i literally go crazy for one hour and in that time hank green comes out as bisexual. what's next for us this pride month

the rapid shift from "hank green is bisexual" to "and he's devastatingly attracted to brennan lee mulligan" whiplash of the year perhaps

for everyone in the notes asking for a citation

Cosigning everything my wife wrote in the replies and for the record all of their podcasts are like this. Agonizing minutes as they listed every main male character in IT by Steven King then moved onto HENRY BOWERS and then remembered Beverly only to offhandedly dismiss her as "The Girl" and say nothing more about it

sorry this comment has fucking taken me out. everyone thank matpat game theory for throwing the first brick

Once the birds had learned how to initiate video interactions, the second phase of the experiment could begin. In this “open call” period, the 15 participating birds could make calls freely; they also got to choose which bird to dial up. Over the next two months, pet parrots made 147 deliberate video calls to other birds. Their owners took detailed notes about the calls and recorded more than 1,000 hours of video footage that the researchers analyzed.

[ id: screenshot from the linked article: "Two weak, older macaws, for example, became very close and even called out to one another "Hi! Come here! Hello!" from their respective screens" followed by a fucked up crying emoji man. /end id ]

-Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal by Lucy Cooke

biblically accurate snow angel

It’s nice to see Bill Watterson is still active.

@queenofbaws @kpdleo12

This is the kinda passive aggressive compliance inherent in all humans

Missing my personal favorite

Don’t Worry, They Survived.

Instead of whispered, consider:

aye lil mama let me insinuate in ya ear

So I got this tag on my answer to an ask about when it became acceptable for western women to wear pants, and you know it's all I need to go on a tangent.

I think the short answer here would be men have worn skirts as long as people have worn anything, so pretty long tbh. But since I am incapable of answering anything shortly, I think we can re-frame this question:

When did skirts stop being socially acceptable for men?

So let's start with acknowledging that tunics, togas, kirtles and such men wore through history were, in fact, skirts. I think there's often a tendency to think of these as very different garments from those that women wore, but really they are not. Most of the time they were literally referred to with the same name. (I will do a very broad and simplified overview of men's clothing from ancient times to Early Middle Ages so we can get to the point which is Late Middle Ages.)

Ancient Greek men and women both wore chitons. Even it's length wasn't determined by gender, but by occupation. Athletes, soldiers and slaves wore knee-length chitons for easier movement. Roman men and women wore very similar garment, tunics. Especially in earlier ancient Rome long sleeves were associated with women, but later became more popular and unconventional for men too. Length though was still dependent on occupation and class, not gender. Toga was sure men's clothing, but worn over tunic. It was wrapped around the waist, like a dress would, and then hung over shoulder. Romans did wear leggings when they needed to. For example for leg protection when hunting as in this mosaic from 4th century. They would have been mostly used by men since men would be doing the kinds of activities that would require them. But that does not lessen the dressyness of the tunics worn here. If a woman today wears leggings under her skirt, the skirt doesn't suddenly become not a skirt.

All over Europe thorough the early Middle Ages, the clothes were very similar in their basic shape and construction as in Rome and Greece. In Central and Northern Europe though people would wear pants under shorter tunics. There were exceptions to the everyone wearing a tunic trend. Celtic men wore braccae, which were pants, and short tunics and literally just shirts. Celts are the rare case, where I think we can say that men didn't wear dresses. Most other peoples in these colder areas wore at least knee-length tunics. Shorter tunics and trousers were worn again mostly by soldiers and slaves, so rarely any other woman than slave women. The trousers were though definitely trousers in Early Middle Ages. They were usually loose for easier construction and therefore not that similar to Roman leggings. However leggings style fitted pants were still used, especially by nobility. I'd say the loose trousers are a gray area. They wore both dresses and pants, but still definitely dresses. I'd say this style was very comparable to the 2000s miniskirts over jeans style. First one below is a reconstruction of Old Norse clothing by Danish history museum. The second is some celebrity from 2005. I see no difference.

