#‘oh yeah i dont agree’

[ozz-ball]

Some people get so up & arms about the stanford npd headcanon. It’s so weird. “Well I don’t believe npd is bad BUT-“ Hey man shut up. Like seriously. Don’t agree with the headcanon? Cool. But to make entire rants about how its not true? Thats weird as hell. What if people did that with literally any other disorder/disability headcanon?? You guys realize that having npd doesn’t make you some evil demon RIGHT? RIGHT??

[aroaceleovaldez]

What is the PR disaster in question that made Rick announce TSATS? I wasn’t active in the online fandom at that point

Of course! This was awhile ago so it figures people don't remember it/aren't familiar:

Basically a couple years back (2020) the fandom had some posts circulate discussing the ways different characters in the Riordanverse were written poorly or offensively. There was a masterpost that went around tumblr but the two major points people were particularly focusing on were Piper and Samirah (particularly because Piper had featured prominently again in Trials of Apollo recently and the third MCGA book had further emphasized and discussed Samirah being Muslim, since it was supposed to take place during Ramadan). Basically each had multiple posts breaking down the ways they were depicted incorrectly or offensively. The entire fandom for a little bit was VERY intensely discussing this (and it's around this time the "RR crit" tag got very popularized on tumblr - it did exist before, but suddenly was being used VERY frequently - cause it was that wide-spread - though the discussion took over basically every side of Riordaverse social media on different platforms). People really wanted Rick to respond to these criticisms, so he did!

He made two blog posts, one about Piper and one about Samirah. He has since deleted both so the links are to archived versions. The short version: he essentially tried to justify his poor research and double-down that he hadn't written them offensively, actually, people were just being mean to him. The fandom, of course, reacted poorly to this.

[Further elaborated events under the cut since this got a bit lengthy]

(Fun fact, this all happened within a month or so of the time i posted an open letter on aphobic tropes in the Riordanverse that Rick replied to, and then he immediately followed with announcing that Reyna was intended to be ace-coded [which cause a LOT of fandom debate] before Rick dipped for a couple of weeks, and then came back to post the blog posts in response to Piper and Sam stuff. So I like to jokingly refer to this as "The time I imploded the fandom/drove Rick off of twitter." Twas I that set the house ablaze.)

Rick fully left social media after this and the LT Musical social media manager became Rick's social media manager for the time being.

So this all happened June/July of 2020. Tower of Nero would end up being published in October of 2020 and a few months after that Rick would state that he was done with the series and wouldn't be writing any more series installments involving Percy, and also that he wouldn't be writing a Nico quest following Tower of Nero as it "wasn't his place to" and encouraged the community to write their own versions of Nico's story.

The community continued to circulate the tumblr posts and discuss the topics of Rick's offensive character depictions, and this is also where we see the dramatic shift in how the fandom depicts Piper in fanwork (though in most cases it is admittedly not an improvement 😬) because of all this discussion. This is also around the time when the fandom brought Viria under scrutiny claiming that she was whitewashing Piper as part of the same discussions, through the justification that she was drawing Annabeth as having tan skin (which she does canonically), and if Annabeth has tanner skin then Piper then that's whitewashing Piper? Except they were using completely separate images of not fully rendered Piper art versus Annabeth in dramatic lighting, so it's all very awkward and poor logic, and did actually get kind of racist. A lot of people were calling it "Tannabeth Blackchase" (yeah, i know) or similar and a common sentiment you'd see repeated is "Don't draw Annabeth as having darker skin than Piper, because that's offensive/racist/whitewashing." (Note: it was not phrased "don't draw Piper as having lighter skin than Annabeth" - we also won't get into certain offensive depictions of Native Americans, but I digress). But yeah, the Annabeth stuff in all that did not age well at all.

Anyways, in October of 2021 however Rick would announce that he was co-writing The Sun And The Star - with a lot of heavy emphasis on how Mark Oshiro works as a sensitivity reader, and some false advertising from the official social media that Mark Oshiro was the first time a non-Riordan author would be collaborating on the series (disregarding the ghostwriters completely). One of the big criticisms in the breaking down of issues in Rick's writing was his lack of ever seeking a sensitivity reader, and fans claiming that a sensitivity reader could solve a lot of the problems. This was basically Rick's "look! I totally listened!!!!" (though it did little to actually improve things, based on the book) and in TSATS as well Piper gets a large cameo at the end where the text very directly addresses a lot of points made in criticism of Rick's writing of her.

We also then of course got the CoTG trilogy later, explicitly stated to be for advertising purposes for the show.

So basically, short version: Rick came under scrutiny for a lot of offensive writing within the span of two months, made some bad blog posts doubling down about it, left social media. TOA ends. Rick says he wasn't going to continue the series/write what would become TSATS. Community celebrates the end of of the franchise but also continues to discuss Rick's poor writing and the blog posts at length. Rick suddenly announces TSATS and Mark Oshiro's involvement. Everybody gets distracted from being mad. Show announcement stuff also happens and the discussions peter out.

