Art credit: @lem0ngiirl on Instagram

[Have you fallen in love with the fanart yet?]

Welcome to the Rick (and the fandom) screwed us over support group!

(Art credit: @hideandsneak on Tumblr)

Today we will talk about all the canon POC in the rrverse and how you can write them well in your fanfiction! Because we're both brown and tired of seeing POC being treated like garbage! Yay! (This is gonna be long so get ready.)

[Firstly, some topics in this can be slightly controversial and we apologise if we offend anyone. We aim to address the most general topics with the help of resources (mentioned at the end of the chapter) as well as some of our own friends. We won't be talking about every stereotype or racial discrimination in existence, just the general ones or those applying to the characters existing in the rrverse that are POC. We also won't be talking about other ethnicities that are not a part of the canon books. If you wish to make an OC who is, say Vietnamese, the resources mentioned below, as well as some others that you can find with a few google searches, might help. It's even better if someone you know is of that ethnicity/race.

If you find anything incorrect, please feel free to comment here or DM either of us for corrections.]

[Another note: please do check out blogs and articles by actual people of that particular ethnicity/race of a character for even more accurate information. We aren't qualified enough to accurately sum up all of the stereotypes by Rick and the rrverse fandom and openly talk about it as a personal view, but we did ask for help from some (okay fine, just two but that's because the rest we know aren't of that ethnicity/race) wonderful people on this website for some characters (although, one of them didn't respond but that's okay) and the rest is just us relying on POC fandom blogs on Tumblr under the rr crit tag.]

[ANOTHER note: we would talk about some other South Asian (/probably Indian) characters like Raj Mandali (from PJO- Sea of Monsters), Pranjal (from ToA- The Tyrant's Tomb) and Emma (from TKC) and how they were either completely messed up or really well-written (which is just Emma, to be honest), but they aren't usually included in fanfictions as much so it doesn't matter. However, we are attaching a link in the comments just in case anyone is curious for a wonderful post by @notready-aim-fire on Tumblr in the comments.]

• GENERAL TOPICS TO KEEP IN MIND

-Okay so, surprise surprise, we aren't exotic fruits! Therefore, by the theorem of we-are-humans-too, our skin and bodies are not exotic!

-We also aren't any kind of edible item, actually. So maybe it'll be cool if food-related descriptors like cocoa, coffee, tea, caramel, any type of chocolate, brown sugar, as well as some other terms like dusky, dark (separately), tanned (separately), sun-kissed, toasted-like-the-lame-piece-of-toast-you-eat-for-breakfast, etc. aren't used to describe us.

Unless, of course, you're interested in us comparing you to the "lovely peels of banana that are removed to reveal the alluring white insides, adorned with shades of yellow, and tanned from the glaring rays of the sun" or "glass of expired milk left on the counter of an empty house" or "a fresh slice of brie cheese" or "mayonnaise spread slowly while preparing your favourite sandwich" or goddamn mashed potatoes. 

-Here are words you CAN use instead: black, beige, white, pink, brown, dark brown, light brown, sandy brown, umber, sepia, ochre, russet, terra-cotta, gold, tawny, taupe, khaki, fawn etc. (NOT coffee brown though). Almond can be accepted at times, depending on the usage, since it is also kind of a colour shade. Same with cinnamon. Both are controversial and mostly subjective so it's better to find other alternatives.

(colour guide:)

(images via @writingwithcolor on Tumblr)

-Word modifiers that CAN be used: rich, dark, deep, cool, warm, medium, tan, fair, light, pale etc.

(NOTE: word modifiers like tan, fair, light, pale are better used in combination with a colour (which is why we are referring to them as word modifiers). While they do work alone, they give more of an impression of, say, a naturally tanned white person, which is not the aim.)

-Undertones that CAN be used:

i) warm/earth undertones: yellow, golden, copper, olive, bronze, orange, orange-red, coral

ii) cool/jewel undertones: pink, red, blue, blue-red, rose, magenta, sapphire, silver

-If you wanna get even more creative to match the writing style of your story, you can use natural settings as descriptors:

(image via @writingwithcolor on Tumblr)

(image text: harvest moon night-twilight, fall/autumn leaves, clay, desert/sahara sand, sunlight-sunrise-sunset-afterglow-dawn-day-daybreak, field-prairie-wheat, mountain cliff, beach/sand, straw hay.)

