#primordial besties

[thothfulthieves]

callie! tell me about the interesting army members 👀 were there any outside of the olympians or the minor gods who got cabins?

Hello, dear anon! I deeply apologize for not responding soon. Who would have thought moving would take so much out of me?

Anyway, great question! We have a lot of demigods and some demititans. We have two children of Thanatos, Azrael and Lorelai, (ask @phoenix--flying about them as they belong to them). Lorelai is my girlfriend. <3

Darcel a son of Selene (also ask @phoenix--flying)

Hina a daughter of Helios

Polaris a son of Asteria

Amara a child of Eros (she belongs to @phoenix--flying), and Erin and Aaron Onoasis twin children of Eros

Nerissa a daughter of Nyx

Dawn a daughter of Hemera (she belongs to @phoenix--flying)

Feel free to ask about any of them! I love talking about my friends. (and my girlfriend)

[enphoso-ask-blog]

me and the bestie :)

[blujayonthewing]

it's a testament to how much I love my friend and how strongly I feel about tumblr as an art-sharing platform that I recommended she come to tumblr to share her art even though her doing so would inevitably lead to her following me on main

[torgawl]

not the quest ending on a cliffhanger WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BOY CHILDE

[abyssalpriest]

Honest to god if ESO hadn't done it most recognisably I'd represent the three as three snakes eating each other

[ehlnofay]

I should post some of my things about pax & sheogorath sometime. they are the duo of all time

[thatdeadaquarius]

I have a random idea for some sagau crack loosely based on my dynamic with my friend so Im giving it to you because I have been enjoying your sagau language stuff :D

Imagine there are two readers that are two different people. Like, not as in clones they are just two separate people that are rlly good friends on earth. They both really like genshin and play the game, and they both have self aware teyvat citizens. Reader 1 is a whale. They invest a l o t of money on the game, have all the characters, and all the characters have five star weapons. They are like the usual sagau reader you see. They have used up so much money on getting all of the characters, and I mean A L L of them, best weapons, constellations and put a lot of care into it. The place where they really get to show off is their knowledge and love for the lore, and are really invested into it and read all of the artifact descriptions and books. They know about primordial one, the four shining shades, random useless facts about items and often rant to reader 2 about their theories. Their quest bar is always empty because they did them to check out the lore of the game, and are always searching for more lore. They basically play everyday and are always reacting and talking to the characters out loud, unaware that they can hear them.

Meanwhile, Reader 2 is a f2p who is only interested in the archon quest lore and the lore of their fav characters. Because they are f2p, their options are limited so there is some blatant favoritism. They choose their fav character to save up for, and then pull for them. After they get the character they want, they will no longer pull and save up from there. Because of this, they only have like 5 five stars and only have zero five star weapon. Their favourite character is their main(*cough* wanderer *cough*), and unlike reader 1 who uses all of their characters regularly, reader 2 sticks to this character for most of their gameplay unless they need to use someone else. However, reader 2 takes almost an entire month to finish building a character, because they go overboard with the artifact stats. You would expect to normally have a 50 180 crit ratio, but reader 2’s dps characters always, and I mean ALWAYS have 50 200 crit ratio or more. Like, their main (it doesnt have to be wanderer but Im putting him here anyways) has 70 and 200 crit ratio, is crowned, full 4 pc best in slot, and is even crowned and faruzan only needs like 200 er but reader 2 gave them 300. (Im totally not putting this here because this is what I did/j) Reader 2 is also the type to never speak while gaming, so the first time they spoke everyone turned it into a national holiday to be celebrated. They also play a lot less than player 1. Player 1 plays everyday while player 2 plays for a month straight and then takes a long break to wait for the content to pile up.

So these two gremlin besties are always speaking with each other, and are always on coop. Whenever player 1 needs help making team comps or building characters, they just ask player 2 for help. And whenever player 2 needs help understanding the lore of the game, they ask player 1. But all I can think abt is the first time they cooped. Imagine player 1 was using childe and then when the coop starts, both childe and wanderer are very confused as to wtf is going on. Like, childe is confused because he sensed a strange aura coming form them like whenever someone gets controlled by reader 1, and wanderer is confused because reader 2 seemed so excited that they were talking, but its just childe? Reader 2 always skips childe’s banners.

Thats it lol, hope this wasnt too long.

Not long at all! Or more like, I like long asks so feel free to share! :D

IM SO SORRY ITS LIKE MONTHS LATER TO GET TO YOU I PROMISE I LOVE UR STUFF AND AM SUPER EXCITED TO SEE IT,

IM JUST SLOW AND GOOFY 😭😭

Said friends in genshin like: ^^^

this kinda inspires me/reminds me of @mists-reading-nook soldier/poet/king post, you should check xe stuff!! Gave me brainrot to this day tbh, like im imaging how that “3rd King style of worship” would look like even now lmao ive been down bad 😭

☆

Sun: 2 Readers! (as desc. above), (you/they/them)

Orbit: Headcanons-ish

Stars: wanderer/childe, mentions of others i forgot to focus on any one character or nation :/

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: mild cussing language, & Trigger Warnings: none known.

