#truly the start of my 'here's a hyperspecific au that no one was asking for' journey | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

acioo · 4 years

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anonymous asked: I was just wondering if you have any ideas on how to get inspired to create characters?? I want some new muses but I don’t really know where to start? And your muses are Exemplary. Tyvm!!

hi, anon ! first of all, thank you so much ! you’re so sweet <3 i thought about this a while & i’ve made a list of things i take inspiration from / ways to get inspired ! also, i got some help by rachel ( @tombraiders ) & ( @laurakinnvy ), so thank those legends for that !

media ( tv shows / films / books / etc ) ― now, there’s a lot of ways to go about this. i’d never suggest taking whole parts of characters ( like, anything hyperspecific, i’d say, for example: your characters parents are scientists living in africa and your character contracts a rare disease that your char's parents cure your char from by injecting your char with a serum that turns your char green and gives your char superpowers AKA garfield logan ). BUT, what i mean, is that it’s very easy to take a singular idea and completely adapt it to a character and turn it into something that’s very different from the og idea but still so much fun. so, make your character the child of the sheriff ( stiles stilinski, teen wolf ), make your character the child of psychic/s ( blue sargent, the raven cycle ), or give your character a fraternal twin ( pines twins, gravity falls ), but run with it in your own way. give it a specific twist that came from you alone. remember to respect other writers, and i would NEVER suggest doing this with your fellow writers in the rpc, but no writer owns the idea of being a demigod, or have superhero family members, or being the child of a senator. if you are watching something, and you’ve always loved a particular detail, then run with it, and give it your own twist. you can develop an entire character by starting with one thing.

pinterest ― one of the first things i do when creating a character is begin their board. my layout is i’ll start pining general things ( clothing, physique, some words ) just to get into the feel of it. once i start getting more deep into a character, i will add sections to their board, all rooted in specific aspects of their lives ( so, for example, a sibling, a significant other, a power, a job ). i’ve even made pin boards where there are sections based on different aus i have for them. it allows me to flesh out the character while also keeping a more big picture view of them ( meaning, how all the aspects and qualities work together to make a dimensional char ), and i can pick up qualities that fit with the character by stumbling on them in pins ( for example, seeing a pin of a dog, giving the character a dog, expanding the relationship with the dog, so forth ). here’s an example of a pinterest board of mine, if you are wondering what i mean exactly ( and with the board, even more examples for sections: future children, family, childhood ).

a single thought ― i took a creative writing class a few years back, and an exercise we went through was posting a list of first lines from books ( here i will name a few, if you wish to try this: i had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen, one summer night i fell asleep hoping the world would be different when i woke, it was a pleasure to burn, all children except one grow up ), and then she made us create an entire character with full background and as many clever aspects as we could ( within the span of forty-five minutes ). she’d also do it for short stories. it was a clever trick of hers to get us to think outside of the box, but it’s also a fun exercise to take forth in. it gives you a start place, but the finish line is wherever you so please. i once wrote a prize-winning short story based on a singular quote ( that being, there is one mirror in my house, from divergent. ) i used the quote “ it was a pleasure to burn “ ( farenheit 451 ) to create a character of mine who loves fire, and has shaped her entire life around it, but has begun to melt. my point being: it is possible and it’s sooo much fun. by the time you get finished ( though i don’t personally believe you should EVER be truly finished in delving into your character. by that i mean, don’t be afraid to change things up, because more often than not you’ll wind up better than you were before. i don’t care if you’ve been writing them for five months, or five years, if you have a thought, like hey what if their mom had a specific job that had an effect, for example, go with it and see where you land after ), you will have a character that should have a relation, but a thin one, to your source, if done properly.

playlists ― playlists are usually something i do after i begin my character, but i’ve ben open to a whole new world by rachel and han, who say they use playlists to create. which, makes a whole lot of sense. i posted specific mood playlists here that are available to help, but i also have something in the works in terms of songs to help, so look out for that. here are some songs that i think would be good in creating characters, or at the very least, starting to create characters: 8teen by khalid, bloom later by jesse, cold by rich brian, devil town by keep for cheap, everybody loves me by onerepublic. to explain further, here’s an example, using happy pills by weathers ( i take my pills and i’m happy all the time / happy all the time / happy all the time ), you could begin by making a character with a mental illness, then go into how they take medication for it, why they got it, and so forth.

real life ― this can be used in a lot of ways. maybe you have dual citizenship, and you can easily give this to a character, and use it to expand them: where do they live, which country do they feel more connected to, etc. or maybe you are funny, so use that: is it a coping mechanism, when did they become funny or were they always. there’s a number of things to include ( and it also sets a really good precedent, because i think one of the MOST important aspects of a character is making them a dimensional being who you could basically pop out of the pages and stick in a house and would reasonably work ): a family dynamic, a sexual orientation, a religion, an anecdote. it’s also a good way to get out feelings you may have, and can be some of the most compelling of writing, but i really do urge you to watch where this goes, because it can get out of hand, and you can wind up upsetting yourself, or creating a character that is a bit of a modge podge and not a painting if you will ( in that the parts don’t all fit together ).

