#this series had so much potential

[wallflowers-in-the-wind]

The more you look at the ACOTAR series the more messed up it seems.

SJM expected the audience to be introduced to the lord of spring in the first book. A man who is practically Eugene Flynn Ryder Fitzherbert incarnate with the flirting skills of Adam from Beauty and the Beast.

Have us fall in love with him to the point where people got their first book tattoos for him due to the book being a pretty decent but not Oscar winning romance novel with a Katniss Everdeen attitude as our protagonist.

Only to retcon the whole thing claiming it was ‘all part of her plan.’ Attempt to alter every character the fandom holds dear with only the ones left alone to be safe until she gets ahold of them.

With the new love interest being a walking red flag of SA, murder, various war crimes, and other unspeakable horrors. And the ‘found family’ that act like they’re better than everyone. And torture anyone deemed as a villain or ‘not to their standards’.

Any hope of things getting better is lost because SJM loves to pretend the previous books didn’t happen and misquotes events.

This fandom is held up by hopes, dreams, fan art, and fanfiction at this point. And I feel so sorry for the new readers who read the first book and fall in love with Tamlin and Feyre’s romance only for SJM to destroy everything about them and the first book and the rest of the series.

[highflyerwings]

They really should have fucked.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

MDZS x ISAT part 1: In Stars and Necromancy.

(Part 2)

[odo-apologist]

Okay imagine you're Lister. Your Kochanski is dead. Your Rimmer is dead. But then your Rimmer comes back, and he's back because of you. You made him possible. Then he leaves- you encouraged him to leave. And another Kochanski appears. She's not your Kochanski but she could be. Only she doesn't want to be because you're not her Lister. And then you're confronted with a Rimmer who was your Rimmer, at one point, but not anymore, because he grew and you've grown and this Rimmer hasn't.

Then imagine you're Kochanski. Your Lister died, but he comes back because of you. You made him possible. And then you're forced to leave him due to things out of your control. And there's a new Lister who wants you to be some version of you that isn't you- his Kochanski. But you can't because you are not his Kochanski and he's not your Lister. You may never see your Lister again. You will never see your universe again.

And imagine you're Rimmer. This is your Lister. He has to be, because to you, for you, there is no other Lister. But you aren't his Rimmer. He's changed and he wants a version of you that has changed with him. He and this Kochanski (who is not his Kochanski but is the closest he has to her) and the strangers you're supposed to know are the reason you're here. They made you possible. But you are not their Rimmer. You are no one's.

Now imagine trying to be normal with this information in mind

[tangerinelabyrinth]

No because it kills me we're not getting another season. 😭

[noahmullariii]

the rage I feel when reading Blood of Olympus chapters 45-56 is almost equivalent in magnitude to the absolute joy I experience when reading The Last Olympian chapters 1-23.

remember when percabeth was good? when they meant the world to each other but had other people they cared about (nico, for one. both of them. so much), other worries and other storylines aside from their romantic plot? and when nico's completed arc wasn't repeated for no reason other than to dump more trauma on the youngest character in the series? when background characters were included in the story not for all the unnecessary last minute romantic subplots but because they were fun and fascinating to learn more about? and were actually friends with main characters? remember when grover was percy and annabeth's best friend forever? and antagonists were actually interesting and intimidating and had compelling goals? and the story revolved around friendship and family and loyalty? and death was definite and loss was palpable and battles were thrilling?

yeah. good times.

