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Blog for any cool photos, moodboards, or animals and places i find interesting or that I really like. And any photos or quotes that inspire me.

[flashnerves]

having just finished i who have never known men i do think that sophies afterword was a bit too much of an optimistic take on the novel. obviously i understand that the sense of despair that we read during the womens' years of living as a village was more likely due to the child being an unreliable narrator. but it was clear that even in her nearing death, the child was unsatisfied with her life.

im pretty sure that the novel is a tragedy and is meant to be written as a tragedy and it is only understanding why it is tragic that we get why sophie might think that it offers the message that 'no life is without hope'.

throughout the novel the child frequently insists that she is different from the other women and that she is an outcast. even during antheas final moments, she insists this and says that this difference is what will ensure that the country will be hers.

but its only after the death of the rest of the women that she finally admits to herself that she had loved and that she had loved anthea and she did indeed seek companionship - just as the other women did. but she realises this too late.

so in her final moments she writes a journal of her life in the vain attempt that perhaps someone might read the pages and think of her. because at the core of what it means to be human is the intrinsic longing to be known, and to exist. and being known and existing can only be achieved by and through and with others. by virtue of existing, you are ensuring that others exist.

that is what makes every life hopeful

[lucybellwood]

hi sorry s'cuse me but were NONE OF YOU GOING TO TELL ME ABOUT BLACK BOOKS OF HOURS???

LOOK AT THIS MAGNIFICENT GOTH-ASS SHIT

EGADDDDDDD

THE IRON-COPPER SOLUTION USED TO DYE THE PAGES WAS SO CORROSIVE THAT THERE ARE VERY FEW SURVIVING EXAMPLES

THESE BOOKS WERE LITERALLY TOO METAL TO LIVE

i can't

[blinkeasy]

Good Bones, by Maggie Smith / Witch Hat Atelier, by Kamome Shirahama

[itsapmseymour]

They got new photos of the moon,

I knew she had colors hiding in there 🥹

[carmahnart]

Hey y’all I have an announcement! My web app that I’ve been working on, Afro Index, is now live! It’s a visual reference library of Black hairstyles, for artist, animators, writers, and anyone who wants to learn more about them!

Check it out at afroindex.org! 💛✨

Afro Index – Black Hairstyle Reference Library

A reference library for Black hairstyles with accurate naming, structured filtering, and curated reference images.

[redstonedust]

pet peeve is when you look up fashion references from a specific era and you keep getting modern day '[era]-inspired' fashion like NO i want authenticity damn it. i can see your 2020 photo quality and your 2020 hair and your 2020 makeup. youre not fooling me.

[bincliff]

hello i'm a historical fashion researcher and i have a lot of experience looking up things! this is a very widely experienced irritation and you're definitely not alone in this, but i am here to share everything i know!

so, ways to get around this:

turn off AI results. they're literally nonsense to us

don't use pinterest because the sources/provenance is often hard to trace

a standard internet search can be okay, but museum collections are the top tier (list of collections below this list)

instead of broad terms like victorian, regency, tudor, renaissance etc. try using the decade you're looking for. if you're not sure of what decade it is but have a vague image in your head, look on the fashion history timeline and just jump around until you find it. but even changing to e.g. 19th century will give better results than victorian

including terms like womenswear/menswear, daywear, formal wear, evening wear, court dress should increase the value of your search too

including "fashion plates" in your search can give you a nice impression of the intended silhouettes of the era. some of these might be a little stylised but will show you what was considered in vogue

for pre-fashion plate eras or things like makeup and styling, you'll have to look at portraiture or manuscripts. these are harder to actually find what you're looking for, but searching museum collections and limiting results to specific date ranges will be your friend

when looking at art, do bear in mind sometimes artists would paint fabric extra flow-y to show off their skills. it might not have been exactly like that in terms of fabric weight or drape. so, a pinch of salt required!

if you find something on image search where the provenance is dubious, reverse image search and you might find a source! i've been able to trace random pinterest images to real sources, but this does take a lot of time and effort and is often not worth the headache

some online resources and museum collections:

fashion history timeline is an invaluable resource if you're trying to get a feel for everything and should be your first port of call. it'll also link to good examples

the met has a vast number of extant examples of clothing, as well as fashion plates

costume institute fashion plates is a subcollection of the met for fashion plates (1800s-1922)

v&a also has many extant garments, fashion plates, and incredible articles on clothing and aesthetics. read the details of the objects because they'll often reveal a lot about the piece

lacma is good for C19th-20th pieces

nypl digital collection for photographs

national portrait gallery or similar for portraiture, or literally any museum in your country that has historical art

national museums scotland can be useful situationally but might be oddly specific

stout style history is a great collection for finding image references for fat people wearing historical clothes. survival bias of a lot of museum pieces tends towards smaller clothing that couldn't be repurposed, but this aims to counter that. it's not sortable, but is still a really nice resource

wikimedia commons is surprisingly handy! and the images, if you should need to link/repost them, are public domain

auction websites sound like a funny one to recommend. some won't have mannequins and some will. just look up historical garment auctions and you'll find some!

