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Claire's fancy-pants HISTORICAL FASHION MASTER POST

So my historical costuming resources list from 2011 was less than a page long- I’m not saying that I’ve learned a lot in the past three years, but this list is now sitting pretty at a solid nine pages.  Whew.  And people wonder why I want to redo this damn series.

This list is by no means an exhaustive one- it’s a list of (primarily western) historical fashion resources, both online and offline, that is limited to what I know, own, or use!  It’s a work in progress, and I’m definitely hoping to expand on it as my knowledge base grows.  First things first, how about a little:

ADVICE FOR RESEARCHING HISTORICAL FASHION

Read, and read about more than just costuming.  Allowing yourself to understand the cultural and historical context surrounding the clothing of a particular region/period can be invaluable in sussing out good costume design.  Looking at pictures is all well and good, but reading about societal pressures, about construction techniques, daily routines, local symbolism, whatever else will really help you understand the rhyme and reason behind costuming from any given context.

Expand your costume vocabulary.  When you’re delving into a new topic, costuming or otherwise, picking up new terminology is essential to proper understanding and furthering your research.  Write down or take note of terms as you come across them- google them, look up synonyms, and use those words as a jumping off point for more research.  What’s a wire rebato?  How does it differ from a supportasse?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Double-check your sources.  Especially on the internet, and double especially on tumblr.  I love it, but it’s ground zero for rapidly spreading misinformation.  Books are usually your safest bet, but also take into account their date of publication, who’s writing them- an author’s biases can severely mangle their original source material.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help.  Do everything you can to find out information on your own, but feel free to reach out to people with more specialized areas of knowledge for help!  Be considerate about it- the people you’re asking are busy as well- but a specific line of questioning that proves you’re passionate and that you respect their subject matter expertise can work wonders.

Okay, onto the links!

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of getting off the internet and looking into books!  God bless the internet, but books are (generally, this isn’t a rule) better-researched and better-sourced.  Bibliographies also mean each individual books can be a jumping off point for further research, which is always a fantastic thing.

Remember- owning books is awesome and you should absolutely assemble your own library of resources, but LIBRARIES.  Libraries.  You’ll be surprised to find what books are available to you at your local library.

GENERAL / SURVEYS

British Costume from Earliest Times to 1820 Fine book with lots of first hand sources, but be wary of the photography in the book- reproduction costumes and thus somewhat less reliable.  Though hilarious.

Corsets and Crinolines Norah Waugh’s invaluable survey of corsetry and corset patterns- used the world ‘round by modern corsetieres.

Costume in Detail: Women’s Dress 1730-1930 Elaborate line drawings/diagrams of extant period garments!  A fantastic survey.

Cut of Men’s Clothes PDF available online!  Patterns for men’s period garments.

Cut of Women’s Clothes Patterns for women’s period garments.

Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing Through World History This is a library find, unless you have a pretty three hundred bucks lying around- a great, general resource.

A History of Costume A lot of good text and info, to be taken with a grain of salt. Be wary of any reconstructions and or “supposed” patterns that aren’t directly based on extant garments or firsthand accounts.

Fashion (Taschen 25th Anniversary) A survey of the Kyoto Costume Institute’s fashion collection- broad but beautiful.  On every fashion student’s bookcase.

Fashion: The Definitive History of Costume and Style Great overview of fashion history from the Smithsonian and DK publishing.

The History of Costume: From the Ancient Mesopotamians Through the Twentieth Century Broad costume survey, second edition.

What People Wore: 1,800 Illustrations from Ancient Times to the Early Twentieth Century this is one of those “I am putting this here because I used it a ton when I was younger” but man, mixed bag.  Really cool survey to browse through, but also work that is a copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy in most instances and thus not necessarily trustworthy as a resource.

What People Wore When: A Complete Illustrated History of Costume from Ancient Times to the Nineteenth Century for Every Level of Society A collection of Racinet and Hottentoth’s costume plates from the 19th century.  A beautiful survey but, since these are later illustrations, to be taken with a grain of salt.

Patterns fo Fashion books Detailed, hand-drawn diagrams of historical fashion, inside and out.  Pretty amazing stuff.

