"Great!" Danny says, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention. The dinner table falls silent as everyone looks towards him. It's a full house today and, honestly, Danny's a little nervous. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I gathered you here today."
"It's dinnertime. In our house." Duke mutters, while doing a very bad job of concealing his yawn. He holds his fork poised over the braised beef, but, just like everyone else, still looks towards Danny before tucking in. It's intriguing enough to wait.
"Yeah, no one misses Alfie's dinner." Dick says, with a brilliant smile that Danny can't help but return.
"Precisely! What better time to talk to you all than when you're all actually here!"
"Wait, I thought you came round to work on our English essays?" Tim asks, blinking owlishly.
"I'm afraid I've lured you here under false pretences, Tim."
"This is where I live."
"I would still really appreciate help on that essay though, I mean, what the hell is Hamlet even about? I just don't get that old time-y language, like 'Hark! A ghost hath killed me!' - absolute rubbish, what does that even mean?"
"The ghost never kills anyone in Hamlet, he's there to tell Hamlet that he was murdered. Have you actually read it?"
"No, but it sounds like you have. Tim, I want this guy to help me with my essay instead. I know for a fact that you haven't read Hamlet, either."
"So? We don't need Jason, I've read the Sparknotes."
"Hi Jason, I'm Danny, pleasure to meet you, summarise Hamlet in three sentences or less."
"Am I auditioning to help you write your essays? I can't believe you’ve gone through your whole school life without reading it, it’s good!"
"Hamlet, along with a number of other classics, was banned in our house because it portrayed ghosts as intelligent and sympathetic beings rather than evil, animalistic beasts. I didn’t even get to see The Muppet's Christmas Carol until last year with Tim! It was surprisingly good, and I hate Christmas because everyone always argued and it sucked. But we're getting off topic. I—"
"No, no, please go back to that, because what the fu—"
"Boys, please." Bruce interrupts, looking to the world as if he wants to hang his head in his hands. "Danny, you were about to say something?"
"Oh, yeah, Mr. Wayne! Thanks!"
"Please, call me Bruce."
"Well, that very succinctly brings me to my point, because I'd actually really like to call you dad."
Nobody says a word. Nobody even blinks, all as shocked as the other, watching open-mouthed as Danny pulls his laptop out from beside his chair. Bruce can definitely feel a headache coming on.
"Before you say anything, I've prepared a 69 slide PowerPoint presentation on why you, Bruce Wayne, should adopt me, Danny Last-Name-Pending. Please save your questions, comments, and verdict until the end, thank you."
Nico and Percy's dynamic through the series is eternally funny to me, because it's just. like.
Percy's having a constant mental struggle between his fatal flaw of loyalty with a promise he made to Bianca to protect Nico, versus his Big 3 kid desire to maim other Big 3 kids / Poseidon descendant urge to totally maim Nico specifically. He hates Nico so so much. He thinks Nico's annoying and weird at best, and creepy/sketchy when he's older. The only positive thoughts Percy has towards Nico are "He's Bianca's brother and Bianca was my friend and I owe her/He's Hazel's brother and Hazel is my friend and would kill me if I was mean to him," "He's a powerful asset and useful ally (if questionable)," and "He's kinda pathetic and I feel maybe a little bad about it." Percy has multiple occasions throughout the series where he strongly considers - and on one occasionally actually goes through with - throttling Nico.
Meanwhile, Nico is following around Percy like a lost puppy. He explicitly can never bring himself to even dislike anything about Percy no matter how hard he tries. He has a whole bit in BoO where he's mentally going "UGH he's so stupid BUT IT'S ENDEARING HOW DARE HE." He's totally smitten. He's making deals with his dad for Percy. He's making convoluted plans to help Percy stand a chance against Kronos. During the entirety of BoTL it's like he's playing tsundere - "I'm helping NOT PERCY SPECIFICALLY with this quest! Me helping Percy would be SILLY because I DEFINITELY HATE HIM." Then he proceeds to show up to Percy's birthday party to basically ask him on a weird date and spend the entire next book scrambling around trying to help him or protect him or impress him. And Percy could not give less of a shit.
