#actually a modern renaissance

[latapadraws]

spiderverse is literal crack for artists

[praise-the-lord-im-dead]

Really weirded out when people insist a setting is medieval because it's fantasy and there are swords

[moonagedaydreamsofrhiannon]

every time someone calls contemporary art “not real art” an angel loses its wings (a creative and unique new artist gives up on their passion and the world becomes slightly less interesting where it could have become slightly more)

[not-a-heretic]

i have rediscovered my love for baroque period artwork. i can’t guarantee your safety from religious-esq. Like Minds fanart any longer. we’re all in grave danger against what these two hands might create.

[anghraine]

It's still so weird when I see people hand wringing about comparisons of fanfiction to early modern literature, usually with the assumption that the people making the comparisons only read fanfic or they'd know that there's some special quality to early modern writers re-purposing pre-existing stories, themes, and characters that fanfic doesn't have.

But it's glaring that despite all the theatrics and how daaaaares and "read real literature" etc, it's not really possible to define what that quality is.

Early modern literature is not automatically good just because it's old. As in any era, plenty of it sucks! So it's not just "well, fanfic is bad/mediocre and early modern literature is definitionally brilliant and that's what makes them different." It's not that early modern literature comes from an era of unhindered artistry or some nonsense like that. At least for English writers, it was in fact an era of heavy censorship, and opportunities for writing the kind of literature under discussion were sharply restricted by who got access to education and patronage.

Now, those kinds of concerns do make the creative process for early modern English literature different from the far fewer restrictions on writing fanfic. The trends are (sometimes) different and the goals are often different. I don't think they're actually the same thing. But I do think fans are 100% right to point out that the modern obsession with originality, novelty, and copyright is not some absolute standard for all kinds of writing and can't even be consistently applied to works considered literary given how wildly ahistorical it is for things like early modern literature.

If you're going to argue that there is some intrinsic quality about fanfic that makes it Just Worse by definition—and especially if you're going to grandstand and sneer at people about it—then you should be able to define what that is. And it is fair to point out that this concept that originality of plot, theme, and character are intrinsically better, more creative, and even sometimes a defining quality of literature cannot account for things like early modern literature and don't make any sense in many contexts.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

A Study of Marsilio Ficino's Notebooks

Link to PDF

Ficino’s notebooks represent a precious insight into his scriptorium: first of all, they represent an important stage in the compiler’s production of a future work to be written and then published. Secondly, they show an unusual and more concrete image of the Florentine scholar than the one portraying Ficino as the mere recipient of divine inspiration: a scholar at work, and who is concerned both with the philological study of ancient texts and with extracting from the immense mass of ancient doctrines at his disposal the material he needs to develop his own philosophical thought.

[multi-lefaiye]

roach-centric 'a modern ghost story' thoughts:

there's still supernatural stuff happening, but i might take the void-walkers out of it and just let them run free.

the base premise is still the same. it's about a group of ghost hunters investigating a haunted house to help the family living there.

the ghost hunters are still: syd ambrose, yara key, oliver cox, and roach. the difference here is just that the story focuses more on roach (and oliver as well by extension) than the others.

syd and yara also still have their own storyline as well and don't just exist to further roach's, but the story itself is focused on roach.

the main thesis of "ghosts are just people who are afraid to let go" is still present.

however, even with all the supernatural stuff, the main focus is now on roach's journey, growth, and recovery, and the real "ghost story" is the shit they can't quite let go of.

the ghosts are real but so are these people's problems <3

[rigels-nigels]

what century are we talking here because people bathed (and more importantly *washed*) a lot more than twice a decade for a very very very long portion of history, and in fact did so quite commonly, every few days iirc in medieval times, and while they weren't as big as in rome, they were still a pretty big thing until about the 16th century, bc of, yknow, the catholic church and they got associated with brothels and whatnot

like, in the general medieval times you could basically be prescribed with taking a bath if you were feeling unwell, as they believed it served as a sort of reset for your body (and they were right tbh, bath will fix many ailments lmao) And alongside that, it was really just a not uncommon part of treatment. Reading the trotula (a collection of 3 manuscripts relating to health and beauty), in the medical section, a number of treatments given had the person take a bath as part of said treatment.

