Writing how-tos, encouragement, and inspiration I collect while working on my novels and short stories. If you're interested in my writing check out my FictionPress profile or my main blog . This is mostly for my own reference but if it helps out other writers, all the better!
I’m sure other people have talked about this more at length and know more than me but I would like to see a true-life rendition of the Middle Ages and Renaissance where gay marriage is on the table.
Because it actually is very diplomatically useful! One thing you want as a member of the ruling class is children to 1) inherit your lands and titles and 2) to make alliances with other rulers. However, there are many cases where marriages made for alliances resulted in children that disrupt the line of succession or planned inheritance (differently under primogeniture than under split systems). (See Henry VI)
If rich people in that time weren’t pretty solidly convinced that marriages were solely between one man and one woman, they could have had the benefit of alliance without the muddling of the inheritance tree.
A lot of wealthy young men and women, even members of the ruling class, were committed to the church partially (there are a host of other reasons) to avoid their offspring making competition for their siblings (this was largely centered around gender, too, in eras where women came after their brothers in succession). (See Queen* Matilda) A child living as a member of the church can do you some favors, but arguably so can a child in a guaranteed-childless marriage.
And then there’s sooooo much diplomacy required to feel out this stuff. If you offer a childless marriage to another ruler who NEEDS descendants, he’s going to take offense, whereas if the marriage seems like your own family grabbing for his power via succession, he might prefer a childless one. Think of how courting and arranged marriages would be handled differently, and the amount of intrigue required.
Oh, the third son stood to inherit little, and was betrothed to a man, but then his elder brothers die and he is suddenly in need of an heir? Alas! Whatever shall he do!
Oh, the most eligible bachelorette in the land is seeking male OR female suitors… how interesting… I wonder why her father has arranged it so…
Oh, the lord chose to marry another man for love and lo and behold! This man hath conceived, and his family confirms that he in his childhood bore a girl’s countenance and bearing!
hello my fellow Horror And Houses fans.... i have come to recommend the book "horror in architecture" and its sequel "horror in architecture; the reanimated edition" by joshua comaroff and ong ker-shing to you all. ive been reading horror in architecture for the past couple days and it is excellent
this book is incredible. it is all i can think about, it is all i want to talk about
i feel crazy. but its so goddamn specific, how do i go "does anyone else want to read this Incredibly Dense and Highly Niche book on (checks notes) architectural theory, culture, and horror so that i have someone to talk about it with" in a way that doesnt sound like im an on-the-nose character symbolizing obsession and madness in a horror novel
i love tumblr because the pitch i gave for this book is one that i made in a frenetic state after literally pacing around my apartment with my hands clasped behind my back like a harrowed detective who is haunted by the specters of his past and the notes are full of people going "thanks for the rec op!"
WOWZA theres a lot of notes on this post (book club moment) so i wanted to let people know that the reanimated edition (or the revised edition if youre not looking to keep with the theme) is available through tumblrs beloved jstor! everyone say thank you @jstor
this year's prompts were chosen through an open suggestion poll (in which we received over 4,000 prompts) and a subsequent vote, where 5,019 votes were submitted. the top 28 make up the core prompts, and the febuwhump mod's favourites that remain have become the alternates. the first prompt in the 28, "vocal chords", was our number one prompt of the vote, with 1,625 total votes.
i am so insanely excited to see what you all create with these prompts, and i hope they're inspiring enough to trigger a whole month's worth of creativity for you!
as an extra added challenge, some creators will be undertaking another, smaller goal, of including apples in each of their prompt fills as an ode to the wildly popular prompt suggestion of "apples" that didn't make it through to the poll. this is totally optional, but is a good extra challenge if you'd like to take part in it!
if you have any questions, please check out the faq before sending an ask, or skim the blog's previously asked questions to see if your question has already been answered.
please note: notifying the blog of completionist status will happen through a google form released towards the end of febuwhump, and if you are interested in joining the febuwhmp discord server, the link will be available to do so for one week towards the end of january.
