Do You Prefer Yellow Or Green?

Do you prefer yellow or green?

Yellow when it’s that golden color because it feels like love and smells like home, Green when it’s that deep dark color because it reminds me of secrets and childhood.

I prefer green a lot because it’s a soothing color and I’m loud, though

“I’ve never used a gun before,” the hero swallowed, mouth dry. They had never needed to, but now—

The villain’s head lolled over to look at them. A lazy grin spread across their face.

“Don’t worry,” they held the hero’s gaze, unflinching. “I have.”

The gun went off. Across the room, one of their enemies dropped, blood splattering against the wall.

Still, the villain didn’t break eye contact, content to shoot without looking. They hit their target every time, but still—

“Can you please look where you’re pointing that thing?”

“Why,” the villain tipped their head, and that shit eating grin was back, “Am I making you nervous, hero?”

The hero grimaced as the villain sent another target sprawling onto the floor. Surely they had to run out of ammo eventually?

When the hero didn’t respond, the villain laughed.

“Oh, I am. Well, that’s adorable, frankly.”

The hero flinched at the next gunshot, and the villain nodded their head towards the hero’s gun. “If you were to—and bear with me this is a crazy idea—help me, this would be over with way faster.”

The hero looked down to their gun, shifting it side to side in their hands. It didn’t look all that hard. Point, aim, shoot. They could do that, right?

They lifted their gun, aiming at the nearest combatant—

The villain slid to a stop next to them, tsking, and their hand settled onto the hero’s gun too quickly for them to see. “Not-no not quite like that,” they hummed in the hero’s ear, and though they couldn’t see their face, the hero knew they were amused. 

The hero’s jaw clenched with irritation.

“First,” the villain murmured, far too close, “Safety needs to be off.” They clicked something on the hero’s gun, repositioning the hero’s hands as they did. “Second,” they continued, and the hero shivered. “Don’t aim at me, love. You like me too much to kill me.”

“You’re awfully sure about that.”

The villain half rested their chin on the hero’s shoulder, batting their eyes. Their free arm jerked up, firing a shot behind them at someone who had evidently gotten too close to the two of them.

“I am,” they grinned. Their hand rested over the hero’s once more. “Now, aim,” they guided the hero’s hand towards the nearest enemy. Their finger slipped over the hero’s on the trigger. “And shoot.” They pulled down on the trigger, trapping the hero’s finger underneath theirs, so when the gun fired, they fired it together. The hero winced.

It was louder than the hero had thought it would be.

Across the room, the body dropped.

“Good,” the villain praised, voice low, and something stirred in the hero’s chest. “Again, love.”

They guided the hero through the motions once more.

By the time there was no one left to fight, the villain was staring at them with a look they couldn’t decipher. It was all encompassing. Hungry. Wild.

The hero cleared their throat, and the villain smirked like they knew what the hero was doing.

They eyed the hero, still with that look on their face.

“God, you’re pretty with a gun in your hand,” the villain cursed. They stepped closer. The hero didn’t move, holding their breath as the villain wiped a splattering of blood off their face. “Pretty covered in blood, too, but that might be a bit too insane for you, hm?”

The hero’s face went hot. It wasn’t, they thought. They wanted to kiss the villain so badly they worried it might be a sickness, twisting their mind, something terminal. But still, that smile—

The villain stepped away. They scanned the hero’s blushing face, and grinned harder at whatever they saw.

Gently, they took the gun from the hero’s hands, vanishing it behind their back.

“The next time you need someone to show you how to shoot, give me a call,” they nodded towards the hero’s hands. “I wouldn’t want someone else touching my hero, now would I?”

The hero couldn’t stop the smile that spread across their face.

The villain winked, stepped back, and was gone.

My hero.

Oh, the hero was well and truly fucked.

