Theseus's biggest hater

I don’t usually post about games. I’m not that deep into gaming culture, but with the new chapter of Poppy Playtime dropping, my obsession came back full force. And I need to rant.

First, let me say this clearly: I’m disappointed.

Not because the chapter was terrible. It wasn’t. On its own, it was fine. But compared to the earlier chapters? It feels weaker, less refined, less impactful, and honestly… less scary.

The biggest issue for me was the structure. I understand it’s a horror game. I understand tension. I understand adrenaline. But there’s a difference between building fear and just throwing constant chase sequences at the player. Half the game felt like running for my life. Again. And again. And again. When every other moment is a sprint sequence, it stops being terrifying and starts being exhausting.

Horror works because of pacing. Because of silence. Because of anticipation. When you’re constantly in a chase, the fear dulls. It turns into irritation. I found myself close to rage-quitting multiple times.

And don’t even get me started on the checkpoint system. If you die, you’re sent so far back that you have to replay entire sections all over again. Not just a quick reset. Entire sequences. It completely breaks immersion. Instead of feeling tense, I felt punished. Instead of being scared of what was chasing me, I was frustrated that I’d have to redo everything if I messed up.

And for a game that built its reputation on atmosphere, storytelling, and slow psychological dread, this shift in design feels like a step backward.

But that’s not even the part that bothers me the most.

What really bothers me is the direction the story is taking. By Chapter 3, Poppy explicitly told us that Catnap was the last obstacle before we would finally face the Prototype. That moment felt deliberate. It felt like the narrative was narrowing in, tightening, preparing us for a climax. There was a sense of progression, like we were moving toward something definitive.

And yet… here we are in Chapter 5. Not only are we still nowhere near a resolution, but we’re being introduced to more and more new threats, new boss fights, and new characters, while so many foundational questions remain unanswered.

Back in Chapter 4, I didn’t complain much because we got Doey. But now? It’s starting to feel excessive. It feels stretched.

We’re five chapters in, and we still know frustratingly little about the core elements of the story. We don’t have real clarity on the experiments. We don’t fully understand Poppy’s true motives. The factory’s deeper secrets remain vague. The Player’s backstory, what they did at Playtime Co., what their involvement truly was, is still barely explored.

At this point, those answers shouldn’t be breadcrumbs anymore. They should be unfolding.

Instead, it feels like the game is expanding sideways rather than forward. More characters appear, but they’re often discarded after a few cutscenes. New lore is teased, but rarely developed. It creates the impression that the creators might be leaning into the game’s popularity rather than focusing on tightening the narrative.

And I get it, success changes things. When something blows up, there’s pressure to extend it. To build a franchise. To keep the momentum going. But there’s a fine line between expanding a universe and milking it.

If they want more content, there are smarter ways to do it. Spin-offs. Side stories set in the same universe. Focused prequels exploring specific experiments. That way, we’d still get new characters and lore without sacrificing the integrity of the main storyline. Without sidelining characters we grow attached to. Without diluting the impact of the central conflict.

Because right now, it honestly feels like they’re trying to turn Poppy Playtime into the next FNAF. And let’s be real, that’s not happening.

And that’s coming from someone who wasn’t even deeply invested in FNAF to begin with. The difference is that Poppy Playtime built its strength on atmosphere and tightly controlled mystery. If they lose that, if they keep stretching the story without delivering meaningful answers, they risk weakening the very thing that made it special in the first place.

Do I regret buying the chapter? No.

But do I think it’s a must-play experience? Also no.

If I’m being completely honest, this is one of those chapters you could easily experience through a streamer and not feel like you missed out on much. Watching someone like Caseoh or Kenji play it gives you the atmosphere, the reactions, the jump scares, and arguably makes the frustrating sections more entertaining. I actually went back and watched both of them after finishing it myself, and in some ways, it was more fun that way. Considering this was, in my opinion, the least interesting chapter so far, it’s not essential to spend the money unless you’re deeply attached to the franchise like I am.

But now that I’ve criticized it enough, let me shift to what I actually liked, because there were things I genuinely enjoyed. I’ll get into my theories later (and trust me, I have way too many), but for now, let’s talk characters.

Despite my issues with the pacing and story direction, I actually liked almost all of the new characters. My only real complaint is that we barely got to see most of them long enough to form a proper attachment.

Let’s start with Chum. I don’t have a lot to say about him simply because he had so little screen time, I think he appeared, what, twice? But even with that limited presence, I found him adorable. His design is genuinely charming, and he gives me strong Kissy vibes in the best way. There’s something soft and slightly tragic about him that immediately makes you want to know more. And yes, I already have theories. Too many theories. But that’s exactly why it’s frustrating, he had potential, and we barely scratched the surface before the game moved on.

Which, again, ties back to my earlier point: they keep introducing characters before fully developing the ones we already have.

Next is Giblet. I’m genuinely conflicted about him. When he first appeared, I thought he was adorable, awkward, hesitant, almost painfully self-aware. But as he kept insisting that he wasn’t a hero and going on about his own inadequacy, I wasn’t sure what to make of him. That said, I don’t think he’s a villain. I don’t think he’s secretly working against us. I think he’s just scared. Traumatized. A product of whatever the Prototype and the factory have done to him. There’s something deeply human about that fear, even in a toy. And that makes him interesting. I actually can’t wait to see what they do with him in the next chapter, if they actually follow through on his development.

As for the Outimals… I don’t have much to say about them. Their designs are cool, visually they’re creative, unsettling in the right way, but emotionally? I didn’t feel much. They felt more like extensions of the Prototype’s experimentation than characters in their own right. Conceptually interesting, yes. Memorable? Not really.

And finally, Lily Lovebraids. I’ll admit it: she’s probably my favorite out of the new additions.

Yes, she does give “Jinx from Wish” energy, and yes, the comparison is obvious. But I didn’t actually mind that. She’s chaotic in a fun way. Her design is expressive. There’s something theatrical and unhinged about her that makes every scene she’s in more entertaining. She has personality, and that’s something I’ll always appreciate.

The only thing stopping me from fully loving her is the Gracie Green reveal. If she had just been Lily. just this chaotic, tragic toy, I would’ve adored her without hesitation. But knowing she was Gracie, knowing what she did, knowing she brainwashed and manipulated so many children before becoming a toy… it complicates things. I won’t pretend I felt sympathy for Gracie. If anything, there’s a sense of grim justice in her transformation.

Still, her death felt underwhelming. For someone whose entire gimmick revolves around her hair, the mobility, the reach, the control, the way she went out just felt… sloppy. Couldn’t she have caught herself? Couldn’t she have used her hair to save herself? It didn’t feel like a dramatic, well-earned downfall. It felt rushed. And that’s what frustrates me the most, because there was so much potential there.

As for Gracie Green, I genuinely have nothing positive to say about her. And I mean that in the most backhanded compliment way possible. She was written so well that I haven’t hated a character this intensely in a long time. Every time she appeared on screen, I felt my blood pressure rise. I wanted to pause the game. I wanted to mute her. I wanted to turn it off entirely just to escape her voice.

But I have far too much to say about her to squeeze it all in here. That rant deserves its own post. And trust me, it’s coming.

Now, moving on to the characters we were already familiar with.

Let’s start with Kissy Missy. There is not a single negative thing I could say about her. Not one. I adore her. She’s my favorite. I’m so emotionally attached to her at this point that when the game tried to imply she “died,” I was genuinely furious. And no, I do not believe she’s dead. The developers love pulling that trick. Every other chapter, they make it seem like she and Poppy are gone for good, only to backtrack later.

Am I being delusional? Maybe. But I don’t care. I would rather believe she’s alive, because historically, that belief has worked out for me. I am not repeating the mistake I made with Jinx, where I cried for an entire day like I had lost a real person, even while convincing myself she wasn’t actually dead. I refuse. Emotional self-preservation comes first.

Anyway.

Kissy Missy is too pure for that factory. Too gentle. Too good. She deserves so much better than the chaos she’s constantly thrown into. And POPPY DOESN’T DESERVE HER.

