#like she's got so much potential to be the best character of the seven. ik technically all of them do but

[lazy--lillies]

Ok so my Piper post was written on my phone and I didn't phrase it properly but I do want to talk abt her and Helen of Sparta's parallels bc- ohhhh boy.

So first of all, her being sent to boarding school. Now, this was a bad writing decision for Rick to make with his one Native character, but other people have talked abt why that was problematic so I'm just going to get this point out of the way bc unfortunately it's part of the plot and there's no undoing that. This could've been such a good initial parallel between the two. Helen of Sparta, forever known as Helen of Troy because of a marriage caused by a spell of Aphrodite. There was so much he could've done with Piper feeling out of place, and her wondering about the woman who used to own her knife. He gave her all this extensive knowledge of Greek mythology and then never let her put it to practical use. Bullshit! Piper being forced away from her home due to the designs of the gods (one god in particular - but I'll get to that in a minute) should've come into play from minute one.

Two: her beauty. Now, Piper is shown as the strongest and most "Aphrodite-esque" of her children. Her eyes change colours like her mom's (another bad writing choice, but I'm going by canon so just work w me here guys), her charmspeak abilities, and just the general role she takes up in the Aphrodite cabin with all her siblings. Hell, she's constantly being asked by random gods to be their bride and/or queen because she's just that beautiful. Unfortunately, because of the general writing of her character, this natural beauty comes off as being pick-me instead of an inherited trait from her mother. I genuinely hate the way Rick wrote her beauty because it could have been utilised so much better. If we're continuing with her Helen parallels, she should have made men drop when they saw her. Don't make her a bullied girl who doesn't know her beauty, there are already plenty of characters who were like that in the series. Instead she could still have been bullied by girls who were jealous of her, but have people know that she's beautiful. Have her know that she's beautiful, and let her be uncomfortable with that! Have it make boys have to look twice to make sure she's real, have girls jaws drop when they see her. Percy and Jason get all these godly comparisons with their looks, why not Piper? Have people genuinely think she's an immortal when they first see her because she's so gorgeous. Make her be mistaken for Aphrodite! If you want to really spice things up, add that to her mommy issues! There were so many options with her inherited traits from her mom, and instead they were just used to excuse the weird lusting after her that the men in the narrative and the narrative itself does with her, which is disgusting considering she's only 15.

Also, Sparta being such a famous place for it's war tactics. It being Helen's birth place. Aphrodite being a war goddess. One of Piper's main wishes being to be seen for more than her beauty, but for her strength in battle. Helen, who is only famous for her beauty, originating from a place famous only for it's lust for war. The way that we wish to be perceived versus the way we will eventually be known. Piper trying so hard to run away from Helen's fate and yet being unable to escape it. That fate mirroring the current perception of her mother. Her mother knowing this and being the key if Piper wishes to break the cycle. I could go on abt this but this post is already so long so I think you guys get the point.

Three: her relationship with Jason. So I didn't really explain this in the og post, but her being a lesbian from the start is kind of just necessary for this plot to work in my mind. She got retconned into being gay which pisses me off, but I won't say she wasn't queer coded in the og HOO series because she definitely was, even if I hate the way it was made canon.

This one is definitely going to be my longest point. From the start, her being paired up with Jason should have been done by her mother. I get that the whole "seeing where potential for romance is" thing was happening, but their relationship ended up failing anyway and the way it fails just makes the whole point kind of fall flat. Instead, it would have made more sense for Aphrodite to have included these memories for her daughter. She loves interfering in romance, and her using Piper's relationship with Jason as a way to get Piper's romantic life out of the way (separate thing of Aphrodite caring abt seemingly everyone but her own kids' romantic lives, but that's a different post) then that could've made this parallel so strong! It's what made me make the og post, and what makes this idea drive me so insane. Helen being already married and Paris being forced to fall in love with her, abducting her from her home and then marrying her would've been the perfect parallel to Piper's story. She has memories of Jason implanted in her brain, and for the whole of The Lost Hero we see her trying to figure out what's real or not, but that's so difficult to do in her situation. She's constantly on the verge of death after she finds out her memories are false, and if it's not her then it's Leo or Jason being in danger. This should've become an arc for Piper and Jason, and imo HOO should've ended with their amicable breakup. Make her slowly realise over the course of the series that she's a lesbian, and her feelings were manufactured by her mother (and reinforced by comphet). This honestly even works with Jason's death. Parallel him and Paris' death, have Piper then have a relationship with a girl after being "freed" from the relationship she was forced into by her mother. And, most importantly, USE this parallel! Have Jason die in his OWN SERIES, and have that cause actual character conflict!

