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lookingbackatfashionhistory

• Headdress.

Date: early 19th century

Culture: Russian

Medium: Silk, pearls, metal, cotton, paper.

bump-of-whump

Ref Recs for Whump Writers

Violence: A Writer’s Guide: This is not about writing technique. It is an introduction to the world of violence. To the parts that people don’t understand. The parts that books and movies get wrong. Not just the mechanics, but how people who live in a violent world think and feel about what they do and what they see done.

Hurting Your Characters: HURTING YOUR CHARACTERS discusses the immediate effect of trauma on the body, its physiologic response, including the types of nerve fibers and the sensations they convey, and how injuries feel to the character. This book also presents a simplified overview of the expected recovery times for the injuries discussed in young, otherwise healthy individuals.

Body Trauma: A writer’s guide to wounds and injuries. Body Trauma explains what happens to body organs and bones maimed by accident or intent and the small window of opportunity for emergency treatment. Research what happens in a hospital operating room and the personnel who initiate treatment. Use these facts to bring added realism to your stories and novels.

10 B.S. Medical Tropes that Need to Die TODAY…and What to Do Instead: Written by a paramedic and writer with a decade of experience, 10 BS Medical Tropes covers exactly that: clichéd and inaccurate tropes that not only ruin books, they have the potential to hurt real people in the real world.

Maim Your Characters: How Injuries Work in Fiction: Increase Realism. Raise the Stakes. Tell Better Stories. Maim Your Characters is the definitive guide to using wounds and injuries to their greatest effect in your story. Learn not only the six critical parts of an injury plot, but more importantly, how to make sure that the injury you’re inflicting matters.

Blood on the Page: This handy resource is a must-have guide for writers whose characters live on the edge of danger. If you like easy-to-follow tools, expert opinions from someone with firsthand knowledge, and you don’t mind a bit of fictional bodily harm, then you’ll love Samantha Keel’s invaluable handbook

hometoursandotherstuff

Came across this art installation, Liza Lou's Kitchen, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC. It's a kitchen made of tiny glass beads, that artist Liza Lou did, taking 5 yrs. to complete, from 1991 - 1996.

My favorite part is the sink.

hellenhighwater

Rainy afternoon slap fights with the darling idiots

The squeaky crying is coming from grown man Vice and not bitty baby Mayhem, by the way.

zevveli

I still think that my favorite urban legend/folklore fact is that there are certain areas in New Orleans where you cannot get a taxi late at night not because it isn’t safe, but because taxi companies have had recurring problems of picking up ghosts in those areas who are not aware that they are dead and disappearing from the cab before reaching the destination and therefore stiffing the driver on the fare causing a loss for the company.

elsajeni

An occupational hazard of cab driving I had not previously considered

princessnijireiki

I love that the nola problem here is not “ghosts in my taxi cab,” but “ghosts are FUCKING BROKE DEAD BASTARDS & I GOT BILLS”

siderealsandman

Horror is when ghosts get into cabs and scare drivers Magical realism is when cab companies have to develop policies to prevent ghastly fare-theft

kc749

In a book about the tsunami in Japan in 2011, the writer talked about how there was a huge increase in reports of ghostly activity. Apparently in Japan treating ghosts rudely is basically considered the stupidest thing you could possibly do. For months after the tsunami, taxi drivers would pick up a passenger only to have them give an address in one of the devastated areas. The cab driver often looked up halfway to the destination to find their fare had disappeared. Not wanting to be impolite to the person (even if they were dead) they’d drive to the address, open the door to let them out, then drive away.

qwertyu858

officialfist

Yeah this all checks out

fuckyeahchinesefashion

OP: Why couldn’t traditional Chinese Yinpiao银票/silver drafts be forged if they were merely slips of paper? (cr大明宝钞，渐越)

Traditional Chinese yinpiao/silver drafts were paper vouchers issued by private banks starting from the Song Dynasty(960–1279). People could exchange these slips for physical silver at bank branches across the country.

Silver drafts were made in multiple copies with matching serrated seal edges. One copy went to the customer and others stayed at the bank. All edges had to fit perfectly together to withdraw silver. The unique split edge marks were almost impossible to copy.

This mechanism is known as qifeng骑缝 (split-joint seal) in China. It first originated in the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046–771 BC). The Rites of Zhou records that contracts were written on bamboo or wooden slips in duplicate. Notches and marks were carved in the middle before splitting the slips, with each party keeping one half. The two halves would be matched by their notches for verification.

