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elucubrare · 11 months

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What are your biggest turn-offs when reading/watching historical fiction or retellings of myths?

this is really complicated - i can put it in two boxes, both of which are packed very full.

disconnection from the material reality of the past

when characters display a very specifically modern mindset (about social issues especially, but other stuff too)

(I also get bothered by some kinds of modern language - I don't mind it when, idk, an author uses "sensible" with the modern connotation of "practical" and not the 18th century "emotional" or "empathetic", but "yeah" or "okay," or even, as i found out when someone used it in medieval fantasy, "holy shit" will get on my nerves.)

there are modern things where (made up example!) a character who's supposed to be a cook will talk about making caprese salad for a fancy restaurant in December, and someone snarking on the book will say "yeah, right, they should know better than to make something that depends on a fresh summer vegetable!" and even with greenhouses, that's pretty fair. and that's even more extreme in the past. it's 1650 in Verona, it's December, you cannot obtain fresh tomatoes. i don't think this means that people in the past were, necessarily, more emotionally or spiritually in tune with the cycle of the year, or the labor it took to get clothes, or furniture, or any other material item, and of course wealth can insulate people from some of that difficulty, but it does mean that the seasons had more direct impact on people's lives. It's possible to, for example, buy clothes ready-made, but for anything fancy, it's more likely that it'll be made to fit if it's new, or altered extensively and painstakingly if it's not. that means that tearing or staining a fancy dress isn't just an issue of looking bad - you can't just replace it, and you probably won't throw it out - you figure out how to reuse it. those concerns of access to material goods are just a lot closer to the surface of the world than they often are now.

my objections to modern attitudes about the world are not that people in the past 100% accepted the views of their contemporaries - there were always people who didn't, and it makes sense that a protagonist would be one of them. but people wouldn't phrase those objections in the same way that modern people would - say your main character doesn't want a woman accused of being a witch burned. "God's power is such that the Devil cannot give this woman the ability to sour milk" is most likely going to be more persuasive to the crowd than "witches aren't real." and sometimes that's rough - it's not super fun to read about a Roman with Roman attitudes about provincial wars, or slavery in the city, but I put something down because a Roman character said (in internal dialogue) that he was disgusted to see that a man had been tortured because "Romans simply didn't do that." Historical Romans did do that, routinely - a slave could not testify in a law court unless they had been tortured. Even with distasteful things like that, I'd much rather it just be glossed over than to have them say the "correct" modern thing. It just makes it feel too much like the theme park version of the culture.

Both of these are because of specific things I come to historical fiction for - I want that sense of alienation, the gulf of experience. I hate that most historical fiction (and fantasy set in semi-recognizable periods) characters don't really care about Honor, except as a joke, because I love when characters organize their lives around arcane rules and systems that cause tiny things to escalate into blood feud. I just think they're neat! I like it when people's worldviews are shaped by their lack of scientific certainty about what causes crops to fail! If I wanted to read about people who thought and acted like me, and had lives that were mostly similar to mine, only cooler, I'd just read contemporary fiction.

#my thoughts on...

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grison-in-space · 7 days

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Man, there is a huge bias in the way that hobby fibercrafters approach and think about textiles—and I say that as a hobby fibercrafter myself! See, weaving has a high barrier to entry relative to knitting, crochet, spinning—even embroidery or sewing, these days, as the sewing machine automated much of the tedium of the craft. All of those crafts require a lot less in terms of startup costs to the hobby crafter than the machinery of a loom does.

But... look, if you want to understand mass produced textiles or textiles in any historical context, you have to understand weaving. If you want to understand how most of the cloth that people wear is made, you have to understand weaving, because weaving is the oldest art for mass producing cloth that can then be turned into garments.

Spinning is also very important, of course. Spinning is how you get the thread that you can turn into cloth any number of ways. Historically speaking, though, the most common way that thread or yarn becomes cloth is inarguably weaving. More to the point, weaving is also a historical center of industry and labor organizing. Ironically enough for the argument about how no one asked a woman, the industrialization of weaving is actually an interesting early case example of men organizing to push women out of a newly profitable position.

Besides that, knitting and crocheting in particular are incredibly modern crafts. Most modern knitting as we would understand the craft is shaped by the inventions of Elizabeth Zimmerman, and even things like the circular knitting needle date back only to the past century. Historically speaking, the great innovation of knitting as a tool for fiber craft is the ability to construct garments for small, odd shapes that can stretch and grip: stockings, gloves, underwear. Even that great innovation, the knit sweater, is an artifact of the 1850s—and the familiar cable knit sweaters of the Aran Isles are even newer than that. Crochet is even younger: the entire craft originated in the 1820s as far as anyone can document.

None of that is any shade on anyone. Like I said, I knit; that's the locus of my personal interest in textiles. I just think that textile history is neat, but if you're going to make big pronouncements about the historical development of textiles, it's important to think about what changed about the technology of textile production in the most common ways of turning raw fiber into cloth—and you cannot stop at the level of understanding how to make thread or yarn, because the properties of the cloth are always going to be an artifact of the construction of the cloth.

That's technology, baby! It's literally weavecraft. But it's not obvious that weaving is missing from the bounds of a person's experience with textile manipulation until and unless they're trying to understand and work with a wide range of fabric types—and when you can quite reasonably go from raw fiber to a finished garment using modern popular craft techniques that don't rely on anything that appears difficult for a medieval craftsman to make, it's easy to forget the role of weaving in the creation of cloth as a finished product.

I suppose the point I am making is: think deeply about what your own areas of expertise are not bringing to your understanding of history. It's easier to miss things you'd think.

#textiles #fabric #fibercraft #history #technology

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lotus-n-l0ve · 10 months

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𝐈 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐌𝐲 𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬

— Kyojuro Rengoku x Oiran!Reader

SYNOPSIS : Falling in love is a sin that you didn't want to commit but when he is Kyojuro Rengoku, what can you do?

WARNINGS : Historical au, prostitution, Tengen is not married, mention of sex, cursing, open ending, a little angst, 0.6k words.

LOTUS'S NOTE : I was reading a lot of Rengoku smut today and just couldn't stop myself but write this fic. The fic title is from the song 'Seven' by Jeon Jungkook. I'm so bad at writing notes. Reposting this for the seventeenth time and I am not exaggerating (⁠٥⁠↼⁠_⁠↼⁠).

𝐍𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 // 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐑 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

Falling in love was the worst sin you could have committed. Oirans were not allowed to fall in love, in fact they were not allowed to have any kind of feelings. They sell their body and that's their business. Having any kind of emotions other than hunger for money is an inconvenience. But you dared to commit the painful crime. You fell in love, that too with a customer and how could you not?

Between the mass of beautiful women and men, your eyes fell on a pair of blazing ones. He was easy to spot. Where everyone else was having fun, choosing who to disappear with, he looked like a lost soul there. Anyone who takes a look at him could tell that it was his first time and had no prior experience.

However the tall, white haired man beside him seemed to be a pro. How he talked to everyone, his attitude, his confidence was enough proof. The blazing eyes, as if feeling your stare, turned in your direction and fell on your sitting form. The eye contact raised a different kind of emotion in your heart. What is this feeling?

The man beside him followed his eyes' direction and saw you. With an encouraging and proud grin, the white haired man nudged him your way. And that's how it all started. "Kyojuro Rengoku" that's what he introduced himself as, with a smile that can give a competition to the sun.

As the night went deep, you escorted the man to your personal bedroom. Not to be cliche but he was different from the other men you had entertained before. One after another article of clothing came off, exposing yourself to each other.

Even if all you did was, as usual, have sex, his touch didn't make you feel dirty. He looked at you like you were the most beautiful woman to ever exist. His warm and rough hand traced every line on your body with passion while yours marked his back with scratches. His lips colour you in the most alluring colour. In the end you were so dazed that at the end you fell into slumber without any fight.

The next morning you woke up with a clean body, instead of the usual sticky one, tucked safely under the warm duvet. A note filled out with neat cursive words spelling the most beautiful words anyone had ever said. At the end he wrote, 'See you soon, till the goodbye.' beside it was a cartoon-ish drawing of a crow.

You burst out in laughter. Who writes this kind of things to an oiran? He said see you soon. Does that mean he will come again?

From that morning all you could think about was Rengoku. From the loud cheers of children outside to the orange hue of sunset, everything reminded you of him. You had entertained many customers after that day but everytime you unconsciously tried to find the Hashira in them.

He returned two weeks later, this time without that tall friend. The events repeated again. You escorted him to your room, helped each other out of the clothes and got lost in each other. This time, unlike the previous one, you were desperate to feel him against you, for him to make you feel like you are not worthless.

These events repeated again and again, and each time you were more eager to see the flame hashira. His visits were not constant. Sometimes he would come twice a week and sometimes he would disappear for months. Nights that you spent fucking turned into sharing about your days and passionate love making.

