#cotg

the liberty annabeth has been given to be deeply unserious and true to her character in the new “pjo” books while being deprived of that aspect of her character elsewhere is so personal to me because what do you mean she wants to duet with percy on shallow, cheerfully bon voyages her boyfriend off a cliff, carries around a backpack of mystery mouskatools including herbal tea and snake treats just in case, instructs percy “don’t stop skipping, skippy” when he has the rainbow staff for absolutely no other reason aside from shits and giggles, breaks into his bedroom for no reason besides the fact that she simply likes the challenge, apparently regularly signs autographs and is fawned over up on olympus, and keeps suggesting cute and dumb shit to get magically scribed into percy’s diy college rec letter. and now she’s giggling with her architecture friends about glass and marshmallows and wants to throw a haunted house party in a scary goddess’s mansion (a goddess scary enough to make her boyfriend literally piss his boxers) because she’s too self-assured to believe they can’t evade the consequences and too excited to experience something she’s never gotten to throughout her childhood and adolescence. not to mention the callback to her love of animals, no matter how demonic, and how she misses playing fetch with cerberus…oh annabeth chase, the woman that you are. like yes let her be impulsive and unserious and excited and batshit and a troll because she’s just a girl trying to have fun in a miserable fucking world godammit!! rick riordan, they could never make me like you, but i’ll give you this one thing—the whimsy has been restored and its name is annabeth chase

I think I’m in the minority on this but I’ve always loved how Rick Riordan never held firm on a timeline — that his books happen now whenever now is. That Grover plays Hilary Duff on his reed pipes in pjo and Leo references the Hunger Games in hoo and Nico makes a Montero joke in tsats and Percy roasts boomers in cotg. Because these characters are transcendent. They don’t exist in one place or belong to one time or cater to a specific generation. They’re adapting and changing as readers do (and as Rick does) to bring in new campers and nudge shoulders with long-time year rounders. It’s clever writing to keep evolving and let these stories exist across a wide plane to make the world expansive and welcoming without limitations. It’s just something I’ve always admired about the Riordanverse