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faerywhimsy · 1 year

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TL;DR

Nobody: ....

Me: So Benji Mahmoud could have been an incredibly important and dynamic character, with relevant ties to multiple themes Prince Lestat did a good job pulling on. I would have been real happy to have seen more of his character and, since I didn't, I guess I'll settle for writing about it here.

Hyperlinks go to the posts I thought of as I wrote this.

I've been feeling pulled to post a lot of head canons that involve Benji lately and I think I'm starting to kinda stumble across why it all of a sudden feels important to me.

Like a lot of things in this fandom, it actually starts with Daniel.

Daniel is the only character we see in the original TVC trilogy, in real time, being human and then being brought into the blood. He's just Some Guy who happens to start all this shit that blows out 13 books. And that's relatable. Most series have that character through which the reader comes into the world of the story. It's an established narrative technique.

And then we get the final TVC trilogy, the three books we never thought we'd get because Anne kinda finished the series a decade before and went on to bigger and better things.

*cough* not *cough*

So we get the final trilogy. In which we are introduced to a blond, male character, human when we meet him but, oh no, he gets involved with vampires and ultimately ends up begging to be turned, then spends the rest of the series as a vampire.

Stop me if you've heard this story before.

Now I've got nothing against Viktor. His romance with Rose seems sweet, and he's always going to have a bit of the centre stage just because he's the literal genetic clone of our main protagonist, Lestat. It's a bit hokey but, you know, so is a lot of what we ended up with in the later books. We're just grateful it didn't all end with Blood Canticle and now weed out the things we like.

It's just... I can't help thinking an existing youthful vampire from TVC would have given deeper resonance to the story than introducing a new character with a similar trajectory did.

What might the last trilogy might have been like if Benji—the third human-turned-vampire we meet between these two characters—had been just a little bit more utilised. Not as a love interest, or a plot point, but for himself. Cause just his placement in time and circumstance offers a lot of narrative potential.

We first meet Benji Mahmoud as an important character in Armand's recovery after he attempts suicide. He asks to be made into a vampire, but isn't obsessed by it, pretty much accepts it and moves on when Armand tells him it can't be done. ("Oh, never. I don't have such a power. It's never done." "Then who made you?" "I was born out of a black egg." - TVA)

There's a lot of a sense that he and his companion Sybelle are replacements to a writer who no longer wished to write about Daniel in Armand's emotional trajectory, and I know that put me off both these characters for years. But the side effect is, we get a continuity to show Armand doesn't just stop after Daniel walks out on him, and can choose to read that Armand was hurting and traumatised when recounting these events to David.

Back to Benji. When Benji is turned, he is 12 years old and it's the end of 1998. There's a reason I like both of these things: 12 years old is just about the youngest I've heard any us fans picking up the TVC series of books (omg that's way too young for this content, my friends, I mourn all our brain chemistry), and the birth year of 1986 makes Benji not just a millennial, but lot closer in age and experience to a lot of us than the far off birth year of 1952 for Daniel-the-Baby-Boomer. I also think it would have been a lot easier to remember to read Daniel as not a millennial had there been another character front and centre who was.

The way I see it, Benji could have added so much nuance as a character of TVC if he'd been fleshed out. Most of the time if I remember to think of Benji in canon, he seems like the faded middle child, a plot point with a name in Prince Lestat, nothing resembling a fully fleshed out character.

And that makes me sad. Sad for his character, and sad for us. I'm not saying get rid of Viktor, don't get me wrong, I'm just saying that in a cast of 183282 vampires, there was surely enough room to do more with Benji than give him a radio show recorded within the walls of Trinity Gate.

Like, just off the top of my head: Did he ever leave those walls? Was he still as much of a smart ass with a commentary on everything after 20 years in the blood? What did he figure out that he liked to do with his time when he wasn't recording? Did he remain close to Sybelle? How did he feel about forever holding the visage of a 12 year old? What kind of evil doers did he hunt? What was his relationship with Armand? What did he think of Daniel? Was it a bit awkward coming face to face with his maker, Marius, after so long? Was he included with the guys whenever Armand, Lestat and Louis caught up? Is he more like Daniel at court, really fitting in more amongst the more ancient characters, or does he prefer coming across as one of the wiser young ones when he visits Auvergne?

Hell, if Viktor is basically Lestat's son and Benji is kinda Armand's son, what do the interactions of that Next Generation look like??

Conversely, what were Armand's thoughts beyond the immediate aftermath of Benji and Sybelle having been brought into the blood? Did he lose interest in Benji after Marius turned him? Was he protective of him? Were there times when he looked at Benji and felt woefully guilty about Claudia who died for the offence of being a child vampire? Was Benji a way for Armand to heal the mistakes he had made with both Claudia and Daniel in different ways before him? Louis and Benji live in the same house for at least 10 years together; what were their interactions like and did Armand have any thoughts on those?

#can i have a round of applause for #benji mahmoud #because apparently today I am stuck on minor character love #and a treatise of the humans we see turned into vampires during the course of the chronicles #the vampire armand #trinity gate #prince lestat #the devil's minion #daniel molloy #viktor de lioncourt #vc shitpost #nik re-reads TVC

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heartsbreaking · 7 months

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the way so many rphs are releasing psds i wanna use and now i wanna make blogs

fuuuuck i cant make single muse blogs cause we're in our mumu era but there are SO MANY nice psds i wanna use rn

catch a few i wanna use under the cut

marie mor.eau

gracie floyd

unknown which muse i'd use this one for i just wanna use this psd (testing on kat cause when do i not)

#my single muses are eh sideblogs are the devil but these psds are so niceee #there's more i wanna use but i have class rn #*[ OOC ] . . . a treatise on the effects of caffeine

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moorishflower · 19 days

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"De Profundis" for the wip game 👀

Hello hello! De Profundis is my next continuation of the Hierarchy of Needs! :D Hob goes to a party! Dream has some revelations!

