#nested narrative

[writingtheother]

Now Open for Registration: Diverse Narrative Structures 2.0 Online Class

Discussions in the West around diversity in the arts often focus on the identities of characters and creators while ignoring other key aspects of narrative. In this completely overhauled class, author Henry Lien offers an introduction to Eastern structures and storytelling that opens writers’ minds to radically different ways of telling a satisfying story.

Date: July 11th - August 10th, 2025 Where: Online — Available everywhere and at your own pace Price: $350 Scholarships Available! Application Deadline: June 21, 2025

Please help us reach more writers by sharing this class far and wide on socials, in emails, in group chats, and anywhere writers gather. Thanks! 🥰

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[slutforpringles]

2012 -> 2023

image/ post creds to @/ritchiardo on twitter

[luckthebard]

A portion of people on here seem completely unable to interpret Imogen as having any flaws, and I can’t tell if it’s a Women Must Always Be Good And Pure Or They’re Evil So She Must Be Good thing, a 3rd campaign hat trick of Being Weird About Laura’s Characters thing, a Queer Women Can’t Be Wrong Actually thing, or some awful combination of all three.

[lakeshorediving]

Fic idea:

Cw// major character death

Kevin that dies after Riko went farther than just shattering his hand and then literally haunts the narrative because he’s stuck as a ghost and Jean is the only one that can see him.

[calicostorms]

There's something really interesting (in a bad way) to me about how the fandom at large perceives and portrays Josephine. As the Ambassador, she's shown to make dealing with various unsavory figures and to presumably be crushing dissent in some manner. It's not a victimless job, and she's very good at said job! Leliana chose her for a reason as the ambassador.

Yeah, she might not kill you directly, but she's very capable of, and has, destroyed people's social standing for her goals. Acting like she isn't able to be calculating, smart, and ruthless is such a boring reduction of her characterrrrr. She can be a fairy tale princess archetype AND a ruthless diplomatic Ambassador who doesn't shy from destroying a rival

[warderfromtheborder]

Destiny: the year of Very Well Structured Things In Sets of 2

Defiance+Wish: The Sovs Mara and Crow, the Eliksni Misraaks and Eramis, and the Regular Ass Humans Devrim and Petra(PV counts as a regular-ass human she isn't a figure of prophecy or royalty in the reef she's a cop who's been promoted too much out of necessity)

Deep+Witch: The Truncated Heros Sloane and Eris, the Osmium OGs Xivu and Savathun, the Concerned Boss-Parents Zavala and Ikora, and the Wriggly Enablers Ahsa and Drifter (okay you got me) I mean the Nonhuman Guides Ahsa and Immaru

Lightfall: Osiris with no Sagira and Nimbus with no Rohan and Caiatl with no Recognizable Dad and the Witness with no Disciples and Chioma with no Maya and the Vex with no Chill the Living People of Neomuna with no Meatspace to live in. (The dreaming city curse will never end and the people on Neptune will never get to leave the matrix Im sorry but that's the way it is)

The story and themes for this year of Destiny are SO GOOD the writers have done SUCH A GOOD JOB. If making a tighter relationship between the expansion narrative and the seasonal narratives was one of the goals this year they fucking knocked it out of the park, I can't put any of these arcs into its own box because they have been knit together so sturdily. It's all one great narrative, one Very Big narrative, they haven't done it like this before!

(And Im so mad people couldnt stop shitting on Lightfall they are stoping themselves from seeing how good the WHOLE NARRATIVE IS they are probably gonna say come march/near TFS launch "uhh yeah the seasons were good i guees but maybe they shoulda worked harder on Lightfall I mean who even likes Nimbus" and for their Ignorance and Haterism I am sentencing them to reading part two of The Two Towers while they get attacked by Paper-Tube Ninjas and a broadcast system shouts at them 'YOU CANNOT HAVE THE VICTORIES IN RETURN OF THE KING IF FRODO AND SAM DIDNT KEEP WALKING ALL THE WAY TO MORDOR' for 100 hundred years.) (The link there is I didn't get the Point of that part of Two Towers when I first read it and assumed the whole would have been better without it. Obviously...I was wrong, and so are these clowns who think Lightfall has a bad story)

The name of the game this year is Resolution, Catharsis, Armistice, Acceptance. The structuring is so simple and so elegant and so well executed, the 2s, the 3s, the mirroring and the inverting and the unfathomable gloriousness of the victories personal and community and galaxy wide. There is no way to overstate the bitterness of Amanda's death, the relief of exhalation when Sloane retreats, the VINDICATION of Eris's vengeance.

You remember when Zavala 'discovered' Crow's former identity? How that was the crowning on-screen narrative jewel in destiny up to that point? What I am saying is EVERY ARC THIS YEAR IS AS GOOD OR BETTER THAN THAT BEAT AND DESERVES AS MUCH RECOGNITION FOR THE ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT OF SO MANY COMPLEMENTARY COMBOS PACKED INTO ONE EXPANSION STORY.

If Shadowkeep was the first sign of symptoms, if Beyond Light was trying to irradiate the disease, if Witch Queen was a tug of war with scar tissue, then Lightfall is the world after recovery and making peace with what will Never Be The Same, and the home and family that has been changed forever but is still Your Home and Your Family. We don't stop fighting but we also don't stop loving and growing and caring.

One last thing for my fellow Sjur copium addicts out there: Sloane's retreat was mirrored and inverted by Eris's victory, so for the complementary-ness of the story to continue, Amanda's death and Crow's subsequent emotional anguish over losing the person he fought with but who also saw him for who he really is will need to be mirrored and inverted by SOMEONE who Mara fought with but who also saw her for who she really is and I expect you will agree this is SCIENTIFICALLY ACCURATE reasoning that Sjur's comin back home.

[disastergenius]

c3 defenders could not begin to comprehend Rusty Quill Gaming actually

massive overarching narrative tied to the beginning quests but the research and investigation details pay off because the party actually cares about the research

the ending results in the loss of the entire magic system (arcane and divine) with devastating consequences to the world and the party members themselves

an ending which was frankly not telegraphed as being the final consequence but was explored within the epilogue

the party have many arguments about the morality of their actions but challenge each other in ways that lead to meaningful and long-term character development/arcs (and they come back to these arguments several times)

character deaths that have long-lasting impact on the other PCs and are brought back in meaningful ways to the narrative

double paladin party; both paladins are invested in their gods without doubting their faith

a cleric with a complicated relationship with his god that he eventually stops worshipping to become a cleric of a non-god domain (Hope Cleric!) but doesn't actively wish for the death of the god(s)

[dayurno]

Kevjean that spend years without talking to each other out of the pure irrational fear of not having anything in common now that they are both free of Riko – If they don't look then the change isn't there

AGH....... theyre so fucking stupid but i think so much about how important riko is to their relationship and how much of a space he could be given even as a dead man if kevin and jean don't make a point out of ignoring him...... but how can you rid a relationship of its primal creator if its also both parties' first and worst abuser........ how do you get rid of riko without getting rid of each other..... its really. ah

i think a big part of kevjean to me is that both of their separate, new support systems (the trojans and the foxes in this case, though i use the term support system loosely) absolutely dont agree with this relationship at all GHDFGDHGJDFG when all your friends think your relationship is a grudge you cant let go of..... when everyone in your life thinks the only reason you could stay together is out of a misguided sense of codependence........ when no one wants you together and no one understands and it feels like youre a cult of two :) when id rather remember every time ive ever been wronged and abused than let go of you :) when you look at him and you think hes just something you invented when you were scared and needed to be rescued :))))

anyway heres my kevjean vision moodboard

[wall-eye]

got comm'ed to draw haiphie kiss like the atelut rian kiss gif i did! only pose not gif cause i dont do gifs as comms* but its coming out SO cute. i need to wrangle pose a little bit more and fiddle more with ephie face (its not as 3d as it should be >:T) but i need yall to look at it anyway.

[curiousitycollective]

debating kicking a hornets nest....

[isan0rt]

Hey crazy thought but maybe Kairi wouldn’t seem like such a ‘wasted character’ if this fandom would quit taking everything of narrative and thematic significance about her and assigning it to Riku constantly all the time.

(The evaluation of the ways in which Kairi and Riku are important and vital foils for each other got kind of long so it’s under a read more; to be clear, I love Riku so much, and it makes me super mad to see his narrative also being undermined by this trend, this is not a hate post.)

