I apologize if you got excited seeing an update to this story after so long, but I feel this is needed, like so many years ago when I felt the need to post about my experience on the Lexington. The reason for the across-the-board post if for anyone that exclusively follows just one story or another.

Because the mods of the subreddit keep deleting my posts about the subject, I'm posting it here:

The actress for Annabeth Chase has been announced, May 5, 2022, and it's Leah Jeffries. If you don't know who that is, don't worry, neither do I. What I do know is that Leah is a black girl.

Black.

Playing Annabeth Chase…who is white.

Rick, who is directly involved with the show, cast a black girl to play a character that has been white since her introduction in 2005. If you don't believe me, go check out Twitter and the subreddit real quick. Social media is blowing up with posts about it.

It's extremely ironic to me. The movies were heavily criticized for how unfaithful they were to the books. The plot had to be adjusted to fit the runtime, and so many scenes were omitted and the movie plot itself only loosely followed the book. The actors were also criticized for not being true to the book characters, being adults playing characters who are supposed to be twelve.

Most specifically, Alexandra Daddario's portrayal of Annabeth. From the character standpoint, we go from "You drool in your sleep," to "I definitely have feelings for you, but I haven't decided if they're positive or negative yet."

Um, okay.

But beyond even that, the heaviest criticism for Daddario came in the form of her appearance. Annabeth is supposed to be tan with grey eyes and curly blonde hair. Daddario was pale with blue eyes and straight brown hair. There was a major outcry over this.

And don't forget Viria. Remember how she was cancelled and bullied out of the fandom when she started drawing Annabeth as "too dark?" She started drawing Annabeth with tanner skin than how she colored Reyna and Piper, and this apparently counted as racism.

Fast forward twelve years later, and now we have a black actress playing this same tan-skinned, grey-eyed, curly blonde-haired character…and there is a celebration over it?

Where is the disconnect?

The two biggest arguments for Annabeth being cast by Leah is that A) Annabeth's skin color has no bearing on her character, therefore it doesn't matter what color actress portrays her, and B) it doesn't matter what actress portrays her, so long as the actress is the best fit for the role.

Okay, that's understandable.

Beckendorf being black has no bearing on his character, or any impact on the plot. Carter being black doesn't affect his character or the plot; Rick could've wrote the Kane family as one race and nothing about the story would've changed, because the story doesn't revolve around their skin. The same is true for Hazel. Her being a black girl from the 40s is a minor subplot and has no bearing or effect on the story. She could've been white or Hispanic like Sammy, and nothing would be different. This also goes for TJ in Magnus Chase, and Austin Lake, Apollo's son.

Not to mention Leo, Frank, Reyna, Hylla, and Drew, who is Asian.

None of their ethnicities have any impact on their character, and to the sentiment of the best actor for the role, does this not mean you can go get whatever colored actor you want and cast them as any of these characters? Hazel played by a white girl, Frank by a black boy, Leo by a pale, redheaded Irish boy, Reyna and Hylla as Japanese girls?

Not even close.

Imagine the outcry there would be—particularly in the cases of Beckendorf and Hazel—if non-POC actors were cast as these POC characters?

So why is it okay to cast a black actress in the role of a white character?

It's not. This is the blackwashing phenomenon we're seeing more and more in the media. Will Smith playing Floyd Lawton, Michael B. Jordan playing Johnny Storm. If whitewashing, the action of casting white actors as colored characters, isn't okay, then neither should blackwashing.

But for some reason, it is.

There is a clear double standard here, and it is unacceptable.

It's okay to cast Leah Jeffries as Annabeth Chase, a historically white character, but buckle down and prepare for a shitstorm should Hazel, a historically black character, be cast by a white girl, even if that white girl demonstrated the greatest aptitude for the portrayal, like Leah apparently did for Annabeth.

Now, what does this mean for the future?

Since 2005, all artwork of Annabeth has been of her being white, as per canon. For almost two decades now, all fanart has been of a white Annabeth. As of the morning of May 5, the day of the casting announcement, already has there been an influx of fanart with Annabeth featured in the likeness of Leah, with black skin and blonde, braided dreadlocks.

Given the nature of the cancel culture we live in today, can we expect all these artists who drew a white Annabeth to be viciously attacked and cyberbullied? Can we expect demands of the artists to go back and recolor Annabeth as black, and redraw her hair to fit Leah's style? Going forward, is all artwork of Annabeth depicting her as black now mandatory, and any artwork of her as white to be considered whitewashing, and to be taken down immediately?

Is Rick going to go back and rewrite the whole canon with Annabeth as a black girl? Can we expect a retconned rerelease of the entire Riordanverse saga, all 20+ books, with Annabeth rewritten as black, and her and Percy as a mixed-race couple?

Here in the realm of fanfiction, will authors now be expected to write Annabeth as black?

If you think I'm writing a black Annabeth, you can go fuck yourself. I wouldn't write about a black Annabeth any more than I would a white Carter Kane or a German Reyna.

Ultimately, this decision by Rick to cast Leah as Annabeth is highly disappointing. With him in a leading role in this whole project, we expected a true, by the literal book, faithful adaptation of the material we all love, especially after all the criticism surrounding the movies due to how unfaithful they were to the books.

With this undeniably unfaithful casting decision by the main man himself, we can only sit back and wait to see what else will be changed.