I want us to talk more about the Percy Jackson that is the son of the Father of Monsters.
I want us to talk about Percy looking at his brother, Tyson, staring at his only eye, at the strength in his arms and the skin that doesn’t burn, and thinking this is my brother. This is my family. I’m not so different from him.
To talk about Percy who fought another brother inside the Labyrinth and saw skulls of victims killed in the name of Poseidon and listened to his father, this god who has birthed heroes and monsters and gods, tell him Percy was his favorite. Did he ever stay awake at night wondering what that meant?
Percy who can bring the ocean to wherever he is even in the driest desert. Percy who caused an earthquake by accident and ended up freeing a monster that gave even the gods nightmares. Percy who can breathe underwater and controls a sea that doesn’t like to be controlled and creates storms that could bring down ships and destroy lives. Percy who can control anything liquid. Percy who controlled poison and scared even Annabeth who knew him better than any other demigod, who had seen so many terrifying things. Percy who is still so very, very young.
I want to talk about Percy who is the son of the Father of Monsters and has to wonder where that leaves him.
Did he ever stare in the eyes of a monster trying to kill him and think, had things been just a little different I would have been your brother in more than name? Did he ever look at himself in the mirror and wonder if there were any other humans or demigods with that shade of green in their eyes? Does he ever lay at night and listen to Annabeth’s heartbeat and think, had things been different, had he not been raised by his mother, had he been just a little less human, had he not fallen in love, he would have been able to stop it as easily as he could stop the tide?
Let’s talk about Percy Jackson who is the son of the Father of Monsters and therefore that little less human than any other demigod he’s ever met.
Percy who might have stared at Frank and thought, I wonder if I could change my shape, too, if I weren’t so scared of what I might become. I wonder if I already did.
Percy Jackson, who saw himself reflected in the curses of the monsters he killed and thought, suffocating a goddess with her own poison: monsters and I, if we’re the same, then so be it.
Percy who looks like a greek god, who has an expression that makes it hard to be sure if he’s the good guy or not in the middle of a battle, who is a hero and a legend and still wakes up screaming most nights even in college.
Percy who bled red for his entire life but still flinches when he gets a papercut- will he bleed golden, this time, or will it look like sand?
Percy Jackson is the son of the Father of Monsters and his fear is very, very human, but he is not.
kevin, helping aaron get ready for his trial: i would like to represent my client’s internet search history from that evening
aaron, leaning into the fake mic: i’d rather just confess to the murder
Ahsoka: If Anakin and I were both drowning, who would you save?
Rex: I don’t know, both of you?
Ahsoka: No, if you could only save one of us.
Rex: Well, I would probably save Skywalker because he can’t swim and I happen to know you’re an excellent swimmer.
Ahsoka: Suppose I was holding an anchor? Who would you save then?
Rex: Well, why don’t you let go of the anchor?
Ahsoka: It’s a family heirloom.
Rex: I’m leaving.
Me thinking about how Ahsoka canonically thought of Anakin and Obi-wan as her adoptive family and even told people she was adopted:
aka why you should read the comics if you haven’t already
snuck out of themyscira when she was 15 and ended up having a dance-off on Dance Dance Retribution
started a band named Bullets and Bracelets
punched a man for 10 million dollars and used the money to help low-income daycare centers
suggested people try craiglist if they’re too poor to afford being punched by her
got down on her hands and knees to stick her tongue out at a lizzard
makes mistakes in english when she’s upset/worried because it’s not her first language never have i felt so identified with anything, ever
“it was not for you, steven. it was because i must.”
officiated several gay weddings
made ‘kal-el’ the word for brother in themysciran after superman confessed he was lonely growing up
bought lois lane a drink after she helped her defeat some aliens by throwing dirt at them it was a very gay issue i gotta say
“… is very sugar” was her reaction to coca cola
wore a hijab while helping with a flood in the punjab
refused to ally herself with any government, repeatedly
“the lasso compels truth, but it can’t stop mansplaining”
feel free to add because this woman is fucking golden
ahsoka photobombing rex and cody
old old piece i never finished that i started when i heard clone wars was returning! i think i meant obi and anakin to be in it too but alas
Gotham villains: yeah I was traumatized so now I'm evil
The batfam, have more trauma in their pinky finger than they've experienced in their entire lives, largely due to being heroes and are still heroes: :/
I just can never get enough of Shen Wei’s wavering control when it comes to Zhao Yunlan
(I got Zhen Hun vol 1 and I read it in three hours I was so excited)
Like, Shen Wei is so obviously obsessed. He stares at Yunlan constantly (as long as Yunlan is not looking). He can’t help but to look back when he leaves Yunlan. Yunlan is sick and Shen Wei helps him home, basically tucks him into bed, and cleans his entire apartment. Shen Wei is absolutely the type of person to smell Yunlan’s clothes-
But my favourite scene is definitely when Shen Wei helps Yunlan drink. Because he does very well! He and Yunlan drink an alcoholic under the table, and Yunlan is really only tipsy, meaning either Shen Wei did all the heavy lifting or Yunlan’s liver is inhumanly quick.
And with being drunk comes Shen Wei completely losing his last threads of sanity. He is a being born from darkness whose hunger can never be sated, and good golly it shows. Him basically trying to eat Yunlan has always been a highlight. The moment Yunlan shows resistance (full resistance instead of just hesitance), Shen Wei full on unpossesses his own body.
