#why people in the north do such things

[ley-med]

Last year started with a dip in an almost frozen river with a bunch of strangers (after a catholic priest blessed said river, it was still the most pagan ritual I've witnessed, mind you) and it was so exhilarating that naturally I (and thus my husband) will have to repeat it this year as well. Maybe make it a tradition. A great way to spend the first Saturday of the year, makes one believe that one is capable of anything. Can't wait to do it again!

Ps Husband is a bit less enthusiastic, but he said "fuck it, happy birthday babe, I'm not making you a cake but I'm joining you in your madness" this is love

[deer-with-a-stick]

I wonder how many people know that Maria's animals are the Four Symbols from Chinese/East Asian mythology. Didn't pick it up until the turtle appeared but when I tell you I screamed

[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.

[iniziare]

Consider Yelan's facial expression to be my own in reaction to opinions shared on both X and Tumblr, and I guess I'm in the minority of the 'loud ones', but I'm pretty excited for Natlan since that trailer, actually. The previous teasers left me a little 'eh', but this definitely got my hopes back up, and I'm back in the right spirits for it (and ready to catch some Pokémon.)

Now I wouldn't be me if I didn't touch on the salt that I've seen scattered across the dash, so here I go. Listen, I read people's objections and I see what you're all aiming at, but in that light want to note that it's often incredibly easy to point fingers (arguably too much so) at others while being, quite honestly, hopefully rather aware that many of our own countries, cultures, and its populations across the board (and no, I'm not excluding anyone here) would likely be just as easily guilty as MHY is with these things. And no, I'm not blindly defending them, but I also won't point fingers at only one without pointing them everywhere else as well, including those you might think would 'never do such things', because I'm absolutely certain that they would. /continues on in the tags.

[muirneach]

it is fascinating to me that the majority of people it seems have never considered that borders are just lines on a map? its just a piece of paper? not to have anarchic tendencies but like. it’s just words

[icewindandboringhorror]

Recent game related things .. hrmm...

[twobeesornottwobees]

I know we always talk about how Europeans know nothing about America but could we talk about how Americans from the east coast also know nothing about America

[non-un-topo]

I thought it was smart to choose Tuareg veiling as a research topic for an assignment because it's something I'm interested in and want to write about in fics, but now all I want to do is write and I have no time ;;

[sudokuplayer]

i'm so angry and heartbroken and i think this is all i will ever be

[capaldiera]

:/

[virtue-boy]

Its kind of insane like genuinely insane how many people on here have no idea what life is like for average people in the third world / global majority and the Neo-colonialism that creates those conditions to support conditions in the North and how insanely cruel they can be as the absolute baseline and the type of killing and death that maintains the boundaries between the north and the south.

Like tell me you've never met an immigrant or refugee without telling me. Do you genuinely not know what happens to people who get deported, or work in the farms or meatpacking factories that feed the North?? The child deaths in the border crossings? The mines all over the globe? The people that die from lack of baseline vaccinations and sanitation and healthcare trademarked by western companies? The literal MILLIONS of third worlders killed in the wars across the globe defending US economic hegemony? The agent orange, the land mines, the carpet bombing, the drones? What the fuck is wrong with you?

[pinktinselmonstrosity]

i always forget how annoying people on this site can be until a post blows up and i get to see it directly in my notifications 🙃

[thatlittledandere]

I love learning about regional differences within countries or even regions. It's an American internet so even I know that New Yorkers are on a whole 'nother level of exceptionalism and being from Brooklyn specifically Means Something. Tell me, how does the rest of Brazil feel about people from Rio? What sets the Quebecuois apart, aside from speaking French? Does South Africa have stereotypes about people speaking all the different languages they have? Does being closer to North or South America mean something in Mexico? Italy hasn't been one cohesive country for very long, how shattered is it still? Etc etc etc tell me about regional stereotypes in your dear homeland Ethiopia make it a fight if you have to. I want to HEAR

[simptasia]

I was actually going to send an ask about that cause i was talking with a friend recently, and we were talking about how much we love that Charlie was Made Mancunian instead of something like a Londoner as I know they were going for the Britpop/Oasis 'troubled British musician' aesthetic, but Mancunians are like some of the nicest people in the UK, its gotta be that tram. We were talking about How they never met, but if they did, how Charlotte and Charlie could have formed a really funny friendship due to that North/South Divide. Like people joke but as someone from the UK that north-south divide is nasty, like you tell someone from the North you're moving to London they look at you like you've gone insane/Bonkers if you will. I cannot overstate just how snarky that friendship would be. Especially since Charlotte is from Sussex, a manc like Charlie is going to be bullying her as soon as she walks through the door. Like the poorest part of Sussex still gets more money than the most deprived part of Manchester, which also leads me to believe due to how it is, both Naomi and Charlie's snark might have a lil venom in it due to it really is a battlefield between Northerns and Southerners. Desmond also like Desmond is half Peruvian which is probably why he isn't like this, but I'm surprised he doesn't just full ham sarcastic talking to other British characters again that north-south divide is nasty, and he's a Scotsman everyone south of him is a southerner even Charlie and Naomi who were probably like a three-hour car drive away. My final point is i really think it would have been funny as to an American audience and every non-British character (Except people like Daniel who spent time in the UK ) it must look like a really advanced form of hate like imagine seeing people with nonsense accents bully someone else who lives an hour away with a nonsense accent cause they get their drinking water from caves instead of vast lakes.

