holicanth

[holicanth]

Gold ship gold ship🏇

[holicanth]

Japanese folk tales #54 - A jealous tortoise

Find my tales tagged here or visit my blog for both english and french versions.

Wish me to cover a special youkai or subject? Contact me, I’ll try to accommodate ^^❤️

Once upon a time, animals all talked and live together in what was to become Japan.

They frolicked and played all across the hills, but also bickered and argued, loud and clear very much like humans do today.

Tortoise was one of those bitter creatures. Though his shell was sturdy, smooth amber and polished like a mirror, he longed for fur and long elegant limbs.

Keep reading

[holicanth]

Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):

“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.

“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.

“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.

“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”

“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”

“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.

[holicanth]

Writing Notes & References

Alchemy ⚜ Antidote to Anxiety ⚜ Attachment ⚜ Autopsy

Art: Elements ⚜ Principles ⚜ Photographs ⚜ Watercolour

Bruises ⚜ Caffeine ⚜ Color Blindness ⚜ Cruise Ships

Children ⚜ Children's Dialogue ⚜ Childhood Bilingualism

Dangerousness ⚜ Drowning ⚜ Dystopia ⚜ Dystopian World

Culture ⚜ Culture Shock ⚜ Ethnocentrism & Cultural Relativism

Emotions: Anger ⚜ Fear ⚜ Happiness ⚜ Sadness

Emotional Intelligence ⚜ Genius (Giftedness) ⚜ Quirks

Facial Expressions ⚜ Laughter & Humour ⚜ Swearing & Taboo

Fantasy Creatures ⚜ Fantasy World Building

Generations ⚜ Literary & Character Tropes

Fight Scenes ⚜ Kill Adverbs

Food: Cooking Basics ⚜ Herbs & Spices ⚜ Sauces ⚜ Wine-tasting ⚜ Aphrodisiacs ⚜ List of Aphrodisiacs ⚜ Food History ⚜ Cocktails ⚜ Literary & Hollywood Cocktails ⚜ Liqueurs

Genre: Crime ⚜ Horror ⚜ Fantasy ⚜ Speculative Biology

Hate ⚜ Love ⚜ Kinds of Love ⚜ The Physiology of Love

How to Write: Food ⚜ Colours ⚜ Drunkenness

Jargon ⚜ Logical Fallacies ⚜ Memory ⚜ Memoir

Magic: Magic System ⚜ 10 Uncommon ⚜ How to Choose

Moon: Part 1 2 ⚜ Related Words

Mystical Items & Objects ⚜ Talisman ⚜ Relics ⚜ Poison

Pain ⚜ Pain & Violence ⚜ Poison Ivy & Poison Oak

Realistic Injuries ⚜ Rejection ⚜ Structural Issues ⚜ Villains

Symbolism: Colors ⚜ Food ⚜ Numbers ⚜ Storms

Thinking ⚜ Thinking Styles ⚜ Thought Distortions

Terms of Endearment ⚜ Ways of Saying "No" ⚜ Yoga

Compilations: Plot ⚜ Character ⚜ Worldbuilding ⚜ For Poets ⚜ Tips & Advice

all posts are queued. will update this every few weeks/months. send questions or requests here ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[holicanth]

braiding hair with hairpin by 禾禾编发

[holicanth]

Whumper dressing whumpee, taking their time, pausing between each article of clothing to comment on whumpee's body.

But whumpee hates it. Not because of the attention. But because they hate the clothes.

The colors: too bright, too loud, too many designs

The fit: tight in the worst places, around the chest, between the legs, against the thighs. Showing too much and restricting their movements.

The texture: itchy, stiff, unbreathable. Sweat pools in the worst spots, making movement worse.

Everything feels wrong.

But whumper tells them it's perfect. They'll look gorgeous tonight at the gala, like they always do.

But every night, among the whumper's guests, whumpee feels more insecure and hates how much they hate it.

Not that it matters, though.

The clothes never stay on them all night, anyway.

[holicanth]

happy birthday to the one i love the most

[holicanth]

Kimono drawing guide ½, by Kaoruko Maya (tumblr, pixiv, site). Booklet is available in pdf for ¥ 900 here.