Helen and Paris were torn apart by the war. Helen was from Sparta, she was taken from her marriage and betrothed to another. It's what cause the war, and what lead to her lover's death. Piper was the daughter of the oldest Greek goddess, while Jason was the son of the most important figure for Romans. HAVE THAT MEAN SOMETHING! Their relationship should have had WAY more tension when the camps were fighting, and it should have brought up the question of how much they cared about each other at all. It was alluded to, but Piper's doubts about Jason's allegiance never had any real world consequence. And if she did doubt him, only for him to die for his friends? Oh the tragedy it could have caused. Jason's role as praetor was also never expanded on. There should have been consequences for a praetor, the highest rank of a Roman legionnaire, to be dating a Greek, their sworn enemy. It should have caused conflict, it should have made the Romans feel betrayed by their former leader, it should have been one of the driving forces behind Octavian's dismissal of Jason's return. Piper should have been in the centre, looking at her knife only to wonder how much of this she could control. How could she save anyone when everything ruining her life seemed out of control?

Was Piper's life ever truly hers, or was she living out a tragedy that had been played out a million times before?

But, yk, that would require understanding that lesbians can have complicated relationships with their sexuality and go out with men without it undermining their own sexuality, and an understanding of female characters that goes beyond dating someone or eternal virign. Sigh.....

[pervincetosscobble]

finished my young justice rewatch here are some Thoughts And Feelings (this is a very long post sorry to mobile users)

let me begin this post by saying bart allen is my one and only true ultimate favorite, and also if you’ve ever wanted to see (um, hear) me cry you can do that now thanks to bart allen

i was surprised by how much some of my opinions/faves changed tbh? i was. god, i was 13 the first time this show aired and 15 when it ended, so it tracks that now, 4-6 years later (???!?!?!?!?) things won’t be the same, but some changes were. significant

i’m adopting conner, for starters

conner loves sociology. pry this headcanon from my cold dead hands, motherfuckers

conner also knows a lot of really weird pieces of trivia

conner was a good student but also didn’t care about school

i remember not being really into conner/m’gann the first time around but i was kind of taken in by them in s1? these two kids trying to find their home in a world that wasn’t made for them.

conner and m’gann had a lot of date nights themed around Get To Know Earth Culture

some of these involved bioship travels and, like, day trips to paris just because they could

some of these were like. improv lessons and pottery classes.

i’m also still not super happy about the hints that they get back together post-s2. like. i hope they become friends again, that’d be good, but i refuse to believe conner would be okay with dating her again after what she did the first time.

point that has only just occurred to me: in the beginning of s1 conner is vastly uncomfortable with telepaths. by the end he’s totally okay with it because of m’gann. and i’d bet money there’s a point somewhere mid-timeskip where, because of her, he was no longer okay with them anymore.

one the note of the timeskip: five years seems RIDICULOUSLY long to me, especially considering that every plot-significant change happened “in the last few months.” like, what was the goal? aging dick up to nightwing? five years is SO MUCH missing lore, so many stories they could’ve fleshed out. make it two years. hell, if two is a squeeze, i could’ve gone for three. but five years?? nah, dude.

the best thing about the timeskip was domestic wally/artemis, which, like, i was totally enamored with them, so much, and their relationship development, and everything about them

i also liked kaldur’s character a lot more this time around, although i’ve got to say i’m not wild about them basically fridging tula?? (i’ll admit to not being super familiar with aquafam lore, so i don’t know how true to the comics that is, but they didn’t have to do it in the show) like, i know that it turns out he didn’t really go mad with manpain grief and turn evil, but i think there’s an equally powerful story in tula being injured and recovering in a world where she thinks kaldur abandoned her, in kaldur having to lie to her face instead of using her memory as justification

in general i think s2 could’ve benefitted from some trimming? i love all the freshmen, i really do, but it wouldn’t have been the worst thing if there were a few less of them.

