#Character exercises

[brontes-anvil]

Latran, Lunar Teen Archaeologist

So my Ledaal Synne poll had "Weird Teen Crush*" win out and I figure mix it up with the second most polled result "Rival (Archaeologist)."

I'm picturing Latran as having grown up in the Scavenger Lands, her family involved in the scavenging of ruins and tombs and such. Latran worked through many traps and puzzles growing up, but the history and origins of these long-buried treasures intrigued her more than their value.

As a Lunar, she's focused on getting ancient relics and art out of Realm hands and preferably in the hands of whoever has the best claim of descent from the relics' creators. She's also not a fan of using them to further Silver Pact aims, although she' will relent on the matter. She's an assessor for Diamondback Slick's Diamond-Cast Consortium while he plies First Age Elders for their knowledge or lends her his distribution network.

On her own time, she likes to explore and study ruins and get a more complete knowledge of the history or cultural impact they have in the region. Sometimes, her hobby intersects with this other girl, Ledaal Synne, who is distressingly less interested in the history and import of majestic temples and buildings and more by the fact that they are radically altering the weather or driving the wildlife mad or poisoning local spirit courts. Synne's not wrong to be concerned, but one of these days she is going to destroy something irreplaceable. It's not all bad; Synne can converse about ancient ruins, and she and her adopted brother help root out scavenger lords. If things weren't so awkward between the two of them, it'd be nice to have someone close to her own age to share interests with.

Latrans is the species name of the coyote. I don't know what it is about archaeology that makes me go with scavenger animals (another historian Lunar I had was a vulture), but there it is.

*Considering I had 14 votes and only 2 Likes (one by a bot), I'm curious where the votes come from. Like, it's not unfeasible to me that polls get more user interaction than Likes, Reblogs or Replies, because it's an interaction that doesn't expose your account. It could also be bots.

[kensatou]

(✿◕‿◕) die (ꈍ ꒳ ꈍ✿)

[makenna-made-this]

Okkkkkk so where is Chicken Miku?

Anon the way i dropped everything when i saw this

HATSUNE BEAK-U

(based on the Onagadori chicken breed)

[davycoquette]

I did my own character writing exercises, as prompted a lil' by @sableglass. 😇

Meet Budreaux, a man pulled from my ass. Full disclosure, my noodling on him began yesterday - but there's no time limit on this. I did write it in a few minutes, just now. (Anticipate many typos etc.) I highly recommend y'all try it! It gets you thinking!

Paint a picture of a character by describing their bedroom while they’re not in it.

The blinds are shut and the curtains drawn, but the AC unit underneath the window tosses them open from time to time, and through a gap where the plastic slats sit cattywampus the sign out front eclipses a slice of cloudless sky.

always on the sunnyside motel cable tv • refrigerated air • no vacancy

The curtains on their rusted white slider are a shade of muddy brown — even the rosy floral print is so dark and colorless the pattern itself is nigh unrecognizable. A custom cabinet lodges the miniature refrigerator, and atop that sits the black television with a Zenith logo thunderstruck in the dead center of the plastic housing.

We’ve got a full size bed, white sheets crumpling out of the muddy brown, paisley comforter like a busted chou pastry. The pillows are double-stacked against the wall, the impression of a man in repose gazing forward into the void of the television screen.

From the windowsill, the frenetic buzz of a fly gone-belly up, still pirouetting in its death throes for the third hour straight. Outside, the traffic whooshing by steadily one or two semis at a time. An intermittent metallic crashing from the fabricators on the other side of the interstate. A lonesome crow cawing from the poolside iron fence. And the toilet, which never stops running, runs. The spigot drip-drop-drips into the stained porcelain tub steady as a ticking clock hand.

On the vinyl sink counter a tube of fluoride is rolled to the nozzle. The lid hides behind the toilet, secreted by a camouflage of hair and dust. Deodorant, aftershave. A gas-station razor. The toothbrush with its bird’s-nest shaped bristles lies at the bottom of the liner-less bin amid a few wadded tissues. It, too, is littered with bathroom-floor debris.

In the shower, a paper-thin slice of soap and a two-in-one men’s shampoo. A damp washcloth and a towel entangled with last night’s boxers-and-t-shirt.

