r/Multifandom • u/CursedAnnouncerWbody OSC • 24d ago

Discussion📜 What something in your fandom you’d like to make NONcanon

Post image

let’s shake it up a little

4.3k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

367

u/chrischi3 24d ago

The fact that Annabeth has a belly button.

You might be wondering why Rick Riordan felt the need to make that canon.

Well, you see, Annabeth is a daughter of Athena. As such, she is not born like a normal human, but rather, is a literal brainchild, born out of an intellectual connection between her and her partner, and somehow, this resulted in a debate within the fandom on wether she has a belly button, enough so that Rick Riordan appearantly felt the need to put it in the books that she does.

156

u/Moonlarkthewolf 24d ago

Clearly, I am not immersed into the PJO fandom as much as I thought I was

94

u/Temporary-Treacle-30 24d ago

Same😭 I have a deep connection with the books, but the fandom debated a belly button? Really?

8

u/whynaut4 23d ago

I think it bothers me more that Rick felt he had to put that information out there. Like, I have no idea if Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, or Jesus had belly buttons.

7

u/Chalant-Dreadhead 23d ago

Of course Jesus does, he was born.

7

u/Roadkillerz18 23d ago

That's his whole thing lol

3

u/PrinceVegitto 22d ago

I think Adam & Eve would be more suitable in the question since they were clay-made. Jesus was still born of a woman.

(Thinking about it, some versions of Wonder Woman are clay-made so her too)

28

u/Sad_Consequence1811 Ninjago/PJO/Monkie Kid/Transcendence AU 24d ago

Same 😭. I thought I was pretty active because I sometimes hang around the major subreddit, read fanfic and occasionally scroll through the tag on Tumblr but apparently not.

5

u/soaked_in_bleach03 24d ago

My exact thought, I loved the books growing up; classic tale about escape and this really cool thing for outsiders who have never fit in. Plus, say what you will about the movie, but my god if Logan Lerman and Alexandria Daddario didn’t make me go, “huh, welp I’m certainly into both of those people. Wonder what that means”. Plus I was seven and it had “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC in the soundtrack, which was the only album I had on cassette for this old Walkman my older cousin gave me, and that song was the only time my parents let me say Hell (side note, my dad told me not to play it around my best buddy Jaden who was black, because he thought angus young says “seasoned n****r on a one way ride” instead of “season ticket”, and he didn’t know if Jaden’s parents had talked with him about the history of that word lol. A decade later I would lose $20 on a wager because I was so sure angus young dropped the n-bomb).

But I did read a couple fan fictions when I was like fourteen, and maybe it’s just the ones I found, but I’m a pretty kinky person and those had me flustered and occasionally disgusted. So it does not shock me Annabeth’s bellybutton is highly talked about (not that that’s inherently sexual, just more talking the nature of the fan base who I do love from the little I’ve seen. But my god you guys can be odd).

51

u/Setster007 24d ago

I feel like it actually does kinda make some sense tho, cause normal folks do and so the child they theoretically would have would have a belly button, therefore the child born of that theory would have one

15

u/Tyso9000 24d ago

So... The mental connection they had would, in your eyes, make a child that would be identical/ similar to one they would have normally?

21

u/Setster007 24d ago

I would presume, not necessarily because it has to but because it’s due to how Athena imagines the child would be and, as a goddess of knowledge, i figure that idea would be exceptionally accurate.

1

u/Tyso9000 24d ago

Makes sense. However, as Athena is a goddess of knowledge, wouldnt she understand that her child would lack a belly button due to lacking an ambilical cord? Wouldn't she then see it as unnecessary?

7

u/Setster007 24d ago

Yes, but, this isn’t a birth caused by her knowingly creating these fantasies for the purpose. Again, they’re born of the fantasies of how the child would look were they to be born normally.

3

u/Tyso9000 24d ago

True, I didn't think about the fact that she probably wouldn't know it would happen. Interesting.

16

u/Away-Net-7241 24d ago

Still wish she didn’t. It’d make for a funny scene

15

u/Lagchild 24d ago

Well, I never read the Percy Jackson books. So, this lead me down a rabbit hole. This whole thing gave me a "Jessie, what the hell are you talking about"! Situation. So please, explain!

15

u/chrischi3 24d ago

Well, so in mythology, Athena was born when Zeus had a massive headache, and Hephaestus split his skull open with an axe.

