I think more fan influence would make the show so much better than it is. Like we finally get a screen adaptation of PJO and it just falls flat in so many places. I see a lot of people saying Rick is using the show to make changes with 20/20 hindsight, but bitches be real. This is Richard "I thought it was closer" Riordan we're talking about. The man couldn't even be bothered to Google the Gateway Arch when writing Percy JUMPING FROM IT AND LANDING IN THE RIVER.
here there be book spoilers
The man doesn't even reread his books when writing sequels. He just yolos it and accidentally retcons things like how Annabeth's hat suddenly itches in COTG despite that never being mentioned before. Or how she somehow has her dagger again after losing it in Tartarus. Or just totally fucking the timeline because he somehow never had the idea of hiring a continuity editor while writing 30 books in 15 years.
Now I love Uncle Rick as much as the next fan but please, my dude, LISTEN TO YOUR READERS. I would have accepted a quest to Tartarus to watch Walker Scobell say "I think I'll start with the top" while uncapping Riptide in Crusty's store. Because the one part of the show that will always keep me watching is the Golden Trio. Walker, Leah, and Aryan eat every scene they're given and leave no crumbs. They're just not being given the best scenes to do it.
Why is no one talking about the fact that before Percy and gang enter the underworld the person they run in to is Julian Richings in BOTH live action adaptations.
Not to be that person but do you guys ever sit down and mind ur own business before realising that if we get a season 3 we'll have to deal with Bianca tell Nico I'm sorry di Angelo as well as Zoë I see stars Nightshade all over again?
As well as 10 year old bright eyed Nico di Angelo who asked Percy to make THAT promise?
Ok but then if we get a Heroes of Olympus series after? And they do House of Hades and we have to deal with Percabeth in Tartarus again AND the Cupid scene?!
FEELING REALLY SUPER NORMAL ABOUT PERCY PICTURING HIM AND ANNABETH GROWING OLD TOGETHER AND WANTING A FUTURE WHERE HE ANNABETH AND GROVER ARE ALL OLD AND GET TO REST AND REMINISCE ON THEIR LIVES TOGETHER AND ANNABETH SAYING HE’LL MAKE A HANDSOME OLD MAN I’M—
Ok but satyrs age half as fast as humans. So Percabeth will be in their 80s and Grover will look like he's in his 40s.
And while Rick hasn't specified satyrs' lifespans, Coach Hedge is 106 and could be considered somewhere around middle age. Some other franchises have them living close to a thousand years.
Grover's going to outlive Percy and Annabeth by a lot. He's going to have to watch them grow old and pass on, knowing he still has centuries left. And even then, he won't be able to join them in Elysium because satyr souls reincarnate into a new nature spirit.
Honestly this is a major reason I wish it was a network series. Like give it to Fox or NBC and let them make a full 20-22 episode season out of each book. There's more than enough going on to do that and Gotham proved that Fox is perfectly happy to put out an unhinged live action series featuring a talented young cast. Because once that show moved past its original idea of a procedural cop show that happened to be set in Gotham City to the unhinged mixture of camp and grittiness it was after season 1, it was amazing.
Like look me in the eye and try to tell me that that show's creative team wouldn't have NAILED the transition from "Here we were in the desert. And Bianca di Angelo was gone" to "I Have A Dam Problem."
Can you imagine being a mortal scientist who studies stars or space or similar fields after Artemis created the constellation to honor Zoë Nightshade? You have no knowledge of Greek gods, no idea that this Huntress really existed, no idea how a new constellation has just been formed out of stars that never even existed prior to one random night in December. You’re worried it’s a sign that the gasses that make up stars are becoming unstable or that more stars are being created, faster than discoveries can keep up with them. You have no idea what this means for your field, but it definitely changes the focus of all the discoveries you’ve made in the past year. You decide that many of the scientists in your field should gather to discuss this new phenomenon, but you have little hope that the discussion will bring any greater understanding. You are very concerned.
And then you call all your scientist buddies together and they have no idea wtf you're talking about because they can't see through the Mist and they just think you've gone insane.
This new PJO book is going to hurt me so much. Just the sample is so bittersweet and giving end of an era I'm already tearing up. I really should have scheduled off work tomorrow 😭.
Basic I know but you can't go wrong torturing some comfort characters 😂
one of my favorite pjo tropes! so so true, thanks for the prompt. (you're my first ever prompter! bit of a landmark for me :) )
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Staring deeply into his blue comforter like it held the secrets of the world, Annabeth didn't need to be a child of Athena to know that her boyfriend wasn't really there with her. It wasn't the first time one of them had found the other like this, and it probably wouldn't be the last.
