huntressofsyphonia

[huntressofsyphonia]

Showing when writing: Emotions [part 1]

Embarrassment

blushing

fidgeting

sweating

hiding their face in their hands

wide eyes

crossing their arms around their body

stutters

stammering

shifting their weight from side to side

exaggerated movements

nervous quirks appear such as picking at their nails, playing with their hair, and rocking on their heels.

avoiding eye contact

glancing or staring at random objects

stiff smiles

scratching the back of their head or neck.

subject changing

forced laughter

Anticipation

big smiles

wetting their lips

energized

constant movement

grinning

can't concentrate

clumsiness

fidgeting

questions

Awe

frozen

wide eyes

slack jaw

harsh or erratic breathing

grinning

staring

Surprise/shock

gasping

open mouth

slack jaw

wide eyes

covering their mouth with their hands

raised eyebrows

frozen

staring

stepping back

stutters or stammers

Triumph

Tilting back head and yelling out

fist pumping in the air

Jumping

Roaring

Whooping

laughter

bright smiles

grinning

Anger/Threatening

Shaking fist

Pointing

crossed arms

glares

frowning

scowling

Stabbing with finger

Slamming fist against something

Veins throbbing

Jutting out their chin

Clenched fist

Clenched jaw

flushed face

Eyebrows lowered or furrowed

squinting

Teeth bared

Wide stance

Tight-lipped smile

Rapid breathing

Sweating

aggressive stance

Flared nostrils

Puffed chest

loud voice

Nervous

lip biting

biting nails

blinking

tears

stepping back

awkward laughter

clumsiness

dry lips

dry mouth

fidgeting

darting eyes

wrapping their arms around themselves

repeatedly folding and unfolding their arms

clutching at themselves, their hip/shoulder/stomach

drawn in/furrowed brows

avoiding eye contact

jittery

pitched voice

no appetite or nervous eating so a bigger appetite

pacing

toying with things

restless

bouncing leg

rubbing at their face

scratching

sweating trembling

if you want to support, take a look at my story - Thoraway villain

[huntressofsyphonia]

Yes, I do teach creative writing: your opening scene

The opening scene is the most important piece of your novel. This scene determines whether your reader is pulled in or puts the book down. Here are some important do’s and don’ts.

DO write it as a scene, not a data dump. You may have a fantastic premise, a marvelous alternate history or post-apocalyptic world or magical realism to die for, but if you don’t engage your reader in an actual scene, you will bore them.

DO write a scene that immediately introduces a character that the reader can root for. Yes, I know Stephen King has had great success introducing victims that are then shortly afterward killed off. That’s a horror trope and we expect it. But if you are caught up in world-building and haven’t dreamed your way into a character who is worth following through 100,000 words of writing, your story is pointless. I have read many pieces of fiction by would-be writers who can’t grasp this essential concept, and without exception, they fail to engage the reader.

DO introduce the stakes right away. In case that’s a challenge that needs some exposition to develop, create some immediate stakes (a life threat works) that keep the tension high and the reader engaged until you can lay out the larger stakes.

DO begin in medias res, which means “in the middle of things.” Most beginning fiction writers make the mistake of starting too early in the plot. Meet the monster on page 1. 

DON’T include a flashback in the first chapter. Work on a scene, which means time is NOT compressed. It should include dialog, action, description, setting, and interior monolog. Keep everything happening within that scene for at least the first chapter. You can bring in a flashback in Chapter Three.

DON’T shift points of view within a single chapter. Let the reader establish a strong bond of interest (even if it’s with a POV villain) over the course of a whole chapter.

DON’T open the story with your character waking up unless it’s because she’s got a gun in her face (or a knife to her throat – you get what I mean). We don’t need to follow a character through their mundane daily routine. 

