#calypso calling him it once in toa is not canon

[sentient-stove]

Fuck it,

A non-comprehensive- and better- list of names containing the root word Leo that are better than what the wiki says for Leo Valdez. Because Leonidas is stupid. (no offense[full offense]) (my credentials: i have over 56 percy jackson/heroes of olympus wips and am chronically allergic to using the same name for leo more than a few times. plus leo is my oc)

-Leonidas. The og, the one that everyone seems to think is the canon name. If it was, why didn't Hera or a monster or Gaea never call him it? Anyway, the first Leonidas was a king of Sparta and claimed to be related to Hercules. The modern Leonidas is a chocolate brand.

-Leoni. Just means lioness. It's a female name (a few on this list are) but it still gets the job done of being a longer Leo name but still unique.

-Leocadius. Bright, shining. If you're looking for something vaguely greek-y, this is usually what I go for ngl. Sounds cooler than Leonidas anyway.

-Galileo. Famous inventor/astronomer. Also the only name on this list that doesn't start with Leo, but instead has the name at the end. Does this ruin the lion motif? Maybe! Do I care? No!

-Leora. Compassion, light. Also a more female leaning name, but look me in the eyes and tell me you won't write trans Leo with him just making his birth name more masc, you won't. Or transfemme Leo lengthening her name to Leora.

-León. Meaning lion. Spanish/French/Italian origins. There's a guy on TikTok that calls Leo León exclusively instead of Leonidas. I've had him blocked for months cause I don't like his content but he did have a valid point not calling Leo Leonidas.

-Leota. 'Of the people.' German roots and origins. (I'm actually using this for an au rn where Leo's an oracle/seer lol. Cause, cause... get it? Nevermind.)

-Leonardo. Another famous inventor/astronomer. Need I say more? Also don't tell me Esperanza wouldn't name her baby after an inventor.

-Leonora. Another name meaning light/brightness. You'll notice that Leo can either mean lion/lioness or light. Which I think is fitting for someone who burns so brightly as Leo Valdez.

[seattlesea]

✨My (maybe) Unpopular Heroes of Olympus Opinions✨

(maybe part one??? idk)

-I don’t really ship any of the main canon ships in HoO. None of them had any chemistry and most of them are either pedophilic, forced and rushed, or toxic in some way

-Most of the characters that were shoved into relationships (Leo, Nico, and Hazel especially) really did not need a love interest to complete their character arcs and their relationships ended up boring and flat cause Riordan just wanted everyone to have a love interest and it never went deeper than the skin

-Piper took advantage over Jason’s amnesiac state and manipulated him. She really went ‘But what if he has a girlfriend he can’t remember 👉👈 it would be wrong to start a relationship with him while he still has amnesia 👉👈 and cause it was based off lies and fake memories 👉👈 lmao imma just jump all over him and make him fall for me while he’s still amnesiac 🤪’ as if that’s not taking advantage over someone’s mental state

-And then she blamed her relationship being forced on Aphrodite and Hera saying they ‘forced her into a relationship’ and ‘arranged their relationship’ even though Aphrodite never said anything about or did anything to them and Hera gave Piper fake memories of them being a couple but it was Piper’s conscious choice to act out on those memories she knew were fake and her relationship was in no way influenced by anyone (especially Hera and Aphrodite) other than herself

-Shelper and Solangelo were way too rushed and forced (inside and outside of the books) and were only added for publicity, plus it seems like most of the fandom only like them cause they’re LGBTQ+ ships

-I hate Pipeyna and Pipabeth. My girls (especially Reyna) deserve better than some manipulative little girl who went ‘we were friends? no weren’t ❤️’

-The fandom portrays the characters really inaccurately (tweaking them a bit for humor is fine, but changing their entire personality is a different thing)

-The movies actually aren’t that bad when not compared to the books (I mean, you gotta admit- it’s pretty good effects for 2010)

-And speaking of the movies, they did a better job at portraying Thalia and Annabeth’s relationship in one movie than Riordan did in 5+ books

-Speaking of which, Riordan wrote pretty much every platonic friendship that weren’t Thalia/Nico and Reyna horribly and most of them shouldn’t have been friends and wasted all the potential for the good friendships

-Calypso should’ve joined the Hunters, not Reyna

-Annabeth and Piper are horrible friends lmao (separately and together)

-Silena is a hero and deserves redemption, but Luke doesn’t despite most of the fandom agreeing he does (he was a pedophile y’all)

-The fandom over-exaggerated the Tartarus fall, it wasn’t really that bad tbh

-Reyna is stronger and a better leader than Annabeth

-Annabeth’s intelligence is more tell than show (and quite a few characters including Leo, Reyna, and Octavian have shown more intelligence than her)

