#also i guess i should tag this for

[clara-maybe-ontheroad]

Weird media guilt cycle : Why I stopped watching, reading and writing about OF

So I used to be pretty active on here about a certain show (ahem ahem) while it was airing, but I started falling behind on new episodes airing and I started feeling ... Guilty ?

Like, my reasons for taking a break were real but not that deep :

despite being really fun to watch, it brought back memories of a pretty chaotic time in my life and made it tricky for me to handle some of my emotions regarding basically all the characters

I was just visiting my partner in Canada and wasn't prioritising watching this show.

But nevertheless, I fell an episode behind, which was normal. Then two. And then three. And at this point there was so many meta posts to engage with, so many things I was tagged in, so much I wanted to read, I didn't know where to start, and I didn't want to get spoiled. And I felt weirdly guilty for not being able to engage, maybe because this was my first time being involved in any kind of Tumblr community.

I felt bad not to reply and contribute to the discourse around the show ; I wanted to avoid spoilers and was so behind so I couldn't read anything and could barely go on Tumblr for a bit, because it was also reminding me I was Behind™. See how other feelings about my life were starting to get into it.

I felt like by the time I would come around to watch, everything meaningful would have been said, and like I had to be the first to comment on something for it to be valuable, and like I was not as dedicated as everyone else. Like I wasn't being productive enough, original enough... About watching one damn show.

I loved watching it ! And watching it with a community, analysing it with everyone, reading all the great posts, was so fun ! But suddenly it caused me dread.

Because coincidentally, many other things in my life that I liked stopped being fun around the same time. Other life stuff made me sink. And this show kinda became emblematic of the pause it felt like my life was taking, of me not being able to follow through, of me feeling directionless. Of me feeling like I had to focus on productive things to be worth of existing, like I was existing in an in between where I wasn't accomplishing enough. And I couldn't watch shows at all for the most part, much less shows about characters feeling lost in their lives.

Ridiculous? Yes. Very real for anxiety-ridden me? Also yes.

I was talking with my therapist the other day though, and we noted that I'm lacking creative outlets since my little depression-y phase a month ago. And that in a way, reading and writing meta about that show was filling a need for creative stuff in my life, since I no longer do YouTube/Tiktok like I also used to.

So ! After a month of being harsh with myself, I'm trying to reintroduce little joys, little moments of creation. And it's silly that writing meta about a show might be part of that, but I guess it was a form of self expression, and in my current phase I need any alley of self expression I can get.

All of this to say... I'm going to start watching that show again !

I'm going to catch up on all the amazing posts people have written about it. I'm going to write silly or serious posts about it. I'm going to try and have fun with it.

Is there any big lesson ? Probably not, or only that we truly have interesting relationships with pieces of media and online communities way beyond what they're actually about.

Also please tell me, has anyone else done this ? I feel very weird.

Anyway if I suddenly start live shitposting you know why !

[bacchuschucklefuck]

couldnt draw my thang for mid-autumn so treated myself to a calne redesign instead

[weaselmcdiesel]

Do You Love The Color Of The 413?

[hinamie]

corvidae

[lucabyte]

i feel like people are sleeping on the occam's razor situation of how buckwild it is to outright accuse a guy of being a clone of your friend even if you DO have a lot of circumstantial evidence. there's other options is what im saying. they could just be like. a guy. that's a sensible deduction. you should explore that deduction. ignore my shirt that reads I <3 RED HERRINGS.

i still think odile has the correct theory on lock but she's smart enough to know it needs like... a real smoking gun to be able to bring it up without sounding insane.

anyway. (mirabelle voice) i know its rude to speculate but has anyone else noticed the grieving? they seem to be grieving. does anyone have any thoughts on the grieving? i have some thoughts on the grieving.

[why-the-heck-not]

me, a responsible being, working on the coding project as I should vs. me, a dysfunctional shithead, getting distracted by reading about brains (once aGAIN damnit (it's my favorite "I need to study my field but bc I should do that it's an impossible unthinkable feat now, so I'm reading about something else to fool my brain I'm still being productive"-topic))

[sea-webs]

"I don't know who I want to be, anymore."

Oc - Cirque | The Dragon Chosen by the Shadows |

| mary oliver / franz wright / chelsea dingman / mary oliver / sue zhao / can't find :( / can't find :( / i am a dog. i have blood all over my teeth. - sciencedfiction / little weirds - jenny slate / the unabridged journals of sylvia |

[aterfish]

Another "Guess that Artist" game in Haunting Heroes discord server. This time drawing fanarts for fics with less than 10k hits on ao3.

I chose amazing IRIS Log #1548 by @deadchannelradio!

Love this fic. "As buddies" got me. Hilarious and absolutely worth reading and then rereading twice. Or trice.

@arzuera thanks or hosting the game! @serxeri thanks for tormenting me! i won tho.

[devils-little-sista]

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.

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Us Percico shippers really do have a hive mind don’t we lmaooo (and the fact that this started from someone who doesn’t even ship Percico just makes it funnier)

[blueberrymilkcookie]

for you, a devil

[cj-the-random-artist]

Let us dance into the night as the fire rages on....

Gonna add a greyscale version, the sketch this was based on under the cut, but all I really have to say about this is that this is the first time in a long time. Maybe even years. That I've sketched up a simple doodle and had it grab me by the soul and rip and illustration out of me. This is also the first illustration in a long time where I enjoyed the whole process. I also tried different techniques and stuff here and I'm in love with how this turned out actually

But yeah greyscale version and sketch this was based on under the cut

I was gonna add some rambles down here about the way I think about Narinder and the Lamb's dynamic and the stuff going on in the background and other things but after spending like an hour and a half writing and rewriting this caption. Uh. Nevermind lol

Enjoy the chaos that is this drawing and, if you're reading this, may something good happen for you today

[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

[cometshift]

disaster waltz

[the-dragon-girl-27]

been rereading Pokespe I forgot just how cool of a character Blue is

[ilikerosesalot]

* Despite everything....it's still you

Few days late (work....it never ends..) but happy birthday in stars and time!! I finished the game right in time for the anniversary so I had to dedicate my first fanart to it. I remember when I first booted up the game I made a video of me watching the opening scene and I added the Undertale track "Memory" to it. I didn't even know it was an inspiration for the game the music just felt...fitting. Then siffrin responded to the friendship doodle by going "it's you!". The idea just sprung. That statement just kept spinning in my head the entire time I played the game. So it's only fitting that an indie game that changed the trajectory of my life completely just like that Undertale to get this sort of fanart yk?

Textless versions and some more ramblings provided under the cut!!

Kinda proud of how loop-frin and bigfrin turned out...and the expression of maul du pays and "say its name" siffring turned out (may or may not like drawing terrified expressions- new discovery!). I wanted to add more (if I upload the tinelasp you can see there were some other sif sketches that never got lined) and i wanted to include the fam in act6 picture but....time. Oh well, I just needed to express my love for this game *somehow*. Siffrin and everyone else mean the world to me and just....honestly not enough words. Just, thank you @insertdisc5 for creating this wonderful game. I wish you and everyone else good luck on whatever lies ahead on our journey <3

[prince-aegon-targaryen]