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Trinity Blood ficlet: Šāh māt
246 words. G. Post-series. Seth/Süleyman.
Šāh māt
Disclaimer: Trinity Blood belongs to Sunao Yoshida, Gonzo and others.
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When she was a little girl…
The strangest fairytales always began like that.
She’d always dreamed that she really was a princess.
It had made perfect sense.
And the princess had always wanted to go on a grand adventure.
That part was also true.
So she had travelled so very, very far from home.
Of course she did, it wouldn’t have been a good fairytale otherwise.
Where she’d fought monsters and flown dragons.
Because the princess always has to be brave and clever in a good fairytale.
And she’d had all manner of fun.
She had… for a while.
But then she had to come home.
Because invariably she always did.
Because her people needed her, to rule over them…
As a wise and virtuous Queen.
And because that was always the way fairytales went; one day the wise Queen would fall in love with a man worthy of her.
… the handsome Prince was not only handsome but good and kind.
She would love him for his gentleness, his innocence.
He forsook his kingdom to stay by her side.
He would love her for her wisdom and her smiles.
And at once the Queen knew that his love was true.
And they would live happily ever after, forever and ever ruling over their people with wisdom and love.
But life isn’t a fairytale. Not really, no matter how hard we try.
So please don’t mind me, beloved, when I come to read fairytales by your grave.
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“Šāh māt” meaning literally “The king is dead” is Persian phrase from which the term checkmate is derived.
This is a bit of a twist on the business of how the Methuselah hold a wake.
This grew out of one or two other thoughts that really weren’t expecting fic or at least this sort of fic so I’m actually quite surprised to have written things this way. And yes, Seth’s POV but I didn’t mention that at the top because it probably has rather more impact when you discover that it's actually her speaking at the end.
Šāh māt
Disclaimer: Trinity Blood belongs to Sunao Yoshida, Gonzo and others.
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When she was a little girl…
The strangest fairytales always began like that.
She’d always dreamed that she really was a princess.
It had made perfect sense.
And the princess had always wanted to go on a grand adventure.
That part was also true.
So she had travelled so very, very far from home.
Of course she did, it wouldn’t have been a good fairytale otherwise.
Where she’d fought monsters and flown dragons.
Because the princess always has to be brave and clever in a good fairytale.
And she’d had all manner of fun.
She had… for a while.
But then she had to come home.
Because invariably she always did.
Because her people needed her, to rule over them…
As a wise and virtuous Queen.
And because that was always the way fairytales went; one day the wise Queen would fall in love with a man worthy of her.
… the handsome Prince was not only handsome but good and kind.
She would love him for his gentleness, his innocence.
He forsook his kingdom to stay by her side.
He would love her for her wisdom and her smiles.
And at once the Queen knew that his love was true.
And they would live happily ever after, forever and ever ruling over their people with wisdom and love.
But life isn’t a fairytale. Not really, no matter how hard we try.
So please don’t mind me, beloved, when I come to read fairytales by your grave.
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“Šāh māt” meaning literally “The king is dead” is Persian phrase from which the term checkmate is derived.
This is a bit of a twist on the business of how the Methuselah hold a wake.
This grew out of one or two other thoughts that really weren’t expecting fic or at least this sort of fic so I’m actually quite surprised to have written things this way. And yes, Seth’s POV but I didn’t mention that at the top because it probably has rather more impact when you discover that it's actually her speaking at the end.
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Who offed Suleyman anyway? I haven't quite gotten to that part in the anime yet. And I can't remember who had done it.no subject
Asta but that was because he knew he was on a suicide mission at the end and thought highly enough of her that he knew she’d the one to end it for him. Or at least that’s my take on it as far as one theory goes.no subject
Okay, I see.no subject
T-this is an RP journal (I'm personally at
stalkingreading your TB fics and essays for a while now.That is to say, I... would like to friend you but am totally coming off as a stalker, I'm really sorry. If you don't mind, that is.
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And my God, you're famous. ♥no subject
Infamous, perhaps in my little corner of fandom.no subject
I job as a bodyguard? Fandom-wise at least.no subject
Do you turn into a stunningly well-build werewolf during a full moon? I’ll stop now, I’m in a terribly silly mood.no subject
Err. I can try? I'm blonde and blue-eyed at least? Though I must admit, I don't know Reißzahn's eyecolour.no subject
I hadn’t even thought of that. I suppose Seth probably can’t complete that part in the cycle at least though perhaps in her psychosis she might keep trying if she really is trying to follow various borrowed mythologies. Rather more on the topic, there’s that business of Hephaestus and Athena but that’s different anyway so the only comparison I can think of is if we’re literally talking about the earth itself as the form of the goddess being fertilised by blood.
What do we know about Reißzahn anyway, beyond the fact that he’s a werewolf and can drive?no subject
I can't really follow the Seth-thing, though. What cycle couldn't she complete? <- needs more coffee
And for the Athena/Hephaestus thing, I think you need to update me, too. I can't think of what you mean right now. I'm more familiar with the Near East mythology.