Hey!! How is your Thursday treating you? Very well I hope. I saw your writing advise and I was wondering if you could give me some pointers. I know your probably busy so answer this on your time. My story’s setting is a very high end posh all girls boarding school. My main character’s family has major and integral ties to the school unknown to her since she was basically raised by her mothers parents (her father is the son of the headmaster) and the school is funded by the “government”. All the parents say that there child had loved the school and curriculum, only every girl that walked out of the school changed. Their behavior, their thoughts, their morals…all changed. They became more isolated and more withdrawn. I say this because the school actually trains the young girls to be assassins. They believe cultivating young minds is crucial. The facade of the school is well done so much so that admission is a long and tedious process. They start recruiting slow. They have a group of young girls who have been through the process scout out for young girls they think would make a good fit. It’s the setting and overall feeling I’m having trouble writing. The school at first should seem like a dream. The school is set in this wonderful eighteen century like building with beautiful grounds and various rooms and various chambers. The new students board in a different wing than the young girls who are in training. It’s all very hush hush. I want it to be scary, riveting, keep you on your toes. What are some techniques you use to write unsettling atmospheres?? I want it to be unsettling. Like you know somethings wrong but you can’t put your finger on it. It’s dark and mysterious and fearful. The teachers are in on it as well. So i it gives “lamb to the slaughter vibes”. The girls who are part of the training and are the leaders are mean and cruel, they like to scare the recruits, make life hell for them. They’ve gone through a lot of trauma and are emotionally broken. Do you have any advice for writing the girls? I want them to come of menacing, but also have a odd sense of sympathy and pity for the girls. Because they know first hand how it will be. This project is proving harder to write 😂😂 I was about to give up on the whole thing but I figured I would ask my favorite author for help first. ❤️

Thank you for the ask, you’re very sweet!

For writing unsettling atmospheres, I normally rely a lot on subtlety, especially when the main character is in the dark.

For example, one of the short stories I wrote ended with the main character getting her identity stolen by a fae. I hinted at it all throughout, but I put it into the characters own thoughts—how the other girl’s laugh sounded like hers, how the other girls hair was the same color as hers but it was better somehow. Going through it, it gives childish envy, but on a second read, it becomes more clear that the fae was slowly transforming to look more and more like the MC.

Along with that, don’t draw attention to unnecessary things to make it seem more unsettling, because that doesn’t feel natural. State something that’s slightly off or unsettling, and leave it. People will think about the implications naturally. Why is that door locked? Why don’t we go on the second floor? Where did the girl from the first week of classes go too, since we can’t go home?

When thinking about the setting you described, with an older house you can make a lot of assumptions about what’s happening. People’s first reaction is never “bloodstain” it’s normally mud, or tea, or paint. So have your character notice some strange staining on the wall outside one of her rooms, and bring it up to a teacher/supervisor, completely innocently, like mentioning they think there’s a water leak. Have the supervisor draw the silence out, make it feel uncomfortable, like she thinks she did something wrong, and then have them dismiss it with a “I’ll have to fix that.”

Leaky roof? Sure. Is it under the training rooms and one of the baseboards leaked blood down the inner wall? We’ll find out, won’t we?

Silence freaks people out, but so does the abrupt change from sound to silence. Make information change on a whim. The character thought this is what the supervisor said, but everyone says she’s wrong—when the information did change, just in order to keep the peace. I think a lot of the unsettling atmosphere will come from subtle environment factors—blood stains and locked doors and a wall around the school to keep the horses in, but the protagonist hasn’t actually seen any horses yet….

Now, for the girls. They can be BIG contributors to the unsettling factor. But you have to decide how you want them involved. Are they mean to the new girls because they’re jealous of their innocence? Are they mean because they’re trying to provoke them into leaving the school before it’s too late? To have them have that kind of “menacing” aura, then any subsequent sympathy or pity will also be a bit gruffer. It sounds like they’re mean partly because that’s one of their only pieces of freedom they have, but also because they’re jealous. I hope I’m making sense, but if I’m not, here’s kind of a snippet my brain spat at me regarding your questions.

She had watched as they demonstrated knife throwing aptly, because scared as she was, she wanted to do it right.

She had listened to all of their advice, sharp tongued as it was, and studied the way the older girls fingers danced along the blades.

She had always been good at learning this kind of stuff by sight, so she had double checked her hand position, and threw.

And promptly sliced the palm of her hand clean open.

She didn’t even have the thought to gasp at the pain as she watched the blood begin to well. Her cheeks went red as one of the older girls snapped her gaze over, fixating on her bleeding palm.

She wasn’t supposed to screw up, she was supposed to be proving herself—

The older girls hands closed around her wrist with a startlingly efficiency, stretching her fingers out to view the wound. When she winced, the girl shushed her, half harsh and half distracted as she eyed the wound.

She just barely kept up as the older girl dragged her into the bathroom, rummaging in a cupboard for a box of bandages.

