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athenaquinn · 4 years ago

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Crossing a Bridge || Orion & Athena

TIMING: After the events with Luis (apologies for delay!) LOCATION: Cafe near UMWC PARTIES: @3starsquinn and @athenaquinn SUMMARY: Athena comes to help Orion. The twins try the talking thing again. CONTENT: Mentions of abuse, brief mentions of cleaning injuries

The restaurant was a wreck. Outside of the blood and bodies, broken glass and plates littered the floor. There was food everywhere and the tables and chairs were overturned and broken. Orion sat outside of it, staring inside through the glassless window without actually seeing anything. He was staring more into space than at anything in particular. The only thing he could see were scenes on repeat from earlier. Police and paramedics rotated in and out of the building, helping lead people from the kitchen out to ambulances. Rio’s mind was too fuzzy to figure out how many there were in total. How many people had died tonight before Rio had done something to stop the wolf? Just more people on his conscience.

He had refused medical attention initially. Shrugging off their advances and insisting that they check on the people still inside the restaurant. Avoiding the hospital was always the smartest option, but even he could admit that the wounds he had suffered tonight were far worse than the usual ones that he would shrug off. His shoulder and leg ached from where the wolf had bitten him. His hoodie hung in tatters on his side and back, exposing the open wounds from where he had drug his claws down Rio’s back. On top of that, his previously grey hoodie was now soaked a dark red color. It had begun drying, caking on a thick layer that forced the material to stick against his skin and pull against his wounds whenever Rio moved. His hands were stained with the same blood, something that he had unknowingly smeared across his face at some point. At some point, the police must have taken pity on the mostly silent kid with trauma and grabbed his things from inside. He wasn’t sure if they used his wallet to get his name or if Rio had simply forgotten that he gave it to them, but it wasn’t long before a familiar figure was weaving through the police cars and up to Rio. No surprise that if they were going to call someone, it would be the only known living family that he had left. “Hi there.”

She didn’t know how to respond to her brother’s frantic message. Athena only knew that she was starting to loathe the idea of him being in danger even more than she’d ever done so before. Which was saying quite a bit, given that she considered herself afraid of very few things but her brother ever coming to harm was undoubtedly one of them. Which was more ironic than she’d ever have wished it to be, given that she had - both indirectly and directly - been one of the causes of most significant harm to him. But now their parents weren’t around and that meant that things had to get better, didn’t it? She wasn’t naïve enough to believe that everything would be simple now, but part of her hoped that maybe what they had done would change something. It had, in a way, she supposed - because she couldn’t think of the last time that the two of them had talked as much as they were now, despite the fact that they’d entirely avoided talking for weeks after everything that had happened.

Still, it meant a lot that instead of someone else he’d called her. Athena didn’t even think about where she was driving, she knew the cafe and so drove over from the apartment practically on autopilot, parking a few blocks away and quickly rushing over, the sound of her boots a clear reminder on the sidewalk. “I know what I’m doing.” She scoffed, pushing through the small crowd of people and the police. “My brother called me, I’m allowed to be here.” She looked straight at one of them, a man who was at least half a foot taller than she was but who shrank away the second she crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. Once he’d backed away, she found her way over to where Rio was sitting, up against the wall. “What happened?” Her voice was hushed. “Let me look you over.”

It was Orion’s goal to avoid his sister’s eye contact as much as physically possible. He had no idea how she would react to what had happened tonight, but he was absolutely sure that he wouldn’t like her opinion either way. Whether she was proud of him or thought he was an idiot, both would only work to make Rio feel even worse about himself. Probably because he had spent so long craving his sister’s approval while simultaneously detesting it more than anybody else’s. His breathing was heavy even though his need to catch his breath had passed long ago. He knew that meant it was the start of his panicking. He desperately needed to keep that under control. He couldn’t remember the last time he had a panic attack in front of his sister, but he wasn’t planning on breaking the record today. “There was a wolf” Rio stated simply. He knew she would demand greater details, but for now that was all he could manage. “A werewolf” Rio finally amended, tacking the last bit on just for clarification. At Athena’s insistence, Rio motioned to the empty space beside him. She could do whatever examination she wanted, but it would have to be one that didn’t involve much movement from him. He was far too sore and tired for that. “They want to take me to the hospital.”

At least the paramedics and police were leaving them alone for the moment. Athena wasn’t sure how long it would last - which meant that she had to act fast, whatever she was going to do. Except she felt herself freeze, at least for a moment, and just look at her brother, her eyes wide, as she reminded herself that he’d asked her to come and that had to mean something. “Hey, it’s okay.” Her hand found his shoulder, cautious to the touch, because the two of them had spent so long at each other’s throats (by their parents own design), that falling into something simple and practically delicate felt more surreal than anything else. Perhaps that was possible, again, no matter how odd and overwhelming the thought might have been. “I - oh my god.” She said, her voice low. “I -” she opened up her bag, pulling out a small, travel-sized bottle of disinfectant and one of the many pieces of cloth that she had on her. She readjusted her position, leaning back up against the wall, nearly-though-not-quite mirroring his position. “I mean, you probably should go, but I’d like to at least get a general look-over before they take you. Do you - I can - what happened? I can come to the hospital if you want?” She ran her fingertips along the collar of his shirt, noticing the injury on his shoulder. “What would best help right now?”

Before Orion realized it, Athena was on the ground with him. Unsurprisingly, she looked in far better shape than he did. He was almost glad that the dim lighting of the streetlights and sirens limited people’s visions. Between that and the blood soaked clothes, it was almost easy to miss how bad Rio’s wounds probably were. Especially if it had been done to an ordinary human. Rio’s vision granted him too many details into the sight. Sometimes night vision was a curse. “They killed people.” Rio began, the only real way that he knew to begin the story. Rio’s life had been all sympathy for werewolves, but now he couldn’t stop thinking about the way the werewolf had ruthlessly taken out those people. “I tried to stop it and it didn’t go so well until-” Rio could still remember how tightly he had been gripping the pocket knife. His fingers curled into a loosely formed fist out on the pavement just thinking about it. “I stabbed it. With that-” stupid pocket knife was what Rio had wanted to say. But it had been a gift from Athena, and probably one that had saved lives tonight. “With the pocketknife you gave me. Nice touch on those.” He didn’t argue against her checking out the wounds, though a paramedic might have different opinions if spotting a random girl doing her own check-up. He hated the hospital. But not going would be far dumber than any other time he had avoided going. “Can you grab me clothes? I don’t want to get discharged without anything to wear. My key is in the bookbag. Ariana has one too.”

She could feel her whole body tense up - though she knew that maybe her vision wasn’t quite as good as her brother’s (she did know that her hearing wasn’t as good - his reactions to her tantrums when they were kids was proof enough of that), but she could tell he was badly injured. Not again, was all that Athena could keep thinking. “The wolf did? That’s -” what they do, she wanted to finish - her words caught in her throat, and she knew that her brother had heard the very same ones. From their parents, dozens of times, if not more. Ariana was an exception, clearly, and though Athena was hardly willing to give thoughts to figuring out more exceptions, not right now. That didn’t mean that her brother needed to hear that. He’d dealt with twenty-one years of her parroting their parents’ words and she didn’t want to do that to him now. “Awful.” she finally settled on. She let him finish what he was saying, though she couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, fighting away a smirk at his next words. “Yeah, no problem. Glad it helped.” Told you so. She continued to clean his shoulder, paying no attention to everyone else around them. “Yes, of course. I’d be happy to do that. Any preferences, or should I just grab whatever I think is best?” She placed the cloth off to the side and grabbed a new, clean one as her fingers ghosted over his leg. “Though this is it for hospital visits, alright? I’m not super keen to place merry-go-round with hospital visits with you.” At least she hadn’t had to, with Deirdre. Something she figured she should mention to Rio at some point, but that wasn’t the focus right now. At least Deirdre hadn’t been the one to hurt him. At least that was something - and he was immune to the bites. “How are you going to explain this to all the very human doctors at the hospital? Wild animal?”

Athena was being surprisingly careful, a personality trait that Orion wasn’t used to when it came to her. Admittedly, that had been happening a lot with her recently. But it wasn’t any less jarring for Rio to try to process. She had managed to get through Rio’s explanation without any bragging or signs of blatant disgust at the mention of a werewolf. He watched the way that the gears turned in her head as she handpicked the words that she wanted to speak. Since when did Athena do any prior thinking before speaking? “Yeah, it wasn’t a pretty sight.” Especially having to watch and listen to it happening in real time. He still couldn’t get the image of the waitress out of his head. “No. It doesn’t matter what you grab. As long as it’s a hoodie.” He flinched at her touch but tried to stay as still as he could. “Well it’s definitely not my goal to end up in the hospital again. I don’t even want to go now.” Athena was right that they would be asking a lot of questions when he got there. “I guess I planned on doing what I’m best at. Staying silent. Maybe they’ll think I'm some traumatized kid and the rest of the people can fill in the blanks for me.” Technically Rio was some traumatized kid. But not nearly in the way that any of them could expect.

“I’d be alarmed if you believed it were, Ri.” She knew he could see her raise an eyebrow. “Even with… well, even with how you see things, I don’t think you’d find this kind of destruction pretty.” Athena’s fingers fiddled with Amanda’s ring as she continued to work to help her brother - still mostly one-handed given the fact that her cast was still there, but at least she could help him. Help someone, unlike with Amanda. She wanted to ask her brother more about what happened, but this wasn’t the time. “One hoodie and other assorted and coordinated clothes, coming right up.” She’d probably sneak in some food as well, though she wasn’t about to let him know, because knowing her brother he’d find some excuse for why she shouldn’t do that, and though she was content to ignore him, avoiding the conversation altogether was better for the both of them in the long run. “Mm, that makes two of us, but still. Going is probably better, even though I think you’ll be all healed in not too much time, though there’s a chance you’ll have some new scars.” She didn’t want to focus on her new ones now, even though she figured at some point she should mention the murderous banshee to her brother. “Hey, I think you’re actually really good at talking,” too much sometimes, “but staying silent and letting the doctors fill in the blanks for themselves works best in times like this. I mean, I did make up my own excuses for the arm but letting them make their own ideas about this is probably for the best.”

“Don’t” Orion sighed, raising a hand as a signal for Athena to stop there while she was ahead. He knew that Athena hadn’t meant it in a judgemental or hostile way, but old habits died hard. Sometimes it was still hard to imagine any conversation with Athena where she wasn’t trying to dig under his skin to mess with him. “I’m not having that conversation.” How he saw things had nothing to do with what happened tonight. Even if it had everything to do with it. Rio wasn’t in the mood to fall down that rabbit hole. “Thanks. I appreciate you grabbing it for me.” By now even though he wanted to just go back to the house and lie in the bathtub with the shower running, he probably needed to concede and go to the hospital. “I have a tendency to overtalk. That doesn’t make me social.” I just made him awkward. With all the stories that will be going around from the rest of the survivors, the police and hospital staff would be able to fill in the blanks and come up with some conclusions for the quiet kid that threw a plate at a wild animal and got attacked by it. “The paramedics coming over here,” Rio nodded towards them, “Probably means they want to take me soon.”

“I wasn’t going to,” she didn’t mean to snap back, scrunching up her face after that. Despite the fact that they were talking, Athena knew that certain things held on far more than she’d have ever liked for them to. “Fine. No conversation to be had.” She took in a deep breath for a moment. He’d asked her to help and she wanted him to keep feeling comfortable doing so. Needed him to feel that way, almost. “Of course. It’s the least I can do.” Even for things outside of this, sat there unspoken. “Besides, once they give you a lookover and some painkillers, you’ll probably be dismissed. Ideally within a few days at least.” She shrugged. “If not, let me know and I’m happy to come and talk some sense into them.” Athena raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, well, some might take it as social. That’s all I’m saying.” Her gaze followed his nodding. “Probably. You sure there’s nothing else I can do?” She shoved some of the fabric into her bag. “I - thanks. I’m glad you trusted me enough for this.” She looked over to him, lips pushed to the side. “Now I’ll go get you a hoodie and at least some sort of snack.”

There was just enough tension between the two of them to remind both that the whatever relationship they had left was fragile and hanging by a dangling thread. For whatever DNA they shared, so much about them fell on opposite ends of every scale available. The two had spent so long against each other that even when they were on the same side they couldn’t help but bite back at each other. For what it was worth, Athena seemed just as eager to avoid an argument as Orion was, leaving the conversation between the two quiet and nearly empty, but pleasant. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. They can’t keep me for too long.” Rio answered her just as the paramedic came up to the two and helped Rio up off of the ground and onto his legs. They shook as he was led towards an ambulance. He only turned back towards Athena once to nod his head, “I’ll see you there, okay?”

