#(((((image descriptions in alt text)))

[cuddlytogas]

So I accidentally almost got into an argument on Twitter, and now I'm thinking about bad historical costuming tropes. Specifically, Action Hero Leather Pants.

See, I was light-heartedly pointing out the inaccuracies of the costumes in Black Sails, and someone came out of the woodwork to defend the show. The misunderstanding was that they thought I was dismissing the show just for its costumes, which I wasn't - I was simply pointing out that it can't entirely care about material history (meaning specifically physical objects/culture) if it treats its clothes like that.

But this person was slightly offended on behalf of their show - especially, quote, "And from a fan of OFMD, no less!" Which got me thinking - it's true! I can abide a lot more historical costuming inaccuracy from Our Flag than I can Black Sails or Vikings. And I don't think it's just because one has my blorbos in it. But really, when it comes down to it...

What is the difference between this and this?

Here's the thing. Leather pants in period dramas isn't new. You've got your Vikings, Tudors, Outlander, Pirates of the Caribbean, Once Upon a Time, Will, The Musketeers, even Shakespeare in Love - they love to shove people in leather and call it a day. But where does this come from?

Obviously we have the modern connotations. Modern leather clothes developed in a few subcultures: cowboys drew on Native American clothing. (Allegedly. This is a little beyond my purview, I haven't seen any solid evidence, and it sounds like the kind of fact that people repeat a lot but is based on an assumption. I wouldn't know, though.) Leather was used in some WWI and II uniforms.

But the big boom came in the mid-C20th in motorcycle, punk/goth, and gay subcultures, all intertwined with each other and the above. Motorcyclists wear leather as practical protective gear, and it gets picked up by rock and punk artists as a symbol of counterculture, and transferred to movie designs. It gets wrapped up in gay and kink communities, with even more countercultural and taboo meanings. By the late C20th, leather has entered mainstream fashion, but it still carries those references to goths, punks, BDSM, and motorbike gangs, to James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Mick Jagger. This is whence we get our Spikes and Dave Listers in 1980s/90s media, bad boys and working-class punks.

And some of the above "historical" design choices clearly build on these meanings. William Shakespeare is dressed in a black leather doublet to evoke the swaggering bad boy artist heartthrob, probably down on his luck. So is Kit Marlowe.

But the associations get a little fuzzier after that. Hook, with his eyeliner and jewellery, sure. King Henry, yeah, I see it. It's hideously ahistorical, but sure. But what about Jamie and Will and Ragnar, in their browns and shabby, battle-ready chic? Well, here we get the other strain of Bad Period Drama Leather.

See, designers like to point to history, but it's just not true. Leather armour, especially in the western/European world, is very, very rare, and not just because it decays faster than metal. (Yes, even in ancient Greece/Rome, despite many articles claiming that as the start of the leather armour trend!) It simply wasn't used a lot, because it's frankly useless at defending the body compared to metal. Leather was used as a backing for some splint armour pieces, and for belts, sheathes, and buckles, but it simply wasn't worn like the costumes above. It's heavy, uncomfortable, and hard to repair - it's simply not practical for a garment when you have perfectly comfortable, insulating, and widely available linen, wool, and cotton!

As far as I can see, the real influence on leather in period dramas is fantasy. Fantasy media has proliferated the idea of leather armour as the lightweight choice for rangers, elves, and rogues, a natural, quiet, flexible material, less flashy or restrictive than metal. And it is cheaper for a costume department to make, and easier for an actor to wear on set. It's in Dungeons and Dragons and Lord of the Rings, King Arthur, Runescape, and World of Warcraft.

And I think this is how we get to characters like Ragnar and Vane. This idea of leather as practical gear and light armour, it's fantasy, but it has this lineage, behind which sits cowboy chaps and bomber/flight jackets. It's usually brown compared to the punk bad boy's black, less shiny, and more often piecemeal or decorated. In fact, there's a great distinction between the two Period Leather Modes within the same piece of media: Robin Hood (2006)! Compare the brooding, fascist-coded villain Guy of Gisborne with the shabby, bow-wielding, forest-dwelling Robin:

So, back to the original question: What's the difference between Charles Vane in Black Sails, and Edward Teach in Our Flag Means Death?

Simply put, it's intention. There is nothing intentional about Vane's leather in Black Sails. It's not the only leather in the show, and it only says what all shabby period leather says, relying on the same tropes as fantasy armour: he's a bad boy and a fighter in workaday leather, poor, flexible, and practical. None of these connotations are based in reality or history, and they've been done countless times before. It's boring design, neither historically accurate nor particularly creative, but much the same as all the other shabby chic fighters on our screens. He has a broad lineage in Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean and such, but that's it.

