#but what she did last episode was because of what thalia did for her

[graceshouldwrite]

The Most Powerful Hack to Make Your Readers Cry

You’ve seen it all: show, don’t tell, plant a visceral image in the reader’s brain of the environment/character, write a complex character arc with lots of growth and setbacks, establish deep relationships, high stakes, etc. 

All the advice for making readers cry I’ve seen so far is basically that list. But, while those things are absolutely important, I find that the thing that always does the trick, whether as a tipping point or in and of itself, is this: 

THE CALLBACK! 

Before we move on, this is an ANALYSIS heavy post, so all the book + show examples contain spoilers!!

So, what do I mean by a “callback?” Think of Chekhov’s gun, but, here, you use the gun to pierce your reader’s heart. As a refresher for anyone who needs it, Chekhov’s gun is just a rule in writing that anything you introduce in the book should play some role in the plot.

Specifically, the name comes from the example that if a reader introduces a gun in the first act, it MUST go off later, (maybe, say, in the third act). For example, in the TV show Breaking Bad, the protagonist Walter White prepares a vial of poison (ricin) that he wanted to use to eliminate an opponent early on in the series. After the assassination attempt falls through, the ricin makes an appearance again in the very last episode of the show, when Walt finally uses it to kill another opponent. 

Got that? Alright, onto the examples of successful, tearjerking callbacks: 

1. The Last Olympian (Rick Riordan); “Family, Luke, you promised.” 

Context: The character Annabeth says this line. Years ago, Annabeth had run away from home, and Luke had effectively adopted her into a found family with another kid named Thalia. Common reason for leaving home = parental trauma! Yay! He promised Annabeth that they would be each other’s “family” from now on. 

Now: Kronos, the antagonist titan, has possessed the demigod Luke and uses his body to strike Annabeth, injuring her. She’s also holding a dagger that Luke had given her when she joined his “family.”

Significance: her words + the dagger are a mental + physical reminder to Luke of his promise. They force him to recognize the sheer degree of his current betrayal by bringing him back to a different time. The fact that their found family only happened because of parental trauma bringing them together makes it worse—Luke felt abandoned by his Olympian father, Hermes. Now, he realizes that he basically did the equivalent to Annabeth by joining the titans. 

2. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo); Jean Valjean’s death 

Context:  At the beginning of the book, the bishop had caught Valjean trying to steal candlesticks to sell. Instead of handing him over to the police, the bishop told the police that he had given them to Valjean, saving him from arrest and showing him mercy. This changed his life forever, kickstarting his character redemption arc. 

Now: Jean Valjean dies surrounded by his loved ones, remembered as a benevolent man who bettered thousands of lives. He’s surrounded by light from candlesticks that once belonged to a bishop.

Context: Valjean had once taken in an impoverished woman named Fantine, showing her mercy and promising to take care of her daughter, Cosette, after Fantine died. Valjean then rescued Cosette from abusive quasi-foster parents (it’s a long story), raising her as his own daughter. This furthered his arc by allowing him to finally understand how unconditionally loving someone feels. 

Now: Valjean describes Fantine to Cosette, who never knew her mother. 

Significance: Both examples throw readers back to much earlier points in the story before the completion of Valjean’s character arc. In a way, this final scene feels like an external manifestation of his kindness paying off; both he and the reader feels a sense of accomplishment, relief, and just a general “OMG WE MADE IT.” Readers don’t feel cheated, because they were with Valjean every step of his 1,400 page arc. The weight of it all just crashes down on you...

3. Your Lie in April (anime); Kaori’s letter after she dies

Context: Kaori’s entire plot significance is that she helps Kousei, a piano prodigy who can’t play piano anymore due to traumatic parental memories associated with it, play again—but also, just to help him enjoy life again after a turbulent upbringing. She meets him a year before she dies of a medical condition, and her free spirit + confidence influences him to find beauty in life and music again. They basically do a crap ton of crazy funny stuff together lol

Now: Kaori has died, and she leaves a letter to him. Among other general confessions and thoughts, she references things they did and memories they shared: she says, “sorry we couldn’t eat all those canelés,” reminisces about  jumping with him off a small bridge into the stream below, “racing each other alongside the train,” singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as they rode the bike together, etc.

Significance: Yes, the nature of the letter is just sad because she’s revealing that she loved him all along, apologizing for not being able to spend more time with him, lying that she didn’t like him (to spare his feelings b/c she knew she would die soon), etc. BUT, these small details highlight exactly how many experiences they shared, and the depth of their relationship. Thus, they emphasize the significance of her death and the emptiness it leaves behind. 

4. Arcane (show); “I thought, maybe you could love me like you used to, even though I’m different.” 

Context: Character Jinx says this in the last episode to her now estranged older sister, Vi. Without going into the crazy complex plot, basically, orphans Vi and Jinx used to care for each other before a bunch of crap went down that got them separated. They then grew up on opposite political sides; Jinx grows up on the side of the underbelly city rebellion, and Vi grows up working on the side of the richer city that essentially oppresses the undercity. Thus begins the development of their opposing viewpoints and work environments, to the point where they always meet on opposite sides of a political battle, never able to come together as a family or understand each other again. 

Now: After a super dramatic confrontation, Jinx reveals that although she wants Vi to love her like she did before their separation, she knows it’s not possible because “[Vi] changed too.” She finishes with, “so, here’s to the new us” before blowing up a political council meeting a few blocks down filled with people Vi sides with. Oops! This cleanly seals the fate of their relationship as something basically irreparable.  

Significance: This callback isn’t through literal flashbacks or items like in the previous examples. Jinx’ lines are enough to bring back images of their childhood to the audience’s mind. Now, the audience subconsciously places this image of: 1) two sisters so different, hurt, and torn apart, right next to 2) the image of two sisters as innocent children who loved each other and would care for each other no matter what. 

Why do callbacks work so well? 

If you’ve noticed something in common with all of them, you’re right: they remind audience of a time BEFORE the characters have come so far on their arcs, developed, and put on so much more emotional baggage. 

Callbacks force the audience to SUDDENLY and IMMEDIATELY feel the weight of everything that’s happened. The character’s anguish and overwhelming emotions become the audience’s in this moment. Callbacks are a vehicle for the juxtaposition of worlds, before and after significant development. 

This works because we, as mortals, fear IMPERMANENCE the most. We fear LOSS. For us, time gone is time we will never get back; callbacks make us face that exact fact through a fictional character. A lost moment, time period, or even part of oneself may hurt as much as losing a loved one, and nothing makes humans grieve more than the realization of a loss. A callback slaps the audience in the face with the fact that something was lost; loss hurts so much because almost 99% of the time, what’s gone is gone forever. 

Of course, a good callback requires good previous character development, stakes, imagery, and all that jazz, but I thought I’d highlight this specifically because of how under covered it is. 

∘₊✧────── ☾☼☽ ──────✧₊∘

instagram: @ grace_should_write

I’ve been binging general media lately: I finished Death Note, Your Lie in April, and Tokyo Ghoul all within like a month (FIRST ANIMES I”VE EVER WATCHED!!), reread lots of Les Miserables, analyzed a bunch of past shows like Breaking Bad, watched a bunch of My Little Pony, worked to fix up my old writing... and that’s not even all! The amount of times I’ve CRIED while enjoying the above media and so much more honestly just inspired this post. 

Like, no joke, my eyes were almost always swollen during this period whenever I hung out with my friends and it was so embarrassing help 

Personally, I just find that this method works super well for me, and I watched a bunch of reaction videos to these above scenes (and read book reviews on the book scenes I mentioned), and it seemed that just about everyone cried during these parts. That’s when I realizes that the callback might also just be a universal thing. 

Anyway, this post is long and dense enough as is. SORRY! As always, hope this was helpful, and let me know if you have any questions by commenting, re-blogging, or DMing me on IG. Any and all engagement is appreciated <3333

Happy writing, and have a great day,

- grace <3

[newpercyjfan]

“I plunge to my death” Percy Jackson Au

Ok first, if you somehow came up with this exact thing already, i wouldn’t know, I don’t even follow the Percy Jackson tag yet, but just tell me and I’ll take it down or tag it as an alt universe of your au and credit it, but I have like three other ones I’ll be posting so we’ll see.

- This au is connected to both the tv show and the book because I like what both did in terms of the arch episode.

- This mostly goes how the tv show episode goes, Percy gets poisoned, they get to the top of the arch, he sacrifices himself. But this time, he does pray to his dad as he falls over 100 ft to his death.

- His dad doesn’t answer. He’s the one who somehow last second, controls the water to save himself. He sinks to the bottom of the lake and gets stuck. He feels the poison and his wounds get slightly better.

-In this au, the nereid doesn’t actually help him get out of the water, because in this version it’s inspired by how in the books, when he left the water the wounds came back. If he leaves the lake, he could die.

- So he stays stuck there for almost three days while the nereids bring him seaweed and shit to eat, but eventually he gets sick of it.

- he learns that Poseidon didn’t really want him to leave, at least not yet, mainly because he knew if he left he would continue to be chased by monsters or die in some way and believed a war would come either way. Basically, if the Poseidon that said “heroes always end badly, I regret getting your mom pregnant” actually did something about it

- but of course, he can’t keep Perseus ‘I don’t listen to anybody but myself’ Jackson down in a lake without him going a lil crazy and he breaks the root holding him down and swims to shore, but the poison instantly kicks back in, and gets back in the water

- his father gifts him a hydrai (a large vase/urn basically that carry’s water) that holds basically a portal to the ocean in it. GUYS LISTEN, I HEARD THIS MYTH SOMEWHERE BUT WHEN I TRIED TO FIND THE SOURCE IT DISAPPEARED. I was positive I heard that there was a vase that held the ocean in it somewhere so just take my word 😭

- the mist makes it look like a water bottle with no label 😭💀💀💀

- Percy accepts the gift because he wants to get out of there, but he suddenly does not have a very good idea of the gods or specifically his father. I don’t think the nereid actually told him that his father really did care, at least a little bit, all he saw it as was his dad not thinking he would succeed/ he saw it as Zeus turning Thalia into a tree because he didn’t want to idk disprespect the other gods? Cause it was easier than defending her? That’s how Percy sees it anyways

- Meanwhile, Grover and annabeth are convinced he died. They looked and called for him, but there was no proof of his survival, so instead annabeth took his place in a lot of missions to fulfill the quest cause she’s a girl boss like that.

