This Is So Funny (and Relatable, I Feel So Called Out... )

This is so funny (and relatable, I feel so called out... 😛)

Writer things

- were street lamps invented in ww2????

- how much does an arm cost tho

- Everyone is nodded. All the heads are nodding in this conversation

- wait no it was raining wasn’t it *looks back ten pages* yeah okay why did i do that

- It’s still night right?

- It’s been night for like 30 years at this point

- what’s that guy’s name again? I should know this these are my babies

- I have no idea how you guys are going to get out of this alive so figure it out kids

- *googles* how to travel across Europe during the middle ages

- effects of the bubonic plague???

- shoot, comas don’t work like I want them to. I need a convenient coma

- Everyone has the ability to quirk one eyebrow why is this

- how smart are rats

- I think they’ve sighed like 30 times now

- how do i describe what its like to run a mile I’ve never done that in my life

- Im sure its just like super hard

- No one cares about the weather stop

- i just wrote twenty pages in two hours why cant i do this in school

- everyone smirks too much but what else do i say its not a smile its too sad for that

- and now everyone is just ‘smiling sadly’.

- chuckled sounds like santa clause but laugh is too much but snickered is evil but giggled is too bubbly…

- what is the purpose of a rubber duck

- no, don’t make references this is a serious piece of literature

- “now if I reverse the polarity of the neutron flow”

- okay i need tea and music and oh wow look at that someone liked my tumblr post…

Thank you so much for this!

Writing Groups After Trauma

If your characters have recently experienced something difficult and you want to expand on the emotions that they feel afterwards, I have a couple of tips for writing realistic emotions after the fact.

During the Event

During the actual difficult event, whether a member of the group has died, been kidnapped, or people are in a stressful situation, people react in ways you wouldn’t expect.

Gallows humor is a great example of this! If people are helpless during a difficult event, the easiest way to cope with it is to make jokes about it. This separates the serious, life-threatening event from the jokes they make.

Expect a lot of praying from religious and non-religious people, quiet panic attacks, and surrealist humor. The people next to your character will become very close with them during this time (even if it doesn’t last after the fact).

Your characters might turn to random topics, like the past (ooh, convenient flashback time!), their plans if stuff hadn’t happened, or something stupid like a funny story they once heard.

Mob mentality, folks. People are fragile during events like this, so if one person has even a semblance of leadership, they’ll listen.

How Do They React?

After the fact, people try to cope with it the way that they’re most used to.

Your characters will be closer to each other. They’ll lean on each other and be personal in ways you wouldn’t normally think of.

Is your character in touch with their emotions? Expect a lot of crying, anxiety, and compassion. These people will recover quickly because they’re able to deal with it by facing it head on.

Is your character cold-hearted and reasonable? Expect a lot of irrational rationalization. They’ll try to frame the situation in a way that it doesn’t affect them. This can separate them from the rest of the group.

Is your character tough and resilient? Expect anger and action. If they have supporting friends, these people are the most likely to fight back.

Does your character already struggle with trauma, anxiety, or depression? They might not process the event until much later. They’ll look fine during and right after, but these characters might deal with severe dissociation and anxiety, even PTSD. Recovering will be a long process.

The Group Together

After a difficult event, people band together in ways you wouldn’t imagine. It’s hard to stay by yourself when you’ve gone through something hard. Your characters will be much closer, and they’ll work on healing next to each other.

I can’t help being thrilled by the idea that Ao3 is this one pocket of resistance in the midst of this looming dystopian Internet. Bring on your pizzled milk, you autofucks.

The death of Yahoo Groups is further evidence of the death of the Internet

On November 1, 2019, I received an e-mail from Yahoo, the long-defeated Internet portal, informing me of the following "planned" changes to Yahoo Groups: Beginning October 28, 2019: Users will be able to join a Yahoo Group only through an invite from the Group Moderator or by submitting a request…

“ Whereas the Internet was once a place for people to discover new people, places, and things, it’s increasingly just another passive source of endless, mindless entertainment, just like television and music channels. “

Longer excerpt:

“…..thus far, Yahoo has gotten rid of the following major Internet properties and services….

- Tumblr and Flickr, both of which were stupidly sold off for no reason whatsoever.

