#rick is so inconsistent with characters and arcs and everything

[nico-fanatic]

not a day goes by that i don’t HATE the cannon solangelo get together story. like. my god. WHAT was rick thinking??? even the whole “you’re not my type thing” was dog shit imo

1. nico is a very traumatized character that struggles heavily with social anxiety, self acceptance, and internalized homophobia (among MANY other things)

2. nico was FORCEFULLY and VIOLENTLY outed in a cruel way and in front of someone he was not comfortable with and didn’t even know.

but yeah sure, nico gets 1 good interaction with a boy, apparently looses all feelings for someone he put on a pedestal for most of his life and has a very complicated relationship with and just TELLS him?? goes up to him, tells him, and walks off. yes he’s embarrassed but he just does it?? when he is at his PHYSICAL worst?? what???

and the icing on the cake: when nico FINALLY is on a journey of self acceptance and healing (which didn’t happen in the best way and way too fast imo) and he FINALLY he’s going to try at love. finally. this boy has struggled so much, but he’s in love again, and he’s going to ask will out.

and it happens in front of the entire fucking camp.

nico’s journey and arc fell off SO hard. it was already rocky but oh my god(s). i HATE the way his entire healing process was handled and the way he came out to the camp. its horrid. i refuse to accept it as cannon i don’t care.

[ruegarding]

Hey, quick question if you don't mind me asking, what were your thoughts on Chalice of the Gods?

overall, i wish rick stopped at toa like he said he was going to. the more rick adds, the more the world-building suffers as a result. that being said, i didn't completely hate cotg like i thought i would. there's a few good moments, but, in general, it reads like a cash-grab.

let's start with the good. percy has some of the most in-character moments he's had in the universe since pjo.

percy's confrontation w geras was so good that i actually wish this was part of percy's character arc in hoo. percy spent almost all of pjo knowing he was going to die—he saw the fates cut the string in tlt and in som he put together what the prophecy meant: he was going to die either at or before 16. and this is exactly why this confrontation works and why i think it's better than new rome. new rome can protect a demigod from monsters, not from fate. percy wasn't scared of monsters. if he was, he would've stayed at chb year-round.

and i really like that geras was willing to entertain percy bc he had turned down godhood. like the first time percy ever thinks abt immortality seriously (in botl) this is what he has to say:

so immortality is fundamentally at odds w percy's character bc he defines himself so thoroughly w the ppl he loves. and this is exactly what allows him to get through to geras! it's such a good exploration of percy's character and the future he's now able to consider.

similarly, this section

is more in-character than almost all of hoo. this is a prime example of how percy's loyalty works and addresses how it's misconstrued in fandom. percy has a desire for freedom, and that desire informs how he respects ppl. percy's loyalty isn't a possessive "i won't let you do this" bc he will, he will always let someone make their own choice at the end of the day bc it's what he would want. and this was actually established in tlt, when sally says "you're enough like me to understand" and asks percy to let her save herself. so percy lets bianca fight talus, he lets nico walk away, he gives luke the knife, he lets ganymede choose his own story, even when he disagrees w it. and this is why percy's arc in hoo sucked! rick tried to give percy the typical hero complex, but it's contradictory w percy's character. so when i saw this passage i was so relieved. i thought this part of percy died w pjo.

also, to talk abt someone other than percy, this moment

is good. i love this abt annabeth.

and grover saying the hardest thing is sitting by and not being able to do anything. bc grover is usually in a support role and he wasn't there at all in hoo. i also like that percy is confronted w the fact that he's not expendable. thumbs up from me.

the bad...i'm just going to keep short bullet points.

what even is this plot

it doesn't work as part of pjo and yet it's marketed as the sixth book in the series

why is zeus a disney villain. i hate everything abt it

the inconsistencies...annabeth's cap...why are we continuing to treat percy like he's disinterested in learning??? also. what do you mean you're not allowed at camp after you turn 18? WHAT DO YOU MEAN????? this was not a thing. and wasn't rhea in hiding or something?? now she's casually having brunch?

there's too much "percy is the stupid bf and annabeth is the competent gf who takes care of him." i hated every second of this. also annabeth is disabled. her being intelligent does not remove her disability. she struggles.

i rbed that post abt disaster cook annabeth and good cook percy and i stand by that.

the power monologue makes no damn sense (and another addition by op in the tags)

no seriously i'm begging someone to have a real conversation and understand percy is terrified of how powerful he is. i've been waiting for this since botl. WHICH WAS PUBLISHED IN 2008 BTW

i'm not a huge estelle or paul fan. like they're fine they're just not compelling.

the only time i feel sally and percy have the same connection as they had in tlt is when they're alone. this is a problem i've had for a while, but cotg does not fix it. when paul and annabeth are in the equation, it feels like percy is the outsider.

in summary, cotg is like a fanfic i would leave kudos for being a good percy character study despite having questionable moments. except it's canon. and these questionable things affect the world-building.

[fanbun]

On the topic of sexism and Rick's treatment of Summer in Rick and Morty...

I wish Rick Sanchez’s sexism was treated as a part of his character worth exploring instead of being half-retconned and praised as character development despite the change never being properly explained or addressed.

We all know he stopped being as overtly sexist to Summer and started to appreciate her skill and dependability, but when exactly did this happen and why? By the end of season 1's "Raising Gazorpazorp" he outright said he didn’t learn anything and that was the only episode specifically about his sexism in the entire show.

And say you want to interpret this scene as Rick being denial and just not wanting to admit that he was wrong. Okay, so do we see him actually changing from this point on?

No, he continues to belittle her in "Something Ricked This Way Comes." Summer's whole arc in that episode is about her appreciating her boss because he respects her, unlike Rick. And in the end Rick once again does the whole "learning a lesson is dumb" bit. Though I suppose they do bond a bit by beating up Mr. Needful together. (Funnily enough, it's the most stereotypically masculine ending with them bodybuilding together and Summer going "yeah bro yeah" ...This trend of dismissing emotional growth and showing violence as a form of bonding could be analyzed more from a feminist perspective but I'm not here to do that now.)

Season 2 provides us with more scenes of Summer and Rick getting along better than in season 1 but the problems with his sexism persist and he still doesn't bring her on adventures. In "The Ricks Must Be Crazy" he even went on to demean her by mentioning her boobs out of nowhere at the end of the episode. So bonding with Summer didn't decrease his casually sexist language towards her at all.

Season 3 is where it gets a little interesting because it was the first season with female writers and here we begin to see a subtle shift in how Rick values her. He actually cheers her on and gives her fond nicknames in "Rickmancing the Stone" which he never did before. This change is notable but it's not consistent with Rick's previous characterization and the reason for it is up to interpretation.

In fact, we still see Rick's sexism turn up here and there in season 3. For example in “Morty’s Mind Blowers” both Rick and Morty gang up on Summer by calling her a dumb bitch even though she fixed everything for them. I find that scene particularly notable since their ungratefulness is the joke. And it shows how Rick uses Summer without respecting her.

Now with current season 6-7 lore we've been told that Rick respects Summer because she reminds him of Diane.

I'm sorry, what? How did we get here? This show's writing is so wildly inconsistent. Did something happen in season 4 or 5 to bridge this gap and make it make sense? Let me check... In season 4's "Promortyus" Rick and Morty spend time destroying a planet together and forget Summer was even with them. Got it, so that's more ignoring and dismissing Summer. In season 5's "A Rickconvenient Mort" Rick only chooses to hang out with her after Morty ditches him and then he eventually ends up ditching her...

But wait. In season 5's "Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion" Rick chooses to bring her with them to Boob World because they need to bring a female with them in order to get in for free. Once again there are heavy sexist vibes at the beginning of this episode. Later on though Summer agrees to Rick's change of plans to collect the Gotron Ferrets and she becomes his assistant in hopes of gaining his admiration and approval. Then he fires her when he finds someone more suited to the job, once again showing how he was just using her and still doesn't respect her. This decision ends up biting him in the ass, but it doesn't really matter because Summer arrives with her giant incest baby to save him anyway.

I think the implication might be that he respects her more for coming to save him with the incest baby but that isn't actually confirmed anywhere. We just get Morty and Summer repeating the word "family" a bunch to drive in the point that the episode is supposed to be about the family coming together I guess? It doesn't feel like a moment of character development for Rick in the slightest. As you can tell I'm really not a fan of the super sloppy way this episode was written and I feel like this sort of bad character writing is one of the reasons why season 5 got such a bad rap, on top of certain jokes falling flat with audiences.

Still, even if you consider this weak episode the turning point for Rick's attitude toward Summer, what does it say that this teenage girl he treated so badly for the better part of 5 seasons apparently reminds him of his wife? Is it just that he's finally seeing her in a different light now that she's proven she's faithful and dependable and does what he tells her to do? And doesn't that still echo a similar kind of sexism?

I don't buy the claim that he treats her as an equal when he essentially uses her to do his chores and Summer herself expressed that she felt taken advantage of. Doesn't that imply that's how he treated Diane too? And doesn't the fact that he gave a robot meant to do his bidding his wife's voice further support this interpretation?

I really hope the show doesn't keep suggesting that Rick was a loving, ideal husband to Diane because it just doesn't line up with what we've seen of his character. Everything here implies he would have been a sexist asshole and choosing to ignore that within the narrative in favor of making him more sympathetic would be cowardly.

