#hoo criticism

[obsidianstrawberrymilk]

A short list of things I would have changed in HoO

It takes place ten ish years after the end of PJO. Percy and Annabeth aren’t a part of the seven but instead appear as cool older mentors to help out the Lost Hero trio. They both have careers and live in New York and go to Sally’s house for dinner every weekend.

Caleo isn’t a thing. In fact, let’s not even mention Calypso. At most we mention she was freed after the last war as idk proof demigods have some power or something.

More than 1 Asian character. Give this one ADHD and dyslexia bc shocker Asian kids can be disabled as well.

For that matter a properly disabled character. I have a deaf OC I would use if I rewrote the series.

Leo is aroace. His arc is about learning that his self worth doesn’t have to be tied to the people around him and his friends love and care about him and he doesn’t need romance to be complete. His flirting is overcompensation bc he doesn’t feel romantic or sexual attraction and is afraid he’ll be alone forever.

Drew and Piper become friends. Drew’s mean girl bullshit is outdated and boring and it would have been a lot cooler to see her icy exterior thaw and her help Piper with her charmspeck (explaining how Piper learned how to use it to begin with) and take on an older sister role

Neither Leo nor Piper become head councilors to their cabins because that’s dumb

Keep the chapter title style from PJO. It was so fun and one of the highlights of the series for me. The relatable nature of PJO in general was kinda lost in HoO and it’s a shame bc there was such a variety of characters for people to identify with there.

Give Reyna a girlfriend or at least a homoerotic friendship that can become an actual relationship in the next series or something

Frank is 14 and he and Hazel aren’t dating, they just have mutual baby crushes on one another.

For that matter what the fuck was ‘Frank is magically not fat due to Mars’s blessing’ bullshit? Frank is a fat character who stays fat but learns to be confident in himself and his body type.

Stop The Adultification of Hazel 2k23. Hazel is 13, she’s the youngest member of the seven and despite her trauma I think that should be obvious. I think emphasizing her relationship with Nico could be fun here - he’s in his 20s so him taking a more ‘that older sibling who toes the line between parent and sibling’ role here could be fun.

Also, I don’t want Hazel to have Hecate’s blessing or whatever. Between her being a magical horsegirl and the daughter of Pluto there’s already a lot of room to expand on her powers that was never used - I think doing more with her cursed jewels and metals powers and her learning the other aspects of her powers, like Shadow Travel, would be fun.

Instead I think having a daughter of Hecate as a part of the Seven would be cool, because we could still have a witchy character with mist manipulation and magic powers.

Give Jason an actual personality, please. Bro’s been a child solider practically since age 2 and has spent his whole life with the weight of other teenagers’ lives on his shoulders as praetor - give him perfectionism issues and anxiety. We’re told that he’s spent his whole life helping others compromise instead of being his own person - show that. Let his arc end with him deciding to try and live a mortal life and find out who he is beyond being a war general.

Show us that Octavian’s a piece of shit, don’t just tell us.

Leo and Piper are the ones who fall into Tartarus. Nothing romantic ever happens but we get heavy emphasis on their friendship and we get to see their grief over Leo’s mom and Piper’s grandfather respectively

Piper’s grandfather has died a few months ago and she cut her hair herself when her dad didn’t want to let her due to that (correct me if I’m wrong but it’s a tradition in Cherokee culture to cut your hair when a loved one dies, correct?), which is why it’s all uneven. A lot of her insecurities stem from going from growing up in rural Oklaholma (not in a reservation bc there aren’t any there) without much money to suddenly being catapulted into a millionaire Hollywood lifestyle and having everyone criticize everything about her and be really racist, all while her Dad drew farther away from both her and her grandfather. Her arc would be reconnecting with both her culture and Dad and learning to find who she is and her self worth again.

