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monocytogenes · 8 months

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Ask game! Ask game!

👩‍💻 share a snippet that you worked on for a long time or struggled with

Okay so--you know those moments when you set up a scenario and then you're midway through the scene going 'how the hell is my character going to get out of this?' Yeah.

So, one of things I do in my agent!Pravin fics is really think about what kinds of fights he could conceivably survive, and how he'd go about that. Video game mechanics being what they are, there's multiple instances ingame where he's shooting and stabbing dudes who use lightsabers, and I'm like--nah, realistically, I think he'd get cut in half in under a minute.

This brings us to a WIP where Pravin's facing down Ardun Kothe, the enemy spy who, along with his team, exploited that mind control shit Pravin had in his brain (that he was ranting about in the other WIP I shared with you.) In canon, the guy's an ex-Jedi who fights you with a lightsaber and, being a Jedi, has a whole smattering of telekinetic powers. So yeah I was like, nix the lightsaber, but then I got about to the part in this snippet where Pravin cusses him out and then I was like--okay, how the fuck is he going to escape, haha.

Picked at it for a while before I wound up literally reading about interrogation techniques and came up with this solution. Kothe's line about his actions being "unforgivable" is a reference to some actual dialogue, and I thought, ohhh. I think Pravin can lean on that to distract and rattle him.

Also, the ticking clock element here is on account of Pravin having called an airstrike on his own position in order to put a stop to Kothe's plans and hopefully murder him in the process. In canon another character does that; I was like 'nah, this seems like the kind of batshit insane thing Pravin would do himself given the mental state he's in.'

(A quick warning--Pravin uses some really explicit language below.)

As he squeezed the trigger, with preternatural precision, Kothe lifted a hand and caught the bolt, the energy fizzling out ineffectually against his palm. “Well, well,” Kothe said, with all the mild disappointment of a mechanic assessing a cracked repulsorlift engine, “This explains a few things.” Pravin backed up a step, keeping his weapon pointed, his hand trembling slightly. “So you found a way to overcome the restraints. Alright.” He gestured vaguely at Pravin’s bloodstained jacket. “Should I bother asking where Wheel and Saber are?” “I don’t think you’d like the answer.” Kothe sighed. “Seems I was right about you.” A laugh, half-hysterical, escaped Pravin’s throat; the fury rising to choke him against his better instincts. “Tell me, Ardun, does it hurt?”

“To be betrayed?” “No, bending over to suck your own cock, you sanctimonious cunt,” Pravin hissed before he could stop himself. “How clever you are, how smart! What else could have possibly come of mucking with my brain to make me your slave?” Fear tightened his throat in the wake of his outburst but, to his surprise, Kothe faltered a bit. “I know that much was unforgivable. But I couldn’t risk this op.” Rationalizing. He can fizzle a kriffing bolt with his hand and he’s rationalizing. A snippet of interrogation training swam to mind, much as it had when he’d stood on the bridge of that dreadnought and asked Jadus question after question about his plan: attack his pride. Invite him to justify his actions. Let him try to vindicate himself. “Couldn’t you?” Pravin snapped. “I ran from my country, I turned my back on everything, and what the fuck did I get? I risked my life, I brought Chance back to you when he couldn’t speak a word to me, and you lot raped me over, and over, and over. Like it was easy. Like you enjoyed it.” “I didn’t enjoy it, Legate—” “Then why did you keep doing it?!” he shouted. “Because this is bigger than you and me!” insisted Kothe. “Because I’ve watched war tear this galaxy to shreds, and I’d do anything to keep peace alive.” Pravin brought up his other hand to grip his pistol, a deliberately-clumsy gesture that allowed him a glance at his chrono. Six minutes had elapsed—that meant he had nine to book it out of the facility if he were lucky, four if he wasn’t. He hoped he’d destabilized Kothe enough. “Anything?” he sneered. “Anything.” “I see it now, why you failed as a Jedi, why they kicked you out. You sound just like a bloody Sith.” “That’s enough—” Kothe went for the gun at his belt. With his dominant hand occupied, the man wasn’t fast enough—a flick of a trigger, and a bolt connected with Kothe’s shoulder, punching a hole through flesh.

#pravin winscliff ii #ask meme #writing

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monocytogenes · 8 months

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Ammyyyyy from the SWTOR Character Ask Meme, can you tell me about Isra and Pravin's answers for the following questions: 1. What is [character]’s favourite event, & what do they like about it? 9. What do they regard as their culture, & do they distinguish between their culture and heritage? and 13. If there were a Commemorative Statue released of them, what pose would they be in?

I presume this refers to the recurring ingame events, sooo--

I played Pravin on the Bounty Contract event and man, that is his SHIT. Post class-story I imagine him getting by outside the Empire through doing a lot of private security and investigator work, and bounty hunting is really just that plus the "capturing fugitives" bit. He'd always use the drink option and bring them back in carbonite in lieu of killing them, lol.

Realistically I think he'd be wary about doing too much of that sort of work because it's super confrontational and he doesn't want to make enemies, but if the money's right...hey, some of those troublemakers must have long histories of pissing off multiple legal and illegal enterprises, right? And he likes the investigatory part. It's what he enjoyed about working for Intelligence--the relationship-building and social engineering; figuring out how to get people to disclose information or allow him entry to restricted spaces. His talent at it is kind of his superpower, and it really gives him a thrill.

