Maybe It's Just Self-projection, But I Honestly Don't Think That You'd Be That Sad If I Ended It.

We should've seen Solangelo's development

The thing is, it's important to show the readers the development of a ship for them to really accept it properly.

If you stick two characters together with barely any prior development, then, well, the readers aren't going to ship them.

This is the reason why Percabeth is the most popular ship in the fandom-they got 5 whole books of development and they were friends first with no romantic feelings at all (no, I'm not going to accept the statement that Rick made regarding Annabeth falling for Percy when she was 12-she was always his friend first and went on the quest only for her own glory).

This is the reason why ships like Jiper and Caleo always fail.

Now, we as the readers know that Solangelo had 6 whole months together. They presumably spent a lot of time during these months with each other and as a result got to know each other quite well and start a romantic relationship.

We know that they had development.

It's just that Rick never bothered to write it for us, so we were left to create our own development, and while it can be absolutely awesome to do that, it would be so much better if Rick had given us Solangelo development, because many people still don't care for Solangelo as it barely had any on-page development.

And yes, on-page development is crucial for a romantic ship. If there's no on page development, it doesn't matter if they spent months or years together. If we as the readers could not read about their development, we're barely going to ship them.

It's the truth. We need to read it to see it. Fanfics are nice, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't write them, but a lot of people, especially gay people, want actual proper development written in canon books, not just slapped on rep that's expanded on in fanon.

But! You say. But Solangelo's the second most popular ship in the PJO fandom!

That's because they have a grumpy/sunshine dynamic which is so alluring to readers, and they're opposites attract, and they were the first real gay rep in a time period where there wasn't much gay rep, so queer people really clung onto this because it was very special to them. And honestly, I can't blame them.

But it's time to demand proper development for LGBTQ ships. Not just slapped on rep for brownie points-we need to demand more characters who are gay, but whose sexuality isn't their whole personality, and we need to demand about more people discovering their sexuality.

Nico and Will were already in a romantic relationship in ToA and TSATS, so we missed out on all the development and jumped immediately to the cute romantic moments which are nice, but if I'm being honest, barely have any weight WITHOUT PROPER DEVELOPMENT.

I made a similar post here saying that we needed development for LGBTQ ships.

I'm not anyone's anti, pro, fan or stan. I really just said something that needed to be said, and I think that a lot of people will agree with me.

What if Gisela had been nicer to Keefe?

One thing that puzzled me was-why the hell was Gisela so toxic to Keefe?

What if she acted nice towards Keefe and gave him more love, not just small doses? Then she could have swayed him to her side way more easily!

Imagine Cassius being a terrible father, but Gisela being a kind, sweet mother-at least that's her facade.

She slowly grooms Keefe to be what she needs him to be-subtly drops hints about the injustice of the Lost Cities, pitting Cassius and Keefe against each other, playing the doting mother when Cassius is angry.

Then Keefe wouldn't have rebelled so hard-he would've been taken in. And when Gisela revealed herself, she could have told him about the injustice that she had been showing him for years.

And Keefe would have had to make a decision. Stay with the Black Swan, or join the Neverseen? And he struggles with this decision over the course of the series. Sophie or his mother?

Because clearly the Black Swan's not doing anything, but the Neverseen is trying.

But the Neverseen's methods are horrible, while the Black Swan is more passive and preferable.

Still, there's so much injustice........

It would've made the book where Keefe join the Neverseen so much juicier.

Just imagine Gisela welcoming Keefe into the ranks. Imagine her teaching him, spending time with him like the old days-

AND IMAGINE HIM BETRAYING HER AND RUNNING AWAY WITH THE STOLEN CACHES.

Imagine her disappointment, her fury. Keefe's overwhelming guilt and shame, but he did the right thing, didn't he?

Except the Black Swan's not getting closer to doing anything, and the Neverseen members weren't as evil as he thought they'd be-they actually seemed to be humane, behaving like normal elves instead of evil people. Humanise the villains.

Aah, my heart, so much ANGST.

