#historical subjects

[royalty-nobility]

An Allegory of the Tudor Succession

Artist: Unknown artist, Formerly unknown artist sixteenth century after Lucas de Heere (1534–1584)

Date: c. 1590

Medium: Oil on panel

Collection: Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, United States

Depicted People

William Sommers, Court fool

Henry VIII (1491–1547), King of England and Ireland

Philip II, King of Spain (1527–1598)

Elizabeth I (1533–1603), Queen of England and Ireland Mars

Mary I (1516–1558), Queen of England and Ireland

Edward VI (1537–1553), King of England and Ireland

[bonesmarinated]

Last year I done some outfits for Lacazette (x) including casual and stage gear, I wanted to do some armour for him but undecided between buhurt or LARP. After spending more time learning how a set of armour work and look into a lot of fabulous manuscripts I decide jousting is his hobby now :))) 🦢🦢 He's not a professional jouster but he's well served in the sport and quite an intense opponent who loves wreaking people. He has logged thousands of hours in his armour, run thousands of joust courses, fought on foot and in the tourney, and even completed a charity run fully armed.

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

The thing I love about Victorian and Edwardian fashion is that even if I don't like a piece of clothing, even if it's an affront to God and the most unfortunate combination of colours and drapery, I am ALWAYS stunned into appreciation when I see the details. The amount of minute, manual attention paid to each square centimetre of cloth is mindblowing. I can just imagine someone stooping over that corner of sleeve sewing on each individual bead or lining up the waist tape in a work dress or arranging the frills with a host of finicky pins. I wish each piece of my clothing was as unique and full of dedication and character

[anistarrose]

The thing about the "fridged" trope is that obviously you can't have a female love interest dying as a defining moment for a male character because that's not feminist, but you also can't have a male love interest dying as a defining moment for a female character because then she's just going to have an arc revolving around her relationship with a man and that's also not feminist, and you also can't kill off a love interest from a gay relationship or a relationship involving a nonbinary person because that's burying your queers, which is at least as bad as misogyny if not even worse, and now suddenly you can't kill off romantic partners at all in stories because no matter the demographics, it's going to be problematic somehow, which is... a pretty ridiculous limitation to impose on storytelling.

And, like, it would be satisfying to have a solution other than "it depends on context if not straight-up vibes, and it's usually very reasonable for audience members to have a range of opinions on the execution of one specific instance," but. Yeah, you do kind of have to just vibe check it in a deeply subjective manner sometimes.

[chiropteracupola]

an assortment of my temeraireverse fic-dragons!

[cygnet and honoré are from fifteenth-century britain and france, aquilillus, flavia magna, and bán are from second-century britain, and cipachcoatzin is from sixteenth-century mesoamerica]

[scribbleseas]

Wanted: Dead Or Alive Masterlist

Pairing: Ciel Phantomhive x Reader

Description: As a reformed gang member, you no longer take up your dual derringer pistols in an endless pursuit of wealth. Now, you serve a new purpose: working alongside seasoned professionals as the Earl of Phantomhive’s undercover private army, protecting his estate under the guise of menial, domestic chores. That is, until your old life comes crashing back into your present, specific people you’d sooner forget chasing a buried score to settle with you. Can you maintain the secrets you’ve worked so hard to bury? Or will you, once again, alienate yourself from your new comrades?

In a fierce fight to maintain your newfound camaraderie—and unexpectedly warm (working… of course) relationship with your employer— you come to learn that being the perfect soldier is not at all you think it is.

Content Warnings: explicit descriptions of violence (with a focus on gun violence) and murder, gore/assorted injuries and pain, death, grief/loss, elaborate theft, explosions/fires, vehicle hijacking, abduction. Story also contains cursing, drinking, smoking, lying, explicit sexual content, and class differences. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about these warnings! Your health and comfort come before any of my creative media.

Chapter 1: coming soon!

Chapter 2: ???

Chapter 3: ???

Chapter 4: ???

Chapter 5: ???

[canvasmirror]

Stanley Spencer (British/English, 1891-1959) • Self-portrait • 1914 • Tate Modern

Tate Gallery Card:

This is Spencer’s first self-portrait in oil paint, made when he was around 23 years old. He painted it over the course of nearly a year in the front bedroom of his family home in Cookham. Its dark, rich colours and strong sense of three dimensionality reflect his interest in 16th-century European painting. Spencer recalled that he was inspired to paint it in this way after seeing a reproduction of a head of Christ by Italian Renaissance artist Bernardino Luini (c.1480/82–1532).

