Riordan Retrospective: The Sun and The Star

Welcome once again to my Riordan Retrospective. For those of you just joining the fun, this is my look back at the works of Rick Riordan. That means Percy Jackson, its sequels, and spin-offs. This is less of a formal review and more of a relaxed look back.

Last time, we took a look back at Daughter of the Deep. Rick Riordan’s first science fiction novel, and one based on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This time, we’re returning to the Riordanverse for a standalone adventure with Nico and Will. We’re taking a look at The Sun and The Star. 

Nico di Angelo is the brooding son of Hades. Will Solace is a son of Apollo with a generally sunny disposition. Together, they are a gay couple at Camp Half-Blood. Through the power of plot convenience, literally every other camper has left camp at the end of summer. What about all those campers who don’t have families to go home to? There must be quite a few of them, right? Uh…hey, now Nico and Will don’t have to worry about people walking in on their cuddle time! Well, except for Chiron and Dionysus, because plot convenience can’t fix everything. And you know what else plot convenience can’t fix? The fact that Bob the Titan, aka Iapetus, is stuck in Tartarus. Quest time! Percy and Annabeth really should be involved, or at least Hazel and Reyna. But hey, can’t be having any icky straight people raining on our yaoi parade, am I right? Nico and Will are going to talk about their feels, retread old ground, lose their previous character development, and, uh…oh, right, they need to get Bob out of Tartarus. Well, anyway, prepare for the beloved world of Rick Riordan to almost literally go to hell in a handbasket. Mark Oshiro’s narcissism and ego are about to take us for a wild ride with two boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, and furthermore, boyfriend.

Usually, I try to objectively summarize the novels we’re looking back at. Unless, of course, Rick Riordan really shit the bed. Though, even then, the only time I felt the need to do so was with The Hammer of Thor. That was a unique blend of bad. Not that The Ship of the Dead was much better. But I guess we’ll have to reset the clock. The Sun and The Star is the worst Riordanverse book since Magnus Chase, and that’s really saying something!

Now, I tried to keep an open-mind going into this book. I was hoping that it would subvert my expectations. And indeed it did…by being infinitely worse than I could possibly imagine. I mean, when the opening scene has the characters playing a G-Rated version of Fuck, Marry, Kill: Star Wars Edition, well, it’s only going to go downhill from there. Everything about that opening scene, from the dialogue, the characterization, and the general set-up, feel like something you’d find in a poorly written fanfiction. Then again, that’s basically what this book is.

So, just who is the co-author of this book? Mark Oshiro is a gay, non-binary, Hispanic who uses they/them pronouns. They used to run a blog where they would review various works of media, usually of the nerd/geek persuasion. Almost invariably, Mark would find some way to talk about either being gay, having had a traumatic childhood, or being a gay person with trauma. If your sexuality is the most interesting thing about you, then you need to seriously broaden your horizons.

Anyway, Mark got popular with a certain clique of speculative fiction writers. The type whose idea of political activism is going on angry Twitter rants, and then blocking anyone who disagrees with them. Very few of said writers actually have the talent to back-up their delusions of eloquence. They loved how Mark parroted their views back at them, and stroked their egos. So, through the power of nepotism, Mark became the It Boy. This was back when Mark still identified as male. Naturally, Rick Riordan was among this throng of clapping seals. We must assume that Rick looked at Mark and said, “My darling! Where have you been all my life?” 

It is painfully obvious that Rick let Mark have almost complete free-reign of The Sun and The Star, and only did the bare minimum of editing. This probably explains the scene where Nico claims that Bianca is his mother, when she’s actually his sister. Really confirms my suspicion that Rick has gotten so big that he’s basically immune to editors at this point. I wonder if that’s part of why Percy Jackson and the Olympians turned out as well as it did. Maybe the editors reigned-in Rick’s excess. Well, that and he had his sons to call him out, and was actually taking his time with crafting the books. Honestly, it was probably a lot of things.

Even at his worst, Rick Riordan books have a certain feel to them. You can always tell that you’re reading a Rick Riordan novel. I don’t get that feeling with The Sun and The Star. I’ve never read any of Mark Oshiro’s other novels, nor do I have any plans to. However, I get the impression that the general feeling and tone would be akin to The Sun and The Star. At times, I had to remind myself I was reading an actual, officially published novel, and not just a poorly written fanfiction.

