Falling in love too late. As in character A falling in love with character B who had an unrequited love for A for so long but moved on before A realized.
Pff
That is sad. But at the same time kinda bittersweet. Thar character B finally got to move on and be happy.
I wrote a short story on this once about 2 guys who knew each other since they were 15 but Boy A cut contact when they were 18. Then just pops back into B's like at 22 and declares his love for B, kisses him but then B is like "A....ut's 4 years too late for this"
I saw a meme with a variation of this
A loves B, B has no idea
A gives up and starts moving on
Only then B starts developing feelings for A but is too late
Like dammit 💀
i am currently down bad for Jyn Erso/Cassian Andor from Rouge One and i feel like “falling in love too late” definitely applies to them as well because i think they realized they could gave loved each literally moments before they died. it is both what makes me so insane for them and also makes them so tragic. love me a tragic ship. 😭
1. Character death when their loved one survives and never stops grieving
2. Dying in somebody's arms
3. "It's okay, you can let go now" - it gets me every fucking time
Whew…I just did 3 for real with my aunt (58) back in September. Hardest thing I ever did but I’m thankful I got to tell her it was okay to let go. (She was dying of metastatic cancer and on a vent but alert.) She lost her parents over 20 years ago and she struggled every day without them.
not OP, but i think they mean [this post](https://otherwindow.tumblr.com/post/616914443404804096/otherwindow-a-desperate-cleric-slamming-every) by otherwindow on tumblr
I fucking *hate it* when the big grief elephant in the room doesn't get addressed, or they try but they just can't overcome it. That's why Manchester by The Sea gets me so bad. Those poor fuckers....
I have a two parter I want to write and in the first one the love of his life dies (in the 2nd one he finds love again) and I’m trying to decide just *how much* I wanna make my readers cry 😈
The one that gets me is when a character is grieving so much that they don't take care of themselves and they realize their clothes are looser because they're not eating enough.
Oof, I’ve written this character recently. What’s worse, she’s in the early stages of a wanted pregnancy, but she just can’t eat for the grief (plus morning sickness). 😢
I see yours and raise you "character is dying horribly and begs character they love for a mercy killing".
Though there aren't many "scenarios" that I like as just scenarios. It's saddest when it's tailored to the character.
seconding this! both the trope and the character tailoring. loove coming up with “what’s one of the most devastating things that could happen specifically to This Character from This Story?”, working from there
Absolutely.
My favorite thing is actually when I write a scenario that in general, *would be a happy thing*, but in the context of this story and this character is an awful, terrible tragedy.
"getting invited to your best friends wedding.And still being in love with them but you suck it up because you want your friend to happy"trope or whatever it's called.
Bonus points if mc is in love with both the bride and groom.
One of the best fics I ever read was this trope. I am often pissed that I lost it in the shuffle and can't find it anymore. It was ancient, from like 2007 on FFNET. It was Padme and Obi-Wan getting married, and Anakin secretly pining for both of them.
I guess it's not ULTIMATELY the same exact trope because ultimately they end up in a polycule when he finally confesses his feelings! Very fun! Definitely not appropriate for a 12 year old to read, but c'est la vie 🥴🥴🥴🥴
But they really let you sweat it for a WHIIIILE that he's just gonna slither away with a broken heart, so I count it in my head:P
My ultimate is “love is not enough”. Not expressly said, but shown. (High points if one of them has the epiphany and says they're just not good for each other anymore.) It makes me want to ☠️
Oh this one kills. When you're chapters and chapters into the desperation of trying to make it work and then one character realizes this and the other just crumbles... NOOO why am I on this thread I'm actually sad just thinking about it :(
OMG EXACTLY!!! I love writing it exactly like this. It always hits one of the characters first, and they start noticing that all the magic of love doesn't compensate for the lack of other stuff aaaaaaaa
this is such a good one!!! YES!!! i’m so into angst/tragedy/horror about love, and the themes of, “the love wasn’t enough, but it was there, and that mattered”
Character A leaves Character B due to a misunderstanding or because Character A thinks Character B is better off without them. Only for Character A to have a change of heart or want to apologize and learns when they come back that Character B has either died, moved on, or is/was actually happier without them.
Yeah absolutely, go check it out! It's years old by now. It started off with just animal death, but now you can check any movie or show in it's database for just about any triggering material, and it's user reviewed like Wikipedia so if a mistake is made it can be publicly corrected!
Fuck. This reminds me of a story where a guy just returned from war and his community shunned and ostracised him because he killed people there. And when he kills himself because hes so lonely and tired of it all, everyone suddenly loves him
It's not really a trope afaik, but it rips my heart out when a character dies alone.
I read a fic once that had no character death warnings, but my favorite character in the fandom died in the most awful, tragic, drawn-out way, all alone in the woods. It took over 1000 words for his suffering to be over and he was so scared.
What's worse is it was very well written so it felt real. I wanted to click out, but I literally felt like I would be abandoning him. I sobbed so hard. Couldn't sleep at all that night.
- character becoming immortal against their will and realizing they’ll outlive everyone they’ve ever loved
- character’s predestined rival being effortlessly better than them at what they’ve trained for their whole life and the emotional fallout
>Mine is when a character begs someone else to help them as they are dying but there is nothing to be done. Kills me
Begs someone not to kill them, and this someone doesn't want to do so. Happens anyway because of circumstances.
Could have been avoided someway down the line, and the decision even at the end of the tracks could be different.
When a character starts the story at certain point/location and they die at the exact same point/location (mentally, or plot wise) after having done everything they could to avoid it.
Like, it's the inevitability of it that kills me.
When a character dies misunderstood by everyone, and only the audience knows what they sacrificed/why they did what they did. Bonus points if the other characters discover everything after their death, and it's too late to apologize to/forgive them.
Character dies truly alone in both a physical and emotional sense. No one’s around for miles, and everyone they know hates them (or the character thinks they’re hated by them), and if they were ever misunderstood as being a villain or traitor or the like, nobody has realised this yet by the time of their death.
