#can’t escape the doomed narrative

[huntingrays]

wanna write an angsty valgrace fic just to write “where’s leo?” but like can’t bc too many wips + don’t have any plot ideas for it

[lokittystuckinatree]

Before season 14 breaks our fandom’s last collective brain cell: anybody else notice the Master and Thoschei was haunting the narrative in the specials big time?

Rusty made the Toymaker and the Master even more eerily similar. They also narratively foil the Doctor in the same manner.

There are multiple direct call backs and dialogue that references previous dialogue the Doctor had with the Master: the Doctor proposing to the Master and then Toymaker that they run away to the stars together; Ruby’s mom telling her “I wonder what I’d be without you.”

And the 15th Doctor telling Ruby he doesn’t have any family. 14 has Donna and 15 only has his crazy ex

Coincidence but the Master killed 13 with a giant laser and now the Toymaker has done the same

The fucking TOOTH and how the Toymaker lowkey sees the Doctor and Master as a matching set

I’m not hallucinating or reaching, am I? Whatever Russell’s up to, I’m onto it.

[dreamspring]

also i think ive already said this but about people trying to make cassandra wayne a thing. like. i GET it and i respect it but also im sorry it sounds so much worse. ‘umm but cain links her to her abusive father’ well yeah. but have you considered that it sounds cool as fuck…

[foxglove-and-foxfire-lover]

He’s becoming more and more like Wilbur.

The hair, clothes, music, he just can’t escape it

[blueish-bird]

writing a Part 1 CSM fic where everyone’s just hanging out, but I can’t work on it for too long or it makes me sad and lonely and a little hopeless because. at least they have each other and an apartment/home and know how to make food lmao.

[beetlekermit]

the whole point of the umbrella academy is that it is about the cycle of abuse. this is displayed both figuratively (ending the world over and over. doomed to repeat the process. it feels like the world will never stop ending and that there is no escape) and literally (viktor’s world ending actions as a direct result of how he was treated as a kid. reggie’s abuse being shown on screen and portrayed in a negative light. the siblings bitching about it. especially klaus who became an addict due, in no small part, to his fathers actions and how he tries so hard to break from it but that he can’t because he just doesn’t know any other way).

so it’s fucking infuriating how the ending of the show is “you are the reason for the cycle of abuse (apocalypses) continuing and the abuser should be forgiven (because he did his best with that he had and eventually got it “right”/it wasn’t technically his fault).”

narratively, the show tells us that the cycle of abuse will only end if we accept that our abuse is our own fault.

i have many other problems with the ending but this is my main one.

[twelvebooksstuff]

This is LITERALLY him in all iterations (no pun intended)

ian malcolm is doomed by the narrative

Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park is doomed by the narrative and trying to escape.

[bizlybebo]

hi no come here actually i’m trying to sleep but

so i’ve been very slowly getting through the rolleds for pd lately cause i never actually listened to them and in the rolled for s1 ep24 they say that yakko couldn’t come to jrwiweek, which was why things ended the way they did for ashe. yakko and bizly talked about spending the night before adding a bunch of cool shit to the tricksters character sheet and just having fun with it.

come here. come here i’m grabbing you oh so gently by the face. do you see where i’m going with this when i bring this up.

ashe was forever doomed from the start by something so arbitrary (player scheduling/location), but it created such a compelling narrative. ashe was never going to make it, even if yakko rolled higher than a 2 on that final will save. because ashe wasn’t meant to.

and ashe’s entire thing is having a life that is already written for you— a story about losing control of your own body, of destroying that which cannot be fixed, of becoming a shut in to escape the tale that aches to follow you, only playing further into the plot of having external powers decide your life for you. when you finally take the reins and take agency of your own life you fall to that same doom, but this time at least you can pretend you had a choice in it. maybe you always knew it was gonna happen but this time it felt worth it in a sense. can’t you hear me

[azumasoroshi]

happy 12/24-25! i think too often about the “gege hates gojo” jokes because holy shit it is PERSONAL with gege

like yeah he sealed him and killed him but like. every aspect of gojo’s character is just so. gege really said “i’m going to make you the strongest character in the history of ever and you’re going to be cool and attractive and funny and your fans will love you, BUT:

The entire point of your character is that no matter how much power you have, you are helpless to save the people you truly care about

You’re so powerful that the only way you can narratively exist without destroying every enemy in jjk other than Sukuna is to get snatched away, sealed, get your powers taken away, or die (even in the fucking video game you only get a certain number of turns to act before you get yoinked)

You can never escape the system you were born into because your power has become your character

