#VERY LONG POST I APOLOGIZE...

[gotchibam]

Shiny Masquerain & Shiny Aggron ko-fi doodle for cyrus!

[hollyberrygarden]

I was thinking over the way Pavlova describes Wildberry's crush. he says (direct quote), "you know well that it won't work out, but you have no intention of giving up!" in their interaction in the kingdom, he also calls it a "foolish" type of love

and I was like. what does that imply about Wildberry's crush?? and how would it apply to Crunchy Chip??

"foolish" implies a lack of good sense or judgment. it's a crush that can only end negatively—heartbreak, fighting, strain, or some other horrible result. Wildberry could either keep his feelings to himself, being unhappy with his own cowardice. he could also confess and get rejected, therefore losing whatever bond he had with his crush in the first place. but he could also be accepted and enter a relationship, but then the worries he has could be true. it could not work out, just like he knows it won't, and it would be unfair to both of them. every possible end result (to someone who is convinced it will not work out) would demonstrate the foolishness of the crush he has. Wildberry strikes me as the kind of guy who doesn't get crushes often, and he deals with them on his own before he chooses to confess, if ever

I'm imagining him in his own head about it, which is why no one else seems to know; it could also be why he doesn't externally react to it when the others are around but pretty much concedes to his worries over it (and openly seems. I guess worried about them!!) when he's talking one-on-one with Pavlova. he has gone over these possibilities to himself without any external input. he is trying to figure out how to make it work, which is the "no intention of giving up" that Pavlova mentioned, but maybe he doesn't have a set answer yet, which is why it's still something he hasn't confessed. Pavlova only knows because it's what he does

I was thinking about why it "not working out" (very generally speaking) is something he would think about, and I wondered what kind of relationship he would want. in an overworld dialogue, Royal Margarine tells him he must be "popular with a tall, muscular build like that." whether it's true is unknown, but Wildberry says he doesn't care about such "trivialities," assumedly being popular. if he doesn't want popularity, maybe he wants something simple?? or steady?? or maybe even straightforward. it's hard to know for sure. he wants something that's actually possible for him and his lifestyle in the kingdom. he's a busy guy who often travels away for important and dangerous business. it would be difficult to be in any kind of steady relationship when that's what you do for work. long distance isn't for everyone

to him, he cannot be with Crunchy Chip because of their duties to their kingdoms. I think it circles back to that. Crunchy Chip is the captain of the cream wolves in the Dark Cacao Kingdom, and he is close enough to the king to travel with him to Beast Yeast. he protects the kingdom every day, as well as the woods surrounding it. Wildberry is a hired bodyguard to the Queen Mother, and he has sworn loyalty to her (and the king and queen of course); he frequently travels for work and is likely gone for long stretches of time, depending. they both have very important jobs that neither wants to give up. during Cookie Odyssey, they each talk about their love for their kingdoms and their respective leaders, even making a bet about who will want to visit the other more. they exchange letters on the regular. Hollyberry herself has noticed how much closer they're getting. he knows how much Crunchy Chip values his position in the Dark Cacaco Kingdom, and he values his own position in the Hollyberry Kingdom. they don't want to leave. they cannot leave. not now, maybe not for a long time. maybe not ever, in a horrible reality

it's foolish in every way fathomable. to Wildberry, at least

[applestorms]

There's this One (1) idea I keep trying to capture about Sebastian and Ciel's dynamic and I'm not sure if I've managed to quite get at it properly in my previous takes so. Guess I'm gonna go for it one more time ahahhaha =3=" (SPOILER WARNING FOR THE USUAL SHIT)

It all goes back to This Fucking Page, which I've seen plaguing the minds of at least a couple of people around here more than a few times. The question is clear: how the hell can Ciel not trust Sebastian at this point? After years of putting his life directly into Sebastian's hands, not only pulled from danger but doted on constantly, fed, bathed, and protected at all times by him 24/7-- even after all that, he still claims to trust him the least. Is he lying? Fucking with him? Making a joke?

I'd argue: none of the above. Regardless of how their relationship may actually function on a base level, Ciel is telling the truth as he believes it here, and revealing a key part of what drives him in doing so.

To fully understand this moment, I think we have to take a step back for a second and really look at what Ciel's motivations are, and also the origin of his contract with Sebastian. Specifically, the points I'd like to focus on here are as follows: what was o!Ciel's emotional state of mind like in the weeks after their introduction to the cult, and what changed at the exact moment that he summoned the demon?

In the case of the first question, we get a pretty clear answer: o!Ciel believed.

Despite the insanely horrific child abuse these kids were forced through at the hands of the cult, o!Ciel still managed to find hope and peace in the form of his protective older brother. He believed, had faith-- in God, and also his brother (same difference?). It is made quite clear throughout not only these chapters but also the few flashbacks we get pre-129 and onward that r!Ciel was the primary thing getting o!Ciel through this period of time, the one constant he could rely on. Everything about their lives changed on that day-- their parents were dead, their house destroyed, their lives and futures and known universe entirely ripped apart as their entire existence was groomed to turn them into the ideal sacrificial lambs for someone else's gain. Through it all, they had nothing but each other.

To put this another way: o!Ciel trusted his brother.

It is clear from the way in which o!Ciel talks about himself, in the few instances that we get of his most bare-faced honest narration, that he does not think highly of himself. Frankly, the fact that he felt the need at all to impersonate his brother is proof of this. o!Ciel did not grow up respecting or trusting himself, always easily accepting the view that he was simply the Spare, the sickly extra that had to stay inside and watch while everyone else got to play outside. Ciel was the brave one, the one that proudly introduced himself to strangers, who was mentored directly by their father for a job o!Ciel would never have. Ciel was the strong one, the capable one, the one powerful enough to stand on his own feet and support his brother as well. Ciel was the one to check the house, to fulfill his duty and protect him.

For all their appearances as mirrors of one another, it is clear from the moment of their birth that the twins were not and never would be truly equal. The elder, Ciel, is the future Earl of Phantomhive-- the other is only there to pick up the pieces he may or may not leave behind.

It is a dynamic ingrained in these two deeply enough that it follows through even as the rest of their lives are torn away from them. r!Ciel protects and o!Ciel believes, trusts that his big brother will always know the right path. There is thus little need for o!Ciel to ever take action or make any major decisions when it comes to ensuring their future. r!Ciel swallows the ring-- all o!Ciel has to do is keep the secret. Maybe in their previous life he could've worried about toy stores or games or making a living for himself outside of the Phantomhive manor-- but right now, when the two of them are still very much stuck in Survival Mode, all he needs to do is trust.

And then.

The object of his trust is torn away from him. They are separated, wholly and utterly, forever-- for nothing that is lost can ever again be regained. And suddenly, there is nothing left to believe in.

Thus, we reach our second point: o!Ciel's mental state at the moment he summons the demon. Faith in God/Ciel is broken, all hope is lost, familial blood has been spilled on the sacrificial altar and o!Ciel is still locked in his damn cage. Trust has disappeared entirely-- all o!Ciel wants now is power, control over his life and the shit happening to him, the exact thing he has lacked all this time, really his entire life.

KEY POINT: o!Ciel does not want (another) hero. If there is one thing that this moment proves to him, it is that he cannot ever again put all of his faith into another person to save him. Rather, what o!Ciel wants is agency, the power to decide his own fate for himself.

Again, we can infer that this is a large part of why our twin even bothers to take the name "Ciel" in the first place-- because, at this point in the story, the only way he can even conceive of having that kind of power and independent autonomy is by literally becoming his brother, the object of courage and bravery and protection that he has been looking up to for all this time. And this is something that he doesn't only believe internally, in his own mind, but constantly sees getting affirmed to him externally as well-- because, if "everybody would be happier if Ciel was the one to return," if Ciel is the only one capable of handling the job of the watchdog and fulfilling the Phantomhive duty for the Queen, then the only way he can move forward is by becoming Ciel, and leeching his power that way.

