#phlogiston. does anyone know about phlogiston bc you should and it's hilarious

[a-sketchy-character]

Asking abt ur mermaid au👀

Well I am SO glad you asked, here's Steph in period dress :D

She's doing her best to remain undetected as she makes mer-friends — she stowed away on a fishing ship for highly personal reasons and Tim quickly, unfortunately, becomes the only friend she has. This is very inconvenient when her people trap and sell his people as novelties.

People think of whaling as a 19th century industry, like Moby Dick, but actually whaling was common back clear through the 1600s; this was before the use of whale oil so the main commodity was whalebone (the same stuff used in old corsets). And "whalebone" wasn't the same as "whale bones," it's what they called baleen. It would have been a lot more common in the 1700's if the earth hadn't entered a literal mini ice age about then, which expanded sea ice around whaling territory and made it harder to get to them safely. The discovery that "oh, heck, merfolk are real things" would have been a very timely and profitable discovery, picking up the slack of one industry to pave the way for another. Herman Boerhaave, a Dutch physician, was reintroducing autopsy and dissection as a cornerstone of medical science, and the slave trade was just picking up its feet to get going in earnest. The personhood of fish-shaped people would not so much be taken for granted, and 18th-century society would have gone wild for the chance to explore and dissect and sell and experiment on some funky mythological creature.

This all is very unfortunate for Tim, who makes a hobby of watching humans. It is also unfortunate for Steph who has mostly been the one watched and finds herself very suddenly responsible for the safety of this absolutely idiotic wet boy.

#like he's smart he's clearly very smart and wants nothing more than to connect and learn from her #but he's dumb. he's so dumb #she really doesn't question why he's so fascinated with people and watching people and why he's utterly unphased by being snatched by peopl #and she absolutely should question it #(someone's been stalking Bruce and his small collection of mer-sons for the last five years and it shows) #ft. my obsession with reading original historical documents #phlogiston. does anyone know about phlogiston bc you should and it's hilarious #science back then was. well. it was really something #batfam #stephanie brown #tim drake #mermaids. #whaling au