#crit answers

[helyeahmangocheese]

do you think jason grace ever thinks about how new rome and, as an extension of it, the empire of the US perpetuates the same power imbalances/power hoarding and inequity that the old Roman Empire did and do you think he ever gets angry about how he was raised in that system to the extent that it is impossible to look at Neo-Classical New England buildings without his blood boiling? do you think he and annabeth share haunting feelings about the architecture of government buildings that were designed to emulate temples for gods that are just as fucked up and selfish as humans with too much power and control can be? does it give them chills, knowing the founding fathers were demigods, and that history is a cycle?

[ruegarding]

Wait what's the tea on Wotg makin' Percabeth even worse? /gen /nf

tldr; rick is continuing his trend of having annabeth imply that she thinks her bf is stupid (u can see what i mean by trend here). this is coupled w a lot of ableism: acting like percy is too stupid to function and removing annabeth's disabilities so she can be a girl boss while refusing to address their mental health. this is supposed to make percabeth look cute, somehow, but instead comes off as mean-spirited at best.

first, to establish context, percy's incredibly overworked,

(he's also on the swim team) and bc of this percy is falling asleep in class and waking up in a panic. this is never addressed seriously despite being a series abt disability. as if that wasn't enough, percy also is never shown to enjoy any of his classes and is frequently written to be stuggling w his grades, just in case u forgot he was stupid (he also is written w the ableist stereotype of being lazy abt school work, too, instead of, you know, disabled). his main motivation is that annabeth will be successful with or without him so he better not be a stupid failure.

completely ignoring percy was the one who wanted to go to nru. also, zero mentions for the accommodation percy is receiving for his disabilities (nor annabeth's, but she's written like they don't exist so).

and then percy says that annabeth's friend, hana, doesn't like him bc she doesn't think he's good enough for annabeth, going on to think yeah that's fair. this is never addressed bc it's supposed to be a cute percabeth and #girl boss annabeth moment. then percy makes a joke (?) that annabeth's friends are gossiping abt how annabeth can stand to date him when he's too stupid to understand architecture when percabeth walks away to talk. this is not a percabeth win and i'm genuinely not sure how anyone on rick's team thought it was.

then there's this:

just in case u forgot, percy is the stupid one and annabeth is the smart one. teehee.

and, in relation to ignoring their mental health, annabeth talks abt putting spider webs all over hecate's mansion (bc she wants to make a haunted house), which rick says is ok bc it's not spiders. except part of annabeth's huge traumatic fight w arachne was being covered in spiderwebs that literally pulled her into tartarus. so. weird plotline. similarly, percy has a bit abt having nightmares abt cereberus, which is equally stupid. i talked abt it here. not necessarily percabeth but worth mentioning for context. oh, and percy also bodily-fluid-bends later in the book w no comment except annabeth's shocked expression. correction: while percy does bodily-fluid-bend w no fanfare, annabeth is not there. percy poison-bends in front of annabeth w no comment.

rick then keeps poking fun at how percy and annabeth would make great parents. which. they're seventeen. btw. but yeah anyway percy would make a great dad bc he's got the funny dad jokes (bc he's stupid. haha get it). annabeth would make a great mom bc she's soooooo nurturing what w taking care of a puppy who decides to call her mom and taking care of her stupid idiot useless boyfriend. i wish this was a joke. more on this later.

the line "[annabeth] looked surprised—me comforting her, kind of switching things up" is self explanatory and written specifically to piss me off.

this passage,

which sucks for many reasons, but especially bc this is rick trying to rewrite book canon w show canon despite very easy ways to include this without acting like percy is an idiot who just didn't notice for the past THREE BOOK SERIES (like a war that took place recently where chiron was injured idk just an idea). instead, percy has to take the fall for rick's error and annabeth has to act like her bf is the stupidest person on earth.

btw, did i mention that annabeth is ahead in her classes and percy sucks at school? teehee.

wow, it's like annabeth's dyslexia isn't even there!

now, it may seem that i'm exaggerating percy's incompetence.

