#smelly gabe ugliano

[justaz]

something i always thought about when it came to amnesia is how different people would act. like the whole nature vs nurture thing, your experiences in life shape how you act, think, and behave. if you’re uplifted throughout your life, more often than not you’re going to be a pretty confident person. if you’re put down and belittled throughout your life, you’re not gonna have the best self image or self esteem. in a lot of writings, when a character has amnesia, they seem to behave the same as before they lose their memories, while they’ve lost their memories, and after they gain them back. it’s always been something in the back of my mind but nothing that like totally bothered me.

something i think is cool though is that even though it’s not explicit i think i can see evidence of this in percy jackson. i cant make a case for jason as we never knew him before he lost his memories, but we were literally inside percy’s head for five books (and some side stories).

again under the cut bc it’s a long one teehee

first things first though lemme just say: percy is not dumb! he’s actually really smart and is emotionally intelligent and observant. we’ve seen this throughout literally the entire series, not just a specific book or a singular series. i’m talking about every instance he appears in the riordanverse.

lemme also say that percy was abused. this isn’t a headcanon or whatever, it’s literally canon. there’s and instance of it happened in the third chapter of the lightning thief when percy goes home after ditching grover and interrupts gabe’s poker game and as he stomps into his room gabe brings up his report card and calls him “brain boy” which insinuates that gabe constantly belittles percy’s intelligence (as he also calls him that when percy and sally are leaving for montauk) and it’s safe to assume that he didn’t just stop there (“guy secret” (physical abuse) and “he’d find a way to blame me” (gabe went out of his way to cause conflict with percy)).

so percy grew up in a home where he was consistently put down and went to schools where he was bullied no matter what (“sarcastic teachers - every jerk who’d called me stupid in school or laughed at me when I’d gotten expelled.”). being put down in this way your entire life would not lead to high self esteem and confidence. so while percy was emotionally intelligent and observant enough to pick up on luke’s bitterness to the gods, annabeths crush on luke, grover being thalias protector, chiron telling that half truth about the oracle in the attic, medusa hating annabeth by tensing up for a split second, etc., etc., he did not have the self esteem to pick up on annabeth, rachel, calypso, and nico being into him unless they spelled it out for him.

even then, when calypso told him that she had feelings for him he couldn’t understand bc “i’m just me” and it took rachel asking him what it would take for him to kiss her and annabeth literally kissed him under mt st. helens and it took another year for them to get together (i think there’s another reason there but that’s for another day), and nico had to tell him straight up that he had a crush on him for percy to realize (which tbf,, nico was so angry towards him that i don’t blame percy for not picking up on it).

the point is, percy is extremely emotionally intelligent and observant as long as he’s not part of the equation. when you bring him into it and consider other peoples feelings towards him, his own insecurities get in the way of him picking up on extremely obvious signs (calypsos treatment of him, actually just the entire battle of the labyrinth book).

(i would also add that he down plays his powers/strength a lot because of these insecurities but that doesn’t pan out with what i’m talking about bc when his memories were stolen, he didn’t know the true extent of his powers so he didn’t change much in that department as he still underestimated his own strength as with the water canons during war games.)

anyways, after he arrives at new rome and is y’know an amnesiac, he seems a little off from how he was in pjo (which i think would’ve been really interesting to see if he went by perseus instead of percy but that’s a whole other thing) and i think it’s bc of the amnesia. since his memories were gone, he didn’t remember gabe or his school bullies or sarcastic teachers so his self image kinda boosted a bit and he owned his intelligence and looks and what he had with him bc it was all he had.

he noticed that reyna had recognized him and wanted to kill him (or was angry, i can’t remember exactly) when he first arrived at camp and he also noticed she was the leader quickly and knew that he shouldn’t question her in front of the other campers and remained silent. he picked up on octavian blackmailing hazel, hazel and franks romantic tension, the fact that nico recognized him, etc., etc. further more, he owned his intelligence and didn’t shy away from it. he noticed that while octavian was saying one thing, he was simultaneously saying something else, he picked up on the manipulation (? is that the right word? idk, silver tongued-ness of octavian). he knew that octavian would be a powerful political enemy and since a lot of decisions in new rome are made in a political way (? does that make sense?) that octavian would be a powerful enemy in general.

