Perseus "Percy" Jackson...poster child for ADHD, sass-master extraordinaire...but like the seas there is much, much more under the surface.
Let's talk about the mechanics of Percy first. As a son of one of the Big Three (Poseidon, specifically) Percy is an incredibly powerful demigod and has garnered the respect of mortals and immortals alike, along with fear from many monsters and foes. Percy wasn't always aware of his power though and despite the fact that he's incredibly powerful, he still manages to remain humble...ish. He's regarded as a hero by many whether people (i.e. some of the gods) want to acknowledge it or not.
One of Percy's key traits is his nature to be brave and reckless. Part of it comes from his ADHD, part of it comes from Percy being Percy. When he first learns of his demigod linage he's more scared and unsure of himself but as time goes on Percy grows into his abilities and finds his own strength. He may not be analytical like Annabeth and it's been said more than once that his plans suck sometimes, but Percy excels in the art of being resourceful and being able to make things up on the fly. Percy isn't necessarily clever, but he knows how to use his surroundings to the best of his ability whether that be via summoning water to use his godly powers or simply running his mouth and attacking at the last minute. While he can get himself to point A quite easily, Percy does have trouble seeing himself to point B and understanding the greater picture and consequences of his actions until it's too late. There are several instances in which Percy's plans nearly backfire (along with several instances in which Percy's plans cause a lot of collateral damage), but somehow he manages to come up with something else to save himself and his friends.
Shortly after the second Titan War, (thanks to Hera) Percy spends time training under Lupa, the Roman wolf, thanks to be traded out for Jason Grace. As Roman demigods tend to have harder training than Greeks, Percy soon comes to fear nothing and becomes even more aggressive in the face of threats. Part of his aggressiveness can also be contributed to falling into and subsequently spending time in Tartarus, being haunted by rather dark thoughts that changed a little of his personality. As a young teenager, Percy would find himself sometimes hesitating to hurt enemies but after these events he finds that anger for enemies doesn't subside at all. He has little patience for people who are bullying him or his friends and even less patience for the gods meddling in the lives of himself and his friends.
But. You know. Percy's liked by a lot of people in his world for a good reason. Percy is fairly laid-back and a friendly sort of guy, often times unable to turn away from any person or creature in need. He's quick to offer a helping hand and the word "hero" isn't really just a title. He takes a lot of things in stride and generally stays relaxed through it all (who else laughs off being judo-flipped by their girlfriend? Percy you're fine.) Percy's one of those people that you can look at and think "that boy has a heart of gold." However…that doesn't necessarily mean he's always nice. Percy can be pretty snarky and sarcastic when he feels like it and the variation between playful teasing and "you're actually really pissing me off" varies based on how other people react to him. With recklessness sometimes comes arrogance. While Percy is generally nice among the people he cares for, he can be an absolute brat when he really wants to make a point, i.e. sending the head of Medusa to Mount Olympus. From an early age, Percy's warned by several people that he should have more respect for the gods and Percy's response is to basically shrug and carry on the way he wants to carry on. More than once he's mouthed off to a god because he didn't agree with what they were saying. He's fairly bullheaded about making his opinions known. Percy isn't one to hold back how he truly feels about people. Surprisingly, this is a method that helps him prove himself worthy of (most of) the gods and they even offer him immortality for his service in the Titan War.
Another key piece of who Percy is revolves solely around how he cherishes the people he cares about and even people he just feels a connection with. All demigod children have a Fatal Flaw, and Percy's Fatal Flaw is personal loyalty (as notated by Athena. Namely: "To save a friend, you would sacrifice the world.") Percy is the type of person who will sacrifice everything in order to save those he cares about most. He never sees it that way but it comes up often enough such as his dismissal of the immortality offer so he could stay with Annabeth, falling into Tartarus at the risk of harming himself so that Annabeth wouldn't have to face it alone, trying to take on Gaea himself so that his friends wouldn't have to do so…there are several instances. Along with personal loyalty is personal belief. Percy as a whole is a pretty trusting guy. Percy has found a lot of his downfalls coming from placing trust in people and those people preying on his genuine nature to take everything at face value (see: Nico di Angelo prepping Percy for the final fight of the Titan War by taking him to the Styx and later finding out he's being sold out to Hades.) Even after things like that though, Percy finds it in his heart to be able to (sometimes begrudgingly) forgive these people.