"I am expected. To host a delegation from Hell. To foster better relations between our realms." All of those words mean something, Hob thinks. Individually, anyway. Host, all right, the gathering, a delegation, makes sense, there have to be people to host...and then his brain gets hung up on the word 'Hell' and stops, and refuses to go any further. Hob clears his throat. When he tries to speak, his voice still comes out as a weak little croak. "I'm sorry," he says, "but you said 'Hell'? As in, fire and brimstone, nine layers, the devil?" "The nine layers are something of an authorial embellishment," Dream says. "But. Yes." "I see," Hob says, and then he just sits for a few minutes, because doing anything other than that seems a bit beyond him. Bless Dream for his oddities, he doesn't try to make Hob talk or ask him questions, but sits quietly with him, and periodically he slightly moves his hand, so Hob can feel he's still there. Hell. Hell. Actual, real Hell, which Hob had decided was irrelevant to him as soon as he'd really internalised that he wasn't going to die, and which he'd almost stopped believing in entirely sometime during the Enlightenment after he'd read Hume's Treatise. There'd always been a little part of him, though, which had thought that if things like his stranger existed, if there were beings out there who could bestow immortality with a word, then who was to say that the Devil didn't actually exist? Who was to say that Christ wouldn't someday return and usher in a brand new world? He doesn't actually know exactly how long he sits and processes this. Well, 'processes' is probably a generous word for it, but he compartmentalises, and that's what's key at the moment. It must be longer than ten minutes, though, because when Dream finally squeezes his hand hard enough to bring him out of it the chicken kiev is no longer steaming. "Ought I have informed you of the guest. Before I asked you to intend?" he asks, and Hob smiles wanly at him, trying to shove down the part of himself that remembers being very concerned with his immortal soul sometime in the early 1400s. He doesn't want to lie to Dream, but... "It...would've been appreciated," he says, and then quickly adds, "I would've said yes anyways! Of course I would. It's just...it's a bit of, uh, a shock."

#ask game

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caesarsaladinn · 2 months

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My hypothesis is this: that the spout is nothing but mist. And besides other reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled, by considerations touching the great inherent dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale… He is both ponderous and profound. And I am convinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings, such as Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always goes up a certain semi-visible steam, while in the act of thinking deep thoughts. While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the curiosity to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected there, a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over my head. The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep thought, after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an August noon; this seems an additional argument for the above supposition.

Ishmael, caffeinated out of his mind in a frenzy of philosophy, staring at himself in the mirror: “I look so much like a whale right now”

#moby dick

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luc3 · 5 months

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Nails. (French Folks Tradition.) part 1

Cutting your nails :

This is not a trivial act, and several Roman authors from the 1st century mention prohibitions linked to this gesture.

Plutarch explains that nails come from an impure secretion of the body and that one should not get rid of them during sacred periods. (Treatise of Isis and Osiris.)

In the Satyricon, Petronius has one of his characters say: "I have heard that it is not permitted for anyone to cut their nails or hair on a ship, except when the sea becomes stormy".

Pliny indicates that it is a very bad omen to cut one's nails, without saying a word and starting with the index finger, during the markets of Rome. (Book 28)

19th century' superstitions still current :

You should avoid cutting them on days of the week that contain “r”. In the Vosges it is explained that this allows us to protect ourselves from toothache. In Normandy it brings bad luck, and in Maine, it is every month in "r" that attracts bad luck.

The Vosges prescribe to avoid Fridays at all costs, because they lengthen the devil's horns, and recommend Mondays, for those who want to permanently protect themselves from toothache.

Nor should one cut one's nails during the waning of the moon, lest they never grow back.

In the Pyrenees, if you cut your nails after sunset, the clippings mysteriously go into the eyes of horned animals and cause blindness.

According to another widespread superstition, you should not cut the nails of small children. This would give them hooked fingers, they would become thieves or they might even die.

Omens / Divinations :

They say in Provence that people who have curled nails die young. In the 19th century, the small white spots that sometimes appeared on the nails often meant lies that had been told. In certain other places, they predict a happy life (Poitou, Brittany); a gift or inheritance (Corsica.)

It is also said that these spots reveal a person's jealous character, or the number of their sins. (Maine et Loire) To make them disappear, simply blow on them in the morning on an empty stomach (Seine - Maritime.)

In Corsica, a black sign on the nails announces a death in the family (if it is noticed in the house); or that of a close relative (if we see it on the stairs.) If we see this stain outside, it will be the death of a distant relative or friend.

[Excerpts freely reproduced from M.C Delmas.]

#Nails #French Folks Traditions #Delmas #Thiers #part 1

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cosmic--dandelion · 7 months

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So how did we get from this

To this?

Let's talk about the history of Beelzebub!

Beelzebub is strongly associated and indeed often conflated with Baal, a Hellenistic era pagan god worshipped everywhere from the Canaanite city of Ekron to Greece (where he was known as Belus) to Egypt as far back as 1400 BCE. He is first mentioned in the Books of Kings (2 Kings 1:2–3, 6, 16) as Ba'al-zəbûb, meaning "Lord of the Flies" in Hebrew, a possible corruption of "Lord of the High Place" meant to denigrate the deity after he was appropriated and repurposed as a false god, then a demon. Baal worship was extremely difficult for the early Christians to stamp out, so they basically stole other people's mythology and used it as a free idea bucket to fill out the Bible's rogues gallery.

While it's true that in some Ugaritic texts, Baal is depicted as expelling flies and causing sickness, he was still held in high esteem in ancient Canaan and Phoenicia as a powerful deity who controlled the sun, storms, and fertility and who defeated Mot, the god of death and the underworld. The ancient world could get pretty scatological at times! After all, one of Beelzebub's contemporaries, the Egyptian sun god Ra, was often depicted as a dung beetle, then a prominent symbol of rebirth.

Some scholars think he might have even been the same god! Beelzebub seems to have been the ancient world's go-to demon because the name has been used interchangeably with everyone from Lucifer, Satan, and even Hades in some gnostic texts.

Unfortunately, we don't have much information about Beelzebub's pre-Christian origins other than some iron age ruins in what is now modern day Israel that suggest his temples were decorated with little golden flies, which is pretty neat.

Interestingly, Jesus himself was accused of being a worshipper of Beelzebub multiple times in the New Testament. Maybe the Pharisees were projecting?

Throughout the Middle Ages, Beelzebub reappeared again in the Lantern of the Light (where he was associated with the sin of envy), De Occulta Philosophia, Princes of Hell, and other demonology texts. 16th-17th Century French Inquisitor Sébastien Michaelis elevated him to the rank of fallen angel in his book The Admirable History of Possession and Conversion of a Penitent Woman: Seduced by a Magician that Made Her to Become a Witch, translated to English in 1613. It was around this time Beelzebub started to become strongly associated with witchcraft. Michaelis should know; he burnt over 14 women accused of being witches!

Unsurprisingly, his name came up repeatedly during the Salem witch trials.