During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770–221 BC), this idea evolved into hufu虎符/tiger tally tokens. A military tally was split into two pieces with identical inscriptions carved along the split edge. Troops could only be deployed if the patterns and characters on both halves perfectly aligned, serving as a metal version of the split-joint anti-counterfeiting system.

The technology matured in the Tang Dynasty (618–907). Government documents and private contracts commonly used split-joint seals stamped across the dividing line. The Chinese character "hetong合同" (contract) was written across the middle before the paper was torn apart, so the complete characters would only appear when the two halves were put together. This split-coupon system was later adopted for Song Dynasty (960–1279) jiaozi paper money and yinpiao/silver drafts of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1912).

Official Song dynasty paper money (Jiaozi交子) was abolished in 1107. Private silver drafts issued by Qing-era piaohao票行 (ancient exchange banks) vanished completely in 1951, hit hard by modern banks and currency reforms. Nowadays silver drafts no longer circulate as currency. Their collectible value depends on their rarity and physical condition.

Split-joint seals (骑缝章qifengzhang)are still widely used on important paper documents in modern China, an anti-tampering technique passed down from ancient times. They are applied across the edge of multi-page contracts, bidding documents and official archives. If any page is removed or replaced, the broken seal pattern can prove the file has been altered.

ariaste

OMG I got so excited about this because they used a really similar (though far less refined) version of this for contracts in the European medieval period!

First they were called "chirographs", but later the word "indenture" (in its earliest meaning as just a legal document of any kind between two people) came to be used, originating from the practice of a contract being written twice on a single piece of parchment and then cut in half with serrated edges (as in dent, "teeth" -> indents -> indenture) in order for each party to take one half, so they could later piece them together and verify that there had been no forgery -- same as the Chinese silver drafts!

(Charter of the Clerecía de Ledesma, 1252, showing the serrated indents at the top -- presumably they are cutting rather than tearing because they're using parchment, which I expect is much harder to tear than wood-pulp paper like the Chinese were using)

Delights me when human beings find similar ways to solve the same problem at two different ends of the world. <3

hometoursandotherstuff

BEFORE

AFTER

mini-wrants

Could we have replaced the roof without stripping 100% of the warmth and vegetation from the space? Was that an option?!

ms-demeanor

I am a glorified office administrator who understands server hardware why am I the only person in this company who gets what social engineering is?

ms-demeanor

Total stranger on the phone who we’ve never spoken to before: I have power of attorney over the CEO of this corporation and we are a customer of yours. Please change the administrator password on the server to XXXXX

My boss, putting on white grease paint and a red wig: Oh, of course! Let’s do it quickly so that you’ll want to keep working with us since you’re going to be making business decisions!

Me: I would sell you to satan for one corn chip and I’m allergic to corn but before you do this maybe you should call someone who is actually on our contact list for our customer and see if they’ve ever heard of this stranger.

My boss, looking through a selection of shoes that honk when you walk: Oh, but she said that it was very important that none of the employees know what was happening because they’re making staffing changes.

Me: As your lawyer I recommend that you just call a single one of our contacts and see if they’ve ever heard of her name.

My boss, shoving all of our technicians into a VW beetle: You’re not my lawyer.

Me: HOW THE FUCK WOULD YOU KNOW? I COULD BE! YOU SHOULD MAYBE CHECK ON THAT.

yoursjupiter

TIL everyone’s employee ID at my company is the last five of their SSN.

Boss: On the bright side, it’s only the last five

Me: YOU CAN COMMIT FRAUD WITH FOUR

zevveli

Security firms that are hired to check the security of banks will often use the following tactic: They will walk up to the teller in a suit with their ID badge and a clipboard and go:

“Hello I am [name] from [security firm] we’ve been hired to verify the security of the facility I need to see your computers.”

“Erm…I’ll have to verify that with my managers.”

“Congratulations, you have just passed the security verification.” [Scribbles on clipboard] “But in all seriousness I do need to verify your security so I need to see your computers.”