[bookishjules]

i dont even know if i can call it fanservice bc so many aspects of the sr yr series are just plainly misogynistic and ableist and as much as certain parts of the fandom are like. not particularly good at critical thinking i do believe that they aren't those things. on top of that, i don't think i would consider a story with distracting amounts of timeline and character fact inconsistencies fanservice bc in theory those things would bother fans right? to me it feels like ricks fatigue and apathy with the series and his own misogynistic and ableist biases are being left unchallenged and wrapped in layers and layers of irony poisoned incorrect quote style humour and middle grade genre-fication (both in the sense of making it kind of childish and the sense of him slanging it up with the youths). idk if that makes sense im very tired

(reply from @amesliu)

THIS. exactly this. the point about the inconsistencies bothering fans was what i was trying to get at, but you're right. it goes beyond that. rick presents this narrative of learning from and caring about the people he writes his books for, but the further he gets from that initial space that drew so many diverse and disabled fans, the more obvious it becomes that he isn't learning anything. everything feels like a regression. he's gotten too big for his britches and he's too stubborn (particularly when it comes to percy and annabeth) to change. and i really don't think it's intentional--the ableism and misogyny--if anything he probably thinks he's still perpetuating this space of appreciating what makes us different, but like you said, he's been left completely unchecked, which allows the representation he does present us with to continue to sour. particularly because he seemingly cannot be bothered to think critically about his own work.

so yeah. imho it's less fanservice than fan-disservice. it's (a) cheapening the story with lack of consistency, while (b) undermining the initial themes of the story the fans fell in love with by (c) telling said fans who saw themselves in these pages for one reason or another that they are exactly what society always believed them to be, because apparently (d) that is the arc that works best to keep these characters on their own enchanted leashes? i'm not entirely sure. but i do know that characters and themes cannot be treated with such a lack of respect when they themselves are representative of so much more. at that point, regardless of whether you happen to be the god of this world, you have a responsibility to uphold.

by attempting to sell nostalgia, or at least panning for attention and hype from long-term fans and relying on them to remain as loyal as they always have been (or even as they once were), you're also signing those fans you're supposedly servicing up for not only dissapointment and feelings of disrespect, but also the apparent support of books that no longer support them--whether or not they're willing to take off their uncle rick-colored glasses and don a critical thinking cap in order to see and accept that that is very much the case.

and that's not even touching on the overdone attempt at maintaining the series' juvenile roots.. if his goal was really to draw in long-term (and therefore older) fans, he wouldn't feel the need to dumb things down more than they were when the mcs were literally 12, or take stabs at exactly the kind of humor that will date these books in a way completely counter to his original intention of timelessness, as some exaggerated and unnecessary attempt at remaining relevant.

I saw someone remark somewhere that for the past few years Rick has been writing for his fans rather than his story. The books he's written as of late have been eaten up by manly long-term readers who love this series, but rather than continuing the story and exploring the characters more, he's just giving a bunch of random adventures with no real consequences or substance, more fanservice than story.

see i've heard similar claims. and i could see that for tsats, because of just how heavily he (or mark) leaned into popular fandom interpretations for it, but i don't know how well that justification for these books can hold up the further we get into this new wave of the riordanverse. because no, you're right, there isn't much story at all for a 300+ page book. but there is also so little consistency of characterizations and the universe as a whole.. and i just question how any long-term fan of said characters/universe could see that and appreciate it (despite said fans suposedly eating it up which just.. baffling tbh).

idk i guess what i'm saying is.. if it's fanservice. it's tacky. it's cheap. it's like.. going into a party city for a yankees cap for an annabeth costume instead of using a legit quality hat with the real logo on it. there's this facade of making it for the fans without the followthrough of actually caring about the fans. if fanservice is meant to please the fans of that media, i feel like the right way to go about it would be to use said media as a base level and spin into inconsequential fluff from there. make it fun, but not at the cost of the integrity of the media people have clearly loved for so long.

[lizzibennet]

okayy its been years for me but now that you mentioned it. moa really was the point where i started feeling weird about hoo. like in pjo it was the third book ttc where things started really picking up and solidifying its identity, you start seeing the connections and themes and character arcs developing. but by the third book in hoo it still lacked identity and only became more messy from there, bringing up past plot threads or introducing new ones that went nowhere, lack of continuity, inconsistent themes or characterization, super high stakes and everyone showing off amazing powers etc etc. this was also when tkc was coming out and despite all its flaws the writing was significantly better than hoo. you really convinced me of the ghostwriters conspiracy

absolutely!!! i feel like maybe the idea for hoo was floating around in rick's head when he was still writing pjo so the setup is okay because setup is really just presenting things, and tlh and son are pretty exposition-heavy books, it's just like... things are happening and ur like ok i guess!!!!!!! but when it came to the payoff of everything he set up in the first couple books it all came undone. also like we need to bring up tkc and the other stories he was coming out with on the side bc there's just no way he was writing it all at once!!! most authors can't even do one book a year and he was doing multiple?? i don't buy it! i also just don't believe he suddenly forgot how to structure a story. that's what bothers me the most about hoo, that there's so many loose threads when pjo is so neat in that sense. i also think his third person narration sounds so odd!!!!!!!!! idk doesn't sound like him to me. i wonder if that is why hoo pivoted to third person since it's more impersonal therefore easier to replicate *eye emojis* him using ghostwriters explains so much tbh

[my-mt-heart]

I saw your list for the ask to your top 10 favorites. We are practically sisters. I won't touch on all of them because I know I suffer from "lengthy post-ism". I just want to say I definitely feel Shane was the best human antogonist with a compelling descent into madness. At times I thought he would be okay, but nope. So to me he was the most human antogonist. Most others who got around 2 seasons of an arc like he did just felt comic-y to me.

Merle, yes! He was such a strong character. If he lived and learned through his redemption arc, he would be nothing short of awesome. I think part of what made Shane and Merle great antagonists was because you could feel their conflict and fighting against their better angels. Other villians usually just felt like villians. I didn't feel their heart at all.

Girl, I am with you all day on Ezekiel and Beth too. Ezekiel has so much heart, like a king and he's got great social skills (except for when it comes to Daryl haha) but he's got an inner strength that goes deeper than the facade he was putting on when he had The Kingdom. And Beth, gosh. She was another great example of younger siblings really stepping up when the older sibling is absent (think Daryl with Merle, Mika with Lizzie (though Lizzie was present) Beth with Maggie, Kelly with Connie). There are dualities of strength that TWD has repeatedly chosen to have seen in the younger sibling that hits just right for me.

Yes, Kelly is amazing. And the fact that we know she looks up to Carol just melts me. Because who shouldn't look up to Carol? She's the best role model. Lydia is a whole topic in itself. But she is truly a favorite of mine as well.

Definitely not trying to stir the pot here. I am really just curious. I notice Rick is not on your list. And I was wondering if you were comfortable sharing your reasons? I am just interested in seeing if they align with my own. Because I will always love Rick but he ceased from being a favorite character of mine after he killed Shane. Not because I didn't agree with his choice. Shane had to go. But Rick literally turned into Shane. It reminds me of how the Roman Empire didn't "conquer" the Grecian empire? They just absorbed it. That's where they get the term Greco-Roman Empire from? I feel like that's what happened with Rick. That he just "absorbed" Shane. And from there he makes a myraid of judgments that are inconsistent and costly to the group. But that is just my opinion on him. I know he is fighting for the greater good. But still. Just curious on what you thought?

Well, great minds think alike as they say. Reading all your brilliant blurbs on the characters, I'm realizing I should have included those on my list as well, so here's me remedying that. I'll skip Carol and Daryl for now because that's probably a whole post on it's own. The first five I'm copying and pasting from a similar ask post about which other characters I liked on the show and why:

Michonne - Carol understandably gets labeled "the most transformed," but Michonne's growth as a character is pretty phenomenal too. She's always been a badass warrior, but I love that over time she allowed herself to show a more nurturing side and a great sense of humor. I think her relationships with Rick and Carl were integral to that.

Glenn - In early seasons, he was the adorable dork of the group, but his resilience made him the biggest asset. I think he might also be one of the only long-term characters whose morality never wavered no matter what they had to deal with.

Lydia - There is a strong possibility my investment in her character has everything to do with her having so much in common with both Daryl and Carol.  Despite a long history of abuse, she's stronger than ever with a heart of gold.

Kelly - I'm not saying I'm glad Connie went missing, but her absence has really given Kelly some much needed time to shine and shine she does. I love her rationality and youthful resilience. For being so young, she's one of the most mature characters on the show. I also love how loyal she is and how determined she is to make sure the people she cares about are safe (i.e. Luke, Connie).

Jerry - He may not be the most developed, but he always makes me laugh. I mean, how do you not love this guy? His relationship with Ezekiel is everything and I really hope they get to reunite. I also really loved his interactions with Carol in Diverged, and how perceptive he was of her relationship with Daryl. What he said about "a friend thinking you're perfect when everyone else thinks you're broken" was spot on and now I need to hear the words come out of Daryl's mouth. Ugh.

Ezekiel - He comes into the series a little too comic-y for me, though I think the CGI tiger has a lot to do with that. At the risk of sounding like a sadist, I want to say watching him slowly lose everything he holds dear helps me feel more drawn to his character. Underneath the facade, there's clearly a human being with noble intentions and a strong desire to view the world optimistically, which is beautifully challenged by the LOADS of shit the world throws back at him. Seriously, the man lost his people, his home, his son, his wife, his horse, and on top of all that finds out he has cancer. I mean, jfc, can he catch a break already?? This is why I love his relationship with Jerry so much. So. much. He's the one consistency in his life, the only person who has and will always be there for him emotionally. I don't think you can really say that about Carol. And look. We can't blame Zeke for falling for her. She's Carol. She's amazing. Why aren't more characters tripping over themselves trying to be with her? We can hold it against him for acting insecure about Daryl, but also why? It serves a purpose. It establishes the two of them as foils and even better, it validates the possibility of a romance between Carol and Daryl.

Beth - To me, she embodies the coming of age narrative that we missed out on with Sophia and are currently being deprived of with Judith. We get to see her change from naive and innocent to capable and determined in real time, and because of that, we get to see Daryl navigate mentorship for the first time. So yes, I enjoy their scenes together. Again, not sorry.

Shane - What makes him my favorite villain is the fact that he doesn't have the word villain tattooed across his forehead like literally every other showy and borderline cartoonish bad guy on the whole damn series. He's a human being with human feelings mixed with a defective moral compass. He's trouble, but still relatable. He's strong, but grounded. I really hope there are more villains like him on the Caryl show.

Merle - Characters do not have to be good, likeable people in order to be good characters. Merle is proof of that. In real life, I wouldn't want someone like Merle anywhere near me. He's racist, sexist, and as Daryl put it so eloquently, a simple-minded piece of shit. But I like that he has such a distinct voice and I also appreciate that unlike a stereotypical big oaf, he is rounded. He has a soft spot for his brother, and though it might be buried deep, DEEP down, he has a sense of right and wrong. Which of course Daryl helps bring out of him.

