#they took percy’s fatal flaw and showed it in every possible way even before we find out what it is

[ninacarstairss]

can we talk about luke explaining to percy and that there are rules the gods can’t break and demigods can and percy’s shouldn’t they be as afraid of us as we are of them because we can break the rules they can’t and can we talk about percy’s stop saying we and luke’s that’s the word zeus fears most because that was insane. the writers really took the last olympian’s core and laid it all out from season one

[1800-lemon-boy]

The rant-

When luke told percy "i didn't think you'd let grover wear them" when talking about Hermes’ shoes, he sounded hurt and heartbroken as if he regretted putting grover in danger.

Everyone is forgetting that grover was luke's protector too and it’s pissing me off. Luke doesn’t really care for Percy (not much, it seems) but we see his reaction when he heard Grover could have gotten hurt, and when Annabeth saw what happened between him and Percy.

It’s a common argument between people who think Luke and Percy are friends bc he doesn’t hesitate to hurt Percy.

The tv series I believe does a better job at showing this dilemma vs the books, we see the look in Luke’s eyes and the he speaks to Percy saying “I am your friend” “none of this was meant to hurt you” it’s strange.

So I think that they both considered each other friends at one point or another. Luke saying that he is Percy’s friend isn’t him trying to manipulate Percy, it’s him trying to show that he wants to help the people he cares about.

While Kronos is in his mind, it’s perfectly shown that he isn’t in control and Luke is confused and hurt. He wants to hurt the gods not the people he cares about. He doesn’t want to fight Percy, but he does in the end, when Percy draws first blood just like he did with Ares, Percy apologises.

It’s the perfect way to show Percy’s fatal flaw, excessive personal loyalty he doesn’t care about making an enemy out of the literal god of war but it hurts him putting people he cares about in pain.

Luke had every reason to hate Percy, especially as time went on.

In Lukes mind it’s Hermes’ fault that his mum went crazy, and Hermes’ doesn’t even answer his prayers.

Percy gets claimed his first day at camp and, by Poseidon at that, through the years Percy helps the gods and Poseidon helps him. Hell, Hermes’ talks to Percy more than he does his own son. Percy goes out of his way to talk to Luke’s mum even though he put Luke through all that emotional (and possibly physical) abuse. Luke still doesn’t hate Percy.

Luke hates the gods, he doesn’t hate demigods.

In the last Olympian, Percy manages to push past Kronos hold over Luke and speak to Luke himself.

Luke hates the fact that the gods get to come and go as they please, cause drama, get demigods to do their bidding and just ditch their kids and get away with it.

I stand by the fact that backbiter was more of a Kronos idea vs Luke’s. idk if it’s not canon I don’t think Luke wanted to hurt anyone other than the gods before Kronos took more control. Kronos wanted to eliminate anyone who could pose a threat against him. Gods and Demigods alike.

It’s kinda sad to see that Luke dies before he sees Percy fix one of his problems.

Percy was offered immortality, to become a god and he said no, instead he wanted the gods to claim their kids before they turn 13.

But I have a feeling Luke would hate Percy more after hearing about the deal though.

In the end, Luke’s point was proven and he died for Olympus.

I see Luke as a hero in the same way people view achilles as a hero, he had the right idea but executed it in the wrong way at the wrong time.

I’m currently working on a similar rant but with it linking Luke’s songs in tlt musical to the books.

Friendly reminder that Grover was Luke’s protector too.

<33

[umbran6]

The Argument Against Caleo

Spoilers up to Blood of Olympus and beyond. Beware! (Or not, the book series has been out for a few years, get over it). I wrote this after seeing a user wondering why people didn’t like Caleo, or in some cases, hated it. Here, I want to explain the answer as much as possible while doling out my own points. 

One of the main grievances I have as a fan of Leo Valdez would be the ship Caleo, or Leo x Calypso. It’s a complicated ship, to say the least, with multiple issues that make me question why people like the ship. And I admit it, they initially had some chemistry, but there’s multiple issues that Uncle Rick produced through making such a relationship that makes it extremely open to criticism, criticism which I will explain through this post.

One of my main points against them is that the ship was created on a very limited time scale. Although we aren’t given an exact date to date of when Leo and Calypso met to when they fell in love, we can safely estimate it to be a week at best. Such a limited amount of time from going through the multiple stages of a relationship already stresses the limits of the suspension of disbelief.