Please comment if I missed any. /gen

dual symbolism everywhere, obv you both thought “for the twins” but it just kept getting out of hand the more the game updated over the months lol

like shrines/temples/churches showing up more often in new countries/areas and always identifying the same 2 gods

obv the for-the-lore player picked up on it first, and by the time the trickle-down effect happened, where characters/NPCs were outright talking about these gods, the 2nd was asking the lore knower to explain lol

the 2 gods kept getting referred to by a few names, like “The Soldier and the Scholar” or “The Sage and the Warrior” or “The Keeper and the Pursuer” etc.

after awhile of comparing both of your games, you realize that some vision users/gods tend to use the soldier/warrior/pursuer titles more often when talking about one of you, and the other gets the sage/scholar/keeper more often

u both get excited, maybe its bc you chose diff travelers or some other reason, but when u try and post abt it or otherwise ask other players u get a lot of negatives/”hasnt happened for me”s??

u both just think the games glitched or some dev is playing a prank on you two maybe,

it gets weirder when u both realize the lore player be over here getting random gifts from all the characters in the mail all the time

and just as grinding players like “ :’( my favs don't like me?? but they have the best artifacts and maxed friendship levels..”

they get flooded with multiple gifts from their main characters, most of which benefit the grind tbh lmao (like a bunch of cheaper materials or crystals to level up artifacts/weapons or to ascend that character = no more slaughtering every samurai on sight for their handguards or collected a fuckton of those blue layered mushrooms for wanderer)

god u were both grateful to this glitch ngl, it saved a lot of dumb misc tasks and was just a nice touch

no but the amount of confusion inside the game from when u first started playing together, like each of ur games began with stuff abt 1 god, then as u co-oped moved onto 2 gods (like said at the beginning)

the lore player is blabbing away like you do, which begins to be heard by the other player’s game world

like it starts as whispers in battle, then all the time, then a quiet convo in the background all the time, until they can just hear u out of earshot esp word for word when they focus!! at first the vision-users/gods got all excited bc their god was speaking!! finally!!! until I'm sure they heard narration that didn't fit/it was there sometimes even when their god’s presence wasn't?/voice sounded “off” to them/didnt fit their god…??

ok ik u were joking abt the national holiday,,, but I’m not. 😈

THE FIRST WORDS 2ND SPOKE BEING IN A PROPHECY, REGARDLESS OF WHAT IT IS THEY SAY.

Player 1, playing as Childe, steals a singular (1) sweet flower from Player 2, who has Wanderer out:

P2: “I seriously hate you. Listen to what I’m saying, I can’t stand you.”

(Wanderer panicking that its abt him- Childe freezing bc he managed to piss off a god that feels as powerful as his own- the PROPHECY LMAO- )

P1: “… you miss me.”

(everyone else: 💥vine boom sound 💥😦😨😰???)

P2: “I hate you.”

P1: “You miss me and you love me, why must we fight??”

(everyone else: 💥vine boom again💥🤨🫠??…)

P2: “I hate you-”

P1: “-we gotta good thing going on, you and I, why must we tussle??”

(everyone else: 💥yet another vine boom💥 💀💀)

(the absolute deep anxiety/pure confusion as the two harbingers heads just ping pong back and forth towards the voices lmao)

u two scare the shit out of any characters u do this with lol

they do get used to it as u talk, and the characters even manage to interact (thru hacking magical shenanigans and discord)

to send thank you gifts to player 1 for getting player 2 to talk more lol

along with sending copies of any lore books that player 2 has gotten that player 1 hasn't!

and it becomes common/tradition to exchange gifts like this to thank or appreciate the other god, like player 1 characters sending thank you gift copies of rare materials or ascension stuff that player 1 had that player 2 didn't (esp making sure to send during resinless hours lmao)

overall, 10/10, whats better than 1 god that plays one way? 2 gods that compensate for each other and now u have 2x the worshippers

(i wonder how meeting alternate versions of themselves would go, bc id like to headcanon that each of ur behavior towards them/ur unique influence has changed them a bit comparing, like they arent carbon copies anymore, not like they used to be…)

☆

hey sorry for slowing down guys!!

i just feel bad its taken me forever to get to these asks, so i wanted to take what time i could lately and charge thru them so i could spam post lol

I've also been working on fics! so that's delayed things by a lot, bc fics take longer to “respond to” than short asks or replies

my poor bsd fic

Anyway thank you so much for sending this in!!! I'm so sorry i took forever to get to it, and i hope u enjoyed response/my brain shitting this out lol

have a good weekend!! :D

Safe Travels Anon!!

💀♒

If you wanna join a taglist, DM me what for! "Pspspsss, please tag me for [All SAGAU posts, Only SAGAU Language AUs, diff fandom, etc.]!"

(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/[specifically this AU/fandom] please!")

