#Narrative Puzzle

[ancientroyalblood]

Exploring Non-Linear Narratives: Writing Out of Sequence

In the realm of storytelling, the traditional sequence is but one path to follow, a well-trodden road where events unfurl one after another, much like dominos carefully aligned, ready to fall. Yet, in the shadows, there exists another path, a web of narratives intertwined, where each word, each sentence, is a piece of a puzzle not yet complete. This exploration seeks to dissect the notions of…

[ppjeterka]

my thoughts re: the main cast of the new nhl amazon docu-series

[blueskittlesart]

*sigh* thoughts on Nintendo's botw/totk timeline shenanigans and tomfoolery?

tbh. my maybe-unpopular opinion is that the timeline is only important when a game's place on the timeline seriously informs the way their narrative progresses. the problem is that before botw we almost NEVER got games where it didn't matter. it matters for skyward sword because it's the beginning, and it matters for tp/ww/alttp (and their respective sequels) because the choices the hero of time makes explicitly inform the narrative of those games in one way or another. it matters which timeline we're in for those games because these cycles we're seeing are close enough to oot's cycle that they're still feeling the effects of his choices. botw, however, takes place at minimum 10 thousand years after oot, so its place on the timeline actually functionally means nothing. botw is completely divorced from the hero of time & his story, so what he does is a nonissue in the context of botw link and zelda's story. thus, which timeline botw happens in is a nonissue. honestly I kind of liked the idea that it happened in all of them. i think there's a cool idea of inevitability that can be played with there. but the point is that the timeline exists to enhance and fill in the lore of games that need it, and botw/totk don't really need it because the devs finally realized they could make a game without the hero of time in it.

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

guy who so desperately tries to find god. who wants to have faith in a higher authority to guide him out of the hole he's in. from the weight of guilt from simply existing, as the person he is. but every time he thinks he's answered his higher calling it turns out he's made the Morally Incorrect choice and his path to goodness and holiness was the road to the devil all along

[anghraine]

It's a very little bit funny that I used to be mildly notorious in my corner of Austen fandom for disliking Colonel Fitzwilliam, who at the time was extremely idealized in those fandom spaces, particularly by contrast with Darcy having things like "flaws" and "character growth."

I still don't like Colonel Fitzwilliam as this perfect ideal apart from maybe some extremely minor, defensible faults because he's human after all, someone who would have been exactly suited to Elizabeth really and did love her but truly is too poor to choose her (alas!) and totally is handsome, to boot.

But I do like Colonel Fitzwilliam as a man who is fundamentally decent, good-natured, intelligent, and strong-willed, but with a fundamentally aristocratic perception of himself and the world. I like that he's willing to tease and criticize Darcy as part of flirting with a pretty girl, but leaps to Darcy's and Georgiana's defense when he thinks it's important. I think it's interesting that it would be so easy for him to resent Darcy, and instead they seem to be genuine bffs with healthy respect for each other (likely for a very long time given their blood relationship and close ages) as well as co-guardians and amicable relatives.

Darcy is not a man prone to overstatement, so his description of his relationship with Colonel Fitzwilliam as one of "constant intimacy" is really intriguing to me—far more than Fitzwilliam's casual and rather shallow and self-interested flirtation with Elizabeth, tbh. It's doubly interesting because Fitzwilliam seems to only sort of know the Bingleys, and while he approves of Bingley, my impression is that he knows the whole family through Darcy rather than as general social acquaintances. We never see the Bingleys and Fitzwilliam in the same social settings, even ones where they might credibly interact like Pemberley, and Fitzwilliam makes a point of clarifying to Elizabeth that he only slightly knows Bingley's sisters. There are all these gradations to how Darcy interacts with both social sets, his mentorship-type friendship with Bingley and his intimacy with his cousin, that I don't think a simple consultation of the table of precedence fully explains.

I do find Colonel Fitzwilliam deeply boring when he's reduced to Darcy's rival for Elizabeth's affection despite never having any serious interest in Elizabeth—the kind of "so there, Darcy" vibe that underpins Fitzwilliam-as-rival is meh given their own relationship. But for such a minor character, there is genuinely quite a bit going on, I think.

[kyouka-supremacy]

Hey (^-^)/

I have a question: What did Atsushi mean in this panel when he said "the fact that you're the one standing in front of me"? I don't get it.

