Not Lost

Chapter 7: Catechism

"What's with the sudden interest?" Tyranny asked. "Don't tell me you've finally seen the Light?"

"Hardly," Bolaire scoffed. "This is a work-related matter."

"Yes, his Administrative Director is unwell."

"Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a secretary."

Rauwyn curse that abominable trope. "Why does everyone think I have a think for middle-aged paper-pushers?"

Long transcript upcoming, I just want to put the conversation in full:

Murray: Bolaire, you leaving?

Tal/Bolaire: I’m just staring through Thimble.

Thimble: Well?

Bolaire: Are we to trust Thjazi?

Thimble: I always have.

Bolaire: Very well then. I belong to you. I am your weapon. What would you have me do?

Thimble: Bolaire.

Bolaire: What did he used to say? ‘Thimble, please tell it what to do next.’ What would you have me do? If I don’t belong to you, I belong to his brother.

Thimble: Bolaire.

Bolaire: Yes?

Thimble: You don’t belong to anyone. And you know that.

Bolaire: Are you saying that Thjazi was wrong? Are you saying that his notion of what I am was incorrect? Did you ever tell him that? And I’m very good at telling when someone’s lying.

Hal: At a certain point, you’re going to have to let go of my brother and start dealing with us.

Julien: It’s difficult when he won’t let go of us.

Thaisha: I think you’re the only one with that excuse/Hal: You’re a different story

Julien: Great.

Bolaire: I …

Thimble: I don’t know everything he did to you. All I know is, you only wanted to deal with me.

Bolaire: He wouldn’t look at me.

Thimble: Maybe he was scared of you, Bolaire.

Bolaire: Mm.

Thimble: Maybe he just didn’t like your ugly mug.

Bolaire: I was definitely scared of him. He told me everything he was going to do to me, and funny enough, he did it. My life is over.

Thimble: I just …

Bolaire: I lost everything.

Thimble: Bolaire, then come with us, and you can tell me all about how terrible he was.

I … I am not sure why everyone is apparently freaking out about this conversation? Every time I’ve gone in the cr4 tag the last week it’s been a lot of discussion. Mostly, that I can see, about whether Bolaire is telling the truth, and how damaging it would be to the story and to the other characters (and the other players) if he is telling the truth, and …

Honestly I’m a little baffled by this?

We have seen very little indication that he’s not telling the truth. And plenty that he is. If the argument is that we haven’t seen proof that Thjazi could treat someone like that …

Mara the Wing, about half an hour ago, straight up and in earnest: “All right. Thjazi was a bastard and a thief. He used and abused people.” Julien, not believing that his shadow might be Thjazi: “I’m very confused as to whether or not this is friend or foe, both, neither?”, to which Thaisha responded: “That sounds like Thjazi!” Like. Everyone around him, friend or foe, acknowledges that Thjazi sometimes went through people for shortcuts, even though (almost) all of them also acknowledge that he did so in a good cause. Usually. Often. Like, none of the characters are under any illusions. Bolaire …

Bolaire thinks they are. And he’s right to an extent, they tend to think of Thjazi’s crimes as … sort of happening to other people? People they’re often justified against. Even with Vaelus, because it came right in the end, and this was Mara’s direct argument, because it came right in the end, the injury he did in the doing of it was justified. Which … uh. Ends justify the means, might be a bit of a dangerous argument, but still. Bolaire has a point. Most of the people here love Thjazi, and are willing to forgive him things that Bolaire can’t.

But even with that said …

The person in this room that loved Thjazi the most, that forgave him everything, that would do anything for him, is Thimble. And Thimble is the one Bolaire directed this towards. And Thimble …

Took the hit. She acknowledged it. She acknowledged him. Yeah, she’s still … She’s trying to explain it, to him and to herself, trying to make it make sense, to say that Thjazi might have been like that because he was scared of Bolaire (which is honestly quite probable, even if it doesn’t help much), but she still …

“I don’t know everything he did to you.”

To you. She acknowledged that directly.

