#creatives agency

[writingwithfolklore]

Character Agency

Your characters should have agency. That means they have the power to influence what’s happening around them. We talked a bit about agency last time, revolving around how many female characters get agency stripped away from them. But overall, agency is important for any character to make them active participants in their own stories and feel necessary to the plot.

              So here’s how you enable your characters agency:

1. They make active decisions

Okay this is the obvious one in theory, but still manages to sneak by in stories undetected. An active character with agency makes things happen through their decisions, instead of just their reactions. Take these two examples of a scene plan:

John is walking home when he is caught by a sudden storm. Looking to hide from the rain, he ducks under the cover of a bus shelter. Inside is Mya, and they strike up a conversation about their shared sucky situation.

Vs.

John is walking home when he is caught by a sudden storm. Luckily he brought an umbrella in his bag, and draws it out. Then, he sees Mya getting drenched by the rain ahead of him. He jogs to her, offering to share the umbrella. They strike up a conversation.

In the second example John isn’t just reacting but making a choice that’s changed something in the world. He may just happen to run into Mya, but it was his decision to run up to her, to offer her his umbrella. This action is a great indicator of his personality—he’s kind, trusting, and thoughtful even towards strangers.

That’s the most important part. A character who just reacts to everything doesn’t show off any personality, whereas action lets you demonstrate who your character is at their core (especially in difficult situations that call for difficult decisions).

2. Their actions have consequences

Similarly, the decisions your active character makes aren’t really decisions if they don’t impact any part of their world. For good or for bad, every decision your character makes should have a consequence. This could be shown through their relationships with others, their environment, or even their own mental, physical, or spiritual state.

If we’re going from the example above, John sharing his umbrella with Mya maybe starts their friendship, but her jealous, toxic boyfriend sees them through his window, making her and now his life difficult.

It’s a decision that has multiple consequences throughout his life—a new friendship, and also a new enemy. And Mya is also facing consequences—from her decision to walk with him, and his decision to offer her the umbrella.

Make sense? How do you ensure your character has agency?

#writing #creative writing #writers #writing community #screenwriting #writing inspiration #books #filmmaking #film #writing advice #character agency #main characters #side characters #active characters #active vs passive characters

[nr1-logo-design-inspiration]

Geometric bear logo design 🐻

Get your professional design services! Contact & details at:

[email protected]

#bear #teddy bear #care bears #forest #business #logo #illustration #artists on tumblr #creative #art #startup #small business #investing #geometry #visual communication #agency #uiux

[searchsystem]

Edoardo Benaglia / Friendz Creative Agency / Exers / Typography / 2021

#edoardo benaglia #friendz creative agency #exers #typography #2021

[hufflepuffwritingstuff2]

Pen's Song-Story Writing Challenge Extravaganza Submission!

@alilbatwrites your song was "The Law" by Reach, here is a snippet based on that!!

When Hero got back to the league from saving the city, they had expected celebration, or at least a thank-you. What they got instead was… eye-opening to say the least. They opened the doors to a bunch of stone-faced, enhanced superiors.

“Uh…what?” Hero asked, confused, “did I cause collateral damage again? I thought I was careful this time!”

“It isn’t that, Hero,” Superhero started.

“You took Supervillain down in under two minutes,” another super stated.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Hero joked.

When they received no response, Hero faltered.

“It…it’s not a bad thing, right?”

“Hero, you know our League is here to keep the nation’s peace,” Superhero said, “and to eliminate security risks.”

“Well, yeah, I’d day I did pretty good out there,” Hero said, “so why do you all seem upset?”

The sound of footsteps behind them made Hero’s head turn. Two league agents put a hand on each of Hero’s shoulders.

“Superhero,” Hero asked nervously, turning back to face their superior, “what’s going on?”

“We took a risk letting you roam free with your powers of energy manipulation,” Superhero said, “your abilities have grown to an incredible strength, and now the risks outweigh the benefits. I’m sorry, Hero.”

As Superhero spoke, one of the agents jammed the end of a needle into Hero’s neck. Hero cried out in pain, feeling ice flood their veins.

“So that’s it- you’re just going to get rid of me because I’m too good at my job!?” Hero asked desperately, feeling their limbs turn to lead.

“Your powers will only increase exponentially from here,” another league member said, “if we don’t contain you now, we’ll never be able to stop you if you become a threat.”

