#the potential ... sigh

[cannibalisticskittles]

it will truly never not be funny the extent to which astarion Does Not Plan.

we're going to seize power from the absolute's cult! how? well... they'll cross that bridge when they get there. a solution will probably become obvious eventually, right? whatever, who cares about the details.

we're going to kill cazador! how? aha, he's thought about this; he's going to collect information! and how is he going to do that and make sure he gets all of the information he needs? well....... they'll probably find things out by asking around, right? that part isn't as important, don't worry about it.

even with the bite -- buddy. pal. what were you planning to do if you had successfully bitten a party member without anyone noticing. when they wake up the next morning, they're going to notice the bite marks and how sluggish they feel.

astarion can think one step ahead max and that's where the ball stops rolling.

[o-wild-west-wind]

you know, I’m just gonna come out and say it. reason 182639302 why I’m sad ofmd was canceled: I would’ve liked to see a post-Izzy world.

you can stab me in the face now.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

still unwell over the prospect of Howdy slowly putting the pieces together and having a complete mental breakdown over it. Laughingstock edition!

[korrectkomaeda]

been thinking about mukuro lately..

[electricpurrs]

this is how people talk about you online when you dont use they/them pronouns

[originalaccountname]

I don't understand the vitriol being thrown around after the latest Asagiri interview. Asagiri said he wishes to write Kunikida and Dazai interacting more, and that skk ended up taking more space than anticipated on first draft because of how popular they ended up being.

Yes Fifteen was written on his team's demand, but so was BEAST, being originally and respectively a skk and a sskk bonus story for Dead Apple promotion. Nobody asked Asagiri to write 300+ pages of Chuuya backstory and singularity lore and Adam POV though, same way 55 Minutes wasn't either. His team keeps asking for a deeper dive into Dazai's opinion of Chuuya but 1. the story doesn't need it to progress and 2. Asagiri is steadfast in keeping Dazai as unknowable as possible, so it wasn't gonna happen anyway. Skk hate each other, it's written in their character sheets, it's what their canonical relationship was built on, and still they did (gestures at bsd) all that. It's all things we know!

Asagiri just repeated info we already had and added some yearning for his baby Kunikida as a behind-the-scene bonus. I wish him the opportunity to write him and Dazai again soon, because they are so very entertaining to watch. But first, Asagiri is gonna need to stop making Kunikida suffer from Favourite Character Syndrome and let him not die/ get tortured/ arrested/ be in a coma/ spiral into despair for a hot minute so he can like. interact with people. for a change.

also Asagiri said again that reader interpretation and fanworks are everything and we should all go as wild as our hearts desire in whatever direction is most appealing to it

[wizardsix]

I can't be the only one who thinks it's so lame that spite ultimately had 0 effect on lucanis whereas the writers made anders suffer for just wanting to live.

[munadrawson]

[Inspired post] Click and Open image for HQ! [Ko-fi] | [Twitter] | [Instagram]

💙👉👈💛

[eighthwholove]

C'mon BBC, Universal, etc. Dr. "Amazing Grace" Holloway didn't go to see Madame Butterfly live, got paged because she was on call, and run down the hallway in slow motion to "Un Bel Di" whilst wearing her electric blue ballgown on December 30, 1999 for her to be excluded from the Puccini episode in the upcoming Eight boxset.

[bixels]

What did/do you like about Pharah?

Uh, gameplay-wise, I really love characters in shooters who rely on three-dimensional movement techs. Chaining together hover and jump to stay in the air for as long as possible and keep momentum is so satisfying, and picking enemies off from the sky made me feel like a bird of prey. I was a good Pharah main.

Story-wise, there unfortunately isn't much to canonically go off because Pharah is so underutilized and neglected. Her personality's pretty boilerplate "heroic hero" (she's literally inspired by Captain America).

But it's the crumbs/bits and pieces that I really latched onto. Pharah's a confirmed lesbian; her short story with Baptiste implies she harbors a crush on Mercy (fucking thank you.). She's biracial Egyptian/First Nations. She has major mommy issues, having grown up both admiring and resenting Ana. She's the bridge between Old Overwatch, inspired by the idealized heroes who surrounded her childhood, and New Overwatch. She's one of the only inter-generational characters in the cast; someone whose experiences span the gap, which is why I seriously believe Pharah would make a great main character.

There isn't much to go off of, though; she's a very uncomplicated character (she's a soldier for a private military corporation, lol.). But that just means she's a blank slate character, so I've seen fanfic writers run wild and create some really interesting takes on her. My favorite interpretation of her's a dense, herbo gym-bro type (a lot of her liens are about work outs, exercising, and playing sports) who's easily excitable under her seemingly self-serious, armored visage. We see how she tends to gloat and hype herself up when she's on a streak too, so Pharah definitely has a competitive and boastful side under her more professional and militant performance.

Now Mercy? Mercy is a real complex character.

