Watching the Percy Jackson series has made me empathize with Aphrodite more than I ever thought possible.

Cuz these kids are TWELVE and are out here just trying to SURVIVE, but every time Percy and Annabeth interact I’m giggling and kicking my feet like “Hehehe you don’t know it yet, but that is the love of your life. Yes, yes, there’s a big scary monster but what about the slow-burn romance?”

And I always found it so annoying in the books when Aphrodite would show up and only be interested in the romantic dynamics between the characters and otherwise be kinda useless. But now??? I’m totally on the same page with her. Cuz I know they’re going to fight a million monsters and win, and at the end of the day one fight looks just like the next. But they only fall in love ONCE and it’s AMAZING.

Like damn. Apologies the goddess Aphrodite. I suddenly get it.

It's for two reasons the way I see it!!

1. It makes Grover look suspicious like he's going to be the friend who betrays Percy. They're making him a bit more secretive and crafty.

2. It showcases his emotional intelligence and intuition, and his bravery in facing the gods themselves head-on. Also, it reminds us that he's older than Annabeth and Percy and knows some shit, able to list off niche war facts like it's nothing, like he had learned it in preparation to manipulate Ares.

Also, I highly doubt that Grover has figured out the betrayer is Luke. I think he's going to guess it's Clarisse since he (rightfully) suspects Ares is somehow behind the stolen bolt.

The deeper we get into the series, the more it strays from the book. It makes sense to change the story a bit to match a different form of storytelling. Also, new jokes and new scenarios keep old audiences curious and guessing what will happen next. And more importantly, a lot of effort has been made to center Percy less, highlight the traits and importance of the side characters. I think Rick doesn't want them to feel like accessories to the main, white character and he definitely doesn't want them to feel like stereotypes. (And it would be all too easy to portray Grover and Annabeth as stereotypes since in the first book they only could have so much character development, their characters were far more flat in the first book than by the last book)

i just don’t understand the reason for making grover stay back w ares other than the sole purpose of giving percabeth more tv time. i’m fairly sure he was at the park w them. and i get that in the show he was trying to get info out of ares but in the book eventually they figured out ares stole it without having grover stay back. maybe discovering it at this point in the plot has its purpose but i’m really nervous because i personally feel like it takes away from the shock factor 😭

They should've knelt, they should've knelt man. It's such an important moment in the books, it shows how different the Big Three kids are from the rest, shows that they are not only to be respected, but feared. It shows that they are dangerous.

But even more than that, all around me, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin, though they didn't look happy about it (tlt, p. 126) it shows that Percy is and continues to be other, even in a place where he should fit in.

RICK JUST ANNOUNCED A NEW PERCY JACKSON BOOK

RICK JUST ANNOUNCED A NEW PERCY JACKSON BOOK

some assorted will solace moments that are now canon

scared of birds

fell down the stairs and passed out right after being told to watch his step

sang a little song so pretty it made flowers grow

said persephone was the most beautiful person he'd ever seen while his boyfriend was standing right next to him

saw real human feces on the nyc subway

bisexual....that's Literally his boyfriend

built a little shelter and left a kitkat for nico and then fucked off to go for a stroll in tartarus alone

laughed so hard at being called a care bear he broke down in hysterical crying

has a battery powered sun globe bc he gets depressed when the sun is weak

almost certainly had a crush on nico before blood of olympus

cargo shorts defender

inferiority complex

plague powers so strong he inflicted hay fever on a primordial goddess that doesnt even have a respiratory system and should be immune to all illness

best friend is his mom

TALL

“Percy hadn’t considered that—duh—people in Italy spoke Italian, while he did not.”

“Next discovery: The Italians used euros, and Percy didn’t have any.”

Percy, my favorite dumbass. 🥰

some pjo girls

I bought them early on the year and I’m so excited to create a little camp half blood in a box for them to be. Until then, they are in the plastic bag to protect then from dust.

i can't be the only person who sees the resemblance

What is this reading comprehension... She is saying in 2002 making characters white was the expected default so they made her white but it's not actually important to her character so now in 2023 if they want her to be a different race then hell yeah why not.

No where is that statement claims they ever pretended Annabeth was ambiguous or portrayed her as anything other than white and blonde until now. She's just saying the original choice they made on her appearance was one expected of publishers during a time where Legally Blonde was all the rage and you didn't diversify characters unless there was a "plot relevant reason."

In 2002 it was a blind spot by authors but also by publishers and by mainstream media and by the "default" able-bodied white cishet consumers.

