#killing off certain characters

[padmestrilogy]

u can’t tell me the acolyte’s cancellation is a win when the mando movie is currently shooting,, the show had problems yes but this clearly wasn’t a decision made abt quality. what was once a franchise where you could set any kind of story, have any kind of adventure, is now a bunch of increasingly niche tie-ins about the same few characters, hesitantly branded as the “mandoverse”, made by the same few guys (who, most importantly, suck at this). the acolyte made important steps for representation, yeah, but it was also just plain NEW. even andor was a spin-off of a spin-off. you could watch the acolyte if all you knew was a guy named luke blew up a death star once. certain brilliant stuff like visions will always lurk at the dubiously-canon edges of star wars—the acolyte could’ve started a new era of the franchise. even if you didn’t care for the show, this is such a loss

[moeblob]

Nytis, my loser demon cleric, about to lose it.

[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.

[lialox]

ORV Chapter 369

I pulled the fallen Han Su-Yeong in as she looked up at me. Blood flowed out like a river from her waist. It was so vividly red that it all came across as far too unreal to my eyes.

She was bleeding, yet she was still talking to me. “Kim Dok-Ja. I know the end you’ve been wishing for.”

She formed a smile as playful as ever. As if to wipe the blood on my cheek, she rubbed my face while murmuring back to me. “What a pitiful guy you are....”

I frantically tried to stem her bleeding while pulling out my recovery items. Her internal injuries were too severe. She had been wounded far too mercilessly.

Her innards were completely destroyed by the 2nd generation’s sword force.

I could save her. If only I had a little more time, if I could just find a proper healer and get her healed, then....

....But, would I be allowed to do that?

Her hand touching my cheek fell away lifelessly.

I called out Han Su-Yeong’s name. Over and over again. However, she didn’t wake up.

[oifaaa]

The rare JJK small mention, i think last one was when you got a finger

Yeah I don't think I'll ever actually watch JJK I've heard it's one of those shows were alot of the characters die and I'm not a fan of those types of shows it's the same reason I could never get into attack on titan or the walking dead I fear getting really invested in a character only for them to die

[aj-lenoire]

i do not enjoy harry potter anymore and even when i did, snape was not a character i ever liked, but for some reason my ‘for you’ page is just full of dedicated snape stan accounts and i hate it

[thrumbolt]

People be like 'lmao not even SJM likes Tamlin, he will never be relevant again' like....so? SJM can kill him off and make Feyre and Rhys use his wolf pelt as a blanket, this has like zero bearing on me liking or investing time on a character lmao

This obsession with canon is so funny to me. Have y'all never liked a side character that beefed it early on or just isn't as relevant to the plot? That's what makes creating fanworks for them so fun! Live a little!

[ryebread-x]

The One out of Two Times Sigyn Snapped

This is just a little thing I wrote about my variant/interpretation of Sigyn, who is morally grey, so this is going to get a bit dark. This is basically my retelling of the "Horse Myth"(I kind of share my thoughts and feelings in the tags about the myth as a whole. As well as some extra info about what I changed in the retelling) but kinda from Sigyn's perspective and what leads to her later actions :

Tw!: Dark topics, just the upsetting nature of the Horse myth in general, implied murder

Sigyn wasn't really one to snap despite her somewhat terrifying appearance. She was cool and collective most of the time. Sure, if you got on her bad side, she'd chew you out with sassy, but no God, not even her own spouse, never expected her to resort to killing someone the way she did. It happened after Loki's original plan to keep the bulider from receiving his payment began to fail. So they transformed into a beautiful mare to distract the builders' horse. That's the story that was told to Sigyn, but only part of it was the truth. Loki told Sigyn the real truth about what Svadilfari was truly a shapeshifter like herself and even after the incident wouldn't leave Loki be. When Sigyn learned this, she was furious she tried to bring this up to the other gods, but her concerns fell on deaf ears. Some gods even made fun of the situation. But some saw Sigyn was serious, and the others making a joke of this situation caused her to inevitably snap. So, Sigyn took matter into her own hands she disappeared into the forest for almost 3 days and nights. When she came back, she was bloodied, but it wasn't hers. However, when she come back, no God or Goddess dared questioned who or what she had killed. However, Svadilfari never showed his face around Asgard or anywhere again. It is unknown if Sigyn had killed him or not , only that she had returned with furious victory in her eyes. 9 months later, Loki had Slepinir and gave him to Odin. It still remained a mystery about what happened to Svadilfari. Yet, no God or Goddess dared to make Sigyn too angry again for the time being. That was until they decided to lock her spouse away and murder her children. They should have learned from their mistakes the first time when Sigyn had returned from the forest.

