Said Softly Means You Are Speaking, But Sweetly, And Heartfelt. Said Quietly Means It Is Less Sweet,

Prompt #0.5

(Character A), a celebrity, is a big fan of (Character B), a Tumblr stan account dedicated to (Character A).

Because they suck at communication, (Character A) decides to comission fanfiction of themselves through (Character B) to talk to them.

Prompt #2

Soulmate AU, where the first words you say to someone are written on your body somewhere. The catch is that they’re written in your soulmate’s handwriting, aging with them.

For example, if a child is about four years old when their soulmate is born, then scribbles will appear on their body somewhere, illegible until they get older and learn how to write. The baby would be born with their soulmate’s writing already on them.

Illiterate people’s soulmates would be nearly unable to find them. People would be getting older and older, and not know whether they had no soulmate or whether their soulmate had not been born yet.

Prompt #7

(Character A) wears dark clothes. They can manipulate the shadows. They’re quiet and intense.

(Character B) wears bright clothing. They can fly and manipulate light. They’re exuberant and bubbly.

(Character A) is a super hero. (Character B) is a super villain.

Prompt #29

Soulmate AU where the last words your soulmate says is written on your skin.

(Character A) doesn’t have any words. (Character B), their soulmate, is immortal.

Prompt #9

(Character A) and (Character B) are supposed to be rivals.

The story itself isn’t angsty at all.

Prompt #25

(Character A) and (Character B) are best friends, so of course, when (Character A) goes on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, they use a lifeline to call their best friend. They don’t need it, but they just wanted to talk to them before they won.

So, of course, (Character B) accidentally confesses their long-time crush on (Character A) on live television.

... Shit.

An old gay man named “Rainbob”

words suck

What are words?

What could she say?

Everything she wanted to say was stuck in her throat, all the ‘I care about you’s and the ‘I’m not mad at you, I just care about you so much that I can’t bear it when you don’t care about yourself’ and all the ‘I don’t know’s.

Because really, she didn’t know.

She didn’t know a lot of things.

She didn’t know what to say to the self-deprecating comments on the side or the casual mentions of not eating as much and being to unhealthy or the anything.

Did she talk about it seriously? Did she sit him down and tell him that he was perfectly fine just the way he is? No. That would make him uncomfortable.

Did she just dismiss or negate the self-deprecating comments and hope he took it seriously? Maybe, but there’s a chance it won’t work.

What are words?

Her parents had always told her that she took things too seriously. In truth, she just didn’t see the point in things not taken or said literally. What was the point in saying something if it isn’t true and you can’t help anyone by saying it?

Sometimes, she wished everyone else took things as seriously as she did. If they did, she wouldn’t have to worry about miscommunication and honesty.

If they did, maybe they’d listen to her.

She had so much to say, but finding a strategy to say it and coming across in the right way so they would pay attention was stressful.

She really wished she could find a way to talk to him in the right way.

What are words?

Taken literally, words are a form of communication, verbal and nonverbal. Words come in many languages and interpretations, so there’s a million ways to say anything that comes to mind.

Words are also a way to shape and share thoughts, going above and beyond the basic need for survival most animals prioritize.

But, as humans are the apex predators, they have a lot of freedom to just think.

And think they do.

What is the meaning of everything? Is there a purpose to life? Is there a reason we’re here? Should we even be here?

Should I even be here?

Why?

And she doesn’t have an answer. She doesn’t know what to say. She never does.

She’s been given a thousand answers to her million questions, and although that’s a lot of answers, it’s not enough in the context.

Will she ever know enough?

Will she ever have enough?

…

Will she ever be enough?

And she doesn’t know.

So she keeps asking questions and hoping for a single answer per every hundred or thousand, and hopes she’ll be enough to help him.

Hopes she’ll be enough to help anybody.

Maybe everyone else sees that she helps one person, and that she must be good at it, and they don’t see the dozen before that she couldn’t help.

Is it enough?

...

Words suck.

???

do i like emo aesthetic? do i like pastel aesthetic? do i like preppy stuff? am i plain?

do i like country? do i like punk? do i like pop? do i like whatever genre(s) twenty one pilots/my chemical romance/fall out boy/panic! at the disco even is?

am i intimidating? am i friendly? am i mean? am i nice?

do i word my sentences right? do i talk calmly enough when i’m in an argument? do my friends really want to be with me as much as i want to be with them? can i talk about my interests without censoring them?

should i talk about my sexuality or preferences? should i talk to my mom about my crush on a girl? should i correct my parents when they only talk about me getting a husband when i’m older? should i tell my extended family that i’m not straight?

can i be open at school? can i raise my hand more than once every five minutes? can i tell my friends about what i really think about? can i be uncloseted at school and not have my flag and explanation of bisexuality on my locker taken down and have it explained to me by the school counselor that it’s because the younger kids could see and ask their parents?

is it okay if i talk louder? is it okay if i don’t apologize all the time? is it okay if i say what i’m thinking? is it okay if i laugh loud and smile wide with my teeth and walk with a wide stride?

is it okay if i ask these questions?

as it should be

“Yellow is fake,” says Lilac to Oleander. “It is because I say so.”

