Artemissa97

This was prompted by me and my boyfriend discussing handedness and being able to tell apart left and right. And me, being ambidextrous, was baffled by how do people with an obligate dominant hand mix up which side is the one with their Writing Hand and which one isn't?? And my boyfriend pointed out that I go "turn left - no I mean right" so much when giving directions that I have lost my navigator privileges.

I argued that mixing up the words isn't the same thing as mixing up the directions. Like if your mom accidentally called you the dog's name doesn't mean that she literally can't tell you apart from the dog. And he looked at me like this

and EVEN WHEN things were more muted/neutral, the neutrality was OFFSET by ACCENT COLORS and HIGH CONTRAST between the wood tones and everything ELSE

ALSO AMERICAN COLONIAL INTERIORS POPPED OFF, Y'ALL (IN TERMS OF COLOR/COZINESS)

PEOPLE USED WHITEWASH AND COLORFUL TRIM OR EVEN JUST COLORFUL FURNITURE IF THEY COULD AFFORD TO DO SO

AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON FRENCH AND BRITISH AND AMERICAN WALLPAPERS

"ELIZABETH" YOU CRY, "WHY ARE YOU BEING SO EXTRA THIS MORNING?! IT'S MONDAY"

Because, my friend, my war on GREIGE will NEVER end.

Historic interiors were filled with LIFE and LIGHT and COLOR. ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.

Part of the reason we don't see a lot of textile art is because, frankly, textiles tend to degrade over time - especially ones that had utility! And yes, pigments and weaving and dying all boosted the expense of things, when we were finally reliably block-printing fabrics and broad reams of paper, it was no longer just the wealthy who could afford pretty patterns!

In the Americas, a far wider variety of pigments also became available because of the abundance of... well, a shitton of flora and minerals, some of which weren't as common in Europe.

WHY THE HIGHLIGHTER COLORS? you ask.

CANDLES.

Those colors reflect candlelight and natural sunlight REALLY WELL.

Humans LOVE bright colors, it's NOT just a thing for kids. We live in a brilliant, vibrant, multifaceted world. We ALWAYS have.

(If ever you have the opportunity to visit the Stencil House at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont (pictured above at 3, 4, and 5), I highly recommend.)

And that's before you get into American painted murals:

Hayden: haha Ilya is so ugly right

Shane:

There's generally going to be rooms dedicated to and build for warmth, the living quarters, both for nobles and their servants. This will be the central living tower, or parts of it called a Kemenate (literally 'room with a stove'), the great hall and work spaces around the kitchen. You can put the Kemenate on top of the hall to catch the big fires' and daily living's heat through the wooden floor, but you often can't put wooden stuff on top of the kitchens (that's a fire risk). If you have the money and space, you build a whole separate comfy place for living because you don't have to stay in the most defensible part of the castle all the time. These separate living buildings are also called Kemenate and are often build from wood, cob, brick etc.

People used to wear much more clothes indoors, including while sleeping, and those clothes were much thicker and sturdier than what we largely wear today. Every time you think of how cold those stone walls are, think about everyone wearing a linen shift + two-ish layers of wool on all body parts except hands and head + stockings and shoes + some kind of head-covering. In Ye Old Middle Ages, women are probably wearing a wimple, which is kind of like a modern Hijab in terms of coverage. People wear shifts, socks, and a head-covering to bed.

I think people used to radiators also really underestimate how much a large open fire/tiled stove heats up a room. Also, middle and northern Europe (as well as parts of Northern China) had and to this day have beds and benches build into tiled and cob stoves. Those fuck.

Beds are enclosed so you stay warm in them, either by curtains, in wall niches or with wood. There's also a type of bed that's inside a chest (like a coffin) so you can stuff your stuff inside during the day and put down the lid to use it as a bench. That's also another reason for people to always sleep in groups. Depending on the era, one of the jobs of a lady's maid or a retainer might literally be warming their master's bed. In early times and among servants, people also sleep in large groups in rooms together in general even outside a farming context, often with animals like pet dogs, too, which further warms everything up.