When we get to the high Middle Ages tunics are still used by both men and women, and still it's length is dependent on class and activity more than gender, but there's some new developments too. Pants and skirt combo is fully out and leggings' are back in in form of hose. Hose were not in fact pants and calling them leggings is also misleading. Really they are socks. Or at least that's how they started. As it has become a trend here they were used by everyone, not just men. During early Middle Ages they were worn often with the trousers, sometimes the trousers tucked inside them making them baggy. In high Middle Ages they became very long when used with shorter tunics, fully displacing the need for trousers. They would be tied to the waist to keep them up, as they were not knitted (knitting was being invented in Egypt around this time, and some knitting was introduced to Europe during middle Ages, but it really only took off much later during Renaissance Era) and therefore not stretchy. First picture is an example of that from 1440s. Another exciting development in the High Medieval era was bliaut in France and it's sphere of influence. Bliaut was an early attempt in Europe of a fitted dress. And again used by both men and women. The second illustration below from mid 12th century shows a noble man wearing a bliaut and nicely showing off his leg covered in fitted hose. Bliaut was usually likely fitted with lacing on the sides, but it wasn't tailored (tailoring wasn't really a thing just yet) and so created a wrinkled effect around the torso.

In the 14th century things really picked up in European fashion. European kingdoms finally started to become richer and the rich started to have some extra money to put into clothing, so new trends started to pop up rapidly. Tailoring became a thing and clothes could be now cut to be very fitted, which gave birth to fitted kirtle. At the same time having extra money meant being able to spend extra money on more fabric and to create very voluminous clothing, which gave birth to the houppelande.

Kirtle was once again worn by everyone. It wasn't an undergarment, for women that would be shift and men shirt and breeches, but it was an underlayer. It could be worn in public but often had at least another layer on top of it. The bodice part, including sleeves were very fitted with lacing or buttons (though there were over-layer kirtles that had different sleeves that changed with fashions and would be usually worn over a fitted kirtle). Men's kirtles were short, earlier in 14th century knee-length but towards the end of the century even shorter styles became fashionable in some areas. First picture below shows a man with knee-length kirtle from 1450s Italy.

Houppelande was also unisex. It was a loose full-length overgown with a lot of fabric that was gathered on the neckline and could be worn belted or unbelted. The sleeves were also wide and became increasingly wider (for men and women) later in the century and into the next century. Shorter gowns similar in style and construction to the houppelande were also fashionable for men. Both of these styles are seen in the second picture below from late 14th century.

In the very end of 14th century, first signs of pantification of men can be seen. In France and it's sphere of influence the skirt part of the kirtle became so short it barely covered the breeches as seen below on these fashionable musicians from 1395-1400 France. Long houppelandes, length ranging from floor to calf, were still used by men though (the second picture, 1414 France), as were knee and thigh length gowns of similar loose style.

The hems continued to be short through the 15th century in France, but in other places like Italy and German sphere of influence, they were still fairly long, at least to mid thigh, through the first half of the century. In France at some point in late 13th century the very short under-kirtle started to be called doublet and they are just getting shorter in 1400s. The showing underwear problem was fixed by joined hose and the codpiece, signaling the entrance of The Sluttiest Era of men's fashion. Below is an example from 1450s Belgium of doublet and early codpiece in display. As you can see from the other figures, the overgowns of the previous century were also getting very, very short. In the next French example below from 1470s we can see the skirt shrink out of existence right before our eyes.

The very skimpy doublet and it's accompanying codpiece spread to the rest of the Europe in the second half of 15th century and it would only get sluttier from there. The Italians were just showing their full ass (example from 1490s). The dress was not gone yet though. The doublet and codpiece continued to be fashionable, but the overdress got longer again in the French area too. For example in the second example there's Italian soldiers in a knee length dresses from 1513.

But we have to talk about the Germans. They went absolutely mad with the whole doublet and codpiece. Just look at this 1513 painting below (first one). But they did not only do it sluttier than everyone else, they also changed the course of men's fashion.

Let's take a detour talking about the Landsknecht, the mercenary pikeman army of the Holy Roman Empire. (I'm not that knowledgeable in war history so take my war history explanation with a grain of salt.) Pikemen had recently become a formidable counter-unit against cavalry, which earlier in the Medieval Era had been the most important units. Knights were the professional highly trained cavalry, which the whole feudal system leaned against. On the other hand land units were usually not made of professional soldiers. Landsknecht were formed in late 15th century as a professional army of pikemen. They were skilled and highly organized, and quickly became a decisive force in European wars. Their military significance gave them a lot of power in the Holy Roman Empire, some were even given knighthood, which previously wasn't possible for land units, and interestingly for us they were exempt from sumptuary laws. Sumptuary laws controlled who could wear what. As the bourgeois became richer in Europe in late Middle Ages and Renaissance Era, laws were enacted to limit certain fabrics, colors and styles from those outside nobility, to uphold the hierarchy between rich bourgeois and the nobles. The Landsknecht, who were well payed mercenaries (they would mutiny, if they didn't get payed enough), went immediately absolute mad with the power to bypass sumptuary laws. Crimes against fashion (affectionate) were committed. What do you do, when you have extra money and one of your privileges is to wear every color and fabric? You wear every color and fabric. At the same time. You wear them on top of each other and so they can be seen at the same time, you slash the outer layer. In the second image you can feast your eyes on the Landsknecht.