#wickedswriting #c orion #chatzy #crossing a bridge #abuse mention #injury clean up #// i love cody and rio dearly #also me? using an anastasia song as a chatzy title?#more likely than u think :)

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beautifulterriblequeen · 5 years ago

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I have a question, how do feel about Viren? Like, as a character? A majority of the fandom seem strongly dislike him (with reason), but I personally find him to be interesting, and I’m actually as invested in his storyline as I am in Callum, Ezran, and Rayla’s. I just really wanna know your thoughts on him

Ooh, Viren. *rubs hands gleefully* This is gonna be a long post.

Viren is complicated, and all my favorite characters are complicated. He’s powerful, morally gray, sympathetic (at times), highly intelligent, and proactive toward his goals. He’s also kinda hot when he embraces his evil badassery and stops stuttering for niceties to say. He’s comfortable with his thirst for power because he believes in the Narrative of Strength, that might is right.

And that is what makes him so dangerous.

i am wary of Viren. I don’t trust him to make what I consider to be good choices. Viren’s heart tries its best to be in the right place. He’s motivated by good things: family, friendship, loyalty. He acts to protect his kingdom, which contains untold thousands of human lives–an entire civilization–and which is part of a network of kingdoms that rely on each other to stand together against their enemies. This is absolutely a good thing to do for someone in his job position. But the methods he employs, and the tactics he uses, reflect a fatal flaw in his character.

Viren considers himself worthless without the power he wields, and he only values others for the things they can do for him (broadly speaking–Harrow running a good and safe kingdom does benefit Viren). Human (and elven?) life means nothing. Only results matter.

This probably started when he was a child. My Viren Origin Story Headcanon is that he was a literal servant in Katolis Castle (or somewhere that allowed him to meet Harrow) and they became friends as kids. Viren’s very clever and dedicated. Harrow would’ve seen his usefulness and raised him to High Mage for the sake of his kingdom. But I also think Harrow’s “You–are–a–servant” was too specific to be a random insult. I think Harrow used it as a callback to a time when Viren felt worthless except for his use to the prince of the realm. Ironically, Viren’s friendship with Harrow could be a big part of why Viren feels worthless as a human being unless he’s pushing himself all-out to be useful. Harrow inadvertently (or advertently?) trained Viren to be this way. Or perhaps a toxic parent had already trained Viren to devalue himself. Or both. This makes Viren sympathetic. But it doesn’t excuse his choices.

However it came about, Viren’s gotten through life by focusing entirely on results. That’s pragmatism for you: the end always justifies the means. And much of the time, this will work just fine. But there’s a war on, and when push comes to shove, there are some lines that many–elven or human–won’t cross. But Viren doesn’t see the lines at all.

Viren offers the soulfang option to Harrow because having Harrow remain on the throne is more important than the life of a soldier with less to offer Katolis. Harrow lets Viren be High Mage. Harrow bestows rank and privilege on Viren, which Viren can use to be more useful, and thus feel more valuable as a person. If someone else runs Katolis, Viren might be devalued, and that scares him. He’s been devalued, and it’s driven him to claw his way up. He never wants to go back down.

Viren offers food to Runaan as a tactic, hoping to elicit cooperation. He treats him politely, even though Runaan’s an elf, an enemy combatant, and very possibly the person who murdered Harrow. That’s because Viren sees massive potential usefulness in Runaan, and he respects usefulness, even above loyalty to a fallen king and friend. If Runaan is willing to help Viren unlock the mirror’s magical secrets, then Viren can use the mirror to be useful to Katolis even without Harrow. But when politeness doesn’t work on Runaan, he tries the much harsher coin threat–switching the carrot for the stick. But Moonshadows are stubborn, and when he realizes he’ll never get the result he wants, then Runaan is entirely expendable, and Viren immediately stops wasting his time on him.

However, I always love the part where Runaan says, “You have succeeded,” and Viren goes entirely soft and eager: “Oh? Have I?” He’s like a little boy. “Did I do good? Did I? Please tell me I did good.” And it kind of breaks my heart that he’s so easily led by the opinions of others. If Runaan had been less honorable, he could’ve lied to Viren’s face all day long about that mirror, and Viren would’ve eaten it all up.

After sticking Runaan in that coin, Viren throws himself into research mode on his own, filling the dungeon cell with books and scrolls, even eating down there. And when he fails yet again to get the mirror to reveal its secrets, he loses his temper with himself and has a breakdown. Because the only thing that matters is results, and he isn’t getting any. He’s failing. Failing himself, failing Katolis. Failing to be useful.

But the instant the mirror turns on, Viren’s mood shifts. He’s successful. He’s calm, curious, eager again. Success is so valuable to him. And when he sees Aaravos, the archmage is like a walking reward for Viren’s persistence as well as a promise of even more power to come. Viren’s enchanted. Aaravos is everything Viren has ever wanted to be. He finally thinks he’s found what he’s been searching for all his life. At the end of the fight in S2E9, he says “I have all the power I need,” and that’s probably not something Viren ever really expected to say.

I honestly can’t see Viren being even remotely pleased to see his children come back from their mission in utter failure–and with Ezran alive and ready to take the throne, no less! “But they’re his kids, surely he loves them!” Except no. He only loves what they can do for him. Otherwise, they’re just bad employees.

The only way Viren’s kids will get back into his good graces will be by proving their usefulness to him. And I’m not sure they’ll both decide that’s worth doing. Viren can’t see any value in himself as a person, so he doesn’t value his kids, either–he really doesn’t–unless they’re capable and competent and successful. Claudia got comfortable killing things and harvesting their bits to please her dad. Soren doesn’t like dark magic, so he threw himself into swordsmanship and became the youngest head of the Crownguard in history.

Viren is an antagonist. He makes choices that hurt and kill others. He’s certain that’s the only way. But he’s not looking outside the Narrative of Strength for ideas. If Viren is going to find redemption in this show–and that’s a big if but I’d honestly love to see it play out–he will need to learn to love himself. Because he does not love himself even the tiniest bit. He never has. And that makes me very sad. He can’t love anyone else if he doesn’t love himself first, if he doesn’t know what that feels like and why it’s important to people. Viren will never stop hurting and killing others in the name of progress and success until he learns to love himself. Then, by extension, he can love others and make better choices with the power he wields.

I don’t know if the show intends to offer Viren a chance at redemption. I think it will, but then, I don’t know if Viren will accept such a chance. I worry that he may see it as weakness instead of growth, since it will necessarily entail giving up some of the power he currently values so highly. I really don’t know what his fate will be. While I am very invested in the power he has to shake all the other characters up and drive the plot, I really cringe every time he hurts one of the other characters through his choices. I’m not sure there’s any named character that Viren hasn’t hurt or killed, directly or indirectly, at this point, and we’re only two seasons in. He really has a lot to answer for, and I’m honestly not sure whether he’ll survive that process.

Thank you, anon. Your ask is a gift.

#asks #viren #tdp

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crqstalite · 5 years ago

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❝ if you wanna talk, i’m here. ❞ or ❝ you’re my favorite person in the world. ❞

so! this was actually supposed to be written for someone else (who i have no idea) but i remember thinking that it was supposed to be for someone else not participating in shadow of the sith. it wasn’t supposed to be any of the outlanders, but it ended up being my mom!quizzy mierrio. because of the ending part, it’s considered part of shadow of the sith, but i don’t know where yet :/

either way! enjoy. a for angst.

written : 12.14.19. words: 3,004.

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mierrio likes to be alone. she enjoys it much more than having to spend time with someone, talking about obscure topics or worse, in pure, uncomfortable silence. something that often can be avoided by seeming as threatening as possible, or shocking someone into oblivion.

both of which, are her strong suits.

but sometimes, simply ignoring the problem or throwing lightning at it doesn't always work. sometimes her body is so exhausted she doesn't want to get out of bed in the morning, or the power that always flows through her bloodstream has suddenly cut off, and she's a shell of the sith she used to be. that scares her more than she even knew.

she's worn out. hair plastered to her face as she wakes up and tries to push herself out of bed, sadly finding the other side empty. it's cold.

nikky hasn't been here for a while.

mierrio can remember the first time they met. when she was still a budding acolyte doing at-the-time obscure tasks for her absolute insane master. a grin crosses her face, when she kept her hair boyishly short and actually wore sith robes. her still uncorrupted features, save for her golden eyes that had quickly replaced her green ones.

how the first time she'd seen him, she hadn't been intimidated. mierrio had barely been more than a child at the time, a measly twenty years old when her eyes first landed on the man. khem had been more than skeptical to leave her with him, even if he didn't directly show it. maybe it was because of her jaded personality or lack of baby face, andronikos didn't ever once comment on her age. in fact, even possessed an attraction to her that she'd quickly returned.

they didn't ever talk about her age. not until they'd been lazing around in the cockpit after her ascension to the dark council. admitting she didn't meet most legal drinking age policies until three days earlier (that being her birthday).

"wait," he sat up straighter, jostling her from her position stretched across his lap, "you're only twenty one?"

"yes?" she raises an eyebrow, as if it were common knowledge, "andronikos, how old did you think i was?"

"at least in your late twenties..." he admits quietly. maybe she hadn't been so evident in just how old she was. it wasn't like she went around telling that many people the year she had been born into the galaxy (or a hellhole depending on how she looked at it), "you never did tell me your birthday until the day of, sith."

"mmhmm. is there a problem?" she asks, dangling her legs over the edge of the captain's chair. he's uneasy. if andronikos is one thing, he's an open book through the force. he hides his true emotions behind a mask, but something always seeps through up top, and right now he's...

nervous. frightened. confused. usually he was a lot more happy to be with her, but nothing says he's excited to have his sith over his lap right at that moment, "how old are you?" she asks jokingly.

he's quiet for a moment, maybe formulating his next response. his hold on her isn't as tight anymore, so she has to actually lean against him instead of being able to look up at him without the arm rest stabbing her in the back. his heart is faster than usual, something she'd picked up on when she invited him to stay a night in her quarters instead of the crew cabin.

she liked just listening to him breathe in the ungodly hours of the night. it was nearly comforting when nightmares kept her up, and when andronikos did realize, he tried to stay up with her but she often fibbed and told him they'd gone away and to get some rest. they never really did.

"nikky?" she asks. it's been an uncomfortable amount of time without him answering such a simple question, "did my pirate forget his own age?"

"doesn't matter." he says eventually, his arm snaking around her waist to pull her closer again. peace has momentarily been restored, but she is curious, if not also suspicious. what does this mean, avoiding the topic entirely?

if mierrio vhella kallig was one thing, it was always some form of suspicious. and observant, if she were being generous. she had to be, being a slave and then an acolyte with an overseer who intended to kill her indirectly. and now that the topic has been brought up, she's not sure she just wants it to die. the few things she does know about andronikos are far and few in between, other than that he's been around the galaxy a few times.

he goes in to kiss her, but at the last second, she decides she wants answers, "how old are you, nikky?"

"still on that, sith?" he asks. she nods, a childish pout on her face. he sighs, already giving up to her. "i'm thirty-seven." he says defeatedly.

she pauses, frozen in between saying something else and registering his answer. on one hand, he has admitted to his age, which is finally something else she knows. but the disappointed look on his face also says exactly what she's thinking on the inside as well.

he's sixteen years older than she is.

does he think this changes things? that she'll leave just because a measly decade and a half seperates them in age?

"i get it. you tied yourself down to someone much older than you. heh, little disappointed huh?" he asks dejectedly, as she shifts herself to look at him directly, "there are plenty more fish in the sea."

she kisses him hard, both palms on either side of her face. he looks a little more satisfied, his lips painted with the red of her lipstick, "yes, but i happen to like the fish i caught. maybe he's a little older, but maybe fish age like fine wine."

he chuckles at her good-natured attempt to make him feel better, "you're my favorite person in the entire galaxy, andronikos revel. don't you ever forget that."

