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August 2026 is AU-gust here at the Prompt Foundry!

Alternate Universe takes on our favorite stories—be they shows or books we love, or tales of our creation—can be a delightfully fun way to explore what makes those stories tick, what makes those characters who they are, and what in them is important to why we enjoy them.

On the other side of the coin, some settings and scenerios are popular for AUs because there's something special about that environment or situation that really tickles our brains, and it can be fun to figure out how to fit different characters and their contexts into that world.

So let's run through the multiverse and play with some AUs!

Feel free to combine different days’ prompts with each other, or combine them with other events, like last year's March of the Blorbos! Draw, paint, sculpt, sing, write fiction, write poetry, write academic analysis—use your OCs, your favorite characters from media, your own experiences, whatever tickles your fancy.

If you use this list, please tag me here @thepromptfoundry, I’d love to see what you create!

Respond to as many prompts as you want or as interest you, don’t worry about missing or skipping any, or posting your work after the day the prompt is assigned to. Remember, this is supposed to be fun!

If you have any questions or musings, check our FAQ, and if you don’t find your answer, shoot me an ask.

Plain text list below the cut:

#wwr prompt

whumpster-dumpster

flamingwell

I want to highly recommend two tools for helping you with this very sad situation, which you must use before it happens.

The first is this wonderful script that will automatically add key information (that you choose) like author, title, summary, etc to your bookmark notes so you at least know what got deleted.

The second is this incredible bulk downloader for AO3. Input any AO3 page (such as your bookmarks page) and tell it what format you want to download in and it will just.... DOWNLOAD IT ALL!! I run it every few months so that I have all my bookmarks downloaded in my preferred EPUB format. That way I know I always have my favorites downloaded in case they ever get deleted.

With the combination of these two, I can look in my bookmarks, see what was deleted, and easily find it in my downloads. It's such a relief to have my own fic library is all my favs!

whosname

[id. A twitter post by @/Bennieeexyz Jury duty letter came addressed to my cat. Not a mistake. "Felix Martinez" - that's his full name according to his vet records. My last name. His first name. Somehow he's a registered voter now. Called the county clerk. Me: My cat got summoned for jury duty. Clerk: Is the name correct on the summons? Me: Yes, but he's a cat. Clerk: Is Felix Martinez a legal resident of this county? Me: He's a legal cat. Clerk: Sir, if the name matches our records, he needs to appear or file an exemption. Me: He can't file anything. He has paws. Clerk: You can file on his behalf. Me: Under what exemption? There's no box for "is a cat." Clerk: (pause) Check "unable to serve due to medical reasons." Me: What's the medical reason? Clerk: He's a cat. Me: That's not a medical condition. Clerk: It is if it prevents him from serving. Sent in the form. Got rejected two weeks later. "Insufficient documentation. Please provide medical professional's statement." Took the letter to my vet. Me: I need you to write that my cat can't do jury duty. Vet: Why is your cat summoned for jury duty? Me: Excellent question. No good answer. Vet: This is the weirdest request I've gotten. Me: Can you just write that he's medically unfit to serve? Vet: On what grounds? Me: He's a cat. Vet: (started typing) "Patient is unable to serve due to species-related limitations including inability to speak, read, or comprehend legal proceedings." Me: Perfect. Sent it in. Got another rejection. "Summons is mandatory. Failure to appear will result in contempt of court." My roommate thought this was hilarious. Roommate: Felix is going to jail. Me: This is serious. Roommate: Bring him to court. See what happens. Decided that was actually the only option left. Day of jury duty, put Felix in his carrier. Brought the entire paper trail of rejection letters. Checked in at the courthouse. Clerk: Name? Me: Felix Martinez. Clerk: (looked at the cat carrier) Is that Felix? Me: Yes. Clerk: (long stare) He's a cat. Me: I've been saying that for six weeks. Clerk: Why didn't you file an exemption? Me: I filed three. All rejected. Showed her the letters. She read through them, expression shifting from confusion to disbelief. Clerk: Someone rejected the veterinary documentation? Me: Twice. Clerk: (called her supervisor over) You need to see this. Supervisor read everything. Looked at Felix. Looked at me. Supervisor: How did a cat get registered to vote? Me: You tell me. Supervisor: This is a data error. Me: Took you six weeks to figure that out. They dismissed Felix immediately. Apologized for the inconvenience. Supervisor: We'll remove him from the voter registry. Me: Appreciate it. Supervisor: (pause) Out of curiosity, how would he have voted? Me: Probably whatever party supports universal treats. Got a formal apology letter a week later and a voter registration card. For me this time. Apparently I wasn't registered, but my cat was. Roommate: Felix committed voter fraud. Me: Felix committed nothing. He's innocent. Roommate: That's what they all say. Felix is sleeping on the jury summons now. Fitting end to his legal career. end id]

