Omg Omg Omg. It All Makes So Much More Sense When You Realise It's Not Social Anxiety But A Fear Of Being

20 Compelling Positive-Negative Trait Pairs

Here are 20 positive and negative trait pairs that can create compelling character dynamics in storytelling:

1. Bravery - Recklessness: A character is courageous in the face of danger but often takes unnecessary risks.

2. Intelligence - Arrogance: A character is exceptionally smart but looks down on others.

3. Compassion - Naivety: A character is deeply caring but easily deceived due to their trusting nature.

4. Determination - Stubbornness: A character is persistent in their goals but unwilling to adapt or compromise.

5. Charisma - Manipulativeness: A character is charming and persuasive but often uses these traits to exploit others.

6. Resourcefulness - Opportunism: A character is adept at finding solutions but is also quick to exploit situations for personal gain.

7. Loyalty - Blind Obedience: A character is fiercely loyal but follows orders without question, even when they're wrong.

8. Optimism - Denial: A character remains hopeful in difficult times but often ignores harsh realities.

9. Humor - Inappropriateness: A character lightens the mood with jokes but often crosses the line with their humor.

10. Generosity - Lack of Boundaries: A character is giving and selfless but often neglects their own needs and well-being.

11. Patience - Passivity: A character is calm and tolerant but sometimes fails to take action when needed.

12. Wisdom - Cynicism: A character has deep understanding and insight but is often pessimistic about the world.

13. Confidence - Overconfidence: A character believes in their abilities but sometimes underestimates challenges.

14. Honesty - Bluntness: A character is truthful and straightforward but often insensitive in their delivery.

15. Self-discipline - Rigidity: A character maintains strong control over their actions but is inflexible and resistant to change.

16. Adventurousness - Impulsiveness: A character loves exploring and trying new things but often acts without thinking.

17. Empathy - Overwhelm: A character deeply understands and feels others' emotions but can become overwhelmed by them.

18. Ambition - Ruthlessness: A character is driven to achieve great things but willing to do anything, even unethical, to succeed.

19. Resilience - Emotional Detachment: A character can endure hardships without breaking but often seems emotionally distant.

20. Strategic - Calculative: A character excels at planning and foresight but can be cold and overly pragmatic in their decisions.

These pairs create complex, multi-dimensional characters that can drive rich, dynamic storytelling.

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Writing References: Character Development

50 Questions ⚜ Backstory ⚜ Character-driven Story

Basics: How to Write a Character ⚜ A Story-Worthy Hero

Basics: Character-Building ⚜ Character Creation

Types of Characters: Key Characters ⚜ Literary Characters ⚜ Flat & Round Characters ⚜ Morally Grey ⚜ Narrators ⚜ Allegorical Characters ⚜ Archetypes ⚜ Stereotypical Characters

Worksheets: Backstory ⚜ Character ⚜ Kill your Characters ⚜ Antagonist; Villain; Fighting ⚜ Change; Adding Action; Conflict ⚜ Character Sketch & Bible ⚜ Protagonist & Antagonist ⚜ Name; Quirks; Flaws; Motivation ⚜ "Interviewing" your Characters ⚜ "Well-Rounded" Character

Personality Traits

5 Personality Traits (OCEAN) ⚜ 16 Personality Traits (16PF)

600+ Personality Traits ⚜ 170 Quirks

East vs. West Personalities ⚜ Trait Theories

Tips/Editing

Character Issues ⚜ Character Tropes for Inspiration

"Strong" Characters ⚜ Unlikable to Likable

Tips from Rick Riordan

Writing Notes

Binge ED ⚜ Hate ⚜ Love ⚜ Identifying Character Descriptions

Childhood Bilingualism ⚜ Children's Dialogue ⚜ On Children

Culture ⚜ Culture: Two Views ⚜ Culture Shock

Dangerousness ⚜ Flaws ⚜ Fantasy Creatures

Emotional Intelligence ⚜ Genius (Giftedness)

Emotions (1) (2) ⚜ Anger ⚜ Fear ⚜ Happiness ⚜ Sadness

Emotional Universals ⚜ External & Internal Journey

Goals & Motivations ⚜ Grammar Development ⚜ Habits

Facial Expressions ⚜ Jargon ⚜ Swearing & Taboo Expressions

Happy/Excited Body Language ⚜ Laughter & Humor

Health ⚜ Frameworks of Health ⚜ Memory

Mutism ⚜ Shyness ⚜ Parenting Styles ⚜ Generations

Psychological Reactions to Unfair Behavior

Rhetoric ⚜ The Rhetorical Triangle ⚜ Logical Fallacies

Thinking ⚜ Thinking Styles ⚜ Thought Distortions

Uncommon Words: Body ⚜ Emotions

Villains ⚜ Voice & Accent

More References: Plot ⚜ World-building ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

where can i find works that critique the porn industry and beauty industry that doesn’t come from radfems

Well, I happen to agree with radical feminists generally about beauty culture and the porn industry haha. Radical feminists aren't inherently trans exclusionary! I identify as a radical feminist and I believe trans people have a right to bodily autonomy, just like Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon!