[whetstonefires]

to continue my tradition of mdzs height posting, another character besides mo xuanyu who is routinely and unjustly described as tiny: Wen Qing.

according to the officially released heights, she and jin guangyao are roughly the same size. about five and a half feet tall.

which is on the small side for a man even in china, though not in medieval china, and is ofc loads smaller than the ridiculous giants making up most of the cultivator elite, but is not actually a small person.

that's statistically above average for a woman even in the modern US; in modern china it is often hard for women that height to find off-the-rack clothes. in a historical chinese setting she is mildly gargantuan. five foot six is a positively unmaidenly height.

wei wuxian (as i've previously discussed) is slightly over six feet tall at his original full growth, which is stupid tall even when you're an aristocrat who didn't starve as a child. wen qing is, in turn, too tall for wei wuxian to hook his chin over her head, even if he stands on his toes, unless she ducks.

he's got maybe more than half a head on her. she could headbutt him in the nose from a standing start, as could most adult men because he's a freak.

wen qing would walk among a group of normal-in-context women like a turkey among hens. she is not tiny.

i know cql kind of made her look that way, but in fairness their version of lan wangji is a stick of no great height also. and even on cql she's not particularly small, just exceedingly pale and slim with big eyes. i truly do not know why it's so popular to conceptualize her as teeny-tiny, except maybe for the contrast value. it's not even hornyposting.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Yknow sometimes I think about collecting more antique clothing to wear but then I remember that I'm 5'10" and ladies weren't that tall back then

Oh, they were! Just fewer of them (throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, average height fluctuated as low as 2" below the modern average, or as close to it as no difference at all). And their clothing is less likely to survive, because larger or longer garments could be more easily cut down to make clothing for smaller relatives and/or children. That's called "survivorship bias," and in clothing history, it's the reason small clothes tend to be overrepresented in museums. There are other factors, like formal milestones for which clothing might be a significant memento happening mostly early in life, when you're at your smallest adult size, but that's the most relevant one to your situation.

Also, don't feel too bad- a lot of antique clothing isn't wearable for not immediately obvious reasons. From concerns about silk "shattering," a form of damage that's literally unrepairable, to iron mordants in black dye making black garments fall apart faster over time, your best bet re: wearing antiques is to stick to things like undergarments and maybe blouses and outerwear. Sad but true.

[aahsoka]

i am thinking about abandoning my original project idea and just drawing my new lil alien guy and its friends

[mr-payjay]

hey apparently there are haters following me and i just want to say i fully support mspec lesbians, mspec gays, lesboys, gaygirls, gaybians, etc etc and any queer good faith identities that are contradictory or confusing or """"wrong""". my own identity and some of my friends' identities fit this definition completely. if you don't like this you can unfollow me 👍

[cervinae-canine]

is it fair to call people like this "hack writers" if the only way they find a relationship interesting is when it involves pedophilia, incest, cannibalism or necrophilia?

[synonymroll648]

guys i know the conversation surrounding the vackers’ accents has been beaten to death but. for people who didn’t notice (like myself). i’m rereading book one and on page 64 (paperback) it says,

“…You’re even a natural at our language. Your accent is perfect. Almost as perfect as these guys’.” He [Kenric] pointed to Alden and Fitz.

having alden and fitz, who are known for having crisper pronunciation of words, and sophie, someone that grew up in america where words are known to be pronounced harshly/bluntly, be examples of perfect or near-perfect enlightened/elvin implies that elves are supposed to sound not just like babies, but ideally sophisticated babies? or perhaps brutish babies. idk food for thought

[incorrect-koh-posts]

Your knowledge of medieval stuff is really impressive! You said in the tags of that ask you answered that you majored in literature? I would love to hear more about your passion for medieval literature and just medieval times in general. Did it start with Kingdom of Heaven or were you interested in it long before watching the film?

Ahh, I'm glad you think so, thank you! ☺️

I did my BA with a major in German literature and linguistics and a minor in English lit. For my MA (which I'm almost finished with save for my thesis defence), I switched to English full-time. My interest in medieval literature is really something that came with my studies - I've always had a general interest in history and read lots of historical fiction while in school, but I'd had basically no exposure to medieval texts (or the knowledge to engage somewhat meaningfully with them) until I had to take my first compulsory "Introduction to Medieval Literature" class at uni. From then on, I just kind of fell in love with the subject. We had a great prof - a really cool older lady who gave the most engaging lectures and with whom I later took seminars on topics like the medieval idea of monsters or animal depictions in chivalric romance.

