This has no relation to sexual intimacy or romantic scenes. Which of these ships understood each other the best and worked well together [when they tried to]. Just curious about what ship dynamics work the best (for my current book).
This is so beautiful, so wholesome. When I say we don't get enough of Blackjack, I mean it. We totally deserve Percy and Blackjack shenanigans, Blackjack making Percy go broke over donuts, and just their banter. Hell, I would happily take a full segment of Percy feeding Blackjack donuts in a park fondly yet with an exasperated expression over the newest books Riordan has written like any day. Same goes for Percy and Mrs. O'Leary.
We deserve Percy just chilling with them, dealing with pet shenanigans. That would be infinitely more entertaining than a quest. We deserve it, Percy himself fucking deserves it after everything that's happened. And I mean Percy got one animal per book record in the orignal series. Rainbow the hippocampi and Blackjack in the Sea of Monsters, Bessie in Titan's Curse, Mrs. O'Leary in Battle of Labyrinth. And then every book after Percy's been deprived of animal companions. Come on, Rick, Percy needs a new animal on the account of all the trauma the guy's been through. Hell, he needs an army of emotional support animals. We, as a fandom, petition this.
*dies from a heart attack*
............
.............
..............
*wrangling against Thanatos for the phone*
Good news: Greek gods are real
Bad news: Greek gods are real
(But that's someone else's problem, ideally Percy's)
I don't have words for this dear. I died gushing over this. It might quite possibly be the nicest thing that's happened to me. I swear you are turning me emotional. When I find you Kris, when I find you. As soon as I get someone to resurrect me, that is. It's not like death can keep me anywhere.
But seriously, this is so awesome. Which is to say you are so awesome. I am not even sorry that Percy was bullied into the pink cake mission.
.........
..........
..........
*dramatically resurrects outside your door and knocks politely*
"Hey, would you believe the gate out of the Underworld opens in that parking lot near you? Me neither . Brought gifts for you and chocolates for your boyfriend as compensation for dealing with us! "
Happy Valentine's!!! ❤️❤️❤️
💐 🌹 🌸 🏵 🌼
Damn. I don't think I have ever been wished that before. Thank you so much!!!
[I would use emojis, but I dislike them, I hope the exclamations are evidence enough of how happy I am]
*whispers discreetly* Are we still getting together for literary inspiration and tax benefits? Never made it official enough.
Happy Valentines Day to you too, dear @forgechildofheph !!!
(I used my feelings quota of the day all up processing this. You better pay me back tomorrow.)
This is so very true. I don't hate Annabeth, but the way she is portrayed later on doesn't fit so well with me. She knows Percy has low self-esteem, yet she also knows that Percy is both exceptionally strong and a great strategist, so her constant demeaning is bothersome. Almost all characters have taken this stance that Percy is some dumb guy with crazy amount of power but is useless without Annabeth which is bullshit cause as we saw in Son of Neptune that Percy can hold his own extremely well as much in battle of wits as he can in battle of power and the Fandom needs to start acknowledging this. No hate to Annabeth her character is fascinating, but there's no need to dumb down Percy to elevate her. There's nothing wrong with Annabeth playing a supporting role.
[In fact, it is actually a wise move to let the fighters fight while you dismantle the enemy's plan from the sidelines.]
Ok, I'm going to say something a bit dodgy, do take into account that my beef is with Rick and not Annabeth.
I might have been tempted to read The Chalice of the Gods (as opposed to anything after Staff of Serapis, which I've given a pass) if I didn't know that, as long as Annabeth is there as well, Percy won't be well-written. More specifically, he won't be written as himself.
When Rick wrote HoO, he had to figure out how to include Annabeth in the seven without having all these other powers dwarf her out. He did this by establishing a strict division of labour, according to which she was the strategist, and no one else. That has never been the case, at least not in such an exacting way.
