#because going from family man
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ofmdsalt · 4 months ago
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Hey, I really liked your take about how Ed could have gone on a self discovery journey instead of ending up with Stede so I'm curious, how do you view Ed and Stede's relationships? TBH my interpretation is that lots of people in the fandom need to like...stop putting romantic love on this pedestal and understand that self and platonic love is equally important and media always skews our perception and the importance of romantic love in negative ways (I mean, there are literally academic articles written about stuff like this). And sure! a big part of fandom is the shipping! and a big part of the show is their eventual relationship! but idk like sure its nice to see and read but in irl I know lots of friends who fell into toxic and dangerous relationships because they were unhealthy and needed some growth and I've even lost a few friends to relationships that me, and our other friends, disapproved of. Some of those friends have even come back years later to apologize while others just unfortunately lost their entire support networks (friends, colleagues, and family) and still are in those relationships. Which like yeah in fandom i love the "us against the world" mentally but irl doesn't work that way. idk sorry for rambling, but would love to hear your thoughts.
sorry i left you on read for so long, anon! had to think this one through a bit.
so for those who don't know, they're talking about this post that i made. that was immediately screenshotted and taken out of context by implying that i said Ed needs to be 100% perfectly healed before going into a relationship. which is. a take. i won't go much into it, but this is a perfect opportunity for me to expand on that!
what i love in fandoms are long winded character studies. so a fic focused more on an individual person where the relationship (if there is one at all) is secondary. i've written such stories before because sometimes i like exploring an individual character and getting to know what makes them tick. what i wanted to get into with the post linked above is why do we immediately assume that a relationship between Ed and Stede is going to 'fix' them? both of them are in a period of flux within their lives. Stede has lived in a hetero marriage that was, as far as we can tell, fairly miserable and detached for both parties.
he then leaves them (lbr, abandons is a better word for it) to play pirate and put himself and others lives at risk because he does not know anything about the world he's gotten himself into
then we have Ed. a man who's reputation precedes him but who is also strangled and suffocated by this image that he's in. he's Blackbeard first and Ed second.
i can really resonate with both these characters and their struggles to understand who they are and need to be seen as who they want to be. it's a tale as old as time in terms of identity. and then when you add the complexities of a relationship into the mix of Stede realizing he's gay and Ed seeing that he doesn't need to be Blackbeard (but who is he really without Blackbeard?) it makes i all the more interesting
and then season 2 happens and packs in a whole lot of unearned character development due to budget cuts and a slashed screentime.
their relationship was never going to be perfect. no relationship is. but if that's how Ed reacted when Stede abandoned him, Ed should honestly be given the time to reflect on who he is now beyond Blackbeard. beyond being Ed&Stede, a romantic relationship. because the constant hammering home of 'it's the Ed and Stede show' reduces the complexities of these characters to a point where they no longer exist outside of each other. and i think that's really disheartening
why not give Ed a chance to discover himself? why not have him assert that he scared himself during his bender at the beginning of season 2? if he reacted that poorly to Stede's rejection, what will happen if they do break up? i think it's perfectly fine to ask and wonder if Ed should be by himself for a bit.
realizing you're not ready for a relationship can be a big moment of growth for people. knowing how to be alone, how to comfort yourself, how to be by yourself is good and healthy. and it's totally up to all of us to decide when we are ready to be in a relationship again.
i just wish this fandom didn't hit so many over the head with the assertion that Ed and Stede must be together no matter the cost. because sometimes that's not the best way forward and there's nothing wrong in taking more time to find yourself
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starry-bi-sky · 6 months ago
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i think i'm hilarious -- aka i made blood blossom danny au memes
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all of these come from my DpxDC prompt "i am pushing the batdad agenda--" and it's corresponding additions in the reblogs ksdjlf.