Ok, I am once again wondering why Rick didn't just put PIPER in DREW'S PLACE.

Piper could have been the head counsellor of cabin 10-exhausted, burnt out, and she and Silena could have been the ones to have charmspeak, which would give them an extra special bond as the only ones who had it.

And when Piper gets really emotionally intense after the Titan War II, she just uses charmspeak on her cabin members. Of course, she feels guilty afterwards, but they still start to be scared of her.

And this way, we can learn more about what happens at camp, because maybe she could be a year rounder so as not to harm Tristan, but she could still have her trauma from her younger days.

Just another example of wasted potential in PJO, which is surprisingly easy to come by.

Can we talk about how much the Aphrodite kids are a wasted/lost potential? How RR made them vain, vapid, mean and only useless pretty faces until Piper came? (Which is one of the characters I dislike in the books for all her internalized misogyny and the way she judged her siblings and cabinmates before even getting to know them properly). Aphrodite was worshiped as a goddess of war in her own right. Give me children of Aphrodite who are as beautiful as they are deadly, they wield their beauty both as a shield and as a sword. Give me Aphrodite kids that are so deeply loving and loyal towards each other, willing to move mountains and brave the harshest storms to keep their loved ones safe. Give me cabin 10 members being the ones that other campers go to because they know there will be no judgement there.

Can we talk about how much the Aphrodite kids are a wasted/lost potential? How RR made them vain, vapid, mean and only useless pretty faces until Piper came?

Aphrodite was worshipped as a goddess of war in her own right. Give me children of Aphrodite who are as beautiful as they are deadly, they wield their beauty both as a shield and as a sword. Give me Aphrodite kids that are so deeply loving and loyal towards each other, willing to move mountains and brave the harshest storms to keep their loved ones safe. Give me cabin 10 members being the ones that other campers go to because they know there will be no judgement there.

Exactly! Your vision for them is amazing. Of course, if they had had a writer who actually cared about fleshing them out, they could have been amazing, but unfortunately, Rick is too much of a misogynist to think past 'pink, pretty clothes, concerned about looks' = 'vain, shallow, conceited'.

The fact that his main female characters are able to look good without trying is such a cliche. A girl who looks good because she takes care of herself and is concerned about her looks (though not to the point of vanity) is much more interesting than 'Effortless Without Trying'-which is present ad nauseam in 2000s YA literature.

A son of Aphrodite would be extremely interesting to read about. How would he deal with his feminine side when he was a boy? How would others have seen and treated him? We all talk about masculine girls and feeling uncomfortable in masculinity, but talking about a feminine boy and his feminity would have been so interesting, especially in the PJOverse where Aphrodite is seen as weak. How differently is he treated from his sisters? Do they expect him to be tougher or weak just like them? How does he feel about his heritage and his mother?

Wasted potential, though we have fanfiction, discussions and headcanons, so there's that.

(Piper is one of the characters I dislike in the books for all her internalized misogyny and the way she judged her siblings and cabinmates before even getting to know them properly).

I do think that it's unfair to dislike Piper for that because she was raised in Hollywood, where it would be easy to take on such a mindset and lose yourself in it. Besides, the girls that were bullying her (both at the Wilderness School and Drew Tanaka) were all pink and feminine, so it would be easy for her to dislike them and think that they were shallow and stupid.

I'll have to reread the Lost Hero to look at her arc and how it was handled, so I'll add my thoughts after this happens.

On an unrelated note, I wish that we had gotten Piper and Drew making up. The fact that two teenage girls of color fight over a white guy and presumably don't make up again is just so aggravating to me, because female solidarity and platonic relationships are absolutely wonderful to read about.

This is a treasure. I'm treasuring it. You've given me a treasure.

Messing with Elon Musk would probably be the best thing for Artemis Fowl. It would be a field day for him-Christmas like you said. If we take it a step further, Artemis could secretly mess with the entire Trump department because they're so incompetent rn. He'd be shaking his head in disbelief while internally laughing hard enough to cry.