DON’T be coy. Beginning writers often have this idea that they need to hold back on revealing all their secrets – what’s in the box, who’s behind the curtain, where they’re going next, etc. Their well-meant plan is to slowly reveal all this over several chapters. Trust me on this one: tell your readers instead of keeping it a mystery. You WILL come up with more secrets to reveal. Your imagination is that good. Spill it now, and allow that revelation to add to the excitement.

[huntressofsyphonia]

may the fifth

Many things in the world don't make a lot of sense, and when you ask why it happens, you get a million different answers.

Last weekend, I cleaned my home office, reorganizing and finding a place for certain things. I've got this box with stuff people have given me over the years, like a remote control car from my dad, a little green dinosaur that a friend in high school and I found, little knickknacks from family, and some little photo albums. When I picked up the little black one, I remember the shiver that crawled down my spine, hairs rose on my arms, and an ominous feeling grew in my stomach. I got the same feeling when DeeDee got really sick and the text I read that my Uncle Anthony was in the hospital with COVID. I flipped through the photo album, staring at the cigarette-yellowed vinyl pages and the cellophane that was peeling from the edges and then set it in the box. The album is twenty-seven years, five months, and five days old. I only give that semi-exact amount because the very first photo is of my father holding me the day I was born. The pictures that followed were the days I spent with my grandmother, her husband, aunt, uncles, and parents. There are moments of the first two years of my life in there.

See, when I was born, we lived right next to my grandmother. Every day, she would watch me while my parents were at work. All those days were filled with pictures, moments she needed to document, and even added word bubble stickers with funny phrases on them. It was the 90s; that was a thing, I suppose. My grandmother gave me this album in 2018 after Hurricane Florence destroyed her home. I've only looked at it three times, today being one of them.

When I was tiny, I was content with going to my grandmother's house on the weekends and during school breaks. Then as I got older, it wasn't enjoyable anymore. Her living conditions were poor in health and safety, which was by choice, much to my mother's frustration, and we got bored quickly. Out in the country with poor internet and no cable, what else were we supposed to do? She lived in a well over forty years old trailer at that point, and their "yard" was so overgrown and had snakes left and right. So we stopped going. I remember she got upset when my mother told her we weren't staying there anymore because of the giant holes in the floors which you could see the rotten wood, the overgrowth, and vermin outside, the rats that were in the walls, and the bugs that came from hell itself.

I'd see her on big holidays like our birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, ya know. But when I became an adult, it was different. I was more mature, thanks to the living conditions of my parent's home, and I saw and understood things a lot more than a normal eighteen-year-old would. She would buy things she didn't need, adopt animals she knew she couldn't take care of, hoard all of these things in her tiny trailer, and she was always in need of money. She stole money from my uncle, nearly draining his account, stole from my parents when I was little, and when her house was destroyed from the hurricane, she made decisions that insulted and disrespected my parents.

Such as inviting a meth addict she met at the shelter to their home without their permission. The cops had to show up because the addict tried stealing from my parents and got hysterically violent. She took advantage of my parent's hospitality, expected to be pampered and taken care of, and used the excuse that she was "old." My fiancé's father is two years younger and has the physical capabilities of someone in their 50s, and does not rely on others to do basic human necessities. All-day on Facebook, she would just sit there, scroll away, put up post after post of why she hated something. Buy smartphones she didn't really know how to use, multiple printers, cameras, the works. After I found out she was taking advantage of my father's help, the help he gave on the weekends, weekdays after the 9-hour shifts of his job, to help her move all her hoarded belongings, she made him feel like he wasn't good enough. That he was a bad son. She sent his mentality down a spiral where he went into a deep depression.

For years, he had spent trying to earn the love of both parents after being abandoned by his father in favor of his new wife's family and a mother who kept marrying abusive assholes and having to grow up in dysfunctional households. I developed a mentality at a young age that if anyone, it didn't matter if they were blood-related or not, if any of them made my parents or brother feel threatened or hurt in any way, they would be excommunicated. My paternal grandfather, my mother's sister, and my maternal grandfather have been cut out of my life. My grandmother got on this list, off of it, and then back on it again. My family's dysfunctional world made me want to live without rather than deal with all of them.

