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physalian · 1 month ago

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On Tournament Arcs (I want more of these in lit)

The “tournament arc” is a staple of shonen anime. I’d find it very hard to believe anyone on here hasn’t at least seen gifs of it so here’s a quick breakdown: Your core cast of characters + extras and new adversaries are all thrown together in a tournament competing for anything from the low stakes of cash or bragging rights to who lives and who dies by the hand of the nefarious god throwing the tournament.

These are extremely popular for a few reasons:

They’re fodder for a ton of episodes without a whole lot of complicated story—the story is baked into the different rounds of combat

There’s a chance for a lot of different intense character interaction that might not normally happen pitting two random names against each other

They can sometimes artificially raise the stakes—in isolation, winning the Round of 16 in a series about saving the world doesn’t mean anything, but winning any one game might give the heroes the chance to stay alive just one more day

I just rewatched the first tournament arc of My Hero Academia a few days ago (the first sports festival) and man, I do miss when this show was good.

So! While tournament arcs aren’t exclusive to shows with super powers or magical abilities like Naruto—they’re baked into a sports anime—today’s essay is all about the efficiency and shake-ups that MHA pulled off, since its pacing is something you could realistically cram into a written novel, and, well, I like this one.

Disclaimer: This show is incredibly manipulative, in a good way (at least in earlier seasons it was in a good way). Elements are way more dramatic than they should be due to the music, the animation, and the pacing, but you’re having fun right along with the characters at the edge of your seat. The excitement isn’t manufactured, you’re hyped right along with the people in the stands. This isn’t very translatable to page, unfortunately.

Second disclaimer: I DNFed this show midway through an episode in season 5 and never went back. It got so bad I literally turned it off in both disgust and sheer boredom. I am not an MHA superfan.

—

Pacing:

For a shonen anime, this first tournament arc is brutally efficient. Take a show like Naruto or DBZ, shows known for their filler, and their tournament arcs for any given season will last 50 episodes or more. MHA’s is 11 episodes, 12 if you want to include the setup in episode 1. In that time, there’s three unique stages of combat and an entire three-tiered 1v1 tournament within the tournament.

Some fights last two episodes, some last about 30 seconds, but none are too drawn out, or too rushed, based on who’s fighting and what their powers are.

Example: Todoroki kind of has “instakill” powers (or at least he does in this arc, he forgets about it 6 episodes later) and if he’s up against anyone who doesn’t have the specific kind of powers that can counteract his, the fight’s decided pretty much instantly, like when he’s up against quasi-Spiderman Sero, and manifests a whole glacier from teenage angst. When he is up against somebody who he can’t freeze immediately, well, that’s where the drama comes from. This is his arc, after all.

Character fodder:

Not only that, but it’s not 11 straight episodes of 1v1. The first leg of combat is an obstacle race, the second is a “cavalry battle” with teams, and the last, the majority, is 1v1. These different challenges require the core characters to think different ways, and as the number of competitors thin dramatically, different side characters get the chance to shine at different points in the arc as more and more are disqualified.

But the way that this arc is written leaves even some core characters in the protagonist class on the outs pretty quickly, even those who make it to the final round, usually due to bad matchups. Characters who had excelled either in power, physical ability, or intelligence just aren’t suited to face whoever they’re up against and it shocks them as much as it does the audience. Even when it forces them to get creative—and that is one thing I loved about this show in its early years, how smart some characters had to be with their niche powers to compete with the natural born powerhouses.

A surprising standout fight was Bakugo vs Uraraka, where nearly every single person in the stands, including the teachers, all professional heroes, were like “dude you can’t hit a girl, you can explode shit with your hands, she’s only got anti gravity” and Bakugo did not give a single fuck about what’s in Uraraka’s pants. It shows that he’s smart, and that he’s a dick, but he has a shit ton of respect for other people’s power and determination when they have as much as he does. Only one other character, their personal teacher, Aizawa, notices: To go easy on her would be a far greater insult than to treat her like an equal challenger.

She lost, in a heartbreaking defeat, but she absolutely made him work for it. It did so much for his character, this whole arc did, but more on that later.

Audience expectations:

But the big reason this arc worked so well was how it subverted expectations. Midoriya is (or used to be) the show’s protagonist. In this arc, he’s got two real main adversaries in his way to gold: Bakugo, a kid with extremely impressive raw talent that he’s honed with a dangerous perfectionist streak, and Todoroki, who wants to win by half-assing it to piss off his abusive hero dad. Both of these two are far more competent with their powers while Midoriya still has the training wheels on his.

Usually, in these types of shows, if the hero doesn’t win, he comes in a very close second in the big dramatic final showdown. It’s part of his arc to be not quite ready yet. But usually, he wins, and the character he’d beaten to a pulp learns some humility and joins the hero squad in the next arc out of respect to their better.

MHA doesn’t do that. Midoriya never faces Bakugo in the 1v1 and he faces Todoroki in the semis, not the finals, and he loses.

The big fight of the tournament is Midoriya vs Todoroki. I used to hear it compared to Rock Lee vs Gaara (which I actually have seen despite not liking Naruto) and it’s… not, if only because it’s missing about 300 episodes of buildup and drama between these two.

But the fight isn’t just a fistfight. Midoriya wants to win, yes, but he’s a hero, first, and he wants to save his friend in the true shonen way of punching friendship into his enemies. Their fight plus the buildup takes two episodes, littered with Todoroki’s PTSD flashbacks (to a gorgeous score) that basically boils down to:

Todoroki: Wah I hate my powers, fuck my dad, I’m gonna half-ass this out of spite and my raw power is enough to win

Midoriya: Fuck you dude, if you want to beat me, you have to give it your all, and it’s not his powers. You may have inherited them, but it’s your power.

Well, Midoriya gets what he asked for, and Todoroki does not at all hold back.

And that’s the semifinal.

With Midoriya out, there’s still the rest of the semis and the final round. This does not happen.

So why did it happen? Because our hero isn’t ready yet. He’s so new with his powers, so inexperienced in combat, that so far he’s skated by on his smarts and his sheer raw ability the few times he’s able to let it out like releasing a pressure valve, seriously injuring himself in the process. Against kids who’ve been training their whole lives, being smart only got him so far.

It was the perfect path for his character, one we’ve only known for maybe 30 episodes in total at this point in the show. If he won or even just barely lost, that would have left so much less room for growth in later tournaments. He’s hella OP, but he’s not at all a Mary Sue, and his greatest strength—his heart—is what cost him the win. In the end, he lost the medal, but he won a friend.

And then the final round comes.

Bakugo vs Todoroki, the two most well-rounded kids in the class (in their whole grade level probably), after Bakugo opens the entire tournament with “I pledge that I’m going to win”.

