Here, take these

fake marriage dialogue ੈ✩‧₊˚

♡ “why did it have to be you?” “what do you mean?” “why did i have to fake it with you?”

♡ “in name only?” “if that is truly what you want.”

♡ “husband, fetch me the remote.” “this is not becoming a thing.” character gets the remote anyway.

♡ “where is your ring?” “oh i left it on the nightstand, i didn’t think you’d care.” “i don’t.” (they care very much.)

♡ “just because we are technically married does not mean we are sleeping in the same bed!”

♡ “i am doing everything i can to remember that you shouldn’t matter to me, to remember that this is all fake, and i am failing tremendously.”

♡ “where are you going?” “to my room?” “our room is that way.”

♡ “i always thought i would marry for love, this is not what i wanted for myself.”

♡ “home sweet home, mrs. (character A’s last name)” “i did not agree to that!” character B screams.

♡ “you were just supposed to be a convenience.”

♡ “don’t worry you will only have to tolerate me for 8 more months, then we can go our separate ways.” “what if i don’t want us to go our separate ways?”

♡ “heck, we do make one good team.”

♡ “hm, i guess you will have to do.” “excuse me?”

♡ “this has got to be the worst decision of my life.” “didn’t you go skydiving without a parachute?”

♡ “i don’t like dogs.” “well too bad, me and mr. bean are a package deal, this was your idea after all.”

♡ “will you marry me again?”

♡ “it has never been fake to me.”

Writing Insanity And The Descent

From @differentnighttale we have : "How do you write a character's slow descent to madness?"

"Also hi ,been a while." Sorry, for that. I've been trying to be a little bit less chronically online and little bit less reliant on external validation and the dopamine boosts of replies, mentions, and likes so I stopped for a while.

But I am here! In this post, we'll cover what insanity is, how to write it, and some examples!

A) What Is Insanity?

Insanity is traditionally described as a total seperation from reality with an inability to distinguish between reality and fiction. While this is rarely used in criminal and definitely not used in psychology, it's a term used frequently in literature to describe certain examples of unreliable narrators, which are characters that, in cases of insanity, are mentally incapable of giving an objective summary of the real-world story as it is objectively happening, and often times, the antagonist or tragedy.

Insanity in stories, but not necessarily in real-life so don't use it as an example of real-life people since the symptoms I'm going to be discussing are possessed by real, lovely people, is often shown through:

B) How To Write It

This depends on who the character is. When it's the pov character experiencing the 'slow descent into insanity', it gives the writer more opportunities to include subtle hints at the character's slipping away from the sane coil but there is a specific format that tends to follow the 'slow descent into madness' storyline.

3. Subtle Signs. This depends on how the madness impacts them, themes, the cause, and whole host of factors. It can be an enlightening thing that causes them to start doing outwardly happy things like getting into art and other passions, it can be working hard at their job, or it can be a certain enjoyable impulsiveness like asking out that barista. However, it can also start off a bit bag. Like Harry Osborn's irritability causing a short fuse. It can be Hamlet's paranoia and anxiety. In general, expect small signs of anxiousness, impulsiveness, mania, a return to an almost childish state, tiredness, and flights of fancy

4. The Desire. Or More. If the desire hasn't come up, this is where it will. If it has, this is where is expedites. The character will wish to engage in their desire more. They may obsess over the long lost love of their dreams that they always thought as gone but with this new confidence, they think they can steal them away from their husband. They may be fired from their job and think they can get their dream job. They may steal something to pay for somethings. OBSESSION STARTS HERE!

5. The Reveal. They may never get it completely revealed, if you want it to be ambigious but you tend to have the big "this person ain't well moment" in stories that throw into question past scenes. Joker (2019) had the reveal that a character wasn't even there half the time so that threw into question everything else. The character may meet their desire and be thrown into direct conflict with the real world's discrepancies. They may be re-traumatized. They may remember a grand secret. They may do a horrid crime.

6. The End. Typically, a death at their own hands, a death at another's hand, jail, death in general, disappearance, an almost spiritual enlightenment, epiphanies about the world, or a fantastical 'too good to be true so it's probably made up by an unreliable narrator' ending for this character.

C) Examples

Here's a story example I'm making up at the top of my head.

A corporate office man is nearing the peak of it's life, about to ripen and fall away to let the younger work force near it's peak, and how does he do it? Balancing those snot-nosed kids meddling in his jobs, annoying coworkers, with his wife's underwhelming cooking. A boring life for a not-so boring guy, hoping to be rescued from the life he was forced onto. He wanted to be an artist but love doesn't pay the bills. One day, feeling the call of God, he goes to a cafe and seredipitously meets his old highschool sweetheart, recently engaged to the knob of the week with a weak chin and nice face, who practically owned the art club. She invites him to an new photography class she's doing but he declines and takes his black coffee. A promotion later and barely any money to get buy with the only thing to show is his wife's dry meatloaf, a kid's new braces that he gets gum caught in everyday, and his daughter's 'coming of age'.