This is the fundamental moment that establishes o!Ciel's relationship with trust and Other People more generally for the entire rest of the series as we get to see it. After having his faith broken in every conceivable way, watching every single member of his family be killed in front of him while he was completely unable to do anything, o!Ciel finally arrives at a decision-- to take the power that has finally been offered to him, regardless of the consequences, just for the chance to finally have some control over his own life and fate.

o!Ciel does not care about the fact that this contract will kill him, about the fact that he is entrusting his soul to a starving demon that will eventually eat him. o!Ciel is perfectly willing to step under his own personalized sword of Damocles, perfectly accepting of the fact that it will eventually lead to his own demise-- all he wants is the power to set it up himself, to decide exactly when it will inevitably fall.

Thus: trust. From this point forward, trusting anyone else is simply not an option. Because if Ciel couldn't protect him, if Ciel couldn't uphold his faith and grant him their hope, then who the fuck could? Frankly, o!Ciel is even kinda granting him a second chance by taking his name as he dedicates himself to his revenge...

...which gets to my biggest point. Trust in other people may no longer be an option. But: trust in himself?

Now we have a chance to keep moving forward.

This is what Sebastian and his whole demon contract schtick Truly grants o!Ciel-- power, agency, and the ability to have faith in his own abilities, to stand up on his own. o!Ciel does not want another hero to save him, he is not going to set himself up for failure like that, and certainly not with the guy whose first big move is to fucking lie directly to his face.

What o!Ciel trusts here is not Sebastian, not directly, but rather his own ability to manipulate Sebastian into doing what he pleases. And this is exactly what he wants!! Again, o!Ciel does not want Sebastian to play the hero for him, to replace that which has already demonstrably failed him. He wants Sebastian to give him the power that he wants, and, perhaps ironically, he grows into a more capable and competent person in order to work as efficiently as he can under the terms of their contract to get that.

Ciel says that Sebastian is the person he can trust the least, and DUH. o!Ciel is not stupid, of course he believes that. There's a reason why every one of the terms of their contract are specifically designed to bind Sebastian down, why his first wish was to ensure that Sebastian would never be able to lie to him like that again. Never forget: Sebastian is dangerous, a starving animal that o!Ciel has only barely got chained back, who in this very arc was fully prepared to eat him alive if his traumatized state of mind made him go back on their contract a little too much.

YET: the intense irony of all of this is that Sebastian's very untrustworthiness is exactly what makes him reliable. o!Ciel knows exactly what the fuck Sebastian wants (him), and how to use that weakness to his advantage. And, in turn, this gives Ciel exactly what he has wanted and needed all this time, the chance to grow and take charge and believe in himself, that he is capable, and meaningful, and that his life has value as more than just The Spare.

It is this exact axis, the contradictory truth that o!Ciel trusts Sebastian to be untrustworthy, that their entire relationship revolves around in my opinion. It is what allows the contract to be such a beneficial force in Ciel's life, what makes Ciel and Sebastian's dynamic so appealing and fascinating to me.

Sebastian isn't a person, he isn't a human that can grow and love and be relied upon in a more traditional romantic sense. He's a domesticated demon, not an enemies-to-lovers bad boy love interest-- his fangs can never be cut. YET. Even so, I see absolutely no reason why Ciel's recognition of this fact must detract from their relationship in any way, or the fun of shipping them together. Rather, it is this exact facet of their dynamic with one another that makes Ciel such an emotionally compelling protagonist to me, and sebaciel more generally such a lovely relationship to explore. ^__^

They're fucked up as hell!! But you don't have to disregard the knives they are constantly holding to one another's throat to also acknowledge the ways in which they are loving, and warm, and build each other up into something they never could've been on their own. Ciel doesn't trust Sebastian, but he never wanted to in the first place. Instead, Sebastian gives him the chance to gain something much more meaningful, that he has never before truly had: trust in himself.

[thelaundryghost]

always one step behind

lots of yapping, scar hcs, and glitchless version under the cut!!!

RAAAAAGH I'M INSANE ABOUT LAURANCE. anyway i have a lot of thoughts about gene and laurance as some weird combination of foils/parallels and i had to make art about it

specifically though i'm insane about the physical ways laurance's experience with gene may have manifested. in s1ep53, gene expresses that he wants to kill laurance for his role in stranding him and his cohort in the nether. he (of course) gets his wish, turning laurance into a shadow knight, the process of which always requires death in order to transform the person in question.

HOWever. you also have to get a person to kill someone they're close to in order to finalize their shift, and laurance was very obviously dedicated to aphmau in full. gene could have changed laurance's memories to get him to kill her once they escaped the nether, but we see laurance immediately after he leaves the nether, and his memories are intact. therefore, he had to have chosen another way to break laurance's spirit.

additionally, because the group had no idea how long they were going to be In the nether, gene had all the time in the world to enact vengeance on the person he viewed as responsible for his entrapment.

all of that combines into (what i believe to be) the conditions necessary for gene to decide that yeah, maiming and tormenting laurance is the move.

AND THUS. the scars.

firstly, i chose to concentrate all of the scars on his face because laurance, as a lovable casanova, would likely value his appearance greatly, and gene would seek to destroy that. additionally, i hc that shadow knights have long nails similar to claws (not an uncommon thought lol).

on our right, the four slashes on laurance's cheek were caused by gene clawing at his face in a fit of anger.

the scars across his lip, nose, and eyebrow were more calculated, with gene choosing to slowly cut laurance's face in noticeable and painful places (along bone, cartilage, and tissue with lots of nerves near the surface) with his nails.

lastly, the burn mark on laurance's other cheek is from gene shoving him down onto netherrack, which burns severely. laurance had clothing covering every other part that hit the ground, but his face wasn't as lucky.

these are also the only marks that remain visible; blunt force trauma, broken bones, and psychological trauma don't generally show up as scars.

in summary: the spectre of gene haunts laurance in more ways than one.

and here's the glitchless version for easier reading!!

[hoshiina]

pairing: hoshina soushirou x gn!reader

summary: how you met hoshina at an art gallery, the art piece mentioned is The Tiff by Florence Carlyle, link to a better pic of it I took myself (I think)

notes: you're a little bold, you're a fate believer

“Darling,” Hoshina said and you immediately snapped out of your daze. “Darling, are you listening?”

“Sorry,” you replied truthfully.

“What's on your mind?” he asked, sulking a little. It was fair, considering this was your first date in a while. Ever since you got engaged, dates had become far less frequent— there was a lot to still plan out with your wedding coming up.

That made you laugh. You pointed to the advertisement on the billboard for the art gallery. “Remember?”

It wasn't like you’d always had a great interest in paintings, nor was it like you were an art gallery enthusiast, but there was one painting particular painting you had always gone back to see.

You had found it by chance one day, while you were at the gallery for a project you had. It was of a pretty lady from seemingly a well-off family sulking after a small quarrel with the man behind her— perhaps her lover. Painted in a time period where it was only natural to show and paint formality, especially in women, it showed a private more real depiction of a woman in her home.

The colours used and the pure scale of the painting absolutely took your breath away. The slight sulk on her face that seemingly unmatched her beautiful dress that took up the canvas was nothing short of stunning. You could not put a finger on just what it was that caught your eye, but it calmed you so much during a stressful week at school. Before you knew it, you found yourself going back to it whenever things were rough. It was sure to better your day.

That’s what you were doing yet again that day. Going to see that one painting. You had been going to see it rather often lately, but you couldn’t help it. Finals week was soon and things were busy at work too. It was the only thing that would calm you down.