“Bolaire, then come with us, and you can tell me all about how terrible he was.”

Like. She didn’t flinch from the implication. She didn’t deny Bolaire. She didn’t say it wasn’t true. She said she didn’t know, that she didn’t see a lot of it, that she only saw the effect on Bolaire himself, but she still acknowledged that effect. And she was willing to let him tell her. She was willing to hear it.

Thimble loves Thjazi. With all her heart. She has always trusted him. But she won’t treat Bolaire like a thing, she won’t treat him like she owns him, and when he says that his experience was different than hers, she offers to listen. She doesn’t tell him to shut up so she can preserve her image of Thjazi, she tells him to come with her and tell her. Now, maybe he can’t trust yet that she will actually listen, but at the very least she made the offer. She didn’t deny what was done, and she offered to hear it out in full.

And the others …

Look. Hal, I think, has basically said every wrong thing possible since they all stumbled back into his house. Every time Hal opened his mouth towards Bolaire in this conversation, I was flinching and telling him to shut up, please, you’re not helping. He started out freaking out about Bolaire wearing Misha. Which was justified! So justified! But also does not make a great first impression in this conversation. Then followed up with apparently only worrying about a Thjazi-possessed-Julien trying to hit Bolaire because it would also hit Misha. And then here.

“At a certain point, you’re going to have to let go of my brother and start dealing with us.”

Hal. Hal. Please shut up.

And it’s Julien who points out the extremely elephant-like problem with that. That Thjazi won’t let go of them. And, like, Hal and Thaisha both dismiss this immediately, and they’re both so wrong to do so. Because I’m pretty sure, on top of everything that’s just happened with Termina, that it is the entire reason for Bolaire’s breakdown.

Because the thing is, Thjazi came back. He’s right there. He’s right there, acting, present. Trying to hit Bolaire. Which, yes. Also justified, as Bolaire just poked Thjazi’s soul with a soul-destroying weapon, so Thjazi rather understandably tried to knock him back in self-defence. The point here is not that Thjazi tried to punch him. It’s that Thjazi was present enough to do that.

Bolaire can’t let go of Thjazi, because Thjazi is right fucking here.

And if Thjazi is here … Then it could all happen again. He could wind up right back there again.

That’s why he went for Thimble the way he did. Why he challenged her that way.

“Very well then. I belong to you. I am your weapon. What would you have me do?”

“What did he used to say? ‘Thimble, please tell it what to do next.’ What would you have me do? If I don’t belong to you, I belong to his brother.”

The point is not to challenge her on what she let happen. Or, well. Not just to challenge her on what she let happen. The point is to see if she’ll let it happen again.

Because Thjazi’s back. He’s here. And this is how he acted before, and this is how he’ll act again, and are they going to let him? Or even … even help him?

Because Thjazi is so persuasive. Again, Julien says that too. “You all have been tricked by a person with endless charisma and cult-like personality!” And yes, both Julien and Bolaire don’t like Thjazi, in fact hate him, but … It says something that even Thjazi’s enemies find him persuasive. Let alone … Let alone people who love him.

Bolaire is frightening. He’s monstrous. He’s alone. How hard would it be for Thjazi to persuade them how he should be treated? If he’s back? If he’s here? If they’re all already fawning over him? I’m not saying that’s what would happen, but it’s what Bolaire is afraid of. And it’s why he came out swinging that way. To see … how much Thimble knew. How much she approved of. How much she might let happen again.

Because the thing is, they’re all going to work to get Thjazi back. They’re not going to leave him as Julien’s shadow. Which, honestly. Good. He shouldn’t be Julien’s shadow. But. These people love Thjazi. They’re going to rescue him. Which means he’s going to come back, to an extent already is, and that means Bolaire has to plan for Thjazi coming back. Being able to … to hurt him.