I’m serious. The way Poppy leans on her, manipulates situations, drags her into danger, it makes my blood boil. Kissy Missy gives loyalty and trust so freely, and I cannot stand the idea of her being hurt because of someone else’s agenda. I’ll get into Poppy later, because I have thoughts.

Now… Huggy Wuggy.

God. I never expected this chapter to make me feel bad for him, but it did. I’ll be honest, in previous chapters, I didn’t care about him much beyond his role as an antagonist. He was just the looming threat. The monster in the hallway. The thing chasing you through vents.

But this chapter changed that for me. Seeing his memories reframed everything. He isn’t aggressive out of pure malice, he’s reactive. He lashes out under stress. There’s a difference. And once you see what he endured, it becomes impossible not to feel sympathy.

Imagine being forced to throw other children, into a box so they can be chopped up. Forced to participate in that horror. Forced to watch it happen. Forced to solve those shape puzzles like it’s some twisted game while knowing the consequences. The psychological damage of that alone is unbearable. And Ms. Green standing there, talking, lecturing, acting superior while orchestrating all of it, I genuinely wanted to scream at my monitor. Just shut up. No one cares about your self-righteous nonsense while you’re destroying lives.

I honestly hope he isn’t dead. The story could technically continue without him, sure, but emotionally? It wouldn’t feel right. Not after finally understanding him. Not after finally seeing the pain behind the aggression.

Alright. Warning in advance: I cannot talk about Poppy without spiraling.

Usually, when I write, I try to keep it polished. Structured. Somewhat professional. Partly because I enjoy writing that way, and partly because I have a very strong suspicion one of my professors reads my posts. And no, I’m not trying to sound important. She genuinely referenced my rant about Hera once. Casually. Offhand. Like it was nothing. I still don’t know how she found this account because absolutely no one knows about it. This is my unhinged corner of the internet where I yap in peace.

But anyway. I’m getting distracted. This part? This part is not going to be polished.

Because I FUCKING HATE WENDY’S WANNA-BE.

Why. Is. She. Still. Alive.

Out of every character who could’ve survived, somehow it’s her. She is one of the few characters I actively want gone, and yet she survives everything. Is she the main character? Is she Y/N? Is the universe bending around her out of pure favoritism? Because that’s what it feels like.

I’ll make a separate post dedicated entirely to her because I have too much anger to condense into one section. But focusing strictly on Chapter 5, why couldn’t we just leave her locked up with Lily and rescue Kissy instead? That was a perfectly acceptable solution. In fact, it was an ideal solution. Efficient. Clean. Satisfying. But no. Instead, she gets saved. Again.

She is so deeply irritating that I hate her more than the Prototype at this point. At least the Prototype is consistent. At least the Prototype owns being a villain. Her? She’s manipulative, self-serving, constantly surviving consequences she absolutely deserves, and somehow we’re supposed to what? Sympathize?

And don’t even try the “she’s still just a kid” argument with me. No. She is older than my parents. She’s in her fifties. That excuse expired decades ago. Trauma explains behavior, it does not excuse repeated selfishness.

And of course she’s related to that stupid clown. Of course she is. The reveal didn’t shock me at all. If anything, it made perfect sense. Being insufferable clearly runs in the family. Selfishness is genetic in that bloodline apparently.

And the fact that she’s the Prototype’s sister? That’s probably the only reason she’s still breathing. Narrative protection. Because otherwise, logically, she should’ve been gone chapters ago.

But no. Everyone else dies. Everyone else sacrifices something. Everyone else suffers consequences. Except Poppy.

WHY DID EVERYONE HAVE TO DIE EXCEPT THE ONE WHO DESERVED IT THE MOST?

Kissy nearly dies every other chapter. Huggy suffers endlessly. Side characters get introduced just to be traumatized or killed off. And somehow she keeps walking away untouched. Manipulating. Redirecting blame. Acting like she’s the moral compass of the factory.

I’m tired. I’m tired of her surviving things that should’ve ended her arc. I’m tired of the narrative protecting her while characters who actually deserve redemption or peace get thrown into the grinder.

And the worst part? She always positions herself as if she’s the one guiding us toward the “right” outcome. As if she isn’t constantly withholding information. As if she hasn’t orchestrated events behind the scenes. As if we’re not being led around by someone who absolutely has their own agenda.

But somehow she’s still here. Still central. Still breathing.

I genuinely hope she dies in the next chapter. Or whenever the creators finally decide to stop dragging this out.

And yes, that sounds harsh, but at this point it feels like the narrative keeps protecting her purely for shock value. If there are going to be consequences in this story, then let them actually mean something. Let them land. Let them stick.

Anyway.

I’ll wrap this part of the rant up by talking about the Prototype. This is only part one of my breakdown of the new chapter, next time I’ll dive deeper into the lore and whatever other details inevitably resurface once I calm down and start overanalyzing everything again.

Now. The Prototype. I both loved and hated what they did with him in this chapter.

Let me start with the design. It’s not bad. In fact, objectively, it’s creepy. It’s visually striking. It works within the horror aesthetic of the game. But it doesn’t feel like the Prototype.

For years, the image built up in my head was something far more grotesque, something towering, distorted, stitched together from mismatched remains. We were told he collected dead toys and attached them to himself. I imagined layers of parts. Different limbs. Different textures. A body that looked violently assembled, like a walking monument to everything the factory destroyed.

Instead… we got something that feels closer to a clown train. It’s unsettling, yes. But it doesn’t scream “the culmination of horror.” It doesn’t fully embody the legend that’s been building since the start. When you build a character up for that long, expectations naturally inflate, and this design, while good, doesn’t quite match the myth.

Now, as for his character?

He’s a piece of shit. And I mean that in the most narratively fascinating way possible.

His hatred toward humans, I understand it. The Hour of Joy? In a twisted sense, I understand that too. Not every worker at Playtime Co. knew about the experiments, but enough did. Enough were complicit. Enough turned a blind eye. From his perspective, retaliation probably felt justified. Fair, even.

But what he’s doing now? That’s different.

There are toys, who went through the same horrors he did. Brainwashed. Experimented on. Stripped of identity. Forced into monstrous forms. And instead of protecting them, instead of breaking the cycle, he perpetuates it.

Turning Ms. Green into a toy? That felt like poetic justice. That felt earned. But manipulating, using, and torturing other toys? That’s hypocrisy.

You can’t condemn cruelty while becoming its architect.

He was a victim once. That’s undeniable. But he isn’t just a victim anymore. He has become what he despises. He experiments. He controls. He punishes. He reshapes others to fit his vision, just as he was reshaped against his will.

And that’s what makes him so psychologically compelling.

He isn’t evil in a simple way. He’s layered. He’s tragic. He’s the embodiment of unprocessed trauma curdling into ideology. Instead of healing, he radicalized. Instead of dismantling the system, he replicated it with himself at the top. In his mind, he’s probably not a villain. He’s probably a liberator. A necessary force. Someone rewriting the rules of a broken world.

But liberation that mirrors oppression is still oppression.

And that contradiction, that warped moral logic, is what makes him fascinating. He’s not scary just because of how he looks. He’s scary because of what he represents: a victim who decided survival meant domination. A child who became the monster.

I want to talk about a specific corner of the fandom that honestly makes interacting with this fandom exhausting: the way some Percabeth fans act like you’re not allowed to ship Percy or Annabeth with anyone but each other.

And before anyone twists this, let me be clear: I love Percabeth. They’re one of my favorite ships in the series, right up there with Pipabeth. This isn’t anti-Percabeth. This is anti-the weird, obsessive behavior that treats Percabeth like it’s not just canon, but mandatory.

Because at some point it stops being “I really like this ship” and starts being “you’re wrong if you don’t agree with me,” and that’s where it gets uncomfortable.

You see it constantly in how people react to other ships. Percy or Annabeth being shipped with anyone else, even in completely appropriate, non-problematic ways, gets met with hostility, dogpiling, and accusations of “disrespecting canon,” like shipping is a crime instead of a personal preference. It’s especially ridiculous when the only argument people have is “it’s not canon,” as if fandoms haven't been built for decades on non-canon interpretations.

