Who is she? Canonically a clockwork robot bird that looks like this: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/39560866/

Also canonically she looks like this (first appearance): https://www.furaffinity.net/view/29950711/

Or like any of this (all variations and depictions over the years, as well as the various SONGBIRD™s): https://www.furaffinity.net/view/31618976/

Let's start with a basic premise: The inventor that built her lived in the 1920s. Not "the 1800s".

The whole point of Philomela is that she is "impractical".

Very beautiful to look at, but impossible to work with.

Requires high maintenance and would be unable to do much.

Things like:
• she requires 1 hour to wind and works for 1 minute. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/42762970/ https://www.furaffinity.net/view/42762988/ https://www.furaffinity.net/view/42763001/
• she can't really fly, because she weighs over 500 KG, at most she does long jumps. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/39863382/
• she looks pretty, but is essentially useless, due to memory and time constraints. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/36971359/
• she was built as a songbird but her voice looks nightmarish. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/41415909/ https://www.furaffinity.net/view/33014288/ https://www.furaffinity.net/view/33016837/
• she seems like she would be beautiful to see moving, but in practice her movements are very rigid and toy-like. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/42629551/

Because... she is not what she looks like.

The whole point of the thing is that her maker was a genius.
But he purposely restricted himself because he did not believe in "progress".
Basically... she is the product of a "mad genius"... but ... "real madness" instead of "fantasy madness".
She can do an incredible amount of stuff... for what she is... But she is still... you know... "an over elaborate toy".
The whole point of the story is that her creator fantasizes about her too much, and avoids confronting reality.
A real robot would have stuff like fabric covering up the joints where dust can get inside.
It's the practical thing to do.

Philomela has nothing practical.
In fact she has the opposite.

She has a glass window over her most sensitive clockwork. That's basically an accident waiting to happen.
Her every step is very heavy due to how little she normally has in terms of suspensions in her humanoid configuration. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/39012477/
And if you put a glass right above what is essentially her brain and it's constantly rattled with every step...
...yeah you're making something that looks beautiful, but is only asking for trouble.
Her legs are made to switch from "anthro" to "avian". https://www.furaffinity.net/view/34851384/
As "human" legs they are very impractical, also they switch by kicking back the "back toe" which means she is constantly one slip away from ending up with a "bouncy step" that will throw her completely off... https://www.furaffinity.net/view/38286663/

It's very easy for her to miss a step and end up almost falling while doing a simple walk.
Except in reality she would not be "alive", she is an expensive toy, she would not recover this easily, she would fall and damage herself.

And yes, rubies, she has a lot of those in very impractical places (spoiler: they are all "light sensors", basically tiny eyes that tell her where her body is compared to what is around her). 😜💖👍
Her maker literally went bankrupt for making her in the first place.
That is story canon.

Final nail piece.
Look what is used to allow her to fly.
She needed something which allowed her to move those wings at 100 beats per second.
Because that is the only way those tiny wings would allow her to "jump".
But 100 rotations per second is impossible to handle for normal steel...
...so she has a triple huge ruby joint on her back! https://www.furaffinity.net/view/36058951/

And that is yet another reason why the dude went bankrupt.
Also that animation where she walks, notice how "bouncy" everything is.
And... you do not want "bouncy" on rigid construction.
Sooo... what we are seeing there is that her parts constantly rattle on their joints, because of 1920 construction materials and techniques. 😂
That coupled with her basic clock of 100 rotations per second... means that to hear her functioning would be a veritable cacophony. 😂

That brings us to electricity.
The creator HATED that with a passion.
He was a WW1 veteran and he wanted to go back to 1910s.
So he made stuff that would have been the pinnacle of 1910s but without all the stuff which he considered "evil". That is: electricity.
The creator sets his house on fire because he refuses to use electric light, and uses one of these instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3rncxf4Or8
Up to 1910s electricity was only used in big government buildings and public places.
He is a WW1 veteran and the government sent him back home because he had PTSD, which in 1910s was considered "he is a coward and an against his own nation".
So he sees electricity as the government influence.
He cannot get out to even get drunk and forget about what he saw in the battlefield because in 1920s alcohol was illegal.
So he has to get alcohol in seedy places filled with what he considers criminals
Plus Art Deco he considers very "fascist" because of all those ultra-straight lines and angles.

Except... this is 1920. "Fascism" is seen as a positive thing. Not for him though.