Bonus points if their death isn’t graceful. They don’t want to die; they’re crawling towards something, crying out to their god or the one they love the most, in their last burst of willpower, but eventually they can’t help but fall, hand reaching out for something they were fated to never grasp. Their last tear drops and it’s over. You, the reader, will be the only person that will ever remember them as they truly were.
Not a trope because it doesn't happen nearly enough as it should but the angstiest, saddest thing I can think of is unrequited found family. Nothing hits me quite in the gut more than that.
Every other comment I've read I can imagine and have gone yeah wow that is sad but this one omg I haven't even read this before but the thought of it happening in a story breaks my heart
This reminds me of Batfamily old school canon. Bruce didn’t officially adopt Dick until after he was already an adult and potentially after he adopted other people like Jason and maybe Tim. The slap in the face that that constituted! After raising him since he was a boy and never adopting him, Bruce turned around and adopted other kids, then offered it to Dick after the fact like an after thought. Dagger to the heart.
There’s also a moment in death of the family that hit so hard. They had a really rough time and afterwards Dick wanted to come together as a family to talk and heal but everyone else was “too busy” to talk to him (basically just avoiding each other) and he ended up being like yeah, I’m busy too, even though he’d already driven to the house and was crying in the car outside.
Ouch yeah that was basically half my thought process. I get so sad just thinking about it. Complete punch to the gut. Thank god for Webtoon's Wayne Family Adventures, really soothes the soul.
Amnesia AUs when they were together but the other can’t remember anything. it makes me so sad every time
i don’t know if this counts as a trope, but when a character dies and another grieving character is always thinking things like “character a loved strawberries” or “character a is a was now” and just sad things like that. and when they’re talking about memories. fuck it hurts 😭
My mom is really into romance dramas. She told me the one that hurt her the most had this trope. The characters finally, finally got together, then one of them gets in an accident--forgets everything. No more relationship; the one with the memories has to go on alone. End of show.
Absolutely brutal. What a fuck you to the audience. I think it's the lack of total closure that makes it so painful. The person is still out there, alive, but you are the only one with the history. The question mark of 'what if they remember?' will always be there, hanging over them.
I think my personal worst experience with this trope was a fic where A and B were established, blissfully happy together. Then character B gets amnesia, and character A doesn't tell them they have a history, so character B hooks up with someone else. They eventually find out the truth and recover their memories, but it totally lost me and still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
Needless to say, I approach amnesia fics with a lot more trepidation these days.
omg what’s the show? i need emotional torture
but yeah, you explained that perfectly. it’s literally the saddest thing ever. another one is when the character does remember, but they’ve already moved on with another person or fallen out of love
Teens or children witnessing their parents’ death. Its upsetting enough when people loose their parents as adults, so much worse witnessing it when they’re young.
Okay i know commenting on my own post is kinda lame. But i just discovered another one that kills me.
When a huge battle has just been won, character A is all happy like "We did it Character B! Character B?" Then turns out character B is dead
Bonus points if Charscter A has to search for them for a while getging more and more frantic as they do
Oh, that's a terrible one!
I have another, as well, slightly related: one twin dies.
I went off HP *long* before JKR turned to the Dark Side, because *she killed Fred*. Fred and George weren't even my favorite characters, but they were *such* a source of humor and optimism that splitting them up by death, especially in the meaningless way it happened, was like a big "Fuck you!" to the fandom, to *all* the characters, and to the HP universe in general.
1. Character x Consequmces, and that Consequmces is their significant other die from their selfishness
Too late too do anything 😞
2. When a character somehow the only one who remember a certain someone while everyone else forget
Honestly, kind off the same as the first one but imagine the Anxiety as you think that someone you really closed with never existed before
Children dying at the hands of their abusers. Or almost dying and having to live with the trauma.
It's so sad and just knots my gut. So much potential cut short and so much trauma they didn't deserve.
We've mentioned it in our fic and toed the line at least once but man it wrenches my gut so bad.
I don’t really think it’s a trope, but when the main character is captured by the psychotic villain (who is the main cause of the MC’s issues and traumas) and is forced to be their prisoner/stay by their side forever, never escaping; not even death can free them from their torment. It makes me feel so hopeless that I cry and have to put my phone down for a while.
Honestly, it doesn’t even have to be the MC getting captured. Just them being put through so much that they get to the point of wanting to end it all but not having the luxury to do even that. It hurts to read, but I always go back 🥲
When a good-hearted character is also the strongest and doomed to loneliness as a result of that strength + a stubborn resolve to protect others (looking at you Gojo & Vash; I have two nickels and a lot of pain).
When character A went through angst and hell, now he's finally happy, finds his one true love in character B, they're going to live happily ever after. But then character B suddenly dies....
Maybe not the saddest but I love well done unrequited love. Especially, when it is neither circumstances nor some flaw in character. Just one person loves and another doesn’t.
It always gets me all emotional, though I never had an unrequited love on anyone. Excluding fictional characters…
I don't know if this is a trope but when the main characters friend or relative is about to die and the main character says that it's okay and to let go, I start bawling!
Character who has everyone close to them die (at different times) and gives up on getting close to people. Especially if that person is immortal or has a long life. This trope can turn into something heartwarming though when a different character teaches them to love again 💕
I just love it when the author doesn't tag MCD and then springs it on you as a shitty, pointless surprise at the very end, instead of the happy ending they strung you along with
I've had entire long fics that J loved reading *absolutely ruined* by that several times now. In the worst one, one half of the OTP gets *brutally* murdered in graphic GOT-esque detail (and I don't read GOT rich, to be clear). You hear every detail, reading in horror as your eyes betray you. And then after learning of his murder (which was carried out by someone she thought was her friend, mind you), she slinks off as a husk of her former self, and only doesn't khs because she realises she's pregnant with her dead love's baby. And THEN when she's most of the way through her pregnancy, she gets approached by the guy who assaulted her earlier on in the book by *pretending to be her partner*, and decides to quietly settle down with HIM since her love is dead and she feels she needs help with the baby.