HOWEVER, before going off and comparing the character to a jagged mountain cliff, make sure to think about the association of words. Like, if we're thinking of straw hay, we think of coarse, yellow, ochre. If we're thinking of mountain cliffs, we think of sand, yellow, precarious, grainy, etc.

-Other stuff that can be used as descriptors: flowers, plants and nature, wood, metals, gemstones/minerals.

-Words like "caramel" or "honey" are generally more accepted when talking about hair colours, however, they are still subjective terms and not everyone may be comfortable with them, so it's better to try not to use it or write it well and not like "[their] hair was like caramel" etc.

Caramel and honey are still strictly to be avoided when talking about skin, though.

-Please don't give them 'white' nicknames, like calling Samirah, 'Sam'. It's literally not even hard to pronounce. If you can say Annabeth (literally the same number of syllables) and not have the desperate need to call her Anna or something because Annabeth is "too long", then we don't see why you can't just call Samirah as... Samirah. We're not saying POC don't have nicknames, it's just weird when an ethnic name is shortened by white people into a white nickname to "appeal" to the white audience. Don't do that.

-Don't give them unnecessary eurocentric features like Hazel's gold eyes. It takes away from the fact that they are PEOPLE OF COLOR. Let them have dark brown eyes. Brown eyes are beautiful. So are dark hair.

-We don't think it even needs to be mentioned but we're gonna say it anyway, DO NOT WHITEWASH.

-PLEASE do not blindly follow Rick's descriptions. He is not a god of representation, and neither do people of colour have to be indebted to thank him (a white, middle-aged male) for including characters of colour in his books, especially when they aren't done right. The majority of his descriptions and experiences with POC are highly inaccurate and/or harmful. White pjo fans, we are sick and tired of you guys telling us to be thankful to him for including us in his stories whenever we offer criticism on his writing.

-DO NOT. EVER. USE. IMAGES OF. WHITE. PEOPLE. AS FANCASTS/FACECLAIMS. FOR. CHARACTERS. OF COLOUR. And while choosing said fancasts, make sure the people are of the SAME ethnicity as the character. Not Ki Hong Lee (who is of South Korean descent) for Frank (who is of Chinese descent). Or a tanned white girl with feathers in her hair for Piper.

-The fact that almost all of the parents of the characters of colour are abusive/toxic in some way or another is highly concerning. It just goes on to spread more stereotypes. Or you know, they're just straight-up dead, which is not any better

-STOP PROMOTING SHIPS OF YOUNGER CHARACTERS OF COLOUR WITH (CONCERNINGLY) OLDER CHARACTERS. If you really like the ship just fix the ages, we beg you. We know Rick kinda lost it in that particular area but please please please, DO NOT tell us that making Hazel 13 and Frank 16, Sadie 13 and Walt 16/Anubis 100,000,000,000+, Reyna 16 and Apollo a few billion years old, and Leo 16 and Calypso even older than most gods wasn't extremely problematic. AND ALL OF THE YOUNGER ONES IN THE SHIPS MENTIONED WERE POC. (Yes, Reyna and Apollo were not a ship and he did technically become a 16-17 year old mortal but that still doesn't excuse the fact that despite APHRODITE HERSELF telling him no, he instantly became attracted to and hit on a minor, who also happened to be a character of colour.) (And yes, technically the age gap between Hazel and Frank wasn't too much and Rick was just bad at math, but even then, it's sus how he wrote Hazel by keeping her as an 8th grader who was way too mature for her age in mind and Frank as, like, an 11th grader or something.)

-The Big House was the name for the house antebellum plantation owners who kept black people as slaves, by the way. So uh, we can all see how wrong that is.

● HISPANIC CHARACTERS (Leo Valdez, Alex Fierro, Hylla and Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano and their respective mortal parents)

Special thanks to imwastingmylifehere for the help

-You do not "look" Latino (yes, this is regarding Leo's most popular description in the fandom).

-The fact that all Hispanic males in the rrverse are abusive/sexist to some extent is objectively concerning.

-Why do all of them come from abusive homes?

-Why does Leo, a canonically abused character, have an entire camp punch him after he literally comes back alive after months? Maybe what he did was a little questionable but what gave the ENTIRE camp the right to HIT him. What kind of a twisted scene was that Rick?