A counterexample would be Percabeth, or Percy x Annabeth. Throughout the series, we aren’t introduced to them being romantically involved until the Titan’s Curse, which was two years after they met. Specifically, this is brought up by Aphrodite, the goddess of love herself. Admittedly, Percy and Annabeth were twelve years old when they first met, when romance was definitely out of the picture, especially with a quest to get the Master Bolt.

However, from there we get to see multiple examples of their character depth, ranging from their respective fatal flaws to their ambitions, hopes and dreams, and their friendship. We get to see the slow build up of their chemistry, which was a really good writing move on Uncle Rick’s part. These characters took their sweet time to get to where they wanted to go, and despite the false romantic lead of Rachel, they still got together.

On the other hand, we don’t see enough of this between Leo and Calypso — we only see one book where they interacted with each other in The House of Hades, and that was only for a handful of chapters. While they are definitely older so they can jump straight to romance (some may say too old, but I’ll get to that) its still a pretty huge gap to jump through without making it stick. This makes it hard to root for a ship when it is built on a rather faulty foundation from the ‘they just met’ to ‘they get together’, especially when they don’t have a lot of events to show their chemistry.

Which brings me to Ogygia, which has raised a few red flags for me when looking at it from a retrospective point of view. Now, we know what the main issue of the island is that the hero who landed on said island can’t leave until Calypso falls in love with them. And we’ve seen this with Percy during the Battle of the Labyrinth, where he lands in the island and Calypso falls in love with him while tending to his wounds from, you know, being erupted from freaking Mt. St. Helens. Needless to say, this falling in love with each other montage happened quickly to the point of suspicion, which sets up the complication that Calypso and Leo might have fallen in love due to magical intervention.

And hear me out, because although this  might be a pretty big pill to swallow, we have evidence for this through Percy. It only takes one chapter for Calypso and Percy to meet, and the next he’s willing to consider leaving Camp Half-Blood and Annabeth behind to live on the island when Hephaestus gives him the choice to leave Ogygia or stay. We don’t even get an explanation on why Percy considered giving it all up just so he can be with her. All we know is, girl meets boy, now they want to live on an isolated island forever. It’s especially absurd considering Percy’s hamartia (fatal flaw) is freaking loyalty to those he loves.  Needless to say, It’s a huge YIKES, especially when we apply it to Leo and Calypso. 

It also raises the possibility that the romantic relationship between them is doomed to failure. And if you guys want to fight me on this, let’s look at Jason and Piper, a couple whose relationship started with a similar foundation. Piper had romantic memories implanted into her brain by Hera through the use of the Mist, while Jason was reduced to a Tabula Rasa (a blank slate for those who lack culture) by said goddess. They broke up before the Trials of Apollo because it was clear that when the dust settled, Piper had been aware that their romance was a lie and that their intentions to stay together was a mix of delusion and pressure from freaking Aphrodite. Leo and Calypso get together under what is arguably a very similar set of conditions if Ogygia’s magic had any influence on their relationship, and that this magic could wear off if given enough time. 

Third, and here’s a pretty big one for me, would be Calypso’s character, mainly because there are a lot of unfortunate implications attached to it. In The Blood of Olympus, she was turned into the divine equivalent of Princess Peach, with Leo being her Mario (except he saves her with a badass metal dragon). Its extremely unnecessary to make a character, especially as one such as Calypso, get  turned into the typical reward of a B-Class action movie. It’s insulting and puts her up as a trophy, a narrative that is definitely not ok by any means necessary.

In another direction, Calypso is also really, really worrying when things don’t go get her way. First, let’s look at The Odyssey, the first myth she pops up. Calypso had imprisoned Odysseus for ten years on her island until Hermes said to let him go, and although it gives them plenty of time to fall in love, it also raises the implications of stockholm syndrome. Then we’ve got the fact that Calypso cursed Annabeth out of spite, implicitly saying that she wished the daughter of Athena would suffer the same isolation that she did, which came to reality when Percy and Annabeth met the Arai in Tartarus. And Annabeth wasn’t even aware that she was still in Ogygia, much less intentionally intervened in the matter. When Percy left Ogygia, rather than be angry at Percy, Calypso cursed Annabeth out of all people to suffer the same loneliness and misery she went through. That’s some Hera at her worst levels of spite. 