Here you can see:

female kimono and yukata (note how the juban underwear peeks when in kimono + how belts differ)

male yukata and kimono (note how the juban underwear peeks when in kimono)

dressing up: male (kimono is not closed yet) and female (kimono closed with datejime belt and ready to put on obi)

differences between female and male kimono once dressed (note how the collars and belts set)

common drawing mistakes (compare with previous picture: shoulders lines are too defined, there is a double hem, collars are narrow, belt is not at the right place etc)

women back collar (the lower the sexier) and men back collar (close to the nape)

back and sleeves differences between men and women

collars and sleeves and view of how kimono drapes around body

Furisode back (long sleeves kimono) and formal furisode obi knot example

[holicanth]

Quick sleeves style overview, a handy reference chart by Edo-lover Nadeshico Rin :D You can see from left to right, top to bottom:

Hirosode 広袖 - wide sleeves opened on their full lenght (cuff sometimes closed by drawstring). Inspired by Chinese attires, they started to be used by Japanese nobles during Nara era. Those can be found on court attires such as hô 袍, kariginu 狩衣, suikan 水干, hitatare 直垂, etc

Makisode 巻袖 - work clothes used by men and women alike, worn by farmers, fishermen etc. Sleeves are cut diagonally offering freedom of mouvement.

Zenimarusode 銭丸袖 - lit. “round coin” sleeve, a man style popular in second half of Edo period. Name come from the fact round part of the sleeves was made using shimonsen coins.

Tetsubôsode 鉄砲袖 - “gun barrel” sleeve, work clothes worn by men from Meiji period. Note the underarm gusset for freedom of mouvement.

Furisode 振袖 - long dangling sleeves, which became popular in early Edo period and got longer and longer as time went by. In the past, those sleeves were worn both by girls and boys (before their mariage/genpuku ceremonies). This style is now mainly worn by girls+young women.

Tomesode 留袖 - “cut” sleeves, style worn by married women during Edo. Name comes from the fact it was customary to shorten one’s furisode sleeves when married. This style is now the sleeve style found on women kimono

Tsutsusode 筒袖 - tight tubular sleeves, work clothes worn by men and women alike since Kofun period. Tightness means there is no tamoto 袂 (”pocket”/drop part of a kimono sleeve).

Funazokosode 舟底袖 - “hull” sleeve, a work clothes style found on men and women clothes. The lower part is nicely rounded like the bottom of a boat.

Genrokusode 元禄袖 - Genroku round sleeve. Early 20th brought back some Genroku era fashion including this sleeve style (compare with squarer tomesode).

[holicanth]

🧳👩‍💼 280225

[holicanth]

Why Aechmea thinks that humans are supposed to be insane/crazy/cruel or just messed up in general?

i think this reveals a lot about him as a person. 

he has already shown to have a hard time empathizing with people, a hard time feeling and showing emotions and a hard time maintaining a positive attitude toward life and/or himself. 

while the latter is justifiable given his circumstances, the other two are concerning. 

if aechmea is to be trusted, the moon people are the last remnants of humanity: they’re souls that no one has prayed for and this is because (and this is aechmea’s explanation) they are the scum of humanity and don’t deserve prayers.

aechmea said on multiple occasions that he has done awful things for his people and to further his goals. and he is not sorry in the slightest. contrary to barbata or cicada, he never apologizes to phos or the other gems for what he did to them. he never shows remorse.

now, we know he was the one to drive phos to insanity, so why would he apologize to the person he just saw as a pawn this whole time? if he had any regrets, he wouldn’t have done this to begin with. still

i’m not sure if aechmea is a narcissist, a sociopath or just a shitty person in general but even from the way he interacts with cairn, it seems to me that he only sees people as objects to further his goals. everyone is a pawn, he cannot empathize with anyone, he doesn’t feel remorse for his actions, he believes the end justifies the means and that life is about eating or being eaten.

the fact aechmea believes that vengeance is the most human of emotions is very telling. 

you can make a case that he is such a shitty person because he experienced his words first hand. maybe he was betrayed and sought vengeance for that betrayal. maybe he is still seeking vengeance and this could be why he sees himself in phos.

