around me black bats dive up from the dark.

If I keep practicing I might even be a person soon

psychopomp

i was on the phone with my father earlier today talking about videogames (typical for conversation with my father), i was telling him about my lord of the rings online character who i imagine is a horse-thief from rohan and my father said “i imagine that is a very serious crime in rohan” with real concern in his voice

big fan of when characters meet another version of themselves and their first instinct is to literally physically kill their doppelganger with their own two hands. which could mean absolutely nothing.

Real thing that changed how i write: I started asking "what does this character think is wrong with them" and separately "what is actually wrong with them." Those two things are almost never the same. She thinks she's too much. She's actually terrified of being too little. He thinks he's bad at commitment. He's actually just never met someone he trusted enough. The gap between their diagnosis of themselves and the real thing, that's your character arc right there. you don't have to explain it. just write both.

i do think it’s funny when you’ve been into a thing long enough that you’ve done all the serious analysis you can do so now you’re mostly just thinking up looney tunes scenarios to put the characters in

looney tunes scenarios which are most importantly still impeccably in-character because of all the aforementioned serious analysis

i wish my brain were not full of gludge. i would like to be using it & because of the gludge i cannot do that.