After I found out what she put my parents through, specifically my father, I was done. I didn't return her calls on my birthday for two years. She'd spam my Facebook page with these long heartfelt messages for the entire world to see, and it drove me nuts because I knew what she was doing. Trying to let the world know that she was the sweet old lady. But I knew. She was manipulative. The mental abuse was astounding.

Back to this ominous feeling, both DeeDee and my Uncle Anthony died shortly after I felt it.

My grandmother died last night. She had a nasty bit of problems in 2019-2020 and almost passed in December of 2020. Ever since December, she had been in and out of the hospital. Last night was her last time there. When my mother called, it was past seven, and that feeling came back. She never calls that late. I walked out to tell my fiancé, and I did choke up. I did have tears in my eyes. At first, I was because death made its presence. Then it was because of my father. While I highly disliked her, she was his mother. She was the first of my grandparents on either side to pass. My father is still dealing with his mental problems, and I knew this would tear him apart. All I wanted to do was drive to my parent's house and hug my father. The tears I have shed were for his loss and the memories I appreciated when I was very little.

Now, as an adult, I'm trying to reconcile with my guilt, the harsh decisions I made, and the evident distaste I portrayed. Instead of being sad, I've lost a family member, I feel blank. I expected her to pass because of her declining health, but I am disappointed that I didn't get more emotional. I suspected I wouldn't be, and I was right. I was more upset when my uncle passed, and I knew him even less than my grandmother.

Death can do a lot of strange things to people. I always thought I would cry my eyes out and feel a hole in my heart. I did when DeeDee died, the nineteen-year-old cat I had since I was six. When Belle, the childhood dog, died in my brother's arms right after my twenty-fifth birthday. Both of them still rip my soul apart, and I can cry on the spot for both my girls. But this is different. I'm having a hard time understanding if this makes me a bad person or not.

[huntressofsyphonia]

venting twice in a few days, not a good sign.

I’ve been called a lot of things. I’m not worried about my reputation outside of professionalism, but I don’t like being treated as if I am less of a person. 

I’ve been dating the same person for the last five years, we just had our anniversary the 15th. For some reason, there’s a family member that doesn’t care for me and desperately believes I am out for my boyfriends money and using him until I am finished with school or till I’m 30. I feel this particular person was jealous and perplexed at the fact he’s dating someone 17 years younger than him. 

Every Sunday and Thursday, they play videos together (he lives on one side of the country and we on the other) and anytime my boyfriend is telling some kind of recap of events during the time missed, when I am mentioned, I am called only “the/my girlfriend” which at this point, is a fucking issue for me because I have a name. When he plays with other people, more specifically his friends, ones I know well and that know me, he always mentions my name. 

Tonight he was telling a story about my choice in becoming a poll worker this election and kept referring to me as “the girl” and I fucking lost it. I feel like my feelings are justified in my anger. I shouted over him, “I have a fucking name.” and when I came back into my room, I lost all will to write. It’s my first night to finally do something that isn’t school or work related and he fucking ruined it. I’m so fucking livid, I’m ready to smash his fucking gaming system. 

[huntressofsyphonia]

i’m just so fucking tired

I’m really tired of my family coming to me as if I’m the problem solver of their problems, the savior or their soul. My entire life, people have come to me to fix things, have an ear to listen, which one would see as a normal thing, right? It’s good to be a listener and care for others.

But these people only care about themselves, they crave the negativity and the pitiful attention others give them when people actually take interest in their issues.

The advice is never taken to heart and it’s always bitching just to bitch. I was told by a former friend in high school that I complained too much, that I was whiny. I was then. 11 years ago, I was. I never saw it because I illuminated my mother and realized my toxic personality was carved from my parents. I picked up my anger issues and temper from my father and my depressing and neurotic personality from my mother.

