#boring/too character-focused

[fictionadventurer]

After I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole of someone reviewing episodes of Wishbone, my favorite game has been coming up with books/short stories/plays that would make good Wishbone adaptations. The criteria for qualification are:

In the public domain

By an author that hasn't already had a story adapted by Wishbone

A leading male role for an adorable Jack Russell terrier to play

A plot that can be condensed down so the important plot points fit into a roughly fifteen-minute adaptation

Content that is or can be adapted to be suitable for a middle-school audience (though they seem not to have let that stop them as often as you'd think)

Lends itself to a companion story that parallels the plot or themes of the novel in a modern-day middle-school setting

With those criteria defined, the options I've come up with so far are:

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

Wishbone plays: Mr. John Thornton Adaptability: You'd have to cut everything except the strike and the love story. Start with Margaret coming to Milton and disliking Thornton. Have her meet the Higginses and dislike mill owners. Defend Thornton during the strike. Refuse the proposal. Show Higgins and Thornton coming to an understanding, suggest Thornton loses his money, have Margaret save him and propose. The book has way too much for such a short adaptation, but everything else by Gaskell doesn't have enough plot to adapt into a short version or doesn't have a male role for Wishbone. And it would be so cute to see Wishbone in Thornton's Victorian outfits. Modern-day story: At school, a situation comes up that divides students into two rival camps, and they have to learn how to work together and come to a compromise that benefits everyone.

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Wishbone plays: Jack Worthing (you'd want a human actor for someone as lively as Algernon) Adaptability: Pretty high. Plays seem to work well for Wishbone adaptations, and you can tell the story in a few scenes. Modern-day story: Modern-day retelling focusing on the importance of honesty. One of the kids gets out of chores at home by pretending they have to help a new student with homework, but their lies come back to bite them.

"The Absence of Mr. Glass" by G.K. Chesterton

Wishbone plays: Father Brown (imagine him in a cute little clerical collar!) Adaptability: Great. Wishbone has done several detective stories, and short stories easily fit into the short time frame. I chose "Mr. Glass" because it doesn't involve a murder or a lengthy philosophical discussion, and lends itself well to a funny modern story about not jumping to conclusions Modern-day story: One of the kids' parents is acting strangely. The kids investigate and build up the clues until they believe some wild and terrible situation is happening. It turns out to be something innocent (like a surprise party)

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

Wishbone plays: Henry Higgins Adaptability: Pretty good. Plays work well, and the story is very condensable. Not sure how well a story about the intricacies of British accents would adapt to an American show, but it would still work if you make it about "learn fancy manners and don't talk like a hick". You could get some great puns out of the dog telling a human to "Speak!" Modern-day story: The classic school story plot of changing yourself to impress a potential love interest. The girl tries to doll herself up for a dance and learns it's better to be herself.

[corellianhounds]

I know we (rightfully) give Attack of the Clones a lot of grief for Obi-Wan just being able to show up unannounced and for him to just be given the literal biggest state secrets possibly of the entire war, in addition to how this cloning operation has been going on for like a decade without anyone knowing anything or any documentation crossing Mace Windu’s desk, but considering Sifo Dyas or Dooku or whoever was able to somehow erase an entire planet from (allegedly) every known bit of data collection or documentation, it could be argued that maybe Dyas and Dooku were just master forgers and had fake correspondence and reports going between them and the Kaminoans for over a decade now.

It’s not that far of a leap to say they got their hands on some heavily encrypted software on some very expensive computers and were able to imitate different speech patterns and documents and handwriting and official stamps or even holograms and holocalls. As far as the Kaminoans know, all of their contacts are fully aware and in the know about this clone army (because as far as they know, Sifo Dyas is alive and had to have been in communication recently)— When Obi-Wan shows up, it just happened to be at the exact time Dooku was the one supposed to be there in person himself that day. The Kaminoans did greet him as Master Jedi and said he was expected.

Obviously that could have only worked in the movie if Dooku had shown up and we saw him having to keep his cool/sneak around when some other Kaminoans tell him his “assistant” has already arrived, would you like us to escort you to him?

Internally Dooku’s thinking “WHOMST??” but externally he’s keeping his chill while searching the Force for whoever else might be— is that OBI-WAN KENOBI??

It’s soooooo tasty for Qui-Gon’s master and Qui-Gon’s apprentice to meet under these circumstances. Both of them know the other shouldn’t be there right now. They’re both having to play it cool in front of the Kaminoans, and this is even besides the fact Kenobi was there to find the bounty hunter assassin in the first place.

