#give me more backstory

[egophiliac]

if there was an autobiography based on any of the twst characters lives, which one would you be the most interested in hearing?

once again, Leona is the #1 funniest answer, because this man couldn't be bothered to write an autobiography if his life depended on it. someone would try to tactfully suggest that it might be good PR and Leona would immediately go to sleep right there just to be passive-aggressive. the mere fact that it exists would be enough proof to anyone who knows him that he had no involvement with it whatsoever.

...for a more serious answer though: I think Vil's is the one I'd want the most! I imagine there'd be a lot of really interesting entertainment industry stuff and behind-the-scenes stories, and also Rook would be there for part of it. can't go wrong with any of that! (alternatively, I feel like Vargas' would be extremely embellished -- he would nobly sacrifice his life in a blaze of glory at least once a chapter -- but it would be such a fun read that no one cares.)

[winterrbluess]

The disgraced one

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girl found dead in a hidden room.

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[shywhumpauthor]

A Whumper with fire powers branding their Whumpee not just with their name or initials, but their handprints.

Two palms scarred against either side of Whumpee’s neck, fingers wrapping around their throat in a collar that can never be removed. Hands on their sides, just below their broken ribs, a touch that will never relent. Fingers wrapped around their wrists in shackles that won’t be unlocked. A handprint against their face, cupping their cheek that had already suffered so many punches. The small of their back. A single hand just between their shoulder blades. Dragging down their thighs.

Just. Branded handprints.

[bonefall]

Hey, what makes a character a 'plot device but not a character'? And how do you not do that? I'm trying to do it on purpose but also I need to still make them interesting because it's on purpose, yknow?

A good skill to pick up is to learn to criticise criticism itself. A "plot device" is simply a thing that moves the plot along, it's a neutral literary analysis term! Usually, when people are angry that "a character has been used as a plot device," it doesn't mean they hate plot devices. It means they're gesturing at something deeper.

Runningwind and Bumble are equally plot devices in their deaths. They are both killed by the antagonist to escalate political tension. Runningwind is rarely "accused" of just being a plot device, and yet, we're talking about Bumble for the same thing.

So, why?

Well, Runningwind is just a background character, but in life, he was a part of the community. He was characterized as impatient but responsible. Yet, he wasn't SO important that he died with a bunch of unresolved plot threads.

He is mostly an extension of the entity of ThunderClan. His killing by Tigerstar, and the fear and paranoia that settles on the group after this, feel like a progression of the story insteas of something forced.

Bumble, on the other hand...

Is hated immediately by Gray Wing, when she's established as Turtle Tail's friend. Bumble's abuse at Tom the Wifebeater's hands invites even MORE investment. The rejection is shocking and upsetting. There's a story there about our main characters being imperfect; jealous, bigoted, and judgemental.

But, she is simply killed off. Everything they set up for this character is gone with little personalized fanfare. It's not a tragedy with a lesson about cruelty, or something anyone regrets.

It's just... plot. Gray Wing whinging that no one will like his shitty brother now that his body count is 2.

More than that, in the discussion of women in particular, "Fridging" was coined to give a name to the way women characters often don't get their stories told at all. There is a CULTURAL trend of female characters facing disproportionate violence, for the sake of advancing male plots.

Bumble has a lot going for her. Petal had a lot going for her. Turtle Tail had a lot going for her. Bright Stream had a lot going for her. When they died, they took their potential with them.

It's not always wrong to kill off a character of high potential, mind you. In Gurren Lagann, Kamina's death is sudden and shocking, leaving a massive hole in the hearts of the cast that never heals. Grappling with that loss, but also letting his memory fuel them, is a major theme of that story.

All that to say... there's no formula for avoiding it. You've gotta identify what the deeper issue is, in your specific narrative.

I can't say for certain what that will look like for your story, but here's some things I keep in mind;

When you make characters who exist to die, make sure they're people before you axe them.

Ask yourself; what about them does the cast miss?