IMAGINE WHAT THE FAIRY WORLD WOULD BE DOING LMAOOOOOOOOOOO

Your tags are so right honestly. This is the one time that the Fowl family would be back in crime-the funniest thing is that it's kind of an ethical crime, isn't it, which is an oxymoron-but it's still a crime.

Not to get political or anything, but is anyone else wondering how our beloved fictional characters would react to everything that's going in America and consequently the rest of the world right now?

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

Annabeth's gut punch isn't toxic or abusive per se, but in the larger context of their relationship, it's just another incident and showcase of her toxicity towards Percy.

I just want to say thanks for all of your anti percabeth takes. I never really shipped percabeth and I always felt sort of weird about them but I never realized why until I starting reading your posts. I think Rick is way better at setting up ideas and concepts of a relationships than he actually is at writing them. Like the idea of a Percabeth is great but the execution falls flat. There are so many non-canon Percy ships that have great potential and could be much better than canon Percabeth but this fandom is really against shipping non-canon ships (especially if it involves not shipping Percy and Annabeth)

Thank you! Yes, you are absolutely right-Percabeth's concept is amazing, but in the end, the result is honestly less than desirable. There are many moments between them that do not belong in a healthy couple, much less a golden standard one (though you couldn't make me call Percabeth the golden standard at gunpoint).

JASON AND JUNO AND UNREALISTIC WRITING

Ok, listen-

If there is one thing that is unrealistic about Juno and Jason in PJO, it's that she wanted him to be her champion.

That is one of the most unrealistic things about Hera/Juno. In reality, she would most likely kill Jason painlessly if he was lucky, or she'd kill him painfully if not, or she'd turn him into an animal or something.

She would not take him as a champion. It's explicitly stated that Hera sees her husband's mistresses and bastards as embarassments and threats to her status as Queen Consort. She wouldn't just take one and make him her champion and give her glory.

If we were talking about real Hera/Juno-she wouldn't let Jason survive at all.

Heracles was named after Hera to appease her and it did not work. His name literally meant 'Champion of Hera' and she still cursed him pretty badly. Jason being named after Hera's last champion, who was cast out of her good graces because he did not keep his word of marriage to Medea and offended her, was not going to help him. It was never going to help him.

There's nothing wrong with liking PJO Juno and PJO Jason, just wanted to say this.

HOW RICK PORTRAYED THE GREEK GODS AND WHY IT WAS SO IMPORTANT

So people are going to notice that a lot of my complaints aren't just in PJO but extend to media portraying Greek Myths in general. But I want to focus on Percy Jackson and not other media, so I'm going to focus on Percy Jackson and not other media.

Starting off.................

The way Rick portrayed the Greek Gods was important because PJO was the most read book series that heavily centered around Greek Mythology he pretty much destroyed their images at the time.

There's an entire anti Percy Jackson tag as well as an anti PJO tag for you to scroll through to see how Rick Riordan portrayal of the Greek Gods was terrible. Be my guest and treat yourself to it. Search it up.

There are also people like @alatismeni-theitsa, @margaretkart and @katerinaaqu to ask for correct information on Greek Mythology. So be their guest too.

Today, we have PJO fans running around having incorrect perceptions of the gods and flinging hate and abuse at the real Greek Gods while Greeks and Hellenistic Pagans have to suffer through all this bullshit.

The torture is REAL. Just ask them.

I mean, you have people claiming that they are the CHILDREN of VIRGIN GODDESSES.

Artemis, Athena, Hera and Hestia don't have any demigod children.

If you really want to, call yourself their chosen champion. Not their child. It's disrespectful to Greek culture and religion to do otherwise.

Rick Riordan read about and taught Greek Myths in school, so he must have read the actual versions of the myths.

And knowing these, he decided to twist them into his terrible, inferior, crappy versions.

That man literally wrote Hephaestus, a rapist, as a poor guy trying to get a girl, oh, he's so sad and pathetic, and Athena's such a mean bitch for not accepting his advances even if she doesn't want it!

