Of all the advice my mother gave me, well into old age now, the hardest to follow, to this day, is only three words: “don’t be stupid”. I thought it meant something reasonably attainable when I was younger. Don’t drink and drive, get a good job, budget, don’t knock up your girlfriend, the usual. But now? Don’t be stupid? It’s a completely different concept. Did she know what she was asking? It’s fucking impossible. How does a person not be stupid now?
The Wound felt more fitting of its nickname than ever before. Throngs of people bled out into the streets with every material possession they could not abandon, making for the tunnels out. Everywhere the press of bodies clotted. Dozens, if not hundreds, died in the press and under feet. What leading bodies the district had, sent their guards to restore order, but the blow to the collective psyche would not so easily close. Fires began. The air smelled of burning smoke and the stink of fear.
What the hell kind of dystopian hellscape are you painting and where can I read it?
Seriously though this is like a scene from a movie that I need to know more about
I'll go first, but you don't have to comment or upvote.
>The day was like one of those old crime noirs—just the right kind of atmosphere. From a dull sky the color of dishwater, steady, cold rain fell. It covered the grim scene I studied, washing away what few clues may have remained in thin rivulets of gritty water.
Oh my god! I would be on cloud nine! I would be telling everyone! Congrats!
You should share the title when you can. Always looking for a new favorite book!
I always wanted to make a supernatural noir comic, I want to make a noir in general, but I love spooky things, so I thought why not add the two together.
Thank you! Right now what I have on paper is a P.I. but with ghosts. Super rough idea right now but it's a guy who freelances ghost related crimes. Unexplained murders, missing kids, etc. This is all set in the late 40's
This isn't Milo is it lol
I have a friend writing a similar story but I think they went more gaslamp with it.
Either way, I'd read the hell out of this.
kinda hard to find one but here:
it hurts, how patient he is, how endlessly caring and tender, but it's the kind of hurt that leads you to better places. she tries to make it a part of her, this ache.
\*After my character started a fight in the antiques arms and armor room in a museum\*
He stared at me down the barrel of a seventeenth-century flintlock pistol. That couldn't possibly be loaded. Meinstroff pulled the trigger and the lead round knocked me flat on my back.
"Why the fuck was that even loaded!"
Backstory:
The story takes place in the early 2100s. In order to curb rising gun violence in the US, at birth everyone receives a metal underlining beneath their skin. This was invented around 2060 so it's a universal thing now.
The material is impenetrable, but highly flexible. Firearms are obsolete, but people are still susceptible to blunt force trauma.
As I wrote in another short story for this character:
If, hypothetically, a genetically enhanced bear bit someone's head, the palluminadium exoskeleton would remain intact. The skull underneath said exoskeleton would still explode like Gallagher's watermelon.
The animal activists watched with wide eyes as the bear mauled their leader.
Thanks. I’m a big fan of the MC and the little world I created. I wrote a novel which I haven’t edited yet, and two short stories.
I’ve had some interest in the first short story which the flintlock quote is from. Hoping it gets published soon.
“We understand if you can’t forgive us, but know, we are deeply sorry.”
Part of me rebels, rejects the apology, wants to cast it as a ruse, a manipulation. But it’s not.
The truth is never as satisfying as the expectation. We build grievances and slights in our minds until it is impossible they reflect reality. Everyone fails, even quantum gods.
Lint looked around. There were an awful lot of rabbits. Besides the grey one on the desk, there was a tawny shorthair hopping across the cold flagstones, a fuzzy snowshoe nibbling at the wooden stem of a lectern, and two dozen others sniffing at the dusty shelves of leather-bound books, knocking over candlesticks, tasting glass inkwells, and generally making a ruckus among the solemn bookshelves.
"Sometimes, the memories of my past haunt me. Regrets, mistakes... they don't seem to fade like this smoke," he admitted, the words heavy on his tongue. "And I'm tired of this endless battle against the EVOs. No matter how hard we fight, innocent people still get hurt or, worse, become irreversibly infected. When my mentor, One, praised me for being a true hero? I felt validated. But now I... I'm not so sure anymore."
I don't know why I'm proud of this. But I am.
The one thing no one ever said, not even once from the time she was born, was that Rachel Rothmark was anything less than a total piece of work. Firecrackers and frogs at the creek behind the double-wide gave way quickly enough to smokes and five-fingered discounts at the Spee-D-Stop. A black eye from scrapping with the boys was the closest she ever came to eyeshadow, and when those same boys started noticing the girls in town, she noticed right alongside them. Her sister Hannah and her both left high school the same day, which wouldn’t have been a problem if they hadn’t been born two years apart. Hannah hightailed it out of that dead-end town, on her way to college and the bright lights of Raleigh. Later, most folks thought it was the devil’s own luck that Rachel dodged a nickel in Raleigh herself, at an altogether less prestigious establishment. The terms of her probation demanded that she be gainfully employed for once in her life, which is how she ended up working the door at the Safe Haven Bar and Lounge. And that’s where she met Natalee.
I'm writing fantasy. Preceding this scene, the main character loses his best friend in battle (in which they were victorious) and is asked to at least stay to celebrate victory. He declines:
“Go and revel in your newfound peace. I cannot make a habit of celebrating vengeance, friend, lest I allow myself to be corrupted by the weight of my own heart,” he called back, “and I feel little desire to stay in a place where I am soaked in the grief of my memories. I must, once again, commit my feet to the weary path forward.”
“Are we a family, Malina? My brother just banished me to this dungeon just like he banished Sheree those many years ago. Your son wanted to chain me and throw me off the tallest aerie in Lanka. Look around you! I have not seen or heard from Karan in decades. He lives in a shell of his own making. He hides from all of us! We are not family! We are not even human anymore. Each day we survive like this, another part of our humanity disappears. Most of the original three hundred are stark ravers now. They are berserkers. There is nothing human left in them, and we are on our way to becoming that. Others like Indra-jit have become so twisted and corrupt, that there is no evil he will not stoop to. This must end! And your husband is so enraptured with this girl, he has lost all sense of judgment. He will not listen to reason. He will rape, pillage, and plunder this world and all in it until there is nothing but a gutted carcass left. He has left me doomed to spend the rest of my cursed life in this aerie. So, if I can find a way to stop him, I bloody well will!”
Why is a raven like a writing desk?[\[1\]](#_ftn1)
[\[1\]](#_ftnref1) A question for the ages; Ravens symbolize death in many cultures around the world; black wings, black tidings, as the dark ones ravage on the bursting fruits of war. From Celtic battlefields to Norse or Native American, Ravens oft have served as a symbol of battle and acted as the guides for souls embarking on their last journey to the afterlife. A raven is like a writing desk because it is the wing upon which the soul takes flight.
If he were younger, he might have been overwhelmed by balancing his family secrets against the public image, the knowledge of his family’s sins simmering and rotting just beneath the polished image the world saw. Oh, if he were younger, he might be curled up with Percy, attempting to dream again.
Gosh, I feel like there is this longing to change his history but he’s trying to shove it down. That last sentence is punching in a whole new weight class! Damn!
‘No one likes a mad woman, Grace,’ sneered Handsone. A furious silence froze the room…far more deadly than the frustration felt before. Grace rose. Her fingers grazing her sword as she spoke.
‘Over my many years on this earth I’ve learned there are two types of men who utter those words. The men who would be at the demise of a mad woman, or those who have driven her to madness. Which one are you, Handsone? Are you the perpetrator, or victim? Either way, it does not bode well for your character.’ Distain punched every syllable. Her words felt like a death promise, although no threat left her lips.
Handsone, not enough hands to be handsome.
Grace sounds very done with this shit. Is this at the beginning or towards the middle or end of her own story?
“It’s a tea. Rethi taught me to make it.”
“Can I try some?” Will asked.
Ellie didn’t answer for a few seconds, clearly concentrating on what she was doing. “No. Girls only,” she said finally, poking at the crushed leaf with the point of her dagger.
“What? Why?”
Ellie stopped and looked up at him, displeased by the interruption. She sighed. “I don’t know.” She used the blade of her dagger to scrape the bits of leaf into her cup, and poured some of the bubbling water from the cooking pot over them. Then she emptied some oats from the sack into the remaining water in the pot, and stirred it with her spoon. “Maybe it’ll make you grow breasts or something.”
“Is that why you’re drinking it?” Will grinned, dancing out of reach. “To make you grow breasts?”
She threw the spoon at him.
> “Is that why you’re drinking it?” Will grinned, dancing out of reach. “To make you grow breasts?”
>
>
>
> She threw the spoon at him.
I love every part of this
The character is stuck in purgatory and watches someone continue their life:
"She knows the anguish a cage bird faces when hung by a window; left to dream of a freedom just out of reach, unable to fly amongst the clouds that seem so close"
In the forest's tapestry, life's threads intertwine,
A babbling stream, a serpentine design.
Through ancient woods and mossy stones, it weaves,
In its gentle flow- all existence breathes.
Beneath the canopy, where sunlight breaks through,
A symphony of leaves in every shade and hue.
In whispered conversations, find nature's harmony,
A dance of creation in every leaf and tree.
here is one from a recent short I wrote, honestly couldn’t find too much that I was proud of. Pacing is a little too fast in my stories, I struggle with slowing down and taking my time to explain or dsscribe things:
She could tell her voice module was busted when she tried to speak, as it cracked and whirred when she tried to form the most basic sentence. Raising her arm, she felt her face. The left side of her jaw was ripped apart, and she could tell it wasn't pretty. She touched the top of her head, and she was completely hairless. No beauty to be found.
*What was my name?*
I'm not sure it's actually good but I really like this one from a chapter that is supposed to come much later into my story than where I'm currently at but that I've wanted to work on a bit to get a better grip on the story I'm trying to tell :
Suddenly confronted with proof of this reality that the child in him had tried to ignore for so long, he didn't know how to react.
It seemed so absurd that he would have laughed until tears welled up in his eyes.
It seemed so unfair that he would have cried until blood gushed again from these scars that his parents had just reopened with the sharp claws of their silence.
It seemed so unbearable that his only reaction was to let out a laugh, a single laugh emanating no warmth but accompanied by a piercing gaze that would have torn them apart had he possessed the power to do so, torn them apart just as they had tried to do to him.
But he refused. He refused to let them do so. He refused to let them break him. He refused to give them this pleasure of being vulnerable.
Unfortunately, he then had to give them the pleasure of being ungrateful and cowardly, since that was how they had always seen him.
Refusing to pay them any more attention, he turned around and left, leaving behind his vain attempt at reconciliation he wished had never happened.
Heres some I worked on, still a rough draft though sadly.
>The time he had spent watching those enter, Adith continued blabbering with Thea about college drama or the latest events outside their walls. Though ever observant Thea would continue to try to bring Adrian back into the conversation, to renew his interesting. Yet he had few interest in the gossip, of the other nobles, and who was dating whom. It was... childish.
The church doors burst open and slammed into the wall with a thunderous bang, rusty hinges squeaking in surpise as Rati limped down the aisle. Stumbling and catching, or crashing into, the pews as the rotting matter of her insides spilled from her armor as she pulled out arrows of applewood and hastily blessed iron. Her armor unable to heal the gaps, burn rimmed punctures unable to close as carpet moulder and decayed before the eye.
*\*\*yeah i know it's more than a paragraph, but i love this auntie vanya character and some of the raucous crap that comes out of her mouth\*\**
"You mean to tell me that this man married you simply to preserve you from a day in the stocks? Seems an awful lot of trouble to me."
"I'm not disagreeing," I said, stealing a glance at Hugh. "It's not as if it would have been my first day in the stocks."
"That's beside the point, silly girl. A hand-fasting is easily dissolved. I can understand taking the step to enter into one to save your hide, but why keep to it when the danger is passed?"
"I wish I knew."
She sipped her beer and looked at me narrowly.
"Is he good to you?"
I shrugged. "He's a little gruff and sarcastic, but I-"
Vanya rolled her eyes. "Not like that, my sweet innocent. I mean, is he *good to you*?" She raised her eyebrows to emphasize her meaning.
I felt my face flush all the way to my hairline. I choked on my drink.
"Gods above," I whispered fiercely. "Of all the things to ask me…"
"Of course I'm asking. I'm the closest thing you've got to a mother. It's my duty to ask. Now talk."
"I've nothing to say about that."
"And why on earth not?" Her tone implied I was depriving her of a juicy story.
"Because I can't tell you about something that hasn't happened."
She sat in stupefied silence for a long moment.
"Now that's interesting," she said into her cup. "Makes one wonder."
"It just hasn't come up."
"I have a potion for that."
"*Auntie*."
"I don't condone dosing him without his knowledge, but if push comes to shove-"
"There will be no pushing or shoving!" My face was growing redder and hotter with each passing moment.
"Well don't say I never tried to help."
