Red Ranger in Training

“All is fair in love and war” …

Thank you @elianzis for this incredible visual for “Don’t You Run”! ❤️

sally not only didn’t regret percy, but saved him repeatedly from that hero’s fate by refusing to let him or herself be wholly absorbed into the world of the gods. when poseidon offered, she refused to join him in his underwater palace. she loved him but knew she would not belong there with him. she refused to reject her mortality—not in terms of lifespan, but as the world she belonged to. and percy followed in her footsteps.

when percy stands in his room with medusa’s head in a box, he considers that a greek hero from the stories would have taken it and used it to kill gabe right then. then he remembers how his father said heroes’ lives always end in tragedy, and he decides he’s not going to do it. he rejects the path his father presented as inevitable, and he makes his own.

he has the chance to stay at camp year-round rather than return to his mom and mortal life, and he chooses to go back. he has the chance to remain on ogygia, escape the prophecy, escape war, escape mortality and humanity and conflict, and he chooses to leave.

when he turns down the gods’ offer of immortality, he chooses mortality the same way sally did. he says this is where i belong—this is the life i’m supposed to lead. it would be unnatural for him to join the gods. to endure for all of eternity while the possibilities for his future blink out of existence and the people he loves fade away would have been just as tragic an ending for him as an early death.

gingerbread shapeshifting is a hereditary male-only curse

you shapeshift into a giant gingerbread man during Big Emotions (and also over Christmas I think?)

it kicks in during puberty

to defeat the curse you must transform in front of someone you love and have them accept you for who you are (big sentient gingerbread man)

gingerbread shapeshifters live in fear that this opens themselves up to their loved one running away screaming in fear or alternatively, y'know, eating the giant gingerbread man who suddenly appears before them

this needs to happen before your 30s (roughly) otherwise you remain in gingerbread man shape permanently

and then you get shipped off to the Black Forest to defend said forest and be constantly hunted down by people trying to steal gingerbread magic

the Black Forest is also where gingerbread shifters originate from btw

if you're a woman in this family line, you don't shapeshift but you also need to find a mate by a deadline

you can do this by just giving someone a cookie you've baked yourself

also this

I am a raccoon biologist and one of the few people in the state allowed to take in captive bred raccoons that had been possessed illegally. The raccoon in the photos is Moonshine, but she is currently at the animal sanctuary where I work as I had been quarantining multiple new intakes from an abuse case. I still have two males (Rum Tum Tugger and Electra) left in my home enclosure as we are getting them neutered and then hopefully sending them to an AZA accredited zoo.