#wwr prompt

jamiesfootball

Huge shout out to all the people who read fics. Who actually take the time out of their busy days to open a fic and read it

Before I started writing in earnest, I did not understand how much writing was going to eat into my fic reading time. We joke about having too many tabs open, but I have a different problem: the amount of tabs I have open on new fics is way smaller than it used to be. My ao3 wrapped would be a sad affair. Unless I’ve subscribed to an author or come across something on my dash, I basically don’t see it

Which has really driven home for me how much fandom cannot just be creators. You have to have people who want to read fic and meta discussions and joke posts. You have to have people who want to look at art and gifs. It has to be mutual.

Community thrives on flow. You have to have that movement of people sharing things with each other for a community to exist

Thank you fic readers. You keep things flowing

cygnahime

Hanahaki disease is a psychosomatic illness. It's a thing that your body does in response to stress over constantly repressing/concealing your feelings in settings with high background magic. It's like you've been ignoring pain for a long time and suddenly your vision starts going dark, because your affected body is just YANKING on random alerts trying to get you to PAY ATTENTION there is a PROBLEM. Yes the flowers do really exist. So do non-magical psychosomatic symptoms. The flowers aren't special.

This does of course open up the trope to options for non-romantic concealed feelings. Which I think is great. There is something viscerally satisfying about the person who seems so outwardly chipper coughing and hacking and spitting up Depression Flowers so now everyone has to know they're hurting. Isn't there?

specificwatcher

Hanahaki, but it's a child that feels neglected by their parents.

Hanahaki, but it's someone whose friends have started ghosting them.

Hanahaki, someone's wife is cheating on them.

Hanahaki, the disease that gives you three options: confront your feelings, destroy the love you hold for someone or perish choking on roses.

#wwr prompts #hanahaki disease #angst prompts

lizardlicks

Hey, quick PSA for young or otherwise inexperienced fic writers:

"*****smut marked with asterisks so you can skip!*****""

Don't. Don't do this.

You let readers know what your fic contains through proper tagging and rating. Content warning notes at the top of the chatter are also great. You can even summarize key "this is the plot relevant stuff you missed of you're skipping this chapter" notes at the bottom too! This is a much smoother reading experience.

This is HELL on screen readers which is a disability access issue. Screen readers will read out every single asterisk you put, which I have seen done as entire page breaks. It's an awful reading experience. Please just don't.

Readers do not need their hands held through the reading experience. If they're enjoying the fic but don't care for smut, they can just skim until it gets interesting again. If they REALLY don't like smut, you warned them. There's a back button. You don't have to do a special song and dance isolating out the specific parts you think might be "icky". (If you think those bits are icky and don't like writing them, consider just don't! Fanfic is a hobby we do for fun and you don't have to write anything you don't find enjoyable. There's plenty of readers for gen fic and smut free ship fic).

If someone reads something they don't like then gets mad at you, block em. They need to be responsible for their own choices. It's not your job to please everyone. Your job as a fic writer of his to tell an entertaining and engaging story. (The reverse is true for a reader that demands smut or says it would "improve" the fic but that's not the story you're trying to tell. Block button is your friend!)

muffinlance

This is also super common in scene breaks.

