Latest Posts by m0th-b0nes - Page 11

Conversation Prompt

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely. Mine is my best friend. Our eyes met across a crowded room and my life was complete. The world is brighter, people are kinder - for the first time I felt like I had a home.”

“I’m trying to be romantic here.”

“Oh, sorry. You’re my other soulmate.”

@stvksn on ig

You’re standing at the altar, about to get married to your beautiful fiancée. When suddenly the king of demons bursts through the door of the room, which naturally causes panic. You tried to warn everyone that inviting your sibling to the wedding would mean trouble, but they kept insisting.

:-“Navigating through new relationship” prompts-:

(I AM SO SOFT YOU DONT UNDERSTAND, OK BUT TAG ME WHEN YOU WRITE THESE :)

Requested by: Anonymous

By @me-writes-prompts

Asking before kissing or even touching(this applies to any stage of relationship really)

^^ “Can I kiss you, please?”

Meeting each other's friends/family

^^“I’m nervous.” “Don’t be. I’m sure they’ll like you. Hell, they’ll love you.”

Having an intimate talk about the bedroom scenes(don't skip this people!)

Communicating about feelings

^^“I didn’t like the way they were looking at you. I hope you can understand what I’m trying to say.”

Talking face-to-face than texting

Spending time alone from each other

^^Making enough time for other one

“Are you sure you want to do this? Like sure, sure?” “Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been wanting to do this with you forever.”

“You weren’t uncomfortable back there, right? I just wanted to make sure you were all right.” “No, no, I wasn’t. Thank you for doing that.”

*while comforting the other one* “Hey, hey, look at me. It’s okay, I’m here. Shh. Look at me. You don’t have to be scared okay? I’m here to help you.”

Enemies to grudging coworkers/allies?

Took me long enough, but enjoy :)

By @me-writes-prompts

There was no way they would work together as a team, no way.

“Look, I know we both don’t like each other and all but we need to help each other to get the promotion we want. So, bear with me.”

They hate each other, but what happens when the other one comes to their door with a need for their help? Things get interesting.

“I really don’t need to be told how much you loathe working with me right now. I’m trying my best and so should you.”

“If you don’t want to get killed by the cops, then join my gang.” (Gang au, anyone? Count me in.)

Working together to save the world :)

Having to(grudgingly) compete together against a group of other people. (Could be sports au, etc.)

^^”I think we make a pretty good team even though half the time you’re glaring at me.” “Yeah, that’s because you keep smiling at me like an idiot.”

“Believe it or not, I’ve come to like working with you. I want you to know that.” “Honestly? Same.”

if i told you what rhis sounded ljke i dont think youd believe me so just listen

I want to see characters being taken care of in an explicit and worshipful way. Home-cooked meals. Hair brushed and braided by gentle hands. Little gifts just because.

I want to read about characters who are not used to kindness being bombarded by acts of service. This trope works romantically and platonically. Give me found family and acts of service - all the ways a character is wrapped up in wordless, explicit care after years of cruelty and having no idea how to handle. I need it.

secret relationship prompts, please?

Secret relationship prompts <3

hiding in alleyways and stealing kisses as everyone else walks ahead

holding hands under the table

whispering sweet things to each other in a stuffed car so no one else could hear

discreet, light touches on each other's backs that last a second

fleeting glances from across the room

kissing each other's cheeks when no one's looking

"i wish i could show you off to the world."

meeting in secret in the middle of the night

sneaking in through windows

hiding in random places when they hear someone coming

writing letters to each other and pressing it into the other's palms when passing by

hey there! if you liked what you read, feel free to check out my MASTERLIST

you can also request any prompts or writeups you'd like to see from me in my askbox!

REAL

the classic "are you hurt?" but the whumpee is the one saying it. slurring the words through a hoarse throat and numbed lips, their eyes are glazed and their hands are shaking, frantic at the blood soaking the caretaker's shirt and too delirious to realize it's all their own.

the dub really does hold up surprisingly well. also what the fuck

Why don’t I hear more about undead beings coming back to warn people? It’s always zombies wanting to drag people down to join them in the grave, ghosts seeking vengeance, spirits trying to chase people out of their domains - but if you died horribly and were left rattling around some spooky mansion for eternity, wouldn’t you want to stop people from blundering into the same death you had?

You feel a cold breath on your neck as you get in the car. It won’t leave until you fasten your seatbelt. An unseen force catches your foot as you pass the fourth step every time you walk up the stairs. During a renovation, you find out the wood is rotten. You can never find a pack of cigarettes - even ones guests bring disappear from their pockets and are found weeks later on the lawn, empty. Your daughter is giggling and laughing at something unseen, chasing after it away from the cliffside on your family hike. You don’t know why, but you feel compelled to leave a spare hairband and some stickers on a picnic table as you leave the park. Tribute? A thank you? The items are gone by next time you visit, and you swear a happy child’s hum follows you home on the breeze.

