#I'll do my part to relieve this ailment

[dyke-pollinator]

I wonder what would happen to the Tumblr ecosystem if all trans people weren’t so fucking touch starved? Would it all just fucking collapse?

[dear-mrs-otome]

Headcanon time!

Let me preface this by saying smoking is bad. We all know this. It's not an appealing habit, it smells fairly terrible and has lasting impacts on your health - and I can say this with great authority, having been a smoker myself who was fortunate enough to manage quitting many many years ago.

But! Since Cybird insists on giving us suitors that light up, I'm jumping through some mental hoops to make things more palatable, for myself and maybe others. Which is a long-winded way of saying, Jude smokes clove cigarettes. (And probably smells of clove quite strongly too)

Now hear me out, there are good reasons I propose this! It's not just because it makes things a bit less repugnant, although that's certainly one factor. I'll put behind a cut the entirely neurotic, long-winded explanation behind my thought process.

Time frame: Obviously we know we're in the Victorian era here, which stretches a long long time. 63 years in fact is how long the queen reigned. Maybe there's been other details giving us a more exact time frame but so far I feel safe saying we're not in the early part of her reign - Big Ben clearly exists in this London, which wasn't built until 1859. Referring to postal workers as 'robins' wasn't a thing until the 1860s at least. The first commercial typewriters were available circa 1874 but the QWERTY keyboard layout we see on Kate's typewriter wasn't popularized until the Remington No. 2 was sold in 1878 where it then became the de facto arrangement. THUS, we can safely assume the game takes place squarely in the 1880s, by my reckoning. And when were clove cigarettes invented? 1880.

Clove cigarettes: Clove cigarettes are made of a mixture of tobacco, dried cloves, and sometimes other spices. They have a unique flavor and spicy smell to them that isn't actually unpleasant, but it can be very strong given how the clove overpowers the tobacco scent. (Here in the USA most clove cigarettes have been banned along with other 'flavored' cigarettes for more than a decade now, but I've had my share as a Youth) Per my exhaustive research (AKA googling) the leading theory of the origin of the clove cigarette was that they were invented in 1880 by a man in Indonesia who was - wait for it - seeking something to relieve the symptoms of respiratory ailment. They were first marketed as a medicinal product for chest pain, asthma, sore throats etc, and the eugenol contained in clove oil does function as an anesthetic. After Jude's 'Secrets' story we know for certain that he suffers from some mysterious and serious disease of the lungs, and implies that he smokes for therapeutic reasons.

Availability: Even if clove cigarettes hadn't become enormously popular in the West yet by the game's point and time, I think we can safely make a case that Jude would have access to them given his very position as head of a far-flung trading company. I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that if he'd heard of some medicinal product that alleviates lung issues he wouldn't try to get his hands on it ASAP.

And there we have it, my case for the clove-scented Jude. Go forth and do what ye will with this, fic writers etc...I know I will be until proven otherwise!

...ok who am I kidding, I'll probably stick with it even IF proven otherwise, because the alternative is just blegh.