Isra would be into the Rakghoul event. She's a badass sword lady patriot who sees her role as that of a protector and defender, so heading out to put down a bunch of monsters to keep civilians safe is her idea of a good day's work. She'd also definitely be game for helping the scientists get samples and such, and feel pride in the praise she'd receive for that.

9. THIS IS A GREAT QUESTION you know I love this shit and will worldbuild about it forever

I'll start off by saying that I do think there's such as a thing as "Imperial culture", in large part because the Empire is a society with its own distinct values, norms, shared history and myths, as well as mass media. Much of this goes back to the outcome of the Great Hyperspace War--Imperials view their nation as a great power that was subjected to a retaliatory genocidal purge, and this desire to reclaim their place in the galaxy and not be victimized again brought about the militaristic, high-control government they accept as necessary today.

Dromund Kaas and Ziost are the main centers of culture, and that culture evolves in an environment where the only real "outside" influences are those from assimilated member worlds. Travel for ordinary citizens is restricted. There's a China-style Great Firewall which blocks most foreign media. Everyone watches the same holodramas, partakes of the same cuisine, observes the same fashion trends (albeit with some variation depending on what social stratum one's in)--if you reference, say, a joke from a popular novel in front of a large group of Imperials, ninety percent of them will know it. (Coupled with their tendency to couch humor in desert-dry sarcasm, this shared media landscape tends to make Imperial jokes incomprehensible to outsiders. It's like five-levels-deep memes all the time.)

Pravin and Isra both have complicated relationships with Imperial culture.

In Pravin's case, he doesn't like to think of himself as culturally Imperial on account of having left the Empire, but he is. He absolutely is. It's a fundamental piece of his personality, no matter how much time he's spent in Hutt Space, no matter how well he's come to speak other languages, enjoy other foods, incorporate other fashion influences into his daily wardrobe. He still has that kneejerk annoyance response to breaches of etiquette, such as when people aren't punctual or address him informally at a first meeting. He still feels uncomfortable wearing shorts or sleeveless tops in public, even as he's donning loud patterns and leaving his shirts halfway undone. He still cracks up at the humor. But yeah--there's always an unease there when he's made aware of his own attachments, since it forces him to contend with grief he's not altogether ready to process.

Isra defines herself largely by two identities: as a Sith Lord, and as a zabrak. The former gives her a role and a place in Imperial society--that of a powerful defender of her country and its people, ordained through superior genetics and years of training--and the latter defines her as both the inheritor of Iridonian warrior traditions and an oppressed person. She's simultaneously privileged and discriminated against, lauded and looked down upon, an insider and outsider to the culture she was brought up in. Much of her teenage desire to connect with Iridonian diaspora culture--despite not having been raised in that community--was a means of contending with how much of Imperial culture is not for her, both in a practical sense (e.g. not being able to eat some of the foods since she's a carnivore) and through all manner of subtle exclusion (e.g. lack of representation of people who look like her in most major media roles.) She claims Imperial culture as hers, she has to, but always in a way that incorporates her racial heritage. She needs feet in both in order to feel whole.

13. Pravin would be doing a James Bond pose because I'm a basic bitch. Like, probably this one but instead of a gun he's holding a vibroknife.

Isra would have her knees bent, ignited lightsaber in her right hand at a low guard position and her left hand raised up near her head, fingers splayed to use the Force. Basically the longsword plow stance but one-handed.

#isra taluwe #pravin winscliff II #ask meme #swtor #sith warrior #imperial agent

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monocytogenes · 1 year

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#lol i play swtor on potato graphics but #'brainwasher' you say?#pravin: 👀#pravin winscliff II #imperial agent #swtor #star wars the old republic

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monocytogenes · 8 months

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(belated) WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @theluckywizard!

I recently acquired a gaming laptop and have been back on my SWTOR bullshit, so I've been going through some older writing and working on fics with my imp agent Pravin! (His main fic is here, which is more or less "the agent Shadow of Revan mission but make it a heist.")

I have a lot of headcanons about how the denouement of Chapter 2 goes in his timeline, including that he has a bit of a freakout, tells Shara he's resigning and fucks off for a while. He reconnects with Vector, who ends up being a very needed voice of sanity and convincing him to go back.

So yeah, here's a bit from Vector's perspective, where Pravin's explaining to Vector what the hell happened to him. (Vector doesn't know his actual name here--I have this whole idea that agents have operating names before they earn their numbers to keep their true identities totally unmentioned, so the moment where he drops a first name is a shocked reference to Pravin's operating name.)

Spoilers for the imperial agent story; warnings for mental horror stuff and drug use.

Down a musty corridor with sagging paneled walls, the sconces coated in dirt and bugs, he found the room and pressed the bell. A mechanical ping sounded.

Nine cracked it open immediately. “Back up.”

Vector retreated a step. He leaned out just enough to scan Vector’s surroundings; the glint of a blaster’s barrel catching the light. Satisfied, he released the handle, wordlessly ushering his friend inside.

The room was cramped, outfitted with a bed, a refresher and a kitchenette consisting of little more than a sink and a cooktop. The bedsheets were tossed about in a tangle; discarded clothes were strewn across the floor, and the remains of carryout containers filled the counter. Vector’s eyes widened in concern; Nine had never been a compulsively tidy person, but this level of disarray was unlike him.

