In front of the Journalists' Syndicate, Cairo, Egypt, on 15th January 2024.
The crowd chants:
مصر مشاركة في الحصار
معبر بيننا و بين اهالينا
الصهيوني متحكم فينا
طول ما الدم العربي رخيص
يسقط يسقط اي رئيس
عملوها احفاد مانديلا
و احنا فخوف و فعار و مزلة
عايزين المعبر مفتوح
Translation:
Egypt participates in this siege!
A crossing between us and our people!
Controlled by Zionists!
As long as Arab blood is seen as cheap,
Any and every president must fall!
Mandela's grandchildren have done it,
While we are seized by fear, shame, and humiliation!
We demand Rafah Crossing open!
hands you all this cal to announce i’ve FINALLY finished fallen order (by which i mean i finally picked it up again after those couple hours i played a few months ago and then finished the whole game in 2 days lol)
if we keep doing uwu soft little vampire and big strong dumb werewolf how are we going to ever break out of gender binary
if i see 1 more artist make the masculine/larger/stronger human partner into the werewolf im going to freak out
lycanthropy is about losing yourself. please i am begging you to make someone random, someone unequipped, into a werewolf. please. small scrawny werewolves who are weak and scared, feminine werewolves, werewolves who struggle with the idea of taking something's life (even another animal for food) werewolves who refuse to get dirty because they're averse. werewolves need more than 1 mental illness yall
its kind of a joke at the beginning but not really. make an insane jacked vampire and her petite femme werewife with braided patterned fur or something; make the vampire a seamstress who wont quit until her werewife has the perfect fitting dress for her new furry body. stop with the "oh this character is butch/masc, CLEARLY they would make a good werewolf" shut uuuuupp be a LITTLE more creative. come on!!! do you really think every single werewolf has a premium gym membership? quit drawing them like it !!!
top ten reasons why red is THE MOST BADASS trainer in the pokemon franchise NUMBER ONE he gets that man pregnant!!
green and red still have the energy and room for one more <3 that wish proves itself to be.. fruitful.
(yes this subject matter can possibly piss off some tumblr catholic. blacklist the pregnancy tag if this is not your thing or block me. thank you for your co-operation.)
I think maybe everyone should cool it with the “weird cult” comments regarding the covert, honestly. It wasn’t that funny to begin with but now that it’s the popular describer it’s starting to become a little uncomfy. No one is forced to join, no one is forced to stay. There’s a ton of parallels between them and real world cultures and religions and I just think MAYBE we need to be a little more aware of what message we’re sending when we say “haha that group of people who are in hiding because their lives were/are at stake and who practice anonymity to survive and follow certain rules that I don’t personally understand or like are a weird cult”.
Even though the fandom usually sees 42Aaron as a "bad influence" on Miles G or (less often) an ideal father figure or actually a replacement for Jeff, I'm very interested in his characterization as a good person who really wants to help, though not a perfect uncle.
Because, listen to me, 1610 Miles saw Aaron as some kind of unwavering image of coolness, lightness, an alternative way of looking at the world, looking to him more than his own father. And yet Aaron was not the way Miles saw him - he was much harder, much more difficult, much more complex than just a "cool uncle" in the eyes of a rebellious teenage boy.
Now imagine. Jeff has died, and - although they haven't spoken in years and will never be able to again - Aaron knows that the only thing he could ask of his brother is to look after his family, his wife and son. And so Aaron does. Aaron comes to their home almost immediately after the news of his brother's death, he tries to talk to Rio, brings his nephew a couple of old tapes as a gift, and pushes his own heartbreak far away because it is the only way he can thank his brother and shed light on his memory.
He becomes a loyal helper and friend for Rio, and for Miles G, he becomes a mentor, a role model, and a father figure.
But there is a small problem here - Aaron is not a family man. Aaron is not a father. He really thought that he was a good uncle, a cool uncle who could make a child happy, but all of that shattered as soon as he had to actually LOOK after this child.
Because it's one thing when he comes to your house once a month, you eat popcorn, listen to music and talk about school and girls, and then go out to paint graffiti. And it's completely different when you see a little boy literally falling apart and breaking down before your eyes, when you know that he can't sleep at night because he's afraid of nightmares, when you see him exhausting himself, reaching for some unknown goals, trying to grow up as fast as possible to become a person he was never meant to be... and there's nothing - nothing - you can do about it. You don't know how to approach him, how to open up, how to talk to children. Because you have never been able to deal with your own feelings, let alone the feelings of a small child who is just quietly suffering in front of you.
