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Sometimes I think about how and why some people had such a *bad* reaction to the end of Steven Universe, specifically in regards to the Diamonds living.

Even though they no longer are causing harm to others and are able to actually undo some of their previous harm by living, some folks reacted as though this ending was somehow morally suspect. Morally bankrupt, even.

And I think it might be because so many of us were raised on a very specific kind of kids media trope:

They all fall to their deaths.

Disney loves chucking their bad guys off cliffs. And it makes sense- in a moral framework where villains *must* be punished (regardless of whether their death will actually prevent further harm or not), but killing of any kind is morally bad for the hero, the narrative must find a way to kill the villain without the protagonists doing a murder.

It's a moral assumption that a person can *deserve* to die, that it is cosmically just for them to die, that them dying is evidence that the story itself is morally good and correct. Scar *deserves* to die, but it would be bad for Simba to kill him. So....cliff.

Steven Universe, whatever else it's faults, took at step back and said "but if killing people is bad, then people dying is bad", and instead of dropping White Diamond off a cliff, asked "what would actual *restorative*, not punitive, justice look like? What would actual reparations mean here? If the goal is to heal, not just to punish, how do we handle those who have done harm?" And then did that.

Which I think is interesting, and that there was pushback against it is interesting.

It also reminds me of the folks who get very weird about Aang not killing Ozai at the end of Avatar. And like, Ozai still gets chucked in prison, so it doesn't even push back on our cultural ideas of punitive justice *that much.* and still, I've seen people get real mad that the child monk who is the last survivor of a genocide that wiped out his entire pacifist culture didn't do a murder.

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After months of staying silent on literary discourse here on Tumblr, I finally have something to contribute.

Fanfiction is not the problem. Fanfic is a free, communal and valid form of writing which, although not always high quality, has yielded some genuinely great stories. The real problem, the reason for ‘booktok books’ and the flaws in modern literature, is fanfic being hijacked by corporations. The minute people try to make money off of it, the minute fanfic and fanfic-style stories lose their meaning. Fanfiction is written on the notes app at 3am for you and 5 friends who share your taste. It is self-indulgent, chaotic, often told through a queer and/or neurodivergent lens, and free from any pressure to be commercially palatable. The minute a few stereotypical fanfiction tropes and ideas are stolen by commercial publishers and twisted into patriarchal, heteronormative versions of themselves with no character depth beyond the romance (a problem that for obvious reasons doesn’t apply to fanfic), that is where the real problem begins.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk

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recently dipped back into the Danny Phantom fandom 👻

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Roran my baby deserved better. I can understand and appreciate Nasauda's hands are tied but if I were reading this back before I read WOT and ASOIAF I don't think I would've fully understood the politics of her position and hated her.

Like it feels like she's taking everybody's loyalty for granted but I also know how worried she is and how hard she's been fighting to keep things handled... Like. It's very complicated and VERY well done I think and I can appreciate that.

So glad to see Roran getting his own command though.

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You have to make a fucking commitment that extends beyond your narrow, myopic definition of "normal" or you're going to continue to fail the fascism pop quiz, every fucking time.

You need to be willing to defend shit you find personally unsavory/unappealing/unintelligible. You need to be able to defend the weird porn. You need to defend the incomprehensible art. You need to defend the micro-identities that you think sound made up.

What matters is harm. Actual, tangible, documented harm. Not hypothetical. Not theoretical. Actual harm. If it's not harmful, it should be allowed to exist and anyone who tells you it shouldn't, it's trying to radicalize you. Don't fucking let them.

And if it causes actual harm, commit to actual harm reduction. Specific, tangible actions to minimize the specific, tangible harm. Anything else is propaganda.

I'm begging you to rub two brain cells together and stop platforming fascist talking points under the thinnest veneer of respectability. Your definition of normal doesn't apply to anyone else but yourself. If you're queer, if you're disabled, if you're a minority in any axis, stop fucking licking the boot that wants to crush your throat.

They mean you. When they call for the death of freaks and undesirables. When they want to criminalize anything that threatens children's safety. When they insist they only want to target dangerous perverts and malicious criminals.

They mean you.

Stop fucking helping them!

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omg thank you! you get it! its so human i love it!