It is interesting to me … Thjazi possessing Julien. If Bolaire’s nature is what horrified and repulsed Thjazi, and, again, not without reason! But. Thjazi … Thjazi’s kind of doing the same to Julien. Right now. I wonder what he thinks about that. And Thjazi-the-Shadow is …

It’s lending credence to his ruthlessness with people he doesn’t care about as well. Because Thjazi nearly got Julien killed tonight. And Occtis, and Mara, and Alba, though I’m not sure if he knew about the latter two. Like. Just comparing him to Occtis. Occtis was also going to go back inside, but he didn’t demand that Julien come with him. He was going to let Julien go, help his own family, while Occtis went back in for Thimble. But Thjazi full-on didn’t give Julien a choice. He dragged him bodily back into the kill zone. And if Occtis hadn’t dispelled him with the firebolt, if Thjazi had succeeded in dragging Julien further into the Manor, upstairs, in the open, while an enraged Primus fucking Tachonis and his entire family landed downstairs …

Thimble herself wanted them to run. Because she’s smaller, stealthier, because she had the best chance. She wanted them to run. But Thjazi didn’t give a shit, so long as Thimble was safe.

Thjazi …

I get the impression, so far that we’ve seen him, that Thjazi Fang … He was a rebel. A young, idealistic man, a man trying to fight for his people’s freedom. A man who fought hopeless cause after hopeless cause. A man who watched his causes fail. A man who grew increasingly paranoid, increasingly desperate. Increasingly ruthless. But still a man trying to do good.

Everything we saw at the Hallowed Round tonight. Like Mara said. Everything we saw at the Hallowed Round. Thjazi made that possible. That … That dazzling wonder. The saving of so many souls. That wasn’t … It wasn’t how Thjazi himself was going to do it. He didn’t have …

He was going to do it smaller. Sneakier. More paranoid. More utilitarian. And that, I think, was the perfect … the perfect illustration of what Thjazi has become under the pressures of the life he lived and the enemies he faced. He became smaller. Sneakier. More paranoid. Trying for tiny victories because he had … he had, I think, started despairing of the bigger ones. He was still trying for them. Oh, he was still trying. The Cloak. He picked the most long shot cause he could find. On a scale … He was trying. He was trying so hard. But the life he led to accomplish it …

He's gotten ruthless. He’s gotten paranoid. He’s gotten cruel. Because he’s seen so much cruelty. The Falconer’s Rebellion failed. The Sundered Houses bloat themselves on the people beneath them. The world is so dark. And he was going to fight, never fear, he was always going to fight, but in the process he became …

Smaller. And darker. And meaner.

Thimble is right, I think. Thjazi, much like Bolaire himself, was afraid. So afraid, all time. And it didn’t help that …

Whatever happened with the Cloak and door to Faerie. Whatever Mara’s skipping past in her mind, whatever Thimble heard them arguing about in that flashback. I think, I really do think, that the Cloak and Thjazi were involved in the door closing, maybe even responsible. And I think that Thjazi has been living with that guilt ever since.

Especially when it came to Thimble, and especially when it came to Aranessa. Which … Which I think explains a lot about Shadow!Thjazi’s actions towards Julien, too. He punished Julien for leaving them in danger. That’s what the two direct attacks were. Punishing Julien for leaving them. And I don’t think all of that is pointed at Julien. I strongly suspect that a lot of it is Thjazi’s own guilt. Desperate for Julien not to fail them as he did, forcing Julien to protect them at all costs.

Because if he was involved in the loss of Faerie? Then Thjazi Fang did more direct damage to the two people he loves most than anyone short of Primus Tachonis himself. Thimble became mortal because of his actions. She can feel herself dying. And Aranessa …

One of the justifications Primus used for ‘culling’ House Royce was the loss of their magic. One of the reasons the other Houses went along with it, at least to appearances, was because of agreement with that.

Thjazi, his relationship with her, has damaged Aranessa’s standing from the moment it became known. He’s always known that. And now his actions may have destroyed her entire House.

