#every time i think about valdangelo i get the sudden urge to start chewing on furniture out of the sheer emotions it invokes in me

[corpserots]

Adding some things

As we all know, after the battle of Manhattan Percy was offered the gift of immortality, but he refuses in order to stay with Annabeth (I could write a whole essay on why this wasn't the best choice but we're not here for that). But he does ask the Gods to swear to grant whatever his wishes are if they are within their divine powers.

He asks that they claim their kids, allow the minor deities cabins, and that they free Calypso. From my hazy memory, which may be altered due to the many fanfictions I've read, he makes them swear on the Styx. Oaths on the Styx are binding and not even the Gods can escape them, and that is why Percy used this specific swear. In the final book of ToA, Lester/Apollo escapes his supposed punishment because he had finally understood what it meant to keep one's word. And Lady Styx probably figured that he had had enough torment thanks to Zeus.

So, other than plot convenience leading to the inevitable romance, why was this promise not honoured? The Gods have obviously not forgotten, there are telltale signs: they heeded his first two wishes, and some Gods are odd to him, feeling slighted that he turned down such a gift as divinity.

The only way would be that it wasn't within their powers.

How so? Perhaps Zeus decided she still had wronged them and her punishment needed to continue. After all, her father Atlas still held the sky. But really, he saved Olympus and (allegedly) defeated Chronos. Why is it so hard to let go of a millenia old grudge for the sake of peace? Percy wasn't pleased to know she had still been kept there.

(Before die-hard fans attack me for my 'allegedly', Luke was really the one to defeat the Titan. He delivered the blow.)

So it was merely a plot device so Leo could get his trophy for his selfless sacrifice glorified suicide and so the fans could get closure for Calypso's story that never got a proper ending. Also a money grab (the whole HoO was a money grab so he could have enough for ToA because compare the two and one is obviously better written) and letting fans know he listens to requests, even though it was probably girls who are in love with Leo using his potential partner as a self-insert. Many fans hc as aroace so this decision was definitely influenced by Twitter.

Please correct me if it wasn't the Styx, and feel free to add more.

Any comments? @thatonefandomjumper

The issue with Caleo

(This took me a couple of day's + actual research, so I hope it turned out fine)

I remember reading The House of Hades for the first time. As Leo had become my favorite character at that point the thing I was most excited for was his landing in Ogygia to meet Calypso

I had high hopes for that plotline. I was excited to see their relationship develop throughout the books. But when I finished the chapters, it left a bad taste in my mouth, and I couldn’t quite place why. Said bad taste only got worse after reading the Blood of Olympus.

I told my friend about my confusing feelings for the ship and they assured me that they'd have plenty of good moments during the Trials of Apollo.

They didn’t. They got actively worse. 

It was at that point where I started pinpointing reasons as to my dislike of the ship. Both by finding people on the internet who shared my opinions and by talking about it with friends, the issues with the ship itself just kept piling up.

So why is the ship so bad? And why do many people still actively enjoy it? 

I've decided to compile as many reasons as I can to answer these questions, particularly the former and compile them together in this essay while also asking the question of “How to fix it?”

The two most common criticisms I’ve seen of the ship are “It was rushed\Came out of nowhere” and “The age difference.” For the first one: Yes. It was most definitely rushed. But that didn't have to be a bad thing. 

If I’m being totally honest, I don’t think Leo was written to end up in a relationship. His characterisation in tLH and MoA didn’t feel like they were building towards a romance, or at the very least, it being an afterthought. 

A piece of evidence I have for this reasoning is Percy making the promise to free Calypso. Riordan had presumably made the lost trio by this point as the books were only a year apart. Why would he make it so the gods didn’t honor this specific promise? Yes, they're jerks who don’t keep their promises, but for this particular one it always felt more like an excuse rather than an actual plot point. 

