How not to write a fanfiction

Character Stereotypes- Percy Jackson

Oh boy, am I excited for this one. *exhales* okay, where to start, where to start?

Oh! How about the main character himself- and I swear to god, if anyone claims this to be untrue, you can leave right now, he is absolutely the main character. His name is literally in the title of like half of the books.

The main stereotype of Percy is that people often write him as this loveable idiot with barely any brain cells to spare.

I-I- how?

You- you know what this is? This is because of the sheer amount of people shipping Percabeth. No no, turn off the flamethrowers, once again, you misunderstand.

I'll put it this way- it's like Chinese Whispers- the more widespread a rumour or an idea becomes, the more ridiculous of a notion it evolves into and the further it strays from the truth.

It's the same with Percabeth. The first readers of Percy Jackson- let's call them 'first gens', they probably had a pretty good understanding of both characters. In other words, people who read the books.

The second gens, aka the friends of the first gens, got the same story, but a little warped. Eventually, this cycle continued, leaving us with fanon Percabeth, one of the worst ships in history because it is completely different from canon Percabeth.

But moving on, Percy isn't an idiot. Sure, he isn't the sharpest arrow in the quiver, but he's smart enough to lead two wars against beings much more powerful than himself and win them.

And if that's not enough, I'll provide a few examples. In The Lightning Thief, he was not only the first to notice something was off when they were trapped in the Lotus Casino, but also managed to trap Procrustes in one of his own waterbeds. And in Sea of Monsters, he manipulated Luke into admitting he poisoned Thalia's tree so the whole camp could hear. And in The Titan's Curse, he tricked Nereus into entering the sea, despite the fact that he should have known Percy was a son of Poseidon. There's plenty of other examples, but I feel I've made my point.

Even with all of this, though, most writers still see Percy as a complete idiot.

Let's say you come across your typical betrayal fanfiction, and believe me, we'll be covering that later. You look at the cover and it's basically just fanart of Percy Jackson with a filter. You know, like mine.

Or maybe you find a high school au where he either lives with just Sally, in which case he would be a dumb idiot (she's proud of him anyway), or he lives with both Sally and Gabe (he's abused but still stupid).

Most of these fanfics don't even address Percy's dyslexia/ADHD, and when they do, it's always extremely exaggerated.

I was stabbed with a blade. Idly, I wondered whether it was made of celestial bronze or just steel- cut it out, Percy, you've been stabbed!

__________________________

"What does that even say?" Percy questioned as the letters flew across his vision.

"That says 'I', Percy."

"Oh."

He's not a buffoon. I can guarantee you've seen this phrase before in a comment- 'he's not book smart but he's street smart'.

Going back to the Percabeth matter, I think people like to imagine that they're opposites- you know, the opposites attract thing, so they exaggerate things a little.

Percy's not really dumb and Annabeth isn't really smart. She's wise, like her mother, but she still has the same problems every other demigod has. Percy's not retarded, but he wouldn't get a good score on any test, greek mythology or not. Unless it was Ancient Greek- Ancient Greek, not Greek. The languages are different. Don't use google translate, it won't come out right and some nerd will correct you. Don't ask me how they know Ancient Greek, it's best for our safety if we don't know.