Doctor Who is big on Tumblr again. Can you connect it to tuberculosis?
It's not even difficult!
David Whitaker was the first story editor for Doctor Who.
In 1934, when he was a five-year-old boy, David and his brother were both sent to live in a TB sanitarium (like millions of children around the world before the discovery of antibiotics that could treat and cure TB).
In most sanitariums, visits from family were discouraged, not only because it could spread the disease but also because visits might "excite" the patients, and the patient's job was ... to be patient. Experts believed patients had to be as calm and still as possible in order to recover.
Now, I should acknowledge here that there are many stories about why the show is named "Doctor Who," and credit is often given to co-creator Sydney Newman. I'm not an Doctor Who expert, just to state the obvious!
BUT David Whitaker's surviving family members told this to a biographer, and I have no reason to doubt them: in order to pass the time in the utterly boring, anti-child environment of the sanitarium, David and his brother invented a game to play together in their minds. The game was called "Doctor What and Doctor Who."
Can we get more positivity for people with brfbs (body-focused repetitive behaviors)?
People with dermatillomania/excoriation (skin picking) who have "unsightly" scars
People with trichotillomania (hair pulling) who have thinning hair and/or bald spots
People with onychophagia and/or onychotillomania (nail biting and picking) who have trouble writing, typing, or otherwise using their hands because it causes them pain
People with rhinotillexomania (compulsive nose picking) who are seen as "gross," "unclean," or "juvenile"
People with any and all bfrbs who are told they're "gross" and should "just stop"
You are worthy. You are loved. You are beautiful. Your condition does not make you bad or lesser-than. Your struggles matter.
btw if you have dermatillomania or trichotillomania or onychophagia or rhinotillexomania or any other bfrb i love you & i hope you're having a great day & that you get a good night's sleep tonight
Inspired by the works of @headspace-hotel and @tamiscolaris
~
I'm not really sure the point I'm trying to make in this; it's more an exploration of my own mental health, how I view it, and, in turn, how I view myself
SPOILERS AHEAD FOR TRIALS OF APOLLO AND BASICALLY EVERY PERCY JACKSON BOOK EVER BUT MOSTLY TOA, ESPECIALLY THE BURNING MAZE.
TLDR at the end.
spoilers start now ok bye
Here are some facts that we know for sure:
1. Percy Jackson is named after Perseus, the Greek hero who killed Medusa.
2. Perseus is one of the only, if not THE only Greek hero to not die tragically.
3. Rick Riordan is VERY careful about how he uses names throughout the series, something he addresses from the very beginning when Percy gets to camp. Percy says Zeus’s name (or Kronos’s, can’t remember which and I’m lazy right now) and the sky rumbles, and Chiron warns Percy that names have power and to use them carefully. Later, in Tartarus (if I’m remembering correctly), Percy and Annabeth are wary of using names because of their proximity to monster respawn points.
4. The only other main character named after a Greek hero is Jason Grace.
Here are some things we can assume, based on Rick’s writing style and the details he has given us:
1. A character’s name will tell you something about them. That’s a Riordan near-guarantee.
1a. For example: Piper being a reference to the Pied Piper since she can get anyone to do anything for her, even follow her off a bridge.
1b. Or Magnus and Alex being confirmed from the beginning because Rick mentioned that he stole the name Magnus from Cassandra Clare. (She wrote The Mortal Instruments, which contains a gay couple named Magnus and Alec (Alexander).)
1c. Or Leo being named after the great inventor Leonardo daVinci (not confirmed, but they’re so similar it’s hard to believe otherwise).
1d. A castellan is the governor of a castle who enforces the law around the land. They also have military responsibility. Luke Castellan. nuff said.
2. NAMES HAVE POWER IN THIS UNIVERSE. Sally literally named Percy after a Greek hero to keep his roots close in a subtle way, but she purposefully picked a Greek hero that lives.
2a. HUGE example: Castor and Pollux. In myth, sons of Jupiter. Castor is mortal while Pollux is immortal, and Castor dies. (Slightly irrelevant but Rick loves taking notes from other authors so: In The Hunger Games, part of Katniss’s film team. Castor dies, Pollux lives.) In PJO, sons of Dionysus. Castor dies during Battle of the Labyrinth, while Pollux lives.
The one exception to this rule is Jason Grace. Or so I thought.
If you read the myth pertaining to Jason (Golden Fleece, Argo the First, Medea, etc) you find out that Jason of the Argo dies when he falls asleep on his ship underneath the rotting mast and it falls and kills him. There’s a lot of other stuff that goes down, but for the sake of being succinct, here’s a link to the myth for your perusal:
Jason - Wikipedia
The only other SUPER MEGA IMPORTANT DETAIL from this myth: Argo Jason, by cheating on Medea, falls out of favor with Hera, while in PJO/HOO, Hera actively names Jason 2.0 and claims him as her champion. (despite him being. Y’know. The proof of her husband being a jackass to her. quality time with the stepmom right there.)
Putting this all together:
1. Sally purposefully named Percy after a Greek hero who lived, indicating fear that he would die if she chose a different name
2. Names have power and Rick puts meaning behind every single name he uses.
3. Jason dies in The Burning Maze.
The real kicker is that they both die in the same way: having lost everything, with so much still to do, dying a completely avoidable death because they weren’t paying attention to what was going on behind them. There’s differences, obviously, because Jason Grace is actually a good person, but those are inconsequential as the big picture is all the same. (We see these similarities happen A LOT with Percy, especially when he kills Medusa.)
We should have known. Rick laid out all the pieces for us from the very beginning, even (possibly) going so far as to straight up tell us that one of the seven would die (again, not confirmed, I saw it in a meme and maybe his twitter? idk im ty ty).
so:
TLDR: Rick Riordan left a gigantic trail of breadcrumbs that should have clued us all in to the fact that Jason was gonna die long before it happened.
And no, I will never shut up about Jason. Justice for my favorite white boy.
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