this is a real quote from the book.

so is this!

and this.

and—u get the point. rick is acting like percy hasn't outsmarted his opponents bc his personality is stupid and annabeth's personality is reduced down to having the brain cell.

then, percy has a moment where his empathy shines thru and he's allowed to succeed at something (for the first time in the book), except he has to put himself down to make annabeth feel better. bc we can't have percy feeling good abt himself since it makes annabeth look bad. or something. idk.

again, there is no exploration of percy's self-esteem or their myriad of trauma.

to make up for all the times percy was treated like an idiot, annabeth says percy is "a pretty smart guy,"

which is a surprise to her despite them having known each other for five years.

furthermore, rick is writing percy w a sort of incompetence towards household tasks that is, quite frankly, sexist. here is a good post on how it mirrors weaponized incompetence and here is another one abt the disturbing nature of mom-ifying annabeth. i should make it clear annabeth provides percy food in multiple scenes while percy does adjacent to nothing. she also tucks him into bed like a child in one scene and gets nicknamed "mom" by a dog that pees on her (AND she cleans up the pee while percy does nothing).

so, wottg is essentially 300 pages of mean-spirited bullying from all sides. none of the humor shines through these jokes, none of the facetiousness, like hey isn't it funny that percy is really smart but sometimes completely oblivious, is there. there is no comedic disparity between percy's power and skill and his ability to trip over his feet bc there are no impressive feats of power and skill (anything that would count are immediately brushed off). comments abt percy learning to tie his own shoes w his newfound octopus tentacles don't land in a book where he's acting like he cannot have thoughts without annabeth. and there's no grace to be given bc at no point in any of this handled as a serious exploration of percy's insecurities despite the ample opportunity to do so.

then, when percy isn't being hounded w vitriol, annabeth is being reduced to a sexist caricature of a woman. it does not make percabeth look good in any way.

finally, i need to make it clear that however bad this breakdown makes the books seem, it is worse. i summarized and skipped over a ton of stuff for my own sanity.

[that-guy-in-the-chiton]

what's your opinion on how rick riordan handled ww2 in the pjo books ? personally, i want to bash his head against a wall

Personally, I thought it was incredibly brain-dead and one of the, if not the, most insensitive crap he ever wrote. Writing a fictional war/battle is one thing, but watering down one of the most horrific and brutal conflicts in human history where millions of people died and still suffer the consequences from to a petty squabble between the demigod children of the big three is...a choice, to say the least.

He also did a very shoddy job on the American civil war, including naming the son of a slave after a literal slave owner (Thomas Jefferson), but that's a complaint for another time.

[percabeth4life]

I feel like rick missed an opportunity when he made Frank closer to Percy's age instead of Hazel's. Like, I'm sure there are reasons (It's been a while since I read HoO, so I can't say what they are, but they're probably there(I hope)), but can you imagine Percy, on a quest with two kids that are 13-14 (I can't remember how old she is in SoN, can't find it either, so guessing low it is).

Even without his memories, he'd be halfway to feral, but once he got them back, I can't see him doing anything but going from protective to absolutely destroying anything that hurt them.

I also think it would have been hilarious to have Percy and Annabeth at like, 17-ish? And have the rest of the seven at like, 14 max. Percy and Annabeth are trying to keep this group of 13-14 year olds alive, and they're both screaming internally half the time. Sometimes, it's just screaming, but sometimes, they scream about how toddlers shouldn't be on quests.

(Side note this popped into my head while I was writing, so have a- thing

Annabeth: There's a bunch of babies, Loose on a quest! No one knows what the babies are going to do next, least of all the babies! They've never been on a quest before!

Narrator: The babies in question are 14, and they have, in fact, been on quests before. (She is right about them not knowing what they're going to do, though.))

Then again, maybe I just like big brother/protector Percy too much. (Reluctant and screaming big sister/mentor figure Annabeth is also fun.)

(And on a sadder note, Annabeth realizes this must be what Luke and Thalia felt like and almost starts crying.)