-Leo. Is literally sexist. In almost every scene he is in. And almost every other time he opens his mouth. And is obsessed with hitting on every single female that breathes despite them clearly not being interested.

-Literally stop with the "Leo calls everyone mamacita after every five seconds". You can have him say other nicknames instead (WITH CONSENT AND APPROVAL): cariño, amor, mi vida (be like Félix Madrigal!), corazón etc.

-Apparently (we didn't know this but according to imwastingmylifehere) Alex is written as an extreme crackhead (like on a concerning level)? AND Leo? Let's stop this, please.

-Alex also isn't some cold-hearted person who hates on everyone in general and unnecessarily mean to people. We didn't think it needed to be said but, you guys DO know that Alex is a genuinely nice person, right? That he can go five goddamn minutes without having the need to decapitate/kill/throw ceramic pots at someone because they literally just existed near him? INCLUDING his own boyfriend? And that he genuinely helps people and does nice things to people around him? And that his personality does include stuff APART from being the love interest of the protagonist and being genderfluid and acting as a personality donor to Nico di Angelo for the Solangelo stans?

-Give our girl Reyna some emotions please and not the basic "stoic, lonely and intimidating brown girl who wants and get none of the (implied white) guys" persona. Why is she a literal robot. Why is she told that "no demigod will heal her heart" as if saying 'shut up and deal with your own trauma' is progressive and #feminism. Why are all Latinx characters either just mean and badass or the hot sexy ones that flirt with everyone with the most unrealistic and cliche dialogues ever.

-Where do we even start with Hylla's name.

-Leo is actually smart, which some of you still don't seem to realise. Probably as smart as (if not more than) Annabeth in some levels. However, his intelligence is hardly ever recognised by his friends, who only like to paint our lovely white and popular character Annabeth as The Smart Character™.

-Not every POC is broke. Especially in NY. Like, there is an entire subsection of the city dedicated to latine people.

-Here are some other small ways you can represent Spanish people (by imwastingmylifehere, because we're literally copy-pasting at this point):

i) Their parents have made them associate Suavemente (by Elvis Crespo) with cleaning, so the next time you have Reyna listening to Elvis Crespo casually, it would not be that song.

Also, Reyna and Alex would totally be Selena stans.

ii) Reyna probably really likes cafe con leche. You can get some pan de bono and dip it in the coffee.

iii) Let Alex drink Jarritos. It's like Fanta but 638363936382936392 times better.

iv) Bad Bunny and Luis Fonsi are not the only Spanish artists other than Elvis Crespo. A few modern ones would be Becky G, Maluma, Daddy Yankee, Shakira, JLo, Marc Anthony and so on.

v) Tacos are not the only Mexican dish. Menudo, Churros, Empanadas, Fajitas and more exist.

vi) No Spanish person is going to a chipotle for Mexican food. That's American.

vii) Every Latine person has had a sauce that's a mix of mayo and ketchup and they dip it in tostones that have some garlic on them.

viii) Being Spanish does not just mean eating rice and beans. Literally stop making them eat brown rice with brown beans. (Same with the Asians actually, we HARDLY eat brown rice so don't even bother making any of the Asian characters eat brown rice. It's white rice at least 99% of the time.)

1- it's white rice or yellow rice with black or red beans

2- this is erasing so many excellent dishes like, pasteles, flan, chorizo, arepas, etc. like hispanic goes across so many regions

● BLACK CHARACTERS (Hazel Levesque, Charles Beckendorf, Julius Kane, Walt Stone, Blitzen, Thomas Jefferson Jr., Jo)

Again, thanks to imwastingmylifehere for the help.

- Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned Hazel is dark skinned

We hope that was clear enough.

- Quick rundown on Hazel's description. She has dark (NOT cocoa or coffee or whatever) skin. She is black. She has dark hair and dark eyes. Don't give her eurocentric features. Don't give her light hair. Don't give her gold eyes. She is not mixed. Her hair are very curly. Like 4a or 4c type.

- Literally only 3 black characters did not die at some point in their life. One came very very close to dying like literally was about to die when a god merged with him.

- Hazel's mom being a voodoo queen just feeds stereotypes. Again.