and even if you didn't take a bath bath that doesn't mean they didn't clean themselves! sponge baths are things! even if you took a bath only once a month you'd still wipe yourself clean with a tub of water, soap, and a cloth!

they also very much had skincare. again, looking to the trotula, the 3rd manuscript is all about cosmetics. (one of the first things mentioned there is to take a bath, or steambath, they had saunas then still) they had hair cleansers, hair powders, and a variety of other hair treatments, over twenty in this one manuscript. They also had face masks, oil, creams, i needn't go on

Their teeth care was also not horrific either like you'd be led to believe, like, they believed that bad smell = disesase, and they weren't entirely wrong in a way, but as such, bad breath was something people did try to avoid. hazel twigs were a not uncommon thing to use, and they could combine it with powdered salt and clove for a bit more abrasiveness (miswak is a very similar thing from the mustard tree still used today) (also there wasn't nearly as much sugar in foods then as now which would have helped a lil)

can't speak entirely on the water thing but like, again, they weren't stupid they just didn't have the same level of tech and knowledge as we do now. they knew dirty water was bad, they just didn't know the exact reason why. the only reason i could think as to why they would have ever drank such is 1. they didn't know it was contaminated (a more likely problem when living in a city, they did try to keep the polluting things downstream for obvious reasons but one can only do so much) 2. they had no choice (things happen, war, drought, you'll take what you can get)

[hsslilly-blog]

keira knightly's filmography being comprised mostly of period pieces is awesome and very claire

[violentferalcat]

time for an ADHD and rabbit hole rant.

i am currently going down the rabbit hole of manosphere influencers on twitter, because i stumbled upon a person who has labelled himself "Renaissance Man". and i got a bit skeptical, because i am always skeptical of people who are like, "oooh, i want to bring back the good old days, you know?" because by that they mostly mean "i want privilege and be able to discriminate and oppress people without society's backlash for my behaviour" so i decided to do a bit of research. apparently, a Renaissance Man or Polymath if a person, usually a scholar, who is knowledgeable in many fields, you know, how in the past you could just be a Scientist™ who studied everything. so far so good, right? i too would want to be able to study whatever i want and pursue my little interests, without feeling the societal pressure of choosing One Thing for the rest of my life. so, after making sure that a Renaissance Man in its historical definition didn't mean anything actively harmful (just a person who studies everything and who is curious about everything, relatable) i went on twitter to see who exactly would label themself a Renaissance Man.

i present to you, the first result on twitter.

a typical manosphere influencer. wikipedia provides the definition of a Renaissance Man in modern times as someone who has proficiency in multiple fields or a person with many interests and talents. alright then, let's look at this @MaleRebirth person to see whether they possess a multitude of interests and talents.

looking through their account, they mostly post the same old bullshit manosphere influencers post about - how to "get girls". they sometimes post about self-improvement, i.e. going to the gym, taking care of yourself and how you dress, etc. which, in itself is not that harmful, but they do so not as an end itself, but to attract more women. so, in conclusion, this person has only ONE interest - getting laid

BUT i would argue that that's not even their interest and instead is to make money from gullible men. they are selling a course called, and I am sorry to y'all, "The Womanizer's Awakening" on gumroad which costs 80USD. so, instead, their pursuit is not that of a true "Renaissance Men", i.e. deepening your knowledge in many fields, but instead is to make money.

Renaissance Men (or Renaissance People, for gender neutrality) believed in Renaissance Humanism, the philosophy that Human is in the centre of the universe and that there is nothing that we can't do. very noble! agree! educate yourself, learn, study, live and be happy and pursue your goals!

but from this point, point A) humans should pursue knowledge, skills, and self-betterment, you can extract point B) you should make sure that everyone has access to that sort of life, since it will make the world better. I assume that most historical Renaissance figures had money or at least didn't have to do "commoners" work either by having a patron or through inheritance. Currently, however, due to capitalism and the deepening crises, most people, even scholars and academics, cannot afford that way of living. So, you can extract point C) That a true modern Renaissance Person will be against the current oppressive system of capitalism as it goes against the idea of universal equity and the ability for all humans to pursue their interest and goals.

