Mad scientist(s) for the au ask game.
Five fun facts that would happen in the story (which I'm gonna do with OFMD, unless/until someone asks me otherwise):
In this AU the mad-scientist profession usually runs in families, but both Ed and Stede are outliers.
Ed ran away from home as a child and was taken in by a childless widower who claimed himself to be the great-grandson of Johann Faust (which may or may not have been true, but Hornigold certainly had enough tricks up his sleeve with regard to the alchemical arts that it might very well have been so). Ed, under his nom de science Blackbeard, rose to acclaim for his ability to conjure spirits, his medical acumen, and his likely deal with the devil.
Stede, on the other hand, was the son of landed gentry and had no connection whatsoever to the grand history of mad science-- but he collected the treatises, had more than enough money to buy himself a tower and a water wheel for the electrical experiments, and styled himself the Gentleman Philosopher without any real knowledge of what he was getting himself into. He may or may not have had some mystical robes specifically tailored for this purpose. There may or may not be quite a few alchemical symbols for Mars stitched on them.
Rather than a single ghoul to help source his Dread Necessities (as Ed has Igor Izzy), Stede has an entire crew of down-and-outs who are more than happy to find him "very definitely real philosopher's stone, absolutely" and "the hand of a hanged murderer buried at a crossroads, which always very definitely look like slightly moldy turnips after a while" and "yes it's an authentic black cockerel, but don't touch it or wipe its feather or anything, they, uh, don't like that".
This may seem like they are taking advantage of Stede's naivety, and that's because they absolutely are. On the other hand, though, they do their (admittedly, not great) best to let it be known throughout the nearby countryside that the Gentleman Philosopher does not represent any particular harm to the bodies or souls of the local townsfolk, being as he's just a rich idiot with a hobby and perhaps too much faith in the honesty of others-- so no pitchforks or anything necessary, yeah? Just let the man have a nice time.
And if you have a particularly funny looking turnip, let them know.
It should be stated, though, that Buttons is absolutely the son of a long and storied family of mad scientists. He will on occasion try to help Stede with his Great Works, but Stede keeps trying to add more style to the proceedings than is strictly necessary. All you really need, Buttons knows, is some auspicious moon dates and the right ingredients from trustworthy sources (and here he might look very fondly at Karl, who will in turn preen smugly), and Bob's your uncle, you've got gold or good health or a shambling creature risen from the dead, whatever suits your fancy.
Buttons mostly uses his family's gifts making Aqua Vitae in less time than it ought, and for this reason, the others ignore the bird and try not to mention pitchforks too often.
Mad scientists tend to stay in one spot in general -- hence Stede's insistence on the tower, even though it necessitated more ladders and dizzying spiral staircases than he'd really anticipated -- but this will often lead to local mobs and witchfinders knowing exactly where you are at any given time, which is not conducive to scientific study.
Ed had long ago taken his show on the road to avoid this very outcome, and had crafted himself a very clever caravan that could be stopped and set up whenever he found himself needing to do a little work. The itinerant life was a necessity but... it wasn't fun like it used to be. And these days, he tended to leave the majority of the work for Izzy-- cooking up simples to sell to farmfolk kept Iz busy so Ed could do the important things like sit around contemplating the universe and also maybe wonder if that whole "base metal into gold" thing was just as much of a fuckery as everything else Ed had done to gain his reputation.
But Ed didn't know how to be anything other than a mad scientist. So... so maybe he needed to be looking at some other options. Really study up on that "deal with the devil" thing his detractors kept rattling on about. Maybe do some work toward the life after death thing, see if there was anything he could... prepare for.
And it's as the caravan rattles down the road to the next town and he's gloomily considering whether he would rather leave his caravan to Izzy or require its immolation with his own corpse (strongly favoring the latter)... that the road bends, and he sees the tower.
The Gentleman Philosopher's tower is ridiculous. It's got at least five floors, and the top has a widow's walk, crenellations, and a pole with half a dozen flags of questionable alchemical meaning strung up it. The stones appear to be made of some kind of glittery granite, nothing like the local rocks, and the mortar joining them has either been painted or, somehow, imbued with an absolute fuckton of chrysocolla to make it look fucking teal. There's a babbling brook nearby that pushes a water wheel attached to the side of the tower, except the proportions are all wrong for any of the really big ticket experiments you can do with that kind of energy -- and moreover, it looks like it's made out of some kind of cherry wood that's absolutely going to warp all to fuck in the water sooner rather than later.
There's a stable out the back with what look like half a dozen exotic creatures just bleating happily to themselves -- a grove of goddamn orange trees where any sensible person would have their vegetable garden -- and what appears to be a motherfucking koi pond by the front door.
Ed is fuckin' enchanted.
He is, in fact, going to go up to that tower and find out everything he can about the beautiful, genius madman running the place--
--the very second he gets done rescuing the guy from the enormous mob of torch-wielding locals currently trying to set fire to his pasty-looking corpse.
Once the smoke is cleared and the townsfolk appropriately terrified of what the mad scientist Blackbeard might summon upon them for their temerity, Ed can take his own sweet time getting the unconscious and probably-not-actually-dead Gentleman Philosopher situated in his incredibly comfy-looking bed-- there to watch him, bleed him as necessary, and come up with a thousand and one questions about the guy's whole, like, deal.
Izzy, meanwhile, has been left outside to stare in horror at the large sign affixed above the tower's door. The sign, somewhat smoke-stained now, reads:
The Gentle-man Philoſofer
Behold the True Glaſs of Alchymaie!
Galenical & Chymical Phyſick
Some Cookerie of a Moſt Delightfful Variety
Many Excellent Remedys for Scurvy Alſo
"What," says Izzy, "the fuck."
