Mar 2024
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May 2024
9d ago
Leyelle
May '24

Leia is blackmailing her little brother into caring for himself. While the intentions are good the methods so very much so aren't.

We’re playing that game again. Mom’s pretending to suspect nothing. I’m pretending not to notice that she’s pretending not to notice, while Riley’s pretending to check texts to get out of eating his breakfast.

He’s texting me.

I keep the sound off, watching the text bubbles appear on my blue wallpaper one after another - forcing each other upwards on the screen like little drowning men pushing each other toward the surface.

It feels like we’re playing monkey in the middle - lobbing messages over mom’s head through cyberspace.

“Just cut the act and let’s go. I’ll tell mom we have to leave early so I can find parking, but I’m not helping you out of lunch.”

“Leia…”

I look up and glare at him, so I won’t start screaming.

I’m so sick of being the middleman - girl - the land bridge between the three islands I call my family - trying to play damage control-

But I’d hate saying something even more. I’d hate breaking Riley’s trust, and I’d hate what mom and dad would say and do if they found out.

It has to be better this way, right?

I talk until my face hurts - anytime mom asks a question - just so that Riley won’t have to-

He’s so much worse at lying than I am. But I’ve had more practice.

“Look, if you just eat whatever fruit mom packed in our lunches today, I won’t say anything else about it for the whole day. I promise. Deal?”

He doesn’t look up but I feel his expression quaver with a wash of inexplicable fear so palpable I can almost taste it. I feel sick to my stomach, and the bubbles spam the screen.

(this is available for free for everyone to read on my Patreon public posts

skidiggy
May '24

Ooh, constantly. :joy: One of my antagonists is so needlessly cruel and manipulative that I'm ashamed of him. Every time he adds one more miserably mean thing to the heap of crimes he's committed, it makes me all the more glad that I can mete out a suitable punishment for him in the distant future.

A few other characters have habits that I'm not terribly fond of, but it makes them more real, so I left them in the story. They make choices I wouldn't, have preferences I don't share, and pursue goals I would eschew. It helps with making each character unique and distinctive from one another, and not clones of the author. :wink:

Leyelle
May '24

I totally agree with this. not everyone of your characters should share your ideals IMO, even if they aren't the villains

xd, I think only one hateable character has a vengeance I MAY exact on them planned

skidiggy
May '24

"Why do you write [bad guy] as such a terrible person?"

"It helps me to not feel too badly when I destroy him in the future." :joy:

Leyelle
May '24

Yessss XD.

all I'm saying is that someone may be getting punched in the jaw lol. and it will be so satisfying if it passes the plot point test and makes it into the actual book...

2DLenzy
May '24

Ugh...Public speaking...which Friar does plenty of.
Actually, that's more of a fear/phobia than a dislike. I forget there's a difference.

I also don't like overly-preachy people, which is Friar, but I kinda worry if I'm a little that way myself. Even via words on a screen.

BarBarKetrab
May '24

I guess I just find it kinda funny(?) when a character is a completely unrepentant asshole. I have a few characters like that. The kind who would stab you in the back even after you've fallen in love with them and had a tender moment under the moonlight. And then laugh about it over a beer.

Not to say they don't feel any compassion at all. They do. But here, the backstabbery outweighs any and all altruism.

Black comedy stuff. Quite a few comic strip and early webcomic characters are sorta like this to varying degrees, I've noticed.

22 days later
Leyelle
Jun '24

While I can't entirely blame the female lead for this, because it would be understandably uncomfortable to ask people what they're thinking all the time, she has a tendency to assume people's motivations and why they do the things they do. She's not great at reading and understanding people, and these assumptions are often incorrect, and that obviously leads to her forming negative opinions or at least unpleasant ones that could otherwise be avoided if she talked things at.

14 days later
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20 days later
Leyelle
Aug '24

Mora lies like a lot. Also she straightens her hair, and I don't like the smell of heated hair. Christopher goes for ages without talking to the people around him, which is just an introvert thing, but as an extrovert myself this gets pretty frustrating lol

20 days later
supriyashukla2398
Sep '24

It's My Main Character, Kiet. he stopped Milo's studies and confined him in his mansion. He always tries to control him and Milo is still trying to adjust himself in Kiet's life. That's sad.

Check out my BL novel with forced mafia marriage.

20 days later
5 months later
alontheus
15d

@Leyelle My main character for my core storyline starts out as a very selfish and manipulative person, but I intend to show his evolution into a better person. He is coming from a culture that is very toxic and slowly is exposed to people who are not like that. He remains a bit of an antihero throughout, but he has good intent.

eldritchtroubadour
15d

Yes, they do. Caelan 100% does things I find morally reprehensible several times, both in his backstory and in the current timeline. But that's what makes him interesting in my opinion hahahahaha.

Chapter 14 for instance. It might have been a mistake, but he did hurt the person who he loved the most in the whole world, right when they were at their lowest point in life. He's also ex-special forces, so he had to have some sociopathic tendencies to keep his sanity on that job.

If you want to learn more, why not pop up and give it a read?

Oriflamme
15d

I mean Alex is 100% a war criminal. This includes the violation of the saint petersburg declaration, Multiple violation the first Hague convention and by extension the geneva convention. Some of them were not voluntary, but oopsy daisy is not a valid defense for war crimes. This also extends to Nives, but her crimes are limited to the use of hollow point and explosive bullets.

More importantly from the perspective of the reader, Alex will go pretty near what could be considered domestic abuse, and is the type of person who will not hesitate to kill a dog.

Although my plan is for him to eventually get better.

Lensing
15d

I love to write stories about people who do things that I dislike.
I just started writing some episodes about a guy, one of his hobbys
is internet trolling. It´s really fun to write a character like that and
to imagine what´s going on in a person like that

NGChloe
15d

Definitely, that's the benchmark of good character writing for me. Can I give the characters moments of being unlikeable? If they're always within my boundaries they would get stiff and robotic. That's why I try to push back that bug in my stomach that tells me what they're doing is wrong and say LETS DO THIS!
Like i felt uneasy about implying Setsune used to be racist back in chapter 6's flashback, but it was more humanizing to me to have her affected by the culture where she grew up, even if that was long in the past.