I'm not joking.................and I don't have words for this. I just don't.

Riordan doesn't really have any tact, does he? None at all.

And no, Greek people and Hellenistic Pagans cannot get away from these horrible portrayals, because there are too many Percy Jackson fans clogging up the Greek God tags with their Rick Riordan written PJO versions of the gods, which is kind of terrible for the Hellenistics who just want to be able to read devotional things about their gods and other people who just want to read about real Greek Mythology, not Percy Jackson. And this happens in real life, too. I mean, people using PJO as a substitute for real Greek Mythology.

Pro tip for PJO tumblr users: if you're typing about a god, use the Greek God PJO tag, like PJO Apollo or PJO Aphrodite, not just Apollo or Aphrodite, ok? Thanks for reading this.

There are many common misconceptions about Greek Mythology due to Percy Jackson. So, if you're not sure about something, please search it up on verified academic websites or ask real people-you can do this online too.

Now I am aware that Rick has the creative license to portray Greek Gods however he wants-

but let us as educated people all be aware of the fact that we should not always take portrayals of the Greek Gods in modern media depicting them seriously and if you want to read up on the actual gods, then read the myths and the Odyssey, Iliad etc.

Now, to name another shockingly appalling writing choice-

In the very first book, WW2 is atrociously used as a plot point

Yes, that's right-Rick Riordan, beloved author of a bestselling franchise for children and adults alike, reduces WW2, one of the most bloody and complex conflicts in history with a multitude of a reasons for its existence, to a fight between fictional demigods of the Big Three simply to have a reason for the Big 3 not to have children.

Do you know how serious this is? Do you actually know how bad this is, though?

Millions of people even today are affected by the WW2 due to generational trauma and abusive parents. WW2 killed millions of soldiers and civilians alike, and the Holocaust was so horrible that some people would faint just reading about what happened.

I will not go into the bloody, gory details here, but if you still don't believe this, go search up WW2 and Holocaust torture and treatment of Jews and other minorities as well.

Jews today still have gaping holes in their family trees because of it. And to have Rick Riordan portray it in such a callous way, to make a literal Greek God sire war criminals in modern history, when there were other methods he could have used to intertwine the mythological world and demigods and history.........it makes you wonder what was running through his mind at the time.

There were so many other ways he could have portrayed the prophecy-make it so that Big 3 children were constantly causing natural disasters and fictional wars in the mythological world, not the real world, and constantly dividing the cabins at CHB. Maybe they had their own war parallel to WW2. There were so many ways to do this- and none of them had to do what was ultimately done.

PJO WWII IS THE ULTIMATE INSULT TO THE GREEKS

What makes this even WORSE is that during World War II, the Greeks were in fact part of the ALLIES.

The Allies were fighting against the Axis powers, the latter of which contained Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Japan.

When the Nazis invaded Greece-well, it's never a good thing for a country to be invaded by enemies during a time of war.

At least 250,000 people died during the Axis occupation and its Jewish community was pretty much killed off. And the country's economy and infrastructure were ruined quite horribly.

And generations of Greeks are traumatised because of this, even today. Not just Greeks-thousands of people. Millions of people all over the globe are still traumatized from this war, be it direct experience or generational trauma.

And to make ANCIENT GREEK GODS responsible for WWII is simply, totally and absolutely unforgivable on Rick Riordan's part.

To make the Greeks' enemies the sons of their ancient gods........no. Just no.

And yes, Hitler is a son of Hades in canon. Rick later changed it because of the backlash. He's absolutely disgusting.

WHY THE HELL ARE THE GREEK GODS IN AMERICA?

Now.........the Greek Gods are in the USA!

But..........they're Greek, right, which means that they should be in Greece! So why now are they in the USA?

Well.........here's Rick's explanation for it.

Apparently, the Greek Gods started with the fire of the Western Civilisation and then moved onto other places.

'Flame of the West' crap my ass. Search it up-there's this great article called the Whitening Thief. Read that.

