and their manners corrupted from infancy, then what else is to be concluded, sire, but that you first make thieves and then punish them?

- quote from Ever After

sorry this is basically a test entry. New to this blogging software. I'm accustomed to Livejournal so a forum with a blog is a NEW and ASTOUNDING thingamajig.

And yet somehow still WAY MORE COMPREHENSIBLE than tumblr. I love tumblr. I just have no idea how to effectively communicate via tumblr. I just obsessively reblog all the shiny things and make annoying hashtags. Like that is my sum contribution to tumblr. I AM A BAD TUMBLRITE.

... TUMBLRIAN? ... TUMBLRER?

Thing.

I am a bad thing. I fail at thinging.

Okay, so this blog will hopefully be about MEDIEVAL STUFF. I run a medieval game, I study history, I play medieval lords and ladies several weeks a year... it's a hobby. My current historical fascination is on Byzantium, Vikings, and the Late Roman Empire, but I am also a GIANT HISTORICAL FASHION NERD. Specifically my other historical era romances are 12th century southern France (HI ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE) and late 15th century Italy (Rome under Alexander Borgia and Florence under the Medici, plus the Sforza and Visconti of Milan, and Este of Ferrara). I've learned a bit of Naples in that era but mostly only their dealings with Spain and the Borgia.

Oh, and I also have done research for the reigns of Edward I, II and III of England. Don't ask me about the Wars of the Roses. I never have managed to completely parse that era... and I do NOT fangirl most of the Tudors so meh on that. Elizabethan England I can converse on but it's not something I've studied in-depth beyond a mild fascination with Mary Queen of Scots...

Let's get one thing out of the way here REALLY QUICKLY:

Do NOT talk to me about Reign. JUST DON'T. The laziness of not jjust making up a new kingdom to set that mess of a show in upsets me. So does the hideous thrift-store fashion design. God, if you're going to make a quasi-historical show with deliberately modern outfits, AT LEAST BE FABULOUS WITH THEM. TBH if A Knight's Tale couldn't make that work WTF DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING CW??!

... IF you do want to see a quasi-historical with crazy glam outfits that aren't really historical but are still f*cking fabulous go watch Virgin Territory. The movie is horrible but the clothes were by ROBERTO CAVALLI and MY GOD IT DOESNT MATTER THAT THEY ARE NOT HISTORICAL THEY ARE STUNNING. I WOULD WEAR SOME OF THOSE GOWNS OMG. It's like what Reign wishes it could be but will never ever be because they insist on sticking their lovely cast in junky, ill-fiting, un-flattering outfits 95% of the time. The other 5% they clearly stumble into renting some of the old Tudors outfits or something off any random historical movie Hollywood has recently done (YOUNG VICTORIA? REALLY, CW? Because nothing says 1500s France LIKE A F*CKING SCARLETT O'HARA HOOP).

Does the Reign costume department even realize that basic Tudor ensembles are not that hard to sew? You can cheat like a mofo on making those things. THE WHOLE TUDOR ERA NOBILITY WAS BASICALLY CHEATING ALL THE TIME ON THEIR OWN CLOTHES. Like, really? Hell, you could just run around sticking the girls in evening gowns if you wanted to- sure, slap a faux-corset looking prom dress on Adelaide Kaine and run with it but COULD YOU AT LEAST MAKE SURE IT FITS THEM??! Like, are alterations THAT HARD?

Sorry. I just cannot be having with the clothes in that series. They are not even pretty fantasy clothes! Most of the time it's NOT EVEN PRETTY it's just some random hodge-podge mess of clothing they stuck on these lovely actresses until they look like they've been ransacking a vaguely glamorous aunt's clothes and playing dress-up.

I'm not even sure what the plot is of Reign. My eyes were too scalded by the horrors of their sartorial choices to let any other senses function.

So, yeah. DO NOT APPROACH ME TO TALK ABOUT REIGN.