Shipping isn’t about legality. It’s not about canon purity. It’s about exploration, what-ifs, dynamics, and personal taste.

And yes, there are ships that deserve criticism. Ships involving adults and minors, gods with teenagers, or dynamics that are inherently exploitative? Absolutely fair to call those out. Percy x Apollo, Percy x Nico, Jason x Nico, those are uncomfortable for very obvious reasons, and criticizing them is about boundaries, not taste.

But that’s not what I’m talking about.

Hating on ships like Pipabeth, Jercy, or any other age-appropriate, consensual ship just because “Percy and Annabeth belong together” is not moral superiority. It’s entitlement. Especially when the argument never goes deeper than “they’re canon, so everything else is wrong.”

This mindset has gotten especially obvious with how some fans engage with the show.

A lot of people claim they’re “criticizing the writing,” but if you pay attention, the complaints only spike when Percabeth isn’t centered exactly the way they want it to be. Changes that don’t affect Percabeth get ignored. Changes that do, even slightly, get treated like the show personally betrayed them. It becomes very clear that some viewers aren’t actually engaging with the story as a whole, they’re watching for the ship, and only the ship.

And look, liking a ship is fine. Being emotionally invested is fine. Rewatching scenes, making edits, writing fics, loving their dynamic, that’s normal fandom behavior.

What isn’t normal is acting like Percy and Annabeth cease to function as individual characters the moment they’re in a relationship, or like imagining them with anyone else is some kind of personal attack. They are fictional characters, not vows people swore to defend.

Percabeth being canon does not mean it’s the only valid interpretation. It does not mean other ships are “disrespectful.” And it definitely does not mean fans owe anyone exclusivity in how they engage with the characters.

One of the most damaging side effects of this kind of obsessive Percabeth shipping is character erasure.

When a ship becomes treated as sacred, the characters inside it stop being allowed to exist as full people. Percy and Annabeth don’t get read as complex, flawed individuals anymore, they get flattened into “the boyfriend” and “the girlfriend,” and everything about them gets filtered through how well they serve the ship.

Percy, in particular, gets hit with this hard.

In a lot of Percabeth-centric fandom spaces, Percy is slowly turned into the dumb, clueless, emotionally oblivious boyfriend whose only function is to be in love with Annabeth. His intelligence, perceptiveness, and emotional insight get stripped away so that Annabeth can always be “the smart one” by comparison. Percy’s instincts, his strategic thinking, his ability to read people, all things that are very much canon, get ignored because the fandom prefers a dynamic where he’s the lovable idiot.

That version of Percy isn’t faithful to canon. Percy isn’t stupid. He’s impulsive, sarcastic, and sometimes reckless, but he’s also observant, emotionally intelligent, and capable of making incredibly complex decisions under pressure. Reducing him to “dumb boyfriend” doesn’t elevate Annabeth, it just erases Percy.

And Annabeth doesn’t escape this flattening either.

In ship-obsessed readings, Annabeth gets pushed into one of two extremes: either she’s the cold, hyper-competent girlfriend who constantly corrects Percy, or she’s softened into a purely supportive love interest whose sharp edges conveniently disappear so she doesn’t challenge him too much. Both versions are wrong.

Canon Annabeth is brilliant, proud, insecure, sarcastic, traumatized, ambitious, loving, and stubborn. She’s not a nag. She’s not a saint. She’s not just “Percy’s brain.” When the fandom turns her into a one-note “bossy girlfriend” or a perfectly patient emotional anchor, it strips her of the very flaws and growth that make her compelling.

What’s especially ironic is that these flattened versions of Percy and Annabeth often contradict the same people’s claims that they “care deeply about canon.”

Canon Percy and Annabeth work because they are two fully realized characters who clash, challenge each other, misunderstand each other, and grow. Their relationship is compelling precisely because it isn’t built on one of them being superior or simpler than the other. They’re equals in different ways, not a smart one and a dumb one, not a leader and a follower.

But when the ship becomes the only thing that matters, nuance dies.

Every scene gets reinterpreted to serve the relationship. Every character moment gets reframed as romantic foreshadowing. Every flaw gets either exaggerated or erased depending on whether it makes the ship look “healthy enough.” And in the process, Percy and Annabeth stop being characters and start being props.

That’s the real problem with treating Percabeth like the only acceptable ship. It doesn’t just police the fandom's creativity, it actively distorts the characters themselves.

And honestly? If you have to make Percy dumber and Annabeth flatter to keep a ship intact, then you’re not defending canon. You’re rewriting it.

And the worst part is that this kind of character erasure gets normalized. People start thinking that is who Percy and Annabeth are supposed to be. New fans absorb those interpretations and treat them as canon, and suddenly the fandom’s loudest version of the characters is the least accurate one.

Which is exactly how we end up with discourse that claims Annabeth is abusive, Percy is helpless, and their relationship only works if one of them is constantly diminished.

And that should bother people a lot more than it does.

At the end of the day, this isn’t really about Percabeth as a ship. It’s about how a fandom obsession turns love into ownership and interpretation into policing.

When people act like Percy and Annabeth can only exist together and only in one very specific way, they stop engaging with the characters and start guarding an idea. Percy becomes a prop for Annabeth’s brilliance or a helpless boy who needs saving. Annabeth becomes either a nag, a saint, or a fantasy of perfect devotion. Neither of them is allowed to be messy, wrong, or human anymore.

And that’s the opposite of what made their relationship compelling in the first place.

Percabeth works in canon because Percy and Annabeth are whole people first. They don’t exist to validate each other, they exist alongside each other. Flattening them into “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” doesn’t protect the ship, it destroys the very foundation it was built on.

A fandom should be a space for exploration, creativity, and multiple interpretations, not a courtroom where people get put on trial for imagining something different. Liking Percabeth doesn’t give anyone the right to harass people for shipping something else, dismiss thoughtful critique of adaptations, or reduce complex characters into cardboard cutouts in the name of “canon loyalty.”

Percy and Annabeth are strong enough characters to survive outside one ship.

And if a fandom can’t allow that, then the problem isn’t alternative ships, it’s the inability to let characters be anything other than possessions.

I need to rant about Annabeth Chase and how badly the fandom misunderstands her, turning her into an abusive girlfriend, a bad friend, or some kind of mean girl, when that reading completely ignores both canon and context.

First of all, people constantly brush past the fact that Annabeth comes from an abusive home just because her abuse wasn’t physical. Emotional neglect, emotional manipulation, and abandonment are still abuse. Abuse doesn’t only count when there are bruises, and it’s honestly alarming how often the fandom acts like Annabeth’s childhood “doesn’t count” because no one hit her.

Now let’s address the most overused accusation: that Annabeth is abusive because she judo-flipped Percy.

Percy laughed. He was fine. He wasn’t hurt. If anything, he was exactly where he wanted to be. These are demigods, physically stronger, more durable, and more used to combat than mortals. A playful judo flip between two trained fighters is not abuse. Treating it as such ignores both the tone of the scene and Percy’s actual reaction.

What makes this argument even more ridiculous is that both Annabeth and Percy were abused as children. What exactly makes people think two people who understand trauma firsthand would turn around and deliberately abuse each other? Percy is not scared of Annabeth. He trusts her completely. And Annabeth has never once tried to control or harm him.

The second major claim people use to paint Annabeth as a bad person is that she mistreated both Rachel and Percy, especially during The Battle of the Labyrinth.

Was Annabeth being mean at times? Yes. But context matters.

From Annabeth’s perspective, she had finally been given her own quest, something she had wanted since the day she arrived at camp. This quest wasn’t just about glory, it was about proving herself. Annabeth genuinely believed that if she succeeded, Athena would finally love her and acknowledge her.

Then a mortal shows up and essentially starts leading the quest.