Please, please don't try to span the entire page with whatever symbol you're using for your scene breaks. It takes an eternity for screen years to get through, and typically has me noping out of even the most interesting stores.

Instead, use just three (or fewer) make. Three is standard, and does the job without making your story unreadable.

In general: please, think of the screen readers.

vivaciouscynner

as a person whose only good trait is their eyes, this has eluded me until i was tasked to test websites with a screen reader.

It is hell

It is absolute hell

From navigation to listening to the voices

It's just awful

Since then I've tried to write with screen readers in mind because the number of websites that think about accessibility is SO SO SMALL

If you don't believe me, use NVDA which is a free accessibility tool. Otherwise you have to spend thousands of dollars for a slightly better one. Then try to navigate a website.

So yeah, listen to the above posts

tuktukpodfics

Instead of asterisks, just add the HTML tag <hr>. This will put a clean horizontal line through the center of the page that will be read by VoiceOver as "separator, dimp." (dimp stands for "default item mapping" and it's used by screenreaders to indicate that an item onscreen isn't something actionable like a button)

jr-everything

"how do I find fics about this one specific topic on ao3?"

summary search!!!

#ao3 tutorial

wizardarchetypes

the place where so many haunted house genre stories fall apart is where the writers try to explain why the house is haunted and it completely defangs the story because the explanation is never as scary as the haunting itself. "this house is haunted and bad things happen here" can be so artful and outrageously scary. "this house is haunted because Specified Bad Thing Happened Here" falls flat again and again. i'm not saying it can't be done but i'm almost never satisfied by it and often it ruins the whole story for me.

wizardarchetypes

the thing is, a Haunted House story is not the same as a Ghost story. In a Haunted House story, the Haunted House is a character. Usually a main character. In a Ghost story, the ghost is a character. A Ghost's story may be explained by showing us the Ghost's origin. But a Haunted House story cannot be explained by showing us the origin of one of the House's ghosts. That's just one ghost. We're talking about the House.

ao3commentoftheday

hey, blog! 🌸 anon here. I think there are probably other posts about long fic, but I was wondering if you or others have any advice on sticking to a single long story instead of jumping to another? I'm mostly of a short fic writer myself, and I'm so interested in the secrets long fic writers possess. Anyway, thank you for running this blog! An awesome project :)

I'll give you my secrets as a fellow short fic writer who sometimes dips into medium-fic and the occasional long fic.

Be obsessed with your story. This can go a LONG way to helping you maintain your motivation. Daydream about it. Make playlists about it. Talk to friends about it.

Try to make each chapter feel like a oneshot. Give it an opening, a middle, and a closing. Have some character development or achieve a plot point or drop a clue that will be used later in the story. The more you can give yourself the satisfaction you get from a oneshot, the better.

Do jump to oneshots on the side to keep you going through the long fic. Sometimes you really do need to get the feeling of "done" to be able to continue something that's still in progress. Don't deny yourself that feeling just because you think you should. Life needs dessert and short fic writers need completed works.

Embrace a B plot (and a C plot and a D plot). These side plots can last for a single chapter or can be threaded through the whole story or they can bridge from chapter 12 to chapter 18. Whatever their final form, these smaller stories-within-the-story also help to satisfy the need for a short, punchy hit of dopamine when the story is starting to feel huge.

I'll leave it there for now and open it up. How do the rest of you go about writing longer stories? Especially if you typically prefer to write shorter.

tetrimidion

Longfic writer enjoyer here. I'm going to agree with all this, but #2 I do a bit differently.

I treat each chapter like an "episode" of a TV series that has a reputation to get people to binge watch. So I studied what it was about a few of them that makes people want more in my genre I write in (examples are Squid Game, Hannibal, Dexter, You, Based on a True Story, etc.)

The build up and endings in each episode. They all had a cliffhanger in common.

So I don't really give my chapters a "satisfying end", and I make sure the last paragraph and story note ends on a high stake.

This does two things that is ultimately the same thing:

(1) Keeps me excited to start the next chapter.