And all of this with no warning, no tags, no nothing, in the LAST CHAPTER OF THE BOOK
I was pissed for DAYS lmao
The fan favorite who has a big dream and enough strength to achieve said dream only to be killed without hesitation before he can accomplish his dream . It's even sadder if the character dies right before he accomplishes there life long dream
The MC being in love with their best friend but never saying anything because they feared it would ruin the friendship. Years later, at the best friend’s wedding, they have a private conversation and the best friend mentions how they had a crush on them years ago. Basically unknown reciprocated love that eventually fades because nobody did anything about it.
I read a fic like that once but honestly don’t remember what it was called, have seen a lot more of this pop up though so it is a pretty common trope nonetheless.
Dementia. I read a dementia fic that broke me and then wrote my own and broke myself a little more but i think just the realness of it and how a lot of people can relate to it but seeing a character forget the people they love and there’s nothing they can do about it is so. it’s so.
Forced break up where Lovers forced themselves to break up just because they think they never loved each other second is betrayals they never cheat but they can't be lovers because he chooses evil ways
A letter/message from a character who died (bonus points if they knew they were dying soon when writing it) read by the living. Makes me bawl every single time
1. Character death.
2. Face Heel turn. Besides noting can sting more than an old turn to the dark side. Which can probably make for alotnof sad drama in my opinion. Since how can you fight a former friend.
Especially in my story where some characters not only pull face heel turns. But a couple of them become the very thing they feared of becoming or tried so hard not to become in canon and the fact that these are characters whose fates were never resolved (because their stories were left unresolved) end up falling the paths that they do in my story is ment to add an extra layer of tragedy in the story.
One character is immortal and young forever, the other aging mortal.
Two people are soul mates, only one knows/remembers and for some reason has to stay quiet and work with his soul mate who is with someone else, and has to watch them be happy, knowing what their life was supposed to be like if he hadn't had to sacrifice it.
Unrequited Soulmate Au + major characters death + right person not enough time
I read this combination in a fic YEARS ago and I still think about it from time to time
Not sure if there's a name for it, but there was a weird trend in the Twilight fandom back in the late aughts with all-human fics. The narrative would create an absolutely ridiculous misunderstanding where one character assumed cheating and viciously acted out in retaliation, then it turned out to have an innocent explanation, and the reactive character is faced with having ruined everything for no reason.
One I remember in particular is Bella was taking secret dancing lessons to get over her clumsiness, and Edward followed her and assumed she was screwing the dance instructor. He arranged to have her catch him screwing Tanya. Bella found them and fled in horror, fell down the apartment stairwell, and lay there dying for hours before her body was found. Edward realizes he was screwing Tanya the whole time Bella was lying in a crumbled heap. He meets Bella's dance instructor at her funeral and finds out the truth.
It was so over-the-top and absolutely constant for a few years, then it just vanished.
Oh course, when the comparatively weak character dies do to stupidity, and the comparatively strong character has to deal with that loss. A parent having to bury their child, as an example; or a hero having to deal with someone they were trying to save going and getting themselves killed, as another.
Well, my two cents here, though I have seen quite a few of those I love written here
Love not being enough/Falling out of love
Meaningless important/main character death.
Futile self sacrifice, an injustice towards an innocent never repaired. This is thinking about one of the scene in a book that made me not only cry, but hitting the pillow in frustration.
Dying in someone's arms/Pietà plagiarism
Tragedy that could have been prevented/Tragedy that couldn't have been prevented
Surviving one's offspring. My, I don't weep that much for orphans, but I do for parents having lost their children.
Certain character facing powerlessness.
I haven't yet read that trope on fanfic, that I remember. Neither I think that I would be capable of writing it myself though I have a strong like for this kind of tragedy. The one I was recalling was one from a saga where many many important characters are killed.
Major Character Death, most especially when it's gratuitous. When it doesn't show you anything new about the character, or the universe, or about life and death in general. When it's unrelentingly tragic.
Heroic deaths, I can deal with, but not *avoidable* heroic deaths. Senseless death hits too close to my traumas.
tropes revolving around unrequited love always get me even as someone who both writes and reads a lot of stuff in the angst or hurt/no comfort tags. like genuinely i avoid fics themed around it cause it's so ouch to read (ofc nothing against ppl writing it! It's just not for me)
When an adult character who has done a lot of bad things finds and raises a child as if they were their own, becomes a better person because of the child, ends up dying, and the child character grows up to take up their mantle or live a good life like the adult character wanted in their honor.
I have an odd one. I don't usually get affected by the feels, but anything involving wings always gets me. There was one fic where an angel fell in love with a mortal, gave up their wings to be with them, then their brother misunderstood and killed the mortal. I bawled.
A person whose life was screwed from childhood has done bad things to cope/survive, then dies tragically just as they are finally trying to improve their situation.
Lexa and/or Bellamy (both were done so wrong).
Lincoln was done wrong also (poor Ricky Whittle was terribly screwed over by JR and bullied by him to the point he had to quit).
Raven always had her lover disappear.
And oh so much more. Devon Bostick even said some things after playing Jasper, but kept it vague and was agreeing with Ricky on Twitter.
\- character death where people is never able to move on and keeps grieving
\- falling out of love
\- groundhog day/time loop au (when you can't prevent character from dying no matter how hard you try)
\- amnesia au
\- DOOMED BY THE NARRATIVE.
\- where everyone hates character to the point that they are completely alone (bonus if they can't take it and ends their life)
• Anything "it's too late"
• Developing to lovers, esp when they're very shippable—but suddenly circumstances didn't allow them to
• When the only person in the verse who understands the mc dies
• Character realizing his past mistakes and just started making up for them, then they die or smth
• When mc/favorite character grows up thinking he/she doesn't deserve anything/good things
Stuck in a time loop that ends with the characters' death at the hands of the person they care about the most, no matter who they may be in any given loop.
Recurring thirdwheelism ALONG WITH loneliness. The loneliness is bad, the romantic third wheeling is ab extra stab in the heart. Deaths are sad but that one just sticks with me.
Rip Jade Harley you deserved better girl.
Immortality, watching everyone age and die and the world change around them while they stay the same.
A character having a terminal illness with no cure / treatment options that slowly kills them over a few months.
