book.

[cozen]

FORM: Enchanted books!
SENDER: Bastien
RECIPIENT: Everyone
NOTES: Bad medicine.

[ Copied into the enchanted books verbatim, in slow and painstakingly neat print, from an Orlesian gazette: ]

If you have spoken to a surgeon who knows anything in the last twenty years, you will have been told that a balance of the four humors is essential to good health. But did you know that an excess of black or yellow bile, blood, or phlegm can affect your manner just as much as your health? It can! Unbalanced humors may unbalance your personality, drive away your friends, and ruin your life. Answer these questions to discover which of the humors is at greatest risk of dominating your temperament.

1. Which constellation calls to your heart?

A. Satinalis, the Celebrant
B. Fulmenos, the Thunderbolt
C. Perquauialus, the Voyager
D. Elvia, the Sacrifice


2. At the last social gathering you attended, you…

A. Organized the other attendees to play your favorite parlor game or learn your favorite dance.
B. Engaged in a heated debate with someone whose politics were intolerably misinformed.
C. Found someone looking at a painting and spent the entire evening speaking to them about it.
D. Sat next to someone who was crying in the corner so they would not be alone.


3. The problems in your life…

A. Are minor and do not bother you very much.
B. Must be solved with decisive action.
C. Must be solved with careful thought.
D. Probably cannot be solved at all.


4. You are most proud of…

A. Your reputation and verve.
B. Your courage and independence.
C. Your ideals and compassion.
D. Your loyalty and consistency.


5. On your deathbed, you would feel the greatest regret if you...

A. Were alone and unknown.
B. Had accomplished nothing.
C. Had created nothing.
D. Were inconveniencing your children by dying.


6. During which season do you feel most at peace?

A. Spring
B. Summer
C. Autumn
D. Winter


[ In the mess of commentary beneath and around this, descriptions eventually appear: ]

Your personality tends to be choleric, dominated by yellow bile. Excessively choleric personalities are hardy, headstrong, and hot-headed, with a tendency to be blunt and overbearing. While your forthright manner and willingness to make difficult decisions may serve you well, be careful not to bully your friends and acquaintances.

---

Your personality tends to be sanguine, dominated by blood. Excessively sanguine personalities are sociable, impulsive, and unpredictable, with a tendency to be chaotic and capricious. While your charisma and energy may serve you well, be careful not to be so flighty and unreliable that your friends abandon you.

An interesting note, however: sanguine personalities who prefer summers are often found to be much more reliable people, with gorgeous eyes and an overflow of musical talent.

---

Your personality tends to be melancholic, dominated by black bile. Excessively melancholic personalities are idealistic, sensitive, and cautious, with a tendency to hold the world and other people to high standards. While your thoughtfulness and sense of justice may serve you well, be careful not to alienate your friends by being unaccepting of their flaws.

---

Your personality tends to be phlegmatic, dominated by phlegm. Excessively phlegmatic personalities are patient, unexcitable, and loyal, with a tendency to despise conflict and change, which they feel creates unnecessary problems. While your trustworthiness and even hand may serve you well, be careful not to let your stoicism and passivity become aloof indifference to your friends and acquaintances.

[ It's very scientific. ]

Comments

[armd]

(Written diagonally across the entire form:)

The four humors aren't real medicine.

[cozen]

[ An arrow from the end of her response trails off elsewhere onto the page, where the letters appear slowly, but legibly, which is good from him: ]

Your personality tends to be choleric, dominated by yellow bile. Excessively choleric personalities are hardy, headstrong, and hot-headed, with a tendency to be blunt and overbearing. While your forthright manner and willingness to make difficult decisions may serve you well, be careful not to bully your friends and acquaintances.

[armd]

Very funny. Are you going to do our zodiac signs next?

[youwonscience]

[Someone underlines "an excess of black or yellow bile, blood, or phlegm" and adds several question marks next to it. A few minutes later, in the margin:]

Oh my god, you guys, please tell me no one is getting bled for their health and/or personality, we can do better.

[cozen]

[ She's spared the same EXPERT AND CORRECT DIAGNOSIS that Abby got by the question marks and the fact that she used the margin. Instead, ]

Only the people who can afford it.

[youwonscience]

[Look, she's not angry, she's just alarmed. A small smiley face appears, but then in smaller text, still in the margin:]

This is a fun game but seriously if anyone tries to bleed you without at least boiling their instruments, get a second opinion

[Farther down, a little bigger and in the same handwriting:]

All Cs except question 1, because I don't know Thedosian constellations.

[bouchonne]

1. A
2. A
3. D
4. A
5. A
6. B

[cozen]

[ Following an arrow that lands beneath the description of choleric types: ]

Your personality tends to be sanguine, dominated by blood. Excessively sanguine personalities are sociable, impulsive, and unpredictable, with a tendency to be chaotic and capricious. While your charisma and energy may serve you well, be careful not to be so flighty and unreliable that your friends abandon you.

An interesting note, however: sanguine personalities who prefer summers are often found to be much more reliable people, with gorgeous eyes and an overflow of musical talent.

[bouchonne]

Maker, what an uncommonly accurate assessment! It's like the author knows me.