And why Akutagawa's face seem conflicted by hearing that?

I'm not entirely sure - that line is fairly ambiguous - but I can share my own interpretation! Here, Atsushi is trying to explain Akutagawa that the reason why Dazai has not acknowledged him yet is not, as Akutagawa is convinced of, because he isn't strong enough, and that his being powerful is actually of no interest to Dazai. Atsushi suggests that there's something else Dazai is waiting for Akutagawa to grow better at before acknowledging him, and Akutagawa will only be able to see what it is by keeping himself from killing (likely, what Atsushi is thinking Akutagawa lacks is moral virtue to some extent, compassion and humanity. I feel like that's also consistent with how Dazai sees Akutagawa in Beast, and what believes is wrong with him: “It’s human nature to lash out with violence. But if hurting others is your natural instinct… then you are nothing more than a mindless beast” (Dazai, Beast novel, page 18) ).

Akutagawa so far has believed that everything he could do to be seen by Dazai, was proving his own strength; and that his current situation of not being yet recognized was due to his own limits on that front. With that last line, I think Atsushi is telling him: “The reason you are where you are now [both in terms of his path towards being acknowledged by Dazai and overall current status as conjunction of events that led him to be where he is] has nothing to do with your strength or lack thereof. You're here in front of me [in your current situation that led you to this place in this moment] because there's something you've yet to realize [that would be, once again, that strength is not what Dazai seeks in him but rather for Akutagawa to accomplish a moral step up]”.

Additionally, I think Atsushi might also imply: “The reason you're here in front of me, the reason Dazai decided you had to be here, is so that you could see something you still can't grasp”, since both sskk and the bsd author seem to be fairly assured that everything sskk themselves do is because Dazai wanted them to, in some sort of weird determinism (“Why were you so eager to put Akutagawa-kun against that tiger lad? [...] How long have you been aiming for this scenario?” “From the time I met Atsushi-kun.” (Hirotsu, Dazai, chapter 37); “Why do you think Dazai-san put us together?” (Atsushi, chapter 51); “Dazai-san didn't abandon me after all. This was all a trial. A guidepost, lined with wailing.” (Akutagawa, chapter 85); and even more examples could be made; everything sskk do, seems like it's because Dazai wanted them to at some point.)

The reason why Akutagawa looks so conflicted, then, is probably out of bewilderment for Atsushi's words, for the revelation that proving his strength - that is everything Akutagawa has tried to do since meeting him - is actually not the way to make Dazai acknowledge him.

Here's an alternative fantranslation to the official English translation + the raws of that page for further insight :)

[dandelionjack]

i hope ruby gets a well-that’s-alright-then-style notdeath. on the one hand it will make haters mad because oh no not another companion with an impermanent end (and i like to see haters mad) on the other it would require creativity to depict this in a new way + i love all the implications i love the dark fairytale quality of these companion exits i love my un-undead schrodinger’s women

with the way the legend of ruby sunday is titled… legends aren’t usually told about living people. legends are stories of the bygone past, of an age long since over, fictionalised and overgrown with folklore like barnacles sticking to an abandoned shell. there is such a thing as a living legend, but they’re exceedingly rare. the unmistakeable raven’s call in the 73 yards teaser, the trailer’s cut to fifteen crying alone after promising to cherry he’d protect her daughter… the foreshadowing is clear as day…

and yet. there’s one massive HOWEVER. ruby appears in s15: millie’s been spotted on set filming it. which leads me to believe — the doctor isn’t one to take the time travel route and revisit companions that in his future are genuinely dead. that would hurt too much, it would cause unnecessary trauma and could break the timeline. that must mean ruby stays alive in some way. ish. she’s alive and a legend and a mystery. girl-ballad girl-song girl-paradox

here she is, fading out.

p.s.: thesis statement on moffatgirls from the tags i left on somebody else’s post about charley pollard.. well it belongs here since it’s basically the semiotic hurricane swirling around ruby at the moment :)

[hplonesomeart]

He found out he’s not the highest rated anymore….isn’t taking it too well <<

[bubble-popping]

I think a big reason why c!drunz isn't the most healthy couple is because they aren't two people who mutually chose to be together.

