#stuff from early 20th century

[featherlouise]

Lace gijinka redesign!!!! I was never completely happy with her original outfit, this one’s a lot closer to what I want :D

ALSO she’s built like a pencil, she uses poofy fabric and ruffles to give the illusion of hips and boobs bc I think that’s funny

The colours aren’t 100% set in stone but they are!! Good enough for now!!

Original under the cut for those who haven’t seen it :D

[the---hermit]

idk what it says about me that i find the politics and institution systems of the early modern era easier to understand that whatever is going on in the day and age i live in, but it's certainly not good.

[juniperrabbit]

ishido humming “in the hall of the mountain king” while hes working is so cute, i Will be thinking about what a playlist he makes would have on it

[skitskatdacat63]

As aforementioned, please take my Leyendecker type Nando bcs that recent Boss pic has brainrotted me

+ ref:

[chiropteracupola]

So you said 'go find some trouble' / and you would do the same...

[variousqueerthings]

i wont really be healed until i own a fitted sweatervest

[cinnabargirl]

Its crazy how much the adage "a lot of you would have gone crazy about WMDs un 2003" holds up time and time again

[prokopetz]

Since we're getting into "did you know that Santa's eight tiny reindeer are a reference to the eight legs of Odin's steed?" season once again, remember: while there are some elements of Christmas (or Hallowe'en, or Easter, or...) observations that are probably pre-Christian in origin, before one believes any of that this-is-really-100%-just-a-Pagan-holiday-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off stuff, one must consider all of the following possibilities:

Our earliest known records of the cited pre-Christian practices were written down by some random Christian monk centuries after the fact, and we genuinely have no idea how accurate this account is, to what extent the apparent similarities with Christian practice are due to the author deliberately or unwittingly putting a Christian spin on it, or indeed, whether they were just making shit up.

The similarities between the two sets of practices have been exaggerated or misrepresented by Christian writers who were bent for prefiguration theology (i.e., the idea that the Bible echoes backwards in time and pre-Christian religious practices were unwittingly imitating future Christian practices).

The similarities between the two sets of practices have been exaggerated or misrepresented by Protestant writers who believe that all Pagan deities are Satan in disguise, so they think that if they can prove that Catholic practices are secretly Pagan in origin, that proves that Catholics are secretly Satanists.

The similarities between the two sets of practices have been exaggerated or misrepresented by overzealous mythographers trying to prove that all mythology and religion throughout all of human history is secretly a single unified monomyth; if it's pre-Victorian, expect shades of prefiguration theology, while if it's post-Victorian, expect a lot of stuff about the Collective Unconscious.

A bunch of 19th Century proto-Fascists were trying to construct a pre-Jewish cultural identity (and considered Christianity to be tainted by association), but didn't want to give up any of the fun rituals, so they made some shit up about how it was still okay to do Christmas because something something Odin, or whatever.

A bunch of early 20th Century Pagan reconstructionists filled in the gaps in their understanding of pre-Christian ritual with culturally Christian assumptions, then turned around and pointed at their own accidentally Christianised reconstructions as evidence that Christian practices are derived from them.

A bunch of late 20th Century self-help manual authors tried to break into the occult bookstore market by uncritically repeating any or all of the above.

Someone on the Internet just made it up.

[vincentbriggs]

so i am newly in a wheelchair which has been a Massive gain in my ability to go out and about. but i realized that i have aprox 0 clothes that look Good while seated. its a completely different silhouette and i am at a loss as to what to do for it. do you have any suggestions for what could look good seated? preferably no skirts or dresses.

Edit: Check the notes for more people's input, including actual wheelchair users who know much more about what works than I could!

Congrats on chair acquisition!!

Since you're sending this to me specifically I am working under the assumption that you mean to do some amount of sewing.

A high waisted silhouette definitely works best for sitting. I make all my pants with the waistband at my natural waist, and a bit of pleating or gathering at the back just like they did on 18th century breeches, and I've never noticed any particular discomfort from sitting in them. (I think high waisted pants are more comfortable in general, and that low rise jeans are evil.)

