I Think That It Would Be Infinitely Funnier If Rick Had Made Artemis And Her Hunt Be Clueless (also Somewhat

A hill that I'll die on is that Lester had way more character development than Percy, BUT that only happened because Lester was a jerk at first and then became nice later while Percy was nice at first and nice to the end.

This is an amazing critique of Rick's misogyny that most of the fandom is apparently incapable of seeing-they most likely intentionally turn a blind eye to it, which is very problematic. Authors are allowed to use their versions of the myths, but we must not take the media too seriously and we DEFINITELY should not think that that was the only version. Also, the fandom needs to differentiate between the OG myths and what goes in the modern piece of media that uses them (Lore Olympus, Percy Jackson, etc).

Also, I can commiserate with you about Demeter and Persephone, as it's tiring to see their loving relationship being destroyed and twisted into something horrible.

Rick really fucked up Athena and Aphrodite too.

One thing I find so interesting about the PJO fandom is how they actually accepted how Rick fucked up 90% of the goddesses. Even when he uses a version of a myth that specifically talks about men being idiots, he villainizes women. Like, no one complained about how fucked up is that he used the story of Hephaestus trying to rape Athena and turning it into a “poor guy cried bc he was rejected by a girl” thing?

The true story is literally Hephaestus trying to rape Athena, she fights him off but his semen falls into her skirt and cleans it with a piece of cloth and tosses it into the ground (earth, which is Gaia) and from there, Erictonio is born. And Athena raised the child as her own even tho he was the product of the assault she suffered. The guy ruled Athens.

Rick turned it into Hephaestus falling in love with Athena and crying on her lap, making her reject and KICK him plus being disgusted by the tears and the dirt.

He also used all of Ovid versions he could possibly find to fuck Athena up. Arachne doesn’t happen with Greek writers and Medusa was never cursed (or assaulted) when we talk about the OG Myth. She was already born a monster and Athena only helps Perseus kill her bc yeah, Medusa killed people.

Also, Medusa’s version by Ovid is a lot alike Cassandra of Troy story, and let me tell ya, Cassandra was cursed but it wasn’t by a woman. And when she was raped by Ajax, Athena made sure that he didn’t made it back to Greece.

Now I’m gonna talk about Demeter. Demeter, who had her daughter kidnapped, raped and imprisoned, and was turned into the typical “mother in law who hated son in law bc she thinks her daughter could do better” when yeah…she has all the right to feel angry bc her daughter was KIDNAPPED.

Artemis doesn’t hate men and her followers also don’t hate men. Feminism isn’t about hating men.

Aphrodite. I cannot even describe how dirty they made Aphrodite’s children. Like be fr one of her children helped build what it would’ve been Rome. He was a fighter. And her cabin there is just so different of what she is truly like. They should have a lot of other powers.

Also, a lot of women from the books follows the same stereotype of “omg I hate makeup it’s so girlish and I’d rather fight” like you can be feminine, wear makeup and STILL FIGHT. One doesn’t erase the other.

Another thing, but this one is about MOTHERS! I truly cannot understand the way Rick creates his women. I’m serious tho. Like, I’m sorry but sometimes it seems that his thing some goddesses (Athena, for example) are personal. The “abandoning Athens” thing, the “should’ve chosen Poseidon”, the way he wrote her as being cold towards her kids…in one of the versions, Athena was the one who saved Dionysus from Hera. She raised a child and made him a king even though he was the product of her almost rapist. She was there helping heroes all along. She fought for Odysseus for ten years.

Also, this fandom is incapable of seeing the difference between Minerva and Athena. Minerva gave Annabeth the mark, Athena had nothing to do with this. Annabeth is her favorite daughter, she made her architect of Olympus, protected her through her journey to find Luke and Thalia, disobeyed her fathers orders trying to help to find Annabeth, made battle plans with her and all…and she always claimed all of her children.