"whatever you say, miss mierrio kallig."

later she realizes just how stupid that sounded. wine aged for years. fish had a lifespan of two decades, if that.

she would love him forever.

mierrio also isn't a child anymore, as the pain in her back reminds her. she's not twenty one, she's twenty five. she figures she's a little undeserving of the pain though, she's technically still in the prime of her life.

well, putting it through hell and back didn't really help either, she thinks as she frowns.

though it seems so little changed, the scars that marr her pale skin are nearly a map to everything she's been through. almost having her body taken by a wayward master, nearly losing her body to force ghosts, her final fight with thanaton. among other things, fighting animals in the jungles of dromound kaas, the occasional duel with her acolytes.

the way her body filled out after her first pregnancy.

she'd always been skinny, to the point she thought she'd look like a grade schooler until the day she died. but maybe her body had finally kicked into high gear after it realized it was creating life instead of taking it. her breasts were the first, then it slowly spread over her body until she was self-conscious of putting on so much weight.

it's hard to get used to. the way most clothes and more importantly, armor don't fit the same way anymore is frustrating. her favorite armor has since gone unused because she's too wide in some places now. and even worse, she had been confined to their apartment for the last five months of being pregnant.

the rumors had only been blown out of proportion when she got back. the gossip was just childish at that point, but one that always struck hard was always the talk of ronin. someone had seen her out with him and andronikos, they must have, and jumped to conclusions. before the baby could even form his own words, people already had an opinion of him he had no control over.

she stayed in the apartment for months afterwards just because she was so embarassed. he was her baby, wasn't he? no matter how he came to her care, he was ronin revel, just as she was mierrio revel. the three of them weren't related by blood, but she felt closer to them than anyone she'd ever met before. looking at the baby twi'lek taking his first steps across the fury made her proud. that was her son, their son. screw what the others said.

she fell pregnant just after he turned three.

it wasn't as if she and andronikos had actively been trying for a baby, after so many years of being married and even before she hadn't been able to carry. to say the least, it was a joyous moment for those who'd previously inhabited the titan. corsha had been a turning point for everyone, she and andronikos had gained a family. he had his sky princess.

but something was just...off. nothing felt right anymore. maybe she was able to keep up with those on the council, but that didn't mean she still didn't feel so absolutely out of place. those on the council were decades upon decades older than her, and most didn't have successors or children. she was twenty-five, with two young children with targets on their back before they were even ten.

andronikos could lie, but not for forever. he was a pirate before, and though he'd given himself to her, that was always him. he didn't leave without her and their kids now, but there was always that wistful look in his eyes as he was in the captain's chair of the titan. she'd made him a father at thirty nine, and he was forty one now. if he hadn't had any when he was younger, why would he stick around now?

standing in front of the mirror, she can remember when getting up late meant finding one of andronikos' oversized shirts and trying to surprise him wherever he'd gotten off to, back when they lived on the titan it meant round two in the cockpit. but these days it meant trying to pull her hair back (she should really cut it again) and hoping to find one of her own shirts and checking on her kids. there wasn't time to laze around and get nothing done for days at a time anymore.

she looks tired. there are bags under eyes and some dark strands hang in front of her face. she's sore in a lot of places, and mierrio wishes it were for a different reason than exhaustion. eventually deciding on a loose shirt and leggings, she leaves the master bedroom to wander into the living room. it's still dark, so either it's been raining all morning or it's simply early. passing by a chrono, she finds it's a mixture of both. it's earlier than she usually wakes up (makes sense why she's still unexplainably exhausted), but it's also dark. the rain is pattering at the window, and it's soothing to be back on dromound kaas. she would've raised ronin here, had she had the funds for a home at that point in time.

"nikky?" she whispers, afraid he's hiding from her and planning to scare her. it wouldn't be the first time. without an answer, she steps closer to the couch.

a warm smile etches itself across her face. ronin is lying against his father, drool rolling down his face. corsha is all bundled up in a pink blanket in andronikos' arms, cheeks a rosy color she'd never been able to attain herself. a smattering of fluffy brown hair covers her skull, and she sleeps on peacefully.

she's perfectly a mix of her and andronikos. darker skin than hers, but tan enough to be a few shades lighter than her father. she doesn't have the same color hair than either of them, which was a surprise, but she's beautiful. her deep brown-green eyes are truly mesmirizing.

but his brown eyes have found her, and without even saying a word he's able to slip ronin off his shoulder and laying against the armrest of the sofa. in less than a second, corsha is recradled in his arms and he's up, leading her towards the kitchen, "good morning." he says.

"good morning to you too." she whispers, careful not to wake her daughter. though, the last year had proven the girl could sleep through a storm and not even stir, "why are you up so early?"

"princess was fussing earlier, so i took her out of our room before you woke up. ronin must've heard, so he got up too. we all fell asleep." he admits, putting his free arm around her, "heard you when he came by. figured the kid would feel better if he weren't lying upright when he woke up."

"oh." is all she can say, snuggling into her husband as he leans against the counter. he's so considerate, even if the rugged pirate look is what comes off first. his being a father has changed him, but maybe it's for the better. he's gotten extremely protective when he's out in the field with her now too.

"somethin' on your mind, sith?" he asks, and she's surprised he's caught on so fast. maybe he can hear her heartbeat as much as she can hear his, "you've been a little off lately."

"it's nothing. really." she says, just a tad too quiet for him not to suspect. if andronikos revel was good at one thing, it was gauging her reaction to just about anything, and she'd made it too obvious that everything was bothering her.

"sure."

a pause.

"just know you can always talk to me, mier." he says, "nothin's changed about that."

"i know." she whispers, "i've always known."

the silence isn't comfortable anymore. in fact, it's suffocating. the few people that even know about some of her true struggles don't even spend all that much time with her. ezridivia was halfway across the galaxy now, and tri'ama (mellena, apparently) didn't bother ever spending time with her these days (she didn't before, but after the debacle of the revanites on rakata prime, she thought the woman would at least visit). she offered good advice, but didn't relate with her as much. she wasn't married anymore, and spent most of her time gallavanting across the galaxy with the barsen'thor the jedi order (what had happened to that woman?).

why is it so hard to tell him about what's hurting her? because so much of her insecurities surround his hypothetical thoughts about their situation? how he really feels about everything?

how she's afraid one day he's going to fly off and leave her with corsha and ronin?

she grew up without a family. to make her own children do the same?

it would destroy her.

"i'm afraid one day i'm going to wake up without you. i'm afraid you're going to run again and i'm going to be alone again." she thinks, unable to even look at him before he picks up her chin, tilting it upwards to face him. he has a look of concern painted across his features.

"you're what?" he says incredulously, as if it's the biggest announcement of the millenia.

had she said that out loud? "it's not a big deal, andronikos. i'm just being childish."

"i'm not leavin' you. or the kids." he says firmly, "i'm not going anywhere, mier. i'd rather die first."

she's quiet for a moment. he's serious, something he typically was whenever it came to her or their small family. it isn't enough to get her to speak up, to say anything about how she feels. but maybe he understands that, because he doesn't press for information. he kisses her instead, "i wouldn't leave the one person that's the most important to me, sith."

"darth nox?" someone asks, as she adjusts where her saber hangs on her hip. ronin is prim and proper today, looking rather handsome in his youth corps uniform. even at twelve he's tall and lanky, at 5"6. she quickly puts the native flower in corsha's hair, her nine year old taking after her father and being rather fussy about being all dressed up for an outing, "the commander is landing. empress acina requests your presence at once."

"thank you." she thanks the nameless soldier as both children are herded off. she's promised them she'd take them out after meeting with the commander, so she's gone and hired someone to look after them for the time being. hopefully corsha doesn't become frustrated and begin practicing on the soldier. primping herself as she hurries along the black and red corridors, she tucks a stray hair behind her ear. it's lighter than usual, after she'd hacked off twelve inches or so. she'd gone for a less special hairstyle, planning a speeder ride in the jungle afterwards. one long braid down her back and a high collared robe, she could play responsible and imposing darth for a few hours and then get back to being what she did best - being a mom.

"empress." she nods, taking her place next to the woman. she acknowledges her as well, and she tries not to look around the throne room too much. it's been a long while since she was in the citadel, so much has changed.

she still wonders if this is where andronikos came first after zakuul took over.

"commander." acina's voice snaps her out of her thoughts, and her eyes widen once she realizes just who the commander is. other than the occasional news report, she's never taken the alliance very seriously. but flanked by two others she doesn't know, tri'ama amarillis-quinn has arrived, "welcome back to dromound kaas."

"acina," she nods in greeting, before turning to mierrio in well masked shock, "nox. it's been a while."

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loquaciousquark · 6 years ago

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Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E26 (July 17, 2018)

Tonight’s guests: Matt Mercer, Ashly Burch, and Taliesin Jaffe. Heck, I’m nervous for all three of them.

Announcements: Critical Role will be at the San Diego Comic Con on 7/21 in 6BCF at 6:30pm. The panel will be aired next Tuesday during the TM time slot. They’ll also be at NYCC in October!

CR Stats! Episode 26 had 14 natural 20s, the most of the new campaign. This was in no small part due to Ashly borrowing Tal’s dice because she doesn’t own her own dice bag. There’s so much dice karma happening in that sentence I don’t even know how to handle it. It ties with episodes 55, 61, and 100. Keg has the most natural 20s of any single-episode guesting with 4. Molly got the M9′s 100th kill. He leads the party with 21 kills in all. “Hot murder streak.”

We’ve seen seven of Molly’s cards so far: the silver dragon, anvil, serpent, eye, moon, shadow, and the chariot. Tal says the serpent may be the same as the dragon, but he’ll check.

This was Ashly’s first time guesting on the show proper--previously she’d only been on oneshots. Biggest difference? “There were less people dying on the oneshots!”

Matt and Brian both take a moment to applaud Ashly’s characterization and sticking to the true roleplaying of her character over any min-maxing of the dice she might have done otherwise. Tal says the math would have come out either way as it was. It’s the first time she’s ever done something like that in a D&D game.

Matt always prefers roleplaying over what’s strategically optimal, especially since the moments where you falter and fail often lead to the true “hero” arc for your character. “It was very wild and unique to watch the cocksure exterior crumble.”

Everyone’s been kind to Ashly directly since The Incident. It’s only whispers she’d heard indirectly.

Tal already hadn’t slept the night before; he didn’t that night either, just curled up and thought until dawn. He realized in panic that he’d never come up with a backup character as Matt had asked months ago; he has rolled a new one since then, but he spent most of the weekend coping with making a new character in three days after spending six months on Molly. Bless.

Brian woke Ashley up during the live show when he heard Taliesin say “my Blood Maledict’s going to kill me” so that they could watch the rest together. He realized that Matt was hesitating a lot more than usual as things went on, that Matt seemed to be hinting more and more strongly that the impending encounter was about to go very badly for the M9.

Matt designed the Iron Shepherds to be a very dangerous, powerful group when they are all together (as they were that night). He’d planned for several options: the M9 following and never catching up, waiting to gather intel until Shady Creek, catching up but only observing from a distance, and for the actual battle itself. He tried to give them clues about how dangerous they would actually be: that there were more than five enemies, that Ashly’s character knew how dangerous they were, that they were prepared and tough-looking. However, he never wants to be too heavy-handed in guiding the players’ hands. His intent with the battle was to show some surprises and that the M9 didn’t know what they were dealing with, and had hoped that the M9 would take the hint and back out sooner than they did.

Brian could tell that Matt was very visibly affected as the fight went on, which Matt points out was in part due to how late it was. He allowed the battle to occur because he didn’t plan for it to be a long one (the Iron Shepherds were going to speed away...until the M9 dropped the tree across the road). Then he had no idea what was going to happen during the battle. He adds that DMs sometimes end up with encounters harder than they’d plan, and it was nervewracking because as much as he cares for these characters, he also has a responsibility to be true to the strength of the enemies and the realities of the dice. There were a lot of ways the fight could have still gone, but didn’t (parlay, discussion, more ambushing, better dice rolls).

If Keg hadn’t stepped up and used her relationship specifically with Lorenzo to halt the battle, it would have gotten way, way worse for the M9, including the kidnapping of more of the M9 to be sold.

Lorenzo has a specific vanity and enjoyment of power over other people, and Keg’s intervention played straight into that. It’s the only reason that encounter didn’t go more poorly.

Some of the Iron Shepherds’ background information was known by Keg; some was deliberate misleading on the part of the Shepherds to keep Keg in the dark.

Keg wasn’t happy about Caleb’s charming, but Keg knew there was no way she could take on the Shepherds on her own. She has a facade of being cocksure and proud but is truly a coward, and knew that taking them on alone would kill her. The charming was a “necessary evil.”

Taliesin knew the risks of the Maledict but planned to give Lorenzo disadvantage, hopefully dodge the next two attacks, and escape as soon as Lorenzo engaged with Beau. Then the dice came up with the rest of his HP and that was that.

Matt did in fact roll the Golden Snitch for the bad guys this game. Brian: “Let’s not give him the most powerful die in the game next time.” Tal: “Oh, it’s going to go mysteriously missing any day now.”

