equallyloyalandlethal

[equallyloyalandlethal]

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.

[equallyloyalandlethal]

I saw a thing earlier that was somone asking for writers to keep posting snippets, and I’m nothing if not accommodating (read, I need praise to activate the internal dopamine generator so I can write at all), so here is a little snippet of something I’ve been poking at for a bit on the back burner and trying to get really rolling. Lemme know what y’all think.

Love Like Hellebores, a Tough Like Dandelions sequel:

How the woods surrounding the Martin lake house were more foreboding the Preserve as Theo ran through them, paws digging roughly into the dried, late summer leaf litter, was a mystery. Something about the bend and sway of the trees, probably. Or maybe it was the way they creaked in the wind, the trickles of a breeze whispering through the branches and brush, speaking a language he didn’t understand. The land itself wasn’t as blood-soaked as the woods closer to Beacon Hills proper, but something about it was hungry nonetheless.

Regardless, Theo had set out into them alone, ignoring how doing so was the most contrarian and stupidly backwards thing he could do. Being out among the tangled roots, no one around him that he had to hold himself together for, was freeing. Yes, every stride sent zinging chills down his spine, lifting his hackles without any real reason, but it wasn’t nearly as suffocating as being surrounded on all sides by pack.

He stopped, sides heaving like a bellow, dragging air in and out of his hung open jaws. The only sound in his ears was his own panting and the dull roar of his pulse. Apparently, full-tilt sprinting through the denser brush in the lake’s woods for an hour or two had sent the forest creatures scattering and turned them silent. To prey, a predator was a predator, regardless of what he thought of himself as. Such was the basic way of nature. The Doctors had perverted supernatural law, but even they were still bound by some of the fundamental natural ones.

He rolled his shoulders, letting out a soft breath as both the wolf and coyote were more or less settled back down beneath the smaller’s furred skin. Yeah, a run had been just what he needed. The wolf in him loved whenever the pack converged back on the town, but his coyote, and him at times, struggled not to see the influx as danger. Running, letting both his beasts have a paw on the wheel and push the more human of the worries aside, always helped. It brought the itch beneath his skin, the niggling worry that something was out there, the constant screaming in his head that he wasn't doing enough, running like this, on four paws and under a thick coat, made it all more manageable.

With slow sweeping side to side motions, he lifted his head, glancing through the darkening canopy with a sinking sort of realization.

The sun was setting.

Shit.

He promised Liam, and the others but mostly his mate, that he would be back in time for the party. It was a send-off, meant to celebrate the pack as a whole. Everyone was in town for it, aiming to send off the puppies with style. Theo shuddered, snapping at the empty air as that fact in particular reminded him this was the last night everyone was going to be together, the last night Liam would be remotely Beacon Hills-adjacent for months.

Both the canids bristled alongside him, disliking the very idea of separation, let alone the practice of tit that was going into effect tomorrow. It wasn’t often the two agreed, though Liam seemed to be as much an exception to their rules as the ones that used to govern most of Theo’s life. These days, his animals were simply needier, snapping the reins from him a little harder and more often. It had been odd, but nine months of it rendered the behavior more familiar than off-putting.

Realistically, they collectively assumed he would be late as soon as he disappeared on four legs. Runs like this always took him longer than he expected.

A startled yelp leapt out of his throat as he was tackled sideways, slamming into the ground only for paws to press into his ribs before he could scramble to his feet. The unreservedly triumphant yowl, loud enough to cover up the lingering echoes of his surprised noise, and over-proud rumbled as the feet pinning him danced in place, lifting and lowering in a hopping rhythm, were more than familiar, but that didn't assuage the bristling of his own coyote or the growl still building in his throat. Malia, joining him wasn’t abnormal, not since they worked out their shit a few months ago. They would race and wrestle and hunt in their similar shapes, his own coyote only slightly bigger than hers often enough, her own wildness needing a place to go.

The pinning was a little less familiar, and entirely unappreciated.

[equallyloyalandlethal]

TV Show Game

When tagged, put one gif for your top 10 fave TV shows and then tag someone else to keep it going!

@maxity tagged me, so thank you very much.

Here are mine:

Now (no pressure) tagging bc I enjoy all y’all’s existences:

@transdunbar @spiderraeken @xtarmanderx @outcastpack @ashyjingles @raekensarcher

[equallyloyalandlethal]

The closest experience I've ever had to discovering "the vitamin" was buying a 100% wool outfit and wearing it in the winter.