As for why I didn't include Rick on my list, I'm not sure I have a clear reason. I like him. I root for him. He's just not my favorite. Could it be because the white male protagonist who comes from an honest background and wants to build a future for his male heir just feels a little stale to me compared to some of the other really complex character narratives? Maybe. I don't know. Personally, the choices he makes don't really bother me because I can see why they're necessary for his personal growth and the plot. I will agree that he does stoop to Shane-level if not below it, and it could totally be argued that it takes away some of Rick's justification for killing Shane in the first place. But while Shane is written off as a lone wolf who has no one to pull him back, Rick thankfully has Michonne and a lot of others to keep him balanced because they want him to succeed. I know not everyone ships Richonne, but I think they make a great team.

[jason-pipers]

the jason/piper breakup and jason’s subsequent death

it is a long and angry post so you have been warned 

 I’m really sick of seeing Jason Grace/Piper McLean slander in their own tag, and I’m really, really sick of seeing people justify their breakup/his death as good writing. 

As I’ve been studying literature and text for the past four years at Uni- I can say with absolute confidence that The Burning Maze utilizing Jason and Piper was horrible. Like a bag of shit mixed together then smeared on paper and published kind of horrible. Actually, you don’t even really need a degree to be able to point out the very basic absurdity of them appearing in TBM. So even though I have a paper due on a completely unrelated topic and a lot of homework, I naturally decided this was a much better thing to write about: 

 Maybe in another world, Rick’s ghostwriters will be better at writing his books. The reason why the Jason/Piper breakup was extremely confusing and done very poorly in the sense of their character arcs was that there was no buildup to the breakup. In fact, I think these two got together off-screen and broke up off-screen. Yet, I’m sure Riordan sat at his desk thinking “now why don’t people just like Jason and Piper?? I give them so much!” Actually, you gave them nothing. It’s also considerably easy to disguise their breakup as logical when it isn’t. Now, people will argue that the basic foundation of the relationship was poorly made because of Hera’s meddling and that’s why they broke up. This is a lazy way to think about it because it’s obvious you don’t care about the characters so you should just say that and go. Hera’s meddling (putting false memories of Jason in Piper’s head and wiping Jason’s brain) really only gave Piper a vague notion of Jason (based on real attributes the Mist pulls) and also gave PERCY and Jason multiple relationships after the switcheroo. But Piper actually meets Jason and then has a subsequent breakdown that maybe he’s not her boyfriend. However, once she gets to know the real Jason (very accurate to the one she knew in her memories because Aphrodite said she could sense real possibilities hinting at their romance), she is still developing romantic feelings for him. It’s implied that the reason why Piper is falling so fast is because the memories she has of Jason are based on the real Jason. It’s easy to establish that Piper has real romantic feelings for Jason, not the made up Jason because the majority of TLH is them getting to know each other. If she felt like there was some confusion on her part about developing feelings for him because of Hera switching Percy and Jason- why did it not come up EVER? The months where Jason and Piper started dating. How about that long ass quest on the Argo? It could have been a valid plot line but it never came up. If it had come up near the end of the series or maybe even if it was a small subplot in the series, it would make the breakup logical, at least narratively. But no, we end Blood of Olympus with Jason and Piper coming full circle with the moment in the stars. Flash forward three years later to TBM where everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) about Piper and Jason are thrown into the trash. They’re broken up due to the false memories and overall I guess it’s implied Piper doesn’t have feelings for him anymore or something? Or the trauma of being in something like that prophecy was a lot for her to handle and she needed some time to figure things out? Yeah of course! Just like when she will go through another trauma (Jason dying for her) and start dating someone new right after. This would be so much easier to read and digest if these things are shown- in their own series and maybe not as a side thing to Apollo’s series. Reading it in TOA was completely out of left field. I know SO MANY PEOPLE were like that makes so much sense! Good for you Piper! But I was like girl, who are you? I feel like I have not spent any time with you and none of what you’re saying is connecting to anything you were like before. Which leads me to believe people just did not like Piper in HOO but just say that and go. HOO Piper is not TBM/TOA Piper. RR doesn’t know how to characterize his own goddamn characters. Furthermore, everything in canon up until TBM implies and directly states that Jason and Piper are endgame. It’s not to say they didn’t have problems that were resolved or that the way they got together was conventional. There was not even a smidge bit of reluctance to admit they were canon endgame- I think RR even had Cupid involved. There was no prediction or even hint of what would happen in TBM in HOO, which is a very big narrative problem. Jason, always isolated by loved ones and quite frankly always shouldering way more than a human can handle dies exactly the way he suffers. There is no growth or even a small lovely moment where we can see Jason. 

This brings me to the most unnecessary death I’ve ever read in my life. I know RR’s ego hurt from the complaints about Jason/Piper/Frank/Hazel/Leo (basically a non-Percabeth character) being underdeveloped. I know his ego was fucked when he “killed” Leo but didn’t really kill Leo so everyone was like what the fuck. I know he wanted to prove he is a good writer but like any other bad writer, he decided to jump the shark. And I know he wanted Jason and Piper to be more likable but the fandom really wanted a Leo-esque character. The breakup really happened because he wanted to demonstrate to critics that he could live with couples not being endgame and knew Jasiper was relatively unpopular compared to Percabeth/Caleo/etc. He wasn’t thinking in terms of ‘does this fit what I’ve created’ but in terms of ‘people might be like oh shit this is violent and they’re finally gone!’. I don’t know what idiotic thought process made him reach the point of killing one of them but he obviously got there. See, there is no difference between Jason or Piper dying in TBM. It could’ve easily been Piper who was impaled by Caligula and reminded Apollo “what it’s like to be human”. They were made *that* insignificant in TBM. Pretty much fucking interchangeable. IN DEATH. It also could’ve been anybody else in the world. It could’ve been that cheerleader from The Battle of the Labyrinth. It could’ve been Piper’s dad. It could have been Sally Jackson. Not a single part of Jason’s death was really related to Jason or his growth. Jason was the main/lead from HOO and if he was destined to die (which he wasn’t because RR doesn’t think anything through anymore), he should have died in his own series. That would make his sacrifice more compelling and important, but dying in TOA is just a big fuck you to his character. I think the only equivalent I can think of is if HOO had solely been Jason’s series but RR pulled up Percy to simply kill him and then just kept writing. What the fuck does TOA have anything to do with Jason or Piper? Or even Leo? I usually love when characters make cameo appearances to remind us of the past we loved them in. Kind of like when Lynda Carter appeared as Asteria in WW1984. Conversely, involving them in the plot and then using them as a plot device for the main character- AKA USING YOUR MAIN CHARACTER AS A PLOT DEVICE FOR ANOTHER MAIN CHARACTER IN A SEPARATE SERIES- is not only dumb but it truly makes everything else you’ve written for the first main character devoid of any real significance. Jason was never a fully fleshed-out character, the way he deserved to be written, because RR couldn’t world build as well as he thought and that ‘every single character gets a POV’ didn’t do the legendary thing he thought it did. However, anything that mattered about Jason was pretty much killed in TBM because he was easily killed by a villain that was not even remotely interested in Jason or aware of his existence. What does FUCK does Caligula mean to Jason? Nothing. Did the final battle create a full circle for Jason other than the line “remember?” which is not really related to his amnesia- no. His character arc was about an identity crisis- being pushed and pulled in two directions. Jason barely means anything to Apollo so RR using Jason as a convenient kill to send home a message is also shitty for Apollo. Lead hero characters can die- they sometimes just have to. Marissa Cooper’s death in the OC narratively makes sense due to the nature of the character being a damsel in distress from the very beginning- a foil to her counterpart, Ryan Atwood. But in this case, RR knew he had to shock people to keep getting $$$. I never got the impression RR cared about Jason or Piper, especially since he was incredibly disrespectful and lazy when writing about Piper. (For that- I can link really detailed posts explaining his racism). The truth is Riordan cannot live without putting his characters in relationships- Frazel, Caleo, Tyson/Ella (?), Hedge/Mellie- but he wanted to prove that he could which is why Jasiper broke up.

Piper’s girlfriend in TON- I didn’t read TON for the reasons above and I don’t think I’ll ever read a Riordan book again: I did find out that Piper gets a GF in TON which at first I thought was incredibly neat but then later became angry when I learned it was only months after Jason’s death? I have always wanted Piper to explore her sexuality but RR has this case of never giving important things the development it deserves. He’s incredibly messy and inconsistent when he creates lgbtqia+ characters, usually only including them so he can get credit for including them. He’s never actually explored Piper’s sexuality fully in the series, but he threw her in yet another relationship we didn’t get to read about right after she was almost beaten to death and then witnessed the murder of her ex-boyfriend. If you think that is representation, please rethink that. We don’t get to hear her talk about anything at all, except maybe mentioning the girl’s name. A subtle hint. Just representation is not good representation and it is right that we demand better representation. Don’t settle for less. For fuck’s sake, Riverdale is only really good at queerbaiting but they get so much praise. (Do they? At this point I can’t tell). If we wanted to explore Piper’s sexuality, it could have been done while she was with Jason or even broken up with him in her own series- why didn’t RR explore the nature of being lgbtqia+ in an Indigenous family? He had the chance to demonstrate an awareness of intersectionality through Piper but he fucked up. He had so much to write about. So, people who are yelling happily about that Piper appearance in TON-??? 

 This was long and frustrating to write. But I had feelings.

[hellswolfie]

Thank you for tagging me, @flying-elliska 😻!!!!

1- how many books are too many books in a serie

Well I read Warrior Cats for a long time so I’d say that im pretty tolerant in that front 😂 but tbh, I think I could get colds feet if I learned a serie i want to begin have at least 10 books… all in all, though, I really love being able to explore more the world and the characters, I just have to be sure I will like it!

2- what do you think about cliffhangers?

I love a good cliffhanger when it jut keeps me at the edge of my feet and makes me say « omg that was brillant! » but I prefer books that end by taking their time detailing the fall out of the action and the end of characters arcs.

3- hardback or paperback?

Paperback all the way! Hardback are generally more esthetically pleasing but it just get worn out so easily and I’m not the best book keeper :(

4- least favorite book?

