#i talk about this because it's tied into my own ancestry/background

[popurikat]

Trying to make sense of parts of Future (Mystery Skulls)

Since my last analysis went so well I thought I’d make this post as well, especially because Future really did confuse me and I know others might be lost as well; so lets discuss this together! It will be lengthy as I am basically spewing my thoughts out right on the videos immediate release date (there will be a read more option after my first thought to avoid long positng). Well first things first, I wanna address that I've been curious about what kind of spirit Arthur's arm could be (since I am not too well acquainted with any canon on its background part at least) and I think I have concluded that the closest thing to it could be is a Tenome; which is a Yochai that possesses a man's body and moves the eyes to the palms. "found lurking in cemeteries, hands outstretched, as if he has only recently lost his vision and is searching for something. Get close enough, and you’ll find out in quick succession that a) he’s not blind, but looking with eyes embedded in his hands, and b) what he’s looking for is a snack." (fyi, most of my mythos information is coming from Wiki just as a heads up)

And sure enough he found a great source for his hunger. Something he has been EYEING since the start. Which now leads me to my next points on the video...

At first watch I was convinced that each strand found on Mystery’s heart represented a singular soul bond, I thought that blue was for Vivi, Green was for the hand, pink for Lewis, purple for Shiro, Yellow for Lance, Orange for Arthur, and black and white were unknown. Which, didn’t settle right for me. SO I went in and re-watched the clip a couple more times and saw this:

Vivi’s (blue created after she got hurt) and Shiro’s (white created after she died) strands were connected to the strands located next to them. A start and an end. Mystery’s promise to Vivi to stay at her side for generations as he was spared upon prior defeat of Mushi. And then of course we have the promise of power and sustenance for Shrio as they held a symbiotic relationship for most of their lives that was only severed due to an interference. These double strands of fate are especially clearer in the scene with Shiro in Future. As the black strand gets clearer the more she gets injured or emotionally hurt, it eventually leads to the leak of the white strand on her death. Meaning; Black/white=Shiro; Purple/Pink=Lewis; Blue/Green: Vivi; and Orange/Yellow: Arthur. And why am I inclined to believe Lewis and Arthur are apart of Mystery’s heart? Well that's because those two were the only ones fully streaming before Vivi’s and Shiro’s appeared. We know that Arthur lost an arm to Mystery and discovered his identity (ergo losing most of his trust in him) insinuating both strands to arise early on of his color scheme, as well as with Lewis’ death occurring under the protection of Mystery when they were grouped and having his soul go restless/ in pain. It wouldn’t make sense to add family members or side characters not included in the mainline story to this grouping unless they would play an important role in the finale, which isn’t likely since we have only one more video left as Ben stated it was going to be a 5 video series. I am also inclined to believe each person has two strands because of Kitsune lore: “ Kitsune keep their promises and strive to repay any favor. Occasionally a kitsune attaches itself to a person or household. They follow their word of honor. They become self-destructive if they break a promise, and when someone else breaks a promise, they become deadly enemies.” Plus, It would make sense as to why in this short battle Mystery sprouted his last 3 tails when it came to Vivi and Shiro and how their connections affect his power. (more on this in a bit) But, furthermore; if anyone else notices, the Band-Aids on the heart are also remotely located on the sections of Vivi’s and Shiro’s strands specifically because for both, Mystery has vowed to protect them and has failed. 

Now then lets talk about a few things on Mystery’s ultimate form shall we? The final form of a Kitsune, its celestial form as shown here is called a Tenko. (yes I am aware of the Kumiho, but that is a fully evil, flesh eating, 9 tailed fox that specialize in illusions and well Mystery has never been portrayed as human). The Tenko makes even more sense when taken into consideration that Mystery’s third eye (typically a form of wisdom connected to overpowering the mortality of ones self) opens. So how was this done in such a short amount of time? “Kitsune do not accept aid from those who are not willing. they do not ask for help, and as such, most aid must come from another's initiative. Kitsune are emotional and very vengeful. Kitsune will lose their temper at the slightest provocation. Once someone has earned a kitsune's enmity, the kitsune will begin enacting revenge that can become quite extreme. On the other hand, those who have earned a kitsune's trust and loyalty will see a friendship that can last through many trials. Freedom is very important to the kitsune. They do not accept being forced into something they do not wish, and do not like being bound or trapped. Doing so weakens the kitsune.” Mystery as we know is very much controlled by his emotions, going head first into things constantly based on reaction and his inability to control his power under distress. His tails arose in the fight sequence every time he fulfilled his oath AND used 100% of his form/power. Therefore, his tails grew because he wasn’t holding back anymore, not his grievances, not his appearance, nor his hesitance in his evident distress of being bound to two entities that both required his aid.  My last note on these images comes from a tumblr user’s reverse audio clipping (https://nebulous-rain.tumblr.com/post/633555549749952512/ok-so-yknow-that-one-reversed-part-of-future). The rewind of the clip of Mystery’s transformation plays “When I’m With You”, which yes, cool a possible Easter egg to the next song! BUT what is this song about? Let me just bring up the first line of the song: “You got me hanging by a THREAD...I wish I could turn back time...I wish I could rewind life...” and before the chorus “I’m gonna make it right”. We know that this can refer to rectifying the wrongs of Lewis’ death, but more accurately to do so we need to defeat the evil inside this mutt that is pulling the strings of this whole fiasco. And this might just be the intro portion of the next mystery skulls mind you as we’ve also gotten many false starts with the previous two videos where hellbent used “every note” and future used “enemies” alongside the main song. BUT WE HAVE TWO YEARS ANYWAY, WHY BABBLE ON ABOUT THIS. LETS MOVE ON!

Hearts in this series have not been just for identifying the dead or for aesthetic purposes, they are the life force of each powerful legend. I am actually surprised to see Shiro have a heart as she started off as a creation from Mystery and therefore her lifeforce is just his blood and without it she is nothing. I am curious about her color pallet though, her heart is purple and pink. Lewis’ is gold/yellow with touches of orange. And Mystery’s is just red, but it has a mix of everyone’s essence within it to keep it tied and whole. Shiro’s could be colored this way in reference to Lewis’ aid to help find her creator; which would explain why Mystery surrounds himself by color as he required outside help and how Lewis’ heart is yellow in reference to how recently Arthur helped him remember his friends/hidden memories. One thing we have learned about hearts is that they can be broken repeatedly and can be ripped apart from the body, but they can be repaired too through resolution/hope. Lewis restored his heart in hellbent by using Vivi’s flower petals and finding hope that he will get revenge, only for his heart to be repaired again through Arthur’s touch. Shiro may have withered away, but her heart is essentially not broken, she’d need Mystery to restore it as it was flung into space (and that again relies on Mystery finding his sanity and finding it in himself to even bring her back). And as for Mystery himself, he’s gonna need the whole gang to reach out to him to extract the parasite within and restore balance. I really want to know more about the heart properties and how they give their users their powers as well Vivi is able to summon her strength through a material connection (bat) that function in its own way as the vessel a heart does since its connecting her to her ancestry.

NOW to finalize, I offer you two queries:

WHO IS ARTHURS HAND REACHING FOR!? I know it seems like Mystery, but that would be counter productive for the hand demon if he has Arthur interfering with his control. Is it still after Lewis as we’ve seen previous times where his arm acts up only in Lewis’ presence and when specifically other “magic” is at play? If so, is the goal to ward off Lewis and Vivi from defeating Mystery? Is Arthur gonna use the arm to find his own power as we’ve seen when he is able to momentarily cease control of it he kinda ruins anything electrical he touches and well, electricity is currently running rampant in there.

and lastly, I am really curious how touch sensitive hearts are, We know that even the smallest of brushes can detect memory/links to the person holding it (as seen with how Shiro managed to get soul flowers in hellbent), but the fact that Lewis was so in touch with the feeling of Arthur EVEN THOUGH ARTHUR GRABBED HIS HEART THROUGH HIS METAL HAND MIND YOU!, that he still managed to feel the disturbance instantly. So my question is, is the touch sensitivity reliant on how close someone is to someone? I would like to say yes cause when Shiro touched his heart he didn’t react instantly, he felt her rummaging his memories and was awoken, but he didn’t kick her butt by fully reforming until after she had long since stepped on his heart and then forced the memory of Mystery to arise. But yeah, its a nice little detail.

Either way, thanks for reading! Feel free to add on, comment, or even dm me about more Mystery Skulls information and theories! Love to hear them!

[otnesse]

Commentary on Peace Walker’s lionization of Che Guevara

Well, guys, as I promised earlier, I’m going to do coverage on a particularly infamous aspect of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, and quite frankly if you ask me, one of its worst elements. Sorry for the delay, didn’t realize that Peace Walker was actually released on April 29 in Japan and not the 30th. I’m basically going to cover the game’s lionization of Che Guevara in the various briefing files, and in particular Big Boss and Kazuhira Miller’s lionizing of that monster. For a bit of background, Peace Walker was the second canon PSP entry into the Metal Gear series, after Portable Ops (yes, Portable Ops is in fact canon, and if you ask me was a superior game to Peace Walker in terms of story and characterizations at least, but I digress…). The game has some controversial elements, namely it being very overtly anti-American even by its usual standards, not to mention pushing left-wing values to a far greater degree. One of these values is in the blatant promotion of Che Guevara in the briefing files (in the main story itself, ie, strictly going by the actual missions you undergo, the Che love was at least limited to the Sandinistas and to Vladimir Zadornov, with it being left ambiguous as to whether Snake and Miller actually were fond of him, and while you could argue that the Sandinistas’ sympathetic portrayal could point toward a promotion, Zadornov’s promotion was definitely meant to be a negative since he was planning on having Big Boss reenact Che’s well deserved execution after successfully changing Peace Walker’s target to Cuba in a disinformation op. The Briefing Files, however, aside from obviously Amanda and Chico, members of the Sandinistas, they also had Big Boss and Miller singing praises for that jerk.).

My commentary is on how Big Boss and Miller’s promotion of the guy was a complete and total betrayal of their characters, and also a betrayal of the explicit themes of the game, and also how it’s just one sign of Kojima just being a hack writer, not to mention was extremely poorly done even if we were to assume Kojima intended for Big Boss and Miller to be seen as the villains.

Out of character

For the first part, I’ll cover how the gushing for Che Guevara was completely out of character for Big Boss, and especially for Kazuhira Miller, aka, Master Miller from MG2 and MGS, not just going by past entries, but even when taking into account Peace Walker itself and any supplementary materials. I’ll give separate sections for the two of them, since it’s going to be lengthy.

Big Boss

For Big Boss, I’ll acknowledge that he was meant to be the main villain in the MSX2 games, or at least the main antagonist. However, his singing praises for Che Guevara even knowing that tidbit still didn’t make any sense at all, for a variety of reasons. First off, the games, namely Metal Gear Solid 2, strongly implied that Big Boss adhered to a more, for lack of a better term, right wing outlook. For starters, the New York Mirror review for Nastasha Romanenko’s book gave brief coverage on the official reports of what went down on Shadow Moses. In particular, as you can see with the screencaps down below, they specifically called the Sons of Big Boss a “radical right-wing group”, and the group itself for all intents and purposes, was modeled after Big Boss (even Liquid, despite hating his father, nevertheless was influenced by his ideology).

And then we get into the character Solidus, who unlike Liquid, or even Solid Snake, practically idolized his “father” (I put it in quotes since Solidus is a clone of Big Boss, as are Liquid and Solid), to the extent that he was practically ecstatic that Raiden shot out his eye and made him look even MORE like his dad. Aside from that, as you can see below with these screencaps, he was also depicted as a proto-Tea Party type, heck, a proto-MAGA type even, basically wanting America to return to the way the Founding Fathers envisioned it. There’s definitely no way Solidus would have been the type to sing praises for a scumbag like Che Guevara, knowing that, and considering his idolization of Big Boss, it’s also unlikely Big Boss would have sang praises for that creep either.

There’s also the fact that in MGS3, he wasn’t fond of Communism at all, and had already interacted with a guy similar to Che in many respects (well, other than maybe in terms of sexuality), Colonel Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin, as both were renowned sadists, and even directly attempted to cause nuclear war. In fact, even before the torture, Big Boss, more accurately Naked Snake at that time, learned a bit about Volgin’s past, in particular his involvement in Katyn, and presumably Bykivnia and Kurapaty as well due to EVA’s references to similar massacres occurring in Western Belarus and the Ukraine, as you can see below:

His reaction in that conversation with EVA, in particular Volgin’s personal role in executing those guys, had him downright horrified. Bear in mind that Che Guevara actually DID do several of those things himself, shot innocent and unarmed people, and if anything, unlike Volgin who at least allowed Snake to have weapons on hand to fight him, Che outright dithers when confronted with people using guns, even if they’re his own allies based on his interaction with Jorges Sotus, and to a lesser extent Jesus Carreras. It says a lot when even someone like Volgin, a psychopathic mutant, had more honor than Che Guevara. Plus, in Peace Walker, Big Boss when recalling the Cuban Missile Crisis implied that he blamed that event for his ultimately having to kill The Boss (with Miller even noting it was uncharacteristic of him to get into hypotheticals), as you can see in these screencaps below.

The reason that ties in to Che Guevara is because, believe it or not, Che is the reason why the CMC nearly caused the Cold War to become hot. He and Castro even attempted to launch nukes at the United States, and it actually spooked Khrushchev enough that he had to muzzle Che and agree to end the standoff with the United States via the Turkey Deal (or retrieving Sokolov). Knowing that bit, it’s extremely unlikely Big Boss would have been particularly fond of the guy who essentially set the ground for Operation Snake Eater and his having to kill The Boss. And that’s not even getting into how he tried to stop a nuke being launched not just once in the game, but TWICE, and the second time was a perfect opportunity for him to emulate Che Guevara and succeed where Che failed. When Paz hijacked ZEKE, she revealed that she intended to nuke the Eastern Seaboard and pin the blame on MSF under Cipher’s orders, and yet Big Boss fought her in an attempt to stop her. That definitely wouldn’t have been something Che Guevara would have done, and if anything, he bragged to the London Daily Worker that he WOULD have launched the nukes at America preemptively had they been allowed to remain.

Heck, in Portable Ops and even Peace Walker, or at least the backstory for those games, Big Boss specifically served western interests after Operation Snake Eater. In the former, Big Boss was revealed to have participated in the Mozambique War of Independence, and a comment made by Null, aka, Gray Fox, aka, Frank Jaegar, after being bested the second time around, implied that Big Boss had fought alongside the Portugese during that time (Jaegar at that time was siding with FRELIMO), as you can see from the following screencaps:

And in the tape detailing how he and Miller met (not to mention the extended version included in the Peace and Harmony Blues drama tape that was later included in the Japanese version of Ground Zeroes, specifically chapters 1 and 2), it was mentioned that Kazuhira Miller at the time was a mercenary operating with an implied communist rebel group in Colombia, while Big Boss was clearly siding with the Western-backed government.

