#a.) im like so happy for him. b.) WHAT

[hinamie]

ṇ̵̛̱͌̅̃͛̔o̴̮̓̀͂́̃_̴̛̲́s̷͈̋̈́̄̋͠ị̶͔̗̐͐̐̒̕g̵̛̱̘̣̑͂ņ̴̰͔̘͇̏̒̓̇͠͝a̸̜̥̩̭͋̌ḷ̶͔̖͗͋͛͛̃͆

[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.

[autism-corner]

an ode to what could have been o7

[skiespaintedblue]

If ur romantic f/o has any siblings, they're ur in law(s) now!!! How do you feel about them? How do they feel about you? What does your f/o think about you guys? Do you hate eachother, or are you friends?

[microwavetoaster-selfships]

🍑, 🥦, 🥬, 🍒

for Storm, and

🍋(SORRY I HAD TO), 🍏, 🍇, 🥑

for Axelrod

Bonus I thought for a second about suggesting 🍏 for Finn and you can still answer it but then I had the thought he would say "Well, isn't everybody a little Queer?" and then leave it at that and that is making me laugh so much right now sorry

-@markbeakskisser

IM SORRY I. THOUGHT I POSTED THIS THREE DAYS AGO. In relation to the tags of this post I am already out of school. My last day was last Friday. Thank you a million for the ask I loved answering it. I don't know how coherent any of this post is, I was a madman when I answered it.

----

Tumblr. Nuked my post and I am losing my mind having to retype it and I'm HOPING I remember all my thoughts but. Normally I save it as a draft like five different times when I know it's going to be a long post BECAUSE I don't wanna lose the whole thing but. It was 3:30am when I had first seen this and went to answer it and I was completely cracking up over that idea for Finn because. It's FITTING. Especially cause like. Going off his car model and when the movie came out that man is like. He's like 53 or something. So he totally grew up in a time where that was probably even more unacceptable and that would so be like the trying to cope responce that goes in to just saying it to mess with people. Your stereotypical gentleman who is suave and overly sappy romantic and likes buys roses and boxes of chocolates and would throw his suit jacket down over a puddle even though it's NOT necessary. Oh and he's also GAY.

I just. Or like some interview sort of thing and the interviewer asks him something and that's how he responds and there is just a lengthy silence before the interviewer is like "....no.?" And he's like "oh" and then has to take a sip from his wine IM. SORRY.I JUst. I don't know why I have so many thoughts on this. I haven't even gotten into saying thanks for giving me an entire fruitbasket worth of things to answer. I'm pretty sure if I was an animal in a zoo so much of my enrichment would just come from these.

I don't know how you're so good at this incorrect quotes things with them.

For J.ackson Storm:

I don't know how you telepathically magically knew I was thinking about him but I suppose they are all ping-ponging around in my head like cable TV screensavers. I proceeded to space out here and have about 40 minutes worth of my own entire imaginary thing but I really need to dedicate a day to just sitting and thinking about him because I like him a lot and thought about him a lot(he's the whole starting reason for my Cars thing and actually the one I ended up liking first), and if it wasn't for EventsTM my brain probably wouldn't be so clogged trying to think about him naturally. I. I haven't even started any of the asks I'm going to stop now. This is gonna be a long one isn't it.

🍑 - is your f/o more comfortable giving or receiving gifts? why? do they have any preferences on gifts they like receiving?

I feel like he'd be more comfortable receiving gifts because I feel like he would have a lot of trouble trying to get people gifts or having an idea on what to gift them. If it came up naturally(like he saw something that reminded him of someone else that they'd like) he'd probably have an easier time with it but if an event or holiday comes up he'd probably break in half. But also partly because of his popularity(he did a lot of online/iRacing/simulator competetive racing stuff, he was super good at it, and it's how he got offeree to race on actual tracks) he probably was used to being given things from winning events or from people that would support him. He's not very well rehearsed on what feelings are, so things like gift giving/recieving, which normally(keyword) involves feelings or knowing what other people would like sort of plays to his weaknesses.

I feel like if he ever did get anything that he was happy over getting, he probably wouldn't express it well(at all), but he'd either end up using it until he couldn't anymore(whether it's playing a video game till he's sick of it or something that is a 'practical tool' like a weighted blanket) or if it's a more sentimental/handmade thing he'd probably leave it on a high shelf where it couldn't get tampered with and perhaps most people wouldn't see it and be able to question him on it.