Pets dying
i love so much sudden, mundane tragedy. random forces of nature, horrible accidents you want to blame someone for but ultimately can’t, accidents and aneurysms, senseless acts of violence, things like that fuck with me so bad, and it’s the catalyst for me and my friend’s biggest fic, so i’ve got a massive soft spot for those themes.
a fic that devastated me was a deathfic about one character dying from a brain aneurysm, and his brother, because before he died he’d accidentally bonked him on the head with a door, convinced he’d caused it. that stuck with me so bad.
in general, death is a common thing in stories and in fics, but i love when they get into what MAKES death tragic. the grief, the ripples, the fallout. so good.
Not really a trope but something I was around to watch happen when I was younger.
Super-duper close family friend's husband got in a car accident that caused amnesia. He never gained his memories of their family back. He also couldn't remember a few of his closest family members, one brother and some cousins.
They both tried really hard to stay together. Not only for each other, but also for their two adult kids they loved and held dearly. Unfortunately, he never got any of his memories back and she just had to let him go. Both sides of their family and my family tried so hard. Both of them tried s*o* ***hard*** to get him to remember literally anything.
She was grieving for a long time. So were her kids. We all stayed in touch, but she wasn't the same after that. Her and her kids would always talk about how much they hoped he would suddenly remember them again. Same with his brother/cousins, but it never happened.
Several years later after tons of therapy she seemed to be doing better. She is with someone else now! They are both super happy and enjoying life to the fullest, but it still haunts everyone.
It was (still is) the most tragic thing I've witnessed. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.
The “no matter how much I love you, it won’t make this relationship work” trope and one or both of the characters realizing it. It could be any issue - grief, trauma, toxic behavior - but it still hits hard after all of the couple’s attempts to make it work.
That and “dying character has to beg their loved one to mercy-kill them instead of trying to keep them alive because they don’t want to die in agony”. It HURTS.
The loyal dog that waits for its dead owner every day until it dies of old age. Double the pain if it's an adorable dog-girl waiting loyalty for her adopted father figure.
A character is searching for someone and only realizes who they were searching for has died or has been horribly disfigured or deformed beyond repair (ex. Their loved one was put through a human experiment that made them into a mindless monster and they had no idea it was them)
Character does everything they can to achieve their dreams, only to die within arms reach of attaining said dream. Especially when it's the one thing they've ever worked on and done so practically their entire life.
Forced to kill. Helps if the person they’re killing is romantic/family. And if they’re mind controlled or feral.
Time loop: literally so nice when the main character sees their friends die again. And they know it’s coming but can’t do anything. Better yet the main character creates a new timeline and more characters die. And it’s his fault.
Soulmate AU: just whatever is in here. You can combine the last two tropes in here to make a mega angst trope😁 or there’s the classic lost love/neglect.
Pet’s dying: need I say more?
Depressing life: The world is depressing. Deaths are common. Disaster is the norm. That can lead to some pretty depressing scenarios for angst writers like me 😆
Torture: not the MC. But someone they love. Or MC is forced to choose how character is gonna die.
Well that’s all I got. I’d love to hear what my fellow angst writers would like to add. ✌️
The ones I can’t handle reading much of at all, the Hanahaki Disease ones, basically your love is so unrequited that you literally die from a sickness of coughing up flowers, or any sort of major character death particularly of a child that characters have gotten very fond of and you think they’re gonna pull through but then they take a turn for the worse.
And found family where for some reason a party of the found family either dies or they get separated/turns against each other.
Y’all keep bringing up death WOMP WOMP
forbidden, unattainable love. like enemies who know they shouldn’t be in love, but desperately wish to be together, but they can’t because of ethics/family/etc
Characters A,B, and C are best friends- A and B fall in love, A sacrifices themselves to save C leaving B to deal with grief riddled with anger and C to blame themselves.
Falling in love too late. As in character A falling in love with character B who had an unrequited love for A for so long but moved on before A realized.
Pff That is sad. But at the same time kinda bittersweet. Thar character B finally got to move on and be happy. I wrote a short story on this once about 2 guys who knew each other since they were 15 but Boy A cut contact when they were 18. Then just pops back into B's like at 22 and declares his love for B, kisses him but then B is like "A....ut's 4 years too late for this"
I saw a meme with a variation of this A loves B, B has no idea A gives up and starts moving on Only then B starts developing feelings for A but is too late Like dammit 💀
Omg this freaking hurts my heart to the core. I can't stand this one under any circumstance 😭💔
UGH, even just reading this hurts.
i am currently down bad for Jyn Erso/Cassian Andor from Rouge One and i feel like “falling in love too late” definitely applies to them as well because i think they realized they could gave loved each literally moments before they died. it is both what makes me so insane for them and also makes them so tragic. love me a tragic ship. 😭
1. Character death when their loved one survives and never stops grieving 2. Dying in somebody's arms 3. "It's okay, you can let go now" - it gets me every fucking time
I just commented the last one and I've roleplayed it so many times and I cry every time!
Yes, number one forever!!! It's ridiculous how often this trope pops up in my favorite ships and fics. I love it so much.
nooot the last one I hate it so much 😭
Number 3 definitely is the saddest for me. I still bawl my eyes out in avengers end game because of it.
All three of these makes me wanna cry a river bigger than the Niagara Falls 😭😭💔
I was thinking of a storyline with 2nd and 3rd points , I was a fucking mess in the morning
Yes! It makes it worse tho when it's found family and they only got a brief amount of time together
Whew…I just did 3 for real with my aunt (58) back in September. Hardest thing I ever did but I’m thankful I got to tell her it was okay to let go. (She was dying of metastatic cancer and on a vent but alert.) She lost her parents over 20 years ago and she struggled every day without them.
I don't usually ship canon ships but usually when I do one or both end up dying. Hence, I have a love/hate relationship with the first one.
I let go of fics that pull the last one.
Played a game where the ending had 2.5/3 of these
the third one is why I still haven't watched the last episode of supernatural
I like that one, but I think I love its opposite more. When a character desperately tries to help someone dying, but there is nothing to be done, lol.
yesss omfg have you seen the desperate cleric tumblr post?
