A thing that bothers me about wizard schools in popular media – outside of the magic-grade-school stuff, anyway – is that they're typically depicted as being basically magic universities, but their actual curricula and pedagogical approaches look much more like those of a technical institution. Like, buddy, that's not a wizard university, that's a wizard trade school. You can't just slap university student culture on top of trade school pedagogy. It doesn't work like that – the one emerges from the other!

"Well ACTUALLY wizards are" wizards are made up. They can be analogous to whatever real-world class or vocation the author wants. Wizard-school-as-university and wizard-school-as-technical-institute are both perfectly fine; what I am grumping about is wizard-school media that doesn't seem to have a clear picture of how different sorts of educational institutions actually operate.

Okay but now I really want to know what a Wizard technician would look like. Would he wear magical overalls with all kinds of reagents and magic tools sticking out of his numerous pockets?

A guy like that walks into your tower with a toothpick in his mouth, takes one look at your summoning circle and goes

“I see yer problem. You used chalk B12 instead of S3. B12 is only for transmutation circles. Gimme a sec I think I have a piece somewhere here.”

He fixes your circle, test summons an imp and goes.

“There ya go. Fit as a fiddle.”

“It’s the chalk.”

“The chalk? I always use that chalk, it’s never been a problem.”

“Ah - yes. This stuff will work just fine for most circles, but, uh - here, take a look with my loupe. You see the off-color flecks? Can’t hardly see them with the naked eye, but those are impurities. Silicates, might even be some iron in here, to be honest. Usually won’t cause a problem, but - you said you hadn’t tried this particular summons before?”

“First time trying a 5th level, yeah.”

“Those silicates will make your scribing a little fuzzy when viewed from the astral plane. You see, for example, these three fine lines here? With this chalk, on the astral that looks like one thick line with fuzzy edges. They can’t tell exactly what you want, and they’re picky lil’ critters so they just won’t do anything in response.”

“Really? Oh. I always thought the expensive chalk was just fancy to be fancy.”

“Making pure chalk is difficult, you need a dedicated production line or dust gets in the finished product. To be honest, you don’t need to bother with it for most things, but 5th and up, 5th level and up, it actually is necessary. Anything with lines within about two millimeters of each other.”

“So I need to start over?”

“Unfortunately yes. You’ll have to erase all this, but with some good chalk it should work just fine. Next new moon your summons should go off without a hitch.”

“Dang. At least it’s not my sigils, I was worried it was my sigils.”

“Nah Your sigils look good. Even and balanced. You know what you’re doing, it’s just an equipment problem.”

“Thanks for the help, sorry to make you come all the way out here.”

“No problem! It’s my job.”

being kind

I’m doing mental gymnastics trying to figure out what a Vulcan rom-com would look like

Movie: *begins*

Vulcan 1: we are mentally compatible. Logically, we must bond

Vulcan 2: your logic is sound

Movie: *ends*

I headcanon Vulcan comedy based on this great post. Then comedy for Vulcans is to be presented with something illogical and then a long series of explanations follows where it’s ultimately shown to be completely logical. Being shown disorder and then making it ordered in a complicated and sometimes ridiculous way, while the audience’s own assumptions and ideas are challenged. 

So Vulcan romcoms would be like human romcoms in that a lot of obstacles appear to keep two people from bonding but the answer to every obstacle is always to use logic to solve it. It’s like a puzzle of clues that doesn’t really come together until the end where they audience can go “Now I understand, that’s completely logical now that I know the call from T’Lak was actually about the science fair, not about her relationship with her mother. An amusing misunderstanding”.

Vulcans are entertained, the conclusion is always that the proper people are bonded and logic make sense of everything in the end. 

What I'm hearing is that Vulcans would fucking LOVE screwball comedies.

I like the idea of Vulcan comedies as a sort of challenge for emotional repression. Like, they're presented with absurdity not to laugh along with it, but to train themselves not to laugh along with it. There are certain films that are so funny, they're only considered suitable for Third-degree Kohlinahr masters.

(And then a human watches it and they just don't get any of the jokes anyways).

A "don't laugh challenge" so advanced that humans accidentally pass it with flying colors.

But the thing is, though, that comedy is a skill like any other; you only get good at it by practising. But Vulcans are discouraged from practising, and their ideology forces them to imagine laughter as contrary to logic, so even their most advanced Challenge Comedies are just like...the equivalent of Freddy Got Fingered, or other early-2000s gross-out humour. Eventually, they commission a human familiar with Vulcan culture to write an observational comedy and it proves so irresistible to Vulcan audiences (because it engages their intellectual faculties as part of the humour, rather than in opposition to it), that it's immediately banned, and the human has their visa revoked.

They don't revoke the human's visa, exactly.

It would be illogical to show discourtacy to someone so fluent in Vulcan vulnerabilities, or to waste an opportunity to practice shoring up those vulnerabilities.

But they become... Careful about who they place in a position to interact with that human, and the film becomes something only the the most mature and disciplined vulcans are ever permitted to view.