still, there is one other thing i find interesting about this chapter: cairn’s role.

there is no denying that, at the beginning, cairn was just aechmea’s new shiny toy. but now there is true affection between the two of them. it’s still creepy and toxic, but it’s affection nonetheless. and i believe this is the one thing aechmea didn’t plan.

cairn is a wild card. i’ve said it before and i’ll keep saying it. aechmea didn’t plan to ‘fall in love’ or to find someone who’d listen to him and dote on him, someone to pamper and parade around, someone to care for and to confide in. and yet he did. and cairn is the only person around which we’ve seen aechmea lose his temper and show emotion

cairn doesn’t seem all too interested in aechmea’s plan and this is exactly why aechmea is revealing all this stuff to him. because he’s not afraid that cairn will betray him. 

cairn is being exposed to even more lore than sensei and phos. they know a great deal of things that aechmea deemed so crucial that he never revealed them to anyone until, like a typical villain caught monologuing, he starts bragging about his brilliant accomplishments. 

this has been a trend for a while now. cairn has incidentally become aechmea’s confident, even when aechmea has probably never looked for one. and i believe aechmea is enjoying this new thing: he has an audience. someone that can appreciate just how smart he is. life is suddenly interesting again

i’m not sure if cairn will ever end up betraying aechmea, but this new position of theirs certainly puts them in a place of power. they have agency over aechmea and access to his secrets, which is more than anyone else, even barbata, can say for themselves. at least insofar as we know

cairngorm still doesn’t care for phos or for the earth gems but, i believe, this is where aechmea’s failure might come from in the future: from whatever cairn decides to do.

[holicanth]

[holicanth]

I don't know if you've done one already but favourite silk dresses?

It has not been done! Some of these are kind of old, since they were all the rage in the ‘00s but they've stood the test of time for me.

Mugler Pre-Fall 2017 Versace Fall/Winter 2008 RTW Ralph & Russo Spring/Summer 2017 Couture Badgley Mischka Spring/Summer 2008 RTW Brandon Maxwell Fall/Winter 2019 RTW Ralph Lauren Fall/Winter 2019 RTW Yves Saint Laurent Spring/Summer 2002 Couture Dior Spring/Summer 2008 Couture Naeem Khan Spring/Summer 2020 RTW Alberta Ferretti Limited Edition Spring/Summer 2017

[holicanth]

Good day to you. I was wondering if you have any dresses or gowns that may give of a butterfly aesthetic or feels?

I guess this is a more literal take but these are my favorites! I’ve seen the McQueen dress at the Met and the detailing is absolutely incredible. And if you want a more understated butterfly aesthetic, McQueen’s Fall/Winter 2018 collection is a good option.

Luly Yang “A Monarch’s Tale” Collection Moschino Spring/Summer 2018 RTW Farhad Re Fall/Winter 2020 Couture Naeem Khan Spring/Summer 2019 RTW Jean Paul Gaultier Spring/Summer 2014 Couture Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2011 RTW Farhad Re Fall/Winter 2020 Couture Luly Yang “A Monarch’s Tale” Collection David Koma Fall/Winter 2019 RTW Naeem Khan Spring/Summer 2019 RTW

[holicanth]

Givenchy, Spring 1997 by Alexander McQueen.

Givenchy Spring Couture '97 was McQueen's debut collection at the mega-label. He took the job after Galliano announced exited from the brand after just 2 years. McQueen was a controversial choice for a pleothra of reasons. One of them being that he was quoted to say, he had "no respect for Hubert de Givenchy" and had taken the job only because he "loves fashion." For a storied house, especially one in the traditionalist fashion world, this was largely disrespectful.

Executing this collection in just 3 months, McQueen chose a white and gold color palette, which the Givenchy brand was known for. However, the collection retains McQueen DNA with a slew of femme fatales and an emphasis on tailoring. Tailoring and an emphasis on the strength innate in females are two things McQueen was known for in his design language. When taking the job, McQueen had made it abundantly clear that he was not there to please the women of Givenchy.

[holicanth]

Aigner f/w 2007

[holicanth]

Alexis Mabille 2020 SS Collection