True. Well. He does not talk? Ah, but there I fail. I can't drive.no subject
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn after all and then everyone’s done for.
I drive too fast when I do drive. Maybe we could be budget Rosencreutz instead?no subject
Apparently Hephaestus married Athena or something along those lines at one point and because she was so disgusted with him she slipped out of the marriage bed or he missed and either way his semen became Erechtheus first/one of the earlier king/s of Athens. Which really doesn’t tie in with anything when I come back to look at it. It’s like a post I made a while ago where
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And yes, the whole mixing of Gods and making Gods out of former aspects of other Gods confuses me. Mainly, the whole Sekhmet-Bastet-Hathor triangle. Then again, I've only studied Egyptian mythology for so long - until I came across 'Anat, namely, and subsequently was hooked up with Canaanite mythology instead. Now I have to admit, I don't know Ra too well thanks to that, and no idea what he'd have planned. But having the people reborn was probably not his intention, no. XD Neither, though, their complete annihilation.
And that may just be a good idea.I like that reasoning. It certainly shows Seth in a far less positive light than Yoshida seems to have intended, but as nice as the world he created is, I guess in most points I disagree with his perception. This whole business about stagnation and unwillingness to change would remind a bit of Dietrich, no matter how ironic it is for a member of a revolutionary terrorist organisation that aims at purifying the world. But his actions at least do not cripple a whole race, unlike Seth's do, as you already said. And all that gives so much room for interpretation of Süleyman's last words, calling her a "monster".
Not that he probably meant anything other than the obvious "you lived over 500 years, nobody lives that long, you're not a Methuselah and not a human, what kind of freak are you".Though she'd probably not be all that Contra Mundi considering she may harm the world, but she doesn't do so purposely, and she doesn't destroy it at least. And that would be probably the most positive view on the RCO I've ever come across.Okay, seems I've really missed quite a bit of Greek mythology, then. This is the first time I've ever heard of this. Funny how wisdom can close one's mind and lead to serious arrogance, in Athena's case.
Well, I have to admit the thought of Radu trying to pull his "brother" through a portal was just too good to not claim my attention completely. But I know what you mean. I have terrible problems illustrating my thought jumps.
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*waves hand* Ra was a giant dung beetle, he could have probably made good use of their remains at least. But of course I’m being flippant now.
The key point about Dietrich’s personal stagnation is that he seems to go about triggering change in others. Esther and Ion for example most probably change with him as the catalyst. Dietrich really is entrenched in his set behaviour, isn’t he? And then he works so tirelessly to pull Esther back into hers though she constantly resists. That would be quite the take on it: Rosencreutz as Order gone wrong. Dietrich as the young champion of Order falling into stagnation, Isaak the previous one who has already sunk into absolute stagnation, Radu: stagnation disguised as Chaos, even Helga as straightforward progression frittered away in useless pursuits. I suppose Cain then becomes Arioch , Duke of Hell having come along and corrupted all these would be champions of Order.
But coming back to the point, as you say, at least Dietrich’s stagnation doesn’t cripple an entire race. Though perhaps while Süleyman may have meant it in the less existential sense perhaps he did at least notice something inherently wrong with Seth that was only outwardly shown by her unaging nature. She doesn’t change after all, doesn’t age, doesn’t die and his calling her a monster because of it only begins to touch on just how monstrous she really is. Seth is perfectly content stagnation and a complete mockery of everything that Order’s straightforward progression is meant to stand for. She’s like Leto II in that sense; her decisions trap an entire race, forcing them along the path that she chooses. In which case things like the Orden and perhaps to focus; Dietrich might become the truest of Machiavellian principles, that the ends justify the means which comes right back round to Eris kick-starting human progression once again through war. Which also reflects on Seth’s not meaning to cause any harm. It doesn’t matter what her intentions were; only what she’s become in the process because while she won’t destroy the world with a bang, she will lead them down the slow road to obliteration anyway which is just as bad.
“This is the way the world ends; Not with a bang but a whimper.”
To quote the overused T.S. Eliot line. Though Seth seems to sort to quote The old lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori to fall back on Wilfred Owen instead.
At which point I’ll stop because I really am utterly drunk and rambling again.
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Intellectual worth around me? Really now, you're probably the most intelligent person I know, and I look up to you, which is something I - being a vain bitch - don't do with a lot of people. Ask
Okay, and at this point, I snorted IRL. Thanks for that.
