#like late 1800s to early 1900s

[cosmicheartz]

I was thinking of Plimbos role in my cotl canon since I hc he supplies Solange with imported goods he finds outside the lands of old faith ranging from a wide array of things ( food/drink, clothes, fabrics, etc ) and I realize that Solange could possibly find out sheep still exist from him.

Completely unintentionally too bc I don’t think Plimbo rlly stays in the lands of old faith for too long so I don’t think he’s fully aware that Solange is literally the only sheep left there ( just thinks they’re rare )

[aria-greenhoodie]

You asked and ye shall receive. Aria,why do you use birds to symbolize Abigale's inner turmoil?. Besides the obvious surname thing. Also you apparently have more thoughts on the Muse art? 👀,explain?.

So obviously yeah, “Blackwing” is such a bird surname. BUT THATS ONLY THE SURFACE!

Birds are so often used as symbols of freedom, creatures untethered by laws of the land due to their ability to fly. In the same way, I imagine Abigale as being similar; free, not having to abide by the laws of her land as much as others did. In order to explain I think I have to dive into my version of Abigale’s backstory a bit…

(Warning: I’m going off what I know about 1800-1900s American Society. I’m no historian, but I’ve tried to keep things as believable as possible. I will say I’m pretty confident in that believability thanks to my feminist history class I been taking this semester.)

Born in the early 1880s, the Blackwing family was wealthy, yet fairly unknown. Calling it a “family” before Abigale’s birth would be a stretch in many’s opinion, being made up of just Mr. Atticus Blackwing and Mrs. Chastity Blackwing. Chastity tragically passed in childbirth, leaving Atticus to raise Abigale all on his own. He became fiercely protective and supportive of the young Abigale, a tiny spitting image of his late wife.

Abigale was always an insatiably curious child. At first, Atticus tried to teach her how to be a lady, to be domestic, to cook and clean and dote on her future husband, but quickly realized he was woefully unequipped for teaching a subject he knew nothing about. What’s more: Abigale HATED her womanly lessons. Instead, Atticus decided to let her learn something she actually was interested in; inventing.

Abigale loved to tinker, to create. The mechanical was a fascination of hers from the moment she saw it. Atticus as an architect had some mechanical knowledge, but not to the level Abigale’s insatiable desire to learn needed. But what engineering school would allow a woman in? At this point in the late 1800s, women were nearly always snubbed in inventing spaces, most universities not even offering engineering degrees for female students.

And so, Abigale’s “twin brother” Abraham Blackwing was created. A pseudonym for Abigale, under which she would don Atticus’s old clothes from his boyhood and attend a prestigious engineering school. Her father even falsified documents like Abraham’s birth certificate to make him appear like a legitimate person. It was risky, as crossdressing was a punishable offense by law back then, but Abigale was willing to take that risk if it meant she could learn.

Between her rich father supporting her every decision and passion, and her alter-ego, Abraham, to fall back on, Abigale had a lot of freedom growing up. When her father died of an illness just before she graduated, he left “Abraham” everything, which of course meant that Abigale could “live with her brother” and hold a bank account under his name. She was truly given every opportunity for freedom, more than any woman of her time.

And then, Bill Cipher enters her life.

She’s plagued by the triangular demon ip every night in her dreams, but she refuses to succumb to the shape’s demands. As tempting as building a machine like an inter-dimensional portal was, she knew better than to trust a man who wouldn’t explain his motives. When Abigale asked why Bill wanted this portal built, he couldn’t give her a straight answer, and that was enough proof to know he was no good.

After weeks of restless nights and aggravation, Abigale finds a peculiar ad in the paper, written by a certain Thurburt Mudget Waxstaff III…

On some level, she has to thank Bill for entering her life as much as she has to curse him for it. If he had never decided to torment her specifically, she never would have met the rest of the Anti-Cipher Society. Abigale THRIVED in the society, delighted in inventing new ways to ward off Cipher, collaborating with her dear Jessamine to create specialized weaponry, learning self defense from Horace, gossiping with O’Pimm, spending night after night explaining the mechanics of how her inventions worked to Thurburt so he could whip up a stellar sales pitch… she had never felt more alive! She was flying high, much like a bird on the wind.

And then the conference happened.

Thurburt was institutionalized, right then and there. Abigale watched the asylum workers from backstage with mounting horror. Worst case scenario for Thurburt, he’d be locked in a cell or sent out west at some work camp, but for Abigale? If the asylum workers got ahold of her, she knew they’d think her hysterical. Treatments for “insane” men were often much kinder than treatments for women in those times. Deeming Thurburt insane would send him to a locked cell, but he would at least be allowed to remain himself. Abigale had heard of women like her, eccentric unmarried women, “frivolous women” as they were often called, being scooped up by doctors and spat back onto the street with their entire personalities wiped. A hammer and a well placed nail up the inside of one’s nose could do heinous things. Abigale would sooner die then let them take what made her HER away.

So she ran. She tried to take Jessamine with her, but she refused to leave Thurburt. For six days Abigale hid in the society’s underground bunker, terrified of venturing outside, not knowing what happened to her companions besides Thurburt. She only ventured out on the seventh day because she had run out of food.

She couldn’t go back to her house, when she tried to scope it out, she saw the asylum workers already knocking at her door. She couldn’t stay in the bunker, it was only a matter of time before it was found. She was desperate for a way out, to keep herself free.

And here comes Mr. Northwest.