Even before you knew it you were in love. In love with the flame hashira. But it was not a luxury that you could afford. You were an oiran, a sex worker, a whore and on the other hand he was a well respected and well loved hashira, everyone's hero.

All the rights and credits of the characters, gifs, songs and pictures used here belongs to their rightful owners.

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francy-sketches · 5 months

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sharing my collection of historical fashion books I've been hoarding for anyone who needs it 🫶 keep in mind this is just meant to be a visual library for art purpouses which is why there's coloring books in there lol

a couple of these are too big for drive to open them so you're gonna have to download them its safe tho I prommy

the hats one is also here btw its slightly better resolution+its divided into time periods which I think is neat

#art references #??? idk what to tag this as #I think I've shared some of these before idk I cant find the post #but whatever have the whole thing. I'll probably keep adding stuff to it. my little hoarding pile

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peasantexchangeprogram · 12 days

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helloo since we're on the topic: top historical fiction (or adjacent) ? can be any time period I just really love your taste in shows/games/etc and am always on the lookout for history inspired media !

thank you!!! im rly glad im like. inspiring other ppl to engage w things im insane abt hudofajsdfdassfsad. anyways. i will probably expand that list bc i literally forgot every single thing i ever read. also i havent watched that many movies so far

ancient times: i havent really watched a lot of movies/series set in ancient times so far :(

rome HBO (2005-2007) (tv series) - OF COURSE. i personally think its one of the best series ever made. they combine political, miliatry history with the lives of every day people in an incredible way. they never let you once engage with the series through modern lenses. according to my teacher (a historian, archeologist & self described 'romaphile') its incredibly historically accurate, mostly the clothing, set designs, characterization, military practices, etc. except for the things they straight up made up, of course.

i really enjoyed gladiator (2000), i think its a masterpiece.

prince of egypt (1998) i guess?

all the asterix movies of course, all the animated ones and most of the live actions. but i wouldnt really call it historical fiction

ok i havent actually finished watching it for now but sebastiane (1976) - an erotic, x rated, gay interpretation of the martyrdom of st sebastian. its in latin also.

wait i cant believe i forgor about assassin's creed odyssey - so far the only one ive played. its so fun and incredibly immersive visually. especially pour moi who cries into the pillow about how ill never experience the ancient world. also you can b a faggot which is always fun. i have things to say about their portrayal of same-sex sexuality and slavery in classical greece but i get why they did that considering its supposed to like. appeal to a lot of people, and a more "historically accurate" portrayal (for example of pederasty or how common slavery was etc.) would b v difficult for a lot of their target audience. alas.

medieval and early modern era:

the name of the rose (1986) - my medieval history teacher literally showed us bits of this movie to teach us about monasteries and monks fhdosiasdjasd.

the borgias (2011-2013) - incredibly messy, lots of political intrigue, and so so fun to watch. about the history of the borgia family. filled to the brim with drama.

the three musketeers (1993) - my favorite adaptation, also coincidentally the one i grew up on. casting tim curry as richelieu was genius. he slays so hard.

i also like bbc's the musketeers (2014-2016) - a neat little series. very fun and entertaining to watch.

outlaw king (2018) - like i dont think most ppl heard of this movie. its about robert the bruce's fight to reclaim the throne of scotland. starring chris pine

vikings (2013-2020) - its fun. i havent watched the entire series tho. dont expect anything resembling historical accuracy

the northman (2022) - you will see something resembling historical accuracy

mihai viteazul (michael the brave) (1971) - a fun movie. very much romanian propaganda tho.

1670 (2023-) - such a fun series!!! incredible cast, shows respect to the actual history and the lives of historical people. really cute and funny.

caravaggio (1986) - a biopic about caravaggio.

wait i also forgor about pentiment - an intriguing, immersive, and incredibly beautiful video game! it has a lot of 'the name of the rose' vibes, with it being a medieval murder mystery taking place in a monastery. its incredibly touching and made me cry, and in the last few years i very rarely cry. also im 99% sure its an indie game? go support the creators!

vaguely-medieval/early modern fantasy:

mirror mirror (2012) - a retelling of snow white. a very fun movie imo, with incredible costume design. julia roberts plays the evil queen and she SLAYS. armie hammer is unfortunately in that movie.

stardust (2007) - one of my fave movies growing up. more modern-inspired but still.

the green knight (2021) - controversial i know but i actually loved this movie! i liked it both as a standalone movie but moreso as a 21st century adaptation to sir gawain and the green knight.

galavant (2015-2016) - !!!!!!! one of the most series ever! they manage to tackle such difficult concepts and conversations with a hilarious wit. so fun to watch. i listen to a lot of the songs still, and rewatch every once in a while.

disenchantment (2018-2023) - very fun to watch, especially the first season.

i also really liked the novel uprooted by naomi novik. its a polish-inspired fantasy.

modern era:

killers of the flower moon (2023) - of course. a masterpiece

aferim! (2015) - a romanian movie set in 19th century wallachia, about two officers, a father and son, who were sent by a nobleman to retrieve an escaped enslaved romani man. a lot of the people in the comments were calling the movie humorous and funny, maybe im missing smth (as im watching with subtitles n dont understand the original language) but it was a very difficult watch for me??

the handmaiden (2016) - need i say more

black sails (2014-2017) - a prequel to the famous novel 'treasure island'. not an easy series to watch. incredibly good.

the favourite (2018) - need i say more pt 2

the rabbi's cat (le chat du rabbin) (2011) - animated movie set in early 20th century algeria. a rabbi's cat learns to talk overnight.

the nice guys (2016) - a fun murder mystery set in the 1970s

o brother, where art thou (2000) - a retelling of the odyssey set in the southern us in the 1930s

victor/victoria (1982) - set in early 20th century paris. julie andrews pretends to be a man and takes on a job as a drag queen. extremely fun, extremely gay movie.

lady chatterley's lover (2022) - very much porn for moms but it was a nice watch imo

amulet (2020) - set in like. idk. sometime in the 20th century. this is a horror movie, deals a lot with misogyny, sa, and so on. i really like it, personally. a lot of people, mostly weird men, dont tho.

the great (2020-2023) - i have mixed feelings about this show. on the one hand, its really fun to watch. on the other hand, its basically ofmd for girls who have public mental breakdowns whenever someone claims corsets were oppressive. and theyre so weird about russians, jesus christ.

disses:

domina (2021-) - i just couldnt get into it, esp since i tried right after finishing rome hbo. it was kind of silly, and not in a good way. takes itself wayyyy to seriously.

i didnt like spartacus (2010-2013) - the dialogue was almost grotesque and the editing, especially the transitions, straight up killed me

damsel (2024) - holy fuck what a trainwreck of a movie. absolute waste of angela basset and robin wright. the only good thing were the costumes.

lancelot du lac (1974) - i just didnt like it at all. couldnt get into it. i guess it was way too french and artsy fartsy for me. a movie that was trying to say both too little and too much at the same time.

i didnt rly like bram stoker's dracula (1992) - i mean. it was a fine movie. it was definitely not the godfather. the movie itself was meh. the visuals tho? absolutely stunning

#asks #anon #mine*#slavery ment #sa ment

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falconfate · 1 month

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Hello ranger’s apprentice fandom can we talk real quick about the stupidest thing Flanagan ever wrote

It’s about the bows. Yanno, the rangers’ Iconique™️ main weapon. That one. You know the one.

Flanagan. Flanagan why are your rangers using longbows.

“uh well recurve arrows drop faster” BUT DO THEY. FLANAGAN. DO THEY.

the answer is no they don’t. Compared to a MODERN, COMPOUND (aka cheating) bow, yes, but compared to a longbow? Y’know, what the rangers use in canon? Yeah no a recurve actually has a FLATTER trajectory. It drops LATER.

This from an article comparing the two:

“Both a longbow and a recurve bow, when equipped with the right arrow and broadhead combination, are capable of taking down big game animals. Afterall, hunters have been doing it for centuries with both types of bows.

However, generally speaking and all things equal, a recurve bow will offer more arrow speed, creating a flatter flight trajectory and retain more kinetic energy at impact.

The archers draw length, along with the weight of the arrow also affect speed and kinetic energy. However, the curved design of the limbs on a recurve adds to its output of force.”

It doesn’t actually mention ANY distance in range! And this is from a resource for bow hunting, which, presumably, WOULD CARE ABOUT THAT SORT OF THING!

Okay so that’s just. That’s just the first thing.

The MAIN thing is that even accounting for “hur dur recurves drop faster” LONGBOWS ARE STILL THE STUPID OPTION.

Longbows, particularly and especially ENGLISH longbows, are—as their name suggests—very long. English longbows in particular are often as tall or taller than their wielder even while strung, but especially when unstrung. An unstrung longbow is a very long and expensive stick, one that will GLADLY entangle itself in nearby trees, other people’s clothes, and any doorway you’re passing through.

And yes, there are shorter longbows, but at that point if you’re shortening your longbow, just get a goddamn recurve. And Flanagan makes a point to compare his rangers’ bows to the Very Long English Longbow.