Now, I want to take a moment and address something. People often use the term fanfiction as shorthand for poor writing. And to be fair, about ninety percent of fanfiction isn’t all that good. I’ve certainly written my fair share of less than stellar fanfics. However, the other ten percent is genuinely quite good. That’s why I’m trying to specify bad fanfiction in this review. Being fanfiction doesn’t make something automatically bad in and of itself. A lot of fanfiction writers just don’t have the same intimate knowledge of the characters that the author does. And you have to factor in all the fanfic writers who are just kids trying to seriously write for the first time. And, of course, there are the zealous shippers, the High School AU writers, the fetish writers, and all the other seedier groups who give fanfiction a bad reputation. But even with all of that, there’s still that ten percent, and it is so worth it to find the diamonds in the rough of the fanfiction world.

Mark Oshiro, however, is most decidedly not part of that glorious ten percent. Many people have noted that Nico felt incredibly off in The Sun and The Star, and I think I know why. Put simply, Nico isn’t being written as Nico di Angelo. He’s being written as Mark Oshiro’s self-insert. Think about it. Mark has pretty much no personality beyond being gay and having experienced trauma. Nico is gay, and he has experienced quite a bit of trauma. So, it isn’t unreasonable to assume Mark felt a kindred spirit in Nico. Unfortunately, Mark grafted their experience onto Nico, and basically turned him into a self-insert of Mark. I’d argue that the same thing happened to Will as well, just in a slightly different way. Will got the chipper manchild side of Mark’s personality, whereas Nico got all the depressed parts. Mark’s depiction of Will can also potentially be read as Mark’s idea of an idealized boyfriend.

Oh yeah, did I mention that Mark just loves the word boyfriend? It appears, at absolute minimum, at least 120 times through The Sun and The Star, according to my rough guesstimation. It gets very grating very quickly. We get it Mark, they’re gay, and they’re in love! You don’t have to remind us every gods damn paragraph! If I was a teacher, I would have docked Mark several points for repetition, and told them to use a damn thesaurus already. I’d also dock Rick several points for buming all the work off to Mark, and for not pulling his own weight in this group project.

I stand by the fact that, prior to The Sun and The Star, Nico was one of the best LGBTQ characters in the Riordanverse. He’s gay, but that isn’t the be all and end all of him. There is way more to his personality than just his sexuality. Unfortunately, Mark Oshiro and Rick Riordan don’t seem to care for silly things like nuance and character development. If anything, Nico has seriously regressed in this book. Back in The Trials of Apollo, Nico was finally taking steps to leave his past behind him, and he was actually starting to become happy. Apparently, Mark and Rick subscribe to the Joss Whedon School of Character Writing. Basically, when in doubt, just make your characters as miserable as possible, and claim it makes them more interesting that way. Needless to say, this thinking is a load of Minotaur dung. Conflict is the driver of stories, yes. However, conflict is not the same as misery. There are ways to create conflict without putting your characters through the wringer. It is the mark of a poor writer who confuses misery with conflict.

I know a lot of people felt Will Solace wasn’t the best choice to be Nico’s love interest. I concede it was a bit random, but I was willing to overlook that for several reasons. First, it was nice to see Nico actually catch a break for once. I also adored how Will called Nico out on his bullshit. The part in The Blood of Olympus where Will tells Nico to stop wallowing in self-pity was the stuff of legends. Oh, but don’t expect to see any of that here. In fact, a big part of Will’s character arc, and I use the term loosely, is learning that it is okay for Nico to be dark. What does that mean? The heck if I know! Mark Oshiro is big on using flowery words and sentences that don’t actually mean anything if you stop to think about them. Best I can figure is that Nico should be allowed to be a perpetually mopey Gloomy Gus because he’s been twisted into Mark Oshiro’s self-insert. Actual self-improvement is like kryptonite to people like Mark.

Speaking of Nico being Mark’s self-insert, let’s talk about Nico’s coming out party. Oh yes, Nico tried to go on a picnic with Will, but the satyrs and dryads misunderstood, and threw a picnic themed coming out party. He even got to wear a flower crown, just like Mark Orshio loves to wear. And then Nico decided to come out to the whole camp in a truly Stunning and Brave way. But wait, there’s more! Nico became a true gay icon. Nay, he became the Homosexual Jesus of Camp Half-Blood. He was so Stunning and Brave that it inspired Jake Mason, Malcom Pace, and Paolo Montes to come out of the closet. That seems like a pretty important detail about all of them to neglect until just now. But hey, did I mention just how Stunning and Brave that Nico was?

