#I personally do but that's neither here nor there

[newby6320]

Ok. No. This is discussion is actually actively dangerous and I can't just leave it. Contrary trekkele there thinks, some kids WILL actually starve themselves. Some kids WILL eat themselves into malnutrition. Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) "is characterized by significant limitations in food intake leading to malnutrition, weight loss, or nutritional deficiency, without the concurrent body image disturbances typically seen in anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa. Individuals with ARFID display avoidance or restriction of food intake, often due to sensory issues, fear-related avoidance of eating, or low appetite, leading to nutritional deficiencies, weight loss, and psychosocial impairments. ARFID can occur at any age but typically arises in childhood and can persist into adulthood."

If all Dick is eating is chips, if that is the only thing he is eating, then the correct response depends on how long that behavior has gone on. Has it been a few days? Bruce is right, leave him be. A couple weeks? Alfred is right. Dick needs to be eating a more diverse diet and this is probably a sign of clinical depression. They should take him to see a doctor. A couple months? Alfred is right on all counts. Dick needs a proper meal. He has likely already developed scurvy. He almost certainly has ARFID and needs to see a doctor, if not be outright hospitalized. Neither response here is objectively wrong, it's just a matter of difference of threshold of concern.

And this is setting aside the fact that the idea that children are able to magically self-regulate their way into a healthy balanced diet when adults with explicit nutritional counseling routinely fail to do manage that is completely bonkers. Chips are an ultraprocessed food and there is increasing evidence that such foods undermine the body's ability to nutritionally self-regulate. Both the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics recomend limiting child intake of ultraprocessed foods like chips. Children don't need their food intake micromanaged, but they do still need to have direction and training in their dietary habits. Their ultraprocessed food intake still needs to be monitored, and when necessary, restricted in order to direct them towards more nutritionally dense foods. And that means that if Duck is eating chips to excess for more than just the period immediately after his parents' deaths, an adult will need to step in and say he has to eat. Even beyond this, studies have found that maintaining a healthy diet can help prevent and treat depression, making it particularly important that Dick recieve good nutition at this point in time.

Again, neither Bruce nor Afred are wrong here. Acknowledging a child's emotional pain by allowing them unrestricted acces to comfort food immediately following a tramatic event is good parenting. Making sure that a child maintains a healthy diet even and especially during stressful events is also good parenting. And each person is going to make a different call on which is more important to prioritize, and there isn't an objectively right call. What is right is going to carry by child and it is impossible for any parent to know a priori which is right for which child. And THAT is the terrible nuance and difficulty of parenting.

Little Dick and his chips in Batman #54

[whenlifeisscaryanddepressing]

A message to my American brothers and sisters whose candidate lost this election:

Firstly, I am neither American nor did I vote for your election so do take what I say with a grain of salt.

I’m writing to you guys because I know how you feel. I’ve been there.

During the 2020 Presidential election of the Philippines, I too supported a movement. Not a candidate—a movement. A female presidential candidate who raised hope, became a champion for marginalized communities whose only goal was to create opportunities to shift my country away from the vitriol that came from a previous president who strong armed my country into a bloody war on drugs that saw the death of thousands of poor people.

And like you, I lost.

With the spread of misinformation and lies, my country elected the son of a dictator who proved himself to be the ineffective, incompetent and dishonest leader we all secretly hoped he wouldn’t be.

Our hopes dimmed.

Tears were shed.

Resentment flowered in us like a storm.

It was difficult to swallow the results of an election that had so much at stake. You see, like your President-elect, our current President spent millions of pesos contesting a fair election that saw him losing out to the vice presidential position during the previous election.

Through bullying and intimidation, he sought to undermine a fair election that took him out of power.

And like your current President-elect, he still managed to win at the end.

It would have been easier to accept the results had it not been for the mocking of 31 million Filipinos who voted our current president into office.

We all heard them tell us, “You’re crying over an election? You need better things to worry about.”

I want you to know that it’s okay to cry.

Your frustrations and disappointment are valid.