♡the beloveds♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi / @fallen-starr / @areaderofbooks / @devilangel657 / @esthelily / @justinsomniachild / @nanithefuck / @questionotmystopit

@kiyomi-uchiha777

[hubrisbracket]

Hubris Bracket Side A Poll 3: Trixie Lulamoon (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) vs Erin Ruunaser (Aurora Comic)

Propaganda below (may contain spoilers)

Trixie Lulamoon

If any mlp character deserves to be in the hubris bracket it should be Trixie. Also she literally didn't even do anything wrong except entertain people (which is literally her job) and was punished just because the mane six couldn't take a fking joke. And, I might be wrong about this- but Trixie was originally only supposed to appear for like one episode but the fans loved her so much they brought her back and she became one of the biggest characters on the show. literal legend. Stream Magic Bitch by Vylet Pony and Magic by The Living Tombstone btw "sometimes you gotta let your ego slip for your own mental health" -Vylet Pony

egotistical magician my beloved... petty stage magician. she has a long standing rivalry with the princess of friendship (twilight sparkle ofc) who is incredibly powerful with actual magic. she tried to run twilight out of town once. it didn't go well. oh also she's besties (gay) with twilight's protege which annoys her to no end. also also she's sooooo trans the entire fandom agrees

Erin Ruunaser

This man walked directly into a primordial magic storm with an almost 100% death rate because he wanted to look at what's in the middle; he's the current Elemental Magus, and it has definitely gone to his head; he's outsmarted (or tried to outsmart) an eldritch evil that killed the oldest and most powerful gods of his world twice, which possessed him because of his aforementioned storm-walk; and his creator has called him Sicktats McHubris at least once. Also, he acts incredibly smug all the time.

He’s kinda like the avatar, so he thought that it would be a good idea to walk into a magical storm that no person had ever seen the center of. He ended up getting possessed by an ancient god-killing evil and now has to get rid of him. The fandom has nicknamed him Sicktats McHubris, on account of his very cool magical tattoos.

[thefirstknife]

NEW OBSESSION DROPPED.

Scatter Signal fusion rifle lore. Baffling as soon as I saw it, mostly because I could not figure out what "NM:O" means, but then the lore tab with Eris talking to Osiris cleared it up. NM:O is Osiris. He is... Doing something. Sending some sort of a signal somewhere and tracking it. And then the signal found something and transmitted information back.

I knew this was code, but I couldn't look for it right away so I dropped this to the bestie Osiris Understander ( @infinitewarden ). He searched for it, it's hexadecimal code. The text of this pile of numbers and letters is the following:

"A churning singularity of shadow and mimicry beats again within cultivated chaos. Minds orbit its gravity, to bridge communion with a Voice, to move from parallel to entanglement. They dream of a dark core, contained within a timeless structure. A suspended return to the primordial. If not for this truth, why kneel? If not for this truth, why does it elude definition? Though not all agree on all, all agree on this. Sol is Salvation."

I'm losing my mind. What does it mean. What does this mean. From what little we can gather, it must be that Osiris somehow managed to catch a Vex signal (or something that can transmit a Vex signal) and it spoke back. And it said this. The Vex are doing something in the background, something we don't understand and something we don't have time to deal with right now, but might come back to bite us. And with the Sol Divisive's involvement this season... I don't know.

Given that we've seen a glimpse of some stuff in the Black Garden for this season... I am very intrigued. I'm mostly thinking that Osiris got the signal from the Black Garden (as he was studying the Conceptual Mind we killed, the architect of the Black Heart, from the Deterministic Chaos quest). Either way, something is happening to the Vex and lest we forget, their most thoroughly converted world in the system (Mercury) is still gone.

[a-comedic-tragedian]

me and bestie when we compromise our own morals to take down our former friend who has gone insane serving a primordial evil

[gotstabbedbyapen]

But now we must know, what are your headcanons for the first generation of Gods siblings? Personally? Zeus isn’t allowed to swim with Poseidon cause they always fight and Zeus goes toaster in bathtub mode where he’s the toaster.

I haven't considered Zeus doing the "toaster in bathtub" thing. Thank you Anon, I will put this into my HC list :3333

Now on with the first-generation Olympians (it's gonna be a long ride, so strap on!)

Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon were swallowed when they were young kids/nearing adolescence, not newborn babies. I want Kronos and Rhea's family to have some years of happiness together before the prophecy ruin them all.

Out of the Big Six, Demeter and Hades look the most alike to Kronos (unrelated note: Persephone looks the most alike to Kronos out of the 2nd gen)

Demeter is Kronos' favorite child because she shares his power over agriculture. Kronos has even planned her future to be his successor as goddess of the harvest.

Poseidon has the fear of dark, closed places due to his trauma of being locked in Kronos' stomach. During his first centuries ruling the ocean, he cannot stay in his kingdom at night because the realm gets extremely dark and it paranoid him. Poseidon can't go to the deep trenches either.

To cope with his fear, Poseidon's bedroom is filled with bioluminescent algae and jellyfish.

After escaping Kronos' stomach, Hera was sent to take refuge at Oceanus and Tethys' place. Around this time, she became besties with Amphitrite (I see Amphi as a daughter of Nereus but she is close with the other sea deities too)

Thetis and Hera's friendship is underrated. Hera, Thetis, and Amphitrite have occasional girl's nights where they ditch their spouses to spend time together.

As besties Hera and Amphitrite share the same taste in men *looking at Zeus and Poseidon*

Hera and Amphitrite were not happy when Zeus married off Thetis. Oh boy, there were a lot of screaming and fighting for Thetis' behalf.