- I think her main theory of what happened to him is straight up “I saw him fall and didn’t see him land, so maybe he turned into the lake or a tree or something too” 💀😭

- anyways Percy gets chased by another monster but has no more fucks to give. He’s scary. He’s pale, has dark eyes and a taste for vengeance.

- he tries to find annabeth and Grover but they’re pretty ahead of him.

- my main idea is that they meet again in the underworld with hades and they are little wary honestly.

- also omg I didn’t think of this before but what if they thought, hey, he’s in the underworld, guess he did die 💀.

-But anyways what I thought would happen was annabeth and Grover get there first and annabeth has the backpack with the bolt in it. Hades asks if they wanted a trade and that’s why they came. He bluffs and tells them if they give him the bolt and the helmet he’d let go Percy’s mom or “bring back” percy. (Hades knows percy is not dead and is kinda pissed that Percy is constantly on the edge of death but making it because of his dad technically, and he can’t take him to punishment field or whatever he calls it idk)

- I think annabeth chooses percy and is about to give the bag over, but realizes he was tricked and he was never dead. But idk. There are so many diff ways this could go and I’d love to hear how you guys would write it. I’d love some reblog a that add to this idea.

Also I need unhinged percy content

(Sorry if the art or wording is bad, it’s late and I’m tired)

[ampresandian]

Did Thalia ever actually get claimed or did everyone just like... know she's Zeus's daughter?????

Because what I really want to see at the end of season 2 is the scene where Grover comes to get Percy and he's terrified something happened to Annabeth on watch and runs up the hill and there's some random girl he kind of knows there and no one's helping her so he does. And he yells for ambrosia and she sits up and he goes "what's your name?" And she replies "Thalia" and he immediately looks at Annabeth and Chiron.

And I want them to be looking above her head so Percy looks too as she continues. "Daughter of Zeus" and there's a lightning bolt or whatever it is Zeus claims kids with above her head that everyone just stares at for the very last shot of the episode.

[phykios]

Review: "We Visit the Garden Gnome Emporium"; "I Plunge to my Death"; "A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers"

Hey y'all! I'm back. It took a while to write this review, and not just because I had a busy holiday season. The more I tried to consider episodes 3 and 4, the more I realized that a lot of my critiques of them were things I had already touched on in the last two–poor exposition, bad lighting, rushed plot, etc–and so it felt a little redundant to say the same thing all over again. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how annoying you find me), episode 5 was such a cut above over the rest of the season, I finally have new things to say! With that in mind, the format of this review will be a little different, as I will compare the episodes side by side, rather than consider each one individually. 

For a brief, brief recap, the three episodes follow fairly similar plot beats: the trio travels a little, meets a mythological being that tries to mess with their heads, then they all try to sacrifice themselves for the good of the quest before figuring out an alternate way to win. This isn’t a criticism, by the way–the book chapters have similar formats, and repetitive framing is a great way of demonstrating character growth. And of course, there’s no better way to spruce up a travel montage with a little lore dump. 

What makes for effective exposition? It’s a delicate balancing act between making sure that the information you need to get across gets to the viewer, but not letting them know that you’ve done it. “Show, don’t tell” is the most common expository technique, and for good reason–information is better retained and more effective when it’s not delivered to you like someone reading off cue cards. And it’s most effective when it’s withheld until just the right moment. PJO TV is not… great at this. It’s mostly little things, one-off little lines, like Luke saying “I’m the best swordsman” or “Annabeth is the smartest,” but there are some more egregious examples, mostly with Chiron explaining the world to Percy. This, I get, and it’s not like Riordan did it that much more elegantly in the books. But I’m more annoyed about Luke info-dumping than anybody else.  

I was re-reading The Lightning Thief for several reasons, and one of the things about Luke is that he keeps things very close to the chest. It’s partly to conceal his villainy, but it also makes sense from a psychological standpoint, hiding his emotions not only to keep everyone from finding out the truth about him, but also to recruit kids for the upcoming war. Luke only opens up about what happened to him and Thalia once: at the very end of the book, just before he tries to kill Percy. It’s a powerful moment–the specter of Thalia haunts Percy throughout the book, the ideal of a hero he’s afraid he’ll never be able to measure up to, and we find out that she’s been haunting Luke as well, but for very different reasons. (She haunts the TV show as well, which I like very much–I just hope it pays off!) We are shown hints of his darker side earlier, but withholding the heel turn until now, and pairing it with the first time we see him actually talk about himself, is part of what makes this scene so good and so heinous at the same time. The first time we get glimpses of Luke’s true self, his motivations and what drives him, is the same moment where he crosses the line. And in the meantime, TV!Luke just lets it all hang out. 

Consider: 

Before camp, I was on the road. Me and a forbidden kid I met along the way. Her name was Thalia… A long time ago, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades agreed their children were becoming too powerful, so they made a pact not to father any more. And it held for a long time, until Zeus broke that pact. Until Thalia. A forbidden kid attracts trouble. Monsters everywhere, it's just a constant battle to stay alive. One day, we, uh, find this little girl hiding in an alley. Annabeth. We were worried about taking her in, exposing her to all that danger. Then we saw her fight. Thalia didn't make it. But Annabeth and me... we did. And we've been family ever since… Annabeth is the strongest warrior in camp. The only way left to prove herself is to go on a quest. [S1E2, “I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom”]

Why is he saying all this? Is it for Percy’s benefit, or the audience’s? What does this reveal about Luke’s character? What about this monologue reveals what Luke actually thinks about the pact, or Thalia’s death, or even Annabeth? We’re told he sees her like family, but what does he do to show us? 

For contrast, here’s Ares’ lore dump a few episodes later:

You're new to the family, young one, so let me fill you in on how we work. See, years before I was born, my grandpa Kronos ate my aunts and uncles. Yeah. Then my dad made him puke them back up, then chopped him into a million pieces and chucked 'em into a bottomless pit, so that kinda set the tone right outta the gate. Olympians fight. We betray. We backstab. We will push anyone down a flight of stairs to get ahead. And that's why I love my family so much. My dad knows he's not getting this bolt back with quests or goose chases. He knows there's a war coming. And in reality, I think he's okay with that. I think he feels it's just time for a war, so we're gonna have a war. Isn't that great? [S1E5, “A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers”]

What does this reveal about Ares’ character? That he loves violence, and that the threat of war is exciting. That he doesn’t exactly hold his family in high regard. That this is something that is central to who the gods are. All of this is supported by Adam Copeland’s performance, which is flippant, funny, and immature. The details work in concert to show us who Ares is and what he wants, all without ever having him say it out loud. 

For all of its clumsiness, though, I actually really like Grover’s little monologue about the nature of questing as we follow the kids into New York City in episode 3. It has a very Fellowship of the Ring vibe (which I’m pretty sure is deliberate) which fits on a meta-level too, with Percy Jackson in conversation with epic stories of the past.

But you know what wasn’t in conversation with the past? The shortest Medusa battle ever recorded. 

I’m being a little hyperbolic for comedy’s sake, but genuinely I hated the Medusa fight. Not the Medusa backstory–sidestepping the sexual assault in a middle-grade book was the correct choice, and it’s not like a post-#MeToo Medusa is a shocking or novel idea–but not only should the fight have been at least twice as long, it was missing a full fourth of the mythological ingredients. The mythical Perseus has four gifts: the sword, the mirror shield, the helm of invisibility, and the winged sandals. The book reinterprets the shield as a glass ball. And the show doesn’t use it at all. Is this a nitpicky critique? Maybe. But some of Percy Jackson’s strongest moments are the reinterpretation of mythological scenes, and for those to work, you should incorporate the key details. 

Also, again, cannot stress this enough, it was way too short. At least the Echidna fight scene had some blocking involved. And acting. 

Speaking of acting, I will say that it’s very consistently well done. I think the kids are more than holding their own against the adults, and they walk the line between playing maturity and still being young very well, which is a very difficult thing to do. In fact, rarely is the acting ever a problem. Because, once again, it’s the writing that makes it fall short. 

Let’s do another comparison: Percy sending off Medusa’s head and Percy and Annabeth with Hephaestus’ chair. One is from the books, and one is new. Both are given the appropriate amount of weight in the episode’s runtime. Both are well-acted, well-blocked, well-scored. But the new scene feels out of place to me. Part of the problem is that, being a scene lifted from the books, Percy sending off Medusa’s head feels earned and supported by the material of the last few episodes. He’s pissed at his dad for ignoring him, and pissed that the gods are forcing him to do all this nonsense for reasons he only barely understands. Of course he’s going to foist a magical WMD on them. 

But the chair scene doesn’t have that prior support. Consider: 

Eat or be eaten. Power and glory and nothing else matters. Ares is that way, Zeus is that way, my mother is that way. He isn't that way. He's better than that. Maybe I was that way once. But I don't wanna be that way anymore. I won't be like all of you. I just won't. [S1E5, “A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers”]

In a vacuum, this would be a great scene. Walker’s fear is palpable and real, and Leah delivers a heartfelt performance in anguish at her friend’s supposed fate. That’s all well and good, except that these characters have known each other for… what, three days? A week? And for all her talk of glory, Annabeth dispensed with that idea pretty much right out the gate, as she killed a Fury rather than hand Percy over to Alecto. She tries to sacrifice herself for the quest all the time. What power and glory is she seeking? 

This is an excellent scene that unfortunately doesn’t belong in this season. This scene, as my dear @frenchswissborder pointed out, does not belong after the Thrill Ride of Love (before the Zoo Truck scene as well!) but instead feels like it should be in the Battle of the Labyrinth’s Mt. St Helen confession scene. Putting it there at least would build on three years of friendship, rather than a handful of days of not annoying each other. 

I don’t mind new scenes. I want new scenes. If I wanted a one-to-one adaptation, I’d just read the books again. But the new scenes have to matter. They have to bring something new to the table. Let me put it this way: when The Lightning Thief musical said, “Fuck it, Cerberus is a DJ,” it was both leaning into its own medium as musical theater and riffing on the idea of the underworld being under a recording studio. When PJO TV says, “Fuck it, exposition time,” it feels like they’re reading off Mythomagic card stats. 