“Be quiet,” the older girl snapped as she opened her mouth, eyes dark. “I’m fixing your hand right now because you messed up. This is the only time you get to do this.”

She could only watch as the older girl wrapped a bandage through her fingers and around her wrist, leaving her capable of movement and still covered fully. She wondered how many times you had to get an injury like that to learn how to bandage it so well.

“Listen to me,” the older girl hissed. “I helped you this once, and it won’t happen again. You don’t get to make mistakes; we don’t get to make mistakes. So either you don’t make them, or you learn to hide them, do you understand me?”

She nodded, just once.

“This school has a 100% graduation rate.” The older girl’s eyes bore into hers. “And they will never let that change, so don’t try.”

The older girl left her in the bathroom, clutching her aching and bandaged hand, wondering just how many of the stains on the sink were blood.

I hope this helps!

How about a hero who accidentally kills a cat and feels bad about it so they bury it but villain finds them? Love your writing!

The hero was thoroughly, miserably, soaked and shivering on the ground. Dirt coated their palms, under their fingernails and on their knees.

They dragged a hand down their face. Fought off a wretched sob.

Their fingers shook as they set the flower down on the tiny mound.

Behind them, the sirens on an ambulance cut off, plunging them into silence. If they thought about it, they could feel the blood seeping from their side. They could hear the sound of rubble shattering to the ground echo in their ears.

And the screaming.

They could hear that, too.

They didn’t think about it.

A sob worked it’s way out of their chest, painful in their throat as they tried to swallow it.

“I’m sorry,” they choked. Their voice cracked. “It was—an accident, and I know that doesn’t…”

They had to bite their lip to stop another sob.

“Praying?” the villain questioned from behind, voice gentle.

The hero shrugged one bruised shoulder.

“No.”

The villain stepped around, facing them. Their eyes dropped to the flower, the fresh dug dirt on the hero’s hands. The grave.

Their expression softened.

“Ah.”

“You can leave now.”

“Praying for forgiveness, or praying for salvation.”

“I said you can leave now,” the hero snapped. They swiped away an angry tear, dirt smearing on their cheek.

The villain didn’t move.

“Why are you still here?” They bared their teeth in something they hoped was enough of a message to get the villain to leave. They had a feeling it was something pathetic, instead.

“You were crying,” the villain said it like it was an answer.

If the hero thought about it too hard, it was.

They didn’t think about it.

“Burst water line,” they gestured haphazardly to the demolition behind them, the half-flooded street. “No tears, no praying, and certainly no need for you—”

The villain’s expression shifted. “I told you that you needed to microdose your power.”

The hero froze.

“Shut up,” they hissed. “Shut up—“

“You wanted to quit, and I respected that. You have enough scars for a lifetime, we both do. But I warned you. I told you that if you didn’t use your power, it would use you, and it would be an ugly, violent thing.”

The hero shook their head mutely, words stuck under their tongue.

“And you thought you knew better,” the villain continued like it wasn’t breaking the hero’s heart. “You thought you could go through life and keep it bottled inside you and ignore the pressure.”

Their gaze flicked to the wreckage the hero knew lay behind them.

“Did you know better, hero?” Their voice was soft and dangerous. “Did you?”

“I said I was sorry!” It clawed its way out of the hero, and it wasn’t a scream, but it was close. “Okay? I know I messed up. You don’t need to taunt me with it, I already—“

The hero’s gaze settled onto the grave once more.

“I already regret it,” they whispered. “You can’t make me any more sorry than I already am.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad.”

“Then you’re failing spectacularly,” the hero snorted derisively.

The villain’s jaw ground.

“I’m trying to make you understand that this would have happened regardless of what you did. And that it’s not your fault.”

The hero blinked.

“You just said that I—“

“I said you thought you could fight your power and win. And you were,” the villain conceded. “You might have made it another month. Maybe two.”

The hero had never seen the villain so angry. “But then someone shot you, off duty and in civilian clothes,” they seethed. “The fallout is on them, not you.”

“I killed a cat,” the hero managed roughly. They blinked back tears.

The villain shook their head.

“You were off-duty. A civilian.”

“I could never be just a civilian, you know that.”

“Just because you were the bullet does not mean you were the one who pulled the trigger.”

“You aren’t making any sense.”