They defeat Gaea in a way that isn’t so anticlimactic and fucking stupid

#if anyone else wants to add on feel free to #heroes of olympus #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo #hoo #riordan universe #piper mclean #leo valdez #jason grace #percy jackson #annabeth chase #hazel levesque #frank zhang #reyna avila ramirez arellano #reyna arellano #heroes of olympus critical #hoo criticism #octavian

[femmedefandom]

tried to re-read HOO series again and I’m hit in the face at how awful and forced all the new ships are. I feel like if Rick wanted us to get invested in the characters as individuals, we could have had more focus on their journeys without cluttering them down with rapid and poorly thought out romance.

the reason percabeth remains so appreciated to this day is that despite a few OOC scenes or frustrations readers may have, we can all read how Percy and Annabeth are a partnership who love, tease, and respect each other-their values and flaws mesh well to each of their benefit, set steadily against a tumultuous time and their own growing pains. below are the major complaints I have with the other ships and how quite possibly none of them should have been made canon. Not to mention a majority of the series takes place over like 3-4 weeks. (SON-BOO)

Jason x Piper: foundation is built on a lie so Jason feels an immediate obligation to Piper (and we know how seriously he treats his duties) and Piper feels shackled to a guy-due to some kind of time invested/sunk cost fallacy and his good looks-that doesn’t love her the way she wants or needs; if Rick wanted this to happen, they could’ve created a stronger bond as Jason and Piper over the books, not maybeboyfriend!Jason and maybegirlfriend!Piper. Idk, any romance with them felt super forced.

Frank x Hazel: oh my god NO, they are babies, infants in fact! two incredibly young and isolated loner/rejected feeling children who hung out together for some sense of companionship and comfort should not automatically be paired off just because they are both kind, available, attractive, and with deep seated sense of shame in their own being. No. I would have accepted hints towards a future romance maybe once they developed a bit more, acknowledged and made progress on themselves etc. Side note: screw you for the Leo x Hazel x Frank juvénile love triangle. I had to skim/skip those parts.

Leo x Calypso: well, aside from the fact that this just plays into Leo’s issues about needing a girlfriend as a symbol of success and recognition of his own worth…I never got the sense that either of them even LIKED each other. Calypso is always annoyed with Leo and berates him and Leo thinks she’s pretty. She wants an escape that Zeus didn’t give her (ignoring Percy’s requirement) and Leo wants to not be seen as a 7th wheel. But okay, for argument’s sake, let’s say they “love each other”. How do we know that she loves him of her own accord and not just because of the curse that forces her to love whoever lands on her shore? How do we know that Leo isn’t just riding the high of a beautiful woman “wanting him” and calling it love? I mean, a generous estimate says they knew each other like a week/month…and they weren’t chatting and braiding each others hair during that period.

Tyson x Ella: but why though??? There is literally no narrative need to put a romance here. Nothing changes in their dynamic if they were just friends and if we were calling Tyson a BABY in TLO, then I don’t think he’s grown up enough since for a relationship. Stupid and forced.

***Nico and Reyna are both going through no-good, very bad years and should not have to worry about unrequited love on top of it.

#pjo #hoo #rr crit #hoo criticism #percabeth #percy jackson #annabeth chase #piper mclean #jason grace #jason x piper #frank zhang #hazel levesque #frank x hazel #leo valdez #calypso #anti leo x calypso #anti tyson x ella #sorry if this ends up in the wrong tag #no hate to people who like the ships #they just make exactly zero sense to me

[algumaideia]

Frank in son: Nico is a little weird but he is a nice guy and a good brother to Hazel.

Frank in after Nico is rescued from the jar after living a lot of extremely traumatic experiences: He is so creepy, I cannot stand being near to him, ugh he makes me shiver.

#frank zhang #nico di angelo #hoo #i want to make it clear that i'm not criticizing frank #but rick's writing #this shift was very weird and made no sense #rick just wanted everyone to be mean to nico because

[g1ngerbeer]

these dorks

#id in alt text #my art #cr #cr1 #critical role #the legend of vox machina #percy de rolo #vex'ahlia #perc'ahlia #cw gun #hoo boy. last one for tonight i think! thats about the end of my backlog :]

[believesinfairydust]

“i’m disappointed in ricks portrayal of certain minority characters and think he could’ve done way better” and “i love the riordanverse it’s my favorite series” are two statements that can both be true for you

#you don’t have to start hating it just acknowledge that maybe rick was in the wrong for a majority of the time #riordanverse #pjo #hoo #toa #magnus chase #percy jackson #rr crit #rr critical

[thaliasthunder]

the boy everyone ran scared from turned out to be the inspiration of many i am breaking down on the floor