Thing is, with Bakugo, he’s an asshole, but he’s an asshole who continuously puts his money where his mouth is. He’s never blowing smoke. If he says he’s going to do something, by god, he will do it.

So the final round comes and Bakugo tells Todoroki that he wants to win fair and square, that Todoroki'd better not hold back, he’d better give it his all, because going easy on Bakugo would be giving him the win, and he ain’t no charity case.

That… does not happen. One does not overcome a lifetime of childhood trauma by the Power of Friendship and one speech in this show. Todoroki botches it, gets his ass handed to him, and Bakugo wins the tournament, and he is pissed.

Character Arcs:

I already talked about Midoriya above and won’t repeat myself, but like I said above, tournament arcs are a fantastic way to do many things at once, which is crucial to pacing. It won’t feel stale, no matter how long or repetitive it is, so long as the characters are still developing within that repetition. This was about showing off their powers, yes, but the pressure to perform and get their names out their in a highly saturated, cynical heroism market of capitalism is a lot for 15 year old kids.

Some are out there to make money, being a hero to their families. Some are out there to be the best. Some are out there to be the friendly neighborhood super kid. Since all but one character must lose, everybody but Bakugo failed in some way, big or small, to make the impact they wanted on tournament day. And Bakugo, though he won, feels like he still failed because he won basically by default.

Since it’s set so early in the show, one would think that it would be a fantastic foundation for where all the core characters see themselves and where they go from here. If you’re writing this into a novel and you don’t have a million characters that don’t matter, it’s a brutally efficient way to establish the major players in high-octane fashion.

I’mma gush about Bakugo for a second now: He and Todoroki are two sides of the same coin in this arc. Both are plagued by expectations because of their powers, and both suffer because of it. Todoroki’s been beaten like a dog by his dad to hone his fire and ice powers to one day usurp the number one hero.

Bakugo, though, Bakugo is “the gifted kid” who suddenly entered a world where the gap between him and everyone inferior to him is a lot smaller. He has incredible power, which has always gotten him high expectations and little margin for fucking up and looking weak—cause if you’ve got the ability to make explosions with your hands, you have to be the best all day every day. There is no falling off the wagon, there are no sick days, there is no flab or fat or cheat days.

All of this is an undercurrent in this arc. He has such high expectations for himself, such high expectations thrown on him by hero society, such critical views of his attitude and his powers—he was literally called a villain when he fought Uraraka and didn’t treat her like a “frail” little girl—that when he wins because Todoroki throws the fight, it’s the biggest insult anyone could do to him.

Nobody else cares, but Bakugo cares. In his desperate quest to always be the best or else, winning by default doesn’t prove anything to him. He doesn’t want the medal, he doesn’t want this victory by his name, he doesn’t want anything except a rematch that truly challenges him. And mad respect to this kid for it.

—

Some things to consider for your tournament arc should you choose to write one

Every character should have their own separate goals and reasons for winning, beyond simply “winning”. Why do they want to win, or what will happen to them, internally or externally, if they lose?

Would it be better for your hero to win right now, or lose so they have room to grow? Who else loses and how? Are they disqualified, do they cheat, is it a devastating defeat or a photo finish?

What do these people do to themselves in their desperation to win? Do they hurt themselves, go past their physical limit? Do they bully themselves and pick their faults apart? Are they completely different people when they’re under this kind of pressure? Who’s overconfident? Who’s exactly as competent as they say they are?

What are the best matchups, not for spectacle, but for character development? In the written medium, character work absolutely comes before how pretty it might look one day on the silver screen, and that’s what will hold audience attention long after the arc is over and done with. That’s what will have people coming back to reread over and over again.

Remember: The tournament is never just about the combat, it’s about the combatants.

#writing #writeblr #writing a book #writing advice #writing resources #writing tools #story structure #writing tips #character development #my hero academia

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pkmnirlevents · 1 month ago

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An updated tagging guide for the pkmnirl community.

TL;DR

If you like using the stakes tag system and already know how they work, consider adding #heightened emotional state pokereality and #altered perception pokereality to your repertoire. A brief explanation of each below. Full explanation below the read more.

#heightened emotional state pokereality can be used with topics pertaining (but not limited) to: suicide ideation, discussions of self harm, psychosis, limerence, depressive spirals, paranoia, or high levels of anxiety.

#heightened emotional state pokereality does not necessarily include low level anxiety or depression that does not cause major disruption to everyday life. It does not include just being very angry or upset. This is for heightened emotional states often brought about by mental health crises of some kind.

#altered perception pokereality can be used with topics pertaining (but not limited) to: delusions, hallucinations, traumatic flashbacks, brainwashing, or instances of a character being gaslit.

#altered perception pokereality does not necessarily include things like unreality or benign religious beliefs. This is for aspects of a character's reality that does not reflect material reality in a way that may be distressing for the character or potential readers.

These are not meant to replace content warnings, but might allow people to filter them more quickly.

If you do not know what stakes tags is referring to, please refer to the full post below the read more for a quick explanation of these tags and how they can be used. We hope you find this guide helpful!

The Tagging Guide

Over a year and a half ago this community introduced the stakes tag system. Originally proposed by prof-hemp420, the stakes tag system gave us the navigation tags we have today. It is the system we still use here on our blog, mind you with some simplifications. It came to my attention that these tags may not be as widely known by newcomers and that the introduction of other tags could prove helpful for tagging major events, posts, and even blogs.

First off, let's go back over the previous system, then we will propose some new additions. It should be stated preemptively none of these tags are meant to replace individual warning tags (your content warnings and trigger warnings) but instead to give people less individual tags they may want to block or search through on a moment’s notice. For when you aren’t quite sure what to tag something, this can help you.

The Stakes Tags

#no stakes pokereality - As the name implies this is for zero stakes situations. These are your everyday posts. There is no expectation to tag your casual posts with this, it more so comes in handy for distinguishing that a larger event will have no major stakes involved.

#low stakes pokereality - A step up from nostakes, some mundane conflict may happen, but everything is going to turn out okay.

#drama stakes pokereality - This is the tag for drama and disturbances. The kind of tag you use when your character is getting in a screaming match with someone at a public restaurant. A plotline utilizing drama stakes may be high emotion, but no one is going to end up badly harmed. This tag may be tacked onto another tag to provide further context. i.e. these characters will argue but the conflict itself is kept relatively low stakes

#high stakes pokereality - In short, people will be hurt but everyone will survive more or less in one piece. This is for your canon compliant evil team plotlines where the protagonists lives and maybe even the entire region is at stake.

#ultra stakes pokereality - Same as high stakes, but with the acknowledgement that death or serious lasting consequences are now on the table. A Pokemon or person may die or end up in critical condition. Proceed with caution.

#dark fate pokereality - A rarely used tag that was proposed for Bad Ending scenarios. Extreme amounts of death or injury will be present, and people are not expected to come out of this okay in the end. This tag would most likely be tacked onto ultra stakes if it was used, though examples of this are limited.