I agree about Dietrich's influence on Esther, though Abel is not all that innocent in this point either, and same goes for Gyula - who, ironically, was the first to make her hesitate in her extremism, when he reflected on his doings maybe being wrong. Maybe Dietrich really is really less involved in her process of changing anyway, than being the one who only wants to pull her back. I haven't quite figured out a reason why he would want that, but he seems to almost actively fight against any progress she makes. With Ion, you're right of course that Dietrich has quite an influence on him with all he does during the Carthago mission, though I daresay Ion never learns from it, and does not really change. His change is rather thanks to Esther, who has the patience to discuss matters with Ion - partially as if he is a bratty child, which he is, but at least she talks to him openly, unlike Radu - and literally risks her life to protect him, even when he has nothing better to do than insult her. It's really rather Esther who triggers a change in Ion by herself, than what happens to Radu. In Radu's case, we could say it's the other way round; Dietrich does offer him the means to change the world, and to change himself. Actually, Dietrich sort of forces him into a new environment and new circumstances, and even forces him to be honest with himself, by killing Ion (which can be seen both literally and symbolically). We could say that Radu fails due to his own inability to push through the change he himself thought he craves, but somehow this whole symbolic interpretation suddenly makes Dietrich look like the archetypical "demon" who - while not necessarily a good being - merely shows people a mirror image of themselves, seducing them with what they (think they) really want. While Esther is the only one in this group who succeeds in overcoming her demon(s), learn, and develop by letting go, both Radu and Ion fail in different ways - Radu because he does not have the resolve to go through with things, and hence has to realise that he did not think his decision through enough, Ion because he falls back into his old pattern (just like Radu did, as much as he could) while attaching himself to Esther the same way he attached himself to Radu before. He now has Esther as his idol because of something he cannot quite grasp, and for the simplicity translates it into being "in love" with her, while what really draws him to her is her success where he failed; although that means that now the stubborn demon decides to haunt her - very much like he did with Radu while Radu still was willing and determined to change, whereas when he failed, he was discarded. That all may very well be too far-fetched, but I couldn't help it, you got me into the mood.
I'm sorry for derailing so completely, and before I forget it again, I'm really awestruck with your line of argumentation, and this Eris-reference as a means for progress just has me now. That's exactly what Rosencreutz is about, isn't it?
And just because I have to say it now, this quote is really true, and incredibly depressing. Where did he write that? I may come across as a moron now, but I've never heard it before, I think.
And once again, I love your drunk rambling. I'm just afraid in real life, I'd make a horrible discussion partner, since I'm normally better at this in written form anyway.no subject
It might be rather obvious but I’ll say it anyway; it’s entirely possible that Dietrich, being in love with Esther, is doing exactly what anybody in love might naturally do i.e. resist any chance in the object of their affections. If he loves her from the start then in her developing as a person, all the things that he loves about her are slowly falling away. Her becoming somebody ‘better’ to her mind at least really is terrible to Dietrich then because she’s no longer going to be the person he was in love with. That way he’s trying to protect himself in a sense by pulling her back because he doesn’t want to lose the girl he loved. He’s definitely not an adherent to the ‘if you love them; let them go’ maxim then. Ion may have the same issues with Radu… if Ion really had all that much a grasp of who Radu was in the first place that is. Oh dear, that’s just led me to it not being so much that Ion loves Esther but rather that he wants to be her in the sense that she’s made the change that he can’t. Which comes right back round to that frighteningly thin line between extreme admiration and extreme envy, though that’s only a problem if the individual can’t or won’t distinguish between the two in their own head, which seems like something Ion would likely fall prey to. It’d be far easier for him to tell himself that he loves Esther rather than that he admires her for her personal development because the latter would require him to admit that his own personal development has been rather lacking.
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers? I suppose since I’m feeling vaguely charitable this morning Radu’s problem might have been more of a timing issue with Dietrich’s offer and imposed change of reality coming just that little bit too soon… except, without that catalyst even ten or twenty years later Radu might have still been in the same situation stubbornly struggling against the same chains he keeps inventing and reinventing. It’s hard to tell because if you take out a variable in the experiment sometimes you really are running an entirely different sort of test. Remove Dietrich from the Orden entirely, as in never having joined in the first place, for example and you might just end up with Isaak sitting about filing his nails for a good couple of years. Remove Süleyman and the Carthago mission might have wound up with the rude little Imperial Emissary and his cheery but concerned friend along for the ride because “Really, he doesn’t mean it like that. Ion’s incredibly nice! ^_^” while Esther wonders how Count Very-Loud-Racial-Hatred and Baron Sweet-but-Oblivious managed to be of any importance outside their own nursery. Of course taking out the Cain/Isaak meeting I could imagine paraplegic Cain somewhere while Isaak ends up living at the Savoy crying his eyes out over being a failure every day in between being constantly drunk.
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[time in which I wandered off in an attempt to write an alternative scenario where nothing works out like it does because of a few changes, which I may post later]
Occasionally I’ve a tendency to write Eris drabbles (http://imperial-artist.livejournal.com/335437.html) too, though the most recent one (http://imperial-artist.livejournal.com/463953.html) involved Silent Hill.
That line is from The Hollow Men (http://www.cs.umbc.edu/~evans/hollow.html).
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Isaak is such a lovely wife, really. Crack or serious, the two are always beautiful. And thanks for the info! Now I'm seriously considering to buy one of those pillows, since mine are far too soft. Then again, I sleep on my arm most of the time anyway.
