#narrative threads
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thenalexica · 1 month ago
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how characters navigate family drama as subplot
Avoids picking sides at dinners Makes excuses to leave gatherings Keeps secrets between family members Mediates fights during holidays Hides relationship from relatives Deals with parental disappointment daily Creates buffer between arguing siblings Maintains diplomatic group texts Dodges nosy family questions Balances divided family events Protects younger ones from drama Carries emotional family baggage Plans careful seating arrangements Manages multiple family opinions Navigates cultural expectations
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enchantingepics · 11 months ago
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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.
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archerdepartures116 · 6 months ago
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Ill post this au( inspired by tweet above) i started on my twt on Tumblr too
First part
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more comic panels below
Second part
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Third part
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Fourth part
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Shenanigans side extra
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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!
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gloriousmonsters · 1 year ago
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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
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lykoiii · 4 months ago
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and i never wanted anything from you
except everything you had
and what was left after that too
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magnetic-rose · 1 month ago
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the pitt does the same thing that ER does where they'll have these funny, almost nonsensical cases (the woman asking dr robby if he wants to see her vagina, the patient with the dog collar super glued onto him) interwoven with tragic cases (the old man with dementia, the teen who's brain dead).
and it just creates this sense of heightened chaos where you're laughing one moment and then crying in the next scene.
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incesthemes · 10 months ago
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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.
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stardustedknuckles · 4 months ago
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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.
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clambuoyance · 2 years ago
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[DC] doodled these two a lot this week
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ariadne-mouse · 17 days ago
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Caleb: yesterday was, ah, not great
Nott: yeah, well, we'll do better today, right?
Caleb: sure - sure we will
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revvethasmythh · 1 month ago
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Your post about Rashinna made me realise...who are our notable NPCs in Cr3?
Like... Cr1 had Allura, Kima, Gilmore, Cassandra, Jarrett, Kynan, Kaylie, Artagan
And Cr2 had Essek, Yeza, Marion, The Gentleman, Astrid, Yussa, Pumat, Orly, Dairon, Artagan again
But Cr3 has Ira, the Calloways, Liliana, Xandis (I guess if you really want to buff it out you could include the PCs and NPCs from previous campaigns)
But I guess the point still stands. For a campaign that is as long as Vox Machina's streaming time, and almost as long as Mighty Nein's, why have we got so few NPCs that we're attached to?
Yeah, there are some notable NPCs in C3 (those you've mentioned), but significantly fewer than in previous campaigns. I mean, you can see it even with shopkeepers--the only shopkeeper I can really think of by name is Marwa Endalia and she hasn't so much as been mentioned by name since episode 23. That is SUCH a stark difference from the Nein's relationship with Pumat (and just, the variety of random, colorful shopkeepers many of us can still name *sheila bobsnopper my beloved*), and even the Hells' attachment to Xandis feels somewhat surface-level compared to how involved and invested the Nein were in Orly's life (and continued survival).
Tbh, I think the lack of notable C3 NPCs is an unfortunate casualty of the Hells either running to Vox Machina for a lot of things (giving up a potential plot line with Jiana Hexum in favor of one with Pike, Percy, and Vex when Laudna died) or having those NPCs killed off (NOTABLY this happened to Estheross. This also effectively happened to Planerider Ryn, who didn't die, per se, but was completely taken out of commission for like. the whole story). Not staying in any particular place long enough to establish any real roots (missed opportunities for major NPCs in Jrusar, Bassuras and especially in Yios with Kadija Sumal and Vitro Isham to name a couple) also plays a part. C1 and C2 were both much more rooted in their home locations, or locations that eventually became a home for the characters, and we just have none of that in C3. There is no place that feels like Bells Hells' home base the way Emon/Whitestone did for VM or Zadash/Rosohna did for the Nein. Without those integral locations, we lose the connecting NPCs that bring those places to life. In that, a lot of the flaws of C3 become interconnected, imo
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jazzajazzjazz · 1 month ago
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Ah yes the r/dragonage mods continue to be weirdos
Added this
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sparring-spirals · 5 months ago
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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.
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pumpkinhimiko · 1 year ago
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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aliusfrater · 4 days ago
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similar cinematographic choices to portray the same imagery with insanely different circumstantial contexts
#like being tricked into a room and locked off from the outside world with a pitcher of water‚ a waste bucket‚ and an army cot#as you slowly died while experiencing acute mental distress to the point of having a psychogenic seizure at the same time#that people discussed your fate as if it were a decision they had the authority to make (and they DO. unfortunately for you)#vs being tied to chair during which you're in pretty consistent communication and under the care of the person who put you there#and you're narratively given the opportunity to hunt this person down and you even have scenes with hand to hand combat#in which you're able to properly defend yourself. for the other person the idea of your life being in danger is carefully threaded risk#to be taken rather than (as per the previous circumstance described) a decision you have the authority to make#likeee i remember reblogging this post that ssid 'supernatural doesn't really have a concept of jail' but like absolutely yes it does#sam (and even other characters like mary and rowena) are both put in 'jail' as the direct effect to a fault#wrt the winchester familial dynamic and their role. it's one of the main differences here. sam is put in jail‚ dean is not#sam does not have the authority to put him there. it doesn't help that sam is literally pleading as the victim within his scene#while dean is able to victimise sam even as the monstrous body within the 10.03 scene#and the thing is that their identities are being compartmentalised in similar ways here. dean is attempting to save his sammy#from the encroaching (invariable) monstrous sam that which he spends the next season attempting to forgive for the shortcoming#of dean perceiving sam's efforts at independence as abandonment while sam is attempting to save his dean from the encroaching mark of cain#(chosen to be put there yet is still victimised by) and sam spends the rest of the season forgiving him over and over while even#taking misattributed responsibility and blame that which has to be made up for#4.21#10.03#se referat#edit: also adding onto chii's tags wrt the differences in capacity for consent regarding demon!dean#it's so interesting to compare demon!dean to soulless!sam in that demon!dean didn't have the capacity to reject competent!dean's consent#while both soulless!sam and 5.22!sam did not consent to be resouled in respectively active and precedingly passive ways#like 6.12 sam is clearly happy and grateful to have been resurrected and he doesn't even have any specific qualms#about dean keeping information relating to his ressurection from him but 5.22 explicitly made his consent‚ or lack thereof‚ regarding#ressurection clear unlike dean in early-s10... and the thing is that the last time sam didn't pursue dean's ressurection#he faced negative consequences for that decision! and yet dean is seen as objectively correct for his actions in s6#by both the audience and narrative‚ and much of his responsibility regarding sam's psychosis isn't acknowledged as directly related#to his actions vs the pinning of blame to much of early-s10 onto sam esp relating to the guy he had summon a demon‚ who sold his own soul#despite sam's advice‚ whom demon!dean killed
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eriexplosion · 1 year ago
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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.
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