On the bedside table, a third of a bottle of Old Crow Reserve next to the off-white landline. A linty black comb, an ashtray full of pocket change and an empty tube of Chapstick. Under that, eight dollars.

Shuffle a playlist on your music player of choice. For whichever song plays, describe what you “see” with your imagination.

Disclaimer: (I am forced to resort to a work friendly lofi playlist.) Song: Amazonia by Jiani

Budreaux’s coal-dark eyes gaze into the foggy bathroom mirror, as dark and indolent as ever under their heavy lids. They’re smallish on his face, tilted ever-so-slightly down at the outer corners. He cannot know how many people have looked into his eyes and thought it the most vapid, uncomprehending stare they’d ever seen. Barring that, disinterested. It’s his eyes that most often inspire a lighter or gum packet to be lobbed at him over the convenience store counter.

All he understands is that he attracts ire. He figures it’s convenience. Being angry with a convenience store worker is convenient.

He smooths his hand down the front of his beige t-shirt, then takes his trucker hat from its place hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Emblazoned across the front is the Wanket’s truckstop logo — a shape vaguely resembling the grill of a tractor trailer with the unfortunate franchise name scrawled overtop. He presses it down onto his bland brown haircut, then licks his thumb and smooths his white-speckled sideburns.

He gives himself a last look in the mirror. A hard sniffle twitches the mustache under his nostrils.

“Okey,” he says to his reflection, gives it a nod and a lil’ thumbs-up, and turns to go.

Describe a character by turning out their pockets.

“Wait. Turn out your pockets.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me, bitch. Turn ‘em out. Hurry.”

Budreaux’s eyes follow the black hole in the pistol’s barrel like he’s being tested at the optometrist’s.

“You’re serious?” he asks, and his bushy eyebrows climb toward the bill of his Wanket’s hat.

“I’m dead fuckin’ serious, man; empty your fuckin’ pockets. Now.”

“‘Kay,” Budreaux allows, “but I’m gonna haveta put my hands down.”

The young man in the ski-mask looks over his shoulder through the sticker-spattered gas station window, then back at Budreaux. He waves his pistol. He says, “Man—”

But Budreaux is in compliance. He diiiigs into his right pocket, scooping its contents into his palm. His fingers nip the fabric corner and he turns it inside out, capturing almost everything. A quarter clatters and spins on the vinyl floor, but the rest goes on the counter: thirty-one cents in change, a tube of Carmex, a BIC-lighter —

“Your watch.”

Budreaux furrows his big eyebrows and looks at his watch. “You’re serious?”

A gunshot makes him try to suck his head into his collarbones. Plaster rains down from the ceiling, plopping off his hat-bill.

“Your watch, motherfucker!”

He can hear that even over the deafening mosquitoe-drone in his freshly damaged ears. He wrestles off the watch and drops it onto the counter, then goes for his left pocket.

“Wallet,” the robber demands.

He reaches for his ass instead, wary of the wild look in the young man’s eyes. He supposes the kid knows he could be hiding a handgun back there, wedged into the back of his pants like a gritty badass — or maybe the kid already logged that he was all-grit, no badass when he first strolled through the door. He’d had his back to the store; he’d been stocking cigarettes.

He drops a nylon Dale Earnhardt wallet onto the counter and the kid swipes it and the watch.

“Get down.”

“Sure, alright.”

Budreaux is conscious of the papery sound his joints make as he sinks toward the floor. His kneecaps twinge when they clack against the floor.

“All the way down, y’hear me? All the fuck the way down.”

The kid lemur-hops toward the door as Budreaux arranges himself face down, sweeping plaster aside before he rests his bristly cheek against the faux-terrazzo. After a moment, he hears the bell on the door jingle, and a fading voice shouting, “Go, go!”

His chest swells, deflates. Dust-bunnies and loose plaster roll away from his face, underneath the counter. He is still there on the floor twenty minutes later when the bell chimes again. He recognizes Rob Whitaker’s voice when the old veteran beckons, “Hello? Anybody home?”

He says that every morning, around this time, whether Budreaux is stocking cigarettes or, apparently, lying face down behind the counter.

An abandoned and unlocked phone (or wallet, if you wanna go back a coupla decades) has been discovered in a ratty little diner bathroom. What’s in there? What does it tell us about its owner?

Disclaimer: Going with the wallet, because the prompts have inspired a theme, here. 🤓

Denny whips the mask off his head and tosses it into the back seat over his shoulder. His grease stiffened hair, the muddy shade of motel curtains, stands in all directions as he rifles through a paper bag full of loose cash.

“Well?” Piper asks from his left. She’s chewing the shit out of hour-old gum, sweat or lipgloss catching light on her cupid’s bow.

He makes an exasperated sound and chucks the bag into the backseat, rips apart the Velcro closure on the wallet.

“Nicholas Bud…” He trails off, curls his upper lip.

Piper hones in on his skewed front teeth — they always seem so prominent when he makes that face — then looks back to the road. She taps her sunglasses down over her eyes.

“The owner?”

“I dunno. Probably.” Dennis eyeballs Budreaux’s driver’s license, then pulls it out and fingers the slot it came from. “Fuckin’ waste of time. Fifty bucks in here.”

It’s a hundred and eighty three dollars, but he means to conceal the bulk of that from Piper.

A scrap of paper folded over into a stiff rectangle catches his eye, and Dennis pulls it out from one of the credit card slots.

“Some phone numbers.”

Piper glances into the rear-view mirror, then takes a sharp turn.

“What else?”

“Jack shit. Waste of time.”

[sabertoothwalrus]

"You give up a few things chasing a dream." ✨

[the-most-humble-blog]

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🧠 FREE WRITING LESSON — THE MOST POWERFUL CHARACTER DEPTH TRICK YOU’LL EVER READ.

Let’s say your character sucks.

She’s flat. Predictable. “Strong” in all the wrong ways. Let’s call her Nicolle. Or Carol. Or whatever name Hollywood gave her.

She’s a superhero. She’s got powers. She’s got sarcasm. She takes no shit. She leads the squad. She’s admired by everyone — and loved by no one.

You’ve seen this character before. Now watch what happens when you give her one secret she doesn’t brag about.

Nicolle has two sons.

She’s raising them alone — to become men like her late father: A man who sacrificed everything to raise her after her mother disappeared, broke, or gave up.

The world sees Nicolle as the apex of visual empowerment. But the world doesn’t see:

The arguments with her boys’ father — about what being a real dad means.

The prayers whispered in the dark over a fevered forehead.

The way she ghosted the only man she maybe wanted, not because she’s flaky — but because she doesn’t know if wanting love makes her a bad mother.

The nights she tucks her boys in, then collapses into her bed, staring at the ceiling, heart full of ache, because she gave the world her strength but kept no one to hold hers.

They don’t see the days her sons cry after watching her get slammed through buildings on TV.

Held by the throat. Left for dead. Motionless for seconds too long. Until she rises — because she has to.

They don’t see the breakdowns. They don’t see her flinch.

They assume she doesn’t feel fear. But the truth?

She feels it every single time.

She’s not fearless. She’s never been. But fear is a luxury she doesn’t have.

That’s a luxury for men. She is a god. And she will make any threat scream that truth — as she crushes it beneath her bleeding hands.

Because when demons invade, tyrants rise, and monsters descend, She suits up.

Not for hashtags. Not for feminism. Not for attention.

She suits up because the idea of her sons growing up in a world she could’ve fought for and didn’t — is more terrifying than death itself.

And she will not let the universe teach her boys that their mother ever cowered.

🔺 THE TRIFECTA THAT MAKES ANY SUPERHERO NEXT-LEVEL:

Intimacy. Contradiction. Duty.

Intimacy gives them a soul — something they protect more than their own body.

Contradiction gives them depth — because perfection is forgettable, but conflict creates memory.

Duty gives them immortality — because we remember those who bled for more than applause.

Give a character that trifecta — and suddenly:

She’s not annoying. She’s haunting. She’s not fanfiction. She’s canon. She’s not shallow. She’s legend.

✍️ That’s how you fix a weak character. You don’t soften her. You give her something to fight that fists can’t touch.

And suddenly?

She’s not a girlboss. She’s the last myth your enemies ever tell themselves before they die.

</div>

[ruporas]

trigunned the hades or hadesed the trigun (id in alt)

[choshashio]

12 Writing Exercises to help develop your character and their voice.

Editors note - There's a lot of boring writers drivel. So, to spare you from the headache if you're not interested, your characters individual voices and personalities are important for engaging stories and interesting plots. You can skip down to the end for the exercises.