Isaak in a Kimono as you've already said elsewhere, and giving those fake, uber-cute laughs is burnt into my brain now. He'd make a good Geisha, too.
You know, that would absolutely fit. There's this one talk with him and Isaak, where Isaak asks him what he thinks is the worst thing that could happen, for somebody who is in love with another person. Dietrich answers that this would be the other person dying, but Isaak corrects him: The worst thing would be the other person changing. I'm not really sure in which context that was, but seeing it as a malicious hint now feels very good. But really, with him it's sort of Radu's issues backwards; where Radu enjoys fighting and angsting about unfairness and metaphorical chains, but chooses carefully so that he cannot win, Dietrich enjoys being fought against, but cannot accept his opponent winning. About Ion and his obsession with Radu, I've given you a manga-extract elsewhere, I think. If somebody in Trinity Blood has psychological trouble, it's most certainly Ion. And he is starting to see Esther as a substitute for the "perfect" comrade-servant Radu was. Maybe that's a reason for his decision to go with Abel in the end; they have both had their hearts broken, Abel by Lilith's death, Ion by Radu's betrayal and Esther's denying him and becoming Queen instead, and now they can walk off and play tragic, lonesome heroes. I'd say somebody was in dire need of a reality check, but so far, all the reality checks he had ended sort of bad. Mainly for others.
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And thank you for that! I cannot wait for you posting, though.
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I suppose we could read into Isaak saying that from his side too. Though I’m not sure how much Cain could have changed. Helga might have gone from the brilliant protégé to a bitchy little girl or… but canon says that Isaak didn’t meet Cain till after he’d been kicked out of KCL, doesn’t it? Perhaps, depending on what year of their course they were in, if William and Isaak had known each other through first year already where it’s just bringing everybody up to speed rather than stretching their knowledge and learning, it might have been the case that Isaak was fine then but as soon as the real work started, it became painfully obvious that he just couldn’t keep up. In which case he got vicious and stopped being the fellow genius/rival that William had known him as.
[space in which I attempted to write something. Except whenever I write it neither William nor Isaak dislike each other and end up quite chummy anyway.]
That does have potential for William honestly mourning the friend Isaak used to be, with the added twist that the Isaak William knew was the fake while the person he has become is actually the real thing. I could imagine that William might not at all the sort to invent excuses but going on only what he’s seen and what he can confirm, may well suspect that there’s some underlying awful thing that’s happened to Isaak to change things, when in fact Isaak was always that immoral and just chose to hide that fact on occasion. It comes back to the whole business of stasis again; William may not have changed all that much either but… New theory! William and Isaak are meant to demonstrate stasis and the hypocrisy of there being a blanket rule for that sort of thing. William doesn’t really change but his stasis is a socially acceptable one where as neither does Isaak, if we presume that he was that disturbed from the start, but his stasis is socially unacceptable so he’s demonised for it. Trinity Blood: nothing is a case of absolutes. Which comes back to Ion’s line in the anime about the Empire dealing only in absolutes with no allowance for variation.
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Though a Panzermagier suddenly pulling your legs and making you fall over, just so he can straddle you wordlessly is a quite interesting experience, too.)If he seriously tried that... my respect for the attempt at least? Or maybe he was just absolutely oblivious what the problem might be, and that neither party may like the mutual introduction, especially when William cheerfully explains that no, of course it's not cheating, because he loves his fiancee after all, while his mistress is just awesome in bed, and that's all for both sides. Which leaves Isaak heartbroken for being just a cheap - but awesome - fuck, and William's fiancee, because she's just being told that her skills in bed are quite below what William expects.
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follow Williamgo to the Vatican and manage to find a "patron" for his studies, which he actually lead to success. Isaak, on the other hand, has no aim after university; he just wanders around and doesn't know what to do, because he was all about his ambition and now that it's failed and is gone, he doesn't know what to do.That's almost a bit like Radu and Ion, really, only that Isaak wouldn't have a reason to think of William as the ignorant upper-class friend who looks down on him and is on a level he can never reach... oh well. Or maybe it was a bit like that, really, although in all honesty, the perception would have been slightly more unfair than in the Ion-Radu case. Radu at least tried to talk about matters, and Ion is really rather stubbornly ignorant, while William may be a bit absent-minded, but has more of a "nice older man" image in the AX and actually takes care of others' problems (defending Caterina at the court, repairing Tres, giving Hugue artificial arms and teaching him to use them, giving Kate an airship to make up for her lost body, etc, apart from emotional back-up he provides). But that doesn't mean Isaak never happened to see him as ignorant, just because William was ahead of him and never bothered to give Isaak a real fair chance to catch up - or even if he did, that was just to mock him anyway and hence threw Isaak off even more; all in his head only, of course. I know I have had people whom I'd irrationally accuse of all this nonsense back at school, just because I couldn't keep up with them and in all frustration usually concentrated so much on being angry that I wasted the time I should have used for studying, and so on. It's a vicious circle, really, but most people experience that at least once in their lives. Only, in Isaak's case it might have actually crippled all of his ability. But I'm derailing.
