Latest Posts by ajkiranwrites - Page 7

reblog this if your blog is a safe space on april fools and won’t have any jumpers, screamers, or anything scary or anxiety inducing

Where is my fantasy female protagonist who's a little too socially adept maybe I'm tired of the assumption being that all fantasy female protagonists don't really understand the nuances of conversation in politicised situations. I want a girl who knows exactly how to play people and is always a little privately concerned that she's evil for it.

Y'all are amazing. Reblog to hug the person you’re reblogging from.

Can I engulf each sigh from your starlit mouth until it dissolves into my blood? I swear I can feel it bubble with laughter when I do.

so embarrassing when i forget im checking someone's blog and i start scrolling through and liking and reblogging shit as if it's just my dash. it feels like wandering into someone else's apartment and not noticing and making myself lunch

Sneak Peek

She knew how the protocol dictated and it only gave her three minutes at most. If she didn't remove all traces of her hacking into the victim's computer, they would label her a suspect. She was a cyber vigilante, not a murderer, thank you very much. Criminals are very sensitive about the crimes they commit, and the least you could do is to accuse her accurately.

She began severing each connection, leaving behind no trace, but before she could finish, Detective Alvarez zeroed his eyes on the hidden camera and pulled out a notepad from his jacket. Then, he strode across the Persian rug, and bent low until he was right in front of the camera. He unfolded the paper and held it up. On it was one message.

How long have you been watching, Oblivion?

The screen blacked out. All connections severed from the camera.

"we need less sanitized queer stories" yall keep saying fucking she-ra romanticizes abuse. you couldnt possibly handle less sanitized queer stories

since the old version of this post was flagged for 'adult content'...

reblog this post if your account is a trans safe space or owned by a trans person!

along with that, reblog if your account is a trans non-binary spectrum safe space or owned by someone on the trans enby spectrum!

anyone else write in the dark like a gremlin?? lol

If u interact with my posts, just know I respond like this:

Sounds about right lol

Okay, this never happens. I just sat down for a solid 3 and a half hours and wrote a fic from start to end in a draft format that closely resembles mid-draft as opposed to first draft. My concentration never wavered.

I’m afraid

Random mansion generator

The Procgen Mansion Generator produces large three-dee dwellings to toy with your imagination, offering various architectural styles and other options. Each mansion even comes with floorplans:

https://boingboing.net/2019/07/12/random-mansion-generator.html

SWOT: characters, archs and conflicts

If you’re in business, you’ve probably heard of SWOTs: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It’s meant to analyze other players in your field (i.e. your competitors) and to define future steps to improve your own business.

I have slightly modified this idea to build characters, to give them archs and to make up conflicts with other characters.

1. Strength

Let’s say you decide your character is enthousiastic, always gives 100% in any situation. That’s a strength, right? It means your character is overall a dependable person, and agreeable to be around.

Now write a scene in which you introduce this character without explicitly telling the reader about their personality. How would you notice such a character trait in real-life people? How does it show in your character?

2. Opportunities

Opportunities can arise for people who are happy to take on the work, when they prove themselves to be a good friend (“Can you pick up my mom from the airport?”) or when their boss sees how much they get done in a day.

Write a second scene, in which your characters reaps the rewards for their character trait.

3. Conflicts

I will rephrase “Threaths” as “Conflicts”. For your character, who is the most annoying or dangerous kind of person? Someone who is the opposite of them. This doesn’t have to be big, it can show in small details.

For your hands-on character, this could mean a colleague who does the bare minimum and gets away with it. Or a family member who never gives a helping hand. A class mate who is too chill about group assignments. 

Can you see how this will get under your character’s skin? Write a scene in which your character’s personality contrasts with that of another character. Will they confront the other person or will they let it stew? The way they deal with this conclict shows the reader a lot about your character.

4. Weakness

How can this character trait turn into a weakness? When is this character trait not the best strategy? A quick trick is to imagine how other characters react to it.

Maybe your character’s hands-on mentality means they sometimes forget to take other people into account, even when they mean to help that other person. (“Thanks for painting my new fence, but I didn’t want it white, I wanted to keep it natural.”) Maybe their enthousiasm means they are too blunt, and they unwillingly hurt other people’s feelings. Maybe they even lose friends over it. Maybe always giving 100% makes your character wear thin. Maybe people take advantage of them.

See how the fortress is crumbling? Write a scene in which your character shows a bad side of themselves or gets into trouble because of their character trait.

5. Your story

The early part of your story is a good time to show the strenghts of your character, and next they move into the opportunities. Everything is going so well, people value them for their worth, oh happy day! Wouldn’t it be a shame if they encounter a conflict… And another, and another.

Maybe circumstances in your story push your character to reveal their character trait in a more extreme way than they would have done if they had the time to think before reacting. Maybe your character is the only one with this character trait in a majority of conflicting personalities.