Feeling stressed, life got nothing ahead. He goes to a clas, maybe two, maybe three. "At least I ain't spending it on alcohol, unlike your 'friend', dearie". How does he do it? A wife's divorce. Death on the mind but the Sweetheart's in his heart! Spending the days, grinding them into nothing like the barista he gave his number to, how could he do that, now she thinks he doesn't like him? He spends the day away and when he sees bruises on his sweetheart's arm, he charges up to the mansion fortress and makes a fight. His sweetheart cries and runs away and the husband is defeated, the boring white corporate office man saved the day!

But suddenly they are moving, leaving away. The husband is taking his sweetheart away, his true love, his promised forever, they promised to marry, they kissed, she gave herself to him and he won't let his apple ripen without her by his side. So he defeats the dragon, the princess in his arms, sleeping forever. He needs a true love's kiss to wake the princess sweetheart but when tries to, it doesn't work. He can't believe it until he sees the mirror, a fat white guy in his 40s, how could she love him? So he paints a new portrait, of him as a beauty, of him in highschool when he peaked, quarterback, art club, no wife, no kids, no fat, all brains, no sweat, no spreadsheets, no boss, no job. It doesn't work. So he tries again to capture it, capture him before he falls, before he ripes. He's an apple, ripe, about to fall, capture him in a picture. Another picture to save the princess. Another, and another, and another, and another, saving time, preventing the apple from getting ripe.

The princess is asleep and the office man is trapped in a cave with guards around, handcuffs on like a dragon, and he's fallen, he's riped past his prime, no one would capture him.

(sorry for the bad story at the end but for some actually good examples of characters going mad. The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Hamlet, The Joker (2019), A Streetcar Named Desire, Gone Girl, Lolita, Fight Club)

Genuinely I think one of the best things you can do to build characters in your story is give them a kink. You do not have to put that kink in the story. You do not have to tell anyone but yourself. But thinking about their wants and needs and what would bring them comfort or desire, about whether they crave power or crave a situation where they're blessedly free from any power, about which taboo they might kind of want to cross, is really useful for getting inside their head. Also "what situation would make my character stupid horny enough to make a terrible mistake?" is a good plotting device. "It's a plot hole that they made that dumb decision" no they were just whistling like a lustful kettle and forgot to turn their brain on.

The MICE quotient [extract]

I was reading How to write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card and decided to share the section on the MICE quotient because it's really worth it. I've selected the relevant parts to make it easier and more efficient for you to read. For those interested in the whole book, I found it on Archive.org (it's a pdf and free). I DID NOT WRITE ANY OF THIS - IT'S ALL COPY/PASTE FROM THE BOOK MENTIONNED ABOVE. I SIMPLY SHORTEN SOME PASSAGES

I think the best piece of character design advice I ever received was actually from a band leadership camp I attended in june of 2017. 

the speaker there gave lots of advice for leaders—obviously, it was a leadership camp—but his saying about personality flaws struck me as useful for writers too. 

he said to us all “your curses are your blessings and your blessings are your curses” and went on to explain how because he was such a great speaker, it made him a terrible listener. he could give speeches for hours on end and inspire thousands of people, but as soon as someone wanted to talk to him one on one or vent to him, he struggled with it. 

he had us write down our greatest weakness and relate it to our biggest strength (mine being that I am far too emotional, but I’m gentle with others because I can understand their emotions), and the whole time people are sharing theirs, my mind was running wild with all my characters and their flaws.

previously, I had added flaws as an after thought, as in “this character seems too perfect. how can I make them not-like-that?” but that’s not how people or personalities work. for every human alive, their flaws and their strengths are directly related to each other. you can’t have one without the other.

is your character strong-willed? that can easily turn into stubbornness. is your character compassionate? maybe they give too many chances. are they loyal? then they’ll destroy the world for the people they love.

it works the other way around too: maybe your villain only hates the protagonist’s people because they love their own and just have a twisted sense of how to protect them. maybe your antagonist is arrogant, but they’ll be confident in everything they do.

tl;dr “your curses are your blessings, and your blessings are your curses” there is no such thing as a character flaw, just a strength that has been stretched too far.

This is such a fabulous flip side of what I’ve always known about villians. That their biggest weakness is that they always assume their own motivations are the motives of others.