Vulcans wind up with a film that is functionally rated XXXX, and it's composed entirely of mundain conversations and inscrutable subtext.

I’m doing mental gymnastics trying to figure out what a Vulcan rom-com would look like

Movie: *begins*

Vulcan 1: we are mentally compatible. Logically, we must bond

Vulcan 2: your logic is sound

Movie: *ends*

I headcanon Vulcan comedy based on this great post. Then comedy for Vulcans is to be presented with something illogical and then a long series of explanations follows where it’s ultimately shown to be completely logical. Being shown disorder and then making it ordered in a complicated and sometimes ridiculous way, while the audience’s own assumptions and ideas are challenged. 

So Vulcan romcoms would be like human romcoms in that a lot of obstacles appear to keep two people from bonding but the answer to every obstacle is always to use logic to solve it. It’s like a puzzle of clues that doesn’t really come together until the end where they audience can go “Now I understand, that’s completely logical now that I know the call from T’Lak was actually about the science fair, not about her relationship with her mother. An amusing misunderstanding”.

Vulcans are entertained, the conclusion is always that the proper people are bonded and logic make sense of everything in the end. 

What I'm hearing is that Vulcans would fucking LOVE screwball comedies.

I like the idea of Vulcan comedies as a sort of challenge for emotional repression. Like, they're presented with absurdity not to laugh along with it, but to train themselves not to laugh along with it. There are certain films that are so funny, they're only considered suitable for Third-degree Kohlinahr masters.

(And then a human watches it and they just don't get any of the jokes anyways).

A "don't laugh challenge" so advanced that humans accidentally pass it with flying colors.

lots of times if I tell my boyfriend that I am proud of him for dealing with a situation, or that I'm sorry he's having to deal with a situation, he will say "no it's my own fault." meaning that he feels like he doesn't deserve praise or comfort for dealing with a situation that is his fault. (for example a financial problem caused or exacerbated by him having been too anxious or absentminded to deal with the situation sooner.) and I tell him this and I will tell y'all this, that I don't believe that. I think you are even braver and stronger for taking steps to deal with a mess that is of or partly of your own creation, because you have to cope with guilt and shame on top of the thing itself, and because you're fighting against the same ingrained dysfunction in yourself that caused the mess. that's like the bravest and most constructive thing you can do and you should be proud and I am proud of you.

also, mistakes don't mean you deserve to suffer

actually you know what that's exactly it i would rather someone add 5 parantheticals after every sentence than use tone indicators it's 1. accomplishing SO much more in terms of clarity 2. extremely funny to look at depending on how they're used

observe:

"is this real? /gen" — i thought /gen meant "general" for ages. i would not be able to understand this on first sight a few years ago and is thus ineffective

"is this real? (genuine question)" — i fully understand this without issue

"is this real? (genuine question) (can't tell) (very realistic) (looks real) (scary) (photoshop?)" — is not only incredibly clear it's also very funny to read all of these thoughts stapled together while also in their own parentheses. it's also the most useful because now i can actually address all parts of what they are asking me with as much specificity as BOTH of us need

neurodivergent and queer people how are we feeling?

we are fully crying

I do not want to be in writing training

I am thinking about making a passionate defense of the passive voice just to cause trouble on purpose

Look once you learn how to use the passive voice it will become clear to you why I spend half my time deliberately writing in it

Fuck it, let's talk about it

Warning: Passive voice can be used for evil! Do not do it! Do not write sentences like "The man was shot by police." No! Do not hide state violence in sentence structure!

You should use active voice when:

1. You introduce new information

2. You take or assign responsibility

Active voice is key for clarity when the sentence doesn't have anything to refer back to. If you have to put "by (person, organization)" at the end of the sentence, it should have been active voice. Ex:

NOT

But here's why passive voice is great: because it collapses who did a thing and centers the fact that it happened. When you are referring back to something the parties already agree upon, it puts the result up front.

NOT

No! Bad! The completion of the action matters, not the parties involved. And no, "The parties will complete their reviews" is absolutely not clearer, because it requires the same knowledge.

In fiction, passive vs active refocuses a sentence towards what you want the reader to pay attention to. Active:

Passive:

Nothing wrong with either of them. It's just what you want the reader to think about. Bonus round: the sentence feels more natural if you put the bulk of the description in the second half, so you can add more without making it impossible to follow. Active:

Passive:

These are different sentences, but nothing's wrong with either of them.

Passive voice gets a bad rap largely because even the dumbest professional development expert can ID it fairly regularly. It's bad when it makes a sentence less clear; it's good when it makes a sentence clearer. That's it.

AND it can have immense humoristic potential, for the exact same reason you outlined, because passive voice reads as an attempt to dodge responsibility and misplace blame.

"The man was shot (by police)" and "The project was fucked up by us" are bad in serious contexts and actual writing.

But you can have a lot of fun with things like:

"My boss has been described in impolite terms."

"Alice's boss has been described in impolite terms by someone who wishes to remain anonymous."