I’m not gonna be very original here and say Harry Potter and the Curse Child but I really can’t think of a book I disliked more than that. Everything has already been said about it, so I won’t extend too much, but yeah I was so excited to read it only for it to end up being some poor attempt at a badly written OOC fanfic. Even without the HP context, there are still so many pacing issues and characters inconsistencies. Scorpius and Albus are cute tho.

5- Love Triangle, yes or no?

I’m not that against it as most people seem to be, as I do think it can be done well. There are just certain thing that should be absent from it, like when 2 people who were super close completely turn against eachother for someone they just met because this person is just SO SPECIAL, when it’s only there to stall a relationship from happening even if it does not make sense and that we all already know who will be endgame, or when it completely takes over the otherwise very interesting characters/plot. I also hate when after having it been drained out for so long, person A does not even have to make a choice in the end because one of the two who fight for them dies/leaves. It really feels like the author simply didn’t have the guts to actually follow through besides stirring things up. It could be cool if : the two opposites actually end up together (hi lok), if it ends with all three together, or person A single. Or if it simply has more purpose than just DRAMA!

6- the most recent book you just couldn’t finish

« L’homme qui rit » de Victor Hugo. Look, it’s a fucking VICTOR HUGO book, no one can judge me! This dude could spend pages after pages detailing a facet of a snowflake! But I am determined and I WILL finish this damn book. Eventually.

7- book you are currently reading

I just finished « and they both die in the end » and I think I will start « My Dark Vanessa » by Kate Elizabeth Russel.

8- last book you recommended to someone

Percy Jackson and the lighting thief by Rick Riordan, to my little brother. I’m hoping he will have finished it before the serie (FINALLY) comes out so we can watch it together but he’s definitely not a big reader so :(

9- oldest book you read

The Odysee I guess? Does that count?

10- the most recent book you read ?

I think « and they both does in the end »is pretty new right?

11- favorite author?

I can’t really answer that it’s way too hard but I really like the style of Maxime Chattam and Pierre Botterro…

12- buying books or borrowing books?

I love the idea of buying all of your own books but unfortunately it comes with having money to spare so I’ll say borrowing ^^

12- a book you dislike that everyone else seems to love

« A quoi rêvent les étoiles » by Manon Fargetton. I’ve only seen positive reviews about it but I didn’t really like this book, altho there were some good parts. Initially I really thought it would be my cup of tea, as it is about 5 very different people having their own problems and finding eachother through pure coïncidence and helping eachother. But for one, the style was way to pretentious at times. It was like the author was trying to make a big philosophical point but it just fell flat for me. And the characters, aside from one, were all poorly handled. Either they were extremely unlikeable, completely unrelevant, or their arcs was very unsatisfying.

!!!! Spoiler alert and trigger warning for suicide !!!

the one characters story that I hated the most was the one of Luce, an old woman who is in deep grief over her husband Lucien’s death. At the beginning she tries to kill herself to join him, but is stopped by one character, and over the course of story she learns to live without her husband, to rekindle with who she is and what she loves, and to form bonds with other people. Only to still kill herself in the end. While it could have been a tragic way of showing that one does not get out of depression that easily, we’re actually supposed to think it’s a good ending for her because she died in a «cooler » and more symbolical way and cleared up some unfinished business. Personally I hated that…

14 - bookmarks or dogears?

Bookmarks can be so fucking cool (even though I lose them so easlily)!! Definitely them ;)

15- The book you can always reread?

The trilogy of Ellana Le pacte des marchombres by Pierre Botterro. Normally I don’t reread books but I reread them 4 times I think! I just love this world and characters so much 😭

16- can you read while listening to music?

Definitely not it’s too hard to focus :/

17- one POV or multi POV?

I’m a real sucker for multi POV! I just think it’s so interesting to have different’s character perspective about the same story and it can give them more depth. I finished « Six of Crows » duology not long ago and the multi POV was very well done!!!

18- do you read book in one sitting or in multiple days?

I like to savour them so I try to not read them too quickly ^^

19- who do to tag :

Ok let’s see, if they want to of course -

@awake-dreamer18 , @and-they-all-fell-down , @ghostlyruinstrash , @lamonnaie , @enola-holmess , @becks-fizz

[wolfwhiteflowers]

‘TWD and The fumbling dead’

*anti OUAT and I’m a Neal fan.

- check my tag /tagged/*twd for other ranty posts of mine.

*I’m assuming Rick and Maggie will die in s9. And perhaps Michonne too.

*posts about Michonne too and fandom stuff

vvvv

Since the news of AL and LC will leave the show in s9, and that Daryl will become the leading character, I want to say TWD ended in s8 for me. I don’t think I will watch the show live in s9 and on. It depends..but I know it’s not TWD to me.

It’s weird but after calming down a bit, I guess, I’m starting to think maybe I would follow the story in s9b or after Rick’s death. I’m feeling better because I realized we’re all into this together experiencing this. Fans could keep watching TWD or not, we’re still part of the TWD fandom and we’re still appreciate the good times. Like other fandoms, in old shows, some fans still make fanart and fanfictions. Stories are still with us. We’re still a fandom.

Some could still follow TWD show in s9, and take it seriously and some could like hate-watch it and I guess just make the rest like some AU fic. What is it like TWD-after Rick’s death/no Grimes boys (main protagonists).

I could watch s9b and I’ll just say it’s the spin-off show and ignore Rick’s death. s9 and on, is Dixon spin-off show. But the thing is if and only if Caryl will be/is canon and Carol still be interesting (doesn’t only interact with Kingdom folks)/good writing that I would be into it. I think it’s because Carol is my top fave of the show and I love Caryl, so yeah. I would love it if s9b and on was like a Caryl show. However, I don’t think I would watch it live. I’ll just look at gifs and videos.

Idk. s9 and on, better set the tone differently for me to watch it or for me to care. Ugh I just wish it’s a spin-off show. I noticed from other people’s reactions, it’s hard for everyone to decide to quit or not. We’re all invested in this show.

So I could just keep watching s9, (caryl still caryl-y) and just ‘hate-watch’ the alternate universe of TWD with no Grimes boys. Watch Michonne grieve, Maggie dies too(?), and idk Michonne leaves with Judith to somewhere. No more Grimes in the TWD. Then it’s like I guess it’s fully a Dixon show..till the end. Whatever the ending is. But the real TWD ended in s8, imo, or whenever people want it to be.

*Ugh I don’t think TWD can feel different. Everyone’s gonna mention Rick’s death(?) and Michonne’s grieving and leaving(?), and Maggie’s death(?).Everything is still gonna follow what TWD was. S9 is crazy.

-With the show OUAT, Neal/Baefire was fave and others were inconsistent and the writing was always meh. It was easier to just stop it after Neal’s death. Plus, notp and just bad confusing writing. Henry interacting with Hook was the worst. But hey I’m over it. It’s not in my headcanon story. I get what others feel about Judith being taken care of from other characters/Daryl. But hey TWD imo is already done in s8.

Why TWD ended in s8. They killed off Carl in s7.  (or writers didn’t know/idk show business) I thought they killed Carl off because they want Michonne to stay longer and live past the comic-Andrea death moment -after whisperer war. I was ok with Carl’s death because TWD also follows Rick’s story. So I figured TWD would end with Rick, instead of like what the comics might go..end with Carl. Happy ending or not. TWD tv show should end with Rick and that the ending be very meaningful. So with AL news, I doubt we’re gonna get a satisfying ending to Rick’s story in s9a 6(?) episodes, while the show keeps going on in s9 with 16 episodes in total. The show keep going on and Daryl as main character. So, I just don’t like how it is. S9 is all AU to me. #tfd twd.

I’m assuming Rick and Maggie dies, well I just have low expectations from TWD writers. (LC is leaving too) I speculate in s9, they die like based on the gory comic moment. Killed by Alpha (whisperer) and their heads on pikes. It’s like the easiest way to just end their stories. But it’s also cheap and not meaningful. I also speculate that Ezekiel will die too. There’s like this parallel with communities’ leaders dying (Rick and Maggie), so I think Ezekiel will be part of that. Idk about Oceanside and Sanctuary. (Cyndie and Rosita and they will die too?) Unless something else happens and maybe Rick and Maggie’s exit of the show will be different. * IDK ..if Rick just goes missing then TWD still can be TWD but ..on a break/Daryl’s show. We just wait till Rick comes back ..in finale to end TWD.

So, S9 is all AU to me. The best AU version on without Rick/ s9, is to have Michonne leading the group and be the main character, and on the rest of s9/or and on, is Michonne and Judith’s adventures. (It would be like TWDG Lee and Clementine or any parent-figure and child stories). But it’s not gonna be that or that what it seems like rn. It’s Daryl who leads the show.

*If Danai only gonna be there till end of s9. Then I have the is AU/headcanon for Michonne. Rick didn’t die but gone missing (ep 6 or whenever he’s done) and then MIchonne and Judith deal with it throughout s9. They search for Rick, and the end of s9 (or whenever Danai leaves the show) Michonne...being like comic-Michonne, Michonne and Judith go on a boat to search for Rick. So then The Grimes are outta of the TWD show. If TWD got s10 and on, then they finally be a spin-off show. I wish we got a good TWD ending and then a spinoff. And if they want to in the series finale, the Grimes reunited and they came back to finish the TWD story.

Michonne can be very much like comic-Michonne s9/TWD AU. losing loves, searching for someone (Rick/Elodie), and my headcanon of finding him -like in whenever TWD series finale will happen. Idk just something I thought of recently. She might be like comic-Michonne. But who knows what s9 is like and I just doubt it would be satisfying.

-----------------

why not michonne & why Daryl? how long ? and TWD=Rick. (why not Carol/Maggie/Michonne?)

-First off, I think when AMC or the rumor say Daryl is leading the TWD show now. I think they meant Daryl will be the main character. It’s doesn’t matter who leads Team Family. There’s different communities and their leaders anyways.

I would want Michonne to lead team family and being the leading character of TWD. She’s already a leader in ASZ and she’s like the last Grimes that do stuff. (not Judith) But I think she gonna leave the show soon. Danai’s contract ends in s9. So I think she’s gonna leave/die in s9. It’s really rough with TWD story. Grimes die and Michonne too? What about Judith? It’s all really depressing.

