“But then he came out of the kitchen, drying his hands on a towel, and the second Annabeth locked eyes with him, she knew.
Fuck. It was Percy Jackson.
The spectral hands of memory ripped her out of her body and flung her back eight years in the past. Suddenly, she was thirteen again, stuck in a closet in Stephanie Fuller’s basement, unable to look her crush in the eye. He’d been shorter than her back then, but he still had the same eyes. Sea green and too full of understanding.”
the thing i love about annabeth and that i feel a lot of people get wrong about her is that yes shes a lovergirl but she's also so incredibly self-possessed that we frequently see her refuse to lose or sacrifice herself (in terms of values and personality, not in terms of physical safety if that makes sense) for the sake of someone else. she's nobody's sidekick. and i think thats so neat for a female character, to look at particularly the two most important guys in her life, percy and luke, and refuse to be subsumed by their burdens. like yeah she'll call percy a coward and refuse to run away with luke. and that doesnt take away from the fact that she believes so deeply in them that it pulls them out of the generational cycles they've all been trapped in, one way or another
I know Tumblr is full of posts about the virtues of commenting on AO3 fics and such. But like. It works.
I just knocked out 8.5k words in one single day for a chapter update because of one reader leaving one of the most absurdly endearing comments I’ve ever gotten. That is unheard of levels of productivity for me.
The power of the fandom. The power of the comment.
Thinking about how in the Titan’s Curse, Percy can’t bring himself to tell Tyson that Annabeth is missing because “Tyson thought Annabeth was just about the coolest thing since peanut butter, and he seriously loved peanut butter” 🥺
Teacher AU and Mutual Pining 4th grade teacher Annabeth and Kindergarten teacher Percy
~
"The Liberty Science Center?" Percy said, peaking over at the forms Annabeth was filling out. "I wanna go."
Annabeth smiled up at him. "Well, you could either try and convince the school to let you take twenty five-year-olds into New Jersey, or enroll in the fourth grade."
She had taken over his desk so that she didn't need to crouch in a kindergartener sized-chair as she caught up on work.
Percy stretched a bit, reaching up to try and hang something just above his head. "I'll be honest, fourth grade wasn't a great year for me."
"Peaked in Kindergarten?" Annabeth guessed.
"This was really my only career option," he said, his hands full of classroom decorations.
Annabeth laughed a little, even though he didn't think his joke was particularly funny. It had been getting easier to make her laugh. Not that Percy been noticing.
Percy had been noticing.
Percy had been trying.
Trying so hard he'd been making any excuse to hang out with her. Today it was: can you help me hang the St. Patrick's Day decorations?
She'd agreed, but: "First I need to fill out some field trip forms. Do you think you can get some of the leprechauns tacked up without me?"
"I really just need your company," he'd said, cringing now at his own earnestness.
He went back to hanging paper shamrocks on the wall, and he tried not to get distracted by the way she smiled at him just a little before looking back at her stack of papers.
~
If Percy Jackson didn't ask her out on a real date soon, Annabeth was going to end up on the news. He'd taken her pumpkin picking of all things in the fall, and now, months later, they were spending more time together, but no second date. No date, no kiss, no nothing. Just endless flirting. How many times did she have to giggle at his jokes for him to notice.
Well, the giggling wasn't really an issue. Percy was very funny.
"You know ..." Annabeth started, "it's no Liberty Science Center, but I do have an extra ticket to opening day at Yankee Stadium? If you're interested," she said, trying so hard to be casual.
Percy looked down at his New York Mets tee shirt, and Annabeth felt her face go red. She went back to filling out school bus requests.
"If that doesn't clash with you ... convictions," she added quickly.
"As long as you don't mind me rooting for who ever they're playing against," Percy said back.
"San Fransisco," Annabeth said. "I'll be honest, my alliance to the Yankees is more of a hold-over of teenage rebellion. I couldn't care less," she promised. She could care actually. His Mets fan status did worry her. How would they raise the kids?
Percy smile. "Hot dogs are on me," he promised.
"It's a date," Annabeth said, before burying her face in the forms again to hide her smile.
"Awesome," he said in a breathy voice. Annabeth could almost hear the smile on his face as he said it. When she looked back up, he'd turned away from her to tape up a pot of gold, but he was shimmying his shoulders in a little dance to himself.
An author I follow on IG posted about her older books getting new covers and having the opportunity of going through them and edit them to make the referencers more “modern” like group chats instead of group texts and I have seen other people mention about older books getting updates like this (was it pretty little liars and the deal changing the name of tv shows to more recents ones?) and I have to say I absolutely hate this.
I hate that they are trying to modernize older books with things that are going to be outdated in a couple of years. I hate that authors can go and take out the age of their characters after a decade (looking at you six of crows). I hate that authors do this and don’t tell their fans they are doing this.
Leave the books how they were written, add disclaimers at the start if you want but don’t touch the actual text. A book is a result of the time period it was written, adding stuff like scrolling through TikTok in a book that was published way before social media existed doesn’t make sense and I hate it.
I wanted to depict them before their debut on Olympus. If I could go back I would redraw them with more animal skins in their clothing to really add that touch of wildness... but ah well, there's always next time.
This section of the Last Olympian is so small that it may be entirely irrelevant in terms of analyzation, but still I can’t help but think its interesting that when Percy and Annabeth were doing cabin inspections, multiple times Percy tried cheat the scores while Annabeth wouldn’t let him.
When they got to Percy’s cabin and his stuff was messy, he tried giving himself 4/5 and Annabeth pointed out he was being too generous with himself and gave him a 3/5. When they got to the Aphrodite cabin he tried docking a star (when everything was perfect) because it smelled too much like perfume - However to be fair, that may have just been him being sarcastic. Then when we get to Annabeth’s cabin, and everything is clean except for her own bunk, she could have easily done what Percy did and tried to give herself a higher score. She even promptly cleaned her section, but still gave herself a low score because otherwise it wouldn’t be honest. “Three out five - for a sloppy head counselor.”
Obviously this is such a simple thing, but still I feel it hi lights one of the differences of their characters. Percy “Hey lets fudge the numbers when it benefits me” Jackson and Annabeth “No, I have to earn my keep” Chase.
I also just want to clarify that I’m not trying to paint Annabeth as a rule stickler and Percy as a rule breaker, because they both do break the rules or what have you, its just when and how and why that I think creates a distinction.
Like another example of this that I adore is their encounter with the sphinx. Annabeth could have easily answered the trivia questions but just couldn’t because it would have been a slight to her intelligence, her wisdom, her smarts and had wanted to be tested.
And Percy’s just standing there, watching their opportunity to easily pass fade away, and is just like answer the questions Annabeth answer the questions
