#and of apoplexy

[y-rhywbeth2]

The most important thing I've learnt recently is that I'm now pretty sure that Bane canonically thinks pissing Bhaal off is funny, is 100% willing to seduce his own followers (I mean, he does canonically have at least one child with one), as well as use flirting (with a side of threats and bribery) to sway people to convert to his faith.

Which means that I believe he would be willing to seduce (or at least flirt with) the Dark Urge, Kelemvor style, purely because it would piss Bhaal off and also piss Myrkul off because he's the one who has to mediate whenever Bane starts pulling this shit.

I only wonder whether he would do it via dream, manifest an avatar (which considering Bane's favouring of demonic looking avatars when he's not possessing people, kinda counts as monsterfucking?) or if he uses Gortash as an avatar to do it (or possess one of his other Banites as a "fuck you" to Gortash if his Chosen has displeased him recently, maybe? Watch your god make out with your not-partner Enver: that's what you get for developing "feelings". Or maybe he'd be into that idk)

If it works, on any level, then Durge is probably going to be incapacitated by religious guilt for the remainder of forever.

[yumaisbored]

my natural anxiety levels are already too high, i fear Malevolent may incite a cardiac incident

[phatburd]

Bessières and the 600,000+ Franc Question

For @josefavomjaaga

While going over sources and material related to Jean-Baptiste Bessières, there's one thing that keeps twigging my journalist Spidey sense, and I don't like that.

Always, without fail, it's presented as a fait accompli that Bessières blew anywhere between 600,000 to one million francs on his mistress, a Paris opera dancer named Virginie. The fact he had a mistress isn't actually unusual by itself, when compared to the affairs his peers carried on. The exceptions were probably the Davouts and the Lefebvres.

Furthermore, his wife, Marie-Jeanne, discovered the affair after his death when his personal affects were returned to her from the battlefield.

The massive debts the Marshal left behind bankrupted his family, necessitating that Marie-Jeanne into selling their estate, Chateau de Grignon, to cover some of it. Napoleon also paid down some of Bessières' debts and set up a yearly pension for Marie-Jeanne her son. According to some accounts, she struggled financially for the rest of her life.

This is what I don't like about it, and why it doesn't completely pass the sniff test.

I accept that Bessières died flat broke and in debt. In debt to whom, however? Who were his creditors?

When did he meet his mistress? Was that fortune spent over a period of years, or in a fairly short time?

Even as a Marshal of France he had to pay his officers out of his own pocket, and provide his own carriages and some supplies on campaign. If he was flat broke, how did he continue to pay his officers?

Bessières was also bad with money to begin with. He was known to be generous and charitable, to the point where he'd be giving away money to anyone whom he thought was more in need than he was with it. Allegedly, Virginie was in debt herself, and he paid down all of them out of the apparent goodness of his heart.

(This raises even more questions. Was she a gold digger, was she blackmailing him, was he totally besotted with her that he didn't realize what the hell he was doing? Was he just lonely? Did they have genuine feelings for one another? There's a lot of there there, but no real answers.)

My conclusion is, no, Bessières did not spend 600,000 to one million francs on his mistress. Her presence, however, was not helpful to his situation.

He paid down Virginie's debts, however much they were. Being terrible with money, he kept putting himself in a financial hole, and then he kept digging. The upkeep on Chateau de Grignon had to be ridiculous. He still had to pay his officers and his staff. He was probably borrowing and burning through money and racking up the debt. Like that meme goes, "This is fine" while everything's burning down around him. A bit like using a credit card to pay down a credit card, as one might do in the modern parlance.

(His financial problems may have contributed to his increasing depression towards the end of his life as well. Was someone blackmailing him with his debts? Another interesting question that can never be adequately addressed.)

From what I've gathered, he hid all his problems from pretty much everyone. Even Napoleon seemed caught off guard with how bad Bessières' finances were. I argue that the 600,000 to one million francs he owed upon his death were cumulative and not to a single person as the historical narrative wants people to believe.

It seems a small thing to be annoyed with, but there seems to be more than a bit of misogyny to lay all of Bessières' troubles on a single woman as the historical narrative seems to want to do.

Another thing ... if Bessières burned a lot of his recent correspondence towards the end of his life, what exactly was the evidence Marie-Jeanne discovered as proof of the affair. How did she prove it? Did other people know about the affair and kept her in the dark? If so, who was that?

In the novel, "The Battle" by Patrick Rimbaud, a semi-fictionalized account of the Battle of Aspern-Essling, Rimbaud's characterization of Bessières has him wear two gold lockets under his Marshal's uniform. One for Marie-Jeanne, the other for Virginie. I don't know if Rimbaud based that on an actual account, or if it was something he made up. I have a lot of problems with that book though, probably because the translation seems somewhat robotic and not great. It's an interesting idea, however, and maybe worth keeping around as a headcanon.

Did Madame Bessières struggle financially for the rest of her life afterwards? Possibly. I don't have enough information to make a conclusion there, but it's not impossible. She did continue to faithfully visit his tomb for years after his death.

TL;DR Bessières died broke and in debt but it wasn't all because of his mistress. If someone else has something to the contrary, I'd love to read it.

[robin-in-the-tulip-tree]

Raise your hand if you're compiling shaders tonight

[j-august]

It was common to invoke the planets as the direct cause of a mysterious disease. Until well into the eighteenth century the London Bills of Mortality contained frequent instances of deaths attributed simply to 'planet': there were three, for example, in 1662, six in 1665, and four in 1679. To be thus 'planet-struck' or 'blasted' was to be suddenly and inexplicably affected by a paralysing disease, apoplexy, or other kind of sudden death.

Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic

[eclecticmuses]

Today I started a new fic that I'm co-writing with @sunalsolove! Even though it sprung from a very silly Twitter meme, I'm very excited to explore new realms and themes in my writing with her (it's a Fitzsimmons Regency dark romance!) but it also means I get to do a whole new collection of fun Google searches in the pursuit of my writing! So today I bring y'all:

today in fic writing:

[nightkitchentarot]

Spin that wheel and share what got you.

[triviareads]

—from Sweetest Scoundrel by Elizabeth Hoyt

[gorillaxyz]

why is mickey going on about petes age all of a sudden?? how old is he 😭

[nieithryn]

Calista has appeared ! what to do ?

Grope

Bang

Flirt

Hug

[shen-daozhang]

Ok but like real talk tho.

The pure, untapped potential of Taxian Jun’s “dumb mutt” that’s mentioned once on like page 2 and then never again.

Fellow fic writers where is the dumb chubby puppy??

[apocalyptic-dancehall]

i know the cut lines from claptastic voyage were so mean but athena screaming "cLAPTRAP. will you pl eAse pL e ASE SHUT THE HELL UP" is so hysterical

[dullahandyke]

thinking abt the word 'apoplectic'. good adjective

[classy-as-shit]

oh thank god, i was about to have an aneurysm

hi, gentle reminder that you can reclaim slurs for yourself but not for the entire community! Please don't say g*y when talking about other fags, it is a harmful word that has been used against the queer community to hurt mlm, use less harmful words like cocksucker, faggot, queer, and fairy! Thank you ✨

[j-august]

QUACK: I'll bring half the chirurgeons in town to swear it.

PINCHWIFE: They! They'll swear a man that bled to death through his wounds died of an apoplexy.

William Wycherley, The Country Wife

[whats-in-a-sentence]

"The inquest is just over. The medical evidence showed conclusively that death was due to apoplexy. You see, it was quite a simple case after all."

"The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes Treasury" - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle