centurywrites

[centurywrites]

unique things you can give your characters to make them stand out that are not tattoos or scars:

multiple ear piercings (especially for male characters)

visible body piercings (nose piercing, etc.)

lots of jewelry (layered necklaces, rings on every finger, etc.)

or no jewelry at all (bonus: a character that doesn't wear any in a culture that is jewelry focused)

a signature color (ex. a character that always wears blue, or only wears gold rings)

extra descriptive hair or eye color (ex. curly, red hair down to the waist, amber eyes with flecks of green, cropped silver-blonde hair)

freckles (bonus: body freckles, not just face)

a nervous habit (ex. picking at their skin, biting their nails, checking a watch, fiddling with jewelry)

a limp or any other unusual gait (bonus: describe it! is it from a horseback riding accident, were they born that way, is it from aging, etc.?)

an accent or lisp (use cautiously and with respect)

unique teeth (tooth gaps, missing teeth, gold/silver teeth, crowded teeth, etc.)

a signature hairstyle (a braided coronet, a bun, etc.)

noticeable facial features: ruddy cheeks, a prominent nose, very thin/thick eyebrows, moles, birthmarks, etc.)

[centurywrites]

Every light fantasy story needs

a talking teacup that gives terrible advice

a forest that hums lullabies

a bakery that bakes memories into tea cakes

a prince who turns into a frog on purpose

a moonbeam that you can fold into origami

a pond that reflects your happiest memories

a rainbow that you can climb into the clouds

a scarf that changes colour based on nearby magic

a rocking chair that tells stories from your childhood

a bookshop where book characters sometimes step out for a cuppa

a sleepy coastal town where the sea leaves gifts on your doorstep

Every dark fantasy story needs

a cloak that hides your emotions, not your body

a library where the books whisper secrets and the bookshelves reassemble themselves into a maze the more you want to seek a book

a map that leads you to a different foe every time

a lantern that only lights when someone tells the truth

a door that only opens if you promise never to return

a throne that turns its user into what the kingdom truly deserves

a river that flows with memories instead of water

a sword that hungers, not for blood, but for guilt

a child’s lullaby that summons something watching from the woods

Every academia story needs

all nighters fuelled by caffeine

a rumour about a professor who disappeared halfway through a semester

fighting for the last copy of a textbook

racing each other to find the best supervisor

verbal sparring on question sets

whispered debates in libraries

a mentor who’s either wildly inspiring or borderline unhinged

one student who always sits in the same spot until one day, they don’t

a group project that goes horrifically wrong

philosophising at 3 a.m. in corridors and staircases

the sudden realisation you’ve been working in the library for 12 hours straight and haven’t eaten

a changing quote written daily on the whiteboard that no one claims

Every romance story needs

a lapse of judgement, then an apology

a pet that goes astray--they go find it together

a shared umbrella in the rain

an fight in a kitchen that turns into dancing

a letter never meant to be opened--but it is

a late-night walk where neither wants to say goodbye

a borrowed sweater that still smells like them

a plant they raise together

a reunion at a train station or airport terminal

Every horror story needs

the ghost of your enemy

bloody footprints that lead into a desolate building

a voice that mimics your own, but whispers from another room

a knock at the door when no one should know you’re there

a journal that ends mid-sentence

a smell of rot with no source

a shadow that lingers long after the person is gone

a warning scrawled on the ceiling in your own handwriting

a room that’s colder than the rest of the house, no matter the season

Every historical story needs

a letter that never reached its destination, until now

a secret stitched into the lining of a coat

a forbidden romance

a family heirloom with a history only the family knows about

a moment where history happens in the background while the characters live their quiet lives

an encounter with a real historical figure

an ordinary object that survives through generations

a meal shared between enemies during a truce

[centurywrites]

5 Tiny Writing Tips That Aren’t Talked About Enough (but work for me)

These are some lowkey underrated tips I’ve seen floating around writing communities — the kind that don’t get flashy attention but seriously changed how I write.

1. Put “he/she/they” at the start of the sentence less often.

Try switching up your sentence rhythm. Instead of

“She walked to the window,”

try

“The window creaked open under her touch.”

Keeps it fresh and stops the paragraph from sounding like a checklist.

2. Don’t describe everything — describe what matters.

Instead of listing every detail in a room, pick 2–3 objects that say something.

“A half-drunk mug of tea and a knife on the table”

sets a way stronger tone than

“There was a wooden table, two chairs, and a shelf.”

3. Use beats instead of dialogue tags sometimes.

Instead of:

"I'm fine," she said.

