#late night semi

[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

[bearotonin-international]

When it’s supposed to be No Thoughts November but you’re having a Thinky Thoughts Thursday

[whipbogard]

Jsyk, your comic "A Private Affair" gives me life. Thank you! (❁´◡`❁)

Aaaaaaa TY!!!! please have a doodle of them because I’m so busy rn to work on the next chapter :’DDD

[secondbeatsongs]

saw one of my own posts on my dash three times today, and I'm having flashbacks of that time a girl at a party said I looked like I was from tumblr, and asked if I was "tumblr famous"

[appleblocks]

everyone draws such cool things

meanwhile i dont know what to draw

i dont enjoy doing fanart as much as I enjoy personal work... idk if you've noticed lmao

ill figure something out

[beet-n-ninja-cookie-daily]

Today's Ninja Cookie is caught eating late night snacks

[tiniest-hands-in-all-the-land]

you're the expert and i don't know how else to find out: there a lot of aus I've seen repeatedly on pixiv, and i can't tell if they're just very popular fan aus or inspired by things in canon: one where draluc is in a bunny ears+waiter outfit and ronaldo in a suit with glasses, then one where they're both missing an eye and everything looks more fighty. Where did these come from??

I don't know if I'm an expert, but I'll definitely share what I've learned!

I will disclose that most of the information I have is second-hand from other sources + my own interpretations. So please don't take anything I say as cold hard fact; i'm sure I'm getting a bunch of little details mixed up

The Bunny!Draluc and Glasses!Ronaldo one is based off Chapter 227, which is basically a retelling of a collection of fairytales, except it's Kyuushi, so silly things happen

Ronaldo in Glasses is based off the Japanese fairytale of Kintarou, a story about a guy who grew up in the wilderness among animals and nature, who is brought back into society to get an office job, and ends up using his new wealth and executive power to stop his company from tearing down the mountain that he grew up at.

Bunny!Draluc is based off the Tortoise and the Hare story, where Draluc is the hare and John is the tortoise. But instead of racing, Draluc just spends his time doting on John and gushing about how cute he is (As he should ^^)

There's not much canon information about them besides that, but I believe the Kintarou and Bunny AU got put together mainly cuz they appeared in the same chapter, and also that Bonnoki might have done some account-jack/white day tweets that paired them up?

The most common fanon interpretations I've seen of them (or at least my understanding/personal headcanon of it) are that Draluc works as a bunny in an establishment (wink wink) where one can pay the hosts for goods and services (wink wink), and the prices Draluc charges for his goods and services are extremely high, and most people can't afford him/don't wanna deal with him cuz he's kinda annoying lol. But not only can newly-rich wild man Kintarou!Ronaldo pay his outragous price, he will pay his outrageous price, and then some.

Ronaldo is very light-hearted, kinda simple-minded, and naive in this AU. Very much a person who grew up surrounded by animals and is now being subjected to the weirdness of human society, but he has taken a fancy to the vampire dressing up as a bunny. But since there's not a lot of canon info on this AU outside of the short sections in the chapter, there's a lot that's left up to personal interpretation. Above is just what i kinda tend to see the most

I'm assuming the "missing eyes" one you're talking about is the Inverse/Inverted AU. This one is also based on a chapter in the manga (chapter 189) where everyone except Draluc gets hypnotized by vampiric butterflies to essentially flip their personality.

So Ronaldo, who's typically very brash, rude, arrogant, and punch-first-ask-questions-later, is inverted to instead be very polite, soft-spoken, dainty, lady-like, and prefers to talk down opponents over tea and cakes rather than get violent (Though a lot of people including myself like to also headcanon that Inverse!Ronaldo is a sadist, though this has no canon basis other than the fact that Rona tends to showcase some very masochistic tendencies in canon, and so the inverse of that would be...)

I'm not sure if this is canon to the chapter or just super popular fanon, but because Inverse!Rona is so lady-like and shoujo-esque, Rona's referred to a lot by feminine pronouns

Draluc didn't get hypnotized in this chapter, and therefore did not get an inverted personality. However, sometime later, Bonnoki posted a couple of drawings of what Inverted!Draluc would look like, including white hair, a prosthetic eye, and a rapier sword. Fan interpretation writes Inverse!Draluc as more of an introvert than Canon!Dora; for the most part, he's still polite, but in an "honorable swordsman" kinda way; he's a little more brash, rude, and unafraid to get into a fight than he is in canon.

According to Bonnoki, Inverse!Draluc cannot truly exist because he violates the Dora Dora Compliance Rule, which basically states that no matter what timeline, world, or AU, Draluc must always be weak and die in no time. I'm assuming it's because of the scar over his eye and his fake eye that Bonnoki brought this up, because him having a scar would imply that he merely sustained injury instead of outright dying.

