#Plot Hole (trope)

[queeringclassiclit]

Philip Lombard

from And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

submitted by anon

[chonkymoth]

i love you time machines. i love you time loops. i love you temporal abnormalities. i love you paradoxes. i love you timeline displacement. i love you places that exist outside of time. i love you timeline corrections. i love you timeline variances. i love you fixed points in time. i love you actions that changed the course of the past, the present, the future.

[magnusbae]

nothing spites me more than an amnesia trope that is there just because 'i want an amnesia trope tm' and nothing else. like why was it needed? what logical motivation to this choice was there to justify you using it other than wanting to use it? did it make sense? no? then don't.

[marsixm]

well that was….. A Movie

[mycupofrum]

14 + 97 with prongsfoot >:))) (if you want to ofc! <33)

Thanks for the ask, anon! 🩷 This one took me some time to think over. :D Super interesting tropes! It's an AU where James and Sirius didn't go to Hogwarts together but Sirius went to Durmstrang.

__

Bodyguard AU + Time Travel

Auror James Potter is in his late 30s, and the Ministry has finally captured Sirius Black who is claimed to be a notorious dark wizard. Black has refused to confess to his crimes or in fact to say anything to anyone who is trying to interrogate him. He doesn't even give in to Verisetarum. However, his reaction to James is strange when they first meet. He finally speaks. Gives him an address.

James goes there to find a timeturner. Something goes wrong and he goes back in time 20 years. He returns to the Ministry and explains what happened but doesn’t mention Sirius Black by name or give the officials his own real name because he's a bit suspicious and time travel can mess things up anyway. They will try to find a way to send James back to his time but in the meanwhile he is assigned to take care of an important family's heir who has been a target of a murder attempt. Turns out it's a 19-year old Sirius Black.

At first he is as reluctant as James is for the arrangement, especially since all James knows about him is the facts he has read from his file. But the more time he spends with younger Sirius Black, the more he realises that underneath the cool and distant exterior is a good person. How did he end up becoming a dark wizard? Was it really him or was he framed?

Gradually they become friends and then more than that. They start a forbidden relationship over the months James has to spend in the past. Eventually James returns back to his own time and when he looks into the eyes of Sirius Black again, there is understanding. There is love. They've finally met in the right time, and James is determined to prove Sirius is innocent, after all.

Fanfiction trope mash-up ask game

[brigdh]

I can't stop thinking about rewriting S2. I don't know why – it's hard to find an activity that's actually less productive than writing fanfic, but surely this is it – but my brain won't stop circling around the idea, so I'm writing this down to hopefully shut it up.

A proposed outline for a better S2 of Our Flag Means Death.

Episodes 1-3 are pretty much the same as what aired. The big change is that I'm cutting out Prince Ricky. I think two big antagonists are too much for an eight episode season, though I went back and forth on whether to cut Zheng or Ricky. I decided on Ricky because the "end of piracy" plot is way too overwrought for a comedy series, and there's no way it was ever going to work without a lot of build-up. Like, a lot a lot. Possibly multiple seasons of it, and we just don't have time for that here. Also, although Ricky makes a fun foil to Stede, that never really goes anywhere. So he's gone. This doesn't make much of a difference to these first three episodes, since he's only in two scenes, but it will help tighten the focus at the end of the season. One other change is that it's clear (perhaps even referenced in dialogue) that Ed is still not killing anyone directly with his own hands.