Within all things medieval, the area that perhaps fascinates me the most is medievalism studies, which is a sort of sub-discipline of medieval studies that investigates, broadly speaking, the reception and depiction of the Middle Ages as well as medieval texts and topics in post-medieval media. Idk why it had to be that field in particular, but there's just something so beautiful in finding parallels and continuities between our world and the medieval one, especially since misconceptions about the Middle Ages are still so prevalent. Unsurprisingly, I wrote both of my dissertations on such medieval/modern overlaps: In my BA thesis I looked into the portrayal and function of mentor-mentee relationships in medieval literature and modern adolescent fiction (lots of commonalities there, interestingly enough!), whereas in my MA diss I focused on the construction of dystopian scenarios in recent British Arthurian fiction and how these respond not only to the older Arthurian material but also to present-day environmental and political anxieties. (Sounds a bit complicated but it makes sense, I promise.)

Perhaps this is why KoH has had such a chokehold on me these past 4 years. It's such a flawed piece of media that it makes me want to dig my teeth into it, in an academic as well as a fic-writing sense. There are so many moments in it that could be right out of a chivalric romance, yet also so many others where the film blows its pretence to historicity to all hell; there are so many interesting characters who only scratch at the surface of the historical figures behind them, and simply so much wasted potential. It's just ... ahhh.

The funny thing is that my growing interest in medieval literature kind of coincided with me discovering KoH, which in turn made me dig even deeper into the research side of things (a vicious circle lol). I think I wrote another post on this about a year ago, but me discovering - or rather re-discovering - Kingdom of Heaven was basically the result of the following chain reaction: I somehow stumbled upon an old novel covering the same events as KoH (Graham Shelby's The Knights of Dark Renown) > something in that book's depiction of Raymond of Tripoli scratched my brain in the right place > I investigated further and found KoH > I saw that skrunkly Mr Irons was part of the cast and decided I had to watch it immediately. In such matters I'm a simple girl - nothing will incite me to watch a film more than an old history man being hot 😂

And then half-way through the film I remembered I'd actually seen it before - with my former best friend during the early years of secondary school when she was obsessed (and by that I mean obsessed) with Orlando Bloom and made me watch literally every film with him that she could get her hands on. Which was a good thing only insofar as it made me discover Lord of the Rings. Though in hindsight it's very funny because she clearly intended for me to join her in her Orlando insanity, whereas confused 11-year-old me instead stared at Aragorn and Tiberias like this: 😳. Yes, I've always had impeccable taste, obviously.

And thus, in the spring of the year of our Lord 2020, I entered my KoH era, and so far the brainrot is still thriving.

I do wonder, though, how many people in the fandom have a similar background? The handful of people that I know or have interacted with seem to skew that way, with mostly history- or literature-related fields of study, but I wonder how representative they are of the overall fandom 🤔

In any case, thank you for the fun ask that did not flatter me at all!

[cabinetofotherthings]

i have a historiographical quibble with how the antisemitic campaigns in the soviet union in 1948–1953 are often framed as an extension of the holocaust in the scholarship rather than being fully considered within the context of the soviet nationalities policy. except when i'm applying for funding from institutions that do holocaust studies. then i'm fine with it

[icewindandboringhorror]

I've referenced before how I have a big google document to keep track of every media I've ever seen in my entire life (just for reference because I like to track everything possible lol… I am the Data Collector), but recently as I was updating it, I thought of actually evaluating them to find out random percentages (like for example, out of Total Shows Watched, what percentage did I finish vs. stop watching, what percentage did I like or dislike, etc.)...

Evaluating these things is made easier by the fact that I already place everything on each subsection of the list into 6 broad ranking categories, so I don't have to go back and guess to figure out how I feel about them or anything. The categories are: Ranking 5 - overall best* (despite some criticisms of course because I'm too much of an Analyzer to ever find anything Perfect lol) Ranking 4 - more positive than neutral, but not good enough to be 5 Ranking 3 - either the good + bad negate each other, OR it's just not memorable/interesting in any way enough to be ranked higher or lower (this is the Default category ALL things are placed in if no other rank applies) Ranking 2 - maybe a few redeemable elements but largely more negatives than positives Ranking 1 - So bad that it circles around to being fascinating to observe in some way (not necessarily Funny, or Good, but just interesting somehow) Ranking 0 - Bad in a genuinely frustrating or obnoxious manner

*("best" primarily defined here as most interesting, rather than most good in a technical sense, or some other measure. I tend to value more highly whether there's something novel or thoughtful about the worldbuilding, tone, writing, base premise, etc - than about whether it's actually executed perfectly.)

And here's the amount of shows that have so far been placed into each category -

TV shows ~ Rank 5 (highest) - 20 shows ~ Rank 4 (mid-high) - 28 shows ~ Rank 3 (neutral/default/meh) - 114 shows ~ Rank 2 (mid low) -33 shows ~ Rank 1 (low low but intriguingly so) - 14 shows ~ Rank 0 (iredeemably low) - 2 shows

This would make for a total of 211 TV shows overall. However, there are 57 shows within these list marked as "didn't finish" (typically meaning I quit on the very first or second episode - but log them still to keep a record that I at least had a brief view of them).

