#mannequin with powers

[the-most-humble-blog]

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🧠 THE MANNEQUIN WITH POWERS — Why Character Comes Before Plot or Die in the Void A Blacksite Literature™ Transmission (If your protagonist couldn’t grip a reader’s soul in a blank room, you already failed.)

I. THE VOID YOU'RE WRITING INTO

Let’s get this out of the way first:

If your character can’t speak — not literally, but viscerally — to the reader’s insides without the crutch of explosions, lore dumps, or a “cool” outfit…

You are not writing a character. You’re dressing a mannequin. And no one gives a fuck what a mannequin does.

II. IF THEY FEEL NOTHING, YOU BUILT NOTHING

Who cares what city’s under attack? Who cares if they’re the Chosen One? Who cares about your twist, your map, your seven-act structure?

If the protagonist you’ve built:

Has no secret

Carries no weight

Evokes no response from a quiet, tired reader on a Tuesday night—

Then you wrote into the void.

Your reader wasn’t “dumb” or “impatient.” They felt nothing. And they left.

III. THE LIE OF “PLOT FIRST”

You’ve been sold a lie:

“Just make the story exciting and the characters will follow.”

No. Never. Backwards.

Character always precedes plot. Character is the plot.

Because if I don’t care who it’s happening to — Then nothing happening will ever matter.

A reader can forgive:

A slow start

A clunky scene

A cliché trope

But they will never forgive the crime of hollow company.

You gave them someone to follow —

And that someone had no soul.

IV. THE MANNEQUIN WITH POWERS

Let’s define the threat.

The Mannequin:

Has abilities

Has trauma

Has a goal

Has quips

Has a backstory

But no voice.

No contradiction. No shame. No private thing they would die to protect, not because it’s powerful — but because it’s theirs.

This mannequin does things. Big things. High stakes.

And no one cares. Because nothing human is bleeding through the plastic.

V. ESCAPISM ISN’T A LICENSE TO LIE

Yes, readers want to escape. But not from humanity.

They want to escape into:

A place where flawed people matter.

A place where pain has context, not just screen time.

A place where characters don’t just “get better” — they get known.

Escape into fantasy all you want. But if you’re escaping the imperfections of the human condition, then you’re not writing fantasy. You’re writing propaganda for emotional disconnection.

And your reader knows it. Even if they don’t say it. Even if they reblog it. Even if they finish it.

They know.

VI. THE SECRET THEY DON’T BRAG ABOUT

Let me give you the fix.

Give your character one thing:

A secret they don’t brag about.

Something they hide not because it’s cool — but because it’s raw, vulnerable, humiliating, or sacred.

Examples:

She used to believe in God, and now she can’t even say “grace” over her food.

He kept a voicemail from his brother the day before he overdosed.

She has two daughters, and hasn’t seen them since the custody ruling.

He talks shit to villains but goes home and reads old love letters he never responded to.

Do not announce it. Do not reward it. Do not let them monologue it.

Let it live. Quietly. And watch your readers form emotional attachments like animals recognizing kin.

VII. PLOT WILL NEVER SAVE YOU

You can worldbuild forever. You can twist the timelines, deepen the lore, expand the pantheon.

But if your central figure could be replaced by anyone and the story still works?

You didn’t build a character. You built scenery in a cape.

Plot is what happens.

Character is who we blame, who we mourn, who we root for in spite of ourselves.

And if you skip that? You skip the anchor. You leave your reader floating — no matter how pretty the setting is.

VIII. THE READER DOESN’T OWE YOU A DAMN THING

Let’s be brutally honest:

Your reader doesn’t care how much time you spent.

They don’t care how much of your soul you “poured in.” They don’t care how important your themes are.

If they can’t connect to a being — not a puppet — then they leave.

Because they’re not in your head. They’re alone. Reading. Tired. Wanting to feel something.

And if your protagonist doesn’t show up with emotional currency in hand?

They’re gone.

IX. THE ONLY TEST THAT MATTERS

Write this down:

If your main character was in a blank white room for five pages — with no plot, no action, no powers — would I want to hear what they think?

If the answer is no?

Start over.

Not from page one. From soul one. You didn’t give them a person. You gave them a vessel to carry your story — and no one wants to be ferried by a stranger.

X. THE REALITY YOU’RE TOO SCARED TO ADMIT

You’re not scared of writing bad plots.

You’re scared of putting real, flawed, mirrored, shameful, holy you into your character — because if it fails, it’ll feel like you failed.

So you keep them clean. You keep them plastic. You keep them “relatable” in all the ways that mean nothing.

But the only thing that ever makes a reader stay?

Is the feeling that this character was carved from a place they weren’t supposed to see.

That’s what creates emotional loyalty. That’s what earns tears. That’s what builds cult followings, not just fandoms.

XI. SO FIX IT.

Kill the mannequin.

Bury the empty badass. Silence the sarcastic automaton. Throw the trauma plot in the fire.

Build a person. A person with shame. A person with weight. A person who reminds the reader of a truth they’ve never told anyone.

Then throw that person into your plot.

And watch the story ignite.

XII. CONCLUSION: YOU'RE NOT WRITING STORIES. YOU'RE WRITING PEOPLE.

You think you’re writing entertainment. You think you’re building scenes. You think you’re plotting arcs.

But you’re not.

You’re introducing human souls to strangers. And the ones who do it well? They become immortal.

Every good story is just a person you didn’t want to say goodbye to.

If you don’t have that?