I think people just don’t like her bc she doesn’t trust Percy. And she shouldn’t. I love him, but Athena IS the goddess of wisdom after all and as such, it would be pretty dumb to trust a demigod that won a battle against the god of war when he was only twelve. Not to mention that everyone kinda thought the “preserve or destroy Olympus” was on his hands. And he tortured a goddess…I’m sorry but she was pretty much right. Wouldn’t trust someone that had the power to fuck me and my family up either. She dint made the choice based on “omg I hate my rival and his children” even more so bc she was trained by one of his children and bunch of grandchildren. She made the choice based on what she thought was less risky.

If she was so against Percabeth, I can assure you she would’ve killed Percy and probably wouldn’t even suffer much consequences. She admires some things about Percy but she was right about his flaw. And she also helped him during one of his quest to go to college. Does she loves the idea of the relationship? No. But that’s bc she is precisely the opposite of love. She doesn’t make decisions based on what her heart says, but on what her brain says. If she succumbs to the heart, then she would seize to be goddess of wisdom, reason and all of what she values. That’s why she vowed to never marry.

And, as Helenist, I do not take the myths that seriously bc when we talk about religion, I have a clear mind that those myth were made by humans who used the gods as a tool to justify some of their actions, and I hate almost all of the retellings that those authors do, but is so wild to see how much power they have on society bc now I cannot see anything about the gods without someone saying shit about them. But I do know all about the myths and I gotta say, doesn’t make much sense to use a Roman author to talk about Greek Gods. He made them dirty. Also doesn’t make much sense to use this versions of Ovid but still change it to make it more sweet for the men. Poseidon and Athena didn’t spend that much time beefing, they even have a city together (Troezen) and she definitely doesn’t hate his children. Her best friend was literally his grandchild.

Safe to say that y’all should probably question Rick on how he treats women bc I was seeing the PJO series (the cast is amazing btw, safe to say that Leah/Annabeth is my fav) and by the looks of it, saying on how he changed Athena’s personality one more time, I legit think that Annie won’t jump to save her friends on season 3, she will probably be pushed by her mother or whatever.

Another thing: apparently only the women that like and have a friendship with Percy are treated as cool. But that’s on the fandom, not the author.

I forgot to add one thing and I’m gonna fix the grammar later but the “this is for children” excuse isn’t really valid considering that we saw Gabe being aggressive with Sally, we also saw Ares being a jerk to Clarisse (which also doesn’t make sense) and the story clearly states cheating, fights, death and a lot of other terrors. If you’re gonna use a rape version of a myth bc you chose to fuck a Goddess up, then you should state that the man is to blame. In the books we see Medusa saying she was Poseidon’s girlfriend/lover…she was his lover on the og myth, not in the version Rick chose. In the version that he chose, she was clearly raped. But he erased that and replaced rapist with boyfriend. He could’ve chosen to do another path if he didn’t want to talk about sexual abuse, I can tell y’all a hundred of ways this could go, but he chose this path and changed it, favoring the man. Again.

He could’ve gone with the theogony and said what was there that basically is: she was a monster, BORN a monster, daughter of other two monsters, no one wanted to get close to her, but he did. They slept together in a camp of flowers.

Athena only enters the story wayyy after this. And, as y’all can see, no curse. Yet, he chose to go with the rape version were Medusa is a maiden, loyal to Athena, gets raped on Athena’s temple by Poseidon and Athena curses her. And what did the author do? He made this: Medusa, loyal to Athena, fell in love with Poseidon and they did things on her temple. Athena cursed her. Again erasing the men’s fault.

The hate on Athena doesn’t make any sense at all. Y’all love some other male characters that don’t have a single sense of responsibility and possibly did everything wrong in the book. I saw people condemn Athena for her treatment of Deadalus when the guy literally killed his nephew bc he was more praised than him. And Athena gave him a mark that burned and did some shit to teach him a lesson. Poseidon wanted a trial to avenge his rapist son that was killed by Ares bc he tried to rape one of Ares daughters. A RAPIST. And Poseidon is treated like and angel bc what??? He likes Percy? Is his father and got him a gift? And Athena is being hated bc she isn’t his number one fan and her Roman part decided to give Annabeth a Mark? And mind you she’s just like that with him bc she knows more than everyone else and knows that he is dangerous. A good guy? Yes, Percy is the most amazing guy. Still dangerous. Still had the power to torture a goddess and win against the god of war. And she doesn’t dislike him, she dislikes his relationship with her daughter. And even so, she didn’t stop the relationship. So yeah I won’t ever get why the women always get more hate than the men considering this.

