HOW TO WRITE A CHARACTER WHO IS IN PAIN

HOW TO WRITE A CHARACTER WHO IS IN PAIN

first thing you might want to consider: is the pain mental or physical?

if it’s physical, what type of pain is it causing? — sharp pain, white-hot pain, acute pain, dull ache, throbbing pain, chronic pain, neuropathic pain (typically caused by nerve damage), etc

if it’s mental, what is the reason your character is in pain? — grief, heartbreak, betrayal, anger, hopelessness, fear and anxiety, etc

because your character will react differently to different types of pain

PHYSICAL PAIN

sharp and white-hot pain may cause a character to grit their teeth, scream, moan, twist their body. their skin may appear pale, eyes red-rimmed and sunken with layers of sweat covering their forehead. they may have tears in their eyes (and the tears may feel hot), but they don’t necessarily have to always be crying.

acute pain may be similar to sharp and white-hot pain; acute pain is sudden and urgent and often comes without a warning, so your character may experience a hitched breathing where they suddenly stop what they’re doing and clench their hand at the spot where it hurts with widened eyes and open mouth (like they’re gasping for air).

dull ache and throbbing pain can result in your character wanting to lay down and close their eyes. if it’s a headache, they may ask for the lights to be turned off and they may be less responsive, in the sense that they’d rather not engage in any activity or conversation and they’d rather be left alone. they may make a soft whimper from their throat from time to time, depends on their personality (if they don’t mind others seeing their discomfort, they may whimper. but if your character doesn’t like anyone seeing them in a not-so-strong state, chances are they won’t make any sound, they might even pretend like they’re fine by continuing with their normal routine, and they may or may not end up throwing up or fainting).

if your character experience chronic pain, their pain will not go away (unlike any other illnesses or injuries where the pain stops after the person is healed) so they can feel all these types of sharp pain shooting through their body. there can also be soreness and stiffness around some specific spots, and it will affect their life. so your character will be lucky if they have caretakers in their life. but are they stubborn? do they accept help from others or do they like to pretend like they’re fine in front of everybody until their body can’t take it anymore and so they can no longer pretend?

neuropathic pain or nerve pain will have your character feeling these senses of burning, shooting and stabbing sensation, and the pain can come very suddenly and without any warning — think of it as an electric shock that causes through your character’s body all of a sudden. your character may yelp or gasp in shock, how they react may vary depends on the severity of the pain and how long it lasts.

EMOTIONAL PAIN

grief can make your character shut themself off from their friends and the world in general. or they can also lash out at anyone who tries to comfort them. (five states of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and eventual acceptance.)

heartbreak — your character might want to lock themself in a room, anywhere where they are unseen. or they may want to pretend that everything’s fine, that they’re not hurt. until they break down.

betrayal can leave a character with confusion, the feelings of ‘what went wrong?’, so it’s understandable if your character blames themself at first, that maybe it’s their fault because they’ve somehow done something wrong somewhere that caused the other character to betray them. what comes after confusion may be anger. your character can be angry at the person who betrayed them and at themself, after they think they’ve done something wrong that resulted in them being betrayed, they may also be angry at themself next for ‘falling’ for the lies and for ‘being fooled’. so yes, betrayal can leave your character with the hatred that’s directed towards the character who betrayed them and themself. whether or not your character can ‘move on and forgive’ is up to you.

there are several ways a character can react to anger; they can simply lash out, break things, scream and yell, or they can also go complete silent. no shouting, no thrashing the place. they can sit alone in silence and they may cry. anger does make people cry. it mostly won’t be anything like ‘ugly sobbing’ but your character’s eyes can be bloodshot, red-rimmed and there will be tears, only that there won’t be any sobbing in most cases.

hopelessness can be a very valid reason for it, if you want your character to do something reckless or stupid. most people will do anything if they’re desperate enough. so if you want your character to run into a burning building, jump in front of a bullet, or confess their love to their archenemy in front of all their friends, hopelessness is always a valid reason. there’s no ‘out of character’ if they are hopeless and are desperate enough.

fear and anxiety. your character may be trembling, their hands may be shaky. they may lose their appetite. they may be sweaty and/or bouncing their feet. they may have a panic attack if it’s severe enough.

and I think that’s it for now! feel free to add anything I may have forgotten to mention here!

aventurine, who giggles and jumps around (like a little boy receiving his first full halloween bucket of candy) whenever you plant a kiss on his forehead

aventurine, who thinks of you everywhere he goes; be it the ipc's hq, the grand hotel in penacony, and even the battlefield, you're always on his mind 24/7

aventurine, who keeps a brass locket he salvaged in one of his adventures with a picture of you in his pocket

aventurine, who doesn't forget to say 'thank you, love you' whenever you give him something, even if it's just as simple as a hug

aventurine, who yaps about you to his co-workers to the point where they know almost everything about you

aventurine, who orders ipc agents to 'spy' on you whenever you go to the market (he js wants to look after you)

aventurine, who giggles and kicks his feet whenever you call him 'rinie' (bro literally goes heeheehee); and

aventurine, who 'sleeps' through his alarm so you'd be the one to wake him up (he loves it when you beg him to wake up [BRO IS FREAKY] he feels bad when it's literally the crack of dawn and you cant sleep anymore so he just makes it up to you by not going to work and spending the rest of the day w u 😭😭)

Aventurine's eyes finally getting brighter the more time you two spend together, gaining that cute shine back, finally living, than just surviving. His pretty eyes shinning so bright on your wedding day that you can't help but give both of them tiny pecks, you two staringly in deeply in each other's eyes, feeling so safe and content.

Only for them to become twice as dull as before as stands in front of your grave, frozen, still in trauma. His lovely lover sacrificing their own life and taking a bullet in their head to protect him from an attempted assasian.

Oh, how lucky the gambler truly is!

Aventurine is practicing his poker face with a cat cake ♥

Also- gonna start flooding my tumblr with all my churin drawings over the week :3 beware

Cw: yandere, suggestive (for Kaiser)

I found out these wonderful yan bllck drawings and felt compelled to translate them (to the best of my abilities) and share them. The original artist is zunko_2225 on Twitter, they have a lovely artstyle and I recommend checking them out!

P.S: Kaiser's "get ready for fucking" likely meant "fucking prepare yourself" but my thirst for this man was happier with the first version, even if the second one is enough to make me weak on my knees

https://www.tumblr.com/meo-eiru/758281877426716672/ill-be-sleeping-for-today-goodnight-everyoneee?source=share

haha elias is definitely that meme,

"my boyfriend is the most jealous man alive"

"you know other men?"

I've been meaning to draw this for a while now