Friendly Reminder That In The Lightning Thief Musical The First Song(the Day I Got Expelled) Doesnt Even

Friendly reminder that in the lightning thief musical the first song(the day I got expelled) doesn’t even start with Percy.

It starts with Luke.

Because in all actuality the story started with Luke.

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I tried explaining this to my mother (who is a childcare worker) and she told me to stfu because she doesn’t have the mental strength to comprehend this 😭💀

frank: hey guys, what’s up?

annabeth: hi frank

frank: uh, why is percy looking at you like you betrayed him or something

percy, staring at annabeth with an open jaw and hurt in his eyes:

annabeth: oh he’s been like that for 10 minutes. i explained to him that there's no way to know if we’re actually seeing the same colors. for example, what I see as "red" might look like "blue" to him, but since we’ve both been taught to call that color "red," we assume we're seeing the same thing. when in reality, the colors we see could be totally different, but we’d never know because we use the same names for them.

frank, looking distressed: that… that’s an awful thing to say to someone

Thinking about names having power in the Riordanverse- because it’s exactly the kind of literature motif that I LOVE.

Thinking about “Leo” being short for “Leonidas” who was a Spartan King who sacrificed his life fighting to save his people in the Battle of Thermopylae.

Leo, similarly, gave his own life to stop Gaea and save the world.

That comparison has already been made before, but there’s more-

Leo rejects the name “Leonidas” and chooses to go by “Leo”- in a way, rejecting the fate he’s assigned to. And he doesn’t suffer that fate in the end. He lives.

Yeah, names have power. But what you choose to name yourself has even more power. For example, the fact that Thalia rejected the last name “Grace” because it associated her with her mother, but then taking it back up again when she found out Jason was alive. And Leo chose to not go by “Leonidas” and he also chose to take the physician’s cure and come back.

And here we get onto what Calypso’s doing. By calling him something that he asked to not be called, she is taking away that agency of choice. She is taking away that power.

It’s a small moment, but it REALLY bugs me. Because, like Leo, I go by a shortened version of a longer name, and often one of the ways bullies used to hold power over me was by calling me by my full name repeatedly, even after I asked them to stop. It’s also a way a lot of transphobes hold power over trans people- by deadnaming. By taking away the power of their name, their choice, their identity, who they are, who they’ve built themselves to be, and their right to control all of that.

Now, I’m NOT saying Calypso is going as far as deadnaming Leo, but it’s a similar premise. It’s a manipulation tactic used to knock people down.

Now friendly nicknames -e.g. “Seaweed Brain”- are different, because Percy consents to it. It’s a term of affection between them (and notice how it’s different when Thalia used it. It’s a name that symbolises percabeth’s love, and it’s a name only Annabeth can use). But this is a name, while said in a jokey, banter-y manner, that Leo has SPECIFICALLY ASKED to not be called. And she does it anyway, ignoring the boundary he’s set, ignoring his choice to shape his own identity, ignoring everything that symbolised INCLUDING the fact that it’s literally Leo saying “I choose life” by rejecting the name that fated him to death. It’s just a big red flag for me. And if you put that on top of the fact that she also physically hurt him in this (enough to make him say “ow”) then you just get a whole host of Reasons Why This is NOT Leo’s “Happy Ending”- which the narrative paints it out to be.

Elpenor my beloved

⚠️It does not justify their actions and in a culture and period full of war and suffering⚠️

In another universe the movies were done better, let’s hope in that same universe hoo was written better.

one of the things im most annoyed with about Piper being given a blowdart in TOA is like. yes there is a rich history of Cherokee blowdarts HOWEVER rick does not appear to have done much research about it beyond googling "traditional Cherokee weapons" and then he of course proceeds to be kind of weird about it. like. congrats once again you ALMOST had something.

(for reference if you DO want to learn more about Cherokee blowdarts/traditional weapons, this video and this video are quite nice)

i really hate coming out but still want my extended family to know, so my mother took it upon herself to invent the game “guess which one of my kids is gay.”

the rules are simple.

sit down with uncle so-and-so

he says something about gay people in passing

my mom says “there’s a gay person at this table right now. guess which of my kids it is!

he looks frantically between the three of us trying to figure out if she’s joking or not and trying desperately not to offend anyone but also she won’t continue with the conversation unless he makes a guess so he has to make a guess

we all enjoy his discomfort immensely