mango chunks

what do you call someone whose mom dated your aunt before marrying her now ex-husband and producing the aforementioned someone but your aunt was still a big part of their life and whose dad (the ex-husband) later married your other aunt. and you’re all at the first aunt’s wife’s granddaughter’s softball game.

in the junkyard the other day I found a medallion of st anthony patron saint of lost things in a 2009 Saab 9-3. where’s that post about things that are too obvious to be poems

one of hoo’s foundational aspects that made me immediately go “this series doesnt get it/doesnt hit the mark” is that rick gave each new member of the seven an insane batshit specialized set of powers to shortcut justifying their inclusion in the prophecy—leo’s case might be the worst offender, with his inclusion being practically prescribed thanks to tia callida and gaea meddling so early on in his life. so the assemblage of characters for the SGP ended up as “we were special therefore we are part of this prophecy,” as opposed to the first series’ approach wherein percy becomes the GP hero after a progressive series of events, particularly thalia’s red herring and his own choice to save nico. the first series took pains to show us that yes, fate shapes the story, but character choices are capable of shaping and even possibly rising above prophecy, in line with overarching themes of personal agency and generational cycles. in the first series, percy and the big three children are specifically, intentionally, notably outliers in terms of power, which is what makes their presence in the narrative so impactful when they do appear. the new members of the seven are part of the SGP simply because the author says they are, vis-a-vis “we are the gods’ specialest little soldiers, look how much things i can make go kaboom!” but it 1) takes away the impressiveness that initially came with the big three children’s singularity, and 2) means that hoo has no personal emotional character stakes tied into the SGP other than the vague apocalyptic threat, which we know the characters will defeat anyway. and it’s not like rick even did a good job exploring the hoo characters’ powers or their implications so it was really fucked from the start lmao