After a number of conflicts, your character’s weakness grows, internally and externally. How will this evolve? Will they learn from their conflicts? Will they make amends? Find people who do value them as they are? Accept their true self? Learn how to prioritize?

And there’s your story.

You’ve got this! Now go write!

I hope this was helpful. Don’t hesitate to ask me any questions, and happy writing!

Follow me for more writing advice, or check out my other writing tips here. New topics to write advice about are also always appreciated.

Tag list below the cut. If you like to be added to or removed from the list, let me know.

Keep reading

I hope every writer who sees this writes LOADS the next few months. Like freetime opens up, no writers block, the ability to focus, etc etc you're able to write loads & make lots of progress <3

"Can't wait to see where you take this story" well I can't wait to see where this story takes me either

I like talking to small children because they are comfortable ending a conversation. Adults hate “awkward silence” and will often continue to talk after the most enjoyable part of a conversation has ended. A child will be like “yeah. Anyway bye” and go back to what they were doing two feet away.

Palestine Donation Links Masterpost

This is a masterpost of places to throw your money at to support Palestine. I'm gonna try and keep this updated as much as I can.

*** Please note, donating does not mean you should stop boosting Palestinian voices. Spreading awareness is JUST AS IMPORTANT as sending money since misinformation is one of the Zionist movement's most dangerous tools. ***

(Last Updated: 13-02-2024)

Palestine Children's Relief Fund

In addition, follow the PCRF on twitter (@/thePCRF) as they regularly post about opportunities to donate to support Palestine.

UNRWA

Doctors without Borders

Defense for Children Palestine

Palestinian Red Crescent Society

United Palestinian Appeal

Heal Palestine

eSims for Gaza

Care for Gaza (PayPal / GoFundMe)

Medical Aid for Palestinians

Islamic Relief USA

ANERA

Help Gaza Children

Sulala Animal Rescue

Hirbawi Kufiyas

Palestinian Youth Movement

BDS Movement

Decolonize Palestine (Patreon)

Aid requests from Palestinians in Gaza:

Help Ahmed Saad get to safety

Help Lama AlJamous Evacuate

Support Khalil in Gaza

Help Yoseph and his Family

Surgery fund for Abdulaziz

Support Abdelrahim Alfarra

Help Yosef Kassab Evacuate

Safe Passage for Nadin

Help Yousef Yaser get treatment for cancer

Help Adel Al Zaharneh

Help Shaymaa's family leave Gaza

Evacuate Abood's family from Gaza to safety

Help Mohamed and his family evacuate

*** If you have any additional recognized and trustworthy places to donate, please either reply or send me an ask or DM and I will update this list! ***

In addition, Palestinians (both in Palestine and diaspora) can feel free to leave your paypals / ko-fi's / cashapps / venmo.... whichever you want in the replies.

Those Who Betray Death

‘I was poisoned by my daughter,’ the woman tells Death. Her lips are bloody, her words choked out, past rattling lungs. Chintz teacups on the table—half-full of Oolong tea—are just out of her reach from her body on the floor, curling her body in a fetal position. Mara isn’t looking for sympathy, but Death gives it anyway.

It replies with the smile of an exhumed corpse of a nun—distantly kind past the grave. It has heard this story before, and this isn't where the story ends.

Death knows endings well but listens. You poisoned her ears first, it does not croon, corrupted her serpent tongue, then her greedy mouth. The human venom is poisonous to its own kind. She hears the truth anyway. Denial has no use in Death.

It bends low at the waist and kisses the woman's paper-skinned knuckles, tasting life's flesh and the faint pulse that precedes its domain—jackrabbiting at the touch. She is scared.

Once an empty hand, now not, Death holds a withered spider-lily in its hand, flourishes it out to her like magician at a child’s birthday party. Her daughter has left long ago. No one will be here to help, which is why Death is. A tear drips down her crow’s feet etched permanently around her eyes as she looks upon the flower with wonder.        

As she grasps the stem and pulls it close to her chest, she asks, ‘Have you ever been betrayed?’ What an odd question to ask a god-like entity, she thinks.

Death kneels in front of Mara—hardly the first of her name or the last—and sits cross-legged, like you would on your childhood friend’s bed at a slumber party. It replies matter-of-factly, ‘Yes.’

When it picks her up, it’s head lingers in the direction of the cups. It lowers its head as if to look at her; she can’t see its eyes, so she cannot be sure, but she gets the sense that is the answer in itself. Her lips and fingernails turn blue to match her eyeshadow.

‘I know the time to collect each being. That is the promise made at the beginning of each beginning. I do not like those who hurry me,’ Death curls the corner of his top lip in half a sneer and half a snarl, ‘but never mind that, I will see them soon enough.’