What makes an adaptation great, in my opinion, is how well it speaks to the subtext of the original work. The musical is excellent at this, in particular how it uses the conventions of musical theater to highlight the parallels between Percy and Luke by giving them variations on the same “I Want” song. Where PJO TV shines is how it speaks to the subtext of abusive adults. Abuse of children is sadly not always so obvious, and I like how the Mist lets Alecto, Echidna, and Ares act pretty much with impunity. They are predators, and they are able to move without fear of detection. This even applies to Medusa, too, having her pretend to offer Percy a way out, when she really is only interested in herself and her needs. 

But, as the show tends to do, this only causes the story to kneecap itself by neutering Gabe as an abusive figure. I understand why it is this way, as book Sally, for all her kind and loving nature, wasn’t exactly written with a backbone. Part of this, I assume, is just that The Lightning Thief was published in 2005, and that a) the conversation around intimate partner abuse simply was not in the mainstream, and b) Riordan just got better at female characters over time. So the trade-off is that by making Sally a more formidable, dynamic character in the show, they had to dial down Gabe’s uglier, abusive nature–which is going to be really awkward in a few episodes when Sally kills him just for the crime of being annoying. 

Stray thoughts: 

Just taking a moment here to say that I think the set design has been really gorgeous so far. Shout out in particular to the attic in the Big House!

I’m only just noticing this now, but the trunk of Thalia’s pine tree looks like there’s a human in there–bent knee, arms outstretched, head bowed–and I think that’s awesome. 

The idea of monsters sensing a demigod’s weakness and responding to that is so good, and I’m taking it. 

Earlier versions of this review had a long and annoying rant about Medusa’s origins, so allow me to tl;dr: there is no original Medusa myth. Ovid’s Medusa myth in Metamorphoses comes about 800 years after Hesiod’s Theogony, which comes after Homer’s Iliad. It’s not a question of Ovid against Hesiod against Homer, it’s a question of these authors plus thousands of pieces of pottery depicting hundreds of variations on the Medusa myth, and we cannot definitively say which one is the source of the myth. That said, I don’t dislike a #MeToo Medusa, I just mostly hate the discourse around it.

It’s nice to see some architecture nerd Annabeth, but between the way the show glosses over it, and the lack of crippling arachnophobia, her character is being reduced too much to “prideful” for my tastes. It’s not that Annabeth isn’t prideful, obviously, it’s just that she has more dimension to her than the show is currently presenting. 

Annabeth and Grover throwing water on Percy like a beached whale is very funny, but it did make me realize that they haven’t introduced nectar/ambrosia in the show. Maybe they’re saving it for the finale? 

Ares calling them all cousins makes me extremely happy. This was something that Riordan did in the early books, but he kind of petered off, presumably so as not to imply weird pseudo-incestuous things once Percabeth started, but I always loved it.

I’m saving the Percy and Annabeth relationship breakdown until after the season, but it is coming! (But I am sad that “seaweed brain” came out of nowhere :( we just rolled right over it!)

The lighting is really bad, especially in the dark, and I am learning to live with it, but I am not happy about it. 

Aryan is the breakout actor of the trio, in my opinion. Playing awkward is so, so easy to overdo, but he brings a sincerity and a quickwittedness to Grover that I absolutely adore–he’s a sweet kid, and he’s clearly scared, but he knows when to summon his courage and do the brave thing for him and his friends. 

Also here are some screencaps that I like. They don’t have anything to do with the review, I just think they’re neat :3 (IDs/thots in the alt)

[thetimetraveler24]

Okay now that I’ve seen the first two episodes of the PJO show once through, here’s my initial thoughts.

To get the negative ones out of the way… I didn’t like how they did the “You drool when you sleep” line. Leah delivered it great but it was very… out of place. It felt shoehorned in for the fan service and I think there were better ways to fit it in. There were other lines but I can’t think of them at the moment.

I was also expecting more from the fight scenes. Percy vs. Mrs Dodds was a blink of an eye. I agree it should be quick, but Percy accidentally killed her. He didn’t even know the pen was riptide. In the books, I know it went “I did the only thing natural. I swung the sword” and him killing Dodds wasn’t him being a master fighter, but it wasn’t totally an accident. The Minotaur went down too easy. Percy’s fight with Clarisse and the Ares kids shouldn’t have been longer than Percy’s fight with the Minotaur. Also, Gabe’s car should have blown up.

On to the good stuff!

Walker is everything as Percy. I love love love him so much for this role. He delivers every time with the Percy attitude with just the right amount of cluelessness and the right amount of sarcasm and sass. Love it so much.

Aryan is definitely giving Grover. He’s exactly the right awkwardness I pictured with Grover in the books. Can’t wait to see him shine as Grover in the next episodes, especially in the Vegas episode because that’s when we get to know more about Grover’s past with Thalia and his desire to find Pan. I think Aryan will be great.

Leah was perfect for Annabeth. She absolutely gives off an air of knowing more than the people around her. She was book accurate frustrating vague about Capture the Flag and I loved it when she just disappeared and left Percy wonder what to do now. The whole Capture the Flag scene was perfect in my opinion. Not a ton of Annabeth in these first two episodes, so I’m looking forward to seeing more of Leah in the next weeks.

Like I said, Capture the Flag 10/10 no notes.

Loved the Mr D pretending to be Percy’s dad. That was so fucking funny I was cackling the whole time. “Peter Johnson is here!” was giving “Another Terrible Day” I loved it. Perfect Mr. D casting.

Loved Chiron. He always gave me old grandfather vibes and thats emulated here. Another great casting choice.

Percy is already demanding child support and I love it. My guy is ready to fight the gods and I’m here for it.

Love Luke putting it out there that the bond between him and Annabeth is strictly siblings. I will be okay if they keep Annabeth’s crush on Luke because I think it’s normal for tweens to crush on older teens/young adults they idolize, but I think the show is keeping it strictly platonic. Love that change, opens it up for some heartbreaking dialogue to replace some lines in Last Olympian.

Lastly, one thing that isn’t necessarily good or bad about the show:

I wish the episodes were longer. I would be okay with hour long episodes. The content is there, and the audience will watch the whole thing, pinky swear.

But I’m not complaining. I’m pretty happy with what I saw today. I can’t wait for next week and the next and the next. I’ll probably rewatch over the next week and give more detailed thoughts as I watch.

[til-f]

Episode 3 Thoughts

I was literally terrified that they weren't going to give us the whole prophecy. Breathed a sigh of relief when they did.

the prophecy scene with only gabe saying it felt super forced lol

I really missed the line "The real world is where the monsters are. that's where you learn if you're any good or not." Like, I wanted that. I also think it describes annabeth's character, and a lot of the reason why she wants to go on the quest.

some good angst when percy got mad on thalia's behalf. again, why do we have to change the tiniest lines to be different. JUST KEEP THEM THE SAME UGHHGHLJ

I don't mind that annabeth is like, a badass, but she isn't the leader of the quest. and i think her anal leader vibe is kinda not the best way to portray her. I don't know. This is percy's only quest. and I could see rick in the film studio being all like, "nah, we can't let percy be the star of the show. he needs to learn to relinquish control" and that is driving me CRAZY. the whole bit where alecto tells annabeth that she might be the most formidable demigod alive? WHY RICK. WHY. WHY MUST YOU NOT LET PERCY JUST BE THE FUCKING MAIN CHARACTER. WHY MUST YOU CHANGE THINGS. WHY WASN'T PERCY THE ONE TO KILL THE FURIES ON THE BUS AND WHY DOESN'T HE FEEL LIKE THE PROTAGONIST. WHYYYY

this book is so near and dear to my heart yall, I should not be making these posts LOL. But I love the show so please read on.

I loved grover's song, lmao. so cute. and when percy goes "our voting system's broken." i'm cracking up.

WHY WAS THE MEDUSA SCENE SO BAD AND SO WEIRD ??!!!!!???? WHAAT ???? WHAT THE FUCK. SERIOUSLY. WHAT?????????????? And again, why are the mosnters so fixated on annabeth? It's kinda weird?!!?!? Um. and I feel like just putting the invisible cap on medusa wouldn't have stopped her powers. also, the fight scene should have been more epic. whats with all the psychology. Just let the children eat burgers and kill medusa. jesus christ.

I don't quite get why percy is having trust issues in the show. in teh books, he's loyal to a fault. he doesn't even think to question that annabeth or grover would betray him. and that he only brought annabeth because he thought they wouldn't be friends? Sigh. Rick, if you're reading this, grrr

the last bit of the episode where percy ships the head to the gods (very impertinent!!!) (same font and same message as the book ahhhh!!!!!!!) and hermes delivering it to the 600th floor almost made up for the other nonsense. almost.

New York City babyyyyy I like it!

WHEW. overall, this episode drove me a little crazy, so I don't really know what to say. Hopefully next episode is better.

[helpallthenamesaretakensblog]

EPISODE 5……..🥺

Right off the bat, i love the idea of percy’s forehead peeking out of the water, like the mysterious mermaid he is

Annabeth was the best part of the episode as always

Thought they were gonna talk more about thalia percy parallels grover just looked a lil tad distressed and that was it but whatever

Percy and his lil ‘hi’s will never stop being funny

the usual “i thought annabeth was gonna punch me but she was actually nice to me guys who would’ve thought someone would be happy to see me” narrative still shining through WITH THE HUG PLS CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW SWEET THE HUG WAS

grover’s so confused like “literally an hour ago you guys hated each other….am i missing out on some plot point”

dude was ‘looking for new tickets in the st. Louis arch as if they were going to be on the floor lying somewhere💀

Percy’s face when he addresses grover after the hug, he’s so proud someone actually hugged him 🥹his face is just like “hey grover look SHE’S HUGGING ME🥺”

Can I just say the writing for percy is perfect

like he’s so 50% there like he’s so good at communicating and asking what’s wrong and trying to understand the other person’s feelings (sally jackson’s son for you) but at the same time he has NEVER had a friend before so he ends up embarrassing himself 😂😭

”im pretty sure that’s what friends do” “….at least i think that’s what they do” pls 😭

grover’s face too help you’re already tired of being third wheel???oh honey this is THE FIRST HALF OF THE FIRST BOOK get comfortable

not their lil heads popping out and going back in. Peak comedy right there

Seriously adam did reallyyyyyy good as ares. Theres no one else i can imagine anymore as ares. The delicateness of his ‘good mood’ as if it is gonna break any second, the rage and fury but at the same time being extremely funny???

the diner looks so cosy it’s so cute

was kinda missing some percy rage in this but it comes out at the last so its fine

The real reason for grover to be so okay staying back is not the strategy of getting answers out of ares but because of how tired he was of taking care of annabeth and percy.

