To everyone hating on Poseidon in the tv show for being shitty:
Poseidon is clearly paying child support. Or do you think that Sally's job (at Sweets on America if they're sticking to the book) pays for the apartment, Percy's private boarding school, Gabe's gambling addiction, other living costs and renting that really, really fancy Monhawk cabin?
Poseidon stayed away because Sally broke up with him. Sally told him to stop visiting. Poseidon wanted to make Sally and Percy immortal and build them a freaken palace in his kingdom. He wanted to treat Sally like a queen. He wanted to raise Percy.
Poseidon is the one who gave Riptide to Chiron to give to Percy. He's at least trying to help, while listening to Zeus's rules and Sally's wishes. And let's not forget the pearls he gives Percy to protect him from Hades, later on in the book.
Poseidon knows that by claiming Percy as his (forbidden) son, he's putting a target on his back - and now both Zeus and Hades and very possibly Athena - all want him dead because of the threat Percy poses to Olympus due to the great prophecy. He tried to avoid that. He literally waited until the last possible minute (2 weeks? before Zeus's deadline) to claim Percy because he was trying to avoid putting Percy in that position.
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I've been thinking about Mickbell since last chapter came out.
Have you noticed how everyone refers to him as Mick? He's a hafling, they shouldn't call him that since its his first name.
But here's the thing.
We know Mickbell didn't have something to call a family the majority of his life. He was all alone against the word for quite some time. He, as I said before, didn't have a proper family, didn't have any friends. He was alone. No one to care about him, no one to love even in a friendly way.
He can seem to be quite unfair towards Kuro, but truth is he doesn't know any better. He does what he can the best he can, the best he knows, because he loves Kuro so much, he doesn't want to loose his first friend, his first glimpse of a family, the only one that cared for him after so long the first one to recognize him as someone rather than something.
Kuro doesn't understand common language well, we know for a fact that he struggles with it and that he's still learning to communicate. When Mickbell found him, it was his sense of "I'm in great debt to him because he saved me" what made him attack the one that attacked Mick. "How dares he tuch my savior?" Kind of behaviour. And also revenge I guess. But, hear me out. He hears Mickbell telling something to him in a language he doesn't understand, but he sticks to his side from then on, because he saw a savior in him. Because he feels in debt with him, because he sees that this guy enjoys his company and also feeds him. He is like a stray dog after being adopted, loyal. He loves and cares for Mickbell, he wants to be able to truly understand him and to make himself known to him by talking. He's learning how to speak common, not because it might be useful, but because he wants to be able to fully communicate with his dearest friend, with the one he considers family.
Going back to Mickbell, he saw someone caring for him enough to take revenge and protect him. This aren't little things to do for someone you just met. He knows this, because he probably wouldn't have done that, he 100% would've runned away because he has sense of self-preservation and knows damn well he doesn't stand a chance and he wants to continue living. He makes sure to keep this kobold to himself, at first because of his "if it can be made use of, then use it" principle.
He freed the kobold, not because he was a good person, but because he wanted to take revenge in his own terms. He wanted this man to suffer, he can't pick a fight because he doesn't stand a chance, so he steels his merch, or in this case, frees it. He freed Kuro because he wanted the man to suffer the loss of his merch. Not because he feels sorry for a kobold that could easily chomp his head off (they're usually agressive). Now, after freeing him, he noticed that this kobold would die if he didn't take off the thing he had in his mouth, so he helped him a bit there. This seems a bit out of character. Why did he freed the starved kobold from what could've saved him of being eaten himself? Because he is a good person. He doesn't want this creature to starve to death after freeing him, it would be cruel, and he isn't cruel. He doesn't want nothing to do with the kobold at first, he just doesnt want him to die because he didnt properly freed him, but after seeing how far is this someone willing to go for him? He has no room for doubt, he makes himself his boss.
As I said, Mickbell didn't had a real family before. He lacks of proper social interactions and bonds due to his past. But he loves so deeply. He doesn't want to loose Kuro. He sees him as the closest thing he'll ever have to a family, but he doesn't know how to treat him properly. He tries his best. He feeds him, and cares about him a lot, but he doesn't know how to talk to him. He wants to have him close at all times, he wants to pet him, to be carried around by him and only him, to tease him, to help him. He's always worrying about his well-being. And above all, he doesn't want to be alone. Never again. This is why he does everything he can think of to hold Kuro closer to him. This is why he's saving money, why he pays Kuro so poorly for his job. This is why he doesn't spent much money on himself either. He wants to live a life with kuro by his side because he loves him. He loves him deeply, and cares about him deeply too. He's his family. And he is terrified of the sole thought of Kuro leaving his side. Because that wouldn't just mean being alone again. It would mean Kuro left.
