celestial-bronze-pen-vibes

[celestial-bronze-pen-vibes]

LOVE LOVE LOVE i barely even remember helping w these omg 😭

The Jacksons on Christmas

They make Christmas decorations and string them around the house (instead of going out and buying décor)

Gingerbread houses and decorating gingerbread people-

gingerbread house competitions are always intense

intense snowman building competitions as well- when they have kids they separate into teams and it’s like war

snowball fights! except percy cheats with his water abilities and annabeth just rolls her eyes, winning every time anyways

They, of course, watch tons of Christmas movies with popcorn and candy

they go to sally and pauls house- paul dresses up as santa for estelle and percabeths kids

waffles every christmas morning

Their tree is definitely not one of those white lights/ themed trees but instead is colorful lights with homemade ornaments

Blue christmas cookies (how could I not include it)

They go to chb after they open gifts, bringing left over treats and just to visit (and the food is great)

Annabeth makes sweaters for them all every year and they wear them to chb and the blofis house

every christmas eve annabeth and percy let their kids open one gift- it’s ALWAYS pajamas

i saw a theory once that percy plays the piano to help deal with tartarus?- him playing christmas songs on the piano while one of his kids sings (i just know one of their kids has some siren voice or whatever)

they definitely sponsor kids/ buy gifts/ donate for kids in need, as both annabeth and percy know what it’s like to struggle

percy bakes SO MUCH during the holiday season- cakes, cookies, homemade candies— annabeth saying “i won’t be able to run from monsters” every time she samples something and percy just laughing

i actually loved making these omg

gracias for the help @celestial-bronze-pen-vibes

[celestial-bronze-pen-vibes]

spitting facts

hi so basically the whole fandom agrees that Percy would never drink. but i don’t think i’ve ever seen anyone talk about how jason wouldn’t either. like his mom, correct me if i’m wrong, died while driving under influence and i just can’t imagine jason drinking without thinking about that. he’s also just a really level headed guy so the thought of him drunk just doesn’t sit right with me

[celestial-bronze-pen-vibes]

Rating Nicknames - Part 3

RARA (Reyna): ????/10, ?????? does anyone actually call her that??? They would get killed immediately. Maybe Nico. 

Repair Boy (Leo): 4/10, yeah it’s cute. Don’t like how it implies that that’s Leo’s only purpose. It has an OK ring to it, but it could be better. Call me picky all you want.

Pipes (Piper): 11/10, the most perfect nickname ever, I adore the nickname and Piper, it’s cute, it’s funny, it fits her personality, it has so much flavor, and it rolls off the tongue so easily. The best.

Aquaman (Percy): 5/10, creative but not the best. My mind yo-yos between the comic aquaman and the movie one with Jason Momoa and it confuses me. Still pretty funny tho uwu

G-man (Grover): 4/10, HOW IS THIS A CANON NICKNAME, I- i’m so sorry percy but this nickname is just so WEIRD. Would be 2/10 but got an extra two points because it’s just so in character for percy and so out of character for Grover. Also it makes me laugh everytime.

Beauty Queen (Piper): 3/10, it’s not super fantastic. I know it’s used jokingly but I don’t really like how it kind of reduces Piper’s character to just being obsessed with looks because we know that that’s the opposite of her character (yes I’m a Piper stan, no I’m not changing my mind. Piper haters can leave). So yeah that’s about it. It also is low key kinda hard to say for a nickname-

[celestial-bronze-pen-vibes]

Rating Nicknames Part 2

Alrighty buckaroos heres part two (thanks for the notes on part 1!! wasn’t expecting that from my first post ngl) Sunshine (Will): 9/10, for Nico’s use only. I love how it shows the affection shown from Nico to Will, and it definitely matches the son of the sun vibe for Will. Lost a point because there’s definitely more to Will Solace than just uwu Nico’s boyfriend

McShizzles (Leo): 5/10, yes, it’s funny. Not very practical nickname, however, so it lost a few points for that. Definitely makes sense for Leo, though. It’s also self given so yeah. 

Seaweed Brain (Percy): 8/10, ONLY for Annabeth’s use. If anyone else uses it, automatic 1/10. It’s only 8/10 because I don’t really like the connotations of it, but don’t @ me.