I feel like they should be showing luke more (later on they will, i have faith) im already forgetting about him it wont hit as hard if i dont remember him

Percy “ive not seen many movies since im broke” jackson x annabeth “ive never seen a movie since i live in a magical camp” chase

but the fact that annabeth’s never seen a movie kinda erases the fact that later on in hoo, annabeth talks about watching cheesy old romance movies with her father which kinda contributes to their dynamic but

the fact that percy would probably be the first one to take her to the movies makes me not care

honestly tho IM REALLY REALLY HOPING THAT THEIR FIRST MOVIE WONT BE THE ONE AT THE START OF BOTL I’d rage as much as annabeth when i see percy with rachel (not that im a rachel hater, im a circumstances hater)

grover is such a good therapist, like he is THE EMPATH. He tripped the god of war into talking about his life this is a grover appreciation post

annabeth zoning out with fascination at the mechanics and also i love the “percy being done with annabeth” representation

i cant see anything so nothing to say here

SEAWEED BRAIN THIS IS A HISTORICAL MOMENT IN PJOTV HISTORY THE FIRST SEAWEED-

grover manipulating ares through his emotions>>>>>

also ares roasting athena

Percy sacrificing himself AGAIN like the depressed kid he is

annabeth immediately reassuring percy that she would save his mom the character developmentttttttt from being inconsiderate about percy losing his mom to promising that she would save the lady EVEN THOUGH SHE BARELY KNEW HER

This is giving me too many feelings guys the lady she’s promising to save is the lady who will be the best mother figure who will singlehandedly heal her mommy issues AND BECOME HER MOTHER IN LAW

“Its warm” i thought this was gonna be the last thing he says before whatever was gonna happen to him so i was like lol famous last words

but fr tho the intenseness of annabeth crying for percy to GET UP and percy’s just fading out of the world trying not to cry trying to reassure annabeth that he’s okay IN WHAT WOULD BE HIS LAST FEW WORDS, literally everything he does is for someone else even in his dying moments its just magelhi”gdsjihoawerhoudfjls

especially with the “im not…..” [okay] lol we have always known that percy, it aint a big surprise

i got to applaud leah for how she portrayed annabeth’s brain chemistry altering every minute with percy and how that influenced her speech with hephaestus

i cant believe thats leo’s dad hes giving santa claus i do like him tho

Now that i think about it the percabeth hug should have been after percy comes back to life not after the louis arch scene since they were just starting to have two minutes of chemistry there and have the “you dont have to feel bad about the hug” in the zebra truck scene

percy trying to intimidate ares lolllll walker scobell did his best to make it look real tho so good for him for not representing it as it was; a lil 12 year old child threatening a wrestler looking god of war

”Thanks for the emotional abuse and the cheeseburgers” will forever be in the cinema hall of fame

i feel like grover either is going to say the wrong person or he’s going to figure out it’s luke but something’s going to stop him from saying it out loud

or he’ll say it which causes some angst amongst the team who dont trust him cuz both annabeth and percy worship luke like there’s no tomorrow

RAINBOW?? OHH THEYRE GONNA IRIS MESSAGE LUKE??

LIN MANUEL MIRANDA

[loyal04]

Actually offense. The Percy Jackson Tv show had no suspense. Everything was stated out right we never got to wonder or be suspicious/surprised because everything was stated. Some Examples Medusa, The fates, Furies, EVEN CRUSTY FOR GODS SAKES. There was no build up, even the Summer solstice failed. It was supposed to be a DEADLINE but they went passed it and brushed that off in one convo with Zeus. Hades complete mood switch???? Why was Athena so petty?? Like yes Athena is most likely petty but she wouldn’t take a risk like that its, NOT smart.

Dont get me started on the last episode Traitor reveal. NO SUSPENSE No dramatic drop just. “Your the lightning thief..” LIKE BRO WHAT WHERES MY 60 SECONDS.

Im sorry to say this but I wasn’t content or happy with the tv show. Even the Cgi was weird and the fighting was terrible. The sparing they did with Luke and Percy was the best fight scene in that while show… and that is just sad. Even the fight with ARES was underwhelming. Im hoping they’ll take this criticism and really change that for season two I want dramatic drops, build up, TIME TO BREATH. MAYBE EVEN A LONG FIGHT? They drop so much lore and so fast you don’t have time to digest.

Im pissed about the May lore drop WE DIDNT KNOW ABOUT HER UNTIL BOOK 5. ANNABETH WASN’T EVEN ALLOWED INSIDE (or it was just the kitchen I believe) BUT STILL. Annabeth was almost as clueless as Percy if I remember correctly. Even if she wasnt she doesn’t have the right to spill that secret of Lukes like girl what?? Luke shouldn’t have told about Thalia but still at least she was his friend as well but his trauma about his mom was not yours to share also guilt tripping Hermes??

May’s fate wasn’t even really Hermes fault. He tried to talk her out of it and it was Hades who cursed the oracle in the first place. Im just so upset about all the secrets that were revealed early.

The acting didn’t have much emotion or I felt they portrayed it wrong. For instance Percy reacted to almost everything with the same face. The show was way to dry for my liking. Percy jackson is supposed to be funny. Sally kind of seemed like a mean mom iykwim. I mean she just had no patience for Percy at all and it constantly felt like she was guilt tripping him… no just me??? I get that shes a struggling and single parent but Whattt???? She’s supposed to be supportive, kind and loving. If I met that sally I wouldn’t expect her to sit me down in her kitchen offering us a blanket and cookies.

THEY DID GABE FOWL. They did him so poorly that man did not deserve to die sure he was a dead beat but seriously?? Tartarus would not smell like him. They should have just let him get divorced it would have made sense but turning him to stone?? For what being a lazy, grouchy stepdad??

Gabe in the book was abusive manipulated just a straight up Piece of sewer gunk. He HIT them he abused them and manipulated them into staying quiet. The entire scene with the cops and everything. The guy in the show tho?? He looks like he’d fall over from the raise of a hand bro wouldn’t even be able to throw a punch. He doesn’t even have a job?? He looks like the worst he would do is yell and make fun of you because he’s probably projecting because he’s completely useless but deserving death?? He was more of a nuisance he didn’t deserve to die being divorced and alone forever I can’t understand but seriously??

Also the Percabeth slow burn… they’re pushing it they were just friends in the first book maybe in the second we start getting into it. But seriously the first season? She just started opening up to him in the first book. WE DIDN’T EVEN GET THEIR TALK LIKE UGH WHAT I wanted the Annabeth backstory about her dad but they didn’t have the convo about her going home for the summer we didn’t get into it. They’re overcooking my 5 book long slow burn.

They stuffed to much into too short of episodes that we didn’t get time to breath or get to know our characters. It was just a one minute battles here and there, a few conversations about impending doom and Percy being sad about his mom like. I know I’m being Petty but they should have split most of those episodes into two so we had more time to learn about our characters or digest the info dumps. The first episodes had me reeling I swear my head was swirling. The characters themselves didn’t have time to breath “Oh your claimed by poseidon now you have to go on a deadly quest to find the master bolt everyone thinks you stole but we think hades stole it also he probably has your mom.” Why are they shoving everything in our face. Percy in the books had 3 DAYS to come to terms with his parentage but show percy had like a day AT MOST.

I don’t know, they just could have done so well but they didn’t. I swear Mikey mouse must have tied Rick to a chair no way he said yeah this is amazing or a good script decision. THERE WERE SO MANY PLOT HOLES or decisions that didn’t make any sense.

[stygicniron]

things i loved about episode 4 under the cut:

opening scene with mama sally and smol!percy--cute as always and so ladened with tragedy!! sally's lines especially are a gut punch now, but also clearly how much love sally and percy have

my husband noticed that Kronos is dressed like a classic cynic philosopher with the lantern and the cloak which has got me wondering whyyyyyyyyyyy??!?! so many places this could go!

getting annabeth's backstory has me gnawing at the walls! like!!! hey frederick, i just want to talk

and then the god's love being so conditional and percy immediately clocking it and calling it out. yes yes!! percy "pay your god-damn child support" jackson riding hard!

grumpy grover ahaha

vaguely salty comment about the mountains of southern illinois /s

ooooof Echidna was so creepy! The actress was amazing

and also the police were great! And Annabeth getting ready to square up with them was perfect!

I loved Annabeth getting the first strike in with her dagger (THE DAGGER)

they kept the chihuahua in! they didn't have to but they did!!

all the talk underneath the arch!! so so good! I loved annabeth getting to go off about all the architecture stuff! I loved Grover pushing back against the idea of manifest destiny and the destruction of the wild (and learning more about pan earlier was great!)

gooooooooooosh though, highlighting so clearly athena's fickleness and how that just destroys Annabeth had me almost sobbing. how could she not protect her own daughter??? she allows her own temple to be desecrated and for what?!?!

