#and him agreeing like oh yeah thats it

[ji-lixie]

ive never hated a doctor quicker than i have now.

[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.

[pacing-er]

His body crazy...

[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)

[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.

[like-sands-of-time]

Idk this is just personal but Rey being light itself, the balance to bens darkness, etc etc doesn't have to mean she believes the Jedi code? Like,,,, at all? It's actually kind of irrelevant really. If either of them holds any weight on Jedi beliefs it's Ben who studied them for ten years.

This is a girl who for her entire childhood survived. Not like Ben did, but Survived. She went hungry. She went without. She survived it, and came through with the instincts and skills to back her up.

A girl like that, Light and Good as I believe she is, is gonna be a bit less *gasp* *faint* about the concepts surrounding "darkness" and even the concept of death in general. All of them, really.

I don't believe she'd like the Jedi code at all frankly, and find it ridiculously stifling and judgemental and very hypocritical.

I also don't think she'd cry herself to sleep at night about the concept of killing someone. Not someone dying that she cares about but that she killed someone by her own hands. Perhaps that is entirely just me, but her will to survive would be strong. I think that when people throw in her not having etiquette or eating like a pig or not having a formal education in fics it's accurate but done in a sweet way. It's cute. Anything they do is cute, but it's an easy fix type situation.

But how about a Rey who has her own moral code that she sticks to (just like Ben that's familiar !!) And they're both morally grey, one leaning dark and the other leaning light, but definitely meeting in the middle. None of this Rey is a pure maiden saint stuff though you can use those concepts.

She was already a badass with a staff and it's hardly like she had sparring buddies. She Survived. We of course have to assume what that means but I assume that means she's a badass main character who isn't going to pull her punches when it comes to eliminating evil in the galaxy. She's not gonna let rapists or murderers go just because "it wouldn't be right to kill" she's gonna do it herself. I see her and her Light as Mother and vengeance.. willing and able to protect all those she cares for. Which includes Ben btw

[tamaharu]

rose in the novelization is so funny. shes like god this dude is arrogant and stupid. i can tell hes waiting for me to ask him what hes doing so im not doing that. and shes correct because the doctor gets antsy two minutes later and tells her what hes doing.

[yuridovewing]

fanon conception about tigerheartstar i can now confidently say sounds really out of pocket to me: "he was an asshole who was forcing his culture on spiresight by giving him a warrior name"

he really wasn't? i mean don't get me wrong, he's not great about that for this book at all, but I think him getting mad at fierce for not being xenophobic is wayyy more offensive than this

he wasn't actually a leader and he probably didn't REALLY have the authority to send spiresight to starclan and give him a name. it wasn't meant to be him forcing clan culture on spiresight either. it was just a really thoughtful gesture for him to try and honor spiresight for saving his daughter's life, if spiresight did not want that then i expect he had every reason to go "erm nuh uh" and refuse to be called spiresight.

[snekdood]

idk who needs to hear this (vaush) but being a skilled debater and being Good With Words does not make you correct.

[bucket-o-slime]

fuckfuckfuck

[oflgtfol]

like i still dont know if i feel anything romantic for him but like i guess at this point it’s not really platonic either since like we’re kissing and holding hands but like. idk. i guess i just dont know what romantic feelings… feel like? in my mind it’s still just hanging out just like, different 😭😭😭 like i know everyone always says ur partner should be ur friend first but like. we’re literally just hanging out. like it doesn’t feel any deeper or anything like that, it just feels. different. bc we are doing different things with different expectations. so even though i mean like well i have a. God i cant even say the word rn. even though im dating someone now i still feel incredibly aromantic about it. and luckily he knows and he took it well and he knew it from the get go so it’s fine but i also can’t help but feel like ahhh i’m aromantic though

[keydav]

I'm rewatching Bones (still in season 1) right now and I'm realizing on this watch through how wild it is that they paint Hodgins has a "conspiracy theorist nut-job" when, generally, he's just a leftist lol

[miikaarinn]

i had a psychiatrist appt today and holy fuckingnhell never again im not doing this shit ever again

[justjwab]

Top 10 posts customer service workers hate reading

very controversial opinion here, but sometimes customer service workers are the problem 😶

[isaacathom]

naielle is so much fun to play when shes super stressed, is angry, has been recently knocked unconscious, or is drunk, because she suddenly loses a barrier between her head and and her hands and mouth and starts doing shit like curveballing a cup into the commodores head because he made a bad joke

[zestials]

𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 ?

tagged by: @spiderslvts tagging: anyone who has yet to be !!! pls . feel free it's fun !!

heavy.

In longing, you feel heavy. Your desire feels like a burden you've been carrying for too long. Your heart is a large weight in your chest, so heavy it brings down your shoulders and puts a bend in your back. You feel like if you were thrown into water, the weight of it would drag you straight to the bottom. It's as if no matter what you do, you just can't shake it or let it go. When you let yourself feel it, it's almost suffocating, you're drowning in desire, quietly. You unfocus your eyes and breathe out until the stream of air thins, a pang in your chest follows. The next breath is a sigh. You've been so patient, you feel you deserve something. Your yearning pulls and pulls at you but you've tried everything, nothing left to do but wait. Once you've accepted this, you push the thoughts away, but the weight is still there. Sometimes you convince yourself you don't even want what you desire anymore, you just want the weight lifted. But something says don't give up. You're too deep in love. Be strong my dear, stay determined.