Oh, do you know how the Very Long English Longbow was mostly historically militarily used? BY ON-FOOT ARCHER UNITS. Do you know what they’re TERRIBLE for? MOUNTED ARCHERY.

Trust me. Go look up right now “mounted archery longbow.” You’ll find MAYBE one or two pictures of some guy on a horse struggling with a big stick; mostly you will actually see either mounted archers with RECURVES, or comparisons of Roman longbow archers to Mongolian horse archers (which are neat, can’t lie, I love comparing archery styles like that).

Anyway. Why are longbows terrible for mounted archery? Because they’re so damn long. Think about it: imagine you’re on a horse. You’re straddling a beast that can think for itself and moves at your command, but ultimately independently of you; if you’re both well-trained enough, you’re barely paying attention to your horse except to give it commands. And you have a bow in your hands. If your target is close enough to you that you know, from years of shooting experience, you will need to actually angle your bow down to hit it because of your equine height advantage, guess what? If you have a longbow, YOU CAN’T! YOUR HORSE IS IN THE WAY BECAUSE YOUR BOW IS TOO LONG! Worse, it’s probably going to get in the general area of your horse’s shoulder or legs, aka moving parts, which WILL injure your horse AND your bow and leave you fresh out of both a getaway vehicle and a ranged weapon. It’s stupid. Don’t do it.

A recurve, on the other hand, is short. It was literally made for horse archers. You have SO much range of motion with a recurve on horseback; and if you’re REALLY good, you know how to give yourself even more, with techniques like Jamarkee, a Turkish technique where you LITERALLY CAN AIM BACKWARDS.

For your viewing enjoyment, Serena Lynn of Texas demonstrating Jamarkee:

Yes, that’s real! This type of draw style is INCREDIBLY versatile: you can shoot backwards on horseback, straight down from a parapet or sally port without exposing yourself as a target, or from low to the ground to keep stealthy without banging your bow against the ground. And, while I’m sure you could attempt it with a longbow, I wouldn’t recommend it: a recurve’s smaller size makes it far more maneuverable up and over your head to actually get it into position for a Jamarkee shot.

A recurve just makes so much more SENSE. It’s not a baby bow! It’s not the longbow’s lesser cousin! It’s a COMPLETELY different instrument made to be used in a completely different context! For the rangers of Araluen, who put soooo much stock in being stealthy and their strong bonds with their horses, a recurve is the perfect fit! It’s small and easily transportable, it’s more maneuverable in combat and especially on horseback, it offers more power than a longbow of the same draw weight—really, truly, the only advantage in this case that a longbow has over the recurve is that longbows are quicker and easier to make. But we KNOW the rangers don’t care about that, their KNIVES use a forging technique (folding) that takes several times as long as standard Araluen forging practices at the time!

Okay.

Okay I think I’m done. For now.

#to be VERY clear. I Am Not An Actual Expert.#i AM however drawing from my own experience and research #and literally i can find Zero literature about recurve arrow flights dropping faster than longbows #all i could find was that recurve range is worse compared to compound bows #which. OBVIOUSLY. compound bows CHEAT.#(said lovingly. ish. if you use a compound more power to you but also It’s Doing All The Work For You.)#this article was literally all i could find from a couple hours’ search comparing recurves and longbows #anyway recurves are cool. flanagan why did you do recurves so dirty.#for that matter why are all your women blonde.#(i’m not including brotherband here sorry)#(but also why did it take a spinoff series for him to create a named female character that wasn’t a blonde)#(flanagan explain)#god these books have so many problems. truly this is my ‘i could fix him’#thank you flanagan for getting me into this special interest. now Tell Me Why You Did It Wrong.#rangers apprentice #anyway if you REALLY want to read about some bangin historical horse archers #look up the parthians :)#specifically how they fucking Decimated an entire roman contingent :)#crassus getting absolutely demolished by mounted archer parthians is definitely my favorite bit of roman trivia

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stoportotouch · 1 year

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we’re doing pathologic musicology again. everybody shut up. i’m sick of writing about bel canto musical traditions and my jstor subscription dies tomorrow i think. so i’m pre-emptively saving pdfs about ethnomusicology.

interesting side effect of the town’s culture being mostly built around cattle rather than horses is that the soundtrack of p2 in particular has essentially ended up creating an entire musical history and lexicon that is identifiably SIMILAR to that of The Area Near The Baikal Rift Valley while being obviously different.

classic’s soundtrack interestingly arrives at a similar point to this with completely different means in that the classic soundtrack is basically just. ‘is it bleeping and blooping? ok sick ship it’, while also borrowing at points quite clearly from the actual musical traditions of the region. which produces the effect in the listener of, basically ‘this should sound... other than how it does? but it makes sense?’

p2′s soundtrack is trying more obviously to do Authenticity in a way that. has historical precedent, certainly (hi borodin). but it is also trying to do that by borrowing from musical traditions that don’t completely mesh with the way that the town’s musical traditions would have developed. because the town-on-gorkhon is very fond of bulls, culturally speaking, and not horses.

a lot of the extant classical music from the area where pathologic is (presumably) set is not only literally About Horses, which are culturally important, but musically refer to the various gaits of The Horse. (this example is in tuvan but it is not only about horses but the 2/4 rhythm is Trotting-Like. buryat music uses similar music and the same scale, and many of the same instruments, as tuvan music.)

this is not something that bulls particularly have, and so while bulls occupy an equivalent cultural position in the town-on-gorkhon this obviously necessitates a completely different musical tradition. which is also one that doesn’t really exist in the real world, but for which vasily kashnikov and theodor bastard have pulled from existing traditions. they have, however, also created an entire musical language that feels like a place’s musical language essentially out of whole-cloth.

the way that they have done this is essentially to take something about the culturally important animal (lowing, for the bulls -- similarly to how actual tuvan, mongolian, baikal, and yakut music refers to horses’ gaits). and then to use that as a basis for the musical ‘world’ of the game, in a similar way to how extant music uses horses. it’s most obviously used in ‘song to boddho’ but a lot of the music in p2 makes a lot of use of drone which could quite easily be interpreted as The Sound That The Local Culturally Important Beast Makes.

(also the p2 soundtrack has a passacaglia in it. this isn’t relevant to this conversation in any way but it’s neat.)

#ollie considers #pathologic #anyway.

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amarguerite · 5 months

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i am so c o n f u s e d

ive been seeing u reblogging/talking abt the gilded age among a couple others of ppl I follow/talk abt JA and like............ITS LOOKS PRETTY. SEEEMS LIKE ITS A VICTORIAN ERA THING WHICH IS NICE. but but would it be as inapp as bridgerton?? I can just skip through fucking scenes so I can look at the prett dresses but if theres outright fucking itd be age inapp BUT I need smth to watch while crocheting and this seems like the perfect kinda trashy show to watch

so so as a person whos seen it like should i watch it or not? 😭😭

It’s set in 1882 in the first season and 1883 in the second! It’s very mild, in terms of sexual content. Clothed making out between George and Bertha Russell and then in the second season their son has an ill-advised fling with an older woman that results in them making out while fully clothed and a scene of them chatting in bed while under the covers. I think the most you see is Laura Benanti’s bare leg. ETA: there is a scene in the first season where one character tries to seduce another by being naked in his bed but he gets real mad and immediately makes her get dressed and leave.

It’s a lot of fun, but admittedly it’s fun for me for some very specific reasons. If any of these resonate with you, I’d give it a shot:

1) great costuming

2) nearly every contemporary Broadway star is there to chew on scenery, be witty, and wear hats

3) ridiculous gilded age nonsense where ultra-rich robber barons and “old money” New Yorkers fight over who gets invited to what party. The overarching plot of the second season is about the construction of the Metropolitan Opera House

4) neat subplots featuring genuinely cool female historical figures who accomplished an incredible amount given the societal constraints under which they existed. Last season there was a long subplot about Clara Barton founding the Red Cross and this season there’s a subplot about the female engineer who was actually responsible for constructing the Brooklyn Bridge instead of her husband

5) fantastic scenery

6) a look at the Black elite of New York at the time— a group I didn’t know much about until this show

7) Nathan Lane giving one of the strangest and funniest performances of his long and varied career.

8) on location shooting at big Gilded Age mansions in New York State and in Newport, Rhode Island. The house belonging to the character played by one of my fave Broadway prima donnas, Kelli O’Hara, is actually Lyndhurst House, the actual Gothic Revival mansion of actual Gilded Age robber baron Jay Gould.

9) an insanely high props budget that they use to buy such outlandishly delightful things as penny-farthing bicycles and magic lanterns

Is it a good show? Honestly, I don’t know if I can answer that question.

Is it great if you’re a musical theatre fan who enjoys being able to say, “oh my god that’s Douglas Sills from The Scarlet Pimpernel and Little Shop of Horrors playing the Russell’s chef!” Yes.

