[Suzerain of Sheol]

Hi, welcome back. Not sure if we ever met before, but probably not since I'm a recluse on the forums.

I am also a writer, though. I'm currently writing a dark/military fantasy novel with a focus on accurately depicting historical European arms, armor, and fighting styles, as well as taking a stab at the "adventurous" nature of battle typically found in the genre by ramping up the violence to hopefully appalling levels of brutality.

Style-wise, I gravitate toward toward very close 3rd person, using the narrative itself to inform the reader about the focal character's personality and modes of thinking via focus on (and elision of) specific details.

I also occasionally write poems when they strike me, which invariably end up as abysses of wallowing nihilism. You can find them in the writer's sub-forum, but I don't really recommend anyone read them. They are miserable.

Ideas and concepts I keep coming back to include: the traumatic impact of both being victimized by and perpetrating violence; the nature of the self/consciousness/identity; characters being forced to confront the meaninglessness of their existence; general suffering and depression; societies and relationships decaying and succumbing to the onslaught of time; grief and the lurid depths it can delve; suicide, and creating scenarios where it is the preferable alternative to living.

...I am a very optimistic person, as you can probably tell.

Unfortunately, I don't manage to read much anymore, I used to enjoy deconstructive fantasy, but in recent years I'm far more interested in reading transhuman philosophy and speculative fiction. I also have a sizeable bookshelf of various occult texts and apocryphal religious mythology, most of which I've read to one degree or another. I have the first 500 or so lines of Paradise Lost memorized.

Edit: Moved the thread for you.