#got this out of my system

[irondad-defensesquad]

Someone who knows what you're going through

Also posted on AO3!

TRIGGER WARNINGS - self-harm and mentions of alcoholism/alcohol abuse, past death, and past child abuse.

DO NOT SHIP PETER AND TONY. P/roship DNI.

--

Peter said he was going to take a nap.

But he can’t sleep.

He did something awful. Tony has no idea.

Maybe that’s for the best, right?

But the bad feeling in Peter’s chest is still suffocating him. The anguish, the pain, the terror. He’s going to panic if he remains alone in his room. He tried to do something about it, but it’s getting bigger and bigger.

Tony is going to hate him. He’s going to be so angry.

Peter doesn’t want to upset him. Yet the former knows that hiding it is just going to bite his ass later.

The teen doesn’t rush to the workshop, where he can hear the rock music. Still, he enters without hesitating. Tony is quick to recognize him.

“Oh, kid, you couldn’t sleep?” He asks with a little smile. However, it fades away immediately when Tony pays attention to Peter. “Hey, what’s wrong?” His voice softens greatly.

It just makes Peter’s eyes burn and probably turn red.

“I-I…”

He sniffs, which makes everything worse.

“Did you have a bad dream? Did something happen at school?” Tony approaches. “Did that kid bully you again?”

It may be a lot of questions but Peter doesn’t really blame him. He was able to pretend everything was fine when Tony picked him up today. He doesn’t know how, because Peter has been wanting to cry all day.

What should he say? Tony hates it when Peter hides injuries.

“I’m…” he swallows a sob. “I-I’m hurt.”

It might be a reach. The wounds have healed a while ago.

“Hurt?” Tony, for now, doesn’t get angry. “Where?”

Peter’s lip quivers. “M-My arms.”

“Can I see them?”

He would’ve said no. But Peter can’t just drop that bomb and then refuse to show it. Not now that Tony is worried.

Peter pulls up each of his sleeves, exposing his lower arms. Afraid of Tony’s reaction, they tremble and the boy closes his eyes, expecting the explosion.

There’s silence for a good couple of seconds.

“Oh, Peter…”

Somehow, the reaction is worse than Tony getting angry.

He sounds so heartbroken.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I- I don’t know why I did it, I felt really bad all of a sudden a-and–”

Peter freezes when Tony’s fingers slowly touch his skin. Indeed, the cuts have been healed, but his mentor rubs each and one of them very carefully. He’s not afraid of them, he’s not disgusted at them. It’s like he’s connecting with Peter’s wounds.

“When did it happen?” Tony wonders simply, not taking his eyes off them.

Peter gulps anyway. “Um. Today. At school.”

“Nothing happened at school that could’ve triggered you?”

“No. I… I feel like I woke up wrong. In class, I couldn’t concentrate and I could’ve had a panic attack, so I ran to the restroom and… yeah. I did this.”

Tony contemplates, then his deep, brown eyes turn back to Peter.

“Is this the first time?” He asks.

Peter shakes his head. “B-But it’s the first time after… a while. I’ve been clean since…”

“Since when?”

“... since my uncle died.”

Tony seems to tense at the quietude of the last words.

“I promised I wouldn’t do it again,” Peter insists, “but I feel like I’m back in square one. And I failed my uncle. I failed Aunt May.”

“Peter… you didn’t fail anyone.”

“Then why did I do it again?!” The boy raises his voice and instantly regrets it. “I-I’m sorry.”

Tony doesn’t scold him for yelling. “Because you’re hurt,” he answers. Only that. And yet Peter can hear so many other things within.

“... do you hate me for this?”

“Goodness, no.” Tony then grins sadly. “I’m proud of you.”

Peter frowns. “What? Why?”

“You told someone. You told me. That must have been really difficult for you… but you came here and you asked for help. That’s really brave, kid.”

He can’t help giving him a little shy smile. Every time Tony praises him, Peter doesn’t really know how to deal with it. Some part inside him doesn’t believe Tony. It’s always that voice in the back of Peter’s head that makes him question everything.

But here, he’s not doubting it as much.

