#and kinda have a whole moment
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Soul has a cabin where he keeps things from past loops in. A few things of note are:
-A tape recorder with an early version of ‘We’re Gonna Win’
-Mind’s first pair of prosthetics
-Heart’s first blindfold
-Pictures from various concords where they’re all happy
-Recordings of Mind reading or singing
-Recordings of Heart doodling and writing lyrics
He keeps these with him because he just wants to only be in concord and to rewind back to when heart and mind weren’t blind and mute respectively. He knows he didn’t cause either, but he just needs them back to ‘normal’ so bad it physically hurts him. When he goes to his cabin, he always comes out crying because {God, why can’t things be better? Why did all this shit happen to us? What did we do to deserve this?}
And also, going hand in hand with this, during concord, Soul records EVERYTHING. He is so scared that this loop is the last loop they’re like this, and next loop they’re going to rip each other to shreds. He just can’t let any moment go to waste.
Headcanon #127
#chonny jash#submission#cj soul#cj mind#cj heart#chonnys charming chaos compendium#damn okay you didn't have to make one that hit so hard/lh#love me some soul angst tho#angst for the soul#lol get it#anyways thanks for the tears anon i love this#debating makin an au or something with it#had an au idea a bit back when soul would be gone/missing and only Heart & Mind are left to fix things/find soul/whatever#mayhaps they find the cabin then#and kinda have a whole moment#idk how to write things but like eh#one of my favorite headcanons
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Until someone from the staff says otherwise, I will stake actual, genuine money that this was an exchange from the writer's room that made it into the show.
#camp cretaceous#jurassic world: camp cretaceous#ben pincus#brooklynn#kenji kon#jwcc#yasmina fadoula#also I was always too dsitacted by this line#I never noticed their FACES#brooklynn Cannot Compute#Kenji is Aghast#and Yaz is wondering if she's allowed to sleep while this kid is in proximity to her#BUT IT'S TRUE#THEY MADE A WHOLE MOSASAURUS MODEL#and then used it for one scene#I think they kinda had a glimpse of it at the start of season 2#then thety got to use it in Hidden Adventure#and got to have a cameo in 3#and then one last big moment at the start of 4#but that was a WHOLE MODEL#they paid money for and GOOD MONY TOO#IT'S ONE OF THE BEST IN THE SHOW#AND SHE GOT ONE SCENE#THEY PUT ALL OF THAT MONEY INTO THE MOSASAURUS AND LEFT NONE FOR THE TRICERATOPS#rexy couldn't even have her scars!!!
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#This moment is so moving.#I want to gif the whole sequence but I don't have time to do anything 😭😭😭#And I think the pacing is a big factor in making the scene so emotional and that kinda gets lost in gifs...#Idk just go watch that scene again for me and let's cry over sskk together#atsushi nakajima#ryūnosuke akutagawa#sskk#shin soukoku#bsd#bungou stray dogs#bsd s5#bsdrewatch2023
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pygmalion and galatea for aroace people
you should tell your friends what I look like, riz gukgak.