C!drunz is two people who don't have many other options. They're two people that have been forced into their roles, self-induced or otherwise, and therefore forced together. C!Dream needed someone he could trust. C!Punz believed in the cause, and any doubts were easily dismissed by a little gold and jewels. It's a boss who only has one employee and an employee who sees other potential bosses as completely incompetent.

Their love is as real as it can be for their situation. It's as real as any love that forms during the final days of mankind. Love born from the apocalypse.

When you spend enough time with someone, knowing there's no one else, you grow to need and resent that person. A part of you wishes you met on different terms, but you also know if you did, you wouldn't love them like you do now.

C!drunz didn't choose each other, not willingly. They didn't have a chance to learn and grow and reconcile their differences. The reality is they've settled, and they come to terms with that in different ways.

C!Punz wholeheartedly accepted it. Perhaps they never experienced a connection so deep, so engrained in his being he doesn't know where they end and c!Dream begins. C!Dream is... not thrilled. He knew what it was like to have friends, people he called his soulmates. Whatever he and c!Punz have is not that.

He still cares about c!Punz, a lot. He loves them, truly. As truly as love can be when they both have a foot in the grave.

[houseswife]

this is definitively the worstbest line of the entire series methinks

[jfkisonthemoon]

they honestly couldve done so much with junpei beheaded/dismembered and im disappointed that it ended up just being mira. so much of his character and his relationship with akane is characterized by his lack of bodily autonomy, and him being openly beheaded during the nonary games would be the ultimate example of this. its perhaps the most brutal death in the game, and it never really gets explained or developed beyond the one puzzle that we get with it. junpei has been shown repeatedly to be subject to akane's plans or follow her blindly and i just think that would have been a really interesting angle to approach his beheading from. junpei has willingly signed up for nonary games in two different timelines just because he knew he would see her. he was infected with a deadly virus trying to find her. he grew desensitized to death as he took underground jobs to try and find her. his safety always comes second when shes in the picture, and his beheading wouldve been a prime opportunity to 1. exploit his willingness to let himself die/be injured for her and 2. make akane confront the fact that her confidence that junpei will always follow after her is not necessarily a positive thing.

[saltedcaramelchaos]

honestly i love seeing spoilers with no context because then I get to be like "wait WHAT happens in that arc?!?"

[torments-my-obelisk]

DSOD is such a funny movie. Kaiba comes on screen in his giant fucking space station molded into his company logo and I just laughed. He’s so dramatic. He misses his rival and is so obsessed with getting some closure for once in his goddamn life that he spent well over a billion dollars to excavate a cursed puzzle and build a space elevator to the afterlife but the minute anyone says anything about ‘hey maybe that’s a little unhealthy’ he’s snapping and snarling and telling them to fuck off. Except the cube guy. He’s has a duel disk and is also full of unprocessed grief so he can stay. Yugi Moto looks them dead in the eye and says “first of all, I’m only here because you both blackmailed me. Secondly, fuck you both for that, by the way. Thirdly, I’m gonna kick your ass”. Card games ensue, meanwhile Yugi tries his absolute best to show Kaiba the pharaoh is gone and maybe he needs to spend some time reflecting on his emotions and yes the invitation is still open to talk about Him BUT THEN THE NARRATIVE PROVED KAIBA RIGHT?!! AND THE PHARAOH COMES BACK AND YUGI HAS TO LOOK KAIBA IN THE EYE AND TELL HIM THAT HES SORRY FOR DOUBTING HIM?? WHAT. What Kaiba takes from all this is that a) his horrid coping mechanisms work after all, b) if he just fucks around enough and spends all his money he really can be king of the world and c) the best option is definitely to finish that space elevator and fucking. Go to the afterlife I guess. To duel his “hated rival” or whatever. Fuck off

[finally-caught-up-on-critrole]

no the fun part's going to be all the damage that does to the family they're so desperate for

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

no offense to mel shes great its not that i want her gone or anything, its just that her narrative role would make so much more sense for yaz to have

[nyatbinary-81]

i feel like im going insane has anyone else noticed the sheer amount of times faded is associated with the puppet in the logbook. or asked how faded knows cc well enough to ask such specific questions if theyre supposedly a stranger who shares an animatronic with cc. does anyone question why the vengeful spirit is a random kid.