I'm not sure how much I'd agree with William not changing; he has something blissfully ignorant in his obsession with inventions, but on a social level, he goes through a lot of transformation, from the university student to having a fiancee, having her
blown upkilled by accident, being kicked out of university, and yet adapting enough to the circumstances to search another way, going to Rome and working as a teacher there, before joining the AX and playing the role of a ... mother. *coughs* Maybe that's all because he couldn't protect his poor fiancee and "should have seen it earlier", "it" being the trouble Isaak had, of course. But then he'd be in a sort of state equal to Abel's without the ability to let go of the past, and that again would imply stasis again. So... I suppose you can ignore what I just said, I'm rambling.no subject
I suppose Radu's problem in the Orden is mainly that he cannot focus on Cain to begin with. I'd find it rather odd to hear that he actually met Cain and thinks Cain is God, because Radu's a psychopath, but not that fatalistic, from all we know. Plus, he seemed pretty damn terrified when he first met Abel in Crusnik form, so I suppose we can trust that he never saw Cain as such. Maybe he'd have ended up in a similiar scenario as the Neumann brothers, who don't seem to care about Cain either, but follow somebody around who does not seem quite as insane as the rest in the Orden. As you've said, it's the attachment - or the connection to the real world that's in the way. Other than Isaak or Dietrich (especially Dietrich), Radu still has an identity outside the Orden, by being known to people, and not only by name or a random meeting or two, but because those people grew up with him. It's like Isaak with William, really, just worse because the two only knew each other for a brief episode at university, while Ion, Mirka, and Seth - not mentioning Süleyman, since he's an outlaw, too - practically knew him from infancy onwards. For Radu to really become something in the Orden like them, Mirka would have to die, and so would Ion; and possibly Seth, though he doesn't know that of course. And that line's beautiful, really; I've come across bastardisations of that a couple of times, but I wasn't quite sure where it was from.
It sounded a bit like Lord of the Rings.no subject
Isaak really seems the sort who might well have been a natural genius as you’ve said but entirely unstructured so that instead of making reasonable progress… Goodness, if he was honestly frittering away his genius in a multitude of pursuits without seriously concentrating on anything it’s entirely possible that he was the smartest of the four. It’s the Julian Lloyd Webber vs Andrew Lloyd Webber issue, where you become an expert in something because you’re got no chance at anything else. If Isaak were equally good at everything then it’d be so easy for him not to focus to the point where everything around him is built on shifting sands. Its Chaos gone wrong again really, where they tell you that you’ve obviously got talent but that you’ve only just scrapped a pass in your exams because there’s no structure to your answers and you’re not explaining your logic leaps on the actual paper. In Isaak’s case he probably could explain why he’d done something or presumed a certain point in a theory but that’s not what examinations are about. He’d need to get that explanation down on the page rather than wait for somebody to ask him about it. And of course if he is really that good he’d grow more and more frustrated with seeing the others praised when he knows that they simply don’t have the breadth of knowledge that he has, enough so that finally he’d get to the point where even his tutors couldn’t help because he’d become so furious with the matter that he’d just stopped listening to their advice. Why should he have to explain anyway? He knows so much more than the others and so on. Which would be really horrible for his teachers at least because they’d be forced to stand by and watch as the brightest and the best actively chose to go down the route of thwarted mania. And in we took that to extremes, depending… well, I will have to write that now because it’s so gloriously fucked up.
[space in which I wrote that]
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The vague take on matters I’ve had so far in writing university era fic involving the pair of them has been that Isaak might have genuinely been the upper class one. If that were the case then he’d be at first quite charmed by this state school individual who’d even managed to get into a top university in the first place and who seemed relatively smart but then that would rapidly give way to an irrational jealousy when he discovered that William really was that clever and certainly more focused on his studies than Isaak. Having dealt with at least one individual who seemed surprised that state school individuals could even write
alright, I exaggerate a little but it was similarif Isaak were really from a moneyed family and had been practically given everything the entire way along then he’d probably be utterly horrified that suddenly he couldn’t quite seem to keep up with this state school nobody or rather it wouldn’t be the keeping up that would be an issue since his outrage would stem from not automatically winning because by Jove, that’s what his parents paid for. Though if that really were the case then I can image there’d be a good portion of fandom who’d manage not to hear the over-privileged arrogant nitwit part of it and just hear ‘rich’. I’m coming back to my It girl theory though via that route and if that were the case then he really should have stuck with William because at least he’d have a smart boyfriend, so while his status and wealth would open doors for them William would actually be able to get whatever it actually was; done. Of course what nobody ever spelled out explicitly at finishing school for poor Edith was that if some trollop comes along and attempts to steal your man, you’re not exactly meant to blow her up.I suspect that William’s probably grown more as a person than Isaak might ever do but it’s an odd sort of growth and lots of things have superficially stayed the same. It really depends on what goes on inside his head really because even if things externally look the same, if he’s thinking about things and relating to them differently then change has certainly happened. Hopefully there’ll be some insight into that in the novels at least.