Sooo Philomela is 1850 tech improved with 1920 manufacturing and everything and pushed further by a genius mind...
...but she is the product of a flawed mind, that constrains himself to ridiculous demands.
she is "a dream" more than reality.
but the reality of her many flaws in design are what is important.
She can work, she can do stuff... but... she is far from perfect.
And she lacks "perfection" because of the ridiculous demands of her creator upon himself.
He is a mad man, therefore he hurt himself and his own creation.
And while she looks beautiful, the many things that seem impractical about her design are exactly the very thing that shows why her creator failed.

She is expensive.
Hard to maintain, and...
...while beautifully stunning in the pictures...
...she is a cacophony of sounds when she is in motion and her ability to "talk" has been called "nightmarish".
Finally her 3 eyes barely allow her to see a monocrome ultra-low-resolution picture of the world.
And she has to understand the world 1 minute at a time. With an analog mechanical computer. 😅👍💖
....yeah.

That is the reality of Philomela. That is what an obsessed genius in the 1920s could make, by refusing to use electricity and everything.

No wonder the moment she got her hands on magic she took it and said goodbye to most of her limitations.

There are 7 canon "songbirds".

In chronological order:
1) Philomela. The precursor.
2) Philekdikisi. Which is Philomela when she "reinvents" herself after acquiring magic.
3) Philafelis. A knock-off which Philekdikisi gave life to... to "thank" the man which gave her the opportunity to get her hands on magic.
4-6) Philepetra. Philonike. Philophana. The triplet of incomplete songbirds which were being manufactured with the money made after she was sold. She straight up gives them life and makes them different from herself.
Philepetra was just a clockwork brain which she straight up merges with a statue of herself.
Philonike and Philophana were in higher state of completion, and she finishes them.
But she modifies them so they would not look like her.
Philonike resembles a "bunny". (she is the only one of this set nobody has seen yet because she has been in "commission limbo" for a couple of years)
Philophana a "moth".
But they are basically... "reskinned birds".
7) Philagness. A woman who died for Philekdikisi. Philekdikisi felt she should not have. Therefore she gave her a new, artificial life.

The 7 of them are the canon ones. And they are all clockwork.

But then there is an 8th one. Which is still canon but... she is not clockwork.

8) Phileneoptera. (another "commission limbo" victim)

Phileneoptera is ... a special one. She was made during WW2, because Philomela's creator was unable to hide what happened.
He was forced to work for the government in the 1930s and 1940s.
And... he was forced to use electricity... and engines.

And weapons.

That said (let's "smoothly" change subject), a lot of people asked (in private) if she can have sex, because of a certain throwaway joke, from her original character sheet. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/29950711/ (central page, center-left)

Yes. It' technically possible.

No. It's the worst thing ever.

Let's recount the ways in which my bird is the "worst possible thing to have sex with" here they are:
☑ Laying her flat is next to impossible as the wings are in the way, and when the wings are not in the way, her tail is, which is sheet metal and also means she will have to have her knees raised and will get that tail between her raised legs
☑ Also no soft parts. And hard tits. So laying upon her is highly uncomfortable.
☑ She weighs 560 kg, that's about 1250 pounds for the imperialists. So her being on top is... asking for it when her winding ends.
☑ Her winding lasts 1 minute and that "vagina" up there is a winding mechanism, true, but it takes 1 hour to wind her for that 1 minute.
☑ Room temperature cold and fully made of metal, so your dick will get hypothermic really fast.
☑ She has a document shredder in the mouth. Even if you remove that... it's a metal beak, and no tongue, i'm not saying she cannot give a mouth job, i'm saying it sucks.
☑ Her palms are open at the top to allow her fingers to close. If you need a handjob your dick is basically going to be in full contact with all the gears which allow her to move her hand.
☑ Also her vagina is a winding mechanism, so your dick slides in and out but as you see it's on threads, so i guess it's like closing your hand on your dick and then opening and closing the fingers around the dick. I highly doubt that something like that is a pleasurable experience.

She has "the good looks" and she can technically "have sex" but she was never intended for sex therefore having sex with her just sucks.

The whole point was that it was a drunken addition done at the last moment.

That said. If you really want to have your own version of her where you change stuff around... here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/39510613/

You can make your own OC with that hand have fun with it.

As for her weight: 560 kg more or less... that's 1250 pounds ( approximately ) and was calculated this way:
• she is 2 meters and 40 tall,
• human women of that size weigh about 140 kgs,
• she is made mostly of steel, which has a density of about 8, while humans have a density of about 1.
• This means she should weigh 1120kg if she were solid steel,
• She is clockwork and most of her weight are her mainspring, the wings, and definitively the brain, the rest is mostly empty space.
• So i halved that which gives us 560 kg (little more than half a metric ton and that is also about 1250 pounds, rounded because the weight is just an estimate anyway). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