My personal theory for Calypso being reintroduced at all to be Leo’s love interest was the fault of fandom. Yes, the fandom now seems to be more self aware of the fact that teenagers don’t need to be shoved into relationships to feel fulfilled but back then, there were a lot of memes and demands to give Leo a girlfriend. Which is something Riordan seemed to take active notice of. At least on Twitter.

Back to the topic of it being rushed, I would like to compare it to another rushed ship; Solangelo.

Now, before the Solangelo stans come after me, the ship did come out of nowhere. Will was just a background character that was revamped to become Nico's boyfriend. But the relationship itself was expanded upon in ToA in a mostly positive way.

Caleo did the same thing but worse. It expanded upon the ship in a way that was primarily negative. 

But at this point I may hear you asking “Okay, you have only been expressing distaste about the ship instead of giving any actual reasons as to why it’s bad?”

Which brings me to the second most common criticism: The age difference.

Leo is 16. Calypso is over 4612. I think you can immediately spot a problem there.

Now, Calypso is stated to be mentally and physically 16. The physical part makes sense, cuz, well, gods and stuff. But I’ve got a few bones to pick with the mentally one.

When they say ‘mentally 16’ I assume what they mean is that her brain stopped developing when she turned the titan equivalent of 16. That still doesn't mean that she’s lived the years that she did. The fact that her brain stopped maturing doesn't mean that she’s not thousands of years old.

In all honesty, I hate this trope so much. The concept of characters being ‘mentally younger’ is just there to excuse pairing them up with minors. It’s gross.

But for the sake of fairness, I’m going to be ignoring the age difference for the majority of the rest of this essay. Because even without it, the ship doesn't work. In the case of a ship like Sanubis, if the age difference was removed, I’d enjoy the ship a lot more.

The same can not be said about Caleo.

Let’s start with an order of events.

Calypso was cursed after the first titan war to be confined to Ogygia and was forced to fall in love with the men that the gods sent to her with them inevitably leaving her in the end.

We first meet her in tBotL when Percy washes up on her island. Were sympathetic towards her. Her situation is tragic. Percy is also a naturally caring person so he obviously wants her to be okay.

So one of the few promises he makes the gods swear is that they release Calypso.

Flash forward to HoH and Leo lands in Ogygia.

They have a rough start with Calypso immediately getting mad at him for breaking her dining table and then cursing the gods for having the audacity to send someone who wasn't handsome.

It is worth noting that Leo is often insecure about his scrawniness and Calypso is rubbing that fact in hard. But we can sort of excuse it since it makes sense. Calypso is frustrated that despite Percy’s wish, she’s still trapped and men are still being sent to her island.

It is pretty unclear how long Leo spends on her island. Some say around a week. Some say a month. Time in Ogygia is established to be quite unclear and to work differently from normal time. So the in-universe length they got to get to know each other is pretty hard to pin down but we can safely conclude that it wasn’t long enough for Leo to immediately swear a death oath for her.

I honestly don't have too much to say about their interactions in HoH. It was mostly just Calypso being rude to Leo while he actively avoided her. (There was the scene where Gaia tells Calypso to kill Leo in exchange for her freedom and Calypso rejects. I just want to say that Calypso hunting Leo for sport would have been a lot funnier than them entering a relationship.)

In my opinion, the biggest casually in their relationship were their character arcs. More specifically, Leo’s.

And I’m not trying to downgrade the fact that Calypso’s arc was also ruined. But Leo is a main character. Calypso was only brought back to be his love interest. That, mixed with the fact that she changes personality with every book she’s in, it’s pretty hard to pinpoint a character arc of her own to begin with.

But Leo’s? Oh boy.

Despite everything we know about him, Leo’s backstory is a little unclear. Sure we know what happened to him, but none of the details. 

Hera, his mothers death and his aunt’s rejection of him are the ones we know the most details on. It’s his time being homeless and in foster care that raises questions.

He ran away six times between the ages of 8-14 where he was eventually sentenced by court to go to the wilderness school. 

Pretty much all we know about the details is that he slept in sewers and had an abusive foster parent at some point? But running away six times??? Even without the details it is safe to conclude that things weren’t pleasant.