#fantasy high#fantasy high sophomore year#fhsy#riz gukgak#baron from the baronies#fh class quangle#class swap babeyy! bard!riz that's whats goin on!#I really need tags for these now I think lmao#ask to tag#I feel like this should be tagged something. but I dont know what#in my brain after the initial kidnapping class swap baron's thing is every time riz keeps his story abt them up in front of his friends#they get a little bit closer. they send him pictures of where they supposedly are n stuff#theres a scene in my brain only of kristen and riz on top of the van and kristen is like everything kinda sucks rn can u tell me abt baron#cause what you guys have is so nice and beautiful. and riz almost doesn't but he ultimately can't deny kristen a little peace#lmao I feel like dipping into baron stuff with the class swap is like showing my whole ass online again I just. I'm a#horror person before all else... I cant stop myself. canon baron is Great and Cool but that is kind of the thing. for a horror thing theyre#Too Cool. I think cool is kind of the neutralizer of scary. when a monster is a certain amount of cool it overrides the scary#and now u just have a Cool Monster#its so fucked for bard!riz this year bc he doesn't have an office (he's mooching off the school wifi from the AV club room lol)#so there's no buffer between adventure and home life. so baron just shows up in the strongtower apartment lmao#sophomore year bard!riz looks like a slasher protag so I just leaned into it I guess. he gets a mr. x if mr. x is made up by leon kennedy#well. its worse actually. they can show up where he is at any moment theyve proven this. but they dont#they choose to punish him slowly as he lies to his friends instead. baron is mr. x if mr. x is made up by leon and also a bitch#I think its gonna pop up if class swap baron ever speaks in a comic I do but their voice comes from like. inside their hollow face#it sounds like it's a lot deeper in there than that skull should be#tbh what I have rn is kinda like a bag of loose pieces that Can fit together into something great but I dont have the energy to#really sit down with them yet lol. Im doing this inbetween other things#it comes or it doesn't! it's fine. funny how today's bad comic day also. I wont say this is for bad comic day bc all my comics are#flawless and beautiful and perfect and awesome and beautiful and the best#but u should. if u havent drawn a comic today or at all ever u should draw a comic
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the matrix: revisited (2001)
things that made me smile
#the matrix#thematrixedit#the matrix revisited#behind the scenes#keanu reeves#laurence fishburne#carrie anne moss#hugo weaving#lana wachowski#lilly wachowski#the wachowskis#paul goddard#robert taylor#mygifs#matrixgifs#this whole documentary is on youtube in a variety of places. def recommend watching it if you are a fan and haven't seen it#i had not! and i've kinda watched it like 3 times now in the process of figuring out what gifs i wanna make#i saw the matrix in the theater a handful of times and have watched it a whole bunch of times again since#so i was incredibly tickled to find this unknown-to-me big long doc on my favorite (maybe can i commit to that???) movie#so i have some more serious/interesting stuff i wanna gif too that i had to force myself not to include in this set#and if i wasn't already enamored enough with laurence lol this sealed the deal. i just love listening to him and watching him work#there's a moment too when laurence calls hugo by his full name too which made me laugh. he's a full name person!
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look at my sonic ocs pretty please ok ty
#sapph the sea slug#scorch the beetle#<names up to change#scottsocs#scorchs' whole thing is like. seemingly very calm and collected (and to an extent he is)#but hes secretly Always looking for an excuse to blow up / burn something. average pyrotechnician moment!#hes constantly out of the loop tho. in an almost big the cat kinda way. so he's usually compared 2 shadow and hes like “who tf is that guy”#not sure the *exact* place he lives (<or more like. His House. i dont imagine he'd stay around one place for too long) but. picture like.#red mountain but with greenery#as for sapph. ill have 2 read more into archie until i see characters like undina and coral . or just like completely make something up for#him lmao
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Sorry I never gave a proper update on tumblr——
here’s some brainstorming doodles from Keo and me on the white board and some examples Keo made in my notebook. I won’t forget it, one of my harshest note was “NEVER draw Kenny in 3/4!! Trey hates that!” 🤣 The story leads stressed that Trey is very particular with acting decisions and poses, most of which don’t translate into the animation. It’s for him at the editing stage, to “make his voice sing”. Getting into Trey’s head, funnily enough, requires FEELING. Feeling what he’s going for in terms of delivery, to learn what not to take literally in his script (when trey says “kathleen kennedy is like terminator” it’s not what you initially think it means), what emotion or gesture to put in to elevate a joke, to get the message through. It’s so fascinating!
In short, I didn’t make the cut. I was “too fresh”, and needed more experience with the technical aspect of storyboarding…. but I was complimented by Keo for my intuition, something that can’t be taught. I was over the moon when I was told I got the style of the show, whereas other trainees with 10+ experience couldn’t. Some of them tested but don’t even watch the show!! That’s crazy, but I guess that’s to be expected. My knowledge of the show and deep love for the characters got me this far, but I need to work on my actual story boarding skills (keo said my struggles are in composition and scaling) to stay!! 💪🏼 I’m taking this… as a not yet, not a no. I’m already on their radar, in their database, I’m incredibly lucky I got to make my THIRD connection in the studio, I just need to work on myself until I can arrive. I’m so grateful for all the support from friends family and industry moots to get me this far, it’s only the beginning of the year but I don’t think anything could top what happened to me this March!!!!!
