the things about percy and annabeth that make them so elite have been almost COMPLETELY erased in fanon, post-pjo canon, and all adaptations and it is just so frustrating and so tragic.
i think part of it is because people just for some reason Cannot Resist sorting couples into archetypes - i suppose the compulsion to sort things into categories is just part of human nature lol because it's a constant in all fandoms. and so percy and annabeth get shoehorned and massacred into 'girlboss x malewife' or even worse variations, like 'Competent One x Bumbling Fool' or some version of 'golden retriever x repressed emotion' or 'rebel x smart responsible' and they're all SO bad that i honestly don't even know which one is the worst.
pjo percy and annabeth are nothing like any other couple that i've ever encountered in fiction. and i do sincerely mean that. they're trope defying. even in the areas where they fit elements of certain tropes, when you actually stop and think about how and why the relationship develops, there's many areas of discordance.
for example, technically at face value it is an example of 'girl best friend turned love interest.' but practically speaking it has nothing in common with stories where that's the key feature of the main couple. because they didn't grow up together, they're not so young when they meet or so familiar with each other that they're unable to see each other romantically (and in fact they are both keenly aware of each other in a romantic capacity from the very getgo!). i think most people would acknowledge that the Best Friend Love Interest is usually someone who has been around since before the story started. often someone taken for granted. annabeth is not.
i also think people would like them to be an example of Opposites Attract. but they're not different enough. they're really quite similar. and you can feel all the various ways that people cut off pieces of them to make this dynamic seem plausible - such as ignoring that annabeth is also very impulsive and rebellious (like percy), ignoring that percy is very intuitive and clever and resourceful (like annabeth), ignoring that annabeth is compassionate and kind (like percy), ignoring that percy is often the one who takes control of the situation (like annabeth). percy and annabeth are BOTH practically universally respected, intimidating, and good at what they do, they're both looked to as leaders, and they're also both motivated by justice, compassion, and wisdom. and it's like, if they weren't BOTH these things, then they actually wouldn't get along, lol. but even when they disagree on the application of these ideas to a given situation (like how they ought to handle luke), they always have the common ground of shared values and even shared experiences. they're both good fighters, both good strategizers, both extremely loyal and extremely brave, both have tempers, both deflect their uncomfortable emotions and they take turns freezing each other out when the emotions get too painful to discuss.
even when it comes to backstory - percy and annabeth have a great deal in common (mortal parent remarried to a stepparent that they hate, strained relationship with absentee godly parent but also inherent and unavoidable craving for their approval, neurodivergence, insecurity at home because they felt like a burden growing up, they're both kind of lonely even when surrounded by peers and each struggle in their own way to open up to others - i feel like bc you're in percy's head it's easy to miss how incredibly guarded he is, especially in the lightning thief, but he's just as bad as annabeth. occasionally worse). it's extremely obvious when you read the lightning thief that they see these qualities in each other and it becomes the foundation for their friendship. again, i think this is really trope-defying and uncommon in a lot of ways. it's so common for the main couple to come from Two Different Worlds - and even though annabeth spent five years more than percy at camp, they're both demigods and have demigod problems and grew up having those problems, so they have a built-in sense of rapport that i find to be... pretty dang unique in fiction.
even when it comes to how the romance actually rolls around. like it's not as simple as 'clueless one x pining one' because neither one of them is clueless about their feelings or the other's feelings but they're both hopeless at how to navigate them and they're BOTH pining and they take turns initiating romantic gestures that the other one completely glitches and panic rejects! they flirt often with each other and it starts early!
i think in general the way that we interact with tropes in fandom just ends up bleaching the source material of nuance and it's ultimately an unhelpful way to engage with fiction. if you just looked at them as they are rather than rewriting the dynamic as some stupid cliche then we'd be free from so many terrible percabeth takes!
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