somebody comes in, an older but still young woman with vague european sass, who i get in a brief battle with. then i apologize to her and tell her about the ghosts. i tell her i see people in the mirror. for a moment i think she knows what i'm talking about, but then she looks at me and says, "huh, you're actually fucked up."

i do not like time travel stories :( :(

i don't want the reader to be thinking about the technicalities of it. i thought i could get around it by making the world

kid and boy against the world

"if you want to know everything," kid tells boy, who nods enthusiastically, "then i'll tell you everything."

our drummer traveled back in time

time travel, being able to control time, being able to capture time, being able to recall a time, being able to pocket time and put it out later, being able to see through time, being able to exist between time, living forever,

the past doesn't exist

"delight"

the smartphone is inherently a delightful machine. an obsidian slab that creates magic light. and it's functional.

rings, watches, notebooks, pens and hairpins, discs and chips, jars boxes chests, dolls

pure delight does not come from nostalgia (based on specific and personal experiences) or manufactured romance or utility or consumerism

pure delight can be shared by anybody. an object that is delightful should be able to last, given enough care (the smartphone fails in this regard)

wednesday

im not qualified to answer this question, but i have been holding onto a game that's [sorta empty/boring and i don't know how to finish it] for a couple months now and there are some stages that i've been through

stage 1. patience: i will come back to this soon… later… when i come up with an idea

stage 2. desperation: i've come up with a different idea that i will combine with the original idea

stage 3. melancholy: i feel that i've lost my way

stage 4. planning: im going to sit down and figure out what it is that attracted me about this idea

this is what led me to realizing that there was something that i thought was crucial to my idea that was holding me back

like "i NEED to stick to this engine"

figured out a reliable method to

노래방 karaoke

yesterday
sunflower
그렇게 살아가는 것
don't know why
에헤이

a game where you and your friends have discovered resurrection
and find different ways to kill each other during school
death is fun!

i can't stop thinking about that movie. the main character was a girl that was so naive that she helped hide the murder of her friend, and she was incapable of communicating her grief in a way that didn't come off as heartless, and she ended up getting killed by those who thought they were being righteous. the movie made her seem like she was so helpless that she was incapable of being good. her life just got worse and worse and nobody cared to do anything about it. nobody loved her.

waxy, sweet and comforting

the bath is running cold while its deep

its weird that people say that stories become more universal the more specific they are. and that cartoons and fables, in its super abstracted form, can sometimes be more relatable and memorable than dry realistic media. and that the uncanny valley exists. it's like, are the best stories the ones that view the world through a tiny pinhole where you see such a small part of the picture that your brain is forced to make sense of it in a way that connects most to you?

take comfort in the fact that in millions of years, art loses its context and transcends its creator

dentist planz
leave at 11am
12:22 train
bring all ur clothes with ya

ladies and gentlemen
children of all ages
you're listening to additional jazz
the first grader's musical introduction to math

if you have one ball
and your mom buys you another
you've got two balls 😎

i tried to fit into the group by being like yeah for one of the projects i wrote a lame rhyme or something but one of the kids took my notebook and was like "uh... this isnt a rhyme dude..." and i felt so embarrassed that i started to cry
but for some reason the room maintained this light atmosphere, like everything i was saying was backed by a subtle laugh track so as to not bring the vibe down
and that just made me feel worse

i am the king of luck
thats why i have all of these dice
please dont take away my dice

hey bro no homo but i want you to watch me die

clone stories are so fucking awesome

transit card, temp card machine, unexpected setbacks
subway cars and trains and airplanes and taxis and buses

shape people with smiley faces just sort of bouncing around
and generally being in your way
having to push through crowds…

a game about mundane transportation
and little bits of magic that can be found within it
peeking its head out

a ghost train that arrives every other train

mechanical clay mobiles, wind up toys, little robots

homes you can't return to

I don't know if all programmers feel this way, but sometimes, when I've been coding for days straight and the world is quiet and there's nothing on my mind except for developing this program, I feel a distant sadness. Not the kind of sad that's depressing or impactful. It's like the echo of a long lost memory. Like I'm remembering a promise I forgot I made decades ago. Except there's no actual memory attached to it, just the vague feeling of childhood and sadness.

i wanna make something with voice bc i feel like voices are so lovely and personal
and maybe not everything should be electronic sounds
what if i implemented instruments
like midi instruments hooked up to the rhythm thing
but like nature sounds

you change when you're sad.

tears spill out the corners of your eyes like an endless string being drawn out. this sorrow is like trying to pull it taught and failing. flavors of sorrow, you know them all too well. some leave your skin stinging, some leave your heart hollow.

my field is a monochrome green
fern, moss, weeds…
phthalocyanine and bare feet
green as the breeze that shuffles through the large leaves and vines
cicadas chirping through the days and frogs croak through the night

2565 in thailand (buddha's death)
1400 in iran
2078 in nepal

I want the whole world to empty out, so that I'm the only person walking these streets. I want to be totally alone. I want the world to myself.

2
rise and shine. qué hermosa mañana. 좋은 아침, comment ça va?

i don't really talk to the other students. they don't really talk to me. i've got nothing to say to them, except when we're doing group assignments and i put on my polite face and go with the flow of ideas. this is familiar to me, conversations of theory and presentations. when i was little, mom would sometimes run things by me first. presentations, briefs, pitches that she had to make. "if it makes sense to a kid like you," she would say, "it'll make sense to those guys that know nothing about rockets."
but relationships made within group projects only last as long as the project does.

dr. adamu,
my name is Eunoo Lee. i'm the son of Dr.

Thanks so much for the in-depth critique. It really helped me figure out where to go from here. Your point about the main character's voice disappearing in the middle is particularly memorable. I originally wrote those scenes so minimally because I wanted them to feel sort of numb and sparse, like the character isn't even really there themselves, but I figure my approach doesn't really work here.

> It makes it sound like the meat of the story has been the MC struggling to emotionally cope with integrating on earth and making it a new home, which none of the previous scenes actually deal with.

Ahh yeah, that's it, isn't it?

I'm hesitant to break away from these scenes about mundane life (school, public transportation, secretaries, drunk guardians) because I want the story to feel grounded and showcase the small everyday stresses that stack up for the main character, but the more I think about it, the more I realize there's a lot this concept has to offer alongside it. I think the way to go is to talk about the main character's interpretation of the more dramatic aspects, things like political discourse and the state of the world post-moonquake.

I also just realized that I don't answer a lot of questions and leave a lot of loose threads because I think that's "realistic", but the main character internally resolves that frustration too quickly for it to work well.

i was dreaming about cinema
footsteps echoed 'cross the floors of those green-glass labs
coming down with truman show syndrome
im performing for my sleeping mind

you told me that you loved me
then we stopped talking for a week
and a half, and i don't miss you, not really
so this is long distance when i'm not lonely

grand finales, classical music
blinding lights, smash cuts, broken glasses
a woman i don't know stares down at me
as she kills me slowly, painfully

when the play is finally over, the audience erupts in cheers as curtains gather and the stage lights up.

i come out for one final bow only to find that the theatre is empty.