From this we can build a theoretical modern Renaissance Person. It is a person who is an 1) anti-capitalist, 2) strives for social equity in all spheres of human nature, 3) believes in Universal Basic Income, 4) believes in the freedom of all people to pursue their goals and reach happiness

Also, I do think labelling yourself a "Renaissance Person" would be quite classist, you know, since it'd lead to thoughts like, "I am not like those plebs, those absolute shit heads, I am a person of honour and scholarship!!"

but I think a "true renaissance person" would easily see this pitfall and avoid it /j

Thank you for coming to my TED talk,

[cryptotheism]

I hope this doesn't come off as disrespectful, because I'm genuinely curious, but like...is alchemy "real"? Because the way you speak about it is how I wish I could, myself, appreciate it and you're the closest I've ever found to a real world wizard which excites me a great deal. I totally respect if for you it's actually just an interesting academic study without intention, I'm just curious for how you view it in that lens.

No that's a good question!

Short answer: Yes, as in alchemists were real people who could actually do cool shit sometimes, but they weren't actually transmuting lead into gold, you need a particle accelerator for that.

In the 4th century, you weren't a scientist, that word hadn't been invented yet. You were a Natural Philosopher. You studied everything from the stars, to mathematics, to medicine, to the nature of herbs and stones.

In the medieval era, you weren't an astronomer, you were an astrologer. Telling people's horoscopes involved a lot of astronomical math. There wasn't really a difference between astronomy and astrology.

In the renaissance era, you weren't a chemist. The term chemist didn't exist yet. You were an alchemist. You tried to make gold sometimes, but you also manufactured dyes, glass vessels, cosmetics, paints, and medicines. You were kind of a whitesmith, and a glass-blower, and a doctor, and sometimes just a con-man.

Alchemy and chemistry have a relationship similar to Astrology and Astronomy. But, don't think of alchemy as just "Chemistry with magic." Alchemy is the father of modern chemistry. It is the cocoon that chemistry sprouted out of.

The thing is, alchemy is more "real" than astrology is. You know what a common use of astrology was in the medieval era? Diagnosing diseases. You'd check someone's horoscope to determine what medicine to give them. This didn't work. A medieval astrology textbook isn't going to be useful for diagnosing why your stomach hurts.

But!

Medieval alchemy texts are actually useful sometimes. If you want to dye some copper so it looked more like gold, there are alchemy texts that can tell you how to do that. If you want to distill the mercury out of some cinnabar, alchemists could do that. They didn't really know how or why that worked, but they could do it! If you want a potion that could make you immortal, the alchemists could make a philter of mercury and lead that would definitely 100% kill you and it would hurt the whole time you were dying. You can't win em all.

Im writing about the history of alchemy on my patreon if you wanna support me!

[reignpage]

Modern au!Masterlist

Pt 2 Introduction - help guide Playlist FAQ Each link is actually part of the series, the parts just mark which are smaus and which are in-between fics

Gojo(finale in production) ❥ San Miguel: bottoms up (pt 1) ❥ Staropramen: drink up ❥ Stella Artois: stella? i barley know ya (pt 2) ❥ Birra Moretti: on the rocks (pt 3) ❥ Carling lager: shaken, not stirred (pt 4) ❥ Estrella Damm: don't drink and run ❥ Peroni Nastro Azzurro: brewing fun (pt 5) ❥ Corona Extra: sobering up (pt 6) ❥ Madri Lager: drunk words ❥ Budweiser: drink up (pt 7) ❥ Cosmopolitan: sober thoughts ❥ Bloody Mary: black out (pt 8) ❥ Old Fashioned: swallow that bitter taste ❥ Mojito: bottomless ❥ Daiquiri: splash of water

Geto(finished) ❥ 1923 BMW R32: put your keys in my ignition (pt 1) ❥ 1937 Brough Superior SS100: take me for a ride (pt 2) ❥ 1957 Harvey-Davidson Sportster: bumpy ride (pt 3) ❥ Ducati 350 Desmo: rev my engine ❥ Yamaha XT500: slowing down (pt 4) ❥ Norton Commando: speeding up (pt 5) ❥ Kawasaki W800: flashing lights ❥ Aprilia Tuono: halting to a stop (pt 6) ❥ Manx Norton: going over the limit Choso(finished) ❥ Fauvism: strong colours and fierce brushwork (pt 0) ❥ Rococo: aristocratic leisure (pt 1) ❥ Suprematism: pure artistic feeling (pt 2) ❥ Surrealism: exploration of dreams (pt 3) ❥ Classicism: practice strokes ❥ Arte Povera: humility and irony (pt 4) ❥ Precisionism: sharp cuts (pt 5) ❥ Renaissance: worship

