The Owl's Nest

Tips for Writing Rich Kids / Nepo Babies!!

(Characters who say “we’re not that rich” while standing in a kitchen with two islands)

⊹ Rich characters are not all the same kind of rich. There’s old money, new money, fake-rich, influencer-rich, political-family rich, celebrity-child rich, “my dad owns half the town” rich, “my family has buildings named after them” rich, and “we are in debt but the house still has a gate” rich. The type matters. Old money is often quieter, colder, more coded. New money may be louder, shinier, more defensive. A trust fund kid and a child of a famous actor are both privileged, but the pressure around them is very different.

⊹ They don’t always know what things cost, and that can be funny or ugly. A rich character might casually suggest ordering food when everyone else is counting money. They might think a “cheap trip” means only one hotel room per person. They might say “just get a new one” about something another character saved months to buy. Don’t make them cartoon evil every time. Sometimes they’re not cruel, just completely untrained in normal consequences.

⊹ Privilege can look like confidence, but it can also look like cluelessness. Some rich kids walk into rooms like every door has already decided to open for them. They email professors casually. They talk to adults like equals. They negotiate without sweating. They assume problems can be solved because, historically, their problems have been solved. That doesn’t mean they’re brave. Sometimes it means they have never had to imagine the floor disappearing. NEVER!

⊹ A rich kid may have everything and still feel like their life was already assigned before they arrived. The right school, the right friends, the right internship, the right partner, the right public image. They may not be allowed to fail privately because every mistake becomes embarrassing for the family. Poor characters often fight for access. Rich characters often fight for selfhood. Different cage, but still a cage.

⋆˙⟡ Write the staff situation carefully. I mean IF there are housekeepers, drivers, nannies, assistants, guards, cooks, gardeners, tutors, PLEASE REMEMBER those people ARE NOT FURNITURE! They know everything. They see the family without performance. A rich child might be closer to the nanny than the parent. A driver might know every secret because rich people forget workers can hear. That dynamic can be warm, exploitative, complicated, loyal, resentful, or all of it at once.

⊹ A nepo baby may be talented and still protected. This is the annoying part, but it’s true. The character might actually be good at acting, music, business, politics, whatever. The point is not “they have no talent.” The point is they got more chances to prove it. More safety when they failed. Better teachers. Better rooms. Better introductions. A more interesting nepo baby knows they are good and still wonders how much of their success belongs to them.

⊹ They may be weirdly lonely. Money can buy privacy, but it can also create distance. People may want access, status, favors, invitations, jobs, proximity. A rich character might never know whether someone likes them or likes the life around them. Their birthday party is full, but somehow nobody knows they hate being alone after everyone leaves.

⊹ Their “normal” is not normal, and you can use that. Maybe they grew up with security cameras, charity galas, boarding school, ski trips, private doctors, family lawyers, summer houses, tutors, and adults who called them “sir” when they were twelve. They may be totally calm in luxury but panic in ordinary situations. They can handle a formal dinner with ambassadors but not a laundromat. That contrast is PURE GOLD!

⊹ Class guilt is not the same as class awareness!! A rich character can feel guilty and still benefit from everything. They can say “I hate rich people” while living off rich people money. They can donate, volunteer, dress down, date someone broke, reject the family business, and still not fully understand what it means to have no safety net. Mens: guilt can be sincere and useless at the same time.

⊹ Their friendships can be transactional without anyone saying it. Who gets invited to the lake house? Who gets introduced to the producer? Who gets their internship through whose father? Who disappears when the family loses money?

⊹ Give them specific habits, not just designer names. They know which fork to use. They pack like hotels will have everything. They don’t check prices on menus. They know how to speak to lawyers. They call adults by first names because they grew up around powerful people. They own luggage that looks more emotionally stable than most characters. Specific behavior sells the class background better than writing “Gucci” every five seconds.

⊹ Let them be funny without making them dumb (Please.) Rich characters can be unintentionally hilarious because their survival skills are so uneven. They might know five languages and not know how to unclog a sink. They might discuss inheritance law calmly but be defeated by public transport. They might say something insane like “we only had the small yacht that summer” and genuinely not hear it. Comedy works best when they are smart in one world and helpless in another.

⊹ Losing money should feel like identity collapse. If the family fortune disappears, it is not just “now they are poor.” It’s shame, secrecy, social exile, changed friendships, sold houses, unpaid staff, parents panicking, old friends pretending not to notice, and the character realizing how much of their personality was built on always having a backup plan.