Something that I actually really enjoy about The Inheritance Cycle is that it's a war. And wars are a focus of a lot of media, especially fantasy, but they rarely get into the nitty gritty of it; the realities of war are a vague backdrop to the protagonists' stories, if they're mentioned at all, and the war always culminates in one or two huge and dramatic battles that look good on screen.

But Eragon is IN A WAR. The armies are marching but it's not directly to the capital and it's not an easy march. They struggle with supplies, food lines, creating space for camps, fortifying said camps, illnesses, escalating disagreements among both foot soldiers and commanders, families moving with the soldiers, dwindling moral, etc.

They have to launch sieges against well fortified cities and there's nothing glorious about it. There's lomg stand-offs where the Varden isn't willing to engage with a city's defenses (like Thorn resting on Dras Leona's walls) or where a city is well-supplied enough to be able to close their gates and wait out the enemy forces on their doorstep. They build siege towers and struggle to break through walls and gates while the majority of the army tries to find anything to do. There's a lot of time spent just in camps, either moving to a new location or anxiously waiting for something to happen.

Even the battles themselves aren't usually glorious like they are in similar stories. There's tense waits for enemy forces to arrive that last so long that Eragon falls asleep. Sometimes the POV character completely misses the culminating action because they were too wounded to continue or they ended up somewhere else. Even the magicians aren't usually flashy and dramatic because that's a huge waste of energy, so battles with spellcasters are usually tense and silent and often involve both sides anxiously waiting to see which magic user falls first. The commanders have to grapple with their soldiers looting homes and the fact that many people in captured cities are magically bound to the king and that's not THEIR fault but they still can't be trusted.

And Eragon is THERE for all that! He's not above the realities of the wars, he's not some shiny weapon only pulled out of his comfortable hiding place when he's needed at the peak of the battle. He's marching with the army and sleeping in a tent and wandering around camp and eating the same meals everyone else eats and just generally trying to be as helpful as possible even when he's not in a battle.

It's just such an interesting change of pace from how war is typically handled in fantasy and scifi and I'm sure plenty of people found it very boring but I for one am LOVING it.

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Hey did anyone else read this scene as a kid and get hit with a sort of soul-deep primal longing that stuck with them well into adulthood

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I don't know if you needed this today

Remember the 2006 Eragon movie? Of course you do. You're in this fandom, and if you're following me you know I occasionally go on intense, rabid rabbit holes of trying to find the missing scenes that got cut/actors who participated in it to try and get information on just what was left on the cutting room floor.

Remember Ed? Little 17 year old Ed Speleers? Blond-agon?

Well, I was chatting/yapping (as she calls it) with my new coworker/New Gremling/Towel (that is her new name here due to reasons I cannot discuss but yes I got her okay for it) and mentioned he had been in Downton Abby and nothing else. She looked him up and apparently he has been in several shows for multiple seasons.

Intrigued and very, very impressed, I asked her to look up a current picture for me and...

oh my god look. at. him. HE GREW UP! HE HAS FACE LINES! HE'S ACTUALLY PASSABLY HANDSOME?! Guys, I SHRIEKED when I saw it, "OH MY GOD HE HAS CROWS FEET HE GREW UP I LOVE THAT FOR HIM!"

Look, I am REALLY proud of him. Eragon was his first big picture role. They picked him BECAUSE they wanted to 'show him growing like Eragon did throughout the story' and thus wanted an inexperienced younger actor. And now look at him!

Honestly I'm just damn happy he got rid of that mop on his head lol but I'm really glad he's found good work after that first flop.

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pls love yourself and stop pre-ordering aaa games

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The rest of the thread is here.

tl;dr: Don’t monetize AO3, kids.  You won’t like what happens next.

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George Lucas left himself room to write a decent ending for Padme when he had Leia mention that her mother had died when she was very young. Like he could've had Padme killed on a mission she volunteered for when Leia was four years old or something. But nope, dude had to have her die in childbirth, specific cause of death: heart broken by the father of her children. The fucker couldn't even imagine her carrying on without Anakin after his turn to the dark side, despite everything pointing to Padme having a very full life and strong convictions that very much did not center around Anakin whatsoever.

