lil blogger

Sankt Milo

like rochester has been almost literally gelded by narrative karma in the end. all the symbols of his power have been stripped from him. his ancestral family manor, a symbol of his wealth and class privilege, has been burned to the ground. he’s lost a hand (remind you of anything?) and his eyesight, while his looks, which were his “weak” point to begin with, have only been made worse. one can argue over whether or not he’s been sufficiently punished for his crimes, but the fact is that he has been utterly humiliated and significantly weakened.

enter jane who, since she left rochester, after a whole odyssey of her own, now has her own independent wealth, a family/community who she knows will support her, knowledge that she is at least somewhat desirable to others besides rochester, and, most importantly, a newfound confidence, self-possession, and contentment. whereas before rochester held all the cards in the relationship, now jane does. by the standards of the time, this woman has options. 

one can speculate as to the reasons that she goes back to rochester (if, for whatever reason, you don’t buy the idea that she actually loves him,) but the fact is that by the end, she has about as much power over him as a woman could be expected to have over her husband at that time and place. she quite literally controls what he sees, where he goes, what he knows about the outside world, and she could absolutely leave him at any moment (and he knows that, as is evidenced by some of their conversations at the end of the book.) 

like…..you can say whatever you want about jane’s taste in men etc. but the fact is that, by the end of the story, this woman is completely in control of her own fate. 

It's based on actual paint from the times, and when you think about it, it makes a lot more sense, after all a church is supposed to be a bright place of hope. Yet when we think about the middle ages we think about grimy and dark cathedrals. I wonder how much of our conception of history is shaped by our current visions of historical buildings.

Thank you!

Well, I'm a visual driven person. I need to see photos so i'd be for about 1 hour just scrolling through pinterest, for instance, everyday.

bc I've been drawing for quite some time, I learned that I don't follow my initial plans completely. I need to have a basic idea, of course, then, while drawing, the idea may change completely.

I use an app called Notion to organize most of my thoughts and ideas while having all of them in writing (even the abadoned ones). I'll give you an example.

The "idea" board is where I drop EVERYTHING that comes to my mind or any plan I have to write (I say "write" when I want to create a comic, rather than "illustrate"). You can see on "completed" how I put there just a little preview of what I wanted my latest comic of Ginny and Lily to be.

And you can also see one of the ideas I have for a future comic (and a alternative universe fanfic about the holyhead harpies).

penguin pingu classics

Stop abusing your boyfriends and yes what you are doing is abuse.

Stop:

Yelling at him in front of his friends 

Hitting or slapping him when he does or says something you don’t like

Telling him he doesn’t have a choice when it comes to decisions that involve both of you 

Telling him he can’t hang out with friends because you don’t like him

Telling him to not talk to other girls even if they are his friend

Forcing him to spend every moment with you 

Belittling him and pointing out all his flaws

Calling him stupid or making fun of him for making a mistake

Threatening to break up with him if he doesn’t do what you want

Being emotionally manipulative and crying until he does what you want

Accusing him of cheating every time he’s not with you

Blow up is phone if he doesn’t text you every five minutes 

Telling him you are the must thing that has ever happened to him and no one else will love

Physically attacking him when ever you are mad

Forcing him to have sex despite that fact that he said he didn’t want to

Invading his privacy by going through his phone

Getting mad at him for changing his password and demanding he tell you what it is

If a guy did any of these things to a girl it would be considered abuse but since its the other way around its considered normal. Throughout High school I saw many girl treating their boyfriends like shit. Sometime even physically abusing them in the hallways and no one trying to stop it because its a girl attacking a boy. 

Boys: If your girlfriend does anything on this list leave her. It is abuse and you deserve better.

You don’t deserve to be screamed at, ignored, or assaulted.

Being passive aggressive with him when he wants to spend time with friends or doing other things 

controlling when he’s able to go out with friends

Breaking up his friendships with other girls just because you’re insecure

Making him feel like his opinions in decisions that affect the both of you are irrelevant and don’t matter

