aodh's writing

xe/xem | multifandom | writer

[warpinator]

hello I'm aodh!

                                     ao3 | main | my fics

[teashoesandhair]

One hot and cool writing tip that I wish more people knew is... you don't have to write out people's accents phonetically. You just don't. You are not Dickens. You are (hopefully) not Rowling. There are so many other ways you can make someone's speech feel authentic to their background, or just make it clear that they're speaking in a certain accent, not limited to:

literally just saying 'he spoke with a Welsh accent'; sure, it's a bit blunt, but it gets the job done in a pinch. "He's completely drunk," he said, his southern drawl lingering on the final syllable as if to highlight the extent of the offence. Y'know, something of that ilk, but not as shit.

learning the specific vocabulary and syntax that someone with that accent might use. Sticking with the Welsh theme, because it's objectively the best accent*, there's a bunch of things that differentiate a colloquial South Walean accent, outside of our famed tendency to elongate a vowel to the point of death. The way we use prepositions (where to by is he?), the vocabulary borrowed from Welsh - saying that someone daft is twp, or something small is dwty - can easily signpost our speech as being from that specific area, without needing to type something like "'e's absolutely 'angin', man, pissed as a faaht 'e is!" Something less jarring, such as "He's absolutely hanging, he is." is just as clear. A character who says "Do you want a cuppa?" is coded or located very differently to one who says "You'll have a cup of tea, so you will."

ditto if there are specific ways that someone from a certain area might refer to a well-known concept. Regional words for mother and father, for example, or words that are class-specific; your character who calls his parents 'mater and pater' is likely inhabiting a different socioeconomic strata than your character who calls them 'mam and dad'. See if there's a colloquial way of saying 'yes' and 'no'; a lot can be signposted if your character says 'nah' rather than 'no', or 'aye' rather than 'yes'. A character saying 'couch' is inherently coded differently to one who says 'sofa'.

The reasons that writing accents phonetically is Generally Ill-Advised, In My Opinion are as follows:

quite simply, you're probably not being as clear in conveying the sounds of the accent as you think you are. Taking JK Rowling's work as the best possible example of this, her attempts at writing a Cockney accent phonetically come across like someone is chewing a mouthful of cheese curds and struggling to contain them. There's no consistency, no proper understanding of how to transcribe syllables into writing in a way that coherently conveys the accent she's trying to portray. I mean this so seriously, but what the flying fuck is: 'Well, 'e 'ad these 'ead pains and 'e was def'nitley nervous. Depressed maybe.' It's a crime, is what it is.

it's just plain hard to read. Trying to wade through sentences full of apostrophes and elision, parsing what's actually being said, gets tiresome. It asks the reader to do work that you're actively making harder for them. And that's not always a bad thing! Making readers Put Some Fucking Effort In can be very fruitful! But do you really want them to be struggling to understand every single thing that your Character B is saying for 350 pages?

which leads me onto the last point, and the most important in my mind: writing out accents like this always, always affects accents that are already in some way Othered. They're either racialised or working class, or associated with certain local regions that have negative stereotypes - think the deep South of the US, or the Welsh Valleys. They're never the 'default'. And this raises thorny questions about what the default is, what the standardised accent is, the accents that do and do not merit differentiation from the norm. You're relegating Character B to being hard to read because he's from, idk, Sunderland. You've decided that he isn't speaking 'properly', and therefore the reader needs to understand that other people think he's speaking weirdly. That, to me, is the principle issue. Because returning to JK Rowling (a sentence I hoped never to type), the only characters who speak like this in her work are working class, or they're from other countries. They're never from, you know, Surrey. Wonder why that is. And it's easy to be glib about it, but I do think it reifies class and regional boundaries in a way that's ultimately harmful.

This isn't to say that there's never a place for eye dialect in writing - Trainspotting, for example, wouldn't be what it is without it, and there's definitely a different conversation to be had when it's your own accent and you're making a deliberate point about identity by differentiating through eye dialect - but I think that the blanket assumption of 'oh shit, my character is from Ireland, I'd better type that out phonetically!' can actually be both damaging to your writing and to your character representation, and I think that instead doing the work to really understand the vocabulary, speech patterns and unique aspects of a language or dialect always makes a work feel more authentic and lived-in.