Also, it’s a weird feeling on that when Rick’s gone, I want Michonne and Judith gone too. TWD is all about the Grimes boys, imo, and I want Michonne gone too because I don’t want to see her mourn again. I think in a way it would be better to have all the Grimes gone so then TWD s9B can truly feel like a spin-off show and distant from the real TWD/Grimes show. Maybe it’s easier with Daryl to be the main character then. Ukno? He’s not a Grimes. It’s easier to distant from the Grimes story. Whatever, I say s9B is all AU.

Idk about Judith. If TWD really thinks now the main point of the story is always about Judith, then so be it ..whatever. ….Then they should make it more about Judith and it makes sense to have Michonne there. But …Daryl is the lead so…idk just have the Grimes go on a trip. sigh. It’s always about Rick and/or Carl.

But it’s weird for me to think of wanting Michonne (and Judith) to leave TWD s9, because characterwise Michonne can have her own story and stuff. Make it TWD s9B the Michonne spin-off show. She can do her thing and her story isn’t about Rick. #Girlpower.  But Michonne is so involved in the Grimes story and ….also I feel like it really messes up Michonne’s story arc too,imo or that I don’t like the arc. She started the story as losing her lover and son and then learning to love again with new lover and son(main characters!). She got a new family and leading ASZ. Now she loses them again. It’s so depressing and feels like pointless. It’s like WTF is her ending to her character’s story now?

…Michonne raising Judith? It’s still not good enough for me….still feels AU story.Judith is a baby and we always think of TWD about the Grimes boys. uhh. Idk. It would be better if it’s like Lee and Clementine (idk like 6 yo) situation. Ok ..it does sound better than the Dixon spin off show. But it’s all depressing to see Michonne all alone…Always a reminder that Grimes boys are dead. And Judith doesn’t do much or that we won’t be able to see Michonne and Judith leading the show (unless we get another big time jump.) Heck this sounds cool. But it’s not gonna be like that....

Anyways, I don’t think Danai will stay that much longer in the show. AMC is already saying Daryl is the lead. I guess one of the reasons its Daryl because he really separates from the Grimes family/TWD story, the whole Daryl vs Negan arc,…and obviously he’s popular and $$$. blah

[doctorwhonews]

Torchwood: The Last Beacon

Latest Review: Writer: Gareth David-Lloyd Director: Scott Handcock Featuring: Burn Gorman, Gareth David-Lloyd, Laura Dalgleish, Daniel Hawksford, Rick Yale, Marilyn Le Conte Big Finish Release (United Kingdom) Running Time: 1 hour Released by Big Finish Productions - April 2018 Order from Amazon UK “I can’t go in there – it’s got a hygiene rating of 1!” “Could be worse.” “How?” “Could be 0!” Since Big Finish acquired their prized license to continue the missions of Torchwood Three beyond their 2010 televised expiry date, we’ve seen their resultant monthly range deliver myriad unlikely character groupings: Captain Jack and Queen Victoria, Sergeant Andy and an enigmatic long-dead secret agent, Yvonne Hartman and Wales’ nightclubbing community, the list goes on. That trend of subversive matchmaking continues this month with The Last Beacon, wherein Cardiff’s famed coffee brewing extraordinaire Ianto Jones and its infamous soon-to-be eternal antihero Owen Harper must embark on the road trip to end all road trips. What could possibly go wrong? Well, we’re glad that you asked. Such circumstances could’ve never come about without sufficient incentive for both participants, of course, and indeed the pair has their work cut out locating the source of the elusive signal which endows Beacon with its name. Containing the language of an alien species long thought extinct, the sudden transmission brings Ianto and Owen out to the Welsh countryside for a makeshift bonding exercise-turned-trial by fire – the former equipped with his trusty coffee kit, mittens and years of camping experience, the latter only his wits and trademark bitter sense of humour. By now any Torchwood devotee should already have sensed the rife potential for fraught inter-team dynamics and rural satire just waiting for the play’s writer to exploit, and the scribe’s name? Gareth David-Lloyd. If the gamble of allowing one of the show’s lead stars to try his hand at penning their latest script, particularly with no prior writing credits to his name, seems a step too far even for a company as prone to risk-taking as Big Finish, then worry not; the studio couldn’t possibly have selected a more suitable custodian for this utterly spectacular buddy comedy. Whether he’s sending our heroes into pubs for spontaneous – if inevitable – brawls, eerie forests containing sinister visions of the past or abandoned clubhouses which Owen wryly brands as being “frozen in the ‘80s”, David-Lloyd evidently recalls transparently how the original series thrived on juggling humorous and horrific elements throughout its four-season run, straddling those contrasting tones with the same enviable ease as any of his fellow range wrights. Less surprising, however, is the man’s ability to brilliantly capture Ianto’s complex personality – on the printed page and in the recording studio – as if TV’s second most iconic butler after Jeeves had never departed from our screens or airwaves. It’s easy to forget at times how impressively multi-faceted a character Mr. Jones became over the course of 30 episodes, his quiet sense of humour belying intense romantic passion, psychological vulnerability and strained familial ties which then came to the fore in Children of Earth. Fair play to David-Lloyd, then, for placing this emotionally versatile character’s internal struggles front-and-centre in Beacon, with his struggle to reconcile the innocent tyke who adored visiting the Welsh mountains to see his gran with the oft-isolated man that we see today a core thematic and narrative element that lends vital gravitas to the mission and to his dynamic with Owen. Enter Burn Gorman, the return of whom to Torchwood marked by far one of the audio range’s biggest breakthroughs in 2017’s deeply unsettling masterpiece Corpse Day. Unsurprisingly Gorman – who successfully sent shivers down this viewer’s spine in the role of Oliver’s Bill Sykes on the West End a few years back – carries the performing mettle to simultaneously evolve Owen’s intricate relationship with Ianto, as the former discovers how the latter’s childhood experiences still inform his modern-day decisions, while also providing much of the tale’s pitch-perfect comic relief as Owen finds himself totally out of his element. Indeed, David-Lloyd confirms in Beacon's interview tracks that he and Goss conspired to bring Owen aboard what the former calls a spiritual successor to "Countrycide", knowing that he'd truly seem a fish out of water when met with the prospect of conversing with amicable bus drivers and alien badgers or indulging Ianto's newfound passopn for geocaching treasure hunts. That Gorman shares such obvious chemistry with David-Lloyd, particularly thanks to their hilarious good cop / bad cop approach, couldn’t have been predicted before recording, though; let’s hope that this month’s long-awaited team-up boxset Torchwood: Believe offers plenty more of this superb dynamic. Beyond the fine tonal balancing and gripping character drama, there’s even time for some provocative thematic exploration of communities and species straying from their traditional roots along the way. Guest star Ellie Darvill does an utterly tremendous job conveying her character’s underlying yearning for our species return to simpler times before our gothic pursuit of technology at all costs, a return to the rare community spirit which anyone who’s ever camped near rural villages will attest pervades that refreshing escapist experience. Once again, though, that David-Lloyd effortlessly integrates this increasingly topical talking point into the context of a sci-fi narrative – and indeed Ianto’s personal arc over the course of hour – speaks wonders for his previously untapped literary talents, to the remarkable extent that even Big Finish’s veteran scribes could learn a thing or three for future reference. Regular readers of our Torchwood audio verdicts might recall this reviewer previously calling out the range’s inconsistent approach to arc-building, but ultimately, if its – seemingly – standalone recent entries such as this one and last month’s brilliantly off-the-wall The Death of Captain Jack are even marginally indicative of what’s to come in future releases, then consider those qualms completely laid to rest. In The Last Beacon, Gareth David-Lloyd has delivered not only the definitive take on his still beloved character of Ianto Jones, but more importantly an incredible distillation of everything which made the show so successful on-air and which continues to ensure its hallowed place in fans’ hearts today. Next Time on Torchwood – We’re off for another road trip, this time of the psychological horror variety, as the Cooper family test their longstanding theory that We Always Get Out Alive to its nerve-wracking limits. First, though, who fancies attending Torchwood Three’s much-vaunted reunion party, the guest list for which includes immortal Time Agents, space pig-hunting medics and a certain renowned butler? Apparently securing an invitation to this prestigious three-hour event doesn’t take much effort for those in the know – all one has to do is Believe… http://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2018/04/torchwood_the_last_beacon.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[iristovevo]

The biggest thing about SoN for me atleast is that it explores in detail how Percy is an unreliable narrator. The inconsistency between how Percy read the roman camp and how things actually happened- ie, him assuming Octavian murdered Gwen because of an obvious bias against him vs finding out in a later book that it was literally someone he didn't know who had done so, always stuck out to me.

I've always come at HoO from a very Octavian-sympathetic light because he's very interesting to me and I'm passionate about his character and his motivations, so I tend to give him a lot of the benefit of the doubt, but I really do agree with the OP's anon about the statement that it felt like there was more planned for him. The difference between Luke and Octavian isn't just in how fans felt about them though, it's in

1. We literally had less time with him. We are introduced to our demigod primary antagonist in book two. We hardly see him because a majority of our POV characters have fucked off on a quest. We don't get the chance besides like, Rachel and Reyna iirc, and eventually Nico, to get anything out of him. He's so frustratingly absent that it's hard to get anything other than implications from his actions.

2. Character Type. Luke was posed in the first book as someone we were supposed to like, and it was meant to hurt when he betrayed Percy, as well as us. He was our older brother figure as well as Percy's, and everything he did afterwards was coming off that nuance and betrayal. Octavian was always juxtaposed against that as someone who was guarded against outsiders, someone who wanted to protect his camp, someone who didn't trust or like Percy. So when Percy lashes out against him we as an audience are supposed to find it funny, supposed to be on his side. He doesn't like this guy and we aren't given a shred of reason to want to be on Octavian's side.

3. Riordan. Genuinely i think besides fan reaction, Rick was bored of writing a character who audiences wanted to see sympathetically, and wanted to spend more of his time fleshing out the giants and the wide cast of characters he had in a wide range of places. He just wasn't interested in giving us the nuance and character motivation and backstory the character deserved because he was bored of writing that character type after Luke, and he did actions to paint Octavian in a purposefully unfavorable light so the audience would have a different type of character that we just. Genuinely weren't meant to root for or want to see more of. So, even if Riordan had more he wanted to do with him, ultimately it just felt like he put it down and prioritized other arcs that he felt were more important.