But, let me make you a list, just off the top of my head:

Pornography: Men Possessing Women by Andrea Dworkin: a classic and Dworkin is a former sex worker so I trust her takes on this stuff more than most others

OnlyFans Is Not a Safe Platform for ‘Sex Work.’ It’s a Pimp. by Catharine MacKinnon: Twitter leftists got furious at this article so clearly it's good

‘Sex without consent, I suppose that is rape’

"Talking to my Students About Porn" by Amia Srinivasan from her book, The Right to Sex, which apparently great although I haven't gotten around to reading it yet

Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality by Gail Dines

The Age of the Instagram Face by Jia Tolentino: I find Jia personally annoying but this piece is good

Everyone is Beautiful And No One Is Horny by RS Benedict

Emily Ratajkowski and the Burden of Looking Perfect by Carrie Battan

Appearance as a Feminist Issue by Deborah L. Rhode

The Skincare Con by Krithika Varagur

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf: she's gone off the deep end but this book is classic

Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters by Courtney E. Martin: this book triggered my eating disorder recovery tbh

That should get you started!

Tender, Subtle Ways to Show a Character Cares

For the characters who will literally die before saying it out loud, but their body and habits scream devotion.

Letting them walk on the inside of the sidewalk

Memorizing their coffee order

Keeping extra gloves/scarves/snacks just in case they forget theirs

Texting: “Are you home safe?” instead of “I miss you”

Tucking their hair tag in

Offering the last bite, even if they really wanted it

Taking mental notes on what makes them nervous or happy

Saying “Call me if you need anything” and meaning it

Sitting close enough that their shoulders brush

Keeping an umbrella in their bag. Just. In. Case.

Being the first to notice when something’s off

Defending them behind their back

Refusing to let them feel dumb, even for a second

Remembering little details from a single offhand comment

Turning down the music when they walk in without asking

How to Write a Sick Character

╰ First of all — being sick is boring as hell

Nobody tells you that. You think it’s gonna be poetic and tragic and emotionally moving, maybe a few tears on the windowpane and a soft piano soundtrack? Wrong. It’s pacing in a waiting room for two hours to be told to come back next week. It’s reruns of trash TV because your brain fog is so bad you can't even process a podcast. It's Googling "why do my bones hate me" at 3 a.m. and finding nothing helpful, only vibes. So if you're writing a sick character and every scene is Deep and Heavy and Symbolic, I love you but no. Let them be bored. Let them be over it. Let them fall asleep halfway through someone’s big speech.

╰ Second — sickness is basically a toxic relationship with your own body

And wow, the drama is unmatched. One day your character wakes up and thinks, “Maybe today will be normal.” Their body: “Plot twist, bitch.” Now they’re sweating through a hoodie, canceling plans, and pretending they're “just tired” because explaining the truth is somehow more exhausting than the illness itself. Let your character hate their body sometimes. Let them feel betrayed by it. Let them mourn the version of themselves that used to just do things without needing a three-day nap after. But also—let them fight for their body, too. Advocate. Adapt. Try again. Because it’s not all despair. Sometimes it’s really freaking brave just to get out of bed and put on pants.

╰ Third — it’s not cute

Hollywood loves to write illness like it’s an aesthetic. Clean blankets, sad smiles, a gentle cough. Yeah… no. Sometimes it’s vomit in your hair. It’s medical tape pulling off skin. It’s being too tired to shower but still scrolling through memes like your life depends on it. Give us the gross stuff. The embarrassing stuff. The human stuff.

╰ Fourth — let them be funny

Sick people are hilarious. Mostly because we have to be. You’ve got two choices when your body is a disaster zone: laugh, or fully unravel. So we joke about our failing organs. We flirt with the nurse while on IV fluids. We name our medical devices. We send memes from the ER. Let your character joke. Let them be sharp, sarcastic, absurd. Not because they're “taking it well,” but because that’s their armor. Humor is one of the most honest forms of pain. Use it.

╰ Fifth — sick ≠ broken

Please hear this: your character is not less than. They are not just here to suffer and die and inspire others with their angelic perseverance. They’re a person. Maybe a chaos goblin. Maybe a genius. Maybe a mess. Maybe a lover, a fighter, a giant emotional raccoon with a heating pad. Let them live and have goals. Let them chase things. Let them screw up. Let them be loved and desired and complicated. Their illness is part of them, not all of them.