Of course Annabeth reacts badly. Her fatal flaw is hubris. She wants control. She wants to be the one who earns it. And suddenly she feels replaced by someone who represents everything she thinks she lacks: normalcy, ease, a life without gods watching her every move.

That’s why she lashes out at Rachel in TBL. It’s not because she’s cruel, it’s because she’s insecure, scared, and prideful in the exact way canon tells us she is.

And yet the fandom treats this like an unforgivable moral failing.

Percy has been rude, dismissive, and outright mean throughout the series, but those moments are brushed off as “sass” or “teenage behavior.” The moment Annabeth shows the same flaws, she’s labeled abusive, toxic, or irredeemable.

That double standard isn’t subtle.

Another thing the fandom loves to ignore is how Annabeth is punished for traits that are celebrated in male characters especially intelligence, control, and ambition.

Annabeth is strategic, assertive, and decisive. She plans. She takes charge. She doesn’t wait around to be rescued. And the fandom constantly twists those traits into something negative. She’s “controlling.” She’s “bossy.” She’s “cold.” Somehow, being competent becomes a moral flaw when it’s Annabeth.

Percy does the same things, arguably worse at times. He ignores plans, makes reckless calls, snaps at people when he’s overwhelmed, and acts on emotion. And the fandom adores him for it. He’s “iconic.” He’s “chaotic good.” He’s “just a teenage boy.”

Annabeth does it, and suddenly she’s toxic.

This especially shows in how the fandom frames her relationship with Percy. Any moment where Annabeth gets frustrated, jealous, or emotionally guarded is blown out of proportion and used as “proof” that she’s a bad girlfriend. Meanwhile, Percy’s jealousy, emotional withdrawal, or bluntness is treated as understandable or even romantic.

Annabeth is expected to be endlessly patient, endlessly understanding, endlessly soft, despite the fact that she grew up unwanted, emotionally neglected, and constantly trying to earn love that was withheld from her. The fact that she struggles with vulnerability makes sense. The fact that she doesn’t communicate perfectly makes sense. She’s a traumatized teenager, not a relationship therapist.

And then there’s the Rachel issue.

The fandom loves to pit Annabeth and Rachel against each other as if one of them has to be the villain. Annabeth is framed as jealous and cruel. But that framing ignores the reality of the situation entirely.

Rachel didn’t do anything wrong but Annabeth’s feelings were still valid.

Annabeth wasn’t just dealing with jealousy over Percy. She was dealing with the fear of being replaceable. Replaceable on her quest. Replaceable in Percy’s life. Replaceable in the eyes of the gods. Rachel wasn’t the cause of that fear, she was the trigger that exposed it.

And instead of letting Annabeth be a flawed teenage girl processing insecurity, the fandom turns her into a mean girl stereotype. Her growth gets ignored. Her self-awareness gets ignored. The fact that she does mature, apologize, and change gets brushed aside because the fandom prefers a static villain to a complicated character.

What really frustrates me is how often people say Annabeth is “emotionally abusive” when she argues with Percy.

Arguing is not abuse. Jealousy is not abuse. Being imperfect under stress is not abuse.

If anything, Annabeth consistently pushes Percy to survive. To think. To plan. To take responsibility. She challenges him because she believes in him, not because she wants to control him. Percy himself says, again and again, that Annabeth is the one he trusts most. The one who understands him. The one who grounds him.

And yet the fandom rewrites their dynamic to fit a narrative where Annabeth is the problem.

Because a girl who is angry, brilliant, proud, and traumatized is far easier to villainize than a boy who gets to be reckless and loved anyway.

And that’s not about Annabeth’s behavior.

That’s about what the fandom is uncomfortable seeing in girls.

Another layer to this is how the fandom infantilizes Percy while adultifying Annabeth, and then uses that imbalance to paint her as cruel.

Percy is constantly treated like he doesn’t know what’s happening. He’s framed as innocent, confused, “just trying his best,” even in moments where he actively makes choices that hurt people. The fandom bends over backward to protect him from accountability by insisting he “didn’t mean it” or “didn’t understand.”

Annabeth doesn’t get that grace.

She’s treated like she should always know better. Like she should be more mature, more patient, more emotionally intelligent, despite being the same age and carrying just as much trauma. In fact, she’s expected to be more composed precisely because she’s smart, which is a deeply unfair standard.

Smart girls aren’t allowed to be messy.

So when Annabeth snaps, it’s labeled abusive. When Percy snaps, it’s labeled stress.

When Annabeth is jealous, it’s toxic. When Percy is jealous, it’s romantic.

When Annabeth wants control, it’s manipulative. When Percy wants control, it’s leadership.

That double standard doesn’t come from the text, it comes from the fandom expectations.

And it’s especially visible in how people rewrite Annabeth’s tone. Her sarcasm becomes cruelty. Her defensiveness becomes malice. Her confidence becomes arrogance. Small moments get magnified, stripped of context, and used as “evidence” that she’s a bad person.

Meanwhile, Percy’s worst moments are treated like footnotes.

And the abuse accusations are honestly the most disturbing part.

Throwing the word “abusive” at a traumatized teenage girl because she: argues with her boyfriend, struggles with jealousy, doesn’t communicate perfectly, reacts badly under pressure

isn’t just wrong, it’s reckless.

It cheapens what abuse actually is, and it punishes female characters for being human. Annabeth never isolates Percy. She never controls his relationships. She never threatens him. She never makes him afraid. She never undermines his autonomy. Those are the markers of abuse and Annabeth exhibits none of them.

What she does do is grow.

She learns to let go of control. She learns to trust. She learns to share space with others.

But the fandom rarely lets her have that arc, because acknowledging her growth would mean admitting she was never the villain to begin with.

Annabeth Chase is not abusive. She is not cruel. She is not a bad girlfriend.

She is a traumatized, brilliant, prideful teenage girl navigating war, abandonment, and impossible expectations and the fandom punishes her for surviving loudly instead of quietly.

And the fact that this happens over and over again to female characters should bother people far more than it does.

Now let’s talk about Luke, because a lot of people love to hate Annabeth for believing she could save him and for defending him after his betrayal.

And honestly? That criticism completely ignores who Luke actually was to her.

Luke wasn’t just her crush. Luke was her family.

He was the person who took her in when she was seven years old. He was the one who protected her on the run. He was the one who fed her, kept her alive, and made her feel wanted when she had just lost everything. Alongside Thalia, Luke was the first person to show Annabeth genuine love after she ran away from home.

And people love to reduce all of that to “she had a crush on him.”

That framing drives me insane.

Annabeth did have a crush on Luke when she was younger, that’s canon. But people act like that’s the only reason she cared about him, which is not only wrong but wildly dismissive of her trauma. Annabeth stopped having a crush on Luke the moment he betrayed them. It’s not spelled out in neon letters, but anyone actually paying attention can tell that whatever romantic feelings she once had were gone by book two.

What stayed wasn’t a crush. What stayed was grief.

Luke helped raise her. He was her protector. One of the only people she trusted in a world that had repeatedly proven unsafe. When Annabeth ran away at seven, it wasn’t just because spiders were attacking her at night and her father didn’t believe her, though that alone is horrific. It was also because her dad had already moved on. He had a new wife. New kids. A new life that made Annabeth feel unwanted and replaceable.

Luke was the opposite of that. He stayed. He chose her. He made space for her.

So when the fandom says Annabeth defended Luke “because she liked him,” it completely erases the fact that she was defending someone who had been her family, her caregiver, her home.

And we need to remember something else: we experience the first five books almost entirely from Percy’s perspective.

Percy’s hatred of Luke is completely reasonable. Luke tried to kill him. Betrayed him. Manipulated him. Percy knew Luke for a few weeks maybe a month before that betrayal. The wound was deep, but the relationship was short.

Now imagine being Annabeth.

Imagine watching the person who raised you, who protected you when you were a literal child, slowly become someone you don’t recognize. Imagine being torn between what he’s done and who he was. Imagine carrying years of shared history, love, and survival that everyone else around you simply doesn’t have.