It was very surprising when Thetis later made her husband Peleus immortal (there is a version of that lol)

Zeus and Poseidon created the electric eel and other aquatic animals that produce electricity. The purpose? Ask them.

When Hebe was training to become the cupbearer of the gods, Zeus watched over her and gave her tips from time to time. He used to be the cupbearer of Kronos, too.

I am seriously contemplating on whether Poseidon have a thing for Odysseus or not. Like in "I want to fuck you up both ways".

Hades doesn't outright ban the others from coming to the Underworld. The reason he doesn't like them visiting often is because some will ask (read: screaming and crying at) him to resurrect their favorite mortals.

Hades adopted Cerberus some times after Typhon (Cerberus' bio father) was defeated and the doggo had nowhere to go. From then on Cerberus was living in luxury in the Underworld with the only job is to guard the door.

Hades has a messed up sense of humor after centuries of dealing with the dead, and Persephone got infected as well. If you ask Hades "Can you give me a hand?" he will give you an actual hand.

Hades x Persephone x Minthe OT3 is real.

Hades isn't some gloomy dark man. Yeah, he wears black a lot but also with gleaming gems and fine jewelries (you know, god of precious minerals and all).

You don't believe me? Here's the testimony:

(tfw your husband rocks his dress prettier than you :DDD)

The three kings didn't draw lots to determine who will rule which realm. During the Titanomachy, they grew fond over their future kingdom and showed hints of belonging to them.

Poseidon's first hint of becoming King of the Sea is that he makes lots of sea puns. Like, a lot.

They also don't have total rule over their kingdoms. Their authority is above all but still under the Primordials of their respective realms (Zeus is under Nyx, Poseidon under Pontus, Hades under Tartarus). Every time they make major changes in their kingdom, they have to consult the Primordials first.

Demeter isn't officially crowned ruler of the Mortal Realm but they all know she is in charge of the whole place.

Even though the Big Six preside over lots of domains, they don't always tend to each one themselves but have lesser deities like dryads, naiads, nepheles, etc. to assist them while they act like the head directors.

The marriages of the three kings and queens are more about political power than love. It's not that they don't have some feelings for each other though.

When they were young and Zeus is courting Hera, he once put on a peacock tail to woo her.

Demeter is married to Leto and they raised Persephone, Artemis, and Apollo together. I don't take objection.

All of the second-generation Olympians were taken care of by Hestia at least one time.

Do not mistake Hestia's dislike of violence for her incapability of inflicting violence. She can cause more damage than your mental health is prepare for.

Hestia doesn't yell or hit others, but disappointing her is the biggest crime.

Demeter makes the best vegetable dishes, roasts, soups, anything. Kids love veggies because of her. She can make you love broccoli with one meal.

Headacanon but also true myth: Demeter adopted and raised lots of kids on her own. Many of them later became her companions or spread the agricultural knowledge they learned from her to humanity. They all love mama Demeter.

Hera treats her daughters better than her sons, but it's because she is learning from her mistakes in bringing up Ares and Hephaestus. She isn't the best but she is trying everyday.

Zeus doesn't hate Ares, but what he reflects. Ares is a raw reminder of a darker side of Zeus that he'd rather pretend doesn't exist.

I've made this joke before but it's still relevant: The only thing more complicated than advance mathematics is Zeus and Hera's relationship with Ares.

Zeus' favorite children are Athena and Apollo, obviously. His least favorite (as in he doesn't care enough compared to others) are Ares and Persephone.

Iris and Chloris/Flora are not straight because of Hera, but they know they won't have any chances with her.

Zeus' first lover is Aëtos, an earth-born man who was his childhood friend when he lives in Crete.

In the modern world, the lock screen of Hera's phone has the picture of her family being happy together. And her home screen is the pic of Zeus in a Pikachu onesie.

[whattheheckisatazelwurm]

Just a couple of besties hangin out in the primordial soup

[moonlitlex]

i have so much to say abt chalice of the gods so im just gonna copy paste my review from goodreads here. you can also read it on goodreads

ok. i promised i would hate this book. and i do. i hate this book. i also hate rick riordan. in addition, i hate capitalism. i promise that’s relevant.

let’s talk about the book now. i’ll cover the things i love first. i love percy jackson. i love grover. i love annabeth. i love sally. i love paul. i love percy annabeth and grover together. all of these things are very obvious and self-explanatory. percy is hands down THE main character of all time. i have nothing bad to say about him. his literal fatal flaw is loyalty. he’s actually perfect and has no flaws. this is expected from the son of sally jackson, the perfect person. paul is sweet and kind to sally and that’s really all that matters. annabeth is awesome and supportive and so is grover and they’re all besties forever. you get it. you’ve read percy jackson.

the jokes are better than before. there are definitely some legitimately funny jokes in this book, which i was really missing from the last few rick riordan installments. and i don’t think this is because rick suddenly got funnier. i think it’s because this style of joke works for percy. of all of rick’s protagonists, percy seems the most natural fit for these jokes.

sally is great. grover and annabeth are generally on form. so is percy, as much as can be expected from rick riordan at this point. i will elaborate on this later.