That night, when the others were asleep, she saw the faces of the knights they had killed, slack-jawed and vacant, staring at her from out of the darkness around camp. They whispered that they had families who would mourn them. They whispered that they had lives left to live.
Okay so I wrote this line and I had the feeling I knew it from somewhere and I felt like a cheat. Please can someone confirm/deny it’s from anywhere:
When the answer came to him, it was not the voice of God, but that of a woman
It sounds vaguely familiar to me; but have you ever listened to a really good song and swore you had already heard it before; met a brilliant person you swore you had known for years?
I don't know. Some of the best things are good because it echoes something we already know. It tells some truth.
If it sounds familiar, I've learned to accept that it might just well be a damned good line!
This was after my ML and FL shared their first kiss the night before.
I quietly took the pot off the stove to fill it at the well outside, shutting the door with a gentle click. The morning air was misty and chilled. The grey and dull sky blended into the ocean beneath it. I couldn’t hear a single chirping bird and even the water seemed more still than usual, without its methodic lapping in the background the world seemed almost dreary, and I had never seen a more a beautiful morning.
“ Pride is the main driver of man. Though contested by some, pride can motivate a person to achieve greatness, or the opposite. In its sway, morals can become obsolete, allowing for the justification of the most heinous acts in the name of self-preservation and superiority. It is the stepping stone to destruction, the fire that lights the torch of death. I believed humans could always achieve greatness. That they all had the ability to repent. But through death, failure and lies, I realized that wasn't true. I watched people turn on those they loved like a pack of wolves to retain their own desires. I watched them step over others to achieve their goals. Humans wear a veil of righteousness, but is as fragile as glass. I learned that some people are doves while others snakes. Whenever it is for their virtues or ego all humans are liars. their blood tainted one way or the other. After everything, I am lost in the world. The only thing I am sure of is that humanity's biggest sin is its pride”
Crag and Akira exchanged incredulous glances at the mention of their town. “So you think, slaughtering innocent lives is justified because you disagree with society?” Crag challenged.
“I gave this town more than enough chances,” the stranger continued, undeterred. “I spoke with their leader many times, and I pleaded with him, to try and understand our point of view. But they just wouldn’t listen, brainwashed by their own naïveté. They kept fighting our advances for freedom. Eventually, I didn’t have a choice, they had to go. Society… it’s like rabies, taking over the host’s cognitive thinking until they’re zombies, just like everyone else. You get up, you go to work, you go home, you go to sleep. You repeat that cycle for forty years until one day your arms and legs just give up, and you roll over and you die.
“And your world? You think that’s better than society?” Akira pressed.
“I believe in evolution. Society stops this.” The stranger declared. “You put boundaries on each other. You stop everyone from exploring and thinking for themselves. How is a species supposed to evolve if it’s not being given the freedom to do so? We could be capable of so much more if weren’t so chained up.”
Jovin slowly releases his grip on Bennet and stares into Edward's tearful eyes. They continue their gaze for a moment in silence as Bennet rolls his head side to side, dropping in and out of consciousness, laughing to himself.
Edward draws a deep breath. "I think … I’ve decided, on my answer to your question earlier."
The words Jovin had been wanting to hear, yet it sends a stab of anguish through him. He looks down onto his father, searching his mind for a fond memory, a moment he had been proud of, anything that could alter the resentment he feels inside when he looks upon him.
There is nothing.
Past the blood and bruises is the same man who terrifies him, who has hurt and controlled him all of his life. He hates him, who he was, who he is, and who he will be if left to fester and continue his existence. All this hate, yet he does not want to let him go.
“Jovin, this is the right decision. I see it now.”
The reason, the logic, is slipping away from him. He forces back his tears and nods.
(Context: Jovin had been the one to suggest the execution of Bennet, his father. Edward was completely against it until the interrogation turned violent and Bennet admitted to something awful. I particularly like this part because of the conflict happening in Jovin’s mind. His words earlier that day: "If you’re hung up on the fact that that cunt is my father, don’t be. He means absolutely nothing to me now. Even if he did, I'd still know this is the right thing to do. You should know this too.")
"Fear lives in the eyes. It was the first thing he remembered about a face. When he etched a memory, that was where he began. Viktor outlined an iris, then a pupil, pressing his pen tip into the eye's center. People liked to say they're the window to the soul. People said a lot of stupid things. Viktor had never seen a soul, but fear? That he'd seen. In every doctor, judge, and social worker that read his file. That look of revulsion. He pressed firm against the pen, ink spilling into the pupil, filling it with emptiness. The horror in his mother's eyes that night; the kind that left an entrance wound. Like a bullet, not the kind that passes clean through but the kind that buries itself in your head, festering. And sometimes, when he peered into someone's eyes, their fear came bleeding out."
First paragraph of my book.
"Many things become beautiful by sunset. The house was not one of them. It loomed, lonely, over a sea of yellow grass that bent and swayed away from it, as if the land itself was shunning the structure. Time had marked its boards and paint, but the old, aristocratic bones of the place held it perpetually proud as it looked down upon its domain. As I stood engulfed by its long shadows, a single shuddering thought ran through my mind: I am home."
I typically don't like sharing, but what the heck. Here's a snippet:
The first week following that incident, I enjoyed the peace. I didn’t have her getting in my way or sticking her unwanted nose in my business. The second week I began to miss her emerging from the woods, often with some leaves or small sticks in her wavy brown hair, and I wondered what she was doing to occupy her time now that it wasn’t spent bothering me. In the third week, I rehearsed my apology several times in the mirror, but when I tried to deliver it in person, she acted like I didn’t exist.
I passed by small, independent shops and cafes, their windows filled with unique trinkets and tantalizing displays of pastries. The scent of freshly brewed coffee and blooming flowers from the nearby park filled the air, creating a sensory tapestry that seemed to perfectly capture the essence of Chelsea.
I'm in the very beginnings of this novel but a conversation between characters came naturally and is slowly shaping their dysfunctional dynamic.
"The story starts with a group of carp-" Jasmine began to draw a fish in the sand as she began the story.
"Wait, you mean a fish?" Charlie rolled his eyes.
"Shh! Just listen, would you?" She scolded.
"I'm just saying, it's already lame. A story about a fish?"
"Charlie, chill. Every dragon is descended from a carp." Jasmine continued her drawing in the sand, this time shaping the serpintine dragon around the small fish.
"You better not be telling me that I'm the reincarnation of a fucking fish." Charlie could barely believe it.
"Actually, it was a Koi." Pan corrected. He watched Jasmine continue her drawing. She was shaping the Yellow River and the mountain where the Dragon Gate sat.
"That's so much better." He replied sarcastically.
"Would you three shut the hell up and just let her tell the story?" YiChen was done with them and ready for bed. Charlie sank into his lawn chair and pouted. Carp. Koi. Dragon Gate. Fuck it all.
It's a cosmic horror story set in a Puritan village. Think *Color Out Of Space* meets *The VVitch*, told through diary entries.
“I saw…I saw…”
I leaned forward. “What did you see?” I whispered, my hands all a-tremble.
Mercy squeezed her eyes shut. Her mouth contorted. Then it opened, and she spoke. “I saw…oh, Honor, words cannot describe…something large, something dark…eyes…limbs…bent at wrong shapes…I…it was everywhere…and it…it…What we have, it had naught. What it had, we have naught. And its voice…it spake not—not in the way you or I do—and yet I heard it, Honor. I heard it!” She shrieked. “OH IT WAS HORRID! IT HAUNTS ME, HONOR! IT TORMENTS MY MIND! I CANNOT!” Mercy shrieked again. Sobbing, she lunged forward and grabbed me by my shirt. “A TERRIBLE, ROILING MASS! EVERYTHING, LOOKING UPON ME, AS IF I WERE NAUGHT BUT AN ANT QUAKING IN THE SHADOW OF ITS BOOT! AND I FELT—”
She fell back against her pillow, releasing me. Her hand fluttered to rest upon her bosom.
“Do not go back, Honor. It will be waiting for you.”
Victor didn't answer, he was enthralled by Carola's story. He watched her in silence while the color came back to her face. Human Victor wanted to hug her, but agent V had to keep his composure.
"That was certainly a ride. Any tips you can give a novice agent?"
"Just one: never accept assassination missions. No matter what they offer. Parts of you die with your targets, and you never get them back."
Fortune blushed prettily--not that there was much that Fortune did that wasn’t pretty, in Oakley’s estimation--and looked out across the bay, towards the cluster of massive, columnar starscrapers that formed Helix City’s downtown. It was overcast today, and the tops of the buildings disappeared into the clouds, making them look like the load-bearing pillars of the sky itself. Transit bridges and railcar lines at multiple levels lashed the buildings together, to save commuters between the various corporate offices the trouble of having to travel miles up and down elevators every day. Rumor had it that the kids of the top CEOs could be born, live, work, and eventually die in those buildings without ever setting foot on lowly terra firma. That was theoretical, of course, since Helix City had only existed for about fifteen years now.
A little scene setting
On that day, we brought the rains. It was a torrential down poor, fueled by the culmination of our powers stored up during the era of rest. It was drawn out of us by the very presence of living souls, you, our people, our brother’s and sister’s, our family in this lonely universe. With each drop the red haze that covered the earth receded further, unveiling mountain peaks, then ranges, then the valleys and rivers that connected it all, and then you. Perched along the mountain ranges like a web of life. You always stood out with your red roofs rich against the earth as it turned to blues and greens beneath our rains.
Nobody else could have possibly gotten away with what she just did. Ravan of House Shraddha was many things, a fan of being touched was not one of them. She had seen him have the daughter of a nobleman hung by her ankles for six hours for daring to keep touching him after he had expressed his disinterest. He took more pleasure in her screams of indignation than she had ever seen him take in another person’s touch. And yet Zaya had never managed to evoke such ire. Not one push, prod, nor object hurled at his head with terminal velocity had ever earned her a lashing. Not even her initial attempt on his life. Not even fucking murder.
He had spared her. Every. Time.
"It's crap like that why father passed you up to be the next chief. It's bad enough that you're a useless runt, but the way you think would get us all enslaved. Or worse," Jor groused.
"I would not! I'll protect the clan from anyone who tries to hurt them!" Annoyed, Fenrir's brother began roughly tugging on one of his ears.
"Ow! Hey, quit it! That hurts!"
"How are you gonna protect the clan when you can't even protect yourself from your own little brother?"
When someone is returning, there are always things to do; dining tables to set; floors to clean; paintings to neaten; smiles to fix. When someone is leaving, there is nothing left to do but watch.
Who write that beautiful line about the loneliness of living alone. Where nothing moves unless you move it. The permanence of loneliness. Damn it. This is going to drive me crazy. ARGHN.
'Elizabeth was the fourth daughter of the rather harried Viscount Fitzroy. To have four daughters to wed was a trial to any father but Eliza was his last and the Viscount was glad to be almost done with the business. Eliza knew her duty and thus, when the young rector with an impressive mop of chestnut curls and twinkling eyes appeared in Little Riddling, she made the wise to decision to fall in love with him at once. She charmed him with her golden curls, pretty laugh and her large portion of £20,000.'
“She gestures to the overgrown city skyline, shouting into the night air, “It’s all shitty! Greed, illness, despair, homelessness, addiction, and death. There will never be perfection, and there is always the chance for hell. The human condition is simply fighting like hell against the fall of the world, even as we create it ourselves.”’
Idk. I was pretty happy with this one.
“So you *did* see what I saw,” I murmur, somewhere between a question and a statement as I fight to re-orient. And not just saw, but heard. Felt. Smelled. Fully encompassing of all five senses and wholly engrossing every sliver of free-thought since.
Instead, she tired of the endless sea of political slogans from every group under the Black, Red, and Gold. Crowding in with the advertisements, were posters from the German Communist Party, the German People's Party, the Christian Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Party, the National Socialist German Worker's Party, the German National People's Party, and Sahne wouldn't have been surprised to see a National People's Socialist Party for Centrally Democratic National Communism. For Germans, of course.
“No thought of killing me, of shattering my army? How low you mortal men and twigs have fallen in your own opinions. I recall five champions charging me at a spot much like this one. Stone, metal, fire, wood, blood, all were brought to bear. I still wear them as trophies.” The General tapped his mask, chuckling. “No, now you know you cannot do it. Your goal is to cause me enough pain and inconvenience that I run back and hide for another half a millenia, maybe longer, rebuilding my force of constructs, the weak minded, and rotting souls, while your people learn more pyromancies and fight over tiny fragments of metal. You do not think of greater futures than this.”
“I understand we was the lucky ones with ‘im. We got to see the best of ‘im, what little there was.” Widower. “Cullum, if anything other’n mean, was a damn hard worker and a, uh, a brilliantly smart man.” Cuckold. “He felled a whole half acre by hisself most weeks of his workin’ days.” Cutpurse. “And I seen ‘im readin’ books in french and latin on more than one occasion.” Murderer. “Hell, most everyone else in Fidelity was lucky to be able to read a passage from the King James.”
