First of all, before I get into this, I'm gonna announce how proud I am of thinking of the title of this chapter. I feel so clever.

Okay, moving on! Ooh, this is a good one. I'm going to be ranting about how the fandom portrays Aphrodite as either stupid to the point that she can't even read, or the ultimate fangirl.

I've actually already done a rant on this before, but it was before I did rants in this story, so I just posted it as a comment in a story that made Aphrodite so stupid that she couldn't read and got distracted by shiny things. The author promised me to change their ways, but somewhere along the way, the story was taken down, so now that I'm doing rants, I decided to post it.

Okay. Done with the compulsory explanation. Time to get into the real stuff.

According to the canon, Aphrodite is the eldest god. To add to that, she's really wise and cool. And does no one remember that awesome scene in TLO where Aphrodite had that long talk with Piper? Why the heck does everyone simply assume Aphrodite is the generic, cliche, giggly airhead of high school stereotypes simply because her domain relates to love?

Seriously, if you look around the fandom, you'll find some terribly skewed versions of her. I'm pretty sure I have yet to read any fanfiction close to the canon version in any way.

If you go over the PJO and HOO series, Rick Riordan kept a very consistent theme of the love goddess (unlike some things...*cough* HOO *cough*). She's extremely beautiful; her outward form always changing to forms preferred by any onlookers. She's also fickle and seductive, cheating on her husband multiple times and trying to seduce Percy when she first actually met him in person in TTC just because it was fun to do. She's wise, as shown by the long talk with Piper that she had in TLO, which apparently everyone skimmed. There are many other ways to describe her, but here's the clincher: She was absolutely terrifying. That is the thing that my fellow fanfiction writers didn't pick up. She has lots of traits shown through her few appearances, but if I were to draw a character chart of her right now, the first thing that would come to mind is TERRIFYING, with everything else branching out from it. Rick Riordan could say that Aphrodite was created as a character simply to unsettle readers in TTC, and it would make absolute sense to me, because that is all she really did for me when I first read it, other than give some extra info.

This is why I also hate the idea that she is the most annoying, obnoxious fangirl to ever exist. Aphrodite may be crazy, but not harmless crazy like an average fan. This woman is a borderline sociopath. Other characters can sense it, too, and it unsettles them.

Think my sociopath theory is stupid? Look back to her appearance in MoA. She sees all of the girls' troubles as just stories to entertain her. Granted, they are stories, but in her universe, they are real. One of these 'stories' is her daughter! I mean it; search 'signs of sociopath' on Google, and compare it to Aphrodite.

I hate it when she is portrayed as less. Stop. It.

To close off, allow me to tell you one of my favorite lines from the series. Quote from Percy in TTC: "I've met Aphrodite, goddess of love, in person, and her powers scared me worse than Ares."

And that's all, folks! Give me your opinions on this! I know that it's all a matter of perception, but seriously, I think the idea that an all powerful goddess that's been alive for millennia can't read is ridiculous.

Published 10/10/16