What's meant by Chiron's explanation is that apparently Greece is too bad for Greek Gods now, which is terrible, because that's literally where they originated. And their explanation for leaving it and coming to America is extremely half-baked and just reeks of white American superiority.

@margaretkart

@alatismeni-theitsa

@katerinaaqu

These are all good blogs to disillusion yourself with Percy Jackson and learn about what really happened in Greek Mythology.

And I just want to say-Percy Jackson is an ok start for venturing into Greek Mythology as long as you've read up some basic background beforehand, but-

But-

Do NOT, under ANY circumstances whatsoever, take RICK RIORDAN'S portrayal of the Greek Gods as the REAL Greek Gods.

Never do that. That is the one thing that must not be done.

Hera doesn't just love perfect families. She literally lives in the most dysfunctional family to ever exist. And she loves you if you try. She really does.

Hades would not threaten to eternally torture literal children just because of what their parents did to him. His literal job is to uphold justice in the underworld, and sending a child to Tartarus just because her father angered him and he couldn't punish the father isn't justice now, is it?

Ares loves his children and as for why Rick made him hate them-

Rick has a hate boner against the war god, that I will swear on. Read this post and the explanation for why Rick shouldn't have done it.

And the gods are actively depicted as cruel, neglectful, abusive parents, when in the myths they are quite the opposite.

Real Aphrodite loves her son Aeneas and frequently comes to his aid on the battlefield. She also tells him to not marry a woman (TO GIVE UP LOVE, HER LITERAL DOMAIN) so that he can fulfil his destiny of becoming a king.

Real Ares loves all his children. He tries to avenge his son Cycnus when Heracles kills him with good reason for being a cruel tyrant-and they were even riding chariots together when Heracles came across them. He avenged his daughter even at the cost of being punished by Poseidon and Zeus, neither of whom liked him.

Now, what I want to tell you is that the PJO Greek Gods are Rick's interpretation of them.

An interpretation of a Greek God by a modern author (who isn't Greek, by the way, please take note) is not the same as the real Greek God. Please understand this and accordingly adjust your views.

This also goes for Madeline Miller, Rachel Smythe, etc.

And lastly, one of the most ironic things is that though Richard uses the Greek Gods in his books, he has never ever added a single Greek character in it.

I'm talking about a modern Greek demigod who comes from Greece. Imagine them teaching the other demigods Modern Greek and Greek culture, language and traditions!

It's very ironic that he includes Chinese, African and Native American culture in his works and then turns around and pretend that Greek culture doesn't exist.

The demigods are in Athens, but for how much time before they go back to America? Barely any at all. And nothing learnt about culture while they're there.

(No hate to his already shitty representation. I'm merely making a point that there should have been a Greek character in a book that heavily centers on Greek Gods and their children, even if it's in America.)

RICK DOESN'T USE GREEK CULTURE OR RELIGION AND IN FACT INSULTS GREECE IN HIS WORKS

So, if you've read the title, let me tell you something-

Do you know that Greek Gods are still worshipped?

Some of you do, some of you don't, but let me tell you, they are still worshipped.

And accordingly, you must respect them and their worshippers, just like you would do for Christians. You cannot maliciously ridicule and condemn Hellenistic Pagans and Greek Gods just because they are a minority.

And if you've read the myths and think that the Greek Gods being cruel......

They're not, actually. I mean, yes, you think they're cruel, but most of the myths aren't taken literally by Hellenistic Pagans.

What the Greek Gods do is supposed to be symbolic.

Hades kidnapping Persephone symbolises death ripping children from their grieving parents' arms. It's an explanation for the seasons and it finally represents the fact that daughters could be given away by their fathers with the mother having no say in it whatsoever.

Demeter's grief and her actually being able to do something about her daughter's marriage and Persephone being returned to her is supposed to be a comforting tale for grieving mothers who have lost their daughter.

Artemis' cruelty towards certain people? It represents the cruelty of nature towards humans and what it will do to humans if they provoke it.