“I am,” the villain corrected. “But you’re grieving, and bleeding, and suffering from a massive energy drop, so you can’t see it yet.”

The hero let the villain pull them to their feet, dirt smearing between their two hands.

“You want forgiveness?” The villain ducked their head to meet the hero’s eyes. “I forgive you.”

The hero forgot how to breathe.

“You can’t just do that.”

“I can do whatever I want. And what I want is for you to stop crying.”

The hero snorted again, but it was lighter this time.

“You’re an ass.”

“And you’re a civilian.”

The hero shook their legs out. When they went to turn back to the grave, the villain caught their chin, turning them away with soft fingers.

“I forgive you,” they said solemnly, as if they had never said anything so important. “They do, too.” They inclined their head just slightly towards the grave.

For once, as their chest collapsed in on itself, the hero believed them

Would you be willing to do some sapphic dialogue between hero and Villain? ❤️

“I understand now,” the villain murmured, chin resting in her hand. The hero turned, swiping a bit of blood out of her eyes.

“Understand what?”

She was golden, her villain, standing there like that. Amongst rubble and ash as it drifted from the sky, light illuminating her like a halo. Like she was some sort of god.

“Why they all went mad. Why they started wars and spilt blood.”

The hero’s brow wrinkled as the villain stepped closer, but she held still as the villain tucked a bloodied piece of hair behind her ear. 

“Have you gone mad, then?” It was half teasing.

The villain laughed, smoothing the hero’s brow with her thumb. “I think loving you has always been a sort of madness.”

The hero shoved at the villain’s shoulder playfully, ducking her head to hide her blush. “Are you calling me an illness, then?”

“One I never hope to cure.”

“That seems a little self sabotaging if you ask me,” the hero remarked. She shifted a piece of rubble with her foot, dust pluming out around it. “But, if we’re in the vein of self sabotage, maybe no more mass apocalypse attempts?”

“I’ll consider it.”

“No, you won’t.”

The villain tipped her head. “Would you truly want me to?”

“No,” the hero said after a moment, voice hesitant. “I cannot imagine you any other way.”

The hero froze, blushing, ducking her head to hide the red on her cheeks. The villain took it as an opportunity to grab her chin, guiding the hero’s eyes to meet hers. Her fingers were the kind of soft that made violence seem a myth.

The villain hummed. “I’d burn the world for you, if you asked.” She raised a playful eyebrow at the hero. “Is that how you imagine me?”

Being this close to the villain was doing something funny to the hero’s heart. She felt like she needed to sit down. Or possibly find out what the villain’s lips felt like on hers–

“Yes,” she whispered. Something flickered in the villain’s eyes.

“What a hero,” the villain’s mouth twitched in amusement, that damn mouth.

“You’re pronouncing ‘hopeless romantic’ wrong.”

A slow grin crept across the villain’s face.

“Oh, am I now?”

There were words to respond to that, but the hero had forgotten them. This close, the villain smelled like blood and dust and something uniquely her, something the hero had been missing all of her life and couldn’t get enough of now.

“Mmmmhm.”

The villain’s grin widened.

“Have I driven you to madness?”

The hero couldn’t look away from her eyes. “The kind that makes people start wars.”

The villain pulled her close, tucking the hero into her neck.

“That’s called love.”

The hero sucked in a breath, heart pounding in her ribs, but didn’t pull away.

“I know,” she breathed in the scent of the villain, “I was destined for failure.”

The villain rested her head against the hero’s. Her arms slid neatly around her waist.

“I don’t think you could fail at anything.”

“I failed at not loving you,” the hero pulled back. “Though really, how could they put heaven in front of me and expect me not to love her–”

The villain was kissing her.

The villain, her villain, was kissing her.

The hero melted.

The villain smiled against her mouth.

“They’ll tell stories about us, you know.”

“They always do, when people go mad with love.”

“The Story of When Heaven and Hell Fell In Love,” the villain murmured fondly.

“Mmm. Which one are you?”

“Hell.”

“That’s the most untrue thing you’ve ever said.”

The villain laughed. 

“Only you would think so.”

“Well,” the hero tipped her head. “I am in love.” She wrapped her arms around the back of the villain's neck. “Now, if we’re going to tell a story,” she leaned in to whisper against the villain’s lips. “Let’s make it a good one.”

The villain smiled.

And kissed her again.

doot doot

This brings me so much joy you don’t even know ty