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shumingtori · 4 years

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50 Character Archetypes!!

Ever not know how to give your characters depth without going too far or not far enough? I’ve made a list of fifty character tropes, some you hopefully haven’t seen before, to try and help. Adding them to any character would immediately spice up how the reader sees them and is sure to make your characters more interesting. So here we go!

“The Whole Plot Happens to Them by Accident so they Learn on the Way”

“The Predestined Hero”

“The Unwilling but Wanting to Do Good”

“Retired Hero Back in Action”

“The Volunteer for the Big Journey”

“The Average Kid Turned Protagonist”

“The Sarcastic Best Friend”

“The Willful ‘Little Sibling’” (Note: does not actually have to be a little sibling)

“The So-Selfless-They’re-Reckless Type”

“The Wants-Recovery-But-Doesn’t-Know-How-to-Get-It”

“The Learned-From-Bad-Experiences Mentor”

“Stays-Strong-for-Others-Not-Self Type”

“Takes Out Conflicts on Others Type”

“Takes Out Conflicts on Others Type, but they feel guilty later”

“Unsuccessful Artist”

“The Unnatural Leader”

“The ‘It’s Never Enough’ Perfectionist”

“The Calculator”

“Expresses Emotions with Actions Type”

“The Trying-To-Keep-Up Type” (Note: Usually used when a character has self-doubts about abilities while in a talented group of people)

“The (usually not listened to) Voice of Reason”

“The Expositionist”

“The More-Than-Meets-the-Eye Type” (Note: Usually used with a character thought to be superficial)

“The New-to-the-World Type”

“The Philosophical Thinker”

“The Worried Caregiver”

“The Overbearing Guardian Figure”

“The Tyrannical Zealot”

“Connects More with Nature/Machines Type”

“The Connections Maker” (Note: Usually used in large city settings with black market/illegal dealings)

“The Storyteller”

“The Calming Presense”

“The Influencer”

“21st Century Tech-Savvy Mogul”

“The Narcissistic Anti-Villain”

“The Arms Dealer”

“The Traveler” (Note: Usually used with characters who make big impacts in peoples’ lives but only for a brief time before leaving) 36!!!

“The On-Top-of-Everything Assistant”

“The ‘At the Top but is Miserable’ Type”

“The Moralistic Murderer/Assassin/Warrior”

“The Angry Parent” (Note: Usually used in a positive way with parents who would fight to the death for their kids)

“The All-Bark-No-Bite Type”

“The Sassy ‘You need me, I don’t need you’ Type” (Note: Usually used with a character the protagonist comes to for help)

“The Bullied Genius”

“The Questionable Scientist”

“The Doomed-from-the-Start Type”

“The Survivalist”

“The Conspiracy Theorist”

“The International Person-of-Interest”

“The Pop Culture Know-it-All”

“The Smiles-in-the-Face-of-Death Type”

Aaaaand, we’re done! Those were fifty character archetypes you might not have thought of before to liven up your characters! Be sure to mix and match or use some traditionally protagonist types for your villain, as well. Good luck, and happy writing!

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shumingtori · 4 years

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*✧・ﾟ WangXian bunnies・ﾟ*:・ﾟ✧

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shumingtori · 4 years

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shumingtori · 5 years

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shumingtori · 5 years

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Have you ever considered how fucking astonishing babies crying is?

The young of other animals don’t make noise, or if they do, barely any at all. Baby birds only start chirping when their parents come back with the food, kittens meow to their mothers because cat communication is extremely subtle and drawing your caretaker’s attention may require a sound when you have eight siblings. At this point, they can already see and walk.

But human babies? Crying is essentially the first willful action that they learn. Months before being able to move on your own, or even hold your own fucking head up, or being able to choose when and where you defecate. Before anything else, a skill more valuable than anything else, is a distress call.

A distress call specifically intended to be impossible to ignore.

Before object permanence or theory of mind, without even an understanding of what help they need, who could provide it, and whether they choose to do so, a human being is capable of expressing that there is something wrong in the state they are in, that they are powerless to correct on their own.

This is what was evolutionarily selected above silent babies that did not attract predators. This is what was selected instead of young who could instantly walk. This is what was selected as the ideal offspring for the human race. Not one that runs. Not one that hides. Not one that can fend for itself. A creature that can communicate, if only the simplest, most inherent message: I need help.

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shumingtori · 5 years

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shumingtori · 5 years

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idk if anyone will find this useful, but this is how i go about planning my stories. i mostly write fantasy, so that’s what this is most applicable to. but it could work with other genres too.

so there’s three major components to a story: the characters, the plot, and the world. creating them individually is the easy part, but they all connect and affect each other in different ways. (like you can’t have a character who loves peaches and eats them every day if they live a peasant in a region that doesn’t grow peaches, for example.)

so i created a cheat sheet to help connect all three components together.

