breaking his mind so badly that she has to parent him and give him a potion to make him forget. she's fifteen.

piper having an entire fake daydream scenario implanted so firmly in her mind that she believes it really happened and it feels like it really happened even once she knows it didn't

piper has a siren power that is so strong she can bring people back to life and animate machinery and sing primordial goddesses back to sleep and she like uses it occassionally on mortals and her friends but only for good i guess :) except that sometimes she does it on accident to the people around her :)

leo being groomed by juno into being a hero. being baited by gaea into accidentally causing the death of his own mother. what

hazel levesque death girl who died. dead girl walking. cheating death girl. second chance to live girl. gaea telling her her second life is an illusion. being shown what she might have been if she got the chance to grow up. girl plucked out of time girl. WHAT

hazel's mother being the daughter of a slave who herself gets enslaved to an evil entity. hazel being exploited by her own mother but perceiving her mother's trauma and being unable to resent her for it, loving her mother still, forgiving her mother, wanting her mother to find peace in the afterlife, sacrificing herself to give her mother peace. she was fourteen

hazel and her mother suffocating by their lungs filling with oil hazel remembering this frank witnessing this hazel and frank then sitting for what feels like an eternity experiencing the afterlife together. what

frank's life being tied to a stick frank giving the stick to hazel hazel keeping it next to her heart

frank's mother sacrificing herself in war like a month before the series starts frank being rocked by the grief and so full of anger at her for leaving him and he apparently needs to come to terms with the sacrifice and accept it and learn to do the same thing with his own life. then his grandmother dies. he's sixteen

quest to free death frank directly putting his life on the line to free Death. hazel knowing the grim reaper is literally coming for her throughout the entire book and just like going and setting him free anyway.

nico being clearly still unable to cope with bianca's death and still in the bargaining phase. like as an introduction to hazel. nico's eyes being like shattered glass after tartarus. nico losing control turning someone into a ghost. getting harassed by eros

reyna's dad becoming a mania her watching this process being terrified of him her having to kill him to save her sister her carrying guilt around from this her being told no demigod is going to heal her heart

frank being afraid of fire leo being afraid of fire but leo controlling fire but sometimes it getting away from him and killing a loved one. ok

hazel and sammy had a life together that was essentially stolen from them and this being told to hazel directly by gaea and then hazel witnessing sammy realizing he never forgot her never stopped thinking about her and she just has to hang out with his descendent who looks like a reincarnation of him.

annabeth whose identity is like formed around being a daugher of athena getting disowned by athena. finding out a monstrous immortal spider has been stalking her for years and has this unrelenting hatred for her. this hatred dragging her into tartarus

nico letting octavian die despite it being incredibly obvious that octavian does not understand the consequences of his actions

percy choking a goddess and then trying to kill himself for it because he believes he deserves punishment from the fates and the narrative just moves on like nothing happened

annabeth admitting that she's scared of percy and what's happening to him and again the narrative just moves on like nothing happened

the psychological horror of tartarus

one of the premises of the series being that death has been stopped

[hugenthusiast]

I love me a post-war percy jackson that doesn't know what he wants, never could even imagine that he'd made it here so he doesn't have any projects or ambitions. He loves his girlfriend and his friends and his family and his life is great, but there's no expecting. He spent the last of his teenage years slowly waiting for summer to come again so he could go back to camp, now nothing is really stopping him. He has a future to look foward to but doesn't really... know what to do with it.

[hugenthusiast]

Percy jackson would NOT take drugs (including alcohol) that's out of character, especially when there's a better and more in character reason to have him vulnerable and honest (wounded and delirious after battle)

[notdexterousatall]

Having recently gotten back into Percy Jackson fanfiction, I can now claim my least favorite Percy mischaracterization that I am seeing all the time:

He is not cheerful.

If the first thing you're having Percy do when he meets a new person is start grinning and joking around, you have fundamentally misunderstood him. He is quiet, surly, has the look of a troublemaker, and if he's smiling at you, it's because a) he likes you and thinks of you as a friend or b) he is acting, probably to trick you into fucking up so he can fuck you up.

Nearly all of his commentary should be internal. He's a funny guy (in his thoughts) but he doesn't say much.

He's also fundamentally a very kind person, but he's going to express that through actions before words.

