#intro:percy

[troubledkid]

「    wolfgang novogratz, twenty-one, cis male + he/him    」 ˚╰ ❃ ╮  did  you  know    SEAWEED BRAIN'S    real  name  is    PERCY JACKSON     ?!    around  the  island  they  seem  to  be  quite     loyal     ,  but  also     impulsive    ,  but  it  makes  sense  given  they  are  a     STUDENT     and  come  from    PERCY JACKSON    .  you  can  hear   SEVEN NATION ARMY  by  THE WHITE STRIPES   blasting  from  their  house ,  but  be  careful   !   they  can  be  agitated  as  nightmares  bring  back  memories  of  DEFEATING GAEA .  even  so ,  it’s  impossible  to  see  their  SWORD (SLASH BALLPOINT PEN; DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT)   and  not  think  about  them .   penned  by :    claire  .

𝐇𝐎𝐖  𝐖𝐀𝐒  𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒  𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄  𝐒𝐎  𝐅𝐀𝐑  ?

(this is horribly long i’m sorry) (tw death, illness, implied domestic abuse)

They called him a troubled kid. A loser. A mess up. A failure. No attention span, a problem child, poor grades, nothing but backtalk. Whatever the opposite of “a pleasure to have in class” was. They didn’t see how hard Percy was trying. They didn’t see him playing catchup from the moment he was born.

Percy never knew his father--he never even knew who his father was. From day one, it was was just him and his mother, Sally, a young high school dropout. (Her parents had been killed in a plane crash when she was young, and she lost her dreams of a writing degree with her uncle, proof that the worst things happened to the best people.) Sally didn’t have much, but she gave everything she had to being a good mother to Percy. And she was--the best mother Percy could possibly have asked for, giving and patient and funny and kind and honest (except when it came to his dad; that was off limits).

And then she married Gabe Ugliano, who was as awful as Sally was good, but he did give them something resembling stability. A little bit. For a while.

Percy wasn’t exactly conducive to stability--he was kicked out of every school he tried, draining Sally’s savings and Gabe’s patience. Sometime around school three, when he was eight or so, he was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, but the labels didn’t do anything for the trail of inexplicable bad luck that followed him wherever he went. No matter what he did, no matter his intention, despite the fact that he never--never--meant to do anyone any harm, things blew up in Percy’s face. Sometimes literally. He was a good kid, really, but they only ever saw him as trouble. And he was running out of last resorts.

Halfway through middle school, all at once, Sally got sick, Gabe croaked, Percy got kicked out of another school, and someone granted him a full ride to a boarding school that would have him. (Rumors were maybe--maybe--his dad had something to do with it, whoever he was, but there’s no proof of that.) At long last, school stuck. For the first time, Percy had friends, did okay enough in his classes, made his way through with hope for a future.

Sally remarried--a good man this time, a high school teacher. Percy, against all odds, graduated high school (as captain of the swim team, at that!), and enrolled in college (Sally will insist she always believed in him, but she was surprised by that one, too). He’s still gods-awful at school, but he’s doing his best. He has no idea what he’s majoring in, if he’ll even scrape by at all. He’s still on the swim team, he’s drawn to the seaside, he spends his days wondering if he’ll ever catch a break; if he’ll ever be able to prove himself. Percy knows he was meant to do something--he just doesn’t know what.

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓  𝐖𝐀𝐒  𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒  𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓  𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄  𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓  ?

he’s underwater. he can breathe, or he thinks he can--he knows he should be able to. but this water is different, darker, deeper. it is subsuming him and suffocating him, and he feels himself washing away in pieces. the current swallows him up, and he is forgetting who he is, where he is, why he is. it’s dark, so dark. his body is boiling, feverish, burning up, but the water itself isn’t all that hot. he wants to scream. the only sound he can make is a muffled choke. there are monsters in his periphery, the detritus of lives, the lost echoes of souls. but, from the small of his back, he feels a tug. he sees a blonde girl on a dock. he sees-- he sees-- 

nothing. it’s so dark.

he can’t breathe.

𝐇𝐎𝐖  𝐀𝐑𝐄  𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘  𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆  𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇  𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑  𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓  𝐅𝐄𝐖  𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 ?

confused. a little bit afraid. and, somehow, hopeful? there’s been something missing his whole life, and, there, just out of reach--there it is. percy knows he’s good at something. he knows he has a purpose. he feels stronger around water and always has a pen on him, no matter how hard he tries to lose it. he just has to figure out what it all means.

𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐄𝐋𝐒𝐄 ?

pinterest + playlist !