jasongracestannr

[jasongracestannr]

Some glazers will really say Percy had it so much harder for having to fight his way through to get to Camp Jupiter. The same glazers will then forget the fact that throughout Jason's childhood, he never had a Sally Jackson, he never had a Grover Underwood, he never had the amount of emotional support Percy had. Sure, he might have had some friends but they were also expecting him to be a leader of Camp Jupiter and so on. Jason's childhood is so much harder because he didn't have a place to rest back on. His only safe space was a camp that wanted him for his abilities and forced him, knowingly or unknowingly, into the mold of a leader. And that says a lot about how relaxed he could be as a kid. Sure, Percy and Jason had equal feats but Jason still had it harder because he had next to NOTHING TO FALL BACK ON.

[jasongracestannr]

I keep forgetting robby was an angsty teen. Like. skateboard, long sleeves under t shirts, ripped skinny jeans, heavy music, long hair, black converse type teen. Love him

[jasongracestannr]

my babies

my stupid crazy kids with ptsd💜

cegan fans get away from me.

[jasongracestannr]

yellowjacks + pjo 🤗

hazel lottie yay

[jasongracestannr]

i absolutely love hazel but oh my god 💔

my roman empire is that jason thought he was good friends with hazel, considering that jason probably welcomed hazel when she first came to camp jupiter, but in HOH hazel said she would rather be in a room with anyone else but jason.

[jasongracestannr]

my baby 💔💔💔

Commentary on the New Read Riordan Article about Jason Grace

Link to article: The Greatest Feats of: Jason Grace

I absolutely love this article, and find it very touching. So today I’m going to go through and touch on some of my favorite parts of this one!

Spoilers for the Heroes of Olympus and Trials of Apollo series.

I’ve loved Jason Grace since I was in elementary school. Even though my old elementary-middle school didn’t have TLO in the library (it being the only book of the 10 in the main series it lacked, sadly), it did have the TLO graphic novel adaptation, which cut some things out most likely but was a fun read because of all the pictures anyway.

But that is partially beside the point—by the time Jason’s character was killed off in the 2018 TOA book The Burning Maze, I was completely attached to his character. I got to know all of our favorites originally through the HoO series (before I read PJO) and I never quite have forgotten the feeling I felt the first time I read Chapter One of Blood of Olympus, in which Jason met a mania of his mother and we get more Jason backstory lore than the three previous books combined.

So I loved Jason’s character. I loved the Roman camp and I loved Jason for all of his self-sacrificing, loyal, childish ways, and I still do, so of course I wanted to go through this article for funsies and point out my favorite parts and points.

And with no further ado:

Introduction

This article is already off to a good start to me! Some things I noticed:

It tackles the “boring” accusations that people have been throwing around basically since the first HoO book came out in 2010 (about 15 years ago now).

“The friend you know will always be there for you, no matter what you’re going through.” 🥹🥹🥹 Jason really is that guy.

This just reminds me of how much I relate to Jason because I am that friend in the group chat.

IMPORTANT THING TO NOTICE: no mention of Jup*ter (🤮) here.

I like how they emphasize that we need to move forward and carry Jason’s story on. I’ve found (and participated in) a lot of ignoring Jason’s death in the fandom, which of course is perfectly normal and acceptable fan behavior, but I also do believe that his death plays a big role in not only the Trials of Apollo, but also Jason’s character arc. It gives us a look into his past and shows us how he was never really afforded a future. It reminds me a bit of the line in the new Percy book (which, admittedly, I have not read yet) that talks about the “debt [demigods] owe for existing.” How heartbreaking—but important for the narrative. We as readers must remember that the foundation of this world is not meant to be one that treats our characters well—that is why they must be heroes in the first place. They certainly didn’t choose to be.

I’ll admit that I was hoping for some elaboration on Jason’s backstory (pre-TLO) in this article, but it does only include things that occur in the books.

Jason the Giant Slayer

THANK YOU for acknowledging how wackadoodle Jason’s second-first quest was. Absolutely bonkers.

Do we need a tally of how many times Jason gets brainwashed into fighting his friends? 😭 It seems like we have a theme going here.