Patterns of Fashion: The Cut and Construction of Clothes for Men and Women, C.1560-1620

Patterns of Fashion 1: Englishwomen’s Dresses & Their Construction C. 1660-1860

Patterns of Fashion 2: Englishwomen’s Dresses & Their Construction C. 1860-1940

Patterns of Fashion 4: The Cut and Construction of Linen Shirts, Smocks, Neckwear, Headwear and Accessories for Men and Women C. 1540-1660

Fashion in Detail books Not what you want if you’re looking for photos of entire costumes- note the “in detail” bit up there.  Just a beautiful series, and great reference for all the little things you might miss otherwise.  The V&A has an amazing fashion collection, and it’s great to see them share it with the world.

Nineteenth Century Fashion in Detail

Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Fashion in Detail

Underwear: Fashion in Detail

World Dress: Fashion in Detail The one non-western entry in the series.

Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700 - 1915 LACMA’s response to the V&A’s series mentioned above, also an invaluable resource for historical fashion detail.

Read More

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You can sign up for Construction and anatomy today wwwradhowtoschool.com

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The big texturing tutorial

1. Definition

Texturing is a technique that involves adding local shading and details on surfaces to better represent the material of an object. This technique is of course closely linked to shading in general. This is usually applied after defining a global shading.

From left to right :

Lineart

Global shading

Completed sprite

One of the big differences between global and local shading is homogeneity. The very principle of global shading is to give a sufficiently contrasting effect between the shaded and lit areas to bring out volume and depth. Conversely, a texture must be as homogeneous as possible. It must be able to be applied on large, uniform surfaces, without making it look bad.

2. Applying a texture

A texture being homogeneous in terms of its luminosity/contrast, if it is applied to an object without taking into account the global shading, we will lose any effect of volume and depth.

A texture applied to a sphere without shading. Only the deformation of the texture can give us a clue on the shape of the object, but it is still difficult to discern. Homogeneous contrast When applying a texture to an object, shadows must also be taken into account. It is therefore important to maintain a uniform contrast between colours. A dark line separating a light zone from a dark zone should not keep the same colour between these two zones.

The color of the line will be lighter on the lighter side and darker on the darker side to preserve its contrast with the background. In the same way it is possible to apply a texture or pattern on a shaded object, by proceeding to a simple color shifting in our palette.

Combination of a texture (left) and an object that is not textured but shaded (middle).

3. Local shading

Since shading is used to highlight the bumps, there are generally two possible cases:

A groove

A bump

Each of these cases can be more or less accentuated by playing on the colors, the intensity of shadows and lights.

On the upper line, troughs ranging from the weakest to the strongest bumps. On the second line, these are bumps that stand out. The mastery of these light bumps is very important, it is the basis of the textures, and will make it possible to manage all the simple cases, such as wood or matte plastic. Example of application on a simple object:

4. Reflections

The application of a reflection is done in a simple way, by applying diagonal strips of light of varying thicknesses, and following a few rules.

A trough or bump will create an offset at the reflection level (proportional to the height change). As for the shadows, there is no absolute, depending on the palette or the material represented, it is possible to lighten or not the area at the reflection level. It is also important not to have parallel light bands on faces that are not oriented in the same direction, as on this cube:

Concrete example of the application of a gold texture on our drawers:

Or, added reflections on our previous crate:

5. Dithering and granularity

Dithering consists in creating a new false color from a checkerboard or other regular pattern of two colors close enough to give an illusion of mixing. The closer the colours are, the stronger the illusion will be. The more the colours are contrasted, the stronger the granularity effect will be.

Dithering is basically used to obtain fake intermediate shades on limited palettes, but it is also very useful for making complex and rough textures.

Example of complex dithering separating 3 colors over a wide area.

The nature of the pattern totally changes the roughness aspect. Example of the application of a sandy rock on our drawers:

Or add grain to our crate:

6. The art of destruction

The more complex a texture is, the more it will combine fundamental techniques such as bumpiness, reflections or granularity. However, some materials need to go further, by cutting, slash or breaking the base support.

Cuts It works much like bump, but on a much finer surface. We are subject to the same rules, of which here is a summary image:

From the finest to the most pronounced, on the first line of the cuts, and on the second of the bumps. A concrete example on our crate:

Exercises

Since nothing beats practice to learn, here is a series of examples from the simplest to the most complicated.