"I have been vilified, demonised, slandered, calumnied, scapegoated, lied about, written horrid pamphlets about, unlistened to, and reputationally walked all over."

"The priceless crown jewels known as The Fanciest Rock Ever, insured for 100,000,000 billions and entrusted in our care by HRM the Queen of Fancyland, were found to have been misplaced this morning and have not been located at this time."

"He was separated from his head."

"He found himself divorced from."

Useful friends in such cases: euphemisms, unexpected verbs, grammatically questionable sentence constructions, and obfuscation of the responsible party when it is glaringly obvious to the audience that there should be one or even who it is, etc., etc.

Watching my toddler figure out how to language is fascinating. Yesterday we were stumped when he kept insisting there was a “Lego winner” behind his bookshelf - it turned out to be a little Lego trophy cup. Not knowing the word for “trophy”, he’d extrapolated a word for “thing you can win”. And then, just now, he held up his empty milk container and said, “Mummy? It’s not rubbish. It’s allowed to be a bottle.” - meaning, effectively, “I want this. Don’t throw it away.” But to an adult ear, there’s something quite lovely about “it’s allowed to be a bottle,” as if we’re acknowledging that the object is entitled to keep its title even in the absence of the original function.

Another good post to read for those writing small human characters. 

My son was about three when he came to me in the middle of the day and said, “Mommy, there’s a knight behind the bush.” I thought he meant a toy knight or something. So I follow him outside and he goes, “Listen. Do you hear it? It’s night behind the bush.” It was a cricket. A cricket was standing in the little patch of shade under the bush, chirping. So, my son saw this dark area with accompanying nighttime sounds and decided, okay, well, that is a night right there. Their brains are incredible.

My little bean knows she’s two, constantly saying proudly ‘I’m two!’ And the other day she saw this very frail old lady who looked one foot in the grave, pulled a face and said ‘oh shiiiit. She’s three.’ I almost screamed.

I live in Korea and have a lot of international friends, and the same is true with language barriers in adults. 

*Looking at a bowl of pears* “Can you please pass me the… apple’s friend?” 

Oh my favorite language based one was back when I was still in law school I was talking to this old Japanese man one time and he called me a “lawyer egg” instead of a law student and I still think about that turn of phrase

these are still the most hilarious

I wish there was a political movement to ask the IRS to postpone the filing deadline in response to the US's Adderall shortage.

Unfortunately that would require a bunch of people with unmedicated ADHD to organize a political movement.

(It would actually benefit the IRS! They're having paperwork delays too, and this way they'd owe less interest on late tax refunds!)

I wish there were a political movement to revamp the taxation system so that we didn't have to file our own taxes, period. It feels anachronistic somehow: shouldn't the federal and state governments have direct access to all the information needed to extract the correct amount of taxes from each citizen the first time around? I know I'm being naive and there's some set of reasons it can't feasibly work that way, but it doesn't seem that the set-up of our society should have evolved to force things like this.

you're right and you should say it. the "set of reasons" is that turbotax has a lot of money and uses some of it to lobby politicians to not set it up this way. most people in countries that aren't the US don't have to go through all the work of "doing taxes". and it's bullshit that we still have to!

This is all VERY true and you should say it but also if you're not sure you can manage to get your taxes in on time (April 18th in 2023) please go to the IRS website to free file form 4868 for an automatic extension. It is still a form to fill out and a Task to do but it is MUCH simpler and doesn't require you to have all your W2s and other documentation handy and will get you several months to laboriously get all that shit together (if it turns out you owe money you might have to pay a little interest but if you only need another month or two that's not gonna be much).

THANK YOU 😭, everything I could find online about requesting an extension looked legit more complicated than just filing the taxes.

I'm still suspicious that this will be secretly complicated, but at least I can use it as a comforting illusory escape hatch to keep me sane for the next week.

I wish there was a political movement to ask the IRS to postpone the filing deadline in response to the US's Adderall shortage.

Unfortunately that would require a bunch of people with unmedicated ADHD to organize a political movement.

(It would actually benefit the IRS! They're having paperwork delays too, and this way they'd owe less interest on late tax refunds!)

I wish there were a political movement to revamp the taxation system so that we didn't have to file our own taxes, period. It feels anachronistic somehow: shouldn't the federal and state governments have direct access to all the information needed to extract the correct amount of taxes from each citizen the first time around? I know I'm being naive and there's some set of reasons it can't feasibly work that way, but it doesn't seem that the set-up of our society should have evolved to force things like this.

I agree

As usual with problems in the U.S., at least part of the reason is corporations using their money to influence government policy, in a way that makes society worse in general but increases the corporation's profit

Yup! I get the sense the IRS would actually much rather do most of the work themselves. They already kinda' do, just with the added fun of effectively having to correct a sea of poorly done math homework at the same time.

The IRS itself tends to be a lot more benevolent than the corporate lobbyists who write--er, influence its policies. They extended the tax deadline by several months back in 2020.

I bet they'd push it back a month or two this year if enough people asked nicely.

You know how it is with the uk

me at the end