These tags can be used for events, individual posts, or even in more current iterations blogs themselves! It is common to label a blog your high stakes or low stakes blog to give people a general indication of what to expect.

Now! Onto the two new tags we want to propose. With the focus on interpersonal conflicts and discussions of mental illness on a lot of blogs lately (including our own!), it felt appropriate to give general tags to use for these plotlines as well. Again, these would not replace content warnings or trigger warnings, but may offer the ability for people to filter as needed. Sometimes a person might be in a less stable place than typical, and sometimes individual content warnings can slip through the cracks due to how many variations there can be between blogs. These subjects can be triggering for individuals caught unaware.

The New Tags

#heightened emotional state pokereality - A mouthful, we know. This tag would be useful for posts or plotlines that involve characters experiencing emotional instability. It’s for things like depressive spirals, psychosis, or suicide ideation. If it is enough to impede their every day function or seems like a heavy topic to discuss, this may be applicable.

This does not necessarily include low level anxiety or depression that does not cause major disruption to everyday life. It does not include just being very angry or upset. This is for heightened emotional states often brought about by mental health crises of some kind.

#altered perception pokereality - Not to be confused with unreality, which you can find a helpful explanation of here. Altered perception can be for when your character’s beliefs do not reflect their material reality. An example of this would be your character experiencing delusions, hallucinations, or traumatic flashbacks. In a fictionalized world, it can be hard to distinguish when a character is perceiving something not truly there.

This does not necessarily include things like unreality or benign religious beliefs.

FAQ

Why do these tags all say pokereality?

This is to distinguish them as part of the pkmnirl community and to prevent them from being construed as real life events.

Do I stop using individual content warnings or trigger warning tags?

As previously mentioned please do not stop using individual warning tags! These are merely shorthand to allow people to filter things quickly. The unfortunate fact of the matter is individuals tag these things differently, meaning that if someone wants to effectively remove that content from their dash they must account for every possible variation. While well meaning, this means things inevitably slip through the cracks, we hope this may offer additional help in lessening the frequency of that.

Removing these warnings completely though would run the risk of people still being exposed to sensitive topics. In some instances an individual might be unaffected by discussions of paranoia but they are negatively affected by discussions of self harm. It's important that these tags and warnings be used in combination for them to be effective.

How do I know if my blog is high stakes or low stakes?

You do not have to label your blog as any particular stakes level. If you feel like you may dabble in higher stakes occasionally, but want to stay relatively low stakes, that is absolutely fine! Do not feel like you have to box yourself into something. You can always change your mind later.

I have a low stakes blog. Can I interact with high stakes ones?

That is down to the individual blog, but generally speaking yes! Blogs of varying stakes can interact with one another. This does not mean your blog has to become high stakes or that their blog has to become low stakes.

Should I tag all of my posts as unreality? I don’t want to upset anyone!

Tagging mundane pkmnirl posts as unreality unfortunately creates the opposite problem. People who need that tag blocked but still want to interact with the pkmnirl community then have to essentially gamble on whether or not a flagged post will contain something that will actually trigger a negative response or a regular old post about a character catching a pidgey outside the pokemart. Using a pkmnirl tag is fine. Consider pkmnirl, pkmn irl, rotomblr, rotumblr, pokeblogging, real pokemon, pokereality or some other variation to distinguish these from everyday posts on someone's dash.

Do I use #heightened emotional state pokereality or #altered perception pokereality for [X]?

If you aren’t sure it might be both! The stakes tags are mutually exclusive in most cases, but these are not. A psychosis episode will often have someone believing things that are not true about their material reality while also causing them to be in an unstable emotional state. In cases like these both tags apply.

Are heightened emotional states always bad?

We are not licensed professions to speak on the topic but to put things generally using these tags does not have to come with any moral judgment. That goes for the writer(s) and the character(s) involved.

Why did you repeat stuff so much in this guide?

People might not read all of it. We wanted to make sure that even people who might skim parts of this guide still understand the most important aspects of it.

I don’t want to use these tags!/This seems like too much effort! Or some variation thereof.

Okay. These are merely suggestions.

Original Stakes Tag Explanation | Unreality Explanation | Questions/Comments/Concerns

#starting resources #general psas #pkmnirl #pkmn irl #irl pkmn #rotomblr #rotumblr #pokemon irl #pokeblogging #we know the reach of this post will be kneecapped by people who content filter sensitive words but we refuse to censor the words here #its important that people clearly understand what is being referred to in these circumstances and know not to abbreviate or censor warnings #so instead we ask to spread this if you feel inclined

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revalition · 1 month ago

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OCT 11 - AUTHORITY Intimidate the public. Assert yourself. authority!! my guy! I love *and* hate him very much! he's such a guy.

this is late because I spent too much time yesterday writing about him and not enough time drawing him. oops. that's also why it's so ugly but it's okay. someday I'll draw something good and you'll all be very impressed. we'll see if I can get EdC in today too or not!

and ty red for giving me your authority's wings haha, theyre soo cool. ough I love wings. if someone sent me an ask saying "draw [skill] with wings" I would be all over that so fasttt

anyway! lots of content under the cut as usual!

authority quotes!

anti sorry cop authority!! harry desperately needs someone to tell him to stop apologizing for existing... but in the second case, volition is right (as usual)

a wonderful classic here

gotta include these ofc

authority NO.

this line is just. how I image he is constantly. the millisecond your authority is questioned in the slightest he gets like this.

re. arresting klaasje

authority stopping you from being very embarrassing!

NO. no authority. there's SO many lines like this. sigh

authority seems to be a nearly perfect 50/50 split of good advice and bad advice. it's great. it's fascinating

authority and volition. authority and volitionnn. you are going to hear about the motor carriage story and there's no getting off.

rare sweet authority moment! (this heals morale too!)

realllly love this one too <3

authority, cmon man...

this guy. this guy... he's so... I don't know. he's sure something

authority CONFIRMED COMPROMISED. also authority being mean to soft little suggestion is always very funny to me

he is compromised though

hghhk this line from the authority fail. you get after failing *four* times. my first playthrough I had high authority - I had 6 PSY to start, and authority boosting clothes. and I just kept failing and failing. and every time I failed this check I had to dump another point into authority to try it again... so it was *really* high by the end! but I just kept failing it!! it was so painful... by the fourth fail you can finally beg kim to take over...

on the topic of awful authority fails! we need to acknowledge: - the authority check to get kim to dance - the authority check to save kim from getting shot - the authority check to make acele wear the hat

including it so we can enjoy authority making things worse and worse

alternatively, succeeding the check. eugh. (you dont have to kick the snow. but the fact that it's an option at all...)

