I swear the amount of AU I want to write will never stop atp.
At some point I want to write a sports centric PJO au or something.
Idk but I like the idea of like hockey player Percy or like Basketball player Percy. It probably wouldn’t be one of those aus where every mentioned character is playing hockey but characters that feel appropriate probably idk.
Just an idea I wanna put in the vault cuz even though I have Percy playing football in my weird superhero demigod AU sports won’t be the main focus of it, it probably more a of a thing that’ll be mentioned a few times just because of the fact that the high school slice of life stuff is not gonna last long at all lol.
The first chapter of my Spiderman au has FINALLY dropped lol.
I was really excited to finally drop this today.
P.S. If you look in the tags, you may see some original characters. For example Maverick Barr is simply one of the original characters in this AU (which you may connect to Mav from my other series (https://archiveofourown.org/series/4431706) specifically this story here (https://archiveofourown.org/works/60093658) As Mav is supposed to be a main character going forward in that AU so I decided to bring him over to this AU in future chapters)
So yeah, uh hope yall enjoy
Fandom: God there’s like NO content anymore. I wish we could get more art and fanfics :(((
Someone: Hey, I can’t draw anything digitally, because I can’t afford a tablet, but here’s a pen on paper drawing that I spent a lot of time and hard work on. Also, I took a shot at my first fanfic and I’d really like some feedback or at least some kudos if you enjoyed it :)
Fandom: Oh... yeah sorry no... not you. We actually meant writers that are already well known and popular to produce MORE content... I mean, if a popular blog shares your work then maybe. And we don’t really like pen to paper art. We just don’t think it’s professional or even looks good :/
I was thinking and I really wanted Luke to be the son of a minor god and so I decided to make him the son of Aristaeus. Luke actually has quite a few powers along with his swordsmanship. He can talk to sheeps, grow plants naturally but is more proficient in medical plants, and he can control wind (stronger in the summer) but not as Zeus or wind spirit kids can but still pretty good at it.
I think I wanted to make him the child of a minor god to further push the point of minor god kids being neglected, especially in this setting where a lot of poor people were different types of slaves. He was a commoner until he was taken to camp half blood where then he was taken on quests. On one dangerous quest he was the only one who came back alive (and where he gained his scar). He ended up being ridiculed and pitied by some of the other older campers and they began saying how they shouldn’t have chosen “lower minor god scum” to lead a mission.
So yeah children of minor gods weren’t all that respected in CHB (if you by any chance get claimed that is) and unclaimed campers were pretty much in the same boat.
After his failed quest, he began hearing Kronos talking to him and eventually fell in his clutches.
(Just thought of this but he still has his history with Thalia and Annabeth, his history with Percy is going to be more extensive though and I do want to explore that.)
After Percy follows the prophecy, gets attacked, and taken to CHB he meets Luke and they grow attached to each other until Percy finally goes on his quest. Sometime after Percy’s quest succeeds he puts his action into place and try’s to recruit (and then kill) Percy.
Luke I feel like is actually going to be the most similar but different character at the same time besides Percy in terms of his character and how I want it to progress so I’m really excited for when I start writing it.
What do you think Ares/Mars was talking about in SoN when he told frank to stop percy from acting on his fatal flaw??
anon, i love talking abt loyalty as a flaw
so, disclaimer: the “percy needs to learn to step back/let other ppl be the hero” narrative sucks. this was rick’s intention, but it sucks. the way rick set up the initial conflict is his main problem and why this foreshadowing fell flat.
here’s what mars said:
cool story, but…this isn’t a flaw percy has. at least, not the way it’s used. rick doesn’t establish any character of the seven to be willing to ignore one of their friends if they’re in danger, so there’s no way to make that a unique conflict (altho this would be a viable option if the other characters were rewritten). that leaves what rick wrote, which is percy not wanting to let the lost trio fight gaea alone, and that…doesn’t work without bastardizing pjo.
we’ll get back to that.
here's the big scene:
which. lmao. lmfao even.
and here’s the scene in boo where rick tries to spell out what the problem is for ~foreshadowing~ :
this doesn't work. rick tries to conflate “i don’t run when my friends need me” w “being unable to step away” or allow someone else to be the hero. those are not the same thing! percy’s whole thing in the previous series is that he isn’t the hero! he knows this. it's one of the most obvious themes in the previous series. which is part of what i mean by bastardizing pjo, but it's not all. again, we'll get back to that.
percy doesn’t ignore cries for help, but that’s not the same as being unable to step back.