For each exercise resolved, post your results.

Mastering tools

Add a strong bump on the text of this image, except the ‘x’ which must be a groove (the center must be dug more strongly than the rest of the ‘x’):

Palette:

Add reflections on the image obtained between the two red lines shown below:

Now cut and break the letter 'e’ as well as possible.

Add grain to the letter 'l’.

Finalize a sprite

Texturize/colorize this sprite:

Palette:

Add reflections on the inside of the doors to give the impression that there are windows.

Add damage (cuts etc) on the right side of the wardrobe.

Make a variant of this cabinet by redoing it in gold using the palette of the gold drawers example in the tutorial. Palette:

Do the same with the sandy rock. Palette:

Sample solutions

Here are some solutions by a talented friend :

Gif process

The end.

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“english doesn’t have a vocative”

that’s what the @ sign is for

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I am asking other men to please pay attention to this. Sexual predators and airplane creeps, a thread: https://twitter.com/joannachiu/status/1110079640998023168?s=21

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I'm living for this

Blood Ocean deleted scene

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I love when people intentionally typo words to get across the instinctual reaction as something similar to a feeling?

Like “i want to Tuch”

“Tumby”

“Creeture”

“Flufy”

“Packige”

Idk i just. Feel it.

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GUIDE TO:

FIX YOUR SLEEPING SCHEDULE (1-2 months)

Try to wake up earlier every day. Like 5 - 10 min earlier than the day before. Until you wake up any time before 8am or so…

If you struggle with waking up & snooze button is you bff:

Put your alarm clock as far away from the bed as possible.

Drink a glass of water right after you wake up.

Pour another glass of water on yourself right after you wake up.

Prepare some coffee the night before, leave it by your bedside, drink it after you wake up.

Have your blinds/curtains open, so that it’s bright after you wake up.

Try to go to bed 5-10 min earlier than the night before.

Track how many hours of sleep you’re getting. Aim to get at least 7h per day or 49h per week. 

Increase your sleeping hours incrementally. Aim to get at least 1h of sleep more than the previous week. For example, if this week you slept for 41hrs, aim to get an extra hour of sleep next week, so it’s 42h.Once you get enough hours of sleep and wake up early-ish.

Try to keep your sleeping schedule consistent. It is really important to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.  Even if it’s weekend. Or even if that means, you getting less than 7hrs of sleep that day. I’d say waking up at the same time everyday is the most important step, which will help you the most with fixing your sleeping schedule.

START EATING HEALTHY (1-2 months)

This step really depends from person to person, but firstly I suggest you take some blood tests to see if you have any deficiencies, etc. Especially, if you struggle with cravings.  

Try intermittent fasting, if you struggle with binge eating or overeating. As it will help you to learn to listen to your body better: when it’s hungry, when it’s full, etc. It’s really simple, there are many methods of Intermittent fasting, but I’d suggest 16/8 for the beginners. (Google it for more info)

DRINK ALL THE WATER. Again, if you’re not drinking enough water, try to level up your water game incrementally. Download some water tracking app on your phone to help you. Drinking water will make you more energetic, increase your metabolism, and decrease you appetite (among many more benefits).

Track what you eating. I would really suggest tracking your meals for around a month. Because, most of the time people have no idea that what they’re eating is unhealthy. Again, download an app to your phone for that.

Make your own meals once in a while. Not only this will save you money, but it’ll help you to see what’s really going into your body.

Eat less meat and more veggies/fruits. Go to your local market and buy some veggies/fruits, you have never tried before. I’m sure you’ll find your new favs. Eat/buy less meat. Not only it’s good for the environment, but it is good for you, too. Get a veggie burger instead of the beef one, etc.

Cut dairy. Find your new favourite milk substitute. Advice: Oat milk is really good with the tea and oatmeal/porridge; hazelnut milk is amazing on it’s own; cashew milk goes well with cereals.