1) the world creates the characters.

this is related to the peach example above. the characters should be a direct result of the environment they grew up in and the environment they currently live in.

2) the characters are limited by the world.

also related to the peaches. characters can’t do anything outside of what the rules of their surroundings and universe allow, such as eating peaches when they’re not available. this also applies for magic users. they can’t have unlimited magic, so keep in mind what you want out of both the characters and the world when creating magic systems.

3) the characters carry the plot.

we’ve all heard it before: “bad characters can’t carry a good plot. good characters can carry a bad plot.” but we all like a good plot anyway. try to make sure you’re not giving your characters too heavy or too light of a plot to carry.

4) the plot pushes the characters.

if nothing in the plot happens, your characters will remain static forever. if you struggle with plots, try starting with what character development you want to happen, then go from there.

5) the plot depends on the world.

you can’t overthrow the evil government if there isn’t one. think of what your world needs most and what your plot is centered around, and fit those two together.

6) the world is changed by the plot.

even if your plot is centered around something most of your world would call “insignificant”, the world will still experience some change from the plot. either the evil government will be gone, or maybe that one teacher is now way more careful about keeping an eye on the test key. either way, the world will be different from now on.

final note: usually people will be able to write one or two of the components with ease, but don’t know where to go from there. i personally can’t write plots, but thinking this way has really helped me actually make a story out of the world and characters because i looked at what i needed from what i had. i really hope this can help you too! happy writing!

tl;dr this is a cheat sheet to help anyone who struggles with writing one or two of what i consider the three major components to a story.

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shumingtori · 5 years

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Look at this cute boy with sparling eyes ✨✦ᐝ.✩⁺˚✧ (o✪‿✪o) ✨✦ᐝ.✩⁺˚✧

#a son #he's so pretty i mean #look at him so beautiful

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shumingtori · 5 years

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Gorgeous Haruki in the Morning ლζ*♡ε♡*ζლ

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shumingtori · 5 years

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This is so relatable, I’m dying.

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shumingtori · 5 years

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I’m a Catholic who is morally opposed to abortion.

But I’m against most legislation against abortion.

Because here’s the thing: Abortion is never going to just go away. It’s never going to stop. Passing harsh restrictions limiting access, banning it all together, it’s never going to magically make women stop having abortions. It’s never going to lead to abortion no longer being a thing that happens.

Abortion has been happening since long before this modern age. The practice dates back to at least 1550 BCE Egypt. Hippocrates, the greek physician upon whose practices the Hippocratic Oath is based, provided abortions. Women got abortions in ancient times when the methods were risky at best and life threatening at worst. They got abortions in Colonial America when the practice was shamed and had to be done in secret. They got abortions before Roe vs. Wade was passed, and they’ll continue to get abortions no matter how many restrictions and bans are put in place.

This is not an issue that can be simplified by putting it in religious and moral terms. It’s not an issue that can be simplified by saying it’s “about life”.

And if your goal is to stop all abortion forever, well… for one thing, you’re looking at the issue all wrong and you’re going to be pushing a boulder the size of the universe up a very steep hill for the rest of time. You’re also ignoring history and statistics if you think that outlawing abortion will make any kind of movement toward that goal.

Illegal abortions before Roe v. Wade were not some kind of rare thing. They were common. Estimates put the number of illegal and self-induced abortions that took place in the 1950s and 1960s between the hundreds of thousands and around one million. And thousands of women died from illegal and self-induced abortions. In 1930 abortion was listed as the cause of death for at least 2700 women. These numbers decreased with the introduction of antibiotics that could fight infections that came from these procedures, but by 1965 illegal abortions still made up 17% of all pregnancy and childbirth related deaths. And those number are almost certainly quite a bit higher in reality as many women who died or became sick as the result of an illegal abortion were not reported as such.

I don’t think a lot people really consider what illegal abortion means. Many just assume that it’s just the same thing that happens in the legal clinics, but it just happens without being protected by law. This is most often not the case. Without legal protections for abortions, doctors who perform the procedure can’t easily get the materials needed to make abortion as safe as possible. And without any kind of oversight to ensure safety that the practice would get were it legal and regulated, the people performing it, whether it’s a well meaning doctor or a person looking to prey on women in desperate situations, are accountable to nobody. There’s nobody making sure they’re safe.

This is already happening. Abortion providers are being shut down at huge rates, leaving some entire states with only one provider, if that. Many women who want an abortion but can’t get one because they’re unable to travel to another state to acquire one (whether it’s because they can’t afford it, they have no transportation, their family situation makes it impossible) aren’t just going to “oh well, I guess I’m going to just have to have it.” Despite popular opinion among anti-abortion advocates, abortion is not an easy choice for most women. It’s not just some easy method of birth control. The rates of abortion throughout history show that, as do many testimonials. If a women wants, or needs an abortion, she’s going to do whatever she can to get it. And if she can’t get one by safe and legal means, there’s a decent chance she’ll get one by any means necessary. Which means either looking to illegal, unregulate, and unsafe providers, or incredibly dangerous self-induced methods.

