#i havent reread it in awhile though so i will save my thoughts on it for later

[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

[bye-bye-firefly]

Oh! Is this about the new ao3 ai policy? I think I heard about that last night. I had checked Unseeliekey’s account and saw that he had deleted all of his works. Read that he had been thinking of deleting them for awhile because of ao3’s policies and he didn’t wanna support them but the ai thing is what sent him over the edge. Might wanna double check that though since I was sleepy when I read that and may not have absorbed all the info or absorbed it correctly. I have most of Unseeliekey’s works saved in my google drive so I can still reread them, which I’m very thankful for, would be so heartbroken if I could never see them again.

Anyway, I’m really sorry you have to make all your works account only just so the stupid ais can’t get their little grubby ai mining hands on them! All this ai stuff is really gross and really sucks

that whole thing i posted was actually sparked by unseeliekey leaving! which is really sad honestly. and imo with my two cents if i am to say anything about that. ao3 doesnt even support ai they just dont know what to do at this time Legally. i disagree with a lot of unseeliekey's points, but that's not really up to me to convince him i did not even know him and i dont want to tell him hes wrong. its his thoughts and his worldview so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ sad to see him go, though. thats fandom history lost right there. newer fans will never get to see fics that literally SHAPED the fandom. unseeliekey is pretty much responsible for the phantom thief au as it is today. it really is such a great loss. i hope that maybe he changes his mind, makes them public but not on ao3. maybe puts out the chapters that never made it to the light of day; i know there were chapters that were done, just not published before he left the fandom, if he still has those files

and goddd the fucking ai. i hate having to make my fics ao3 accounts only it pisses me off so bad i just want people to be able to read my shit without having to worry about scrapes and shit like that like. i am still kind of on the fence about making some of my newer stuff account only. like making nameless and nobody move account only? i hate that. maybe ill make my finished works account only and then wait until everything that i havent abandoned is done to make them account only. that might be the better plan. just pisses me off theres nothing we can do right now IM SO SERIOUS we need to find a way to make glaze for writers im not tech savvy but there has to be a way where people on ao3 can be able to read the work but ai cant and it just fucks them. that would be great but i dont even know if thats possible