Zeus' infidelity and abuse of his power? Well, it represents what kings do. Zeus represented the kings of Ancient Greece, and kings abused their power and had many mistresses besides having a wife.

Many Greek kings also claimed to sons of Zeus or descendants of the gods, so it the idea that Zeus had many affairs with ladies and princesses of royal lineages was conceived.

The link above provides many good reasons for why the Greeks wrote Zeus having many affairs with mortal women, so check it out.

Also, Zeus is symbolic of storms. Storms are volatile and raging, and so was Zeus at times. He was a god of storms and as such symbolised them.

Hera punishing the mistresses and children in a jealous rage to bother Zeus? That's what queens did back in the day since they couldn't directly punish their husbands.

Dionysus being charming and fun but also being mad and wild? Well, he represents breaking away from social norms and going fully wild. Also, wine can make people fun and charming, but at the same time, it can turn people into mad, raging creatures.

The point is, most of what the Greek Gods did was symbolic to their domains. And no, contrary to popular thought, Greeks did not live in fear of their Gods striking them down every moment. In fact, many of them genuinely devotionally loved their gods.

And Greek Gods themselves are very kind and benevolent to their devotees, even today, as long as you don't provoke or seriously insult them. Just ask Hellenistic Pagans and you'll be surprised at the results. I'm serious.

The problem here is that we're trying to moralize divinity.

According to the Greeks, gods weren't humans. They were modelled after humans, but they were above humans and human flaws.

And the Abrahamic gods do terrible things too, but do we mock them? No, we don't, because their worshippers say that they are above humans and human flaws, so similarly, the Greek Gods are above humans and our flaws.

CONCLUSION

And no one cares about the fact that a guy is objectifying and making money off a culture all the while removing its significance and turning it into a joke.

Even though Greeks have a millennia old and rich culture, people are always bastardizing it. Non-Greeks really must stop doing this. It's very culturally disrespectful.

I've also seen grown adults saying that the Greek Gods are American so they're allowed to do what they want with them now, and that's absolutely disgusting. It's cultural appropriation, that's what it is. Do not condone it.

Ah, sorry, not conclusion-let me add one last thing here.

Rick Riordan has a series called Trials of Apollo in which Apollo is cast down to Earth as a human for the third time to defeat Python.

What I want to talk about here is Apollo's human name-Lester Papadopoulos.

Papadopoulos is a common Greek Christian surname that means 'son of a priest'. One of Apollo's domains in prophecy and he has many priests, so maybe this is a reference to that.

But what is most upsetting is that this name is used for comedy.

It's belittled, laughed at and ridiculed for its longevity and hard pronunciation when it is in fact a very normal Greek surname. Even if it's not an American surname, even if it doesn't sound normal and sounds ridiculous to you, it's not ridiculous to others and you should respect it.

Can you imagine how Greek people with that last name read the books and felt bad about their last name? Or felt furious. I know that I would be FURIOUS if my last name was used like that.

And the fact is that Papadopoulos isn't even that hard to pronounce! It's literally just 5 syllables that you can repeat a few times until it doesn't twist your tongue.

And if you can't repeat this simple name, then you need to go back to kindergarten. Hell, go back to preschool even.

And there are people who have the audacity to say that the Greek Gods belong to America and are American. Grown adults, actually, on Twitter, no less. Tweeting it for the whole world to see their absolute foolishness and audacity.

They're pretty tactless, huh?

The Greek Gods were and always will be GREEK. Foreigners are not their rightful descendants-the Greeks are (Greek immigrants included). I mean...........this is bizzarre.

To conclude, (really conclude this time) though it's a series heavily entwined with Greek Gods, the only Greek thing about the series is the Gods. There's no Greek culture, religion or language, and even the Greek Gods are heavily Americanised, which is pretty disappointing. I hope that other authors will do better handling the Greek Gods than Rick Riordan.

(Side note: If you think anything I've said is wrong, tell me. I'll correct it immediately.)

@fandomloverangel