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people will get mad at calypso for treating leo unfairly when she first met him as if annabeth hasn't been doing the same thing to percy for 10 whole ass books

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I've been gone for a little while and mfs in this hellhole has once again started the 'judo-flip is okay' discourse?!?!?!

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Percabeth shippers will act like being abusive is a flex and get away with it

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Annabeth stans are like "well characters are allowed to have flaws >:(" — like yes, characters having flaws is great, but if they're written as flaws. If the so called flaws are never so much as acknowledged as flaws within the narrative, maybe that's not the Deep Nuanced writing you all act like it is. "She's like that because of her trauma!!!1!" Maybe, but if a character treats people like shit because of her trauma and then never recovers from said trauma, that's not satisfactory writing.

The issue is not Annabeth having flaws or being traumatized or using unhealthy coping mechanisms or whatever. The issue is said behaviours being written as inherent to her character and not even being shown as flaws or trauma response, and her never developing to heal from her trauma or overcome her flaws. Rick never tried to make Annabeth get her shit together and become a better person because fans love her as she is and it gets him money.

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Forgetting percy and annabeth for a minute, what about you admitting to being abusive?

Percabeth shippers will act like being abusive is a flex and get away with it

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you guys are talking about how annabeth had absolutely no one before percy came along but. . . what about her siblings? y'know, the ones that she's lived with since she was seven? or what about grover? you can't tell me that "the friendliest girl that everyone loves" had absolutely no friends before someone she could use to her advantage came along.

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Percabeth shippers will act like being abusive is a flex and get away with it

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Just curious, what is it about Percy/Annabeth that you don’t like (other than the stans)?

I'll happily explain! Just a quick disclaimer that it was a while ago I last read the books.

The entire thing was kinda surprising, cause on paper, percabeth should've been the perfect ship for me. They've got this enemies/rivals to lovers, bickering married couple vibes, unique nicknames etc. I love these tropes, hell, I’ve have written them myself, but in percabeth's case I just don't think they're done very well.

Another disclaimer: It’s gonna seem like I’m anti Annabeth from reading this, but I wanna assure y’all that I’m not. My main issue with percabeth is the way she treats Percy, but I do not think she’s a terrible person. She obviously cares about Percy a lot and he about her. They’re good friends, I’m not denying that. I just wish that’s all they were and that Percy would date Rachel and Annabeth would date Piper. 

To fully explain, I first wanna bring up an example of these things being done right, and why. The first one that comes to mind is Dan and Blair from Gossip Girl. They are also an enemies to friends to lovers ship, with this bickering married couple energy, and they're one of my favourite ships of all time. Their bickering is pretty similar to percabeth's (in the sense that it's mostly Blair saying mean things to Dan), but the key difference is that her insults (at least during their friends and lovers stages) is never coming from a malicious place and Dan's feelings are never hurt by her comments. He recognizes that this is just how Blair expresses her affection for him, and it's even something he enjoys about her. Every time she cleverly insluts him he laughs/smiles and looks at her like she's the best thing in the world.

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But in Annabeth’s case, insulting Percy isn’t how she shows her affection. She lashes out at him due to her repressed trauma, and Percy does not like that she does this. Annabeth recents people assuming that she’s dumb because she’s blonde, but she continually calls Percy stupid. She’s generally terrible at communicating how she feels and what she needs and then gets mad at him when he doesn’t respond exactly how she wants. I think the worst example of this is in the beginning of The Titan’s Curse when she punches him in the stomach for not asking her to dance with him. 

Unlike the judo-flip, I’ve never even seen this moment discussed before, and it’s so annoying, cause I just know that if the genders were switched people would be horrified by it. 

The same issue comes up with the nicknames. Wise Girl is clearly complimentary while Seaweed Brain is derogatory. Now, what I expected when I read PJO was that Seaweed Brain would eventually turn affectionate, sort of like an inside joke, which again, is a trope a LOVE. And that kinda happens, but only after they start dating. I initially thought it had done so at the end of Lightning Thief when they became real friends, but then this happened in TTC:

This really shocked me when I read it. Cause this clearly shows that Percy still doesn’t like when Annabeth calls him that, he just doesn’t respond with anger anymore because he’s “gotten used to it”, which is... not good. 

(Heroes of Olympus is a whole other mess. Most of these problems are just magically fixed. The only obvious bad thing™ being the judo flip. I happen to know for a fact, though, that most percabeth shippers, at least the reasonable ones, hate that. They’re both generally not that well written in those books, never really being allowed to be individuals they’re just BoyfriendAndGirlfriend™ with the exception of Annabeth’s quest in MoA, so I don’t hold anything in that series against them.) 

There’s also the case of Annabeth’s extreme jealousy. Like, the way she treats Rachel... I’m pretty sure most percabeth shippers even agree that she being completely unfair. @fake-plastic-trees made a meme that explains how hypocritical her behavior concerning Rachel in fact is way better than I could ever do, so here’s that: 

(x)

This is the situation where I have the most sympathy with Annabeth, though. At least in the Calypso situation. Like having your best friend that you have feelings for go missing for so long that there’s pretty much no way he’s not dead, only for him to show up on his funeral and you find out that he was sent to an island where another girl took care of and fell in love with him and he most likely had feelings for her too, yeah that must suck. Especially with her abandonment issues. Still, doesn’t make her actions okay. 

