#riordanverse fandom crit

[mallorykeen]

you guys are just. lying now

[poppitron360]

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

maybe the real accurate adaption of pjo was and ever will be the intricately planned out movies we imagined and directed in our heads while reading the books......

and maybe that's the only adaptation we'll ever need....

[aroaceleovaldez]

What is the PR disaster in question that made Rick announce TSATS? I wasn’t active in the online fandom at that point

Of course! This was awhile ago so it figures people don't remember it/aren't familiar:

Basically a couple years back (2020) the fandom had some posts circulate discussing the ways different characters in the Riordanverse were written poorly or offensively. There was a masterpost that went around tumblr but the two major points people were particularly focusing on were Piper and Samirah (particularly because Piper had featured prominently again in Trials of Apollo recently and the third MCGA book had further emphasized and discussed Samirah being Muslim, since it was supposed to take place during Ramadan). Basically each had multiple posts breaking down the ways they were depicted incorrectly or offensively. The entire fandom for a little bit was VERY intensely discussing this (and it's around this time the "RR crit" tag got very popularized on tumblr - it did exist before, but suddenly was being used VERY frequently - cause it was that wide-spread - though the discussion took over basically every side of Riordaverse social media on different platforms). People really wanted Rick to respond to these criticisms, so he did!

He made two blog posts, one about Piper and one about Samirah. He has since deleted both so the links are to archived versions. The short version: he essentially tried to justify his poor research and double-down that he hadn't written them offensively, actually, people were just being mean to him. The fandom, of course, reacted poorly to this.

[Further elaborated events under the cut since this got a bit lengthy]

(Fun fact, this all happened within a month or so of the time i posted an open letter on aphobic tropes in the Riordanverse that Rick replied to, and then he immediately followed with announcing that Reyna was intended to be ace-coded [which cause a LOT of fandom debate] before Rick dipped for a couple of weeks, and then came back to post the blog posts in response to Piper and Sam stuff. So I like to jokingly refer to this as "The time I imploded the fandom/drove Rick off of twitter." Twas I that set the house ablaze.)

Rick fully left social media after this and the LT Musical social media manager became Rick's social media manager for the time being.

So this all happened June/July of 2020. Tower of Nero would end up being published in October of 2020 and a few months after that Rick would state that he was done with the series and wouldn't be writing any more series installments involving Percy, and also that he wouldn't be writing a Nico quest following Tower of Nero as it "wasn't his place to" and encouraged the community to write their own versions of Nico's story.

The community continued to circulate the tumblr posts and discuss the topics of Rick's offensive character depictions, and this is also where we see the dramatic shift in how the fandom depicts Piper in fanwork (though in most cases it is admittedly not an improvement 😬) because of all this discussion. This is also around the time when the fandom brought Viria under scrutiny claiming that she was whitewashing Piper as part of the same discussions, through the justification that she was drawing Annabeth as having tan skin (which she does canonically), and if Annabeth has tanner skin then Piper then that's whitewashing Piper? Except they were using completely separate images of not fully rendered Piper art versus Annabeth in dramatic lighting, so it's all very awkward and poor logic, and did actually get kind of racist. A lot of people were calling it "Tannabeth Blackchase" (yeah, i know) or similar and a common sentiment you'd see repeated is "Don't draw Annabeth as having darker skin than Piper, because that's offensive/racist/whitewashing." (Note: it was not phrased "don't draw Piper as having lighter skin than Annabeth" - we also won't get into certain offensive depictions of Native Americans, but I digress). But yeah, the Annabeth stuff in all that did not age well at all.

Anyways, in October of 2021 however Rick would announce that he was co-writing The Sun And The Star - with a lot of heavy emphasis on how Mark Oshiro works as a sensitivity reader, and some false advertising from the official social media that Mark Oshiro was the first time a non-Riordan author would be collaborating on the series (disregarding the ghostwriters completely). One of the big criticisms in the breaking down of issues in Rick's writing was his lack of ever seeking a sensitivity reader, and fans claiming that a sensitivity reader could solve a lot of the problems. This was basically Rick's "look! I totally listened!!!!" (though it did little to actually improve things, based on the book) and in TSATS as well Piper gets a large cameo at the end where the text very directly addresses a lot of points made in criticism of Rick's writing of her.

We also then of course got the CoTG trilogy later, explicitly stated to be for advertising purposes for the show.

So basically, short version: Rick came under scrutiny for a lot of offensive writing within the span of two months, made some bad blog posts doubling down about it, left social media. TOA ends. Rick says he wasn't going to continue the series/write what would become TSATS. Community celebrates the end of of the franchise but also continues to discuss Rick's poor writing and the blog posts at length. Rick suddenly announces TSATS and Mark Oshiro's involvement. Everybody gets distracted from being mad. Show announcement stuff also happens and the discussions peter out.

[screenshotsonpinterest]

I wanna hear everything you keep and cut from cannon and where the specific lines are so pls comment or reblog :)

(E.g. I sort of ignore everything after house of hades but include Jason’s death and Leo and calypso breaking up)

[tagthescullion]

My opinion on the infamous "did you love me" scene is that Luke meant it as "Did you still love me like a brother the same way I love you as a sister even after all those times I betrayed and hurt you" but didn't have the breath or time to say all that.

