#christ i love him so much

[frnkiebby]

so fucking pretty~🎃

[avalonianrising]

I didn't think Merlin could be any more exquisite than he already was, but...

I love getting to spoil anyone in the Roundtable Rivals. ♡

[greykolla-art]

Charlie: “I’m so glad my most villain-coded friend is at full power again! 🥰💕”

*throws this to you angst goblins like raw steak* ❤️

(No I will not do a part 2!❤️)

[beansnpeets]

Thinking about human behaviour compared to animal behaviour again.

It's funny to hear people (the older gens) complaining that "kids these days are lazy, they don't wanna work, etc." What do we get for busting our asses? There is no reward. Many will never own homes. Many are unemployed, trying to find work, and nobody will hire them because they don't have a million years experience and a masters degree OR they want people to work for minimum wage??? People are giving up because there is no reward. Why would we do all this for nothing?

Same as a dog that won't recall when you haven't reinforced it with a reward. Your dog isn't going to do what you tell it to if there is no incentive. No, your dog SHOULDN'T listen just because you're boss and it should respect you. That isn't how it works. They don't think that way. And honestly neither do people.

When we went hiking Sprocket wasn't always taking treats gently from me when I recalled her or she checked in and I rewarded and my one friend told me to stop giving her treats. I told him I won't work for free so why should she. And he said "I do things for free all the time because I want to do them," and I didn't say it then, but I wish I had, but if you like doing it, that's the incentive. It's a self-rewarding behaviour. Just like anything else a dog does, like chasing a squirrel or sniffing things or getting into the trash. Heeling instead of going off to sniff stuff or recalling off of something they want to chase is something you have to reinforce. You have to give them something better so they make the choice you want them to make. They won't make it just because they *respect* you. They won't willingly recall off of exciting prey out of RESPECT. You need to give them a tangible reward for that. You cannot possibly expect your dog to listen just because and then punish them for disobeying you.

Yeah, Sprocket bit my fingers a couple times. The one time pretty hard. But she was excited. She knows how to take gently and I reminded her and she tried very hard to be gentle most of the time. I wasn't going to stop rewarding her for checking in with me and recalling while we were off leash hiking in the woods. I want her to know that coming back to me is good and in the event of an emergency I would like her to not blow me off.

[vangbelsing]

So we're all pretty well acquainted with that face Emmrich makes if you tell him he's your first ever partner, but I don't think we talk enough about how, as he looks away and once he's worked through that first wave of initial shock, he smiles. It's a slow, small little thing, but his eyes grow so soft. His features just become so tender. The man is radiating affection. He's not off put, he's not upset or disappointed. Nervous, perhaps; anxious to make sure your first experience with a relationship isn't some catastrophic failure. But he's also charmed by the admission. This is a man who's so utterly gaga for romance and love. The idea that his partner has never found anyone else compelling enough to pursue until him? Whatever sense of worry he might feel at what a lack of experience might imply, he still finds himself smitten with the notion that someone would value him in such a way.

[ironinkpen]

The interpretation of Rise Raph as a 'perfect responsible soft boy uwu' is so BORING I'm sorry, Raph is a rowdy adrenaline junkie with anxiety and I won't take this slander any longer

Raph secretly kept an enemy soldier in their actual literal house as a sparring partner. Raph glued his brothers together and dragged them out to fight crime. Raph once asked Leo to punch him in the face to prove he 'takes damage like a boss.' Raph tried to lift a school bus, twice. Raph offered to help his favorite wrestler beat his little brother up. When Leo suggests evacuating Bullhop, Raph says no bc the best defense is a good offense babey. Raph's idea of a 'friendly chat' with April's upstairs neighbor is to put on a black ski mask and go stand menacingly at their door. It takes Raph 10 episodes to conclude that they should MAYBE start training. Raph's plan to get a potentially priceless (and potentially FRAGILE) museum artifact is to punch a car in the middle of a busy street and also cut it in half with his brother still inside.

Raph's never met a problem he wouldn't try to punch in the face and does not know the meaning of the words 'excessive force.' He roughhouses with his bros and drags them out to fight villains and thinks any plan that doesn't involve an all-out brawl is boring and lame. He'll do anything to protect his family from harm and be a hero, but also he eats wet salami off the floor and once single-handedly destroyed a library.

I just adore how, at his core, Rise Raph is such a classic Raph—impulsive and stubborn and caring and passionate. He is a very sweet, strong, honorable guy who has a very powerful sense of personal responsibility... and he is also the exact kind of jock who throws you in the pool at a party without checking if you have your phone in your pocket first.

[phantom-of-the-501st]

Arthur: I'm an awful human being. I'm mean, I'm ugly, I'm the worst person alive, I don't deserve happiness

Arthur's journal: Doodle of a bunny, doodle of a chicken, "hey I found a cool tree!", A♡M, another doodle of a bunny

[casualavocados]

"我們是兄弟..."

Chiang Tien as AI DI KISEKI: DEAR TO ME Ep. 9

[frnkiebby]

s i r ~🎃

[luck-of-the-drawings]

my TWO FAVORITE THINGS IN THE WORLD, VAMPIRES N COWBOYS... deacon keller is SUCH a fun character, hes charming and funny but ALSO formidable and STRONG when he feels he needsta be. i hope him and arthur can get a chance to talk more and be better friends. l ike really good friend s. . like. like really good f. hangon i gotta go i think i hauve rabies.