Walls are not bare, cold stone, but covered with a layer of plaster or cob, tiles or wooden panels, sometimes layered, and believe me, this makes such a difference. Source: I lived in a Ye Olde German Farmhouse with 70 cm thick stone walls and flag stone floor and all that converted to modern flats for a while.

On top of that you hang tapestries on the wall, which are not like modern printed cloth but basically wall rugs, sometimes several inches thick, and rugs or rushes (like a light cover of hay) on the floor on top of stone, tile, wooden panelling or a cob floor cover that goes over the heave flag stone. Pillows and blankets on all sitting surfaces, often on top of panelling (in the case of benches build into the stone). The roof of a room is also tiled, panelled or plastered. Upper stories will generally have wooden floors. Stories in a tower heat each other upwards, so the nicer rooms are further up.

The inner stone walls of a castle, even if stone and very thick, will heat up a few degrees in comparison to the outside walls if the castle is continually heated/lived in, and also trap heat inside, and this will make a difference. Inner walls might also be thinner and made of wood, cob or brick. You're defending against the outside, after all.

You put stuff in the windows. Holy shit. Screens of wood, horn, cloth or leather/hide, often treated for extra insulation. Why are these fantasy castles all so drafty.

... Henry Tilney was never far behind.

The following "analysis" was originally part of an reply to an ask, but I thought it might be interesting to add to the general Northanger Abbey tag.

Please keep in mind this is only my personal opinion, based on my own subjective reading of the novel.

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There are, I think, at least to me, two primary ways to look at Northanger Abbey and interpret Henry's interactions with Catherine in Bath, considering the time, social rules and most importantly, how Austen's other heroes are portrayed in their behaviour towards women (as well as Austen's less honourable men.)

One option is, that Henry is a shameless flirt, more interested in his own entertainment than in Catherine's wellbeing and absolutely willing to risk both her heart and her reputation for his amusement, Eleanor's comfort and the general peace inside the family.

Because his flirtations from the get go, are shameless. He's very forward, not only thinly veiledly complimenting Catherine, but also fishing for compliments in the same manner, expressing an interest in getting to know her better after the very first dance. He's very teasing, very flirtatious and VERY charming. He's having fun, yes, but if he doesn't mean anything by it... That'd be cruel. As well as very selfish and careless. And allowing Catherine to trust him as much as she does in the James/Isabella/Frederick dilemma? Singling her out as he does? Not interfering with the plans of her visit to the abbey, STAYING there himself for most of the stay when he is very much single, Catherine very obviously interested in him, they have already spent so much time together and there is no other young gentleman in the party to warrant his stay at the abbey, rather than his own home? Yeah, that's just plain irresponsible if this was nothing but pure fun without feelings. If he only fell for her later, accidentally, if he had no romantic feelings for her during their stay in Bath. Because it could tarnish her reputation and it would only be natural for Catherine to have high hopes and... ultimately it would break her heart. If this were to be the case he'd be toying with her feelings and no better than, say, Henry Crawford. Worse even, because Catherine is young, innocent and yet unengaged.

Now the other option is that while Catherine fell first and fell openly, Henry always followed her right on her heels. Yes, the author states:

I must confess that his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude, or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought.

But one, serious thought, so basically going from simple crush to "yes this will be my wife". Which is fair, because Catherine only really started to think seriously of Henry after James got engaged to Isabella. Before that she liked him very much but the thought of Henry becoming one day her husband, or even more so, the wish of him becoming her husband, had not yet entered her head. This does not contradict the possibility of a (intense) crush on both sides. And two, with Catherine being Catherine, she was likely partial to him from the get go and was showing it from the first second they got introduced to each other. They danced one dance before Henry says what I'm going to quote next and I think one dance, so 30-60 minutes full of open admiration, is more than enough to develop a very healthy crush on someone ;)

So yes, I am convinced that Catherine had very much a crush on him, but so had he on her. He saw her admiration and he liked it and even more so, he liked her. We have this line:

“I danced with a very agreeable young man, introduced by Mr. King; had a great deal of conversation with him—seems a most extraordinary genius—hope I may know more of him. That, madam, is what I wish you to say.”

