fucking not again, writing a scene that's like: durge shows up at Gortash's place for the first time in a year and is pissed at him and he's an absolute mess because he's been durgeless for a year and this scene is about how much of a mess he is

3k words later: they have weird sex and are emotionally gentle with each other

NO STOP THAT WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS

yes yes characters doomed by the narrative always slap BUT what about characters saved by the narrative? characters who have already given up hope and don't know they have a happy ending? characters who believe they are a lost cause, characters who feel irredeemable, characters who think there's nothing left for them, but the narrative does provide a way out? what about the characters who don't expect anything good, who don't even remember how to wish for it anymore, who get the things they need anyway? what about the characters who actively run from being saved getting saved in a way they can't stop or control. what about being saved by the narrative!!!

I know I keep complaining about Comics vs Prose but I'm dying, Squirtle. Look at these beautiful sequential images. This is what prose is taking away from me.

Sidebars my beloved ;n;

you came back wrong and i am racked with guilt because i cannot bear to see you like this and i should have let you rest. i loved you so much that i defied death itself but i do not think either of us are happy

Jill Karla Schwarz, 'Tam Lin', ''Fairies and Elves'', 1984 Source I'm going to use this post as the perfect opportunity to direct you to my favorite song from the folk band Fairport Convention from their 1969 album 'Liege & Lief', Tam Lin (which, I'm sure, I've posted about at some point)

writer’s block (dry) = no desire to write, no ability to write (bearable)

writer’s block (wet) = HUGE desire to write, no ability to write (very evil)

tag yourself Opportunities edition

Height gap romance except the shorter one is frequently depicted in situations where they are contextually taller. The taller one sitting while the shorter one looms over them. Both of them lying in bed with the taller one’s head pressed to the shorter one’s chest. The shorter one straddling the taller one’s lap and leaning down for a kiss. The taller one on their knees as the shorter one tilts their head up. Please, it makes me go feral

not a human, not a machine / print

What if Astarion not approving when you say he can feed on you, so long as you talk about it first, has nothing to do with him feeling like you're just another fool who's fallen for a seductive fantasy.

What if, instead, he approves of you giving the go ahead to feed on "villains we're going to kill anyway" because, at this point, Astarion is starting to process all the horrors of 200 years. He's suddenly feeling every suppressed emotion that only hits you upside the head once you're out of the traumatic environment, once your brain feels like it can let out the breath it's been holding. He's hurting and wants to make the world hurt with him.

No one ever looked out for me. No one ever said a kind thing to me.

Finding someone who will let him unleash all the anger, unleash the monster, without any judgement must feel very freeing at first. It's quick and cathartic and less expensive than therapy. Not to mention the massive middle finger it gives to his abuser to feed on a dozen people a day after 2 centuries of forced near-starvation.

Maybe the act of offering him your neck, treating him like a normal person who can be trusted with your life and the very serious task of gaining consent is just not what he wants to deal with at that moment. Too much responsibility. Too many expectations.

I can't be what you want to see in me.

I don't think he'll ever not enjoy draining your enemies dry. But perhaps if the "About you biting me" conversation would have happened in a later act, his approval might be given out a little differently.

Opportunities Update

Today in our Opportunities Re-run: It's 2015 and I haven't learned about falloff of detail! And Vigi's getting in a little over her head. A lot over her head.

the problem is I iterated too many times before I got the outline figured out and now it might be unsalvageable

Oh it's a really bad brain day for writing

trying really hard not to delete everything in a panic

Sorry I'm like this

Oh it's a really bad brain day for writing

trying really hard not to delete everything in a panic

I love the characterization of Lae'zel as a deliberate, reasonable person who through no fault of her own is wrong about almost everything

Oh it's a really bad brain day for writing

trying really hard not to delete everything in a panic

Enver fucking Gortash rolled up to Bane and said "I've got this idea for taking over the world and it requires three people to get it started."

"Myrkul [compared to some gods, is autonomous] obeys no one but is influenced by Bhaal and Bane..."

I love this weird connection the Dead Three have with each other and how it never seems to go away completely. I don't think co-dependency is quite the word for it, but they're just utterly toxic for each other, keep fucking each other over, and somehow they keep coming back to this alliance. For some reason the opinion of the others holds sway!

Like Bane is... Bane. He thinks he doesn't need anybody and everyone is subservient to him! He's allergic to his own capacity to enjoy things or feel emotional attachments to people. He just fundamentally can't compute when he cares about someone. Why is he upset they're dead? Bane doesn't know! He also only got as far into the Time of Troubles as he did because he has Myrkul backing him up. He still kind of depends on the other two and at least once upon a time had respect for Bhaal.

Bhaal needs the other two to keep his murder hoboing in check, and they seem to be the only beings in the universe who can (or are permitted by Bhaal) to do so. Myrkul left him unsupervised for a week once and Bhaal ended up getting distracted trying to kill winged ponies and then got killed, ruining his and Myrkul's plan.

Myrkul, by all accounts, is shooting himself in the foot every time he agrees to work with these idiots and he keeps doing it. Some descriptions have assigned gods mortal-like feelings, wants and needs, so like, is he lonely or what? Myrkul's charisma is abysmal by mortal standards; by divine standards a landfill of rancid trash has more appeal (he spent the last stretch of the Time of Troubles in a sewer, talking to zombies and himself). Bhaal is basically his only friend in existence (Bane is... there. Myrkul doesn't exactly like him, and yet he still works with him.)

The last time these idiots cooperated Bane destroyed Bhaal's worshipper base and got himself killed and thus left Myrkul in a mess, then Bhaal got killed due to murderhoboing and left Myrkul even further in this mess, and somehow the 15th century rolled around and these three agreed to work together again. Working together worked so well last time! What is wrong with you.