#I feel just slightly insane

[spineless-lobster]

Holy shit just woke up from a dream that they released skecthes of patroclus in hades 2 AND sketches of his mother it literally felt so real like in the dream I went into tumblr.com and everyone here was freaking the fuck out

[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.

[incredubious]

a sabo from when i was tryna get the hang of him

[varyingobsession]

greetings ladies et al.

this took me months, 3 drawing program switches (and subsequent almost losing/corrupting the whole almost finished file), many in-game field research expeditions, and honestly more literature review than i expected to make, but by jove if i cant go way too hard infodumping botanical and biochemical information to make a speculative biology "thesis" for no reason, then what can i do

written as presented by my silly hearthian xenobiochemist oc, jet :-)

also comes in pdf form for your convenience

slightly bc i saw this [eote/dlc spoilers] speculative biology post from @ms-marz and got inspired

thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[casualavocados]

Chen Yi + gentle hands in Ai Di's hair KISEKI: DEAR TO ME (2023)

[not-equippedforthis]

shout out to the very distinct feeling of 'oh god i'm going to become at least mildly annoying about this aren't i'. binging ds9 season 1 and i outright giggled at a very small mannerism julian did. got hyped when o'brien showed up. grinned widely at kira just Being There. felt the urge to yell and cheer and scream at the slightest hint of whump. the character dynamics and friendships are beginning to interweave like strings in a tapestry and i almost detonated upon realising this. uh oh.

[literallyjusttoa]

Ok! Had to take a bit of a break for personal reasons (thank you guys sm for the support and patience!) BUT, I should be back, barring any sort of crazy irl shenanigans (knock on wood). As an offering, have my freehand studies of Apollo statues, as I tried to find features I could steal and integrate into my style.

First pass, I accidentally deleted the statue I was using as reference and also ewww gross I hate this one

second pass, ok alright, we're getting somewhere, I'm feeling it.

Third pass. I am no longer feeling it. Wtf happened. Alien looking ass.

Fourth pass. We are back on the saddle. However I am veering sharply towards realism and it is scaring me. This means it's time to ditch the references and stylize, leading to...

The fifth and final pass! I tried mixing the features I picked up from the statues with the style I already had, and it kind of worked? Idk how I feel about it. I feel more confident in my color placements tho so that's cool.

[furiousgoldfish]

I just realized that I'm defining 'healing' by 'feeling and functioning a little better than I did before' when from any other point of view I literally just escaped, shut myself in, never talk about what happened, get scared of everything, don't make human connections and re-live past situations as if they're still here. But I am feeling a little better than I did. So I'm having good progress I guess.

[backpackingspace]

Okay but consider post Canon over protective Athena who is sick to death of her most devout being raped.

Athena sticking close to the whole family and promising penelope that she'll keep a close eye on odysseus the first time he has to go into the market and penelope can't go with him. (She was going to go anyway. She's never actually going to let any of them out of her sight ever again. And it's an easy promise to her dearest weaver who seems so distressed to have odysseus leaving her side.)

Athena fully manifesting in the market when someone grabs odysseus with godly flashes of snakes and owls and the drums of war to scream /release him/ (odysseus is feeling indulgent for both his patron and his wife it's so cute that they're this worried it's not like he couldn't defend himself just fine. Especially from whatever poor fuck just grabbed him who definitely doesn't deserve a goddess screaming in his face. Hes trying so hard not to laugh if he did athena would send him flying.)

Athena telling all the other gods that yes she knows odysseus is the favorite barbie doll she choose him well after all and to back the fuck off if any of them bother him again they will have made an enemy of her.

Athena disguising odysseus only as an old beggar from here on out instead of an irresistibly tall and handsome man. Because she saw how uncomfortable nausicaa's attention made him.

[rolandkaros]

KAROLÍNA MUCHOVÁ [CZE] in her runner's up speech || CHINA OPEN FINAL || 10 06 24

[nanamis-baker]

My Nanami smut has like 400 notes and my gojo smut has almost 700 notes when I think the Nanami smut is arguably better written because the gojo smut was my first smut lol.