I think the events proper for Peace Walker was the first time Big Boss explicitly sided with Communists (not counting Portable Ops, since it’s implied the Russian soldiers renounced their Communism after being abandoned by the Soviet government), and even there, he did it more out of his own personal motives of getting closure regarding The Boss’s true motives after learning she may have somehow survived Snake Eater than out of any liking of Mena/Zadornov’s objectives.

Besides, Big Boss is former CIA, and grunt or not, he'd still need to have at least some degree of knowledge about Che, namely stuff like how Che tried to commit to the Cuban Missile Crisis and make it a hot war, among other things like his instituting gulags in Cuba. And let's not forget, when Gene in Portable Ops tried to pull a similar stunt, Big Boss was genuinely horrified by what he was planning to do.

Kazuhira Miller

Now we get to Kazuhira Miller, aka, Master McDonnell Benedict Miller. Unlike Big Boss, Miller was consistently up to that point depicted as a good guy (probably the closest he got to engaging in villainy was in MGS1 regarding manipulating Snake into arming REX, and even there, he was dead three days before the events of the game, and that had been Liquid who did so). He was also shown to be a huge Che fanboy, and if anything he was depicted as being an even bigger fanboy than Big Boss himself in that game. And Peace Walker also retconned his origins by revealing he was in fact born in Japan with bi-racial ancestry (Japanese and American Caucasian), as he originally was third-generation Japanese American. He was made clear to have more love for America than his own home country of Japan, and only recognized the meaning of peace when talking to his hospitalized mom. He also was mentioned to have been influenced to get into the mercenary business by Yukio Mishima’s suicide, though he does imply that he wasn’t on the same political spectrum as him. Him singing praises for Che Guevara doesn’t work well at all, especially considering that he repeatedly stressed that they not allow another Cuban Missile Crisis to happen, and going by his comments in these screencaps below (in the same briefing file as Big Boss’s uncharacteristically going into hypotheticals, and if anything happened immediately before then), he was fully aware about how Japan itself was almost nuked again thanks to that event (with the only difference being that the Soviets were more likely to nuke them), as you can see with the following screencaps.

Having him sing praises for Che Guevara, whom as I pointed out earlier actually attempted to launch nukes and jumpstart World War III, comes across as ESPECIALLY distasteful knowing that bit, since it comes across as him basically cheering for the guy who tried to wipe out his fellow Japanese, to say little about the Americans, whom back then, he idolized. It would be the same thing as a Holocaust survivor singing praises for Adolf Hitler after narrowly surviving being killed by him. It also doesn’t match up at all with his characterization in MG2 or even MGS1 (and believe me, Liquid posing as Miller or not, his statements to Snake would have been what Miller himself would have said since Snake didn’t seem suspicious at all about him.), the latter regarding the bit about Meryl after she was captured. Even his not being fond of Japan doesn’t cut it, especially when, ignoring that he put that to the side after his mom was hospitalized, the character Sokolov ALSO wasn’t fond of the Soviet Union at all, risked crossing the iron curtain alongside his family to get away from it, and would have been free as a bird had the CMC not happened, and almost got away again until The Boss interfered. Even THERE, however, he still retained at least some degree of love for Russia itself, as when Gene decided to try to nuke Russia (or at least, that’s what Gene led everyone to believe at the time), he secretly went against Gene and adopted the alias of Ghost to aid Big Boss specifically to prevent a nuke from being launched there, being THAT against harming Russia despite hating the Soviet policies. I would have expected Miller to not be fond of Che Guevara at all for that reason.

Overall

The whole thing also didn’t work since if they were meant to be seen as heroes, it ticks off a whole lot of players who are fully aware of some of the crap Che Guevara caused and know his true nature, and regarding painting them as a villain, the problem is that the story DOESN’T depict them as villains for that. Heck, they don’t even STATE any bad things Che did other than maybe dying, and if anything, the way everyone was talking, you’d think he’d walk on water. If Kojima wanted to depict Big Boss and Miller as villains by having him sing praises for Che, the very least he could have done was make sure to specifically reference Che Guevara’s role in nearly causing the Cold War to go Hot by the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and his being upset at the nukes being removed.

Apparently, if Kojima’s secretary is of any indication, the reason the Che love was in the game was because Kojima himself tried to force in his socio-political views into the game in blatant disregard for the narrative and characterizations therein, as you can see below with links (screencaps will have to be in an addendum post since, unfortunately, I've hit my limit regarding screencap postings):

https://twitter.com/Kaizerkunkun/status/900937994143649792

https://twitter.com/Kaizerkunkun/status/1179860611297153038

https://twitter.com/Kaizerkunkun/status/1190763430497542144

Themes

The Che praise doesn’t work too well with the themes either, since he was not a peaceful man, even called himself the opposite of Christ, and tried to start a nuclear war. It definitely goes against the stated themes of the game, which was peace, not to mention the anti-nuke themes of the overall franchise. Heck, if anything, specifically referencing Che’s attempt at nuking the US and causing Nuclear War, and by extension outright condemning him for it would have worked much better with the themes of anti-nukes, especially considering that they made sure to reference Vasily Arkhipov’s actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis at one point, not to mention referenced both Katyn and the fact that the Turkey silos were already rendered obsolete even before the Turkey Deal made removing them required due to the advent of nuclear subs in Snake Eater earlier. And without the references to that, or any other bad stuff, you’re literally left thinking that he must be a good guy. I’d know because I fell for that myself, especially after getting the game (I didn’t follow the briefing files, but I did follow the cutscenes on YouTube back when it was still in Japan, and I also was baffled as to how people were talking about Big Boss and Miller were Che fanboys since the cutscenes never even pointed in either direction, and if anything, Big Boss nearly being killed by Zadornov would probably point to him NOT liking Che afterwards due to nearly being forced into Che’s fate).

The only thing it did was just have Kojima force in his political and social views, and I’ll be blunt, that kind of crap is something I have distaste in, I hate having propaganda pushed onto me. Ironically, Kojima or at least the Benson books for MGS1 and MGS2, instilled that view onto me. So my anger at Kojima doing that, after learning what Che was truly like in one of the Politically Incorrect Books (either Vietnam War or the 1960s one), is very much personal as well as political and social.

Aftermath

Well, as I said, I did buy into the narrative around the time Peace Walker was released, but then I learned I was being tricked by Kojima after reading the PIG books. I’d argue that event definitely was a watershed event for me. Not only did it have me lose any respect I might have had for Kojima, it also influenced my outlook on life, left me becoming distrustful the second I started picking up how they’re trying to push an agenda instead of, say, actually teaching the material in college. It also may have influenced my later views on Star Wars and Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (specifically, George Luca’s open admission to basing the Ewoks/Rebels on the Vietcong, and especially modeling the Galactic Empire after American soldiers; and Linda Woolverton admitting that she was trying to push a radical feminist agenda in Beauty and the Beast, the same one she tried to push in that awful Maleficent movie. Though I also was becoming disturbed with Belle for reasons other than that bit due to researching the French Revolution, though I will acknowledge Big Boss and Kazuhira Miller’s fanboying of Che Guevara, and in particular their reference to Sartre and his infamously singing praises for Che as “the most complete human being of the century”, certainly worsened my views on Belle, thinking that she may turn out like Sartre and throw her lot with the Jacobins and other groups.). It also left me distrusting of whatever Metal Gear had to say, may have also led to my not liking Chris Redfield after Resident Evil 5, or heck, some of the more anti-American commentary in 5 and other games, and also Dead Rising. It also influenced my decision to become a Dead or Alive fan (especially when before, I wasn’t particularly fond of the game due to the fanservice stuff), and in particular a Tina and Bass fan. May have also influenced my later distaste of Greg Berlanti’s writing of Arrowverse shows, in particular Supergirl starting with Season 2 (though that also had Heroes Redemption as a factor, which predated Peace Walker, thanks to how it changed Claire Bennet).

[ninjasmart]

What is Jack Schlossberg, President John Kennedy’s only grandson’s ikigai?

Ti

1. Ikigai is a concept coming from Japan that means - reason for being. Many people focus on the career, on the work, but don’t feel fulfilled. If you do what you love, what you’re good at, what others need you to do for them, what the world needs more of, what others are willing to pay for, then you’re on Your Path.

2. With Jack Schlossberg, the career is an obsession. I can see him exhausted trying to do everything. It is interesting, people who try to fulfill two different life paths usually have more than one name. With him - there’s overstacking on building the background for a political figure - the education, the charities. It’s like - we gave birth to you - now, go and become a president. 

At the same time - he’s really good at Blue Bloods. There’s future for Officer Jack in the industry. I’m thinking, should I really do a love reading on him. He’s so focused on what will make mom happy, the family proud of a Kennedy and what will make me happy, and I’ll do both, cause I’m ambitious. 

3. I’ll cut to the chase because his ikigai is the Moon. Literally the world of illusions. That’s equally as valid for the entertainment industry as for politics. His family need not worry and have faith in him.

It’s interesting, though, I keep getting the question - what do you need all those Diplomas for? He was raised as very responsible overachiever. The path he was put on is ambitious. The question is - is it his path. 

I think there is future for him on the big screen. If he thinks he needs to overachieve to prove he can do it and it’s not all because of who he is - he needs to remember to just say Thank you. That’s enough. Those who are envious will always find something to envy him for. Those who are not will see that he is fortunate to have access to the elite schools of the land and one can only be happy for him. Those who can those who have access to the elite also have the responsibility to make the world a better place including for those who can’t. 

Because, let me tell you, there are people who have access to the resources to which he has access to and do not do good on their responsibility to society. This guy, Jack Schlossberg, he’s solid. Not just responsible. Solid. Good things can be expected from him. And, if one day he ends up as a political satire comedian - he’ll revolutionize it. 

His service to the world is in the public eye - whether from a TV show, or a Netflix show, or a News anchor, or a late night comedy show, or from the Senate - he’ll be good at it. We need more people like him in the world. 

4. What’s his passion - 7 of cups reversed. He is not unclear what he is passionate about. He was born into prestige, respect, I’d say - American royalty, he is gorgeous. The 7 cups in the 7 of cups stand for - the temptation, the desires of the heart: health, wealth, fame, glory, castles, salvation. He was born into that. He makes good on his bloodline with his more serious pursuit. I would only add that the Blue Bloods and the acting is not whimsical pursuit. It is not less serious or less respectable. It is one aspect of what he’s good at - and that is: acting. Unlike our faux royal MM, he IS good at it. Keep on practicing, boy, the world needs you. 

5. What he loves - Well, if you leave him on his own accord, he’ll be , 8 of pentacles reversed. These are the employees every manager “loves” - who can find how to cheat the close and will put in only the minimum effort to not get fired but also to not be noticed by the managers with good performance. As business owners they’ll love to have their name under the CEO or Founder position but the long hours, blood sweat and tears will be optional for them. 

If you leave him to slack off he’ll do it and he’ll be really good at it. Two possible reasons for that. I really think he’s overly ambitious and an overachiever. That leads to what unsuccessful people will call “bite more than you could chew”. In hi case - he’ll do it, he’ll make it, he’ll succeed even if this makes him a slacker in one are or looking like a lazy person in some other area. He’s not lazy, he’s got way too much on his plate and he’s juggling it all. 

So, the first explanation is - it’s an exhaustion symptom. He’d love to just relax and do nothing because he is constantly achieving something and rarely takes time to really do nothing and recharge his batteries. 

The second one is - he was raised to not be a slacker. So he’d love to be like the regular Jacks but that’s not who he is and he knows it. 

6. What the world needs  - the high priestess. Divine Feminine. Champion of human, feminine rights. And, please get me right - a champion of the Divine Feminine is a man who defends, makes a woman safe, help her, treats her right. A gentleman in the true sense of the word. 

The high priestess is one of my favorite cards. I would also interpret it as - finish your degree, do not drop out. It was cool, but now it is not. Be a man of your family and graduate. Then, go back to school for acting. Find your acting mentor - a woman, a woman of considerable age. I think she’s very well known teacher. Learn from her. She has a lot to offer. 

Perfect your acting skills because you’ll make good use of them in the future.

7. What is he going to be paid for - In ikigai this is what is important part of getting out of bed in the morning. Not only to give to others more than you receive back in monetary value but to also receive that monetary value. 

10 of wands is a beautiful advice card here. He needs to form partnerships and always, always delegate and be clear on roles and responsibilities and to share the workload. He doesn’t have to do it all on his own. In order for him to be better in achievements, he needs to learn to find the right people to delegate the workload to. That will not make him less of a workaholic. But it will carve some time for mindfulness, focus and strategic thinking. 

He’s already studying for that so thumbs up, he chose well. 

8. What is he good at - 2 of wands. Money. He’s good at handling money, making money, creating multiple streams of income. If he wants to write a book - his mindset and management of personal finances will be a bestseller.

9. His mission in life - 4 of swords reversed. I already talked about it. If he thought that he’s one of those rich kids of legends, who are supposed to make good to their ancestors but will never come out of their famous relative’s shadow whether they make use of the privileges in life or not --- that’s not his path. 

He is not supposed to life a private life outside of the eyes of the media. ... some of the download got lost because I was distracted for a moment... Whe nthe time comes his ancestry will play a deciding factor. Until then - be in the public eye as much as possible. Rack up those fans and followers. The world needs you - you, not who you thought you are or who you were told you should be.

10. His vocation - 5 of pentacles. It’s a hard card to read. If I could make a guess - it can show his current situation at his environment - work, school, professional sphere. He’s meeting with a lot of isolation - you’re not like us, you’re from the royalty. If I was to guess, he’s experiencing it in a lot of areas - things handed to him because of his last name, or things not given to him again because of his last name. 

I think that this is the reason he is so determined to show them all, to achieve it all, to be successful no matter what... you know the saying - when life gives you lemons, make a lemonade... and then sell it for profit. 

This type of attitude towards him comes with the territory. It is part of who he is and this is where the acting skills can help even more to show him as relatable. And also, we are not given a challenge unless this is what defines us and makes us not stronger but makes us ...words are escaping when I come to explaining this. My guess is that he needs to figure it out on his own. 

However, those challenges are what he came here to achieve in solving. He can become very relatable. Very, very relatable. If he could only see those challenging situations as an invitation to turn these people as his fans instead of enemies or frenemies or people who secretly dislike him or envy him, he’ll be performing his calling to a T. Later on in life he’ll be a role model. Might as well start now.