It's something I've never really thought about before, but sitting is a very legs-forward position, so perhaps a colourful or fancy stripe down the side would work well.

(I made this pair 10 years ago and they didn't fit well and are long gone, but I should do a better version someday...)

Or some other form of side seam decoration, like these fabulous button tabs.

(I don't know what the source for this mid 19th century fashion plate is.)

Cropped jackets would also be good. The first thing that comes to mind for me is the Carmagnole, which was a style worn by French revolutionaries. It's got a pretty similar cut to a regular 1790's coat, just shorter.

(Source)

(Source)

And there are other styles of short jacket, like this one from a few decades later.

I think it might be possible to get a similar effect from cutting down a thrifted corduroy jacket, depending on the pocket placement? It's not something I've done myself though.

A fancy little bolero could be a lot of fun too! I quite like these ones made by Marlowe Lune. Super easy to sew, and could be patterned by cutting down a bigger pattern that fits the torso.

They'd be a good thing to try if you have a smallish piece of fancy fabric, or a small bit trim to use, or want to try a small amount of embroidery.

There are lots of historical styles with sleeves too, and all sorts of decorations.

(Dunno the source for this one either, unfortunately, but the pin says 1880s reception dress. I think a little jacket like that would look good with a puffy shirt and pants.)

Short capes might be practical too, and the late 19th and early 20th century have tons of fancy capelets for inspiration, like this one.

Or this one.

I hope this is somehow helpful! I don't know if you're looking to sew things from scratch or to buy and alter stuff or what, and I have no personal experience using a wheelchair, but these are the best things I can think of for a suitable silhouette. Dramatic sleeve/shoulder puffs would also be shown off to great effect, if that's something you'd like to wear.

[specialagentartemis]

What queer Asian sci fi authors would you recommend?

Yeah, to put my money where my mouth is, here are some queer SFF writers from Asia and the Asian Diaspora in the Anglosphere that I really like and highly recommend:

Nghi Vo: probably doesn’t need an endorsement from me, hah, her The Empress of Salt and Fortune is one of the most perfect novellas I’ve ever read and well deserved its Hugo win. The whole Singing Hills cycle is great. It’s a fantasy world strongly inspired by Imperial China and Vietnam, and does clever things with fantasy, folklore, storytelling, and memory. Her novels are standalone historical fantasy set in 1920s-America-with-magic and are very much about Asian immigrant/diaspora experiences in the early 20th century US. With Magic.

Yoon Ha Lee: I love his Machineries of Empire. Would love to finish that trilogy someday. But seriously it’s creative, intense military sci-fi in a magic-science space empire and is very interested in what it takes to uphold such a system.

Simon Jimenez: The Vanished Birds is sooo heartbreakingly good and I need to read A Spear Cuts Through Water soon.

Isabel J. Kim: Short story writer. Runs the gamut of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and the weird stuff in between. Creative and vivid in really compelling ways. Her first novel is in the works and I am SUPER interested. She does funky and creative things with perspective and structure in her stories. Has several stories now that are about turning popular tropes or other iconic stories around like they’re in a kaleidoscope, but her first published story “Homecoming Is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self” is probably still the most affecting to me.

Michelle Kan: Has a trilogy of novelettes called Tales of the Thread, self-described as “aromantic Chinese fairytales” that take a deliberately aro approach to fairytale retellings and fairytale style fantasy. I recommend them. (Also has a superhero novel I haven’t read.)

———

Haven’t read yet but they are on my TBR:

Aliette de Bodard: Her Xuya universe novellas, and the relationships between humans and AIs and spaceships, sound super up my alley.

Kai Cheng Thom: Author of Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir is a less traditionally sff entry but is a fabulist/surrealist take on the Trans Memoir… which I feel like I have to be in the right space for, but I do want to read it.

———

Also he’s not out as queer or anything but I can’t not recommend Ted Chiang because he writes some of the best short stories In The World and has THE most interesting and unique and compelling ideas.