But like seriously, how much do you all like gojo lmaooo😭😂😂

[y-rhywbeth2]

'...from the Lord of Murder, there was only one protection: the blessing of another god.' - Waterdeep

Things to keep in mind if you're one of his estranged children and apostates.

[detectiveneve]

alright with 30+ hours. I'm gonna yap about my personal itching beef, since I'm having a ton of fun. but.

I think by far one of my biggest issues with the game is how much they flattened out thedas' social & political landscape. maybe for ease, maybe out of fear of tackling their topics "badly," but the way that they both want to address tevinter's slavery, but have also extremely downplayed elven subjugation & oppression as a longstanding lore, is sooo... frustrating.

I think the story so far is pretty solid, I'm having a GREAT time, I enjoy all the cast, but it does feel like it could've been a lot deeper if they'd fully accounted for the breadth of these longstanding lore realities that come with magic & class & whether one is human or elven or dwarven. I've gotten NONE of that, AS an elf shadow dragon. davrin going "that'll endear us to the world..." about the gods being elven is insane -- elves are already oppressed under the structures of thedas! tevinter is where all of this STARTED. similarly, the lack of interaction between magic & class is like... craaazy to me.

these structures are present throughout the entirety of each game, it should feel different in each location. it just feels clumsy to both want to address the social issues of slavery, etc. present in thedas, and ALSO flatten out the differences between city elves & dalish, not emphasize it more especially with an elven origin... like wdym. wdym. that one of the biggest mentions of it with an elven rook is the scroll lore where rook goes "it's about time someone acknowledged what my people did..." about some guy who praised the elves. a shadow dragon elf rook will have been living with a very specific systemic structure of oppression for their entire life. WHY isn't that here. the story structure I'm having a good time with, the characters I'm having a good time with, but goddd it could have been so much deeper if it had actually incorporated some of the complexity & nuance of these social structures in thedas. you look silly trying to both include these themes of shadow dragons breaking slavery and ALSO pussyfooting around The Origins Of How We Got Here. that's not even getting into MAGIC, and how being a MAGE should mean something different in different places. like. whahrhrrhrhrhrr.

[batsplat]

you might have already talked abt this but I’m interested if you have any thoughts on the similarities & differences in Casey & Valentino’s early childhoods and families……I don’t know much abt Casey’s upbringing & the little I know about Valentino’s all makes me go “huh ok I kinda get it now” lol. Idk like I found out Jorge’s whole deal w his dad and I was like “OH OK you make perfect sense to me now” but I’m not there yet w the other two, yk?

so okay,, I do have an ask from forever back about marc and valentino's childhoods that I got extremely stuck at answering, and also an ask about jorge's father that I haven't even touched because like. sometimes you just do not feel up for that lol. and well it's just an area where I do generally try and be quite careful in how I discuss it... BUT this is casey stoner hot take round™ so I will give a reasonably succinct answer to this and not overthink it too much. basically: yeah, I do have thoughts, because casey's childhood does undeniably do a lot of the work in the 'oh okay that makes sense now' department. a lot of his career narrative, his struggles, his disillusionment with the sport... and yes, the way the valentino rivalry unfolded - a lot of it can be traced back quite a long way, to grievances he's been carrying around with him for years and years. I talked in this post about that podcast interview casey did this year, which included... well, a bit of a reckoning. talking as openly as he ever has about how being a rider wasn't ever really his dream - it's something that was decided for him. and that's our starting point... casey's eternally ambivalent relationship with being a rider, one that feels so violently different from valentino's

the big, big contrast between casey and valentino's respective journeys is pretty simple to sum up: it's the joy. valentino was having fun. casey wasn't. now, look - valentino as a child very obviously did not have perfect autonomy in making the choice to be a rider. it's always going to be more complicated than that; his father did obviously push him in that direction. but at the end of the day, it's not too controversial to say that valentino always enjoyed riding and always had fun racing. it's a joy he carried with him on his way to becoming a rider, one that remained a part of his competitive dna throughout his professional career. it's a joy that kept him racing for as long as he did. a childlike joy, in a way - valentino's lack of 'adult' seriousness, how it's been remarked upon that this brutal sport has never quite managed to wear him down. his peter pan persona, how he's the boy who won't ever grow up. and, y'know... valentino had the chance to actually be a kid. he got to have something vaguely resembling a proper childhood. makes sense, right - if you want to be a kid forever, it helps to have been one in the first place

