#narrative threads

[enchantingepics]

Story Prompt 38

In a small town where the sunsets painted the sky in hues of orange and pink, there lived an ambitious soul ready to face a formidable opponent - math homework. Our protagonist, armed with determination and a pencil, stared down the menacing equations on the crumpled sheets.

The room was silent except for the occasional tap of the pencil on the desk. It was a battlefield, and our hero, with a furrowed brow, was ready for the fight. The numbers on the paper seemed to mock, but our protagonist had a steely resolve.

As the night progressed, frustration turned into whispered negotiations with the stubborn math problems. "Come on, you can't be that difficult," muttered our hero, as if trying to reason with the elusive solutions.

Suddenly, the window creaked open, letting in a gentle breeze. A mysterious figure, clad in the shadows, appeared. "Need a hand with those tricky numbers?" the enigmatic stranger offered, a mischievous glint in their eye.

Our protagonist, cautious yet curious, nodded. The stranger took a seat, and with a flair for the dramatic, began explaining math concepts in a way that made them sound like the plot twists of a gripping novel.

[archerdepartures116]

Ill post this au( inspired by tweet above) i started on my twt on Tumblr too

First part

more comic panels below

Second part

Third part

Fourth part

Shenanigans side extra

this is currently an ongoing series, if this does well here, I will continue posting these in bulk (～￣▽￣)～

feel free to ask me ab this au and give your suggestions!

[gloriousmonsters]

love when you can ask the Narrator why the Princess is a Princess and he's like 'well i uhhhh YOU did that. maybe it's because uh... something something about her being above you... but still approachable... look i don't want to analyze or anthropomorphize your--' my guy. i am a primal being of Order and Eternity and Shaping. You're the one who convinced me I was some dude and were quite willing to take credit for shaping my view on the world through narration five seconds ago. Are you gonna look me in the eye and tell me the desire to interpret something worthy of adoration and more powerful than me as a dommy princess is written in the very nature of the universe or are you going to show me your browser history like a man

[lykoiii]

and i never wanted anything from you

except everything you had

and what was left after that too

[stardustedknuckles]

It's looking like there's a growing divide between Campaign watchers and Tlovm watchers in terms of like. We're here for the characters. 12-episode seasons aren't. They can't be. I'm already making peace with everything we'll lose in the Mighty Nein show, and I know I will enjoy it for what it is but I also know that almost nothing that made the story so special will translate to the screen, because turning it into a show automatically means (in this day and age) that plot must be the number one priority. They've already come out and told us it's going to be different, the characters we know and love but new stories.

Because that's how this has to work. And I feel bad for campaign one lovers, because while it is certainly the easier of the two to translate to a big, overarching story, even though it's a more "traditional" high fantasy story with easier archetypal characters, the archetypes and the plot aren't what cemented most people's love for the campaign. So much of the love for critical role is stored in the interpersonal dynamics and the payoff that comes from hundreds of hours of tiny interactions that one day become cornerstones of development and even affect or dictate the plot.

There's no room for that. There's no room for Bard's Lament in a story that cannot afford to remove and replace a main character. A lot of tlovm is for people who have been here for all of campaign one. Most of it, however, isn't. It's for a new crowd. While CR may have creative control, you can bet your ass that there were months and years devoted to figuring out how to map a character-focused love of the show into a plot that hits the right beats to be viable in the show market.

And it worked. Tlovm has consistently high viewing numbers, and its popularity has brought and will continue to bring new people into the universe who have never interacted with CR previously. That's not a bad thing - imagine finishing your favorite show and discovering it has another FIVE HUNDRED HOURS of the equivalent of behind the scenes content. That's incredible for these newcomers. But man, it is in many ways a loss for us.

[clambuoyance]

[DC] doodled these two a lot this week

[incesthemes]

there is interesting johndean subtext and insinuations across kripke era, usually through an antagonist insinuating parent-child sexual violence in order to exert dominance over dean. this type of mockery exploits that ambiguous relationship between john and dean and reminds dean that he never had a normal relationship with his father, and that makes him gross and wrong. it doesn't actually matter in the end whether john was sexually abusive to dean. the core of their relationship was damning enough: dean was made to take the place of john's wife—to comfort john and raise sam—while simultaneously being his son. the codependent nature of their relationship implies the incest that underscores their dynamic. again, this is regardless of what literally occurred between dean and john because there is enough doubt toward the nature of their relationship that multiple antagonists can use it against them.