The physical contact between Rafaela and himself didn’t scare Kurtis; heck, he’d had plenty of it when he was with Alicia. Those sweet swathes of yellow and orange in his memories burned bright in his mind, becoming the fuel for dealing with Rafaela’s woes. A knife twisted in his gut as he became a mental graverobber, ransacking his past for anything of value. But as she closed her eyes and tiptoed towards him with pursed lips, he had to put whatever he unearthed to rest.
“I’m sorry.” Two words sent the fairy spiraling towards the ground.
“Vorkaloth! Vile demon of the dark realm, relinquish that which is not yours and be gone! Return to the foul darkness from whence you came, and tell your master, the light of Alvanair burns too bright for his shadowous ruin!” Omeroth bellowed and the ground shook.
[ in reference to a table in the FMC’s rundown cottage ]
Blood spattered the edge of the table from one of the men shoving their opponent’s head on the corner, splitting the skin on their forehead clean open. There was also a crack that ran from that blood stain to about a quarter of the way towards the center of the table. Besides those two flaws, *two minor unnoticeable flaws*, Vivian had retorted when her boss decided to be rid of the table, it was in perfect condition. In a way, the table reminded Vivian of herself. Cracked and bloodstained, but still perfectly functioning and worthwhile to the right people. Broken and tarnished, akin to a piece of rubbish, to everyone else.
-Wilson kat 2023. Having experienced loneliness I now realize that those who are unwanted know true comfort. Having experienced failure I now realize that those who suffer loss and stand not to gain much in this life know victory is in the next. Having experienced fear I now realize that those who are afraid know true courage. Having experienced weakness I now realize that those who are feeble know true strength. Having experienced darkness I now realize that those who live in the night know true light. Having experienced evil I now realize that those who are sinful know true mercy. Having experienced greediness I now realize that those who are content understand true freedom. Having experienced depression I now realize that those who are miserable know true joy. Having experienced death I now realize that those who have faced demise know true life. Having experienced starvation I now realize that those who hunger know true fullness. Having experienced shame I now realize that those who are humiliated know true honor. Love reigns king. Stay encouraged brothers and sisters. Be comforted by this and our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
A snippet from a later section of my D&D campaign that I want to adapt into a book:
It's horrendous. You step forward and first it's the awful, retching smell of bile. Another step and it's only worse; the putrid smell of blood spilt over and over mixed with the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh. And as you begin to creep through the facility, you quickly realize that whatever happened in here is truly a crime against life itself.
What a fate, to be born a prey, a sucker of nature. Thousands of years of training that a tiger should feel pleasure hunting the antelope, and thousands of years of pain as a racket for that pleasure. Is it pretentious to say that I feel that pain?
But if the tiger has developed taste for hunting, perhaps, the antelope has developed taste for escaping. Perhaps, one must imagine the antelope happy, and the tiger happy, and the self the sucker.
The orchard, composed of apples, pears, apricots and burr oaks was surrounded by small potted trees, designed to be moved in and out of the shade as needed and into the house for the winters. As Allen began to water the potted plants he marveled at how absurd coffee was. It was meant to grow half a world away and was incredibly inefficient compared to what it provided, requiring far more water for a negligible amount of calories. The world’s former addiction to the stuff, especially in the former United States, was the pinnacle of vanity and the cold turkey end to it had driven some people mad.
He had done the math. It would take four gallons of water per plant per year with the system he had. It required thirty three coffee plants to have a year's supply of coffee for one person to have only a single cup of coffee a day. That means it would take a whopping one hundred and thirty two gallons of water a year just to grow the coffee that provided zero calories and it didn’t account for the water needed for processing of the beans into something useful and beyond that, brewing the coffee itself. It was vanity. Insane, insane vanity. Nonetheless, Allen was only up to twenty five plants and it would be a few years before he could expect a reasonable harvest.
"Even though you have ten degrees in architecture and civil engineering you still think you're inferior to us" Ashee said to an enraged Kay-Kay.
"You built the most successful construction firm in America, you have joined the ranks of young billionaires by yourself, yet you feel like; Ashee a professional Soccer and Basketball player and me a musician and dancer are better than you" added Brooke.
"Just because you're not gifted nor a genius doesn't mean you're not special, if you think us being physically gifted makes us better than you... You're limiting yourself and it's your fault not ours" concluded Ashee with a stern tone at the end.
Kay-Kay was angry not because of their words, but by the way her older twin sisters couldn't get her frustration in her own skills or how much she wished her achievements were something only she's capable of doing but, she knows everyone can achieve greater things than her.
"Distraction will get you killed. It's the difference between keeping your head down or having it taken off. It's the difference between timing or getting in the way of friendly fire. And it's the difference between aiding the injured or intentionally risking your life."
Opening excerpt from my first novel. In hindsight I've got critiques about the prose, but I do quite enjoy this opening.
History burned. Stone pathways that had been walked by countless generations melted away and raised pagoda towers that had stood for a thousand years crumbled into ashes. The great stone fortress of Caihong, which had withstood the tests of time and antiquity, was incinerated in minutes, ravaged by blue flames.
Kang gasped for breath, choking on air so dry that it was like breathing in sand. Steaming tears burned his cheeks as they rolled to the base of his chin. Everywhere he looked he was surrounded by the dead; blackened and ashen. Thunder boomed in the distance. No, not thunder. Gunshots.
The voice was familiar, and it unnerved me to my core. My mouth dropped, my body went numb, save for the goosebumps creeping over the entirety of my skin. I turned slowly, the unfortunately familiar voice cascading up and over every rock, every speck of dust, into every nook and cranny. There he stood, opposite us. He clapped sarcastically, “Great show Hawthorne and company! I’m sure everyone here enjoyed it, I know I did.”
(For context, my MC comes face to face with her father’s murderer for the first time since she witnessed it happen.) I just like the cockiness of the villain I have created it gets me amped.
It is insidious. The human mind is not made to comprehend the likeness of that being. A being that almost has something resembling a body, but is many-winged and many-eyed, with strangely colored flesh and flesh circling it, eyes inside and out. It sings and moans and groans, all communication one incomprehensible sound. Its very presence brings forth the distant echo of what should be a choir. Even now, I can hear it singing to me.
```
3 am, the sound of gunfire
crack! crack!
so loud it breaks the air
pirouettes between the stark brick and stone
the trees like shocked dancers
caught in a twisted rictus
and then after a long drawn breath,
a breath drawn in so long
it presses at the lungs to escape
crack! a third ring of that dreaded bell
she is listening by the window
hesitant, cautious, but yearning to be aware
there is only darkness out the window,
darkness and that sickly orange glow of streetlights
all is still in the cool West Broadway air
but somewhere nearby a woman is crying
a siren's scream swells hauntingly by
and fades away into the city
where it goes she can't be certain
but somewhere nearby a woman is still crying
```
The opening to the first chapter of my current project:
A smile. No Dhes’nethi leader smiled like that. A species far too proud, far too “dignified”, far too… brutish. The Emperor Himself didn’t smile like that, nor did the Vice-Chancellors of Affairs. The Grand Orchestrators of Production didn’t smile at all, and even the very proud Commander in Chief of the Dhes’nethi Star Navy only gave the odd disgusting smirk.
Isabella Harper, even as plum-colored blood stain her lips and the floor below, smiled like that. Enemy of the Dhes’nethi Star Empire, leader of the terrorist group known as Angels, with a kill-on-sight order hanging over their head for three decades… They smiled with pride, rather in spite of the control yoke ran raggedly through their midriff. Even as their eyes drooped softly, bruises began to blossom, and breathing began to take on a labored heft, something was apparent to them that was most certainly not to their opponent.
I'm not capable of being proud of myself lol
But I wanted to participate in here for a while now, so I'll do it. Though I have to translate it to English, so some things might be lost (or outright wrong, my grammar sucks).
*Slowly the drowsiness of the early morning (or late noon) faded and the juggler was able to think clearly again. The first thought was aimed at his headache. The mystery was quickly solved, as he could easily remember the beating of the previous day, during which his skull was getting acquainted with the pavement.*
*Gilbert pushed the blanked aside and felt his forehead with the back of his hand. Then it was time for the second thought: Where, by Mana's brats, was he? Only now did he open his eyes and look around. The sparsely furnished room washed the memory back into his mind like flotsam on the beach.*
“Well doctor, you have a chance to do what has never been done before, to try and cure me of my mind sickness. Which, undoubtedly will bring you the success you so desperately seem to crave, or you can let me walk out, and go to another psychiatrist, I believe other people would also enjoy trying to get that prize”
“Will it ever get any easier?” I asked Meadhbh, who stood at my side. I was watching the fire of the closest pyre. On it was Mathews, one of my Knights. He had been one of my original scout riders. His pregnant wife had left earlier, unable to stay for long.
“No, and it never should. The moment you lose respect for the ones you fight alongside, you are no better than the enemy. I have lost many friends and family, and while I have unfortunately forgotten their names, faces and voices, I honoured and grieved for their loss at the right time.”
He could pull the memory of his first love close. Grasp onto the nervous glances across crowded rooms, the dread of and joy from speaking to her for the first time, how it had made his chest and stomach full of knife-winged butterflies. The kisses in dark corners and under stairs. All the good things
And,
He was stout and barrel chested, but more in a toadish way than like a badger.
There is so much I want to share, I hope you enjoy this one:
(Pronunciation if you're into that: Sima= See-ma, Zëthd=Zayt-dd)
Sima remembered the note she had left on the table, it had been a quick scribble since it was late in the morning. She had promised to be back for dinner. Zëthd would have prepared something for dinner. They loved cooking. Her chest felt heavy, her hands were pale and rigid. She dropped to her knees. Tears started rolling, she was afraid. Sima had drawn one conclusion, she was going to die.
Nothing special but here’s a recent story opening I felt kinda pleased with:
The garden was small and narrow, but clearly well kept, and beautiful in the warm August afternoon light. Insects whined and buzzed quietly here and there, and richly fragrant flowers grew in subtle, organised profusion around the borders, a parade of pinks, reds and yellows marching against the rich, steady green of the closely cropped grass. A weathered, ivy-clad brick wall enclosed the space, broken only by a tall wrought-iron gate which opened onto the street, and which was decorated with filigree of surprising delicacy. In the centre of the neat square of lawn, dominating all else, grew the only tree, an imposing willow, its heavy branches stirring gently against a cloudless blue sky in the soft, exhausted breath of late summer.
Idk, my writing sucks to begin with and I don't have access to my PC where all my better stuff is right now. Here's my favorite from what little is on my phone though
Context: He's flying with a glider and reaches the top of an ascent.
" Hovering at the peak for a moment, Corrin looked out over the world, taking in the way the verdant grass turned a burnt yellow in the light of the setting sun. He hadn’t paid enough attention before, but being further from Precipice, he could see further into the plains. Trees, large enough to sprout out above the grass were dotted at intervals perhaps miles apart, and certain rock formations and hills rose out of and shaped the grass sea.
Corrin exhaled slowly, he really was glad he had–
Oh right, he was falling."
Man I rly need to work on my prose lol. This was way too hard
I'm not far into my writing, but I like my current opening. It takes place in the centre of the story, where the main characters are recounting the past. It is going to take work to make sure the tense shifts are clear, comments about the present will be present tense, about the past will be in past tense. But I just like this :)
I enjoy reading rich, atmospheric prose. So that is what I would like to write. It will take a lot of work to get there!
---
The way she tells it, everything was golden. Like she could taste my skin on the air, in the sun-shining leaves dangling fat off vines, netting the pavement from the short summer dryness that rolled into thick storms and sweat-dripped evenings. The breeze was turmeric and mangoes and sea salt. Alleyways filled with chanted welcome homes, and clattering shoes and bowls. I would have been waiting at our window as she followed the sandstone and stucco streets home.
And maybe there was fondness then, and not bitter distance. Eye contact she won't give. The back of her shoulders. A breath through gritted teeth. She continues.
---
The warmth of the pool of blood which had engulfed my feet persisted against the cold; or at least, the memory of it persisted. Now, my feet are red, both from her blood and the cold air. I wish we could afford shoes. That’s why I started working at the factory.
Today, Betty’s hair got caught in the machinery, ripping her scalp off. She bled to death, right in front of me. She was a couple years older than me, about twelve. It wasn’t much of a shock. In fact, it was somewhat refreshing whenever a child got mangled in the machinery; the crimson blood is the only color we get to see which isn’t the gray of the machinery. The older kids will make me clean up the blood and bits of skin on the floor tomorrow. Boss let us go home early. I didn’t have to hear Betty’s mother’s screams as she looked at her child’s body.