Learn more about nutrition in general. It will help you to make better food choices and it will make eating healthy much easier in general, because once you understand all the chemistry behind the food and what it does to your body, you kinda don’t want to make yourself feel worse. Here are some free resources: - Human nutrition course from Alison.com - Crash course Metabolism&Nutrition: Part 1 and Part 2 - The Health Nerd’s YouTube Playlist about nutrition - What I’ve Learnt YouTube Playlist - Human nutrition course from Alison.com - Crash course Metabolism&Nutrition: Part 1 and Part 2 - The Health Nerd’s YouTube Playlist about nutrition - What I’ve Learnt YouTube Playlist

GET PHYSICALLY FIT (2-6 months)

Define your goals. Do you want to lose weight, do you want to get stronger, gain weight, be able to climb stairs without losing breath, run 5k?

Remember - you’re half-way through. Being physically fit has a lot to do with what you put into your body. So, if you fulfilled the previous step of eating healthy - you are half way through!

Make a plan. A Reasonable plan. Be honest with yourself.

Start small. Like, 5 min exercise in the morning. Or doing 10 sit ups per day. Don’t do anything overwhelming, like running 5k everyday if you haven’t run for the past 5 years.

Make sure that you kinda like what you’re doing. If you absolutely hate running - don’t do it. Hate doing sit ups in the morning? Try some yoga instead.

Explore until you find what you like. You don’t have to go to gym to get fit, especially if you hate it. Find a type of exercise, which you actually like. Maybe it’s dancing or hiking, taking your dog for a walk. Sign up for several trial lessons of various sport clubs. Ditch ‘em if you have them until you find something that you love. Stick with that.

Do the small changes in your everyday life. Stairs>Escalator, Walk>Drive, Do some squats while brushing your teeth, switch from regular desk to standing desk, etc…  Find ways to incorporate being active into your everyday life

Track your effort instead of your progress. You cannot really control your progress that much (especially if your goal was to lose weight). However, you can always control your effort. So track it instead. This will leave you more motivated. As you will be able to see that you can do more and more everyday. Whereas, if you tracked your progress, you may not always get the result you hoped for, which might demotivate you and make you upset, wanting to quit.

BEAT DEPRESSION

Do the previous 3 steps and you’re half way through.

See a therapist/doctor. Depression is an illness, requiring medical treatment. So, get it. Remember: there is absolutely no fucking shame in having a mental illness.

Get some extra support. Talk to your friends or family. Or maybe someone on the internet.

Write it out. If you don’t want to talk - write down your thoughts. It can be just as helpful. It’ll help you to understand yourself better, see problems in your thinking, etc.

Distract yourself from yourself. Get someone/something to take care of, so that you can, for a moment, stop thinking about yourself and focus on something else. E.g, get a plant, or a dog, or a fish.

Self-care day. Dedicate at least one day per week for self-care. Take yourself out, either to a museum or some fancy cafe, do some stuff you like, whatever your hobbies are, do some physical self care: bath, face mask, manicure, etc., listen to some nice music, watch a film…..

STOP PROCRASTINATION

Celebrate your victories instead of mourning over your loses.So the only thing you’ve done today was write one sentence for your 20 page essay? Amazing! Buy yourself a candy for that!! I mean, you could’ve done nothing, but you didn’t - you wrote that one sentence and that’s worth celebrating.

Do it for only 2 minutes. If there’s an important thing you’ve been putting off for a while, tell yourself that you will only spend 2 minutes on doing it. If after 2 minutes you don’t want to do it anymore, great, stop it. However, after 2min. you actually might want to do more. No pressure either way.

Track your productivity. Track how much time you’ve been productive that day. Try to increase that time by a little bit every day.

Always forgive yourself. So, it’s been a week and you’ve done nothing? Don’t sweat it. Let it go. Blaming yourself will bring you absolutely nothing. Nothing good will come out of your negativity on yourself. So stop it. Forgive yourself and start again. And again, if you need to. Never stop trying. Always pick yourself after you fall. Beating procrastination and increasing your discipline is a skill. And all skills can be build on. There is nothing in you stopping you from changing. Remember that.

LEARN HOW TO DO TAXES (1h - 1 day)

Go to google.com.

Type in: “How to do taxes *the name of the country you’re living in*”

Read the results.

GET MENTALLY STRONG ENOUGH TO MAKE PHONE CALLS

Remember that just as with beating procrastination, making phone calls is a skill. And, again, skills can be learnt.

Get a new SIM card.

Top it up.

