The way haters just boil Annabeth's character to just insulting Percy and not seeing theres more to her really shows how much they dont get her. Honestly Percy would hate them for this...

thanks for the ask @emilia9622!

agreed completely. like if you want to dislike a character, go for it. but don’t lie to yourself. don’t base it all off of one thing or flaw and make it 100x bigger than it is.

for instance, i don’t like luke. but it’s for a multitude of reasons. he knowingly betrayed all his friends several times, fought a deadly war against them, and intentionally poisoned the camp. he was percy’s first friend at camp and was a mentor to him, but had no issues lying to him and deceiving him. he literally was fine with the idea of 12 year old little percy being dragged down to tartarus. he also let annabeth be kidnapped and forced to hold up the world. when he finally saw thalia alive, he fought her and tried to harm her. yes i know that there is very complex trauma and history that led to all his actions, and i really do feel so bad for him, but i can’t respect someone who betrays his close friends like that. no matter what. i could go on and on, and don’t get me started about him having romantic feelings for annabeth… UGH. but that said, i understand why people love his character. he’s complex and has a lot of really good history. he also has a wonderful, yet tragic, redemption at the end. he really deserved better. i don’t have love for him, but his character deserves love. i’m happy that there are people to love him so that i don’t have to, because i have personal reasons for not liking him. i think luke is an amazingly well written character and i think rick wrote him beautifully. the truth is, besides the singular part where he admitted he had feelings for annabeth, i wouldn’t change anything about him or his story. so personally, i don’t like him, but i think he’s a great character and objectively, i can see why people love him.

it’s okay to dislike a character. but don’t pick their biggest flaws, strip away all the good parts of the character, and fool yourself into believing that’s all they are. (and then continue to go on tumblr and scream about how toxic and terrible the character is 🙄)

this is what “people can’t handle complex characters” actually means. people often throw that phrase around. people say that about readers not liking jason all the time, but the truth is, people are fully entitled to not like jason. it doesn’t make sense to me, because i LOVE jason. he’s my cutie patootie. but the people who dislike him simply don’t like him. they don’t usually make him out to be someone he’s not, they just don’t like him for who he is. they often just don’t find him interesting enough to break down the more complex parts of his character. it breaks my heart, and i don’t understand, but that’s okay. they just don’t like him. there’s nothing else to it. most annabeth haters, however, make her out to be someone she’s not and then proceed to hate on that one self-generated version of her. it’s so toxic. THAT is not being able to handle a complex character

no, annabeth is not perfect. if she was, she would be unrealistic, and people would hate her for that too. yes, she has excessive pride. she tends to think herself above others, and yes that even includes percy at times. but you know what? she admitted to having that issue all the way back in book 2. she was literally 13 when she explained to percy what hubris is and how it’s her biggest downfall. she’s a self aware queen. she knows it’s an issue and she works hard to correct it in little ways and make sure the people around her, especially percy, know she values them and their opinions. anyone who read the heroes of olympus series unbiased and got to read her POV knows that annabeth holds percy in the highest regard. she respects the hell out of him. even though sometimes she says things that aren’t nice, she doesn’t truly feel that way and always corrects it in some way. she’s not selfish, she’s just tragically intelligent, and it naturally gives her a bit of a complex. it wouldn’t make sense if it didn’t.

and i love her for it. the fact that she has a real flaw that can affect relationships, but that she is self aware of and actively works on, makes her legit one of my favorite characters ever. she’s SO realistic.

but people take that one flaw and make it her whole character. they call her cold and harsh, when in reality she’s one of the most warm and sensitive people in the series. she takes care of her friends. she’s strong and she’s often the leader, but it’s because she’s so loving and kind all the time. she works hard and looks out for everyone. she makes friends fast for a reason. she’s a wonderful person. she’s so, so sweet, and it breaks my heart that people choose to take that away from her.

anyway, sorry i just word vomited so much. basically i agree 100%.

my ranking of the tig villains/most hated characters

i'm bored so i'm doing this. 1 is the character i hate most meaning 8 is the one i hate the least. i apologize if this sucks. its quite late for me as i'm writing this.

drake. ik most people would put eve or smth at the top of this list, but this dude is an abuser and a pedophile (he used to call avery jailbait which means "a person who is younger than the legal age of consent for sexual activity and usually appears older, with the implication that a person above the age of consent might find them sexually attractive" according to wikipedia). not only was he horrible to libby, but he also tried to kill avery. characters like him just give me the ick and the creeps and i just can't stand them.