Annabeth understood it as "Do you still have that crush on me you were not very subtle about having when you were younger/how deep did that crush go?" So she goes "You were like a brother to me, but I didn't love you."

And Luke was like "That's obviously what I meant! What did you think I meant?!" but couldn't say so, what with using his last breath to ask Percy to help the unclaimed kids and dying and all.

ages old fandom debate.. imo there's a key problem with this and it's that rick forgets his own characters

did rick mean it in a romantic way? yes. he's thrown it in other books. did rick remember he'd shipped luke with thalia (implied it at least) and that luke's like 6-7 years older than annabeth? no. (he's retconned nico's age like 3 times by now, he has no clue who is what in his stories)

that being said, I don't think luke meant it romantically if you go with the plot. not only was he never interested in annabeth in anything more than a "you'd be useful and you were my little sister once" way, but why the absolute fuck would anybody care to be loved in a romantic way the second before they die?????

from a familial perspective it makes much more sense for a dying guy (let's remember this kid's like 23, he's not ancient or anything) to ask "did I mean something to you? would you forgive me as the brother I once was?"

like COME ON RICKKKKK!!! I fucking hate his shite obsession with everything being romantic. idk what kind of codependent thing he's got going with becky but he needs to stop making it look like if you don't have a romantic love life solid enough to last forever at age like 14, then you're not worth shit!!

and as a last little comment: either way you take the "did you love me" as a fan, stop harassing people who see it the other way, like ffs this fandom's more and more toxic every day

[braghis]

Out of the many things i don't like this much about the PJo books, there are actually three things that REALLY annoy me the most:

- RR's potrayal of femininity: almost all the female leads have the "NotLikeOtherGirls" complex and the genuine feminine girls are 1) a traitor (Silena), 2) a damsel in distress (Calypso) and 3) a mean AlphaB*tch™️ (Drew). Nothing wrong obviously with not liking classical girly things BUT being feminine ISN'T the same as being weak or stupid. A woman can be feminine AND strong. These things can totally coexist and i don't get why some people seem to fail to understand that.

- Riordan's apparent hate of common features. He really gave Piper and Hazel light eyes despite them being poc and tried to justify it by saying they have them because of their powers???? So i guess it's just an unfortunate coincidence that neither Pluto or Aphrodite have these eyes in the first place. And of course it's totally normal that ESTELLE apparently has Poseidon's sea green eyes despite her father being Paul Blofis. AND it's another complete coincidence that almost all his attractive and popolar characters have light eyes and/or hair while all the "outcasts" have common traits. Suuuuree it is.

- When the books' narrative (and honestly the fandom) tries to suggest that every single thing Nico did in the story was actually to impress Percy and nothing more. This annoys me to hell and back. Yeah he had a crush on him; Percy was his hero and Nico idolized him a lot, BUT so did Annabeth with Luke. AND why not starting with Leo, who got little crushes on every pretty girl he met before ending up with Calypso, a cheek he kinda killed himself for. But why don't i see the same attitued with them? Ohh i know why.....they are straights (or at least in straight relationships) so they are allowed to have goals, interests, A PERSONALITY outside their sexuality and love life. Gay people apparently not. A queer dude's life simply needs to revolve around a straight one, you know? That's truly one of the worst queer tropes ever.

[realredbanana]

Totally random but I regularly think about the fact that The Seven in Heroes of Olympus didn’t have a healer/medic. Like, they knew this was an important quest, and that it was going to be a long quest, and they basically went “so, let’s have 7 fighters, 3 of which are leaders :)” Which seems like a horrible plan.

(I know this wasn’t the characters faults, I just think it was a slightly odd writing choice from Rick)

[xx0yeet-everything0xx]

pjo fandom TAG YOUR POSTS PROPERLY and STOP SHOVING UNRELATED TAGS i’m so fucking done

[justaneedle]

Okay, I don't like learning about shit that Rick, or his editors, or his wife, or fucking Disney, or whoever but Haley doing. Haley is the best thing that ever happened with pjo.

Fuck their don't need bible, using fanwiki, trying fit new books to a fucking TV series or whatever this bitches doing.

Cause I don't even want anymore giving HOO the second chance. The potential of this universe died for me with the Titan Army and Luke.

[notseaweedbrain]

OK so I know that I’ve shit on both adaptations of the PJO books (cry about it) but I will tell you this… I do it out of love for the series!

This book series literally saved my life. I’m not joking at all. (TW: self-harm mentioned) I promised my therapist that instead of ending my life early… I would read just one more chapter of Percy Jackson. No joke. I still do it to this day.

Excuse me for being extremely passionate about this series so much that I can take the “Rick Riordan hype-train”™️ blinders off and ultimately critique it.

I saw that the show was renewed for a second season. I won’t be watching it. Riordan promised a book accurate adaptation of the series and he ultimately lied to the fanbase. The man was so adamant about it being different from the movies that he forgot what was actually supposed to go on screen.