- GeoCities, arguably the most legendary free-website service on the Internet, shut down for no reason on October 26, 2009.

- Yahoo Messenger, a chat service comparable to ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger, and MSN Messenger, shut down for no reason on July 17, 2018.

- Yahoo Voice, a telephony service similar to Skype, shut down for no reason on January 30, 2013.

- Yahoo Games, a place where people could play online games together, shut down for no reason on March 31, 2014.

- Yahoo Briefcase, a file storage service similar to Microsoft OneDrive, shut down for no reason on March 30, 2009.

- Babel Fish, a web-based translator similar to Google Translate and Bing Translator, shut down for no reason in May 2012.

I just can’t help but ask: With the departure of Groups, what is Yahoo, today, except a dorky news website and an e-mail service so burdened down with advertising that no one uses it anymore? Yahoo hasn’t even had its own search engine since 2009, when Microsoft’s Bing became the engine that powered what Yahoo calls “Yahoo Search”. The only remaining service which Yahoo operates which is of any note whatsoever is Yahoo Answers, and that’s only notable because of its legendarily stupid questions and answers .

An obvious question here is: Why is Yahoo destroying itself this way? Why is it picking itself apart, getting rid of the last few interesting things it had which set it apart from other web portals? The answer is helpfully given in the e-mail:

A lot has changed about the Internet since 2001, including the ways most people now use Yahoo Groups. Today, most Yahoo Groups activity happens in your email inbox, not on the bulletin boards where Yahoo Groups started in the pre-smartphone age. Increasingly, people want content and connections coming directly to them, and this is why we continue to invest in Yahoo Mail… So, as our users’ habits have evolved, we have begun the process of evolving our approach to help active Yahoo Groups thrive and migrate to our email platform… This evolution of Yahoo Groups is inspired by how we see the platform being used today.

Yahoo is right about one thing: The way that people use the Internet is changing. I’ve written several times in the past that people no longer use the Internet to meet new people or look for information; increasingly, people use the Internet to talk to people they already know from real life, and they expect content to be delivered to them in a feed instead of having to search for anything. The death of Yahoo Groups is further evidence of the death of the Internet: Whereas the Internet was once a place for people to discover new people, places, and things, it’s increasingly just another passive source of endless, mindless entertainment, just like television and music channels.”

© necessarily | ◇ Do not edit!

Whole again

Me: About to post new fic soon.

Id, Ego and Superego: 

Fascinating!

Tropes: Evil Sorcerers and Sorceresses

Throughout my many years of reading historical fiction novels and consuming other forms of media that also play host to one evil sorceress or another, I’ve picked up on several things that I believe go a long way when writing said characters. This is by no means an official guide, but rather a culmination of ideas, tropes and themes that I’ve observed. Really this list could be used for villains that are not magical, but hey, I’m a sucker for a wicked sorceress!

So, what is an evil sorcerer? An evil sorceress is someone who causes chaos. They can be unpredictable. Horrible. Nasty. They usually work by understanding people, using manipulation as a tactic to get what they want. They offer you everything you’ve ever wanted, but of course, it always comes with strings.

 Traits and Tropes:

Tricking people

Voldemort was a young, good looking and charming man who manipulated those around him. He was charismatic, able to play on peoples ego’s and emotions to get what he wanted from them.

Lady Oonagh from Daughter of the Forest (Juliet Marillier). She appears to be a nice woman who is in love with the king but is really manipulating him and others in the castle for her own benefit. 

Their appearance changes:

Think the evil Queen from Snow White. She’s vain and envious of her stepdaughter’s beauty. When she finds out that Snow White is still alive, she transforms herself into an old hag.

They use dark magic, or have taken natural magic and twisted it into something hideous and terrible.

Their corrupt morals are given a physicality. They’re so far off the deep end, so into the darkness that even the pure magic they once practised is now malignant. Sometimes the twisting of their magic costs something. 

The dark side of the force - Star Wars. The more someone uses the dark side the more it costs the user. Palpatine’s appearance changes drastically. It seems to take a toll on the mentality of the user, like Anikan, who’s emotions take ahold of him. His eyes change colour. 