[minetteskvareninova]

I am not on Bluesky and you cannot make me join, but if there was anything that could make me do it, it would be seeing this contrarian bullshit while procrastinating from studying on my Early Modern History exams. Because someone needs to give these historically illiterate morons a reality check.

Listen. I don't *like* Middle Ages. I don't vibe with their art, philosophy, politics, anything. But they existed. They brought something of value to the world. Over the course of the Middle Ages, Europe experienced important societal developments. Without these developments, renaissance literally wouldn't happen. Renaissance was in many ways (art, philosophy, science) a continuation of the Middle Ages, in that there really isn't hard cut between Late Medieval period and the renaissance. In other ways, it was exactly like the Middle Ages AND WORSE. The panic over witchcraft reached its zenith in the 16th and the first half of the 17th century. Lots of unscientific bullshit about medicine, alchemy etc. was still going strong well into the 17th century. In fact, 17th century really was the worst, I'd just despise it with all my heart if it wasn't for a few bright spots like baroque architecture, beginnings of the scientific revolution and the like. And are you seriously calling out medieval Europeans for their silly religious beliefs and tendency for violence when renaissance was THE era of bullshit religious conflicts?! Like, my man! Thirty Years wasn't a medieval thing! Even the thing about "going to war with your cousin" - THAT'S LITERALLY WAR OF SPANISH SUCCESSION WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT

I am not even going to talk about the 16th and 17th century on other continents, because in the Americas it was the era of LITERAL APOCALYPSE. Like how can you talk about any progress when that part of the world saw a brutality that would make the crusaders blush.

It sucks that Early Modern Era still effectively doesn't exist in the popular imagination. Its best parts are subsumed into "renaissance" and "enlightenment". Its worst parts are grouped in with the Middle Ages - not the least because they didn't actually improve that much, and in fact got worse a lot of the time. But you cannot celebrate the art of Da Vinci and just ignore the atmosphere of constant warfare between petty duchies it was born in. That's not how historical eras work. In fact, historical eras aren't really discreet categories with a clear cutoff point, but more like approximate divisions of a continuum. There is very little that separates the art of 1599 from 1600, but by 1650, you do kinda start seeing the difference.

Also! I know I keep repeating this, but Middle Ages didn't suck equally throughout their entirety. "Dark Ages" were the Early Medieval Era, which itself was a several centuries long period by most estimates. High Middle Ages were mostly as good as the Middle Ages got, you get gothic architecture, invention of universities, scholastic philosophy, the works. 14th century is when the things really start to suck again, Black Plague comes, you get wars and peasant rebellions, yada yada. But you also get the earliest "renaissance" art, so if you like that style, you can't disavow the Middle Ages entirely. And the 15th century is also mostly bad, except that one is when the renaissance and humanism period begins in earnest, so.

[dresshistorynerd]

That ChatGPT ask about The Great Famine made me think about how generative AI is so devastating for historical understanding, but especially the understanding of dress history. There's a lot of completely inaccurate history AI slop, both generated images and writing. I'm always searching primary source images, but even then I've started to come across the occasional AI generated image, which is always very bad. Google image search is at this point almost useless.

The issue is that there's so much outdated information and frankly misinformation about history in the internet and in other source materials the AI scraps. This is of course an issue with many other fields as well, but history definitely belong to the fields which have most misinformation spread about them. When a human armed with a bit of critical thinking comes across a source they can evaluate it's validity. But AI doesn't have critical thinking. It can't think. So if there's a lot of sources, which peddle the same common misconception, AI weights it above what the few rigorous academic sources say. And then the AI becomes basically a misinformation peddling machine. And there's no way of finding our where it got it's information. Even the AI doesn't really know because of the way it works, and that's why, when you try to ask it, it tries to scours for sources that say similar things it was saying rather than giving the actual source it got the information from. And if it doesn't find a source? Well, it might hallucinate one. This is of course an issue in multiple level not just because it's filling the internet with misinformation and drowning out reliable information. It's also basically a plagiarism machine.

