Something to note is I don’t acknowledge the WoT1 rewriting of Zevran’s history with Rinna and Talisen. To me, turning the subject to a succession crisis with Rinna as a bastard of the king (Zevran specifies that she’s an elf anyway, so that’s not even possible according to their own lore) is an unnecessary over complication of the situation, removes the interpersonal nature of the conflict between the three of them and distracts them all as the focus all together. Big Important Scenario, smaller emotional investment.
So insofar as this blog is concerned, Zevran’s history with Rinna and Taliesen are treated exactly as he explains it to us, and what we can infer from other context clues: Zevran had lovers in them both, all of which was treated as casual between Crows who happened to be close in the same House. Taliesen, possessive and seeing Zevran was genuinely falling in love with Rinna, frames her as being a traitor to the Crows on the next job the three of them did together and encourages Zevran to kill her as such, and thinks Zevran fleeing the Crows is exclusively because of that.
Zevran's story is about finding and forging real relationships—romantic and/or otherwise—absent of abuse as much as it is leaving an abusive life.
ooc. and some other more general observations about 12, just bc I can. idk why I have so much to say today, but my brain said talk so I’m talking
he stims. a LOT. a lot of the things he does aren’t necessarily things you’d pick up on bc the shots of him don’t highlight it, you have to look down or at him in the background to spot them, but there are a few he does more often than others. he’s doing one of them in that icon, he does a thing with his thumb, he does this one all the time.
and his hands, here
and here are some excited fists.
moving on
here we have his reaction to a gunshot. he’s in the background so again, I don’t think it was the focus of the shot, but that to me is a very clear panic response.
this! this one is just an example of how much progress he makes with touch between series 8 and 9. in series 8, even when he allows hugs, he seems to have no idea what on earth to do with his hands. but here, not only is he way more comfortable with hugs, it’s a different type of hug (a from behind hug! which means they probably had conversations about different types of hugs for him to make this amount of progress and look totally at ease with it) and he pets her arm with his hand! he’s learned what to do with his hands! I’m so proud of him
anyway give me threads based on literally any of this.
similar to the other squadmates in mass effect 1, save for the initial human companions and liara, i planned for cullen to have an optional loyalty mission that would determine his disposition towards shepard in mass effect 2. below, i’ll go into his mass effect 1 verse in a bit more detail.
quite early on in cullen’s military career, he was assigned to the msv mandalay. serving underneath commander greagoir, their mission was to provide the safe transport of several notable figures within the biotics industry. this included corporate officers belonging to numerous amp developmental firms, scientists, health care professionals, and other key shareholders. alliance forces onboard were to ensure that despite the high-level executives aboard the ship and heightening tensions with biotic extremists, fueled by decades of mistreatment, that no harm come to anyone aboard.
biotic extremists raided the ship, locking it down with the aid of several mercenary groups. it later comes out that several anti-human groups funded said mercenaries, aiming to destabilize the human biotic industry and therefore, the alliance. to sum up the raid and weeklong occupation, all non-alliance civilians onboard the ship were tortured and executed first. then, the same fate came to the commanding officers. cullen and two other privates were the only survivors of the ordeal, the aggressors having escaped away on their vessel by the time the alliance had come to rescue the freighter. cullen was the only soldier to remain in the military following this.
this happens about a decade before the events of mass effect. his loyalty mission begins after shepard has conversed with cullen a number of times, inquiring about his service record and bias against biotics. in those conversations, shepard can either affirm or refute cullen’s biases, although he admits that he’s unlearning them through ongoing therapy. during this pivotal conversation, cullen reveals that the biotic group that attacked his ship years ago has been located, having crashed on a habitable, uncharted planet. he requests shepard take him there to end the threat to the alliance once and for all.
upon the planet’s surface, you can note several smaller encampments before arriving at the main base. despite his descriptions of the group, there are no biotics running rampant, guns blazing. instead, the squad finds farm equipment, fields of vegetables and livestock, the semblance of a budding community.
at their main base, shepard is greeted with trepidation from the leader who instantly comes forward, asking for any alliance personnel to leave the community as they are not welcome. it is not demanded nor stated in a threatening manner, this community’s leader simply explaining how they’ve created a life free of galactic politics and strife. cullen, unfazed by the display, instantly recognizes the leader as one such extremist from the msv mandalay. he draws his shotgun, ready to kill, demanding that shepard assist him in ending this threat. the leader pleads with shepard, stating that no matter what wrongs their community may have committed in the past, they’re harmless, isolationist.