Of course, this does not mean that they do not have good relationships. They have their own local jokes, gags, and inventions. Miles G can spend hours at Aaron's apartment practicing something, and he will pass on his knowledge to him.
But (and Aaron has made sure of this) this does not make him a really good uncle. Because he just doesn't know what it's like to be a full-fledged father figure, a supervisor, how to be anyone beyond being a "cool uncle" - and he blames himself for this more than anyone else, but he just can't seem to learn. He tries to talk to Miles, but every time he meets an iron wall with the code words "I'm fine" that he just CAN'T break through.
He had no experience. He had no normal parents. There was no one who could explain to him how to do it, and the only person who really cared about him all these years is six feet under the ground.
How often do you think he stood by Jeff's mural, muttering a quiet "I'm sorry" to him? Because for the first time in his life, just making and giving money was not enough. Because he can't be the help he wants to be. Because he hates seeing Rio so tired, too, and he knows Jeff would hate it as well, but he can't do anything but hear a clear "no" to every his suggestion about her resting or taking a day off from from work.
How often do you think he's thought Jeff would be angry at him If he knew the role he gave his child, seeing the scars on his face and soul?
How often do you think he's wondered if Jeff would hate him if he found out what he's doing, even though he's doing the best he can.
How often do you think he thinks his "I'm sorry" doesn't mean anything anymore?
every byler creator who has ever felt unappreciated or has never seen their work on a rec list or has stayed awake for hours working on something for it to get no interaction or has had their work passed up in favor of the big fandom favorites or has never been taken a chance on or has ever come last in a poll they didn’t ask to be on or has felt self conscious about posting or about calling themselves a creator if what they’re posting is not a magnum opus or has created something for themselves and still hoped deep down that people would love it: get behind me. i’ll protect u
Old nostalgia sso players when the game they constantly hate on, harrass the employees of, and refuse to support financially starts being developed for and catering to new players after they find a new excuse to be mad the game has progressed by a decade and threaten to quit for the millionth time
I think one of the problems with the HoO characterizations is Rick kind of forgot to give half the cast hobbies and general interests, and maybe like people they know outside of their families and outside of camp, or if he did remember to it rarely gets brought up for most of them, or in the special case of Annabeth - she randomly develops a hobby in weaving for exactly one scene and then never again. Apparently she just knew how to do that, even though it is a skill she has literally never used before nor uses again.
The best examples I can give of this are comparing/contrasting the examples of when we do actually get this with the lack-thereof:
Hazel and Frank are good examples. Hazel has hobbies and interests generally unrelated to all her demigod stuff (horses and art) and we see this repeatedly discussed and brought up. She also knows and interacts with people outside of the necessities of her quest/Camp Jupiter or her family - Sammy was her best friend at school and they hung out and stuff! Meanwhile, Frank, as far as we know, doesn’t know anybody outside of his family even though he presumably went to school before Camp Jupiter? His hobby is... archery? That’s the only thing he ever really shows interest in but at the same time it only rarely gets brought up except for him using a bow as his main weapon and the like two instances of noting that Frank had hoped he was an Apollo kid for a little bit. The closest other detail we get to Frank having any other kind of hobby/interest is him mentioning off-hand that he used to play Mythomagic.
Piper and Leo - We can presume that Piper knew Shel before moving to Oklahoma, because Piper used to visit her grandpa often and as far as we know that’s also where Shel lives. But we never see Piper ever mention knowing anyone else in her grandfather’s community. Heck, when she’s introduced we’re basically outright told that she doesn’t interact much at all with any of her classmates outside of necessity, and we don’t even have any confirmation that before Hera’s mind-meddling that she even acknowledged Leo’s existence. Also, Piper has like, exactly zero hobbies. We do not know what Piper does in her free time or what she likes (except vaguely that she has surfed before), only really what she dislikes. Leo at least does have some kind of excuse for not really knowing anybody, and an explicit explanation about why that is the case and how he feels about it. Leo also has a repeatedly referenced interest/hobby in mechanics that’s very core to his character.