“Oh okay.” AND LETS THEM IN.

palindromordnilap-deactivated20

“Social engineering” is a way too fancy word for what it is. I know a guy (not personally) who broke several people out of prison by essentially writing “Greetings, please release this person, signed, whoever the judge is” on a piece of paper and faxing it there. Because no one would have a fax machine in their own house I guess.

closet-keys

not to derail, but holy shit that praxis

cal-is-a-cuddlefish

I’ve had clerks just give out a whole ass SSN when I asked.

airandangels

An inspection in 2014 found the password for the Louvre’s surveillance camera system was “louvre.”

digitaldiscipline

My proudest moment in the shitfire that was my last job was when we got a full-on assault from scammers*, and my users were so well trained that it was completely bolloxed within an hour.

*it was a pen test that out infosec team paid a lot of money for, and was very unhappy that I blew it up. It was executed so obviously and badly that I was sending company-wide emails saying, “These calls from 000-000-0000 are not being recorded for quality or training purposes. You can tell these people to go fuck themselves. Have fun!”

kittydesade

Somewhere I still have a T-shirt that says “social engineering; because there is no patch for human stupidity”

notthatjaded

I will never forget listening to a pen tester talking about how in one engagement his whole original plan was to talk the main IT security guy for a bank in to installing some software that’s supposed to fix some problem with their mail server.

The guy was willing to do it but for whatever reason was failing at it so eventually pentester guy decides fuck it we ball and suggests he could come in person to the bank and provide an assist since security guy is having so much trouble.

Security guy agrees, pentester guy shows up a day or two later and security guy introduces him to the staff as the guy that’s going to fix their mail problems and to let him do whatever he needs to.

And then, it gets better, apparently somebody in the office was having a birthday and everybody goes off to the break room for cake.

Leaving pen test guy alone with the bank vault door open.

So he did what any responsible pentester would do, he went into the vault, took a selfie with a stack of cash, and included the picture as a visual aid in his report.

injuries-in-dust

May I offer you cute red pandas in this trying time?

fruitviking

Considering the possibility of Holmes being related to the Addams Family, probably on Morticia's side for the Frenchness

Primarily based on these images

But also because I want Holmes and Morticia to speak French, and for him to fence with Gomez, and teach the kids about poisons and criminals

(The family all adore Watson and find him absolutely fascinating, of course)

fruitviking

“Here’s a letter for you, old man,” I announced as I sifted through the morning post one grey day in October. “Not a lot else, I’m afraid.”

Holmes folded down the top of the newspaper he was reading so he could see me. “A letter from whom?”

“Not sure.” I turned it over to study it as best I could. The envelope was thick and expensive, postmarked from America. The ink was rich and black, and it smelled unexpectedly floral, with an odd sulphuric note underneath. “Looks to be a woman’s writing, I’d say.”

“If you would.” He held out a pale hand. I passed him the envelope and he neatly sliced it open with his pocket knife. A single page slipped out onto his breakfast plate. He unfolded it with a flick of his wrist, then smiled. “Ah! Morticia.”

“Morticia?”

“Addams. She is my second cousin.”

I was immediately intrigued, for Holmes so rarely talked about his relatives. It had taken several years after our meeting for him to bring up the subject of his elder brother, who lived and worked barely an hour’s walk away. I wasn’t surprised that a second cousin in America had gone unnoted until now.

“Unusual names run in the family, I see.”

Holmes smirked. “Her grandmother was my great-aunt Séraphine, who met and married a quite singular gentleman named Algernon Frump while travelling. They settled over in the States many years ago, and dear Morticia now resides there with her husband.”

“Why does she write you?”

“She is arranging a sort of family reunion on All Hallow’s Eve. Apparently it has been far too long since we have all seen each other.”

“How long is that?”

“Several years at least. It was certainly before you and I met.”

“And will you oblige her?”

“I suppose I will.” He folded the letter and placed it neatly back in its envelope, tucking it into his inside pocket. “You’ve been angling for a holiday, my boy. Would this satisfy you?”

“Wouldn’t it be terribly rude?” I asked, startled. “She has invited you, not me.”

He tutted. “Nonsense, Watson! Morticia knows we live together, of course.”

“How?”

“She will have read your book.”

“Oh! Well that is kind of her. But a family reunion, Holmes, I am not—”

“You are my partner and intimate friend. I assure you there are members of the Addams clan with far more tenuous connections, and many of them also of no blood relation. You will not be out of place, and they will be glad to meet you.”

the-bedheaded-league

Ohhhh I love this ❤️ I also love the idea that Holmes is actually the most normal out of all his living relatives

backupstardust

Okay, I went through the notes, nobody else has mentioned this yet so I guess I gotta. Watson was an army surgeon before he started working with Holmes! You just know Sherlock is going to introduce him as “Dr” and his relatives’ eyes are gonna light up. He’ll absolutely get dragged into multiple conversations about styles of stitches, limb amputations, skin grafts, and the like.