Episode Four: This is where I start with the big changes, rewriting this whole episode. Now it's focused on the crew wanting to kick Ed off the ship. Stede goes back and forth between the crew and Ed, trying to talk the crew around while simultaneously trying to romance Ed. He fails on both sides. Perhaps we still have Ed's corporate "apology", as an attempt at compromise, but the crew refuses to accept it and this time, they're in charge. Lucius has his plot about being traumatized and drawing Ed's face everywhere (but not the resolution, not in this episode). Ed is angry at Stede – they get to have an actual fight, about Stede leaving, about Ed marooning the crew/tossing Lucius overboard, about Ed's mermaid dream vs Stede's masculine pirate hero dream. Ed fears he's unlovable, and Stede's unrealistic declarations of love are just making him feel like anything between them is impossible. (Maybe Ed & Izzy have a fight too – I'm not committed to including this, depending on time, but it could be good. Maybe Izzy gets to say, "A rotten leg's got to come off" to Ed!) At the end of the episode, Ed leaves the ship and tells Stede not to follow him. Everyone's angry and upset.

Episode Five: Ed spends the entire episode off the ship, throwing himself into his new career as a fisherman (it doesn't have to be fishing. It can be anything, as long as it's new. The point is Ed running away from himself and his past and trying to become an entirely new person). He's using a new name – Jeff? – and has a whole backstory he's made up. At the end of the episode, he realizes that this isn't making him happy either, because he keeps thinking about his guilt, about Stede, about Izzy or Lucius or whoever he centers on as someone's he's mistreated, and so he leaves.

Meanwhile, on board the Revenge, everyone's having a miserable time. This is where the 'traumatized crew comes together to make the unicorn leg' plot goes, except this time it's a three-sided hot mess, with the crew, Izzy, and Stede – heartbroken over his idealized view of 'true loves fixes everything' having crashed and burned in the previous episode. Buttons turns into a bird, but this time Stede is the one to witness it. It inspires him to patch things up with the crew and go after Ed. Together, they all come up with a motto for the season – something like, 'change is possible' or 'you've got to try again', idk, except it's probably cheesy and rhymes and yet is weirdly inspirational, a la 'talk it through as a crew'.

Episode Six: Ed runs into Anne Bonny and Mary Read, and goes to stay with them. Before Stede shows up, Ed gets a bit of time to talk and reminiscence with them about their own "good old days", back when he was happy. It becomes clear though, that remembering murder and torture and etc is not making him happy now. Ed asks them about feeling guilty. Their advice is terrible: only losers care. Ed laughs it off, but clearly is conflicted. Stede tracks him down, and the rest of the episode play out pretty much like it did in canon (I think Jenkins & co really wanted to do "Ed and Stede as exes at a party", so I am giving it to them here). However, the vibes are a bit different – it's less that Ed and Stede haven't spoken at all as in canon, but that they had their big fight in E4 and are now dealing with the awkward aftermath of wanting to make up, each wanting to maintain their pride, and not knowing how to do either. At the end, Stede gets the courage to put himself out there and asks Ed to come back to the ship. Ed refuses at first – the crew doesn't want him and he doesn't know how to be a better person. Stede passes on the motto the crew came up with in the previous episode – 'change is possible' or whatever – and Ed agrees to come and try. They have a brief, chaste, kiss.

The crew back on the Revenge should have a B-plot too. I love the cursed suit subplot and would stick it here, but honestly I'm not sure it works if Stede isn't around to be the pro-suit side of the debate. Maybe we have a training montage, but it's Izzy and the crew instead of Izzy and Stede. Whatever happens, we also get the Lucius and Pete proposal. This goes along with the hopeful, new beginnings vibe of what's happening with Ed/Stede.

Episode Seven: Ed and Stede return to the ship, and the crew agrees to let Ed try out their new motto. Calypso party preparations begin, but this time Ed is not just handing out money but taking part in finding and putting together decorations and set-up. We get scenes of him and different characters working together; things are awkward but improving. Izzy and Wee Jon can still do drag and sing. Ned Low shows up and disrupts the party.

The big change here: Ed is the one to kill Ned Low, not Stede. I love Stede's plot about becoming a pirate hero and killing and not dealing with it, but it's just too much for a season with a lot of other stuff going on. Sorry, Stede; your masculinity issues have to wait for S3.

