#LET HER IN PJOTV

[mydairpercabeth]

And if I said this was Luke and Thalia THEN WHAT

[twinsarekeepers]

I think what all of you who are lowkey excited about the prospect of the show getting cancelled (???) don’t understand (or maybe you do and I’m giving you way too much credit here) is that all those fuckers who harassed and bullied a 12 year old girl off of social media for a year will come crawling right back out of the woodworks so they can gloat.

I’d rather have a “bad” show than subject Leah to that abhorrent racism again.

[rosered12]

Pjotv spoilers!

Me trying to hold it together when Percy tricks Annabeth to save her and Grovers life while he literally poisoned

[finalgirlmoment]

Noteworthy details about the first two PJOTV episodes (spoilers)

First of all, every single of them ATE DOWN. just wanted to throw that out there, i'm so so impressed with the cast, everyone was perfect and gorgeous and i'm completely sat for any and all future installments. A fine piece of media. Let's begin.

Percy's confusion and bewilderment finding out that he's a demigod. "You fell in love with God.... like, Jesus????" LMFAO but seriously his frustration in this moment, thinking there's something actually wrong with his brain, feeling lost and confused and hurt and BROKEN. the struggle in that moment is so relatable to people discovering they have some sort of mental illness or neurodivergence, especially when they weren't believed/listened to etc and i think walker played this part beautifully

GROVER AND PERCY PLAYING MYTHOMAGIC TOGETHER. GROVER AND PERCY PLAYING MYTHOMAGIC TO TRAIN PERCY. I AM LITERALLY SCREAMING OFF ROOFTOPS THE IMPLICATIONS THAT THIS HAS???? ARE YOU ACTUALLY JOKING??????? IMAGINE SEASON 3 PERCY FINDS NICO AND THEY HAVE THIS IN COMMON???????????!?!?!?!?!? FEELING SEVERELY FRANTIC AND MASSIVELY UNWELL ABOUT THIS

luke's empathy towards Percy throughout-- his apologies for what happened to his mother at the bottom of Half Blood Hill, him telling P that he relates to the nightmares, the restlessness, the ADHD..... so fucking sick and fucking twisted, I will be sobbing at the ending, gorgeous job on both ends on making this relationship feel very warm and authentic and the trust starting to build. this will H U R T.

CLARISSE. she's so gorgeous and vindictive. Her beauty took me off guard initially, but she's such a spiteful little badass that I completely fell in love with her. I CANNOT WAIT to see more of her characterization, especially into season two. perfection.

Percy burning the blue jelly beans- the thing he'd miss most- out in the middle of the woods at night in a damn can, just to pray to his MOTHER. *sobbing intensifies* i couldn't ask for a more sweet, heartfelt, honest moment. the perfect addition. 10s across the board

Percy's ANGER. OH BOY this was one of my most favorite parts. I feel like we see Percy as a very happy-go-lucky kid altogether but I loved, LOVED to see his frustration and agitation from the very beginning. Everything is so confusing and foreign and all he knows is that 1. he's been betrayed or left behind by everyone he knows and 2. he's been ignored his whole life by his godly parent. His mission is to MAKE HIS DAD SEE PERCY, at ANY COST. Before he even knows who his dad is. He is entitled to feel ALL of this anger and hurt and resentment!!!!!!!

Annabeth calling Percy "sunshine". TOTAL CULTURAL RESET. I gasped. The dawn of a new age of Percabeth. I will be screaming into my pillow about this for the foreseeable future.

The entire characterization of Percy throughout the capture the flag scene. His contrast of being just a kid- flossing (lol), peeing the woods, petting a gecko, just vibing and hanging out VS. being thrown suddenly into attack from his peers that don't care about the rules, surprising himself and everyone around him with his finesse in battle, quick instincts, swordsmanship..... i'm weak fr. I can't wait to see him grow, train, become stronger and more confident.

Overall, I'm entirely floored and beyond happy. I can't wait to see more. 10/10

[mediumgayitalian]

fic rec friday 16

hi!! welcome to fic rec friday. every week, i pick five fics i have bookmarked and rec them with a little review. check them out!

best friend, baby by @ghosttotheparty*

“You— You make me feel so… good,” he finishes lamely, his head void of any words that could describe it, because how can Will describe the peace he finds in Nico’s presence, or the way he feels like he can finally breathe whenever Nico looks into his eyes? “You’re my favourite person,” he breathes. “My best friend.”

hooooooo boy the intimacy tag was NOT joking. i was gagged. yall tell me all the time how high u value will angst and like....this one DEVASTATED me for him??? like do yall ever think about how the first dialogue we hear from will in nico's perspective is self-loathing. yall ever think about how nico has always known him hating himself. well this author did. "i know you hate yourself but just because you hate yourself doesnt mean everyone else does too" hey what if we FOUGHT. also im going back in to all my FRFs to star my FAVE FAVE FAVE fics bc this is one of them LET ME TELL YOU.

