#to stay there for obvious reasons

[inkykeiji]

take me to the motel >:(

[lucabyte]

Different standards

[moghedien]

Minthara says “in Her name” when you first meet her and she’s following the Absolute but when you recruit her and she expresses that she no longer follows any god, but she still has an intact paladin oath, and she says “in your name” occasionally because she’s no longer Lolth’s paladin or the Absolute’s paladin, she’s your paladin

[lunar-wandering]

do y'all think Macaque is falling back into the role that Azure and the others put on him by remaining on the outskirts of the group because he thinks his input/presence is unwanted (and yeah his presence isn't really wanted by MK and the others BUT. something about the fact Macaque is placing himself at the edge of the group, the edge that Azure and the others pushed him to, doesn't really sit well)

[schumi-nadal]

Marc Márquez & Fabio Quartararo | Indonesian Grand Prix 2024🇮🇩

Your weekly riders' parade featuring Mabio 😌✨

[socksandbuttons]

More tiny eclipse pls 🙏🥺

UH UH ALRIGHTY!!!

BEAN ECLIPSE THERE YA GO. Also just Sun's whole behaviour about it. He's Winning. Sun's kinda fixed up the timeout corner cause Eclipse is there a lot (surprisingly he DOES stay there. Lunar say's it Eclipse's brooding corner now.) Lunar makes funny faces at him until eclipse either throws something at him or Earth takes Lunar away. Eclipse: Denies Uppies and Attention, Gets the Corner for Crimes. Lunar: And you thought me wrong for Uppies brother. Perish in the pits of fluff and playbars. Relinquish your vertical memoirs. They cannot help you now.

ALSO UH BONUS BEAN'D OTHERS??? Sun and Moon were suppose to be the Swap Au's boys. Then I was tasked with Bloodmoon and then Earth.

[summonerj]

Danny goes to the DC universe to see his comic book heroes in person, but they’re all children when he first gets there, as in when Wonder Woman was a child. And he sticks around a while. He’s their “Imaginary” friend, they all have different names for him because of this. None of them realized that the boy from their childhood was real for a variety of different reasons… until Batman realizes that his children’s imaginary friends all describe his from his childhood. The other heroes that also have kids find this out themselves

You can kinda know what happens next

[collieii]

one line in trimax that's always stuck with me is from chapter 65, right after wolfwood's death. when vash is sticking the punisher by his grave and he says "it was part of his life". that phrasing is so interesting to me. the neutrality of it is one thing that gets me, i think. it was part of his life. for better or worse, whatever it was, the punisher was wolfwood's.

It's pretty easy to think that the punisher might represent violence, the eye of michael, the role of assassin that was forced onto wolfwood, the loss of childhood. but it's not really presented that way, not overtly anyways. we never see wolfwood shun the punisher, he's not conflicted by his use of it. he never considers abandoning it for some other weapon. it's his weapon. he doesn't discard it when he eventually decides to take a more vash-like approach and actually let people live. he pretty easily accepts it as his own, a tool he can use. (to be fair, at least part of that is probably because the punisher is a very good gun.)

the punisher can still represent the harsher aspects of wolfwood's character, the violence he's committed, that he's capable of. that's an important part of his life! and the idea of it as representative of his violent adolescence, childhood that was stripped away, goes along with this - it's literally a cross to bear. but besides showing his past as a burden, i think of the punisher as being a cross of responsibility. when you have a gun you have power, agency - you have a responsibility to make a choice. that's what wolfwood tells vash in chapter 4.

the ability to take a life, the burden of it, is literally his cross to bear. that ability - and that responsibility - was given to him by the eom, literally in terms of the gun, and in terms of his skills. but the eye doesn't think twice about killing people. for them it's not really a choice, a responsibility, it's just a given. but wolfwood can't accept that. he's constantly considering the choices he makes.

so the punisher isn't only a symbol of the eye of michael, of the path that he was forced onto. it's also a way of expressing autonomy. the eye gave wolfwood the gun, but he decides how to use it and what it means. for much of the story wolfwood struggles to decide what to do, he's a very conflicted character. but eventually he resolves to use it against chapel, against knives, to help vash, and protect the orphanage. the gun gives him agency.

so the punisher was part of his life. it was the tool that he used to commit acts of violence, acts that he was forced into, but also the tool he used to break free.

it's heavy for vash, too. he's not exempt from that idea, the idea of responsibility. as wolfwood said much earlier in the story, vash has always been able to sidestep the question of "what do i choose?", because he's only ever given himself one option - everybody lives. and he's always succeeded. but as wolfwood says, "the day will come when you'll have to choose". one day, it's not going to work.

and of course the story progresses, the stakes ramp up, and vash learns more, goes through more, and is pushed to his limits. i think by this point, by wolfwood's death, and maybe because of it, vash has realized that he might have to make that difficult choice in the near future. that's one reason why he wants to "do him proud". he has a lot of reasons to say this of course - to not let wolfwood's sacrifice go to waste, for example. but if we're thinking of the cross as responsibility, then vash is saying he doesn't want to forget the lessons he learned because of wolfwood. wolfwood has always grappled with responsibility, with what the right thing to do is. and the right thing is often not easy. vash hopes that when the times comes for him to make a choice, he'll make a good one, one that does right by wolfwood's memory.