“Excuse me,” you heard someone’s voice. You turned around just to take a look, but to your surprise he was talking to you. It was a young man, perhaps around your age. He had a long coat with a pretty sweater underneath. He was gorgeous, quite frankly. Quickly, you took your earbuds out.

“Oh, hello,” you said.

“Sorry to bother,” he said. “Is this one of your favourites? I feel as though I've seen you a few times here. I apologize if I'm mistaken.”

“It actually is,” you said. “I think that might have been me as well. I find myself coming here whenever I'm having a rough week.”

He smiled. “That sounds nice,” he said. “Sorry, I must sound terribly strange— this is one of my favourites as well. You're here quite often whenever I come to take a look. I thought I'd… say hello.”

Suddenly he seemed rather flustered.

“Oh, not at all. I'm glad you said hi,” you said. “It’s unfortunately not the most popular painting in the gallery, not many people stop by for that long here.”

He seemed vaguely relieved. Or perhaps that was in your head.

“Are there others you like?” he asked.

“Um,” you said. “A few here and there… but I usually come here just to see this one, embarrassingly… However, if you have any you're fond of, I'd love to see. If you don't mind, that is.”

“I’d love to,” he said.

And that was all it took for the two of you to spend the rest of the day together, just walking through the art gallery— stopping wherever necessary. While you actually preferred to go to the gallery alone because you felt more comfortable stopping and taking your time, the pieces you enjoyed overlapped quite a bit and you felt at ease going around and taking your time with him.

“Sorry, I hope I wasn't taking up your time,” he said after you had gone through the gallery, looking at his favourite pieces. There weren't a great abundance of them, but you could immediately tell why he liked them— they all made you want to stay longer to take a better look.

“Not at all,” you said. “I haven't felt so nice in ages.”

He smiled softly. “I'm glad to hear,” he said.

Your eyes met his, and you averted your eyes by reflex. He was so pretty, you were sure you could feel your face heating up. You hoped he couldn't tell.

“You're quite adorable, do you know?” he said, naturally.

Immediately, you turned to look back at him, and he couldn't help but laugh. “See,” he said. “You look so flustered.”

“You're teasing me!” you said.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, after a small chuckle. “I couldn’t help it.”

His eyes widened slightly and your eyes met for another moment too long— but to you, that moment felt like an eternity. The world around you blurred, the other people lost form, and the colourful pieces you were surrounded by were all just a jumble of colours. It was just you and him. And perhaps the pounding of your heart.

The next words that left your mouth were nothing but bold, but it was your heart speaking, not your head.

“Can I… ask for your number?” you asked, averting your eyes, very bashfully.

That caught him off guard. Less the fact that you’d be exchanging numbers, because he had already planned to ask you, but rather the fact that you asked him first.

“I was just going to ask. I apologize I made you ask,” he said. Then a moment. “Is this safe to say you don’t have a partner?”

Your heartbeat quickened. “No, I do not,” you said. “You?”

“No, as well. If we come here again, can I assume that’ll be a date?”

Your eyes widened. “I’d love that,” you said softly. “Rather�� could this be a date?”

His cheeks were faintly red and it took a moment before he chuckled. “I didn’t expect you to be so bold,” he said. He held out his hand, waiting for you to take hold of it, and so you did.

That was all it took for so many more dates to follow. By the third date, he had asked you to be his partner, and to his delight your reply was immediate. For quite a few dates after that one, you just met up at this art gallery to do the same thing, and after the two of you felt like you’ve checked everything in the gallery, the dates finally shifted a little. Sometimes it was a brunch at a cute cafe, or a horror movie a little too late at night, or even a study date.

It didn’t take long before you found out Hoshina was from a renowned family of swordsmen, and his goal was to join the defense force. He’ll tell you now, thinking back fondly, that in reality he was really nervous telling you about it. He didn’t know if he could take it if you had told him he couldn’t do it. Yet, naturally, you seemed so excited for him. He’ll tell you now just how much it meant to him that you didn’t doubt him for a second. That was when he knew for sure that he loved you.

Hoshina laughed. “Remember? Really?” he asked, giving you a playful jab. You laughed.

“We haven’t been in a while,” you said.

“We really haven’t. Should we go today?” he asked.

“That’d be really nice actually,” you said, and he nodded happily.

For a few seconds neither of you said anything.

“You know what scares me a lot?” Hoshina started to say, all serious. That caught your attention. He wasn’t one to get so serious often, let alone speak about his fears. You didn’t know he had fears for starters.

“What?” you questioned.

“I think about what would’ve happened if I didn’t bump into you at the gallery the few times I went. We were at the same painting, at the same time, multiple times. Anything could have gone wrong,” he said. “And then what if I hadn’t said ‘hello’? What then?”

His eyes went to his ring on his finger for a moment— only a moment— but you would never miss it. “Would none of this have happened?”

To his surprise you laughed. “No, because we’re meant to be,” you said.

His eyes widened. He knew you weren’t cracking a joke, you were laughing because to you, this was a silly question. You were dead serious.

“Think about it,” you said. “The sheer probability that we were at the same place at the same time all those times must mean something if it happened. I think that the fact that we’re going back with rings on our fingers after all these years means it was meant to be. Not the other way around.”

He couldn’t help but smile. This wasn’t out of the ordinary— he’d overthink something and you’d come and blow his worries away.

“I suppose I was meant to be yours then,” he said, oh so naturally. Then, a chuckle. “Darling, you look starstruck.”

“I am,” you said. “I was most definitely meant to be yours.”

You pulled on his sleeve and he didn’t waste a second. His lips were on yours and it hurt you how ridiculously happy he looked.

“Love you,” you said.

“Love you, more,” he said.

A few months later, the two of you were to have your wedding at the exact gallery, where everything started.

[cecoeur]

How do you sleep at night? No one to hide behind Betrayed every alibi you had You had every chance to make amends instead you got drunk on bitterness And you still claim that you're innocent, it's sad

[freaky-flawless]

FUCK OFFFFFF

[clownsuu]

Mini psa:

Please stop comparing my au to a preexisting au in the undertale fandom-- it's getting really tiresome and frustrating to constantly be compared to it

[ninawolv3rina]

I post him a lot. If you’ve been on my blog for any amount of time for the past year, you’ve seen him. But who IS he? What’s his DEAL (or, more accurately, his problem(s)?) I’m so glad you asked.

Note: in this post certain words will be hyperlinks to art of the characters and scenes that I’m referring to

This is going to be a very long post, but I’m trying to keep it as clean as possible — buckle in!

Fae is a dnd character I’ve been playing for a little over a year now in a game called Overlooks and Owlbears. We meet bi-weekly on Fridays, and most of the weeks we don’t play I’m still thinking about him. I fully initially considered him a more ‘gimmicky’ type of character, mostly built to be easy to slip into during roleplay with not *that* much going on. His concept was pretty simple: I wanted to play an evil character, and I wanted to play an old character. That was it. Everything else came directly from ‘evil old man’ and spun out of control into the man he is today.

Fae is largely inspired by some of my favorite Latino characters from popular media, as well as my own family. When I play him he has what’s functionally a more masculine, lightly hispanic accented version of my own voice, but in my head he sounds like this

Art Gallery / Vibes Playlist / Backstory Playlist / Pinterest Board

At a Glance:

System: D&D 5e (2014)

Race: Half-Elf

Class: Rogue (Swashbuckler subclass)

Alignment: neutral evil

Sexuality: Bi with a strong preference for men

Age: 100ish

Pronouns: He/him

Personality: Sarcastic, mocking, I would go so far as to say ‘mean’. Calculating in social situations, impulsive in combat. Thinks of himself as more fun-loving than he really is. He strives to come off as devil-may-care and some of that may be genuine but deep down he is very task-oriented and will take control the moment it seems like things might even kind of go off the rails.