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Shout out to Cishet White Teenager Christopher Paolini for realizing that if you give people infinite time, a completely non-judgemental society, and the power to change their bodies any way they want, lots of people are gonna start doing Freaky Anthro Transgenderism on themselves.

Like yeah, if I had the option I'd probably turn myself into a bizzare eldritch creature too

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The hunters of Artemis, Reyna, and Asexuality in Riordan's writing

I kinda started thinking about this since Reyna became a hunter. I could never articulate why I hated this Choice. I was asexual after all. Shouldn't I be happy about this rep? We Ace people barely get any after all. Then I realized that it's because I just didn't like the hunters as ace representation. And I didn't need to be grateful for mediocrity.

You want to know why the hunters of Artemis suck in general? And as Ace rep specifically? Because Riordan did not write them with that mindset.

Like people are so busy hailing this man as the king of representation in literature(blegh) that they forgot how heteronormative and white(sometimes racist) the original series was. Y'all really think this man was thinking about writing asexuals in the year 2007? Get real. What Riordan was doing was a white man trying to write feminism and failing (there's a reason most of his female characterization of female characters boils down to tough "not like other girls" characters who are dicks to the boys around them yet also to the girls around them if they're jealous)

Now onto the hunters.

The hunters when first presented in TTC are not a group of asexuals but rather religious celibates. Fantasy Pegan nuns if you may. The first problem arises when their ages are brought up.

"Then the archers came from the woods. They were girls, about a dozen of them. The youngest was maybe ten. The oldest, about fourteen..."

Remember, before ToA gave us Emmie and Jo, the hunters WERE all young girls. Now why in the world are they so young? Especially when in the actual myths, the hunters could come from any age whatsoever? Well the reason is a doozy.

"Are you surprised by my age?" she asked.

"Uh… a little."

"I could appear as a grown woman, or a blazing fire, or anything else I want, but this is what I prefer. This is the average age of my Hunters, and all young maidens for whom I am patron, before they go astray."

"Go astray?" I asked.

"Grow up. Become smitten with boys. Become silly, preoccupied, insecure. Forget themselves."

Hooo boy. What a way to phrase it. Going astray. Losing themselves. This kinda confirms that the reason why Artemis goes after young girls specifically is because she only wants girls who have yet to finish puberty. Girls have yet to discover their own sexuality. Now I'm not a representative of Asexuals everywhere, but I'm pretty sure most of us don't discover our sexuality at the age of ten. Let alone have the maturity to decide to become celibates about it. And let me reiterate: celibacy is not sexuality. Sure asexual people CAN choose to be celibates but it's not the same thing at all. In fact Zoe and Thalia are big cases for this. Both of them had liked men before(herakles and luke) but joined for their own reasons. Thalia to escape the prophecy and Zoe out of heartbreak. Hell, Bianca herself is mostly swayed by the idea of having no responsibility and a new family.

Now Rick does another thing that goes against the myths. The exclusion of make hunters. Artemis frequently hung around or taught male hunters who respected her. Daphnis, Scamandrius, freaking Hippolytus whom Artemis greatly cared about. Oh but we need to come up with bullshit reasons why Nico can't just join the hunt with his sisters so the hunters of Artemis are all: Ewww men. Also note how at no point does Riordan mention people who fall in love with women.

Now the next point is the oath itself. Artemis says this:

"What oath?" I said.

"To forswear romantic love forever," Artemis said. "To never grow up, never get married. To be a maiden eternally."

When I tell you that Emmy and Joe were retcons . Rick was freaking INSISTENT on the hunters being kids. Also note the three points: to never fall in love, to never get married, to stay a maiden.

I mean I think I don't need to explain why obsessing over the virginity of young girls is creepy. Does Riordan think girls older than fourteen can't keep it in their pants? And let me be adamant here Riordan only cares about the virginity Clause here. He mentions falling in love and marriage because he sees them inherently intertwined with sex.

Now onto the wording of the oath itself:

'I pledge myself to the goddess Artemis. I turn my back on the company of men, accept eternal maidenhood, and join the Hunt.'

I mean you might be able to interpret men here as mankind and therefore excluding women as well. But I have many reasons to believe that Riordan didn't even CONSIDER women as a possibility(someone inform this man that lesbians existed smh 😞). Also note that falling in love is not mentioned in the actual oath but maidenhood is.

