Currently Writing Percy And Jason's Only Scene Pre-HoO Part (which Is Coming Real Soon, Maybe One Or

i really hope odysseus' assault stops being downplayed someday

So I’m currently trying to come up with a design for my Percy (that’s going to be used for my AU and probably all of my other drawings) and I can’t decide what race I want him to be lol. There’s to many options. At first I was going to make him Afrolatino but then I got the idea of Polynesian Percy and this is making me difficult to design him rn lmao. I’ll get there eventually (hopefully)

me age 7: this pokemon is named cupcake becos its random and cute 

me age 12: this pokemon is named Petri, named after petrichor, the name for the scent of rain. a close second was Nimbus, named after nimbostratus clouds in which rain forms. i was very tempted to go with Proteus, a greek shapeshifter who ruled the sea, but i realized that would be more fitting for a pokemon with a stronger attack stat. i researched these names endlessly and they took 2 hours to come up with. 

me age 15: this pokemon is named sleepy becos he looks sleepy

Posted another part to my series without a name. Out on AO3 now

My first design for my PJO AU where Luke isn’t the host of Kronos (among other things but it doesn’t really have a name yet.)

Unfortunately someone had to do it where is where I decided to start for my first oc. He doesn’t have a name quite yet but in this AU he’s the one who hosted Kronos and kicked off the Titan War.

He mostly shows up in flashbacks but he definitely plays a similar role to Luke and his actions definitely haunt the narrative.

Most of the quests from the OG books still happened including the Titan’s Curse so I had to give him his gray hair for holding up the sky.

I actually don’t have that many designs done but I’ll post them periodically (probably) as I draw more for this AU than write lol.

Trying to like, not make Percy Jackson in my Robin!Percy AU like Jason Todd but I can’t help it lmao, Jason’s my favorite.

Because at some point, Percy is probably not going to be Robin anymore, not out of his own will but being Robin, specifically under Batman really grounds him and without Batman and no one constantly berating him for beating up criminals too hard, he’d probably kill someone.

And I feel like post Robin, he wouldn’t have some vengeful, sort of noble reason to drift to the dark side, but he needs someone, something to put his anger towards, and Bruce and Gotham is sort of the perfect place because a lot of people there are kinda like, shit.

Yeah Percy in this AU he’s definitely more like canonical Percy Jackson inside, but he just has too much rage and anger for people to see that unless they dig deep (ie. Basically the outcasts aka his teenage superhero group.)

So i think it’s interesting that most of the time, we’ll just be seeing the mask Percy puts up for himself because he doesn’t like most of the batfam. He likes Jason and begrudgingly like Dick but he doesn’t talk to them, not really (except probably Jason) and ofc he likes Alfred, everyone likes Alfred. But he doesn’t like Bruce or anyone else for that matter and it’s really going to show (hopefully).

Honestly, Percy doesn’t need Robin, he needs therapy. Honestly he’s doomed for therapy in all three AUs I’m writing (the superhero/demigod au, the Robin AU, and the mortal AU)

Mostly just a brainstorming post tbh.

Thinking about the different Demigod factions in the random AUs pushed all into one verse AU lol ( I don’t have a name for it, oops)

Cuz like obviously we have Camp Half-Blood, which I feel like for the sake of having no mist would have to be more professional as I think demigod discrimination is real so they’d have their own specialized schools, CHB and CJ would just be the big Greco-Roman ones (kinda like how there are other wizarding schools in HP?) but they’re pretty minor I’d say.

Like CHB would be the equivalent of a public school for Demigods so most people in the area go there I’d say because there’s no extra things required. And I also feel like CHB would be faced with a lot more discrimination as basically they aren’t CJ lol. They’re not military coded and training them to be soldiers, not really. Chiron’s just preparing them for battle using things similar to the mortal world activities just like in canon.

Then there’s CJ. CJ is basically a private military school and is where everyone would LIKE demigods to be sent to but because they’re so prestigious that’s obviously not the case.

Anyways, I think that demigod quests have to be approved by some sort of government officials otherwise it would be considered an act of vigilantism.

Law authorities wouldn’t like demigods that much but I feel like they would have mythical related weapons through magic. (Although uou can’t tell me that they didn’t try to experiment on demigods AND MONSTERS probably when the mist first lifted)

I feel like goddess like Apollo, Hestia, Hecate, Hera, Artemis, and Hermes would be more worshipped by society as they’re important aspects. Hecate specifically because through magic is a way for mortals to defend themselves although not everyone can just casually learn it.