I passed the check my first playthrough and failed it my second. there's really no good outcome to clicking it... except harry can get a good cry out of the fail, I guess

this seems like a good place to include the mandatory sad dream dialogue. that way we feel less bad for him since we got to just see him being stupid

now we know! tobacco wards off narco spirits, and alcohol discourages use of... narcohol. wonderful!

you know it's bad when it's too much even for authority haha

authority giving better advice than volition one time??? this is if you have cuno at the end, when you meet up with your posse. persisting with insisting on the phasmid isn't productive at all

live authority reaction to harry being told no to anything ever

low stakes authority fail haha

here's another one! not all authority fails are world-endingly bad

another one. sigh. authority. NO.

and there is soo much honour points dialogue I couldn't fit in here! the first time I got the honour cop thought bubble I was like, wow! I'm never listening to anything this skill says ever again!

the thought gives you -4 !!!! to drama! because lying is dishonourable. and then if you lie to kim about what you were doing he tells you it was an honourable lie. hypocrite. (and there is a dialogue where he says "Are you going to let him get away with being a hypocrite?" so that really makes auth a double hypocrite)

I love and hate authority in perfectly equal amounts. they don't cancel eachother out either, I just feel very strongly about him instead. I also feel very strongly about Volition, and their interactions are always fascinating. so I end up smushing them together, going fight! (and kiss!) and fight! like the extremely normal person I am. yep. you're welcome.

I could probably write half an essay my thoughts on their dynamic so I'm going to stop myself now before I have regrets :)

authority is in my favourite skills list for sure, but due to his serious personality issues I can't figure out where he places <3

#skilltober #de authority #de skills #disco elysium #rev art

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the-last-f2p · 1 year ago

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Yandere promts day 12

12: “Go get the chains. you brought this upon yourself, not me”

Featuring: Furina/Focalors

TW: Implied kidnapping, Furina is kind of a sadist, humilation?

Furina really tried to uphold her status as the Archon of Justice and be her fairest self possible (though she failed most times). Furina holding make-shift trials for you whenever you so much as said anything she considered rude that day. At least she gave you two chances to beg for mercy!

Honestly, when this idea first came to her she originally wanted to hold these trials at the Opera Epiclise, though that was shot down when she tried to bring it up with Neuvillette. She swore she saw the blue part of his hair turn the slightest bit grey that day.

And that is the origin of the small courtroom in Furina's living quarters, which is of course being used at this very moment.

"Y/N L/N, you are being charged with accounts of escaping and causing damage to the Palais Mermonia; how do you plead?" Furina asked you while sitting on a particularly high chair as she kicked her feet back and forth. You couldn't tell if it was out of boredom or excitement but you really didn't think whatever she was doing was amusing.

That's just one of the many ways you contrast Furina.

Images of what had happened earlier this day started to flash through your mind at the speed of light, waiting for Furina to go attend to some quote-un-quote 'boring Hydro Archon stuff'. Breaking a window and trying to work up the courage to jump from the highest drop you've ever seen. And of course, your least favorite part, Furina catching you for the sole reason that she left her gloves at home. Today was NOT a good day.

"Furina I'm sorry I didn't-" You start but Furina cuts you off.

"Sorry won't cut it. I had to skip another trial for this so you make it worth it." Furina smiles for a second and seems to have a light bulb moment "How about this? If you give me three good reasons to not lock you in my room again I won't.~" She flashes a playful grin, yes this was her idea but it was so funny to her! She just had to make it a little bit more dramatic as well.

"Well-" This is the second time she's cut you off does Furina really want to be 'fair' with you?

"And I'll count to five, only to make it less drab." And what's drama without stakes? She has to add some stakes as well! All your thoughts that were going through your head were:

Is she messing with me on purpose? (The answer is a very clear yes by the way.)

"You see, it's been a long time since I was able to go out, and I just thought if I just went out for a couple of hours while you were out." You start explaining of course, you weren't planning on coming back but Furina wouldn't know she's the God of Justice not wisdom!

"Lying in a courtroom, low blow. ~ Oh and you're at three seconds!~" Dammit. Furina saw right through you.

"And...I Furina.. Please.."

"Times up..~ Well Y/N L/N, as you have given me one reason I've decided to let you out but.." The playful grin on Furina's face turns slightly sadistic as she continues "Go get the chains. You brought this on yourself, not me. I think it's about time we went on a date correct?"

"Yes.. Lady Furina."

Today was one of Teyvat's greatest days ever. Seeing you desperately trying to hide the chain that was around your wrist was very amusing shall we say?

Maybe she should encourage you to escape so she can do this more often?

#i had an idea so I tried to do it lol #yandere #tw yandere #yande.re #yandere promts #genshin impact #genshin #yandere furina #yandere focalors #yandere genshin #yandere genshin impact

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centrally-unplanned · 11 months ago

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The Harvard "crisis" is a very illustrative example of collective action problems & tipping points. What is happening now - simultaneously an institutional revolt by some of its board and influential donor class and a wider cultural zeitgeist degrading its status - is a reflection of very long-simmering tensions between its stakeholders.

Harvard, like most top universities, has a dozen+ stakeholders but for our purposes today they sort into two buckets; internal & external. Internally, it has to run a university that educates students & publishes papers - it needs to make those students happy, make its staff happy, etc. Externally, it has a brand to manage as a lodestone of America's elite reproduction, and a status-holder for a set of values of US (and even wider) society, as well as being a networking organization building relationships between and for said elite. These are intertwined goals - students only care about a Harvard education because it gets them rewards in the form of jobs from outside companies & orgs, which is in part (not all) a reflection of that societal status. And that outside societal status is replenished, again in part, by the success of its students after graduation, and so on. For this system to function each side needs to 'buy in'.

Starting in ~2010 most elite universities experienced a sea change in the values of their internal stakeholders; large swathes of vocal students and huge swathes of internal staff began to push for governance & priority shifts. These changes - like many societal changes btw, this is not a unique thing - did not have the majority on their side, but internally they were close enough (and, somewhat but not wholly uniquely, employed a variety of dissent-silencing techniques to maximize impact) to carry the day. They never had anywhere close to majority buy-in from external stakeholders; but the unique structure of universities is such that, while the missions are interdependent, their day-to-day operations are quite distinct. A lot of the changes over the past decade have been looked at askance by the donor class and groups like corporate hiring partners, but never askance enough to actually bother to do anything about it. It was too low-stakes to overcome the coordination problem of fighting the internal stakeholders, these things aren't the primary concern of external stakeholders.

So you get this string of controversies throughout the decade, as high-stakes as faculty firings or the Asian applicant discrimination case, to the low stakes culture drama of things like changing the title of "Housemasters". A lot of internal stakeholders were on the other side of these issues - they could have coalitioned with the external stakeholders, but they didn't care enough to really bother. It's all sizzle in the end, they can't coordinate in the face of the unified internal stakeholder mission.