now to complain. this is the stupidest premise i’ve ever heard of. percy is a high school senior. he is going to go to new rome university. he needs 3 divine recommendations. this is already a stupid premise but don’t worry, it gets worse. poseidon reveals that the reason percy needs these recommendations is that it’s a special requirement for him specifically made by zeus. and the reason he gets to have this stupid requirement is that he’s a child of the big three and shouldn’t exist.

hello. zeus. yes, lord zeus, it’s me. alexis.

what the absolute FUCK are you saying.

this doesn’t MAKE SENSE. the only reason percy shouldn’t have existed was that the gods had a stupid pact to not have any kids because of a stupid prophecy. two things here. one - that prophecy is OVER. everything turned out fine. thanks to percy jackson. you’re welcome, gods of olympus. two - percy has literally saved olympus TWICE now. two times. this is genuinely such a dumb and made up reason to send percy on a quest that i can’t even turn my brain off and enjoy it. it’s not fun. leave percy alone. LEAVE HIM ALONE.

it’s literally insane how stupid this setup is. rick keeps writing books about how the gods are horrible and take advantage of the demigods and the demigods live terrible lives. in this book, percy has LITERALLY saved olympus TWICE and motherfucking zeus (literally) had to be talked down from making him get 25 letters of recommendation to 3. this is AFTER percy spent 3 years in pjo almost being killed and got his memory wiped for 6-8 months depending on which book you read in hoo and then got sent on a quest to save the entire world AGAIN. this CHILD got like a 2-4 month break (depending on which book you’re reading) and he woke up with no fucking memory and had to spend like 2 more months fighting monsters and the literal primordial earth goddess. and now he has to go on literally pointless quests that someone who didn’t just get back home from saving the actual world could ALSO just do. because he needs to get some fucking letters of recommendation.

look. genuinely. percy jackson should snap at this point in the story. this boy should’ve snapped like at least 5 books ago. at minimum. rick wrote the perfect setup to show us percy’s instant descent into madness. he should LOSE it. all the gods have done for the ENTIRE time he’s known he’s a demigod is treat demigods like disposable tools. this is the point in the story where percy goes. wow. luke was right. you guys are all assholes who don’t care about us even a little bit. i am NOT saying what needs to follow is a fanfic-esque dark!percy story where he successfully destroys olympus or something. what i AM saying. is at bare minimum this is where percy goes you know what fuck you i hate you guys and washes his hands of being a demigod at least temporarily. at the very least he should sit back and think yeah, i don’t really want to go to new rome university. it’s not worth it. i will just go to a different university. look. it’s percy jackson. he can literally one shot all but the most fearsome monsters (typhon, the giants, a drakon, etc). he is literally going to be 100% completely fine going to mortal university AND he wont have to deal with zeus’s annoying ass.

listen. MY percy jackson wanted to kill smelly gabe as a 12 year old because he abused his mother. MY percy jackson doesn’t like bullies. MY percy jackson challenged ares to a fight just on the basis that ares was a fucking asshole.

MY percy jackson is not going on useless fucking quests to go to new rome university of all places.

which reminds me. why DOES he want to go to new rome university. this is percy jackson. he LOVES new york. why is percy “what did they do to my city” jackson going to university ACROSS THE COUNTRY from the city he loves. why is he doing that. and hey look. sally and paul (and soon estelle) are ALSO going to be in new york. so like WHY is he leaving for real. percy my fatal flaw is loyalty jackson. IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE OK! it’s percy he is seriously not going to have issues with common monsters attacking him. we literally saw him fight off titans and giants a fucking hellhound isn’t gonna get his ass. WHY is he leaving. it does NOT make sense.

there’s this scene ok. where sally tells them she’s pregnant. and percy’s like oh my god…. i’m going to be in california…. and my sister is going to be here…. and i was just sitting there going. yeah bro. why are you going to california. i literally do not understand. you literally are from nyc. you live here. your family is here. your friends from chb are like a short pegasus ride away. there are like 50 universities in new york. just go here. why are you leaving. you are percy jackson. being a new yorker is literally one of your defining traits. stay here. WHY AR EYOU LEAVING I DO NOT UNDERSTAND PERSEUS

and listen. if your argument is that annabeth is going to be in nru. why the FUCK is ANNABETH going to nru!!!!! WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT!!!! EXPLAIN IT!!!! percy LITERALLY says annabeth is such an overachiever she’s already run out of ap classes to take. he literally says that. why the fuck is this girl going to nru where let’s be real her admission is guaranteed. annabeth is 100% someone who would want to go to an ivy. and would you fucking believe it there’s an ivy right here in nyc. like let’s be fucking realistic here. annabeth started her architecture career at SIXTEEN designing the city the fucking GODS live in. so like. don’t you think she’d want to be a bit more challenged. don’t you think she’d want to go to a university that is actually recognizable to mortals. annabeth did NOT love new rome that much like did richard forget what he wrote. this girl was freaking out about new rome until percy said he only likes it because they could live together there. she literally does not care about new rome and she is WAY too ambitious and academically inclined to be happy with going to some small as uni 99% of employers have never heard of.