2. just a dumb game by @ghosttotheparty

Nico di Angelo is not a party person. But Will Solace is going to be there. So.

they are SO FUCKING GAY and SO FUCKING IN LOVE and SO FUCKING STUPID. god i love them so fucking bad like they are inherently down bad obsessed with each other and this is how they should be. this is the way of the world.

3. even in the silver light by @ghosttotheparty

Nico is back. Will is still smitten.

first of all. latino and nb will. thank you. second of all. i am (obviously) obsessed with this author bc they KILLLLLL w burning intimacy. like you have no idea they write them like there is a twice burning fire only alive within them it's CRAZZZYYY. i also fckn LOVE that this is like. okay so the author says its plotless and it is kind of 45k of plotless, yes, but idk theres something to be said of love as a plot?? of learning and loving each other as a storyline.

4. splash by @ghosttotheparty

Annabeth is reading her favourite book. Someone walks directly into her.

yeah okay i think this is another one author week. sue me. this fic made me GRIN okay. it was so fucking cute and sweet and soft and autistic annabeth my beloved!! my love and light!! they are so in love in every universe fr and i fckn LOVE them dude i am OBSESSED. when this author writes people together it's as if you can hear them click.

5. isnt she lovely by @ghosttotheparty

Their eyes always meet in the halls. Her eyes are grey and shiny, and they make Percy think of stormy skies and marble sculptures. (She could be a marble sculpture, in the entrance of a museum, surrounded by scholars and artists and mesmerised passersby. Fucking beautiful in a way that only art ever is.) - - - Percy has had a crush on Annabeth since eighth grade. (He doesn’t know she likes him too.)

percy hitting the ground when annabeth kisses him 😭😭 HES SO REAL. i just recced this fic on instagram and i am here reccing it again bc it is EXCELLENT. i rly rly love to see pjotv percabeth in fic like i DO. theyre so fucking cute. and i LOVE how this author writes autistic annabeth!! it is so important to me!!! and this one is so CUTE like percy had such a huge crush on him.....like not just he liked her he had a CRUSH on her. god. i am melting.

thank you for joining me this friday!! happy reading!!

[swiftiekazbrekker]

“pjotv annabeth isn’t likeable” “pjotv annabeth is too mean to percy” actually no. let her be a bossy twelve year old girl. let her be prickly and sarcastic and overbearing and distant and all of the things a twelve year old girl is!

and for the record she is a likeable character because she’s bossy tyvm

[kay-lalala]

PJOTV Episode 5 - I'm sorry but WHAT DID THEY DO TO ARES???

Like... what is this.

They took away his looks, his character, AND his power.

Let me quote the book.

"All conversation in the diner stopped. The motorcycle's headlight glared red. Its gas tank had flames painted on it, and a shotgun holster riveted to either side, complete with shotguns. The seat was leather – but leather that looked like... well, Caucasian human skin."

Really? Not even flames on the bike? No guns (thanks Disney), no human skin leather (thanks Disney).

"The guy on the bike would've made pro wrestlers run for Mama. He was dressed in a red muscle shirt and black jeans and a black leather duster, with a hunting knife strapped to his thigh. He wore red wraparound shades, and he had the cruelest, most brutal face I’d ever seen – handsome, I guess, but wicked – with an oily black crewcut and cheeks that were scarred from many, many fights.“

Yeah...no. “Ares” looks like a random unwashed guy that got kicked out of his unsuccessful Norwegian metal band and is now traveling the country to find himself during his midlife crisis. No knife, not even small details like the red shirt or black jeans. And the sunglasses are entirely unimportant? Also no scars (thanks Disney? I guess?). I’m sorry but NOTHING about him is cool or intimidating.

“As he walked into the diner, a hot, dry wind blew through the place. All the people rose, as if they were hypnotized, but the biker waved his hand dismissively and they all sat down again. Everybody went back to their conversations. The waitress blinked, as if somebody had just pressed the rewind button on her brain. She asked us again, ‘You kids have money to pay for it?’”