🥦 - does your f/o have any pet peeves? things that just really really get on their nerves? what are they and why?

This is a really interesting one because I feel like he has a lot of things that can upset him, so i gotta mull over which ones would fall under the line of being a pet peeve and which is just something that sets him off. I feel like he would not be able to do getting interrupted at all. And unless it's like someone he's really REALLY close with, I feel like he wouldn't be big on touch either. There are veryy few times where be might not care or he might reach out first but even then 98% of the time it's probably better to just ask him if you can or to just not worry about it, even if it's something like just patting him on the shoulder or whatnot. Even I ask, of course. Even if most the time I get a "yes" or "sure", just giving the choice makes a big difference.

🥬 - what are some beige flags your f/o has? so, not bad, but not nessecarily good either. just. "oh. you do This."

These flag things always trip me up because in my head from my understanding red flags are like "Hey, you should probably end the relationship over this, it's pretty bad" but then I'll hear things like people saying it's a red flag to do something that is completely arbitrary and I can't tell if I've lost my mind or they've lost my mind. Then again, I'm kinda super biased even with beige flags because there are very few, if any things that my F/Os can do that I'll be like "://" over, yknow? Cause like, if they did something that off-put me that much I probably wouldn't like them that much! Am I reading into this too much? I probably am.

However. If we're talking from an OUTSIDE perspective, like what other people might consider beige flags for him, there's a right amount of things I could say because he was one of the ones that I got critisizm for liking him. I feel like how quickly he gets frustrated over things might be something that would get pointed out, cause in the book about his backstory, after something like getting sensory overloaded on a couple occasions he would get really upset/angry to the point of storming off(cough pun intended). But I also completely understand that and I think that adds to my bias😅. And I'm sure many would be turned off by his cold demeanor.

🍒 - if your f/o and you spend a day doing anything, anything at all, what would they do and why?

Okay, I really like this question because I get to talk about how he spends 90% of his freetime just playing through racing simulators. But I need to you picture the whole complete setup of having the wheel and pedals and things that you hook up to your computer and like the several monitors. Like a dedicated room or corner of a room to it. And that's what he spends most of his time doing. He is online a lot but his social media presence does not exist it all. He is not very outdoorsy either so if we are spending the day together a lot of it will be spent either playing games together(sometimes I can convince him to try out another game with me) And most the time, even if we are playing together on like an Xbox controller or something, I'm still spending about the whole session just fawning over his skills at it. Sometimes I can grab his attention with something else for a little bit if I end up cooking or knitting or such. You should've absolutely seen the face he pulled and reaction he had over me knitting.

------

For Axlerod:

🍋 - if your f/o could change one thing about themselves, what would they change and why?

Okay, I was giggling at first at the fact that you picked lemon for him because that's funny, and then I wanted to get into my story about how I actually really like lemons and sour candy is my favorite type of candy and whenever I get iced tea at restaurants I always take the lemon slice and just eat it and don't squeeze it in the tea but the FACT THAT THIS IS THE QUESTION TO IT IM. It's too early in the morning for this.

Okay I'm going to be real here IM GOING TO BE REAL HERE. Once I stop losing my mind. Truthfully. Okay. BECAUSE of the whole lemon thing. I do think he would have several answers for what he'd want to change about himself because asides from money and power that man IS insecure. I've already talked about my headcannon of him wearing his hat and like nevveerrr ever taking it off because it helps hide his curly hair right. That's why I have to squeeze him and love on him until a proper ego about his geniune self starts to form. And definitely not because I'd do it anyway regaurdless. Totally. I mean he is literally the kingpin of the lemons(movie captions call him kingpin, their words not mine!!), that man is messed up. Society probably tried to maul him. Humanized version of what a lemon is is nearly just any minority ever. Breaks down a lot? Faulty? Doesn't work right? Gets slander souly just for looks, typically ones they can't control? I mean, even asides from things like rust and dents and whatnot, cars like Acer's typically worked fine, but they got dubbed "fishbowl"(it's also his lisence plate) because of how they looked and it was the running gag. What gets dubbed a lemon is bulleted point #2 for why I cry over his speach, in this essay I will-

🍏 - if you have any queer headcanons for your f/o, how did they realize they were queer?