“Look, kid, when this happens… you can call me. And in case I can’t answer for any reason, you can count on other people, too. Like your buddy Ted–”

“Ned.”

“Or your girlfriend–”

“She’s NOT my–”

“I promise you, we’re all going to do our best to help. You’re not weak for hurting yourself. You’ve been handling a lot of pain on your own. So you can count on us. You can count on me.”

Although Peter appreciates it, he looks at his arms again. Forever scarred, even if he has healing powers.

“Do you ever… feel like you’re a problem to everyone around you?”

Tony sighs quietly. “I do.”

In fact, he’s staring at his own arm.

Now that Peter looks at it closely…

“Mr. Stark… did you…?”

Tony is still smiling.

“I think I was around your age. Got into MIT when I was 14. All those years of loneliness and abuse were catching up with me.” He pauses. “Eventually Rhodey found out. I thought he was going to hate me for it. I knew my dad would. But Rhodey was nothing but patient with me. We even made a crisis plan for whenever I had the urge.”

Peter knows Tony never had an easy life… but he never thought it would’ve been like that.

“I may have stopped cutting my arms, but… I relied on alcohol a lot.” Tony continues. “Even though I’m feeling much better now… the urge still comes back sometimes. And I’ve had relapses, too. They suck, absolutely. But they don’t make me weak. When the urges come, I call Rhodey, Pepper, or even Happy. Sometimes just to talk, even on the phone. Or if I can’t get anyone, I distract myself with something, like the workshop. It’s the one thing that helps me… transforming that bad feeling into something else. Even if the end result sucks. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. It’s just so I can keep my mind busy.”

Peter nods silently.

“We can make a crisis plan for you, too. And it doesn’t have to be now, but we’ll talk to your aunt. I’m sure she’s not going to be disappointed in you. We’re in this together, okay?”

“Okay.”

Sensing the sadness behind it, Tony sighs again, and he opens his arms, inviting him. Peter pretty much hides his face on his mentor’s shoulder. He cries silently, taking shaky, aching breaths. Tony smells like oil, coffee, and maybe sweat. And he’s warm and solid, and he’s here. Peter can sense his heart and the blood running through his veins.

Alive. Alive.

A man who has gone through so much pain, is so warm and welcoming.

Peter doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve this.

“Kid…” Tony says. “I love you.”

It should’ve probably been obvious. He let Peter keep his suit. He praises the heck out of him. Tony allows him in his workshop and they work together. He listens to Peter ranting about things he’s not very familiar with, like he’s learning something new, even if it’s dumb. Peter still has his room, even if he doesn’t permanently stay here. They watch movies together, they order pizza or burgers, or even go to McDonald’s during Peter’s patrol when it's slow.

But hearing “I love you” from Tony Stark… it’s probably a little boy’s dream come true.

Peter tightens his grip. “I love you, too.”

Tony rubs his back, to show him he’s got him.

When they’re over, the two go to the couch. The TV is on, airing a Pixar movie. Peter is lying his head on Tony’s lap, his brown curls being smoothed. Neither of them are really paying attention to the movie, honestly.

If anything, Peter is replaying the words Tony told him. More specifically, when the man talked about MIT.

“... Mr. Stark?”

“Yeah?”

“... I think I’ve been… lonely, lately.”

Tony is quiet but he’s listening, as usual.

“Like, at school I have my friends and all, but Aunt May has been working a lot of night shifts now. When I get home, I usually have to order food or cook something very simple. I mean, May doesn’t really know how to cook,” he snickers, “but… I miss her, y’know? She’s always so busy and stressed out… and I keep thinking about how I probably make things more difficult for her. And how Uncle Ben is not home, and…”

Peter sighs instead of feeding the bad thoughts.

“Yeah. Maybe… Maybe that’s why I cut myself.”

Tony is probably staring at him with a tragic look.

“You can stay over here, if you want,” he suggests.

“I’m not going to get in the way, right?”

“No, of course not. And they may not always come here, but you can hang out with Pepper and Rhodey, too. They love you, kid.”

Peter grins.

“Yeah… okay, Mr. Stark.”

“I know how daunting it is to feel alone. It’s okay to want some company.”

Peter nods and relaxes at the words, as if it’s the first time he’s heard them.

