i need to talk about how much i love the pjo show's way of introducing annabeth's character's backstory, specifically through her getting used to percy's chronic loyalty
the way she attacks him with a hug both times she thought he might've been gone forever??? (the arch and after he returns to chb) this girl who doesn't hold her breath over people staying around for her, who is so so relieved everytime percy comes back to her
the way she is absolutely appalled by percy's insisent reassurance. his "i'm perfectly comfortable with that, people make mistakes" his "people who love you shouldn't treat you like that" his "you are better at this than me, you just are" this is just percy being percy, always seeing the best in people, and never once treating her like she has to prove anything to him to be treated with care
and she's so caught off guard every time!! she tells grover to tell percy to pull himself together. she tells him "i guess so" when he asks if he has to earn it with her too. she is IMMEDIATELY at a loss for words when percy tells her that she's the one meant for the quest. that she's better at this. that he's not trying to sacrifice himself for his own glory, it has nothing to do with him, he's only thinking of her
and that's so new to annabeth!! someone who isn't trying to make her prove anything! someone who from the beginning saw her worth! not someone like her mother, who would see her die because she felt embarassed by her. not someone like her father, who loved her at first and because of someone else, began to not(or at least she thought so). not like Thalia, who made her prove herself, who for all valiance, still died, still left her. not like Luke, who promised family, and then betrayed her.
she's not used to someone who stays just for her
or in her own words,
"He's not like that, he's better than that"
i love annabeth chase
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I'm sorry but Grian's last stand!!! hello??!?!?
My man took on a 3v1 and was fucking WINNING. He lowered all 3 of them by so much! He alone in that fight dropped Scott from 35 to 12 hearts and Gem from 49 down to 5 (+10 for killing Grian) (I've not seen Impulse's ep yet).
But like?? yes King pop OFF
He even fought until his shield BROKE, fighting till the very last minute!!
Say what you want about this man and his easy flightiness with alliances when they begin to break apart, but this man had a mission and he fucking delivered on it and we stan a committed man
He managed to hold his own against a very good PVP player and he fucking owned it
The tragedy of it? He knew he wasn't going to win. Of course he wouldn't against the best PVP player in the server, a previous winner, and Impulse who consistently performs well in these games. He was surrounded, taking and blocking hits from all directions, throwing himself into the fray when he could have just walked away and waited for a better moment. But no, taking and giving swing after swing, fighting until the very wood of his shield splinters and breaks. He wasn't expecting to win, he could never win with how low his hearts were, but he knew he could bring them part of the way down with him. He just knew Gem and the Scots couldn't be left with their abundance of hearts, and my man sacrificed himself to make sure other players had a fighting chance.
Without him, Gem probably would have won with her stacked hearts
I hope the community milks the ever-loving shit out of this moment
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Just a Rock
For all the time I’ve spent traveling through space, I haven’t spend much of it actually out in space. It’s unsettling. Inside the ship, I can forget how close the airless void is, how small our precious bubble of air. But outside, everything is black like some vast creature ate all the color in the universe first, then the air, and is now hungering for life forms too.
Sometimes those distant stars look like teeth.
These are the thoughts that tend to pop up when I’m in my exo suit, hoping that my thruster pack doesn’t run out of fuel before I make it back to the ship. But then an empty pack of chips will float by my visor, and I can refocus on business.
That’s how it happened today, at any rate. (And yes, “day” is a silly concept in the blackness of space.) We’d made a detour to see if we could pick up some extra funds by gathering salvage from a museum ship that had gone kablooey, but so far all we were finding was trash.
Paint jetted past in her own exo suit, upside-down to my frame of reference, then stopped to pull apart a jumble of carpet fragments. “They really did clear out the good stuff already,” she said over the radio. She swatted aside a drink cup with her tail, looking like a little space-suited dinosaur, a thought that kept me entertained for a good few seconds.
Captain Sunlight’s voice said, “Keep an eye out for scrap metal. That may already be gone too, but it’s worth a shot.” She was somewhere else in the drifting junk pile, or maybe back near the ship; I couldn’t tell. There was too much stuff in the way. This was a mildly alarming thought — out of sight meant out of safety — but I caught a glimpse of the Frillian twins posted as safety guards at the edge of the cloud, and my heartbeat settled a bit.
“Do you think anyone will buy some mildly used carpet?” Paint asked the captain. “It’s only in several pieces.”
“Let’s go with ‘no.’”
“What about some very exotic — what is this — napkins? Made with authentic Earth wood fibers!”