[somewhereincairparavel]

Jason knew. He knew, the moment Caligula's spear had passed through his course of vision. He knew that he was finally going let go. As the spear pierced through his body, Jason couldn't have been happier, it was all over. He was covered in a bed of fresh leaking blood, the life slowly ebbing out of him as his veins pulsated. He would never have to continue living his horrible life anymore. He could finally rest. Jason had nothing to hold on to anymore, his anchor had dropped finally losing its purpose. His best friend Leo was some place else Jason didn't know of, his good friend Reyna had stopped talking to him, the girl of his dreams had decided that he wasn't the one. What more was there to live for? Even as he heard the screams of Piper and Apollo, Jason did not fight the urge to die. His blue eyes were fixed on the sky, the same sky that he had come from. He knew his friends needed him, he knew they would all be devastated to lose him. yet this one time, he didn't think of them. he didn't hold it all together like he had done his whole life, he was selfless since the moment he arrived at the wolf house at the ripe age of two, always wanting to please others, never refusing to help anyone, yet, in his last breath, Jason Grace was finally selfish enough to think of himself, he didn't want to live his life for others anymore, he wanted to put his sword down finally and plunge into eternal peace. And that's what he did. Jason Grace's eyes fluttered shut. He even had the urge to smile, a genuine smile of relief. Jason Grace was finally going to eternal slumber, the soothing thoughts of reaching elysium had made the pain in Jason's body evaporate, and there was no coming back, yet the son of Jupiter was feeling the happiest he's ever felt.

[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)_/¯

[mayabishopgold]

Can you just stand next to me? This helps. I think this is what I need right now. Maya & Vic | Station 19 - 1x07

[kismetconstellations]

[phoenixcatch7]

Loz fandom stop being angsty and give the daydreaming kids on big fun adventures with a cool glowing sword some actual whimsy and joy challenge

[stuffnonsenseandotherthings]

Things Wandee Goodday could have focussed on instead of whatever on earth it's doing:

An exploration on complex familial relationships, especially the trauma and effects of parental abandonment (no I don't accept the one episode speed run as sufficient exploration). Couple this with themes of chosen/non-traditional family units and you have a winner.

An ACTUAL look at how a friends with benefits situation transforms into a romantic relationship and how people might navigate that transition (do you just go for it? Do you create a space to work out what's going to change? How do you know when you're ready?).

Confronting changes in long term goals. Both Yak and Dee entered into their fwb in order to achieve a specific goal (Dee: scholarship, Yak: relationship), it would be way more interesting seeing them work out what to do once they achieve those goals but realising that it's not actually the thing they want any more (or in Dee's case, not the only thing he wants any more).

Dating as an asexual. Kao touched on it briefly but THERE IS SO MUCH TO EXPLORE: the difficulty of finding a partner who can understand your relationship with sex and intimacy, actually understanding your own relationship with sex and intimacy and how you want to navigate things, what an asexual relationship can actually look like and how they can work even while falling outside of the "traditional" relationship mold, LITERALLY EVERYTHING. Instead we get Ter and his redemption arc.

There's definitely a lot more than that but that's all I can think of for now. For the first 3-4 episodes these are all what I thought we were going to get which makes it all the more disappointing because the potential was there, I didn't pull these ideas from thin air they were literally there for the taking.

[lovemggubler]

🥺🥹

jeid in alternate universe..

I really love this scene so much, painfully beautiful.

[spirit-meets-the-b0ne]

House of the Dragon was built to fail

Which the greatest shame of that is, I truly believe they got an incredible cast of talented actors, it's distressing to see them largely wasted. I've been an HBO fan (in a Stockholm kind of way) for the better part of two decades and even some of their usual pitfalls were accelerated here. While it's easy to just blame Ryan (5 spits for an enemy Condall) it still feels like there's more than just writing or directing so this post won't focus as much on the characterization follies but more on the story's infrastructure. While budgetary concerns with a show like this are obvious considering the dragons cost a great deal of time and money it is odd to me that this is a series rather than a mini-series. By that I mean, HBO for most of their big productions had seasons ranging from 10-15 episodes (Sopranos S1 13 episodes, True Blood S1 12 episodes, The Wire S1 13 episodes, etc) so this is exceptionally short of a season for House of the Dragon. Game of Thrones original run was largely a 10 episode format until the later seasons which were also notably shit.

