Writing off (ConceptTopic, 5)

From Compile Worlds

Revision as of 13:35, 28 April 2011

Writing off is an evil thing that some book- and script-writers do (It can also be applied to text Roleplayers and their characters). It involves taking a character and finding some excuse, good or not, to remove them from the plot of said media permanently. There are various ways to write off characters, but most of the time, it doesn't happen to the ones that need to be written off 5/5Shadow the HedgehogNasu GraveRisukumae-123 OmegaFrankensteins. Instead usually, all of the actually good characters 7/7Gary OakRosalinaMs. AccordRiderFang the SniperLagnus the BraveMima are victimized by the writers so they can insert a bunch of stupid one shots to make it sell like hot cakes. Sometimes, it happens for reasons even we at Kumizone can't comprehend.

Sometimes though, it is a good thing: roleplayers can use this to ease out of a character they can't or don't want to use anymore, and someone else can take over for them. Sometimes though, that may backfire on them, in case they want to reuse them again in the future. This can also be bad for one shots that actually become popular or are actually good characters, such as Ray the Flying Squirrel.

Variations of Write off

There are slight variations of writing off, which describe how exactly the character is written off. Killing off refers to when a character is written off using death or some other morbid or violent means. Putting the character on a Bus is when a character is written off, but has a back door through which they can easily be written back in. Put on a Bus to Hell is usually some combination of the above.

Writers or Companies notorious for writing off good characters

• SEGA
  • Character-killing conspiracy theory
• The writers of the Pokemon Anime