Beelzebub and fellow demons new and old bounced all over different classifications of demons during the 1500s and 1600s. In John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, first published in 1667, Beelzebub was part of an unholy trinity consisting of him, Lucifer, and Astaroth. Occultist Johan Weyer decreed that Beelzebub was the Emperor of Hell, having led a successful revolt against the devil. German theologian Peter Binsfield described him as the Prince of Gluttony in his 1589 Treatise on Confessions by Evildoers and Witches. Before that, he was associated with Envy, then Pride.

We even have his personal signature! (At least according to the Grand Grimoir, an anonymous text on black magic of unknown origin)

Beelzebub's physical appearance is even more diverse. He's been depicted as everything from a leopard, a feminine man as tall as a tower, a snake, a calf with a fly's face to...whatever the literal hell this is:

"'dressed like a bee and with two dreadful ears and his hair painted in all colors with a dragon's tail"

Jacques Albin Simon Collin de Plancy (1793 – 1881)'s Dictionnaire infernal was among the first to depict Beelzebub literally as a fly. No duck feet, no lion's mane. Just a fly.

Still better than this.

As Plancy was a skeptic influenced by Voltaire, the book was first intended as a folklore compilation but was later modified to fit with Roman Catholic theology after he converted, much to the consternation of his admirers. Many of his lurid illustrations later appeared in S. L. MacGregor Mathers's edition of The Lesser Key of Solomon...for better or for worse.

Put Adrammelech in Helluva Boss you cowards.

So basically, Beelzebub has been a public domain character since before King Tut was laid in his golden sarcophagus, and people have been just making shit up about him for millennia. What's your favorite depictation of Beelzebub? This is mine:

Nothing beats 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons artwork.

#helluva boss #queen bee #beelzebub #character design #meta #demonology #history #mythology #long post #vivziepop #dandelion watches hellaverse #religion

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restless-witch · 5 months

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nothing in the world is mine, but my love, mine

hey hey I did a one-shot for once, I've posted it on Ao3 here but I know some of y'all like to read fic on tumblr so it's below the cut

Comments and likes always appreciated <3

He clocks the bard as either noble or a romantic the moment he sees the gloves on his hands. They're subtle, as far as the custom goes, a dark olive colored kidskin with a simple flower button wrapped around his wrist and covering only his thumb. The Witcher always wears gloves of a kind, Jaskier determines after a few weeks on the path together, though out of utility. a quick soulmates AU where soulmates have matching marks on the sides of their hands // title shamelessly stolen from Mitski's "My Love Mine All Mine"

Rated: T for swearing

Fandom: The WItcher TV

Pairing: Geraskier (Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier), background Yennralt (Yennefer of Vengerber/Geralt of Rivia)

Language: English

It's not satisfying when the bards confirms both to be true on their way to investigate the devil but when they're being kicked by Toruviel, he thinks that if the bard was a full gloved wearing hack then they'd both be dead.

Which also isn't satisfying.

The Witcher always wears gloves of a kind, Jaskier determines after a few weeks on the Path together, though out of utility.

Apparently the most dressed down the witcher ever gets is a pair of fingerless gloves worn even to sleep. Something about improving his grip and tendon injuries- Geralt tenses up when he can sense Jaskier wants to ask if witchers even have marks. Jaskier can feel how fragile their friendship is. He doesn't press the issue.

He hopes that puts a mark in his favor.

By the end of the season, Geralt determines the bard has no less than seven pairs of gloves- yet only two of them are permitted to actually get dirtied. Two suede pairs to match the colors of his "lover's eyes" (unoriginally brown and blue), three pairs for wearing in town, and a scant two pairs for all his bathing, cooking, and laundry.

It's utterly ridiculous.

Before they part at Ban Glan for the winter, he tells the bard to get more sensible gloves before spring on the Path.

He's at Ard Carraig before he realizes he planned for the bard to join him again.

When he returns to Oxenfurt, the two pairs of gloves he has for washing are nearly worn to shreds- he throws them down on the table at the Wishful Warbler with a grin when Shani asks about his travels. He's going on real adventures with his-maybe-friend-Geralt and getting dirty and everything. He spends the winter as a research assistant to Professor Berlyn and learning to make stacks of washing gloves.

His friends, who largely only own a pair or two or have entirely dispensed with the custom, are overrun with gloves of varying quality. Priscilla generously accepts a stack whose thumbs must all be split open to accommodate even her dainty digit.

He manages to barter for a pair of amber saffron dyed kidskin gloves- painstakingly transcribing Metz's treatises on celestial calendars small enough for Valdo Marx to use them as crib notes.

It's worth it.

It's a true lark to set them along with his brown and blue gloves and he whistles when they meet up in the spring and he waggles them in Geralt's face and thinks Geralt is about to strangle him- before the ludacris stack of washing gloves topples out of his bag onto the witcher's lap and he can't help but bark a laugh into Jaskier's delighted face.

He knows the bard is, at least, serious about walking the Path when he drops the stack of gloves on Geralt's lap. It's a bit of a child's attempt at adulthood, he admits to himself because he knows it would crush the bard to know twenty years of life does not make a man.

Still, it dampens his concerns of noble nonsense a bit to see where the calluses from needlework have made his fingertips even more knobby alongside the ones from his lute. For all the work Jaskier puts into his hands- carefully filing down his calluses and nails when they crack and rubbing ointments in before he beds down- Geralt can see it's a dedication to practicality and not vanity.

The bard is unconcerned by the healing scars where broken strings have cut into the flesh or the uneven tan marks across the backs of his hands where the different gloves have sat.

Jaskier wonders, just a teensy bit, if Geralt's glove wearing excuse isn't a little... weak.

Always needing his full grip strength?

It's a lighthearted solstice evening where he's helping Geralt in the bath when the witcher turns his head to the side, immediately stands up and storms over to the next room (nearly cock out and everything if Jaskier hadn't thought to throw the bath sheet at him) and throws an unwanted suitor off the serving girl.

There's suds dripping out of Geralt's hair all over the floor that he knows he'll wipe up later with the very gloves he's wearing now and Jaskier thinks he is maybe falling in love, for real this time.

A handful of times, he catches the bard cooing over marks in taverns. He wonders if it's a bit- some flirtation over how a lass or lad with such lovely signs could possibly take up with a scoundrel like him.

It's not the most rakish bit he could suspect of the bard- though he notices the bard never takes off his gloves in return. He wears them even in the cities and hamlets where the custom is less common or replaced with simple patches of dyed skin.

It makes him seem damn right virginal to keep them on all the time.