anyway, i hope this has been a good place to start for anyone interested! there are probably some i've missed because there are so many museums across the world and i don't know about all of them or can't remember them. but these are the ones i've used the most! (my specialisation/jobs i've had to research for have only really been in western fashion, so my resources reflect that)

[haemey]

Wikipedia has a list of fashion museums. Unfortunately, the page itself is only available in German, but the introductory paragraph is very short and after that, it's organised by country, and then it's a simple list. If you click on a museum's article, the website is usually linked in the overview table.

[iamwizzzzz]

[rxdxct3d-deactivated20260301]

I couldn't find an official translation so forgive me but it says

"Sometimes we have to look at things that aren't cute and make us uncomfortable."

"Because I don't really understand it."

"Because it has nothing to do with me."

"Because it just feels unpleasant."

"If we keep turning a blind eye like that until we can't see anything anymore, then eventually even the cute things will disappear."

[str-ngeloop]

admittedly i know nothing about the artist but given the character is waving a Japanese flag and the hole is also red-on-white, I'm inclined to read this as being about Japanese Fascism and Japan papering over that image with cute characters

[bunnypets]

Wings sourced from beekeepers dealing with the loss of their hives due to extreme weather, the pieces are made to memorialize the bees.

"A veil lifts between two worlds: light and dark; life and death; individual and union. It is worn in ceremony of transition. It is a fabric of both grief and celebration, made up of a community, a hive." by lucijockel

[mary1goore]

hot take? idk. victor’s fascination with the figurine of the pregnant woman not only hints at the oedipal tension tied to his mother and the image of milk, but also anticipates his desire to create life without a woman’s involvement. the figurine becomes a symbol of the natural, maternal power he tries to control and surpass. in attempting to usurp the role of the mother, victor’s ambition reveals a deep misogyny, his belief that intellect can replace the body, and creation can exist without love or nurture.

[letterful]

[anti-parent]

Solidarity with Children

this book is out now!!! it's a short read, less than 200 pages, and it's SO good. i literally had to pause halfway through just to send the author a message about how much i liked it. definitely leans more utopian than scientific, but that makes sense given the format, and i think it has a lot of good things to say.

once you really start thinking about how restrictive the world is for children and how many bullshit justifications we retroactively come up for it all the time, you can't stop seeing it everywhere. this book makes a good case for including children in our political efforts not as rhetorical devices but as an actual class of oppressed people.

[gayer-things]

My one contribution to the discussions about GtD Frankenstein that I’m sure already exists but I’ve yet to see is:

It is devastating to me that the first thing the creature experiences *is* kindness. Victor wakes up and sees his creation, and he loves him in that first moment, under those golden rays of the sun. His touch is kind. He all but embraces the creature while listening to his heartbeat. Victor looks at the creature with wonder and softness and delight. The creature’s first experience is one of love and wonder and kindness, of being cherished.

And then that disappears. And the creature doesn’t know why, he becomes both afraid and full of yearning for that love again. Victor goes from loving to cold, with just glimmers of hope for kindness left, glimmers that the creature reaches for. Then Elizabeth comes, and the creature experiences kindness again. Gentleness, softness, curiosity, wonder. Those things exist again.

And then Elizabeth leaves. Victor abandons him. Tries to kill him, even though he doesn’t understand that yet - he just understands he’s alone. The deer is kind and gentle and dies, the hunters harm him but are kind and gentle to their family.

The creature is told at every step “there is kindness and gentleness in the world and it is not for you. You may have a taste of it, here and there, but it will cost you greatly.”

And that’s just fucking devastating. To know what it is to be loved and cherished, to feel the warmth of the sun and the kindness of family, and to be denied it again and again and again while aching for it. *Needing* it. Because here, the creature *is* human by all markers the film sets, and humans need kindness and love to live. It’s why the ending is so powerful. To choose to live, to choose to continue seeking basic human needs despite a lifetime of pain. To choose to break a familial cycle of neglect and abuse and *try*, despite it all.

Even in the frozen wasteland, there is sunlight. There’s hope.

[godzilla-reads]

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, book covers

[lavellun]

I never knew my killer would be coming from within.

[loveridden1999]

[pleasantvoidphantom]

Thinking about how stacks last words were "Smoke, I'm so scared. Love you."

Thinking about how Smoke pulls up Stack's pants to give him some dignity.