You’ll think you’re changing the system for the better but end up perpetuating the system anyway in allowing children to go on dangerous missions

You cannot supervise said children on dangerous missions because you’re running around Japan like a headless chicken at the whims of the higher ups

You never got the chance to fully grow up because a part of you died when Toji killed you and a part of you died when Suguru left you and what else is there left

Your own desire for power blinded you to your best friend’s depression and it’s one of your greatest regrets yet a part of you still thinks Suguru wasn’t strong enough to keep up which is why you keep saying you want strong allies who can keep up with you and you are just terribly equipped to handle your students’ emotional challenges and insecurities even though you try your best

You will never make any emotional connections as lovely as the one from your youth which you still cry about on the rare occasions you actually sleep

You will only be able to tell Suguru you love him right before you KILL HIM

No matter whether Suguru was your best friend, ex-boyfriend, crush that you never confessed to, or boy you only realized you were in love with after he left you, you will NEVER be able to get over him and an evil brain will use this against you and several people you care about will get fucked over because you cared too much

Even though your students/coworkers sometimes like you the first thing 99% of them think of when they think of you is “The Strongest” and even in your breakup arc Suguru, the one person you wanted to stand by your side and share the title, began to think of you in that way as well and distanced himself from you because of it.

The narrative requires that you be lonely at the top as a direct consequence of your power - even metaphorically, infinity separates you from the rest of the world and your wide range of destruction makes it so allies are a hindrance in battle and you could destroy the people you dare about in seconds (see: thank fuck todo stopped yuuji from stepping into range of purple)

You are going to fight the boy you may or may not have raised from childhood because of the other boy with Sukuna inside him that he asked you to save and you can’t hesitate because the last time you hesitated about someone you cared about you got sealed and people died

You may or may not have died to the strongest curse of all time and are left forever unsatisfied even in death because not only was your culty/cunty best friend not there to cheer you on, but you think Sukuna couldn’t even go all out against you, the strongest sorcerer of your time, despite strength being your whole thing

and as a bonus, you also “died” after cockily saying “Nah I’d win” which will get extensively memed on the internet at your expense”

like not to woobify gojo or anything but oh my god jesus fucking christ gege

he was like “ill make you hot as a treat mostly for myself because i like drawing hot men but you’re going to be so incredibly fucking doomed by the narrative in every possible way”

like he loves drawing shirtless men but he never drew gojo shirtless like gege!! GEGE!!!! what did he DO to deserve this level of narrative ire omfg

[loosethreadsofyoursoul]

rewatching supernatural i get so intensely angry whenever dean makes a reference to how he’s “supposed” to die, how he’s “meant” to go. especially as the show goes on because in the earlier seasons he talks about going out blaze-of-glory style as if it’s a badge of honour because he actually believes in it. his conditioning and his upbringing shaped his self worth in such a way that the ideal out for him would be on the job—saving people, hunting things. but as the show goes on, every time it comes up there’s an increasing sense of resignation, so especially by the end you know that he doesn’t actually want to go out that way. he wants to make it to the other side, he’s just too afraid to verbalize that because of how easily any hope for escape could be taken away from him, and so what do the writers do? when that hope is more present than ever—he can see the light at the end of the tunnel—they suddenly and brutally take it away from him, his worst fears confirmed in the final moments of his life, dooming him to the narrative he finally accepted he didn’t want to be stuck in. and i know we’ve talked about his ending a lot so i won’t get into it too much, but i just can’t stop thinking about every time he says to sam or cas or another hunter that he’s “supposed” to die a certain way, because what more proof do we need that his story never should have ended like that? fuck’s sake, he deserved better.

[no1ryomafan]

big fan how in the other two Ovas my favorite parts with ryoma is him going through the most traumatic fucking thing ever but here it’s this exact moment.

The duality of SVN somehow being where the narrative let him live his god damn life for once.

I promise you cannot predict what happens to these kids

[inbarfink]

Among the various readings and interpretations of What the Hell is Up With the Ending to the DHMIS Web Show - one of the more interesting ones (from my perspective, at leas) has always been that it’s all a metaphor for repeating patterns of trauma and/or abuse. 

As in, most of the narrative of the DHMIS Webshow has been some sort of surrealist metaphor for Roy being an overcontrolling and manipulative parental figure for his son and his friends

And then the ending shows them finally escaping his influence -

Only that without a frame of reference for just how screwed-up their upbringing really was and without any healthy way to process their various traumas, they end up being in danger of just replicating his abuse on their own. Either on each other or maybe on the color-swapped characters who can, like, represent their own children or something. 

And so the vague ending of the Webshow is an open question, yes, the trio might’ve gotten physically away from Roy’s influence - but are they free from it mentally?

Or are they doomed to snap back into their old familiar world?

And the interesting thing about this is that like… that could be what the Web Show is about on a metaphorical level. But in the TV Show, with its greater emphasis on interpersonal conflicts and the characters - the idea of our main trio unknowingly replicating the abuse they live under is not just something we can hypothetically ruminate on. It’s something we can actually see, something we can actually feel.

Like, the first thing that made me think of Yellow and Red’s interactions with Stain Edwards.

This is basically the closest the Three of Them can get to being parental figures within the confines of the Format. He starts out as such a sweet and curious child-like being, his title for himself is literally ‘the Forever Boy’. And, well…

Red and Yellow are just so uncomfortable with his curiosity and thirst for adventure that they basically immediately try and stomp it right out. And that’s like a whole big thing about DHMIS, isn’t it? The way that children’s edutainment and the education system actually curbs children's curiosity and desire for learning so they can better memorize easily-digestible simplified concepts and Respect Their Authority Figures. 

You know, it’s the whole thing with…

And that’s kinda how Red acts with Stain? He’s a lot less violent and more subdued about it - but he also discourages the little guy from asking questions and wanting to explore the world. 

And he is trying to push him into fitting more into the Format. And, like, managing his life like the Trio’s own life is managed by the Format. First more generally into what being part of the DHMIS main trio is supposed to mean (‘just sit here and something will happen’) and then eventually literally turning him into something he didn’t want to be. 

And from our more familiar perspective, it’s clear that Red Guy really just genuinely thinks at this point that sitting passively and Waiting to Be Taught At is how things are Supposed to Be and can’t really imagine things going any other way. He is honestly just trying to get Stain to understand how their life is supposed to work. (Well until it starts becoming about making a new Duck) 

And it’s also clear to us how much Red Guy is motivated by just unaddressed grief about Duck and wanting to avoid conflict with Yellow Guy, who's a lot more explictly lashing out at Stain in his grief

"What's the matter with him?" "Nothing. Just don't look at him." "What? Where can I look? I can't look at him, can't look over there..." "No, if, if you want to look at stuff, just tell me and I-I'll make a list. Of where you should or should not look..." "Seems like a weird system..." "Yeah, well, you seem like a weird little...thing with...and you don't even... the other guy at least had his own clothes"

But looking at it from Stain’s perspective, taking aside our understanding of Red’s character and motivation. This is just an authority figure giving him a nonsense set of rules and then lashing out at him when he questions it. Never giving a deeper explanation than ‘this is how it’s supposed to be’ and basically punishing his curiosity.

Kinda like, well, how the Teachers tend to interact with the trio.

And then there’s Yellow Guy who’s just totally lashing out at Stain through the whole thing, because, again, he can’t process the grief of losing Duck. Because his environment did not give him the tools to properly process that trauma and he has no healthy frame of reference to grief and that’s kinda...

Yeah, that’s just what I was talking about. Stain’s subplot in ‘Death’ is just Yellow and Red having not interrogated their abusive environment and not really dealing with their trauma and thus repeating the patterns of the Teachers on their new child-like figure.

Which then culminates with either Duck killing Stain in the name of preserving the status-quo of the format (“there’s only supposed to be three of us”) or with Stain having internalized so much of what Yellow and Red (but mainly Red) taught him about what he’s supposed to be that he was willing to kill in the name of the Format - and then slotted in perfectly in the unadventurous, unquestioning role of Duck.

And this lil narrative is especially interesting if you believe any variance of the David Theory. Because Yellow and Red were mainly motivated in their mistreatment of Stain by their Grief about a ‘dead’ family member. Which could mirror Lesley's trapping and mistreatment of the trio and her own motivations. 

But I think this idea of mirroring and repeating patterns of abuse are reflected in more than just this one episode. It’s also reflected in the way Red and Duck tend to mistreat Yellow.

Because while Yellow doesn’t slot as neatly into the Child position like Stain did- his simplistic naïveté does mean he often plays a Child-like role in our favorite Forced Family dynamic. And the way that Duck and Red can often condescend to him can… very well mirror the condescending way the teachers address all three of them.

Especially when you also consider the similar manner both the Teachers and Red + Duck react to Yellow being fully charged in ‘Electricity’. They are all so nervous about Yellow breaking away from his supposed ‘role’ as the Stupid One. 

And they especially all seem so very insecure about the idea that Yellow might be smarter than they are.