I love how they emphasize the title “Champion of Juno.” That’s a really important part of his character that I feel we overlook sometimes.

On a more serious note re: the previous point, I actually do think that this represents Jason’s lack of autonomy in his own life. He’s never been able to choose something for himself—he was given to Juno as a sacrifice at age 3; was sent to Lupa; somewhere down the line ended up at Camp Jupiter, where he earned 12 stripes by age 15. (PLEASE remember that Jason is younger than Percy, guys. PLEASE.) Then, Jason’s memories are wiped, his new friends get fake ones of him where they remember him as a completely different person (a more “fun,” version, notably, which might be one of the starting places of the “boring” accusations). Jason still has no autonomy, and honestly, that’s by design—his father never wanted him to have any, and neither did any other god or goddess. Jason is a victim of the narrative, forced to serve people and positions and put his true self aside—resulting in him “not having a personality.”

I’ll move on so to not clog too much.

I love the acknowledgement of Jason having Absolutely No Idea what is happening throughout TLO. Bro is completely lost.

YES!!! Jason is BRAVE.

That last line is so disturbing. 😭😭 Funny, but disturbing.

Grace vs. Jackson

I like how they emphasize how in the times that they do willingly fight over things in the series, it’s not super serious. They’re not battling it out to solve a serious moral difference or anything: they’re just two teenage boys. 🤣

Ping pong… I wonder if that’s a theme throughout the books. 😂

NO. FREAKING. WAY.

Read Riordan says that Jason would have won the eidolon fight????

Big win for Jason stans this month y’all.

Honestly, I don’t care much about the eidolon fight, but this decisive standpoint is insane. Glad it’s finally cleared up. 🤣

Uh oh, the horses are fighting. 🤣 We just gotta get Arion on in this now.

Heroes of Olympus, Assemble!

YES! Jason is all about demonstrating how he veers off the path of a traditional/model Roman soldier in these books—that’s the point! He never fit the mold in the first place, we’re just told he did!

Nico <33

“Jason led with his heart, not his blade.”

Had to make that one all fancy so y’all would see it.

Compassion, understanding, and self-sacrifice: the core tenets of Jason Grace.

MORE IN A REBLOG BECAUSE I CAN’T ADD MORE PHOTOS

[jasongracestannr]

literally.

"i dont like jason grace because he's boring" is the most evil statement because a. THATS THE POINT and b. thats EXACTLY what makes him NOT boring.

camp jupiter is BUILT to make children into machines. work as a machine, work with the group to be a machine. or, be spare parts. it is rigid. it is unforgiving. it is built to suppress individuality. the MOST autonomy jason grace got was joining the lower end of the cohorts of the legion, was a failing petition against a traditional board.

jason grace grew up in camp jupiter. not like hazel, frank, percy, nico, etc., who were only there for a year or two at MOST. he grew up there. if i had to guess, i would say age 5 through age 15-- roughly a decade. everything he learned there is going to be DRILLED into him.

yes, he is going to seem boring.

the whole POINT of it is so he can have his character arc of "i dont really want to follow the rules..?" that he doesn't want to be praetor, he just wants to be a normal kid at camp half-blood and live with piper and leo. and thats what MAKES him a character that ISNT boring.

[jasongracestannr]

“Why’s Annabeth black?”

“Can you drawn book accurate Annabeth?”

“Leo has black hair.”

“Why’s Jason black?”

“Hazel has golden eyes.”

Ok. You draw it. Here!

[jasongracestannr]

as much as i love percabeth i really think all the seven should’ve just been best friends especially frazel

[jasongracestannr]

literally

when is the keenry/core 4 spinoff announcement im sick of waiting

[jasongracestannr]

my baby

she gives me cuteness agression

[jasongracestannr]

people actually ship toriguel and samrobby ..!?! 💔💔

[jasongracestannr]

literally!!! like can we talk about how annabeth almost thought they were dating just from how close they were ? 😭

if I see one more post about how hazel thought percy was a roman god I'm gonna explode. why is that the oooonly thing about son or the percy/hazel dynamic that gets acknowledged. literally how do I block out those posts because I'm done lol

