saintfrenetic - Tumblr blog

[saintfrenetic]

I just want books and tv where femininity and historical feminine clothing and roles aren’t shat on in the name of progressive feminism. If I have to read another book where the heroine complains about her corset or her dress ㅡwhich were worn by every women and unless you were a victorian socialite weren’t organ crushing torture devicesㅡ I will scream. Not every female character has to shun sewing and weaving for a sword! Women’s roles and place in past societies were already undervalued and here we go shitting on the key roles of women in the name of modern progressivism. Someday we will get our turn and our clothes, voices, and roles to be spat on by our descendants and maybe I’ll feel a bit better cause hey we kinda deserve to for what we are doing. Like yes women in historical time periods faced significant social challenges due to their gender but we don’t need to liberate them by making them into the men of that time period.

[saintfrenetic]

A world where sexuality was not repressed would not, I think, relegate sexual expression to the alienating shadow-world of porn, the marketised spectacle of dating apps, and the commodified fantasies of celebrity culture. Separated from the free play of eroticism and the polymorphous linkage of desire to the world around you, sexuality understood today is simply a field of advertising.

[saintfrenetic]

[saintfrenetic]

Earth, Wind & Fire - September

[saintfrenetic]

So this is a totally useless rant, but as a skinny girl, I’m getting extra, extra tired of fat-shaming.

I work for a corsetier at a Renaissance Faire. We sell corsets. Not flimsy bullshit costume corsets; like real, durable, waist-training corsets. Today a woman came in with her boyfriend, so I helped her pick out a corset and try it on. While her boyfriend—who was decidedly enthused about the whole corset thing—sat watching me lace her in, he told me, grinning, “Of all the good jobs at the Renaissance Faire, I think you have the best.”

I shrugged in agreement. “I touch butts and reach down cleavage all day; I mean…” Because we like to be a bit rakish at the Faire, and, y’know, it’s true. Tying people into corsets pretty much invariably requires getting handsy.

The couple laughed at that, and the boyfriend said, “That’s the job I would want!” But then he chuckled again and said, offhand, “Or maybe not; while we were looking at the racks, there were some pretty big sizes on there!”

Our sizes are all done in inches, and the biggest we make is a 46. And you’d better believe our large sizes sell. For a second I wasn’t sure what to say to the guy’s comment, but I answered him casually. “We get a lot of beautiful big ladies in here.” Because we do. “We make corsets for real women, not Barbie dolls,” I added. Wasn’t trying to be smart, just kind of tossed it out there because that’s the line we like to use when people ask about larger sizes, and because, again, we do.

The boyfriend went quiet at that; I didn’t think anything of it, I just kept on lacing. A moment later, he said, a little awkwardly (but sincerely enough), “Didn’t mean to be offensive.”

I quickly smiled and brushed it off, said he wasn’t, said I was just saying. (Don’t want to make the customers uncomfortable, you know?) And that was the end of it. His comment had rubbed me the wrong way, but it wasn’t a big deal. Now, I wear a 20-inch corset. I’m a few cup sizes short of being one of the Barbie dolls. Like his girlfriend, I’m one of the “hot chicks”; he doesn’t have to worry about offending me by implying that I wouldn’t be fun to poke and pull at.

Honestly though, of all the people I fit sexy technically-undergarments to in a day, fat girls are maybe my favorite people to lace up. Because they are just so damn happy that we have stuff that fits them. They are so damn happy that the corsets we make in their sizes are all the same pretty, shiny colors and cool flower/dragon/skull/etc. prints that the smaller corsets are, not ugly beige and boring “granny” colors. They are so goddamn happy that at least one (of several on the grounds) corset shop carries things that they can wear, that they actually want to wear, and that they look fucking awesome in. This is only my second season working, and we’ve fit 60+ inch waists and double-K busts. The only people we’ve ever had to tell sorry, we don’t have anything that fits them, are twelve-year-old kids.

