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#riordan critical
nicosavior456 · 4 months
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If Rick decides to give Athena kids even though she’s a virgin goddess and justify it with them being brain kids, then we deserve to have Hera, Hestia, and Artemis to have kids as well
Hell throw in Persephone and Amphitrite as well
Just Imagine Reyna or Jason being children of Hera
Leo being a son of Hestia
Frank being a son of Artemis.
Hazel being a daughter of Persephone.
@pjo-hoo-toa-freakazoid @hotpotrandomfics @hazellevesquelover @heroes-of-olympus-next-gen @takaraphoenix @jollyholidayswithmaryandjane @overanalyzer
@yonemurishiroku @chairmenmeow
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takaraphoenix · 4 months
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I have incredibly mixed feelings on how much I enjoy the way the show writes Percy and his perception of the world.
Because episode 3 and the way they handled Medusa proved that it's all lip-service and there won't be an actual change. And that is going to be devastating.
Percy's perception of the gods and of what is going on, his anger - and the way he articulates that anger - feel so real, so refreshing and so reasonable.
This show perfectly sets up a better version of Percy Jackson. One where Percy actually rebels against the gods. Every single thing he says makes him sound like the future leader of the Demigod Rebellion. But they wouldn't stray this damn far from canon, so we get to hear Percy say all these things... just to end up defending the status quo, and that's going to feel even more unrewarding than it did in the books now.
Because the thing is, and I've had this thought on my mind for a couple of days when I came across a post comparing Percy Jackson and Harry Potter in a "JKR sucks and there are so many more superior children's book series out there" manner - which, in itself, is very true, and I do think PJO is a good book series and there are many things about it that I love. However, inexplicably, the OP of that post managed to pick the one angle in which PJO and HP are the exact same thing actually, but they still claimed PJO did something that HP didn't. That Harry fell back and defended a shitty system while Percy rebelled.
Percy Jackson in the books did not in fact rebel. He fell in line and he spent the entire damn series defending the shitty system. In-universe, the author explains this away with Percy's fatal flaw and him defending his friends and 'not the gods'. But that doesn't change that he ends up defending the gods and working on keeping them in power.
And the sequel series serves as a proof of that point. Because absolutely nothing changed. The children are still cannon fodder in the war of the gods. And still, the children fight for the gods, die for the gods.
Someone, some people in this fandom really deluded themselves into thinking of Percy Jackson as a great rebel against the gods, just because he... snarks at them and sasses them. But in the greater scheme of things, he always does what the gods want, he always saves their asses, he does not rebel or rise against them, he does not break down an oppressive system.
If this series were about actually rebelling against the oppressive force and breaking the broken system, then Percy Jackson would be part of the rebel army. Then he would be fighting against the gods.
But even the notion of "actually, these children who are rising against the gods who used and abused and neglected them all their lives might... have a... point" is stomped down with the fact that no actually Luke was influenced and corrupted by Kronos' force!!
In the version of Percy Jackson where it's about rebellion, Luke would not have been influenced by Kronos, because damn his mother's insanity caused by his father, his own homelessness, Thalia's death, the scarring he received during an entirely unnecessary quest in the name of his father, and literally every single demigod he has seen suffer and die because of the whims of the gods would have been motivation enough to start a rebel army against the gods.
And in that version about rebellion, Percy's friendship with Luke, and Annabeth's friendship with Luke, and Grover's ties to Luke from having been his satyr partner too, paired with all of the personal suffering endured by them all, would have lead to the Golden Trio joining that rebellion.
And we would have seen demigods rise up against the gods and, as in Greek mythology where the titans rose and took over from Uranus and Gaia and then the gods rose and took over from the titans, the next generation would have come into power, and actually changed the system.
But none of that happened. What happens is that children die, so the gods can stay in power because ~Kronos~ is actually behind the rebellion and hey, now the gods have to claim their kids and we will build more cabins and that's totally change, right? ...Right?
No. Because the kids are still cannon fodder. And the gods still don't give a damn about them, as proven by Hera just memory-wiping the greatest heroes and playing with them like dolls in the sequel, where the gods don't even have the basic respect for the heroes to... simply sit them down and tell them what the hell is going on.
