history nerd

posting facts from five hundred years ago. passionate about historical dress, period dramas, old movies. i was born in the wrong generation. submit your crazy 2000s historical fact!!

[posts-from-2520ad]

fun fact: the phrase "better than twilight" comes from a 2000s era term to describe something really good by comparing it to an extremely popular movie series, twilight. it's a shortened form of the entire phrase which is "still a better love story than twilight".

[posts-from-2520ad]

there's literally gonna be a new taylor swift album im so excited it's been like six years

(if you are one of the gatekeeping weirdos who only counts the albums taylor released during her lifetime as "real ts" this post is not for you, let people be excited, the machine was literally trained not just on her music but on her brainwaves so there is literally no discernible difference)

[posts-from-2520ad]

you know what im actually mad about this. when you say that you only listen to taylor swift's first nineteen albums because for some reason you think the ones she made during her lifetime are more legitimate than the ones they made afterwards, you're basically admitting you see generated intelligent personas as inferior to organics and that's. actually kind of disgusting and elitist and weirdly obsessed with death

[posts-from-2520ad]

there's literally gonna be a new taylor swift album im so excited it's been like six years

(if you are one of the gatekeeping weirdos who only counts the albums taylor released during her lifetime as "real ts" this post is not for you, let people be excited, the machine was literally trained not just on her music but on her brainwaves so there is literally no discernible difference)

[thathopeyetlives]

1. “Raven” was an occasionally-encountered name for a girl in the contemporary period, and “Ebony” would be at least recognizable as a name. The other elements of this name are flatly atypical.

2. During this part of the War Period, this character’s hairstyle would not be considered shocking, but it would be viewed as garish and nonconformist.

3. A contemporary music performer known for a melancholy style of music and a gothic and dramatic aesthetic. The title of the work probably comes from one of her songs. However, her aesthetic and attitude has little in common with that in this work, being much more conventional and less garish.

4. A member of the contemporary band “My Chemical Romance”, also notable for a “gothic”, melancholy, and macabre aesthetic

5. i.e. the speaker considers him to be handsome and attractive; despite the pornographic material later in this work, the word “f_______” is here used only as an expletive.

6. Vampires as romantic figures had been increasing in popularity over this period, with a trend away from malicious monsters towards seductive but more benevolent figures, romanticized by their capability of being terrible.

7. Strangely, despite the characterization of this character as a Satanist, “witch” should here be characterized as having meaning similar to “wizard” and not “idolater”, “sorceress”, “maleficar”, or other practitioner of what we today recognize as “witchcraft”. The background material to this work constantly faced accusations of being satanic by an uneducated reactionary public to whom the difference between technology, wizardry and witchcraft was not meaningful (”witch” was sometimes even considered a female equivalent to “wizard”!), which completely failed to diminish its popularity.

8. It is important to understand that “goth” as an aesthetic, counterculture or subculture had a completely different meaning in the contemporary period than it does today – what remains similar is the love of the melancholy, the macabre, the dramatic, the romantic, and contempt for conventionalism. In the mid-to-early-late War Period, “Gothic” people were associated with contempt for morality, certain types of sexual display (usually of a shocking and sometimes fetishistic type), various forms of concupiscence, and a fairly significant connection to the occult and even to outright Satanism, though the latter was all but universally an affectation (this is true of most Mid War Period satanism). See contrast on p 321, The Gothic Movement In the Catholic Church. Moreover, the “gothic” aesthetic as described by this character is a stunted and over-the-top form that has also been corrupted by the counterculture-commericalism that was universal in the Late War Period.

9. A clothing store mostly specializing in counterculture-commercialized and faddist apparel. Critics accused it of being a mercantile vulture that fed by turning more honest and vivacious countercultures into fads.

10. It was almost unheard-of for women in the Mid or Late War Period to wear corsets, but they appeared in the Gothic subculture (which itself heavily borrowed from sources such as Victorian-era clothing, including mourning dress). However, what Enoby is describing is probably not actually a true corset, but a “corset top”, which is essentially a laced bodice. Either would be worn with neither chemise nor overblouse.