Try:

"I'm fine." She wiped her hands on her skirt.

It helps shows emotion, and movement.

4. Write your first draft like no one will ever read it.

No pressure. No perfection. Just vibes. The point of draft one is to exist. Let it be messy and weird — future you will thank you for at least something to edit.

5. When stuck, ask: “What’s the most fun thing that could happen next?”

Not logical. Not realistic. FUN. It doesn’t have to stay — but chasing excitement can blast through writer’s block and give you ideas you actually want to write.

What’s a tip that unexpectedly helped with your writing? Let me know!! 🍒

[centurywrites]

Talkmodachi is a tool created by dylanpdx on Github that allows you to use the US Tomodachi Life text-to-speech in order to say whatever you would like! This tool is built directly off of the game itself and is therefore completely 100% accurate. The developer is currently still working on the projects documentation, including for singing, so if you are interested then be on the lookout for any updates!

[centurywrites]

6 Quick Writing Exercises to Wake Up Your Imagination

We all hit those blah writing days. Your fingers are ready, your doc is open... and your brain goes static. That’s where writing exercises come in — small creative boosts to shake off the dust and get back into your story flow. Here are six to try when your words feel stuck in traffic.

1. The 5-Minute Word Sprint

Pick a random word (use a generator or close your eyes and point at a book), set a 5-minute timer, and write anything involving that word. No stopping, no deleting.

2. Dialogue Without Context

Write a short convo between two people. No descriptions. No setting. Just back-and-forth lines.

3. Rewrite a Scene in Another Genre

Take a scene from your current story and flip the genre. Drama becomes comedy. Fantasy becomes sci-fi. Romance becomes horror.

4. Describe a Place Using the Five Senses — No Sight Allowed

Can’t mention what anything looks like. Only sound, touch, smell, taste, and intuition.

5. Character Swap POVs

Write a paragraph from the POV of a side character reacting to your main character. Bonus if the POV is brutally honest or completely wrong.

6. One Line Story Hooks

Write 3 one-sentence story starters that make you want to keep writing. (Example: “I woke up married to my enemy, and worse — he knew it before I did.”)

You don’t need to write a masterpiece every day. But showing up — even for a silly exercise — keeps the creative part of your brain warmed up. Try one of these before your next writing session, and see where it takes you. 🍒

[centurywrites]

Good news. we can finally Be Bees. this isn't your world, but we can Be Bees. this is Good news. you can Be a Bee. you'll live like a Bee. A Pet. A pet? A Pet. Mark, this is Good news. You'll live. for 30 years. THIS IS INSANE

[centurywrites]

Something's thrown against the floor following the yell, right behind the beast in front of them. It clatters against the concrete, shrill and hollow. The thing whips its head around, like a mace on a string.

They're not sure what just happened.

They stand there, bewildered. Adrenaline still pumping through their veins, trying to process what just happened.

"I'VE DRAWN AGGRO! C'MON!"

A hurried yell pulls them out of that daze. Right.

Someone's ran into a doorway. One that they missed before. Seems like that's whoever saved them. They're not sure how long the thing's going to be distracted. They have to move. Now.

They slip behind the creature, blinded by a wild hunger, and catch their breath on the doorway.

Someone's talking.

"You can't just run off like that, even if there's someone hurt! They'll get redrawn, anyway..."

"And? Dying like that's never nice. Plus, not like we were using the tapes. He's selling nothing but gumballs right now."

Whatever these strangers are saying in hushed voices, barely visible behind a crate.. it makes zero sense. But, from how they're not panicking, it might be safe in here.

They quietly hope they aren't interrupting anything important.

"It didn't sound like a Toon, though. Too big. What if it was another Twisted? Are we up to four already?"

"C'mon. It's not a Twisted. If it was, i'd be running in circles around a shelf by now."

"It could've been Glisten! And if it is, you've left him alone now.. and he's gonna get mad. And you can't outrun him, even with the bow."

Quietly, they step into the light.

"It's fine, Box. Definitley wasn't him. Didn't hear him when the door opened. Here, it's...

...it's..."

<- # ->

[centurywrites]

FORSAKEN HC DUMP: WORLDBUILDING!

additional notes:

- the survivors can travel out of bounds of the cabin because, unlike the killers, they are heavily nerfed/powerless

- the killers are sectioned off at the campsite, unable to leave the borders — this is to avoid certain killers from carrying out… personal vendettas (*coughs in 1x4*) and desensitizing survivors to the pain of getting killed

- the Spectre wants the survivors to feel as if the cabin is a place of solace despite not truly being comfortable/home, so it’s all the more dreadful when they get dragged into a new round

↳ for the killers, the Spectre wants the opposite effect

- survivors are allowed to enter the killer zone which puts them in danger of all the killers and monsters, discourages survivors from going out too far from the cabin

- Taph, Dusekkar, Builderman, Elliot and 007n7 often help with cabin maintenance (cleaning, repairs, etc.)

