>>50841478I see! I don't know if that helps, but I wouldn't view those as filler at all. Moment without tension are just as important imo, their contrast with what follows is what makes the tenseness real, right? You need them to do stuff like developing characters and their relationships, showing a facet of their backgrounds or personality. Or it can be an opportunity to do some worldbuilding with an angle you haven't explored yet. They're also a great moment to innocently foreshadow the actually intense shit that will go down later on.
Or another classic is to have the character recount, remember, or dream about a past tense moment. Like they're having a discussion with another person and share a bit of past trauma. That has the benefits of both a tense and a relaxed scene, in many ways.