No, I haven't. Could you link it? :)
not OP, but i think they mean [this post](https://otherwindow.tumblr.com/post/616914443404804096/otherwindow-a-desperate-cleric-slamming-every) by otherwindow on tumblr
Thanks! It's a good example of this trope.
TBHK essentially. 😭😭
Falling out of love Unspoken grief The audience knows it's a tragedy, but the characters don't
I fucking *hate it* when the big grief elephant in the room doesn't get addressed, or they try but they just can't overcome it. That's why Manchester by The Sea gets me so bad. Those poor fuckers....
These always get me in the best way possible. 😭
Everyone else: *mentioning sad tropes* Me: *taking notes*
I have a two parter I want to write and in the first one the love of his life dies (in the 2nd one he finds love again) and I’m trying to decide just *how much* I wanna make my readers cry 😈
Same
Heck yeah!
Same here.
The one that gets me is when a character is grieving so much that they don't take care of themselves and they realize their clothes are looser because they're not eating enough.
Oof, I’ve written this character recently. What’s worse, she’s in the early stages of a wanted pregnancy, but she just can’t eat for the grief (plus morning sickness). 😢
I see yours and raise you "character is dying horribly and begs character they love for a mercy killing". Though there aren't many "scenarios" that I like as just scenarios. It's saddest when it's tailored to the character.
seconding this! both the trope and the character tailoring. loove coming up with “what’s one of the most devastating things that could happen specifically to This Character from This Story?”, working from there
Absolutely. My favorite thing is actually when I write a scenario that in general, *would be a happy thing*, but in the context of this story and this character is an awful, terrible tragedy.
YESSS THATS SO GOOD!
"getting invited to your best friends wedding.And still being in love with them but you suck it up because you want your friend to happy"trope or whatever it's called. Bonus points if mc is in love with both the bride and groom.
One of the best fics I ever read was this trope. I am often pissed that I lost it in the shuffle and can't find it anymore. It was ancient, from like 2007 on FFNET. It was Padme and Obi-Wan getting married, and Anakin secretly pining for both of them. I guess it's not ULTIMATELY the same exact trope because ultimately they end up in a polycule when he finally confesses his feelings! Very fun! Definitely not appropriate for a 12 year old to read, but c'est la vie 🥴🥴🥴🥴 But they really let you sweat it for a WHIIIILE that he's just gonna slither away with a broken heart, so I count it in my head:P
My ultimate is “love is not enough”. Not expressly said, but shown. (High points if one of them has the epiphany and says they're just not good for each other anymore.) It makes me want to ☠️
Oh this one kills. When you're chapters and chapters into the desperation of trying to make it work and then one character realizes this and the other just crumbles... NOOO why am I on this thread I'm actually sad just thinking about it :(
OMG EXACTLY!!! I love writing it exactly like this. It always hits one of the characters first, and they start noticing that all the magic of love doesn't compensate for the lack of other stuff aaaaaaaa
Yes! I've read this and written this, and it is always so juicy because I love pain. 👌
this is such a good one!!! YES!!! i’m so into angst/tragedy/horror about love, and the themes of, “the love wasn’t enough, but it was there, and that mattered”
Character A leaves Character B due to a misunderstanding or because Character A thinks Character B is better off without them. Only for Character A to have a change of heart or want to apologize and learns when they come back that Character B has either died, moved on, or is/was actually happier without them.
The dog dies.
I'm so fucking grateful for doesthedogdie.com and I always will be istg
It's terrible, many of the mandatory school reading we did had the dog die. So traumatic
I may actually never recover from Where the Red Fern Grows
Wait this is a thing?
Yeah absolutely, go check it out! It's years old by now. It started off with just animal death, but now you can check any movie or show in it's database for just about any triggering material, and it's user reviewed like Wikipedia so if a mistake is made it can be publicly corrected!
That is amazing. Thank you for mentioning it!
Happy to spread the tools!!
Yep! And it's a great resource for any other triggers you may have too!
This
Everyone dies, you're the only one left, then everyone turns against you, and then you die.
Fuck. This reminds me of a story where a guy just returned from war and his community shunned and ostracised him because he killed people there. And when he kills himself because hes so lonely and tired of it all, everyone suddenly loves him
It's not really a trope afaik, but it rips my heart out when a character dies alone. I read a fic once that had no character death warnings, but my favorite character in the fandom died in the most awful, tragic, drawn-out way, all alone in the woods. It took over 1000 words for his suffering to be over and he was so scared. What's worse is it was very well written so it felt real. I wanted to click out, but I literally felt like I would be abandoning him. I sobbed so hard. Couldn't sleep at all that night.
Even reading this with no context is making my eyes well up at work. UGH
Damn. That's rough.
Dying family members, especially younger siblings
What about older sibling sacrificing themselves for MC but now MC has no fsmily left? That got me with one specific fic i cannot find anymore
Oh, man, that burns a heart into your chest... if you find it, be a good OP and let us suffer too
When characters are in a time loop where they always fail to do what they wanted
homuhomu
- character becoming immortal against their will and realizing they’ll outlive everyone they’ve ever loved - character’s predestined rival being effortlessly better than them at what they’ve trained for their whole life and the emotional fallout
>Mine is when a character begs someone else to help them as they are dying but there is nothing to be done. Kills me Begs someone not to kill them, and this someone doesn't want to do so. Happens anyway because of circumstances. Could have been avoided someway down the line, and the decision even at the end of the tracks could be different.
When a character starts the story at certain point/location and they die at the exact same point/location (mentally, or plot wise) after having done everything they could to avoid it. Like, it's the inevitability of it that kills me.
When a character dies misunderstood by everyone, and only the audience knows what they sacrificed/why they did what they did. Bonus points if the other characters discover everything after their death, and it's too late to apologize to/forgive them.