- the ONLY survivor who has been killed in-between rounds is Shedletsky (which is what led to the Spectre enforcing precautions like the barrier)

- there is no safety bubble around the cabin so as to still give survivors a sense of paranoia and constant worry of outside threats, aside from just the killers

[centurywrites]

[centurywrites]

Writing characters who don’t know they’re in love

(PS: but literally everyone else does and is so tired)

These characters aren’t clueless, no, they’re not walking around like, “love? never heard of her.” They know something’s going on, they just won’t admit it (not to themselves, not to anyone.) Maybe they’re scared of messing it up, or maybe they think the other person doesn’t feel the same. Maybe they’ve stuffed the feeling so deep even a NASA rover couldn’t dig it out.

Whatever the reason, they’re not avoiding the truth as much as they’re…rebranding it. Calling it “friendship” while giving each other their only jacket and dreaming about each other’s voices like it’s totally normal behavior.

ꕤ They don’t realize it’s love, but they notice everything else. They clock every mood shift, every absence, every little thing. They definitely  know when something’s off.

⇢ “You changed your hair.” ⇢ “You looked upset earlier.” ⇢ “You didn’t text me back and I panicked.” ⇢ “You weren’t at lunch and it felt weird.” ⇢ “Are you cold?” hands over jacket without a second thought

They don’t say “I love you,” but their actions scream it constantly.

ꕤ they get weird when someone else gets close They’re not jealous. No, how dare you think something like that… they’re just keeping an eye out. For safety... Or whatever."

⇢ “Who was that?” ⇢ “Oh, you’re hanging out with them again?” ⇢ “I just think it’s interesting how you never cancel on them.”

They don’t say it, but they hate the idea of being replaced. It stings more than they’re ready to admit.

ꕤ they make excuses to be around each other.

Literally inventing reasons to be in the same space.

⇢ “Wanna study together? I’m struggling with this topic.” (They’re not.) ⇢ “Oh, I was just in the area.” (They weren’t.) ⇢ “You forgot this.” (It’s a single pen.)

They’d rather lie badly than admit, “I just wanted to see you.”

ꕤ  Their friends are so over it Everyone around them is either rooting for them or trying not to scream.

⇢ “You’re in love with them.” ⇢ “That’s not friendship, and you know it.” ⇢ “You made them soup. FUCKING SOUP. Just say you’re married already.” ⇢ “If I have to hear you talk about them one more time, I’m charging rent.”

Friends are the Greek chorus of this situation, like, brutally honest and endlessly tired.

ꕤ  There’s always a moment they almost figure it out That one soft, unspoken beat where the truth almost breaks through.

⇢ Watching them laugh like it’s the first time. ⇢ Seeing them cry and wanting to fix it more than anything. ⇢ Realizing no one else makes them feel like this. ⇢ Thinking, God, they’re beautiful.

Then they blink, panic a little, and go, “Huh. Weird.” And move on. Like absolute fools.

ꕤ  When it finally hits, it’s not cute, it’s catastrophic. Suddenly everything makes sense and feels like too much.

⇢ Flashbacks. ⇢ Internal screaming. ⇢ “Oh no.” ⇢ “OH MY GOD.” ⇢ “Has it always been this obvious??” ⇢ “Wait. Everyone knew?!”

Yes. Everyone. The friends, the neighbor’s cat. You were the only two who didn’t get the memo...

[centurywrites]

I'm saying out loud "Repeal the Third Amendment! I want buff sexy soldiers in my house!" and I hear my mom say from the kitchen "Weirdo!" sigh... She just doesn't get it.

[centurywrites]

[centurywrites]

[centurywrites]

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

PLEASE check my later versions of this post via my main page to make sure you have the latest version of this post before you reblog. All the information I’ve been able to gather is in my reblogs below, and it's frustrating to see the old version getting passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much!

[centurywrites]

"If you use em dash in your works, it makes them look AI generated. No real human uses em dash."

Imaging thinking actual human writers are Not Real because they use... professional writing in their works.

Imagine thinking millions of people who have been using em dash way before AI becomes a thing are all robots.