Now onto the next big issue. Percy Jackson's Greek gods and its chapter on Artemis. It basically confirms all of my problems.

"IT’S NOT THAT ARTEMIS HATED ALL MEN, just most of them. From the moment she was born, she knew one critical fact: Guys are kinda gross."

No mention of girls. In this chapter Percy(Rick) brings up Artemis' disdain for dudes over and over again.

“Let me be a maiden forever, Father,” Artemis said, twirling her finger in Zeus’s beard. “I never want to get married.---- But you can grant me a bunch of followers: ocean nymphs, river nymphs, wood nymphs—what the heck, how about mortal girls, too? Any girls who want to join me can become my followers, as long as they remain maidens like me. They should probably make the decision when they’re about nine years old, before they get interested in boys, because after that, they’ll be all distracted and of no use to me.”

Yikes yikes yikes. Ladies and gentlemen the age has been lowered to 9. Freaking 9. Also I guess girls older than that don't need Artemis' protection then? (the real problem is that older/married girls should be out of Artemis's jurisdiction and under the protection of other gods like Hera, Hestia, and Ares. But Hestia is barely there. Hera is terrible and the Amazons also suck)

Now when I tell you that Artemis' big point was about virginity, I mean it. This actually has mythological evidence.

The myths actually DO mention what happens when female hunters fall in love. Rhodopis and Euthynicus were two hunters who offended Aphrodite by choosing a chaste life so she had Eros make them fall in love. However note that they weren't booted out of the hunters for falling in love, but rather after having sex in a cave. THAT was what Artemis took offense to.

Another myth is the story of Aura. A huntress who offended Artemis by comparing their breasts(Greek mythology am I right?). Saying that her breast were better than Artemis' because they were smaller and hey maybe that means that Artemis isn't actually a maiden. Artemis punishes her by making her lose her VIRGINITY. She goes to nemesis for revenge. Nemesis goes to Eros who makes Dionysus fall in love with Aura and when Aura refuses his advances he ties her up and... Yeah you can guess where I'm going with this.

But hey! Those myths aren't in the Greek gods book. You know which myth is? The myth of C(K)allisto. And this one angers me so much I want to chew on the drywall.

The way Riordan writes it. Zeus turns himself into Artemis, brings Kallisto's guards down with the disguise, gets close to her and then when Kallisto REJECTS Artemis' supposed advances, forces himself on her. I need to say this again. Kallisto does not fall in love, she isn't seduced, she does not break her oath. But we still need a reason for her to be yeeted out of the hunters so her lack of maidenhood it is

“You were my favorite,” Artemis said. “If you had come to me immediately, I could have helped you. I would have found you a rich, handsome husband and let you settle into a new life in the city of your choice. I would have allowed you to retire from the Hunt with honor. You could have gone in peace. Zeus’s assault was not your fault.”

Kallisto sobbed. “But I didn’t want to lose you! I wanted to stay!”

Artemis felt like her heart was breaking, but she couldn’t show it. She had rules about her followers. She couldn’t allow those rules to be broken, not even by her best friend. “Kallisto, your crime was keeping the secret from me. You dishonored me, and your sisters of the Hunt, by not being honest. You defiled our company of maidens when you were not a maiden yourself. That I cannot forgive.”

I want to slap this man so hard he flies to the opposite side of the universe. We are not here to blame victims of assault guys! Except we are! But with extra steps. If you get attacked, it's not your fault, but If you are too scared to admit the truth then you deserve to lose your only safe space and turn into a bear. Oh nooooo Kallisto DEFILED Artemis' company by being an icky non virgin. The moment you lose your virginity even if it's not your fault you get punished. But not because I'm gross but because YOU lied. How terrible! And he expects us to feel for ARTEMIS???

But rosabell! This is how things go in the myths. What was uncle Rick (bleghhhh) supposed to do? I don't know... Choose a different version of the story? There are versions were Zeus/Hera are the ones who transform Kallisto into a bear. There are versions where Kallisto actively CHOOSES to sleep with Artemis. Granted it's still assault because she's being lied to but at least then, she'd have a degree of autonomy in the events. At least Artemis could rightfully accuse her of breaking her oath. But noooo, Riordan doesn't know lesbians exist. He actively makes Zeus into a canonical Ra*ist. Why is he on the throne again?