And! That's not even necessarily a criticism of the books! Plenty of books are about keeping the status quo, especially children's books, especially books written by middle-aged white men. A broad variety of stories have a right to exist. This is a criticism of people who look at the books and pretend that they are about something they are not.
And this is a statement of personal disappointment in how much the show is setting up a potential to be something more, while I know very well it will never deliver on that.
The show is giving Percy so many good lines about what is wrong about this system, about the way the world works, is giving him so many doubts about it.
Just like it gave him doubts about monsters. And then it allowed Medusa her speech about being a victim. but never mind, she still asked something bad of Percy, so it's okay to behead her, because at the very core of this series... it's still about keeping the status quo.
The gods are in charge. The monsters get killed.
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stupidsexpotflanders · 10 months
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A meta on self-worth issues
Maybe it's just me,but Percy Jackson never seemed to be someone with a consistent low self-esteem problem. While he does have his "down on himself" moments,Percy doesn't seem to struggle much with that kind of negative thoughts and it doesn't cause much of a problem in his life(nor we see him doing much of an effort to control said thoughts). And it becomes glaring whenever I remember Leo,Luke and Nico.
Leo's POV shows consistent thoughts of worthlessness,Nico has self-preservation issues(namely,the lack of it),Luke's acidic envy towards Percy and need for validation. Percy had none of that,a moment where self-doubt got in the way of him getting shit done,nor some sort of "conditional self-worth". In fact,Percy's "self-consciousness" is kinda cute,as it makes him look humble and endearingly self-deprecating.
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irisviel101 · 2 years
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This isn't meant to be an anti-Percy post; rather, it's more Riordan critical.
Honestly, Percy is overpowered. I usually don't have a problem with overpowered characters if there's a reason for them to be overpowered, like gods, titans, someone who's been training for an unreasonably long time etc.
But the problem with Percy is that he doesn't fall into any of those categories.
This kid, without any training, without even having been in combat before, managed to kill a Fury. Then, he killed a Minotaur also without any training. Both of this is when he's twelve and both times, he does it without help — Chiron gives him a sword but he doesn't help him fight.
Then, he manages to defeat Luke, the best swordsman in CHB for a long time, also without any training. Granted, this one gets a bit of a pass since Percy was soaked, which enhances his powers — even if the explanation is a huge stretch.
Then, Percy manages to defeat Ares — an actual GOD — when he's only been training for a few months (or maybe not even that much) at most, just because he's near water. You can't defeat a war god, someone who should be able to flatten you with a wave of his finger, with just a wave.
And this is just the first book. I get that the children of the Big Three are supposed to be more powerful than the average demigod, but this is ridiculous. We've seen several other children of the Big Three but somehow only Percy is that powerful.
Hazel mistaking him for a god annoyed me, ngl. It had no purpose at all, aside from being another reason to show how ridiculously overpowered and overrate Percy is in-universe. By the time the events of HoO come around, Percy should be powerful, but not that powerful. It should take centuries for him to reach the power of a god. Especially since Percy doesn't train all the time; he doesn't even stay at camp the whole time. There's no reason for him to be this powerful. The explanation of "natural instincts" and "innate ability" can only be stretched so far before it becomes an excuse.
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wettestwraith · 2 years
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I remember coming across a post that talked about how great of a write Rick Riordan was and one of the points it listed was that he represented arranged marriages as a good thing??? Anyways this is why I sometimes hate the fandom
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moompl · 4 months
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I absolutely love the new Percy Jackson show and everything but gods will I forever have a bone to pick with Rick for the way he made tons of people think Ares is a shit dad.
No, Ares freaking loves his kids, he cares for them in ways that were looked down upon.
Like that is one of the few things we actually see (consistently) in his myths, which there aren’t a lot, and it’s that he actually cares a lot about his kids. He cries when they die, he wants revenge against their killers, he is protective of them.
I was hoping the new writing team would do some more research, but they have just double down-ed on this, which I guess makes sense given how Ares is seen in modern culture, but gods does it hurt to see. No hate to the actor by the way, he did an incredible job with what he was given.
TL;DR: I hate how modern media presents Ares as an uncaring father, something that goes against one of his few mythological traits.