Thals (Thalia): 10/10, EXCELLENT nickname, it rolls of the tongue easily, it makes sense, it’s cutesy and teasing while still maintaining the more aggressive nature of Thalia Grace. I like it.

Anna (Annabeth): 4/10, doesn’t feel right. Annabeth doesn’t feel like she would go by Anna, it just doesn’t really make sense for her. Again, not super amazing but it could be worse.

Beth (Annabeth): 6/10, it’s better than Anna, but again, Annabeth doesn’t seem like a nickname kinda gal (unless it’s from Percy).

[celestial-bronze-pen-vibes]

spitting facts i see. if they were to name their son after anyone it would be someone like Bob or Damasen or Grover y’all. stop saying they would name him Luke or Ethan sldfkjsdlfsk

I've seen a bunch of headcanons about how Percy and Annabeth's son would be named Luke Jackson, and let me tell you why this would never happen. First of all, why would they name their son after someone who tried to kill them COUNTLESS TIMES over three years. To name a few incidents, Luke tried to kill Percy with a pit scorpion, he made Annabeth hold the sky, he fought Percy like a milliom times, he held a dagger to Annabeth's neck, etc. Secondly, why would Percy want his son to be named after the pedophile that had a crush on Annabeth. THAT'S WEIRD. Lastly, there are like a gazillion baby boy names out there, so why choose "Luke". If they want to honor his memory or something, they can celebrate his birthday, or try to help other misguided demigods, or send freaking lanterns into the sky to remember him. In no universe would Percy and Annabeth name their son Luke.

[celestial-bronze-pen-vibes]

WHYD YOU DO MY MAN LEO LIKE THAT

piper: okay Leo i want you to look in the mirror and tell me what looks best

leo: i have a great personality-

[celestial-bronze-pen-vibes]

Rating Nicknames-Part 1

Alright folks, I’ll be rating nicknames in the CHB Chronicles, both canon and fan-given. 

These are all in no specific order I’m just going with the flow.

Jay (Jason): 3/10, I don’t really know why but this makes me so uncomfy. It’s a perfectly fine nickname, it just doesn’t fit him very well. 

Perce (Percy): 7.5/10, it makes sense, it’s simple. Not horrible but not super amazing. 

Wise Girl (Annabeth): 7/10, it’s an OK nickname, but should be reserved for people close to Annabeth. It’s cute, but it’s not perfect. Doesn’t have the right ring to it. 

Neeks (Nico): 9/10, very nice, very cute, even better when Will says it. It definitely shows the softer side to him while still preserving his personality. I like it. 

Babyman (Frank): -100/10, very bad, we don’t bodyshame in this household. Do not call Frank Babyman or I’ll steal all of your legumes. 

[celestial-bronze-pen-vibes]

OML YES. I've always been salty about this and honestly the HoO series just makes me so frustrated sometimes. It had so much potential but I feel like Rick just threw it away.

Percy Jackson & The Curse of Achilles

Namely, why it isn’t talked about enough, and why it should not have been dismissed so easily.

Firstly, some reminders on what the curse of Achilles actually is, and why it’s such a big deal:

You get the curse of Achilles by bathing in the River Styx. The River Styx forms the boundary between the Underworld and the Earth. In Greek mythology, it symbolizes the passage of life to death. Swearing on it is the highest form of an oath that you can make in Greek mythology, partly because the goddess Styx sided with the gods during the Titan War and it was how they honored her for that, but mostly because you don’t mess with the buffer between life and death.

The River Styx sucks your soul out of your body. If you drown in the River Styx, your soul ceases to exist. Since the Styx is between life and death, if you drown in it, you get trapped between life and the afterlife, which, in Greek mythology, is a zone that souls can’t exist between.

But, if you can survive the River of Styx trying to rip your soul out, then you get a reward: invincibility… or, at least, conditional invincibility.

You need one spot on your body to remain vulnerable, because that’s where your mortality, otherwise known as your soul, is anchored. True invincibility is considered a form of immortality, because humans die in one of two ways: aging (which, for this purpose, includes illness), or they get injured. So if you can’t get injured, you’re partially immortal. And, in Greek mythology, immortals don’t have souls. So, if you want to avoid losing your soul in the river, then you need to anchor it to a spot on your body.