(the fact that this book came out AFTER HoH y'all 😭)

Once again, Riordan sees maidenhood(virginity)/love/marriage as intertwined. This is NOT what being on the aroace spectrum means. You can fall in love but not have sex. You can have sex but not fall in love. You can have sex AND still be an asexual. You can be married and still be a "maiden". Riordan doesn't get to claim to be such a progressive ally for retconning the hunters in 2017, TEN years after he first introduced the hunters because he suddenly remembered that lesbians exist.

Or more like because he doesn't know what to do with his female characters. The hunters more than anything are Riordan's heroine dumping ground. If you don't want it put them in relationships, either kill them(Bianca whose main purpose is to die) or make them eternal virgins(the hunters, Rachel). The fact that some people genuinely think that Calypso should have joined the hunters astound me. Girl suffered for years because of the gods and you all think that the best thing outside of Leo for her(not that I like Caleo) is to become a servant to the gods? Because you can't perceive a female character doing anything else if she's not in a relationship. Like with Thalia, this at least made sense on a strategic level because she didn't want to reach sixteen. Oh but we also don't know what else to do with her so she needs to want to be a hunter after the war is over so we give her a half-assed argument with Luke and now she can be all: wah wah Zoe you were totally right about boys. And the cherry on the cake is that she doesn't even get to be in the final confrontation with Luke or say goodbye to him because of a freaking STATUE. And after pjo her personality becomes Zoe 2.0 and her and Jason get ONE measly meeting.

When I first spoke of not liking Renya joining the hunters this is what I mean. Riordan had so many options with Reyna. Why did she have to leave her esteemed position which she worked so hard for? Two boys rejected her? Why couldn't she go reconnect with her sister more then? She could have joined the Amazons. But nooo Riordan was so allergic to the fans asking him wether she could be Bi or a lesbian. For the stupidest reasons too? Oh Reyna being a lesbian would come off as stereotypical because she got rejected by two guys beforehand! My dude, do you think people don't say the same thing about us who are on the aroace spectrum? That we say we are aro/ace because we got rejected before? Come up with a better excuse next time.

My brother in Christ couldn't even allow Reyna to talk about her sexuality and whatnot. It couldn't even be fully about her. No. He had to turn Reyna into his own mouthpiece admonishing the EVILLLL fans who may have shipped Thalia and Renya. He literally had her say the word "shipping". How cringe can you get? And then he had the audacity to admonish the fans by saying: Why does a strong friendship always have to progress to romance?

It's a sentiment I agree with but coming from this man, it's extremely hypocritical? I don't know Richard maybe because YOU are obsessed with shipping? No character can escape your shipping hands unless they're eternal virgins or dead. You literally turned the Argo2 into Noah's ark2. So much attention focused on shipping that the seven barely felt like friends.

Why does Reyna need to join the hunters? She can choose to not relationship without having to become a servant to female Peter pan.

This is actually a really adequate metaphor when you consider that Emmie and Jo say that they have not met Artemis in YEARS and Apollo mentions that the two of them were lucky she let them LIVE. god can you imagine joining Artemis when you are 9? At an age when you have still not finished maturimg cognitively and therefore shouldn't be trusted on taking a freaking celibacy vow(were you even given the talk yet that age) and after 70 years you decide you want to leave? If you're lucky Artemis will part with you on good terms but SIKES every person you probably knew before joining is now dead. Where is THAT angsty Bianca fic?

Speaking of Bianca. How she was handled also angers me. In another post, I've already talked about how the hunters barely gave her adequate information before letting her join.

How Zoe was the main reason for her death. Zoe KNEW that at least 2 people might die in the quest she was given and yet she decided to bring the least experienced girl to the quest and couldn't even watch her properly.

