Tag Archives: writing

Friday Villains – Old and Forgotten Gods

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging 2.0

The biggest, nastiest possible invading forces are those with roots in creation and destruction of life are Old and/or Forgotten Gods. These big, nasty beasties rear their ugly heads (and tentacles and many-fanged maws) in all manner of entertainment media, and they are generally not showing up to make life better.

Old and Forgotten Gods aren’t always quite the same (ignoring the ever-present tentacles in most cases), but they all seem to share the same capacity for inducing madness and serious unrest wherever their presence is felt. Whether it’s their mere existence or a gradual, quiet whispering of dark horrors, any who are unlucky enough to be sensitive to these beings’ existence seem to end up going completely bonkers. In some cases, this could be a form of mind control. In others, it’s simply the effect of gazing into the unknown and realizing there’s some pretty horrifying shit out there.  Continue reading →

The Thursday Villain – The Invading Species

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging 2.0

So nefarious, even its post invaded a day for other villains! In reality, this post was pushed back a day in favor of mourning the passing of Sir Terry Pratchett. If my heart doesn’t seem like it’s in this post (or the subsequent one that was meant for today), there’s the reason why. Alternatively, I feel like if Sir Terry could push through his Embuggerance and continue writing, it would be downright insulting to falter from just being sad. Easily an over-simplification of things, but I need some motivation to help kick me into not being a lump.

Invading species-types of villains are fun, if only because there’s so much variety to them. There’s aliens, sure, but there are also demons, monsters from other dimensions, hyper-evolved diseases, giant bugs (or arachnids), and so on and so on. Even humans qualify, as it’s not always about invading, and subsequently wrecking, Earth. Regardless of the location, the invading species usually has goals of domination and eradication in mind, though enslaving the native population also seems to work at times. It really depends where said invaders fall on a certain spectrum involving homicidal rage and sadism. Continue reading →

The Wednesday Villain – The Power-Hungry Subordinate

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging 2.0

Praise Odin it’s Wednesday and the worst of the week is probably over with. Probably. Shit, I certainly hope it’s over with at this point. Also, I realize that all of the types of villains I’ve featured so far are power-hungry. That shouldn’t be particularly surprising. This post feels even more ridiculous since the writing process involved in it has now spanned the entire day and I’m still only on the introduction. Bonus points because I at least managed to start organizing my living room, and I trimmed my beard for the first time without completely shitting it up. Please don’t judge me too harshly for that last bit, as this is my first real attempt at not being perpetually baby-faced. Right. So, moving on.

Today’s all about the Power-Hungry Subordinate. These are the bad guys waiting for the right time to make their move, stepping out of someone else’s shadow in hopes of casting a far greater one of their own. That’s not to say all villains classified as this type are working for other ne’er-do-wells, however. Some of the best-known Power-Hungry Subordinates find themselves trapped answering to a horribly cheerful, aggressively positive force of good. Such a dreadful fate. I wanted to try arguing these sneaky minions find themselves on a mission to overthrow a Tyrant, but I fear I might be venturing dangerously far into the realm of wishful thinking.

As with other types of villains, they can be pitiable. The Power-Hungry Subordinate seems to have a greater capacity for being sympathetic figures as they are typically in situations that have driven them to extremes, even if they do have broken moral compasses to begin with. I’ll get to that a bit more in one of the examples, though. Continue reading →

Tuesday Villain – The All-Powerful Sorcerer/Sorceress

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging 2.0

The word sorcerer apparently really trips my brain up for some reason, which is a bit embarrassing really since my genre of choice is fantasy. I’m also far more tired than is conducive to writing a blog post, so I better get my ass moving or this will conclude abruptly with a bunch of garbled nonsense from my face slamming against the keyboard. This post is technically late, and I wish I had an excuse. Instead, I was watching videos of Markiplier getting scared out of his mind while playing Five Nights At Freddy’s. Whoops?

All-powerful magic users are a prevalent part of popular culture. They’ve been a big deal for a long time, and they can be sagely advisers just as easily as they can be agents of profound evil. As a former practitioner of the dark arts, via my Warlock in World of Warcraft, I feel it’s my responsibility to weigh in on the dark and light sides of sorcerers and sorceresses, both of the good and bad variety. Tonight’s, of course, is all about the villainous ones. Continue reading →

Celebration of Characters – The Tyrant

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging 2.0

On the first day of villainy, FictionalPenguin gave to thee…the Tyrant of boundless power and greed!

I’m so sorry. That was really the worst, just like the first kind of villain I’m focusing on: the Tyrant! Tyrannical leaders come in all ages, shapes, sizes, genders, and so on. They can start off as a democratically elected official with the best of intentions and the worst ways of handling said intentions, or they could always be a bad-to-the-bone, power-mad thug.

The Tyrant is almost always a control-freak. Every aspect of their dastardly plots, whether those plots are just to keep a kingdom under complete control or world domination, must be something they have total command over. Being able to manipulate every detail of their surroundings is key, to these characters, in maintaining their death-grip on power. Without that, they seem to have nothing and so such characters fall apart. Continue reading →

A Celebration of Characters: Villains Week

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging 2.0

It’s week one of that idea I mentioned yesterday! Surprise, it’s all about villains. Fret not, lovers of do-gooders and champions of justice, as the Heroes Week will follow with just as much attention and love as this one. I’m aware that’s shocking stuff, so don’t let that cause too much stress.

