Haven't seen anyone mentioning this iconic Moon Knight panel yet.
I love cryptid!percy more than anything. I wanna see someone live streaming another exploration into the marianna’s trench and the camera pans to show percy visibly smoking a joint rolled in seaweed. he gives a ‘sup nod to the camera.
Children of Dionysus laugh hysterically. Head thrown back and eyes watering. Once they start, it's hard for anyone to not share their euphoria.
Children of Aphrodite laugh like a loved one. They sound like your first love, laughing at the table next to yours.
Children of Hephaestus laugh with their bodies. Shoulders shaking and hands clapping together or hitting their thigh.
Children of Zeus laugh loudly. When they burst into laughter it can be startling, but it quickly becomes pleasant, like a summer thunderstorm.
Children of Athena laugh quietly. It's more of a chuckle, often hidden behind their hand. But even so, you can see their eyes sparkling.
Children of Apollo laugh like they're singing. Eyes closed and mouth open. People usually quiet down around them, because it often is the most beautiful sound they've ever heard.
Children of Hades laugh in deep tunes. And sometimes you can hear the dead sharing their joy.
Percy starts the chalice of the gods with the unwavering certainty that he is majoring in marine biology. It’s the only subject he ever excelled in at school, when he walks into the admissions office the interviewer doesn’t even ask what he wants to do, just checks the box for the courses on marine life and tells Percy that he’ll be amazing. Because he’s the son of Poseidon and how can he not be?
And he’s not even mad, because he loves the ocean and the creatures that come with it, it’s his “domain” it’s the thing that makes him special and it’s given him the life he has now. He has very few things that he loves that he can’t attribute to the sea.
Then suddenly he running around the country, trying to find this stupid chalice for these stupid gods who have clearly never cared for him in the slightest, because he’s two wars deep at this point and apparently “saving incompetent deities from their own mistakes” isn’t a good enough skill to put on a college application.
He’s in the middle of his quest, cursing the sky and wishing - not for the first time - that he was a normal kid, enjoying his last summer before adulthood, when he comes face to face with a young kid.
He’s maybe 7 or 8 and fresh onto the streets having just run away from his parents, he sees things, monsters and creatures that his mother and stepfather just don’t understand. He’s scared shitless, all on his own and he’s pretty sure he’s going insane.
Percy looks at this boy and sees for the hundredth time how the gods seem to ruin everything they touch, from entire countries falling to wars and disease, down to little kids - who are scared and alone in a world that will never understand them.
He tries not to feel guilty when Grover leaves to take the boy to camp, he ignores that it feels like a pig to the slaughterhouse.
Whatever, he’s got a quest to complete. The gods “guidance” brings them to a harbour and Percy has to go diving through the water because he’s the son of Poseidon and what else is he going to do.
The water pressure feels crushing and the fear of drowning is almost unbearable, a school of fish swim up to him.
They call him the son of Poseidon and Percy struggles to feel pride in the title. It’s what monsters call him before they meet the sharp end of a sword. It’s what Gods call him when they want to be condescending. It’s what an admissions officer calls him when she signs him up for a course that he’s not even sure of anymore.
He’s spent the better part of a decade being in his dads shadow, and he feels like it’s time to move into the sunlight.
They make it home in one piece (thank god) and Percy steps back into the admissions office in New Rome.
He thinks about the boy who would probably still be on the streets right now if it weren’t for him. Magnus Chase living a life on the streets with no one to help him. Annabeth leaving her home with nothing but a baseball bat.
He thinks about his dad, who probably hasn’t spared a thought to him in months.
He signs himself up for the social care course, and steps into sunlight.
Bruce, freshly showered and in comfy pajamas, settles down at the kitchen island with a contented sigh. It’s been a long patrol—Clark had tried to intervene in a Riddler scheme and had crashed into the side of a water tower—and Bruce is ready to relax with one of his favorite treats. Smiling, he sets the Cadbury Creme Egg on his porcelain dish and sets to carefully unwrapping the foil. After carefully repositioning it several times, he readies his knife and fork to dig in to his prize.
Jason, hiding on top of the fridge: Hmm. Bruce is enjoying himself.
----
how much do the demigods really know about Percy?
Frank and Hazel first knew him as just a guy who showed up with a goddess on his back. everything he does from that point onward is equally bizarre, and certainly impressive, but perhaps not exactly legend-worthy. by the time they’ve won the battle against Polybotes at New Rome, their experience with him confirms he’s a badass, but the hints and jokes he drops about his past can’t all be real, right?
Jason, Leo, and Piper would have been showered in stories at Camp Half-Blood. did you know, Percy fought and killed a Kindly One and the Minotaur before he even got to Camp the first time? did you know, he was the first one on our side to suspect Kronos was rising? did you know, he revealed who poisoned Thalia’s Tree? did you know, he and Annabeth held the sky? did you know he crashed his own funeral? did you know he made a hurricane?
did you know, did you know, did you know?
but how many of Percy’s stories do the campers really know? what did Annabeth and Percy keep to themselves in their retellings? do they know Luke forced Percy to fight to the death in an arena? were they told Percy actively chose to be the subject of the prophecy to protect Nico, who almost certainly hated him at that point? do they know Percy was the reason Mount Saint Helens erupted? do they know he fought Hades and his army, and won?
the campers all think Percy is a legend, but when they find out there’s more? that’s when they start to think of him as a god.