#best guess is attention economy stuff and like. sorry to be rude.

[gothicprep]

I try to avoid opening facebook unless I’m sufficiently bored to tears, and it seems like each time I do, my feed is just flooded with makeup tiktoks. huh?

the ones that gave me the most pause are “cheap vs expensive” and “cheap” is like $72. are you on coke? are you coked up? I’m not going to snitch. I want an explanation.

[lovingikesen]

Character Configuration

Hi! I have seen a lot of post with tips to help you writters make better stories and characters, even though i dont write i still find it fun, its just my energy and focus goes for drawing and animating rather than writting, but still on University i have two semester of writting script where we create characters, whole stories from 0 and cool stuff. My boyfriend study to write movies -and any type of visual content- so i have learn a lot from him too.

They teach us a basic way to create characters that we call 'torta de cuatro', i guess that it would be something like cake of four. Its really simple, when you are creating a character you have to think of four aspects of them, these would be:

Their social life: how they interact with others, how is they life after school, job, etc, how they are socially, are they shy? Are they extrovert? They love having an active social life or prefer to be more quiet? Do they make friends easily? Or have just a few. How are they when hanging around with their friends and how they try to make friends, if they do not try to make them, then why? Did they have a friend that traition them? Or what. Things like that.

Their family: how is the family of the character, it has siblings? They get along well? Or they hate each other. Did the mom die? Alright, then why? And how that affect your character? It has daddy issues? Fine, but why? Their parents care about them? Are they overprotective? Or really dont care and only pay attention to their personal issues.

Laboral aspect: do they work? On what? Its happy with that? Or wish to have another job. If thats the case, what job is their dream job? And why that one and why it doesnt have it yet, because cant find it? Because it feels like it will be bad on it? How is the economy of that character? You know, like rich? Has trouble to make it trhough the whole month? Or isnt poor but isnt the best neither? You character doesnt work because is still on high school or in university? Okey, then write about it, how are their grades? Goes to class consistentily? Or it does skip them? And why.

Personal aspect: how they are when they are alone, in they privacy, like they true-self. When they doesnt have to put a mask on their faces to show it to somebody else, how are they.

A good example to analyze would be Helga Pataki, she is really rude when it comes to her social life, really dominating person, a little bit bully with Arnold. Her best -probably only one- friend, the one that goes everywhere with her is Phoebe, but still the rest of the group know how rude she is so they are kind of used to it so they still play with her but ignore it when she start to being annoying.

She has a sister which she doesnt like, and they dont get along for more that her sister try to make her love her, Helga just doesnt like Olga, but why? Because their parents freaking LOVE Olga, and everything that Helga does their parents ignore it because they only have eyes for Olga, the 'perfect daughter'. She almost doesnt see her dad since he is always busy working on the company and he is pretty bad with her mom too, remember when her mom wanted to work but the dad says no because she is a woman and cant work because of that? Her mom has show in some chapters to have problems with alcohol too, depression and keep fighting to keep herself conscious. A pretty disfunctional family.

Helga doesnt work since she is still on school, but we know that she is pretty average when it comes to grades, she isnt exceptionally great and neither the worst. Maybe we could attribute that to the fact that it doesnt matter how well she do something for school Olga definetily made it better? Maybe she is lacking of incentive from her parents? She is just makig trhough it.

Personal aspect! I love Helga when she is alone, she is another person, she is sensitive, she does care of people -particulary Arnold-. So we have this character that is show to the people around her as rude and doesnt care about what happen to the people around, but she does! She cares, especially about Arnold, she always try to help him in the shadows, she worries A LOT for him, i mean, THE GIRL HAS A FUCKING ALTAR FOR ARNOLD WITH A STATUE MADE OF CHEWING GUM, HOW MANY OF THOSE SHE CHEW TO MADE THAT? xD and why she has such devotion for him? Because he was the first to care of her, when they were really tiny and arnold say to her that he liked the pink bow on her hair, the boy made her a sweet compliment and share his umbrella with her while her parents didnt give a fuck about her, so of course she will be happy when a boy with a funny head shape treated her better than her own parents.

Im sorry, my fingers slipped xD but i think you get the point! EVERYTHING on a character has a reason to be, no one is mean or 'evil' just because of reason, they have a reason to be like that. So when you do your cake of four for your character you will have a guide of how your character will react to situations that they are in.

Another thing that helps and its good its to make a backstory since the minute they were born to the exact time where the sory begins. That will help you to create more complete characters since you are writing their whole life. It will help you to think how your character reacts to the different situations that you are putting the poor boy/girl on it. You have a character that its old, wise and powerful? Like Gandalf, Dumbledore, Netero (hunter x hunter)? Great! You have a lot of backstory to write, why and how they become that wise? Probably they went through a lot of things to become that.

Your antagonist that is 'evil'? Snape for example? We all know that he wasnt evil at all and where nothing but a cinnamon roll but the things that happened to him made him take the role of the villain to protect Harry. Meruem? The king of chimera ants? Yes, he is an overpowerful character since his birth, but still there's a reason of why he was born with such power and because of that he saw humans as weaks, fragiles and not worthy until he meets Komugi and have a beautiful arc on his character. Killua? The one that at first people sense him as dangerous since his family history? But we learn inmediatily that he is just a kid trying to enjoy his childhood as a normal kid, and Gon is the one that teachs him that and thats why he is SO loyal to Gon, always caring and protecting him? If you see the version of 1999 you will see that at first Killua its really this dark kid who didnt laugh, he doesnt feel like just a kid until he began to spend time with Gon and discover that he can enjoy and play like a kid too. And dont make me start with Zuko because i love him so much and if i keep going we will never see the end of it xD

The point is configurate correctly your characters and it will be easier to imagine how they will react and it will actually make sense to the lector. I hope this help you to something, i keep seing tips for writters and wanted to share something if its worth for you. Keep writting people, you all are amazing.