Then there was the man himself, depositing his pistol on the nightstand and taking a seat on the limp mattress. He was clad in a short-sleeved undershirt, one of those issued with civil service uniforms, and his left arm was done up in a cast held in place by a sling. His sleep pants, sporting a lively geometric pattern, hung loose on his hips; he seemed gaunt, cheeks sunken beneath a layer of stubble. Unkempt curls tumbled about his brow; as he swept them back with his hand, his forehead shone with a sheen of damp.

He smelled sour with perspiration, tinged with sickly-sweet kolto and an edge of something sharper. Vector’s gaze slid to the nightstand. Emptied stim syringes lay atop torn-open packages of dressings, set beside a half-filled pouch of glittery spice.

“Stars,” he breathed. “Cipher—”

“Can you double-check that’s locked?” Nine interrupted, pointing at the door.

Vector turned, examining the lock, then glanced back at his friend. “Arnav, what in the galaxy happened to you?”

Nine opened his mouth and shut it again, his hand curling into a fist in his lap. “...I left Intelligence.”

“You did what?” Vector strode up and dropped onto the bed, his killik companion crawling out onto his shoulder in alarm. “Why?”

“They fucked me over,” Nine spat, the fuzzy edges of his aura sparking. “Those sons-of-scum stabbed me in the back. I just spent two months in a living nightmare because apparently I was too fucking good at my job, too fucking competent to be trusted—”

“You were—what is it called? Burned?”

“No.” Nine gave a humorless laugh. “No, no, I was...I was raped. Mentally. You know how they experiment on prisoners, and—how do I even kriffing—”

He wiped at his nose, searching for words. “You ever had sleep paralysis? Where you wake up partially and you’re seeing things going on around you, and you can’t move?”

“We know of this, yes.”

“That, but you’re fully awake. They tell you to stay, and you’re frozen. They tell you to go, and—” He swallowed. “You’re trapped in your head watching it happen. Can’t even scream.”

He looked towards the wall. “SIS got the trigger word. I don’t know how—one of them’s on the lam, they’re saying he’s got some other allegiance—but frankly, I don’t give a kark. For my part, I’ve fixed it; I took a hit of the chemicals and rewired my own brain because I had no other choice. And no amount of begging on Keeper’s part is going to change the fact that the people whom I trusted, the people whose job it was to be my lifeline, to be there for me whilst I’m running about hostile territory, doing what they don’t even have the guts to do, put me in that position.”

His voice caught; he motioned frenetically at himself. “I gave them six years, Vector. Six years of my life! I was loyal, I was good, I saved thousands of people, and this—this is how they repay me. Fine work, Cipher, you piece of rubbish. None of that meant anything at all.”

#imperial agent #pravin winscliff ii #swtor #star wars the old republic #imperial agent spoilers #swtor spoilers #vector hyllus #wip wednesday #cipher nine's no good very bad day #he's having a Time

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monocytogenes · 9 months

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Word search tag game

Tagged by @nirikeehan! She gave me disdain, chop, benefit, finger, and mixture.

I, shockingly, could NOT find disdain. Like, hell, I went back through my Hux stuff and figured it'd be there somewhere on account of his, well, everything, but it wasn't.

Chop occurs in somewhat boring context in a yet-unnamed WIP about agent!Pravin's experiences through the denouement of Chapter 2. The SIS folks are starting to realize stuff is not working during their mission and don't know why yet (iiiiiit's Pravin)

He cracked the door, checking to see if the hallway was clear, then cautiously stepped off. Sighing, Saber leaned back in her seat, watching those rhythmic lights. True to his word, about fifteen minutes later, a faint, garbled bit of speech came back in reply—hampered, as expected, by the thick walls of the complex. “I can’t understand you; can you walk towards my position?” “—ry,” the voice said; after a good thirty seconds or so, his voice came through choppy but recognizable. “I’d have to—further—be a power failure—”

Benefit shows up in Seems Like a Real Gentleman, where Cassandra and Varric have to go to a literal Orlesian orgy to recruit hire inquisition!Pravin on as a contractor to the Inquisition:

“Huh,” Varric remarked in mild surprise. “Seems like a real gentleman.” Cassandra uttered a scoff of disgust. Stepping forward, she called, “Fidencio Frye?” The man raised his head, a loose curl tumbling over his brow. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” “We need to speak with you on a business matter,” she declared, in Common for Varric’s benefit. “In private.”

I seem to normally use finger in the plural but here's an instance where it appears in the singular in All the Times We've Said Goodbye, in the scene where the old minister and agent!Pravin talk business:

The former minister was dressed more casually than Pravin had ever seen him, in a leather jacket and scarf with a flat cap shading his face. He slid into opposite side of the booth, stripping his gloves finger by finger, and regarded Pravin expectantly. “Hello, Nine.”

Mixture shows up while inquisition!Pravin and Gaubert are talking politics in As With Any Shitshow:

“Have you heard about this Inquisition?” Pravin glanced up from his cup of tea, regarding the older man, who was reading the week’s copy of Le Royan through a pair of pince-nez. “What?” “Inquisition,” Gaubert repeated expectantly, sliding the paper across the table to him. “You heard about this?” Pravin squinted at the text through bleary eyes, lamenting again that the herbal mixture wasn’t coffee; the fighting might have slowed to a lull over the past few weeks, but merchant ships were still getting seized east of Val Chevin. Damn Gaspard and his stupid war. “So the Chantry’s finally doing something?”