and, going back to what i first said, name one character who would be like yeah! i’ll pack it all up w my gf! the closest any character gets to this is piper, but that’s a tangent i won’t go on bc it’s not done well enough for it to be worth adding tension. the point is this isn't a trait any character is established to have, including frank, who is the one chastising percy! it doesn’t make sense for percy’s character anyway bc he’s loyal to more than just annabeth (shocking, i know), so this wouldn’t be a good ending for him regardless. he’s not actually being offered something he wants.
the scene percy references w juno actually does a better job of highlighting the conflict w percy’s loyalty: either percy can run to the sea—where “no monster would bother [him]. [he] could begin a new life, live to a ripe old age, and escape a great deal of pain and misery”—or he could go to camp jupiter where pain and misery awaits him. and percy genuinely considers his options. if percy can't give his friends up for anything, what does that mean for him?
bc it’s percy’s freedom that’s at odds w his loyalty. his loyalty is not controlling or possessive of other ppl. which brings me back to bastardizing pjo.
an important, but more subtle, theme throughout all of pjo is autonomy (it goes hand-in-hand w the constant theme of yielding, which again i talk abt here). this theme is especially important bc pjo is abt disability (that’s why all of the demigods are disabled). one of the first things ppl try to take away from u when ur disabled is ur autonomy. the fact that percy vehemently defends it not just for himself but for others is essential to the narrative. it's why he's the leader, it's why he's the protagonist, it's why there is a callback to it in every pjo book. trying to act like he wouldn't respect someone's autonomy and would try to shoehorn his way into their fight and need to be chastised into respecting their autonomy in a heavily foreshadowed moment that is supposed to be the penultimate conflict of percy's character is a bastardization of this entire theme.
this conflict doesn’t work.
(percy art cred)
anyway. let’s keep the concept but make it actually work for percy’s character. i already talked abt percy's freedom vs loyalty, but another good place to start is w how percy becomes loyal to someone. there’s two main ways.
the first is empathy. if percy empathizes w someone, he’s loyal to them. percy can empathize w almost anyone, including but not limited to clarisse, the girl who bullied him, polyphemus, a cyclops that tried to kill him and his friends, and luke, someone who betrayed him.
this loyalty means that percy will defend them (even if it means fighting w someone else he’s loyal to eg tyson and annabeth), have a difficult time fighting them (especially in regards to harming them eg polyphemus), and consider their feelings in his plans (which is why he’s a good mediator, but it also causes indecision and infighting eg point one). this is already good set up for conflict for self-explanatory reasons, but i’ll give some elaboration later.
the second is kindness. if someone is kind to him, percy is loyal to them. there’s many examples of this, but i think the best is quintus.
percy feels bad abt being suspicious—despite having plenty of reasons to be (the similarities to luke as he says here, the fact that juniper says quintus was poking around the labyrinth, etc)—bc quintus was being kind to him. and if that wasn’t enough, percy says that he won’t use the whistle quintus gives him, but later makes an entire escape plan revolving around it.
percy tries to override his loyalty w reason and it literally doesn’t work (it goes hand-in-hand w percy being unable to see betrayal, even when it’s spelled out). if quintus had ulterior motives, percy would’ve been fucked.
side note, something i find interesting abt this is that percy is aware enough that he doesn't tell other ppl abt the whistle. it's like suspecting/trusting quintus is something shameful percy is trying to hide, which is interesting to think abt for potential conflict bc nobody can help percy if he doesn't tell them anything.
another pertinent example is percy’s first interactions w frank. percy takes frank helping him against the gorgons as an act of kindness and, bc of that, percy assumes the best of frank:
the thing is, percy is wrong abt frank.
frank wasn’t thinking of percy when he pocketed those vials. and if percy hadn’t seen frank pocket the vials, would frank have even told percy they existed?
this is a great example of how to use different povs to build tension,—hoo does not use this well or often despite having nine povs—but it could also be used as a red herring for percy’s loyalty. in this case, percy’s optimistic perspective inspired frank. percy’s loyalty doesn’t come off as a threat, so when the reverse happens, ie percy’s optimism fucks him over, it comes as a surprise despite being foreshadowed.
essentially, there’s a lot of room for conflict. percy’s loyalty includes a wide breadth of ppl and can grow very quickly, which leaves a lot of room for contradicting needs. the person percy chooses isn’t a given. the answer is not annabeth (like hoo keeps insisting it is). even in tlt, when percy has to leave his mother behind, it’s a difficult choice for him. he described his heart as “being ripped in two” bc everyone in the situation had his loyalty, his mother, grover, annabeth, even his father. ultimately, the deciding factor was what he thought his mother would want him to do (which is interesting bc it’s not what sally would do given her reaction to percy in tlo, but bc sally is kind and selfless towards percy, he thinks she’s universally kind and selfless. *points to the section on kindness* another side effect of this). and it’s also bolstered by the fact that percy knows he can get sally back. he’s not losing her forever, he’s losing her for right now.
