Originally published: November 2017

Hola, amigos. Welcome to another shit show on this orange hellsite.

(If you can't tell, I'm especially salty today).

So, this is gonna be kinda long and winding and really critical of the series itself (not of the fandom). If you get offended over that kind of thing, please just skip to the next chapter. I'm not trying to insult Rick or the fandom with this rant. I wouldn't be the person I am today without Rick and his books. He's influenced me immensely.

But that doesn't mean he's flawless. That doesn't mean he cannot be subject to criticism.

Anywho, I was taking a little stroll through the PJO side of tumblr the other day, as one does, and I started to realize how many little things about the series could've been so much better. Most of it is criticism of HoO and after, not the first series. It's stuff that Rick kind of messed up, but I can't tackle in a full chapter because they're pretty self-explanatory. So I decided to make a list!

1. Frank and Hazel are literally forgotten about after Son of Neptune. They are swept to the side to make room for Percy, Annabeth, etc., which is kind of harmful? Like here are these two realistic kids, both people of color with very interesting backstories, and they're sidelined for characters we've already had a whole series about. Idk just give Percy a break and let other people take the spotlight for once.

2. PERCY IS NOT A SWEET PERSON. He has an extreme temper, is entirely sarcastic and cynical, and tends to berate people in his head. I say this because the fandom tends to portray him as this beautifully loyal person, and of course this is confirmed by the whole "fatal flaw is loyalty" thing. Which is complete and utter BS, if you ask me. Loyalty is not a fatal flaw. It does not control your life or continuously screw you over. Yeah, so he'd sacrifice the world for Annabeth. I'm sure many dramatic teenagers would say the same thing about their boyfriends/girlfriends/significant others. That's not loyalty, that's just impulsive love. But you know what Percy's fatal flaw could be? I'm not gonna say - I'll just give you this text post I found on tumblr because honestly it's gold:

(via reynaisalesbian on tumblr)

3. As much as I love Calypso now, Caleo is extremely forced. Rick should've kept them platonic, showing that Calypso can survive without a man to fall in love with and Leo can be a hero without a love interest. How amazing would that have been? But nope, instead we get them running around like an effing married couple, with Leo calling her "mamacita", which is honestly gross. That's something people say when they're catcalling women off the streets, not something a devoted boyfriend would say :I (But then again, it's Leo, what more can you expect...)

4. Rick says all the characters have dyslexia and ADHD but there's not really any signs of it. Aside from Leo and his fidgeting, it feels like the books just say that for *representation*. Commonly, dyslexic kids have trouble with rhymes and remembering them. But somehow every character is able to remember every prophecy after only hearing it once?? I've read these books so many times and I don't even have all the prophecies memorized. It's just really unrealistic and not very good rep (but I know that, still, it helps dyslexic readers and readers with ADHD feel represented, especially kids, so I guess it's not that harmful??)

5. The only WLW rep are two minor characters in The Dark Prophecy and somehow fans still claim Rick is The King of Diversity. Let me be honest: he's not. Somehow he won a Stonewall award (an award for books showing the experience of the LGBT+ community), yet he doesn't have a canon lesbian main character. Sure, he's better than some authors *cough* SARAH J. MAAS *cough*, but he can always improve.

6. Furthermore, the fandom puts Rick on a pedestal. They act like he can't do any wrong and there's nothing he could be doing better, which is a blatant lie no matter how you look at it. Nobody is perfect. Rick's books could be a million times better. Anybody's books could be better. Constructive criticism is h e a l t h y.

7. Speaking of healthy, lets talk about Percabeth. I love Percabeth - always have, always will. They were one of my first OTPs, alongside Bracken and Kendra from Fablehaven and Silver and Blaze from Sonic the Hedgehog (this was in elementary school, mind you). But towards the end of HoO I started to pull away from them. They became less Percy and Annabeth - the witty, bantering, loyal best friends who fell in love - and just Percabeth. They say in Heroes of Olympus how they simply cannot live without each other, which is pretty normal for relationships (from what I've seen), but then it starts to progress into the degradation of their individual characters. They don't grow as people, they grow as a ship. They're one entity. Like a fusion from Steven Universe.

Anyway, I really would like to see more of Percy WITHOUT Annabeth and vice versa. I'm not saying I want them to break up, but what made their relationship so ship-able in the first place was the way their personalities and character balanced each other out... not the combination of their personalities.

8. WHAT THE HELL IS JERCY AND WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO GROVER?! Jason and Percy had no chemistry whatsoever, and then suddenly they were best friends by the end of Mark of Athena. It makes no sense. Hey, Percy, what about Grover, THE GUY YOU LITERALLY SHARE AN EMPATHY LINK WITH? I'm sorry, but I'd pick my telepathic life-long best friend over some pasty white boy any day. (I'm just kidding, I love Jason, but still...)

9. Nobody, not even Rick, really, truly cares about The Kane Chronicles, which makes me extremely sad because it is easily one of Rick's best series. I adore Sadie, Carter, Zia, Walt/Anubis, and the magicians of Brooklyn House. The world-building is fascinating and creative, I love the gods and the way they work, and let's face it, Egyptian mythology is just really really cool. Plus, 3 out of the 5 main characters are people of color, and that's not something you usually see in middle grade fantasy fiction. But nah let's just sideline it for Magnus Chase, because everybody wants another sarcastic white boy. (I've been hating a lot on white boys today, but I don't actually mean it, not completely. The fact of the matter is, I'm white and straight and I have literally nothing against white boys I JUST WANT DIVERSITY)

10. I hate the pop culture references in the later books. One, most of them don't fit according to the time line. Example: in The Dark Prophecy, Apollo mentions that Calypso is humming a song from Beyonce's Lemonade. That album was released in 2016. TDP takes place in and around 2011-2012. As Oprah would say, WHAT IS THE TRUTH?

Second, most of these references aren't going to be relevant in a few years anyway. It was okay in PJO, when the references were to timeless things and were few and far between regardless, but in TOA, they're everywhere. And they're not going to make sense to kids who read them years from now.

(Speaking of years, I just remembered that TLT turned 12 this year. I didn't realize it was so old. I'm like a fandom grandma now...)

So yeah, that's it. I'm gonna limit it to ten things for now. I'm really sorry that this was so long and rambling, I'm just really salty and I had to get it out.

Please vote and comment your opinions!! I love hearing what people have to say even if we don't agree (as long as you're not racist, homophobic, et cetera...)

Thanks for 10.9k reads, guys. Y'all made my childhood dreams of running a somewhat successful fandom rant book come true. :)

Stay positive, everyone.