when internet people are like “i love gothic literature but i hate anything that discusses incest, sexual violence, oppression, misogyny, abuse, torture, gore, murder, or death”

no actually me and everyone else who’s ever watched crimson peak were brainwashed by guillermo del toro into believing that incest and violence are cool and awesome. sorry

Horrifying that this pearl-clutching over horror actually being dark is unironically becoming A Thing…

(tags via @waterandsilver, id in alt)

Look, some subjects are a bit much for me and I choose not to read about them. But saying they don’t belong in gothic fiction? Have these people heard of The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis? It may be terrible, but it’s considered one of the foundational gothic novels. Sexual violence and incest are pretty key to that story.

Or go back a little further, to The Mysteries of Udolpho. The threat of rape is frequently present, it’s just implied a bit more subtly.

Gothic novels have always dealt with sexual violence. That’s because Gothic literature is not a set of pretty aesthetics, it’s a horror sub-genre. I can understand being disgusted by a trope you weren’t expecting, it happens to everyone. But you can’t just take the horror out of horror.

Out of all chapters in Machiavelli’s The Prince, I did not expect the one that says: “DO NOT RELY ON MERCENARIES UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES” to be still relevant in our day and age, but I guess here we are?

False killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens)

no way

HI GUYS I AM DEFINITELY A KILLER WHALE HURHURHUR!

Portrait of a Young Woman, Jean-Etienne Liotard 

Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer 

#they look like theyve been having a chat about u and u just walked in

I’m on mobile, somebody edit them into this please

Y'all take too long

Same energy

No worries guys, they’re there too

“Dancing Fairies” by August Malmström (1866)

‘’Lily’‘ |Model: Hayat Spencer | Photographer: Candice Ghai

black vampires

petition for her “venom destroys melanin” to be revoked

equal rights for women will never truly be achieved until we have more female noir detectives

and i don't mean some badass woman who doesn't need a man and can kill someone in 6 inch heels without breaking a sweat or smudging her perfectly set makeup or chipping a nail. she looks like she grew up in a soggy cardboard box on the side of the road all alone. she monologues dramatically to herself while looking over the corruption-riddled city she works in because she has no friends or hobbies and will literally do anything except go to therapy. she gets beat up in alleyways so blood and rain drip sexily from her nose and chin but when she gets to her feet she looks like a sad wet cat. women want her but they also pity her. instead of perfume she smells of coffee, whiskey and cigarettes, which are also more or less all she lives off of. her voice is more gravelly than a pit of rocks as a result of said diet. she hasn't slept or showered in at least 3 days and it's increasingly obvious. she's either divorced or feels like she should be.

yeah okay gimme a sec

ok first off some of yall missed the entire point and gave gorgeous, put-together women, when op explicitly stated that she is "a sad wet cat" this is the type-a woman who Does Not have her shit together and Does Not care.

therefore, i give you: Female Noir Detective

[EDIT: here's a link to her femme fatale/homme fatale ;)]

Can I draw your attention to Renee Montoya in the Gotham Central comic series? Sad rage-filled disaster of a woman. Held together by caffine and violence. Does not have it together and knows it.

TikTok peaked.

Shut it down.

proposes to you with this ancient egyptian faience ring of a cat with kittens

quotes by Victorians about the 1920s view of their generation's women

"We are frequently told that the Victorian woman...generally behaved like a pampered and neurotic infant. This is all moonshine. I do not think that I ever saw a woman faint before I came to London in 1869, and not often after then...they enjoyed a hearty laugh, and a good many of them a contest of wits with any man." -Nineteenth Century, a Monthly Review, 1927 (written by a man born in 1850)

"What queer ideas the girl of 1929 has about the Victorian period- they are not a bit true...Marriage was by no means the end and aim of our existence. Oxford and Cambridge claimed quite a few of us after school days were over. We had great ideas about 'life' and what it all might mean to us." -St. Petersburg Times, 1929 (written by a woman born in 1853)

"True, debutantes were chaperoned at balls. But that fact did not prevent them from dancing as frequently as they chose with their favorite partners. The idea that girls in the Victorian era spent their days sewing seams and practicing scales is another fallacy." -Gettysburg Times, July 1, 1927 (quote from the Dowager Lady Raglan, Ethel Jemima Somerset, who lived from 1857 to 1940)

This is like a small child uncertainty taking a bite of their first piece of cake and then realizing that it’s the best damn thing they’ve ever eaten and shoving it all right into their face with grabby hands and just delighted. I love this kitty.

The best thing is the tail going when they look back at the stack. It’s just like “well that was fun…. THERE’S MORE”

Bastard Awakened

a RUDE boi

Innsmouth grandmother, 1974

shaking six year old me by the shoulders YOU WERE RIGHT. YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT LOVE AND ABOUT FAIRNESS AND ABOUT SHARING IS CARING. YOU WERE RIGHT. THE ADULTS DON’T KNOW ANY MORE ABOUT TRUTH THAN YOU DO. KEEP BELIEVING IN THE FAIRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GARDEN. NOTHING IS “JUST THE WAY IT IS”. I AM SORRY THEY EVER CONVINCED YOU TO FEEL SHAME. YOU ARE REAL AND A PART OF THIS WORLD. YOU WERE RIGHT.

when i went out and saw macbeth live again last month i overheard a woman behind me say something to the effect of 'oh verdi is My Guy. i love verdi country' and while i was obsessed with the visual image of like, some kind of disneyland section devoted to verdi, i also think that's the single most accurate feeling to the way different people feel about different composers... like. we call ourselves verdians, wagnerians, mozartians, puccinians. as a self-described mozartian i can't say i love all of mozart's operas, but they just feel the most natural to my ears; and i've heard fans of other composers say the same of theirs. when you have a favorite composer, it's not that you Like them specifically but that they feel like home, and that they put you in touch with something you cannot otherwise explain. it's a spiritual thing in some ways.

or maybe i'm being a sap, who knows.

Parenting :D

Myriam Ould-Braham, Mathieu Ganio

L’Histoire de Manon

photo: Svetlana Loboff