I looked over at that. “How can you tell?”
“Oh, I have no idea,” Paint said. She held up half of a wall placard. “But this is from the Earth exhibit, so maybe the napkins are too.”
I looked around at the trash in a new light. “Man, it’s a pity we weren’t here for any of the good stuff.”
“Yeah, and all these food packages are empty! We can’t even get you a slightly exploded taste of home!”
I waved my hand through a cluster of soda bottles. “I appreciate the thought.”
Paint jetted over to a different pile of whatever. “Hey, do you think any of this food trash was actually an exhibit? Packaging from olden days?”
“Uh, maybe,” I said. “Probably not. That’s not the sort of thing I’d expect on a multi-species museum ship. A janky little humans-only one, maybe. But even then, most people aren’t going to care.”
Something clunked against the back of my helmet. I hate that. Nothing like a reminder that I can’t see behind me like some species can. I toggled the jets to rotate in place, so I could find the offending object.
It was a rock.
“What’s this doing here?” I asked, closing a gloved hand around it and bringing it in for a closer look.
“What’d you find?” Paint asked, sticking out sideways from behind a twisted bench.
“A rock.”
“A meteorite rock?” she asked. “Oh hey, do you think it pierced the hull?”
“No, it doesn’t look like a space rock,” I said, turning the small gray-and-white lump over. It was mostly smooth, with a divot that would have fit a fingertip if I hadn’t been wearing the gloves. “Weird. I wonder if it was part of some Neolithic exhibit or something.”
“Can I see?” Paint jetted over to park herself in roughly the same orientation as me. She was very good with that jetpack.
I showed her the rock. “It doesn’t look like any gemstone I know. Maybe some kid had it in their pocket, then threw it away.”
Paint cocked her head. “Is that normal, for your young to carry rocks around?”
“Sure. You never picked up something you thought was neat as a kid?”
“Not a rock,” Paint said with exaggerated disdain. “A sweet-smelling seednut or herb, absolutely.”
“But look: it’s even got a little finger groove,” I pointed out. “You could stick it in a pocket and rub it for luck.”
“Could you?”
I smiled. “You could. You probably wouldn’t, but…”
“Why?”
I looked at the rock again, already fond of it. “I get the feeling that I couldn’t explain this to a point where you’d agree.”
Paint shrugged. “Probably not. But hey, we found you a souvenir after all. From probably the Earth section of whatever museum this is.” She grabbed a handful of colorful pamphlets drifting by. “The ‘Galaxy in a Bottle Museum Tour Ship.’ Who named that?”
My smile turned into a wide grin. “Humans.”
Paint grumbled about the unflattering comparison of an elite starship to a simple bottle. When she moved to toss the pamphlets away, I held out a hand.
“What’s that white one?” I asked. “It looks like a display sign.”
Paint flipped over the stack and separated the one I meant. “You’re right. Hey, it’s about a rock!”
I reached out a grabby hand. “Gimme.”
She passed it over. “Is it that rock?”
I read the title, then was gut-punched by familiarity. I’d heard about this. “Yes,” I managed, skimming the rest of the sign and holding the rock close. “This is Bethan’s Rock.”
“What?”
I fumbled to explain. “Ages ago, a kid visited a museum — a human kid — and learned what museums were for, then offered her favorite rock as a donation, so other people could appreciate it too.”
Paint cocked her head in the other direction. “And they took it?”
“Yes!” I must have looked a little wild at this point, but I didn’t care. “The adults agreed that it was a fine thing to donate, not to mention adorable, and the only one of its kind that I’ve ever heard of. More museums should house the occasional favorite rock, though I suppose they wouldn’t be as special if they did.”
“So just to clarify,” Paint said. “There isn’t anything valuable about this rock, except that one of your youths decided there was. And all the adults played along.”
I smiled down at it, careful not to let it drift away. “It’s the most precious non-precious stone I’ve ever seen.”
Paint stared for a moment. “It’s not even one of those shiny ones you like.”
I laughed. “I know!”
The captain called us back in at that point, having found one decent chunk of metal among the mountains of trash. We had a schedule to keep.
I folded the sign and tucked it into my suit pocket, but held the rock tight in my fist as I jetted toward the ship, working the controls with one hand. I was already thinking of the safest place in my quarters to keep it until we got ahold of the proper Earth museum authorities. Other humans would want to see Bethan’s Rock, after all, but it would be my honor to watch over it until they could.
~~~
(Inspired by this post. Long live Bethan’s Rock.)
These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character of this book. More to come!
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