the politics of light and dark are everywhere in our vocabulary…psa to writers: subvert this, reveal whiteness and lightness as sometimes artificial and violent, and darkness as healing, the unknown as natural
Some ideas for bad things that are white/light:
- lightning, very hot fire
- snow storms, ice, frost on crops
- some types of fungus/mold
- corpses, ghosts, bones, a diseased person
- clothing, skin tone, hair, etc. of a bad person
- fur, teeth, eyes of an attacking animal/monster
- bleached out deserts, dead trees, lifeless places
- poison
Some ideas for good things that are black/dark:
- rich earth/soil
- chocolate, truffles, wine, cooked meat
- friendly animals/pets/creatures
- a character’s favorite vehicle, technology, coat, etc.
- a pleasant night
- hair, skin tone, clothing, etc. of a good person
- undisturbed water of a lake
- the case/container of something important
- valued wood, furniture, art
- velvet
Think to burn, to infect, to bleach vs. to enrich, to protect, to be of substance.
Tag: prompts
I dare you to take the last thing you wrote and swap its genre
Be creative! Were you writing a horror story? Try to rework it into a fantasy or a romance. Maybe your monster isn’t stalking your hero or heroine to kill them, but instead just wants some loving or is actually a fantastical creature who just wants to return a child’s teddy bear. Writing about space? Have a steam-punk ship show up and shock all of the modern-day scientists. Make your genre swap as silly or as serious as you like! If you don’t feel like swapping genres entirely, try adding in another genre’s elements.
Think outside the box!
If you’re brave enough to post, don’t forget to tag I dare you to write and indicate whether or not concrit is welcome.
my best friend just called me to ask what color he should wear to prom and I was like “um?? idk??” and he was goes “well we have to match, so like what color is ur dress??” but he never asked me to go so I was kinda confused so I told him “hey, yeah since when are we going to prom?” and the line goes silent for a bit and he very quietly whispers “shit. I forgot to ask u”
IMAGINE YOUR OTP
im tired of “psychic powers misdiagnosed as psychosis” stories instead i want actual psychotic characters with psychic powers being constantly irritated as fuck because they cant tell whether their visions are prophetic or hallucinations and if the chosen one thing is a delusion of grandeur or not
They have a portal that leads to a fantastical world in their closet, but they don’t know if it’s real or not. It could be, but it could also be their brain screwing with them by taking forgotten bits of that one time they read Narnia. They low key sometimes throw trash through it and it seems to disappear but also sometimes it comes back like wtf is this, make up your mind fake portal.
their best friend comes over and is like holy FUCK dude narnia’s in your closet and they’re like lmao i know and the best friend is like what?? and they’re like i told you about that hallucination right?? and the friend is like no narnia is literally in your closet and they’re like SHIT DUDE I’VE BEEN IGNORING IT FOR MONTHS BC I FIGURED I JUST NEEDED TO ADJUST MY ANTIPSYCHOTICS
They go to their doctor and say “yo I don’t think my meds are working, cuz a giant black wolf is following me around and crowd keeps appearing????” Their doc just looks at them. “So that’s not your dog then?” “Oh shit, it’s real !? So it HAS been stealing the food from the fridge!”
i’m so here for a psychotic chosen one who ignores all budding signs of magic because they’re just like “yeah, same shit As Always”
The ‘ive been given a prophecy to save the world but i have to be partners with thiS ASSHOLE’ AU
modern magic aus
- i really want us to get along and i invite you over to my apartment after i had spent hours hiding away all my strange plants and potions and fancy magical rocks and moving star charts and kick my cat familiar out for a day. Everything looks incredibly normal and non-magic and things are going great until i see u accidently touch a thing i forgot to put away THAT YOU ARE NOT TO MEANT TO TOUCH
- i get a cold and when im sick i really can’t be around non-magic people but u show up at my door and i try to shoo u away but u come in and see my apartment but tomy relief u think i’m just really into weird crap, but then my cat starts talking and u notice some of my furniture are walking around the house and u swore u saw that house plant wave at you
- you’re always finding weird trinkets in your clothes such as colourful feathers, smooth rocks, glinting scales or peculiar miniature marble carvings and you don’t know where they’re coming from but they’re actually good luck charms that i slip into pockets
- whenever we touch im so nervous and i cant keep my magic in check and i slip up so whenever ur hand brushes mine for a brief moment you see spirits/ghosts or light bulb bursts or door slams open and i’m so sorry cause now you think i’m haunted or something
- my kitchen’s a mess and inside a fridge is a mixture of drinks, food, potions and potion ingredients and u drink what you thought was some weird cordial and now you’re having a 24hr out of sense experience and you’re seeing and saying really delusional crap and i have to keep you here overnight so you don’t die
sooo… apart from my Hufflepuff!Neville AU, I’m so very, very tempted to write a Gordon Ramsay teaching Potions AU. But, like, not one where he teaches them from day 1 – no, I’d like him to, idk, substitute for Snape in their 3rd or 4th year, when they’re still young but Snape obviously established himself as a terrifying figure to those kids.