#everybody shut the fuck up im still in page 180ish i got much homework #POBRE DE USTEDES QUE ME SPOILEEN #also i dont wanna hear ur critics im not ready to hate the book yet #at least lemme finish it first #tsats #the sun and the star #nico di angelo #rick riordan #pjo #hoo #tsats spoilers #percy jackson #solangelo #mark oshiro

[queerbauten]

somehow, I didn't have "Taylor Swift romanticizes electroshock therapy" on my 2024 bingo sheet, but here we are

#decided to watch the 'Fortnight' video after hearing talk of ableism and... hoo-ee. #Taylor Swift critical #anti Taylor Swift #ableism tw #psychiatric treatment tw #violence tw

[belligerentbagel]

welcome to caleb’s katzencafé

for @youcancallmekathyp (from her fic!) through the @widojestsecretsanta

#widojestsecretsanta #widojest #jester lavorre #caleb widogast #critical role #draws #exchange art #i am LATE but hoo boy the past week was a TIME #how do things keep happening at the end of each year o___o #thank you for writing fluffy widojest things! happy winter season <3

[scarareg]

Weird how the non canon ships in Rick Riordan's books tend to have a better and more interesting history together, better chemistry, healthier dynamics,and feel more natural than the canon couples; plus a lot of wasted potential. Examples are Reyna x Jason, Nico x Percy, Rachel x Percy, Leo x Piper, Jason x Nico or Jason x Leo.

It's like the more Rick wants you to ship something,the more it feels forced and has red flags that are kinda hard to ignore. The only exception being Hazel and Frank

#Percy Jackson #Nico di Angelo #Rachel Elizabeth Dare #Piper McLean #Leo Valdez #Reyna Avila Ramirez Arellano #Jason Grace #pjoverse #rrverse #Percy Jackson Critical #PJO #PJO HOO #PJO HOO TOA #PJO HOO TOA TSATS #Percico #Jeyna #Perachel #Leo x piper #Liper #Jasico #Jason x leo #Valgrace #Hazel Levesque #Frank Zhang

[hermesmyplatonicbeloved]

Someone mentioned that Percabeth fans are usually Annabeth fans, while anti-Percabeth ppl are usually Percy fans and while for what I've seen this isn't entirely true (anti-Percabeth fans are more in touch with the source material and think more critically) there is an element of truth to it.

A lot of Percy stans see how Annabeth treats Percy

Calling him seaweed brain continously, even when theyre adults in college which means stupid (confirmed by Rick Riordan himself)

Hitting/punching/judo-flipping Percy as punishment, not in play or sparring or joke which might excuse it

Talking down to Percy like he's dumb and stupid instead of dyslexic (because Percy is not stupid, contrary to popular opinion, and that is supported by canon)

Controlling Percy's friend network and lowkey isolating him

Playing mind games to keep Percy on his toes, constantly trying to be on his "best boyfriend behavior"

And they're just... really uncomfortable with it. Like yeah sure, Percabeth has a few sweet scenes... but that doesn't take away from any of this. An abusive relationship is still abusive if the couple have a few good moments together. That's part of the strategy the abuser uses to keep the victim in the dark about what they're doing, and to keep them in that relationship.

Percy is still getting hurt, and worse, believing that he deserves to be treated that way and believing that he's lucky he has Annabeth. This may not alarm Annabeth fans because they're not looking at Percy, but it does alarm Percy stans because they are paying attention to Percy, more so than Annabeth.

It takes a critical mind to recognize it and even more so to realize that women can be abusive too. Men are not always the abusers in relationships. Abusive relationships are more about control than they are about how many bruises the abuser is leaving on the victim.

#anti annabeth chase #anti percabeth #pjo #percy jackson #hoo #percy jackson and the olympians #heroes of olympus #rick riordan #percy #pjo critical #hoo critical #pjo hoo toa #percabeth critical #annabeth chase critical #percy jackson defense squad #cotg #cotg critical

[archgabrielangel]

hopefully one day percy jackson merch will take over shelves and become the new harry potter. 7th grade me saving up every penny to get an unofficial, off colored orange chb hoodie would be so proud🫶

#percy jackson IS the new harry potter #it's way better for starters #I don't take criticism #pjo #percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #heroes of olympus #percy jackon #percy jackson and the olympians hades #hoo #toa

