#open letters to him

[braxix]

Gil-Galad: Ugh, this paperwork makes me wish I was dead.

Elrond: I can help with that?

Gil-Galad, immediately suspicious: No, I think I'm good.

[lil-gingerbread-queen]

Harley joining the batfam be like.

(More shenanigans under the cut)

Harley: Bats! I have a gift for ya! Batman: ... What is this? Harley: A club's membership's card! Batman: ... Harley: And I've some for the commie, his daughter and your big red riding hood.

The cards in question:

(yes, she drew the pictures. Jason is Bat Brat for reasons)

[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.

[ghostnotoast]

I just know John was shitting bricks when he looked at Oscar's letter and saw nothing

[gayofthefae]

I've been seeing people lately say Will and El being close is fanon but it's literally not. They were each other's only friends in Cali because they wouldn't have seen Jonathan much in school and had no other friends. They do what writers do, which is small but specific lines when you have minimal screentime to establish this. That's what 4x01 was FOR.

But yes. They aren't each other's #1 in the world, I'd say. Because they're close like SIBLINGS. They fight, in a petty, stupid way. They cheer each other on but they make little comments like "Will has not". But they also fix things together and go to work parties for their mom and eat breakfast and dinner together every morning.

Minimal screentime is not the same as fanon. They're close like siblings.

They lived together every day with no other friends for minimum six months. To claim anything else came from that is both illogical and a disregard of season 4 episode 1, which has their Cali screentime completely dedicated to establishing them with each other. I thought we were all for every inclusion being purposeful and meaning something?

I honestly think people just aren't used to getting wishes granted but I must comfort you, this is extrapolation, which is very different from fanon, though understandably confusable. We drew from the text what they gave us, we didn't headcanon where there were gaps.

All they do the entire opening episode of season 4 is love each other.

[ryllen]

Look what came through the mail today! The letters & ( •̀ω•́ )σ 3 little gremlins from letterstoear.

Just wanna say i adore the flower stickers on the letters too much, they are that much worth mentioning.

[chickpea0]

Everyone put your most out of left field regression headcanon 3 2 1 GO!

[prophvtics]

"do you have any idea how worked up those polaroids got me?" it was one thing to be receiving fan mail for a band that was trying to refuse gaining a traditional fanbase, it was another to have that fan mail consist of dirty photos and letters, smutty stories that even he found himself scandalised with during reading. no one knew he was the band's lead singer, the balaclava he wore was supposed to be a statement on how they were refusing to mass market themselves to appease the big record companies desires for maximum profit, yet it hadn't been enough to ward off hoards of fangirls. "you sent photos of you getting yourself off to a total fuckin' stranger. why'd you do that?"

[aroaceleovaldez]

Something something Jason feeling like he doesn't quite fit as "Greek" or "Roman" as a metaphor for bisexuality, particularly the semi-canonical bi-coding in his half of experiences during the Cupid scene and how Favonius and Cupid speak to him in parallel to the scenes confirming Nico is gay.

Something something the camps as metaphors for traditionally acceptable forms of relationships and Nico living as a rogue outside of them, rejecting expectation (ergo in himself representing a metaphor of queer identity and living outside of boxes and defined/usually hetero-allonormative/binary ideas of what love/relationships should look like) versus Jason struggling with the expectation to conform to a label and even discussing with Nico both of them remaining at CHB together.

Something something the inverse of Jason shifting away from the camps after he breaks up with Piper, feeling lost and unable to find a place between the camps as he begins to explore his queer identity properly for the first time versus Nico only remaining at CHB because he has entered a relationship. In this essay I will-

[hanzajesthanza]

i love how the tone shift in crossroads of ravens goes from “what’s wrong with me, why do i feel emotions, i must have been made wrong” to “strangling racists with my bare fucking hands”. on the spectrum of geralt of rivia, it really hit all the notes

[canisalbus]

So y’know how catholic priests do confessionals right and that homosexuality was seen as a sin they had to confess to- I’m just picturing Machete in the other box just listening to everyone tell him how gay they are and honestly idk how he’d respond to it. but it’s interesting I think 👀

I'm under the impression that he'd hate doing confession duty and would probably avoid it whenever possible. He doesn't like being confined in a little box, away from the spaces he deems safe and familiar, with nothing productive to do but to sit and marinate in his thoughts. He doesn't like talking to strangers, especially one-to-one and about topics that are this delicate and personal, and he certainly doesn't like trying to come up with a fitting penance or words of sage advice. Even in the rare occasions when he gives it a honest try he feels like fish out of water. He'd be very formal and impersonal to deal with and penitents would probably find him mildly unnerving in his emotionlessness, but at least he'd be quick about it. He'd be even more tight-lipped if the topic of homosexuality came up, maybe he'd have some kind of tired pre-rehearsed set of lines prepared for those situations, nothing too condemning but also sufficiently in line with the church's standings. And then he'd go home feeling like the most spineless hypocrite.

[destinywillowleaf]

they're gonna go on an adventure to figure out what this thing is

[kevindavidday]

her little parisian duckling. i want to know more about jean and thea actually.

[dreameroftheblue]

mentally I am chewing on him like a stim toy

[quinloki]

Fuck, he's so pretty I don't know what to DO with myself.

[arithmeticanimaniac]

pride and prejudice and zombies (2016) is a top tier adaption because you can see how genuinely darcy believes he and lizzy have been flirting this whole time up to the first proposal scene. the camera stays with him the whole way and lingers on his self-satisfied face as he finishes delivering what is surely the most romantic proposal since shakespeare. and then lizzy rejects him and we get to watch the whole process on his face as he short circuits and reboots.