It's funny because for a long time when I was still sorting out how I identified, I was genderfluid at the time, and so I just dubbed all the characters I liked as pan and called it a night. I still do that now for a few reasons but then we will get off topic into my entire gender identity story! But also because of that, I don't have very proper elaborate stories of them realizing their feelings and such. There are a select few of them where I might have more particular queer headcannons or have more of a story for them, but I do think for Axlerod it would be something that he'd known about himself for a while. Like a longgg while. And he probably has moments of openly showcasing it or supporting it with pride flags and whatnot without caring about any negative stuff he might receive. He has to at least have one big open indulgence in it during pride month. I normally am more quiet during pride month but I don't mind indulging with him cause it makes him smile(I say, at 6 in the morning with half-lidded sleepy eyes and the most "I have a problem" smile of a grin).

🍇 - if you and your f/o never met, what do you think your f/o would be doing right now?

Oohhhhmigosh. Blowing up the planet, probably? /joking. There's this whole entire thing in the story of him getting a little more tame in his havoc and it becoming slightly noticeable to others, because his vengeful scheming against the world eases up a bit now that he has someone to keep him a bit straight and that also doesn't want to kick him to the curb for him doing human things like. Being strange or a bit unconventional. And also because he now has an animal at home(me) to take care if and put time and energy into. And feed sandwhiches. So if we hadn't met, he'd probably still be just as unhinged as ever, if not a bit more destructive. Heck, I shudder to think about where myself would be if it wasn't for my F/Os! So maybe we'd meet in the midst of wrecking havoc(Kane can not cope with the concept of him and F/Os not meeting).

🥑 - is there any niche topics your f/o is interested in? what are they and why do they like them?

OKAY. I WISH I HAD GONE INTO BETTER DEPTH IN THIS DURING THE MOVIE WHEN WE WERE WATCHING IT. I don't know how niche this really is but I really like it. But with the whole newspaper thingy and it talking about the like Abyssian Desert that he crossed and the whole "around the globe" thing for the World Grand Prix like. I think he just enjoys doing that stuff. Which I suppose it's like yknow he is/has a Land Rover! Of course he does! But a Land Rover doesn't HAVE to do anything!! There are plenty that just go around on motorways! I think he just likes doing that stuff just for fun. That slight smile and sad pathetic wink(I love him) was not the same maddening smile during the Mel Dorado show and next to the Queen of England that say "I should probably be interrogated over something." Kane do NOT pull out pictures and clips. Even if they're in good quality. Maybe. Maybe later. Later. We can do that later in the day.

But I think he just enjoys going out and exploring. Going on like hikes or something. Ohmigosh it's. 6 in the morning and I'm covering my face and closing my eyes and giggling. Yes I've been working on this post for the past three hours straight, I've loved every second of it. I accidentally. Just typed. "-I've loved every second of him" and if that doesn't confirm my brain has been sucked into a hole then I don't know what does.

But anyway. I also really enjoy that stuff. Which is partly why I want a Jeep and why I like going on really long walks and just wandering into bits of land that I probably shouldn't be trespassing. We need to take a hike or something.

[strawglicks]

People are already whining abt the flag on grahams plushie be for real 💀

[laurmaus]

another one +uncolored ver (can u tell i skipped school today

[averlym]

"careful, or i'll quote that"

[pup-pee]

daily reminder that bart wearing nailpolish is canon & he does let others paint them 4 him

[hinamie]

binding vow

[science-lings]

reading some batman comics and i always get so excited when Tim is there he's so funny

[unearthedheart]

there's something incredibly healing about this

[rainbowmuncherr]

🎉FINALLY!!🎉

It’s like.. 3:44 A.M rn where I’m at..✍️😀

But enjoy both of them now that I’ve completed drawing both!💞

i may draw some Barnaby x Brenda stuff later

( here’s a rosy maple moth I found yesterday at my front door!..🥹 )

[wehaveagathering]

omg ok tonight's starting goaltender!!! !!! sam ersson starting goaltender tn im maybe actually a little shaky on my feet rn. omfg. omfg.

[laurmaus]

Hellll nooooooo😭😭😭😭😭

[britneyshakespeare]

funny thing happened when i was subbing fourth grade technology today. a boy raised his hand when i introduced myself as miss (last name) and said "there used to be someone who looked JUST like you who worked at after care a few years ago."

"that was me >:)"

and he was like... honestly *____*-facing