#south park#kyman#i’m tagging kyman bc the damn ship got me this far too credit where credit is DUE 🤣🤣🤣🤣#behind the scenes#it’s so funny actually I drew in a lil kyman moment in my boards at the studio (not as like a haha i’m a sneak this in. more like. it just.#flows outta me lol)#and when i received notes on that panel the leads didn’t say anything abt my kyman…. they zeroed in and kinda argued w/ each other if i#should have drawn more details for the lockers or not 🤣🤣🤣#Keo came clutch so I followed his advice in not drawing the details but greg insists abt drawing them in#and then they went into ‘well trey doesn’t say anything when I do/don’t draw them in’ and i kinda stood there like 🧍🏻♀️#I thought the whole thing was hilarious in the end#maybe I should draw that moment jgkgfjfh#talk tag#I feel like I scammed everyone like…. I’ve never professionally boarded in my life. How the hell did i get this far.
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my f2l yuuta idea of the week, if i may: childhood bsf yuuta, nerdy and shy, who grows up with you. ur popular but u always stick by his side, and he's in love ofc. stuttering and failed valentine's confessions, blushing whenever u show him affection, doodling ur name in his notebook in class, classic loverboy yuuta
this omg :(( i’ve had conversations about something similar—childhood friend yuuta, but i love the idea of him being a little nerdy omggg
you’ve known him since before you two could even talk, you were just infants babbling at each other, but i’m sure in yuuta’s little baby brain he was trying to say i love love love youuuu :(( your parents have so many pictures of all the pretend weddings you guys have had as kids, so many pictures of yuuta in his dad’s huge tux jacket and you in a big shirt with a makeshift belt that’s really just an extra long friendship “bracelet” yuuta made for you bc he was trying to make a bracelet big enough to show you how much he loves you, but he ran out of beads :(((
school is harder for him as you two get older, yuuta doesn’t make friends nearly as easily as he did with you but he always has you and it just makes him more in love with you… the horimiya of this all……. yuuta trying to recede into the background but you’re the friend that pulls him out of his own head and introduces him to maki and toge and yuuji and megumi and nobara and everyone else and sometimes he just sits at the lunch table w everyone and thinks how lucky he is to have all his friends but esp you because none of it would be possible w/o you :(( definitely gets a piece of food thrown at him by nobara who’s calling him out for looking dazed and lovesick but he just blushes and tries to hide it behind stuffing his face he’s so cute god,,,……. definitely doesn’t help that you call him cute too and he’s *////////* all day… doodling your name in his book is so real he’s definitely written “(_____) okkotsu” on a handful of pages which is why he’s so weirdly anxious/protective of his notebook he would literally fizzle away into dust if anyone every saw it GOD
don’t even get me started on the failed confessions PLS so many times he tries to hype himself up to leave a note in your locker or ask you out but either something goes wrong or he’s not specific enough, so it always seems platonic…. the misfortunes of yuuta…. leaving a letter in your locker on valentine’s day but he forgot your way more popular than him, so it’s just one of many notes buried in there and ofc he’s a fool so he didn’t sign his pls 😭 asking you to get ice cream after school and it’s cool, but the next day he sees you getting ice cream w megumi and he’s like oh… wait… you probably do that will all ur friends ofc,,,, just constant blundering i love him sooooo bad
the only time he gets it right is prom, and i can see him either (1) being fed up by his own blundering and really wanting to get it right, (2) being worried/jealous about hearing other people’s plans to ask you to prom, (3) you teasing him about waiting for a certain somebody to ask youuuuuu…. he definitely stutters and stumbles a bit, but he’s yuuta he’s just a sweetheart so it’ll work out :(((
#anonymous#childhood best friend.... prom date......... getting married and having 294208 polaroids of ur pretend weddings as kids littered all over#oh i will SCREAM#so horimiya coded pls u call him ur boyfriend after prom and he has his 'am i really??' moment.....#yuuta okkotsu the lover boy that you are....#also ive talked about this w aleks before but him having slightly longer hair than first year throughout highschool#and it's kinda shaggy and goes w his whole wanna be wallflower thing#and then prom comes around and not only has he asked you out on prom night when he picks you up#he's cut his hair and parted it differently and he looks sooo handsome ur like omg... yuuta? my yuuta????#soo :(((((((#yuuta x reader#jujutsu kaisen x reader#jjk x reader#jjk fluff#jjk smut#yuuta.ask#f2l
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spoilers for chapter 429
idk if you guys remember but ochako does have parallels with All Might, specifically as the side who saves. It’s not that he feels the same for them both or something like that, they serve to represent the type of heroism he naturally goes to; his friend is not his love interest, from his perspective she’s out there having a crisis over not being able to save her, and Izuku reminds her that she is a hero bc she is his hero -she saved him multiple times, and she should be able to feel like a proper hero.