Hero tried to wrench themselves from the agents’ grips, but they held them fast. Hero’s knees buckled just as a wheelchair with padded restraints came into view.

“Take them down to Containment Level 3,” Superhero ordered.

“N-no,” Hero slurred.

Hero felt themselves be lifted into the wheelchair. Straps tightened across their body just as their vision began to fade. Their head sank down into their chest as the drug sucked them under.

…

When Hero awoke next, they thought maybe the events from earlier were just a bad dream. Maybe Supervillain had defeated them, and they would wake up in the med bay with Superhero by their bedside. Hero opened their eyes to a stark white room. They looked down at their form and found that they had been stuffed in some kind of straight-jacket suit, the buckles going all the way down to their ankles. Hero jerked upright, trying and failing to free themselves. They tried to call on their power, but their movements were sluggish, and their energy barely materialized.

Hero fought back the tears that brimmed in their eyes. They had figured if they ever did get captured, it would be by some criminal, never by their own team, the people they fought beside every day. Now their team- their family- had them drugged up and restrained in a cell just like those criminals they had been taught to fight. When they couldn’t fight them any longer, Hero let the tears fall with a choked sob.

“Hey,” a voice echoed.

Hero looked up, sniffling. The door opened, revealing a league agent.

“What do you want?” Hero asked bitterly.

“Seriously?” the league member demanded indignantly, “I come all this way to save you and-oh. Right. The outfit.”

The league member unbuttoned their uniform to reveal a familiar, dark suit underneath.

“Villain?” Hero asked in disbelief.

“Duh,” Villain said, “saw what you did out there with Supervillain. That was pret-ty impressive. But I knew your precious league wouldn’t like it. So here I am.”

Hero remembered the stories Superhero had told them about Villain, how they had abandoned the league years ago. They remembered the late-night, rooftop conversations with Villain, about how the league wasn’t what they seemed.

“Are you going to say, ‘I told you so’?” Hero asked dejectedly.

“Nah, you’ve been punished enough,” Villain said, “come on, let’s get you out of here.”

Villain worked to free Hero from their restraints. They pulled out a syringe filled with liquid.

“This is gonna counteract the junk they’ve pumped in your system,” Villain said, “the car’s outside waiting. We can be out of the city limits in an hour… unless you’d like to torch this place first?”

Hero shook their head, holding their arm out for Villain to administer the antidote.

“I just wanna go,” Hero said.

“I gotcha,” Villain said, helping them up, “leave the torching to me then.”

…

Villain drove off, Hero in the passenger seat, the league base ablaze behind them.

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Tags: @mythixmagic @infinityshadows @fishtale88 @thelazywitchphotographer @the-beasts-have-arrived @princessofonwardsworld @surplus-of-sarcasm @memepsychowhowantsuperpower-blog @thepenultimateword

#pen's song-story writing challenge extravaganza #the law by reach #the law #hero x villain #heroes and villains #corrupt superhero #corrupt league #corrupt hero agency #writeblr #writing #creative writing #whump #snippet #drugging #captivity #rescue #arson

[tatmanblue]

No zoom by European Space Agency Via Flickr: This image shows a globular cluster known as NGC 1651. Like the object in another recent Picture of the Week, it is located about 162 000 light-years away in the largest and brightest of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). A notable feature of this image is that the globular cluster almost fills the entire image, even though globular clusters are only about 10 to 300 light-years in diameter (NGC 1651 has a diameter of roughly 120 light-years). In contrast, there are numerous Hubble Pictures of the Week that feature entire galaxies — which can be tens or hundreds of millions of light-years in diameter — that also more or less fill the whole image. A common misconception is that Hubble and other large telescopes manage to observe wildly differently sized celestial objects by zooming in on them, as one would with a specialised camera here on Earth. However, whilst small telescopes might have the option to zoom in and out to a certain extent, large telescopes do not. Each telescope’s instrument has a fixed ‘field of view’ (the size of the region of sky that it can observe in a single observation). For example, the ultraviolet/visible light channel of Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), the channel and instrument that were used to collect the data used in this image, has a field of view roughly one twelfth the diameter of the Moon as seen from Earth. Whenever WFC3 makes an observation, that is the size of the region of sky that it can observe. The reason that Hubble can observe objects of such wildly different sizes is two-fold. Firstly, the distance to an object will determine how big it appears to be from Earth, so entire galaxies that are relatively far away might take up the same amount of space in the sky as a globular cluster like NGC 1651 that is relatively close by. In fact, there's a distant spiral galaxy lurking in this image, directly left of the cluster — though undoubtedly much larger than this star cluster, it appears small enough here to blend in with foreground stars! Secondly, multiple images spanning different parts of the sky can be mosaiced together to create single images of objects that are too big for Hubble’s field of view. This is a very complex task and is not typically done for Pictures of the Week, but it has been done for some of Hubble’s most iconic images. [Image Description: A spherical collection of stars, which fills the whole view. The stars merge into a bright, bluish core in the centre, and form a sparse band around that out to the edges of the image. A few stars lie in front of the cluster, with visible diffraction spikes. The background is dark black.] Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Girardi, F. Niederhofer; CC BY 4.0

