nobody ever talks about the decline of how hades looks like in the first episode he looks decent enough (like the average handsome rich ceo in a trashy romance novel) but now he looks like gru from despicable me

facts

these were some of the panels i studied most while trying to figure out to draw him myself, I'm STILL trying to achieve that "peak S1" look haha knowing now what Rachel's pre-LO art looked like, his design is really reminiscent of her male characters from The Doctor Pepper Show, you can tell she was drawing this off the back of that previous work. Now it's just-

。゜゜(´Ｏ`) ゜゜。

Thinking about the symbolic weight of smoking in the TLT universe that comes to the fore in The Unwanted Guest -- the way it moves through from person to person: Pyrrha smoked, and Augustine wanted to impress her in all her stone cold fox MILF James Bond glory (and tbf who wouldn't) so he started too. and even though as far as he knows she's been gone for a myriad and is never coming back, he keeps the habit. Ianthe sees something in the hollowed-out Faberge eggshell of Augustine that resonates with her, all that gilded eloquent emptiness and disdain through the ages, so she picked it up from him to try to emulate it. She picked it up so hard that Palamedes -- the exact spiritual antithesis of the 'smoking! on a space station! what a powermove' ennui Ianthe so admired -- spontaneously unnerded enough to even known how to, simply from a sort of contact contamination of the soul.

G1deon and Augustine sharing a jittery smoke after their near-Harrow experience during soup night, and it's the closest thing to any real sense of brotherhood that remains between them. Pyrrha going ten thousand years dying both literally and for a smoke (and then Camilla sold her fucking cigarettes (for a third of what they were worth, probably Pyrrha's own good, and also more importantly grocery money). what an entirely haunted time to be alive etc.). Augustine and Mercy trading a cigarette back and forth in the middle of their collusion over the love and murder of god.

An act of small and measured self-destruction in the name of something a little bit like connection when you're stuck somewhere in yourself where love itself dares not or cannot tread (ritualized, transmissible)..........

okay, but where's my steddie AU where steve wants to learn to play guitar to impress a girl he's infatuated with and he remembers that munson kid was always hanging up posters for his weird band at school, so he hikes out to eddie's usual dealing spot behind the track and asks (with far less groveling than he really should have) if eddie will teach him how to play, and obviously eddie says no because why would he want to help king steve, but of course, steve offers to pay him, $20 a week, and well, that's the kind of get-the-hell-out-of-this-shithole-town cash eddie really can't afford to refuse, so fine, he'll teach steve to play and they'll spend inordinate amounts of time together tucked away in eddie's room and they'll start to see that they have more in common than they thought and that they kind of had each other all wrong, and eddie will put his hand over steve's to help him get the placement for a tricky chord and it totally won't awaken anything in either of them?? where is it??

edit: i started writing it

I was just thinking about the Dog Bois dancing!!! I figured Machete would be a little awkward and embarrassed, but Vasco would be a patient and enthusiastic teacher

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"side quests" in act 3 be like....what if u were faced with the most complex moral dilemma ever.....for the 3rd time today

Crochet/knit life hack: If you crochet or knit a big, fluffy blanket, you can cuddle under it when you finish while you make other projects

I think one of the problems with the HoO characterizations is Rick kind of forgot to give half the cast hobbies and general interests, and maybe like people they know outside of their families and outside of camp, or if he did remember to it rarely gets brought up for most of them, or in the special case of Annabeth - she randomly develops a hobby in weaving for exactly one scene and then never again. Apparently she just knew how to do that, even though it is a skill she has literally never used before nor uses again.

The best examples I can give of this are comparing/contrasting the examples of when we do actually get this with the lack-thereof: Hazel and Frank are good examples. Hazel has hobbies and interests generally unrelated to all her demigod stuff (horses and art) and we see this repeatedly discussed and brought up. She also knows and interacts with people outside of the necessities of her quest/Camp Jupiter or her family - Sammy was her best friend at school and they hung out and stuff! Meanwhile, Frank, as far as we know, doesn’t know anybody outside of his family even though he presumably went to school before Camp Jupiter? His hobby is... archery? That’s the only thing he ever really shows interest in but at the same time it only rarely gets brought up except for him using a bow as his main weapon and the like two instances of noting that Frank had hoped he was an Apollo kid for a little bit. The closest other detail we get to Frank having any other kind of hobby/interest is him mentioning off-hand that he used to play Mythomagic.