#writing #ask meme #pravin winscliff ii #pravinquisition

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monocytogenes · 1 year

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✨Unusual OC Associations✨

Tagged by @nirikeehan--gonna do both versions of my boi Pravin cause his answers are actually different lol

Pravin Winscliff II (Cipher Nine)

Seasoning: Cardamom

Weather: Tropical, warm and breezy (ideally he is lounging on a beach on Rishi with a cocktail in hand, shades on and his shirt open ok)

Color: Violet, red or orange

Sky: Blue, clear and sunny

House Plant: I'd say something tropical and flowerless like a fern but his actual living situation probably has like 'bouquet of flowers he got from a fwb that is slowly rotting in its vase'

Weapon: Vibroknife

Subject: Drama!

Social Media: 100% he'd be a redditor. He's got like several different alts and goes on a bunch of extremely specific subreddits for art films and other cult media and gets into debates with people. Every now and again he posts angry opinions in r/worldnews or tells heavily edited stories of the crazier shit that's happened to him in r/askreddit to make people laugh. One of the alts becomes a meme at some point a la this dude and people regularly ping him in threads to get him to drop some dry, debatably truthful tale about something.

Make Up Product: Nail polish. Like the clear kind or a metallic shade with appropriate bisexual energy

Candy: Nougat

Fear: /gestures broadly at IA story Chapter 2

Ice Cube Shape: Shaved ice. Like in a blended margarita

Method of Long Distance Travel: Flying a ship! (Someday he's going to buy himself a yacht. He misses his cool James Bond car of a ship.)

Art Style: Whatever the fuck was going on in 70s interior design tbh

Mythological Creature: Something that can shapeshift, like a werewolf or kitsune

Piece of Stationary: Slightly stained hotel stationary from some moderately upscale but still sketchy place on Nar Shaddaa

Celestial Body: Mercury

Fidencio Frye (Pravin Talavera)

Seasoning: Nutmeg

Weather: Sunny and temperate, coastal Orlais in spring

Color: Red, blue, violet

Sky: A colorful sunset

House Plant: Something with long, dark leaves that have streaks of color, like this puppy.

Weapon: Stiletto dagger

Subject: Drama!

Social Media: Twitter. He's got a flattering review of a show he was in pinned at the top, which sports a photo of him singing to a woman during a romantic scene. Most of his feed is supportive retweets of other actors and questions from fans. There's a persistent rumor that he has a secret alt account that he uses to bait other users into saying shit that'll get them banned but no one's been able to verify that. He regularly links to his Instagram, which consists of backstage shots, rehearsal pics and the occasional candid selfie with friends. He follows Thalia and leaves her admiring comments on occasion. :)

Make Up Product: White foundation! As someone running around in Orlais pretending to be a commoner, he can't wear a mask, so he just does his face to popular beauty standards (which winds up looking pretty mask-like given his skin tone.)

Candy: Caramel

Fear: The mortifying ordeal of being knownnnnn

Ice Cube Shape: Whatever the current weird trend is in Orlais, really

Method of Long Distance Travel: In a carriage, preferably with an attractive companion to pass the time with ;)

Art Style: I place him aesthetics-wise around the 1630s, so Baroque art

Mythological Creature: I'm gonna be basic af and say phoenix on account of his whole 'killed my old self and made up a new identity' thing

Piece of Stationary: A nice piece of vellum with some rich noblewoman's heraldry on it

Celestial Body: Mercury

#ask meme #pravin winscliff ii #pravinquisition

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monocytogenes · 1 year

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AND PRANA: 10, 13, 38!!

(this is for the OTP asks and yes imma indulge you with your OTP)

10. Describe their first date.

Lol, I feel like this is one of those ships where they wind up in a lot of situations that look like dates, but it's really them talking about work stuff at a spaceport cantina or whatever so it doesn't really count.

I can picture Lana organizing something kind of archetypically romantic once they're both like 'I guess this is a Thing now', e.g. inviting him to a fine restaurant in some part of Imperial space where he's not going to get scrutinized. This of course entails her going like 'Pravin you need to wear a proper suit and not have your shirt half open' so he winds up in something like this, and then she shows up in a sexy cocktail dress. And yeah, they have this moment where she's like 'wow he cleans up really nicely' and he's like literally just realizing he's only ever seen her in robes and armor and is all 'oh fuck, tits.' And yeah, they order dinner and cocktails, he entertains her with some of his 'crazy shit that happened in the field' stories where he has to redact everybody's names, she talks about her life and they bond over both being the kids of rich businesspeople, and they knock back enough cocktails that she dares to grab him and make out with him after they leave. (I get some 'I'm an introvert who's kind of awkward about romance because I have intense feelings but don't want to come on too strong' vibes from her. Which is fine by Pravin because while he likes her as a person, she is still Sith, and he's treading a liiiittttle more carefully than he might otherwise.)