11. His profession - the Fool. The Fool as profession is an interesting card. First, he need to embody the qualities of the Fool card. To make it seem that what he has been achieving is easy,  leisurely, effortlessly, and that anyone can achieve it. 

He’s ok to continue to be ambitious. Signing new acting contracts, following double major after double major on the side. As advice - do not be afraid to start over or start new things constantly. This is who you are. Make it seem effortless and secretly work really hard to make it happen. 

[marvelousecology]

Archaic Genomics

Every hair on my arms stands to attention whenever I hear the haunting downward hum. Hrrmmmmm. The bagpipes drone until portions of the fleet transition to bleating as the battle song, Scotland the Brave, surges through the open field. The resonance of its echoing sound leaves me awestruck with a powerful sense of connection to my ancestors. My mother always said, “We’re German, Irish, English, Scottish, French, and Dutch, in that order,” but her knowledge wore thin the further back she went, while I longed to visit the old country and experience the cultural roots my family has long forgotten since coming to America.

An unfortunate byproduct of being a late generation American is that my inheritance of these ethnic backgrounds, which links me to my ancestors, is practically nonexistent in my life; yet, an integral part of myself is knowing where my family came from because it affects my identity. I’m German, Irish, English, Scottish, French, and Dutch, in that order.

Nonetheless, there is no family heraldry hanging on our walls or a cherished crest passed down from generation to generation. No symbolic colors, animals, or objects showcasing the values or convictions our family once embodied. What’s our tartan colors? Is there a schnitzel recipe? Whatever Pagan, Celtic, or Germanic customs and traditions would have been celebrated were either Anglicized or Americanized. So, attending events or festivals that celebrate our national heritages is as close to experiencing the motherland as we will get and by venerating cultural practices like music, dance, sports, feasts, wearing the attire, and sharing the vernacular tales, imbues us with a sense of pride, belonging, and appreciation for our ancient kinfolk. Otherwise, the closest familial ties to my cultural heritage have been deduced to the commodified four-leaf clover, death by green, Saint Patrick’s Day or Mel Gibson’s Braveheart.

One afternoon, my mother’s oldest sister, Ruth Putrus, calls to tell us we’re one fifth Viking. The chronicle of her genetic story unfolded after submitting her saliva sample to 23&Me, which revealed a shared mutation that occurred 6,500 years ago from an offshoot of the previous gene that’s mostly found in Iceland. Enthralled by the news, I proudly add Viking to the mix.

Daydreams of Norsemen traveling from Scandinavia, dominating the Baltic coast and the Dnieper and Volga trading routes sail across my imagination. Hurling myself into Viking history as they colonized, pillaged, and traded during the Viking Age (800-1000 AD), spreading throughout various regions of Europe and settling in Iceland and Newfoundland. Imagining the dark black clouds of smoke from burning monasteries ransacked of its gold and goods as brutal bearded raiders took what they wanted, painting a medieval tale of Vikings sailing up and down rivers, always attacking England and Scotland, then seizing the women for wives.

These results wildly intrigued me, but it isn’t until much later when I take a DNA test of my own that I realize how complicated genomics can be. According to Ancestry, I’m 50 percent English, 37 percent Scottish, 5 percent Welsh, 4 percent Irish, 2 percent Swedish, and 2 percent German. The results conflicted with the phrase I’ve known my entire life; I’m German, Irish, English, Scottish, French, and Dutch, in that order. Not an inkling of Dutch or French and just a smidge of Irish and German? Sweden is home to Scandinavians who are descendants of Vikings, but only 2 percent? What happened to the one fifth?

Online, Ancestry’s website states that they test individual autosomal DNA because it reveals more information compared to Y-chromosomal DNA and mitochondrial DNA tests, but their ambiguous explanation is devoid of digestible information relating to how exactly it was determined or the science behind the reasoning.

A plant genomics laboratory researcher at Oregon State University, Amanda Roelant, comments on Ancestry’s statement. “Vaguely talking about a complicated process is necessary otherwise everyone would need to be a geneticist,” she says.

Geneticists specialize in the interdisciplinary field of biology called genomics, which studies different living organism’s genome. The genome is the entirety of genetic code stored within that organism and the genetic code is comprised of DNA—the blueprint of our lives—and it’s found within our cells and within our cells it’s found in the nuclei. Try to envision DNA as the sacred written text on the pages of archaic scriptures occupying the many shelves of a library hidden deep within the city. A geneticist reads this intricately coded text, a language foreign to most, and transcribes it for us to see; mostly revealing ancestry or underlying medical diseases.

Genetic information is inherited from our parents at the time of conception when the sperm and the embryo meet. Simply, half of mom’s DNA and half of dad’s DNA. Humans have a total of 46 chromosomes that breakdown into 23 pairs and 22 of those pairs are autosomes 22, while remaining are the sex chromosomes, XX or XY. Inheriting the Y-chromosomal DNA directly links men to a paternal lineage of ancestors descending from all fathers to sons. Meanwhile, the maternal line is found within the mitochondria; an organelle of the cell, like the nucleus, that stores DNA, which is directly passed from mother to child. Since, the mitochondria is the site for energy production and the mother creates a child inside her body, with her body, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed onto them by her.

23&Me provided Ruth with more resourceful information on her test results and the science behind the answers. Providing citations from archaeological studies laying down the foundation for genetic comparison using archaic DNA extracted from ancient skeletal remains, Ruth is positive we share a female Celtic-Viking ancestor.

One of the founding women of Iceland was most likely taken from Scotland by the Vikings. Was she a wife, slave, or servant? We may never know but there’s speculation because the first mtDNA references, to a maternal haplogroup called I2, has the highest concentration in Iceland. Vaguely speaking, haplogroups refer to a sustained change or mutation in the DNA that sticks with a certain population through a period of time. Detecting these changes or mutations can help group different organisms to different lineation’s.

“Grandma is the one with the I2 haplogroup and that would’ve went to all her female descendants, so your mom and I had it from her and we passed it onto our descendants, which means you have this haplogroup too,” she says.

Icelandic scientist from the University of Oxford, Agnar Helgason, specializing in genetic anthropology, and analyzing new mtDNA control-region sequences, published, “mtDNA and the Islands of the North Atlantic: Estimating the Proportions of Norse and Gaelic Ancestry,” that’s evaluating the matrilineal ancestry in Iceland. Roughly 37.5 percent is Scandinavian. “More recent analyses of mtDNA and Y-chromosome variation in the Icelanders suggests that a majority of the female settlers may have originated from the British Isles, whereas 80 percent of male settlers were Scandinavian.”

This haplogroup doesn’t necessarily represent Viking DNA since it’s very rare in Denmark and other parts of Scandinavia. “Some of our ladies got up there but not to a dominant extent unlike Iceland where there was an early presence,” says Ruth. The theory is that haplogroup I may have been carried to Iceland by the Vikings when they took British, Scottish, and Irish women from their homes in the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries, which changed to I2 and continued descending.

Ancestry provides me an ethnicity estimate without verifying its origins, whereas 23&Me correlates their findings with scholarly reviews and related studies. Although, I’m 2 percent Viking, arguably the 37 percent Scot is interrelated to the Celtic woman taken by the Vikings centuries ago. Culture is not inherent to genetics.

Geneticists are trying to crack a code and what that means for us. Everything we know about genetics is based on something a modern-day human theorized. “It doesn’t mean it’s the only truth,” Amanda says, “And as a scientist, I believe in a lot of it, but on a human level, there’s such limitations on what we know. So, it’s something to keep in mind when you’re taking it seriously.”

[trophywifejimgordon]

okay so, oswald’s stupid aliases meta? oswald’s stupid aliases meta. 

after returning to gotham in 1x3, oswald fairly quickly takes on a few false titles, first when confronted by a fish mooney lackey in an alley who recognizes him as the ex umbrella boy (in a panic, he tells the man that he must be confused, his name is dmitri... yeah, no), then when trying to endear himself to don maroni (trying to claim italian heritage, he calls himself paolo), and finally, in 1x4, when introducing himself to barbara (”i’m peter. peter... humboldt.”). 

so.

of these, and i’m separating the last one into two parts, i pretty much have the least to say about dmitri. while oswald has some time off screen to think about the other names, the confrontation with the mook forces him to come up with that one on the spot, so imo it’s the least likely to have heavy significance; likely he just chose it because it’s a very slavic name to fit the very slavic accent he’s not fooling anyone with. if i were really pressed about it, i might point out that dmitri is derived from demeter, the greek goddess of the harvest (among other things). demeter is responsible for the growth of the crops, but also presides over the cycle of life and death and the sacred law; one of her titles is “law-bringer,” referring to the idea that idea that law and order formed in agricultural society. the interaction oswald has here with this mook is notable in that--before he kills the guy--oswald insists that “gotham needs him! [he is] its future!” oswald aligning himself, consciously or not, with being responsible for gotham’s fertility, its health, and most of all its structure, would not be out of character for him, and is in fact directly supported by his interactions with the man to whom he gives the fake name. 

but that’s all pretty tenuous. 

next up, paolo! this one, i had fun with. see, i had a somewhat classical education. i read the inferno. that being so, my immediate connection with the name paolo (and, indeed, the only major literary connection i could find) was to the story of paolo malatesta and francesca da rimini. they’re condemned to the second circle of hell for their lust, yadda yadda, whatever. i’m mostly just concerned with the man himself; one source (from the owlcation page on paolo and francesca) describes him as “a romantic sort, a man not really interested in the world around him.” (emphasis mine.) which is fun, because guess what oswald’s doing at the time that he gives this name? he’s almost just been hired as a dishwasher at bamonte’s, maroni’s favorite restaurant. given the job, he’s warned that he hears nothing, sees nothing, says nothing. in all likelihood, oswald gives maroni this name mainly for its obvious italian origin, attempting (successfully) to endear himself to the obviously italian don by claiming “his mother’s” italian ancestry. however, there are a lot of italian names he could have chosen from. i don’t see why his choice of this one couldn’t also be a subtle way of reaffirming that he’s following the rules set out for him. paolo malatesta’s wikipedia page (and like, wikipedia as a source, i know, i know, but) takes this a little further, recounting that paolo is traditionally portrayed as a man “not very inclined to aspirations for power.” very NOT oswald, obviously. at the same time, very appropriate for his meek act as he slowly endears himself to maroni. even spicier, though, is this: “recent investigations, however, reveal [paolo] as a young man very attentive to politics and immersed in the political intrigue of the time.” so, could this mean that his fake name is not only a reaffirmation of his lowly position, but also a very, very veiled hint that he’s more than he seems? it would feel appropriate, in this case, that the traditional interpretation of malatesta is the one that oswald is banking on to facilitate his squirm into maroni’s inner circle, while the contemporary reading is the one he actually identifies with. that’s oswald all over; in touch with the old ways, yet in a class all his own.

a little less dramatically, paolo, like the anglicized “paul,” has roots meaning “small” or “humble.” so, in more ways than one, the name can be seen as oswald bending at the knee to maroni’s apparent superiority... and beginning to bide his time.

now, peter humboldt. 

you know, i really never did like this name? i’ve watched 1x4 at least six or seven times, and it always kind of made me go :/ when he offered it, because it’s just kind of... ugly, i guess. i have to say though (while i still think it’s ugly on sound alone), i’m fully obsessed with it now. 

like i said, i’m breaking this down into two parts. my analysis of the “peter” half, as with my analysis of “dmitri,” is a little more tenuous, just because it’s a fairly plain, common name. however, the low hanging fruit is the apostle peter, and never let it be said that i don’t take the low hanging fruit. so... peter. on the surface, oswald doesn’t have a whole lot in common with the story of peter the apostle, and that kind of threw a wrench in my analysis for a while. being inclined to fit that particular square block into this particular round hole, though, i got there. don’t worry, y’all. my penchant for bullshit knows no bounds.

first thing’s first, it bears note that “peter” was an alias of sorts for the apostle, too, since his given name was simon/simeon. he was jesus’s first disciple, and went from that to eventually heading up the church after the crucifixion and all following, becoming the “first pope.” such an ascension is a little reminiscent of oswald’s from umbrella boy to the head of the gotham underworld, i guess. and that’s cool. But We Can Go Deeper. i think it’s always kind of useful to keep in mind who the alias is for at the time; who oswald is trying to fool. in this case, the recipient of his bullshit is barbara kean, with an audience of an already in-the-know jim gordon. before his ascension, and furthermore, before either of them joined with christ, peter was already affiliated with a few other disciples: andrew (his brother), john, and james. (neither here nor there, but st. james was the first of the disciples to be martyred. jim...) peter and james--and the others, but i’m talking about peter and james--worked together; they were fishermen. in light of his audience, i think that it’s not entirely inconceivable that oswald is affirming his pre-ascent connection to james gordon (who he does exclusively refer to as james for the duration of the scene, rather than the ‘jim’ we get a lot more later on). not to mention, you know, the whole nautical theme. it’s not a particularly inspired link, but it does kind of work for him. additionally, while i still admit this is not the strongest meta i’ve ever written, oz choosing this name for these reasons would pair nicely with a running theme later in the season (that gets more or less dropped off by season 2, disappointingly), wherein oswald is repeatedly implied to have at least a tenuous christian background and some possible lingering expression of faith... think about the season finale, when falcone tells him he’ll burn in hell and oswald is momentarily taken aback, admitting, “i do worry about that.” 

(while i’m on this particular bullshit, one other thing that peter is known for is denying jesus three times after his death, but ultimately being forgiven and heading jesus’s church anyway. because i am a lover of Increasingly Tenuous Connections, i kind of see this as foreshadowing of the twist in 1x7. oswald’s protests to fish in the pilot that he would never betray her are reminiscent of peter’s insistence that even if every other disciple renounced jesus, he would not. naturally, he did betray her, and implicitly falcone through her. he continues renouncing his falcone ties, first by secretly joining maroni and then by openly joining maroni and threatening to spark a gang war... but at the end of it all, we learn that his “loyalties” (such as they are) never actually changed--he’s still falcone’s man. just. idk. idk. i’m Thinking About It.) 

aaaaand, finally, humboldt. 

so :) 

this is the part that i honestly wrote this whole thing to explore. because the thing is? i looooooove that he chose the name humboldt, now that i feel like i know why he chose it. i still think it sounds like a stupid name, but the subtext? the implications? UGH! 

right off the bat, my first impression was just that it sounds like the word “humble,” which goes back to the thing with paolo. neat enough. but, this name isn’t given to don maroni--it’s given to barbara. and remember, that’s important. so, what does humboldt mean, other than that? well, the one person with that name famous enough to bear mentioning is apparently alexander von humboldt. i’m certain that the name is, one way or another, a reference to him... and i’ll get to why in a second. he was a prussian (so, eastern european--check) polymath, as well as a naturalist, romantic philosopher, explorer, etc, and raised mainly by a single mother to boot. not all of his hats are directly related to oswald’s interests and skillsets, i’ll grant you, but the fact that he was a naturalist does have direct implications for why i think oswald choosing this name was a deliberate reference to this person by the writers of the show, because see, the thing is, there were quite a few animals named after him... including Spheniscus humboldti.

the humboldt penguin.

given that it’s gotham, i do have to acknowledge the possibility (probability) that that’s as deep as it goes. the writers were looking for a clever way to slip another penguin reference in there (they’re not. exactly. subtle, especially in season one, with the way that the characters are going to turn out), they looked up breeds of penguins, found this one, that’s it. but, on the other hand, there are other breeds of penguins that they could have chosen, and they chose this one. whether it was deliberate or only an accident, the decision was made, and i am running with it. 

because, like, another fun thing about humboldt: he was gay. 

