#to the character's complexity

[maranull]

btw, if Marika was the character people tend to think, the deaths of Godwyn and Ranni would have no reason to affect her. she has 7 more children, 5 if you don't count the Omens (which —if I remember right— were normally just killed before she got her own and then all of the sudden exile was on the table as well).

if she was still the ruthless, genocidal warlord she was when creating the Golden Order, why would she care so much about Ranni and Godwyn's deaths? so much that she attempts to tear down everything she has spent eons creating?? if she really doesn't care about her kids, why was that the trigger to directly assault the Greater Will?

sure, evil women and whatnot, but at least actually look at her as a whole. yes, she did all she did and if the ER world was fair she should had gotten way worse than being crucified, and I'd also never say she's a gentle or caring character overall, but there's a pretty important exception to the not caring thing, and that's her kids

their death caused the entire premise of the game, I feel like the love she had for them was a pretty important character trait of hers

[rottenbittenglass]

even a worm will turn.

[josephsaturn]

I think that “Anakin was a slave child who was groomed by Palpatine and raised by someone who wasn’t ready to take on a child, thereby leaving him in a social limbo state where he’s surrounded by people but only has a few close confidants, with the one he trusts the most actively trying to take advantage of him”

and

“Anakin was taught right from wrong from a young age, first by his mother and then by Kenobi, but any time he was presented with a choice, actively CHOSE WRONG EVERY SINGLE TIME”

are two sentences that can, should, and MUST coexist to fully understand Anakin Skywalker as a character

Edit: PART 2 of this post here

[luvrinata]

love this app

[palarien]

sketched this out at jury duty actually

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy one year anniversary to In Stars and Time!

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

💀 Making Your Villain Make Sense (Without Making Them Right™)

("because if I see one more war criminal with a sad diary entry get a redemption arc, I’m gonna throw my laptop.")

Here’s the thing: your villain doesn’t need to be redeemable. But they do need to make sense.

And I mean sense beyond "they’re evil and they monologue about it." Or “they have a tragic past, so now they do murder <3.” Or “they were right all along, the hero just couldn’t see it 🥺.”

Let’s fix that.

─────── ✦ ───────

🧠 STEP ONE: BUILD A LOGIC SYSTEM THAT ISN’T OURS Your villain shouldn’t just be wrong, they should have their own internal system that works for them. Morally flawed? Absolutely. But coherent.

Ask yourself:

What do they value more than anything? (Power? Order? Loyalty? Vengeance?)

What do they believe about the world, and how did they get there?

What fear drives them? What future do they think they’re trying to prevent?

The villain doesn’t need to know they’re wrong. But you should.

Make their logic airtight. even if it’s awful. Give them cause and effect.

─────── ✦ ───────

👿 STEP TWO: STOP GIVING THEM THE BETTER IDEOLOGY Listen. I love a “morally gray” moment as much as anyone. But if your villain is making all the good points and the hero’s just like “no because that’s mean,” your arc is upside down.

If your villain is critiquing injustice, oppression, or inequality, make sure their methods are the problem, not their entire worldview.

✖︎ WRONG: Villain: “The ruling class is corrupt.” Hero: “That’s not nice.”

✔︎ RIGHT: Villain: “The ruling class is corrupt, so I’m burning the city and everyone in it.” Hero: “So you’re just… committing genocide now?”

Your villain can touch a real issue. Just don’t let them be the only one talking about it, or solving it with horror movie logic.

─────── ✦ ───────

🔪 STEP THREE: GIVE THEM POWER THAT COSTS THEM The best villains lose things too. They’re not just untouchable horror dolls in sexy coats. They make bad choices and pay for them. That’s where the drama lives.

Examples:

They isolate themselves.

They sacrifice people they love.

They get what they want, and it destroys them.

They know they’re the monster, and choose it anyway.

If your villain can kill a dozen people and feel nothing, that’s not scary. That’s boring. Let them bleed. Let them regret it. Let them double down anyway.

─────── ✦ ───────

🧱 STEP FOUR: MAKE THEM PART OF THE WORLD, NOT OUTSIDE IT Villains shouldn’t feel like they were patched in from another genre. They should be part of the world’s logic, culture, class system, history. They should reflect something about the setting.

Villains that slap:

The advisor who upheld the regime until they decided they deserved to rule.

The noble who’s using war to reclaim stolen legacy.

The ex-hero who thinks the system can’t be saved, only reset.

The priest who truly believes the gods demand blood.

They’re not just evil, they’re a product of the same world the hero is trying to save.

─────── ✦ ───────

👁 STEP FIVE: SHOW US THEIR SELF-JUSTIFICATION You don’t need a tragic backstory™. But you do need to show us why they think they’re right. Not just with exposition, through action.

Let us watch them:

Protect someone.

Choose their goal over safety.

Justify the unjustifiable to a character who loves them.

Refuse to change, even when given a chance.

A villain who looks into the mirror and goes “Yes. I’m correct.” is 1000x scarier than one who sobs into a journal and says “I’m so broken 🥺.”

─────── ✦ ───────

🧨 BONUS ROUND: DON’T MAKE THEM A HATRED MEGAPHONE Especially if you’re writing marginalized characters: don’t let your villain become a mouthpiece for slurs, abuse, or extremism just to make them “evil enough.” That’s lazy. And harmful.

You don’t need real-world hate speech to build a dark character. You need power, consequence, and intent.

