dumbassh0e

[dumbassh0e]

Zoom In, Don’t Glaze Over: How to Describe Appearance Without Losing the Plot

You’ve met her before. The girl with “flowing ebony hair,” “emerald eyes,” and “lips like rose petals.” Or him, with “chiseled jawlines,” “stormy gray eyes,” and “shoulders like a Greek statue.”

We don’t know them.

We’ve just met their tropes.

Describing physical appearance is one of the trickiest — and most overdone — parts of character writing. It’s tempting to reach for shorthand: hair color, eye color, maybe a quick body scan. But if we want a reader to see someone — to feel the charge in the air when they enter a room — we need to stop writing mannequins and start writing people.

So let’s get granular. Here’s how to write physical appearance in a way that’s textured, meaningful, and deeply character-driven.

1. Hair: It’s About Story, Texture, and Care

Hair says a lot — not just about genetics, but about choices. Does your character tame it? Let it run wild? Is it dyed, greying, braided, buzzed, or piled on top of her head in a hurry?

Good hair description considers:

Texture (fine, coiled, wiry, limp, soft)

Context (windblown, sweat-damp, scorched by bleach)

Emotion (does she twist it when nervous? Is he ashamed of losing it?)

Flat: “Her long brown hair framed her face.”

Better: “Her ponytail was too tight, the kind that whispered of control issues and caffeine-fueled 4 a.m. library shifts.”

You don’t need to romanticise it. You need to make it feel real.

2. Eyes: Less Color, More Connection

We get it: her eyes are violet. Cool. But that doesn’t tell us much.

Instead of focusing solely on eye color, think about:

What the eyes do (do they dart, linger, harden?)

What others feel under them (seen, judged, safe?)

The surrounding features (dark circles, crow’s feet, smudged mascara)

Flat: “His piercing blue eyes locked on hers.”

Better: “His gaze was the kind that looked through you — like it had already weighed your worth and moved on.”

You’re not describing a passport photo. You’re describing what it feels like to be seen by them.

3. Facial Features: Use Contrast and Texture

Faces are not symmetrical ovals with random features. They’re full of tension, softness, age, emotion, and life.

Things to look for:

Asymmetry and character (a crooked nose, a scar)

Expression patterns (smiling without the eyes, habitual frowns)

Evidence of lifestyle (laugh lines, sun spots, stress acne)

Flat: “She had a delicate face.”

Better: “There was something unfinished about her face — as if her cheekbones hadn’t quite agreed on where to settle, and her mouth always seemed on the verge of disagreement.”

Let the face be a map of experience.

4. Bodies: Movement > Measurement

Forget dress sizes and six packs. Think about how bodies occupy space. How do they move? What are they hiding or showing? How do they wear their clothes — or how do the clothes wear them?

Ask:

What do others notice first? (a presence, a posture, a sound?)

How does their body express emotion? (do they go rigid, fold inwards, puff up?)

Flat: “He was tall and muscular.”

Better: “He had the kind of height that made ceilings nervous — but he moved like he was trying not to take up too much space.”

Describing someone’s body isn’t about cataloguing. It’s about showing how they exist in the world.

5. Let Emotion Tint the Lens

Who’s doing the describing? A lover? An enemy? A tired narrator? The emotional lens will shape what’s noticed and how it’s described.

In love: The chipped tooth becomes charming.

In rivalry: The smirk becomes smug.

In mourning: The face becomes blurred with memory.

Same person. Different lens. Different description.

6. Specificity is Your Superpower

Generic description = generic character. One well-chosen detail creates intimacy. Let us feel the scratch of their scarf, the clink of her earrings, the smudge of ink on their fingertips.

Examples:

“He had a habit of adjusting his collar when he lied — always clockwise, always twice.”

“Her nail polish was always chipped, but never accidentally.”

Make the reader feel like they’re the only one close enough to notice.

Describing appearance isn’t just about what your character looks like. It’s about what their appearance says — about how they move through the world, how others see them, and how they see themselves.

Zoom in on the details that matter. Skip the clichés. Let each description carry weight, story, and emotion. Because you’re not building paper dolls. You’re building people.

[dumbassh0e]

You are as far from me as memory

[dumbassh0e]

Best things for a ship to have or be:

Horny

Insane

Religious/spiritual themes

Obsession

Age gap

Doomed

[dumbassh0e]

two characters: flirty banter, clearly getting off on the power dynamics between them

people who are scared of going to hell for masturbating: he loves him like a son

me, hauving covid: can he call him that while they fuck

[dumbassh0e]

I think 50 shades of grey did so much damage to BDSM writing in fic and like not because I think fic writers were taking inspiration from it, but we did get a lot of detailed explanatory posts about all the different ways in which those guys were Doing It Wrong, which is not in and of itself a bad thing but since then everybody got so hung up on making sure everybody in their fics was nothing like 50 shades of grey and actually demonstrates that yes I do understand the principles of safe sane and consensual and the traffic light system and safewording and aftercare and checking in that now everybody fucks like a 101 handbook and I think we've only just recently started to recover from it. love me a dynamic where it's two repressed freak idiots who accidentally invent BDSM all on their own and have to come up with the strangest most deeply harmful ways of navigating that situation

[dumbassh0e]

[dumbassh0e]

What are your kinks?

Mutual obsession.

[dumbassh0e]

Naps are a forbidden technique, I think. If you pull them off just right you'll access a pool of near-endless rejuvenating power, but if you mess up some inscrutable part of the ritual your vitality and might will be sapped and you'll be left at the mercy of your opponents

[dumbassh0e]

[dumbassh0e]

Yes there's a typo in the first option but I am not redoing the whole thing

[dumbassh0e]

A SMOKE has been added to your inventory.

[dumbassh0e]

Hetbait kind of goes harder than queerbait sometimes. Queerbait you understand that the creators very rarely could do it even if they wanted to so implication and suggestion was better and safer than being explicit. Hetbait though there's no such justifiable reason they just want to fuck with you.

[dumbassh0e]

I think we should write more straight relationships with 2010s TV queerbait tactics. Let that man and that woman's lives be horribly intertwined, let them take bullets for the other, let them be each other's meaning but NO KISSING. They are holding each other platonically. You're crazy for reading anything romantic into it at all tbh

[dumbassh0e]

[dumbassh0e]

[dumbassh0e]

It is simply not fulfilling to enjoy media in the height of its popularity. You need to show up so late to the party that everybody else is gone and the hosts are asleep so you can rummage through their trash for chip dip and stale hors d’oeurves to eat alone in the dark like a dirty little raccoon secret

[dumbassh0e]

Happy Accident