#i dont know why this came to me

[raybeam-littlebean]

I feel like Kon/Conner is low key a genius.

I know the ability to be a genius isn't truly hereditary, that he can only be smart if applies himself, yatta yatta—

Anyways.

I feel like he'd be able to do geometry and calculus in his head, physics and chemistry too, kinda.

But definitely math, he gets that from Luthor, and he knows he does. Which is exactly why he never shows it, he tries to push it away or act like he doesn't know the answer.

He's still cocky and arrogant, he still takes needless risks. But those needless risk as strangely.. calculated. In the times that it truly matters, he can't push it away when he knows it could help his team, help him save someone.

Tim sees it, presses him about it, but Kon acts the same idiot he has always been. So boastful snd gloating, trying anything to distract the analytical mind of the world's greatest detective. Tim thinks he just got lucky this time, that it was a fluke, some kind of life in crisis adrenaline rush. The kind mother's get when their child is in danger and suddenly they can lift cars.

It's not a pattern, it's not frequent by any means, but it does happen again. And again. And one other time, and– There's such a large span between them as not every disaster is truly world ending, not every mission life or death. But on the missions where it matters, during disasters that could turn even worse. Tim looks at Kon, seeing this looks over his face that he doesn't think he's seen him use before. Like he's doing mental math.

And then he's off, doing a heroic feat and coming out on top all over again without Tim having to tell him anything. It's too precise, to calculating. Tim almost thinks he has a secret comm in his ear and someone is giving him directions on the other side.

Tim, while having a sleep over with Kon, probably decides to test him while he's sleep drunk and delirious. Asking him an incredibly difficult math problem that most people would need a white board to do. And Kon rattles off the answer like he had that shit prepared. Doesn't even blink.

Kon was a fucking genius this entire time and more or less hid it all because he didn't want to be compared to Luthor like he was always compared to Clark.

[m1zisua]

[kozykricket]

the FRIENDS tv show intro if it was written for a high school essay:

I'll be Therefore you

[corpsentry]

pick your battles

[dragonroilz]

[tea-cat-arts]

Shen Yuan getting transported into pidw isn't "the system punishing him for being a lazy internet hater," but instead representative of "step 1 of the creative process: getting so mad at something you decide to go write your own fucking book" in this essay I will

[puppppppppy]

au where asriel comes home early

[catmask]

my sister texted me smthing going on at home thats making me sad but im trying not to think about it and stay whimsical. its fursona friday..... its fursona feidayyyy...

[notedchampagne]

later loser! you took the part that cared

[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.

[skitskatdacat63]

DTS S6E1 "Money Talks" - Fernando Alonso & Lance Stroll

[localicecreambiter]

on that four grind (part 2)

[lynn-tged-posting]

please don't go

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Wei Wuxian eats a watermelon. Yep!

[darcyolsson]

I CANNOT BELIEEEEEVEEVVEEREHHENEW😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[crimeboys]

i dont want cdreambur kissing and being soft or having sex i want them standing next to each other with the most insane tension youve ever seen bc dream does Not want wilbur he just is happy to let wilbur want him bc it feels like worship bc It Is and wilbur doesn't want dream to want him bc he is just happy his god lets him spread his word and talk to him personally even if he can't touch. kicks rocks.