[kateis-cakeis]

Sometimes I like to think about the possibility of Arthur and Mordred having a sort of temporary immortality, as in nothing could kill them until they killed each other

That was how the Triple Goddess decreed it after all. Only the Disir could have changed it, only they could have killed Mordred to save Arthur.

And if you think about it, all that Arthur is saved from, all that Mordred escapes, I do believe in the webs of fate that they couldn't die. There was a path they had to complete, too bound to die in any other way.

Before they were born they had a set death. It's right there in the writings of the Catha, hundreds of years beforehand.

So it only makes sense that they could not die until that day came.

[beemovieerotica]

stopped watching The North Water because it's just reminding me of the "im crazy!! im craaAaaZy!" tiktok like damn they really couldn't come up with more compelling characterization

[clownprince]

idk maybe i'm just mad people dislike my Special Little Guy but like... the way that jarley shaped cultural perceptions of joker as a character (read: established the idea of him as a domestic abuser (of his female partner) furthering the associations with gendered violence/general misogyny that were (primarily) started by tkj/tdkr) feels homophobic in a way that's difficult to articulate

[crows-of-buckets]

I haven't been drawing much tyrian lately sadly <//3 I've wanted to I've just been busy ugh. Anyways some miscellaneous doodles from the last like week or two + an older doodle I did of Daeran in a dress that I don't think I ever posted.

[no1ryomafan]

Thinking more about umbraclaw and while there’s stuff to critique from the gameplay side I think probably the biggest flaw of it is like everything to do with the writing, and I don’t mean just plot.

It’s one of those things where it’s like- The basic narrative of the story is got across well regardless of what ending you get-yes I did look it there being multiple endings lol-and it’s the first entry of a series so the story not being the best can be forgiven but it’s a shame NOTHING is super fleshed out. Not just the soul plane but the characters don’t get much at all, they kinda just exist as set pieces to move the narrative forward. Kuon, the mc oddly never talks that the characters always acknowledge it so she’s basically a blank slate and I’m unsure if it’s because we’re meant to project onto her/interpret her whoever we please or if it’s just to reflect she’s not like the others and she’s a normal animal.

We also don’t get to know enough about her owner that it’s actually hard to care about her other then “well she seems nice ig” since you can’t say you want to care about Kuon because she’s blank unless you really put yourself in her shoes or your own pet into her place ig. And don’t even get me on how LOCKE is so weirdly interrogated into the plot and clearly has more to him yet is left off being so vague, like we get teased he’s like you but never are directly shown or hinted at that. He’s just there as a rival but he’s not at ALL fleshed out enough or placed right into the plot even if he’s spared at the end which doesn’t amount to anything, he’s just there yet again to be a set piece that’s just a bit different from the others. (And also how he hints at a deeper theme of losing control of yourself in terms make you forget who you are but it’s not explored ENOUGH even if he’s there to reinforce it it only comes up in one ending)

Like this story doesn’t make me super angry to hate the game as I’m still gonna do another ending and overall playing it is a really interesting experience I won’t get from anything else, but maaan if we get a sequel I hope the plot is reworked significantly cause it sucks how it’s “not a bad story but also a story with no substance”.

Its something that’s satisfying only because it’s a what you see is what you get thing but doesn’t have anything deeper to really pick at.

[kiwisandpearls]

something being realistic in a story does not automatically make that thing written well.

[ranger-crisis]

I love you, Mr. “I can kill myself, but I don’t want to kill any of my friends” Dekarios

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Love how for an episode of Young Justice Season 1, the writers really said, "Let's just kill off every hero you love-"