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Dietrich does seemingly learn from other people’s actions or perhaps at least through mimicry of Isaak’s behavioural patterns which would really match up with the shoggoth issue of learning to speak the language of their masters through mimicry. Though if he tries to bite off Isaak’s head at any point in proceedings that could get awkward. I’m thinking of a scene in At the Mountains of Madness where they find the corpses of old ones with their head’s bitten off. The old ones may have created the shoggoths but the shoggoths soon overtook them which would really be a good parallel. If Cain’s cast in the role of the master training his minor demons then it might also be possible that he’d want them to be dissimilar because what one can’t accomplish the other will simply due to a different way of thinking and acting. What Dietrich can’t get done though brute force and intimidation, Isaak is likely to manage though seduction and trickery. Which would be quite the contrast to their physical appearances or at least the associated yaoi stereotypes anyway. Dietrich crushes people entirely while Isaak causes them to betray themselves. I rather like that image really.
Radu met Cain? As in actually spoke to him or just saw him from a distance? Because I find it very odd that he’d think Cain would be… oh, if he’s met Cain and Cain pulled the sort of tricks on him that he did with Isaak, just in a lower key fashion then it’s possible but it might be in the more abstract sense. In which case Radu thinks that Cain is a god and that’s all well and good but he’s not quite going to convert right now this minute and head off on a crusade. I wonder if the von Neumanns are in fact actively avoiding Cain and want to follow Helga because if she becomes the new Isaak she’ll happily take over dealing with their deranged god directly so that they don’t have to. That might actually be the best option for anyone since Cain is bonkers, any sane member of the Orden would want a buffer between them and him. That doesn’t really mean that people like the von Neumanns are sane by a conventional definition though just that their insanity isn’t quite as Cain-centric as Helga or Isaak’s. Coming back to the point though, I suppose Radu could have had a future with the Orden if he’d absolutely rejecting his live outside it and had taken steps to separate himself from the people who’d try to pull him back, either by obviously, publicly being a criminal or something along those lines but in the end he doesn’t. He ends up being a bit like those people who want to topple the people in power just to take their places and change nothing, which is actually what he seems to be about. Helga is too but since that’s within the Orden itself it’s not as if she pretends that she wants to change anything other than be the one to… do whatever it is that she thinks Isaak does for Cain in private and I expect that she wouldn’t be very happy if that was along the lines of giving Cain sponge-baths.
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William as Edith's secret back-up character in the game? Definitely. So Isaak is basically hunted by karma and after losing William, is given a new little cynical mindfucker to look down on his poetic nature and fulfil his emotional masochism? And that sounds just like what Radu's want now. William is Edith's original character then, messes Apollo's Isaak up and turns him into one of hers, so that he can bring up little Dietrich whom she gave powers and destructive potential, but not yet a real access to power and circumstances to build up his usefulness for her; meaning, he was meant to be an NPC first, but gladly, with her army of recruiting priests, her new puppet Isaak picks this NPC up and makes him the real ace in Eris' sleeve, so that he can walk around and mess up all those cute little characters Prometheus created (Esther, Radu). That's beautiful. Dietrich and Radu are a new-generation William and Isaak - even the hair-colours match (with some tolerance and timeline defying). And I should get a coffee now, really.
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he's in love with a damn bastardbut he cannot really put himself into the image he needs, or decide just what exactly he wants to do; become a musician, a natural scientist, a CompSci, or maybe take a look at mechanics. Having multiple talents can also mean that you have only so much potential in each, but I think you've said that. As a matter of fact, now you've said everything else I wanted to say, and as pathetic as it may sound, I can only shut up and agree and be amazed how fucked up and - how eerily realistic this is. We aren't overestimating Yoshida again, are we? Pseudo-Canon: Because it's better this way.And post that, please.And honestly, I'm generally more inclined to see William as the quite bad-ass lower-class genius, maybe even from a working class family (early fascination for machines?), who thanks to his wittiness - and unscrupulousness - may have had a firm grip on his old school, and was rather used to defending his position by studying and using his intelligence. That's a lesson Isaak would never have learnt, and even though he may have been far more intelligent by nature, William was just used to having to be really clever to get ahead/not be bullied/help his family out/get away from his family/create an own life for himself. I suppose we can't help that fangirls will always squeal over facts they don't even understand fully.
We see it in the forum all the time. It's pure ego-masturbation on the part of some people, who disagree just for the sake of disagreeing and so on.That all would really give some explanations as of why Isaak had to trick William, wouldn't it? While William was certainly intelligent and assertive, Isaak had quite some innate skills, after all, and once he may have decided that he could use his inability to present himself in a good light, that would have been a quite fatal result - as we saw.I'm honestly unfamiliar with the Lovers card, but you've gotten me into it now. I'll check it again. So far, I really can't comment yet, so give me time till the next comment (yes, I'm eager to send this quickly, because I'm way behind in commenting). But I like the idea for that image really a lot (and the linked one is gorgeous, I could see that with the RCO instead, too). Before I go and get my coffee already, let me just throw in some suggestions for other cards, because I had nothing better to do last weekend at my dad's flat:
The Fool: Ion (formerly Abel).
