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[helenofsparta2]

So, let me get this straight.

The only reason why Percy is currently doing three more quests for the gods, while already being burnt out from finishing high school, is because he wants to enter the university of New Rome. A place where the monster who he watched kill his mom when he was twelve, the monster, who wore the necklaces of his dead friends around its axe as spoils of war, the monster he canonically still has nightmares about, lives peacefully alongside him and gets offended when he gets called a monster.

He does not want to go to that university, because he has a passion for a specific subject, or because he has a good time and flourishes in an academic environment. We know that Rick Riordan didn't really bother to think about what Percy wants to study, and as already stated, he is already burnt out from academics. But he wants to go there solely because his girlfriend and maybe some of his other friends live there.

All the while, he could technically go to a different university altogether, because, appearantly, monsters stop bothering demigods once they reach a certain age, which completely robs New Rome of the initial appeal it had to Percy in Son of Neptune, and of the sole reason why he wanted to live there in the first place.

On top of that, his trauma gets completely ignored, his accomplishments don't matter at all, and his relationship to other characters get either ignored/ brushed to the side, like in the case of Clarisse, Hazel, Frank, Rachel, Thalia etc. or get washed down so much that they are unrecognizable, frankly completely one dimensional, and require a bunch of mischaracterization, like in the case of Annabeth, Grover or Nico.

I can't believe I say this, because i love Percy, and because I desperately want him to live a fullfilled and happy life, but at this point, I really wish he would have died while closing the doors of death in Tartarus.

[ogjacksonsimp]

don't forget that annabeth and grover both attempted to sabotage his quests for recommendation letters. and in grover's case percy apologizes for getting rightfully mad at grover about it. and that the reason nico, hazel, and frank don't wanna tell percy about the minotaur is cause annabeth would get upset that his grades would inevitably slip with him around.

[aaaaalice]

Wait what do you mean Grover and Annabeth sabotage him??? Do I even want to know what the hell of going on in SYA?

[ogjacksonsimp]

I don't remember how grover sabotaged him (I think he was intentionally slowing him down because he didn't want percy to go to college and leave him or something like that). Annabeth threw a house party in the goddess's house he was house sitting for.

[ackerlikesmen]

Grover confessed to sabotaging Percy's chances of getting into college. He purposely got himself in trouble to delay Percy. What makes it terrible is that Percy is the one to apologize afterward, even though it's Grover's fault.

[sunelloise]

In the grand scheme of "this storyline has been dragged on past its expiration date into unrecognizable oblivion" I thought I'd seen the worst that somebody just in it for the money could make.

Like, there are TV shows with infamously terrible endings. GOT, LOST, SPN, all three of which outpaced the original plan and refused to quit while they were ahead.

But a book series beholden to the greed of one man and his publisher? He has the freedom of not needing to cast anyone who doesn't want to be there anymore, or budget for everything that goes into filming a series. And this is what that freedom looks like, and people are still buying it or he wouldn't keep making it.

It feels like ChatGPT could have come up with a better direction for these characters, if the show must go on.

[sunelloise]

As I make the fight for recognition of my own ADHD, and while I know the saying is that "you can't reason someone out of a belief they didn't reason themselves into"

We gotta talk about the un-ignorables that were written into the PJO books. As much as I love the first series.

Starting with Rick making his protagonist disabled, and that protagonist's love interest a "she's just being mean because she likes you" bully who regularly and consistently insults his intelligence and picks on him for symptoms of that disability.

And we all just.... ignored this, for years.

I've lived my whole life, up until like 3 years ago, not knowing I was ADHD, and the amount of bullying, gaslighting, and skepticism I've faced and continue to face for "faking it" or not trying hard enough or being too difficult---never in my life would I fall in love with someone who is all of those things wrapped up in one person, who publically and privately insults my intelligence, and who everyone else in our lives does nothing to stop.

And this is Percabeth. She's bullied him, shown us her insecurities when he does anything better than her in her POV, isolated him from his non-demigod friends because of her raging jealousy that was never atoned for, and drags him around through her idealized adult life while Percy is written to be moon-struck and wholly complicit and happy in being taken advantage of.

All while also being a victim of childhood abuse by Gabe.

[sunelloise]

I think Hazbin would have worked well as an episodic cartoon, vs serialized, with little self-contained episodes so Viv could have her fun with her OCs without worrying about an overarching plot or continuity or charcater arcs.