Percy and Annabeth? Pre-HoO, they both have plenty of interests and know people outside their general circles! Percy knows kids at school. Annabeth’s general outer social circle is Camp Half-Blood, because she grew up there, but she clearly knows people at camp. She’s also super into architecture! And Percy does a ton of stuff in his free time - he skateboards! He plays basketball! He has two pets he takes care of (Blackjack and Mrs. O’Leary)! Post-HoO he’s on a swim team! But during HoO? Percy’s hobbies just kind of disappear, besides “oh yeah he uh. Does water stuff.” There’s no acknowledgement of like, “Yeah Percy sets up a little basketball hoop on the back of his door on the Argo 2 and shoots trash at it.” Literally anything! And yeah, Annabeth’s architecture interest is somewhat acknowledged, but also like, not really? We at least get some kind of “Yeah, in her spare time she’s usually on her laptop working on stuff” but we also barely get any instances of Annabeth thinking about her friends at camp except for like, Tartarus.
For Jason it at least kind of works because a.) he has amnesia and it’s implied he doesn’t really have close friends at Camp Jupiter besides Reyna, so it figures he only ever really references random other legionaries like, twice. and b.) there is also the heavily implication that Jason doesn’t have hobbies, because his entire life was so focused around his training at Camp Jupiter. This works less with Reyna, but she also kind of has an excuse for not knowing people besides like, her sister and Jason, given she ran away when she was young, Circe’s island was destroyed, and she could have only been at Camp Jupiter for like 3 years maximum at that point. And she’s not exactly the most social character. We also don’t get much indication of her hobbies, besides she also likes horses and it’s heavily implied she likes nature/gardens? Presumably, given we get like, one note of that in HoO, maybe two if you count her living on Circe’s island, and then like one more nod to that in TOA. And we only get her POV chapters in BoO anyways so again, she has some excuses. Coach Hedge also is incredibly bland besides maybe him having a hobby in sports, and... violence? Which definitely does not count. And him lacking any POV chapters doesn’t really help.
I think this is why Nico continually feels like such a strong character, simply because we know what he does in his spare time. We know he knows people outside of the camps (most of those people are gods or ghosts, but he at least knows people) and technically you could argue him knowing about Camp Jupiter between BoTL and TLO counts too. He even references his old neighbor at one point. Obviously, he’s very into Mythomagic, and that comes up a lot because it’s his special interest and is usually also relevant to their quests. He travels a lot, and apparently used to when he was younger as well. We also learn he used to have a special interest about pirates and that apparently may have played into his crush on Percy. Like, all that is so simple and minor but it makes such a difference for how Nico feels as a character. Most of Nico’s stuff though is established in the first series, which definitely helps because the first series was pretty good about giving characters hobbies and maybe some people they know - Annabeth, Percy, and Nico we’ve already covered, but also like, Grover knows other satyrs and is usually practicing music and also we know what foods he likes. Thalia is very into punk culture and music. We know she particularly likes Green Day. We know she knew the Hunters of Artemis before the events of TTC. Rachel's whole thing is that she’s super into art and she has a bunch of connections through her rich family, and she’s basically Percy’s only mortal friend. They have lives!
If you put a protagonist in a room and told them to occupy themselves, you should have an answer for what they do. They should be able to name one person outside their immediate social circle who they are generally friendly with or vaguely know, unless they have a specific reason for that to not be the case. HoO crew needs to occupy their time by themselves, no weaponry, for twenty minutes? Hazel could be drawing, Nico could be organizing his cards, Leo could be tinkering, Annabeth could be working on her laptop, Percy could be trying out little skateboard tricks. Jason, Piper, Frank, and Reyna? What would they be doing?
TOA does actually answer that question for Jason, at least, because we learn that Jason makes tiny dioramas! That’s adorable! Why doesn’t he do that in HoO?! TOA also gives us more depth to Will Solace besides “He’s a medic and does medic things” with telling us that he’s into Star Wars. Like, that’s actually so much information to work with! Thank you! And then we also find out in TOA that Nico’s also kinda into art! We still don’t get anything new for Piper, Frank, or Reyna - besides again one more potential implication that Reyna thinks plants are Pretty Okay, and that nature is Mildly Alright. Like, not even “maybe she keeps a houseplant” territory, all we have is “if she had the option, she might be interested in visiting a flower garden.” But honestly TOA at least gives us something for most of the characters we see. Like at least one thing. Most of the rest of the writing is a mess but at least the characters are mildly interesting.
Anyways, give your characters hobbies, it’s good for them.