General Backstory:

Faedril “Fae” Silvarin is the son of two heads of separate crime families - the elven Kaemarises, and the mostly-human Silvarins. Fae’s mother, Camila Silvarin, was prepared to raise him without involvement from his father, but Llewel Kaemaris surprised pretty much everyone in both families when he decided to claim Fae as his own, and gave him responsibilities and authority within the elven side of his family as well. Not all the elves were super thrilled about this, but Fae was able to uncover a coup against Llewel and leveraged that to build himself a small group of loyalists and gain respect on that side of the family. On the Silvarin side, his authority is innate, and he’s never really struggled with it… which is part of the problem.

Fae is a half-elf, so he ages slower than the human side of his family, and faster than the Elven side. At about 100 years old at time of the game’s start, Fae had seen a lot, and he was kind of tired of it. Without exactly knowing his own motivations to do so, Fae dipped out on his life of crime and leisure and decided to try his hand at adventuring on his own. All he knew was that he was tired of his reputation and wanted to start over, as just ‘some guy’ out in the world. This has had mixed results.

Fae’s Family:

Faedril/Fae Silvarin: Our man in question (he/him)

Llewel Kaemaris: Fae’s dad, an elf, head of the Kaemaris crime family (he/they)

Camila Silvarin: Fae’s human mother, former head of the Silvarin crime camily (deceased) (she/her)

The Party:

Celosia Poincaré: Fire genasi artificer. Shares Fae’s mommy issues. Has a sick gun, Fae wants her to make him a sick gun. Member of the party he’s closest with. He understands her the best, though he doesn’t know how to express it. He knows they were both raised by people who ignored their autonomy. Whether he wants to admit it or not, he’s attached to her and wants to help her turn out better than he did. (She/her)

Laurence of Abury: Human fighter. Complete good-aligned teddy bear from a family of criminals who want him to take up the family business. Dating Celosia. Fae initially thought of him as ‘muscle’ that he could order around but now he admires the guy’s carefree mindset and slight naïveté (He/him)

Scrip: Kobold cleric of a god of mercantile. Do NOT leave him and Fae in a room together they will start a pyramid scheme. Has saved Fae’s ass in combat MANY times. (He/him)

NPCs:

Goggles: a deep gnome who recruited the party to help as body guards for diplomatic missions. Still alive, despite several failures to protect him on our part (he/him)

Drow/Drider Assassin: I think it’s fair to call this guy Fae’s rival. Fae has killed him multiple times and he keeps getting resurrected. Wants to kill the party real bad.

Madame/Priestess Bitch: a drow priestess, formally the Drider’s partner who now has turned on him and become the party’s ally.

The Sphinx: A sphinx librarian that, as of now, has stuck his neck out for the party on more than one occasion. Has a personal library that includes multiverses, as well as access to an infinite library

Fae’s Parents:

Camila had Fae fairly young, shortly after becoming the matriarch of the Silvarin family rather unexpectedly when her own father passed away. She had turned to Llewel Kaemaris for advice on how to command respect the way that he did — but obviously, that relationship developed into something more. After Fae was born, Camila often wondered if Llewel’s affection for her was genuine, or motivated by power. That never fully became clear one way or another. Though he both claimed Fae as his own son and engaged with Camila in discussions about potentially merging the two families she was never really sure if those were signs of respect and love towards her, or shrewd chess moves towards absorbing the Silvarins into the already-powerful Kaemaris family.

Before the Game:

Fae grew up mostly-loved by his parents, though Llewel did put him through some trial by fire to help him find his footing within the Kaemaris family without falling victim to the label of ‘nepo baby’. He was always closer with his mother, though. Fae really loved his mom, total Mama’s boy — he was her right hand man, and the two brought the Silvarin family into something of a golden age. He always knew he’d outlive her, with plenty of time to spare, but he had determined to make the most of the little time he had. That’s why it was especially shocking and hurtful when she died when he was still very young.

At the time Camila died, Fae and everyone else thought it had been an unknown health issue, but over time he became increasingly convinced that it was foul play. Specifically, he decided she had been poisoned. But by who? Camila was a crime lord with a lot of enemies. After a decade of trying to investigate, Fae let the trail go cold, though his interest in poisons remained. His thoughts on the matter are complicated — it’s been around 70 years since she died. If the person who did it was human, they’re long dead, and finding out who they are would do little for Fae except open old wounds. If they aren’t dead… he’s not ready to think about what that means.

In fact, he’d more or less thought that his anger over her death had died out completely — that it was a mystery he’d never solve, even though his old habits refused to die and he continued to test poisons to see if, just maybe, he’d be able to use their effects to determine at the very least the method of her murder.

After Fae’s mother died, most looked towards Fae to lead the Silvarin family, but he refused. He gently guided them towards another human leader and chose to take a more subdued role. this is a move he doesn’t regret in the slightest. No part of him ever desired to be in charge of an organization like that. In fact the longer that he worked as muscle for his dad and advisor for the Silvarins, the more his enthusiasm for organized crime in general seemed to wane until it all but completely vanished.

Fae was sick of diplomacy, sick of the way the Elves treated him like a weird elderly child on the brink of death, and the humans treated him like some legend beyond their limited mortal scope. It was a frustrating line to walk. Above all, he didn’t feel like a real person to either group. He finally gave up on changing that when he decided to leave without warning either side of the family, disappearing overnight to become an adventurer.

During the Game:

Fae met the rest of the party when an inn they were all staying in was attacked by monsters that escaped couriers of the wizard’s guild, an organization responsible for both experimenting on monsters and also transporting those monsters from place to place. After successfully assisting in keeping the in from being *completely* destroyed, Fae and the rest of the party agreed to hunt down the remaining couriers who had failed at their job, and were now legally required to be killed for their failure. After following the couriers to a cave full of more imprisoned monsters, the party did their job and also found an entrance to the Underdark via territory owned by a Drow organization/family that had some… less-than-friendly history.

The party wisely decided against going down that route.

We also, during this initial adventure, found out about an element called Delirium that has powerful magical qualities, and can be fashioned into weapons (we did acquire some here)

After a few more adventures, the party was approached by a Deep Gnome who goes by Goggles or Mr. Red. Goggles asked the party to escort him into the Underdark to where his nomadic people were settled at the time, emphasizing that there were some Drow who might be after him due to a long-standing blood feud between the two races. The party agreed, and off we went.

On our way to the Underdark, we stopped at a transition town still in the Overworld. In this town there was a library owned by a sphinx, where we discovered books from the real world (namely, Romeo and Juliet, and later I wrote a fic that retroactively brought in Call of the Wild and used it to frame Fae’s feelings about his role within his family). Fae also picked up some knives that had poison chambers in them, and then we were off to the Underdark.

On our way into the Underdark we were ambushed by a drow assassin and a drow priestess, who kicked our asses a little bit but we ultimately won! We left their corpses behind us, sure we would never see them again.

We managed to get Goggles to his people underground, and they contracted us for a little more work in return for refining the raw delirium we had acquired. During our work we found a Skinweaver (who made Fae some sick armor out of hook horror leather) and a cult of Kobolds worshipping a dragon that slumbers on veins of adamantine. While investigating the Kobolds, who the fuck should we find but THE REVIVIFIED ASSASSIN AND PRIESTESS who we killed a second time, and Celosia and Fae reached the conclusion that to keep them dead, we’d probably have to remove a body part. We settled on their jaws, which Fae collected.

Our last task the deep gnomes hired us for was to transport Goggles to the Duergar capital to ask them to ally with the gnomes. On the boat journey over, Fae recognized a member of his dad’s organization. Though he tried to play it off at first, he did eventually seek the man out — only for the man to be murdered seconds later. As the party scrambled to find out who had murdered the guy, they were approached by none other than Llewel Fucking Kaemaris, who said he’d come to the Underdark to try and form a partnership with the Drow (who, you may remember, don’t really like us all that much). Fae told his dad that uhhhh the drow don’t like us very much rn, and Llewel was less than thrilled. He also tried to pick Fae’s brain on one other mystery — why Fae had left the family in the first place.