in his meeting with reyna afterwords, he had apparently counted the lines on her arm and picked up on the fact that they stood for the years that she was part of the legion and the ring and the spa, blah, blah, blah, basically just reread their whole meeting in son of neptune. reyna even says that he’s smarter than he appears (which, yeah, might be a dig at him, is also a compliment bc she did just call him smart so-). he also almost immediately picked up on the fact that reyna was insinuating that they could be…something and he could choose what that something was. without the memories of his past and the subsequent self esteem issues, he immediately picked up on the signals reyna was sending him. so now that he doesn’t have his memories, when he’s part of the equation he can still reach the right answer without his insecurities clouding his judgement.

then when he got his memories back and we moved onto moa, we kinda got pjo percy back. the scene that sticks out to me the most is percy and annabeths date in rome. annabeth tells percy that she knows him and percy wants to respond with “and you like me anyways?” but doesn’t, showing that with his memories coming back, so did his insecurities and shitty self esteem.

so while it’s not explicit and attention isn’t called to it, it’s nice to find proof (i guess) in pjo/hoo that the amnesia actually affected the character is a realistic way (i guess).

[captain-watercress]

them switching it Smelly Gabe getting himself killed by being a jerk and opening Percy’s mail is honestly so fitting

[fandomination666-blog]

Percy genuinely believed that Sally was trying to get rid of him by sending him to all those schools. He was so hurt when she instantly said no to homeschooling, cause all he ever wanted was to be with her.

But in the flashback we see why that hurts Sally so much. Because all of this, all the schools, and the shitty step-dad, and the stories, and the lying when necessary, and the yelling and the crying and the stress, all of this was SO SHE COULD KEEP HIM.

Because baby Percy has no idea that there is a place, a perfect place, with people just like him, with people who would help and understand him. A place where baby annabeth may have only just arrived.

Sally could have taken him to camp instantly. Even as a baby. She was only 19!!! She could've taken him to camp in that flashback, when he was like 9, she could've lived her 30s as a single young woman starting her candy business. But she put herself through so much, and Percy through so much, because she knew that there is no place more perfect than home.

And she did what it took to keep her baby home and safe, with his mom.

[hazellevessque]

GABE TOLD THE PROPHECY IN THE BOOK. IT HAPPENED IN THE BOOK. WHAT ARE Y’ALL SO PISSED ABOUT. IT WAS IN THE BOOK

[im-always-lost-in-a-book]

*Disclaimer*

I like the new TV adaptation of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I’m not attacking anyone or hating on the writers. People are allowed to critique media they enjoy. 

I’m not very happy with how Sally Jackson is portrayed in the flashback scenes. She seems less patient and more aggressive then how she was portrayed in the book series. Maybe I’m just being too sensitive as someone who grew up with an unkind mother, and used Sally Jackson as a source of comfort. Then on the flipside, Gabe is downplayed to be less cruel and aggressive than he was in the books. Maybe this is done for them to be more realistic characters??? (though abusive parents are unfortunately realistic and prevalent. This plot point in the series helped me cope with a lot as a child) Personally, I’m not understanding why this choice was made. Thoughts??

[k-is-bored]

hot take, movie Gabe was better. I know this series is for kids, and disney wanted it to be less scary, but Gabe should've been more hateable.

