#I mean that's their usual dynamic

[monstrous-angels]

So TL;DR The Remake Trilogy is Sephiroth's attempt at a "fixit" fic where he ends up ruling the universe and -oh what's this- Cloud is here too.

Just calling it right now. We'll see in 5+ years while we wait for the last entry in the series.

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[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

[ahalliance]

antoine + étoiles insane moments, p.2. aka the ass saga. p1 here

transcript + context for some of the clips below

[Video Transcript:

[First clip plays.]

Rivenzi: You want to see Etoiles’ ass, of course…

Antoine: Yeah, I’m gonna stare at your ass, Etoiles…

Etoiles: Fuck, what dread, during Popcorn [a talkshow Etoiles had been invited on the previous week], when I went up to the map and you said that, and I thought ‘whoa—‘

Antoine: Sorry

[Second clip plays: the moment during Popcorn]

PA/Domingo: Antoine Daniel has posted a tweet for us: ‘I wanted to look at this map of Africa, but Etoiles’ ass in the shape of a standing bell is driving me crazy. Smiley face with eyes in the shape of hearts.’

[Third clip plays: a continuation of the first clip.]

Antoine: Sorry, bro…

Ponce: Oh but that tweet, besides

Rivenzi: A standing bell…

Antoine: What’s more is that I never tweet and when I do it’s to tweet this sort of shit

Ponce: That’s exactly what I told myself. When PA read the tweet, I thought to myself, ‘but he never tweets!’ And he tweets to talk about Etoiles’ ass

Antoine: There needs to be a good reason, you see

[Fourth clip plays: a clip from the Team du Lundi’s minecraft server.]

JDG: Someone (in chat) said, ‘I can’t tell whether the atmosphere is good tonight or—‘

Antoine: It sucks, it sucks

Florence: You don’t need to ask every time, it always sucks

Baghera: Always sucks. Especially when Etoiles talks about ass [which had been a previous topic of discussion for him that night]

Antoine: Stooop, I enjoy it

Mynthos: You enjoy it?

JDG: It’s true tonight that it’s more weird than bad

Antoine: I like it when Etoiles talks about ass….

[Fifth clip plays: a second and different clip from Popcorn.]

Etoiles: —you’re not allowed to tell me that [Xari claimed to not know much about cinema]. I know you, I studied, because you’re my rival [in pop culture]. I really enjoy what you do in life, Xari, and you’re really knowledgeable about cinema

Antoine: What do you mean he’s your rival? And I’m just shit?

Etoiles: You, you’re my lover

Antoine: Oh yeah, sorry, my bad

PA/Domingo: One of the three is gonna die soon. There’s a whole situation, there’s a whole lore

[Sixth clip plays: a clip from the QSMP.]

Antoine: Don’t you want to get married, dude?

Etoiles: Well, I don’t have the time to fuck

Antoine: What the fuck?!

Etoiles: I don’t have time to fuck, dude. I just need to kill everyone

Antoine: No but just a marriage, you see. You’ve watched Game of Thrones— you haven’t watched Game of Thrones, you can’t know how marriages work in that series

Etoiles: I’ve watched it, but I’m married to the street, dude. I can’t give out my heart that quickly

Antoine: Yeah but you can give out your ass quickly, no?

Etoiles: No, frankly, my ass—

Antoine: What the fuck?!

Etoiles: Giving out your ass takes time, dude

Antoine: What the fuck…

Etoiles: Then again, I need to think about it. I’ll give you my answer. I need to discuss, and everything

Antoine: I’m tired of getting betrayed. You get married with someone else—

Etoiles: Never in a million years!

Antoine: —it’s like yesterday. Apparently Maximus got the mic from his ass removed while I wasn’t there. I was supposed to be the one to do it

Etoiles: Oh okay, so I’m your second choice?

[Overlapping]

Antoine: No! It was just to help him—

Etoiles: No, but, okay

Antoine: He got— listen—

Etoiles: There’s no problem!