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adickaboutspoons · 11 months

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So we've talked a lot about the different illustrations of Blackbeard used in the show and how they differ and compare to actual historical depictions, and the subtextual significance thereof. But today I want to talk about the metatext.

Because it's weird that three such radically different depictions of Blackbeard should be contained within one book, right? And not a book called, like, "The Many Faces of Blackbeard" or something to suggest that said book is specifically about him and only him.

And, would you look at that - "Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates is a really real text that was published in the 1920s and is therefore available for free on-line (CW - this text is very much of its time and contains extremely repugnant racist depictions of characters of color). Short side-note, and then I want to get back to talking about the book itself. Howard Pyle was an author and illustrator in the late 19th/early 20th century, who is credited with being THE GUY who created the modern idea of what the pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy looked like, with billowy culots, long, wide sashes around their waists, head scarves under broad-brimmed hats, and gold hoop earnings.

And it's a total fabrication. Yeah. He based The Look largely on the Spanish Romani. So in the show we've got all these contradictory and erroneous illustrations of Blackbeard in this book of this guy who gave us That Pirate Look, knowing full well those illustrations were made up of whole cloth. And I just think that's a neat little extra layer of subtext.

So is Blackbeard even actually in the really real book? Yes. Ish. The first chapter of the book is dedicated to talking about real pirates of the Spanish Main and Blackbeard is featured from page 28 - 32 including a black-and-white illustration entitled "Blackbeard buries his treasure".

It's this very strange tone of being worshipfully tantalized by how he was a REAL pirate (as contrasted with Captain Kidd who was just a namby-pamby PIRVATEER 🙄) and just EVER so CLEVER, but also breathlessly scandalized by what a v. bad, awful, TERRIBLE curr he was. Here's a sample so you can see what I mean: "But with 'Blackbeard' it is different, for in him we have a real, ranting, raging, roaring pirate per se—one who really did bury treasure, who made more than one captain walk the plank, and who committed more private murders than he could number on the fingers of both hands; one who fills, and will continue to fill, the place to which he has been assigned for generations, and who may be depended upon to hold his place in the confidence of others for generations to come." All in all, it's mostly just a gloss the likes of which you can get out of glancing at the Wikipedia page. It doesn't even mention Stede in relation to Blackbeard except as an offhand comment about how apparently "Major Bonnet" (who is otherwise only mentioned in one paragraph that dunks on him for being unable to commit to the bit of being a "proper" pirate) swung by and picked up a bunch of sailors Blackbeard had marooned. No mention of the fact that Bonnet and Blackbeard sailed together for awhile. Or that said maroonees were prolly Bonnet's men who stuck with Blackbeard after the breakup they went their separate ways.

After the first chapter, the book mostly seems to be stories of fictional pirates (or at least wholly fictional stories that happen to use the names of real pirates incidentally. You know - like our little show).

But so what? Surely the show just used a real book as a prop and stuck their homegrown Blackbeard fanart in willy-nilly to make it look like part of the text, right?

About that.

So I actually found Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by doing a search for the text on the pages opposite the illustration when Stede presents Ed with the book for his approval, and again when Izzy is perusing the book before he goes on his "THIS is Blackbeard" screed. And the stories from which the texts are taken are somewhat revealing.

The story opposite the illustration Stede presents is "The Ruby of Kishmore". It's about a man who is fundamentally opposed to committing acts of violence (he's a Quaker), who is indirectly responsible for the deaths of three men. The first dies when he attacks the Quaker, and in the course of their struggle, is accidentally stabbed by his own blade. The second dies when he attacks the Quaker, and in the course of their struggle, accidentally shoots himself with his own gun. The third lures the Quaker to a secluded spot and attacks him, and in the course of their struggle, he drowns (no cannonball to assist, but I think you're picking up what I'm putting down).

The story opposite the illustration Izzy is preoccupied with is "Tom Chist and the Treasure Box". The eponymous character is an orphan from Bristol. He's called Tom Chist because he was found as an infant inside a chest bearing the initials T.C. that washed ashore from the wreckage of a ship from Bristol and the woman who found him had recently lost a baby named Tom; so the new baby is Tom from the Chest (and, incidentally, isn't "Chist" an interestingly Kiwi pronunciation of "chest"). The man who raises Tom Chist is an abusive alcoholic. One night, Tom chances to spy on a pirate who comes ashore to bury a treasure chest. But when he goes back the next day for the chest himself, he finds that, while it does contain treasure, it mostly is full of blackmail material. So the abused orphan from Bristol, who is named "chest"-with-a-kiwi-accent unearths a chest full of sensitive material that can be used for leverage. It's hardly even a metaphor at that point.

I don't think there's anything particularly deep going on here - just a fun little Easter egg for those who go looking.

#ofmd #our flag means death

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gothhabiba · 11 months

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I can't find it but I'm pretty sure it was you who asked someone to define womanhood outside of gender roles/oppression, vibes/mysticism, and some third thing, with the argument that in a post patriarchal world women wouldn't exist but like. I think grouping "vibe" and "mysticism" is doing a lot of work. We can consider something being, say, "goth" as a meaningful term even though I'd say it's comparably difficult to delineate what is and is not "goth". I don't think the chain of people seeing each other describe themselves as some gender and some of it resonating with them and getting internalized and remixed will ever really end so like. Yeah I think I don't think saying womanhood would continue as a vibe is comparable to the other explanations you reject

Apologies if that post wasn't from you lmao

[about this post]

The critique I was trying to make in the post that started this conversation was of people who refuse to interrogate the ways in which categories such as "race" or "gender" are historically constructed (& currently contested, recontested, mobilised, reconfigured, &c.) out of / in order to justify and naturalise power, exploitation, & violence, and who also go so far as to claim that you're doing some kind of violence (material or epistemic) by pointing out that these categories are constructed.

The conversation about whether and how gender would exist without patriarchy and gendered violence is ultimately speculation about something that will not occur within our lifetimes—I don't think it's possible for us to know what "gender" (or "womanhood") might look like at that point, & the question of whether such a concept can meaningfully be called "gender" or "womanhood" in the same way that we understand those words to-day deals heavily in, like, the ontological branch of philosophy as well as semantics and perhaps semiotics. For my purposes, because I'm trying to describe the world as it exists to-day, I define "gender" in such a way that would make the answer to that question "no"—beyond constructing that neat little semantic tautology, it's just not a question that has any bearing on organising right now, so it doesn't really interest me.

I will say, though, that people who are convinced that there must be some kind of organisation of people into different categories based on commonly-cited aspects of behaviour such as clothing, mannerisms, personal grooming, rôles and other assorted habits (or at least, organisation of those behaviours into different categories), or who cannot consider any human society without such a thing—or for people like the anon who asked the question you're referring to, who go even further in being unable to imagine a world in which some people are not categorised specifically as "women"—I would ask why that's so unthinkable.

I also think there might be a bit of myopia involved in some people's conceptions of which clothing, mannerisms, rôles &c. would be associated with which "gender" (or would be associated with "gender" at all) and why—dominant concepts of which "gender" is associated with which clothing, mannerisms (arising from which essential "natures"), jobs, whatever, is subject to shift radically and rapidly based on factors including whatever myths are most useful for power at the time (besides being subject to significant amounts of internal tension and contension even within one given place). What would sort behaviours into different categories, or pin shifting beliefs about the categories a given behaviour falls into to a concept of "gender," absent the power that drives this myth-making? What would be motivating any of these beliefs? Why should we call it "gender"?

I see the comparison to "Goth," other than the fact that it is also a category, to be beside the point—it's not a category that is in our present context coercively assigned & policed by white supremacist partriarchy, that seeks to organise people from the level of the family to the level of government along lines of violence and capitalist exploitation. It is also, compared to "gender" (even if we restrict ourselves to a modern, Western context), associated with a far more specific set of aesthetics, moods, gestures, clothing items &c.—rather than a set of aesthetics and ideas that can shift so far as to utterly reverse themselves, and yet still be conceptualised as meaningfully belonging to the same 'system', because they seek to organise and justify the same types of power (which is the situation with gender).

#Anonymous #questions #gender

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decoloraa · 1 year

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Talk shit get hit 🫵

I like to think that they train together quite regularly to hone their skills. Some days they’re just sparring together and on other days they go all out, a spectacle that other Briggs soldiers like to watch.

This was mostly an exercise to improve my full body drawings, that’s why Thea is wearing historical inaccurate sportswear. But hey, military uniform inspired training clothes would be neat!

#the big question is: who is the best fighter?#i just noticed that I didn’t draw Miles and I feel very sorry that I forgot him like that #idk how Miles fighting skills are. but he’d surely know how to hold his ground #my fullbody art is improving that means I now have to learn how to draw feet and shoes properly damn it #oc casther wilk #oc Thea #olivier mira armstrong #olivier armstrong #fma #fullmetal alchemist #fma oc #fmab oc #my ocs #oc art #my art #digital sketchbook #original character

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arlo-rose · 7 months

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My ramblings about On the Brink of Scientific Discovery and fashion history

I’m very very normal about both Brink and historical fashion, so I decided to go down a research rabbit hole of what the characters would realistically be wearing in this fic, and it just kinda spiraled from there. I’m not in any way a professional or super qualified, I just think historical fashion is neat. I’m also not a writer so I apologize if any pacing or formatting in this is weird.