This is even worse with dress history than most historical fields, because dress history is such a new field and there's comparatively very little quality research. Even many historians of different fields peddle a lot of old misconceptions of dress history (sometimes you even come across a fairly new paper on dress history and there's some misconception repeated as a truth). So of course AI is very unlikely to produce anything close to accurate information on dress history.

So to see for myself how bad it actually is (and to have a bit of laugh) I decided to try out ChatGPT for the first time. I decided I would ask it a question I have answered in a blog post myself before to see how close (or far) it got.

Here's what I asked: "When did it become socially acceptable for men to wear dresses?"

I have written a very long post on this before found here.

And here's the answer ChatGPT gave with my commentary:

The idea of men wearing dresses has evolved significantly over time, with different periods in history showcasing varying degrees of acceptance. In general, men have worn clothing that could be considered "dress-like" at various points in history, though the specific social context has changed. 1. Ancient and Medieval Times: Men in many ancient cultures, including the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, wore tunics, robes, or other garments that we might now think of as dresses. These were considered appropriate for men, often signifying social status, wealth, or ceremonial importance.

Not bad, though this makes it sound like men only wore dresses to signify status, wealth or ceremonial importance, when in fact all men wore dresses. I also made a point in my post to say these were dresses, not just "dress-like". They were (mostly) constructed and (mostly) called the same as the equivalent clothing women wore, so of course I take issue with the framing.

2. Renaissance and Early Modern Period: During the Renaissance and up through the 17th century, men’s fashion included elaborate gowns, skirts, and dresses, often with frills, lace, and rich fabrics. These were considered fashionable and elegant for men, particularly among the aristocracy.

Here's were we're getting to the inaccurate territory. Yes still during renaissance men were wearing dresses, however it was becoming fashionable among especially young noble (and soldier class) men to wear extremely tiny skirts, until they stopped being skirts and turned into very fitted thighs (hose) and doublet. It was the period when dress became increasingly less acceptable for men to wear, but it was precisely lower class and peasant men, who were slower to follow the new fashions and masculine standards, not very surprisingly. But by Early Modern Period it had become unacceptable for men to wear dresses. Yes, there was still hems at points, but those were coat hems, which might seem like basically the same as a skirt hem, but conceptually they were different. It's the same today. No one thinks nothing of it if a man is wearing a long overcoat, with buttons closed, on top of a suit, but if they are wearing thighs and same length skirt? Well, for the next couple of weeks you'll get outrage op-eds and conservative influencers losing their minds over "the death of Western civilization".

Also in 1600s (roughly around 1630s-1660s) rich fabrics and elaborated detailing was not fashionable, not among women and certainly not among men. Men's fashion especially favoured a lot of black and other dark and neutral tones, influenced by somber religious atmosphere influenced by the all the Reformations and Counter-Reformations and wars about them going on at the time. (Of course there's some counter examples, but the general statement ChatGPT gave to me is simple incorrect.)

3. 18th and 19th Century: By the 18th century, Western fashion for men became more structured, and by the Victorian era (19th century), men were expected to wear trousers, waistcoats, and suits (my comment: you mean coat right, ChatGPT?? suit already encompases trousers and waistcoat). The shift towards more gender-specific clothing for men and women took root, and women’s dresses became more ornate and feminine, while men’s clothing became more utilitarian and restrictive.

First of all the height of structuring in Western fashion for both men and women, was during the Elizabethan Era, and additionally men's fashion got briefly a little less structured during the 18th century. As I explain in my post about the actual origins of modern men's suit (it was not Beau Brummel), the three piece suit with trousers, waistcoat and coat was popularized in 1670s. Women's dresses becoming more "feminine" means literally nothing when what was feminine was just seen differently. Of course it became more feminine in our modern eyes, when we get closer to the present day in the historical timeline, because modern femininity was being formed at the time. Men's fashion did become more utilitarian (I talk about a bit about the reasons why in the post about three piece suit above), but I wouldn't call it more restrictive necessarily.