All of this is what, partially, makes perachel so appealing. They’re a breath of fresh air, because Rachel is the exact opposite. She’s straight forward with Percy. When he doesn’t make a move on her, instead of punching him or calling him a coward, she just makes a move. Which is, you know, the reasonable and healthy thing to do. Percy himself even expresses that he appreciates this about her. 

It’s pretty clear that he’s referring specifically to Annabeth here. 

Finally, I just wanna say that I would be fine with all of this if Annabeth actually had a character arc where she realizes how she was acting was not okay, apologizes, and makes an effort to change and work through her trauma so she wouldn’t lash out on people anymore. Characters are allowed to have flaws, it encouraged actually! But those flaws, at least the ones that have a large negative affect on others, need to actually be acknowledged. And if you want the character to be framed like a hero, they need to take steps to change. But that is not what happens with Annabeth, so I’m not okay with it. 

really hope you had the energy to read through all of that

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Annabeth thinking she's oppressed because she's blonde has the same energy as thinking white people are oppressed.

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i think putting my finger on the fact that annabeth has ultimately not grown or matured as a person throughout either series and is still the same bratty and immature person she was when she was 12 years old was good because it explains all of my issues with her character, and in turn, percabeth.

to start, all of my issues, like i said, stem from the fact annabeth simply does not grow or mature. i constantly see the fact she’s a traumatized teen used in defense of this fact when… no. that just doesn’t work, not from a real life or writing standpoint. look at percy, for example, he’s also a traumatized teen. at his core, he is, of course, the same person he was in the beginning of pjo. but he’s changed and grown. key aspects of who you are won’t change but you can still grow and mature as a person. percy has done that. the opposite to percy, annabeth still behaves the Exact same as she did when she was young.

you can’t pinpoint important growths in character because they aren’t there. they just aren’t. people worshiped the bratty and entitled annabeth that was in the original books (for whatever reason), so rick never bothered to change it. don’t change what makes you money, right?

in not changing annabeth and continuing to write her as controlling, entitled and frankly, toxic, rick has played a major role in the downfall of percabeth. while yes, it’s still popular and hasn’t had a downfall within the fandom, that doesn’t mean it’s good or healthy— hence it’s downfall with how it’s handled.

in order to keep annabeth how she was, he had to sacrifice parts of percy’s character and growth in the heroes of olympus. we see this most notably in percy’s handling of annabeth always calling him “seaweed brain.” in pjo, he remarks that he doesn’t like it, he’s only grown used to it. he also says that it still bothers him, despite that. which is why he likes rachel more than annabeth. because she isn’t like that. he also doesn’t have to walk on eggshells around rachel, either. in heroes of olympus, percy suddenly loves when she insults him and loves when she gets physical with him.

this is not consistent with percy in pjo. not only does it not work because the change was never shown, it just… happened, but it also doesn’t work because it absolves annabeth from the responsibility of it. it hurt percy and it made him uncomfortable around annabeth. annabeth will never be held accountable for that and it will never be addressed. if this relationship were healthy and were handled correctly by rick, this issue would involve communication.

rick consistently sacrifices parts of percy’s character to put annabeth and percabeth on a pedestal. it’s a massive issue, and unfortunately one most of the fandom will never acknowledge and will be aggressively and angrily against acknowledging. after all, percabeth and annabeth are so perfect! /s

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Just curious, what is it about Percy/Annabeth that you don’t like (other than the stans)?

I'll happily explain! Just a quick disclaimer that it was a while ago I last read the books.

The entire thing was kinda surprising, cause on paper, percabeth should've been the perfect ship for me. They've got this enemies/rivals to lovers, bickering married couple vibes, unique nicknames etc. I love these tropes, hell, I’ve have written them myself, but in percabeth's case I just don't think they're done very well.

Another disclaimer: It’s gonna seem like I’m anti Annabeth from reading this, but I wanna assure y’all that I’m not. My main issue with percabeth is the way she treats Percy, but I do not think she’s a terrible person. She obviously cares about Percy a lot and he about her. They’re good friends, I’m not denying that. I just wish that’s all they were and that Percy would date Rachel and Annabeth would date Piper. 

To fully explain, I first wanna bring up an example of these things being done right, and why. The first one that comes to mind is Dan and Blair from Gossip Girl. They are also an enemies to friends to lovers ship, with this bickering married couple energy, and they're one of my favourite ships of all time. Their bickering is pretty similar to percabeth's (in the sense that it's mostly Blair saying mean things to Dan), but the key difference is that her insults (at least during their friends and lovers stages) is never coming from a malicious place and Dan's feelings are never hurt by her comments. He recognizes that this is just how Blair expresses her affection for him, and it's even something he enjoys about her. Every time she cleverly insluts him he laughs/smiles and looks at her like she's the best thing in the world.

