quotemyfoot

Just for my own reference...

A Cry for Help	Heirs	Epistolary fic: Emails, letters etc.	Cowboy AU	Supernatural Elements
Slow Build	Kishotenketsu (Plot Without Conflict)	Plays and Scripts	Fix-its	Space AU
Spells and Geases	There is No Escape	Wild Card	Pirate AU	Film Noir
Relative values: Families	Mirror, mirror: Doppelgangers, clones and evil doubles	Reincarnation	Internet / Social Media	A Moment of Calm Contemplation
A New Start	Best Friends	A Test of Worthiness	Steampunk AU	Enemies

Courtesy of Gen Prompt Bingo!

LAST UPDATED: 15th Sept '11

Because... I am kinda losing track of all the things I've filled, so... list time! :D

Mostly oldest -> newest order.

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Part Six
 
( "Get backup. Quickly." )

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Part Four
 
( "There is nothing wrong." )

Return to Masterlist

I've been at a point in my life for about, oh, a month or two now where I'm just on the edge of going to do something really wonderful, and don't get me wrong or anything, I am super excite for this change in my life -- but the wait? Is getting old.

I mean, I'm leaving for uni a week tomorrow. Maybe it's because I'm tired right now but I just don't even feel that nervous about it right now. Just... the wait is so boring. I can't really do anything worthwhile here because hey, I'll be leaving soon, what's the point? Except for the reading list of many books that I have yet to work through. However, I'm trying to work through the important ones so I don't look like a total ass at least.

Uuuugh. Why can't I just do anything anymore? I mean I've always been a lazy procrastinator but this is really taking it to a whole new level. Do I just not work well outside of a school setting? I keep wondering if I'm going to get to uni and it'll turn out that I just can't function there because hey, lazy procrastinator who needs outside pressure to do her work and doesn't always do it even then. What if I'm just not cut out for the way they do things at uni? The possibility is frightening because I literally have nothing else to do with my life.

Oxford's been the thing I've been working towards for the past year and I didn't even work that hard for it to be truthful, but now I'm guaranteed a place there and it's just... blah. I don't know. I need a new motivation. Maybe I just need a personality transplant. I don't know what to do when things aren't easy.

What am I going to do with my life? I turned 19 two days ago and I don't know what I want to do with my future. Or rather I know what I'd like to do, I just doubt I have the ability to actually do it. Or not even the ability, I don't have the drive. Although I don't know, maybe I don't have the ability either.

Such a long and pointless ramble. This probably doesn't make any goddamn sense either. Blarggh. It would be nice if I had somebody to talk to about this but they'd just say the same things they always say and I didn't believe them the first million times. Apparently you're not allowed to worry about anything if you're clever. Unfortunately I don't work like that.

35k+

Almost 80 pages now that I've actually split the thing into chapters.

But... it's done. It's finished. I've written the last lines, even though I'm actually not too happy with that bit and will probably want my beta to have a gooood look at it. But it's done.

This is the first piece of non-oneshot fiction I have ever finished... ever.

...

...I'm too tired to just sit here in bask, I should be in bed, but I had to write this first:

I can do it. I can finish things. It is possible. I am not a hopeless case as a writer.

Take that, self.

(Not Big Brother.)


I should probably stop making Surge a mother hen but it's so much fun I can't even help it. I should definitely stop procrastinating by, for example, making LJ entries that no one is going to read.


In my defence, I am still fully intending to stick to that promise of finishing this draft before August, and I actually really kinda desperately need to finish it in that time because I have a whole bunch of books that I must at least skim read because GUESS WHAT GUYS MY EXAM RESULTS WERE AWESOME AND AMAZING AND MADE ME SQUEE LIKE MAD OH AND THEY ALSO MEAN I AM GOING TO MOTHERFUCKING OXFORD UNIVERSITY.


NOTHING HURTS FOREVER.



This shit also got me a free drink last night. It was a great day.

Lame title, idec, the pun was begging to be made. Also, I remembered I have a journal, I am totes proud. Also, I have found a use for it! I can blog about the books on my reading list, so my notes will exist online and also in one tidy place. Using lj for social stuff? What? PFFFFT.

Shirley is the story - primarily - of Caroline Helstone, niece of the town's cold and distant Rector, and Shirley Keeldar, heiress of the local manor because her parents didn't have a son. It's a Charlotte Bronte, is obviously there is romance, but the real point of the novel is highlighting the struggles - across a few classes - of the early Industrial Revolution, and basically saying how everyone was an idiot back then. Well, no, that's unfair. Bronte is certainly sympathetic to the plight of the working classes, but she also focusses on the trials of mill-owner Robert Moore. He gets more and more in debt in an effort to keep his business going, finally only able to create success with the end of some anti-trading legislation or other (the name escapes me, okay, it had to do with the Napoleonic Wars).

