Once upon a time, there was a city ruled by three sister princesses. They were much-loved in their kingdom- the eldest with eyes of brightest blue, the middle with lips of sweetest pink, and the youngest with hair of deepest red. They were incredibly close, acting as each other’s friends and confidantes. They were just, and kind, able to balance the people and keep the peace in their land.
For a time, all was well.
And then it wasn’t.
Mother?
Shh.
A neighboring kingdom, jealous of this city’s prosperity and peace, sought to disrupt it. They dragged to its gates hideous war machines, made of magic and steel and human skin. The king, a man of great magical learning and power, demanded the princesses surrender their city to him, and if they did not, he said, he would raze it to the ground.
Mother, I’ve never heard of this story.
Then listen when I tell it to you.
The youngest daughter, when she heard, did up her deep red hair, put on a delicate crown, and clothed herself in a beautiful dress. “I will offer him an alliance,” she told her sisters. “I will give him my hand in marriage for our kingdom’s safety.”
The other sisters wept, understanding the sacrifice that their youngest was making, and held her close until dawn. They saw her off at the castle gates, and watched until she disappeared into the still city.
When the youngest daughter reached the enemy’s camp, she stood tall, and did not show her fear. She spoke kindly to the weary soldiers, curtsied before the cruel sorcerer-king as custom demanded. She was brave, oh, my darling, she was so brave.
And the king spat at her fine words, and spoke the words that drew all the light from out of her, until she went mad with despair. As the sun set on the day, and on the youngest sister, who lay despondent in the middle of the camp, a soldier came upon her, and killed her in a fit of mercy.
But you said that she was brave.
Yes. She was.
When the other sisters heard, the middle sister donned silver armor, borrowed from the guards in the castle, and took up a crossbow. “I go to kill the king,” she said. “I go to avenge our youngest.”
And the eldest held her close, and wept, until she let her go and watched her disappear from sight into the streets.
When the middle sister arrived at the camp, she moved quietly, looking through the tents with eyes and a heart made cold with fury and grief. She reached the king’s tent- asleep, inside was the enemy, and she raised her crossbow to finish the job. And she would have, darling, she would have, had she not seen, hanging from the post of the kings fine bed, her sister’s delicate crown.
The king awoke when she sobbed at the sight of it, and spoke words that caused her to wither and decay where she stood, crumbling to rotted remains inside a suit of armor.
Mother, I don’t like this story.
You must hear it.
The eldest sister heard the news and she did not weep. She drew her courage about her, and set off into the forest to find her and her sister’s mother, who was a powerful witch.
Her mother answered the door and bade her come inside, offering her condolences about her sister’s fates. Once the door had closed, her mother hesitated, then spoke.
“I left you in that castle long ago, and I will give you your answers, and then I will give you your vengeance against the king.”
And so the daughter listened.
Mother, I don’t want to hear this.
Listen, daughter.
Long ago, there had been a queen with great magickal abilities, but she was never able to find a love, so she used those powers to create three daughters.
One, she formed from a bottle of light captured at the sun’s violent surrender to night. It woke last, a child with beautiful red hair, and so it was the youngest.
One, she shaped from a gentle pink anemone, the last in her castle’s courtyard to survive winter’s onslaught. It woke second, a child with curved pink lips, and so it was the middle.
One, she carved from a piece of sapphire the size of her fist, and as she did, she cut her finger with the blade, so it was made with blood, as well. It woke immediately, with bright blue eyes, so it was the eldest.
The sun took her first child home, she told the sapphire-girl. Her body turned to light, and then to nothing, what it always was. The body of her second daughter rotted in the encampment like a flower decayed beyond its lifespan. “All the king can do is turn you back to what you were before,” she told her daughter. “He will turn you back to stone if you are unprotected.”
She gave her daughter a vial full of black liquid. “This will turn your heart forever to sapphire. The king will be unable to change you- but you will never feel again. No blade shall pierce your skin, but no joy or grief will stir within you. You will never be warm, or cold. I offer you not immortality, but a half-life of invincibility.”
The daughter regarded the vial, and uncorked it. She brought it to her lips, but before she drank, she asked her mother, “Why did you leave us?”
And then she swallowed, so she would not care about the response, and she left her mother in her home before she found the answer.
But why did their mother leave them?
Because she knew, daughter, even then, that her eldest child was capable of committing this act, and she was afraid.
The eldest daughter marched to the encampment, and to the kings tent. She was attacked, but nothing drew blood, and so she went forward. The king, upon seeing her, spoke the words that would have crumbled her to so many sapphire shards, but nothing happened.
She pulled out the king’s heart through his armor, and she felt no relief at having killed him.
She felt nothing.
The end.
Mother?
Mother, that can’t be how the story ends.