It’s half-wonderful, half-heartbreaking how excited those women get. Women who say with sad smiles, when we ask if they want to get fitted, “Oh, no, you don’t have anything that fits me,” and then are stunned when we’re 300% confident that yes we do, and we have options. Women who can’t stop smiling and looking at themselves in the mirror after we’ve got them laced in.

I had a lady last week whose waist I measured (cinching the tape tight, as per procedure) at 41 inches—honestly not all that big. So she picked out a 41-inch corset to try on. I could tell halfway through getting her laced that it was going to be a bit big for her, so I mentioned it and said she might do better to try a smaller size. She started crying on the spot. She was so overwhelmed; she couldn’t believe someone had just told her that a 41 was too big. She told me about how hard clothes shopping was for her, how her mother would tell her she needed an XXXL instead of an XXL, how she had recently lost weight but still couldn’t wear certain colors because they didn’t fit or she wasn’t confident enough.

She did end up getting her corset, and after I checked her out she asked if she could give me a hug, so we ended up standing there hugging each other for a minute. While we did, I told her, “Do not ever let anyone tell you any bullshit. You are gorgeous.” She said, “I have a new boyfriend and he keeps telling me that.” I told her he was right, and to just keep telling herself she’s gorgeous; it was okay if she didn’t always believe it, but to keep telling herself anyway. (That’s how I talked myself through shit when I had bad anxiety.)

We all know fat-shaming is bad. The stupidity, fatphobia, and misogyny of it has pissed me off since I first became aware of it. But working with clothing, especially as figure-hugging and precise as corsets, has given me a new perspective on it—how much it affects people and just how shitty it is. Like, what does it say that I had a grown, only average-big woman crying into my shoulder because she was so overjoyed not to be the uppermost extremity of what a manufacturer can clothe?

My job rocks and it’s really rewarding, but sometimes it highlights some of the ugliest shit about society. I’m so glad I work at a shop that’s not bullshit about body types and operates with more people in mind than just scrawny white chicks like me. The fat women I work with are a ton of fun to lace up, and they’re so much more than their size—they’re cool, they’re smart, they’re funny, they’re sweet, they’re great to talk to, and yes, they’re hot. I’m so damn done with them getting short-changed and shamed by petty fucks who refuse to make them nice clothes, who refuse to even try to work for them, who refuse to consider them pretty. This whole rant was useless and won’t get read, but I had to vent because it’s been driving me nuts.

So actually, screw you, random dude. Fat girls are the highlight of my job.

[saintfrenetic]

Pleasing Fungus Beetle (Scaphidomorphus bosci), family Erotylidae, Panama

photograph by  victormozqueda

[saintfrenetic]

Whoever invented "open in app" links that redirect you to the app store instead of actually opening the app even when you already have the app installed on your phone should be involuntarily turned into a beanbag chair

[saintfrenetic]

Scientists Sequenced the ‘Last Neanderthal’s’ DNA—and It Alters Human History

Discover new clues about how our ancient relatives, the Neanderthals, disappeared.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a62177585/last-neanderthal-dna/

[saintfrenetic]

A faint tingling at your fingers.

You've finally got an answer to your question...

[saintfrenetic]

another thing fantasy writers should keep track of is how much of their worldbuilding is aesthetic-based. it's not unlike the sci-fi hardness scale, which measures how closely a story holds to known, real principles of science. The Martian is extremely hard sci-fi, with nearly every detail being grounded in realistic fact as we know it; Star Trek is extremely soft sci-fi, with a vaguely plausible "space travel and no resource scarcity" premise used as a foundation for the wildest ideas the writers' room could come up with. and much as Star Trek fuckin rules, there's nothing wrong with aesthetic-based fantasy worldbuilding!

