creation-help:

Advice and tips on how to make your character feel more genuine/real

- Pettiness and shallowness. Obviously it can manifest in different ways, but IRL everyone has at least one or two little things that they’re a bit surface level and “Just because!” about. Be it clothes, how they do certain rituals, what color m&ms they prefer ect ect. It can be little details or even major characteristics, and depending on which (and what) they are, it can be really telling about the character! Plus, it just adds a little extra depth and fun. Some examples including but not limited to: Being fussy over getting their clothes wet or dirty, only preferring some items because they look good, insisting on doing some action or tradition exactly a certain way, disliking an aspect of a thing or a person because they just don’t like it, and so on. Obviously the big worldview points like morality and beliefs are very important, but when you’ve figured those out, take a moment to think about the smaller, everyday things your character feels about the world around them. No matter how good or wise a person is, they’ll still always have some little thing that they can’t give some profound noble answer to. Use this to your advantage to explore your character’s shortcomings or flaws!

(In the same vein, Pet peeves is another detail that can flesh out a character!)

- How does your character perceive things? What do they notice about people first? How would they talk about, or describe another person to someone, if asked? How would they describe themself? And why? Just some things to consider. If your character maps out all the little details and deeply analyzes everything they see, it’ll show in their interactions very differently than, for example, if they have the perception of a cabbage and are more oblivious than the love interest in a teen drama that the writers are stretching out for five seasons for no reason. Ykno.

- Additionally: what’s their opinion of the people around them? Or if you’ve already mapped that out, what’s their opinion of people they’ve never met before, or people who aren’t in their immediate bubble, friends of friends, relatives of relatives, neighbours, or celebrities, mythical/historical figures and so on. Delve into hypotheticals sometimes, it can help you exercise your knowledge of the character. Even if none of these encounters or situations would happen in Canon.

- I’m sure you’ve already figured out what your character is most passionate about, ykno, whatever drives the story and impacts their relationships with other characters. But how about stuff they really don’t care to think about? Just shrug? Not interesting? Doesn’t pay attention to this? What is low on their priorities? It doesn’t have to be negative (but can be!), it can just be “Meh”, or something your character hasn’t even noticed before, simply because it’s not in their thoughtscape to think about.

- Does your character have any of those “What? I thought everyone did that/thought that/was like that!” - things? What do they take for granted, or weren’t aware isn’t a universal experience? Did they have a wildly different experience with something that most other characters hadn’t even thought of? And yes I understand this is good for exploring trauma and other angsty things, but besides the obvious, think about maybe something that could be related to your character’s species/living environment/abilities/opinions ect. This is great for exploring cultural differences, and anything that takes place in a fantasy setting. Very useful for villains and heroes alike! It’s insightful. Everyone has small little perceptive differences or big and small thoughts that for some reason just haven’t been properly challenged yet. Or brought up even. For whatever reason. Explore maybe what that reason could be, and figure out why it’s been unchallenged for so long.

- Imperfections. Little divergences. It’s fully possible to write a compelling and genuine feeling character using just archetypes, if you really explore them deeply. And whether you’re doing that or not, think about the lines and molds you’ve set your character into, and let them spill out of them a little bit. Can be one huge aspect or one teensy detail, but make some diversion. Some crack in the picture. Doesn’t have to be a flaw but can be! Just have some little aspects that set them apart and make the character themself. Get weird with it. Getting weird is one huge way you can truly make a character stand out and feel more unique and, oddly enough, genuine and real. Actual people have little oddities or things that don’t line up with everything else about their person. And again it doesn’t necessarily have to be anything big or shocking, in fact I’d argue it’s even better if sometimes it’s just a small, very ordinary, humanizing detail. Maybe unexpected, or maybe just something that doesn’t factor into the surface image your character has. Think about characters similar to yours that you see often. What traits do they all share, or most usually have? Think about the kinds of people your character is inspired by. What are they often like? Make a diversion from that. Make multiple even? It can be the most random thing but think about it, even if you threw a dart at a wall of sticky notes, really chew out what this little thing says about your character. And focus on little cracks, imperfections, diversions and other odd details of your character. Over time they can grow bigger, or maybe not.

- Keep a clear picture of who your character is. Sounds obvious but I’ll elaborate. Your character will obviously change and develop over the time you’re working on them and whatever story events take place but I think it’s very important to keep in mind who they fundamentally are. Basically I’m saying that try to keep them in character, yes even if you did drastic character development, you can still show that it’s the same person in other ways even if one of their core traits was flipped. Be aware of what things will never change about your character no matter what they’d go through. Keep some consistency. Consistency matters alot in making a character seem genuine and, ykno, a good character. Even if that consistent trait is that they’re inconsistent! The character can be that, yes, but as their creator, you should still keep sights of what’s consistent for this character, you feel? If your character is a glunk of slime that slips out of it’s container constantly and subsequently molds into whatever situation it gets put in, that’s not really a character, that’s.. Idk, plot device..? I know this may sound contradicting to my previous point but I fully think that, and this one can and should coexist.

