103 posts
Ariadnehayes - The Better Twin - Tumblr Blog
you have to stop hating yourself for not taking care of yourself before you can start taking care of yourself in a more sustainable way
Compliment them. That person you think has their shit together and wouldn't need it or want to hear it. They do. They absolutely do. Their shit is dispersed. I promise you. It is a shambles.
I've had someone tell me to my face that they would compliment me, but for the fact that I already know this or that about myself. Huh???? No. Sorry.
No I don't. In my weaker moments I become an ungrateful mud monkey that has never once internalized a compliment
I adore being told you like me or something I've done. It sustains me, and in my weaker moments when I forget that life is good and happy, you might catch me before I fall.
You ever had someone catch you like that? You can do it too. The ones that catch you have been you in that moment before and know they will be again.
“they were flirting with you” and how was i supposed to know such a thing when everyone speaks in codes and puzzles
hmm guys did you know that even if we went back in time nothing would magically get better cause the real problem is our brain
any tips for writers block or should i just diy a homemade lobotomy
someone motivate me to post my writing on here again because it's actually been so long but i'm scared :3
“Oh Rascal Children of Gaza” by Palestinian poet, Khaled Juma.
He was born and raised in Al-Shaboura Palestinian Refugee Camp, in the Gaza Strip. He lives there to this day. Before Israel’s latest war crimes, he worked as a school teacher and writer.
i think we as a society need to use cell phones/laptops/cars/backpacks to flesh out characters
prompt #49
“Just this one time, please,” the hero pressed, wide eyes staring at them with need. “Please, help me.”
Villain shot them a cold smile. “Get down on your knees, and I might just consider.”
This is a continuation of the poll story. All winning bits so far included below.
The sands devoured the landscape in every direction, a gaping yawn of yellows and reds. The protagonist's throat scorched dry. The last drops of their water bottle had been drained two hours ago.
They staggered another step forward on the dunes, squeezing their eyes shut against the breeze that somehow did nothing to alleviate the heat. They raised a hand to shield their face.
When they opened their eyes again, the antagonist stood in front of them. They looked as cool as ever, untouched by blistering day or the surprisingly freezing night.
"How is your great escape going?" the antagonist asked. They flicked their fingers, magic summoning a sweet pool of water into the inviting cup of their palm. "Are you ready to come home yet, darling?"
The protagonist's breath caught.
"Do you really think?" The antagonist stepped closer, holding their watery hand up to the protagonist's lips. "That distance alone will be enough to shatter the connection between us? This is silly. You know I don't like to see you suffer."
The protagonist let the antagonist feed them a drop of water. A moment of weakness, perhaps. Or maybe just the familiarity of them, of the bond rattling in their chest. The thirst and the hunger.
"Then close your eyes, love," they replied. "Look away and you won't have to."
The antagonist snorted. Their hand moved, swiftly, to cup the nape of the protagonist's neck.
"As if I've ever been able to keep my eyes off you from the moment we met."
It was idiotic, but the protagonist still smiled at that. Pained. Heart-punched.
Even with all the miles upon miles between them, the protagonist felt the touch like something real. Solid. Like the antagonist could always step through time and space and be there, so long as they were twined together.
The protagonist forced themselves to pull back.
If they let themselves linger too long, they really would go back.
Home.
It would be so much easier if it didn't still feel like that was what it was.
The antagonist's expression hardened, at the distance, the quiet refusal. At least, they tried. "I don't want you to suffer. I don't want to send legions after you. You deserve better than to be hunted like a common criminal."
"Like a prized stag."
The antagonist swallowed, but didn't protest.
The protagonist shrugged, as if it were really that easy. "Then don't hunt me. I've already escaped. Let me go."
"I don't want to," the antagonist said, with a dreadful tenderness. "But I will."
The protagonist sucked in a sharp breath, even if they had already suspected as much.
"You know I'll catch you," the antagonist pressed. "Do you think this desert and all the shifting sands of the world would be enough to hide you from me? Do you think there's anywhere you can run where I can't follow?"
"No," the protagonist said. "But I bet I can get to where I'm going first."
The antagonist's jaw clenched. "This is a courtesy," they said. "Run fast. Run hard. Because when I catch you, you will never run again."
And then they vanished, like they'd never been there at all.
There were very few ways to break a soulmate bond. Such things were designed to last forever after all. The protagonist staggered their way across the desert until they reached the oasis.
It sounded nice, a little like paradise. The oasis. But the waters of the forbidden oasis were a dangerous thing; they changed a person, lured them in, took them if they could.