#NGC 1651 #ESA #European Space Agency #Space #Universe #Cosmos #Space Science #Science #Space Technology #Tech #Technology #HST #Hubble Space Telescope #Galaxy #Supernova #NASA #Creative Commons #Stars #Star #Globular Cluster #flickr

[peacefulsundown]

An old drawing from a few months ago!

#ranpo edogawa #bungou stray dogs #drawing #sketch #armed detective agency #creativity #cute #fandom #candy #bsd ranpo #illustration #exciting #artists on tumblr

[kmbrlei]

03. BUD

OF THUNDER & LIGHTNING | 01. BOUQUET | 02. BLOOM | 03. BUD

In a world where pop media meets military power, an outdated login system fails to recognize a new employee.

(Side comic to Of Thunder and Lightning)

#of thunder and lightning #comics #indie comics #will i do the last side comic before another year passes? only time will tell #i know the main general appeal of ot&l is homoerotic violent enemies tension but i'm out here like #what if existential office drama about identity agency and creative labor under capitalism instead #offers u the visual equivalent of a cryptic word smash of ouroboros and a story from my 1st grade class - that's the same right #annoyed that i misremembered which side bud's prosthetic is on so when i corrected it #all the panels that were supposed to make it clear obscured it instead sldkjsljdlssssurgh

[charliejaneanders]

My latest newsletter is about "agency." When you say characters "lack agency," you're relying on western notions of rugged individualism and conflict.

Instead, I try to look at "authority" — meaning that a character is an expert on their own life.

#newsletters #writing #creativity #writers #writers of tumblr #books #agency #culture #politics #hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

[happywebdesign]

ALET

#ALET #agency #design #creative #production #studio #Copenhagen #Denmark #portfolio #typography #type #typeface #font #Work Sans #Silk Serif #2024 #Week 14 #website #web design #inspire #inspiration #happywebdesign

[pocketramblr]

AU game 1! 5 headcanons for an AU where Tamaki is (inexplicably) a vegetarian, and the Quirks he manifests from eating all his veggies leads him to intern with Kamui Woods instead?

1- Tamaki is a vegetarian because when he was very little and it first manifested, he grew chicken feathers and was so terrified that he was actually turning into a chicken that would be killed and eaten too, he never touched any meat again. This is in spite of his mother having the same quirk as him and telling him that won't happen, but anyway. Instead he uses vines for reach and thorns for attack

2- his hero name is still Suneater, from Mirio's suggestion, and his hero costume is similar, but kinda leans more "forest elf" I guess- green accents instead of purple. Tamaki is relieved when Kamui Woods approves of him wearing a mask that fully hides his face, instead of a transparent visor.

3- Tamaki takes some supplements due to being vegetarian, including iron. This means he's able to manifest iron as a shield, but tends to only do it as a last resort because it really upsets his stomach. Kamui Woods saw this one time and asked if he could manifest other things not just plants, and had he tried meat before? Tamaki panics and bluescreens while saying he can't, leading Kamui Woods to believe that in a trade-off for his quirk, Tamaki can't even digest meat, let alone manifest anything.

4- Kamui Woods is an interesting mix of private and public- keeps a lower profile from his current home and life, but also had a documentary about his apparently horrible childhood made. Tamaki approves of the former, but not the latter, so while Kamui is a great mentor for fighting technique and rescue strategy, he's not quite getting through to him about any publicity.

5- In his second year, Tamaki and Kamui were on patrol after school when a sludge villain attacked a middle schooler, who caused several fires in retaliation. Kamui Woods was unable to get close due to the flames, and Tamaki prioritized rescue over combat, meaning he was running low on any food by the time he turned to consider fighting Sludgy. Then another middle schooler ran out in front of him and tried to help, and then All Might showed up, and Tamaki held it was the most terrifying day of his life for over a year.