[sepiamestus]

Sometimes I'll be scrolling and see an upsettingly bad take but then I remember that this is a stranger and I have no moral obligation to listen to them. Your opinion has no affect on me internet man. Go to the void

[mxrtified777]

Thick Thighs Take Lives 👍

[cent-scratchnsniff]

i was rereading the story dialog for the sephirah while ago (upper layer so far considering i have a doc to contain all of my ramblings and thoughts once looking it over and getting actual lines to be able to know exactly what was said to base my feelings off of rather than the pure unfiltered pain or i suppose somewhat shock at first and those garbled memories of what happened) and after reading tiphereth's and then going to netzach's again it's just.

imagine you have to see what is deemed your other half, the person keeping you sane, your only companion you actually love and like, your literal ‘twin’ have to get crushed but some bum that never does his job and can easily be seen as 'not meeting standards' does get the same treatment at all when your own brother had been destroyed for less like spiraling into some dangerous stains of thoughts (thought be fair he did end up not as respondent and at that point already had what i'll inadequately describe as 'memory leakage' . But from the general idea of the side of tiphereth). he'll be more better than that drug addict ever will be in her eyes, someone who can't even do a report on time and even then is half assed to where at that point they'd just do it themself in the first place. he'll be way better, someone who is quite literally her family. yet why is her brother the only one that needs to suffer through that constant degradation of the soul? the constant wiping of the self? the memories made and lost? why the hell is someone that should deserve it in her eyes, someone so unmotivated and lazy, someone who she deems as a person not able to do a single thing right, not having that happen to them? why is it the person she loves so dearly, so close to her that she wishes would've stayed instead of some now hollow husk and imitation of imprinted memories when that hasn't happened to Any One Else? why does she have to go through all of that, having to see someone that she used to know and adore turn into a hollow husk and imitation of what once was - having to feel as if shes already looking at a walking corpse with memories shoved inside - just for someone like Netzach to not end up crushed to pieces.

[poisonousquinzel]

no they were just literally "be totally platonic do crime" besties for a good section of their appearances together. Harley's not even trying to do crime rn and Ivy's like fighting plant zombies??? the conflict with them in HQ is literally just realistic relationship shit that comes from being as traumatized as they are. that's expected, that's what we want ??? To be shown??? instead of their relationship just being a purely physical Look Kissing Women Aren't They Hot panels and a handful of good moments that're Friends With Benefits coded by DC

[ozlices]

nintendo het baiting w sidon and his fiancee only to pull the gayest shit ive seen in a While by having sidon renew his vows w link (they got married at the end of ruta’s quest in botw. obviously. clearly.) and giving him a power that lets him ‘stay by his side forever’. i see you husbands i am so glad your marriage is thriving. good for them. good for them. they also both have two hands for anyone who wants to pull any nonsense im js. there is room for yona she just has to understand link has held sidon’s heart for years first.

[lanayrutower]

ALSO does no one find it even a little weird how the old Zelda games firmly state that it's Hylia who built/was the first ruler of Hyrule (the king is just. sort of there), and then totk comes in and is like ahaaa no it's actually rauru who's so special and godlike actually. yeah, his wife was actually his priestess who once served him and then died stupidly because she wasn't paying attention. mmhm, she was also the reason ganon was able to take over hyrule and be super duper evil btw. uwu.

[ratatatastic]

nothing could have prepared me for the cats finally releasing erods gopro footage of him going around being a chaos demon at our cup parade

Panthers Championship Parade | 6.30.24 (x)

[splanana-bitz]

*scrolling through tumblr and sees immaculate, mouth-watering art*

"Wow!"

*it's of a toxic couple back when they were together/them being bitter exes in present time*

"Oh, these two aren't healthy in any way, shape, or form"

...

*likes it anyway*

(Read tags)

[andrewknightley]

if i hate a popular character i hate them with the strenght of a thousand suns and avoid their fans, but if i hate a character that most people also hate and find a fan is like. well bro thank u someone had to love this bastard and write meta about them and understand them

[beeqisch]

i keep looking at ppl with slightly lighter brown hair and going "yeah that guy is blond"

[lecliss]

I'll never be able to take the theory that Vincent is Sephiroth's real father seriously cuz I cannot stress enough how important I think it is to the plot that Vincent wanted to fuck Lucrecia and did not get to.

[babylion]

[plan-3-tmars]

I saw some people say that the gay Kazui theory is "an insane reach" because there's no hints to it in Half so I went to do some digging and made a compilation of lyrics that I do think hint to the theory

"Please tell me what I should do, feelings shrouded in lies will float away and disappear" is one that might not seem obvious based on Half alone, but the context of Cat helps alot.

Shrouded means 'a thing that envelops or obscures something'. What Kazui is saying in this lyric is that 'the feelings he's hidden will go away'. We know that Kazui lied "for the sake of true love" from Cat so we can assume that the 'thing' obscuring his hidden feeling is his marriage.

Now, holding that thought, here's a piece of queer history. A "lavender marriage" is when a m/w couple get married under the sake of convenience to conceal the sexuality of one or both partners. Now this was done with the consent and knowledge of both partners, but sounds familiar doesn't it? Getting married to hide true feelings. Feelings being shrouded by lies if you will.

There's also this lyric which I find very interesting because the distance in their relationship is caused by Kazui's sin, further proved in a scene that shows right after this. Kazui got married because he thought it would make his true feelings on love dissappear, and when it instead does the opposite and just make his sin more obvious he gets confused and starts to doubt if this is actually "true love" or as he says, happiness. Obviously we know that straight romance isn't the only one to exist, and isn't the "true" or "peak" romance but Kazui is the oldest prisoner in Milgram, so he most likely grew up surrounded by the view that gay marriage is wrong, hence why he doesn't view it as "true love"

this is the distance scene btw, we can see that the green apple (Kazui's sin) is litteraly putting a wedge in his relationship by being in between he and Hinako

[shinybulbasaur]

"wow this Roman emperor looks middle eastern or African or greek" hey yeah quick question do you know where Italy is. like. geographically