#spaghetti throwing

[youarestellarverse]

Oh man I just had a miniature epiphany

You know how Percy's voice is somewhere between Brandon Boyd of Incubus and Alejandro Manzano of Boyce Avenue?

Jason's voice is somewhere between Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode and Andrew Eldritch of Sisters of Mercy. Closer to Dave's timbre, but with Andrew's low range as well.

/feverishly adds a bunch of depeche mode songs to the playlist

[youarestellarverse]

IT'S EATING MY BRAIN.

She's everything he isn't: loud, bold, brash, demanding attention, and most importantly?

She's kind of an airhead.

She doesn't have to think or be smart, she just has to charm the crowd and make them like her. (The part that isn't him, but really is: he honestly does really want social approval, just not for the things he always gets it for!)

She gets to wear pastel pink and lavender without it being a whole Thing.

She does wear heels, but she saves the stillettos for seated routines and otherwise sticks with platform boots/wedges (stability). She has a couple of pairs that make her over seven feet tall.

She has such a broad chest she can get away with tape/contouring/a padded bra and forego the fake chest, but she's apple-shaped, so she does tend to either pad her ass or wear fluffy skirts.

Her general mood is like bubblegum-flavored cotton candy.

(I feel like a drag king friend must have joined her for California Gurls, the video for which she probably took a great deal of inspiration from. She may even have a lavender wig. 👀)

(She definitely exclusively does charity events, which is probably how he got over the hump long enough to bring her to life at all— he could tell himself she wasn't about him.)

SHE STILL NEEDS A NAME TOO.

...There's a part of me that thinks maybe one (or both) of Clarisse's boyfriends offers to be Jason's drag mother.

WHY DOES THIS FIT IN SO WELL. WHERE DID IT COME FROM. I'm not questioning it; I like it more the more I churn it in my head.

[youarestellarverse]

Things I Remembered On My Reread: Beckendorf is two years older than Percy.

This changes things, because he's not the shy dancer who doesn't sing in a crowd: he was That Guy who played a lead every time until he graduated and Percy took over.

And then I realized! Omg! This fixes an issue!

Beckendorf as The Baker. Silena as The Baker's Wife. (That's how they get close!)

I'm considering Frank for the opening Ballad Ghost in Sweeney as his first major role— Percy just barely beats him out for Anthony because it's too high, but Thalia's still impressed enough that she has him deliver the iconic opening passage.

IMAGINE IF YOU WILL. mournful organ. A shrieking whistle. Simmering strings. The lights come up. Frank, alone, center stage in a spotlight.

Softly:

"Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd... his skin was pale and his eye was odd... he shaved the faces of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard of again... he trod a path that few have trod, did Sweeney Todd...the demon barber of Fleet Street!"

He would have terrible stage fright, but he would NAIL IT EVERY TIME because his ear is fantastic.

[youarestellarverse]

Related to that last point I just wrote out in a reblog, but not enough to justify making that long a post even longer:

I'm much more sure on a lot more backstory, but I have to admit...

content warning for sexual abuse.

...the thing that keeps coming up as making the most sense for Luke is Upsetting.

Because, well, yeah. That thing above the cut.

When I read Luke and Kronos, the dynamic I see is the same dynamic one sees between a sexual abuser and the victim he's groomed into justifying the abuse.

Specifically, I see a cult leader who uses abuse, canonically psychological and physical but if it weren't an MG series sexual would not be out of place either, to control his second in command.

It would explain a lot.

And I can't think of anything else that would explain his behavior in the context of a depowered AU. Responding to the abuse by clinging to the abuser for protection, the vulnerability towards predation due to his pre-existing trauma, the bursts of rage and black-and-white thinking, the self-hatred, the vicious inner conflict, the insistance over and over to anyone who will listen that it's what he wants like he's trying to squash the part of him that knows something is very, very wrong.

The part of him that knows something is very, very wrong.

I don't know! I was specifically trying to avoid to making this That Fic About That Thing!

But the more I think about it, and having done the reread, the more sure I become that this is the only plotline that makes any sense to me.

I dunno. Warning, I guess?

[youarestellarverse]

I hit that place in my reread where I now really want to finish before I get back into writing, which is an issue.

I've reread enough to know a lot of my half-formed plans were half-formed enough to be off, which on the one hand is good because I know where and why it's wrong, but also I'm starting from zero in some aspects, and that means...well, that I have to start from zero.

I'm glad I did it, the fic will be much better for it, but yeesh.

I have to figure out how Bianca dies and exactly what happened with Luke, as well as working out the details of Thalia's backstory. (I just got to the part where the siblings reunite and I have a great many feelings.)

I did figure out through just having finished their reunion that Needs Moar Thundersibs, though!

[youarestellarverse]

...I just realized that Thalia is taking CBD oil and Grover has a hydroponic pot garden in his closet for his own medicinal use, which means he probably has a pure CBD strain in there and thus he might actually be the one who made the oil for her.

At very least, he probably sourced it for her, and it was almost certainly his idea. 🤔

(Yes, I do intend to eventually write more stoned scenes. Jason's gonna need it eventually, but also I just really want want to write the boys getting stoned with Paul while Sally babysits and laughs at them)

.......you know what

4/20 is coming up

.............

oh, fuck me, I'm going to write a pot themed oneshot aren't I

(I kind of want to get a little farther in Heroes of Olympus before I start digging into chapter 18 anyway; maybe I do that while I write a shorter oneshot? The characters just grow a lot past the first book, and rereading PJO was so helpful, and I'd love to kinda parallel 17 and bring in Piper and Leo a bit...but that's a tangent, lol.)

[youarestellarverse]

Related, there's the Beauty & The Beast thing— I know Percy and Leo are Lumiere and LeFou because they're the biggest hams and the hammiest characters, but I don't know which is which. 😬

I also still don't have a Cogsworth!

It's not even that exceptional a song, but for some reason I always get the physical chill response when I listen to Lily's Eyes, and I feel like that translates over to the "like a cyclops who suddenly has 2 eyes" moment from blood of Olympus?

Like, running through it the first time and for some reason something just clicks.

and they're both left just sort of staring at each other like "holy shit I thought I knew what it meant to blend well with someone until about three minutes ago"

"That felt INCREDIBLE?"

"WTF WAS THAT EVEN"

"I kind of want to propose??"

"I kind of want to accept???"

"Perseus Jackson..." *drops to one knee* "will you be my duet partner?"

*Tearfully* "Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes!"

Annabeth: *legitimately unsure if she's jealous*

[youarestellarverse]

So if Frank and Hazel are no longer Romeo and Juliet because they're Lysander and Hermia, that means Romeo and Juliet is done before Percy and Annabeth start dating and Thalia's ban on casting couples kicks in for them.

Further, you know who'd be a great Mercutio opposite Jason's Benvolio? One Mr. Leo Valdez, of course.

Just saying. 👀