While Percy isn't always good at being able to understand people's emotions (Annabeth's jealousy of Rachel + other girls, Nico's feelings for him, etc), there are plenty of instances that he's more than capable of putting himself in other people's shoes and it's that ability that helps drive him to protect people. An example of this is how despite the fact Percy's the one who keeps pointing out that Luke is evil in the first series of books, by the time he's preparing to face him as the Titan Lord he's capable of understanding why Luke would have been driven down this kind of path. This doesn't just apply to people he knows but also people he's just met, such as the first time he meets Hazel (he immediately picks up on the fact that there's a heavy sadness about her and though he doesn't understand why he wants to know why.)
It's because of his ability to sympathize and his strong desire to protect that Percy finds himself thinking of the underdog. Even prior to discovering he's a demigod Percy is the one to befriend the kids nobody wants to befriend (Grover, for instance, and even later he befriends Tyson as well.) He tries to see the best in people and keep peace, even if he himself is unsure if he believes everything he's saying. Percy's job is to keep morale up and keep everyone settled and it's those traits that make him a natural-born leader. He knows how to delegate and he understands how to play up his team's strengths and weaknesses. However, sometimes Percy himself doesn't quite acknowledge that and it even takes him by surprise to learn that he's considered a leader among the other demigods. A leader not only knows how to run an army and fight battles and come out victorious, but a leader keeps promises. At the end of his life, Luke tells Percy that he needs to make sure what happened to him and some of the other unclaimed demigods doesn't happen again. Percy could have chosen immortality, but instead he used his victory as a bargaining tool to convince the gods to claim all of their children by age 13 and also create cabins for minor gods and Hades in honor of that promise.
So in short, even with being one of the most powerful demigods of his time (possibly the most powerful), Percy's still a seventeen year old boy. He's rebellious and has a tendency to go off-beat with plans if he thinks something better can happen. He tends to take things in stride and though several times the gods interfere Percy picks up the slack to persevere and push through. He places great value in his relationships with his friends and his family (especially his mother whom serves as his driving force very early on, and Annabeth who goes from slight rival to quest partner to friend to best friend to girlfriend to "settle in New Rome and have children" over the course of their time together), and truthfully so long as those he cares about most are safe and can be at peace, he can be at ease and satisfied.
AU History:
Original brainstorming meme link! Once upon a time there was a Westerlan family whose heads had been filled with the idea that seven generations of work and dedication would allow for a better life. The family served their time and continued to grow over the years, generation after generation living and growing and dying until one day a baby girl was born. Sally Jackson was born as the fifth generation of the Jackson family, left alone in the world after the death of her parents at age five and raised by an uncle who didn't believe in the silly ideals the girl had. It was because of her uncle's disbelief (and later, his death) that Sally disappeared from Westerley for some time shortly after she turned eighteen and mingled among the Quad, anywhere she could slip to without drawing too much attention. It was almost unfortunate that attention found her though, and it was during her short time away that she met a man. This man came from a True Leithian bloodline and it was this man she fell in love with.
It was also with this man she gave birth to the sixth generation of the Jackson bloodline, and this is where Percy's story really begins.
Due to the bloodlines and the politics involved in what Sally had done, the couple knew they couldn't stay together, couldn't breathe a word of the child's existence without making their lives hell and decided it was best never to tell Percy who his father was. Not until he was ready, anyway, and with that decision in mind Sally returned to Westerley to begin life as a new mother. With little money and little support of her own, Sally made the decision to raise her son on her own and obtain a job working under the Company with the hopes of leveraging their family. Knowing what this would mean, she did her best to keep her head down and also made sure Percy was raised from an early age how to defend himself and survive. It was from Sally that Percy learned how to read people and hone his senses, but everything else came from his own hands.
Overall, Percy had a fairly normal childhood (or, at least, as normal as one can have when you're raised on Westerley) and everything was on track for most of his youth and early adolescence. He was able to attend school, he made a few friends here and there when he wasn't picking fights with people, and most importantly he had Sally who fueled him with the same ideals she had been raised with. Seven generations of work would mean a better life for the future. It was something he dreamed about, though it wasn't something he truly grasped the concept of and wouldn't until his later teenage years.
Granted, when you live on Westerley nothing stays peaceful for long. It wasn't until Percy was twelve that his entire life shifted and he was met with circumstances he never thought he'd have to deal with. One moment, he was stuck in after school detention. The next, a Company Enforcer came to collect him and calmly explain that his mother had been involved in a workplace accident. Even with the way the Enforcer described the events to him Percy found he wasn't listening. The only thing he needed to know was that this wasn't just an accident. Something had happened and now he was left to his own devices. When asked if he had somewhere to go, someone to go home to...Percy did what came naturally when it came to people working with the Company.