So my total of genuinely fully watched shows would be more 154. 211 Total, but a More Accurate Total of 154.

Counting them all and using the Total Number Of The List (211) -- that means roughly 9.5% of all total shows I have ever watched (or at least attempted to watch) have been Mostly Good, 13% have been Moderately Okay, 54% have been either entirely Forgettable or some mix of good + bad that lands them right in the Neutral Middle, 15.6% have been Mostly Bad, 6.6% have been Bad (but in an interesting way), and 0.9% have been Terribly Bad.

Additionally, I didn't even get past the first two episodes of about 27% of the total.

Sooo, discounting ones I didn't finish, my total TV shows ever watched in my life would be about 154 (maybe give or take a few, assuming I might have forgotten some from very long ago).

But instead of entire life, let's just say this is the total for 'About 20 Years' (so, not counting very early childhood when I likely wouldn't remember things I saw/have no detailed recollection of them (like for example, I'm sure at some point when I was like 4yrs old I must have seen an episode of Spongebob or something, but I have zero distinct memories of it, can't quote anything of it, and barely recall the premise - so I don't count it on the list, etc.)).

In that case, 154 divided by 20 would be roughly 7.7 shows a year.

Which is actually surprisingly low considering that I often have stuff on in the background for hours whilst I make sculptures and do costumes and stuff (maybe I should have also marked some distinction between 'things I fully paid attention to' and 'things I kind of half listened to whilst sculpting', but that would further split the categories too much probably lol), but I guess a lot of that is youtube videos or random documentaries, so .. eh.. maybe I get it being lower.

Now, doing the same thing for movies-

Movies ~ Rank 5 (highest) - 4 movies (3.4% of total) ~ Rank 4 (mid-high) - 12 movies (10.3% of total) ~ Rank 3 (neutral/default/meh) - 91 movies (78.4% of total) ~ Rank 2 (mid low) - 8 movies (6.8% of total) ~ Rank 1 (low but interesting) - 1 movie (0.8% of total) ~ Rank 0 (irredeemably low) - none in this category (0%)

That makes 116 for a Total (Actually Remembered) Movies Watched In Lifetime (Or At Least In 20 Years).

116 divided by 20 is roughly 5 or 6 movies a year (I feel this has probably been skewed though by adding everything since like elementary school onwards, as I remember a lot more movies from child/teen years.. Whereas, the past 3 years I feel like I've barely seen maybe even 5 movies?? lol). I also have "Didn't Finish" marked on 18 of them. Which means I quit halfway through about 15% of the total movies.

So, a for broader summary stuff..

I seem to be less forgiving to movies than tv shows, by far. Which makes sense to me, I guess, because I love elaboration and details, so "short form" things that only last an hour or two are often lost on me a bit. My biggest complaint with movies is indeed usually walking away just wishing there had been more exposition, more scenes where characters are doing nothing, more "mindless bantering" conversations, more Quiet Downtime and Lore Elaboration and so on lol, so... of course most 1-2hr films end up feeling a bit Not Enough To Draw My Interest/Nothingy to me.

If you count 5 and 4 as "like" and rankings 2 to 0 as "dislike", then for TV shows I at least somewhat liked 48 of them, and at least somewhat disliked 47 of them.. So it's almost exactly the same lol. I'm just about equally as likely to find something bad as I am to find something redeeming about it. But overall, the largest chance is that I just won't really care much for it at all and it will be tossed into the 'neutral' pile, forgotten forever. Movies have a bit better of a balance, "liking" 16 of them, and "disliking" only 9 of them. So I'm slightly more likely to enjoy a movie than to find it annoying - though still VASTLY more likely to just not find it anything in particular, possibly not even finishing it.

ANYWAY.. this is vague and literally pointless, but like I said, I just really find information fun. Like my document where I've rated every apple flavor I've ever tried (like 40 of them now?), or reviewed every oreo flavor (32?), or ranking data from my entire 10 years of Trying To Make Friends process (out of 100 people, roughly 8% chance of a moderate compatibility, 3% chance of high), or etc. etc.. I love to have random pointless things to analyze I suppose lol.

I doubt anyone tracks things in their life in this same exact way, but I'd be interested in hearing any at least somewhat similar data !!! (like, how many TV shows you watch a year on average, and what percentage of those you like vs. dislike (if you keep track of that sort of thing), etc.)). I guess it might be easier with movies, since I think some people use those websites where you curate a list of movies you've seen and you can rate them or something, so maybe the numbers are already available on those places. :0