From the age of 13, the week before my 14th birthday, I became my mother’s therapist, as she tried to form an ideal in my head to hate my father and force me to tolerate my abusive household.

Things escalated at 14 and officially was the person who everyone had to go to about everything, helping my brother grow into a respectable and open human being, caring for him as if he was my son. We are closer than ever now.

When I moved away, I was able to break off and limit contact and begin to heal. I have spent the last five years trying to be my own person and decide whether or not I want to keep these fucking people in my life. My 27th birthday, my father calls me with a weepy confession and slips that “if something happens to me, I just want you to know.” and I lose my mind because no normal person says those things. I grew up with this man threatening to kill us, to harm his family, abusive slurs of what-ifs. The last five years he’s been trying to repair what was broken. When confronting my mother with the voicemail, I was instead yelled at and told that I was in the wrong for thinking such a thing, even though he had a meltdown a few months prior that he wanted to kill himself, which she didn’t know I knew about.

Now, today, my estranged, racist, homophobic, and alcoholic grandfather, who is also a problematic person in my family, called and left a voicemail with a similar message.

I’m just so fucking tired and I’m an adult now. I can’t deal with anyone else’s fucking problems anymore. I’m so fucking tired.

[huntressofsyphonia]

introverted.

I think I realize now why I have a hard time keeping friends. Ever since I lost *the* best friend, I put everyone new that came into my life on a high pedestal to fill that void. Whether it was distance, lack of interest, or the problems in my life that crawled into what should have been engaging (me being introverted, the depression, no self-esteem, the anger issues I developed at one of my jobs, and the baggage I accumulated during high school that didn't go away right after graduation and got worse), all those things impacted my ability to make friends. I knit-picked the flaws of people I did build friendships with, specifically my coworkers in my adult life. It seems that’s the only way you make friends as an adult. I wasn't content with these flaws, mainly because I felt I was tolerated for my existence and the friendship was one-sided because it was forced. It always feels forced. You have no other options because it’s you and them, so “boom,” you’re temporary-go-out-once-and-a-while friends until one of you quits and never talk again. 

I'm not really big on talking through social media or texting, it deflects my attention from Brian and what I'm doing otherwise. The occasional thing is fine, but every few seconds in a group text I didn't ask to be in irritates the shit out of me. I hate what technology has done to communication and I refuse to be a part of the constant connection lifestyle. When I disconnect, I get so much more done and actually interact better when I’m throughly engaged with my direct surroundings. A majority of the people on my social media are previous coworkers, past classmates from primary school, and a bunch of family members I haven't seen since I was a child or hardly remember meeting as a toddler. 

I got tired of the floozy friendships where people talked about themselves, the conversation was one-sided, or I was going through too much myself, friendships became exhausting--that I didn't feel the energy of pushing into maintaining it. Once Brian came into my life, I finally gained another person I could be myself around and truly interact with who was on a similar wavelink as myself.

I know I do have "friends," but we're not close. At all. We talk once in a blue moon. A majority of those I do have, Brian introduced me, so I didn't make them on my own. I see on social media and in the news, we're supposed to be talking and communicating with others during this time, but when I look at all of these people, I don't really know them enough to engage in anything. I did an experiment on Facebook and only three people gave a shit, taking the time to look at it. It was really disheartening to see that a majority of the people online didn't give a shit to answer it, while I saw those who copied the experiment from me gained so many responses. 

I think I'm destined for just two real friends in my life: Brian and Donnie. I just wish life would stop making me feel like I'm the bad guy because of that fact. 

[huntressofsyphonia]

[huntressofsyphonia]

HENRY CAVILL as Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher s01e01

[huntressofsyphonia]

Some words stay in your head long after they’re spoken.