[litiyerses]

calypso having an emotion-centered character and being viewed & getting treated as the ‘evil woman’ is actually a reflection of how every woman's emotions are villainized when they’re shown vividly and are a main part of their character in popular media.

in general media and riordanverse specifically, women with emotions are always looked down upon because showing emotions is regarded as a dramatic act so when a female character shows and acts on their emotiotions they get degraded and instantly despised because of it. this is done with every single female character while male characters who show emotion are treated like saints and found worthy of self redemption. this happened with annabeth when she didn’t want to believe luke was the bad guy and wanted to try bring him back because she was manipulated by him her entire life, meanwhile luke, who did batshit crimes like causing hundreds of innocent deaths, manipulating little girls by flirting with them, admitting his crush to a 16 year-old at his ripe age of 23, is remembered as a hero and considered ‘redeemed himself’ after sacrificing himself while annabeth was called insufferable when she didn’t believe he was evil in the first place. let’s not forget piper, who’s a lesbian that was forced into a relationship with a man by a goddess and thought she was in the wrong for not feeling right with jason. during the entire relationship she was experiencing a very hard comphet and couldn’t figure herself out because of the fake memories, everybody was bashing her when she was acting confused, when she was, in fact confused. i have a longer post about this specific topic, so if you guys wanna check it out it’s right here. 

 coming back to calypso, first we need to clear out the misconceptions about her curse on percy that affected annabeth. she wasn't blind nor was personally attacking annabeth, her curse was to make someone feel like how she was feeling all time and that’s why percy and annabeth couldn’t reach out to one another while being right next to each other. annabeth’s blindness came from the titan she defeated in the sea of monsters and is actually the first curse to be put by the arai on them, so it has nothing to do with calypso. the curse was affecting annabeth because she happened to be the person percy loved and was right next to him. if percy was there alone either percy would feel alone and abandoned or the curse wouldn’t affect him at all, since there’s no person he can go back to save. and the curse itself wasn’t even a death wish type of curse she just wanted to be heard, be acknowledged and wanted free off her island. not to forget the curse wasn't harming or killing any of them yet it’s still demonized more than by literally every other thing that happened in the books. nothing luke has ever done is seen as evil as her curse just because it was by her and i’m pretty positive if something like this was shown in pjo by luke it would be glossed over and romanticized in the fandom. further proof of how a male character's actions get brushed off and forgiven easily but soon a female character does something even slightly questionable they get villainized on the spot.

she is also despised because she doesn't let everyone's favorite man get away with his misogynistic stuff. calypso doesn't treat leo any worse than he treats her. whenever she starts arguing it is a response to something leo has said or done, which in the most case she's in the right but leo gets so much slack from his past and being fandom favorite to be held accountable for the way he treats people. he's always been written as a misogynist, he never treated any women with any respect. he always had some sort of disrespect for every female character he seems have some sort of closure with like piper, hazel, calypso, the list goes on, but yet calypso is always expected to be more 'tolerable and understanding' bc of his trauma, as if every single character in the series isn't written upon a single trauma they had and have their character built on it. and he always had a problem dealing with others and their emotions and instead of expecting him to be working to change that, calypso is expected to adjust his manners.

oddly enough, she's also expected to show some gratitude towards leo for saving her, when she never asked him to do so and not for a second believed that he was actually going to come back when he said he would. is she grateful that he came back and freed her? yes. should she feel any obligations to make him feel greater because of it? NO. everything leo did for calypso was his and only his choice and nobody else's. calypso is happy that he did so, but expecting her to tolarate every single thing he does solely because of that is wrong.

#this is from the drafts but nevermind #seeing luke apologists withbthe shows airing makes me so mad #'if villian why cute' what if i hanged myself rn #pjo #hoo #heroes of olympus #calypso pjo #percy jackon and the olympians #percy jackson #pjo disney+ #pjo tv show #pjo tv series #luke castellan #annabeth chase #piper mclean #pjo critical #walker scobell #leah sava jefferies #jason grace #nico di angelo #will solace #toa #caleo #hoo crit

[hyacynta]

underrated aspect of solangelo is how 95% of their romance is told through the perspective of will's extremely chaotic dad who they had to babysit