In Our Flag, however, the lineage is much, much more intentional. Ed is a direct homage to Mad Max, the costuming in which is both practical (Max is an ex-cop and road warrior), and draws on punk and kink designs to evoke a counterculture gone mad to the point of social breakdown, exploiting the thrill of the taboo to frighten and titillate the audience.

In particular, Ed is styled after Max in the second movie, having lost his family, been badly injured, and watched the world turn into an apocalypse. He's a broken man, withdrawn, violent, and deliberately cutting himself off from others to avoid getting hurt again. The plot of Mad Max 2 is him learning to open up and help others, making himself vulnerable to more loss, but more human in the process.

This ties directly into the themes of Our Flag - it's a deliberate intertext. Ed's emotional journey is also one from isolation and pain to vulnerability, community, and love. Mad Max (intentionally and unintentionally) explores themes of masculinity, violence, and power, while Max has become simplified in the popular imagination as a stoic, badass action hero rather than the more complex character he is, struggling with loss and humanity. Similarly, Our Flag explores masculinity, both textually (Stede is trying to build a less abusive pirate culture) and metatextually (the show champions complex, banal, and tender masculinities, especially when we're used to only seeing pirates in either gritty action movies or childish comedies).

Our Flag also draws on the specific countercultures of motorcycles, rockers, and gay/BDSM culture in its design and themes. Naturally, in such a queer show, one can't help but make the connection between leather pirates and leather daddies, and the design certainly nods at this, with its vests and studs. I always think about this guy, with his flat cap so reminiscient of gay leather fashions.

More overtly, though, Blackbeard and his crew are styled as both violent gangsters and countercultural rockstars. They rove the seas like a bikie gang, free and violent, and are seen as icons, bad boys and celebrities. Other pirates revere Blackbeard and wish they could be on his crew, while civilians are awed by his reputation, desperate for juicy, gory details.

This isn't all of why I like the costuming in Our Flag Means Death (especially season 1). Stede's outfits are by no means accurate, but they're a lot more accurate than most pirate media, and they're bright and colourful, with accurate and delightful silks, lace, velvets, and brocades, and lovely, puffy skirts on his jackets. Many of the Revenge crew wear recognisable sailor's trousers, and practical but bright, varied gear that easily conveys personality and flair. There is a surprising dedication to little details, like changing Ed's trousers to fall-fronts for a historical feel, Izzy's puffy sleeves, the handmade fringe on Lucius's red jacket, or the increasing absurdity of navy uniform cuffs between Nigel and Chauncey.

A really big one is the fact that they don't shy away from historical footwear! In almost every example above, we see the period drama's obsession with putting men in skinny jeans and bucket-top boots, but not only does Stede wear his little red-heeled shoes with stockings, but most of his crew, and the ordinary people of Barbados, wear low boots or pumps, and even rough, masculine characters like Pete wear knee breeches and bright colours. It's inaccurate, but at least it's a new kind of inaccuracy, that builds much more on actual historical fashions, and eschews the shortcuts of other, grittier period dramas in favour of colour and personality.

But also. At least it fucking says something with its leather.

[thethirdromana]

More travels with Jonathan Harker, in pictures

Here's the route that Jonathan travels by the public coach today:

I've tried to find copyright-free photos from the actual route, but I've not had much success. So this tour is going to be a lot more vibes-based than reflective of the actual sights out of the stagecoach window. Think of it like Jonathan's Transylvanian Pinterest board.

(Scenery photos are all of Transylvania, assuming I can trust the sites where I found them, but not necessarily the right time of year or the right bit of Transylvania. It's a big place.)

"Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road."

"There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom—apple, plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals."

"In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the "Mittel Land" ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame."

"Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly."

"As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This was emphasised by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink."

"By the roadside were many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves."

"Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys."

And a bonus: Bran Castle is marked as 'Dracula's Castle' despite being even further away from the locations in the book than most of my vibes-based photography choices. It also doesn't resemble Bram Stoker's descriptions of the castle.

But more importantly, it looks really cool. So here it is:

[end-otw-racism]

On needing a comprehensive harassment policy

We've been getting some confusion about the part of our demands that talks about OTW needing to consider "off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users" - which is fair, because I realize that could sound like "OTW needs to monitor/regulate what happens on other platforms" - but that's NOT what we meant by it.

What we meant is: if AO3 users are getting harassed on AO3, and they provide proof in their abuse claim of off-site harassment, that off-site harassment should also be considered as context for making a decision in the abuse claim.

