#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 (～￣▽￣)��

for more frequent uploads, you can follow my twitter at ArcherD116, feel free to ask me ab this au and give your suggestions!

[amarriageoftrueminds]

View on Twitter

Since it came up recently, link to that therapist on twitter 👆 who was discussing Bucky's terribile therapist in TFATWS and how they should’ve been. 

Transcript:

"As a therapist myself I've had a lot of feelings about Bucky's therapist on TFatWS, and have decided I need to rant a little to let it all out. I've worked w/active duty, trauma survivors, and court ordered clients, so here's some therapeutic conjecture on Bucky's therapy:

Aesthetically her office and presentation don't fit for someone who has been through the trauma that he’s been through. A client like this would need something non-threatening and safe- the whole vibe is overly formal and official in an office building, not at all therapeutic.

6 months working together she calls him Mr. Barnes and then James-he has identity issues and is struggling with who he is, so I think that one of the 1st things they would have done is figure out what he is comfortable being called, by whom and what that means for him.

He is still full out lying to her about pretty much everything including PTSD sx—I’m not saying clients never lie if they have good therapists, but if after 6 months he still doesn’t feel like he can be truthful at all then they haven’t built any trust/ solid therapeutic rapport

The pen and notebook thing-that’s clearly a trigger for him, there’s no reason to antagonize him and take notes in session like a punishment, it’s a power play on her part and it only emphasizes his lack of control in being forced into therapy (she should know his hx w/notebooks)

The whole little arm motion she made when she said “they need to make sure you don’t…” – that made so much light of what has happened to him, he probably feels like his arm is only good as a weapon and things like that will not help him accept it as part of his body

The rules, UGH the rules—from how they were talking about them clearly not something he actively created for himself, more like directives that he’s been ordered to adhere to—something fed to him and reinforced, feels like a way to sign off on liability only

THE AMENDS—this is probably my biggest issue. Amends are for people who need to take accountability for their actions and the repercussions of those choices. He had NO choice. He was a victim of horrific crimes against him, and framing it in a way that he needs to make up for

the crimes that others used him for is abhorrent. The lack of trauma informed care as astounding in the way it is being framed that he has to atone for sins that weren’t his. Its clearly reinforcing the idea in his head in ep 2 when he says “HYDRA were my people".

NO, HYDRA were your captors. They were not your people. That type of thinking needs to get deconstructed and challenged. He can dedicate himself to bringing good into the world and righting wrongs that happened WITHOUT taking on the responsibility of those actions.

Her whole attitude and demeanor were condescending and demeaning. I know some people have said “I love how she calls him out on his bullshit!” That’s not what I see happening. I call my clients out on their shit all the time—this was not that.

And I can only do that with clients ONCE we’ve built the type of relationship where it’s going to be therapeutic for them to hear it, and it’s done intentionally and with purpose. She just came off shaming and mean because they don’t seem to have any form of therapeutic rapport.

She said “you have no history, no family”- there is no therapeutic reason for that, and she’s wrong. He most likely has family alive (he used current tense when talking about his sister) and he was close to Shuri and TChalla, his history is vital to understanding him

When she said “Look, I know that you have been through a lot, but you’ve got your mind back. You are being pardoned. These are good things. You’re free.”—Yeah this feels really dismissive and like toxic positivity. “I know you’ve been through a lot BUT BE HAPPY!!??”

He certainly doesn’t seem to feel like he’s free (especially having therapy mandated), and you can’t just tell someone they’re free. I felt like she was pretty much just like, “shake it off, look to the future!” which feels really shitty when you’ve experienced excessive trauma.

HELLO breach of confidentiality, just introducing herself to Sam as his therapist and confirming it to Walker and the whole police station, it doesn’t matter if they know he’s in therapy you do not break someone’s privacy like that, he still deserves some control over his tx.

Ordering Sam into a session, NO, he’s not your client and you don’t know him well enough to know if that’s appropriate or if it would be harmful to either, and you haven’t asked your client for his consent to have another person in his session

Forcing a trauma victim who was stripped of his bodily autonomy for 70 years into a physically intimate exercise with a coworker that he’s barely interacted with in the last several months? NOPE, just reinforcing to Bucky she has control over him the way his handlers used to

To me, I think she is more focused on signing off on his psychological eval that he isn't a liability rather than any actual healing or attention to his trauma. This unfortunately isn’t unusual in the military where “mental health treatment” is focused on being mission ready.

They are making sure he’s ready to be an “asset” w/ mandated therapy, which he shouldn’t even be forced to do as part of his pardon because he shouldn’t have needed a pardon at all because he was a victim of horrific war crimes, brainwashing, and dehumanization for 70 years.

I’m just saying, if that was me he would be on my big squishy couch, bright open windows, bowl of Hershey kisses, random fidget toys, and two therapy dogs laying all over him while we work through that trauma and he builds back his identity and finds the calm he wants so badly.

And yes he would probably need someone who would see through his BS, call him out when he needs it, not be overly "touchy feely", but only if he feels safe and there is trust, where he gets to work on what HE wants, not what others think he needs.

Anyway thanks for coming to my TEDTalk, I❤️my work and I think being a therapist on retainer for the Avengers would've been a fucking trip, they all needed a team of mental health professionals at their disposal 24/7 and things would've been so much better🤣

ps. They can be a good therapist and just not be a fit for the client, that happens regularly. We know when to make it part of the conversation and when to refer out. Nothing good is going to come out of a contemptuous therapeutic relationship, mandated or not.

pps. That whole situation and the scene with Zemo was so rough. I can't imagine how much it brought back the violation, humiliation, anger, and helplessness of when he was the WS. I'm just imagining him having a therapist he trusts and being able to process that afterwards 😭😭😭"

[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

[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

[lykoiii]

and i never wanted anything from you

except everything you had

and what was left after that too

[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.

[clowndensation]

louis, lestat, and their single bed as a motif louis puts into his own story, but refuses to explore, is literally one of the sexiest parts of the show. it speaks volumes about a level of fulfillment and freedom that louis feels by being with lestat that he rarely explicitly comments on when he's relaying his story to daniel, which feels extremely relevant to his overall reluctance to examine the parts of his relationship with lestat that he really enjoyed.

because louis is a character who's hyper aware of how he presents himself. he's lived his entire life projecting a certain masculine, heteronormative image, and he's aware of how deviating from that presentation has implications that impact how people view him - from enjoying the opera, to the presentation of his nails. the fact that he moves in with lestat and neither of them ever put a second bed into any room in the house as a level of plausible deniability is so huge and oversight by so cautious a character, it can only be read as deliberate - especially when the conspicuous lack of a second bed is pointed out to them by both antoinette and a literal police officer. in an existence where you don't sleep in a bed, the bed becomes a symbolic object more so than a practical one. it's louis choosing to deliberately transgress against the societal expectations he lives out when he leaves his house, a bit of presentation that actually amplifies his truth as a gay man living with his partner, rather than masking or hiding himself, like he does for the outside world.

[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

[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