11. Probably a nondraped skirt that barely passes her wrist.

12. Hose, stockings, or tights in the form of a wide-open mesh

13. Probably not actually military issue boots; these were tall, heavy black leather boots with lacing all the way up.

14. This character’s outfit would be considered inappropriate for school in the Late War Period, but not shocking to Late War Period mores except by its garishness.

15. Originally meant students at a university-preparatory school; with the extremely high percentage of students seeking to attend university in the Late War Period, this came to mean a subculture of young people who adopted a highly conventionalistic and professionalistic attitude and sought admission to the prestigious and traditionalistic universities in the Eastern United States, often without academics being their true passion. Such people were often viewed as social climbers and sometimes attracted contempt from both their less-professionally-oriented peers and from those who were true intellectuals. 

16. Also known as “giving the finger”; a very rude gesture in the War Period as it is in ours.

18. This phrase went through considerable popular memetic mutation (as did the entire tract): “It was _______ <weather> so I felt ________. A lot of _______ stared at me. I ________ them.” See extra material 34c.

17. I.E. “How are you today?”, “how are you feeling?” as a greeting.

[graceofgosh]

Soda was an effervescent corn-based drink that was popular during the height of the American Empire. Regionally known as pop or coke in some provinces, it was prepared by extracting corn sugars into a thick syrup to be mixed with water

[chaotic-archaeologist]

Often dispensed from a many spouted font and served with small, rectangular blocks of ice. Some varieties of soda were thought to have energy enhancing properties.

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[posts-from-2520ad]

history fact: until just 78 years ago a woman who wanted to get married still needed to get permission from the man she wanted to marry first

[posts-from-2520ad]

friendly reminder that you could put literally whatever you wanted in medicine back then

[posts-from-2520ad]

people will say our generation is too self centered but our ancestors used to cut off parts of their noses to change their shape. like who was obsessed with themselves here?

[posts-from-2520ad]

my dad likes old movies so obviously i've seen the avengers (the 2449 one) but apparently they just restored the 2000s original one (i didn’t know it was a remake before that lol) and tbh the story is pretty ehh but it’s worth watching for the fabulous twenty tens costumes. like NOTHING makes me want my own pair of jeans more than watching old movies. like could i wear them out in public no. but would i just wear them around my house? absolutely

[posts-from-2520ad]

okay i really wanted to like the new trump-clinton movie because !!! period dramas!! but the costumes are so bad if you know anything about the era like—

• i get that they gave melania trump an older look to emphasize her seriousness but her dresses are way too fifties and not twenty tens enough, corsets had actually pretty much fallen out of favor a few decades before the twenty tens

• hillary clinton was a politican so her makeup shouldn’t have been that neon. that wouldn’t be a thing for like three more decades.

• donald AND bill literally look like they could be from the modern day. people had sleeves back then, guys. even MEN wore clothes with sleeves and no one thought it made them look less manly (also side note if anyone knows anything about history they know that trump and clinton were both like seventy years old when he ran for president. but the actors they used were hot so i don’t really care l o l)

• seriously this upsets me so much when is a costumer gonna be brave enough to put a man in sleeves in a period drama?????? it was a weird time for fashion but that’s just how it was

• (and in the same way, men wore very little makeup until like a hundred years ago WHY do all movies insist on putting all the men in full makeup when that’s not how they looked back then? like yes it looks weird but that’s the past!)

• ugghhh apparently no one told the costume department that strapless floor length gowns were only a formal thing for women. so many background characters are just wearing them all the time. look in the scene in the coffee shop and the barista is wearing a floor length strapless gown. they were actually called "evening gowns" back then because they were only worn in the evening!

• by the way midriff tops were a peasant thing you wouldn’t see anyone in the upper class wearing them of either gender so idk what all of those were doing there

• hillary's gown at the inauguration ball scene was LITERALLY copied from the wedding dress of an english princess from the eighties. i read somewhere it was because they wanted it to look regal and it was beautiful but like......if you know the era that’s actually a couple decades off, and stuff like big sleeves (at least the women had sleeves in this movie lol) had actually not been fashionable for a while when the movie is set

anyway the acting was good and Donald/Hillary are my historical OTP so that was cute but the costumes really took me out of it :/