Ares is a GOD. He is powerful as shit. WHY IS THE SHOW NOT SHOWING THAT? Instead he is just sitting around on Twitter (Just like with the Fortnite dance. Why are you trying to drag current pop culture stuff into the story?). Give this guy an awesome entrance. For fucks sake, let SOMEONE in this show be intimidating for once. His only power is snapping his fingers to open a door? Lame.

“The biker said, ‘It’s on me.’ He slid into our booth, which was way too small for him, and crowded Annabeth against the window. He looked at the waitress, who was gaping at him, and said, ‘Are you still here?’ He pointed at her, and she stiffened. She turned as if she’d been spun around, then marched back towards the kitchen.”

Ares is an asshole. Let him be a fucking asshole. He doesn’t care about personal space, he doesn’t care about humans, he pushes them around however he wants. Again, he is a God, he is powerful, and he uses his powers however he wants.

“The biker looked at me. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the red shades, but bad feelings started boiling in my stomach. Anger, resentment, bitterness. I wanted to hit a wall. I wanted to pick a fight with somebody. Who did this guy think he was?”

AGAIN, please show Ares’ powers. He makes people angry just by being around them. Even the musical did this better.

“[…] I wanted to rip this guy’s head off. ‘What’s it to you?’ Annabeth’s eyes flashed me a warning. ‘Percy, this is-’ The biker raised his hand. ‘S’okay,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind a little attitude. Long as you remember who’s the boss. You know who I am, little cousin?’ Then it struck me why this guy looked so familiar. […] ‘You’re Clarisse’s dad,’ I said. ‘Ares, god of war.’”

Where is Ares’ power please I AM CRYING. Also Ares is COOL. He’s laid-back, he’s confident, because these kids are not a threat to him. Instead, in the show, he just drives by and stops, starts exposition-dumping, and drives off to the diner. He is missing his character voice, he is missing the powerful entrance, he is missing HIS POWERS. But show Ares sits in the diner, laughing at Twitter on his phone like some loser.

“Ares grinned and took off his shades. Where his eyes should've been, there was only fire, empty sockets glowing with miniature nuclear explosions.”

NO BECAUSE WHERE THE FUCK WAS THAT????????? ‘Your quest is going to fail. Ask me how I know’ HE DOESN’T TALK LIKE THAT. Also why is Annabeth provoking Ares… She’s literally the one smart enough to not do that.

“That’s right, punk. I heard you broke Clarisse’s spear.’ ‘She was asking for it.’ ‘Probably. That’s cool. I don’t fight my kids’ fights, you know? What I’m here for – I heard you were in town. I got a little proposition for you-’ The waitress came back with heaping trays of food […]. Ares handed her a few gold drachmas. She looked nervously at the coins. ‘But, these aren’t…’ Ares pulled out his huge knife and started cleaning his fingernails. ‘Problem, sweetheart?’”

I love this. It shows how Ares is disconnected from the human world, how he doesn’t give a shit, how he threatens people so casually to get his way. How humans mean nothing to him. But this show just LOVES to tell instead of show. Literally these people do not stop talking ever. Ares in the show is like blah blah blah Zeus send his kids to look for the bolt, they will go to war ‘You’re new to the family, young one, so let me fill you in on how we work.’ AND HE TELLS THEM THE STORY OF HOW KRONOS ATE HIS KIDS? STOP? EXPOSITION DUMPING? WHO IS WRITING THIS DIALOGUE??? WHY IS HE BEEFING WITH ANNABETH???

“’Why don’t you go back and get it yourself?’ The fire in his sockets glowed a little hotter. ‘Why don’t I turn you into a prairie dog and run you over with my Harley? Because I don’t feel like it. A god is giving you an opportunity to prove yourself, Percy Jackson.’”

[…] Ares’s fiery eyes made me see things I didn’t want to see – blood and smoke and corpses on the battlefield. “

...Thanks Disney. Please, why does he go off on Annabeth. In the book, Percy doesn’t care about the threats, he rejects the ride west at first, even after Ares mentions his mom he still antagonizes him. And then he just disappears. That’s cool. In the show Ares acts immediately offended, threatens to kill them and Percy immediately agrees. You remember how in the show he didn't agree to go on the quest at first even though the entire world was at stake? Yeah.

So not only does Percy not at all fight and resist Ares, but Annabeth does even though she warns Percy in the book, because she figured him out and would not argue with the literal God of War. She literally said ‘That was not smart, Percy.’ when Percy argues with Ares. None of that in the show.

