#narrative consistency

[vesper-1898]

If the new material makes the original feel off, maybe the problem isn't the original.

[canonical-transformation]

*sudden realization*

remember when you linked the *possibility* of lisa’s future death to the fact that she doesn’t appear in noelle’s hangout event (even though most of the other knights of favonius do), because it would mess with the logistics of the game, since hangout events can be replayed at any time, and it wouldn’t make sense for an already dead character to show up in one?

what if that’s why she doesn’t have a TCG card?

Asgsdglksfhdjkjfsg

I am eyeing Childe and Lisa's missing cards with great suspicion

[canonical-transformation]

She even rocking the dead/dying mom hairdo.

Lisa is going to die sometime in canon.

(Yeah, I'd give... at least a 20% chance she dies before the end of Travail, 40% chance she dies or has a major death-averted moment like Xiao in Perilous Trail.)

The real kicker? Hoyoverse is weirdly focused on narrative consistency, not letting characters be in two places at once, adding event quick starts as a "yOu'Re dOiNg iT wRoNg" option, etc...

I have a hunch that they're not currently planning to kill off the characters who have replayable Hangout events... or appear in them. Because then there'd be plot holes in the dating sim! (The horror!)

In Noelle's Hangout Act II, she tries emulating a bunch of different Knights.

Guess which Knight Noelle doesn't mention at all in that quest?

[words-and-threads]

So...for Reasons, it is very important in this particular bg3 playthrough that, rather than deciding to go into the crypt, my party just happens to fall in through the cracked floor and get into a fight with the rest of Gimblebock's crew. I am essentially trying not to metagame: my Tav has no reason to go tomb raiding right now, nor to pick fights with random strangers. I want the loot and an in game explanation for the mummy in my camp. The collapsing floor was a bit of narrative convenience.

I know this CAN happen. Or rather it could. I have repeated the process a few times previously. I know that you can break the floor intentionally and jump down, but that isn't what happened. I just ran over it and we broke through.

I fear this may have been patched out. I've been running over that floor for 20 minutes.

So do I break it on purpose and lie to myself about what happened, just go in the main door and do the damn fight, or propose that someone smarter than my Tav (not difficult) found one of the 2 alternate ways in and the party considered it a good use of their very limited time? Because I don't like that either.

OR do they leave the crypt alone entirely? And Withers just shows up because fuck you that's why. He sensed our presence and went "well, time for this bullshit."

I'm leaning toward jumping down and pretending we fell. It's the funniest option by far and Tommy is nothing if not a walking farce.

[destinationtoast]

Possible resolutions to S3 redux

There have been a lot of stellar responses to my original post, and I don't have time to respond right now, but I want to curate and rec a few of them in particular. (all bolding mine.)

On John's grief and recovery

penns-woods' list of excellent questions about grief and recovery  

1. What does it mean to get over something? How can you tell when someone is over something? What does that mean or look like for John Watson?

imtooticky points out that "getting over" is overly simplified:

(And no, I don’t think there is ever really any “getting over” things. They change us, one way or the other, and we incorporate those changes into our identities moving forward. Hence, maturity, empathy, bitterness, isolation, mellowness, etc..)

@darcydent chips in as a Johnlock shipper and a parent:

As a parent, I don’t think John will just be able to get over his wife dying, his baby dying, the baby he thought was his turn out to be a lie or etc.  

The John we know is a loyal and good hearted person.  Is everyone really so ready to believe that he would just shrug off the baby disappearing without a second thought?

urbanhymnal on portraying John's grief in fic (including their fic What He Deserves, which I just added to my reading queue), and what that means for judging S3: 

John Watson is the heart of the show and to again brush aside his grief as if it means little does a real disservice to the character. This is, in part, why I feel like I can’t cast a final judgement on series 3 because so much of what is going on with John was left unresolved. It felt like half of a story and I am patiently waiting for the second half. 

On where S4 might be going

cosmoglaut's whole post on where S4 will take us, genre expectations, and relation to ACD is excellent -- highly recommended (bolding mine):

Amicable divorce with joint custody would be realistic, but I don’t believe it fits in the show’s genre - which is fast paced drama (sometimes just for the sake of it). Had it been a real life situation, or the show went for more emotional honesty, then I’d rather John just get up, and tell everyone, “Stop manipulating my life! Inform me first and let me make decisions!” Only in that scenario would the divorce - if he so chooses - be amicable as it would be an informed choice of both parties. But that means John needs to have more role than the sidekick he seems to have been reduced to.... I have dialed down my expectations from the show from expecting things in detail to expecting them in broad terms. So instead of saying, as you pointed out, that a less painful way for John to have a life would be an amicable divorce with a joint custody, I think I’d like to say, let this John become who Watson is expected to be: an army doctor with a liking for writing who found a ship in Sherlock Holmes to go on an adventure when he was loneliest; and in return, in whom Sherlock Holmes found a first mate to take with him and a harbor to rest when things became overwhelming. Let these two remain loyal to each other no matter what. And it’s possible, because their loyalties aren’t just taken for granted as they were in the original stories, but are being tested. So there is still probably some hope to see a satisfying resolution even though it may not seem emotionally honest at this point.

memartin1968 on S3-consistent expectations:

Just a quick comment: While an amicable divorce and co-parenting with Mary might seem the least painful resolution for John, I really can’t believe that’s on the table, not with what Mary said to Sherlock (and, unbeknownst to her, John) in Leinster Gardens, where she says she *can’t* lose John.

brollybee also has a particularly choice quote while discussing the writing in the show (bolding mine):

Frankly, I don’t trust the writers to do any real emotional events that make sense. It wouldn’t matter if the baby died or Mary died ... Sherlock’s magical healing “I’m an asshole” shtick would somehow magically make it aaaall better. 

sweetlatejuliet on why the lack of resolution makes it hard to write fic:

My basic fic-making desires are in direct conflict.

Emotional honesty. Happy endings. Canon compliance.

These things are very far apart because the show, the canon, is very far from The End.

Thanks so much for all the great responses, and sorry to anyone I missed here.