[irishskeptic]

when this happens, Percy, swearing by his mother's full name and the Virgin Mary, admits that he acted disgustingly. He is five years old, a useless piece of fat named Gabe, whom his mother dragged home for some reason, has been living with them for two years, when they seemingly go out together for the first time. The supermarket two blocks from their house. was completely out of groceries. Mom goes to the distant dairy department to get ice cream, Percy can still see the warm shine of her skin and black luxurious braids, Gabe is playing a slot machine, Percy clutches a teddy bear to his chest. A no longer young man in a uniform apron approaches them and looks at them with a cheerful smile, Percy does not like it. "What a charming boy," he says to Gabe, who finally broke away from the game, "You must be glad to have such a beautiful son, he looks like a real angel." Percy's abnormally fast brain understands everything faster than Gabe, his teddy bear flies to the floor, Percy looks at the old man with anger in his darkened eyes and growls. growls like an angry dog, and then starts screaming. These are not the best words spoken in Spanish and Percy has definitely damaged his vocal cords. Before Percy can rush into a fight and hit this stupid old man, his mom arrives, she picks him up in her arms and hugs him, whispering soothing words to him in Spanish. Their language. He is his mother's son, please finally understand and accept this. in the end, they leave without groceries, Mom pours out convincing apologies, Gabe looks at Percy like a piece of dirt. Percy is seething with a bubbly mixture of anger, disgust and horror. All he knows is that his father is white and because of this, people don't consider him their mother's son. Percy is starting to hate it.

this refers to the topic of "mixed Latino Percy Jackson". This is a description of a situation where Percy was mistaken for Gabe's biological son, because Percy looks completely white, and Gabe is a white man - anon.

Oh this was a tough read…

@pain-is-too-tired @ishouldsleepbut @florenceisstrange @ashthenerdtheythem @aki-bara

[thissmycomingofage]

Have to say though, I don't like what they did with Gabe. I don't know if it's Disney softening it or if maybe they chose to change the ending, but so far it didn't display anything making him deserve the fate written for him in the book. Say what you want about the movies but Gabe was despicable and even more obviously than in the book. Sorry to say that but in the show him and Sally argue once and it sounds more like an old married couple bickering than an abusive relationship. This Gabe doesn't feel "smelly" in all senses of the word. He's just a lazy dude. And if Sally ends up doing to him what she does in the book, he better be shown as a way bigger prick than that in the following episodes. I'm waiting for the TV reports. But otherwise it'll just feel cruel and horrible from Sally and Percy. I'm not saying he doesn't display patterns of abuse. He does. But with the ending coming it is definitely not clear enough to make his fate something to rejoice about.

[wanderingmind867]

I made a post where I said Gabe doesn't deserve to have been turned to stone. I stand by that post now, but I also get why it offended people. Gabe is a horrible person and a scummy human being. He's an abuser who deserves nothing but the worst. That being said, petrification feels like the wrong answer. It's like the death penalty. Sure it solves the problem, but aren't there much better ways of bringing someone to justice?

Imagine for a moment of Gabe had not been turned to stone. Instead, imagine he had instead lost his job, Sally divorces him, he loses everything. Doesn't that sound like a much more satisfying punishment for someone like him? And if they had gone that route, they could have brought him back as a minor antagonist later in book 5 or something!

I'm actually beginning to sell myself on this whole idea now! I feel like it was a wasted opportunity. Who knew this would all start because I had a moral objection to the idea of petrification?

[justaz]

LISTEN i know they’re jokes and wouldn’t actually happen but percy and sally wouldn’t just go around announcing what they did to smelly gabe,,, like they literally KILLED him. that’s not something you go around telling everyone. they’d stick to their story of him going missing and maybe sally has a smile when she should be playing the concerned widow and maybe there’s humor is percy’s eyes but his face remains stoic so it’s very weird and honestly a little scary but they wouldn’t just announce it to everyone bc it’s a literal crime. like the only way i could think of other people knowing is percy opening up to annabeth about smelly gabe’s abuse and her questioning what happened bc he’s missing and she has this idea in the back of her mind but they didn’t actually do that bc- oh they did that. like maybe grover knows w the empathy link and being percys best friend, i doubt paul knows but hey maybe he does but i highly doubt it. but like leo, piper, reyna, etc have no fucking clue bc u don’t just go around admitting to a crime (especially when it’s murder)

[britney-rosberg06]

do you ever just cry because Gabe Ugliano was supposed to make Percy safer Sally and Percy suffered for all those years, lived in a dangerous house. To keep Percy safe

it’s oxymoronic in nature that the fatherly role is traditionally one of a protector. And that Gabe both achieved and failed in that role

idk what i’m really saying im just excited for when I get to watch Sally kill him

[whitephoenix81]

Has anyone ever thought about how and why Smelly Gabe got a paycheck from the department store he was the manager at, even though he never went into work?

