Trope Talk: Timeskips

Ahh, the trope that launched a thousand redesigns. But are timeskips good? Bad? Narratively neutral and solely determined by the execution? (yes) But let's discuss in more detail anyway!

Thanks to patron Skemono for requesting this one!

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[OverlySarcasticProductions]

oof ouch ow my website

Soooo the comic site is working intermittently because of the sudden explosion of traffic. There's nothing wrong on the webmaster side (which unfortunately means there's nothing for me to fix) so it should clear up as things slow down.

Have fun!

-R

[seth_probably]

glad red finally got her excuse to talk about Reboot uninterrupted for an entire episode

[lasonris]

Spoilers: Red inserted herself into EVERY Character in her comic

[ewanstewart]

"The one unspoken rule of story pacing is no-one ever poops"

"Lies, you forget that toilets can be a brilliant way to introduce villains, " said Araki, ensuring the Polnareff will never feel safe in a bathroom again.

[Jack-kxrf]

You have got to love that Goku says the line "what's kissing?" AFTER he has 2 kids.

[inbhnivnh]

The virgin storyteller: Not showing their protagonists pooping

The Chad David Lynch: Actually waiting 25 years to skip forward 25 years

[merrittanimation]

I see Red is sponsoring herself this time. I like to imagine she role-played the entire thing like an agreement between mafiosos:
"You got the money, Comic Red?"
"My money is your money, OSP Red."

[peaceoutbruh]

"Time skips shouldn't move the story backwards"

Star Wars Sequel trilogy be like "Oh, you defeated the Empire and saved the galaxy?"
*uno reverse card*

[GenericName]

Obviously, this video came out before Arcane dropped, but I think that's a perfect example of a timeskip. Characters are older and more confident in who they are, and the status quo has shifted, but the world remains recognizable. We also get Vi's point of view, who both aged with the skip, but was locked out of important shitTM for it's duration. She didn't change, and now she has to adjust to the world that did. The entire show is just *chef kiss* so good

[alexanderwagner]

The Actors age in real-time.

Paul Rudd: “Confused Paul Rudd sounds “

[hunterkea]

OH FINALLY SHE MENTIONS HER COMIC EXISTS WITHOUT PLAYING IT OFF

We love you blue and red<3

[bassyboi]

Reading Aurora has really made me notice how conditioned I've become to the romantic tropes, as a fellow Ace umbrella user, that when any characters were expressing platonic physical contact part of my brain jumped into "aight, I guess that's the couple, I bet the next panel will have them blush or smthng" and I was happily mistaken.

I love that the characters can express genuine explicit concern about each other and not have any "no homo, bro" or * romantic intimate scene/staring*

Can we have this for more stuff?

[Herrscher-of-Autism]

"No-one ever poops" damn Araki took that too literally when writing Stardust Crusaders

[marceeeeeeel]

"No one ever poops"
Tywin Lannister tried to be defiant. Look at him now. Never break the unspoken rules of story pacing. Never.

[thefantasylife]

“No, the time skip isn’t for you to increase everyone’s cup size by one”
“B-but they’re older!”
“SHUT”

[MtnNerd]

I really like the soft time skips that give the characters some happy times. The victories don't feel earned if there's a new one popping up right away every time.

[EvilParagon]

Today on Trop Talks that could have used JoJo as a perfect example.


JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a dynastic tale of the Joestar lineage.

The first part takes place mostly in 1888, featuring Jonathan Joestar.

The second takes place 50 years later in 1938, featuring Jonathan's grandson Joseph Joestar.

Part 3 is again, 50 years later in 1988/1989, with the main character being Joseph's grandson Jotaro Kujo, but also featuring old man Joseph as well.

Part 4 this time is now only 10 years later in 1999, main character being Josuke Higashikata, Joseph's illegitimate son, featuring supporting roles from both Jotaro and Joseph.

Part 5 is self contained, taking place in in just 2001, with the main character being Giorno Giovanna (GioGio), which is offspring of Jonathan's body while it was under the control of Dio Brando, the main antagonist of the series, hence the Gio Gio being JoJo and Dio. Part 5 also does feature a lot of cameo and minor roles for returning characters of the series but for the most part is entirely its own thing.

Part 6 takes place in 2011 featuring Jotaro's daughter Jolyne Cujoh, with Jotaro in another supporting role.



As you can infer, there are a lot of time skips in this series. A dynastic tale stretching over 2 centuries is bound to do that. The most iconic character change in JoJo has to be Joseph. Going from primary to secondary character to tertiary was interesting. He goes from cocky bisexual teen to adventurous/playful badass old man to deteriorating but caring old man with many regrets. Skipping the same character ahead 50 years and then 10 years means you have to create 3 different characterisations and yet they did exactly that.

[purplehaze]

The fact that so many people started using your comic website that it actually ceased functioning properly is perfectly described by the phrase “Mission failed successfully”.

[yumiendercat]

Time skips in a nutshell:

“Well, we’ll just cut out all of the boring stuff! And some of the important stuff! And character growth!”

[peanut]

Ok these trope talks are absolutely saving my life. I was just about to write an 10 year time skip in a story of mine and thanks to this I noticed some VERY important mistakes i would have made. Thanks to you I can fix them and improve my story!