Through such evidence we can see that Calypso is extremely wrathful towards those who break her heart even though they don’t want to. It certainly implies that Calypso isn’t in a good state of mind, and could easily repeat said actions if provoked. We could almost compare it to Medea and the original Jason, but at least in that case, Medea has every right to be pissed off at Jason and take her revenge. Calypso’s curse and how she handles things certainly implies a level of immaturity that would end in disaster if they broke up.

One issue that, I’ll admit is more from my personal point of view is that the ship took a lot of Leo’s character and threw it in the garbage in Blood of Olympus. Though we see him do a lot of stuff behind the scenes, the fact that its all for the goal of reaching Calypso just reduced him to someone who is more focused on love than, you know, fighting the evil goddess that was responsible for killing his mom and getting sweet sweet revenge. While the revenge plot can be cliched sometimes, it can be played well, while romance and the typical ‘always save the girl’ trope is just overdone. If Leo had been allowed to, you know, be more focused on other things rather than Calypso, we could have seen a lot more variety in his character.

For example as one of the possible character arcs he could’ve gone through, Leo has always been alone among the couples, often being isolated. Heck, Nemesis herself stated that he would always be the seventh wheel, and that he would never find a place among his brethren. Though some fellow tumblr users have taken this in multiple ways, either saying that he should learn to be happy by himself or that he is socially isolated in the Argo II because of these romantic relationships (I prefer a mix of both). Uncle Rick just giving him a girlfriend seems like taking the easy way out of solving such an issue and abandoning what could’ve been a rather interesting character arc. The relationship isn’t a bad thing if we remove some of the unfortunate implications, but it is a bad way to end what is a complex and realistic problem for a character and in some cases maybe possible in real life.

One more minor but still yikes worthy point is that there’s a huge age gap between them. We’re not talking about the ‘Hazel is 15 and Frank is 17 and in one year that’ll be a problem because then Hazel will be jailbait’ age gap. And even then, we can argue that Hazel is older since she is chronologically ninety-one years old. No, Calypso is older by millennia in terms of mindset and body due to the perks of being a goddess, while Leo is sixteen.

God-to-Mortal relationships are already complicated, even with emotionally and socially well-functioning adults. The fact that Leo is underage, inexperienced with romance (despite his flirting, Calypso was his first kiss), and has been through a freaking ton of trauma in his youth, does not make this okay. At best, they’re both mutually interested in each other but may have different expectations when it comes to a relationship. At worst, Calypso is taking advantage of a boy just so she can get out of Ogygia and possibly dumping him later on like the wrapping of a candy bar. Even though Calypso lost her immortality during The Trials of Apollo, that doesn’t even compensate for the immense age gap alongside Leo’s guilt at the possibility that he might’ve been responsible for her losing said immortality.

Oh, and about Leo... I’m a fan of him, but I can admit that he is in a bad spot both mentally and emotionally throughout the series. He’s lost his mom due to a mix of his own powers and Gaea’s trickery, and never had the chance to fully process that event and come to terms with it. The foster home system alongside his own trauma has forced him to hide his emotions through a façade of happiness and jokes when it’s quite clear to me he needs a therapist, stat. He's also run away from several foster homes, implying this means he was and still is being affected by the event. His mask is still on during The Blood of Olympus considering he hid a lot of things from Piper and Jason.

Speaking about them, not helping this matter is the fact that he’s rather isolated in terms of friendships since Jason and Piper, his supposed best friends are more interested in locking lip rather than, you know, actually hanging out with each other.  He doesn’t have good friendships with the rest of the Seven, and the closest ones he does have is with Hazel and Frank. And even then they start off in the wrong spot since Frank is very insecure about possibly losing Hazel to him during Mark of Athena while Hazel in the meantime, is also dealing with the fact that he is the descendant of her possible boyfriend Sammy Valdez. 

This could indirectly have made him desperate for affection since he has nobody else to confide in during the rest of the series, which is a bad mental state to be in when one lands on Ogygia, the island that we’ve seen could possibly force two people to fall in love with each other. A romantic relationship is not something that he needs or something that will help him in the future. He needs more than that, and having him in one that could end in disaster is the last thing he needs. 

And that does not make him a bad person, much less a bad character. While some who are similarly emotionally and socially isolated may turn to violence or creepy behavior on those they want affection from, Leo does not do that to the other characters. It just means that he as a character needs more time to recover and develop before we go giving him romantic relationships, much less one with Calypso.