Ugh, why? Just why did it have to have such a stupid and cliche scene as that? Oh, wait, I know why. Many people complained that Cupid forcing Nico to admit he was gay was a violation of consent. So, Rick needed to cover his ass, and Mark wanted to feel Stunning and Brave. It was a match made in Tartarus. Also, Cupid violated Nico’s consent, but the satyrs and dryads somehow didn’t, and they all got off scot-free? Uh, do what now? Like I said, Nico is a great character because he’s more than just a gay kid. Apparently, Mark Oshiro and Rick Riordan no longer agree. That, or Rick can’t write minorities unless they’re at least somewhat stereotypical.

We also get flashbacks to how Nico and Will’s relationship developed. This is theoretically good, but given how poorly written these scenes are, they only serve to make the relationship look even more flimsy and contrived. Sometimes less really is more. On the subject of flashbacks, the flashback dreams Nico had were stupid. The first one was convoluted, and was basically Mark Oshiro going “look at all these cool writing tricks I can do!” The second flashback saw Nico get even more out of character than usual for this trainwreck of a book. It goes back to his first time in Tartarus, and how he first met Nyx, the goddess of night. Nico’s dialogue would have made sense…if it had been written for Percy! It reminds me of how people complained that everyone in Captain America: Civil War sounded like they were trying to imitate Ironman. There was one flashback I enjoyed. I actually liked the bits where Will talks about his adventures with his mom in New York City. Those were some best written parts of the book. Though, I wonder if those were the bits Rick Riordan actually wrote.

Now we need to talk about how Percy and Annabeth got absolutely butchered. Nico and Will decide to visit Mrs. Jackson so they can send an Iris Message to Percy and Annabeth. Why didn’t they just do that at camp before they left? At this point, half this book’s issues can be chalked up to “Mark and Rick didn’t give a damn.” Annabeth especially acts completely out of character. She and Percy make a joke by referring to Tartarus as tartar sauce, and pretend they didn’t hear what Nico and Will said. Annabeth certainly wouldn’t do that, and neither would Percy! He knows when it is time to get serious. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again, Percy might not be book smart, but he’s smart in other way. And I refuse to believe Percy and Annabeth wouldn’t demand to go with Nico and Will. You seriously expect me to believe that the guy, whose fatal flaw is loyalty to friends, would just sit this one out?!

Oh, and apparently, Percy and Annabeth totally forgot about Bob. Even though they were quite guilty about that in previous books. But wait, turns out they’ve been thinking about Bob nonstop. Pick one, preferably the latter! Their advice is decidedly of the no duh variety. Guess we can’t be having the heterosexuals do anything useful. That wouldn’t be very Stunning or Brave. And why didn’t Nico go to Hazel, possibly recruiting her? Seems like she’d be pretty useful on an underworld quest. Oh, right, same reason with Percy and Annabeth. I’d also ask why Nico didn’t ask Reyna, but Rick neglected their brother-sister relationship long ago. More on that in a bit.

It is also incredibly bizarre to actually hear the word Percabeth in a Rick Riordan novel. It is a popular portmanteau of Percy and Annabeth used by shippers. Just like Solangelo is used for Nico and Will. However, it has never, until now, appeared in an actual Rick Riordan novel. It is just plain bizarre to see such a term used in an actual Riordanverse book.  I don’t know if it was Rick or Mark who decided to throw that red meat to the shippers. 

However, I do feel it was a bad idea. You have to be careful about feeding the shippers, or else you’ll empower the rabid ones. Trust me, you don’t want the rabid shippers to feel like they have power over you. It never ends well. Huh, you know, a lot of this book’s problems can be explained if we assume it was meant to pander to the shippers. I will say that shipping isn’t bad in and of itself. It becomes bad when you let it get out of hand, or develop unreasonable exceptions. As Aristotle noted, any virtue taken to an extreme becomes a vice.

And the pop culture references. I mean, yikes, this book can give Magnus Chase a run for its money in bad pop culture references. My biggest problem is that Nico has way more pop culture knowledge than he realistically ought to. The biggest offender was the scene where Nico references Lil Nas X, but Will has no idea who that is. Uh, do what now? Nico is from the 1940s, whereas Will is from the present day. He should not know who Lil Nas X is. For those who don’t know, Lil Nas X is an openly gay rapper who raps about being gay. Presumably, he is Mark Oshiro’s favorite rapper. Then there’s all the times Nico refers to Will as a Care Bear. Once again, how does Nico know what those are? The apathy is strong with this one. At least they had him know about Star Wars due to Will being a huge Star Wars fan. On the other hand, we did get the Fuck, Marry, Kill scene as a result of that.