(2) Keeps other people's interest to read the next chapter.

If you leave the ending of the chapter on a cliffhanger that is intense, it also has more of a chance for it to generate conversation about the fic/chapter due to positive-frustration of the reader wanting to know what will happen next.

This then creates engagement that helps keep you personally motivated too! A few people created a tumblr accounts just so they could DM me to chat personally about a chapter/cliffhanger with me before even.

Good luck, anon! I'm rooting for you.

gatesofminrathous

there will never be anything as funny as the mutual disbelief between long form and short form fic writers about each other's style.

short form writers look at people writing 100k+ fics as though this is some sort of talent given as part of a fae bargain, that the commitment required shows some sort of ungodly mental fortitude.

meanwhile long form writers look at people writing 1000 word one shots like god I would cut off my left nipple to be able to say anything concisely. i would love to play with multiple ideas. free me from the shackles of this child I have birthed. i love them but I now must take them to t-ball and doctor's appointments and they're going to destroy everything I own.

antlered-vixen

I am so tired of short-attention-span, trim-the-fat culture. All writing advice these days is for how to write like Chuck Palahniuk. "Cut 'think', cut 'feel', cut 'wonder' - only action, only pushing forward, show and move and move and move." What if I could emulate this style, and still don't want to? What if I want to write like Henry James, with three paragraphs of introspective musings between each dialogue line? The music advice is, "make it shortform, make it Tik-Tok compatible, make it punchy, hit the refrain as soon as possible." What if I want that 10-minute prog rock piece? What if I want that symphony? What if I want it slow and luxurious and lazy? Movies. Series. Poetry. Bodies. Everything is "trimmed trimmed trimmed trimmed, stripped bare, you have three seconds to win me over, make it airport chic." I don't want to win you over, then, I guess. I want the fat left it. I want the pleasure and the indolence and the indulgence. Fuck this art-advice that's always "your art needs Ozempic."

ao3commentoftheday

Is using spell check okay at all now?

In writing groups I'm in it's grammar and spell check is for newbies and those wanting a crutch or a cheat code.

I'm going to be frank with you, anon. Those writing groups sound toxic as fuck and I'd recommend finding a better place to spend your time.

Grammar check and spell check are embedded in most word processing software and have been since the 1990s. People don't have to use them if they don't want to, of course, but there's nothing wrong with using them.

English spelling is famously a bastardization of French multiplied by German divided by Latin with fifty other languages thrown in for fun. And don't even get me started on the Great Vowel Shift.

All that to say, being bad at spelling is not a moral failing nor is it a sign of weak character. It's a fact of life for an overwhelming majority of people writing in English.

Or, to put it another way, would you tell a near-sighted person such as myself that wearing glasses is a cheat code and that I should just "see better"? I really hope not.

lytefoot

Spell check - yes, literally every time. Spell checking was, like, the third thing people wanted personal computers to do, after calculating mortgage payments and balancing their checkbook. (Maybe fourth, playing blackjack is on that list somewhere.) If you were a serious writer, your typewriter had a rudimentary spell checker in it by the late 1970s!

People who refuse to use a spell checker are the same kind of pretentious assholes that think you shouldn't use a calculator ever. Absolutely there are steps you can take to improve your spelling, and being able to spell most words easily will make the writing process easier and more fluent. (Although you'll get a lot more mileage out of improving your touch typing.) But use the spell checker. Also use a calculator when you want to know the answer to a long division problem.

Grammar check - iffy, and it depends on the software. I don't use it because I think a lot of what it calls "grammar" is actually a point of style that I disagree with. However, if you find that when you're typing quickly you often omit or double words, grammar check is a really efficient way to type that.

Stuff like Grammarly's "reword this"? This is questionable. Now you're getting into something that is no longer your writing. If you're trying to build your voice, don't do it, because the voice you'll build is someone else's.

Asking ChatGPT to reword something for you? Now that is a crutch for people who don't want to learn to write.