That’s not to say that they don’t have some things in common. Both are starved for love and affection, with Calypso being constantly rejected by heroes while Leo was rejected by foster homes and his own family. It’s a trait that they have in common, but it shouldn’t be the only thing that they have in common, especially since it is laced with a trauma that is clear they haven’t had help processing. They need to develop more as characters and as friends before they should be paired together.

So… yeah. The Caleo relationship is, in my eyes, doomed to failure, or at least heavily flawed after taking the above points into account. Uncle Rick, as if seemingly aware of these criticisms, has put the relationship in a rocky place by The Tower of Nero, giving them the possibility of overcoming the above criticisms and their own flaws, or giving fanfic writers an out and pairing Leo with another character or have him single, but happy. Either way, in my opinion Caleo is a bad ship when it comes to how it was created, alongside the flaws and unfortunate implications it has.

While I can see some of the chemistry the ship has, you can’t just use a couple of moments where they get along as evidence that they belong together, especially with the above reasons. That’s like using a band-aid to cover a bullet hole without removing the bullet, stopping the bleeding, and preventing infection. If both characters and their relationship had been given more time to develop, I would understand how they would get together. 

[casuallyimagining]

Just Us

Percy Jackson x Reader Percy Jackson & the Olympians

Anonymous asked: I love your blog! If you are doing requests right now, are you able to do something with Percy and his S/O arguing and making up. Or some angst with a happy ending?

This got a little long. Hope y’all don’t mind :) Enjoy!

Requests are open for headcanons and fics!

The lonely apartment felt weird. It was happening more and more frequently as of late, but that didn’t mean it was any less wrong.

When you and Percy had first moved in together, the apartment on 76th Street had felt so alive. It was perfect, and he was perfect, and nothing could possibly have taken that feeling away. And it had lasted, not forever, of course, but long enough that you were confident that letting yourself fall so hard for the scruffy-haired skater boy from the Upper East Side was the right choice.

Sure, living with the son of Poseidon had its interesting moments, like the pegasi that tended to show up on your fire escape every so often, or the monsters that would sometimes follow you home after date nights. But overall, it was good and it felt right.

Until recently, that is. When the apartment started getting lonelier and lonelier, and you couldn’t shake the feeling that your world was somehow irreparably different. Like how your mouth feels after you get a tooth pulled. Something was missing, even when the apartment wasn’t empty.

Sometimes, it was his mom needing someone to watch Estelle. She was always so happy that Percy wanted to be a part of his little sister’s life. And who were you to deny him that? So off he would dutifully go, often not getting back until after you were asleep, sometimes just staying the night and not getting back until after you had gone to work the next morning.

Other times, it was Jason requesting help making sure both demigod camps had appropriate tributes to every minor god or goddess. You knew the work was tedious, and you knew how much Percy valued his friendship with Jason. So when the son of Jupiter called, you waved dutifully as Percy climbed on Blackjack’s back, not coming back for days, or sometimes even a week or more.

Most times, though, it was Annabeth or Grover just wanting to hang out. And you understood, really, you did. His two best and longest friends didn’t really have time to consistently spend with him anymore. Annabeth had gotten into Harvard’s graduate architecture program, so she only had precious little time to spend with Percy, and she could never leave Cambridge. Grover, of course, was still off spreading Pan’s message, and rarely did he have time to spare for his best friend. So, of course, you dutifully watched him race to gather his things, often enough forgetting to even say goodbye, before he was out the door for who knows how long.

Sadly, you sank into the couch—a plush leather hand-me-down from Sally and Paul when they redecorated their own apartment a couple years back—and turned on the TV. When he was gone for long periods of time, the news was often the only way to see what he was up to, even though he had a cellphone and a way to Iris message you on his literal wrist.

It was almost time for the 11 o’clock news, and, in theory, Percy should be home soon. You hadn’t heard anything from him all day, which wasn’t surprising, despite the fact that he was literally just on the other side of Manhattan babysitting.

But you weren’t so sure that he’d be home that night. Not only because Sally didn’t like when Percy walked home late at night. Of course she didn’t, and you didn’t either. The walk was quick during the day because he could just cut through Central Park, but late at night, the park was closed to pedestrian traffic. That, plus the fact that you and Percy had gotten into a bit of an argument before he went left you uncertain that he would return that night.

Or ever, for that matter, although your brain told you that was ridiculous.

