#i want to set him on fire

[someonenamedriptide]

Do you guys think Mephone eats like this since he has a screen for a face..

(Based off of chapter 2 of Testing Truths, by Kanatacs on Ao3) (the 2nd character is Fan btw)

[spakyyxx]

Me and pookie having productive classes @nyx-xp

[anexistingexistence]

When Ezra was introduced in Heartsong I really went from "this old man's gonna die and we'll all be sad about it" to "this old man's gonna die and we'll celebrate with fireworks" real fucking fast

[runawaymarbles]

the eternal struggle between “don’t say something about someone’s family member that might come back to bite you if they reconcile or might make your friend look bad in divorce court” and “agreeing with a teenage friend that she’s 100% right, her father is an emotionally immature piece of shit who makes me want to commit violence, and is in fact the only person I’ve ever met who I feel genuine hatred for and i hope she spits in his drink while she has covid”

[langernameohnebedeutung]

S01E02 Brother, Can You Spare A Brain? / S04E06 My Really Fair Lady

[kevindavidday]

thinking about neil straight up tossing his phone aside mid-makeout session 'cause he could nooot be bothered about his death sentence countdown. horny brain neil is so important to me

[psychicbby]

imagine being one of dan’s flatmates in his first yr of uni lmfaoo??? like ok here comes this guy and like the first day he shuts himself in his room to play video games. ok cool whatever maybe he’s nervous. most of the time you never see him bc apparently he has an older friend nearby that he’s always with. when he is in the hall he’s burning pasta bc he’s cooking inept and staring down the washer bc he doesn’t understand how to do his own laundry. oh and he makes videos for youtube where he talks to himself (again this is like 2010). so after barely seeing this man the entire term you find out he’s dropped out of uni. ok whatever you never really think about him again until you’re on youtube and you see his face on the homepage. his video has like millions of views and thousands of likes. oh, there’s the friend he was spending all that time with. somehow he’s become some sort of an internet celebrity??? lmfaooooo. what a serve on dan’s part.

[ghostdrinkssoup]

nbc hannibal is a romcom purely because the central conflict results from hannibal not understanding his feelings for will and being a total loser about it because he’s never had a friend or been in love before which makes him act so silly and do the most insane things that will interprets being framed for murder as hannibal having something against him (as anyone would), and this series of misunderstandings is not resolved until hannibal’s ex girlfriend and former psychiatrist tells will that hannibal is so in love with him it makes him look stupid. after that will does not hesitate to break hannibal out of jail and douse himself in blood which is this show’s equivalent to the protagonist running to the airport to stop their love interest from leaving the country and marrying someone else before they’ve had the chance to confess that they’ve loved them ever since they’ve known them

[poppy-metal]

just thought of being scumbag patricks pretty little girlfriend and saying you love him mid-stroke and he groans, puts a hand over your mouth because you dont mean that shit - he's gonna pretend he didn't hear it, cause hes bad for you and you falling in love with him would be fucking awful for you both - doesn't stop him from fucking you deeper though, immediately after you say it. like the words have a lasso affect and his hips crash into yours, not parting this time, just grinding his cock inside - way more intimate than he usually allows. biting his palm, wrestling your mouth from under his palm in defiance like the brat you are so you can pant and whine another breathless "i love you - i love -" he fucks you harder until the words fade out into moans. acting like his balls aren't twitching to unload inside you the moment you said those words, like its just to shut you up, the desperate slam of his hips, and not like the confession means anything.

[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.

[leonardcohenofficial]

the more i rewatch twin peaks i am reminded more and more that albert rosenfield (and to a lesser extent bobby briggs, though he doesn’t quite articulate it as clearly as albert with the exception of him breaking down at laura’s funeral) is THE only character to recognize laura’s death for what it was—completely avoidable, unromantic, and caused by human evil that nobody recognized the signs of or did anything to stop

[throughtrialbyfire]

i will never be normal abt cicero this is a promise. 8 years in a basement waiting for a voice that never comes. 8 years alone with nothing but cobwebs and a corpse you have to tend both on religious and practical levels. a duty solemn and sworn to people who are now dead - your only family - and a god whose existence is older than that of the gods most often worshiped. survivor of two sanctuaries destroyed or otherwise nonfunctional. a newcomer hears the voice you've been straining to hear for almost a decade. the self-doubt and the grief and the "why was i not chosen? was i not enough?" and the anger at the night mother smothered by the religious guilt at the anger. being angry and devoted at the same time and fiercely loyal and loving the very entity who passed over you for someone who knows nothing of your brotherhoods ways because they came into it in a sanctuary where all rite ritual and rules were tossed aside. they dont even know the tenets and yet they were chosen but you were loyal all these years and yet, yet, yet, yet. man.

[qquasars]

i kind of like how in early magnus archives things at the very least tried to idk, do shit privately if that makes any sense. this five nights at freddy nightmare child just fucking strolls in a strip club. and gets mails

[lunarharp]

shirahama-sensei reminded me she has a thing for the teacher from pokemon s/v so i randomly went off on an au where qifrey is the professor. etc

[magical-girl-coral]

Rat Grinders D20 season idea: have all the PCs be played by people who have either never played DnD before or haven't played in years to really sale the "a bunch of teenagers wake up after a year of no control over their bodies or the memories of what they did and now they have to deal with being level twenty powerhouses without knowing how they got there" aspect of their characters.

[allmightyscroll-swag]

Oop, I realized I never actually posted about this, but!

Anyone remember my separated Donnie au? Code name: Violet skies? Well I'm remaking it! Rewriting it, even !!

Here's Foot Recruit/aka Donnie!

Draxum, quite begrudgingly, ends up raising the four turtles with Splinter: whom saved him when a part of the lab's roof collapsed, while he was holding onto two of the turtles. Splinter brought the both of them to the sewers, and it all happened from there.

The turtles grew up not too different, safe for extra actual training and knowledge of both the hidden city and things mystic; until Leo and Donnie turned 14. Donnie went out one day with Raph, and didn't come back.

Two years after his disappearance, when the series events begin, they find him in the Foot Clan. Now called just Foot Recruit, with no memory of them — and a good 6 years worth of memories of living with the foot clan.