Leroux:
“The angels wept tonight.”
“Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead.”
“All I ever wanted was to be loved for myself.”
“You are afraid of me! And yet, I am not really wicked.”
“He/she fills me with horror and I do not hate him/her.”
“She/he is singing tonight to bring down the chandelier!”
Kay:
“Hell is full of burning bridges.”
“None of us can choose where we will love.”
“There is no better way to raise a demon in my mind then to tell me something could not be done. Impossibility was not a concept I acknowledged.”
“Let me paint him a rainbow.”
ALW:
“The Angel of Music sings songs in my head.”
“You have come here for one purpose, and one alone.”
“I remember there was mist.”
“Is this what you wanted to see?”
“I was just fourteen and soaked to the skin!”
“Why have you brought me here? We must return!”
“His/her eyes will find us there. Those eyes that burn!”
“Forget this waking nightmare.”
“Yet in his/her eyes, all the sadness of the world.”
“All I want is freedom, a world with no more night.”
“I must go, they’ll wonder where I am.”
“He/she was bound to love you, when he/she heard you sing.”
“But why is it secret? What have we to hide? You promised me!”
“You were all that mattered.”
“So it is to be war between us.”
“What I once used to dream, I now dread.”
“Go now! Go now and leave me!”
2004:
“No one would listen.”
“No one but her/him heard as the outcast hears.”
“Learn to find your way in darkness.”
“Who will be there for you, comfort and care for you?”
“Learn to be lonely.”
“Laugh in your loneliness.”
Love Never Dies (AU):
“The moments creep, yet I can’t bare to sleep.”
“All agleam, like a dream.”
“Every fantasy set free.”
“Starting soon upon our stage, the performance of the age.”
“Is there music in your head?”
“What a child. Full of life! Full of you…”
“Help me through this sadness.”
Love Never Dies (OLC):
“Are you ready to begin? Are you ready to get on? You’re about to start out on the journey of your life.”
“It’s a fun house where the mirrors all reflect what’s real, and reality’s as twisted as the mirrors reveal.”
“I should’ve known that you’d be here.”
“I should’ve known it all along.”
Alonso and Tilford musical:
“Pity her/him, ____. She/he couldn’t bare to look at her/his own child.”
“Any kindness that we receive is a blessing.”
“Whatever you want me to be, I can be.”
“What twisted measure of human worth condemns a child at birth?”
“Come what may at morning light, the world is yours tonight.”
“Skin deep, poison in the mirror.”
“You fool the world with your thin veneer, but you’re not worth the salt in my tears!”
“Pain is proof that you’re alive.”
“Through it all, what truth is left behind, someone cared enough to break your heart.”
“The love you never had will haunt you like a shadow. So close, but when you reach there’s no one there.”
Ken Hill:
“While floating high above, I hear you speak my name.”
“We’ll share paradise.”
“If only you could weep for me like that.”
“In time you will learn to love me, I know it.”
“Share with me my dark domain.”
“Oh, free me from this dark despair.”
“Weave your magic spell.”
“How dare she!”
“We are finished. Our love is over! I say it’s over… Ended!”
“I did weep for you, once.”
“Out of pity, ___, not love.”
Yeston and Kopit Phantom:
“Why was I born to this grave?”
“Not a day I’ll rest ‘til that voice is found.”
“Well, that’s obviously something she doesn’t know.”
“Well, someone should tell her!”
“What has happened to your sense of humour?”
“You were the only one, my only chance of happiness.”
“I wondered how long it would take you to tell me it’s true.”
“What did you think of it?”
“It could’ve been better.”
“There was a time I thought I was only dreaming.”
“I went through that phase to.”
“This place is mine!”
“Here, where fables come alive.”
“She is as innocent and natural as a rose.”
“You are music, beautiful music, and you are light to me.”
“I will find a way, through fear and doubt.”
Charles Dance miniseries:
“I know what to do about it. I’ll kill them both!”
“What kind of horror are you leaving me in?”
“The gods smiled when they imagined you.”
“She is the reason I was born.”
“I was born so that she could save me!”
“Do you find that apt?”
“You are magic, too, I think.”
“Magic is my friend. Magic cannot hide from me.”
“Hat, do you think? Formal touch?”
“Do you like these woods of mine?”
“One can get quite hopelessly lost in these woods if one does not know the path… Or have a guide who does.”
Rosen and Schierhorn Phantom:
“I am whatever you want me to be…”
“I am perfect spirit, imperfect man/woman.”
“I’ll always love you, I’ll never leave.”
