#AND IT HOLDS UP

[akallabeth-joie]

Girl Genius Pre-Canon Timeline

I just binge-read through the archives again, and decided to finally sort though all the time cues we get for the 20-odd years before the story starts. Years are based on the date on Klaus Barry Heterodyne's memorial, in conjunction with Agatha's age, and a lot of "it's been X years" remarks made during flashbacks. I'm only using information from the webcomic, since I don't have the novels on hand.

Late 1869- mid 1870: Lucrezia Mongfish accepts Bill Heterodyne's proposal; disappearance of Klaus Wulfenbach

?1870?: Birth of Gilgamesh Wulfenbach*

?1871?: Birth of Tarvek Sturmvoraus*

1872: Birth of Bill and Lucrezia's eldest child, Klaus Barry Heterodyne (2 years 3 months after Klaus Wulfenbach's disappearance)

Before 1873: Birth of Theopholous DuMedd, son of Serpentina Mongfish. His aunt Lucrezia attended his christening, which therefore must have taken place sometime before her disappearance.

1873 (or January 1874): The Other attacks Castle Heterodyne, killing Klaus Barry (age 407 days / 13 months) and 63 castle staff including Carson Von Mekkan's son (and possibly also Dr. Mongfish**). Disappearance of Lucrezia. Bill and Barry Heterodyne leave Mechanicsburg to fight the Other. Beginning of continent-wide warfare and chaos.

1874: Birth of Agatha Heterodyne (<9 months after attack on Castle Heterodyne, probably at least 4- 5 months after, since Lucrezia was apparently not showing at the time of her disappearance).

c.1874-1875: “A few years” after the destruction of Castle Heterodyne (per Carson), and “about 18 years” before the main story starts (per the authors in the now-defunct list of all characters appearing in the story), Bill & Barry Heterodyne disappear.

c.1875-77: Attacks from the Other stop shortly after the Heterodyne Boys disappear. Klaus Wulfenbach returns to Europa, builds the airship Castle Wulfenbach and ends the wars, making an empire in the process. At some point, he starts a school for the children of rulers and powerful sparks.

1877/8: TPU expedition to Castle Heterodyne, which lasts 6 months; during that time, Klaus Wulfenbach takes over Mechanicsburg

1878: Klaus Wulfenbach begins imprisoning troublesome sparks in Castle Heterodyne

?1878?: Gilgamesh Wulfenbach breaks through as a spark at age 8. Tarvek is sent home from Castle Wulfenbach at some point before this.

??At some point before 1879 (and probably after 1875) Barry returns with Agatha; they are constantly moving, and Barry keeps their identities a secret, even from his old friends.

1879: Agatha, age 5, begins to break through as a spark.

1881: Barry Heterodyne disappears again, leaving Agatha in the care of Adam & Lilith Clay in Beetleburg.

1889: Tarvek takes Tinka from Master Payne's circus and reverse-engineers her to make a clank body for his mortally-wounded sister Anevka.

1892: The Story Begins... (spring/summer 1892)

1894-5: The Story Resumes (deep winter, after a 2.5 year time-skip).

*I think the novelization mentions Gil being 22 when the story starts (which is the age listed on the fan wiki, no source cited), but it's been years since I read it, so here I'm sticking to the information in the comic itself. This is a rough estimate, since we don't have a ton to go on: we know that Gil was born during his father's exile and accompanied him back to Europa, which puts his birth year at no earlier than 1870 and no later than 1875. Gil is finished with college by time the story starts, suggesting that he is older than Agatha (who is 18 and still a student at that point), but he also appears to have returned to Castle Wulfenbach relatively recently (having run into none of his old friends, who also haven't noticed that a certain empty laboratory is now his flight lab). Around age 8, Gil was friends with Tarvek, which suggests they are probably of a similar age. If taken literally, Tarvek's remark about being ~3 years old when his father was collaborating with the Other (c.1874 and before) puts his birth year around 1871. Like Gil, Tarvek has finished college before the story starts, and was apparently back in Sturmhalten at least three years before the story.

**The lengthy but defunct character list has Dr. Mongfish dying in an attack on Castle Heterodyne. We only know of one such attack, though it's possible this refers to a separate, earlier event. However, his grandson Theo Dumedd's (fictional) story of the Heterodynes' disappearance puts Dr. Mongfish as alive up to that point--and while many parts of the timeline don't fit this fictional story, I think it's weak evidence that Dr. Mongfish didn't die or disappear conspicuously earlier.

[puppyeared]

filipina miku!! my mom helped me with her outfit ^_^

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The math just adds up!

[trainwreckgenerator]

a face you'd find on the side of a milk carton

[bajoop-sheeb]

PLEASE for the love of the universe read anti-colonial science fiction and fantasy written from marginalized perspectives. Y’all (you know who you are) are killing me. To see people praise books about empire written exclusively by white women and then turn around and say you don’t know who Octavia Butler is or that you haven’t read any NK Jemisin just kills me! I’m not saying you HAVE to enjoy specific books but there is such an obvious pattern here

Some of y’all love marginalized stories but you don’t give a fuck about marginalized creators and characters, and it shows. Like damn

[ingravinoveritas]

"We've all got to be fighting that fight every day."

Happy Pride, everyone...

