#L 3-4

[midnightpillsnacking]

[Loulou*di S3V1 L 3-4] Hana-Doll 3rd Season THINK OF ME:MONO Translation

Translation below the cut.

Google Drive link | Listen to the album on Spotify

Project Archive: L 3-4

Musumi's Colleague: Did you find him?

Musumi: Not at all.

Musumi's Colleague: Let’s search at the far end of the facility.

(Medical staff members run off)

Kaoru: Just why am I…? When did I arrive here?

(Kaoru walks down and opens a door)

Kaoru: There’s a garden all the way here? (hears some rustling noises, walks over to investigate) A teddy bear?

Toki: It’s my friend.

Kaoru: Is someone there?

Toki: Hmm? No, there’s nobody. No–body at all. It’s always been like that. I’m alone.

Kaoru: …Then, is it alright for me to be here today?

Toki: Eh? But…

Kaoru: If you’re not opposed to it, that is.

Toki: …But, but, it’ll be bad if someone finds me.

Kaoru: I won’t come any closer. In any case, I’ll sit down with my back towards you. That way, even if anyone comes through the door, they won’t be able to see you.

Toki: … I see. Mm, then it’s okay. I’ll let you.

Kaoru: Thank you very much.

Toki: …Say.

Kaoru: Yes?

Toki: Why are you here?

Kaoru: … I wonder why.

Toki: You don’t know?

Kaoru: I’m not very clear myself.

Toki: Hmm.

Kaoru: How about you? Why are you here?

Toki: … I don’t know either. When I woke up, I was in the car and I couldn’t move. It hurt, so I ran away.

Kaoru: Why?

Toki: I don’t want them to see me. They can’t ever know.

Kaoru: They can’t know?

Toki: If I’m in pain, they’ll be happy.

Kaoru: Happy? Just who do you mean? That’s…

Toki: My family.

Kaoru: Your family will be happy if you aren’t well?

Toki: Yeah.

Kaoru: No way…

Toki: That’s why… they can’t ever know. Nobody can know… the truth…

(Leaves rustle)

Kaoru: Are you alright?

Toki: Don’t come near me. I’m okay, I’m okay. That’s why, please, please, don’t throw me away…!

Kaoru: …….

Toki: Please, please! Don’t leave me…!

Kaoru: I’m right here.

Toki: … Your hand’s… warm.

Kaoru: Yes. I’m holding your hand. But, that’s all I’m going to do. You don’t want to be seen, right? Don’t worry.

Toki: … Mm.

Kaoru: I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.

Toki: (whimpers)

Kaoru: Besides, I won’t tell anybody. I’ll keep it a secret.

Toki: … Hey.

Kaoru: Yes?

Toki: Thank you.

Kaoru: Don’t mention it. I was just doing an imitation.

Toki: An imitation? Of what?

Kaoru: A long time ago, when I was struggling, some kind people held my hand. I really liked that.

Toki: Hmm.

Kaoru: They held my hand gently, told me it was going to be okay, and gave me sweet things to eat.

Toki: Sweet things? What kind?

Kaoru: All kinds. Pudding, cake, and macarons too.

Toki: Sounds tasty. I love sweet things.

Kaoru: Me too.

(Both of them giggle)

Toki: That sounds nice. If only I could have that too.

Kaoru: But…

Toki: Hmm?

Kaoru: That might have been a dream.

Toki: A dream?

Kaoru: Lately, I can’t tell just what are dreams and what is reality.

Toki: … Isn’t it okay for it to be either?

Kaoru: Either?

Toki: Mm. You get to feel sweet and nice either way.

Kaoru: (chuckles) You’re right.

Toki: Aren’t I?

Kaoru: Yes. Your hand’s all warm now.

Toki: Mm. The hurt’s gone.

Kaoru: That’s great.

Toki: I want to stay like this forever.

Kaoru: Yes, me too.

Toki: I wonder if this nice, warm feeling is all just a dream too.

Kaoru: Maybe it is.

Toki: Oh, that’s right. I remembered something. Wanna hear about it?

Kaoru: Of course.

Toki: I’ve always had amazing dreams.

Kaoru: What kind of dreams were they?

Toki: I was standing in the middle of sparkling light, being watched by a crowd of happy people. And, best of all, I wasn’t all. I was with the people I loved, and we were walking in that light together.

Kaoru: That sounds like a dazzling dream.

Toki: Yep. And then, I thought of something. That I could do anything. That’s when I realized that that pretty world was all just a dream.

Kaoru: What do you mean?

Toki: I’m a weak and pathetic human, so there hasn’t been a single thing I’ve been able to do right. I don’t even have the hope to wish for it.