You need to simultaneously be aware of the ways your character will differ from something and be fluid, and the ways your character will not bend, and cannot become. It’s simply a matter of knowing their boundaries and restrictions, knowing which way they can lean and which way not. Obviously this’ll be up to you as their creator, bc yeah you’re allowed to drastically edit your character if you feel like it’s for the better, but try to commit to that change then. Don’t let the character slip from your hands, or let the story bend them into whatever shape it needs to make the plot go forward. Your character, and more importantly you, should be in control of that.

I emphasize the point of you controlling your character and not the other way around also. I’ve seen some character owners slip into “Well it’s just what the character would do! I can’t help it, it’d be out of character if they didn’t do x!” even if the thing is completely awful, doesn’t fit, or would ruin an aspect of the story. A smart writer will know how to work with your character’s traits in a way that prevents them from running off the tracks and becoming their own little gremlin, while also complying with the story. Respect your character’s.. Character, while also respecting yourself and the point of the story. This is even more crucial if it’s a roleplay character, by the way..

I’m just saying, find ways to write the story in cooperation with your character. That means knowing what situations to avoid and which ones to steer for, in order to keep your character functioning with the plot and other characters. Sometimes you simply have to prevent some event from happening, or some characters from ever meeting, for the sole reason that it wouldn’t make the story work the way it should. Or the way you want it to. You hold the pencil, be aware of what that means

ewanmitchellcrumbs:

PSA Regarding Hateful Anons

Tumblr recently made it a requirement for you to be logged in to send asks anonymously. If you receive a hateful ask, don’t publish it - report it to Tumblr. It can be traced back to the user that sent it and with enough reports that person’s account will be suspended.

Share to raise awareness but also to make the clowns who think this behaviour is acceptable think twice before acting brave behind the guise of invisibility.

So, I don’t know if this is happening everywhere all at once, but I just checked it out for myself with an rp-related blog and it’s a real thing. I couldn’t send a message on or off anon because I wasn’t logged in. I hope this really is Tumblr’s attempt to crack down on anon hate issues and not just a way to ‘boost’ their personal statistics by trying to force people to create accounts.

The other issue, of course, is that it’s not hard to create new blogs. So I don’t imagine anon hate will be going away anytime soon. Still… it might become less frequent since someone wanting to 'safely’ send hate has to go through a lot more trouble in order to do so. Maybe (hopefully?) that will deter people. :)

Either way, this is info that’s good to know. Thank you for sharing, OP!

rpmememaker:

          Roleplaying success is like 30-50% timing, 20%-25% networking, 5-10% tags, 15%-20% YOLO, 5-10% originality and 5-10% your actual muse.

           timing - posting the exact right starter at the exact right time when the exact right people are on your dash to answer it. This may also be considered pure luck. I’ve seen starters from one muse gather tons more notes than a similar starter from the same muse based simply on when it was posted. 

           networking - finding people you like who like you and your muse so that when timing fails you can beg them to reply. Most roleplayers seem to be shy and are more likely to play with people they know. If there’s someone you want to roleplay with, reply to one of their opens or jump into their askbox instead of waiting for them to notice you. 

           tags - tagging things properly so that people can find the thing or know more about the thing before replying. Make sure to use the proper starter tags for your fandom or verse. People frequently scroll through the tags when they’re bored and don’t want to make a starter of their own. 

           YOLO - impulse. A lot of the memes and things I send to people or random starters I reply to are solely based on the YOLO factor. the Why not of it all. Which brings us to… 

           Originality - A friend to the YOLO, if your starter is more original it might help it stand out more on people’s dashes, but you don’t really want to make it too out there or you won’t get any replies either. If I see the same starter or a similar one from five same/similar muses in a short period of time, I’m only replying to one of the five, not all of them. I’m sure you feel the same way. 

          Your Actual Muse - Your actual muse and they way you portray them, counts for very little as far as I’ve seen. You can be one of those people who gets all kinds of compliments on how IC you are, or how wonderful your character is, and still never have anyone to RP with outside of the network you build… And sadly, whether you are a female character or not seems to also have a drastic impact on your roleplaying success. If your character has a penis, you are automatically more likely to get replies for some reason. 

           So, next time you’re sad that no one replied to your starter(s), remember that a large part of roleplaying is about luck and timing. Just because today isn’t your day doesn’t mean no one likes you. Work up the courage to reply to someone else’s open or check the tags for something you like. There’s always a chance that tomorrow will be better. 

linestorm:

Characteristics of the “Bad Guy” Antagonist

A few footnotes:

1. This list is meant to characterize an “evil” antagonist - some antagonists are perfectly decent people, and some are not even people.