Not only was I not freezing anymore, I was not sweating and overheating either. The horrible sensory nightmare of winter clothes disappeared.

In particular, I bought a pair of wool pants. They were a thrifted pair of fancy dress pants like you would wear at an important office job, and they were easily the most comfortable pair of winter-appropriate pants i'd ever worn. I wore them Every Single Day.

From that point on I realized a lot of my clothes were making me feel bad, and the common thread was polyester. Especially polyester blends.

It's a trap because the polyester clothes are the ones that always feel sooooo silky soft when they are in the store, whereas cotton, linen and wool can feel comparatively rough and scratchy. But when actually wearing them for hours throughout the day, it's the natural fibers that feel more comfortable.

Maybe the secret to sensory comfort is not about the presence of softness, but the absence of overloading sensations. Or maybe the sensory stress and agony is not triggered by texture of the fabric, but by how it breathes and regulates temperature.

Then there's the problem of clothing life span: polyester blends, no matter how soft they seem at first, become rough and scratchy and covered in hard, itchy pills after wearing them 10 or 20 times, whether or not they have been tumble-dried or even washed at all. (I tested it!) Linen and cotton become softer and more comfy the more you wear them, polyester but ESPECIALLY polyester blends become a constant stressor. Polyester blend t-shirts I used to love for their softness now feel bristly and irritating.

So now I'm trying to change my wardrobe to as many natural fibers as possible, and the more natural fiber clothes i have the more I realize that the plastic fibers stress me out. It's so easy to overheat or freeze in them and they're always degrading and becoming less comfortable and it sucks.

[equallyloyalandlethal]

I made a writing discord server!

For original work and fanfiction writers.

Join me, thrive.

It’s like loosely affiliated with the Tumblr community I also created:

The tumblr community is just for original work, not fanfiction.

It would be nice to be able to grow these communities.

[equallyloyalandlethal]

I’ve got my own story but there were parts that I didn’t expect.

[equallyloyalandlethal]

I took my little brother (autistic, mostly non verbal) out and he was using his voice keyboard to tell me something, and this little boy (maybe 4 or 5?) heard him and asked me "Is he a robot??" I tried to explain to him that no, he isn't a robot, he just communicates differently, but my darling brother was in the background max volume "I am robot I am robot I am robot I am robot"

[equallyloyalandlethal]

The fact that this was right below when I scrolled brings me GREAT amusement.

art theft isnt what it used to be. now you can just right click save. you used to have to break into a museum. there were lasers and stuff. you don't even have to have a grappling hook anymore.

[equallyloyalandlethal]

Why does this sound like it was ghost written by Parker from Leverage/Leverage: redemption?

art theft isnt what it used to be. now you can just right click save. you used to have to break into a museum. there were lasers and stuff. you don't even have to have a grappling hook anymore.

[equallyloyalandlethal]

very strange phenomenon now that many people have learned online not to pet service dogs is that they walk by little bird and me, wave their hands at little bird, and say in a baby voice "oooohh you're so cute! you're so cute! i'm not going to pet you because i know you're working! ooohhhh puppy puppy puppy, i want to pet you but i'm not allowed~" and i have to tell them what they're doing is literally as distracting as petting her. this happens almost every single time i'm out with her.

[equallyloyalandlethal]

It hurts

[equallyloyalandlethal]

Happy birthday, Ryan! Words can not express how much I love this wonderful, sweet, caring, funny, talented man. <3

[equallyloyalandlethal]

So I just saw a post by a random personal blog that said “don’t follow me if we never even had a conversation before” and?????? Not to be rude but literally what the fuck??????????

I’ve had people (non-pornbots) try to strike conversation out of nowhere in my DMs recently, and now I’m wondering if they were doing that because they wanted to follow me and thought they needed to interact first. I feel compelled to say, just in case, that it’s totally okay to follow this blog (or my side blog, for that matter) even if we’ve never talked before.

Also, I’m legit confused. Is this how follow culture works right now? It was worded like it’s common sense but is that really a thing?

[equallyloyalandlethal]

Cutie 🤍

[equallyloyalandlethal]

Every day I learn something new about queer history.

[equallyloyalandlethal]

Does anyone else see different US regions as “coded” as specific seasons?

[equallyloyalandlethal]

It's impressive how Neil Gaiman vanished from the internet. Wish Rowling would do the same.