#ask of the lesser

[ckret2]

i know you're reading the book rn, but i need to know is it true that bill has a redemption arc??? and that billford is canon??? I HAVENT GOTTEN MY COPY YET BUT IM SEEING OTHER PEOPLES COMMENTS AND POSTS ABOUT IT I NEED TO KNOW😭

As of the end of the book, Bill is in the process of being forced into a redemption arc. Please understand that I say that like "the airplane is in the process of being forced into a shoebox." It's not successful thus far and might never be successful from what the book presents. But the road is offered to him.

In my opinion, Bill & Ford's relationship is being written like a (mostly one-sided) romantic relationship (from Bill toward Ford), with multiple in-text parallels between how Bill talks about romance and how Bill interacts with Ford, and I believe the romantic coding is deliberate. I have not yet read something that explicitly verifies Romantic Emotions Are Happening and I don't expect to.

Like, we're at a point where Bill crushing on Ford has less textual support than Dipper crushing on Wendy, but more textual support than Tyler Cutebiker crushing on Manly Dan, and maybe even more textual support than whatever thing Dipper & Pacifica have going on.

It's left open-ended enough that you CAN go "Bill's just platonically obsessed with Ford and platonically trying to 'seduce' him and platonically heartbroken when Ford rejects their partnership after learning what Bill's up to." That is still an option. But this is some INCREDIBLY heavy romantic subtext.

At this point, "there's no romantic feelings on anybody's part here" is no longer the most default/neutral reading of Bill & Ford; it's gotta be, like, a choice. A choice that remains valid within the canon text, but still a choice.

So not "canon" as in "the word love is brought up between them" or "they were in a relationship," but "canon" as in "I believe wholeheartedly that the writer's intent was to make us think about a (toxic) romantic relationship when reading these scenes, whether or not such a relationship ever took place." The text doesn't quite go there, but it openly invites you to go there if you want.

I firmly believed the book wouldn't be any more billfordish than the show & J3 were—just some light, probably unintentional subtext. It completely blew past my expectations.

[charmac]

Opinions on Charlie woobification? Also, do you think the fandom woobifies Dennis (too much)?

A few people have sent me asks about my thoughts on Dennis being woobified in the fandom and I’ve failed to answer them (sorry). Not for lack of interest on the subject, it’s just hard to answer. I think, though, answering this Charlie question in the same ask might make it easier to explain my thoughts on this.

When we talk about the fandom we’re generally talking about the people here, a couple hundred people on Twitter, maybe some Instagram stans(?) and tend to ignore the million (1,000,000)+ people on the subReddit and the huge chunk of people on Facebook and casual Twitter who are constantly, continually pushing a narrative that these characters have no depth, and thus their characterisation is what we see on the surface and nothing more. I think the one time it’s probably important not to ignore those people as fans of the show is when it comes to woobification.

Because at a surface level, the people who are consuming this show as a comedy and making posts that exhibit their takes/opinions on these characters to the majority of people portray the characters very simply: Charlie is an idiot and the best member of the Gang, in every sense of the word, and Dennis is a mere representation of toxic masculinity to a psychopathic degree. And those opinions are the loud majority.

So any discussion in our minority section of the fandom that woobifies Charlie or Dennis operates within and on top of the general narrative of the public perception (“face value”) of the characters. Woobification of Charlie, then, almost always further infantilises the majority of his traits to contribute to the idea that he’s not a bad guy and doesn’t deserve the position he’s in in life, while woobification of Dennis mostly works to counteract the idea that he’s a cold-blooded psychopath.

In a way, I think you have to woobify Dennis to a degree in order to properly understand his character (and Glenn makes that clear). Do some people take it too far? When it gets into the realm of genuinely somehow believing he’s not a bad person, absolutely, but in over a decade of Sunnyblr posts, I think I’ve seen that conclusion once, maybe twice. I really don’t think any post that’s diving into how Dennis' actions reflect his insecurities and trauma is ever speaking ignorant of the rest of his character, and that normally seems clear to the majority of people because rarely, if ever, does a dive into Dennis woobification cause fans to understand the character worse than they understood him at face value.

Whereas, with Charlie, you constantly do see this. Posts and threads and fights between fans arguing up and down that Charlie is better than the rest of them: he’s the smartest, actually, he means to do good, he shouldn’t be lumped in with the rest of them as sexual predators... People in this fandom genuinely argue that you are a *better person* if you’re a Charlie stan, that Charlie ships are softer, more moral, than toxic Dennis ships. The result of Charlie woobification seems to often make people less media literate about the character (and the show as a whole if we’re being real) than they would be if they just watched at face value.

They’re all morally despicable characters.

TL;DR: Due to the face value perceptions of the characters, woobification is an almost necessary tool for better exploring and understanding Dennis under his surface, while it really only exacerbates an annoying surface-level understanding of Charlie

[jaepuppy]

I can't believe some of y'all "voted with your conscience" trump into office twice in my lifetime.