sonwife, brotherhusband—dean is stuck in a liminal space between family and lover and is unable to put his feet firmly on just one side and instead has to accept both together or abandon both together. he doesn't get to have a relationship with his family without it being simultaneously incestuous. he plays the role of wife to john and mother to sam as mary's replacement; he therefore becomes more than a son and transcends the boundaries of the familial into the incestuous. it's baked into the dynamic and he can't hope to escape the liminality in which he's stuck without abandoning his entire family altogether.

this ambiguous relationship is further acted out with sam, where people perceive them as lovers rather than brothers; where their mutual devotion trumps, neglects, and disallows any other close relationship outside each other; where their physical closeness is viewed through an unusually sexual lens despite no literal sex acts between them taking place on screen. once again dean is stuck in a liminal space, paralleling the ambiguous and uncertain relationship he had with john.

in the end, sex (and sexual violence) is just a symbol of this codependency and uncertainly incestuous dynamic. sex acts in kripke era end up being symbolic: misinterpretations of sam and dean's relationship; accusations of sexual violence; literal, on-screen sexual moments between the brothers and someone else. it's a literary device that highlights the incestuous themes of the show. dean hand-picks women for sam to fuck because it allows dean to be symbolically part of sam's sex life. henricksen accuses john of raping dean because it is a symbol of the unhealthy, codependent relationship dean had with his father. the samulet stays on during sex because sam is symbolically integral to dean's sexual gratification (seen too in the way both dean and cassie in 1.13 appear to kiss the amulet at least once in the dark room). sex is used to signify more than what's literally on the screen, and the connections between the literal sex acts and the blurred lines of dean's familial relationships allow for a reading of incest between both john and dean and sam and dean.

it never mattered whether johndean or samdean had a sexual relationship in the canon because that was never the point. the point is the liminality that permeates the narrative. sam, dean, and john all stand upon a threshold between acceptable and taboo. the point of it all is the doubt and anxiety, the are-they-aren't-they that is never answered. the absence of incest within the text invites the understanding that the incest was, in fact, always there.

[sparring-spirals]

I was initially clipping this to capture the overwhelmingly accurate, absolutely devastating hilarity of "you went for realistic, and sadly, you nailed it". And then just kept recording because I really fucking love the discussion about how to balance the line between like:

You are trying to tell a story that feels good and gives you the kind of lift you might be looking for in an explicitly fantasy story,

vs

How to ensure it still feels grounded and rewarding in a way where you can "bring this good feeling back to earth" at the end.

Like they're talking about TTRPG's but they clearly make parallels to other forms of storytelling/worldbuilding mediums, like movies, and. like. Yeah. Yeah.

Like the framing of "you really recreated the feeling of powerlessness..." and wanting the fantasy element to manifest in there being the clearer, straightforward ways to solve complex issues, vs trying to ensure that you can have a victory and it feels feasible and substantial and applicable in some way, and has something you can take out of the fantasy world and hold with you back on "terra firma".

Its tricky! Its a tricky thing to balance, and I don't think there's a single "right" answer nor should there be because it depends. It depends on the story, and the intent, and the setting, and the medium, and etc. Big fan of this framework to explain it.

[pumpkinhimiko]

Mistranslations that aren't, part 2

Part 1 here. I didn't catch all the misinformation in this thread the first time, so I'm back for a second round.

つまり、オマエラには帰る場所なんてもうないんだ。In short, there's no place for you bastards (omaera) to return to. だから外に出ても無意味なんだよ。So there's no point in going outside.

Omaera, the plural form of omae, is a very crude way to address someone. It's the same word Monokuma uses that has been consistently translated as "you bastards" throughout the series. Kokichi normally uses the more polite kimi, the plural form being kimitachi, so him suddenly switching to omaera is an indication of how he's aligning himself with Monokuma and the mastermind at this point in the story. Translating it as "you bastards" is more than appropriate, is what I'm saying.

王馬くん･･･これって単純に、Ouma-kun... this means he's simply 僕で遊んでるだけ･･･ だよな? playing with me... right?

So, I finally found the line I think the OP was referring to. The reason I couldn't find it before? Because their "translation" is so incredibly off that it went straight over my head. 単純 carries the meanings pure, simple, straightforward, but here, 単純に is like the English purely. You use に for adjectives the same reason you use -ly in English. They mistook Shuichi's junsuini, meaning purely or simply, as him calling Kokichi himself pure. The context for this, by the way, is Shuichi wondering whether Kokichi is serious about killing him.

にしし、 それはね... Nishishi, well... 親を殺して組織を乗っ取ったんだ。I took over the organization by killing my parents.

大丈夫、嘘に決まってるじゃん。Don't worry, I'm lying of course.

殺したのは兄貴だよ! The one I killed was my older brother!