It is rare to find a candidate you’re able to place so much hope in and to have that hope dashed away is a bitter pill that is difficult to swallow.

I know, you’re probably tired of hearing it.

“Turn the other cheek.”

“Accept it and move on.”

“It is what it is.”

“There’s nothing more to do.”

It’s okay. I’m tired of it too.

I know you’re probably scared and angry and so, so, so tired. Two years after our election and I am still all of these things.

I still think about the what if, the what could have beens. I think a lot about how better off we would have been if the right person won.

I want you to know that it’s okay. It’s okay to mourn those things.

You did your part. You voted and you campaigned and you fought hard. Sometimes, we just lose.

If there’s any advice I can impart, it’s that I hope you take your frustration, your sadness, you exhaustion, your anger, and turn it into righteous fury.

Take that fury and do something with it.

Because the movement cannot stop here. The moment we stop fighting, they win.

To lose hope means victory for the other side.

I get it. It’s easier to get mad at the people who voted for him. It’s even easier to spew the same vitriolic hate towards them when they start complaining about how things don’t change and how your country is worse off but theirs is the vote that put a wannabe-dictator in power.

Don’t do it.

Because that divide is precisely why they keep winning. It’s the same divide they sowed into my country and we are still struggling to fight that division everyday.

Losing this election is a step backwards but losing hope would be another step back.

Even to this day, my presidential candidate continues to inspire hope for change in my country.

I know yours will too.

It’s not the end.

I need you to remember to breathe.

Breathe in the hope you desperately fought for;

breathe through the hurt of the loss;

and breathe out the fear they so badly want you to feel.

The road is long and it’s scary.

But there’s about 50 or so million other people on that road with you. You might not be the majority but even David was small when he killed Goliath.

Cause if you voted for Kamala Harris, you already know you have the courage and righteous fury to fight for change and you cannot give up now that you’re so close.

You lost the battle but it’s not the end of the war.

So tonight, grieve. Cry. Hug your friends and family who are right there with you. Be sad and mourn the loss of what could have been.

Because tomorrow, when you wake, you will continue fighting for change.

Because no one else will.

[antianakin]

I need scary Jedi. But not like... in a "RAAAAAAGGGGHHHH! I'M SCARY!" way. More like.... you're a bounty hunter after your target, you have killed Wookies, Gundarks, and many other dangerous species. The target? They are wearing robes, playing with children. Laughing and helping others. Sure they have a lightsaber, but you brought a slugthrower. Those are supposed to be effective against them. You line up a shot and... they're looking at you. They are smiling in such a friendly manner. But all you can feeling is cold. You suddenly realize, you're not the most dangerous person there. I just want more bad guys getting the shit scared out of them when they realize a Jedi is here to stop them.

I could see that for someone who's likely never MET a Jedi before and so all they know are the legends and stories they've heard.

I feel like this happens a lot less for Prequels Jedi because, even if there's fairly few of them and not everyone will even MEET a Jedi in their lifetime, they are still a known culture. You might not expect to see a Jedi in the street, but you wouldn't think it was impossible to see a Jedi in the street, either, necessarily. And you probably think you have a fairly good idea of what the Jedi are and what they do and why they might be on the street in the first place.

But it DOES happen to people like Luke. By the time Luke comes around, the Jedi have been nearly erased from the galaxy's memory. All that's left are some stories and those stories are likely highly exaggerated and they've gone through many different retellings that embellish and add things that never existed in reality. NO ONE expects a Jedi to show up anywhere because they're all supposed to be GONE. No one even believes the Force exists really and if they do see a Jedi, they probably think that the magical abilities they have are just made up. So when Luke starts using the Force to make things float or read people's minds or whatever, it's probably VERY unnerving. I know there's some comics where that comes up, even among some of the rebels he fights with. People ARE scared of Luke, even if they're fighting alongside him instead of against him, because he's something they can't understand and shouldn't exist.