But you know what else pisses me off? The fact that THEY should have been the one to tell Nico about his sister's death. I've always hated how Chiron made Percy the CHILD tell Nico the other CHILD about his sister dying. But more than anyone, it should have been the hunters' responsibility. Bianca was THEIR responsibility. She died in a quest to save Artemis. The least they could do was tell her remaining family of her fate. The Doylist reason of course is that we need to kickstart Nico and Percy's complicated relationship and have Percy discover that Nico is a son of Hades. But in universe, the fact that they immediately fuck off from the camp upon regrouping makes them come off as extremely selfish. We don't even know if Bianca was given a funeral by them or not. We see Artemis being upset about Zoe but we never see her react to the news of losing Bianca.

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Okay, remember how during the pit scorpion scene Percy tried to convince Luke that it was just "Kronos talking" ? That this "wasn't really him" and "Kronos brainwashed you?" Yeah, imagine an AU where that was actually the case. Like Kronos just straight-up brainwashed Luke into betraying camp. Made him believe that he did everything he did out of his free will too. And now imagine that once Kronos took over Luke's body he reveals that fact as a means of psychological warfare. Kronos standing in front of Percy, giggling and laughing about how easy it was to fool everyone. No one even thought to be suspicious when their darling, caring golden boy suddenly joined him! No one suspected a thing when he suddenly behaved completely diffrent for no reason! He thanks Percy and Annabeth even, for keeping the general opinion of camp all nice and hostile. Aswell as not ever paying enough attention to notice the cracks Honestly, keeping Luke brainwashed and under his control was a lot more difficult for Kronos than he thought. The boy had a strong mind, one that didn't like being messed with. You could see it in the way Luke managed to break through the cracks again and again to protect Annabeth, ask Percy and her to join him or beg Annabeth to run away. The amount of of changes Kronos had to press upon Luke's psyche purely to get him to let go of Thalia- he had honestly thought that Luke might escape the brainwashing when he was made to fight that Thalia girl. Luckily she was just stubborn (or maybe stupid) enough to not attempt to talk the boy down then. had Thalia been anything less that hostile Luke might have been able to shake the manipulation off.

Kronos is so grateful in fact that he promises to grant swift and painless deaths to them all. Especially Annabeth, considering how the one time Luke managed to break down the brainwashing enough to run away she refused. After that the boy finally kept quiet, his attempt at resistance finally having fully broken down.

The titan really didn't think that it all would be that easy. Then again, maybe Luke wasn't that important to camp and his friends anyway! Luke couldn't have been that meaningful to them if they couldn't even realize he was brainwashed all along.

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I can't go beyond the idea itself so...

Reverse AU, where 14-year-old Annabeth and 12-year-old Thalia find 7-year-old Luke and take him under their wing.

Ok so first off, THANKS for sharing with me. Second off, LET'S GET INTO IT.

So this AU has two ways it can play out. With either Luke being the one to take Annabeth's role (becoming friends with Percy, going on the quest) and Annabeth being the one to betray camp. Or Luke still being the one to betray camp with the ages simply being diffrent. Now I'm not gonna lie I think both versions have MAD potential. My personal favorite is the one where Luke STILL BETRAYS CAMP. (Mostly bc I think that in the other version all would stay the relative same, just with Annabeth and Luke switching roles) Just imagine how much worse the angst would be. Like, just imagine Annabeth. Imagine Annabeth watching Luke grow, trying to take care of him. Imagine Annabeth being the one who Luke came to with all his troubles and issues, promising Luke family. How she would never end up like his own mother or their families. And now imagine Annabeth when Luke leaves camp. Like, let's say Luke went with Percy on the quest instead of Annabeth at 12, but the betrayal still happens at the same time as it did in canon. Think about how she must feel hearing that Luke, at 12 years old, went off and ran from camp to revive Kronos. Just IMAGINE how Annabeth must blame herself. Luke was so, so young still. She promised she'd be his family- yet how come she never noticed this? She knew that Luke had his issues with the gods, but she'd never expected it to get like this. I think that, due to the fact that Luke is SIGNIFICANTLY younger in this AU, we'd lean a lot more into him being manipulated or "brainwashed" by Kronos. Certainly that's also the stories most people at camp and Annabeth would believe- thus instead of "hunting Luke down" being talked about at the very end of TLT it's "rescuing Luke". That only makes it so much worse SOM rolls around and Annabeth will have to inevitably realize that no. Luke isn't brainwashed or manipulated. He is doing this out of his free will. I think Annabeth, being much older, would really take up a sort of caretaker role for Percy. Luke on his end may react pretty badly to it, as he perceives Annabeth as "already having replaced him". He'd also be taken less seriously by other campers due to his age and being less of a caretaker. I think in that case Luke would appeal to many of them as a peer as he plays more on frustration than he already did in canon.

