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In a previous post, I stated that the term “unlikable character” is usually a misnomer, and I think it should be swapped out for more descriptive alternatives. However, there are certain things that make me dislike a character so much that it's distracting. This series examines some examples of those situations.

Title: God's Gift to Humanity

Description: This character has a grand total of two vaguely positive qualities, acts like a snake, and yet everyone seems to think they’re the best thing to happen since the wheel was invented.

Clarification: This character hasn't leveraged their wealth, charisma, or looks to come off as a better person. They don't divert attention away from their less desirable traits. They've never done or offered anything to win people over. They're just magically loved by everyone, except there is no magic, because this is just bad writing.

Why It's An Issue: In the real world, whether through altruism or deceit, you have to earn people's admiration and attention. It's distracting to read a story where no one questions or explains why an objectively terrible character is seen as a saint.

What To Do Instead: This character needs to earn their reputation. We need to know why people like them and how they prevent people from questioning their bad behavior.

Developing your characters is very important. I see fictional characters as people that only exist on page and in art. They should feel real, human.

Know your characters like you are their closest friend.

Developing characters is more than just a tragic backstory, strengths, and weaknesses. It's knowing their desires, passions, interests, hobbies, and small habits. It's knowing their demeanor and how it shifts in different scenarios and others.

Personally, I believe that characters should be as real and complex as real people.

See you soon?

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.

⭒ A character starts reading books the other person mentioned months ago in passing, just to have something to talk about next time.

⭒ Two people develop an elaborate system of inside jokes that no one else understands, building their own private language.

⭒ One character realizes they've memorized the other's schedule and actively avoids examining why they know it so well.

⭒ Someone starts wearing a specific cologne/perfume because the other person once said they liked that scent on someone else.

⭒ A character finds themselves telling stories differently depending on whether the other person is in the room, performing for an audience of one.

⭒ Two people always end up as the last ones talking at parties, neither one willing to be the first to leave.

⭒ One character keeps almost-gifts in a drawer at home, things they bought thinking of the other person but were too afraid to give.

⭒ Someone starts taking a longer route to work because it passes the other person's building, just for the possibility of a glimpse.

If William S. Burroughs wrote Percy Weasley, he would strip away the "earnest bureaucrat" trope. Instead, Percy becomes a terminal patient of the Ministry, a man whose nervous system is hardwired into the bureaucratic machinery of the state. He does not want to work for the government because he is ambitious; he wants to work for the government because he is terrified of the void. He sees the Ministry as the only thing preventing the world from dissolving into a chaotic, unorganized smear of biological rot.

In a Burroughs-style narrative, Percy’s ink-stained fingers are not just signs of hard work. They are the stains of the transmission, the physical evidence that he is slowly being digested by the filing system.

Burroughs would treat the narrative not as a linear tale, but as a series of intercepted transmissions, cut-ups, and recurring, hallucinatory images of societal rot. The protagonist is not a person with a "soul" to be saved; they are a recording device, capturing the static and the nightmare of a world that is fundamentally broken.

The Burroughs Blueprint for Your Fic:

I recently got into bookbinding, and I was really excited to do a Twilight-themed project. So what better book to rebind than Dracula?

My middle-school-self would be happy to know that all those hours practicing the Twilight font did not go to waste. I did the title in silver nail polish, which was nerve-wracking, but it ended up looking very bright and sparkly. The author and pull quote on the back were done with paint markers. The rosary on the cover is a glossy paper with a slight shimmer to it that doesn't show up well on camera.

I wanted to incorporate blood splatter somewhere, but still keep the minimal aesthetic of the original covers, so I opted for the suggestion of blood drops in the rosary beads, and tiny blood drops in nail polish over the d and l of the title that kind of look like fangs.

The endpapers are taken from an out-of-circulation (har har) library book about the circulatory system that had really cool pictures of blood cells. I used scraps from the endpapers for the endbands. And I had the perfect red ribbon for a bookmark to finish it off.

The second (and positively delightful) fic by @theopteryx that I've finished binding, as well as the first book I've done with leather! With the Indiana Jones-esque story, I really wanted to do a book bound in brown leather... and so I finally caved in purchasing a bunch of leather and some leather working tools and paint for leather bookbinding. I also in classic fashion of remaining true to the images I've cooked up deliriously in my brain decided I wanted to have a stone set in the center (also cardinal to the story) to further complicate matters (as well as doing cordage on the spine). I also rummaged through an old box of semi precious stones from my childhood, and to my delight found one that would work, although it certainly was not flat on one side; which is why I set it within a raised platform after also trimming part of the way through the cover bookboard as well, but I quite like the little elevated platform it is now on. Overall, I really enjoyed the process and am quite pleased on how it turned out, and am excited to continue to do leather bookbinding. As it was my first time working with leather, I've certainly learned a few tricks in which I'll apply to later books, as occurs whenever learning a new medium.

Can Never Wrong This Right (23.5k, E)

Written for the hc_bingo challenge, for the square of 'forced soul-bonding.'

This ficbind is a gift for a friend who requested it, but I read it before I bound it and it was amazing! Definitely recommend it. Binding details underneath the pics. It's a really enthralling fic where Jason Todd and Tim Drake get sucked into a situation where they have to rely on each other and develop an understanding while their family deals with their loss. All the Batfam feels and emotional trauma of a tortured past, basically.

Amazing typeset by @sammialex who also did her own awesome bind of this one!

Who knew that me being a bumbling bumpkin and accidentally breaking @sibylofthebes immaculately placed rock in ACNH would lead to being added last minute to the second (annual? 👀) Animal Crossing x Dramione/HP Exchange hosted by @thebinderwholived

(For the record, Sibyl I’m sorry about that. 🙏🏻 Forgive please?)

And then bam. Next thing I know, I draw @floralbearies , one of the very first binders I ever followed. No biggie. No stress for my bind to be immaculate or anything. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. I said it’s FINE! 🫣

A Marriage Of True Minds - Lomonaaeren

Dust Jacket: ACNH screenshot from my lovely island and @pinkbowbindery coming in clutch for the outfits and the extra character for Draco. And yes, she assisted me in this endeavor while in a cast, with a broken bone from our Seattle trip. So who’s the real MVP here?

Cover: designed with the animal crossing leaf 🍃 as the main focus and octopus 🐙 tentacles (peep the little sea creatures) because of the violent, soul devouring tentacle like tendrils of dark creature magic crazy that Harry has to deal with in the fic. Is it a stretch? Meybeh. But it was a good design element. 🤷🏼‍♀️ really relying on the “green leaf” to pull this “into theme”.

🪡 Hand sewn end bands - chaos is always part of the process.

Fonts: Yes I tracked down the ACNH fonts for the cover and chapter headers.

📝 I made a little DIY recipe notecard to hold my fancy typewriter note, a boarding pass full of embarrassing typos, Polaroid photos, and some stickers and a magnetic bookmark. (I couldn’t get it out of my head that this exchange was due on the 20th and I totally messed up ALL the dates. 🤪 Early is better than late right? Sorry Beth for giving you heart attacks.)

Oh, and if you can’t tell. They flop. 🤤