Now, this is what the party sees. A hafling that treats his kobold employee quite unfairly. He doesn't pay him almost anything, he leaves him alone as soon as battle starts, he is possessive about him, and he's terrified of someone snatching him away. The kobold doesn't seem to either mind or notice how unfair his owner is being towards him, and doesn't seem to understand him very well either. They see that they both care for each other more than they first thought as time passes by, but the unfairness of it all is still there. They don't get it. Why would the hafling, if he cares so much, reward him so badly? Why is he taking advantage of the kobold he loves so much? Why wouldn't he let him express himself in his mother language? They don't fully get it.
Time passes and they become closer to each other, just as Laios's party does. They start opening up, bonding, and before they knew it, they're something like a small family, rather than just a group of friends adventuring together. It's clear as day something in Mickbell wasn't quite right just by the way he behaves. He is childish, but it doesn't seem to be intentional. He behaves like a kid, but he is quite mature at the same time. He is like this because he didn't had a proper childhood? He only now can allow himself to behave lightly as he does? To cry at minor inconveniences? To want to be hold on someone's arms? They don't know, but they don't prey about it either.
And without realizing it, they call him just "Mick". Some of them, if not them all, know what it means to call a hafling by his first name. They maybe did it to tease him, maybe because they wanted him to know they consider him family, but he didn't even noticed. He hadn't a proper social interaction with haflings that ever got to the personal level of teaching him something he should already know. Haflings call him Mickbell, he doesn't mind, it's his name. His party calls him Mick, he doesn't mind, it's his name. He doesn't even know hee should care. The party picks up he doesn't mind being called that and gets surprised. Is he letting them know he sees them aa family too? They at first are really surprised, but it losses importance over time. They just use it as a nickname now, but they started using it because they wanted Mickbell to know they're family too, that they don't want to hurt him nor Kuro.
Mickbell it's just a good hearted guy who doesn't know how to do good. He saves up money so he can, one day, live with Kuro. So he doesn't pays him well even if he works hard. So he starves himself (he is underweight too, but it could be for the same reason Chilchuck is, he is 5 cms taller than the common hafling after all). So he allows himself to steal from corpses. He needs money. He has a dream. He wants to have a family.
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i am so sick of this
there is an established relationship between advanced age of the father and risks to the mother, to the pregnancy, to the fetus, and later to the child.
older men’s ticking biological clocks are harmful. their ages literally compound the dangers to women and to the children they have. increased age of fathers is related to things like gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and preterm birth, just to make a few. later health and mental problems have been observed in children of older fathers.
the number of older fathers is increasing. men feel entitled to father children well into elderliness. men also tend to seek out young women with which to have these children. the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. is currently the highest it has been since the 1960s. abortion rights in the U.S. are in extreme peril. this altogether makes the risk to women who reproduce w/ older men much, much greater.
i think we as a society need to start talking about this a bit.
screenshots of additional NYT article under the cut because i couldn’t figure out how to link without the paywall.
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atwow hot take:
if jake had said his "son for a son" shit out loud and spider had heard him, he would have been so beyond pissed, he would be seeing red.
spider loved his little siblings so much, neteyam included, even after they grew apart. he loved them like they were his own blood and protected them like they were too (we see a lot more of them together in the comics, where spider is the big brother without a doubt). neteyam's death most certainly rocked him hard, even if he hasn't really been able to show it (how could he? he's already going through all the shit with his dad and the RDA and their nonsense, he can't grieve around neytiri, he's just so tired after it all. he doesn't have the room or the energy to grieve yet)
so if jake had the audacity to say that to/around spider not even a few hours after he watched his little brother get shot after coming to save him, after he stared at the bullet hole in his back, after he watched him take his last breaths, after he watched the light leave his eyes, after he watched his little brother die for him; if he said that while his little brother's body lay in a pool of his own blood not even ten feet away, not even cold yet, blood still clinging to his chest, the scent of it still filling the air: he would have lost his shit.
because the disrespect for his brother is wild.
jake was an active player in spider's neglect and abuse for the last 16 years, he let it happen, he helped it happen. he tried to send spider with the humans, tried to take him away from his siblings, from the forests, from eywa to live with his foster family that didn't love him (not to mention Nash was an asswipe of epic proportions) and the RDA of all people. he had referred to spider as a stray animal since he was little. he was the reason spiders life was hell.
and after all that, years and years of putting him in shit positions and allowing him to suffer the fate of being forever unloved and uncared for (by an adult authority figure, cause I love the kids, but they don't make up for the gap left by a parent), this is what it took for jake to care about him? his little brother had to die in front of him first? he had to be traded out to fill the space of a corpse, to fill in the gap left by his little brother's death?
in canon, spider was in deep in shock with nothing to break him from it, he wasn't in the place to really think about any of it, and I'm sure we're gonna see this anger in the coming movies, but if jake had said it out loud, that would have been enough to snap spider right out of it, and he would have given jake a piece of his mind, I just know it.
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