this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2025
-60 points (3.1% liked)

Showerthoughts

37815 readers
1064 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
vatlark@lemmy.world
forkball@lemmy.world
SuperEars@lemmy.world
-60
"fridging" is honestly the only good motivation to become a superhero or good person (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 2 weeks ago by Grimreaper@sopuli.xyz to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
34 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Fridging is when a love interest gets killed just to push the main character forward. It used to mean a woman getting hurt to make a man act. Now it covers any partner dying to pump up the plot.

Here’s the cold truth. A romantic loss is the only loss that actually justifies losing your head over it. If your boyfriend or girlfriend dies, that grief can spiral into obsession or a need for revenge. That is story fuel. Everything else is background noise.

An uncle, a child, a best friend, a parent, a teammate getting killed is not tragic nor is it enough to be sad and enough to motivate you to be a hero. Those losses might be a little sad but they do not automatically justify turning your life into this crusade against injustice. They are not dramatic enough to demand you drop everything and hunt a killer down.

So yeah, fridging as a device works because romantic love is one of the few things audiences treat as absolute.

Whenever there is a story about a main character who is depressed because their best friend, parent, or child dies, I just can't get into it, and I'm always like, "Please get over it," because this isn't enough to be depressed over, and it's not enough to want to become a good person.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Mr_Fish@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

I'm not gonna bother with saying that the other losses that you're discounting can be just as tragic as losing a romantic partner. Everyone else here has said it probably better than I could.

What I'll bring up is that not only are there more kinds of revenge motivation than the loss of someone close to you, there are more motivations than just revenge. For other kinds of revenge, what about wounded honour? A hunter who's prey keeps escaping them might feel the need to finally end that hunt before they can look themselves in the eye. That's its own form of revenge arc, and it can make just as powerful a story as avenging the loss of a loved one. And for non revenge motivations, there's far too many to list, but here's a start

  • duty
  • repaying a debt to the world
  • self improvement
  • survival (usually more of a side character motive compared to a hero protagonist, but still good)
  • seeking admiration (from people in general or from a few important people)