There's a good bit of politics in there as well, from characters like Moore, who only care about politics as far as it affects them, to Hiram Yorke, an admirer of the French Jacobins, and the Rector Matthewson Helstone, who is, I imagine, the setting's version of nationalist right-wing. All of these characters have their faults and positives - no strawmen! Hurrah! - and the political beliefs of all of them turn out to have flaws when applied to the problems of the time - I think Mr. Yorke's was the best, in that light, overall, but I don't really recall and, anyway, the politics is downplayed somewhat, so I image Bronte included it to a) show the different (popular) views of the time fairly and b) show political people that, look guys, even the opposition is human, so play nice, okay?

Of course, being a Bronte novel, feminism is a powerful theme. For the most part, I enjoyed the feminist themes here more than in Jane Eyre - Jane is a pretty modern character, it's true, but she doesn't come up against characters quite as misogynist as Joe Scott, who says without shame that women cannot understand politics or religious doctrine enough to talk about it, and that every man is allowed to hold his own opinion but women should hold only the opinions of their husband. WTF?! Even Rector Helstone, who is overall a decent guy, had his wife die of misery because she was a woman and therefore not worth attention, and his niece almost suffered the same fate. It took him months to notice that she was depressed as all hell. Whuut. To be fair, I think characters like Joe Scott were unusual even for the time, because Shirley (Shirley Keeldar, who dares to manage her estate like a man!) just laughs at him. It's very interesting to see the two strong females of the novel (Caroline and Shirley, though Caroline is strong in the sense of persevering through the suffering of women, and Shirley in the sense that she is a woman with privilege and a social position) react to these sorts of things.

Lastly, there's religion/nature. I didn't pay as much attention to this, I admit, but it's clear that Bronte ties them together through things like Shirley's near-worship of the countryside. There's also that odd little bit in the epilogue where Robert tears down most of the forest on his land. Religion itself isn't harped on quite so much as in Jane Eyre - there are the three curates, Sweeting, Donne and Malone (in order from best to worst, and the last of whom, amusingly, is also Irish), and the three Rectors: Hall, Helstone, and Dr. Somethingorother who is old. Bronte definitely uses this large number of priests to showcase the various characters in the Anglican Church - Helstone is specifically stated to have chosen the wrong professon; he would have been far better as a soldier. He's a hard sort of character and, as reflected in his treatment of niece Caroline, not what I would call compassionate. That said, he's presented in a largely positive light as a priest - not perfect for the position, maybe, but he serves in it admirably, and certainly better than Malone, who is a coward, a drunkard, and a bit of a twat for good measure. He only really looks that bad at all because we've got Hall, who is the perfect priest and the type of guy who would be everyone's favourite grandfather. It probably helps that I imagine him as Bernard Cribbins.

Overall: Shirley is wonderful. I like it better than Jane Eyre. It's also cemented Charlotte Bronte as one of my favourite authors - if I didn't have a bunch of other stuff to read (loltwentybooks), her other novels would definitely be on my list. I need to give Anne and Emily a look sometime.
As to how accurate - the novel is set some 30 years before the writing. It certainly wouldn't have been hard for Bronte to find people alive during the time, and most of the social stuff is probably pretty accurate, but I imagine that the lack of distance makes some of the historical stuff unreliable.
Also, the first book to make me cry since The Book Thief. ;-;

Well if I wasn't in love with Becker before, I would be now. He took his shirt off. Best episode ever, omfg. So much fucking h/c with the poisoning and the bleeding, I cannot even deal. OMG, I WANT A BECKER PLZKTHNX.

Other amazing things in this episode: LESTER, YOU BAMF YOU. Phillip being a douche but oh god he is so brilliantly on the douchebaggery wagon, there should be laws made. If he is a real villain i will give the writers the thumbsdown of shame for being so obv, not even kidding, he has to be a well intentioned extremeist at least. Also, JESS' REACTION TO THE GIRL'S DEATH darling my heart goes out to you. Even worse when you remember she is 19, there's like what 5 years between her and that girl? Less? actually do love jess now.

Not so amazing things: Connor/Abby conflict. Look, Abster, I can see you being upset, but how was Connor supposed to help save the creatures when he was busy saving some kids and THE motherfucking becker, jesus woman calm the fuck down. I mean you fell for him when he couldn't talk his way out of a paper bag, you expected him to be different now why? Not that this excuses you Mr Temple, Burton just said 'kill rex!' and you were NOT all 'hey dude that is not cool', what. If there is an issue I expected you to come down HARD on Abby's side of things, it would be this one. Look i am calling ooc on this okay, deal with it.

But at the end of the day: Becker, minus a shirt. Winnerrr.