This is happening now. Further restrictions, more clinics being shutdown, will not somehow magically make it stop.

Before Roe v. Wade, hundreds, and sometimes thousands of women died every year from abortions because they were illegal and therefor unregulated and unsafe. Today, yearly deaths from abortion rank in the 10s. Not the 10s of thousands. The 10s. And yes, some of that has to do with improved technology and methods. But even in 1976, just a few years after Roe v. Wade, death as a result of abortion had fallen to 1 in 100,000. (These are all numbers from just the US. Worldwide numbers tend to follow similar trends.)

Banning abortion does not stop abortion. Safe, legal abortion saves lives.

If you care about life, that is not something that should be ignored. And I continue to stress, nor should the fact that banning abortion will not stop abortion. It never has and it never will. Many countries where abortion is illegal actually show slightly higher abortion rates than those where abortion is legal.

That last sentence is the really important part. Not just because it further shows that banning and restricting abortion does not stop or even reduce abortion, but because it demonstrates a far better alternative if you want to reduce abortion.

No, countries where abortion is legal don’t have lower abortion rates because of some weird logic of “if you can have it you don’t want it”. It because usually, legal and accessible abortion goes hand in hand with accessible and affordable contraception and sexual education.

Abortion isn’t going to magically go away. If you’re opposed to abortion and you’re putting all your efforts toward ending it, you’re fighting a losing battle and ignoring areas that can help abortion rate be reduced. That’s what people who say they they’re for protecting life should be focusing on. Ways to reduce abortion.

Banning abortion isn’t going to do that. Minimizing the number of women who get pregnant who don’t want to be is. That doesn’t happen by telling women not to have sex. It happens by making sure contraception, all forms of contraception are inexpensive and readily available to all women and men. It happens by making sure men and women get comprehensive sexual education before they start having sex. It happens by making sure men and women know how to effectively use contraception before they start having sex. So yes, that means comprehensive sexual education in middle school and high school (at the very least). It’s important for men and women to be educated in the ways both the male and the female body work, how sex and reproduction work for both genders, and exactly how different forms of birth control prevent pregnancy.

It also happens by more support and funding for programs that provide healthcare for women during and after their pregnancies for women who can’t afford it. It happens by support and funding for programs that help and support financially struggling women and parents who choose to keep their baby. It happens by support and funding for programs that provide healthcare for children in low-income families. It can’t be ignored that one of the motivations for a woman to seek an abortion is often not being able to support it. And unfortunately it’s not uncommon for states with the stricter abortion laws to also have the fewest policies in place for these kinds of programs and this type of support.

Abortion is not the beginning of the equation. It’s the result of complex series of events and circumstances, and often those circumstances are things completely beyond the control of the woman seeking and abortion. The problem isn’t solved by outlawing the result of that equation. You have to change the circumstances that lead to it.

The pro-life movement needs to realize that abortion is not something that can be simplified to a one sentence tagline about caring about or protecting life. Not when criminalized abortion leads to hundreds to thousands more losses of life. Not when criminalized abortion does nothing to stop that loss of life. They need to realize that you don’t solve a problem by trying to stop it at the finale step, that you have to go to the root of the problem and start there. And the root of the problem is not that abortion exists. It’s that our country has startlingly poor sexual education for a developed country. It’s that because of that, people don’t know how to use birth control effectively, they don’t know how reproduction and the reproductive system of the opposite gender, and sometimes their own gender, works. It’s because many types of contraception are not as inexpensive and accessible as they should be thinks to things like the Hobby Lobby ruling.

Look outside of your bubble. Do research. Don’t get all of your information for Christian and “pro-life” sources. Be curious. Be skeptical, but also open minded. Look into your sources and make sure the sites/journals/etc. aren’t exclusively a pro-life OR a pro-choice site/publication/etc. I’m not sure there’s any such thing as a completely unbiased source when it comes to things like this, but make sure you’re looking a the most unbiased choices you can find. Think about what being pro-life actually means beyond the usual taglines.

Banning abortion is not “pro-life”. All of the statistics show that to be a fact. If you’re going to call yourself pro-life, you need to look at options that are actually effective and that don’t lead to even more death.

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/abortion/a/ancientabortion.htm https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/banning-abortion-doesnt-actually-reduce-abortion-rates-at-all

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/women-in-countries-where-abortion-is-illegal-just-as-likely-to-have-one-as-countries-where-it-is-a7025671.html

https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2004/01/public-health-impact-legal-abortion-30-years-later

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-a-grimes/the-bad-old-days-abortion_b_6324610.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/03/back-alley-abortions_n_5065301.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julie-burkhart/access-to-contraception-a_b_7595654.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/01/abortion-womens-health_n_5912648.html

http://www.nationalpartnership.org/issues/repro/reports/a-double-bind.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/

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