Fae answered as honestly as he could. He said he didn’t know.

Fae and his dad’s relationship is complicated. No parent should have to outlive their kid but it’s even worse when you also have to watch them age and get elderly at a rate you can hardly imagine happening to yourself. Because of that, Llewel can’t possibly understand Fae completely. Fae knows that — doesn’t mean he doesn’t still resent the guy a little.

We managed to solve the mystery — it was that fucking Drow assassin and priestess who we had killed TWICE already at this point. Because we stole their jaws this time they’d been reincarnated which was why we didn’t recognize them. When we foiled their plan this time they managed to escape, unable to kill Fae’s dad (or him) like they’d wanted to. But they kept their jaws this time!

Upon reaching the Duergar capital we learned the man who had invited us, the prince, had disappeared while looking for a mythical library made of chalk. Using the delirium we’d acquired we were able to dig him out — but, this is where shit got unfortunately real for Fae.

In this library there was a cluster of Flumphs, psyonically powerful creatures with tentacles. And in the center of this cluster of Flumphs was a glowing red crystal.

We’d seen crystals like that before, and the party had been able to calm aggravated enemies by removing the crystal from their presence, so Fae thought it would be a good idea to just. Grab the crystal.

It was not a good idea.

Upon touching the crystal Fae was overcome by pure rage, got smacked with the mental image of his dad bleeding out, and was barely able to pull himself back together with the help of the cleric, Scrip. Even now the rage bubbles just under the surface but he’s doing his best to cope with it.

After the rage had simmered the party did as much research as they could in that library, and found that this particular gemstone houses a very, very angry dragon — one of three who have all been hidden away from the world for the world’s safety, though it’s said that one was hidden against its will.

Now attuned to the dragon in the gem, Fae has hung onto it since. He’s not the biggest fan of myth, fate, magic and dragons, so initially he wasn’t super thrilled about the situation, and he was determined to find a way to get rid of it as soon as possible.

Having rescued the lost prince and secured an allyship for the Duergar and the Deep Gnomes, we headed back the way we came. On the boat again, Goggles disappeared. We found a ransome note telling us to come to the front of the ship at 2am. When we did, we saw Goggles bound in spiderwebs, and Fae was surprised by a NAT 20 ATTACK from the SAME GODDAM ASSASSIN AS BEFORE, who was now a Drider, having asked Lolth for the power to fuck Fae up. “This time, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

He did not kill me. But damn! He got close!!! Fae was pretty much consistently at 1 health for the entire fight until he finally went down. But Fae lived, and he stole the guy’s jaw again, I’m sure that’ll be the last we see of him.

It wasn’t the last we’ll see of Priestess Bitch, though, who showed up and told us that she was tired of fighting with us and had decided to help us, informing that there are other drow on the gnome’s side, and telling us how to find them.

That night, Fae had a dream.

He dreamed that he was someone else, trapped inside a person, a person who was slowly dying. A person who he was KILLING. In the dream, whatever he was snapped and became enraged. Putting two and two together, Fae realized that in the dream he was the angry dragon — and the person who he’d been killing was his own mom, unaware of what was happening to her, or how to stop it.

As he woke up, Fae managed to get one last thing from the dream, and that was a clue to who had killed his mother: the symbol of the wizard guild.

Now with a personal attachment to the rage within the draconic gem, Fae’s priorities have shifted. He’s not sure exactly how everything connects — he had given up on finding his mom’s killers and now he has a serious lead. While he continues to help the party and the gnomes with their goals, his own thoughts lie heavily on the dragon and what it means for his past and his future.

AND NOW WE’RE ALL CAUGHT UP TO THE PRESENT!

He’s afraid of bugs

He doesn’t like fish

His full name is Androbal Marques Faedril Silvarin. Yes I have practiced saying that out loud in his voice repeatedly, it’s actually very fun to say when you get the hang of it.

His backstory wasn’t initially based on Hamlet but at some point I realized what was going on and decided to lean into it.

People have compared Fae to a lot of other characters and people, notably Pedro Pascal, ‘Lesbian Waluigi’, and Dorian Pavus

It’s rly funny that one of his inspos is a character from Sons of Anarchy, a Hamlet adaptation, but the inspo character is NOT the Hamlet analog

I run 5e game on Wednesdays called Illusa, and Fae is an NPC in that world! His backstory is a little bit different to adjust for a world I have full control over - he has a full-elf half brother named Lysander, who is the rightful heir to the Kaemaris empire. He also has Dove, a silent masked elf who is by his sides at most times. Besides that, what else… oh yeah I killed his dad! His dad got poisoned during a political event and now the party is investigating Llewel’s death. I can’t wait to see how that plays out for them ehehe

In Illusa, in addition to common, Fae speaks a fantasy version of Spanish I call ‘Queño’! I’ve actually built a whole hispanic culture within that world that he’s a part of, and I had a lot of fun fleshing out that side of him since I had the ability to build the world around him in this one.

The Illusa version of Fae has a slightly different personality, too. I’d say probably less prone to redemption than O&O Fae, but honestly it’s still pretty early to make that prediction. Again, can’t wait to see what my players do to influence his life and the world he lives in!

And that’s it! I probably won’t update this post until the game makes significant progress, so until then, hopefully this is enough context for the art I make from here on out. If you’ve made it this far thank you so much for reading and I hope you feel informed :3

[arkadi-jones]

Been thinking about it, and I do really love Spamton's relationship with nature and fate, and how he probably was forced to be a warning for Kris.

Deltarune makes it obvious that you can't choose how you're born, and I think Spamton perfectly encapsulates the horror of that. He was born as spam email - born to be ignored, born to never make it big like all the other ads, born to be raunchy, unpleasant, everything associated with spam. For all his life, Spamton has been fighting his very nature to make it big, to achieve his freedom.

Then comes the benefactor to promise him that freedom. He makes it big, he gets to be in Queen's Mansion, he even gets to be advertised on TV! (probably tbh, I think that Spamton's deal with Tenna meant that he could get his adverts on TV or on bigger platforms at least). Every time Spamton is on a high, he thinks he's finally broken those chains, that he's done it.

Only to have it inevitably yanked away.

Going with the belief that the phone call was about the prophecy, I wonder if he was told about his downfall and told how Tenna would 'die' (not only literally, but also cause CRTs would soon be obsolete), prompting him to abandon Tenna and soon have everything unfurl right before his eyes. He's always been a puppet, the prophecy's toy, and it feels no matter what he does he can't break these strings. It's hopeless for him; he can't live without those strings as those strings are his very being.

Perhaps he's constantly trying to get back at the prophecy now that he's found the reason why he's like this. Perhaps his attempts at freedom is part of the prophecy, and he's meant to mirror Kris in how they attempt to free themselves. Perhaps whoever is pulling all the strings is warning Kris to stay in line else they could end up like their old pal Spamton.

As a last act of defiance, Spamton joins the gang as an item, to let them break their strings. Of all the actions he's taken, malicious or not, this act of kindness may be the most effective means of freedom.

Tbh I just feel like this cosmic tragedy of Spamton (or whatever term fits best) is being overlooked recently in favour of painting him as irredeemably evil. Don't get me wrong, he is pretty evil in the actions he takes there's no disputing that (mini rant here but I find it funny how he probably is unconsciously sexist cause of the raunchiness of spam emails, but I feel people take it too far sometimes. Only I get to joke about Spamton being born misogynistic at birth !! (slash jay)), but it feels like it's being overblown lately. Don't forget that Spamton is a tragedy (or a tragicomedy depending on your views) in that he cannot be free from his nature and his fate.