Then there’s the TA which kinda has two branches, the main Greek branch and the Roman branch who’s kinda allowed to do their own thing unless given direct orders from Luke or Saturn/Kronos. They’d be considered vigilantes but it would be like, cops vs any superhero’s villains type situation.

Would cops have a demigod unit? Probably but I don’t think they’d like to bring them out, simply because the overall consensus is that demigods are inferior (not to mention them having learning disabilities which would make this worse) and society probably molding them for battle once they’re claiming or found.

So the TA isn’t JUST going for the gods, they want to take out the mortals that’s been oppressing them for so long. So like not only cycle of abuse, but oppression too, fun!

So yeah, definitely planning on making other factions and camps for other parts of the world because the mist dropped for the WHOLE world. Also not to mention government definitely trying to breed and make weapons from different pantheons because once a gods blood in engraved within a bloodline, you just have to pull it out of them.

Yeah I definitely think from unit 731 did/is going on with demigods and that will also play a role.

Also thinking about when Percy would go to camp and I think maybe around TTC. Maybe he has his first encounter with CHB in SoM. And the camps in this AU know of each other but they don’t really interact cuz they have a really bitter rivalry.

I also can’t wait for finish writing the prologue because I feel like the situation I made with Percy and Sally is really interesting and makes his parallels w Luke in this AU that much stronger.

What do you think Ares/Mars was talking about in SoN when he told frank to stop percy from acting on his fatal flaw??

anon, i love talking abt loyalty as a flaw

so, disclaimer: the “percy needs to learn to step back/let other ppl be the hero” narrative sucks. this was rick’s intention, but it sucks. the way rick set up the initial conflict is his main problem and why this foreshadowing fell flat.

here’s what mars said:

cool story, but…this isn’t a flaw percy has. at least, not the way it’s used. rick doesn’t establish any character of the seven to be willing to ignore one of their friends if they’re in danger, so there’s no way to make that a unique conflict (altho this would be a viable option if the other characters were rewritten). that leaves what rick wrote, which is percy not wanting to let the lost trio fight gaea alone, and that…doesn’t work without bastardizing pjo.

we’ll get back to that.

here's the big scene:

which. lmao. lmfao even.

and here’s the scene in boo where rick tries to spell out what the problem is for ~foreshadowing~ :

this doesn't work. rick tries to conflate “i don’t run when my friends need me” w “being unable to step away” or allow someone else to be the hero. those are not the same thing! percy’s whole thing in the previous series is that he isn’t the hero! he knows this. it's one of the most obvious themes in the previous series. which is part of what i mean by bastardizing pjo, but it's not all. again, we'll get back to that.

percy doesn’t ignore cries for help, but that’s not the same as being unable to step back.

and, going back to what i first said, name one character who would be like yeah! i’ll pack it all up w my gf! the closest any character gets to this is piper, but that’s a tangent i won’t go on bc it’s not done well enough for it to be worth adding tension. the point is this isn't a trait any character is established to have, including frank, who is the one chastising percy! it doesn’t make sense for percy’s character anyway bc he’s loyal to more than just annabeth (shocking, i know), so this wouldn’t be a good ending for him regardless. he’s not actually being offered something he wants.

the scene percy references w juno actually does a better job of highlighting the conflict w percy’s loyalty: either percy can run to the sea—where “no monster would bother [him]. [he] could begin a new life, live to a ripe old age, and escape a great deal of pain and misery”—or he could go to camp jupiter where pain and misery awaits him. and percy genuinely considers his options. if percy can't give his friends up for anything, what does that mean for him?

bc it’s percy’s freedom that’s at odds w his loyalty. his loyalty is not controlling or possessive of other ppl. which brings me back to bastardizing pjo.

an important, but more subtle, theme throughout all of pjo is autonomy (it goes hand-in-hand w the constant theme of yielding, which again i talk abt here). this theme is especially important bc pjo is abt disability (that’s why all of the demigods are disabled). one of the first things ppl try to take away from u when ur disabled is ur autonomy. the fact that percy vehemently defends it not just for himself but for others is essential to the narrative. it's why he's the leader, it's why he's the protagonist, it's why there is a callback to it in every pjo book. trying to act like he wouldn't respect someone's autonomy and would try to shoehorn his way into their fight and need to be chastised into respecting their autonomy in a heavily foreshadowed moment that is supposed to be the penultimate conflict of percy's character is a bastardization of this entire theme.

this conflict doesn’t work.