There is a scene sort-of similar to what I think you're talking about in the films, and it is actually in the Prequels. It's when Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon start fighting back on the Trade Federation's ship at the beginning of TPM. Neither Nute Gunray nor the other Neimoidian with him have ever met a Jedi and they clearly underestimate what the Jedi are capable of doing and overcoming. So when the Jedi start fighting their way through the ship, both Neimoidians start getting REALLY scared. The moment when they close the blast doors and think that that'll DEFINITELY keep them out and then Qui-Gon just shoves the lightsaber in again and starts melting the door from the center shows that very clearly. The moment where Obi-Wan catches Zam Wesell in the bar during AOTC could be another example, too, I guess.

This is supposed to be the Jedi at the peak of their power, their Golden Age of sorts, so it makes sense that this is when we see them able to really fight back in this way. After this, from AOTC on, the Jedi are often struggling against forces they can't quite overcome, and we need to see that so that it doesn't feel crazy when they're ultimately defeated in the end.

It's an interesting concept, the idea of the Jedi being a little frightening sometimes, because I feel like there's layers to it. With the Prequel Jedi, it's more about people underestimating them because the Jedi ARE more known and so their enemies often think that they can get the upper hand on one even if they've never actually done it before. But in the Original Trilogy era, especially with characters like Luke, it's the opposite problem, where Jedi are such an unknown quantity now that anything they do is a little frightening, even to people who aren't their enemies, because there's just no context for them to use to understand what the Jedi are and what they can do. They're SO Other that it becomes scary even if the Jedi in question is on your side or trying to save you.

This seems to be less of a thing in Disney canon for some reason. Kanan, Ezra, Ahsoka, and Cal seem to experience this very little if at all. Luke doesn't even seem to engender that kind of response when he makes his grand entrance in the season two finale of The Mandalorian (obviously Bo-Katan and Fennec would be more familiar with Jedi, but Din is not and should've had a MUCH more freaked out reaction to what a fully trained adult Jedi is capable of doing). Maybe it'll come back one day.

[tomionefinds]

Fluff/Soft Fics

Things are hard. Here are some softer Tom, some humorous, and some fluffy fics to cuddle with. Graphic by Mod April - TF Team

Just Another Girl Alone at the Bar by Spork_in_the_Road

M | Complete | 8k

“Oh Ron-Ron, you’re too funny,” a feminine voice says, giggling. Hermione thinks she might vomit. In which Hermione pretends Tom is her boyfriend until he actually is.

Hot Lips by nauticalparamour

E | One-shot | 3k

When Tom Riddle finds out that Hermione Granger has a phone sex line, his first inclination is to use it to blackmail her. But, once he gets her talking, he doesn't want it to end.

Forever Means Forever by cocoartist

T | Complete | 7k

If she ever saw Unspeakable Number 37 again she would kill him with her bare hands: Hermione's research into the Veil has an unexpected side-effect. COMPLETE.

A Naughty Niffler by bunnystealsyourcarrots

E | One-shot | 2k

Hermione finds herself sucked into an unknown world with an old familiar face

Youth in Retrospect by provocative_envy

E | One shot | 8k

She’s buying a box of condoms when she meets him. “Those are shit, you know,” he says, jerking his chin at the pale purple box in her hand. “Can’t feel anything.” She stares at him for a moment too long. The bell above the door jingles merrily as a rowdy group of schoolboys enters the store. “Excuse you,” she replies, cheeks turning pink.

Nerve Damage by januarywren

T | Complete | 6k

“Working late again?” Hermione asked, leaning against the doorway, arms crossed, her raised eyebrow daring him to make a smart remark. That look had sent more than one ex fuming—but not him. Never him. Tom glanced up from his paperwork, his usual mask of indifference giving way to a slow, lazy smile. “Someone has to keep things running smoothly around here. I thought you’d be fast asleep by now, Miss Granger.” She let her gaze wander over the surprising disarray of his desk, piled high with case files and pages dotted with notes in his precise handwriting. She'd teased him more than once about his borderline obsessive need for order, how every pen, every scrap of paper, had its place. But she didn't mention it now or comment on the faint stain on his collar. Losing a patient did things to a person—things no textbook or professor could ever prepare them for. House M.D. Inspired AU | There’s a sickness between Hermione and Tom that neither has any desire to cure. (It isn't love. It isn't. 🖤)

communication errors by esotyric (devilrie)