To start, you're absolutely right that it was a missed opportunity. Percy is, without knowing it, the most experienced of the questers, except Frank is nearly his age in comparison to Hazel (who should be 14 by math, but is 13 by Rick's declaration). I think it's less that he made Frank closer to Percy's age and more that he was trying to make Hazel younger than Nico.

But yes, it would've been super interesting to see him basically mentoring the other two, especially after he regained his memories. I feel it was a major missed opportunity to not have Percy and Annabeth trying to watch over the younger quest members, instead he aimed for weakening the two to make everyone else their equal. It's a shame cause it missed the opportunity for the younger questers to be major boons for their skills, rather than raw power.

And also, the two of them looking after younger ones and wanting to protect them but also having to risk their lives to save the world- and the rest being alone when Percabeth falls with Nico to help except half of them find him freaky- would've allowed them to grow into their own more.

It would also show how Percy and Annabeth really ARE the most experienced, how their quests haven't been the norm so even Jason who is remembering some quests hasn't done anything this insane before but Percabeth just takes it all in stride.

[undead-knick-knack]

Jester: Is it the dead woman?

Ashton: ........... no...

Me:

Ashton why was that such a long pause 😭👀😭👀 🖤💜

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

okay I'm this is a tall order but I am so confused about Taika. Does he support Israel? I've seen so many posts about people spreading rumors about him and other people saying he does support Israel, so what's the haps??

so the rumor that taika supports israel comes from the fact that he (and like 200 other hollywood ppl including some very famous names like mark hamill or jack black but for some reason ppl only are talking abt taika) signed a letter thanking biden for working to release hostages and fight hamas. the language in the letter does not acknowledge that israel is a settler colonial state and that hamas exists as a direct result of settler colonial violence.

the letter is bad but it’s bad in the way that someone who is not informed about the conflict probably would not pick up on. it’s a letter that on its surface just looks like concern for civilian hostages, which is a good and normal thing to be concerned about. the letter was also probably about as effective as when all those celebrities sang “imagine” during covid lockdowns, which is to say that it most likely did nothing. i doubt biden is making global decisions based on what 200 rich people in hollywood think (if anything he’s probably making decisions based on what 200 oil executives think ahaha)

ppl have also connected taika signing this letter to guz khan getting fired from ofmd. there was a rumor that he was fired bc he supports palestine, which is almost certainly not true. guz was fired bc the show got a 40% budget cut for s2 and his character was the easiest to write off. guz has said he wouldn’t compromise his morals for a job but that this wasn’t the job where he had to do that, and he has blocked the person who started that rumor. ALSO several actors in ofmd have since posted supporting palestine so like?? this one is pure antisemetic conspiracy theory. if taika had a problem with guz supporting palestine why was guz even hired in the first place.

anyway signing the letter was a bad thing that taika should not have done but it is impossible to determine his stance on israel based solely on the fact that he signed that letter. he has also liked posts about freeing palestine so like, who knows. i personally have much better things to be doing than scrutinizing everything a famous poc does to try and prove if he’s a good or bad person

tl;dr there is no hard evidence that taika supports israel ppl just hate him for being a wildly successful brown jewish man

[lady-menrva]

why the fuck do you hate will solace?? like genuinely asking

Oh anon, I don't hate Will Solace. Hate is an emotion, and I don't want to feel anything for someone who happens to be a butter paper cutout (yeah, that's a classic truth insult).

On a more serious note, no I don't hate Will, because he really isn't worth that much emotion. I'd say I have strong disdain for him, which is for multiple reasons, the primary one being that he isn't just flat and revolves around Nico, but also happens to be poorly written.

Understand it this way: We, as spectators/readers have the liberty and privilege to view the characters and story through two, (and many more) lenses, the primary two being Watsonian (in-universe) and Doylist (outside, real-world perspective of the author).