For TLT.....idk how Thalia would react tbh. On one had, she'd probably still see Luke as a traitor. On the other, he's like, 14 in this. And I do think his age would change a lot in terms of him being seen less as evil traitor, and more misguided and used kid. Annabeth would be especially quick to take the sky from him, considering that she's the caretaker of Luke in the AU. Percy may start to resent him though, as he wouldn't have that "oh he's just a kid" mindset with Luke due to their same age. Thalia would probably still join the hunters. The fact that she pushed Luke off the cliff at the end of TCC would probably not paint her in a very good light to Annabeth though (also would be a lot more fucked considering Luke is 14 instead of 21 here.) The only good thing I think could come from this is the fact that Annabeth would probably help Luke should he come to her and ask to run in the time skip between TCC and BotL. I don't think she'd have the heart to drive the kid away she had promised to take care off. Meaning Luke probably wouldn't have gone off and become Kronos' vessel. The gods too might be inclined to mercy at Hermes' urging, considering that Luke in that case would be viewed as a manipulated child. Someone who couldn't know any better and was used by Kronos.

Especially with Luke running away on his own it could work. Should that not happen, and should Luke do end up as a vessel for Kronos...man Annabeth would cry. Because that would mean she failed Luke. She couldn't protect him like she promised. When it get's to the throne room I think Annabeth would apologize. Genuinly apologize for "failing" him. Which is what I think would bring Luke back enough for him to kill himself. At the end of it all having Luke die at 16 would really hammer home the Percy parallel, but it would also hit the 23 year old Annabeth MUCH harder since she sees herself to be directly at fault for what happened.

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this fandom take is one of the wildest i've seen in years, and quite toxic, so thank you for this conprehensive, calm and collected analysis.

Alright this is going to be a sensitive question to ask but some of my friends have spoken about fics where luke (🍇) other characters, some even have said he’s done that to their own characters where they were underaged and since you’re the best person I know that can speak super well about Luke, I was thinking do you think Luke would be capable of doing such thing to underage characters or ocs?

TW: DISCUSSION OF UNDERAGE RAPE, PEDOPHILIA, GROOMING AND UNDERAGE (ASWELL AS IN GENERAL) SEXUAL ACTIVITIES

So, I will start this off by saying thank you for comming to me with this anon. I know this is a very delicate topic. Which is why I want to say that I am more than welcome to have these discussions, since I think it's important to talk about these heavy things openly and seriously. That being said, my answer to that question is a resounding No. Luke would never even THINK about such a thing. Before we start (and this is by no means an attack on you or any other one of your friends) we need to remember that discussions like these are based in canon. Meaning that things such as "But Luke did it to my character" or "well Luke did it with my OC" are all worthless. Fact is I could also just aswell go and say "well Luke renounced Kronos and married my OC, he's actually loyal to the gods now for them!". But that also wouldn't mean that Luke is suddenly not the leader of the TA anymore or loyal to the gods. Based on his canon actions Luke has never once shown any interest in anyone underage. He's had two semi-romantic relationships in the entire series. One with Thalia when he was 12 and he was 14, which was only ever implied and was immediately dropped and never picked up again when Thalia died. And one with Kellie, who was a fully grown monster and was more than eagerly consenting to a sexual relationship with Luke. I think the reason for this conversation all comes back to the Pedo and Groomer arguments we've had about Luke ever since TLO dropped. Because, fact is- the only talk of Luke liking anyone underage we ever got only ever came from that one quote in TLO and other character's POV. The quote in TLO being the one where Luke asked Annabeth if she loved him, and she in kind responding that while she USED to love him, he's like a brother to her now. Which....I'm not going to lie, yeah that looks BAD. But what I see myself needing to point out here is that the question in and off itself does not need to mean romantic love. The whole theme of Luke and Annabeth always was family. Luke was laying dying, and in my opinion most likely just wanted to know if he and Annabeth still were family.