Again, as a Helenist, I don’t take the myths seriously when I talk about the religion in general bc the Gods are superiors. They don’t have human flaws. But, as someone who knows about the myths, is safe to say I hate those stories that uses myths like that and turns it against the Goddesses and make them out to be the worst ever. All the gods deserved way better than what they got with those retellings.

Solangelo is not Grumpy x Sunshine

One thing that's puzzled me about Solangelo is the grumpy x sunshine dynamic and how everyone thinks it's true.

Excuse me, did we read the same PJO and HOO?

Because in PJO and HOO, Will Solace was never sunshine.

In TLO, we see him heal Annabeth. He smiles and it's exhausted from running around healing everyone. Exhausted and tired and rueful.

And when Connor Stoll says that he's willing to steal, Will glares at him and gives him sharp orders.

In TLH, Will yells at Annabeth for destroying the chariot and scowls at her. Later, when he gives Leo a tour, he looks as if he finds the idea of a sword disturbing. And in the tour scene, he's helpful to Leo (he pats his shoulder too, which is a nice gesture).

In BOO, he calms Clarisse down and prevents a fight, which is good. He tells everyone that his prophetic cabin mates' powers have been affected too. Nico describes him as nonthreatening but brave under fine and Will is insecure about the fact that he's just a healer.

Will helps multiple times by using his taxicab whistle, when defeating soldiers and stopping the Greeks and Romans from fighting. A great example of him being competent on page.

From what we've seen of him so far, he's competent in war and in general and cordial with other people. He's good at diffusing tense situations as well as being insecure about the fact that he's just a healer (though he states that he has a few musical abilities as well, like his piercing taxicab whistle).

This is good enough (especially good material for a future character which was unfortunately botched) but there's nothing to indicate that he's sunshine.

Later, when encountering Nico, Will, who doesn't understand any of Nico's abilities, forcefully orders him not to shadow-travel even when it could possibly save the camp using the phrase 'doctor's orders'.

(This is an example of Will abusing his doctor's authority).

He also says that Nico won't be summoning skeletons again without Nico's permission. You might think that Nico was doing horribly, but even so, Will literally talked for him without his consent. That is not good-it's never good. You shouldn't do anything for someone without their consent, especially not when they're conscious and standing right there.

And then we come to where Nico says that he's leaving both camps.

At this, Will is furious for some unstated reason and then proceeds to victim blame Nico, telling him that he was the one who pushed everyone away. And even if Will was tired and terrified right then, he doesn't apologise later. He just calls Nico dense.

We've literally seen in nearly everyone's POV (Frank, Piper, Leo, Jason and Annabeth-even Percy tells them terrible stories about him that warps their view of him) that Nico is creepy as hell to them. Then how do you expect us to think that the people at CHB actually welcome Nico?

And in TOA he's nice, yes, but by then people were already shipping Solangelo and reducing them to this sunshine x grumpy dynamic.

None of this paints Will as sunshine. Will isn't sunshine just because he's white, blond and a son of Apollo. Stop being so quick to stereotype characters based on their physical traits and parentage.

And Nico isn't grumpy. He's creepy to some people and he has a sarcastic sense of humour. He's quiet, tired and frustrated sometimes, but not grumpy in general.

Stop calling him grumpy just because he's related to death and Will is related to life and healing. This is just flanderisation to fit into stereotypes, and it's sad.

But of course the fandom ruins everything and Rick follows suite.

I honest-to-god want to set up two similar, open-question and open-structure interviews with Rick Riordan, one with a girly WOC and another with a straight cis white man to study the results of both.