Just. That dynamic is so funny to me. Percy is the founder of the Nico Protection Club in that he's the one they're all protecting Nico from and meanwhile Nico is throwing himself at Percy to the point where the literal god of gay love calls him out on it.
I am once again reiterating that Leo could and should be a figure skater because what are ice skates if not twin blades? What is dual blade swordsmanship if not a dance-like performance? Using the skates as blades themselves could let Leo make portals be his ice rink no? I rest my case. ⛸️
the fact that the scene starts with boba noticing that jaina is looking at him with "real compassion" and being like, "nuh-uh. absolutely not. putting a stop to this right the fuck now."
the way jaina draws her lightsaber all carefully like she's trying not to trigger Man With Notorious Beef Against Jedi, and he just pulls his own lightsaber out of nowhere like, "oh yeah i have one of those too :^)"
(i need everyone to know that this encounter was prefaced by an extended scene of beviin and medrit fussing over boba's shitty durasteel armor and basically forbidding him from going to spar with jaina until he swapped it out for something more lightsaber-resistant. so, after all this build-up of, "you CANNOT afford to take risks with someone wielding a lightsaber, what, are you TRYING to end up like jango," the fact that boba just casually pulls out a lightsaber of his own is extra funny to me)
(everyone is being so mindful of the fett family's traumatic history with lightsabers and meanwhile boba is just like, "EXPOSURE THERAPY OR NOTHING, LET'S FUCKING GO")
boba holding the lightsaber "like a hammer." can't decide if he's holding it like that bc it's genuinely more comfortable for him or if he's intentionally playing up his inexperience to get jaina to lower her guard.
the way he stalks towards jaina while letting the tip of the lightsaber drag against the ground. that's so menacing and i love it.
all that build-up and once he's in actual striking distance he just deactivates the lightsaber and sucker-punches her in the stomach LMAO
the fact that he uses the lightsaber as a FUCKING KNUCKLEDUSTER
he's such a mean and horrible old man. i love him <3
Absolutely ruined by this one panel of Molly telling Yasha about his “choir practice.” The way he just looks so soft and melancholy. A glimpse behind the curtain, a painful vulnerability amidst all the joy and color he revels in. Confessing that he can't bear to watch someone else just suffer in silence; he can't just do nothing when there's someone hurting. “The truth is...how do I put this...The world is harsh and cruel, and I can't seem to be able to just walk on by. You see a wrong? You fix it.”
“I know what the other others think, but—” The twins gossiping whenever Molly takes off in the dead of night. And Molly letting them presume, think what they like, because the reality is something he doesn’t want anyone else to see. “Not sure why he's so embarrassed though...” This is something just for him, just for his own shattered shard of a spirit. A chance to protect another lost soul. To fix a bit of this broken world.
So compassionate, so protective--always getting so easily caught up and invested, ruled by reckless impulse and a bleeding heart. Playing at the hero. (He never knew Lucien loved putting on a performance too, that he was always cast as the villain; warm memories of song and dance and little plays on the roadside. Choking on the ash and smoke of a burning caravan--)
Molly pulling up the hood of his cloak and darting away under the safety of Sehanine's shadows. Running off to risk his life for complete strangers, for people who may never thank him, for a world that may always hate him. “I’ll tell you--and this is true--I did my best every town I went to and every town I left, no matter how they treated me. And a lot of them treated me with deep disrespect...I left every town better than I found it.” The way this resonates with everything Taliesin said about how the whole point of Molly's blood magic is sacrifice, how his powers stem from his desire to be a protector, to be good—
“[Molly’s power] was about sacrifice. It’s the giving of himself to give to others. Giving of himself to be a protector.”