+1- (Until the day he's called in to talk to 1A, which he was happy to do instead of going to his internship, which has been different since Kamino and Kamui rocketing up in the rankings, Tamaki does not like change and he likes the publicity increase even less, and he sees those two middle schoolers again, in that class All Might teaches sometimes, and they're asking him too many questions and scowling at him and they were there that day and at Kamino and here now, and nope, they're cursed, he's not dealing with that, he's out of here, Nejire let go of his arm, he wants to go to 1B and get the vine girl to join the internship to take the focus off him, please no Mirio he just wants to leave-)

#first year Tamaki: oh good my friends got an internship with a top ten hero and all might's old sidekick. good for them. so glad i just got #a local musutafu hero with a plant quirk and can chill #second year Tamaki: haha yep my friends are learning so much and going so fast. wait. what do you mean big three #third year Tamaki: NO NO GO BACK WHY AM I AT A TOP TEN AGENCY TOO. THAT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN #dhfjg creative au i like this idea... #and i like the idea of a woodsier kinda costume. leaning into the elf thing.... #shih shoulda had it #pocket talks to people #ask game

[hallofwisps]

“After show shenanigans”

this drawing/redraw is rlly old but I never posted

#ace attorney #my art #taani's art dump #apollo justice #trucy wright #athena cykes #anime #wright anything agency #digital art #meme redraw #trucy used these lobsters in her show #now they’re being creative #hallofwisps

[writingwithfolklore]

Do well by your female characters

              Back in film school you wouldn't believe the amount of scripts I read from my (mostly male) classmates that featured the same character; a kind, helpful woman reflective of the male protagonist who showed up when he needed her to offer warm words and support, allowing him to overcome obstacles and go for what he needs.

              I hope she doesn’t sound familiar to you.

              One of them was a coworker, another a train station attendant, another the best friend who lived next door—it didn’t matter, they were all the same character, uninvolved in their own lives, created to help a man get to his goal. Let’s be wary of this trope, and stop robbing our female characters of their own agency. We can do this in a few ways:

1. They aren’t convenient

One confusing fault of the female characters I read in my peers’ scripts was that she was always around right where the protagonist needed her to be. It didn’t matter if he was having a crisis in the alleyway, or by the museum, or in his own house, she’d show up like she’d been summoned.

She needed a place to be—a life outside of him. A job, school, hobbies. Sometimes when he needs her—she shouldn’t be there.

2. They have an actual personality

While being warm, kind, supportive, and empathetic are all admirable traits people do have, I’ve never met a real person where that’s all they were. Like building any character, she needs flaws, interests, something to her that isn’t just for other people’s benefit. Consider what traits she has that aren’t just ways she serves others.

Allow her something just for her. Something selfish.

3. They have and work towards a goal

Related to her not being convenient—she’s got her own thing going on. Like any other character, she has goals and objectives, motivations, something to work towards. As much as she supports the protagonist, she also takes from him to fulfill her own goal.

Give her wins, disappointments, a little something going on. Something to gain from her interactions with him.

              What else bothers you about common female character tropes? Or what did I miss?

#writing #creative writing #writers #writing community #screenwriting #writing inspiration #books #filmmaking #film #writing advice #female characters #writing female characters #mary sue trope #character agency

[nr1-logo-design-inspiration]

Whale logo for a digital media agency ☆

#whale #fishblr #fish #ocean #sea world #underwater #blue #digital art #digital media #digital marketing agency #seo services #development #logo #illustration #small business #artists on tumblr #creative

[save-the-villainous-cat]

I LOVE YOUR WRITING

Second time requesting and I'm gonna ask for grumpy villain and sunshine hero once again. No ofc I'm not obsessed with that trope.

Hero having a really ugly and scary nightmare. Villain visits them even though it was very late (maybe because it already became a habit to check if hero was ok but never admitting it) and they try their best to wake them up gently.

But hero was so scared that for a moment when they woke up, they mistake the villain for the [inserts terrifying random person] from their nightmare? and obviously, the villain trying to calm them down (maybe ends up with a soft kiss or reassuring words)

Again, I really admire you. You have such a talent for writing I love you.

