#my one gripe is that i think her hair dye should be a different color but eh

[chaiencefiction]

Peppermint’s Rock Costume

[strangestcase]

ok it was about time I give you guys my honest opinions on the G3 designs (the cartoon ones) because it's such a mixed bag I really can't just say "it's good" or "it's bad"

CLAWDEEN- the design is super cute but it doesn't say "Clawdeen Wolf" to me. G1 and G2 Clawdeen was a fashionista and I don't like how it seems like G3 Clawdeen isn't. It takes away a lot of her personality, which was very watered down for the movie, so I hope her character arc in the show involves her gaining the confidence the OG Clawdeen was known for. Also the hair should be darker- that much purple feels distracting. Some touches of green wouldn't be bad, also. I love that she's Afrolatina, but hate that her skin is getting lightened left and right. All in all, I can say "good, but not good enough".

DRACULAURA- she's flawless. Ok, not really, but I like her. The new clothes are rather underwhelming compared to the G1 and G2 looks but they're still good. I love the addition of the hat, the split dye, and her being Filipino and plus size, but I miss the pigtails. I also feel like her personality, too, should be explored more in the show. The movie had her go from aloof to friendly and sweet as she opened up to Clawdeen and Frankie, and that was AMAZING. Final verdict: G1 and G2 Draculaura looked great but were a little grating; G3 Draculaura is more likable (to me) but her outfit doesn't go nearly as hard.

FRANKIE- personality and design wise? Frankie is the saving grace of the reboot. Making them a secondary protagonist allows the burden of being relatable to be lifted from their shoulders, and that's how Frankie really starts to shine. The same had happened in G2. Making Frankie a more "dorky nerd" type of character is a great choice. Also: trans! But dear god, I want to kick the Universal execs on the ribs- Frankie isn't the same without green skin, neck bolts, and a big ole square Frankenstein head. That's just... wrong. Still, the design is cute and the clothes are great, but the neons throw me off. Personally, I think Frankie works best with dark colors and goth fashions. So yay to the overall character, nay to the new outfit. It's not too bad, but it isn't something I'd make Frankie wear, at least... not all the time? I think some elements of the G3 outfit can easily be blended in with the G1 outfit, but they're so different, it just clashes.

DEUCE- I miss the red accents and the lack of sleeves, but other than that, Deuce's design really has come around. He's way more snakelike and has a more defined signature color. Plus the glasses not being opaque, while taking away some mystery to his eyes, really make him more expressive. And that jacket? Amazing. As for his personality- I think the movie was trying to develop Deuce as something more than Cleo's boyfriend, but somewhat failed. He's nowhere as punk as G1 Deuce, and a lot of things about him felt like the writers fumbling to make him "cute". I don't know; I hope the cartoon doesn't go that direction and instead allows him to develop in a more natural way.

CLEO- this is the one design that is all in all an improvement. Darker skin? Great. Lots of blue? Great. Golden accents? Great. The makeup? Great. The jewelry? Great. It's all great. My one gripe is that they've made her skin look weirdly metallic which.......... makes me a little scared, ngl. Please tell me it's body glitter. Dark skin Cleo but at what cost... Now as for her personality: I really do hope they don't take her down the same route as the movie in which she was just a mean girl with nothing much to her other than being snooty and eventually befriending Clawdeen. The OG Cleo had MEAT and BACKSTORY to her meanness. They better not leave that out in the cartoon.

HEATH- the design looks terrible, overall, but I'll say that 1) putting his skin on the orange side is a change for the better and 2) having his color palette have cooler tones is innovative. I certainly would not out it on his sweatshirt though. At least movie!Heath had a cohesive design, with mostly warm colors and his varsity jacket acting as balance. I can't say much about movie Heath's personality because, to make a story short, he didn't do much. He was implied to be a troublemaker, but he just showed up for a couple of scenes and that was it. I like that they will lean into exploring his temper but that would have fit Holt more... the same way Clawdeen's arc in the movie would have fit Holt more. Also I want to see how they spin the "son of Hades" thing, because I get the feeling it will be C.A. Cupid 2.0.

LAGOONA- it's been said before and I will say it again: the design is amazing, but it doesn't feel much like Lagoona. Which is strange, since from what little we saw of Lagoona's personality in the movie, she is going to be very much G1 Lagoona with a new coat of paint. Speaking of strange things, they made her be Colombian, as a nod to the original Creature of the Black Lagoon (her dad)- but her new design is more mermaid-ish? As for her clothes, they're great, though I would have gone for a different color, probably darker (the whole of G3 is in dire need of dark colors). Though the main change I'd make is making her skin aqua blue again. Or another shade of pink. This pink color is just wrong. Why not fuchsia? What's wrong with fuchsia?