AND THEN PERCY IS THE ONE THAT TAKES THE FALL FOR IT (LITERALLY). HE OWNS UP AND SAVES HER AND IMMEDIATELY STANDS UP FOR WHAT HE DID WRONG!!! unwell unwell

also grover's last "percy please!" at the end broke my heart because you Know he's thinking about Thalia, so scared he won't be able to keep his promise and he'll lose another friend

and the return of the 'just breathe' thing ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[momowoah]

Things I'm not ready to see on screen (aka I really hope Percy Jackson lasts all 15 seasons but I'll cry every episode)

(tagged by book so you can avoid spoilers)

TLT

"Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood"

Luke's thread being cut

Percy carrying Grover to the camp right after losing his mother

"You drool when you sleep"

"You're my dream girl!" (from the musical but God I really want it on the series)

Luke. Genuinely will start crying the moment he appears

Everyone kneeling when Percy gets claimed

Percy falling from the Arch

Percy and Annabeth in the truck

Grover telling Percy about Thalia

Lotus Casino (only if the Di Angelos appear)

Percy, Grover and Annabeth nearly falling down Tartarus

Percy fighting Ares

"You are the lightning thief"

SoM

Clarisse in SoM. I love her

The siren scene

The dream with Thalia

The actual Thalia

Thalia, really

TTC

Annabeth being kidnapped

Thalia and Percy fighting

Percy promising Nico to protect Bianca

Percy failing to protect Bianca

Percy telling Nico about Bianca

Rachel. Elizabeth. Dare

Red

Rachellllllll

Percy seeing Aphrodite as Annabeth

The whole battle with Atlas

Thalia confronting Luke

Zoë

BotL

Rachel, once again

Percy's "I didn't think about her but actually I did" when he sees Rachel

Sally teasing Percy about his date with Annabeth

Annabeth being devastated because she doesn't know if Percy will survive this time, and wondering what will be worse than him dying

Annabeth sitting right next to Percy. I mean right next to him

Percy just staring at the broken fountain for the whole night

Percy's first time actually realizing he's more powerful than he thought

Percabeth's first kiss!!!!!

Calypso appearing for the first time

Percy crashing his own funeral

Clarisse asking him to kill Daedalus

"The training is over. From now on is real"

Percabeth AND Perachel. At the same time

Percy seeing Luke's body in the coffin

Kronos's awakening

The Battle of The Labyrinth

TLO

Perachel's kiss

Beckendorf's death

May Castellan

River Styx

The whole Battle of Manhattan, really

"Don't I get a kiss for good luck?"

When Annabeth gets stabbed

Silena's death

Percy sitting on his father's throne to ask for help

Luke

Luke taking control

Luke dying

Really the entire scene with Luke and the aftermath

Annabeth injured, Grover exhausted, and Percy likely crying

"For once, I didn't look back"

TLH

I plan on watching with my family so just their reaction to Jason on the screen and no Percy

SoN

Percy only remembering Annabeth

Reyna

MoA

Percabeth reunion

The stable scene (lol)

Percabeth falling into Tartarus. I will cry

HoH

All the scenes in Tartarus

Leo and Calypso. Everything about them

All scenes foreshadowing Leo's sacrifice

Frank killing everything

Nico and Jason's scene with Eros. God.

BoO

Nico and Reyna traveling around

All scenes of Annabeth and Percy after Tartarus

"I love you guys"

Seriously, Leo's death will make me cry SO much

Hazel and Nico acknowledging Leo's death

Will Solace. I love him.

TOA (all books)

Every single scene where Meg Mccaffrey cries. Specially the ones were Lester cries too or when they hug

The Burning Maze. Every single scene with Jason and Piper is a punch in the gut. It's all so sudden

Lester's development

Really I will cry all the time in TOA. Isn't my favorite out of the three but it's depressing

TOA (Tower of Nero)

Will Solace, once again

"NO ONE HURTS MY BOYFRIEND. AND NO ONE KILLS MY DAD"

Luguselwa

That immortal lion guy

Nero burning the trees

Apollo's fall to the border of Chaos

Lester becoming Apollo again

That ending is the best thing Riordan has ever written I swear

All Books (no spoilers)

The ending. Doesn't matter the season when it ends, I will cry when the ending arrives.

Every character's first appearance. Seeing them come to life will be amazing

[lol-jackles]

What did you think of Douglas Fir? I saw you wrote a little bit on Micki and Trey's breakup, how it felt organic. I agree with that and I liked how they did it but what did you think of the episode as a whole? Did you like it? Might be my favorite of the season along with 'Barn Burner'. Can I also just say Cordell/Jared looked extra HOT in this episode?

The deer becomes the hunter.  Serano hired car thieves (donning reindeer masks) to hijack the transport truck containing evidence against him.  One of the thieves uses a blowtorch to break into the truck.

The Walkers enjoy decorating the ranch with festive themes.  It will be the first Christmas the whole family is together since Emily’s death, as Cordell was undercover during the last Christmas.   Liam set up the Christmas village, complete with train track, in the dining room.  He and Cordell scheme where to hide the Ebenezer Scrooge figurine in their tradition to stump their mother.   Cordell asks Liam again if they’re good, which Liam unconvincingly assured they are.

Denise arrives to inform them of the stolen evidence truck that took place in Thalia.  Because she used to live in Thalia with Dan, she decided Cordell would be a better choice to talk to the locals, along with Liam who is familiar with the case.  Cordell calls Micki, who has been sleeping on the couch.  She doesn't take his call so she can finally talk to Trey about Garrison.  Trey is taken back that not only was Garrison her messy ex, but also her ex-fiancé.   Micki asks Trey if they’re good, which Trey unconvincingly assured they are.

In Thalia, Cordell wants to multitask by buying a Douglas Fir Christmas tree from one of the ex-felons they inquired to about the stolen truck.  While his nephew sulks away, the ex-felon claims no knowledge but offers up Denise’s husband, Dan, as someone who is a former car thief like himself.  The Walker brothers are surprised to find Dan, who is just as surprised to see them as he hastily hides stacks of money. He offers up an unconvincing excuse for being in Thalia to retrieve Christmas decorations.  Even though both brothers are skeptical of Dan’s involvement in the stolen evidence truck, Liam is riled up by the sight of him.  Later over lunch, Liam tells Cordell that he is suffering flashbacks from when Clint West shot him. Cordell's concern for Liam is interrupted by Gail Davidson's arrival and ask to speak to Cordell alone.  Liam leaves and stepping outside, he sees Dan smirking at him.  Obviously Dan sent Gail to vouch for his innocence.  Once Dan is out of sight, Liam looks into Dan’s truck and sees what appears to be a reindeer mask, so he breaks the tail lights.

Gail provides an alibi for Dan by directing Cordell to a hardware store manager who sold blowtorches to “three methheads”.   Cordell never considered Dan a suspect, so he uses this opportunity to find out what Gail and Dan were doing in Thalia in the first place.  Gail passed it off as marital troubles between her daughter and Dan, and Thalia is the equivalent of sleeping on the couch.  Gail even suggests that Cordell and Emily had similar marital troubles. Until now Cordell has been stretching himself thin to accommodate and defend the Davidsons, especially Gail.   Her bringing up Emily crossed the line.  Cordell brings their conversation back to Dan’s alibi and threatens Gail not to cross the line again or else she won’t like what she sees.  Then he switches to his Southern passive-aggressive polite manner and wishes her a “good day” with a smile.

Gail’s tip led to the location of the 3 truck thieves, one of them is the nephew of the Christmas tree selling ex-felon, who is unsuccessfully trying to break into the evidence truck with a blowtorch.  They complained about Serano not providing enough budget for equipment to break into the truck when the Rangers busted them.  The nephew attempts to fight Cordell with a blowtorch, which Cordell bemusingly disarms himself and then fights and disarms the torch-wielding thug.  (You know Lynn is going to tie the blowtorch scene to when Toni torch tortured Sam in her Walker review).  Cordell is happy they wrapped the case in a day while Liam looks apprehensively at the reindeer masks. The Walker brothers drive back to Austin with a Christmas Douglas fir in their truck when they see Gail and Dan on the road surrounded by cops.  Cordell realized from Liam’s guilty demeanor that he called in a false report against the Davidsons.   Liam desperately assured Cordell that he made sure there were no cameras when he broke the taillight of the Davidson’s truck.  Cordell is mad and frustrated and he leaves to talk to the cops.  What he said to them we don’t know. The Walker brothers arrive at Sacred Hearts High School that is having a Christmas party for students, teachers, and parents.  Liam finds Denise and talks to her privately and we hear him say “Dan” and “warrant”.  When Gail gave Cordell the tip that eventually led to the truck thieves, she included a caveat that he doesn’t tell Denise that Dan was in Thalia, which Cordell agreed to.  Naturally Cordell told Liam who appears to be telling Denise.  What Liam is saying to Denise we don’t know.

During the Sacred Heart Christmas party, Trey is the star among the teachers for taking every activity they asked of him i.e. counselor and parking lot monitor.  When Micki expressed her admiration, Trey slipped that it was to keep him distracted for what she did; for going undercover just when their relationship was getting serious, and for having an ex-fiancé when she wouldn’t commit to him.  Trey in season 2 is a much more believable character compared to his caricature of an overly supportive boyfriend in season 1.  While still an all-around great human being in season 2, Trey has lashed out to others (mostly Cordell) with his displaced frustration towards Micki.  And because Trey is an all-around great guy, he lets Micki go to find herself again.

The crafting of Micki’s exit from being a Texas Rangers mirrors Lindsey Morgan’s own journey.  Micki put her ambition ahead of herself until she lost herself along the way.  Micki decides to return home to San Antonia and intends to sneak out like a thief in the night by leaving a letter for Cordell at Ranger HQ.  But because Trey is an all-around great guy, he tells Cordell, and he rushes to Ranger HQ as James reluctantly sees Micki off.   Micki and Cordell recite lines from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night Dream in their goodbyes to each other, a call back to the pilot when Mick and Cordell first met and he recited a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

My score: 9.5 out of 10.  Like you Anon, I thought this was the strongest episode this season so far.   The Walker brothers are working together towards the same goal while at odds in their views of the Davidsons.   Gail and Dan are working together that could put them at odds with Denise.   Mickie and Trey work together at their relationship but in the end the odds were not in their favor (for now).  There are a lot of small unresolved issues but none of it feels like a cliffhanger and instead are promises of more compelling stories ahead.  Just like Lindsey Morgan's words that it's not a goodbye but see you late

[canonicallysoulmates]

Walker 2.06

The holidays have arrived, decisions were made, and by the end we were all left crying. Or at least I was 😭

This ep not only marked the midseason finale but it was Micki's last episode meaning when the show comes back in January it will be without our beloved Ranger Ramirez. From the very first episode of this series the character of Micki, and her and Walker's relationship has been the biggest highlight for me. I have loved all of her scenes, her character was such an integral part of the show and her absence will be felt. But before we get into how she was written off, let's quickly talk about what happened in the rest of the episode.

