kinda on the same subject, I gave my protagonist a good relationship with his parents and a largely stable, happy childhood because I thought it would be interesting to take a person who has those healthy bonds and see how he'd weather quite suddenly becoming a caretaker for his father and an emotional support for his mother, and then just as suddenly being bereaved of his father. he's an only child, so he's lost half his immediate family. he's also semi-estranged from his father's family, and while his maternal family is supportive, they live 100+ miles away. so, essentially, what happens when you pull one leg out from under a three-legged table?

writing a scene set at a house show but I realized since it's almost impossible to have a conversation at a house show most of the actual scene is going to have to take place on the front porch. at least it's realistic?

unfortunately this guy I invented to be a mildly funny background character at a house party in a flashback scene has become a cornerstone of the mutual grief & sense of lost innocence underpinning the relationship between my protagonist and his childhood best friend

avoiding 90s nostalgia by setting my story in seattle just a few months before the 1999 WTO protests/battle of seattle and the dot-com crash and heavily foreshadowing both events

realizing that the only way for the character work to make sense in this story is to make the protagonist's ex-gf equally a protagonist and also let her be mad at him

coming to the realization that in trying to establish the sense of a particular neighborhood and how my cast of young adult characters' work and social lives revolve around it I've been subconsciously emulating brian lee o'malley's approach in the scott pilgrim comics. goddammit. you can never escape your roots I guess

checking the NWS historical weather tables for the specific dates in 1999 that I established this story as taking place on because there's something wrong with me

hmmm as I'm writing I'm seeing shades of chuck palahniuk protagonists and johnny truant from house of leaves in my protagonist. sorry bud, this doesn't bode well for you