#Storytelling Complexity

[ancientroyalblood]

Exploring Non-Linear Narratives: Writing Out of Sequence

In the realm of storytelling, the traditional sequence is but one path to follow, a well-trodden road where events unfurl one after another, much like dominos carefully aligned, ready to fall. Yet, in the shadows, there exists another path, a web of narratives intertwined, where each word, each sentence, is a piece of a puzzle not yet complete. This exploration seeks to dissect the notions of…

[turbo-virgins]

Low key very tired of people responding to veilguard criticism with something along the lines of “lol these people have no media literacy, didn’t you understand what the game was telling you??” Yes, yes I understand what the game was trying to tell me. That doesn’t mean I have to like it or the way the writers went about it.

Also the whole argument of “well, the dragon age fandom proved they couldn’t handle xyz controversial character/element of the story so that’s why veilguard had very little references to those things” kinda grinds my gears a bit. I don’t think it can be proven with 100% certainty what writing decisions were made based on past fandom reactions to the other games, but I do think it would be an incredibly shitty move to simplify or remove complexity from a story just because there might be a portion of the audience who doesn’t get it. “The fandom couldn’t even handle Vivienne” Yeah a good amount of people dismissed her as a selfish snooty bitch, but I didn’t and a lot of other people didn’t and to remove complex and interesting characters like her on the basis that enough people “won’t get it” just feels like a disservice to all of us.

[rednightmare18]

It's not even about the vindication of calling a ship, okay. It's that the supposedly anti woke studio wrote about 3 million words of medieval fiction centering the relationship of the two main characters who are in most ways (or in all ways if you follow the obvious canon momentum of the story) meant for each other, as counterparts who help each other survive the great travails of their lives and who challenge/complete the other to become fuller, braver, kinder people. It's so clear these two people are soulmates, platonically or romantically, something observed consistently by the world around them and by themselves.

Except their society (feudalism, Catholicism) dictates that they are intended to be completely incompatible by nature and divine law. Not just for the obvious fact they are both men, but they are separated by what is arguably an even steeper chasm of social class. Their existence even as friends utterly spites, interrupts, and threatens feudal order right down to its theological and philosophical roots. They should not see each other as human and yet.

It's the fact that they do. The fact that the entire story has been about this--that these two protagonists fit together, undeniably, and grow to love each other fiercely (a love that deepens superbly from their knee-jerk playful puppy-friend-love in kcd1 to something selfless and mature by the end of kcd2). And they do so despite the immense opposition by their world, their social circles, their faith, and indeed their fandom.

And yes, it really does fucking matter that all of this culminates into a deep onscreen romantic love (if you get out of the way and allow it to) between two fandom-beloved male main characters (not just side characters rammed in for an optional gay romance but THE main characters of the duology; the "you" as in the player character and your erstwhile dick-jokes bro you have perhaps grudgingly at first been invited as the audience to love) in a historical fiction story that has been wrongly touted by the worst of our contemporaries as the holy grail of cultural conservatism.

Holy shit. Warhorse -- y'all. I'm sorry I doubted you. So few game writers understand how love works and indeed how people work, let alone translate it so well onto the screen.

Calling this an "optional romance" is not technically incorrect, I suppose, because it's true you can opt out and choose to remain platonic friends. But this language feels like a disservice, as if Henry & Hans's romance is a typical RPG wham-bam fanservice makeout with a minor fan fave character who never interacts meaningfully with the player again. Or as if it's a Bioware-style "give this NPC the right gift and do their side quest and you get to see a jankly ugly-bumpin' montage" situation.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is so very much not that. The "main, optional" romance scene in question is just one consummation event of two people who have been growing up and falling in love in front of us over the course of some 200-300 (or god knows how many) hours. The fact these protagonists openly love each other is very much not optional.

This is, sincerely, groundbreaking storytelling in this medium and this genre. How fucking cool that we all got to see it now.

[secretmellowblog]

Everyone talks about the tragedy of animated media getting reboots that replace their excellent art direction with uncanny realism —like the Lion King and its “live action” reboot—- but there’s one series that embodies that tragedy better than anything else. And I need to share it with you all because I can’t be the only one Haunted by it day and night. Please let me tell you the Sad, sad story behind this image:

There was an early 2000s video game trilogy called Sly Cooper, whose main appeal was its super unique art direction, style, and atmosphere. The trilogy had a unique tone focused on a cartoon Phantom Thief who did Moody Atmospheric Heists in a comic-book-inspired world.

