Untitled

first thing you might want to consider: is the pain mental or physical?

if it’s physical, what type of pain is it causing? — sharp pain, white-hot pain, acute pain, dull ache, throbbing pain, chronic pain, neuropathic pain (typically caused by nerve damage), etc

if it’s mental, what is the reason your character is in pain? — grief, heartbreak, betrayal, anger, hopelessness, fear and anxiety, etc

because your character will react differently to different types of pain

PHYSICAL PAIN

sharp and white-hot pain may cause a character to grit their teeth, scream, moan, twist their body. their skin may appear pale, eyes red-rimmed and sunken with layers of sweat covering their forehead. they may have tears in their eyes (and the tears may feel hot), but they don’t necessarily have to always be crying.

acute pain may be similar to sharp and white-hot pain; acute pain is sudden and urgent and often comes without a warning, so your character may experience a hitched breathing where they suddenly stop what they’re doing and clench their hand at the spot where it hurts with widened eyes and open mouth (like they’re gasping for air).

dull ache and throbbing pain can result in your character wanting to lay down and close their eyes. if it’s a headache, they may ask for the lights to be turned off and they may be less responsive, in the sense that they’d rather not engage in any activity or conversation and they’d rather be left alone. they may make a soft whimper from their throat from time to time, depends on their personality (if they don’t mind others seeing their discomfort, they may whimper. but if your character doesn’t like anyone seeing them in a not-so-strong state, chances are they won’t make any sound, they might even pretend like they’re fine by continuing with their normal routine, and they may or may not end up throwing up or fainting).

if your character experience chronic pain, their pain will not go away (unlike any other illnesses or injuries where the pain stops after the person is healed) so they can feel all these types of sharp pain shooting through their body. there can also be soreness and stiffness around some specific spots, and it will affect their life. so your character will be lucky if they have caretakers in their life. but are they stubborn? do they accept help from others or do they like to pretend like they’re fine in front of everybody until their body can’t take it anymore and so they can no longer pretend?

neuropathic pain or nerve pain will have your character feeling these senses of burning, shooting and stabbing sensation, and the pain can come very suddenly and without any warning — think of it as an electric shock that causes through your character’s body all of a sudden. your character may yelp or gasp in shock, how they react may vary depends on the severity of the pain and how long it lasts.

EMOTIONAL PAIN

grief can make your character shut themself off from their friends and the world in general. or they can also lash out at anyone who tries to comfort them. (five states of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and eventual acceptance.)

heartbreak — your character might want to lock themself in a room, anywhere where they are unseen. or they may want to pretend that everything’s fine, that they’re not hurt. until they break down.

betrayal can leave a character with confusion, the feelings of ‘what went wrong?’, so it’s understandable if your character blames themself at first, that maybe it’s their fault because they’ve somehow done something wrong somewhere that caused the other character to betray them. what comes after confusion may be anger. your character can be angry at the person who betrayed them and at themself, after they think they’ve done something wrong that resulted in them being betrayed, they may also be angry at themself next for ‘falling’ for the lies and for ‘being fooled’. so yes, betrayal can leave your character with the hatred that’s directed towards the character who betrayed them and themself. whether or not your character can ‘move on and forgive’ is up to you.

there are several ways a character can react to anger; they can simply lash out, break things, scream and yell, or they can also go complete silent. no shouting, no thrashing the place. they can sit alone in silence and they may cry. anger does make people cry. it mostly won’t be anything like ‘ugly sobbing’ but your character’s eyes can be bloodshot, red-rimmed and there will be tears, only that there won’t be any sobbing in most cases.

hopelessness can be a very valid reason for it, if you want your character to do something reckless or stupid. most people will do anything if they’re desperate enough. so if you want your character to run into a burning building, jump in front of a bullet, or confess their love to their archenemy in front of all their friends, hopelessness is always a valid reason. there’s no ‘out of character’ if they are hopeless and are desperate enough.

fear and anxiety. your character may be trembling, their hands may be shaky. they may lose their appetite. they may be sweaty and/or bouncing their feet. they may have a panic attack if it’s severe enough.

General Tips

The purpose of writing

Important: only you can tell your stories

Every fanfiction genre has value

HOW TO STAY MOTIVATED!

Maintaining Motivation

Reasons to Keep Writing

Stretch your hands and fingers

Analyze the stories that you like

Title creation

How to comment on your favorite fics

Moodboard sources

PIRATED FAN FICS!!!

Fanfiction is legitimate (featuring Neil Gaiman)

Angst and Horror: if you can't handle it

Publishing

Writing Smut: overcoming shame

Don't toss your work

Dialogue / Writing rules

Prologue

Paragraph breaks

Sentence length matters!

Dialogue punctuation

Scene Checklist

Body Language

Descriptions between dialogue

3 dots in a sentence (Ellipsis)

Using adverbs

Using adjectives

Coming Outs

Commonly misused words & phrases

Words to Avoid

Flirting!