These are all my opinions, I haven't reread the books in ages and I'm coming at this from an incredibly biased perspective. I also mean all of this completely respectfully, I'm babbling at 3am ^^

i really don't like how Riordan wrote Octavian in HOO. during SON, it really seemed like he had something planned for him, some backstory or reasoning for his actions, but when he saw the way fans hated on him he decided to just make him a laughingstock. he's supposed to be this powerful guy, Hazel even says so, and he's supposed to be able to talk the senate into almost anything, and yet we don't see any of this past SON. and the hypocrisy for him! with Luke, people forgave him even though he tried to literally destroy Camp Halfblood, gr00med children, and obviously did not care if his own allies got killed. his main reasoning was "I don't think my dad cares about me so I'm just gonna injure and/or off dozens of children!". Octavian does try to destroy Camp Halfblood (which I'm not gonna say is okay, bc it isn't) but he has an actual reasoning! his home had been attacked and the people who did it just ran away with no explanation. yes, Leo had been possessed, but nobody even told Octavian that! so his rage was absolutely reasonable. and he actually cares about his allies. he waits to attack several days to a week just so the onagers would arrive, that way there would be no casualties on his side. plus, it seems like people just ignore the fact that he was manipulated by Gaea and was obviously having a mental breakdown near the end. it's constantly brought up in arguments for Luke like "he was manipulated by Kronos!!" but when a similar thing happens to Octavian, nobody mentions it or seemingly cares.

Note: OP has a negative opinion of Luke and of some fans differing reactions to Luke and Octavian as antagonists. However this is not a fandom complaint or character complaint blog. It is a book complaint blog. This ask was sent before that point was clarified. Please try to limit complaints and discussions to what occurs in the source material only.

Yes, I agree. I tried to make a list of your points below for clarity.

during SON, it really seemed like he had something planned for him, some backstory or reasoning for his actions

It did seem that way. There are a lot of implications behind Octavian and not much fact.

It is implied he was raised in New Rome. This means he was raised in a culture that promoted suspicion of/aversion towards greek demigod culture. (You can see this aversion in the way people/the laeres react to Percy when he arrives at CJ.)

It is implied he has prophetic powers.

It is implied that he is unwell/unstable. It's implied he is being manipulated by Gaea's.

It is implied that public opinion of him is favorable.

It is implied he wants to go to war, specifically against greek demigods should they exist, though he should have no proof of their existence.

It is implied that he killed Gwen.

It is implied (in TOA) that he has a connection to the triumverate.

None of this is ever explained/explored/given more detail. Why does he believe Apollo supports him? What is the extent of Gaea's influence on him? Why does he angle for war before the attack on Rome even happens? What does he know and how?

he's supposed to be this powerful guy, Hazel even says so, and he's supposed to be able to talk the senate into almost anything, and yet we don't see any of this past SON.

Given every implication above, he should be powerful, or competent, or at least have the backing of competent people. We never see that. We never know why he makes the decisions he does and how he accomplishes his goals is almost never shown or explored.

Octavian does try to destroy Camp Halfblood (which I'm not gonna say is okay, bc it isn't) but he has an actual reasoning! his home had been attacked and the people who did it just ran away with no explanation.

Octavian was pretty clearly angling for war even before the attack, but certainly that cemented the legitimacy of such an action in his mind. Yet from SoN onwards Rick treats Octavian as a complete joke. Which honestly, I do think Octavian is funny, but I also think the story would have been better if I believed Octavian was a legitimate threat. And I don't because he basically disappears from the narrative at this point except to exist as some sort of omnipresent boogieman. None of his actions, motivations, or reasoning is ever explored. Any shadow of substance he had in the previous books is flattened. He becomes completely two dimensional.

It's hard to even be mad at people for not seeing the legitimacy in his attack when it's the result of Rick completely ignoring his character. After SoN he basically only exists to create a sense of urgency in completing the quest.

and he actually cares about his allies. he waits to attack several days to a week just so the onagers would arrive, that way there would be no casualties on his side.

I mean, this is largely supposition. The narrative heavily implies the wait for the onagers is because he wants to win with overwhelming force. But you are right that his compatriots safety could be the reason he wants to win with overwhelming force! But we don't know, because again, he was never fleshed out!

plus, it seems like people just ignore the fact that he was manipulated by Gaea and was obviously having a mental breakdown near the end.

It's pretty clear he was being manipulated. I think one thing it's easy to forget is that all these characters are teenagers. Octavian is a child. He has been put in a position of responsibility that should be reserved for an adult. It's hard to think Octavian is 100% evil or that he 100% deserves to die. EXCEPT that Rick has prevented us from being allowed to see him as a real person. He has made him feel like a complete caricature of a human being. And even then, it still disgusts me that Rick made his death a complete joke, something to laugh at.

If Rick was trying to say that "people who think this way are a joke" he should have shown us more of Octavian's thoughts. He should have given us the oppurtunity to see the point he was making by laughing at him.

Instead we have the implication that there was more, and no answers. He never even gave Octavian a last name. I do not like Octavian as a character, but everything about how he was written is sort of fucked up.

[gusticeleague]

Rest and Rick-laxation review

Man, can we just take a second to appreciate Justin Roiland’s voice work here? Not only does he have to do three versions of two characters each, he has to take them to their absolute vocal limit. That entire scene of them sitting in the UFO must have been hell on his throat. 

So Rick and Morty decide to take a vacation at an alien spa, and as a result of an alien sauna...thing end up splitting off into two distinct selves. Which, if I’m parsing this correctly, represent the qualities they value about themselves or most wish to be (henceforth dubbed Healthy Rick and Healthy Morty) and the qualities they think are problems or that they view as toxic (henceforth Toxic Rick and Toxic Morty), as exemplified by their sickening, snot-like composition. It’s a pretty clever conceit for some character study, but the twist that the Detoxifier operates on a subjective notion of what each of the pair define as “toxic” about themselves becomes frustrating to parse if you look at it too closely.

Morty’s arc is pretty easy, given that it’s really his episode here. He starts off wanting to stop adventuring for a while so he can enjoy his high school years, even if they’ll be spent being too nervous and awkward to ask out his crush. After Rick admits that they need a break after the six week long Abadongo Cluster excursion and his subsequent detoxification, he’s split from all the insecurities that were “holding him back” and is left as a cool, affable smooth operator who doesn’t have to constantly work through his nerves and self-loathing to do anything. Of course, this is through the lens of what a 14 year old boy thinks a “healthy” self should be, which is basically a poster child for toxic masculinity — an ”alpha male” for whom emotions are merely performative actions to manipulate women into dating him, which is a really brilliant move to incorporate that idea on the writer’s part given the kind of fanbase Rick and Morty has garnered. It’s telling that the first thing a female friend messaged me halfway into watching the episode was “Detoxed Morty makes me so fucking uncomfortable” while it took me, an slightly oblivious straight male, until Morty literally said “red pill or blue pill” to get the point. And the end, he decides that living as a miserable, nervous teenager having to work through his issues is better than climbing to success and having no ability to appreciate it. So from that point of view, the subjectivity conceit works well. Where it gets a little fuzzier is with Rick.

Toxic Rick warrants little explanation if you’ve seen the episode, or really any episode of the show. His healthy self even gives a laundry list of the attributes he’s meant to represent. But it’s a bit unclear as to what “Healthy Rick” is really meant to represent, leaving this episode fairly lopsided in terms what we’re meant to take away from it.

The main inconsistency here to people is that Healthy Rick states that he’s “proud to be [Morty’s] grandfather” at the beginning, while he sees his “irrational attachment” to Morty is in his toxic self. While I don’t completely disagree with that complaint, I’ve been doing my best to surmise Healthy Rick’s attributes to keep the episode narratively consistent in my head. And the best I can come up with is this:

After Healthy Rick laughs at his toxic self showing concern for Toxic Morty and trying his best to deny it, we get this exchange:

Toxic Rick: “You think that’s funny? Healthy Rick: “You’ve got to have a sense of humour about these things! Oh wait, you can’t. You’re literally incapable of seeing the bigger picture. I guess it’s just funny because you’ve never done anything but complain about me being in charge, but if I ever gave you the wheel, we’d be dead in five minutes...You poor dumb sick animal.”

If we’re to compare this to Morty and his arc in this episode, it’s pretty clearly set up that Morty wants to go on a date with Jessica, and his toxic qualities are the things getting in the way of that goal. Rick, on the other hand, doesn’t really have much of an arc here, instead facilitating the re-merging aspect of the plot. But if you consider Rick’s character and his usual goals of traversing the multiverse for his own gain and numbing himself of the consequences, the qualities that help him succeed at that are the things that his Healthy self insults his Toxic self for lacking. And when his toxic side does take the wheel..well, the show probably would have ended at Auto-Erotic Assimilation had he not passed out halfway through his suicide attempt.

Rick knows the grand scope of the huge amoral universe his genius has opened up to him, has calculated his frame of mind to operate well within it and being able to laugh off his mistakes and not stopping to dwell on them, even if they have world-ending consequences. Having a grasp of the “bigger picture” and having a sense of humour, given the world he inhabits and the goals he has is a pretty healthy view of things, at least in his mind. This extends to his view of other people. As he explains to Jaguar in Pickle Rick, his infinite scope of reference precludes the idea of attachment. So he can probably feel sentimental towards Morty as a grandson, but as an entity in the grand cosmic scope of things, he’s pretty disposable. Having an attachment to him beyond “grandson” and “sidekick” is irrational in his mind, and therefore toxic, because it interferes with his work. “Need” is a strong word, after all. He needs a doorstop, but a brick will do, and Morty is his most readily available brick.

While I appreciate the overall point that Rest and Rick-laxation is making, especially with regards to Morty’s arc (anyone find themselves thinking about what their own toxic/healthy selves would be?), the show has done character studies like this before and done them better, namely with Pickle Rick and the mythologues from Big Trouble in Little Sanchez. It’s still a decent episode, but since the whole season has been a character study in one way or another, it would be nice to have, I don’t know, a vacation from it.

Happy Labour Day, America!