The trilogy integrated 2D animation into the game for cutscenes, and the characters-- while low-poly-- were designed to look as much like those flat 2D cartoons with cel-shaded outlines as they could within the limitations of the Ps2.

It took heavy influence from comic books and anime, especially Lupin III. The first game even had alternate anime versions of its 2D cutscenes that you could unlock!

Nearly all the levels took place at night, but the designers talked often about how their goal was to create the illusion of night time through vivid color palettes rather than darkness, taking inspiration from the vivid nighttime cityscapes in Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge.

As a result of their stylized art direction, the visuals-- primarily in the second one, which is the one that focuses the most tightly on Thieving & Moody Atmospheric Heists-- still hold up today.

And then Sly Cooper started appearing in “brand crossover games” and “reboots” and Oh god. Oh no. so that's why no one talks about it anymore.

I am haunted by this. People talk about their favorite cartoon character getting hit with the Uncanny Hyper-Detailed Beam and I instantly think of the sad fate of poor, poor sly cooper, who I am very nostalgic for, and his now-dead franchise that hasn't had a new installment in over a decade.

But to me this really emphasizes how strong art direction is far more important than polygon count, realism, or level of detail. Because there have been similar franchises rebooted in ways that manage to elevate the old 2D-inspired art styles with more modern graphics. Toys for Bob's new takes on Spyro and Crash Bandicoot both had stellar art direction!

But that kind of thoughtful art direction can be difficult to achieve. It's not even the fault of the artists or developers; these things are often beyond their control. But I am glad we're in an era where stylized 3D animation is becoming more popular. I hope more creators continue to realize that there is actually a big demand for media with interesting, unique art styles! also you should play sly 2: band of thieves

[pastafossa]

"Oh, so he/she/they played THAT type of character, so they think this is ok-"

I am begging you to learn what the word 'acting' means, Susan.

[anghraine]

elizabethwydevilles replied to this post:

'Most "corrections" of Padmé's characterization I've seen essentially want to make her [...] not a tragic figure except by wild mischance or the missteps of other characters.' I honestly think people have a really hard job accepting that the prequels are a tragedy for *everyone* involved (except Palps). You see it in response to characters like Obi-Wan; the refusal to engage with the idea that a character can try their best and still screw up is hard to swallow.

Yes, very much so! In some ways it's even more marked with Obi-Wan, I feel, because ROTJ so clearly set him up as someone who failed tragically in the prequel era and who took away the wrong lessons from his own mistakes. OT/PT Obi-Wan is a kind, self-sacrificing, and well-meaning person who is not motivated by malice, but there is a moral arrogance to him, a hubris, that plays a significant role in the larger tragedy he is part of and that hubris lingers in the OT even after his death (with potential for further tragedy!).

I think there's a temptation to cast all these characters with fundamentally tragic flaws as solely victims or villains, but an important aspect of this kind of tragedy IMO is how these kinds of flaws collide and contribute to something far worse than any of its parts. The kinds of mistakes and flaws that we see in these characters lead to consequences that are both inevitable and unpredictable; no single one of these tragic figures could independently control or foresee what was going to result from all these different dynamics and maneuverings and choices, but at the same time, these choices do inexorably lead towards disaster. So you get the "well [x tragic choice] isn't what really caused the tragedy, because Palpatine" or "we need to fix [x tragic choice] because it makes the character Bad" without really engaging with the complicity (conscious or unconscious) of all these characters and the significance of their complicity to what the PT is doing as a story.

I don't object to "I want to imagine a happy ending for my faves" at all, btw—I do that all the time and it's not what I'm getting at. But when it comes to insisting that something must have been what "really" happened for the story to "make sense" or be "fixed" in the face of all evidence and basics of story structure, I find it tedious.

[disco-troy]

It drives me insane that as time goes on Dick is more and more willing to drop everything and go to Gotham as soon as Bruce calls

He used to have boundaries! He used to be clear about how much he was sacrificing!

He used to be angry when he wasn’t consulted!

And then at some point he starts turning around to go back to Gotham

Like this is insane to me! LIAN IS MISSING !!! LIAN?! And Dick chooses to listen to a Bruce summons over helping to find her.

These days writers don’t even bother explaining why Dicks in Gotham. Him dropping everything in Bludhaven is just expected

Part of it is I feel like that at a ome point Bruce stop sharing, he stopped asking for help. Dick is afraid that if he doesn’t show up when he’s called he’ll never be called again.