If anything, strangers looking at him should be thinking that he looks like his father: the same brooding look on his face, scowling - and then be surprised when he does something nice. He's got a serious case of resting bitch face.

And while I have your attention, here's my second least favorite Percy Jackson mischaracterization: he does not go around mouthing off to gods for no reason! Holy shit why does everyone have him doing that?!?

Yes he's stubborn and impertinent - but he's not stupid. His first approach every time when talking to a god is to think "ok Percy, how best to not make them mad at me and turn me into a horrible little insect?" The cases where he doesn't do that are outliers, even if they're memorable:

Meeting Dionysus for the first time: a) he's just found out he's a demigod and is grappling with the idea gods are even real; b) Mr. D is giving off serious alcoholic vibes that set off his childhood trauma from Gabe. And when Mr. D threatens him, he shuts up! He's more casual around Mr. D considering he's the god Percy is around the most, and even then Percy's go-to strategy with the guy is to avoid him whenever he can, and if he can't, to stay silent unless there's something really egregious that he disagrees with (example A being Tantalus.)

Meeting Ares on the lightning thief quest: Ares fucking whammied him with his rage aura, and even then Percy was doing his best to be polite while turning him down - because they were on a time sensitive quest!

Fighting Ares in LA: Ares straight up was part of the plot to frame Percy for the theft and drag him into Tartarus with the bolt. He was also preventing Percy from getting the helm and returning the bolt to Zeus - if Percy didn't fight him he was gonna die anyway, frankly from a number of options: Kronos rising, the gods going to war (and probably sniping each other's demigod children), Zeus!!!!, Ares himself to cover up his involvement, Hades!!!!, Poseidon for failing him, for all Percy knew (he'd never met the guy, and all he knew of the gods at that point was that they thought of demigods as tools in their arsenal, not children.) They were past the point of polite reconciliation by then, so Percy challenging him to a duel and luring him into the sea was his best option.

Hades: he is remarkably polite to Hades, even when he tries to imprison him in the underworld for the crime of nearly being sixteen, and Percy has to fight him to escape.

Hermes: he is also very polite to Hermes! Especially since a lot of their conversations involve Percy trying to delicately deliver harsh truths (about Luke) to the guy.

Artemis: pretty sure the only impertinent thing he does around Artemis is try to stand up for Bianca's right to choose her future, since he thinks she's being pressured into joining the hunt. And even that is just to advise her that she should find out what camp is like before swearing an eternal oath. And then when Bianca makes her decision, he shuts up and doesn't try to interfere with her life choices. He's very polite to Artemis! And also respects her a lot.

Apollo: lmao frankly Apollo is the one taking liberties in his relationship with Percy, considering they hardly even talk before Apollo shows up as a mortal during ToA (and by then Apollo has a massive hero crush on Percy, even he never says that explicitly). And even then, the pushiest Percy gets with him while Apollo is an immortal god capable of crushing him like a bug is when Apollo shows up to help with the quest to free Artemis, and that's pretty much just to ask for more information - which, I mean, is for the purposes of helping Apollo's beloved sister. Apollo would've helped more if he could've.

Poseidon: Percy is very respectful of his father, and even when Poseidon says he's his favorite son, Percy is wary of upsetting him. He's tells Poseidon his honest opinion as politely as he can, and pretty much always keeps in mind that it might get him smited - he just takes the risk because he honestly believes what he's saying is important. In any conversation they have, he lets Poseidon lead.

Zeus: Percy is afraid of Zeus, for good reason. I think he closest he comes to mouthing off is when he blurts out his impassioned argument in favor of letting Bessie live - which Zeus ultimately lets happen. Heck, I think the only person to tell Zeus he's wrong (other than Poseidon) is Jason?!? Put some respect on Jason's name. (Even if that did ultimately get him killed, imo.)

