ꜱᴘɪᴅᴇʀ ʙɪᴛᴇꜱ: ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴇʀᴄᴀʙᴇᴛʜ/ꜱᴏʟᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏ ᴘʀᴏᴊᴇᴄᴛ

ꜰᴏʀᴇᴡᴏʀᴅ

Before my last book, You're The One Thing, I said that you were in no way obligated to read the foreword. I need you to read it this time; I mean it. This story doesn't check enough boxes to require Wattpad's 'mature' rating, but it grazes some potentially uncomfortable things, so please please read this, even if you just want to scroll down to the warnings, which I have so kindly bolded.

If you found this, you either saw something else I wrote and liked it (thanks for that), or you're like me and you've realized that you are also well beyond Rick Riordan's targeted age group! Congratulations. We're first gen fans. It's not fun all the time. But you know what is fun all the time? Percy Jackson, but the characters are adults, and they're not happy about it! Moral of the story: no matter how you got here, Spider Bites: The Percabeth/Solangelo Project is probably right up your alley!

The story takes place about ten years after the war against Gaea and the giants, so all of our ships are married and have about seven kids each, right? WRONG! As much as we may love them, this isn't one of those sunshine and smiles and Perca-babies all the time stories. This story has a plot, this story has romantic comedy-esque drama, this story has epic battles, this story has explicit music, and perhaps most importantly, this story has a Dutch windmill.

That all seems pretty cool, right?  Unfortunately, I have to remind you all that this concept came from the brain of yours truly! I know there are future fics out there, but I've never seen one like this to any degree. This is my idea. This is not your idea. If I see eerily similar plots, dialogue, or jokes on your profiles I won't be messing around. Fanfiction is super hairy in terms of legal stuff, but it's still illegal to plagiarize fanfiction, whether that be word-for-word or even if you're just 'changing it up a little so it isn't obvious.' It's obvious. Remember when Amy Schumer stole people's jokes? Don't be Amy Schumer. Don't steal my shit because I know how DMCA works.  Do you?

Moving on, there are some warnings that accompany this, and while I can't force anyone to, I strongly recommend that you read these! The characters in this story are adults, and they are doing some very adult things. There is a fair amount of binge drinking and slight references to alcoholism. There are also one or two vague drug references, and a scene where characters mistake another for having been drugged. Obviously, I don't condone that because I am a responsible author and older sister member of this fandom. However, these are fictional characters with flaws and personal struggles. Moving on: there are strong themes of sex. There's no straight-up smut/explicit sex/lemon/whatever-you-call-it, but it's heavily implied and spoken about. There's also strong language (they say 'fuck' and other words), but nothing's particularly offensive. There are no slurs but our characters aren't immune to homophobia and real-world problems faced by the LGBTQIA+ community. There's also a brief medical scene that's pretty gross. Ultimately, Spider Bites isn't 'mature' by Wattpad's standards. It does not have explicit sex, gory violence, or self-harm. Still, compared to the original Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Heroes of Olympus series, we're definitely kicking it up a notch on the adult themes. Oh yeah, and we're coming out of the gate with some of this, so you should get a pretty good gauge of whether or not this story is appropriate for you right away!

Another boring thing that I'm going to try to make interesting: I don't own Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus, Trials of Apollo, or any of their Riordanverse companions. That's all Rick Riordan, who has heavily influenced my writing. There are a few lines directly from The Demigod Diaries, but for the sake of spoilers, I won't give anything away. The only characters in this that I own are 'The Marty McFly Hookup', Monique, Cletus, and a few characters that appear for a split second. I try not to include too many original characters because I know everyone's here to read about the heroes we all know and love. That being said, my original characters aren't major players in the story, but they are mine. I also own the plot. I have no idea how I came up with it; there are a couple of tropes in fanfictions that I'm sick of and a couple of things I thought would be funny to write about, so that's probably where it came from (similar to most of what I write).

Still here? Ready to hear how it's all about to go down?

We're going to have a total of seven parts, each is about eight chapters (give or take) so that rounds out to over fifty chapters total (but like 70 Wattpad parts). And yes, the story is finished. Edited. Revised. Complete. I'm holding it hostage in my Google Drive. I'm going to put it out little by little (poco a poco, if you will) so there's something for us all to look forward to. The point of view switches between four of our favorite characters roughly every two chapters, and each character gets a playlist at the beginning of each part (music credited along the way). There's no pressure to actually listen to those playlists while you read, but you should know that I listened to this music while writing each corresponding character (yay, psychology). The music is, of course, only good music that I listen to myself. I went all out.

I put a lot of effort into this one. Like everything I write, it is like a child to me, so support means everything. Pay your child support. This is the part where I beg for votes and comments and shares and follows and all that good stuff because Wattpad's algorithm likes numbers, and really only shows people stories with big numbers on them. That's enough begging for one foreword; you get the idea. Hopefully, my writing speaks for itself and you'll all like this enough to leave votes and comments unprompted.

This was originally going to just be a cheesy little romantic comedy to help me cope, but wow, I had a blast getting to know how our characters turn out. Each one has his or her own new and unique set of values, vices, and virtues. Heroes have become antiheroes, introverts have become extroverts, and spirits have been broken. Suddenly it's a full-on Heroes of Olympus revival with monsters and subplots and even some literary symbolism. Crazy how these things turn out.

This is Spider Bites: The Percabeth/Solangelo Project, and my gods, is it something else.

Sincerely,

Red

(@TheRedSourPatchKid)

Oh, and the Italian translations will be in the comments.