TORALEI- I'm honestly wondering how they're going to make Toralei being a "conservative" monster work... but from her design, I deduce she'll just be the regular mean Toralei, just now with a hatred of humans sprinkled in. As for her family though? A mystery. Her design isn't bad, and I think it's the best one of them all along with Cleo's, with her new hair being cooler than G1's, but the outfit, while good, is still a downgrade. Purple and white don't work with her. She needs black and orange. And pants. For the love of god give her pants.

HEADLESS HEADMISTRESS- G3 headmistress was a step down from G1. Or a couple hundred steps down. Personality-wise. But design wise, this one is better. That's all I have to say. Love the axe earrings.

OVERALL OPINION: G3 designs aren't bad but they aren't good. Most of them are, while iconic, not THE iconic designs that made Monster High what it is. I don't hate them, but I don't really like them a lot. They need darker colors and edgier fashion. Some changes I consider improvements, but most of them are meh at best. In short: I don't like the reboot, in general, but I like enough things about it to be interested in seeing where it goes, particularly story-wise. There is still room for improvement and I think it would be a disservice to older fans to not listen to them.

[kariachi]

Okay, I was already blaming @petrosapian for this Gwengit run but I am definitely blaming her for this fic because I am not taking the fall for this.

Sweet and relatively soft Gwengit fluff.

~~

The day is Valentines, the first one where Argit and Gwen were maybe kind’ve sorta an item rather than just sharing the one beautiful disaster, and they had agreed to attempt to do it properly. As properly as they could. Which probably wasn’t much, honestly. Of course there have been the presents for Kevin (flowers from both ends, now that Gwen has finally given up on giving their boyfriend anything else to spite Argit and his advice), but for each other had been…

Well.

She’d never admit it, but the generic and cheap gold-tone earrings spoke a lot to Gwen’s struggle to find a proper present. And Argit couldn’t even give her a properly excessive amount of shit about it because not only did they agree to try to tone it down for the holiday, but also he’d straight forgotten it was coming up until Kevin’s flowers arrived, having been ordered exactly one year in advance specifically because Argit couldn’t track dates if his life was on the line. He had nothing- nothing- ready.

Thankfully, he had not- with Kevin’s thoroughly amused help- bluffed his way through several years of gift giving occasions for nothing. Gwen could not be allowed to learn of this weakness, he would never survive. No, he’d sent messages, called in minor favors, to make his first idea work and work fast.

Sat with her arms and legs crossed, having been not-so-patiently waiting on him, Gwen raised an eyebrow as Argit dropped a spare piece of scrap metal dotted with various colors of body paint on the coffee table.

“I swear if this is some sort’ve kink thing,” she said, though her tone was more curios than anything. Still, Argit flopped down on the couch beside her more forcefully than was exactly needed, snapping his jaws in her direction.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Red,” he replied, “it’s-” And he wasn’t really sure how to finish that thought. Kevin was easy, hopelessly romantic at heart with flowers sitting in the sweet spot where receiving them both made him feel loved instead of just setting off those overactive warning bells, but Gwen… Things were new with Gwen, and while he knew the things she liked as gifts the problem was that he tended to give those just, at random. Whenever he found them. She expected more for a holiday, though, and when it came down to it all he’d been able to think of under the time crunch was this. “It’s an Erinaen thing.” It wasn’t a lie.

“Okay,” she asked, looking at him like she didn’t fully believe him, “where do we start then?”

“You start by relaxing for once in your damn life,” Argit said, pushing her shoulder into the couch for emphasis, “so I can work.” She glowered at him, but did as requested. Only once she was relaxed back in her seat, arms and legs uncrossed, did he turn to the paint. She wore blues, mostly, and greens seemed to be popular among humans with her colors, so he would start with those. He gathered up a bold blue on his finger and thought back to his only point of reference for all this, trying to figure out what to do.

“Well,” Gwen asked after a moment and Argit sighed through his nose. His Pa’s, definitely. Both his parents had been horrible, but he would gnaw off an arm before Gwen shared anything with his Ma, even just a painted design. He took her chin in his hand, slowly, and shifted her head so he could get a better look at her face. The look would have to be adjusted to accommodate for the lack of a long muzzle but, he could make do.

“Hold still.” She didn’t, face twitching when the paint touched it. “What did I say?”

“Cut me some slack, I hardly even wear makeup.”