“I’m really glad I have you, Tony.”

The older man stops smoothing his hair for a bit.

Much to Peter’s surprise, he feels a kiss on his forehead.

“Glad to be here,” Tony replies.

Peter beams.

Slowly, he falls asleep.

[eolewyn1010]

Reading Percy Jackson TLT was an ordeal for me 3 - Mythology

And here we reach the point where you can argue that this book was written for 12-year-old kids, not for me - someone who read this book for the first time in their late 20s and after studying both Classical Archaeology and History with a focus on Ancient History. And I will counter that while I don't mind reinventing old myths in new contexts, Riordan consistently leaves me with the impression that he just hasn't done his research and keeps pulling stuff out of his ass in The Lightning Thief. The whole treatment of mythology, for all he references specific myths, just winds up terribly inconsistent. And the thing is: I have read better Fantasy at 12 years old that holds up when I re-read it today. By people who made significantly less money and fame with it. Riordan's world does not hold up. Granted, the story around Pan's death making no sense because it's ripped from its lingual context may be a tad niche. But, for another tiny case example, claiming Romeo & Juliet, a couple of suicidal teenagers, are cozy Valentine's imagery does not bode well for Riordan's relationship to source material.

Goddesses whomst?

I'm not on board with his treatment of Greek goddesses in comparison with his treatment of the male gods. Once again, there's no consistency to it. Cue virgin goddesses? Artemis being a virgin goddess is a whole deal. There's an empty honorary hut for her at Camp Half-Blood, empty because she doesn't have any children of her own. Why would a goddess of the hunt and the wilderness care for a hut anyway? All of her myths play out in the forests and open landscapes. An empty hut? That doesn't gel with her mythological character at all. Neither does the only honorary hut for Hera. Why wouldn't Hera have demigod children? "She can't commit adultery; she's the goddess of marriage"? Zeus cheats on her nonstop! Is that just sexist? Possibly not, as Aphrodite gets to cheat on her husband on the regular and pops out kids on the side. But the argument of Aphrodite doing this canonically in her myths falls flat - because there are also myths out there in which Dionysos fathered the Charites on Hera. She is characterized as jealous, imperious, and vindictive. No one ever said Hera is faithful. Few gods are.

You know what god couple is notoriously faithful to each other? Hades and Persephone. I know for a fact that a later protagonist is a half-human son of Hades, so my take is that Riordan cherry-picks the parts of mythology he personally likes and just ignores the rest.

Case in point: He makes such a big point out of Hera's fidelity and Artemis' virginity... and then there's Athena. I won't mention Hestia here because Riordan didn't mention her so far, but Athena, who's mythologically even more famously a virgin goddess than Artemis (Artemis at least has the somewhat ambiguous connection with Orion and her close bonds to her huntresses that can be read as romantic, but mythological Athena is firmly on the eternal single trip). Except that doesn't fit Riordan's notion, so he conveniently ignores it without any explanation. There is zero attempt to make this fit! No "Erichthonios was actually her biological son instead of adopted, so yeah, she always had kids", nothing. She's just randomly the mother of Annabeth, and a few others. And George Washington. I almost spat out my tea.

Then again, I don't really care for the entire hut system anyway. Because it never explains what they do with the children of the lesser gods. Twelve huts. Uh-huh. Except every deity besides the Big Three is free to make children with whomever. So. Where do they put these? Eh, who cares. Only the children of the Big Three have significant powers, amirite. The rest are weaklings. Sure.

Excuse me? "A child of Aphrodite's or Demeter's is not likely to be very powerful" - ex-fucking-cuse me?? Both Aphrodite and Demeter are mythologically capable of kicking Zeus around like a puppet. The myth that is ostensibly about Hades and Persephone is actually all about the power struggle between Zeus, who gave Demeter's daughter away, and Demeter, who wants her daughter back. And Zeus is the one who has to give in. Because Demeter was about to kill the entire world! Her kids, harmless little flower children who don't even get credited with making strawberries grow? Not likely. This tastes so badly like sexism. Because I can't imagine any reason for Riordan to play down Demeter's power other than "nature stuff is flowers, flowers are girly, and girly is lame". She is literally all on earth that grows!