However, enough about heroes. This week is all about villains, and I’ve picked specific villainous types for each day from Monday through Saturday. I could explain it, but I took a picture of my notes earlier as a teaser and, really, that’s the easiest way to handle this. If we’ve not yet established my capacity for being supremely lazy, this is a great time to do so.

It's official because I wrote in a notebook.

It’s official because I wrote in a notebook.

The plan for each day is to define each type of villain mentioned above, giving specific examples in popular culture, and then discussing the pros and cons of their use. I’ll also be focusing on how they can, in their own way, be the heroes of their own narratives (even when they are causing chaos and destruction all around them). There are some exceptions to that last bit, as Friday and Saturday’s options don’t really leave a whole lot of room for arguing that they’re just misguided and trying to do what’s best. Old Gods and Liches are usually just forces of pure, ancient evil, after all, and so they’re typically convinced the best possible plan of action is laying waste to everything.

I’m especially excited for the Lich entry, but I’ve saved the best for last.

Brace yourselves, folks. This week’s about to get awfully evil.

A notebook in need

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging 2.0

Today was a remarkably good day off. I accomplished everything I planned on accomplishing, got a bit of rest and relaxation in, and had a generally fantastic day. Not even the smallest level of stress registered in my brain, which is a rarity anymore. A new episode of Elementary starts in twenty minutes, and I’ve got some cooking to do for people who are blackmailing me (nothing actually serious, so don’t rush to alert the authorities), so it looks like my evening will end pretty nicely as well. The only thing that wasn’t entirely perfect is this weird fascination I’ve developed with the creepy, cheesy nonsense that is Five Nights At Freddy’s and its sequels.

Damn you, Springtrap. Stop haunting my every waking moment.  Continue reading →

A return to journal writing

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging 2.0

Last night was riddled with technical difficulties from my laptop and a noteworthy absence of motivation to write anything at all. Let the record show that lack of motivation continues to linger tonight, which is frustrating but something I’m also pushing past. Go me (and the impressive, unstoppable power of my stubbornness). I’m presently looking forward to tomorrow, which will be partially spent getting a much-needed (and deserved) haircut and wandering around Barnes & Noble. Any suggestions for graphic novels, or novels in general, are always appreciated. One can never have too many books.

Right. So last night I found myself tremendously frustrated. Writing wasn’t happening in any way, shape, or form. I tried different approaches to A Princess, A Lich, and Some Murders, hoping desperately to add to the current word count but only failing to do so. Eventually, accepting the night as a defeat, I closed Microsoft Word. It occurred to me that I’d not checked on when The Literary Hatchet‘s next deadline was, and since I planned on submitting “Cordelia’s” I figured I should check…only to discover I’d missed said deadline. While I generally try to shy from this word, my reaction was a rather loud and appropriate utterance of “Oh, fuck”.

At some point or another, right before heading to bed, I decided it would be beneficial for me to return to journal writing. Not necessarily as a nightly thing, necessarily. I also happened to have my awesome Discworld/Starry Night crossover cover notebook, which had not seen use since it’s purchase. This, in case it needs repeating, is a crime I am regularly guilty of with notebooks. Making matters worse, I plan on stopping by Barnes & Noble tomorrow. That means I could very well come home with another Moleskine notebook. The journal in question, complete with its Squishable guardian, can be seen below.

Squishthulu guards my deep, dark secrets.

Squishthulu guards my deep, dark secrets.

Not only have I forgotten how helpful keeping a journal is for venting frustrations, but I managed to forget its terrific applications as a means to remind myself of all of the positive things I have going on. Not everything in its pages has to be doom-and-gloom, cloudy-with-a-chance-of-bitching sorts of frustrations (that was a horrible joke and I’m not sorry). It’s a reminder that I’m working on more than just one project presently, and that there will be some nights when my brain simply doesn’t wish to cooperate with me in working on one project or another. Those nights are not the end of the world, nor do they render me any less of a writer.

Suffice it to say, I’m already happy with this decision after only one entry. I can only imagine how therapeutic this will prove in the long run.

How many of you write in journals? Is it on a regular basis, or more sporadic, and is there a particular topic in mind or is it more just whatever’s on your mind at the time?

Music Mondays – Nightwish

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging 2.0

It certainly has been another Monday, in the sense that it was the start of a new work week and full of all sorts of god-awful stress! Boo. Hiss. However, that’s all the more reason to sit back, curl up under some covers perhaps, and listen to some good music. It is indeed time again for Music Mondays! As the title might have indicated, tonight’s post is about Nightwish.

This is one of those situations where I don’t remember exactly who got me listening to an artist, but I know that it was immediate love of the music. There’s an overwhelming air of theatricality present in every song, making it feel less like listening to one track or another than it is like listening to a story. A story with amazing musical accompaniment that makes for great listening on, say, extended road trips when Red Bull isn’t an option. Continue reading →

Heroes: Plot Devices with Moral Compasses

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging 2.0

A great villain is the source of tremendous conflict. They bring about havoc, sewing the seeds of destruction and chaos everywhere they go. Naturally, there exist such people who only desire to thwart such nefarious folks in their plotting and scheming. Such scoundrels range from the ignoble bound for redemption to nobles who must first fall from grace before finding their true purpose.

I’m talking about heroes in their many forms, and how they tend to ruin everything.

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, and though they may be little more than plot devices bolstered by a strong need to do good and right…I have to admit they are an essential part of storytelling. Without them, who would give help give villains better reasons to make use of their laser death rays? My disdain for the heroic aside, I must say that a good hero makes for a good story. That was painful to type, so I’ll just jump into some of the most beloved varieties of daring do-gooders before I start to really regret this post.

Continue reading →