In the Last Olympian, Achilles explains this to Percy: “Hero, if you must do this, concentrate on your mortal point. Imagine one spot of your body that will remain vulnerable. This is the point where your soul will anchor your body to the world. It will be your greatest weakness, but also your only hope. No man may be completely invulnerable. Lose sight of what keeps you mortal, and the River Styx will burn you to ashes. You will cease to exist.”

The point is, essentially, no man can be completely invulnerable because then he isn’t really a man anymore. And, since there are divine rules about achieving immortality, you aren’t allowed to obtain it without the gods’ consent. That’s actually a huge part of the Achilles story: the reason his mother dipped him in the Styx in the first place is because she was trying to make him a god, but she wasn’t allowed to do that, so the heel remained vulnerable.

The problem is, there’s only one vulnerable spot. Other than that, you are completely invincible. So, if you lose sight of that one mortal point, you become arrogant, and begin to behave as an immortal, because, for the most part, you kind of are.

Think about it. You act more recklessly if you know you’ll come out unscathed, but without risk factor, life quickly becomes mundane. That’s why the immortals are so bitter. There’s a quote that Achilles says in Troy: “The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed.” And the reason why he says this quote is because he sympathizes with how the gods feel, and he understands this concept on a personal level. Because he’s fought battles his whole life, watching his comrades and enemies die, and he always, always comes out fine, because he cannot be killed.

The myth of Achilles is commonly told as a cautionary tale: don’t lose sight of your weaknesses, or they’ll be your downfall. And Achilles did lose sight of his mortality… because it’s incredibly easy to do. And this is what he tries so desperately to warn Luke and Percy of before they decide to take the curse. That’s why his warning is so significant: he lost touch with his own mortality, and it cost him his life.

Taking on the curse of Achilles is a radically life altering event, which is reinforced by Hestia, Chiron, Nico, and Achilles himself. Because not only is the process of bathing in the Styx incredibly dangerous, but because bearing the curse totally changes the way you fight, think, and view the world. By taking the curse, you’re right on the edge of immortality, which can cause recklessness, arrogance, and even boredom, since you cannot die in battle.

The curse of Achilles has a lot more to do with immortality than it does invulnerability. Last Olympian makes a lot more sense when you look at it in this light. The reason Luke needed to bathe in the Styx before hosting Kronos is because Kronos cannot be contained in a mortal body. And the reason Percy needs to bathe in the Styx is because he can’t fight an immortal in a mortal body. The curse of Achilles kind of gets treated like a wicked edge in battle, but it’s a lot more complex and important than that. Now, the theme of immortality is hugely, insanely relevant in Last Olympian. As is the concept of learning to yield. That’s the entire point of the book.

And we see that the pull of immortality has an effect on Percy. He is a very humble person (and very prone to self-loathing and insecurity, which is not the same thing, but it definitely prevents him from getting a big head), which is probably the only reason that he doesn’t immediately become arrogant. And even Percy has some less-than-humble moments, although they are fleeting: laughing while he fights the army on the Williamsburg Bridge, and being tempted to wipe out the whole army on the bridge, even though he knows he should pull back. He literally almost dies on the bridge, because he’s already lost track of his mortal point (and also because he didn’t have time to get armor and was literally fighting in jeans and a t-shirt, but).

There’s also a very interesting moment in Last Olympian when Percy is thinking about the hopelessness of the war, and suddenly feels strange about bearing the curse: “There was hardly a single demigod who hadn’t already been wounded… except me.”

The curse is shown to have an impact on Percy and Annabeth’s relationship, because there are a few moments where Annabeth finds that… she really can’t keep up with him anymore. This comes up on the Williamsburg Bridge, when he tells her to help the Apollo cabin set traps while he holds off the army. It also comes up before Percy goes to visit the East and Hudson river gods, while Annabeth sits on shore twiddling her thumbs, and is far from happy about it.

Of course, Percy still desperately needs Annabeth, maybe more than ever. She’s his anchor, after all. It’s not a coincidence that Annabeth is Percy’s anchor to the mortal world and she’s also the one to take the knife that would have killed him. She’s his anchor for precisely that reason. He relies on her to keep him grounded, and keep him in check (he does the same for her, which is why their relationship works).