She wants snacks

˙⋆✮ Apologizing and immediately doing the thing again

˙⋆✮ Giving advice they never actually follow themselves

˙⋆✮ Knowing they're overreacting and doing it anyway

˙⋆✮ The inability to leave a conversation without one more thing

˙⋆✮ Turning every compliment into an argument

˙⋆✮ Asking for opinions and then resenting the ones given

˙⋆✮ Needing to be the one who cares less ˙

⋆✮ Starting projects with obsessive energy and abandoning them quietly

˙⋆✮ Remembering every wrong done to them in stunning detail

˙⋆✮ Making jokes at the exact moment sincerity was needed

˙⋆✮ Saying they're fine and being genuinely furious when believed

˙⋆✮ Promising to be on time while fully knowing they won't be

˙⋆✮ Bringing up old arguments disguised as new observations

˙⋆✮ Liking people more in their absence than their presence

˙⋆✮ Fixing other people's problems to avoid their own

˙⋆✮ Being completely incapable of asking for help directly

˙⋆✮ Catastrophizing privately and performing calm publicly

˙⋆✮ Holding people to standards they don't apply to themselves

˙⋆✮ Falling for the same type of person and calling it bad luck

Like this young person didn't even know about goddamn Gutenberg which is a SHAME. I linked to it and they went "aw yiss time to do a theft" and I was like "I mean yo ho ho and all that, sure, but. you know gutenberg is entirely legal, right?"

Project Gutenberg is a gigantic collection of books that are in the public domain.  You can read the books through the site or you can download them in various formats so you can get the format you prefer for your eReader of choice.

It is free. 

It is legal.

I was reviewing the list of the top 100 books downloaded yesterday and I saw a fair few that I had to read for college classes - so if you’re a college student and your professor assigns you to read Plato or any number of older works, check here before you buy a copy.

If you look at the first reblog from me I also recommended a few other resources, most of which were from www.archive.org, home of the Wayback Machine! They run openlibrary.org, where you can check out ebooks of some public domain titles! They even have the Bone series by Jeff Smith!

And archive.org itself has all kinds of public domain media including music and movies! For Dracula fans, here's a radio show adaptation of the book, starring Orson Welles! And here's a 1920 movie adaptation of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," starring John Barrymore, the grandfather of Drew Barrymore!

lots of writers and publishers are prepared to waive future profits for entirely petty reasons

because of this the entire works of Philip K Dick [petty writer who found himself with lots of hangers on during his life] and HP Lovecraft [his publisher - who was his wife and hated him] became public domain on their death

Sherlock Holmes entered public domain this year, it's always worth checking because you can save a fortune

book is old because it’s in

the public domain

LibriVox has free public domain audiobooks.

Public domain works in the US are:

Anything published (in the US) from 1927 or earlier (this number goes up every year for quite a while), and

Anything published between 1928 and 1963 that wasn't renewed, and

Anything published before 1989 without a proper copyright notice.

(Don't go looking for things in that third category unless you've studied a LOT about copyright law. Mostly that covers things like "weird little newsletters" and "self-published booklets" and sometimes fanzines. But most publications have a copyright notice in them.)

There's also some oddball exemptions here and there; copyright law is a tentacled mess. But those are the basic guidelines. (Except for audio. Audio has its own set of rules. It's weird.) (I mentioned tentacles, did I not? Double the amount of them you were thinking of.)

There are a lot of works from the 50s and early 60s that were not renewed, especially short stories published in magazines.

⟢ "I don't know how to do this. I just know I'm not ready for it to be over."

⟢ "I'm not here to win. I'm here because I miss you and I'm tired of pretending I don't."

⟢ "Tell me what I have to do. I'll do it. Just tell me there's still something left."

⟢ "I know I don't deserve another chance. I'm asking anyway."

⟢ "I've rehearsed this a hundred times and I still don't know what to say."

⟢ "Can we just sit here for a minute. We don't have to talk. I just want to be near you."

⟢ "I'm not asking you to forget. I'm asking you to let me try to be better."

⟢ "I kept your number in my phone even when I told myself I'd deleted it."

⟢ "You have every right to shut the door in my face. I just hope you won't."

⟢ "I know things can't go back to what they were. I'd settle for something new."

⟢ "I've been so angry at you. And I've missed you every single day at the same time."

⟢ "Whatever you need from me right now, I'll give it. Even if that's distance."

⟢ "I stopped blaming you a long time ago. I just didn't know how to tell you."

⟢ "I'm not the same person who left. I need you to know that."

⟢ "Say something. Say anything. Just don't tell me it's too late."

⟢ "I know sorry isn't enough. I'm going to spend as long as it takes proving I understand that."

⟢ "I drove past your place three times before I finally stopped. I almost didn't."

⟢ "I'm not asking for everything back. I'm asking for a place to start."

⟢ "You were right. About all of it. I hate that it took me this long to admit that."

⟢ "I don't want to keep being the reason you look sad. Help me stop being that."

⟢ "If you tell me to walk away I will. But I needed you to see me here first."

⟢ "I thought giving you space meant staying away. I think I confused space with abandonment."

⟢ "I never stopped loving you. Even when I acted like I had."

⟢ "You said you needed time. I'm not here to rush you. I just wanted you to know I'm still here."

🍁🍃 Hello and welcome to our sixth annual Flufftober 🍃🍁

Every year, we're so excited to share our prompts with you and look forward to all your beautiful creations that will fill the month of October with all the fluff 🥰 also, we're trying something new this year, so make sure to scroll all the way down and don't stop at the main list of 31 prompts or the usual list of alt prompts...😏

But first things first 😊

🍁 As with all our events, our standard blog rules apply, and you'll find answers to most questions on our FAQ post.

