#toning down the violence i guess? (i don't Want to say disneyfying it bc i think it's smthg they're doing with percy deliberately)

[pachyderm-matchmaker]

this show is driving me fucking CRAZY i loved every part of it except sally jackson which is RIDICULOUS because they made sally jackson the moral heart of it and leaned in to "everything percy is is because of her" and i WANTED that i LOVE that but then sally herself is?? just??? okay hold on spoilers

i've seen people say that they really appreciate that in this version sally doesn't have to be a doormat who just quietly suffers for her son's sake, and i GET that, i do! i appreciate that!!! not every mother's story should be about endless self-sacrifice!

but sally's WASN'T!!!

it was a story about a scared single mother who ended up in a bad situation and didn't know how to get out, and when she's given the opportunity she fucking TAKES IT!!!

and there are things about the show sally that i like! she isn't constantly cooking gabe food, she doesn't have to say it was selfish to keep her son near her, we see her argue with percy because she struggled and wasn't perfect she was a young single mom, she honks in traffic and gets road rage! i like all of that!!

but i just...

i really, REALLY miss her choosing to kill her abusive husband using medusa's head.

and honestly, i could talk about how goddamn INCREDIBLE of a character choice it was to have a mother who is willing to kill, explicitly out of revenge instead of just to protect her son, while simultaneously being the epitome of a loving mother who teaches her son to do BETTER than just dealing violence and to think about who the real monsters are, and to choose love and responsibility and care!

i could talk about how cool it is that she stops percy from killing gabe not because he "shouldn't kill" but because it needs to be her choice.

i could RANT about how important it is for the story to explicitly have her make the choice to kill him for hurting her, rather than it happening by chance because gabe's the kind of asshole to steal mail, or happening in a way that lets people say "poseidon put that there he took care of gabe for sally lol"--

but she already said it best!

"If my life is going to mean anything i have to live it myself."

and it really really sucks that the show took that away from her