#im sorry if it comes off that way

[southeast-northwest]

idk if im allowed to say this but like acne scars are kinda cute??? not even kinda cute I think theyre straight up attractive? they're an attractive feature??

I mean maybe it's just bc every.single.person i've ever met w acne scars has been hot but at a certain point the correlation can't just be coincidental, right?

[lucabyte]

sometimes everything just sucks real real real bad

[larabar]

.🌟

[crows-of-buckets]

Rook: I'm really worried about Davrin and Lucanis, they keep arguing with one another... Its very bad Varric, what if it effects them in battle?

Varric, remembering that one time Fenris broke Ander's nose then took a knife in the back for him in the same night: I'm sure they'll be fine kid. They're barely even arguing if you ask me

[artuurle]

Why do I hear drainfolk babies sounding like kittens or that angry desert rain frog noises

While baby drainfolk can make cute noises, most are the same noises human babies make - said noises just tend to be squeakier because they are smaller and have less lung capacity to scream with.

I'm aware these little guys are very critter and cutesy but they are also just straight up infants from severely mutated human beings. These are human infants and are capable of learning basic speech and other integral child milestones while still looking like a mold spore.

[mossy-aro]

not to tap into Discourse here but there’s this video going around on twt of some female idols (i think) kissing each other platonically on the mouth and people are getting upset over it bc they’re presumably straight and it’s like. i genuinely get that to some degree it can be frustrating to see ‘straight’ (presumably) people get away with ‘safe’ sapphic expressions of love and sexuality under the guise of platonic heterosexual friendship when actual sapphics are literally violently discriminated against for the same things but also can we not forget that like. its okay to kiss your friends on the mouth 👍 you’re allowed to do that because you’re allowed to express intimacy and love however you feel comfortable. the idea that kissing someone on the mouth is an inherently romantic thing is so unserious anyway as if there aren’t plenty of cultures and families where it is a totally accepted and normal platonic gesture. frankly the only people ever freaking out over platonic mouth kisses are always western and white lmfao. i can completely understand the urge to be frustrated maybe (i mean i do think its a harmless video.) but something about the idea that it’s inherently ‘wrong’ for ‘straight’ women to kiss each other on the lips / perform other ‘romantically’ coded gestures in a platonic context rubs me the wrong way. actually everyone should kiss their friends on the lips if that is what they want to do. it’s literally fine. just. taps the sign that says the meaning of the gesture is determined by the people involved in the action once again. anyway that entire criticism just kind of rubbed me the wrong way

[pikasetism]

mod colors a drawing for the first time since the blogs creation

[captainmaxatx]

Omega! Logan who was born in the 1800s when secondary gender roles were very prevalent but it actually really suited him and he wanted to be a home maker and have a bunch of pups but he was always too big and hairy and and not seen as a good Omega. Alphas would sleep with him but never treat him the way they would a “proper” omega and they didn’t ever want anything serious because it’s like almost shameful to have a big hairy omega.

Then times change and Omegas start breaking out of the cookie cutter roles and they go into the work force and what not (feminism but it’s omegas) and Logan is very happy for them he thinks they all deserve the right to choose, but still no one wants him. And everyone expects him being an omega with the way he looks to be at the forefront of the movement to want the change for himself, but he doesn’t.

And over the years he toughened up and stops looking to start a family and put his dreams on the back burner to become what everyone expected of him.

And then everything happens and all the sudden Logan finds himself in a universe without secondary genders, where he isn’t a too big and hairy omega, he’s just some guy.

And unintentionally he finds his way into the role he’s always craved, where he takes care of the home and the dog while Wade makes the money, and it’s the closest he’s ever been to the life he wanted. He mostly retires from fighting and heroing, but now he’s ready for a new challenge. And being near Laura has only served to dig up that old desire and instinct he tried to bury so long ago

And I mean, even if the mutant hate wasn’t as bad as it is in Logan’s old world there was still a time here not to long ago when mutants were ran out and scattered around the world. And now with the people at Xavier’s working on getting the Mutants back into the city trying to re group with their still dwindling numbers. I mean Logan and Wade should help with the mutant re population efforts, who better to do that then two very eager immortals who can heal from anything and with a whole gang of friends around them for free child care.