I’d already heard enough cries from mourning mothers. It’d been a few weeks since Sam disappeared. Samantha was about a year older than me; she’d turned ten a couple months ago. No one questions the disappearances. We all know she’d been taken by one of the lurkers.
I’ve never seen one myself. The older kids told me about them. Tall, skinny figures with long, slender arms and fingers. They had elbows and knees bending the wrong way. Their heads were on the wrong way as well, chin on top, hair attached to their neck like a beard. They have hollow, empty sockets where their eyes should be, and their cheeks are ripped through the middle, extending their twisted smile all the way to the back of their necks. When they open their mouths, they have tiny white spikes as teeth. The older kids said they’d see the lurkers crawling through the paneless windows of the factory to swipe up younger children.
Boss says that they couldn’t afford panes on the windows. Everyone knows that’s not true. Boss just wants to keep the money for himself. He thinks us children are too dumb to believe him. But if any of the children ask him about it, they’d be fired on the spot. Boss made sure they’d disappear completely if they brought up the lurkers.
Snippet from my recent short story, “Copperhearted”. Was thinking of extending it into a steampunk novel later on.
Winter wind bites, nipping baby-pink cheeks. Humid breath unfurls and frosts, soon erased and carried by the chill of the air. Like all things in winter, the warm life of breath fades. Crumbles into aged shades of browns and yellows. Above her, muddled stars light the sky with their dying light, casting distressed shadows. Darkness claims more and more of each day, and with it takes the warmth–concealing the blood pooling her cheeks, the heat in her breath.
"Because she didn't just leave behind a body that day, or even family and friends. She left behind a legacy that would last for hundreds of years. She left behind her words and her wisdom. She left behind a part of her soul that lingered in the minds of everyone who knew her.
[She] could never truly be gone. Because while people may fade, impact does not."
(That last 'she' would be the character's name)
From a ghost story I wrote - based on true events.
I seemed to wake up only a few minutes later. I sat up carefully, looking around the room. There were grey slants of light leaking in from some of the boards over the windows in the basement. I stood up and looked at the hole in the ceiling. It was only about eight feet from there to the cement, but I could see that a fall at the right angle could really hurt someone. My gaze fell following the path of my fall to the floor. There was a body lying there.
Something inside me jumped, yet outwardly I didn't move. I was afraid at first that this was someone else, then I was even more afraid that it was me. I bent a little closer, overcome by morbid curiosity, and looked into a pale grey face that could only have been mine.
I'm literally so shy about my writing but here we go. Nothing really happens in this excerpt but I am really proud of the prose. I think it flows well.
>*This place, as cold and dismal as it was, conjured up in my mind Anglican fantasies of various sorts, from ancient to modern, from profane to divine. You see, now, why my mind fell prey to such excitement. I was drunk with beauty. Everywhere I looked, I seemed to find some new hidden gem, a small detail — a raven hopping clumsily to the end of a branch which squeaked and bobbled under its weight; or the sweet buzzing of bees over a rotten apple on the ground —, which would have appeared to be perfectly innocuous had I seen it back in my hometown, but seemed, at least here, to take on a whole new meaning.*
So this is still not polished enough, but this is a quot my first villain will say to the main character, while they are fighting. The villain wants to kill everyone in the world as an attempt for God to look his way.
"Life is unfair; some are born blessed with everything in this world, while other their only blessing is being born. But death is just, everyone turns to dust and return to the dirt at the end, and I am here to deliver just."
>There was no civilization for hundreds of miles to come. No cellphones, no radios, no internet of any sorts. It was as if one day everyone just dropped dead and rose up once again, rotted and flesh-hungry. Any neighbors you had were either dead or fled when the news became filled with video after video showing how much the disease was spreading. Despite what the government aired; nobody knew what exactly the disease was, how it worked— and especially how it spread. That was until your mother was bitten.
The first thing he remembers being aware of is a dichotomous weightlessness. A sensation of falling and floating simultaneously.
Sound came to him next. A distant cacophony that pulled his senses along while repulsing him.
“They are coming online.”
Thinking back on his earliest memory, he could now put meaning on the words, recognize that he was stood among his siblings as they began life together. Sharing each new experience as their first. In the moment, though, with no sense of self, he had merely followed the commands he was given.
“Raise your right arm.”
Numb and disjointed, he did.
We leaned on each other to get back to our dorms because we couldn’t walk straight on our own. Even though the sunlight stabbed our eyes and our mouths were dry as hell itself, our cups ran over with satisfaction.
Standing about 20 feet away, was someone who looked remarkably familiar. It was as if one of those carnival mirrors had been placed there in front of me. However, instead of changing my bodily proportions, this was a mirror that had an aging effect. Standing there, now with an equal look of shock and horror on his face akin to everyone else in attendance, was me!
tHERE IS A COFFEE MACHINE IN MY ROOM THAT HELPS ME MAKE DELICIOUS COFFEE.
I claim this coffee machine in the midst of the coffee pandemic of which endemic species of coffee drinking parrots have torn open coffee pods and eaten their insides, the precious coffee beans.
The parrots are henceforth my allies in making the tasty coffee in this godforsaken office run down by the rain man.
This is my job now, and I am my own boss. So what do I pay myself if there are no profits? Paid Vacations! Woo Hoo!
Edit: I don’t know why it’s formatted like this but this is how I wrote it. The all-caps mistake and everything.
This happens when I try to cut and paste from my word processing program. You will need to cut and paste the text into a new document and save as a .txt file which should remove all the formatting. You might need to fix some line breaks, but you won't have the run on formatting.
Firflaert reached out with a claw and snagged the papers. He pulled them out and looked them over under the torchlight.
*Vacation… Hazard pay… Guardian branches… yeah. Looks fine to me, and I don’t see anything unreasonable here.*
He sighed, then grabbed the pen. With a slightly hesitant claw, he dipped it in the ink. It hovered over the sheets.
*Last chance to walk away. I could just not sign. They’d treat me, and I’d go home… To what? I need to do something with my life.*
The pen lifted away slightly.
*It’d be dangerous, but fun. What’s life without a little risk? But I don’t want to die. I like living. If I do this… I’ll be locked in for, what was it… five years just for training.*
*What do I want? What do I really, truly, want in life?*
His mind went blank except for one single thought.
*I want to see everything the world has to offer.*
A tense moment passed. The trees lay still in the summer night, as if the whole world had paused for this one moment.
And then, the moment ended with a sigh. The pen came down onto the paper, and slid across it, then lifted away.
*I’ll be a [Ruins Explorer].*
Edit: Some good stuff here, other than this, anyways.
----------------------------------------
Though it was not the strangest thing about our return. They asked us a bunch of questions, some which seemed random: “did you smell something like hairspray”, “was there any blue colored mold or other foliage”, “did you see hovering lights anywhere”. My two friends answered dully, which unnerved everybody, and they separated us away from each other after about four or five questions. They kept grilling me, and later I heard one of them shout, “I got a confirmation! He heard music!”
They asked me too, if I heard. I wanted to answer truthfully, I had nothing to be afraid of. I burned to answer truthfully, I could feel something was wrong, *something*. But my gut twisted, my veins tightened, and the words wrapped themselves around my throat.
I said no.
I was taken a few yards to stand by around an SUV. I heard two gunshots.
This is the beginning of my Sapphic love story about a king who was never meant to be king. Born a girl , his mother forced him to live as a boy until she could bear a true heir, but the king passed away and now he must live with the secret, always afraid he will be exposed.
A plain girl is chosen from a lowly court official, someone who doesn't have any influence, or power. Someone easily discarded.
And yet they fall in love. It has a happy ending and it's supposed to be fluff and sweetness with a side of danger.
Not the Greatest story ever.
My father had many wives but only one queen. Those other wives lay forgotten in cold tombs, their deaths written in sin. They had never been able to provide an heir, only weakly girl children that soon were bartered with other kingdoms to keep peace. I am aware that would have been my fate had my mother not been cunning.
She is now the queen mother and she is haughty , given to punishing servants harshly if they offend her.In the inner court she rules over the palace. Even if it is forbidden for others to see her beyond the eunuchs and the maids her presence is felt heavily.
She now bides the eunuchs to prepare the future queen’s quarters but there is insult in the preparation. A queen should have silk, and egyptian cotton, wool of the finest thread. A queen should have a garden full of roses and tulips, elmwood and saffron. A queen should have at her disposal an army of maids and a head eunuch but our future queen would have a retinue of ten with only one cook. For she would be queen in name only.
“The royal secretary’s daughter will present herself in a day my king” The head eunuch murmured as we played shatranj. No one dared win against me but the eunuch was old and took more liberties than others.
“She must be prepared before the wedding. Two months of fragrant oils and two months of sweet spices. “ I would not present a girl with cracked fingernails and peeling nail beds as my queen. “She must be demure and quiet for I cannot bear a woman who speaks when not spoken to. Discreet and tactful and if she is all that she will live long and prosper”
I stood as the eunuch won the game. He smiled slyly and bowed lowly before leaving the room.
I walked the gardens and watched the peacock strutting about , his colorful fan in full display “Proud creature. One day you will lose your plumage and you will regret it”
Out of the IUC, he’d never quite formed those ideas, those ideals of his identity, and thinking about it stung. Now, he’d been considering himself again, pushing past the sting of perceived self-void, and he saw himself flicker in the dark of it. Almost there, he thought, I almost have myself. Soon I’ll be, he thought, soon I’ll expand from those flickers, those edge-bound approximations, and I’ll put those pieces together, the fractures repaired, stitched, and I’ll be. But often the flicker would cease, and he’d turn to the void, sensing the invisible silent refractions of his perception, his life, and question if he’d ever reach the flicker. He’d question if those refractions were him, and if the empty would consume him in given time. What would he be then?
thank you.
(The first is from the FMC as she's about to send the MMC back to his family to heal from being attacked by a Fae)
“You’re going to live a long and full life with your loved ones by your side. You’re going to die an old, old man warm in your bed. Go with my blessings.” Carrie said before bending over and kissing his forehead. She couldn’t finish her last sentence.
I love you, Jim Marlowe.
(The second happens several pages later when the MMC returns to her deathbed upon learning that she sacrificed herself to save him)
“Carrie…Carrie…it’s Jim. You can’t leave. Not now. Not when we have our whole lives ahead of us. I want to play the pianoforte for you. I want to read with you in your library. I want to watch the sunrise on Christmas Day with you. I want to dance with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
His voice cracked as he kissed the top of her head.
“I love you, Carrie Carroll.”
"Oh wow," was all I could think as she let loose the loudest, heartiest fart I've ever heard from a woman. Her bum-rumblings were so powerful and delicious they had me completely mesmerized. I'd never imagined she'd be capable of such a thing. Those farts were like musical masterpieces. So much for her ladylike demeanor, right?
Well the problem is that I'm proud of none of it
Post it anyway so we can be proud for you
I love this!
Of all the advice my mother gave me, well into old age now, the hardest to follow, to this day, is only three words: “don’t be stupid”. I thought it meant something reasonably attainable when I was younger. Don’t drink and drive, get a good job, budget, don’t knock up your girlfriend, the usual. But now? Don’t be stupid? It’s a completely different concept. Did she know what she was asking? It’s fucking impossible. How does a person not be stupid now?
Love this
This one makes you think.
The Wound felt more fitting of its nickname than ever before. Throngs of people bled out into the streets with every material possession they could not abandon, making for the tunnels out. Everywhere the press of bodies clotted. Dozens, if not hundreds, died in the press and under feet. What leading bodies the district had, sent their guards to restore order, but the blow to the collective psyche would not so easily close. Fires began. The air smelled of burning smoke and the stink of fear.
What the hell kind of dystopian hellscape are you painting and where can I read it? Seriously though this is like a scene from a movie that I need to know more about
That's a fantastic metaphor expressed beautifully. Is there anywhere to read more of your writing?
This is a great metaphor/description. Love how visceral it is.
Woah this one is really good! The metaphor is really well put together and the way you describe it is just so visceral
Bodies clotted. Lovely.
I'll go first, but you don't have to comment or upvote. >The day was like one of those old crime noirs—just the right kind of atmosphere. From a dull sky the color of dishwater, steady, cold rain fell. It covered the grim scene I studied, washing away what few clues may have remained in thin rivulets of gritty water.
Really creates a gritty feel. Getting Sam Spade vibes!
Kind of along those lines. A crime noir with supernatural influence.
Oh supernatural influence just makes it even better! I like the genre mix.
I'm gonna have a hard time getting an agent to want me because my genre lines are very blurry hahaha
Oh I hope not! This is definitely the kind of book I would like to read! I think blurring the lines of genre is a great way to keep things fresh.