Of course she believes he can be saved. Of course she clings to the idea that he isn’t fully gone. That doesn’t make her naïve. It makes her human.

And to put it into perspective: if someone like Tyson had betrayed them by book five, Percy would still feel furious and devastated but he would absolutely defend Tyson. He would try to save him. He would refuse to give up on him, no matter what anyone else said.

No one would call Percy weak for that. No one would accuse him of being blinded by emotion.

But Annabeth does the same thing, and suddenly she’s stupid. Or selfish. Or “letting her crush cloud her judgment.”

That difference in reaction says everything.

Annabeth isn’t excusing Luke’s actions. She isn’t unaware of the harm he’s caused. She’s holding onto the belief that the boy who raised her still exists somewhere underneath the monster he became and that belief comes from years of love, not romantic delusion.

The fandom doesn’t want to acknowledge that, because it complicates the narrative. It forces people to sit with grief, loyalty, and impossible choices instead of labeling Annabeth as irrational and moving on.

And once again, a traumatized teenage girl is punished for refusing to emotionally detach from someone who was her family.

At the end of the day, Annabeth’s belief that Luke could be saved wasn’t weakness, stupidity, or romantic delusion. It was love, the kind that doesn’t disappear just because someone does something unforgivable.

The fandom wants clean lines. Heroes who cut ties instantly. Villains who deserve abandonment. But real trauma doesn’t work like that, and neither do real relationships. You don’t stop caring about someone who raised you just because they become someone terrible. You grieve them while they’re still alive. You hold onto hope because letting go feels like losing the last piece of your childhood.

Annabeth didn’t defend Luke because she didn’t understand what he did. She defended him because she understood exactly who he used to be.

And in the end, she wasn’t wrong.

Luke was still in there. He did choose to do the right thing eventually. That doesn’t erase the harm he caused but it does prove that Annabeth’s faith wasn’t naive. It was painfully earned.

What the fandom consistently fails to grasp is that Annabeth’s arc is about learning when to let go without denying love ever existed. She doesn’t excuse Luke. She doesn’t absolve him. She mourns him. And that distinction matters.

Reducing her grief to “she had a crush” is not only inaccurate, it’s cruel.

It erases: Her abandonment trauma, her found family, her emotional loyalty, her growth

Annabeth Chase is not abusive. She is not cruel. She is not blinded by love.

She is a survivor who loved deeply, lost painfully, and still chose to hope when it would’ve been easier to harden her heart.

I despise Luke Castellan. He genuinely makes my blood boil, and every time someone tries to defend him, I feel like breaking something.

Yes he had a very good point about the gods. He was right about their neglect, their cruelty, and the way they treated their children as disposable. Honestly? If I were a demigod in that world, I probably would’ve agreed with him. The gods absolutely deserved consequences.

But here’s the part people keep ignoring.

By the end of book five, it wasn’t the gods who suffered, it was the demigods.

The gods recovered easily. Emotionally. Power-wise. They went right back to Olympus, mostly untouched. Luke barely hurt them at all. The ones who paid the price were his friends. His peers. Kids just like him.

So many demigods died because of Luke’s choices. Every single demigod suffered during that war, not because the gods suddenly cared, but because Luke’s anger turned into violence aimed in the wrong direction. He didn’t dismantle the system; he fed it more bodies.

People love to say that Luke was "doing it for demigods," but that’s just not true. If he were, his actions would have protected them. Instead, he caused more damage than good. Yes, the gods eventually agreed to build more cabins and to claim their children by age thirteen but that came at an absolutely horrific cost.

Knowing who you are doesn’t matter when you’re dead.

And it doesn’t change the long-term damage either. The gods aren’t suddenly better parents, they're just more suspicious. More controlling. More afraid their children might become "another Luke." That’s not healing. That’s fear management.

People also need to stop using Luke’s final act as a free moral reset.

Yes, he did the right thing in the end. Yes, his sacrifice mattered. But one heroic moment does not erase years of manipulation, betrayal, and mass suffering. Luke may have died a hero but he lived as the person who caused most of the damage in the first place.

You can acknowledge that he was a victim. You can acknowledge that he had valid reasons But you cannot ignore the reality that his choices devastated the very people he claimed to care about.

And that’s why I can’t stand him.

And don’t even get me started on his defenders.

Yes, Luke went through a lot but so did almost every single other character. Percy. Annabeth. Thalia. Jason. Leo. Nico. So many of them endured just as much trauma, if not more, and none of them responded by manipulating, grooming, or using children as tools. Trauma explains pain, it does not excuse harm.

Luke wasn’t some misunderstood hero trying to change the world for the better. He was a groomer. People seem to conveniently forget that.

He manipulated Silena, made her believe she had a chance with him when she was, what, thirteen? While he was already an adult. Then, once she was emotionally attached, he blackmailed her into betraying her friends. That’s not heroism. That’s exploitation.

And Annabeth? That’s even worse. He literally watched her grow up. He called her his little sister. And yet, by the end, it’s made painfully clear that his feelings weren’t platonic. He developed romantic feelings for a girl who was thirteen years old when he was already much older. People try to soften it, but the text doesn’t. That kind of "love" is not tragic, it’s disturbing.

So no, Luke wasn’t just a broken kid who made mistakes. He was someone who repeatedly chose to weaponize younger, more vulnerable demigods for his own cause. You can acknowledge his trauma. You can acknowledge that the gods failed him. But defending his actions means ignoring the very real harm he inflicted on children who trusted him.

In advance, sorry for the long rant but I need to talk about how PJO fans treat Hera, both in the series and in Greek mythology in general.

I understand that a lot of people got into Greek myth through Percy Jackson (I did too), but the level of hatred Hera gets especially compared to other gods is honestly exhausting. She’s not just hated in the books, people extend that hatred to the myths as well, often without any nuance.

Let’s start with the show.

Most people seem to hate Hera for two main reasons.

The first is her beef with Annabeth:

And yes is it petty for a literal 3,000+ year-old goddess to hold a grudge against a teenager over something so small? Absolutely. No argument there. But let’s not pretend Hera is unique in this behavior, because every single Olympian (except Hestia, who is objectively the best) is petty toward teenagers.

-Ares waited two entire books just to get back at Percy. -Zeus literally got Nico’s mother killed. -Hades sent the Furies after Thalia and cursed the Oracle.

And that’s just scratching the surface, I could go on forever.

So while Hera is petty, she’s not doing anything worse than the other gods. In fact, compared to Zeus especially, she’s downright tame. What annoys me the most is how the fandom portrays this imbalance: Zeus is constantly written as this “misunderstood but caring father” whose only flaw is his ego, while Hera is reduced to the “evil wife” who hates everyone and is hated by everyone in return.

Especially in reaction fics. You know the ones.

And that portrayal drives me insane, because it’s flat-out wrong.

Zeus does not care about his children. He didn’t care about Thalia, he didn’t care about Jason. He literally did not care when Jason died.

Hera, on the other hand? She cried.

Yet the fandom loves to write Olympus as if they all adore Zeus and can’t stand Hera, when in myth and even in PJO, it’s basically the opposite. Zeus is feared and tolerated. Hera is respected, even if she’s difficult. The way fans flip that dynamic feels less like canon interpretation and more like misogyny dressed up as analysis.

Now, the second major reason people hate Hera: her “erasing” Percy’s and Jason’s memories and kidnapping them.

And yes, I agree it was cruel. It was invasive, terrifying, and traumatic. I’m not denying that. But in my opinion? It was also necessary.

The Greeks and Romans would never have worked together otherwise. Camp Jupiter would never have trusted the Greeks if Jason hadn’t been there, and Percy never would’ve been accepted, if he hadn’t ended up at Camp Jupiter. Without that forced exchange, the war would have ended before it even started, and not in a good way.

Hera didn’t do it out of malice. She did it because no one else was willing to make the hard, ugly choice.

Now let’s talk about the hatred toward Hera in the myths.