———

There are also so many more authors out there I don’t know and haven’t read! But! Someday!!

[officiallanxichen]

[ID: a screenshot of a reply by yuri-alexseygaybitch that reads, "Can you explain?" End ID.]

the historical source we have for understanding much of the early roman empire are so fucking bad. like whenever you hear any insane story about tiberius/caligula/nero/commodus/elagabalus imagine trying to put together an account of any modern figure if your only avaiable sources were tucker carlson archives and the daily mail

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

i don't have the words to articulate it at this moment but there's something about the way that people have specific expectations for "authenticity" and will dismiss anything that falls outside them as a mangled, anglicised version of the thing when actually that is the older and more traditional form of something, it just doesn't match their expectations. obviously in my personal experiences i'm mostly talking about medieval literature here especially medieval irish literature

sometimes this is as simple as spelling – i've had people argue that the name "finn" is anglicised and it should always be "fionn" to be Really Irish, but "finn" is an older spelling, glide vowels are later, if you wanna go real far back it'll be "find" (nd in place of nn is an older spelling pattern). or they'll hear someone say "ogam" and assume they're mispronouncing "ogham" due to lack of knowledge of irish and not consider the fact that medievalists tend to use the older form of the word. or they'll Well Actually you about "correct" terminology which wasn't standardised (and/or invented) until the 20th century

a lot of this is defensive and the result of seeing a lot of people ACTUALLY get this stuff wrong and have no respect for the language. in that regard i understand it, although it becomes very tedious after a while, particularly when people sanctimoniously declare something "inauthentic", "fake", or "anglicised" without doing enough research to realise it's not trying to be modern irish and is in fact correct for older forms of the language

more often however this search for the projected "authenticity" is ideological and has much larger flaws and more problematic implications. "this can't be the real story because it's christian" well... that's the oldest version of the story that exists and it postdates christianity in ireland by about nine hundred years, so... maybe question why you're assuming the only "real" version of irish stories can't be a christian one? this is especially true when it comes to fíanaigecht material tbh, but in general there seems to a widespread misapprehension about ireland's historical relationship with christianity (i have seen people arguing that christianity in ireland is the result of english colonialism which took their "true" faith from them... bro. they were christian before the "english" existed. half the conversion efforts went the other way. please read some early medieval history thank you)

however i also saw someone saying this about arthurian literature lately which REALLY baffled me. "we'll never have the Real arthurian stories only the christianised versions" and it was in the context of chivalric romance. buddy you are mourning something that does not exist. this "authentic" story you're looking for isn't there. that twelfth century story you're dismissing as a christian bastardisation is as "real" a part of this tradition as you're going to get

[pterribledinosaurdrawings]

quick question: what are some things you like way more than a regular amount of? What are your Things Of All Time?

18th century menswear

Hand sewing, but I really love vintage and antique sewing machines too.

Historical fantasy-ish clothing inspired by 18th century menswear BUT I'm really really picky about it and I think the vast majority of films that try do a shit job at it because they don't understand or appreciate the cut & construction of what they're basing it off of.

Art nouveau home decor. Ooogghh aaaahhhghhhhh hnnnghhhh i want it I want it I want it, aaaaaaaaa

Art nouveau stuff in general, really.

Art nouveau motifs combined with 18th century menswear!! Now THAT'S some good mashed up historical fantasy fashion! I've made a couple pairs of gloves, and many years ago I did a Beardsley inspired embroidered waistcoat, but I must do more....

(That waistcoat was finished in 2017 and it's really badly constructed and also doesn't fit me anymore, so I need to completely unpick and redo it someday.)

Historical surface design. I especially love 18th century chintz and toile patterns, and late 19th-early 20th century wallpaper & upholstery fabrics. (Like the ones from Morris & co., The Silver Studio, etc.) I really must make more repeating patterns, I haven't made any in over a year.

That is all the things I can think of right now.

