i love cats. like we as a species just really go out of our way to obtain fat little house goblins in the hopes that they will occasionally acknowledge us
Speaking of Poe, I remember learning a while back that a sign of repeated low-grade carbon monoxide poisoning manifests in a really particular facial asymmetry that is super exemplified in him.
One side of the mouth will turn upwards, and the brow on the same side will turn down. It can definitely be seen in images of other people from this era, and also coincides with homes and spaces being increasingly lit with coal gas.
Symptoms of low-grade carbon monoxide poisoning can also manifest as feeling like you’re being haunted. Unease, visual and auditory hallucinations, all that. There have been instances of people today who think their house is haunted finding that they have something leaking CO into it instead.
Victorians have absolutely solidified their place as Spooky Ghost People who influenced…so much about how ghosts are thought about and portrayed today. And while there are a lot of Actual Reasons as to why things like Spiritualism really took off in the mid 19th century…ongoing CO poisoning probably didn’t help with people NOT seeing ghosts.
So i went on a date to a haunted house and made friends with the girls behind us. As we’re going through, one of them is holding my hand and a guy leaps out and separates us. I panic as my date is pulling me along, I reach back for her and grab her hand in a group of three other performers and start getting out if there. After a bit I look back to check on her and I discover I’m holding the hand of a six foot tall zombie creature and not a 5'2" girl.
Cue the most terrifying realization of my life.
I had basically kidnapped this performer from his section and abandoned the girl and her friend behind us.
Yes, I screamed. My date thought it was Hilarious.
Yes, we found the girls. Turns out when I grabbed the performers hand, he grabbed theirs so our group wouldn’t be separated. So there was just this zombie in the middle of our group line for like fifty feet
