Writer. Recovering academic. Actual adult. Richardclub forever. Science. History.
Eighteenth century. Assorted nerdery. Currrently into: Our Flag Means Death, What We Do in the Shadows,
Good Omens, Ghosts. Occasional fanfic writer and gifmaker. Queue
is filled with Doctor Who, David Tennant, or whatever I’m obsessed
with at the moment.
I want to live my hot girl summer like I’m stephen maturin in the galapagos- just a straw hat, a sexy embroidered robe, some lizards, and vibes
his robe is actually printed not embroidered! historically, fabric like this would have been hand-printed with a series of complex, interlocking carved wooden blocks like this:
this is actually better than embroidered given the goal of costuming as ‘communicating a lot of info about a character without exposition’. Banyan robes like this would have been worn as fashionable 'undress’ at home by gentlemen - so not really appropriate to be traipsing around doing naturalist things. But, from this production’s standpoint it is serving to show Maturin as softer, more 'natural’ and more casual in contrast to the more stiff/traditional naval characters.
by the early 19th c. embroidery was already largely relegated to formal wear for men, until it basically disappeared from menswear almost entirely later in the century (aside from occasional exceptions like livery or a subtle design on a waistcoat or an emblem or something).
Cottons printed in India - like chintz and calico (both words derive from Hindi) - and later, fabrics printed in Europe which basically copied Indian design & aesthetics wholesale, were very popular for more informal clothing in the west starting in the later part of the 18th century. Here’s a dress with a quite similar pattern from a similar period:
The wiki lists banyans as being inspired by kimono, but considering the relatively limited exposure the west had to Japanese material goods prior to the mid 19th c. and the fact that 'banyan’ has sanskrit origins, I think it’s far more likely that the style of garment was inspired by the many open-robe style overgarments worn throughout the near east and through southeast Asia.
Many banyans were imported garments with minimal modification, (or even could be made directly for export to the European market - a similar thing happened in the late 19th century with Western women snapping up and wearing kimono as dishabille at the height of late 19th c. Japonisme)
I need to write an essay for school but I'm terrified that it won't be very good and this fear is ultimately preventing me from doing the assignment. Any advice?
If you don’t do it it won’t be done. So you have to pretend you are someone who can do it and start the essay. Then you have to pretend you are someone who knows what they are doing and finish it. Then you have to pretend you are someone who has never seen the essay before and you need to read it with new eyes and revise anything that needs improving.
As a teacher, I will tell you what I tell my students.
1: If you’re afraid of writing a bad essay, don’t be. Everyone writes a few stinkers.
2: There is almost no chance of you writing the worst essay your teacher has ever seen.
3: It is literally your teacher’s job to help turn bad writers into good writers. If they just complain about a bad essay without helping you get better, they’re the one who sucks, not you.
4: All first drafts are hot stinky dog poop. All of them. This is why the gods give us red pens and second drafts.
5: We would rather see a bad essay than no essay. Most of us actually love bad essays, because it shows us exactly where you need help and exactly what we need to do.
6: This goes for all art forms, really, but you might find that what you think is “bad writing” just turns into “your writing style.”
7: Pretend that your subject matter is way cooler than it is (I know how interesting essay topics aren’t.) and infodump as if you were rambling to your best friend. You can fix grammar later.
I am so conflicted about your Dispenserposting bc on the one hand I get it but on the other hand he's my least favorite dude in that whole situation. Like I will always believe Piers was the true love of Ed II's life and Hugh just ran the equivalent of one of those old people Facebook love scams. and Isabella???? sent to marry him at age 12 having been raised on chivalric tales and then she see him giving her dowry jewels to his boyfriend and putting his boyfriend's banners up imstead of hers??? she is so Sansacoded
Oh, I absolutely agree! I think that’s why I find Hugh Despenser so fascinating, honestly. Essentially he just saw that there was an opening in grieving Edward’s life for a Hot Boyfriend With A Pulse, and weaseled his way into that position so that he could be an absolute rat bastard, but also richer than God. The extent to which he managed to just wedge himself into Edward’s life is genuinely impressive - I mean, he literally goes from some random knight who Edward has to hang out with sometimes at family barbecues to the de facto ruler of England. Either dude had the biggest schlong known to man, or there was a lot more to him than just being an evil scammer. What was he like as a person? Was he witty? Charismatic? Charming? How did he switch his abrasive personality on and off? The fact that he was also married to Edward’s niece/bestie just adds a layer of intrigue! What did Eleanor think of it all? Did she approve tacitly because she also gained from it, or did she resent sharing her husband, at least a little? Did she even actively encourage it, or did it keep her awake at night? We’ll never know, alas.
Isabella is fascinating to me as well! She’s so often either depicted as this complete victim (married at 12, ignored by her husband, saved the country from his gay tyranny by getting him murdered) or a villain (kicked her husband off the throne and had him murdered and then ruled England for a bit with her own tyrannical boyfriend) and there’s not much space for nuance within her character. She’s either a She-Wolf or some kind of perverse calumniated wife, where her crime is being a woman and her punishment is being ignored for her entire marriage until she actually explodes. The extent to which she had to try and manage a complex political situation (keeping England stable! Not being too French!) is often glossed over as well. Like, she had her own power! She’s not just a bystander! She’s someone who Hugh absolutely underestimated, and I love to imagine the mind games that the two of them must have played, trying to one-up the other until she got bored and just raised an army instead.