(side note 2: you know tfw you’re on someone’s wikipedia page and there’s a ton of information about them and their life and their contributions to science but you’re like outta my way i ONLY want to know this man’s sexuality? ah, the personal life tab. where would we be without you.)

well, it’s one of those situations where you have to decide if you’re going to try to ascribe modern sexuality labels to historical figures, and at the end of the day, i won’t really get into it. however, though there is some scholarly discourse that cites him as a largely asexual figure (and while i’m definitely not getting into it and do not intend this as an attack on the asexual community in any way, i have to say an obviously gay man being desexualized to make him more palatable feels... familiar), the facts seem undeniable that he experienced same-sex attraction, whether or not you want to define this as exclusive. it is speculated that he had notable affairs with or at least vehement attraction toward wilhelm gabriel wegener, reinhardt von haeften, françois arago, and possibly his valet seifret, among others. maybe gotham writers didn’t intend for this little throwaway alias to be read as an announcement of oswald’s sexuality (although, even if “humboldt” wasn’t, the exchange he has with barbara--“i never get to meet any of jim’s friends, because he doesn’t tell me anything” “men.” “don’t i know!”--sure was... something), but as i am not a coward, i am perfectly content to read it as one anyway. and don’t forget what i said--this is the alias he gives to barbara. barbara, about whom he knows a possibly suspicious amount, given that she’s almost irrelevant to his political schemes. barbara, whose apartment he went to for jim gordon. barbara, who is, perhaps, his perceived romantic rival. 

look, it’s probably just a name and a penguin joke. but what’s the point of metatextual analysis if you can’t be like “he showed up and told barb his name was peter humboldt because he wanted to affirm that his origins are tied to saint jim’s and let it be known that the two of them are in competition for jim’s attention all in the most dramatic way possible and while smugly congratulating himself on being so clever and subtle”?? this isn’t really a threat--in contrast to how creepy he is with women he is threatening, namely fish and liza, oswald is downright courteous to barbara--so much as it is an indulgent expression of petty jealousy. i think he wants jim but perhaps doesn’t even realize the extent or in which way yet; he just wants barbara to know, on some level, that she’s sharing, and jim to know (because jim is just as much an audience to his performance here, and he knows that the alias is fake, might be driven to consider, with that detective brain of his, why he chose what he chose...), on some level, that they’re tied. 

oof. ok. that was a lot, but one last thing. since i’m already indulging in gratuitous oswald parallels with humboldt anyway, i might as well point out this line from a letter he wrote to reinhardt von haeften, after von haeften’s engagement to a woman: “Even if you must refuse me, treat me coldly with disdain, I should still want to be with you... the love I have for you is not just friendship or brotherly love, it is veneration.”

i’m on my bullshit, but... you can hear it in his voice, right?

[winterune]

Since Before I Know You

A Persona 5 Fanfiction

Word count: 3397

Rating: T

Summary:  What if Ren and Ann had met briefly when they were children? Set in a childhood AU, Ren was playing in an arcade game center when he noticed a certain girl with natural blond hair and bright blue eyes playing by herself.

A/N:  This story is set in a childhood AU headcanon I have had in my head for a while now that I have yet to write - which I will write one day, hopefully.

Also available on AO3. 

~*~*~*~*~

It was a rare summer day when he was 10, when he had no cram school and his father was away on some business trip. In the late morning when he went to the kitchen to grab something to drink, his mother was still there, fixing breakfast. She glanced at him from the stove where she was stirring some pot of miso soup and threw him a bright smile.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” she said.

Ren mumbled a g’morning before taking a seat by the counter and poured himself a glass of water. Through bleary eyes, he noticed there were two sets of steaming white rice in front of him, with some grilled fish and rolled scrambled eggs. There were also empty bowls for the soup his mother was cooking.

Absently, Ren grabbed his chopsticks and picked one scrambled egg to chew on.

His mother glanced at him over her shoulder again. “Simple breakfast since dad’s not here,” she said. Ren mumbled something incoherent with a small nod of his head. He watched his mother turn the stove off and ladle out the soup into the waiting empty bowls. 

Afterwards, she joined him on his other side and the two of them held their hands in prayer. “Thank you for the food,” he murmured before digging into his meal.

“Since dad’s not here,” his mother began, “do you want to go somewhere today?”

Ren glanced up at her. “Where?” he asked, scooping some rice into his mouth with his chopsticks.

“The park, maybe?” she offered. “Or…how about the arcade?”

Ren’s ears pricked at that.

“Didn’t you want to go there with your friends?”

He did, but his father hadn’t allowed him, even though his cram school wouldn’t have started until the afternoon, because Ren should be using that time to study instead of wasting it by playing around.

Ren looked up at his mother and nodded enthusiastically—until the image of him playing a shooting game by himself while his mother stood on the sidelines cheering him on interrupted his thoughts.

The enthusiasm left him as he asked, “You don’t mind?”

“Why would I mind?”

Ren shrugged. “Because…you’d be bored. And it wouldn’t be fun anyway just playing by myself.”

But his mother just grinned. “Who says you’re playing by yourself?”

***

It had never occurred to him that his mother would be playing a game with him, let alone an arcade game. All the times he had spent with his mother usually consisted of either strolling in the park or reading a book. Quiet activities. But now here they were, an hour or so later, in a local arcade before one of the shooting games, and for once, he saw a rare smile on his mother’s face.

“I haven’t played one of these games for so long,” his mother said.

That managed to grab his attention. “Did you play arcade games when you were a kid?” Ren asked, because the image of his mother’s younger self in a game center with her friends was beyond his imagination. She had never talked much about her childhood. All Ren knew of his mother was the big traditional house she had lived in and being raised as a lady of a prestigious family. Her past-time activities had included reading a book, flower arrangements, and tea ceremonies. 

“Sometimes,” his mother said, and with a glance and a grin, she added, “when your grandfather wasn’t looking.”

Ren found himself grinning at that. This was also his first time playing an arcade game, and he might have had reservations playing one with his mother, but it turned out she was a good and fun competitor. Ren had to admit it. He never would have thought his own mother, someone he had only ever seen arranging flowers or doing charity works, even knew how to play video games.

As it was summer vacation, even on the weekdays, the arcade was packed with people. By noon, it had only gotten more crowded. They were playing one of the basketball ones when Ren’s mother said she was getting tired. She’d look for a seat somewhere, but if Ren still wanted to play, then he should continue playing. However, the place was getting a little too cramped and his stomach was growling again, so Ren told his mother that this would be his last game and asked if they could find something to eat. 

His mother complied, but on their way out, something caught their interest—a lone girl by the crane games. If it were any other person, they would probably have blended in with the background, but even if Ren had tried, he probably still wouldn’t have been able to ignore her. Because the girl had blond hair that looked natural and a face that appeared foreign. She was clearly not Japanese, and in a small town such as this, that would certainly draw attention, though she seemed completely oblivious to it.

The girl, in a white t-shirt and pink skirt, was playing one of the crane games. Ren paused just in time to see the claw machine picking up some kind of figurine and it was already halfway up when the figurine dropped back into the pile.

The girl huffed in irritation, hands on her hip, before fishing a coin from some pocket in her skirt and inserting it into the machine. She moved the claw again, reached down, but this time, she failed to even grab the toy. Another irritated click of her tongue and from her reflection in the machine’s glass, Ren could see the scowl set deep on her face.

That was when Ren noticed the young woman standing slightly behind her, with dark hair tied to a ponytail and a simple set of dark blue clothes. Her back slightly bowed by the waist, Ren could just make out her murmur, “Ann-sama, please, your grandfather waits for you. Let us go.” The woman’s words surprised Ren because she had spoken to the girl in perfect Japanese, which meant the girl also understood Japanese.

Ren’s guess was right, because when the girl whipped her head toward the woman, the word she uttered was in perfect, fluent Japanese. “But—” And Ren was quite amazed. It was rare to see a foreigner who could speak the language so well. 

“And you are not the only one who wishes to play the game, Ann-sama,” the young woman added quietly.

The girl could see that, now that she wasn’t fully focused on the game machine. More people had gathered around her. Her eyes swept through her crowd of spectators, before quietly resting on him. A heartbeat passed, then two, and, as though suddenly realizing her situation, Ren saw the flush slowly creeping up her neck. The girl ducked her head and tugged on the woman’s sleeve, mumbling something Ren couldn’t catch.

The woman nodded then grabbed the girl’s hand and led her away. With her gone, the crowd slowly dispersed and Ren heard snippets of conversations, wondering who the girl was—if she were a tourist or someone famous or rich, having an attendant like that. But Ren watched as the girl’s small back receded away and he couldn’t help but think how lonely it seemed.

He looked up at his mother, who was already tilting her head and smiling softly, as though she knew what he had in mind.

“Can I borrow some coins?” he asked.

It took him three tries to get the figurine he saw her trying to win—a female character of an old anime he used to watch, in long brown hair and a black suit. He was amazed they still had these. He was even more amazed that the girl had managed to spot it among all the other toys.

“I’m going to look for her for a bit, mom,” Ren said over his shoulder.

The woman had said something about her grandfather waiting for her. Had she gone home? Was she still here? What if she’d gone here by car? That was not impossible, if that woman really had been her attendant. A rich young girl was the first thought that came to mind. This was the second floor of the game center building. Judging by how much time had passed, his only hope was that she was still somewhere near. 

Clutching the figurine in his hand, Ren quickly rushed down the stairs and checked the entire ground floor for her, but he found no one who looked like the girl or her attendant. Then he burst through the glass front doors. Sunlight blinded him momentarily before a pair of voices reached him from somewhere up ahead. He looked up, and there they were, the girl with the blond pigtails and her reluctant attendant, walking side-by-side about to the turn around the corner.

Ren ran up to them. “Hey!” he called. What was her name again? Ally? Annie? A—

“Ann!”

The girl stopped, then turned, and Ren found himself looking into a face that didn’t seem as foreign as he had thought. He could see some traces of Japanese ancestry there. Except for her eyes, which were brilliant blue. And she seemed to be his age.

Ren pulled himself to a stop, catching his breath.

“Do I know you?” the girl asked.

She looked wary. He didn’t blame her. He would think himself weird. But, what was he supposed to say anyway? I saw you wanted this, so I got it. Here.

That sounded stupid even to him, but that was exactly what he did anyway.

He held out the figurine of the female anime character on his hand. “I saw you having trouble getting this, so…I got it...” For you. He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. 

He stared at her as she continued to watch him carefully. Her gaze made him squirm, but Ren wasn’t backing down. Who was he anyway? Why did he go so far as to win the figurine with his own money for some girl he had never met? She had no reason to trust him. She had no reason to stop and listen to him. But he had glimpsed of a loneliness in her small back, and if this figurine could somehow ease even a fraction of it, then it was worth it.

The girl, Ann, finally looked at his hand, and Ren could see her eyes widening around the edges, her mouth opening slightly in a silent gasp.

“But that’s—”

“Take it,” he said.

Ann looked at him, then back at the figurine. She pursed her lips, and even though she looked like she would gladly trade her world for it, she held herself back, and said, “No, you won it. It’s yours.”

Ren furrowed his eyebrow. “No, I don’t want it.”

“Then why did you get it?”

“Because I wanted to give it to you.”

That made Ann pause, and Ren could see pink tinging her cheeks. Her attendant quietly said, “Take it, Ann-sama. It’s a gift.”

“A gift?” she echoed, as though she couldn’t quite believe it. She looked up and met Ren’s eyes and he saw confusion there. “But...I don’t know you, and I have nothing to give back or trade or—”

Ren grinned. “That’s all right,” he said. He grabbed Ann’s hand and put the figurine on her palm. “Just a thank you will be enough.” He let go of her and took a step back.

Her palm fisted around the figurine and when she finally let herself look at it, Ren saw how her eyes wavered, as though it was the most precious thing in the world, and a small smile slowly spread on her face.

“Thank you,” she said, and she looked at him again with a smile that had bloomed into a beautiful, ear-to-ear beam that made his heart skip a beat. Ren probably would have stood there, not knowing what to do or what to say, if he hadn’t heard his mother call for him.

He looked back over his shoulder. His mother was just outside the game center building and was waving him over. Talk about perfect timing. Maybe she had even witnessed the whole interaction. The thought made his cheeks burn.

He bid them goodbye, ducking his face and hiding away the embarrassment, before quickly making his back down toward his mother.

***

The first time he met her, he hadn’t realized it was her. How could he? They had been ten years old. She had seemed like a traveling foreigner. And that had been the only time he saw her. Not that he constantly thought of her, either, because after his father returned from his trip, it had been nonstop cram school or studying or other kinds of activities his father deemed “worthwhile” or “necessary”.

And yet now here he was, six years later, living his life in Tokyo as probation for something he didn’t do. He probably would have believed his father that he was a failure and a disappointment and be trapped in a spiral of self-hate if he hadn’t met the Phantom Thieves. But now he had friends who believed in him, people who supported him, and even a girlfriend who had always stayed by his side since the beginning.

“Ah! You’re so close!” Ann was shouting by his ear as the chocolate bar Ren had managed to catch with the claw dropped back into the pile near the chute.

An after-school date sometime in early autumn, Ann had asked him to stroll around Shibuya when she suddenly pulled him into the Gigolo Arcade. “I’ve always wanted to win one of these,” she had said, dragging him to one of the crane games that, of course, contained various kinds of chocolate bars. He should have guessed. “I’ve only ever gone with Shiho and none of us are good with these.”