This structure was never designed to give the characters or an audience time to breathe. While this is something that is continually brought up across the cinema/film community these days it seems especially important here. It also seems very easy for an audience to decide against investing time and energy into a series that only holds you for 8 weeks and then takes another 2-3 years of production. As most of the audience knows, it isn't like there is a shortage of materials for the show to incorporate. It's an active choice to not dive more into the lives and circumstances of these character and their relationships. Now, I'm not expecting Lost 2.0 where every character will get an episodic focal point and backstory. Still, you have plenty of non-dragon riding characters whom you could spend time with that don't require maxing out your VFX budget for. Because as of right now from the posts I've been seeing it's clear that most of the general audience at this point is more invested in the dragons than any human character in the show save for some Stans. I can't say I blame them. Most every character at this point is barely tolerable or straight up deeply unlikeable. That's a failure of the writers and directors explicitly. I think the actors are genuinely doing the best they could with the material they're given.

It's frustrating because while I was expecting this show to disappoint (both because of GoT's outcome and HBO's late game losing streak shout out to True Blood for getting so bad I never watched the final episodes) this production is hitting that wall way sooner than expected. If there was another 2-4 episodes to actually develop the characters and their relationships (even with piss poor writing) it might have helped tremendously but this structure is going to leave an audience wanting more and not in a good way. If there is a season 3 I can't imagine in 2 years that a lot of the current viewership would return. So even the "fix it" episode rewrites fans make don't seem like enough, to me you genuinely need more material, more for an audience to invest in or feel a part of. If this season was even 10 episodes there would have been so much room for improvement. The Last of Us was able to deliver a satisfying plot and character arcs with 9 episodes and there's a huge difference with the way that was received by audiences vs. HotD. The obvious difference is the amount of time they needed to tell that story vs. the amount of time you rightly needed to tell this one, which is case in point why HotD needed more time. So, while a short season can deliver satisfaction in some cases, I don’t believe as a rule it should all be common place to condense stories and characters. Especially considering HotD's compression is coming largely at the expense of the women in the show (Rhaena, Jeyne Arryn, Helaena, Nettles, Rhaenrya and Alicent's respective character assassination, etc). That's to say even if these character plots deviate from the canon they have the room to grow and develop a character completely to an audience. If you're going to change a character from the source material at least make them a well-developed different person.

[ifindus]

Cross-country season has started! Fifa!talia is out, FIS!talia is in!

Most of the athletes on the GBR team are Scottish and they all live in Norway most of the year. Norwegians have such a love for them and some of them even speak Norwegian fluently. Two years ago, they lost funding from the UK government and it looked like they would have to quit skiing all-together. Then, rich Norwegians began sponsoring them and now they are training with a private Norwegian team and funded by Norwegians 💖

[thaliagrayce]

y'know what we don't talk about enough? Hazel died. We talk about how she grew up in the 30's and 40's and we talk about how out of place she feels in the modern world, but! She died! She was dead! She has spent more time dead than alive, and not by a close margin!

How does that effect a person??? We got some of it in the flashbacks, but once those caught up with her present timeline and she shared them, they just kind of... disappeared. And she was a regular girl with some weird past experiences. That's one way of doing it, sure!

I think it would have been a lot cooler if she was just a touch creepier. If she felt a little bit Wrong. Yeah, in general she's more approachable than her brother, she's more sociable and less closed off, but. If you actually spend any time with her, it can be difficult to tell which child of the underworld is actually more unsettling.

Hazel is bright of personality and has a dazzling smile, but sometimes she'll just... shut down. She'll go completely blank for like half an hour and nobody knows what to do with it. Sometimes she forgets she's alive. Sometimes she'll spout the grimmest shit you've ever heard like it's nothing, she won't even notice it's weird until the room goes quiet. She spent decades in Asphodel, which is designed to make people forget about themselves and wander around for eternity, only she didn't have the luxury of forgetting! Wild! After she comes back to life, sometimes she forgets that she's allowed to Do Stuff now. She can spend so long sitting and staring at nothing. Sometimes she'll start crying on cloudless days because it hits her again that she can actually feel the warmth of the sun on her skin and she can hear birdsong. Every little mundane experience is a blessing and she will make you remember that in the most foreboding way possible.