muse inspo blogs ― lastly, muse inspiration blogs are a good way to do this as well. they have numerous tags where you can begin, maybe a label that you can use to fully explain your characters or a dynamic, and then go from there by scrollling through. there’s a number of muse inspo blogs that you can use, and i’m happy to string together a few if you send me another ask. i also have some musing tags, which you can find here.

#rph #rpt #writing #mine: guide #answered #moral of the story IS that i use examples way too much #im honestly not 100% sure how i make chars #they just ... suddenly exist #but i tried my best !#this is lng but i dont want to cut it : (#im sorry dash #long post

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jlf23tumble · 4 years

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i meant other pairings and not 1d i’m kinda bored of them at the moment lol sorry if this is annoying

efinitely NOT annoying! I tend to jump in and out of pairings based on authors, so my recs tend to be a bit all over the place yet narrowly focused on those authors, especially because I tend to jump in and out of pairings as I’m re-inspired/re-watch or as my fave authors write about them. Here are some recent faves (last six months or so), so I hope that helps!

1. Forever in my heart is Napollya (Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin, Man from UNCLE). I read both TV and movie versions, and yes, they have the same characters, but they differ quite a bit??? I tend to prefer the movie, tbh, plus it gave me the gift of wonderful friendship in the form of @alienfuckeronmain and @newleafover, so I vote starting with their fics, which are here and here. I have tons of other faves I can rec if you want a wider variety, but here are my top five.

2. When the first Star Wars sequel or whatever we call it came out, pretty much all my fave TMFU authors drifted straight into the Finnpoe (Stormpilot??) pairing, and I followed right along with them because SO MUCH GREAT FIC. Here’s a list I did for someone a while back, but it doesn’t include one of my newer faves, one that packs so many fic tropes into one piece it’s breathtaking. (Sadly, I find it harder to find newer fic in this pairing that has the same level as four or so years ago--way too much Rylo Ken for me, even MENTIONED).

3. The Witcher has at least three amazing pairings, depending on who you’re asking and whether they’re referring to the show, books, or videogames. Phoenix has written some amazing Geralt/Jaskier, of which this is one. Kim rec’d me some great Geralt/Emhyr, but I think I love this amazing space au the best? That said, there’s an AMAZING cross-fandom author who’s written a bunch of Witcher fic that I’m slowly picking through (I wanna say Terran might have recs for Yen/Geralt, but that’s a wild guess I haven’t followed up on and probably will once I read the books).

4. Speaking of Star Wars, old school Han/Luke is a solid, can’t-miss fic staple. Phoenix has tons of canon, but Blake did a kick-ass punk AU recently, if you want something similar but not exactly in that U (they also did Lando/Luke, which is SO GOOD). Yes, yes, there are other authors apart from these two, but their fics truly do stick, so they’d be where I’d you if you liked other stuff they’ve written.

5. Lightning McQueen/Doc Hudson, and before you scoff, READ THIS. Phoenix pretty much built this pairing, any of her fics for it are amazing, but this one? This is a movie starring Paul Newman and a young Brad Pitt (or some other Hollywood himbo), and it will break your heart while it wins every indie award out there. (Before you ask, yes, they’re humans, zero cars are fucking other cars--what i see on twitter is why I want to make that crystal clear, lmao)

6. I don’t go here yet, but I’m ready to fling myself into the sun that is the Untamed in a few months when I finally work my way through the series (then back over the first few eps to see what I missed and work out all my name issues). No recs yet, BUT YEAH, I feel the pull, definitely rec the show!

I’ll stop here because it starts getting hyperspecific in a way that I’m not sure is actually helpful, but basically, if you like a piece of media, and you feel vague feelings for a pairing, there’s fic for it. I’m being pulled into Columbo of all things because of a blog I follow, and I’ll definitely rewatch and read up. I doubt there’s a ton of stuff out there for that one, but sometimes there’s a LOT of fic for your random pairing, and that’s where the fun starts! Think of all the hockey fic waiting out there, ay yi yi--at any rate, hope this intrigues you, at least!

(p.s. one last suggestion: you don’t need to know ANYTHING about the Hobbit, god knows I don’t, and I edit it, but I cannot stress highly enough how good this one is, modern AU)

#fic rec #so much fic is out there and these are just more recent ones on ao3 #i read random ones on tumblr #i know a lot of people who read a lot of other stuff too if you need even more

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