Dial some random numbers and pretend to be a salesman, selling whatever you like.. E.g., trying to sell broadband, cable tv, trying to get people to donate for some charity… Or whatever really… Me and some friends used to pretend we’re selling kittens or wood logs. Alternatively, you can pretend that you dialed a wrong person and talk about whatever, e.g. “Hey, Jess!! You wont believe what I saw today!! *start telling a made-up story*…”

If you get uncomfortable - just drop the call. No consequences whatsoever.

Repeat until you build up your game and your phone-call anxiety starts to diminish.

SLAY THOSE BITCHES Congratulations, now you’re ready to take over the world! Got get ‘em!!

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For the people who are out there “fighting the good fight” and “trying to make fandom a better place,” I have two important questions for you:

1. Is the author dead? x

2. Is your baby in the bathwater? x

What do I mean by those things? Let’s start with #1. The Death of the Author is a type of literary criticism, the extreme cliff notes version of which is that art exists outside of the creator’s life, personal background, and even intentions. I’m using it slightly differently than Barthes intended, but that’s okay, because the author is dead and I’m interpreting his work through my own lens.

In fandom, the author is dead. In fact, the author was never alive in the first place, not really. The author has only ever been the idea of a person, because unlike published fiction, the only thing we know about a fanfic author is that which they choose to tell us about themselves.

Why is that important?

Because it might not be true. Hell, that happens in real life with published authors, who have SSN’s on file with their publishers, who pay taxes on the works they create and have researchable pasts. If the author of A Million Little Pieces could fake everything, why can’t I? Why can’t you? Why can’t the writer of your favorite fic in the whole wide world?

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: “you can only write about [sensitive subject] if [sensitive subject] has happened to you personally, otherwise you’re a disgusting monster that deserves to die!!” Or maybe “you can only write [x racial or ethnic group] characters if you’re [x racial or ethnic group] otherwise you’re racist/fetishizing/colonizing!”

You can play this game with any sensitive subject you can come up with. I’ve seen them all before, on a sliding scale of slightly chastising to literal death threats.

Now, I could tell you that I’m a white-passing Latina whose grandmother was an anchor baby. I could tell you that I speak only English because my family never taught me to speak Spanish, something which I’ve been told is common in the Cuban community, though I only know my own lived experience. I could tell you that I’m mostly neurotypical. I could tell you that I’m covered in surgical scars. I could tell you lots of things.

Are any of these true? Maybe! I could tell you that my brother has severe mental development problems, so uncommon that they’ve never been properly diagnosed, and that he will live the rest of his life in a group home with 24-hour care. Is that true? Am I allowed to write about families struggling with America’s piss-poor services for the handicapped now?

Am I allowed to write about being Cuban? After all, I did just say that I’m Cuban. But is it true? Can I instead write a character that’s Panamanian? Maybe I really am Panamanian, not Cuban. Maybe I’m both. Maybe I’m neither. Maybe I’m really French Canadian. Should we require people to post regular selfies? I can’t count the number of times I’ve had someone come up to me speaking Arabic, and I’ve been told that I look Syrian. What’s stopping me from making a blog that claims that I am Syrian? Can you even really tell someone’s race and ethnicity from a photo?

Am I allowed to write about being a teenager? Am I allowed to write about being a college student? Am I allowed to write about being an “adulty” adult? Can I write a character who’s 40? 50? 60? How old am I?

All of this is to say: you can’t base what someone is or is not “allowed” to write about on a background that may or may not be real. No matter how good your intentions. And I get it - this usually comes from a place of well-meaning. You’re trying to protect marginalized groups by stopping privileged people from trampling all over experiences that they haven’t suffered. I get that. It’s a very noble thought. But you can’t require a background check for every fic that you don’t like.

If you say “you can only write about rape if you’re a rape victim,” then one of three things will happen:

Real survivors will have to supply intimate details of their own violations to prevent harassment

Real survivors will refuse to engage and will then have to deal with death threats and people telling them to kill themselves for daring to write about their own experiences

People who aren’t survivors will say “yeah sure this happened to me” just to get people to shut up

Has that helped anyone? I mean really - anyone??

So now let’s get to point #2: is your baby in the bathwater?

