#thinking about the fact that annabeth takes that dagger to protect percy and it's basically her last major act before the battle is won

[essektheylyss]

Honestly, it is so funny remembering that Annabeth Chase's literal, stated, canonical fatal flaw is hubris.

Rick Riordan was like, "This clever, neurodivergent preteen girl believes that she is smarter than the gods, and she will get the chance to prove herself right," and he was correct. 😌

[perseusjackson-jasongrace]

Hi I dont know if you want jercy requests at the moment but i had an idea for one :

Dark percy murdering calligula as a revenge for jason

Hello angel! Whew this request was willldddddd and I had soo much fun with it. There isn't any jercy per se (in fact Annabeth and Percy are together in this) but Percy is furrrrrious about Jason and he exacts a very twisted sort of revenge for his friend's honour. Basically this was an excuse to write dark!percy and by gods I hope I delivered!

CW: revenge driven, grief, graphic depictions of violence

Burning Maze Spoilers

he used to be nice.

He used to be nice.

Percy had been digging around the weapons room when his name had been shrieked like a dying animal. He had been looking for protective gear to give to little demigods in his sword-fighting class, when a scream like broken bones cracked through his body. He had been starting another calm, routine-controlled day at camp half-blood when he heard the news that made him snap.

*Two hours earlier*

“Jackson,” Annabeth knocks at his cabin door. He hears her voice carry through the open windows, and over the continuous sound of the ocean. “Pers, we have breakfast in half an hour and you have a sword class to teach today.”

The event had been printed on her wall of “to-dos” so that neither of their adhd brains would have the chance to forget. But he groans at the reminder, not wanting to escape his warm bed, or the duvet that wraps around him like a hug, or the pillows that hold his head as if he is a god. Sometimes he wishes he was a Hypnos kid. Their whole thing is sleeping . The knock sounds again.

“Seaweed Brain, come on,” His girlfriend sighs, “You promised we’d talk to Chiron about the—"

The loud and obnoxious cry of a harpy sounds somewhere in the distance and whatever she says next is drowned out completely. He knows though. Knows what she’s going to say and what they have to do. So he drags himself out of bed, like the last sack of potatoes on the crate. Heavy and bruised and discarded for the most desperate of the lot.

“I’m up,” He manages to rasp. He doesn’t like talking to people till he’s brushed his teeth, and eaten something, and spent at least half an hour staring at an empty coffee cup. A New Yorker through and through he supposes.

“Okay,” He hears Annabeth call, “I’ll see you at the dining hall then.”

He makes a sound half way between a grunt and a yawn and hopes she understands because that’s the best she’s getting out of him. The morning routine is quick, even done at the speed of a stubborn toddler. Soon he is sitting at the Poseidon table, scarfing down eggs and toast, and washing it done with a second cup of coffee. The buzzing in his veins is completely normal. And he’s definitely not speaking at a thousand miles an hour. This is how he always talks. Why on earth they allow coffee in a camp full of adhd kids, he’ll never understand. But it works in his favour so he isn’t going to complain.

By the time him and Annabeth are done talking to Chiron about introducing therapy to the camp, he feels like his eyes are moving faster than his sensory receptors can process and his thoughts are moving faster than his ability to process at all. So when his girlfriend, smiling at him about something, stops outside their training room he looks at her with furrowed brows and asks, “What are we doing here? Are we training for something?”

She frowns, “How much coffee did you have this morning?”

“Only three cups.” He shrugs, and clenches his hands in his pockets as if she can see through the fabric to the shaking body underneath.

Her grey eyes widen as if she’s about to scold him, a petulant child being chided by their ever tired caregiver. It makes the part of him still attempting to function slightly wild. He squishes that part down with the force of a thousand ships. Someone calls Annabeth’s name so with a quick peck to the cheek she leaves him in front of the training room and jogs towards the middle of camp and out of sight.

He stares at the room, trying to get his brain to stop focusing on things he doesn’t need to focus on right now, like the three lines of a song he heard at the grocery store a week ago that he hasn’t been able to get out of his head.

He used to be nice.

