#[ the usual disclaimer ]

[ppeanutz]

I had to.

update: you can find a refurbished version of this on my ko-fi! i'm also taking commissions over there

[ciderjacks]

Rule #2: The locksmith will not be required to participate in battle

(read this post and this post for more context lol)

[lucabyte]

A belief in Nominative Determinsim

[dog-teeth]

went camping

[aroaceleovaldez]

I was reading a post about CoTG and I realized: Rick has seemingly started to write every character pairing with the exact same dynamic, and he's not good at writing that dynamic and it doesn't make sense for 90% of the characters he writes it for.

It's that very specific dynamic of one half of the pair who is almost aggressive to the other party - "teasing" them constantly/insulting them, affectionately punching/judo flipping/maiming/etc, seemingly almost always exasperated with the other - and said other party usually just accepts this treatment or blanketly views it fondly, and may generally be framed as more incompetent than their partner and a little bit of a doormat (particularly relating to being insulted/teased/etc by their partner).

We start seeing this dynamic in HoO with Percy and Annabeth, as a sort of semi-inconsistent twist on their rivals-to-friends-to-lovers dynamic from the first series. Then the dynamic pattern develops further with Leo and Calypso. Then Magnus and Alex. Then Nico and Will, particularly in TSATS. And now in CoTG, it's Percy and Annabeth again but even more in this direction.

I know people have talked about Nico and Will's relationship over the series rapidly being shoehorned into Percabeth Two™, and it's extremely apparent in TSATS that Rick's doing it on purpose (including directly quoting Percabeth scenes but minorly tweaking them to be Solangelo). But recognizing it as an overarching trend in Rick's later books honestly reminds me a lot of how Rick started trying to apply the "Percy Formula" so-to-speak to nearly every protagonist in HoO (and then try to replicate similar character archetypes with Magnus and Apollo's narrations - moreso Magnus in being jaded and sarcastic, very much trying to be first series Percy. He only sounds unique because Rick failed at making him Percy 2. Apollo is more akin to later-series Percy characterization of being goofy and incompetent. Apollo [and Zeus] even got retconned to give Apollo a more similar backstory to Percy's). Rick seems to have decided that he thinks the audience wants this specific dynamic but 10 times over, except he's not good at writing it the first time because it's a bastardization of the time he did a different thing okay.

And Rick also seems aware of that too! Because he retconned Calypso and Leo at the end of TOA, probably because he realized how absolutely awful it was reading when they were written with that dynamic of Calypso just functionally hating Leo and constantly being aggressive towards him! The only time Rick's actually made the dynamic even semi-successful was with Magnus and Alex, because it actually fits within their characters, their dynamics with each other, and their environment. Alex beheading Magnus on the regular works out fine because there are no repercussions to that in Valhalla, Magnus will be fine, so it does genuinely come off as humorous. And Alex has been effectively established to be abrasive at times but have her genuine feelings shine through regularly, and that meshes well with Magnus' jaded-and-aloof-but-quietly-very-empathetic character. And Magnus has been established to, yes, not be great at combat, particularly compared to Alex. They are the only time that flavor of dynamic in that form was effective and cohesive.

Percabeth is no longer rivals-to-friends-to-lovers badasses on equal levels with shaky pasts who finally found some form of permanence with one another. Now it's super smart doting and affectionately aggressive girlfriend and her silly goofy 50%-of-the-time incompetent boyfriend who she judo flips/pushes off cliffs/etc - but affectionately~! Solangelo is trying to riff off of the early series "Poseidon & Athena are enemies" dynamic that Percabeth had but with Apollo & Hades being "opposites" but learning to accept each other, except it ends up with Will just coming off as a huge asshole and Nico being retconned to a complete doormat about it - when prior to that those characterizations would be completely contrary to their established characters (even just from TOA!). Calypso in HoO gets retconned from her PJO characterization to being snooty and aggressive, and Leo's false persona gets merged into his just normal personality except he just also becomes a doormat but more goofy than Nico with occasional haha-dark/depression-humor! Which Nico also got. Which was also a bastardized Percy trait that got redistributed.

It's exhausting. Rick write more than one relationship dynamic you can do it I promise

[negativespace06]

summer and the beach,,, makes me think of them,,,

[azuphere]

giffing my m&g:

dan removing phil's cat ears for him <3 (video version)

[ternaryflower53]

some more thoughts about leftist antisemitism from a chinese american person:

whatever happened to "collapsing diverse communities into a monolith is bad, actually"? this seems to be perfectly uncontroversial when people talk about anti-asian racism

and yet certain people are all too happy to label every jew they don't like a "zionist" and act like zionism has one definition (that usually includes genociding palestinians, of course) and like. do you even know that there are different definitions of zionism? have you done the slightest hint of learning about different jewish thoughts about israel besides "israel bad"?

it's just. fascinating. and not in a good way.

[strangertheories]

sick of people justifying the lack of diversity in stranger things with the fact that it's an 80s small town when they have fucking great poc characters who are either underutilised (lucas, erica) or who they just deleted off the show (kali, argyle). not to mention all of vecna's victims being fleshed out...except the Black one! and all the opportunities they could've used for rep, like vickie. this is a consistent pattern.

[raynavan]

loser. (for day 9 of Sept-Ingo: Lessons)

[evidenceof]

in other breaking news. i've successfully found the name of our mystery the-last-patrol-shower-man that has so much of the fandom in a chokehold. (yes, i double-checked, and the bob prod guys checked off in the comments). presenting, one dylan jones as the beefcake by the haguenau showers:

[elder-millennial-of-zion]

Having conversations with my intelligent, well read, well meaning non-Jewish friends who assume that everyone is as intelligent and well read and well meaning as they are 😆

“Of course October 7 was horrible. But Netanyahu’s response-"

"Do you have any idea how many leftists think October 7 was a good thing and simultaneously a false flag?”

"Wait, what?"

[khaopybara]

but if you let me help, maybe you can go beyond your limits.

JOONG ARCHEN as FADEL episode 4 of THE HEART KILLERS

[enlightningbugs]

Laurent, who chose to be like his mother in every way but one Conclusive evidence

These pages were originally for @fetranshub's FE trans week in 2020. They can be taken independently, if you would like to interpret Laurent in the second page differently from the first.

Several people over the years have also told me these are some of my most memorable comics, which makes me glad.

[autistichalsin]

New Halsin lore drop!!!

(That is a joke, for the record)

[infizero-draws]

boy, you're an alien 👽