All of this is heavily woven into his personality. Or at least, was. 

The Lost Hero and Mark of Athena are definitely the two books that portray Leo’s character the best. In tLH he says that humor is a good way to hide the pain which is something he demonstrates quite often throughout the two books, especially tLH. In HoH beyond however, it’s not like it’s completely forgotten about, but it takes a big backseat to Calypso.

I think, at least character wise, this is a stupid decision. Throughout the two books, Leo is shown to be desperately lonely. He self isolates quite a bit while constantly doing maintenance and building the Argo and that causes him to grow more distance from his friends. (To be fair, Jason and Piper didn’t make much of an effort either but I think that is something the three of them should have had a conversation about.)

Leo desperately wants a girlfriend. Being surrounded by couples constantly and with the "help" of Nemesis he falls into his whole "seventh wheel" mindset. He flirts around with people way out of his league, mostly so he doesn't end up truly falling for someone. 

I never really saw his constant flirting as sincere. It can be interpreted as him being desperately lonely and trying what he could to find someone or some sort of self aimed internalized homophobia. 

But he appeared to think that getting a girlfriend will solve most of his problems, which is by all accounts, a bad thing. Convincing himself that finding a romantic partner is the end goal of finding happiness is a mindset that is inherently toxic and he should learn to grow out of.

But no.

Instead he just… gets it???

He gets together with Calypso without getting any healthy way to deal with his loneliness.

And oh boy do I think that impacted him negatively.

In BoO a big majority of Leo’s internal monologue is about Calypso. It’s supposed to be sweet, him caring about her so much. But honestly? I found it a bit disturbing.

Not in a “creepy stalker” way though. It was more that it showed just how bad his mental state had gotten that he was willing to commit suicide for a girl he bearly knew because she showed him any form of romantic attraction.

I often find myself thinking about Leo’s sacrifice in general. I think that whole ordeal was handled pretty badly for many different reasons, but for now, all I will be touching on is Leo’s motive. I think Leo would have planned to die, even if Calypso wasn���t in the picture. But making his death about her was a bad move.

In tLH and MoA we get pages upon pages of Leo’s internal monologue about how much he appreciates his friends (especially in tLH) with them not reciprocating. Sure, they care about him a lot, but no to the same extent that he cares about them. Making his death about saving them, especially Jason, would be much more of a gut punch than a person he spent four chapters with.

And I feel that it could directly tie into his friends' arcs (mostly Piper and Jason’s) where they truly learn to appreciate him as a person and as a part of the team. 

I have so many issues with Leo’s death, especially with the aftermath and double especially with the reaction to him coming back. Like… a punching line? Really? I get it’s suppose to be a joke but literally all everyone talked about is how sad Leo’s death made them feel, insted of the fact that he essentially committed glorified suicide with a respawn cheet code that he wasn’t even sure would work.

There is also the issue with the fact that Leo has canonically been abused. A line of people punching him with that information is just… it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

That’s not what this essay is about but I had to get that off my chest.

Let's go back to Calypso.

I honestly don't think Calypso ever truly loved Leo, but rather the freedom that comes with him. She never had a choice. When someone washed up on her island, she was cursed to fall for them. Same with Leo. You may say that she eventually learned to love him without the curse, but I don't think so.

Off the top of my head, I can think of three pleasant Caleo scenes. Three. The first one is where Leo is sent back from her island and they have their first kiss. The kiss always felt a bit manipulative to me. She only kissed him to make sure he came back. And he did! I don’t think Leo thought about her in a romantic sense until that moment. Sure, she called her hot in his mind a few times, but thinking someone is attractive and being so madly in love that you would die are two different things. I’m also not saying that Calypso was an ‘evil manipulator’ or something like that. I just think she was desperately lonely and was trying to find a way to escape off the island.

The second one is the scene where Leo picks up Calypso from Ogygia after having just died. I don't have too many issues with the scene itself, more with the consequences of it.