- Rick saying Camp Jupiter was with confederates is literally such an unnecessary and terrible thing to add. First off, they weren't even in the right region to be in the confederacy, second the confederacy was for racist white peoples to keep their slaves. And Hazel was RIGHT THERE. Who just said something along the lines of "not cool" while Jason said something like "not all whites" and was never brought up again.

- Hazel is 13. 13. Thirteen (or wait was it 14-) if it wasn't clear enough the first two times. Let her be a child. Show her to being a child sometimes. It's true she grew up too fast because of her experiences and trauma but let her act her age. Let her curse (like she does IN CANON) and have fun at parties instead of being The Cinnamon Roll™.

- Charles Beckendorf died tragically. He appeared in like 2 chapters. He was the only character of color in PJO (other than Raj Mandali but we like to ignore him for obvious reasons, and Ethan Nakamura who ALSO died). We will let you figure out what went wrong here yourself.

- Why is TJ, a black man, written to be thankful that Britain didn't explicitly oppress him?

-Blitzen and Jo are thankfully unproblematic and are not walking, talking stereotypes/epitomes of bad representation. (As far as we know). (Although that line about Elvis Presley with Julius Kane is highly questionable.)

● ARAB CHARACTERS (Samirah al-Abbas, Amir Fadlan, Zia Rashid and her parents, Ayesha al-Abbas, Abdel Fadlan, Jid and Bibi)

- A very important thing that needs to be said here is that not all arab people are muslim and not all muslims are arabs.

- The pepsi/bebsi joke in TKC done by two non-Egyptian characters was offensive to a lot of people, so don't do that please.

SAMIRAH (and her family):

- The whole thing with Samirah being engaged at 12 is weird and she was too young to make such a decision. In Islam, the marriage is not at all valid without the consent of the people actually getting married. In case you've forgotten, 12 year olds cannot legally consent.

- She was manipulated into thinking that she had to repent for her mother's sins (having a child with someone you are not married to is a sin in Islam) by marrying Amir.

- Her and Amir are distant cousins according to Rick, apparently. Which is something that sparked a lot of controversy so we hope you all know to just collectively ignore that when writing fanfics.

- Given Samirah's character as a full-time hijabi and her beliefs, it is problematic for her to just... take off her hijab in front of non-relatives (especially males) and you know, just the entire Hotel Valhalla, because she "considers them family".

- She is not oppressed for voluntarily wanting to wear a hijab.

- Her hijab should completely cover her hair (although some prefer to show their hair, which is perfectly fine, but for Samirah's case, it has to cover all of her hair.) If she's not wearing an underpiece, it might slip out during like a windy day or something but she will eventually tuck it in.

- The hijab should also cover her neck (again, some prefer to not cover their neck, but Samirah will be covering her neck).

- One way you can solve the "hair falling out of the hijab" thing during, say, battles, is by making her wear sports hijabs. Yep, they exist! They are specifically designed to stay on during sporting activities like running, jumping or swimming and not have any hair fall out of them either! Or you can just make her pin her usual hijabs in place. That works too. You can show your creative freedom in the colour and designs of hijabs and the designs of pins pinning the hijab in place (They're really pretty, try searching them up).

- Her clothes would have to be loose and not form fitting. It has to be full sleeves where four fingers from above the wrist can show and pants that are loose and cover the ankles (that are also not form-fitting). Basically, her clothes should not show her body shape.

- Don't make her touch or kiss Amir before marriage. Please. Also we hope you guys know they won't be having the typical Christian wedding (which actually contradicts with the fact that Alex just strutted up to the wedding with Thrym in a full white gown while Samirah wore a niqab and literally no one questioned this and everyone just... believed Alex to be Samirah, no questions asked. Come on, Loki, you could do better.)

ZIA (with the help of @nejhiguyas on Tumblr) (she's egyptian herself and has made some cool posts about tkc):

- Okay so we know that not a lot about her is mentioned, but Zia is not really an Egytian name per se, but well, since it's a name we can't really do anything much.

- Coming to the second problem, as already stated, there is literally zero mention of her culture or if she's muslim or coptic. And yeah, just no content in general. We think all of us can improve on that and *do more research than Rick*.