[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.

[iwonderwh0]

More like a headcanon, but I like this one

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

a surprise reboot of the show!

que the puppets fleeing while a heavy working crew fuckin snatches everyone up in nets to clean the place us

"should we muzzle sally?"

"she fuckin bit me!"

"doesnt answer the question"

"wally stole my wallet!"

"hes legally allowed to, travis."

yk what i'd really wanna see is how they wrangle the massive dog & the equally tall four-armed caterpillar. Wally would get netted and Barnaby would appear behind the person, about to ruin their entire career

[swagging-back-to]

worst trope is found family separating as soon as the antagonist is dealt with.

[invye]

How They Met [2/3] - CoraHawk

[CoraMiShanks Fix It AU]

I think it's time I write up my thoughts about how exactly Mihawk, Shanks and Rosinante met and outline the start of what will become their relationship. And since I am pathologically incapable of writing short posts, I'll cut it into three, so I can take my time.

Mihawk & Shanks [link]

Mihawk & Rosinante/Corazón [this post]

Rosinante & Shanks [link]

- Mihawk & Rosinante/Corazón -

Technically, Mihawk meets Rosinante before he meets Corazón. It just takes until meeting Corazón for him to realise that he did indeed cross paths with then Marine Ensign Rosinante a couple years back.

For that he can 'thank' Vice Admiral Garp. The Warlord system was created about a year into the aftermath of Rogers' execution; and with nothing better to do, Garp apparently decided that Mihawk would make an excellent addition. They spent another year playing catch across the Grand Line, with way too many cannonballs lobbed at Hitsugibune way too close for comfort, until Mihawk gave in.

Really it was less giving in and more getting bored. He had fought his way through the new and coming pirates, had found himself the old and established swordsmen and beat them all. Two years and the only interesting challenge left for him was Shanks, and the Dark King Rayleigh, whenever he deigned to resurface again. It wouldn't be long until the title is his, some people already considering him the Strongest Swordsman, and with the amount of Marines he has killed along the way, he's gained quite a lot of attention. A fact that becomes annoying as the Marines sent after him are more of an insult than a threat.

So Mihawk accepts Garp's invitation to join the Warlords. His acceptance was met by Garp laughing, clapping him on the back and then turning to a blond Ensign and saying: "See Rosinante, I told your old man I'd get him!"

Mihawk didn't make a habit of remembering Marine Ensigns, but when five years later that very same Marine turns up at the Warlord meeting as a silent shadow to Doflamingo? Colour him intrigued. He knew it was worth attending the meetings for the wine and the drama alone.

Corazón is not having a good time. Two months in deep cover and he couldn't convince Doffy not to drag him everywhere and loudly announce his long lost brother returned. So now he's standing in the corner of a room with six of the Seven Warlords assembled and has to pretend he doesn't know Sengoku sitting at the other end of the table. To make matters worse Doffy is making a scene as usual and the (former? please say former--) Marine Hunter has been unblinkingly staring at him ever since they walked in.

To make it even worse, Knight of the Sea Jinbe, leans over to Mihawk, says something, receives a response and then proceeds to give Rosinante Corazón an extended quizzical look of his own. The cherry on top comes at the end of the meeting, in form of Dracule Mihawk, Marine Hunter, walking by Corazón on his way out and quietly, just for them to hear, saying: "Good luck on your assignment, Donquixote Rosinante. You will need it."

Corazón falls over his own feet with how quickly he rushes after him.

Turns out the Marine Hunter / Strongest Swordsman / (Hawkeyes?) / Dracule Mihawk a) is not at all intimidated by Rosinante's silence ability, b) remembers Rosinante from his Ensign days on Uncle Garp's ship, c) dislikes Doffy with an unexpected fervour and d) thinks Rosinante is the worst possible choice for the job. Great.

Oh and also his Observation Haki is so strong that even despite the Silence blocking out all sound, he knows Doffy is about to walk in on them having a conversation. With words. That he isn't supposed to be able to speak.

Corazón swears he has been given extensive undercover training before all this. He swears. The deep cover preparation was a whole big thing across an entire year. But how is he, an alleged mute, supposed to explain away an extended interaction with another Warlord during which he didn't write a single note??

So here he is. Kissing the Marine Hunter and praying that Hawkeyes won't kill him for it. Or blow his cover.

And for some insane reason Rosinante will never forget to thank his luck for, Hawkeyes goes with it. Kisses him back (okay, first off, wow), gives Doffy the coldest side eye that has even his insane brother take a step back, says something about Rosinante better being safe in the upcoming storm, and manages to slip him his contact information under the guise of pulling out Rosinante's sunglasses which he proceeds to put on his face for him.