Entering the training room he scans the schedule and sees he’s teaching a class of small people, campers younger than ten who are just learning the ropes but should disaster ever strike will be ushered to the Cabin 9 bunkers to wait out the storm. It is a rule that no-one under the age of twelve be subject to war if they need not be. And he will make damn sure the need never ever surfaces.

He gathers swords of various shapes and sizes, along with a few daggers, and the straw dummies that have seen better days. It boggles his mind that they’re at a camp for children of literal greek gods but somehow there’s no funding for basic necessities like extra cots in the Hermes cabin, and better dummies to stab.

Muttering to himself he moves aside metal and stacks of straw, trying to find protective gear in the pile dumped at the corner of the training room. When he doesn’t see any he lets out a long suffering sigh... he has to go to the weapons room, which is more of a broom closet with deadly devices than anything else.

The room smelt musty, and the reek of rust slams into his nostrils at dizzying speeds. It reminds him of blood, and it made his skin itch with the need to get out. But still he bends down and searches through the mess of celestial bronze, and gold and—

The scream cauterizes his happiness. He is panic and pain and death and everything brutal in a single awful instant.

“PERCY!” His name has never sounded so full of agony, each syllable holds the stages of grief.

He is running towards the anguish before he’s even fully realises what’s going on. But what he sees when he crests the hill is enough to make the warmth of his heart run burning cold.

Annabeth is curled on the ground, tears like rivers of woe streaming down her cheeks and a purple flag clutched tightly in her fists.

“What happened?” His voice is soft. If he hears himself too loudly he’s going to shatter.

Annabeth cries harder, her whole body shuddering. Grief is overwhelming. Grief is all consuming. Grief will make itself known like thorns in your thumb or bullets in your heart.

“What happened?” He repeats.

And someone, far away, right next to his ear, inside his head, says, “It’s Jason, Jason Grace. He’s dead.”

He used to be nice.

It takes him three days. Three days of non-stop travelling, by foot, and air, and sea, to reach Caligula’s home. A palace. A grave. It is three days too long. Too long for a murderer to be walking free as if there are no consequences to his vile actions. But still he is here now and he will see the fall of a great, and watch how he bleeds just like everyone else. Not gold, the colour of the emperor’s one true love, but red, the colour of his victims.

Percy's eyes are almost black with violence, green so dark it reflects the night sky. His hands clench and unfurl as if practicing to wrap around a throat and squeeze till the symphony of breathing plays its last note. His body is strung taut, a bow string waiting to release. He is murder. He is nothing. He is your worst nightmare.

“Caligula.” He scrapes. It is the exact sound of a sword sparking against stone. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Nothing but scared silence greets him. He can feel the fear coating the walls of this burial ground like a fresh coat of paint. He will make a playground of the blood he spills, will invite all manner of creatures to use it as a park. He will revel in the slaughter he is about to participate in.

“Caligula!” His voice is the sharp edge of a small knife. Unassuming but deadly. ‘“It is no use hiding. There is no place you could go where I couldn't find you.” He feels the earth sway underneath him, and he grins. Oh this is going to be fun.

“Fine Emperor, if this is how you want to do it.”

With a shrug, he flings out an arm and turns three columns to dust. He watches the stone crumble, feels the sand on his palm as if he was crumbling the columns in his hands like soft cheese. With a small stomp of his foot a crack rivaling the river Thames splits the marble floor in half. The entire structure shudders, creaks right above him. His grin only gets wider, more dangerous.

“I will level this place to the ground. I will erase it from history as if it had never been. You will not exist Caligula, because you will go with it. Will be crushed under the weight of your own wealth.”

“You’re a fool,” A voice, reedy and nasalled in a way that has his soul curdling, shouts from somewhere on the far side of the room. “You will crush us both."

Percy laughs. He laughs and the sound widens the cracks in the floor. It is deep, and wild, but in the way a wild thing is caged: snapping at it’s bars, hissing to be free. He laughs.

“You are a fool Caligula. A fool if you think i am not willing to die if it means you suffer. A bigger fool still if you think it will not give me great pleasure to spend my last moments watching the life leave your eyes,”

The distant sound of bubbling starts to fill the room. Percy wonders if he can make blood boil. His mother has certainly said so enough times.