eve. i think this is self-explanatory. eve is one of the most annoying and petty characters i've ever read about. she tried to kill avery, kidnapped tobias (and ruined his chances of forming a better relationship with avery, and, as the biggest toby and avery father daugther stan, i cannot stand this), manipulated grayson, and hurt many people. if you don't hate her, i don't trust you. also, i hope she doesn't get a redemption arc bc she doesn't deserve it.

sheffield. i have one thing to thank this dude for and that's the love confession from jameson after he put avery in a coma. other than that, he bombed avery, kidnapped avery, cheated on his wife, was a horrible 'father' to grayson (and his daugthers bc of colin). he's honestly tied with eve (he's not first cause i can't stand guys like drake). i dont really think i have to explain myself

emily. i really don't think i have to explain. she's manipulative, petty, self-absorbed. the only thing she has going for her is that she didn't try to kill anyone. she treated the boys like crap, emotionally abused her sister, and (although she wasn't present to do it i still blame her for it) affected avery's self-esteem.

ricky. i know he's high on this list but he's just so creepy to me. anyone who hurts avery in any way si automatically a no for me. he was never there for avery and libby, refused to take custody of her after her mom died, didn't show up to hannah's funeral, tried to step up to get money after avery inherited, got together with skye (ew???). ik this doesn't seem horrible in comparison to what the others did, but seeing avery's feelings towards him in the books (especially thl) made me despise him so that's why he's so high up.

tobias. he emotionally abused his grandsons, put avery in a position that he knew might get her killed, treated his own kids horribly, hurt a lot of people in order to become who he became. the only reason he isn't higher up is bc he did sometimes do nice things (although not often).

vincent. him and tobias are sort of interchangeable??? but he partnered with eve to get toby kidnapped (sort of putting a stop to toby and avery's relationship which like said earlier pisses me off). from what i remember, he didn't really do anything else and i sort of understand where he was coming from (getting revenge on tobias) but what he did is still horrible and taking his anger towards tobias out on a teenage girl is just weird to me.

skye. i find her character sort of interesting but she is a horrible mother towards her sons. she's also a huge pick me bc who sleeps with their sister's boyfriend. she also tried to get avery killed which is just a no no. this is sort of off topic and i've made a post about this before but she didn't get punished enough for what she did to avery and that is grayson's fault. i talk about it in slightly more detail in this post.

although i knew that avery was hurt by a lot of people in this series, this really showed me exactly how bad it was. there are even more people. literally every person on this list hurt her (directly or indirectly (in emily and vincent's case)). these people either tried to get her killed, messed with her head or both. avery is a girl boss. she deserves better.

PLEASE explain your thoughts on kriselle in full detail

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS 100% UNPROMPTED ASK! I SHALL EXPLAIN

i hate toby fox. why did he do this to us. he really put it better than anyone else. not really romantic not really platonic but…. something else… some secret more sinister more heartfelt more absurd third thing

i wonder at what point should i clarify that i dont even really seek out kriselle in a romantic context… DONT GET ME WRONG i have zero issues with the ship whatsoever and all of the krisellers out there are living their best (most painful) lives and i SEE THE APPEAL. BUT when i rotate them in my brain i dont need them to kiss or anything like that i just need them to sit down and sadly hold hands and stay like that forever and ever. in case you couldnt gauge that from my art so far

tldr i dont think i ship them in the traditional sense at least …. the things that i usually fixate on for any romantic ship are not there with these two. there are no romantic feelings there In my mind. and all at the same time i start screaming and throwing up and killing myself (all positive) whenever i see them even in the same image together. hngh

ive tried explaining this to people before and they usually suggest something along the lines of a QPR and even that doesnt feel right to me. truly the best way i can put it is… that red string of fate man… which i almost hesitate on saying too because i dont actually know if noelle is Quite an important enough character to the story to warrant a connection like that. WHICH IS A CRAZY THING TO SAY. I KNOW. DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT GETTING ME WRONG i think dess and her connections to gaster and her usage as a stepping stone into the weird route are all VERY important… but in my brain its just not kris/knight/asriel/every other mysterious main focus of the story Important. i didnt mean to get into deltarune theorizing here i hope nobody’s blood is boiling rn

so yeah in the end. toby fox once again put it best. they are friends, but they are also something else.