I’m done with the show. It is a lazy, unimaginative, unfaithful, unserious, passionless, Disneyfied, detail-less adaptation that had me pause the episode several times because I was just baffled. Crowley from Good Omens looks more like I imagined Ares than the show’s Ares.

I won’t even start right now about how they cut out the Iris Message scene, how Ares is the one who told Percy about his mother, or how Grover just gets left behind in the show even though he saves Percy and Annabeth in the waterpark, How they just immediately know it’s Hephaestus in the show (because god forbids it takes them longer than two seconds to figure something out), they didn’t get fresh silly waterpark clothes, no Aphrodite’s scarf, no spiders (that’s literally important to Annabeth’s character? But no way she can be afraid. Let her argue with Ares instead.) no “live to Olympus in one minute”, no “When I say go.” “No! When I say go!” “What?” “Simple physics! Force times the trajectory angle-”, no Grover saving them, no “Shows over! Thank you! Goodnight!”

Instead… Ares hangs out with Grover and proceeds to be the exact opposite of cool and powerful, Percy gets stuck in the waterpark door in a completely pointless scene, more exposition about Hephaestus’ story, the chair thing that captured Percy (why? Ares or Aphrodite would not sit down on that Ares knew it’s a trap. They know the story of the chair. So does Hephaestus want to kill any random person that comes around or what?), “It can’t be undone” and undoes it two minutes later, Annabeth saving Percy not with her intelligence but by having a therapy monologue with Hephaestus, and talking, talking, talking. This show seems to be allergic to action scenes.

“Well. This smells.” → Continues to have no physical reaction or be otherwise fazed by the smell. We love tell don’t show here. <3

They cut stuff and put useless stuff in instead, continue to butcher characters and censor everything. It’s not a good adaptation and it’s not a good show. It’s not horrible, just a 5/10 for me at max. And it’s frustrating to see them not care about the details (so many details that wouldn’t even need extra time. Just extra effort) and the characters. They change things that just fuck up the logic of the entire story later.

What I liked about the episode:

They showed that Gabe is on TV and Percy is missing. Finally. Seaweed Brain. Also finally.

I also hope Grover is wrong about knowing who stole the master bolt because if that ruins the final reveal???????? Huh???

Also please leave me aloneeeeeeeeeeee lin manuel mirandaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa why is he everywhereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[six-owls-in-a-trenchcoat]

Tbh as much as I want season 2 of PJOTV, at this point I genuinely wouldn’t blame Leah if she decided to quit. I mean, ever since she landed this role, people have been nothing but horrible to her. She and her family have been receiving death threats, her TikTok got banned like 7 times, and apparently she’s been having anxiety attacks due to all the hate. No one deserves this, let alone a freaking 14 year old! I’m proud of her for keeping on going, and I want more of the show, but I seriously wouldn’t blame her if she decided to quit for the sake of her mental health.

[dottie-wan-kenobi]

new pinned post <3

about me:

name: Dottie

pronouns: she/her

age: 23

queer

multi-fandom & multi-shipper

author (find me on ao3 at dottie_wan_kenobi -- use my fics with AI and I have your express permission to fuck your parents)

original posts are tagged #shut up dottie

jsyk:

I will block and report accounts that are blank

I often forget to tag nsfw (text) and political posts sorry

sometimes I reblog posts that are 'anti' characters. tbc I'm not going to bully anyone or act crazy if you enjoy a character or ship I don't like, I use those tags for filtering purposes

IM VERY BAD AT REPLYING I promise I am not ignoring you if you message me!! my brain is empty and I forget to reply all the time

DNF list:

under 15

terfs, swerfs, exclusionists (including ace/aro!!!!), nazis, maps

antis/fanpol

anyone who doesn’t support using ‘queer’ as a term (disclaimer: I’m onto the ‘calling myself a fag’ stage)

Spoiler Tag(s): #pjotv, #pjo spoilers, #911 s7

if you see this pls like it to let me know ty!!

(ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ

I will also block people being annoying in my inbox 🫶

[anthcs]

[[ let me preface by saying that this definitely is a ramble, but I really do appreciate the patience and kindness so many of you offer me. the fact that so many of you are here and so overwhelmingly positive in the little corner I carved out for Katie and myself means so much. 💙 each of you have never made me doubt about how much she means to you or your muses, or how much we mean to one another behind the screen as friends and writers developing our nostalgia better than the author or show/movie creator does.

while this post summarizes it well, the last few months haven’t really allowed for me to return to writing like I keep wanting needing to because IRL keeps adding more to everything else happening right now (I might detail it later but just know it’s been A Lot.)

