Wait holy schist I just realised something about Percy Jackson as I was about to sleep holy crap!

You know how everyone has a crush on Percy because let's be fr have you seen the man. But in reality he's always the one being rejected which is straight up hilarious.

Only once did he reject Calypso when he left Ogygia. After that it was just:

Rachel "Sorry Percy turns out I'm not into you, I'm into your world and the adventure" Elizabeth Dare

Nico "You're not my type" di Angelo

Meanwhile Percy who's been making heart eyes at Annabeth for the past 7 years just going: "....wait what?"

Percy's just surprised people have a crush on him. Everyone has a crush on him and yet everyone rejects him it's hysterical 😂

i hate how this fandom treats calypso. like we know why percy forgot about his promise, we know all of this but she doesn’t. she’s trapped in a island with no sense of time and when a hero she loves promised her he would free her, all she knows is that he didn’t when she was naive enough to believe he would. and about the curse, girls are allowed to have nasty cruel thoughts and the way some people expected percy to act around her is really telling to how they see his character.

They're bitching each other out about tator tots.

A summary of my journey reading Heroes of Olympus:

Before reading: I've just speed red five books in a row and I'm kinda tired, I don't care about this second great prophecy that much, and I have a long tbr list I wanna get to, but also THE PERCABETH IS FINALLY PERCABETHING I NEED MORE

The lost hero: I don't think I've ever theorised this hard reading Pjo before, but also we're head hoping now??? That's new. More importantly, I love Leo he's my son now.

Son of Neptune: I am very biased in saying that I despise everything about Camp Jupiter without exception for one reason and one reason only: it's not Camp Half-blood. Also Frank and Hazel's romance is very, very boring. On a more positive note, Yay Percy's back!! He called his mom!! That's my boy!!

The mark of Athena: I LOVE LEO. But also is that a love triangle I see? How dare you! I guess the Romans can stay... Annabeth's POV was boring at first but it got fun later :) The final fight scene was fun. Leo saving Hazel and Frank was also fun.

House of Hades: OH MY GOSH I HAVE NEVER SHIPPED ANYTHING IN PJO AS HARD AS I AM SHIPPING LEO AND CALYPSO THEY ARE SOULMATES. I'm starting to warm up to camp Jupiter I guess, but dang I feel bad for Reyna. Also Cupid saying Jason has found true love kinda put me off, like yeah he and Piper have a solid relationship but I wouldn't call it true love, unless they're gonna twist that around and they're actually talking about some other relationship. Also SMALL BOB.

The blood of Olympus: YOU CAN'T END IT ON A CLIFF HANGER LIKE THAT WHAT THE HELL UNCLE RICK

Final thoughts: I have no desire to read trials of Apollo. I have Pjo burn out. It would have been nice to have been given a choice in the matter. Unfortunately, I was not. I guarantee I won't burn through it as fast as Hoo, tho. Cause, y'know. I actually wanted to read those.

Leo is such a great character, and it's terrible that it was all thrown away for a pointless, disturbing and illegal "romance."

I'm not even against him getting into a relationship, although I do think he needed to grow more as a character before that.

I'm against him and Calypso. Why Rick? Why put something so weird and disturbing into your story for kids?

The way that Apollo mentions off handedly that she's actually way older than him? The way that Calypso talks to Leo is really weird and controlling. She almost talks to him the way that a mother talks to a toddler (a dynamic with a smaller age gap than theirs, might I add). And I saw someone trying to defend it, saying something like, 'Well, it's fine because didn't it say that she's still mentally 16?' First of all, there is mention that she looks like a teenager, but no, no mention of "mental age." Second of all, I reject that argument. She acts like an adult, she acts like an immortal. It's one thing for her to "fall in love" with Odysseus because he's a whole adult man (still icky for me, and there a some versions where she forces herself on him and he doesn't consent, but I digress) but to "fall for" Percy the 14 year old, and then Leo, the 16 year old? Yuck. Why?

Like yeah, I can sympathize with Calypso, being imprisoned on an island forever? Tough break. No excuse to justify getting with a teenager.

Leo had such an interesting arc, and the whole thing with Nemesis telling him he'd always be "an outsider," that was interesting! There's so much potential there! The reason I disliked the Heroes of Olympus so much was because there was TOO much romance. It was so refreshing to have Leo outside of that (kind of outside of it, there was that whole stupid "love triangle" nonsense with Frank and Hazel). And then, of course, we have to get some gross, out of nowhere "romance" plot.

I guess this didn't really say anything that hadn't been said before, but yeah.

i am objectively right on this one.

Lester: Don’t be cocky, it doesn’t look good.

Calypso: *clears throat angrily*

Lester: On you. I can pull it off.

i wish leo valdez could just learn to love himself so i could stop being sad and crying about caleo and valgrace

hc's on apollo and calypso? their duo in general

hater 2 hater communication

they bring out the absolute worst in each other and i think that's beautiful 🫶

LOOOOOOOOOVEEE b*tching abt godly things + godly gossip w each other. apollo tells calypso all the modern gossip and calypso tells apollo all the ancient times gossip. apollo comes back to olympus post toa as a god and also a man with incredible dirt on all the older gods

not exactly a hc but this whole bit

cannot go a single day without at least one argument

on the other hand he is calypso's #1 supporter when it comes to inflicting violence (inspired by this)

calypso will ALWAYS diss apollo's skill in anything and everything. bro begins some song with perfect pitch and tune and shes just nope zilch nada cant hear ya over the sound of my eardrums dying

this is all i can think of rn, feel free to add whatever u want 🫶love and peace

the hoo books are a bit iffy at times, but i will never forget when I first read calypso is ranting about francis drake and his elizabeth and I legitimately thought that rick riordan implied that francis drake was in love with queen elizabeth I.