Points for ChatGPT though for acknowledging that fashion became more gender specific around 18th and 19th centuries.

4. 20th Century: The 20th century saw men in dresses or skirts make occasional appearances in fashion, especially in avant-garde or countercultural movements. For example, in the 1920s, some male actors in Hollywood (my comment: here it's "forgetting" where it's going with the sentence, because it doesn't understand what a cohesive sentence means), such as Marlene Dietrich’s famous cross-dressing moments, challenged gender norms. In the 1960s and 1970s, figures like David Bowie, with his androgynous style, brought more attention to the concept of men wearing dresses as part of a wider push for gender fluidity in fashion.

The fact that cross-dressing became more acceptable in the early 20th century for women and people seen as women, didn't really do anything (or very little) to the make cross-dressing more acceptable for men, or those seen as such. Counter culture fashions in 70s and 80s were much more accepting of androgynous men and men wearing skirts, but the wider mainstream fashion was absolutely not accepting of that, definitely not outside the rock icons, who themselves were also side-eyed a lot.

5. Late 20th to 21st Century: By the 1990s and 2000s, with the rise of gender nonconformity and movements pushing for gender equality and expression, men wearing dresses became more visible and socially accepted. Public figures like Prince, Kurt Cobain, and later, celebrities like Harry Styles and Billy Porter, have worn dresses and skirts as part of their personal style, pushing the boundaries of traditional gendered fashion.

It's absolutely still not seen as acceptable for men to wear dresses. Yes, couple of celebrities have done that, and yes there's alternative fashion and queer people who do that, but if you take a look at how people in legacy and social media talk about them, it's pretty obvious that's not socially acceptable in the mainstream.

In essence, it became more socially acceptable for men to wear dresses as part of a broader cultural shift toward embracing non-binary gender expression and rejecting rigid gender norms, especially in the 21st century. Celebrities, designers, and activists have played key roles in challenging the old norms, making fashion more inclusive and fluid. This acceptance continues to grow in many parts of the world, although social attitudes can still vary greatly depending on cultural context.

"A broader cultural shift toward embracing non-binary gender expression and rejecting rigid gender norms." Laughing crying. Yeah, there was a cultural shift, but clearly it was not super broad. It's really laughable to suggest in the heart of the reactionary backlash moment that it's somehow broadly socially acceptable for men to wear dresses.

Also this "although social attitudes can still vary greatly depending on cultural context" makes it sound like outside the western context, which this answer is all about, the attitudes haven't changes as much, when in fact outside the western context dresses for men are much more often acceptable and part of the cultural norms.

Perhaps it was unfair of me to ask my question in a misleading way, since the answer to "when did it become acceptable for men to wear dresses" is "it was for a very long time, but it's not anymore". But this is part of the issue with ChatGPT and similar text based AI. When you ask them a question they will take the assumptions of the question and run with them, even if the assumptions in the question are completely false. It's not just a misinformation machine, but a misinformation machine designed to reinforce your preconceived notions. For example if you would ask ChatGPT "why were corsets unhealthy?" it might answer with a very long answer full of pseudoscientific misinformation straight from the mouths of Victorian eugenists. I did that and the answer was extremely predictably. I'm not going to go through all that since is was so very long and this is getting long enough, but for a taste, after all the bullshit reasons it gave, here's what it wrote at the end:

Why Corsets Were Worn Despite Health Risks: Fashion and Aesthetic Appeal: Corsets were primarily worn to achieve a specific beauty standard that emphasized an extremely small waist and a curvy figure. This was considered a symbol of femininity, refinement, and social status during certain historical periods. Cultural Norms: The societal pressure to conform to the idealized figure meant many women endured discomfort and health risks to fit into the norms of the time.

The biggest eyeroll. Of course nothing about how it distributes the weight of the boobs much more comfortably in the waist rather than the shoulders, or how the heavy dresses people wore needed support or movement would have been very difficult, or how it was an easy way to alter the body, any kind of body, to the fashionable silhouette without needing any invasive procedures or dangerous diets. The most classic, most predictable corset misinformation. This is exactly what I meant at the beginning. The internet is so full of this bullshit already, in the AI algorithm it makes it true.

