EVERY SINGLE DAY there are MILLIONS of characters in their late 20s who get falsely accused of being father figures to teenagers when in reality the description of "weird older cousin" or "step-sibling that moved out before you were born" is 1000000x more apt
Nico and Percy's dynamic through the series is eternally funny to me, because it's just. like.
Percy's having a constant mental struggle between his fatal flaw of loyalty with a promise he made to Bianca to protect Nico, versus his Big 3 kid desire to maim other Big 3 kids / Poseidon descendant urge to totally maim Nico specifically. He hates Nico so so much. He thinks Nico's annoying and weird at best, and creepy/sketchy when he's older. The only positive thoughts Percy has towards Nico are "He's Bianca's brother and Bianca was my friend and I owe her/He's Hazel's brother and Hazel is my friend and would kill me if I was mean to him," "He's a powerful asset and useful ally (if questionable)," and "He's kinda pathetic and I feel maybe a little bad about it." Percy has multiple occasions throughout the series where he strongly considers - and on one occasionally actually goes through with - throttling Nico.
Meanwhile, Nico is following around Percy like a lost puppy. He explicitly can never bring himself to even dislike anything about Percy no matter how hard he tries. He has a whole bit in BoO where he's mentally going "UGH he's so stupid BUT IT'S ENDEARING HOW DARE HE." He's totally smitten. He's making deals with his dad for Percy. He's making convoluted plans to help Percy stand a chance against Kronos. During the entirety of BoTL it's like he's playing tsundere - "I'm helping NOT PERCY SPECIFICALLY with this quest! Me helping Percy would be SILLY because I DEFINITELY HATE HIM." Then he proceeds to show up to Percy's birthday party to basically ask him on a weird date and spend the entire next book scrambling around trying to help him or protect him or impress him. And Percy could not give less of a shit.
Just. That dynamic is so funny to me. Percy is the founder of the Nico Protection Club in that he's the one they're all protecting Nico from and meanwhile Nico is throwing himself at Percy to the point where the literal god of gay love calls him out on it.
A bunch of thirst trap bot accounts have started following me. This is unacceptable. The only people I want following me are mentally unstable trans girls, furries, and anyone who is willing to help me get these bricks out of my garage and into a police windshield.
legit shaking crying i can't believe they're gay for real like they're gay for REAL like after all these years they're literally gay canonically like they kissed on screen on the mouth coz they're gay. like that really happened and there's no taking it back they're canonically gay in that scene and in every other scene also. when they're hanging out they're doing it gayly. when they're calling each other up they're doing it gayly. when they dress like that and act like that it's coz they're gay when crowley's trying to get aziraphale to run away with him it's coz he's in gay love and when aziraphale continuously puts himself in situations where crowley can feel useful it's coz he's in gay love literally everything they do is coz of gay love!!!!!! and that's mine forever!!!!!!!!! after i waited like half my life for it!!!!!!!!!!! oh my fucking god!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
thinking about the Charlie's birthday stream. not the ending, no, we think about that too much. no I think about everything else:
the happiness, the joy, the warmth of it all for nearly two full hours
the lack of mob spawns that night because it’s Charlie's birthday and he has eggs with him. how intentional it is. how funny it is and how sad it makes me because its so considerate
thinking about Tallulah by Charlie's side the whole time, diligently leading him from item to item as his little "guardian angel". Charlie trying to be a good tio and falling a little short sometimes, accidentally leaving Tallulah behind when she crashes but still trying cause that’s his sobrina. how she has to actually hit him to get his attention and how bad she must feel but it's so fucking funny each time
(how can anyone blame him when he never gets to hang out with the eggs enough to know he should wait for her? Charlie had Juanaflippa for what- 10 days? and was practically shunned by several others and himself from interacting with other eggs after his action, which is understandable, but only for so long. can they not see how he plays with the eggs? hear how soft his voice gets around them? don't the other islanders understand?)
this is maybe the longest he's gotten to hang out with tallulah since he got his backpack. Wilbur is his best friend and this was the egg he left behind. He's still learning and Tallulah still loves him despite it. Two people missing someone dearly, yet they have each other even if it's hard to realize
thinking about "Maybe Tallulah, you were the gift. I think you're the gift, Tallulah."
thinking about Richas, his nephew because Charlie has Mike, an actual brother that is equally excited to see him time and time again. A nephew coming around with the slime head and slime balls, like a mini Charlie, who is decked out in a full ghillie suit. Charlie who plays with the egg, pretending to be a spooky monster and richas playing along and getting scared
thinking about Charlie not knowing how to use the ghillie suit properly so he's still clearly visible to the eggs, yet they act like he isn't for his sake. shepherding him around from place to place because charlie is a little clueless yeah (he's in exile, go easy on him), but they are patient and happy to "tag along" and let him lead
thinking about them all taking a picture with him in the school, charlie wanting one with both of them, something to remember the day by.
thinking about how charlie is clearly loved by the eggs, his huevos, and how he clearly loves them back and is trying to be better for them even if he struggles so much
thinking about Charlie Slimecicle on his birthday, for once happy after everything he's been through, Tallulah and Richarlyson by his side
just him, his sobrina, and his nephew on a little scavenger hunt under the stars while the rest of the server remains quiet and calm. asleep while they remain lively
turned in my psychology essay with the adrenaline levels of a recently retired racing greyhound who just accidentally ingested a bathtub of black coffee but its okay I survived. thank god I don't have unmedicated adhd or anything like that which would cause me to have this experience every single time I have to complete work. wouldn't that be funny. it would be funny. it would. be so funny if that was the case I'm so relieved that its not the case
i. ive reached a point where the violent impulses i feel towards springtrap have almost all died out and are now replaced with just??? this intense softness for him?? just warm fuzzy feelings?? god im gonna be sick what is this
This is really long so I'm putting a cut here, I've been thinking about Jason Todd's character motivations and the question of whether or not his actions are based in a Moral Code (I don't think so, not to say he's without any morality) and I talk about that in more depth here.