"What are the gods and demigods thankful for this years?"

Not to be anti-caleo on main but...

I mean, reading this breaks my heart. Even the official blog of the books paints caleo as not happy together.

Leo deserves the best, no to be cancelled on :(

I don't know how I feel about Leo and Calypso's relationship (I don't remember much of it), but I'm glad Leo did save her. And I get why Rick Riordan did it. Calypso had been living virtually alone for centuries. Somebody deserved to save her. The poor woman had suffered enough! At least Leo had the decency to look for her again! Nobody else ever really did that, which is seriously messed up.

made a meme

What if... Leo Became a God?

Okay, but what if Leo literally burnt away his mortality during Blood of Olympus while fighting Gaea?

Now, before you go ahead and bring out the sledgehammers and pitchforks, or think I'm just doing it as a joke, this is a possibility that I'm being very sincere in considering this. And it is a possibility, because this isn't the first time this has happened in myth - Heracles did it first. So if burning himself alive in a freaking pyre was all Heracles needed to ascend to godhood, Leo literally burning himself alive using his own flames to kill a Primordial should be more than enough. Plus there's the whole Hera mimicking what Demeter did with Demophon, so we could say he's nearly there. Him burning himself alive is just that final push he needed to become a god, burning away his own mortality.

I mean, think about it. The prophecy always said, an oath to hold with a final breath, but it never meant Leo had to get close to perma-dead. Riordan did it just fine with the Physician's Cure, having Leo achieve apotheosis to do so would also be a way to circumvent the loophole in the prophecy. The phrasing is vague in that 'final breath' could be interpreted in multiple ways, such as 'one's final breath as a mortal.'

Oh the irony. We all thought Leo was going to die, then bam! Boy ends up with a permanent lease on life by literally burning himself alive, a lot more power than he could ever imagine getting, and a lot of freedom he never had as a mortal. He's lucky demigod #3 to ascend to godhood without divine patronage, right after Heracles and Dionysus. When he returns to Camp Half-Blood, it isn't on Festus, but him straight-up materializing in the middle of his funeral. Nearly every Greek and Roman but especially Nico mentally screams WTF as they realize that the funeral hasn't even ended, and Leo's shroud is basically his first offering.

His friends reactions to seeing him - and realizing the truth of what he has become. Jason and Piper are in shock, realizing that their friend is now going to stay young and will eventually watch them die and have to move on. Frank and Hazel are bewildered, because Leo's plan to burn himself alive to defeat Gaea had gone horribly right and now they have to deal with the fact that they had a hand in Leo's apotheosis. Percy and Annabeth are bewildered and shocked at the fact that Leo just straight up became a god - and the now very real reality that one of them may eventually do so (cough cough Percy).

When Leo goes to free Calypso, she literally has to process the fact that the boy she may have liked is now a god - the very beings she despises for imprisoning her in Ogygia. That eventually Leo may most likely move on to someone else and dump her. This crashes especially hard when she gets out of that island and realizes that she's become mortal. The dynamics between them have completely changed and Leo isn't aware of it, and Calypso doesn't know how to process that.

Hera is the one to explain exactly is going on to Leo, because she knows she had a hand in Leo becoming a god. She owes him at the very least to guide Leo in his new reality, and both the positive and negative benefits that are associated with ascension to godhood. Hephaestus doesn't know how to handle Leo now basically being just there forever, because none of his children ever became gods unless they were the children of him and a god. Nemesis marvels at the irony of Leo becoming a god while stealing Gaea's life, noting that this was a rather marvelous way that Leo rained his vengeance upon her. Apollo's just friendly because now he has a new friend to be with him in Olympus.

But this ending - for Heroes of Olympus as a whole - would be more poetic and a parallel to The Last Olympian. Percy was satisfied with who he was, protecting the world to save those he loves and he's happy with that. Leo is one who ascends to the heavens in his feat to avenge those he loves and destroying those who tried to destroy him.

But... there's one thing they have in common.

Leo's first act as a god isn't to rescue Calypso. It isn't to appear before the Seven and let them know he's alive. Leo appears in the Underworld and requests for only a single soul to be allowed a second chance at life. The single soul that he loves the most.

Esperanza Valdez is brought out of the underworld, and Leo freezes. The boy on fire who became a god turns back into a boy of eight years old as he finally gets back the mom he lost so long ago as he hugs her as best as he can. He hadn't expected to be a god. He didn't know what would happen next. But this - this is one of the few times things actually feel right. They've both been given a new lease on life - one longer than the other, but they can finally keep moving forward.

I'm just gonna leave this here

PJO/ HOH OPINION

I think way too many people hate Calypso based only on the fact that she cursed Annabeth, but tbh (and I say this as someone who doesn’t like Calypso) I think she had every reason to do that, yes it was petty and yes it was wrong of her, but I understand why she did it. Also how could she have known Percabeth was going to fall into Tartarus.

This being said, I also think it’s pretty dumb to blame Percy for “not keeping his promise” bc poor guy didn’t get one break between the titan war and Hera kidnapping him. He made the gods swear on the river Styx, if anything the blame falls completely on them; and I think most people with minimal media literacy would think the same, I mean even Leo understood.

So yes it’s possible to think Percy isn’t in to blame while ALSO not villainizing Calypso.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk and if you have other unpopular opinions feel free to comment them here:)