Like, I'm sure I missed some, because this is getting long - but the idea that Percy would get in a room with any immortal god and start mouthing off from the get-go is absurd. He has to be seriously pissed off to do that - and even then he's either going to a) temper what he says if he's trying to have a conversation or b) have already decided he's gotta fight his way out (see: Ares, Akhlys.) You know who is more likely to do that? ANNABETH. I love the girl but she absolutely lets her pride get in the way when she's talking to gods - to the point that more than once Percy has had to step in to try to smooth things over and cool things down. (See: Hermes, HERA)

[justaz]

can i say. i find caleo so intriguing as a dynamic. like i have my hcs for why calypso ended up doing such a hard 180° between pjo and hoo and that is that within pjo, her emotions were genuinely hijacked. like she was cursed to fall in love with whoever landed on her shores so she had absolutely no control and i extend that to her not feeling the rightful rage she should’ve been feeling. she seemed more resigned to it because that was how the gods essentially designed her trap.

but then percy makes the gods swear to “release her” and they do! they just. don’t tell her. so she remains on the island, trapped by her own mind because she doesn’t believe she’ll ever be free, however her emotions become her own and she can finally feel that rage she’s been kept from for so long. so leo lands on her shores and she reacts viscerally, angrily, and curses the gods for trying to put her through this again. but leo gives as good as he gets and he leaves and comes back and in her mind, he’s the one to save and rescue her. and she’s indebted to him. and how else does she know to show appreciation but what she’s been forced to endure for centuries. so she dates him, she says she loves him, she traps herself in that same role again just like how she trapped herself on ogygia after the curse was lifted. plato’s cave, if you will.

and leo has always felt like the outcast and seventh wheel, finally did something extraordinary and found ogygia twice as a feat no other person could manage—not knowing that the curse was lifted by percy so anyone could come and go as they please. and she offers him this love and care for what he’s done and he eats it up because he’s been starved of it for so long. but calypso can only force herself into it for so long before she starts to snap and get angry and loathes his touch but she’s indebted to him and the curse says she’s meant to love him anyway so…this is love, is it not? love in the free world. real love. and she’s grateful but she kind of hates him and he needs her affection and love, he needs this. but its not the same as the way he sees everyone else loving each other. but this is all he’s gonna get, isn’t it? it’s all he deserves to get, isn’t it?

just.

toxic caleo>>>>

broken and abused and lost and clueless caleo>>>>>>>>

trying to make the best out of a horrible situation caleo>>>>>>

staying married for the kids caleo>>>>>>>>>>

[faytears]

I looooove fanworks that explore percy's anger + capacity for destruction + inability to fit in due to his nature as a son of poseidon, and I also really like this journal article from 1943 called The Son of Neptune that discusses the topic as it appears in the myths and in history, so I screenshotted some good tidbits :) I love exploiting academia for self-indulgent fandom purposes yippeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

[aaaaalice]

Camp Jupiter having a senate/being a republic raises some fascinating questions in my mind:

- If the 12th Legion came from the last days of the Empire, someone at some point made the choice to revert to something modeled after the Republic. Was it an enlightened autocrat? A popular revolution? An edict from the gods?

- How much is it modeled after the Roman Republic vs the American system? Can women vote? Are there property requirements?

- How did social movements like abolitionism, feminism, and racial equality filter into New Rome? Letting women serve in combat roles is arguably more progressive than the US, how did that get implemented?

- Honestly the child soldiers argument could be countered if you consider that in ancient Rome, 12 was considered an adult for girls and 14 for boys, but that would open up a whole different can of worms.

[aaaaalice]

Ultimately you can tell that Rick made A Place and didn't put much/any thought into how it got that way rather than deciding what happened and making A Place shaped by that, or making A Place and then figuring out hoe it got that way. And look, I get that the intended audience isn't asking "how was Camp Jupiter affected by the Civil rights movement" or "have any demigods written about how the reality of the gods affects Marx and dialectical materialism?" But I do. I think about those things.

[meaningxmeaning]

and we love you for it.

Admittedly, I think the same is probably true for CHB as well, he just gave it a tiny bit more thought, but not much.

