#had to make some more icing for them

[cuppatealove]

I have this but with biscuits/royal icing in my freezer. [x]

[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.

[beaulesbian]

THE TERROR (2018) S01E07 "Horrible From Supper"

They also told us lemon juice would ward off the scurvy. I heard, when it gets bad, your gums pull back. Scars dissolve and open back up.

[voidcat]

leaning in for a peck on the lips and telling your windbreaker darling they're so sweet they give you toothaches... only to be hit by a real toothache hours later

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

Alright know what here's a little Guild Wars 2 reblog game for everybody; what mounts (if any) do your characters have in their canon, do they have names? Personalities? How'd they meet??

Spill it all below, tell me about all your creatures!!

[caliburn-the-sword]

emma made me viscerally uncomfortable from season 3-6 and the reason is because it was like watching a barbarian multiclass as a cleric. like girl stop with the magical energy blasts!! just hit him with your sword!!! punch him in the face!!!!

[bookshelf-in-progress]

I'm approaching the most terrifying part of the Exciting New Story Idea process: Writing it down.

[nabaath-areng]

Dawntrail has been putting a lot effort into upskirting and focusing on Ieeha's legs in almost every single cutscene and to say that that has been distracting is an understatement—

Bonus:

[icewindandboringhorror]

Lineup of all of the characters that appear long enough to need a visual representation of them in the game lol

[fizzing-saturn]

literally sobbing my youtuber egos hyperfixation is coming back except its ONLY ever been markiplier and (mostly) crankgameplays egos and there is NO CONTENT FOR CRANKGAMEPLAYS EGOS anywhere 😭😭😭

theyre so interesting too!!! dark and anti (who admittedly i dont know that much abt) are also interesting and silly/pos but BLANK!!!

hes so sad because hes the embodiment of all the negative stuff! but ethan did. nothing with him! wtf! and the character design is so aggfhdf i really like the idea of a gaunt bonewhite figure with eyes leaking oil and a face perpetually stuck in a sob

and unus 😔 the physical embodiment of DEATH?? he was only alive for one year but he was my blorbo the whole way through

and those are the only ones people really talk about?! i mean some people yeah but i feel like most don’t acknowledge mrs thomson or mad mike or bernice or (idk her name) his yandere ego or father ethan any of the rest of them! its so :((((

any ways. im going to go have thoughts abt Them. very sorry for the long post the tags are also very long but i Have Opinions and i needed them to come out

:(

[compacflt]

Fully support your desire to cut down on the extras as they're already so long, but as someone who was also looking forward to the sickfic section and is sad to hear it's been taken out, I will simply have to ask you about it instead! First off the discussion of home in the snippet you shared was delicious - when do you think Mav started thinking of the house as 'their' home? And Ice taking Mav to the hospital has a lot of crunch there around how they're seen and how they act in public, especially if Ice was worried and Mav was kind of out of it. Do you think Ice would have taken Mav in to the hospital if he'd really been spiking a fever and decided he needed it? How would he explain themselves? And I suppose a separate, related question: who are their official next of kin/emergency contacts?

the reason i got rid of the sickfic is cause all those questions were answered better elsewhere in the extras ❤️

i was kind of annoyed that the house inconsistently appears to be the property of whomever the plot calls for at the moment -> another reason to cut the sickfic

Yes Ice would take mav to the hospital. it happens elsewhere LOL, maverick is extremely incident-prone

obviously a fun surfing injury with friends != the sickfic’s ice taking “a friend” to the hospital in the middle of the night for dangerous levels of illness-related dehydration… implies familiarity, intimacy above everyone else… the hospital staff would probably assume they’re together, yes, & i don’t think ice would challenge that at all, especially if he had to make sure all the paperwork was filled out right. just not worth the effort. “is there anyone else we should call for mr mitchell?” / “Um no. Just me.” Yeah i took him to the hospital at 4am bc i love him and im worried about him what r u gonna do about it 🤨 violate his hipaa rights? It’s 2009 gay people exist grow up🙄 hospital staff isn’t gonna tell anyone, so who cares

(Luckily for ice in the sickfic he didn’t have to take mav to the hospital)

the point of the sickfic was to establish a precedent for one of them voluntarily taking care of the other who is unable to take care of himself, to set up the parallel of maverick taking care of Ice when he Really gets capital-s Sick. but then i still can’t bring myself to write ice actually being capital-s Sick because i have some weird neurosis where i simply dislike thinking about ice (powerful guy) being helpless or incapacitated or, um, dead. so the mav-sickfic isn’t really relevant anymore because i haven’t written (and never plan on writing, besides that one half-assed one-shot) the corollary ice-sickfic. so the sickfic became the Nixed-fic ❌

And according to this wip wednesday snippet, they are each other’s emergency contacts. don’t ask me how that works or how they figured that out, idk. some stuff you do have to talk about for logistics purposes i guess. which is kind of the point of all the house-related/money-related discussions I’ve written throughout my fics—they Have to talk about the logistics because that’s real life. But they don’t INTERPRET those logistics or assign them a normative value.

for instance debriefing presents (maverick’s) death & taxes as the only two things that ever get them to actually talk to each other lol. logistics become a vessel through which they can talk about their situation without actually talking about it. The state of being each others emergency contacts might be a death-and-taxes discussion—acknowledging permanence without acknowledging permanence

[starsmuserainbow]

There is a doll lying on the floor. Had she been forgotten by some child?

It did not seem like anyone was coming back to look for her, though.

[violentdevotion]

wait do you have a fav boys character yet ?

i really like butcher but i feel like that's a basic answer and also the wrong answer. in another world id like frenchie but i can't get over how much i hate the actor. I love maeve theres never a moment she's on screen where im thinking get this woman outta here she's always entertaining to me. i like starlight but (and this is probably a bit nasty to say) there's smth a little uncanny valley about her sometimes where when she's talking im not listening but staring at her face trying to see what features throwing me off. I hate ashley but the actress played an insufferable character in jessica jones too and I really appreciate her ability to play The Most annoying woman you know.

centrist answer i like them all (except stormfront. hated her before i even knew she was a nazi. she was on insta live and i was waiting for her to explode and die) but my fave would have to be butcher bc i find im rooting for him the most and constantly justifying his actions. but sometimes karl urbans accent pisses me off. also black noir but he doesn't Do anything so it's hard to have him as a fave bc he's barely there.

[autumnrory]

woooo my niece took 5 of my 13 lego sets, one of which was one of the three larger ones, so that's one huge box out of the way and i'm just glad she wanted them because like they ARE twenty years old and they look fine ofc but sometimes kids aren't gonna want stuff that isn't new and shiny ya know, but she did seem to want everything which would've been fine with me but i knew there was no way they would take all that with them, and at least i still have stuff of my own to sell, plus should get at least a cut of my brother's stuff for doing the inventory and putting together that stuff that wasn't already done

[dutybcrne]

Thinkings thinkings of Fatui!Kaeya have been reawakened in reviewing Arle's teasers/animations

[desperatepleasures]

update: I forgot that baked apples are the most incredible food on this planet