To wit, less of this shite:

There’s mony a slip, an’ I’m no losin’ sight o’ any o’ my suspectit pairsons, juist yet awhile. (Peter Wimsey, if you were wondering, and yes, that's supposed to be Scottish)

and more of this:

"Are we straight so?" "Aye, we're straight," said Jim. "Straight as a rush, so we are." (Jamie O'Neill, Irish, from At Swim, Two Boys)

*objective determination made via a sample size of one: me, in an elaborate hat.

[heywriters]

How to survive the phase of shitty writting? I know i can't skip it in order to grow, but realistically, how to not give up? I already tried to quite completly, but i still feel that call,nbut when i try to write it feels so pointless. How to keep going knowing everything i create is worthless for now and i don't even feel i'll ever progress? I’m trying to come back after quite long time of not writing, i was writing for years before but never got any good, so obviosly i wont come back to write a masterpiece right away, i never aimed for a mastepiece in fact, i just want to make it any readable and i know i need to practice but i’m worried it can never get better.

I get asks like this every now and then, and they always contain the problem.

Your writing is not shitty. It is not worthless.

Bloggers using these terms to describe early writing are often being either glib or depressing. Ignore their advice if it is making you feel bad.

Do you write for pleasure or for praise/accomplishment? If the latter, then you are simply in the practice stage. Practice is inherently worthwhile and no effort in this regard is a waste.

If you write for pleasure, then everything you create fulfills its purpose by being entertaining to create. A small child does not drop the crayon when it realizes its drawing will never be in the MoMA, does it? No, they don't care they just like drawing stuff. Adopt that mindset. Just write to get words on the page and ideas developed because you want to.

My advice for the insecure writer:

Stop re-reading your own work; you're a very biased critic right now and that in itself is holding you back.

All improvements are for later drafts. Trust me, you'll have whole new ideas by draft three so put off the nitpicking and focus.

Avoid outside opinions, writing advice, and blogs like mine for a while; we tend to inadvertently make you feel like you've done everything wrong and need to start over.

Stop starting over. Stop deleting your early drafts. Save all of it (this was the best advice I ever received).

Read and watch books and movies for motivation, and to analyze their strengths and weaknesses.

Do. Not. Compare. Yourself. To Other. Writers—your art is about you and what concerns you, other creators have nothing to do with it.

Remind yourself dumber people are doing it wrong confidently. Copy their confidence.

When you feel self-doubt creeping in again, tell it to take a hike, you've got a story to write.

Whatever you write, no matter the quality, take pride in being a writer at all. Lazy suckers just use AI.

There's nothing wrong with making a mess. How are you supposed to learn from constant perfection? Scratch out dumb sentences, leave afterthoughts in the margins, and side tangents in brackets. If the writing isn't going well, write ROUGH DRAFT in big letters at the top to remind yourself it's just a sketch of what you had in mind, not the finished product.

"...i’m worried it can never get better" I have great news for you! This fear will only be realized if you quit. Since you feel the pull to write there's clearly no point in quitting, your brain already knows writing is the answer. Ideas don't like to wait, and life will keep trying to interrupt you with bigger things, so there's really no time like the present. Go write!

—

Please review my pinned Ask Policy before sending in your ask. Thank you.

+ If you would like to support this blog, please visit my ko-fi and Buy Me A Coffee!

[taraxippos]

Had been thinking about this post (which is a fake excerpt from an imaginary narrative written to mock 'tumblr prose'), and how most "no actually this is good" comments are highlighting how the construction of individual sentences is interesting, how some of the language is evocative, how it Goes Hard. Because that post is written badly in a very thoughtful manner that focuses on core structural issues rather than going for low hanging fruit of poor technical proficiency with the written word, it is not bad in the most "obvious" of ways. So I think this is a legit learning opportunity, but also I don't want to dunk on anyone so instead I will just preach to the choir of My Followers.

But yeah like to be more constructive than just going "lol tumblr prose bad", really the issue in Large part that characterizes "tumblr prose" (which to be clear I don't think is a discrete thing and at most is a combination of several writing tendencies influenced by the medium of Online) comes down to the lack of real contrast in Any aspect of narrative construction, and an obsession with being quotable and constantly being at 100% of Going Hard (which go hand in hand).