(WARNING, VERY LONG POST)

(Seriously I’m gonna go into detail about a lot of the characters and my reasoning for why they’d wear that, and sometimes background on the clothes themselves if it’s really interesting)

Disclaimer: a lot of the fable characters, and therefore the characters in Brink, are nonbinary or otherwise don’t fully conform to one gender, and while Brink takes some liberties with historical accuracy so these characters can live openly as they are, I’m still going to sometimes refer to the clothing as “men’s clothing” and “women’s clothing” because that’s how it was categorized in the period.

“On the Brink of Scientific Discovery”(by ConnorsNotHere on Ao3) is a Victorian gothic/cosmic horror AU of FableSMP that takes place in 1889. Brink and its sequels do a decent amount of globe-traveling, but most of the characters are from and live in England. However, a lot of them have connections to or are from places like France, the US, etc. By this time in history there’s(very generally) not drastic differences between the fashions of America and western Europe, so while I’m gonna try to find things as accurate as possible to what I think the characters would wear, I’m also not going to be overly picky about if say, a specific suit is from England or America.

What were the clothes like then?

In 1889 we are coming off of the second bustle period, so skirts still had a lot of fullness in the back, however, they were starting to transition into the more “trumpet shaped” skirts of the 1890s. Bodices and sleeves were both still very fitted, and sleeves are starting to get a little bit of a puff on top, rather than the smoother, more rounded styles of previous decades. In the 1880s more tailored, menswear-inspired clothing also started to gain popularity for women, so you’ll start to see jackets and bodices that resemble menswear more than in previous decades.

Year to year men’s clothing doesn’t change a drastic amount, but there are still a lot of things characteristic of the 1880s. Suit jackets were often buttoned very high up, sometimes to the point where you were barely able to see the shirt and tie. When the jackets were left open, it was actually quite fashionable to have bolder, more colorful waistcoats, which were often beautifully patterned.

However, not every person dresses like the latest fashion plates, and this photo is a good example of people who are still fashionable, but also just normal people and not wearing anything overly fancy. The entirety of the Fable Society has a decent amount of wealth, so they would be able to afford fashionable, good quality clothing, however, they still wouldn’t be dressing in their best, fanciest clothes every day, especially if it’s not practical for their job.

This is a photo of some teenage boys from 1889. This gives a really good idea of what characters like Athena, Easton, and Jamie would be wearing when they’re not wearing more casual or practical things.(side note, I really like the suit on the left I would 100% wear that)

Individual Characters

I’m not going to go into detail about *every single one* of the characters in Brink, as that would get repetitive and excessively long after a while, but I wanted to talk about a lot of them still.

Momboo

I want to start with Momboo cause in my opinion she would probably be the most fashionable(to the period's standards) of the Fable Society, and I had a lot of fun looking for things I think she would wear. Lots of pretty trims, ruffles, and florals were very popular at the time so there was a lot to choose from. While I can see her enjoying fancier clothing a lot of the time, she also loves to garden and care for the plants on her estate, so obviously she would wear different clothes for that, something with darker colors and less elaborate decorations so it would be easier to wash when it got dirty. There honestly isn’t much super unique going on with her clothing, it’s just very pretty so I wanted to talk about it first.

(That green and pink dress on the right is one of my favorites that I found the entire time I was researching for this, it’s so pretty) (also these 2 fashion plates give me such world sisters vibes, I like them a lot)

More pretty pink dresses :Athenafire:

Sherbert

In the 1880s there wasn’t yet standardized protection or uniform for chemists and people working with more dangerous compounds, and in pictures I’ve seen they just seem to be wearing normal(if slightly more casual) clothes with maybe an apron over them. In Brink neither Sherbert nor Easton wear any protection in their lab out of pure “well nothing bad has happened yet”(which I’m sure will be great for their health and will never have any adverse effects later in life /s) which is actually pretty accurate to chemists of the time.

(I had a really hard time dating this photo, it’s probably closer to the 1870s but still gives really good examples of protection used by chemists in their labs)

It was pretty difficult to find pictures of chemists in the clothing they would wear while working, but I did find a lot of really cool pictures of chemistry labs that are really interesting to look at.

A really fun detail that I realized when I was researching things for Sherbert(that was probably accidental but I still like it) is that Sherbert’s jacket is often described as being very long and having a large collar that is often turned up. This actually wasn’t a very common style for overcoats in the last couple years of the 1880s, *however* it was a lot more common just a couple years beforehand, so I like to think of Sherbert’s jacket in Brink as being something they’ve held onto for a while either out of practicality or just because they like it.

Caspian

One of my favorite details about Caspian’s clothing in Brink is that even when he’s given new clothing from the other characters after he’s rescued, he still wears his old blue jacket from when he was traveling around the world in the mid/late 1810s, looking for a way to bring back the lady of the world. To me It’s a really cool detail, and if Brink was in a visual medium rather than written, it would be such a cool way to show the audience that Caspian doesn’t quite belong, and has been in the End for a lot longer than the characters think.

During and slightly before the regency period(1811-1820), men’s fashion went through a massive shift from the elaborately embroidered and patterned fashions of the 1700s to a more toned down and subtle style(and contrary to popular belief, Beau Brummell was not the sole reason this change happened, he just became the face of popular trends that were already happening, but that could be its own whole rant). The most common type of men’s coat in this era was called a dress coat or a tailcoat, which was cut high in the front with long “tails” in the back, and large high collars.

I’m not sure if I really like this style of coat personally, but I think it’s really interesting that the men’s coats from this era are so different from what all the other characters would be wearing in the story.

(Don’t pay attention to why his hand is in his pants here, I have no idea why but a lot of men in fashion plates from this era are posed like this)

Rae

Rae’s research comes before most things in his life, including staying up to date with the latest fashions. However, in fable, Rae really likes fancier clothing so I think it’d be fun to have Brink!Rae also really like good clothes. Rae also does a lot of traveling and working outside at archeological sites, and so most of the time would be wearing more practical things.(though in the 1800s this still means he would often wear a full suit, just one made of different materials and not as fancy)

I really like this painting and I can definitely see brink Rae wearing something like this when at his home(or at least when not traveling or working in the field), I like the super dark blue/almost black of the suit and whatever he’s wearing on his neck is really pretty(I can’t actually tell what that is specifically but I like it)

Haley

I can see Haley wearing pretty fashionable clothing, but probably more subtle and practical designs than Momboo, and she would wear things in more subtle colors, but she would still have an overall pretty feminine style.

I wish I could have found more purple or gray dresses to use as examples for her, but I don’t think those colors were very common, at least in the fashion plates I was looking at. I was able to find some really pretty darker navy dresses though, which I think fits really well too. I don’t have a ton to say with her either but pretty dresses>>>

Jamie

Connor has talked about Jamie’s clothes in Brink before so I’ll keep this one shorter, but Jamie is the only person in the main Brink cast who regularly wears sweaters, which was a deliberate choice. At the time sweaters were associated with college students, working class people, and people who had very physical jobs, such as sailors. Sweaters were considered extremely casual and people outside of those groups didn’t really wear them often, but as Jamie is an orphan who was later adopted onto a very large farm, it makes sense that they would wear one often and feel more comfortable in one.

Ocie

I think Ocie is the character I’m taking the most liberties with when it comes to historical accuracy, mostly cause she is described in some scenes as wearing a naval jacket, and as it was only men wearing those, I couldn’t find anything completely accurate to what she was wearing. I can definitely picture how her jacket would look though. I picture it as being mostly in the men’s style, just cut more like a woman’s jacket of the time.

During the 1880s some popular styles of women’s fashion started to become more tailored and more resemble menswear, especially in jackets and some bodices, so it was pretty easy to find menswear inspired women’s jackets that I think fit pretty well.

Riding habits(outfits for horse riding) have also been very inspired by menswear for hundreds of years, and I can see ocie wearing something similar as her jacket.

this image is very crunchy and slightly too early for brink (1886), but give a good idea of menswear inspired womenswear from the late 1880s

Other than her jacket I actually found some blue dresses I think fit Ocie really well.

The blue dress on the right is probably more fancy than Brink!Ocie would realistically be wearing, but it fits her so well I had to put it in, and I just think it’s really pretty.