this isn’t even the worst character assassination in the book. that award goes to the way rick wrote percy. percy. my darling percy. my beloved percy. perseus jackson. light of my life. as i said before, he is MOSTLY on form. the him really wanting to cali thing is definitely ooc for him but it is NOTHING compared to the sheer amount of times rick portrays percy as stupid in this accursed novel. his internal monologue is constantly shit like i’m always so behind annabeth and omg i’m being so dumb right now and annabeth calls me seaweed brain because i’m an idiot and blah blah fucking blah.

dick riordan has forgotten that perseus jackson is, in fact, not stupid at all. he is INCREDIBLY clever. he is just not particularly academically inclined/not very book smart and it would also be perfectly understandable given the fucking books that riordan wrote to interpret that as percy being very discouraged from engaging with his studies. he genuinely enjoys chiron’s class at yancy because chiron is an engaging teacher and encourages him. he spends 90% of his time in pjo deducing what’s going on with extremely limited information because rick decided none of the characters can tell him anything because of plot and exposition reasons. in son of neptune he literally just coasts on having sherlockian (not bbc that’s a whole other angry review) powers of deduction. to the point where the characters around him are amazed at how he’s figuring stuff out. literally in house of hades annabeth’s pov’s are constantly her commenting on how she gives percy shit for being a dumbass but he’s actually really clever.

it genuinely feels like at some point during the writing of mark of athena rick decided to just slowly start making various fanon ideas canon. percy being stupid is very commonly accepted fanon because he doesn’t realize how smart he is (and fans don’t realize he’s an unreliable narrator) and the fans also love to infantilize characters with more in your face adhd (leo is another victim of this phenomenon). we’ve spent 5 books in percy’s head and he doesn’t think he’s particularly clever so it makes sense to ignore the mountains of evidence pointing towards his quick and creative thought process in favour of haha percy is dumb jokes.

the wild thing is, percy isn’t even that hard on himself in pjo. he obviously doesn’t see himself in the same way we later come to find out other people see him (mainly thinking about hazel and frank in son of neptune, which is the only time in hoo he genuinely feels like the same character as pjo percy) but he’s not really dealing with crazy self doubt and self esteem issues. he does have his down on himself moments but they’re all extremely understandable given the context because he literally faces impossible odds in every single pjo book. at one point he’s disappointed he couldn’t tell that ares and luke manipulated him… like yes bestie that’s a very valid thing to feel upset and betrayed about. it doesn’t mean that he’s actually stupid though and genuinely he comes across more as humble and not realizing just how awesome and cool and interesting he is than anything else. percy consistently shows that he is really clever. half of pjo is percy figuring out a new and interesting way of defeating his enemies and the other half is percy figuring out how to bait his enemies into a duel to improve his odds. it’s horrible what rick does to percy in his internal monologue.

it’s to an insane degree. yes i realize i have already written 500 words about percy not being stupid alone but i must stress how egregious this is. it’s literally characters who have previously acknowledged percy’s intelligence who start remarking about how he’s stupid. in house of hades percy and annabeth get out of fucking TARTARUS and reyna makes a jab about how percy wouldn’t be able to find his way out of a paper bag without annabeth. that is an INSANE thing to say for reyna and for rick. rick has not written a stupid character so it’s weird to make that something a character does without really trying to show them being wrong. from reyna’s perspective, this is a guy she was complimenting a few short weeks ago. this is a guy she immediately wanted to make a leader at the camp that she loves and is her home. this is guy she barely knows and she pretty much immediately proposes to him. WHY would she suddenly start making jokes about how dumb he is? it’s not like she actually knows him better now. he came to the battle with reinforcements and basically immediately dipped after the feast. how are we to accept reyna treating our beloved perseus in this horrific manner? we simply cannot. it is unnacceptable. this is inaccurate.

it’s so WRONG to do this to percy. yES I UNDERSTAND I HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THIS FOR TOO LONG. I DON’T CARE. PERCY JACKSON IS MY BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE AND I NEED TO DEFEND HIM FROM THIS SLANDER. I AM ONLY PARTIALLY JOKING. listen. liSTEN. this is the guy whose signature move is manipulate your enemy into dueling with you when you’re outnumbered or outmatched. he very coolly manipulated bob into killing his own brother (btw this was very hot and sexy and clever and attractive perseus is king of gaslight gatekeep girlboss). he is NOT stupid. he is impulsive. he is extremely oblivious about some things. he is NOT stupid. i watched perseus jackson grow up for 5 books and he is not stupid. i always say this. i always say that percy is not stupid and richard riordan refuses to listen to me.

there are such horrendous lines as “i am a guy of limited talents. if i can’t kill it with water, a sword, or sarcasm, i’m basically defenseless.” richard how DARE you say this about my beloved perseus. he is NEVER like this. he literally would never say that. even at absolute worst percy’s internal monologue was “this plan is stupid and will get us killed. but it’s the plan i have.” he’s NOT a being defenseless guy. what hte fuck are you saying. richard did you read your own books. RICHARD. DID YOU. at one point he says that he is constantly several steps behind annabeth’s thought process. he has literally never thought this before and it is also untrue. richard. i hate you. read your own fucking books oh my god.