Ed killing someone is portrayed as a very big deal. Ned is more dangerous here – it's seen as necessary for someone to kill him, and Ed taking on the role is cast as him becoming the protector of the crew rather than their tormentor. Nonetheless, despite Ned's death being a 'good' thing, Ed is traumatized and he and Stede still have ill-advised sex about it. Izzy can definitely still sing La Vie en Rose during.

Episode Eight: Zheng has (like in canon) been collecting all of the pirates in the Caribbean into her alliance. Now she's finally coming for the Revenge. It's them against dozens of ships. I think, since I'm making Zheng more of a straightforward antagonist than a reluctant ally, I have to break up Olu/Zheng. That's okay. In fact, it can make a nice parallel – sometimes people grow apart and it's not anyone's 'fault', it's just life. Are Stede and Ed also growing apart, or will they find a path forward together?

Stede comes up with what someone describes as a suicide mission. Ed says, 'what if we don't commit suicide?' He wants to live. He wants to be happy. He's still grappling with having killed Low, and he realizes that he can't do that again – can't even put himself in a situation where it might be kill or be killed. He proposes they surrender and just go and live on land somewhere. Why not? What is piracy good for, even, other than violence and theft? Izzy makes his speech about belonging to something. The crew – which has been swaying back and forth, debating both for and against fighting Zheng – is convinced, and decide to go to battle. Ed isn't. He agrees that community is important, that it was there when he needed it, that he'll always be glad he had it, but he can't stay. He's changing. This is him changing, for real. He and Izzy have a final exchange about Ed moving on and Izzy accepting it.

Ed and Stede have an emotional goodbye, where Ed says that he won't be like Anne & Mary – he won't let Stede leave piracy for him, but maybe Stede can come and visit some time. They make some long-distance relationship jokes. Ed leaves. They're both being ~super~ mature and adult about it, but they're clearly both not really happy.

Stede and the crew prepare for battle. Lucius and Pete get married, as a last hurrah for the Revenge in case not everyone survives the coming confrontation. They carry out Stede's plan (I don't know what that is, I'm not an action scene writer, something cool and out-of-the-box. Though it's not like 'dress up in British uniforms' was a unique and exciting plan either). They succeed, either by defeating Zheng or just escaping for now. (Does Izzy die in battle? It doesn't really seem necessary. If he does, it's clearly about becoming one of the crew and they're the ones his death scene centers on, since Ed isn't even there.) There's a big celebration scene and/or funeral, and everyone is bonding, people are cheering Stede's plan, but Stede himself can't join in wholeheartedly. He's off in the corner, clearly not quite satisfied. He pulls aside Frenchie and tells him, "I have something to give you".

The final scene: Ed is working on his new career. Maybe he's running a bar & grill in the Republic of Pirates. He's not hiding who he is, even using the Blackbeard name for PR, but it's not a fighting-focused career. Stede walks up, clearly unexpected, and Ed's like, "thought it'd take a lot longer for your first visit." Stede gets a big speech about piracy. Everyone's gotten to define it for themselves; for Ed it was about violence, for Izzy community. (Maybe some of the rest of the crew have gotten to voice their own takes as well.) Stede says that for him, piracy means freedom. That's what he was dreaming of, when he first set out to be a pirate, what he's been looking for his whole life – the freedom to be who he really is. Ed says, "and who are you?" Stede replies, "the man who loves you." They kiss.

We get an overhead shot, swinging out to sea, with the Revenge sailing away with Frenchie as captain. Distantly, we hear Ed and Stede talking as sound fades out –

Ed: You promise you're not going to burn down my bar when you get bored? Stede: Why would I be bored? I have so many ideas! Theme nights, cocktail recipes, waitstaff uniforms... Ed: Hey, what happened with Zheng? Stede: Oh, she might hunt me down for revenge. Another reason we won't be bored!

[sschmendrick]

Onto episode 26, I think I'm in the starting point of where people started to not be super satisfied with the show ?