The really interesting component to Last Olympian, which was an excellent touch, is that even though Percy is more powerful than ever, in the end, the most important thing he does is step back when necessary. This is the significance of Rachel’s, “Perseus, you are not the hero,” prophecy. This is also what Hestia teaches Percy, particularly when she says, “Not all powers are spectacular. Sometimes the hardest power to master is the power of yielding.” In the end, it doesn’t come down to a grand, spectacular fight, but instead, to a single moment, when Percy hands Luke the knife.

The book also really hones in on how to use power responsibly. Percy challenges three separate gods to help defeat Kronos: Leneus, Poseidon, and Hades, all of whom wanted to focus on their own realm. And all three of them join the fight. Percy also challenges the gods to treat their children better, which we see realized in the oath.

Immortality comes up again in the end, however: because Percy is asked to become a god. And he turns it down, because that’s not what Percy wants. It’s why he’s the best suited to bearing the curse of Achilles, because he’s the least likely to be tempted to lose touch with his mortality.

The real key is that Percy doesn’t want to be immortal, but he almost is. Percy just wants to be normal, and now he never can be. It shows just how much he’s willing to sacrifice for this world, and, more specifically, for the people he loves. Percy is actually afraid of taking the curse; he calls Nico’s idea scary, and puts it off for an entire year, because he doesn’t like it. He does end up taking the curse, but not because he’s thirsty for power, but because, “I have to. Otherwise, I don’t stand a chance.” He’s willing to sacrifice a part of his own mortality to keep these people safe, despite the fact that his highest ambition in life is to be a normal man.

Sacrificing part of your mortality isn’t something that can just be undone. It’s a seriously intense decision, and that’s why Achilles personally comes to issue a warning. Because it’s life-altering, and could potentially end in disaster. So although Percy doesn’t want it, he needs to live with it now. He needs to learn how to live with it, because that’s how life works.

Except, Percy doesn’t have to learn to live with it, because he gets it conveniently removed a few months later. This is by far the most ridiculous part of Son of Neptune, and represents a major fall out of series-to-series continuity.

Curse of Achilles in Last Olympian: radical, life-altering, dangerous, costs you part of your mortal life.

Curse of Achilles in Son of Neptune: oh, that old Greek blessing? The Tiber will wash away, no biggie.

If you go straight from Last Olympian to Son of Neptune, you can see that this is some seriously ridiculous bullshit. I mean, just think about it from an analytical perspective. Seriously, are we supposed to believe that had Achilles himself walked across the Tiber, he, too, would have lost his invulnerability? The curse of Achilles doesn’t come with a warranty. It’s a life deal. It costs you a piece of your mortality. That’s not something that can be overlooked. Does the Tiber have powers to restore your mortal soul back into your physical body? Does the Tiber have the power to remove your physical anchor to the mortal world? How does that even make sense? It’s literally explained that you can’t hold onto the curse because the Tiber is Roman, and the curse is Greek, and…. and why in the world should that be true? It’s not true about anything else. It makes no sense. It’s not even explained.

The loss of the curse isn’t explored at all. Percy doesn’t even think about it once it’s gone. It never comes up again.

You’d think that Percy would care more? He hasn’t been injured in months? He’s been fighting with it for months? His fighting style adapted, and now he has to quickly figure out a way to revert to his old style, because, oh, yeah, now he bleeds and gets broken bones and bruises. If you can’t be injured, then your fighting style would be all offense, simply because it makes sense. Now, suddenly, he’s back on the defensive. Except there’s no learning curve, there’s no mention of this process at all.

Does Annabeth even know? I mean, she was upset that the gray hair was fading because she felt like she lost a symbolic bond. Imagine how much more of an impact the loss of the curse would have. She was his anchor to the mortal world, and he trusted her with his only weakness, and then it’s just taken away, and they don’t even discuss it. She’d also have to adapt too, because I’m sure she was a lot less worried about him when she knew he couldn’t be injured. I bet they fought back to back more, so she could defend his only undefended side. I bet she’d started to work it to her advantage, because it’s a massive fucking advantage and you’d be stupid not to utilize it. But again, no learning curve, no compensation for this at all.

Most significantly, though: there was absolutely no reason to remove the curse.

The only, the only, reason I can conceive of to remove the curse is so that Percy would have less of a wicked advantage over the rest of the seven. Namely, Jason.