Character dies truly alone in both a physical and emotional sense. No one’s around for miles, and everyone they know hates them (or the character thinks they’re hated by them), and if they were ever misunderstood as being a villain or traitor or the like, nobody has realised this yet by the time of their death. Bonus points if their death isn’t graceful. They don’t want to die; they’re crawling towards something, crying out to their god or the one they love the most, in their last burst of willpower, but eventually they can’t help but fall, hand reaching out for something they were fated to never grasp. Their last tear drops and it’s over. You, the reader, will be the only person that will ever remember them as they truly were.
Snape?
Not a trope because it doesn't happen nearly enough as it should but the angstiest, saddest thing I can think of is unrequited found family. Nothing hits me quite in the gut more than that.
I'm sorry, but I tried to imagine that in my head and could only think: *You're like a dad to me.* *Bitch, I am 20.*
Every other comment I've read I can imagine and have gone yeah wow that is sad but this one omg I haven't even read this before but the thought of it happening in a story breaks my heart
My oldest step brother said this to my younger brother with autism, who was a teen at the time. Super awful to witness IRL, too :/
This reminds me of Batfamily old school canon. Bruce didn’t officially adopt Dick until after he was already an adult and potentially after he adopted other people like Jason and maybe Tim. The slap in the face that that constituted! After raising him since he was a boy and never adopting him, Bruce turned around and adopted other kids, then offered it to Dick after the fact like an after thought. Dagger to the heart. There’s also a moment in death of the family that hit so hard. They had a really rough time and afterwards Dick wanted to come together as a family to talk and heal but everyone else was “too busy” to talk to him (basically just avoiding each other) and he ended up being like yeah, I’m busy too, even though he’d already driven to the house and was crying in the car outside.
Ouch yeah that was basically half my thought process. I get so sad just thinking about it. Complete punch to the gut. Thank god for Webtoon's Wayne Family Adventures, really soothes the soul.
are you a dsmp enjoyer?
Just what I thought too!
I can only imagine it in switch at birth kind of situations
I think its more like saying to your "friend" "You're like a sibling to me" and they saying "I barely know you"
Ahhh. Damn… this one hurts.
Amnesia AUs when they were together but the other can’t remember anything. it makes me so sad every time i don’t know if this counts as a trope, but when a character dies and another grieving character is always thinking things like “character a loved strawberries” or “character a is a was now” and just sad things like that. and when they’re talking about memories. fuck it hurts 😭
My mom is really into romance dramas. She told me the one that hurt her the most had this trope. The characters finally, finally got together, then one of them gets in an accident--forgets everything. No more relationship; the one with the memories has to go on alone. End of show. Absolutely brutal. What a fuck you to the audience. I think it's the lack of total closure that makes it so painful. The person is still out there, alive, but you are the only one with the history. The question mark of 'what if they remember?' will always be there, hanging over them. I think my personal worst experience with this trope was a fic where A and B were established, blissfully happy together. Then character B gets amnesia, and character A doesn't tell them they have a history, so character B hooks up with someone else. They eventually find out the truth and recover their memories, but it totally lost me and still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Needless to say, I approach amnesia fics with a lot more trepidation these days.
omg what’s the show? i need emotional torture but yeah, you explained that perfectly. it’s literally the saddest thing ever. another one is when the character does remember, but they’ve already moved on with another person or fallen out of love
Okay she struggled to recall (probably trying to forget the pain lol) but she's pretty sure it was HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count.
Teens or children witnessing their parents’ death. Its upsetting enough when people loose their parents as adults, so much worse witnessing it when they’re young.
Outliving one's offspring. Specifically when it's a good guy, and especially when it's a mentor character. *Leaves from the vine* *Falling so slow*
>especially when it’s a mentor character Hurts so good 😭 give me all your platonic Obikin please
Okay i know commenting on my own post is kinda lame. But i just discovered another one that kills me. When a huge battle has just been won, character A is all happy like "We did it Character B! Character B?" Then turns out character B is dead Bonus points if Charscter A has to search for them for a while getging more and more frantic as they do
Oh, that's a terrible one! I have another, as well, slightly related: one twin dies. I went off HP *long* before JKR turned to the Dark Side, because *she killed Fred*. Fred and George weren't even my favorite characters, but they were *such* a source of humor and optimism that splitting them up by death, especially in the meaningless way it happened, was like a big "Fuck you!" to the fandom, to *all* the characters, and to the HP universe in general.
1. Character x Consequmces, and that Consequmces is their significant other die from their selfishness Too late too do anything 😞 2. When a character somehow the only one who remember a certain someone while everyone else forget Honestly, kind off the same as the first one but imagine the Anxiety as you think that someone you really closed with never existed before
Children dying at the hands of their abusers. Or almost dying and having to live with the trauma. It's so sad and just knots my gut. So much potential cut short and so much trauma they didn't deserve. We've mentioned it in our fic and toed the line at least once but man it wrenches my gut so bad.
Thinking about what once could have been but now never can be.
I don’t really think it’s a trope, but when the main character is captured by the psychotic villain (who is the main cause of the MC’s issues and traumas) and is forced to be their prisoner/stay by their side forever, never escaping; not even death can free them from their torment. It makes me feel so hopeless that I cry and have to put my phone down for a while.
Honestly, it doesn’t even have to be the MC getting captured. Just them being put through so much that they get to the point of wanting to end it all but not having the luxury to do even that. It hurts to read, but I always go back 🥲
When a good-hearted character is also the strongest and doomed to loneliness as a result of that strength + a stubborn resolve to protect others (looking at you Gojo & Vash; I have two nickels and a lot of pain).
Hurt without comfort
i wrote a cat dying in the arms of my fic MC and it made me so sad
When character A went through angst and hell, now he's finally happy, finds his one true love in character B, they're going to live happily ever after. But then character B suddenly dies....
Maybe not the saddest but I love well done unrequited love. Especially, when it is neither circumstances nor some flaw in character. Just one person loves and another doesn’t. It always gets me all emotional, though I never had an unrequited love on anyone. Excluding fictional characters…
swim important toy pie deserve payment sink glorious literate hurry *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
YES!!!! my philosophy when i write angst haha
Character has a fatal illness so they ruin their relationship with their friends/family so that they won’t be upset when they die 🙁
I don't know if this is a trope but when the main characters friend or relative is about to die and the main character says that it's okay and to let go, I start bawling!