…More preventative hauntings. It just makes sense.

British Lads Hit Each Other With Chair

Worldbuilding Questions

Like what I do? Support me on my ko-fi!

Since it's Worldbuilding Wednesday, I've decided to write up a bunch of questions that might work for participants might work in WBW. Admittedly, much of these are oriented towards fantasy and non-Earth societies and cultures, but! Still useful.

I was heavily inspired by this list by the SFWA.

What is considered a normal family unit in your culture(s)?

What sort of magical creatures exist in your world? (Dragons, fair folk, spirits, etc)

What does a right of passage look like in your culture(s)?

How does someone propose marriage in your culture(s)? How long do they stay engaged, and what marks the marriage?

What weather-based customs exist in your culture(s)?

What customs surround death and burial? Are the people of your culture(s) even buried?

What distinguishes a formal dinner from a casual one?

What foods are considered taboo in your culture(s)?

If your culture is largely unable to get safe, clean water, what is considered a good substitute?

Are any gestures considered rude or vulgar? Why?

What is a way to show respect? To whom is it owed (parents, teachers, rank superiors, etc)?

When a visitor comes by, how are they greeted and treated? Is there special ceremony?

What is something your culture never talks about when talking to an acquaintance (e.x. religion)? What is something they always do (e.x. asking after the health of someone's family)?

What is considered courteous to gift to a visitor, if any?

How are people with magical talent treated?

How intertwined is magic and science, and how does this effect the views of it?

What is the calendar like? What celebrations are there?

What is the best way to get around? What's the cheapest?

Do many people own pets, like cats and dogs? What about magical pets?

How is war declared by a certain culture?

Does your culture have a concept of sin? If so, what do they consider a sin versus virtue?

What's a major historical event that changed the course of the culture forever?

If your world has magic, how did it get there? Was it always there? Or did it come about through other means (science gone wrong, melding of a separate plane of existence, etc)?

What is one major flaw or loophole in the law? Have people taken advantage of it?

How would a state of emergency be declared? Who can do it? Under what circumstances can it be declared?

Fictional worldbuilding

I have this list I compiled of topics for developing of countries, whether fantasy based or not, and it seems to be a useful resource to share. Feel free to use this list to develop your own lore, but DO NOT claim it as your own or repost. It's pretty long, but I think it covers a lot of relevant topics for worldbuilding.

General

∎ Country name - Etymology if possible - Reasons for the name ∎ Does it take inspiration for a historical time period, aesthetic, or culture ∎ What sort of government is it

Important Places

∎ Main cities - Layout of the city - Economic or historical importance ∎ Other cities and places of importance - Ports - Mine cities - Scholarly cities ∎ Seasonal or turistic places

Climate and Terrain

∎ Important lakes, rivers, mountain chains or other geographically relevant places ∎ Seasons ∎ Climate in general ∎ How does the terrain affect daily habits ∎ Important plants - Agriculture - Crops for export ∎ Important animals - Livestock

Government

∎ System of government - Nobility/aristocracy -- Titles and inheritance/eligibility of titles - Merchant class ∎ Current and past rulers

Social customs

∎ Entertainment - Common forms of entertainment - Games - Cultural/social forms of enterteinment (go to parties/go to the movies/go out to eat/etc) ∎ Seasonal entertainment - Vacations - Seasonal high class customs ∎ Customs regarding reading and books ∎ Customs towards addictive substances - Alcohol - Tobacco - Opioids - Other stuffs ∎ Education and educational system ∎ Houses - Home layouts - Common things in houses ∎ Rites of passage - Age to be presented as adult to the society and customs regarding it ∎ Manners and behaviour in public ∎ Religion - Possible gods - Holidays - Festivals ∎ Customs regarding music - Musical instruments

Notions of family

∎ Inheritance laws ∎ Marriage and concepts of marriage - Marriage rituals - Who is allowed to wed who - Divorce - Customs toward conjugal and domestic violence - Polygamy -- Extraconjugal affairs --- Bastards ∎ Adoption ∎ Division of domestic labor and roles

Economy

∎ Coin and values ∎ Important internal products ∎ Main imports ∎ Main exports ∎ Important commercial relations

Fashion

∎ Common feminine fashion ∎ Common masculine fashion ∎ Concepts about clothing - What is seen as vulgar - What is seen as desirable ∎ Fashion and rites of passage ∎ Hairstyles and adornments

Names and language

∎ Base language ∎ Linguistic influences ∎ Working of names - Family names -- Patronymic and matronymic - Personal names

Magic and technology

∎ Magic - Practice of magic - Permissions within magic - Common and uncommon forms of magic ∎ Magic creatures of importance ∎ Level of technology ∎ Daily uses of technology

For all you worldbuilders out there, I don't know if you know, but r/worldbuilding on Reddit made this Google Doc with a ton of resources they gathered. Thought that might help some of you.