Lorenzo was not visibly afraid at any point during this fight. Matt declines to elaborate further.

GIF of the Week! u/rndmanswrs4rndmqstns from Reddit, for a gif of the battle map from last episode superimposed with a tragic news ticker footage of the slaughter.

Molly’s final words were an easy choice. “He’s not complicated in that direction, and his feelings on violence and death are easy.” Tal says it didn’t fully hit him until hours later. Still, Molly never really felt ownership of his own self; it all still felt borrowed. He knew death would come eventually and probably earlier rather than later. “As ways to go existed, I think that was a very Molly way to go.”

Matt thinks these reminders of mortality are important...depending on the type of story you’re trying to tell. Their game needs the stakes of having the risk of death, although that’s not what would be fun for every game and should not always be on the table. However, they know each other so well that he feels it’s an important reminder that there are consequences for their actions and that it suits the world they live in. Tal points out that the same thing is true for so many types of fiction: “they’re only fine because they’re not real.” Sometimes these stories happen in a vacuum and the hero is immortal...and sometimes, as in their game, they’re not. Matt thinks it’s important to be able to grieve and feel catharsis for even a fictional character (and cites a particular death from C1 as an example for himself). Matt: “In a weird, macabre way, I’m excited to see where the story goes from here.” Brian: “Me, too.” Tal: “Me, too. I mean, at first I was panicking, but now I have a pretty good idea.”

Ashly initially panicked when Matt revealed the Iron Shepherds’ abilities (since she thought she’d misremembered what Matt had said), but then felt even more justified in her RP. Everything felt worse because so many people were gone, including Laura and Travis. “I felt like the babysitter who dropped the baby.” She felt the whole time during the fight that they shouldn’t be engaging the way they were.

Molly’s final thoughts were “easy and simple and base...the immense, reasonable, and wonderfully sustaining emotion of ‘well, fuck you, too,’ which is the righteous and more reasonable cousin to ‘fuck you.’“ No fear, no panic.

The Iron Shepherds existed as part of the worldbuilding in the northern region and were intended to be a later issue, but Matt wove them into the story soon since Laura & Travis had to leave. He wasn’t intending for them to become such an immediate, intense antagonistic force, but DMs have to adapt to the situations and this one felt natural.

Cut to Dani Cam, who had a very hard Thursday night ( :( ). She asks Ashly how Keg, someone very self-preservational, decided to sacrifice herself for the M9. Ashly remembered that in their discussions, Matt characterized Lorenzo as someone who liked to make examples of people, and thought that if she prostrated herself in front of him, he might maim her but not kill her, which turned out to be accurate--so it was still fairly self-preservational on her part. They’ll find out more next week. Ashly will be with us the next two sessions and will be joining the crew at GenCon! Heck yes!!

As much as Tal likes Matt’s Lingering Soul class, he would never consider it as an option for Mollymauk. “There’s no version of Molly coming back as a ghost that doesn’t end with him desperately wanting it to be over.” Matt designed it more narratively to be a person whose sheer force of will keeps them from accepting the moment of death due to unfinished business or the pure determination to live...which they both feel is the exact opposite of Molly.

Matt liked how Taliesin showed that all personalities can play the Blood Hunter, not just the edgy grimdark type.

Fanart of the Week! @jesttothenines, with this pain. Ow.

If Molly hadn’t run to Lorenzo, Beau would have likely been his example instead. Molly was an easier target, though, because he was closer and more hurt. If Beau had been unconscious instead (and not dead) when Keg made her plea, Lorenzo might have asked what she was willing to trade to get Beau back.

This is the second of Tal’s characters Matt’s killed. The first one was a mad monk who liked to set things on fire who was eaten by ghouls.

Dani: “Why can’t this campaign be happy? And fairies?!” Matt: “We had the fairies last campaign in the Feywild! They murdered the pixies! They sided with the werewolves!”

After last campaign, Tal and Dani hugged while Dani cried pretty hard. Then Tal went home and cried himself. He left the table during the episode because he was on the verge of having a panic attack and couldn’t handle watching everyone else panic as well.

Ashly thought she was going to have a limb lopped off at minimum when Lorenzo had her kneel. She didn’t expect to be let go unscathed.

Molly would have considered his death “worth it” if he knew it meant Beau was spared. In a way, it helps that he now has an “eternal one-up” on her. Matt: “That’s very Molly of him.”

The persuasion success from Keg was a chief reason Lorenzo spared them, but it was also because the rest of the M9 were insignificant gnats to him. Keg’s reaction was the only one he cared about, so as soon as she gave in he’d gotten what he wanted. Then he just wanted to set the example and spread the word.

Ashly hadn’t meant to let them know she’d been part of the slavers until Shady Creek, but actually likes how it came out.

Matt really doesn’t think it was an overall bad plan. It was just a few strategic missteps, some very bad dice rolls, and an enemy that outmatched them.

Dani recalls to us all that Molly had told us it would be a cursed trip.

Molly’s parting advice to the M9: Tal declines to think about it much in depth. “Life’s short, eat a bagel. Join the circus. Lighten up. Life’s short; do something to a bagel.”

The illusion that cloaks the cages under the tarp means that even if the missing three of the M9 are in there, they wouldn’t have seen Molly’s death.

Molly is no different in Taliesin’s head than he was last week, which is why he's having a slightly easier time with this than everyone else. “He’s no different for me, I just don’t get to trot him out on Thursday.” He was based off of several friends, some who have passed away, and several experiences he had as a teenager and places and people he knew that profoundly affected him. He mentions a song off the soundtrack for Wristcutters: A Love Story, since that movie had a lot of “good carnie family vibes” about weird people taking care of each other. There was an archetype in film that was very much Molly which Tal hasn’t seen in a long time, and he explains: there’s a way of living a life where you don’t give a fuck about what people think but you do give a fuck about people. He never needed to be fixed and he never needed permission for anything. He’s not Iron Man where you’re waiting to see him become a good person, and he was never a creature of profound change like Captain America, where you watch to see the good they make on the world; his unfinished business was in each interaction he had with the people in the world and making them deal with him, but making sure that dealing with him was always a positive and kind experience. Matt gets very emotional at the description. Me too, friend.

His favorite part of playing him was being a teenager version of himself; the art and cosplay were spectacular. And the terrible accent, of course.

Brian takes a moment to thank Taliesin for making memorable characters and memorable choices that have a bigger impact than what only they can see. He looked at all the tributes for Molly this week because he wanted to get a feel for how the community was feeling so that they could hone the questions for the show. The character meant a lot to a lot of different types of people, and it’s a testament to Tal’s heart that people connected so much with this character.

Brian, Matt, and Tal are all crying at this point. Ashly starts reactive-crying. Dani’s crying on the Dani Cam. This is AWFUL.

After Dark: QQ Edition

We open laughing (relieving change) since everyone’s hurled obscenities at Brian just before the show went live. Matt enjoys being on the other side of that for once.

Beau is the member of the M9 who’s best earned the right to wear Molly’s coat. “She’s the one who needs to lighten up. Caleb’s never going to lighten up and that’s okay. Jester doesn’t need it. Fjord doesn’t need it. That’s not Nott’s problem.”

Keg is super interested in Nott’s never-ending flask. “I’m abandoning this super dramatic narrative. I’m going for the flask.”

A TPK was possible if the M9 kept throwing themselves at the Iron Shepherds, but Matt knew they were smarter than that and would either flee or give themselves up as Keg did. “It relied on the players’ actions at that point; that’s why I was so nervous. I was like, this is the scenario I built and now we have to see it through.”

Tal honestly doesn’t remember what Liam said to him when he left the table right after him. It was mostly a “well, that happened,” and Liam just refilled his drink before going back to the table.

Tal went home after the show, cried in bed, and then the sun came up and he realized he had no idea for a new character. He spent so much time working on Molly that he never got around to making anything else. He came up with his next idea in about thirteen-fourteen hours, and he’s very happy with it. Matt points out he was explicitly clear about how they needed to come up with backup characters when the campaign started. “These low levels are dangerous!”

Everyone addresses the new studio in terms most respectful and patient, asking it to be benevolent now that it’s had its blood sacrifice.

Keg’s going to grow a vengeance beard.

Brian talks about Ashley’s reaction on the couch; she leaned forward on her knees, looked over at Brian, and said, “I’m gonna kill that motherfucker.” Brian said, “Yeah, you probably will.” They now have a formidable villain for the early campaign.

Tal can’t even answer the question about how Yasha will react when she finds out. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”

Matt and Brian have a retrospective moment of panic about how good it is Yasha wasn’t there that night, since she’s a rage-based barbarian. Matt, wide-eyed: “There would have been no parlay. Oh, no. Next question.”

Keg’s favorite moments were the secret-sharing with Nott and the conversation with Beau. Matt loved their meeting: “When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. It was beautiful.”

Brian’s first desire after the show was to rage-tweet Matt Colville. He, apparently, refrained.

Matt thinks the threat of death should be present and played out when it happens, but he never likes playing DM-vs.-player.

Tal smiled when Molly was being killed because that was both Molly’s reaction, and because Tal himself is a nervous smiler.

Matt doesn’t consider this revenge for Tal killing him off so soon in the Vampire oneshot; Tal reminds us that he knew Matt knew about the very specific subclass he’d given Matt and they both knew what would happen when he went outside.

Tal and Matt reminisce about early PC deaths. “What was that, 2012?” Ashly: “Aw, you guys have killed each other so much!”

They’re asked about the best lie they’ve ever told. Tal convinced someone a nonsense Pirate Queen existed; Matt doesn’t really lie, but when he senses gullibility he doubles down until reality’s rearranged.

Tal started wearing black when Jim Henson died...except that he forbade black at his funeral. The camera zooms in on Tal’s iridescent loafers & his peacock paisley shirt: “This is Molly’s funeral shirt.”

Ashly will definitely be back on Thursday; Tal will be back as soon as the narrative allows it. He’s prepared for Thursday if it works out.

And that’s where it wraps up tonight. Be good to each other; it’s almost Thursday.

#critical role #talks machina #critical role spoilers #talks machina spoilers #long post for ts

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holdharmonysacred · 6 years ago

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All right, this is probably the worst time for me to wax meta since all I want to do right now is Take A Nap, but I’m in a Granblue mood right now so here’s my spicy hot takes:

The main theme of the What Makes The Sky Blue storyline is purpose, from “finding purpose in a world where God (be it literally or metaphorically) is no longer there”, to “finding a new purpose when your past reason for meaning no longer works” to “sometimes it is necessary to go against your initial purpose, for your sake and for the sake of others” to “one’s own self and one’s purpose in the world coming into conflict”. The various cosmic entities involved in the event storyline are all struggling with the purpose they were given or lack thereof, and in many cases have difficulty coping with the fact that there is no one around to tell them what to do.

Sandalphon’s arc is the most obvious and explicit instance of this theme - Sandalphon is and was intensely insecure about his purpose in life, left to awkwardly sit around and do nothing while every other angel and primal received a job, and then having a breakdown when he learned that his job was to act as a replacement for Lucifer as Supreme Primarch if needed. Sandalphon assumes that this means his existing is pointless, he’s just a spare, what are the chances of him actually ever being needed? Lucifer’s the strongest! He’s the supreme primarch! He’s got everything under control, there’s seemingly nothing threatening him, Sandalphon would just be left twiddling his thumbs for all eternity at best. It’s no wonder he ends up throwing a hell of a tantrum, and why Lyria sympathizes with him and advocates for his redemption, seeing as she herself has no idea what her own purpose is and understands why such an apparent lack of purpose would be upsetting to him.

Then Lucifer gets killed. And then it turns out Sandalphon is very much needed after all.

Now, Sandalphon has to perform his original duty as next in line for the role of Supreme Primarch, but because Lucifer, the person who guided him and who he looked up to most, is no longer here, well... he’s having a tough time of it, nevermind the obvious fact that in spite of “being a replacement for Lucifer” being his intended purpose, he isn’t Lucifer and can never be Supreme Primarch in the exact same way Lucifer was. Which is why his arc takes the turn it does in WMTSB3, with your crew and the Archangels helping Sandalphon carve his own path and be Supreme Primarch in his own way, culminating in his 5-star uncap’s not being Lucifer’s white wings that he passed on to Sandalphon, but Sandalphon’s own wings as well as the wings of the four primarchs - the very rainbow-colored wings that he claimed for himself way back during his tantrum in WMTSB1, now given freely and with new meaning as a symbol of himself as himself. Sandalphon goes from being intensely insecure about his seemingly pointless existence, to forging his own reason for being.