Like I mentioned earlier, I understand that most PJO fans got into Greek mythology through the books and that’s great. I did too. But people need to understand something crucial: the gods in PJO are not the same as the gods in Greek myth. And just like the religious versions of the gods aren’t the same as the mythological ones, the PJO portrayals are also an adaptation not a replacement.

Yet people constantly treats what happens in the books as if it’s mythological canon. This doesn’t just affect Hera, almost every god is mischaracterized this way. But Hera gets it the worst, so let’s focus on her.

Hera is not just a petty, jealous wife who passively lets her husband cheat while taking out her anger on innocent women and children for no reason. Yes, she does direct her wrath at them and no, that doesn’t make it right. But people either don’t research or completely ignore why that pattern exists.

Hera has tried to punish Zeus directly.

And when she did, she was brutally punished for it. In one myth, Zeus chained her up and hung her from the heavens, forcing her to look down into the chaos and terror of the abyss below as a warning. The message was clear: she cannot oppose him openly without severe consequences.

So while Hera shouldn’t have redirected her anger toward women and children, the myths make it very clear that she cannot safely go against Zeus himself. When the source of her pain is untouchable, she lashes out at the only targets she’s allowed to reach. That doesn’t excuse her actions but it does explain them.

And then there’s the argument people love to throw around: “She could’ve just left him.”

She is literally the goddess of marriage.

Tell me does it make sense for the embodiment of marriage itself to get a divorce? That’s like saying Ares should dedicate himself to stopping wars. It’s fundamentally illogical within the framework of the mythology. Hera doesn’t just represent marriage, she is marriage. Leaving Zeus would contradict her very domain.

And let’s not ignore that some of Hera’s anger toward Zeus’s children is more complicated than the fandom likes to admit. Take Heracles.

Yes, Hera tormented him but his greatest strength came because of her. Zeus forced Heracles to drink Hera’s breast milk while she was asleep (and yes, I know there are alternate versions where she does it willingly). That divine milk is what gave him his immense power. Later, Heracles boasted about that strength because he was a child of Zeus, despite the fact that the power came from Hera herself.

Again none of this makes Hera kind or gentle. But it does make her far more complex than the one-dimensional villain the fandom paints her as.

Another thing people constantly ignore when it comes to Hera is that she wasn’t only a goddess of punishment, she was also a protector, especially of women, marriage, and childbirth. And yes, the irony of that is uncomfortable, but mythology is full of contradictions like that.

In several myths, Hera protects women during childbirth, presides over lawful unions, and upholds social order. She isn’t just Zeus’s wife, she’s the queen of the gods, a political and cosmic force in her own right. Reducing her to “the jealous wife” strips her of her power, her authority, and her agency, and conveniently excuses Zeus from scrutiny.

Because here’s the thing the fandom never seems willing to confront: Zeus is the root problem.

Zeus cheats constantly, lies constantly, and abuses his power constantly. He assaults women, transforms himself to deceive them, and then faces zero long-term consequences for it. And yet, somehow, the fandom bends over backward to paint him as charming, tragic, or even loving while Hera becomes the villain for reacting to centuries of humiliation and betrayal.

Why is the man who causes the harm gets treated as complex and redeemable, while the woman reacting to it is treated as monstrous?

Hera becomes the scapegoat for Zeus’s crimes. The anger that should be directed at him gets rerouted onto her, both within the myths and in modern fandom interpretations. People are more comfortable hating an angry woman than confronting a powerful man who never pays for what he does.

And again this does not mean Hera is innocent. She does terrible things. But mythology is not a morality tale with clean heroes and villains. It’s a reflection of ancient power structures, gender roles, and injustice. Hera’s cruelty doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it exists inside a system where she has immense responsibility but limited freedom.

She is bound to a marriage she cannot leave, she is punished when she rebels. She is expected to uphold an institution that continually humiliates her.

And yet the fandom treats her anger as if it came from nowhere.

What frustrates me most is that people will excuse Zeus by saying, “That’s just how gods are,” but refuse to extend the same logic to Hera. If divine morality is different, then be consistent. If we’re judging them by human standards, then Zeus should be the most condemned god, not the one constantly softened and redeemed.

Hera is not a girlboss.

She is not a saint.

But she is also not the shallow, one-note villain people desperately want her to be.

She is a goddess shaped by power imbalance, humiliation, and restraint and the fact that the fandom can’t handle that complexity says more about us than it does about her.

Another layer people almost never talk about is how Hera is punished for expressing anger in ways Zeus never is.

Zeus can rage, destroy cities, flood the world, strike people dead on a whim and it’s framed as power, authority, or even justice. Hera expresses anger, and it’s immediately framed as irrational, hysterical, or evil. Same emotion. Completely different judgment.

That’s not accidental.

Hera is allowed to hold immense power, but she’s never allowed to use it freely. Every time she challenges Zeus’s authority, she’s reminded of her place. The chaining. The public humiliation. The threat of cosmic punishment. Those aren’t just myths about gods fighting; they’re myths about control.

So when people say, “Hera should’ve handled it better,” the question becomes: better according to whom? According to a system where Zeus is untouchable and she isn’t? According to a hierarchy where her rebellion is punished but his cruelty is normalized?

Because the myths are very clear on one thing: Hera does not have the same freedom Zeus does.

And that’s exactly why her anger is so contained, so redirected, and so distorted. She’s trapped in a role where she must uphold marriage while being endlessly betrayed by it, must maintain order while being denied justice, and must remain loyal to a husband who repeatedly humiliates her, publicly and privately.

People love to say, “She should’ve been better,” but better than what? Better than Zeus, who is never expected to change? Better than a system that rewards him and punishes her?

And then there’s how modern retellings, especially fanfic ones strip Hera of all political intelligence.

Hera isn’t stupid. She’s not blind. She knows exactly who Zeus is and exactly how much power he holds. Many of her actions in the myths aren’t emotional outbursts, they’re calculated, indirect moves made by someone who understands that direct confrontation will only end badly for her.

That doesn’t make those actions moral. But it does make them strategic.

And yet the fandom loves to erase that intelligence and reduce her to a caricature: the nagging wife, the bitter shrew. Meanwhile Zeus is rewritten as misunderstood, lonely, or secretly soft, especially in modern adaptations and fanworks.

That rewrite doesn’t come from the myths. It comes from us.

From a discomfort with angry women. From a habit of excusing powerful men.

From a need to simplify complex female figures into something easier to hate.

Hera is hard to like because she forces people to confront uncomfortable truths: that power doesn’t always equal freedom, that victims can still cause harm, and that systems can trap people into cycles of cruelty they can’t escape.

And instead of grappling with that, the fandom chooses the easier route, flattening her into a villain so Zeus can stay lovable.

Which says everything about how we read myths today.

What makes all of this even worse is how the PJO fandom actively magnifies the misogyny already present in the myths instead of interrogating it.

Rick Riordan’s portrayal of the gods is already simplified for a younger audience. That’s not a flaw, it’s an adaptation choice. But the fandom takes those simplified versions and flattens them even further, especially when it comes to female gods. And Hera is the biggest casualty of that process.

In thr PJO fandom spaces, Hera isn’t allowed complexity at all.

She’s not treated as a political figure. She’s not treated as a trapped goddess, she’s not treated as someone making brutal decisions inside an impossible system.

She’s treated as the problem.

Meanwhile, Zeus gets rewritten constantly. The fandom fics bend over backward to make him a “bad but trying” father, someone who would care if only people gave him the chance. You see it in reaction fics, fix-it fics, Olympian POV stories Zeus is softened, excused, humanized.

Hera is demonized.

She’s written as cruel for cruelty’s sake. Cold. Heartless. Hated by Olympus. Hated by demigods. Sometimes even hated by Hestia, which is honestly laughable if you know anything about myth dynamics. Olympus in these fics somehow becomes a space where Zeus is adored and Hera is tolerated at best or openly despised at worst, despite Zeus being the one who causes almost every major problem.

That inversion does not come from canon.

It comes from the fandom being deeply uncomfortable with a woman who: Is angry, refuses to be nurturing, doesn’t center men’s feelings, makes morally gray decisions

Percy can be angry and it’s righteous, Zeus can be angry and it’s authority, Hades can be angry and it’s tragic.