10 Questions to Ask About your World

What are the common theories about the universe? (Fate, free will, what’s out there? Gods?)

How much does this society know about its world? (how much is explored versus not, are they fully aware of their history or are there things they haven’t discovered yet? What’s beyond their scope?)

What sort of religions or communities exist?

What foods do they eat, what wouldn’t be as normalized?

What traditions do they have? Festivals, celebrations, holidays, etc.

How does the average person spend a Sunday?

Is there a skill that’s expected for people to know? (ex. where I live most people know how to ride a bike) Is there something that would be odd in this society to know?

Do people drive or do they transit or do they walk? How do people get around?

How do people communicate with each other? (Phones, letters, birds, etc.)

What’s something that makes your setting unique or fit specifically for your story?

Good luck!

Elements of real science I'd love to see in more fictional magic systems

Categories are defined by people, not by nature, and way looser around the edges than everyone thinks. "We like to divide spell-casting into rituals, runic magic, instantaneous spells, and curses or blessings, but the 'curse or blessing' category has more to do with how long a spell LASTS than how it's SET, and the line between ritual and inscribed runes gets really blurry in places..."

Models of 'how this works' that get taught to little kids which are fully debunked later as 'over-simplified and actually totally inaccurate, but a good way to learn, this is better', only to be replaced two years of study after that because, 'actually that was also a lie for the sake of learning, learn this one instead'. "Yes, we teach kids that planes stack in layers and sometimes holes form between them, and I know last year we covered the Humperdink Theory Of Planar Interweaving where those so-called holes are areas of enmeshment with the fibers of multiple planes at once, but today we're finally going to talk about the Planar Mosaic Model."

Frenzies of curiosity each time something unexpected happens, as wizards try to figure out, if this is a divergence from the pattern they THOUGHT they knew, then what is the bigger pattern? IE, "We've seen the Power of Friendship be insufficient to slaying this balrog for years! Why were these particular adventurers finally able to do it now?"

Basically, magic not as an objective force of the universe, but a hodgepodge thing humans made up to try and talk about and interface with the truth of the actual universe.

"Yes, we've been studying the lore and secrets of the universe for a thousand years. Things still just happen sometimes! That's why it's magic!"

I was inspired by @jezifster's recent question about non-gendered royal titles, and I put together this graphic to serve as a jumping off point for people writing monarchies in SFF !

Obviously this non-exhaustive list contains mainly western titles, all in English. Feel free add any on additional gender neutral terminologies that you can think of, including those from different languages and cultures!

A small addition: I'm not a linguist or historian and put this list together based on some quick googling! While you're free to flex the usage and meanings of these words however you choose, researching the real-world context of each term before using them in your own writing is a best practice.

Things I want for werewolf families:

● Entire families purposefully turning into wolves just because it makes a better cuddle pile.

● Newborn werewolf babies still shifting wildly in accordance with their time-consuming emotions and new werewolf parents (sleep deprived and high on hormones) temporarily losing full control over their shifting, because whenever their baby howls instead of cries they immediately shift into their wolf form.

● Small children engaging in “comfort shifting” where they turn into wolves because their human feelings are a bit too much, or because they really need to roll up and hide their face in their tale right now.

● Adult family members teaching the kids, especially the girls, that while they can and will teach them how to shave if they want to, it is not necessary, not required, and absolutely not needed to look good, neat, or presentable.

● Werewolf teenagers shaving/cutting cool patterns in their fur.

● Little werewolves having to be reminded “count your thumbs!” before they run up the stairs / stick their face into a bowl of minced meat / try to jump out an open window, etc.

● Werewolves who only start transforming later in life getting completely overwhelmed by the smells and other sensations.

● Older family members making a big deal out of a child's first controlled, full-night transformation and the kid being grumpy and embarrassed about it but secretly really proud.

● Pre- and post-transformation care. Hot baths, massages, heating pads. Being a werewolf is very hard on the still-human body.

● Certain werewolves being born with the “pack instinct”, but other werewolves suddenly unlocking that part of their personality when they get or start taking care of kids. Suddenly they start filling the house with more and more food and start aggressively adopting everyone (of all ages) in their vicinity that seems in need of (better) family.

● Mixed werewolf-human families adopting big dogs to keep their werewolf kids company when they shift.