My main concern is that the two perspectives just don't align, and that makes it even harder to take Will seriously. The Doylist perspective would like you to believe that he's sensitive, thoughtful, responsible; his objectionable remarks serve either of the two purposes:

Expository: as we know, he disclosed sensitive information about Nico's past and PTSD to Lester without the former's consent

Undoubtedly, this serves the Doylist purpose of information to the audience; the bit about PTSD serves to inform the reader.

Humor: His 'anemic loser' comment directed towards Octavian is supposed to be interpreted as humorous.

However, when these actions are viewed from the Watsonian perspective, they directly contradict the Doylist establishments regarding his personality (sensitive, thoughtful and responsible) making it hard to take him seriously as a character.

You can find an excellent analysis detailing Will's obnoxious behaviour (from the Watsonian lens) over here.

[bayetea]

inflammatory prompts I'll never post on demigodpolls lol

[ria-the-camel]

just a normal thing to ask to your good goat pal

[where-are-the-spooky-gays-2]

"Where are the spooky gays" this and "where are the spooky gays" that

WHERE ARE THEY ALL AT???? WHERE DID THEY GO?? WILL THEY EVER RETURN???

APPARENTLY ITS BEEN 4 YEARS SINCE THE WEDDING EPISODE??? AKA THE LAST SIGNIFICANT PLOT POINT??

I miss them

I feel like im in my Steven Universe era where the show was in a everlasting hiatus. Where are they, Mr sanders??? What have you done with them/lighthearted

-🐀

They're all trapped in the secret Beach episode /joking No but controversial take that will absolutely get an angry mob at me but I don't give a shit at this point and this is not directed to you at all 🐀 Anon I've just been in this fandom for 7 years and I'm tired of biting my tongue /genuine But y'all need to understand that if we didn't have the Asides/Short vids, The Incorrect Quotes, The Photoshoots, Bloops, etc. then we would have not seen the Sides at all in the span of 4 years (That's 1,475 days) and even through said 4 years there was a pandemic, a hurricane that quite literally flooded the shit out of Thomas' old office, and a stress related condition that quite literally made this man not even wanna look at himself (If you think this is 'babying' him actually touch a dictionary) I know this might come as a surprise especially with the old memes I used to make on this blog and with how most countdown blogs are now but I'm probably the only one in this fandom who honestly doesn't care for the wait due to watching literally everything he makes. He's juggling different projects, he's preforming in more theater stuff, he's making a lot of music for a 4 part season finale along with a possible prologue, he's trying to get back into the swing of things and getting over his intimidation of doing main series characterization of the Sides and all we can do is wait and continue making more beautiful content for the fandom to enjoy and gush about the characters and ships we love. I'd rather watch something that was written with time and patience than rushed and hear more bitching from the fandom for something they wanted.

[ruegarding]

for context, @rosabell14 is referring to tags on this post.

ok we're going off-road w this one

generally speaking, i like the concept of "some things aren't meant to be controlled," which annabeth says to percy after he controls the poison. this is said and then immediately forgotten abt, however, this could be another angle of change, a reoccurring theme in hoo, as well as a continued theme from pjo.

obviously, from pjo, the change is addressed w the myths, the theme of yielding, and w the conclusion of the story:

hoo continues this concept of change w the percy-jason switch, the greek-roman conflict, the idea of what an identity is and how to change it, etc. there's a lot of individual character work w this idea, but there's less of a mythological concept attached to it. gaea is a static and flatly written antagonist, octavian becomes incredibly flat as a character and his development into this sort of fanatical antagonist that is never explored, there's a lot of teeth-gritting abt how the gods are gods and they never change and everyone just has to accept it, the myths aren't challenged in the same way they were in pjo, etc. there's a few major exceptions, i'll get to that.

this is a glaring issue i have w hoo. it wouldn't be as bad as a standalone, but hoo makes the entirety of the previous series meaningless. in tlo, percy asks for kids to get claimed and be trained so when (or if) they have to go on dangerous quests/fight monsters/etc they're both older and more experienced. this is the conclusion to the war and how the status quo is changed (disability accommodations expanded to reach more ppl and work more effectively).