[cowardgrace]

imagine you're like 30-something with an office job and a spouse and a family in new rome and you commute and make dinner every night and there's a literal military of 12-18-year-olds keeping mythological monsters out so u can do all that and you're just like yeah that's fine

[cowardgrace]

wait wait okay so we know most citizens of new rome are retired demigods and legacies are campers at camp jupiter so does that mean if you have kids in new rome you're raising them to be a child soldier? at what age do your kids get taken away to serve in the legion? percy explicitly said he wanted to raise kids in new rome but can you imagine him retiring after all the shit he's been through just to hand his kids over to a child army lol

[himynameis4-deactivated20260704]

no i cannot

literally

We have gwen, right? How old is she? Bc if she'd completed ten years, and is currently college age, that implies she met lupa when she was 7 or 8.

folks in camp jupiter are in fact raising their kids to be child soldiers. And some of those kids get eaten by lupa, and that's normal and accepted. Like. Yeah, my child might die, but at least they got to live to age 8! It's for the good of rome! If they weren't tough enough to survive, then ill mourn them but that's how things are ig!

frank's experience raises questions, bc it implies that you can't necessarily run.

given history it does seem that any folks being raised in camp jupiter are required to go to lupa at some point or get booted out of new rome (perhaps once they're legal adults / 18yos), bc mandated drafts in rome etc.

but frank's family wasn't living in new rome. Lupa's wolves went to get him. If he'd refused to go, would they have eaten him instead for trying to dodge the draft, essentially? Even though his family wasn't living in new rome, had been mistreated by new rome?

and how often is lupa making house calls, anyway? Do kids in new rome get taken to lupa by their parents and dropped off at wolf house, or do the wolves come to get kids when it's time? I imagine there's a mix of both. But if lupa comes for your kid... your options are limited. You're expected to hand them over. Even if they're not ready.

also. We know the death penalty exists and is used in new rome. So. That's a thing to think about.

basically the whole lupa situation is culturally-accepted eugenics (if you dont make rome stronger u die) and child endangerment and it's really fucked.

so yeah if percy n annabeth stick around i anticipate theyll be toppling the whole system while theyre at it. Not that rickll write that bc hes allergic to fleshing out new rome/considering the implications of what hes written for it rip. Which. Fair. Kids book series. But also.

[ruegarding]

in relation to the last post, the entire plotline is poorly executed.

annabeth's reaction to percy in tartarus is normal, like, not good, but normal. percy's not only challenging the laws of the world, he's indulging cruelty. being afraid is a normal reaction to have. despite that, it's still a conflict that needs to be resolved...and it's not.

immediately afterwards it's like ok back to normal! the jagged edges of percy's soul smooth over and annabeth is back to business (which immediately begets the question: why did rick write that then? which is never answered. the point? missing*). like, the actual issue isn't even addressed. before turning the poison onto akhlys, percy is being tortured w it (and nothing annabeth tries stops it). percy isn't doing this bc it's fun and exciting. he's doing this bc he was feeling so angry, so hurt, so scared, so traumatized that he resorted to hurting someone to make himself feel better. this is literally never addressed.

even in boo, annabeth's arc isn't abt learning to not be afraid or to trust percy again, it's to allow herself to be afraid. w piper. away from percy. and she never confronts percy directly, she never reconciles her fear w percy, they never address how this changes their relationship. also piper is there bc annabeth is so freaked out by percy that now piper is freaked out by percy. which is. a separate issue that is only an issue bc once again it never gets resolved.

and then w percy obviously he has his suicide attempt. like, he thought what he did in tartarus was so unforgivable that he not only believed that he deserved to die, but deserved to die slowly and painfully from something that he could easily prevent. like. that's the thing. percy's powers come easily to him. do u know how low he would have to be to not even subconsciously try to save himself? and the only response is a "i think i get it" from someone who's perspective does not properly convey the severity of the situation (ppl read this scene without even realizing it's a suicide attempt). once again, percy and annabeth do not confront this conflict together. percy tries to kill himself and the narrative is like...anyway.

if rick didn't know how to handle this, or even if he just didn't want to write it, he didn't have to write it. any of it.

but it's not that rick doesn't know how to handle this situation bc he writes the same thing in boo and handles it a million times better. nico and reyna have a very similar situation to percy and annabeth and the inclusion of both of these scenes and the difference in how they're handled ends up vilifying annabeth in the narrative.

reyna and nico have known each other for less time. they have built up less trust. and yet. when nico challenges the laws of the world and indulges cruelty in a way that reminds reyna of her extremely traumatizing backstory, she comforts nico. she doesn't treat him like he's dangerous. hedge tells him "we all get angry" and reyna vehemently agrees. nico is given explicit support even before he can start spiraling. and when nico is told to not use that power, it's bc of how it affected him, not how it made them feel, not that it's unnatural.

this shows that there was a correct answer. annabeth didn't have it, and suddenly her "normal" reaction looks bad in comparison. but instead of addressing this in any meaningful capacity, we're going to ignore it and send p*rcabeth to college. #relationshipgoals.

it's such a narrative failure. and rick could've just. not written it.