“Well maybe you should start.” She stuck her tongue out at him and he snapped his teeth again, more gently, before going to work. He started above one corner of her mouth, carefully painting a thick blue line around her nose and up over her eyebrow before bringing it back down to curve beneath her ear. Then, he repeated the process on the other side of her face and paused, for just a moment. “Take off your shirt?”

“What?” She gave him another suspicious look. He rolled his eyes.

“I can get the design right either way, but it’ll be easier and work better if I can see your back,” Argit explained, and though Gwen clearly didn’t entirely trust his honesty she again listened, turning her back to him as she stripped off her top. “Thank you.” The bra was still in his way, but that was much easier to work around than a whole shirt.

“So,” she asked as he continued the first line from before, skirting around her hair as he took it down the back of her neck, across the shoulder blade, and down the outer length of the arm, “this is an Erinaen thing?”

“Yeah. Fur makes tattoos unpopular, and makeup too, so you dye it in temporary patterns.” Her foot began tapping with pent-up energy as he reached her hand, running a line down to each finger and spiraling it around them. He couldn’t blame her, and was happy to take his time with the other side so she couldn’t see his tail twitching. This was intimate behavior, a form of mutual grooming, reserved for family, partners.

It was a spur of the moment plan, but that didn’t make it not a big deal.

“Family got hold of some dye once, back in the Null Void,” he continued as she leaned to the side, trying to avoid getting paint on the couch, “parents painted each other up all pretty. Got pissed later when us kittens got into it.” The memory was one of the few good ones from back then, before freedom and Kevin. The youngest litter still in the pouch, he and the rest of his siblings painting each other as best they could with literally no prior experience. He couldn’t help smiling at it, and it showed in his tone. “I was rainbow for a week.”

Gwen laughed at the image, and Argit was forced to join her when all she could say was “Argicorn.”

“Better than Niu, their fur was darker, they looked like an oil slick.” Her snickering got worse and he took the time to wipe the blue paint from his hand with one of Kevin’s handkerchiefs, replacing it with green.

“Reminds me of when I was little,” she said as he began working on her wrists, two alternating, broken lines of green wrapping around each one, “me and one of my cousins once got into grandma’s makeup. Aunt Abigail actually screamed when she saw the mess we made of ourselves, but I’m pretty sure grandma still has the pictures.”

“Kittens,” Argit snickered, “you take your eyes off them for five minutes…” Wrists done, time for some simple circles around the junction where shoulder met arm, and then “Turn around again, and move the bra some, I need collarbone access.”

“’Take off your shirt, Red’,” she griped as she scooted away from the back of the couch and did as asked, ‘move your bra, Red’, I swear if this is a kink for you-”

“Then I wouldn’t just sneak it on you and you know it.”

“I’m going to have to trash this bra anyway, you know.”

“You poor, tortured soul.” The collarbone portion was pretty simple, actually, just one line. Down one collarbone, up the side of the neck, along the jaw, then down the other side to the end of the opposite collarbone. For good measure, he traced out the bottom edge of her nose, around the nostrils and tip.

“So, your parents did this for each other,” Gwen asked as he cleaned off the green and began mixing red and orange to get the accent shade that’d settled in his mind. He mrrped an affirmative. “That’s…” Her foot tapped harder. “It’s sweet. I think the most romantic thing I ever saw my parents do was cuddle on New Years. It’s nice they were so openly in love.” Argit wasn’t entirely sure how much love there ever really was between them, though he certainly wasn’t going to say it. Besides, after eighteen children and how long in the Null Void, who knew.

“Just remember, they made me,” he said instead, taking up some red-orange and quickly painting the webbing between her fingers, connecting her collarbones with a line that swept down between her breast and back up.

“They managed at least one semi-decent thing then,” she replied. Argit started, then hid his brief surprise with a toothy smirk.

“I knew the earrings were a decoy gift.” She mimed swatting at him with a smile of her own, a fitting distraction from her face having gone pink- probably from the strain of sort’ve complimenting him. He just turned to the last order of business, a trail of red-orange dots running up either side of her nose, as far up as he could get them, and

And

Well.

He’d been moving around on the couch, but that was when Argit finally got up from it entirely, backing away so he could get a good view. The lines served to emphasize her movement, especially at the hands, and lengthened her throat, her face, her nose. His head tilted to one side, ears twitching.