Think about the people you know, the people you love. What's one thing they have in common, besides the obvious? They're all uniquely different. Everyone in the world is different in some way, even in media. Books and movies all have unique sounding characters that are different from each other. In Harry Potter, for example, All of the characters have their own voice, even the Weasley twins are different in their own ways.

Complex and unique characters that sound different, interact and speak differently, make for engaging books and dynamics.

I don't know anybody who would want to read a 50,000 word novel about two boring characters, who're exactly alike, and talk in the same monotonous tone. You can have a character who is "boring." who speaks monotonously and still have an interesting novel that people would read.

Having different characters who come together to create funny, interesting, or weird dynamics makes for a readable piece. Take your monotonous character, by themselves, they're kind of boring. They're not engaging to follow. But, introducing different characters to come and interact with your "boring" character, creates funny and memorable dynamics.

Think the anime Saiki K, or Veronica Sawyer from Heathers. If you took only those two characters, and stripped away all of the background characters, they wouldn't make for very interesting stories. Saiki would be happy, living his days in peace and quiet. Veronica would just be a normal edgy high school girl. But if you bring the side characters back, you bring the story and their conflicts back. Saiki goes back to being annoyed by his weird and goofy friends, wishing for peace and quiet. Veronica goes back to being tormented by JD and the group dynamic in the Heathers clique.

These stories utilize background characters to create conflict in their main characters' lives, and makes fun and interesting stories and dynamics with them.

Without further ado, here are 12 exercises to help you develop your characters, and get you thinking.

Ask your character what they want, and have them monologue about it.

Think about who, in your life, does your character remind you of.

Ask yourself, What does my character want, and what does my character need? How do they conflict with each other, and how does this affect my story?

A good exercise to help you write characters interacting, and practice dialogue is to do the ABCD exercise. 

The ABCD exercise is writing a full page, or 500 words, of dialogue between two characters, character a and character b, talking about what they think character c thinks of character d. Then, write another page depicting how character c actually interacts with character d.

Write journal entries from the pov of your character.

Think about your character's habits, nervous tics, or tells, and write out a page where they do those things.

Think about something your character holds dear to them, and give the item a backstory.

Think about how your character interacts with other characters, and write a page for each interaction. 

Think about a belief or opinion your character has, and write a page of dialogue, where your character is explaining their belief, and why they believe in it, to another character.

Write a page about your character reminiscing, or talking, about a cherished memory from their past, or childhood.

Write a page of dialogue about character a telling character c about character b, whom c has never met before, what kind of things do they say? What do they think of b? Then write another page from character c’s point of view, what are they thinking? How do their thoughts of b change? What do they think of character a? How do they imagine character a and b’s relationship?

Write a page about a character being forced into a situation with their greatest fear. Then, if you want to go a step further, write a page of the same thing, but introduce another character that the first holds dear to them, or wants to protect.

[mayasaura]

Was thinking about this line because Harrow what the actual fuck are you talking about, and I realised something.

Not only does Harrow really for real not know that Gideon loves her—in the bullshit context of their lives, this is a reasonable misunderstanding for her to have.

What has Harrow known Gideon's life goals to be since they were children? Hint: There are at least two Harrow is fully aware of.

The first is to be wanted. As much as Gideon hates and wants to escape the Ninth, she also paradoxically craves their acceptance. They're the only community she's ever known. Harrow plays on that desire from the very beginning, mostly by kind of .... well, okay, by negging her about it. Ironically appealing to her sense of loyalty and duty to her house when they both know Gideon never even had that bridge to burn. That kind of thing.

Whether or not she's right, Harrow sincerely believes that acceptance to still be important to Gideon. First flower of my house, the greatest cavalier we have ever produced. You are our triumph. The best of all of us. When Harrow has only seconds left to make amends, she not only banks hard into praising Gideon, she frames it to unambiguously offer Gideon the acceptance she's always been conspicuously denied. Assuring her of her value not just as a person or as a cavalier, but as one of their house, one of their people.

The second thing Harrow knows is that Gideon wants to join the Cohort. Easy, everybody knows that. She's only been telling everyone with ears (and then some) since she was eight years old. It's the bait Harrow dangled to entice her into this mess. She wants to be a hero, to do great deeds like in the comic books. She wants to be a soldier.

