#relationship arc

[leatherbound-breakdown]

Relationship Arcs

Positive Change - The relationship changes because of the story in a positive way. [ Strangers | Enemies -> Lovers | Friends ]

Positive Steadfast - The participants are already close, and the relationship remains largely the same. [ Best used in subplots ]

Negative Change - The deterioration of a relationship. [ Close -> Enemies | Strangers ]

Negative Steadfast - The characters start apart and end apart or with a bigger divide.

Relationship Arc Variations

Love at a Distance -The characters grow in their love for each other, but also grow distant from each other.

Love Your Enemy - The characters love each other, or learn to love each other while being ultimately being enemies.

Keep Your Enemies Closer - One character draws closer to the enemy and gets more personal with them, but does not actually love them.

The Frienemy - A friend that also serves as an antagonist,

Toxically Close (no boundaries) - Loving your abuser, codependency.

The Collective - The character is in a relationship with a group of people that act as a unit [ The Plastics - Mean Girls ]

Consider how the characters grow together or apart and what they learn. If the protagonist is a character who changes, the influence character will be a character who is steadfast.

[ Example: Legally Blonde ] Elle - The protagonist who changes Paulette - Influence character who remains mostly the same.

[darkfictionjude]

Since the topic is onfire, we would get the chance to speak with nea and find that thoughts. That would be interesting because people can choose the understanding path, cause mc might love her and the memories or the Anakin 'I hate you' path. For me, I would choose the last, because I love drama like in the movies and because one thing canon awnsered in previous asks is mc only feeling anger but they doesn't know other feelings. Bravo Jude for making the childhood route so good 😭

Thank you thank you hehehe

Yeah this conversation is coming it’s coming, it’s just not going to be in like three separate occasions. The first time you can reignite the friendship, the second will be finally blurting out the grievances between the two and the last with be sitting down and finally talking it out.

I feel like it’s better for it to progress like that because Nia is not good with feelings and mc has a hard time saying what they feel so it’s a bit unrealistic for them to right off the bat sit down and discuss this like mature people

And thanks, I hardly ever choose the childhood friend route when I play IF so I wanted the challenge of making one I’d play

[tabithacarlisle]

😭 💖 1st 7 pics from the Regata Race in book 1. Last 3 pics from Maxwell’s mini honeymoon at the end of book 3. The growth, it’s so beautiful, I can’t ...💓💕

[victorianfantasywatson]

Ok so I don't know how this is JUST NOW occurring to me with such clarity but.... After S3 has started, there is NO WAY BACK for John. It isn't just a question of John should have chosen Sherlock, he could have done something differently, he could have ended it with Mary. What John and Sherlock had before the Fall was a kind of platonic life-partners situation (with secret mutual pining of course) like we are going to live together forever and not date anyone else and solve cases together and hang out all the time and basically be everything to each other but we are NOT. Going to talk about our feelings for each other or whether or not we would like to be involved sexually because we don't want to risk what we DO have. There's no way back to that. Ever. You don't dump your girlfriend and move out of the flat you're sharing with her, you ESPECIALLY do not break it off with your FIANCE to move back in with your old flatmate if you are just friends. Everyone would know John was secretly in love with Sherlock. Sherlock even would know. It would be blindingly obvious. ....which is an interesting point about Mary's role in the story. She may have torn them apart, but she also GOT THEM MOVING. Otherwise when Sherlock came back John could have forgiven him and moved back in and STILL not talked about it. They managed to avoid talking about the fact that John STOPPED DATING. But just imagine John trying to explain to anyone, "oh, I'm not with Mary anymore, I've moved back in with Sherlock" without them knowing EXACTLY what it meant. The only way John could have left Mary for Sherlock when he came back is if he was ready to move FORWARD into a romantic relationship with him....and of course he was still too frightened that Sherlock couldn't return his feelings.

[victorianfantasywatson]

John has seen past Sherlock's facade

So I’m wondering if someone hasn’t already written this, because it seems like fairly obvious stuff, but I just worked out the whole thing step by step in my head (it was a slow morning at work) and I wanted to set it down somewhere.

This might be worth writing out in more detail later, with actual quotes and stuff, but I’m pressed for time right now so it’s pretty much just off the top of my head.

In TAB, the question John is asking about Sherlock has changed suddenly. The entire rest of the show, John is asking himself, is Sherlock a sociopath, does he have feelings the way other people do. In ASiB, he tells Mycroft that Sherlock “doesn’t feel things that way”. In THoB, Sherlock has an emotional breakdown in front of John at the Inn, and John basically just denies what he’s seeing and refuses to take Sherlock’s emotions seriously. In TRF, John falls for it when Sherlock claims he doesn’t care if Mrs Hudson has been shot and calls him a machine.

After Sherlock returns we don’t see John questioning whether Sherlock has feelings so much but I think that’s really because between Sherlock playing dead for two years and his engagement to someone else he’s managed to put a little emotional distance between them. He’s telling himself it doesn’t matter to him if Sherlock can’t feel things the way he does, he’ll take whatever relationship with him he can have and try not to need him that way anymore. But there’s no evidence that John has seen the real Sherlock - except that he should have. At the wedding, during the best man speech. But we don’t KNOW.

In HLV their relationship is really strained and also I think John is having to hide things because he has to keep his emotions hidden from Mary so it’s difficult to tell what he’s thinking. But then we get to TAB, and suddenly John is asking an entirely different question. Not “do you feel things that way” but “why do you hide the truth of who you are.” John refers to his role as an unreliable narrator repeatedly, he talks about the version of Sherlock that he’s presenting to he world as distinct from Sherlock’s true self. When they talk at the greenhouse, he says he knows Sherlock is flesh and blood, that he MUST have a past, he MUST have impulses.

So John has changed from asking “do you have feelings?” To “why do you hide yourself?” In TAB, he’s seen past Sherlock’s exterior finally. But how do we know if this is true in the real world or if it’s just Sherlock’s wishful thinking?

Well, we don’t have anything from the episodes prior to this, like I said. But LOOK AT HOW Sherlock thinks of John in TAB. John is extremely perceptive and sees through facades. He sees that Molly is really a woman when Sherlock can’t. He understands that he’s just a character in a made-up-story. And Sherlock thinks he’s “pretty damn smart.”

So when Sherlock thinks that John has finally seen through to who he really is - I think this is actually what has happened. John knows, and Sherlock knows that he knows. They just haven’t had a chance to have a conversation yet.

[stregaomega]

Please pass this on to anyone who has difficulty seeing the relationship.  It has several arcs and role reversals and parallels. And, I swear, it’s going to happen.  Kudos and Credit to Svanoushka MP. Thank you for your beautiful work!