back to the actual pairing though… sometimes i think im going overboard and overestimating how close kris and noelle were as children because noelle will go and say things like “i wonder if we were ever really friends at all.” which is kind of a fair statement considering the circumstances. sure they played together and all and tagged along with their siblings to do stuff together but when dess went missing… it all kind of stopped. kris is just a kid, they dont know what to do or even how to process it, much like noelle. asriel is probably dealing with his own feelings, he just lost his friend and likely old enough to understand the weight of what happened. while noelle and kris cant say much to each other at all.

im always back and forth on speaking headcanons for kris but the one that i always seem to come back to is selective mutism… to me kris had a lot of trouble communicating well as a child and could only grow comfortable around certain people, asriel and noelle being clear examples because they’re both so patient with them. maybe because of this noelle felt like they could understand each other without really needing words, and just physical interaction was enough to achieve some form of closeness… or maybe that was all just on her end, she thinks when kris goes to play the piano. but if that’s the case, why does it feel like a concert just for her…?

jesus dont even get me start on them as teenagers either. noelle has lost her sister, and now kris has lost their brother… but not in the same way. they look at each other and wonder if they’re the same now. or, maybe thats too cruel. maybe its not the same thing at all. asriel’s coming back soon, after all. it will all be over soon, kris won’t have to feel this way for much longer, right? so then, why does kris look so miserable, sitting in the corner over there? all noelle feels like she can do is sit next to them quietly. to be there, and to somehow, vaguely, messily help each other. the misfit kids that dont really know how to talk to each other and yet understand each other regardless

thats why the dark world feels like such a dream to her. these crazy city lights, fantastical creatures, susie’s there, and she actually might have the means to defend herself and stand her ground, whether it be verbally or… otherwise

and most of all, much like with kris offering an adventurous haven to susie in ch1, the same is extended to noelle. by kris’s side, no less. it feels like theyre doing things together again, and its fun, and nostalgic… she wants to bring dess. and i think its okay to assume kris wants to bring asriel, too. recreating the make-believe world they lost so long ago… is it really possible?

no… how can it really be possible, when this isnt kris? something is wrong. its almost perfect, except kris… it’s them, but it’s not. she sees their face, their expressions, their laughs, their worries. and yet the voice that comes from them… isnt them. and it scares her! even if nothing particularly bad happened as a result. and if something bad DID happen, well…

she just wants what they had before back. is it really so impossible? can they reconcile after all these years? does kris want to? is kris capable of doing so? maybe they just need to hug again. will it feel like a real hug? the person she thought she understood is acting in ways she doesnt understand. they’re telling her to do weird things. they cycle through actions as if they just want to know what happens. and they cant even play piano anymore.

The Amazing Devil truly knocked it out of the park with Fair in terms of love songs i mean its got everything. Domesticity, deep adoration, confessions of love when youre sure no one else can hear, a that's what she said joke, yogurt, genuinely dont think there's a more romantic song on the face of the earth

writing my silly little fic and again im struck with how much opportunities they missed by pretending the s2 stancy breakup wasn't messy, specifically for Nancy's guilt about barb and forcing herself to grow up too fast

like s1 Nancy spends one night being a stupid teenager goofing off at her boyfriend's party and staying over to get spicy while Barb goes home. then she later realizes Barb disappeared and died that one night she was letting go and having fun. this is widely recognized trauma for her and informs a lot if not most of her actions through the rest of the show

in season 2 she's feeling the weight of it more around the first year anniversary. steve trys to help by taking her to a party to forget for a little while and 'be stupid teenagers' for a night. a perfectly set up parallel already

the way the show wants it to go, we get the bullshit argument, they fight, allegedly break up at some point, and nancy sleeps with Jonathan. later steve tells her to go with him and we're supposed to read it as Steve stepping back so jancy can happen. we're supposed to be seeing this as a happy ending.