13. Who’s the bigger tease?

Honestly, I see the teasing being kind of mutual, lol. Pravin definitely starts out being the obnoxiously seductive one because he's Like That, but once Lana gets more confident in the relationship she dishes it right back to him. She can sense his emotions, so she pretty quickly figures out what works on him, haha. (Also, I have this hilarious headcanon that they try for a while to keep their banter and come-hither looks on the down low so Theron doesn't realize what's up, but it's really not discreet at all. At some point he's all 'oh for fuck's sake get a room' and Lana's kind of mortified, lol.)

38. Who is more sexually experimental? Who’s more vanilla?

This is a FASCINATING question, actually, and let me tell you why (under the cut because I'm going to talk details)--

Pravin, in spite of the inadvisable amount of sex he's out having, isn't really kinky at all. This is largely because while he's tried several kinky activities, it's all performance to him, and acting is basically what he does as a profession. He doesn't want to have to plan; he wants his actions and reactions to be as chill and natural as possible, even if his partners don't necessarily know his real identity.

While this wasn't really a factor before the events of his class story, he also came out of that whole thing with some very particular hangups about being restrained, feeling like he can't breathe or see, and the like. For instance, being manhandled in the throes of passion is okay, but do not tie him down; he's either going to emotionally dissociate or have an anxiety attack.

Lana, on the other hand, I see as sexually adventurous (which isn't that unusual among Sith.) I feel like she's had some but not a lot of sexual experience, and her first encounter with Pravin ends up being really nice because he's very communicative and, well, fucking great at pleasing a woman. She comes out of it all like 'oh man, there's a whole world of things I could try with this guy' and knowing how slutty he is, I imagine she winds up a little surprised when he does respond with some hard no's, lol.

From a kink perspective I imagine she's a dominant-leaning switch; while Pravin doesn't really occupy that framework, I think he's usually the giving partner in his encounters on account of his experience and rather enjoys when one of them takes initiative and he can occupy a more receptive role. And yeah, he'll indulge her desires to get a little rough with him or inflict a bit of pain on her if she's feeling that, so long as she also gets him off the way he wants.

(Another funny headcanon: they've had a few mishaps here and there. Lana totally tried to throw some degrading dirty talk at him on a whim once and he started losing his shit laughing and completely ruined the mood. There also was totally an incident where she got so into topping that she started pinning him down with the Force and he freaked out, wrenched an arm free and struck her--cue an abrupt stop and profuse apologies from both parties.)

#ask meme #pravin winscliff ii #swtor #star wars the old republic

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monocytogenes · 1 year

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{ The infamous Cipher Nine. You’re number three on the list. —

— I’m a little insulted you think there are two people in the galaxy more dangerous than me. }

#welcome back to aesthetic bullshit hour #pravin winscliff II #imperial agent #cipher nine #swtor #star wars the old republic

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monocytogenes · 2 years

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WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @nirikeehan! I’m still working on my imperial agent fic (I’ve got like one more scene; endings are hard) and figured I could share an earlier bit.

This is from Lana’s perspective--she tracks my agent, Pravin, down to Rishi and finds him running around under an alias, hanging out with a bunch of criminal types, doing stims and seducing a local. He is...decidedly less than enthused.

(Fun fact: Lana’s canonically afraid of heights. There’s a line in the expansions where Theron gives her shit about it. XD)

Spoilers for the agent’s Shadow of Revan arc under the cut.

The human sighed, pulling out a stim. Pravin accepted it, spritzing his forearm with disinfectant from the attached canister, then slid the needle beneath his skin with practiced ease.

Lana drew closer. As his thumb worked the plunger, their gazes met.

“Hello,” he greeted. “Do I know you?”

His tone was nonchalant, but he must have read something in her expression; she could sense an edge of wariness.

“No, but I’m pleased to finally meet you,” she said. “You’re a hard man to track down.”

The human had begun regarding her as well, with strange eyes that were entirely black, as though his pupils had bled out through the scleras. He seemed uneasy, too, but comparatively difficult to read; his presence in the Force seemed murky, somehow, like the tip of an iceberg cresting above dark waters.

“Am I?” Pravin capped the stim.

Lana switched on her datapad, showing the photo of himself to him. “Didn’t have much to work with.”

Pravin studied the image, the line of his shoulders stiffening. The mirialan regarded it in amused interest.

“Is that you? You look so...proper.”

“Unfortunately so,” he said, his friendliness giving way to annoyed resignation as his glance flickered back to Lana. “What do you want?”

“We need your help,” she told him.

“Oh, really?” he sniffed. “How cute. Too bad I’m not interested.”

Lana’s brow furrowed. “I haven’t even told you what this is about.”

“Doesn’t matter; you’re wasting your time.”

“Please, just hear me out—”

“What’s going on?” the mirialan asked.

The fear in her tone seemed to make him reassess the situation—Lana saw his eyes dart about the room, then return to his date. An apologetic smile bloomed on his lips. “Nothing to worry about, love. Old business partner begging for a favor.”

“Are you sure—”

“Please,” Lana repeated, more firmly. “We need you; I don’t want to—”

“To what?” Pravin stepped in and bent to her ear, his soft smile lingering as his tone sunk to something low and dangerous. “Ruin my night? You’ve already done that. I don’t want any trouble, you understand?”

“Are you threatening me?” she whispered, incredulous.

“I’m telling you that if you touch anyone here—”

“What? No!” she hissed. “I don’t want to—I just want to talk, alright? It’s—it pertains to one of your old colleagues—”

“Sure it does.”