In that post, the character voice is indistinct from that of the narration, and the characters quote one-liners that look Meaningful as excerpts and are borderline nonsensical as dialogue. There is no more than the faintest, most generic hints of characterization; these people exist as vague concepts to say deep words for the reader. The sentence length has little variation from its staccato beat, and so it is awkward to read and fails to complement the action or accomplish anything with the pacing (save for the slight slowdown when the torturer feels all that damp animal electricity). The timing is awkward and exaggeratedly dramatic. The description is a flowery kind of tryhard visceral and seems avoidant of describing anything too directly ("something dark and arterial" where there's nothing being accomplished by conveying uncertainty about what is currently gushing out of the injured character and the simple use of "blood splashed across the stones" would actually be 10x more effective), in a way that does disservice to what is supposed to be a torture scene, and leaves it weightless and ungrounded. In fairness to the people saying "this is good", that is MUCH easier to say when reading this fake excerpt as the standalone piece it actually is, but this kind of writing Cannot function in an actual narrative and is not what an excerpt from well constructed narrative fiction is going to look like basically ever.

It reflects a lot of very typical amateur writing issues that just about everyone has to grow out of (the minimal diversity in sentence length, simulated non-attention to scene pacing and timing), and issues common to fanfiction-influenced writing on social media (allergy to paragraph lengths of more than two sentences, little to no description of the characters or setting because, in fanfiction, the reader already knows their physical characteristics and mannerisms and it doesn't need to be lingered upon, Unlike In Original Fiction). But this particularly hits on an issue I think is semi-unique to narrative writing in the social media milieu, which is a focus on being quotable. This may not even be a conscious impulse at all But It's There. This kinda apparent terror of any moment not being as beautiful and hard hitting as possible (or for comedy, any moment not being A Joke). Everything "Goes Hard", so nothing actually does. A lot of "tumblr prose" type writing is less a narrative, more a string of quotes loosely assembled into narrative that vaguely gestures at things like Plot and Character. It substitutes depth for Suggestions of depth by utilizing stock symbolism without building it into the narrative, and by gesturing at weighty contexts without actually engaging with them. There can be little contrast or effective use of tone, pace, description when your story is a series of Hard Hitting Quotes.

I'm reading Watership Down right now and I think it's a great novel overall and can work as an example of how important it is to utilize contrast in your writing.

This segment is the lengthy first description of the titular down, which the rabbits are now encountering for the first time:

Adams is slowing the pace here to introduce us to the setting of the next segment of the book. The average sentence length is very long and keeps us lingering in the sensory detail, while still varied and thus smoothly readable. This new place is introduced by simultaneously conveying its physical description in vivid detail and conveying its feeling and character, and getting the most out of every described feature to do so. The thorn trees are "wind stunted". The air is "scented". The language takes on a very flowery character and heavily utilizes simile and metaphor. Woodland is "tumultuous with evening", sunlight filters through grass "like a wind" to the small creatures below, in contrast to laying "like a gold rind" on the hill when seen from a distance. This grandiose description is heavily functional and conveys both exhaustive physical detail and a feeling that this place is beautiful, awe inspiring to something like a rabbit, and full of life, though not without quiet hints of danger. It hits because Not Everything In The Book Is Described This Way. It means something that we're lingering like this and stopping to get a sense of this place on every possible level, and moving away from more direct, simple prose to convey the feeling of the place in depth.

This segment describes the rabbit Bigwig being found caught in a snare:

The prose here here has the opposite approach of the first excerpt. The language is concise, direct, and brutal. It only veers slightly away from the literal to describe Bigwig's voice as 'bubbling out' from his mouth, both conveying that the saliva and blood in his mouth is literally bubbling as he speaks, and implying the unsettling way his voice sounds as he's being strangled. The sentences are much shorter on the whole, as fit for the pacing of a tense and rapidly changing scene, and the timing closely complements the action - "There was a pause" not only conveys That There Was A Pause but interrupts the rhythm of this segment; the moment of uneasy stillness is echoed in the act of reading itself.

The scene this is excerpted from is extremely effective and does in fact Go Hard, it's well constructed in of itself but its effectiveness mostly lies in its place in the narrative. It's the culmination of a long, tense buildup as the reader becomes more aware that something is deeply Wrong about the place the rabbits are in, and the payoff is effective in being blunt and visceral, which hits because Not Everything In The Book Is Described This Way. Nothing about these excerpts are particularly quotable because that is actually not what good narrative writing is about.

[allsassnoclass]

Fanfiction Writing Asks

Do you daydream a lot before you write, or go for it as soon as the ideas strike?