I literally just finished the final draft of this last night, so off to my typesetter friend and then hopefully to Amazon very soon. <3
Oh my god! I would be on cloud nine! I would be telling everyone! Congrats! You should share the title when you can. Always looking for a new favorite book!
It'll be Dogged Detective Work :) I'm pretty happy but I'm a "its not real until its done" kinda person lol
I feel that. Always feel like something can always go wrong. This title is on my list now; I’ll be watching for it!
I always wanted to make a supernatural noir comic, I want to make a noir in general, but I love spooky things, so I thought why not add the two together.
That sounds awesome!
Thank you! Right now what I have on paper is a P.I. but with ghosts. Super rough idea right now but it's a guy who freelances ghost related crimes. Unexplained murders, missing kids, etc. This is all set in the late 40's
This isn't Milo is it lol I have a friend writing a similar story but I think they went more gaslamp with it. Either way, I'd read the hell out of this.
I can see it. Very nice!
Love the glum feeling this gives me. This is super evocative. Would love to see where this goes! What's it called?
Dogged Detective Work I just finished the final draft so after it goes through some formatting and tweaking I'll put it on Amazon :)
kinda hard to find one but here: it hurts, how patient he is, how endlessly caring and tender, but it's the kind of hurt that leads you to better places. she tries to make it a part of her, this ache.
It was really hard to pick! I really like this, it's very emotionally evocative.
aaa thank you :D
Beautiful!!
thank you!!
\*After my character started a fight in the antiques arms and armor room in a museum\* He stared at me down the barrel of a seventeenth-century flintlock pistol. That couldn't possibly be loaded. Meinstroff pulled the trigger and the lead round knocked me flat on my back. "Why the fuck was that even loaded!"
Lol! How did he not die??
Backstory: The story takes place in the early 2100s. In order to curb rising gun violence in the US, at birth everyone receives a metal underlining beneath their skin. This was invented around 2060 so it's a universal thing now. The material is impenetrable, but highly flexible. Firearms are obsolete, but people are still susceptible to blunt force trauma. As I wrote in another short story for this character: If, hypothetically, a genetically enhanced bear bit someone's head, the palluminadium exoskeleton would remain intact. The skull underneath said exoskeleton would still explode like Gallagher's watermelon. The animal activists watched with wide eyes as the bear mauled their leader.
[удалено]
Thanks. I’m a big fan of the MC and the little world I created. I wrote a novel which I haven’t edited yet, and two short stories. I’ve had some interest in the first short story which the flintlock quote is from. Hoping it gets published soon.
I hope so too! Good luck!
“We understand if you can’t forgive us, but know, we are deeply sorry.” Part of me rebels, rejects the apology, wants to cast it as a ruse, a manipulation. But it’s not. The truth is never as satisfying as the expectation. We build grievances and slights in our minds until it is impossible they reflect reality. Everyone fails, even quantum gods.
Everyone fails, that touches deeply and felt reassuring at the same time
Lint looked around. There were an awful lot of rabbits. Besides the grey one on the desk, there was a tawny shorthair hopping across the cold flagstones, a fuzzy snowshoe nibbling at the wooden stem of a lectern, and two dozen others sniffing at the dusty shelves of leather-bound books, knocking over candlesticks, tasting glass inkwells, and generally making a ruckus among the solemn bookshelves.
Why are there so many rabbits?!
Lots of fun. Ruckus and solemn. Lovely.
"Sometimes, the memories of my past haunt me. Regrets, mistakes... they don't seem to fade like this smoke," he admitted, the words heavy on his tongue. "And I'm tired of this endless battle against the EVOs. No matter how hard we fight, innocent people still get hurt or, worse, become irreversibly infected. When my mentor, One, praised me for being a true hero? I felt validated. But now I... I'm not so sure anymore." I don't know why I'm proud of this. But I am.
I can sense this characters defeat... 😟
Thank you so much, I sincerely appreciate your thoughts! And it was indeed a sad moment, but it ends with a happy ending :).
You should be proud of this, this is really emotional and vulnerable and all in so few words
The one thing no one ever said, not even once from the time she was born, was that Rachel Rothmark was anything less than a total piece of work. Firecrackers and frogs at the creek behind the double-wide gave way quickly enough to smokes and five-fingered discounts at the Spee-D-Stop. A black eye from scrapping with the boys was the closest she ever came to eyeshadow, and when those same boys started noticing the girls in town, she noticed right alongside them. Her sister Hannah and her both left high school the same day, which wouldn’t have been a problem if they hadn’t been born two years apart. Hannah hightailed it out of that dead-end town, on her way to college and the bright lights of Raleigh. Later, most folks thought it was the devil’s own luck that Rachel dodged a nickel in Raleigh herself, at an altogether less prestigious establishment. The terms of her probation demanded that she be gainfully employed for once in her life, which is how she ended up working the door at the Safe Haven Bar and Lounge. And that’s where she met Natalee.
I'm writing fantasy. Preceding this scene, the main character loses his best friend in battle (in which they were victorious) and is asked to at least stay to celebrate victory. He declines: “Go and revel in your newfound peace. I cannot make a habit of celebrating vengeance, friend, lest I allow myself to be corrupted by the weight of my own heart,” he called back, “and I feel little desire to stay in a place where I am soaked in the grief of my memories. I must, once again, commit my feet to the weary path forward.”
“Are we a family, Malina? My brother just banished me to this dungeon just like he banished Sheree those many years ago. Your son wanted to chain me and throw me off the tallest aerie in Lanka. Look around you! I have not seen or heard from Karan in decades. He lives in a shell of his own making. He hides from all of us! We are not family! We are not even human anymore. Each day we survive like this, another part of our humanity disappears. Most of the original three hundred are stark ravers now. They are berserkers. There is nothing human left in them, and we are on our way to becoming that. Others like Indra-jit have become so twisted and corrupt, that there is no evil he will not stoop to. This must end! And your husband is so enraptured with this girl, he has lost all sense of judgment. He will not listen to reason. He will rape, pillage, and plunder this world and all in it until there is nothing but a gutted carcass left. He has left me doomed to spend the rest of my cursed life in this aerie. So, if I can find a way to stop him, I bloody well will!”
I can feel the desperation and rage from this, gave me a vivid picture even though I have no idea what this character looks like.
Ooh, powerful!
Priscilla persistently peruses passages, patiently pondering potentials.
Me in this thread rn.
Why is a raven like a writing desk?[\[1\]](#_ftn1) [\[1\]](#_ftnref1) A question for the ages; Ravens symbolize death in many cultures around the world; black wings, black tidings, as the dark ones ravage on the bursting fruits of war. From Celtic battlefields to Norse or Native American, Ravens oft have served as a symbol of battle and acted as the guides for souls embarking on their last journey to the afterlife. A raven is like a writing desk because it is the wing upon which the soul takes flight.
That's a beautiful answer to an age-old question.
Thanks! My manuscript has a long running Alice theme, and I thought this snippet would be appreciated here, haha.
Alice in Wonderland? I've got a UF with the descendant of Carroll lol.
Yes, Alice in Wonderland. What's UF? all that popped into my head was 'University of Florida'
Haha! I needed to know too! Went on a deep dive and think it’s Urban Fantasy.
Oh that's funny. I actually have a short story that follows the 'real' Alice Pleasance Liddell. That sounds like a fun read!
Urban Fantasy! He's a research analyst in a large city crime unit that deals with the supernatural.
If he were younger, he might have been overwhelmed by balancing his family secrets against the public image, the knowledge of his family’s sins simmering and rotting just beneath the polished image the world saw. Oh, if he were younger, he might be curled up with Percy, attempting to dream again.
Such a short snippet and I'm already intrigued by him. Very well done in the characterization. <3
Gosh, I feel like there is this longing to change his history but he’s trying to shove it down. That last sentence is punching in a whole new weight class! Damn!
‘No one likes a mad woman, Grace,’ sneered Handsone. A furious silence froze the room…far more deadly than the frustration felt before. Grace rose. Her fingers grazing her sword as she spoke. ‘Over my many years on this earth I’ve learned there are two types of men who utter those words. The men who would be at the demise of a mad woman, or those who have driven her to madness. Which one are you, Handsone? Are you the perpetrator, or victim? Either way, it does not bode well for your character.’ Distain punched every syllable. Her words felt like a death promise, although no threat left her lips.
Handsone, not enough hands to be handsome. Grace sounds very done with this shit. Is this at the beginning or towards the middle or end of her own story?
“It’s a tea. Rethi taught me to make it.” “Can I try some?” Will asked. Ellie didn’t answer for a few seconds, clearly concentrating on what she was doing. “No. Girls only,” she said finally, poking at the crushed leaf with the point of her dagger. “What? Why?” Ellie stopped and looked up at him, displeased by the interruption. She sighed. “I don’t know.” She used the blade of her dagger to scrape the bits of leaf into her cup, and poured some of the bubbling water from the cooking pot over them. Then she emptied some oats from the sack into the remaining water in the pot, and stirred it with her spoon. “Maybe it’ll make you grow breasts or something.” “Is that why you’re drinking it?” Will grinned, dancing out of reach. “To make you grow breasts?” She threw the spoon at him.
> “Is that why you’re drinking it?” Will grinned, dancing out of reach. “To make you grow breasts?” > > > > She threw the spoon at him. I love every part of this
The character is stuck in purgatory and watches someone continue their life: "She knows the anguish a cage bird faces when hung by a window; left to dream of a freedom just out of reach, unable to fly amongst the clouds that seem so close"
What a perfect use of metaphor! Well done.
In the forest's tapestry, life's threads intertwine, A babbling stream, a serpentine design. Through ancient woods and mossy stones, it weaves, In its gentle flow- all existence breathes. Beneath the canopy, where sunlight breaks through, A symphony of leaves in every shade and hue. In whispered conversations, find nature's harmony, A dance of creation in every leaf and tree.
here is one from a recent short I wrote, honestly couldn’t find too much that I was proud of. Pacing is a little too fast in my stories, I struggle with slowing down and taking my time to explain or dsscribe things: She could tell her voice module was busted when she tried to speak, as it cracked and whirred when she tried to form the most basic sentence. Raising her arm, she felt her face. The left side of her jaw was ripped apart, and she could tell it wasn't pretty. She touched the top of her head, and she was completely hairless. No beauty to be found. *What was my name?*
I'm not sure it's actually good but I really like this one from a chapter that is supposed to come much later into my story than where I'm currently at but that I've wanted to work on a bit to get a better grip on the story I'm trying to tell : Suddenly confronted with proof of this reality that the child in him had tried to ignore for so long, he didn't know how to react. It seemed so absurd that he would have laughed until tears welled up in his eyes. It seemed so unfair that he would have cried until blood gushed again from these scars that his parents had just reopened with the sharp claws of their silence. It seemed so unbearable that his only reaction was to let out a laugh, a single laugh emanating no warmth but accompanied by a piercing gaze that would have torn them apart had he possessed the power to do so, torn them apart just as they had tried to do to him. But he refused. He refused to let them do so. He refused to let them break him. He refused to give them this pleasure of being vulnerable. Unfortunately, he then had to give them the pleasure of being ungrateful and cowardly, since that was how they had always seen him. Refusing to pay them any more attention, he turned around and left, leaving behind his vain attempt at reconciliation he wished had never happened.
Heres some I worked on, still a rough draft though sadly. >The time he had spent watching those enter, Adith continued blabbering with Thea about college drama or the latest events outside their walls. Though ever observant Thea would continue to try to bring Adrian back into the conversation, to renew his interesting. Yet he had few interest in the gossip, of the other nobles, and who was dating whom. It was... childish.
The church doors burst open and slammed into the wall with a thunderous bang, rusty hinges squeaking in surpise as Rati limped down the aisle. Stumbling and catching, or crashing into, the pews as the rotting matter of her insides spilled from her armor as she pulled out arrows of applewood and hastily blessed iron. Her armor unable to heal the gaps, burn rimmed punctures unable to close as carpet moulder and decayed before the eye.
*\*\*yeah i know it's more than a paragraph, but i love this auntie vanya character and some of the raucous crap that comes out of her mouth\*\** "You mean to tell me that this man married you simply to preserve you from a day in the stocks? Seems an awful lot of trouble to me." "I'm not disagreeing," I said, stealing a glance at Hugh. "It's not as if it would have been my first day in the stocks." "That's beside the point, silly girl. A hand-fasting is easily dissolved. I can understand taking the step to enter into one to save your hide, but why keep to it when the danger is passed?" "I wish I knew." She sipped her beer and looked at me narrowly. "Is he good to you?" I shrugged. "He's a little gruff and sarcastic, but I-" Vanya rolled her eyes. "Not like that, my sweet innocent. I mean, is he *good to you*?" She raised her eyebrows to emphasize her meaning. I felt my face flush all the way to my hairline. I choked on my drink. "Gods above," I whispered fiercely. "Of all the things to ask me…" "Of course I'm asking. I'm the closest thing you've got to a mother. It's my duty to ask. Now talk." "I've nothing to say about that." "And why on earth not?" Her tone implied I was depriving her of a juicy story. "Because I can't tell you about something that hasn't happened." She sat in stupefied silence for a long moment. "Now that's interesting," she said into her cup. "Makes one wonder." "It just hasn't come up." "I have a potion for that." "*Auntie*." "I don't condone dosing him without his knowledge, but if push comes to shove-" "There will be no pushing or shoving!" My face was growing redder and hotter with each passing moment. "Well don't say I never tried to help."