“I will always be your fulfillment and you’ll always be my desire.”
“If you are the creator of such beauty, why have you forsaken the world?”
“What do they know of beauty?”
“We’ll leave the world to its madness. We can live in bliss, alone.”
“Here nothing is missing, nothing is gone.”
Robert Englund slasher Phantom:
“Love and music are forever.”
“Everyone dies, I just choose the time and place for a few.”
“You’re a thing from hell!”
“And you sir/madam, are hell bound!”
Claude Rains Phantom:
“Hear the bells ringing soft and low, bringing peace through the twilight’s glow.”
“Night has begun.”
“Who would pay any attention to a baritone and a detective?”
Spooks:
“What does a chicken say when it lays a square egg?”
Mystery Legends:
“One day, God willing, I would have my revenge.”
“You were the light in the darkness of my existence.”
literally one of my favorite romance tropes of all time is character a is a really notorious gang leader/well known feared ruler of some kind etc and no one dares cross them or talk back to them etc because they won’t make it out alive but character b can literally get away with saying whatever they want and everyone knows it’s because they have character a wrapped around their finger and character a is gentle with character b and everyone wouldn’t dare laying a finger on character b because then character a would literally chop their head off
He’s gorgeous. Brooding. Bejeweled with countless sequins. He stresses over and over again that he and the female protagonist have a “connection,” are “soulmates,” or something else that you’d generally expect to hear from that one creepy kid who used to stare at you in class. Similarly, in true creep fashion, he uses their supposed connection as an excuse to blatantly stalk her, and is narratively treated as nothing short of a romantic in spite of it because he’s attractive (and sparkly) enough to pull it off.
Examples:
In the Twilight Saga, Edward is canonically over one hundred years old, making it extra creepy that he’s A) hanging around a high school for no particular reason, and B) dating a seventeen-year-old girl. He uses derogatory terms about past lovers, attempts suicide when Bella tries to break up with him, and shows up at her home uninvited to watch her sleep. Moreover, his systematic isolation of Bella from her friends and family is all-too reminiscent of real life abusive dynamics.
Try to avoid a blatant power imbalance. Edward is stressed to be older, stronger, more experienced, and more intelligent than Bella. Sometimes power imbalances are unavoidable due to species differences, but this can be countermanded by giving the human love interest qualities that make them valuable in other ways.
Overall, if you’re attempting to portray a healthy relationship, try to base it on an equal exchange of power and mutual respect.
2. The Christian Grey (i.e. the glorified rapist)
How to spot him:
When I first found out that the 50 Shades of Grey franchise was originally Twilight fanfiction, I initially (incorrectly) presumed it to be a joke. After I’d come to terms with the fact that it was not, my next thought was that it made perfect sense, because Christian is literally Edward Junior on steroids: the same abusive brand of stalker who gets off on a blatant power imbalance, with the added unpleasantries of excessive wealth and bad BDSM etiquette. Oh, yeah. And he’s a rapist.
Examples:
Christian disregards Ana’s request for a condom, stating “her body belongs to him,” threatens punishment when she refutes his attempts to discretely grope her in public, and at one point, ignores her safe word. Throughout the book, Ana is pressured into sex she feels uncomfortable with.
How to avoid him:
If you’re going to write about BDSM, actually study BDSM etiquette.
Healthy BDSM relationships are forged on mutual trust and a consensual, mutually beneficial exchange of power. Even if you are writing about BDSM, if you intend to write about a healthy relationship, be sure to base it off of these values.
Just because a character is dominant doesn’t mean they need to be emotionally callous; Christian completely neglects Ana’s emotional needs, such as her aftercare (i.e. the period of tenderness recommended after BDSM sessions to compensate for the emotional and physically taxing task of surrendering one’s power.)
In short, don’t use kink as a means of excusing emotionally unhealthy and abusive dynamics.
3. The Ross Geller (i.e. the entitled “nice guy”)
How to spot him:
He thinks his hot female friends (and only the hot ones, mind you) are owed to him because he’s “nice,” romantic, and intelligent. However, upon closer scrutiny he really isn’t a particularly nice guy (i.e. he bullied his sister Monica and benefits from enjoys her emotionally abusive parents’ favoritism), is self-centered, and consistently places his needs ahead of her own.
Examples:
The minute Rachel begins to find self-fulfillment in her career, Ross becomes jealous and hounds her at work, accuses her of “not having enough time for (him),” and generally tries to make her feel guilty for being successful and having priorities other than him.