hoo, however, does not do this. camp jupiter infamously has a child army while the adults are retired, all of the new characters are younger than percy (who is still 16), and only two of them have spent a long period of time training, although hazel's isn't formal/in a camp (and piper doesn't even learn how to fight until book four ffs). this sort of immediately bastardizes pjo in a way that is never acknowledge by the series and makes it, and anything after it, a failure as a continuation of pjo.

and that's where this theme could've come in. when bob is remembering who he is, him and percy have this back-and-forth abt identity. percy relates to bob bc he, too, just had his memory erased and that vulnerability exploited (annabeth's perspective in this conversation is very different bc she doesn't have this same experience nor does she understand percy's feelings abt it. a good way to build tension using different povs, but, once again, doesn't get fully utilized). in the conclusion that conversation, there's an interesting moment:

this is that idea again, "some things aren't meant to be controlled," like fate, like identity. titans are meant to "be the same...forever." and here percy is, not only as the catalyst for change by throwing bob into the river lethe, but also by encouraging him to commit to this change once bob should know better. this was percy's role in the previous series, as well, where he constantly challenges the perspective of other characters to be more quote human unquote.

afterwards, annabeth has a similar moment w damasen:

i also think these are very funny to have side-by-side, just as character analysis, bc percy is very much both insecure and empathetic like u can choose ur future, it's up to u, etc, whereas annabeth is like i am right, listen to me.

anyway, both of these moments repeat the idea from pjo/tlo: immortals can't change. but they are changing. and they will change. the rules of the world are malleable (i also think hazel's monologue abt seeing the minotaur as a victim would be another aspect of this to explore). what abt traditions? what abt camp jupiter's child army? how should these change? going back to the og thought, tho, what shouldn't change? what are the "some things" that aren't meant to be controlled? how do you balance traditions and reform (great opportunity to use octavian btw!)? why can't a god be human, act human? why are the ancient rules important? that's an important discussion to have if we're growing this universe.

i don't particularly like that hoo immediately reverts back w the premise of the story, like i was talking abt earlier, nor do i think these characters were introduced or used well in canon, but using these characters, these moments, these conversations, rick could've salvaged this mess by embracing change isn't a static thing. he doesn't, tho, so it's all lost potential.

separately, something i've always liked abt the akhlys fight is that percy wins the literal, physical fight against her, but loses the metaphorical fight. he gets to walk away, but he walks away miserable. and this is bc the gods aren't ppl, they're physical representations of concepts. and percy has this thought abt tartarus and gaea while in tartarus, and i believe it's brought up in boo, but it's barely relevant. it's something i wish was explored more.

now onto specific characters. i talk abt my general idea here, ie this moment in tartarus is forcing percy and annabeth to confront their worst-case scenarios.

for annabeth, i've repeatedly gone on record to say i hate the way annabeth is written in hoo, here is an example, ie her fatal flaw does not come thru in her character (i also think she and percy switched characterizations from pjo to hoo, but...). separate issue is that annabeth's character revolves around percy a lot. so there are two issues i would focus on, largely bc she's not written well and doesn't have established unique conflicts. like,

this is a big revelation at the end of hoh, that she has to "step back" and she can't "protect everyone she love[s]." except it doesn't make any sense. tlo ended w annabeth telling percy to give luke her knife which luke uses to kill himself. not to mention, thalia's sacrifice on hbh. ALSO. percy accepting the prophecy and "taking the brunt of the danger"! and finally. annabeth has been at camp for 7-8 years. 1) she should have relationships w these ppl and 2) she should care that some of the ogs died in the previous war (which would also require rick to figure out who died lol). but the point is, this isn't a new conflict for annabeth!

the thought she had in moa abt having to accept she's not always the best person for the job:

this is not built up nor is it delivered on, but would be interesting, given that she demanded to be on the quest and if there was an actual power struggle instead of writing her as the de facto leader. this would be a better conflict than accepting that "she couldn't protect everyone she loved" when she has historically not been able to protect everyone she loved.

anyway, back on topic.