Robin Roe // A List of Cages (via qvotable)

[huntressofsyphonia]

a bottom you haven’t been able to admit you’ve fallen into

I came off the Effexor in January, cold turkey under the guidance of my doctor. The decision came to me after January 17th, quitting my toxic job, determining this was the best time to do so (after all, I decided after my recent visit with my doctor, which was literally five days prior, I would come off the medicine at the end of the month. My boyfriend and I worked out a plan to give my body and mind time to adjust coming off the pills, as it would be a while for everything to leave my system. For two months, I didn’t have to look for another job, just to focus keeping my mind in check and doing well in my two classes.

First week: the shivers, easily hot and cold, unable to walk without being dizzy, sick to my stomach, and at most, the loss of giving a fuck. Ambition to complete school work and get up in the morning was almost gone.

Second week: trying to fight through the body ailments and focus forward. Mental kicks began, I almost dropped out of school during this week. 

Third week: I began to think too heavily on the decisions I made leaving my job, attacking myself for every poor decision I made there and the empty feeling that I do not feel I belong in university. I spent eight years in community college to get here, but why do I feel I do not live to their expectations? My advisor was concerned about my GPA, but when I explained I was paying my way through school and when I first started I could only afford the one class (my first being a math class, not my strong suit, but I fucking passed) that was nearly $850 after the $100 online access code, she assured me all was fine as it would rise from my next courses. 

Then the weeks that followed, I watched our country fall apart and I was under the mirage that everything was going to be fine. The stress of everything around me hadn’t really hit yet. I received the government aid, a school refund for the current semester when we went online (I paid a majority of it, so hell yes), and my boyfriend assured me all was well as he was still working and my main priority was school. Everything appeared fine. That’s the thing about these drugs is once you’re off of them, there’s a fog of lies. You think that everything is okay and when you go out there and test them, you realize you didn’t really improve what you were trying on the medicine. 

I started this medicine three years ago to enable me getting out of bed in the morning and not crying every day at my job. The job I was at was a terribly toxic environment filled with careless racism, anti-LGTBQ, and discrimination based on what management deemed to be your worth. I was always told I would be nothing more than a customer service rep making $9 an hour with a paycheck that went entirely to my car payment and then the rest of the month to my other costly bills, making it impossible to pay for utilities and so forth. I blamed all the mistakes and oversights on the medication as I had been on it less than a year, but I knew it was the stress of the job and I needed to get out. I did not leave that place on good terms and that ended in tears. Once I had my second one nipped in the bud because the person who worked there got me in very quickly, and I felt like by my two coworkers that I meant something, but low and behold, two years and four months later, I left that one in tears too. That one didn’t have the heavy sheen of discrimination to others, just towards myself, as my boss didn’t like my personality and that I didn’t accept her strange need to be “my other mother and best friend.” I was tired of the bullying from a woman old as our frightening president and having to babysit her-not-really-autistic-but-piece-of-shit-son. Instead of accepting her poor parenting skills and the self-reliant creature she raised, she forced her employees to treat him as a five year old and pick up after him.

Working at the second place on this medicine, I was able to learn how to tolerate myself and be appreciated by those around me. I feel like while I was actually working on my anxiety being out in the world and talking to people, I wasn’t really repairing myself, and ignoring the inability to love myself. I let the work environment that had no sense of structure or accountability under my skin, and I just wouldn’t fucking let shit go. I always had to say or fix something because I didn’t agree with it. I let myself get wrapped up in a mentality that was frankly, doing more harm than good to me. Rather than focusing on the good I could be and fixing the flaws I have, I spent too much time thinking how to manage little things. Thus, ending another failure place of employment.