And that’s, you know, also an aspect of children’s education that tends to actually harm children and their curiosity. This desire for ‘respect’ towards authority figures and this egotistical need for teachers and parents to always be smarter than their kids - causing them to subtly or bluntly punish children for just being clever or inquisitive. 

It’s, you know “I’m the adult, you are the child. I am supposed to be the Smart and Knowledgeable one and you are the one who must be taught. And you need to play your role!”

Again, that seems to be the whole thing in ‘Time’.

Here it’s a lot more subtle and less openly hostile, but Yellow can tell that just like that Insurance Teacher,  Red and Duck’s egos have also been hurt by the fact that they might not be smarter than Yellow Guy anymore. And he considers going back to the role he’s ‘supposed to be’, even though being fully-charged seems to feel better for him (‘this doesn’t feel wrong’), just for them. 

That’s almost literally a child giving up on a pursuit of knowledge just to placate his parental figures. 

And then, you know, his refusal to do so and his assertion of his own ability to make decisions for himself (his own maturity, "they're not in charge of us anymore" "Maybe they never were") is directly what leads to him ascending and disassembling not just the trio’s dynamic but the very structure of the Format. 

And I think, it’s not just that Red and Duck’s treatment of Yellow mirrors the way the teachers treat the Three of Them - it might be a result of it as well. With how condescending the teachers are towards them in general, bullying Yellow is their way to assert some sort of maturity and intelligence for themselves. It's super-fucked up, but this is how they internalized expressing what ‘intelligence’ is supposed to look like. And they have no frame of reference for a way of feeling smart or in control that doesn’t involve shutting someone else down. Because that's what literally every authority figure does for them all the time.

Now, do I think that means that our trio is doomed to mirror those patterns? That they will always inevitability repeat the horrors they go through on each other and others? Well, just like with every ‘cycle of abuse’, it can always be broken. But it will take some actual understanding and self-awareness and personal healing from the trio. 

And without this, they’re not just trapped within the Horrors physically, but also spiritually as well. Without it, no matter if they do manage to run away, on some level, their journey will always end up back at home....

[stonecoldsilly]

neverafter is so great and clearly brenny is ramping up the suspense but I think what made the ‘baron from the baronies’ scene in fhsy so very actually terrifying for ME is that riz was absolutely already doomed by the narrative.

we the audience already know that something happens and riz goes missing, he can’t escape, murph the player knows he can’t win this one but riz the character would try his hardest anyway even though it’s futile. he’s walking in eyes open knowing there’s no happy ending the tension just keeps on rising because it’s inevitable and nobody can do anything about it, not murph not brennan not the audience and that is horror to me.

also i think it works really well cos baron has a swedish accent. freak.

[golvio]

I’m a little obsessed with this one particular shot from the new trailer.

To me, this vague lump of…something is shaped like the hill where The Cabin is located, with the two pine trees framing it.

However, in the trailer shot, there is no cabin.

That’s a big deal, because there’s always a cabin.

In every route, there are constants that don’t change no matter what choices you make. There’s always a cabin at the top of a hill in the woods. There’s always a knife placed on the table near the door to the basement. There’s always a shackle on the Princess’ left hand. There’s always the Princess, the Narrator, and You.

And there is always a cabin. In the Stranger route, every single parallel universe the Narrator could possibly create has the exact same cabin on top of that exact same hill. There’s never not a cabin on top of that hill.

So, is this the point in time where the Princess says, “Days mean nothing in the maw of forever?” By that, does she mean it’s been so long and so many loops have passed that even the Narrator is no longer tracking the finer details, and the cabin along with the landscape eventually unravels and falls away?

Is this a point in time before there was ever a cabin, much less a path or any woods? A point where the Narrator was still in the process of creating this closed, isolated little narrative to safely contain the Princess (and, by extension, You) inside?

Or could it be that the cabin is there, just in a place or state that we can no longer see it? Is the trailer shot representing a version of the world that’s faded into an Impressionistic outline of what it was intended to be? Or are those brush strokes and textures actually…hair…?

Is the Princess the landscape? Is that what she meant by “I never left your side?” Is this what “ending the world” looks like?

I mean, one of the constants the Narrator has imposed upon this world is that the Princess is always in the cabin. However, we haven’t seen all possible permutations of “in the cabin” that follow that rule. The Princess can still technically be in the cabin even if a vast majority of her is spilling outside of it, burying it beneath a mound of hair and flesh in a way that makes its interior, the knife, and her vulnerable heart inaccessible to us. After enough loops, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Princess eventually came to represent so many different concepts in our mind that she’d eventually grow to encompass the whole world, no longer resembling a “Princess.”