See, the thing about birds is that while they make excellent symbols of freedom, they also make excellent symbols of being trapped. Birds can be put into cages, forced to sing or speak for meager treats, and lets not forget that at that time most birdcages were anything but spacious and comfortable. Most captive birds of the time were expected to die quickly, only purchased in order to sing prettily for a short while before their tiny little hearts stopped beating. Birds are as much a symbol of freedom as they are of captivity, of being trapped, of the LOSS of freedom.

Abigale never wanted to be a wife, but what choice did she have? Mr. Northwest offered her a way out if she married him. Her choice was thus: escape the state with Mr. Northwest as her husband, or stay in town and eventually be found and promptly lobotomized, erased of any trace of her real personality.

She chose the former.

Better to live in a gilded cage, twittering for scraps, then to be gutted and stuffed on som taxidermist’s wall…

Right?

As for the muse stuff most of my trout process I already told you in the notes of the original piece lol

[mintytealfox]

YALL 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

here

[jaytech3652]

something i find funny about alastor pretending to be a father figure to charlie is the fact that charlie is way older than him

[david-box]

I love how there's knitting patterns that walk you through each step line by line stitchy by individual stitch and then there's things like Selbu style mittens

Image ID: An edit of the "Draw the rest of the fucking owl" meme. The top caption reads, "How to knit a glove," and the first image where the initial foundational shapes of the owl would be has been replaced with a line from a pattern that reads, "Instructions: Alternating black and white, CO (cast on) 116 sts (stitches)." The caption underneath this reads, "1. Cast some stitches on." The second image shows an already completed Selbu mitten with multiple ornate motifs. The second instruction reads, "Knit the rest of the fucking glove." End ID"

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

okay so here's something ae'm genuinely curious about-

-when talking about, for example, the megalodon, a lot folks say stuff like 'proof the megalodon exists'

-a lot of extinct animals are apparently considered cryptids by some

so where's the line drawn

cause for voie it's like. if you've got a sauropod in your background, yeah, you can probably call that a cryptid. if you've got an ivory-billed woodpecker flying around, that's not a cryptid. it's just not. maybe a long time from now, but certainly not right now

the megalodon thing is especially interesting for us, just because with the cryptid thing we at least kinda see why some folks might consider any extinct animal that's found alive a cryptid, but ae genuinely don't know why folks say 'proof the megalodon exists'

we know it exists. we have fossils of its jaws and teeth and other evidence it existed. like, yeah, it's not around anymore, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. are we missing something. it feels like we're missing something. are we overthinking this too much. do other folks not think this hard about stuff like that

[doctorho]

so....i'm writing this vampire viktor idea into an actual fic and i would love to hear your thoughts on this:

[okiankeno]

Learning my families lore from the Philippines is crazy wtf

[mycological-mariner]

Cornish history person just started watching Poldark. A friend said she had a theory it was all just funded by the Cornish tourism board and tbh, valid. Lead guy is just too conventionally attractive to be attractive. Everyone has nice hair. Only antagonists have period-appropriate hair (at least for the gents). I don’t like this. I don’t really care about the romance either (obviously) BUT the economic and political side of things is pretty good. I did appreciate mention of the Welsh mines thriving as a part of the reason why Cornish mines were shutting down (obviously not the whole reason and an oversimplification but still). On the topic of the Welsh mines, back in the day, it was Welsh coal that was used to fuel mines up the north coast (Botallack, Levant, Geevor, etc) because it was just more cost effective; Wales was coming up with so much coal they had a surplus and ships could easily come from Wales to Cornwall instead of by land from much farther north and at greater expense. Welsh coal is rare nowadays but if you go up to any mines you might be able to find some burnt chunks. Kind of wished they’d mentioned it in the show because the use of Welsh coal was a part of what kept the mines in Cornwall going. A sort of historical irony.

My main takeaway is basically rich people Fucking Suck

[eurekq]

Okay there is a children's book series I am trying so very hard to find. They're vintage books about a little girl and all the cooking utensils in her house are alive (the pot and kettle specifically have beef) HOWEVER the main gimmick is that the (first book at least) is filled with recipes that a child can follow. If I'm remembering right I think subsequent books focus on different types of chores. Does anyone remember these

[waterlogged-detective]

Got this at a bookshop the other day

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

since when

[roakkaliha]

hope this isn't too weird to get out of the blue, but i was searching through the 'kalevala' tag on tumblr since i've been listening to it recently and happened upon a post of yours about it... so i glanced at your other posts with 'kalevala' tagged, and wow, that's so fucked that it's just outright stolen. i thought i was connecting with something from my own background (american with some finn roots).

im glad you found it informative! its definitely very sad how difficult it is to find actually real info on finnish culture, especially in english... it hurts both karelians and finns at the end of the day.

[lonelyshrimp]

what the actual fuck is @weirdchristmas doing?? highly suggest blocking/unfollowing/reporting posts if you can because they're just posting racist Valentine's card after racist Valentine's card with no warnings, no tags, no nothing. they posted a lynching themed Valentine's card with no fucking caption, tags, warning, nothing. like I get u wanna have an archive of old holiday cards, and yeah racism was normalized then bc the only audience shit was made for large scale was a white one, but holy fucking shit this is not how you go about creating a record of these. I sincerely feel for any of their non-white followers today, especially Black and Indigenous followers, who had to see this shit with no warning on their dash and Twitter feeds.

[your-gym-partner]

You meet some very interesting people on tinder

[cptn-briggsy-kratch]

Crossroads what does your office look like? I’m picturing a dark version of Howl’s room

It’s a little bit cluttered, to tell the truth… And in need of a proper dusting.

*He snaps around the area.*

That’s better.