There is a case in this ep but it takes a back seat to what’s happening with the characters. Some dudes in deer masks hijacked an evidence transport truck that had a ton of evidence on the Serano case so Denise asks Liam and Walker to help her out cause everyone knows her in the town where it happened. The brothers set off to investigate and the very first person they interview leads them to Dan aka Denise’s husband turns out Dan has a past and this suspect who is a known hijacker and him used to roll together; now at first Walker thinks he doesn't have anything to do with it cause Dan is in Austin and this happened Thalia (another part of Texas for those who don’t know) but it turns out Danny boy is actually there, and he’s acting fishy and has a shotgun.

Now Liam thinks Dan has something to do with it, thinking him a dangerous man, which he is right about, and he even opens up to his brother about how he has been struggling after his traumatic near death moment. As they are having this convo, Gayle walks into the dinner they were at, being her usual bitch self, to talk to Walker and tell him where he can find out who hijacked the truck because…the clerk at the hardware store conveniently shared the information that he had sold blowtorches to some “meth heads” (blowtorches had been used in the hijacking) and then she even comes up with an alibi for Dan saying he was only there because he had a fight with Denise, she spins a whole tale. Her tip was right, they find the guys, they get the truck and Dan is seemingly not involved but her timing is so suspicious; it’s like he called her up to clean up his mess.

Speaking of messes, Liam, because he’s so sure Dan is a bad guy, broke the taillight of Dan’s truck and then called in a false report. This leads to a big fight with Walker- they run into Dan and Gayle being stopped by the cops on their way home and Liam confesses what he did, and Walker is really pissed off. But honestly I side with Liam. Was what he did smart? No, but he told Walker he was struggling and it’s clear he’s not doing well and he is genuinely scared of this guy, but Walker rather play peace maker because of his own issues than listen to his own brother who clearly needs help and needs his big brother to offer some comfort and support. And then Liam decides to speak to Denise, we don't know what he tells her but it couldn't have been good. This poor boy is a mess.

Not a lot goes on with the kids this ep but August does come clean to his dad about the ban incident and shows him his bruised up shoulder. I don’t know why Walker chooses to stay looking at the Christmas tree rather than rush the kid to the hospital but he’s had a long day he’s allowed a moment of “this is fine 🙃”.

And then: sadness.

Earlier in the ep Micki finally opened up to Trey, told him about Garrison and what happened and even that they used to be engaged. And Trey is really understanding and it seems like things are going to work out, they even go to a school activity together but eventually his true feelings come out. He is having doubts and questioning the timing of Micki taking on an undercover assignment just as the two of them were getting serious and wondering if maybe her problem with commitment has to do more with him cause she used to be happily engaged to another man. At the end they decide to part ways, they still love and care for each other but they want different things and Micki has to deal with what happened and that’s not something she can do in Austin.

Micki decides she is going back to San Antonio to heal and focus on herself. Her final scene is in the precinct, she’s leaving her gun and badge, and a letter for Walker thinking she’s gonna sneak off like a thief in the night but Captain James shows up and they have a little exchange. And then Walker shows up and we get one last beautiful scene between him and Micki as they say goodbye to each other. I was crying by this point, I’m so happy we got a last scene between them; in my opinion it was a beautiful goodbye, the music, the acting, the way she was written off felt very organic- even the way the set was staged because the main lights were off, it was just christmas lights and computers it all added to the moment. And again the acting, just a beautiful job by Jared, Lindsey, and Coby Bell.

I’m really going to miss this character and I hope to see her one day return, at the same time I’m happy for Lindsey that she’s taking care of herself. She seems to be doing well and I wish her the best in both her personal and professional life.

Micki is a character that we didn’t get to know for very long but she quickly earned our hearts and that’s in large part because of Lindsey’s work and talent 💖

[princess1shiz]

Jason Grace Drabble

Jason Grace forgives.

Even if he really shouldn’t. He does anyway.

One day, he found a sunflower field, the yellow colour had made him happy, calm. The aches and pains burning his body because of the multiple wounds that were inflicted upon him by unnamed monsters had disappeared. He imagined the sky to be the same shade as his eyes when he looked up at the blue expanse, with clouds painted on its surface.

He was glad to be alone as he sat down on the soft earth. His mind wandered to his mother, one of many mortals whose involvement with the gods had landed them into so much trouble. My goodness he hated her, or so he thought, Thalia definitely did. He wondered if he could find out where she was buried and visit her someday, maybe place a sunflower on her grave.

Jason forgave her.

Little while later, as Jason went through all the blueprints of the temples he had sketched and given Annabeth, who had so graciously helped him, he had an episode when he came across Kim’s temple. Losing his balance as the air was knocked out of his lungs while his mind wrapped itself around the cold memory, playing it on a loop.

Terrified, after recovering his bearings, he went back to the sunflower field.

As he breathed in the fresh scent of nature, he thought of Juno or well, Hera. That lady had caused a lot of problems with his friends and himself. Annabeth hated her, Thalia hated her, and Percy also really didn’t like the lady. She sucked. But then again, she was a woman who still committed to her marriage with an infidel who had multiple affairs and illegitimate children. The entire reason Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood even came to know of each other was because of her.

So Jason forgave her.

Almost two months later, when he went to visit Camp Jupiter, Reyna, Frank and Hazel; he overheard the low whispers as he walked by the barracks, the soft snickers and he definitely saw some unsubtle eye rolls.

Some said- The great Son of Jupiter had arrived- the guy who passed out too much, and was dead weight most of the time. What was so great about him?

Others said, I wish my father was Jupiter, wish I could wield a sword like him and control lightning. Be so powerful.

Fraud. His mind would say. So as soon as he could, he ran to the sunflower field. The wind was particularly strong that day.

Jupiter was not the best father, granted. He didn’t deserve the ‘Best Dad Ever’ mug that children would gift their fathers. But, he showed favour to Thalia when he saved her (sorta) from death. He had come to their aid in the end, and he would always be a douche but he would always have some pride in his children, even if just a shred.

So Jason forgave him.

The day after he found out about the prophecy, showing him his fate- he went out to the sunflower field again. Fingertips brushing the velvet-like petals, that raised its head towards the sun.

He thought of himself. He was never quite sure what his fatal flaw was- but he assumed it was power. Come to think of it, Jason would do almost anything to prove that he was at no advantage as compared to the next demigod just because of his parentage. He followed rules (a stick in the mud, many called him), years of military training embedded in his bones, he tried to hold on to those he held dear- afraid of being abandoned once again. He did not love as easily as others, he showed weakness so many times, he cried himself to sleep and would wake up the next day as per routine. That was who he was, and he tried to get better and he has. He’s trying to fulfill a promise he made and he fully intends to keep that promise. It was time to be at peace.

So Jason forgave himself.

And when he breathed his last, he pictured a sunflower field and felt at peace.

[belacoded]

Picture: The last episode of season five of the PJO Disney adaptation has just aired. The credits are rolling. You’re crying because it’s over. The credits end. Your screen is black.

Music starts playing, “Stayin’ Alive” by Bee Gees. The screen fades in to the streets of New York where Sally Jackson and Paul Blofis are doing the disco.

Cut to Grover is hip-bumping Juniper in the forests of Camp Half-Blood.

On the beaches of CHB, Percy is doing 90s and early-2000s dances while Annabeth shakes her head at him (she’s smiling and silently laughing tho).

Aphrodite and Ares try sneaking off to some secret location only to be caught by Hephaestus.

Nico has Hades and a whole undead army as his backup dancers as he awkwardly dances around the underworld.

Thalia is trying to teach the Hunters to dance, but they’re all looking at her strangely.

Mr D is bobbing his head to the music as he conjures up a glass of wine. He manages to get the glass to his lips before he is struck by lightning.

Chiron has his head in his hands as the Party Ponies do what they do best: party.

Tyson is trying to teach the Cyclopes how to dance in Poseidon’s castle.

Sally and Paul are now on the hood of their car with Blackjack on the roof of the car throwing his mane around and flapping his wings to the beat.

Grover twirls Juniper around.

Annabeth has joined in on dancing with Percy (she’s still laughing and shaking her head).

The Olympians are laughing at a television screen with Aphrodite and Ares caught in the trap.

Nico is getting more into it and it’s no longer awkward.

Some of the Hunters are kind of dancing but they are mostly still just watching Thalia.

A burnt Mr D shatters his wine glass in his hand as he glares at the sky.

A boxing glove arrow hits Chiron in the side of the head and he looks up only to have one of the Party Ponies shove an EZ-Drinker hat with diet coke on his head and you can see him wondering what he did to get the relatives he has.

Poseidon smiles in the background as Tyson is having the time of his life dancing.

The screen fades to black.

[percyjacksonfan3]

The Last Olympian Thoughts

So because I have absolutely 0 self-control or restraint when it comes to this series and its characters, and for The Last Olympian in particular, I could not put TLO down. Because of this I figured I couldn’t do the usual photo reaction posts I have been so far, because the spam would just be ridiculous, so I am stealing the idea from @yourstrulytaaay​ to do a masterpost instead. (Adding a Read More cause this got ridiculously long)

Fun fact, TLO came out right after i finished reading the series for the first time so it's the first PJO book i bought  and my only hard cover one for the og series. I checked the year and turns out it was published 2009, which means i was actually 9 when i read the series for the first time. I realize this is not really a fun fact but i thought i was older when I first read the series so it's blowing my mind a little ‘cause now I’m 21 and everything hits different and i still have so much love for this series and the characters Okay onto book thoughts: - i was right that this book is gonna destroy me, the first line alone made me so excited and nostalgic it's ridiculous - I love Rachel and Percy sm tbh. Her being a bit of peace and normalcy in his life without always reminding Percy of who and what he is is so good for him. Just a little escape

- of course by the end of the book that's not the case any more but by the end he's lived his prophecy so he doesn't need it as badly, plus he and Annabeth are solid again - Percy saying Annabeth has been hard to be around lately... Ouch my heart. Luke really is the last thing that keeps them from being together and Percy is so jealous and Annabeth so torn and in pain, i feel so bad for them both

- Beckendorf 🥺🥺 - the telkhine with the Lil Demon lunchbox!! I forgot about him. Percy: 'i left him alive, partly because his lunchbox was cool' is one of my absolute favourite lines tbh - Paul taking Percy crabbing and being imperative in helping Percy kill the giant crab 💖 Paul Blofis is important and deserves the world, okay? - aw Percy, you can't save every demigod bb

- 'i had to fight him eventually. Why not now?... What difference would a week make?' Oh Percy you have no idea - real talk tho, the fact Kronos possessed Luke's body would also mess me tf up. Percy keeps forgetting it's not Luke anymore and yeah, that would be so so hard and confusing af, like what another smart little mind game for Kronos to pull on top of everything else - the fact Percy fights Kronos before getting the Achilles Curse and actually doesn't die within seconds is... Astounding. He kicks him in the chest! And yeah Kronos is weaker and still adjusting to Luke's body, but Percy is having trouble fighting Luke cause they used to be friends - Percy breaks Kronos' time magic!! Like?! Boy is POWERFUL.