[aroaceleovaldez]

they cast a 28 year old for Tyson 💀

[relevant rants: here and here]

yeah, i saw - i wasn't holding onto hope of them casting a disabled actor for Tyson (still disappointed, just not surprised) but casting a 28 year old for a middle schooler is really out of left field. It's just an odd choice? Particularly given how much they've been emphasizing age-accurate casting so far.

It makes me really wonder what major rewrites they have planned for Tyson's character. Because as things stand currently there's no way to make Tyson's existing character work with this casting. Tyson is supposed to be in Percy's grade, but Daniel Diemer sticks out like a sore thumb against the child actors. Tyson being in Percy's grade is pretty important for the entire arc of Sea of Monsters with the main character arc being Percy combating internalized ableism and establishing him as a character who stands up for other marginalized kids. If they remove that, what's Percy's arc going to be for that entire season? At what point are they going to establish that about his character? Or are they just going to exposition it at us like usual with nothing backing it up and no actual character progression? And in later seasons the age gap is only going to be more prominent - like how is Tyson going to work in BoTL or TLO? Are they planning on removing his character entirely for those scenes? Are they going to remove him as a recurring character in general? It'd be really weird if they killed him off or something.

I'm also afraid for if they do try to keep Tyson's disability coding in some form - cause there's kind of no good way it can go at this point. Either they completely erase Tyson's coding because they cast an abled actor for him and that messes up the entire arc of the book and his character particularly in relation to Percy, or they have an abled actor attempt to portray a character heavily coded as having down syndrome (and i believe they're already doing similar with iirc Chiron's actor is abled but they're doubling-down in the show on Chiron being disabled) and given how they've written the neurodivergence themes (or absence there of) in the show so far there's just no way that'd end well. Like, Tyson's characterization is a little questionable to begin with in the books, but given the show's writing so far it just feels like we're very rapidly ramping up for an extremely ableist characterization of Tyson. Like i'm sure Daniel Diemer is a great actor, but... i'm just getting real tired of the show erasing the entire premise of the series :T

anyways as per my initial post about pjo tv tyson casting theories i guess it's time for me to start tearing stuff apart with my teeth ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[triglycercule]

mtt therapy moment except dust keeps taking breaks to talk to phantom papyrus and horror just wants this to hurry up so it can get to his turn because he couldn't give two shits about dust and killer's trauma and killer physically cannot discuss his issues and just starts zoning out while crying for some reason during it

and i'm the therapist listening to all of this writing down notes fervently because ITS CANON MATERIAL CANON I NEED TO GET THE CANON MATERIAL

[megacarapa]

i found this post and had to make it with them immediately

[aleksanderscult]

That's it. That's the Alarkling dynamic in a nutshell.

Aleksander was bringing out Alina's dark side. The one she kept hiding out of shame and fear. It's essential to acknowledge that you have one but the author never allowed her to come to terms with it. And Aleksander was the only character to accept it about her.

On the other hand, Alina was bringing out Aleksander's human side. The one he (almost) lost through the centuries. He didn't think he still had it until Alina stirred it. And just like Aleksander symbolized her dark, powerful side, she symbolized his light and humanity.

It's just a dynamic of contradictions. They both also avoided admitting it. The irony is that the narrative kept trying to convince the reader that these sides of them were wrong (in Alina's case) or they simply didn't exist (in Aleksander's case). And by doing so the author tried to strip of these two characters one of their core characteristics.

[kuijoon]

If Sparkle changes because of the mask, could it be that the reason Sampo put his mask away for so long is because he didn’t like who he was with it?

He already mentions that he doesn’t like it when people get hurt for laughs and the masks seem to make people more deranged as time goes on, so maybe he was influenced by his own mask but then decided that he was better off without it.

“Sparkle” is obviously a stage name, while “Sampo” seems to be a real one. Maybe he used to have a stage name as well but now uses his real one instead

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Thoughts about the supposed direction Rhaena's storyline is going in Hotd and the apparent Nettles erasure? Disappointing but... I can sort of see where they could take it? Idk... looking at grrm's posts in hindsight kinda makes me even more disappointed if he is as well (he just can't get his adaptations right atp but idk)

Well. Pre-ep7, we're still pending any Rhaena-Sheepstealer bonding, but I'm basically 😑🫠 about the rumors. (I dislike borrowing trouble, I'm not even sure how many of the rumors are true -- actually I'm pretty sure many of these supposed "leaks" are straight up lies -- and yet. Still *disgruntled meh* and *"we're all fine-everyone's fine here" dread*.) Rhaena is one of my more beloved F&B characters (it's the Sansa parallels, I can't help myself), and Nettles has been a super fave since TPATQ and TWOIAF. (Particularly TWOIAF, since the Burned Men fire-witch reveal; heck, I think my little dollmaker is still one of the few fanarts of Nettles in the mountains.)