so what happens when the stakes are higher? what happens when percy isn’t sure which side he’s on? nico says percy is dangerous to his enemies. what makes someone percy’s enemy? let’s use this, let’s make this conflict bigger, let’s encase the narrative in it.
really easy ways to do this include grover and/or calypso. the series is based on fighting gaea, mother earth, and grover is a satyr who is named lord of the wild by pan right before pan fades. furthermore, percy and grover have a soul bond that’s in part bc of percy’s own connection to nature. and even more than that, nature spirits were among the highest casualties in the previous war. that’s a series of wild connections to have unexplored in the series.
also, gaea has a vested interest in percy. she kills one of her own men to save percy's life, she tries to kidnap him twice, juno says part of the reason she puts percy in a coma is bc it would've been too difficult to hide him from gaea's forces otherwise, and the reason is...so that percy can have a bloody nose? ok.
w calypso, rick writes this entire plotline where she’s still trapped on her island (for some reason), but this is only relevant so that leo can get a gf. how abt gaea gets her off the island and she fights for gaea? what then? what does percy do? how do calypso’s motivations change how percy sees the other side?
these are sacrifices percy wouldn’t want to make. he doesn’t want to kill either of these ppl, so what would he do instead? what does that mean for everyone else?
another option is a cry for help. while percy’s loyalty has never manifested as is refusing to let someone make decisions for themselves—even if that includes self sacrifice—percy does stick up for the underdogs.
a perfect example of foreshadowing using this flaw could’ve been the creatures in phorcy’s aquarium. instead, some random fish-centaurs solve the problem. boo! lame! where is percy’s inner torment as he tries to juggle his responsibilities w his feelings! where is percy tearing the group apart as he tries to fix a problem no one else cares abt! there is a ship full of ppl who are supposed to believe in the greater good, where is the conflict as percy fights for the common man!!
like,
what an interesting thing to say in a story that has a prophecy w the line "an oath to keep w a final breath." too bad this means nothing.
(also these quotes, for good measure
percy swearing to protect hazel and frank from the gods and percy swearing on his life bc he has that much faith in annabeth, someone he's loyal to, despite knowing almost nothing abt the other ppl on the quest or how they're arriving. interesting. good thing rick doesn't explore this. <- sarcasm btw)
this would be a perfect way to introduce a sacrifice percy wouldn’t be able to make. just like w percy jeopardizing his mission in tlo by warning the kids on the boat and making it harder on himself by trying to incapacitate but not kill other demigods. he almost dies to ethan bc he doesn’t kill ethan at any of the opportunities he’s given! despite ethan chastising him for it! this is already an established flaw percy has, and the only reason it hasn’t bit him in the ass is bc it’s a red herring in pjo.
and again (bc i have personal beef w this scene), the whole nico-in-a-jar thing. while percy vows to save nico, he doesn't say anything when leo and jason argue against it. percy ripped hera a new one for excluding nico, and nico wasn’t even in danger at the time. why is percy so calm abt jason and leo talking abt leaving nico to die?! this is exactly the sort of situation percy loses his cool abt and starts yelling and getting himself in trouble. why is he calm??? where is his anger????? it really should’ve come down to “we’re saving nico with or without y’all” in a true showing of tearing the group apart.
how many traps is percy willing to walk into bc someone needs help? how much can he jeopardize the quest before someone else has to intervene? when does loyalty cross the line from something admirable into a flaw?
ofc all of these potential conflicts would hold more weight if percy was in character and written as the glue of the argo ii. these moments happen at the beginning of their quest, when they’re supposed to be bonding and building trust. what happens when ur mediator loses their cool? nothing good!
similarly, there should’ve been way more internal fighting on the argo ii, especially after percy fell into tartarus. i want the blame game, the instability over nico (and what having 8 people for a 7 person quest means), the greek vs roman, lack of sleep, stress, guilt, all of it to come to a head and jeopardize the entire quest. if the greeks and romans had to be separated bc it was too dangerous for them to be together, i want to see why. i want to know why juno thought it was so important that percy be the glue. i want to foreshadow why percy making the wrong choice can tear the world apart. it also helps frank and hazel’s plotlines, as well, bc their stepping up feels more important and has a bigger pay off.
as it's written, there's barely any conflict, frank feels comfortable confiding in annabeth for no reason, the girls are all friends bc #girl power, there's random love triangles everywhere, annabeth and jason are said to have a rivalry but never actually shown to have one, and the biggest fight is when percy and jason are possessed.
this complete lack of foreshadowing amalgamates in boo’s failure. rick failed to use percy’s actual flaws to establish the threat of this choice but still needed the conflict, so percy has to be out of character and the conflict has to be contrived.