(percy art cred)

anyway. let’s keep the concept but make it actually work for percy’s character. i already talked abt percy's freedom vs loyalty, but another good place to start is w how percy becomes loyal to someone. there’s two main ways.

the first is empathy. if percy empathizes w someone, he’s loyal to them. percy can empathize w almost anyone, including but not limited to clarisse, the girl who bullied him, polyphemus, a cyclops that tried to kill him and his friends, and luke, someone who betrayed him.

this loyalty means that percy will defend them (even if it means fighting w someone else he’s loyal to eg tyson and annabeth), have a difficult time fighting them (especially in regards to harming them eg polyphemus), and consider their feelings in his plans (which is why he’s a good mediator, but it also causes indecision and infighting eg point one). this is already good set up for conflict for self-explanatory reasons, but i’ll give some elaboration later.

the second is kindness. if someone is kind to him, percy is loyal to them. there’s many examples of this, but i think the best is quintus.

percy feels bad abt being suspicious—despite having plenty of reasons to be (the similarities to luke as he says here, the fact that juniper says quintus was poking around the labyrinth, etc)—bc quintus was being kind to him. and if that wasn’t enough, percy says that he won’t use the whistle quintus gives him, but later makes an entire escape plan revolving around it.

percy tries to override his loyalty w reason and it literally doesn’t work (it goes hand-in-hand w percy being unable to see betrayal, even when it’s spelled out). if quintus had ulterior motives, percy would’ve been fucked.

side note, something i find interesting abt this is that percy is aware enough that he doesn't tell other ppl abt the whistle. it's like suspecting/trusting quintus is something shameful percy is trying to hide, which is interesting to think abt for potential conflict bc nobody can help percy if he doesn't tell them anything.

another pertinent example is percy’s first interactions w frank. percy takes frank helping him against the gorgons as an act of kindness and, bc of that, percy assumes the best of frank:

the thing is, percy is wrong abt frank.

frank wasn’t thinking of percy when he pocketed those vials. and if percy hadn’t seen frank pocket the vials, would frank have even told percy they existed?

this is a great example of how to use different povs to build tension,—hoo does not use this well or often despite having nine povs—but it could also be used as a red herring for percy’s loyalty. in this case, percy’s optimistic perspective inspired frank. percy’s loyalty doesn’t come off as a threat, so when the reverse happens, ie percy’s optimism fucks him over, it comes as a surprise despite being foreshadowed.

essentially, there’s a lot of room for conflict. percy’s loyalty includes a wide breadth of ppl and can grow very quickly, which leaves a lot of room for contradicting needs. the person percy chooses isn’t a given. the answer is not annabeth (like hoo keeps insisting it is). even in tlt, when percy has to leave his mother behind, it’s a difficult choice for him. he described his heart as “being ripped in two” bc everyone in the situation had his loyalty, his mother, grover, annabeth, even his father. ultimately, the deciding factor was what he thought his mother would want him to do (which is interesting bc it’s not what sally would do given her reaction to percy in tlo, but bc sally is kind and selfless towards percy, he thinks she’s universally kind and selfless. *points to the section on kindness* another side effect of this). and it’s also bolstered by the fact that percy knows he can get sally back. he’s not losing her forever, he’s losing her for right now.

so what happens when the stakes are higher? what happens when percy isn’t sure which side he’s on? nico says percy is dangerous to his enemies. what makes someone percy’s enemy? let’s use this, let’s make this conflict bigger, let’s encase the narrative in it.

really easy ways to do this include grover and/or calypso. the series is based on fighting gaea, mother earth, and grover is a satyr who is named lord of the wild by pan right before pan fades. furthermore, percy and grover have a soul bond that’s in part bc of percy’s own connection to nature. and even more than that, nature spirits were among the highest casualties in the previous war. that’s a series of wild connections to have unexplored in the series.

also, gaea has a vested interest in percy. she kills one of her own men to save percy's life, she tries to kidnap him twice, juno says part of the reason she puts percy in a coma is bc it would've been too difficult to hide him from gaea's forces otherwise, and the reason is...so that percy can have a bloody nose? ok.

w calypso, rick writes this entire plotline where she’s still trapped on her island (for some reason), but this is only relevant so that leo can get a gf. how abt gaea gets her off the island and she fights for gaea? what then? what does percy do? how do calypso’s motivations change how percy sees the other side?

these are sacrifices percy wouldn’t want to make. he doesn’t want to kill either of these ppl, so what would he do instead? what does that mean for everyone else?

another option is a cry for help. while percy’s loyalty has never manifested as is refusing to let someone make decisions for themselves—even if that includes self sacrifice—percy does stick up for the underdogs.

a perfect example of foreshadowing using this flaw could’ve been the creatures in phorcy’s aquarium. instead, some random fish-centaurs solve the problem. boo! lame! where is percy’s inner torment as he tries to juggle his responsibilities w his feelings! where is percy tearing the group apart as he tries to fix a problem no one else cares abt! there is a ship full of ppl who are supposed to believe in the greater good, where is the conflict as percy fights for the common man!!

like,

what an interesting thing to say in a story that has a prophecy w the line "an oath to keep w a final breath." too bad this means nothing.