I saw someone say on here that Titans: Beast World: Gotham City was some of the best Jason Todd internal writing they'd seen in a while, and I've been a Red Hood fan for 8 years or so now? pretty much since I read comics for the first time, so I went and checked out and I thought it was good! The way the person I saw talking about it as if it was rare and unusual made me wonder though, because as well-written as i thought his stances on crime were, there wasn't really anything in it that went against the way I conceptualize Jason?
This kinda plays into a larger question I've been thinking about for a while with Jason though, which is that, do people think that the killing is part of a fundamental worldview that motivates him a la batman, and that worldview is the reason he does the things he does?? Because 8 years ago i was a middle schooler engaging with fiction on the level that a middle schooler does, so I simply did not put much thought into it beyond "poor guy :(" but ever since I actually started trying to understand consistent characterization, I don't really see Jason as someone who's motivated by a moral code in his actions the way batman or superman is!
tbh my personal read is that he's a very socially-motivated guy, his actions from resurrection to his Joker-Batman ultimatum in utrh always seemed to me like every choice made leading up to his identity reveal was either a. to give him the leverage and skill necessary to pull off his identity reveal successfully, or b. to twist the knife that little bit more when he does let Bruce find out who he is. Like iirc there's a Judd Winick tweet like "yeah tldr he chose Red Hood as his identity because it's the lowest blow he could think of." And I think that's awesome, I think character motivations rooted so deeply in character's relationships and emotions are really fun to read! I also think it's where the stagnation/flatness of his character comes from in certain comics, because if his main motivation is one event in one relationship that passes, and he is not particularly attached to anything in his life or the world by the time that comes to pass, it's a little harder to come up with a direction to go with the character after that, because there isn't much of a direction that aligns with something the character would reasonably want? But I do think solving this by saying "all of the morally-off emotionally driven cruelty he did on his way to spite Batman was actually reflective of his own version of Batman's stance that's exactly the same except he thinks it's GOOD to kill people" isn't ideal. To be fully honest, it seems to me like he never particularly cared one way or the other about killing people to "clean Gotham of crime," he just did everything he could to get the power necessary to pull off his personal plans, and took out any particularly heinous people he encountered along the way (like in Lost Days.) Not to say I think the fact he killed people keeps him up at night anymore than everything else in his life events, I just never really thought he was out there wholeheartedly kneecapping some dude selling weed or random guy robbing a tv store for justice.
Looping wayyy back to my question, Is this (^) contradictory to the way he's written/the overall average perception of the character? Because like I enjoyed his writing in Beast World i have zero significant issue with anything there, I just didn't believe it would be a hot take, like yeah, that is Jason. It's been a while since I've read utrh and lost days, but I don't think my takeaway directly contradicts either of those too bad iirc. Idk all this to say I think Jason killing and being alright with killing is an obvious and objective fact, but i guess i've always seen it as more of a practical tactic than a moral belief, and I think taking the actions made during the lowest points of a character's life where he is obsessively focused on this ONEEEE thing and trying to apply it as a Motivating Stance to everything he's done after that, doesn't really follow logically for me.
THIS IS A SLAMMIN’ LID! IT MIGHT LOOK LIKE IT DOESN’T DO ANYTHING BUT IT’S A BOSS SALMONID! KILL IT!!!!! BLOW IT UP!!!!!!! MAKE SURE THIS FUCKER NEVER SEES THE LIGHT OF DAY AGAIN!!!!
Slammin’ Lids will follow you all the way to the GODDAMN BASKET and you might be inclined to ignore it forever because it doesn’t attack. DON’T DO THAT!!!! THIS FUCKER WILL KEEP SPAWNING LESSER SALMONID RIGHT ON TOP OF YOU MAKING IT ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS BOSSES SO DIP UNDER IT, HOP ON, AND DESTROY HIM ASAP
Slammin’ Lids are also a very good strategic tool! If you see another Boss Salmonid under it, DIP UNDER to make it slam down and it WILL OHKO ALMOST ANY OTHER BOSS SALMONID; most often this will be a Steelhead, Scrapper, or even another Slammin’ Lid, but THIS EVEN WORKS ON FLYFISH.
here’s the most important part. if you see a teammate hitching a ride on a slammin’ lid DO NOT FUCKING KILL IT!!! MY GOD!!!! THERE’S OTHER BOSSES TO FOCUS ON! CHANCES ARE A) your teammate has got this under control and is already in the process of killing it themself, or B) YOUR TEAMMATE GOT UP THERE FOR A REASON AND BY UNEXPECTEDLY KILLING THE SLAMMIN’ LID YOU ARE SENDING THEM HURTLING INTO A MOB OF SALMONIDS, A BOSS THEY WERE TRYING TO ESCAPE, OR THE FREAKING WATER
weapons such as the Tri-Stringer and E-Liter 4K can one-shot the Slammin’ Lid. Kill Him. But please use a brain cell to determine whether the best thing right then is to kill it or if you should wait 5 seconds. The worst thing that can happen is someone trying to bait a slammin’ lid to slam down to kill a boss and midway through its slam animation some genius kills it.