It essentially boils down to, oops, I accidentally made my main character way too powerful, and now I need to think of a very convenient way to take this power away, and then not explain it!

It’s called Diabolus ex Machina: the introduction of an unexpected new event, character, ability, or object designed to ensure that things suddenly get much worse for the protagonists, much better for the villains, or both. (this happens a lot in Heroes of Olympus, but it would take me far too long to get into it here).

Ironically, the removal in Son of Neptune also makes the curse seem like a Deus ex Machina solution in Last Olympian. Deus ex Machina is when some new event, character, ability, or object solves a seemingly unsolvable problem in a sudden, unexpected way. Now, the curse in Last Olympian was handled really well, but since it was removed after it had served its purpose, it essentially turns into a shiny new ability that has no lasting impact on the characters or the plotline.

If you’re gonna give a character an ability like that, then you have got to go all out. If you take it away for convenience, you’re cheapening the storyline, and cheapening the character. There need to be repercussions from such a monumental decision, or you’ve lost all sense of continuity. There is a way to take power away, but this isn’t it.

The most hysterical part of this whole mess, and by hysterical I mean fucking infuriating, is that Percy doesn’t even get injured in a way that the curse of Achilles would have protected him from. He gets poisoned, suffocated, and restrained, all of which were perfectly viable options while the curse was still in place. The only significant time he draws blood is a fucking nosebleed, and even that could still have been done with the curse of Achilles in effect. (Frankly, though, there’s absolutely no reason that Percy’s blood has to be the one to wake Gaea, and I think it’s ludicrous that Annabeth is the only one who got wounded in that battle. It’s also never explained why Percy and Annabeth’s blood would be “preferable” to wake the goddess, so that whole scene is fucking bullshit to begin with.)

But, truly, the most ironic part is that the series would have been so much better if the curse was left in place.

Listen up: I think it’s generally agreed upon that Percy’s character was dumped on in Heroes of Olympus, in order to make the other characters (namely Jason and Leo) shine brighter by comparison (if you’re unfamiliar with that, there’s a little bit about it here, here, and here).

Short version is that Percy is given a bunch of new issues that he doesn’t really have (his weird Alpha Male personality switch in Mark of Athena that is wildly out of character for him), or, has skeletons pulled out of his closet (everything in Tartarus basically) and then conveniently shoved back in the closet to focus on the other characters. The problem is Percy had already grown up and undergone well-handled character development in PJO, and so what essentially happened is that fake development was forced by creating new issues (you can read a really good example of that here).

But if the curse of Achilles would have remained present, that wouldn’t have happened. Because that was the one loose end of PJO: Percy really didn’t have the curse long enough to fully understand it by the time the book ended. So, since he didn’t get that chance in PJO, that would have been the perfect thing to explore in HOO. But it’s not explored.

Can you imagine how much more intense everything would have been with the curse of Achilles? The scene with Jason in Kansas would have escalated that much more (did i mention that the only reason the curse was removed was so this scene could happen), and Percy would have been that much more unsettled over who the winner would have been (if we ignore the fact that this alpha male thing is massively ooc for him).

Imagine how insanely heartbreaking and intense the scene with the Arai would have been, since it had been so long since Percy felt pain. Imagine how much more disturbing it would have been, and how much more distressed Annabeth would have been.

The Romans would have feared him that much more, giving even more opportunity for Percy to feel like an outcast

Imagine Percy’s guilt when the rest of the seven keep getting injured and he is always fine??????

Percy would have had to deal with the concept that even though it seems like a blessing sometimes, it really is a curse, because he can never get back to the way he was. Fully coming to understanding, and eventually acceptance, of the curse could have been an incredible plotline.

Percy’s struggle for acceptance and normalcy is the most significant area that requires development, and keeping the curse would have been an incredible way to explore that.

I shed a tear for its potential. Someone write me an au, pretty please.

[celestial-bronze-pen-vibes]

Yes, yes we can. I will personally fight fatphobes and Rick

Can we just let Frank and Clarisse be fat and strong?

[celestial-bronze-pen-vibes]

Why did this make me cry

Hey, can you do headcannons of some of the underrated friendships. I love the ships and couple but I feel like sometimes the fandom forgets the friendships. Thank you!