And Aphrodite? As a daughter of Uranos, she isn't even of Zeus' generation of gods. She is the one of the Olympians who is technically of the generation of the Titans. Zeus ain't telling her shit. She doesn't respect the marriage he arranged for her, she has gods fall in love with mortals all over the place, he was too afraid of her wrath to turn her down for the golden apple of Discord. Remember that little tidbit, that led to the Trojan War? And speaking of the Trojan War, there was that episode when Aphrodite gave Hera seductive power so as to distract Zeus. Zeus also asks her for help when he wants to seduce some unsuspecting human woman. The problem with Aphrodite is that, historically speaking, her myths are a stand-in for the power women were said to have over men, manipulating them into complying with their wishes. And somehow, this take manages to come across less sexist than Riordan's. Because it gives Aphrodite, love, and women power and agenda. Riordan? Yeah, according to him, Aphrodite and her children are useless and vain, and sit around all day looking into mirrors. As a goddess of love and beauty and passion, her domain, again, is of a culturally feminine connotation, and Riordan has interestingly not mentioned her early depictions as a Spartan goddess of war seems to look down on this domain - when most of her myths circle around how fucking dangerous it is that someone has all the power in the world to follow her petty, vengeful, fickle impulses. Her kids could be potentially very interesting - they could hold power over human emotions. But nah, they have make-up and... Gucci handbags? How can they afford those?? Does being a child of Aphrodite come with natural wealth?

You win some, you lose some

See, I don't get Riordan's version of Dionysos. He not only is inexplicably ugly, short and pudgy when neither the youth nor the adult depiction of him are shown to look like that; Riordan also throws a ton of goat imagery in there that might make a little sense with the satyrs. It makes none for Dionysos. Why would he be a goat? Because of the horns? Nah, honey, that's not how it works. Satyrs may belong to Dionysos' entourage, but the god who could have features of a goat is Pan. Dionysos is not Pan, and he's not Silenos either. Why does he make goat noises? There must have been a serious mix-up. The goat aspects, the short, pudgy build, the description of his face; all of that reads like either satyrs or sileni.

A part of the book I mostly genuinely enjoyed (at least once it got past the weirdly modernized entry area - a lobby with an elevator? Airport security? Oh, please, fuck off) was the Underworld. The vast part of it is fascinating and builds genuine tension. So I'm at a loss when both Charon and Hades suddenly whine about not having enough money these days. Just why. Would gods. Care for money?? Does Hades have to rent construction machines to expand the Underworld? Does Charon have to pay for human-made suits? Can he not just make himself look however he wants? Again, I don't get it.

I also don't get the part where Chiron goes: "Kronos only cared about your kind as appetizers or sources of easy pleasure." Yeah... as opposed to Zeus and Poseidon, who'd never abuse humans for their pleasure, right? The cherry-picking. It hurts. And the straw that breaks the camel's back is Riordan's Medusa.

Misuse of Medusa Myths

The part about Medusa actually managed to send me into a rage. Riordan failed to choose a version of the myth when making a choice would have been really good. Using both versions of the myth which have developed independently from each other has a result with a really bitter aftertaste. Medusa as Poseidon's ex-girlfriend? The episode in Athena's temple is infamously a story of rape. The whole point of that relatively late myth (it was written by Ovid, an early-empire Roman) was a cruel injustice of gods against mortals. It would have been better if Riordan had left her out entirely. She was supremely unimportant to the plot; it would have helped Poseidon's image not to mention her. Especially since the myth doesn't make sense the way Riordan throws it together with the earlier Medusa that actually has some agenda: He mentions that she has two sisters. So. The three Gorgon sisters were a thing? Then why is the version which ended with Medusa turned into a Gorgon over the whole raped-in-the-temple shenanigans also a thing?

Syncretism does not work that way

Riordan's treatment of Greek-to-Roman deity relationships was pretty much my first red flag in the book. Because he basically explains it as: Poseidon is Neptune, Zeus is Jupiter, Athena is Minerva, and so on. Which, y'know. Is now how syncretism works. The Romans inherited a ton of Etruscan gods way before they went and conquered Greece and assimilated all of their myths, mashing them together with their vaguely corresponding deities and smoothing over anything that didn't fit. Which was a lot. According to Riordan, it seems it was always the same Pantheon. He never mentions the shifts in characterizations and domains syncretism would have brought with itself.