T | Complete | 7k

sender: tmriddle@walpurgis.net recipient: hermionegranger@gryffinsdor.org subject: Today’s Meeting Granger – Attached is the dry-cleaning bill for the shirt you ruined when you threw your tea at it. I’m not sure if you noticed, but I happened to be wearing the shirt at the time. You are lucky it was cold. Pay the bill and I won’t sue you for assault. Regards, Thomas Marvolo Riddle CEO of Walpurgis Corporate sender: hermionegranger@gryffinsdor.org recipient: tmriddle@walpurgis.net subject: re: Today’s Meeting Riddle – I did notice, because unlike you, I can identify when something is being inhabited, you forest-destroying monster. You do not require a dry cleaner to get herbal tea out of a shirt. The shirt was black, the tea was camomile, and you have no grounds on which to stand nor sue. Your company, however, WILL be exposed for the havoc it is wreaking upon our natural world. Sincerely, Hermione Jean Granger CEO of Not being a Twat

Domestic Bliss by airgloweffect

M | one shot | 693

A snapshot into the life of Tom and Hermione Riddle.AU

Avada Kedavra Anonymous by Speechwriter

K+ | Complete | 8k

No one missed Riddle's pale fist tightening around the useless wand in his lap. "I am Tom," he ground out. "I am here for the sole reason that the alternative was community service." / Hermione moderates a post-Avada Kedavra support group. Chaos ensues.

A Nose that Can See by Colubrina

Hermione Granger has found herself inexplicably tossed back into time to Tom Riddle's Hogwarts. And he's a Veela and, wouldn't you know it, she's his mate. Could life get worse? But he seems to have an endless supply of out-of-season fruit so it can't be all bad, right? Tomione. Major character death, musical theater, and all that fruit. COMPLETE. Hermione Granger has found herself inexplicably tossed back into time to Tom Riddle's Hogwarts. And he's a Veela and, wouldn't you know it, she's his mate. Could life get worse? But he seems to have an endless supply of out-of-season fruit so it can't be all bad, right? Tomione. Major character death, musical theater, and all that fruit. COMPLETE.

Tommy Played Guitar by PacificRimbaud

E | One shot |3k

Tom Riddle takes his coffee black and plays in a rock and roll band.

Playing Cupid by Meowmers

M | Complete | 14k

"I'm beginning to think that I would love to hear you scream." Tomione. Regency AU. Rated-M.

A Four Letter Word by elizabethriddle

E | One shot | 4k

Tom Riddle was not impulsive. He was a planner. He never did anything without carefully considering all possible outcomes and controlling all of the variables. And he never let emotions impact his decisions. He had planned, meticulously, for the post as DADA Professor. How did it all go so wrong?

Sailor Trouble by The-Empress-of-Snark (uleanblue)

Not Rated | Complete | 9k

Hermione Granger attempts to restore the Founder's Relics, with unexpected results.

you did some bad things, but i'm the worst of them by coffeepolariod

E | Complete | 22k

“You want to watch your back, Miss Granger,” Dolohov gestured to Tom with his head. “This man won’t go easy on you, won’t entertain your parlour tricks, and most definitely will not hold back as he tears your confidence down: brick by brick.” or: Hermione Granger needs to win this poker game but Tom Riddle is there at every turn.

Tempora Abducto by Flaignhan (almost anything by this author)

T | Complete | 53k

Inconveniently it's the things that need fixing the most which are often irreparable.

[thrashkink-coven]

I had a very long conversation with Lord Lucifer about this after I had a debate with a friend over the ethics of ai. My position was that ai is just another poorly handled tool that we will inevitably learn to legislate and get used to. I believed that using ai for harmless stuff was neither here nor there. She believed that ai was a mistake and that anyone who values intellectualism or art should never use it.