alternately - and i know, networks and whatever - if s2 had been two seasons, or even had half a dozen more episodes, i think it would’ve benefitted from that, too

gotta say, the light gets old real fast. or at least, like, the whole “everything got super fucked” “no, everything went exactly as we planned it” things. like, you’re telling me the team never once threw them a curveball. never. really

13yo dick’s shenanigans and wordplay were a lot funnier when i was 13

now that i am an adult i feel..... a little more skeevy about canon-era jaime/bart than i did when i was 15 and i actually knew 13-year-olds who were dating 16-year-olds and saw nothing wrong with it? but i maintain that they have a solid friendship and definitely end up dating once they’re in their twenties

zatanna is my hero

this show vastly, vastly underutilized raquel. it’s a damn shame.

you know who else was great? mal. mal definitely saves puppies in his spare time and knows three languages and at least seven forms of martial arts and every teammate’s abilities and fears and favorite colors and everything there is to know about karen

artemis/zatanna is good

you know how jade just showed up and was like “yo roy look at our daughter”?? i like the idea of jade just, like, casually dropping lian’s existence into daily conversation.

“i miss alcohol now that i’m pregnant,” jade says. artemis chokes.

“this mission can’t take too long, i told the babysitter i’d be back by 9,” cheshire says. “the what,” sportsmaster shouts.

i still ADORE the runaway team, including og!roy, and man, i didn’t come out of this rewatch shipping a lot, but i love the idea of the runaway squad being kind of a tangled poly mess. ed is dating roy and asami, tye is dating asami and virgil, asami loves all her boys and understands why roy isn’t interested, etc.

like this fic for the disney film descendants

but also, like, in general, i really fucking love these kids

this show has a lot of really weird dad plots, which is strange for me bc my dad and i used to text after every episode, but also in general it’s interesting seeing the vast range of potential dads. for instance:

clark “i didn’t ask to be a dad” kent, who eventually transitions into an apparently passable dad? it’s not clear

black manta, who is morally a shitheel but also one of the most supportive dads on this show

barry, who definitely wanted to be more of an uncle than a dad

lex, who wanted to buy his genetically-experimented kids’ love

ollie, who really had a hell of a time

and of course dinah, who is the best mom and probably the best parent on the entire damn show

(also bruce, who didn’t do much dadding, but damn if i didn’t tear up at him talking to dick/tim/babs before he left earth)

gar logan is the team’s adoptive little brother. all of them, but especially the original six. and probably also zatanna and rocket.

i’d be able to go into more detail if we had more goddamn information about who joined the team when, which we don’t, because five year timeskip

but anyways since gar and m’gann are pseudo-siblings they’re closest, and then gar also loves conner, because who wouldn’t love their sister’s cool boyfriend?

conner is overwhelmed and kind of pleased by this

after conner and m’gann broke up gar was very worried that his sister’s cool ex-boyfriend wouldn’t want to hang around him anymore

conner did. conner and gar are basically brothers.

gar loves the entire original team, period

also i wanna throw it out there: ik there was a show-specific comic tie-in. i have read none of it. so if i say anything that doesn’t mesh with that it’s because i don’t care a ton about the comics? the show is probably better anyways

god i think that’s just about everything? so to wrap up this extremely long post i’m gonna go out of bulletpoint style here

i’m excited for s3! i really am. i can’t wait to see what they do with it. but also i’ve been convinced since i was 15 that the very last scene, with darksied and apokalips (which i deffo just spelled wrong but anyways), that scene only exists bc the producers were like “fuck it, we’re getting cancelled, might as well go all in” and just threw garbage in to make it seem like there was a conspiracy

like, this is a deep cut here, but there’s an episode of phineas and ferb that ended with a “next time” that was a series of nonsensical dramatic scenes, and then they tried to make an episode out of it and it was basically gibberish, and i’m really concerned that’s what’s going to happen here

but tldr i did enjoy this show a lot, and i’m glad i had the chance to rewatch it, and if anyone has their own thoughts to share y’all are welcome to hit me up!!