Episode MVP: It was nice to actually get a glimpse at Jessica’s character rather than have her just be a focus of Morty’s obsessions. Plus she was pretty integral to the plot and Morty’s arc. I’m giving this one to her.

Favourite bit character: While AWESOME, the Voltron made of drones doesn’t count as a character in my mind, so this goes to the children’s entertainer yelling that Santa Claus is a lie and all the kids at the party were mistakes. May he rest in peace.

Best joke: Everything in the fight between the two Ricks using hidden weapons around the house to tear into each other. I especially loved the attack dog alien that grows with praise.

Final Rating: 12 out of 15 and a half grapples.

[aion-rsa]

Marvel’s Loki: Making Sense of the MCU’s Time Travel Rules

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This article contains spoilers for Loki episode 1, Avengers: Endgame, and perhaps the very fabric of reality itself.

Nobody said time travel was easy. When Marvel Studios officially introduced temporal shenanigans into its cinematic canon in Avengers: Endgame, it did so with noble intentions. Our Avengers had to save the universe and recapture the 50% of the population that Thanos dusted away. The easiest way to do so was with a dash of Pym particles and an entanglement within the Quantum Realm. 

Unfortunately, however, engaging with time travel means engaging with its rules. Now that the studio’s third Disney+ series Loki has brought the God of Mischief into contact with the Time Variance Authority and the Time Keepers’ Sacred Timeline, the Marvel Cinematic Universe faces the unenviable task of making sense of the impossible.

Through one episode, Loki has done a solid job of explaining the rules and stakes of time travel as it applies to Loki, itself. Still, some questions remain about how the rules of time established in Loki apply to Avengers: Endgame’s time heist and the rest of the MCU at large. For a proper example, take a look at these very astute questions raised by Brit in the comment section of our Loki Episode 1 Easter eggs article. 

“Please can we have a Q&A article on this. Aren’t there already two timelines? One with Steve Rogers in the Avengers and one where he stayed in Peggy? (Editor’s Note: Phrasing) And a third where Thanos left? Either way, aren’t there already multiple? And shouldn’t Steve Rogers be classed as a variant as he went rogue?”

The simple answer to all of these questions is that, despite its interconnected nature, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is made up of individual films (and now TV shows) written by individual writers. So the events of Avengers: Endgame may not make perfect canonical sense in Loki. We know for a fact that Loki’s TVA adventure was not conceived of until Avengers: Endgame had already been written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. In an interview with EW, Marvel head Kevin Feige revealed that Loki stealing the Tesseract was never designed to lead into another time travel story.

“[That scene] was really more of a wrinkle so that one of the missions that the Avengers went on in Endgame could get screwed up and not go well, which is what required Cap and Tony to go further back in time to the ’70s,” Feige said.

If the time travel rules of Loki are to be consistent with the time travel rules of Avengers: Endgame it will be only because the later show retrofitted itself to work within them. For what it’s worth, Loki head writer Michael Waldron (who previously wrote for the timey wimey Rick and Morty) claims that the show’s approach to time travel rules are bulletproof.

“I was always very acutely aware of the fact that there’s a week between each of our episodes and these fans are going to do exactly what I would do, which is pick this apart. We wanted to create a time-travel logic that was so airtight it could sustain over six hours. There’s some time-travel sci-fi concepts here that I’m eager for my Rick and Morty colleagues to see,” Waldron told Vanity Fair.

In that same interview, Waldron notes that Avengers: Endgame presents the rules of time travel as The Avengers understand them. Perhaps this means that Loki will correct the Avengers in some areas and clarify the rules in future episodes. If that’s the case, Loki will have a lot of work to do. As we understand all the rules now, the time travel of Endgame does appear to be at odds with the time travel of Loki in several respects.

Hopefully, the show will explain away those inconsistencies. In case it doesn’t, however, let’s try to do it ourselves. 

Why Were the Events of Endgame Sanctioned?

Thanks to Loki episode 1 “Glorious Purpose” we have one bit of useful canonical information when it comes to the time travel in Avengers: Endgame. When Loki stands trial for his timecrimes, he tries to pass blame onto the Avengers. But the judge presiding over his case, Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), tells Loki that everything the Avengers did was supposed to happen. 

How can that be the case though? Just about everything that The Avengers did appears to fly in the face of the Time Keepers’ mission of maintaining the Sacred Timeline. Tony and Steve’s team sent no fewer than 11 individuals back in time to three distinct time periods. They then removed sacred objects from those time streams, brought them back to the present, used them, then returned them to their appropriate locations in time. How on Earth did that not create dozens if not hundreds of new timelines that threaten the singular supremacy of the Sacred Timeline?

I’ve got two potential explanations for that, both of which are imperfect and flawed. But absent further information from Loki, they might be the best we can do for now. 

The first option is that perhaps the TVA is oversimplifying how neat and tidy the Sacred Timeline looks. Within the TVA offices, the visual representation of the Sacred Timeline is a single straight line on their computer monitors, with potentially dangerous new timelines being represented by jagged fresh lines branching off from the main line. While this is a helpful visual for the TVA office drones to keep an eye on things, it might not represent the full reality of the Sacred Timeline.

The Sacred Timeline may be a gnarled, ugly beast with one long branch spreading out into infinity and smaller twigs doubling back on themselves along the big branch. This would mean that it’s possible for time travel within the Sacred Timeline as long as it’s occurring on the Sacred’s Timeline main branch and with the Time Keepers’ blessing. Why would the Time Keepers sanction some time travels and deem others as unacceptable Nexus events? That’s anyone’s guess. 

The other possibility comes from a theory within Endgame itself. The closest that Marvel’s Infinity Saga conclusion gets to addressing the “rules” of time travel is via a conversation among Scott Lang, James “Rhodey” Rhodes, and Bruce Banner. All three men have their opinions on time travel, but the film gives Bruce the final word, subtly suggesting that it’s his interpretation that’s correct. Here is what he has to say:

“Time doesn’t work that way. Changing the past doesn’t change the future. Think about it, if you travel to the past, that past becomes your future and your former present becomes the past, which can’t now be changed by your new future.”

Let’s call this the Subjective Theory of MCU Time Travel. A certain kind of time travel is allowed and effective as long as the time traveller understands that the nature of time comes down to their subjective experience of it. Bruce Banner can’t create a new timeline when traveling to the past because he’s aware that the past is now a part of his own subjective future. As long as his story ends up where it’s supposed to be, which is to say activating the Infinity Gauntlet in 2023, then everything will be ok.

And that brings us to a certain time traveling lothario…

Why Didn’t Steve Rogers Create A New Timeline?

The idea that Steve Rogers didn’t create a new, unsanctioned timeline by living out an entirely new life with his lost love Peggy Carter is truly baffling. If Loki can create a Nexus event by picking up the Tesseract, how can Steve Rogers abandoning Captaining America in favor of smooching Peggy for 50+ years not?

Well, maybe we can make sense of this by combining our two theories above. For starters, the Sacred Timeline has to accommodate for other smaller, sanctioned timelines within itself – it just has to! Any decision you do or do not make creates new possibilities and new universes. When you choose to wear a blue shirt in the morning as opposed to a red shirt, you are creating an entirely new unseen universe in which you wore that red shirt (and probably won the lottery or something, I don’t know).

Going back to that gnarled branch analogy from before: perhaps the Sacred Timeline isn’t so much of a single line but a series of lines contained within a larger line – fiber optic cable-style. Steve Rogers going back in time and living out a new life is just part of one of the smaller, sanctioned lines clinging onto the main one.

There’s also the reality that Steve did what he was required to do at the end of the day. Having delivered all of the Stones back to their respective places he returned to the present an aged man (and looking like Joe Biden). He then presumably passed away peacefully of natural causes in the timeline that he was supposed to die in at the precisely correct point. 

Read more

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Loki: Is the TVA The Most Powerful Entity in the MCU?

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That new past was Steve’s future like Bruce said it would be. Therefore it affected only him. What of all the people Steve interacted with in his new life though? It’s possible that they just dissipated away once Steve returned to the present or their lives carried on normally inside a pocket universe contained within the Sacred Timeline. There’s also a darker possibility that the TVA had to go in and liquidate that whole timeline once Steve had exited it. Sharp-eyed viewers have spotted what looks to be Peggy Carter in Variant prison garb in the background of Loki’s first episode.

That would be a pretty upsetting conclusion to Steve and Peggy’s character arcs, but it would resolve the temporal headaches created by his time travels in the ruthlessly unsentimental way that only the TVA can pull off.

Why Are Variants Allowed on the Sacred Timeline? 

At the conclusion of Avengers: Endgame, there is at least one Variant from a separate timeline existing within the Sacred Timeline. That is, of course, the Guardians of the Galaxy’s Gamora. Thanks to the Avengers’ meddling, she arrived in the Sacred Timeline alongside Variant versions of her “father” Thanos and her “sister” Nebula. Variant Thanos and Variant Nebula are eventually dispatched by the Avengers but Gamora remains behind as a curious sideways world version of herself in a new reality. How is this allowed?

The answer to this is a very well-reasoned “because the Time Keepers said so.” As far as we understand it, the Time Keepers only goal is to maintain the sanctity of the Sacred Timeline. If that means bringing in reinforcements from other timelines, then so be it.

But wait a minute, Alec, you just said “other timelines.” How could Variant versions of Thanos and Gamora even exist on a separate timeline to join the Sacred Timeline if the TVA is so adamant on stamping out other timelines? I don’t know, man. My head hurts. It likely goes back once again to that “big branch” or “fiber optic” cable analogy though. It’s quite simply not possible for there to not be alternate timelines once time travel comes into play. So those timelines have to exist as appropriate branches attached to the main branch. Those Variant Gamoras, Nebulas, and Thanos were therefore never Variants to begin with. They were merely different aspects of the same character from different parts of the same timeline.

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Is this all complicated? Yep. Does it  make perfect sense to me? Absolutely not. That doesn’t change the fact, however, that there is one unshakable tenet of the Marvel Cinematic Universe canon when it comes to time travel now thanks to Loki. And that’s that the events of Avengers: Endgame happened exactly as the time stream needed them to. Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanov, and company are not Variants. No one went “rogue.” That reality makes it harder to fully understand and explain away why dozens of Nexus events weren’t created by their actions. But explain it away we must, because the Time Keepers say so.