In that sense it would be logical for Luke to say love, as in- the love between family. The way Annabeth answered that was honestly stupid in my opinion, and I genuinly do not know what Rick was thinking. The reason why Luke never clarified anything was probably because he was actively dying and just didn't have the time for it. The second instance were other characters describing the relationship between Luke and Annabeth, and thus "confirming" that Luke had a romantic interest. Here I again have to point to the fact that A)it was only a statement, never an action. And B) It was from a different character's first person POV. Such POVs can never be fully trusted by the nature of being first person. I genuinly do not understand what Rick was ever thinking writing these things. Not only is it, frankly said- inappropriate for a children's book but would also ruin a core theme of Luke's character, family. The "Groomer" name has even less reason than the "Pedo" name. Grooming describes the action of an adult deliberately establishing a friendly relationship with a minor to manipulate them into certain actions or roles. I've mostly seen him being called a groomer in relation to Annabeth and Silena, which are both equally baseless. We first have to start off with the fact that Luke never really talked to them while they were a minor and he an adult. He met Annabeth when he was 14 and she was 7. He never once sook her out, their meeting was an accident. Even after meeting Annabeth he, on multiple occasions has he expressed explicit platonic love. In The Diary of Luke Castellan he refereed to himself as the "father" of the group after meeting Annabeth. Thalia in this context being the "mother". If anything that was more a hint at romance between Thalia and him than between him and Annabeth. During the main five books he also repeatedly called Annabeth his "little sister". That all also ignored the fact that Luke grooming Annabeth would mean that he got Annabeth to do something. Which...never happened. Annabeth consistently does the exact opposite of what Luke wants her to do- that being fighting for the gods. Had Luke groomed her, Annabeth would have been in the TA. For Silena it probably comes from the fact that her saying that Luke was "charming" and "nice" as a reason for her joining and spying for the TA. Aswell as him blackmailing her to keep doing it. Again, Luke probably met Silena at camp purely by accident. Most likely while he too was a minor still. Is Silena's reason for joining the TA a bit weak? Definitely- but it also proves that it was her decision. There is no reason to believe Luke actively manipulated her into it.

The blackmailing was just that, blackmailing. Plain and simple- Luke did some fucked shit for his goals, which I'm not going to deny. But that certainly wasn't grooming. We also need to remember that it can be pretty harmful to excuse Silena's decisions as Luke "grooming" and "manipulating" her, as it strips her of her independence and abilities to make decisions for herself in the greater narrative. Having all that debunked, my personal theory as to why the fandom hangs so consistently onto these things is that they need reasons to villainize Luke. (A deeper dive into this here) Fandom as a whole seems to need a reason to justify their hatred of Luke- and the easiest way to do that is to make him a villain and evil. What is the easiest, most evil crime could commit? Easy, rape. Especially rape of children. So, with the abovementioned things combined, they just jumped to saying Luke is attracted to minors. And wants to do stuff with them. But coming back to your question, I have one last- extremly strong argument to make why Luke would NEVER do anything like that. Because, as hard as it may sound- if Luke wanted to rape someone, especially children, he would have done so already. He was the main caretaker of them at camp for a LONG time. He had minors of all ages lining up infront of him wanting to impress him, fully trusting him. Most of the minors having had bad homelives before getting there. Luke would have had an extremely easy time taking advantage of any of the campers. All while basically having free picking and choosing in terms of gender, look, age ect. And even if we say that he couldn't have done it at camp for some reason, he certainly could have done so in the TA. We all know Kronos wouldn't give much of a fuck if Luke had sexual relationships with the minors in the TA. He had a (most likely) sexual relationship with Kellie, which shows that Kronos allows romance. And he also doesn't seem to have a strong enough moral compass to stop Luke from going after kids would he want to do it. Not only would everything from above still apply in the TA, but Luke would also be their leader. Meaning an IMMENSE power imbalance between him and your average TA member. Luke, throughout all his life, was in a prime position to take advantage of children. Especially so in the TA where he had 0 consequences to fear. And the fact that he simply never did (like any decent human being if we are honest) proves in and off itself that he had no interest in anything like that. And would never even THINK of doing something like this.