Where do you get your fic ideas?

Do you share your fic ideas, or do you keep them to yourself?

How do you choose which fics to write?

How many wips do you have?  What fandoms/pairings are they for?

What’s the last line you wrote?

Post a snippet from a wip.

Post an out-of-context spoiler from a wip.

Does this word [chosen by asker] appear in your current wip?

Do you work on multiple wips or stick to one fic at a time?

Do you write scenes in order, or do you jump around?

Do you outline your fics?  If yes, how detailed are your outlines?  How far do you stray from them?

Do you listen to music while you write?  If yes, what have you been listening to recently?

What is your favorite location and position to write in?

What’s your favorite time to write?

Do you write by hand, on your phone, or on your laptop?

Do you have a writing routine?

Do you enjoy research?  Which fic of yours required the most research?

Do you enjoy creating OCs or do you prefer to stick solely to canon characters?

Do you prefer writing AUs or canon fics?

Do you prefer writing chaptered fics or one-shots?

Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process?  How do you come up with titles?

Is writing the beginning, middle, or end of the story easiest? Hardest?

How do you choose whose POV to write in?

What’s your favorite part of the writing process (worldbuilding, brainstorming/outlining, writing, editing, etc)?

What’s your least favorite part of the writing process?

What area of writing do you feel strongest in?

What area of writing do you want to improve in?

What’s something about your writing that you’re proud of?

How much do you edit your fics?  Do you edit as you write or wait until you finish the first draft?

Do you use a beta reader/editor?

Do you take fic requests?  Why or why not?

Is there a specific word count that you hold yourself to/enjoy writing the most?

How much of your personal life/experience do you include in your fics?

What’s your favorite fic you’ve posted?

What fic are you proudest of?

What fic has been the hardest for you to write?

What is your most self-indulgent posted story?

What’s your most self-indulgent wip?

What is your favorite world that you’ve created for a fic?

Who’s your favorite character you’ve written?

What’s your favorite title that you’ve come up with?

Is there a trope or idea that you’d really like to write but haven’t yet?

What is your favorite genre to write?

What genre/trope do you tend to write the most?

If you could only write one type of AU for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Is there a trope that you’ve written before but are now sick of?

Who is your favorite character to write for?  Has this changed since you’ve started writing for that fandom?

What fic of yours would you say is the best introduction to you as a writer?

How would you describe your writing style?

Does what you like to write differ from what you like to read?

What’s the average word count of your fics?

What is the most-used tag on your ao3?

What’s the fandom/pairing distribution of your posted fics?

Have you noticed any patterns in your fics?  Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

Are there any fics that you would change or rewrite if given the chance?

How conscious are you about including symbolism or foreshadowing in your fics?

Do you have a favorite piece of figurative language you’ve written?

Have you participated in any fic events/writing challenges?  If yes, what were they and did you enjoy them?

In [insert fic], what inspired the idea for the plot?

In [insert fic], what’s your favorite scene that you wrote?

In [insert fic], is there a deleted scene/idea you wish you could have included?  Why did it get cut?

What was the hardest part of writing [insert fic]?

If you rewrote [insert fic] now, would you change anything?

If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what would happen in it?

What’s a fun fact about [insert fic]?

If a fic was titled [insert made up title], what would this story be about/how would you write it?

Are there any fics that influenced you to write the way you do?

What are your favorite fics at the moment?

Are you subscribed to any writers on AO3?

Do you spend more time reading or writing?

What’s your favorite writing compliment you’ve gotten?

What do you tend to get complimented on the most about your writing?

Do you have a fic you wish got a bit more love?

Is there a particular fic that readers gravitated towards that you didn’t expect?

How do you deal with writing pressure, whether internal or external?

Why do you enjoy writing fanfiction?

What motivates you during the writing process?

Do you have any writing advice you want to share?

Free space - asker can come up with any writing or fic-related question they want!

[snakebites-and-ink]

I've already said that my number one piece of writing advice is to read.

But my number two piece of advice is this: be deliberate.

Honestly this would fix so many pieces of bad writing advice. Don't forbid people from doing something, tell them to be conscious and deliberate about it. This could help stop people from falling into common mistakes without limiting their creativity. Black and white imperatives may stop a few annoying beginner habits, but ultimately they will restrict artistic expression.

