Hi... I'm back 👋 (it's been so long since I've updated this book haha)

Honestly, I thought I wouldn't come back here again since I lost interest in PJO (and HP) last year, but I started reading fics again and I've slowly started to regain my interest. (Let's hope I feel inspired enough to continue with my PJO/HP series, but I'll talk more about it at the end of this chapter). However, now that I started to read pjo fics again, I was, once again, re-introduced to Rick's issues that bled into his works so here I am with another rant.

This time, about him and how he expressed his misogyny throughout the books.

Now don't get me wrong, I genuinely don't believe Rick's even aware of his own issue. I don't think he's running around thinking "women are weak and should be subservient to men mwahahaha 👹", he's not Andrew Tate and thank GOD for that.

Rick believes himself to be a feminist... it's just that he's got the idea of "feminism" completely wrong and you can see that in the books.

1. Feminism does NOT equal misandry

Feminism: the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.

Misandry: dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against men (i.e. the male sex).

I'll be honest, back when I first read the books when I was between 10-12, I wholeheartedly believe that Rick's female characters were feminist icons.

Artemis and her hunters hating on boys for simply no reason? FEMINISM BECAUSE ALL BOYS SUCK 💖

Piper fighting back against her girly, pink-loving, cake-faced bullies and claiming Jason for herself? FEMINISM BECAUSE ALL GIRLY-GIRLS ARE CLEARLY BULLIES 💖

Female characters being unnecessarily aggressive to innocent male characters who literally did nothing wrong to them? Omg girlbosses and FEMINISM FEMINISM FEMINISM!!!! 💖

It's fucking embarrassing to admit, but I genuinely thought all those things were super cool and amazing, and I wanted to be as "badass" as the girls in Rick's books 😭 To be fair, I was an impressionable kid.

But I'm older now so I know better.

In the actual myths, the Hunters of Artemis never hated men. The Hunters of Artemis (though they were moreso called her "followers" instead) was a group of girls who banded together to protect other girls from men. They never went around attacking anyone with a dick simply because they had dicks. Aside from hunting animals and monsters, their purpose was to simply protect other girls.

Now... do you recall that ever being mentioned in Rick's books?

No. Instead, Rick reduced the Hunters into a fun little man-hating, all-girls club that go around hunting animals and monsters and that was pretty much it. Nothing about protecting girls, just "become immortal and join us as we roam around a forest and pretty much just hunt animals for all eternity! Oh, and we hate boys too."

The hunt was no longer about protecting women, Rick basically turned it into an anti-boys club who occasionally hunted animals and monsters. Not much of a purpose if you ask me.

He literally removed the main purpose of what the Hunters actually were and made them hate men and that was basically enough for him to slap on the word "feminism" 🤢

Rick put so much focus on how much the Hunters hated the male species it was ridiculous. They were wary of them, yes, but they never went around sneering at men simply for existing. That's stupid, it's no different than men treating women like shit simply because they're women.

It's not feminism, it's misandry.

2. Feminism does NOT mean treating male characters like shit to glorify your female ones

(Kinda a continuation from above^ but not related to the Hunters anymore)

I've talked about this sooo many times... In the "Strong Female Characters", "Piper McLean" rants, and "Is Percabeth Toxic? Let's Discuss" chapters, but oh well.

If you think being a bitch to boys (or anyone really) who did nothing wrong to you makes you a "girlboss", you're dead wrong. You're just a bitch and that's it. The same goes in literary; Rick had so many of his female characters treat innocent male characters awfully in order to make them look "cool" and "badass".

I got some flack for this in the "Is Percabeth Toxic?" chapter, but I don't care. Rick tried to make Annabeth look like a super cool girlboss by having her judo flip Percy, but it just looked stupid. She's had many badass moments, but Rick was trying too hard in this one.

It was a completely unnecessary and abnormal response to reuniting with your boyfriend after he's been kidnapped and missing for so many months, ESPECIALLY when there were many wary Romans watching the whole thing. She just ran up and attacked a Praetor of Camp Jupiter when she was supposed to make herself look trustworthy in front of the Roman campers. Annabeth's supposed to be smart, but Rick just made her look dumb in an attempt to make her look "badass".