Frustrated, she stared at him, beaming the name into his mind. Shara Jenn.

Pravin blinked.

“Fairal?” the human man said, moving closer.

“Fine,” Pravin muttered to Lana, straightening. “I’ll listen to your spiel.”

He returned to the mirialan, kissing her lips. “I’m going to go iron this out; I promise I won’t be long.”

“Be careful,” she told him. “I’ll be here.”

Pravin went towards the door, beckoning Lana after him. The black-eyed man followed at their heels, depositing Pravin’s forgotten cocktail on a table as they left.

Pravin took a sharp turn in the opposite direction of the stairs, walking briskly to the end of the corridor. He drew up the sash of a partly-cracked window, climbing catlike over the frame; she hesitated as she realized he’d crawled out onto a rickety fire escape and was making for the ladder. Gathering her courage, she kept her gaze up and went after him, the steel rungs sticky with humidity beneath her hands.

As she crested the roof, she watched Pravin do a quick check of the perimeter to ensure they were alone, moving with tense efficiency. He returned to the center and sat down on the duracrete, propping a knee and resting his forearm against it. The other man settled beside him, crossing his legs.

“Is it safe to talk in front of your friend?” she asked Pravin.

“Yes. In fact, I insist.” He gestured to the other man. “Vector’s my insurance; you try anything funny and you’ll have a whole nest of killiks on your heels.”

Lana lifted her eyebrows. “Our intel said Mr. Hyllus was dead.”

“Good,” Pravin said. “It was supposed to.”

Vector smiled. His hands were folded, but in the dim moonlight she thought she saw something move beneath his tunic.

She took a breath to speak, but Pravin cut her off. “First things first: I know you’re Sith Intelligence, but enlighten me—who are you and who exactly are you working for?”

“Lana Beniko. I answer to the Council, technically, and I’ve been working in collaboration with your former superior.”

“Which one?”

“The minister.”

“He’s retired; what the hell is he up to?”

“He and I have been working on recovering a number of high-value prisoners who were captured at Ilum. In the wake of Malgus’ treason we lost track of several experienced agents who had been providing onworld support; we’ve discovered that they were transported to Anaxes for trial by the Republic and are scheduled to be sent to Belsavis. We’re down so many personnel right now—we need those people, and there’s too many of them to retrieve through proposing prisoner exchanges. We’ve come up with a plan to intercept them en route but—”

“Are you telling me that you let Shara get captured by the Republic?” Pravin asked, incensed.

Lana nodded. “She’s among them, yes.”

“Why the fuck was she on Ilum?”

“We had to place someone absolutely loyal in charge of SIGINT down there after several high-ranking officers defected. Things were a mess; she was the best person we had available. My point is, though, we have a plan to get her and the others back, and we need a very, very good undercover with pilot training to carry that plan out. In other words: we need you.”

Pravin eyed her flatly. “Can’t you use one of your own?”

“The qualified staff we have are either already on critical assignments, captured, or dead. We’re stretched to the limit.”

Pravin turned to Vector, barking a short laugh. “Are you hearing this?”

“It sounds to us like a bad situation,” Vector supposed.

“It sounds like the exact sort of mismanagement I’d expect from the Sith,” Pravin snorted. “You make a bloody wreck of the place and now you’re left pulling the old man back into the game and groveling at my feet for help. Stars, it’d be funny if it wasn’t so predictable.”

#WIP Wednesday #imperial agent #cipher nine #shara jenn #watcher two #vector hyllus #pravin winscliff II #lana beniko #swtor keeper #Star Wars The Old Republic #swtor #writing

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monocytogenes · 2 years

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Alrighhhht @nirikeehan let's goooo (full sith warrior and imperial agent class story spoilers below)

Pravin:

2. What is your muse’s kill count?

This is a really interesting question, actually, because I see it as considerably less than ingame. Pravin's ex-navy but I don't think he killed anyone during his naval service (he wasn't a fighter pilot; he flew recon and transport missions) and while I actually think he does more years of service in Imperial Intelligence than the class story represents, he spent most of that time on covert/undercover work--more social engineering, less murder. There's a line Keeper says about the Hutta mission that's like "you used violence as a tool, not a crutch" and yeah--Pravin can and will kill when he feels he needs to, but he usually has better, less drastic methods at his disposal.

(I have a headcanon as well that ImpInt would poach a lot of military SpecOps folks to handle wetwork; Pravin went with some on the mission to the Star Cabal's headquarters. These partnerships worked fine for the most part, but there was also a fair amount of jurisdictional bullshittery on the part of the military COs who'd see it as overriding their chain of command.)

Anyway, here's some people who I do see Pravin having killed in his class story (and why):

The Red Blade (self-defense)

Three or four terrorists on Nar Shaddaa (self-defense when his cover was blown, then he killed the one that was a young recruit to keep news of his movements from getting out and felt bad about that)

Watcher X (Pravin tried to arrest him, they had a 'I'm not going back to jail' confrontation, he killed him in self-defense)

Kaliyo (executed her after he found out she'd sold information to criminals and endangered him; he'd clocked her type pretty much immediately and was more disappointed that she was stupid enough to try and get that over on him than anything. Standard punishment for treason in the Empire is death, so...)