He lied.
Sally had a few men she was seeing that often were meant to help protect herself and Percy, but he refused to go to them. Not after seeing how they really were. So he lied. Dropped off at his mother's house, Percy stuffed all of his belongings into a backpack and disappeared off the map and onto the streets of Westerley.
It was a long and hard road for him after that, but it was better than the alternative. Over the course of the next five years Percy made his own way and stuck to the survival skills Sally had taught him. Living on the streets gave Percy a whole new world to explore and a whole new set of people to deal with. Learning where to stay for the night and learning where to get his supplies became more important than formal education and at fifteen he dropped out and gave up officially. He could get by with everything he'd learned to that point. He could figure things out.
Between the ages of thirteen and seventeen Percy bounced from job to job where he could, doing his best to avoid working for the Company but biding his time and gathering information about the faction that changed his life. Several trips to Leith (sometimes for work and sometimes for other personal reasons) colored his view as well. He knew how people in the Quad felt about Westies and Percy met every bit of resistance with a little resistance of his own. Always one to stand up for the underdog, he never hesitated to throw himself into fights to protect one of his own even if it meant getting himself beaten or arrested. Somehow, he'd managed to escape actual jail time thanks to his relationship with that Enforcer he met years ago, but when the Enforcer moved to Leith Percy knew he had to do a better job keeping his nose clean.
As he grew older, he took an interest in two things: weapons and machines. He had understood from an early age that these two things made the world go round and that they were always in high demand. Things that were in high demand paid a good amount of joy and that was enough for Percy to take it upon himself to start learning how to troubleshoot engines and the innerworkings of ships that landed on Westerley. In addition, he started learning about the different kinds of weapons the Quad had to offer and eventually found himself settling in almost steadily at a weapons shop that allowed him to be in a pretty decent position. (No one needed to know he stole a gun from the shop prior to being hired.)
Currently, Percy uses the joy he earns from his freelance work and work at the weapons shop to supply his own weaponry (liquid matter) and practices manipulating it into different shapes and forms when he has nothing else to do. Working where he does and knowing how to keep his head down, he finds it's easier to learn information and stirrings of the Quad by simply listening and though he's biding his time he's already starting to formulate his next plan of attack...whatever that may be.
no subject
"Am I a troubled kid? Yeah, you could say that."
Perseus "Percy" Jackson...poster child for ADHD, sass-master extraordinaire...but like the seas there is much, much more under the surface.
Let's talk about the mechanics of Percy first. As a son of one of the Big Three (Poseidon, specifically) Percy is an incredibly powerful demigod and has garnered the respect of mortals and immortals alike, along with fear from many monsters and foes. Percy wasn't always aware of his power though and despite the fact that he's incredibly powerful, he still manages to remain humble...ish. He's regarded as a hero by many whether people (i.e. some of the gods) want to acknowledge it or not.
One of Percy's key traits is his nature to be brave and reckless. Part of it comes from his ADHD, part of it comes from Percy being Percy. When he first learns of his demigod linage he's more scared and unsure of himself but as time goes on Percy grows into his abilities and finds his own strength. He may not be analytical like Annabeth and it's been said more than once that his plans suck sometimes, but Percy excels in the art of being resourceful and being able to make things up on the fly. Percy isn't necessarily clever, but he knows how to use his surroundings to the best of his ability whether that be via summoning water to use his godly powers or simply running his mouth and attacking at the last minute. While he can get himself to point A quite easily, Percy does have trouble seeing himself to point B and understanding the greater picture and consequences of his actions until it's too late. There are several instances in which Percy's plans nearly backfire (along with several instances in which Percy's plans cause a lot of collateral damage), but somehow he manages to come up with something else to save himself and his friends.
Shortly after the second Titan War, (thanks to Hera) Percy spends time training under Lupa, the Roman wolf, thanks to be traded out for Jason Grace. As Roman demigods tend to have harder training than Greeks, Percy soon comes to fear nothing and becomes even more aggressive in the face of threats. Part of his aggressiveness can also be contributed to falling into and subsequently spending time in Tartarus, being haunted by rather dark thoughts that changed a little of his personality. As a young teenager, Percy would find himself sometimes hesitating to hurt enemies but after these events he finds that anger for enemies doesn't subside at all. He has little patience for people who are bullying him or his friends and even less patience for the gods meddling in the lives of himself and his friends.