(But a lot of us praised it anyway because "hur hur, girl attacked a boy! So badass! Feminism rocks!")

Thalia kicking Luke off a cliff was a badass and girlboss moment because Luke actually deserved it. He poisoned her tree, put Annabeth through hell, betrayed her, etc etc.

Rachel throwing a blue plastic hairbrush at Kronos was badass because he deserved it (and I don't even need to type out reasons why. It's KRONOS).

^^ Those are some actual badass girlboss moments that I could think of in the back of my head. Thalia and Rachel attacking those boys were cool because THEY ACTUALLY DESERVED TO GET ATTACKED.

3. Feminism does NOT mean hating on girls who aren't "masculine" enough

Ooooh gods. I talk about this SO much but people still aren't getting it, which is a shame.

In all my Piper rants, I still have people defending her because "well, of course Piper hates girly-girls! She never has any good interaction with them! That doesn't mean she's a misogynist!"

...And neither of you guys thought to think "hmm, why DOES Piper only have bad interactions with more feminine girls?".

BECAUSE RICK'S OWN MISOGYNY WAS BLEEDING INTO THE BOOKS, AND PIPER WAS LITERALLY DROWNED IN IT.

Picture this: Rick was magically able to turn all of his misogyny into milk. He put that misogynistic milk into baby bottles and bottle-fed a bit of it to some of his babies. But when it came to one of his younger babies, Piper, he accidentally overfed the girl and now she won't stop farting and crying misogyny 😔

Piper is misogynistic. I'm not gonna repeat everything I've already said in all my Piper rants, but to summarize: she looks down on feminine characters, she sees them as "weak", "mean", and "silly" and guess what?

Rick proved her right.

The feminine characters in his books ARE weak, mean, and silly.

Exhibit A: Isabel and her friends (Piper's bullies from the beginning of The Lost Hero). Here's their description:

Some girls kept looking over at Piper and Dylan and snickering. Jason figured these girls were the popular clique.They wore matching jeans and pink tops and enough makeup for a Halloween party.

And Isabel herself was described as "an owl with a makeup addiction".

These girls are feminine; they like wearing pink and putting on makeup. Nothing wrong with that, but they're also racist bullies who like to pick on Piper. Now THAT'S bad. Bullies and racists suck ass, but hey, these girls are irrelevant and it'll probably be the last time we ever hear of girls like them, right???

WRONG!

Exhibit B: Drew Tanaka. Piper's half-sister and another bully.

Another girl stepped forward—tall, Asian, dark hair in ringlets, plenty of jewelry, and perfect makeup. Somehow she managed to make jeans and an orange T-shirt look glamorous.She glanced at Leo, fixed her eyes on Jason like he might be worthy of her attention, then curled her lip at Piper as if she were a week-old burrito that had just been pulled out of a Dumpster. Piper knew this girl's type. She'd dealt with a lot of girls like this at Wilderness School and every other stupid school her father had sent her to. Piper knew instantly they were going to be enemies.

Drew. Oh, Drew. Ohhh Drew, you poor girl 🥲 (btw, if you haven't read it yet, pls go read "RANT: Drew Tanaka and the Aphrodite Kids Deserve Better", I had a lot of fun writing it).

Not only was Drew one of Piper's bullies, but she's also a love rival trying to snatch Jason away from her. Oh the horror! She's evil! We MUST root for Piper! Even worse, she hated Silena! Her own sister! What a monster 😩

Drew's super weak too. She doesn't even train! Hah! Drew sucks, Piper's obviously cooler!

Exhibit C: The entirety of the Aphrodite Cabin... all of a sudden.

"In Latin, no less," Drew called out. "Handsome and smart."

There was some giggling from the Aphrodite cabin. God, what a bunch of losers, Piper thought.

----

They passed the next cabin, Number Ten, which was decorated like a Barbie house with lace curtains, a pink door, and potted carnations in the windows. They walked by the doorway, and the smell of perfume almost made Piper gag.

"Gah, is that where supermodels go to die?"