Kairi and Riku serve opposing but complementary purposes in the narrative. Kairi represents light, but she also represents the stagnation of the light. Many characters who are associated with just light are also associated with stagnation and a resistance to change. Hoder and Eraqus are particularly extreme examples, but Aqua exemplifies this as well. They want a predictable world where things stay as they ‘should’ be and they are threatened by changes to the status quo. Eraqus in particular refuses to change anything about himself for 60 years, only taking on students at the last minute because he’s running out of time. Kairi, like Eraqus and Hoder and Aqua, stands as the bold, sharp light that casts others into shadow.

However, the other side of “resistance to change” means that Kairi represents restoration. She is able to restore Sora in KH1, pull them home in KH2, and hold Sora back from death itself in KH3, because her power is one of restoration. She holds so tightly to their old way of being that she can stop death itself in the interest of not changing too drastically. But she is unable to move forward on her own, because she fears change too much. She wants to chase after the boys when they keep leaving her behind…but she isn’t able to keep up, because what she actually wants is for them not to run at all. 

She wants to go home, and restore their previous status quo. This desire is consistent in her for the entire series; this is also why she is unable to let go of her childhood crush for Sora, even though he’s obviously not the person she wants him to be anymore. For Sora, Kairi is the rock, she is the home that will always be there, he feels that she is the secure dock he can always return to after the storm. He relies on her not changing, which reinforces her fear of change. Lea is similar, and they can bond in KH3 over both their mutual desires to restore a prior, idealized status quo where their friends were reliably there and not at risk of disappearing on them or running away from them or changing.

Riku on the other hand embodies transformation. He represents change to the status quo, growth and development and a new way to be. Too much change is as much of a problem as too little; Kairi in KH1 sees Riku wants change, and it scares her, and he does in fact go too far. At the same time, she’s the catalyst for Riku’s desire to change their circumstances. Kairi’s arrival at the islands in the meteor shower incites Riku to dream of going to the outside world. This too is a tension that creates an anxiety in Kairi - in a way, she can see herself as to blame for Riku’s desire to change. But Riku was always going to change, because that’s who he is. He is radical change, the change that cuts away restrictive dogma so that the world can advance. Riku drives Sora to also want to grow and change, to excel and challenge himself. Sora wants to be like Riku, whose strength and internal drive he admires.

Ultimately Kairi and Riku are in BALANCE with each other. Ironically, while Kairi is themed as ‘the sea,’ her narrative purpose is to be steady as the earth. Riku’s name is ‘the earth,’ but he is changing and dangerous as the sea. They are one another’s reflections in the narrative. Kairi’s arc is about learning to let go and move forward, even though it scares her. Riku’s entire arc is about finding balance, not throwing away the comfort of the past, that inoculates him from falling too far the way Baldr and Xehanort do. Riku can drive Kairi to join them by giving her a Keyblade too. Kairi can pull Riku back from fleeing from them by seeing him even under Ansem’s face. He is able to be in contrast with Kairi in a healthy way, in a way that honors her fears while also refusing stagnation. They have to work TOGETHER to find Sora, because they are one another’s narrative and thematic opposites. Kairi is too stagnant on her own, and Riku too volatile. Sora is the healthy middle between them, the center-point that can bind the light and the dark TOGETHER for one purpose. 

Kairi is narratively and thematically important to Kingdom Hearts. She represents something, and trying to take the things that reinforce her narrative importance to the story (her representation of the light, her narrative purpose of ‘disruption’ in her arrival via the meteor shower, her position as the one who grounds Sora in opposition to Riku’s position as the one who drives Sora to push himself and achieve more) not only undermines her story, it undermines Riku’s.

[fancyfade]

James Robinson, Mark waid, Scott Snyder

I'll take "inexplicably popular and well praised male writers who are on average just okay" for 500

[miniagula]

NOW THAT WE'VE SEEN HOW YUNA'S DEATH ACTUALLY WENT I NEED TO SEE HOW GAYEON'S MADNESS WENT DOWN

[inuhodo]

i cant believe daniil dankovsky is losing to johnathan flop on that doomed by the narrative poll. only one of these guys has an immersive doomed by the narrative simulator and its not that british guy

[problemduetest4life]

ahhh i love the way you write rhemman POVs so much even if it was a darker fic i think it'd be so lovely to see more of the trojan's stuff through eyes the way you do it, if you end up feeling so inclined to write it :))

thank you so much!!! I definitely want to put what I've written into some sort of final form, but it probably won't be til a couple other projects are done, just in case I come up with more scenes.

I love exploring new POVs, especially when it comes to people trying to understand Jean or the Ravens.

[balteus]

raime/velstadt too, is yuri