The villain learnt the hard way that a rather aggravated hero could be unpredictable. They were just breaking in (dropping by) to annoy the hero (check on them) and make sure that their night was going terribly (peacefully).

With all the pressure from the agency and the hero’s promotion from last month, their nemesis was a bit too stressed for the villain’s liking.

They had gotten more aggressive, blurring the line between justice and brutality. The villain hated it. Not only two months ago, the hero was a sunshine who’d cheer them up and who was afraid to punch them.

Now, their little hero was a stressed killing machine that was drilled to take orders.

“Whoa, it’s just me,” the villain said as the hero threw another pillow at them with presumable high speed. “Calm down, sweetie.”

The villain caught the pillow and grabbed the hero’s wrists. It was dark. Pitch black.

And yet, the villain knew exactly where their hands were. The hero however, continued to struggle, started even kicking, panting.

The villain would’ve rolled their eyes if the situation wasn’t so scary to them.

“Sweetie…” The villain got on top of the hero and pressed them into the white sheets. “Calm down. It’s just me.”

Slowly, the hero stopped fighting and the villain turned on the soft lights of the lamp on the nightstand.

What they revealed shattered the villain’s bones.

The hero lay under them, hair all messy and they were a crying mess. They looked shocked, as if they’d seen a ghost. Their pretty cheeks were wet from the tears and they sobbed quietly. They were panting. They were freaking out.

“Christ…” the villain mumbled. “What happened?”

They got up from the hero and sat down next to them on the bed but the hero turned their face away from them, avoiding eye contact.

“Are you here to rob me?” they asked quietly. “To murder me?”

“Sweetie. What?” The hero wasn’t themselves anymore. They trembled. They hesitated. What had happened to the bright and bubbly hero who’d get excited about flowers growing through concrete?

With their finger on the hero’s jaw, they turned the hero’s head to look at them.

“I thought you were someone else,” the hero confessed suddenly.

The villain was perplexed. They wanted to keep up that persona of being tough. That they didn’t care about them. But this wasn’t funny anymore. The villain had watched this for too long now.

They took the hero’s hand gently.

“Talk to me. Please. I don’t recognise you anymore.” The villain was so frustrated they could’ve started crying as well. They just wanted their sweet hero back. They were the only good thing in their life. “You’re not supposed to suffer like this.”

“It was just a nightmare…”

“No. This has been going on for two months now. That promotion is killing you.” They cupped the hero’s cheek and brushed a tear away with their thumb. “The agency is killing you.”

“I was killing you in my dream,” the hero confessed. “It was so realistic, I—”

The hero didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, they started crying again.

“Hey,” the villain whispered. “You’re not going to kill me. Just sleep for now, okay? We can worry about everything else in the morning.”

The villain wasn’t really good at giving reassurance. The words were always stuck in their throat.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” the hero said. “I feel so lost. I’m so alone. What is happening to me?”

The villain squeezed their hand.

“You need a break. That job is killing you. Let me take care of this, okay?”

They were about to get up but the hero pulled them back onto the bed.

“…can you stay?” The villain’s cheeks heated up. And they hated (loved) it.

“Yes,” they answered, their breath hitching. But still. They hadn’t hesitated.

The next day, the hero’s superior didn’t show up to work though. Nor did they show up the day after that.

Or on any other day.

#why is the agency always bad in my snippets lmao so creative #writing snippet #heroxvillain snippet #heroxvillain prompt #heroes and villains #hero #villain #heroxvillain #hero x villain #request #an answer for an ask

[epickiya722]

I will always be amazed at the fact that Horikoshi decided to give Burnin yellow-green fire hair that she can pull chunks of it off to throw at villains and make shapes out of those chunks. She also uses her fire hair to fly.

And carries fire extinguisher, something I have yet to see a fire user to have in hand. I don't recall that being a detail for anyone.

#love that for her #green fire hair that she can throw at people? NICE #some of the more... strange quirks i prefer over others #like if you gonna have a fire user be creative #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #just kiya's thoughts #burnin #burnin mha #burnin bnha #kamiji moe #moe kamiji #flamin sidekickers #endeavor agency #❤️‍🔥💚🧯

[deepwaterwritingprompts]

Deep Water Prompt #2896

Before we can formally join the agency, we are sent to ‘the apartment’. Twenty spies, ten killers, one hundred normal college students. And, five police recruits with a shot at glory. 

#creative writing #writing prompt #dwp #secret agency #secret agent