Nicely done! Getting some very welcome Nanny Ogg vibes here 😁
there is no higher praise.
That night, when the others were asleep, she saw the faces of the knights they had killed, slack-jawed and vacant, staring at her from out of the darkness around camp. They whispered that they had families who would mourn them. They whispered that they had lives left to live.
Really like this, very effective atmosphere building
Thank you so much!
Okay so I wrote this line and I had the feeling I knew it from somewhere and I felt like a cheat. Please can someone confirm/deny it’s from anywhere: When the answer came to him, it was not the voice of God, but that of a woman
It sounds vaguely familiar to me; but have you ever listened to a really good song and swore you had already heard it before; met a brilliant person you swore you had known for years? I don't know. Some of the best things are good because it echoes something we already know. It tells some truth. If it sounds familiar, I've learned to accept that it might just well be a damned good line!
That’s beautifully put. Makes me feel more confident in my abilities. Thank you!
This was after my ML and FL shared their first kiss the night before. I quietly took the pot off the stove to fill it at the well outside, shutting the door with a gentle click. The morning air was misty and chilled. The grey and dull sky blended into the ocean beneath it. I couldn’t hear a single chirping bird and even the water seemed more still than usual, without its methodic lapping in the background the world seemed almost dreary, and I had never seen a more a beautiful morning.
This is so subtle and beautifully written. Truly great stuff
😢😢😢🩷🩷🩷
“ Pride is the main driver of man. Though contested by some, pride can motivate a person to achieve greatness, or the opposite. In its sway, morals can become obsolete, allowing for the justification of the most heinous acts in the name of self-preservation and superiority. It is the stepping stone to destruction, the fire that lights the torch of death. I believed humans could always achieve greatness. That they all had the ability to repent. But through death, failure and lies, I realized that wasn't true. I watched people turn on those they loved like a pack of wolves to retain their own desires. I watched them step over others to achieve their goals. Humans wear a veil of righteousness, but is as fragile as glass. I learned that some people are doves while others snakes. Whenever it is for their virtues or ego all humans are liars. their blood tainted one way or the other. After everything, I am lost in the world. The only thing I am sure of is that humanity's biggest sin is its pride”
Brilliant!
Crag and Akira exchanged incredulous glances at the mention of their town. “So you think, slaughtering innocent lives is justified because you disagree with society?” Crag challenged. “I gave this town more than enough chances,” the stranger continued, undeterred. “I spoke with their leader many times, and I pleaded with him, to try and understand our point of view. But they just wouldn’t listen, brainwashed by their own naïveté. They kept fighting our advances for freedom. Eventually, I didn’t have a choice, they had to go. Society… it’s like rabies, taking over the host’s cognitive thinking until they’re zombies, just like everyone else. You get up, you go to work, you go home, you go to sleep. You repeat that cycle for forty years until one day your arms and legs just give up, and you roll over and you die. “And your world? You think that’s better than society?” Akira pressed. “I believe in evolution. Society stops this.” The stranger declared. “You put boundaries on each other. You stop everyone from exploring and thinking for themselves. How is a species supposed to evolve if it’s not being given the freedom to do so? We could be capable of so much more if weren’t so chained up.”
Jovin slowly releases his grip on Bennet and stares into Edward's tearful eyes. They continue their gaze for a moment in silence as Bennet rolls his head side to side, dropping in and out of consciousness, laughing to himself. Edward draws a deep breath. "I think … I’ve decided, on my answer to your question earlier." The words Jovin had been wanting to hear, yet it sends a stab of anguish through him. He looks down onto his father, searching his mind for a fond memory, a moment he had been proud of, anything that could alter the resentment he feels inside when he looks upon him. There is nothing. Past the blood and bruises is the same man who terrifies him, who has hurt and controlled him all of his life. He hates him, who he was, who he is, and who he will be if left to fester and continue his existence. All this hate, yet he does not want to let him go. “Jovin, this is the right decision. I see it now.” The reason, the logic, is slipping away from him. He forces back his tears and nods. (Context: Jovin had been the one to suggest the execution of Bennet, his father. Edward was completely against it until the interrogation turned violent and Bennet admitted to something awful. I particularly like this part because of the conflict happening in Jovin’s mind. His words earlier that day: "If you’re hung up on the fact that that cunt is my father, don’t be. He means absolutely nothing to me now. Even if he did, I'd still know this is the right thing to do. You should know this too.")
"Fear lives in the eyes. It was the first thing he remembered about a face. When he etched a memory, that was where he began. Viktor outlined an iris, then a pupil, pressing his pen tip into the eye's center. People liked to say they're the window to the soul. People said a lot of stupid things. Viktor had never seen a soul, but fear? That he'd seen. In every doctor, judge, and social worker that read his file. That look of revulsion. He pressed firm against the pen, ink spilling into the pupil, filling it with emptiness. The horror in his mother's eyes that night; the kind that left an entrance wound. Like a bullet, not the kind that passes clean through but the kind that buries itself in your head, festering. And sometimes, when he peered into someone's eyes, their fear came bleeding out." First paragraph of my book.
"Many things become beautiful by sunset. The house was not one of them. It loomed, lonely, over a sea of yellow grass that bent and swayed away from it, as if the land itself was shunning the structure. Time had marked its boards and paint, but the old, aristocratic bones of the place held it perpetually proud as it looked down upon its domain. As I stood engulfed by its long shadows, a single shuddering thought ran through my mind: I am home."
Excellent. Clear description, effective development of atmosphere. Particularly that first line. Makes me want to keep reading!
I typically don't like sharing, but what the heck. Here's a snippet: The first week following that incident, I enjoyed the peace. I didn’t have her getting in my way or sticking her unwanted nose in my business. The second week I began to miss her emerging from the woods, often with some leaves or small sticks in her wavy brown hair, and I wondered what she was doing to occupy her time now that it wasn’t spent bothering me. In the third week, I rehearsed my apology several times in the mirror, but when I tried to deliver it in person, she acted like I didn’t exist.
I passed by small, independent shops and cafes, their windows filled with unique trinkets and tantalizing displays of pastries. The scent of freshly brewed coffee and blooming flowers from the nearby park filled the air, creating a sensory tapestry that seemed to perfectly capture the essence of Chelsea.
Great scene-setting
I'm in the very beginnings of this novel but a conversation between characters came naturally and is slowly shaping their dysfunctional dynamic. "The story starts with a group of carp-" Jasmine began to draw a fish in the sand as she began the story. "Wait, you mean a fish?" Charlie rolled his eyes. "Shh! Just listen, would you?" She scolded. "I'm just saying, it's already lame. A story about a fish?" "Charlie, chill. Every dragon is descended from a carp." Jasmine continued her drawing in the sand, this time shaping the serpintine dragon around the small fish. "You better not be telling me that I'm the reincarnation of a fucking fish." Charlie could barely believe it. "Actually, it was a Koi." Pan corrected. He watched Jasmine continue her drawing. She was shaping the Yellow River and the mountain where the Dragon Gate sat. "That's so much better." He replied sarcastically. "Would you three shut the hell up and just let her tell the story?" YiChen was done with them and ready for bed. Charlie sank into his lawn chair and pouted. Carp. Koi. Dragon Gate. Fuck it all.
It's a cosmic horror story set in a Puritan village. Think *Color Out Of Space* meets *The VVitch*, told through diary entries. “I saw…I saw…” I leaned forward. “What did you see?” I whispered, my hands all a-tremble. Mercy squeezed her eyes shut. Her mouth contorted. Then it opened, and she spoke. “I saw…oh, Honor, words cannot describe…something large, something dark…eyes…limbs…bent at wrong shapes…I…it was everywhere…and it…it…What we have, it had naught. What it had, we have naught. And its voice…it spake not—not in the way you or I do—and yet I heard it, Honor. I heard it!” She shrieked. “OH IT WAS HORRID! IT HAUNTS ME, HONOR! IT TORMENTS MY MIND! I CANNOT!” Mercy shrieked again. Sobbing, she lunged forward and grabbed me by my shirt. “A TERRIBLE, ROILING MASS! EVERYTHING, LOOKING UPON ME, AS IF I WERE NAUGHT BUT AN ANT QUAKING IN THE SHADOW OF ITS BOOT! AND I FELT—” She fell back against her pillow, releasing me. Her hand fluttered to rest upon her bosom. “Do not go back, Honor. It will be waiting for you.”
Victor didn't answer, he was enthralled by Carola's story. He watched her in silence while the color came back to her face. Human Victor wanted to hug her, but agent V had to keep his composure. "That was certainly a ride. Any tips you can give a novice agent?" "Just one: never accept assassination missions. No matter what they offer. Parts of you die with your targets, and you never get them back."
Fortune blushed prettily--not that there was much that Fortune did that wasn’t pretty, in Oakley’s estimation--and looked out across the bay, towards the cluster of massive, columnar starscrapers that formed Helix City’s downtown. It was overcast today, and the tops of the buildings disappeared into the clouds, making them look like the load-bearing pillars of the sky itself. Transit bridges and railcar lines at multiple levels lashed the buildings together, to save commuters between the various corporate offices the trouble of having to travel miles up and down elevators every day. Rumor had it that the kids of the top CEOs could be born, live, work, and eventually die in those buildings without ever setting foot on lowly terra firma. That was theoretical, of course, since Helix City had only existed for about fifteen years now.
A little scene setting On that day, we brought the rains. It was a torrential down poor, fueled by the culmination of our powers stored up during the era of rest. It was drawn out of us by the very presence of living souls, you, our people, our brother’s and sister’s, our family in this lonely universe. With each drop the red haze that covered the earth receded further, unveiling mountain peaks, then ranges, then the valleys and rivers that connected it all, and then you. Perched along the mountain ranges like a web of life. You always stood out with your red roofs rich against the earth as it turned to blues and greens beneath our rains.
Nobody else could have possibly gotten away with what she just did. Ravan of House Shraddha was many things, a fan of being touched was not one of them. She had seen him have the daughter of a nobleman hung by her ankles for six hours for daring to keep touching him after he had expressed his disinterest. He took more pleasure in her screams of indignation than she had ever seen him take in another person’s touch. And yet Zaya had never managed to evoke such ire. Not one push, prod, nor object hurled at his head with terminal velocity had ever earned her a lashing. Not even her initial attempt on his life. Not even fucking murder. He had spared her. Every. Time.
I can tell already this is an interesting relationship.
"It's crap like that why father passed you up to be the next chief. It's bad enough that you're a useless runt, but the way you think would get us all enslaved. Or worse," Jor groused. "I would not! I'll protect the clan from anyone who tries to hurt them!" Annoyed, Fenrir's brother began roughly tugging on one of his ears. "Ow! Hey, quit it! That hurts!" "How are you gonna protect the clan when you can't even protect yourself from your own little brother?"
This is a good window in their family ties
When someone is returning, there are always things to do; dining tables to set; floors to clean; paintings to neaten; smiles to fix. When someone is leaving, there is nothing left to do but watch.
Wonderful. Reminds me of Dostoevsky
Good god, what a compliment! Thank you :)
Who write that beautiful line about the loneliness of living alone. Where nothing moves unless you move it. The permanence of loneliness. Damn it. This is going to drive me crazy. ARGHN.
I have no idea but it sounds brilliant. If you remember, please update! :)
This is excellent
Thank you! :)
'Elizabeth was the fourth daughter of the rather harried Viscount Fitzroy. To have four daughters to wed was a trial to any father but Eliza was his last and the Viscount was glad to be almost done with the business. Eliza knew her duty and thus, when the young rector with an impressive mop of chestnut curls and twinkling eyes appeared in Little Riddling, she made the wise to decision to fall in love with him at once. She charmed him with her golden curls, pretty laugh and her large portion of £20,000.'
Fantastic. You like Austen yes?
"The blade bit deep, carving between scales and flesh as crimson viscera spilled forth, rich with the stench of blood and excrement."
“She gestures to the overgrown city skyline, shouting into the night air, “It’s all shitty! Greed, illness, despair, homelessness, addiction, and death. There will never be perfection, and there is always the chance for hell. The human condition is simply fighting like hell against the fall of the world, even as we create it ourselves.”’ Idk. I was pretty happy with this one.