Edit: Oh, also clothes that look like plants! I've made a few leafkerchiefs but I have plans for more things.

[windybluebelles]

More people should play around with what time the Fawcett City time bubble thing happened.

The most often ones I’ve seen are, 1960s, 1950s or 1930s.

Yeah, we love those. They’re the most canon compliant and have good comedy potential already.

Id like to propose some other years that would be funny.

Early 2000s, just early enough that the kids would have understood technology and know they don’t and they’re really annoyed.

1970s, not much different but it gives Billy the chance to meet some people’s parents and do some wild stuff.

“Oh Martha Wayne? I remember her, we smoked crack together.” (Drugs can’t effect him as Captain Marvel it’s fine guys)

1940s, I’m talking early 40s, I want them kids growing up on RATIONS.

1915ish, guys i want them to catch the Spanish Flu. Because I hate them.

Anytime before the 20th Century, it can be the literal end of the 1800s, it can be Ancient Greece. Idgaf, it would be hilarious. Cap just starts talking about the actual plague or some shit, AWSOME.

Listen, I believe that Fawcett is weird enough that we can get away with saying that it wasn’t even originally in America. Put them fuckers is Wales and have them be close friends with Merlin, have them be ancient Romans, Egyptian would be funny with the whole Black Adam shit, let them be from like the middle of fucking Asia or some shit.

Guys please it’s so funny to imagine geographers trying to explain why a random town actually just appears in Philadelphia and none of them speak English.

[sroloc--elbisivni]

a couple hours of digging through search results and muttering later i've gotten the memo that people agree there are multiple but the Big One tends to be Ireland ~1890-1920 which has activated an entirely separate bugbear of mine which is Why Is Ireland Our Default And Yardstick For An International Movement With Multiple Different Manifestations. and STILL haven't found if anyone has catalogued them.

shaking this entire fucking field by the shirt lapels. why does 'celtic revival' refer to like seven different things. why has no one else catalogued them yet. get your collective shit together.

[neil-gaiman]

Hi mr. Gaiman, I really love your books and short stories! I just read Coraline yesterday and was wondering about it.

So, I read the book in English, which is not my native language, so it could be me misunderstanding whatever is written, but I am really curious and wanted to ask you.

So in the book, when Coraline is in the room behind the mirror she meet 3 ghosts. When Coraline asks one of them if they're a boy or a girl, the ghost answer is "when I was small I wore skirts and my hair was long and curled, but now that you ask, it does seem to me that one day they took my skirts and gave me britches and cut my hair", and the the same ghost says "I believe I was once a boy". The other two ghosts say they're girls, and later, when Coraline finds the 1st soul it's confirmed that this is in fact a boy.

What I wanted to ask is, is the ghost boy trans? I'm asking because I really don't know if I misunderstood or that this is true, and I would really appreciate a honest answer.

Also I don't know if someone already asked you about it, so I'm sorry if you've already answered this question.

Thanks anyway, for everything you've written!

It's a good question.

If you want to read it as the ghost having been trans, you certainly could.

When I wrote it, though, I was thinking of the rite of passage known as breeching. That was the custom of taking a boy around the age of 6 or 7 out of the skirts he would have worn until then, and giving him breeches, what the English might call trousers. They made an event of it. Often the boys would have their long, curly hair cut at the same time, but not always. Hair could be cut before breeching, or after.

Let's look at fashion for boys in England...

The custom lasted longer than you might imagine. This is Franklin D Roosevelt in 1884...

and an English boy in 1871...

...and breeching continued in many places until the early 20th Century.

I've read in many places that boys were dressed as girls when small to somehow protect them from the evil eye, but most of the history of fashion articles I've read maintain there wasn't boys' and girls' clothing, there was children's clothing, and it was more about the complexity of how you did up adult trousers and the ease of small kids being able to go to the toilet. I post anything to do with fashion and history on Tumblr a little nervously, knowing that there are people out there who REALLY know their stuff, and will take enormous delight in explaining this a great deal better than I can.

In the meantime, here are a few links.