(also these quotes, for good measure

percy swearing to protect hazel and frank from the gods and percy swearing on his life bc he has that much faith in annabeth, someone he's loyal to, despite knowing almost nothing abt the other ppl on the quest or how they're arriving. interesting. good thing rick doesn't explore this. <- sarcasm btw)

this would be a perfect way to introduce a sacrifice percy wouldn’t be able to make. just like w percy jeopardizing his mission in tlo by warning the kids on the boat and making it harder on himself by trying to incapacitate but not kill other demigods. he almost dies to ethan bc he doesn’t kill ethan at any of the opportunities he’s given! despite ethan chastising him for it! this is already an established flaw percy has, and the only reason it hasn’t bit him in the ass is bc it’s a red herring in pjo.

and again (bc i have personal beef w this scene), the whole nico-in-a-jar thing. while percy vows to save nico, he doesn't say anything when leo and jason argue against it. percy ripped hera a new one for excluding nico, and nico wasn’t even in danger at the time. why is percy so calm abt jason and leo talking abt leaving nico to die?! this is exactly the sort of situation percy loses his cool abt and starts yelling and getting himself in trouble. why is he calm??? where is his anger????? it really should’ve come down to “we’re saving nico with or without y’all” in a true showing of tearing the group apart.

how many traps is percy willing to walk into bc someone needs help? how much can he jeopardize the quest before someone else has to intervene? when does loyalty cross the line from something admirable into a flaw?

ofc all of these potential conflicts would hold more weight if percy was in character and written as the glue of the argo ii. these moments happen at the beginning of their quest, when they’re supposed to be bonding and building trust. what happens when ur mediator loses their cool? nothing good!

similarly, there should’ve been way more internal fighting on the argo ii, especially after percy fell into tartarus. i want the blame game, the instability over nico (and what having 8 people for a 7 person quest means), the greek vs roman, lack of sleep, stress, guilt, all of it to come to a head and jeopardize the entire quest. if the greeks and romans had to be separated bc it was too dangerous for them to be together, i want to see why. i want to know why juno thought it was so important that percy be the glue. i want to foreshadow why percy making the wrong choice can tear the world apart. it also helps frank and hazel’s plotlines, as well, bc their stepping up feels more important and has a bigger pay off.

as it's written, there's barely any conflict, frank feels comfortable confiding in annabeth for no reason, the girls are all friends bc #girl power, there's random love triangles everywhere, annabeth and jason are said to have a rivalry but never actually shown to have one, and the biggest fight is when percy and jason are possessed.

this complete lack of foreshadowing amalgamates in boo’s failure. rick failed to use percy’s actual flaws to establish the threat of this choice but still needed the conflict, so percy has to be out of character and the conflict has to be contrived.

Godswap AU, Luke.

I was thinking and I really wanted Luke to be the son of a minor god and so I decided to make him the son of Aristaeus. Luke actually has quite a few powers along with his swordsmanship. He can talk to sheeps, grow plants naturally but is more proficient in medical plants, and he can control wind (stronger in the summer) but not as Zeus or wind spirit kids can but still pretty good at it.

I think I wanted to make him the child of a minor god to further push the point of minor god kids being neglected, especially in this setting where a lot of poor people were different types of slaves. He was a commoner until he was taken to camp half blood where then he was taken on quests. On one dangerous quest he was the only one who came back alive (and where he gained his scar). He ended up being ridiculed and pitied by some of the other older campers and they began saying how they shouldn’t have chosen “lower minor god scum” to lead a mission.

So yeah children of minor gods weren’t all that respected in CHB (if you by any chance get claimed that is) and unclaimed campers were pretty much in the same boat.

After his failed quest, he began hearing Kronos talking to him and eventually fell in his clutches.

(Just thought of this but he still has his history with Thalia and Annabeth, his history with Percy is going to be more extensive though and I do want to explore that.)

After Percy follows the prophecy, gets attacked, and taken to CHB he meets Luke and they grow attached to each other until Percy finally goes on his quest. Sometime after Percy’s quest succeeds he puts his action into place and try’s to recruit (and then kill) Percy.

Luke I feel like is actually going to be the most similar but different character at the same time besides Percy in terms of his character and how I want it to progress so I’m really excited for when I start writing it.

happy annoy squidward day