And this is what actual navy captain’s uniforms like around the 1880s(it was really hard to reliably date these but they’re from approximately then)

Galahad

Contrary to the popular image of the brave lone wolf cowboy who lived a life of courageous freedom, a majority of old west cowboys were actually very poor and rarely owned even the horse they were riding, which usually belonged to the man who owned the cattle they were herding. Obviously there were exceptions to this, including Galahad in Brink, but I think it’s interesting to see how much the fantasy of the old west has changed the image of the cowboy in America.(I highly recommend checking out Kaz Rowe’s video on YouTube, “Exploring the Queer History of the Old West… Yehaw”, its a really fascinating video on the old west as a whole, and honestly just check out Kaz Rowe’s channel in general, it’s so good)

There was no one uniform way cowboys looked, as they had to adapt to a ton of different climates depending on where they were working. Galahad travels often but he stays in the southwest, which makes their wide brimmed hat very practical, and he also wears a serape, a type of colorful wool shawl that’s draped around your shoulders. A serape isn’t the same as a poncho because a poncho has a hole for your head in the middle, while a serape doesn’t.

The variety of clothing cowboys wore in the old west is really fascinating to me, because even though fashion and style was pretty low on the priority list compared to things like their work and getting their next meal, these people still valued what they wore and took pride in it, and the variation of it is so cool to see in photos.

Athena

Throughout Brink, Athena wears both suits and dresses depending on their environment and what they are doing at the time, but I want to use this section to talk a lot about Victorian mourning wear, cause that’s what Athena is wearing for the end of Brink and a large portion of On the Edge of Worlds Unknown.

In the Victorian era, mourning was a very serious practice with many many rules that depended on gender, class, time period, and closeness to the deceased. While Victorian mourning clothes existed and were widely worn before the death of Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert in 1861, the fact that she wore mourning clothes for the rest of her life skyrocketed their popularity and made mourning wear a social requirement.

Depending on how you knew the deceased you could be in mourning anywhere from a few months to several years, and some(usually widows) chose to be in mourning for the rest of their lives. The exact time you should be in mourning varied greatly, and was often a source of anxiety for the mourners as coming out of mourning “too soon” could be a social death sentence for some.

As mourning practices became longer and more complex, different stages of mourning started to become common. During full mourning, you would wear only black, dresses were usually less ornamented, and close family of the deceased would very rarely take visitors or go in public. During half mourning, black was still the predominant color but some purple, white, or gray was also allowed, and the close family of the deceased was allowed to venture out in public a little more.

As dress styles and silhouettes started to change more rapidly starting in the 1870s, It became more impractical to buy or make a new fashionable mourning dress every year just in case someone died, and extravagant mourning practices started to become less common, though mourning dress was still a requirement for a few decades afterwards.

WWI was the final thing that ended mourning wear as a common practice, as so many people lost loved ones that practically everyone would have been in mourning if it was still a social requirement, and many people who’d lost sons or husbands simply wore a black armband to symbolize their mourning.

The one plate that started this whole thing

The one fashion plate that started me down this entire research rabbit hole was this plate from 1851 that I think just works so so well for Brink!Isla, and it lines up with the timeline too, cause as long as Brink keeps the timeline relatively the same for the Morningstar family, 1851 would be right before all of the god drama starts happening with her. I wanted to include her as a kind of honorable mention to the rest of the character breakdowns, cause that blue dress it so pretty and fits so well for her, and it’s what started me down the path of “what would all the other brink characters be wearing?”

If I got any details or information wrong please let me know and I’ll correct it!

If ya’ll have made it this far in the post, thanks so much for reading. This has been a project for me since like July for a while now, and I’m so glad I finally got it finished and out here! It was so cool doing all the research for this, and turning all of my semi-coherent bullet points into something that would actually be comprehensible was a lot harder than I thought, my hat goes off to anyone who writes things ever.

Most of the fashion plates I put in here are from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, as well as Mark Hartley(bygonewhimsy) and Melinda Kovács on Pinterest, but a lot of the plates and portraits were just things I had in my camera roll so I unfortunately don’t have sources for all of them.

#My two huperfixations meet again #This was so much fun to do I’m so glad it’s finally done #Life kicked my ass so this has technically been in progress since July #But it turned out so good!!#On the Brink of Scientific Discovery #fable smp #historical fashion #rambling

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teach463146 · 7 months

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https://www.welt.de/iconist/mode/article247930494/Matthew-Goode-ueber-Maennermode-Der-moderne-Gentleman-will-nicht-bequem-sein.html

Google translation of German article.

On screen, actor Matthew Goode often slips into neat men's clothing. In his private life, he also thinks more of tweed and pinstripes than jersey and hoods. But how do old clothing standards become contemporary for modern men? A conversation.

Fans of the Windsor knot can dab a tear of relief with their pocket square: "Dressing smart doesn't go out of style," says actor Matthew Goode, who regularly slips into tailored suits for his roles. In the Netflix series "The Crown", the 45-year-old, as Princess Margaret's husband Antony Armstrong-Jones, wears black suits with notched lapels - Chelsea boots, rolled-up sleeves and a loosened skinny tie when he is not visiting Buckingham Palace. In “Downtown Abbey” you see him as racing driver Henry Talbot, who stubbornly fights for the love of Lady Mary Crawley in the classic three-piece suit in earth tones or in a tailcoat with a white bow tie.

Although sweatpants and hoodies dominated men's fashion last year, the suit is a survivor, as seen at this summer's Paris men's shows. Giorgio Armani showed jackets with low shoulders, Dior double-breasted coats and suits in cream colors, with the shirt not tucked into the trousers - this is how old clothing norms are modified and made fit for the present. The basic idea is that the stylish gentleman is not a discontinued model - as long as he keeps up with the times. This is how Goode sees himself, who is the face of the new campaign for the British men's tailor Hackett London. Via video call from his couch, he tells us what today's stylish man looks like - for once, not in chic evening wear, but in a cozy Troyer knit sweater.

Talk about modern man

The suit is perhaps one of many men's costumes, says Adriano Sack. Gerhard Elfers defends the style and seriousness of the classic combination with a draw

PROS AND CONS

Is it silly for men to dress well?

WORLD: For many of your roles you slip into a classic suit. The characters you portray are often set in a historical time - how can elegant men's wardrobe become more modern.

Matthew Goode: The nice thing about suits is that they give you a different attitude. When I wear a suit with a white tie and tailcoat, my upper body automatically straightens and I move differently. It makes me feel like I'm in an old portrait in the National Gallery in London, which is very useful for developing my characters. Today's youth have become brave. Timothée Chalamet, for example, wears a suit without a shirt underneath and with a bare upper body on the red carpet. I always think, "My God, that's brave, especially in March." Still, I wouldn't predict the end of the classic suit just yet. Bill Nighy (the scruffy rock star in “Love Actually”, editor's note) is one of the most elegant men, stylist William Gilchrist is a master of fashion for me. The suit will always remain - it changes from time to time, for example the length of the jacket or the shape of the collar, but the wheel will not be reinvented.

WORLD: It sounds like you prefer the classic suit.

Goode: My style is pretty conservative. I enjoy dressing up - not every day, but when I wear a tailored suit and I haven't gained ten kilos, it gives me confidence.

WORLD: How often do you wear a suit?

Goode: During awards season, this can happen for seven days at a time. But I'm a father of three, and when I'm not working I spend most of my time as a glorified taxi operator or dog walker. So I dress more practically during the week.

WORLD: What does a practically dressed Matthew Goode look like?

Goode: I look like I'm ready for all seasons because I live in England. If I know it's going to be windy, rainy and stormy, I would probably wear ski gear (laughs). Otherwise, I'm a fan of corduroy pants and a nice tweed jacket. I was born in the country, I remain a country bumpkin at heart.

Matthew Goode (r.) as the new campaign face of Hackett London

Source: Hackett London

WORLD: Do you wear shorts in summer?

Goode: I'm actually wearing one right now because I had a meniscus repair and because of the huge splint I haven't been able to wear long pants for the past few months.

WORLD: What makes a good suit for you?

Goode: I pay particular attention to the quality of the fabric – and the cut. Suits I bought 20 years ago look boxy. Today they are more tailored to the body. Or I play with the lining of the jacket and the underside of the collar, perhaps with a bolder color. It's the way my wife - she's an interior designer - would design the house: nice, conservative colors and then pops of color through pillows. So my socks could be flashy, but everything else could be reserved. A good tailor can then see how the suit can make even more use of the body shape, for example with shoulder pads it looks like I've been to the gym.

WORLD: A tie with a suit – still mandatory today or already dispensable?

Goode: I still need to build up the confidence to wear scarves and bandanas the way Gilchrist does. Until then, I'll happily put on a tie.

#matthew goode #hackett #advertising #interview magazine

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chibishortdeath · 7 days

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Ok, I’m sick of seeing only Netflix posts lately so I’m ranting about Simon lol

Unfortunately I had some nice paragraphs written for this but tumblr crashed while I was writing so this is my second time making this post (TwT)

TL;DR with the rant under a cut for easy scrolling, I am deranged and have studied all of Simon’s outfits, here’s some fun tidbits and I guess kinda a guide about his fashion sense :3

Oh boy, where to start XD. Castlevania has a lot of intricately detailed usually gothic and/or visual kei inspired fashion designs, usually with some amount of historical accuracy, thanks to Ayami Kojima, that the series is known for. But before this, the character design style was very different. From the very 90s shonen anime inspired Richter, to Christopher being deadass shirtless in a skirt at one point, to John Morris being in basically casual clothes, there’s a lot of variety in it.