My opinion has changed drastically. Ai is not a tool. While it may be nice to think that you’re not doing any harm by asking chatgpt a simple question, the amount of pollution that a single prompt produces is greater than boiling a whole kettle of water. Ai is used primarily to create misinformation, to confuse, and to abuse people’s right to privacy. Using chatgpt or similar programs for anything directly harms the planet and a whole lot of people you don’t know.

When you use ai for research, prayers or essays, you’re voluntarily doing a group project with an inferior partner that constantly lies to you. You will have to fact check and rewrite everything it gives you anyways. I promise you there is so so much value to learning and doing things yourself. My deities have outright strictly rejected anything I have offered them that had any involvement with ai. They not only demanded that I stop, they questioned why I felt the need to use it in the first place.

Me: I made a few prayers for you

Lucifer: wow cool, I hate them. They’re so ugly 😊

me: w… that’s so mean

Lucifer: Imagine how I feel. My own devotee can’t write me prayers himself.

But I CAN and I should.

Here’s what I wrote down from my conversation with Lucifer:

“I think the “trick” behind ai is evident in its name. You have people who do not understand what true intelligence is, selling “artificial intelligence “ to others who do not understand what intelligence is, with the belief that what they’re seeing is a display of it. Had AI been marketed as a language tool, an algorithm, a data synthesizer, perhaps it would not have been viewed as an authority on information. While I do not think that AI will eliminate critical thinking and media literacy, at least not totally, I believe it is contributing to the subtle shift in the definition of these words, “intelligent, professional”. In a world where anyone can access information, believing that access itself is understanding, we start to see the devaluing of the “professional”. The word of trained doctors and scientists becomes subordinate to the belief of the individual regardless of its source, because a so called “intelligent” machine provided it. So while I do not believe that AI will prevent people like you from learning and reading, I do believe that it will greatly devalue the wisdom of people like you, because the true intelligence of the scholar and professional that takes time and effort will be considered equal to, or even inferior to, this new “artificial intelligence” which is fast and efficient, requires no additional learning or practice. People like you will continue to think and learn, the real question is if the majority will believe you.”

If you’re reading this and thinking “oh shit I use ai all the time, I’m a bad person” no you are not. I also used ai, like A LOT, for writing. I now cannot in good conscience use it for anything. You’re allowed to make mistakes and do better in the future. You are smart and capable. You can learn to do things as we have been this whole time. You can stop today.

Death to AI today and forever.

"AI" offerings are the digital equivalent of leaving all yer trash on the ground after a ritual in a park, forest, etc.

Please research the environmental impact of those automated art theft image/text generators.

Artists have flooded the internet with free creative assets, tutorials, barter offers and free commission slots. Use them.

I assure you the Gods will be fuckin' thrilled for any offering that doesn't hurt Jörð for the creative chickenshittery of techbros.

[literallyjusthereformods]

Mod folder's cooked still, sharing photos of my sims from my gallery.

Not my preferred method, but I'm dying to share them! So anyways here's a mega photo dump.

Cade E Cherrypop! (Normal/Ruined)

My love for sentient entertainment animatronics is one that will forever remain unshaken. Cade E Cherrypop is the sentient android mascot of Cade E Arcade! (Thx to the new chibi preset by @sdmsims, another little mascot will be along shortly as a friend)

After society collapses due to a zombie-apocalypse-plus, the arcade falls into ruin, and Cade E eventually reawakens in the ruins in her second withered form, sun-bleached, dirty and damaged.

Xelleen Wisher

Xelleen Wisher's a gaming streamer in this world's analog to Twitch! Despite his anxiety disorder, he does his best to put up an optimistic and energetic persona for his audience. He really loves cute things, especially cats and small collectibles! He's also very, very good at videogames, dabbling in speed runs and challenge runs.

Xelleen was created by me as a very positive character. He combines physical traits that are painted as a stereotypical "neckbeard" image (acne, overweightness) with features of the "gamergirl" aesthetic (cute clothes, makeup, lots of pink.) He stands as his own person, defined by neither stereotype.