On the subject of other demigods, we learn at the start of the book that literally every other demigod, other than Nico and Will, has left camp. No, no, gods no! Nooooooo! What about all of the campers who don’t have families to go back home to?! Yeah, I know the book tries to explain this by saying they all went to see the world. However, I’m of the opinion that this is a stupid-ass explanation. I refuse to believe that Chiron would allow a bunch of kids, several of whom are pre-teens, to just galavant around the country. Yes, he often sends campers on quests, but that’s a necessary evil. Of course, he’d also refuse to let Nico and Will go to Tartarus unless they had a third person to go with them. So, really, Mark and Rick just magiced everyone away so they wouldn’t have to deal with that. Well, that, and so nobody could cockblock Nico and Will during cuddle time. Chiron still managed to do an admirable job of that, despite everything else.

Chiron’s characterization wasn’t as off as everyone else. However, he should have provided more pushback to Nico’s plan. There were also times, especially towards the end, where he came across as a bit too much like a bumbling sitcom dad. Chiron is supposed to be the wise, grounded fatherly figure of Camp Half-Blood.

Mr. D is once again back at camp. Yay! But his characterization is kind of off. Boo! He never once screws-up Nico’s name. That’s, like, Mr. D’s main schtick. He provides therapy sessions for Nico, except he already did that in The Tower of Nero, but this is treated like he’s doing it for the first time. Mr. D will come across as weirdly nice one minute, and then cartoonishly sadistic the next. The way Mr. D is written comes across like a fanfiction author’s caricature of him. Then again, I guess that’s what it actually was.

I felt that Nyx was not a very good villain. Kronos, Gaea, and Nero all had very clear motivation for their villainy. Nyx, by contrast, just came across as a bland, generic, and overall uninteresting antagonist. It felt like Rick and Mark were really scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with villains for this book. Also, based on actual mythology, I just can’t buy Nyx as a villain. There really isn’t anything to suggest that she’d be villainous. Tartarus should also not have been the main destination for the quest. As a general rule of thumb, you never revisit major villains after you’ve already defeated them. Case in point, Emperor Palpetine just happening to come back in The Rise of Skywalker. Though, in fairness, Rise of Skywalker was certainly flawed, but J.J. Abrams was trying to course correct after Rian Johnson shit the bed in The Last Jedi.

Getting back on track, Tartarus felt completely underwhelming this time around. We already experienced its horrors, far more effectively, with Percy and Annabeth. So, everything had a “been there, done that” feeling to it. The parts where Iapetus regains his memories were a noticeable step-up in terms of writing. Clearly, this was the part where Rick Riordan actually got off his ass. But once again, it would make way more sense of Percy and Annabeth to be the ones to rescue Iapetus. Also, I just gotta ask, how were Will and Nico planning on escaping Tartarus? They just jumped right in with no escape plan. At least Percy and Annabeth knew they needed to get to the doors of death.

I’ll admit the part where Nico gets a family reunion was kind of sweet. Well, if you ignore the fact that Bianca should not be there, since she already reincarnated. I also liked the scene where Nico talks about how he got made fun of for saying the Ares card in Myth-O-Magic looked pretty. I actually related to that. Once, in high school, a classmate asked what music I liked. I mentioned Elton John, because I like his music, and I still do. I got funny looks, and was made fun of, for liking an openly gay musician. I didn’t really see why that was an issue, but this was the same era when “That’s so gay!” was the insult of choice among teenagers. Well, personally, it always struck me as dumb, and needlessly mean, but I’ve always been a nonconformist.

But then we get the scene where Nico calls Piper on Iris Message. Uh, when have they ever interacted, because I sure can’t think of any times. And yet, they act like they’re old friends, and even joke around. Ugh, Mark Oshiro was clearly in the drivers seat once again. Oh, wait, I know why, and so do you. All together now: it’s because they’re both gay. Well, Piper kissed a girl, and she liked it, but she doesn’t know if she’s gay or bisexual, or maybe pansexual. There’s a message her about not getting hung-up on labels. Except we already did that with Reyna! Oh, and Reyna and Nico have brother-sister relationship going on, so why didn’t Nico called Reyna?!

Mark, if I haven’t made it painfully clear by now, being gay is not the same as having a personality. Making a character LGBTQ does not make them well-rounded. There has to be more to them than just “I’m gay!” Having trauma also doesn’t automatically make a character interesting and well-rounded. You intended this book to be for LGBTQ kids, but those kids deserve way better than this tripe! They are not stupid, they deserve good writing, and actually well-developed characters. Empty representation alone does not a plot make.