The third one is in The Dark Prophecy, whereas Leo and Calypso sit Apollo down to tell him that they're going to stay together at the Waystation and try to make their relationship work. But like… They haven't given me a single reason to route for that relationship. Especially not in tDP. Every other scene with them was arguments (although the arguments were mostly one-sided) or them just happening to be in the same room together.

And those arguments were… Well, I felt a bit uncomfortable reading them. In probably the most memorable one, Calypso was calling him out on the fact that he jokes while stressed and that he uses machines as metaphors for real people. The two of them + Apollo are discussing how to save Jo and Emmie’s daughter, Georgina. Leo mentioned an idea for an invention he and Jo could make to find her. And Calypso snaps at him and says he is looking at people as if they were machines.

Her reaction is just… so odd to me. Yes, Leo has a tendency to reduce everything to programs in his head, but in this case he was literally not doing that. He was trying to come up with ways that he could help find Georgina and his speciality is machines, so of course he’d try to find a solution within his skillset.

And then there is the fact that Leo is neurodivergent. Some Nd people tend to think in different ways from others and Leo clearly does so by imagining the world as one big machine. And there is really nothing wrong with that. It’s literally just how his mind works.

So I truly don’t understand the point of this ‘argument.’ Was it to create drama? Was it to establish Calypso's new characterisation??? I truly don’t see the point.

It’s like every conversation they have is just Calypso putting Leo down. Insulting him on his looks, jokes and ideas. It is incredibly rare that we ever say anything genuinely nice about him.

That is not to say that Leo is blameless. The mamacita thing? Yeah, no. That shouldn’t have been there. For those who don’t know, here is an explanation on what mamacita means: The literal translation of mamacita is "little mother" but the figurative and more accurate translation is "hot momma." The word is inextricably linked to a man's perception of a woman as an object of sexual desire.

I don’t think I have to go into why that’s bad. Especially when she told him to stop multiple times.

To be fair, Leo does get called out on it in ToN, and I am happy that he was. But at the same time it frustrates me a little bit, because Leo is being rightfully scolded for not respecting Calypso’s comfort zone, but we never see Calypso get called out for the same thing.

Both Leo and Calypso felt very out of character to me in tDP, the book that is supposedly supposed to sell you on their relationship. 

Leo was a lot more of a comic relief character than he usually is. Sure, he’s not the most serious character, but he had depth. I suppose that I can excuse that a little bit though, as we're seeing him through Apollo’s pov, and from the vast majority of povs besides his own, he is just that one funny friend who cracks jokes. It’s only from his own pov that we really see his struggles. But it still frustrates me because it was never resolved. His trauma is made clear to is it tLH and then it’s never fixed or even acknowledged beyond Leo’s internal monologue and like… two sentences where he briefly talks about it with someone?!?!

Calypso, on the other hand, has a very noticeable personality change. In BotL she is caring, kind and sad. She didn’t have much of a personality and was mostly there to make Percy question the gods and Luke’s motives.

In House of Hades, she is completely different. She’s some form of mad, annoyed or rude throughout the entirety of the book. And in The Dark Prophecy, she’s put up more of a “bad girl” persona.

My only real guess for her sudden change in personality is that Riordan either wanted Caleo to be more like Percabeth or he wanted her attitude towards him to be funny.

Neither of which succeeded.

Then there is the topic of Calypso's curse.

Calypso’s damn curse.

I've already touched on a few aspects of it in earlier parts so I'll try to not repeat myself too much.

But Calypso never had a choice on who came to her island. The gods always sent someone. So the fact that she ends up with the one guy who came back for her just… doesn’t sit right with me. It’s almost as if Calypso owed Leo a relationship for saving her.

And in a narrative sense, it almost felt like a reward for Leo, “Well kid, you've successfully defeated the big bad. Here, have this girlfriend as your prize.”

If Calypso were to decide to break up with Leo, there would always be an air of “But he saved you. You have to be with him.”