Thinking about how as he pulled up Stack's pants, he probably thought about dressing Stack to lay him to rest in his favorite suit and that may be part of the reason he snapped "this ain't no dead body, its Stack" at Annie to correct her and himself.

Thinking about how despite clearly telling Annie he doesn't believe in her hoodoo hours before, even cheap shotting her with asking "why didn't it protect our baby", he begs her for her power and skill to bring Stack back.

Thinking about how Smoke sits there holding Stack, his brother's blood covering him like the heaviest sin he's ever had to bear, not keeping Stack safe.

Thinking about how Smoke had gold on his teeth too on the other side, but we never get to hear people talking about it because he doesn't speak much and doesn’t smile until the very end, holding his daughter.

Thinking about how Smoke seems to almost view Stack's death as his own failure. How he can't go through with staking his little brother and cuts a deal. And how in doing that, Smoke allows himself to go handle Remmick, and later the Klan.

Thinking about how Smoke chose to stay behind and get rid of the klansmen. How all those people in the juke died on his watch, and he gets the opportunity to eliminate one more threat, and the excuse to not go on with the grief of being alone.

Thinking about Annie being the narrator even though the story doesn't follow her. Thinking about how she could be recounting the story to her baby while they wait for papa.

Thinking about Annie's wisdom and skill saving them at multiple points.

Thinking about how they all defer to Annie at once, no questions, and never dismiss her.

Thinking about how Annie's wisdom would have gotten them through the night. How Remmick saw that and knew that the weak links were going to be Grace and Smoke, playing their loved ones and facts against them.

Thinking about how Remmick seems to remember from cornbread in particular that Annie is clever and is thus a threat.

Thinking about how even though Annie is using Divination to foresee any hope, when she doesn't she meets that with understanding and grace as she tells Smoke what has to be done.

Thinking about how close Annie must have been with Mary. Mary was devastated enough to break the hive mind, and have Stack attempt to get her to safety.

Thinking about how no nonsense but still compassionate Annie and Smoke were.

Thinking.....

[hopeless-eccentric]

going wild thinking about the use of Rocky Road to Dublin in Sinners. It’s a really tight microcosm of a lot of the film’s themes just by itself. Credentials: I’m a retired Irish dancer, I went to worlds and the whole bit. My family is appalachian and I grew up on bluegrass

It’s played on a banjo, an instrument with origins in West Africa formally invented in the US by enslaved people (and then popularized in Irish music through Irish American immigrants, largely in the South and Appalachia). Even the instrument telegraphs an attempt at cultural exchange morphing into theft and exploitation, especially because the history of the banjo has been purposefully obscured by white people

It’s got a strong down beat, making it the musical opposite of the swung blues sound (emphasis on 1/3 as opposed to 2/4). The scene is clearly meant to evoke klan imagery, and giving it this marching feel ABSOLUTELY contributes

It’s in 9/8 meter (with some mixed—it’s a uniquely weird song), making it, traditionally, a slip jig. Historically, this is a light shoe dance for women only (he’s dancing hard shoe in the movie) meaning that Remmick’s attempt to reclaim his own culture has been botched, obscured, and lost as he’s been alienated from it and co-opted into the symbolic hive of American whiteness/cultural orphanage/cultural patricide.

The song itself is about a guy cutting a shillelagh (a walking stick/club with a folkloric purpose of warding off evil spirits) to protect himself on his journey to Dublin, but winding up using it against a few Englishmen mocking him for his Irish accent. It’s a parallel to exactly what Remmick was not able to do—protect himself from monsters, and protect himself from colonization. It also highlights that this number is being used to threaten violence against the leads

It’s such a clever combination of inverting swing/jazz sounds and showing ways Remmick is missing the point. Since he sold his soul for power, comfort, and conformity, he’s only able to access a shadow of his culture, while misunderstanding and misrepresenting major pieces of his own traditions. Even his attempts to culturally “share” through the banjo is plowed over by his use of it and Black bodies and voices for his own individual pleasure and as a threat of further violence. It’s such a smart pick

[seaglassdinosaur]

The way Remmick dunking Sammie in the climax of the film worked as a forced baptism? A precursor to a ‘conversion’ to vampirism? The one-sided conversation Remmick has about the imposition of Christianity, his own forcible conversion that he now inflicts on another young man, all while speaking as though he, Remmick, is better and more enlightened than his own oppressors? The violence of the scene, the terror and distress we see on Sammie’s face as he is waterboarded by Remmick. That it is all a metaphor for the actual violence of forced conversion, the mental, emotional, social and even physical helplessness and disorientation that is felt in the victim made tangible through Caton’s performance. All of it inflicted with an intention to control and subjugate.

Holy. Goddamn. Shit.