“I didn’t think you… were still as active in the Order,” Obi-Wan says slowly and diplomatically, knowing for a FACT that Dooku left the Order a long time ago.

“I… retired from active service,” Dooku says, equally diplomatically. “I act as a… consultant from time to time.”

“It’s soooo funny how I’ve never heard anything about that or this clone army the Jedi ordered,” Obi-Wan says, making direct eye contact with Dooku and probably trying to read his mind (to no avail). “The one they ordered ten years ago before there was ever any thought of the Jedi being actively involved on the frontlines of what isn’t a declared war. What would the Jedi want with a military in the first place?”

“How old are you, young one?” Dooku deflects in that fake kindly condescending grandfatherly voice. “How long have you been on the Council— Oh you’re just a Kniiiiight, that’s right, okay I see. How interesting. How much information are you actually privilege to, Obi-Wan?”

And this is all happening even before Obi-Wan Nancy Drew’d his way to Jango Fett’s private quarters!

Obi-Wan KNOWS he can’t go rogue right now when he’s that far from his ship on a city surrounded by an ocean and a literal army of clones soldiers (of that one super efficient bounty hunter, whenever it is he finds that out) all apparently under the command (?) of someone who definitely definitely super should not be speaking or doing or ordering anything under the name of the Jedi Order.

Count Dooku (who he doesn’t even know is a Sith yet) could very easily accuse him of being an impostor and have him detained or attacked or killed on sight. Zam Wessel was already established to be a shapeshifter in this movie, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility for Obi-Wan to not be who he says he is (which is kinda true?? since he WASN’T the Jedi ambassador for the Temple there to pick up his to-go order of a quarter-million identical men, with a million more on the way??). The Kaminoans might not even know much else about Jedi and Sith aesthetics besides “Wears robes” so if Dooku pulled a red lightsaber it might not even faze them, since he’d be able to provide more information and correspondence proving he’s the ‘actual’ Jedi anyway

Like can you imagine a fight breaking out not just between Kenobi and Jango, but a team-up of Jango and Dooku against Kenobi? That would have jumpstarted some of this clone army business a lot earlier in the movie and actually addressed what should have been the biggest conspiracy, coverup, and militaristic move of the MILLENNIUM

[creativity-deficient]

I think my main complaint with all these specials coming out is that they no longer feel…special?? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be getting new content and I always end up enjoying them regardless (and I’m sure I’ll enjoy this one too it looks like it’ll be very funny) they just lack any sort of nuance to me. Like the plots to them feel like fairly ordinary episodes, just longer, and they’re always either Randy or Cartman focused. I get that they have a contract and are obligated to put out a certain amount of specials, I just wish they’d change them up a bit? Like they just don’t hit like past specials anymore.

[clumsypuppy]

isnt it great when u take your adhd meds and instead of using that brainpower for stuff like ASSIGNMENTS. AND PROJECTS. your brain decides the next 6 hours will be brainstorming ponysona names and making oc playlists

[marvelousazula]

I'll not elaborate but episode 7 is so good that it's a stark contrast with how episodes 5 & 6 are barely mediocre, actually. (it would still be a good episode if those were good but...)

[bmpmp3]

everyone on earth probably has a hypothetical farming sim in their mind's eye that they daydream about on occasion because of the unfortunate situation that despite there being like a thousand farming games released every minute only like 4 of them are any good. and i think this is fun, i think its good to keep the imagination alive. if i made a farming sim i would bring back rival marriages from the old friends of mineral town. i want to steal someones wife.

[arty-cakes]

i finally got around to centaurworld's finale and holy fucking shit??? they can go that hard??

[emmcfrxst]

Scott summers character wise never clicked with me but Marsden is just too pretty so that's the only cyclops that invokes the inner Whore

like what does he gain from being this pretty. except for pulling the absolute bad bitch that is jean grey.

[artheresy]

Everybody moved on to Penacony and I’m still in agony over the High Cloud Quintet lore… I’ll never move on from these tragic gay mfs

I do need,, HCQ revisited at some point. Doesn’t even have to be in any main story, I honestly just need more HCQ readables because those are some of the most enjoyment I’ve gotten out of Honkai Star Rail. Baiheng’s Travelogue to the Zhuming chANGED MY LIFE and sewed the seeds for an obsession that is far too unhealthy to the point I am in the process of wasting my money to make a Blade ita bag. And it was a single readable that started me spiralling into this obsession and made me motivated to read more readables and character stories and etc.