[tsuyoiqueen]

Peaceful Property EP 6 Analysis: Why Didn't Peach Take The Money

Alright, I've seen a lot of criticism towards Peach's decision not to take the money offered by Home's family lawyer to buy his silence and do damage control after the footage of the accident got leaked. Now, I'm all about bashing GMMTV for their mistreatment of TayNew and other actors under their label, as well as for their lazy storylines and plot holes on the final episodes of their shows, but for once I don't think you guys are seeing the whole picture. Yes, GMMTV is notoriously bad at depicting poor characters, but Peach's decision is not out of pocket. It's actually very characteristic of him and the progression of his friendship with Home.

Hear me out: First, in the beginning of the series, we see Peach and Home fight about money many times – From Home accusing Peach of trying to sabotage his Real State business by faking a paranormal event in Best's house for the sake of going viral to Home later on trying to hire Peach to exorcise said properties even though they'd just met.

Peach sees Home as a spoiled, privileged rich kid who was raised to believe money could buy anything. This conflict is explicitly shown on Episode 2, during Rak's exorcism when Home repeatedly attempts to buy his way out of a bad situation and Peach confronts him about it. First, when Home makes fun of Peach's attempt at making Rak a sandwich based on the manager's instructions and questions his abilities, then buys a feast for the ghost after Peach quits the job, arguing that she must've refused to pass on because the food wasn't to her liking. The second time it happened it's a more pronounced attempt, with Home slapping a pile of cash on the table during the commotion and Peach becoming outraged at it.

But this conflict is brought to light again, on Episode 3, when Peach and PangPang sign the ghost-hunting contract and Kan tells them they've essentially sold their souls to Home in exchange for a paycheck, as they need to heed all of his orders from now, which Home takes full advantage of right away. Now, PangPang is fine with the deal – as she's been since the start. She was the one who got Peach to agree to the exorcisms in the first place and it was her idea to go to Home and ask if he could lend them one of his properties. As long as there's something good coming out of it, she doesn't mind. Peach, however, is reluctant to agree to Home's unreasonable requests but eventually caves in and swallows his pride.

Yet, on Episode 5, we see him once again stand his ground. It doesn't matter that Home will cut his paycheck, he refuses to go back into the restaurant where his former mentor passed away (seemingly by his fault). Home has to push him to the brink, remind Peach of his current living situation – He has no place to stay in, he's sleeping under Home's roof – and consequently hurt him to convince him.

But by the end of Episode 5, Peach knows Home never cared about the money or intended to demolish the restaurant to build a 50 million baht condo out of it. Home confesses to Peach that he only acted the way he did because he knew Peach wouldn't have come otherwise and he really wanted to help Peach overcome his fear. So when Episode 6 rolls around, money is no longer a point of conflict in their friendship, right? Wrong.

Money (as well as influence) is the reason why Home is able to make Peach's dream come true in a heartbeat, after barely a day of knowing about it. He does it in grand style, in a palace, with cameras broadcasting it live and even getting Peach a do-over with Chai-Un as a bonus. But Peach doesn't feel like he owes Home, like he has to bend to his will, anymore because he knows where they stand now: they're family and family looks out for each other. Peach knows Home went through all this effort to make him happy and he rewards Home with his full trust. First, by leaving him on charge of the trickiest part of the dish that could ruin his career all over again. And second, by showing his gratitude and considering Home part of his and PangPang's family (They're the parents and Pang's the baby, as said by her).

So, he asks about Home's dream and when he realizes it's something that he can give him, Peach doesn't hesitate to do so. Home, who's grown up in a mansion, never had to fry an egg or find a job to survive, simply craves the love and comfort of a family and Peach welcomes him wholly.

So, then I ask you, why would Peach refuse the money Home's family lawyer offered him and give back what he got from the exorcisms? Well, the moment Peach found out (or rather assumed) that Home had been lying to him all this time, their friendship left a sour taste in his mouth. What Peach was led to believe Home had done out of care had turned out to be just an attempt at relieving himself of the guilt of the hit-and-run situation. Peach could be thinking Home sought him out on purpose with ulterior motives from the start, that it was all a game to him.

That only escalates once Home's family lawyer, and not Home himself, walks in with yet another contract for him to sign and an order of eviction. That is what puts up a wall between Home and Peach again and reminds Peach of their class disparities: he is poor and Home is rich. Three years ago, Home hit him with his yellow sports car while Peach was on his way home from work. Home's family took care of everything, bribed the police and buried the evidence while Peach was left with pain, guilt and trauma. Home was sent abroad to lay low while Peach lost his mentor (and mother figure), his job and his self-confidence. They couldn't be more worlds apart than they are.

One of Peach's fatal flaws is his pride. He doesn't care if he's going to have to go back to the "rat hole" he came from. He doesn't care if he's losing the chance of living a comfortable life. Peach went his whole life without generational wealth, he can continue to do so now.

So of course, not only doesn't he take the money but he goes even further and intends to give back all that he got from Home's family. Peach wants to be far way from Home and that includes his money. He doesn't care about being reasonable right now, he's just protecting himself.

[chilei-the-hotsauce]

so my plushia came in the mail

[ef-1]

burn your village | female rage playlist

[orpheuslament]

i love jesus (homosexually)

[greenerteacups]

oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[frnkiebby]

oh god~🎃