Kaoru: Just because you couldn’t do it in the past, doesn’t mean you won’t be able to in the future. If you could do it in your dreams, then you can do it in reality.

Toki: Do you think so?

Kaoru: Yes. If you were really incapable of anything, then you wouldn’t even be able to dream in the first place. Dreams are proof that you know it in your heart. It’s precisely why you know that the possibility isn’t 0–you’ve seen that it could be done.

Toki: I see. It’ll be nice if it’s really like that.

(Sound of footsteps)

Musumi's Colleague: Over here!

Toki: (gasps) Someone’s here!

Kaoru: It’s okay. Stay calm.

Toki: What should I do? I don’t want to be caught, I don’t want to take that medicine anymore…!

Kaoru: Medicine?

Toki: It makes me feel all soft inside and I feel really good… I’m so scared of it! It makes me feel like I’ll lose myself!

Kaoru: Please leave this to me. Just stay and hide here.

(Kaoru walks over)

Kaoru: Um, excuse me.

Musumi's Colleague: You are…

Kaoru: I’m sorry for entering without permission. I got lost.

Musumi's Colleague: Shouldn’t you be in the Observation Room?

Kaoru: I’m done with the post-observation hearing, so I was heading back to the dorm. But I forgot how to go back while I was trying to leave.

Musumi's Colleague: Is that why you’re here?

Kaoru: Yes. It was dark and I couldn’t tell where I was going. I got scared, so I hid in the bushes.

Musumi's Colleague: So that’s how it is. You must have been terrified.

Kaoru: I’m really sorry for the trouble.

Musumi's Colleague: No, we apologize as well. We should have done a proper follow-up. Come, let’s head back.

Kaoru: Yes.

Musumi's Colleague: The car will drop you off near your dorm.

Kaoru: Thank you very much. By the way, well, about the–

Musumi's Colleague: If you’re referring to him, then rest assured.

Kaoru: Did you already find out?

Musumi's Colleague: There are many cameras in this place. There’s probably much more of those kinds of things around that you can imagine.

Kaoru: I see…

Musumi's Colleague: You had contact with him, didn’t you? Did you two talk?

Kaoru: … Just a little.

Musumi's Colleague: What do you think?

Kaoru: He seemed terribly lonely and it seemed like something awful happened to him. It’s like he didn’t want anyone to find out what really happened to him.

Musumi's Colleague: Do you think the both of you could get along?

Kaoru: I can’t tell. It was dark so I couldn’t see his face, and I didn’t manage to ask for his name. Anyway, even if we were able to meet again, I can’t say that I will recognize that it’s him.

Musumi's Colleague: Anything else strange you noticed? Did he say anything?

Kaoru: He said he didn’t want to take the medicine. He said it made him feel like he would lose himself. Um, I don’t know what exactly this medicine is, but, please, do you think you could hold back from administering it to him?

Musumi's Colleague: That’s–

Kaoru: I know fully well that I’m not in a place to ask something like that. But I think he was genuinely afraid. It wasn’t for show.

Musumi's Colleague: (sighs) I understand. We will take proper action.

Kaoru: Thank you very much.

Musumi's Colleague: Leave the rest to us. You should head back to the dorm. The security guard over there will see you to your vehicle.

Kaoru: Alright. Then, I’ll take my leave.

(Kaoru leaves. The medical staff makes a call)

Musumi's Colleague: Please send the Anthos* Doll back to the dorm. As for the remaining Doll, immediately secure him and send him to the treatment room.

Musumi: I apologize. I put too much trust in Kaoru-kun and ended up taking my eyes off him.

Musumi's Colleague: You’re lucky that it was him. He’s a Doll that’s normally honest and obedient. He’s not the type to lie.

Musumi: That’s right… at least, he gave off the vibe that you could trust him unconditionally.

Musumi's Colleague: It’s because within Anthos*, he’s the one that’s the closest to full bloom.

Musumi: Oh, so that’s what it is! The flower’s ability truly is amazing. I heard that he’s suffering from severe memory loss, but what does that have to do with the water?

Musumi's Colleague: Nothing at all. We haven’t administered water to Anthos*. That’s a special case from Dr Toudou.

Musumi: I see. I had no idea.

Musumi's Colleague: It truly is our blessing in disguise this time. In that state, it’s only a matter of time before he forgets everything that happened today.

(The staff head back inside)

Musumi's Colleague: More importantly, we have the one from Loulou*di to worry about. If we don’t start regulating his condition before the next live show…

Musumi: The next live show… is another lavish one, isn’t it?

Musumi's Colleague: That’s right. It’s next week.