However, Sandalphon’s not the only character this theme of purpose applies to - I mentioned Lyria earlier, but the various other angels all have their own arcs related to the theme. Lucifer himself was preparing to step down from his job as Supreme Primarch prior to his death, giving up on his purpose and reason for being in order to allow the world to carve its own path. Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel as of WMTSB3 have also chosen to step down from their roles of governing the world and live as normal people among the skydwellers, letting nature run itself rather than each of them controlling and maintaining the elements - a choice that makes sense once you realize that, after the near-disaster of WMTSB1 and Lucifer’s death in WMTSB2, they probably realized that sticking with their assigned roles could be potentially destructive were something to ever happen to them. Sariel is shown to chafe under his role as an angel of execution, him being a more peaceful person who dislikes violence and would rather explore the world and raise an ant farm than kill, but rather than try and find a new purpose that he’s more suited for, he wants to force himself into the role he was initially assigned even if it comes at the cost of himself, and once he is told that it’s okay for him to not match up with his purpose, latches on to the very people who allowed that even though those same people (Belial and Lucilius) quite blatantly don’t have the best of intentions. Perhaps if Sariel survives to part 2 (which he probably will, since he’s got some yet-to-be-used sprites still), he’ll find a way to create a new purpose for himself without also hurting himself in the process.

Even Lucilius seems to be gearing up to have this be his motivation for trying to destroy the world, in a dark mirror of Sandalphon’s arc - I can’t say for sure who or what he is or why he’s doing what he does until part 2 of WMTSB3 drops, but based on the bits and hints so far, the story seems to be implying Lucilius is a clone of Lucio that Lucio made and put into the world for some currently unknown reason (with Lucifer being a clone Lucilius made of himself, and a clone of Lucio by extension). Lucilius’s goal is, as Cog rather eloquently put it, to flip God the bird - he wants to destroy all creation simply because God made it and for some reason he’s really got it in for God. Reading between the lines however reveals some possibilities for why he’s so spiteful towards his and the world’s creators in the first place - Lucilius seems to know he has a reason for being, but he doesn’t seem to know what that exact reason actually is. Assuming he’s a clone of Lucio, he seems to have inherited some information from his creator (such as how the divine tower Exists), but it’s not necessarily enough for him to perform whatever job Lucio intended him to do. Perhaps Lucilius has been having his own issues with an assigned purpose he is unable to fulfill, and rather than just do the best he can with what he was given or even create his own purpose, he lashes out and everyone and everything. He doubts his purpose, and he doubts that there is even a God, and I’m going to propose that the reason he is trying to destroy all creation is so that he can force a confrontation with whatever Divine Powers exist, if they even exist at all, in order to confirm whether or not there even is a meaning for himself and the world existing. Whatever that meaning or purpose is, however, Lucilius is most likely rebelling against it to a downright destructive extent, since if Lucio DID create him, I doubt he’d put him on the earth just so he could destroy it - though then, it’s fitting for Lucilius to do this, seeing as how he seems to be the Granblue equivalent of Voidwing Lucifer, the Lucifer who’s demonic and destructive in nature rather than a beacon of hope. If all of this is true, I feel like there’ll be some beautiful irony if Sandalphon is the one to defeat him, seeing as how Sandalphon’s tantrum in WMTSB1 is a repeat of Lucilius’s own in miniature, how Sandalphon’s situation was specifically caused either directly or indirectly by Lucilius, and most importantly, how Sandalphon was able to resolve his own conflict in a healthy way, while Lucilius seems determined to take everybody down with him.

Overall, I’m curious to see where the conclusion to WMTSB3 is going to take this theme, and how all these arcs are going to end. I’ll probably end up writing another absurdly long meta piece once it’s dropped and I’ve had time to chew on it, but we’ll see...

#granblue fantasy #i know i left belial out but i've seen others tackle his characterization already #and also i just don't like him #so let's talk about everyone else instead!#i give kudos to belial being a fantastically written villain in wmtsb3 though #actually a lot of the writing in wmtsb is just Good Content overall #i have no idea where i was going with all this but i hope y'all like character meta because guess what

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ick25 · 6 years ago

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Rockman.EXE Episode 42 Review.

I spy Navis from the N-1 such as Blues, Elecman, Bombman, Whaleman and Shiningman. I also see some viruses, one of the robot operators that nearly killed Netto and Commander Beef, and Shadowman and Cutman? How do these people know about them?!

And that’s the Gospel truth...

We open the episode at some noodle shop where Madoi talks about how she is bored with her life, and Coloredman tells her how she used to shine back when the WWW was still active. Madoi then gets a bowl of noodles that she didn’t order.

I wonder who that could be?

Madoi’s mystery order comes with a little note with the seal of Gospel asking her to join them. The mysterious customer then reveals himself to her.

I think Madoi just slapped him after he said that. Can’t have a Madoi episode without someone making fun of her makeup.

After the title card, we see Madoi in her new secretary outfit at Maha ichiban where she breaks the news to the other Ex-WWW members that she is gonna quit to go work for Gospel.

Count Elec and Hinouken don’t like this and yell at Madoi calling her a traitor and such. Mahajarama on the other hand, is cool with Madoi leaving and gives her farewell gift.

Friendship? What would bad guys know about friendship? We know they all stick around together because they have nothing better to do.

Madoi takes the gift and runs out of the shop causing a car crash into it and destroying Mahajarama’s life size statue.

AHHHHH! Mahajarama has eyes!

We then cut to a family retaurant where Netto is in a “secret” meeting with the Net Agents, where he makes a scene after the news they tell him about Gospel.

“Hello, police? There are three terrible cosplayers and a kid talking about the Net mafia out loud at a family restaurant”

They are telling him about a Gospel leader hosting a secret meeting in Japan. Since the cover up for the meeting is a costume party for rich people, the Commader wants Netto to ask Yaito to help them get in, right before this second waitress complements his costume.

This girl has obviously never seen the N-1 Grand Prix.

Anyway, the Commander insists in having Netto talk to Yaito about the party, but that is no longer necessary since Yaito, along with Dekao and Meiru, overheard their conversation.

After this we cut to Madoi enjoying her new job at Gospel resting by the pool, when Gauss appears and asks her to follow him into a skipped scene from the dub. Brace yourself.

The correct question here is, who would buy a toilet with Wily’s face on it?!

Yes, Gauss reveals that he is a super Wily otaku or fan girl, whatever you want to call him. He even shows her a talking life size statue of Wily in a little scene that was kept in the dub.

I would be more impress if you had him saying: “The fact that you keep losing to Rockman is exactly why I’m mad!” (Actual quote from episode 9)

One of the reasons Gauss decided to hire Madoi is that she could share with him her memories of Dr. Wily, reminding us that either Wily is dead or just M.I.A.

Back at the Curry shop, Hinouken and Count Elec are still mad/sad about Madoi leaving them.

Is this an opening for a Count Elec and Madoi shipping? I guess nearly falling to your deaths together in a cold mountain range while hand gliding makes you developt feelings.

That night, we see the cover up party at a mansion by the sea, with Gauss as the host. We see people dressed up as Navis and viruses among other things, but the best costumes are the ones Netto and his friends are wearing.

*Okay, if you’re confused about Netto’s name, scroll down to the end of this review to see the full story behind their group costume. BTW, Miyuki and Saloma are the horse.

Netto and Dekao inmediately start embarrasing Meiru by eating like the animals they are.

Yaito doesn’t help either because she starts blinding people with her forehead for some reason.

Yes, in fact, this scene was so pointless that it was skipped in the dub.

It is now time for the Net Agents to start their investigation, with style.

If I know my costumes, that must’ve hurt Saloma a lot.

The Net Agents sneak around Gauss’s mansion and come across a hallway with a laser security system, they need to disable the lasers from the cyberworld, and Netto, who suddenly appears next to them, volunteers.

We get a different design for the plug-in animation as Netto sends Rockman into the security system. The Guard Navis attack, but Rockman is so bad ass that he doesn’t need any chips to knock them all out.

Either that or they’re just really weak.

Netto complaines to them about being left behind, and since Commander Beef knows well that he won’t get rid of Netto that easily, he allows him to tag along.

Son Netto, master in the art of convincing!

We then cut to Madoi reminding Gauss about the secret meeting and they both leave the party. During their walk, Gauss tells Madoi that Gospel is nothing like the World Three, hinting that something really bad is about to happend.

Let me get this straight. You’re a fan of wily, but you’re not a fan of the World Three, the organization he created in order to terrorized people, the thing that made everyone realized that he is evil, THE VERY THING THAT MADE HIM FAMOUS IN THE FIRST PLACE!

The Net Agents along with their Navis disable every security system they find as they move on. Before commercials though, Gauss reveals that the Net Agents are heading for a trap. So much for the surprise.

They finally arrive at the meeting room filled with a bunch of covered up guys who look a lot like the disguises used by Bombman and Stoneman’s fake operators from the N-1.

What kind of guns are those? Laser guns? I’m getting ahead of myself, but in Axess we see characters using real guns, so this now seems kinda childish.

Gauss appears before them with madoi wearing masks, because apparently Higure never told Netto that his investor from episode 34 was Gauss Magnets. XP

Gauss reveals to them that the meeting was a trap for the Net Agents and the members take off their disguises, turns out they were all robots, and I am not surprised.

They ARE laser guns! If they were human, then what were they planning to do?Taze them or threaten to cook them alive?

Saloma and Miyuki shoot at the robots with their space era guns, and even Netto tries join in the action by attacking some of the robots.

You are not the monkey king and you are not Rockman either! That would be until Axess. X(

The Commander saves him and Netto then challenges Gauss to a Net Battle because that’s how you defeat the villains in the Battle Network universe.

That... That didn’t work? Am I finally watching a competent shonen anime? O-O

Gauss tells them that his plan was to kill the Net Agents, and luckily for him, they brought Netto so he can kill him too. The room begins to flood, and Madoi apparently has standards because hearing Gauss wanting to kill Netto makes her uncomfortable and talks to him about it after they exit the room.

“Directly” is the key word here. World Three were actually cowards who liked to injured people indirectly by making their Navis set homes on fire, try to crash a train full of people and nearly polluting the water of an entire city. What are you trying to say here, Madoi?

As the room keeps filling up with water, the commander gets a cramp and Rockman tells Netto that there must be a computer from where he can stop the water, and Netto remembers that he saw a jack-in port like two minutes ago with a flashback.

In cased you missed that the first time.

Netto dives and plugs in Rockman underwater because everything is water proof in this world. Gauss discovers this and decides to change his waredrobe to fight Rockman.

I’m starting to think Wily fan girl is the best description for him right now.

Rockman is attacked by Magnetman, Netto tries to send him battle chips to fight, but he is having trouble holding his breath under water.

Magnetman keeps attacking Rockman as Netto swims back to the surface where Commander Beef still has a cramp for another breath of air, but its so deep that he can’t hold his breath long enough to focus on the battle.

We then see Madoi talking to the life size statue of Wily about how it feels wrong to be working for Gospel, but then she remembers the gift Mahajarama gave her.

Magnetman summons his twin and gets ready for the N-S tackle to finish off Rockman. The two spheres head towards Rockman until they are intercepted by Coloredman’s ball that also breaks a giant faucet that apparently was the program flooding the room and the dreinage system is activated somehow.

Madoi tells Gauss that she is gonna quit Gospel because it is trash compared to the World Three, why? Because, according to her, the World Three... had... Love?.

See? Even Coloredman doesn’t understand her nonsense!

The Magnetmen attack Coloredman again and Rockman protects him with a barrier. Right after that, the Net agents and Netto suddenly appear in the organ room where Gauss and Madoi are, and I like how Netto called Gauss cross dresser. XD

Netto tells Gauss it’s payback time and activates the Elec Brother Style. Unsurprisingly by now, Madoi knows about the Elec Brother’s ability and passes an extension chip to Netto so he can download Coloredman’s data into Rockman. And if you’re a football/soccer fan you’ll like this little scene.

GOOOOOOOOL!!!!

Rockman finishes Magnetman with his Terra Volt and Gauss whines about it like a girl before escaping on his weird flying machine he activates in front of everyone.

At least this time we don’t get to see the whole room remodeling and airship building scene.

Netto thanks Madoi for helping them, Madoi says she only did it for herself and then gives Netto the curry coupon before leaving.

And we end the episode with the Ex-WWW discovering a life size Wily statue in front of their restaurant with Madoi eating curry inside, just happy with being where she is.

My thoughts?

