#eh I'll put it in their tags

[arcxnumvitae]

Muses who would grab hold and feast like a person starving:

[harpoonsnotspoons]

Happy pride, have a scribble

[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

[mikimeiko]

Arcane | Main universe vs AUs

[fried-trash]

other scribbles from my discord art streams

[voltoise-art]

ANYWAY now we can start with the new posts! Anyone want a weird piece that started as me dumping the ink from dry ballpoint pens out on a piece of paper?

The page before:

I can turn anything into a reference if I try hard enough.

[endeus]

el phantasmo shaking his tuchus to e-l-p chants

[pencilofawesomeness]

I was so caught up in the euphoria of making shit up, I forgot I wasn't uncontested. Wild that canon exists and is ongoing. Wild.

[weaponsdrawn]

"Flippy. I'm sorry for trying to kill you, and for killing the neighbors along the way, when you tried to keep me grounded. It wasn't right. I know I haven't done a good job of keeping you safe, and we're trying to live peaceful lives. ...Flippy? What are you doing?"

The screenshots I referenced, and full page are under the cut!

also HI yes this is a series im going to be trying to do where I do like redraws of creepypasta/retakes/just general scary internet things but like with my blorbos or whatever. i initially got the idea when fliqpy's icon in like the flipped out mod reminded me of the iconic max and ruby 004 eyes thing, and then that spiraled into a whole "hey what if flippy just gave up and tried to off himself into dormancy and it fucked up fliq" type of idea/concept. esp bc i am a huge fan of the idea of fliq undergoing some kind of "Fucked Up Evil Protector Experiences Remorse" YES I consider it to be a system, and YES I think a lot about the whole "seeing everyone as an enemy soldier" thing. like personally I hc he existed pre-war as a protector, and like ok i know double whammy has them fight but I feel like he does gen want flippy to well. BE ok/he cares about that little goober. its just The War absolutely decimated the system in multiple ways and thats how we get like ZERO communication between them, fliq seemingly only fronting/acting on trauma responses ALONE and doing shit like brute forcing fronting whenever theres any sort of trauma/ptsd related trigger, and flippy just trying rlly hard to live a normal life. shit like the dipping fries in blood like its ketchup thing i just chalk it up to htf being a funny goofy series bc i find it funny when absurd shit like that happens . wow this turned into a huge rant that i honestly rushed bc i wanna get lunch anyhow

[thatrandomuseriguess]

time for 11 pm posting. anyways i liked this au made by somebody named puffstarss, and my finger slipped so i made this really low-quality fan art of it.

the flower took me the longest time to do, honestly, since i made it last. oh yeah, i'd @ puffstarss but i'm a bit of a wuss and dont like randomly @ ing people for no reason. like, i feel like i'd be rude and begging for attention for doing it, so uh...

[slurpslurpmmmoatmilk]

i put them in a suit :>

the campaign they're from is going crazy

anyhoo bonus drawing:

[saucy-mesothelioma]

'Tis the season, and nobody is safe from Over the Garden Wall propaganda. Not even my German professor

[tamblrtrain]

kaito's personal poetry (he's very repressed)

do you know what goes bump in the night?

mandatory @overlymetaromantic tagging because i. dunno. i am going to release my demons via kaito. i'm scared of myself. also side note kaito does not look at the poetry after he writes it he is ashamed of himself and if karin ever finds it he would jump into a pool (headcanon: kaito cannot swim for shit. bathtub too deep? he'll drown)

~

Pull my hair and make me scream

Down in the night where no one hears

Tear off my clothes right from the seams

Kiss me hard and bite my ears

Spend your time on every inch

Swear I'll fulfill your every wish

I'm begging, pleading, give me more

Make me hurt and make me sore

I'll do whatever for your smile

Know I'll go every extra mile

In time, the world will start to feel

Like we're the ones that make it real

Lock the doors and hold me tight

Whisper sweet nothings through the night

If you want, I'll put up a fight

You're the only thing bringing me delight

~

first two stanzas had me reeling........... that is peak horny right there. god line 8 had me fucking dying. ueeeeeeh. kaito get it together i don't want to torture myself like this. also you could solidly sing this.

honestly this is probably better than what kaito would actually write but i go hard on poetry so. y'know

i mean as long as you could see kaito reading this and crying about it because it describes his carnal desires that's a win

[spacenintendogs]

i've opened commissions on my ko-fi!!

very happy to have my ko-fi page up and running again! feel free to peruse through it! sharing in any way is also greatly appreciated!

[shsl-analyzer-guy]

Guys I'm scared

Junko's analysis is officially as long as Taka's

and I have done an estimated 10% of it

[yucca-moth]

I'm doing a new playthrough and it's getting me thinking about stuff. I find it incredibly harrowing that Victor basically has a dead guy's brain copied into him and has to do whatever House tells him to do.

Trudy is telling me how 'it's' hiding something, and doesn't trust Victor at all. Easy Pete telling me how he's harmless and "a broken down relic with no place to be."

Got me thinking again about how Victor's just been rolling around every so often in Goodsprings (while I'm assuming every so often switching consciousness to another robot). Why? Why keep watch over Goodsprings? It's not like it's instrumental to the strip or House at all to hang around there for 10 years.

Which leads me to the deeper questions like how much humanity remains in him? How much of the person he's based on remains specifically? Does he still think like a human, or are all the processes now... hmm filtered through machine like reasoning?

What got me thinking about Victor in this way again was suddenlyremembering how I asked him to help us defend Goodsprings in my first playthrough, and he didn't show up. Feeling disappointed. Then I think I used science skill when I next saw him to determine 'someone' (obv House in retrospect) had shut him down to prevent him showing up to help.

Incredibly horrifying to think that someone who owns you could shut you down like that, no matter their relationship when he was human. If House can shut him down, and gets him to do things like follow me around but not get involved, then how much free will does he have over his actions? Has Victor changed in the last 200 years? Or is he stuck exactly as he was when his brain was scanned, except that he has no choice in what he does now if House doesn't like it. Does he get to die if he wants to? Or is he too useful to House to be allowed that? Can House mess around with his artificial brain or just simply manipulate him into doing what he wants the old fashioned way? Is his compliance with House out of habit from when he was human, choice because he still agrees with House's ideas, or is there no choice for him?

I vaguely remember the explanations he gave me in the Lucky 38 in a previous playthrough making me sad. I can't even remember what he said exactly about himself, but I remember lots of questions feeling left unanswered. Which is part of the fnv experience of course... But, in this case I just couldn't even look at Victor standing outside the Lucky 38 without feeling bad. And now seeing him rolling around Goodsprings it's bringing back some of the sadness

I know part of the fun of FNV is creating your own ideas, roleplaying, deciding how to take situations where it isn't fully fleshed out or the constraints of the game are showing. So idk, I hope maybe I'm thinking about it all in a certain way, and maybe I come across or reason out another way to think about these Victor questions in my current playthrough. But for now he's a bunch of unanswered questions to me.