Musumi: Can we make it?

Musumi's Colleague: We’ve got no other choice. Right now we’ve only got the water to fall back on, but there’s still cause for concern. Live shows have a great impact when it comes to emotional state.

Musumi: But live shows are also a source for a lot of positive emotions, right? In any case both the mind and body will stabilize, so there’s the possibility that the need for water can be weaned off.

Musumi's Colleague: That’s all just a facade.

Musumi: What do you mean?

Musumi's Colleague: Just who gets to decide whether emotions are positive or negative?

Musumi: ‘Who’...?

Musumi's Colleague: Is the seed capable of judgment and thought?

Musumi: But… That’s what it says on the written material.

Musumi's Colleague: Emotions that leave an impact will influence the flower’s development. That much is true. But, that’s all it does. Do you think that the emotions experienced by a 20-something-year-old being cheered on by a large crowd of people is something that it can imitate?

Musumi: That’s…

Musumi's Colleague: By administering the water, we can complete the flower’s development and give it flesh and blood that can be controlled. However, in exchange, whatever human emotion that’s there dies. An eternal beauty is preserved, but can we really say that what remains is living? I’m no expert in philosophy, so unfortunately I can’t open myself to that discussion.

Musumi: Then, what if we just leave the seed in for a short period of time and just remove it after? How about transferring the same seed between different people? We can lessen the strain across individuals. A singular cycle may become shorter, but the seed will be able to accumulate the progress across clinical trials while in an idol, right?

Musumi's Colleague: Yes, it’ll be a little better if we could do it that way.

Musumi: So we can’t?

Musumi's Colleague: We don’t have a perfect successful example to draw from. Both the body and the inserted seed are tightly bound to their host.

Musumi: No way…

Musumi's Colleague: Have you heard of this idol that was in Loulou*di, Amemiya Kaito?

Musumi: Yes, from the written material.

Musumi's Colleague: Currently, we know that whether the flower withers or the host dies, the seed will start to rot from within the body. Where we managed to retrieve this evidence was from none other than Kaito.

Musumi: E-Eh? Hang on, Amemiya Kaito should have withdrawn from Loulou*di…

Musumi's Colleague: We are researching unexplored territory at the forefront of medical research. It’s as you said. The mindset of pioneers is a weight too much to bear for the average Joe. (starts to walk away) Ah, that’s right. As your senior, let me offer you a word of advice: It’s better if you don’t refer to the Dolls by their names. If you let your feelings get a hold of you, you’ll regret it later.

Translator’s Notes:

The medical staff in this drama track should be the recurring medical staff from the previous drama track. This was only what I gathered by ear, but if anyone owns the physical CD and has the credits for the characters, feel free to let me know!

[pastelhooman]

[WVW Exchange Event 2023!]

"The kisses on your lash, your ears, on the nose that keeps scrunching. The kisses on your hand, on your cheeks, and the exchanging soft words waiting for the break of day."

----- ID under break -----

A total of 6 pages of comics, starting with a close up shots of vash kissing sleeping wolfwood's nose, eyes, lashes, and he furrows them a bit. an overhead shot of the two of them in a motel room, on the bed with vash leaning over wolfwood from the left, laying soft kisses on him. their legs tangled. their normal outfits are thrown haphazardly on the floor, instead donning comfortable clothes. on the outside, the very first ray of lights are yet to shine.

"what a face you're making pfft" - vash says as he grabs both of wolfwood's cheeks, squeezing them a bit. wolfwood mumbles, "There's something that keeps landing on my face, it tickles." he grabs the hand that is on his right cheek. "Well you're letting it happens anyways right?" Vash muses, bringing the hand up to kiss on its knuckles. "Good morning Wolfwood. It's almost dawn"

"… Isn't it way too soon?" - wolfwood asks, but keeps to himself the prayers he's sending to god because the the boy on top of him was such a sight to behold. Vash flops down onto him, leaving the hand hanging and lace his own hand into Wolfwood's hair, peppering kisses to the side of his face. "Yep" - he answers - "But you woke up on your own tho" - facetiously. He giggles, saying that it was a joke after a beat of silence. A sigh, "don't make me upside you first thing in the morning." Wolfwood closes his eyes, hand combing through golden strands. "Heh, how merciful~" "We have a meet up with Milly and Meryl today, remember?" Vash reminds him, which does raise some vague memory. wolfwood hums, the other hand reaching around vash's torso, hugging him. " So, the sooner we arrive, the less likely she'll chew through my head." - Vash adds. "riiiight. And you were SO urgent in waking me up." in wolfwood's hold, both of them slowly turn to the right, towards the edge of the bed.