This was a Madoi episode so we get to learn more about her character. I don’t blame Madoi for wanting to do something better with her life, she knows that she has no future working at a curry restaurant in a sad attemp of reviving World Three. You already know that I am not a fan of these guys, but I was actually happy for her since she showed some real character development.

Another thing that I like about Madoi in this episode is that she is not really a bad person, she doesn’t like to be directly involve with hurting people and she saw the World Three as her family. Maybe she came from a broken home, maybe her real family sucks and she found comfort in joining the WWW. Sure, they did bad things, but Madoi never did what she did with evil intentions, she did it so Wily would praise her for her efforts and get a laugh out of the misfortune of others, could it be a daddy issue or something?

The animation was okay, the story too, and I’m glad they cut that scene with Gauss’s Wily collection because it was just too weird and it compleately makes Dr. Wily, the main villain of the classic Megaman/Rockman series, look like a joke.

*Now, let me explain about Netto’s group costume in case you didn’t get it, this will be long.

First, It may be confusing to hear the name Son Goku because the first thing that comes to mind is the Dragon Ball series. Well, let me tell you that Dragon Ball was loosely based on the classic Chinese novel “Journey to the West” with the famous Monkey king as one of the main characters. Goku was actually based on the monkey king, hence the monkey tail he had, his growing staff, the flying cloud, and because of his name. In China, the Monkey king’s name was Sun Wo Kung, but in Japan he is knowen as Son Goku, I dont know if this is a different name or it’s just how they pronounce it Japan.

Second, if you are familiar with the original story of Journey to the west, you’ll notice that Yaito and Meiru’s costumes are out of place. Since they called themselves the “Saiyuki” group I imagine that it had to do do with cultural differences since Saiyuki is how Journey to the west is knowen in Japan.

After doing some research I came to the conclution that perhaps this is a reference to a video game that came out in 2001 named “Saiyuki: Journey west”, since it features a female version of Sanzo, the monk and main character of the story.

I believe that was Meiru’s character, and Yaito was crossplaying as Sha wujing because it was suppoused to be a bald demon.

Netto, Dekao and Yaito were the three demon disciples of Meiru’s character, Saloma and Miyuki were the dragon that shapeshifts into a horse(long story), and the Commander was one of the many enemies that the group would encounter on their journey.

That’s my theory, but I still dont know why would there be a reference to this game if it wasn’t developt by Capcom? Either Capcom helped with the release of this game somehow, or the anime was just making fun of their competion.

#Rockman exe #MegaMan NT Warrior #megaman battle network #anime #dub vs sub #my reviews

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tarhalindur · 4 years ago

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Slightly Belated Higurashi Gou Final Thoughts, Pt. 2: Solution Space

(Spoilers go under the cut!)

Universal caveat: We have seen no sign so far of unreliable narration in Gou. On the one hand, it is possible that this is in fact the Gou twist (”the twist is that there is no twist, everything happened roughly as presented”). On the other hand, as I’ve said before and will undoubtedly say again, Ryukishi07 strikes me as exactly the kind of author who would get a kick out of getting us to fall for the same trick twice. (Also, there’s comments from Keiichi’s VA concerning Sotsu that are very similar to things Satoko’s VA was saying about Gou.) If that really kicks in, be ready to throw the solution space for one or more arcs out the window (Watadamashi and Tataridamashi are most vulnerable to this).

That said:

Nekodamashi-hen: The easy arc, fitting with how little time is spent on each individual fragment: in all cases except the last (where Satoko is presumably faking L5 symptoms just like we all called when episode 16 came out) Satoko injects the fragment culprit with H173 and sets things up so they go after Rika.

Onidamashi-hen: Barring the caveat, there are very few outstanding questions here and it’s a moderately safe bet we know the general structure (especially given the Sotsu PV): Satoko injects Rena with H173 on the day Rena was not feeling well, Rena holds out for a while but finally succumbs... and goes after Keiichi, not Rika, so Satoko murder-suicides Rika herself. The biggest alternate case here is Rena going L5 naturally (possibly egged on by Satoko). This is very much possible, but I have my doubts. The big argument here is that Rena would have had to held out against the effects of H173 for days, and on any other character that would be a sticking point, but this is Rena we’re talking about - one of her character traits going back to OG is remaining remarkably functional for extended periods even under the effects of late-stage HS (hence why Tsumihoroboshi-hen ends several days later than any of the other usual OG patterns, not to mention Rena actually pulling out of L5 on her own in her backstory). On the flip side, Satoko has obvious opportunity for the injection, and this is the arc that has the H173 foreshadowing (the nurse scene at the end).

Watadamashi-hen: This one is somewhat more open (especially since the manga dropped a couple of scenes, notably the one with the club looking for Satoko), but I think there’s a basic structure here too: Satoko gets one of the sisters Sonozaki one-on-one on the night of the festival and takes the opportunity to inject; whichever of Mion and Shion got injected kills Oryou and Kimiyoshi, then confronts her sister. Only one of the twins walks away from that confrontation; that sister kills Rika the next day, then events continue as shown in the anime until the final confrontation with Satoko which neither one walks away from. It’s also a safe bet that the Banken cleaned up the scene of the final confrontation, hence the weird gun placement. (At a best guess, the Banken are at the Sonozaki estate because Rika talking to the Yamainu/Banken directly or indirectly tipped them off as to what happened with the H173, though it’s possible they jumped to the Sonozakis stealing the syringe instead and were fortunate that this overlapped with the actual answer - the easiest answer is probably the former and that they were silencing someone who knew too much, the same as what I suspect happened with Keiichi in Onidamashi.) The standing questions are a) which sister is which over the course of the arc (IIRC eyes + credits suggest Mion only for episodes 5 and 8, I forget what eyes suggest for the Saiguden scene), b) which sister did Satoko *think* she was injecting (either “Shion” coming back from the Saiguden or “Mion” looking for Satoko), c) which sister killed the other during their confrontation (did the injected sister kill her sister or did the other sister kill her sister in self-defense and then go L5 herself?), and d) exactly who killed who during the final confrontation (Satoko murder-suicide, Shmion murder-suicide, or did the Banken kill one or both?). I’m not sure we actually have enough information to reliably answer any of those questions.

Tataridamashi-hen: The arc with the question marks; not coincidentally, there’s a pretty good chance this is the arc where Satoko’s plans went off the rails, especially given the wording of her classroom breakdown (IIRC that’s consistent across anime and manga, btw - I remember it coming up in the original Reddit discussion threads). I see four obvious basic outlines:

1) Satoko decides to call off her plan after her interactions with Keiichi in the first part of the arc, then gets BTFOed by the loaded by Feathereua the dice rolling both Teppei encountering and reacting to Keiichi and Ooishi going L5 and becoming an active shooter. (This is consistent with her classroom breakdown, which is easy to read as “I can’t do this anymore!”.)

2) Satoko planned to inject K1 and send him after Rika, but he encountered and went nuts on Teppei first; Satoko got “bailed out” by Ooishi going L5 independently and killing Rika himself. (I doubt this one, but it’s possible.)

3) Satoko planned to inject K1 and send him after Rika, but Teppei encountered him and confronted him before she could do so. Instead she got Ooishi 1-on-1 on short notice and injected him, leading to him going active shooter.

4) Ryukishi07 is lying (as he does) and Satoko’s plan A was always to inject Ooishi and have him go after Rika (in this case he was likely injected when he visited the Houjou house the afternoon of the festival); Satoko brought Keiichi to her house to get him out of the line of fire, but got BTFOed by Teppei encountering and confronting him. (The timeframe fits better for putative H173 timing than 3 does.)

(4a) As 4, but Teppei running across Keiichi and confronting him was always part of the plan. I don’t think K1 killing Teppei was part of the plan in this case, though, given Satoko’s reaction; probably either one of the two was either supposed to rough the other up nonfatally or she planned to have Teppei kill K1.)

The problem is, I think there’s a 10-20% chance that we’re looking at a huge wild card (even if narrators are reliable) and the actual solution doesn’t fit any of these grooves. No idea what the solution looks like in those worlds. Also, outside of 3) I’ve been having no luck trying to figure out which groove is most likely. So... *shrug*?

(Side manga note that may have been in the anime too but if so I forgot about it: that was some very nice foreshadowing, having Rena get separated from the rest of the group by the crowd during Onidamashi-hen’s festival.)

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thefortyeightlawsofpower-blog · 7 years ago

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LAW # 33 : DISCOVER EACH MAN’S THUMBSCREW

JUDGEMENT

Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is usually an insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or need; it can also be a small secret pleasure. Either way, once found, it is a thumbscrew you can turn to your advantage.

FINDING THE THUMBSCREW: A Strategic Plan of Action

We all have resistances. We live with a perpetual armor around ourselves to defend against change and the intrusive actions of friends and rivals. We would like nothing more than to be left to do things our own way. Constantly butting up against these resistances will cost you a lot of energy. One of the most important things to realize about people, though, is that they all have a weakness, some part of their psychological armor that will not resist, that will bend to your will if you find it and push on it. Some people wear their weaknesses openly, others disguise them. Those who disguise them are often the ones most effectively undone through that one chink in their armor.

THE LION. THE CHAMOIS. AND THE FOX

A lion was chasing a chamois along a valley. He had all but caught it, and with longing eyes was anticipating a certain and a satisfying repast. It seemed as if it were utterly impossible for the victim to escape; for a deep ravine appeared to bar the way for both the hunter and the hunted. But the nimble chamois, gathering together all its strength, shot like an arrow from a bow across the chasm, and stood still on the rocky cliff on the other side. Our lion pulled up short. But at that moment a friend of his happened to be near at hand. That friend was the fox. “What!” said he, “with your strength and agility, is it possible that you will yield to a feeble chamois? You have only to will, and you will be able to work wonders. Though the abyss be deep, yet, if you are only in earnest, I am certain you will clear it. Surely you can confide in my disinterested friendship. I would not expose your life to danger if I were not so well aware of your strength and dexterity. ” The lion’s blood waxed hot, and began to boil in his veins. He flung himself with all his might into space. But he could not clear the chasm; so down he tumbled headlong, and was killed by the fall. Then what did his dear friend do? He cautiously made his way down to the bottom of the ravine. and there, out in the open space and the free air, seeing that the lion wanted neither flattery nor obedience now, he set to work to pay the last sad rites to his dead friend, and in a month picked his bones clean.

FABLES, IVAN KRILOFF, 1768-1844

In planning your assault, keep these principles in mind:

Pay Attention to Gestures and Unconscious Signals. As Sigmund Freud remarked, “No mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.” This is a critical concept in the search for a person’s weakness—it is revealed by seemingly unimportant gestures and passing words.

The key is not only what you look for but where and how you look. Everyday conversation supplies the richest mine of weaknesses, so train yourself to listen. Start by always seeming interested—the appearance of a sympathetic ear will spur anyone to talk. A clever trick, often used by the nineteenth-century French statesman Talleyrand, is to appear to open up to the other person, to share a secret with them. It can be completely made up, or it can be real but of no great importance to you—the important thing is that it should seem to come from the heart. This will usually elicit a response that is not only as frank as yours but more genuine—a response that reveals a weakness.

If you suspect that someone has a particular soft spot, probe for it indirectly. If, for instance, you sense that a man has a need to be loved, openly flatter him. If he laps up your compliments, no matter how obvious, you are on the right track. Train your eye for details—how someone tips a waiter, what delights a person, the hidden messages in clothes. Find people’s idols, the things they worship and will do anything to get—perhaps you can be the supplier of their fantasies. Remember: Since we all try to hide our weaknesses, there is little to be learned from our conscious behavior. What oozes out in the little things outside our conscious control is what you want to know.

Find the Helpless Child. Most weaknesses begin in childhood, before the self builds up compensatory defenses. Perhaps the child was pampered or indulged in a particular area, or perhaps a certain emotional need went unfulfilled; as he or she grows older, the indulgence or the deficiency may be buried but never disappears. Knowing about a childhood need gives you a powerful key to a person’s weakness.

One sign of this weakness is that when you touch on it the person will often act like a child. Be on the lookout, then, for any behavior that should have been outgrown. If your victims or rivals went without something important, such as parental support, when they were children, supply it, or its facsimile. If they reveal a secret taste, a hidden indulgence, indulge it. In either case they will be unable to resist you.

Look for Contrasts. An overt trait often conceals its opposite. People who thump their chests are often big cowards; a prudish exterior may hide a lascivious soul; the uptight are often screaming for adventure; the shy are dying for attention. By probing beyond appearances, you will often find people’s weaknesses in the opposite of the qualities they reveal to you.