Percy's saved their butts with his plans at the very least as often as she has. He's outsmarted his opponents, he's manipulated them, he has like a signature move that he pulls in almost every single book that basically goes "forget you're an almighty entity who could probably just ignore me without any problem and get down here and fight me at my level!" (tlt: Ares, Luke (unsuccessfully, since he refuses). som: Luke again (successfully, since he plays on his need to control his army's opinion of him). botl: Antaeus. tlo: Kronos. technically Gaia in son), he's been the one to figure out what they needed to from the prophecies (som: that they needed to send Clarisse to camp. ttc: the thing with Atlas's curse. botl: that Nico was the ghost king. I don't include tlo bc Annabeth figured it out first), he often comes up with the winning plans, like how he was the one who figured out how to get past Cerberus, even if it was Annabeth's expertise that allowed them to pull through (just like it was Percy's skill and weapon that allowed Annabeth's plan for Medusa to succeed) or tangling Antaeus on the ceiling chains. The scene with Chrysaor? Perfect blend of knowledge of myths, strategic genius and pure labia. For all the times we see him lose his cool or speak impulsively, we also se him go "wait, this person is trying to provoke me, I have to chill". I saw a comment a little while ago that Percy should've been dragging Giants to the gods feet for them to finish off -- that's what he did! Only he didn't physically drag them there, he planned them there. He tricked Polybotes into following him to Terminus, into pissing Terminus off so he'd agree to help, then killed him. While it was far from complex, he's the one who came up with the strategy to beat Otis and Ephialtes, so they only had to wait for Bacchus to step up.
I'm not saying Annabeth isn't smart. She has an impressive store of knowledge, which in itself is a clever thing to store, because it matches with her style of managing resources -- be they mental, like her facts, or physical, like her hat or things she finds in her surroundings, like the glass balls in Medusa's lair. Annabeth is probably the best at looking at a situation and going "okay, let's look at what we have. Ah, yes, a limitless credit card. Ah, yes, a store-full of clothes that no one's going to want back. Ah, yes, those weird-ass proteins that Hermes gave us, just like Hermes gave someone else food for a place just like this. Ah, yes, knowledge of how to fly a helicopter."
Here's the thing, though. When I read the phrase "Athena-like chatter", I almost broke something laughing. She's good with lies, hers are better and more believable than her friends'. When it comes to chatter, though... I couldn't even tell you how good she is, because I don't think I've ever seen her do something like that before MoA?
But, you know, okay, Rick has to spend more time in her head, she's been elevated in status to one of several protagonists instead of a deuteragonist as she was in PJO (he has to solve this oopsie - I don't agree with everything here, like how, except for her intelligence, Annabeth's other skills are "dump stats", but...), so he has her expand. Good for her. I think it worked alright in her fights in MoA -- a little bit of the old (impressive expertise in certain areas, management of resources), add a little bit of the new (a perceptiveness and gift of gab that she's rarely shown before, if ever, although you could argue she might have taken the "talk your enemy into beating itself" from Percy just like she learned to simplify from Frank).
That's not my real problem. It's this, from when they're fighting Akhlys:
Percy wanted to give her more time. She was the brains. Better for him to get attacked while she came up with a brilliant plan.
... What. Of everything that we've seen of Percy. That I've described just now. Makes sense with this? And please don't give me crap about "it's because his self-esteem is so low!" because 1) this isn't just about what he's thinking, it's about what he's doing, which is pretty much nothing while he waits for Annabeth to save them. He's never lacked initiative like this. Even while thinking, "wow, this absolutely crazy and dimwitted plan is so bad that it's going to get us all killed!" he still did it. ( 2) I've heard "it's bc of his self-esteem/ he plays dumb on purpose" to justify fandom's constant underestimation of Percy's smarts too many time to let it fly now.)
"It's because he trusts Annabeth's judgement more than his own, and he lets her do what she does best when she's available. Other times he's been forced to come up with a plan, it's because she isn't." Did he wait for Annabeth to shoot her shot with Ares before going in with his own plan? Did he keep quiet his misgivings about her level of preparation for the Labyrinth in BotL? Did he leave her to organize the battle plan in TLO? Did he give up after Chrysaor beat him twice in a sword fight and wait for her to come up with a plan? Absolutely not.
