Sweet Pastel Nightmare

For coming up with character names:

Behind the name (my absolute fav)

Allows you to choose the origin of where you want the name to be from, whether you want a more feminine vs masculine vs androgenous name (as voted by users), random surname generator, and clicking on the name gives you important info like if there are any famous people with the same name, where it’s from, how common it is, and how people tend to see it, etc.

You can also search their name database by letter or meaning or origin, so if you know you want a character who has a name/surname that starts with an A from Ireland, there’s a whole list for you to choose from.

Census sites

Especially useful if you’re looking for a name from a specific place and/or time period. Just search “(country) census (year)” and you’ll find a database of real people who lived in that place at that time. No one can ever call your names unrealistic again.

For coming up with place names:

Fantasy name generator

This site can basically come up with any name for any person, place, or thing you might ever need. There are also specific generators for different fandoms if you’re looking to make an OC in an established world.

For finding that one word on the tip of your tongue:

One Look Thesaurus

This is my go-to. Not only can you find synonyms like a regular thesaurus, but you can also describe words like “unhappy smile” or “quiet laugh” to find the more specific word you’re looking for.

For coming up with ideas:

Word cloud

When I need to inspire a new idea, I write down all the things I’m interested in (hauntings, academia, lesbians, etc.) and put them into a word cloud to shuffle them next to each other. Sometimes seeing a concept in a new context can spark new ideas!

WWF Discord

This is my discord channel (shameless plug) for when you need to brainstorm off other people but don’t have anyone irl to talk to. We’re also happy to read and give feedback on writing, answer writing questions, or just chat!

For visualizing places and characters:

Pinterest

Pinterest can at times be a bit too sterile for my tastes, but if you use the right words, you can find more realistic photos of places. For example, adding “aesthetic” after basically any word will bring up a more broad collection of photos to help you flesh out places.

This is also a great way to find photos of people and fashion to help visualize characters. I’m bad at describing clothes, so I usually collect photos of outfits to help me know what my characters are wearing. Searching up “character inspiration” will collect more interesting photos and drawings of people who might not exactly be of our world.

(However, to make Pinterest not show you AI results, you have to go into your settings and check the “reduce AI” box. Luckily, it does mostly work.)

Death to Stock

Like pinterest but completely AI free (hooray!) Only drawback is that you have to pay a monthly subscription (about $20 CAD).

Cosmos

Very similar to pinterest but slightly more "artsy". I'm not super familiar with this one but I believe all the photos are human and you can save them and create collections with a free account.

Dupe Photos

Royalty-free stock image site with very Pinterest-core photos!

Minecraft

If you haven’t built your entire fictional city in Minecraft instead of writing, why not? It’s fun.

The Sims

This one is dual purpose because you can not only create your characters in Create a Sim, but you can design their houses. If you really want to go for it, you can bulldoze all the lots in your town and build your world from scratch.

For checking grammar:

Grammar Girl

Easy to follow definitions and examples, and if you learn better by listening, every article comes with a podcast to follow along with instead.

Grammar Monster

This one is my favourite for checking grammar rules because there’s tons of examples in graphics that helps for any situation.

Reedsy

Among other things, reedsy can connect you to professional editors within your budget.

For writing advice:

One Stop for Writers

This one was recommended from my discord channel and has all sorts of tutorials and resources for the writing craft.

My Blog Directory

Another shameless plug, but if you need writing advice on something specific, you can search through my directory to see if it’s there. If it isn’t, you can always send me an ask about it!

For an alternative to Google Docs:

Ellipsus

Think google docs but without AI. Yay!

MJF: I want needles, barbed wire. I want to be thrown in glass, I want to to fall into a exploding table, I want to be walked like a dog by Hangman with a dog collar and I want to bleed a lot.

Bitter sarcasm aside, I'm gonna go ahead and risk sounding a little paranoid here:

I want to show people what food/financial assistance forms have been asking since trump was elected. They've refined the questions now -at the beginning of 2025 the first question was "Do you use any pronouns?"[sic]- and I feel like that's worse, since at the beginning at least it let you know immediately who was asking and why. The way it sounds friendly and supportive now is even more sinister.

I cannot stress enough that these questions were not asked before 2025. The first time I renewed since they went into effect was over the phone, so I was able to ask point blank why they needed to know, and was told that it was now required by the government -so no, this isn't just a liberal state trying to be more inclusive. There isn't and never was a legitimate need to know this information in order to provide benefits. This is solely to keep track of queer people. I'd also like to point out that they are required to list your assigned sex, and you cannot edit that field. So even if I listed myself as boy/man without stating that I'm trans, it would out me, and that's the intention. There's also a huge detailed list of race and ethnicity options now that really do everything to try to get hyper specific answers out of you, including if you're jewish and what kind (I'd recommend not answering any of that either, btw)

They also waited until the forms were fully filled out and being submitted before informing me (in a footnote) that sexual orientation is protected on a state level but not federal. Not just gender identity, orientation.

The absolute mildest ramifications of collecting this data could be the administration using it to claim that queer people are disproportionately draining government resources and add more fuel to our persecution. The fine print states that this info can all be requested and accessed by various government agencies for several purposes including making arrests. I'm begging all of you to refuse to answer any demographic questions you can on forms like this, no matter how tempting or validating it seems to have such detailed options to acknowledge your identity, because it is purely a trap. The government DOES NOT need to know how you identify, and there is no plausible benefit to telling them.