How to avoid him:
Again, I cannot stress this enough: mutual respect. This is literally the foundation of all successful relationships, fictitious or otherwise.
Have your male characters support their significant other’s decisions and allow them to be happy for their success.
Your male character’s significant other is allowed to do things that don’t necessarily involve him. Make sure he understands that.
Intelligence in and of itself does not make a character a better person than his fellows, and intelligence does not have to equate the superiority with which Ross appears to associate himself.
Just look to the healthier couples Friends churned out in its time: Monica and Chandler, for example, love and respect one another’s goals, and are no the less interesting and hilarious because of it.
4. The Sheldon Cooper (i.e. the annoying autism stereotype)
How to spot him:
He’s a bloated paragon of autism stereotypes. He’s got zero regard for the feelings of his friends, considers himself superior to everyone, and is incapable of talking about anything but his own interests. As someone who’s on the spectrum myself, he’s basically my personal pet peeve.
Examples:
“His spot” on the sofa, his need to knock three times before speaking to the person on the other side of the door, etc. These are stereotypical and inaccurate portrayals of some autistic people’s comfort in routine.
How to avoid him:
Research symptoms of Asperger’s in adults (and for god’s sake, stay away from Autism Speaks.) Similarly, try and learn from actually people with Asperger’s, as anti-autism, “cure”-based sentiment tends to run high in allistic academia.
Study the mannerisms of famous people who may have been on the spectrum, such as Albert Einstein, Allan Turing, Leonardo da Vinci, and Sherlock Holmes’s inspiration, Joseph Bell.
If you’re not ready to depict an autistic character, I’m going to say wait. It’s okay to admit to ignorance, and it’s okay to wait to do more research before depicting a certain subgroup.
Try to avoid inserting autistic symptoms into characters to use as comedic fodder.
Asperger’s coded (and confirmed, by creators and cast) characters like Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Bones) and Spencer Reid (Criminal Minds) have their stereotypical moments, but they’re still successfully presented as lovable, intelligent, and productive characters; look to them to see better representation of intelligent, autistic characters in mainstream television.
5. The John Winchester (i.e. the abusive parent with a redemption arc)
How to spot him:
The John Winchester is a textually abusive or otherwise toxic parent who damages his children’s lives for his own purposes, inflicts emotional or physical harm, and is shown or mentioned to be violent, controlling, and/or neglectful. However, his redeeming/sympathetic qualities or otherwise heroic actions lead him to be narratively treated as a benevolent character and “good” parent.
Examples:
In Supernatural, John leaves his boys for weeks on end in motel rooms, sometimes over important holidays (and keep in mind that this was in the 80s and 90s, when child sexual abuse was at an all-time high.) He often places his eldest son as the soul caregiver of his other child, despite the fact that he was a child too at the time, and left them both alone with loaded firearms. He also uses unfairly harsh punishments, such as leaving his young son alone at a boy’s home for an entire summer because he stole food for himself and his brother. His son literally, unironically realized he was being possessed by a demonic entity when it said it was proud of him.
How to avoid him:
Educate yourself on the different definitions of abuse (emotional, verbal, physical, etc.) and what qualifies as each. Psychology Today is a great resource for this (they have some rudimentary definitions here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/child-abuse.)
Feel free to endow abusive parents with sympathetic qualities (in fact, please do; 100% evil characters tend to be campy, boring, and/or unintentionally hilarious) but be aware that no sympathetic qualities negate or justify child abuse.
Please, for the love of God, don’t use the “he was doing his best” excuse as a resolution. Many abusive parents legitimately are doing their best, and many abused children are acutely aware of this. It really doesn’t provide much comfort.
Remember that abused children frequently refuse to turn on their parents, often defending them long into their adulthood. The child’s forgiveness does not equate the parent’s redemption.
Similarly, I’d personally recommend staying away from the “I can finally forgive him” trope as well; it’s done to death, and often frustrating to real-life survivors.
Before the Meninsits™ come for me about this, I am going to be writing a list of female character archetypes as well, and then make lists of positive attributes to include in male and female characters, respectively, to provide a counterpoint. I might also make a part two of this post for all the other characters I hate, because I fear it would get too long.
In the meantime, there will be essays like this published at least once every other week, so be sure to follow my blog and stay tuned for future writing advice and observations!
8/7/17: Updating with the link to the female counterpart post, because people keep asking me for it. Read it here!
