#I'll do my part to relieve this ailment

[dyke-pollinator]

I wonder what would happen to the Tumblr ecosystem if all trans people weren’t so fucking touch starved? Would it all just fucking collapse?

[dear-mrs-otome]

Headcanon time!

Let me preface this by saying smoking is bad. We all know this. It's not an appealing habit, it smells fairly terrible and has lasting impacts on your health - and I can say this with great authority, having been a smoker myself who was fortunate enough to manage quitting many many years ago.

But! Since Cybird insists on giving us suitors that light up, I'm jumping through some mental hoops to make things more palatable, for myself and maybe others. Which is a long-winded way of saying, Jude smokes clove cigarettes. (And probably smells of clove quite strongly too)

Now hear me out, there are good reasons I propose this! It's not just because it makes things a bit less repugnant, although that's certainly one factor. I'll put behind a cut the entirely neurotic, long-winded explanation behind my thought process.

Time frame: Obviously we know we're in the Victorian era here, which stretches a long long time. 63 years in fact is how long the queen reigned. Maybe there's been other details giving us a more exact time frame but so far I feel safe saying we're not in the early part of her reign - Big Ben clearly exists in this London, which wasn't built until 1859. Referring to postal workers as 'robins' wasn't a thing until the 1860s at least. The first commercial typewriters were available circa 1874 but the QWERTY keyboard layout we see on Kate's typewriter wasn't popularized until the Remington No. 2 was sold in 1878 where it then became the de facto arrangement. THUS, we can safely assume the game takes place squarely in the 1880s, by my reckoning. And when were clove cigarettes invented? 1880.

Clove cigarettes: Clove cigarettes are made of a mixture of tobacco, dried cloves, and sometimes other spices. They have a unique flavor and spicy smell to them that isn't actually unpleasant, but it can be very strong given how the clove overpowers the tobacco scent. (Here in the USA most clove cigarettes have been banned along with other 'flavored' cigarettes for more than a decade now, but I've had my share as a Youth) Per my exhaustive research (AKA googling) the leading theory of the origin of the clove cigarette was that they were invented in 1880 by a man in Indonesia who was - wait for it - seeking something to relieve the symptoms of respiratory ailment. They were first marketed as a medicinal product for chest pain, asthma, sore throats etc, and the eugenol contained in clove oil does function as an anesthetic. After Jude's 'Secrets' story we know for certain that he suffers from some mysterious and serious disease of the lungs, and implies that he smokes for therapeutic reasons.

Availability: Even if clove cigarettes hadn't become enormously popular in the West yet by the game's point and time, I think we can safely make a case that Jude would have access to them given his very position as head of a far-flung trading company. I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that if he'd heard of some medicinal product that alleviates lung issues he wouldn't try to get his hands on it ASAP.

And there we have it, my case for the clove-scented Jude. Go forth and do what ye will with this, fic writers etc...I know I will be until proven otherwise!

...ok who am I kidding, I'll probably stick with it even IF proven otherwise, because the alternative is just blegh.

[recitedemise]

Gale can't explain it. All his life, he's known the feeling, however, of being some vase on a pedestal in some upper-class auction. He's endured appraisals of all sorts, discerned for his quality with but a critical glance. That said, their considering gaze is not some weight that's foreign, but the nature of their study and the smile on their face-- Somehow, he feels less like an artefact and more like a meal. Again, danger chills his spine, a crack-crack sparkle all a tickle of lightning. He's aware of their study, sharp and dagger-like as it traces his veins, and he knows in his gut that they realize he's different. His tongue so usually loose feels utterly tied.

Still, people aren't so honest with their wanting conclusions. Evidently, the horrors of the Underdark must have picked at their manners. Old and lame where they're spry and daunting... Calmly, Gale adopts a knitted brow and a very polite grin. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind," he manages, pride a little bit wounded. "That said, if ever I meet such a straggler, they will be warned at once. It's reassuring to know that friends would walk among us even this far down. Serendipity certainly works in mysterious ways."

Is that so? This friend's sharpened fang does not escape him.

Funny. As dangerous as they seem, their smart-mouthed wizard yet boasts his daring. It adds a charm, he at least hopes, to be met with some spirit where gloom so persists. In a way, they're stuck in a game of a viper and a mouse where the mouse in question carries the threat of the plague. Excitement. They continue studying books as Gale waits for the strike. "From the sounds of it, I've about as much love for messes as you do," he begins. "Though from what I gather, you're not exactly lacking in your share of them. If you're aware of Sovereign Glut, then you're doubtlessly in knowledge of the Myconid's predicaments. My journeying here today is toward the relieving of those predicaments in question. On top of our matter with Glut, I've come for Nere."

Yes. Of course, he, too, has come to cure his myriad of ailments, but be it in writhing tadpole or flesh-eating orb, that's not yet a truth that Gale will give. Regardless, it certainly doesn't stop them from endeavoring to learn it. With a thundering clatter, their journal clamors shut. The window they play with giggles brightly like their eyes. Again, a cold wash of terror pricks his skin.