- The only Egyptian character in a series about Egyptian mythology only being present for like 30% of the series, not including her shabti version, is very concerning. If you're gonna make her a main character, treat her like one.

- Not really a point about her herself, but her fictitious village, Makan al-Ramal al-Hamrah (translating to The Place of Red Sands) is also incorrectly named. By incorrect we mean that a "mysterious, long, formal Arabic name" is not how Egyptian place names work. It could work, and we quote @nejhiguyas "if it was called Raml Ahmar". It would have been more believable.

- We beg you, give her a personality. Not too much of the weird #NotLikeOtherGirls and #girlboss and "Intimidating Girl of Few Words" one, or even the "OMg HOw DarE bRittANY hIT oN MY bF I'M GONNA STOMP AND crY NOw aND jUSt bE ABUsive ANd toXIC". Don't you guys dare.

- #MakeZiaRelevantAgain2022

● CHINESE CHARACTERS (Frank Zhang, Emily Zhang, Grandma Zhang, Billie Ng)

- Billie Ng was never confirmed to be Chinese but was presumed to be Chinese because of her last name

- Her looking like a Kpop idol is Rick mixing up Asian cultures. Or even if that was not the point, her "lOoKinG lIkE a KpOp iDoL" does not automatically make her Korean.

- Anyone who has done a bare minimum of research will know that Chinese names use last names before first names. Frank's Chinese name is not Fai Zhang, it is Zhang Fai.

- Zhang is not pronounced like 'Zang'. The Zh is like a softer version of j. For more reference, it can be pronounced somewhat like J in bonjour. (We've probably said this like a billion times already but well, the incorrectly pronounced "amazhang" jokes still continue)

- The way his arc is represented with him becoming buffer and taller has some serious fatphobic implications. (And then having Hazel find him hotter) (At least he got back his older self in ToA, but still) (What was the point, Richard? Why can't the blessing of Ares be something about him finding his inner confidence or something)

- Him wishing that he had dyslexia and ADHD instead of lactose intolerance is in fact a little unsympathetic towards people who face actual problems due to them being neurodivergent. Yes, he said that because he felt "left out" but seriously, it's probably not great to compare it to lactose intolerance.

- Grandmother Zhang using Mandarin and Cantonese interchangeably is Rick mixing up Asian cultures again. What's new.

● NATIVE AMERICAN/INDIGENOUS CHARACTERS (Piper McLean, Tristan McLean, Thomas McLean)

- Native American people don't randomly wear feathers in their hair. Eagles are considered sacred and their feathers are used only by specific people who receive them from Elders or tribal leaders. These feathers are not worn casually and are only worn for ceremonial purposes. It is a great honour in their culture to receive a feather.

Instead of using a feather, try making her wear beadwork instead! (And guess what, it's traditional, so if you really want her to embrace her heritage, do this!) Like beadwork earrings and necklaces! They look really cool!

- Piper being a kleptomaniac is quite problematic. There is a stereotype of native people stealing things. It has led to many of them being assaulted, arrested and killed. Piper being #NotLikeOtherGirls has no use to the plot anyway, so please feel free to remove this.

- Sending her to a boarding school was extremely problematic because in North America, Europeans forced indigenous people into residential schools that were basically boarding schools run by churches and governments that took away their culture from them, and most of them never made it home.

- Just don't describe her features as food, like, just don't. Literally goes for every POC in existence. Don't sexualize her either. Just forget about the entire neckline scene in The Lost Hero. Please. It was disgusting and never to be mentioned again. It's not even about being POC there, she is literally a minor and talking about her "embarrassingly low neckline" and "curves" is disgusting.

- A popular pjo/mcga artist on Tumblr called soia-jpg (soia.jpg on Instagram) (their art is really good by the way, you should check it out) has made a wonderful post about how to draw/portray Piper, with the help of their native American friends. Their friends mention that Native Americans can have different eye colours and them being brown isn't necessary and it depends on the character. (Link to the post is attached in the comments>>>)

HOWEVER, Rick's reasoning behind Piper's eyes was Aphrodite which makes zero sense because 1) gods clearly do not have DNA, 2) no other children of Aphrodite has such features, and 3) Rick clearly had some trouble giving women of colour in his books plain brown eyes and non-eurocentric features.