The Hierophant: Caterina (formerly Antonio, wtf)
The Highpriestess: Seth, as Augusta (formerly Caterina)
The Chariot: Esther (formerly Tres)
And, because summing up the Arcana Minora into just four cards is sacrilege, Paula as the Princess of Swords. Crowley-interpretation now, of course.
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Oh, he didn't meet him, or at least not that I know of. I just meant, if he had met him, I'd really find that odd. It's rather Dietrich who pulls all the tricks on him that Cain pulled on Isaak, and though Radu's far more reluctant, it seems to work somehow. Maybe Dietrich was just a bit too much inspired by Cain in this, and that's where all his daring last-minute rescues come from now. Only that he can't admit he's trying to be daddy, and is rather displeased with Radu not being quite as easily impressed as mummy, which is why, oh well, he needs to beat him up. Granted, Radu's easy enough to sincerely trust Dietrich, or at least trust that the RCO will really, really be a good idea and help him. So maybe he's getting inspired by
his big brotherIsaak in the end. Too bad he dies, and especially for Dietrich; daddy didn't let mummy die, after all, so he needs to stitch him back together and pretend he's still fine and alive. After all, mummy is stitching daddy back together, too, and daddy made sure mummy will always have new arms when the old ones are cut off. And that would be enough of the RCO family, I suppose, before somebody shoots me.Coffee. Doesn't help.On a tangent, as you mention the von Neumanns, I actually wonder how many of the members really know about Cain. It's possible that the lower ranks just don't even know of his existence, or if they do, only have this name - Contra Mundi, or mein Herr.
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I may have to come back and read your breakdown of the four again in a little while though I have been coming back to it on and off which is, at least in part the reason why it’s taken me so long to reply here. I do see what you’re saying but right now it’s just not ‘clicked’ in my head so to speak. That William and Garibaldi have had to justify their experiments/creation or rather that they’ve succeeded in it would really be assisted by the fact that theirs is a potentially slower logically progressive understanding. They’ve thought the ideas to pieces and been justifying said ideas to themselves the whole way along so it’s not all that much harder for them to then use those justifications before a Vatican funding council. They’d be the ones who might be slower at reaching the answer of “42” on an exam paper but have all the working out jotted down too in the process of getting there. Lange on the other hand might have a certain logic but also have gaps in her logic then, where she’d be following a detailed progression in her calculations but then suddenly makes a quantum leap of logic that isn’t explained and that nobody else really understands the reason for, though she too gets the right answer in the end. Which leaves Isaak who’d just write “42” down as his answer without any working out written down on the paper. And in that sort of case while he’d get full marks because his answer is right, if he gets it wrong then he gets nothing. If Lange does the same and one of her leaps of logic is incorrect so that she gets “39” as her answer instead she’s still likely to get marks for her calculations up until the point that she makes that incorrect leap. Garibaldi of course gets the answer right every time or if he doesn’t; actually proves that the exam question has been incorrectly worded and William gets it right too because he doesn’t take his risks in the exam itself but perhaps does so in arriving with just 2 minutes left before the start. In fact, using the exam scenario, it’s probably Garibaldi and Isaak who arrive really early, Lange who comes in with reasonable time and William who dashes in last. Garibaldi takes the exam in the same way that he conducts his pre-exam preparation, William takes the exam in a similar fashion, Lange makes some few leaps of logic which are genius but also highly risky, and Isaak takes risks the entire way through. And if that’s the case then it’s Isaak who’s overconfident about his results and who then ultimately doesn’t do quite as well as he expected to and he probably can’t even see what it is that he’s done wrong.