If your intention is to protect marginalized people from being trampled upon, stop and assess if your boot is the one that’s now stamping on their face. Find your baby! Is your baby in the bathwater? Which is to say: find the goal that you’re advocating for. Now assess. Are you making the problem worse for the people you’re trying to protect? Does that rape victim really feel better, now that you’ve harassed and stalked them in the name of making rape victims feel safe?

Let’s say you read a fic that contains explicit sex between a 16 year old and a 17 year old. Is this okay? Would it be okay if the writer was 15? 16? 17? Should teenagers be barred from writing about their own lives, and should teenagers be banned from exploring sexuality in a fictional bubble, instead of hookup culture? Is it okay for a 20 year old to write about their experiences as a teenager? Is it okay for a 20 year old to write about being raped at a party as a teenager? Is it okay for a 30 year old? How about a 40 year old? Is it okay so long as it isn’t titillating? Is it okay if taking control of the narrative allows the writer to re-conceptualize their trauma as something they have control over? Is it okay if their therapist told them that writing is a safe creative outlet?

Is your author dead?

Is your baby in the bathwater?

Now let’s take a hardline approach: no fanfiction with characters who are under 18 years old. None. Is the 16 year old who really loves Harry Potter and wants to read/write about characters their own age better off? Should they be banned from writing? Should they be forced to exclusively read and write (adult) experiences that they haven’t lived? Will they write about teens anyway? Should they have to share it in secret? Should 16 year olds be ashamed of themselves? Should we just throw in with the evangelicals and say that the only answer is abstinence, both real and fictional?

Let’s say that no rape is allowed in fiction, at all. None. What happens to all the hurt/comfort fics where a character is raped and then receives the support and love that they deserve, slowly heal, and by the end have found themselves again? Are you helping rape victims by banning these stories? Are you helping rape victims by stripping their agency away, by telling them that their wants and their consent doesn’t matter?

Is your baby in the bathwater?

Fandom is currently being split in two: on one side, the people who want to make fandom a “safer” place by any means necessary, even if that means throwing out all of the marginalized groups they say they want to protect - and on the other, people who are saying “if you throw out that bathwater, you’re throwing the baby out too.”

The whole point of fandom is to be able to explore all kinds of ideas from the safety and comfort of a computer screen. You can read/write things that fascinate you, disgust you, titillate you, or make your heart feel warm. This is true of all fiction. People who want to read about rape and incest and extreme violence and torture can go pick up a copy of Game of Thrones from the bookstore whenever they want. Sanitizing fandom just means holding a community of people who are primarily not male, not straight, not cis, or some combination of those three, to higher and stricter standards than straight white cis male authors and creators all over the world.

There is nothing you can find on AO3 that you can’t find in a bookstore. Any teenager can go check out Lolita, or ASOIAF, or Flowers in the Attic, or Stephen King’s It, or Speak, or hundreds of other books that have adult themes or gratuitous violence or graphic sex. The difference is that AO3 has warnings and tags and allows people to interact only with the types of work that they want to, and allows people to curate their experiences.

Are these themes eligible to be explored, but only in the setting of something produced/published? Books, movies, television, studio art, music - all of these fields have huge barriers to entry, and they’re largely controlled by wealthy cishet white men. Is it better to say that only those who have the right connections to “make it” in these industries should be allowed to explore violence or sexuality or any other so-called “adult” theme?

Does banning women from writing MLM erotica make fan culture a better place?

Does banning queer people from writing about queer experiences make fan culture a better place?

Is M/M fic okay, but only if the author is male? What if he’s a transman? What if they’re NB? Who should get to draw those lines? Should TERFs get a vote? What if the author is a woman who feels more comfortable writing from a male character’s perspective because she’s grown up with male stories her whole life, or because she identifies more with male characters? What about all the transmen who discovered themselves, in part, by writing fanfiction, and realized that their desires to write male characters stemmed from something they hadn’t yet realized about themselves?

How can we ever be sure that the author is who they say they are?

Who is allowed to write these stories? How do we enforce it?

Is it better for none of these stories to ever exist at all?

Have you killed your author?

Have you thrown out your baby with the bathwater?

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Well this is supremely disappointing.