Every time I think of those books, I think of my happy place, my home.

I tuned into the first episode in a bright orange camp half blood shirt, blue cookies and pizza, (as Percy would) and my room completely decked out in blue lights. I felt safe. I felt like I was going to the one place I felt understood. I had hope for it let me make that clear. I didn’t want to hate it.

I walked away from the first episode, fairly excited about what was to come. I was happy. I re-watched it multiple times. It felt really faithful. I found myself every week after that feeling like I was being killed inside.

I will forever love the books. Every time I travel I bring at least one of the original five with me everywhere I go. I am a passionate fan. I have a Greek mythology tattoo sleeve and Riptide resides all the way down my arm.

Once again, I reiterate, that the Percy Jackson books saved my life and continue to do so. I will always thank Riordan for writing the originals.

There’s my story and my one original post a month

🫶🔱🌊

[poppitron360]

Thinking about names having power in the Riordanverse- because it’s exactly the kind of literature motif that I LOVE.

Thinking about “Leo” being short for “Leonidas” who was a Spartan King who sacrificed his life fighting to save his people in the Battle of Thermopylae.

Leo, similarly, gave his own life to stop Gaea and save the world.

That comparison has already been made before, but there’s more-

Leo rejects the name “Leonidas” and chooses to go by “Leo”- in a way, rejecting the fate he’s assigned to. And he doesn’t suffer that fate in the end. He lives.

Yeah, names have power. But what you choose to name yourself has even more power. For example, the fact that Thalia rejected the last name “Grace” because it associated her with her mother, but then taking it back up again when she found out Jason was alive. And Leo chose to not go by “Leonidas” and he also chose to take the physician’s cure and come back.

And here we get onto what Calypso’s doing. By calling him something that he asked to not be called, she is taking away that agency of choice. She is taking away that power.

It’s a small moment, but it REALLY bugs me. Because, like Leo, I go by a shortened version of a longer name, and often one of the ways bullies used to hold power over me was by calling me by my full name repeatedly, even after I asked them to stop. It’s also a way a lot of transphobes hold power over trans people- by deadnaming. By taking away the power of their name, their choice, their identity, who they are, who they’ve built themselves to be, and their right to control all of that.

Now, I’m NOT saying Calypso is going as far as deadnaming Leo, but it’s a similar premise. It’s a manipulation tactic used to knock people down.

Now friendly nicknames -e.g. “Seaweed Brain”- are different, because Percy consents to it. It’s a term of affection between them (and notice how it’s different when Thalia used it. It’s a name that symbolises percabeth’s love, and it’s a name only Annabeth can use). But this is a name, while said in a jokey, banter-y manner, that Leo has SPECIFICALLY ASKED to not be called. And she does it anyway, ignoring the boundary he’s set, ignoring his choice to shape his own identity, ignoring everything that symbolised INCLUDING the fact that it’s literally Leo saying “I choose life” by rejecting the name that fated him to death. It’s just a big red flag for me. And if you put that on top of the fact that she also physically hurt him in this (enough to make him say “ow”) then you just get a whole host of Reasons Why This is NOT Leo’s “Happy Ending”- which the narrative paints it out to be.

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

In PJO, the main antagonist's primary villainous motivation was the injustice of the toxic cycle that was repeating itself through centuries. the same cycle of neglectful parents, and kids that tried too hard to please them, when they never cared, only putting the innocent kid in harm. the main antagonist wanted to rebel against this vicious cycle after his own traumatic experiences in the system.

In HOO, the main antagonist's primary villainous motivation was the fact that she couldnt wake up but she wanted to.

Both can be equally relatable, in different circumstances. One arc takes place as you mature in life, another takes place on Monday morning

[aroaceleovaldez]

he

he said

he said Clovis

from the

the Morpheus cabin

Clovis from the Morpheus cabin

he

why

TA server joked too loudly about how Morpheus was snubbed of a cabin with Rick confusing him with Hypnos until TSATS one too many times and the ReadRiordan listening device tapping the server went

and retconned it cause retconning is Rick's favorite pasttime these days, alongside writing stuff about piss

[what-shitfuckery-is-this-ew]

If i rewrote the Riordanverse books with more accurate mythology, more diversity, less racism & ableism, less paradoxes, more found family, etc

Note: The only difference between YA and Middle Grade would be that they could say fuck in YA since i don't plan to make it violent

Also Note: Middle grade is what the current books are rated

[oh-hush-its-perfect]

i feel like a lot of people forget that rick riordan didn't always write middle-grade books. he wrote murder mysteries way before pjo was conceived. he switched his target demographic once, and he can do it again. he changes his audience ever-so-slightly for each book anyway. like, sea of monsters and battle of the labyrinth were in the same series but appealed to two different audiences. mcga was decidedly not for ages 7-10, given the sheer amount of violence and the fact that the characters occasionally lightly swear (i.e. "damn," "jackass," "bastard") and reference real issues (cultural erasure, police brutality, ableism, islamophobia, transphobia, etc.). i'm not saying he should have shifted his target demographic while writing tsats, but i'm saying it's plausible that he could have, and fans who thought he would aren't exactly delusional.