Gale feels terribly stripped of his robes and every pretense. Eyes widening, the wizard's hold on his staff momentarily falters. "I—" Weakly, the flutter of his heartbeat goes ice-cold. He doesn't know how to answer, all a mouse once more within the squeeze of a snake. He can laugh it off, he supposes, and comically offer 'aren't we all,' but somehow, that doesn't fit the script that they're fashioning together. Besides, they are far too smarty to fall for it. Left with no choice, Gale knows his silence would prove too telling. He closes his mouth, the sussur bloom playing with the purple in his blood. He glows just a twinge, parts amethyst and tourmaline and lavender jade. Ironically, he fits so beautifully in this hell with its gemstones, and perhaps that's all the reason how they knew so readily. Gale's like home. And they, a resident, would know death anywhere. "Conversation must seem rather redundant to you. Clearly," Gale hedges, "having lived in the Underdark, there isn't a manner of shadow you can't see through. It must strike you as exhausting being made to sift through my engaging monologues, but as I wrest with your customs, I ask only for your patience. Revealing to you my soul with rapport is more my currency."

He is dying. He hates to say it, but it's clear that he is. To think that his greatest, foulest truth has been read with a glance... Hasten yourselves. His party -- when will you return?

"Had I my way about it, I'd be perfectly content never crossing paths with your 'friends' again. Believe me, while I hardly mean any offense, I don't take pleasure tarrying here longer than I have to." His mouth thins. "You say you enjoy your puzzles. As it turns out, so do I. To study Gale of Waterdeep is to allow him to study you, and I must warn you: I am thorough."

the death rattle of all manner of beasts keened at their ears in the interim; a catalogue they sift through in the lull of their own personable silence. something thorny, spindly, like spider's limbs probing. it was a curious descent of purple coiling down the apple of his cheek that plunged elegantly down. they knew death and the dying well, for their catalogue included the shuddering breath of men, too. a touch of fatigue at the eyes and the light flex of fingers. . . something was terribly wrong with the man that sat before them just on the fringe of where the faint glow of sussur illuminated their hand and arm. traipsing between the blue and vanta-black there was a flicker of eyeshine about their vague bipedal shape. the dream of something stalking one to the grave.

and just like so it ebbed away again. personable. such was the demeanor of an apeth; the tapestries of the dark draped about them like silk. there was the gleam of a lop-sided smile to precede them, a charming snaggle-tooth of a single too-long-incisor. "you know. there's something to be said about the straggler of a pack. old, lame, sick. i'd be careful here." the petal fell away from their calloused fingertips, both arms set at a cross behind them as they half-turned away, to waltz comfortably toward another set of shelves for passing inspection.

"sovereign glut. i knew it's circle too. since i was knee-high." a dusty old tome pulled from the upper most with a rock of their boots from heel to toe. mismatched eyes peered down as they dusted it's cover. "there are duergar parasites, kicking up a fuss, making a mess of things." they licked their bare thumb. the crisp sound of pages turning followed along the whisper of their boots gliding over stone. an apex waltz in and out of his direct field of vision.

they melted away; the creak of leather bounding at the left. they stood adjacent the wizard at a distance, lips pursed with vague interest at the column of the book they'd snatched. "mm. figure i could drop by the emporium in the city if i get a real taste for readin' what's worth readin'." snap! the book shut, set aside so that the gilded claws of their gauntlet could tap against glass pane. skittering about like centipede's legs. "haha. hey, you're pretty funny." a brow lofted up, tugging at the corner of yet more gold flecks of a piercing there. "respectable? t'ut. dunno about all that." tap-tap of a clawed index to their chin, head rolling with the motion of a head-tilt. "you got a lot goin' on. still putting the puzzle pieces together."

all that languid movement, serpentine, came to it's conclusion: standing before him with the slow unfurling of yet another smile. "you're dying, aren't you?" oluwande tilted their chin up, to stare down the slant of their nose past serrated edges of bone piercing whittled away from the ribs of cambion conquests. it all coalesced in the eyes. gateways as it were; the peculiarity of the shock of pale-blue of their left presented itself as unnerving. it's difficult to meet their gaze proper because of it, by the juxtaposition of the earthy brown of the other. they seemed to see him as he presently was and yet still beyond. below the figure of a fork-tongued drow there was the touch of something beyond. the smell of a crypt, or, the slaughterhouse of a hag's den steeped.

"it's none of my business of course. none of this really is. . . but you? your little friends? you've been making your fair share of messes. and i thought i'd ask, real nice, that you keep off from killin' anymore of my friends. the hookhorrors mind their territory. and you been stompin' all over it."

[rinn1312]

I certainly wouldn't be here idk about y'all

I wonder what would happen to the Tumblr ecosystem if all trans people weren’t so fucking touch starved? Would it all just fucking collapse?