He wasn't making noise or moving, actually not doing anything at all, which led her to believe that he wasn't having a panic attack or a flashback. Dissociation then.
After a lot of trial and error following the titan war, they'd figured out touch - especially involving water - helped ground him the best, so she didn't bother with trying to talk to him, not knowing how far gone he was yet. Instead she got some ice out of the water bottle on his nightstand, happening to glance at the few pictures she'd been able to bring for him to Camp Jupiter. Sally, Grover, Tyson, Thalia, the Stolls, Clarisse, and a few other campers smiled back at her.
If she'd known they were going to fall into Tartarus, she'd have packed a few more.
Turning away from the photos with a sigh, she sat down cross-legged on his bed and winced when the mattress bouncing got no reaction from him, so she gently picked up his arm in the hand not holding the ice and starting rubbing it up and down his tan forearm.
"Percy?" she murmured. "I'm gonna count backward from 100, okay?"
Predictably, he didn't answer, but she started her countdown anyway, studying his form for any changes. His jet black hair was falling into his down cast eyes, low enough that she couldn't see his seagreen irises. His pants were creased where his elbows rested on them, and she realized he was wearing the same thing as he was when his watch ended an hour ago. It hurt to know that he could've been like this for so long and she had no idea, but there wasn't anything she could do, not without leaving the ship vulnerable.
Then - movement. His hand twitched; she didn't dare stop, though, not wanting to risk backslide, just kept on counting and rubbing the ice up and down his arm.
A few minutes later, he pulled in a sharp breath and sagged a bit so that the only thing Annabeth could see was the top of his head. She'd lost count of how many times she'd made it to a hundred and back at this point.
"Percy? Are you with me?" He waited a bit and nodded minutely. "Can you try and breathe with me?"
She drew in an exaggerated breath slowly and let it out even slower. He didn't join her, so she tried again. This time, he managed a shaky, slow breath that almost aligned with hers.
After a few minutes passed and he seemed to be more present, she put the ice down on the nightstand, and he sagged even more, head landing on her shoulder like his strings had been cut.
She ran her fingers through his thick curls, illiciting a sigh from him. "Hey, baby."
His breath hitched, and she was afraid for a moment he'd start panicking, but she soon felt her shoulder grow wet.
"We're together," she whispered, hoping his words from so many (weeks? days?) ago would bring him some comfort.
They were still the most important words in the world to her.
At some point, his hands must have unclenched because she felt his nails softly scrape her thigh. "How long was I gone?"
"I don't know," she said honestly. "At least 15 minutes, an hour at most."
"Damn."
Sadly, he pushed himself off of her shoulder, leaving it cold and salty. "What's the last thing you remember?"
He looked off into the distance, thinking. "I remember sitting on the bed to get to ready to shower, and nothing else."
Her heart clenched as that meant he must have been gone closer to an bour. Do you have any idea what triggered you?"
"Uh...I think maybe when I looked across the hall and saw your empty bed..." He trailed off, and she nodded.
"I'll keep the door closed from now on," she promised. It wouldn't be any kind of major change since she never slept in that room anyway. The only reason it had been open was because of habit from Coach Hedge.
Now that Percy was present and they were both calmer, they started getting ready to shower, not wanting to be without the other. (Only shower. Neither of them were ready for more at the moment.) It wasn't long before they were climbing into bed together, both considerably more refreshed but exhausted from a long day on the Argo II.
It had to get better at some point. It just had to.
Holy crap I didn't think I was going to get this same day (if I did at all)! I'm glad to be your first ask, just happened to see your post asking for them and decided I wanted to read some pain. I think I'm going to incorporate some Percabeth hurt/comfort in my own fic at some point if you (or anyone else) is interested. It's all post BOO and obviously I'm not planning of ripping this off by any means but I like the idea of something related to their godly side grounding them in those cases. As of right now I've only written in Percy, Sally, and Paul (and a short scene with Zeus being a bitch) but I hope to eventually write the entire gap between HOO and TOA, so I expect I'll get Annabeth in there at some point.
like imagine a small, competitive, close-knit college of "rome is best" students who come from a society that their gods so rarely interact with that it frequently doesn't happen within their own lifetimes vs 1 (one) daughter of Athena that grew up taking field trips to visit the olympians and has already been actively redesigning mt. olympus for the past couple of years. like they're literally going to hate her so much im so sorry.
"I'm fine," I tell myself as I sit alone at a lunch counter, putting in my seashell radios to drown out the world around me and disassociate for the hour of human "freedom" I have.
When my time is up I'll return dejected to my wage slavery and down another energy drink to simulate the feeling of being alive.