Two assassins on Tattooine (self-defense; I see him as having snuck/manipulated his way through most of this assignment)

Kothe, Saber and Wheel on Quesh (pure fucking vengeance and the reason why he's on the SIS' most wanted list; he actually saved Chance to try and stay on the SIS' good side since he hadn't broken out of the restraints yet at that point)

Three or four folks Hunter sent after him (self-defense)

Two or three Cabal members (following orders while with a group of infiltrators)

Hunter (VEGENANCE. My headcanon of how this scene went was Hunter doing the 'let me show you one last thing' line, Pravin shooting him in the head, and then going "no" to his corpse. He was so fucking done at that point, oh man.)

Post-class story and before the start of my fic, Pravin also assassinates a few former Cabal members for personal vengeance/vigilantism reasons.

So yeah, his kill count is probably in the 20-30 range. He's not like, proud of that total; most of it was just a matter of survival. (He's a little proud of getting the better of Hunter and the Cabal members, though, not gonna lie.)

5. What is your muse’s biggest regret?

His life was so shaped by his time in ImpInt that it's difficult for him to imagine it taking another course, but he regrets not having the courage to see if he could've made it as an actor. He shelved that idea because his parents found it disreputable--the only performing art they might've been okay with would've been opera, and he didn't have the voice for that. It certainly would've been far less traumatic than what he wound up doing for a living, and it's a path that's closed to him now that he has to keep a low profile.

9. What is one thing that would break your muse?

Gonna pick something he's worried about in my fic: Shara telling him she's disgusted by the life he's leading now and not wanting anything to do with him.

Pravin has some serious baggage in general around the prospect of people seeing him as a disappointment--as a kid growing up in a wealthy family, he was simultaneously emotionally neglected and given the whole 'don't you dare embarrass us' treatment. He's spent much of his life putting up faces and swallowing feelings others might find unpleasant, seeking validation while avoiding the mortifying ordeal of being known, and while the mind control thing gave him the courage to pull a 'yes I'm angry, fuck you, and I deserve to live life on my own terms', he still isn't actually...dealing with the trauma that left behind. He's kind of having a midlife crisis and refusing to acknowledge it for what it is.

He's in love with Shara and she's always been good at seeing through his bullshit, so he's afraid that she'll pick up on all the messiness of his drug addiction, loneliness and lack of a real career plan and find him too changed, too unlikeable, too pathetic. If this brilliant woman who's been to hell and back with him sees him that way, well--maybe he is objectively unlikeable and pathetic.

So yeah, that would wreck him.

Isra:

3. What is your muse’s biggest fear?

The people she cares about dying because of her--because she's not strong enough or quick enough or smart enough, because she makes a mistake that puts them in danger. Much like Marr, Isra is very much a proponent of 'with strength comes responsibility'--she believes her job in the natural order of things is to protect and defend her country and its citizens. Failing to do that would thus not just be a personal tragedy, but her own failure to be worthy of her titles and fame, which she's worked for years to earn. In spite of all her apparent confidence, she still deals with that nagging fear that she's not quite as strong and talented as she needs to be, as well as the deep-seated dread of an orphan who always felt a bit out of place--that the family she's chosen for herself isn't something she'll be able to keep.

Because of this, I headcanon that when Draahg attacked her crew, she brutally murdered him outright in the spaceport, ending their duel by bashing his face in with the hilt of her saber. (The scene's depicted in this fic, and it's one of the few times Quinn sees her go absolutely apeshit on an opponent.)

14. What was the most traumatic moment in your muse’s life?

Baras trying to crush her to death in that mine.

It was legitimately an instance where she thought she was going to die--not on a battlefield taking out enemies of the Empire, but at the hands of her piece of shit master who didn't even have the courtesy to face her. Not after reaching the peak of her career and powers, but while still stuck doing the dirty work of said Piece of Shit, all because she was too good at her job. Isra, who'd done her utmost to prove herself in a society that hadn't even admitted her species to their academies for years, who had cut her way through swaths of soldiers while male officers questioned the idea of her even having a place in combat--this was how she was bound to go out?

She saved herself--and Pierce, who jumped on her to try and shield her--by holding the tunnel's walls and roof in place with the Force but went into her wound points strained herself so badly in the process that she lost consciousness and wound up bedridden for days. While most of the relatively horrible stuff she'd see in battle didn't mess with her mental health because the euphoria of the dark side kept her brain from processing it as traumatic, she does have some PTSD from this incident. Explosive blasts can trigger her a bit (though she usually encounters them in the context of using dark side powers and can kind of channel the fear off that way) and she struggles with claustrophobia, both in legitimately cramped spaces or very dark rooms where she can't get an easy sense of scale.

16. If your muse could talk to one person they’ve lost, who would it be?

Her mother.

Isra lost her mom when she was around five or six years old--old enough that she can kind of remember her. She was a zabrak woman who had been a merchant crewman and wound up stuck on Bothawui when the war interrupted trade; she turned to sex work to make a living and conceived Isra as a result.

Isra wound up spending much of her life in the care of adoptive sith parents who genuinely loved her but also strove to dissuade her from looking too alien--an impulse that came from a place of valid concern in a speciesist empire, but that also made her feel ashamed and unworthy. She started deconstructing that after bonding with a zabrak teacher at the boarding school she attended as a teen and eventually took steps to reclaim her heritage, getting traditional tattoos, building on the zabraki that she'd barely spoken since childhood, and no longer hiding her horns in her hair. She also began going by her mother's surname, Taluwe, in social settings, rather than her legal surname Hyrak (the name of her adoptive parents.)