🍁 Below the cut, you'll find the necessary posting info, all the prompts in writing, and explanations for some prompts.

🍁 Please make sure to read the entire post! If you have any questions after that, feel free to send us an ask.

So many Prompt Extras 😍

🍁Yes, we heard your plea for more alternative prompts 😉

🍁 We also heard the tears of our friends in the Southern Hemisphere...

🍁 As always, you're welcome to replace prompts from the original list for whatever reason - no explanation needed.

Remember, you can use the Prompt Extras however you like:

💜 to replace a prompt from the original list 💜 to create even more content aside from the original prompts 💜 mixed together to enhance one or more of the other prompts

Whichever way you use them, have fun and go wild 🍃

You promised us something new 👀

Yes, we did - so welcome to the 2026 Flufftober Challenge Tasks 😁

We hope you like these prompts, and now

Happy Creating 🥳

Your action hero just got shot in the shoulder, stitched it up in a motel bathroom, and is now running through a forest. I need you to know that a shoulder wound severs muscle, nerves, and sometimes bone, and the human body's response to that is not "mild wincing followed by full range of motion." here is what injuries actually do to peoplee...

⊹ Adrenaline is REAL and it does allow people to do extraordinary things immediately after injury, BUT it is a loan, not a gift. you borrow the function and you pay it back later with interest. Your character might genuinely be able to run for twenty minutes after being stabbed. and then the adrenaline drops and everything the body was delaying arrives all at once. the collapse is NOT weakness. it's biology collecting its debt. write the debt collection. it's more interesting than the heroic sprint anyway.

⊹ Blood loss changes cognition before it drops you. you don't go from "fine" to "unconscious." you go through a whole middle stage of confusion, poor decision-making, emotional dysregulation, a strange calm, tunnel vision, difficulty forming sentences. Your injured character making a bad call, saying something they normally wouldn't, becoming suddenly and inexplicably gentle--that's blood loss. use the middle stage. it's dramatically rich and almost nobody writes it.

⊹ Recovery has a timeline and the timeline is long and boring and inconvenient to plot. a broken rib takes six weeks and during those six weeks sneezing is a genuine emergency. a concussion means no screens, no reading, no bright lights, and symptoms can persist for months. a stab wound to the abdomen means weeks of infection risk, limited mobility, and a specific kind of exhaustion that has nothing to do with sleep. Your character being sidelined and frustrated and useless for a long time is not a narrative problem. it's the story.

˙⋆✮ The involuntary breath held during an awkward silence

˙⋆✮ Laughing at the wrong moment because the body needs an exit

˙⋆✮ Picking at the skin around fingernails without noticing

˙⋆✮ That specific swallow before saying something difficult

˙⋆✮ Nodding too much to overcompensate for not listening

˙⋆✮ The way legs bounce under tables when sitting still feels impossible

˙⋆✮ Counting things on the ceiling to avoid eye contact

˙⋆✮ Rubbing the same spot on the palm over and over

˙⋆✮ Clearing the throat before speaking even when nothing's there

˙⋆✮ The micro-flinch when someone gets too close unexpectedly ˙

⋆✮ Smiling through something that genuinely hurts

˙⋆✮ Blinking more rapidly when caught off guard

˙⋆✮ The sharp exhale that's almost but not quite a laugh

˙⋆✮ Gripping a cup or glass tighter than necessary

˙⋆✮ That quick look toward the nearest exit in overwhelming rooms

˙⋆✮ Talking faster when the topic gets too personal

˙⋆✮ The pause before answering that gives everything away

˙⋆✮ Pressing lips together in a thin line instead of responding

Tired & Exhausted Character Traits

 ˙⋆✮ Reading the same sentence four times and still not absorbing it

 ˙⋆✮ Losing track of a word mid-sentence and just trailing off

 ˙⋆✮ The specific clumsiness of bumping into furniture that's always been there

˙⋆✮ Forgetting why they walked into a room and standing there deciding whether to care

 ˙⋆✮ The way emotions become unreasonably huge when exhausted

 ˙⋆✮ Staring at a text for minutes and then forgetting to reply

 ˙⋆✮ Laughing at things that aren't funny just because the filter is gone

 ˙⋆✮ The way sarcasm sharpens when someone is running on nothing

 ˙⋆✮ Falling asleep in any position that isn't fully horizontal

 ˙⋆✮ Asking a question and immediately forgetting the answer given

 ˙⋆✮ The squint at a screen that's been at the same brightness all day

 ˙⋆✮ Rubbing eyes until colors appear behind eyelids

 ˙⋆✮ That slight delay before responding like the signal is lagging

 ˙⋆✮ Eating whatever requires the least effort regardless of hunger

 ˙⋆✮ The way a tired person's handwriting changes completely

 ˙⋆✮ Nodding along to a conversation they've fully checked out of

 ˙⋆✮ The misdirected irritability that lands on whoever's closest

 ˙⋆✮ Forgetting whether they locked the door and being too tired to go back