Thinking about Reynie Muldoon and the song "Good Kid", specifically the part that goes

NOT ONLY IS THAT MUSICAL AMAZING, BUT NOW I WANT AN EDIT OF THAT PART OF THE SONG

HAH

My mutual bait worked :D

I knew this was mutual bait for me and I absolutely bit because tmbs and tlt musical? Sophie you know me too well 😂😂

Oooohhhh Percy jackson au anyone?? @myfairkatiecat @sophieswundergarten

Kate is a daughter of Apollo. (Yes, Milligan is still her dad, just roll with it; we ARE talking about Greek gods here). She is stupid athletic and sunny and that's only in part because of the godly blood. She was on the run by herself for a couple of years- staying in one place at the orphanage was just monster bait- but then she joined the circus. It made the attacks better, because they moved around just enough.

Kate does not care for Apollo. Kate takes in the fact that she has another godly parent and seethes with it. That is two father's who have abandoned her. Even once Milligan's memories are returned to him, she will never warm up to the sun god. One of them had an excuse. The other didn't.

Also, I think she and the Hunters of Artemis have an ongoing vendetta. They desperately want to recruit her, and maybe if they had caught her right after the betrayal of her father abandoning her sunk in, they might have succeeded. Kate knows that, and hates that, and doubles down on her whole "never growing old and never loving people sounds stupid" thing. Yes she says this to Artemis face. Yes she does not care.

(Milligan is a clear sighted mortal. Milligan was so determined to figure out why he was seeing things he somehow made it into camp and started asking questions and then got himself hired as a spy to try and analyse Kronos' movements. Three drops from the river Lethe and Milligan never makes it back home.)

Sticky's mother helps organise several disability awareness events at some point in post grad. She has a fiance, and a part time job, and a voice that pitches high when she worries too much. She's got a good head on her shoulders and interesting ideas about how to revamp a world not built for those who are different.

The woman she works with is blonde and white and ablebodied, but she listens very intently and is brilliant at coming up with measures and countermeasures and solutions when asked. They get coffee on the weekends and chat sometimes. It is good to have a friend.

Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Washington are expecting it when a baby shows up on their doorstep. The baby has Ms. Washington's nose, the shape of her ears, her dark skin. The baby has grey eyes.

(You can imagine their shock when all tests decree the baby as theirs. They get married quickly, after that, call it a miracle and vow to not think much more about it.)

And Sticky grows up intelligent and he grows up consuming great big books at a time and it is so very wonderful. They put him in competitions- that have odd amounts of technical difficulties, whenever he steps up to answer a question- and they buy him bigger books. Their baby is so smart.

Their baby also lies.

Sticky grows up terrified. There are monsters and no one believes him. Spiders congregate on his ceiling at night and disappear with the flip of a switch. He doesn't understand why the buzzers stop working in the game shows, or the cameras or the lights. Really. Really. He doesn't.

You can imagine the relief, upon his arrival to Camp Halfblood. He was not making it up. It wasn't his fault. You can imagine the bitterness, too.

There is an entire cabin of kids who look at him with matching grey eyes, all gifted and intelligent. It is a constant game of chess, shifting pieces and arguments of wit and sizing each other up. You can imagine how this might terrify one Sticky Washington, who's self esteem could probably fit into a teaspoon with room to spare.

(He'll figure it out, eventually. He'll get enough self confidence to stand his own, gradually. His parents follow his trail through shaky quest videos posted on the internet and track him down to Mr. Benedict's, and there will be healing.)

Reynie is a child of... someone. Nobody knows. He never gets claimed. Some minor god, probably, but there are no real hints when it comes to his abilities. He can fight and has to endure ADHD hell like the best of them, and of course he is fiendishly clever and intelligent, but that could very well just be a Reynie thing.

I think Reynie hopes, for a very long while, that his parent might be Athena. Like. Here is a cabin full of people who love learning and knowledge, who can handle plans and who have someone who cares enough to claim them. If Reynie was a son of Athena, Sticky would not only be his best friend but also his brother! It sounds too good to be true.

It is too good to be true. At some point in their adventures, Reynie meets Athena. He asks, and he hopes, and ultimately gets denied. This is not your legacy, Athena says, and Reynie knows better than to say but I want it to be.

I think that would be interesting, really. Reynie, who so very fears being alone, who has never known his parents, who comes to camp eleven and more than a little desperate to be loved. Reynie, who learns he does have a parent, and learns soon after with a slow cold dread that he isn't wanted, or isn't worth the bother.

(later, when they're all friends, the others will take turns kidnapping him out of the unclaimed cabin and bringing him into theirs for sleepovers. Later, Ms. Perumal- another clear-sighted human- will be scared enough for her student who vanished off the face of the earth that she'll track him down and give him a place to come home to. Later, Reynie's going to realise that family can be something you make, and that he is so damn loved. It's just going to take time to get there.)

Constance is a daughter of Morpheus. Yes, she is sleepy all the time because she is two years old. Yes, the urge to nap is infinitely stronger due to her parentage. Constance, especially as she grows older, stays awake out of sheer stubbornness. She has things to do! Poetry to write! Sleeping can come later!

That said, Constance's powers are stupidly strong for her age, especially considering the fact that she is so young. She sends and recieves dreams like nothing else. The subconscious thoughts people have are wide open to her. She walks through other people's memories at night and has an annoying habit of wondering into other people's dreams.

It means the monster attacks are real and prevelent. Constance is too smart to not realise something is off, and it just makes things worse once she knows the truth. When she arrives at the camp, she sleeps in a real bed for the first time in weeks and does not move for a solid twelve hours.

(Constance still cures Mr. Benedict's narcolepsy, but the first couple of years are rough because he tends to sleep much deeper around her- as most people do. A Constance in the room means a few second drop could become an hour long one.

Mr. Benedict is a bit of an enigma. He knows way too much about the gods- about all of the gods, non greek ones included. He has connections miles long and no one is really sure who his godly parent is, but must have one. Right?

Wrong. If Mr. Benedict is of godly heritage, it's multiple generations back. He's just clear sighted, too. Are you sensing a theme? You should be. When Mr. Benedict writes his advertisement for the paper, one of his questions is about "seeing the ghings that no one else sees." He means it literally.

It's about loving truth so hard your eyes pierce a veil between your world and a more magical one. It's about growing up lonely and scared and finding people who love you. It's about letting go of hurts and breaking cycles. It's about quests, and adventures, and what you make of them. I dunno. Maybe I just really love the idea of giving all of the kids celestial bronze weapons. Especially Constance. Constance deserves at least a dagger. It will be beautiful.

Mysterious Benedict Society Headcanons!!!

1.) The team remains besties forever. Like forever, forever. They’re going to be in elderly homes and still be cracking jokes and sitting on the floor as they solve crossword puzzles or something.

2.) Despite the fall of Mr. Curtain, the Mysterious Benedict Society somehow ends up constantly getting caught up in mysteries and trouble, even when they’re not looking for it. It happens so often that Milligan takes up the habit of sewing trackers in all their clothes for their inevitable random drops off the face of the earth.

3.) Whenever these sort of things happen, be it to just one kid or all of them, all the different families bunker down at Mr. Benedict’s House until it’s all over, just like the old days.

4.) At some point or another during these random adventures, I can really see Kate noticing the disadvantage of having all this really long, easily grabbable hair in fights and stuff and I can just totally see her just- lobbing it all off in favor of a pixie cut. Give me short haired, pixie cut, Kate. I NEEED IT!!!!

5.) Both Reynie and Sticky are in college by the time they are fifteen, and both of them are at the top of their classes and both of them are pretty small in comparison to their classmates and both of them are either taking online courses or are at a college close to home; they can’t bear to leave their families behind. Both give touching mementos to their parents at graduation, and then make everyone cry as they talk about the others in the Society.

