Ishmael Endymion is a superbly talented chemist. A dedicated follower of fashion, he will flirt with anyone because he's bisexual, but form intimate relationships only with great care. He wears makeup and keeps one side of his hair shorn short in memory of his late sister, Aurora. He also wears her earrings. Her death is what made his friendship with Elisha Grey, where they met while studying chemistry together, grow close. Years later, they both continue to mourn her passing since Aurora was the collective sister who totally understood Ishmael, and she was also the love of Elisha's life. Ishmael had introduced Aurora to Elisha, yet she left Elisha Grey for another, more financially stable man, who abused her and beat her to death. This was the crime that made Elisha Grey consider using his talents as a consulting detective.
Ishmael Endymion had his own personal reason for becoming a manufacturer of hallucinogenic drugs under the legal constraints within Atlantis, to which he conforms as impeccably as he manufactures Blue Sweet Fire -- a classmate of his had died from an overdose of an illicit drug. Besides Blue Sweet Fire he also sells hallucinogenic mushrooms as well as a made-on-site shine from maize he grows on his compound. He both lives and works at Dark Ladder Laboratories which he founded, a compound of several buildings that includes a laboratory with his living quarters above, the mushroom barn, a distillery, vegetable gardens and egg-laying chickens to supply his live-in workers food as there is no commons or farmers' market close by in the industrial district. His drug, as well as his interaction with the drug using community, proves key in Elisha Grey's solving several crimes over the series.
Ishmael Endymion had his own personal reason for becoming a manufacturer of hallucinogenic drugs under the legal constraints within Atlantis, to which he conforms as impeccably as he manufactures Blue Sweet Fire -- a classmate of his had died from an overdose of an illicit drug. Besides Blue Sweet Fire he also sells hallucinogenic mushrooms as well as a made-on-site shine from maize he grows on his compound. He both lives and works at Dark Ladder Laboratories which he founded, a compound of several buildings that includes a laboratory with his living quarters above, the mushroom barn, a distillery, vegetable gardens and egg-laying chickens to supply his live-in workers food as there is no commons or farmers' market close by in the industrial district. His drug, as well as his interaction with the drug using community, proves key in Elisha Grey's solving several crimes over the series.