i am. rotating them in my head. forever and always. personally i think there should be more batdad aus in dpxdc, their dynamic could be neat. :)
#THAT FIRST ONE TOOK ME A HOT MINUTE TO MAKE. i have never been more careful with a trackpad. imgflip doesnt have an undo button#i think its fucking hilarious#its a batdad au#danny fenton is not the ghost king#dpxdc#dpxdc crossover#dp x dc crossover#dp x dc#dc x dp#mmm i need to come up with a name for this au#found family ftw WHOOOO. i could just do a generic 'blood blossom au' tag but i want a specific one because i like being unique#eldest batkid danny au#chronically ill danny au#danny: im grateful he's helping me but im still kinda apprehensive...#battinson: vaults over a car to escape reporters. likes rock music. isn't fucking evil. punched a cop. actively looking for a cure#danny: ...huh. okay.#furiously pushing the batdad agenda for my own gain. just look at them guys. they're funny little guys.#unofficial witness protection to adoption pipeline.#bruce wayne accidental teen acquisition. save a teenager gain a son#its about the adventure of them going from strangers to friends to family :)#im bored of the bruce slander guys in the words of hermes from hadestown:#“[its] about someone who *tries”*#danny saw a funny man in a funny costume eat the side of a dumpster and has never related more with someone on a spiritual level#“brother eugh i feel that. oh heY WAIT HERO BUDDY?? SAME HAT??? SAME HAT?”#danny's been the only hero he's known since he was 13. on god he is leaping at this opportunity. like YES. PLEASE BE ANOTHER HERO#HELP ME GET AWAY FROM CERTIFIED CRAZY MAN. HELP. YOU'RE SCARY AND HIDING IN THE DARK. EVEN BETTER. HELP A BROTHER OUT HERE#blood blossom au#for the time being thats the name
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spielzeugkaiser · 1 year ago
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How it started-
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How it's going!! They are a family and I am!!! also draw the hug you want to see in the show but they are forgiven because them meeting in brokilon was still soooo tender my HEART-
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puppetmaster13u · 10 months ago
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Prompt 185
No one could get into contact with Constantine. 
Now usually that wasn’t that big of a deal, the man constantly disappeared for a few days at a time doing something or other, but he’d been completely silent and unseen for months. Usually he’ll at least answer a call to tell them to fuck off or something. 
And they really need his expertise and are getting incredibly worried for their grumpy team member. Yes he’s an asshole, but he’s their asshole, y’know? And he has a habit of getting into Situations (sure he also usually gets out of them, but what if he didn’t this time?!) 
So they’re desperate. Kind of really desperate. Desperate enough to use the summoning sigil they found on his fridge. They’d checked it, multiple times, and it should summon the hellblazer. 
“You’re not Constantine.” . 
The white-haired teen in the circle yawned, stretching and blinking at them blandly with familiar blue eyes before sighing. “Actually I am,” he stuffed his hands into his hoodie as he looked down at the summoning circle. “Well, technically just one of the many Laughing Magicians currently in the Realms.” 
He gave a grin, looking more amused than annoyed. “Pretty much every one of us is in the Realms right now for family reunion lol. (Did he just say lol out loud??) So like, you’re gonna have to specify which of us you’re tryin’ to summon. Honestly perfect timing for me thanks, the fruitloop keeps flirting with John and it’s horrific so.” 
… That was probably their John, wasn’t it…
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rainbow-sunshine-unicorn · 2 months ago
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You ever think about how Kate is genuinely Anthony’s best friend?
Whenever anything’s going down, he gives her the “we will debrief about this later” look
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He has little inside jokes with her
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He discusses his game night strategy with her
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He’s always up to date on the latest gossip about her family
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He shit talks about other people with her
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Like that’s literally his bestest friend!!!
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radiance1 · 1 year ago
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Killer Croc and Jack Fenton are brothers.
Killer Croc was the first born, just a about 5 years older than Jack. Their father was a large man, much larger than should be possible considering he never had a meta gene.
But oh boy would it have not surprised them if he did. Because that man was strong, 10 feet tall, and shrugged off things that would injure most people.
Like a brick to the head.
Anyways.
Croc was entranced with his younger brother; he was so small so much tinier than he had any right to be, and cuter than a button. He babbled like most babies do, but Croc wouldn't think twice before calling his baby brother the best baby of them all.
His dad could fit him in the palm of his hand easily! Which was just one of Jack's many great qualities in his opinion!
Croc and Jack's parents weren't really on the best of terms, Croc could tell. He didn't know why, really, but he didn't want his baby bro to feel unloved in any sort of way, and it's not like he really had friends to hang out with, plus his parents were busy with jobs.
So he mostly spent his time taking care of and playing with Jack. Changing diapers, feeding him, lifting him up and down with his tail, just the normal sibling stuff.
He feels kind of bad for his dad though, whatever kind of job he had didn't even let him come home most days, and when he did he could barely even walk upright without falling asleep and jolting awake. He still made time for them, however, when he got those rare few off days.
He's honestly surprised that man managed to drive a car properly in the state he was in.
Their mother was often out of the house, Crocc didn't know what she was doing but he just thought it was like his dad. Unlike his dad, however, she didn't really like him. He didn't really know why, nor did he really care either if he was to be honest.
