The Introverted Detective

Researching characters using real people you know is a fine line and involves a lot of playing dumb, as well as making sure you don't smash that like button. Writers, we've all done it. Even people who aren't writers do this out of boredom. Let's look at where the fine line is - you know, the one you cross and people start suddenly screaming.  Photo by  Social Media Marketing - RG Pacific Stalking is defined as: 1. to pursue or approach stealthily (hunting and animals,  so unrelated to us) 2. harass and persecute someone with unwanted and obsessive attention 3. stride somewhere with a proud, stiff, angry manner ("she stalked off into the room.") Only one of those definitions should be avoided by researching writers. The online definition of this is getting hazy due to social media. You can now look months back into someone's profile in a mere click or two. Technically, it is public information if posted on a public profile. You don't need much more tha...

 Shaping devices are nothing new. They were also complicated. Some people also misused them or gave them a bad name. Not everyone tight-laced and most did not. After some deeper research on the topic, I'm going into the upsides and downsides of corsets. I did some deeper diving into this. While there are downsides to this type of support, they were not as toxic as some humans portrayed them. Part of the reason for this is that we see people in edited photos and forget that padding was sold for body shaping. Also, women-owned businesses were often in the fashion industry and men going against suffragettes did not like that. That doesn't mean all women liked corsets, but those going against them screamed their message to the world.  Modern corsetry is careful to size corsets to you, but way back when they sized them, too. Waist training is common now. Wearing corsets for cosplay is also common. Cosplayers will tell you to only wear them for so long. People with back problems wea...

 Life below the stairs during the Victorian era was not glamorous. If you think working for the public in a restaurant or store puts you in contact with ungrateful people, consider what the servants of the ungrateful rich dealt with. Service jobs were done by "inferiors" who were supposed to be invisible unless needed. If you were treated well you were lucky, but not everyone worked for people as nice as the Bridgertons.  To be clear I am not talking about slavery. This is paid servanthood that is not forced. This is comparable to being an employee in personal maid services or a kitchen worker (though today you won't be treated like you are inferior unless you have a crappy boss). The rich employed people to bend to their every whim. While Cinderella may have technically been a slave, most domestic servants were paid money. If they weren't it was slavery. The Roles and Duties The wages of servants were different based on roles. The butler had the benefit because he ha...

 As a Nancy Drew gamer, puzzles are an everyday part of my life. I think I'd go insane if I didn't have a jigsaw puzzle going or didn't have a game to play. I have so many sudoku books in my possession I may never finish them all. Today I'm going to talk about every type of puzzle I can and how to do them, including tips and tricks to solving them.  Chris Ramsay and others on Youtube have channels that explore solving physical puzzles. So many Nancy Drew gamers stream and post on Youtube it'd take you months to watch them all. Markiplier and others play a variety of strange and fun games (horror and otherwise) consistently and for charity. Youtube is a treasure trove of people who solve puzzles for a living or just for Youtube in their spare time. I'll let you look these people up later, but for now, we'll start with categories of puzzles.  The categories of puzzles I'll talk about today are physical, numbers, letters and words, logic, and jigsaw. Physic...

I talked about fallen women already here , but we have yet to talk about the shame connected with being an illegitimate child. What happens when it isn't your fault you were born outside of marriage? Let's find out.  Photo by legalnaija.com First of all, you couldn't inherit any title or anything. Daughter of a duke? Means nothing. No status or inheritance for you. Basically, you would be a dirty secret that got swept under the rug by most people. Even if you didn't have a parent with a title it was bad. You represented the sin of your mother. Some women ditched their children at churches in the area in order to spare themselves shame. Some even killed their own children. The term for an illegitimate child is still in use today as an insult - bastard. At this point in time, you do not have to endure abuse for being born out of wedlock (thankfully for many children), but it has not always been so.  Society's Flawed View  The father was considered the leader of the ho...

 Writers and artists are probably the kings and queens of procrastination. We get distracted and end up somewhere on our social media scrolling or end up on Pinterest (where we originally went for inspiration). I am guilty of this all the time. Today we're going to explore how to create a writing routine that keeps you consistently writing and on track. This can go for artists, too. Photo by greatspeechwriting.co.uk A writing routine becomes a habit once you create it and use it consistently. I am not perfect by any means, yet I have finished drafts faster than I thought I would because I didn't wait for the muse to show up. I just wrote, whether it was a paragraph or a whole chapter. You can't wait for the muse to appear if you actually intend to go somewhere with your writing or art form. You'd never get anything finished if you did that. As for editing, the same goes. Editing is exhausting. You need to schedule breaks in and schedule out what you are doing to your dr...

 I have long hair. When down and out of the braid I keep it in, it nearly hits my waist. I quite literally have it up or in a braid almost all week, with the exception of when I wash it. Today I have found some nifty tips on what to do with super long hair.  Photo by The Freckled Fox In the general sense, thick long hair is great to have, yet takes work to take care of. I love my hair being long and it makes different hairstyles possible. I only wash it once a week and have my husband braid it (because he's so good at making the braid last) to keep it from tangling. Even then it tangles after five or so days of being up. I sleep in this braid, for reference. (If I'm not supposed to do that, well, too bad. I work in foodservice. It makes it easier to wear a hairnet.) I did some research on how we're supposed to care for long hair. This is everything that I found.  General Care When you brush your hair go from the bottom to the top, working your way up. It doesn't rip out...