An example of this - which we have permission to share - is what happened to an abuse claim filed by Dr. Rukmini Pande. We won't be linking directly to what happened because we are not trying to target individual users here, but all of what happened is still in public record.

Dr. Pande, a scholar of fan studies who wrote the seminal text on race and fandom, talked on her twitter account a few years ago about a Nazi fic on AO3 that was not only incredibly harmful, offensive, and antisemitic, but where the author had been sending their friends to harass people who criticized the fic. The author proceeded to add a tag to the fic that said "Rukmini Pande Lied About This Fic".

Because Dr. Pande tweeted her criticism from the account with her full name, people said this wasn't doxxing - which is true. But the author of the fic also was tweeting publicly to entertain the idea of reporting Dr. Pande to her employer, and they were also once again sending friends to harass her on Twitter.

When AO3 considered this abuse claim, Dr. Pande provided proof of what was happening on Twitter to show that the author of the fic added the tag of her full name with the intention of inciting harassment to her. But the AO3 Abuse team said that this did not constitute harassment under their TOS.

Cases like that are what we mean by OTW considering "off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users". Obviously OTW cannot control what is happening on Twitter, or Tumblr, or any other platform. But their Abuse team should be able to consider off-site harassment, when they are given proof of it, in determining whether a case on AO3 is harassment or not.

(Also if you aren't familiar with Dr. Pande's work, her book Squee From The Margins: Fandom and Race is not only fantastic but was the first to comprehensively look at fandom racism, and she also edited a great anthology of articles on race and fandom called Fandom, Now In Color: A Collection of Voices. If you can't afford to buy them, you can request that your local library stock them!)

[luseals]

The rest of my Art Fight attacks for the year! Hope everyone had a fun fight (o:

Characters belong to: @bothriolepis | ~pipuha | @pysics | @komikudikentalendo | @strawberri-draws

[justletmeon12]

I mean, they're right, but...

[eredhes]

Commission pieces from June 2024

eredhes.etsy.com

[kosmonauttihai]

I turned a little pipecleaner easter chick decoration into a Little Birdie. (Here's how.)

Materials:

white printer paper

a white feather

pink pencil

glow-in-the-dark polymer clay

glue

acrylic paint

[clairelutra]

"Interrogating the text from the wrong perspective" — Anne Rice, 2004

nobody goes off like anne rice anymore. nobody.

(source)

[dragkingsrule]

Pip Dream, London-based drag king

Image sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Artist links: LinkTree, Instagram, TikTok

[robinsceramics]

Here's some of my favorites from this week!

[trojanteapot]

INFINITY TRAIN CLASSPECTS 

In this post I will be merging my two "hyperfixations" / "special interests" by assigning Homestuck Mythological Roles (a.k.a. Classpects) to some of the Infinity Train characters.

What the fuck is a Classpect?

Classpects are like Zodiac signs or Hogwarts Houses except excruciatingly convoluted, because it’s from Homestuck. I will attempt to simplify them as much as possible. 

Basically every character receives a title in this format:

[Class Role] of [Aspect]

which, in Homestuck canon, gives the character sweet reality warping powers!

Some examples include the Witch of Space being able to shrink entire planets, or the Heir of Breath whipping up tornadoes out of nowhere! One of the coolest examples in canon was the Rogue of Void can steal non-existence from an object and make it real!

But the titles are also assigned based on a character's personality, goals, how they interact with others, and their overall character arc. And because they are Zodiac-adjacent, it also means that classpects can be applied to any sort of character in any media in existence.

Why are you doing classpects for Infinity Train you cringey Hussie simp?

First off, I don’t care for Andrew Hussie beyond the fact that they authored Homestuck, and one can certainly argue it wasn’t entirely on their own. This is an irrelevant tangent.

Secondly, both the video game Sburb in Homestuck, and the Train in Infinity Train are essentially character arc generators. 

This means it’s extremely straightforward to assign classpects onto these Train peeps because their character arcs have been spelled out for us, in the same way that Sburb spells out the character arcs for the Homestuck characters when they play the game.

SUMMARY OF CLASSES

A Class determines how a character is, or acts, or behaves, they are analogous to D&D classes. This system is based on the one developed by @optimisticduelist2 and @homestuckexamination

Role Active Passive Description*

Create Maid Sylph Create or Mend for self / others

Destroy Prince Bard Destroy or Subdue for self / others

Change Witch Heir Change or Manipulate for self / others

Know Mage Seer Understand or Learn for self / others

Give Page Knight Give or Serve to self / others

Take Thief Rogue Take or Steal for self / others

*Note: Just because a character is in a passive or active class does NOT mean they must ALWAYS use their aspect in a selfish or selfless manner!