Aside from Drew, a couple other Aphrodite kids were described as being mean to Piper too; a few of them were actually laughing at her whenever Drew would bully her or whatever. The others, Lacy and Mitchell, were nice, but they were too cowardly to really speak up against her

So... wow. Her siblings suck. Not only are they mean, but the nice ones are too wimpy to help Piper out!

None of them train, they just sit around and do their makeup and giggle about boys and be mean to everyone else (even though they weren't like this in the previous series)! How useless! Piper's better then them! Poor Piper having them as siblings!

Exhibit D: Aphrodite, the MILF—I mean, Piper's mom, and Hera

"I know it's nobody's fault," she said. "I do love him. But...like I told you, Hera forced us together—the marriage goddess, arranging a happy couple. My memories of starting to date Jason, our first few months together, were a total illusion. Then, as soon as I found that out, before I could even process what it meant, Aphrodite claimed me. My mom, the goddess of love."

She shook her head in dismay. "Aphrodite pushed me into thinking I was... that I needed to..." She sighed. "Look at me, the great charmspeaker. I don't even have words. Aphrodite expects her daughters to wrap men around our little fingers, break their hearts, et cetera."

I remembered the many times Aphrodite and I had fallen out. I was a sucker for romance. Aphrodite always had fun sending tragic lovers my way. "Yes. Your mother has definite ideas about how romance should be."

"So if you take that away," Piper said, "the goddess of marriage pushing me to settle down with a nice boy, the goddess of love pushing me to be the perfect romantic lady or whatever—"

EVEN HER OWN MOM IS MEAN TO PIPER! Aphrodite popped out a bunch of girly, weak assholes who like to bully poor Piper! And Hera's awful too! How dare they force Piper into a relationship with Jason?!

(Even though all Hera did was give her fake memories of it and never once forced her to continue with the farce and Aphrodite didn't even have anything to do with the relationship.)

These overtly feminine goddesses are so mean to poor tomboy Piper!

Exhibit E: Khione

At the top stood a girl in a white silk dress. Her skin was unnaturally pale, the color of snow, but her hair was a lush mane of black, and her eyes were coffee brown. She focused on Leo with no expression, no smile, no friendliness. But it didn't matter. Leo was in love. She was the most dazzling girl he'd ever seen.

Khione's a feminine goddess that's cruel and is also another love rival who's gunning down for Jason. There wasn't much interaction between them in The Lost Hero, but Piper gets her own private moment with her in The House of Hades.

Piper gets cornered by her and her brothers, but don't worry! She managed to triumph with her Charmspeak, even though she literally shouldn't have been able to and even Piper knew that herself, but with the power of Rick Riordan's favoritism, she persevered! Yay! Another feminine bitchy character down! Woohoo, misogyny!

Exhibit F: Medea

A woman had just appeared in front of them. She wore an elegant black dress with diamond jewelry, and she looked like a retired fashion model—maybe fifty years old, though it was hard for Jason to judge. Her long dark hair swept over one shoulder, and her face was gorgeous in that surreal super-model way—thin and haughty and cold, not quite human. With their long red-painted nails, her fingers looked more like talons.

A very feminine sorceress and one of the first actual bad guys Piper faced. Medea had YEARS of training her charmspeak, but Piper, with zero training whatsoever, was able to beat her! Hah!

Another powerful feminine female character gets beaten by Piper. Piper (and more masculine girls in general) are obviously SO MUCH MORE SUPERIOR than feminine characters.

. . .

Oh my god. Guys. Guys. Are you starting to see a pattern here? It's almost as if... a lot of Piper's enemies (whether major or minor) are feminine characters!!!

So does that mean... femininity really IS bad? Since Piper, a tomboyish character who constantly looks down on those who are feminine, regularly triumphs over said feminine characters so clearly that MUST mean that more masculine girls are superior to feminine girls, RIGHT?