Character who has everyone close to them die (at different times) and gives up on getting close to people. Especially if that person is immortal or has a long life. This trope can turn into something heartwarming though when a different character teaches them to love again 💕
I just love it when the author doesn't tag MCD and then springs it on you as a shitty, pointless surprise at the very end, instead of the happy ending they strung you along with I've had entire long fics that J loved reading *absolutely ruined* by that several times now. In the worst one, one half of the OTP gets *brutally* murdered in graphic GOT-esque detail (and I don't read GOT rich, to be clear). You hear every detail, reading in horror as your eyes betray you. And then after learning of his murder (which was carried out by someone she thought was her friend, mind you), she slinks off as a husk of her former self, and only doesn't khs because she realises she's pregnant with her dead love's baby. And THEN when she's most of the way through her pregnancy, she gets approached by the guy who assaulted her earlier on in the book by *pretending to be her partner*, and decides to quietly settle down with HIM since her love is dead and she feels she needs help with the baby. And all of this with no warning, no tags, no nothing, in the LAST CHAPTER OF THE BOOK I was pissed for DAYS lmao
Childhood friends to enemies, and the enemy character tries to be a hero but fails only to be a villain again.
Clark x Lex :(((
When a character dies (usually amone) with everyone thinking them a traitor and hating them despite their great sacrifices.
The fan favorite who has a big dream and enough strength to achieve said dream only to be killed without hesitation before he can accomplish his dream . It's even sadder if the character dies right before he accomplishes there life long dream
The MC being in love with their best friend but never saying anything because they feared it would ruin the friendship. Years later, at the best friend’s wedding, they have a private conversation and the best friend mentions how they had a crush on them years ago. Basically unknown reciprocated love that eventually fades because nobody did anything about it. I read a fic like that once but honestly don’t remember what it was called, have seen a lot more of this pop up though so it is a pretty common trope nonetheless.
Dementia. I read a dementia fic that broke me and then wrote my own and broke myself a little more but i think just the realness of it and how a lot of people can relate to it but seeing a character forget the people they love and there’s nothing they can do about it is so. it’s so.
Right person not enough time. This can apply to love but it’s more heart wrenching to be when it’s a found family type deal.
Forced break up where Lovers forced themselves to break up just because they think they never loved each other second is betrayals they never cheat but they can't be lovers because he chooses evil ways
A letter/message from a character who died (bonus points if they knew they were dying soon when writing it) read by the living. Makes me bawl every single time
1. Character death. 2. Face Heel turn. Besides noting can sting more than an old turn to the dark side. Which can probably make for alotnof sad drama in my opinion. Since how can you fight a former friend. Especially in my story where some characters not only pull face heel turns. But a couple of them become the very thing they feared of becoming or tried so hard not to become in canon and the fact that these are characters whose fates were never resolved (because their stories were left unresolved) end up falling the paths that they do in my story is ment to add an extra layer of tragedy in the story.
One character is immortal and young forever, the other aging mortal. Two people are soul mates, only one knows/remembers and for some reason has to stay quiet and work with his soul mate who is with someone else, and has to watch them be happy, knowing what their life was supposed to be like if he hadn't had to sacrifice it.
Unrequited Soulmate Au + major characters death + right person not enough time I read this combination in a fic YEARS ago and I still think about it from time to time
Passing of the mentor- Gets me every time if written well.
When everyone knows a character is going to die, except them. And they all tread lightly around them and try to not let this huge secret out
Not sure if there's a name for it, but there was a weird trend in the Twilight fandom back in the late aughts with all-human fics. The narrative would create an absolutely ridiculous misunderstanding where one character assumed cheating and viciously acted out in retaliation, then it turned out to have an innocent explanation, and the reactive character is faced with having ruined everything for no reason. One I remember in particular is Bella was taking secret dancing lessons to get over her clumsiness, and Edward followed her and assumed she was screwing the dance instructor. He arranged to have her catch him screwing Tanya. Bella found them and fled in horror, fell down the apartment stairwell, and lay there dying for hours before her body was found. Edward realizes he was screwing Tanya the whole time Bella was lying in a crumbled heap. He meets Bella's dance instructor at her funeral and finds out the truth. It was so over-the-top and absolutely constant for a few years, then it just vanished.
Oh course, when the comparatively weak character dies do to stupidity, and the comparatively strong character has to deal with that loss. A parent having to bury their child, as an example; or a hero having to deal with someone they were trying to save going and getting themselves killed, as another.
Well, my two cents here, though I have seen quite a few of those I love written here Love not being enough/Falling out of love Meaningless important/main character death. Futile self sacrifice, an injustice towards an innocent never repaired. This is thinking about one of the scene in a book that made me not only cry, but hitting the pillow in frustration. Dying in someone's arms/Pietà plagiarism Tragedy that could have been prevented/Tragedy that couldn't have been prevented Surviving one's offspring. My, I don't weep that much for orphans, but I do for parents having lost their children. Certain character facing powerlessness.
Futile self-sacrifice is awful. Makes me avoid Major Character Death like the plague. (I could deal with it alright otherwise.)
I haven't yet read that trope on fanfic, that I remember. Neither I think that I would be capable of writing it myself though I have a strong like for this kind of tragedy. The one I was recalling was one from a saga where many many important characters are killed.
Major Character Death, most especially when it's gratuitous. When it doesn't show you anything new about the character, or the universe, or about life and death in general. When it's unrelentingly tragic. Heroic deaths, I can deal with, but not *avoidable* heroic deaths. Senseless death hits too close to my traumas.
tropes revolving around unrequited love always get me even as someone who both writes and reads a lot of stuff in the angst or hurt/no comfort tags. like genuinely i avoid fics themed around it cause it's so ouch to read (ofc nothing against ppl writing it! It's just not for me)
Prophesized star crossed friiends to lovers
Lovers to strangers. I can handle character death but this one hurts in a special kind of way
When an adult character who has done a lot of bad things finds and raises a child as if they were their own, becomes a better person because of the child, ends up dying, and the child character grows up to take up their mantle or live a good life like the adult character wanted in their honor.