I’m not sure if I know all the friendships you’re talking about but I’ll try my best

Percy and Grover:

Whenever Percy or Grover are traveling they stay in contact using their empathy link, sometimes Percy will just sing the same song over and over again in his head or think about an aluminum can in great detail for a long time to annoy him

Percy attends Grover’s council meetings as his hype man, he loudly supports everything he says and gets Juniper to cheer with him every time Grover makes a decision

Percy and Charlie:

They bond while they take care of Mrs. O’Leary, they take her on walks around the city and talk about Silena and Annabeth

Beckendorf thinks it’s so funny that Percy doesn’t realize he’s in love with Annabeth but never teases him about it because he understands how that feels

Percy and Clarisse:

They still pretend they hate each other of course, but they can sometimes be spotted giving relationship advice to each other and talking about various things

Clarisse is one of the only people that Percy genuinely enjoys sparring with because she sort of provides a challenge and her trash talk is so good

Annabeth and Thalia:

Just like Thalia takes Percy out for cheeseburgers, she and Annabeth go to feminist lectures and then spend the afternoon talking about them

Thalia is the only one Annabeth consults when she’s redesigning Olympus, they went up there a lot and walked around while she was planning

Annabeth and Piper:

Rick mentioned they have an inside joke about stealing each other’s breakfast, I like to imagine that on Piper’s first real day at camp, Annabeth walked up to her holding her own plate of food and Piper, who didn’t know how things worked and was so used to people getting stuff for her, just took it out of Annabeth’s hands assuming it was for her and walked away. Annabeth took her food the next day and it just went on and on

Piper and Leo:

They love pulling pranks on people, but it’s kind of a Nick/Winston situation (New Girl) where Piper pulls perfect subtle pranks that take a ton of effort (like carving out the soles of Jason’s left shoes so he stands unevenly and doesn’t understand why he’s uncomfortable) and Leo either goes way too little (like putting sand next to someone’s foot) or goes way too large (like convincing someone they’ve been evicted and actually letting them move out

They binge Criminal Minds together, they’ve spent whole days in Bunker 9 eating junk food and watching it

Magnus and TJ:

Magnus likes taking TJ into Midgard because he finds his interactions with mortals to be so funny

Magnus shows TJ the movie Glory (movie about the 54th Infantry with Cary Elwes I was forced to watch in US History) and TJ spends the whole time crying because he and his friends really had been remembered as an important part of history

TJ, Mallory, and Halfborn:

Keep in mind they’d been friends for hundred of years before Magnus came along, at that point they knew each other ridiculously well, they were so well-versed in each other’s fighting styles they won war games several times just the three of them (twice with X)

When they go out on donut runs TJ always gets glazed, Mallory gets strawberry icing with sprinkles, and Halfborn gets whatever the holiday donut is at the time. They could go on their own but they like going together (sometimes they go out of their way to get mugged so they can fight people)

Alex and Amir:

Alex goes and hangs with Amir a lot, he likes to tease Amir about Sam but he always volunteers to chaperone their dates because he wants them to be happy

Amir gives Alex free falafel whenever she wants it, and in turn she makes him a ton of pottery that he uses to decorate the shop

Carter and Walt:

They like to play basketball together, neither of them are very good (although Walt is slightly better) so they only play when Sadie isn’t around so they don’t get made fun of

Walt likes going to museums with Carter and sometimes he freaks Carter out when Anubis informs him that there’s a spirit standing right next to him

Sadie, Liz, and Emma:

After they defeat Apophis, Sadie goes back to London and gives Liz and Emma thorough explanations (and tells them all about her new boyfriend)

Sadie visits them at least once a month and they do normal things, like go to the movies or get their nails done, although once or twice Sadie may have taken them trough portals to go to places like Rome or Brazil just for fun

[celestial-bronze-pen-vibes]

OH NO OH NO OH NO SHIT

anyway since chris mccarrell is playing percy and was the last bway marius, have you thought about percy singing empty chairs at empty tables after the titan war

[celestial-bronze-pen-vibes]

No that's illegal you can't do that to me-

MERRY CHRISTMAS take this series of PJO angst that I did over the last week

[ nico di angelo, luke castellan, hazel levesque, percabeth, leo valdez, will solace ]

[celestial-bronze-pen-vibes]

They're right

if you’re still confused on the difference between camp jupiter and camp half-blood

chb: 😹

cj: 😂

that is all