Now the most obvious part is the fishing for compliments, he really isn't subtle about that one, but there are two things, in my opinion, much more important.

"Hope I may know more of him" and "That [...] is what I wish you to say" He wants Catherine to think well of him. Henry doesn't just want compliments here, he expresses, and quite directly so, the wish for Catherine's esteem. Let's remember that this is about her journal, so something supposedly only she gets to read. Thus even though Henry uses the word say, what he means is think. It's less about what she ought to write, and more a way for him to convey that he'd like her to like him, to think well of him and to hold him in high regard. Now Catherine should have answered this with a compliment to show that she understood what he was "hinting" at, or at least assure him that she would write exactly that, because of course we as readers know that it's in line with her feelings, but... Catherine didn't really get it, did she? Henry's not subtle at all, yet still too subtle for her. But also, and even more important to me, Henry wishes that Catherine hopes to know more of him. Or, plainly: He wants to meet her again. He wants to know more of her. He's basically asking for a second date. He's interested in her and wants her to likewise be interested in him and he's pretty sure she is, but he wants her to assure him that this is, indeed, the case. So I don't think it's that far fetched to say that Henry did, indeed, have a crush on her.

Wich is in line with his immediately asking her to dance when he sees her next (though he gets refused then) and later:

To escape, and, as she believed, so narrowly escape John Thorpe, and to be asked, so immediately on his joining her, asked by Mr. Tilney, as if he had sought her on purpose!—it did not appear to her that life could supply any greater felicity.

Why yes, Catherine. As if he had sought her on purpose indeed. Not that he ever would, because why would he but... I can't help but smile at how oblivious and HUMBLE Catherine is. Yes, Henry did seek her out on purpose, Henry likely only came there to dance with her. This is after the conversation with Eleanor, where she, when Catherine asks whether they'd be at the cotillion ball answers thus:

“Perhaps we—Yes, I think we certainly shall.”

There were no plans for it. The beginning of Eleanor's reply sounds almost as if the Tilneys had intended not to go. There's a very good chance Catherine's and Henry's mutual desire to spend time with each other was the main reason for the Tilneys to go. So one'd better hope he sought her out on purpose, yes.

With this, I think, it is safe to think that Catherine fell first, but Henry never let her get ahead too far of him. Who fell harder is hard to say ;)

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What this post isn't supposed to mean: "They are special" or "They were sooo meant to be" and most importantly not "They could never have loved anyone else and knew so from the first moment"

Because here's the thing:

Falling IN love is easy. But so is falling OUT of love.

But cultivating a crush into a deep, steadfast love that will survive the years as well as personal challenges takes time and work and dedication. And as we change, the effort continues.

The beauty of Henry and Catherine (and subsequently Northanger Abbey) is, to me, that we get to see every step.

We are there when they meet for the first time, we see Catherine being fascinating and we see Henry liking being genuinely liked.

We see the their attempts at (mis)communication and their growing understanding of each other. We see each basking in the attention the other offers and we see how the priorities shift. How slowly it's less what the other can do for them and more a strong desire to bring a smile to the other's face.

But yes, while in Bath, Henry could have fallen out of love at any point. And so could have Catherine. They didn't and that's why they got married. Because they had a strong inclination towards each other at the beginning which, given time and attention, grew into true love.

NORTHANGER ABBEY (2007)

You are stuck as a soldier in this historical war

(this is a magical universe where people who wouldn't usually be able to fight would. so you can all suffer.)