Hera is angry and suddenly she’s irredeemable.

Even her role in the Roman–Greek switch gets treated this way. the fandom focuses entirely on how cruel it was to Percy and Jason and again, yes, it was but completely ignores the fact that no other god was willing to act at all. Athena didn’t step in. Zeus didn’t risk anything. Poseidon didn’t intervene. Hera made the call because someone had to.

And the fandom hates her for it because she didn’t do it gently.

The PJO fandom loves “morally gray” characters, right up until that character is a woman who isn’t soft about it. Then suddenly morality becomes black and white. Hera isn’t allowed the same narrative grace that male gods or even male villains get.

And what really gets me is how often people say, “Well, PJO Hera is worse than myth Hera,” while simultaneously refusing to actually look at myth Hera beyond the jealous-wife stereotype. They use PJO to justify hating her in the myth, and myth stereotypes to justify hating her in PJO, creating this closed loop where she’s never allowed to exist as anything else.

At that point, it’s no longer about canon.

It’s about discomfort with power, anger, and femininity that doesn’t ask to be liked.

And that’s exactly why Hera remains one of the most misunderstood figures in both mythology and modern fandom.

Reaction fics deserve their own special call-out, because a huge amount of the Hera hate gets recycled and amplified there.

If you’ve read even a handful of PJO reaction fics, you already know the pattern.

Hera appears on screen? Immediate outrage, everyone in the room turns hostile.

Characters who have canonically tolerated or respected her suddenly despise her. Someone, usually Percy, Annabeth, Jason or Thalia gets a big heroic speech tearing her apart.

Meanwhile Zeus’s crimes flash by and the reaction is… awkward silence. Or excuses. Or a half-hearted “yeah, he sucks, but—”

That “but” never exists for Hera.

Reaction fics flatten her into the evil stepmother archetype so aggressively that it borders on parody. She’s written as sneering, sadistic, smugly enjoying children’s suffering, often far worse than anything she actually does in canon. Her motivations are erased. Her political role is ignored. Her constraints are forgotten.

She exists solely to be hated.

And here’s the thing: the evil stepmother trope is one of the oldest misogynistic archetypes in storytelling. It’s rooted in the idea that a woman who is not biologically maternal, endlessly patient, and emotionally self-sacrificing is inherently cruel. Hera fits perfectly into that box for lazy writers so the fandom shoves her there and never looks back.

She’s not allowed to be: A queen maintaining order, a goddess bound by her domain or a strategist making impossible decisions

She’s just “the wife who hates the kids.”

Never mind that most Olympians treat demigods as disposable. Never mind that Zeus fathers children and abandons them constantly, never mind that Poseidon, Athena, and Apollo all cause direct harm to mortals and get forgiven instantly.

Hera is singled out because she occupies a role the fandom is already primed to villainize.

And reaction fics make this worse by pretending they’re being “critical” when they’re actually just reinforcing stereotypes. They claim to be calling out the gods, but somehow the narrative weight always lands hardest on Hera. She becomes the emotional punching bag that allows everyone else especially Zeus to escape accountability.

What’s especially telling is how often reaction fics rewrite character dynamics to justify this hatred.

Suddenly: Olympus unanimously hates Hera, Hestia “doesn’t approve” of her, Athena openly disrespects her and Zeus is framed as long-suffering or regretful

None of this is canon. None of it is myth. It’s projection.

The evil stepmother trope also conveniently erases Hera’s lack of choice. Stepmothers in stories are framed as malicious because they “choose” cruelty. Hera didn’t choose her situation. She didn’t choose Zeus’s infidelity. She didn’t choose to be bound eternally to marriage as a concept. But the fandom treats her as if she woke up every day and decided to terrorize children for fun.

And the most frustrating part? Reaction fics love to claim moral superiority. They position the reacting characters and by extension, the author as more enlightened than the gods. But if your “critique” only ever targets the angry woman while softening the powerful man, you’re not being progressive. You’re reenacting the same bias the myths already contain.

Hera isn’t terrifying because she’s cruel, she’s terrifying because she’s angry and unmoving. Because she doesn’t apologize, because she doesn’t soften herself to be palatable.

Reaction fics strip all of that away and replace it with a cardboard villain, because that’s easier than grappling with a goddess who exposes uncomfortable truths about power, marriage, and gender.

And that’s why the evil stepmother version of Hera keeps showing up not because it’s accurate, but because it’s convenient.

One of the most frustrating fandom inventions is the idea that Olympus hates Hera while liking or even loving Zeus.

This dynamic shows up everywhere in PJO fanworks. Reaction fics. Olympian POVs. Fix-it stories. Suddenly, Hera is isolated, despised, barely tolerated in her own palace, while Zeus is treated like an exasperated but beloved leader everyone secretly roots for.

And that is not canon. It’s not myth. And it’s not even logical.

In both mythology and PJO, Zeus is feared, not adored. The Olympians follow him because he holds the thunderbolt, not because he’s kind, fair, or beloved. He is volatile, punitive, and unpredictable. Gods don’t relax around Zeus. They manage him.

Hera, on the other hand, is respected.

She is Queen of Olympus, she presides over marriage and lawful order, she holds political and ceremonial authority Zeus doesn’t bother with.

She’s difficult. She’s harsh. She’s not warm. But she is not some universally despised figure skulking in the background while Zeus plays favorite sibling.

Yet the fandom flips this entirely.

In fanworks, Olympus somehow becomes a place where: The gods openly mock or despise Hera, Athena sides with Zeus against her, Hestia “disapproves” of her, Minor gods whisper about how awful she is

Meanwhile Zeus is framed as: Tired, burdened, trying his best and Secretly good-hearted

This version of Olympus doesn’t come from the books or the myths. It comes from modern discomfort with a powerful woman who isn’t likable.

What’s especially infuriating is that Hera often ends up being written as the scapegoat for Olympus’s cruelty. When the gods are neglectful? Hera gets blamed. When demigods suffer? Hera gets blamed. When Olympus fails? Somehow it’s still Hera’s fault despite Zeus being the one with ultimate authority.

This lets the fandom preserve a comforting illusion: that Olympus would be better if not for Hera. That Zeus would be a good ruler if she weren’t “nagging” or “vindictive.”

That illusion collapses the second you look at canon.

Zeus abandons children, Zeus punishes mortals disproportionately, Zeus refuses accountability.

Hera doesn’t cause those things. She exists within them.

And yet the fandom writes Olympus as emotionally aligned against her because it mirrors a very familiar real-world narrative: the powerful woman is isolated, disliked, and blamed, while the powerful man is forgiven, normalized, and centered.

Hera isn’t hated by Olympus in canon. She’s endured. She’s respected. She’s feared in a different way than Zeus is.

And the fandom rewriting that dynamic says a lot about who we’re comfortable seeing in power and who we’d rather tear down to make that power easier to swallow.

What’s happening to Hera in PJO fanon isn’t isolated, it’s part of a larger pattern in how fandoms treat women in power.

Female authority figures are consistently isolated, vilified, or emotionally stripped, while male authority figures are softened, excused, or reframed as tragic. And once you start noticing it, it’s impossible to unsee.

Hera is the clearest example, but she’s far from the only one.

In fanon, powerful women are almost never allowed community.

They’re written as: Feared but unloved, respected only in name, endured rather than supported, emotionally alone by default

Meanwhile, powerful men are surrounded by understanding, forgiveness, and narrative grace.

Hera stands alone in Olympus. Demeter is written as hysterical or overbearing. Athena is stripped of warmth and rewritten as coldly cruel or worse, framed as “not like other goddesses.”

Even Hestia, who the fandom claims to love, is often reduced to a passive moral prop rather than an authority figure in her own right. She exists to approve or disapprove of others, not to act.

What all of these portrayals have in common is that female power is treated as something that must be justified, while male power is treated as default.

Zeus doesn’t have to earn authority in fanon. He just has it. Poseidon can be neglectful and still beloved. Hades can be cruel and still tragic.