World Building

World building through plot holes

Using context clues

Creating land

Government

Matriarchal society

Dystopia

Descriptions

Resources for Describing Physical things

Alcoholic drinks & cocktails

KISS SCENES

Clothing references

Sewing sources (includes history of fashion)

Hair texture

Skin color/tone

Sword / Martial arts inspo

Character Development

Character sheet

Character sheets

Character development, agency, plot

Esk*mo is a slur

Naming characters

Naming characters in other cultures

Emotional intelligence

Human body limits

Making threats and the third option

Bartenders

Children

Kids

Asian characters

Muslim characters

Slavic characters

Russian names

Mixed characters

Bilingual characters

Blind or Visually Impaired

Morally grey

Dangerous female characters

Liars

Romance development

Healthy Relationship

Sacrifices

Redemption arc vs forgiveness

Redemption arc trope

Regret / Remorse

Prompts/one-liners

Prompt masterlist

Another prompt masterlist

A third prompt masterlist

Best friends to lovers

Mob Boss

Prophecy of lost child

Super power of truth

Enemies to lovers

Enemies to lovers: Reasons to hate

Enemies to lovers: Getting together

Enemies to lovers Prompts!

Enemies to lovers: Fake dating

Past-life Enemies to lovers

Late-night wandering

Compliments

Touch-starved

Romance/physical intimacy prompts

Romance: little acts of love

Smut

Reputation

Break-ups

More sources

Masterlist: body language, words, translator

Masterlist: prompts, LGBTQ+, NSFW Advice

Meme: fanfiction problems

Mr. Darcy (Pride and Prejudice)

Bechdel Test

Character Ideas:

Character creation masterpost

Character Alignment Chart

More character alignment descriptions

Muslim Character questions

Characters with magical powers

Building a new character advice

How to create a character for an online or tabletop RPG (also a good guide on creating characters in general)

Royalty/nobility TV Tropes page

Basic character profile

OC masterpost

Random character generators - (1), (2), (3), (4)

D&D Character Building Tool

Character Design Ideas:

How clothing affects a character’s personality

Character Design Inspiration blog

Concept art, fan art, cool art to be inspired by

Character design references and inspiration

Sources for POC character design ideas and models

Create your own character model using HeroForge

For horned characters

Body and hair types guide

Random outfit generator

Naming Help:

Amazing site with an endless amount of naming resources

General advice on avoiding naming appropriation

Hispanic Surnames

Gothic Victorian names

Huge master list for character things in general

Masterlist of names of all types - including but not limited to ancient/old world names, Celtic, African, Northern European, Southern and Central American Native names, Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, Polynesian, and more

Another name masterlist

How to pick a character name guide

Yet another names masterlist

Creating Background/backstory:

Character Sheet/Development Sheet

Another character development list

In-depth character personality, motivations and traits sheet

320 talents and passions for characters

On writing likes and dislikes that aren’t frivolous

Why you should write non-human characters non-conforming to the gender binary

Stereotypes, tropes, and archetypes

Random backstory generator

Assassin and thief character tropes to avoid

Character Interactions and putting your character into your world/story:

Comparing character height/height references

Characters who are scientists and writing about them doing science

Describing what different voices sound like

Describing skin tones

Writing friendship interactions that are platonic

Why having one character knock their friend unconscious to prevent them from doing something is a bad idea

Advice on shipping OCs with canon characters and what to avoid doing

Sweet Polly Oliver and Sweet on Polly Oliver situations (think of Disney’s Mulan for an example)

How to write multiple viewpoints/juggling a main cast of more than 4 to 6 characters

How to make readers care about your morally gray hero/anti-hero

On platonic OC and canon character relationships

How to avoid Godmodding in RPs

When it’s cheap to kill off a character

Writing dialogue

Things you shouldn’t do to canon characters

Avoiding purple prose in writing and RPs

Slang resources

Dialogue tips

Websites to chart your story/plot/character relationships

[Please don’t tag any ship]

I WANT TO SEE MERCY BEAT GENJI WITH HER STAFF

Sylvie: What was I thinking trusting you? Has this whole thing been a con?

Loki: Really? That’s what you think of me? After all this time.

In particular “after all this time.” All this time? I appreciate that time moves differently in the TVA, however following Loki and Sylvie’s interactions they couldn’t have possibly spent more than 3 days together, and that’s pushing it.

I have no problem with the time frame in which they developed feelings for one another, I know some people think it rushed, however I think through everything they experienced together it only helped strengthen their bond and speed up the development of their feelings, which is why I think it would have made more sense if Loki said:

<Loki Spoilers in the first two images>

Finally got to doodle some Sylki 💚💚💚💚 I absolutely loved this show and these characters!! Hoping these two reunite eventually and hug (or kiss) it out! Give me a HEA 😭

Did some Sylvie practice sketches! She’s quickly become my favorite MCU Phase 4 character 🥰🥰💚💚 (Definitely gonna draw her again in the future hehe)

Something more self-indulgent >u<

It’s the far-near future, they’re together again and they’re being all gross and romantic now 😝😆💚