I... don't even know how to explain this one since it's so straightforward. 殺したのは = one that was killed, followed immediately by 兄貴 = older brother. There's no mention of parents in this last sentence. Maybe because Kokichi doesn't explicitly but rather implicitly refer to himself they got confused? I honestly don't know. It's also in response to Shuichi asking how he took over his organization, so Kokichi's response to that being "my brother killed my parents!" does not connect.

[eriexplosion]

Had a shower thought about the whole Plan 99 thing. Specifically that when asked about why the reason is always, "Well they were going into Tarkin's lair and there had to be a consequence." But they never say why it had to be Tech. Why pick your core character that delivers not only most of your exposition but also humor moments, easy writing work arounds, everything?

Well, if I were picking a fake out character death, I would pick Tech immediately. His loss would absolutely be devastating in and out of universe, but he's also specifically the one that thinks his way out of every situation. Establish a high pain tolerance and make it clear just how fast he processes and you're basically set. You have a devastating scene in the moment and a few dozen ways you can take it from there for how he makes it out. You can even damage him enough to take away some of his utility as a character without totally wrecking it because he's both physically and mentally adept, his loss on the field can be devastating without losing his planning skills and exposition.

But if I were planning a real death? Especially in the manner they chose? It would have been Wrecker. Full stop.

He had no narrative threads to tie up, but we see how completely happy he is on Pabu, how great it would have been for him to stay there. He's been our ray of sunshine since the beginning. He bonded with Omega from the start and has always been there for her.

If he fell from the tram car, was left dangling hundreds or thousands of feet in the air, the very mutation that makes him Wrecker would have made him almost impossible to hoist back up in time, no matter how much they tried. The logic is there. The narrative justification is there - he's always been afraid of heights and now he's here with a choice between facing his biggest fear and his family's safety.

He would do it of course. Even if he can't shoot the cable he'd have an explosive on him that could take out the dangling tram car. He would see his own inevitable death from his worst nightmare and he wouldn't hesitate because his family is more important. And when we lost sight of him we would know that it was almost impossible for him to figure out a way to save his own life before he hit the ground. We wouldn't have dozens of ways to reason it out like we do with Tech. It would be immediately and long term narratively devastating without completely hamstringing their best character for getting out of narrative corners and infodumping.

Tech is the perfect fake out pick. But Wrecker? Wrecker would have been the perfect death. And I think they would have known that too. Picking Tech was intentional because he's the only one that could have survived it.

[skeletonwithakeyboard]

Lowkey keep forgetting to post about this BUT!

You know that trope when two characters who don't like each other get separated from the main group/main dynamic and when that happens both of them realize that they actually have a lot in common and get along well?

That needs to happen with pupship!

Both will insult people unprompted, both have/had shit dads, both love their little sibling! It's a match made in hell!

I think their banter would bounce off each other well, imagine them tag team duelling and both of them roasting their opponents (Rip those poor souls), I also think kaiba would (kinda) lighten up and indulge more in his immature side when he's around Joey, and Joey can let loose his more assholey side without being corrected by the gang.

They would be having a blast and even might be able to have a nice heart to heart, no rude jokes, no walls, no friends, no exceptions, just the two of them

Joey would look at kaiba, an obvious question hanging in the air that Joey couldn't leave alone.

"... Why aren't we friends?"

Kaiba doesn't meet his gaze nor does he answer, instead he pulls Joey closer to him. "I know as well as you do that the rest of your friends will eventually come looking for you," finally kaiba turns to look at Joey "Let's just enjoy this"

[clefadrylcorner]

The real loss of Capcom putting Kristoph in the basement is that we can no longer get any more scenes or context about the weird gay shit he and Phoenix had going on. I think they painted eachothers nails and shotgunned cigarettes together during the late hours and explored eachothers bodies once or twice, you know what I mean. I just feel like we could have had a scene where Phoenix talks about him in passing and says some shit like how when they drank together they only used one glass between the two of them; both because they were close and because it guaranteed to Phoenix that he wouldn't be poisoned by Kristoph if they were using the same glass, and then apollo looks at him like he just said he kissed his old boss with tongue. I just think it would be funny, you know

[demodraws0606]

People complaining about Tsukasa5 already are pissing me off, because like, it's so unbelievably obvious what this event is trying to do and the fact that people are so hung up on "urgh dur tsukasa strong why can't he do a wall climb".

Like, first of all, a lot of Tsukasa's strength has been used as comedy before and also it's never been said that Tsukasa could specifically do a wall climb before so people calling this a retcon or a stretch is really dumb to me.

Sure we can make jokes about it, but this is not like a serious writing problem or anything.

Also are we just gonna ignore the fact this event is literally just a reference to his 3rd event in a silly trenchcoat. Or the fact that this is obviously meant to be WxS's downtime and training arc to prepare them to face the loose plotpoints in the future?