But Hera? Hera has to be soft, apologetic, maternal, or quietly suffering to be considered tolerable. The moment she asserts herself without emotional cushioning, the fandom casts her as the villain.

And fanon isolates her to make that easier.

By writing Olympus as hostile to Hera, the fandom removes any sense of shared responsibility. If she’s alone, then everything wrong with Olympus can be blamed on her personality instead of the system she’s trapped in. Isolation becomes a narrative weapon.

You see the same thing with Demeter.

Instead of being portrayed as a grieving mother reacting to the abduction of her daughter, she’s rewritten as irrational, controlling, or selfish. Her authority over the seasons, one of the most powerful domains in the myths is treated like a tantrum instead of leverage.

Athena gets it differently but just as badly.

She’s often praised only when she aligns with masculine traits: logic without emotion, strategy without compassion. When she shows feelings, she’s mocked. When she shows authority, she’s feared. And when she makes mistakes, the fandom is far less forgiving than it is with male gods.

Female authority is acceptable in fanon only if it: Doesn’t inconvenience others, doesn’t express anger, doesn’t demand accountability, doesn’t challenge male power

The moment it does, it becomes something to be dismantled.

This is why Hera is written as hated by Olympus. This is why Demeter is written as unhinged. This is why Athena is rewritten as cold or heartless.

Because the fandom is deeply uncomfortable with women who hold power and refuse to make that power palatable.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: isolating these women makes the fandom feel morally superior. It creates a clean villain. It allows readers to say, “See? Even the gods hate her,” instead of asking why the system enables Zeus, excuses his behavior, and punishes women who react to it.

Fanon isn’t challenging the myths here.

It’s reproducing them, with modern language and the same old biases.

Hera isn’t isolated in Olympus because she deserves it. She’s isolated in fanon because it makes her easier to hate.

And that pattern says far more about the fandom than it ever does about her.

One of the clearest indicators of the fandom bias in PJO is how male characters are forgiven, softened, and beloved, while female characters are scrutinized, isolated, and vilified for far less.

Let’s start with the most obvious example: Luke Castellan.

Luke is a villain. A manipulator. A groomer. Someone whose choices directly led to the deaths of countless demigods. And yet the fandom adores him. He’s framed as tragic, misunderstood, “just a kid who needed help.” Fics are written about his pain. His motives are treated as noble, even when his actions are horrific.

Luke’s trauma is endlessly centered. Luke’s intentions are constantly reinterpreted. Luke’s responsibility is softened or outright erased.

Now compare that to Hera.

Hera didn’t groom children. Hera didn’t start a war that killed hundreds of demigods. Hera didn’t manipulate teenagers into dying for her cause.

And yet the fandom treats her as irredeemable.

Luke gets nuance. Hera gets condemnation. Luke gets forgiveness. Hera gets isolation.

That alone should make people uncomfortable.

Then there’s Hermes.

Hermes is often written as a “good father” in fanon because he’s trying to save Luke. And yes Hermes loves his son. That’s canon. But the fandom conveniently ignores the fact that Luke’s trauma exists because Hermes abandoned him in the first place. Hermes didn’t protect Luke when it mattered. He didn’t intervene until it was already too late.

And yet the fandom frames Hermes as sympathetic. As caring. As doing his best.

Contrast that with how Demeter or Hera are treated.

Demeter is called controlling for wanting to protect Persephone. Hera is called monstrous for reacting to betrayal and humiliation.

Male parental failure becomes tragic. Female emotional response becomes villainous.

The pattern doesn’t stop with gods.

Percy is another perfect example.

Percy is beloved and don’t get me wrong, I love him but the fandom bends over backward to excuse his worst traits. He can be rude, dismissive, reckless, even cruel at times, and it’s framed as charming. He’s “sassy.” He’s “iconic.” He’s “just a teenage boy.”

Now look at Annabeth.

Annabeth shows intelligence, authority, and confidence and the fandom frequently calls her bossy, cold, or arrogant. When she makes mistakes, she’s judged far more harshly than Percy ever is. When she takes control, she’s criticized. When she’s emotionally guarded, she’s accused of being unkind.

Percy’s flaws are endearing. Annabeth’s flaws are indictments.

Then there’s Clarisse.

Clarisse is aggressive, angry, traumatized and the fandom treats her like a problem child. She’s seen as cruel, stupid, or unnecessary, despite being one of the most loyal characters in the series. Her anger is never treated as justified, it’s treated as something that needs to be corrected.

Compare her to male characters with anger issues, Ares, Luke, even Percy at times who are framed as powerful, passionate, or tragic.

Male anger is depth. Female anger is a flaw.

And this pattern repeats again and again.

Male villains are romanticized. Female authority figures are demonized.

Male heroes are allowed complexity. Female characters are expected to be palatable.

If Luke were a woman, the fandom would never forgive him. If Hera were a man, the fandom would call her ruthless, strategic, and effective. If Annabeth acted the way Percy does, she’d be hated.

This isn’t about individual characters. It’s about who the fandom allows to be messy, angry, powerful, and wrong and who they punish for it.

PJO fanon doesn’t just reflect the biases in the myths. It amplifies them.

And until people are willing to confront that, characters like Hera, Annabeth, Clarisse, and Demeter will keep being treated as villains, not because they deserve it, but because the fandom is far more comfortable excusing male harm than female anger.

When you step back and look at the pattern as a whole, it becomes impossible to ignore.

the PJO fandom consistently rewards men for trying and punishes women for failing to be gentle. Male characters are allowed to be destructive, manipulative, negligent, or cruel as long as they’re framed as tragic or well-intentioned. Female characters don’t get that luxury. They’re expected to be nurturing, patient, forgiving, and emotionally available at all times, even when they’re dealing with betrayal, trauma, or impossible systems.

Luke is mourned. Hera is hated.

Hermes is praised for loving a son he abandoned. Demeter is mocked for refusing to let her daughter be hurt again.

Percy is beloved despite being reckless, dismissive, and sometimes outright cruel. Annabeth is criticized for being assertive, strategic, and confident.

Clarisse is written off as a brute. Male rage is written as depth.

None of this is accidental.

The Fandom talks endlessly about “complex characters,” but complexity is only celebrated when it’s male. When women are complex,angry, flawed, calculating, unwilling to soften themselves, they’re isolated, vilified, or reduced to tropes. The evil wife. The controlling mother. The bossy girl. The angry warrior.

Hera becomes the ultimate casualty of this mindset because she embodies everything the fandom struggles with: power without warmth, authority without apology, anger without self-sacrifice. Instead of interrogating the system that trapped her, the fandom turns her into the symbol of everything wrong with Olympus so it doesn’t have to look at Zeus or itself too closely.

And the most uncomfortable truth of all is this: the PJO fandom doesn’t just misunderstand Hera. It misunderstands female power.

It treats women who don’t perform likability as villains. It excuses men who cause harm as long as they feel bad about it later. And it consistently rewrites canon dynamics to make male authority feel natural and female authority feel oppressive.

That’s why Luke is loved. That’s why Zeus is softened. That’s why Hera is despised.

Not because she’s uniquely cruel but because she refuses to be small, silent, or sympathetic.

I genuinely hate Percy × Apollo.

In the newest book, Percy is 17, almost 18, and people have been shipping him with Apollo for years. Yes, I understand that characters can be aged up but in the vast majority of fics I’ve seen, Percy isn’t. He’s still written as a teenager.

And yes, I know Apollo was turned into a mortal teenager at one point. That doesn’t erase the fact that he’s still a 3,000+ year old god with centuries of lived experience, power, and authority. A temporary mortal body doesn’t magically make that imbalance disappear.

What really gets me is the hypocrisy.

Almost everyone agrees that Calypso × Leo is uncomfortable and I agree with that take. But then those same people turn around and adorе Percy × Apollo. How does that make sense? If you’re going to criticize one ship because it’s a god paired with a teenager, you can’t ignore the exact same issue just because you like the vibes better.