My theory: Gabe Ugliano is Italian. He is always playing poker with his two friends, a neighbor, and the landlord. They tried to stick up for Percy at the beginning of the first book when Gabe squeezed Percy for money, but one word from Gabe and they shut up. If you look up the address to the apartment that they were living in at the time when Percy gave it to the taxi driver, then you'll find that they live in the Spanish Quarter of Manhattan. The Hood.

Gabe is an Italian Mafia Boss for the New York Chapters. The department store is a front for the criminal activity that goes on behind the scenes. Gabe's two friends that he is always with, are his two lieutenants.

The reason why nobody came after Sally for what she did, I think it's because 1) there are no logical connections between his disappearance and Sally. 2) no one could believe that Sally could wack anyone. 3) they didn't like Gabe either. 4) they like Sally, and even those who think that Sally unalived Gabe, would never do anything about it. 5) the cops didn't go after Sally, because there wasn't any evidence. 6) Poseidon must have done something with the mist so that those mortals who knew or suspected Sally or Percy of anything, to make them forget or point them in the wrong direction.

Smelly Gabe is a Mafia Boss.

[smolandweirdwriter]

Hi yes I’m here to rant

WHY DID THEY FUCKING WRITE GABE AS SOME GUY SALLY BANTERS WITH AND LISTENS TO THE KNICKS GAMES WITH BUT WITH WHOM SHE ALSO HAS A SOMEWHAT CONTENTIOUS RELATIONSHIP??? ITS ALMOST LIKE THEYRE WRITING SALLYS STORY AS SHE WAS IN LOVE WITH POSEIDON AND SETTLED FOR GABE WHICH STRAINS THEIR RELATIONSHIP WHICH IS AN INTERESTING TAKE BUT NOT HOW ITS SUPPOSED TO GO AND I HATE IT MAKE HIM AN ASSHOLE MAKE GABE A PIECE OF SHIT MAKE GABE ABUSIVE AND DAMMIT LET SALLY BE KIND KIND KIND AND THEN KILL HIM AT THE END

[hazellevessque]

Unpopular opinion BUT Gabe was not gabing as gabe should gabe. Like he didn’t inspire the same raw anger I feel every single time I hear his name. Even though Sally’s a Queen who doesn’t deserve it, Gabe being an abusive little shit was a big part of Percy’s arc and it made the ending of Sally turning him into a statue extra satisfying.

Thoughts?

I kind of felt like this too. While I want Percy to be happy, Gabe is a part of his trauma and important. I think that maybe once the criminal allegations start coming up for Percy he’ll turn worse?

However, there are still many forms of abuse, not just physical and we have to keep that in mind

[bright-eyed-pallas-athena]

Not Gabe turning himself to stone lmao 😭😭😭

[feelingtheaster99]

In preparation for The Chalice of the Gods and the series coming out, I’m rereading the PJO books and cannot stop thinking about Sally Jackson.

Imagine you’re a mom to this amazing kid, who, through no fault of his own is constantly going to be in danger unless you:

send him away to a summer camp for kids with godly parents, meaning you’d rarely, if at all get to see your son

marry his smelly, abusive asshole to help disguise your son from the monsters who want to hunt him

And you pick… the SECOND OPTION? You marry a man, whom you have no romantic feelings for, who you don’t even LIKE, who is unkind, and lazy, and physically aggressive… just so you can see your son for at least three months out of the year