ok. i think i have sufficiently harped on the fact that percy is not stupid. now i will complain about another thing. and this was just in one part but it bothered me and this is my review so i get to talk about whatever i want. if you don’t like it read someone else’s review. don’t hate read my review. i didn't charge you money to read it

at one point, percy has to wrestle a god who hercules once wrestled. and annabeth says something about hercules brute forcing it. and look. i GET that hercules was freakishly strong. i get that. i understand it. but when annabeth says hercules just brute forced it they’re both like ah shit i can’t do that. perseus. beloved. you ripped the minotaurs horn off its head with your bare hands as a 12 year old with no training. you are literally insanely strong as is. that is an insane thing for a 12 year old to be able to do. hell, that would be an insane thing for a grown adult to do. i don’t think rick realizes how op percy is. he was so caught up in making percy cool (which is, you know, extremely understandable and right and correct percy jackson is the coolest man in fiction for a reason i get it) that he forgot that he made percy extremely unbelievably powerful too. with the curse of achilles he was potentially matching minor gods in power level. he fights while sustaining mini-hurricanes and explodes glaciers and shit.

some more things. the prose is… acceptable. the plot reads like a fever dream. there is a smoothie shop called himbo juice that annabeth percy and grover are evidently regulars at. and there are. himbos. that serve. juice. so you can imagine what this fever dream looks like. like the last couple rick riordan releases, this one reads like published fanfiction too, just with better quality of writing than the sun and the star.

there are some WEIRD continuity errors in here. one of them is fairly minor but i still noticed it - percy says his father compared his mother to a princess. this is not true. poseidon compared sally to a queen. specifically, he called her “a queen among women”. i know this because i am sally jackson’s number 1 fan.

more egregiously, however, is annabeth’s yankees cap heebie jeebies. percy puts on annabeths’s cap and gets the heebie jeebies while using it. and then he goes wow annabeth. you never told me that using the cap is like this. and annabeth is like yeah well. power is like that. richard. riordan. did you fucking FORGET that percy has, in fact, worn annabeth’s cap before. and it was literally completely. once again, richard, did you read your own books.

one more good thing - when percy fights geras/gary, who is the god/personification of old age, the way he does it is by imagining him and his friends getting older and embracing it. this was a genuinely good and sweet moment and it was very touching. the trio’s talks about this after the fact are also absolutely a return to form from riordan. for like, a few paragraphs. but still.

the biggest problem is just how obvious it is that this book is a cash grab. we had pjo. then we had a sequel series. then we had ANOTHER sequel series. and now we’re getting random standalone novels that are extremely unnecessary and don’t add anything. rick riordan has dollar signs in his eyes. these are not stories that make sense. these are not stories rick genuinely wanted to tell. these are stories that are being told because the purpose of publishing books now is to maximize profit. (sidebar - i told you the capitalism thing would be relevant. you should believe me more often. smh) the only reason rick is still writing these books is that they make money. they feel extremely empty and hollow.

percy is trapped as a teenager forever because rick refuses to let him age up. percy accepting old age would make FAR more sense for a percy who’s in his 20’s and just now realizing that he lived past all the shit he thought was going to kill him and he has a real life that he likes and he could actually grow old now. but percy must be a child for marketing purposes, so he stays a child. the world itself is trapped in a cycle of the gods promising they’ll be better and the gods literally not changing at all. and for the sake of the book series, it can’t change. if we had real change in the world, that would actually mean something, silly. we can’t have consequences. we have to reset every 5 years like a fucking comic book so that we can make infinite money. this is the infinite money glitch irl. just make trash that doesn’t need to be made. the end point of capitalism is making trash no one asked for that has no artistic merit just because you can make money off of it.

by the way, dr emily wilson’s iliad translation, which was also out on the same day, is LESS expensive than this book. this cashgrab nonsense novel is MORE expensive than a book a professor in classics who has a phd spent 4 years on. this is just wrong. the fun and stupid cashgrab book should NOT be more expensive than a book that someone spent 4 years meticulously translating from ancient greek. it’s just so clear and in your face. trials of apollo absolutely felt like a cashgrab but at least there was SOME semblance of effort there. this is literally just the most plain and simple cashgrab novel you can make.

hey. you know the infinite monkey theorem? the infinite monkey theorem is that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text including shakespeare. richard riordan is a monkey with a typewriter. you get it. you’ve read percy jackson.

rick riordan struck gold with pjo. it’s genuinely to this day one of my favourite things i’ve ever read, flaws and all. it’s FUN. it’s COOL. it’s THEMATICALLY COHESIVE. the characters grow and change. they feel like real people with personalities. it literally doesn’t even matter how op percy is because THAT’S how good of a character he is. he is so compelling that you want to read about him anyway even though you can tell right from the minotaur fight that this kid can decimate whatever opponent he has. the books are funny and moving because you can genuinely connect to these characters. the more i read rick riordan’s work, the more certain i am that pjo was a fluke. i don’t think he knows what he’s doing. i think he should retire from writing.

unfortunately for me, richard riordan seems to have no intention of retiring. he has announced another percy jackson book that will be released next year. i assume there will be at least 2 more books based on the setup in this one.

rick. listen. i know you’re listening because what else will you do with your time. rick, why are you doing this. hasn’t percy been through enough. when will it end. give it a rest. stop it. get some help. at the very least, read your own books before writing percy. i am right about him and you are wrong about him. you are the author and i’m killing you right now. i am strangling you and i am hitting you with weapons. all at once. i am very proficient at causing deaths. (this is a metaphor referring to roland barthes’ death of the author. i wish no bodily harm to richard riordan).

this book is… alright. percy is my smart king. sally jackson is queen of my heart. it’s a fun read but you do have to turn your brain off completely and read through some serious percy defamation.