Then Israel-Palestine hits, which is an issue that has its own extremely well organized, high valence stakeholders who absolutely, 100%, care enough to bother. They will take the opposition on and go to the absolute mat. Israel is extremely popular in the United States, Jewish people are literally the most popular religion in the country on some surveys, fighting terrorism is a bit out-of-mind but the default stance for both political parties, etc. But all that really isn't enough to get what you are getting right now - this is the seeds of long dissent, not the response to a singular misstep. After all the misstep was mealy-mouthed doublespeak at a hearing, it's not that high stakes.

However, while those external stakeholders didn't care enough for the past decade, they cared! And those internal stakeholders on the losing side *really* cared. And so suddenly an extremely salient, external stakeholder (America's Israel political advocacy group) shows up and starts scoring wins, and everyone in the room senses "oh yeah this is our time". And so they rise up in coalition to express, not just condemnation of the individual event, but building grievances with the direction of the university. They were just waiting for something to give them the push to do it.

Personally btw, I think the cleavage between the internal & external stakeholder's actual interest in how the university functions is too wide, and too independent of its day-to-day governance (Harvard is in many ways just a stamp for inherent student traits, but companies need that job done in society). As such this will fizzle with minimal changes. Still a good model for how these kinds of moments come about in driving change in social structures though, you need to study the full spectrum as it were.

#academia discourse

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reallylilyreally · 3 months ago

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People I want to know better

been tagged in this by @swifty-fox and @anachilles so here we gooooo.

LAST SONG? - Call Your Mom by Noah Kahan, and I can tell i'm getting my period because usually it just makes me tear up a little, but today I had a FULL ON gasping chest heaving snotty sobbing fit.

FAVORITE COLOR? - Teal, or a really rich purple, or a deep honey yellow? Jewel tones, bitches.

CURRENTLY WATCHING? - A bunch of different things! New Amsterdam for low-stakes high-drama while working. Brooklyn 99 rewatch for low-stakes low-drama with my husband in the evening. Masters of the Air rewatch for high-stakes high-drama and also research.

LAST MOVIE? - I shamefully very rarely watch movies anymore, and I can't actually remember? We caught the tail end of Jurassic World on the telly the other night and it remains brilliant. But the last full movie I watched was probably Troy, because that's almost always the answer.

SWEET/SPICY/SAVORY? - Savoury. Gimme salt.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS? - in five days, it will be eleven years to the day since I met my husband :)

CURRENT OBSESSIONS? - putting dead men in gay situations, helping toddlers manage big feelings, trying to force myself to care about new formats of cricket.

LAST THING YOU GOOGLED? - "how do dongles work"

Tagging @euph0riacc @almost-a-class-act @london-cowboy and @citedkisses

#ask games

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typically-untypical · 11 months ago

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Low Sugar, Sweet Moments

AU: Hospitals

CW: Ambulance Rides (I swear everything is okay and it's very low stakes and drama)

WC: 1,574

Date: 12/11/2023

Logan had desperately asked the EMTs not to take him to this hospital, and knew under different circumstances they would have honored his wishes. However, one of the EMTs was Remy. Remy knew him. Remy knew why Logan didn't want to go here. Remy thought it was hilarious that Logan was desperately avoiding being scolded by his husbands.

"My sugar is already going up, I am no longer in need of medical attention. I could have remained at home."

"Nah babes, I know you far too well. If we had left you home, you would have gone back to working without taking the steps to make sure your sugar didn't dip again. You would have been all like 'just a few more pages and then I'll eat, it's not going to take long' and Jay and Vee would have come home to your ass on the floor and then it would have been my ass on the line."

"I am a grown man, I do know how to take care of myself." His head was no longer fuzzy and he didn't feel like he was in a cloudy haze. He wasn't even the one who had called the ambulance, it had been his next door neighbor who had watched Logan stumble back into the house after attempting to get the mail. Logan was thankful that someone had the foresight to get him help, but he was also a bit frustrated that Remy wasn't taking him seriously. Maybe the petulant child part of his brain was also mad at the neighbor for being a narc.

"Grown man my ass, you couldn't last six hours without your boys. They both have short shifts today and yet I'm still carting you to the hospital."

Logan crossed his arms over his chest, rolling his eyes and trying hard not to give Remy any further satisfaction as they made it to the hospital. It wasn't that either of his husbands would be mad at him, but they would both be mildly disappointed and somehow that was far worse.

Virgil didn't normally work the emergency room, he said it was too stressful for him, but there he was, standing at the door to the ambulance bay. He looked panicked at first, eyes running up and down Logan in the way only a trained professional could. However, seeing Logan was okay, his shoulders relaxed. Virgil then turned to Remy who gave him a thumbs up before turning his attention back to Logan.

"What did you do?" He asked, voice low and gravely, and sure, Logan knew that voice meant he was in trouble but was it bad that it was also kind of hot?

"I assure you whatever you have been told is an exaggeration. My blood sugar dropped a bit, not to dangerous levels and I was going to eat I just..." Logan saw Virgil's unamused glare and he faltered. "I got wrapped up in the work I was doing." He had finally broken through the writers block that had been haunting him for over a week and Logan feared stopping for even a moment would lose the momentum he had built.

"What about the alarms on your phone?"

"I... think they went off?" Logan really wasn't sure, he had gotten so wrapped up in what he was doing that he couldn't remember if the alarm to check his blood sugar had gone off. He had finished the chapter he was writing, then he had gotten up and knew he needed to eat. He might have put chicken in the toaster oven but that would have taken so long to cook. He went to check the mail to see if he had gotten the reference book he needed and everything was a bit fuzzy after that. Remy had been the one to tell him about the neighbor calling in.

Virgil frowned but didn't say anything and Logan could feel the disappointment. He hated worrying or disappointing Virgil. He felt like he needed to be perfect for them, to not cause either of them any trouble. "I'm okay, I promise." Logan stood, carefully walking toward Virgil to prove that he was indeed okay. His husband was still unconvinced but didn't say anything. Instead, he wrapped himself around Logan.

"Janus is going to want to look you over as well. Will you sit in the break room until he gets a chance?" Although it was a question, Logan knew Virgil would be uncomfortable if Logan turned the offer down, so he nodded his head, making his way toward the break room with Virgil.

"Do you want to tell me about your day, or do you have to get back to work?"

"Sadly, I have to get back," Virgil groaned, putting his hand on Logan's shoulder and slowly leading him lower until Virgil could steal a quick kiss. "But let me get my iPad. I'm sure you want to keep writing. Have you eaten anything yet?"

Logan shook his head.

"Alright, I'll tell Janus to hurry up and grab something from the caf. Food’s not great but at least it's food."