"Well, he still beat Akhlys, so I don't see what you're complaining about, it's not like he's useless or anything." True. It wouldn't be the first time he has to resort to brute force to get past an enemy he couldn't outthink (the telekhines come to mind) or that he never even bothered trying to outthink (Hyperion comes to mind), because it's not like strategizing is something that's essential to Percy's style, even if it does come up a lot. I said before that it's his actions that bother me and not what he was thinking, but there is some of that, too. That he wasn't thinking "I can't figure out what to do" or even too busy fighting to start to wonder about what to do, but "there's nothing I can contribute here but my fighting skills". It's sadly a dynamic that Rick has tried to encourage between them.
Sure, Percy only ever gets more powerful, but, even without Annabeth around, he loses any of his braincells. Look at his underwater fight with Polybotes. He starts off in the ship with an impressive display of power -- holding the ship together in the middle of a supernatural storm. Then he gets underwater and immediately loses to PB. The guy he would've one-shotted several times if he could kill him without a god's help. "He doesn't have experience fighting underwater," water not only gives him a strength boost, it gives him a skill boost, as we see in TLT. Besides, how much skill do you need to not swim directly into a cloud of poison? And really, he doesn't get to do anything but that.
Compare it to SON. He's fighting an almost-whole legion of dead people, with a mix of sword fighting and a whirlwind, and he might have won if they hadn't been able to reform. Recognizing that he was about to lose and to give Frank and Hazel a chance to fight Alcyoneus without having to worry about the army, he brings a whole end of the iceberg down to drown them all. And yet, you know what really struck me of all this? How smart Percy was, because he didn't just fight the legion. He aimed for the eagle, realizing that that would be the best way to keep them focused on him and not Frank.
If he's this capable, though, where does that leave Annabeth, who's a skilled warrior but whose most distinctive trait is thinking?
The whole power/smarts dichotomy is also the actual context of that line about Annabeth being the most powerful demigod. He's just spent two weeks teaching Magnus how to survive at sea, when it suddenly occurs to him that the most helpful thing for him to learn is how to "use what you've got on hand -- your team, your wits, the enemy's own magical stuff." Which is how, despite how often he's done just that, he concludes that Annabeth is the most powerful demigod and the best person to teach him how to survive. (Which is, sadly, all that that comment amounts to. Annabeth doesn't then get a chance to strut her stuff, teach Magnus, show off her smarts, play a part however small in his quest, give some insight into her mind -- nope! She says it was sweet of him and then just leaves with Percy.)
With a bit of luck, RR reread pjo to nail down the feel of it in order to write a book that's supposed to be a tie in for a tv show set in the early days (that's a lot of subordinates!), so he might've rediscovered the characters and found a way to balance that with the... way that he writes them now. I'm not optimistic, though.
(Also, if I have to read more of Percy being always afraid of Annabeth getting angry at him or her looking angry at the smallest of things and this being played as her being a girlboss, or how you "have to keep your boyfriend on his toes", I'll claw my own eyes out, but that's another topic.)
If you had the chance to cast Phoebe Tonkin and Joseph Morgan in a series you wrote yourself, what script would you write for them?
If we are to stay true to the supernatural roots, I find the idea that they are Greek deities, Hades, and Persephone reincarnated in the mortal world to be particularly enticing. They are without recollections of each other or their godly origins. They end up running into each other once as fated and never have two people loathed each other more on first sight. And to their perpetual frustrations, they bloody keep running into each other, always, everywhere, every time so much so it would probably go on forever. To love someone for even the worst parts of them is the greatest of love. To learn to love each other as familiars is far easier than as strangers. The other members of the Mikaelson family and other characters from The Orignals are other reincarnated gods. It would make for a most intriguing plotline. Romantic, full of action, and with supernatural twists. A true homage to the fact that the characters they play are eternal soulmates, be it as gods or mortals, they will find each other in life and death and unlike all others their love transcends all not even death could part them.
