I'm a big fan of story structure. It can be a big help to figuring out how to put a story together in a way that works. Not that structure needs to be followed in a slavish way, or that one structure applies to every story.
But it can ...

Wrapping up this series of character designs for antagonists, villains, and even protagonists with toxicity as their flaw, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the toxicity of inactivity.

The motto is well known- all that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to ...

Tough love is so cool, eh? It's going to magic the “whining” right out of you, won't it? You just need to stick out through the harshness, and then when you reap the benefits, you'll realize your tough loving benefactor had the right idea. You'll be ...

So last time, in Part 1 of this discussion of …sunnier villains or antagonists, we had left off talking about how toxic positivity is all about the toxic person's comfort. And that this need to impose a certain behavior, dogma, and/or approach to reality in their environment leads ...

Usually, antagonists or villains are emo and gloomy, angry and aggressive, suave and sly, or any combination of that. They are not generally associated with positive traits in their personality, or at least positively-associated traits.

And that's a shame, because real life sure does have a lot of variety ...

Photo: “High Zolvant Iag of the Illumid Pulzelium presenting the Best Community Project Award at the 2022 Drunk Duck Awards”. Drawn by Andreas_Helixfinger. (October 2022)

2022 DRUNK DUCK AWARDS

https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Drunk_Duck_Awards_2022/

Drunk Duck Awards Update:

Best Adventure Comic presented by davidxolukoga
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Drunk_Duck_Awards_2022/5721487 ...

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We are talking about the trope of the Cad, AKA the Player. F***boys are their little scrappydoo kid-brothers, we call them “fun” boys for obvious reasons ...

So it came to my attention that J.K. Rowling has taken revenge against her ‘internet trolls’ by writing a new book called The Ink Black Heart. According to reviews (I haven't read the book) the plot of the book reflects the author's experience of mass-condemnation over her ...

A mustache-twirling villain is awesome fun! Someone who basks in their villainy and enjoys every bit of popping the toddler's balloon and kicking the occasional puppy while hatching evil plans.

These villains are the flamboyant main antagonist that makes the story interesting and fun, because we love to see ...

Holy Unholy Alliance, Batman!

Last week we talked about what I called the “villain combo platter” with different types of villains that could make for multifaceted kinds of conflicts for the hero to face.

At the time, PaulEberhart mentioned the alliance between villains that happened at one point during Deep ...