Just to give you a little more of that good stuff, here's a selection of some of my favorite Landsknecht illustrations. This is the peak male performance. Look at those codpieces. Look at those bare legs. The tiny shorts. And savor them.

The Landsknecht were the hot shit. Their lavish and over the top influence quickly took over men's fashion in Germany in early 1500s. Slashing, the technique possibly started by them, but at least popularized by them, instantly spread all over Europe. That's how you get the typical Renaissance poof sleeves. They at first slashed the thighs of their hose, but it seems like to fit more of everything into their outfits, they started wearing the hose in two parts, upper hose and nether hose, which was a sort of return to the early Medieval trousers and knee-high hose style. The two part hose was adopted by the wider German men's fashion early in the century, but already in 1520s had spread to rest of Europe. It was first combined with the knee-length overdress that had made it's comeback in the turn of the century, like in this Italian painting from 1526 (first image). At this point knitting had become established and wide-spread craft in Europe and the stockings were born, replacing nether hose. They were basically nether hose, but from knitted fabric. The gown shortened again and turned into more of a jacket as the trunk hose became increasingly the centerpiece of the outfit, until in 1560s doublet - trunk hose combination emerged as the standard outerwear (as seen in the second example, 1569 Netherlands) putting the last nail on the coffin of the men's dress as well as the Sluttiest Era. The hose and doublet became profoundly un-slutty and un-horny, especially when the solemn Spanish influence spread all over with it's dark and muted colors.

Especially in Middle Ages, but thorough European history, trousers have been associated with soldiers. The largely accepted theory is that trousers were invented for horse riding, but in climates with cold winters, where short skirts are too cold, and long skirts are still a hazard when moving around, trousers (with or without a short skirt) are convenient for all kinds of other movement requiring activities like war. So by adopting hose as general men's clothing, men in 1500s associated masculinity with militarism. It was not a coincidence that the style came from Landsknecht. I may have been joking about them being "peak male performance", but really they were the new masculine ideals for the new age. At the time capitalism was taking form and European great powers had begun the process of violently conquering the world for money, so it's not surprising that the men, who fought for money and became rich and powerful doing so, were idealised.

Because of capitalism and increasingly centralized power, the feudal system was crumbling and with it the feudal social hierarchy. Capitalism shifted the wealth from land ownership (which feudal nobility was built upon) to capital and trade, deteriorating the hierarchy based on land. At the same time Reformation and centralized secular powers were weakening the power of the Church, wavering also the hierarchy justified by godly ordain. The ruling class was not about to give up their power, so a new social hierarchy needed to form. Through colonialism the concept of race was created and the new hierarchy was drawn from racial, gender and wealth lines. It was a long process, but it started in 1500s, and the increasing distinction between men's and women's fashions was part of drawing those lines. At the same time distinctions between white men and racialized men, as well as white women and racialized women were drawn. As in Europe up until this point, all over the world (with some exceptions) skirts were used by everyone. So when European men fully adopted the trousers, and trousers, as well as their association to military, were equated with masculinity, part of it was to emasculate racialized men, to draw distinctions.

Surprise, it was colonialism all along! Honestly if there's a societal or cultural change after Middle Ages, a good guess for the reason behind it is always colonialism. It won't be right every time, but quite a lot of times. Trousers as a concept is of course not related to colonialism, but the idea that trousers equal masculinity and especially the idea that skirts equal femininity are. So I guess decolonize masculinity by wearing skirts?

#a wonderful tangent!#this dovetails very neatly with a thing I learned about earlier this week:#along with the 'Enlightenment' and rising colonialism came the concept that only 'lesser' civilizations didn't have a gender binary#so Europeans started to emphasize a distinction between two genders (in occupation‚ manners‚ fashion) because to them#that signaled an 'advanced civilization'#so yeah#decolonize masculinity by wearing skirts! - @swords-n-spindles

Firstly, glad you liked the post! Secondly, excellent addition!