╰ Lastly — don’t wrap it up too clean

Recovery isn’t linear. Some illnesses don’t “end.” And that’s okay. You don’t need a miracle cure in the third act. Sometimes strength is just learning to exist in a different way. Sometimes it’s re-learning how to hope. Sometimes it’s finding a new rhythm instead of forcing the old one to work. Let your character find peace, not perfection. So yeah—if you’re writing a sick character, you’re doing something important. You’re making space for people whose stories rarely get told with truth and teeth and tenderness. Just promise me you won’t turn them into a symbol. Let them be a person. A funny, scared, strong, exhausted, hopeful person. Like the rest of us.

@katrein05 I Hope This Helps a little... :)

Small romance things that make me go FERAL

A very totally incredibly non-delulu list by Writerthreads

arm/shoulder/waist/SMALL OF THE BACK touches

HANDS BRUSHING, BUT TOO NERVOUS TO DO ANYTHING MORE

calling them by their name ("What's your opinion on this, X?") (they way they say their name makes their heart do funny things)

the way their voice goes heavy/breathy

CHIN RESTS ON THEIR SHOULDER

whispering into their ear and the way their breath tickles

non-affectionate nicknames just for them

recognising their laugh and trying to make them laugh just to hear it again

little private smirks/winks, watching their reaction when someone makes a joke

sniffing their hair/recognising their on their shampoo

eye contact so deep they feel like sinking

SMALL PECKS ON THE CORNER OF THEIR MOUTH/CHIN/FOREHEAD

recognising the sound of their footsteps

co-existing in the same space, acknowledging their presence and feeling safe

CARESSING THEIR CHEEK WITH THEIR THUMB

recognising their nervous ticks and comforting them, like putting a hand on their bouncing leg

tracing scars, freckles, moles, lines of their muscle, you name it (SCREAMS)

grinning when they blush

watching with pride as the other does a presentation/leads a mission/takes charge

making up private signals for each other

HAND KISSES

NECK KISSES

playing with their hair/brushing their hair/braiding their hair

Ah, love. That lingering warm, fuzzy feeling in your chest. I love love.

the thing abt the people defending that rape game is that they are genuinely misogynistic and are peddling both rape culture and blatant misogyny but they're dressing it up to sound like it's a matter of censorship when it genuinely isn't. you people are just so ROTTED by porn that you think that the abuse, intimidation and subjugation of women is "normal"; it's no secret that the porn industry (ie pornhub, brazzers, etc) peddles this shit so much that you think that rape is normal.

and fandom has contributed to that by, again, normalising it and making it seem as if it isn't outright inherently harmful to glorify, sexualise, and make porn of people's worst trauma; you sit in an echo chamber where rape porn is normal for long enough, and you begin to take on that belief yourself - the same way that if you spend a lot of time around people who enjoy rugby or football, you begin to enjoy the sport yourself.

what you people are saying is incel shit, to put it nicely.

you're sat there saying it's FINE for a man to make an entire game to get off on thinking and behaving like a rapist (and be rewarded for it), and that if women don't like it, then they're somehow evil fascists as opposed to, yk, not misogynists and not rightfully worried about games like that when we live in a world where Andrew Tate is platformed and upheld for his beliefs that abusing and raping women makes you a man. a world where the president of the United States is a rapist.

a world where people like Nigel Farage (who is an actual fascist) outright work with white men who are known abusers of women but then claim that they care abt women & girls just to push more hatred upon immigrants and people of colour and Muslims.

a world where the porn industry can make thousands of videos where women don't outright consent, where corrective rape of lesbians is abundant, where where incest is treated as a NORMAL FUCKING THING as opposed to sexual abuse as the result of grooming.

bc the fact is that you people who fucking defend shit like No Mercy and other depictions of rape as something to get off to, you don't give a fuck about women. you don't give a fuck about rape survivors. you only care about your ability to get off and to wank over people's worst trauma. THAT is what you care about.

you see all those women on tiktok, Facebook, Instagram, twitter, bluesky, Tumblr, whatever fucking social media you use - you see them fucking telling you that shit like No Mercy is wrong, and that it's inherently harmful and that it's misogynistic, and you do not give a fuck.

you only care about your fucking sexual libido, not who the fuck you are harming.

you can harp on about fucking "fiction doesn't equate to reality" and yeah, it DOESN'T. but fiction doesn't exist in a vacuum either, and there's no way that this game was not the product of a misogynistic man who wanted to spread and peddle misogyny as a whole, the same way that pornographic films do when they MAKE incest, corrective rape, and rape films. it doesn't exist in a fucking vacuum, and if you cannot be critical and evaluate where and HOW a fetish is presenting itself, then not ONLY are you peddling anti-intellectualism, but you're also contributing to misogynistic rhetoric and actions bc what you're doing is you are normalising and enabling these kinds of things, even exposing them to children (as Steam, especially, does NOT have ID-verification for age ratings).