“Not many are,” he had teased, and Ann had playfully hit his arm. Good thing he was kind of good with it—or, at least, he hoped so. He’d rather not make such a claim and then failed. He would rather see the surprise and joy on her face when he finally managed to grab the chocolate bar and drop it into the chute.

But two tries in and still he failed. “Third time’s the charm,” he said.

Biting his lip, Ren set on maneuvering the claw machine with the stick and buttons. It’s not that he had played this game countless times before. He might have sneaked to the arcade to play some games when his father hadn’t been looking, but crane games, from which you would bring some kind of prize home—assuming you won something—was out of the question most of the time. He would rather not have his father asking what he had and how he’d gotten it and where he’d been. But he had played enough times to know how the game worked and how to win it.

Ren nudged the chocolate bar closer to the chute and, positioning the claw in such a way, he dropped the claw and grabbed the chocolate. Praying it wouldn’t drop halfway, he managed to bring the chocolate safely over to the chute and dropped it.

“Yay!” Ann exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air as Ren bent down to grab the chocolate bar. “Thank you, Ren!” she said when he gave it to her. Her lips were stretched wide in a bright smile for a chocolate he knew they could find in any convenience stores, but then he wouldn’t have felt this sense of accomplishment of making her happy.

For a moment, Ren was reminded of the time when he first won the game and gave an anime figurine to a girl he didn’t know. This sense of accomplishment—it felt familiar.

“You’re welcome,” he said with a smile of his own.

She met his gaze and before he could prepare himself, she had thrown her arms around him and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Ren felt his back stiffening, his heart skipping a beat, and when he saw that radiant smile from up close, he couldn’t stop the butterflies from wreaking havoc in his stomach. She still had such an effect on him, even when they had been dating for over a month.

Ann extricated herself from him and, looking at the chocolate bar in her hand, her smile turned nostalgic. “You know, when I was a kid, I used to come to Japan in the summer,” she said. “I’d stay at my grandfather’s home. I didn’t have any friends, except Sayoko, our caretaker. This one time, we went to the game center, and I saw this crane game that had this anime character I really loved. I told you right? That bold, confident, sexy female thief?”

She had. Ren nodded, as bits and pieces of his own memory started to resurface, of the only time he had ever played an arcade game with his mother. Of playing the crane game for the first time in his life and struggling to get that figurine out because the girl had wanted it and she had seemed lonely and sad and he had wanted to ease her pain.

“The moment I saw it, I knew I had to have it. I even spent a lot of money trying to get it but I always failed, and Sayoko had to pull me away because a lot of people were waiting to use the machine too.” She chuckled. “I was so upset because I wanted to have that figurine! But then suddenly—”

“A boy came up and gave it to you?” Ren asked.

Ann looked at him in surprise. “How did you know?”

Ren stared at her, stunned at his own realization. “Because...I think I was that boy.”

It surprised him, as much as it surprised her, because even though he didn’t remember the person herself, winning the figurine and running around in search for her was still engraved deeply in his mind. And he had wondered what had happened to her, or if he’d meet her again. He had wondered if he’d meddled too much or done something wrong. 

And to think the girl from back then was Ann.

“You’re kidding!” she said in astonishment.

Ren shook his head. “If you mean the figurine of the woman with brown hair and black suit then, no I don’t think I’m kidding,” he said. 

“Yeah, this figurine here,” she said, opening up her phone and scrolling through her gallery to a photo of a figurine of that same female anime character he had gotten from a crane game all those years ago, standing atop what seemed to be her desk. He nodded to confirm that yes, it was indeed him, and Ann squealed. “I was cleaning up my closet when I found this, and it brought back so many memories. This was one of the best gifts anyone has ever given me. I loved it so much! I thought I’d lost it. And to think you were the boy from back then? Thank you, Ren!”

Ann was smiling and grinning like a child on Christmas day and it was then that Ren realized just how precious his “gift” had been to that girl. That maybe he hadn’t meddled too much, and a random act of kindness from a stranger really could do wonders in a person’s life.

Ren bent down and brushed his lips against her cheek. It was instinctive. He didn’t even realize he was doing it until he was doing it. 

He loved her. She might never understand how much he loved her. This kind and sweet girl, who had seen him for who he was even when the entire world was against him. He wanted to make her happy. He wanted to see her smile. He wanted to drive away all the lingering sadness and loneliness she had felt growing up. He had always wanted to since before he even knew her. 

When he pulled back, he noticed that her face was beet red, her fingers reaching up to touch where the kiss had lingered. He had actually made her speechless. 

Ren grinned. “Come on, we still have two more chances in this thing,” he said, nodding toward the crane game. “Let’s get more of those chocolates.”

~ END ~

[ms-katonic-of-tamriel]

The Elder Cicero - AoD 82

I don’t normally post my fic to Tumblr but this chapter’s exciting enough to do it. 

As the title suggests, New Cicero Backstory.  Those of you who read Age of the Dragon but maybe stopped or not commented in a while, definitely give this one a read!  Maybe even comment on it.

To sum up the story so far - Jarl Elisif the Dragonborn ended up in Thedas as Herald of Andraste.  King Madanach of the Reach went after her with their daughter and a handful of others to find her, and ended up helping run the Inquisition that’s going to sort Thedas out.

The aftermath of the Halamshiral ball left Briala running Orlais from behind the scenes, with Gaspard de Chalons as Emperor.  With that new power and access, Briala’s been looking into the background of one of the Inquisition, and managed to turn up things even she hadn’t expected.  The trail’s led her and two new associates that she rescued from Red Templars thanks to Inquisition information to Montsimmard Circle, stronghold of the Loyalist mages.  Now read on.

Meanwhile, far away from Skyhold, at Montsimmard Circle, someone else had a visit to make.  Being the Loyalist stronghold, with Vivienne De Fer returning early in the mage rebellion and making it very clear that this Circle stood with the Chantry and the common folk of Thedas, it hadn’t seen the fighting many of the others had.  Those sympathetic to the rebels had left but the Loyalists remained, and had taken in others from other Circles who wanted no part of the rebellion.  Its library and laboratories were intact, its Templar garrison still present, albeit much reduced since Vivienne had taken most of the mages to Skyhold with her.   But it wasn’t uninhabited either, and along with a few Templars to protect the building, a few elven servants to cook and clean, and some Chantry sisters to minister to those remaining, there were a few Circle members left.  A few older mages who hadn’t felt up to making the journey to Skyhold and their young apprentices… and a great many of the Circle’s Tranquil, who were more use here where their tools and supplies all were.

It was one of those Tranquil that interested the visitor… and it had been the elven servants who’d confirmed that yes, he was alive and still here, still a master alchemist despite his advanced years. And so Marquise Briala had come, keen to get answers to a mystery that had bothered her for years.  Official access to a great many files had answered a lot of questions… but left her with more.

Neither the Templars nor the Revered Mother had liked the idea of just letting her in to have access to one of their Tranquil, but they weren’t in a position to stop her either.  Everyone knew who she was now, and her new mask spoke volumes.  The design was a Marquise’s, with elven motifs.  The materials were those only an Empress would use, and all Orlais knew it.

“He’s not in any kind of trouble,” Briala assured the Revered Mother.  “I simply had questions.  About events in his bardic life. We believe he has information that might prove useful to key members of the Inquisition, except they don’t know he has it yet.  I would like to share my own intelligence with them, but I have to be sure it is true first.  For that… I need to speak with him.”

The Revered Mother exchanged a suspicious look with the Knight-Commander, and Briala was near certain she’d have to use force… but she’d chosen her human companions wisely.  Inquisition co-operation with the Imperial Army in clearing the roads of threats had alerted her to the fact the Inquisition were looking for them and that they might be captives of the Red Templars… and so as to save her new allies the effort, Briala had ‘suggested’ to Gaspard that the Imperial Army work with her scouts to rescue them.  At worst they’d wipe out a Red Templar cell.  At best… an Aequitarian mage and his noble-born Templar lady friend were assets Briala could use. And now they were recovered from their captivity, she was doing just that.

Former Knight-Captain Evangeline de Brassard stepped forward in Templar armour repaired and gleaming, and stared down the Knight-Commander.

“For Andraste’s sake, man, we’re not here to interrogate him. The Marquise has questions.  The Inquisition, for whom you are all working by the First Enchanter’s express command, would find the answers of interest.  Now are you going to let us talk to him or do we have to go back and tell Inquisitor Elisif and Sister Nightingale that we might have information but it might be completely worthless because you wouldn't let us talk to the man who might confirm its value?”

The Knight-Commander spluttered at someone who was not only a rank down from him but who was known to have absconded with the mage rebellion talking to him like that… but he glanced at Briala’s mask and the coquin masks on her elven guards and gave in, shoulders sagging.

“Forgive me, it is simply unusual for someone of your… station to come here in person,” he said, deliberately hesitating on the word station.  

“The information is sensitive and these are unusual times,” Briala said, shrugging.  “There are few others I can trust with this… and I felt I needed to see Monsieur LaRose for myself.  His situation is also unusual as I understand it.”

“It is true he came to the Circle late in life and like many in that situation, it was felt we had no choice but to subject him to the Rite of Tranquillity,” the Revered Mother said, guarded. “Mages who are never properly trained by the Circle are at the mercy of their magic, Marquise.  By the time they reach midlife, they are easy prey for any passing demon and often close to madness.  It is kinder all round to give the rite.”

Briala idly wondered if she knew the real reason or was just repeating what she’d been told.  Either way, it didn’t matter. She’d find out soon enough if her sources were true or not.

“That is true,” her other human companion said, stepping forward. Rhys, an Aequitarian with an interest in the spirit world.  “But from what I heard, he was no hedge mage being driven mad by his powers, but a talented bard in his prime.  I don’t think his powers were really the problem, were they.”

“Knight-Captain, tell your mage he’s out of line,” the Knight-Commander snarled, reaching for his sword.  Briala’s guards raised bows, the Revered Mother cried out, Evangeline moved to stand between Briala and Rhys and the oncoming Templars… and Briala raised her voice.

“Knight-Commander!  We’re not here to lay blame on anyone or dig up old grudges.  I just wish to speak with him.  Rhys.  Please. Leave the talking to me.  I know you have your thoughts… but let’s all reserve judgement until we’ve spoken with him, hmm?”

The Knight-Commander put his sword back and motioned for the approaching Templar reinforcements to stand down.

“Fine, Marquise.  But you should know his Tranquillisation was authorised personally by the then Divine.  Due to his, er, circumstances.”

Divine Beatrix, newly crowned in the early Dragon Age, and likely to overreact, still unsure in her authority.   Sadly, the years, rather than giving her an elder’s wisdom, had given her senility instead. Briala could see it happening, and Rhys and Evangeline clearly did too.

“We understand,” Briala said softly.  “May we speak with him?”

The Knight-Commander turned to the Revered Mother, who nodded permission.

“Yes, if he’s willing.  But he’s an old man,” she added. “He’s in good health but too much excitement and he becomes tired.  He gets headaches.  It’s not good for him.”

Briala was absolutely certain being made Tranquil against his will hadn’t been good for him either, but she wasn’t so foolish as to say it.  Still, if what Rhys and Evangeline had told her was true, she might be able to right a wrong yet.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

The Tranquil they were after had a particularly ornate office all to himself, a personal workroom with quarters off to one side, various potions bubbling, alchemy tomes lining the walls along with jars of ingredients, and sitting at the bench in the middle, an old man around seventy was dicing some elfroot.  Despite his age, the precision knifework involved was impressive.  A side effect of tranquillity?  Or a reminder he’d once been a very skilled bard. Briala wasn’t sure and didn’t like to ask.

She’d told the guards to wait in the corridor, but Rhys and Evangeline had accompanied her in, Evangeline standing watch by the door, and Rhys looking with interest at the various potions.

“Do not touch that one,” the Tranquil said, not looking up from his root-slicing and Briala felt her breath catch in her throat as she heard the accent.  The language was smoothly-spoken Thedosian in the Orlesian dialect he no doubt used as his every day tongue… but Briala could hear it in the vowel sounds and the way every hard consonant seemed to expect a vowel after it, despite Orlesian not doing that.  The files on him suspected Tevinter ancestry, but the sound was more flowing than that, slightly elven if anything.

Briala only knew one place in all of the world, all of the great wide world called Nirn, as it turned out, where there were humans speaking a language related to elven tongues.  And only one other person whose accent so closely matched this man’s.

“Cesaire?” the Revered Mother was saying gently.  “Monsieur Cesaire, you have visitors.  Important ones.  This is Marquise Briala.  She is the new Marquise of the Dales and a very important advisor to Emperor Gaspard himself.”

Cesaire looked up at that, as close as a Tranquil ever got to surprised, tilting his head slightly.  His long silver hair was tied back out of his eyes, a bard or fool’s motley exchanged for a mage’s work robes, soft brown eyes staring back at Briala with an intelligence that would once have been deadly for anyone crossing his path… but now leashed by the Chantry to making the Inquisition’s potions.

Oddly, his skin was not far off hers in colour, light-brown not the winter pale she’d expected.  She wondered what colour his hair had been once.

“Yes, Mother, I remember you speaking of her after Empress Celene died,” Cesaire said calmly.  “I believe you called her a jumped-up knife-ear with ideas above her station taking shameless advantage of our beloved Empress’s death.”

No emotion whatsoever on his face or any indication he’d said anything untoward, just motionless eyes and slow-blinking, but Briala could swear that some part of him was taking pleasure in embarrassing his Revered Mother.

“I… I said no such...” she gasped, face turning scarlet as she turned to Briala.  “Please, forgive him, he does not always know what he says.”

“Perhaps I could have a little time alone with the monsieur?” Briala asked, repressing a smile.  She had a feeling Cesaire knew exactly what he was saying… and while he couldn't do much about the institution that had broken him and enslaved him, he might take some pleasure in small victories.

The Revered Mother was only too happy to make her exit, and Briala perched herself on a nearby stool, watching him work.  Once the door had closed, he’d returned to his elfroot preparation as if no one else was there.

Briala waited for him to speak, but he said nothing, and in the awkward silence, she glanced helplessly at Evangeline.  What were the social niceties for talking to a Tranquil?

“Don’t expect him to speak first,” Evangeline said, amused. “He’s a Tranquil.  You’ve got a reason for being here, so he assumes you’ll tell him eventually.  If not, it’s not his problem and you’re free to go elsewhere.  He’s got work to do.”

Cesaire did glance up at that, seeming to approve.

“You are a Templar.  But not one of the usual ones.  But not new either, Cesaire can tell a recruit.  You served in a Circle once. Another one.  An Orlesian one?  This one is the last.  There are no others now.  Cesaire heard the Templars have gone Red and joined Corypheus.  Cesaire is fond of red, but apparently this kind is different.  Enchanter, please step away from the apparatus.”