Thjazi … It all snowballed, I think. He started out trying to do good, and the consequences kept spiralling around him, and the mistakes started piling up, and he had to pull himself apart from those he loved, for their own sake and for ‘security’ reasons, security cells, operational security, he had to isolate himself more and more, and I suspect …

I suspect over time he just got a little ruthless, and a little cruel, and that certain people, like Bolaire, were unfortunately placed to take the brunt of it.

But Bolaire, for all his fears right now, is not alone. Because everyone … Hal did it badly, yes. Maybe nobody said quite the right things. But Thimble took the hit on the chin, offered to listen. Thaisha thought to show him Little Bolaire. Azune tried so hard to show him that he is real, that he is a person, that he is seen as a person, that he will not be treated as an object or a slave.

None of them flinched from what Thjazi might have done. None of them denied it. Thimble and Thaisha and Azune and Occtis and Hal all reached out, all tried, if clumsily, to reassure him that he is a person to them, and that no one, Thjazi or otherwise, will treat him like that again.

Which is why, too, I don’t think any of the players are upset or unprepared for the direction Taliesin is taking with Bolaire. Laura as Thimble took that one on the chin. There’s been seeds planted from the moment both Bolaire and Julien were introduced as characters. Nobody was surprised. The hints about the door to Faerie, the way all of them have wondered about Thjazi’s actions and alliances, the damage that Luis has been portraying in Azune and Liam has been portraying in Hal as a result of Thjazi’s life and actions, the way Thimble’s whole arc has been about reconciling with the way different people have hated Thjazi …

This isn’t new. This has been built in from the start. Thjazi was always going to be a complicated figure. He was designed specifically to haunt the goddamn narrative in every conceivable way. Now literally. He was designed as a storytelling device to twist and shape the characters around him, to be the thing they were shaped by and reacting to and developing past. This series started at his funeral. He is the inciting factor of this whole story. He is a martyr and a mystery and a ghost, he’s haunting all of them, the fallout of his actions has shaped everything so far. He’s neither purely good nor purely evil, because everyone shows different faces to different people, and also because either way would be boring. All of this, all this speculation, all the doubt and wondering he causes, in the audience and the characters, is the point of his character and his role in the story. He is the seed of conflict for the world and the characters. It’s what he’s for, in storytelling terms.

"A friend on Discord suggested a mermaid swimming through a galaxy of sea stars and I loved the idea so much I had to draw it."

materialist-scumbag

THE TICK THAT DREW THE MAP OF THE WEST June 28, 2026

So the longhorn was a garbage animal. Stringy, mean, half-feral, descended from Spanish cattle that had gone loose in the brush country for a couple centuries and bred for survival rather than meat. In Texas after the war it was worth maybe three or four dollars a head, because there were millions of them and nobody to eat them. The local market was Texans, and Texas was broke. Up in Chicago or New York the same animal was worth thirty, forty dollars, because the Union had spent four years eating its way through the eastern cattle supply and the cities were short on beef.

That spread is the whole engine of the cattle drive. You don't need a tick to explain why a man would walk a cow a thousand miles to multiply its value by ten. The arithmetic does it.

What the tick explains is the SHAPE.

Because the thing about the longhorn nobody in the romance mentions is that it was a carrier. Centuries in the brush had given it a shaky immune truce with Babesia bigemina, a protozoan that lived in its blood and rode around on a tick that dropped off into the grass wherever the herd went.

The longhorn itself looked fine. Walked fine, sold fine, butchered fine. But the cattle it walked past, the fat improved Midwestern stock that had never met the parasite, those animals would start pissing blood and die at a rate that touched nine in ten. The Texans, reasonably, refused to believe their healthy-looking cattle were doing it. They took it to the Supreme Court in 1877 and won, on the entirely correct observation that their cows weren't sick. The cows weren't sick. The cows were Typhoid Mary.

(The disease disappeared every winter, too, north of a certain latitude, which baffled everybody for thirty years until somebody worked out that the tick just froze to death up there, no vector, no disease, the whole thing seasonal in a way that made it look like a moral judgment on Texas cattle specifically. It wasn't anybody's leading hypothesis that an insect was committing the murders. The leading hypothesis for a while was that the longhorns were poisoning the grass.)