Mother, that is not how the story ends.
Do you want another ending?
Yes.
Very well, then.
The people saw what their queen had done, and began to fear her. The queen, unable to feel love or even affection, went back to her mother to find a way to make a child that her people would adore, because, without emotion, she saw that that was what they needed.
The child was made of ice over a pond, and her hair was the orange-white color of the fish, still alive in the cold.
And the queen raised her daughter to love the kingdom, to rule well, and to one day overthrow her mother.
Is that better?
No, mother, it’s- it’s not.
I am sorry.
Why did you tell it to me?
Because you deserved to know, daughter.
You deserved to know what I did.
i hate that there’s no credit for submitted posts when reblogging, but this story by @ninja-kitty-more-like-no is incredible and i didn’t want to reblog without people knowing who wrote it
Uncanny valley=things that aren’t normal almost getting it right
Third person limited view
Limited explanations
Rot, mold, damage, age, static, flickering, especially in places it shouldn’t be
Limited sights for your mc -blindness, darkness, fog, refuse
Real consequences
Being alone -the more people there are, the less scary it is
Intimate knowledge, but only on one side
I don’t know I just write scary things but I don’t know what I’m doing.
Rule of Thumb: your reader’s imagination will scare them more than anything you could ever write. You don’t have to offer a perfectly concrete explanation for everything at the end. In fact, doing so may detract from your story.
Writer says: So I had this crazy idea one day and I just had to work on it. Here ya go!
Writer means: So I had this crazy idea either right before getting in the shower or right before falling asleep so I grabbed my fucking laptop and shat all over it to create the steaming pile of crap that I now lay before you. I don’t even know if it’s good anymore. I haven’t slept in two days.
Writer says: Wow, real life’s getting busy! Sorry on the slow updates.
Writer means: My life is a literal storm of shit at the moment. Why did I decide to do this. Why am I still doing this. Everything around me is spinning out of control and I am staying up ‘til 5:30 in the morning every night to create a piece of work that will only get two comments and 12 demands for quicker updates. I hope no one’s mad at me, all I wanted to do was write.
Writer says: Wow! Would you look at that! I updated on time! Please enjoy!
Writer means: WOOOOOOHOOOOOO BITCHES LOOK AT THIS PRODUCTIVE ASSHOLE GO YEEEEEHAAAAWWWW TAKE THAT YOU NASTY REVIEWERS ALWAYS DEMANDING ME TO BE FASTER! I GOT THIS SHIT I GOT THIS SHIT
Writer says: This chapter was a toughie. Glad it’s finally done!
Writer means: I don’t know if this is good or not. I honestly don’t fucking know. I’ve read the same words over and over and over again and I just couldn’t look at it anymore. My beta said it was ok but I’m not confident but HOLY SHIT I JUST NEED TO STOP WRITING THIS FUCKIGN CHAPTER.
Writer says: Thanks for reading!
Writer means: Please, oh please oh please oh please leave me a review. A comment. Anything. Please tell me you’re out there. Please tell me someone is reading this.
Writer says: I just want to say that real life is getting pretty hectic right now. Please try to be patient with me, I know you guys want updates. Thanks! 🙂
Writer means: FUCK. YOU. Who the fuck do you think you are, demanding shit from me?! You don’t know my life! I have a very busy life! I create shit for free, you entitled son of a pig-fucker! STOP LEAVING ME COMMENTS TELLING ME TO UPDATE SOON OR I SWEAR TO GOD I’LL PUKE ALL OVER MY COMPUTER
Writer means: I have no fucking clue what the next chapter is going to look like. What’s my plot? I don’t know. I feel no emotion.
Writer says: Please leave a comment! It helps me write!
Writer means: I am begging you to leave me a comment because I swear it’s the only thing that’s keeping me motivated right now, I hate the work I put out and I need reassurance that people are actually enjoying this.
Writer says: I hope you enjoyed that chapter, big things are coming up! 😉
Writer means: Buckle up bitches, someone’s gonna die.
Writer says: I know I’ve missed a few updates, but I swear I plan on finishing this story!
Writer means: *high pitched eternal screeching*
Writer says: Here we are at long last! This has been one wild ride. I want to thank you all so much for your support and love, I adore each and every one of you. I am so happy to say that this story has come to a wonderful close.
Writer means: My body is numb. Voices call out to me from the void, but I can no longer hear them over the beating of my racing heart. I am stressed to the point where I feel no relief. The story is done. It’s fucking DONE. I loved it, I hated it, it was a fucking storm of horror and pain. I can no longer see color. Now I can at last relax and…wait……wait a second………..holy shit I just thought of the best idea for a one-shot that’s totally gonna turn into a 50 chapter slow burn AU fic leT’S FUCKING DO THIS
It was bad enough to realise that your life is a work of fiction. But it was truly awful to realise that the author is 12.