do you genuinely think that games like RDR, Fallout, GTA, etc - all of which satirise these things and genuinely make you feel bad abt committing violent/bigoted actions - are ANYWHERE near the fucking Rape Simulator game?

the people who fucking defend games like No Mercy claim that they care MORE abt "real people", but the matter of the fact is that they DON'T. bc if they DID, then they'd be listening to the DOZENS (if not hundreds!) of women across social media who have VERY CLEARLY stated why and how games like No Mercy are DANGEROUS. are TRIGGERING. are VILE and sickening, esp in this day and age where women are subjugated to that kinda bullshit, be it rape threats or rape porn itself, 24 fucking 7 thanks to social media.

you people are fucking disgusting for turning around and outright mocking the (VERY REAL) women who are calling for this game to be banned. bc it SHOULD be. a fucking rape simulator game should hold NO PLACE in society whatsoever under any circumstances.

you people who defend that shit are fucking misogynistic, vile, little cunts.

and just so we are clear: if you are a TERF & see this post, you lot are also misogynistic and vile assholes and do not belong within this conversation either. you peddle the exact same rhetoric against trans women, so frankly, go fuck yourselves and stay away from this post.

edit: TERFs & radfems go fucking kill yourselves. you put trans women (& ALL women) in fucking danger w your misogynistic, Nazist, views. you lot are literally fucking COUSINS w the people supporting this game.

It is incredibly important to train yourself to have your first instinct be to look something up.

Don't know how to do something? Look it up.

See a piece of news mentioned on social media? Look it up.

Not sure if something is making it to the broader public consciousness, either because you don't see it much or you see people saying nobody is talking about it? Look it up.

Don't know what a word means? Look it up.

It will make you a better reader and a better writer, but it will also just make you more equipped to cope with the world.

So often, I see people talking about something as though it is the first time anyone has ever acknowledged it, when I've been reading reports about it on the news for months or years. Or I see someone totally misinterpreting an argument because they clearly don't know what a word means--or, on the other hand, making an argument that doesn't make sense because they aren't using words the right way.

Look things up! Check the news (the real news, not random people on social media)! Do your research! You (and the world) will be better for it.

Write Tension that isn't just Yelling or Guns

Listen, not all tension is someone holding a knife or screaming “I’ve had enough, Derek!” at a dinner party. Real, edge-of-your-seat tension can be quiet, slow, awkward, and still make your reader grip the page like it owes them money. So here are my favorite ways to sneak tension in like a gremlin under the bed...

╰  Unanswered Questions (That the Character is Actively Avoiding)

Tension isn’t always about what’s said—it’s about what’s not said. Let your character dodge questions, interrupt, change subjects. Let readers feel the silence humming between the lines. + Great for: secrets, internal conflict, emotional gut-punches.

╰ Time Pressure Without Action Pressure

A clock ticking doesn’t always mean bombs. Sometimes it means waiting for a test result. A letter. A phone call. A knock on the door. Tension = knowing something’s coming but not knowing when. + Great for: psychological suspense, horror, relationship drama.

╰  Small Talk That’s Not Really Small Talk

When two characters are talking about the weather, but both are secretly screaming inside? That’s tension. Give one character a goal (say the thing, don’t say the thing) and the other a defense mechanism. Now sit back and watch the discomfort bloom. + Great for: slow burns, rivalries, “we’re not talking about that night, are we?”

╰ Two Characters Who Want Opposite Things But Are Pretending They Don’t

Someone wants to leave. Someone wants them to stay. Someone wants to confess. Someone is acting like nothing’s wrong. Make your characters polite when they want to scream. + Great for: emotionally repressed chaos, family drama, enemies-to-lovers.

╰ One Character Realizes Something The Other Doesn’t

A power shift = instant tension. One person knows the truth. The other’s still talking like everything’s fine. Let that dread slow-cook. Readers love being in on the secret. + Great for: betrayal, secrets, foreshadowing plot twists.

╰ Body Language That Contradicts the Dialogue

They say “I’m fine,” but they’re picking their thumbnail raw. They laugh too hard. Their smile doesn’t reach their eyes. Show the cracks forming. Let the reader sense the dissonance. + Great for: all genres. Especially emotionally loaded scenes.

╰  Echoed Phrases or Reused Words That Hit Differently the Second Time

When a character repeats something someone else said—but now it’s laced with bitterness or grief? Chills. Callback dialogue is your best friend for building subtle dread or emotional weight. + Great for: heartbreak scenes, arcs coming full circle, psychological unraveling.

╰ Characters Performing a Role to Keep the Peace

Pretending to be “the good sibling.” Faking confidence in a boardroom. Playing therapist when they’re not okay themselves. Tension thrives when someone’s holding it together with duct tape and fake smiles. + Great for: internal conflict, layered characterization, slow unravelings.