I’m fully convinced (I wasn’t on my first two reads, but I am now) that Shen Wei unpossessed himself. He is so talented. His entire body shuts down, Yunlan of course fucking panics, and Yunlan takes three tries to literally summon Shen Wei’s soul back. Man just unpossessed his own body. The body that he is attached to. Shen Wei has never stolen a body, this one is just his, and he manages to unpossess it.
It’s so great. Yunlan told him to stop and, like, he did. He really, really did. He stopped his heart beating and himself breathing and literally being in his own body. 10/10, Shen Wei is so good at following directions.
Yunlan, upon realizing that Shen Wei is the super intimidating, ominously cloaked figure who literally everyone on his team is fucking terrified of and who has worked with him for years and has only been sort of (very) obsessive over Zhao Yunlan: “I should probably stop flirting with him, because it’s a bit awkward.”
Yunlan, approximately five seconds later: “You threw yourself at me while you were drunk. I never knew how much you favoured me.”
Zhao Yunlan is the best character ever. A hot professor acts really weird and is so obviously attracted to him and Yunlan is super into it. Shen Wei treats him like precious glass that cannot be allowed to even get dirty and also like he will die if Yunlan looks at him for too long. Shen Wei tries not to touch him but revels in the warmth left behind. Shen Wei bit him like thirty times because of his conflicting desires to both eat or fuck him. Zhao Yunlan is so fucking confused.
Zhu Hong suggests that Yunlan could sleep with her in lieu of payment and Yunlan is like “Okay :)” (because he thinks it would be nice to not need to have to pay her). Yunlan is openly bi to the point that him flirting with a hot professor surprises literally none of his coworkers (they just tease him because it’s funny).
Yunlan is positive that Shen Wei is attracted to him, because obviously Shen Wei is? Yunlan isn’t being vain or overly confident, Shen Wei literally caught him while he was falling off of the school roof and tended to his light scrape like it was Yunlan’s arm coming off. Shen Wei is so obviously attracted to Yunlan, but at the same time tries desperately not to show it. Zhao Yunlan is so confused. He is bummed when Shen Wei declines to meet with him and even more bummed when Shen Wei tells him he doesn’t want to go out with him and he is also baffled because he woke up to find Shen Wei literally watching him sleep less than a week later.
If I was Zhao Yunlan, I would also be confused.
Zhao Yunlan also is great because he’s the world’s best detective who comes up with half-baked theories and tricks people (well, mostly Shen Wei and Da Qing) into admitting he’s right. He cannot stand how useless Guo Changcheng is, but Guo Changcheng is his little good luck charm and he will be bringing him everywhere. Wang Zheng tries to die and he berates her like a little kid. The Emissary sends a spooky little guy to keep Yunlan from continuing forward, and Yunlan can’t bring himself to knock it aside, so he just steps over it. When it follows him, he eventually just picks it up. When it gets scared, he lets it hide in Clarity (his watch). He is disrespectful to the very idea of gods. He is unintimidated by the Emissary who literally everyone else is terrified of. He burns incense for the little messenger even though he didn’t have to.
There were some (a lot of) parts I didn’t really get, even during my second read. However, this translation makes a lot of sense! The underworld folk are fucking terrified of Shen Wei. Shen Wei is overpowered and answers to nobody and his very presence as the Emissary is enough to make most ghosts run and hide. They are so scared. Shen Wei is getting worse. If Shen Wei goes rogue, literally nobody can stop him.
Man, if only that mountain god, the one being in the entirety of history that Shen Wei was willing to listen to, was still around.
(They decide to get that mountain god back.)
Honestly, them wanting Yunlan to remember makes a lot more sense than whatever I thought they were doing the first two times I read it. They just need someone to hold Shen Wei’s leash, and they couldn’t have known that Zhao Yunlan is literally the worst possible choice for that.
(Zhao Yunlan doesn’t even care when Shen Wei tears his shirt (apparently with fucking claws) or bites him and he really doesn’t care what the Emissary does as long as Shen Wei lets him get his baby Wang Zheng back first. The mountain god, from what I recall, was more amused by Shen Wei’s darker tendencies than anything else. There is no one worse to hope will control Shen Wei, because there is no one else who is as willing as Zhao Yunlan is to sleep with the most powerful, uncontrollable being in metaphorical Hell.)
I’ll give them points for trying, but really, they didn’t do a very good job picking. I mean, there was literally no other option, but still. Shen Wei who retains some degree of his self control vs Shen Wei who is feral over Yunlan is a pretty obvious choice.
All in all, I love Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei. Yunlan thinks he might be coming on too strong, meanwhile Shen Wei would probably collect Yunlan’s hair if he thought he could get away with it. Shen Wei knows where Yunlan lives and lives nearby, he works in the same city, and he has stalked seen Yunlan on cases before, meanwhile Yunlan’s worst crime is sullying the professor in his head. I love them. They’re perfect for each other.
Can I get uhhh.. twilight but with more diversity
Update! Luigi's Attorney Dickey confirms that his "outburst" where he tells the cameras that this is unjust, was because he was never read his miranda rights and was under the impression at that time that he was being denied the right to a fair trial, an attorney, or any legal representation.
He is angry and terrified in that footage because they have failed to follow basic procedure to inform him that he has any rights at all. This is a major red flag of police corruption. This is UNACCEPTABLE and further means any interrogation they did of him is unlawful, and inadmissible in court.