Perhaps the bard's mark is something obscene- it's not unheard of. If that were true though, he suspects the bard would leverage it into some pickup line about his prowess in bed.

Perhaps the bard has no marks- a person blessedly free of obligation or destiny.

He thinks it would be a kinder fate for Jaskier to be free of those kinds of concerns.

Jaskier knows his fastidiousness with wearing gloves is a little unusual for the current fashion but he commits to the bit.

He thinks it's more romantic to have them revealed and thinks his are especially gorgeous; a simple sun on his right hand and a moon on his left, a small comet arcing over each and a few lines he thinks are wind or perhaps clouds. He's seen more ornate or filigreed marks- even the occasional mark with a splash of color- but his marks are so curiously endearing.

When he links his bare hands together he sees a miniature of the universe and hopes that one day, he may hold his soulmate's marks against his own and feel the world between their hands.

He'll admit he's kept the privilege of the reveal to himself; but he'll be a little selfish if it means he can know to watch their delight when he reveals a world in his hands- a world to share.

He's not sure where his soulmate will fit in this life he's made in Oxenfurt and on the Path, but he never could have predicted the love that's already sprung up in his life already.

It's a very late night, or a very very early morning, when Geralt asks Yennefer about her marks- the marks erased when she became a mage.

"Never had one," she says, teasingly tracing the edge of his gloves, "I never needed fate to find love."

In the dark, between a sigh and a moan, his gloves are cast away.

When the sun has properly risen and midday creeps closer, she holds hands between her own.

"Rather provincial, aren't they?" She brings the tender pale flesh of his palm to her mouth and bites playfully, "I'd expect nothing less of a Rivian."

"Not quite a Rivian," he says and gently wriggles his fingers against her jaw, smiling as she can't help laugh and let the marks out of her teeth, "are they to your liking?"

Her answer comes as a carafe of apple juice.

It's a hard day: starting with Geralt stumbling through a portal smelling of lilac and gooseberries and ending with Jaskier dragging a nearly-drowned Geralt out of a waterhag's shack.

Two baths were called- a rare luxury in a rickety town- for Jaskier knew a shared bath would end up with at least one of them more disgusting at the end. Geralt is, Melitele be praised, uninjured besides a black eye that blooms stark against the lingering potion-pale pallor he'd had earlier.

The two strip and Jaskier climbs into his bath: Geralt casts a look at the door and cocks his head and throws his pus-soaked gloves straight into the chamberpot.

They soak, side by side, and chatter tiredly and Jaskier thinks nothing of it when Geralt offers to perk up his water and he sees the moon and comet and dappled lines on Geralt's right hand as he casts Igni into the bath.

The smell of lilac and gooseberries and fucking are starting to sweat out of Geralt's hair and the memories of the wedding feast cut through him, unbidden, and Jaskier should have won another master's degree in performance for the way he blames the jump in his heart on the scalding water.

The curling misery he later blames on the thought of ridding the swamp stench from his boots.

Jaskier learns to knit gloves sometime around when Geralt forces himself to admit the bard is past boyhood. It's a rather domestic skill for Jaskier to learn in adulthood, though he claims they're easier to make and repair on the Path: which isn't a lie exactly and the bard does earn them a few coins fiddling with the needles in town and selling the gloves.

The knitted gloves seem to be his preference now- less prone to tearing as they wear and able to go longer without laundering. It's the threads of anxiety beneath it that give Geralt pause, he's been presuming Jaskier was unmarked entirely and wore the gloves for attention, but the longer he guards the little span of flesh the more Geralt thinks a tragedy must lie beneath the scraps of fabric.

Perhaps the person he shared his marks with had rejected him- though Geralt thought that unlikely given how firmly Jaskier had attached himself to Geralt's side despite him trying to outrun the bard for a year. Whoever shared his marks didn't stand a chance against Jaskier's persistence. Against his smile.

Perhaps the person he shared his marks with was already dead. Geralt didn't believe in the machinations of destiny or soulmarks, but that too twisted at him. Jaskier was a scoundrel, yes, but didn't deserve that so early in life. At the very least, it would explain why the bard wasn't concerned to muck with his fate by sharing his time with a witcher.

At the very least, he counts their time together as a blessing now, even if it's stolen from another.

Jaskier thinks it's finally time to come clean about his marks- their marks really. Not all marks are about just two people, he knows that, and Yennefer isn't the worst person to share a life with.

Honestly, he already does- Geralt's adverse to destiny but Yennefer would be sensible working out some kind of custody schedule if they didn't want to invite him in. He shares his life with Geralt, which is more than many soulmates get. He's not even sure he wants more of their lives shared, but the longer he keeps the marks hidden- the more the omission feels like a lie.

The more he knows he's lying to Geralt.

He figures it's an even shot Geralt that he'll never see him again or he'll be invited to winter at the Kaer.

It turns out he didn't even need the marks to drive Geralt away, being himself was enough.

"See you around Geralt."

A week after the dust settles and the Deathless Mother has been banished from their plane, Geralt notices Jaskier's gloves stretch from wrist to fingertip and when Jaskier is pulled into what is rapidly becoming Yennefer's lab, he can hear a sympathetic pained groan from Yennefer as Jaskier's fingers are rebroken.

Geralt knocked against the open door of Jaskier's room: Jaskier kicked another log into the fire-

Geralt should have thought of that.

"Come in," Jaskier said and settled back into the chair before his diary. Geralt saw a page with very few words and many drops of ink smeared across it.

Geralt took the poker and rearranged the wood of the fire to burn more evenly, "Yenn says you haven't been caring for your burns," he coaxed the fire into a more even burn and pressed it further back into the hearth.

There was a long silence, "I can't open the jar," Jaskier admitted.

"You know anyone here would help you, Jask-" he dragged a hand through his hair, had he really fucked it up that badly?

Jaskier's silence said what it needed to.

"I'm sorry I didn't make that clear, Jaskier," he said and saw Jaskier's gaze drop lower, to the page in front of him, "may I help you now?"

"I would like it if you opened the jar," Jaskier said, "I don't want to trouble you any further. And thank you for the fire-"

"It's not trouble, I should-" Geralt huffed a sigh, "I should have thought of it sooner. Thought of you sooner- please, let me help you."

Geralt could have heard a pin drop on the opposite side of Kaer Morhen as he waited for Jaskier to say something- anything.

He opened the jar of ointment and held on to it, even when Jaskier put a trembling hand out to grasp it, waiting for Jaskier to permit him to tend to the burns. Jaskier gave him a worn look.