first, this moment exists to challenge her perception of percy, which is important to challenge bc she quite frankly has an unhealthy attachment to him. other ppl have said this better than i, so here's a post abt codependency and p*rcabeth and here's another one i rbed a while ago.

tldr; rick treats annabeth's abandonment issues/possessiveness/codependency as like. cute, peak romance. and he's been doing this since pjo, right, like annabeth's abandonment issues and possessiveness didn't matter when it was thalia joining the hunters,—bc there's no romance trope here w thalia—but gods forbid percy speak to rachel.

and this doesn't change in hoo. in fact, it's worse. like,

i'm going to [statement redacted] rick for this. what part of this is cute??? i'm killing it with fire.

so anyway, i want to treat annabeth's possessiveness/etc as an actual, consistent, character flaw, that she can grow out of, even. maybe even connect it to her hubris or her rsd. explore her feelings abt luke now that we have her pov to do it in. the fallout from this moment w akhlys is a great way to begin delving into that bc it's a shocking moment for her.

second, and going back to the theme of change, annabeth is different from percy in the sense that she has a different relationship to the gods than him (which i'm comparing bc i think rick (and fandom) has a hard time giving these two consistent and separate personalities/beliefs post pjo). the two times she has rebelled against the gods directly were bc of percy's influence (again, this is percy's role in pjo), 1) in the zoo truck, a scene that only takes place bc percy challenged her view of the poseidon-athena rivalry and their place in it, and 2) w hera where the first words out of annabeth's mouth are literally "percy is right."

i find this interesting especially bc her fatal flaw is hubris, which is common in mythology and frequently ends up fatal bc ppl challenge the gods. so, annabeth using the gods and these stories to keep her hubris in check makes complete sense.

and it seems like this is the same approach she's using w percy:

percy is directly challenging a god for power, and more than that, he's challenging a domain he's not supposed to have control of at all.

very interesting! does not get explored. such is common for hoo.

for percy, this scene is part of a long-running conversation of his powers (which is a huge part of his disability coding!!!!!). and it doesn't go anywhere.

percy has established anger issues and implied emotional dysregulation. this has been a thing since the beginning, literally chapter one of tlt! punishing percy for this when he's clearly not getting the support he needs is. a choice. also there's the issue that hoo kinda. erases this aspect of percy's character until the confrontation w akhlys, which is a separate but related issue.

there really should've been more buildup to this outburst (eg: in son percy punches a shelf in the library and immediately feels guilty bc he scares frank and hazel. percy is in an incredibly stressful situation; this should've happened more), but that would mean rick would treat it and the disability conversation seriously (which falls flat after son) and do less teeth-gritting abt the whole gods thing.

so, to go back on my "using the different povs to build tension was wildly underutilized" train, a featured part of almost everyone's pov is that percy is very kind, and gentle, and forgiving. i discuss a moment w frank being impressed w percy's selflessness here and he also says that he would follow percy anywhere, jason says percy is "a nice guy" after like 2 days, nico has his whole thing, hazel says "percy was a child of poseidon’s better nature," going on to describe him as gentle, etc.

and all of this praise goes nowhere and kinda just becomes percy is so awesome...and then turns into everything is percy's fault in boo...it's bad writing.

but it's an interesting opportunity to play w perspective. percy in pjo is dehumanized in that he is both villainized and idolized, and obviously hoo is continuing the trend w idolization. rick sets up a great plotline w this in moa:

and this doesn't go anywhere bc apparently percy's problem is that he needs to learn to step back. which. part of this is bc rick recycled plotlines from percy and gave them to other characters, which means that percy cannot be in character anymore without making themlook bad (the recycled plotlines i'm talking abt are the idolization, imposter syndrome, wanting to step back but constantly pushed into the spotlight, being seen as different/elevated status bc of ur parentage, struggling to connect to who your parent is, even the dehumanization as a weapon is straight out of percy's writing in pjo). this is a big problem w hoo in general ie characters becoming ooc by necessity (see: bad writing). the other part to blame is that rick is literally trying to redo tlo what w the whole "you are not the hero." it's all the same from pjo except written worse. it's a running theme of hoo (and a bonus). bad writing all the way down!