SUMMARY OF ASPECTS

Aspects are analogous to classical elements (Water, Earth, Fire, Air, etc). They come in pairs that counterbalance each other like Yin and Yang. I also try to summarize their core concept in as little words as possible. (Note if you are using the dark theme some of the font colours might not show up properly. Just highlight it if that's the case.)

Space - Creativity Time - Inevitability

Light - Knowledge Void - Mystery

Life - Abundance Doom - Futility

Hope - Faith Rage - Chaos

Mind - Motives/Decisions Heart - Identity/Emotions

Breath - Freedom Blood - Bonds

***Key point: Thinking about the character’s Character Arc is the best way to classpect them!!!***

If their character arc revolves (mainly) around themselves, they are an ACTIVE class.

If their character arc revolves (mainly) around other people, they are a PASSIVE class.

CHARACTERS AND THEIR CLASSPECTS

Tulip Olsen – Mage of Light

“One who knows Light for themselves.” 

Tulip gained the most knowledge of the Train other than Amelia out of the main characters, and her understanding of the Train (the world around her) as well as her own issues allowed her to free herself from the Train. Her knowledge inadvertently led to a better Train system through her teaching her knowledge to One-One (mages are great teachers).

You may be wondering, if her knowledge also benefited others, why is Tulip a mage and not a seer? That’s because Tulip took the initiative to seek the knowledge of her own volition (i.e. actively), and is more open to accepting and assimilating new knowledge. 

Seers on the other hand, receive a ton of knowledge passively, but it takes them time to parse the amount of information, and seers tend to struggle to understand the meaning behind the information they receive (Rose, the Seer of Light in Homestuck suffered the brunt of this early on, and Terezi, the Seer of Mind, had this struggle in the middle to the end of the webcomic. Also see the entry for Simon).

Amelia Hughes – Maid of Doom

“One who creates Doom for themselves.”

I don’t think I need to explain the ‘creating doom for herself’ part of Amelia’s whole schtick, since doom is tied to futility and suffering. However, looking more deeply into it, you can say that she has created so much suffering on the Train that to make amends (hehe mends), she needs to go and fix the mistakes she made, thus also mending her own Doom and mending through Doom. 

By taking Hazel in, not only is she mending the doom that she had brought onto Hazel by creating her in the first place, but she also averted Hazel’s doom by saving her from Grace and Simon. [non-canonical tangent: in my fanfic, she helps Simon realize what his issues were, thus averting his doom as well].

In addition, Doom is tied to technology and systems, and Amelia is an engineer, and if you buy my idea that the Train itself can be seen as an Agent of Doom, or even the embodiment of Doom, then her creating Train Cars to reenact her past life (also an act of futility) also falls very much in line with Maid of Doom. Also she is basically MADE of doom as the False Conductor.

Lake – Thief of Breath

“One who takes Breath for themselves.”

Lake wanted freedom from their existence as a reflection, and then they wanted to be free from the Train like a passenger can eventually be. Lake wasn’t afraid to get their hands dirty in order to obtain that freedom as well, something thieves are prone to do. We see them try to trick Tulip in the Chrome Car in order to escape from the mirror dimension, and they also full-out killed a cop they were handcuffed to so they could be free.

Jesse Cosay – Knight of Blood

“One who serves Blood to others.”

Blood is tied to bonds in terms of the bonds we create between people, i.e. family and friends. Jesse’s key issue was that he was giving too much of himself to his toxic friends and his swim team that he hurt his little brother in the process, and he needed to learn to give in a healthier way. 

He also in a sense has to ‘set boundaries’ with others too, and not get too influenced by peer pressure. Finally, the most important use of his aspect was he was able to free Lake by offering (giving) his friendship (blood) to them.

Grace Monroe – Witch of Heart

“One who changes Heart for themselves”

Grace is basically the queen of putting on masks in order to get what she wants from others. She acts in a friendly and understanding teacher/guardian manner to the younger Apex kids, but in a cool girl big sis kind of way to Jesse in order to convince him to join the Apex. So not only does she exhibit the changing of identity, but also to change how others feel about her, both to her own benefit. She is really the most “herself” only with Simon.

Grace’s entire character arc is centered around her having a ‘change of heart’ too, re-evaluating and changing her whole identity once she found out she was wrong about numbers and denizens. She will then change the hearts of the Apex kids as well, changing the purpose and identity of the Apex.