[hassaran]

[ having deliberately chosen the anonymous setting on the book so no will know she's giving in to boredom ]

1. D
2.
3. C
4. D
5. B
6. B

[cozen]

[ If he could tell it was her he might err on the side of her Bs rather than her Ds, if only because it's more obviously wrong and easy to discount, but the anonymity and absence of an answer to 2 makes him very scientifically go the other way, with an arrow leading off to: ]

Your personality tends to be phlegmatic, dominated by phlegm. Excessively phlegmatic personalities are patient, unexcitable, and loyal, with a tendency to despise conflict and change, which they feel creates unnecessary problems. While your trustworthiness and even hand may serve you well, be careful not to let your stoicism and passivity become aloof indifference to your friends and acquaintances.

[elegiaque]

Did all the healers quit or is it just that the obvious ex rentboy was doing all the work?

[cozen]

I am certain Lady Sidony will appear to slap my wrist any moment now.

[ But also, with a tiny arrow (to join the growing maze of arrows) pointing to obvious ex rentboy, ]

Obvious?

[rebellionyell]

[Dante doesn't question whether or not this follows reason, he's never been sick a day in his life and he's been bled enough to be as healthy as an ox. Apparently.

It sounds like nonsense, but he's here to be capricious.]

1. E - Andromeda.
2. E - Avoiding everyone, eating and drinking everything, and then blacking out in a field somewhere only to wake up and have to scout around for my missing clothes.
3. E - My appetite for destruction is bigger than my hands. When will I learn that my actions have consequences!?
4. E - My hair, no question. Next.
5. E - Ever played strictly by the rules.
6. E - Any season where bugs return to hell where they belong.

[cozen]

[ Through an enchanted book, no one can hear you sigh.

They can only see the arrow that appears to connect these answers to the blurb for Sanguine, already written, which says: ]

Your personality tends to be sanguine, dominated by blood. Excessively sanguine personalities are sociable, impulsive, and unpredictable, with a tendency to be chaotic and capricious. While your charisma and energy may serve you well, be careful not to be so flighty and unreliable that your friends abandon you.

An interesting note, however: sanguine personalities who prefer summers are often found to be much more reliable people, with gorgeous eyes and an overflow of musical talent.

book;

[notathreat]

Okay. I admit it. I'm curious.

1. D
2. D
3. D
4. B
5. A
6. A

[cozen]

[ Bastien puts little stars around the word curious. What a good thing to be! (He's not biased.) ]

Phlegmatic.

[ He doesn't draw an arrow to the description already printed elsewhere on the pages (and now included in the post), because the arrows are getting ridiculous. ]

What do you think?

[muckspout]

[Written in scrawl]

1. A
2. Never done any of these things in my life
3. D
4. That time a drawing I did got put on a boat and then sold to a prince
5. Think I would just say ow and be in a lot of pain and not care so much about anything else.
6. B

[Added at the bottom]

What are you doing with this information?

[cozen]

I am deciding on the seating arrangement for a party. It is important to have a good mix of personalities at every table.

I think you must be melancholic or sanguine, if you are anything. What do you think?

[ Elsewhere on the book's pages, the terms have been defined with:

• Your personality tends to be sanguine, dominated by blood. Excessively sanguine personalities are sociable, impulsive, and unpredictable, with a tendency to be chaotic and capricious. While your charisma and energy may serve you well, be careful not to be so flighty and unreliable that your friends abandon you.
  
  
• Your personality tends to be melancholic, dominated by black bile. Excessively melancholic personalities are idealistic, sensitive, and cautious, with a tendency to hold the world and other people to high standards. While your thoughtfulness and sense of justice may serve you well, be careful not to alienate your friends by being unaccepting of their flaws.

This is very important. ]

[bcpd]

did you pull the constellations out of your ass or do they have something to do with the humors?

[cozen]

I believe they were pulled from the ass of Monsieur Audebert Pomeroy, who writes for the Gilded Horn Gazette.

let's hear it for team E: aka jerks that compulsively refuse to color inside the lines

[illithidnapped]

[Scratched into the page with an elegant hand:]

E: the one that looks like a dragon
E: had sex with both a husband and wife pair individually, so they each thought they cheated on one another and needed to keep it a tightly locked secret
E: ...are solved with violence
E: stunning beauty, substantial assets
E: ...if I was dying at all. seems like a terrible waste
E: all, so long as I'm still here

[cozen]

[ By this point, Bastien has abandoned his slow, carefully legible print in favor of his more natural half-script scrawl, which means deciphering what he writes may take some squinting and reasoning backwards from context clues. ]

I would ask why you are like this if I did not already know it was because you are stuffed too full of blood.

[ That isn't a vampire joke. He only belatedly realizes it might be taken as one and adds a fresh arrow pointing from the responses to the diagnosis for sanguine. ]

[heirring]

1. C
2. A
3. B
4. A
5. B
6. B

Only don't tell me if I'm dominated by any sort of bile.

[cozen]

What is wrong with bile?

[ But she need not worry. He adds, at a pause, ]

Sanguine, it says. What do you think?