But. You know. Percy's liked by a lot of people in his world for a good reason. Percy is fairly laid-back and a friendly sort of guy, often times unable to turn away from any person or creature in need. He's quick to offer a helping hand and the word "hero" isn't really just a title. He takes a lot of things in stride and generally stays relaxed through it all (who else laughs off being judo-flipped by their girlfriend? Percy you're fine.) Percy's one of those people that you can look at and think "that boy has a heart of gold." However…that doesn't necessarily mean he's always nice. Percy can be pretty snarky and sarcastic when he feels like it and the variation between playful teasing and "you're actually really pissing me off" varies based on how other people react to him. With recklessness sometimes comes arrogance. While Percy is generally nice among the people he cares for, he can be an absolute brat when he really wants to make a point, i.e. sending the head of Medusa to Mount Olympus. From an early age, Percy's warned by several people that he should have more respect for the gods and Percy's response is to basically shrug and carry on the way he wants to carry on. More than once he's mouthed off to a god because he didn't agree with what they were saying. He's fairly bullheaded about making his opinions known. Percy isn't one to hold back how he truly feels about people. Surprisingly, this is a method that helps him prove himself worthy of (most of) the gods and they even offer him immortality for his service in the Titan War.
Another key piece of who Percy is revolves solely around how he cherishes the people he cares about and even people he just feels a connection with. All demigod children have a Fatal Flaw, and Percy's Fatal Flaw is personal loyalty (as notated by Athena. Namely: "To save a friend, you would sacrifice the world.") Percy is the type of person who will sacrifice everything in order to save those he cares about most. He never sees it that way but it comes up often enough such as his dismissal of the immortality offer so he could stay with Annabeth, falling into Tartarus at the risk of harming himself so that Annabeth wouldn't have to face it alone, trying to take on Gaea himself so that his friends wouldn't have to do so…there are several instances. Along with personal loyalty is personal belief. Percy as a whole is a pretty trusting guy. Percy has found a lot of his downfalls coming from placing trust in people and those people preying on his genuine nature to take everything at face value (see: Nico di Angelo prepping Percy for the final fight of the Titan War by taking him to the Styx and later finding out he's being sold out to Hades.) Even after things like that though, Percy finds it in his heart to be able to (sometimes begrudgingly) forgive these people.
While Percy isn't always good at being able to understand people's emotions (Annabeth's jealousy of Rachel + other girls, Nico's feelings for him, etc), there are plenty of instances that he's more than capable of putting himself in other people's shoes and it's that ability that helps drive him to protect people. An example of this is how despite the fact Percy's the one who keeps pointing out that Luke is evil in the first series of books, by the time he's preparing to face him as the Titan Lord he's capable of understanding why Luke would have been driven down this kind of path. This doesn't just apply to people he knows but also people he's just met, such as the first time he meets Hazel (he immediately picks up on the fact that there's a heavy sadness about her and though he doesn't understand why he wants to know why.)
It's because of his ability to sympathize and his strong desire to protect that Percy finds himself thinking of the underdog. Even prior to discovering he's a demigod Percy is the one to befriend the kids nobody wants to befriend (Grover, for instance, and even later he befriends Tyson as well.) He tries to see the best in people and keep peace, even if he himself is unsure if he believes everything he's saying. Percy's job is to keep morale up and keep everyone settled and it's those traits that make him a natural-born leader. He knows how to delegate and he understands how to play up his team's strengths and weaknesses. However, sometimes Percy himself doesn't quite acknowledge that and it even takes him by surprise to learn that he's considered a leader among the other demigods. A leader not only knows how to run an army and fight battles and come out victorious, but a leader keeps promises. At the end of his life, Luke tells Percy that he needs to make sure what happened to him and some of the other unclaimed demigods doesn't happen again. Percy could have chosen immortality, but instead he used his victory as a bargaining tool to convince the gods to claim all of their children by age 13 and also create cabins for minor gods and Hades in honor of that promise.
So in short, even with being one of the most powerful demigods of his time (possibly the most powerful), Percy's still a seventeen year old boy. He's rebellious and has a tendency to go off-beat with plans if he thinks something better can happen. He tends to take things in stride and though several times the gods interfere Percy picks up the slack to persevere and push through. He places great value in his relationships with his friends and his family (especially his mother whom serves as his driving force very early on, and Annabeth who goes from slight rival to quest partner to friend to best friend to girlfriend to "settle in New Rome and have children" over the course of their time together), and truthfully so long as those he cares about most are safe and can be at peace, he can be at ease and satisfied.
AU History:
Original brainstorming meme link!