full write-up of prompts and rules under the cut:
FEBUWHUMP 2025 PROMPTS:
DAY 1: vocal chords
DAY 2: holding back tears
DAY 3: pinned down
DAY 4: hivemind
DAY 5: not trusting reality
DAY 6: forced to stay awake
DAY 7: alternate timeline self
DAY 8: bleeding out
DAY 9: necromancy
DAY 10: magic exhaustion
DAY 11: demonic possession
DAY 12: used as practice
DAY 13: “i don’t trust anyone else”
DAY 14: becoming the monster
DAY 15: icarus
DAY 16: eaten alive
DAY 17: power instability
DAY 18: living weapon
DAY 19: death wish
DAY 20: “i did good right?”
DAY 21: put on display
DAY 22: “grab the little one”
DAY 23: gunshot wound
DAY 24: forced to beg
DAY 25: bound and gagged
DAY 26: concealing an injury
DAY 27: post-victory collapse
DAY 28: recovery
ALTERNATE PROMPTS:
is there a specific day’s prompt you don’t want to fill? here are ten alternatives you can switch them out for!
ALT 1: major character death
ALT 2: blowtorch
ALT 3: pick who dies
ALT 4: body swap
ALT 5: die a hero
ALT 6: emergency surgery
ALT 7: body horror
ALT 8: on the run
ALT 9: in another life
ALT 10: feeding tube
RULES:
soft rules:
prompts should be answered in the form of whump
creators can produce any kind of media they want
you don't have to complete all the prompts to take part
you can use the prompts after the event ends
you can complete them in tandem with any other event
you can post to any platform you want, however this blog will only be sharing links and prompt fills posted to tumblr
if you want to be featured on the hall of fame, you must inform this blog by the 3rd of march that you have completed all of the days using the provided form
if you have questions, consult the faq before asking
hard rules:
to be a completionist, you must complete all 28 prompts, in order, in whatever medium you want, before the end of the event
(specifically for being featured on the blog)
when uploading febuwhump content to tumblr, please use the tags:
febuwhump (or febuwhump2025)
the relevant day's tag e.g. febuwhumpday1, febuwhumpday2...
nsfw (if relevant)
any important trigger warnings
you can also tag the blog: @febuwhump
I cannot guarantee your work will be archived on the blog. a random selection of properly tagged works will be reblogged every day of february.
It’s 3 AM, but fuck it, we’re being domestic | Prompts
Alternatively, just some fluffy domestic romance prompts, but they feel more cute when they’re in the middle of the night because one or both of the ship characters are insomniacs.
Dancing together in the kitchen, in the refrigerator light, and then sitting on the kitchen counter, eating ice-cream directly from the carton.
Walking barefoot on the dew covered grass, hand in hand, under the stars.
Sitting on the floor trying to piece together IKEA furniture because one person got obsessed with finishing it the same day.
Middle of the night cooking, except it’s making the weirdest most absurd dishes imaginable, just for fun.
Making love, except it’s on the bedroom floor.
Cleaning cupboards or attics and finding lpppittle mementos, childhood pictures, etc and talking about memories.
Midnight drives with street food pit-stops and making out with the car radio playing in the background.
Tossing a smiley stress ball around the house watching it knock into furniture— Bonus, if one person is tossing it and another is scrambling around trying to make sure no furniture falls over, causing squabbles.
Gossiping about annoying relatives/friends, parents etc.
Making each other coffee, except the rule is: adding all of the other person’s favorite ingredients PLUS one mystery ingredient which might be good bad or ugly. For funs~
Late night massage sessions because they’re old (they’re not even thirty. Maybe they are.) and their back huuurts.
Ramp Walk/Modelling sessions where one person tries out every single outfit in their closet, and the other one rates or judges them all and gives (mostly useless) opinions.
Doing laundry except they can’t put the clothes out for drying because there’s no sun, so they spread them all over the furniture (only the stuff that doesn’t go bad with the water-) and switch on all the fans.
Weird selfie poses and filming random tiktok dances.