there's a quote of his from 2009 I posted recently:

which, in the context of that interview - this question refers back to an earlier exchange about how casey wasn't a 'romantic' rider (still think that's an objectively pretty funny thing to say about your rival but that's neither here nor there). and, well, valentino's correct! sports has become considerably more professionalised over time. children are less and less likely to be able to afford any sort of life outside of it. which isn't just about reducing passion, right - it's also about not really giving these kids the chance to properly grow up, to become more rounded human beings who don't have to be the perfect little athlete 100% of the time. it's also a correct diagnosis of casey specifically, who certainly could never afford to see racing as a game. I'd recommend reading this autobiography excerpt, where casey tells you exactly that: racing wasn't about having fun for casey. he'd moved to the uk with his parents at fourteen years of age, at which point he essentially became his family's sole provider. his family depended on him not failing - and every opportunity threatened to be his last, his racing future and financial situation always desperately precarious. he was constantly fearful all of his family's sacrifices might have been for nothing. it's immense pressure to put any teenager under, regardless of how much you want to convince them that it's their dream rather than your own. if casey wasn't already an overly self-critical perfectionist before those years, he certainly was by the time he made it to motogp. he couldn't afford to be anything less than perfect. remember: the shape his anxiety took was by making him curl up in his motorhome, terrified of letting everyone down. wonder where that came from

is it any surprise, then, that while valentino feels like kids today take racing too seriously, casey thinks they don't take it seriously enough?

The system has changed: when you put too much pressure on a 20-year-old, he can react by closing up and becoming serious and sad. // Nowadays I see too many kids coming through behaving too relaxed, and too happy with what they have achieved already. I don’t want them to be miserable but they have to understand what’s at stake.

doesn't this make you want to scream. a little

and, look, there are similarities between valentino and casey in ways that will be true of many child prodigy athletes. valentino has spoken about how his father would not do anything with him that didn't involve motorcycle racing, casey likewise has more recently in that podcast said he doesn't think he was allowed to pursue any other interest. we can talk plenty about how the parents of athletes like to use their children to fulfil their own dreams - how their child's athletic performance seems to become the only aspect of their child they have any interest in. how so much of that parental relationship becomes distorted by the ceaseless quest to achieve results. it's there in both of their stories... and obviously they are hardly unique in that respect. there's perhaps a little bit of a divide - to what extent kids are aware of this dynamic and are uncomfortable with it, especially publicly. both casey and valentino are united in being somewhat openly critical of their parents without being completely estranged from them. casey got his parents to move back to australia when he was arguing with his father too frequently as a young rider; valentino has seemingly kept his father at a bit of a distance for years. they've never cut themselves off entirely - but there's a certain undeniable wariness there. a lack of conviction that their parents acted as parents should that they've been willing to hint at publicly, here and there

Our communication is mostly about motorbikes. He wasn't a good father, I mean... When I was with him, playing always meant riding motorbikes for him. // To be honest, I don’t know if I was allowed to have any other attraction to be honest. I think it was, you know, you’re going to be a bike rider from when I was a very very young age - and I’m not the only one to think that.

still, it does come back to the joy of it all. casey justifies his belief that racing isn't fun by talking about how he'd always known how high the stakes were... whereas for valentino, fun is an integral part of the experience. it's what he's there for. and beyond the racing itself, valentino always found his life as a rider considerably more joyous than casey did. which leads us to the other difference between the pair of them: casey's loneliness. valentino has spoken frequently about the importance of his childhood friend group, about having them travel with him and ground him and be there with him throughout - people who knew him before he became the valentino rossi, people he feels that he can fully rely on. he grew up as part of a community and has a strong sense of identification with not just his country but also his town... he's got deep ties to his place of origin and the people who live there, built up over a lot of time, and he draws a lot of strength from that. by contrast, casey grew up moving around a fair bit, unhappy at school and the victim of bullying - his only real friends, he says, were from the dirt track, since they were the only people he 'had anything in common with'. even those friendships don't feel particularly substantial, especially given how often he frames his childhood racing experiences around the hostility of his competitors (and especially their parents) in response to his peerless talent. his parents eventually home schooled him, inevitably further isolating him. then, as a teenager, he moved to the uk where he knew nobody, before moving to spain where he didn't even speak the language. he continued to have a strong sense of connection to australia, fuelled at least in part by homesickness - but it's also a connection to a country he hadn't lived in since age fourteen, a sense of belonging that's fundamentally less stable, less comforting. one that exists primarily in contrasting himself to all the europeans he surrounds with, as a way of making sense of his feelings of cultural alienation - which in truth are sometimes just plain alienation. the paddock cannot function as a home for casey either, and he is unwilling or unable to form substantial connections in that environment. in 2009, ten odd years after moving away from australia, he said his only friend in the paddock was his wife

