Tender Actions For Characters Who Are Yearning (But Not Together… Yet)

Me @ Tamatoa /pos

@ellipsis-dotdotdot

me rereading a scene: omg why is she acting like that who wrote this? i wrote this.

random book idea

• Esmeralda is a stunning golden-era showwoman and singer. She's all short pixie cuts gelled and glittered with glam, calf-exposing glittery dresses with a slit halfway down the skirt, and black heels. In the early 1960s, she's untouchable.

• Francisco is a top-notch criminal who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. He's quick, witty, light on his feet, and always red-handed but always wearing gloves. 

• Esmeralda’s been divorced from Francisco for twelve years, ever since her second child Ava was born….if ‘born’ is the right way to put it. They had drifted apart; Esmeralda chasing success and Francisco being drafted into the war between the so-called heroes, magical humans with a somewhat toxic humanitarian facade- and the wearh, blood-sucking villains who rule the lands underground. 

• In Francisco’s absence, Esmeralda made a deal with William, a wearh with whom she has a bit of a history, to transform her pet bird into a living child- she just wanted to feel as though she had a purpose again- especially after the authorities had sent her son Arlo off to his designated “training center,” a school designed to harness children's powers and prepare them to become successful heroes as they reach adulthood. 

• Esmeralda just didn't understand why they had to take him at two.

• Arlo is an independent, solitary, shy kid. He grows up in books and maps and rules, always following, always on the sidelines. He wants nothing more than to break free. 

• Ava is different. Esmeralda’s hidden charm, she learns at one and a half to hide in the garage whenever any car pulls up in the driveway, and to only go to the market early in the morning, before the shops officially open. She's brilliant, social, energetic, loves inventing and designing anything and everything she can get her hands on. With a creative, fast-moving mind, she loves exploring and yearns to see the world and meet everybody who lives in it. 

• Ava meets Arlo, once a summer, only for a month. September is the hottest month of the year, but the two children always run around outside from before the sun peeks above the horizon, to long after dusk when the tiny “glowbugs” create a spectacle of sunny spots through the forest behind the house.

• Those were the good days. But then one night- in December- Ava hears a knock on her window. She almost doesn't recognize the boy hanging by two paralyzed hands on her windowsill. Arlo hadn't visited the previous year, claiming he'd been too busy in a rushed, chicken-scratched letter. He had been thirteen at the time; now he was fourteen. Considering the fact that she hadn't seen him since he was twelve, her age at the present, she had been expecting a very different boy. A boy with untied shoelaces and a missing molar or two, not a tall and lanky kid with a deep voice and long bangs that hid his eyes. 

• He says he doesn't have much time. Much time before they catch him, the people who had taken his dad and forced him to kill- or worse, the people who were trying to kill his dad. He says he wants to run away, and he has been collecting for years and now possesses every map that's ever been reprinted or even sketched once. 

• With Ava hungry for adventure and Arlo desperate for escape, they formulate a plan beneath spilled candlewax and messy scribbles of possible paths on worn-out maps. And thus, their adventure ensues.

i know every bug. btw

WHO ARE WE? WRITERS!

WHAT DO WE DO? WRITE!

WHEN DO WE DO IT?

And there was a silence...

Unhealed Wounds Your Character Pretends Are Just “Personality Traits”

These are the things your character claims are just “how they are” but really, they’re bleeding all over everyone and calling it a vibe.

╰ They say they're "independent." Translation: They don’t trust anyone to stay. They learned early that needing people = disappointment. So now they call it “being self-sufficient” like it’s some shiny badge of honor. (Mostly to cover up how lonely they are.)

╰ They say they're "laid-back." Translation: They stopped believing their wants mattered. They'll eat anywhere. Do anything. Agree with everyone. Not because they're chill, but because the fight got beaten out of them a long time ago.

╰ They say they're "a perfectionist." Translation: They believe mistakes make them unlovable. Every typo. Every bad hair day. Every misstep feels like proof that they’re worthless. So they polish and polish and polish... until there’s nothing real left.

╰ They say they're "private." Translation: They’re terrified of being judged—or worse, pitied. Walls on walls on walls. They joke about being “mysterious” while desperately hoping no one gets close enough to see the mess behind the curtain.

╰ They say they're "ambitious." Translation: They think achieving enough will finally make the emptiness go away. If they can just get the promotion, the award, the validation—then maybe they’ll finally outrun the feeling that they’re fundamentally broken. (It never works.)

╰ They say they're "good at moving on." Translation: They’re world-class at repression. They’ll cut people out. Bury heartbreak. Pretend it never happened. And then wonder why they wake up at 3 a.m. feeling like they're suffocating.

╰ They say they're "logical." Translation: They’re terrified of their own feelings. Emotions? Messy. Dangerous. Uncontrollable. So they intellectualize everything to avoid feeling anything real. They call it rationality. (It's fear.)

╰ They say they're "loyal to a fault." Translation: They mistake abandonment for loyalty. They stay too long. Forgive too much. Invest in people who treat them like an afterthought, because they think walking away makes them "just as bad."

╰ They say they're "resilient." Translation: They don't know how to ask for help without feeling like a burden. They wear every bruise like a trophy. They survive things they should never have had to survive. And they call it strength. (But really? It's exhaustion wearing a cape.)

just remembered this old clickhole video i used to be obsessed with

in another life, she was auntie maysilee

I trust That GP*-Eft over ChatGPT any day.

You will never, ever see me use any generative AI in my writing or other creative endeavors, not even to spin up a list of ideas. You don't get to be a good writer by letting an algorithm do the hard stuff for you. Doing the hard stuff is how you become a good writer, and then a better writer. It's as much about the process as it is about the output, and if you're only focused on the latter then you're missing the point. Never let your writing--or art, or music--become so commodified that you lose the sheer joy (and frustration) of creating in the first place.

*GP = Great Perfect

nothin but bugborg on the brain