#(not directly but related)

[lemonsharkgirlfriend]

so rhaenyra starts s3 with a god complex, believing herself to be the prince that was promised from aegon the conqueror's dream... but hugh and ulf will betray her, mysaria will misunderstand her, coryls will undermine her, bartimos will underestimate her, daemon will abandon her, her people will turn against her and burn her castle and kill her dragon. and when everyone who accepted rhaenyra as queen rejects her, the only person left to love rhaenyra will be alicent, who never loved rhaenyra as queen but rhaenyra as a person ("she was the vision that sustained him [...] it was his love for her that kept him resolute in his choice of heir."). alicent, who abandoned her gods and duty to go to rhaenyra on dragonstone and appeal to the person beneath the crown ("i cast myself on the mercy of a friend who once loved me."). alicent, who's made a god of rhaenyra, not as queen, but as the girl she read with beneath the godswood ("come with me.").

[vaspider]

Okay look

I know that with how old i am and where I'm from, you basically have to like Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen or you'll get chased out of town while people throw fucking D batteries at you, but

Billy Joel has a new single, and it's really fucking good.

[slymanner]

Always loved how shadow in heroes is just basically a new born baby, learning new things since he lost all his memories, so he's just going along with rouge's sudden aggression against the chaotix for supposedly being a threat to her getting eggman's treasure like she's a learning example like.

"you guys don't fool me!!"

"no no u don't fool her."

"I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE AFTER, BETTER STAY OUT OF MY WAY!"

"yes yes stay of her way."

[nymdraws]

I saw you crying at the discotheque

[rakkuntoast]

they're actually co-workers they themselves told me

[tomiyeee]

likes the smell of pineapple-scented air fresheners while (sort of) implying that he doesn’t like real pineapples

likes drinking out of pineapple cups

??? i don’t know what to make of this but the presence of the pineapple seems intentional

hates the combination of pineapple and ham

...why does this man have a more complicated relationship with a god damn fruit than some shows have between its own characters???

[sprachgefuehle]

The true danger of learning Spanish that no one ever warns you of is that you might end up speaking a dialect where they add the diminuitive -ito and -ita to every word because you might end up using that in other languages as well.

This post is sponsored by me, an adult in their late twenties, casually and without a hint of irony dropping into a conversation with other adults the sentence "I saw some birdies at the lakey" in German.

[razberrybones]

HEYY GANG!!! Made an alterhuman blog so i could more directly be involved in the community <3

Please interact with this post if you're alterhuman/therian/otherkin whatever, I'm wanting to meet people and make friends lmao

[wrayofmoonshine]

whatever you do, don’t imagine eddie doing a running jump at steve’s back while he’s trying to talk to someone, and steve catching him in a piggyback without even breaking away from the conversation. then eddie starts to attack his neck with little nibbles while going “BITING you BITING you BITING you BITING you” over and over again until steve turns his head just enough to catch his lips with his own so eddie gets stopped mid sentence like “BITING you BIT—oh! kissing you! :D”

[revenantghost]

This is a good point!

Please don't be mean to whatever intern is reading the messages, but it wouldn't hurt to press for Dark Horse to at least proofread the things. Like, this was their delay announcement:

And I personally don't think we really hit that "best quality possible" mark with these $50 books that were delayed a year and still have basic typos in them. Again, please don't be cruel, but if you've been bothered by the quality of the first volume, consider shooting them a message:

[synchodai]

Let's talk adaptation theory, because I've been seeing a lot of accusations that criticism of HotD is just "wanting it to be exactly like the books" and "book purists" not knowing what an adaptation is. So okay, let's talk about what an adaptation is, then.

I'll mostly be quoting from Linda Hutcheon's A Theory of Adaptation, because this is the first book most everyone reads when going into adaptation studies. Let's look at several ways we can approach and critique adaptation.

ADAPTATION AS INTERPRETATION

The adapted text, therefore, is not something to be reproduced, but something to be interpreted and recreated [...]

No one expects HotD to be a 1:1 reproduction of F&B. Hutcheon often compares adaptation to the process of linguistic translation, in that there will always be an inevitable loss of fidelity when translating from one language to another. However, the translator is still expected to provide an accurate representation of the source text — hence, adaptation as interpretation and recreation. Some may call this approach "fidelity criticism," an evaluation of quality based on how much the adaptation aligns with the source text.

("Fidelity criticism" is not what GRRM did. He didn't criticize the show simply because it differed from the books, and often even praises changes from the source material if it "strengthens" the impact of the work. His priority was never fidelity.)

This approach has its detractors, but there is merit to pointing out that HotD and its audience will have a difficult time interpreting and conveying F&B's message (story) if the showrunners actively take out key words (characters) and terminology (plot events). If we view adaptation as translation (from one medium to another), then the role of the adapter is to convey the intention and meaning of the source text as accurately as possible. And people do have a right to criticize "accuracy" of meaning if we see adaptation as a process of translation and remediation — which you are free not to, but some people DO come from this angle and are often dismissed as "book purists."