This conversation is not about the nature of their relationship, is about heroism; Izuku relates to a conflict between being a hero who saves and failing to save someone, and doesn’t want to see Ochako ending spiraling because she couldn’t also fulfill that role as expected. She’s his hero not because he loves her romantically -he’s a nerd I’m sure he would be way more nervous and blushing if he was confessing anything he thought was romantic- but because she’s able to go and do what All Might does to Izuku, save him physically and emotionally.
He knows she hides her feelings in order to not be a burden, yet he doesn’t talk about his own feelings outside of his guilt in heroics -what does he feel about losing OFA? About his own failures? About the people he personally lost? He can’t talk for others and claim Ochako is everyone’s hero, but he can speak for himself, and that’s his personal perspective -she is a hero to him, she’s his hero. And then the class appears to make sure she’s able to get support and understand she’s not alone, and she’s important to them too.
but Izuku doesn’t get support. Izuku cries a little and talks a little about himself, but he doesn’t get supported. If this was meant to be romantic, I don’t understand why he would hold back what’s inside of him.
the end of the chapter reveals that boy is going to be helped by that woman who regretfully ignored Tenko, and they both witness it and are happy about it while hearing izuku inspired that change, and iida wonders what’s up with them -this is the conclusion to their relationship. In their hearts these two are saviors who struggle to be heroes who save others, and they are happy there are appearing more people who want to be heroes like them. Heroes who save. Save like All Might.
That grandma for example, interpreting the narrative as what I think is intended, would be that boy’s All Might; she’s his hero.
Izuku and Ochako are heroes who save, and Deku is here to remind her at least she did save him many times, that she is still a hero because she is his hero. I don’t believe is meant to be interpreted as romantic, not that Izuku sees that phrase as it neither -after all, he said he does want to be like All Might and feels good to imitate him, but he doesn’t love him.
Ochako’s All Might hair moment, the parallels with Toshinori telling him he can be a hero, the trying to save from black suffocating quirks, the we can do it and do your best…
Do I need to remind you heroes arent a romantic thing for Izuku Midoriya?
#grrr talking#bkdk#dkbk#bakudeku#dekubaku#I’m not saying I’m happy with the chapter#I have my criticisms#But I don’t want to keep seeing ppl say this is romantic and “izu///ocha canon we won bkdk dead”#First of all no it’s not even if it was canon we would still ship them and make content about them#Second of all this chapter was about ochako getting comfort not a boyfriend#Are we really sitting there believing they are together when ochako doesn’t struggle nor think about her crush at all#And her character goes way beyond liking him or not#And izuku hero nerd midoriya calls her his hero bc he sees all might savior qualities in her???#Bitch where’s the romance#And you know what? I don’t get it now#Bc ppl were all like “yeah it’s platonic” when izuku said he admired all might but katsuki was just right there closer to him#But now they see the whole “you are my hero” as a romantic confession? Fuck off#Personally I always felt kinda strange about that scene in bk vs dk 2#It focuses on the closeness and and it’s strange bc izuku doesn’t strive to be like him at all#He doesn’t want to be the victorious hero side nor want to be a angry and disrespectful when he gets angry#He just is#So. Yeah#ochako is part of the saving chain and she saved him multiple times since the beginning#This is his experience with her and she deserves to be acknowledged as the hero she is#Even if nobody else sees her as that including herself he sees it#She deserves to hear it#When she saved him during black whip with shinso’s help everyone else saw a romantic moment#Mina teased her about it and made things weird for them always trying to look into it as a romantic gesture#And it wasn’t. That was ochako being the hero she is and Izuku confirms that to her#She is a hero not a love interest
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A little promo with my little obsession on the side...........