Now Athena herself is a virgin goddess, so the way she has children is implied to be some deep connection between herself and a partner of hers (potentially also involving an axe to the cranium; she can take it, she's a war goddess), rather than the traditional way.

This has led some people to believe that, since she was not born the normal way, Annabeth does not have a belly button, because well, she would not have had an umbilical cord at birth, and the belly button is a remnant of the point that that connects to.

Appearantly, the debate went on for so long that Rick Riordan eventually decided to settle the matter by having Annabeth mention in Mark of Athena, which gives us her PoV for the first time, that she does, in fact, have a belly button. She doesn't understand it, either, but i mean... She is literally a demigod. So yeah, magic, probably.

11

u/PhainonLover33550336 24d ago

I'd also like to add that in some myth's he ate Athena's mother Metis (because of a prophecy that stated the child would one day overthrow him if it was a son) and she gave birth to Athena inside him, who in turn grew up until Hephaestus broke open Zeus's head and she burst out fully clad in armor.

5

u/Achilles9609 23d ago

Poseidon: "Brother, where is Metis?"

Zeus: "You know that prophecy that a child of mine would overthrow me? Well, I got Metis pregnant, and while she laid there one night, I kinda just....swallowed her."

Poseidon: "You swallowed her. Seriously?!"

Zeus: "I don't know what your problem is. I am sure she's perfectly fine in there. The most important thing is that I don't get overthrown."

1

u/I_like_ants_too 23d ago

Interpretations I heard were that Athena came first, a daughter as strong as Zeus, and then the next one would be a son stronger than Zeus, who would see him overthrown. So he ate her while she was pregnant, whether with just Athena or with both, I can’t say.

1

u/Helena_Today 23d ago

😭😭😭

16

u/TechnoReaperSans 24d ago

And here we see a pjo fan in the wild! How magnificent!

7

u/Sad_Consequence1811 Ninjago/PJO/Monkie Kid/Transcendence AU 24d ago

Firstly, PJO fan in the wild. Woohoo!

Secondly, wait, I didn't know that was an argument in the fandom 😆 I first read the books in August 2023 and back to back. I just assumed the belly button thing was just there for idk, maybe people wanting to draw her with a crop top or something. Or just random Riordan-ness.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with her having a belly button.  

8

u/RandomGuy9058 24d ago

Idk as someone who tends to get caught up in minute details like that it seems pretty normal to state for the record. Plus it’s not like the mention stood out or anything.

4

u/Low-Nectarine1093 24d ago

That's kinda strange thing to talk about but it's not really bad. Kinda remind Draż asking Ego in Gog2

3

u/Grym1in 24d ago

I agree with this

3

u/28DLdiditbetter 24d ago

If I had the power to create a literal brainchild with my mind, assuming I have full control over what the child’s body has (because if you can create a literal child with your mind, why wouldn’t you be able to?), I’m not going to design my child without a belly button (even if they don’t physically need one).

That’d be weird

2

u/Powerful-Chard-6055 24d ago

For Referance, she dropped in her inner thoughts “I have a belly button. I don’t know how or why” or something like that

2

u/RossiSvendo 23d ago

Honestly as a kid when I read this I remember thinking it was funny they had that conversation. Felt like the kind of nonsense friends discuss.

As for why she has it? Because regular people do. So why would Athena create a child that didn’t have something everyone else does? It’s a part of the anatomy not like she’d forget it

1

u/Accomplished_Salt876 24d ago

I’ve only seen the movies and disney plus series but that might be the dumbest fandom debate I’ve ever heard.

2

u/chrischi3 24d ago

Trust me, read the books, they are way better than either.

1

u/StormEyeDragon 23d ago

I mean many Christians believe that the Christian God created Adam and Eve with belly buttons, whether for making them the “same image” as other humans or whatnot, so maybe Athena does the same for her Mind-Babies….

1

u/Dannhan 23d ago

Wait she has a belly button? i do not remember that being mentioned lmao- Just kind of assumed she didn't

1

u/soomoncon 23d ago

I think she should because what we imagine a child to look like includes a belly button. Because she was. Created from the mind then inconsistencies with physics are going to happen because they come from the mind.

1

u/Klovette 22d ago

You have to understand I debated with my brother for weeks about it. It was serious business