Instead of "don't use epithets": "Know the effect epithets have and be deliberate about using them." Because yes, beginners often misuse them, but they can be useful when a character's name isn't known or when you want to reduce them to a particular trait they have.

Instead of "don't use 'said'" or "just use 'said'": "Be deliberate about your use of dialogue tags." Because sometimes you'll want "said" which fades into the background nicely, but sometimes you will need a more descriptive alternative to convey what a character is doing.

Instead of "don't use passive voice": "Be deliberate about when you use passive voice." Because using it when it's not needed can detract from your writing, but sometimes it can be useful to change the emphasis of a sentence or to portray a particular state of mind.

Instead of blindly following or ignorantly neglecting the rules of writing, familiarize yourself with them and their consequences so you can choose when and if breaking them would serve what you're trying to get across.

Your writing is yours. Take control of it.

It probably sounds like I'm preaching to the choir here because most of my mutuals are already great writers. But I'm hoping this will make it to the right people.

[caba-111]

I like this advice. "you can do what you want, just do it with intention" applies to a lot of things.

[femslashbigbang]

Rollover Week #1

WOW we're finally here...our first Rollover week of the year, giving you all a chance to tackle a previous prompt. So, if you've only just found us and saw a previous prompt, you can come share something you've been cooking this week.

We do these three times a year, so if you miss out, never fear, you can have another shot at these prompts in Rollover Week #3 (Rollover #2 will be inclusive of May to September only, so good chance to plan ahead!).

Prompts: 1) Just Between Us 2) Daydream & 3) Letters Never Sent

Rules:

Much like monthly challenges the requirements will be minimum 1k of fic or 1 piece of art (graphics/podfic/fanmixes/poetry/etc are all eligible as well as drawn art)

Tag the work with ’femslash big bang rollover challenge‘ if posting on ao3 or @ us on tumblr.

Works should be by the end of the the week in your time zone - Midnight 31st of May 2026

Any Fandom and original works allowed so long as the main ship is femslash. Please see the FAQ below for clarification.

Other links:

FAQ

Schedule

Prompt List

AO3 Collection 

We have a discord too - send an ask or reply to one of our posts and I can send a link :)

[blackwaves]

🍒 character questionnaire 🍒

(send an ask with a character name + a fruit emoji and i'll go through these questions with the character in question! alternatively: send specific numbers + a character name)

off the top of your head: notes for characterization? what are the most essential traits of this character to you (personality traits, important connections/dynamics, voice)?

adjacently—do you think fandom does the above traits justice? why or why not?

throw this character at any other character of your choice to bounce off each other as outsider pov to each other— regardless of timeline or logistics (crossovers allowed if you're interesting about it). why this combination? what insights would they have on each other?

how do you think you would react to this character in real life and vice versa? would you prefer be a million miles out of range, be amicable classmates, or fall desperately in love? (bonus: arrange a hypothetical date between yourself and this character. getting silly with it is encouraged (fakedate them! escape a dinner date through a bathroom window!))

ideal flavor of rotating for this character? crack them open and dissect them— do you want them tormented, pining, or being loved + comforted? do you have any specific scenarios you like to think about?

weave a web of dynamics through the cast for this character: which dynamics are you most interested in? both canonically and through extrapolation/speculation— which dynamics are the richest to you, and why?

do you have particular niche takes on this character? defend those takes. (openly controversial takes are permitted, but also: hyper-specific headcanons which you believe in and no one else has considered enough to disagree with yet. pick a hill to die on.)

[missdema]

Yuriful Week 2026

Grab your passports to travel this July to Yuriful Week 2026! A multifandom week dedicated to expressing our appreciation to wlw ships and their fanworks. Inspired by the yearly fandom ao3 stats.

Here's the ao3 collection.

[red-dyed-sarumane]

stop calling your own work slop

[red-dyed-sarumane]

stop forcing yourself to disengage with what you love because a layer of irony makes it more comfortable. admit you care and let yourself feel good about it

[whatagrump]

Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):

“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.

“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.

“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.

“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”

“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”

“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.

[thewritinggrindstone]

And!

“If you’re breaking dialogue up with an action tag”—she waves her hands back and forth—”the dashes go outside the quotation marks.”

[writing-is-a-martial-art]

Reblog to save a writer’s life.

[may-lancholy]

Please check out the rules before beginning to complete the prompts!