“His very nature is to appear to be many things that he is not. His power looks one way--it looks damaging and looks broken and unhealthy--but, in the end, it’s all about a desire to be a good friend and a good family member.”
Mollymauk waking with faint echoes of haunting memories and nightmares of too many eyes and screaming minds, desperately trying to outrun the chilling legacy that Lucien left behind. Trying so hard to do better, to be better, to prove that he's not the monster he's so terrified a part of him once was. “Whatever it was, it doesn't feel good when I-- the moment when something creeps through, I don't like it. I don't want anything to do with it. I was happy!”
“I don’t want to remember anything. I don’t want anybody else’s baggage in my head, I don’t want anybody else’s problems, thoughts, ideas...I like this person. [This person], right now, is a good person, is a fine person, is a happy person.”
The fact that Molly runs headlong into danger for others all the time, yet he's still so taken by surprise that Yasha would do the same for him--
i stand by that a better, more sensible, and more intriguing plot for TSATS would have been, instead of retconning literally everything:
Bob is dead (because he was very explicitly absorbed/killed by Tartarus Himself in House of Hades, alongside Damasen), and nobody is going into Tartarus to save him. He made his sacrifice and is gone. However. Remember how the Titans, including Bob, were just kind of kicking around for several years? Particularly. On a cruise ship full of mortals. And Bob happened to be kicking around in general for an extra year versus all the other Titans. And he mythologically sometimes has a mortal demigod son who partook in the Calydonian Boar Hunt (Dryas of Calydon). Yeah.
So turns out, Bob/Iapetus leaves behind a demigod (demititan?) child. And because Nico was pretty much his only friend, he named Nico his child's godfather. And while he's not being left in charge of the child, as a son of Hades and godfather to this kid, Nico is duty-bound to fulfill Bob's last will and go find this like 2 year old to make sure they're safe. So Nico has to undertake this very unusual quest (that raises many questions, such as "demititans are a thing?" and "DOES THIS MEAN THERE'S POTENTIALLY MORE-?!" and "SHOULD WE BE CONCERNED ABOUT THIS?") and is kind of freaking out because. He's the son of Hades! He's notoriously bad with living things, and animals, and definitely small children! Even if he does find this kid and assure they're safe, he is the last person who should be undergoing any kind of quest involving even potentially having to babysit. Fortunately, his boyfriend is the human embodiment of sunshine and calmness and good vibes, and also once helped a nymph give birth, so he feels Marginally More Confident in theoretical demititan babysitting and offers to come along on this Epic Journey of Figuring Out What In Hades' Name Is Up With This Demititan Baby Business.
Proceed with wholesome epic shenanigans quest of Nico and Will scurrying around trying to locate this random OP baby while Nico has an existential crisis about the nature of his powers because he doesn't want to let Bob down! Both for Hades Kid Honor Reasons and because Bob was his friend! But what if he's destined to fail this quest just because of who he is? Because he's simply not built for hanging out with the living/mortals? And Will reassuring him that He Will Probably Not Traumatize The Weird OP Titan Baby And It'll Be Fine, and simultaneously getting a peek into the weird other life Nico leads hanging out with immortals much more than the average demigod, which Nico considers his norm. Bonus shenanigans of both of them getting caught off-guard and culture shocked from where each other's respective worlds (Nico's mostly-immortal versus Will's mostly-mortal) cross over and learning to navigate those for each other - Nico finally starting to make some mortal connections and get glimpses at modern mortal American life, and Will trying not to get his brain literally incinerated while Nico's happily casually catching up with some of his old friends who happen to be literal gods.
The thing is, I don't actually blame Aziraphale for thinking Crowley would want to become an angel again. At all. Crowley has been a miserable grumpy bitch on a consistent basis for thousands of years, and when was the last time Aziraphale saw him truly happy and unburdened? When he was an angel creating nebulas. I really think a big part of the problem here is, ironically, that he misses seeing Crowley openly and fearlessly happy, and he doesn't realize that the only thing that could really make Crowley happy like that again is... him.