I recently updated my rules to reflect this so here is a summarized version --- I have been formally (yet only recently) diagnosed with a neurological / sleep disorder has brain fog, excessive daytime sleepiness, and other symptoms accompanying it. my energy level when writing, plotting, or even casually talking out of character, is going to be sporadic. I’m currently in the middle an uphill battle with this condition and medicine / treatment, but please know that if I follow you, I want to write / plot / talk with and get to know you and your muses, no matter how long it may take me to personally gather enough spoons to do so. since I know that the blue hellsite sometimes causes stress for people, I’m also open to writing and plotting on channels through D.iscord. ;;" (though it’s set up under my personal info not Katie’s.)

I still have plenty of my own headcanons and development for Katie that I want to bring from my behind the scenes to this blog’s center stage, regardless of how big her role is in P.JOTV. I really hope that the new year will bring more consistency with my writing whether it’s on tumblr or D.iscord, fanfics, and especially with the original works — and hopefully better health.

I'm going to be visiting some family for the new year (and finally watching PJOtv — while also missing my pets 😭). I hope all of you had a very merry Christmas, happy Hannukah, good yule / wintertime, and are enjoying the releases of PJOTV episodes (or DW specials or just...whatever has you excited) and again, thank you so much for being here!! ]]

[perceabeth]

“Book Annabeth looks like—” “PJOTV Annabeth is—” let me explain something to you. annabeth chase does not exist. artists can draw her as black or white or brown or asian or anything they want. she doesn’t exist. Leah Jeffries does. shes a real child and u need to respect that. that’s literally it. do what u want with ur characters just stop attacking real existing people for this stupid shit

[vvarvvon]

zeus absolutely wanted to kill linnea i, much like his murder of maria di angelo.

hades couldn't bare to lose another lover, even if had only been for the summer. as his brother aimed his lightning bolt across the sea, hades stepped in (not unlike poseidon in the pjotv finale).

he had nothing to give zeus in exchange for his son's life, so instead he pointed out how linnea, unlike maria, was well-known. linnea was a public figure—killing her would have massive ramifications throughout the mortal world.

zeus was unconvinced. he reaimed and sent a bolt flying. poseidon, recognizing what was happening from his undersea palace, sent a wave to catch the bolt on its way from new york to norway.

it was obvious that unless zeus was willing to have a war—him versus hades & poseidon teaming up—he would need to let linnea and the forbidden child live.

[mahuhumaling]

what i liked and disliked about pjotv 🔱

now this feels like it's going to be a series, with the first part being my take on the rwrb movie. except, i need to let this out and be a little harsher than my rwrb post only because this adaptation is like a hundred million dollars more expensive than the rwrb adaptation and the entire process from pre to post-prod took longer, so it certainly raises audience expectations. it's marketed as this really objective peak television, with critics backing them up and everything, when still so many things that bug me about it.

omg i planned this to be such a long post but i lost interest some time while this was drafted so now i don't really know how to explain my frustrations. so this will feel incomplete.

what i like first

annabeth seeing the fates and not percy.

luke showing percy around the camp and not annabeth.

what i didn't like

sally jackson's character arc. at first i was a defender of her arc, saying "oh just because gabe isn't explicitly physically abusive, doesn't make him any less of an abuser," and tjat just because sally seems to not be a pushover, doesn't make her powerful when it comes to putting her foot down with gabe. but after how they completed his arc by the end, i'm letting that defense go. 😬 they didn't really achieve the parallel of percy standing his ground against the gods to sally standing her ground against gabe in this.

depiction of neurodivergence. the few instances we get of adhd and dyslexia is when annabeth get distracted by the first trap in Waterland, and the seatwork/activity that percy is reading on the clipboard. other than that... it felt like just an added detail instead of a pervasive part of the character. annabeth reading the sign in the garden emporium in 5 seconds flat? them not constantly moving and evading monster because it's a part of the failure of their journey?