Once upon a time there was a Westerlan family whose heads had been filled with the idea that seven generations of work and dedication would allow for a better life. The family served their time and continued to grow over the years, generation after generation living and growing and dying until one day a baby girl was born. Sally Jackson was born as the fifth generation of the Jackson family, left alone in the world after the death of her parents at age five and raised by an uncle who didn't believe in the silly ideals the girl had. It was because of her uncle's disbelief (and later, his death) that Sally disappeared from Westerley for some time shortly after she turned eighteen and mingled among the Quad, anywhere she could slip to without drawing too much attention. It was almost unfortunate that attention found her though, and it was during her short time away that she met a man. This man came from a True Leithian bloodline and it was this man she fell in love with.
It was also with this man she gave birth to the sixth generation of the Jackson bloodline, and this is where Percy's story really begins.
Due to the bloodlines and the politics involved in what Sally had done, the couple knew they couldn't stay together, couldn't breathe a word of the child's existence without making their lives hell and decided it was best never to tell Percy who his father was. Not until he was ready, anyway, and with that decision in mind Sally returned to Westerley to begin life as a new mother. With little money and little support of her own, Sally made the decision to raise her son on her own and obtain a job working under the Company with the hopes of leveraging their family. Knowing what this would mean, she did her best to keep her head down and also made sure Percy was raised from an early age how to defend himself and survive. It was from Sally that Percy learned how to read people and hone his senses, but everything else came from his own hands.
Overall, Percy had a fairly normal childhood (or, at least, as normal as one can have when you're raised on Westerley) and everything was on track for most of his youth and early adolescence. He was able to attend school, he made a few friends here and there when he wasn't picking fights with people, and most importantly he had Sally who fueled him with the same ideals she had been raised with. Seven generations of work would mean a better life for the future. It was something he dreamed about, though it wasn't something he truly grasped the concept of and wouldn't until his later teenage years.
Granted, when you live on Westerley nothing stays peaceful for long. It wasn't until Percy was twelve that his entire life shifted and he was met with circumstances he never thought he'd have to deal with. One moment, he was stuck in after school detention. The next, a Company Enforcer came to collect him and calmly explain that his mother had been involved in a workplace accident. Even with the way the Enforcer described the events to him Percy found he wasn't listening. The only thing he needed to know was that this wasn't just an accident. Something had happened and now he was left to his own devices. When asked if he had somewhere to go, someone to go home to...Percy did what came naturally when it came to people working with the Company.
He lied.
Sally had a few men she was seeing that often were meant to help protect herself and Percy, but he refused to go to them. Not after seeing how they really were. So he lied. Dropped off at his mother's house, Percy stuffed all of his belongings into a backpack and disappeared off the map and onto the streets of Westerley.
It was a long and hard road for him after that, but it was better than the alternative. Over the course of the next five years Percy made his own way and stuck to the survival skills Sally had taught him. Living on the streets gave Percy a whole new world to explore and a whole new set of people to deal with. Learning where to stay for the night and learning where to get his supplies became more important than formal education and at fifteen he dropped out and gave up officially. He could get by with everything he'd learned to that point. He could figure things out.
Between the ages of thirteen and seventeen Percy bounced from job to job where he could, doing his best to avoid working for the Company but biding his time and gathering information about the faction that changed his life. Several trips to Leith (sometimes for work and sometimes for other personal reasons) colored his view as well. He knew how people in the Quad felt about Westies and Percy met every bit of resistance with a little resistance of his own. Always one to stand up for the underdog, he never hesitated to throw himself into fights to protect one of his own even if it meant getting himself beaten or arrested. Somehow, he'd managed to escape actual jail time thanks to his relationship with that Enforcer he met years ago, but when the Enforcer moved to Leith Percy knew he had to do a better job keeping his nose clean.
As he grew older, he took an interest in two things: weapons and machines. He had understood from an early age that these two things made the world go round and that they were always in high demand. Things that were in high demand paid a good amount of joy and that was enough for Percy to take it upon himself to start learning how to troubleshoot engines and the innerworkings of ships that landed on Westerley. In addition, he started learning about the different kinds of weapons the Quad had to offer and eventually found himself settling in almost steadily at a weapons shop that allowed him to be in a pretty decent position. (No one needed to know he stole a gun from the shop prior to being hired.)
Currently, Percy uses the joy he earns from his freelance work and work at the weapons shop to supply his own weaponry (liquid matter) and practices manipulating it into different shapes and forms when he has nothing else to do. Working where he does and knowing how to keep his head down, he finds it's easier to learn information and stirrings of the Quad by simply listening and though he's biding his time he's already starting to formulate his next plan of attack...whatever that may be.
CRAU: Nope!
Original History: Here, have a link