ANYWAY. so pjo ends w percy at an elevated status bc he 1) survived an unsurvivable prophecy, 2) was offered godhood, and 3) turned down godhood to improve the lives of the demigods while all the demigods watched. and he has the curse of achilles but. we all know how that went. the point is, all of this puts percy on a pedestal. i like to think it's the biggest reason hera kidnapped percy: if he said no, if he refused, she would've lost the support of almost all the demigods at chb (also the metaphor for the audience lol). i think making percy go on the quest, or at least to new rome, is the only good bit of world building rick did between books.

the problem is, rick is kinda all over the place w how percy is perceived and misses both the point of percy's character (callback to what i said abt his disability) and the world building of the previous series (what happened to power-scaling, narrative consequence, etc fr). that's what creates the flip-flopping "percy is perfect" and "everything is percy's fault," and neither are particularly good reads.

going back to annabeth, i don't think she's an exception in idolizing percy. she has no reason to see percy's vindictive side bc he works hard to hide it. even w crusty, annabeth is preoccupied. annabeth is smart, she's not omniscient. instead, there's the famous "percy is too nice" from som. i also like to think this is why she keeps trying to talk to percy abt luke as if luke is a good person who didn't try to kill percy. she doesn't understand that percy would hate luke for betraying him bc why would he? percy is a good person.

(for the record, i think the exceptions are: 1) grover, who chooses not to bring it up w the exception of his nemesis comment in tlt, 2) rachel, who made a painting where percy's "expression in the picture was fierce—disturbing, even—so it was hard to tell if I was the good guy or the bad guy" and simply said that's how he looked, and 3) arguably nico—considering percy has attacked him before—but i do think "very [dangerous]. to his enemies." does a good job of capturing that, it just doesn't go anywhere).

so, to condense all of this, ppl are idolizing percy in terms of both strength and morals and percy feels stifled by this knowing that he is not as strong or good as ppl think (and also by the fault that he was demonized prior and has corresponding low self-esteem bc of that lol). keep this in mind, i'm changing the topic.

in botl, percy's torture scene is used primarily to set up how powerful he is. he can cause an eruption that necessitates the evacuation of thousands of ppl and wake the biggest threat in greek mythos, but he would never know that if he wasn't back into a corner. bc that's not who he is. he shies away from power and titles. he wins his fights w strategy and very rarely relies on his powers to overpower his opponents.

just to clarify, i categorize percy's powers in two sorts of ways: involuntary and voluntary. involuntary is like speaking to sea creatures, healing in water, things that don't require a lot of energy/effort/focus. he's not scared of this. he's wary of the voluntary, powerful explosions, the things that set him apart from his peers. that's what i'm referring to in this section.

so, percy has to come to terms w the fact that he 1) blew up a mountain, 2) survived blowing up a mountain, and 3) woke typhon. and what does he say immediately after that?

he immediately deflects! he wasn't in control, it wasn't him that's powerful, it was an accident, and besides, he can't do it again bc he almost died. and what's even more interesting is the only time he uses his powers after this (in botl) is when grover asks him to stop the fire in the woods.

so, what lesson did percy actually take from mt saint helens? that he's dangerous. very interesting to use this teaching moment and have the protagonist come to the quote wrong unquote conclusion.

in hoh, we don't have a purpose for the torture scene. there's no significance to confronting how powerful percy is. percy is not addressing his self-sacrificing tendencies nor his propensity for bottling his emotions up. there's no questioning of p*rcabeth's relationship. there's no questioning of the gods. it's a cool scene w no narrative purpose.

so, take two. what is percy supposed to be learning from akhlys? how do we relate this to percy taking the wrong lesson from mt st helens?

at the end of botl, nico comes up w the river styx plan and percy takes almost a full year to agree to it. how much further ahead in the war would they have been if percy had accepted the curse sooner? how many fights could percy have won faster if he used his powers? if he trained his powers? if he trusted his powers?