Now, four months into pandemic, five off the medicine, and still jobless, I’m wondering if it was too soon because I didn’t take any time to reflect on myself like I should have. Once again, I’ve felt that I shouldn’t be in a university, that I’m not good enough or don’t fit in. I always feel that something about my personality is odd or bothersome to others and I am to be avoided. Online class discussion posts and no one wants to talk to me, sideswiped to other people. It doesn’t help that in my classes, I’m the first or second oldest, surrounded by eighteen to twenty year olds, some bragging about reaching twenty-one and going out to the bars. Almost thirty and far from that kind of entertainment, how the fuck am I supposed to relate to these kids? Why bother with this shit anymore? But I told myself I can’t quit after all this damn time and now that I finally got grant money to continue my education without panicking about funds. I know if I quit, I am limited to the retail and service jobs in my area that do not pay a goddamn thing and very little opportunities. Even with the associates degree, I’m in the same exact position as everyone else. In a tourist-slash-college town, there is hardly anything if you don’t have that four year degree. All the coping mechanisms I created with my doctor seemed to be based on the moment in time, fooling her and myself to think I’m actually getting better. 

Today, I had a Zoom practice interview for my business class, practice that was so broad, it didn’t feel like an actual interview. It was literally another person talking to another and giving their feedback on what they had experienced and me answering questions. I was aware of the silly mistakes I made: lack of eye contact, too many hand gestures, and sometimes going a little too in depth of my explanations. I only talk to people I don’t know on Sundays and that’s at the grocery store and I felt I was a little carried away. I truly wasn’t prepared because this wasn’t a traditional interview and it was presented as if I was to talk about myself, something I hate doing, but I do it as I must.

I was given a lot of good feedback during the practice but then when I was emailed for my “final rubric,” the interviewer failed me. He highlighted on when I was asked what my goal was in the future, and I was honest, that because I’m really an introvert, I want to break more out of my shell and not be afraid to build connections. He made it sound like me being an introvert is a terrible feature. I have spent the last month, dwelling on the “problem” of being an introvert. This business class has expressed that introverts are seen as an issue in this field. A little side note that in all my jobs, I knew that it was my duty to force myself out of my comfort, and while I did come home exhausted because of the energy I put into my day doing this, I still fucking succeeded.

When my boyfriend saw the results, he was floored, because in his work place, where he’s been over fifteen years, it’s full of introverts in all departments, and that isn’t a deterrent for their job. He also was baffled from the little knit-pick things, like the hand gestures and lack of eye contact in the video chat, and my resume. A majority that was covered by this class, to build my resume was deemed to be presentable by two professors. Then my low GPA (it’s low because I’ve only taken three classes at this university), and the lacking to make myself seem unique. 

How could I make myself seem with this poor structure of this assignment that wasn’t formatted into a proper interview practice? I took this assignment way to personally, like I do everything. I strive so damn hard to do well in my classes, as I am aware my GPA depends on it to get into the super business school. For once in this scenario, I was being myself as I have been told in interviews are based on that honesty, I felt as I was shot down for not feeling good enough. Like always after my good vibes are torn away, I went to my room to curl into a ball and just lay in the darkness with my iPad on Reddit. After a while, my boyfriend came into the room, trying to encourage me that I cannot be hung up by this little thing and to take into the fact that this was a one time thing, that it was one person’s judgement, and others could and would be different. At the end of his comfort, he said he wished I could see the good in myself that he sees. We’ve been together for nearly five years and he’s been there through all the problems. 

I feel I am at a loss, because I wish very badly that I could see what he does, to love myself when it’s brought to question and to be able to look in the mirror and not hate who I am anymore. 

[huntressofsyphonia]

shout out to anyone who has seen me get stupidly emotional and insanely insecure but has stuck around anyway

[huntressofsyphonia]

[huntressofsyphonia]

This is wonderful.

The Warrior

This is the first in a short painting series based on fantasy class archetypes. I’ll have prints with me at my NYCC artist alley table G4! Process is up for Patreon rewards for last month.

[huntressofsyphonia]

[huntressofsyphonia]

[huntressofsyphonia]

Never shall innocent blood be shed, yet the blood of the wicked shall flow like a river. The Three shall spread their blackened wings and be the vengeful striking hammer of God.

The Boondock Saints (1999) dir. Troy Duffy

[huntressofsyphonia]