[monotone-artist]

[id in alt]

some idw redraws

[autoraton]

Riz pulling so much weight for everyone and securing votes vs Kristen being the closest to failing out of school thus inadvertently screwing him. plus her inadvertently bringing Kalina back, who as it stands serves as an antagonistic and deeply painful force in Riz's life. there's just something really ripe and tragic about their friendship rn (even moreso if you wanna throw in the meta that the narrative was steered towards Riz running against Kipperlilly) and it's neither of their faults. I feel like I'm watching a disaster in slow motion.

[lucyshypemaster]

you will NEVER see anyone writing paragraphs after paragraphs hating on keefe like they do with sophie.

[fisherrprince]

You have made me interested in balloon smp but I feel so old and of touch because I cannot find the past streams on twitch. Cannot figure out where and in which order to watch...can I ask where you've been watching the videos/streams?

ok, so, there’s ~36 people all doing it concurrently, which is a lot. But! Here is the list of players, if you know someone you like on that list pick them and just watch sequentially day 1->finale. if you don’t know Anyone on there and you want a point to start at for just. Getting most of the plot, pick someone from A B or C. Or E. Team F has a really great plot but they stay a bit out of the overarching plot until the last weeks, and I haven’t gotten to team D yet so I don’t know what they know im sorry team d 🥺

Many of the players have VOD channels up on YouTube or playlists of balloon vods specifically, lots of people who don’t have the streams in their twitch archives somewhere (like, “past broadcasts” usually), look for player vod channels. Some don’t have saved archives and some didn’t stream it! I know for certain sophie robby skull kuu gibson buggle and jame have up to date vod channels because I’ve seen them… woops and skullvolver are making edited videos rn but theyre Both team a… and im not sure who else is planning on it!

tldr, pick someone and watch them in order and peek in on other peoples’ vods from time to time when something Happens because sometimes seeing it from another angle is cool. Also, sometimes seeing it from another angle is Important because there’s Lore no one else got to see. Search “playername vods” on YouTube and it should direct you to the right place.

more specifics that kinda get into spoilers:

Here’s some plots of interest that certain people see and others don’t (ONLY BASED ON WHAT I KNOW I am not a lore master I don’t have 36x8x32… uh… good gravy 576 possible hours. of content. I DONT HAVE 576 HOURS TO SIT AND WATCH STREAMS someone was going to put together a lore doc somewhere though):

woops: tries to keep track of lore, goes on ghost knight swordquest

sophiebaybey: unwitting accessory to world murder, sees WAY more of PG and balloons lore than most people on account of The Events.

skullvolver/socksbx: revenant revengequest x2 and soul link plot, also socks is a mod and they get up to some funny business. poke in and watch one of them for the end of day 14 trust me 🫵

robbydude: doomer gnome made me cry but that’s not important. ghostquest continues upon the holy land even if we DONT WANT IT TO. jerry mouse is there

jame7t: sees kind of all of it from a distance, good coverage, citadel time (I like building streams)

shinigamieater: it’s possession clues. What if you were 15 ants of dubious morality in a human body

padabana: instigates the end of the world, once if you’re realistic twice if you’re being pedantic. it’s paranoia clues

kaoiji: there’s time travel, and it gets worse from there but I can’t FIND their vods so im redirecting you to robbydude

renobee: GOD??????????

[frogisorange]

biggest aromantic loserfailure moment in my life:

1) managed to gaslight myself into believing i had a massive crush on my family friend i've known since birth

2)cried from relief that i finally had a crush

3)gaslit myself into believing i was crying because we were both girls (or so i thought. trans pride for both of us !!)

4)realised an hour later that i totally made that all up and was crying for nothing

5)cried again because i made that all up and was crying for nothing

(i was making a roblox gfx of our avatars together the entire time)

[virsancte]

trouble in.. paradise?

you may not want to be here my friend.