2. Can also be used as a general flaws list that pertains to any character.

3. I wrote the list with masculine pronouns because English is hard, but all of these can apply to characters of any gender.

4. The four categories are just conceptual, for thought organization. Characterize freely.

confessionsofa-roleplayer:

I have been mutual with a chronic blog hopper for years, recently they came back to post about a family tragedy so of course all of us in that corner of the rpc offered support and comfort. Now, everyone deals with grief in their own way but it was sus af when the very next day they posted a promo for their new blog, apparently the day after the tragedy… yeah, I’m out.

If you don’t like that they hop blogs, then drop them, OP - but don’t use this person’s choices while dealing with their grief as an excuse.  If you really and truly believed your statement that ‘everyone deals with grief in their own way’ you wouldn’t have a ‘but’ after it at all.  There is no ‘but.’  Everyone DOES deal with grief in their own way.  Full Stop.  You’re not them, and you don’t have any right to judge how they handle whatever they’re going through.

When my dad died last year writing was hard - it still is a lot of days.  But I didn’t want to just walk away from RP, so I threw all of my time/energy into compiling all of my blogs into a single multi-muse.  It kept me here when I might have completely vanished otherwise.  It helped me to stay focused on something I loved in a way that worked for me.  And honestly, if I’d had partners walk out on me because they didn’t think my grief was ‘genuine’ enough for them… well, I wouldn’t really consider that to be any kind of real loss.

confessionsofa-roleplayer:

rp meme blogs having dnis is so stupid. what is the point?

So, I get where the OP and the people in the comments are coming from. Nine times out of ten, someone is not going to bother looking at a resource blog’s rules before interacting. That’s not how Tumblr’s meant to work, so expecting people to do that in advance is kind of naïve, in my opinion.

However, since I run a resource blog (I’ve been making gifs for years now) I wanted to explain what ‘the point’ is for me. Granted, I don’t have a DNI with names or anything (because that’s just tacky) but I do have a generic DNI rule that reads something like, 'Don’t use my gifs for your hate speech or I’ll block you.’ Regardless, I’d like to share my thinking on why I have that rule at all.

First and foremost, just like with an RP blog, my rules on my resource blog are in place for my peace of mind. Would I like for people to read them before doing anything else on my blog? Yeah, absolutely. Do I expect it? No, not really. Basically my rules are in place to cover myself when I block people. So that I don’t have people constantly contacting me all, 'Hey, why am I blocked?!’

Do I have time to check EVERY blog for hate? No, of course not. I get 50+ interactions a day, and have better things to do with my time. However, I do occasionally browse the blogs that interact… and given what I’ve seen some of my gifs used for, I sometimes wish I had time. :-/

Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is the rules are (most of the time) more for me than they are for anyone else. Honestly, the kind of person who’s out there spreading hate probably isn’t going to give one lick for my rules - even if they bothered to read them. And even without the rule posted, I would block people using my creations for hate speech - but having everything written out and posted still makes me feel better, and that feeling is important, too. :)

stereomike:

juniper-sunny:

coffeebeanwriting:

Here are a handful of quick tips to help you write believable characters! 

1. A character’s arc doesn’t need to grow linearly. Your protagonist doesn’t have to go from being weak to strong, shy to confident, or novice to professional in one straight line. It’s more realistic if they mess up their progress on the way and even decline a bit before reaching their goal.

2. Their past affects their present. Make their backstory matter by having their past events shape them into who they are. Growing up with strict parents might lead to a sneaky character, and a bad car accident might leave them fearful of driving.

3. Give reoccurring side characters something that makes them easily recognizable. This could be a scar, a unique hairstyle, an accent, or a location they’re always found at, etc.

4. Make sure their dialogue matches their personality. To make your characters more believable in conversation, give them speech patterns. Does the shy character mumble too low for anyone to ever hear, does the nervous one pace around and make everyone else on edge? 

5. Make your characters unpredictable. Real people do unexpected things all the time, and this can make life more exciting. The strict, straight-A student who decides to drink at a party. The pristine princess who likes to visit the muddy farm animals. When character’s decide to do things spontaneously or in the heat of the moment, it can create amazing twists and turns.

6. Give even your minor character’s a motive. This isn’t to say that all your characters need deep, intricate motives. However, every character should need or want something, and their actions should reflect that. What’s the motive behind a side character who follows your protagonist on their adventure? Perhaps they’ve always had dreams of leaving their small village or they want to protect your protagonist because of secret feelings.

Instagram: coffeebeanwriting  

draculas-husband:

traditional-latin-math:

gae-bolg-alternative-dot-exe:

mywritingcannotbestopped:

Is this a problem?

its-a-writer-thing:

alitbitmoody:

yeswevegotavideo:

karnythia:

gingerblivet:

straddling-the-atmosphere:

onceuponabopper:

thetimetravelersguidetothegalaxy:

wittywallflower:

Writing is weird.