Powers of Poseidon's Progeny

I have zero idea what to do with the powers the demigods inherit from their parents. They are so incredibly plot-convenient. One time, Percy has to get drenched in water to activate his self-healing; another time, he doesn't get wet at all when he dives into a river. He randomly knows the date and time when coming up from the underworld via the sea - what, does Poseidon's DNA come with an ingrained clock? Would have been nice to have at the Lotus-eater Casino. One time, they say he takes naturally to the water; another, he just... makes fire under the surface. Whatever?

He also breaks the laws of physics, by the way. There's this: "I'd have broken my spine if I hadn't hit the soft sand of a dune" - I challenge Riordan to throw himself down on a pile of sand with a lot of momentum and then tell me how soft it was. Sand isn't fluffy or elastic. It's a ton of tiny rocks. And it behaves like rocks. There is zero give. But it's not like Percy is the only one; the laws of physics only apply to mere mortals, I guess. Annabeth during the boat stunt cannot only do highly complicated calculations regarding physics in her head in nano-seconds, she can apparently also watch the world around her in slow motion while the boat she's sitting in is hurled in high-speed against a gate. Her maths only make sense if she has hyper-perception. Then again, so does Percy, apparently, because he calmly observes that Annabeth was right with her calculations - while the two of them are flying through the air. Neat. More exposition on those absurdly heightened senses?

Where does that even come from?

For as much as I liked the part in the Underworld, it still has a ton of "huh?" moments for me. Like Percy randomly mentioning that he imagined Cerberos as a very specific, modern dog breed? But nah, he's actually a different, highly specific, also modern breed. Why would he.

Annabeth thinks Hades is "treacherous, heartless, and greedy" - how did she get that impression? Nothing in his myths points that way. He's more of the stern, dutiful variety, if you ask the Ancient Greeks. Heartless, that may be a valid interpretion. Treacherous? Sounds more like the Disney version. Or highly Christianized Satan imagery. Greedy? For what, exactly?

"Hades was the only god down here [in the Underworld] that mattered." Uh. Yeah, so. For someone who knows his mythology, Percy has apparently never heard of other chthonic deities. He even mentions Persephone! He even meets Charon! He's met the Erinyes, several times! But they don't matter? Does Thanatos matter, Gaia, Melinoë, Hecate? Zagreus? Dionysos in his Orphic cult? This is just dumb. The Underworld was always a collective effort project.

Persephone, "appeasing her husband's temper"? He hardly even has a temper to speak of in the myths! The only things that mythologically pissed him off was some idiot trying to abduct his wife, and some other idiot mistreating his co-deity Thanatos. Persephone has zero precedence for appeasing Hades. And making her out as that gentle, placating influence tastes like sexism again. Has Riordan never even read far enough to get to "the Mistress"? To "dread Persephone"? She's the Queen of the Dead, my dude; the euphemisms were not genuine titles of a lil' softie, she was called the friendlier names because people were frightened to invoke her.

And for stuff outside the Underworld: Annabeth explaining her arachnophobia with Athena's conflict with Arachne?? What? How does that work? Athena doesn't fear Arachne; she's far above her. But Athena's children are... apparently vulnerable to every spider on earth. Every. Single. Species. Is dangerous to them. Not matter how small and non-venomous. No, it doesn't make sense. Camp Half-Blood is mostly nature and huts among forest and fields; are you telling me there is not a single spider there? I also just don't like the attempt to rationalize a phobia with "there's bad blood between my family and that of [insert object of phobia here]". It has a smack of "at least she has a valid reason for her phobia!" Which, y'know. Is just shitty to people with phobias IRL. Nevermind that making up a story of that "we have ancestral beef" kind is historically an excuse for racism.

[penguino713]

The Omnipotent controls all, even the Snap threatening his restored reign.

