the pretender sounds like my whole life

I love my country and league of legends. The only state worth living in is Texas

[miseducatedmelanicmuse]

[writersisland]

Random Tiny Events that Might Help Advance Your Plot

shattering a glass and cutting hand while trying to clean it up

getting disoriented and lost

a heavy storm forces them to seek shelter in an unexpected place

quite literally bumping into an old friend

requiring a change of clothes after spilling a drink

a blackout plunges the city into darkness

infected with a mystery illness that refuses to go away

a night out goes off the rails

finding and following a curious animal/creature

finding a mystery object

getting mugged or an important item stolen by a random pickpocket

an animal companion chooses them as their human friend

tripping and falling into a river / lake

[writersisland]

Dark Sides of Character Strengths

protective → reacting with excessive violence to small provocations and retaliating disproportionately

curious → disregard for safety and boundaries

determined → dooming self and even others when refusing to let a lost cause be lost

vigilant → paranoid control and distrust

independent → isolated and unable to ask for or accept help

decisive → coldblooded, reckless, and taking extreme measures without considering less lethal methods

forgiving → inability to hold people accountable and never learning from past mistakes

easygoing → unserious and not taken seriously by others even when warranted

optimistic → denial of real danger and damage

disciplined → rigid expectations of perfectionism from self and others

heroic → meddles even when told not to and ignoring people’s autonomy

generous and helpful → inability to say ‘no’ and stretching self thin trying to help everyone

loyal → blind trust to the point of complicity

[isabellebissonrouthier]

WRITING PROMPTS - Force

A child is born with control over gravity.

"You can't force me, mama!"

Telekinesis is illegal.

"Wait, you can control—"

Two pirates control friction and gravity.

"Oh, you think I can't force you?"

A physics teacher goes too far...

"I can control every force. Try me, bitch."

[writersisland]

Bodyguard Character Quirks when Off-Duty

putting their hand on the arm, back or side of friends and loved ones

positioning themselves between the door and the room

opening doors for others

automatically standing with a straight back and hands together

attentive as hell but bad at staying focused on conversations

punch and run first, ask questions... eventually

prefering to stand by walls or somewhere with view of the whole room

tense and anxious in public spaces because they know how lax and flawed most security plans for public events are

accidentally intimidating other people when walking through a mall like the terminator

[kalloway]

couple-a Gojo screenshot redraw sketches because..... because :)

[fateless-minstrel]

"And so at the end you broke your promise, didn't you? The amount of love he gave you was never enough to beat the hatred for yourself that was rooted deep in your heart. It didn't matter how much he tried to be there when you were hurting, because no amount of love could surpass the hatred you felt whenever you looked in a mirror. Maybe, if this world was gentler, you would've learnt to understand why his gaze on you was so caring, why you were the one he chose to love regardless of the wrong you believed yourself to have done and why he never blamed you for the situation you were put in. Not that anyone blamed you for that, except of yourself. Maybe, in another life, you would've kept your promise. You would've lived and loved and learned. It is unfortunate that you never gave yourself that chance."

[frog-on-top-of-a-log]

Teenage Kara trying to write down every kryptonian children’s tale, religious practice, popular sport and everything she remembers about them, but being incredibly disorganised so the papers and notes were just scattered on the floor of her flat and buried under all her other stuff.

Kara feeling no connection to earth and trying to create a sense of familiarity and comfort by recalling everything she could about Krypton. It doesn’t help. It just makes her homesick.

She tries to show them to Clark but seeing him so disconnected from all of it makes her want to puke so she just keeps dropping the notes in his room and ignores him when he approaches her about it.

Kara feeling every single gap in her memory like missing a limb. Slowly stopping her recollections cause she finds more gaps than memories and that makes her want to destroy something. So she doesn’t try to preserve memories anymore.

Her notes weren’t even that good most of the time. She cannot draw that well and so her recollection of clothes and people and architecture and plants weren’t that great.

She keeps writing in kryptonian sometimes to make sure she doesn’t forget how to, but she stops desperately trying to remember stuff. It just makes her sad.

Years down the line, after having healed some more, she talks with her cousin about it. Telling him that she isn’t sure if stopping her notes was right, cause while it was hurting her, it helped keep the memories alive. Now she feels like the details keep slipping away more and more and she wishes she had kept better records.

Clark leads her into a section of the fortress that she never paid any attention to. There they find a little library, filled with Kara’s old notes, sorted and preserved. But that isn’t everything. Clark expanded the memories with his own thoughts, pictures of similar things from around the world, memories of the kryptonians from other species he found and notes on everything Kara talked to him about over the years after she had stopped taking notes.

She cried.

[luna-azzurra]

Tips for Writing Amnesia!

As someone who's researched neurological conditions extensively and interviewed people with memory disorders, I'm begging fiction writers to please, PLEASE stop with the "bonk on the head = total life erasure" trope. That's not how any of this works.

⊹ Retrograde amnesia (forgetting the past) is rare and almost NEVER involves forgetting your entire identity while maintaining perfect memory formation going forward. Know what's way more common? Anterograde amnesia: you can't form NEW memories. Like the guy from Memento, except usually less tattoo-based organizational systems and more confused repetition.

