Board Thread:The Trials of Apollo/@comment-35757203-20180602185840/@comment-35229543-20180603103942

Well, here's the thing. Jason and Piper broke up, but the reasoning behind it is complex. It's clear they still love each other, definitely as friends and probably as love interests--it's just that that specific aspect of their relationship was hard to manage at the point of time that the Burning Maze happened, so I feel like their break-up was more of an 'I need some time alone to think' rather than the cliche 'I hate you and you broke my heart but I can't hate you because I still love you'. I'm pretty sure that if Jason had lived, they would've gotten together again somewhere further down the road, seeing as they both still have feelings for each other, platonic or not.

What I actually appreciate about the Jason/Piper relationship was how it developed. I know a huge part of the fandom is complaining and hating on Piper and hating on Jason and hating on Jasper and hating on Rick, but if you step back and take a look their relationship wasn't rushed at all. Piper still liked Jason even after she found out her memories with him were an illusion, because she did fall in love with him, and those kinds of feelings are hard to just get rid of. As for Jason, he also genuinely fell in love with Piper, and let's be honest--it's not easy to just 'be friends' with someone when you know they like you. It just so happened that Jason liked Piper back.

And this is why I like the development so much. Because even if there's the cliche generic relationship development, everything started out as an illusion. So it would make sense that once the Giant War was over and Piper and Jason had to try and figure out who they were as a couple without the constant feeling of urgency, which is something I find fascinating--because think about it. If you had a relationship that started in the middle of a war, and both you and your partner played major roles in that war, wouldn't a lot of your relationship revolve around things like knowing they'll have your back in battle, and confessing your suspicions that Leo isn't acting quite normal and it might be an eidolon, or comforting each other about the final showdown that just keeps creeping closer? So once that's taken away, what's left? Even in the time frame between the Lost Hero and Son of Neptune, the war with Gaia was constantly looming. So Jason and Piper never actually had time to know each other without the sense of crisis.

So of course Piper would be confused about how she really felt about Jason, especially considering how their relationship started. She'd start wondering whether her feelings are real, or if she just likes him as a close friend and everything else was the pressure Hera and Aphrodite were putting on her. So yeah, basically--I think the break-up was perfectly reasonable.

(Not to say it didn't break my heart.)