There is, of course, and audiobook version. I often debate who the best of the Riordanverse narrators is. I’m still not sure how I’d make that tier list. However, I do know that A.J. Beckles is one of the worst, if not the worst, I’ve encountered. He did a horrible job differentiating the characters, and frequently sounded like he was phoning it in.

Well, I guess we should analyze the cover. Yikes, Nico and Will look hideous! Nico looks like a girl, and it looks like he’s wearing lipstick. It almost looks more like Thalia cosplaying as Nico. Not that Will is much better. This has got to be one of the worst Riordanverse book covers. It doesn’t even look like a Riordanverse cover. It looks more like the cover of one of those cheap fantasy paperbacks from the early 2000s. Save my sanity, Viria! 

Ah, now that’s much better. Excellent work as always, Viria. You know what? Let’s also have Nico’s character art from Read Riordan. The Read Riordan character art doesn’t get enough love. 

Now that is one fine looking son of Hades.

Well, we have at long last reached the end of the dissertation on why Mark Oshiro should be put on trial at The Hague for crimes against the Riordanverse. There is nothing of value in this abomination that is laughably referred to as a book. Referring to The Sun and The Star as glorified fanfiction is being incredibly generous. I urge you to skip this one for your own sanity. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Trust me, you aren’t missing much. Regrettably, Nico has pet demons literally made out of his trauma. They’re named Coco-Puffs, because of course they are. So, this book will still impact the wider Riordanverse. I’m not holding my breath in hopes of a retcon.

If this is what the future holds for the Riordanverse, we should all be very afraid. Boy, I sure can’t wait to see which hack author Rick Riordan prostitutes his characters out to next. Not! A thousand times not! Well, later this year we’ve got Chalice of the Gods, a new novel starring Percy, Grover, and Annaberth coming out. Premise could be good, and Mark Oshiro’s slimy tentacles won’t be anywhere near it, so that’s a plus. We’ve also got the live-action Disney+ series coming out. To be honest, I’m kind of worried about how it will turn out, but I’ll reserve judgement til it officially premieres. 

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got to say. Join me next time when we take a look back at Chalice of the Gods.

Adventures of the Silver Bullets

So in this post we're going to talk about the other pride and joy of my fanfiction career besides Penjackson.  This post is all about Adventures of the Silver Bullets.  I conceived it as a massive crossover with the entirety of fiction at my finger tips.  Basically, the thinking I had for the series is that all fiction is true, but not all fiction is an accurate representation of what happened.  This allowed for characters being slightly off kilter and for me to thinker and juggle things around for the sake of plot.

The setting is actually a multiverse so that anything mutually contradictory could be relocated to a different universe.  Of course, travel between universes is pretty common in these worlds.  Anyway, the plot is that L, the great detective of DeathNote, has assembled a team of young heroes to fight crime in the city of New Avalon and beyond.  Said team includes Percy Jackson, Kurumu Kurono and Mizore Shiriyuki, Edward and Alphonse Elric, and Mako and Bolin.  Joining them would have been a wide selection of former heroes to serve as their mentors including Tenzin, Izumi Curtis and Major Armstrong, and Kraft Lawrence and Holo the Wise Wolf.   

As the title suggests, I originally intended it to a lighthearted Silver Age of Comic Books-esque parody of various tropes and conventions with a fairly episodic nature to it.  Before we go any further I should point out I only ever put out two posts of it, I hit a block with the third and got side tracked by various other things.  So, most of this will be about what I had planned more than what I actually got out.  Just letting you know.  

Anyway, as I planned the series out in my head I decided to keep the lighthearted and episodic tone, but I wanted to allow for character development and exploring some of the darker aspects of the various worlds and characters I used.  For example, Percy start out with a very silly, goofy, happy-go-lucky personality and a perpetually sunny disposition.  Later, however, it becomes apparent that this is a mask he wears to deal with the pain and loss he experienced fighting in the Titan War.  Mizore, meanwhile, has to deal with the whole yuki-onna are sterile by their mid-twenties thing.  That, and dodging repercussions from the yokai community, lead to her wondering about moving to America permanently.  

Then there were the things I figured would make interesting plots, but might have gotten me in trouble with various fangirls.  To start, I was planning on having Mako come out of the closet.  Given how Korra and Asami are canonically lesbian this was pretty Hilarious in Hindsight.  Other people slated to come out of the closet included Nico Di Angelo, and keep in mind that was before he canonically did as well.  However, the biggest shocking swerve was a heterosexual romance.  I was planning on pairing Percy and Kurumu together.  I had originally intended them to have a brother-sister relationship, but the more I worked it out in my head the more I liked them as a couple.             