● Werewolf parents full-naming their howling cubs to get them to calm down instead of to scold them.

● Werewolves of all ages running amok in play. Everyone who knows them can tell they’re playing and not fighting, but to strangers it’s extremely worrying to watch.

Since Alhaithams story quest has been out for a while, and it confirms that the messy one of the roommates is actually HIM.... which is very different from everyone's initial fanon ideas... I present:

"Organised Chaos" messy alhaitham and "in the moment" messy kaveh

By this I mean that alhaitham leaves anything. Not just books. Everywhere. Cups, pens, papers, the entire place is a mess if he really doesn't care.

But he knows where everything is. Kaveh tries to nag him by asking "well how would you find anything like this" and alhaitham explains that he can recall where he left That One Paper, That Book and everything. He is a mess but at least he knows where things are. He will still nag at Kaveh when he is messy however.

Now Kaveh, I'm projecting on as an artist. Chaos during art hours. Papers everywhere. Paint, pens, anything and everything scattered all around while he's in the zone. Probably nearly drank paint water a few times. Alhaitham nags him to clear up in case he actually does, also so paint doesn't get on his books.

But he clears up everything the second he's finished. And the mess is likely contained to his room and maybe like. The living room table. Everything put away and in its place once Kavehs finished. Will nag at alhaitham and say it's haithams fault for leaving books everywhere if paint gets on one.

Together the house is simply a mess. But at least they don't lose things. Hopefully.

Thank you for reading. I am not ok

just a small inconvenience

kavetham | mild blood/injury, comfort (since today is his birthday)

Alhaitham is coming back from assisting Aether with a mission when he notices the cut on his palm, the moment he reaches for the door and feels a sting. He hadn’t paid note to it when the fighting distracted his attention, but now back in the peaceful silence of his house the wound was a throbbing annoyance.

He sighs; he pinpoints in his mind when he had lost grip of his sword and the enemy had slashed at them, and must have landed a hit on him. All in all, it was alright, as the mission had been completed successfully and without major issues otherwise.

He takes a clean rag from the cabinet and ties it over his hand, albeit with some difficulty; it would heal in a few days’ time and he had more important things to attend to, extra Akademiya work he had brought home to finish.

He had barely begun to, before Kaveh arrives home and comes to distract him. 

“What are you working -" Kaveh stops as he notices the rag tied on his junior’s palm immediately. “Haitham, what happened to you?!”

Kaveh holds out his own hand expectantly, and Alhaitham sighs, he should have known his senior wouldn’t miss it, depositing his wounded hand into the blonde’s. 

“It’s nothing but a minor inconvenience. I…” 

“Haitham, shut it. You’re hurt.” 

The rag had soaked through, Alhaitham just now realizes the cause of Kaveh’s concern.

Kaveh is already retrieving the first aid kit and unties the makeshift wrapping, and soaks a cloth in wound disinfectant. 

“I don’t nee -" Alhaitham is cut off when Kaveh presses the cloth to his hand and  it stings, quite a bit. He hisses in pain and jerks his hand back on instinct but Kaveh has a firm grip on his wrist.

His senior’s eyes soften a little at that and Kaveh strokes circles into the backside of his hand. “Shh, it’s ok. I’m almost done.” 

A soft white bandage is wrapped around his hand; Kaveh’s pressing gently into his palm until the bleeding slows. It throbs with the pressure and Alhaitham winces, it was a deeper wound than he had thought.

Kaveh notices his junior’s arm is trembling, and he brings his spare hand to finger through Alhaitham’s ashen, waved fringes as a distraction. 

Alhaitham opens his eyes that he had not realized were squeezed shut. He’s inches away from his senior’s face, and in the sunlight, Kaveh is so beautiful as always, and handsome as ever since their Akademiya days, and he finds he wanted to have him closer. He swallows. 

Kaveh, finally satisfied with how the bleeding is mostly under control now, ties a finishing touch on the bandage, a neat bow. 

“There, let me check on it later too…you never take care of yourself…” 

He looks up and Alhaitham is as pretty as ever, teal and cinnamon eyes open and trusting only for him, the sunlight casts a glow on him and he swears he’s never felt quite this way about anyone before. And since when were his lashes so long?

Kaveh cups Alhaitham’s cheeks in his hands affectionately, and kisses those plush lips gently. He’s soft and warm, and he lets out a surprised gasp before he relaxes into Kaveh’s touch and wraps his arms around the back of his senior’s neck.

Alhaitham accidentally uses his injured hand and hisses at the sting. 

“Haitham, careful!” Kaveh grasps his wrist, and tenderly kisses Alhaitham’s forehead. 

Alhaitham feels a warmth in his heart. His work could wait.