I mean it was halfway there already given the quality of season 2 but some intentionality and the occasional two-parter would have been fun to explore.

[sunelloise]

Could not tell you why, but when I was a kid I pictured Thalia as a bit chubby, and still, to this day, fanart of her (reasonably and perfectly fine) being thin makes me do a double take and remember oh yeah, that's just my headcanon. Carry on.

[sunelloise]

Idk I think it's reckless and egotistical to goad fandom wars as the media's creator by deciding unequivocally that the way things are represented in adaptation are superior and the most canon canon that exists.

Authors dream of the chance to have the level of input Riordan has on his show, the least he could do is attempt to stay neutral and support the direction of the show without shitting on the book that gave him his fame. And there is a way to acknowledge book fans without dismissing or undermining the efforts of all those who put hard work into this show.

Percy Jackson isn't the first book in the world to be adapted, or the first to make obvious and detrimental changes to the source material. And yet I can't recall an author (maybe JKR, I generally don't follow the personal lives of writers and there was a time before social media when nobody elese did either) who so eagerly insults the foundations of their fame for... this.

[sunelloise]

I know I complain a lot about Percy Jackson, but the first series did tell a pretty damn good story, and how it handled fate vs free will in a mythology where the Fates and prophecies are very real, making the Great Prophecy not fully about Percy, but Luke, and leaving it open to a fundamental choice by Percy, nails the debate better than a lot of fictional prophecies.

Most go something like “the hero will slay the dragon whether they want to or not” and here it’s “the hero might slay the dragon, or they might free it,  but there will be a hero, and there will be a dragon and there is nothing you can do to stop it. But you can try to influence the hero one way or the other."

[sunelloise]

Headcanoning that godly parents don't have to be their presumed gender throws the whole "well if their mortal parent is X, then their godly parent must be Y" assumption into a tailspin.

They're divine beings. If they can turn into animals, Hades can have a gloriously sapphic fling. Athena can have a demigod kid who swears up and down she has two dads. Especially with it canon that Athena just thought-spawns children into existence.

Heck, even just letting Athena woo a mortal woman. Apollo surely, at some point in history, gifted a little bundle of joy to a mortal man.

Gotta throw mortal limitations of conception out the window here and have a little fun with it.

[solangelo-critical]

I’m choosing violence with my hot take:

The Cupid scene wasn’t even this beautifully written tragic scene it’s made out to be by so many people on here. It’s over the top, melodramatic and borderline cheesy. Honestly, it is more akin to a caricature of difficult outings than anything.

It so “written by a cishet man who understands jack about queer experiences” that it’s hilarious and exasperating at the same time. I wish I could say that Riordan put in thought and effort atleast, but I can’t.

[sunelloise]

If I may, it could have worked, with the following changes *maybe*:

First person in Nico POV, so the melodrama could speak more to Nico's melodramatic narration and biased and jaded perspective, and how upset he is with the position he's in.

Not undoing the impact of everything that happened in TLO, including Nico and Percy's decently stable friendship, Percy's demand to the gods, and basically the entire theme of the first series

But if we wanted angsty Nico, giving some smidge of foreshadowing in SON so we at least knew *something* was coming. I still have no canon explanation for why Nico straight up lied to Percy about knowing him. I can only assume that there were Rules. But Rules don't make for an entertaining story, or give these characters proper agency.

But yes at the end of the day, it is *such* a tonal shift that, while I appreciate the risk taken with characterizing Cupid in such a way, wasn't earned? Percy's angst and trip down memory lane in Tartarus was earned. Forcing Nico out of the closet is like... the hyperspeed jump in Last Jedi.

Like, it's sure a stunning shot, and it was all anyone was talking about when it was published, but stop to think about the implications of it in this universe for 5 seconds and it all falls apart, and how big of a plot hole it opens because why didn't anyone do that earlier?

Nico's a greek demigod ffs. If gayness does exist, and we're told so in a deeply condescending manner, where was Nico's counseling? Where's the pride flags flying at camp? How is this kid allowed to exist with internalized homophobia when he has access to literally any gay ghost he could hope to talk to about self-love and queer identity?

If it's suddenly this way, then it must have always been this way, otherwise you as the author fucked up, and you need to make sure you've got a damn good explanation for such a paradigm-shifting retcon.

Rick should have either committed to straight-washing greek mythology for the duration of the series, or had a much more cohesive perspective shift into acknowledging how very queer the greek world is with in-universe weight and consequences. Or at the very least, opened Lost Hero with the new status quo and being meta with "hey I couldn't have this rep before but we're going to do it justice now that I have clout" (assuming he could do so respectfully and with nuance).

