Fictional realist

I give tips, do prompt fills, sometimes cough out prompts, all while procrastinating...

[freyaalvere]

Tolerance

Generations ago humans joined the stars. Launching ourselves out of the solar system using fire and determination, we made it. Aliens were waiting. Waiting to welcome us. Waiting to accept us as new travelers and to show us worlds beyond our own.

Now, humans have made a name. Like we thought, in all the stories before we breached the stars, we have a reputation for impulsivity. For surprising the aliens. For exploring places that nobody had dared to explore before. But, we had learned. Before we launched ourselves out of our solar system, we taught ourselves peace. Humanity taught themselves tolerance. We greeted them as one, and for generations, made a name as an unflappable race.

Other races were more aggressive. They saw the attitude of the humans and they decided that we’d be easy to squash. They went after settler ships. They went after our women and our children. They went for the defenseless.

Humanity has been peaceful for generations. But our bones remember war. Our planet is riddled in bloodshed and in the worst crimes one can dream up. When the word got out of the attack, quietly all the humans withdrew. Everyone who was in a position to retreat did. The formerly lighthearted, bright eyed and explorative species took a step back.

They didn’t notice until too late. Humanity united with one goal is a terrifying thought. When as much as the species regrouped as they could, then came out the war machines. Spaceships that guaranteed death. The aliens that killed our women and children didn’t get a chance to argue. Barely a chance to fight back. They were wiped from the stars.

It took years for humanity to rejoin the stars. They cut off communication. They left the crews they were part of. Stayed on the planets they had colonized. Eventually they started venturing out again, but they came with a warning this time. Do not mess with our defenseless. We will retaliate.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Don’t ask about human weirdness

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

Alien 1: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen humans do?

Alien 2: I once saw my office mate steal a stapler than frame another human in the office for it by placing it on their desk.

Alien 2: He said it was because the other human kept stealing his lunches.

Alien 3: There was this human female that lived across the street from me that would lift up here top when drivers went by to see if they’d cause a car crash.

Alien 1: What the florp?!

Alien 2: I can see the appeal to that type of chaos.

Alien 3: What about you?

Alien 4: I don’t want to play this game.

Alien 1: That means he knows one that really did something messed up.

Alien 2: You gotta tell us.

Alien 4: It’s not something you want to hear.

Alien 3: Which makes me wish to hear it more.

Alien 1-2: *Chanting

Alien 1-2: Tell us! Tell us! Tell us!

Alien 4: *Smacks talons down on table.

Alien 4: Fine!

Alien 4: It was a human that fought on Dressa VI during the Configuration Wars. I met them while sharing some drinks after hours and we started swapping stories.

Alien 4: He and his squad had been sent behind enemy lines to cut off Tivani supply lines and cause general havoc.

Alien 1: So they’re a war vet, it doesn’t sound so-

Alien 4: They would kill isolated patrols and position their bodies for their comrades to find later; frozen in place by the subzero cold.

Alien 3: ……. What?

Alien 4: Sometimes they’d make them look like they were praying. Other times they’d the lot of them sitting around a spent campfire as if they all died in their sleep. One time they made it so the body was used as a sign post, arms pointing in directions to go.

Alien 4: When the war didn’t end quickly they started making it more……nightmare.

Alien 2: I think we don’t need-

Alien 4: Oh you wanted to hear so you will.

Alien 4: They gouged out their eyes, cut their limbs off before stuffing their mouths with severed fingers and hanging them from the trees like totems. They’d swing in the breeze before the ropes gave way and the bodies fell

Alien 4: They’d take the limbs further away and bury them facing down in the snow like stumps with half of them sticking out of the ground; sometimes for a mile long stretch of ground.

Alien 4: One patrol found a comrade of theirs tied to a tree with a burnt out fire in front of them. The human had set it and made the Tivani soldier watch as the fire went out and they slowly froze to death. You could see the gashes in their arms where the chains bit deep as they thrashed to free themselves before dying.

Alien 1: …….

Alien 2: …….

Alien 3: …….

Alien 4: And that’s why when someone says you don’t want to hear something, you fraking listen.  

[syzygy-yzygy]

So sick of dog motif what about cat motif.

I love you but we don't love the same. I can't be near you when you want me to be. Your love is smothering and your need to keep me safe is trapping me. I'm my own person but I don't know how to show you that. I lash out and hurt you even though I don't mean to. I need you to move slowly around me or I'll bolt. I love you, even though I don't say it. If you stay still I'll sit next to you, and even though we don't understand each other we can be together like that.