The pool before them was perfectly clear, beautifully blue, and yet it was a chasm, falling deep down into the sand until the light could no longer illuminate the water. Sloping trees provided a whisper of shade against the scorching sun and biting winds. Soft mounds of impossible moss and wildflowers invited any weary traveler to be welcome, sit, rest and stay a while.
The protagonist fell to their knees by the edge of the water.
Option A
The antagonist appeared next to them. It wasn't a surprise, but the protagonist still felt their heart beat a little faster.
"Where are your legions now?" the protagonist asked. "Your hunters and your cages? You're too late. I said you would be."
"Is being mine so terrible that you would rather die?" The antagonist returned. "Don't do it."
"I might not die."
"Please."
That, somehow, was a surprise. That single soft broken word.
Option B:
The antagonist found them - the protagonist wasn't sure how long later. Everything in them hurt like someone had scooped their heart out of their chest, diced it, and shoved the ruined pieces back inside in all the wrong order.
They had a vague approximation of a heart. They had a wound.
So why could they still see the antagonist? The phantom should have been impossible. They had sacrificed so much to be free. Too much, maybe.
The antagonist crouched down with a pitying sigh, stroking their fingers through the protagonist's hair. A wretched sob caught in the protagonist's throat and they lilted in.
There was no soul-comfort. No completion. No fuzzing bond. No...
The antagonist was really there.
The protagonist gasped, eyes that had eased closed snapping open once more. They struggled to force their pained body upright.
The antagonist's fingers tightened on their throat in an instant, considering.
"You really did it," the antagonist murmured. "I didn't think you'd actually go through with it. Tell me." They pressed a hand, nails digging in, where the protagonist's heart technically still was. "What do you imagine I'm going to do with you now?"
Option C:
Figures danced, miraged, in the reflection of the water. Memories swam before the protagonist's eyes.
The first time they had met the antagonist, when everything had just felt so right. A hand reaching out for them, drawing them close across a dance hall, never quite letting go since.
The protagonist trailed their fingers across the surface, shattering the past in a thousand ripples. They leaned in, raw want and terror, as they cupped the water in their palms.
The next moment, figures dropped from the trees. They leapt upon the protagonist in an instant, hands rough and cruel as they dragged them away from the pool and all its complicated promises.
The antagonist appeared in front of them, no tenderness left. No thing just for the two of them.
"You're right, of course," the antagonist said. "I can't get to where you're going faster than you can. But did you really think I would not guard against this possibility? Do you think I would underestimate you so? Understand you so poorly?"
The protagonist gasped, choking out a breath as a boot slammed into their gut.
"This is a trap," they managed. "You -"
"You should have ran." The antagonist blurred in and out of their vision. "You should have kept running, and running, never stopping, instead of trying to do this. Then maybe, just maybe, you could have won."
youve died a thousand times before who caaares just climb out of this grave again & again &agaian & agaian & again & again & aga
can you please do a m/m snippet with a human and their supernatural boyfriend? Something like the supernatural thinks they’re superior to the human because they’re stronger/faster/immortal and constantly flaunts their power and uses it to intimidate the human? Love your writing btw, absolutely amazing ❤️
“Humans are weak.”
It was what his boyfriend said, as he pressed him up against the wall and pinned him so he couldn’t move, kissing him slowly. Teasing kisses that left him gasping for more, craning for touch, aching to reach out. With his hands so firmly pinned above his head he couldn’t.
“Go on.” His boyfriend’s eyes gleamed, in challenge. “If you can just reach to kiss me, I’ll let you get off.”
Of course, against an impossibly fast supernatural creature, there was no chance of that. He was lost.
“Humans are so fragile.”
It was what his boyfriend said as he plucked him right into the air, legs dangling, and carried him bodily back into the flat. He appeared out of nowhere. Dumped him down on the bed with the first aid kit appearing in a blur next to them. Weight gone, and then weight pinning down his lower body as his shirt was torn away like nothing and ripped aside.
His boyfriend traced a hand over the wound on his chest, eyes dark with pleasure. “What the hell do you think would have happened if I wasn’t there for you? Idiot.”
He reached up a hand and drew his boyfriend’s hand to the side and over to his heart - beating steadily still. He was fine.
“Why, what are you going to do, outrun me? Humans are slow.”
It was what his boyfriend said, in a flicker of shadows around the house.
He could barely turn away, and his boyfriend would be right in front of him again with a maddeningly smug look on his face. “I’m just saying,” he bit out. “You don’t need to protect me. I’m not going to break the second you take your eyes off me.” He understood the fear, he did, but dear god it could be unbearable.
“Oh, please,” his boyfriend snorted. “You couldn’t even win in a fight against me, let alone against someone actually trying to hurt you.”
…
He didn’t win that fight.
“Honestly, sometimes I don’t know why I bother with humans.”
