Villains are tremendously important for a story. They set the framework and standard for a lot of things in an unsaid but definite manner: how far your villain is willing to go sets up audience expectations for how big and how dire the stakes will be in the story.
If ...
The Slippery Slope (Or How to Make a Great Villain Origin Arc)
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, May 6, 2023My Own Private Central Valley
kawaiidaigakusei at 12:00AM, May 1, 2023
Photo: “Windmills through the Passenger Side Window”. Photo taken by me. (June 2022).
“When June came
The grasses headed out
And turned brown,
And the hills turned brown
Which was not a brown
But a gold and saffron
And red—
An indescribable color.
And from then on until the next ...
Fantastic Bestiary 14: The Rainbow Serpent
Andreas_Helixfinger at 12:00AM, Oct. 2, 2022
Been a while since we did a mythology themed FanBest article, so here we go. Based on suggestions left by our beloved Ozoneocean on the last Fanbest article, I’m gonna talk about the Rainbow Serpent this Sunday. The Rainbow Serpent is an Aboriginal Australian deity known by numerous names ...
Bond villains vs. Batman villains
Andreas_Helixfinger at 12:00AM, Sept. 4, 2022
This is just a curious little topic that have recently come to my mind. From time to time I’ve seen people in popular media make comparisons between James Bond and Batman. First time I encountered this comparison was in an episode of Friends long ago. And I see people ...
The Manchild
Banes at 12:00AM, July 28, 2022
The manchild is a very comic trope in fiction over the years. It's the kind of person who is an adult physically, but have not accepted adult responsibilities in some parts of life…or maybe any part of life. They are irresponsible in relationships or work or life in ...
Fantastic Bestiary 3: Roman Household Spirits
Andreas_Helixfinger at 12:00AM, April 10, 2022
Based off of one of many suggestions left by DD member marcorossi in my last post of the Fantastic Bestiary, this one number 3 is gonna be about an aspect of ancient Roman mythology that you don’t come across all too often in depictions of Ancient Rome. When Roman ...
CtW: Normalize the Strange
damehelsing at 12:00AM, Aug. 22, 2021
pst… CtW stands for Changing the World and has to do with my article here - also I really liked everyone's comments in that article, great stuff!
Before the last Sunday I discussed about how tough it is (for me personally) to combine the regular human world as we know ...
Resurrection
damehelsing at 12:00AM, April 4, 2021
Today is Easter and originally I was going to write a wholesome message about taking care of yourself (which you should) but then I was like “NAHHHH, let’s talk about characters dying and coming back.”
I know the wonderful Tantz_Aerine wrote an article on it here but I wanted ...
Back From The Dead
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Jan. 2, 2021
So we've talked often about how letting a character die in a story is something that should be used very frugally, because once death occurs, it should be permanent. In most settings, death shouldn't be something that is reversible. If not, it will lose its impact, and the ...
The Importance of a Cordial Response
kawaiidaigakusei at 12:00AM, Nov. 23, 2020
A few months back, I was playing my favorite Open-World simulation video game and I noticed I was missing one of the most expensive vehicles in my garage. To my amusement, I received a confession that my car had been replaced by a much more affordable and lackluster vehicle earlier ...