“Leave now half-blood,” The Emperor spits. There is still something of arrogant, misplaced bravery in his voice. It amuses Percy. “Leave now and you will not face the consequences.”

“And pray tell,” He contemplates, “Who you think will deliver your consequences if i leave?”

A scoff that echoes into the pathways of his brain comes from the back of the room. “I do not need consequences dealt. I have done nothing to deserve them.”

The sound of bubbling is getting louder. He looks curiously at the cracks still spidering around the room. “Ah Emperor,” He tuts, “That is where you are wrong. People who deserve consequences hardly ever get them. It is those who don’t think they deserve them that become the unlucky bearers.”

“What are you going on about, boy?” He snarls.

The bubbling is loud enough now that Percy almost checks to see if a small brook has carved its way through the floor. There is nothing there except ever growing cracks, turning to rifts and canyons before his eyes.

He used to be nice.

“We can do this one of two ways Caligula.” He starts, honey bees with a sting a little too sharp to be defence. “You can apologise and I’ll kill you quickly, or…” His smile is sickening. “And this is my preferred method, I could watch you die slowly, watch the life drain from your body and into the soil of blood-crops that will grow here, and your dying words will be the mercy you will inevitably beg for.”

The bubbling spills over the cracks, leaking salty water onto the dying marble floor.

“Better choose soon oh dear Emperor,” He giggles, “I am the only thing holding this room together. As soon as I let go the floor will split like your loyalties. You will be crushed to death by your own greed. And if that doesn't happen you will surely drown.” To emphasise his point water starts gushing from the floor, no longer a bubbling stream but a raging river. His laughter is carried along the ripples that hit the walls, already leaking with the all encompassing ocean. “Wouldn’t it be a pity Caligula? To drown in your own home, surrounded by all the things you killed for, watching as they drown with you?”

“Shut up half-blood,” He screeches, “You do not have the power it takes to kill me. You are nothing compared to the centuries I have been alive.”

“Do you know who i am honouring Caligula?” He asks softly, a stark and terrifying contrast to his smile a moment before. “In all your centuries can you remember but one demigod, a dear friend of mine, but just another victim of yours?”

“Does it matter?” He scoffs, “They are all the same in the end. All bleed, and cry, and piss, and die the same.”

The grin Percy lets loose starts hurricanes. It is the absolute wrong thing to say. ‘“If it is all the same to you Emperor,” He becomes terror. “Then i think i’ll spill your blood at his altar.”

And before the doomed emperor could react an invisible hand wraps around his throat and he was being dragged to the middle of the room. His eyes wide, popping out of his head; hands clawing at his neck as if trying to remove the grip they cannot feel; feet flopping helplessly underneath him.

“Apologise for killing Jason Grace.” It is a command.

Caligula glares, attempting to spit at his feet.

Percy tilts his head and with a single crook of his finger he slams the emperor into the wall. The crack is deafening. It makes him grin.

“Apologise for killing Jason Grace.”

Caligula produces an ancient roman gesture, passed through time as if centuries cannot dismantle the insults of humans.

Percy twists his wrist and the emperor’s body contorts into something unrecognizable, bones snapping and shattering to fit their new mold.

“Apologise for killing my friend.”

“Fuck you,” He manages to choke out.

A wave of ocean water alarming in its beauty rises behind him. He is its god. And with a wink he shoves all of it down the emperor’s throat. The column of that pale neck bobs as if attempting to take the water down. He can see the body trying to retch it all up, unable to handle the sheer amount, the salt that comes with it.

“Watch Caligula,” He motions to the palace sinking under the weight of his ocean, “Watch as everything you have ever cared to love drowns.”

Percy grabs a shard of mirror, uncaring of the gash it sweeps across his palm. He holds it up to the ancient powerful Emperor, who is convulsing into nothing. “Watch.”

He used to be nice.

Sometime later when Percy Jackson walks up a hill, and into the fading sun there is nothing but content mania lining his features, and behind him where a grand home once stood, is a trickling river and a single spear carved with the words, “Neo Helios”. The only sign that Caligula, Emperor and murderer, ever existed,

He used to be nice.