Reminder all items are shipped from Poland - for details on shipping times check out FAQ or send me a private message!
mmezzy.bigcartel.com
#klance#halloween au#im projecting on the internet my own impostor syndrome#i feel that im awful and should be learning how to draw instead of writing shitty fics#and when i want to write a post and share a little doodle or smth - 'sorry' is right between the lines and its so frustrating#like???? nobody probably cares#im either here or im not#and if i need to finish that little abomination of a fic then so be it you'd think people wouldnt mind too much#and would still want to listen to my captions and see whatever silly doodle however silly it is as long as its true#..............but what if its all redundant#what if i cant draw after i had to flip my entire routine upside down#and will forever chase a thrill of feeling like a prolific artist and it will be always out of reach now#what if people scroll past my art and feel nothing now#what if world is filled with people who kinda hate klance but stay out of reflex and not bc its their deeply routed source of comfort#what if i reached an artistic plateau and will never be good enough#what if this is the limit of my 'talent'#what if i will forever love the projects i want to share but will always hate the execution of it wanting to fix it fix it fix it learn mor#i keep reading the little notes i get on orders#some screenshots i saved#i find good words and opinions and love letters to art as a whole#and i feel insufficient#subpar#i drew a comic about it to an old poem and still havent finished it#there is a point of trying your best when it stops feeling like a challenge and feels like a failure#its the moment where you keep going of course#and yet#there are emotions im sure nobody shares on social media bc we just try to get through them#but who else will take it better than tumblr tags#either way if im less around its because im dealing with creational self-hatred and artistic ambitions#but on the other hand arent all artists like that? i ran out of tag space btw have an awesome weekend
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Spot the Leo!
Okay, so, I had, waayy too much fun with lighting on this! And! I got to draw a star! Adjacent. Thing?
Ninpo!
Context is in chapter 26: The Void of @sugarpasteltmnt 's The Neon Void!
Which no, I will not stop recommending.
#illustration#rottmnt#rise of the tmnt#rottmnt fanart#tnv tmnt#tnv fanart#so like. i would like to have made either the turtles smaller. farther away. or something in order to really give a sense of scale. but!#doing so was really throwing off the composition of the whole thing#and i kinda just had to give up on perfecting that aspect. so! hopefully it still works ok.#i saw the new updates and literally flailed for a moment there so! thats my next stop!#i hope this reads as a star? ive not drawn one before...#the third picture has a brighter blue core in the star for Leo reconnecting! but it's been there the whole time! symbolism!!
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at the stage of consuming holmes/watson content where i can't even write anything for them, i just think about them So Much and lay on my side a great deal
#i have so many thoughts and little domestic moments i envision for them#but its kinda just like a little cinema in my head where i can tuck myself away#and cry lmao cry a whole lot#but no writing :))) ffs :))))#sherlock holmes#john watson
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— Anaïs Nin
#lauryssaedit#nyssaalghuledit#laurellanceedit#arrowedit#tvedit#dcedit#dctvedit#wlwsource#wlwgif#dcmultiverse#cwladiesdaily#dcugifs#filmtvcentral#laurel x nyssa#lauryssa#laurel lance#nyssa al ghul#my edits#arrow#*#*arrow#kinda had a Moment thinking about them#i have like at least 4 more of these praying i stay motivated the whole way through#i was gonna make it into one big web weaving post basically but then i rmbed how badly my poor things one did :/#and also it was just taking too long to make#not that i'm expecting much giffing arrow in the year of our lord 2024 but i didn't want to spend literal days on a single set that'll flop
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And if I say this shot right here is one of the greatest things I've ever seen in anything, ever? One of the best and most brilliant visual moments in the Jurassic franchise? In cartoons? In moving pictures as a whole?