To stray from the supernatural plotline for avoiding the risk of being redundant , as normal humans, the most fitting a plot for them is and always will be a marriage of convenience. They don't know each other, let alone love each other, yet to fulfill their most desired agendas, they can rely only on each other. They barely coexist well enough without devolving into forever escalating disagreements. It takes herculean effort on both their parts to set aside their pride and see eye to eye with one another. But that's the only move it takes to set in motion a chain reaction of long repressed feelings. Tolerance, Anger,Hate, understanding, acceptance, and love. It's like a beautiful dance between feeling too little and feeling too much. Neither can control where they fall and somehow end up falling for one another irrevocably, utterly, spontaneously, and helplessly. Family, children, money can all come with time. It's love and understanding that must follow first. This would probably be terribly angsty, but it fits with who they are.
Others themes can be added later on but these are my primary thoughts on this.
A unique ask, enjoyed answering it. ( Terribly sorry for the late, was swamped in studies.)
The biggest concern of all Perachel shippers and the most used argument used by anti Perachel shippers is that Rachel is an oracle and she took a vow of celibacy so no dating. That's not exactly how it works.
The reason they are made to make such a vow is to put serving their God Apollo first and foremost.
May Castellan had already had a child when she went to bond with the Oracle, and her not being celibate has nothing to do with that as we know .
Now, even in Ancient Greece, older women have been vessels for Oracles. They just had to put their family aside.
So, in conclusion, the vow of celibacy isn't an obligate condition.
Now for a bit of an history lesson The Oracle of Delphi is extremely unique as she has existed long before the Gods did as a spirit in Lake of Delphi and was often initially referred to as the Oracle of Gaia.
The titaness Phoebe used the powers given by the lake to divine futures. That was how Rhea knew where to hide and how to trick Kronos as she had gone to Phoebe for advice.
Now, for an even more interesting piece of fact after the Gods took control, the Lake of Delphi remained for millenias under the jurisdiction of Poseidon himself.
Priestesses used to come there to seek the power to be able to divine the futures. Only when it was attacked by Python himself and then saved by Apollo who killed the Python did the Spirit of Delphi choose to host itself in Apollos Priestesses thus abandoning the Lake.
The spirit of Delphi has no clear allegiances being able to change who she serves, and we know the Oracle spirit has some fondness for Percy given his own exceptionally prophetic dreams which is a power akin to an Oracle.
This means Rachel can probably choose to serve another God, maybe Poseidon himself, again, so he would revoke the no dating condition.
Or or this is my absolute favorite headcanon about Perachel, that given how many times Percy has managed to save her when Percy eventually ascends to Godhood Rachel and the Oracle spirit, swear fealty to him.
Take that Percabeth shippers. Your only viable argument against Perachel is no longer an argument.
oh and ANOTHER interesting thing that Riordan does with Percy in the tartarus chapters to never ever bring up again is Percy achieving seemingly impossible(?) physical feats.
Like when Percy kills Arachne, he does so so quickly that Annabeth can't comprehend it. She literally asks him "How did you move so fast?" and he just shrugs and is like "Gotta watch out for each other right? Anyways..." and immediately changes the subject.
Then later he jumps over a river with Annabeth on his back and again, right before it, she's like "How are you going to do this??? It's twenty feet across. How can you possibly do that?" and he straight up is just like "yeah I can do it just close your eyes" and then does it???
of course these moments happen during Annabeth's pov so we'll never know for sure but its just so fascinating cause Riordan goes out of his way to indicate that Percy was displaying strength, speed, agility, etc way beyond his typical threshold while also implying that not only was Percy aware of it but he was either trying to downplay it to Annabeth or avoid discussing it altogether.
Okay, people, can we just all stop collectively losing it over Rick's recent shitty characterizations and writing in wottg and tsats and so on? For our own mental peace and happiness , let's just collectively agree that anything written after Trials of Apollo is non-canon and loosely based on the orignal lore and full of inconsistent characterization and unnecessary dilution of the same plot.
In not so polite words: Everything after that is a bloody abomination of the original work that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, but it does give me the urge to strangle Rick for ruining a masterpiece.
Everything before that more or less has to be canon cause then we would have nothing to go off of. Even though characterizations begin to be inconsistent ever since HoO and Blood of Olympus is dodgy as hell but let's give it a pass. Everything released after Trials of Apollo, though? Absolutely not.
Also also one exception from Trials of Apollo: Jason's death is non canon and done by Rick for no plot or character development reasons at all and was an entirely unnecessary and illogical move.