Rhys stepped away from the still bubbling with something that looked like liquid ice, if ice could boil.

“What is it?” Rhys asked, fascinated. “It looks like some sort of frost enchantment?”

“It is for that elf at Skyhold who likes to coat herself in alchemical concoctions for maximum offensive impact,” Cesaire said, pointing at a stool next to Briala’s for Rhys to sit on. “Apparently another there wishes to learn the art as well.  That Harlequin of the Herald of Andraste’s, Red Cicero.”

Cesaire’s tongue tripped on the name, and he paused, placing his tools down, hand actually shaking.

“Forgive me, I get these tremors lately,” Cesaire said quietly. “I don’t know why.  The work normally is enough to calm me.  The healers say my body is healthy, but… if I could still worry, I would.  But if I could still worry, worry would not be the first emotion on my mind.”

He turned around to face Briala and Rhys, head tilted, expression strangely curious.  Curiosity with no desire.  He wanted to know why they were here but didn’t really want to.

No wonder people thought Tranquil were weird, and no wonder her guards had been all too relieved to wait outside.  Some of them had been cooks and cleaners in Circles before.

“Marquise Briala is a very important person, so I am told.  Humble Cesaire did not know his fame as an alchemist had reached even the Winter Palace.  You did not need to come all this way in person, madame.  You could have placed an order with the Senior Enchanter. Most do.”

“I wasn’t here for a potion,” Briala said softly, reaching up to remove her mask.  “I wanted to see you in person.  To see if my suspicions were correct.”

The ribbons came loose and the gold and diamond monstrosity finally came free of her face.  It was a relief really.  

Cesaire grasped the symbolism, and Tranquil he might be, but his bard’s instincts hadn’t gone away.

“Marquise?” Cesaire asked, expression shifting subtly.  “I regret to inform you alchemy is the only service I can provide, I do not think I am worth much as a paramour.”

“You weren’t always an alchemist, were you,” Briala said quietly.  “My sources were reliable and the documents in the classified Orlesian archives also have much information.  I know your past.  You were a bard once, one of the best in the Empire.”

Cesaire barely reacted, but his lips twitched in an unconscious mannerism, giving away… something.  Something in that ambiguity was raising the ghost of amusement.  Which Empire?  Which indeed.

“Alas, those days ended,” Cesaire said, hands resting in his lap. For some reason, his eyes dropped to look at them.  “I used my magic to save a brother bard’s life… and instead of gratitude, he looked at me as if I was some sort of monster.  I did not understand, for he had never been the religious type.  Days later the Templars came and my employer could not protect me.  Apparently discreetly stabbing people and going through their belongings is morally acceptable but using healing magic to save the life of your injured colleague is not.  I do not understand this place sometimes.  That was my undoing.”

“You were a healer?” Rhys asked, intrigued.  Cesaire shrugged.

“Not exactly.  Raistarazione magic was a… something I was required to learn.  It is useful, no doubt… but my specialty was Ahltaira- forgive me.  My specialty was manipulating inanimate objects.  I was always nimble and agile, make no mistake… but it is easier to Not Be There when a sword is coming at you if your mind can shift its direction.  Or deflect an arrow a little.  Everyone always thinks fireballs when they think of magic, or demons and blood pacts. They never think of the man who gets shot at plenty of times but mysteriously is never hit by anything.  It was a source of great satisfaction and amusement to me once.  But those days are over, Enchanter, Knight-Sister, Marquise.  This was nearly forty years ago. You will forgive humble Cesaire if he believes the intrigues he was involved in then cannot possibly be relevant now.”

“That is true,” Briala said, taking her time, raking her gaze over every part of this man’s features, every part of this man’s face, and seeing cheekbones she’d seen before, entire facial structure she already knew… because she’d seen it before, at the Winter Palace, in the face of a dying, bleeding man she’d saved from a Harlequin, only to see him healed by the Reach-King minutes later.  A man who’d showed only relief and gratitude to a mage, not suspicion and revulsion, and who would not have understood why anyone would object to being healed from certain death.  Just like his kinsman, who’d learnt to pretend to be an Andrastian Thedosian but who never would really get them.

Cicero the Younger had the Herald of Andraste’s backing and a mage rebellion destroying the Circles for him.  Cicero the Elder had had none of that.

“They aren’t why I’m here, Cicero,” Briala said, not taking her eyes off a face that barely moved… but the eyebrows flickered slightly.

A man with no emotions but an assassin’s training might do many things, and Briala became uncomfortably aware that there were a lot of sharp tools and glass in this workroom, not to mention all the toxic reagents.

Fortunately, Cicero the Elder glanced at Rhys, then over his shoulder at Evangeline, at Evangeline’s sword in particular, then back to Briala.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” Cesaire/Cicero said calmly.  “I am a master Formari alchemist and my name is Cesaire LaRose.  Nothing more, madame.”

“Don’t give me that!” Briala cried, wishing her own emotions could be shut off so easily.  “I know who – what you are!  What you really are!  I’m actually trying to help you!  I – mere d’Andraste, I know why they really Tranquillised you.  A bard apostate who’d clearly been well trained in both arts and no one knew who’d trained you – the Emperor’s court were involved, Cicero.  They thought you were a Tevinter spy, even though Tevinter denied knowing who you were.  And you wouldn’t talk, you refused to give them anything.  So eventually the Divine ended up making the decision, seeing as Emperor Florian didn’t seem to care, and Grand Duchess Melisande was keen to wash her hands of the whole mess.  And she had you made Tranquil on the grounds you could do no harm as one of them.  No one ever did find out where you were really from.  Until I finally put the pieces together after reading about all this.  You were definitely a spy… just not from Tevinter.”

Cicero was saying nothing, just staring at her levelly.

“You have done a lot of research into me,” he said, still with that eerie almost-monotone, hands twitching in his lap.  Hissing, he glanced at them.

“My pardon, the tremors again,” Cicero said, deliberately flexing his fingers.  “Also the headaches.  They are worse when I have visitors and cannot distract myself with work.”

“Marquise, do you think we should go-” Rhys began, but Briala shook her head, suddenly realising what they really were.

“You’re from a culture where it’s normal to move your hands while talking,” Briala realised, remembering Cicero of the Inquisition fidgeting constantly in formal situations and only when he could finally relax and move his hands while talking did he finally look comfortable.  But the hand movements followed emotions and a Tranquil without them…

“The tremors are your body wanting to move your hands but the emotions aren’t there any more,” Briala guessed.  “Likewise the headaches, you want to feel something but can’t.  This is bothering you, but you can’t feel or express it any more.  Is that right?”

Cicero sat upright, eyebrows flicking up, new information being digested.

“Yes!” Cicero said, and almost-pleasure was there again.  “You might be right!  Madame la Marquise is very clever!  Alas, without a cure for Tranquillity, I suppose the tremors and headaches are there for good.  That is probably for the best.  I think I would be very angry if I was cured.  But if I take painkilling remedies and remember the breathing exercises, all will be well.  I have my work. It is enough.”

“It’s not,” Rhys whispered, appalled.  “Marquise, this isn’t right.  It’s bad enough with the Chantry tranquillising dangerous mages, but as part of the Game??  His magic was under control, and he used it to help someone!  Marquise, I… what we spoke of before… I think I could do it.  With the right facilities, and Montsimmard must have them.”

“In good time,” Briala said, touching Rhys’s arm.  The Tranquil cure wasn’t widely known outside the mage rebellion itself and high-level Chantry circles, but Briala had a way of finding things out.  When she’d heard the mage who’d discovered it and his Templar companion were captives of Corypheus… she’d had to intervene.  Far too valuable as assets to waste, and here they were, with her now, being assets.

“But if he was definitely a spy for someone… who?” Evangeline demanded.  “I know he’s an old man, but… we can’t just let a foreign agent go.”

“An excellent question from the clearly very bright Templar, and there are not many of those,” Cicero said, turning round to return to his work.  “And one I am not going to answer.  Good day.”

Briala rolled her eyes and motioned for Rhys to pick her bag up. Taking a book out of it, she tossed it on to Cicero’s desk.

“I know, Cicero,” Briala told him.  “You don’t need to protect your Empire any more.  It can protect itself now, and its existence will be public knowledge soon enough.  Rhys, Evangeline, this information cannot leave this room until that day comes.”

“Rise of the Dragonborn,” Rhys read, scanning the title.  “The new Tethras novel?  Is that the one everyone says is based on the Herald and set in some fictitious mountain Avvar kingdom.”

“Yes,” Briala said, watching Cicero closely.  “Except it’s not exactly fictitious is it?  Skyrim’s real, isn’t it, Cicero. So is the Tamrielic Empire, and it’s becoming very obvious they’ve had spies here for a very long time.”

“Seriously??” Evangeline practically exploded.  “The Tamrielic Empire’s real??  And they’ve been spying on us since… since before I was born?”

“Yes, and we Tranquillised one of their agents,” Briala said, staring at Cicero who was staring at the garish front cover of Alayna the Dragonborn staring at the reader with one foot on a dead dragon and the other hidden behind the shield with the diamond dragon on it. A shield that Cicero was tracing the outline of, almost in shock.

“I do not normally read fiction any more, it is difficult to get any enjoyment out of it now,” Cicero said, picking the book up and turning it over to read the blurb on the back.  “But… I think this one might interest me.  May I… borrow this?”

“Yes, Sieur Di Rosso, you may borrow it,” Briala said, inclining her head.  “It was what I came here to tell you.  You could go home.  To… it’s Cyrodiil you come from, isn’t it?  The big city?”

“The Imperial City,” Cicero said, without thinking.  “I… before they… while I was a prisoner in Val Royeaux… the thought of home kept me from breaking.  Were I not like this, I believe I would wish to see it again.  I had family there once.”

Briala just bet he had.

“Who?  A wife?  Children?”

“Not there, no,” Cicero said, shaking his head.  “My sister. Stelmaria.  And her little boy.  Also called Cicero.  Like me.  He would be a grown man now.  I have not seen him these last few decades.  He was eight, nearly nine, on my last visit home.  I wonder if he still remembers me.”

Slowly, Cicero the Elder sat up, wincing as joints creaked as he turned back to Marquise Briala.

“Marquise.  You knew my name.  My real name.  Because my nephew shares it… and you know him, don’t you.  He followed in my footsteps, didn’t he, and he works for the Inquisition.”

Briala nodded, a lump in her throat as she recalled Morio Sicarius, the brave if demented assassin who Tethras had made pop right off the page, and when she’d met the man behind the motley, she’d realised he’d only embellished a little.  Cicero Di Rosso, one of the few humans she’d ever cared about.  And here was his uncle.  A Tranquil, imprisoned by the Chantry.

“Yes,” Briala said softly.  “I’ve met him.  He’s good at what he does.  He’s a lot like you.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Cicero said.  “I would be proud of him, I think.  I… I have heard of the Tranquil cure.  I don’t know the details, but it appears the Enchanter here does.  I do not wish the cure right now.  I would be angry.  And upset.  But… if <i>il dolcetto</i> is here and remembers me… if he wishes to see me… I will risk that so he does not see me like this.   If he does not wish to see me… then leave me this way. Easier not to feel anything.”

Briala hoped for his sake that the younger Cicero did remember his uncle.  As it was though, she had one other piece of information to share.  Now that she knew Cicero the Elder hadn’t had a woman in each port so to speak, and that the younger one was a nephew not a son, she felt better airing it.

“There’s something else.  I know about your wife, Oisine. Looking into her was what set me on your trail in fact, all the other things came out of that.  I wasn’t looking for a Tamrielic agent. I was after the man who fathered the child of Oisine, an elven servant in the Vasseur household many years ago.  I suspected a noble who’d taken advantage, and when I found her linked to one of Lady Cecilie’s bards, I had no reason to doubt that… until one of my agents turned up a marriage certificate.  A secret ceremony but a legitimate one, between Oisine and Cesaire LaRose.  I looked into that name and realised you were arrested by Templars not that long after the wedding.  Did you know she’d been pregnant at the time?”

Cicero was silent, but he did nod.

“Yes.  We had names picked out and everything.  Oisine wasn’t sure about a son being called Septimo but she adored Leliana as a girl’s name.  It was my mother’s name, you see.  I still don’t know what happened to the child.  Or Oisine.  I suppose they told her I’d died.”

“I suppose they did,” Briala said, heavy in her heart and just glad he wouldn’t feel the full force of emotion over this.  “I’m sorry.  She died years ago.  But little Leliana’s alive and well and thriving.  She doesn’t know about you though.  Should I… tell her?”

A pause.  A hesitation.  And then a shake of the head.

“No.  Not yet.  Give me time to think on this.  I should read this too.  It is fiction but not all of it, I think.  You will leave me a means of reaching you, yes?

“I will do that,” Briala promised.  “Come on.  We’ve taken enough of this poor man’s time.  I’m sure he has work to do.”

Cicero Di Rosso the Elder nodded as they saw themselves out, before ringing the bell on his desk and reaching for the talking crystal.

“Hello to the kitchen staff.  Master Di R- Master LaRose speaking. Could I have some elfroot tea please?  And some of the willowbark pills please.  The headaches are going to be particularly bad today. I can already tell.”

How a man was supposed to get any work done around here, he was sure he had no idea.  He hoped no one needed any important potions today. Best to focus on the healing mist.  If Madame Sera of Skyhold got in a fight, she’d have to manage without setting herself on fire.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

Briala led both Rhys and Evangeline into an empty lecture room, had her guards wait outside and then perched herself on one of the desks, feet on the chair in front of it.  She never had been good at sitting in human chairs properly.

Rhys and Evangeline were still standing, and Briala belatedly recalled she was de facto ruler of Orlais now, people weren’t allowed to sit in her presence until she gave them permission.

“Sit down, the pair of you,” Briala sighed.  “I suppose you have questions.”

Rhys sat down first.  While his injuries from Red Templar activity were mostly healed, he still tired easily.  Not remotely ready for active service yet, and Briala had had reservations about bringing him… but she was glad he was here.  It seemed he was on side already.

Sadly, the same could not be said for his Templar friend.

“Tamriel is real, not just a story, and they’ve been spying on us for years?” Evangeline demanded.  “How long have you known this? What do they want?  Are we safe?  Is Corypheus working for them? Marquise, if this gets out…!”