The villains would very from affably evil punk clock evils, to down right scary.  They were to be part of an organization known as the League of Evil People Doing Evil Things in a Very Evil Way.  They were from across fiction, but lead by the mysterious Man in the Ivory Mask.  The big real was that he was in fact none other than...Harry Potter.  Yeah, in the world of the Silver Bullets the Harry Potter books didn't exactly match up with what actually went down.  That was really an end of series reveal, nothing would be the same and there would be no going back after that point.  

The biggest factor to the cosmology of the series would have been L.  One of the big revelations was to be that he was in fact an immortal almost god-level being, and I could never quite name what his kind would be called.  He would have been thousands of years old, and would have been involved in a polyandrous relationship with about four wives and one husband; said group included Urd, Princess Celestia, Kraft Lawrence and Holo the Wise Wolf.  However, his favorite was always Elsa, but she'd died many years ago, and he would have still been very much impacted by her passing.  

Another big revelation would have been that L was secretly the father of one of the Silver Bullets.  Quick, which if the Bullets looks most like L?  If you said Mizore, then ding, ding, ding, you said the magic word!  Speaking of sudden relations it was going to be a plot point that Percy and Mizore were both descendants of the royal house of Arendelle via Anna and Kristoff, and thus indirectly Elsa as well.  

Well, enough seriousness, let's talk about some of the fun I had planned.  I had so many great ideas that I never got around to realizing.  I had plans for an episode (as I call the chapters) that had Inuyasha team up with the Bullets, but he gets in trouble for destruction of public property and has to perform community service.  Said community service being to volunteer at a summer camp, and having to deal with Percy's perpetually sunny attitude.  Inuyasha initially tires to get fired, but comes to find he likes working with kids.  Also, Lovecraftian monstrosities show up and ass-kicking ensues.  

Another planned idea I had was for the Bullets to enter a racing competition, either for charity or because some villains were in the competition as well.  Ed was to be the driver with everyone else as pit crew, but he gets amnesia in a training accident.  While everyone else tries to get Ed's memory back, Al and Mizore go to train in the art of "car-ate" under the guidance of Keiichi Morisato.  Unfortunately, they don't have a car, but Ms. Frizzle loans them the Magic School Bus.  At the end of the episode the Ah! My Godess character move in with the team.  

I'd also planned for the Silver Bullets to travel to the planet Zur-En-Arrh to team up with their counter parts.  I'd also planned stories featuring alternate universe counterparts to the Silver Bullets, including one universe where they're villains rather than heroes.  Of course, since the Silver Bullets are an international organization with multiple branches, there was always the potential for exploring other teams, or teaming up with other characters.  I'd even had a big event involving Bullets from multiple teams temporarily becoming Power Rangers.  

You're probably wondering why I had them in a fictional American city if I had so many anime characters.  The reason is that I know how to fake an American city better than I can fake a Japanese city.  Also, it came with some great Fish Out of Water moments.  I also planned a series of recurring gags, like Ed not believing Percy is really a demigod, Bolin lusting after Kurumu while she lusts after Ed, Mizore and Al having weird skills they learned from late night TV, and much more.  

I could go on, but I'd be rambling.  Hey, it my blog and I can do whatever I please.  No, I should wrap it up.  Clearly, I was very excited about Adventures of the Silver Bullets.  I still think about it and get new ideas a lot.  Maybe I'll update it again some day, or maybe I'll post snippets of ideas here to the blog.  All isn't necessarily lost, however, I've recently commissioned some art based on the fanfic on Deviantart, and I've got to tell you I'm very excited and please with the results.  Expect that in a future post or two.  

Now that we've covered my FanFiction we can move on to my poems and prose I posted on Fictionpress.  That's a post for next time, and I'll see you then.  

PenJackson: A Traveler for Camp Half-Blood

Well, now that we've got the bad stuff out of the way we can move on to the great and the top notch.  My absolute pride and joys, as far as fanfiction is concerned, are Penjackson: A Traveler For Camp Half-Blood and The Adventures of The Silver Bullets.  We'll talk about Penjackson, my crossover between Percy Jackson and Pendragon, first.  However, we're going to need to cover some background before we get into that.

I'm willing to bet that most of you are familiar with Percy Jackson and the Olympians, or at the very least you've probably heard of it.  Conversely, I'm willing to wager that not all of you are familiar with DJ MacHale's Pendragon series; also known as The Pendragon Adventure and Pendragon: Journal of an Adventure Through Time and Space.  With that in mind, I'll do my best to summarize the Pendragon series.  

