#it's not good creative decision making

[navree]

i say this as someone who felt the show had good bones, someone who, like grrm, has liked some of the changes they've made in this show like helaena's dragon dreaming and aegon's fatherhood and rhaenicent (i'm a big ole rhaenicent shipper y'all know that) and adding in the lore about aegon the conqueror also having targaryen prophetic abilities, but this is just spot on. this is the exact same thing i was talking about when discussing how cutting nettles makes all these problems for how the tory moves on going forward. f&b isn't crafted like a narrative but it is still fiction, grrm chose certain pieces based on what would make the best story. and some of the changes the show made create a weaker story (b&c is incredibly weaker both in the immediate deed and its aftermath/effect on the audience than if they had been faithful to the book description, for example), and more drastically, are making the sequence of events that has to come in the next two seasons borderline nonsensical. and that is a problem that should be called out, because it's not book purism, it's recognizing subpar writing.

[ominous-feychild]

The simultaneous hilarity and tragedy of looking at a character whose arcs all center around "I feel so lonely and isolated and just wish I had someone to lean on" and deciding to ship them with the character I've been planning to kill from the beginning.

[lesbiancarat]

want to give my two cents on the AI usage in the maestro trailer--

i think seventeen doing a whole concept that is anti-AI is very cool, especially as creatives themselves i think it's good that they're speaking up against it and i hope it gets more ppl talking about the issue. i also understand on a surface level the artistic choice (whether it was made by the members, the mv director, or whoever else), to directly use AI in contrast to real, human-made visuals and music in order to criticize it. i also appreciate that they clearly stated the intention of the use of AI at the beginning of the video

however, although i understand it to an extent, i do not agree with the choice to use AI to critique AI. one of the main ethical concerns with generative AI is that it is trained on other artists' work without their knowledge, consent, or compensation. and even when AI generated images are being used to critique AI, it still does not negate this particular ethical concern

the use of AI to critique also does not negate the fact that this is work that could have been done by an actual artist. i have seen some people argue that it's okay in this context because it's a critique specifically about AI, and it is content that never would have been done by a real artist anyway because it doesn't make sense for the story they're trying to tell. but i disagree. i think you can still tell the exact same story without using AI

and in fact, i would argue that it would make the anti-AI message stronger if they HAD paid an artist to draw/animate the scenes that are supposed to represent AI generated images. wouldn't it just be proof that humans can create images that are just as bad and nonsensical and soulless as AI, but that AI can't replicate the creativity and beauty and basic fucking anatomy that's in human-made art?

it feels very obvious this was not just a way to cut corners and costs like a lot of scummy people are using AI for. ultimately it was a very intentional creative decision, i just personally think it was a very poor one. and even if some ethical considerations were taken into account before this decision, i certainly don't think all of them were. at the very least i feel like the decision undermines the message they want to convey

i would also like to recognize that i myself am not an artist, and i have seen some artists that are totally on board with the use of AI in this specific context, so clearly this is not a topic that is cut and dry. but generative AI is still new, and i think it's important to keep having these conversations

[bruciemilf]

bruce death that is like tony’s in endgame?

Honestly that was like. The dying breath of the MCU

[hal-o-ween]

Personally I think a lot of opinions about which Monster Hunter games are "good" and which are "bad" just comes from people failing to recognize that Monster Hunter has two different mainline lineages going at this point, each of which are supposed to emphasize different aspects of the series and create a more distinct experience between them to make it more worth experiencing both. And some people won't like both lines! That's ok! It doesn't mean they're bad, it just means the style of that line isn't for you.