Rosinante Corazón is floored.

Doffy is delighted that his brother brings a connection this powerful to the table.

The message going along with Hawkeyes' number reads: "For when you inevitably require competent assistance" in perfect cursive that Mihawk must have written before all this.

[fighting-these-demons]

Divorce Saga Domon - A Haunted Honk Prequel

Hello Internet Stranger looking up G Gundam on Tumblr dot com!

This is an idea for a fic set in an Alternate Universe involving Queer Non-Canon Relationships between the characters of the series.

If you are not looking for this content please scroll on.

If you ARE looking for this content - and you're ok with reading my and other's Headcanons for this Alternate Universe I've haphazardly spun up -

Then go ahead and feel free to:

Check The Tags Of This Post For The Pairings

and click the Read More below!

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Ended up outlining a completely different fic as a Segway for an explanation instead of making progress on the Royal Flush Haunted Honk AU's Clown Motel Fic like I wanted to but uh....

For y'all's review for the AU: A Prequel Outline - Divorce Saga Domon

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Hey real quick - I'm thinking of maybe changing the timeline to 2 years post canon as opposed to 3 years and change post canon.

The reason being: I had a thought that this scene could either be part if the fic or if it's getting to big then it could be a stand alone tie-in prequel fic as part of this AU but - like

Immediately Post Divorce Domon Needs Space and runs off. As one does. And he runs to Earth because he just wants to Get Lost for a while.

He has Argo smuggle him out to avoid detection.

Argo has Andrew help stow Domon in a storage hanger of a Neo Canadian supply ship that's returning to the US - they have trade often enough and share agricultural resources - which leads to Domon ending up in New York when he hits Earthside pavement.

He's privately worked on his English the last couple of months and after being dropped in New York with a different hairstyle, outfit, and accent he's unrecognizable. 

He considers making his way west to get some solitude in the wilderness, but something about that initial plan feels off now that he's on the ground.

Chibodee is also Earthside for a special series of prize fights aimed at raising charitable appeal for the US in the eyes of Neo Americans.

Domon decides to hit up Chibodee for a fight on a day between matches hoping it'll clear his head and give him the clarity to decide on a course of action. What ends up happening is an unexpected heart to heart via blows and a breakdown.

Domon is happy for Rain and Kyoji, and he knows it's not true; but he feels like he lost a piece of himself when his relationship with Rain fell apart.

Domon's instinct is to run after that but Chibodee knows this city and Domon doesn't hide out for long before Chibodee drags him back to his place to stay and just "Chill out and breathe. You don't have to be anyone but yourself here. You can take as long as you need to find out what everything changing means for you." Friends and teammates stick together.

So Domon spends a few weeks with Chibodee sparring and hanging out in New York. Chibodee does a frankly awesome job at containing his feelings because he's focusing on Domons feelings and being a good friend first and foremost. Whatever he's feeling can wait until after Domon is done going though it.

There's a bit of a twinge in Domon's heart as he leaves that he can't really place.

After he returns to Neo Japan and gets settled back into life with his family, The Dreams start.

They're mainly set in New York. Small things first like noticing Chibodee's smile and his eyes. Then sparring sessions that begin to turn lurid.

He thought these kinds of dreams would stop after he was married.... he doesn't know what to do about this.

I just figure it gives more clarity and sense of time for the journey from Comphet Marriage Dissolution to Feelings to Confession. Idk.

But I got stuck on a bit and then had this thought and needed to get it down before I lost it and it was so long it made sense to make it its own post as opposed to several replies.

The Maize and Clown Motel will probably still be 3 years and change post canon for clarification.

@thedragonchilde @amplexadversary @youreaclownnow

[poorlittleyaoyao]

Hey, novel people who can come with citations!

The timeline is busted, but what chronology is given for Sunshot generally and for Meng Yao’s trajectory after getting kicked down the stairs more specifically?

Because! Given that he’s from Yunping and joins up with the Nie clan to fight during Sunshot… what led to Meng Yao, born and raised in Yunmeng, to join up with an isolated northern sect (whose peculiar cultivation practice means they are less likely to welcome him as an inner disciple) and NOT with the local sect with ties to Lanling Jin that is currently desperate for new inner disciples and will take and advance anyone who can prove themselves?

Was Meng Yao living near Qinghe already? Was Sunshot already in full swing for a REALLY long time before Lotus Pier’s destruction? Was it a quirk of timing, and he joined up with Nie Mingjue in the little sliver of time when Jiang Cheng is still recovering/in hiding? Is it unstated because timelines and geography are fake and they’re even more fake if you aren’t one of the story’s two leads?

[itspileofgoodthings]

okay but just thinking about how dark it is that Anthony’s kind of ultimate fantasy isn’t marrying Kate —it’s being married to her sister while lusting after Kate, his honor about to SNAP