- OUCH - honestly Luke, Thalia and Annabeth's family breaking the way it did... Don't talk to me. Poor Annabeth, Luke betrayed them, Thalia joined the Hunters because of Luke's betrayal so she's pretty much AWOL all the time and then Luke dies. Like Rick wtf, my heart can't take it? -Percy and Tyson having each others backs when talking to Poseidon in the underwater palace is the brother-brother relationship we love to see - Percy trying to stick a sand dollar in the vending machines at school 🤦🏻‍♀🤦🏻‍♀ - the whole underwater interaction at Poseidon's palace? Perfection. Awkward family drama and all - Connor falling out of the tree when he sees Percy because he's so excited 😂😂

- 😭💖

- k, ik Clarisse isn't perfect but tbh if i was a child of Ares whose father was disrespected and hated by my fellow campers (ares deserves it but still) and that disrespect trickled down to how the other campers treated ME (which if Percy is reliable here, it obviously does) then i would also be irritated at being used for muscle and nothing else? And just expected to fight with the people who act as if they'd rather not have Ares kids around the rest of the time. Like Clarisse isn't totally wrong - Percy reading the prophecy, seeing he's meant to die and just being like 'i do not see it' and refusing to outright think about it makes me so sad for him - (but it taints every action after and he's super reckless afterwards bc of it- including finally breaking and accepting the Achilles Curse) - (also him taking this as the last straw and finally beginning to show Annabeth how he really feels, cause fuck it, he's dying anyway) - Give me more info about Rachel's backstory and family Rick!! -  how did i forget Percy willingly eats chocolates that taste like cardboard because 'i didnt have anything against cardboard' like sir? Ik Silena didn't want them but still? - 'she'd always been cute, but she was starting to be seriously beautiful' STOP, MY HEART CAN'T TAKE IT - Percy staring at Annabeth and forgetting what they're talking about cause hes so distracted 👌🏻

- hmm yeah... For some strange reason.... - i forgot how Percy totally bombs this convo bw them and now want to cry 😭 Annabeth is trying to talk about what's important and Percy, you sweet oblivious man, you're shooting her down without even realizing - love that they're both on the same wavelength tho. Percy two lines before, hmm it's cool to date ppl from other cabins, wonder why im thinking that around Annabeth, my best friend in the world, and then Annabeth a beat later, hmm, let me bring up Silena and Beckendorf and how it's important to be with the people you love when you have the chance, no way Percy will miss this huge hint right? - they're the best - k i honestly forgot Percy full on physically intimidates Leneus like that - luke telling his mom if he ran away the monsters wouldnt get her..i can just imagine luke crying when he says good bye before running away because he thinks it's his fault his mom is like that and he cant take care of and protect her anymore because it's too hard - uh oh now i have angsty pre-lightning thief luke fic inspo... Him, Thalia and Annabeth on the run... The ANGST -  Rick holds absolutely nothing back in this book and i am in pain - HESTIA!! 💖💖🥰 - actual loml - i love that Rick titled this book after her and that he wrote such a great series about the importance of family (biological, found or otherwise) and home, and that he said actually Hestia is the most important bc shes the most humble and keeps the peace and knows when to fight and when to yield and you protect what you love, which is your home - i just... Adore Hestia - Grover! Missed you babes - Hades is so so horrible to Nico, always comparing him to Bianca :/ - but i do love Hades, Persephone and Demeter together they make me laugh - oh god the River Styx - Achilles 🥺 - Annabeth being Percy's lifeline is, and continues to be, A Lot™ - 'my name was Percy Jackson. I reached up and took Annabeth's hand.' LOL Why am i crying? - Like the fact there is no Percy without Annabeth, and that remembering her literally reminded him of who he is in his very soul... It's fine im fine - i won't even get into the parallels of her being his lifeline now and then later when Hera takes his memories but leaves the memory of Annabeth for Percy to fight to get back to (anyone who wants to yell about it with me... Feel free to message) - badass Percy is my fav Percy tbh - him defeating Hades?? Like? Hades is arguably the most powerful god, okay - i feel bad for Nico but if i was Percy I'd do the exact same, Nico, sorry man but this is a high stakes time crunch deal and Nico is literally the only hope of persuading Hades and distracted by his own internal stuff - flashbacks to Luke, Thalia and Annabeth hurt, ow - George and Martha are the best - damn i forgot Hermes full on nearly kills Percy here, yikes - Luke stop cockblocking Percabeth challenge

- i love!! Percy's love for New York!! So much!! - Percy leaving to live in New Rome in HoO is a lie and this is all the proof i need for why - the fact the entire last half of the book is the battle and aftermath... Such great buildup and pacing. All the tricks and twists and battles in this War of Manhattan? I would not take out a thing, Rick, you legend - of course then the final battle in hoo with the gods is what? Two pages? Ugh, don’t talk to me about my hatred for BoO and HoO - 'no detours you two' is still the cutest thing!!! - THE HUNTERS!! Thalia i missed you - good job Percy, you finally spent your sand dollar - Minotaur!! - 'dont i get a kiss for luck? Its kind of a tradition right?' Percy finds out he's gonna die and is out of fucks to give and honestly I support him - also Michael just standing beside these two while they're flirting like umm 👀 👀 while a monster army marches towards them, nbd - Annabeth taking Ethan's knife meant for Percy!!! Cause she just knows his weak spot without him even telling her! They literally invented love - Feral Percy is so scary omg, i love how well Rick incorporates the Achilles Curse in this novel, with the whole heightened weaknesses and stuff ans the parallels to Achilles arrogance being what killed him and Percy's loyalty, fierceness and protective instinct being his own heightened weakness - the fact that Percy is the one who inadvertantly kills Michael Yew tho, I'll never recover from that - the fact Hades offers Maria di Angelo a golden palace by the Styx like how Poseidon offers Sally a palace under the sea tho. Let's talk about that parallel - the entire talk with Prometheus is so so good - not me picturing young Luke hiding in the closet to get away from his mom when she has an 'episode' -i love callbacks in stories and all of the callbacks to the rest of the series in this book make me very happy (medusa, minotaur, the underworld, Rainbow!! My baby!!, Daedalus and more) - Percy summoning a wholeass hurricane against Hyperion - the Party Ponies! They're so chaotic, i love it - Dionysus! 😁 I can't help it, i love him - Percy absolutely losing it when he sees Sally and Paul asleep in the car 🥺 - Rachel telling Percy he's not the hero screws with him so much :( poor bb - although i really really love how Rick wrote this, it's so refreshing to not have one chosen one save the world, but a combination of people - the drakon, Silena and Clarisse make me cry - the Patrochilles references, im not okay - Annabeth giving up on Luke after hearing what he did to Silena and Percy telling her that doesn't make him happy 😭 that whole interaction makes my heart ache - Percy giving Hestia Pandora's pithos 🥺 - and Hades, Nico and the others coming for a final attack is so badass, i love it - listen im glad the og trio were the ones to confront Luke on Olympus but the fact Thalia got so close and then pinned by a statue of HERA makes me so sad. Ik her and Luke were finished and she coped by cutting him off completely and giving up all hope but i would pay money to know what they would have said to each other to say goodbye - Ethan 🥺 - Poseidon joining the fight against Typhon is so cool, such a great scene - 'PEANUT BUTTER!' - Annabeth you brilliant badass you - RIP Luke, you werent great but you werent the worst either - the gods just rolling up seconds too late, wondering wtf happened in Olympus and who the dead body is - the chapter where the Olympians meet and give out rewards is one of my absolute favourites (again i am incensed we didn't get anything like this in HoO) - will Percy turning down immortality ever not make me scream in glee? No? Alright then - Annabeth being relieved like Percy was relieved at the end of Titan's Curse tho - oh Hermes :/ - its so hard reading all this and knowing what comes in HoO... Like it's such a cathartic, earned and mostly happy and peaceful ending and then HoO comes along and undermines it all - aww Rick let Paul see Olympus somehow pls, he deserves it, he killed a dracanae - (i would also love to see it) - Percy being more upset Rachel took his pegasus than her going to Camp and possibly dying, lol, priorities dude - i honestly think that Rick had other ideas for the second Great Prophecy and how things would go down in BoO, cause the prophecy like... Barely applies to BoO, Doors of Death are in book four, and explabations of it is all so unclear when Rick is usually pretty good with that stuff - PERCABETH - lol Percy complaining about privacy when he and Annabeth are caught kissing literally in the middle of the very open and public dining pavilion, okay - BEST UNDERWATER KISS OF ALL TIME - that's it and im a glass case of emotion - very happy to say that this series remains my favourite of all time 💖

 If anyone ever wants to come gush about anything Riordanverse related feel free, because as you can see I have a lot of thoughts about it all

[lewis-winters]

Hi! i really enjoy your daemon au and i-ve gone and watched the new his dark materials series because of it. i love your take on daemons and was wondering if you have nymore headcanons for the other boys? what's luz's daemon? liptons? how do you pick their names? are there any daemons who Re the same sex as their humans? you dont have to rwply if you dont want to i just wanted to tell you i enjoy your world very much!!