Imagine Gordon introducing himself and saying he’ll be teaching them for a few weeks, because Snape got ill or some other shit (maybe Dumbledore made him do some urgent buisness for the Order?). And he says that he wants to get to know them and their skills, so he asks them to prepare a quite simple potion. And Neville is so terrified he’s literally shaking, so, obviously, he messes up almost instantly and his brew begins to produce large amounts of smoke. Gordon obviously comes to him straight away and asks, “so, what do we have here?”, and Neville begins to cry – oh Merlin, it’s their first lesson with a new teacher and he screwed up in the first ten minutes, he couldn’t be more of a clutz, could he?
Except when Gordon sees that the kid’s crying, he becomes almost as concerned as Neville. “No, no no no, don’t cry, it’s alright, really – see?”, and he takes some ingredient and fixes the potion quickly, “it will be fine if you add more nettles and stir clockwise for a minute. It’s alright, you were doing great, just got nervous. It’s nothing we can’t fix”, and stuff like that, and Neville’s so surprised he actually stops crying, nods, and starts working. And, by the end of the lesson, he’s made a pretty decent potion – maybe for the first time in his life – and he’s so amazed and proud he’s beaming. And Gordon asks him to stay after the lesson, and Neville gets anxious again – he’s not going to reprimand him, is he? and Gordon says that he did pretty well today and that he should believe in himself more, mistakes happen to everyone, you have to focus on how to solve them. And he also tells him that he’s here to teach them, so Neville – it’s Neville, right? – he shouldn’t be afraid to ask the teacher for help, because that’s what he’s here for. And Neville is literally speechless at that, and only after a moment he manages to say that professor Snape didn’t like it when they asked for help. Which makes Gordon curious, obviously, so he asks why. And Neville, reluctantly, tells him a bit about how he got himself into the hospital wing a few times, and how Snape took away points from Gryffindor, and how he was always rubbish at potions, really, and that Hermione sometimes helped him a bit, but professor Snape thought that was cheating… And Gordon’s not stupid, he sees how the kid behaves around him and hears the story and is able to put two and two together – and later that evening, if you were walking leisurely on the grounds near the headmaster’s office’s windows, faint screaming could be heard.
The next week, Ramsay officially replaces Snape as the Potions Master. Everybody except the Slytherins cheers.
Potential sources of conflict for asexual characters
(Or, to put it another way: Suck it, Moffat!)
Internal Conflict
- Self-doubt about asexual identification
- Changes in sexual orientation/identification over time
- Attempts to figure out romantic orientation
- Conflicted feelings over dual identity as asexual and gay/straight/bi/pan
- Internalized acephobia and shame
- Feelings of being a loser
- Feelings of being a freak
- Feelings of never being wanted by anyone
- Anger at rest of the world for not accepting/teaching about asexuality
- Desire to date conflicts with dislike of sex and/or romance
- Difficulty distinguishing between sexual, romantic, platonic, aesthetic and sensual forms of attraction
- Fear of growing old alone due to asexuality
- Searching for a word to accurately describe oneself
- Struggle to reconcile one’s religious beliefs and one’s asexuality
- Questioning of gender roles and own masculinity/femininity due to asexuality
Romantic Conflict
- Difficulty acquiring a partner who does not require regular sex
- Fear of getting into a relationship with someone due to doubts that the couple can be happy without sex, or having to give in to unwanted sex
- Celibate romantic relationship is not recognized or valued by friends and family
- Attempting to form a queerplatonic and/or polyamorous relationship instead of a traditional monogamous romantic relationship
- Conflict with partner over what kinds of sexual activities can be done, what is off limits, how often, and whether outside sources of sexual pleasure are acceptable
- Fear of romantic partner leaving them for, or having an affair with, someone more sexually interested
- Strain or break-up of relationship due to differing sexual preferences
- Negotiation with partner over consent issues and how to avoid pressuring a partner into sacrificing something, or development resentment
- Discovery of own asexuality at a VERY inconvenient time, like in the middle of making out, or right after having sex with romantic partner for the first time
Conflict with Peers
- Pressure from friends to date and/or have sex
- Virgin stigma
- Difficulty getting acceptance from friends or family after coming out as asexual
