Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was early in the 19th century when I was born, I was one of the first and many others followed. I watched and learned, as my master researched, that there have been many like me around for thousands of years, and it’s amazing that we are still here till today. Amazingly I have survived that long, maybe it’s thanks to my master that he wanted to make me into a masterpiece, maybe there was something more special that kept me from burning out... my master was a chandler. I am a candle.

In 1830 candle-making was given a great boost; a new substance, paraffin they called it, which would make candles cheaper and cleaner was discovered—distilled was the word, if I am not mistaken. Even if it was a short burst of inspiration, it was enough to create something still used till today, including me. I say 'a short burst of inspiration', because, like lighting up a match just to see the flame go out almost instantaneously, and like many fires, paraffin burned brightly but didn't last long. Soon there was a substitute for candles that was more popular and we were left to sit out on more festive occasions as decoration, not that I didn't find it pleasant that way. Luckily, there were those who still enjoyed the company of candles and I was still able to light up many dark rooms.

I didn’t feel much of anything initially, just the sense of existence—just "being there"—that I seemed to have felt for much longer, even before the time I was created. Still, when my master lit me up for the first time, I felt as if he’d breathed life into me—maybe that’s what he intended when he created his candles. It was that night that he taught me—well, I was reading what he was researching, actually—the history of candles. It was rather interesting to read about myself with the man who created me and I started to enjoy reading, even if it was at night. I wished we’d get to read together again some time but he never lit me up again.

Throughout the years I have witnessed many things, having been passed on from one person to another, that impressed me greatly. Most of those were artists, writers, scholars, who needed my services of illumination in odd hours of the night. When I was lit I felt alive, more aware of my surroundings, and as I shined brightly I was able to take in whatever the person who lit me was doing. I read what they read or wrote and admired the paintings and sculptures they made. At first it was out of boredom, just to kill time until they put me out, but then it turned into interest and at times, obsession.

I enjoyed my life. I would’ve loved it if only there weren’t some minute flaws. Sometimes I wished I could see the light of day, sometimes I wished I could go outside, to see the things I hear from my box in the mornings, to smell the flowers in some of the magnificent paintings I’ve seen, to feel all those other things I’ve read in the books. Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I were more alive.

If there was one thing I noticed with all the people I’ve ‘worked’ with, it’s the influence I have on them. Sometimes they would have difficulty with what they were doing, a writer’s block maybe, or a sudden lack of artistic creativity. Those were times when I wished—some times annoyingly demanded; I mean, come on, get on with your work, I am melting here—for them to figure out what the problem is. To find what they are looking for. More often than once, no, I daresay every time I wished them to overcome their obstacles they would always manage to do so. It was as if inspiration stuck, as if they were somehow enlightened.

Enlightening... Suitable for a candle I guess.

Prior to the candle being ignited, the wick is saturated with the fuel in its solid form. The heat of the match or other flame being used to light the candle first melts and then vaporizes a small amount of the fuel. Once vaporized, the fuel combines with oxygen in the atmosphere to form a flame. This flame then provides sufficient heat to keep the candle burning via a self-sustaining chain of events: the heat of the flame melts the top of the mass of solid fuel, the liquified fuel then moves upward through the wick via capillary action, and the liquified fuel is then vaporized to burn within the candle's flame.

The burning of the fuel takes place in several distinct regions (as evidenced by the various colors that can be seen within the candle's flame). Within the bluer, hotter regions, hydrogen is being separated from the fuel and burned to form water vapor. The brighter, yellower part of the flame is the remaining carbon soot being oxidized to form carbon dioxide.

As the mass of the solid fuel is melted and consumed, the candle grows shorter. Portions of the wick that are not evaporating the liquid fuel are, ideally, consumed in the flame, limiting the exposed length of the wick and keeping the temperature and rate of fuel consumption even.

Ellie can 'inspire' others

... colour coresponding to which feeling she wants to inspire. It will stay the same shape and colour until it burns away and the effects wear off.

To inspire someone, Ellie must have physical contact with that person.

The inspired person is not in a completely inspired state but more in a state of revelation, which means he/she is still conscious of their actions. If they are clever enough, they may just figure out they are being influenced by someone and find out who!! Oh, noez. D:

Effects normally don't last longer than a minute, two at most, the duration is even shorter when she's younger and is mostly used (if at all successful) for pranks and personal entertainment.

Candles have been used as a source of light since the time of the Egyptians (3000 BC). First they were made of beeswax, then millennia later, spermaceti (Sperm Whale Oil, yum!). Prior to the mid 19th century, the majority of candles were tallow (a byproduct of beef fat rendering, eeew). The distillation of paraffin in 1830 made candles inexpensive and clean, but another distillation not long after—kerosene—turned lamps into the prime source of light and candles into nothing more than ornaments, no longer used for lighting but just as lighted decorations.

Ancient Models of Inspiration

In Greek thought, inspiration meant that the poet or artist would go into ecstasy or furor poeticus, the divine frenzy or poetic madness. He or she would be transported beyond his own mind and given the gods' own thoughts to embody...the poet breaks through to the world of divine truth or divine apprehension temporarily and is compelled by that vision to create.

In Hebrew poetics, inspiration is similarly a divine matter...[and] is also a matter of revelation for the prophets, and the two concepts are intermixed to some degree. Revelation is a conscious process, where the writer or painter is aware and interactive with the vision, while inspiration is involuntary and received without any complete understanding.

In northern societies, such as Old Norse, inspiration was likewise associated with a gift of the gods. As with the Greek, Latin, and Romance literatures, Norse bards were inspired by a magical and divine state and then shaped the words with their conscious minds...

Enlightenment and Romantic Models of Inspiration

In the 18th century in England, nascent psychology competed with...the mystical nature of inspiration. John Locke's model of the human mind suggested that ideas associate with one another and that a string in the mind can be struck by a resonant idea. Therefore, inspiration was a somewhat random but wholly natural association of ideas and sudden unison of thought...

Edward Young's Conjectures on Original Composition was pivotal in the formulation of Romantic notions of inspiration. He said that genius is "the god within" the poet who provides the inspiration.

Romantic writers such as Edgar Allen Poe (The Poetic Principle), Ralph Waldo Emerson (The Poet), and Percy Bysshe Shelley saw inspiration in terms similar to the Greeks: it was a matter of madness and irrationality.

Modern Conceptions of Inspiration

Sigmund Freud and other later psychologists located inspiration in the inner psyche of the artist. The artist's inspiration came out of unresolved psychological conflict or childhood trauma... Freud saw artists as fundamentally special, and fundamentally wounded.

Carl Jung's theory of inspiration reiterated the other side...by suggesting that an artist is one who was attuned to something impersonal, something outside of the individual experience.