"Thank you, I'll be right here." Logan tilted Virgil's chin up and stole another kiss. "I won't keep you any longer." He hated that he had worried Virgil, hated that his husband hand that look in his eyes like the world had suddenly become so fragile.

"Just... be safe," He whispered before disappearing back to his job, sending a quick text to Janus about Logan and his need for food. This wasn't the first time Logan had ended up in the hospital like this, feeling better but still on an edge he knew he was too close to. He was getting better about maintaining his insulin levels, but some days.... It would be easier to accept that mistakes happened if it didn't worry his husbands so much. He looked up when Virgil entered the room again with the iPad.

"Jay said he'll be here in five which means more like ten."

Logan snorted and he was happy to see a small smile crossing Virgil's face as well. "I also grabbed you a bag of peanuts. Remy already gave you some glucose so we'll want to stick with some protein for a bit, then we'll check again." The last thing they wanted was for Logan to swing from low to high in such a short time frame. He knew Virgil probably wouldn't calm down for a few more hours. Once Logan had stabilized he'd be able to breathe easier, so Logan nodded, following his nurse's orders. They shared another kiss before Virgil had to leave.

Ten minutes later, Janus came sashaying into the room, plopping down into the chair by Logan. "So, we meet again." Whereas Virgil wore his emotions on his sleeve, Janus was far better at hiding them. His tells were in the way he touched Logan's leg, in the way he sat just a bit closer than necessary in case Logan passed out.

"Janus, we are married, of course we would meet again." Logan rolled his eyes and Janus chuckled, leaning in for a kiss before holding his hand out.

"Did Remy make sure you had your phone before he dropped you off to me?"

Logan began to fish through his pockets, handing his phone to Janus. "Technically, he dropped me off to Virgil." But neither of them really cared about that technicality. "Do you have any surgeries today?"

"Sadly no, the surgery I had today was canceled which means I was asked to do paperwork. Can you believe it? A face this pretty being asked to do paperwork."

"Truly a travesty," Logan responded deadpan, watching as his husband went through his phone, looking at his numbers from his blood sugar tracker.

"Were you really focused on a chapter?" Janus' voice wasn't judgmental, it was soft and curious. Logan felt comfortable nodding. He wasn't sure if he was projecting his disappointment onto Janus but he thought he could feel it. He was desperately trying to ignore that feeling along with the gnawing guilt. Instead, he answered Janus' question.

"Yes, I finally figured out that scene I was telling you about last night and I knew if I stopped I was going to forget it again."

Janus handed back the phone, nodding. "Well, I'm on a lunch break, since as I said all I have is paperwork today. Would you come with me on a date to the completely exclusive cafeteria?" His charming smile that led slightly into a smirk, the devious twinkle in his eyes. It was all so much and it made Logan feel far more comfortable.

He smiled softly, thankful that Janus didn't make a big deal out of this. "Sounds fancy. I'd love to join you." He grabbed Janus' hand, standing up and pulling him into a short hug.

"Thank you," He whispered and Janus leaned up to gently kiss his neck. He was already feeling guilty enough, he appreciated Janus' approach to the situation.

"Of course. We will always be here for you, to love you and protect you." Janus responded. "Virgil might come off intense, but we both know mistakes happen. We're just happy we can be here to support you."

"I know, and I love you."

Janus smirked, "Well, if I must say it." He stood on his tippy toes, kissing the side of Logan's jaw line. "I love you too. We both do."

@tsspromptmonth

#TSS Rare Gifts Event 2023 #Untypical Creations #Sanders Sides #Sanders Side fic #Fanfic #Virgil Sanders #Janus Sanders #Logan Sanders #remy sanders #analoceit #hospital mention #Diabetes fic #If there are any medical inaccuracies regarding how hospitals operate - Ignore it #If there are any medical inaccuracies regarding how diabetes operates - let me know so I can improve!

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oblivionbladetd · 11 months ago

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Let's talk about Pokemadhouse and stakes real quick.

Now, Lily's pokecomic is absolutely packed with negligence, which leads to a large variety of unfortunate implications. What better way to start than from the top as bust the crust of this septic tank of a story and hopefully learn something from this mass waste removal? So today I have the coup de grace of a problem that is *ehem*

G IS LITERALLY TOO IMPORTANT FOR THE STORY TO EVER BE LOW STAKES!

Follow me under the cut and I'll explain.

Now, if you remember her list one of her tips is that "Low stakes interpersonal conflict is always better than high stakes saving the world" which while not being untrue is also not right either. Without going on a multi-paragragh deep dive I will just shorten my reasoning and my assumptions of Lily's intent to just say that I assume she dislikes high stakes. It then becomes increasingly ironic that G is basically the pure tungsten lynch in securing the impossibly high personal stakes of the story.

What do I mean? To be low stakes implies a lack of difficult choices or that said choices are of little consequence overall. The problem immediately springs up in that G has an extreme importance all around the comic in many ways. In ways that mean just about anything involving her has high stakes.

The easy place to start is the bond. Lily and G have a powerful psychic bond that is used traditionally as a mating ritual between gardevoir to match life spans... because making beings of human intelligence act like forever mated birds isn't fucked up in any way! (It is, but I'll get to it in another post) So now G and Lily have what sounds like a psychicly enforced suicide pact. It's also directly stated to something Lily can break, so in that case, G would just drop dead being well over her natural life expectancy. This serves to automatically undermine any drama the comic will ever have, mostly because you have to call the bluff. Nothing bad will ever happen to both, and G will never be too in the wrong because it is now a threat to their very lives, and I do not perceive Lily as having the fortitude to pull the trigger. In having too high of stakes, the audience becomes uninvolved because the story becomes predictable, and the illusion is revealed as just that. Why would we invest when it's all but guaranteed to work out?

Now that the bond alone has tanked it, let's go a step beyond. Gardevoir are critically endangered. I mean not to bore, but in case you don't know, in the real world, private ownership of such species is basically super illegal without incredibly specific circumstances and a mountain of paperwork. So, seeing that they are so far the main bulk of the pokemon cast is just a tad jarring, but it also places a huge stake on their health and happiness because they are literally a dying species. This leads to not only another case of calling the bluff on drama but also serves to ripple into Bonnie's creation being a brazen act of eco-terrorism... only a slight exaggeration. I will explain further in a separate post, but long of short, it would be considered gross misuse of private property and knowing sabotage of conservation efforts. The fact that Pokemadhouse doesn't refer to it taking place in the big house is proof Silph Co is staffed exclusively by glittering golden saints.

At this point, it feels hollow to bring up that G is also a mill puppy and the actual perfect specimen of all Gardevoir. It starts feeling morally reprehensible, but that as well is something for another post.