I’ve always wanted to write atleast one historical pjo au and lowkey I want to write maybe like a WW2 Au.
Would they be demigods? Probably. Why? Because it makes things more interesting lol. Double the trauma. World War 2 is probably one of the wars I have the most information on. It would probably go from the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the bombings and then maybe a few chapters of the aftermath.
Also the Roman v Greek thing would be cool (atleast I think they fought in ww2 I forgot it was either ww2 or civil war).
Honestly I wish I could just think of something and it would just apparently on the paper fully written lol. There also aren’t a lot of ww2 historical aus.
Now the big question is: Should I write this?
Yeah thats kinda the post, if i ever write Monsterous or Eldritch Percy I dont think I'd make him a full on monster nor would I have Annabeth break up with him (in a hypothetical post tartarus type thing) for wanting to explore his powers. She'd be scared of course but not of him more of for him. She'd probably more want to safely encourage it with restraints rather than just let him do whatever ngl.
Also thinking about a possible Monsterous/Eldritch Percy to just be a camp hopper which might happen with my (kinda) god swap AU. As I think Percy's 2nd godly parent if i ever give him one would be Dionysus or Hephaestus and they both give off like creepy type traits.
Dionysus with the god of madness thing and Hephaestus more so with his kids in Greek mythology.
He'd definitely be more creepy and ancient but maybe not like Mycenaean type I'm thinking. He's just a silly little guy at first glance and then all of a sudden you look him in the eyes and you can see pure chaos behind them. You can see the burning and flooding of cities in his eyes and you don't even realize it and it just unnerves you.
Also throwing around the idea of him just being a camp hopper. Maybe after an incident he went to camp fish blood after his more monsterous side started showing and eventually ended up at camp jupiter and then at camp half blood (but i do feel like his journey would have to start way eariler to fit all that ngl).
I'm also debating if I want to do a mix of PJO and HOO in terms of plot because like realistically I don't think I'd be committed enough to write all that. Maybe like Kronos is rising with the help of Gaea but maybe Gaea betrays Kronos in favor of her giant children?? I've been thinking about it lol and I'm not sure. Maybe Gaea has a disdain to Kronos because he hasn't really changed. He's still keeping people trapped and still trying to break the cycle of succession, he's trying to regress but she cant have that, she has to build new successors, she has to make children and naturally go through the cycle of succession.
So she intervenes in demigods lives. She's been slowly getting gods on her side, using them to make perfect soldiers (one of these being Percy Jackson??).
I can't think of a more in depth motivation for her ngl. The story would start maybe a year before the final battle of the prophecy. (Thinking of having to prophecy play out for them when Percy turns 18 and not 16 just so I can do more, maybe 16 they had what they thought was the climatic battle and it wasn't, I dunno).
Because I really like the idea of Gaea being a villain but the execution in HOO was kinda horrible not gonna lie.
So yeah, a buncha yap lol
An AU where Percy falls into Tartarus alone (Percy and Nico parallels would go crazy for this ngl) but when he gets there like its actually sort of a system there.
There's like (very few) demigods, and like actual gods there (original gods though probably) and like beings that are apart of two different pantheons and just like beings too dangerous or demigods too dangerous and the gods just chucked them in there.
And if I wanted to take it a step further maybe demigods like Michael Yew and Ethan Nakamura who fell from the bridge and olympus respectfully ended up falling into tartarus (and somehow didn't die for plot reasons) or like maybe even Luke was sent there after his death because the gods def didn't want his reincarnated soul running around.
And so Percy's just traveling around there while he's down there and meeting all these people (some of which were just punished by existing) and not to mention the natural exploration of his powers.
But I wouldn't want it to be like an edgy, op, Annabeth breaks up with Percy type thing nothing like that.
it would also be interesting to see how differently I could get the prophecy to play out like
'the oath to keep with a final breath'
and
'to storm or fire'
or even 'and foes bear arms to the doors of death' because i feel like if i wrote bob into this fic i probably wouldn't have him last until the doors of death.
Also the effects of Percy going into Tartarus alone on the rest of the seven + Nico which is always fun.
Lowkey a Percy, Michael (Yew), and Ethan trio traveling through Tartarus could be a fun dynamic to explore.