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Which reminds me that I really need to take apart another half-written fic and just expand the Isaak & Balthazar part.While I could imagine him being aware of his abilities, I don’t think there would have been the necessary overt arrogance there or rather I could imagine it but I quite prefer the idea that he might not have been horribly arrogant and actually reasonably modest to a fair degree which would probably lead to people like William taking over him. Of course William wouldn’t necessarily mean to but because he’s used to having to defend his ideas he’d do it naturally, while Isaak would be just self-assured but never having had to justify that, just wouldn’t bother talking it out which comes back to that chain of logic point again. Because that would be the worst thing for Isaak to be really because his passivity and quiet self-assurance would most likely lead to his seething privately over the fact that nobody was recognising his genius. If he’s used to keeping quiet about it and being relatively modest the real challenge might not be realising that he’d need to speak up but rather learning to do so. Then again perhaps it’s a bit of both, he might keep suspecting that he needs to speak up but never quite figure out how to and thus get even more frustrated because nobody was recognising him and he was unable to speak up. It’d be easy for him to get trapped in a very passive role if he were close to William too because he’d get used to letting William talk over him and William would get used to it too which would make it even harder to break out of that establish situation. All that said, I could be entirely wrong of course and we both know that I’m quite fond of the idea of Isaak having been flawed and then reacting at extremes to those flaws being exacerbated by circumstance rather than being some sort of Stu who went to university for the ‘lolz’ and so on.no subject
Isaak’s friendsRahs just waiting to cast aspersions on the standard of his education. As for the rest, you’ve already said what needs to be said. Am I forgetting to tell you when I’m agreeing with everything you say again?I may just be reacting to the potential hopeful aspect of The Fool now but considering that it’s The Crocodile in the Ibis deck where there’s definite sense of the fool not knowing where he’s going, not knowing that he’s walking among ruins and a crocodile lies in wait while the Fool carries his past baggage with him; it definitely fits. I’m not quite sure about Cateina as the Hierophant yet but that might be because I’d almost be tempted to see her as The Hanged Man or Judgment. That’d be mostly referring to her having to wind up with her brother killed before she bought a clue and got over her hugely disabling flaw. As Judgement she’d fit for reaping what she had sewn as well as having been judged and in judging her own past actions too. I’m pondering Francesco for the Hierophant now but I’m not quite certain of it yet. I’m not sold on Seth as the High Priestess though, probably because at the moment I’d go with Süleyman for that one. That would tie in with the moon/visionary aspect and considerable wisdom with a touch of mystery about it
Süleyman’s feminine wiles of course there.as well as the potential reversed meanings of which there’s a lovely list here (http://www.biddytarot.com/major/highpriestess.html) to save my copy-pasting the entire bit. I think Seth as Augusta is still too superficial to be the High Priestess, she might even be the Magician who might really be a goddess if you choose to believe it or a complete fraud with all the trappings. Esther though I definitely agree on. She’s got that forward momentum and again from the Ibis deck there’d also be the connotations of having found an internal balance and resolve to be that forward-moving figure which would be why she’s the Star of Hope; inspiring hope because she’s always moving forwards. And if Dietrich then becomes the Emperor, at least in outward appearances, I could picture the sort of image set up where he and Esther face the opposite directions respectively. I’m not quite settled on The Emperor for Dietrich though so don’t hold me to that. Though maybe Dietrich should be the Tower and Cain should be the Emperor. And having looked it up since I’m really unfamiliar with the Crowley interpretations, Paula really does seem a fitting Princess of Swords, though at a non-Crowley angle you’ve now also reminded me of the basic interpretation for the King of Swords which would fit Süleyman again which would make Radu the Page of Swords, though if Süleyman is the High Priestess too then Radu’s also the Moon as well. He just follows Süleyman around really and there’s another moon reference really with the orbiting a life-giving sun aspect. Though since it’s finally occurred to me to look up what ‘Süleyman’ actually means, that’s a pretty ironic name there considering what he’s about but then so is Radu’s too. And so is Ion’s… or perhaps if that divine mercy is being applied to him it might work. Then again it’s not really mercy but just keeping him from being killed so that he can suffer further. And if Mirka does mean tranquil then that’s literal enough.no subject
Dietrich’s somewhat mistimed his last-minute daring rescues too really because at least Cain tends to get to Isaak before Isaak’s in danger of actually dying from his injuries. That’s probably quite the disappointing relationship for Radu though; he had hopeless optimism, excessive violence and rejecting everything he’d ever known just like his older sister but somehow he got budget Prince Charming instead. After all, Dietrich’s got lost technology too but not like Cain and he can be cheerily creepy too but not like Cain and he was even born in Germanicus too. Poor Radu, he’s done the spells. [He’s] done them all and he did want to go on a dangerous spree but that just didn’t work out for him. But more seriously that does seem like it might fit. Dietrich trying to emulate Cain, at least subconsciously, that is; not Radu trying to summon things using the Necronomicon
though that did work for Edith. There is a certain sense of Dietrich trying hard to overawe Radu at least which really can’t have been necessary, though whether that’s just because he needs to prove that he’s the boss of everything or because of subconsciously emulating Cain is debatable.That’s true and it would certainly make the idea of ‘that person’ Contra Mundi far more terrifying if very few people really knew exactly who and what he was. It’d be a similar tactic to Seth’s really though she doesn’t quite manage it and perhaps even in a certain sense AX’s tactic of having this mysterious ‘monster’ in the shadows. Though anybody actually involved in high level Vatican affairs who knew Abel’s codename would know who he was. Then again he does what Cain does in a general sense and appears silly at least which then creates the added menace that the monster he becomes might truly be terrifying. And that would tie in with the point that the anime and the manga seem to not emphasise; that AX’s real purpose is seemingly propaganda.
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There’s a Ludwig piece floating about that has the whole fairytale take on things, except he does get saved by Princess Charming at the end of it. But I’m not one for writing in the first person at the moment really and having been for some time now that I think about it. Glad you liked it anyway.
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Crusnik seems to have serious issues with the concept of 'too late'