Speaking of Draluc's different colored eye/scar: as far as I'm aware, there's no canon event known that caused the eye trauma. Apparently, before more info was written for Inverse!Draluc, there was a good chunk of the fanbase that headcanoned that Inverse!Ronaldo removed one of their eyes to give to Draluc. But it was later confirmed that Draluc's eye is a prosthetic with ice powers

(which got me hmming and hawwing that maybe Northdin got something to do with that? Hmm? Hmmmmmmm? Maybe something bad happened during Draluc's apprenticeship and Northdin had to do what he could to save his student hmmmmmmm--)

Bonnoki states that Inverse!Draluc is just as weak as Canon!Draluc and can die/revive, but there was also something he said that stated that he has no regenerative powers, which kinda confuses me. A good chunk of the fandom, myself included, have kinda just.. ignored that "he's just as weak as canon" part lol. My personal headcanon is that while he is still pretty physically weak, Inverse!Draluc is wicked good at swordfighting and actually has a fairly good handle on his vampire abillties; but if he dies, he'll die for good.

I've read somewhere that Inverse!Draluc is supposed to be Draluc just cosplaying and that's why he's as weak as he is in canon despite everything pleading to the contrary, but I don't know if this is true or not.

Idk idk, I just have a lot of thoughts about Inverse; it's one of my favorites :>

And if the Inverse AU wasn't the one you were talking about with "missing eyes", then... i'm sorry, I'm afraid i don't know what you're referring to D: Maybe Uso?

Idk. I need to get to sleep now lol. I hope this helped!

[to-dance-beneath-the-diamond-sky]

now i don't ever care all that much about pop culture or celebreties, but there are handful of musicians i used to admire and respect. but the overwhelming silence and cowardice of celebrities and influencers and high profile people refusing to say a single word against this genocide is so insidious. they just want to stay in their gilded shiny rich little worlds and pretend it's not happening, because heaven forbid they use their platforms and risk pissing racist islamophobic zionist biggots off.

i have lost any and all respect for these musicians. they either support israel or they are too fucking cowardly to risk pissing off all the people up israel's ass who have bought into israel's dehumanization of palestinians and their racist islamophobic zionist propaganda.

fuck them. i have zero respect for cowardice and complicity when people are being systematically annihilated by a genocidal government. their silence is despicable.

silence in the face of genocide, especially silence when you have a platform, is complicity. every single one of them is cowardly and is complicit.

[behind-thebrowneyes]

Bad presentation but soo yummy. Strawberries, broken up graham crackers, vanilla Greek yogurt, melted chocolate to top it, and put in the freezer for 10 mins. Then bam yummy goodness.

[afarcryfrommymain]

SEMI-FINALS: Deputy Calahan Hartley V Kit Cross

Deputy Calahan "Rookie" Hartley (@inafieldofdaisies)

About: Calahan is 23, the main source of Sheriff's Whitehorse headaches and occasional bane of John Seed's existence. A destructive pretty boy that ends up wreaking havoc anywhere he goes and quite often finds himself in trouble thanks to his cockiness and daredevil nature. Still, this is just the way he likes things anyway. What's a party without a little fire?

Does your OC have anything to share?: "Strategy? Pfft. Like I'd reveal my secrets."

Kit Cross (@socially-awkward-skeleton)

About: Kit Cross, former soldier turned Deputy for the Hope County Sheriff's Department. She's cold and ruthless and all too happy to take out Peggies, until of course the Seeds start digging their fingers in and she becomes a feral and savage member of the cult's army better known as "The Lion".

Does your OC have anything to share?: "I've killed more people than I can remember, I won't be losing any sleep over a few more."

[queerbrainrot]

Youtube: we want you to use our service over tiktok so here's a 40 second/1 min 30 second unskippable ad, on top of a second unskippable ad

[bugborgs]

im so fucking sad movie watch party sites fucking suck these days bc i would love to host a movie night and watch gotg with a bunch of you guys

[floral-hex]

ayyyyyyy I set up an appointment for medication this Friday (telemedicine but whatever) and I get to see my former therapist again later this month. I’m kind of excited. More than kind of. Little sad, but I’m lonely and want to talk to someone. He’s a real cool dude. I’m a little worried to trauma dump the last 6 months on him, but whatever, it beats sitting there for an hour feeling like I’m wasting his time and struggling to think of things to say. dang dang dang, I’m excited.

[dontpunchdogs]

man i love having a deeply emotionally charged conversation w my imagination for hours instead of being able to sleep

[voidchildstar]

Dear salmon run players-

PUT THE EGGS IN THE MF BASKET- istg i've lost so many rounds because people just leave the eggs sitting around and I swear I'm the only 1 trying to meet the quota-

[havvkinsqueen]

---☁︎｡⋆｡ Chrissy knew she was always welcome to Steve's when he was there, but still, showing up unannounced really had her nervous. This was @hairoic . They've been friends since they were kids. And yet? The blonde was still chewing on her bottom lip- A way to channel her anxiety. Giving a ring to the doorbell, she stood there practicing what she was going to say as she waited for Steve to open the door. Well, hopefully him and not a surprise visit from his parents.