Piper and Leo - We can presume that Piper knew Shel before moving to Oklahoma, because Piper used to visit her grandpa often and as far as we know that’s also where Shel lives. But we never see Piper ever mention knowing anyone else in her grandfather’s community. Heck, when she’s introduced we’re basically outright told that she doesn’t interact much at all with any of her classmates outside of necessity, and we don’t even have any confirmation that before Hera’s mind-meddling that she even acknowledged Leo’s existence. Also, Piper has like, exactly zero hobbies. We do not know what Piper does in her free time or what she likes (except vaguely that she has surfed before), only really what she dislikes. Leo at least does have some kind of excuse for not really knowing anybody, and an explicit explanation about why that is the case and how he feels about it. Leo also has a repeatedly referenced interest/hobby in mechanics that’s very core to his character.

Percy and Annabeth? Pre-HoO, they both have plenty of interests and know people outside their general circles! Percy knows kids at school. Annabeth’s general outer social circle is Camp Half-Blood, because she grew up there, but she clearly knows people at camp. She’s also super into architecture! And Percy does a ton of stuff in his free time - he skateboards! He plays basketball! He has two pets he takes care of (Blackjack and Mrs. O’Leary)! Post-HoO he’s on a swim team! But during HoO? Percy’s hobbies just kind of disappear, besides “oh yeah he uh. Does water stuff.” There’s no acknowledgement of like, “Yeah Percy sets up a little basketball hoop on the back of his door on the Argo 2 and shoots trash at it.” Literally anything! And yeah, Annabeth’s architecture interest is somewhat acknowledged, but also like, not really? We at least get some kind of “Yeah, in her spare time she’s usually on her laptop working on stuff” but we also barely get any instances of Annabeth thinking about her friends at camp except for like, Tartarus.

For Jason it at least kind of works because a.) he has amnesia and it’s implied he doesn’t really have close friends at Camp Jupiter besides Reyna, so it figures he only ever really references random other legionaries like, twice. and b.) there is also the heavily implication that Jason doesn’t have hobbies, because his entire life was so focused around his training at Camp Jupiter. This works less with Reyna, but she also kind of has an excuse for not knowing people besides like, her sister and Jason, given she ran away when she was young, Circe’s island was destroyed, and she could have only been at Camp Jupiter for like 3 years maximum at that point. And she’s not exactly the most social character. We also don’t get much indication of her hobbies, besides she also likes horses and it’s heavily implied she likes nature/gardens? Presumably, given we get like, one note of that in HoO, maybe two if you count her living on Circe’s island, and then like one more nod to that in TOA. And we only get her POV chapters in BoO anyways so again, she has some excuses. Coach Hedge also is incredibly bland besides maybe him having a hobby in sports, and... violence? Which definitely does not count. And him lacking any POV chapters doesn’t really help.

I think this is why Nico continually feels like such a strong character, simply because we know what he does in his spare time. We know he knows people outside of the camps (most of those people are gods or ghosts, but he at least knows people) and technically you could argue him knowing about Camp Jupiter between BoTL and TLO counts too. He even references his old neighbor at one point. Obviously, he’s very into Mythomagic, and that comes up a lot because it’s his special interest and is usually also relevant to their quests. He travels a lot, and apparently used to when he was younger as well. We also learn he used to have a special interest about pirates and that apparently may have played into his crush on Percy. Like, all that is so simple and minor but it makes such a difference for how Nico feels as a character. Most of Nico’s stuff though is established in the first series, which definitely helps because the first series was pretty good about giving characters hobbies and maybe some people they know - Annabeth, Percy, and Nico we’ve already covered, but also like, Grover knows other satyrs and is usually practicing music and also we know what foods he likes. Thalia is very into punk culture and music. We know she particularly likes Green Day. We know she knew the Hunters of Artemis before the events of TTC. Rachel's whole thing is that she’s super into art and she has a bunch of connections through her rich family, and she’s basically Percy’s only mortal friend. They have lives!

If you put a protagonist in a room and told them to occupy themselves, you should have an answer for what they do. They should be able to name one person outside their immediate social circle who they are generally friendly with or vaguely know, unless they have a specific reason for that to not be the case. HoO crew needs to occupy their time by themselves, no weaponry, for twenty minutes? Hazel could be drawing, Nico could be organizing his cards, Leo could be tinkering, Annabeth could be working on her laptop, Percy could be trying out little skateboard tricks. Jason, Piper, Frank, and Reyna? What would they be doing?

TOA does actually answer that question for Jason, at least, because we learn that Jason makes tiny dioramas! That’s adorable! Why doesn’t he do that in HoO?! TOA also gives us more depth to Will Solace besides “He’s a medic and does medic things” with telling us that he’s into Star Wars. Like, that’s actually so much information to work with! Thank you! And then we also find out in TOA that Nico’s also kinda into art! We still don’t get anything new for Piper, Frank, or Reyna - besides again one more potential implication that Reyna thinks plants are Pretty Okay, and that nature is Mildly Alright. Like, not even “maybe she keeps a houseplant” territory, all we have is “if she had the option, she might be interested in visiting a flower garden.” But honestly TOA at least gives us something for most of the characters we see. Like at least one thing. Most of the rest of the writing is a mess but at least the characters are mildly interesting.