Then what the fuck are we doing here. </div>

📌 If this made your spine straighten mid-sentence — reblog it. 🧠 If it exposed a hollow character you once thought was “done” — save it. ✍️ If it reminded you why we write at all — read it again.

And if it hurt? That means it’s time to start over.

Bonus:

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

[art-from-within]

When you catch feelings for the tarnished you beat 1000000 times (open shirt was Mohg’s idea)

[scribbleribbit]

The 3 ENA genies and their door

The Genie of Identity and Therapy, The Genie of Great Aspiration and Ascension of These Lands, and The Genie of Great Wishes

Funny how I have never seen anyone talk about the therapist nor the broken genie/broken Theodora in the ending where you fall

[cent-scratchnsniff]

something bad did indeed happen to that man. spent abt 25 minutes trying to find a better picture of that one (1) offical piece with his eyes open that wasnt compressed or tiny

[mango-sideburns]

My fav thing about TAZ is that any aspect out of context sounds fucking bonkers.

Like, in the balance finale there's a scene in which Garfield (who is very specifically never described visually bc most people imagine him as like. The Lasagna Cat. Who in this universe is the most powerful warlock in the realm and also has a hobby of cloning people, which is great for the one character that got forced into haunting a mannequin) is summoned by an alien spaceship that runs on the power of friendship so he could beat up some flashing balls. In D&D.

And that was just. Such a normal scene in the narrative. No one blinked an eye. I would like to bow down to Griffins clear unmatched talent for making me feel such big emotions over ridiculous shit like a goddamned umbrella or a regular ass pair of jeans or the idea of a taco recipe.

[moeblob]

Demyx (my beloved)

[chaotic-would-you-rathers]

Would You Rather...

A: From now on, be mistakenly assumed to be from the United States of America by everyone who does not know otherwise currently (and any attempts to correct them will be forgotten unless you tell them almost every single day for at least a year) (if you ARE from the united states of america then you will instead be assumed to be from the first other country everyone who sees you thinks of)

B: Be followed around forever by a pair of cracked but otherwise featureless white porcelin mannequins that are completley indestructible and will attempt to stand/walk either side of you slightly behind you at all times (and will teleport to you if completley unable to), looking at or touching them will make you remember embarassing or regretful memories from throughout your life extremly vividly (even if you only glance at them)

C: Become extremley Red-Green colourblind, if you already are (or are otherwise visually impared to an extent this does not affect you) you will instead teleport to a random location in Jamaica next thursday at 2pm in your timezone (as of when you read this)

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Patience • Drunk II • Cream • Fear/+/Desire • Drunk I • High Horse • Who You Are • Clams • F.U.C.A.W. • In Love Again

Spotify ♪ Bandcamp ♪ YouTube

[zal-cryptid]

Hi can you please do brother power the geek from dc

DC characters - Brother Power the Geek

[erigold13261]

OOOOO NICE LIGHTING!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I've NEVER, NEVER seen art for them before but they look great!)

Glad you liked my drawing of them! I also saw that there was nothing for these curses when I was looking up references. I definitely need to be the change for that and make sure they get the love they deserve!

[doyoulikethisemoband]

[patchwork-crow-writes]

86 - A Taste Of Sugar

He's all too eager to please, earnest to an almost off-putting degree. It's like he was designed by committee, to be as sickly-sweet as sweet can be, like the most cloying, creamy white chocolate - an acquired taste, best sampled sparingly.

And yet what scares you about him most is not that he looks uncannily like your idle doodles from your younger years, or the way he stands just a little too close to you when he talks; it's that his seemingly ironclad convictions melt like butterscotch the instant you cross them.

You put him to the test and he fails it with flying colours, striking at his own likeness just because you asked him to. You hug him afterwards, curious to see if he'll let you - it doesn't occur to you until later what kind of lesson he might take from this.

It would be so easy, you realise, to train him upon the trellis of your will, to twist the stem of this delicate flower into any shape you please. Pull upon his strings and watch him obey, wanton power thrilling through your strained nerves. Unadorned adulation oozes from his every pore as he hangs on your words; dewdrops clinging to an overripe apple, eager for the teeth that will break its flesh.

It's a heady concoction, not to your usual taste... but sometimes you catch yourself wondering, and your mouth runs dry. What could one sip hurt, after all? Because that's what everyone wants, isn't it - a chance to be loved, even if as nothing more than a deity...?

But you already know that won't be enough - soon you'd come back for the entire pie, gorging yourself to vomitous ruin again and again, taking and taking until nothing remains...

You never could stop once you started on something, after all...

______________________________

The Dark Menagerie No. 86

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[the-spooky-children]

Episode 10 is gonna be epic

[peachysodafizz]

//CW: (Dotted) blood, I think, with a tinge of body horror since it’s a mannequin with a reversed face and hands for joints

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Not to brag about my skill but uh…I remember that I actually drew a Mannequin from Uktrakill, all composed of dots, in school, out of boredom

[reckonslepoisson]

Romantic (2016), Patience (2019), I Got Heaven (2024), Mannequin Pussy 

A punk band with a really tuneful, sensitive edge that has, over nearly a decade, not even slightly dulled, Mannequin Pussy’s balance of tenderness and aggression enables the group to reach overwhelmingly intense emotional heights. Lead singer Marisa Dabice’s ability to throttle a listener with empathy is unmatched in popular punk (and punk-ish) music.

Pick(s): ‘Denial’, ‘Drunk II’, ‘I Don’t Know You’

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

what if slaughterhouse nine cluster trigger au