Nico: You really put aside everything and came all this way for me? How did you even get here so fast?
Percy: Several traffic violations.
Jason: Three counts of resisting arrest.
Leo: Roughly thirteen cans of energy drinks.
Frank: Also, that’s not our car.
This was inspired by the song (I literally dropped everything and ran to do this very shittily in like- an hour when I listened to it today) but also closely inspired by @tapakah0's Idea 10 animation vid, its very pretty with its vibes uvu <3
Thinking about how Leo says he uses his jokes to cope and y’know, thinking harder on it I think it may very well be because of what else uses one-liners and puns and that type of humor.
Specifically, 80’s action movies and campy sci-fi. Even more specifically, the protagonists of these.
So I can imagine why, exactly, Leo leans toward this brand of humor. It’s directly linked to things he loves! But even more than that is why I think it’s used as a coping mechanism.
In these genres, these quips tend to be said by the winner - or, if not a winner, then someone who will stay alive. So there’s a confidence behind them, an assurance, almost, that even if things go wrong, things aren’t ever too serious. There’s no bad endings here! It’s all good fun, even if the stakes seem high.
Leo canonically has been known to steer his brothers away from the more brutal villains and toward more fun, lighthearted activities and not-so-dangerous criminals. So for Leo, these jokes definitely make things less heavy, make the situations they find themselves in less intense.
It’s kinda not just coping, but also can be seen as a form of escapism. A safety blanket. A way for Leo to defuse the tension of knowing just how dangerous their lives are and replace that with a levity which implies that things will be okay.
Unfortunately, levity alone does not alter reality.
Still messing with the Dissidia Opera Omnia asset files. Discovered that the animations are all held separately from the models, meaning you can mix and match animations and character models. So I made Leo do Terra's BT attack. He is beauty, he is grace.