All you had done was ask him to spend a little more time with you. You didn’t want to take him away from his friends and family, but you rarely got to spend time with your boyfriend anymore. Between work, helping out at camp, and him spending what seemed like every spare moment with his friends and family, you missed him. And you told him that.

Maybe you communicated it wrong, or maybe he misheard you, but whatever the reason, he left the apartment in a huff at noon.

Shortly before the news ended, you heard a roll of thunder and rain pattering gently on the window. There was no way Sally would let him leave in a storm. You stood and stretched, feeling your back pop, and made your way into your bedroom.

You had only been in bed for what felt like a few minutes when you heard the clattering on the fire escape. Annoyed, you got up and went to the window. You were getting ready to yell at Blackjack for making so much noise when you saw Percy half-slumped over on his back, clutching at his side. His shirt was torn and ruddy, and he was soaked from the rain that had progressively gotten worse.

Silently, you scrambled out the window, patting the pegasus’ nose as he shuffled to give you better access to his injured rider. You helped Percy dismount, pressing your hand to his wound so that he could use both of his arms. He mumbled a quiet ‘thanks, buddy’ and leaned his head against Blackjack’s snout for a brief moment before pushing away and letting you help him gingerly climb through the window. Your brain barely registered the flap of wings outside as you led Percy to sitting on the bed.

“What happened?” you asked softly, replacing your hand with his own before going to the bedside table to grab the container of ambrosia you had stashed in every room of the apartment.

“Empousai in the park.” His voice was hoarse, and he sounded tired. You doubted his six-year-old sister had tuckered him out that much. “Didn’t see them until it was too late. They chased me halfway through the Ramble before I was able to get some ground on them.”

You frowned, cupping a hand to his cheek briefly. “You’re home now,” you whispered. “That’s what matters.”

He paused for a moment, and you could see an emotion flash across his face too quickly to identify. Then, he nodded.

Silently, you went to the wardrobe and pulled out dry clothes for him to change into. Percy took the pajamas gratefully, and for a moment, his sea green eyes met yours. You were glad in that moment that he wasn’t the son of Zeus—the electricity in the air was palpable.

“How was Estelle?” you asked quietly, breaking his gaze. You sat on the edge of the bed while he changed.

He chuckled, wincing slightly. The ambrosia must not have fully finished healing him yet. “Good. She’s good. She asked about you.” You raised your eyebrows in shock and he continued. “She wants you to come over to play school sometime.”

You laughed. The last time you had played school with the five-year-old, she had been the teacher and you and Percy had pretended to be her bad students. She loved it. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to make that happen, then.”

He nodded and went silent as he pulled the ratty Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt over his head. It used to be a hoodie—you had gotten it for him shortly after you met him—and he wore it so much it was practically threadbare. He had cut the hood off at some point, and the front pocket had ripped off in a monster fight two years ago, so now it was just a thin sweatshirt that had been mended and sewn back together so many times, most of the stitching wasn’t original. But still he refused to throw it out.

After a moment, he sat down beside you, and for a second, you thought he wasn’t going to say anything. Then, he grabbed your hand. “Mom asked about you, too.”

“Oh?”

Percy sighed. His hair was soaked, and it stuck to his face at odd angles. He looked a mess, although if you were honest with yourself, he had certainly looked much worse. “I’m sorry I’m a shit boyfriend,” he mumbled. His grasp on your hand loosened. “I didn’t realize…”

You squeezed his hand.

“Everyone always told me that my fatal flaw was being too loyal to my friends. I never knew what that meant. ‘Til now.” His sea green eyes were sad when he finally let himself meet your eyes. “Turns out you can be too loyal.”

“I love how much you love your friends,” you reassured him. “I just want a bit more balance. I was starting to get the impression you didn’t want to spend time with me anymore.”

His brows knit together in frustration. “Of course I want to spend time with you. I love you.” The way Percy said it, so finitely and sure of himself, caused your heart to do backflips in your chest.

You leaned over and kissed him chastely, your lips barely brushing his. Before you had a chance to pull away, he was pulling you closer and kissing you again, one arm around your waist, the other cupping your cheek tenderly. It was brief, but kissing Percy always tied your stomach into knots like it was the first time.

He leaned his forehead against yours, and in the close proximity, you could feel him smile without even looking at him. “Mom invited us both for dinner tomorrow,” he mumbled, his sea green eyes meeting yours once again. “Maybe after, we can start that thing on HBO. The one with the monsters. Just us.”

You smiled. “Just us.”