Anyways, give your characters hobbies, it’s good for them.

THIS GIF AHHHHHHHH PLEASE THEY'RE SO CUTE :( MAX LAYING HER LEGS ON EL'S WHEN THEY WERE SLEEPING + THEM FACING EACH OTHER :( PLEASE I LOVE THEM SO BAD THEY'RE SO PRECIOUS AND CUTE :(

Just want to ask do you think that Tim would rather shatter his own soul just to save everyone?

Mhmm. He would chip it away piece by piece as he whittled it down to a size that's invisible to the naked eye.

Then he'd whip out a microscope and keep carving away. What use does he have for a soul when he can protect his loved ones for a day more?

if your first thought after this episode was to come on tumblr and post about tumblr/the 911 tag being a kink positive space in regards to the buck/tommy scene, I think it's safe to say YOU need to take a hard long look at yourself and think why is your first thought after such a shitty conversation 'yesss finally canon da*dy kink buck' and not 'why is this man making sexual jokes while buck is being emotionally vunerable after his father figure almost died'

personal growth is crazy because it seems like nothing has changed until you're crying because you don't want to die. you learn something about yourself that ten years ago would have actually killed you, and now you're thinking about what you can do to heal and make peace with it. nothing may have changed to you, but to the person you were however long ago, you are the "it gets better"

what are some xue yang thoughts youve had recently?

one xue yang thought that surfaced while I was thinking about xue yang thoughts for this ask was about feelings and about how I sometimes see people talking about xue yang like he doesn't experience feelings of love or care or tenderness (for instance the "he doesn't actually care about xiao xingchen, just thinks of him as a toy" line of thought, which I personally...do not agree with, to put it delicately).

and I don't think that's accurate! I think xue yang assuredly experiences the whole spectrum of human emotion; I don't think he is very good at empathy specifically (or possibly, and importantly I say this completely without judgment, doesn't have the capacity for it) but I do think, for instance, that he could learn compassion if he put some effort into it (and someone was willing to help him practice a little). what I think xue yang can't do is identify his feelings, let alone process them in any kind of reasonable or healthy way.

some of this is an effect of emotional disregulation and xue yang feeling everything at 110% all the time (all his emotions, not just anger or whatever, when he goes he goes hard), but some of it I think is part of having this sense of a script for what things look or feel like, and a self-image about who he is and how he experiences the world. so when it comes to, say, love, there's a combination of "love looks like this specific thing and that's not what i have/want" alongside "i don't do love, love is for suckers" and those two things combined resulting in not recognizing the feeling for what it is.

he can recognize other things more easily because they fit more into his self-conception and his experience of them is closer to the script - when it comes to anger and fear he knows what they look like and they're more familiar/a part of who he knows he is (even if he would rather deny the fear and transmute it into anger), and he knows what it's like to feel happy, but when he hits the limits of that horizon then he stops parsing things so accurately. he experiences them but doesn't name them, and this is exacerbated by the fact that xue yang does not introspect pretty much at all. he's just not interested in self-analysis. who has the time for that? he's very aware of what other people see in him, and he does have a very strong sense of self, but when it comes to, like, thinking about the how and why of what he's thinking and feeling, he's not getting into that.

and some of that is because it would be dangerous for him, in a sense; both in terms of "getting caught up in your own head is a good way to be not paying enough attention to your surroundings" and also in terms of a more abstract "it might challenge his self-conception and part of xue yang's resilience is in the solidity of his self-conception, being forced to confront his own contradictions and weaknesses would be devastating and, in fact, is part of what kills him when it happens."

i guess the short way to sum up this post would be "xue yang's reckoning of his own emotions is pretty narrow, and he would probably actually agree with people saying he doesn't feel certain things, but the deal is really that he's bad at identifying them and doesn't really put in the effort to try."

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Moral Orel doesn't seem 100% like a show I'd feel seen in if you don't know me but then I remember the episode with the special ed kids and underneath the usual satire on extremist bible belt religion it reminds me WAY too much of how actual special ed departments treated me and other kids growing up.

Like the writers must HAVE BEEN THERE IN LIFE, man. I'd kill to sit down with Dino Stamatopoulos and find out what the fuck inspired him and the other writing staff that day.

The more time I spend explaining Tolkien lore to my brother the more I realize that Tolkien was just batshit insane