And for Leo, this is a literal goddess. The queen of Ogygia and a titaness who has lived literally thousands of years and is older than his dad. Yes, she becomes mortal in The Dark Prophecy (Which I personally think is a stupid decision.) but that still creates a big power difference.

Another thing I have an issue with relates to the fact that Calypso seems to be the priority in the whole relationship.

What I mean by that is that Calypso has been trapped her whole life. She’s never seen the world and decades have passed with her doing nothing but sitting on her island hoping someone would free her.

Leo on the other hand, has been on the run his whole life. He’s never truly had a place to call home after his mom died. He’s been sent to foster home after foster home running away every time. Whether they'd be from the police, the family he previously stayed at or child services, he’s always running.

What Calypso needs is to travel and see the world. What Leo needs is stability and a place to settle down and call home.

And yet, Leo’s absolute first priority in the end of BoO is to show Calypso the world, completely disregarding his own needs. 

He does semi get that ending in ToN where he is seen living at the Waystation, which did make me glad. Calypso is at band camp during that time however, taking a break from their relationship (and god I hope that’s permanent) to experience more parts of life.

Then there is something I don’t think I’ve seen anyone talk about.

In The House of Hades, Calypso mentioned having skimmed through Leo’s life with her magic.

That’s… kind of a huge breach of privacy. Sure, she wanted to know what outfit to make, but how much else did she see?  Some things Leo might not have been comfortable with her knowing, or at least not yet. 

You may look at this as a “She loves him even after having seen his flaws, ” but may I remind you that she literally had no other choice if she wanted to escape her prison?

And after finally escaping she doesn’t treat Leo well at all. 

I've noticed a very specific distinction in canon Calypso and fanon Calypso. There are two main versions of fanon Calypso. One who thinks Leo is charming. She laughs at his jokes, looks at him fondly and the two of them are happy together. The other one loathes him, constantly wondering why she’s dating him. Getting irritated at the smallest joke and it all being excused because ‘Leo likes her.’

Both of them are wrong in their own way but the latter is sadly more accurate.

Canon Calypso seemed genuinely irritated every time Leo cracks a joke. It’s not a ‘she secretly likes it and is pretending she doesn’t because tsundere or whatever.’ She seems to just genuinely dislike them.

Leo uses his humor as a coping mechanism. He’s been through a lot of bad stuff and the only way he knows how to handle it is to laugh it off and crack jokes. I’m not saying that its a good coming mechanism and that he shouldn’t try to get help, but I think that constantly being told that the way you deal with your trauma is stupid is not a good way to go about it. At all.

“But Calypso may not have known about his trauma!” She went through his memories. She is bound to know something.

I haven't even touched on Calypso cursing Annabeth. I get that she was sad, but aiming her anger at Annabeth instead of Percy? Someone he wasn’t even dating yet? Yeah, I think Percy fully underreacted when he met her again.

Now, I wanna take a minute to talk about the Odyssey. It is referenced several times when Calypso is brought up. The narrative of the Odyssey seems to be a bit different from the actual book by Homer and the one we have in the riordanverse.

In that book, we first meet Calypso. When Odysseus arrives on her island, it is made very clear that he is a prisoner. In some iterations, Calypso... does some very very bad things to him. He is kept there for seven years until Athena asks Zeus to send Hermes to ask Calypso to free him, which she reluctantly does.

This seems to be a bit different from the version in pjo where Odysseus supposedly stayed there willingly.

I just question the decision to make someone who was, in their original telling, an immortal kidnapper( along with other things other things), a ‘menatally 16 year old’ who then moves on to enter a relationship with one of the more traumatized 16 year old leads.

You may bring up the argument that the gods were also heavily sanitized, but at least none of them actually entered relationships with children.

But despite all of this, I see the appeal in the ship. I understand why so many people like it. I originally only had a vague idea as to why but I asked a few Caleo shippers why they enjoyed it and the explanations do make sense.