[syzygy-yzygy]

@aspengrown this is the rawest possible addition to this post thank you

[mylordshesacactus]

and also:

cat love as in I am small and scared and all of my instincts and my experience and your vast power say you're a threat but I am choosing to trust in your kindness despite my fear. you could kill me with one hand but I know you won't.

cat love as in I can tell you are upset and I don't understand why so I will sit stiffly beside you and awkwardly provide the only reassurance I know how to give. I am uncomfortable with every single moment of this but it is what you would do for me.

cat love as in I am small and powerless but I will curl up back to back with you and stand guard while you sleep and I will mean it with every fiber of my being.

my cat Nepenthe was a former stray behavior case at risk of euthanasia because she kept mauling potential adopters. on her second week in my apartment--having already attacked me multiple times without provocation, I will add, I wasn't special, she needed genuine help--she slinked out of the bedroom yowling at me. when I went to check on her she kept walking back and forth until I followed her, where she insistently paced between my feet and her hidey-hole in the back of my dresser, increasingly distressed. about three seconds after she gave up and hid, an absolutely torrential rain front hit. she didn't understand yet that we couldn't get wet inside. she'd been trying to warn me.

she didn't know me yet, but she knew I hadn't yelled at her when she hurt me. she knew I hadn't tried to hurt her back. she didn't understand why she was attacking me; those episodes probably scared her more than me. she knew I "shared" food with her, and that I asked before touching her. and she went out of her way to bring me into her safe space, to protect her friend.

cat love as stiff hesitant uncertain acts of service that are devastating in their sincerity, as well.

[naamahdarling]

I'm sorry, I had a response to add on, but now I'm crying over your cat. Oh my god.

[glorioustidalwavedefendor]

cat love as stiff hesitant uncertain acts of service that are devastating in their sincerity, as well.

He had the awkward tenderness of someone who has never been loved and is forced to improvise.

Isabel Allende, from The House of The Spirits

[luna-azzurra]

Quick tips for writing Sleep Deprivation 

☽ Memory becomes absolute garbage. Like “why am I in the kitchen?” garbage. “What was I saying?” garbage. Their brain is running on buffering screens and regret.

☽ Fine motor skills? Ha. They’re dropping everything. Pens. Phones. Entire moral compass. They’re basically a malfunctioning claw machine.

☽ Hallucinations creep in. That jacket on the chair? Suddenly a person. That noise? Definitely doom. Everything becomes mildly haunted.

☽ Time gets weird. Five minutes feel like a year. A full hour disappears and they swear they blinked wrong.

☽ Irritation skyrockets. They get mad at chairs. At air. At gravity. At the audacity of other humans continuing to exist.

☽ Their voice sounds weird. Slow, scratchy, like they swallowed sand.

☽ They walk like a drunk baby giraffe. Walls suddenly jump closer. Floors rise unexpectedly. Coordination said: “I’m out.”

☽ Zoning out becomes a hobby. They stare at random objects like they’re trying to understand quantum mechanics.

☽ Vision blurs in and out. Like someone smeared Vaseline over their eyeballs out of spite.

☽ Their body just hurts. Not a dramatic pain, just the “why does my skeleton feel like it’s buzzing?” pain.

☽ Food cravings go feral. They’d fight someone for a stale cookie.

☽ Terrible choices. They will absolutely say “I’m fine” while making decisions that end in disaster.

☽ Random emotional implosions. Crying because their sock feels wrong? Yes.

☽ Cold hands. Cold feet. Cold heart. (Okay maybe not the last one, but it feels like it.)

[ellipsus-writes]

If you haven't heard, the em dash has been getting a lot of attention lately…

Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.

Including (sigh) the em dash.

There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.

A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.

No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.

You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.

Defend the em dash.

(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)

[skyolker]

A day in Beijing 🇨🇳. . . #china #beijing #capitalcity #historicalcenter #downtown #cultural #traditional #nationaltreasure #templeofheaven #oldtown #tiananmensquare #asianculture #travelingtheworld #sightseeing #asia (at Temple of Heaven) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0kJwQYjQPN/?igshid=5j3wnbvt17uj

[writing-prompt-s]

"I have been doing inventory and we have a problem. According to the numbers we should had run out of food and starved three weeks ago." "Where is the problem in that?" "Well. Either our food is somehow multiplying, the men have stoped eating or all our records are wrong. All would be bad."

[nsthesiia]

Writing Process: Expectation vs. Reality ☕

Expectation:

You sit by the window with a cup of coffee. Rain taps gently on the glass. Your playlist hums softly in the background. Words flow like silk. The story unfolds perfectly — poetic, raw, brilliant. You smile. You are the moment.