Jaskier carefully took his gloves off- his fingers still wracked with the persistent tremors that made the single button at the wrists take an achingly long time to unfasten.

"The draughts help," Jaskier said softly, "but they will take time to subside."

They do not speak of the lute calluses that have started to thin and peel off entirely.

The gloves came off Jaskier's hand- revealing two palms and thumbs soiled by burns. There, amongst the gnarled scars, laid the burst remains of a sun and a moon.

Metz's treatise on the formation of the celestial spheres says the bursting of a sun creates a black hole: swallowing whole planets into its gravitational pull.

Geralt thought, perhaps, he should have considered his own marks when he wondered of Jaskier's for how often their hands touched.

"Don't-" Jaskier started, he took a deep breath and looked at the marks and not at Geralt, "please just the ointment, Geralt," he held out a hand again to take the pot from Geralt.

Geralt took the little pot of ointment, preciously carried in his saddlebags from Cidaris to Gulet to Kaer Morhen, and tugged off his own gloves as well. He carefully scooped out some of the ointment, the smell of dusk campion faint and familiar, and he warmed it between his palms.

He gently dragged his palms over Jaskier's before nimbly working the oil and medicine into his skin, taking care to rub into the creases between his fingers and the bumps of his remaining cuticles.

Yennefer says the draughts will help the nerves return and the ointment will smooth the burns.

Geralt was careful to be methodical and detached as he covered the marks with beeswax and the scent of campion. He cannot help but imagine the pain that forced Jaskier's sun and moon to bubble and split so wide; the layered burns that distort the comets into slashes of lightning.

He cannot help but wonder why Jaskier didn't leave him to rot.

He cannot help but wonder why soul marks are counted as a blessing when his sun and moon remain clear and smooth while Jaskier's have ruptured into glowing black holes. He must not be an expert, there must be a gap in his knowledge, for he'd once counted Jaskier's dismissal as a blessing.

"Easy there, Geralt," Jaskier said kindly, "there's no reason for all that."

Of course Jaskier could interpret the bite of Geralt's lip and the furrowing of his brow.

Geralt held Jaskier's hands between his own, their suns and moons nearly meeting where the burns didn't warp them, "I'd given up on seeing this," Jaskier said fondly, "our own little world in our hands." He traced Geralt's comet down to the bowl of the moon, "Thank you Geralt, you did a very good job."

"I'm sorry," Geralt managed, "I didn't know."

"I didn't really want you to, would you have received it well?" Jaskier said pointedly, then his voice softened, "it was bad enough I wormed my way beside you- this- Geralt,” he gently squeezed their hands, “This is more than I dreamed of.”

"You should want more," Geralt said, "You should ask for more. I'm sorry-"

"I've said the same of you," Jaskier laughed softly, a rare sound of late, "I've said the same of you many times. Perhaps we can work on this together."

#actual fic nothing in the world is mine but my love mine #geraskier #geralt/jaskier #the witch writes

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1five1two · 8 months

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The feaefull aboundinge at this time in this countrie, of these detestable slaves of the Devil, the Witches or enchanters, hath moved me (beloved reader) to dispatch in post, this following treatise of mine (...) to resolve the doubting (...) both that such assaults of Satan are most certainly practised, and that the instrument thereof merits most severely to be punished.

King James VI of Scotland

#quotes #King James VI of Scotland #demons #witchcraft #scotland #united kingdom #england #books

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lepertamar · 11 days

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again thinking about this and again too meandered off to feel like adding it to a reblog addition, about a specific casual ableism overlooking i did here with the line:

(though hm. within holy-circles, tongue-price holies (eg the option that can be explicitly nonconsensually done) specifically perhaps? but that's a subset)

the idea of tongue-prices, from verbally speaking a name of g-d with the tongue, being the ONLY way to force g-d to holify someone isn’t actually canon! what’s canon is that finding out one of g-d’s names is the only way to force it. from birds:

“Although, you can find out one of Their names, of course. Then They can’t reject you. That’s how Lilith did it. So, if you’re really serious about it, why not try that?”

i know intellectually perfectly well that sign language is — linguistically and neurologically and etc — the same as speech (unlike writing, which isn’t btw! it’s a different skill), but clearly my brain casually conflated language with speech in remembering it, instead of remembering the exact wording.

so — there are probably many hand/arm-price holies who signed a name of g-d, consensually or not.

in fact! if it was done with realism/verisimilitude/research accuracy on the part of the in-universe author, it’s probably the method the fictional protagonist of the in-universe novel in chapter 5 of stars used to lose both of her hands followed by intense regret and dislike, as in Birds g-d is suspicious of and insulted by holification requests that are motivated by misunderstandings and projection about the request’s relevance or lack thereof to the actual underlying desire. i mean afaict it sounds like the unnamed novel might be an uncharitable depiction, and therefore might not have much accuracy, but otoh we never find out how the book ends, we don’t know if the depiction is negative as in bigoted/meanspirited or simply negative as in focused on the potential negative outcome of an incredibly high-risk action. and lucifer’s projection and wishful thinking in summarizing it is pretty thick. and i know i definitely prefer the reading that the situation the novel depicts is a possible one rather than impossible.

and even if it is a meanspirited fearmongering depiction, that might ironically be even more fitting: the very next two epistolary texts in Stars that appear after that novel — in chapter 6 — have a theme of the emotional valence of a text and the factual implications of it being at odds, even more specifically than the general recurrence throughout Stars of texts that explain concepts in an intensely alienating and misleading, even if not actually factually inaccurate, way. the epigraph of ch 6 is the fallen angel asriel railing against the devil-like seductive corruption of g-dfire in a way where the most interesting interpretation imo is that nothing they say is actually untrue, just a very funny ‘wow you’re talking about this like it’s a bad thing.’ and, in the book yenatru’s reading, by the angel israfil, whose treatise mentions g-d-manifestation in neatly logical and reassuringly positive terms, but terms that appear to at the very least have basically no experiential truthfulness/salience, especially by the end of the series.

#sehhinah #the stars that rise at dawn #the birds that fly at dusk #prices

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nebkai · 5 days

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The little goat ref sheet ;] . . .

#Elian #oc art #oc #character design #Devil's treatise #illustration #ref sheet

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lullabyes22-blog · 4 months

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Mal de Mer - Swoony Swashbucklers

Mel's girlhood reading choices are sus...

Mal de Mer on AO3

She's about to backtrack, when Silco says, "In time."

"In time?"