So now run the two facts together. The cow is worth ten times more up north. The cow kills every other cow it passes on the way up north. What do you get?

You get a line.

You get a bunch of lines, actually. Quarantine lines, drawn and redrawn by Missouri and Kansas legislatures and eventually by the federal government, declaring that Texas cattle could not cross at all, or could only cross in winter when the tick was dead, or could only cross by rail if they were going straight to slaughter and never touched dirt that a local cow might later stand on. Missouri shut its border. Farmers formed Vigilance Committees (which is a polite nineteenth-century way of saying armed men) and turned the herds back at gunpoint. Kansas banned Texas cattle outright in 1885. And every one of those legal and shotgun-enforced lines was a wall the drive had to find a gate in.

The gate was the railhead.

This is the part that rewires the map. The famous cattle town (Abilene, Dodge City, Wichita, Ellsworth, the whole gunfighter pantheon) is not a town that grew up around ranching or water or gold or a river crossing. It's a point where the trail coming up out of the quarantine zone touched a railroad that could take the cow east to the slaughterhouse without it walking through anybody's protected pasture.

Abilene gets invented basically from scratch in 1867 by a man named Joseph McCoy who looked at the map, found a spot on the Kansas Pacific that was far enough WEST that the trail in from Texas could swing around the settled farm country and its quarantine, and built stockyards there. The town is a loading dock. The cowboy at the end of the trail, in the saloon, shooting the place up: he is a longshoreman who has just finished a shift, and the shift was getting the cargo to the one point where it could legally change from hooves to wheels.

And the cargo had to keep moving west precisely because the tick kept the settled east closed. As Kansas farmers spread and the quarantine line marched west with them, the railhead had to march west too. Abilene to Ellsworth to Wichita to Dodge, each town flaring up and dying back as the line of legal infection-free transfer slid across the state. The towns weren't competing on amenities. They were competing on being the current solvent point in a chemistry problem about where a tick could and couldn't survive the trip.

(Dodge City lasts longest because it's furthest out, last to get caught by the advancing farms, sitting out where the quarantine couldn't reach it yet. Its whole mythological career (Wyatt Earp, Boot Hill, the Long Branch) is a few years long and happens because of an agricultural-settlement frontier creeping toward it at the speed of homesteading. When the farms arrive, the party's over. The party was always a function of the farms not having arrived.)

So the geography of the Wild West, which towns exist and why they're where they are and why they boom for five years and empty out and why the trail bends where it bends, is not topography and not destiny and not the romance of open range.

It's the intersection of a price differential and a quarantine map. The price differential said go north. The quarantine map, drawn by the tick, said you may only go north HERE, and HERE, and now not there anymore, here. The cow drew the route and the parasite drew the borders and the men with the guns were just enforcing a public-health regime they didn't know was a public-health regime.

And it all gets zeroed out, eventually, the same way these things always do, not by a hero but by a logistics upgrade. They build the Kansas City stockyards and the packing plants, and then the rail net gets dense enough that the cow doesn't have to walk to the train at all, the train comes to the cow. Refrigerated cars mean you slaughter in Chicago and ship the meat instead of the animal. The long drive, the trail town, the whole apparatus that existed only to get a tick-bearing animal across a quarantine line to a loading point, it just stops being necessary, and the gunfighter towns settle down into being ordinary Kansas, dry and flat and law-abiding, within about a decade of their own legend.

The cattle tick itself they finally beat in 1943, dipping every cow in the South in arsenic for forty years to break the lifecycle. Nobody made a movie about the dipping vats.

Romancing Barret Week - Day 2: dark thoughts

While I very much like the idea of Barret being a healing influence on Sephiroth, I've also been thinking about how Sephiroth could in turn encourage him towards more violent means. Maybe the rest of the world doesn't deserve it, but Shinra does, right?

Gold earrings with pearl, emeralds, and sapphires, Roman, 1st-4th century AD

People killed: around three quarters of a million.