REBLOG IF YOU'RE A HUMAN AND YOU USE EM DASH

[centurywrites]

Tips on how to Write Two Characters Stuck in a Car After a Fight

⊹ The silence hits hard, like, instantly. Not a thoughtful silence, Neither the quiet that comes from mutual processing, no, it’s the kind that wraps around your throat and makes the air feel heavier. The music’s either turned off completely or left on just low enough to be awkward. And suddenly, the blink of the turn signal is the loudest sound in the universe. Tick. Tick. Tick. Like a countdown to who’s going to break first.

⊹ One of them is clenching the steering wheel like it’s responsible for the fight. The other is staring so intently out the window it’s like they expect a tree to swoop in and rescue them. No one’s talking, but they’re both internally monologuing the fight like it’s a courtroom drama... Replaying every word, every look. Mentally rewriting it to win.

⊹ Petty starts small. The A/C is mysteriously switched off or suddenly freezing. The music changes to something annoying. Someone opens snacks and doesn't offer. Gum? Forgotten. There’s no yelling, but the passive aggression is practically humming, like, it's not a fight anymore, it’s a vibe war.

⊹ Someone always cracks first. Not with an apology. No, it’s a neutral lifeline, something like “We’re almost out of gas.” It’s code for please say something, I hate this, I don’t want to do this anymore, but we’re all too emotionally constipated to say that out loud.

⊹ Apologies are rarely clean. It’s not “I’m sorry” with big dramatic weight. It’s a muttered “I just…” followed by a sigh, a glance, a half-hearted attempt to explain. And sometimes it’s too soon, and the other person’s still too mad to accept it. Sometimes it’s too late, and sometimes it never comes at all, and that silence says everything.

⊹ The body language tells the whole story = Crossed arms, tense shoulders, avoiding eye contact like it’s contagious. One of them shifts a little closer, not sure if they’re allowed to. The other leans further away without realizing. It’s like watching magnets almost click, and then pull apart.

⊹ At some point, one of them thinks about just… getting out. Not even angrily, just… the fantasy of walking away mid-red-light. Imagining opening the door and stepping out into somewhere else, because anywhere feels better than this. Even if it’s just for a second.

⊹ The rearview mirror becomes a gut-punch. They glance into it without meaning to, and suddenly it’s all flashbacks...what was just said, or who they were before it, or maybe even what they’re trying not to lose.

⊹ And if the car breaks down mid-fight? That’s not a plot twist, no dear writer, that’s a breakdown of everything. Now they’re stuck with no escape, no distractions, just the weight of what was said and the sound of their own hearts hammering too loud. It’s the moment where everything either falls apart or finally cracks open.

[centurywrites]

How to Write Long-Distance Friendships

⊹ Most of the friendship lives on screens now. And no, that doesn’t make it less real. It’s TikToks at Midnight, blurry selfies captioned “alive I guess,” a random “thinking of you” that hits harder than a Shakespeare monologue. These tiny, chaotic digital crumbs? That’s modern affection, guys.

⊹ Time zones are the actual villain. Like, congrats, your best friend is awake when you’re half-dead. You get really good at leaving messages in little bottles ( I mean, texts) that’ll wash up on their shore eight hours later. It's strangely poetic, if you ignore how annoying it is.

⊹ Calls turn into special events... You plan them like dinner reservations. Reschedule them like flaky exes and when they do happen, it’s either three hours of emotional unpacking or fifteen minutes of “I love you but my soul is leaking out my ears.” Either way, it counts.

⊹ They don’t know you're right now. Not really, they weren’t there for the coworker who ruined your day or the little bakery you fell in love with. So you have to explain everything, but sometimes you don’t. And that weird little space between what they know and what they don’t? That’s amazing, for Storytelling.

⊹ You start summarizing your life like a newsletter. “Still alive. Work sucks. Ate something questionable.” Not because you don’t want to share (you do) but because it’s hard to cram the full play-by-play into a 30-second voice note between meetings. Distance edits you down, that’s just how it works.

⊹ Big stuff hits differently. The good, the bad, the absolutely unhinged... it all feels heavier when you can’t scream-laugh or ugly-cry in the same room. No amount of phone calls makes up for sitting on the floor together eating cereal out of the box and feeling like maybe the world isn’t ending.

⊹ And yet, the love finds ways. It shows up in birthday texts sent in the wrong time zone, in Venmo notes like “for coffee and emotional damage,” And in playlists with suspiciously specific vibes.

⊹ Some don’t survive the distance. That’s just the truth, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t real or important. And the ones that do? the ones that hang on through all the missed calls and delayed replies and half-finished conversations? Those are steel-reinforced, weirdly telepathic, practically immortal friendships. The kind worth writing about.