[daisdu]

I actually so so love the trope where a character is so in love with a woman who they cannot be with that they feel a parental connection to her child by someone else, oftentimes a child they’ve never even met

I find it delightful both when the man is generally allied with the child like Hook and Baelfire in OUAT, but also when that relationship inexplicably makes them enemies, like Vlad and Danny in Danny Phantom

I just finished Nona the Ninth and people might disagree with me on this one, but I was getting a little bit of it from Pyrrha about Gideon

[cumjunxendura]

Naughty captains get put in the sensory feedback loop

[skyeoak]

Another year another fantasy about axe murdering the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corp creative directors

[lakeraydia]

@mrk90mixsideb two versions bc im indecisive lol

[andthen-light]

okay girls im going to be a little hashtag critical here but i have been ruminating LONG ENOUGH and i really really do not like that scene in the graphic novel murder on the rockport limited where lucretia recognized the umbrastaff. i understand what they were trying to do and i understand you have to change things for the medium but its kind of a disservice to both lucretia and taakos characters imo. lucretia works so hard to keep the boys from questioning things like why would she have a reaction like that. like they couldve alluded to her recognizing it but a scene like that is so in your face and it takes power away from the scene in crystal kingdom where red robe barry recognizes it. and wrt taakos character like. hes never Particularly trustful of lucretia like on a personal level but overall he trusts the bureau and lucretia until reunion tour. adding in a scene like that at that point in the story makes no sense like u cannot convince me taako would not start questioning what the directors really up to and why she had such a personal reaction.

[themyscirah]

Suffering more than Jesus atm (being a fan of 80s/90s Suicide squad in 2024)

[goatsandgangsters]

I've been asked to post my Personal Variation on how to do timestamp roulette, so!

the original premise is based on closing your eyes and wiggling your mouse back and forth over the timeline to select shots at random, which doesn't really appeal to me bc of the inherent biasing of landing more in the middle than on the ends

SO. my method for timestamp roulette is putting the number of minutes for the episode into a random number generator and going to that minute

from there, you could also RNG 0–59 for seconds if you really want it randomized. OR you could select a shot from Anywhere Within The Randomly Selected Minute Only, which I like because it still forces you to be creative with a random scene and encourages you to gif with shots you wouldn't typically use but still gives you a little bit of creative license

[greywoe]

some thoughts on that first episode bc i might as well

- that first scene in the north did not make me very happy… maybe it’s just me who likes negotiations but i was looking forward to Jace’s World Tour of North/Eastern Westeros and his talks and bargains with the different houses (especially lady jeyne! i guess i can understand why they cut it out but i think when it comes to her there’s material to build an interesting character from, but whatever. another arryn L i guess :(), but what did we get but one (1) scene at the wall for some reason. i mean i like the night’s watch as much as the next person but this just felt like straight up GoT fanservice… like what does the threat beyond the wall have to do with this conflict? they could at least have given us some parley but there was barely anything of that either. cregan stark’s going to be important later so i thought they’d do more to establish him as a character now. but literally the next scene we see jace in he’s back at dragonstone….. ok (tho i guess they could return to the north later? idk we’ll see) (also, i care less for the sara snow subplot but i was sure they would do something with it since they love to go with the juicy stuff like forbidden love and whatnot)

- on that note i expect they’re going the singers’ route with erryk and arryk which i don’t really care for (they need to make me care more for those characters first) but it makes sense

- i’m ashamed of the fact that the alyn reveal made me go “ahh” aloud and my mum (who hasn’t read f&b) went “what???” and i just vaguely waved it off because it’s so annoying when people do that and i try not to but… i was surprised they introduced him so early

- aegon ii keeps being the most entertaining character on the show and he was the highlight to me. thank you for bringing a tinge of comedy. i’d say keep it up, but… well

- this is old discourse but i don’t have much of a problem with them showing alicent being groomed and manipulated in the show which probably makes her seem more sympathetic to viewers (and i can’t help but fall for every instance the lingering and complex feelings between her and rhaenyra that still clearly affect her come up) but now i’d like to see her being more active. i liked her confronting otto but (so far) for the most part she seemed a bit uninvolved and inactive (except for the sex scenes with criston… -_- which i guess are intended to bite them in the ass later which is why it’s continuously brought up, but so far i do not care for it). i just want to see her contributing more of her own i guess. but there’s plenty of time for that in the upcoming episodes, especially now after the death of another child 😔

- i sure hope we get to see more of baela and rhaena. this was only the first episode, i will have hope in my heart

- helaena’s line about being scared of the rats felt like clever foreshadowing when i heard it, except that the blood & cheese thing happened just a few scenes later……. suddenly it didn’t feel so clever anymore, nobody will have forgotten it at that point (the best foreshadowing imo is stuff that you maybe don’t notice at first and only catch on your rewatch)