Against the backdrop of all that context, Gideon's dying declaration "for the Ninth" starts to sound a hell of a lot more like "for Queen and country." Especially when you remember that Harrow is still the sovereign ruler of the Ninth. From Harrow's vantage point, Gideon could easily be playing the heroic underdog in a war movie. The soldier no one believed in until she threw herself on a grenade to save her squad. The knight errant who proved her chivalry by giving her life in service to her king.

From that perspective, Harrow's line to Ortus makes sense. She's following through on her promise of acceptance, defending Gideon's loyalty to the first Ninth face she sees. She's playing out Gideon's war hero fantasy, where Gideon's act of heroism proved them all wrong about her. In which case Ortus's response, "You are the most worthy heroes the Ninth House could muster. I truly believe that," flows very naturally as a reply. He understands what Harrow is trying to say, and affirms it.

It's not a hero's burial in the Anastasian, but it's the closest thing Harrow has the power to give her. And it's a fucking reasonable interpretation of Gideon's actions that doesn't touch on her feelings for Harrow at all. Fuck me.

[r-aindr0p]

Pomefiore shenanigans and Deuce casually doing the human during training flag as asked for an upcoming spectacle Idk yet if I add a bit of shine or decoration to the thief outfits or if I lust leave it like that, not that it would matter much in monochrome but I want them to be stylish at all times Other info is that this is a non magic circus, including the magic tricks ! Of course the theft is done without the use of magic as well, it's much more thrilling that way. Circus Corvus is based in Sage Island on an artificial peninsula No theft operation is done on Sage Island, the rest isn't spared :))))

Bonus cheebs, I just wanted to make the joke w/ leona but He's probably going to be on the "got robbed" side of this story.

[luna-azzurra]

I don't know if you've already been asked this, but what are some clever ways to describe a person's beauty in a sense that is more indirect. Instead of words like 'pretty, beautiful, alluring, shining, etc.'

Oh, I love this. The easiest way to show someone’s impact without describing them outright is to show how other people respond to them. Maybe...

Conversations softened when she entered the room, like the air itself had shifted to make space for her.

His presence was the kind that made people sit up straighter, like they wanted to match whatever energy he carried without even realizing it.

She had a way of making people lose track of their own sentences, blinking mid-thought like they had forgotten where they were going with it.

Or Instead of saying what they look like, describe what sticks in people’s minds afterward. Something like that...

Her voice stayed with you, low and slow, like a song you’d heard before but couldn’t place.

He smelled like rain on pavement, something sharp and clean and impossible to forget.

She had this way of looking at people, like she was already a few steps ahead in the conversation, waiting for them to catch up.

Maybe you want to drop something unexpected about them that makes the reader pause...

There was something reckless about his smile, like it had broken hearts before and would do it again without a second thought.

Her laughter didn’t just fill the room, it rearranged it, drawing people toward her like they didn’t even realize they were moving.

His face wasn’t the kind you described in features. It was in the way he existed, effortless and certain, like he’d never once questioned his place in the world.

Or through Movement...

She moved like she had time to spare, like the world had always been kind to her and she had no reason to rush.

His hands told a story when he talked, painting shapes in the air that made people watch even when they weren’t listening.

She didn’t walk. She arrived, like the moment had been waiting for her to catch up.

Or through Unintentional Impact... This is my personal favorite, describe the way a person changes the space around them.

People didn’t just look at him; they adjusted, leaning in without meaning to, like gravity had shifted in his direction.

She wasn’t loud, but somehow, silence belonged to her. When she spoke, it felt like the world quieted just to hear what she had to say.

He wasn’t the kind of person you noticed immediately. But once you did, he was impossible to ignore.

Let me know if you want more! I could go on for days with this. 😍

[quailsprout]

what's better than one prowl? zero prowls-- i said zero! zero!!!! nooo!!!!!!!

edit: template added below the cut bc i originally put it in another post lol

[andstuffsketches]

bring the girlies back

[ethosiab]

Girl tango my love...

[noodles-and-tea]

Yooo! Who's your favourite Over the Garden Wall caracter? And who is the easiest to draw? You are so talented, by the way, sometimes I just look at your art and... Look. Nothing else, just stare at the screen. Because they are just so ✨beautiful✨

Wirt for both!!!

[clumsypuppy]

(guy who has never played cotl) haha au time