[isjasz]

Stellar death

[xamag-draws]

[Monster High] i wanted to try merging G1&3 AND make them a bit more monstrous AND still keep the cute dorky kids quality AND wrangle the color scheme into cohesion... i just think it's fun how malleable they are

[nouverx]

*proceeds to drink the whole bottle*

Yeah Alastor you're gonna be loved and appreciated wether you want it or not :)

[gingersnapped]

"Sam is probably my only friend in this town..." emergency sleepover time in the mountains after local small town emo and skater boy played too much solarion chronicles and lost track of time

[jaypentaghast]

[deliciousnecks]

Kayvan Novak II The Emmy awards 2024

[shepscapades]

Your highness… I don’t feel so good

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[eolewyn1010]

Reading Percy Jackson TLT was an ordeal for me 2 - Characters

While I can repeat my disclaimer here that I only ever read The Lightning Thief (a translated version, no less) and won't try with the rest of the series, that's still about all of the slack I'm willing to cut Rick Riordan. I don't feel this is a good book, so get it off my chest I shall. Let's get down to business, and when I say business, I mean character work.

Is anyone here not a plump stereotype?

I have real difficulties to find a character here that has more depth than a cardboard cutout. I mean, let's forget about the main trio for now, but is there anything to Chiron beyond Wise Mentor? Oh, yes. The gaslighting. He wants Percy to go to Camp Half-Blood anyway. What is the point of telling him that he hallucinated shit for months?? That's an inexplicable dick move for someone we're supposed to see as a positive, caring mentor figure, but it's not the same as giving him depth. Nevermind that he was introduced via "sometimes he had an expression in his eyes like he was hundreds of years old", which... I said I hate this sort of oh, but it couldn't POSSIBLY be THAT foreshadowing. It's lousy. It's about as subtle as "this guy is EVIL, you see? He took money from an orphan charity fund to buy himself a bigass house with golden toilet seats!" It sounds like something from a cartoon.

There are a couple characters who have a little more groundwork to them than that - I appreciate Percy's mom and the subversion built up with Hades. I do not appreciate pretty much everyone else. People who are evil are obviously and obnoxiously evil (and in case of Medusa and Echidna, so obviously that they make Percy and Annabeth look dumb as fuck). They are also so stupid that you wonder how they function in their jobs (animal smugglers who feed lions with vegetables and herbivores with meat? Come on; they want to sell these animals alive). And Riordan's evil = ugly shorthand gets old really fast. Honestly, it already got old with his bully back at his human school. It also brings up a serious moment of confusion when Percy describes recognizing Ares because Ares looks similar to his daughters at the camp - except... Percy says Ares is "sort of handsome". He went out of his way to tell me how ugly Clarisse and the other bully girls are. So. Looks good on a guy, but not on the girls? Is that sexism or what? I wouldn't put it beyond Riordan for reasons I will go into when talking about mythology. Then there is every character we're supposed to hate using the same slur: "Freak." Can't you think of anything more creative? Especially coming from Ares, it sounds weird: Why would he think of demigod kids, of which he has a few of his own, on the same terms their shitty human step-parents do?

Annabeth, the know-nothing know-it-all

And then there's Annabeth, the deuteragonist. Also, the one where the set-up stereotype falls completely flat. See, we're supposed to think she's that smartass girl who knows everything better to the point of being annoying, kind of Hermione but with a terrible attitude. She's often described to look like her mind is going a mile a minute, she's Little Miss Exposition when Chiron is not around, she knows the world of the Half-Bloods and Immortals since she was seven; she has it all down. Well. Except several situations don't make her appear very smart at all. She ignores Grover's warnings when he says he can smell a monster, just as Percy does. She looks down on Grover for no reason (except maybe Fantasy Racism, which is a really bad trait for someone who has lived around satyrs and the likes since she was seven). She doesn't pick up on Medusa knowing Percy's name without being told. She prioritizes her being hungry over caution with strangers, just as Percy does. She leaves him alone with strangers when their instincts tell them both it's a bad idea. For someone who's oh-so-bright and level-headed, she fails the most basic logic.