Antoine: Fuck, nevermind

Etoiles: There’s no issue! Oh, so you’re opening my chest and stealing?

Antoine: I was just looking! Out of curiosity

Etoiles: Yeah, that’s it

Antoine: I don’t even understand what’s in it

Etoiles: Yeah, out of curiosity. Dude, your opinion on my cave?

Antoine: Well frankly it’s big

end Video Transcript.]

[backjustforberena]

Watching the HOTD fandom turn in on itself and I'm just here, enjoying my flawed, complex, glorious middle-aged couple who just love one another:

[froggy-nebula]

honestly i just dont get why sometimes people get all weird about quadrants and insist they’re unhealthy always no matter what

like yeah im not stupid i know they CAN be fucked up and can be weird and toxic but so can any romance. human romance has been toxic and fucked up for me many times. tbh if we take a step back and just look at the basic ideas of all of them i don’t think any of those have to be evil and terrible necessarily

like oh no me and my boyfriend have a fun rivalry that we both like being in and both agreed to where we have fun competing with each other and talking shit and then make out! FUCK!!! that’s horrible i would NEVER want that! i would never be guilty of forcing my boyfriend to play tetris with me over and over and insulting him the entire time

oh no my boyfriend has anxiety and i calm him down! oh god we like cuddling and talking about feelings! we both agreed we like this relationship dynamic and feel fulfilled by it! AAA SCARY!!! GET SCARED!!!

oh no sometimes my boyfriends are both annoying and i voluntarily get between that and make people be less annoying! FUCK!!!!!!!! we are going to DIVORCE!!!

[thedevilscarnival]

shout out to daan fear and hunger for being a (textually) male character whom is narratively a woman. orange really hit it out of the park with that one

[forcedhesitation]

I cannot handle how cute their interactions are

[epickiya722]

I think about how some people actually hate on Yuji, Nobara and Megumi and get confused because I went into JJK and by episode 3 I adored them.

[glorious-spoon]

anyway the thing about buck/tommy is that i legit do think it's cute and charming and i'm enjoying it on the show, but from a shipping perspective i am always just gonna be more invested in the dynamic of Best Friends Who Are Fucking Weird About Each Other

[iknowicanbutwhy]

Puyo/Madou, meet ISAT. ISAT, meet Puyo/Madou. I'm sure you have everything in common and this is not at all a completely random crossover of my two current interests

[the-way-astray]

alright everybody can we please stop tagging me/talking about me in the notes of pro keefe/sokeefe posts. i know strieefe has made it so that it's really funny to talk about how much i love him and how much i'm in denial when i say negative things about him under those posts (and that's all in good fun and not the problem), but we have to think about the fact that the ops are just trying to make a positive post and probably don't want a keefe hater in their notes /srs

[dkettchen]

Not me learning from crunchy fb page posting abt today (march 2nd) being Sanji's birthday that man has the same astrological sign as me (pisces) and then looking up Zoro's birthday on the wiki and he's a fucking scorpio (november 11th), why are neither of these surprising

[meraki-yao]

Random RWRB question that crossed my head

So in the book it's made clear that Henry's one year older than Alex, which I would say is somewhat reflected in their dynamic as well

But in the movie both of them are aged up (ergo kind of more mature)

Plus Taylor's three years older than Nick, and that's reflected in their own off-screen dynamic too

So do we think movie Henry is still the older one or?

[vellichorom]

okay so i virtually never talk about the fnaf fixation that has plagued me since 2015, but i think some of you are lying when you say there's anything more than 3-5 games. what are you talking about, fnaf 3 was the last one, or possibly fnaf 4.

what the hell is a henry emily or a security breach. yeah you sure are breaching that security aren't you

( i am gaslighting you; i know what a henry emily is & i know what security breach is, i simply think it is for the better we disregard them )

[b4kuch1n]

IT ARRIVED IT ARRIVED IT ARRIVED

DESPITE EVERYTHING DESPITE MY CHRONICALLY CURSED INTERNATIONAL MAIL PROBLEM I AM STILL THE ZONE RPG