[edit: i am downgrading this book to one star (was at 2). the more i think about it, the more angry i am. there is literally a paragraph tailor made to rub jason's death in our faces. it's about how he looks forward to getting old being married to piper and having grandchildren. it's a very low blow. jason is literally rick riordan's biggest missed opportunity and he's rubbing in how poorly he treated jason even after killing him off for apollo's character development.

annabeth still keeps putting percy down because rick doesn't realize how mean she is i guess. she's still scared of him. canonically. which is a really weird and fucked up thing to write imo. this relationship doesn't seem healthy in canon (they are healthy in my head, however, because i know what women are like) but rick refuses to address it or let them break up. i LOVE annabeth. i love her. but she is an extremely flawed character and rick never treats her as such. and it just makes it exhausting to read about her.

percy IS on form but it genuinely feels like he's tlt percy, not post hoo percy. his inner voice sounds way more immature than it has for most of pjo and in son. riordan also repurposes the "look, i didn't want to be a half-blood" line from tlt to make a dumb little joke about how high school is hard. it was a GOOD opening line. it immediately set the tone and told us so much about percy in literally just a handful of words. now it's a joke about how being a senior in high school sucks. it's this mcu-esque allergy to being sincere that pjo never had.

there is BARELY any grover in this book. i love grover so much that i was cheering any time he was there, but there is very little of him. he's in like 2 or 3 scenes and has his own side plot going on with juniper and being bad at understanding what his girlfriend wants or whatever. extremely unnecessary and not what i want for grover. this book kind of ends up feeling like it's about annabeth but from percy's perspective. she gets good moments at percy's expense. percy spends the book monologuing about how annabeth is way smarter than him and all he has is his sick ass water powers and the best swordfighting skill in 300 years, both of which are very downplayed. percy explodes a river and it's treated like this crazy freaky scary thing but two years ago in universe he made a volcano erupt and everyone was like yeah this makes sense percy is that powerful. in son he explodes a glacier and it's just a normal tuesday for him. he literally doesn't even react to it. and now we're supposed to believe his exploding and purifying a river feat is some unbelievable feat.]

in conclusion, i want a refund. no i did not purchase this book. however, i would like to be reimbursed about $5000 in emotional damages. i will also be suing richard riordan for defamation on percy’s behalf. good night new york city. and my beloved perseus jackson who lives in new york city.

[fjorests-of-wildemount]

Fearne didn't *need* the shard. She was curious about it and terrified of becoming Dark Fearne but there was no part of her or her story that needed it. She was badass and unique already; she may have been engineered as a Ruidusborn but this was unrelated to anything put in her path by that.

*Ashton* needed someone to take the shard, and frankly, it didn't matter who. The part of the Empress that lived in them needed its counterpart; the situation thrust on Ashton by their parents brought them here.

For Fearne the shard was foreign, this object and power she'd never considered, and yeah, she immediately thought she didn't want that. She doesn't have Imogen's ambition or Laudna's trauma, both of whom were the loudest voices pushing her to take the shard. And to be clear, if Fearne really didn't want it, she still could've said no. But some little part of her was what Fearne always is: *curious*. And so she took it, embraced it, endured all of that to see what happens.

For Ashton, it could've been any of the others who took it, that didn't matter. The fact that they happened to have a fire druid bestie whose existing powers would mesh well with the Fire to his Empress Earth was coincidence. He was forced into this as a child against his will, wrong and broken and feeling like a part was missing. The missing part wasn't Rau'shan, not really, but the dormant shard of Ka'mort within them. Fearne didn't complete them, Ashton completed themself.

I'm interested to see where this goes with them because I don't think it's as straightforward as it seems. And I'm especially intrigued to see what happens when two primordial essences get close to the imprisoned Predathos.

[towards-toramunda]

Being an ashrym girlie pop right now is so funny cause like yes I think the normal man and dual primordial dunamancy creature the likes of which Exandria has never before seen should kiss. And thats just… so… I feel insane. It’s just objectively funny to me.

(But also if Orym and Fearne both began to distance themselves from Ashton for what they did?…. I could see that happening oof. Cause fearne and orym are the besties power duo and I could see Orym being pissed that Ashton risked not only themselves but also Orym’s best friend by doing the ritual without anyone else present. AND orym and all of the hells had to watch Ashton die. Like… wtf man. I don’t know if Orym would be able to get past that with his past trauma. I guess what I’m saying is no ship is stronger than the besties and they deserve to punch Ashton in the face.)

[enden-k]

rewatched the primordial sea water cutscene bc i was yelling to my bestie how much i love wriothesley and i have to say again, wriothesley and clorinde are lit the coolest characters of fontaine and carry so, so hard