if shepard affirmed cullen’s biases towards biotics.
cullen demands that they bring an end to this threat once and for all, citing shepard’s authority as a council spectre to achieve a measure of justice that the alliance could not. he suggests killing the leader and taking the rest into alliance custody. shepard can either agree to kill this community’s leader and arrest the others, arrest their leader, or allow them to go free.
if shepard challenged cullen’s biases towards biotics.
cullen more calmly states that while they may have turned a new leaf now, the worst offenders of this community should face justice. he’ll suggest arresting the leader, taking any other members of the community involved in any sort of terrorist activities as well, so they can face trial in an alliance court. shepard can agree to arrest these individuals or allow them to go free.
if shepard agrees to kill any member of the community or arrest them, the biotics will attack, letting shepard know they had warned them, stating that they can’t trust alliance officials. if a renegade shepard agrees to let them go, cullen will follow their orders but will remark on the hypocrisy of such. if a paragon shepard agrees to let them go, he will simply follow their orders and express a desire to leave the planet.
following this mission, either outcome will result in cullen mulling over the results, his past and the numerous lives lost. if the biotics were killed, he’ll express happiness at the exacting of justice, though he would’ve wished he could’ve stopped them years ago. if the biotics were allowed to go free, he’ll challenge shepard’s decision, leading to another conversation where shepard can refute his biases or agree, simply stating that a more tactful approach was required. he will agree, however, that peace was ultimately the better option, even as an ugly part of him wanted a more defined measure of justice. either way, he will leave the mission satisfied that the group is no longer a threat and will thank shepard for taking the time.
ultimately, i don’t think there’s necessarily a right or wrong answer to this quest. i personally believe that letting the biotics go, after they’ve been mistreated for so long and simply want to be left alone, is the better option. however, i can see some shepards unwilling to trust these biotics, citing their past terrorist activity as reason enough to arrest them. for cullen’s character development, i’ll always assume that the biotics were allowed to remain unharmed and that shepard challenged cullen’s biases, forcing him to grow beyond his trauma and skewed beliefs.
if shepard takes the time to complete this mission, in mass effect 2, he’d remember this upon joining shepard’s squad following horizon. he’d express warmth and excitement at fighting alongside shepard again, not just as a commander but as friends. he’ll openly express how he trusts shepard’s judgment as well, thereby alleviating any concerns he’d have about working with cerberus. should shepard ignore this mission in mass effect 1, he’d simply state that he’s excited to work with shepard again, albeit at anderson’s request. cullen will, admittedly, be quite wary about working with cerberus, even with shepard.
spilled ink, liquor stained dress shirts, books lent but never returned: you're solitary romanticism. solitary romanticism is not to be confused with melancholic romanticism, however; it can be lonely at times but is not quite sad. solitary romanticism entails a complete wonder in one's head, fantastical in its feeling, yet simple in its probability. it's playing the piano to an empty house, hoping the wallpaper likes the tune, it's smiling at the sight of a happy couple, not out of jealousy, but by true admiration of love. you stop to notice the little things in life, yet can't help but wonder whether or not someday you'll have the privilege of being so content and caught up in your own life to have them slip your mind. you've a kind soul and a wandering mind, which makes for a wonderful person all around. "dedicated to everyone who wonders if i'm writing about them. i am." - k.s. thomas
———— send me a # between 1 and 50, and i’ll post a season 1 or 2 meta from that page in my mastermind meta notebook / @analyticallyminded asked for #25
#25 comes from opening scene of “the beantown bailout job” aka the first scene of season two.
this scene begins the episode --- and the season ---- with a cold open that’s played, like many episodes before it, as though we’re seeing nate in the middle of a con. he looks to be playing some kind of inside man, using his own backstory with his experience and good name in the insurance industry rather than an alias.