“Then help make sure it doesn’t,” Briala snapped.  “Evangeline. I’ve known of Tamriel for a few months now, there were stories circulating in the mage rebellion before the book came out.  I didn’t know about the spies until I started looking into Cesaire, and I didn’t know for sure until I spoke to him.  He looks exactly like an older, darker-skinned version of Red Cicero of the Inquisition. The accent’s the same, the speech patterns – if he wasn’t Tranquil, he’d doubtless be fluttering his hands every other word like the other one does.  There’s stories of the other Cicero using magic too.  Something about a demon horse, and I rather think he’s using the same tricks his uncle used to.  Too many stories of him pulling off the impossible.  As for what they want – that’s for me to worry about.  But I don’t think they’re enemies – at least, they don’t have to be.  And as for Corypheus… you’ve read the book.  You must have worked out Alayna and Maranil are based on the Herald and her husband.”

“I know but… it can’t be real, surely?” Evangeline whispered, shaking her head.  “Tethras wouldn’t just… where would he get his information form?  He’s not a Tamrielic spy as well, is he?”

“No,” Briala said, shaking her head.  “He’s their publicist. Alayna is really Elisif and she got Varric Tethras to write her story.  While I’m sure he’s embellished and added things, I’d be surprised if she didn’t approve the final draft.  How she got to Thedas is anyone’s guess.  Maybe Andraste really did hand her out of the Fade to save us.  It makes as much sense as any other theory at this point.  But she’s Dragonborn, High Queen of Skyrim, and heir apparent to the Imperial Throne of Tamriel, and she’s leading the fight against Corypheus.  Who, I might remind you, claims to be a resurrected Tevinter magister.  He is an all too Thedosian phenomenon.”

“Tamriel’s had spies for forty years or more… and they never revealed themselves or did anything,” Rhys whispered.

“Not that we’re aware,” Briala admitted.  “But there’s so much we don’t know – Cesaire was just the one who got caught. There may be many others living rather quieter lives.  Still.  The time of Tamrielic secrecy is coming to an end.  Queen Elisif, who is our Herald of Andraste, had this published, and I am fairly certain it was so when Tamriel announces itself, we don’t all panic.  Oh, it’s possible she might just go quietly home after all this is done… but she’s the future Empress.  She knows we exist now. We’ve all heard of her.  She has ties here, favours owed, rulers in her debt, her Inquisition both enabling my rise to power and Queen Anora being able to set up her own Chantry unmolested.  There’s even Orlesian and Fereldan peace talks coming up with Josephine Montilyet facilitating them.  Elisif’s written to both Gaspard and myself hoping we can reach an accord with Anora – I imagine Anora’s had the same.  No ruler in her right mind is just going to go home to Tamriel and leave all this behind her.  Our links to the Inquisition are going to end up turning into treaties with Tamriel, I am sure. I… am actually not displeased by this.  Mages aren’t penned up in Circles.  They don’t share our faith but they aren’t interested in enforcing theirs.  They’re a human Empire but their non-human citizens are treated a lot better than elves are here.  I’m looking forward to working with them.  At least, I was until I realised we have Tranquillised a relative of someone high up in the future Empress’s court!  Now do you see why this is important?  Now do you realise why you’re both here??”

Evangeline had gone very quiet as she remembered Morio Sicarius’s backstory.

“Red Cicero is Morio Sicarius,” she whispered.  Briala nodded.

“I’m afraid so.  And you remember in the book he lost his only relative, his beloved mother, to the Great War, and that trauma sent him into the Brotherhood’s arms, and it was only the promise of a new family with the Reachfolk that got him out of there and made him into a better person.”

Evangeline nodded, remembering.

“But if his uncle is alive, was here all along… if the timelines are right, the war took place after he was made Tranquil.”

“Yes,” Briala said grimly.  “If Cicero the Elder hadn’t been captured, if he’d still been a serving bard, do you think they might have recalled him during the war?  Or he might have returned home anyway if he heard the Imperial City had fallen.  He couldn’t have saved his sister, but he might have been able to find his nephew and save him.  Cicero’s spent his entire adult life thinking he was alone in the world with no blood kin and reaching for family wherever he could.  How do you think he’s going to react when he finds his uncle is alive but the Chantry made sure that uncle could never be there for him.”

Not well, and neither Rhys nor Evangeline needed reminding Red Cicero was a trained assassin.

“Anyone in a Chantry robe could get murdered,” Rhys whispered. “Maker, what do we do?”

“Or he goes to Elisif and she gets the Chantry disbanded entirely,” Evangeline said, sinking into a chair, hands in her hair.  “Andraste have mercy.”

“It need not come to that,” Briala said.  “I know Elisif. She’s not without compassion.  But this needs careful handling. Because it’s not just Cicero.  You recall he had an unborn child, a girl called Leliana.”

“Yes,” Rhys said, eyes widening as the truth dawned on him. “Isn’t the Inquisition spymaster called that.  The Divine’s former Left Hand.  I met her, you know.  She’s got red hair too. She’s got paler skin and blue eyes not brown but… the face is very similar.”

“We didn’t just make a Tamrielic agent Tranquil but Sister Nightingale’s father too??” Evangeline gasped.  “Can this get worse?? She’s a candidate for Divine, if she finds this out…!”

“I know, which is why she needs to find out before she takes the Sunburst Throne,” Briala said.  “I don’t know how she’ll react but… He’s an old man.  I don’t know how long he has left. I’d like to reunite them if I can.  A show of goodwill and all that.  And if he’s willing, I’d like him cured of Tranquillity. That will be a delicate undertaking and I’ll need the Inquisitor on side to help deal with the consequences.  She’s a compassionate type and Cicero and Leliana both respect her.  If anyone can help Cesaire post-cure, it’s her.  But in the meantime… I have people of my own infiltrating this Circle but I’m concerned my visit will arouse suspicion.  Especially if our friend here keeps needling the Revered Mother.  He doesn’t feel emotions any more, but he clearly still remembers how to manipulate other people’s.  I think he might need protecting.”

“Then we’ll stay and protect him,” Evangeline promised. “Andraste, Marquise, the only reason he’s lasted this long is because everyone thinks a Tranquil is harmless and he had no kin of consequence.  He’ll need guarding, and I know how to protect mages. Including from other Templars.”

“And he’ll need company,” Rhys added.  “I can help with the apprentices here, and be someone for Cesaire to talk to.  And if he changes his mind about the cure… if need be, it can happen here, although personally I think you’re right in that maybe the Herald should be involved.”

Exactly what Briala had been hoping for.  It was always nice when people volunteered for the thing she was going to order them to do anyway.

“I’ll speak to the Revered Mother,” Briala told them, getting up.  “Thank you, both of you.  I appreciate this more than you know.  I can ensure you’re both well compensated for this – in fact,

I believe I might even be able to obtain the Brassard-Manot estate from its current owners.  It should go back to the family who deserve it, don’t you think?  And you and Rhys will need somewhere to live after all this.”

Evangeline could barely speak, but Rhys took her hand and thanked Briala fervently.  

It was rather gratifying to have two humans just treating her like a person, and an important one at that.  Briala still wasn’t used to this.  Particularly when the Revered Mother and Knight-Commander both still seemed suspicious despite the surface politeness.  She hoped Rhys and Evangeline would be all right here.  She suspected they’d be fine but even so, two veterans of the mage rebellion at the Loyalist stronghold might well cause tension.

Stepping outside the Circle tower with her guards in tow, she was surprised to run straight into a small patrol of the Orlesian Army. Gaspard’s men, and high-ranking ones at that.

“Marquise,” the chevalier in charge called, dismounting.  “There has been a… situation.  The Emperor requires your advice.  Here.”

Despite Inquisition protection, Briala could never be sure that each Orlesian battalion wasn’t the one that was going to piss on that and arrest her anyway… or worse.  Thankfully, it wasn’t this one, it seemed.  Reading the letter, her eyes widened as she read of the capture of Thom Rainier by the Inquisition… and Elisif’s request to have them carry out judgement via trial by combat.  Versus darkspawn.

“Is this… serious?” Briala gasped.  “And His Majesty’s opinion on this?  He must have one.  The massacre was done in his name even if he disavowed it.”

“His Majesty is… undecided.  I believe he feels the gallows a kinder fate, as do we all… but many of us also think we should let the Herald have her way for that very reason.  But… none of us are easy with sending a man to the Blight.”

Nor was Briala, but it seemed the decision was to be left to her. Well, she had asked for this.

“Don’t we have one of the participants in custody ourselves.  And there’s more on the run, aren’t there.  We never caught them all.”

“His Majesty seems to think that Rainier having been caught and confessing to having given the order and lying to his men about who they were attacking and why absolves them,” the chevalier said, masked helmet hiding his expression.  Briala could see the reasoning, and it did save the Empire resources… even if the just following orders defence rankled.

“They could have stopped the moment they saw children in that carriage,” Briala said firmly.  “Blood is on their hands too… but I suppose someone who can reliably identify Rainier may be useful.  Go back to His Majesty and tell him this.  I will go to Skyhold myself and meet with the Herald.  I had business there anyway, I will raise this in person and let him know the outcome.  I want the man in custody, Mornay is it?  Transfer him to Skyhold too, I want him to identify Rainier for me.  If he co-operates, I’ll consider releasing him.  Don’t tell Mornay that.  As for the others… the Orlesian Empire has bigger concerns.  Don’t waste resources looking for them.  We’ll see how things are after this situation is resolved.”

It never rained but it poured.  Still, hadn’t Briala intended Skyhold to be her next port of call anyway?  Now seemed like a most opportune time indeed.

[skarabrae-stone]

Writing Epilogues

So I’ve been thinking about epilogues, and why they do or don’t work for me, and I thought I’d write a little bit about what (in my view) makes a good epilogue vs a bad one.

1. Is the epilogue “earned”?

In my opinion, an epilogue should be a natural extension of the story it follows-- generally, there shouldn’t be any huge narrative leaps between the end of the main story and the epilogue. A lot of epilogues feel like “cheating”, because the main story hasn’t done enough work to make the epilogue feel natural.

For example, I think it’s safe to say that most of the Harry Potter fandom hates the epilogue at the end of Deathly Hallows, and I think a lot of that is because it doesn’t feel earned. At the end of the last chapter of DH, Hogwarts is in a shambles, most of the country’s in disarray, a whole lot of people are dead, and Harry has barely talked to Ginny since he went on the run. Voldemort is dead, but everything is very much in chaos. Then we get the epilogue-- nineteen years later, and suddenly everyone’s happily married, with kids and jobs and the Hogwarts Express.

It’s jarring because it’s too big of a leap. Harry and Ginny have been separated for a year, while both went through some incredibly hard trials-- it’s not implausible that they could get married, but it’s weird to see them as a long-established couple without seeing any of the work they’d need to do to get there. Same with Ron and Hermione-- at the end of the book, their relationship dynamic is not anywhere near stable enough that we can instantly make the mental leap to them being married with children.

Basically, there is so much uncertainty at the end of the main story that skipping all the work it would take to get to stability in favor of the end result feels like cheating. It feels like there’s a chunk of the story missing-- because there is. Ultimately, it doesn’t work because too much time has passed, and there’s too little work done to show us how the end of DH could transition to the epilogue.

2. Is there too much change/ has too much time passed?

This is closely tied into the idea of doing the work. I think authors should be very wary of using an epilogue that jumps too far forward in time, mostly because it becomes much harder to connect the threads from the end of the main storyline to the epilogue when you’re also dealing with a lot of time passing. (The exception to this is if the story deals with some kind of heirloom or ancestry-type themes. For example, in the epilogue at the end of the Beka Cooper series, by Tamora Pierce, we see Beka’s descendant, George Cooper, at the beginning of his own story, reflecting on Beka’s. This works because we already know what happens to George, via the Song of the Lioness series, so he’s not a new character, and the epilogue helps to tie George and his ancestress closer together.)

When there’s too much change between the end of the story and the epilogue, it feels, again, like there’s a cognitive leap that has to be made. The author hasn’t put in the work to tell us how the change occurred, and that can be really unsatisfying and/or unbelievable.

This is also true of epilogues where there’s a major twist-- a character being revealed to be totally different from what we thought, or a new threat or circumstance coming out of nowhere to turn the resolution of the main story on its head. This can work if the author has given enough hints of the character’s true nature, or foreshadowed the changing circumstance, but it needs to be done thoughtfully. I’m a bit prejudiced about twist endings-- if I have a nice, tidy resolution, I generally want to keep it. And if the book isn’t part of a series, or it’s meant to be the end of a series, the twist ending often just feels like a gimmick. Which brings me to my next point.

3. Is it necessary?

If the book has a solid resolution, an epilogue is usually unnecessary. Even if it’s well-written, it can feel like putting icing on a cake that’s already been frosted-- it’s just too much, and it doesn’t add anything meaningful.

4. Is there too little change?

This is another issue I have with the DH epilogue. While making a huge leap forward without doing the work, the epilogue, at the same time, suggests that the (extremely flawed) status quo from the previous books has pretty much been reinstated. Hogwarts still has Houses, and House rivalry, despite how destructive that rivalry was shown to be. Slytherins are still isolated from the other Houses, and probably ostracized as well. Ron still hates Malfoy, and is still weirdly fixated on their old rivalry, telling his daughter not to get too close with Scorpius. Harry is still “the famous one” and Ron is still a sidekick (he says, “it’s me, I’m extremely famous”, clearly joking, even though, as someone instrumental in defeating Voldemort, he ought to be almost, if not just as, famous as Harry). Percy Weasley is still obnoxious. Couples who got together at sixteen or seventeen are all still together.

Basically, we’re given the impression that, rather than really moving forward, everything has gone back to the way it was before Voldemort took over the Ministry-- which is incredibly irritating, since we spent six books learning how flawed the wizarding world was even before Voldemort took over. I, at least, would have expected there to be more change-- especially regarding the Houses at Hogwarts.

5. So what should an epilogue do?

I’ll be honest: it’s kind of rare for me to read an epilogue that I feel really does its job well. To me, the point of an epilogue is to show the reader what direction the characters might head in after the main narrative is done.

For DH, I would have been happy to see an epilogue set a few months or weeks after the main story, maybe with Harry and Ginny (and maybe others) discussing the future, with some hints of the ongoing recovery work in the background. That would give us the understanding that things were going to work out in the future, and hint at what future relationships/changes might take place, without skipping too much.

Lady Knight, by Tamora Pierce, does an excellent job of this. At the end of the main story, Kel has rescued the people from the refugee camp she was in charge of, and is told by her superior that she will be in charge of a new town to house them and other refugees. The epilogue, set a couple of months later, shows her at the new town, the refugees having settled in. She’s about to go to her best friend’s wedding, an event that has been foreshadowed for most of the book. Basically, the epilogue shows us that the hopeful ending of the main story is being fulfilled-- everyone is pretty much safe and happy, although they still bear the scars of what happened earlier in the narrative, with the promise of better times to come. It doesn’t tell us anything we couldn’t have guessed based on the main story, but it does offer us a little more resolution than we would have had otherwise. The epilogue confirms what was hinted in the main story, without taking any giant leaps.