Well, you were just soooo cute, I couldn't help it! didn't thinkk you'll actually wakE UAA-!"

the bed creaks under the sudden shift in weight as wolfwood tosses vash over and under him, arms firmly hugging him, one at his back and one at his head, hungrily dives down to kiss. "!! Wolf-! Wait-!" Vash yelps, leg instinctively curls around the other's man hip to hang on, trying his damnest to grip on his shirt as HE is now half airborne, barely has any contact with the bed on his upper body. However, wolfwood seems to have another idea as he keeps deepening the kiss, pointedly holding Vash close, hands spread guarding the back of his head as both of them are sliding off the soft fabric.

"THUD!" a resounding fall, possibly enough to wake the room downstairs, followed shortly by laboured breaths amist wet smacks of lips. Heaves and huffs of air exchanging between the two bodies when the need to breath made itself necessary. They press close, cradling each other, and are lost to their own world. After a while they had to part. Metal arm shifts through black locks, caressing down to his nape and they hold eye contacts there, with lidded eyes, strands of saliva thins then breaks.

Wolfwood pushes up on his arms, looking smugly down at his now disheveled partner: "Now this is how it's done, Needlenoggin." he remarks. Vash tries to wrangle his thoughts back in order, but strings of Wolfwood's name and a wonderous question keeps filling his mind, of whether he should risk it all and have fun for a bit more. Regardless, snapping out of his trance, Vash sourly asks, with a wry smile and an aching head: "But did you really need to roll off the bed?" "Wrong side, whoops" - Wolfwood anwers unseriously, laughing as he finds the situation quite amusing.

----- End of ID -----

[rocketbirdie]

here comes trouble (make it double!)

[feralmoonlight]

cowboys are ok I guess @castercassette

[colsons-baker]

Scream 3 (2000)

[blueiight]

“what can the damned really say to the damned?” is what this episode asks. and well… “nothing.” is what the show answers us with.

we are introduced to louis and claudia as ultimate outcasts to the mortals around them and vampiredom: louis attempts to maintain the illusions of humanity in similar structures once more, casting grace as his lost wife and claudia as his daughter, as claudia seeks to find other vampires. armand, clearly pissed about the interview as is, decides to draw upon 150 years of prior work experience as a playwright toward the end of this episode, which is quite frankly, a bit much considering how daniel’s already scared shitless. and theres a terrible romantic specter in europe following louis thats named lestat. its a lot going on here, and im bound to not cover everything. i do want to cover dreamstat, and me and you(5x) but i will wait for the season to progress to do that^_^

‘He asked me if we could go home. Home? Can there be a more offensive question? Run back to New Orleans. Pry up his bones, why don’t you? Louis de Pointe du Lac, dead weight.’

louis and claudia’s tension in this particular episode revolve around the killing — or the betrayal that prevented the killing — of lestat. et tu, louis? stowaways on ships, trains, and wagons and a totally alien environment where even the blood is hostile to them, is it any wonder louis dreams of lestat? is it any wonder, having access to louis’s mind, in pursuit of some understanding of vampires beyond the facismile of the nuclear structure, that claudia continues to feel betrayed? i always think to myself, if claudia had qualities that made the average fan more sympathetic to her, would they understand how she was betrayed by louis specifically that night? would they be able to sympathize with claudia’s incredible perserverance despite, and because of, everything thats happened to her? and how that betrayal is the underlying tragedy and romance alike of the narrative that made 1940 mardi gras’s aftermath so haunting that louis in dubai did not remember it or was made not to until the other night?

following that in the flashbacks is when dreamstat first appears, clearly an extension of louis’s own mind at this own point, and he asks louis:

Four years of grim wayfaring, and still no sight of the benevolent vampire. So how does denial manifest itself tonight? … Was she worth it?

its so telling that lestat is the image louis calls upon to embody his most bitter feelings toward claudia in this sequence. dreamstat deserves his own breakdown, especially in relation to louis& claudia’s conversation when she first finds the revenant, as well as the wider events in dubai…

speaking of revenants, morgan in the show is a proto-daniel of sorts an abandoned journalist whos interest in photography exposes the illusion of grace the wife and claudia the impossible daughter, and tries to understand louis through the perspective of the mortal hes been given — did he go AWOL, or is he a black bolshevik? louis when questioned absconds, and closes up what little of himself he’s sold to morgan. its a smart way to include him in the narrative, as morgan is witness to emilia’s beheading after she was attacked by said revenant… and louis turns his head, truly embodying the detachment of the vampire in this moment. human affairs, their problem. this is a really good example of whats meant by ‘human affairs’ in the show, by the way. this episode features claudia & louis facing racism from military to children, and thats not framed as a ‘human affair’, but as one of many haunting aspects of their immortal existences.

claudia, in the pursuit for vampires, continues the metaphor of adoption in how she tries to find some sort of companionship and her current understanding of romania as this ancestral home to the vampire. whats also noticeable here is how claudia trying to make sense of centuries of legends is a striking parallel to how louis in the present day attempts to make sense of whats ‘true’ and ‘untrue’ from her diaries. claudia’s private accounts in the present that she never intended to be so deeply analyzed as anything other than her internal narrative in the moments she wrote them has become, to louis, a similar sort of legend thats necessary to decode for his own sense of self.