However, there’s also the question of whether this is the Princess taking over the world that the Narrator created, or whether this is the landscape reverting to its original form as the Narrator’s grip on the story begins to loosen when it becomes too complex and unpredictable for him to control. If “I never left your side” applies to every loop, even the very first one, then that means that the Princess doesn’t become the landscape so much as she always was the landscape. It’s just that the Narrator put a veneer of separation from the Princess onto the world to make the entity that it is small, limited, and easy to subdue.

What, then, does that mean for You? Are you another invader, whether a real person from outside or a literary construct the Narrator pulled from thin air? Or are You, too, a part of the Princess, ripped away from her body and deluded into believing you were a separate entity?

Is that the purpose of the mirror? Is the Princess merely a reflection of You, a funhouse mirror image mimicking your desires and actions because she is doomed to be eternally defined by your perceptions and can’t take physical shape without You observing or even thinking about her? Or is it that You are her reflection, her distorted mirror image, who she must bring back into herself in order to become truly whole again and escape?

[padfootswhiskers]

i wish there were more harry & sirius fics that didn’t feature wolfstar, or sirius/anyone really.

i’m not a huge fan of any of the ships sirius is usually involved in, but in my opinion—sirius is simply too…broken to even THINK about having a romantic relationship. he’s on the run from the Ministry, he’s just escaped after 12 years of literal hell on earth—only to be trapped in the house of his traumatic childhood; not to mention he has to deal with the fact that the entire Order and one of his close friends wholeheartedly believed he was a mass murderer and that he would really betray james.

oh, also—it was his idea to switch secret keepers. something totally non consequential that would have nooooo effect on him in the presence of magical creatures designed to dredge up your worst memories and torment you with them xD

at this point, harry really is his only purpose in life. and he can’t even focus on THAT properly because of how absolutely miserable he is.

sirius black is such an interesting character, and part of the appeal to me is just how doomed by the narrative he is. for all intents and purposes, sirius also died on that terrible night in 1981. he has no prospects, his entire life was stolen from him, and he can’t even fulfill the one purpose he has anymore because he was so intensely fucked over twelve years ago. his entire life, his escape AND his death…was just…pointless. and that’s so fucking tragic it makes me want to curl up and die. and also read a million fics about the short period of time he DID have with harry.

i just wish there were more fics that really dug into this incredible, incredible character, instead of just sticking him into a relationship

[conflictofthemind]

Your recent post about electromagnetism was great, but I want to know your theories on how time travel will play into the plot of season 5. I hope they won't use time travel to "fix the past" and rewrite the timeline (although I doubt that will happen).

Oh man I have so many thoughts. This is a whole can of worms to open up (which I will be doing eventually). But yes I agree with you 100%, I don’t think it will end in them rewriting the timeline. Or if they do, it will be through a creation of a new one and all of the characters will still be able to retain their previous memories. There still needs to be lasting consequences for every action, and the impacts of each characters’ decisions plus the entire story should stay with them.

Right now the main pet project that I’ve been working on gradually is something I’ve been calling the “play theory” (kind of a shit title); basically that Melvin is what’s dooming the narrative and causing the main characters to be trapped inside of a time loop. I’ll explain it condensed here but the post I have cooking is already 6 pages at least.

It first came from that whole Melvin “star-crossed lovers” “Romeo and Juliet” thing, and lines within the TFS play that is… also inspired itself by another “star-crossed doomed” lovers play. There are so many weird meta layers to it all.

There’s multiple 4th wall breaks in TFS where Henry tries to escape the theatre and seems to be aware he is performing on a stage. There’s also a very pointed dialogue which is where I finally started making this into a fully fledged theory:

“It’s a sad song, I like the gay ones best”.

“It doesn’t have to be sad, you never know the ending until it’s sung all the way through”.

“Then let’s make it a gay one”.

“Sing your own ending”.

And what a weird theme to choose, because the answer “in the play” is actually no, it can’t. TFS is a sad song, a continuation of the time loop. A play. But that surely won’t be the case for Stranger Things, because we’ve been told that Will’s superpower is his heart and he gets a happy ending.

As Mike performs his “love” for the audience, the name Montague (for Romeo Montague) appears behind him.

Basically, the characters are conforming to the pre-written roles they have already been assigned to (by society) and are forced to enact, and re-enact, a tragedy of two doomed lovers. The curtain on a play closes but the next night the story begins all over again, to a new audience, always with the same ending. Like a time loop. Like a never ending story.

Mike’s decision to keep playing the role of Romeo to El’s Juliet will result in Will beginning the time loop. So Will starts the time loop, and I expect Mike will be the one to finally break them out of it.