His inner dialogue when chasing the ninja is very clearly a reference to the whole Pheonix thing, how he can't reach it no matter how hard he tries.

The wall climb is like an extremely fucking on the nose metaphor to him climbing over his issues as an actor.

THERE IS ALSO THE WHOLE THING THAT HINTS THAT TSUKASA CAN ONLY OVERCOME HIS PROBLEMS IF HE HAS HELP FROM OTHERS (AKA tsukasa would've literally BEEN INJURED, if it wasn't for the fact the troupe's leader was there).

In fact this literally followed an event aka Tsukasa 4 where he FAILED to do his role correctly.

It's almost like this event is meant to be a transition point between Tsukasa 4 and 6, where Tsukasa builds up the knwoledge on how to face his problems.

But no this is just mid event because it's very silly and "wow plot is stupid why can't tsukasa wall climb".

WxS fans are slowly just turning into VBS fans in terms of how whiney they're being i swear

[starnana7]

okay but the fact that dean and cas are BOTH made for each other and at the same time they willed their love. they made it happen, knowingly, loving each other with every bit of consciousness they had, that they gained with one another. cas was always a rebellious angel, but this is the only universe where he actually rebelled—for dean. that he didn’t do what he was told, where he defied God and fate and the universe. they may not love each other in Every universe, and that may have been their only chance (</3) But Fuck if that isn’t even more poetic. the fact they weren’t linked by some intertwined invisible string but they actually chose to fall in love with each other. every day they made that choice, consciously or not. every day they chose each other. every day they woke up and fought for their love. and like i do think that at some level they were kinda destined for each other, i mean, they Are soulmates, but not in the divine sense yk like chuck did brought castiel over and over because of dean and they are not just two random dudes that fell in love; they were indeed “brought together” but ultimately They—and only they—changed the entire narrative bc that WASN’T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. castiel was supposed to obey, to comply; dean was supposed to hate all angels and supernatural beings, and yet they were the only real thing in the entire cosmos. they were the only real thing in chuck’s story, their love, the bond they forged—one that wasn’t even supposed to exist, at least not like that. like they really did that Huh they invented free will right then and there to the point even the writers had to change the original script so castiel would come back (i’m pretty sure he was only supposed to be in a few episodes). love so strong they changed the narrative (both of them). cas love for dean was so strong that even tho he was brainwashed and trained to kill dean over and over and over again, the moment that dean needed cas—dean who doesn’t need any one btw—the connection broke, cas broke free. dean love for cas was so strong that even tho he had the moc, the moment that cas asked for him to stop, he did, he couldn’t kill cas, not with cas touching him and not fighting back (btw i love this parallel with all my heart and also cas-collete parallel hellooo?). dean also loved cas so much that even tho he was by fate bound to amara, the moment she did something to cas he immediately went against her, like even she realized that his love for cas was stronger than their bond—even tho his and amara bond was literally inevitable, like it just would happen. and then again we prove that the choice of dean and cas love for each other was so much more strong than anything that chuck could’ve written, stronger than any fate or ineffable plan or anything. and like cas’ love is so strong that i do think would resonate in every universe, but not because they were supposed to happen. on the contrary, specifically because they weren’t a thing, it were so strong to the point it changed everything that it could also happen in every other universe yk like i firmly believe cas would always find dean but not because of fate but because of his love

[jajanvm-imbi]

Hey remember when I said that this was the most frustrating thing about being a Helluva Boss enjoyer?

Yeah I was wrong.

The most frustrating thing about being a Helluva Boss enjoyer is explicitly stating multiple times that I like show and then get called an anti and homophobic and media illiterate when I complain about the direction it has taken.

I LIKE the comedy

I LIKE the animation and artstyle

I LIKE the more serious plotlines like the government agents plot and the Cherubs plot

I LIKE the themes of friendship and found family

I even like most of the songs!

And ofc the voice cast slays every time

But just because your show has angst and tears and drama and sad music doesn't automatically make it "good".

Just because your characters are queer doesn't automatically make them good or well written characters

This fandom is so frustrating to deal with when you want to express your more nuanced takes of it

This is probably gonna be the last post I make about this subject and about Helluva Boss in general, this shit is too stupid to deal with

[aquitainequeen]

Just think: when she's kidnapped Furiosa gnaws through the fuel hose of her captor's motorbike in order to slow him down and allow her mother to catch up,

and when she accepts the Black Thumb's last agonised plea to finish the job and save the War Rig, she crawls with a fuel hose clenched between her teeth in order to fix the engines and allow the Rig to outrun its pursuers