Truly, if the barons had just let Edward keep Piers around, giving him some nice jewellery and some smooches and maybe an earldom or two, or three or four, then it would all have been fine. Probably.
LOOK AT THE PRESENT THAT DR TALL GF MADE ME FOR OUR ANNIVERSARY
Can you even believe it???? It’s an Edward II and Hugh Despenser reader and she has compiled a bunch of historical sources and academic articles for me and omg!!!
The salacious history of Edward and his favourites, written in 1680!!!
One of the original printings of Marlowe’s Edward II from 1612!!!
These articles about Edward’s deposition and the rise of the Despenser family!!
My personal favourite - a list of the Despensers’ properties!!!
And finally, this article about Froissart’s version of events in 1326!!!!
She made it so we can take it to GLOUCESTER, where we are going tomorrow so I can see poor Edward’s tomb at Gloucester Cathedral. Get you a gf who not only tolerates your hyperfixations but literally prepares you a binder of further research.
I’ve just done the potato stuffing and later on we’re going to make BATTER and FRY THEM and BE IN HEAVEN
I’M SO EXCITED I CAN’T EVEN EAT MY LUNCH
I MADE VADA PAV
If you’ve never had one, then you probably won’t be too impressed, given that they’re not the most photogenic of foods, but if you HAVE been blessed with the experience, then let me just assure you that the ones I just made absolutely fucking slap and I’m in heaven right now
Process: make your delicious spiced potato stuffing, then shape them into balls, coat them in a gram flour batter, fry them (I air fried because I’m the Worst but they worked well!) then plop them into a white bread roll, which has been fried in butter for a minute or two, season with your chutneys of choice (we used mint & coriander and tamarind & date) and a dry garlic chutney (sometimes marketed as vada pav chutney), then experience nirvana
This is the recipe! It took a while because of all the various components, but oh my god, so worth it - Dr Tall Gf got me addicted to vada pav, to the extent that I used to order a delivery of them every day for lunch at work, but then the only place near us that made them closed down and I became bereft and fell into vada pav withdrawal, and now I’m SO EXCITED to be able to eat them again
About to elevate my vada pav experience by making my own dry garlic chutney… oh my GOD I could eat this with a spoon
I used this recipe but Dr Tall Gf suggested adding ½ tsp amchur (dried green mango powder) and oh my LIFE, it’s absolutely ludicrously good, I’m putting this on everything
you inspired me to make vada pav, I’ve never had it before! I made the chutneys myself :) (except Tamarind)
It’s very good!! Like a samosa but so much easier to make
Omg you made them!!! I’m so glad they turned out good - I’m endlessly impressed that you made the green chutney as well. I might try that next time! And ye, they’re not dissimilar to a samosa in lots of ways. Samosa pav is A Thing! Just make a samosa instead of a vada (the potato patty) and serve it the same way, and bam. Taste sensation. I prefer vada pav as it’s a bit less heavy!
I’ve seen a few ~aesthetic~ photos of rock stacks in rivers recently and this is just a reminder that you are destroying habitat when you move rocks around in rivers and streams.
In addition to dragonfly nymphs, rocky river beds are home to lots of other larval invertebrates like damselflies, mayflies, water beetles, caddisflies, stoneflies, and a bunch of dipterans. Not to mention lots of fish and amphibians!
Plus large scale rock stacking can change the flow of a stream and lead to increased erosion.
Everything is something’s habitat. You might as well not go outside for fear of stepping on some larval beetle.
This is hugely missing the point. The idea is to enjoy what’s left of our natural spaces while having as little an impact as possible. It’s not difficult to avoid intentionally destroying habitat. I recommend looking into the Leave No Trace principle which is very important for conservation. Cynicism doesn’t help anything.
A few rock stacks here and there wouldn’t have much of an impact alone. But in parks that see thousands or even millions of visitors each year, when you have people like you saying, “sure, literal scientists and park rangers are telling me not to do this, but surely that doesn’t apply to ME,” the effect is huge. Please attempt to see the bigger picture. You are not so special that YOU get to ignore the rules and continue intentionally destroying habitat even after you’ve been told it’s harmful.
I hate seeing these stupid rock stacks. So does the NPS apparently.
where’s that photo of that shepherd dog being comforted by one of the sheep he guards after saving them from a wolf attack
love and gratefulness and kindness on planet earth
I would just like to say, as people in the notes are pointing out, that the blood is the wolf’s. The dog is wearing a spiked collar to protect their neck from the attacks.
this is my Anatolian (like the dog in OP)
yall cannot understand estimate the absolute tenderness of these dogs. that’s why they’re fierce, their bonds to their flocks and shepherds come from a 6000 year long pastoral legacy. I truly did not understand their level of intelligence til i brought two home.
they count and remember their flock members, they have favorites and carry grudges.
that head boop is one my livestock guardians give me everyday when they need comfort, that sheep is that dog’s close friend.
One of the saddest things I saw a few years ago was a livestock guardian dog– I think this one was a Great Pyrenees but maybe an Anatolian Shepherd laying down a little ways off from the main flock of sheep, which I thought was weird till I noticed some fleece next to it and realized it was a dead sheep. The dog never left its post. 🥺
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