But now it's 2023 and they found an actress they really like for the role and she's not white and they're saying "to be clear, even though we made and portrayed Annabeth as white all these years, we originally chose that because it was the default expected and not because it was relevant to her character. It doesn't really matter what her race is."

And why not retcon the first series to adapt to the times where white is no longer the expected default of every single character? They have knowledge/awareness now that they didn't twenty years ago and they get a chance to show more representation, which at the core of PJO is the reason Rick wrote the books to begin with- to give his kid with ADHD and dyslexia representation.

She's giving context to their decisions, not an excuse to their decisions. And with any kind of diversity in media- looking at the context of the time that media was released is always important. (Try finding a queer story that doesn't revolve around homophobia before gay marriage was legalized. Spoilers: publishers wouldn't publish gay love stories without homophobia before 2015 because it wasn't "realistic" and "wouldn't sell." That's just one example of the kind of bullshit authors have been dealing with even when they think to write diverse stories with good representation. This idea someone can't be poc/queer/disabled unless it's plot relevant has been pervasive for decades until very recently)

oh no, no, nonononononono you don’t get to retcon the first series basically being an all white cast because now you’ve realized it’s Not A Great Look by blaming publishing standards and pretending that annabeth is presented as anything other than a blonde white girl in the text or any of the marketing material ever.

you wrote her as white! you wrote all the main characters as white and made it very clear when the secondary characters weren’t! it’s fine to admit you just had a blind spot and self-corrected with HoO and the other series!!! you don’t get to go back and retroactively collect diversity points by pretending annabeth is in any way presented as racially ambiguous in the text now that you’ve decided to make a tv show!!!! gaaaaaaaaahhhhhh

Remember, after the war the gods hunted and killed all of the demigod children who fought for Kronos. And I doubt they went to Elysium when they died.

Not only was Chiron thinking about the way the enemy would potentially manipulate and abuse Nico but also the consequences of facing the gods in the aftermath.

So I was checking TTC for something, and I happened to see this:

Percy's cherished dream — become a parent.

He saw his mother and said that I wanna be that.

Say what you will but I loved Nico getting bitchy and irritated with everyone around him including Will himself because same king. your partner that you in fact love more than any other living mortal made a completely neutral observation about the literal hell scape you both are standing in? *shakes in controlled anger*. That same boy that you would kiss and sing to sleep makes an even slightly unhelpful suggestion in a stressful situation? *physically retraining from throwing the knapsack at him*. Why communicate to your empathetic s/o(a) that you feel misunderstood by their actually reasonable comments about the Underworld (they have never seen anything like it before) when you could just continue to marinate in the self isolation and violent anger in your silly little mind until you inevitably lash out at the person you love which makes you feel even worse !! Nico is spiraling in this book and I am spiraling irl and I think he is so very Real for that

I love people complaining he was whining because his whole thing is he's like... Basically the most normal, well-adjusted person in all of Camp Half-Blood who's just trying to adapt and try his best. Like... Yeah. He enters the Underworld and smells Death and Rot and he's essentially like "ew I'm gonna throw up" and WE'RE like "hey now! Be a little more tactful, this is Nico's home!"

Bro, you would be gagging if the place smelled like a rotting corpse, too. You would be scared and freaking out, too. As cool as it would be for him to just be automatically okay with everything, not phased by death or the underworld at all, he's just a normal guy going against every instinct because he loves his boyfriend. On an emotional level his reactions are totally justified. Would you blame a flower for wilting for taking away its sun and water? Would you blame that flower for wilting when you took away its sun and water and then trampled it over and over again? That's pretty much what's happening in the book.

And keep in mind, everything we know about Nico and the Underworld and Tartarus by now is old knowledge to us. We've been there, done that. We've been to hell and back a dozen times by now. But Will wasn't there for any of that, it's all new to him. Imagine someone reading the Sun and Stars who had never read any of the Riordanverse books and how horrified they'd be reading about Tartarus for the first time. It's some fucked up shit that truly seems impossible to survive. They would probably sympathize a lot more with Will than those of us who know what to expect.

TLDR: Will's reactions are justified and normal, even if they are tactless. Give him a break, it's his first time

“Why was Will so whiny during tsats he was literally fine” mind you they were in hell and then in Tartarus and my boy he gets sick from not being close to the sun not to mention all of his injuries… how was he fine???

Older tumblrs reading a middle school rated book that we’ve all been excited for for 2 years and then realizing it hasn’t aged with them: fucking disgusting this is the worst writing I’ve ever seen

destination : tartar sauce