Continuing on if you have lmao

Maylancholy Prompts 2025:

May 1. Dreams and Nightmares

May 2. Hidden Injury

May 3. “On Your Knees.”

May 4. Sleep Deprivation

May 5. Blood Loss

May 6. Hallucinations

May 7. Stitches

May 8. Panic Attacks

May 9. Forced To Watch

May 10. “It’s… It’s Not Too Bad—”

May 11. Nonconsensual Drugging

May 12. Delirium

May 13. Memory Loss

May 14. Strangled

May 15. Restraints

May 16. “Stay With Me.”

May 17. Broken Heart

May 18. Betrayal

May 19. Isolated

May 20. Magic With A Cost

May 21. Doomed From The Start

May 22. Left Behind

May 23. Long-Term Captivity

May 24. Truth Serum

May 25. Mental Shutdown

May 26. “I Can’t Do This Anymore.”

May 27. Hypothermia

May 28. Manipulation

May 29. Self-Harm

May 30. Stabbed In The Back

May 31. Unwanted Immortality

Alternative Prompts (If any daily prompt doesn’t take your fancy feel free to replace it with one of these!):

Alt 1. Gunshot

Alt 2. Wing Whump

Alt 3. Barbed Wire

Alt 4. Head Injury

Alt 5. Withdrawal

Alt 6. Concussion

Alt 7. Pressure Building

Alt 8. Living Weapon

Alt 9. Electric Shock

Alt 10. Forced Confession

[disabledwhumphurtcomfort]

Disabled Whump & Hurt/Comfort 2026 Prompt List

These are the prompts for the 2026 Disabled Whump & Hurt/Comfort writing challenge, a 30-day challenge running from May 1-May 31, 2026 (works may be written in advance but should only be posted on/after May 1). The FAQ Page is here and the AO3 parent collection is here (check it for this year's subcollection).

Below the read more are the content and posting rules for this challenge. The prompts are divided by themes, but can be mixed up or taken out of order or only a few at a time. See rules for more information.

Remember to tag your works #disabledwhc2026 !

PROMPT LIST

LIVING WITH IT Established disability

Hurt: Targeted vulnerability | Stigma and discrimination | New or worsened symptoms

2. Comfort: Not backing down | Confidence | Friendship between disabled people

The Long Haul

3. Hurt: White-knuckling | Fatigue | “Not this again”

4. Comfort: Solidarity | Planning ahead | Stress tolerance

Acquired disability

5. Hurt: "You'll never come back from this" | Mystery condition | Self-injury

6. Comfort: Adjustment period | New strengths | Learning from others' experience

Recovery

7. Hurt: Manipulative "care" | Painful recovery | Failed treatment

8. Comfort: Reaching out unexpectedly | Rest | Emotional support

Adaptation

9. Hurt: Frustration | Progressive conditions | Stubborn

10. Comfort: Inventiveness/creativity | New aid | Practice makes perfect

PAIN AND PERIL Environmental

11. Hurt: Re-injured | Situational trigger | Deprivation/neglect

12. Comfort: Hiding place | Saving yourself | Tearful reunion

Sensory

13. Hurt: Acute symptoms | Overwhelmed | Sensory trigger

14. Comfort: Calming strategies | Breathe through it | Getting away

Trapped

15. Hurt: Stress position | Deliberate exacerbation | Failed escape

16. Comfort: Just in time | Out of harm's way | Field medicine

Medical

17. Hurt: Contraindicated | Emergency intervention | Malpractice

18. Comfort: Welcome visitor | Place to rest | New treatment

Breaking Point

19. Hurt: Over the limit | In denial | Breakdown

20. Comfort: Confession | The universe will catch you | Non-linear recovery

EMOTIONAL HURT Loss

21. Hurt: Unfair choice | Without support | "There's no way to fix this"

22. Comfort: Space to grieve | Safety net | Moving forward

Autonomy

23. Hurt: Infantilized | Denied control | “Let me decide for myself!”

24. Comfort: Self-advocacy | Major decision | Self-assurance

Psychological Effects

25. Hurt: Self-blame | Complex effects | Mental fatigue

26. Comfort: Coping strategies | | Post-traumatic resilience

Stoicism

27. Hurt: Masking | Minimization| Warped tolerance

28. Comfort: Respecting privacy | Breathing room | “I trust you”

Intimacy

29. Hurt: Touch | Alienation | Misunderstanding

30. Comfort: Unconditional love* | Trustworthy | Offering without pressure

31. Free day

*Any kind; platonic, romantic, spiritual, sexual.. have at it.