"When the moment's right." He tucks her curls, damp and dripping, over her shoulder. "When you're less inclined to envision my younger self as vermin scuttling from a pile of refuse."

"That's not—"

"No? How, then, would you picture me?" A wryness creeps into his voice. "Be honest."

"Well," Mel hedges, "I know you were a smuggler. You ran the Black Lanes, with Vander. The two of you were a bit of a legend belowground. I've seen photographs of you in archived newsprints. Mugshots, too." A tiny grin flickers. "You looked quite the chancer. All hooded eyes and sharp cheekbones. But also a bit... boyish. It was the hair." Idly, she tugs a damp, dark strand. "Quite long."

"Like a drowned rat."

"Like a merman. Or a pirate." She bites her lip. "I've always been fond of pirates."

"Have you, now?"

"Oh, you should've seen me as a girl. I had an entire shelf devoted to piratical romances. The swoonier, the better." A soft laugh, and a shake of her head. "My favorite was called 'The Devil and the Sea Witch'. It was a series of swashbuckling adventures. I'd smuggle each volume out from under the Grand Matron's nose. Read it under my bed, with a lantern, until my toes went numb."

"What was it about?"

"A roguish sea captain. A smuggler, like you. Lean as a knife, and as deadly. He had a wicked right hook, a price on his head, and a penchant for seducing noblewomen. But the twist was, he was no scoundrel. Not really. He was a castaway, and the victim of a great, unspeakable tragedy. The only thing he had left was his ship, and the seas."

"And the women?"

"An escape, from the solitude." Mel's grin turns a bit rueful. "Then, of course, he meets his match."

"Melusine, the sea queen?"

"Not a queen. Just a girl who'd lost her whole family to a terrible storm. She'd washed up on the shore, the sole survivor of the shipwreck. The magistrate, a lustful beast, falsely accused her of witchcraft. He sentenced her to hang unless she yielded to his advances. She fled the gallows, and stowed aboard the Devil's ship." The grin deepens. "Naturally, they hate each other. But the more they fight, the more the attraction flares. The Captain tries his hardest to resist. He is an inveterate rogue. Master of the high seas. He has no business with a soft little chit from the gentry. But, alas, he succumbs to her charms."

"Her perky arse?" Silco guesses.

"Her spirit. Her fire. She challenges him at every turn. Never gives him a moment's rest." Mel's sigh is a playful flutter. "They are so much alike, the pair of them. Two kindred spirits, bound by circumstance. And the sea."

"So, of course, he falls in love."

"He does."

"With her perky arse."

"With everything." Her lips, curving, find his shoulder. "The story ends with a grand battle. The crew of the Devil's ship, outgunned and outmanned, is besieged by an armada from the merchant navy. But our heroine saves the day, with a potion in a bottle. Proof, that there is a bit of a witch to her, after all. The Devil declares his undying love, and they sail off to a new horizon. The rest, well... I won't spoil the ending."

"I don't need it spoiled. It's all written on your face."

"Is it?"

"Happily Ever After."

"I wouldn't know." Her lightness fades. "When Mother found my books, she ordered them burnt. It was her way. No frivolity; only cold pragmatism. I watched as, one by one, the stories went up in smoke. I stood, and I said nothing. I was twelve years old. But I'd no tears left." Mel's throat works. "The rest of my years were spent in service to her ideals. Treatises on war. Texts on governance. Blood, and coin, and conquest on every page. I read, and I learned, and I grew up."

"Grew up. Or gave in?"

"I couldn't give in. If I did, she'd win. And if she won, it meant the life she'd forged for me was all there was. So I learned to keep the rest—the things that brought me joy—locked up tight." She twists to meet his eyes. "Until, one day, I met a real Devil. And he opened a door. Then, another. And another. Each one, leading somewhere strange. Somewhere... I'd been before. Or maybe only dreamed about."

His good eye, on hers, is a steady blue horizon. "So the story, in the end, was rewritten."

"Only if I write it for myself." She lifts a quivering hand up to thread through his wet hair. "Only if I get to choose."

#arcane #arcane league of legends #arcane silco #silco #forward but never forget/xoxo #forward (never forget)/xoxo #arcane mel #mel medarda #mal de mer #melco #silco x mel

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twodiamondhoes · 2 months

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There's No Kind of Atmosphere (WIP)

A Scarian Red Dwarf AU

The door to their bunk slid open, the pneumatics swishing in a way that was familiar to Scar the same way that his own heartbeat was, when it thundered in the silence of being the last alive of over a thousand crew members.

Familiar, too, was the low hum of Grian's light bee, alerting Scar to his presence before he was even all the way through the door. Scar would never admit it, but the sound was nearly as comforting as the rumble of the ship's engine from seventy decks below.

He glanced over at his bunkmate, and was unsurprised to see him sitting at the table by their lockers, fully ignoring his astronav textbook in favor of arguing with the toaster.

"Yes, well, if I wanted a treatise on the universal quandaries of toast, I'd go to you, wouldn't I? But if, say, I didn't, which I don't, then your opinion would be entirely irrelevant."

"Rude," the toaster replied, it's voice still crackling from the last time Scar had punted it across the room. He needed to fix its voice box soon.

"You'll be lucky if you get lukewarm bread tomorrow morning," Scar said, before the toaster could start insulting Grian. They'd be at it all night, if he did, and while Grian might not need to sleep, Scar certainly did. Besides, he knew Grian liked sleeping, liked holding onto the facsimile of life, even if he was closer to being like Mumbo or Etho than he was to Scar. And it would be Scar who'd hear about it all day tomorrow, if he didn't nip this in the bud right now.

Grian stiffened, his back returning to it's usual ramrod-straightness. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth. If he weren't a hologram, Scar thought, he'd be giving himself a devil of a headache. Then again, if ever there was a man who could give himself a simulation of a headache, it would be Grian.

"Fancy seeing you here," Grian said, his voice stiff, impassable. Scar resisted the urge to tell him he wasn't seeing anything, since he refused to so much as turn and look at Scar.

"It might come as a surprise," he said instead, trying to inject some humor into the situation. Sometimes Scar thought it would be easier to tell knock-knock jokes to a wall and get a laugh, "given my magnificence, but as amazing as I am, I do still need to sleep."

Scar could hear Grian's teeth grinding together, which was a feat, considering Grian was a projection made entirely of light, and didn't have any real teeth to grind. Scar would have to applaud Mumbo about his dedication to the facsimile of Grian, at some point.