[fadetouchedsilk]

taash is like. fine for the baby nb character (they're 20 iirc so yeah a lot of their personality tracks) but personally if it were up to Me and i was told 'hey man we need a nb qunari for the companions' it would be a 40 something bisexual butch vashoth who uses All pronouns & feelings towards gender can be summed up as 'i literally just exist this way'

[zahri-melitor]

"Young Master Timothy brought Conner with him to dinner. They have a proposal of their own." "A very expensive proposal, I'm sure. I'm still paying off the last Titans Tower..."

(Batman #96 2016)

Yes, thank you James Tynion IV for that. A very expensive proposal, you say?

Okay, for context Bruce is currently drugged on a cocktail of Rogue toxins and hallucinating the future, but I laughed.

[fagulaa]

Something I really love about the Silt Verses is how, in a world of gods and monsters, how grounded Faulkner's trauma [and relationship with his father] is. Especially as the season moves on, and the stakes amp up [and up] its so unexpectedly piercing to be presented with this exploration of childhood abandonment/negligence, inter-generational trauma, the indignities and stress that comes with unexpected elder care/early onset Alzheimer's. You're so locked in to these grander, more abstract concepts that your defenses are down! Mine were, anyway. TSV is so good at cutting its grand, complex plotlines with simpler [but not shallower] gutpunches, and it just grounds the whole thing.

[urfavcrime]

dsmp is still SO insane to me. still not completely convinced it wasn't a social experiment. it is something that can never be replicated again due to the really specific circumstances that attributed to it's creation and popularity

[junemermaid]

okay, romance writers of the world:

your hot sexy love interest can simply be a person with flaws and foibles, too. they don't need to outdo everyone in everything (including being better at a thing than characters who are stated to be specialised in that thing).

it's actually significantly less hot when the LI is trapped in being omniscient and hypercompetent—and, generally, by extension, smothering and paternalistic to the romance hero(ine) who they're ostensibly in love with.

I mostly see this plague m/f romance but there's definitely a segment of m/m (and slash fic) that keeps falling into this same pit, and yes I stopped reading one more romance because it did this again

[qoldenskies]

it makes me laugh when people write mikey as a sweet little angel. like sire he has his moments where you're like "how the fuck is this kid still breathing" but he's so grumpy when he wants to be lmfao 😭

i love him he sucks soooo bad

[panahedvn]

I also feel like there is some seriously misogynistic shit going on in Veilguard regarding the three female companions (Harding, Bellara, Neve).

Namely that Bellara and Harding are pretty much exactly the same character personality wise. They're both super femme and sweet and cutesy and naive, never done a single bad thing in their lives, and they seem to be universally loved because of it. I've likewise seen a ton of people hating Neve when she is 2% less nice and cutesy than the other two women. She is literally a normal adult woman with a completely normal attitude and it's enough for people to hate her.

And like. Harding was not like this in Inquisition dude. She was more of a rough and tumble, I daresay a little bit masculine farm girl who wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty. How did she go from being a confident, adult woman scout to a twelve year old girl? Is it because we can't handle female characters having even an ounce of complexity?

I saw someone say "Veilguard is the only dragon age game where all of the characters are likeable" as praise. And like. First of all, I vehemently disagree. Secondly, that is not a good thing. The characters in these games have always been polarizing and complex people and that is good writing! Vivienne and Sera were hated on so badly because real life women are also hated for having complex issues and unlikeable traits that men typically can get away with! They were realistic women!

Anyways I just hate that two out of the three female characters in this stupid game are a mix between a twelve year old girl and a kindergarten teacher. I hate that they talk down to me, I hate that they feel childish and entirely unproblematic. I am an adult who can handle complex, well written female characters and I deserve them.

[bberry005]

the statements "langdon needs to face consequences for stealing drugs and being high at work" and "langdon needs professional help and deserves empathy and basic human decency" and "even if you don't like her, santos was right for reporting langdon to robby" and "it's okay to as a viewer to feel confused, angry, and betrayed that langdon ended up stealing drugs because we're led down the same path robby was into believing there's no way he is despite the evidence" can and should exist all at the same time btw

[necromycologist]

not to sound severely unwell but i <3 lying for fun. you can literally make up any fucking anecdote and people will believe it and remember it as a key part of your identity and even think youre funny about it. like this shit is easyyyyyy