Lilac tilts their head and keeps staring at the setting sun, squinting to see the colours. Oranges and yellows blended together and draped around the clouds like the most perfect curtains to ever exist, natural and ugly.

Fake.

“And all of the clouds must be paintings.” Oleander has never understood Lilac. Maybe they never would.

“What do you mean?” Lilac traces the sky with a gentle, steady hand, the clouds just barely shifting and twisting, gliding instead of pulling like a current in a river. Impossible, incomprehensible.

“Why are black and white not colors, but yellow is?” Lilac questions. Lilac has an awful lot of questions. They’ve always been curious. Not so much that they never look before they leap, but just enough to look over the edge and decide it isn’t that far of a drop.

That doesn’t mean that they would be right, however.

Oleander has always been the kind of person to never leap in the first place, let alone look. The varying perspectives is exciting the main diffference between the two.

Oleander responds, “Because black and white aren’t part of the rainbow.”

Lilac furrows their brow. “But we’re just humans. If we were mantis shrimp, and we had sixteen color receptors, then maybe black and white would be colors in the rainbow.”

Lilac gestures at all the fake colour. It dances around in streaks, brush strokes painting lines stolen right off the rainbow. “Why are we allowed to judge that if we can’t know for sure? Why can’t I declare that yellow is fake, like black and white?”

“Because we want labels.” Oleander is becoming annoyed. “We want labels, because we want to have purpose and meaning. We want to be defined. Purpose is having a place, a contribution to something. That gives us purpose, or whatever we think is purpose anyways.

“We all want purpose, because without it we don’t have meaning.”

“But why can’t we have no labels and still have meaning and purpose?” Lilac runs a hand through their hair, squeezing their eyes shut and staring at the yellows in the backs of their eyelids instead. Comforting fireworks of golden sparks, raining down in waves. An ocean of fiery yellow. It’s fake. “Labels don’t indicate worth. Labels aren’t a purpose. They’re a box. People can’t fit in boxes. I mean, I haven’t ever tried, but I don’t think the shapes would match up.”

Oleander may never understand Lilac, but they will always listen, in case one day, they find an answer in the horde of never-ending questions. In case one day, Oleander figures out why Lilac keeps them up all night when they’re not even there.

In case one day, Oleander won’t have to strike through their thoughts anymore.

“Because boxes are comforting. They’re a safe place. A shelter. And people aren’t always comfortable in their own selves, so sometimes they’ll put themselves in shelters. They’ll make a home in a label because they can’t find one in their own mind.” The words are spilling out of their mouth, clumps and pieces jumbling together. “They don’t feel comfortable with who they are, so they try to make themselves someone they like because they think that they’ll be comfortable with someone else. With a cliché.”

The words stop flowing. They drift off instead, and Oleander tries to catch them, tries to fit them in their fists. It barely works. They only snatch a single sentence. “But they never are.”

It’s a grey sentence, Oleander knows. Shiny silvery grey, colourless. It’s a truthful group of words, honest. Nothing is really black and white. Black and white sentences aren’t lies, really, but they’re always mistaken.

Grey is the only honest colour.

Oleander wonders what the least honest colour is. They think that maybe, just maybe, it might be yellow.

Lilac thinks that Oleander is right. Lilac also thinks that when they look up and open their eyes, all they can see looks like paint on the water, and their focus shifts once more.

“Crystal clear water,” they murmur. “And acrylic.”

Oleander is not following. “What?”

“The clouds,” Lilac explains. They’ve got a sleepy look on their face, and eyes like stars. “I’ve decided they’re paint on water. They can’t be real.”

Oleander wishes they could be Lilac, and see the world as simple as they do.

Just for a second.

A single, sweet second of understanding.

Oleander think about the comparisons of the both of them frequently. It’s glaringly obvious that they contrast each other greatly. One might even say that they complimented each other well.

Lilac smiles slow, small, and sweet, and Oleander doesn’t smile much at all anymore. Lilac is fantastical and creative. Oleander doesn’t even like anything other than non-fiction. Lilac always has an idea. Oleander can’t remember the last time they thought of something new, original.

Oleander wants to contribute to something. Maybe Oleander needs meaning as well.

“Maybe oil pastels on acrylic,” Oleander offers.

Lilac stretches their arms out on the grass below them, digging their fingers in the warm dirt and getting it under their nails. Wet earth stains their hands, but they don’t care. “On a canvas,” they add quietly.

Lilac feels like they could just melt into the ground, close their eyes again without looking once at the explosions of fake colours, and just fall.

Fall intangible through the core of the world, and through the other side.

Maybe even fall through China instead of digging their way there.

Fall into the sky.

Fall asleep.

And they do.

Oleander goes on to stare at the moon. And the clouds go on to being oil pastels on acrylic, and yellow goes on being fake.

Everything is wrong.

As it should be.