Until someone killed his friends.

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[image id: printed text that reads, "I used to be nice." end id]

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

Unpopular pjo opinion: Percy became too op and Mary Sue for me in The Last Olympian. Like, did he really have to become near-indestructible? Why would Annabeth just jump in between him and (to her knowledge) certain death? Like, shes smart enough that she would have planned further ahead instead of doing something so irrational! And why did Percy just decide not to tell anyone about his invincibility until much later? Could have helped the group out in the beginning, y'know!

I mean…I wouldn’t call him a Mary Sue, no. I definitely see the angle you’re coming from, but like. Literally a normal mortal would have stood no chance against Kronos. It just wasn’t going to happen. Percy got the smallest scratch from that scythe and almost had his soul burned away. And to everyone’s knowledge right up until Percy handed over the knife, it looked like Percy was going to have to fight Kronos and win if Olympus stood any chance. Also, the army for the ‘good side’? It was like…40 campers, the Hunters, and some nature spirits. Versus huge, seemingly never-ending hordes of monsters and twisted demigods and mortal mercenaries and angry minor gods and titans. Coming at the city from all sides. They would not have been able to win this without Percy swimming in the Styx. That’s just a fact- he was able to take down way more monsters and villains than before he got the curse. Camp Half-Blood has always been relatively small headcount wise. He was convinced to take the curse because that’s what they needed to happen.

ALSO, It was important because Luke also had taken up the curse, and Percy and Luke are very obviously literary foils. Luke took the curse to serve Kronos and Percy took it to defeat him. Luke took the curse to protect himself and Percy took the curse to protect his friends. Throughout the entire series, the boys are clearly meant to be foils of each other, and there are multiple moments where it seems as though Percy is ‘following in Luke’s footsteps’ so to speak, so it absolutely makes sense that jumping in the Styx is something Percy would have to do. 

Not to mention, Percy taking up the curse was (very cleverly, in my opinion) used as a way to show us he’s becoming a man. Remember at the end of botl where Poseidon tells him he’d ‘be a man if we were in Sparta’? A very common thing in books to symbolize a character growing up is to have them separate from their mother. Killing the mother off is unfortunately the most common way to do this, but Sally is amazing and got lucky. We, as readers by this point, are used to Percy asking his mom for advice. “Should I leave camp to join this quest? What do you think this means?” stuff like that. The fact that Percy needs his mother’s blessing for the curse to work makes the scene in their kitchen a turning point. He’s not asking if she thinks this is a bad idea, he’s saying “This is my only shot of saving Olympus. This is the only way. I need to do this.” Sally has spent her son’s entire life trying to defy fate. She kept him out of camp too long, she surrounded herself with the worst mortals possible to keep him safe, she wanted to keep him with her because he’s her baby. And he absolutely still is, no one’s contesting that, but the scene forces her to confront the fact he’s growing up. She has to make the decision to give him up, to put him in the hands of his own fate. The scene is used to show the readers ‘this is not the little boy who started the series’. He doesn’t need his mom to drive him into battles anymore. And the fact that Sally did give her blessing was good for Percy. He knows he’s the biggest light in his mother’s life, you can tell he’s more panicked about how his death would affect her than he was about actually dying. The fact that she symbolically gave him up to fate…He left the apartment knowing he didn’t have to worry about her. He knew that his mother had come to terms with everything and would, eventually and with help from Paul, be okay after he died. That was a strong moment for them both, and it allowed Percy to focus all his energy on the war. 

As for Annabeth…that scene on the bridge was so important oh my God. It WAS irrational, you’re correct, and that’s why it’s one of the most meaningful moments in the series! 

Annabeth, as we’ve seen time and time again, even as recently as ‘Blood of Olympus’, is terrified of emotions. She hates them! Because they’re not rational. It drives her crazy, crazy that she can’t understand things like her relationship with her family, or her relationship with Luke. Annabeth is this strong minded, rational being, but that’s not how feelings work. She feels things very strongly, and that scares her, because it leaves her confused and unsure of what she’s doing. 