So everything after ToA, along with Jason's death, is non-canon. That's it. That's the new canon.
We just have to do that, at least for all our collective sanity and mental peace. I wasn't even on posting schedule today, but one of the wottg excerpts made me so mad that I just couldn't stop myself. Come on, people, let's just agree on it for our mental peace.
This should have been obvious enough, but apparently, the fandom is blind. It's literally scientific. Natural red hair and green eyes alone have Rachel winning the genetic lottery, not to mention Percy, who has seen many goddesses found her to be extremely beautiful. The only reason we have to even debate this is due to toxic Annabeth stans who seek to deny anything that puts Annabeth in a lesser light, which is basically in most things.
The only reason Percy claimed that Aphrodite looked like Annabeth was because he's never seen Rachel, who is actually the hottest woman in the Riordanverse series, other than Zia Rashid, and sometimes Alex Fierro.
The entire Fandom needs to listen to this:
Percy having a thing for Rachel was so absolutely deserved like he should have been head over heels for her. Here's why:
First meeting? Runs her through with Riptide, and where anyone would have spent the whole time yelling and arguing, Rachel quickly gauged the situation, helped Percy hide, deviated the skeletons from their orignal path all at the same time.
Percy is so awed and he should be and Rick Riordan doesn't do justice to the whole thing.
It ends on Percy saying he owes her one, almost an indication that they would meet again.
Yet Percy is terrified of running into Rachel again because he isn't sure if he could answer all her questions, most definitely because he doesn't want to drag her into the whole thing. So much so that when he sees her at Goode, he calls her "my redheaded nightmare " .
Not only has he thought of her since they last met, but he may or may not have dreamed about her, not to mention he remembered her full name after listening just once.
When he does meet her again she yet again warns him about monsters hence saving both of them.
The most important thing is Percy, who all his life has been judged blamed ridiculed, and mocked is for the very first time understood so instantaneously by Rachel. She who has been put in mortal danger every single time she meets him doesn't blame him, doesn't judge him for it, and openly takes the blame for the burning school. Even Annabeth's first response to seeing the smoke is blaming Percy despite being around him and knowing well enough for 3 years; she chooses to blame him as if she doesn't know that it's never Percy's fault. Yet Rachel, someone who he has met only twice and that too for meager few minutes, understands him and his situation so well.
All the people in the Fandom ask yourself this: Will Percy Jackson not for all that he is be absolutely head over heels and in awe of someone like that?
He can barely give her any answers at the moment, but she agrees to a death quest to help him save the world.
Throws a literal hairbrush at the Titan King and stands her ground.
Stays by him and comforts him through his depressive thoughts about dying due to the prophecy.
Falls in love with him despite knowing he has little time left.
Does her best to help him while still keeping his mind off from spiraling into dark thoughts.
Rides a literal helicopter mid-apocalypse to get to him just to warn him of the dangers?
Percy would be so absolutely over the moon in love with Rachel, were Uncle Rick not so fixated on Percabeth agenda.
The last bit is for toxic Annabeth stans:
Rachel is a genius too.
She is ambidextrous and can draw with both hands and legs; probably has exceptional memory, and her composure and quick thinking are on par with Percy himself.
I hate bringing this to looks, but I will if I get to shut up toxic fans. Annabeth is certainly beautiful, and her grey eyes are quite unique, but Rachel is the most underrated and definitely the most beautiful out of all Percy Jackson females.
The woman literally won genetic lottery with red hair and green eyes, and the only reason Uncle Rick doesn't rave about her beauty is to not make Annabeth insecure.
Also, for those overly concerned about the Oracle celibacy thing, I will address that in my next post and how it's not a problem at all. (Now posted link is here:
Expect more Pjo-centric posts along with Perachel headcanons and more.
It's only in Percy Jackson Fandom where shipping anything other than the main couple seemingly warrants death sentence.
Every other fandom explores so many other ships as shipping between characters helps in finding out how far the depth of their relationship might go.
Personally, I have always loved the idea of what Perachel could have been if Rick had actually tried. Imagine:
Part 1
Percy staying up thinking about this mortal he accidentally ran his sword through; she looked furious and confused and long after its over he is left wondering if that's how his mother felt when she met his father. He wonders it ceaselessly at times.