Alternately, sitting side by side on the bed (or the floor—) deleting old pictures from their phones to make storage and laughing about embarrassing old pictures. (A “my phone might die of lack of storage but that super embarrassing picture of yours from six years ago isn’t going anywhere!”)
One of them randomly googling super random shit and telling those facts to the other person, and the other one, super sleepy, just nodding along to everything.
Painting dates where either both of them are amazing artists or neither of them are, (or one is and the other isn’t) and they switch canvases periodically to finish each other’s paintings. (Chaos for the ones who can’t paint, and two beautiful art pieces for the ones who can~)
Alternatively, one is an artist and the other models for them while being utterly sleepy bc Artist has insomnia :D
One is a musician and keeps the other up all night with the music. Or alternately, the partner has insomnia and the sleepy musician plays them something to pass the night (and what if it turns out to be a lullaby-)
Turning the junk, broken and useless stuff in their house into a rage room for the night.
Learning crocheting from YouTube and making each other weird little woollen mementos. (Could go for anything really. Learning shit with esch other in the middle of the night from YouTube—)
Annnnd that’s about all I got :3 I’ll probably be back with more! Prompts welcome~
there’s something about making a healer character that begs the urge to put them through hell, to viciously unravel all their virtues and test their softness, to watch them endure tragedy after tragedy only for them to stubbornly retain their ability to nurture in spite of it all. it’s about how they’re always able to soothe and protect their allies at the expense of themselves, until it risks dragging them toward a much darker path. they have the potential to become the most destructive forces of raw power, far deadlier than the strongest warrior. and all their companions worry, with each obstacle they face, if the next one will be the one to completely shatter their gentleness until only jagged shards of cruelty remain
Take the National Geographic tour. It’s amazing. Turn the sound on too. And don’t forget to zoom around and look at all the little details on the huge panoramas like seeing people a mile away.
Having to navigate someone's entire life story of how they became a witch in order to get to the part where they actually talk about the gods-damned banishing ritual
I think there’s a great deal of misinformation on this topic.
I believe it’s fine to describe what your characters are wearing. However, like all things, it should serve some kind of purpose.
For instance, describing winter clothes helps impart to the reader a sense of how cold it is. Describing summer clothes helps explain how warm it is.
Describing an outfit before a social event gives a window onto the character’s sense of fashion, or explains their reverence (or lack) for the event; for example a character can wear a black suit to a funeral, or watch from a distance while wearing a t-shirt and jeans. These impart a different attitude.
An outfit may be described purely to give a little more interest to a character; to give the reader a bit more insight into who they are, through the way they present themselves. It may have no greater significance to the wider story but this is still a reason to do it.
So the “purpose” doesn’t need to be super-vital to the story. It can be just because “describing this to the reader helps them appreciate the character or scene”, but that’s still a purpose.
I like that last comment because I think it can apply to a lot of things in storytelling! Anything that shows some element of your character has a purpose to the story even if it doesn’t exactly advance the plot.
I think too there’s also the matter of how it’s described.
“I was wearing a purple hoodie, black skinny jeans, and checkered converse.”
vs
“I wiped my palms on the thighs of my jeans. Black was the best color for when you’re going grave robbing – the dirt and blood didn’t stand out as much. Sadie flung the shovel back with a little more force than was necessary, flinging hunks of dirt onto my shoes. I paid 85$ for these limited edition checkered converse, and while perhaps I shouldn’t have been wearing them to grave rob, I didn’t have anything else. I pulled Abby’s shirt out of the pocket of my hoodie, running my fingers over the fabric. It was covered in purple lint from my jacket, but she wouldn’t care anyways. She was dead”
Treat the clothes as an aspect of the character and the situation. The first one is just information about one thing thrown at the reader, whereas you get the same information in the second, but you’re also presented with a situation, thoughts behind the dress choice for the situation, and a reaction from the reader (why is the character going grave robbing? Who is Sadie? How did Abby die?). You get so much more out of your story and your character.
Raymond Chandler’s opening for The Big Sleep is a fantastic example of a character outfit description used to a purpose. It tells you so much about the character, tone, stakes and the premise beyond simply giving you a visual.
It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.
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