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“73% of African Americans are lactose intolerant. 95% of Asians, roughly 70% of Native Americans and about 53% of Hispanic Americans are lactose intolerant. Our government is encouraging Americans of color to eat foods (see: dairy) that it KNOWS is going to make them ill. Ultimately, what that boils down to is the government is telling me, as an African American, to eat food that’s going to make me ill for no health benefit so that will benefit dairy farmers. That’s a form of institutionalized racism.” 

– Dr. Milton Mills, M.D., Critical Care Physician

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Here is another Osar to distract myself from studying woohoo :’D

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job applications just keep getting weirder…..

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Can we talk about this?!

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I have been a cat owner my whole life and I literally never knew that tiger lilies and stargazers were also highly toxic to cats.  Even drinking the water from the vase that lilies are in can kill the cat!  I brought in a tiger lily from our yard today and just thought to look it up and found out (and of course removed the lily from our house as soon as I saw).  How scary!

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So I just looked up the ‘don’t touch your kids’ thing and, um. 

That isn’t even the worst of it. 

I found a pdf of it the book that started it.  I’m three pages in and horrified. 

[grotesque-rotten-puppet]

“If fiction can’t cause bad things to happen, how did Jaws cause a wave of shark killings?”

1. Jaws tapped into an extant fear of sharks. It was based on four fatal shark attacks in 1916, at a time when Americans were largely ignorant of sharks and weren’t sure whether they could even bite humans. These real-life attacks caused an irrational fear, which Jaws exploited. 

2. Stephen King’s Cujo did not tap into an extant fear of St. Bernards. It was based off real-life events (specifically, a visit King once made to a mechanic, where a St. Bernard growled at him) but Americans did not fear St. Bernards. Culturally, dogs were beloved as family pets, and people could read or watch Cujo without suddenly developing a desire to murder their pets.

Both Jaws and Cujo were bestselling novels with popular, high-grossing film adaptations. If fiction affects reality the way antis claim it does, then Cujo should have caused a wave of dog slayings – especially since Cujo itself was just one book at the tail end of a horror fiction trend for evil dogs (including masterpieces such as Hell Hound, Dog Kill, Rabid, The Pack, The Dogs, The Long Dark Night, The Haven, and Blood Snarl). Weirdly enough, US and UK readers were able to read and enjoy these books without mass slaughtering their Jack Russell terriers.

When you argue that Jaws caused shark killings (instead of acknowledging that America already feared sharks and considered killing them a non-issue), you’re aligning yourself with uneducated parents who blame first-person shooters (or Richard Bachman’s Rage, now out of print) for school shootings. Angry, depressed teens with murderous fantasies will seek out media which seems to align with their fantasies – such as Doom or Marilyn Manson’s music. If they don’t find this media, they kill anyway. If the media they find condemns their fantasies, they kill anyway. Parents blame media because they don’t understand how a teenager can kill other teenagers, so they need a boogeyman to point fingers at (there’s a lot of reading on this topic, but my personal favorite is Why Kids Kill by Dr. Peter Langman). 

So, what does fiction do? Not much, on its own. It’s a tool people can use to explore new ideas (e.g., a closeted gay kid may see Kurt on Glee and use that character to explore the concept that gay people aren’t innately bad) or to reinforce the ideals they already hold. For example, a white person with nascent racist ideals may watch Birth of a Nation (1915) and come away cheerily convinced that racism is perfectly fine; but the same person may also watch Jordan Peele’s Get Out and come away with the same exact cheerful conviction, even though Get Out rather explicitly condemns racism. No matter what the message is, people will twist it to fit their own ideals. 

Any piece of fiction can be used for any purpose. Unfortunately, the same applies to nonfiction. Dr. Amy Hammel-Zabin’s Conversations with a Pedophile is intended to educate parents so they can recognize when their parents are being groomed, but it can also be used by pedophiles as a handbook on how to groom a child. 

The solution isn’t to ban any book that could potentially reinforce a negative value, because every single book ever published has that capacity. Every fanfiction, no matter how fluffy or G-rated, could theoretically convince a pedophile that child molestation is okay – because pedophiles are seeking that confirmation everywhere they go, and when they don’t find it, they’ll twist the source material so that they do. 

Not to dump a South Park meme on you, but…

Don’t know why I still have to say this.