Reality:

You open your laptop. The document stares back at you. You type one sentence. You delete it. You retype it slightly worse. Suddenly, you need to clean the kitchen, reorganize your files, check your email, reread old messages from 2018. Anything but write.

Five hours later:

You have written twelve words and consumed enough caffeine to achieve astral projection. Your characters refuse to cooperate. Your plot makes no sense. You have googled “synonyms for ‘looked’” more times than is morally acceptable.

At 2 a.m., you reread your draft and think, maybe it’s not that bad. Then at 2:03 a.m., you think, no, it’s pure trash.

But here’s the truth:

This is what writing actually is. Not just flow — but struggle, chaos, stubbornness, and a weird kind of love that keeps dragging you back.

Because at the end of the night, despite everything, you whisper:

“Okay, one more sentence.”

And that’s how stories get finished.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

people getting mad at ao3 for rightfully being firmly against censorship and allowing dark fics that depict taboo subjects in explicit details to be on their platform is so funny to me because ao3 was created specifically to be a fuck you to capitalism and censorship. the point of ao3 is that it’s a place to host and archive any fanwork, which includes fanwork about taboo topics that are not allowed on other platforms like wattpad or fanfiction.net

the whole point of ao3 is that it’s a safe space for all fics, and that includes fics about taboo subjects

ao3 has always been firmly against censorship since the day it was created, that’s why it’s run by fans, for fans, on fans’ donations, why it’s a nonprofit organization, that’s also why it has no ads or algorithms or any of those capitalism bullshit

if you have a problem with that, go to fanfiction.net or wattpad. no one forces you to stay in the house made specifically for the (affectionate) freaks

[skribblegurl]

some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.

[heywriters]

I couldn't remember the word "doorknob" ten minutes ago.

[bumblewyn]

ok but the onelook thesaurus will save your life, i literally could not live without this website

[breelandwalker]

REBLOG TO SAVE A WRITER'S LIFE

[myfairkatiecat]

LIFE SAVED

REBLOGGING TO SAVE ANOTHER WRITERS LIFE

[sirowsky]

I use this every time I sit down to write. It's the best tool in the world and I would be lost without it!

[akwardsilince]

Person A: "Quite a bold move. Pretending to be someone I've known for over a decade now."

Person B: "I was under the impression you two hated each other."

Person A: "Yeah. I know that fucker like the back of my hand."

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

saw this being debated and just wanted to talk about it too.

"is it rude if I politely ask a writer if they use ai or chatgpt on their works because I'm almost certain they do?"

yes, it is rude. no matter how polite you are being when you ask them this.

you say you are almost certain. so you are not absolutely certain.

unless you are absolutely, undoubtedly certain — with actual proof — that their writing is ai generated, never ever ask an artist if their work is ai generated.

I know several writers who would stop writing and delete all of their works if they were ever accused of using ai. so it doesn't matter if you are polite when you ask them this, you are suggesting that their works are ai generated, that they didn't create the works they could have spent hours, days, weeks, months or years working on.

ai and chatgpt are trained on real humans' works, they are trained to mimic the way real humans write. so if you say a genuine writer's work "looks ai", I'm gonna have to ask you what you think ai was trained on.

a writer whose English isn't their first language may also write in a way that "looks ai" to some, if they write in English and have to rely on translator.

using em dash isn't a sign of ai. I do it all the time. my fellow writers all love em dash.

having long paragraphs with "overly described scenes" isn't a sign of ai. I do it all the time, and so do my fellow writers.

all the "ai signs" are actually just what most writers actually do. they get mistaken for "ai signs" because sometimes the way writers write or describe a scene in a fanfic or an original work is different than the way people talk or text. because they're writing a fic and describing a scene, not chatting with a friend. the way I talk is different than the way I write my fics.

if you suspect a work was ai generated, but are not 100% sure, you can always just stop reading said work without saying anything.

if someone does use ai to write, they will either a.) deny and continue using ai to write or b.) admit because they see nothing wrong with it and continue using ai to write.

if a genuine writer was wrongly accused of using ai, they may stop writing altogether.

asking a writer if they use ai or chatgpt to write will always do more harm than good. witch hunting will always do more harm than good.

you are not "fighting against ai" by throwing around such accusations. you are harming genuine writers and artists.

[thisisjustfuckingsterling]

It isnt an accusation. Its a fucking question. One that protects the very communities and artists that this post claims to defend.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

all of the fanfic writers, whom I personally know, say the same thing that they would feel discouraged and might delete all their works if they were asked this.

it’s not “hey do you like x or y” question. it’s a subtle implication that your work looks like it was written by a robot within a minute. if you personally don’t find that offensive, that’s cool. but I know a lot of writers do. and they have the rights to be discouraged by it.

also we are talking about fanfic writers who write as their hobby, getaway or safe place, writers whose works you read for free. not writers who sell their works and are making profit from what they write. fanfic writers don’t owe you anything.