(sidenote we're not calling this 'soft fantasy' bc there's already a hard/soft divide in fantasy: hard magic follows consistent rules, like "earthbenders can always and only bend earth", and soft magic follows vague rules that often just ~feel right~, like the Force. this frankly kinda maps, but I'm not talking about just the magic, I'm talking about the worldbuilding as a whole.

actually for the purposes of this post we're calling it grounded vs airy fantasy, bc that's succinct and sounds cool.)

a great example of grounded fantasy is Dungeon Meshi: the dungeon ecosystem is meticulously thought out, the plot is driven by the very realistic need to eat well while adventuring, the story touches on both social and psychological effects of the whole 'no one dies forever down here' situation, the list goes on. the worldbuilding wants to be engaged with on a mechanical level and it rewards that engagement.

deliberately airy fantasy is less common, because in a funny way it's much harder to do. people tend to like explanations. it takes skill to pull off "the world is this way because I said so." Narnia manages: these kids fall into a magic world through the back of a wardrobe, befriend talking beavers who drink tea, get weapons from Santa Claus, dance with Bacchus and his maenads, and sail to the edge of the world, without ever breaking suspension of disbelief. it works because every new thing that happens fits the vibes. it's all just vibes! engaging with the worldbuilding on a mechanical level wouldn't just be futile, it'd be missing the point entirely.

the reason I started off calling this aesthetic-based is that an airy story will usually lean hard on an existing aesthetic, ideally one that's widely known by the target audience. Lewis was drawing on fables, fairy tales, myths, children's stories, and the vague idea of ~medieval europe~ that is to this day our most generic fantasy setting. when a prince falls in love with a fallen star, when there are giants who welcome lost children warmly and fatten them up for the feast, it all fits because these are things we'd expect to find in this story. none of this jars against what we've already seen.

and the point of it is to be wondrous and whimsical, to set the tone for the story Lewis wants to tell. and it does a great job! the airy worldbuilding serves the purposes of the story, and it's no less elegant than Ryōko Kui's elaborately grounded dungeon. neither kind of worldbuilding is better than the other.

however.

you do have to know which one you're doing.

the whole reason I'm writing this is that I saw yet another long, entertaining post dragging GRRM for absolute filth. asoiaf is a fun one because on some axes it's pretty grounded (political fuck-around-and-find-out, rumors spread farther than fact, fastest way to lose a war is to let your people starve, etc), but on others it's entirely airy (some people have magic Just Cause, the various peoples are each based on an aesthetic/stereotype/cliché with no real thought to how they influence each other as neighbors, the super-long seasons have no effect on ecology, etc).

and again! none of this is actually bad! (well ok some of those stereotypes are quite bigoted. but other than that this isn't bad.) there's nothing wrong with the season thing being there to highlight how the nobles are focused on short-sighted wars for power instead of storing up resources for the extremely dangerous and inevitable winter, that's a nice allegory, and the looming threat of many harsh years set the narrative tone. and you can always mix and match airy and grounded worldbuilding – everyone does it, frankly it's a necessity, because sooner or later the answer to every worldbuilding question is "because the author wanted it to be that way." the only completely grounded writing is nonfiction.

the problem is when you pretend that your entirely airy worldbuilding is actually super duper grounded. like, for instance, claiming that your vibes-based depiction of Medieval Europe (Gritty Edition) is completely historical, and then never even showing anyone spinning. or sniffing dismissively at Tolkien for not detailing Aragorn's tax policy, and then never addressing how a pre-industrial grain-based agricultural society is going years without harvesting any crops. (stored grain goes bad! you can't even mouse-proof your silos, how are you going to deal with mold?) and the list goes on.

the man went up on national television and invited us to engage with his worldbuilding mechanically, and then if you actually do that, it shatters like spun sugar under the pressure. doesn't he realize that's not the part of the story that's load-bearing! he should've directed our focus to the political machinations and extensive trope deconstruction, not the handwavey bit.

point is, as a fantasy writer there will always be some amount of your worldbuilding that boils down to 'because I said so,' and there's nothing wrong with that. nor is there anything wrong with making that your whole thing – airy worldbuilding can be beautiful and inspiring. but you have to be aware of what you're doing, because if you ask your readers to engage with the worldbuilding in gritty mechanical detail, you had better have some actual mechanics to show them.