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

no more historic events this decade that is ENOUGH, i’m putting my foot down

alettertofutureme

History is not done with us yet my friend

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

I have received all manner of threat, up to and beyond “I will play a flute carved from your femur,” and yet this is the first time I’ve felt truly threatened

ourpalebluehome

Monthly Good News Roundup for July! 🌺🩵

How are we more than halfway through 2026?! Wasn’t it just January yesterday? 🥴 Either way, each new month brings new positive news headlines, and July was no exception! ☀️ Come recap five good news stories from July! 🩵🌺🌊

1. ❤️‍🩹😷 Uganda has been declared free from Ebola!

Authorities in Uganda declared the country free of Ebola following the discharge of the country’s last patient! The country reported cases in May alongside its neighbor Democratic Republic of Congo, which continues to deal with the outbreak — Uganda, however, only ever recorded 20 cases and two deaths, with authorities finding no indication of further spread within the country! Uganda responded swiftly to the public health threat, including contact tracing and postponing potential superspreader events. Part of the reason the response was so successful was due to Uganda having experience in swiftly responding to health crises like Ebola. Uganda for now can breathe a sigh of relief as it continues to educate the public on prevention measures as well as send healthcare workers to Congo to help tackle the virus!

Uganda discharged its last Ebola patient from hospital roughly two weeks ago.

2. 📍🗺️ 7 natural wonders just became UNESCO World Heritage sites — and one country gained its very first!

These newly-christened landmarks highlight Earth’s cultural and natural diversity, from the massive ancient landscape of Greece’s Mount Olympus, to climate-resilient coral reefs in Jordan, to fossils in Denmark that provide clues into the evolution of life on Earth! Joining the World Heritage List’s 26 new sites for 2026, these natural landmarks include the first ever World Heritage site in South Sudan, which annually hosts the world’s largest land mammal migration of six million antelopes!

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has followed advice from IUCN, as the official advisor on nature, to inscribe seven new sites on the Wor

3. 🚫🧪 Sweden plans to ban all forever chemicals in everyday products by 2028!

PFAs, or “forever chemicals,” are synthetic chemicals that take thousands of years to degrade and pollute the environment, all while being linked to harmful health impacts. The ban’s prohibition of PFAs in commonly-used products like kitchen appliances, clothes, and cosmetics is a victory for both the environment and human health!

Sweden plans to ban forever chemicals in kitchen appliances and clothing by 2028. When will the EU follow suit?

4. 💧🌱 Water is returning to the African Sahel!

Groundwater reserves are rising after decades of drought in the region, restoring water to dried water sources! While part of the shift unfortunately comes from increasingly stronger rainfall due to climate change, it is also largely in part to rain-water harvesting. From Ethiopia to Senegal, the drought of the 1970s and 1980s fueled hunger and disease, but as monsoons now grow stronger, today the region shows a vastly different story — near-extinct wildlife are resurging, farmers are planting thriving trees and harvesting higher-yielding crops, and wells and new ponds are filling! One of the most notable transformations can be seen in Lake Chad — one of Africa’s largest bodies of water before drying up during the droughts, the lake is now almost as big as in the 1960s, and is 10 times its mid-1980s size!

Warming has brought extreme rain to the parched Sahel, which is seeing aquifers refill as monsoons grow stronger. But heavier downpours alon

5. 💉🍼 Childhood immunization continues to grow globally!

Despite vaccine efforts being threatened by conflict and vaccine hesitancy, in 2025, 90% of infants globally received at least one dose of a diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine, and 85% completed the full three-dose series, an increase from 2024. Compared to 2024, the number of unvaccinated children with no doses fell by nearly 750,000! These numbers reflects the strides made in protecting children's health — in just the past 25 years, government investment, community efforts, and public trust have reduced the annual number of unvaccinated children by 40%!