-“I just confessed to my best friend that im a werewolf, and they’ve known for years?? and have been covering for me all the time??? Not sure if I should be upset???” werewolf!au
– “You’re my roommate who came home early from vacation, and you caught me in my actual form and now it’s awkward”
– “We’re the only vampires in a small town, and you keep getting first dibs on the blood bank, but caN YOU STOP HOGGING ALL THE B+ PLEASE?!?!?” vampire! au
– “I own a flower shop you and your group of friends keep asking for super specific herbs and plants, which are hard to find but I do it anyway because your super cute” witch/coven!au
– “we live on the same floor, and you keep setting the fire alarm off, I thought you’re just a bad cook but you’re actually a freaking dragon” dragon!au
– “cleaning my pool after bad hurricane, found some seaweed, some sand, and a stranded mermaid” mermaid!au
– “ the ghost in my apartment died in 90′s and won’t stop singing 90′s pop songs” ghost!au
-“You were stalking me down a lonely alley way with a bow and arrow, but I knocked you out. Turns out you’re a cupid? are you like new at this??” cupid!au
– “ You just died, and I’m supposed to be giving you an epic speech about the afterlife but keep interrupting me by flirting with me” reaper!au
– “Person A: Wow, you’re like the first person to spell my name right on my coffee cup, do we know each other?”
Person B: “Nope, I’m just a psychic” coffeshop/psychic!au
Red tallies appear for every person you’ve loved, black for every person you’ve loved that has died, and a white tally for when you meet your soulmate
A mark that matches, sometimes like a puzzle piece to someone else, and grows hotter the closer they are to you
You have a tattoo of what your soulmate is most passionate about
You have a tattoo of the first words they say to you
You have a tattoo of how old you both are when you meet
Changing tattoo that tells you the coordinates of where your soulmate is
Tree tattoo that changes with the seasons, but blooms pink in spring instead of white if you met your soulmate
Identical tattoos or birthmarks
Incomplete tattoos that complete themselves on your skin when you meet the person with the rest of your tattoo
Tattoos that change colour depending on what your soulmate is feeling
Eyes
Heterochromia – you have one eye of your soulmates eye colour and when you meet you get your own eye colour instead of having two different eye colours.
You only see in black and white until you meet your soulmate
Reverse black and white where you give up seeing colour when you meet your soulmate
You only see in black and white until you touch your soulmate
You only see in the different shades of your soulmates eye colour until you meet them
You can’t see the colour of your soulmates eye colour until you meet them
You see colour the first time you hear your soulmates voice directly and the colour spills from their lips
Ears
You can hear your soulmates voice in your head, but only when they sing
The secondary voice in your head is your soulmate speaking
You can speak once you meet your soulmate
You can hear once you meet your soulmate (the first thing you hear is their voice)
Time & Age
When you reach 18 you stop aging until you meet your soulmate
Watch countdown to when you’ll meet your soulmate
Reverse countdown, your clock counts up and freezes when you meet
You have a clock on your body that tells you what time it is where your soulmate is, it changes colour when they get closer to you
Body or Hair
At new years on midnight for a single minute you possess your soulmates body
Your chest glows when you look them in the eyes
Marks on your soulmate appear on your own body
You have your soulmate’s hair colour on a stripe at your wrist, when they dye or chance their hair colour the stripe changes
If you change your hair colour, your soulmates changes to the same colour (your hair goes to it’s natural colour when your soulmates does)
When you change your hair colour, your soulmates eyes change to that colour
You and your soulmate share all physical senses (I.E pain, heat, pleasure, etc…)
Other
Red sting to connect soulmates
Your soulmate is the only person you remember from your past life
Everyone is given a journal that they can use to write to their soulmate
When you sleep, if your soulmate is awake you can see what they’re doing
You dream your soulmate, but very basically (such as their silhouette or the view of their back)
Telepathy soulmates
Sharing skills and talents with your soulmate
When your soulmate eats something you crave what they’re eating
When your soulmate cries you cry
When you kiss your soulmate for the first time your entire body glows
I got a lot of ideas from this post so I recommend you check that one out too!
“The Kubrick Stare, sometimes referred to as the Kubrick Glare, is a common camera shot of an actor in most of Stanley Kubrick’s films. The Kubrick Glare has been called the “heavy-browed look of insanity”. It symbolizes that the character in question is either really, really pissed or really becoming deranged, and the person they’re looking at is really, really screwed. Other times—usually when combined with a smile—it means they’re feeling really, really clever. Either way, it’s really creepy and ominous.”
My darling, you can’t see it, can you? How like the moon you are. Both of you so timid in yourselves; hiding pieces from the world. Then, there are those rare moments when you both are full, and it becomes hard to look away. You are beautiful.
persephone's corner 