Well, being the silly Simon super fan I am, I’ve studied all his outfits a ton over the years I’ve been a fan of the series and oh boy they are INTERESTING :3. I’ve noticed a lot of elements are consistently reoccurring, specific to him, and some are very much not specific to him lol. Anyway, just trust me on this one, overanalyzing the closet of an NES barbarian to be able to make new outfits for him is FUN >:3c.

So, I’ve seen him not wearing pants thrown around as a joke before, but it’s actually the truth! Besides the Haunted Castle wedding suit (an outlier that should not be counted lol), I actually have never run into a design where Simon is wearing full length, proper pants. The closest he ever gets is black tights in Simon’s Quest and occasionally shorts, but on that topic, shorts aren’t even his most common choice! Let’s look at some of his oldest designs:

This one is really hard to tell, but based on the angle of the lines, the shadows, and context clues from other art for CV1, I don’t know if that’s actually supposed to be shorts 💀💀💀!

In both his cute little manual doodles and his almost more adorable teeny 8-bit sprite, his outfit is a belted tunic of some sort! So like, the equivalent of a really tiny dress or a long shirt XD. And really, his cover art design is kinda just a more detailed version of these. They both have a distinction between a top and bottom part of the upper half, they both have big belts, they both have the tall boots and arm guards, they both have teeny skirt part, and Fun Fact! They both have red in the hair! I color picked a nice high res scan of the CV1 cover art, and yes, there’s red in his hair!!! It’s like a nice mix of dark reddish blond, it’s a very fun hair color :3.

However, that’s not where CV1 ends in tunic vs shorts debate:

THAT’S A SKORT— DO YOU SEE THAT DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE HALVES, ONE IS DEFINITELY A PANTLEG LMAO. So yeah, skort Simon is also a thing thanks to this particular magazine scan lol, thus leaving us with the possibility that it is both a skirt and shorts on the CV1 cover that he’s wearing X,,,,D. Never change, Simon, never change.

Besides the tunic, there’s some other interesting details to his CV1 era designs! :D In a lot of depictions he has this neat cape, something that returns in some Simon’s Quest art and Smash Bros lol, but he’s never shown wearing it in game. What’s interesting is that Trevor actually gets a cape in his game’s opening as well as Christopher in Belmont’s Revenge if I’m remembering correctly. It’s very neat seeing Simon character design details rubbing off into other characters :3. I like to think lore wise that it’s the same cape that’s been passed down to Simon from those two.

He also has the headband! Iconic! But have you noticed the little ball shapes at the ends of the tails? They’re either knots or, infinitely cooler option, beads :D!!!!!!! And I wouldn’t be surprised if they were because that leads me to another design: X68000–

Now this one is one of my favorites :3. It’s kinda like a forward facing version of his original design but with some new details! And his headband gets this cool lookin, intricate distinctly metallic design on it, something I’ve seen a lot of artists simplify to a general crescent moon shape. But it is kinda similar to the shape on his belt buckle, something that I still have no idea what it’s even supposed to be. Also, his arm guards and the thing at the end of his necklace (which may or may not have vampire teeth on it, they could just be metal spikes though) are similar; it makes me wonder if it was an attempt at a tortoiseshell pattern? Filigree? Whatever it is, they’re all matchy matchy about it.

This design also gives him the staple left shoulder pauldron, of which has these huge stitches holding it on and an added belt that connects to his other belt armor. Get used to belts, he has a lot of those X,,,D. What’s really neat about this one’s belt is that he has both a hilt for the family sword but also one for the whip on the other side, and they’re on the wrong sides for drawing the weapon properly 💀💀💀💀. Which is also funny considering his CV1 cover art has the sword on the other side, which is kinda wrong too? Who knows, maybe he’s ambidextrous and just doesn’t care what sides they’re on lol.

The biggest thing I can say about this design though is that a lot of these accessories and armor pieces look homemade, like as if he just took teeth as a trophy himself and strung them on a cord or made a shoulder piece and put it on an already existing belt he had. Adding onto this, there’s also the possible beads on his headband and the cords around his boots (which could be an attempt at a certain actual historical type of shoe that I cannot remember the name of for the life of me rn, in which case would make these not boots and actually corded shoes with very nice big fluffy socks hehe, I am forcing you to imagine him with big fluffy socks—) and yeah! I can see him making his stuff on his own :3. Which is so cool! I love this idea so much, it makes for a lot of things to imagine him doing hehe. Also gives him a hobby??? Yeah :)

No indication of if he’s got shorts or not in this one, maybe I’ll count how many have skirts or shorts and put that at the end of this lol.

But shorts get another point again cause we’re looking at Chronicles:

Oh Chronicles. Well, the first thing I wanna mention is that, this is Ayami Kojima’s design for him, so here we are seeing a very interesting mix of the visual kei style and 80s barbariancore in a way that honestly slays (figuratively and literally). And, surprisingly, there is something historically accurate about this design, and it’s not what you’d probably expect. Based on the width, material, cross rivets, and the buckle on the front, Simon is wearing an actual dog collar. Like, for dogs. Like it’s dog armor used primarily for hunting dogs I just— Again, never change Simon, never change 💀💀💀.

We also see Simon preferring to put his armor on his left side again with the torn in half coat. It’s also somewhat similar to 1600s coats, not really of any specific country in fashion that I can tell, however the sleeve being that short is not accurate, leading me to believe that he probably tore that off too lol. Very Chrom Fire Emblem of you, Simon, and another example of him D.I.Y.—ing things. The basic elements still stay similar to past designs. Shorts, distinct upper and lower half of shirt, belts, armor on said belt, sword and whip hilts, arm armor and tall boots (shout out to the heels on this one), and armor on the left, unfortunately no headband though. But that distinct bottom half to the shirt part of his outfit in this one is defined with… a corset? Yeah!!! That’s a corset!!! Though the proper name for the time period might be a stay or a girdle, but Simon is straight up wearing a belt over a corset. And said corset over a coat. Half of one. Don’t question him—

But the main entries to his 80s bara-barian half of the wardrobe, let’s get to some knightly aesthetic outfits, of which he does have a good amount, starting with SCV4:

Simon’s knightly outfits are usually a similar silhouette as his original tunic look, just in metal this time and in various colors. SCV4 has his armor as gold on the cover, blue on the Japanese cover and manual art, and green in game! And they’re all pretty much the same with mild variations. On the cover art, his shoes are corded sandals with nothing under them, but in game and in most other artwork they are these metallic boots with the classic X shape of the cords baked into them. Some art gives his middle belt armor section this cross with snakes on it, which is an odd thing to be referencing here. It’s either a staff of Mercury, usually associated now with medicine but was an alchemical symbol before that, or something else I can’t find any info on. There’s also a big ab window because these are all proper half shirts lol. Straight up a metal breastplate with nothing under it, a pretty bad idea tbh 💀.

All in all, these are generally really simple, but there’s one more thing before I stop talking about SCV4:

I LOVE this design. It’s this really nice blend of the older CV1 era style and the metal armor of the later ones, very cool. Shout out to the eye creases and the dead stare shadow over his eyes too, they really conveyed the effects of witnessing the horrors well lmaoooo.

Again, tunic, belt, arm guards, headband, the usual, but, speaking of symbols, there’s something about this one that’s been driving me nuts forever: I cannot find out what that symbol on his paldrons and belt buckle is!!! It’s this upside down triangle with a bent rectangle missing the bottom line over it and it LOOKS distinctly intentional, but I can’t find it or what it means anywhere!!! I tried searching through lists of alchemical symbols, religious symbols, nothing so far has been close (TwT ). Regardless, great design, definitely in my top 5.

And what else is in my top five? Oh yeah babey, it’s Simon’s Quest time:

Ah, Simon’s Quest with his fuck ass bob and the stolen Ravenloft image— but unironically, that armor fucks fr. Again, similar silhouette! If there’s any take aways from this post, it’s definitely that Simon is a little shirt, little pants kind of guy. A severe lack of long sleeves and long pants legs until now, and even then, these are skin tight. Heck even his boots(????) are vacuum sealed, just look at those fabric creases by his ankle!

Now, it’s honestly really hard to tell if his “gloves” and “boots” are supposed to be in some parts metal due to the shading on them and the base armor being very similar. I personally like to depict the forearm and calf parts as metal and the hand and ankle parts as not, but eh. Like most things regarding Simon, I suppose this too is up to interpretation XD. There’s some variation in color in some scans having the underclothes be white, dark blue, or black, and the armor be any range of red to purple to brown too. But towards red and black is probably the most accurate due to his sprite being those colors.

