you know how in TLT percy talks about getting expelled for blowing up a school bus with a saratoga war cannon, and his justification for this being unfair treatment is that he wasn’t aiming for the school bus? i’m literally obsessed with everything going on there. a) what was he aiming for, b) i desperately want to know his baby percy thought process in explicit detail, and c) is “i wasn’t aiming for the school bus” also the justification he gives to sally? i’m obsessed with everything happening here, i’m so angry this doesn’t have an official short story.
THINGS I NEED TO KNOW IMMEDIATELY ABOUT THE SCHOOL BUS INCIDENT:
- HOW OLD WAS PERCY, IS IT EVER STATED WHAT GRADE HE WAS IN.
- IS THERE A CANON PRICE POINT FOR THE DAMAGE INCURRED TO THE SCHOOL BUS; IF NOT, HOW MUCH DAMAGE CAN A REVOLUTIONARY WAR CANNON DO TO A SCHOOL BUS UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES
- TO DETERMINE THE CIRCUMSTANCES, I HAVE TO KNOW THE SARATOGA LAYOUT. WHERE DO THEY PARK THE BUSES, AND WHY IS IT ANYWHERE NEAR THE WAR CANNONS.
i will return with my findings.
conducting intensive research
so canon has set percy’s age during the saratoga war cannon incident at roughly 10, because he says it happened in the fifth grade. the problem with operating a war cannon is that you can’t actually do it accidentally, and in percy’s narration, he implies that he is manipulating the cannon of his own free will, by stating he was aiming at a nebulous “thing” but hits the school bus instead. believable. he was 10, and the war cannon was probably literally his size. but problems arise when you consider that loading and firing a revolutionary war cannon is a complicated enterprise that generally took a well-trained team of artillerymen to complete, a team of no less than six men. SIX MEN. how did this ONE TEN YEAR OLD do the job of SIX WELL-TRAINED MEN in a COMPLICATED 7 STEP PROCESS. how did he know what to do! how did he do it without dying! it couldn’t have been the gods fucking with him, because the gods didn’t know he existed yet.
percy SHOULDN’T have been expelled he should have BEEN GIVEN A FUCKING MEDAL for COMPLETING AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK
i have a theory. i have a theory. i have a theory that changes the game: percy, as a Child Of Poseidon, has the power to manipulate naval artillery. the saratoga war cannon existed in a weird liminal space where it was close enough to the cannons used on naval vessels that percy’s demigod powers got confused, and! get this! if it had been a naval cannon, he would’ve hit whatever he was aiming for! but it WASN’T and THIS IS THE ONLY WAY THIS WORKS and DON’T SAY SHIT ABOUT ARTILLERY HISTORY UNLESS YOU’RE VALIDATING ME and if ANY OF YOU TELL ME THAT SEA OF MONSTERS DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS ME I WILL THROW HANDS DIRECTLY WITH RICK RIORDAN. I AM DOING HIM A SERVICE. I AM PATCHING THE HOLES IN HIS NARRATIVE, AND HE OWES ME $200 AND FREE CHURROS FOR LIFE.
furthermore. all the information i can get on the saratoga battlefield about school buses is that buses are allowed to take a self-directed tour of the battlefield, and it is 1:30 AM and if i research anymore about the revolutionary war i’m gonna start getting ads meant for republicans. i present you with a scenario - sick child throws up on the bus, and everyone has to get off the bus - but naughty kids take off to run around and play tag while stressed out teachers and one (1) bus driver chase them, giving them a valid reason to be fairly far away from said school bus. percy, enterprising brilliant young man who deserves a medal, sneaks off and stumbles across a war cannon. what was he aiming for originally? the greatest mystery of the percy jackson series, unfortunately. percy, who knows nothing about war cannons, and is still partially affected by the mist, kind of just assumes the fact that the war cannon is loaded is just a thing, rather than a thing he caused. like any 10 year old boy, he wants to blow something up, but he can barely move the thing and OOPS HE DIDN’T REMEMBER LIGHTING IT -
school bus is history. this is entirely conjecture at this point, but percy demonstrably has the worst luck possible, and murphy’s law favors him, so naturally the shot hits something important. usually that thing is an engine but also those tend to blow up. it depends, really. the gaggle of students who were running from their teachers gleefully are staring in shock, one teacher faints, and then a bunch of kids burst out into tears.
[percy voice] dang it
and now we have to call the fire department! what a way to make a field trip fun :)
do……….. does. does using a revolutionary war cannon to blow up a school bus…….. count as using an explosive to destroy someone else’s property y/n
thanks because that’s technically the definition of first degree criminal mischief which is a class b felony, apparently. don’t know how that would go down considering he’s 10, but that doesn’t stop it from being incredibly iconic
and i couldn’t be fucking prouder of percy, professional baby boy, national icon, creator of only absolutely legend behavior, 10 year old menace to school buses everywhere………… king shit. that’s king shit. i’m so fucking proud of him
movie idea: guy finds a stone tablet engraved with a mysterious alien language and gets caught up in a national treasure-esque adventure to decipher its meaning, only to learn that it’s just an alien “live, love, laugh” decoration