[saintfrenetic]

Ha I wonder how many strokes the most complex Chinese character has like maybe eightee-

[saintfrenetic]

had a fascinating dream last night where there was a new, virally popular trading card game - it was called MOUNTAIN (stylised in all caps) and the whole gimmick was that you couldn’t buy boosters or anything - you had to find them?

nowhere sold MOUNTAIN - I mean, I expect players did, once cards were in their hands.

but acquiring cards meant noticing a box lying around, and just….nabbing it? they’d be in weird places - in a skip, wedged high up in a fence, nestled in the branches of a tree? nobody ever saw who left them there, and there was a lot of debate about how MOUNTAIN boxes were sometimes hard to acquire without risking one’s physical safety - but then, that was also bragging rights. especially as harder-to-reach boxes seemed to contain more elusive and sought after cards…

no, I don’t remember anything about the actual gameplay, we never played any MOUNTAIN. alas. I know there were “frame cards” that were literally transparent but for a fancy metallic or holographic border, which I guess upgraded the card they were applied to? frames were super rare, my coworker literally ran up to me in the pub purely to show off the frame he’d just found

dream brain gimme the deets on MOUNTAIN’s actual mechanics, I’m invested in this controversial unpurchasable scavenger hunt game

[saintfrenetic]

Sea turtle quilt!

The pieced/appliqued pattern is The Original Beach Crawl by Sweet Tea Girls.

All the quilting was my design, including the turtles visible on the back of the quilt and the starfish and sand dollars in the border. Free motion quilting is still my favorite part of this hobby, I love doodling with thread!

[saintfrenetic]

I need everyone to know what a cutie patootie 1986 Sun Wukong is

"After the release of Journey to the West, I received more than 40,000 letters from fans all over the world, nearly half of which were love letters.

A Vietnamese fan wrote to me after learning that I was nearsighted, saying that she was willing to give me her eyes because "Sun Wukong's eyes are more important than mine." A Chinese fan wrote to me, saying, "You are handsome, but you would be even more handsome if you put on Sun Wukong's makeup." At this point, I realized that among the tens of thousands of love letters, some were courting me, but more were courting Sun Wukong."

-Liu Xiao Ling Tong

[saintfrenetic]

I think I may have solved a mystery that I didn’t even know was one.

So. In Peter Pan, the novel, this is the first mention of Captain Hook:

“Who is captain now?” “Hook,” answered Peter, and his face became very stern as he said that hated word. “Jas. Hook?” “Ay.” Then indeed Michael began to cry, and even John could speak in gulps only, for they knew Hook’s reputation. “He was Blackbeard’s bo’sun,” John whispered huskily. “He is the worst of them all. He is the only man of whom Barbecue was afraid.”

Later, we learn this:

Hook was not his true name. To reveal who he really was would even at this date set the country in a blaze; but as those who read between the lines must already have guessed, he had been at a famous public school; and its traditions still clung to him like garments, with which indeed they are largely concerned.

“Barbecue” is Long John Silver from Treasure Island. Jas. is short for James, but in “Captain Hook at Eton,” he’s also called Jacobus. The biblical figure Jacob was renamed Israel.

Blackbeard’s historical boatswain, and also a character in Treasure Island, was Israel Hands.

I’m just saying, if I got a hand chopped off and my last name was Hands… I might want to change it.

[saintfrenetic]

template source: cal-kestis | tutorial here

History of Monster Fucking: because it's time you learned about the history of things that go bump and hump in the night

(reblog/follow me you dirty monster fucking perverts 👇 also this is my second time posting this so here’s to hoping tumblr doesn’t try to censor me again 🤞🏻)