The bottom/last pic of the three shows his face without his makeup on!!

Steelie Buzzkill

(Wouldn't Be Possible Without @sdmsims's Anime Mod!!!)

Ordered as an Incarnate (an Incarnate is a special type of android commissioned to be a real-word version of a fictional character) of somebody's OC, Steelie's shipment was intercepted after the law recognizing android sentience was passed. His company dumped him and his peers on the side of the road near a rural town.

Since he was freed before artificial memories were programmed into him, he doesn't know what character he's intended to be, and he really doesn't WANT to know.

He works at IHopTopic, the compound store that exists because in this universe, IHop and Hot Topic had some sort of business deal from hell that led to a combined location.

(Between you and me, his design SOMEBODY's fannon ship child OC, but I won't say more than that, nor do the medias his parents are from exist irl.)

The rest will just be character images with short descriptions. I'll likely make individual posts later on going in more depth!!

Torren's a model! He models both clothes and makeup.

Torren's photographer, and general voice of reason. They're bascially buddies.

Aniyo loves hanging out in malls and drawing fanart for their favorite animes. Above all though, they love animals!! Their aspiration is to be a rescue caretaker for animals that need them.

A small trunked rodent I created called a 'rummager.'

It's too bad I'm missing the cc for this one, because I'd love to show their whole design in CAS. I really like this one. They have a lot to do with a certain collapse plotline.

Owner of a tattoo shop. VERY supportive of their artists, and probably one of the best bosses ever.

Tattoo artist working for Crim.

Another one of Crim's hired tattoo artists!

Third tattoo artist out of four in Crim's tattoo shop. (The fourth one's too short to show in gallery, sorry.)

Runaway teen after something really bad happened at home. Navigating the post-collapse hellscape with her horse.

Apex Zombie who's territory spans an entire abandoned city. It's antenna syncs up to the abandoned traffic cams, giving it eyes all over the urban ruins. As a side effect, the old digital billboards flicker to life in monochromatic imagery when it approaches.

@ssspringroll because I definitely used some of your CC in this. Idr where, but I DEFINETELY did. Also, you're one of my favorite creators, thank you for existing <3

[thebardisabird]

Hello, I wanted to write something comforting because I was feeling sentimental so please take Matsus and some acts of self-care that they do for you: Osomatsu would make sure that you had something to eat/had some water. He's not judgmental if you forget, and he won't ask necessarily if you did or didn't so as not to put pressure on you. His way of making sure you're taken care of is letting you know he's grabbing something and coming back with something he knows you'll enjoy (with something to keep you hydrated). If you eat along with him? Great! If not, no worries, he'll stash it in the fridge for later. Point is to make sure you have some sort of nourishment. He'll even give you a little "Cheeeers~" with whatever drinks you have to show he's genuine, but that he's still your goofy Osomatsu. Karamatsu enjoys brushing your hair for you should that be something you're okay with. It's an act he's always enjoyed himself/has helped with his more anxious times when Matsuyo would brush his; if it's something you struggle with, fear not - he's got you. He does a pretty good job at taking care of his own hair so he's equipped to wash it and dry yours too if that's something you're interested in. If just a simple brushing sounds like a nice idea, then by all means, allow him to be of comfort to you. Don't be alarmed if he hums softly as he combs through your hair, it tends to be something he does when he's relaxed and using his hands for something gentle. He will check in with you to make sure he's not hurting you and every once in a while he may even ask to braid your hair if you have the length for it! Choromatsu will make sure you you have a comfortable space accessible always. If you're finding yourself overwhelmed in any way, Choromatsu does his due diligence as someone who cares about you and gets you outta there to get you to somewhere much more comfortable. Maybe that place is back home or a bookstore if you need something quiet. Should the quieter places not be good choices, maybe you'll go somewhere with a little more natural ambience like Akatsuka Park or even Chibita's oden stand. He's all about you feeling secure when you're out and about, especially when you’re with him. Ichimatsu strikes me as someone who is very much about you getting plenty of rest. Ichimatsu does not play about his sleep and he definitely does not play about YOU, so he's dedicated to making sure that you're well rested. Unlike how he treats his brothers however, he's much more softer with you. He'll lay down for naps here and there, patting the spot next to him so you can lay with him. He keeps things around the bedroom that he knows make you comfortable: certain scents, maybe a specific set of plushes/pillows, or even one of his hoodies if that makes you cozier. He's not pushy about when you sleep at night, but you'll find that he does little things here and there to gently coax you into better sleeping habits when he can. A big plus: he's a cuddler no less. So expect gentle back rubs as you snuggle or a little shimmy so he can hold you just a little closer while you both rest. Jyushimatsu is set on making sure you get fresh air. We all know that he enjoys being outdoors quite often; even if you're not the biggest on outdoorsy things, that's okay! He'll offer to just go on a walk with you or chill at the riverside and watch clouds if that's okay. His giant smile grows twice as wide when he sees the sun shining on your face, and seeing him happy makes it almost impossible not to smile back. He expresses how nice it is to spend time with you just being outside doing nothing and he finds little things to do or see within your comfortability that actually make your time outside worthwhile. Todomatsu helps you tap into your more creative outlets. Since he's got a resource to find things to do and places to go - he wants to help you take care of yourself by leaning into doing things that bring you joy. Do you enjoy painting? Perfect, he knows a place for that. Maybe you like baking or cooking? Come over, he'll have ingredients ready for you guys to make things together. If you like photography: wonderful, he does too and he’d be more than happy to show you some of the best sights to take pictures of. Anything that speaks to you creatively, Todomatsu wants to show that he completely supports you and enjoys being a part of the things you enjoy doing.