Voldemorts Horcruxes. Using magic to create Horcruxes required him to split his soul into pieces. The use of this magic and the creation of said items resulted in his human appearance fading away, replaced with snake-like features. 

They’re very obviously evil.

Think classic Disney villains. They’re almost all colour coded in Black, green, purple or red to signify their villainy. Sometimes they have black, possessed eyes. Horrible, scary, pointy teeth. Sometimes they give an evil smirk when nobody is looking.

They have lackeys and henchmen/evil minions

Palpatine in Star Wars has a large number of henchmen. They might perceive themselves to be business partners, or as loyal followers. In reality, Palpatine punishes them cruelly for their failures and does not respect them as he does those whom he deems powerful.  

The clone troopers are a good example of evil minions. They are expendable and are only being used as a tool to complete a task. Stormtroopers are raised and indoctrinated from a young age to serve ‘the cause’. They are dehumanised and expendable.

Their worship is cult-like:

Voldemort. Though not quite like a religion, Voldemorts following was large. There was a clear split between who followed him or not, who believed in his ideologies or not.

Grindelwald. Perhaps even more so than Voldemorts, Grindelwald’s following was cult-like. There are heavy themes from our own history (Hitler). A clear divide between those who follow him and those who don’t. People who do follow him believe that it is their right, that what they’re doing is right, and that anyone trying to stop them is being oppressive.

They want more power, prestige and stature

Ursula from The Little Mermaid. Ursula only agrees to make Ariel a human so she can use her as a form of ransom, to get King Tritons crown. She is the main villain, grows very large and powerful (controlling the ocean) towards the end of the movie.

Genvissa from Hades Daughter (Sara Douglass). She is beautiful and powerful, but still, she wants more. She needs a particular person to help her gain more power, and has no qualms tricking anyone she needs to. She loves the attention and praise from the people she rules over. 

They’re Xenophobic

Lucifer from Supernatural. He is a very powerful Archangel who wants nothing more than to trigger the Apocolypse, thereby ending humanity. He views humans as maggots, along with demons and other creatures that are not celestial in nature.

They appeal to your fears

Valentine from The Mortal Instruments. He says things like “If you don’t listen to me / do what I say, the thing you’re most afraid of will happen!”. He convinces people to join him based on their fear of ‘downworlders’ (vampires, werewolves, warlocks etc) and what they might do. These fears are real, based on experience (eg. someone they know was attacked by a downworlder) or word of mouth. He convinces Jace that killing downworlders is the only way to stop innocent people from dying. 

They’re beyond redemption, or simply don’t want it

Anikan Skywalker. He becomes evil, dark and lost in the ideologies of the dark side of the force. His mentor and friend, Obi-Wan, tries to bring him back to the light. Anikan does not want it.

They’re narcissistic

The Master from Doctor Who, who is completely and utterly obsessed with himself and his abilities. He shows off. He is smart, and he knows it.

They’re ‘mad’

The Queen of Hearts. They’re moody and don’t tolerate disagreement. They hate being told things they don’t want to hear. They punish, brutally. Their rule is absolute and strict to the point of insanity.

They view themselves as a ‘necessary evil’

Thanos. He sees a problem, the overpopulation of the universe and its lack of adequate resources, and tires to ‘fix’ that problem by wiping out 50% of all life. He has the sad back story to go with it, and ultimately, what he does was done in an attempt to prove to himself that he was right - that all the tragedy he experienced on his home planet could have been stopped by someone doing what he did. 

They’re disgustingly dark

They eat rotten food, or worms or bugs. They’re into dead things. They love things that other people find disturbing. Maybe they kill for fun, to add a new person to their table of dead guests. 

The mysterious one

Otherwise called the ‘unknown employer’. This character is pulling all the strings from behind a curtain. Only a small number of their loyal followers, the most devout and most trustworthy, may see them. The face or identity of This character is usually revealed as a plot twist, something that shocks the characters and the audience. This can be because it’s someone nobody suspected, their appearance is so gruesome, or maybe because they look nothing like a villain at all. 

Annnnd that’s all! This is just a small list that I compiled and there are, of course, many other traits and tropes that sorcerers may embody, through all forms of media. Hope you found it insightful!