I need another Baiheng travelogue… here’s to praying we get another if we end up on the Yaoqing soon, in general heres to hoping for more BH lore on the Yaoqing since apparently she’s from a very prominent family on that ship.

I just really need more HCQ crumbs because as much as I love them, their in game dynamics are so underdeveloped. Yes, we have a lot of Dan Feng and Yingxing, but a lot is very vague, and we have to mostly make assumptions with the little crumbs we have. Baiheng and Jingliu also have a lot set up, but I really need more content of them because my god, we barely know anything bout their dynamic too. We mostly have the aftermath and Jingliu’s grief, but I want to know about their happiness so her prolonged mourning hits even harder by knowing exactly what she lost. Jing Yuan and Jingliu probably have the most show upfront dynamic mostly due to the animated short, but the knowledge of Jing Yuan’s dynamics with the rest of them are practically nonexistent outside of that one line about Yingxing and Jing Yuan bickering and sad looks he has that really don’t hit as hard in my opinion because we don’t have the context.

And personally out of all the dynamics I want more content more, I think I want Jing Yuan and Baiheng content the most. The lines he has when he visits the Express that are about her are my saving grace, I am the biggest advocate for these to have a very sweet familial kind of bond and messing around together causing all kinds of trouble. Bonus points if they get Yingxing along for the ride with them. But we have crumbs only 😭 we only have itty bitty crumbs and I am starving

I have a lot of my own views about what I hc their dynamics as due to what we know, but god I want to see what their dynamics in canon are supposed to be. I ranted so much about how I see Dan Feng and Yingxing’s potential dynamic, but even with that, I wanna know. I wanna know about Jingliu and Yingxing, to add even more pain to how their dynamic is now (which hehehe… I have some ideas for this specific topic, but I want canon stuff too not just my own hcs). I wanna see just exactly what Jingliu lost when Baiheng died, what in Baiheng and the way she treated her made her so devastated as to promise to cut down the stars from the sky (which? Is that? Potentially a code for something else like the current plan she has regarding a certain aeon?), like Jingliu was so clearly devastated and tormented by Baiheng’s death, still is 700 years later and we don’t know what about her made it so painful. Yes Baiheng was clearly kind as she’s been established, but just how was she kind to Jingliu? I have my own assumptions and conclusions given what we know about both, but even then it’s still something pretty completely fabricated in my head because we don’t have enough!! GIVE ME THE LIUBAI CONTENT HOYOVERSE I have you’re keeping it somewhere, tell me where

Ugh, too many HCQ thoughts in my head. I need to keep writing and finally finish that first chapter so I can reveal my insanity about them esp the Zhuming family to world. I love them

[nthflower]

Kind of wanna write a fancomic about monet and her mother now. Set during Krakoa and post krakoa era I think. I have ideas

(I'm mad about her use on krakoa era)

[llycaons]

reading that fic reminded me of that time mu qing's followers made his statues too ugly so he appeared in their dreams and terrorized them (?) and destroyed the statues (?) until they got the message and started carving him sexy again. ough I love him so bad. what an insane bitch

[teafiend]

I feel it, the pull to the dark side 🖤🖤🖤 (😅🤣😂😆 🫣🫢🥵🤭)

[arttsuka]

That's probably going to sound very bad but I feel like we had better queer representation when the characters were only allowed to be (barely) queer-coded than we do now.

[aureentuluva70]

While I love the whole "kind individual and traumatized individual" relationship dynamic I do admit I have my problems with it, but that's mostly with how people write the characters, not the trope itself.

My problem with it is that the "ball of sunshine", as said character is often referred to, seemingly only exists to revolve around and be the salvation of the other character. Most of the time, we know little about their life outside of their relationship with the other person, and that annoys me to no end. Why? Because it strips away all possible nuance and depth that character could have had and gives it to the other character, dumbing them down into an often goofy, sometimes even naive individual only there for the sake of an entertaining relationship dynamic.

And this is coming from someone who does like the trope; I think it can be profound and beautiful when written correctly, but so many people hand all the great characterization over to only one character while almost entirely leaving out the other and it doesn't have to be that way. Let them both be great characters both together and on their own!

[icewindandboringhorror]

Various images of things

[navree]

gonna be so real, arcane creator is getting up there with, like, jk rowling in terms of really needing to keep his mouth shut before he becomes public enemy number one to his own fanbase