[doodleodds]

An "Akechi in a nurse outfit w/ some shuake" comm for @edenfire! (I'm sorry if this isn't what you were looking for lol but this is just what came to mind ^^;) AND I'M NOT DEAD I PROMISE- I HAVEN'T STOLEN YOUR MONEY AND RAN!! I am sorry this took so long to get to you though. My job got very busy recently with school starting up and I just kept coming home too drained to do anything but sleep. But we're back on it now!!! There's a bonus below the cut since this is.... two weeks late, oh god:

So when i initially started this drawing i was like "hm are there any nurse outfits in cannon" and i was like "you know what. I bet Maruki had some nurses that were shadows." and that lead to this! It's not polished AT ALL because i was drawing it for fun, initially, and then the sunk cost fallacy kicked in and i had to finish it to include in the post because it'd already taken me a hot minute to get to you + i'd spent too much time goofing off drawing this to just post your thing with no explanation aside from work, so. Here!

(Whats that saying about falling in love with sirens? Make sure they're saying “I love you” and not “you love me?”)

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

I think for all the discussions we have of "everyone hears the jokes and the piano; after that, they stop listening" surrounding Louis, we tend to still simplify his connection to the piano.

Yes, it's very cute that he sings Clementine a little song when they first meet, and it's very cute that he plays a little prank on her while "tuning" the piano. It's super cute that they carve their initials into the piano and Clementine carves a heart around them. It's mega cute that he names his song he wrote after her when she confesses her feelings. Louis playing Don't Be Afraid at the party is, in my opinion, one of the best moments in all of TFS.

But here's the thing: That piano is Louis' heart.

I don't mean to go all metaphorical on you, but I'm dead serious—the piano is Louis' heart, and when you think about his arc and his romance route with that in mind...?

That piano is his one comfort in a world where the dead walk. It's been with him from the beginning of the outbreak. We know from his backstory that Louis wanted to take singing lessons so he could be a real musician, and his father denying him of that was what set him off to be a "vindictive fuckhead." Louis never got those singing lessons, and it's a very real possibility that Louis taught himself how to play.

Sure, others could've taught him; we know Minerva was musically talented, perhaps she showed him a thing or two. But learning piano, or any instrument, is brutal even with professional guidance. It takes hours of practice until numbness wears fingertips raw; dedication to memorize every key and finger placement to make music pleasing to the ear; self-discipline to keep going through every fumble, every failure, every single cruel thought of self-doubt; intelligence and a creative ear to write his own songs.

And yet, it's severely under-appreciated by everyone. It's annoying. It's distracting. It's unimportant. It's an excuse for Louis to mess around and not do any real work. He doesn't have any actual talent. The music and the piano are brushed off, unheard.

Yet, Louis keeps playing. He keeps singing. He keeps making jokes.

Creating music, the one thing he wanted so badly as a kid that he destroyed his parents marriage, was possibly the greatest comfort he had... a welcome distraction to disassociate from the horror and death happening around him.

It's bittersweet, like a purpling bruise that you can't stop pressing on; it hurts, but there's something else below the pain. The piano is out of tune and it's something that brings him joy... but will always act as a constant reminder of who he was and what he did, why he's at Ericson to begin with.

We first meet him while he's playing; Louis' heart is exposed, but is it really? Is he playing to his true potential? Louis hides behind the mask of a charming, charismatic goof. It's what is expected of him, so he plays a silly song intended to poke and prod at Clementine, to gauge a reaction. That's something we see him do at multiple points in episode one. In fact, we can consider a majority of episode one to be like the song he's playing when we meet him; it's mostly cheery or fast-paced.

Louis is able to soothe AJ with his "alluring" music after the kid bit Ruby is an indication that the two of them will share a bond. Louis is a natural at communicating and bonding with the younger kids [another talent that's overlooked] so it's interesting that he praises AJ for being a natural at piano, as well.

But the song stutters just a bit when Louis and Clementine are in the woods together, though; "There's only one guarantee: this moment. That's the only you got, only thing any of us got. Might as well enjoy it." ...Only for Louis to compose himself and send her away.

It's only when Clementine has a gun in her face, held by Marlon, that the music isn't fun anymore; it's rainfall and thunder and the words "I thought you were more than that" sung through the wind in a melody only Louis can hear.

Then Marlon's dead. The song is over, and reality has arrived.

I've talked at length about Louis in ep2 and his vote in the past. It's one of the most compelling things about Louis' arc and romantic route. It's a tragic mistake driven by trauma and guilt. It's people simultaneously telling him to shut up and telling him to be angrier than he is. Telling him to stop burying his head in the sand when he's never been more aware of everything happening. It's AJ peering up at him with pleading eyes that Louis can't stand to look at. It's Clementine wrapping his heartstrings around her fingers and tugging just enough to hurt, but not break.

Louis missed Clementine. He says as much when Clementine admits she missed him first. I don't even know where to begin with that! I can think of no other way to describe it other than they are half agony, half hope over this... and if you get that reference, you get a gold star. I just- the ache, the tension, the conflicting feelings of finally having a quiet moment to talk but Louis not being ready yet.

Y'know how someone carved "you suck at playing" in the side of the piano? It's something you might not initially notice while playing the game, just as Louis' insecurities aren't apparent at first.. but they're carved in him; never fully healed, still scabbed and bleeding... Until Clementine offers him a bandage.

She won't clean the wound for him, but she'll be there. She'll help him figure out how to do it himself so he can heal. She'll listen to him, not belittle his feelings or pain. She'll make an effort to know his keys and notes and practice playing his song until she understands.

When Clementine chooses him to spend time with him, it's a mirror of their first time meeting... but this time, Louis plays something real: a song he wrote, one that I believe he crafted during the two week time skip... a song he wrote with Clementine on his mind, for better or worse.

If the piano is Louis' heart, he literally asks her to sit there and try to tune it, which ends up being a joke but I say she's already tuned your heart, my guy. It's there before them, changed in the warm candlelight. He plays for her and opens up about how no one actually listens, but Clementine did.

And remember, this is the night of the raid. They don't know it's coming, but they know it'll be soon. Louis understands that he could very well die, so what does he do? He carves his initial into the one thing he's always had, and he asks Clementine to do the same.

I'm sorry, how are we NOT more feral about this? Prior to this scene, the only thing we see carved into the piano, into Louis' heart, is an insult. This thing that Louis cares so deeply about, this instrument that's become so intertwined with who he is... he wants to leave his mark on it just in case he dies. A reminder that it was his and he belonged to it just as much. Something so important, and he asks Clementine to carve herself into his heart where no matter what, they will be immortalized together in this moment.

And when Clementine carves a heart around their initials? Yes, his reaction is very cute and that's great... but she's not ashamed of him, or her feelings for him. She wants everyone who looks upon his heart to know that. She tells him how she feels and Louis is so giddy, and warm, and he names the song after her and I am going to start biting anything that moves, I can't-

Oh, and let's discuss the party scene in episode three, shall we? Y'know, where the heart covered initials are on full display? Where Louis tells the story of why he was sent to Ericson to everyone?

Louis is so... vulnerable. Sincere. Ashamed of what he did. This is the exposed nerve, the one he was so afraid of showing Clementine but there it is... and she doesn't reject him. Sure, she can say it's fucked up if you choose to, but she doesn't break up with him over it.

Also the fact that everyone sitting around him finally listens when he's at his most unshielded only for Tenn to ask him to play Don't Be Afraid for them after...? How do you not see the connection? Are you trying to make me cry? In that moment, Louis' heart was heard and appreciated and beautiful and strong and-

Listen. I am fine. I'm so normal about this. And fine. I'm fine.