But this is a shockingly rare case of Simon being fully covered in one of his outfits, and I’m inclined to think that there’s probably a reason for that. Not only does he have a rotting curse right now and drawing straight up gore on the cover of an NES game was just not an option lol, but he’s not letting his guard down anymore after being hit. Which would also explain the sudden change to all metal armor as that can’t be cut through as easily as leather.

Speaking of all metal armor, oh I looooove the detailing on his. The gold accents to his byzantine (a nice in between color of red and purple, a color that is also reused in Smash Bros again in the middle corset section of his outfit) are what I would call stylized floral patterns, kinda in the way that fleur de les don’t really look exactly like flowers but still are supposed to represent one. Not sure what kind exactly, but possibly some sort type of angel’s trumpet? Very neat regardless. The gems inlaid in it are all green on top and around the belt, but the center belt buckle is bright red. It’s a very jewel tones color scheme!!!

Well anyway, if tumblr will let me have more images, I’d like to show off a few other random examples of outfit elements he’s had before I close this off with something :3

This was a pretty recently found scan of Simon wearing get this: a pleated miniskirt. Probably Roman armor inspired, as some of his other magazine scans have depicted him as such. One ad for SCV4 and another (live action even) for Simon’s Quest has him even wearing like a Roman helmet and everything, it’s odd. Add helmets to the list of things Simon might wear. Hmm maybe I should make a tier list of things based on how often he’s worn them…

Moving on!

This one goes for the bold choice of giving Simon not only an expected tiny belted tunic, but side slits on the legs! And uh um a little too much detail but uh— It’s also this kinda white, kinda bluish, kinda silverish color? Add this to Simon’s color palette I guess lol.

Which reminds me that I didn’t mention colors very much until now whoops. Throughout all of hie designs he primarily seems to wear neutrals like various browns, greys, and metal tones. But he also has a lot of color. Like as in there’s enough different colored designs to make a whole rainbow of Simon outfits. Common combinations like dark green, gold, and wine reds; blue and silver; brown, gold, orange, and kinda purplish greys; etc etc. And his HAIR. Oh boy, would this guy love modern hair dye X,,,,,D. He’s had it various blonds, reds, browns, even black at one point, blue, green, unnatural red, pink, and in one concept design white! Personally, I like depicting it as a nice in between of red, blond, and brown, it encompasses the most I think.

The final thing I wanna mention is the Smash Bros design, which I unfortunately can’t show because I’m on mobile and have met the 10 images limit whoopsie— (_ _ ;). This design is really a good culmination of a lot of elements. Not really definitive or anything, but very good :3. And it has something I didn’t mention earlier that I’ve noticed in some Simon designs: random belts or metal around his upper arms and thighs lol. The Smash Bros design in particular has the arm band things on both sides, Chronicles has it on the not half coat one, but this is another thing I’ve seen other characters (Christopher in particular, but his are just gold rings) have. The leg thing is less common, but yeah, that exists lol. Thank you Simon for uh bending two pieces of metal around your leg…? It’s cool XD. The corset also makes a return, as well as, once more, the same basic silhouette with the armor only on the left side, the belt armor pieces, etc etc. He’s very particular about that—

Well, anyway, Simon definitely has a vibe going on, but here’s a brief summary of things he seems to like:

Skirts, tunics, long shirts, and shorts (and skorts I guess), but nothing past about half his thigh, generally over the knees.

No long sleeves or pant legs (unless it’s tights when absolutely necessary).

Armor primarily to the left, unless it’s metal, in that case usually a full plate or paldron set.

Belts, hilts, belts on his arms, and neck, and hanging off of things, and legs, yeah belts—

Boots/tall socks, corded or not, and something on his forearms or wrists.

Headband! Seriously out of every Belmont he is the most dedicated to these lol.

Necklaces and beads and other little accessories and adornments are also cool.

Alrighty then, have fun Simon-ing and I encourage you to look through his or other characters’ designs and pick them apart a bit sometimes, even if it’s just through what’s on the wiki :3. If anything, I think it’s a good exercise in character design and consistency! But yeah, I wrote all this late at night and can’t think of anything else rn. If I do I’ll do a sequel I guess hehe. Either that or I might rant about another character hmmmmmmm—

#oh god I am sleepy #how the hell did I rant about Simon clothes for uh three hours uhhhh—#castlevania #castlevania games #castlevania chronicles #castlevania x68000 #x68000 #Castlevania 4 #scv4 #super castlevania iv #castlevania ii #castlevania ii: simon's quest #castlevania simon’s quest #simon's quest #Castlevania 1 #Castlevania nes #akumajo dracula #akumajou dracula #simon belmont #text post #incoherent rambling #does this count as character analysis #eh let’s just throw it into the theory posting tag #theory posting #analysis posting #but fr tho like it is so fun making him clothes #my dumbass wants to learn how to sew just so I can make a Simon plushie and then make him little outfits #barbarian man I am forcing you to match with me no if ands or buts—#but it will be within your boundaries and likes and nothing that would be uncomfortable :3 #I also love how this is just an extremely long rant all just to say ‘he doesn’t wear pants or long sleeve shirts’ help me 💀💀💀

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just-someone-online · 11 months

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Monster High Headcanons

I haven't finished the diaries yet so some of the G1 headcanons might not fit with them.

G1 Twyla (And maybe G2 and G3? I haven't decided yet) is the Sandman's niece. He's really cool with her, but the last time he saw her dad a fight nearly broke out.

All three versions of Frankie are all trans in some way. Of course, G3 is canonically nonbinary, but G1 is trans and G2 is still figuring things out. What G2 knows for sure though is that she uses she/they pronouns.

All three versions of Clawdeen are gay. G1 Clawdeen specifically is an arospec lesbian.

The only reason Moanica wasn't expelled after Welcome to Monster High is because everyone thought it best to keep her where they could keep an eye on her.

G1 Frankie still has the electrical marks she got towards the end of Freaky Fusion. Likewise, G2 Frankie has their own after the events of Electrified, though they're mostly around her neck. Only time will tell if G3 Frankie ends up with their own.

G1 Twyla has to make a conscious effort not to daydream. If she isn't being careful, her mind will literally wander into someone else's daydream.

Alivia is the president of Monster High's new fearbook committee. Currently, the only other members are Fangelica, Cleo, and Spectra.

G3 Cleo loves human monster movies. They're hardly ever accurate to real life, but that's what makes them fun!

On the other hand, G1 Draculaura can't stand human vampire movies. They almost make the monster made ones look historically accurate.

G2 Spectra is Ari's cousin. Like Ari, she was initially masquerading as a human nearby a news office, then later joined Monster High to start a school newspaper.

G2 Twyla and Frankie are dating! They were all blushy and awkward around each other for weeks until Alivia bluntly told Twyla about how often Frankie said they liked her. Frankie was initially mortified but was thankful that Alivia at least had the sense not to say it in front of the whole school.

After finding out about Halloween, the G2 ghouls absolutely went out into town for the holiday.

Speaking of G2, monsters are kind of an open secret to Normie Town after Electrified. But since the monsters haven't said anything about the zombie attack and they clearly aren't all like Moanica, the humans all pretend they don't know. Well, most of them.

After Werewolf Weekend, Clawdeen ended up giving all of her friends a crash course on humans in case they ever needed to go into human territory.

G3 Twyla and Howleen are dormmates. They're not as close as their G1 counterparts, but they'll get there eventually.

Vampires can use their echolocation in their... I hesitate to say human forms. Anyway, Draculaura once had to use hers during a blackout. It was hell on Clawdeen's ears.

This one is more of a retcon than a headcanon, but G2 Clawdeen only has three younger siblings; Clawd, Howleen, and Pawla. They didn't live in a cave either because what the fuck were the writers thinking with that?

Draculaura was Moanica's gay awakening (And maybe vice versa? It was either Moanica or Ari/Tash), though she would live before she ever admitted it. Like seriously? Of all the ghouls it had to be, why her?

I wouldn't go so far as to say that G1 Draculaura is a neat freak or a germaphobe, but she goes to a lot of trouble keeping her space clean (Y'know, aside from the decade's worth of clothes crammed inside her locker). After nearly dying from the plague before being turned, she really isn't keen on getting sick.

Alivia has a habit of charging her cameras with her head bolts, despite Frankie telling her not to waste her energy on them and just plug them into outlets.

After her parents found out about Alivia, Frankie wasn't allowed in a lab alone for a while. They're happy to have a new daughter, don't get them wrong, but they'd have liked it if Frankie hadn't gone off and made her on their own.

Ghoulia and Elle are Robecca's unofficial guides to the modern world. She's a quick study and currently knows about as much as Frankie or Hoodude, though iCoffins are still a mystery to her.

There's a knockoff brand of iCoffins going around known as iCaskets. They're awful, even worse than normie cell phones. They're expensive as hell and very few monsters have kept theirs intact for longer than three days.

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