“You’re, kinda pretty, Red.” She looked about as surprised as he felt, or maybe that was the paint making every confused twist catch the eye. It was certainly a new concept for him. Sexual attraction he had felt towards humans before- though never Gwen, despite his fondness for her- but aesthetic attraction… Kevin hit some points with his piercings, universally wonderful smile, and exotically dark brown eyes, but Gwen at that moment was a whole different basket of grubs. He couldn’t have told you if it was the familiarity of the design, the way the colors worked together on her, or some deep-seated need for something Erinaen in his life latching on, but Argit quickly found himself crossing the space again, pressing his nose against her throat.

He hated her perfume, was pretty sure that was why she kept buying it, but at that moment it was kind’ve worth putting up with.

“I oughta doll you up more often.” One of her hands fiddled with his mane and he felt a tinge of annoyance knowing his work was getting smudged already.

“My mom would throw a fit.” The smirk came back to his muzzle.

“So you agree with me.” She tugged gently at one of his ears, pulling him away. The shoddy attempt at a frown and glower couldn’t hide the fondness emanating off her, at a level they two of them generally didn’t show to each other’s faces. A level Argit knew perfectly well he was matching.

“Don’t flatter yourself, rat.”

[qqueenofhades]

Medieval cosmetics: The history of looking good

So, I recently saw a post on my dash with someone lamenting the fact that in the medieval era, they would have been considered ugly as there was no makeup, and someone else offering a well-meant attempt to reassure them: that since they’d have no pox scars, rotten teeth, filthy hair, etc, all medieval men would think they were amazingly hot. While I appreciate the sentiment, there’s.... more than a little mythology on both sides of this idea, and frankly, our medieval foremothers would be surprised and insulted to hear that they were apparently the stereotyped bunch of unwashed, snaggle-toothed crones who put no care or effort into their appearance, and had no tools with which to do so.

(Or: Yep. Hilary Has More Things To Say. You probably know where this is going.)

I answered an ask a couple weeks ago that was mostly about medieval gynecological care and the accuracy of the “mother dying in childbirth” stereotype, but which also touched on some of the somehow still-widely-believed myths about medieval personal care and cleanliness. Let’s start with bathing. Medieval people bathed, full stop. Not as frequently as we do, and not in the same ways, but the “people never washed in Ye Olde Dark Ages” chestnut needs to be decidedly consigned to the historical dustbin where it belongs. “A Short History of Bathing Before 1601″ is a good place to start, as it follows the development of bathing culture from ancient Rome (where bathhouses were known for their use as gathering places and influential centers of political debate) through to the modern era. Yes, common people as well as the nobility washed fairly frequently. Bathing was a favored social and leisure activity and a central part of hospitality for guests. Hey, look at all these images in medieval manuscripts of people bathing. Or De balneis Puteolanis, which is basically a thirteenth-century travel guide to the best baths in Italy. Or these medieval Spanish civic codes about when men, women, and Jews were allowed to use the public bath house. There was also, as referenced in the above ask, the practice of washing faces, hands, etc daily, and sometimes more than once. Feasts involved elaborate protocol about who was allowed to perform certain tasks, including bringing in the bowls of scented water to wash between courses. They associated filth with disease (logically). Anyway. Let’s move on.

Combs are some of the oldest (and most common) objects found in medieval graves -- i.e. they were a standard part of the “grave goods” for the deceased, and were highly valued possessions. Look, it’s a young woman combing her hair (that article also discusses the history of medieval makeup for men, which was totally a thing and likewise also suspected of being “unmanly.”) The Luttrell Psalter, now in the British Library, includes among its many illuminations one of a young woman having her hair elaborately combed and styled by an attendant. There were extensive discourses on what constituted an ideally attractive medieval woman, and the study of aesthetics and the nature of beauty is one of the oldest and most central philosophical enquiries in the world (as were beauty standards in antiquity). Having a pale complexion was a sign of wealth (you didn’t have to work outdoors in the sun) and women used all kinds of pastes and powders to achieve that effect. Remember the Trotula, the medieval gynecological textbook we talked about in the childbirth ask? Well, it is actually three texts, and the entire third text, De ornatu mulierum (On Women’s Cosmetics) is dedicated to makeup and cosmetics. What weird and gross sort of things do they advocate, cry editors of “7 Horrifying Medieval Beauty Tips You Won’t Believe!”-style articles? Well...