But I also have to add that during the walk in episode four, if you let Louis choose what to add to the imaginary house, he picks a brand new piano because he wants a new heart to reflect the confidence and growth Clementine helped him achieve and because he loves her and AJ so much that wants the new heart to not just be his but also theirs and I am so fine with this, okay.

[frownyalfred]

I have so many coral AU royjay thoughts and feelings and I’m so sorry about that bc I’m straight up obsessed with them. They feel like my own little guys even though they’re YOUR guys in this specific au.

Just like. 1) how do you think they would’ve met? Doing hero work years ago before Jason died? While Jay was red hood? On some mission where he’s acting on Bruce’s behalf in star city soon after the pregnancy ends?? I wanna hear what you think so badly, esp since the teen titans wouldn’t exist in this universe and that would’ve had a HUGE affect on Roy’s life overall (some things for the worse, others for the better)

I’m thinking so much about like. Lex getting to watch Jay have like. A typical romance without any horrible strings attached like lex has had his whole life. Sure they both have trauma, but Jason is just an omega learning his own way in the world who happens to meet an alpha whose doing the same, and after the end of things with the joker and with the birth of the twins it’s like. Jay has TIME to fall in love and continue to grow into his own. And jays first real relationship is GOOD!!! Roy is good!!!! And lex gets to see his grumpy pup nephew have all these sweet happy firsts that they’d all been worried Jason might never get to have because of all he’s been through. And even early on it’s so clear that Roy is SO READY to love Jason for all of his issues and his life and his struggles because he UNDERSTANDS so much of it. It would be kind of bittersweet, I think, for lex and Bruce watching Jay get to have this. Like they’re so happy for him and ready to do their part to help these two in the early phases of their young relationship but also like- wow. This is the kind of thing they COULD have had at that age if only their lives hadn’t been so fucked up

I think they meet somehow during Jason’s first few patrols as a vigilante in Gotham, esp when he and Clark are filling in for Bruce after the birth. I think they knew each other in passing when they were pups but never interacted much. Because Ollie and Bruce didn’t interact much - they didn’t get along for obvious reasons.

I think Roy was probably also trying to settle his alpha instincts through the one thing Ollie allowed him, which was vigilante work. Maybe even with Ollie out of the picture he still tries to help people since he has a gift with a bow and throwing olives. Maybe Ollie is in the picture and Roy has to go home to him no matter how interesting this new omega vigilante is.

[sevenyeargap]

i am (tentatively!) back! bc i missed this hellsite! heads up that i will soon change my url to fatigay!

[insipid-drivel]

Toxins, Venom, and Poisons in Historical Western Medicine: How Are We Not Extinct From Doing Some Of This To Ourselves?

This piece is an involuntary piece inspired by @writing-with-sophia's awesome post "Poison list", which is an accurate and succinct list of commonly known (and ancient!) poisons, venoms, and toxins that have been and were used for causing poisoning in ancient and recent history. I wanted to write this because what struck me by their post crossing my dash was, the sheer number of poisons listed that were - and even still are - used as mainstays for healthcare around the world throughout the ages!

OBLIGATORY DON'T BE A DUMBASS PSA: If you're planning on incorporating these poisons into your HISTORICAL-era writing, it's also important to remember that many of them were used for medicinal purposes at one time, too, and it's great you're interested in learning about the subject! And also, you shouldn't try ANY of these! I will not tell you how to do it at home if you DM me, so don't! You are not appropriately trained to do it! You will harm or kill yourself and possibly your loved ones if you fuck around with any of these and it will be 100% your fault and you absolutely should feel bad bout it! I've seen some of you idiots believe 4chan posts about making home-grown crystals using recipes for actual mustard gas and seen you being wheeled into the ER on the news! I will not feel bad if you get yourself hurt if you screw around with any of these plants, elements, or animals!

Resource blog plugs and PSA over, now for the Hilariously Poisonous Medicines:

If you're writing something that's meant to take place prior to the advent of our more modern understanding of poisons, venoms, and toxins, factoring in "this is toxic to me NOW, but what about 500 years ago?" can add a lot of opportunities for interesting plot elements to your story.

These can include someone accidentally poisoning themselves with a toxic drug or substance that wouldn't have killed them if they'd handled it properly - like tansy? Grows all over the place in Europe and England? That'll kill you if you harvest it too late in the season, but it's good for intestinal parasites when it's harvested early in the year and processed right.

Did the lady's maid really kill her mistress with belladonna? Or was she trying to secretly help her mistress get rid of an unwanted pregnancy?

The protagonist's children can't survive to make it to weaning age! Is the wetnurse a poisoner, or does the milkman hide that he sells sour milk by pouring Borax into it so no one could taste it and has no idea he's killing his clients' babies?

Nuance and cultural mores regarding historical views about poisons and toxins can make writing even more fun, dynamic, and interesting! Explore 'em!

Just... please don't try any of this crap yourself. You will poison yourself, it will hurt, you will die, and you will hurt the entire time you're dying. Using OP's master list alone, here's the flip side of these lethal beasts through the eyes of our distant ancestors who believed illness was caused by "vapors", "bad air", and "imbalanced humors":

Hemlock:

Used across multiple different cultures in history. When properly administered to treat a disease, poison hemlock was used to treat asthma, whooping cough, bronchitis, joint/bone pain, muscle cramps, and insomnia. Hemlock was most often used as a sedative and antispasmodic.

Arsenic:

Arsenic is a heavy metal, and so has been used in everything from making specialty dyes for wallpapers (Scheele's green is the most infamous arsenic-based paint; Queen Victoria once had a guestroom in her palace redone with Scheele's green wallpaper. The first dignitary to stay there had to be carried out and taken to emergency care after breathing astronomical amounts of arsenic dust from the wallpaper's paint), to medicine. Arsenic was especially commonly used in history to treat skin ailments ranging from acne, to psoriasis, to syphilis sores. It was also sometimes prescribed for menstrual cramps, upset stomachs, colic, and arthritis, among many, many other things.

Cyanide:

Uh... I have literally never found any evidence of cyanide in medicine, outside of its use in modern medicine as part of certain chemical lab tests for measuring urine ketone bodies that involve no contact with a patient whatsoever. Cyanide literally works in less than a few seconds to render your entire body incapable of absorbing OR using oxygen in your lungs or already existing in your blood. Cyanide is really only good at making things that breathe not breathe anymore.

Nightshade:

There are a lot of different "nightshades", so being specific is essential here. Potatoes are nightshades. Tomatoes are nightshades. Calling anything a "nightshade" does not inherently mean it's lethally toxic. Belladonna is probably the most notorious of the "deadly" nightshades, but to this day, is still used medicinally, and would actually be seen as a health and cosmetic mainstay in historical fiction, especially if your setting is in Italy!

Belladonna is an Italian portmanteau for "beautiful woman", because tinctures (water-based drops) of belladonna were commonly used by Italian women as eyedrops to dilate their eyes and appear more attractive, aroused, and desirable. Today, belladonna's eye-dilating effects are still used by optometrists to dilate the pupils! Belladonna has been, and still sometimes is used as an NSAID, general painkiller, motion sickness treatment, asthma medication, and even as a treatment for IBS.

Ricin:

As OP said, Ricin is derived from the toxin found in Castor Beans, and is surprisingly new as an official "the only reason this is made is to make someone dead" poison. Not only is ricin a popular "nobody would think to test for this!" choice in mystery/thriller writing, but it has been used for political assassinations in real life before. Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian anti-Communist dissenter and writer, was killed in 1978 with a 1.7mm diameter ricin-coated pellet shot into his thigh muscle by an unidentified assailant using a modified umbrella as a gun. He died 4 days later.