“WELCOME TO THE INSURANCE GAME,” the man from boston assurance says, having rattled off a list of some of nate’s most lucrative accomplishments at his previous company. “WE’RE GLAD TO HAVE YOU HERE.”
the canned introductory dialogue is very con-like. so is the way that it’s shot, with the camera panning and slowing to show us what and how nate sees as he assesses the situation around him. then, he suddenly disappears, leaving his new boss confused; this is also on-par with his behavior on cons, when he poofs once he has the information that he needs.
the setting then changes to nate walking across the street to a bar. this is one of my favorite nate shots, so here’s a bonus gif of it:
he hesitates, then mutters, “agh... screw it,” and begins walking toward the bar. he never makes it there, however, as a car crashes on the street near him. this car crash sets the plot of the rest of the episode into motion. we learn the significance of this moment with the bar later in the episode when he informs the team that he has quit drinking, meaning, had nate’s path to the bar not been intercepted by that car, this moment would have been nate breaking his sobriety.
as the episode pans out, we discover that this opening scene never gets mentioned or referred to. it has no significance to the rest of the episode nor the season, and the insurance company he was trying to work for is never mentioned again.
this opening scene was our glimpse of nate trying and failing to re-assimilate, to try and get his old life and his old self back. as season 2 pans out, the nate that we see is one who is deluding himself in order to deny the changes that are going on inside of himself : his decision to be sober and then how massively he relapses on it. his continued insistence that he is not a thief. him claiming to maggie in 2.12 that “this isn’t what i wanna do,” which she immediately calls out as a lie. he’s deeply insecure for this entire season, and still pretending, both to the others and to himself, that being a part of leverage is temporary.
and at the end of the episode, after pulling another “just one more” con, sophie asks him if this is really his last one. and this is the conversation that ensues:
Nate: Well, uh, maybe, um…
Sophie: Yeah?
Nate: I mean, you know, until I find a job I like enough, you know, to stay out of the bars.
Hardison: Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.
Nate: And then I’m out. I’m done.
Parker: Sure.
Eliot: Yeah. Cause you’re not a thief.
obviously, nate’s words here are a callback to the beginning of the episode. the team doesn’t know that, but we do. we know. we know that the very idea of going back to the insurance world, to the life he knew before, was so triggering that it nearly caused nate to relapse. it would have caused him to relapse, if he hadn’t been intercepted by the car crash that sets the rest of the episode into motion.
so, in essence, he’s admitting here what he spends the literal whole rest of the season denying: that this job is good for him. that it keeps him out of the bars. that it gives him a purpose. and while it’s a long journey between this realization and his admission in the season 2 finale, “my name is n/ate for/d, and i am a thief,” this opening scene is a critical step in the journey to get there. he might not know who the new him is, but he does know that old him is dead and that he can never return to who he was before.
i think it’s beautiful that they decided to let the audience be privy to such a moment. and it’s honestly a little slept on by the fandom, including me until i was completing this particular rewatch.
May lives rent free in my head while I should be trying to sleep so... Character rant incoming:
A huge part of May's backstory is that she's a fucking kid caught up in shit she doesn't understand and manipulated by the people she trusted. No, substituting her for a more competent protagonist would not have solved a damn thing. That's not how the world works and I'm not gonna make her some wish fulfillment main character who solves everything with the power of friendship. She was every bit as talented as a twelve year old has any right to be and she still got fucked up despite winning every battle. Like... her disillusionment runs far deeper than just losing her Pokemon to Magma or having her life ruined by Legendaries. That's a part of her trauma but they aren't the only ones responsible—there's also the realization that her Pokemon died to preserve a status quo that created the clusterfuck to begin with. 'Cause May is still extremely intelligent—she's the one who went back, looked though the evidence and found out that she can't punish the ones responsible without destabilizing Hoenn entirely. Or becoming a necromancer since half of them are fucking dead.
Her real mistake was trying to do everything alone, cutting her friends, family and team out of her decision making process in favor of those who seemed to have the power she needs ( ie. Archie, Kyogre, Mr. Stone, Rayquaza ). It's noticing that Zinnia was in a lot of pain but failing to follow up on that due to being caught up in her own grief. They're very human mistakes. ( And the ironic thing is that they're very similar to the ones Zinnia makes )
And in the end she doesn't get to avenge her Gyarados because the mastermind responsible is just as much of a victim as she was. But the betrayal still cuts deep and she can't forgive Zinnia for what she did so she exiles the poor girl. Which, in hindsight, is probably the best possible outcome for either of them. Sending her back to the Draconid elders is... kind of a terrible idea when they're the same people who abused her for years. ( May wanted killed them all for being complicit in what happened to Zinn if her friend's grandmother wasn't one of them. It would've solved fuck all but Zinnia deserved so much better than to be raised as a pawn by the people she looked up to. )
The whole point is that May gets everything she dreamed of but it tastes like ash in her mouth. It's about taking all of that and trying to build something good with it despite not knowing how to do so.