Pendragon follows the adventures of a boy named Bobby Pendragon, who discovers that he's a member of an organization of known as the Travelers.  Travelers use the tunnel/wormhole things known as flumes to travel to other worlds known as Territories.  Territories are other planets, located in other star systems, in other universes.  The Territories are part of Halla; all of existence, or the multiverse if you will.  Territories sooner or later reach a critical turning point, and it's the Traveler's job to insure that all goes well.  Or, to put in in Traveler terms, insure that this is the way it was mean to be. The Travelers are opposed by Saint Dane; an evil shapeshifting Traveler who wants to remake Halla in his twisted image.  

Each of the Territories is unique and has a different flavor to it.  Part of what I love about the books how this means there's something new to discover in each book.  We've Medieval and snowy Denduron, the tropical ocean world of Cloral, virtual reality addicted Veelox, jungle and cat dominated Eelong, the tribal warrior world of Zadaa, corporately controlled Quillan, and last but not least Ibara.  There are three Earth Territories, each representing Earth in a different time period.  First Earth in 1937, Second Earth in the present day and Third Earth in 5010.  The Travelers relate their adventures as a series of journals they send back to friends on their home Territories, known as acolytes.  

Now, at this point I feel I ought to warn you that from here on we're going to handle some potential spoilers for Pendragon, spoilers for my fanfic and possibly a few for Percy Jackson as well, so if you don't like that sort of thing I suggest that you stop reading this post right now.  

People who want to avoid spoilers gone?  Good, now then, let's get on with it.  Keep in mind, this was from a few years ago, there are spelling mistakes and the writing isn't as polished as my writing these days.  

So, my fanfic combining Percy Jackson and Pendragon is called PenJackson: A Traveler for Camp Half-Blood.  It follows Silena Beauregard, minor character and daughter of Aphrodite, as she discovers one night, after she meets Bobby Pendragon, that she is a Traveler.  How is this possible?  You see, there's been shifts in Halla.  Series of sub-territories have opened up; Territories within Territories, if you will.  As such, these new sub-territories have there own Travelers, and Silena is the traveler from Second Camp Half-Blood.  

This was the fanfic I really came into my own, and still remains one of the pride and joys of my fanfiction career.  It gave me experience writing from a female perspective, and I know it do sound a bit stereotypicaly girly at points, but Silena is a daughter of Aphrodite, and I had I made sequels like I intended that would have gotten smoothed out thanks to character development.  

I also feel I absolutely nailed it with the balance between the Pendragon and Percy Jackson elements.  The majority of the story is Pendragon with Percy Jackson elements added for flavor, while the bits set on Second Earth are Percy Jackson with Pendragon elements added for flavor.  The characters from both series find themselves in strange new worlds they don't fully understand, but they take it in stride and do their best to figure it out.  Both series serve to compliment each other without one overwhelming the other.  I also loved how I tied the series together with each other.  I had Beckendorf be from Stony Brook and know Mark, Courtney and Bobby from school.  I set the series after Battle of the Labarinth on the Percy Jackson end of things, and between The Quillian Games and The Pilgrims of Rayne on the Pendragon end of things.  

Besides monsters from Greek Mythology appearing across Halla, perhaps the biggest tying between the series was when I revealed that Aja Killian is a demigod; specifically, a daughter of Athena.  I figured she had the personality of an Athena-girl, and she always did kind of remind me of Annabeth.  Plus, her being an orphan let me conveniently avoid any issues with parentage.  Hey, if it happens on the Earth territories, why not on the other Territories?  

I had plans for at least two sequels, one titled Silena the Great and other titled The Half-Bloods of Halla (might have had to have split that one in two).  I got some of Silena the Great done, but I didn't like the direction it was going, and I never got around to fixing that.  We'll talk more about what could have been in future posts.  

Are there bit I wish I'd written differently and thing could could have been improved?  Is the writing not as polished as my writing now?  Sure, and there's spelling and grammar errors, but overall I'm very pleased with how A Traveler for Camp Half-Blood turned out.  At the end of the day, that all a fanfiction writer should really hope to achieve.  At the end of my day I could be happy with how it turned out. 

I've been gushing enough, but you should check out PenJackson: A Traveler for Camp Half-Blood.  Next time we'll talk about the other pride and joy of my fanfiction.  See you then.  

On My Fanfiction: The Not So Good

Remember how I said we'd talk about my fanfiction sooner or later?  Well, that's what we're talking about today.