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thaliasthunder · 1 year
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the boy everyone ran scared from turned out to be the inspiration of many i am breaking down on the floor
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wisebeth · 1 year
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i knew percy jackson was superior to harry potter when both series introduced a love triangle in the last second book to cause angst between the main pairing and how both authors handled it so differently.
we had jkr, who turned lavender into a joke and mocked her interests and whole character, looked down upon her for being a teenager with a crush just to uplift hermione as the better love interest for ron and handled the whole triangle with very obvious misogynistic undertones to show why hermione is superior to the other woman™.
and then we had rick, who treated rachel with respect and gave her a likable personality and goals and interests of her own, had percy and rachel develop a genuine friendship and even gave rachel some iconic moments to shine on her own, never bashed rachel to uplift annabeth and most importantly concluded the love triangle with annabeth and rachel becoming friends and letting go of their past beef.
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autism-alley · 3 months
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look obviously i don’t know the guy but i feel like 2009 rick riordan would fist fight 2024 rick riordan
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One of things that really turned me off of the pjo world among lots of other things was that all the titans and primordials were portrayed as purely evil with no nuance or variety in morality. In the books, even Iapetus, who is labelled a "good" titan, was pretty much brainwashed into being benevolent.
Nyx was such a loving and devoted mother in mythology that she scared off Zeus when he tried to harm her son Hypnos. Prometheus went through excruciating pain on a daily basis just for humanity to have light and heat. Leto was described as kind and gentle and was the titan goddess of motherhood. Phoebe gave Apollo, her grandson, the oracle of Delphi as a gift. Oceanus, in some myths, helped Zeus overthrow Kronos by giving him a potion that would induce vomiting and release his siblings and he and Tethys pretty much raised Hera during the titanomachy. Helios was a loving father to Circe and all his kids and even saved her when a giant attacked her island. Etc, etc.
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obsidianstrawberrymilk · 10 months
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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
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nicosavior456 · 3 months
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Riordanverse Controversial Opinon:
I don’t think other demigods will ever have any children or only like 1 or 2 kids since they were traumatized by the Titan and Giant Wars. They will not feel comfortable with bringing children into a world of gods and monsters, plus do you all really want Riordan to take the Boruto route.
They most likely to adopt other demigods and give them families that they never have in their youth.
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takaraphoenix · 1 year
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No, actually, I’ll not just be generally vaguely upset about the framework that pisses me off, I will also be specifically pissed off about the way he’s trying to pat himself on the back and rewrite history.
So having a gay character be brave by coming out and that bravery be an inspiration to other queer characters so they can be brave and come out too is something that comes off poor on its own already - because of the shallow framework that our existence alone is already oh-so brave of us and that others wouldn’t have dared come out if not for Major Queer Character who did it first.
But there is something particularly twisted and nasty about Riordan using this for Nico di Angelo, actually.
Because Nico di Angelo didn’t come out.
Nico di Angelo didn’t get to be brave or inspirational.
Nico di Angelo was forced out of the closet.
Nico di Angelo was outed against his will, in front of others.
Eros forced Nico to come out in front of Jason.
And, quite frankly, the way it was handled further was just as poor. To make this repressed teen from the 1930s, who up until mere days ago was dealing with severe internalized homophobia and couldn’t even admit his own feelings to himself, confess his crush in public, in the middle of camp...
Both of these events really just showed that Riordan is a straight man who doesn’t know this, and didn’t do his research beforehand.
And people just love giving Riordan the benefit of the doubt. Love giving him a pass and clapping him on the shoulder for the inclusion and for trying. And you know what! Yeah, I do love that he includes the gays. I do not think he should get excused for handling representation like shit though.
And this? This is in his newest book? You should think authors grow. Best selling authors should do more research. Get consultants. Stuff like that.
Instead, we’re going back and rewriting history. That forced coming out? Now a moment of bravery and inspiration for others!! Look how great and amazing that is!
Nico di Angelo didn’t get to choose that he was ready to come out, it wasn’t a moment of bravery. Not the kind of bravery that it takes when you are ready to face your personal truth and willingly take the step to own it. It was a moment of fear and desperation. And it was the bravery to face that fear and desperation.
And it really makes me sick to now learn that we’re looking back at it and pretending otherwise, in-universe.
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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.
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spacehero-23 · 4 months
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they're already looking at each other like that now imagine the "no one touches her" scene
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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:
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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?
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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.
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