there's a really interesting comparison w phorcys and akhyls where percy doesn't attempt to fight phorcys bc he assumes he won't be able to overpower him,

but w akhyls he tries anyway,

bc he's backed against a corner. and he succeeds.

percy is a character who very much embodies duality. i've talked abt this before wrt his loyalty being both his greatest strength and greatest weakness and how it clashes w his desire for freedom, but it's true for almost every trait. he's honest and manipulative. he's ruthless and merciful. he's kind and violent. he's looked up to and looked down upon. he's the saint and the scapegoat. etc etc. and percy responds to this by frequently trying to deny his quote worse unquote traits until they eventually bubble up and explode out of him. this is part of why juno calls him a loose-canon (which btw, i love. everyone has been treating him as a loose canon and no one on this side has the balls to say it until then, seven books in).

all this to say, *ethan voice* it's abt balance! this moment should've been abt percy confronting his unfair treatment! the idolization from his peers! the demonization of his flaws/disability!

thanks for coming to my tedtalk.

[dax-enfinity]

Keep hating on Solangelo (thumbs up emoji here) :D

Hell yeah !!

It’s just… Solangelo sucks SO MUCH, you’ve probably already seen my other posts on here ranting about this ships existence.

And I just HATE Will Solace as a whole too, a minor background character with a max of only 5 lines in the entire series pre-TOA… and this is why I don’t even consider TOA to be canon in my eyes

Don’t even get me started on Nico’s characters assasination, him getting reduced to ‘Will’s Goth/Emo soft boyfriend that needs to be protected’ YUCK.

[percabeth4life]

Does anybody else find it kinda fucked up how Rick said that the Romans knew there had been Greek demigods at one point and that the reason they thought there weren't anymore is because they thought Rome "Perfected" the gods? Like, sir what the fuck?

So true- it's such a mess like that is literally not how it worked the Romans were an entirely different religion and set of beliefs- they just associated with and "borrowed" from the Greeks a whole lot. It's both fucked up and a gross misunderstanding of how that worked.

[my-pjo-stuff]

And another horrible representation of a country is about my home country, Brasil, Paolo Montes. I don't know if it's a joke or anything but it states that he can understand fluently English but only speaks Brasilian, which it's pretty dumb, because why a character that goes to the USA and expects that he will only speak Portuguese.

And how it's a pun how his unlucky, to the point it almost kills him, more times that it's comical, it just becomes a bad joke. And his mother being Hebe, it's a reference to an actress named Hebe Camargo, but it's not a good reference, as Hebe Camargo had made a lot of racist speeches and jokes along her career.

I am genuinley SO sorry you have to see this cause???? What. The. FUCK. Like holy shit this genuinely makes me angry, like HUH???? WTF???

RICK WHAT WERE YOU THINKING???? The Brazillian pun was bad enough- BUT TO NOT EVEN DO BASIC RESEARCH ON THE ACTRESS YOU NAMED YOUR CHARACTER AFTER???? The bar already was in hell, but holy SHIT does Rick like to limbo dance with Satan. Genuinly this baffles me and I cannot believe I'm saying this...but considering his track record maybe it was good he just white washed and Americanized everything Greek in PJO. 'Cause considering his track record I HIGHLY doubt anything good would have come of it had he actually tried to dig into greek culture. I'm kinda glad the only mention he gave Germany way "Hitler was a son of Hades" now ngl, I do not want to know what kind of weird stereotype he would have done. And again, I am SO sorry and that must suck SO hard to have your country insulted like that. Fuck Rick omfg.

[epiphainie]

i'm having a ball with severance s2 but i just saw a twitter thread that really put into words what has been bothering me about this season and why the world feels so much smaller despite us going bigger and broader. helly being revealed as an eagan was a one-off great reveal but on top of that adding that gemma is their precious guinea pig and that cobel invented severance feel so limiting to the world. neither are character beats i hate, per se, but while the reach of lumon is shown to be bigger, the story itself feels so much smaller.