For the DNA part, if you argue with the example of other characters and how "it was stated in the books that children of xyz god have abc eurocentric features", here's a reminder that while talking about Annabeth's casting, Becky Riordan herself stated that Annabeth doesn't need to be blonde to be Annabeth. And this can also apply to the fact that characters don't need to have a certain eye colour because it doesn't have any significance to the plot. Same with the hair.

- Try making her wear two proper braids (like, with all the hair. Not the Padawan braid things stated in canon. Can be messy or neat.). It's not a necessity, of course, it's just if you want to add a little more cultural touch to her. You can always make her have short/cropped/etc. hair as well. And on the topic of hair, please, we don't understand the obsession with giving them naturally weird (and probably eurocentric) hair colours. Just make them brown/black.

Why is there such a desire to give her weird red (natural, by the way, not dyed) hair? Even canon doesn't go that far, come on.

- Try writing about her reconnecting to her heritage (and not whatever Rick wrote about her).

Also, try to avoid putting her in "hipster" or "boho" clothes. If you want to make her look more Native, you can always take references from Native-owned businesses like SheNative, Eighth Generation, Beyond Buckskin etc.

- For all the drunk fics (that exist apparently), don't make Piper an alcoholic, since alcoholism is a very real issue in the Native communities.

- Please, refrain from giving Piper a cornucopia (a symbol of Thanksgiving) as a weapon.

- It's stated multiple times that Tristan McLean is from a reservation in Tahlequah, Oklahoma; however, there are no Cherokee (or any other) reservations in Oklahoma at all. Tahlequah actually has the Cherokee Nation Headquarters, which is a government base, not a living facility.

- Tristan as a movie actor was more willing to play a violent Middle Eastern Stereotype than play as a Native person which honestly says a lot in itself.

● JAPANESE CHARACTERS (Drew Tanaka, Ethan Nakamura, Alice Miyawaza)

- The above-mentioned characters have not been confirmed to be Japanese. Various blogs on Tumblr have headcanonned them to be Japanese based on their surnames. So if any of these are incorrect feel free to correct us. (Except for Drew, who is stated to be Japanese in canon)

- All characters who are Japanese are either underdeveloped or antagonistic. (Why are all Asian characters like this Rick? And don't argue with Frank, we all know what you guys do with the poor guy and what Rick did to him.)

- A little unrelated to the topic of being POC but here's why Drew was totally valid in her reasons to hate on Silena but Rick just wanted to antagonize her (probably because he was lazy), lowkey sexualise her character (as if Asian women aren't sexualized enough already) and slut-shame her for being feminine-presenting instead: Silena, the head counsellor of the Aphrodite Cabin, loved by the entire camp and her literal half-sister, was suddenly found to be the camp spy for a guy who was literally planning to end the world with the one and only Kronos and was only brought back to her senses after her boyfriend died. Yes, she redeemed herself in the end, and yes, she died for a good cause. But can you imagine how the entire camp must have felt about this? Percy was particularly aggressive about people who called her a traitor, so obviously Drew wasn't the only one thinking this. She was just voicing her (valid) opinions. She was also suddenly handed the role of being the head counsellor and had to maintain a persona that should be the opposite of Silena's to avoid any suspicion or accuses and could have also developed an inferiority complex because she knew she could never be like Silena, or have the camp love her just as much as they loved Silena, especially after what happened. So she started pushing away those things instead and started being cold and having a constant urge to assert her dominance (probably to feel validated).

Rick could have easily made her have a redemption arc but he chose not to anyway.

- There really isn't much more to say here. That's how little content we got from them.

● MIXED RACE/BIRACIAL CHARACTERS (Carter Kane, Sadie Kane)

Once again, thanks to imwastingmylifehere for the help

- Just because Sadie is white-passing does not mean she is white. She is still a biracial /mixed person. (By the way, this is only when you like to think of her as white-passing because she can also not be white-passing yet still be significantly lighter than Carter. It was never really expanded on in canon so this is up to the fan's interpretation of her)

- Same goes for Carter. He is also biracial.