So by the end of it, literally anything to do with God's perfect pokemon, G, is low stakes only in the meta sense that ever delivering on the unreasonably high and very personal stakes would very much be the end of the world to them. Any attempt at building up drama will inevitably be made flat to single digit nanometers by the sheer weight of importance G is shouldered with on both a personal and worldly level. Not to mention, take the wind out of plenty of the comedy at G's expense.

This is getting long, so if you take nothing else from this, know it's not only detrimental to make your character too important for the story they are in, but it can actively steal from the story you mean to tell and warp it. If your intentions are making small waves on the water, use a pebble, not a boulder.

#lily orchard #lily peet #lily orchard is a bad writer #lily orchard is garbage and here's why #pokemadhouse

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findingoblivion · 1 year ago

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What are some of your favorite anime, and why?

Hope you're ready for an infodump lol

My two favorite anime are really different, one of them is Naruto- which some people may say is cringe, but I'm talking about pre shippuden specifically.

The first ~40 episodes of Naruto are some of the best anime in existence. It starts off slow with the exception of the Iruka Mizuki scene(s) that are raw as fuck for an anime so early in it's airing, but it genuinely just builds and builds and builds until it's just so incredible. The Haku arc is still one of my favorite in all of anime and Haku is also one of my favorite characters and trans allegories. Then you have the Chuunin exams which are so incredible that you still see gifs today, close to what, 20 years later? It's an incredible anime that showed over and over again that you should never stop believing in good things, should never stop hoping, and that kindness can have such an impact on everyone around you. There are definitely so, so many problems with it, because Kishimoto kind of sucks as a person, but it's still just so good. I think the pacing of Shippuden is pretty irredeemable but it and the filler isn't quite as bad in the OG (don't get me started on flashbacks though), Boruto unfortunately just takes everything from Shippuden/Naruto and rips it into shreds for no particular reason.

But it's still some of my favorite anime and something I very often re-watch for nostalgia purposes and often cry about tbqh lol.

My other favorite anime is comparatively a lot more obscure, called Aria The Animation, which has multiple seasons that are all really good. It's a very different anime than so, so many other anime because there's very little pushing forward of the plot. It's not something that creates drama or events just for the sake of doing so, it's something that lets things run to their logical course, and takes the ideal of slice of life to it's natural extreme. I know a lot of people find it boring because it's not the kind of anime that you can watch the shinies and it's not exciting like a shounen anime is, or even other slice of life anime like Toradora or others- there's very little suspense or anxiety about things, it's very low stakes. It's the kind of anime that wraps you up in it's comfortable warmth and good animation that calms you and is the exact opposite of stressful. There is a plot that's very good- even though it's slow there's still a ton of buildup towards it. And the character development is also really, really good. It's another of those anime that I occasionally rewatch just because not only is it somewhat nostalgic for me, it's an anime that it's really really hard to be stressed while you watch, and is also something you can really easily fall asleep too...so it's kind of like my emotional support anime? Lol.

Funnily enough my favorite genres are really neither of these as I like a lot of Isekai anime and romance/slice of life anime as well, but I do like a lot of other anime that has been or is popular. I watch a LOOOOT of anime, so there's always stuff I'm forgetting about, but some other anime I like is Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Senpai, Owari no Seraph, Reincarnated as a Slime, Jobless Reincarnation, Bleach (at least the Soul Society Arc), Toradora, and a whole, whole bunch of others I'm not remembering.

Also honorable mention to Fate/Apocrypha for having Astolfo because I am Astolfo and I love Astolfo so, so much, she's everything I strive to be.

#goldie-screams #naruto #aria #anime #infodump

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humanoidtyphoons · 10 months ago

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i'm genuinely so curious to watch modern day star trek, and i hope i'll get proven wrong, bc part of me genuinely thinks star trek is incredibly ill-suited for modern day tv

star trek is not a character driven show. star trek in it's seven seasons barely has character development. the writers barely know how to characterize everyone until they sort of figure it out in season 3, which is also helped by the actors being impeccable.

i wouldn't even say that star trek is a show reliant on characterization or character interplay. i don't think characters grow on the show, they're not quite characters, but i wouldn't say they're symbols either. there's continuity, they reference things from before, but they're also... people who do their job, and don't let personal problems interfere with duty for most part.

there's no real plot. each episode is shoving these characters in a new situation and wondering how they'll react, trying to figure out how they'll try and reflect society today, if there's any issues to be remarked upon. sometimes they don't have a good answer for this problem, and call it a day anyway. but there's no real overarching plotline -- yes, voyager's goal is to try and go home, cut corners, etc, but it's so threadbare; ds9 is maybe closer, but even as sisko bears witness to the cardassian-bajoran aftermath, getting pulled in bc he's chosen by the prophets, we still get 'oh something random exited the wormhole, and i still think there's an air of impersonalness about the day to day life on a station.

and like. listen, i love star trek tos-voy. i am more than happy to dip in and out and watch episodes randomly, bc there doesn't really need to be a 'last time on star trek'. i wouldn't change it for the world.

but watching s1-2 of tng, and like. in modern day? cancelled within five episodes. but i -- i love this weird meandering show, and writers doing bizarre things every five minutes, the stupid low/nonexistent stakes, because that's life on the uss enterprise, baby! hell yeah, lwaxana troi solves the assassin plot last minute, bc sometimes that's just how it goes!

and i'm just curious to watch the newer content one day, bc while i don't think it's going to be bad, just different. i still don't think tv's current format of short seasons, and character drama is necessarily... very star trek compatible.

#trekking stars #but also: they kept the philosophy in right? you didn't fuck up like jj abrams did for aos right????#but also please: no spoilers!!!

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blorbology · 1 year ago

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I'm thinking a bit today about the importance of stakes in a story. More specifically I guess, I'm considering the fact that sometimes the stakes don't need to be particularly high to produce a compelling narrative. Obviously high stakes are dramatic by default, but a story doesn't need these things to appeal to people; even a low-stakes tale can feel rewarding if it's written in an engaging way.

That said, some stakes are low in the grand scheme of things/in a macro way but high to the character(s) in a personal sense, which makes for some of the best romcom stuff imaginable. (I would argue if you write this improperly it reads like absolute dogshit, but if it's a well-composed and conceived story you've basically struck gold.)

I feel like a common mistake in writing romance in general is the insertion of high-stakes drama into everything. Oftentimes the drama isn't even really high-stakes (but the narrative and characters treat it like it is) or the drama feels like it's just there to force something very niche and specific to happen (which is fine for a prompt fill or something but feels really bizarre in many longform storytelling mediums). I love drama as much as anyone (probably more, judging by my outlines for fics right now) but there are times when high stakes either aren't necessary or feel detrimental to the story being told.

So uh, yeah. I'm outlining a "fake dating" fic in my brain and it occurred to me that the stakes don't have to be particularly high for the story to be fun—they just have to mean something to the characters.