This is brilliant!!

there are some things a character should not be able to tell us about themselves EVEN with a gun to their head. depending on the character that could even expand to include "most" things

and then there's things a character CAN but WON'T tell about themselves because frankly they'd rather get shot than show/admit to that side of themselves

there are some things a character should not be able to tell us about themselves EVEN with a gun to their head. depending on the character that could even expand to include "most" things

i'm talking "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink" territory. "i've constructed an elaborate rube goldberg machine of plot to force this character to have precisely the realization about themselves that i want them to, and i'm only maybe 60% sure it'll work" territory. "the deity of their choice reveals it to them in a dream and they wake up and say, 'no, that can't be right,' and promptly forget about it" territory.

Another worldbuilding application of the "two layer rule": To create a culture while avoiding The Planet Of Hats (the thing where a people only have one thing going for them, like "everyone wears a silly hat"): You only need two hats.

Try picking two random flat culture ideas and combine them, see how they interact. Let's say taking the Proud Warrior Race - people who are all about glory in battle and feats of strength, whose songs and ballads are about heroes in battle and whose education consists of combat and military tactics. Throw in another element: Living in diaspora. Suddenly you've got a whole more interesting dynamic going on - how did a people like this end up cast out of their old native land? How do they feel about it? How do they make a living now - as guards, mercenaries? How do their non-combatants live? Were they always warrior people, or did they become fighters out of necessity to fend for themselves in the lands of strangers? How do the peoples of these lands regard them?

Like I'm not shitting, it's literally that easy. You can avoid writing an one-dimensional culture just by adding another equally flat element, and the third dimension appears on its own just like that. And while one of the features can be location/climate, you can also combine two of those with each other.

Let's take a pretty standard Fantasy Race Biome: The forest people. Their job is the forest. They live there, hunt there, forage there, they have an obnoxious amount of sayings that somehow refer to trees, woods, or forests. Very high chance of being elves. And then a second common stock Fantasy Biome People: The Grim Cold North. Everything is bleak and grim up there. People are hardy and harsh, "frostbite because the climate hates you" and "stabbed because your neighbour hates you" are the most common causes of death. People are either completely humourless or have a horrifyingly dark, morbid sense of humour. They might find it funny that you genuinely can't tell which one.

Now combine them: Grim Cold Bleak Forest People. The summer lasts about 15 minutes and these people know every single type of berry, mushroom and herb that's edible in any fathomable way. You're not sure if they're joking about occasionally resorting to eating tree bark to survive the long dark winter. Not a warrior people, but very skilled in disappearing into the forest and picking off would-be invaders one by one. Once they fuck off into the woods you won't find them unless they want to be found.

You know, Finland.

#every so often#fantasy authors just spontaneously reinvent finland#like how nature has to periodically make a crab

peer-reviewed tags via angryonabus

So, let me guess– you just started a new book, right? And you’re stumped. You have no idea how much an AK47 goes for nowadays. I get ya, cousin. Tough world we live in. A writer’s gotta know, but them NSA hounds are after ya 24/7. I know, cousin, I know. If there was only a way to find out all of this rather edgy information without getting yourself in trouble…

You’re in luck, cousin. I have just the thing for ya.

It’s called Havocscope. It’s got information and prices for all sorts of edgy information. Ever wondered how much cocaine costs by the gram, or how much a kidney sells for, or (worst of all) how much it costs to hire an assassin?

I got your back, cousin. Just head over to Havocscope.

((PS: In case you’re wondering, Havocscope is a database full of information regarding the criminal underworld. The information you will find there has been taken from newspapers and police reports. It’s perfectly legal, no need to worry about the NSA hounds, cousin ;p))

Want more writerly content? Follow maxkirin.tumblr.com!

Assassins

“Below are selected prices that are paid to professional assassins by criminal organizations and drug cartels for a contract hit.

In Australia, the median price to hire a hit man is $13,610 (9,800 Euros), with the price going up to $83,000 (60,000 Euros) based on the task.

In Mexico, the cost for a low level assassin is $208 (150 Euros), and up to $20,832 (15,000 Euros) for a higher profile target like a police chief.

The prices paid in Argentina are between $3,749 (2,700 Euros) to $5,555 (4,000 Euros) per hit.

Government statistics in Spain state that 40 assassinations take place each year, with prices for the hit ranging between $27 (20 Euros) to $69,000 (50,000 Euros).”

So cheap! I always thought things like this would cost more than $1 million…

This is super useful to know!

and not just for writing!!