That is the last thing Mara hears before her pulse fades, suspending her in Death’s domain.

Creative Differences

Finery drips in the gallery with walls the color of fake teeth Under glimmering lights and clacking red-sole heels I shake hands, theirs soft, smooth, unstained, mine with indentations the curve of my paintbrush.

They whisper over hors d'oeuvres and caviar about The color matching their second-floor carpet. I hope it pays my rent.

A child smaller than the canvas wanders Away to a painting, unsticks his fist from his mouth, his eyes wide enough to encompass stars. He stays longer than most until his mother drags him away, apologizing as she rejoins her group.

He understands art a lot more than money right now.

Summer Memories

a kiss on the wrist unravels

summer waters sharp 

memory fragments 

four dreams in a row

a night and a boat

The Moon Singing on Homely Nights

The moon sings softly on the nights Esther climbs in through her brother’s window. These nights turn sparser as Amador stays in his new apartment across the country. During these nights, her heart beats in a lulled pace while she sits on his empty bed. 

There’s a soft click as she unlatches the window and when she crawls in, she makes sure to land on her toes. She finds more than just her older brother. She doesn’t know what she’ll see or what she hopes to see. When she’d last seen him, he’d slammed the door, tears streaking down his face and voice hoarse from screaming. She still doesn’t have the full pieces from the fight that led to her father’s roaring voice startling their home into silence and the unusual pitch of Amador’s voice as he walked out the door. 

She opens his bedroom door to see if he is in the living room or spending his time in a library. She hopes he’s found a library he likes here despite all that has transpired. 

Amador’s head is lolled on the couch, his mouth parted and dead to the world. His body is slightly tilted with one arm around his childhood friend, Maya’s sleeping form who was hugging her brother’s waist. The ugly green blanket Esther had gifted him as a joke is bunch around their feet as if kicked. There’s Snakes n Ladders, playing cards, and Candyland strewn across the table. 

Maya had always filled Amador’s head with ideas—little fantasies that didn’t include Esther most likely that he could escape into. Frowning, she steps forward, fully planning to yank the woman out but the floor creaks loudly under her feet. They both jolt open, Amador’s shaking his head and Maya drags her hands across her face to remove her hair from her mouth, scrunching her face. 

When Amador turns around to face the source of the sound, he finds her face and gives a dopey smile. ‘Hey, you’re home. When d’you come here?’ 

This is the first time she heard him call this place home, and a little piece of Esther’s heart cracks as if he’s renouncing the family home. Something vicious crawls onto Esther’s tongue as she bites out, ‘Thought you’d know that you’ve not succeeded in getting rid of me yet.’ 

Milas flinches as hurt flashes across his face, and in an instant, Maya grips his arm. Esther can never guess how Maya knows that while still keeping her piercing gaze fixed on her.

‘I don’t want to get rid of you,’ Amador says in confusion before letting out a shaky laugh, ‘no matter how annoying you are, you little rugrat.’ 

Esther should ideally know that. She doesn’t have the full pieces of the fight he had with mom and dad, or the unfamiliar way he’s glancing at Esther, still wary but now distant. Even in the moonlight, she can see the color back on his face, the surety of his movements as he tidies up the table and the blanket to give Esther a place to sit. 

When Maya flicks on the floor lamp in the corner, his eyes crinkle at Esther and he pats the seat next to him. His cheeks are no longer sallow, his face no longer as pale as Esther, and he no longer sways in a way that makes Esther worry that a faint breeze could have knocked the husk of a rock her brother used to be. 

Her brother had been wasting away for months, and Esther had not noticed. 

From the corner of her eyes, Maya walks in with two plates balanced in a tray and slides the biggest portion of what looks like heated leftover lasagna to her brother, glancing warily, as she reminds him, ‘You’d promised you’d eat tomorrow nine hours ago. It’s 12:03. Eat up.’ 

She offers another to Esther as she leisurely nibbles on peanuts to keep her brother company. Her brother makes a little face at the size, and Maya produces a bar of chocolate in her fingers seemingly out of thin air as a bribe and chews obnoxiously loud until he drops it. He slouches to rest his head on Maya’s shoulders in acquiesce like Esther had seen him do a thousand times since she could remember, and the woefully domestic scene sours her heart. 

Her plate remains untouched and she nods her head in gratitude for the food and the company. She makes excuses poorly at best and outlandish at worst, and walks out the door. 

One day, she would know the words of the fight and Amador’s dreams if he’d let her, but for now, she takes the earliest train home. As she looks through the window, she sees her mother’s eyes with dark circles underneath. They both have her eyes, but this new Amador’s eyes gleam bright enough to quiet the moon. 