𝟸𝟷𝟼𝟷 – subject is born on eden prime , exposed to element zero in utero resulting in her being born a biotic. alliance military has not been able to confirm if biological mother was exposed during the 2150s ‘ STARSHIP ACCIDENT ’
𝟸𝟷𝟼𝟻 – age 1 – during a routine medical examination subject is confirmed to be a biotic by a cerberus sympathizer. mother is told subject contracted cancer and has died , while cerberus picks up the child and she’s brought to the teltin facility. mother was likely given an unrelated cadaver to bury.
𝟸𝟷𝟼𝟽 – age 6 – reports recovered from teltin acknowledge testing began. three wet-nurses are named in documents to have facilitated subject’s growth up until this age. goal of testing was to enhance her powers as high as possible in order to understand how to ‘ grow ’ a biotic. previous research recovered insinuated a tie between pain , stress , suffering and mental instability and the power of a biotic individual , driving tests with the goal to torture and break their ‘ subject zero ’. alliance personnel would like it noted this theory has been disproven.
𝟸𝟷𝟽𝟷 – age 10 – subject zero is pushed too far , resulting in the performance of open heart surgery in order to revive her. cerberus officials begin collecting biotic children to test any trials prior to subject zero. ring fights against the other children begin in order to see any results from the torture. drugs are fed to subject zero to make her more complacent to fight.
2175 – age 14 – recovered footage shows other children incite a riot with the guards. security was disabled and subject zero hijacked a shuttle in order to escape. the shuttle’s black box shows not long after the gas ran out and it was marooned. miss nought was then interviewed to fill in the blanks , the rest of the record is hearsay unless tagged with a supporting document. the interviewing officer was told for two years subject zero was sold off by slavers who picked up her shuttle. here she took on the name jack.
𝟸𝟷𝟽𝟽 – age 16 – jack joins a cult in hopes to find love and solace they gift her , her first tattoos meant to try and cover or distract from her biotic amp scars from teltin , as well as cut off all of her hair. she stays for a few years until she learns she was kept around for her biotic powers to be abused. she refused to elaborate. she confessed to killing them all and escaping.
𝟸𝟷𝟽𝟿 – age 18 – jack is immediately found by notorious pirate manara and her lover. the three engage in a polyamorous , romantic and sexual relationship together while committing felonies. months later , jack realizes , once again , she’s being used for her biotics in order for the couple to get more money and stiff her out of her share. in turn , jack murders the both of them and continues on.
𝟸𝟷𝟾𝟶 – age 19 – jack finds ‘ STABILITY ’ with a smuggling gang and their leader called murtock ( see official alliance file g-2534 on murtock ). jack has admitted to committing piracy , murder , arson , theft and more in this time. the attached vid on this file has these events being told in detail.
𝟸𝟷𝟾𝟹 – age 22 – one gun run goes wrong and murtock is killed off so jack can escape. only after hearing the tape where the man admits he loved her does jack throw herself into fits due to survivor’s guilt. in one of these fits , she’s able to commandeer a space station that she subsequently crashes into a hanar moon. this draws attention from general kuril of the space prison ship purgatory ( see official alliance file pi-0965 ) , who captured jack before alliance intervention of the event.
𝟸𝟷𝟾𝟺 – age 23 – jack is brought to purgatory where she’s in persistent fights , and attacked and raped by guards as well as prisoners in one of the lavatories. general kuril makes the executive decision to put jack in cryo after many failed attempts at keeping her stabile and under control.
𝟸𝟷𝟾𝟻 – age 24 – under the request of the illusive man , commander shepard now of the systems alliance collected jack to be their ward as well as join a team to eliminate the collector threat of 2185. ( more details in file cs-2185 )
𝟸𝟷𝟾𝟼 – age 25 – jack is interrogated by alliance personnel after sending out a request of audience in order to achieve the background check required for hiring within grisson academy. under the circumstances , jack has immunity against any criminal activity stated above , with the contingency that she become a professor of biotics at the academy. she has agreed.