[kibutsujidemon]

"zhongli and his girl harem"

zhongli : i will hooked up with first with femboy , lady just wait your turn.

[floweypilled]

my rarepair friendship is toriel and grillby. i think theyd hit it off....i also think she should get to play cards with the dog squad but thats just because i belive in socializing old ladies

I LOVE THIS… i think shed be introduced to grillbys through sans and she wouldnt like the food but having a few drinks once in a while is nice… and eventually she becomes good friends with grilllbbzzz :3

and ahh… they’re playing bingo…

[syndrossi]

read an ask about the Restoration AU and how Daemon would react to the twins calling Ned ‘father’ and how Jon may end up steering more toward Ned, Daemon seeing how easily close Jon is with Lord Stark and just steam comin’ out of his ears in response.

it suddenly made me think about Jon’s reaction to having his main two father figures present. because during Resonant we’ve learned Jon’s developing thoughts on how Ned did love him but conditionally and carefully, after all, he needed to treat him as a Lord did his bastard. meanwhile, Daemon loves him and Rhaegar fiercely, brightly, it’s a fire that is never put out and never dimmed. half of Daemon’s every waking moment since finding out he has kids has been making them know how loved they are.

so yeah, super interested in seeing little Jon end up steering toward Ned out of instinct and familiarity until he’s reminded of the negative parts that came from Ned, the distance and ‘shame’ of being a bastard. when Daemon shows up and he finds his boys, he immediately goes to hug them with everything he has. i just know that Jon melts into that hug, letting him be loved by his father, knowing this is a man who would go to hell and back for him and his brother without a second thought.

Oh, absolutely. Jon is incredibly worried about Daemon on top of everything else, because there has been neither word nor sighting of him, and they don't know for certain that Daemon also came along. He wasn't summerhalled originally, after all, so the thought must have occurred to both him and Rhaegar that only they were winterfelled.

So Daemon making any sort of entrance, dramatic or otherwise, is gonna be met with an incredibly emotional greeting. What comes after is gonna be interesting, because he can compare and contrast Daemon and Ned directly, though it'll be different, of course--he's not Ned's "real" Jon, and Ned won't have nearly the same affection for him, since he knows Resonant!Jon isn't actually blood, assuming he's fully bought into his own Rhaella+Blackfyre theory.

It'll also be interesting how Restoration!Jon reacts to all of this, because Daemon's treating him like he's one of his sons, and the truth probably is explained to him at some point, so he knows that Daemon's not his actual father, even if he acts as though he is.

[lemonhemlock]

I did not get into Game of thrones when it first started airing. In fact, I waited until it was long past it's heyday (around s6 or 7) to check it out because the marketing and the conversation surrounding it misled me into thinking it was nothing more than "grimdark" bullshit. As one famous YouTuber sarcastically called it "hot fantasy that fucks." So, I avoided Martin's work for literal years due to the impression that I got from online reactors and show-only casuals who did as you and a few others have described as his work being fundamentally misinterpreted.

Fortunately, I overcame my hang-ups, purchased the books (even the supplementary material) and fell down an entire rabbit hole of ASOIAF which led me to recognizing that this world he spent decades creating is far more complex than what had been portrayed onscreen. Regardless of the possibility of the books remaining unfinished (which I am fine with, personally), what George has created is a genuine work of art that I imagine took a tremendous amount of time and energy. So, for so many people online to behave like children and throw tantrums because they feel entitled to him (ew) instead of ushering forth more reasonable conversations and legitimate debates about the nature of his situation frankly makes me look at this fandom with a heavy dose of skepticism.

It is truly baffling to hear even professional critics and see articles describing George as being "ungrateful" or "unprofessional" when it has been well-documented just how often authors get locked out of the adaptation process and left to the wayside as consultants. Look at what happened to Rick Riordan and Christopher Paolini! George R.R. Martin is not the only author to have qualms with how a multimillion dollar studio has mishandled his creative work, and to act like he should remain silent just because he's amassed a certain degree of wealth is quite frankly, ridiculous. He shouldn't have to settle down, be grateful, and stay quiet because the greedy corporate executives and their media drones will get offended by actual criticism that could alter the perception of the adaption being revealed as mediocre for having departed from the source material.

TLDR: authors should be allowed to speak up about their art being sacrificed for commercialization.

Thank you so much for this message, anon! This needs to be talked about more, because I don't think a lot of commentators truly understand the vulgar, late-capitalistic sheen that seems to set in and slowly poison any ASOIAF adaptation. It honestly baffles me how quick some members of this fandom are to rush to the defense of, what is essentially (let's not be kidding ourselves here), a cashgrab by a giant corporation to the detriment of the actual artist and the actual creative foundation behind it.