We see Annabeth act irrationally many times throughout the series…and those moments are always connected to Luke. Thinking if she just yells loud enough she can get through to him, refusing to give up on him even when he’s literally got Kronos living inside him, basically her every thought about him is crazy. It’s understandable, certainly, because he means so much to her, but? From the standpoint of literally everyone else? He’s Kronos’ number one man and host, he’s not coming back (and it’s the irrational emotions that save him! that save Olympus! that’s so important!). But the point is, this entire series, Annabeth’s ONE weak spot has always been Luke. That’s why Percy was always so frustrated with her, especially in the later books. She’d defend Luke to her grave even though he was evil, for all intents and purposes, and as Percy was a young teenager with a very strong crush I’m sure you can imagine how that’d make him feel second best? It’s fairly obvious from botl that he knew or at least suspected Annabeth had a crush on him…but she didn’t even have her feelings for Luke figured out at that point. Annabeth never made any irrational decisions regarding Percy. She’s not the best with emotions, absolutely, and from Percy’s point of view, all her strongest feelings have always been for Luke. He trusts her as a best friend, he trusts her to not defect to the Titan Army and keep fighting for the gods, but Luke’s the one she’s always going to defend. Luke’s always gonna be her weakness. Kronos is using Luke’s body as a shell and she still believes in her heart he’s in there and she can get through to him. And that’s where most of Annabeth’s energies lay, at this point. She’s worried about Percy, and she’s mad at him (but it’s mostly stemming from worry), and she has a crush on him…but she’s never been so overcome with her feelings for him that she did something stupid before. That’s always been a Luke thing, a Luke thing against her will, and I think that’s why she really doesn’t realize “I love Luke like a brother” until the climax of the fight. She’s never had a moment like that with Percy, because Percy is always right there and dependable and doesn’t need anyone to save him. She clamps down on her feelings for him at times because she’s afraid of what will happen to her if he dies. She doesn’t want Percy to be her weak spot because he has such a higher chance of dying. She’s scared of opening herself up and getting hurt again, like with Luke. She. hates. emotions. and. wants. to. suppress. them. 

And she doesn’t know at this point that she’s the one and only thing tying Percy’s soul to the mortal world.

But she sees someone advancing on his unprotected back with a poison-dripping knife (and how easily could that have been the cursed blade to reap the hero’s soul?)

And she feels it in the pit of her stomach that something’s wrong, she knows he’s not going to be able to defend himself in time. So what does she do, willingly, for the first time in her life? 

Gives in to her irrational feelings. 

She doesn’t fight them at all. She jumps in front of the knife. 

This is just such an important turning point for the two of them- Percy never expected her to do something like that for him. For Luke, maybe Thalia, sure, but he probably expected a more calculated move, or a plan for himself. This was the first time he really started to see the depth of her feelings for him, which made him feel braver confronting his own feelings for her. And Annabeth now immediately has to confront the facts- she’d die for Percy. I don’t think that’s something she realized she would do before she jumped. She can’t ignore her emotions now, they just clawed their way out of their carefully constructed cage and shoved her in front of a poisoned dagger. 

And she’s still scared of feelings and things that don’t make sense, because that’s not something you shake so quickly, but because of this moment? When she was in the throne room and she realized either Luke or Percy was about to die? She was able to figure out her feelings pretty damn fast. 

(Also, didn’t Percy choose not to tell the camp about the Achilles’ Curse because he knew there was still a spy there?)

[halothenthehorns]

#thinking about the fact that annabeth takes that dagger to protect percy and it's basically her last major act before the battle is won#and the fact that percy appeals to luke by saying 'annabeth was right listen to her' and that's how he finally wins#literally using each other's fatal flaws to win and live. ANYWAY I MADE MYSELF EMOTIONAL

Don't you hide this in the tags!

Honestly, it is so funny remembering that Annabeth Chase's literal, stated, canonical fatal flaw is hubris.

Rick Riordan was like, "This clever, neurodivergent preteen girl believes that she is smarter than the gods, and she will get the chance to prove herself right," and he was correct. 😌