What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.
--Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
chevergreen
Source details and larger version.
I’ve collected quite a few vintage dragons – see what treasures they’re guarding!
Money money money
Victor Servranckx (Belgian, 1897-1965) - Opus 9 (1931)
The Trophy Hunter
Their crowns may gleam, but they are dust, Built on tales and borrowed trust.
Today I cried a little bit because I remembered that when Beethoven conducted his ninth symphony for the first time he got a standing ovation and one of the sopranos had to turn him around to see the audience.
welcome to my puddle of water themed birthday
I'm a really big fan of the way demons were, for some time, depicted as being covered in beastly faces. Especially on their torso. Thinking up a tattoo in that style. Would you know of a collection of examples? Or some particularly interesting sources? Trying to collect them for inspiration.
gastrocephalic demons my beloved! idk of any collections but here are of some of my favs, all from 15th or 16th c. manuscripts 😌
signatures & links to the digitized manuscripts (in order): Hannover, GWLB, Ms I 57, fol. 27v // Solothurn, ZB, Cod. S II 43, fol. 367v // Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 134, fol. 99r // Paris, BnF, Latin 1171, fol. 71r // Munich, BSB, Cgm 48, fol. 95r // Luzern, ZHB, Msc. 39. fol., fol. 71v // Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 134, fol. 95v // Paris, BnF, Français 1537, fol. 54r // Gotha, Forschungsbibl., Cod. Chart. A 594, fol. 73v // Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 3085, fol. 196r // Berlin, SBB, Ms. germ. fol. 245, fol. 56v // Paris, BnF, Latin 1171, fol. 56r // Munich, BSB, Clm 28345, fol. 109r // Paris, BnF, Français 166, fol. 139r // Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 134, fol. 67v // Augsburg, UB, Cod. I.3.8º 1, fol. 150v // LA, Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig XV 9, fol. 280r // Valenciennes, Médiathèque Simone Veil, 244 (234), fol. 27r // Paris, BnF, Français 166, fol. 79v //Nürnberg, STN, Cent. V, App. 34a, fol. 114r // Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 134, fol. 83r
mom called me a fag yesterday by accident
made some fallout new vegas tattoo designs 🤠
*please ask for permission to use them first! inbox is wide open*
Finally some good food
Rick Riordan's Writing Tips
Rick Riordan:
Taste is subjective, and opinions differ about what "good writing" looks like. Most of us have read a bestseller or two and wondered, "How did this thing get published?" Nevertheless, I would argue that most work does not get published unless it demonstrates a certain level of technical competence. The grammar is correct. The prose is readable. I would further argue that most manuscripts are rejected because the writing is not technically competent. The manuscript never stands a chance because the writer simply doesn't know the craft of writing well enough. If you write well, you have already set yourself apart from 99% of what agents and editors see every day. Below are some notes on what I call "sentence level competence" — the ability to craft prose at the most basic level. These tips reflect the most common problems I've observed in unpublished manuscripts.
Sentence focus — the subjects of all clauses should be appropriate to the content of the sentence.
Favor the concrete over the abstract, the antecedent over the pronoun.
Example: It was a sunny day. (the subject "it" is boring and vague.)
Better: The sky was brilliant blue. (Here the subject is sky, which is what the sentence was supposed to be about.)
If you are writing a sentence about a guy named Fred, the subject in the sentence should be (surprise!) Fred.
Exercise
Go through a page of prose and underline your own subjects.
How many are abstract?
How many of your sentences are truly focused?
Be sure the modifier refers to the right thing.
The modifier should refer to the closest noun.
Confusing modifiers will trip up the reader, consciously or subconsciously.
By the same token, pronouns should have clear antecedents.
Always place the modifier as close to the subject as possible.
Example: Can you help other writers who are writing books like me? (I got this question recently. I understand what the person is saying, but 'like me' follows the word 'books' so he is implying, without meaning to, that there are people producing books that look like him.)
Better: Can you help other writers like me who are writing books?
Exercise
Color-code a page of your manuscript, making each phrase and clause a different color.
Match up dependent clauses and phrases with their modifiers.
Avoid getting your modifier too far away from the thing being modified.
Choose your details carefully.
A description should be vivid, but surgically precise.
The detail must be given for a reason, and have a logical connection to the plot or advancement of character.
Avoid long "grocery lists" of details.
For a paragraph-length description, offer a uniting theme — an extended metaphor — to give the details cohesion.
Example: He was six feet tall, three hundred pounds, with brown hair, small brown eyes, a big nose and big fists. He wore jeans and a muscle shirt. He looked angry. (this is way too much description for the reader to keep track of, and it is offered as a random list)
Better: He looked like a rhino, ready to charge. (then you can pick a few details that reinforce the image of a rhino)
Exercise
Go through a chapter and delete all adjectives and adverbs.
Read through, then add some back in sparingly.
You may find you can do with less than before.
Clauses or phrases that are part of a list should be similar in structure.
Unparallel constructions are awkward and difficult to read, even if the reader can't put her finger on the exact problem.
Example: He likes dogs, hiking in the woods and reads books a lot. (Dogs is a single noun, hiking in the woods is a participial phrase, reads books a lot is a simple predicate. These are all totally different things. Make them the same, and the sentence will flow much better.)
Better: He likes walking his dog, hiking in the woods, and reading lots of books.
Exercise
Try constructing your descriptions in parallel units — absolutes, infinitives, adjectives.
Source
Rising Waters by Lou Benesch
All the online writing advice is how to create characters, plots, names, tropes, arcs, but never anything about grammar! I want to know how to structure a sentence!!!!
"Look into the sky and see the pattern..."
tailleferlivinghistory
song of the summer (via muco_0 on tiktok)
hi we animated the club penguin dance in a power outage yesterday
twitter - insta - youtube
El Ciclop, per Odilon Redon. Oli en cartó muntat en panell, 65'8 x 52'7 cm; c. 1914.
Yes yes yes yes
Here's some of the @jstor articles I've found really interesting in this line of study:
From my gender/sex variance studies
Erecting Sex: Hermaphrodites and the Medieval Science of Surgery
Mary or Michael? Saint-Switching, Gender, and Sanctity in a Medieval Miracle of Childbirth
The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest Christianity
Transvestites in the Middle Ages
Two Cases Of Female Cross-Undressing In Medieval Art And Literature
Concerning Sex Changes: The Cultural Significance of a Renaissance Medical Polemic
Relating to disability
Sitting on the Sidelines: Disability in Malory
A Dwarf in King Arthur's Court: Perceiving Disability in Arthurian Romance
Disability and Dreams in the Medieval Icelandic Sagas
The Disabled and the Monstrous: Examples from Medieval Spain
Relating to sexuality
Sexual Fluidity “Before Sex"
The Disclosure of Sodomy in Cleanness
"Be more strange and bold": Kissing Lepers and Female Same-Sex Desire in "The Book of Margery Kempe
I will continue to update this list of sources as I find pertinent articles!
Your mileage may vary on these, not all of these have the most tactful or respectful dialogues but I found them interesting.
what's with that yellow filter you put over everything?
it's a new thing called "paper"
I can’t believe the wolf man movie just got announced as I’m LITERALLY writing the exact same premise for my medieval horror book!! ARGH!!!
I wish books were structured like classical music
Literally me, it’s all wiki pages💀
“you’re a writer, right?”
me, staring at the one sentence i’ve managed to add in the last hour and the 12 open tabs on the specifics of shoes in 1845 Ireland: In theory.
Source details and larger version.
Howl at my collection of vintage wolf imagery.