⊹ Head injuries causing amnesia? Sure, happens. But it's usually the minutes/hours around the trauma that vanish, not your entire childhood, first kiss, and ability to recognize your spouse. The brain doesn't store memories in one convenient "delete this folder" location. You might forget the car accident but remember your kids' names.

⊹ What's weird about real amnesia: skills often remain. You might not remember learning piano, but your fingers still know the keys. Procedural memory (how to do things) lives in different brain areas than episodic memory (life events). Your amnesiac character might not remember their name but could still speak three languages, drive stick shift, or execute complex martial arts.

⊹ Another thing: amnesia from psychological trauma (dissociative amnesia) is controversial and functions differently than neurological amnesia. It's selective, blocking specific traumatic events while leaving other memories intact. And it doesn't typically include identity confusion unless we're talking dissociative fugue states, which are incredibly rare.

⊹ Recovery is unpredictable and often incomplete. Memories might return in fragments, dreams, or triggered by specific sensory cues, but they're often unreliable, contaminated by suggestion or false memories your brain constructs to fill gaps.

⊹ If you want the drama of starting over, just... let your character fake it. Witness protection, running from the past, choosing to disappear, its way more plausible than convenient brain erasure.

[writing-challenges-and-prompts]

Writing Prompt: Dialogue

“Ugh, crying ghost babies are the worse.”

[writing-challenges-and-prompts]

Writing Prompt

Everybody loves a good ghost story, until they turn out to be true and you end up in one yourself.

[writing-challenges-and-prompts]

Writing Prompt: Dialogue

“I see we’re just playing with our food.”

[writing-challenges-and-prompts]

Writing Prompt: Dialogue

“Well, don’t act like this is a surprise.”

“…”

“I mean, I know you’re a kleptomaniac, but seriously? Did you really think that you’d get away with stealing stuff from a witch?”

“…”

“You were a nice boyfriend, but I have always wanted a pet magpie. I think this form is going to suit you rather well,”

“…”

“Oh, don’t ruffle your feathers at me, [——]. This is just the consequences of your actions.”

“…”

“You really do make a cute bird though—Ow! Damn, that hurt. I was just trying to pet you—ow, ow! Okay, fine—be that way, grumpy gus. You can stay out here with the rest of the wild birds. Later,”

“…”

“Oh? That was fast. You change your mind, hmm? You can come with me, as long as you stop pecking me—that shit hurts. And it’s rude.”

“…”

“Yeah, yeah, flirting with me as bird isn’t as cute as you think it is—yeah no, that’s a lie—you’re still the cutest thing ever.”

“…”

“We’ll figure this out, [——]. I promise I won’t let you stay this way forever. Yeah, we’ll get this fixed. Just hope she doesn’t want a soul as payment, mine’s kinda iffy.”

“…”

“What? Don’t give me that look—I still have one, it’s just… I’m pretty sure it’s probably in the same shape as a lifelong drunk’s liver.”

“…”

“Let’s just go home tonight and sleep on it, yeah? Maybe make better decisions that way, what do you say?”

“…”

“Okay, home it is.”

[writing-challenges-and-prompts]

Writing Prompt: Dialogue

“Every hospital is haunted.”

“They’re not haunted.”

“They are. Curtains open and shut. Lights go on and off,”

[writing-challenges-and-prompts]

Writing Prompt: Dialogue

“What? It’s only blood.”

“Yeah, that part doesn’t really bother me. Just—Whose is it?”

“Anonymous donor.”

“…Willing?”

“Um, I assume? It’s from the hospital, so, I mean… probably?”

“How did you get blood from the hospital?”

“…”

“[——]. Tell me you did not steal donated blood from the hospital.”

“I… I needed something to eat,”

“You could have asked me.”

“You’re not… food.”

“Our first meeting would beg to differ.”

“That was before I knew you! That was… I was… I wasn’t myself. I was… I didn’t mean to…”

“You were starving.”

“…”

“Are you starving now?”

“I’m… okay. This blood is okay, it’s sterile. No residual human emotions or narcotics or alcohol. It’s okay,”

“Define ‘okay’.”

“It’s… enough to take the edge off.”

“But not enough to satisfy.”

“No.”

“Why not take more?”

“I’m rationing. I can’t keep stealing from the hospital, people need it more than I do.”

“From me.”

“No. I can’t. You… I can’t take enough from you to fill my hunger without…”

“Killing me.”

“Yeah, a pint of blood… it isn’t enough for me, and it’s too much for you.”

“…”

“…What are you thinking about?”

“How we’re going to work this out so that you get enough to not starve without stealing and without accidentally killing me.”

“…’We’?”

“We.”

“Y-You don’t—“

“I know. I want to.”

[writing-challenges-and-prompts]

Writing Prompt: Dialogue

“Vanity. My favorite sin,”

[writing-challenges-and-prompts]

Writing Prompt: Three Things

a poltergeist trapped in an urn, renovating a derelict pub, a camping trip with the squad