"Let me rephrase, then. I'm surprised you're sleeping here."

Scar felt the world spin a little at the way that Grian's dark eyes cut over to him, looking at him at last, even as he felt his cheeks heat at the... well at the implications of it all.

"Oh," Scar said, because it was all that he could think of. He swung himself up onto his bunk, because it was easier than trying to figure out what Grian's face was doing, and what what Grian's face was doing was doing to him. He laid back, intending to leave it there, and heard Grian's sharp, irritated exhale. Then, because he couldn't leave well enough alone, he asked, "what do you think of her?"

"She's a git," Grian said automatically, and with a vehemence that Scar honestly didn't expect. He swung himself up so that his legs hung over the side of his bunk and looked at Grian again, ignoring the way his bones went sort of itchy with a feeling he wouldn't name when he did.

"Grian," he said, exasperated, "she's you."

Grian didn't answer. At first, Scar thought that that would be it, Grian would try and ignore the conversation, but then he said, in his most standoffish tone, "It's been three million years, Scar. I've always been dedicated to the plight of women in the world, and I think it's high time we all admitted that women can be gits, too."

"That's not," Scar cut himself off with a groan. It was worse than Grian trying to ignore the conversation. He was being willfully obtuse. Scar hated when Grian was willfully obtuse about things. It made him so much more stubborn. "That's not what I mean, and you know it."

Grian slammed the hologrammatic book closed. It dislodged the simulation of a dust jacket, revealing not Advanced Properties of Physics and You, but the startlingly yellow cover of Astronavigation for Dummies. Scar thought it made a satisfying noise, even if it was a little tinny, not as robust as slamming a real book shut would be. Grian stood up, passing through the chair he'd been almost-sitting in, and tucked the book under his arm. That, more than anything, clued Scar in to how upset Grian really was by all of this. He could pass through objects without trouble--had to, actually, given as a hologram, he couldn't touch anything--but he went out of his way to avoid it. Scar suspected it was another way to hold onto life, whatever way he could.

"Yes, yes," Grian said, his voice dripping with cheer, "we all know how taken you are with her and her space heroics, and her ponytail, it's all a bit sickening, really. Still, when you get around to it, do send me a save the date, so I can have Etho burn it."

"Grian," Scar began, but found he was speaking to Grian's back as he swept out of the room. He sighed, turning to the darkened screen in the corner of the room. "Where did I go wrong, Mumbo?"

The projection of the ship's computer flared to life, Mumbo's face twisted in sympathy.

"I'm no expert, mate, and this is just a guess, but I think it might have been when you asked him about Miss Griande."

Scar groaned again, frustrated beyond belief, and let himself fall back onto the thin mattress of his bunk.

"Lights," he called, and the room faded into darkness around him. He laid there a while, pretending to sleep, until a familiar hum returned to the room.

"Lights," Grian whispered, "dimmed."

Behind his closed eyelids, Scar noticed the lights raise infinitesimally. Something rose in him at the gesture. Grian had to know he wasn't asleep, he jabbed at Scar often enough about his snoring, but he still made the gesture, careful not to wake Scar. Careful to help them both maintain Scar's plausible deniability.

Grian sighed, sounding half frustrated, and half something Scar didn't quite recognize with his eyes closed.

Part of him wanted to ask what was wrong, but with the familiar hum of Grian's light bee finally back in the bunk below his, sleep was already stealing over Scar's consciousness.

#wix writes #rdau #scarian #trafficshipping #(implied)#posting this little wip of my take on what would be the Ace vs Arnie debacle #Ariana Griande: bringer of hope to the universe #vs Grian: neurotic prankster plagued by trauma and the thought that he can never live up to his full potential #don't think too hard about it. the showrunners certainly didn't. we run on roger rabbit rules here.

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archduchessofnowhere · 10 months

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[Isabella of Parma] was a talented observer of others, and she made it her overriding ambition from early on to win over every member of the imperial family. We know just how assiduously and intelligently she practiced this art from the roughly two hundred letters to Archduchess Maria Christina that have come down to us.

These letters betray an almost obsessive concern with gaining the undivided love and attention of Maria Christina, the same age as Isabella and the object of her consuming passion. She had already started writing to her future sister-in-law before they met, doing all she could to create a climate of friendly intimacy. She called her ma soeur fidèle, my faithful sister, and declared her tender admiration for the empress and her love of Germany. Following her arrival in Vienna, the correspondence gradually intensified into ever more effusive expressions of attachment and devotion. The stream of letters did not abate even when the two women were seeing each other almost every day at court. Letters were considered the “mirror of the soul”; they provided an outlet for what could not be said in the strictly ceremonialized everyday life of the court. “My adorable sister,” Isabella writes repeatedly, “my goddess! my heart! my angel! Venus! I am mad with love for you; I love you to distraction; I worship you!” She then speaks of her lover’s “devilish” character, her cruelty and disloyalty. Much remains incomprehensible to later readers, as when Isabella refers to shared experiences and secrets (“yesterday’s adventure”), makes ironic allusions, or uses cover names. Time and again she declares herself deeply wounded, “soaked in tears,” because Maria Christina has paid her insufficient attention, and demands proofs of her love; she then begs her to forgive her jealousy. She tries to arrange secret rendezvous for the two of them, refers to their joint “marriage” and a mysterious “wedding present,” calls herself Maria’s amant, lover, or mari, husband, and refers to the two of them—alluding to operas they had attended—as Orpheus and Eurydice, Zerbin and Laurette, or Linon and Lisette. She airs the greatest intimacies without any sense of shame, drastically showing today’s readers just how low the threshold of embarrassment was in such matters. At any rate, what is invoked in these letters is far more than Platonic infatuation: “I cover you all over with my kisses,” she exclaims, “I kiss everything you let me kiss,” or even—in German in the original rather than the usual French—“I kiss your archangelic ass.” Maria Christina’s reactions have not survived, but they appear to have been more reserved, since Isabella calls her a saint and writes: “Despite your saintliness, I kiss you with all my soul, so that they may be said to be pious kisses, for what comes from the soul is purely spiritual and not of this earth, although I love all that is down-to-earth.” On the rare occasions when Isabella mentions her husband, then it is as an unwelcome intrusion, the “rival” of her beloved. Among the essays composed by Isabella there is a short, sarcastic “Treatise on Men”: the most useless creatures in all the world, good for nothing other than selfishness, more irrational than animals, elevated by God above women only so that male flaws would cause female virtues to shine all the more brightly. If girls had not been persuaded that they were useless, they would cope very well without their menfolk. The devil had a hand in play when men were created, women had no choice but to make the best of a bad lot.

Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara (2020). Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in her Time (translation by Robert Savage)

#happy pride day~#isabella of parma archduchess of austria #archduchess maria christina of austria duchess of teschen #historian: barbara stollberg rilinger #Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in her Time #historicwomendaily

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triflesandparsnips · 10 months

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Mad scientist(s) for the au ask game.

Five fun facts that would happen in the story (which I'm gonna do with OFMD, unless/until someone asks me otherwise):

In this AU the mad-scientist profession usually runs in families, but both Ed and Stede are outliers. Ed ran away from home as a child and was taken in by a childless widower who claimed himself to be the great-grandson of Johann Faust (which may or may not have been true, but Hornigold certainly had enough tricks up his sleeve with regard to the alchemical arts that it might very well have been so). Ed, under his nom de science Blackbeard, rose to acclaim for his ability to conjure spirits, his medical acumen, and his likely deal with the devil. Stede, on the other hand, was the son of landed gentry and had no connection whatsoever to the grand history of mad science-- but he collected the treatises, had more than enough money to buy himself a tower and a water wheel for the electrical experiments, and styled himself the Gentleman Philosopher without any real knowledge of what he was getting himself into. He may or may not have had some mystical robes specifically tailored for this purpose. There may or may not be quite a few alchemical symbols for Mars stitched on them.

Rather than a single ghoul to help source his Dread Necessities (as Ed has Igor Izzy), Stede has an entire crew of down-and-outs who are more than happy to find him "very definitely real philosopher's stone, absolutely" and "the hand of a hanged murderer buried at a crossroads, which always very definitely look like slightly moldy turnips after a while" and "yes it's an authentic black cockerel, but don't touch it or wipe its feather or anything, they, uh, don't like that". This may seem like they are taking advantage of Stede's naivety, and that's because they absolutely are. On the other hand, though, they do their (admittedly, not great) best to let it be known throughout the nearby countryside that the Gentleman Philosopher does not represent any particular harm to the bodies or souls of the local townsfolk, being as he's just a rich idiot with a hobby and perhaps too much faith in the honesty of others-- so no pitchforks or anything necessary, yeah? Just let the man have a nice time. And if you have a particularly funny looking turnip, let them know.

It should be stated, though, that Buttons is absolutely the son of a long and storied family of mad scientists. He will on occasion try to help Stede with his Great Works, but Stede keeps trying to add more style to the proceedings than is strictly necessary. All you really need, Buttons knows, is some auspicious moon dates and the right ingredients from trustworthy sources (and here he might look very fondly at Karl, who will in turn preen smugly), and Bob's your uncle, you've got gold or good health or a shambling creature risen from the dead, whatever suits your fancy. Buttons mostly uses his family's gifts making Aqua Vitae in less time than it ought, and for this reason, the others ignore the bird and try not to mention pitchforks too often.

Mad scientists tend to stay in one spot in general -- hence Stede's insistence on the tower, even though it necessitated more ladders and dizzying spiral staircases than he'd really anticipated -- but this will often lead to local mobs and witchfinders knowing exactly where you are at any given time, which is not conducive to scientific study. Ed had long ago taken his show on the road to avoid this very outcome, and had crafted himself a very clever caravan that could be stopped and set up whenever he found himself needing to do a little work. The itinerant life was a necessity but... it wasn't fun like it used to be. And these days, he tended to leave the majority of the work for Izzy-- cooking up simples to sell to farmfolk kept Iz busy so Ed could do the important things like sit around contemplating the universe and also maybe wonder if that whole "base metal into gold" thing was just as much of a fuckery as everything else Ed had done to gain his reputation. But Ed didn't know how to be anything other than a mad scientist. So... so maybe he needed to be looking at some other options. Really study up on that "deal with the devil" thing his detractors kept rattling on about. Maybe do some work toward the life after death thing, see if there was anything he could... prepare for. And it's as the caravan rattles down the road to the next town and he's gloomily considering whether he would rather leave his caravan to Izzy or require its immolation with his own corpse (strongly favoring the latter)... that the road bends, and he sees the tower.

The Gentleman Philosopher's tower is ridiculous. It's got at least five floors, and the top has a widow's walk, crenellations, and a pole with half a dozen flags of questionable alchemical meaning strung up it. The stones appear to be made of some kind of glittery granite, nothing like the local rocks, and the mortar joining them has either been painted or, somehow, imbued with an absolute fuckton of chrysocolla to make it look fucking teal. There's a babbling brook nearby that pushes a water wheel attached to the side of the tower, except the proportions are all wrong for any of the really big ticket experiments you can do with that kind of energy -- and moreover, it looks like it's made out of some kind of cherry wood that's absolutely going to warp all to fuck in the water sooner rather than later. There's a stable out the back with what look like half a dozen exotic creatures just bleating happily to themselves -- a grove of goddamn orange trees where any sensible person would have their vegetable garden -- and what appears to be a motherfucking koi pond by the front door. Ed is fuckin' enchanted. He is, in fact, going to go up to that tower and find out everything he can about the beautiful, genius madman running the place-- --the very second he gets done rescuing the guy from the enormous mob of torch-wielding locals currently trying to set fire to his pasty-looking corpse.

...And a bonus:

Once the smoke is cleared and the townsfolk appropriately terrified of what the mad scientist Blackbeard might summon upon them for their temerity, Ed can take his own sweet time getting the unconscious and probably-not-actually-dead Gentleman Philosopher situated in his incredibly comfy-looking bed-- there to watch him, bleed him as necessary, and come up with a thousand and one questions about the guy's whole, like, deal.

Izzy, meanwhile, has been left outside to stare in horror at the large sign affixed above the tower's door. The sign, somewhat smoke-stained now, reads:

The Gentle-man Philoſofer

Behold the True Glaſs of Alchymaie!

☞ Myſteries & Wonders ☜

Galenical & Chymical Phyſick

Some Cookerie of a Moſt Delightfful Variety

Many Excellent Remedys for Scurvy Alſo

DO NOT TOUCH THE BIRDS

"What," says Izzy, "the fuck."

#meme #AU ask game #our flag means death #something something yes it turns out that their '''chemistry''' is REAL #together they turn their own base selves into ~gold #aw yeah hit me with those alchemical themes #trifles the amateur history enthusiast strikes again #triflesandparsnips writes things #free plot bunnies #if you write it link it #do the thing

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