[jasongracestannr]

literally same with hazel omg

they totally fucked jason over. cause wdym the son of the king of the gods ISNT the most powerful one? wdym percy is the most powerful?

i love my boy percy but the totally downplaying jason and his abilities

[jasongracestannr]

literally

characters w/ a strong moral compass who keep getting mischaracterized as a goody goody who always follows rules/laws and does what theyre told im so so sorry they did that to you bbg

[jasongracestannr]

SAMTORY MOODBOARD

[jasongracestannr]

literally.

the problem with making axel and zara too overpowered (OP) in part 2 of cobra kai.

going into part 2 my biggest worry was that they were going to make axel and zara too OP- like never losing a fight in the tournament, and unfortunately that’s exactly what happened.

the issue with making them too OP is that it messes with the balance of our existing characters. when you introduce new characters and have them win every fight without losing not even one it cheapens the tournament and it also screws over our existing characters.

axel and zara could have been strong, shown as threatening without the need to make them bulldoze throughout all of their matches.

by never letting them lose, it sets up absolute annoying and ridiculous discourse like this:

‘it doesn’t make sense for this person to beat this person’

‘they were nerfed’

‘they only won because of plot armour’

and let’s be honest. the ‘plot armour’ discourse is fucking stupid. every character in the show has plot to some extent. if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have made it this far in the show. but also, why would they have 2 characters who were introduced in part 2 of the last season win over sam, miguel and robby who have been here since season 1 and tory who has been here since season 2. that literally wouldn’t make any sense.

moving on, if our existing characters had lost to the new characters that wouldn’t been fine. like that is not the issue here. the issue is that axel and zara completely dominated the tournament. it should have been balanced.

axel and zara should have been shown to be beatable by actually losing matches in the tournament. and if the writers didn’t want them losing matches, the least they could’ve down was allow them to take hits in their matches. here’s how:

1. zara vs another competitor in different dojo (like tiger strike or redentores) in an early round OR vs tory or sam | let zara lose a match to one of them but come back stronger later in the tournament, showing she can adapt easy from a loss.

2. axel vs competitor | have axel lose a match against the competitor in a very close match, only after giving the person he is fighting against a really tough time, pushing his competitor to his limits.

3. injures and exhaustion playing a role here | show them both struggling with fatigue, and having minor injuries, proving that they aren’t fucking invincible and the tournament is tough for everyone involved.

but instead, we got axel and zara just bulldozing their way through the tournament like it was nothing. the big brawl too. in the big brawl, no one landed a hit on axel. zara beat tory in the opening fight with cobra kai vs iron dragons and in the big brawl tory only managed to land one kick on zara before zara regained control. it’s sooo frustrating that they were made out to be so untouchable and invincible.

what makes this worse is learning that choreography was cut that actually showed them both taking hits. i’ve posted this on my blog here a bit ago but there was choreo cut in which tory was getting the upper hand on zara but that didn’t make the cut.

zara was also supposed to take hits in the semi finals against maria. this comes from the woman who plays maria (jewels) in an interview on youtube.

and axel was also meant to take hits from kwon in the big brawl. this also came from an interview with brandon who plays kwon.

like.. that’s still not ideal but it’s at least better than making them untouchable.

this has been sitting in my drafts for a while now and i’m posting this ahead of part 3 since that drops in a few days, also the fact that we know someone is gonna be beating axel and zara in the sekai taikai.

i can’t believe i have to sit through ‘axel/zara was nerfed’ and ‘it doesn’t make sense for zara/axel to loose to..’ ‘… beating axel/zara is unrealistic’

like dude cobra kai was never a realistic show in the first place, don’t piss me off. ‘in reality this character would win’ no shit dude. like that argument is so stupid and irrelevant. like thank you so much for pointing out the obvious ??

as if those people who say this aren’t insufferable enough they’re gonna be even more insufferable now that they’ve basically been given the ammo to say all of this shit.

like i’m truly so annoyed about it, but hey. what can you doooo?

cobra kai writers you had ONE JOB! ONE!

big big sigh.