List of Superpowers

An incomplete list of powers that can be used for good and evil.

amalgamation – ability to merge existing creations

attack powers – blasting, shock waves, object projection, fire breath, laser vision, etc.

creation – ability to create out of nothing

dream manipulation – ability to change dreams

echolocation – ability to determine locations through reflected sound waves

elasticity – ability to stretch their body in any way

emotions manipulation – ability to manipulate the emotions of others and themselves

empathy – ability to feel and replicate the emotions, moods, and temperaments of others

energy absorption – ability to absorb energy from people and objects and use it

enhanced physical skills – like senses, stamina, strength, accuracy, intelligence, speed, etc.

fear inducement – ability to evoke extreme fear and horror in others

flight – ability to fly

hypnosis – ability to hypnotise and manipulate others

immortality – not being able to die

immutability – not being able to get altered by outside forces

invisibility – impossible to see

invulnerability – being immune to all forms of physical harm

knowledge replication – ability to replicate the knowledge and skills of others

levitation – ability to levitate in the air

magic – conjuring things

mind control – having control over another’s mind

omnilingualism – ability to speak and understand every language

portal creation – ability to create portals for transport

psychokinesis – ability to move energy and matter

reality warping – ability to manipulate reality

regeneration – ability to rapidly heal

replication – ability to replicate people (including themselves) and objects

self-detonation – ability to self-explode

shapeshifting – ability to change their appearance

telekinesis – ability to move objects with their mind

telepathy – ability to communicate through their minds

teleportation – ability to instantaneously travel

temperature resistance – ability to survive extreme temperatures

vocal mind control – ability to control people with their voice

x-ray vision – ability to see x-rays

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Tangles

All homes of sweet things 

must house their dwellers.

a worry

tangles, my honeycomb

tongue tangles—leaves bees instead

of honey. 

They were in my head?

Dreamlike Laughter

Reality kisses his sleepless nights, until he dreams of her again.

“Really wish you weren’t here anymore, love,” Milas tells Zimi, sitting by the window of his apartment. When he squints outside, the moonlight gleams too sharply off of the blades of grass. 

He needs to tell her tonight. Right here in the dreamscape she made for them to meet across the mountains and rivers between. 

She barks out a short laugh, but her shoulders hunch. She begins, “I don’t know who I can trust enough to practice this type of spell. I truly didn’t know I was bothering, hones—”

‘I miss sneaking mom’s pastries to you and spending all night awake because you got a new board game and you’re a horrible, horrible cheater and.’ Words. Words tangle in his mouth, so he blurts out, ‘And, I miss all the ands.’

Quick as a wildfire, she grasps his face with both her hands. He never feels them, but he can see her dark eyes looking into his sandy ones. In these moments, he thinks her a phantom. That the sentinels who swore their loyalty to her killed her before she could cross the city’s borders. With their history, the years stretching like scars on knobby knees and dolls, he could create something real enough to fool him. 

Something creaks, like twigs snapping under a wheel. It takes Milas back to the evening before, his hand digging into Elijah’s wheelchair, light stubble not smooth skin, and soft hair brown not black under his hands. When he pulls away abruptly, she puts her hands up in surrender. 

The view outside the window fades into fog, but so do the corners of his room. He needs to tell her. 

‘I’m sorry, Kazimiera’ he chokes out. ‘I don’t deserve you.’ He slips onto his knees. Promises broken in a heartbeat, heartbeats jackrabbitting with Elijah’s laugh and the way he calls him endearments in something called French, and Milas was such a fool for the litany of mon chou, trésor, amour. 

After a pause she says, ‘You kissed someone? ’

He shakes his head vehemently, ‘I didn’t, but I wanted to. I almost did.’

The world stills, or maybe it’s too loud in his head: exile, treason, Elijah. The fog obscures his vision until he can’t see anything past the table. 

She grins up at him as if he’s the stupidest person on the planet, and asks, ‘And selfishly hoard your heart all to myself? I couldn’t fit it in the biggest rooms of the palace.’

All air rushes out of his lungs in a sharp exhale, dizzy with relief until he is gasping in short breaths—her forgiveness cooling the splinters under his skin. 

When she leans forward to speak in his ear to tell her about him, he is back at the couch with a flickering lamp’s terrible wiring. 

He is still talking about him when the fogs submerges him fully.

When he opens his eyes, Elijah’s laughter down the hallway is made of dreams. 

i feel like we don’t talk about things like this enough

Reblog this to have people go into your inbox & ask your character questions!

ꜱᴡɪᴛᴄʜ ᴜᴘ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴠᴇʀʙꜱ (ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴛᴡᴏ) ~

love admire adore cherish yearn for fancy treasure

laugh chuckle giggle snort crow chortle guffaw cackle

shout cheer screech scream bark call yell

move run walk back away sprint turn jump duck

look glance focus eye survey study sight spot

whisper murmur mutter breathe intone hiss mouth

ingrid sundberg's colour dictionary - writing help