miles: whoa naomi and charlotte really hate each other huh

daniel, who knows better: they're good friends actually

miles: [confused in american] ???

alas lost was written by americans who had no idea of the nuances of british culture. like, the only reason charlie specifically has manc energy is because it comes from dom's own brick soaked soul

like without being told, i am sure than it was dom's idea for charlie to coo over baffonee pie, a beloved northern dessert

(that's banana and toffee pie, babes!)

i woulda loved to have known how they woulda written charlie interacting with my beloved science trio. sure it wouldn't have been my delightfully indulgent internal fanfics but I Want it

i think des never made any playful jabs about charlie being english because he's not the type of person to give a fuck. yes i know the rivalries run deep but des is 1. pretty non-judgemental, 2. he has more important things to care about and 3. english pussy got him acting unwise. uh basically class and money divide fucks over des' mind, not country/culture divide

the show was never equipped to handle this so this is just my imagination but it seems more like charlie would be the one who cares about things like where you're from. not in a nasty way, but he'd at least think about it. his relationship with that posh girl lucy would have, deep down, made him feel worthless. espech with charlie's fixation on Taking Care Of His Loved Ones

and charlie being a manc really does add a lot to his character in ways i doubt the writers even realised. the dream version of megan pace cooing to charlie that he's going to save them with his musical talent, like he grew up with this need to make himself better than how he started. the punk aspects of him also tie into him being a manc because the Fuck The System and I Wanna Escape attitudes are super fucking common amongst northerners. it's a running joke that northerners suffer and whine all the time. charlie is a very northern character, almost stereotypically so. this is partly cuz of dom and partly cuz they based him on aspects of the northern music scene

i'm not saying all northerners are whiny angry little punk bitches. but charlie is and him being a manc adds like, a layer to it? also also the intersection between lower class english views of masculinity + the idea that charlie is bi and trans is utterly fascinating to me

but i digress. i don't get to talk about charlie being from the north enough, partly because like, i know most lost fans are americans who would just be smiling and nodding dumbfounded as i meme'd

but i do like to be educational. long story short, guys? manchester is a highly industrial part of the north of england and is riddled with poverty and violence and basically everybody who lives there are like the most depressed people in england (dom himself has expressed that he's proud to be a mancurian but happy he escaped)

so, like, manchester is the detroit of england. i hope that helps

[muirneach]

‘waaa toronto subway map is so sparse compared to other cities’ SHUT UPPPP THEYRE NOT SHOWING THE STREETCAR LINES IN THAT MAP. THEY BALANCE IT OUT. christ alive

[mishkakagehishka]

no fr i worry abt globalization too. like i 100% actually admire and respect the cultures who value taking it easy and relaxing a little more. the US is basically my own personal hell ^^; i have a very low desire to work and just enjoy doing what i love and spending time with people i love, not slaving away to some corporate overlord that doesn't care about my life. i'd love to skip and get coffee with friends, or relax a little more rather than worrying about grades and constantly go-go-going all the time. but alas.

that's just my take, though ^^; (plus i just hate how everything gets made for americans... even being one i always feel kinda sad when cultures adapt to the us, rather than the us adapting to others... there's so much to be learned from other cultures! but you lose so much when everyone starts catering to the americans...)

Yeah, there's good things to take from America (like, okay okay, i shit on the US a lot, but like looking at the past and how it really was seen as a place of opportunity because you could start from zero and still make it - it's no longer a thing, but when it was it was inspiring, or i think we specifically mentioned "fighting for your rights" and "activism" as "good sides of westernisation" while studying it in high school), but the protestant work ethic.... is not it.

And maybe my own people take it too far in the other direction, i know we're stereotyped as excruciatingly lazy even in the north of the same country, but i just believe there's no reason to... put your entire soul into your career. Sure, if your work brings you joy you can allocate your hobby-time to your job-time, but... friends, family, entertainment, art are all things that need their own time. Imo "job" should be pretty low on your priorities (again, unless it brings you joy on par with a hobby. Like, if i manage to find work as a translator, i'll treat that job like my world, but that's bc it'd be on par with a hobby). I think we also use "work to live, don't live to work" to explain it. But we live in such a world :( it's hard, you need money to live, but you have to work so much now that you don't have the time to live anymore.