Zero-dose children fell by nearly 750,000 in the past year, but drop-out numbers high and stagnant, increasing risk of disease outbreaks

dizzyghoast

every so often i remember how awesome the modern interconnected multicultural world is. i grew up getting to hear fairy tales from all over the world. africa, asia, europe, america. everywhere in between. i can have bagels for breakfast, curry for lunch, and ramen for dinner without even leaving the city limits. music and art and philosophy and technology that originated thousands of miles and years apart from eachother have come together and interwoven into something greater than the sum of its parts. its hard not fall into despair when thinking about the horrors but god. god the wonders.

fuckyeahchinesefashion

德化白瓷 Déhuà báicí/dehua white porcelain

Dehua County, located in Quanzhou, Fujian, China, is renowned for its white porcelain.

Its kilns flourished during the Tang (618-907 CE) and Song dynasties(960–1279 CE), peaked in the Yuan and Ming periods, and remain famous today, particularly for their white porcelain. Fired at high temperatures, the unglazed porcelain exhibits a smooth, jade-like texture, appearing crystal-clear and pure white.

Dehua white porcelain is renowned for its "high-toughness thin-bodied高韧薄胎瓷衣" technique, a breakthrough in ceramic craftsmanship that achieves exceptional strength in ultra-thin structures. This technology enables the creation of porcelain pieces with egg-shell thinness (0.2–0.5 mm) while maintaining remarkable durability, making it a hallmark of Dehua's artistry. However, not every piece of Dehua white porcelain employs this technique, as it involves significantly higher production costs.

teaboot

PORCELAIN?!

saxifraga-x-urbium

so in the victoria & Albert museum's huge ceramics gallery which people never seem to know about, there was a temporary exhibition by a 4th generation porcelain worker from dehua & some of her work v which particularly took me out were these books - books which looked as if they had hand pressed paper pages with ragged edges, being tugged open and ruffled by the breeze. they looked like a film still. they looked light as air. there was a drapery of fine silk fluttering as well. ALL PORCELAIN.

electronicgallery

I looked it up, and I believe the exhibit was called Blanc de Chine: A Continuous Conversation. The artist in question would have been Su Xianzhong, and here are some of his porcelain books:

catchymemes

wumbreon

May we all know decadence such as this

daciancatamite

"my great grandmother who survived 3 wars and raised 10 children by herself while working in a factory watching me go to therapy because my parents yelled at me" ok but your great grandmother was also miserable. maybe your great grandmother would be happy you try your best to not be miserable

daciancatamite

like have you considered your ancestors wouldve wished to see you be less miserable than them

reasonsforhope

We are still here, as human beings, because millions and millions of us - since far, far longer ago in our history than recorded time - have looked at the world, and said "I want my children, and my children's children, to have a better life than I did."

Maybe your parents and your grandparents and great-grandparents were among those people - or maybe they weren't, personally. Some people admittedly aren't.

But every human alive is part of an uninterrupted line of hundreds of thousands of years of descent (and that's only since we became Homo sapiens).

We, as humans, have created and built and invented and learned and treated and cured so, so much. Because we kept looking around us, and looking at the people around us, and saying, "I want a better world for the people I love. I want a better world for the people who will come next."

Or perhaps think about it this way:

Would you want your great-grandchildren (or the great-grandchildren of your loved ones / family / chosen family, if you'd rather) to be miserable?

Or would you want those children to take care of themselves, and be kind to themselves, and do their best to find peace and joy in their lives?

captaindibbzy

Recently my dad handed me my granddad's pit token to pass on to my brother when I next see him.

The pit token (and locker key) was something my grandad had when he worked in a coal mine. Every day he would have it over and receive his safety lamp, and go down the pit to mine coal. At the end of the day if there were any tokens left on the board then they'd know that there was still someone in the pit.

My grandad was an intelligent man. He was politically motivated, wrote letters to the local MP, read countless books about many subjects, listened to a wide variety of music, etc. But he worked down that pit for years to pay for a house and home for three kids. He broke his back down that pit. When his best friend died he locked himself in his shed with a bottle of rum cause obviously Men Don't Cry and he couldn't be seen. He fought in world war 2 and killed men in battle, and he never spoke about it unless asked.

My brother has a masters. He attends therapy. Has his own son now, and he worries about the world. He works in an office, and while he would like to do something he is passionate about rather than admin, I don't think my granddad would ever begrudge the kind of man my brother has grown up to be even if he didn't fully understand it. He wouldn't wish that pit on anyone.

icaseybaybee

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