[vaniliens]

Long ass opinions / critiques on milgram under the cut before t3 actually hits

Im not even that mad / hateful of mlgrm at all tbh & I think & hope you can tell that from the fact that my main gripe with it isnt really "This project was awful from start to finish it never should've happened" but rather "There were better (& Arguably easier) ways to tell this story & get the point across"

i understand 100% why they thought, on paper, why this would've been a cool project to work on and It Is!! They did their best, i really love how it takes inspiration from the vocaloid community from the abstract symbolism filled MV's, the deco covers, how theres an interconnected story, and the potential of community guesswork & discussion of what this song and/or MV means. I might be a bit biased bc i got into it after being dissapointed in how lacking the virtual singers / vocaloid [community] feels in project sekai besides the commissioned songs but overall i think its really cute, even if its technically just what art as a whole is about 😭 You know, making you engage & think about The Implications. Getting the inspo from the voca synth community allows the project to stand out bc of how its presented. Its unique, its fresh, it keeps you on your toes.

I love how it (tries) to tackle well known & relevant issues in japan (& tbh the rest of the world), like ableism, misogyny, child abuse, call-out culture, homophobia, the entire prison system, etc. and how the victims and perpetrators react to it. Its very interesting. Its very clearly trying to humanize & sympathize even the "worst of the worst", and i appreciate how its one of the main themes in the story even if some of the audience didnt quite catch it. Its showing how simply punishing people who did wrong isnt the answer. Like theres SOOOO much nuance to unpack both in universe with the crimes & prisoners and in a meta sense through the way the story is presented, the way the audience reacts, the discussions, thoughts, developments, etc. Its so cool. They've clearly put a lot of effort into it.

At its core the Milgram Project has always been less about solving the crimes and more about asking the audience "Why do YOU think X happened?" Its basically a bunch of character studies!! You're peering through their hearts, examining their own version of the truth of their crimes, and drawing your own conclusions based on that raw, intrusive data that the system has given you. Aagh.

Unfortunately in my own humble opinion all these elements combined is exactly why it doesn't work as well as it could've And arguably should've for a project all about seeing the good or at least understanding eachother.

It asks "Why did X did it?" but it doesnt give us a platform to actually state Why they did it in any way, only to answer & play into the prisons b&w thinking, and you cant in any way reverse any of their verdicts once its been casted. And thematically it works. I mean its about a warden in a prison full of people who have taken lives, its doing its job to mirror the reality of real life Innocent (No punishment or otherwise legal consenquence) vs Guilty (Punish) verdicts, legally or non officially, as it should. But idk it doesnt really Help us understand why a character comitted their sin. It only introduces downwards spirals, which only makes the characters less willing to provide their actual motive(s) as time goes on. I get that the main thing its criticizing is the legal & prison system but its getting in the way of sympathizing with "Bad" people. Which again IS the point, thats EXACTLY what the prison system does and why its so harmful, it dehumanizes people to hell and boils down their entire personhood to "Guilty" but like???? It doesnt really provide an Out, or anything more Productive to think about. WHICH IS THE POINT & I KNOW THAT BUT IT KINDA FEELS LIKE IN THE END THERES REALLY NOTHING YOU CAN DO WHICH IS PRETTY NIHILISTIC???

Its like "Theres no point in examining why these people are the way they are bc everyones gonna suffer no matter which button you press in the end!! No you cant gain deeper optional insight either bc we're permanently rolling with THIS now." and what doesnt help are the extra contents like the voice dramas & interrogation questions where the characters themselves add more fuel to the fire by threatening eachothers or the wardens lives??? and it leads to people discussing 'Which Verdicts to Vote [to minimize the in universe damage so these fictional definitely-not-representatives-of-real-life-issues-&-its-consequences characters can be safe]' instead of 'Actual Insightful Character Analysis [to help eachother find our own conclusions no matter what it is & to improve ourselves as a person through examining fictional scenarios]' and it leads to COMPLETELY unproductive discussions and flame wars and its so upsetting to see.