First come general depilatories for overall care of the skin. Then there are recipes for care of the hair: for making it long and dark, thick and lovely, or soft and fine. For care of the face, there are recipes for removing unwanted hair, whitening the skin, removing blemishes or abscesses, and exfoliating the skin, plus general facial creams. For the lips, there is a special unguent of honey to soften them, plus colorants to dye the lips and gums. For the care of teeth and prevention of bad breath, there are five different recipes. The final chapter is on hygiene of the genitalia. [...] A prescription said to be used by Muslim women then follows.[...] The author gives detailed instructions on how to apply the water just prior to intercourse, together with a powder that the woman is supposed to rub on her chest, breasts, and genitalia. She is also to wash her partner’s genitals with a cloth sprinkled with the same sweet-smelling powder.

Wait so... hair care, skin and facial creams, toothpaste, lipstick, and sexual hygiene?? With the latter based on that used by Muslim women??? Zounds! How strange and unthinkable!

L’ornement des Dames, an Anglo-Norman text of the thirteenth century, offers more tips and tricks, and explicitly references the authority of both the Trotula and Muslim women: “I shall not forget either what I learnt at Messina from a Saracen woman. She was a doctor for the people of her faith [...] according to what I heard from Trotula of Salerno, a woman who does not trust her is a fool.” So yes. The beauty regimes of Muslim women were transmitted to and shared by Christian women, especially in diverse places like medieval Sicily, and this was valuable and trusted advice. Gee. It’s almost like women have always a) cared about their appearance, and b) united to flip one giant middle finger at the patriarchy. (You can also read more about skincare and cosmetics.) Speaking of female health authorities, you have definitely (or you should have) heard of Hildegard von Bingen, a twelfth-century abbess and towering genius who was the trusted advisor of kings and popes and wrote treatises on everything from music to medicine to natural science (she is regarded as the founder of the discipline in Germany). This included the vast Physica, a handbook on health and medicine, and Causae et curae, another medical textbook.

Did the church grumble and gripe about women putting on excessive adornments and being too fixated by makeup and the dangers of vanity and etc etc? You bet they did. Did women ignore the hell out of this and wear makeup and fancy clothes anyway? You bet they damn well did. Also, medieval society was fuckin’ obsessed with fashion (especially in the fourteenth century.) The sumptuary laws, which appeared for the first time in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, regulated which classes of society were allowed to wear what (so that fancy furs and silks and jewels were reserved for the nobility, and less expensive cloth and trimming were the province of the lower classes -- the idea was that you could know someone’s station in life just by looking at them). These were insanely detailed, and went down to regulating the height of someone’s high heels. So yes, theoretically, the stiletto police could stop you in fourteenth-century England, whip out a measuring tape, and see if you were literally too big for your britches.

(”But, but,” you stammer. “Surely they had rotten teeth?” Well, this is probably a bad time to note that in addition to the five toothpaste remedies mentioned in the Trotula, there are even more. Jewish and Muslim natural philosophers and herbalists had all kinds of recommendations -- see Practical Materia Medica of the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean. Also, since there was no processed sugar in their diet, their dentistry was far better than, say, the Elizabethans, and white and regular teeth were highly prized. There would be wear and tear from grist, but since fine-milled white bread was a status symbol, the wealthy could afford to have bread that did not contain it, and thus good teeth.)

Of course, everyone wasn’t just getting dressed up with, so to speak, nowhere to go. What about sex? It never happened unless it was marital rape, right? (/side-eyes a certain unnamed quasi-medieval television show). Oh no. Medieval people loved the shit out of sex. Pastourelles were an immensely popular poetic genre which almost always included the protagonist having a romp with a pretty shepherdess, and anyone who’s read any Chaucer knows how bawdy it can get. Even Chaucer, however, is put to shame by the fabliaux, which are a vast collection of Old French poems that have titles so ribald that I could not say them aloud to an undergraduate class. (”The Ring That Controlled Erections” and “The Peekaboo Priest” are about the tamest that I can think of, but I gotta say I’m fond of “Long Butthole Berengier” and the one called simply “The Fucker,” because literally people are people everywhere and always. And yes, you perverted person, you can read the lot of them here.) This was incredibly explicit and bawdy popular literature that was pretty much exactly medieval porn (and like usual porn, did not exactly serve as any kind of precursor of feminist media or positive female representation, but Misogyny, Take a Shot.)

So yes. Once more (surprise!) the history of cosmetics goes back at least six thousand years, and is one of the oldest aspects of documented social history in the world. It existed broadly and accessibly in the medieval world, where women had other women writing books on it for them, and was just as much as a concern as it is now. People have always liked to look good, smell good, accessorize, dress fashionably, try weird beauty trends, and so forth. So if by some accident you do stumble into a time machine and end up in medieval Europe, you’ll have plenty of choices. Our medieval foremothers, and the men who loved them and thought they were beautiful, thank you for your time.