For the occasion, I’ll leave here the page called ‘Jecht’s Real Story’ present in FFX Ultimania Omega. It has the bonds chart and art like any other character, plus three little paragraphs about some aspects of his life and a brief description of his pilgrimage journey:
-- THE TRUE IMAGE OF A BASHFUL, TERRIBLE GENIUS
Overconfident, impudent, and so proud of himself and his talent to think training is useless for someone like him. That’s the image of Jecht that comes to mind according to Tidus’ memories. What sort of person was he like?
He had been criticized as someone who hated to practice. However, looking at the fact he repeatedly went out to train out at sea, it’s possible Jecht thought keeping silent about his training sessions and his hard work would have made people think he was the best. That thought was a boost to his self-confidence. He couldn’t maintain his pride unless he bragged about it.
Aside from that, the very fact people still talked about him ten years after his disappearance is proof Jecht did possess charm, that most likely made up for his faults.
-- ROUGH LOVE FOR HIS SON
Contrary to his rough behavior and actions, Jecht truly loved his son Tidus with all his heart. Through his mocking words, like “You’re gonna cry”, he wanted to make his weak child grow up to be a stronger man. It’s that kind of love one would expect from a lion that pushes his cub down into the ravines. Still, Jecht’s words and actions were mistaken for something else and taken at face value else by the child, making his son only distance himself from him and forming a gap between them.
Jecht’s memories of Tidus, naturally, remained the same as they were before they were separated. Although in his memories, his son still glares at him with hate, he soon starts to cry without giving voice to his real thoughts -- and Jecht continues to cherish that one memory of his son, one of a weak child who needs to be protected, and dreams of him growing up. Fragments of Jecht’s true feelings can be seen as illusions whenever Tidus gets poisoned by Sin’s toxins.
-- THE PILGRIMAGE
Jecht didn’t die at sea ten years ago, but he touched Sin and was brought to Spira. Taken to an unknown world, his state of mind and situation were naturally pretty similar to Tidus’. Unable to bear with the anxiety and loneliness, while dreaming to go back to Zanarkand, while wishing to return back to his wife and son… he accepted Braska’s offer because he saw it as a chance to return home. And for a long while, he didn’t lose hope.
However, as the journey continued, he came to learn the situation of Spira and took his fate in his own hands. Because of his friendship with Braska and Auron he created along the way, making them later be inseparable, he discovered his own role in Spira. In the end, entrusting Auron with his greatest desire of bringing up and watching over his child, Jecht gave up his life for Braska.
Another interesting bit about him is about the way he was brought to Spira, the first of his kind in the dream world:
-- HOW JECHT CAME TO SPIRA
Jecht, whose daily training routine was to dive into the dream sea of Zanarkand to practice Blitzball, one day spotted the fifth Sin. This Sin was visiting the seas of Dream Zanarkand, and was resting calmly underwater, at the bottom of a relatively shallow coastal area.
One day, I’ll reach and touch it -- with that objective in mind, Jecht tried to dive deeper and deeper in that sea many times to approach Sin, till one day, ten years ago, he achieved his goal. As a result, he was swallowed up by Sin and, for the first time, a resident of Dream Zanarkand was taken to Spira.
It’s pretty interesting the fact it’s heavily implied Jecht did know about this huge creature sleeping underwater for a while but never told anyone: he made it his personal objective to dive deep and long enough to finally touch it. The Dream city, made of pyreflies, is usually the place where Sin goes to rest next to, because the dream “heals" Sin. It’s more like a reflex, or instinct, I think - Sin approaches the dream and sleeps next to it till it’s strong enough (I believe the Ultimania mentions newborn Sin, during a Spiran Calm, need to grow and heal from the traumatic event of the Final Summoning, resting underwater, probably near DZ in this case too). The only Sin who willingly, from its core, decided to approach (and destroy because you do try to put yourself in Jecht’s shoes, knowing what that city represents and really is) DZ was the sixth Sin, aka Jecht.
It is also confirmed he was stranded to Bevelle and that he was indeed imprisoned for telling some soldier monks he was from Zanarkand. Braska heard the rumor which had started to spread, and decided to free him.