- and about that, as relieved as i am about the violence being toned down, reading the book the whole “damning one child to die but the other one is slain, so now you and your child have to live with the fact that you named him to be killed” business was very impactful so i’m a bit disappointed nonetheless. for a show that so clearly opts for emotional impact, i mean… though i suppose cutting a kid or two out is understandable. but the way they made a whole deal about not knowing the sex of the twins (and the assassins being surprisingly gentlemanly about it lol) made me wonder if they mean to do a big plot twist where helaena was lying about it and actually rescued jaehaerys, but also that (unnecessarily) changes some things and what would be the point of that. 🤔 i did really like helaena’s acting during the scene though, opting for pure shock and dissociation rather than making it a dramatic tearfest. i like helaena as a character too, from what little we have seen of her anyway, and i wish she’d had more moments previously in the show so that we as viewers would be even more emotionally connected to her, but she gets pretty sidelined in comparison to her brothers. we don’t get to know much about her in the book so i feel like that’s what the show is for! expanding upon the book!

[novantinuum]

smh when people find a post from a thousand years ago i made about why i liked a fictional plot consequence and didn't want it to be reversed for a cheap "happy ending" and then go off on it about how desperately they wanted it to be reversed anyways

like make your own post lol this is about Me

[elftwink]

so this is from someone who also actively plays in and dms campaigns with other systems but personally i love dnd partly because i like the number of arcane rules. i think part of what it is, is my table experiences have been so combat-lite that for me the system has just become tools for solving puzzles and situations. encounters are so few and far between with my usual dm that they become very intense and scary when they do happen, and you can maybe say well that's dnd guy cope to say that this combat sim is better without the combat, and that probably is true. the best version of dnd for me like if i were writing 6e would be to shift the game's mechanical focus away from combat, increase the prominence of utility/ roleplay oriented spells and skills, and encourage DMs not to rely on combat to fill space in the game

yes!! ik im being a hater in my posts rn but i also love dnd, and especially the magic and spell system. it's not perfect obviously, but i have yet to find a ttrpg whose magic system is as engaging to me personally as dnd is. idk it's like exactly the right amount of rules to feel very bound by them while still leaving wiggle room for creative magic choices (either by way of flavour which is whatever you make of it, or by way of doing something that is Technically covered by the spell but probably not intended, which almost always fucks extremely hard).

& also i agree that dnd is kind of too combat focused, and i actually do think it would be better with less (although i suspect that given theres a pretty large contingent of dnd players who play mostly or solely combat, i dont think this is a universal opinion lol), or at the very least if it didn't feel like it dominated the meta decisions you have to make. like when i take new spells i often have to deliberate between the cool utility spell i actually want to take that has no damage component, and the damage based spell that will keep me viable in combat. i wish often these choices were less at odds with each other, or at least if you had a character who needed to be carried through combat that they would have more utility in non-combat scenarios instead of just kind of feeling like dead weight (now i sound like someone who should try another system, lol. but its more varied spells in the existing dnd system that i want!)

also i kind of think dnd has a problem esp at the mid level with keeping combat high stakes and genuinely scary, which is a whole other post where i could ramble lol, but honestly in terms of per table solutions "do combat a lot less" sounds like actually an extremely good way to deal with it. the worst thing in dnd is when combat starts to feel repetitive and like a slog. if it happens rarely it just so so so much easier to avoid that. i could say much more about this but ive already been typing this ask for a gazillion years but the point is i'm stealing your dms tactics for next time i run a game

also to contextualize my baseless haterism posts, i just want to clarify that i don't care in any way if someone plays only 5e/dnd and refuses to play other systems. this is whatever. what annoys me is when such people insist this is because every other game on earth is worse than dnd at everything, somehow, even though they do not know the full rules of dnd and are not super interested in learning. there's a lot to be found there in dnd but you have to like, engage with it. your dm cant read it for you. & its always more fun to be at a table where everyone knows wtf is going on than with players who barely know enough to scrape by and treat the DM like a rules dispensing machine

anyway. your 6e ideas sound awesome, especially more utility spells pleaseeee wotc. life could be so beautiful