6.) Kate gets into college by the time she’s seventeen, at the very least. Because she may be more athletically inclined but she’s also SMART and she figures that the quicker she finishes school the quicker she can be free of sitting for more than an hour at a time. Her graduation speech is quick but strong and bright, just like her, and she makes everyone laugh and cry at the same time.

7.) The only way to get Constance to learn anything is to bribe her. This does not change in her teenage years. Or her adult years. Or ever. (She has to be bribed to give a speech at her own graduation, too. She composes an on the spot composition of a poem that somehow manages to be touching and mildly offensive all at once. Mr. Benedict records it; he’s very proud, and it never fails to make him laugh.)

8.) Even after green plaid stops being Mr. Benedict’s sole choice of dress, he still wears random, intriguing outfits that are just on this side of unusual. He has no fashion sense at all. NONE. And yet, somehow, he manages to pull off every single outfit. EVERY. SINGLE. BLOODY. ONE.

9.) Constance stays pudgy, short, and stubborn her entire life, and at some point or another she dies her flyaway hair bright shiny red and gets several piercings in her left ear. She never looks back.

10.) The boys are totally chill with the girls, and a vice versa. Like. It just never even occurs to them to be embarrassed about the fact that they are female and they are male and that usually leads to a certain set of social decorum or whatever. They all totally platonically share bedrooms and beds and get changed in the same room and stuff. It just doesn’t even MATTER anymore; they’ve been through far too many life threatening situations for something like normal social rules to relate to them.

11.) Seriously. BESTIES FOREVER. Each individual knows every other individual inside out. They know when someone else is scared or tired or breaking down, know the best ways to comfort them, to hold them, to let them know everything’s okay. (There are Mysterious Benedict Society cuddle piles after bad nightmares. Every. Single. Gosh Darn Time. You can fight me on this.) If one of them needs something, you can bet the rest will instinctively know. If one of the girls asks for one of the boys to get pads at the supermarket, you can bet your butt that they’ll do so. Their stuff is probably all interspersed and spread out across all four of their bedrooms and it’s probably like- Hey, Constance, I think you have my Batman Shirt? Oh yeah, I do. I’ll bring it next meeting, Reynie. Thanks fam. AND LIKE- GeOrGE WAshINGtOn! WhY iS THerE A BrA In yOUr SoCK DraWEr!?!? Oh- That’s Kate’s mom. Oh, alright darling, I’ll wash it for her. There is no sense of shame or privacy between the four of them. At all. The parents learn to just- not care and take it as it is. Mr. Benedict finds it hilarious. BESTIES I TELL YOU.

12.) Reynie and Mr. Benedict remain the only people able to get Constance to willingly and obligingly do stuff. Constance is casually and commonly affectionate with the two- leaning her head on their shoulder, hugging them, using them as a pillow when they are out kidnapped somewhere or whatever- and only the two.

13.) However, there are times she will suddenly show bursts of affection for others- like the time she rode with Sticky instead of Kate. She still does that, and every bloody time Sticky reacts with the same confused wHAT DO i DO’ ness. Constance loves making the older boy squirm.

14.) Constance and Slam Poetry. ‘Nuff said. I bet she also gets into rapping at some point, too. (Imagine Number Two’s face upon walking in on Constance jamming in her bedroom with some random rapper as backup.)

15.) Reynie continues to have common chess games with Mr. Benedict, even when he’s well off into manhood. It becomes a weekly thing.

16.) At some point or another, the whole group gets really into baking and there’s a week or so where Moocho is just- lost, because, his kitchen has been taken over! But he’s cool about it, too, and shows them how to make apple pies. At another point, Rhonda takes them on a trip to Zambia- there are finally funds enough to do so- and it starts an excited traveling/exploration of culture phase that lasts months. Another time, the kids try to start a competition with Number Two as to how long they can stay up. She slays them ALL.

17.) When and if one of the members of the society start dating/liking anyone, there always ends up being a series of meeting about said crush/boyfriend/girlfriend, mainly for teasing purposes, but everyone is always super cool and supportive about it too.