I officially began writing Fanfiction around my junior year of high school, but I'd been unofficially writing it, if only in my mind, for as long as I can remember.  One of my fondest memories is a little story I once came up with where Hiccup Horrendous Hodock III, SpongeBob SquarePants and Avatar Anng all went back in time to meet young Genghis Khan.  I also remember another adventure where they went treasure hunting with Blackbeard.  Good times, but what about when I started writing down the stories?  

Like I said, I got an account on FanFiction my junior year of high school.  I still have that the account, but most of my old fanfiction have been deleted as I felt they weren't up to snuff.  Still, for all that they lacked I admit I still have a certain fondness for those old fanfics.  There are a few however, that I still regard as excellent despite certain faults they's still have, but that is a subject for another post.  

As for this post, we'll talk about those other fanfics I made.  Right off the bat I knew I was going to use Percy Jackson and the Olympians, one of my favorite series, but I also knew I'd be a crossover writer from the start.  Hey, why settle for just one series when you can have more than one?  Also, it's just fun to combine different series and see how the characters interact with each other.  My first attempt was a story combining Percy Jackson and Harry Potter.  This was probably one of the biggest mistakes I made in my fanfic career.  

As a child of the 90s I listened to the Harry Potter audiobooks like many people, and I appreciate the impact Harry had on fantasy and children's literature.  So don't get me wrong, I like Harry Potter, but only as a friend.  Percy Jackson, on the other hand, I absolutely love.  I know Percy forwards, backwards and inside-out.  Basically, I'm saying that I know how to write a Percy Jackson story a lot better than a I know how to write a Harry Potter story.  So then why did I include Harry Potter?  To be honest I'm not entirely sure myself, but it was my first fanfic, so of course there was bound to be a ton of mistakes.  

The story itself was entitled Percy Jackson meets Harry Potter and King Midas.  As you can see, I got the naming convention from that old Scooby-Doo series where Scooby and the gang team up with the celebrity of the week to solve mysteries.  A lot of my early fanfics focused on being funny and humor.  As such, a lot of this one was devoted to the humor of Harry having ADHD, references to The Hangover and Tropic Thunder, Malfoy being ambiguously gay and a thespian, and Chiron coming out of the closet and kissing Dumbledore.  And all of this was interspersed with a plot to stop the Deatheaters from taking over Camp Half-Blood.  

It had it's ups and downs, and paled in comparison to my later works, but I like to think it was still pretty good for a first try, and that it brought laughs and put smiles on people's faces.  All the same, I did eventually get rid of it as part of a Spring Cleaning of my FanFiction account.

My next fanfic started out combing Percy Jackson and Marvel comics, but quickly degenerated into me railing against how much the Percy Jackson movie sucked and how much Chris Columbus had completely butchered a much beloved series.  Hey, it was a dark time for Percy Jackson fans.  A beloved series had just been butchered to the deepest pit of Tartarus and back by a man who admitted in an interview that he didn't even read the books; they just didn't care, indeed.  

I needed a way to vent and cope; we all did quite frankly.  Obviously, it too was on the chopping block eventually.  Another fanfic I made was basically Marvel 1602 but with Percy Jackson, Harry Potter and any other series I could cram in.  This one suffered from the inclusion of Harry Potter (noticing a pattern here?) and trying to juggle way to many series for my own good.  That and trying to cram way too many plotlines into the same story.

Another issue was that I had most of the nation's convert to either the Greek pantheon, Egyptian pantheon or some illy defined wizard religion.  I had the demigods represent the Catholic nations (Spain was, arguably, the Heart of the West at the time) and wizards represent the Protestant nations as an allegory to the European wars of religion.  As you can imagine, Christian readers didn't take it very well.  

For all its faults it had plenty of memorable moments.  I haven't actually deleted this one yet, but that is subject to change.  We'll wrap this up by talking about one last fanfic of mine.  This one, for all its faults, I just can't bring myself to delete.  I'm just too fond of it.  It's Percy Jackson: The Last Puppetbender.  Yeah, it's pretty much Avatar: The Last Puppetbender but with Percy Jackson references and with some of the jokes altered for the sake of differentiation.  

Sure, it was silly and there's spelling and grammatical mistakes in places, but it still puts a smile on my face when I reread it. I had a few other ideas over the years, Clone High with fictional characters, Percy Jackson vs. Day of the Barney, but I deleted them before they got too far.  

Now that we've got my not so good fanfics out of the way, we can talk about my pride and joys, but we will do that next time.