─────── ✦ ───────

TL;DR: Good villains don’t need to be right. They need to be real. Not a vibe. Not a sad boy in a trench coat. Not a trauma monologue and then a sword fight. They need logic. They need cost. They need to scare you because you get them, and still want them to lose.

Make them dangerous. Not relatable. Make them whole. Not wholesome. Make them make sense.

—rin t. // thewriteadviceforwriters // villain critic. final boss consultant. licensed chaos goblin

P.S. I made a free mini eBook about the 5 biggest mistakes writers make in the first 10 pages 👀 you can grab it here for FREE:

[the-fandom-queen]

LUCAS JOHNSON YOU IDGAF FAKER I SAW YOU VISIBLY REEVALUATE EVERYTHING WHEN YOU REALIZED YOU WERE WRONG. I SAW YOU TRY TO FIGHT YOUR OWN BROTHER TO PROTECT JEAN WHEN YOU REALIZE THE SITUATION WAS OUT OF HAND. I SAW YOU FEEL BAD FOR YOUR ACTIONS. I SAW YOU NOT IDOLIZED YOUR BROTHER AFTER HE DIED BECAUSE YOU KNEW WHAT HE HAD DONE. I SAW YOU BE CONCERNED WHEN YOU REALIZED JEAN WAS YOUNGER THAN YOU. I SAW YOU RUN TO COACH RHEMANN AND TELL HIM ZANE IS ATTACKING JEAN. YOU CARE SO MUCH.

[akiizayoi4869]

They need to make a comic centered around these two. Or better yet, a novel. A comic wouldn't do them justice, especially not with the way how they're written.

[hunter-rodrigez]

I love how Discworld introduces Granny Weatherwax.

She is introduced as a witch, but it's not actually clear if she can do any magic for quite some time. At first all she does is herbal medicine and Headology, aka make-believe, mind tricks, placebos and basically tricking people.

Even when it becomes clear that she flies around on a broomstick and can project her mind into other living things, it's still not obvious if she can do any magic beyond that.

And then she and her buddies magically move an entire country 15 years into the future, and it becomes very clear that she's not only very much capable of doing magic, but she's one of the strongest, if not the strongest magic user in the entire world who can do stuff like summon death himself with nothing but a candle, and I am not even sure she really needs the candle.

Compare that to the wizards. The first impression you get of them is that they're powerful magic users, I mean they are wizards in a fantasy world, people fear them for their magic, and they got a whole magic college, so they must be powerful, right? They even look down on witches because they "don't use real magic"... and because they're usually women.

Granted, the very first (and best) wizzard we're introduced to can't even do any magic, but he seems like an outlier. Then you hear more and more about the magic college and other wizards, and it becomes clear that most wizards are arrogant and lazy fucks who can't do much magic beyond basic fireballs, turning people into frogs and maybe teleportation. Even the head-wizard of the college was completely helpless after running out of juice from a single teleportation spell.

Even when all the wizards become incredibly powerful, thanks to circumstances beyond their control, all they use their magic for is building really tall wizard towers and raging wars against each other. Wars which are ripping holes into reality, which threaten to release unspeakable horrors from the unspeakable horrors dimension.

Like... the books used most reader's assumptions and expectations, aka 'Headology', to make them underestimate Granny Weatherwax while overestimating the Wizards.

Just *chef's kiss* world building.

[arcanegifs]

[thedykeparade]

headcanon: after the events of Thunderbolts* Walker apologizes to Bob for how he treated him in the vault, and they unexpectedly start to get along and spend time together. At some point, the others start to notice that Walker is wayyy more nicer to Bob than the rest of them... like, they can all admit that since they moved to the tower he's been making an effort to be less of an asshole in general, but he's so soft with Bob, it's almost ridiculous. Anyways, it ends up getting to the point where every time someone needs to ask Walker a favor, especially when he's in a cranky mood, they send Bob to do it because they know he can't deny him anything.

[theartofangirling]

the world was truly not ready in 2014 for eleanor guthrie as representation for girlfail bisexuals. terrible taste in men, fumbles the most beautiful woman in the world, makes the worst possible decisions at every turn. #progressive

[lavender-wiitch]

what compels me the most about jmart in TMA is how they’re the exact contrary of the “fall in love in every universe” trope. no, they’re not fated to meet, much less to even remotely like each other. they met under these extremely weird and specific circumstances from their world, and as jon himself said, if weirder circumstances didn’t happen they wouldn’t even get along. tmagp furthers this by making a point to showcase how, in protocolverse, they lived and died without ever knowing of each other’s existence.

they don’t fall in love in every universe. they only have this one. this one chance to make it work.

and they’re not perfect! they’re fucked up! they’re messy!

their communication is flawed, martin is jealous and manipulative, jon is too emotionally distant, they are each affected by their own traumas and it bleeds into their relationship, and they keep trying! and failing! and trying! until their tragic end. and you know what? that makes them EVEN MORE COMPELLING both as a couple and as characters!

we don’t need to ignore these aspects of their romance to make them interesting, and i’d argue that these complex factors and their flaws are the exact things that DO make them interesting. they had one shot, and it was flawed as hell, but they did their best to make the most of it under incredible stressors, such as the literal apocalypse. is that a less interesting kind of romance story than the others, just because they’re flawed and not always healthy and not at all fated? do we have to pretend they’re something they’re not to be enjoyable?

[cutter-kirby]

obligatory “cool characterization, still murder” like I’m not excusing him but it does make him incredibly interesting

(*girl gender neutral edition)