(x)

But in Annabeth’s case, insulting Percy isn’t how she shows her affection. She lashes out at him due to her repressed trauma, and Percy does not like that she does this. Annabeth recents people assuming that she’s dumb because she’s blonde, but she continually calls Percy stupid. She’s generally terrible at communicating how she feels and what she needs and then gets mad at him when he doesn’t respond exactly how she wants. I think the worst example of this is in the beginning of The Titan’s Curse when she punches him in the stomach for not asking her to dance with him. 

Unlike the judo-flip, I’ve never even seen this moment discussed before, and it’s so annoying, cause I just know that if the genders were switched people would be horrified by it. 

The same issue comes up with the nicknames. Wise Girl is clearly complimentary while Seaweed Brain is derogatory. Now, what I expected when I read PJO was that Seaweed Brain would eventually turn affectionate, sort of like an inside joke, which again, is a trope a LOVE. And that kinda happens, but only after they start dating. I initially thought it had done so at the end of Lightning Thief when they became real friends, but then this happened in TTC:

This really shocked me when I read it. Cause this clearly shows that Percy still doesn’t like when Annabeth calls him that, he just doesn’t respond with anger anymore because he’s “gotten used to it”, which is... not good. 

(Heroes of Olympus is a whole other mess. Most of these problems are just magically fixed. The only obvious bad thing™ being the judo flip. I happen to know for a fact, though, that most percabeth shippers, at least the reasonable ones, hate that. They’re both generally not that well written in those books, never really being allowed to be individuals they’re just BoyfriendAndGirlfriend™ with the exception of Annabeth’s quest in MoA, so I don’t hold anything in that series against them.) 

There’s also the case of Annabeth’s extreme jealousy. Like, the way she treats Rachel... I’m pretty sure most percabeth shippers even agree that she being completely unfair. @fake-plastic-trees made a meme that explains how hypocritical her behavior concerning Rachel in fact is way better than I could ever do, so here’s that: 

(x)

This is the situation where I have the most sympathy with Annabeth, though. At least in the Calypso situation. Like having your best friend that you have feelings for go missing for so long that there’s pretty much no way he’s not dead, only for him to show up on his funeral and you find out that he was sent to an island where another girl took care of and fell in love with him and he most likely had feelings for her too, yeah that must suck. Especially with her abandonment issues. Still, doesn’t make her actions okay. 

All of this is what, partially, makes perachel so appealing. They’re a breath of fresh air, because Rachel is the exact opposite. She’s straight forward with Percy. When he doesn’t make a move on her, instead of punching him or calling him a coward, she just makes a move. Which is, you know, the reasonable and healthy thing to do. Percy himself even expresses that he appreciates this about her. 

It’s pretty clear that he’s referring specifically to Annabeth here. 

Finally, I just wanna say that I would be fine with all of this if Annabeth actually had a character arc where she realizes how she was acting was not okay, apologizes, and makes an effort to change and work through her trauma so she wouldn’t lash out on people anymore. Characters are allowed to have flaws, it encouraged actually! But those flaws, at least the ones that have a large negative affect on others, need to actually be acknowledged. And if you want the character to be framed like a hero, they need to take steps to change. But that is not what happens with Annabeth, so I’m not okay with it. 

really hope you had the energy to read through all of that

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Reading mark of athena be like-

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i swear to god, not the fucking jealousy arc

love triangles tend to be insufferable because of poor writing and the rachel/percy/annabeth triangle is no exception. it exists only to give annabeth a petty rival and solidify her status as a love interest that isn't "like the other girls". the interactions between annabeth and percy in this book are unbearable and the fact that she only accepts rachel as a person once she becomes the oracle and is off limits for romance is terrible.

not to mention the fandom's tendency to insult rachel on those very same grounds. even the mention of perachel is still enough to send some fans in an incontrollable rage. it is 2021. we need to be better than this.

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Hey I saw a post of you talking about Annabeth abusing Percy but it's been some time since I read the books amd the only seen I'm remembering right now that is like that, is the judo flip seen. Could you tell me a bit more about this and give some examples why she is being abusive?

Day-o!

The abuse not only comes in physical forms, yeah the judo flip was wrong, specially with Percy’s background (and honestly wtf Rick? What happened to the Percy that didn’t stand anyone’s bullshit? The one that didn’t accept some of Annabeth’s behaviors?)

The jealousy and how it affected Percy and Rachel at some point, how Percy even thought at some point to apologize to Annabeth because Rachel was BREATHING next to him.

How she loves the dynamic with Percy bc Percy its an idiot and isn’t capable of doing anything without her.

The fact that she could justify Luke over and over again even after trying to kill Percy but at the second Percy smiles near Rachel she starts crying and playing the victim.

Never address her questionable behaviors to herself (let along apologizing) and still being jealous about anything that breaths near Percy (like that time Hazel -AND FRANK- hugged Percy and she immediately wen “OH GODS MAYBE HE IS CHEATING!”)

Idk maybe I’m wrong🍵

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...Annabeth said in Mark Of Athena that she hates how people assume she's dumb because she's blonde but she spends every fucking Pjo-era book calling Percy stupid...

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Annabeth be like-