but with the material we're given this would have been the perfect place for an emotional repeat of season 1 for nancy. she and steve go to the party and pretend to be stupid teenagers for the night. but oh no! nancy lets lose too much, lets herself relax and drink and dance, and the next day her boyfriend's pissed. hes saying she said things she never remembered saying and its hurt him and she doesn't know what to do. and kids around school are talking about them breaking up at the party, and that fits with Steve's anger she saw, so they must've broken up right? it sucks, even if she wasn't in love with him, that'd be the worst way to break up with someone (especially if she's confusing platonic and romantic feelings or convincing herself it has to be romantic when she really just values him as a friend)

and then she doesn't have time to work it out, she needs to go with Jonathan to avenge barbs 'disappearance' to give her family closure. She's got a lot of conspiracy shit to do and its stressful. so when murray starts going off about how she's not really in love with steve, how she actually likes Jonathan and he seems to like her back. they finished a lot of the hard work with the conspiracy stuff, she can let her guard down and have a quick good night.

then the next day is chaos. demodogs and labs and will being possessed. It a rough fucking day. Steve tells her to go with Jonathan while they get the mindflayer out of Will, civil like they're on good terms so she does (and thank god she did because that was rough and they needed all the help they could get)

and then everything's fine again, with the upside down. and it looks like she handled things better this time, was about to relax occasionally and still made it through.

except apparently she and steve didn't break up. he thought it was just a few fights, that they put their shit aside for the apocalypse and now they can work things out.

and it could ruin nancy. a year later and she's still hasn't learned her lesson, that letting her guard down hurts the people she cares about, that relaxing and having fun makes her lose people. its her fault for the messy breakup with Steve and its her fault that barb is gone. she's the reason she's lost friends close to her, 2 for 2, and now she only has Jonathan left (and what do you know, season 3 has her conflict with Jonathan and in season 4 she's not let anyone else get truly close to her and fred still dies)

you see what i mean?? by having conflict magical resolve itself in the background we loose so much powerful, painful character drama for her. our girl who thinks she has to keep the world around her up solely on her shoulders because she can't handle the loss of her best friend in season 1. Nancy who desperately wants to be normal and have people she loves but keeps losing them, through factors both in and out of her control, but feels like everything has to be her fault just because some things were.

and to be fair, that story is still present in the show. its there and definitely compelling, but it could've been even more so. i feel like if maybe there was less 'nancy has to be a strong independent girlboss' in there (abd it's definitely there, they want to make a point of making her a Strong Woman Character so bad) and she was allowed to have mistakes acknowledged by the narrative, this is the direction it would've gone. She could've been an excellent example of well written women who are strong and awesome through their own right instead of the narrative trying to make us like her

even for period typical ableism it still drives me nuts for karen to go oh poor matt how can he deal and get around as if he hasn't been blind most of his life at this point and living on his own by himself as an adult for his entire adult life after college and has also lived in the city his whole life like girl use your damn brain he can get around by himself just fine. good god. like take five seconds to use your brain. literally adult man who lives by himself if nothing else that should tell you he is fine and when he needs assistance has the knowledge and ability to go get it you act as if he can't even walk on the sidewalk by himself. he literally shows up to work by himself. it drives me up the wall sometimes how she sees proof of him functioning fine independently literally witnesses it on the daily and still thinks these things. like again foggy isn't great either bc again the period typical ableism (and just general ableism in the world outside of this period as this is a common attitude of viewing disabled people as helpless and unable to function even if they are people who do live independently (and im not touching on people who do need extra support and caretaking in this context. as this post is about these characters in the context of a story. so im talking about what we see there instead of any truly meaningful nuanced way) but the writing here is like. Particularly this way due to the time) he has a modicum more of understanding that matt is literally a capable grown adult man. literally told karen matt is a big boy who can handle himself and then karen went b-b-but you forget he's blind as if foggy hasn't known him for years of his life and is his best friend like PLEASE SEE HIM AS AN ADULT. I AM GOING TO GO INSANE. PLEASE RESPECT HIM IF YOU LOVE HIM SO DEARLY. AND EVEN IF YOU DIDN'T. JUST RESPECT HIM AS A PERSON!!!!!!