If you see adaptation as interpretation, are you a book purist? Perhaps, depending on what the definition of "book purist" is, but to make it clear, the people who are coming from this viewpoint clearly do not expect a blow-by-blow reproduction, and to argue that they do is dismissing a whole school of thought when it comes to adaptation.

ADAPTATION AS SUBSTITUTION

Another way to look at adaptation is through a "process of substitution." Pretty simple to understand, right? Prose that says "red dress" is substituted for an image of a white gown but with ruby embellishments, two characters are merged into one for the show, and Aemond and Aegon working together in Rook's Rest is substituted for the former betraying the latter. Your mileage may vary on whether you find these acceptable substitutions.

I believe this is the camp GRRM falls into. He brings up fidelity only insofar that he's concerned a lack of it will lead to poor and unacceptable substitutions.

How does one know if a substitution is "acceptable?" Well, I'd like to use the analogy Hutcheon brings up about surgery:

Usually adaptations, especially from long novels, mean that the adapter's job is one of subtraction or contraction; this is called "surgical art."

Good adaptations are like good surgeries: the body remains holistically intact and ideally functions better with the replacements and removals. Bad adaptations are like bad surgeries — hence the oft lobbied critique of an adaptation "butchering" the source material. The body of the adapted text cannot function on its own, being maimed or crippled by the adaptation process.

For example, the adaptational change of making Rhaenyra and Alicent the "heart" of the story has been discussed a lot by fans and critics. It was praised in the first season because it gave the story an intimate and personal "face." But it was lambasted in the second season because it actively deterred the plot progression, "crippling" the pace and stakes of the show.

In GRRM's case, his argument was that while Maelor was an unimportant part by himself, his presence was necessary for the continued function of other more vital organs. He goes on to suggest possible replacements and reprecussions upon the text as a whole. While he expresses disapproval that Maelor was removed in the first place and mentions other potentially "toxic" changes, there's also the (albeit wary) admission that Condal and his team could very still find acceptable substitutes that may stave off the damage he foresees being done to the body.

Again, this is valid criticism and a legitimate approach to HotD as an adaptation.

ADAPTATION AS AUTONOMOUS

Perhaps one way to think about unsuccessful adaptations is not in terms of infidelity to a prior text, but in terms of lack of creativity and skill to make the text one's own and autonomous.

Basically, this approach to adaptation asks, "Is the show still good by itself? Or does it fall apart without its source text and paratext (interviews, podcasts, press releases, etc.)?" This mode argues that adaptations cannot be simply sequels, prequels, or any sort of expansion of the source text. They must be separate retellings that actively evolve and mutate into a species that can survive on its own — mainly, that it adapts to a new context and audience so to speak.

A critique lobbied at the season two HotD finale was that its impact relied solely on the legacy of the prior show and the A Song of Ice and Fire mystery of who truly is The Prince That Was Promised. If the audience had no connection to Daenerys, no investment in the question of who truly was TPTWP, and never watched Game of Thrones, would Daemon's decision to finally devote himself to Rhaenyra make sense? Or does its emotional resonance rely solely on the audience's investment to another story that is not this one? Is it an adaptation of F&B or a prequel to GoT?

There's nothing wrong with it being a prequel, but if it was billed as an adaptation, then the audience has the right to feel misled because both conventional wisdom and esoteric theory agree that prequels are not adaptations. I think this is the school of thought most people subscribe to when they say HotD feels like "fanfiction" — because while fanfics CAN be written as adaptation (like modern AUs, video game novelizations, etc.), a vast majority of them are not. Most fanfics are grafted on expansions reliant on the source text for context.

This is all to say that a lot of criticism levied against the show, including GRRM's, can't be chalked up to "people not knowing what an adaptation is." There are several different ways to approach adaptation — the question is does HotD succeed in any of them?

[shinynewmemories]

All the final lines of each part of every Hunger Games book

THG: 

Part I:

“Because . . . because . . . she came here with me.”

Part II:

Before I can stop myself, I call out Peeta’s name.

Part III:

I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go.

CF:

Part I:

It’s my mockingjay.

Part II:

This is no place for a girl on fire.

Part III:

“Katniss, there is no District Twelve.”

MJ:

Part I:

And his blood as it splatters the tiles.

Part II:

That I’m of more use to her dead than alive.

Part III:

I tell him, “Real.”

[rampantram]

Just wanted to draw my lamb in the three most-used fleeces from my play-through (thought it'd be fun if each one had different underclothes).

Which fleece is your favorite~? 🥀✨

[contagious-watermelon]

i think part of the reason that aromantic awareness is lagging so far behind that of asexuality is that romance is viewed as straight-up ubiquitous, whereas sexuality is thought of as a choice people make. (e.g. purity culture & making the choice Not to have sex; dating as a given while hooking up is notable)

hence, asexuality may be misconstrued as synonymous with celibacy, but aromanticism isn't (can't be) construed as anything because nobody can conceptualize its existence at all. a fish doesnt even know it's wet...

[no-brain-just-good-omens]

what do you mean this is full volume the song needs to be louder. I want my ears to bleed

[7millionheartemojis]

"i can take care of myself" <- girl who absolutely fucking cannot