Instead. The very first whiff of gayness existing in this world is Nico's forced outing. You can squint at winks and nods, because we know what the books are omitting and shoving under a rug, but you decide to acknowledge a very important aspect of your stolen mythology, and this is the moment you pick to do it with??

For shock value. So much so that he assassinated an entire character and his relationship with every other character except Reyna.

I love Nico, but really, I love who he was supposed to be, who he could have been, had his character been in better hands.

[sunelloise]

Does it bother anyone else that cartoon Maui is built like a strongman, not a body builder, and yet that flips in the live action? Cartoon Maui has muscles but still a round face and less clear definition on all those muscles. He's big.

Meanwhile in live action he's much more of a body builder. It's cool that Dwayne Johnson still gets to play him he just lost a core piece of the cartoon Maui's character design, imo.

[sunelloise]

As a book fan, I'm not mad that the show isn't faithful to the books, nor am I surprised, I'm mad at the strawman being made of me, by the showrunners and show stans, as if all my grievances are bad faith, bigoted, and media illiterate.

[sunelloise]

PJOTV Percy should have black hair-- "What's so wrong with blonds, huh? It doesn't matter, and it's not a race issue. It's just a hair color, besides I love the cute [westernized] beach boy look and especially blond paragons, and it's just one feature anyway, he's perfect being even Whiter now, you can't expect the show to be perfect....."

PJOTV Annabeth should be blonde--"You're just racist. There's plenty of blonds and in fact, hair color and racial diversity in protagonists is necessary. I'm so sick of the blonde paragon, honestly she's superior in every way now......"

Y'all.

[sunelloise]

I wonder if fandom toxicity (not just pjo but in general but particuarly in pjo for the absolute cult-level commitment to the bit) comes from building up a social circle entirely about this one specific opinion on this one specific piece of media, that just gets more and more specific and outlandish as the snake of groupthink eats itself, that to say "hey maybe we've gone too far here" is to lose all of the "friends" you put so much effort into curating.

Could also be said about non-fandom issues but that's not what this blog is for.

Like, you don't have to tell me who you are, but if being in the pjo fandom--for or against the show--in your little group brings you so much stress and makes you so angry thinking about "them" -- the people who disagree with you -- and group discussion is dehumanizing rhetoric...

Leave. Just leave.

You can join a new group and not say a damn word about what group you came from. You don't have to bring a fandom rap sheet or resume. Just go. Make a whole throwaway sideblog with no paper trail. See what other communities are out there. Challenge your groupthink. Don't be afraid to state an opinion that is yours, not what's "safe" in a digital landscape where they can't do more than send cruel anons.

Whether it's radical PJO stans who think anyone who even breathes negativity toward Annabeth (book) is a raging misogynist, or Annabeth (show) is that and a racist

Or PJO haters who think they're oh so smart and have lost the plot on anyone who's ambivalent and likes this or that aspect and just wants to enjoy it quietly, who have gone full-Anakin in the us-or-them hatemongering.

It's just a book. They're all fictional characters. It's supposed to be fun.

[ackerlikesmen]

I regret being a part of this fandom

I just saw someone call the judoflip "romantic" or whatever... this fandom is truly fucked lmao.

Ah, yes. I want my girlfriend to kiss me, then swing me on my back really hard, and choke me. Don't forget to threaten me, all the while knowing I WAS KIDNAPPED. Oh, so romantic. Couples more often--- hey! Why not have Percy flip her? Holy shit, that screams romance!!!! Let's make it happen!

[sunelloise]

Fr though it's like Rick woke up one day, got jealous of the romantasy boon, and rubbed his hands together as he said "well I've got some characters here that can fit"

and then forgot that he wrote a middle-grade urban fantasy adventure novel with those characters.

[sunelloise]

We gotta talk unreliable narrators for a sec.

Because I'm guilty of it to, in calling Percy an unreliable narrator, when I mean it in "he is a narrator who is unreliable" vs the actual literary device of an Unreliable Narrator.

And there is a difference, and to anyone all up in arms thinking they're arguing the same damn side what's the problem here, I shall explain.

An Unreliable Narrator (using caps here for distinction), the lit device, is a narrator deliberately misleading the audience on behalf of the author to propel a mystery or perpetuate the identity the narrator believes themself to possess.