It’s a classic fairy-tail trope with the not so classical protagonists. Leo is not the typical prince charming. He is a scruffy kid who just wants to help someone he cares about. And Calypso, though she could definitely have fit the stereotypical disney princess archetype in BotL, her revamped HoH self is nothing like that. She’s rude and angry most of the time unlike the usuals damsels that need saving.

The main points of enjoyment seem to be the opposites attract trope (personality wise) and the little moments. Leo calling Calypso sunshine. The two of them, planning to open a repair shop together.

And I get it. I really do. Those things could make for cute scenarios.

People use fiction to escape reality. Not enjoying certain parts of it would break the immersion quite a bit. So looking at Caleo as the author intended is what most people do, and that way, they enjoy it. Looking past the author's intentions and not liking what you find is not fun. Heck, I wrote a whole essay about how I dislike a ship that is canon and I know for a fact that if I liked Caleo, my enjoyment of Heroes of Olympus and Trials of Apollo would go up by quite a bit. 

But I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t care about the series and It’s characters.

And so, with that said, we've reached the question of “How to fix it?”

Calypso should have joined The Hunters of Artemis. 

It was such an obvious direction for her character to go that I can’t believe some people haven't thought of it. Whether it was after Leo saved her or if the gods let her out, this is what I think should have happened.  Calypso has been trapped her whole life, the only people besides the gods that she interacted with were the men she was cursed to fall in love with, so she is both constantly heartbroken and lonely. And after she finally is free from her island prison she expresses her desire to explore the world she missed out on. But she’s also scared of losing her immortality and becoming mortal.

The Hunters are a group of girls who travel the world together and always have each other's back. They are granted immortality upon entering and swear in oath to never date men. I honestly think it speaks for itself just how perfectly Calypso’s arc would have been wrapped up if she joined them.

For Leo, this question is a bit more complicated.

I’d say there are three ways Leo’s romantic ‘arc’ can go. 1. He doesn’t need a love interest to be a good character and learns to love himself and the people around him. 2. He gets another love interest that doesn't have the same problems. 3. Or he and Calypso do get together, but it is treated as a bad thing.

I like the first one the most. Leo is incredibly self-loathing and thinks having someone to call his own will fix that. Him getting the support he needs or realizing on his own that he doesn't need ‘someone’ to be happy would be a perfect way to wrap up his character. It would also make his ‘sacrifice’ more impactful, as it would be a 100% his own choice with no outside factors guiding him.

The second option is a bit trickier, but if I had to give him any other love interest, I’d probably go with Nico. Now, before the solangelo shippers skin me alive, let me explain my thought process. To keep it short, Leo and Nico are very much ‘the loners’ on the Argo. The only two without a romantic partner. They also mirror each other pretty well. Nico, an extrovert, became an introvert due to trauma. And Leo, an introvert, became an extrovert due to trauma. It would be a good way to help each other heal. Also, Leo being attracted to men in some capacity could be a good explanation for his over the top insincere flirting with women. I could honestly make a whole nother essay on the lost potential of Valdangelo.

The third one would be quite interesting. I could honestly see their relationship being the exact same as it is in canon, but this time, the plot and the other characters actually acknowledge the bad parts. Calypso could realize that she doesnt need a man to make her happy. Leo’s friends could actually notice how bad his mental state is and try to help him.

These are, of course, not the only options. I've heard of some other good ideas out there.

If you still enjoy the ship after all of this, then more power to you. I am not here to tell you what you can and can’t ship. And I am glad you can find enjoyment in something I can’t, especially since it being a canon ship, enjoying it would bring the overall enjoyment of the books up. I’m pretty burned out on this ship in all honesty. I think I’ll take a break from thinking about it for a while, in both positive and negative ways.

Hearing other people's opinions on it helped me realize why the ship appealed to as many people as it does. But me? I don’t think I’ll ever warm up to the ship. I think it’ll alway be, in my opinion, the worst canon pjo ship.

(4840 Words. If you have any thoughts or opinions feel free to share them!)