If they just miss them because they were (pre-existing relationship), go back to the drawing board.

Fluttering Bird as an example. Who was she? Dead sister. Why do they miss her? Dead sister. No traits until after her death.

Runningwind was short-tempered and helpful. Kamina was a valuable leader who made people believe in a brighter future. Swiftpaw was fiesty and desperate to prove himself. The better characterized, the more profound the loss usually is.

If this is a female character who is dying just to serve the plot, be aware of cultural bias and tropes. How is the gender ratio looking in your cast? Is this happening disproportionately with your girls?

Note how Quiet Rain's litter had both a boy and a girl, but the girl was chosen to be "weaker" and wither away.

And how most of the time in DOTC, whenever a man had to be upset, a girl would get killed for it.

If you ever feel like the character on the chopping block is NOT a full character, ask yourself why it needs to be a character at all. You don't need to spend narrative time building out someone when a literal object of high value might suffice.

"My sister died when I swore to protect her and I can't face my family" = Old. Tired. Ive seen this.

"I lost my heirloom sword when I swore to protect it and I can't face my family." = Fascinating. Why was the sword so valuable? Will they really not take you back? How did you lose it?

When you do kill off "high value" characters, try to make sure you're not leaving too many plot threads hanging. Or at least make a point of how they will never get closure.

[cringefailvox]

i am so interested in vox's very pointed use of the word "coward" to describe alastor in stayed gone. because alastor really isn't a coward, as much as we've seen. he publicly bites back at vox, he parries easily with zestial despite his visible discomfort, he openly challenges the king of hell and nearly dies fending off the leader of the exorcist army. he's definitely not someone who runs from fights unless he absolutely has to, even when he's outmatched—he frequently and recklessly picks them, actually! and i would rather call his escape in the finale a tactical retreat than anything else, because he would've been killed if he stayed. so what gives?

i think it has to do with why val seems to think alastor owes him and vox something "much more than money." val says he almost beat vox last time—"almost" implies he lost, but vox doesn't behave as though he won any great victory over alastor; instead he seems to feel cheated or slighted, like the fight still didn't end in his favor even though alastor didn't or couldn't beat him. "coward" implies that alastor retreated, which we know he only does when he really has to, but WHY would he retreat from a fight with vox? what HAPPENED?

but more to the point, it's really fascinating, isn't it, for vox to frame alastor's behavior as cowardly rather than what makes him so scary. because in one light, making overlords disappear, leaving opponents dissatisfied because he chooses to retreat rather than die for his pride, burning out security cameras, etc reads as the terrifying actions of a man who's unpredictable, intelligent, and way too powerful for his own good. his credibility as an overlord comes from his initial rise to power, most of which happened in the shadows or in total anonymity. he's the monster under the bed. but vox turns all of that on its head: no, he slinks around in the dark because he's scared. he runs away from fights, he hides his face, he doesn't let anyone see him for what he is because what he is isn't anything.

and most intriguing of all, vox seems to think this is really disappointing! he's furious at the mention of alastor not finishing their last fight; he yells at the screen like a soccer dad watching alastor run from adam. it's like he seems to want alastor to try harder, to be as big and showy and powerful as vox must know he is, because vox can't fathom why someone as intimidating as alastor wouldn't capitalize on it in every conceivable way. almost like—and here i get a little radiostatic wish-fulfillment-y—he's noticing the same thing that drove alastor to a musical breakdown at the end of s1, that alastor simply isn't at full capacity anymore. that he's limited in some way. but vox doesn't know alastor is trapped by a deal; all he sees is alastor acting like a coward who won't finish the fights he picks, who has insulted vox (and val) by not giving their rivalry his all like vox seems to expect him to, like it used to be the status quo. things have changed a lot since he left town indeed. curiouser and curiouser

[toadsartblog]

this man is ON my mind. every day. every second. every second of every day.

[kacievvbbbb]

Honestly despite my feelings about how the last arc of MHA went down I really love Deku and his story.