Find the Weak Link. Sometimes in your search for weaknesses it is not what but who that matters. In today’s versions of the court, there is often someone behind the scenes who has a great deal of power, a tremendous influence over the person superficially on top. These behind-the-scenes powerbrokers are the group’s weak link: Win their favor and you indirectly influence the king. Alternatively, even in a group of people acting with the appearance of one will—as when a group under attack closes ranks to resist an outsider—there is always a weak link in the chain. Find the one person who will bend under pressure.

Fill the Void. The two main emotional voids to fill are insecurity and unhappiness. The insecure are suckers for any kind of social validation; as for the chronically unhappy, look for the roots of their unhappiness. The insecure and the unhappy are the people least able to disguise their weaknesses. The ability to fill their emotional voids is a great source of power, and an indefinitely prolongable one.

Feed on Uncontrollable Emotions. The uncontrollable emotion can be a paranoid fear—a fear disproportionate to the situation—or any base motive such as lust, greed, vanity, or hatred. People in the grip of these emotions often cannot control themselves, and you can do the controlling for them.

IRVING LAZAR

[Hollywood super-agent] Irving Paul Lazar was once anxious to sell [studio mogul] Jack L. Warner a play. “I had a long meeting with him today,” Lazar explained [to screenwriter Garson Kanin], “but I didn’t mention it, I didn’t even bring it up.” “Why not?” I asked. “Because I’m going to wait until the weekend after next, when I go to Palm Springs.” “I don’t understand.” “You don’t? I go to Palm Springs every weekend, but Warner isn’t going this weekend. He’s got a preview or something. So he’s not coming down till the next weekend, so that’s when I’m going to bring it up. ” “Irving, I’m more and more confused.” “Look,” said Irving impatiently, ”I know what I’m doing. I know how to sell Warner. This is a type of material that he’s uneasy with, so I have to hit him with it hard and suddenly to get an okay.” ”But why Palm Springs?” ”Because in Palm Springs, every day he goes to the baths at The Spa. And that’s where I’m going to be when he’s there. Now there’s a thing about Jack: He’s eighty and he’s very vain, and he doesn’t like people to see him naked. So when I walk up to him naked at The Spa—I mean he’s naked—well, I’m naked too, but I don’t care who sees me. He does. And I walk up to him naked, and I start to talk to him about this thing, he’ll be very embarrassed.And he’ll want to get away from me, and the easiest way is to say ‘Yes,’ because he knows if he says ‘No,’ then I’m going to stick with him, and stay right on it, and not give up. So to get rid of me, he’ll probably say, ‘Yes.’” Two weeks later, I read of the acquisition of this particular property by Warner Brothers. I phoned Lazar and asked how it had been accomplished. ”How do you think?” he asked. ”In the buff, that’s how... just the way I told you it was going to work.”

HOLLYWOOD, GARSON KANIN, 1974

OBSERVANCES OF THE LAW

Observance I

In 1615 the thirty-year-old bishop of Luçon, later known as Cardinal Richelieu, gave a speech before representatives of the three estates of France—clergy, nobility, and commoners. Richelieu had been chosen to serve as the mouthpiece for the clergy—an immense responsibility for a man still young and not particularly well known. On all of the important issues of the day, the speech followed the Church line. But near the end of it Richelieu did something that had nothing to do with the Church and everything to do with his career. He turned to the throne of the fifteen-year-old King Louis XIII, and to the Queen Mother Marie de’ Médicis, who sat beside Louis, as the regent ruling France until her son reached his majority. Everyone expected Richelieu to say the usual kind words to the young king. Instead, however, he looked directly at and only at the queen mother. Indeed his speech ended in long and fulsome praise of her, praise so glowing that it actually offended some in the Church. But the smile on the queen’s face as she lapped up Richelieu’s compliments was unforgettable.

A year later the queen mother appointed Richelieu secretary of state for foreign affairs, an incredible coup for the young bishop. He had now entered the inner circle of power, and he studied the workings of the court as if it were the machinery of a watch. An Italian, Concino Concini, was the queen mother’s favorite, or rather her lover, a role that made him perhaps the most powerful man in France. Concini was vain and foppish, and Richelieu played him perfectly—attending to him as if he were the king. Within months Richelieu had become one of Concini’s favorites. But something happened in 1617 that turned everything upside down: the young king, who up until then had shown every sign of being an idiot, had Concini murdered and his most important associates imprisoned. In so doing Louis took command of the country with one blow, sweeping the queen mother aside.

Had Richelieu played it wrong? He had been close to both Concini and Marie de Médicis, whose advisers and ministers were now all out of favor, some even arrested. The queen mother herself was shut up in the Louvre, a virtual prisoner. Richelieu wasted no time. If everyone was deserting Marie de Médicis, he would stand by her. He knew Louis could not get rid of her, for the king was still very young, and had in any case always been inordinately attached to her. As Marie’s only remaining powerful friend, Richelieu filled the valuable function of liaison between the king and his mother. In return he received her protection, and was able to survive the palace coup, even to thrive. Over the next few years the queen mother grew still more dependent on him, and in 1622 she repaid him for his loyalty: Through the intercession of her allies in Rome, Richelieu was elevated to the powerful rank of cardinal.

By 1623 King Louis was in trouble. He had no one he could trust to advise him, and although he was now a young man instead of a boy, he remained childish in spirit, and affairs of state came hard to him. Now that he had taken the throne, Marie was no longer the regent and theoretically had no power, but she still had her son’s ear, and she kept telling him that Richelieu was his only possible savior. At first Louis would have none of it—he hated the cardinal with a passion, only tolerating him out of love for Marie. In the end, however, isolated in the court and crippled by his own indecisiveness, he yielded to his mother and made Richelieu first his chief councilor and later prime minister.

Now Richelieu no longer needed Marie de Médicis. He stopped visiting and courting her, stopped listening to her opinions, even argued with her and opposed her wishes. Instead he concentrated on the king, making himself indispensable to his new master. All the previous premiers, understanding the king’s childishness, had tried to keep him out of trouble; the shrewd Richelieu played him differently, deliberately pushing him into one ambitious project after another, such as a crusade against the Huguenots and finally an extended war with Spain. The immensity of these projects only made the king more dependent on his powerful premier, the only man able to keep order in the realm. And so, for the next eighteen years, Richelieu, exploiting the king’s weaknesses, governed and molded France according to his own vision, unifying the country and making it a strong European power for centuries to come.

Interpretation

Richelieu saw everything as a military campaign, and no strategic move was more important to him than discovering his enemy’s weaknesses and applying pressure to them. As early as his speech in 1615, he was looking for the weak link in the chain of power, and he saw that it was the queen mother. Not that Marie was obviously weak—she governed both France and her son; but Richelieu saw that she was really an insecure woman who needed constant masculine attention. He showered her with affection and respect, even toadying up to her favorite, Concini. He knew the day would come when the king would take over, but he also recognized that Louis loved his mother dearly and would always remain a child in relation to her. The way to control Louis, then, was not by gaining his favor, which could change overnight, but by gaining sway over his mother, for whom his affection would never change.

Once Richelieu had the position he desired—prime minister—he discarded the queen mother, moving on to the next weak link in the chain: the king’s own character. There was a part of him that would always be a helpless child in need of higher authority. It was on the foundation of the king’s weakness that Richelieu established his own power and fame.

Remember: When entering the court, find the weak link. The person in control is often not the king or queen; it is someone behind the scenes—the favorite, the husband or wife, even the court fool. This person may have more weaknesses than the king himself, because his power depends on all kinds of capricious factors outside his control.

Finally, when dealing with helpless children who cannot make decisions, play on their weakness and push them into bold ventures. They will have to depend on you even more, for you will become the adult figure whom they rely on to get them out of scrapes and to safety.

THE THINGS ON

As time went on I came to look for the little weaknesses.... It’s the little things that count. On one occasion, I worked on the president of a large bank in Omaha. The [phony] deal involved the purchase of the street railway system of Omaha, including a bridge across the Mississippi River. My principals were supposedly German and I had to negotiate with Berlin. While awaiting word from them I introduced my fake mining-stock proposition. Since this man was rich, I decided to play for high stakes.... Meanwhile, I played golf with the banker, visited his home, and went to the theater with him and his wife. Though he showed some interest in my stock deal, he still wasn’t convinced. I had built it up to the point that an investment of $1,250,000 was required. Of this I was to put up $900,000, the banker $350,000. But still he hesitated. One evening when I was at his home for dinner I wore some perfume-Coty’s “April Violets.” It was not then considered effeminate for a man to use a dash of perfume. The banker’s wife thought it very lovely. “Where did you get it?” “It is a rare blend,” I told her, “especially made for me by a French perfumer. Do you like it?” ”l love it,” she replied. The following day I went through my effects and found two empty bottles. Both had come from France, but were empty. I went to a downtown department store and purchased ten ounces of Coty’s ”April Violets.” I poured this into the two French bottles, carefully sealed them, wrapped them in tissue paper. That evening I dropped by the banker’s home and presented the two bottles to his wife. ”They were especially put up for me in Cologne,” I told her. The next day the banker called at my hotel. His wife was enraptured by the perfume. She considered it the most wonderful, the most exotic fragrance she had ever used. I did not tell the banker he could get all he wanted right in Omaha. ”She said,” the banker added, ”that I was fortunate to be associated with a man like you.” From then on his attitude was changed, for he had complete faith in his wife’s judgment .... He parted with $350,000. This, incidentally was my biggest [con] score.

“YELLOW KID” WEIL, 1875-1976

Observance II

In December of 1925, guests at the swankiest hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, watched with interest as a mysterious man arrived in a Rolls-Royce driven by a Japanese chauffeur. Over the next few days they studied this handsome man, who walked with an elegant cane, received telegrams at all hours, and only engaged in the briefest of conversations. He was a count, they heard, Count Victor Lustig, and he came from one of the wealthiest families in Europe—but this was all they could find out.

Imagine their amazement, then, when Lustig one day walked up to one of the least distinguished guests in the hotel, a Mr. Herman Loller, head of an engineering company, and entered into conversation with him. Loller had made his fortune only recently, and forging social connections was very important to him. He felt honored and somewhat intimidated by this sophisticated man, who spoke perfect English with a hint of a foreign accent. Over the days to come, the two became friends.

Loller of course did most of the talking, and one night he confessed that his business was doing poorly, with more troubles ahead. In return, Lustig confided in his new friend that he too had serious money problems—Communists had seized his family estate and all its assets. He was too old to learn a trade and go to work. Luckily he had found an answer—“ a money-making machine.” “You counterfeit?” Loller whispered in half-shock. No, Lustig replied, explaining that through a secret chemical process, his machine could duplicate any paper currency with complete accuracy. Put in a dollar bill and six hours later you had two, both perfect. He proceeded to explain how the machine had been smuggled out of Europe, how the Germans had developed it to undermine the British, how it had supported the count for several years, and on and on. When Loller insisted on a demonstration, the two men went to Lustig’s room, where the count produced a magnificent mahogany box fitted with slots, cranks, and dials. Loller watched as Lustig inserted a dollar bill in the box. Sure enough, early the following morning Lustig pulled out two bills, still wet from the chemicals.

Lustig gave the notes to Loller, who immediately took the bills to a local bank—which accepted them as genuine. Now the businessman feverishly begged Lustig to sell him a machine. The count explained that there was only one in existence, so Loller made him a high offer: $25,000, then a considerable amount (more than $400,000 in today’s terms). Even so, Lustig seemed reluctant: He did not feel right about making his friend pay so much. Yet finally he agreed to the sale. After all, he said, “I suppose it matters little what you pay me. You are, after all, going to recover the amount within a few days by duplicating your own bills.” Making Loller swear never to reveal the machine’s existence to other people, Lustig accepted the money. Later the same day he checked out of the hotel. A year later, after many futile attempts at duplicating bills, Loller finally went to the police with the story of how Count Lustig had conned him with a pair of dollar bills, some chemicals, and a worthless mahogany box. Interpretation

Count Lustig had an eagle eye for other people’s weaknesses. He saw them in the smallest gesture. Loller, for instance, overtipped waiters, seemed nervous in conversation with the concierge, talked loudly about his business. His weakness, Lustig knew, was his need for social validation and for the respect that he thought his wealth had earned him. He was also chronically insecure. Lustig had come to the hotel to hunt for prey. In Loller he homed in on the perfect sucker—a man hungering for someone to fill his psychic voids.

In offering Loller his friendship, then, Lustig knew he was offering him the immediate respect of the other guests. As a count, Lustig was also offering the newly rich businessman access to the glittering world of old wealth. And for the coup de grace, he apparently owned a machine that would rescue Loller from his worries. It would even put him on a par with Lustig himself, who had also used the machine to maintain his status. No wonder Loller took the bait.