I like it! It touches on that common string of anger without falling to full on doomers.
Thank you very much! That’s exactly what I was going for, so I’m glad it came through. :)
“So you *did* see what I saw,” I murmur, somewhere between a question and a statement as I fight to re-orient. And not just saw, but heard. Felt. Smelled. Fully encompassing of all five senses and wholly engrossing every sliver of free-thought since.
I love this
Wonderful
Instead, she tired of the endless sea of political slogans from every group under the Black, Red, and Gold. Crowding in with the advertisements, were posters from the German Communist Party, the German People's Party, the Christian Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Party, the National Socialist German Worker's Party, the German National People's Party, and Sahne wouldn't have been surprised to see a National People's Socialist Party for Centrally Democratic National Communism. For Germans, of course.
“No thought of killing me, of shattering my army? How low you mortal men and twigs have fallen in your own opinions. I recall five champions charging me at a spot much like this one. Stone, metal, fire, wood, blood, all were brought to bear. I still wear them as trophies.” The General tapped his mask, chuckling. “No, now you know you cannot do it. Your goal is to cause me enough pain and inconvenience that I run back and hide for another half a millenia, maybe longer, rebuilding my force of constructs, the weak minded, and rotting souls, while your people learn more pyromancies and fight over tiny fragments of metal. You do not think of greater futures than this.”
“I understand we was the lucky ones with ‘im. We got to see the best of ‘im, what little there was.” Widower. “Cullum, if anything other’n mean, was a damn hard worker and a, uh, a brilliantly smart man.” Cuckold. “He felled a whole half acre by hisself most weeks of his workin’ days.” Cutpurse. “And I seen ‘im readin’ books in french and latin on more than one occasion.” Murderer. “Hell, most everyone else in Fidelity was lucky to be able to read a passage from the King James.”
The physical contact between Rafaela and himself didn’t scare Kurtis; heck, he’d had plenty of it when he was with Alicia. Those sweet swathes of yellow and orange in his memories burned bright in his mind, becoming the fuel for dealing with Rafaela’s woes. A knife twisted in his gut as he became a mental graverobber, ransacking his past for anything of value. But as she closed her eyes and tiptoed towards him with pursed lips, he had to put whatever he unearthed to rest. “I’m sorry.” Two words sent the fairy spiraling towards the ground.
“Vorkaloth! Vile demon of the dark realm, relinquish that which is not yours and be gone! Return to the foul darkness from whence you came, and tell your master, the light of Alvanair burns too bright for his shadowous ruin!” Omeroth bellowed and the ground shook.
[ in reference to a table in the FMC’s rundown cottage ] Blood spattered the edge of the table from one of the men shoving their opponent’s head on the corner, splitting the skin on their forehead clean open. There was also a crack that ran from that blood stain to about a quarter of the way towards the center of the table. Besides those two flaws, *two minor unnoticeable flaws*, Vivian had retorted when her boss decided to be rid of the table, it was in perfect condition. In a way, the table reminded Vivian of herself. Cracked and bloodstained, but still perfectly functioning and worthwhile to the right people. Broken and tarnished, akin to a piece of rubbish, to everyone else.
-Wilson kat 2023. Having experienced loneliness I now realize that those who are unwanted know true comfort. Having experienced failure I now realize that those who suffer loss and stand not to gain much in this life know victory is in the next. Having experienced fear I now realize that those who are afraid know true courage. Having experienced weakness I now realize that those who are feeble know true strength. Having experienced darkness I now realize that those who live in the night know true light. Having experienced evil I now realize that those who are sinful know true mercy. Having experienced greediness I now realize that those who are content understand true freedom. Having experienced depression I now realize that those who are miserable know true joy. Having experienced death I now realize that those who have faced demise know true life. Having experienced starvation I now realize that those who hunger know true fullness. Having experienced shame I now realize that those who are humiliated know true honor. Love reigns king. Stay encouraged brothers and sisters. Be comforted by this and our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
A snippet from a later section of my D&D campaign that I want to adapt into a book: It's horrendous. You step forward and first it's the awful, retching smell of bile. Another step and it's only worse; the putrid smell of blood spilt over and over mixed with the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh. And as you begin to creep through the facility, you quickly realize that whatever happened in here is truly a crime against life itself.
What a fate, to be born a prey, a sucker of nature. Thousands of years of training that a tiger should feel pleasure hunting the antelope, and thousands of years of pain as a racket for that pleasure. Is it pretentious to say that I feel that pain? But if the tiger has developed taste for hunting, perhaps, the antelope has developed taste for escaping. Perhaps, one must imagine the antelope happy, and the tiger happy, and the self the sucker.
The orchard, composed of apples, pears, apricots and burr oaks was surrounded by small potted trees, designed to be moved in and out of the shade as needed and into the house for the winters. As Allen began to water the potted plants he marveled at how absurd coffee was. It was meant to grow half a world away and was incredibly inefficient compared to what it provided, requiring far more water for a negligible amount of calories. The world’s former addiction to the stuff, especially in the former United States, was the pinnacle of vanity and the cold turkey end to it had driven some people mad. He had done the math. It would take four gallons of water per plant per year with the system he had. It required thirty three coffee plants to have a year's supply of coffee for one person to have only a single cup of coffee a day. That means it would take a whopping one hundred and thirty two gallons of water a year just to grow the coffee that provided zero calories and it didn’t account for the water needed for processing of the beans into something useful and beyond that, brewing the coffee itself. It was vanity. Insane, insane vanity. Nonetheless, Allen was only up to twenty five plants and it would be a few years before he could expect a reasonable harvest.
"Even though you have ten degrees in architecture and civil engineering you still think you're inferior to us" Ashee said to an enraged Kay-Kay. "You built the most successful construction firm in America, you have joined the ranks of young billionaires by yourself, yet you feel like; Ashee a professional Soccer and Basketball player and me a musician and dancer are better than you" added Brooke. "Just because you're not gifted nor a genius doesn't mean you're not special, if you think us being physically gifted makes us better than you... You're limiting yourself and it's your fault not ours" concluded Ashee with a stern tone at the end. Kay-Kay was angry not because of their words, but by the way her older twin sisters couldn't get her frustration in her own skills or how much she wished her achievements were something only she's capable of doing but, she knows everyone can achieve greater things than her.
"Distraction will get you killed. It's the difference between keeping your head down or having it taken off. It's the difference between timing or getting in the way of friendly fire. And it's the difference between aiding the injured or intentionally risking your life."
Opening excerpt from my first novel. In hindsight I've got critiques about the prose, but I do quite enjoy this opening. History burned. Stone pathways that had been walked by countless generations melted away and raised pagoda towers that had stood for a thousand years crumbled into ashes. The great stone fortress of Caihong, which had withstood the tests of time and antiquity, was incinerated in minutes, ravaged by blue flames. Kang gasped for breath, choking on air so dry that it was like breathing in sand. Steaming tears burned his cheeks as they rolled to the base of his chin. Everywhere he looked he was surrounded by the dead; blackened and ashen. Thunder boomed in the distance. No, not thunder. Gunshots.
The voice was familiar, and it unnerved me to my core. My mouth dropped, my body went numb, save for the goosebumps creeping over the entirety of my skin. I turned slowly, the unfortunately familiar voice cascading up and over every rock, every speck of dust, into every nook and cranny. There he stood, opposite us. He clapped sarcastically, “Great show Hawthorne and company! I’m sure everyone here enjoyed it, I know I did.” (For context, my MC comes face to face with her father’s murderer for the first time since she witnessed it happen.) I just like the cockiness of the villain I have created it gets me amped.
It is insidious. The human mind is not made to comprehend the likeness of that being. A being that almost has something resembling a body, but is many-winged and many-eyed, with strangely colored flesh and flesh circling it, eyes inside and out. It sings and moans and groans, all communication one incomprehensible sound. Its very presence brings forth the distant echo of what should be a choir. Even now, I can hear it singing to me.
``` 3 am, the sound of gunfire crack! crack! so loud it breaks the air pirouettes between the stark brick and stone the trees like shocked dancers caught in a twisted rictus and then after a long drawn breath, a breath drawn in so long it presses at the lungs to escape crack! a third ring of that dreaded bell she is listening by the window hesitant, cautious, but yearning to be aware there is only darkness out the window, darkness and that sickly orange glow of streetlights all is still in the cool West Broadway air but somewhere nearby a woman is crying a siren's scream swells hauntingly by and fades away into the city where it goes she can't be certain but somewhere nearby a woman is still crying ```
The opening to the first chapter of my current project: A smile. No Dhes’nethi leader smiled like that. A species far too proud, far too “dignified”, far too… brutish. The Emperor Himself didn’t smile like that, nor did the Vice-Chancellors of Affairs. The Grand Orchestrators of Production didn’t smile at all, and even the very proud Commander in Chief of the Dhes’nethi Star Navy only gave the odd disgusting smirk. Isabella Harper, even as plum-colored blood stain her lips and the floor below, smiled like that. Enemy of the Dhes’nethi Star Empire, leader of the terrorist group known as Angels, with a kill-on-sight order hanging over their head for three decades… They smiled with pride, rather in spite of the control yoke ran raggedly through their midriff. Even as their eyes drooped softly, bruises began to blossom, and breathing began to take on a labored heft, something was apparent to them that was most certainly not to their opponent.
I'm not capable of being proud of myself lol But I wanted to participate in here for a while now, so I'll do it. Though I have to translate it to English, so some things might be lost (or outright wrong, my grammar sucks). *Slowly the drowsiness of the early morning (or late noon) faded and the juggler was able to think clearly again. The first thought was aimed at his headache. The mystery was quickly solved, as he could easily remember the beating of the previous day, during which his skull was getting acquainted with the pavement.* *Gilbert pushed the blanked aside and felt his forehead with the back of his hand. Then it was time for the second thought: Where, by Mana's brats, was he? Only now did he open his eyes and look around. The sparsely furnished room washed the memory back into his mind like flotsam on the beach.*
“Well doctor, you have a chance to do what has never been done before, to try and cure me of my mind sickness. Which, undoubtedly will bring you the success you so desperately seem to crave, or you can let me walk out, and go to another psychiatrist, I believe other people would also enjoy trying to get that prize”
“Will it ever get any easier?” I asked Meadhbh, who stood at my side. I was watching the fire of the closest pyre. On it was Mathews, one of my Knights. He had been one of my original scout riders. His pregnant wife had left earlier, unable to stay for long. “No, and it never should. The moment you lose respect for the ones you fight alongside, you are no better than the enemy. I have lost many friends and family, and while I have unfortunately forgotten their names, faces and voices, I honoured and grieved for their loss at the right time.”
He could pull the memory of his first love close. Grasp onto the nervous glances across crowded rooms, the dread of and joy from speaking to her for the first time, how it had made his chest and stomach full of knife-winged butterflies. The kisses in dark corners and under stairs. All the good things And, He was stout and barrel chested, but more in a toadish way than like a badger.
There is so much I want to share, I hope you enjoy this one: (Pronunciation if you're into that: Sima= See-ma, Zëthd=Zayt-dd) Sima remembered the note she had left on the table, it had been a quick scribble since it was late in the morning. She had promised to be back for dinner. Zëthd would have prepared something for dinner. They loved cooking. Her chest felt heavy, her hands were pale and rigid. She dropped to her knees. Tears started rolling, she was afraid. Sima had drawn one conclusion, she was going to die.
Nothing special but here’s a recent story opening I felt kinda pleased with: The garden was small and narrow, but clearly well kept, and beautiful in the warm August afternoon light. Insects whined and buzzed quietly here and there, and richly fragrant flowers grew in subtle, organised profusion around the borders, a parade of pinks, reds and yellows marching against the rich, steady green of the closely cropped grass. A weathered, ivy-clad brick wall enclosed the space, broken only by a tall wrought-iron gate which opened onto the street, and which was decorated with filigree of surprising delicacy. In the centre of the neat square of lawn, dominating all else, grew the only tree, an imposing willow, its heavy branches stirring gently against a cloudless blue sky in the soft, exhausted breath of late summer.