Why else would "MAX" (if that is even their name) make another (or several other) ASOIAF adaptations? Not to stay true to any philosophical aesthetic vision, as it has become more than apparent with Season 2, but to increase shareholder profits by appealing to the lowest common denominator. Even the basic premise has been shifted in order to address popular trends and satisfy the mindless consumer that doesn't want to engage with anything deeper than their favourite tropes, prettily packaged:

from a story about a doomed ouroborous family superimposed on the pitfalls of feudalism, with villainy and heroism to be found on both sides, it has been simplified and reduced to a narrative that exalts white feminism and disqualifies anyone who opposes its girlboss protagonist. This is Sheryl Sandberg's version of Fire and Blood.

Truly, I think Sara Hess did (unintentionally) outline it the best: "civilians don't matter in Game of Thrones". They don't matter in Game of Thrones, but they matter in A Song of Ice and Fire. The entire heart of the series is contained in Septon Maribald's speech. The writers "kind of", must have forgotten, though.

[mashriqiyyah]

Even if you try to, Allah will never let you settle for anything lesser than what you deserve.

~ mashriqiyyah

[dailytraingirl]

who do i have to speak to

about if they can redo

the prophecy?

who do i have to speak to?

to change

the prophecy?

[lunian]

Gale origin with Bloodweave is so funny (part 193276)

when Astarion complains about Araj Oblodra's blood being vile and disgusting just by her smell, but then right in front of her Gale is telling Astarion "You can feed on me tonight"

and, of course, this goof just goes with "Ah I thought you would never ask✨️💕🌺💓🍆❤️"

and we continued our day as if it wasn't the dumbest thing in the world

[hellsitegenetics]

My name is Yoshikage Kira. I’m 33 years old. My house is in the northeast section of Morioh, where all the villas are, and I am not married. I work as an employee for the Kame Yu department stores, and I get home every day by 8 PM at the latest. I don’t smoke, but I occasionally drink. I’m in bed by 11 PM, and make sure I get eight hours of sleep, no matter what. After having a glass of warm milk and doing about twenty minutes of stretches before going to bed, I usually have no problems sleeping until morning. Just like a baby, I wake up without any fatigue or stress in the morning.

I was told there were no issues at my last check-up. I’m trying to explain that I’m a person who wishes to live a very quiet life. I take care not to trouble myself with any enemies, like winning and losing, that would cause me to lose sleep at night. That is how I deal with society, and I know that is what brings me happiness. Although, if I were to fight I wouldn’t lose to anyone.

String identified:

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a t t at at cc-. ’ tg t a tat ’ a t a t . ta ca t t t t a , g a g, tat ca t at gt. Tat a t ct, a tat at g a. Atg, t gt ’t t a.

Closest match: Noctua janthe genome assembly, chromosome: 16 Common name: Lesser broad-bordered yellow underwing moth

[solarwynd]

Anytime jjks are met with proof that Jimin is popular (or more popular) than JK is in any area they spiral. Cause why are you monitoring his exhibition ticket sales and pissed/in disbelief cause they sold out quickly?

[madamtrashbat]

If I see one more thing that says "hey please don't vote for Trump it would be really bad" and the response on it is "oh so you support genocide? You expect me to vote for an old warmongering fascist? Joe Biden is a fucking murderer and you hate Palestinians how does the boot taste Zionist must be nice to only care about poor widdle white Americans asshole" I'm gonna start throwing ninja stars.

[girlballs]

Hi I have a question about lesser beast, will there be a bunnysuit set of armor in the game?

not only will there be a bunnysuit but the bunnysuit will serve as a crucial piece of worldbuilding

[zarnzarn]

ok but ares being protective over thena and not liking how ody grabbed her but then being chill when reminded that athena can take care of herself is just AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAÀAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

hah a public admission that he cares abt his sister but at what cost

bro didnt even grab her that hard theyre all just unused to athena not planting her feet and being stubborn about everything. and also hes slightly traumatized from having to watch them make out in front of him lol u have to give him leeway for being a bit hysterical atm. but when ody said that he remembered that oh shit yea me too and couldnt think of anything else to stop them in time.

ares does not like this whole situation though. he does not understand why someone like athena who had been so steadfast in her refusals and violent in her rejections was just. giving in? it was not like her. he suspects foul play.

also in general in the rest of series, odysseus is just. fucking head in hands dealing w the rest of the prying gods and constant casual misogyny. one conversation actually left him so scarred he had to go 'i think we are not talking about the same person, athena snapped my spine once.' and just got up and left. went straight to ask athena to put a spear through his head so he could forget what the fuck he had just heard lol.

[txttletale]

Jsyk your crop rotation driftwood elf post made me laugh for a solid 5 minutes straight

[lin manuel mifanda voice] my name is croprotation driftwoodelf