This is what Rick's trying to show us. Piper is his wonderful "feminist icon" and one of the female protagonist of his books. She's one of the main characters! She's supposed to be one of the good guys! We're naturally going to root for her. So when a bunch of readers see her constantly one-upping villainous feminine characters, THEY'RE GONNA ROOT FOR HER. And depending on how impressionable they are, they're gonna be stuck with the same mindset Piper has too, because Rick has proven to Piper (and thus, his readers) over and over again that

Masculinity >>> Femininity

4. Feminism does NOT mean... OH FUCK IT WITH THE SUBTITLES, RICK'S A MISOGYNIST AND HE BETTER HAVE CHANGED HIS BELIEFS BEFORE HE STARTED THE TV SHOW CUZ I DON'T WANNA SEE THAT SHIT AGAIN

When I heard that PJO was gonna have a show, I was so excited for two reasons:

1. I loved the first series a lot. It's better than HOO cuz HOO had way too many fucking problems.

and 2. I was hoping it would reignite my inspiration to continue my PJO/HP series.

But I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little worried that Rick's views on femininity hasn't changed since the books. I know a lot of people have actually tried addressing it to him, but I have no idea if he's actually going to listen to his readers and try to fix his mistakes for the show. Good news is that Rick's misogyny honestly wasn't too obvious in the first series, but if he were to make another show for HOO without fixing the issues... hoo boy 😩

Anyways, I wanted to end it here, but I found more juicy stuff about Rick's misogyny from my favorite Riordan critic on Quotev.

This is from Autumn's comment section (NOT from a chapter) written by Autumn themselves. I spaced it out cuz it was one huge chunk but here you go:

(By the way, some context: someone pointed out Percy's reaction to Annabeth dressed up and wearing makeup in Circe's Island and Percy described her as being "strange and unlike herself" even though Annabeth was happy and comfortable with her new look. Now here's Autumn's reply:)

"Oh absolutely, and that is just one of the MANY cases of that. Not only does he state Annabeth looks weird and strange in makeup, but he states this multiple other characters:

"After seeing Aeolus with his silly face-lifts and cosmetics, Piper thought this woman [Aphrodite] looked even more astonishing. There was nothing artificial about her."

"She [Piper] wore no makeup like she was trying not to draw attention to herself, but it didn't work."

"He [Jason] needed a friend, and he was glad she'd [Piper] started losing the Aphrodite blessing. The makeup was fading. Her hair was slowly going back to its old choppy style with the little braids down the sides. It made her look more real, and as far as Jason was concerned, more beautiful."

He calls makeup artificial, fake, ugly, weird, and says that a woman wearing makeup is only doing so to attract attention and that they look fake and silly when they do. He also consistently degrades any feminine characters and almost always makes them either the villain or villainous: Khione, Medea, Hera, Gaea, Drew, Isabel and her friends that wore 'matching pink tops and enough makeup for a Halloween party' (also said Isabel looked like an 'owl with a makeup addiction'), Circe, Silena, all the 'shallow, weak, vain, and mean' Aphrodite children who can't fight and only gossip and break hearts etc etc.

Versus tomboy Piper who 'stands up to Drew', is always the best at everything she does, is tough and aggressive and fights good, and is the hero of the story who constantly shames, hates on, and stereotypes feminine people throughout her point of views.

Every other female protagonist is also tomboyish/masculine and usually hates traditionally feminine things (Annabeth, Thalia who wore a 'death to Barbie' shirt, Reyna, Hylla who said safe, protected, powerful, and educated sorceress girls at Circe's Island were like 'dolls', the Hunters of Artemis, etc).

Rick is extremely misogynistic in his portrayal of makeup and femininity in general."

^ it was just a simple comment, but it was enough to summarize the main gist of Rick's misogyny.

Now... let's get to hoping he fixes this before the show comes out! 🤩🙏

Lastly, about my PJO/HP series...

it's like I said before, my main issue is that I need to regain my love for both of the series again. The fics I've been reading have been slowly helping me out, but for now, the TV series is my greatest hope for rekindling my creative juices for my books. It's either that, or Gege Akutami somehow manages to flop Jujutsu Kaisen and I cringe away from it so much that I ditch writing "Tsunami" and force myself to go back to Percy Jackson and Harry Potter. However, I highly doubt that'll happen so Rick's TV show is really my only hope.