Anyway Tantai Jin how could you. Only Ye Xiwu came back to you ? Only Ye Xiwu wants to stay by your side ? Why do you have to do my boy Nian Baiyu dirty like that ?

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

FANS WHEN THERE'S A NEW SHOW RUNNER:

PLOT HOLES!

PLOT HOLES, EVERYWHERE!

[princess-viola]

tv tropes and cinema sins have done untold damage to media literacy

in this essay, i will

[nordic-language-love]

i got a kobo libra for my birthday and my brother sent me a gift voucher for the online store but now i have to decide what i want and it’s Stressful

[taems-world]

just finished watching flower of evil-

[yarns-and-d20s]

I really like today's Overly Sarcastic Productions' Trope Talk video on Noodle Incidents. It's a really good counterpoint to the nitpickery of online media "criticism" that leans so desperately and heavily on the "they didn't explain this! they didn't hold my hand! they left this vague! PLOT HOOOOLE*" garbage.

There are always things that the audience needs to know, of course, but--as an example so I can gently poke fun at Honest Trailers for a bit--but not knowing the Duke's backstory in Resident Evil: Village isn't a plot hole, and it's actually not necessary. His entire character is not a noodle incident, but functions tangentially to one. He's a helpful NPC. That's all we need. We don't need his backstory. We don't need to know what happened in Budapest, we didn't need to see everything that Solo showed us, we don't need to see more about the Duke. Demanding all of these things leads to disappointment, whether it's because we didn't get anything new and exciting, or because we've spent so much time talking amongst ourselves about Budapest that nothing that could be put on screen could ever compare to our imaginations. Not because we know better, but because we've built it up to such an extent that we can only be disappointed.

I dare say that this is actually one of the problems with Clara and River's storylines on Doctor Who; the mysteries couldn't be wrapped up satisfactorily because we got hit so hard with the "OOH A MYSTERY!" cludgel that it built it up to a ridiculous extent. That's why the "Bad Wolf" stuff of season 1 actually worked; from week to week, you may well not have actually noticed what they were doing until they told you "we did this".

*a plot hole was actually traditionally defined as an inconsistency/contradiction in the internal logic in the story, btw, not as "they didn't explain this". I should compile all my thoughts about the rise in "PLOT HOLE" as an argument for why something is "bad writing" when we've taken the term and twisted it so far beyond its original meaning that it is officially now useless and a really good way to get me to stop listening to someone's thoughts on a story as soon as I recognise they're using it incorrectly.

[greatandholypangolin]

I’m living one of those movie moments where I know everything will be resolved if I just communicate with other people but I’m not going to be because the ✨plot✨

[beebeemagica]

I thank god everyday that aol hometown died and no one will ever stumble on my self-insert pokemon fanfic 😬

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing References: Plot

Basics: Plot Structure & Narrative Arcs

Basics: Plot & Other Elements of Creative Writing

Plot Methods: Save the Cat! ⚜ The Story Circle

Plot Development: The Transformation Test

Plot-Driven Story ⚜ Plotting a Novel ⚜ Plot-Planning Worksheet

Plot Twists ⚜ Types of Plot Twists ⚜ Subplots

Ten Story Genres ⚜ Elements of the 10 Story Genres

The 3-Act Structure: History & Elements ⚜ A Guide

The Shape of Story ⚜ The Shapes of Stories by Kurt Vonnegut

Tips

From Margaret Atwood ⚜ From Rick Riordan

Before Writing your Novel ⚜ Burying Information

How to Get "Unstuck" when Writing your Novel

Editing

Chapter Maps ⚜ Editing your Own Novel

Plot Holes & Other Structural Issues ⚜ Structural Edit

Self-Editing ⚜ Novel Editing

For Inspiration

Archetypal Narrative Arcs ⚜ Character & Literary Tropes

Snowflake Method ⚜ Ways to Generate an Idea

Writing References: Character Development ⚜ World-building