- Rick may have written a lot of problematic things in his career, especially when it comes to POC and LGBTQ+ characters, however, some of the differences he stated between Sadie's experience as a lighter-skinned mixed-race girl and Carter's experience as a darker-skinned mixed race guy being siblings, are pretty accurate. (We're not saying they were a perfect portrayal, just comparatively better than the others. Also, everyone has different experiences so there can't really be an extremely accurate one anyway)

The fact that Sadie was the one who dressed in loud colours and clearly looked like someone who someone might note as a "potential troublemaker" while Carter presented himself as a literal junior professor to prevent any stereotypes was still constantly targeted by older white characters as a potential troublemaker despite being the exact opposite. Sadie and Carter were often faced with adults questioning whether they were real siblings because of the significant difference between skin tones and because Carter looked a little more like Julius than Sadie did, which is actually a problem faced by mixed-race people.

- Not to mention the Fausts who clearly had some blatant racism and colourism going on. They refused to accept their own grandson because he reminded them of his father, while they kept Sadie (who took more after Ruby) as a coping mechanism and constantly reminded her of how much they expected her to be exactly like Ruby, which caused Sadie herself to start comparing her to Ruby and have a lot of pent up anger at always being kept at an arm's distance from her father and brother, instead of showing her genuine affection for being herself.

● SPECIAL MENTIONS/OTHER STUFF

- Mrs. Chase (no, her name is NOT Helen. It was NEVER stated in canon. PJO fandom, stop giving her a white name challenge immediately failed.) is said to be of Asian descent (what type? No one knows. We might never know actually.) and is, once again, another POC parent who is absolutely useless and toxic.

Seriously, we genuinely want to know, is this what some of you non-Asians (or even just non-POC in general) think all Asian (or POC) parents are like?

There are only 4 confirmed Asian characters (like with their proper ethnicities and not just "asian") in the whole series and 1 of them is dead and the other is implied to be alive but never shown so everyone in the story just now assumes her dead (??). The other two hardly have proper characterization and one of them is literally hated on for being feminine by like, everyone. That isn't really great.

- As for Paolo Montes (credits to @gratiaverticordia on Tumblr for this one), that's not the standard spelling of the Portuguese cognate of the name Paul. It should technically be Paulo. It's also weird that he can understand English but only respond in his mother tongue when English is not very hard to learn and can be learnt in six months and most Brazilians have some exposure to it anyway since it is a national requirement in their school curriculum. And then, of course, we have Lester once again remarking about his physical attractiveness. (Shoutout to Cleo from TKC, by the way, for being a better represented Brazilian. Or maybe that's just because she was hardly in the books).

- There is no way in hell the Seven would ever go to the Carolinas (this is directed at the people who made them go to Carolinas in their fics). Reyna is brown, Hazel is black, Frank is Chinese. The Carolinas formed the Klan. They would not go there. There are probably a hundred sundown towns in those states.

- Being POC does not mean maturity. That's a harmful stereotype perpetrated by white people who expect us to be worthy of their respect. Hazel should not have been as mature as she was, Reyna was still 16 and should have seemed like it, Leo acted like a five-year-old which is another problem, and Alex acts like she was 20 (for Alex it's just in fanfictions at least).

And please, do not put every one of your female characters of colour in the Mom™ position. They are also teenagers like you and us (unless you're below 13 or above 18 reading this, which we know some of you are) and deserve to act like them sometimes. Yes, they have trauma but please it's not possible that all of them are in such a position and ALL of them happen to be WOC.

(thanks to imwastingmylifehere for pointing the last two out. Dude how many times have we tagged you already)

TL;DR do proper research, don't believe Rick Riordan to be the king of representation, don't be afraid to ask questions as long as they aren't stupid/offensive, apologize if you get something wrong and most importantly, LISTEN TO WHAT THE PEOPLE OF COLOUR HAVE TO SAY.

Oh, and one more thing, if you even dare throw a fit because the characters in the PJO show were not how you envisioned them (white, or having eurocentric features because it was "iN tHe bOoK" despite having zero significance to the plot) then please leave.

EDIT: this authors' note is now especially important with Annabeth as a black girl and Grover as desi in the show. If any of you, and we mean ANY OF YOU, even DARE to post ANY negativity regarding their race you can leave and never come back to grace us with your presence again.

Thank you for coming to our Ted Talk.

Sources used and other cool links you should check out: (check the comment section for links)>>>>

Authors' note (the last one for today, we promise): uhh so we're doing 45 chapters (plus the final note) instead of 44 now 👍