#apollo feeling lonely when he sees them being affectionate lmfao #him criticizing nico for pulling tricks to get close to will because apollos tried and failed at those tricks with people before #there is just SO MUCH writing potential here apollo is so unintentionally embarrasing #trials of apollo #toa #pjo apollo #lester papadopoulos #percy jackson #rrverse #pjo #riordanverse #pjo hoo toa #nico di angelo #will solace #solangelo #the hidden oracle #tower of nero #nico x will

[what-shitfuckery-is-this-ew]

A Critique of Riordan's: Neurodivergency

tldr: Rick made ADHD and dyslexia superpowers in the books which fit the time he wrote the books, but it's not accepted now cause it diminishes neurodivergent struggle. At the same time he made autism coded characters the 'annoying' ones and had a very racist thing of having the only neurotypical be Frank.

He tried to fix it in the show. It worked for about 3 seconds.

TW: Ableism, Autism speaks mention, r slur, anti-schizo stuff.

This paragraph is useless so don't read if you don't want to: Sitting in my drafts are 3 different 'A critique of Riordan's' posts i made as i tried to redo my full critique of the Riordanverse with a little more positive feedback and a little less Rick Riordan is the devil spawn. I have decided to not do it in order because because i watched the show and i noticed some things which were iffy and others which were great. So yeah neurodivergency first. Enjoy and think Critically.

Books

Research and Diversity

The books were written in the early 2000s for Rick's son who has ADHD and dyslexia

As a result, it takes on a very "your ADHD and dyslexia is a superpower" message which were popular during the time, but we recognise now has delegitimised neurodivergent struggles

Also as a result, the books were very focused on his son's symptoms, and represented ADHD as a monolith which quickly turned into stereotypes (e.g jumpy, impatient and fast reflexes becoming the connecting feature of half-bloods)

It got so unresearched that at one point he said:

He also talks about coffee in a similar way, despite sugar and coffee not making us more hyperactive and instead making us sleepy. Unless all the scientists and people with ADHD are wrong i really don't know this works.

and also said this: "Leo was extremely ADHD even by demigod standards" Like what

But the worst part about the PJO books was that the neurodivergency was limited to the first book. Percy's ADHD and dyslexia magically vanish and honestly it's only really brought back up in HOO every now and then (not very well might i add)

Ways he could have improved:

He could have given other characters, like Annabeth, more diverse symptoms of ADHD. It wasn't that hard, For Annabeth recognise that she as a 'gifted kid' is more likely to have undiagnosed and so have to face the issues related to being undiagnosed and/or being both a gifted kid and having ADHD, and then also give her more symptoms common to girls like being really chatty or frequently daydreaming.

Continuing having ADHD (and dyslexia) as constant parts of the novels rather than throwaway lines. Build it into the characters actions and persona rather than add it on like an accessory

Research. Never stop researching. Always reach out to people with the disorders and ask them to help. Writing is nothing without research.

Get sensitivity readers

Grammar

This is really minor, but he keeps say ____ was ADHD, and like gramattically that's a no. I am not a disorder i am a person with a disorder . Note for autism, the prefered grammer is Autistic person (aka turn into adjective and describe, something we can't do with ADHD)

Nico and Leo

Making Leo and Nico the 2 characters who were annoying and unlikeable (to everyone else not to fans) was really weird cause these 2 characters were the autistic coded ones.

NOTE: I did see a post explaining it better in the past, and i will link it when/if i find it again.

Tyson and the R Slur

I genuinely think he tried to make the r-slur scene show that it was bad, but the way Percy reacted to it wasn't quite right. Especially for childrens books these things need to be really clear. So it was good to make a bad bully character who was hated say it, but he could have made it better by skipping Percy saying "He’s not r*tarded" and go straight to "I had to try really, really hard not to punch Sloan the face."

The scene was ok, it could have been better, but again these were written in the 2000s, we have to acknowledge that.

Percy and School

Now this is interesting because this is more recent. Percy tried really hard in school and was smart, it was part of his characterisation. But he never did well in school, because that's how his disability affected him (especially since it was the American school system which we all know is shit and even more shit for people with learning disabilities).

The problem stems from TSATS, where Percy is made out to skip school, and not try at all (feeds into people with ADHD do bad cause they don't try/are lazy)

credits to @aroaceleovaldez

Racism: Frank Zhang

Frank Zhang the only Asian member of the 7 has no form of neurodivergency, despite the rest of them all having. It must be a just coincidence that there's a stereotype that asians are really smart and good at maths and the fact that the rest of the Romans have dyscalculia/s.