Loki airs new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+. 

The post Marvel’s Loki: Making Sense of the MCU’s Time Travel Rules appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[theconservativebrief]

After more than eight years of shenanigans involving candy people, alternate universes, vampires, nearly 3,000 wiki pages’ worth of lore, some highly unusual exclamations (“Mathematical!”), and bacon pancakes, Cartoon Network’s beloved Adventure Time is coming to a close.

Since its debut in 2010, the series has evolved into one of the most popular and influential programs in the channel’s history. Despite being first and foremost a kids’ show, it built a sizable fan base among older audiences and gained mounting psychological and even philosophical weight over its 10-season run. The September 3 series finale marks the end of an era in imagining new storytelling possibilities, not just for cartoons but for TV in general.

Adventure Time spans nearly 300 11-minute episodes involving hundreds of distinct characters — so it’s no easy feat to describe. But in brief, it takes place 1,000 years after a nuclear apocalypse known as the “Mushroom War” warps the Earth into a fantasy landscape; its main setting, the Land of Ooo, is populated by offbeat creatures and people made of candy, fire, or “lumpy space,” among other things.

A young boy named Finn (Jeremy Shada) is apparently the last human being on the planet, and he and his foster brother/best friend — a shape-shifting dog named Jake (John DiMaggio) — have taken it upon themselves to be as helpful around Ooo as possible. They lend their treasure-hunting, monster-fighting, errand-running prowess to their many friends and neighbors, and along the way, the complex backstory of Adventure Time’s characters and their world is unspooled.

That supremely odd summary belies the fact that Adventure Time has sneakily persisted as one of the most critically acclaimed shows of the 2010s. When considering the recent “Golden Age” of TV, few would rank it alongside the likes of Breaking Bad, Mad Men, or Game of Thrones. And yet it has received high praise from sources as wide-ranging as the A.V. Club, the New Yorker, NPR, and this very site.

In addition to being aimed at kids, Adventure Time lies at the intersection of multiple artistic categories that often struggle to attract serious critical consideration — namely, animation, fantasy, and short-form episodic TV (which for a long time was mainly the playground of experimental Adult Swim shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force). Still, it has won over many critics. And though its erratic airing schedule has led to a decline in viewership and prestige in its later years, it has maintained a consistent standard of quality nonetheless.

With its series finale now on the horizon, let’s take a look back at the brilliance of Adventure Time, both as a singular achievement and as a show that has left a lasting impact on the TV landscape.

Adventure Time began as a short film made for Nicktoons. After the short leaked online and subsequently went viral, creator Pendleton Ward was able to successfully pitch it to Cartoon Network as a series. Produced in 2006, it exemplifies the “random” style of internet humor of that time, pioneered by the likes of Homestar Runner, eBaum’s World, and Newgrounds.

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In just under seven minutes, a boy and his dog fight an ice-powered, princess-abducting king, with a brief dream excursion to Mars for a pep talk from Abraham Lincoln, before ultimately running off to confront some ninjas who have stolen an old man’s diamonds (ninjas were to internet comedy in the mid-2000s what bacon would be to it in the early 2010s). Millions of people loved it when it hit (the then-young) YouTube, and the short was eventually nominated for an Annie Award.

Once Adventure Time the show made its Cartoon Network debut, it found instant success and regularly drew millions of viewers per episode for many years. Examining the phenomenon, critics have often cited the show’s broad appeal for both kids and adults as a big reason for its popularity.

Cartoons have long embraced an anything-goes sensibility, but Adventure Time took the approach to a new level. Every single episode would pack its brief running time with strange new characters, places, and ideas: A vampire who drinks the color red. A pack of sentient balloons eager to die. An imaginative robot that “switches places” with its reflection. And to fit within the 11-minute runtime of each episode, it all came at the audience at a breathless pace.

Animated shorts are as old as television itself, but Adventure Time spurred a revival of the format, especially on Cartoon Network. The show also led the way in turning “random” humor and world-building from a niche interest into what is now practically an industry standard, not just for animated series aimed at kids but for adult-oriented ones as well. Shows like BoJack Horseman and Rick and Morty demonstrate a common willingness to indulge the strange, an instinct that Adventure Time arguably introduced to the mainstream.

It didn’t stop there. Even as Adventure Time told bizarre tales of trickster gods from Mars and penguins that turned out to be world-threatening alien abominations, it worked hard to incorporate them into its complicated backstory and world, maintaining dense continuity through multiple long-running story arcs. In the grand tradition of prestige TV, it featured overarching plots about Finn’s search for his birth parents, or the recurring threat of the fearsome undead sorcerer the Lich. And yet it also made time for many standalone episodes, sometimes ultimately folding them into the larger picture, with major characters like Marceline the Vampire Queen being introduced in apparent one-off installments.

Adventure Time’s penchant for experimentation was both admirable and skillfully executed. The show didn’t hesitate to hand over multiple episodes to guest directors simply to riff on a different animation style. It occasionally adopted an idiosyncratic airing schedule, where several new episodes would drop over the course of a single week and then months would go by with nothing new. While the inconsistency sometimes hurt Adventure Time’s ratings, the show’s creative team used the “episode bomb” approach to produce several miniseries that featured some of its most ambitious ideas and set pieces.

Despite the show’s overall comedic tone, it handled its biggest ideas with gravitas and sincere emotion. And for all the manic energy it could indulge, Adventure Time never hesitated to slow down for a scene or two, or even a whole episode. American animation sometimes has trouble simply putting breathing space into shows and movies — superfluous gestures, brief pauses, and other moments that aren’t necessarily propelling the plot forward. Hayao Miyazaki once explained this to Roger Ebert as ma, the soundless beats between claps of the hand. Adventure Time had lots of ma.

Look at this scene from the “Stakes” miniseries, in the episode “Everything Stays.” In less than a minute, the episode creates an extraordinary evocation of intimacy between a parent and child. The animators inject dozens of little gestures to establish this feeling — note the brief shot in which young Marceline strokes her mother’s arm. And then the scene is over, and it’s on to the next beat.

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This kind of formal economy, doing a lot in precious little time, is rare in television. Today, many prestige shows are running longer with each installment yet still struggle to carve out time for characters to simply be. They could learn something from Adventure Time, a show that used its 11-minute episodes to explore myriad genre ideas and flights of fancy, and to demonstrate the endless potential of simply being artistically open and flexible.

Every single character on Adventure Time, from the regulars to the one-episode guests, had a distinct voice. And I don’t mean in terms of acting (though the show’s voice acting was excellent), but in how each person spoke. The writers gave everyone a unique slang, or attitude, or cadence to work with.

Finn and Jake had their own adolescence-inflected goofy rapport and strange swears (“Aw, dingle!” “Algebraic!”). Marceline was a laid-back slacker punk rocker. Princess Bubblegum was officious and scientifically minded. Finn and Jake’s parents, who only appeared in a few episodes, had ’30s-style trans-Atlantic accents (“Make like there’s egg in your shoe and beat it!”). One episode set in an alternate universe introduced an entirely different future lingo. No character was too minor to be considered as a distinct individual.

Adventure Time frequently devoted entire episodes to fleshing out secondary characters, sometimes shining a spotlight on someone who had only existed in the background for the entire show up to that point. It drew up complex inner lives for the likes of characters with names like “Root Beer Guy” — a sentient, walking mug of soda — and “Cinnamon Bun.”

And what it could do for its main characters was even more impressive. Some of them were hundreds of years old, with a few of them predating the Mushroom War, and as we got to know them better, we came to understand a long history of regrets, which stemmed first from the act of survival and then from trying to build a new society out of the ruins. Their arcs were contrasted with the subtle but definable trajectories of Finn and Jake, who slowly matured over the course of the show from goofballs to responsible figures.

Many episodes of Adventure Time took detours to toss out different philosophical challenges, aiming them at both the characters and the audience. In one, Finn got trapped in another world and lived an entire lifetime there before returning to his own as a child again. In another, Finn and Jake confronted a population of people willingly submitting to a Matrix-like virtual reality existence. In a sequence emblematic of the series’ simultaneous whimsical tone and intellectual seriousness, one character mused: “What’s real? Your eyes think the sky is blue, but that’s just sun rays farting apart in the barf of our atmosphere. The sky is black.”

Adventure Time dared to be anything and everything, often at the same time. It was a silly, plotless kids’ show. It was an epic fantasy adventure. It was a long-term coming-of-age story. It was an experimental exercise. It was a stoner’s dream. It was a relationship drama. It was a heartbreaker.

Episodic television offers a canvas unique among the arts: time. The best shows make use of this canvas to tell their stories as creatively and ambitiously as they can; Adventure Time used it to become one of the best television series of its day.

Adventure Time’s four-part finale, “Come Along With Me,” airs Monday, September 3, on Cartoon Network.

Original Source -> An ode to Adventure Time, one of TV’s most ambitious — and, yes, most adventurous — shows

via The Conservative Brief

[beezl3bub]

it legit sounded like a shitty fanfic written by an 11 yr old that shit can NOT be fr

not a day goes by that i don’t HATE the cannon solangelo get together story. like. my god. WHAT was rick thinking??? even the whole “you’re not my type thing” was dog shit imo

1. nico is a very traumatized character that struggles heavily with social anxiety, self acceptance, and internalized homophobia (among MANY other things)

2. nico was FORCEFULLY and VIOLENTLY outed in a cruel way and in front of someone he was not comfortable with and didn’t even know.

but yeah sure, nico gets 1 good interaction with a boy, apparently looses all feelings for someone he put on a pedestal for most of his life and has a very complicated relationship with and just TELLS him?? goes up to him, tells him, and walks off. yes he’s embarrassed but he just does it?? when he is at his PHYSICAL worst?? what???

and the icing on the cake: when nico FINALLY is on a journey of self acceptance and healing (which didn’t happen in the best way and way too fast imo) and he FINALLY he’s going to try at love. finally. this boy has struggled so much, but he’s in love again, and he’s going to ask will out.

and it happens in front of the entire fucking camp.

nico’s journey and arc fell off SO hard. it was already rocky but oh my god(s). i HATE the way his entire healing process was handled and the way he came out to the camp. its horrid. i refuse to accept it as cannon i don’t care.