I'm three books in to these Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian. Stephen Maturin has to be the weirdest character ever conceived. He's odd even by British eccentricity standards which is saying something
SPOILERS galore below where I list out reasons he's so strange
He's an half-Catalonian half-Irish doctor, natural scientist and spy and that's just the beginning of his wildest qualities/activites
He speaks like eleven languages and keeps picking up new ones
He's neck deep in naval intelligence but could give less than half a shit about boat stuff
He's been involved in every independence movement of the last twenty odd years but is incredibly cynical about these ever succeeding. Even he doesn't know why he keeps getting involved
He's got incredible sub energy, he needs an evil mommy dom so bad at one point a nine year old girl bosses him around
Nobody knows why he does anything, including his naval intelligence bosses
His intelligence bosses one thought he was gay, but it turned out he was just distracted by science and very choosy (though there is reason to think he *is* probably demisexual)
He owns a moldering Spanish castle occupied by sheep that contains a Roman marble bath that random characters know about and comment on
He has to be constantly rescued (from being tortured, from being stranded on a desert island in a typhoon where he's clubbing birds to death, from diving in after boots he forgot WHEN HE DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO SWIM)
He is beloved by sailors for doing a successful open air brain surgery on deck of a ship
He absolutely loves naked time
He kidnaps a sloth and brings it on ship
He brings hundreds of thousands of bees aboard ship and lets them loose below deck. He feeds them chocolate syrup
He plays a cello on ship which I'm constantly amazed by because how in the world do they keep it dry
He is an anti-natalist which is wild, both for the time the books are set in and the time in which they are written
Commissioned a wool unitard be woven as the future of clothing and wore it around
While being an enlightenment humanist, is best friends with a Tory who would die for him
He is desperately in love with a fallen woman who treats him like absolute crap (see the part about how he needs an evil mommy)
He is insanely curious about everything in the natural world to the point of mania, h loves to dissect things
He hates naval tradition and jargon with a passion, yet keeps going on voyages with his naval captain best friend, where he refuses to learn anything about the ships he is on
He is constantly managing said best friends love life while also being involved with his best friends ex (the fallen woman who treats him like crap)
Almost dueled his best friend over the same woman
He might be an anarchist before anarchism was really invented
Has so many layers to his personality his diary reads like opposition research into his own motives which are opaque to everyone including himself
Lowkey has a constant stream of the weirdest deepest takes in conversation with anyone
Nobody gets his jokes, which are often in Latin
Everyone loves him (seriously he's beloved and incredibly well respected)
Smuggled his best friend hundreds of miles by foot over the French border into Spain fleeing debt collectors once war broke out with France BY DISGUISING HIM AS A PERFORMING BEAR and honestly it doesn't seem that weird in context
He keeps threatening to dissect people when angry
I will keep adding to this as I go because I imagine he gets even weirder
Being crazy about a piece of media for any amount of time will leave a weird mark on you forever because years later you’ll see someone posting something about it like “can we talk about this frame” and you’ll be like “ah that frame. i know all about that frame. I was once a scholar of that frame.”
Note: that is not a lumberjack!!! Most likely it is a domesticated marine biologist, possibly a domesticated fisherman, (you can tell because it has been clothed in wool, which stays warm when wet, so it is is clearly well cared for).
While this may be appropriate enrichment for your DOMESTICATED and WELL TRAINED marine biologist or fisherman, please remember that lumberjacks may be tame, but are not domesticated. They are still wild, and they absolutely will freak out if they see you swimming around in their forests.
The world of sea creatures is as vast as that of sailors' superstitions. And so the Japanese also have their own creatures. These include the Funayūrei, (boat spirits), are water demons, and ghosts of people mostly sailors who have died at sea.
Dismayed by their fate, they seek others to join them. They return to the world of the living to seek revenge. Particularly popular in Yamaguchi and Saga Prefectures, they have appeared in Japanese folklore since the Edo period (1615-1868).
They haunt sailors on foggy, stormy nights when the moon is full. They emerge from the ocean or rivers and climb over the ship's sides to frighten sailors and sink their ships. Alternatively, they may attempt to scare the sailors until the boat departs from its usual course, causing it to crash into rocks, or they use hishaku (ladles) to fill boats with water and make them sink.
These spirits sail ghost ships to harass other boats. And they have no shrines, so sailors throw offerings like food, flowers, or incense into the sea, hoping to calm the restless ghosts. If the sailors fail to do so, they join the Funayūrei to wander the ocean in search of victims forever.
Okay, so fun thing - our friends taped it from Sky for us when it premiered there way back in the 90s before we had the VHS. I have no idea why, but there was a little 10-15 minute behind the scenes thing (that may or may not be on the DVD. Would need to go hunting) but basically, they were “interviewing the cast”, so Piggy and Kermit and Tim were all there being filmed separately in talking heads sections.
The interviewer raised speculation of an on-set romance between Piggy and Tim Curry. Kermit flailed, Piggy tried to be coy and Tim frigging Curry gave the most wickedly mischievous look straight into the camera and said “Well I do love a bacon roll”
20+ years ago, I saw that and I cackle every time I think of it.
“It didn’t go very well. It didn’t survive the shoot. She felt I wasn’t being faithful to her, and I said well you know, I’m playing a sailor and uh…a sailor has a girl in every port, and at least you’re the only pig. Then I made the mistake of calling her a silly sausage….”
- Tim Curry discusses his ill-fated affair with Miss Piggy during the filming of Muppet Treasure Island, (1996)
Ching Shih! Not just a woman, but a Chinese woman who went from “prostitute” to “commander of 80,000 pirates”, and enforced a code that included:
Pirates who gave unsanctioned orders or who refused to follow orders were executed on the spot.
Stealing from the “public fund” of captured goods or money or raiding villages that supported pirates was punishable by death.
All captured goods, money or slaves had to be presented for inspection. The rewards were handed out in a predetermined way.
It was absolutely prohibited to have sex or rape female captives. Pirates could marry pretty captives if they had means to support them and be faithful to them, but rest were either ransomed or freed. Punishment for having sex or raping them was death.
They didn’t capture her either. She negotiated her own surrender, kept all her loot, got amnesty, and was able to die in her sleep an old woman.
I just saw the ask you answered on my dash, and it's inspired me to let you know you're my favorite sparrabeth author too. I still reread your fics every now and then and they never fail to brighten my day. Your wip Tides of Time always captures my imagination.
Sparrabeth Forever 💙
😭😭😭😭😭😭 That means so much to me!!! Gah! Y'all gonna make a wench cry here! 😂 Thank you, I'm so touched and honored to be an author you revisit. 🥺 It's a compliment i do not take for granted, I assure you. Sparrabeth forever! 🖤🏴☠️😁
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