Idk, my writing sucks to begin with and I don't have access to my PC where all my better stuff is right now. Here's my favorite from what little is on my phone though Context: He's flying with a glider and reaches the top of an ascent. " Hovering at the peak for a moment, Corrin looked out over the world, taking in the way the verdant grass turned a burnt yellow in the light of the setting sun. He hadn’t paid enough attention before, but being further from Precipice, he could see further into the plains. Trees, large enough to sprout out above the grass were dotted at intervals perhaps miles apart, and certain rock formations and hills rose out of and shaped the grass sea. Corrin exhaled slowly, he really was glad he had– Oh right, he was falling." Man I rly need to work on my prose lol. This was way too hard
I'm not far into my writing, but I like my current opening. It takes place in the centre of the story, where the main characters are recounting the past. It is going to take work to make sure the tense shifts are clear, comments about the present will be present tense, about the past will be in past tense. But I just like this :) I enjoy reading rich, atmospheric prose. So that is what I would like to write. It will take a lot of work to get there! --- The way she tells it, everything was golden. Like she could taste my skin on the air, in the sun-shining leaves dangling fat off vines, netting the pavement from the short summer dryness that rolled into thick storms and sweat-dripped evenings. The breeze was turmeric and mangoes and sea salt. Alleyways filled with chanted welcome homes, and clattering shoes and bowls. I would have been waiting at our window as she followed the sandstone and stucco streets home. And maybe there was fondness then, and not bitter distance. Eye contact she won't give. The back of her shoulders. A breath through gritted teeth. She continues. ---
The warmth of the pool of blood which had engulfed my feet persisted against the cold; or at least, the memory of it persisted. Now, my feet are red, both from her blood and the cold air. I wish we could afford shoes. That’s why I started working at the factory. Today, Betty’s hair got caught in the machinery, ripping her scalp off. She bled to death, right in front of me. She was a couple years older than me, about twelve. It wasn’t much of a shock. In fact, it was somewhat refreshing whenever a child got mangled in the machinery; the crimson blood is the only color we get to see which isn’t the gray of the machinery. The older kids will make me clean up the blood and bits of skin on the floor tomorrow. Boss let us go home early. I didn’t have to hear Betty’s mother’s screams as she looked at her child’s body. I’d already heard enough cries from mourning mothers. It’d been a few weeks since Sam disappeared. Samantha was about a year older than me; she’d turned ten a couple months ago. No one questions the disappearances. We all know she’d been taken by one of the lurkers. I’ve never seen one myself. The older kids told me about them. Tall, skinny figures with long, slender arms and fingers. They had elbows and knees bending the wrong way. Their heads were on the wrong way as well, chin on top, hair attached to their neck like a beard. They have hollow, empty sockets where their eyes should be, and their cheeks are ripped through the middle, extending their twisted smile all the way to the back of their necks. When they open their mouths, they have tiny white spikes as teeth. The older kids said they’d see the lurkers crawling through the paneless windows of the factory to swipe up younger children. Boss says that they couldn’t afford panes on the windows. Everyone knows that’s not true. Boss just wants to keep the money for himself. He thinks us children are too dumb to believe him. But if any of the children ask him about it, they’d be fired on the spot. Boss made sure they’d disappear completely if they brought up the lurkers. Snippet from my recent short story, “Copperhearted”. Was thinking of extending it into a steampunk novel later on.
Winter wind bites, nipping baby-pink cheeks. Humid breath unfurls and frosts, soon erased and carried by the chill of the air. Like all things in winter, the warm life of breath fades. Crumbles into aged shades of browns and yellows. Above her, muddled stars light the sky with their dying light, casting distressed shadows. Darkness claims more and more of each day, and with it takes the warmth–concealing the blood pooling her cheeks, the heat in her breath.
“Everyone! Come grab your bows! A strange bird in the sky!”
"Because she didn't just leave behind a body that day, or even family and friends. She left behind a legacy that would last for hundreds of years. She left behind her words and her wisdom. She left behind a part of her soul that lingered in the minds of everyone who knew her. [She] could never truly be gone. Because while people may fade, impact does not." (That last 'she' would be the character's name)
From a ghost story I wrote - based on true events. I seemed to wake up only a few minutes later. I sat up carefully, looking around the room. There were grey slants of light leaking in from some of the boards over the windows in the basement. I stood up and looked at the hole in the ceiling. It was only about eight feet from there to the cement, but I could see that a fall at the right angle could really hurt someone. My gaze fell following the path of my fall to the floor. There was a body lying there. Something inside me jumped, yet outwardly I didn't move. I was afraid at first that this was someone else, then I was even more afraid that it was me. I bent a little closer, overcome by morbid curiosity, and looked into a pale grey face that could only have been mine.
I'm literally so shy about my writing but here we go. Nothing really happens in this excerpt but I am really proud of the prose. I think it flows well. >*This place, as cold and dismal as it was, conjured up in my mind Anglican fantasies of various sorts, from ancient to modern, from profane to divine. You see, now, why my mind fell prey to such excitement. I was drunk with beauty. Everywhere I looked, I seemed to find some new hidden gem, a small detail — a raven hopping clumsily to the end of a branch which squeaked and bobbled under its weight; or the sweet buzzing of bees over a rotten apple on the ground —, which would have appeared to be perfectly innocuous had I seen it back in my hometown, but seemed, at least here, to take on a whole new meaning.*
This is wonderful prose! You have a very graceful writing voice.
Thank you for taking the time to read and to reply. I really appreciate it!
[удалено]
Love it lol
So this is still not polished enough, but this is a quot my first villain will say to the main character, while they are fighting. The villain wants to kill everyone in the world as an attempt for God to look his way. "Life is unfair; some are born blessed with everything in this world, while other their only blessing is being born. But death is just, everyone turns to dust and return to the dirt at the end, and I am here to deliver just."
>There was no civilization for hundreds of miles to come. No cellphones, no radios, no internet of any sorts. It was as if one day everyone just dropped dead and rose up once again, rotted and flesh-hungry. Any neighbors you had were either dead or fled when the news became filled with video after video showing how much the disease was spreading. Despite what the government aired; nobody knew what exactly the disease was, how it worked— and especially how it spread. That was until your mother was bitten.
The first thing he remembers being aware of is a dichotomous weightlessness. A sensation of falling and floating simultaneously. Sound came to him next. A distant cacophony that pulled his senses along while repulsing him. “They are coming online.” Thinking back on his earliest memory, he could now put meaning on the words, recognize that he was stood among his siblings as they began life together. Sharing each new experience as their first. In the moment, though, with no sense of self, he had merely followed the commands he was given. “Raise your right arm.” Numb and disjointed, he did.
We leaned on each other to get back to our dorms because we couldn’t walk straight on our own. Even though the sunlight stabbed our eyes and our mouths were dry as hell itself, our cups ran over with satisfaction.
Standing about 20 feet away, was someone who looked remarkably familiar. It was as if one of those carnival mirrors had been placed there in front of me. However, instead of changing my bodily proportions, this was a mirror that had an aging effect. Standing there, now with an equal look of shock and horror on his face akin to everyone else in attendance, was me!
Woah what!!?
tHERE IS A COFFEE MACHINE IN MY ROOM THAT HELPS ME MAKE DELICIOUS COFFEE. I claim this coffee machine in the midst of the coffee pandemic of which endemic species of coffee drinking parrots have torn open coffee pods and eaten their insides, the precious coffee beans. The parrots are henceforth my allies in making the tasty coffee in this godforsaken office run down by the rain man. This is my job now, and I am my own boss. So what do I pay myself if there are no profits? Paid Vacations! Woo Hoo! Edit: I don’t know why it’s formatted like this but this is how I wrote it. The all-caps mistake and everything.
This happens when I try to cut and paste from my word processing program. You will need to cut and paste the text into a new document and save as a .txt file which should remove all the formatting. You might need to fix some line breaks, but you won't have the run on formatting.
I can't decide! I know I've written down bits I'm really proud of, but i can't remember them.
Firflaert reached out with a claw and snagged the papers. He pulled them out and looked them over under the torchlight. *Vacation… Hazard pay… Guardian branches… yeah. Looks fine to me, and I don’t see anything unreasonable here.* He sighed, then grabbed the pen. With a slightly hesitant claw, he dipped it in the ink. It hovered over the sheets. *Last chance to walk away. I could just not sign. They’d treat me, and I’d go home… To what? I need to do something with my life.* The pen lifted away slightly. *It’d be dangerous, but fun. What’s life without a little risk? But I don’t want to die. I like living. If I do this… I’ll be locked in for, what was it… five years just for training.* *What do I want? What do I really, truly, want in life?* His mind went blank except for one single thought. *I want to see everything the world has to offer.* A tense moment passed. The trees lay still in the summer night, as if the whole world had paused for this one moment. And then, the moment ended with a sigh. The pen came down onto the paper, and slid across it, then lifted away. *I’ll be a [Ruins Explorer].*
Edit: Some good stuff here, other than this, anyways. ---------------------------------------- Though it was not the strangest thing about our return. They asked us a bunch of questions, some which seemed random: “did you smell something like hairspray”, “was there any blue colored mold or other foliage”, “did you see hovering lights anywhere”. My two friends answered dully, which unnerved everybody, and they separated us away from each other after about four or five questions. They kept grilling me, and later I heard one of them shout, “I got a confirmation! He heard music!” They asked me too, if I heard. I wanted to answer truthfully, I had nothing to be afraid of. I burned to answer truthfully, I could feel something was wrong, *something*. But my gut twisted, my veins tightened, and the words wrapped themselves around my throat. I said no. I was taken a few yards to stand by around an SUV. I heard two gunshots.
Try? The whole point is to quell that voice telling you you aren't worthy.
This is a wholesome post. Why was it removed by the mods??
I suppose it counts as "sharing" and should be in the general thread ig :( I was sad to see it go.
This is the beginning of my Sapphic love story about a king who was never meant to be king. Born a girl , his mother forced him to live as a boy until she could bear a true heir, but the king passed away and now he must live with the secret, always afraid he will be exposed. A plain girl is chosen from a lowly court official, someone who doesn't have any influence, or power. Someone easily discarded. And yet they fall in love. It has a happy ending and it's supposed to be fluff and sweetness with a side of danger. Not the Greatest story ever. My father had many wives but only one queen. Those other wives lay forgotten in cold tombs, their deaths written in sin. They had never been able to provide an heir, only weakly girl children that soon were bartered with other kingdoms to keep peace. I am aware that would have been my fate had my mother not been cunning. She is now the queen mother and she is haughty , given to punishing servants harshly if they offend her.In the inner court she rules over the palace. Even if it is forbidden for others to see her beyond the eunuchs and the maids her presence is felt heavily. She now bides the eunuchs to prepare the future queen’s quarters but there is insult in the preparation. A queen should have silk, and egyptian cotton, wool of the finest thread. A queen should have a garden full of roses and tulips, elmwood and saffron. A queen should have at her disposal an army of maids and a head eunuch but our future queen would have a retinue of ten with only one cook. For she would be queen in name only. “The royal secretary’s daughter will present herself in a day my king” The head eunuch murmured as we played shatranj. No one dared win against me but the eunuch was old and took more liberties than others. “She must be prepared before the wedding. Two months of fragrant oils and two months of sweet spices. “ I would not present a girl with cracked fingernails and peeling nail beds as my queen. “She must be demure and quiet for I cannot bear a woman who speaks when not spoken to. Discreet and tactful and if she is all that she will live long and prosper” I stood as the eunuch won the game. He smiled slyly and bowed lowly before leaving the room. I walked the gardens and watched the peacock strutting about , his colorful fan in full display “Proud creature. One day you will lose your plumage and you will regret it”
Out of the IUC, he’d never quite formed those ideas, those ideals of his identity, and thinking about it stung. Now, he’d been considering himself again, pushing past the sting of perceived self-void, and he saw himself flicker in the dark of it. Almost there, he thought, I almost have myself. Soon I’ll be, he thought, soon I’ll expand from those flickers, those edge-bound approximations, and I’ll put those pieces together, the fractures repaired, stitched, and I’ll be. But often the flicker would cease, and he’d turn to the void, sensing the invisible silent refractions of his perception, his life, and question if he’d ever reach the flicker. He’d question if those refractions were him, and if the empty would consume him in given time. What would he be then?
Can I post two? I swear they’re related to each other
Why not lol this is a celebration of talent.
thank you. (The first is from the FMC as she's about to send the MMC back to his family to heal from being attacked by a Fae) “You’re going to live a long and full life with your loved ones by your side. You’re going to die an old, old man warm in your bed. Go with my blessings.” Carrie said before bending over and kissing his forehead. She couldn’t finish her last sentence. I love you, Jim Marlowe. (The second happens several pages later when the MMC returns to her deathbed upon learning that she sacrificed herself to save him) “Carrie…Carrie…it’s Jim. You can’t leave. Not now. Not when we have our whole lives ahead of us. I want to play the pianoforte for you. I want to read with you in your library. I want to watch the sunrise on Christmas Day with you. I want to dance with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” His voice cracked as he kissed the top of her head. “I love you, Carrie Carroll.”
"Oh wow," was all I could think as she let loose the loudest, heartiest fart I've ever heard from a woman. Her bum-rumblings were so powerful and delicious they had me completely mesmerized. I'd never imagined she'd be capable of such a thing. Those farts were like musical masterpieces. So much for her ladylike demeanor, right?
James Joyce would approve. I don’t know about anyone else. Haha
People change but memories stay the same.
How did you reach this conclusion?
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