Around a year later the tension between their parents got so thick it could be cut with a butter knife. Then it turned to arguments in the rare times they both were in the house, he didn't even know his parents could make such cutting remarks to each other, and then both of them being in the house less than before.
Then when he turned 10, and Jack 5. They got divorced. Croc was left with his mother and Jack got taken by his father. His mother didn't take the divorce well, really, probably because at the same time she got fired from whatever the hell she was doing and was left jobless.
Then she dropped the bomb on his that his dad wasn't even his actual dad and Jack is only his half-sibling and then promptly abandoned him in the sewers with the rats and what was most likely very poisoned water due to it being the sewers and Gotham.
Well. Fuck.
Croc thinks that Jack doesn't even remember him due to how young he was, nor did he ever see his dad again cause, y'know, being abandoned in the sewers and all.
Then multiple years later he ran into his brother again and got DAMN was he tall. Not taller than him, but it was basically the equivalent of a gut punch to Croc, because he remembers his baby bro being so tiny, so baby.
He blames his father's genes for him being 8 feet taller now. A head shorter than him, sure. But he wants back his small baby bro alright.
Then he finds out his baby bro has a family.
And fuck did he not want to involve himself anymore in fear of being a catalyst for tearing said family apart due to being, well, him and all. Then he was promptly (quite literally) dragged over to meet said family despite his stance on the matter.
Then he finds out he's just treated like a normal person with zero amount of fear. His wife? She had to have a giant in her family too because she was 7 feet tall and was smart enough to kick his ass.
His daughter? 6 feet tall and their first meeting she accidently became his therapist. Also, he was sure she was a meta of some kind, probably something to do with wolves.
Then finally, their son.
It felt like he was thrown back to his childhood when he saw him, he looked so much like Jack did, and he was so, so tiny just like his baby bro was. He had to physically hold himself back from doing anything with the kid because he feared he would accidentally break him or something.
Then he found out that apparently his nephew was half-dead and that his brother and his wife hated ghosts with a passion, built a portal to the other side, had their city attack by the ghost king and then promptly found out about their son's half-dead status and had to do a major revamp of basically everything they knew and acted upon.
Which they're still working on.
Oh and also their daughter is a werewolf, she had a meta gene from someone of his dad's side and only recently activated it.
All of that which was a lot to take in for old Killer Croc, also he knew his niece had something to do with wolves.
So, Killer Croc in all of his life from the point of being abandoned at up to now, decided to go screw the bats and whatever they're attempts of figuring out what the fuck's going on with him (look at you Red Hood.) and decided to try and integrate himself into this family and brother's life again as best he can.
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jasontoddenthusiastt · 2 years ago
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Honorary appreciation post for this mentally exhausted sweetheart.
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ginniesfangirllife · 5 months ago
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............
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No. I refuse to view these two as the same person.
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sorrelpaws · 1 year ago
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they're investigating scary noises in the dark
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darth-does-stuff · 1 year ago
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ok everybody saying dan fucks is conrad’s dad you do you but for ME personally the fix will always be conrad’s dad because dan gives cool uncle vibes 1000000% percent more than the fix ever will. but we will both live our truth and we will both be happy 🤝
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fatedroses · 2 months ago
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Chance encounters in Costa del Sol.
#ffxiv#sketch#zenos yae galvus#meteor survivor#titus yae galvus#arrecina wir galvus#oc#tsukiko date#camilla lunae#imagine trying to get drinks at the bar only to look over and see your presumed dead great uncle/great nephew standing right next to you#meteor- five seconds away from a heart attack looking over at titus#that moment when youre the spitting image of your father and the warrior of light was *not* aware of that fact#the galvus' are not allowed to have normal vacations#or... well retirement in Titus' case#I am simply here to draw the unaccounted for garlean royals lmao#eventually i'll draw zenos' half sibling(s?) and varis' retainers annia and julia out of their armor#but for now you guys just get to see my silly bullshit of sixty something y/o titus deciding that with nerva gone he's just gonna retire#mans is done with it#im probably gonna end up writing him as the legatus of the 8th- and probably a machinist that eventually becomes a gunbreaker#after lucius passes this man is over all of it#no nonsense machine commanding leader ect ect.#probably dual wielding the gunblade with an actual gun tbh lol#old man doesnt look like wrinkly solus because he spent his life taking care of himself to deal with just... the galvus family in general#dont let the strands deceive you all his grey hair is hidden under the rest of it all lmao#the galvus family brain rot continues and its not going to let me go v-v#(also dont mind meteor teasing tsu for hiding in his shade she does this a lot)
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causalityparadoxes · 2 months ago
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Where's that post about it being good that 9 and Rose kissed because otherwise people would've been ridiculously obtuse about their relationship.