the tone. one of my mutuals said (who is a big fan of the books) they're so sorry but they found it boring. and as much as it pains me to admit... me too. if you know me, i'm really one who doesn't hold fidelity to the source material as the highest regard when adapting. i'm not an idiot — one of the elective classes in my program is literally Adapting Across Genres and Platforms — i know some things simply won't translate 1:1. this isn't the case here because i don't even remember details of what happens in the books! i'm specifically talking about the quest itself: even if they were not as loyal to the books, if they just kept the spirit of them winging shit out with the puzzles and figuring out who the monsters are, then maybe the tone would've worked. i'm so surprised at how drier and darker the tone is for a Disney adaptation show of a Disney Hyperion book. i'm not saying they should start putting on Disney Channel ass laughtracks and goofy music, but aren't we supposed to make this fun and keep kids' attention engaged? like the way they're rubbing in the audiences' noses that the gods are terrible, even more so than usual that it feels like we're already at season 5 levels of jaded, or how many times the percabeth sacrificed themselves for each other that it just diffused tension because of its repetition and also the placement? this would be believable if it was in season 3 and the stakes are higher. we're still in the lightning thief, calm down? i think what makes things emotion is, ironically, if you give it emotional levity: it becomes sadder when a character tries too hard to be cheerful. dire circumstances become more noticeably dire when the characters act like it isn't and that it's normal. that's why TLT works as an introduction book in a pentalogy. for gods' sakes, please let these children improvise more too. the actors of the main trio have incredible humor and chemistry in the behind the scenes videos we see, the stilted memorized lines are really not reflecting well on them.

pacing. someone said they shot themselves in the foot by cramming percy's stay at camp before the quest only in one episode, and i agree. doesn't he stay there for a month before leaving? we could've had a breather in between exposition instead of it feeling like a dump, and at the same time feel overwhelming for percy but not the audience. we could've slowly done world building of the 12 cabins and percy going through each one. a full scene of preparation for capture the flag and annabeth actually strategizing instead of just luke telling us "annabeth is the best and the smartest." i agree when jorrel javier said that the story is community driven, so much like the musical, we could have seen more scenes of the kids back at camp with chiron and mr. d and the satyrs. additional scenes of other characters, instead of dragging out what is only a few pages in the book of the trio in their quest and by doing so, making unnecessary changes. in addition, when i say the pacing is terrible, i mean it's too fast for the camp scenes because they fit everything in one episode, so naturally the rest of the episodes are then dedicated to the entire quest, so then it becomes too slow! the little details of the celestial trio stopping to talk and plan is so???? 😵‍💫 or when annabeth in the casino was like "okay guys we have a few days before the summer solstice deadline we have to hurry" and then DIDN'T HURRY. they could've at least given the audience a sense of urgency: run for their lives and deliver their lines while out of breath. thinking fast and enacting their plan on the go, or The Greek Demigod Trademark of Winging It and relying on their ADHD battle instincts! the editing department also needs to get their shot together by splicing these things faster so it feels better even though it's not a full action scene. THAT is pacing, people. this was well-explained by someone else.

how annabeth chase is written. don't misconstrue this — i'm picking on the writing, not the acting. leah is incredible, but the script of making her only this "six steps ahead wise warrior" removes annabeth's other dimensions. in truth, annabeth gets whiny and awkward and loud, expresses annoyance and frustration in bigger manners. she's twelve years old, let her sometimes act like it! also, relating to the third bullet point: annabeth's scene with hephaestus struck me as particularly odd because since when was she not terrified of angering a god? yes she was standing up for herself, but even she knows better than to talk back? i think i could understand where they were going with that scene, of hephaestus being the most tolerable because he was a victim too, but it simply didn't stick the landing. i mean she literally implies a couple episodes prior to this scene that she doesn't want the gods to think they're impertinent.

Ares and Percy's beef is forced. kinda — there wasn't enough build up to it. maybe because Ares wasn't that similar to Gabe in a sense that Gabe was particularly abusive and of course Percy hated all kinds of bullies, the Ares-Percy duel wasn't as great as it was hyped up to be either, partly courtesy to the volume's sfx of making the beach look sullen and that there are no mortals nearby. (it was supposed to be tne Santa Monica beach, right? i'm not American, did i miss that and it's not actually the beach?) there's something so exciting and marvelous realist about a very bright beach and mortals seeing Ares and Percy probably playfighting or doing beach sports by the beach as a kind of father and son through the Mist. idk. the provoking really is not that much, yet it ticks Percy off to the point . even Ares' "beware, Perseus Jackson. Beware" at the end is not that great either.

telling not showing. now this criticism is overused for pjo, but everyone who uses this criticism doesn't actually know what the writing principle of "show, don't tell" means. i feel that they really made a mistake making percy know about the demigod world immediately instead of making him the fish out of water protagonist archetype because now he recognizes every other monster and it just kills the thrill and surprise and reveals. so now, they're just telling, instead of learning who the hell they're fighting im the heat of the moment — showing.