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I love the idea of dead gods. Not in the sense of “hey i killed something supernaturally strong” but in the sense of “i killed it and it’s still a god.” It is still worshipped. prayers are still answered. miracles are performed in its name, even as it lies pierced by a thousand swords and burning with chemical fire. even as it drifts through vacuum, decapitated and bleeding molten rock. in cosmic spite of being shot through each eye and hurled into a plasma reactor, it still radiates the power of the divine in a way that primitive death cannot smother. the nature of godchild is not so simple as to be tied to the mortality, or immortality, of any living being.

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sex pollen is OUT, honesty pollen is IN. Expose your characters to alien chemicals that make them actually talk to each other

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Dumb idea: Suburban Mom TTRPG in which your attributes are Live, Laugh, & Love. All rules are written in the format "In this house we..."

Write it.

Seriously, do it. I’d pay money for it.

#brilliant

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stop using hospitals as horror settings

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How to Kick a Reader in the Gut

Disrupt the reader’s sense of justice. 

This generally means setting a character up to deserve one thing and then giving them the exact opposite. 

Kill a character off before they can achieve their goal. 

Let the bad guy get an extremely important win. 

Set up a coup against a tyrannical king. The coup fails miserably.

Don’t always give characters closure. 

(Excluding the end of the book, obviously)

A beloved friend dies in battle and there’s no time to mourn him.

A random tryst between two main characters is not (or cannot be) brought up again.

A character suddenly loses their job or can otherwise no longer keep up their old routine

Make it the main character’s fault sometimes. 

And not in an “imposter syndrome” way. Make your MC do something bad, and make the blame they shoulder for it heavy and tangible.

MC must choose the lesser of two evils.

MC kills someone they believe to be a bad guy, only to later discover the bad guy was a different person altogether.

Rejection is a powerful tool. 

People generally want to be understood, and if you can make a character think they are Known, and then rip that away from them with a rejection (romantic or platonic) people will empathize with it.

MC is finally accepting the Thing They Must Do/Become, and their love interest decides that that’s not a path they want to be on and breaks up with them

MC makes a decision they believe is right, everyone around them thinks they chose wrong.

MC finds kinship with someone Like Them, at long last, but that person later discovers that there is some inherent aspect of MC that they wholly reject. (Perhaps it was MC’s fault that their family member died, they have important religious differences, or WERE THE BAD GUY ALL ALONG!)

On the flipside, make your main character keep going. 

Push them beyond what they are capable of, and then push them farther. Make them want something so deeply that they are willing to do literally anything to get it. Give them passion and drive and grit and more of that than they have fear.

“But what if my MC is quiet and meek?” Even better. They want something so deeply that every single moment they push themselves toward it is a moment spent outside their comfort zone. What must that do to a person?

Obviously, don’t do all of these things, or the story can begin to feel tedious or overly dramatic, and make sure that every decision you make is informed by your plot first and foremost. 

Also remember that the things that make us sad, angry, or otherwise emotional as readers are the same things that make us feel that way in our day-to-day lives. Creating an empathetic main character is the foundation for all of the above tips.

#writing

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Honorary mini Essek sketch + all of my M9 illustrations side by side! Individual images are on my blog as well 

#cr2 #fanart

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That DM feeling when a player’s backstory gives you an excuse to do something you wanted to do anyway

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Every NPC being LGBTQ+? In my D&D campaign?

It's more likely than you think.

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The fact you can't just go on ao3 and read fanfic about your own TTRPG characters is homophobic.

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I don’t have main character energy at all. I’m like the comic relief character who is always shown on camera eating an ice cream cone while a crisis is going down

#sal

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Consequence

#gorgeous!!! #cr2 #fanart

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im sorry but writing enemies to lovers on ao3 is so fucking funny. one of them will go a whole paragraph saying how much they hate, absolutely despise, have genuine burning contempt for the other and we’re all here knowing damn well that enemies to lovers tag is just sat there. like we already know what’s coming bro you’re just embarrassing yourself

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“old friends” can be such a loaded state of affairs sometimes like you KNOW that theres like a lifetime of things left unsaid between these people 

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✨ Astrid and Wulf ✨

I’m honestly really excited to learn more about them 😭 is it Thursday yet??!

#THESE ARE SO GOOD #an astrid who doesn't have a scarjo soccer mom haircut look.... #cr2 #fanart

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i think we should start taking beloved archetypes for male characters and using them to make female characters. this woman is an asshole with a heart of gold. this woman is a loveable goofball. this woman is a cool but scarred lone wolf who just wants to protect people. this woman is a badass con artist who is always seen wearing an immaculate suit. this woman is a dilf

#list of my future ocs

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if she’s your girl why is she at my dnd table unpacking her queer trauma with me