Oh, hi! I’m glad you’re watching the new His Dark Materials adaptation! It’s pretty good, huh?

I do have headcanons for not just most of the boys but for the world itself. Though I also call it His Dark Materials!AU alongside daemon!AU it’s actually more the latter than the former. The only things I carried over into this AU from the original world of His Dark Materials are the existence of daemons, the fact that daemons are made of Dust particles, and the existence of witches. The magisterium or any kind of theocracy doesn’t exist. The authority and the angels also do not carry over. Instead, our own religions exist, but there’s just as much emphasis on spiritualism and mysticism as there is on moralism, which I believe would be the natural development of religion in this world where your soul/daemon, the spiritual aspect of you, is literally there for everybody else to see.

All of the boys have small or medium sized daemons, the biggest probably belonging to that of Ron and Tab, who have an Ocelot daemon and a sheepdog daemon respectively. The reason for this being that small or medium sized daemons are easily carried and they, alongside bird or other kinds of flying daemons, are preferred by the airborne. You still gotta jump out of a perfectly good airplane largely undetected. Can’t do that with an elephant daemon. 

Ok. This got real long so I’m putting the rest under the cut. tw: mentions of death, trauma, and mutilation.

Some of the younger boys’ daemons haven’t settled. Miller, Hashey, Garcia, and Jackson. Hashey and Garcia’s settle in Hageneu. Miller and Jackson never get the chance.

Shifty’s daemon, Myrtle, is a Capybara. But he doesn’t know that. Every time somebody asked him what his daemon was, he’d shrug, say ‘Don’t rightly know,’ then leave it at that. What can he do? Capybara’s aren’t native to Virginia and he’s never been out of Virginia. Webster was the one to tell him that Myrtle was a Capybara because he’d read about them in a book somewhere that one time. Myrtle was startled by this and said; “I thought I was some kind of dog!” that was one of the few times she ever spoke out-loud during the whole war.

As I’ve said before in this post, Lew’s daemon is a chameleon named Amalthea. For all of the events of episode 9, Lew kept her in his pocket and that scared almost everybody shitless, because it made it seem like he was walking around without a daemon. The replacements assigned to them around that time, like O’Keefe, thought he didn’t have a soul. He never bothered to correct them because that meant letting Amalthea out, and the idea of her being in the open and vulnerable made him especially ill. He’d rather people thought he was soulless than allow himself and Amalthea to get hurt again. Which is so Lewis.

Skip has a hummingbird daemon named Ilaria, which is a name that means happiness and joy. This daemon-human duo wasn’t hard for me to figure out. It just fits.

Malarkey’s daemon is an artic hare with a summer coat named Felis. She’s settled, but after Foy and after losing Skip and Alex and Buck, she changes again. Subtlely, of course, and not wholely. She stays an artic hare, but instead of a summer coat, she permanently has a winter coat.

It’s not uncommon in this world for your daemon to change after severe trauma. I bet as the field of psychology expands, so does the understanding of trauma’s effects on the soul expand. There’s many studies on the changing of once settled daemons in relation to soldiers’ PTSD.

Buck’s daemon, a male bald eagle named Romulus, changes entirely. Still a bird, but instead of an eagle, he turns into a snowy owl. Before the war, he was a chatty daemon. After, he barely speaks and only does so to Buck and, very rarely, to those close to them.

Eugene Sledge’s male daemon, Daecon goes from a blood hound and gets turned into a Luzon bleeding heart-- which, I know is on the nose but it’s just. It’s such a cool bird, ya’ll. I’ve seen one up-close and ever since that day, I have not known any peace. The shift would be painful and would happen very slowly. It was actually horrific and was a trauma in and of itself. That was the last time they ever changed, though.

I also headcanon that the longer you’ve been settled, the harder and more painful the shift.

Merriell Shelton’s daemon settles in Gloucester. Into what, I’m not sure yet, but a part of me thinks she’s settled into some kind of big cat from the rain forests. Either a cloud leopard or a jaguar. Her name’s Charlotte but he calls her Lottie. Don’t ask me why. It just fits.

That being said, I have some Thoughts about people with big cat daemons. They’re usually aloof. Like, they make a very impactful first impression but they’re mostly solitary individuals who are weird af and difficult to get to know. It takes a really special person to tame a human with a big cat daemon. Once you earn their trust, that’s for life. They’re also really self-assured and are very secure in their sense of self. There is almost little to no tension between big cat daemons and their humans, and if there is, it gets explosive.

Ron Speirs has a big cat daemon, a female Ocelot named Aurele. She never talks, not even to Ron. They have this silent gaze/telepathy going on. Ron also takes on a couple of animalistic traits because of it. They could also... stretch their bond really far? Which is scary as fuck. People think he’s the son of a witch who, in her desperation to make him immortal, made him go through the ritual that allows a witch and her daemon to part for long periods of time and great distances. This is not true. Ron and Aurele just have really high pain tolerance.

Eugene Roe, on the other hand, is the son of a witch. His maman, however, did not make him go through the ritual because he’s not her first son. She knows the pain of outliving her sons well. She loves him all the same but understands that he will die well before her. Eugene’s daemon is a male kinkajou named Louis. Which is both a surprise and also not. For much of the war there’s a lot of tension there. Louis craves connection with others, Roe needs isolation to keep their sanity. It kind of turns into this thing where, if you wanted to comfort Roe or be close to him, you’d have to go through his daemon instead.

Babe’s daemon is a squirrel. A very chatty female russian squirrel named Abigail. They talk to each other a lot, and Abby talks to other people a lot too. Sometimes, she even answers in lieu of Babe. They’re both very blunt and very out there, no hiding with Babe and Abby. It used to get them into a lot of trouble with the nuns at school, who believed that daemons are only meant to be seen and not heard. A+ Catholic repression.

George’s daemon was a little tricky to me. I know his daemon is female and that her name is Thalia. I also know that she can fly. My first thought was: Parrot, either a hyacinth macaw or a white cockatoo. But, I also really like the idea of George having a Butterfly daemon. Particularly one that looks like a leaf when her wings are folded up but is brilliantly jewel toned when she opens them. In the end, I opted for George entering the army, having not settled just yet, and he and Thalia are this kind of double-act, where she shifts into whatever form is necessary for the punchline of the joke. She only settles into a parrot (idk still what kind) after their first jump and all the excitement in Carentan. A gradual thing. They don’t even notice until just before the jump in Holland. When they miss someone, Thalia will mimic that person’s voice. First, it was George’s mama and the voice of her daemon, both speaking in rapid fire portugese. Later on, in Austria, Thalia starts imitating all the friends they’ve lost. Sometimes she’ll sound like Skip. Other times, she’ll sound like Bill. It takes a very long time for her to break this habit. To the point wherein she and George don’t even remember what her real voice sounds like.

Lip’s daemon settled really early and is a female Bonobo named Jane. Has been since he was ten and made man of the house. This, like Skip and Ilaria, was very easy for me to figure out.

Dick’s daemon is a Caracara raptor bird. I’m still figuring out the specifics so she doesn’t have a name yet. Sorry.

As mentioned, Tab has a sheepdog daemon named Marisa who enjoys keeping him and everybody else in check. Have you met a sheepdog? They will literally herd you. It doesn’t matter if you are not a lamb or a sheep. They will nip at your heels until you go where they want to go. That’s Marisa. She’ll nip at Tab’s heels, she’ll nip at everybody else’s heels. If you are going somewhere she does not want you to go she will make sure you know her displeasure. 

It is also super funny when she looks Tab in the eye and goes “Down, boy.” It never fails to make Tab go red and make everybody else laugh. 

Harry’s daemon-- and don’t get mad at me-- but Harry’s daemon is a Scottish Terrier named Saoirse. He carries her around strapped to his chest during jumps. It’s fucking cute. Don’t say that to their faces though because they will lose all respect for you. It’s a daemon suited more to a teacher than it is to a soldier, that’s for sure.

Bill’s daemon is a pit-bull named Darla. Scary looking one, too, with a very bawdy sense of humor. She will growl at you and pretend to bite and you will be very scared but she only does it as a joke. She’s honestly really cool. When Bill and Babe are walking around together, Abby likes to perch on top of Darla’s head. It’s adorable. Sometimes, when Abby gets too much, Darla carries her around in her mouth. It’s still cute. But only to them, everybody else finds it vaguely horrifying.

I know there’s this taboo of humans not touching other humans’ daemons but it’s kinda difficult in such close-quarters like theirs. It is also heavily implied in the original text of Philip Pullman, that the no-touching thing is a cultural thing. Like, I think in religions that deal a lot in repression like Catholicism or Protestantism, the touching of another’s daemon is a no-no and is only reserved for the most intimate of relations (i.e. marriage). But I feel like religions such as Judaism, Wiccan, Paganism, or even some branches of Folk-Catholicism encourage touch/celebrate that connection between two humans. Neither of these two beliefs are wrong, of course. It’s just a cultural thing and they carry with them both pros and cons.

I bet Lieb grew up very used to his daemon being touched by his mother and father or older siblings. It’s not taboo to him, though he recognizes that it’s taboo to others. He doesn’t get it though, and is constantly rolling his eyes every time somebody gasps when they accidentally touch someone’s daemon.

A lot of the boys just kinda ignore the touching daemons thing until they get used to it.

I’m not sure what Lieb’s daemon is or what her name is, too. I know she’s a social kind of daemon-- not solitary like a big cat or a reptile (like snakes). I thought maybe a wolf, but a wolf daemon is too... large and there are a lot of connotations attached to it. I think Lieb’s daemon is something medium-sized and unassuming. Not a dog. Not a domestic cat either. A part of me thinks flightless bird, but no. Not that either. Give me time. I’ll figure her out. As of now, I’m thinking either a marsupial or a canidae/fox but not quite. She’s a mammal, that much I know. Just don’t know what kind.

Grant’s daemon is a male domestic cat named Saladin. He’s either an Abyssinian or a Bengal. Either way, he’s really cool. Like super cool. They’re both super duper cool.

And... that’s kinda it. That’s all I have for now. I’m really sorry it got so long, anon. I get really excited when talking about daemons. It’s character study but with animals! Thank you for giving me this opportunity to ramble. This is where I leave you.