[sizvideos]

This campaign defies censorship in social media to raise awareness for early detection of breast cancer

[iamanemotionaltimebomb]

this is actually super fucking smartass of them

[jacksfoxevangeline]

putting it here to save a life

[witchhazelevesque]

I often see Calypso’s curse described as ‘she’s forced to love anyone that comes to her island’ but that’s not exactly what happens:

“You asked about my curse, Percy. I did not want to tell you. The truth is the gods send me companionship from time to time. Every thousand years or so, they allow a hero to wash up on my shores, someone who needs my help. I tend to him and befriend him, but it is never random. The Fates make sure that the sort of hero they send…” “They send a person who can never stay,” she whispered. “Who can never accept my offer of companionship for more than a little while. They send me a hero I can’t help…just the sort of person I can’t help falling in love with.” … “The Fates are cruel. They sent you to me, my brave one, knowing that you would break my heart.”

Battle of the Labyrinth, 223

The most pertinent bits are in color.

It’s not that she’s magicked into loving someone against her will, it’s that the Fates handpick people she would have loved anyway. As in, they have qualities she admires/values and finds herself able to love (big asterisk here). And the Fates make sure that of those people she could love, they pick ones that can’t stay with her.

This isn’t exactly retconned in House of Hades, but she does shift the blame more to the gods and doesn’t mention the Fates in this exchange:

“They were all the same! The gods send me the greatest heroes, the ones I cannot help but…” “You fall in love with them,” Leo guessed. “And then they leave you.” Her chin trembled. “That is my curse. I had hoped to be free of it by now, but here I am, still stuck on Ogygia after three thousand years.”

House of Hades, 378

But the focus is still on the fact that the people who come to her island can’t stay. The way it’s phrased here, it does makes sense how it could be taken as ‘she’s forced to love anyone’, but that’s not what’s happening.

Her curse is centered around being abandoned while stuck on her island. It’s only a curse because she’s imprisoned. She cites that as the reason she isn’t free from this curse. It’s not a set-and-forget work of magic that controls her emotions. It’s more of an active situation for the gods or Fates, where they orchestrate the delivery of the source of her pain each millennia, and then the rest comes in Calypso dealing with the aftermath of her companions leaving.

That big asterisk: Percy and Leo should not be included in this category. They’re children.

So, why is any of this even happening?

Blame Riordan and his weird, failed attempt to depict Calypso as a teenager; he did a horrible job.

Granted, it wouldn’t have worked no matter what he did, just by the nature of immortality. But he, for some reason, keeps shooting himself in the foot by hammering in her age. I don’t have access to the ToA books but some examples: Apollo saying she was old enough to be his babysitter, the way she got dreamy eyed at remembering things that happened before her imprisonment, the fact that she was there when Zeus was a child (by immortal standards).

Calypso is aware of time passing, and she retains all her memories of the thousands of years she existed, both on and off Ogygia. Time is weird on her island, but it does still move forward. She is literally, emotionally and mentally thousands of years old.

The only leg work RR does to depict Calypso as a teenager is to make her look like a teenager and then try to set up romantic situations with actual teenagers. For comparison, RR has Hestia take the form of a child, but no one acts like she actually is a child.

Later, RR has Calypso do things like want to go to high school and band camp, but that doesn’t make sense. Her wanting to have new experiences does, yes, but not ones that are for teenagers. That’s not indicative of her being a child, it’s more of RR’s lukewarm effort to make her a teenager.

I don’t have some hard hitting point to this distinction, I just think it’s important to know what’s actually being portrayed and how it’s being done. Calypso isn’t forced magically, in universe to fall in love, but she is forced to narratively.

My overall point though is, as usual, be critical of Riordan’s choices. He set up this thing where he wants the audience to believe that Calypso is so compatible with Percy and Leo that even the gods take notice, but it doesn’t work because she isn’t a teenager like they are.