My very dear friend, Stamford Raffles, as painted by George Francis Joseph. A devoted servant to the Crown, governor of Java, founder of British Singapore, Governor-General of Bencoolen and a passionate naturalist and one of the the founders of the London Zoo. An immensely talented man of many gifts, he died all too young at the age of forty-four.
The Action and Capture of the Spanish Xebeque Frigate El Gamo by Clarkson Frederick Stanfield (3 December 1793 – 18 May 1867)
Painting depicting the capture of the Spanish xebec frigate El Gamo on 6 May,1801 off the coast of Barcelona by the Royal Navy brig HMS Speedy commanded by Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald.
Painted for Commander Ricketts RN who served as midshipman in the action.
O'Brian readers must wonder if this Commander Ricketts’ father was the purser on the Speedy.
My (Aasimar) Alchemist: Doctor Wistan Étienne Salomé for the Wildemount Campaign, run by Maren. This character is partly based on Stephen Maturin from the Aubrey/Maturin series. (Features are obviously based on Oscar Isaac, ‘cause he is very handsome)
As usual I started with just a couple of outfits for my dear doctor, but I have different stuff lined up. So maybe I have time soonish to post more (for now I’ll crawl back into my lair)
never gonna get over the duality of Stephen Maturin being a man who can perform highly complex emergency brain surgery during a sea voyage while also being a man who chugs cough medicine straight from the bottle. king
One of the many, many things I love about Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin (in my newfound quest to read every book in the Aubreyad) is how according to all known laws of fiction, Jack should be a roguish, effortlessly charismatic loose cannon who Doesn’t Play By the Rules, and Stephen the Intellectual™ ought to be a gentleman scholar who wouldn’t dreamof holding a gun let alone firing it, and yet?? Jack is sincereandsocially awkwardandLawful Good and Stephen is just an absolute balls to the wall maniac 100% of the time. On a scale of absolutes from Unit to Madlad, Jack and Stephen are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Jack once left Stephen on an island for a day or two and missed him so much that he started having imaginary conversations with him. Stephen once stabbed a man in the shoulder so hard that his eyes filled with blood. Jack likes Boats and Stephen likes Hardcore Drugs. I love this and I love them.
Astonishing things that are happening so far in Master and Commander:
I don’t know what I was expecting, given that the entire world plus the back of my copy sincerely calls this the “Aubrey-Maturin novels,” which we all know is just because they hadn’t thought to use a /, but still I was not prepared for this book to literally open with a meet cute. Specifically, a meet cute wherein our solid sea-honed ~presence~ of a British Royal Navy Officer is so overcome by the beauty of the music recital he’s attending that he cannot help banging his fist upon his knee to the melody, and is promptly and devastatingly shushed by this intense little slip of an Irish physician, upon which Jack Aubrey’s response to being sassed by Stephen Maturin is to have even more feelings than he was already having about the music, and then less than 24 hours later run up to him in the street, effuse how very sorry he is, and invite him to become his best friend. And THEN it comes out that this skinny doctor is actuallywasting awayon account of the patient he’d come to Minorca to treat having died without paying him, and is now sleeping in the fucking abandoned ruins of a chapel up on a hill and calling all his animal roommates by their Latinate names and hasn’t really eaten in god knows when, and Jack is like OMG NO, OMG NO COME LIVE ON MY NEW SLOOP WITH ME AND I’LL FEED YOU ALL THE TIME, and Stephen’s like Could I Possibly? and Jack’s like YES!!, and then rushes around getting his snug little boat ready while daydreaming about when he can get Stephen aboard and at last have someone with whom he can share his thoughts and joys and feelings about beautiful music. And then in Classic™ Plot™ Jack sends a messenger to tell Stephen that he’s going to miss their next meal because he’s taking his ship out for a test sail before they embark, but Stephen DOESN’T GET THE MESSAGE and comes down to the docks with his wee bag to see Jack’s ship sailing away and thinks, I paraphrase but only barely: “this is what I get for thinking I might at last have something nice, I cannot believe I allowed myself to lower my defenses so completely because now I am Heartbroken,” and palely glares the fuck out of the poor kid who finally rushes up to give him the message that Jack’ll be back to fetch him in a couple hours.
Other things that have happened include three four separate mentions of, to use the parlance, sodomy, including the Confirmed Gay aboard having already developed a crush on golden-haired Commander Aubrey. Meanwhile our absolutely hapless Dr. Maturin is belowdecks cracking his head into a low beam so hard he sees stars and then valiantly pretending he’s not dazed when Jack bounds down to happily offer him eggs and bacon and coffee.
And then the other 30% of this is long streams of sailing words that I do not know yet. I AM HAVING THE BEST TIME.
