This isn't even a hot take, but Percabeth weren't smart x dumb. They weren't even book smart x street smart. They were strategic x strategic. Their minds worked in very similar ways that complimented eachother. It's why they were such great friends, it's why they were a formidable team, hell, it's why they could fight a war against a deity with an army of forty fricking kids and win. They shared their braincells, in the most beautiful sense of the phrase and THAT'S why, for me, they're perfect together.
yo ok i have no idea if anyone remembers who i am but ya boy may have flown as close to the sun as possible. as part of my grad school program i am working with a lot of university archives, and this one just so happens to have all of uncle rick's old material related to lightning thief
things i have learned so far that could have been canon (looking at a autumn 2003 draft):
--grover originally was supposed to know how to play "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys on his reed pipes, but the editor suggested Rick use a 'even more recent teen band,' which is where i'm guessing the Hillary Duff, "So Yesterday" line came from in the final copy. we could have had boy band satyr, and now i want art of that
--after getting the Toilet Treatment (tm) by Clarisse and her friends, Percy is led by Luke in a traditional CHB welcome ritual called "Kiss the Boar" -- all those that refuse to play get an all-expenses paid trip into Long Island Sound. very Animal House, ended up not making the final copy
--rick wrote the first draft of the lightning thief under the author name Ransom Reese, as to not distract readers from his already-established and award-winning adult mystery writing career
--going off of that point, the original draft started with a letter "Dear Mortal Reader" by Mr. Reese, the table of contents, and then a letter from percy thanking Mr. Reese for his contributions in typing out the story, which has been dictated to him by percy (bc dyslexia). this idea had promise, and it became the warning percy gives to the reader at the very beginning of chapter one, even if percy ended up being the narrator rather than Ransom Reese
--most people already know this, but the lightning thief came about because rick wanted to help soothe his son Haley's aversion to reading by merging it with Haley's love of greek mythology. Rick told Haley the story of Percy Jackson over three nights, Haley asked him to write it down, and a year later Rick had a manuscript
--in this draft, ares just keeps that mf thing on him?? it's always a pistol, no bronze sword. just like...a glock. he flashes it around and does whatever he wants, and i think he's actually closer to the portrayal that adam copeland gave ares
--percy was originally supposed to be known as kelp brain by annabeth
--the original version of the Waterland scene references 9/11 through a water ride named 911X2, a line which was cut
--one of the original titles was simply "son of the sea god"
--puffin books uk held a competition, in the promotional period before the lightning thief was released, for a pair of winged red converse high-top shoes (i swear i'm not kidding) with a white H painted on the sides of the uppers. someone, somewhere in england (unless they sold them) is the owner of the only officially-licensed copy of luke's Maia shoes
--this isn't lore but i got to hold a sword they used on the set of the movies, a deck of mythomagic cards, and a signed US first edition copy (!!)
--possibly will reblog this tomorrow if and when i find out more
yes dark percy is cool but i love the idea of dark annabeth
like this girl has every reason to hate the gods. sure they gave her a cool hat and a job but like this girl was left in a toxic household, ran away when she was seven left to be chased by monsters, when she finally found friends one of them got turned into a tree and the other turned evil. then she met percy who is her world but he keeps getting pulled into to fatal quests because the gods can’t keep their shit together? and annabeth still blames herself for what happened to like but i bet she also blames the gods *cough*hermes*cough* and she obviously hates hera and her mom was horrible to her in moa i doubt she got over that quickly so i’m just saying if it weren’t for percy and grover annabeth would probably be evil and let’s be real with her strategy kronos probably would have won so let’s all be thankful annabeth isn’t evil but also dark!annabeth gives me so much life i love it
jason: isn’t it ridiculous how everyone keeps deferring to percy? i’m the only member of this quest who has been formally elected leader, and i heard that he didn’t even kill kronos himself i mean
annabeth, wanting to slap a bitch but not because he’s about to listen to her complain to him about how most of the people on this trip have barely been on one(1) quest before: …yeah
I can’t believe you’re already +888! Thank you so so much for following me, this time you get Jason as a Grace-ias thank you because you’re a lot and ily
and if you new ones want to get free art my giveaway for 500 is still going so
man could you imagine if you were a demigod in kronos’s army and you’ve been lowkey worried cause the other side has a child of the big three as their frontman and he’s been extremely formidable in battle before but finally Kronos has a physical form and has bathed in the river styx and your army outnumbers them severly but then during the final battle you hear whispers that the son of poseidon has been single handedly wiping out droves of monsters and weapons aren’t breaking his skin either and he just straight up destroyed a whole ass bridge?? I’d abandon the cause so fast I mean—
hazel levesque: sacrifices herself by collapsing an entire cavern to defeat gaea, gives up elysium for her mother, is the only one in the world to tame a man-eating horse, cusses frequently, becomes praetor, was a black girl in the 1920s, is an amazing sword fighter, is the daughter of a big three god, risked her place in the legion to help percy, learned to control the mist
not all children of apollo are bathed in golden light, their hands do not heal, they do not create beautiful melodies, they are not light
some of them cannot bare the sight of the sun, some of them cause disease with the slightest touch, their music is a catastrophe, they are not heroes
not all children of demeter are like wildflowers, their hands to not cultivate, they do not plant fields golden wheat, they are not flowers
some of them are thorns, some of them wither forests with just a glance, their fields are barren, they are not heroes
not all children of aphrodite are things of beauty and grace, their hands do not bestow love, they do not reassure people with their words and smiles, they are not beauty
some of them are ugly inside, some of them spread lustful vengeance and hate, their words are skillful webs of lies, they are not heroes
not all children of hypnos are living in a dreamland, their hands do not calm, they do not lull comrades into an easy sleep, they are not dreamers
some are more like nightmares, some of them invade the mind with fear and pain, their nightmares lull enemies in comatose states, they are not heroes
not all children of the gods are bathed in golden light, with flowers in their hair, things of grace and beauty, living in a dreamland
sometimes they are a darkness, a plaque, a hatred, a nightmare
they are not heroes, but legends of godly proportions
Another Percy Jackson series where he has to defeat another one of his immortal ancestors, but instead of taking 5 books for it to happen, he does it in the first few chapters. Percy gets his prophecy and instead of freaking out about it like everyone else, he just stalks off to the big babbie’s evil liar or whatever and shows up an hour later with Starbucks in one hand, Riptide in the other. Without an ounce of effort, he just destroys the enemy because said enemy expected everything to take 5 books with lots of mini quests. The rest of the book and the remaining 4 books in the series are about Percy chilling out at home watching Cupcake Wars