[mylittleredgirl]

my new thing whenever an embarrassing memory jumps up out of some backwater neuron to t-bone my present-day thought process is to declare a statute of limitations. like i can burn down an entire building in the state where i live and the law deems it both unfair and illegal to prosecute me after six years have passed, i think that thing i said in high school can be expunged from my record.

[chloemew]

Now that the bots are gone, we can also beat the shit out of this light uninterrupted

[miodiodavinci]

okay bear with me here but i went to illinois last week and one part of the experience has stuck with me

this is, of course, ignoring things like current weather, time of day, your current ability to physically go outside, etc…. answer based on what you consider would be your optimal mountain viewing conditions on a day to day basis 👍

[teakip]

Family photo WIP

[morganbritton132]

No Capes Batman AU where Jason is just like, ‘I’m meant to be a middle child. I’ve got middle child energy’ and then steals the neighbor kid. Not like they were using him anyways.

[holyshonks]

This is the first video I ever liked on youtube

[acorviart]

everyone should attempt an artisan craft at some point in their life because it would cut down the number of comments questioning why handmade goods like ceramics or textile craft or woodworking are so expensive

and this is an unrealistic expectation, but I think the attempt should include seeing through to the end at least one "finished" item, no matter how clumsy or lumpy your first attempts might be. like to me, there's a huge difference in perspective between attempting to learn how to crochet or throw a pot for a few days, acknowledging that it's harder than it looks and giving up, versus committing to finishing that scarf or clay pot you started and working on it for weeks while you painstakingly learn from your mistakes and grow attached to your project while also simultaneously hating it.

once you finish the latter, your perspective changes from "why does this crocheted blanket cost $200" to "holy shit I can't believe they're charging $200 for this crocheted blanket instead of $2000" because you may have known crocheting is hard, you may have easily agreed with the idea that "handmade goods take time and effort" even before attempting a craft, but now you know firsthand the absolute time sink it takes to make things. like yeah dude, that one item took you 2 months to make and probably wasn't even an ultra complex item if it was the first thing you made, now imagine attaching an hourly wage to that time to calculate the cost (and this is ignoring every nuance of the artistic element and master crafters being able to work faster/charge higher because of their years and years of experience)

anyway this rant has been motivated by a comment I saw on someone else's ceramic post asking why a mug was $60 and they understand it's handmade but $60 just seems overpriced, and bro do you know how long ceramics take to make. that mug probably took at minimum 3 weeks between how long it takes to throw the mug, dry partially, trim the mug, dry fully, bisque fire, wait a day for the kiln to cool, sand and paint and glaze, glaze fire, wait a day for the kiln to cool, take product photography of the mug, write description and list the mug online for sale, im not even including the skill needed to complete all these steps without the mug literally exploding or collapsing while also making it an appealing piece of art, aaaaaaaaaaaaa

[saints-who-never-existed]

“In the war film, a soldier can hold his buddy—as long as his buddy is dying on the battlefield. In the western, Butch Cassidy can wash the Sundance Kid’s naked flesh—as long as it is wounded. In the boxing film, a trainer can rub the well-developed torso and sinewy back of his protege—as long as it is bruised. In the crime film, a mob lieutenant can embrace his boss like a lover—as long as he is riddled with bullets. 

Violence makes the homo-eroticism of many “male” genres invisible; it is a structural mechanism of plausible deniability.”

–Tarantino’s Incarnational Theology: Reservoir Dogs, Crucifixions, and Spectacular Violence. Kent L. Brintnall.

[pirateprincessjess]

I feel the need to periodically remind people that Idiocracy is a eugenics movie.

One of the things that eugenicists believe is that it is bad for society when the “wrong people” breed.

The entire premise of the movie is that “stupid people” kept having kids while “smart people” didn’t have kids, and it ruined society because stupid genes propagated while smart genes died out. This is eugenics propaganda.

I know people will read this and their response will be “actually it’s satire” but the movie isn’t satirizing eugenics. It’s satirizing anti-intellectualism, and consumerism, and it proposes eugenics as a solution.

When eugenics was first conceived, it was used as a way to justify inequality. The idea was that people who held privilege were able to do so because they were smarter and genetically superior to lazy and stupid people who don’t have privilege. Obviously this is bad and wrong, but it is also the core lesson of Idiocracy.

The movie literally ends with the main character becoming president and having “the smartest children in the world.” Because he and his wife have smarter genes than everyone else. The proposed solution for the things that Idiocracy is satirizing is for the smart people to have children that can be in charge of the world.

I know it’s fun to use this movie to dunk on anti-intellectualism and the MAGA movement, but we need to stop. When you quote and reference this movie you are spreading eugenics propaganda.

[secondbeatsongs]

for anyone too young to know this: watching The Truman Show is a vastly different experience now, compared to how it was before youtube and social media influencers became normal

before it was like, "what a horrifying thing to do to a human being! to take away their autonomy and privacy, all for the sake of profits! to create fake scenarios for them to react to, just to retain viewership! to ruin their happiness just so some corporate entity could harvest money from their very humanity! how could anyone do something so evil?"

and now it's like, "ah, yeah. this is still deeply fucked up, but it's pretty much what every influencer has been doing to their kids for a decade now. probably bad that we've normalized this experience"