- Loss of friendships after coming out as asexual
- Rumors and gossip from other people due to lack of sexual activity
- Pressure to fake sexual attraction to be accepted by peers or please a romantic partner
- Inability to feel comfortable and connected to friends who are very focused on sex and/or dating
- Other characters attempt to “fix’ or “change” the asexual character
- Increased discomfort or repulsion when flirted with by others
- Fear of being outed by others
Other Sources of Conflict
- Inability to communicate one’s sexual needs, preferences, boundaries, and relationships to others due to lack of asexual vocabulary in common usage
- Being stereotyped as mentally ill, sex-negative, repressed, or other qualities due to being asexual
- Family does not approve of asexuality
- Family demands marriage and children that asexual character does not want
- Threats of sexual assault or violence from other people, including from romantic partners
- Alienation from popular media due to heavy use of sexuality and/or romance
- Coming out as asexual
- Difficulty meeting and befriending other asexual people
- Being targeted by homophobia, biphobia or transphobia (either mis-targeted, or because many asexual people actually are trans, homoromantic or bi/pan-romantic)
- Difficulty accessing asexual-friendly health care or mental health counseling (due to pathologization of asexuality)
- Desire to have children conflicts with repulsion toward sex
- Potential for discrimination in work, employment opportunities, housing opportunities and social status due to asexuality. (Actually happens. Really.)
- Public figure, celebrity, or politician risks backlash over asexuality
- Immigrant marriage risks being annulled or unrecognized due to lack of sex (This actually happens.)
- Difficulty adopting a child due to asexuality (Also a real thing that happens.)
- Discomfort or unpleasantness in bars, nightclubs, stip clubs, raves, or other social gatherings in which flirting and overt sexuality are common
…In addition to, y’know, the fact that almost any plot that you write for non-asexual characters can also be applied or adapted to asexual characters. But those are infinite, so here I only listed conflicts that are directly related to asexuality.
Rest stops on highways are liminal spaces where the veil is thin and nobody can tell me differently
Explain
The explanation is that liminal spaces are in between places that bridge Here with There, so in fairy tales we often have the Fairy Ring, the Forest Clearing, the Sudden Misty Foggy Forest, the Bridge, the River, graveyards, in some cases
We also have a ton of american urban mythology around famous roadways and sites off the sides of roads
Archetypes like these occur to mark the places in the world where the veil goes thin and humans can have extra-worldly experiences, out of the ordinary way of living
So why wouldn’t transient spaces like rest stops where everyone is just passing through from one place to the next, never stopping for too long, not be a liminal space where spirits frequent, too
Especially since nobody would know if they were real or not
Ok but this speaks to me
I always feel like something isn’t quite right at rest stops
I once slept though three gas stations on a road trip, and the second the car started to slow to turn into a rest stop, I was basically wide awake.
My mom and I were on I-90 in a blizzard once and pulled off at the first exit we could find. Turns out that if we’d gone even a mile further, we would have happened on a 49-and-counting car pileup, and that 90 was closed for MILES. How we found an unblocked ramp was a matter of great debate, but where this gets weirder still is that at the bottom of the ramp was a closed truck stop and an open church full of teenagers–they went for youth group, the blizzard started, and they were stuck until the snow stopped. They fed us leftovers from their potluck dinner, prayed with us for safe travel, and when the snow let up they saw us on our way.
Three days later–Sunday–we were traveling back and decided to stop at that church to thank them. We found it thanks to the truck stop, but this time it was the truck stop that was open and the church that was closed. Neither of us remembered it looking so decrepit on the trip down, and granted we saw it first at night in a snowstorm, but you’d think we’d have noticed the boarded-up windows. So we asked in at the truck stop.
The church had been abandoned for ten years. And yet I still had one of their youth group programs under my sun visor, very clearly labeled for the previous week.
To this day I’m sure we crossed dimensions somewhere on I-90, and that’s how we stayed safe. You could tell me it’s because the truck stop was a liminal space and I’d 100% believe you.
I don’t mind when this post goes around again because sometimes I get stories like this
starry-eyed 