Thats just what its like being an irl twelveclara shipper. People truly have 0 brain cells to rub together regarding them, because they didn't mouth to mouth kiss on screen.
And I'm saying this as someone who loves the ambiguity of twelveclara and isn't a massive fan of the 9rose kiss. But alas when you are given ambiguity, people act stupid. So i can't help but wonder about the alternate timeline where 12 and Clara did have a snog
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simcardiac-arrested · 3 months ago
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wait, that elias?
#huge shoutout to @sepezzz elias design this is very much inspired by it. go look at it#im so serious if i never draw another person manspreading in a fucking office chair it’ll be TOO SOON#anyways.#the juxtaposition truly is crazy hahaaha right people change in the weirdest of ways#i like thinking about how they both present themselves. elias understands he works at Important Academic Research Facility so he still#sooort of tries to look somewhat official. but well he also gets away with what he can#he has that vibe of Yeah i work here and im kind of important but i’m chill. i know how to chill#meanwhile that other freak is just like i am going to make this body look presentable or so help me god.#he’s the Head of the Institute he can no longer have whimsy okay. and listen it’s not because i think jonah is that boring and would#dislike piercings and funny socks or whatever. i think he’d like those. but see he needs to make this believable that elias truly has#changed okay. and also like i said he is the Head of the Institute he needs to look Super Normal And Unremarkable#anyways i think it’s funny how elias’ whole thing is that he tries to distance himself from his family image and tries really hard to Not#end up like a rich asshole. and then. well.#(looks around) So i think about this man a normal amount.#i could write like 20 thinkpieces on both of them but instead they’re gonna make me do college essays about like language and shit.#myart#the magnus archives#tma#elias bouchard#oh my god it is actually un fucking believable how much i think about him every day#if this becomes a daily elias blog yall will just have to deal
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writer-room · 7 months ago
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Hey. The Finders have no idea that Bonzle was captured. Fritz and Spitz are still waiting, playing video games in the Monastery, for Cole to bring their sister out of hiding now that the blood moon is over. Geo is still sitting by the window, watching and waiting for a dragon on the horizon to return his kid safe and sound. Cole took a very unsure Bonzle, assured them all everything would be okay, and they'd be back soon. He promised he'd find a way to protect her.
Don't think about how they'll smile when Cole finally trudges back, happy to know he's okay. Especially don't think about the Finders stopping, looking out over the group, and how Cole can't look them in the eyes when they turn to him and ask; where's Bonzle?
#ninjago#ninjago dragons rising#lego ninjago#dragons rising#bonzle#finders#cole#cole brookstone#geo#fritz#spitz#text post#angst#talk#LISTEN TO ME#COLE LOST 2 WHOLE FAMILY MEMBERS DURING THAT BLOOD MOON#HES GOING TO NOT BE OKAY!!!!!!! HES DOING SO BAD#mans is a FATHER and he PROMISED he'd keep his kid safe. he promised it to the OTHERS#and hes going to have to walk back up those steps and admit to being a LIAR and a FAILURE#hes not obviously sht just went sideways but you KNOW he blames himself#geo very worriedly stayed behind w fritz & spitz FULLY TRUSTING that cole would keep bonzle safe & bring her back#he loves him so much (in a gay way. u know it to be true) so he trusts him IMPLICITLY to keep them safe. hes done it before#can you imagine the HORROR when cole comes back and hes...alone. with no one else but the other ninja (minus 1)#geo realizing what happened before the kids. the way everything just freezes and drops. cole curled so tight in on himself#and cole cant say hes sorry because he cant even look at them. he lost family hes had for over a decade & a kid he claimed his own for year#you saw how he was w child wu. you saw how desperate he was to keep bonzle safe. AND KAI IS GONE TOO???#homeboy is having the literal worst day ever. imagine him trying to tuck fritz & spitz close while on one knee trying to explain it all#and bro jsut feels like hes literally the worst person in the world#something something 'you dont get to stay with the ninja & be happy. i tried to protect you from what hurt me as a kid'#'and instead your right in the thick of it'
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maliciousalice · 2 months ago
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greenerteacups · 3 months ago
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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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