If Nothing Else, As A Historian Every Time I Get Scared At The State Of The World I Have To Remind Myself

Evening dress worn for concert

c. 1907

made of cream colored silk faille with chiffon inlets, pleated off shoulder style enhanced by large bunches of white velvet ribbon flowers.

was worn by Jessica de Wolf as the soloist at the opening of the St. Paul Auditorium, April 1907.

dress made by Mary Abigal O’Keefe

Minnesota Historical Society

Some of the best designs by Vivienne Westwood

The Reader, Alfred Stevens. 1860.

a sketchy drawing that I'm not finishing so I figured I'd post it here~

WE HAVE A TANK!!!

ANTI-CAPITALIST AFFIRMATIONS

i am allowed to spend my time creating things, even if they are not beautiful.

there is no such thing as a "real job." all forms of work are real and valid.

there is nothing that i need to accomplish to be worthy. i am already worthy.

doing nothing is good for my soul.

i am not defined by what i produce.

my worth cannot be measured by my paycheck, my job title, or a list of professional or academic achievements.

i do not need to monetize my hobbies, it is enough to spend time doing something i love.

i will not let society decide what success looks like. i can define what successful life looks like for me.

vivien leigh in a promotional shot for “waterloo bridge” (1940)

Miss Sohee Spring 2024

I really needed to see something like this today! Thank you @reasonsforhope for all that you do

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

The Conversation

Explainer: what is citizen science?

Public participation in science is increasing, and citizen science has a central part in this. It is a contribution by the public to researc

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

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I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

Six of Crows Historical AUs

There are some great Six of Crows fanfic recommendation lists out there, but I haven't seen any specifically on historical AUs (which are my kryptonite), so here are some of my favorites. Each of these have amazing character work and exquisite prose, and are wonderfully grounded in their time period. Enjoy! Hearts Starve by LinearA (Rating E; time period late 1800s): "Kaz and Inej crisscross state lines, organizing workers into unions. Sometimes they win. Sometimes they lose. And one time, on a cold night in Pittsburgh, they lie together in a very small bed, and they talk. And more than talk." save the undone years by Whitherward (Rating M; time period World War One): "Northern France, 1917. In a battlefield hospital, Corporal Kaz Rietveld lies gravely wounded. His nurse is determined that he will not be another thing she loses to this war." Confessions: A Sonata in Five Parts by rainstormdragon (Rating E; time period 1920s): "Wylan is a Catholic Priest in 1920s New York; Jesper is a sharpshooter for a local gang. Jesper comes into Wylan's Lower East Side church to hide from the police in a confession booth…" Devotion by cameliawries (Rating M; time period late 1950s): "Maybe Inej wouldn’t have been so irritated about Kaz asking her to bail him out of jail—again—if not for the rain, and the blister developing along her heel from the too-loose pumps she’d had to borrow from Anika, and the fact that she’s going to have to wash and hang these stockings to dry tonight because she’ll need them for tomorrow." to be lost and found (and lost and found again) by halfahint (Rating M; time period 1970s): "When Kaz tells Jesper that he wants to rob the FBI, his colleague leans in, eyes alight, and says, “Go on.” "