She writes here, ‘I do not dream.’ I can confirm that. At least, that’s what she said to me once when I was talking about one of my dreams which were erratic and often in those years. Of course, she might’ve just said that to shut me up, but yet… she writes it here so… let’s believe it. She continues. ‘We traveled light in our ancestral home. We slept in the earth, took circuitous routes around the mad army goose-stepping its way toward mother Russia…’

I woke that night to the sound of chaos erupting nearby. Claudia was, uh.. . she was dreaming. Her head twitching like you would. […] No, I can feel her. I can feel her next to me. She’s having a nightmare. What’s worse than a nightmare? If your soul’s projecting out its fears, at least it’s up and running. But the absence of anything? The void, the nothing, pieces… coming back. Hours, nights, objects surfacing in water… It was just something she’d wrote. But it wasn’t true. She could dream.

dubai louis’s recollection of claudia and the existential dread of eternally being damned, the terror of lacking a soul, a rather catholic fear but still having a sequence of memories that cycle back into an immortal brain, replay in this inversed sleep cycle, can be malleable, forgotten, poke a hole in louis’s attempt to utilize claudia’s diaries as but an extension of his own narrative, and offers a glimpse at what is truly at stake in this second interview.

[baeshijima]

[CAR CRASH] [GLASS SHATTERING] ‘GOOD LORD!’ [GENERAL COMMOTION] [BABY CRYING] ‘WAAAAH WAAAAH’ [YELLING] [POLICE SIRENS] WEEWOO WEEWOO [HELICOPTERS] ‘WE’RE REPORTING LIVE-‘ [EXPLOSION] ‘MY LEG... MY LEG...’

[spiraling-trap]

what if lawlight had an adopted child and what if it was naoto shirogane from persona 4

i tried to keep naoto’s original story in mind and it actually works so well. lawlight was meant to be their parents

naoto is transmasc he/they to me but i used they for consistency <3 i’m also just making this a non-transphobic 2011 au 💀 lawlight calls naoto they from the start cuz they’re a woke family ig

[benevolenterrancy]

Can I ask what was your first impression of TGCF and if it turned out wrong or right?

My first impression of TGCF was "this goof continuously ascends to -- and gets kicked out of -- heaven, this is going to be clown town isn't it?"

And honestly I stand by that one, I think I was completely correct**

(**barring the fact that this goof will then go on to experience ever conceivable horror known to man but honestly I mostly expected it after MDZS)

[cinnamonrollsledge]

HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH + BAND OF BROTHERS:

JOSEPH "JOE" RAMIREZ

Born October 5th, 1921, in Nebraska

Died April 8th, 1988 (age 66), in Martinez, California

Joe Ramirez enlisted in September 1942 (age 20) in San Francisco, CA, and he trained with Easy Company at Toccoa. Holding the rank of Private, he served in Normandy, Holland, and Bastogne. He was hospitalized in January 1945, and discharged in July 1945. After the war, he was married for many years, and had children and grandchildren. When he passed away he was buried with his wife, who had passed away 11 years earlier. Further information about him is scarce, but the brief character profile in the Band of Brothers series bible describes him as Mexican-American, and his personality as "sensitive and nervous."

Appears in Episodes 1, 3-8, and 10; portrayed by actor Rene L. Moreno

Sources below

A million thanks to @bleedingcoffee42 for tracking down this info for me!

[bonesbuckleup]

girl help I'm 70,000 words deep into writing this novel and think I have to reoutline and rework the whole thing

[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.

[minamill]

New Year's Eve was celebrated with family, friends and country music

[boygirl-club]

SAKI MIZUKI AND RUI GRAPHICS

for day 2 of our event

MOD EMU'S CHALLENGE: party at club bug!

free to use with credit

[colsons-baker]

1997 cinematic re-release of ‘Scream’ advertisement

[project-sekai-facts]

meiko on her way to become the vsinger with the most 4*s

good for her <3

poor luka though she hasn't had a 4* card since december. it's nearly summer get up queen