“Honestly,” he snapped, at breaking point, “I don’t know why you bother with fucking humans either.”
His boyfriend’s jaw snapped closed, eyes wide.
“You think we’re so pathetic - you think I’m so pathetic-” his lungs burned, something hot and choking in his throat. His fists clenched. “Leave. Just leave then! Nobody’s forcing you to stay.”
His boyfriend floundered. “I didn’t mean-”
“You didn’t mean to what?” He took a step forward. Shoved, even when it was like shoving a statue and did sod all nothing. “Didn’t mean to scare the living crap out of me? Didn’t mean to make me feel like shit? Oh, I’m sorry, was the constant stream about the inferiority of my species supposed to make me feel good?”
“It’s not like that-”
“-What the hell is it like then?” He shoved him again. His boyfriend took a step back. Fuming, he suspected it was only an effort to make him feel better, than any actual working force.
His voice cracked. “What is it then?”
There was a long, suffocating silence. “It’s just biological fact.”
He laughed then, had to. Choked and awful. “Yeah? Then this is me just leaving. Prick.”
“I’m sorry.”
It was what his boyfriend said, as he sat outside the door. He’d been there for an hour, two. His boyfriend could have broken the door down.
He didn’t know what to think about the fact his boyfriend hadn’t. He stared down at his knees so hard that his vision swam and wished the words didn’t affect him, wished he could be cold and wished he could be anything other than human.
“I shouldn’t have said what I did,” his boyfriend continued. “I was - you’re right. I was a prick. I didn’t think. I just-” he faltered and the silence stretched for a while, broken only by agonized breath and hurts practically synchronized on either side of the door. “I wanted to impress you.”
By insulting me?
“I’m just so goddamn scared of hurting you.” His boyfriend’s voice quivered, in the distance between them. “You’re so - you’re not weak. You’ve never been weak. I know that. But god. If I lost it for a second the things I could do to you-”
He squeezed his eyes shut, buried his face in his hands. Then he went and opened the door.
His boyfriend nearly fell in, from where he’d been leaning. Utterly startled as if his oh so super hearing hadn’t even heard the steps. He looked up, but didn’t stand.
The look on his boyfriend’s face was devastating. It wiped clean any thought that this might be some trick for forgiveness - it was too raw, it revealed too much. His boyfriend meant it. Meant it as some cruel and self-flagellating reminder to himself, all the time. Had to joke, perhaps, or he wouldn’t be able to bear it.
He released a shaking breath and knelt down, taking his boyfriend’s hands in his own. He kissed them, those dangerous, strong and wickedly quick hands. Hands made for the rendering of pieces and the taking apart of prey.
“My boyfriend is an idiot,” he said, softly.
His boyfriend leaned in and buried his face against his chest, like he had no strength left in the entire world.
He wrapped his arms around him in turn and pulled him closer.
They stayed like that for a long time.
Kazuo Ishiguro - “Dream Techniques”
1. Unwarranted Emotion 2. Unwarranted Relationship 3. Delayed realization (ENTER/EXIT) 4. Odd postures—figurative postures + escaped metaphors 5. Placing 6. Weird Venues 7. Extended, tangential monologues 8. Distorted time frame 9. Unwarranted recognition of place 10. Private enclaves 11. Unwarranted familiarity with situation (or person or place) 12. Characters from foreign contexts 13. Characters continuing under different surfaces 14. Distorted Logistics 15. Transmuting Narrator 16. Partial invisibility (And odd witnessing) 17. Backward projection of Intentions 18. Bleeding with Memory 19. BACKWARD projection of Judgment 20. Restricted Witnessing 21. Tunnel Memory 22. The Dim Torch Narrative Mode 23. Crowds—Unwarranted Uniformity 24. Robert Altman [illegible] 25. (“More than I expected”) Unwarranted Expectation 26. MIXED PERSONALITY
“Are you going to just stand there or are you going to actually help?”
“The contrarian in me says ‘just stand there’," the protagonist replied. "You know, if you’re giving me the option.”
"Oh my god. Help me. Now."
Hi! Your an amazing writer and I often stalk your page. I was wonder if you could do a civilian x villain prompt? Have a great day/night!
Thank you! I do have at least a couple 'villain x civilian' snippets around here somewhere, but it's a fun dynamic and I'm happy to do more...
The villain slammed through the front door at full strength, out of breath and just barely shy of panicking. "Leo!" he screamed.
Okay. Maybe he was panicking.
There was a long, horrible moment of silence. And then in a rustle of throw pillows Leo's head poked up over the back of the couch, blinking owlishly as he pulled his headphones off and pushed his laptop aside.
"Mal? What're you doing home at...?" His eyes widened. "What happened to the door?!"
