i am basically "perfect". I am good at cooking, cleaning, had good grades my entire life, take care of myself, I can edit, I can draw, I can paint, I am very fucking smart, I'm a genuinely very cool person and I give good advice, but I cant FUCKING DRAW CHUUYA'S HAIR CORRECTLY WHAT THE FUCK
Grover looks so uncomfortable with being seen and that breaks my heart. Annabeth knows him well enough to know that he picks at his horns when he's anxious, and she makes an effort to help him manage his anxiety in a less harmful way, he looks so disgruntled at the fact that she noticed that about him, and did something about it. His sole purpose as a protector is to take care of demigods, and he's not really sure what to do or whether he's failed when one notices he's struggling and tries to take care of him. Annabeth and Grover love each other so much.
So with the help of Twitter I discovered that if you kill one of the vampire spawn immediately before opening Cazador’s coffin to kill him, you get a wide variety of new dialogue.
Option 1, He’ll be Free, and that’s all that matters:
Option 2, He’ll be a hero: the most intense btw, considering he is a hero in the non romanced, spawn ending. Also this one does a slow pan from Cazador to Astarion which is???
Option 3, He’ll be Mine. And I’ll be his: INSANE romanced dialogue. Hit my heart.
Option 4, Hells, just kill him already!: Doesn’t have much to offer. Astarion Just says “fine” kind of annoyed, and kills him.
Y’all I’m going wild. This has undone me. I have so many thoughts.
Annabeth having the strength to recognize the generational curse, that the gods have been passing down through generations of demigods, and the strength to do something about it.
She recognized the way that the gods abuse each other and their children, and she recognized the way that she had been copying that, by treating people around her like means to an end instead of people. Which wasn't right, but it wasn't her fault, she's 12 and that's the only example of power she's ever been exposed to.
Percy comes into play and she realizes that there are things more powerful than the gods, and ways to reach your goals without viewing people as chess pieces.
Percy resents his mom a little for raising him away from the gods the way she did, but Annabeth sees it as the blessing it is because HE showed her there was another way. She has never had the option to choose someone she loves over the gods will, or to choose anything over the gods' will. But Percy changes that for her. She realizes the option was always there and she never knew.
The VERY FIRST THING she does once the realization kicks in is take advantage of that knowledge and take a stand against a god. Not only that, she shakes off years of only doing things for Athena's approval. She refuses to leave without Percy, even with a god telling her to go, and the knowledge that if she leaves with the shield, she'll be redeemed in her mother's eyes.
She sacrifices all that for Percy because "HE ISN'T THAT WAY."
Because now she knows she doesn't have to be that way either. She has a choice; I love her because she's strong enough, and brave enough to make the hard choice and break the curse.