@katherine-rose

HOLY FUCK

HOW MANY HOURS HAVE I WASTED TRYING TO FIND HEROIN PRICES ON THE INTERNET WHAT A GREAT DATABASE

I needed this

Actually useful. Sometimes incognito isn’t enough.

and suddenly my life just became much easier

I’ve heard of this before but the GIFs made it better 

the suffering never ends

This is the real process

Resources for you!

Character Ideas:

Character Design Ideas:

Naming Help:

Creating Background/backstory:

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

Bonus art masterlist!

BLESS EVERYONE IN THIS POST.

Oh my God!

It’s amazing, some links aren’t working for me but those who are, are spectacular.

Reblogging because NAMING IS HARD

!!!!!!!

"Do I have to keep working with her?"

"You're the one she tolerates the most."

Body Language

When someone is...

Sad

Face/Body:

Voice:

Gestures/Posture:

Helpful!

sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four

For anyone who needs this

!!!!

Tips for writing flawed but lovable characters.

Flawed characters are the ones we root for, cry over, and remember long after the story ends. But creating a character who’s both imperfect and likable can feel like a tightrope walk. 

1. Flaws That Stem From Their Strengths

When a character’s greatest strength is also their Achilles' heel, it creates depth.

Strength: Fiercely loyal.

Flaw: Blind to betrayal or willing to go to dangerous extremes for loved ones.

2. Let Their Flaws Cause Problems

Flaws should have consequences—messy, believable ones.

Flaw: Impatience.

Result: They rush into action, ruining carefully laid plans.

3. Show Self-Awareness—or Lack Thereof

Characters who know they’re flawed (but struggle to change) are relatable. Characters who don’t realize their flaws can create dramatic tension.

4. Give Them Redeeming Traits

A mix of good and bad keeps characters balanced.

Flaw: They’re manipulative.

Redeeming Trait: They use it to protect vulnerable people.

Readers are more forgiving of flaws when they see the bigger picture.

5. Let Them Grow—But Slowly

Instant redemption feels cheap. Characters should stumble, fail, and backslide before they change.

Early in the story: “I don’t need anyone. I’ve got this.”

Midpoint: “Okay, fine. Maybe I could use some help. But don’t get used to it.”

End: “Thank you. For everything.”

The gradual arc makes their growth feel earned.

6. Make Them Relatable, Not Perfect

Readers connect with characters who feel human—messy emotions, bad decisions, and all.

A bad decision: Skipping their best friend’s wedding because they’re jealous of their happiness.

A messy emotion: Feeling guilty afterward but doubling down to justify their actions.

A vulnerable moment: Finally apologizing, unsure if they’ll be forgiven.

7. Use Humor as a Balancing Act

Humor softens even the most prickly characters.

Flaw: Cynicism.

Humorous side: Making snarky, self-deprecating remarks that reveal their softer side.

8. Avoid Overdoing the Flaws

Too many flaws can make a character feel unlikable or overburdened.

Instead of: A character who’s selfish, cruel, cowardly, and rude.

Try: A character who’s selfish but occasionally shows surprising generosity.

9. Let Them Be Vulnerable

Vulnerability adds layers and makes flaws understandable.

Flaw: They’re cold and distant.

Vulnerability: They’ve been hurt before and are terrified of getting close to anyone again.

10. Make Their Flaws Integral to the Plot

When flaws directly impact the story, they feel purposeful rather than tacked on.

Flaw: Their arrogance alienates the people they need.

Plot Impact: When their plan fails, they’re left scrambling because no one will help them.

Flawed but lovable characters are the backbone of compelling stories. They remind us that imperfection is human—and that growth is possible.

Small fantasy worldbuilding elements you might want to think about:

I’ve done about half of these myself in one WIP or another and a little detail here or there goes a long way in reminding the audience that this isn’t Kansas anymore.

To celebrate 4 total members of the FMA Oc community (a truly HISTORIC number that will never be forgotten (￣▽￣)ゞ ) I decided to make these templates so that present (and future new,) members could use them to introduce their Ocs! Quick tutorial time! To change the colour of the Gradient background version, adjust the 'Hue' value of the image to the colour you'd like. If you don't have image editor programs/art programs on your computer/phone I can recommend Photopea! (Small tutorial for those who might not have used this program/aren't experienced with similar programs: Click 'Image', go to 'Adjustments' and then 'Hue/Saturation, it will open a slider menu where you can adjust the hue and saturation to your liking!)

These are free to use even if you're not part of the group/community & even outside of Tumblr (with credit) if you want! (+ I would love to be tagged if you use it!! I love seeing people's characters! :D )

The Full Res + No 'Name here' versions are below the cut!

But wait!!! You who seeks the template... before you venture there... Know I only have one request... [If you want the template, you can continue below the cut now...]