Basic Trope: In a Soap Opera or other Long Runner series, one story arc begins part-way through another story arc.
- Straight: In the hit soap Endless Drama, a plotline unfolds about Alice Cheating with the Milkman and becoming pregnant by him. Halfway through that, Alice's husband Bob goes into a coma following a skydiving accident. Then Alice has a Convenient Miscarriage, and breaks things off with the milkman, at which point Bob wakes up from his coma with amnesia...and begins falling for Clarissa the nurse...
- Exaggerated: Endless Drama is a Kudzu Plot with multiple dangling plot threads.
- Downplayed: Two Lines, No Waiting.
- Justified: It's a complicated story, and there's a lot going on.
- Inverted: The plotline about Bob's coma doesn't begin until the plotlines about Alice's affair and illegitimate baby are resolved.
- Subverted:
- Yo Yo Plot Point.
- Just Eat Gilligan
- Meanwhile, in the Future…
- Everything not related to Bob's coma is revealed to be All Just a Dream
- Double Subverted:
- Four Lines, All Waiting
- Simultaneous Arcs
- Except it really happened
- Parodied: Alice watches a Soap Within a Show, and is seen Explaining the Soap to all her friends.
- Zig Zagged: Some plotlines resolve midway through others, some wait until another plotline is resolved.
- Averted: The series has little or no continuity and runs on Comic-Book Time.
- Enforced:
- "We need to keep this Long Runner exciting, so we can make money off it for years to come."
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants
- Lampshaded: "Previously on… Endless Drama..."
- Invoked: Bob's coma begins just on the day that Alice finds out she's pregnant and that the child might not be Bob's after all.
- Exploited: Bob goes into a coma, and Alice is seduced by Milton the milkman, and eventually winds up pregnant with his child. But, since Bob is comatose, Alice decides to start a new life with Milton.
- Defied: Alice breaks off the affair, has an abortion, and waits faithfully for Bob to wake up. Neither Milton nor his and Alice's love child are ever mentioned again.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
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