I fucking live for unhinged Victorian Christmas cards. Some years I just share the terror with friends, and others I choose to spread the chaos. This year I pick the latter.
I figured we should start with the most chaotic before diving into themes. I genuinely can’t explain those four.
But fear not, I have the homogeny you crave. DEAD BIRDS FOR LUCK. (Wren day on the 26th was a good luck ritual where you killed a robin or wren bc… that’s lucky?)
Another favored tradition: snowmen with **deeply threatening auras**
Build the creature of your demise! I’m pretty sure that first one is going to kill that robin. Clearly he celebrates wren day.
Of course no holiday is complete without animals waiting to murder you. The robins are back, WITH A VENGEANCE.
Another ever-popular theme: children baked into food! (Children have long been considered a Christmas delicacy)
As was tradition, one would pick either a clown, a polar bear, a snow gnome (?), or frog to do battle with. If you won against the frog, you would get to take whatever gold he had on him at the time. The clown would promise to stop stealing your meats.
Of course sometimes your message would be simple: remind your friends and family that danger lurks around every corner. Bring the gift of fear.
Due to the lack of environmental regulations at the time, the meat supply was often tainted, leading to your Christmas dinner coming back to life. Christmas carols were designed to drown out the screaming.
So much screaming…
This first card depicts one of the first instances of a Christmas dinner uprising. Due to the high death toll of that year, children became a favored ingredient (as previously mentioned) as everyone knows children are infinitely easier to defeat than most other dinner meats.
Because violence lurked around every corner, animals were often enlisted to deliver Christmas cards and messages. Owls and mice were popular choices, with bikes and lobsters proving themselves to be the most reliable methods of transportation.
Cursed with sentience and a knowledge of their own impending demise, some *snowmen with threatening auras* actually became violent (the tale of frosty the snowman is heavily altered from the original Germanic tale where frosty drunkenly assaulted anyone who ventured too close)
Violence lurked around every corner. As roving gangs of clowns took out the English police force, people and pets alike took up arms.
Arming animals was a foolish choice, as they immediately became violent. (See tweet #4)
They staged a full on revolt in the winter of 1876, and maintained control of a large part of London until spring on 1877.
Trying their hand at various human activities, frogs quickly learned they were terrible at ice skating
I hope this holiday season is treating you well. Have some marine life and another dead bird.
So many dead birds…
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I’m cropping these for privacy reasons/because I’m not trying to call out any one individual. These are all Lensa portraits where the mangled remains of an artist’s signature is still visible. That’s the remains of the signature of one of the multiple artists it stole from.
These are all from posts from friends on my timeline. It didn’t take much searching to find portraits with signature fragments. Most people’s sets have at least one.
You’re sad art has to be about money? It’s a fucking job.
Just say what you’re thinking. You don’t value and don’t want to pay artists. You don’t want to see it like any other good or service, becaue you want it for free, or at a price that doesn’t provide a livable wage.
I’m sick of these bullshit bad faith arguments by people outside of the industry. You’re anti-worker but you don’t want to admit it because you like an app that feeds your vanity.
You got a loaf of bread for free, or at an absurdly low price, and farmers keeps telling you that baker stole everything they used to make the bread from other farmers, and you’re making excuses for why that’s okay.
Gals and ghouls, it is finally time for unhinged Victorian greeting cards, Halloween edition.
As usual, we start with highlights.
Vengeful jack-o-lanterns
GOURD CAR.
A produce caravan
A pumpkin man contemplating cannibalism and mortality
Now as you may know, Halloween has roots in the ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain. It marks the end of the harvest season, & is thought to be when the when the boundary between this world and the otherworld thinned, allowing the spirits of forgotten produce to re-enter our world
Every jack-o-lantern left to rot, every vegetable that went bad before you had a chance to eat it—this is the time of year when their souls walk the earth again.
Alright my darlings, it’s time.
Time for this next installment of Unhinged Victorian Greeting Cards: VALENTINE’S DAY EDITION. ❤️
Let’s start with some tamer ones.
Previously featured fish and leek
Cannibal cottage
LOBSTER
Sentient boots (ft. straw and coins)
As already covered, the lack of environmental regulations at the time meant toxic chemicals would leech into the food supply, bringing them to life.
Cursed with the knowledge that they could end up on the dinner table any day, Victorian era produce loved hard and fast.
Similar sentience issue were occasionally reported in regards to the alcohol supply, however, given the fact that these reports were almost always followed with slurred proclamations of “IM NOT EVEN THAT DRUNK”, the validity of these claims remain suspect.
Harley Quinn is either a psychologist or a psychiatrist. The former requires a PhD or PsyD, and the latter requires an MD.
WRITERS PLEASE PICK ONE. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PICK ONE. THEY ARENT INTERCHANGEABLE.
I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL.
Everyone keeps saying “why not both” which is absolutely missing the point. These are two different jobs, both of which require EXTENSIVE schooling and further training to be able to practice.
The whole reason some shows say psychiatrist and some say PhD is sloppy writing.
New Years is fast approaching, & so it’s time for a new round of unholy Victorian era holiday cards—New Years edition! 🎉
We start as always with the least logical.
This dandy root man, and a half man, half robin—cursed with human arms leaving him unable to fly.
Buckle up.
As Christmas time wrapped up, the previously discussed sentient snow men became less violent and more melancholy. They knew their time would be up soon.
These two snow parents didn’t have the heart to tell their poor doomed snow child of their impending fate.
But they knew.
Santa would leave town and venture back to his hidden shack, deep in the woods. He knew that if he stayed around past Christmas Day, he ran the risk of being attacked by greedy children wanting more gifts.
This eventually led to him moving to the North Pole for year round safety