Rachel living in fear of everything she sees, plagued by dreams and visions, and this guy who ran her through with a literal sword calling her a mortal and surprised she can even see the sword just straight up leaves, taking all the answers with him. Long after it's happened, all she's left with is a canvas filled with the sketches of a sea-green eyed guy.
Then fate connects them yet again because Percy needs her. It starts with his need to fulfill the quest and her need for answers, but the awe Percy must have felt at Rachel's courage through the whole quest despite the incessant quips from Annabeth. He is sorry then that he has dragged someone like her to her death and if that weren't enough they run into the Titan King and he knows that maybe he has doomed them all and Rachel, mortal and unreliable according to Annabeth , throws a hairbrush at the literal actual Kronos himself.
On the flip side, Rachel knows for sure that whatever happens with her visions she will always dream of the sea green eyed hero. The images are everywhere. Him fighting, him negotiating, leading, saving them so she draws and draws and hopes it stops.
It has been noted somewhere in the Fandom once that the only reason Rachel was attracted to Percy was because he introduced her to a whole new world as if that isn't reason enough, as if they need a reason. As if it's not happened before with The Sea God and the Queen among mortals.
It doesn't stop for either of them cause now Rachel knows there's a prophecy hanging over Percy's head, and Percy knows she will see its outcome. So they talk of anything but this, whatever they can because neither of them wants to see how it ends, for the world and for them.
Long before Blackjack crashes his hooves on Paul's Prius, he knows it's coming; the end of the world, and it's far too late to look back. He leaves Rachel there because he is never taking her on a mission again, Morpheus knows he has enough nightmares of something happening to her.
Rachel watches him leave as a prickling at the back of her head tells her one of them isn't returning and no matter how wrong it is, she wishes against all odds that it won't be him.
After that, Rachel has only her visions to keep her company. She has started seeing someone's past , it's not his, but if she tries hard enough, she sees him once or twice. She commits the visions to memory, immortalizing them in art.
Percy doesn't speak to her for a good while after that, not because he doesn't want to, he would do anything to speak to her instead of doing this but his life's already forfeit so he might as well save the world. But he doesn't need to speak to her; they talk best in their visions. When of present, they are always of her. He understands why he sees them, for it's necessary to know what she sees, for she can't tell him, but he's glad for the excuse of it. He gets to see her, and he stays sane.
Yup, she's certifiably insane when she gets in a helicopter to see him, but he needs to know.
He was quite prepared for it, his death and her possibly becoming the Oracle later on. He knew it would happen. He is glad in some part of him that he would die long before it comes to fruition, that he would die in a world where they were together.
It would be their shared tragedy, them fulfilling their destinies as he escapes the divine while she ties herself to them.
Rachel had prepared for the same. She could give up over men , she was certain she would never think of them again after Perseus Jackson dies; it would be her eternal mourning and if someone asks she might tell them that the Spirit of Delphi lost her favored hero to her own prophecy.
But Fate's far too cruel.
Rachel is euphoric. He won't die, HE WON'T DIE. He's NOT the hero. The implications don't set in until she is facing him in the Throne room of Olympus. She says the things she doesn't even mean so she can soften the blow. She sees the break in him in his eyes as they share a last glance instead of a last kiss.
It clicks for him after Luke dies a hero. The bittersweet pang of triumph and loss. Blackjack is gone, and she's taken him. He isn't nearly as furious over that as he is about what she is to do.
He doesn't know if the curse is broken for sure, and he definitely doesn't want her to be the test run. Does she not know visions of her ending up like May Castellan are what breaks him in his worst nightmares.
He is the one who sees her take the oath, as she breaks what's left of them. A moment before all things come crashing down, she looks at him, and he looks back. The Oracle of Delphi and The Savior of Olympus have roles to play and loving the other isn't written in fates or destiny but they share one last vision of a perfect kiss as they resign themselves to their fate for the rest of their life; Their destinies forever entwined but never joined.
....Part 2 pending
(Also going to write headcanons of just perachel things and there are many so wait up)
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