and yes, it plays into that rivalry - inevitably so. casey and valentino are both somewhat alien to each other, fundamentally unknowable... and it does come back to how at odds they were in their approaches, in how they motivated themselves. casey finds the europeans and their flamboyant celebrations baffling. valentino cannot relate to casey's lack of romantic affection for the sport. casey is there to do a job. valentino is there to put on a show. casey does not think racing should be about having fun. valentino believe the fun is non-negotiable. casey loves almost nothing about being a rider, whereas valentino loves almost all of it

another thing. when I was writing this post about the similarities between casey and valentino, one aspect I talked about was how they can both be.... uh. suspicious characters, shall we say. paranoid, some might call them. conspiratorial, even. now, again, to some extent they do share this with a lot of other athletes, it's kind of part of the game. but, y'know, they do take it quite far - and there's quite a pleasing parallel between the pair of them where they've both come up with a conspiracy theory about one of valentino's lost titles. which leads us to quite a nice distinction between these two theories. not to brag, but I kinda feel I nailed one of the most important elements of their dynamic:

now, look. I deliberately did not do this,, but obviously if you really wanted to, you can do some pop psychology on valentino's approach to interpersonal attachment and relate that back to his relationship with his parents. I am not interested in doing that for various reasons, most of which the cia would not get out of me, but I'm aware it's an approach you can take. in any case, I do still think you can make quite a straightforward case for this distinction: one of them believes the world is fundamentally out to get them, one of them doesn't. one of them is waiting for the system to fuck them over, the other is wary of individuals who have gotten a little too close. both of them at times are exceedingly ready to read malice into the words and actions of those around them - and both of them can react rather dramatically to such a provocation. the shape their suspicion takes is a little bit different and a little bit the same... but it's central to understanding both of them, in a way that does set them apart from their competitors. they're the two aliens who are the most likely to read an agenda into anything and everything. they're the ones who are most likely to take note of slights, to accumulate grievances. the most likely to not forget when they have been wronged - and to take great pleasure in getting back at whoever has done them ill

in the end, it all comes back to just what an excellent foil for casey you have in valentino. in all the ways casey defines himself against valentino, in all the ways valentino challenges casey, in all the ways casey's issues with the sport are inextricably interwoven with the character of valentino rossi. casey hates so much of the sport in ways that are tied so closely to valentino; he hates a system that invariably would like nothing more than to see valentino succeed. but valentino also represents what casey cannot be - not just an entertainer, but someone completely at ease with their life as a rider. someone who finds joy in that life, who did not step away from it until he absolutely had to. valentino is there long before casey arrives and he is there long after casey leaves. valentino is an idol, an enemy, a mystery. more so than any other rider, valentino embodies an emotion that casey believed he simply could not afford to feel. valentino is the sport's joy - and casey was never there to have fun

[banana-pancake5]

Moon Knight is fantastic.

[mike-haters-dni]

with peace and love and all the understanding that this is the least serious shit in the world bro what do you meaaaan mike’s love language isn’t words like brooo that boy is a yapperrr he tries desperately like once a season to tell eleven how he feels and is constantly telling her how amazing and important to him she is like his heart is constantly pouring out of his mouth so bad it’s actually a problem for him. he couldn’t say “I love you” because it was too scary and vulnerable because the words mean so so much to him like. cmon.