"Oh thank god!" The villain sprang at him to grip him in a hug. Leo made a surprised umph noise as the villain pulled back just as fast. "You have to go. Now. I'll pack your bag." He darted off to the bedroom.
The villain's go bag was under the bed and he cursed himself bitterly for not making Leo one too. "I'll get your clothes!" the villain yelled. "Grab any personal items you want. You've got two minutes -"
He turned from the closet and smashed full speed into Leo. Sweaters went flying and Leo grabbed the villain by the shoulders.
"Malcolm! Slow down," he said in that voice that brooked no nonsense.
The villain grabbed Leo's wrists. He could break the grip. Hell, he could toss Leo across the room and through a couple walls too. But this wasn't an attack. Breath ragged, the villain hung on to his partner's arms and held still.
"Good, babe. Okay." Leo was doing that little stoop in his knees and his back, to bring himself down to eye level with the villain. "Talk to me. What's happening?"
"You..." The villain swallowed. "Have to get out of the city. Like, evacuate. There's gonna be, uh, weather?"
Leo blinked again. "Weather," he repeated, in a carefully neutral voice.
"Fine, not weather, but danger!" the villain snapped. Reluctantly he brushed the warmth and safety of Leo's hands away and bent to pick up clothes. "I can't explain - I'm sorry - but you are in very real danger and I need you to get away."
Slowly, Leo crouched beside the villain, sitting himself on exactly the pair of pants the villain wanted. "Because someone cracked your secret identity?" he asked softly.
"Because someone..." The villain stopped dead. Leo was looking at him sideways, giving him room to not answer. The villain flung down a sweatshirt and sat back on his heels. "You knew. How long have you know?"
"Well, I wasn't completely sure until just now when you smashed in our door like it was balsa wood," Leo said wryly. "But, yeah. I started putting things together after you moved in. How all those work emergencies lined up with cape battles around the city -"
"Technically, work emergencies," the villain could stop themselves from muttering.
"- the many, many grevious training mishaps, at your boxing gym," Leo went on. "And I started thinking how I almost died in thst [hero] on [villain] crossfire, except somehow I was inexplicably transported to an ER 5 miles away." He glanced over, almost shy. "It was you, wasn't it?"
"Civilians aren't supposed to get hurt," the villain said automatically. It was a Rule. He felt himself going shaky again, remembering the feel of the lanky body half buried in the rubble beside him, the terror that this poor rando was going to die because he, the villain, hadn't ducked hero's heat blast fast enough...
Hesitantly he looked up. To his shock, Leo was still looking at him with love and understanding in his eyes. "You're not... mad?"
Leo shrugged. "It was obvious why you'd guard that secret. I figured you would tell me when you were ready." He threaded his fingers through the villain's. "I'm here for you. Or..." Leo looked up sharply, as if remembering what started this. "I guess I'm gone for you."
"I'm sorry," the villain started. "But he knows who am I... "
Leo waved him off, started gathering up clothes. There was just the slightest tremor in his hands. "And if he knows you then he'll find me and I'm an obvious leverage point. I get it. I can go upstate, stay with Javi and Kay a few days..."
"Leo -" Leo glanced up. The villain grabbed his hands, stared into his soft eyes. "I won't let him hurt you again. I'll burn the world before I let that happen."
"Oh babe." Leo swallowed, smiled so bravely. "I know."
The villain pulled his lover closer and Leo pressed against him, solid and gorgeous and so unbelievably real. "I trust you," he whispered in the villain's ear. "I'm proud of you. I love you so so much, [hero]."
"Oh," was all the villain said, as Leo buried his face trustingly against the villain's shoulder, right next to where the villain's heart had just shattered.
Slowly, the villain brought up his arms around Leo's back, careful not to squeeze too tight around all those delicate nerve endings and internal organs and spinal columns. "Love you too," he whispered, "Angel."
Pretend, for example, that you were born in Chicago and have never had the remotest desire to visit Hong Kong, which is only a name on a map for you; pretend that some convulsion, sometimes called accident, throws you into connection with a man or a woman who lives in Hong Kong; and that you fall in love. Hong Kong will immediately cease to be a name and become the center of your life. And you may never know how many people live in Hong Kong. But you will know that one man or one woman lives there without whom you cannot live. And this is how our lives are changed, and this is how we are redeemed.
What a journey this life is! Dependent, entirely, on things unseen. If your lover lives in Hong Kong and cannot get to Chicago, it will be necessary for you to go to Hong Kong. Perhaps you will spend your life there, and never see Chicago again. And you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earth quake, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is in Hong Kong, for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win.
—James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket
you! the person reading this! please tell me one good thing that happened to you today