One minute you are telling a story.

The next minute you are researching the average amount of snowfall Edinburgh gets.

or how to kill someone with a piece of barbed wire and a tomato

Or how much force it takes to dent a human skull with a can of Pepsi.

what the hell are you guys writing?

Porn.

I looked up natural sources of arsenic & how to make shimmering body oil in the same day for a story. Pretty sure those two just became a murder weapon. 

I once had to eventually consult Little Details because I needed to know what exactly would be the effects of a WWII bomb imploding a window that someone was standing in front of. After searching “bomb window glass” “glass first aid” “septicemia” and “eye injury” Also, in my research of my Vyvyan’s past, I’ve now looked up a fuckton of research on UK skinhead culture. The government must have me on so many lists, lol

I have plugged so many dates and locations into the Weather Underground’s historical weather search engine, because I wanted to know whether my characters would have been wearing a jacket or not that day. I read through so many articles and biographies, mining for information on 1980s London, 1970s Manchester, Greenwich Village in the 1960s, Times Square in the 1940s…

For the last one, I actually wrote down a list of addresses for nightclubs, restaurants, theaters and hotels to create a map of where my characters lived and the places they frequented. To determine walking distances between locations, whether they were along public transit routes, the likelihood of bumping into each other on the sidewalk.

What kind of explosive can blow up a human

How much blasting jelly is needed to blow up a person

What kind of server does the US government work off

What kind of security do high level government officials have

How far can a long-distance detonator reach

… SO much shit about the Darknet…

How to get through an airport if you’re a wanted criminal

What are the easiest countries to sneak into 

How fast can you disintegrate a human body 

How to smuggle illegal objects through airport security

How many bombs does it take to blow up a building

How easy is it to get ahold of C4

How long can someone stay conscious after their legs are blown off

How long does adrenaline from a bomb injury last

How to sneak C4 through the airport

Is alcohol flammable

How to hack remotely

How to electrocute a room full of people

Can you set up remote denotation from your phone

How to locate a black market in another country

…. These are all for one story. I’ll race you - first one to be picked up by the FBI wins!

thatawkwardwritingmoment​:

When a project starts as a “quick side project to relax from my main thing”

And then 75,000 words later …

sparknshinerpmemes-blog:

Anyone you’re interacting with online is an actual human being. People who are in the real world need to take care of themselves. In reality, we should care for ourselves both mentally and physically.

Humans can make a mistake for what they have done. Humans have the right to show remorse to other people. Even if they made a mistake. If they know that they made a mistake, they go fix it by themselves. Don’t make their mental health worse if they know that they made a mistake.

Humans who create chaos with others would be surrounded with negativity. Humans who create harmony with others would be surrounded with peace.

There is the real question for yourself and other people. “What is the point of all of us fighting with each other?”

If you want to help, comfort or protect somebody, what is the point of fighting with them?

It also makes no sense that we chose not to understand each other at all. No matter what kind of conflict involving a mistake is. Misunderstanding each other is what causes a conflict between others. Understanding each other as actual human beings is not harmful to you and other people. It makes no sense that we refuse to understand other human beings about any situation involving communication that has gone wrong.

I cannot stand people who don’t want to understand others because it makes me angry. If you don’t want to understand other people due to miscommunication you had with someone else, that is your problem and not theirs.

twocatstailoring:

roachpatrol:

berlynn-wohl:

Pre-internet era: You walk into a room and sit down at a table. Someone brings you a turkey sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a soda. Perhaps you are a vegetarian, or gluten-free. Doesn’t matter; you get a turkey sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a soda.

Usenet era: You walk into a room and sit down to your turkey sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a soda. Someone tells you that over at the University they are also serving BLTs, pizza, coffee, and beer.

Web 1.0 (aka The Great Schism): You walk into a room. The room is lined with 50 unmarked doors. Someone tells you, “We have enough food to feed you and a hundred more…but we’ve scattered it behind these fifty doors. Good luck!”

Web 2.0 (present): You walk into a room. Someone points at the buffet and says, “Enjoy!” You turn to see a 100-foot-long buffet table, piled high with every kind of food imaginable. To be fair, some of the food is durian, head cheese, and chilled monkey brains, but that’s cool, some people are into those…and trust me, they are even more psyched to be here than you are.

Tumblr (a hell pit): You try to serve yourself a baked potato. An angry child runs up and slaps the plate out of your hand. “NIGHTSHADE PLANTS ARE POISONOUS,” the child yells. You are hungry. The child gives you a turkey sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a kick on the shin.

The fact that a potato is replaced with a different form of potato is what makes that last one so accurate.