[nonasbirthday]

of course you can read necros and cavs as a parallel to the gender binary bc A) you can do whatever you want forever and B) yeah there's plenty of textual evidence comparing the necro-cav bond to a marriage. however one thing i think many of these discussions keep missing is the fact that most people in the nine houses are not necros or cavs and do in fact exist outside of this binary. which would make it. not really much of a binary

[menelaus-blue]

thinking about this scene from the adventurer's bible from kabru's perspective...

[greenerteacups]

oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT

oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.

SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)

so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!

so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.

the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!

now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.

here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.

but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.

so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.

anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.

[garlic-and-vanilla]

Another day of chewing through the drywall thinking about The Emperor being very literally haunted by the past it cannot return to. Demonic possession trope reversed. A monster possessed by humanity.

[lgbtlunaverse]

I do think it's rather unfair for hades game 2 to literally give us a sapphic moon witch and then proceed to have no love inerests you could conceivably do the "sun lesbian/moon lesbian" thing with. That's like lesbophobic I think. They need to bring the iliad characters back and put cassandra (priestess of apollo, which counts as decent sun symbolism I think) in the game or i'm gonna make a genderbent helios out of pure desperation.

[zorosdimples]

knowing i should take a step back from tumblr for my own wellbeing vs. being emotionally attached to this app and the people on it

[despair-tea]

one thing I dislike is the sophomoric idea that society should, naturally, move towards a completely genderless model. I get where it's coming from, but it assumes an impossible level of homogeneity rather than accepting that - in the infinity of genders that DO and WILL exist - there are some which will take familiar forms and patterns and names.

Like, look, I don't live in the androgynous future ze're imaging. But if I did I would still feel alienated and out-of-place in a slightly different way from the way I felt growing up under gendered capitalism. Because I'm not genderless, and I know damn well that I'd still feel some calling to change... something about myself. Even without words like "woman" or "witch."

It's a nice dream. it might be comforting to some. But it seems like an airy fantasy to me, and not one I can see myself living in.

Obviously I agree that the barriers between genders need to be broken down. Obviously I don't think the traditional gender roles as our society sells them to us are working. But the future I see has more kinds of people and not less.

[wewerebornsextuplets]

we all got that one uncle

[skeletalheartattack]

Do you have a bluesky?

i do not, no.