For the sake of not making the post overtly long (and because I'm work in on a post where I'll talk about all this in length) I kept it framed around the gender binary, but you're absolutely right that the seeds of the strict modern gender binary were being planted here. It was not just that racialized men and women were denied full access to their gender, but also that those who did not fit into that binary, were also forcibly gendered in binary lines. Before colonialism there was of course gender systems where there was only two socially recognized genders in Europe and other places, but before those lines were always fuzzy, even in Medieval Europe, which wasn't in reality nearly as strictly gendered as people often think. This makes sense because humans are much too varied and complex to fit into two neatly defined boxes and people have always been aware of that. And beyond fuzzy lines in a two-gender system, there was also more complex gender systems all over the world including Europe.

For example in ancient Mediterranean eunuch didn't mean "a castrated man", like it's understood today, but they were literally written about as a third gender and they occupied a different social and political position from men and women and also had different gender expression. They were not necessarily either actually castrated, but also could be intersex. Castration was used as a punished in many different times and places, but in ancient Mediterranean many eunuchs choose to be castrated. There are many other examples, like the pre-Christian Baltic Finnish shamans, who were amab warriors, wore women's clothing and occupied a separate space from men and women in the society, and even more examples from every corner of the world.

The point is, a strict gender binary is a new invention even for Europe, and as you said it was very much shaped by colonialism and Enlightenment philosophy. And certainly part of the growing distinction between men and women was to built these strict binary boxes and create hierarchy between white and non-white gender systems, where white wealthy people, who had full access to these very binary genders were at the top, and under them were those who had binary genders, but were denied full access to them under colonial rule (racialized men and women), and at the bottom were those who would and could not to fit into these binaries at all (racialized non-binary people). White people who couldn't or wouldn't fully access binary genders (poor, queer etc. people) fell right under wealthy white people, but this was a complex hierarchy and it definitely depended on the exact time, the status and the egregiousness of the gender transgression, how would someone be treated under this colonial gender system.

Having graduated an actual tailoring apprenticeship and having studied an amalgamation of history, philosophy and literature with the focus on social studies I can only slow-clap at these lovely posts. <3

Might I add another thing on men in dresses/skirts:

Night-gowns for men were generally accepted in central europe until ~ 1900. Pajamas/Pyjamas became a thing much later, than we tend to think. (Check out the amazing video by Nicole Rudolph on more on that. She's just *chefs kiss*). Boys are generally baptized in little dresses to this day. Dresses in the "two sleeves-one head hole-one body hole" are still worn by individuals entertaining functions in churches.

Concering gender(perception) and (de)centering masculinity: generally female(percieved) bodies changed a lot more during a liftime then male(percieved) bodies tended to. It is way, (and trust me on this one) way easier to re-shape a dress/skirt-like garment to a changing body, than a two-legged one. So while mens garments changed more to accomodate the required neccesities of status/movement/etc. within a function or society, womens remained more stagnant, because a) it was more functional that way and b) christianity + patriarchy. Now if you combine this unholy duett with above mentioned colonialism one of the results is not only

"man in skirt/dress = unmanly"

but also

"man in skirt/dress = ANY quality assigned to women, that deemed them incapable/unable/undesired to participate in a christian (choose your denomination ~here~) sphere of influence!"

Examples for any of those qualities at a given time (because let's be honest here, standarts change) include being frivolous, childish, little brained, better at home making, not as capable at "thinking scientifically" as men, immodest, undiciplined, corruptable, too sexual, etc.

Do any stereotypes come to mind, if one applied those "qualities" to non-western men? Because it sure smells like our recurring christian-colonialist-partiarchy trangle here.

Might I add another thing on men in dresses/skirts:

Night-gowns for men were generally accepted in central europe until ~ 1900. Pajamas/Pyjamas became a thing much later, than we tend to think. (Check out the amazing video by Nicole Rudolph on more on that. She's just *chefs kiss*). Boys are generally baptized in little dresses to this day. Dresses in the "two sleeves-one head hole-one body hole" are still worn by individuals entertaining functions in churches.