-Riordan over-glorifies and overpowers Percy way too much. Just cause he’s the main character doesn’t mean he has to be the best of the best after barely 8 months of training (four years at CHB only in the summers is 8 months total)

-Speaking of which, Jason can beat Percy (8 months versus Jason’s twelve years) and so can Annabeth, Reyna, Thalia, Hylla, Luke, Hazel and maybe Frank and Nico. Percy’s skill is overrated and unrealistic

-And I feel like most of the fandom knows that Jason can beat Percy but just doesn’t want to admit it cause they like Percy more

-Same thing with the Greeks and Romans- the majority know the Romans are stronger and can easily beat the Greeks but they don’t want to believe it cause they favor the Greeks more

-Percy and Annabeth shouldn’t have been part of the Seven, they already had their chance to shine. Riordan should’ve brought minor characters into light instead

-And Piper shouldn’t have been part of the Seven either. Riordan really expects me to believe that she’s stronger, more powerful, and a greater/better hero and deserved to be part of the Seven more than Reyna, Nico, Clarisse, Thalia, etc.?

-Riordan’s women line-up of Reyna, Annabeth, Hazel, and Piper was really cheap and boring (Avengers: Endgame women line-up who?)

-Percy (in HoO) and Piper are easily some of the worst, most underdeveloped characters Riordan has ever written

-Annabeth got really bland and weak in HoO and couldn’t do shit for herself without others (especially newbies) having to help and/or save her. She pretty much became exclusively Percy fangirl

-As much as I like them, Frank and Hazel don’t have what it takes to be Praetors and Reyna and Jason should’ve stayed as them

-Jason’s whole ‘am I more Greek or Roman’ arc was dumb af

-Riordan’s bias towards the Romans is also dumb af (the Romans could beat the Greeks in an instant)

-Jeyna is and always will be 1000x better than Jiper

-Hazel is the most powerful demigod (way more than Percy and even Jason)

-My hot take on who should’ve been the Seven: Reyna, Nico, Thalia, Frank, Hazel, Leo, and Clovis (son of the god of sleep puts Gaea back to sleep who?)

-Riordan confirming Piper bi was a cheap move to make her more likable. It didn’t even make any sense. A character is confirmed LGBT only after they become a minor character despite being a main character before and kisses some random unnamed girl only three months after her ex-boyfriend whom she still loved dies??? girl what??? Kinda obvious it was just for publicity. Like- Riordan, honey, the LGBTQ+ community is not a circus you can plop your characters into to make them more entertaining❤️

-The PJ series as a whole isn’t that creative. It’s legit just a copy of exactly what past mythological figures have already done and a bunch of character tropes and clichés shoved into one book

-And in general it’s not even that well-written (like HP, it’s over-exaggerated a lot)

-All of the romantic relationships and platonic friendships are extremely unrealistic. Like they never argue/fight, disagree, etc. (then grow stronger from those fights) at all??? Even if they’re complete opposites???

-Reyna is the best-written character in the whole series and a queen she deserved better and y’all sit on her too much

-Theyna is ✨amazing✨ their dynamic and chemistry was just *mwah Pansexual Muslim blessings to you* and people are allowed to ship them even though they’re Hunters and swore off love

-Rachel doesn’t deserve all the hate she gets. Y’all hate on her cause she crushed on Percy when half of you are doing the same thing and then y’all go and ship Percy with Nico, Jason, Artemis, Athena, etc. 

-If y’all want to hate on Jason for ‘not having a personality’ you’d also have to hate on most of the main HoO characters except Reyna, Nico, and Leo (and maybe Hazel) for the same reason cause they have the exact same problem tbh

-Zoë and Bianca’s deaths weren’t actually that sad. We didn’t get to see them enough nor did they have enough development for their deaths to have a real impact. The only sad thing about them was Zoë’s last words and Nico’s reaction

-Thalia needed more time in the books

-Reyna was the only main female character in HoO that wasn’t a boring, bland Mary Sue that all the other characters automatically loved. She was the only one with real flaws and distinct personality traits she’s my queen

-Piper, Annabeth, and Calypso did have flaws but the fact that they weren’t called out by other characters or even noticed are what makes them Mary Sues. It doesn’t matter how many flaws a character has, if they’re not called out by other characters (more specifically, other protagonists who actually like them) they don’t count as real character flaws

-Riordan can’t write female characters for shit

-Clarisse, Drew, and Octavian deserved better than being completely antagonized for no explained reason other than to make the protagonists seem better and to make the readers root for them. Those three had more potential than most of the Seven combined

-The whole ‘Aphrodite kids don’t train’ thing is bs. It’s specifically stated that all the demigods follow a strict schedule and have to follow it or they’ll be on stable duty or smth and the Aphrodite kids shouldn’t (and can’t) be excused from that

-Therefore, Drew should be way more powerful and skilled than Piper, at least enough to not back down automatically from a duel by a newbie who hasn’t even learned how to fight (Drew can control an entire cabin of people at once and Piper can barely control one person at a time, who’s more powerful again??)