Spelling and grammar checkers are no substitute for proofreading, but they are useful tools to help you conform to the conventions of standard English. Don't take their word as gospel, make sure to look up words if you're not 100% sure which option from the spell checker you want, and take every recommendation of the grammar checker with a grain of salt. And find better writers groups.

#wwr writing tips

ao3commentoftheday

Hello.

On the subject of AI, I have a confession to make: I use it. Not to write for me, but to help me check for inconsistencies, to brainstorm ideas, to write outlines, to give me a couple of lines when I've been stuck for hours, to be my beta reader, if you will. Generative AI is bad? Yes, but it also a useful tool if one isn't lazy. I don't ask: write me a story. I go with my story and ask: help me with continuity. Look, this paragraph is clunky, how do I make it better? The demonization of generative AI is fair, but to be honest, I also understand people who use it. Maybe they're afraid of writing themselves, maybe they're insecure and don't trust their prose. Maybe they have brilliannt ideas but they need help to make them become fics.

To me, this is very much connected to my last ask where I was talking about how we don't have enough mentors in fandom to support the influx of people entering it.

All of the things that you're asking AI to do used to be done by a beta reader (or more than one!). A fandom friend (or even a random stranger who volunteered) would read through your work and help you with those issues.

Betas are amazing. They can help with grammar and spelling. They can regionalize language. They can provide sensitivity reading if they're from a marginalized community that you're writing about and aren't a member of. They can track canon, help with research, even just be a sounding board to discuss ideas with.

And sometimes, they're just a cheer reader - someone reading your story and telling you how awesome it is because they love it just as much as you do.

I understand turning to AI if you 1) don't know beta readers exist or 2) don't know how to obtain one. The need for that kind of support doesn't go away just because you can't access it.

But for anyone out there who needs this kind of help and wants to avoid Gen AI, you can write a post on your blog, add it to an author's note, check out resources like @needabeta or - if the time of year is right and you have the funds - place a bid on beta reading services during @fandomtrumpshate

Beta readers are often involved in fandom events like big bangs and exchanges, and if anyone is looking to host such an event, it's a great way to get people involved who aren't writers or artists but would love to help out.

I get it, anon. We use the tools that are available to us. But here's another potential tool if you're interested in branching out?

notwritinganyflufftoday

Sometimes it's scary to post a message asking for beta readers, you are putting yourself out there, you have no idea who might respond to your message (if anyone at all) and nowadays a lot of bots are muddying the waters.

I definitely recommend searching a beta reader within the fandom you're writing for rather than someone who knows nothing about it.

And when you don't immediately get a response, ask again. This comes from a person (me) who is now two and a half years into dating the girl who replied to my 'I need a beta reader' post that I was debating to reblog that day.

Sometimes I wonder where our lives would be if I hadn't reblogged it or if she had skipped past the post.

Fandom is a community of people with shared interests. It's supposed to make it easier for us to become friends, hang out and talk for hours.

Not a single AI tool in the world is capable of giving (fandom) writers/artists/creators what they actually need.

Connection.

transxfiles

me: *writes fic*

me: great! time to post to ao3-

ao3 summary box: *exists*

me:

ao3 summary box:

me:

ao3 summary box:

me:

rooksandravens

rjeddystone

Ooh, this is actually kinda a neat thing, because you can think of it as a checklist:

Who: Main character(s)

Why: Character goal or desire (stated)

Why: Character need (implied)

When: Inciting Incident

What: Means (that achieves the goal/need)

Where: Place A >> Place B

How: The Plan

Obstacle(s): antagonist or challenge

For example:

Who: Bilbo Baggins, a respectable hobbit of Hobbiton

Why: Treasure, wealth (stated)

Why: Adventure, self-respect (implied)

When: After supper

What: Quest

Where: Hobbiton >> The Lonely Mountain

How: A company of dwarves, a wizard, and an ancient map and key

Main antagonist(s): a dragon

Thus, in less than 100 words:

Bilbo Baggins is a respectable hobbit in Hobbiton, never making any trouble or having any adventures. But when a wizard and a company of dwarves invite themselves to dinner, Bilbo finds himself joining their quest from the shires of Hobbiton to the legendary Lonely Mountain, the home of a long lost treasure, and quite, possibly, a dragon.

~~~~

The Anatomy of Story by John Truby is a really good book by the by, if anyone’s interested in this sort of thing.

roguecompanion1812

This is super helpful!’

#wwr writing tips #summaries #ao3 tutorial

thewriteadviceforwriters

writing advice that actually made my writing worse

okay but can we talk about writing advice that actually made my writing worse for a second

like not in a “this is bad advice for everyone” way in a “this absolutely sabotaged me personally” way

because ??? some of this set me BACK

1. “show don’t tell” (taken too literally) this one almost ruined my prose

i got so scared of “telling” anything that every sentence turned into… over-explained action

instead of writing:

she was nervous

i’d write:

her fingers tapped against the table, her leg bouncing, her breath uneven, her gaze flickering toward the door--

and it just KEPT GOING

like yes, showing is important but at some point you’re not “immersive” you’re just exhausting

2. “cut all adverbs” this made my writing feel so stiff it hurt

i started replacing simple phrasing with weird, clunky sentences just to avoid using one single “-ly” word

like… why am i doing gymnastics to avoid “quietly”

no one is giving out medals for adverb avoidance 😭

3. “write every day no matter what” this one burned me OUT

because instead of listening to my brain when it was fried, i forced myself to produce words i knew weren’t going anywhere

and then i’d reread it later and hate everything i wrote

which made me want to avoid writing even more

consistency matters, yes but forcing it when you’re running on fumes just trains you to associate writing with dread

4. “plan everything before you start” this killed my excitement SO fast

i’d spend weeks outlining every detail and by the time i actually started writing…

the story already felt “done” in my head

no curiosity left. no momentum.

now i leave gaps on purpose so i actually want to keep going

5. “make your writing sound pretty” this is the one that made my writing feel the most fake

i was so focused on making sentences sound “good” that i stopped focusing on what was actually happening

everything turned vague. floaty. kind of… nothing

like yeah it sounded nice but nothing hit

now i care way more about clarity and impact than sounding impressive

6. “your first draft should be terrible” okay this one is half true but also messed with my head

because i took it as: “don’t even TRY”

so i’d write things i knew weren’t working and just leave them

instead of… fixing them a little? making them better?

your draft doesn’t have to be perfect but it also doesn’t have to be painful to read 😭

idk i think the biggest thing i’ve learned is:

advice isn’t universal

what helps one writer can absolutely wreck another

so if something is making your writing worse, harder, or more miserable

you are allowed to drop it. immediately.

no guilt. no “but everyone says this works”

like okay… it doesn’t work for ME.

and that’s enough.

#instead of terrible or shitty drafts I like to think of it as a zero draft #it’s a stepping stone to my first draft and can be messy and is just me figuring out the story

ao3commentoftheday

By the Numbers - a short fic challenge

Write a fic with 6 puns/references/inside jokes in 7 sentences.

Write about the meaning of life, the universe, or everything in exactly 42 words.

Write a smut scene in 69 words.

Write a fic of 101 words that includes at least one dog.

Write a 10 sentence fic about why one character hates another.

Write a 666-word fic about a dark omen.

Write a fic containing substance use that is 420 words long.

Write a fic that's 404 words long about a character who can't find something.

Write a fic with a three-digit word count (100-999) that contains your AO3 user number.

Write a 314-word fic that contains a mathematical concept.

Write a new backstory in exactly 52 words.

Write a 616-word fic that takes place in our universe (for a fandom that doesn't).

Write a dystopian future!fic that is 2046 words long.

Write a fic about an evil government that is 1984 words long.

Write a fic that is 177 words long and contains the number 76 and a reference to football.

Write a fic about a hacker that is 1337 words long.

Write a fic that is 24 sentences long, formatted in 7 paragraphs, and describes a character's year.

#wwr prompt #short fic challenge

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