Rules below the cut:

Rules:

This event will be centered on characters with disabilities and chronic conditions, visible (ex, paraplegia; limb differences) and invisible (ex, migraines; CFS) mental and intellectual (ex, Down Syndrome, schizophrenia). Stories about characters from adjacent communities where not everyone in them identifies as disabled, such as characters who are Deaf/HOH or autistic, are welcome too. The bottom line is that the character(s) should have a condition which is impairing for them. For writing to qualify, please have one or more disabled/chronically ill characters as the focus of your story, rather than a side character/cameo in a story about nondisabled characters. Prompts are meant to facilitate stories about disability and disabled characters in the genres of hurt/comfort and whump (also known as hurt-no-comfort).

"Disability" can have a broad definition, and many conditions can be disabling. The moderator will not be filtering or rejecting submissions based on what medical conditions "count"; the only parameter is that the central character lives with a chronic condition of some type which is disabling for them in some way. Disabilities which come about in a fantasy or sci-fi setting are welcome as long as they are portrayed as being disabling in some way which is analogous (eg, a permanent problem caused by magic, or vampirism as a fantasy-disability). In fanfic it does not have to be canonical - headcanons and AUs are fine.

Please do not TAG your posts/links with the names of disabilities you are writing about (eg tagging a story about an epileptic character with “#epilepsy”,) or with “#disability” or “#chronic illness”, as those tags are used by disabled folks to talk about our RL disabilities and in the past there have been issues with writers inadvertently clogging those tags with fiction/writing advice.

Please DO tag your posts and links #disabledwhc2026 and, in a second tag, the day (eg, #day 1: established disability) so the mod can find and reblog them to the blog!

Original work and fanfic are both welcome; anything goes in terms of settings and genres (fantasy, sci-fi) as long as it’s h/c or whump.

You do not have to write for every prompt (that’s why there’s a mix of hurt and comfort!) or every day to be featured. If you don’t have time for 30 days, do as many as you feel like. If you only write either H/C or Whump, you can do a 15-day challenge, reinterpret the hurt prompts to include comfort, and/or find a whumpy spin on the comfort prompts.

If you write prompts out of order please still tag which day you are writing for and the title of that prompt set. So if you decide to post the prompt “frustrated ambition” from the set “Loss”, which is day 21, on May 3, please still tag your May 3 post “day 21: loss”.

There are no restrictions on what content can be posted, but please use content notes for the following topics: "Rape/Noncon" "Underage Sex" "Graphic Depictions of Violence" (ie gore), and "Major Character Death" before the start of your piece. You can also use the warning "Creator Chose Not to Use Content Warnings" if you do not want to spoil fic. Please use a "read more" for these pieces.

Please tag any NSFT works (explicit sexual content) as "NSFT". Please use a "read more" for these pieces.

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trouble is as trouble does (10227 words) by warpinator Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Toga Himiko/Uraraka Ochako Characters: Toga Himiko, Uraraka Ochako Additional Tags: Getting Together, Self-Harm, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Toga Himiko is Not a Villain, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Quirk Discrimination (My Hero Academia), Self-Worth Issues Summary: Himiko's trying to be better, really. And then she runs into Uraraka Ochako, the girl she couldn't stop staring at during the Sports Festival.

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living perilously (10299 words) by warpinator Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Chabashira Tenko/Yonaga Angie Characters: Yonaga Angie, Chabashira Tenko Additional Tags: Background New Dangan Ronpa V3 Ensemble, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Getting Together Summary: Tenko decides that waiting until morning isn't enough. She's not giving up just yet on getting Angie to ignore the Necronomicon.

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🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

i love love love when people point out their favorite lines! whether that's just bc they think it sounded cool or wanted to point out the construction, I always feel so happy. Thank you for noticing, is how I feel haha.

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big enough to hold your love (963 words) by warpinator Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: Yonaga Angie/Yumeno Himiko Characters: Yumeno Himiko, Yonaga Angie Additional Tags: Relationship Study, Canon Compliant, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, No Dialogue, Femslash February 2026 Series: Part 9 of girls girls girls (femslash febuwhump '26) Summary: It's easy, believing. Angie gives her faith. Gives her a reason to do something.