-Also I have no idea why Riordan portrays all the Aphrodite kids as weak and girly in the first place. ‘Femininity’ and ‘weakness’ are not synonymous and ‘love’ and ‘beauty’ don’t equal ‘feminine’

-Speaking of which, love is actually really powerful but Piper doesn’t stand for love or ‘inner beauty’ and all her ‘thoughtful/insightful’ quotes in ToA/TBM about love were complete bs

-Riordan using the LGBTQ+ community for the sole purpose of making Piper seem more likable and ‘special’ was disgusting and proves he thinks that straight is the default- “...Or Hera’s ideas of what a perfect couple looked like. Piper finding her own way, not the one people expected of her” my ass. In other words, he’s saying ‘The expectations for love and the idea of a perfect couple are a heterosexual relationship, and anyone who 'finds their own way instead of the ones people expect’ are different’. ‘Different’ and ‘default’ are antonyms, so if you think LGBT people are different, then you think that straight is the default. Aphrodite is the goddess of love not heteronormative bullshit. Like Riordan, honey, you’re the one who thinks that the expectations for love and the idea of a perfect couple are heterosexual couples, not fictional gods from a fictional mythology. Remember kiddos- an author writes their own beliefs

If you don’t agree with some of these that’s fine sis it doesn’t matter if you have different opinions than me❤️

[ep-musicandbooks]

this makes me want to cry

im going on a hoo rant ok. so first of all: will solace. nobody cared about him until him and nico became canon. he hardly ever appears in the series. dont get me wrong hes a great guy, but he hardly ever appears in the series. why do we see him more than grover? grover is percy’s best friend and ill never forgive rick for not giving him more mention in hoo. hes one of three main characters in an ENTIRE SERIES then what do we hear from him?? he has a gf? apollo is a mortal now and -- oh hes busy saving the world with some nature spirits? cool! let’s not mention that AT ALL until its relevant to apollos story! ok moving on...

piper. piper “cares about her dad so much she lies to everyone in her life, even her dream bf, just to save him even though she knows its a trap” mclean. piper “suddenly finds out her whole relationship with jason is a lie and is totally a good sport” mclean. piper “defeats khione, brings jason back to life with charmspeak, is very clever in using her voice” mclean. piper “hates being a daughter of aphrodite and tried to hide how pretty she was but failed” mclean. yet what does the fandom call her? beauty queen!! like she didnt make it clear enough she resents her parentage!! also how underrated can a girl get?? oh wait....

rachel. elizabeth. dare. this girl kisses percy once (and who wouldn’t??) and is suddenly shunned by the fandom despite the great character she is. annabeth makes it clear percy is hers and does she try to steal him? no! she respects their relationship and backs away. and you know what? she and percy remain friends! also HOW DARE YOU SAY PERACHEL HAS NO CHEMISTRY. they are a great team, great friends, and definitely have chemistry!! you know what? if annabeth was never introduced, you know who i would ship percy with? rachel.

freaking calypso!!! shes stuck on an island for hundreds of years with absolutely no one to talk to except for the occasional hero who she falls in love with and boom, every last one of them leaves. even percy. percy, the sweetheart, the darling, the treasure of the fandom leaves calypso on that lonely island. sure, he makes a promise to come back. does he?? no!! sure, he makes the gods promise to let her off the island. does he make sure they follow through on that promise?? does he even think about her?? does he realize she is in genuine love with him?? does he even consider visiting her??? does he send her one iris message???? no!!! then leo comes. thank the gods for leo. poor calypso, she finally has someone to love who loves her back and comes back for her, which did i mention he risked his life to do so?? oh wait, he DID die!! even if their relationship isnt so great, isnt as healthy as it should be, do they give up on each other?? no!!!

last but not least, reyna. my girl reyna avila ramirez arellano. rara here gets rejected by jason. then percy comes along and turns her down too. not saying these boys did anything wrong, just trying to prove what she went through. she is told no demigod will heal her heart. the fandom tries to find a way around it. thalia?? cuz shes a hunter?? apollo?? hes a god?? maybe in toa -- but no. you wanna know what i think? too bad, im saying it anyway. REYNA AVILA RAMIREZ ARELLANO DOES NOT END UP WITH A BF/GF. not everyone in this series needs a significant other!! we should respect what she decides (or rick, whatever) because REYNA DONT NEED NO MAN. or woman. REYNA DOESNT NEED A SO TO COMPLETE HER. she is a queen and history says queens are not only just as good, but BETTER without a husband. you go reyna, im cheering for you!!

thank you for coming to my ted talk. i would add more but my fingers are getting tired of typing. feel free to continue.