Me and my cat are exactly the same and it's hilarious. Like my gf just got a new rug to go over a cord we have on the floor (my autism along with some other factors make me really clumsy and I WILL trip over it so yeah) but she had me feel the rugs at the store because she wants one that's also an okay texture for me. Well she grabbed one and showed it to me and it's just *chefs kiss* very good texture. So immediately when she lays it down at home, me and the cat both sit on it before she's even done adjusting it XD

its like. hard to express to people why i love US-comics so much and why i enjoy reading them without mentioning how much fun it is to be in the online communities and be able to like. discuss the themes and meaning and complain about weak writing and bad characterisation to other people that’s like literally half the fun. i LOVE reading comics all the time but its so much more fun when you can talk about it with other people for like superhero us comics. bc theyre such an alive genre that’s basically always moving so we all read our little comics over the week and then we get together and bitch about it in a little online book club. like. it’s the best

I have a lot of mixed feelings about MatPat.

On the one hand, he definitely has a streak of bigotry. The pyro episode really comes to mind on that one, and his refusal to they/them Kris was also not cool, and there have been a lot of other examples here and there.

But he has been getting better. One of his Livestream hosts uses they/them from what I can tell, and I haven't heard any word that he's misgendered them anywhere.

But also, his theories have just been getting lower and lower quality as his channels kinda turned into something one step below a content farm. His Digital Circus theory, for example, he came up with ON GTLive and then just cleaned it up for the episode.

But he was also hosting all four channels. Each channel will have its own host now.

He made a lot of mistakes, but so does everyone.

Am I defending him? I dont know. Do I forgive him? No. Do I honestly care? ...I don't know.

I'm glad he's stepping away. But I'm also gonna miss him.

Like he said in the goodbye video, he was a lot of peoples childhoods. Mine was one of them. He's definitely not the best person nor was he the best influence, but he did help me realize that being a nerd and being passionate are good things. And his passion helped me want to create.

I'm glad he's leaving, but it also feels like my childhood is going with him. One last step towards that all-encompassing 21 in a few months from now.

I'll miss you, Mat. I hope you can continue to grow as a person and support others more in the future. Teach your son what the world failed to teach you when you were younger.

Also read the tags, please, okay Tumblr? Thanks.

I talk a lot about how different fanon!Helia is from canon!Helia but not enough but how bad it is for all the characters.

Like you have Riven going from this insecure teenage boy who lashes out at anyone who challenges him to this suave bad boy who could kill the winx. People seeing Stella as a stuck up brat, thinking that she loves Bloom more than the other winx, or that she would ever choose to be selfish in ways that hurt the other characters. Or Flora going from this fairly confident young girl who loves to meet new people and hangout with others to an introverted shy mess who never speaks up and would never say something sarcastic. Not to sound like a bitch but I really do think it's time the fandom stops pretending we're better than other fandoms and don't have Fanon Versions because we do and it's messing with y'alls perception of canon so fucking bad

also i know this is a hot take but it’s constantly on my mind whenever i read atla discourse. katara does not start out the series emotionally mature. katara starts out the series parentified and traumatized so that she has learned to replicate the behavior of an adult caretaker as closely as she, a child who is NOT an adult, can. there is a very very large distinction between these two things and without realizing that katara is acting from a space of trauma and playing a relatively rigid and simplistic role as a means of coping, you are imo pretty significantly misreading her character and her situation

unrelated to that lmfao

i love being not (insert religions based on the kings and their people as ''demons'') but being adjacent to the communities while knowing the kings on a personal level because oh boy

doing this sort of deep and detailed worldbuilding that doesn't really happen in my litfic works (well worldbuilding is still there, but even when i write litfic in a fictional setting it's not the same as this speculative project where there's lots of specific lore) has felt really nice because it's something to hold onto and familiarise myself with before i jump into the draft, but also because i'm not trying to outline the story alongside that i'll still get all the ways that discovery writing benefits me. making me think about how whether you're plotting a story ahead of drafting or not these sort of pre drafting rituals are really helpful and can take so many different forms depending on the story + writer

i hate my best friend earlier i was like "im scared that this guy likes me bc he said something that i would only say to people who i like, but i recognize thats its a normal ass thing to say anyway and i rationally know he does not like me, but still, my brain decided to play with that concept and made me have a terrible nightmare the other night about it and now im subconsciously scared that he will like me ( with the underlying concept of "i am scared of men")" and shell go ohohioo what if youre projecting and its actually YOU that likes him. ????? bitch did you not hear the part about having a dream where he abused me or ...?sometimes being asexual is a nightmare nobody gets it

Lesbian or trans guy…. Lesbian or trans guy… lesbian or trans guy…. That is The question

Yall wanna hear about smth? good im gonna rant in the tags anyway