#context: first two episodes of the pjo series are our

[spritelysprites]

I know people are in hysterics right now over percy not liking annabeth immediately, being mad at grover, and yet immediately trusting luke. but I kind of love it. the people he trusts from the very start (luke!!) are the ones who will betray him, and the ones who take a little longer but prove that they can be trusted are the ones who stick with him. and his fatal flaw and most important value is loyalty. what happens with grover and percy now that grover burst in and told him the truth, probably landing himself in trouble? what happens when annabeth finds a way to do the same later? I'm so excited

[seaweedbrain-wisegirl-andasatyr]

What a Live-Action Tartarus would look like: or, the complexities of Cosmic Horror in Middle Grade Fiction

I've always been really interested in film- it's my dream to work in this field in the future. So of course with news of an adaptation of this series so close on the horizon, of course I had to think about how, if for some absurd reason, I was personally hired to direct/design an episode, how some of my favorite scenes in this series would they look in live action form.

Some context: This is after Percy and Annabeth's fall in Tartarus. I think the scenery of this place is very interesting, yet extremely complicated to replicate in live action form. Tartarus, at least Rick's version of Tartarus, is horrifying when you think too hard about it, especially in a middle grade fiction series where characters can't even say the word "dam" properly, and monsters dissolve in a dust of sand. I think Tartarus is very similar to Lovecraftian horror. It's like, the idea that something is so terrifying that a human mind can’t even perceive it. You can't accept it because it's just too horrifying. You can’t even describe it because there are no words for it or things to compare it to in our world.

I made some personal rules for myself. Firstly, I think obvert violence thrown in your face is overrated. Any PJO or HoO series would be rated PG, at most, PG-13. Using these guidelines, I tried to construct a version of Tartarus that isn't fueled on gore or blood, but more this dark, deep nothingness.You know how, in many YA movies/tv shows, especially those trying too hard to be "edgy", we always make fun of how dimly lit the scenes are? Well, these scenes in Tartarus should, for once, actually be like that- so dark it almost makes our(as an audience) eyes hurt. Everything around our main characters are dark and hazy. Fog swims around them.

But we don't see much of this environment, no matter how dark it is. Everything is filmed so up close, the camera sticking so close to the characters it's uncomfortable. We are stuck with Percy and Annabeth in this huge, intangebly huge space. Two small ants in this great, unescapable landscape. Have y'all watched Stranger Things? you know that strangely filmed darkness we see when Eleven goes into the upside down? Tartarus should be filmed very similar to that. Everything except for Annabeth and Percy should be engulfed in black, pure darkness all around, when the two first enter this place. It's only when Annabeth and Percy stay too long, finally perceive this landscape for what it is, the body of Tarturas himself, that we as an audience sees this too. It's not abrupt or sudden. It's a gradual, uncomfortable recognization. The music that has always been in the background gets a little louder, pounding a little too similar to the beat of a human heart. We hear wet, sloshing, horrible sounds every time Percy puts his foot down. Dark liquid and goop drips from all around, and the camera stays just a little bit longer on these elements. The darkness slowly lifts, just a bit.

The Arai curses fight scene is, for me personally, the scariest scene in everything Rick wrote. It's utterly horrifying to think too long about. Again, I don't think it needs to be overtly graphic or visual.When you really think about it, there is so much death and killing in every one of the PJO and HoO books. But this sort of murder is made child-friendly in every way- monsters resolve into dust only to be reborn, death is written off in a few paragraphs, kids get shoot, cut, burned, maned, and we just ignore it. This scene really brings us to the reality that these monsters are still beings, about the sheer numbers of monsters just Percy and Annabeth themselves have brought to death. In a live-action adaption, this realization and horror should be replicated.

(more under read more ↓↓↓↓↓↓) 

At first, we think this is just a normal fight. Percy and Annabeth have went through plenty of those already- this is HoH, by now the audience has watched 12 year old Percy fight a god, 15 year old Percy become almost invincible- a little run-in with some winged monsters is just another Tuesday. The music increases, but it's still just regular, action-movie fight scene music (behind it is a heavy dropping beat. Again, just like a heartbeat. Is it Percy's heartbeat? Is it Tartarus's heartbeat? we can't tell). But as soon as Percy takes that first swing, we know something is wrong. think this scene would be interesting if the camera switches jarringly from Annabeth's pespective to Percy's. When Annabeth strikes down the arai that curses her with blindness, we are suddenly plunged into darkness too. Sudden, startling darkness. It is quiet, too. too quiet. We are engulfed in pure nothingness. It's so sudden and holds out for so long that the audience must think something is wrong. They get uncomfortable, squirming in their seats. Is their tv broken? Did they accidentally click mute? We see dim flashes of light, waving like somebody stumbling around in the dark, with a dim flashlight,but they are too gone so suddenly.

The camera swings, and now we see this scene from Percy's perspective, but everything is all wrong. The music is not this dramatic, action music we are use to, but instead, while the beat is the same as before, we are only left with this uncomfortable, startling heartbeat. It goes: dun, dun, dun. Percy is in pain: you know when you're in so much pain everything is fuzzy at the edges and you don't know if what you're percieving is real or just a halluciation? This scene is that feeling times a thousand. The techincal term is called a dolly zoom, but more casually a "Vertigo shot" the camera pulls back sudden at the same time it zooms in. It is often used by Hitchcock, espeically in the movie Jaws. You can google it, but what we get is this effect where the subject (Percy, here) not quite moving, but the background shifting around him so quickly it almost gives you motion sickness. The camera then spins jarringly around him, again, so quickly it's dizzying. we don't get to see too much. There are so many of these creatures, coming from all sides. It's too much. Behind this still pumping heartbeat, there is RINGING. God, so much ringing, in your ear. Because of all this action happening on screen, again it takes the audience a moment to even perceive this sound. But when they perceive it, they can't unheard it. it's so loud, it comes from everywhere, it's getting higher in pitch, it's uncomfortable, you're about to throw up, yet just like Percy you're pinned to the spot, unsure what to do, as everything goes out of your control.

Olf. That was a long one. But for a little TL;DR, undershowing is often scarier. There is a quote, I'm not too sure where it first came from since it sounds much too smart for me to think up myself, but to paraphrase, it goes something like: "The scariest thing in the world is what our imaginations can conjure up." Here's a simpler one for you:  "The most frightening monsters are the ones that exist in our minds." I've had the personally experience of laying awake too many nights, stuck in a mind loop, scaring myself half to death with my own thoughts. Let me repeat this again: A story, even a horror one, doesn't need excessive blood, guts and sexy stuff thrown at it to make it dark and horrifying. A lot of this post was inspired by talking with a lot of fellow PJO fans, you know who you are :), while also being influenced by this great video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OTO7Rqln9Q. It talks about the complexities of writing comic horror. I highly recommend watching it. Also, for a few examples of this kind of horror done well, I recommend Birdbox, and also, strangely the ending fight of Spiderman Far From Home. I won't spoil it, but it was a very well directed scene that really made me feel jarred and uncomfortable as I watched it. I've also heard The Thing is good at this, but I really do scare myself too much, and can't watch truly scary horror movies without freaking myself out. Anyway, if you've made it this far, I hope you all have a nice day/ night and comment if you want me to write out any other scenes from PJO or any Rick books. Film, whether that's in screenwriting/cinematography/set/costume design, or, most of all directing, is both my dream and plan, so this is good practice.