[bewitchthequeen]

Caleo Makes Me Cringe And Here’s Why

Yet another Heroes of Olympus anti list for your asses so prepare your butts because I’m about to blow ‘em clean off.

Note: Usually things apply. If you like Caleo and don’t care to hear counter opinions and that makes you aggressive and mean then this isn’t something you’re interested in, I’m going to have to ask you to move along :D I’m entitled to my opinions as you are yours. Any aggression targeted at me because I don’t ship what you ship will be treated with demeaning responses

You have been warned

Side Note: I have nothing but love for Rick Riordan, these are solely my opinions, which I’m entitled to have.

If you have anything to include, feel free to add your own thoughts.

I’m putting this under a Read More so people who don’t want to see this doesn’t have to.

1. To the people who say that Caleo is the best ship because “it’s not incest”. You are wrong. Calypso is Atlas’ daughter, Leo is Hephaestus’ son.  In Riordan verse, Atlas is Iapetus’ son, Iapetus is Kronos/Cronus’ brother, Kronos/Cronus is Zeus and Hera’s father, Hera is Hephaestus’ mother (and in some myths Zeus is his “biological” dad but we’ll ignore this for the riordan verse). If you’re using the incest card, it’s still incest as all gods and titans are related in some way as they all came from Gaea in some way, shape, or form. So kissing cousins apply here and that makes your argument invalid. Claiming it’s the only “healthy” or not gross ship is a lie or you could go along with Rick and his “genetics are a human thing”. The choice is yours.

2. They started out hating each other but skipped the whole tolerating/friendship stage and basically went straight into romance which doesn’t work for the short amount of time they were together. It was a weak build up and even now Leo looks like a lovestruck little boy while Calypso seems to be rather aloof and disengaged from the relationship. Kind of like now that people are around to see them she doesn’t want to be seen romantically with him? At least, that’s how it looks to me. This is my perception.

3. Calypso seems very angry still and I feel like it would be better for her to work on that solo rather than be in a relationship where she needs to kind of take it a lot slower than she would if she was alone. She has to take another person’s feelings into account so that’s not the best for someone with so much pent up anger. Take it from someone who has had something like that.

4. What would have been a more powerful story line for both of them would have been Leo realizing he doesn’t need to be in a relationship to feel validated and cared for. That being the 7th wheel isn’t a bad thing unless you perceive it that way. It’s a flaw with most books like this and young adult books. All the main characters simply have to be in a relationship. It seems like it’s a must and it’s not. A fair amount of people go through high school without dating. I had two boyfriends, one that lasted for a month (and he gave me fucking panic attacks) and then one that lasted about six months (before a tragedy), but I had friends who had been dating their S.O. since freshman year, some who chewed through boyfriends like no tomorrow, some who didn’t want to date, and some who just never dated. For what seems to be every young adult book ever, there are couples even if feelings don’t bloom until the very end of the book. So imagine my disappointment at how unrealistic these are becoming? It seems literally everyone in PJO/HoO/ToA are in a relationship even background and minor characters. I feel like it’s because people suspect this out of Rick now, and it makes me feel bad that he feels he needs to pair everyone up. I can’t imagine how stressful that must be. He shouldn’t have to do that. There’s this wonderful thing called fan fiction; you can read it, write it, and explore it. You don’t need to make that poor man feels like everyone needs to be in a relationship. It has negative affects/effects on people that age who reads them because then they feel like they need to be in a relationship to feel validated (like Leo) and could possibly end up in a bad relationship or feel like there’s something wrong with them for not being in one.

5. For Calypso because #4 was so long. Calypso’s story would have been a lot more powerful had she learned to love herself and the boat come for her. It would have been a real strong hit like “You don’t need someone to save you” and “You can save yourself” and self love promotion. (Honestly, both of their storylines could have done that but those opportunities were missed unless it gets horrendously retconned). In this day and age, I definitely feel like promoting self love is more powerful than Caleo unless you’re looking at it through rose colored glasses, like most shippers do. I’m guilty of this myself. I love Leo and I love Calypso, I just feel like there was a missed opportunity here.