The lesson is: do not use ChatCPT as your search engine and don't trust it as your source of information. There is numerous of issues with generative AI and the spread of misinformation is certainly one of the biggest, seeing how much death and destruction misinformation has caused only with vanilla social media. I'm afraid to think about the repercussions of refining that metaphorical misinformation machine with the literal misinformation machine. If you want to do research into dress history yourself, but don't know where to start, rather than asking ChatGPT, here's my tips for where to start.

Also be skeptical of the sources you find in the internet, including everything I write. In the age of generative AI it's even more important to use proper sourcing. I'm definitely not perfect about this, since I'm extremely chaotic in my research most of the time and bad at keeping my sources in good order (I don't want to do boring stuff when researching for my hobby, I do that enough for uni), but I'm making an effort to be better about it, at least for my more structured posts. But if you want to know any sources I've used for any reason, when I haven't listed them, you're always free to ask. I might have it somewhere among my 500 open tabs still open, or I might still be able to find it again. So anyway, be skeptical of writings (again, including mine) which don't have sources listed, not just because it could be AI, but also because the same issues apply outside AI - it's much harder to evaluate how trustworthy the writing is or to know weather it's plagiarized.

[wisteria-lodge]

"Smallclothes"

I just reblogged a very interesting thread about historical inaccuracy in A Song of Ice and Fire, but it was doing a whole big picture thing and I didn't want to clog it up with one very small detail that just really specifically bothers me.

It's his use of the term "smallclothes." Basically, in ASOIAF smallclothes = panties/knickers.

Daario found his breeches and pulled them on. He did not trouble himself with smallclothes.

Jon’s anger flared. “No, my lord, I mean to set them to sewing lacy smallclothes."

“... before Lord Snow wets his smallclothes.”

"he looked like he was going to shit his smallclothes"

So okay. 'smallclothes' or 'small-clothes' is a historical term (from the 1700s) that means... underlayer. Here's it being used by Charles Dickens:

“Will you run over, once again, what the boy said?” asks Mr. Tulkinghorn, putting his hands into the pockets of his rusty smallclothes and leaning quietly back in his chair."

The idea being that he's casual/doesn't care and isn't bothering to dress up for his guest. not that he's in his undies. Here is a illustration from Nicholas Nickleby of a suitor who has inappropriately "displayed his small-clothes"

I've heard "smallclothes" refer to things like pocket-handkerchiefs, and anecdotally it's sometimes used to refer to knickers in linguistically stubborn places like Yorkshire, but that just is not how the word was used historically.

so okay. fine. It's a fantasy story, he's just made up his own word that means "panties."

Except NO. They straight up did not wear panties in the middle ages and renaissance. Sometimes you got loose under-breeches with a split crotch BUT - in general that long white shirt/chemise just WAS your undergarment. Think of how much easier it is to manufacture! And clean! Boxer brief type things weren't a thing until the 1900s, and modern-ish woman's panties ("step-ins") weren't a thing until the 20s, because the hemlines stopped working with pantalettes and bloomers. There are no "lacy smallclothes" like there is lacy lingerie. That only makes sense if you have industrialized clothing manufacturing!

Honestly I would have thought GRRM would be all over this, like it's kinda sexy that it's just thigh-high stocking or leggings underneath those big dresses, right? But he hasn't done that. Instead he's just ported in a modern article of clothing and gave it an old-timey name. Just a little hint that he hasn't actually properly got his head around how these clothes were made and used, and that devalues them.

And it's escaped containment! It's canon in Dragon Age, and in fanfiction I'm seeing "smallclothes" or "smalls" used to describe the underwear in in Our Flag Means Death, the Lord of the Rings, the Witcher. Just have nothing! None of these people should be wearing panties!!!!

[ladykatibeth]

People mischaracterize Armand as a Machiavelliain, politically minded, schemer type smart when he's actually a renaissance art-science-philosophy type smart. He'd rather be studying modern inventions and debating what happens after we die with his boyfriends than running things.

However people keep putting this poor man in charge of things!!! Which is boring!!! He is meant to be in charge of (dotting/fussing over) one-three people and that is his limit!!! And that person (those people) must have philosophy debating on their resume(s)!!!

Getting to mess around with a projector and watch plays over and over again was like the only benefit of being a director for Armand.