#blorbology 101 #might add more thoughts to this later i'm super tired rn

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physalian · 30 days ago

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On Subversion through Failure (wasting the audience’s time?)

I want to talk about two arcs today, one pretty much everybody loves, and one most every fan complained about before the fandom died. Both have to do with having characters completely fail to accomplish an objective, something they’ve been working toward for chapters or episodes or maybe the whole season.

Honorable mention to Infinity War’s “did we just lose.” IW and Endgame had meta reasons for happening the way they did, not just in-story. Books don’t have to contend with actor contracts and box office sales. Personally I don’t think Tony had to die at all the way it happened in the movie, but they killed him because of ~symbolism~ and everyone knew it would be coming and, well, he can’t play the character forever. Don’t love Endgame.

More to the point, both movies were more concerned with the legacy of the MCU over the best choices they could have made for the characters.

Failure in fiction is tricky to pull off in the best stories with the best of intentions, too. You don’t want the audience to feel bait-and-switched, like they invested all this time and effort into your book, only to have catharsis ripped away for ~subversion~ *cough*Star Wars*cough*

What was the point of all the nonsense if it all amounted to nothing? Why should we care?

So!

—

The Sophia Arc (The Walking Dead)

Almost the entire second season of this show has the characters stuck in one location, a remote Georgia farm, looking for a missing character, Sophia. Not every single episode is spent searching, but the continued excuse to not move on and to not get kicked out by the farm’s owner is that they haven’t found her yet.

Compared to season 1, which was constantly moving, constantly giving the characters new challenges and new locations and had very high stakes, season 2 was much more character focused, with more personal, low-stakes problems. I like character drama, so I didn’t mind, but if you came to The Walking Dead expecting a repeat of season 1, you were understandably disappointed.

The arc ends rather infamously with the revelation that Sophia had died and turned a long time ago, and was right under their noses in a barn. All that searching, all their effort, all that hope of finding her, was for nothing.

This arc had many issues, but some I think about after the fact include:

Sophia was reduced to a macguffin. She was barely a character in season 1 and disappeared too early in season 2 for anyone to care about her as more than just “she’s a little girl, you should care”. So audiences can only really empathize with her mother, who herself doesn’t go searching for her daughter, and who we also don’t really care about compared to the more present characters.

Sophia’s arc itself made no impact on the plot at large. The barn full of walkers did, but Sophia herself was just a consequence. The plot would have been the same had she not been in the barn, because 'you’ve been keeping them like pets' was the big reveal of the episode, the crux of the debate between the Group and their hosts is “walkers aren’t people you need to adapt to the new world”.

The refusal to leave the farm because they were tied to the Sophia search, on top of having many more episodes than season 1, drastically reduced the pacing audiences were used to. One overarching goal that never got any closer is exhausting. They were never close to finding her, even when they thought they were.

Above all, though, I think what damned this arc the most was that it just didn’t matter. The Walking Dead suffered its entire runtime from redundancy and stagnation. The heroes were never allowed to build a community and grow and make any progress against the walker plague before the writers forced a reset, burned it down, and moved them to the next location. Sophia’s death was the start of it all (though it was good for seasons 3 through 5ish).

She didn’t plague the plot after she was gone. Carol (her mother) mentioned her a few times in passing. The only depth the arc had was “life sucks and this show is grimdark hope is for chumps”. It having no point and no resolution was the point.

—

The Day of Black Sun (ATLA)

Between seasons 2 and 3, the hype for the invasion of the Fire Nation took up a whole season’s worth of episodes. Once Sokka learned of the eclipse, beyond finding Appa, his priority one was reaching the Earth King to get the Earth Kingdom in on a massive invasion that could decide the war before Sozin’s comet.

They brought so many characters back for this, spared no expense in the budget for the rendering of the air fleet and the sub squad, had Aang finally back in his Air Nomad colors and shaved his new hair….

And they lost.

They lost so badly, only the kids could escape with their lives, everyone else got captured as prisoners of war.

And that’s not even mentioning how season 2 ended with “The Earth Kingdom has fallen”. Which I’m not talking about here because that’s not quite fitting the trope here. The threat was always there, but the heroes weren’t fighting all season to protect the Earth Kingdom, only to lose. We only knew about it because we got Azula POV working in the background.

But anyway—Day of Black Sun. Why it worked:

We knew it was doomed from the moment the Earth King told Azula, thinking she was an ally. It did not come out of nowhere. The shock just came from a kids show actually going through with it and not having them triumph despite the odds.

The cost was severe, and felt through the rest of the show (which did not go on for 8 more seasons unlike TWD), and the new stakes were felt immediately. Zuko changed sides, the last real chance to stage a rebellion just died, the Fire Nation has confirmation that the Avatar isn’t dead, and now they have a terrorism incident to propagandize, probably making it easier for Ozai to push his “Phoenix King” vision on his war council and his country.

Failure was imminent from the moment they arrived at the Gates of Azulon. The Fire Nation forces were competent and highly skilled, as they should be, so nothing came out of nowhere or felt like manipulative writing. They were simply an army prepared for their adversaries, fighting for their home, on their homeland.

But they did still fail epically. When you were a kid, you weren’t thinking “but wait the season must have more episodes after this, something must go wrong”. Even knowing what’s about to happen during rewatches, it doesn’t diminish the impact of this arc.

—

Last honorable mentions to the season 4 finale of Supernatural. Where Team Free Will's quest to stop the rise of the Devil became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Due to... a lot of things, namely cope and a CW budget that made the visualisation of the whole world ending a bit too ambitious. But honorable mention nonetheless.

—

So if you’re going to have characters blow it, and this is your plan from day one, you should have consequences, good and bad, coming out of it, otherwise it’s meaningless and the audience will feel duped.

“Did we just lose” was a fantastic twist, don’t get me wrong, but, to me, at least, the setup for Endgame and the execution of Endgame was just a little too polished in too many areas, sacrificing meaningful character development *cough*Natasha*cough* for satisfying the giant MCU machine.

Because the dusting certainly didn’t have lasting consequences equal to the impact in the moment. It was just a blip, mentioned a few times and not mattering at all in one show, and then mattering a whole lot in a different one, but largely the status quo returned. Such is the nature of comics, I guess.

Sophia, too, was a great twist, in isolation executed very well, in the grand scheme of things it just didn’t matter. Had she been a Maes Hughes type, haunting show for four more seasons as some symbol of the loss of innocence or humanity or the better days gone by, then maybe.

I like this trope not just because it's subversive, but because once you decide your hero's going to lose, you have a lot more room to write a conflict designed to fail. More competent villains, more desperate heroes, more 11th hour decisions.

Especially when the audience doesn't yet know failure is inevitable, there's something about not having polished, pre-determined victories that can feel a lot more intense, because subconciously, as a writer, you're not making plot armor for your heroes.

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