Simon Laurent – Seer of Mind

“One who knows Mind for others.”

You're probably rolling on the ground with laughter right now. Believe me I was too when I thought of this. But let me explain.

Because Simon’s arc ended in his tragic death, then we need to see what he did wrong in order to figure out his classpect. Simon’s troubles started when he rejected new information about the Train, when he refused knowledge. In addition, he was so sure of his own correctness that he couldn’t properly understand Grace’s motivations and couldn’t predict her decisions. He forcibly peered into Grace’s private thoughts for himself, and then came to the entirely wrong conclusions. 

He was, in essence, completely unaware of the minds of others, and thus blinded himself to the truth. Thus, he is the Seer of Mind. 

We can therefore imagine that if his character arc had run its course not to tragedy but towards self-actualization, he would have become somebody to understand other’s minds, and to know his own mind for the benefit of others (cough my fanfics coughcoughcough). This will not be easy for him, because as mentioned before, Seers receive information very naturally but struggle with understanding it and synthesizing it into a coherent whole.

It is also possible he was exercising some of his knowledge of mind in a positive way by being the Apex’s second in command, as he was the strategist to Grace’s commander.

Ryan Akagi – Heir of Space

“One who changes Space for others.”

Ryan is a creative spirit, with his eyes to the stars. He’s always making plans to spread his art to the whole world. He is driven but in a way where it seems like creativity is driving him, and he is just along for the ride. 

Yes, music is normally associated with time, but Ryan isn’t cynical, dwelling on the past and worrying about the future. He is a guy that’s in the present moment. Plus, his gigs include lots of theatrics and visuals… when he is able/allowed to accomplish that of course. So this aligns his musicality more towards Space than Time.

He inspired Min-Gi to follow his artistic pursuits. He also finds creative solutions to Train cars that his companions didn’t see (especially the Art Gallery Car, where as soon as he found the solution he literally changed space). He definitely fits the ‘driving inspirational force’ that Heirs are for others.

Min-Gi Park – Page of Hope

“One who serves Hope to themselves.”

Min-Gi didn’t have faith in himself and his musical abilities. He dreams of being a musician but he did not ‘believe in himself’ enough to follow that dream. In the end, he had to have faith in his abilities, to allow himself to hope for the future that he wants. Pages also have very slow progression rates, and Min-Gi certainly fits that; not understanding his true calling until his best friend/crush accidentally dragged him into several repeated life or death situations in another dimension. 

[Non-canonical note: Min-Gi having the Hope aspect could be why I headcanoned him and his family as religious for my fanfics (Hope is very much tied to spirituality and religion, and the hope symbol is a pair of angelic wings for crying out loud). And also apparently that was a lucky thing I did because Korean-Canadian immigrants in the sixties were all just missionary families sponsored by the Presbyterian Church!]

REFERENCES 

Homestuck Character Classes (Most Official Fanon): https://homestuckexamination.tumblr.com/post/175472060924/homestuck-examination-classpect-analysis https://mspaintadventures.fandom.com/wiki/Class

Homestuck Cosmic Aspects (Canonical): http://hs.hiveswap.com/ezodiac/aboutaspects.php

[puppeteers-xenogenders]

xenogender:

epicaeoluscharic!

DEFINITION: a xenogender that describes feeling as if you are the Wind, twisting and turning.

DEFINITION 2: a xenogender that describes feeling as if your gender is connected to Aeolus from Epic: The Musical.

★ requested ; anonymous . . < ❓ >

[thethirdromana]

The suit in which I had travelled was gone, and also my overcoat and rug

Dracula Daily has been a bit light on things I can provide images of recently, so let's have some Victorian overcoats.

The top left is a Chesterfield overcoat, which is also what the man on the left in the top right photo is wearing; his is double-breasted. A Chesterfield is a formal coat, which I think is why it's being paired with top hats here.

The bottom left is an Ulster overcoat, though if the cape were the same length as the sleeves it would be an Inverness overcoat instead. This is a less formal daytime coat.

On the bottom right is an advert for Mackintosh waterproof overcoats. They used fabric coated with rubber, an idea which dates back to the Aztecs, but which in the UK took off from the 1840s onwards.

I don't know what sort of overcoat Jonathan would wear for a long journey to Transylvania, but my guess would be an Ulster or Inverness.

[luseals]

More pixel Art Fight attacks (~:

Characters belong to @eye-spy-an-eye, @ironduckcosplay, shrimpscampi, typeofcrayon, and @beccadrawsstuff!

[holographic--love]

Holographic Dangle Earrings | WuveHandmade

[madcatacres]