6. Leo saving Calypso kind of made Percy look bad. This is a no-no. Making one character look bad for a relationship is a no-no. Percy usually keeps his promises. The only one I’ve seen him not keep was Bianca and even then I’m not 100% that was a promise? I don’t know. I just don’t like that Percy just “forgot” and basically made him like the other heroes that landed on Calypso’s island. I’m confident that’s not something that Percy would just “forget” but whatever. There’s a lot with HoO that I don’t like when it comes to Percy but that’s a post for another time.

7. Okay this is just because I seen a post from a pro caleo blog (and I’m not going to tag cause I don’t want to start a fight since this is a personal opinion and they made it clear they’re going to “defend caleo till they die”. I’m not trying to talk anyone out of anything. I’m stating my opinions, but claiming things about other ships without acknowledging your own ships faults is a no-no. (that’s the reasoning for the first reason on here). Here’s my defense (despite the fact I don’t really ship any of the canon ships but unfair attacks are unfair attacks) alright so here we go.      a. “ Percabeth = Incest.” See #1 because Caleo is also incest and I explained it above making this a useless excuse to ship Caleo.      b. “Tysella = Furry.” Okay, but Ella is a harpy and Tyson is a cyclopes. I don’t understand why furry is being claimed here but okay. You’re entitled to your opinion, but harpies were never considered animals as they are mythical creatures and I, personally, don’t include mythical creatures as furries but aiight. Furries have fur, not feathers. I haven’t seen any furries/fursonas with feathers. If I’m wrong all I ask is that you prove it without being vulgar.       c. “Grover/Juniper = Furry” Okay. Grover is a satyr which doesn’t really strike me as Furry since it’s humanoid, same with Ella, so it’s not furry as furry are completely animals? And anyways Juniper is basically a fucking nature spirit? It’s basically similar to how a dog likes rolling around in the grass? Whatever though       d. “Jason and Piper = Incest” again so is Caleo. skip Frank and Hazel because nothing was really said on this.       e. “Paul and Sally = Sally’s probably traumatized by Gabe beating the shit out of her” Okay, what does that have to do with Paul and Sally? That’s completely irrelevant to Paul and Sally’s relationship especially since there’s no hint at Paul being abusive to Sally? Sure, Sally is probably traumatized, but I would think she’s working through that since she seems to have a functioning relationship. But what does Sally’s trauma have to do with Paul? Weak excuse.       f. “Solangelo = Not only is Nico 85 while Will 14 but he’s possessive etc, etc”. Okay, but Nico is technically 14 himself? I mean, yes, he was born way back, but if we’re looking at age here Calypso is thousands of years older than Leo. And with possessive, I’m pretty sure Leo got mad at Percy about Calypso and was even kind of mad/jealous of Jason while he was trapped on the island because of Calypso not being interested in him and basically calling him scrawny or something like that. And Nico is in the body of a fourteen year old, he has the mind of a fourteen year old. He is a fourteen year old. He is in the mental state of a fourteen year old. Do you know how unsettling that would be if he dated someone “his own age”? His growth, mentally and physically, have been stunted thanks to the Lotus Hotel, so Nico di Angelo is a fucking fourteen year old. Let’s be clear that I don’t ship Solangelo, but after the shit that kid has been through he deserves to be happy. He lost all of his family, was forcibly outed by his sexuality by an asshole god, went through Tartarus by himself, and had to deal with feeling lost in a world that he didn’t feel accept him even among his peers/the people who should have understood him the most. If anyone deserves to be happy. It’s him. Fucking drop it.       g. “Chris/Clarisse” we’re back at incest and I’m back at Caleo being incest.       h. “Charles and Selena” again with incest because their parents are married. Atlas is Hephaestus’ great uncle so that’s seriously your kid dating your cousin. But Caleo isn’t creepy or incest. Okay thanks. Beckendorf and Silena are a ship that I actually enjoyed because they gave a shit about each other and loved each other despite parentage and then they died and it broke my heart. Honestly, if you find this creepy, a mother and daughter dated a police officer and his son in the Scream TV Series. That I found weird especially since that was all biological. Rick already said that genetics and gods aren’t a thing. The fact that I’m saying this more that once is exhausting. Just because your parents are married doesn’t mean it’s incest. To make this less creepy, Hephaestus and Aphrodite never had children and it’s a bullshit marriage anyways so. Whatever.

Honestly, if you’re going to be biased, at least know your facts. 

That’s all I got now, feel free to start a discussion.