18.) As time goes on, Constance gets better at controlling her mental powers, and using it doesn’t strain her as much, but it’s still a pain so she tries to avoid them if she can. Still, she has been prone to healing mental illnesses and certain phantom pains and such, when at all possible.

19.) After everything with Mr. Curtain, Mr. Benedict gets really influential and important in the government again, and a lot of people fall over backwards for him in apology, and then later in admiration, because he’s just that good. Despite gaining back all this power and more, he somehow manages to give off the exact same aura of comfort and knowledge and casual epicness.

20.) People tend to go after Constance if they ever try and kidnap one of the four, thinking her the easiest catch. This may be true, but she also qualifies as the MOST ANNOYING KIDNAP-E EVER.

21.) There are totally times in which Kate is off beating up bad guys while the rest of the group hangs back and watches on. Constance probably shouts out scores whenever Kate displays a particularly awesome set of acrobatics or an especially high kick or whatever.

22.) At some point or another- probably after the twentieth consecutive kidnapping- Milligan probably gives the entire Mysterious Benedict Society a crash course in survival training. Kate is delighted. Everyone else is not.

23.) Sticky grows into himself, at some point. Becoming the kind of guy who’s definitely smart and knowledgeable, but isn’t braggy about it or insecure. He just is. At some point or another, he briefly takes up the game shows again, just for fun, just to see how he has improved and if there’s anything he can read up on and know better, maybe just to see if he can. For each and every one, the rest of the Society and his parents are up front and center, cheering like the contest was a football game instead of Sticky simply answering what the process of mitosis is.

24.) Sticky lasts maybe three months before he gives up on contact lenses. He primarily wears his glasses, now, and he wears them with pride, even if he does occasionally still polish them with nerves. He grows out his hair, but it stays short and dark and prickly on his head. Constance likes to run her hands across it and wax poetry about porcupines. Sticky lets her.

25.) They all grow up and become famous in their own ways.

26.)  Kate becomes a fierce advocate of equal rights and cleaning up the child care system, and she somehow gets away with switching jobs every year. She runs physical education camps, probably stars in some sort of athletic competition, helps out on the farm, and maybe she becomes a spy. She travels the world and explores and has let all her anger go., helping others with her bright smile and kind eyes.

27.) Sticky probably becomes a world-famous professor and does a bunch of research and gets a nobel prize for figuring out some uber complex math theorem or science thingamajob, or maybe he cures cancer or something. Only Reynie of the remaining three really understand what he’s actually done, but everyone’s super proud. There are tears.

28.) Constance takes the world by a storm. She’s an advocate for the random, small things that so often go overlooked. For kids on the streets getting education, for more libraries and more houses for the homeless, for higher minimum wages, for the complete obliteration of Wednesdays. The important things. She writes poetry and she speaks poetry and maybe even sings it, and people absolutely adore her and her spunky, no nonsense ways. She states an opinion and never backs down, and she makes a difference.

29.) Reynie writes. He writes and he speaks and he creates books upon books upon books. He’s a world renowned author, and people adore his stories and his novels, be they fantasy or scholarly or anything in between. The government comes to him for help when they have problems, and he always seems to just know what is the best course. He helps out at orphanages and he helps out in childcare and he helps kids he meets because he knows there situations and he can sympathize, and he helps kids he never meets through his words and his wisdom on printed pages, offering an escape to those who have none.

30.) They are happy. They grow up and they become kind, loving, good adults who have seen the worse of the world and have learned to take the best of it. They help hundreds of people through their words and actions, and they keep in touch with each other till the very end. They are friends, good friends, brilliant friends, so close and so distinct and so in sync, that there are no forces on earth that could break the bond between them. They are the Mysterious Benedict Society, who meet up together and sit in a circle on a floor when they are in their twenties and thirties and eighties, talking and chatting and figuring out problems where others could not. They saved the world, once. Twice. Three times. Countless times. And they continue to do so throughout all their years, together.

It’s fun to look back on this after the fourth book has come out and the fandom’s a little larger. I definitely got some things right!