Meaning, your narrator could be a thief or detective lying by omission to the audience to keep the game of cat-and-mouse going, or a character suffering delusions of grandeur convincing their captive audience that they're amazing until the story reveals otherwise.

Sometimes the character does this knowingly--they're deliberately hiding or skewing information from the audience. Sometimes the character does this unknowingly--they have amnesia or are led to believe information (about the story or themselves) and then feed the audience that same information.

Oftentimes, it's there for humor. Narrator says or believes or insists something that is immediately contradicted by the plot or other characters. It's also there for tragedy, see the aforementioned "delusions of grandeur".

Whatever the case, the Unreliable Narrator is a deliberate and intentional and consistent literary device employed by the author to frame their story.

There is zero basis for this argument in the first five books (we'll get to the squint-and-it's-kind-of-there for HOO in a second).

There is a difference between a character who suffers self-image issues downplaying their intelligence, abilities, importance, what have you, and a true Unreliable Narrator, and that difference lies in how this lit device resolves.

Percy's "unreliability" isn't a plot thread that ever comes to fruition. UN storylines have a moment where the funhouse mirror shatters and the narrator is either forced to see themselves for who they really are, or the story itself gives up the jig. Well-written UNs are also deliberately cued-in by the story, otherwise it ends up looking like the author is pulling story threads and resolutions out of their ass.

We know they're suspect from very early on, even if we don't know the full scope of how or why.

Percy just lacks self confidence, and, presumably, his arc would have been gaining some in a healthy way. He is unreliable, in that how he sees himself appears to be inaccurate to the true unfolding of events, but these moments aren't intended to be more than face-value.

In HOO, because we have a multi-POV story... yes, I can see where the line becomes even blurrier, becuase we have Percy's telling of events occasionally directly contradicted by other characters, but again, this unreliabiltiy is not a subplot. It has no resolution.

They never have confrontations about how Percy's perception of events so severely contradicts the truth that the other Seven argue about it. It never matters.

It might, if his "ha ha my girlfriend is lowkey abusive and I love it" actually built momentum up to him realizing this is bad. Which it doesn't.

So when Percy being an Unreliable Narrator is used to excuse plot holes, yeah, no, it's baseless. His unreliabiltiy solely concerns his self-confidence and perception of his own self-worth, powers, and strength. He'll downplay how brave he was in fighting Medusa, but he doesn't boldface lie to us that he fought Medusa at all.

It does not stretch to encompass other demigods' powers or the events of various subplots.

So... we good? We know the difference now?

[sunelloise]

I don't know what Riordan's reasoning behind Nico's forced coming out scene were, but here's some sign posts to look out for, writers, if you're thinking about doing something like this in 2026.

"I can't write it from the gay character's perspective because I'm not gay and I didn't experience this" hey maybe don't write it at all then

"I really want this to be a surprise, shock value, you know?" hey maybe don't diminish an entire character's massive moment to shock value when real people go through this traumatic experience all the time?

"See now it's kind of shaky but the shock value will take care of any inconsistencies from this retcon, people will love it regardless" hey Mr. Genderbend-a-Pegasus-because-I-can't-read-my-own-books, maybe you are wrong about this and should make it less shaky, or not write it at all

"Now I'm still jacking off to my main straight ship so this will remain tragically unrequited lest the queer audience that I just baited get ideas" man, that's just cruel, and pointless. So maybe you just shouldn't write it anyway

"See, see, now I have the power and money to make a gay character and stop ignoring all the gayness dripping from Greek myths" buddy you had the power and money to properly thread this through the first four books of HOO properly, and you chose shock value over actual, deep, nuanced representation of internalized homophobia and growth

If you have to go "welll..." and squint through the justification of why you're about to do something like this to a character, maybe... don't. At all. Nico was just fine being straight in canon and queer in fanon, if this is what we get when this straight white cis man thinks of for his arc.

[sunelloise]

Also like, just because you're choosing to ignore valid problems because you just want to be entertained, does not mean those problems don't exist.

Problems like Annabeth's playful and immature traits when she was white now replaced with serious, no-fun, "Strong Female Character" now that she's black.

Like you can absolutely think "hey man I just want to turn my brain off". Taking the step that insists that because you don't want to think about these issues means that they're not there how dare you is where we have problems.

I'm happy to be bygones and yet you keep inviting yourselves into #pjocrit and #rrcrit and #antipjoshow posts to pick a fight.

I thought you just wanted to be entertained? You're clearly not thinking either way.