#jurassic world#camp cretaceous#jwcc#jurassic world: camp cretaceous#yasmina fadoula#sammy gutierrez#yasammy#the whole setup here#look at this#just...just LOOK#do you know how many pieces had to fit together JUST RIGHT to set this up?#sammy's insecurity?#yaz's unwillingness to get involved with people?#their mutual love and yearning?#the way sammy is ZONED OUT here so Yaz is Not Really There?#the fact that they're in front of a highly reflective limousine?#in a DIMLY LIT PARKING GARAGE???#SO THIS KIND OF VISUAL MAKES COMPLETE SENSE??????#also the 3D medium kinda works better for this than it would in 2D?#because in @D you'd probably have a more solid-looking reflection?#this has to have been done in live-action before#but I imagine it's difficult so it's probably really good wherever it is#but...UGH#THIS IS SPECIAL#THIS IS SO VERY SPECIAL#they also cut it off quickly enough#the artists flex for a moment but they don't indulge#so it's not overdone
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Mother Spore and his loyal Vex :)
Mother Spore design is hugely inspired by Detour written by @raichett which has my FAVOURITE ever dynamic between those two, give it a read it’s great!
#i wanted to do fanart but it have kinda gotten out of hand im sorry! :D#I just loved how you describe Mother Spore so much and just the whole dynamic between him and Scar LOVE IT so much fr#But im not great with imagining pictures from writing so i was trying my best i was#Grian#Mother Spore#Goodtimeswithscar#hermitcraft#court jester's art#court jester's fanfiction appreciation moment#I need to draw actual dynamic between Mother Spore and Scar because its hilarious in so many ways but this one is just ohhhhh...... you know
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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.
#using the tags as a footnote system here but in order:#1. quentin MAY not be dead according to some theories but in the text he is a charred corpse#2. arianne is great and i love her but to be honest. my girl is kinda dumb. just 2 b real.#3. faegon is totally a blackfyre i think it's so obvious it may well be text at this point#it's almost r+l = j level man like it's kind of just reading comprehension at this point#4. relatedly there are some characters i think GRRM has endings picked out for and some i think he specifically does NOT#i think stannis melisandre jon and daenerys all will end up the same. jon and dany war crimes => murder/banishment arc is just classic GRRM#but i think jon's reasoning will be different and it'll be better-written.#im sorry but babygirl shireen IS getting flambeed. in response stannis will commit epic battle suicide killing all boltons i hope#brienne will live but in some tragic 'stay awhile horatio' capacity. likely she will try to die defending her liege and fail#faegon will die there's zero chance blackfyres win ever#now jaime/cersei I do NOT think he knows. my brothers in christ i don't think this motherfucker knows who the valonqar is!!#same with tyrion i think that the author in GRRM wants to do a nasty corruption arc + kill him off but the person in him loves him too much#sansa i have no goddamn idea what's going to happen. we just don't know enough about the northern conspiracy to tell#w/ arya i think he has... ideas. i don't think she's going to sail off to Explore i am almost certain that the show doing that was a cover#because the actual idea he gave them was unsavory or nonviable for some reason. bc like.#why would arya leave bran and jon and sansa? the family she's just spent her whole life fighting to come back to and avenge?#this is suspicious this does not feel like arya this does not feel right#bran will not be king or if he is it'll be in a VERY different way not the dumbfuck 'let's vote' bullshit#i personally think bran is going to go full corruption arc and become possessed by the 3 eyed raven. but that could be a pipe dream#the thing is he's way too OP in the show so the books have to nerf him and i think GRRM is still trying to work out#a way to actually do that.#i don't think he told them what happened with littlefinger or sansa. i think sansa's story is vaguely similar#(stark restoration through the female line etc)#but the queen in the north shit is way too contrived frankly. and selfishly i hope she gets something different#being a monarch in ASOIAF is not a happy ending. we know this from the moment we meet robert baratheon in AGOT#and we learn exactly what GRRM thinks of the people who 'win' these endless wars of succession#and they are not heroes#they are not celebrated#and they are neither safe nor happy
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