I was thinking and I was thinking of what time period I wanted my godswap AU to be in and I’ve been thinking about maybe the ancient or medieval times.
I was really inspired by epic the musical in a way so I want to take some things from that.
I’m leaning towards more of a medieval time period.
I just really want to do a historical AU and I don’t want to do them separately so… what do yall think?
Small post cuz I’m in class rn.
Percy spit out about a mouthful of teeth on the ground, clutching his sword. He glanced behind him to see Michael clutching his shoulder and then turned back at the titan Hyperion. Faster than he could blink, Hyperion turned into a ball of light and there was a cut opening up on his side and Hyperion was behind him.
“I honestly don’t know why step dad is so interested in you. You’re still way too weak.” Hyperion sneered at him, practically fidgeting with his sword and not sparing a second glance.
“You don’t have any nature spirits to help you, not this time Jackson.”
Percy grit his teeth. Fighting a titan was not on his Tartarus bingo card but it seems a lot of things that happened down here weren't on his bingo card. Frankly, he was getting frustrated. After what he did to Ahkyls, he told himself he wasn’t going to use his powers for things that weren’t natural, but when he looked at Hyperion and the injured Michael Yew behind him, quickly losing blood he knew he had a choice to make. Maybe he did this action out of guilt, out of a desperation to finally save someone, to have a clear conscience (he knew that wasn’t it – another excuse), or maybe he just had enough. Ever since he did what he did his power itched to be let out, it was uncontrollable (acting on its own?– no that doesn’t make sense).
It’s safe to say when he finally snapped out of his mind and let loose, it was conveniently when Hyperion bursted into a walking fire, only recognizable by his armor and helmet. It’s also safe to say not even Hyperion was able to comprehend what happened when his entire body just… stopped.
The flames were still and Percy had his arm stretched out but no, this wasn’t blood or water or anything like that. He couldn’t feel the churning in his gut, all he felt was a burning tingling feeling rushing up his arm.
“What…?” Percy looked at his arm in wonder. He looked up at Hyperion to see he was struggling with… something.
“What did you do, demigod?! You’re a son of Poseidon! What d–”
A sharp echoing laugh boomed throughout Tartarus. A shadowy, dirty looking figure formed from the ground in armor. “Well well well Perseus! I did not expect for your domains to have evolved this quickly. What have you been doing to that poor Phlegethon?” Percy’s head shot behind and as soon as he saw him (it? He didn’t know and he wasn’t in the state of mind to think on that) fear seemed to latch on and fuel every part of his body.
“No need for fear. I just wanted to check your progress, Grandson.”
“‘M not your grandson.” He said with a shaky voice.
“Of course not, but adding all those greats is definitely not convenient, Perseus. I’m proud of you. I didn’t think you’d expand your domain again so quickly. I have to say I am very intrigued. How far do you think you could go? If this is it for just a puny demigod what would happen if it was your precious Annabeth? Or maybe Nico, he was a fine specimen to experiment with for a while but unfortunately he was more of a sad pet. But you–” Percy imagined if Tartarus had eyes they’d be looking him up and down right now. He let out an audible gulp. His fear quickly switched to rage after his brain caught up with what he(it? whatever) said. He was talking about Nico like he was some sort of pet, like a human experiment. And not to mention him threatening Annabeth? The fear in his gut was replaced by a flare of rage.
“Have all this darkness within you. Perseus – to destroy – fitting is it not? Such raging darkness in a son of Poseidon is…unusual. I want to see what you can become.” Tartarus raised its hand(?), “Come Hyperion, let him be won’t you? After all the work he’s put in, I wouldn't want his reunion with his friend to be cut so short, at least for now.” Percy looked back at Michael and rushed towards him, ripping the sleeve of his shirt to try and help him. “You can sink your teeth into him later,” Hyperion only let out a grunt but by the way he felt a gaze into the core of his soul, he had a feeling Tartarus was talking to him “You bleed red with traces of gold in them Grandson. I wonder what awaits. Will you bleed gold ichor, or vanish in a blaze of golden dust?”
The implication sent shivers up his shine. Honestly, that explained a lot. Michael never explained why he had dark fingertips and unusual sharp nails. As Tartarus and Hyperion left like they were never there, Percy picked up Michael and started heading towards the Phlegethon. He had to get out of his place and back up to the seven and Annabeth ASAP. Percy already felt like a monster for all the people that died for him, for leading them to their deaths, for leaving Annabeth all alone (Just like Luke the voice deep within his head reminds him) he wasn’t interested in becoming a literal one too, no fucking way.