I just feel like a lot of the time we get these protagonists whose whole philosophy is it doesn’t matter what you were born as everyone can achieve greatness. But then the series goes on and it turns out that actually it DOES matter because the protagonist has this really great lineage and these really great powers you can only have through birth they were actually born born, predestined if you will, to do this.

But MHA actually sticks to its guns. Midoriya wasn’t revealed to have some great connection to all might that the universe had put in place. He wasn’t defended from some great lineage that makes him uniquely suited to this. Hell All for one didn’t even turn out to be his father, there was no hidden powerful quirk he was always meant to have. He was just Midoriya Izuku a boy who was in the right place at the right time and simply decided to act while the world did nothing. And that’s what really made him a hero.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I believe him a bit more when he goes anybody can be a hero if you just decide to act

[flowerakatsuka]

smoke break & a familiar customer

more fanart of @brofightiscancelled & @awittlebabbyboy's postgrad plan au! no matter what, i'll always be obsessed with kara and had to draw his au design. he's so cutes and weighed down by so much regret, i'm absolutely captivated by him.

also, since a certain someone rides a moped, i hope it's alright if they stop by his mechanic shop. 👉👈

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[bayetea]

there are many things about hazel's povs that have an intensely de-racialized vibe to them (read: divorced from the black girl experience) but I think any black person will tell you that the most obvious sign is the complete lack of attention paid to her hair

like firstly:

she's from the 1930s her hair was definitely getting permed and straightened (it was not acceptable to just wear your natural hair out back then. optics + cultural assimilation/you'll be hard pressed to find photos of black american girls with unstraightened hair in that time period unless they're from like..... harlem)

I do believe that marie was straightening it for her For A Time but then she became more neglectful and stopped so hazel had to do it herself. I'm almost positive that hazel wouldn't have even been permitted to set foot in her school building without straightening it because that's just how much of an expectation it was

ok she comes back from the dead. what's she doing to her hair now bc it's not just gonna be cutesy effortless curls falling over her shoulder no matter what the length is

how does she feel about living in a time period where natural black hair is more accepted (read: more, absolutely not fully)

there are no black people around her At All. in fact she's around a lot of white people on the argo (+nico) so that would probably be giving her some intense feelings of double consciousness (look this term up if you don't know what it means) and that would inform how she feels about her hair

theoretically she ought to be wearing her hair in braids for simplicity's sake but I think it's more likely that she would cling to what she knows (perming/straightening) because it's not easy for a 14 year old girl to go from assimilating to deeply-ingrained white hair beauty standards to just proudly wearing a distinctly black hairstyle all by herself (mind you black women and girls can do whatever they want with their hair and straightening/perming it does not always/have to come from a place of self-hatred or whatever but in this particular case back then straightening one's hair was political And a survival tactic. it was as normal as brushing your teeth. it was enforced through dominant cultural messagings about the Absolute Necessity of conforming to white conventions of beauty. if you don't understand then think of it similarly to how you'd think of 1930s women needing to be perpetually dolled up and modestly dressed in order to be considered "good women") and anyways I'm just saying that this would be a lot to unpack for a 14 year old girl so hazel's probably just continuing to do this impractical thing (straightening her hair all the time) like 60% out of habit and 20% out of shame and 20% she doesn't know what else to do

something something about a missed potential character arc regarding all of this and in general there's so little mind paid to race in hazel's povs which is just ridiculous to me because a black girl from the jim crow era should have at least a few feelings about where she fits into modern society even if that society is camp jupiter. rick demonstrates his capacity to talk about how his characters feel about their race most notably in the kane chronicles so I don't think was too much to ask for. see this quote from an early son of neptune chapter:

^ like....... hazel's feelings of out-of-place-ness are There in the text and important to take note of when understanding her character (note that she's been there for like a year already and she still feels like she doesn't belong) but the emphasis is always put on her Being from a different time or Being undead and is never put on her out-of-place-ness regarding her race as a black girl from segregation times who is literally so out-of-place in this weird post-racial camp jupiter society. it feels like such an obvious thing to consider so its glaring absence really bugs me when I reread her povs and it bugs me when her hair is never talked about by extension because It Matters

you might be thinking "well she had a lot going on and she's not a superficial person maybe she just didn't care what was going on with her hair" and my response is simply that Black girls don't get to "not care" about their hair it is not the same thing as a white person going to school with bedhead it's not the same thing At All (if you aren't black then chances are you've never actually seen what untouched black hair looks like in the morning), especially when it's been beaten into your head for your entire life that your hair is ugly and you have to "do something to it" for it to be acceptable (and again...... she's from the 1930s so that feeling is magnified like 50x over). remember that perpetually dolled up modest 1930s woman I mentioned previously. picture her time traveling to camp jupiter of all places in 2010 and struggling to drop all of her makeup/hairstyling routines and internalized misogyny and conceptualizations of what women are "supposed" to be. this is the kind of fascinating character exploration that we really missed out on with hazel (and tbh regardless of her race she was never believably written as someone from the 1930s. I don't think rick even really tried to be honest)

you might also be wondering "how was rick supposed to know/attempt to portray any of that" and then my second answer is that If you're going to write a character who is not the same race as you then you should do some research and we have the internet now so research has never been easier 👍 this would be especially important to do if that person is a poc from the jim crow era I think! (he could have at least googled black hair 1930s)

anyways what I choose to believe (this is pure fanfiction) is that during hazel's first year at camp jupiter (remember that she was there for about a year before son started) nico would have helped her figure something out after observing her distress over her hair c: like they both secretly watched youtube videos on black hairstyles circa 2010 and then they got attacked by monsters for using a laptop (neither of them know how to use a laptop but he's trying his best for her) but then after killing them he helped her do her hair as something she likes that is easy to maintain <3 (I could also see reyna doing this because she surely knows a thing or two from her spa days)

[divine0rdainment]

I know we often talk about Lucifer being touch starved but we never really talk about the potential of Adam being even WORSE when it comes to being touch starved. Alot of people are like "oh I'm sure he cuddles with Lute and the other girls" and I argue, no, he doesn't, infact, if he's as much of an misogynistic and anti-feminine person as he claims to be, I'd see him thinking cuddling and hugging as too gay to do. And then people are like "well he has sex" and I'm like "sure but after the sex you think he's laying down and cuddling these women? Unlikely, this is Adam we are talking about.

So imagine instead that it's his first time having smex with Lucifer in hell, and afterwords he's about to get up to go shower only for Lucifer to drag him back and cling to him like a koala, and he's just 0.0

And then after a moment he starts crying and lucifers like "oh shit what I do?!" And Adams like "I Haven't BEEN HUGGED IN HUNDREDS OF YEARS!!!! And I fucking missed it!!!!"

And sure maybe he got like a quick hug from Emily, or an arm hug from Lute but REAL tight loving nuzzling hugs? Never. And he didn't realize how much he just needed a fucking hug after Eve went away and he had no one else to really feel that close to.

[roraimae]

Warden-Commander Aerie Caron because the HoF ditched and someone else needed to take over as Commander of the Grey in Ferelden.

[kald-dal-art]

Morphlings: *Doesn't have names or lines in either movie or books, and is only mentioned like 15 times in the books and have like 2 minutes of screentime in the movies*

Me: Okay but what if they were very important to me ok

[allastoredeer]

Do you have any headcanons about Alastor's participation in WW1? The Selective Service Act of 1917 made it mandatory for men aged 21-30 to register for military service and was later expanded to include men as young as 18, so if the stream saying that Alastor was late thirties to early forties when he died is still canon he'd have lived through that

So, I hadn't gotten to this part in my development of Alastor's backstory, but it got me thinking because, huh, how DID Alastor manage to get out of that?