Its fucking tearing itself (& the fandom) apart by making ITSELF perpetuate the black & white "Theres a CORRECT answer to this EXTREMELY morally gray & heavily nuanced situation!!!" thinking for the sake of criticizing (More like making a parody of) the prison system. Like wow who would've thought that the system designed so that literally everyone in it is turned into mere "GOOD" VS "BAD" caricatures of themselves would be a good sytem to EXAMINE PEOPLES COMPLICATED LIVES with. Does that make sense. Like isnt it ironic how what we call "Meta voting" is, in the end, more about these fictional characters lives than it is about us, as the actual living breathing audience who are capable of accepting things outside the dichotomy and are able to self reflect before its too late? us, the humans whos lives are more fragile and thus require more care from eachother than mere 2d drawings? Isnt that so ironic

AND I WANT TO MAKE IT CLEAR I GENUINELY, WITH ALL (or none in this case) OF MY HEART, DON'T AND CAN'T EVEN BLAME ANYONE WHO META VOTES. BECAUSE THE PRISON. THE PROJECT ITSELF. ENCOURAGES IT. AND IN THIS TRIAL AND EVEN THE PREVIOUS ONE WITH KOTOKO'S BEATINGS, PROVES THAT IT HOLDS WATER. MORE THAN ANY CHARACTER ANALYSIS. MORE THAN GENUINELY UNDERSTANDING WHERE THESE CHARACTERS ARE COMING FROM.

And the beautiful thing about it is that theres ALSO a discussion to be made about this, intentional or not, about how our actions weigh more than our thoughts / feelings which is ofc correct. This also ties in it with its theme, of taking people's lives and under what conditions is it considered something "Neutral" (even "Positive / Good") vs "Punishable" and ofc also the punishing & restraining that comes with getting a guilty verdict part, an action that leads to someone else's forced in-action.

Still though, in what way does this really help support the Actual Main Theme, which is understanding eachother / the prisoners, people who youve seen arguably the worst of? Its grappling between wanting to make the audience GENUINELY THINK and self reflect vs a show about people going through hell and you CAN be both but again!! with way milgram is run, because of the active audience participation it needs & encourages & the way it boxes the audience into these 2 choices, it was always going to snowball & sway more to the latter. Its becoming less of a thinkpiece & more just a shocking spectacle where everything is in "Superhell"

"Oh anyone can die in this prison if the audience messes up badly enough" do you think thats a good way to send your message. Just kill off a character whos arc wasnt even finished yet. When their deaths only serve to make things worse and thus more shocking and "High Stakes"? When their deaths are only punishing the audience who wanted to understand everyone in the prison by

1. forever 'Locking' said dead character(s) out of any new developments

2. Possibly make things more muddy & unclear in the trial, as the rest of the characters would be affected by the death(s) and would most likely close themselves off even more to cope with the trauma?

And. Like. Again I cant even get that mad bc can you blame the writers when theyre all forced to write shit on the fly based on OUR unpredictable reactions??? Ex. Did they expect Amane to get a guilty in the 1st trial despite the sympathetic MV which features a child repeatedly being abused?? They also have to choose and try to balance between making the horror of the situation clear while also providing a way for these present horrors to bring out the characters past crime. Its so complicated.

I really really hate how this happened. Please. If milgram had no audience participation and if it was instead just a linear story or 2 this wouldn't have happened.... everything would've been in the writer's control and thus we would've been guaranteed a more fulfilling story even if it lacks the explicit audience complicity to the violence & abuse. See: come on man, THE OFFICIAL PREQUEL NOVELS.

Alternatively, seeing as the trial 3 curtain call is LITERALLY called 'Route: Your [Curtain] Call,' implying that there were other routes we could've went on, it could've been a video game or better yet a visual novel. Then we'd be able to fully explore the characters as much as we want, even if, by resetting the game multiple times to get the routes to FULLY understand these charaters, it lessens the emotional impacts the deaths will have.

I dunno man i just wish it didnt get this complicated I just wish it was presented better....

"So what do you think happened? Was this justified or not?" I dont know man we're busy making sure people dont die so we dont miss out on any new info even though the act of 'making sure people dont die' is making us Waste the opportunities we have to get said new info. WE'RE in storytelling superhell.

[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.