Remember: When searching for suckers, always look for the dissatisfied, the unhappy, the insecure. Such people are riddled with weaknesses and have needs that you can fill. Their neediness is the groove in which you place your thumbnail and turn them at will.

Observance III

In the year 1559, the French king Henri II died in a jousting exhibition. His son assumed the throne, becoming Francis II, but in the background stood Henri’s wife and queen, Catherine de’ Médicis, a woman who had long ago proven her skill in affairs of state. When Francis died the next year, Catherine took control of the country as regent to her next son in line of succession, the future Charles IX, a mere ten years old at the time.

The main threats to the queen’s power were Antoine de Bourbon, king of Navarre, and his brother, Louis, the powerful prince of Condé, both of whom could claim the right to serve as regent instead of Catherine, who, after all, was Italian—a foreigner. Catherine quickly appointed Antoine lieutenant general of the kingdom, a title that seemed to satisfy his ambition. It also meant that he had to remain in court, where Catherine could keep an eye on him. Her next move proved smarter still: Antoine had a notorious weakness for young women, so she assigned one of her most attractive maids of honor, Louise de Rouet, to seduce him. Now Antoine’s intimate, Louise reported all of his actions to Catherine. The move worked so brilliantly that Catherine assigned another of her maids to Prince Condé, and thus was formed her escadron volant—“flying squadron”—of young girls whom she used to keep the unsuspecting males in the court under her control.

In 1572 Catherine married off her daughter, Marguerite de Valois, to Henri, the son of Antoine and the new king of Navarre. To put a family that had always struggled against her so close to power was a dangerous move, so to make sure of Henri’s loyalty she unleashed on him the loveliest member of her “flying squadron,” Charlotte de Beaune Semblançay, baroness of Sauves. Catherine did this even though Henri was married to her daughter. Within weeks, Marguerite de Valois wrote in her memoirs, “Mme. de Sauves so completely ensnared my husband that we no longer slept together, nor even conversed.”

And while I am on the subject, there is another fact that deserves mention. It is this. A man shows his character just in the way in which he deals with trifles-for then he is off his guard. This will often afford a good opportunity of observing the boundless egoism of a man’s nature, and his total lack of consideration for others; and if these defects show themselves in small things, or merely in his general demeanour, you will find that they also underlie his action in matters of importance, although he may disguise the fact. This is an opportunity which should not be missed. If in the little affairs of every day—the trifles of life...—a man is inconsiderate and seeks only what is advantageous or convenient to himself, to the prejudice of others’ rights; if he appropriates to himself that which belongs to all alike, you may be sure there is no justice in his heart, and that he would be a scoundrel on a wholesale scale, only that law and compulsion bind his hands.

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, 1788-1860

The baroness was an excellent spy and helped to keep Henri under Catherine’s thumb. When the queen’s youngest son, the Duke of Alençon, grew so close to Henri that she feared the two might plot against her, she assigned the baroness to him as well. This most infamous member of the flying squadron quickly seduced Alençon, and soon the two young men fought over her and their friendship quickly ended, along with any danger of a conspiracy.

Interpretation

Catherine had seen very early on the sway that a mistress has over a man of power: Her own husband, Henri II, had kept one of the most infamous mistresses of them all, Diane de Poitiers. What Catherine learned from the experience was that a man like her husband wanted to feel he could win a woman over without having to rely on his status, which he had inherited rather than earned. And such a need contained a huge blind spot: As long as the woman began the affair by acting as if she had been conquered, the man would fail to notice that as time passed the mistress had come to hold power over him, as Diane de Poitiers did over Henri. It was Catherine’s strategy to turn this weakness to her advantage, using it as a way to conquer and control men. All she had to do was unleash the loveliest women in the court, her “flying squadron,” on men whom she knew shared her husband’s vulnerability.

Remember: Always look for passions and obsessions that cannot be controlled. The stronger the passion, the more vulnerable the person. This may seem surprising, for passionate people look strong. In fact, however, they are simply filling the stage with their theatricality, distracting people from how weak and helpless they really are. A man’s need to conquer women actually reveals a tremendous helplessness that has made suckers out of them for thousands of years. Look at the part of a person that is most visible—their greed, their lust, their intense fear. These are the emotions they cannot conceal, and over which they have the least control. And what people cannot control, you can control for them.

THE BATTLE AT PHARSALIA

When the two armies [Julius Caesar’s and Pompey‘s] were come into Pharsalia, and both encamped there, Pompey’s thoughts ran the same way as they had done before, against fighting.... But those who were about him were greatly confident of success ... as if they had already conquered.... The cavalry especially were obstinate for fighting, being splendidly armed and bravely mounted, and valuing themselves upon the fine horses they kept, and upon their own handsome persons; as also upon the advantage of their numbers, for they were five thousand against one thousand of Caesar’s. Nor were the numbers of the infantry less disproportionate, there being forty-five thousand of Pompey’s against twenty-two thousand of the enemy. [The next day] whilst the infantry was thus sharply engaged in the main battle, on the flank Pompey’s horse rode up confidently, and opened [his cavalry’s] ranks very wide, that they might surround the right wing of Caesar. But before they engaged, Caesar’s cohorts rushed out and attacked them, and did not dart their javelins at a distance, nor strike at the thighs and legs, as they usually did in close battle, but aimed at their faces. For thus Caesar had instructed them, in hopes that young gentlemen, who had nol known much of battles and wounds, but came wearing their hair long, in the flower of their age and height of their beauty, would be more apprehensive of such blows, and not care for hazarding both a danger at present and a blemish for the future.

And so it proved, for they were so far from bearing the stroke of the javelins, that they could not stand the sight of them, but turned about, and covered their faces to secure them. Once in disorder, presently they turned about to fly; and so most shamefully ruined all. For those who had beat them back at once outflanked the infantry, and falling on their rear, cut them to pieces. Pompey, who commanded the other wing of the army, when he saw his cavalry thus broken and flying, was no longer himself, nor did he now remember that he was Pompey the Great, but, like one whom some god had deprived of his senses, retired to his tent without speaking a word, and there sat to expect the event, till the whole army was routed.

THE LIFE OF JULIUS CAESAR. PLUIARCH, c. A.D. 46-120

Observance IV

Arabella Huntington, wife of the great late-nineteenth-century railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington, came from humble origins and always struggled for social recognition among her wealthy peers. When she gave a party in her San Francisco mansion, few of the social elite would show up; most of them took her for a gold digger, not their kind. Because of her husband’s fabulous wealth, art dealers courted her, but with such condescension they obviously saw her as an upstart. Only one man of consequence treated her differently: the dealer Joseph Duveen.

For the first few years of Duveen’s relationship with Arabella, he made no effort to sell expensive art to her. Instead he accompanied her to fine stores, chatted endlessly about queens and princesses he knew, on and on. At last, she thought, a man who treated her as an equal, even a superior, in high society. Meanwhile, if Duveen did not try to sell art to her, he did subtly educate her in his aesthetic ideas—namely, that the best art was the most expensive art. And after Arabella had soaked up his way of seeing things, Duveen would act as if she always had exquisite taste, even though before she met him her aesthetics had been abysmal.

When Collis Huntington died, in 1900, Arabella came into a fortune. She suddenly started to buy expensive paintings, by Rembrandt and Velázquez, for example—and only from Duveen. Years later Duveen sold her Gainsborough’s Blue Boy for the highest price ever paid for a work of art at the time, an astounding purchase for a family that previously had shown little interest in collecting.

Interpretation

Joseph Duveen instantly understood Arabella Huntington and what made her tick: She wanted to feel important, at home in society. Intensely insecure about her lower-class background, she needed confirmation of her new social status. Duveen waited. Instead of rushing into trying to persuade her to collect art, he subtly went to work on her weaknesses. He made her feel that she deserved his attention not because she was the wife of one of the wealthiest men in the world but because of her own special character—and this completely melted her. Duveen never condescended to Arabella; rather than lecturing to her, he instilled his ideas in her indirectly. The result was one of his best and most devoted clients, and also the sale of The Blue Boy.

People’s need for validation and recognition, their need to feel important, is the best kind of weakness to exploit. First, it is almost universal; second, exploiting it is so very easy. All you have to do is find ways to make people feel better about their taste, their social standing, their intelligence. Once the fish are hooked, you can reel them in again and again, for years—you are filling a positive role, giving them what they cannot get on their own. They may never suspect that you are turning them like a thumbscrew, and if they do they may not care, because you are making them feel better about themselves, and that is worth any price.

Observance V

In 1862 King William of Prussia named Otto von Bismarck premier and minister for foreign affairs. Bismarck was known for his boldness, his ambition—and his interest in strengthening the military. Since William was surrounded by liberals in his government and cabinet, politicians who already wanted to limit his powers, it was quite dangerous for him to put Bismarck in this sensitive position. His wife, Queen Augusta, had tried to dissuade him, but although she usually got her way with him, this time William stuck to his guns.

Only a week after becoming prime minister, Bismarck made an impromptu speech to a few dozen ministers to convince them of the need to enlarge the army. He ended by saying, “The great questions of the time will be decided, not by speeches and resolutions of majorities, but by iron and blood.” His speech was immediately disseminated throughout Germany. The queen screamed at her husband that Bismarck was a barbaric militarist who was out to usurp control of Prussia, and that William had to fire him. The liberals in the government agreed with her. The outcry was so vehement that William began to be afraid he would end up on a scaffold, like Louis XVI of France, if he kept Bismarck on as prime minister.

Bismarck knew he had to get to the king before it was too late. He also knew he had blundered, and should have tempered his fiery words. Yet as he contemplated his strategy, he decided not to apologize but to do the exact opposite. Bismarck knew the king well.

When the two men met, William, predictably, had been worked into a tizzy by the queen. He reiterated his fear of being guillotined. But Bismarck only replied, “Yes, then we shall be dead! We must die sooner or later, and could there be a more respectable way of dying? I should die fighting for the cause of my king and master. Your Majesty would die sealing with your own blood your royal rights granted by God’s grace. Whether upon the scaffold or upon the battlefield makes no difference to the glorious staking of body and life on behalf of rights granted by God’s grace!” On he went, appealing to William’s sense of honor and the majesty of his position as head of the army. How could the king allow people to push him around? Wasn’t the honor of Germany more important than quibbling over words? Not only did the prime minister convince the king to stand up to both his wife and his parliament, he persuaded him to build up the army—Bismarck’s goal all along.

Interpretation

Bismarck knew the king felt bullied by those around him. He knew that William had a military background and a deep sense of honor, and that he felt ashamed at his cravenness before his wife and his government. William secretly yearned to be a great and mighty king, but he dared not express this ambition because he was afraid of ending up like Louis XVI. Where a show of courage often conceals a man’s timidity, William’s timidity concealed his need to show courage and thump his chest.

Bismarck sensed the longing for glory beneath William’s pacifist front, so he played to the king’s insecurity about his manhood, finally pushing him into three wars and the creation of a German empire. Timidity is a potent weakness to exploit. Timid souls often yearn to be their opposite—to be Napoleons. Yet they lack the inner strength. You, in essence, can become their Napoleon, pushing them into bold actions that serve your needs while also making them dependent on you. Remember: Look to the opposites and never take appearances at face value.

Image: The Thumbscrew. Your enemy has secrets that he guards, thinks thoughts he will not reveal. But they come out in ways he cannot help. It is there somewhere, a groove of weakness on his head, at his heart, over his belly. Once you find the groove, put your thumb in it and turn him at will.

Authority: Find out each man’s thumbscrew. ’Tis the art of setting their wills in action. It needs more skill than resolution. You must know where to get at anyone. Every volition has a special motive which varies according to taste. All men are idolaters, some of fame, others of self-interest, most of pleasure. Skill consists in knowing these idols in order to bring them into play. Knowing any man’s mainspring of motive you have as it were the key to his will. (Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)

REVERSAL

Playing on people’s weakness has one significant danger: You may stir up an action you cannot control.

In your games of power you always look several steps ahead and plan accordingly. And you exploit the fact that other people are more emotional and incapable of such foresight. But when you play on their vulnerabilities, the areas over which they have least control, you can unleash emotions that will upset your plans. Push timid people into bold action and they may go too far; answer their need for attention or recognition and they may need more than you want to give them. The helpless, childish element you are playing on can turn against you.

The more emotional the weakness, the greater the potential danger. Know the limits to this game, then, and never get carried away by your control over your victims. You are after power, not the thrill of control.

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