Historically, castor OIL has been used for medicinal purposes, especially for treating constipation, inducing labor in pregnancy, and as a topical skin moisturizer. If you've ever watched the opening scene in Disney's "Peter Pan", when the childrens' mother is trying to give them a spoonful of medicine each, she's actually giving them castor oil! Castor oil tastes really bad (so much so that flavorings like cinnamon were often added to try to muffle the taste), so the childrens' reluctance and disgust at their mom making them take their medicine is very realistic for the era the movie came out in!

Strychnine:

Another lethal poison that started life as a medicine/food additive. Strychnine is no longer used medicinally at all today, but historically, it was used to stimulate the heart, treat bladder and bowel incontinence, and limb palsy. Strychnine is a deadly-powerful muscle stimulant that, as a poison, causes horrifyingly painful full-body strictures (spasms) and destroys the cardiovascular system. (Fun fact: Strychnine and hydrochloric acid were historically mixed into cheap vodka to make knock-off gin, especially during the Georgian Era in England if the brewer didn't have or couldn't afford juniper berries!)

Snake Venom:

Seriously, do your research before you write an actual, real snake species using venom they don't produce! The Big 3 Forms Of Snake Venom are: Hemotoxic, Neurotoxic, and Cytotoxic. Specific snake species exclusively generate the same kind of venom (so a hemotoxic snake will ALWAYS produce baby snakes that also make hemotoxic venom). Aristotle himself wrote in 380 BC that certain snake venoms could be applied for treating fevers, smallpox, and leprosy, and there is even some evidence in the historical record prior to the 1800s that different cultures have experimented throughout the eons with using venom for converting into antivenom, but I've never found a source citing anyone making a successful form of antivenom until around the 1850s.

Digitalis:

OP really nailed the important thing about Digitalis, and that is it's cardiac benefits for certain people - particularly for treating congestive heart failure. Vincent van Gogh was actually prescribed epilepsy medication that likely contained Digitalis, aka Foxglove, and there are some prevailing theories about van Gogh's love of bright yellow paint as being either caused or exacerbated by the symptoms associated with digitalis use, which can cause an attraction to and increased visual sensitivity to the color yellow. In several portraits, including one of his own psychiatrist, van Gogh shows subjects presented alongside foxglove flowers. Digitalis is absolutely lethal if consumed or taken without expert guidance, however, because it's the mother ingredient of Digoxin. Digoxin isn't used as frequently as it used to be a few decades ago, but it's still used and prescribed today for certain forms of heart failure and heart disease. Digoxin was also, at one time, was also sometimes used to induce chemical abortions.

Lead:

Dear god, lead. Not only is it so slow to kill you that you'll think that the only way to manage your symptoms is with more lead, but lead poisoning can be a life-long crisis for a person who is regularly exposed to it. Humans have used lead for everything from plumbing, to paint, to our cutlery, to cosmetics, to medicine. While yes, it is very possible to ingest enough lead in a single sitting to die within hours or days, most sufferers of lead poisoning experience it for years or decades before the symptoms become obvious. Some archaeologists believe that the Romans used lead cutlery because lead has a unique reaction when we lick it: when you have lead coating your tongue, it makes EVERYTHING you eat suddenly taste 10x better. I learned this myself from going target-shooting with my mom at a gun rage as a teenager, inhaled gunsmoke (which contains lead), and went for lunch immediately after. Even though I was just eating a $5 meal from In-N-Out, my burger tasted so good I thought I was gonna have to change my pants. When I asked the rangemaster at the target place about it later, he literally said, "Oh yeah, lead makes the worst cooking taste like heaven."

The ancient Romans ate a lot of rotten, spoiled, and sour food, and so lead would've made it easier to eat it back then. But the neurological effects of lead poisoning are nightmarish. It's suspected that, in America, the #1 reason we had so many active serial killers in the country from the 1940s-2000s was because of leaded gasoline. Ever since leaded gasoline was banned? Serial and random violent crime rates have dramatically gone down, especially in metropolitan cities. Ancient Rome, too, gradually became an increasingly violent city as its population went up and its reliance on lead did. We're only just now starting to figure out how toxic lead actually is, so go nuts with using it as a plot element regarding subjects like "Why Are You Like This?"

Mercury:

Mercury is also known as quicksilver, because in spite of being a heavy metal, the temperature at which it melts into a liquid is very, very low compared to most other metals. The first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, was rumored to be so obsessed with the notion of immortality that he would send his doctors on doomed voyages around the world searching for a legendary substance that would, indeed, make him immortal. Legend has it that some doctors who were tasked with the job found out about the last guys, and produced mercury before Emperor Qin Shi Huang and cried, "Here it is! I got it!" so they wouldn't end up doomed to drown at sea. Qin Shi Huang became so obsessed with ingesting and medicating himself with mercury that, when his legendary tomb was being constructed, he had a small-yet-accurate-to-scale map of China+the known world about the size of a football field with every body of water full of fountains of running mercury in his burial chamber. His tomb was rediscovered in the last couple of decades after archaeologists found suspiciously high levels of mercury in the soil on top of a "hill" that had been sitting in the countryside untouched for thousands of years. It turned out to be Qin Shi Huang's long-lost tomb.

Since those days, mercury has closely been associated in early medicine as a sort of cure-all, since it literally kills anything it touches (including people). Captain Blackbeard himself, the most notorious pirate in Western history (Western specifically; google who Zheng Yi Sao was), was known or widely believed to be a syphilis sufferer, and desperately sought infusions of mercury from ships he'd capture (and the doctors onboard) to treat it, believing like everyone did that mercury could cure syphilis. It can't. They just didn't understand back then that syphilis starts off surface-level, and then eats your brain years after the initial infection.

Aconite:

Again, ridiculously toxic outside of specific medicinal applications that still aren't safe today! Aconite, or wolfsbane, has historically been used as a heart sedative (for slowing the heart), diuretic, painkiller, and even used to induce sweating. Evidence of wolfsbane being used for medicinal purposes has been spotted here and there over thousands of years throughout the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Empires, but its original use came about in Ancient Greece for hunting and culling wolves by poisoning bait-food with it. That form of hunting died out long before the European Middle Ages, but the name "wolfsbane" stuck. Mostly because in the Middle Ages, a lot of people believed werewolves were a huge problem, and kept wolfsbane handy to deter said werewolves.

Thallium:

Today, thallium is mostly used in the production of camera and eyeglass lenses. Before its toxicity was known about, it wasn't strange to hear of thallium being used topically to treat fungal infections like ringworm. Thallium was also sporadically used in treating typhus and tuberculosis, along with a wide array of sexually transmitted diseases.

This list doesn't even touch the tip of the toxic iceberg when it comes to the sheer quantity of hilariously dangerous toxins people have, or still continue, to use for medicinal purposes! In a Victorian-era English London middle-class townhouse setting alone, there were dozens and dozens of ways to poison or otherwise harm yourself just by going about your daily life. So, if you've got a period piece you're working on, or are just bored, you can pick an exact date and time in our history and learn just how terrifyingly comfortable our ancestors were with upsettingly dangerous substances and home remedies. You can also watch a massive docuseries, called "Hidden Killers" and hosted by historian Suzannah Lipscomb, among other historians and archaeologists, which deep-dives into the hidden and unknown dangers of living in eras from Tudor-Era England, to the Post-WWII Reconstruction Age.

As a final note: I am NOT bashing Chinese or Eastern medicinal practices here, and in fact deliberately have gone out of my way to not include any references toward culturally-sanctioned medicinal practices in Eastern and Southeastern Asia. This post is specifically related to the history of WESTERN medicines and their associated history. I am not, nor have I ever been, a doctor of any traditional Eastern medicinal practices, and do not pretend to know better. Sinophobes are unwelcome in my blog space.

[raiiny-bay]

sleepy morning with the boys