Let's also mention Annabeth's big passion, architecture. It doesn't look very good when I know after the first vague description of Camp Half-Blood that Rick Riordan doesn't know shit about Ancient Greek architecture beyond having watched a few toga movies in his time. Because he repeats this lack of knowledge in a character who he claims knows better. Granted, the reason why I know better is because I'm minoring in Classical Archaeology, and most of the readers probably don't. But here's the thing: If you wanna write an expert in a field, you should really read up on the field. Ideally, let an expert edit the relevant parts of the text. "Write what you know" doesn't mean "hands off of non-you experiences!", it means "do your research"; it's a point of respect towards your reader not to assume they know nothing anyway. I don't know why he insisted on this being Annabeth's major interest - I mean, I do know; he did because it's a basic trait of Athena's and Riordan isn't very creative in character-building. The St. Louis Gateway Arch as an example of impressive architecture for a CLASSICALLY educated architect?? You've gotta be kidding me.

The other thing about Annabeth is that I just. Don't. Like her. She keeps being rude to Grover. She never explains anything to Percy and then complains about his ignorance. Her bitchiness is persistent and unprovoked. The reason she gives him for why they shouldn't get along doesn't even make much sense - because their parents dislike each other? The respective parents in question are barely even involved in their lives! What kind of a lame justification is that? You aren't your mother and Percy isn't his father, and parentage is not a personality (except when it kind of is, but I'll get back to that). And it takes so long for her to do anything likable... yet her constant insults don't count as bullying because, you see, she is pretty. Honestly, for at least half of the book, this seems to be the only justification why she isn't put on the same level as Clarisse. She tells Percy it's his fault the bus got blown up because he fought against the furies who made the bus blow up? Make it make sense. And then she bitches at him again because if he dies, she won't get to fulfill her mission successfully. Yeah. She just made her alleged friend's possible death about herself. Awesome.

This ship is sailing without me

I know a few things about the Percy Jackson series as a whole, for example that Percy and Annabeth are going to be an official couple sooner or later. There is the ship-teasing in this book already, and I assume it'll develop onward from here. Hm. I'm so not on board of this ship. I know a bickering romance when I see one, and this doesn't look like one. Because 1) the admiration and positive feelings seem largely one-sided for Percy, and 2) the insults and sarcastic retorts seem largely one-sided for Annabeth. This is not a balanced dynamic. It feels like Annabeth has made it her hobby to shit on her supposed love interest and be as unhelpful as humanly possible, but he compliments her at every turn, and she expects him to bow to her bossy attitude. And Percy outright says at one point that she talks to him and Grover the same way she talks to a dog. Bad news: The Cerberos scene was the only moment when I sympathized with Annabeth, and that statement severely undermined my sympathy.

But, say it with me now, she is pretty. So of course she's nothing like those nasty bullies, the daughters of Ares. And also, she blushed and was embarrassed when she was supposed to walk into that love tunnel with Percy to retrieve a MacGuffin, for fuck's sake; he didn't ask her for smoochies! "What if anyone sees us?" my ASS; you are 12-year-olds alone in a closed-down theme park; if anyone sees you there, they'll ask you what the hell you think you're doing on other people's property, you stupid bint!, so there! Yeah. No. I really hope for the future books (blindly; I will not read them) that they'll get to something that feels more mutual, because whatever they have in this book is far from cute. It's tiresome.

Consistency whomst? Don't know her

I have real difficulties to get a grasp on the main trio. Even Grover, whom I do like best among them, has a few moments that just make me go, "huh? How does that fit with what we have been told?" For example, at some point in the camp Percy and Grover are whining something about weaving baskets. It makes sense that Percy, the action-oriented 12-year-old from the human world, would think weaving baskets is the lamest shit ever - it makes zero sense for Grover to look down on it. He's lived in this world his entire life; what does he think how everything works if no one is taking care of the everyday jobs? What does he think how the camp is running if no one does the necessities?

Also. Does Grover have a good instinct for monsters, or does he not? He is the first to warn of Medusa, but with Echidna, it's suddenly Percy who gets a bad feeling. Percy also tells us that Grover is his best and only friend, then treats him as an idiot to make fun of half of the time. They cast a POC to play Grover in the series, and I swear to God, if they have a boy of color running around there eating garbage and mainly being present to be mocked by the other two protagonists...