I'm fascinated with Rick Riordan's psyche

I've just been reading PJO's Greek Gods-

And Rick Riordan's misogyny IS RIGHT THERE.

Ok-when he says that all the other goddesses bullied Athena because she intimidated them? They tried to exclude her from their 'clique'?

Or when he writes that all the goddesses immediately hated Aphrodite just because she was the most beautiful of them all?

He literally writes, 'The women were like, I immediately hate her.'

Not the goddesses. Just the 'women'.

The way he subtly demonises Athena and Aphrodite.

THE WAY HE LITERALLY WRITES PERCY HATING THEM AND MAKING HORRIBLE COMMENTS ABOUT THEM.

Wow. Oh. My. God.

It's so fascinating. You can learn so much about an author by reading their books, and I'm learning so much about Rick Riordan right now. Has he even changed?

I'm just..........learning so much right now. As someone who studies psychology for fun, PJO is an absolute goldmine to me for learning about Rick Riordan and his views.

Especially now that I'm reading Percy Jackson's Greek Gods and Heroes. Holy shit, if anyone wants to study Rick Riordan, you absolutely HAVE to read those two books (don't take them seriously. Just use them to study Rick's psyche).

People who say that Hades and Persephone are the best couple in Greek Mythology sound ridiculous to me.

Have you never heard of Perseus and Andromeda?

Hades kidnapped Persephone and tricked her into eating pomegranates to stay with him for half a year; Perseus saved Andromeda from a sea monster!

Also, there are versions where Hades and Persephone both cheated on each other with Minthe and Adonis respectively. These are versions, they don't always have to be used, but they still exist.

Perseus and Andromeda? Never cheated on each other.

Hades kidnapping Persephone was symbolic, but we're taking this literally, right? And we're writing about the beginning of the story, where he kidnaps her, and that doesn't exactly sound like a great premise for a love story.

Perseus rescuing Andromeda from a sea monster on the other hand? Her marrying him? Them loving each other and never cheating on each other?

Solid love story premise right there.

'Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage' sounds like Percy if he realised that the gods were never going to change and he starts thinking that maybe he should have joined Luke and the Titans.

Does anyone just really like platonic SoTam? Because Sophie with all the other boys just feels wrong and annoying due to the romance thing, but Sophie and Tam? Only platonic.

I'm a SUCKER for boy-girl platonic relationships and friendships. I love those. Shannon, more SoTam, please?

I keep thinking about Piper and Hazel, the girls, being the ones who have unique eye colors and not Frank and Leo, the boys, who are allowed to have normal eye colours.

It's intersectionality-they're girls of color, so they have to be prettier, but the boys of color don't have to be as good-looking because they'e boys.

One of the most annoying things I find about Solangelo is the lack of development, the lack of progress from platonic to romantic in their relationship.

What, you're telling me that Nico, Nico di Angelo, an important character in the original PJO series and also HOO, who gets his own POV, just suddenly gets together with a random doctor………Will Solace? We see Will in what, The Last Olympian? And then we see him again in The Lost Hero, BARELY, just a few lines, and then again in Blood of Olympus, where he tells Nico that the latter that he's dense but not stupid? Which would be enough to piss Nico off? And then in Trials of Apollo……….they're…………TOGETHER? We barely got any chemistry or screentime, and what with Nico's internalized homophobia and years-long crush on Percy……….. HE WOULD NOT DO THAT. You don't just kiss someone your gender after only MONTHS of internalized homophobia, especially when Nico is from the LITERAL 1930s, where people were MURDERED for being gay.

It's clear that Rick only gave him a partner to 'confirm' it, which is annoying, because people can be gay without having partners.

And also, Will is so random and such a random, thrown-in character that I find it funny at times. Of course, he has somewhat of a personality outside being Nico's boyfriend, but not enough to make him a good sole character.Also, he's a terrible doctor for giving Nico's medical information to other people without Nico's consent-and he's 16. He clearly knows that he shouldn't do it. And he still does it.