When done correctly, an epilogue can offer readers a sense of completeness and resolution that might have otherwise been lacking. It shouldn’t, however, be an excuse to skip over a big chunk of narrative. It should “do the work.”

[theochelpsquad]

Lina Schlitz (Shingeki no Kyojin OC)

HEYAAAAAAAA its me again i made a really big mess of the old char sheet because i did it at like 3am so i decided i would redo it !! thanks again <333 

H: it’s fine! For the second time (bc Mod Eris is lazy!!!!) I’ll be the only reviewer. Under the cut, because this one is long!

Name: Lina Schlitz - リナシュリッツ

H: Shlitz is actually a name that has mid-German origins--nothing to fix here, it’s right on the SnK map!

Nicknames: Querida - pet in portuguese, given by her grandma. Idiot - given by some of her squad members. (i dont really have any other ideas for nicknames plz alp)

H: Most nicknames I’ve had or given come from inside jokes or shared experiences--a joke about her age when she started training or an alias from a battle, maybe?

Age: 17

Gender: Female

Birthday: 18/11/833 - scorpio (so she would be in the …. 102nd squad i think ? as she would be 17 by the time eren, mikasa, armin & the squad were 15… .although i kinda wanna make her older . .. should i?)

H: I honestly like making my characters older--older characters have more extensive backstories and more room for creativity. However, it’s your choice in the end! (And I’m pretty sure if she was 17 while the trio were 15, she’d be in the 102nd.)

Faceclaim: michiko malandro (from michiko and hatchin)

(i think this one is the most accurate - hairstyle , face, everything, n expression)

(without the chains tho… and the survey corps uniform… and shorter hair)

H: She’s so pretty cri

-personality:

positives;

brave - lina is not afraid to put herself in danger or do risky things, so she can get things done better than most people

decisive - she can throw her humanity out of the window to make decisions

honest - she doesn’t really care what people think of her, so she will often say what she thinks to your face

direct - as above, lina gets straight to the point 

observant - she often notices the little details, from environment to facial expressions or body language

realistic - she knows that she might die any day, and she lives life to the fullest

simple - relating to her trait of being realistic, lina views life in a simple way - you either die or you don’t, and if you don’t, then you better make the most of it

kind - despite not showing it much, lina is actually quite kind due to her grandparents and parents raising her to be a good lil child

neutrals;

competitive - she loves a good competition and will never back down from a challenge

sarcastic - lina uses sarcasm to make people laugh and hide her true feelings

unsentimental - as mentioned in her trait description of decisive, she knows that her 

comrades, family, and friends can die any day and they have a high chance of it too, so lina detaches herself from them as much as possible

tough - lina can power through a lot of situations, as she contains her emotions on the inside

calculating - she can observe a situation and make a decision off of it, but also she is good at making plans

strong-willed - lina will not give up. ever. no way hozay

perfectionist - everything must be perfect - including her statistics, battle technique, horse, and mostly everything under the sun. however most things aren’t perfect which annoys her to no end

negative;

cocky - lina can often overestimate herself, in battle and in casual situations, which leads to her putting herself and her comrades in danger

brittle - her emotions are easily hurt, although she doesn’t show it

manipulative - lina will lead people on if it benefits her

compulsive - she often acts off of instincts and emotions alone, tying in with being cocky

disrespectful - adding in to lina’s trait of being honest, she often disrespects her superiors, elders, and anyone on the planet if she feels like it - which doesn’t make her that likeable 

hostile - being hostile to keep people at a distance means that lina doesn’t have many friends

inconsiderate - as long as it is good enough for lina, it is good enough for you so you better not complain got it got it ok

messy - lina’s bed is often unmade and her appearance is disheveled

mannerless - tying in with being disrespectful, she often licks her plates, chews with her mouth open, talks while speaking, disrespects her superiors, ect

neurotic - despite not showing it, lina often has anxiety attacks about her past and friends, and what will happen to her (her symptoms include nausea, fear of dying, a racing heart, and heightened senses - including trembling and sweating, also staring off into space)

possessive - lina is possessive of her possessions, her friends, herself, and mostly everything that she views belongs to her

procrastinator - she often pushes things like apologising, doing training, and eating, off until the last minute

sly - tying in with lina’s trait of being manipulative, she can worm her way into someones mind quite easily and manipulate them for her own gain

uncooperative - she is terrible at teamwork, believing that everyone is ‘cramping her style’ and slowing her down, so she often refuses to work in a team and has to be forced - unless she is the leader, and then she loves to boss everyone around

sadistic - lina enjoys cutting the limbs off of titans before she kills them, however only ones that remind her of the one that killed her grandma and family - the others she has a strange interest in

cold - she often pushes people away, rejects friendship offers, and isolates herself

stubborn - once lina has decided she is doing something, there is no changing her mind

hot-tempered - she often flies off of the handle when provoked or annoyed, or if she is in a bad mood

H: So, from skimming, I’m summarizing her personality as appearing outwardly cold (though she doesn’t always mean to be) but actually being a lot different and less intense when you get to know her.

-appearance:

Hair Colour: brown-black

Hair Length/Style: mid-back length, extremely straight - tied in a high ponytail (so it is around the length of kristas/sashas)

Eye Colour: nut brown (very dark brown) with bits of lighter brown

Skin Colour: bronze-coloured

H; Seeing as the SnKverse is mostly white and light-skinned, how does her race affect her life? I’m guessing that once the Titans arrive, people don’t care what the heck you look like if you’re the one saving their asses, but maybe when she was a child?

Body build: mesomorph, a mix of hourglass and inverted triangle - lean

H: As she continues her training, she’ll begin losing weight and her hourglass figure will be less dramatic. If you want to write/draw her according to the timeline of her training, that’s a good thing to keep in mind!

Demeanor: relaxed - arms crossed, leaning on walls, slouched in chairs, head tilted back, head resting on table

Ethnicity: Brazilian/Portuguese/German/English (where is the story set in ??? nobody knows)

H: I’m not certain myself, but I made a post on where the story most likely takes place. Brazil isn’t on the map, though. You could make her Brazilian ancestry from her grandparents or great-grandparents who immigrated north. Then again, the map isn’t canon, so who cares?

Height: 5'3

Weight: 8 stone 6

H: She’s slightly underweight, but enough that’s it’s realistic for a malnourished environment.

Scars: One down her right arm, due to when a titan had her in its mouth during an expedition and, although one of her teammates killed it, it’s jaw fell onto her arm when it hit the ground and broke her arm.

-statistics:

Combat: 9/10

Hand to Hand Combat: 7/10

Agility: 4/10

Initiative: 8/10

Wits: 5/10

Teamwork: 4/10

3D Maneuvering Gear: 6/10

Offense: 9/10

Defense: 4/10

Cockiness: 10/10

Titan Kills: 

Solo: 11

In team: 21 (is this ok ?? i assumed since she was 2 years older, p good at fighting, and in the scouting legion, that she would have a higher kill count than say, mikasa, even though she’s an ackerman, because mikasa is 2 years younger and hasn’t been on that many expeditions)

H: Sure! The 102nd would most likely have a pretty high kill count,seeing as a lot of battles happen after their training.

Grad Rank: 1st (ahh is this ok too? i thought since she was in the 102nd squad, and her family was in the military, that she could be 1st since there aren’t any y'know titan shifters or ackermans in her squad)

H: Also fine! The 104th was a special case--standards likely wouldn’t be as high in other training corps.

Grade: A

background:

lina’s ancestors moved with most of the world to germany inside the walls, the only safe place on the eartha lot of her family died on the way, only two survived along with a few other people - a wife and her husband, alanza and lucas santos - not much older than 18.

when they made it to the walls, they were given a small, one bedroom house inside wall maria, shinganshina district as they were one of the last people to arrive.

after a few years, they had a child together, and his name was to be victor. they taught their native language, portuguese told him to teach it to his future children to keep their country alive.

lucas decided to enroll in the military and joined the garrison to try and keep his family safe, but he was tragically killed when an abnormal titan flung themselves on top of the wall and ran along it, crushing the garrison underfoot.

it was eventually killed, with the help of one of the first elite teams and the scouting legion. lucas was one of the soldiers tragically killed in the attack and alanza was left to raise victor by herself.

when victor was a teenager, he too joined the military - scouting legion - despite his mothers wishes. he managed to survive, however, long enough for him to be promoted to team leader - and for his arm to be bitten off in a mission, not long after his promotion. he was discharged by the military and met a girl by the name of hanna.

it was love at first sight, and they married only a few months after they met - after all, they could die at any time. alanza was soon a grandmother to a child of the name sofia.

by this time, the schlitz/santos line had become quite legendary in the walls, due to their skill and unwavering determination to help mankind. this cycle of the generations was continued until it got to maria and dedrick - lina’s grandparents. their father, abe, had been brutally eaten alive by a titan. due to this they were both firmly against any of their children or grandchildren joining the military in fear of their safety, and so the cycle ended. that is, until lina was born from delmira and adelchi - maria and dedrick’s daughter and step-son.

as soon as abe saw her face he knew she would join the military despite anyones wishes. as lina grew up, abe’s prediction slowly came true - she idolized the military due to their unwavering bravery and optimism that humanity would win the war between them and titans.

she was often caught sneaking out of her house to watch the scouting legion coming home from missions, cheering them on despite the crowds nervous and dejected muttering. so it was no surprise when, on her 12th birthday, the first thing she asked for was to join the military. (that lil shmishirt)

she persisted until her grandparents were brought to her house the next day from their home in wall rose. they told her of all the dangers, and yet she still persisted. they finally agreed - but only because lina’s father said he would join with her.

as soon as the words came out of his mouth, a loud bang rang out that shook the floor and caused panicked screaming to be erupted from outside. lina’s family rushed through their front door, only for them to be met with a crowd of people sprinting past, yelling and screaming.

they pushed through the crowd and found themselves at the back of another crowd, all staring up at the wall. a giant titan, over 50 metres tall, was standing behind it - looking down at the people of shiganshina with a blank expression, its hand clutching the wall. steam came off of it, increasing the temperature of lina despite how far away it was.

her family was frozen, huddling together and clutching each others hands. maria - lina’s grandmother - was clutching the cross and figures of wall maria, rose, and sina attached to her necklace and praying.

the titan moved its foot back and kicked the gate, sending it splintering all over the town. titans waiting behind it were catapulted forwards, crushing citizens and soldiers along with the multiple boulders.

lina’s family turned and ran as fast as they could. despite being old, lina’s grandparents were fit and kept up with her family - delmira dragging lina by her hand.

they made it to the docks in wall maria just as the last boat was leaving. delmira, with lina in tow, immediately began to shove her way to the front to plead with the soldiers to let lina on board. they denied her request and delmira whispered something to lina. they hugged each other as long as possible before delmira broke away and disappeared into the crowd.

luckily, the guards were distracted by the giant horde of people trying to break through. lina ran up the docks, as far away from the crowd as possible, and found herself level with a boat - it looked full to the brim. lina looked to the next one and eyed it apprehensively. stepping back a few paces, she sprinted as fast as possible towards the ledge. pushing herself off of it. her hands reached out to the edge of the boat, but the side of the boat was slippery and her hands couldn’t get a grip in time.

lina scrabbled for a grip, her fingers of her left hand slowly slipping off as she began to fall, but before she could, her wrist was snatched up by a calloused hand.

she looked up to see a friend of her mothers, adelmo weber, holding onto her arm. he pulled her up and onto the boat, despite the outrage that burst from the lips of the citizens that there wasn’t any space left on the boat, and even though she was just a child, he should have not saved her.

lina looked back just in time to see the crowd of people frantically running away - towards wall rose - from a titan, nearly 10 metres tall, picking them up and eating them like insects. the manic crowd drew level with lina’s boat, and she made eye contact with her grandma - at the back, out of breath - as she was snatched up by the titan.

lina screamed loudly, screaming at her grandmother to fight, fight the titan and get to wall rose - but it was futile.

the titan bit maria in half and let her severed legs fall to the ground as lina finally reached the edge of the boat, stretching out her hand to her grandmothers half-eaten corpse and the rest of her family.

the crowd was surrounded by titans coming from both sides and they were all massacred.

lina slumped down to the floor of the boat, and cried until she could cry no more. she slept until they reached wall rose.

H; Holy crap, all of this when she was 12? Poor kid! She probably has a lot of left-over trauma and stress from that day: PTSD, anxiety, possibly some extreme paranoia and OCD-like tendencies to check over and over that everything is okay.

the arrival of the boats was not received well by the residents of wall rose. they immediately began to riot about food shortages, overpopulation and that the titans would be drawn to the bigger population of wall rose.

lina exited across the drawbridge with the swarm of people who was on her boat, and they were promptly greeted by being pushed back by the citizens of wall rose.

they said that the other boats were too full, and they would not have enough room for all of the people on lina’s boat. the people onboard rioted immediately, calling out where would they go, would you be so heartless as to send us back - until they were silenced by the garrison and military police separating the brawling crowds.

they told all the refugees to go to the town square, where the people of appropriate build and age would be enlisted to the military with no choice, while the rest would go to work in the fields.

lina was enlisted despite being only just 12, and so began the start of her journey.

H: Woah, that’s young, even for SnK! Was she the only recruit of her age? Was she the focus of unwanted attention because of it? I have a student one year younger than the rest of the class at school and he’s always being picked on by the teacher (who I hate but that’s another story).

-trivia:

knows portuguese and when she is angry she slips in and out of it (for example, you are todas as dicas i hate eu estou para te you) also when she is tired or distracted she does too (i quero sleep por how tempo até as lights) this is because although her first language is english/german, her family spoke mainly portuguese at their home

H: My parents’ first languages were French and Arabic, and they do this all the time too! Nothing really important, I just wanted to add that. :)

she has the loudest, most boisterous laugh ever - although nobody has ever properly heard it

lina snores so loud she often kept the rest of her dormies awake

biggest sweet tooth ever - even though she rarely gets to eat anything other than beef stew and rations

H: This might not have been intentional, but people who experience traumatic events as children usually end up keeping childlike qualities with them for a long amount of time. Having a sweet tooth or sleeping with toys is not unusual for someone who went through what she did.

she has a bit of a portuguese/brazilian accent, mixed with english/german

lina cuts her own hair

her name means the heroes river, or river of light

SUMMARY-

H: To be honest, this character’s pretty airtight! There’s not much you really need to change on this one. She’s believable but still interesting enough to be a main character. Overall, great job!!