Concering gender(perception) and (de)centering masculinity: generally female(percieved) bodies changed a lot more during a liftime then male(percieved) bodies tended to. It is way, (and trust me on this one) way easier to re-shape a dress/skirt-like garment to a changing body, than a two-legged one. So while mens garments changed more to accomodate the required neccesities of status/movement/etc. within a function or society, womens remained more stagnant, because a) it was more functional that way and b) christianity + patriarchy. Now if you combine this unholy duett with above mentioned colonialism one of the results is not only

"man in skirt/dress = unmanly"

but also

"man in skirt/dress = ANY quality assigned to women, that deemed them incapable/unable/undesired to participate in a christian (choose your denomination ~here~) sphere of influence!"

Examples for any of those qualities at a given time (because let's be honest here, standarts change) include being frivolous, childish, little brained, better at home making, not as capable at "thinking scientifically" as men, immodest, undiciplined, corruptable, too sexual, etc.

Do any stereotypes come to mind, if one applied those "qualities" to non-western men? Because it sure smells like our recurring christian-colonialist-partiarchy trangle here.

Thank you very much for your lovely comment! <3

These are great additions! There's always a lot of nuance with these things than one post can capture. Even while wearing a dress as a man in the Modern Era was not considered acceptable (honestly still really isn't), as you illustrated there were specific contexts where it was. Other example that comes to mind is the the modern kilt that was created in 18th century as a nationalist symbol for Scotts and was/is acceptable to wear in certain situations.

Also you mentioned how boys are still baptized in most Christian denominations in skirts, which I think comes from the tradition from Victorian Era, when small boys till around 5 years old I think, were dressed in same clothes (dresses) as girls that age. It was probable partly out of convenience, since as you said fitting trousers to changing size is much harder than doing it with skirts and small kids grow very fast. But they also had longer hair and generally the dresses were so similar to the girl's dresses, which for the time (and modern eye) were very girly and feminine, that basically small Victorian boys look exactly like girls. I don't really the modern thing where small literal babies are heavily gendered (like some people will have stroke if a one year old boy who has no concept of any of these things is wearing pink or something), but the implication here is that femininity is suitable for babies and boys grow out of it, but girls don't. It does fit with what Victorians were writing about women and how women are mentally children (which also has some very gross implications).

But yeah, the dress didn't stop one day being completely unacceptable for men in every context but since 16th century those contexts where a specific dress is acceptable have become more few and far between.

Relating to that point about how skirt is much easier to refit than trousers and in that way more practical: I think skirts in general are more practical for any type of body, except of course in certain climates/situations/activities. Which is why for most history in most places of the world everyone wore skirts except when pants were needed for a profession/activity/weather. But you're right that pants were more impractical to people seen as women. Also like using toilet or especially nature as your toilet (which you had to do much more often before modern infrastructure) was much easier and private with a skirt when you had vagina and especially before drawers were popularized in women's clothing.

Also your breakdown of how christian patriarchy and colonialism relate to each other is great! Christianity, patriarchy and colonialism truly are the unholy trinity lol. I didn't really touch on how religion came to play into this on my post, which it definitely did, since there's again so much there, as Christianity too was undergoing massive changes during that time, which had a lot of implication on how it was used politically.

(Also you are so right about Nicole Rudolf, I love her channel! Haven't yet watched that video though, but I will.)

i have this disease called i will open your message and get distracted and forget to reply and then the notification will be gone so i will not have replied for ages and you will think i am ignoring you but. i am not. it’s incurable

i like the typography on this sign, it's like an old internet rant page

Xi’an Famous Foods NYC

Literally cannot emphasize enough that my #1 writing advice is to stop being afraid. Stop being afraid of sounding too cringe, or too stupid, or too horrifying, or too horny, or too weird, or too much, or too little, or too you. You need to put your entire pussy into your art. Sure, it won't be to everyone's tastes, but if you keep yourself to the blandest tamest safest roads possible you will be of no one's tastes, not even yours.

:3 feels happier than :) But not as genuine as :]

:3 is my favorite. Full of deceit and silliness. The jester’s face. The culmination of all that’s chaotic and ever changing.

:) can be ominous, if it’s alone or accompanied by odd context! But sometimes, it’s yer friendly ol smile. :] is a friendly face. That is a friend. Look at it. What harm could it possibly do?

:3!!!

You have the secret knowledge my friend

The little guys are here… the littlest of smiles… like being handed a flower on a nice day…

Like this almost

You understand the treasures!

they go on adventures together, backyardigans style

Judge, yuri, and executioner

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