Unless he just served in WW1. Which...I find oddly funny. I don't know why, but the the image of Alastor in the trenches...

But anyway, you got me curious so I looked into it. You're 100% right about the Selective Service Act of 1917 making it mandatory for men aged 21-30 to register for military service, and they even came up with different "classes" of the men who qualified, and if they exhausted one class, they'd go down to the next.

However, even with the Selective Service Act, there was still a lot of draft evasion going on. In fact, a significant amount of draft evasion happened in the South, which, as I'm sure you know, Louisiana is part of (some of it was in part of Southerners not having documentation, and thus, unable to even legally draft, which would probably give them a whole other slew of problems).

So, I was looking into how people evaded the draft. A lot of it is split up into different groups, like draft avoidance and draft resistance, with their only little list of things, but that's a lot and I don't wanna get into all of that. But my bet is on Alastor doing draft avoidance.

And there were actually quite a few interesting ones, like:

Claiming to have a mental or psychological problem (if you could find a doctor willing to certify that for you)

Student deferment, when someone is primarily in school to learn and study (or obtaining one in an effort to avoid the draft)

Deliberately failing the military intelligence tests

Professing sincere or religious ethical beliefs (join a church, avoid the draft!)

Bribery

and my personal favorite:

Being homosexual.

Because, as you know, the government can't allow the gay in the military!

And look, I'm a silly goober, so of course I immediately went to Alastor claiming to be homosexual. But the thing is, I kind of do think that is something Alastor would do for a majority of reasons.

In the 1920's, social values were evolving, and a lot of postwar "youths" began questioning traditional concepts of family, sexuality, and gender. There were "little Bohemia's" around the US, including in Manhattan and San Francisco, with communities and groups like this, and they weren't exactly unknown.

Back to Alastor, he lived in the French Quarter in New Orleans (or, at least, that's where I think he lived as a majority of mixed-raced Creole people lived there, which we know Alastor canonically is). And it just so happens, that it became the birth place of New Orleans gay community in the 1920's. There were entire gay neighborhoods, there were clubs where people dressed in the clothing of the opposite gender, they had parties and bars, and while it wasn't "the norm" to live this "lifestyle," and there was still a lot of harassment, it was still fairly normal to see. (Of course, then came what we can call the "gay panic" where government started cracking down on it, and claiming the gay community were all predators and pedophiles, and - well, you know. You know.)

But that was after/close to Alastor's death, so...

Anyway, I 100% believe that Alastor did take part and lived in communities like those. Names and labels for those things didn't exist at the time, so it's not like he knows what they're called, but homosexuals, cross-dressing, drag queens, they were normal to him. He's lived with them, partied with them, maybe even tried a few things out himself(so many headcanons, guys. So many).

This is to say, I think Alastor would 100% be comfortable claiming to be homosexual to avoid getting drafted. You've seen getting married for tax benefits, now consider becoming gay for draft evasion! I actually had a pretty fun talk about it with a friend in Discord, which only cemented it in my mind LMAO.

I have SO many headcanons around Alastor and him living in the French Quarter, in gay communities, where they challenged social norms (and we all know how he feels about challenging status quo's 😏)

But if not that, my runner up is that he totally bribed his way out of it. I don't know how he got the money, maybe he killed someone and stole their wallet, IDK, but bribery is a yes from me.

And if not THAT one, then he joined and church and claimed to have sincere religious and ethical beliefs 😇 🙏 (Yes, this is inspired by Nun Alastor, and no, I do not take constructive criticism. That's what happened guys, I was there). Besides, New Orleans was pretty Catholic, I'm sure he could find a church somewhere.

That's my take on it XD I think the one closest to Alastor's canon character would be bribery, but this is fandom, and if I say he claimed to be gay to get out of going to war, then goddammit he claimed to be gay to get out of going to war.

[venti-death-watch]

my current favorite thing to think about is lyney thinking he knows freminet better than vice versa but freminet knowing that he knows lyney better than lyney knows him