I mean, sure, I understand that Rhaena's book storyline during the Dance, where she's offpage from basically the start of the war until nearly the end of it, socializing in the Vale and waiting for her egg to hatch, would be difficult to adapt in an action-oriented visuals-oriented television show. (Like Rhaenyra this season sure isn't just catatonically crying from Luke's death until Jace's.) And I'm glad Rhaena's getting more to do, and I'm glad it's directly addressing her feeling slighted and ignored by her family since she doesn't have a dragon. However...

I do not want Rhaena merged into one character with Nettles! I do not want Rhaena to have Sheepstealer and not her hope-for-the-future (doomed hope, and yet) baby dragon Morning, that hatched for her. Also note how pink Morning, worn as a fashion accessory, so suited Rhaena's coquette personality vs her sporty, adventurous twin sister... I mean, I've said before, I understand adaptations can be different, this still wouldn't make HOTD even close to a "loose adaptation".* But I do not want this adaptation to lose Rhaena's personality that I loved.

Or for that matter, to lose Nettles's character, and her importance to the themes and worldbuilding of ASOIAF. (See also.) And her importance to the plot -- but god knows, they're doing all sorts of things with Daemon and Rhaenyra on this show, toxic romance or what have you, who knows if once Daemon reaches his emotional breakthrough or whatever at Harrenhal this season, if they want to backslide him into a cheating plot in S3 while Daemon is again stuck in a castle for months.** Nevertheless, I'd be deeply disappointed to lose scenes like "as well as her dragon, the girl had taken to riding Daemon", or the last morning in Maidenpool scene... and um, you can't really fit Rhaena in there, or if you did, it would certainly put the lie to the ship denialists' "he just treated her like a father, platonically bathing naked together!" (Also the pretty blatant fake S3 leaks including one where Rhaenyra decides Rhaena has betrayed her... are pretty blatantly fake, sorry.)

And then there would be the frankly racist erasure of the one book black character. "Oh but the show made the Velaryons black, so it's not erasing, it's adding more!" No, sorry. (1) I was and am all for adding more racial diversity to the show and especially to Valyrians, but face it, when you take the book's secondary character Velaryons, two who get killed off early and are portrayed as lesser to the "true" Daemon/Rhaenyra marriage, and make them black, you've already done a lot of hinky damage there. (2) What, it's that hard to write three distinct black girls with very different personalities and one from an incredibly different background? I don't see Addam and Alyn getting merged. I don't see Aemond and Daeron getting merged. I don't see Hugh and Ulf getting merged. But I'm not really one to speak here, for this particular discussion I'd point you to @ride-thedragon and @venusintheblindspots-blog and @chrkrose, among others, they have many many posts on this subject in far greater detail and better argued than mine.

OK, so. I still have hope that Nettles -- even if not cast for this season (sorry y'all, that extra is an extra) -- may appear next season, and all this worry will turn out to be a tempest in a teapot. Per last report from the HOTD panel at SDCC, the rumor of Rhaena and Sheepstealer definitely doesn't happen in ep 7, though, yes, there's one episode after. And if it does happen... I'll be strongly disappointed. Deeply, deeply disappointed, and probably far more suspicious of future adaptational changes. But, for me at least, it's not a dealbreaker like GOT S5 was.*** I won't be happy at all about the storyline, but I would like to think the show will remain high quality re themes and character and all. Time will tell, though. Time will definitely tell.

As for GRRM, when his complaints seem to be "wild dragons shouldn't be in the Vale" and "the heraldry with four legs is wrong", well, I struggle to see that he's that disappointed in the adaptational changes. Believe me, I am well used to reading between the lines re GRRM and adaptations, something like the fact that he's not visiting the HOTD writers' room when he's in the UK is nothing. Catch me if at Worldcon or his Oxford lecture in August, GRRM again says that he could write a whole novel about Nettles, or if actually says something about non-Valyrian dragonriders, ok?

*I was just reading up on The Beast (2023) vs Henry James's “The Beast in the Jungle”. lol HOTD doesn't compare. Don't even think it, man.

**You know, this reminds me of how the Dance in F&B is not paced very well for individual characters, they keep going offscreen for months at a time. From shortly after Rhaenyra's crowning to the Fall of KL, Daemon just sits at Harrenhal and occasionally ventures out into the riverlands. From shortly after the Fall of KL until the Battle Above the Gods Eye, Daemon just... sits at Maidenpool and occasionally ventures out into the riverlands (with Nettles). Yeah, obviously a show would need to write more for him to do, he's a main character.

***Thank god HOTD isn't the sort of exploitative shitshow that GOT was. All y'all thinking it was a better adaptation because of your nostalgia goggles (and/or shitty memory) need to actually reread the books (especially AFFC/ADWD) and then submit yourself to the real-world misogynist and homophobic nonsense of S5-6 again, ugh.