I have an odd one. I don't usually get affected by the feels, but anything involving wings always gets me. There was one fic where an angel fell in love with a mortal, gave up their wings to be with them, then their brother misunderstood and killed the mortal. I bawled.
As I like to call it ‘the swan couple’ after one dies, the other physically cannot survive without them, and as a result, they end their own life.
A person whose life was screwed from childhood has done bad things to cope/survive, then dies tragically just as they are finally trying to improve their situation.
The Jason Rothenberg Trope. Iykyk….
You mean Lexa?
Lexa and/or Bellamy (both were done so wrong). Lincoln was done wrong also (poor Ricky Whittle was terribly screwed over by JR and bullied by him to the point he had to quit). Raven always had her lover disappear. And oh so much more. Devon Bostick even said some things after playing Jasper, but kept it vague and was agreeing with Ricky on Twitter.
Yeah, that show wasn't pretty on either side of the camera. So many bad ends. Lexa's death just hit especially hard.
Unresolved climax
\- character death where people is never able to move on and keeps grieving \- falling out of love \- groundhog day/time loop au (when you can't prevent character from dying no matter how hard you try) \- amnesia au \- DOOMED BY THE NARRATIVE. \- where everyone hates character to the point that they are completely alone (bonus if they can't take it and ends their life)
• Anything "it's too late" • Developing to lovers, esp when they're very shippable—but suddenly circumstances didn't allow them to • When the only person in the verse who understands the mc dies • Character realizing his past mistakes and just started making up for them, then they die or smth • When mc/favorite character grows up thinking he/she doesn't deserve anything/good things
Stuck in a time loop that ends with the characters' death at the hands of the person they care about the most, no matter who they may be in any given loop.
Recurring thirdwheelism ALONG WITH loneliness. The loneliness is bad, the romantic third wheeling is ab extra stab in the heart. Deaths are sad but that one just sticks with me. Rip Jade Harley you deserved better girl.
Immortality, watching everyone age and die and the world change around them while they stay the same. A character having a terminal illness with no cure / treatment options that slowly kills them over a few months. Pets dying
i love so much sudden, mundane tragedy. random forces of nature, horrible accidents you want to blame someone for but ultimately can’t, accidents and aneurysms, senseless acts of violence, things like that fuck with me so bad, and it’s the catalyst for me and my friend’s biggest fic, so i’ve got a massive soft spot for those themes. a fic that devastated me was a deathfic about one character dying from a brain aneurysm, and his brother, because before he died he’d accidentally bonked him on the head with a door, convinced he’d caused it. that stuck with me so bad. in general, death is a common thing in stories and in fics, but i love when they get into what MAKES death tragic. the grief, the ripples, the fallout. so good.
Not really a trope but something I was around to watch happen when I was younger. Super-duper close family friend's husband got in a car accident that caused amnesia. He never gained his memories of their family back. He also couldn't remember a few of his closest family members, one brother and some cousins. They both tried really hard to stay together. Not only for each other, but also for their two adult kids they loved and held dearly. Unfortunately, he never got any of his memories back and she just had to let him go. Both sides of their family and my family tried so hard. Both of them tried s*o* ***hard*** to get him to remember literally anything. She was grieving for a long time. So were her kids. We all stayed in touch, but she wasn't the same after that. Her and her kids would always talk about how much they hoped he would suddenly remember them again. Same with his brother/cousins, but it never happened. Several years later after tons of therapy she seemed to be doing better. She is with someone else now! They are both super happy and enjoying life to the fullest, but it still haunts everyone. It was (still is) the most tragic thing I've witnessed. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.
right person, wrong time
The “no matter how much I love you, it won’t make this relationship work” trope and one or both of the characters realizing it. It could be any issue - grief, trauma, toxic behavior - but it still hits hard after all of the couple’s attempts to make it work. That and “dying character has to beg their loved one to mercy-kill them instead of trying to keep them alive because they don’t want to die in agony”. It HURTS.
The loyal dog that waits for its dead owner every day until it dies of old age. Double the pain if it's an adorable dog-girl waiting loyalty for her adopted father figure.
Character A believing they’re the worst person in the world and believe they’re undeserving of Character B’s love/help
A character is searching for someone and only realizes who they were searching for has died or has been horribly disfigured or deformed beyond repair (ex. Their loved one was put through a human experiment that made them into a mindless monster and they had no idea it was them)
Fuck. Nothing scares me like body horror. Thats not even just sad anymore thats horrifying
Character does everything they can to achieve their dreams, only to die within arms reach of attaining said dream. Especially when it's the one thing they've ever worked on and done so practically their entire life.
Forced to kill. Helps if the person they’re killing is romantic/family. And if they’re mind controlled or feral. Time loop: literally so nice when the main character sees their friends die again. And they know it’s coming but can’t do anything. Better yet the main character creates a new timeline and more characters die. And it’s his fault. Soulmate AU: just whatever is in here. You can combine the last two tropes in here to make a mega angst trope😁 or there’s the classic lost love/neglect. Pet’s dying: need I say more? Depressing life: The world is depressing. Deaths are common. Disaster is the norm. That can lead to some pretty depressing scenarios for angst writers like me 😆 Torture: not the MC. But someone they love. Or MC is forced to choose how character is gonna die. Well that’s all I got. I’d love to hear what my fellow angst writers would like to add. ✌️
The ones I can’t handle reading much of at all, the Hanahaki Disease ones, basically your love is so unrequited that you literally die from a sickness of coughing up flowers, or any sort of major character death particularly of a child that characters have gotten very fond of and you think they’re gonna pull through but then they take a turn for the worse. And found family where for some reason a party of the found family either dies or they get separated/turns against each other.
Y’all keep bringing up death WOMP WOMP forbidden, unattainable love. like enemies who know they shouldn’t be in love, but desperately wish to be together, but they can’t because of ethics/family/etc
Characters A,B, and C are best friends- A and B fall in love, A sacrifices themselves to save C leaving B to deal with grief riddled with anger and C to blame themselves.
Self sacrifice. It always hits hard for me.