[bardic-tales]

This just came across my dash. I'm going to be blunt.

Asking a writer or artist if they “use AI” is an accusation, no matter how you dress it up. It’s not neutral. It implies you think their effort, style, or voice is artificial. It implies that their human work doesn’t look human enough for you.

You don’t protect the community by policing people who are actually creating from scratch. You protect it by supporting human creators, reporting confirmed AI misuse when there’s evidence, and learning the difference between this sounds different than what I’d write and this is machine-generated.

Writers—especially fanfic authors—already pour their time, emotion, and identity into what they share for free. They don’t owe anyone proof of authenticity on top of that. And if your question makes someone want to quit writing, it’s not protecting the community. It’s shrinking it.

If you’re not 100% sure, just scroll. AI ethics don’t need to turn into public inquisition season.

[edwardcreel]

“And if your question makes someone want to quit writing, it’s not protecting the community. It’s shrinking it.”

^^^^ this

[an0neemouse]

Don't use adverbs. Said is dead. Always show, never tell. Avoid cliches. Never use the word 'very.' Don't use alliteration. Don't use boring descriptors. Use unique words.

For fuck's sake, what can I use? Seriously y'all, I don't know about you, but all the advice on how to write does Jack shit for me other than make it really fucking impossible to tell a story.

Write what you want to. Fuck the rules.

[witchobssessedbitch]

This is fiction you are writing, the universe is ours to bend.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

words for your fight scenes

Breathe

draw, expire, heave, inhale, puff, suffocate

Catch

intercept, tackle

Climb

arise, ascension, mount, scale, surface

Cut

amputate, ax/axe, bisect, chisel, cleave, crop, cut up, dent, dissect, engrave, etch, fell, hack, lacerate, mangle, molt, mutilate, notch, peel, scar, scratch, shave, shred, slash, slit, trim, whittle

Dispose

boot, chuck, disposal, dispose of, do away with, elimination, kick out, rejection, scrap, throw away, void

Drop

alight, crash, decline, descent, dive, droop, duck, fall, flop, fumble, go under, keel over, light, percolate, plumb, plunge, sag, settle, sink, slump, stoop, submerge, suspend, thud/thump, tumble, wilt

Hide

ambush, bury, camouflage, conceal, cover, cover-up, cringe, disguise, dissimulate, embed, ensconce, envelop, isolation, lurk, masquerade, palliate, screen, seclusion, sequester, shrink, shut off/shut out, sneak, withhold

Hit

applaud, bang, baste, batter, beat, blindside, boot, buffet, bunt, chip, clash, clip, clout, collide, concussion, crash, cuff, deflect, drive, flail, glance, hammer, jab, jostle, knock, lick, nail, peck, plaudits, pound, punch, rap, scourge, slap, smack, sock, strike, swipe, tap, thud/thump, tip, whack, whip

Hold forcefully

apprehend, cage, clasp, clinch, confinement, constriction, cramp, detain, embrace, enslave, fetters, grasp, gripe, hold, incarcerate, overpower, press, shackle, snatch, strangle, throttle, wrestle

NOTE

The above are concepts classified according to subject and usage. It not only helps writers and thinkers to organize their ideas but leads them from those very ideas to the words that can best express them.

It was, in part, created to turn an idea into a specific word. By linking together the main entries that share similar concepts, the index makes possible creative semantic connections between words in our language, stimulating thought and broadening vocabulary. Writing Resources PDFs

Source ⚜ Writing Basics & Refreshers ⚜ On Vocabulary Notes: Fight Scenes (pt. 1) (pt. 2) Word Lists: Fight ⚜ Pain

[writercultureis]

writer culture is getting an absolutely banger idea for a story...and discovering media with a very similar premise come out before you can start writing it...and then abandoning the idea because you don't want to be seen as a copycat though the similarities are a pure coincidence :/

[lilliana-m-elrod]

Writers when the dots start connecting SO BEAUTIFULLY but there’s NO ONE TO TALK TO ABOUT IT

[unknownwriter404]

I know it's like "Ha ha I have too many projects." But I am literally about to cry because I have so many projects of various done-ness and can't decide which one to actually commit to.

Like I love them all so much... But which one would be my best chance at publishing. Which one should be my debut, which story can I grapple and execute without it sounding like gibberish.