It's not weird at all that the character instead has lactose intolerance, which is really common in East Asia unlike dyslexia, ADHD or dyscalculia, which has such a low rate of diagnosis because there is a large stigma behind the disorders and because white people don't think Asians can have learning disabilities/s. No not weird at all that the dude is described with symptoms of dyspraxia but Rick refuses to recognise he is not neurotypical/s

I'm stepping out of sarcasm speak to remind you that Asians with learning disabilities are significantly less likely to get diagnosed with anything because:

because their parents won't let them until they have no other choice (glares at my parents) because there's a massive stigma behind intellectual/learning/development disorders in these communities

When we do try to get diagnosed our claims are diminished because of racist stereotypes and the belief that booksmarts/giftedness = no learning disability. It means most psychologists and psychiatrists (who are usually white) think that all Asians are smart so they don't ever have any form of neurodivergency and we're left to struggle.

Schizo Rep

Octavian. Villain. Schizo. Again.

Do i even need to explain this?

Show

Not actually a specific disorder - Percy just has a learning disability

Interestly Percy's dyslexia is just never talked about, And even his ADHD is never mentioned by name. He's got a random learning disorder which isn't specified. At first i assumed it was still ADHD cause the books, but watching more, you realise they aren't actually focusing on what learning disorder he has and what he has to deal with as a result of that. It's just a generic learning disorder.

Which is weird because learning disorders are all different and we all face different things, even with the same disorder. So placing all learning disorders in the same group? not good. Don't know what i expected from disney, but it wasn't this.

Autism Speaks

So the show tried to acknowledge that Percy was constantly told he was special and heroic when he really wanted to have help for his issues and for people to recognise that he has problems and those are bad. It also represented less stereotypical adhd symptoms (though whether that's because the disorder is no longer adhd or whether they wanted more inattentive symptoms to be present, we'll never know)

but then it went ahead and used a broken puzzle metaphor for his neurodivergency?

Puzzle piece metaphors when talking about any form of neurodivergency are a no go because the creators of the metaphor literally want Autistic people dead.

I DON'T GIVE A SHIT THAT HE DOESN'T HAVE AUTISM, WE ARE NOT ALLIES TO THE AUTISM COMMUNITY IF WE USE THE LANGUAGE AUTISM SPEAKS CREATED

Not only that but a broken puzzle is not a good way to represent us anyways because NEURODIVERGENTS AREN'T BROKEN.

#rr crit #percy jackon and the olympians #percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #my post #rick riordan #anti rr #rrverse #pjo fandom #pjo hoo toa #A critique of Riordan's #rick riordan critical #dyslexia #anti rick riordan #annabeth chase #hoo #heroes of olympus #tw: autism speaks mention #leo valdez #piper mclean #hazel levesque #reyna avila ramirez arellano #frank zhang #heros of olympus #pjo #riordanverse #pjo tv show #pjo series #adhd #neurodivergent

[wistfulwatcher]

#critical role #critteredit #critroleedit #criticalroleedit #cr gifs #cr spoilers #critical role spoilers #crc3 #crc3edit #imogen temult #f.r.i.d.a. #christian navarro #laura bailey #mine #edit #* #scene* #'your laughter is beautiful' literally made me cry #i've never seen christian in anything before and HOO BOY did he make an impression on me!! #and imogen's ANGUISH at frida saying that!! my poor girlllll #anyway i loved these two together and i need all the imogen/frida interaction please!!

[erenfox]

ok but it's absolutely hilarious to me how HADES - the God who almost never cheated on his wife - has more demigod kids than Poseidon - who is known to cheat on Amphitrite all the goddamn time (hell, some myths even suggest that Poseidon has more kids than ol Zeusie)

and don't you give me any of the Big Oath After WW2 bs.

#we're just gonna ignore zeus for now #but like #WHY #sigh #percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #heroes of olympus #pjo #hoo #nico di angelo #bianca di angelo #hazel levesque #persephone pjo #amphitrite #rr crit #rr critical #i kinda wish percy had more demigod siblings #and not those with sally