Then there's Percy's attitude about people. Which also makes sudden switches from one adventure to another. The bus stunt with the furies? Fuck the other passengers, amirite? They can have all the trauma they can get; who cares if they get hurt. Afterwards, Percy talks about them in a supremely eye-rolling manner when the bus has crashed and everyone is panicking and there's probably injuries. But during his little touristic trip in St. Louis? He's suddenly all hero and wants to rescue people. Then he lets wild animals, including a fucking lion, on the loose in the middle of a city full of people, and snarks at Cerberos squishing dead people even deader. Does he care about humans, or does he not?

Even Annabeth, as consistently dislikable as I find her, had me go, "what?" Throughout half of the book, I was suddenly told that she's, like Percy, dyslexic. And narrator Percy says it in a manner of, "I had forgotten that she was also...", so I was like, "did I forget it as well?" and went back to look it up. I hadn't forgotten. It wasn't established before that point. Don't gaslight me, Riordan.

Where's my protagonist at?

While I liked Percy in the beginning, I found it increasingly difficult to emotionally connect with him. That started with the death of his mother. Besides Percy mentioning her on a few occasions, it didn't seem like he was grieving. His distress about her loss was very brief, and yeah, I get his whole angry-12-year-old spiel, but he's still a kid who just lost his mother? The only parent he loved? Eh. On the other hand, his ties to Camp Half-Blood are vastly oversold. He says it feels like a new home after a couple days; leaving it pains him deeply... after all of. Two. Weeks. How am I supposed to believe that? In what way was it more of a home to him than his human school? Where he also had a friend and some bullies, and his mom was not there? Even after the mission, the time he spends at the camp is just skipped. Zero connection for me as the reader. On the more amusing side of this, Charon in the Underworld singing a Barry Manilow sing confuses me less than Percy, a 12-year-old millennial, recognizing a Barry Manilow song.

And sometimes I'm just wondering what the hell is going on in Percy's head. He describes the situation at Medusa's shop as increasingly uncomfortable - but he ignores the warnings of Grover and then Annabeth, and he allows a stranger to take a photo of them? CREEPY! Has his angelic mom not warned him about strangers? That seems wildly counterproductive. He tries to put it to his not remembering the Medusa myth in that moment and not connecting the dots, but I'm not buying it. She's all, "everyone loves children", and he doesn't go, "ew, stay away from me"? And after that, the very next situation he has a bad feeling about? "Nah, it's okay; I can stay alone with some weird stranger. You guys go ahead." *facepalm* Beating your reader over the head with something like that comes at the detriment of your characters' apparent intelligence. And the confrontation with Luke reinforces that. You don't have that many friends, Percy! And you refused to even consider the possibility of Grover or Annabeth being the one to betray you! To then cheerily prance away with an obviously troubled Luke doesn't look smart.

Lineage is not personality

Last but not least, why is this something that Riordan and Rowling gotta have in common? It frustrates me to no end - the assumption that you can easily sort people, in this case kids, into personality categories. And in Riordan's case, the personality traits are determined by their lineage. It's not Slytherins; it's the children of Ares who are cruel bullies. Annabeth the smartass is not a Ravenclaw; she's a daughter of Athena. The impulsive, fearless protagonist is not a Gryffindor; he's a son of Poseidon, one of the Big Three. Oof. This makes things very easy for Riordan, and it makes things very flat. Aphrodite is the goddess of beauty, so her kids are vain and useless (yes, I am planning to shred this via a look at mythology). Demeter is the goddess of nature, so her kids are gentle little flower children (same). Kids of Hermes cannot be trusted because he's a trickster. Kids of Hades were the fascists of last World War. Not only do these categories not work because Riordan's takes on mythology are at least very one-sided and superficial; he also tries to hammer home that who your parents are will determine your personality. It's a way to simplify characters, and a notion I loathe.

[majunju]

(right > left) gentleman

[s-aprua]

"it'll be ok"

[cartoonsinthemorning]

You idiot! clingy girls LOVE to get pushed around teased messed-up with manhandled bullied!! ESPECIALLY this one!!

[hermit-frog]