That’s your first thought anyway. You watch the world bloom around you in short bursts and think that you’re fucked. You think that there’s no way that you’re going to be able to live the sort of life you always imagined for yourself. You think that this is all that there will ever be in your world; a decent setting, unsettling exclamations, and so many plot holes that you’ve been to a psychiatrist twice to get checked for memory problems. You think your life is going to be inconsistent, sloppy and incomprehensible.
You’re wrong.
After a year, you notice that there are more people in your life. Your job isn’t solely populated by your boss, the secretary and the janitor who killed your best friend five years ago (which you can’t remember). Now there’s a woman named Mary-lee in the cubicle next to yours and a man named Gonzalez who works in a whole other department. Your company only had one department last year. Now it’s got two.
You stop shouting quite so much and you stop feeling the need to smirk every time you see someone making a fool of themselves. Your words are more reasoned now, more natural, and you find your conversations lasting longer with your new coworkers and neighbors. Your city grows, suburbs springing up overnight. The trees start losing their leaves in the fall and it’s not always night time when bad news arrives.
Your eyes aren’t orbs anymore, they’re just eyes.
When you run into your estranged brother in the hall of your apartment building, you wait for the ridiculous explanation for why he’d move in with you. Maybe every other house in the city is full? Maybe he didn’t know you lived there? Maybe it just “be like that sometimes?”
Turns out he’s not moving in. The woman he’s dating lives two doors down and he’s just as surprised as you. Small world.
Yes, it’s a bit contrived. Yes, it’s a little out of the blue. But, you realize, that’s how stories go. Sometimes they’re out of the blue. Making the out of the blue seem normal? That’s the mark of a true storyteller.
They’re getting better, you realize, watching your brother walk away. A lot better.
They’ve been writing your life everyday. You don’t know why you didn’t think about that. Of course they’re getting better. Through plot struggles and unpleasant writer’s block, they’ve stuck with you and your story.
Through everything, every shred of doubt, every shiny new idea, every criticism, they’ve stuck with you. They’ve worked hard to build your life around you. They’ve put in the time to get better, to give you better dialogue and a brilliant place to live and an exciting life.
They’ve grown for you.
Thank the author that you were lucky enough to grow with them.
Person A: You know… the thing Person B: The “thing”? Person A: Yeah, the thing with the little-! *mutters under their breath* Como es que se llama esa mierda… THE FISHING ROD
As someone with multiple bilingual friends where English is not the first language, may I present to you a list of actual incidents I have witnessed:
Forgot a word in Spanish, while speaking Spanish to me, but remembered it in English. Became weirdly quiet as they seemed to lose their entire sense of identity.
Used a literal translation of a Russian idiomatic expression while speaking English. He actually does this quite regularly, because he somehow genuinely forgets which idioms belong to which language. It usually takes a minute of everyone staring at him in confused silence before he says “….Ah….. that must be a Russian one then….”
Had to count backwards for something. Could not count backwards in English. Counted backwards in French under her breath until she got to the number she needed, and then translated it into English.
Meant to inform her (French) parents that bread in America is baked with a lot of preservatives. Her brain was still halfway in English Mode so she used the word “préservatifes.” Ended up shocking her parents with the knowledge that apparently, bread in America is full of condoms.
Defined a slang term for me……. with another slang term. In the same language. Which I do not speak.
Was talking to both me and his mother in English when his mother had to revert to Russian to ask him a question about a word. He said “I don’t know” and turned to me and asked “Is there an English equivalent for Нумизматический?” and it took him a solid minute to realize there was no way I would be able to answer that. Meanwhile his mom quietly chuckled behind his back.
Said an expression in English but with Spanish grammar, which turned “How stressful!” into “What stressing!”
Bilingual characters are great but if you’re going to use a linguistic blunder, you have to really understand what they actually blunder over. And it’s usually 10x funnier than “Ooops it’s hard to switch back.”
[polyglot laughter and grumbles of frustration in the distance]
it’s been 3 months, so i’m legally allowed to sharemy first officially published storyfor free. previously published in Massacre Magazine, under the Gorey Skelton pen name
leave feedback in the replies! (i seriously love feedback, but my tumblr inbox is a mess)
I’m… shaken. Disturbed? Holy shit.
That is
Holy shit
Read it
my one real goal as a writer is to create content people regret reading
“Shh, it’s alright,” the villain said. “You’re doing beautifully and I’m so proud of you. But that’s enough now. It was cruel of them to make you fight me – you could never have won. It’s not your fault.”
The ancient and powerful villain may have had a calm and gentle face as he spoke, but he was furious, not at the hero, but the gods for continually sending kids and teenagers to fight their battles.
CaptainBubblebath 