SENDING HIS NUMBER TO STRANGERS TO TEST IF HE’S LOYAL OR NOT

testing him in anyway in general without his knowledge or permission (example: catfishing! it’s manipulative and weird don’t fucking do that)

taking money/credit cards without permission to spend on things without his knowledge ( had an ex friend do this constantly to her boyfriend and she’d always condone it because “he’ll get over it” )

guilting him for hanging out with friends/family over you  and making him choose between you and friends/family

telling him “you don’t love me if you *insert harmless activity he wants to do here* “

being rude or mean to him in front of others to assert dominance or power over him

downloading apps to spy on his phone activity (yes, this is a thing “”regular”” people do) or snooping on his social media to see who he’s talking to

hitting him, slapping him, punching him, shoving him. literally how do people not understand slapping your male partner is bad. people tend to find this funny in media and society and its weird. KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF YOUR PARTNER WITHOUT PERMISSION. 

and let me add this. ABUSIVE TEEN GIRLFRIENDS TURN INTO ABUSIVE GROWN ASS WOMEN GIRLFRIENDS WHO TURN INTO ABUSIVE WIVES.

if you have an abusive teen or young adult gf right now fellas, leave. don’t let her use you to get her shit right. you’ll be so fucked up by the time she gets it together if she ever does and believe that most likely she won’t.  

i’m not gonna spend forever on dialogue tags because i feel like we all likely have a general understanding on them, but

a dialogue tag is a group of words that precede, succeeds, or interrupt dialogue to indicate who is speaking. it’s important to correlate them with what is being said (“‘i love you,’ she snarled” doesn’t make as much sense as “‘i love you,’ she sighed,” does it? unless you’re taking enemies to lovers to the extreme ofc)

they should be used sparingly!! why? because they’re interruptions. they remind the reader that this story is narrated and therefore just that — a story. it becomes less immersive and real every time the reader is reminded of this.

when they’re used, try to be specific (so don’t just use “said” over and over again), but don’t rely on dialogue tags to express all the emotion. if they’re the only source of emotion, writing can feel chunky and very tell rather than show. no dialogue tag > expressive dialogue tag sometimes. also, “said” isn’t that bad! if the rest of your writing, from the narration to the dialogue itself, is expressing emotions properly, then the tag can be simple as “said.”

fox, what’s an action beat?

if most of what you’ve learned about writing is from school, chances are, you haven’t heard of this before. it’s okay, though, because i would be VERY surprised if you’ve never used them before either.

action beats serve many purposes, but their fundamental purpose is to break up dialogue. they’re short sentences that precede, succeeded, or interrupt dialogue just like dialogue tags. however, without being redundant and obvious (ex: “he said” “she said” “he cried” “she cried”), they actually can add information and depth while at the same time reminding/informing the reader who is speaking.

action beats tell of a character’s emotions, actions, thoughts, intentions while speaking. they also make sure the reader won’t get bored, because there is nothing worse than just pages after pages of straight dialogue.

so one function is to break voice. and interruption in the midst of a lot of speech, whether it is one-sided or multi-sided. it adds rhythm so that the writing isn’t just a bunch of dialogue and some dialogue tags.

“Did you find the book?” Frida asks hopefully.

“No,” he mutters. After a moment of thick silence, he goes on. “It wasn’t there. I found all his other books, even the ones he never finished writing, but...”

“Oh. Well, I’m sure it’ll be at the next library.”

“You said that last time.”

“And I’ll say it next time.”

“So you don’t think we’ll find it next time either?”

She looks away and closes her eyes, knowing that Kevin’s frustrated and trying to get the same reaction out of her. One of them had to hold hope. “We’ll find it. Now sit down. Janet brought lunch while you were gone.”

another function is to convey emotion and indicate mood without using extraneous adverbs and dialogue tags that ultimately don’t add anything or progress the story.

“Can you stop?! Can you stop it with all the hopeful monologues and stupid, stupid empowering little speeches?!” Kevin throws his fork down on the table with a loud profanity. “Just... let me be upset for a moment!”

action beats can also solve what we like to call white room syndrome or talking heads syndrome. it places the conversation into a setting so that we can imagine what’s around them rather than two floating heads in a blank room.

Frida looks out the window of her room. “I hope you’re here to apologize.” She watches his reflection in the dark glass. He’s standing by her door, looking as pitiful as her meager attempt to decorate the walls.

action beats often say what the character won’t. they indicate when the character is lying by showing rather than telling.

“I promise I won’t.” Kevin crosses his fingers behind his back, giving her a sincere smile. “I won’t go looking for the book again until we figure out what to do about Mark.”

and, lastly, the most obvious function, dialogue beats tell us who is talking without using tags!

“You lied to me!”

“What did you expect?”

“I expected you to keep your promises!” Frida wipes away her tears with a furious scowl. “I expected you not to betray me. All of us!”