She doesn't know that much about her mother beyond her general circumstances, but she knows she was loved--she's always been able to sense emotions, after all, and aside from the intangible, there's documentation related to her adoption where other refugees attested to how she was raised and protected. Given the choice, she'd want to talk to her, to tell her that her unapologetically zabrak daughter got the name Taluwe lauded by the Dark Council. To tell her that her husband, brought up in a venerable old Imperial family, asked to take her name as his own. To tell her that her life is good and full, even though it came about out of hardship.

#meme #characters #pravin winscliff II #isra taluwe

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monocytogenes · 1 month

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Isra "can and has killed a man with her bare hands" Taluwe, Empire's Wrath, and Pravin "this wastrel" Winscliff II, Cipher Nine

#i love how genuinely spooky sith eyes look when mocked up in a good character creator #and yeah that body had me like. i see why quinn was all 'she could step on me and I'd thank her'#isra taluwe #pravin winscliff ii #the blorbos #dd2 character creator

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monocytogenes · 2 months

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△ Has Pravin (DA and SW) ever killed someone who didn't deserve it or kill someone on accident? How did he feel about it?

SWTOR Pravin: 7/10 on this (I think he'd be willing to tell this to certain people, circumstantially, but...)

"Well, the thing with espionage is that it's generally not that violent, despite what the holos imply. Most of it is just networking. Building and leveraging relationships to gain access to people, places and information. And when you're undercover and casualties happen, that usually means something's gone terribly awry.

...There was this one instance. Had my cover blown on Narsh whilst infiltrating a terrorist cell. It was this kid--had to be twenty years old at most, gang-banger mixed up in something well over his head.

I had him on the ground, disarmed. I remember he started begging. Crying. I... [a pause] ...I couldn't risk it. Not there, not then. He'd seen my face.

I must've been upset because they made me do counseling in the debrief. I don't know if that helped; I just tried to put it out of mind. I still dream of him, sometimes. Less so than Hunter and Kothe and the hell they put me through, but every now and again."

DA Pravin: 8/10 hi

"I don't style myself as a killer, and that's on purpose. Intellectually, it's beneath me; practically, it's much too dangerous. I work to account for many possibilities, to avoid situations where I'm likely to encounter a fight, but it...hasn't always been possible.

What gets me is the futility of it. You can't be willing to lay your life down for petty power-plays; there's no glory in that, no great purpose. And yet, when it's me and one of those young, stupid bards in a room, they panic and--and what can I do? I do what I have to do.

They don't deserve it, but it's self-defense. Maker forgive me, it's self-defense.

...Forgive me."

#oh i forgot this in my drafts #have some angst #ask meme #pravin winscliff ii #pravinquisition

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monocytogenes · 3 months

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HELLO. For DA Pravin for the not-so-nice character asks: betrayal, break, monster. For SWTOR Pravin: future, ghost, mistake. :D

yes thank

Pravin Talavera

Betrayal: Betraying people is part and parcel of bard work, honestly. He carries out many of his contracts by befriending and seducing his way into the trust of a target or someone close to them, then using them to get what he wants--access, intel, advantage. He's careful not to go too hard on someone who might be useful to him later, but he's certainly not above feigning empathy or romantic attachment and breaking hearts in the process. (The one thing he generally doesn't fake is physical attraction--honestly, he's so egregiously bi that he rarely finds himself in a situation where he'd need to, lol.)

He hasn't been personally betrayed, given that betrayal requires a baseline of trust, and the list of people he trusts--really trusts--is a short one. When another bard tries to get the drop on him, that's just business; when a noble tries to pull one over on him, he can generally see it coming from a mile away and prepare accordingly. He does rather feel as though his experience of the Blight was a betrayal in a political sense--Loghain turning his back on his countrymen, shirking his duties for personal gain, letting people like Pravin and the Teigs fight a losing battle, waiting for reinforcements that would never come. And the pain of what he lost there shaped his outlook profoundly, inciting paranoia well beyond the practical demands of bard life.

Break: The last time he was really, really messed up, was when he was injured in the Blight and lost the guy who'd been a father figure to him, and I don't think he got to process that grief much at the time. It was a life-or-death situation where he had to get the dude's family out--he wound up on a cross-country trek with an untreated broken arm, and it was honestly only through teamwork and his own guile that he didn't get murdered, too. I imagine he put on a brave face for them, but had a couple of emotional breakdowns when he finally got some time alone.

These days, he tends to pass into icy determination when he's truly upset by something--to Bottle That Shit Right Up feelings-wise and do what he needs to do. He is, after all, both an actor and a bard--appearances are everything, anger makes you stupid, and stupid gets you killed. Gaubert's probably seen him the most unguarded out of anyone, though--for instance, they share a bed in their flat in Val Chevin, so Gaubert's witnessed him wake agitated from PTSD nightmares. When Gaubert got injured, between the immediate anger and cold vows of vengeance, they also had a heart-to-heart and shed some tears.

(Pravin's definitely bound to get rather fucked up over the Josephine romance, though. ;p)

Monster: Pravin wouldn't call himself monstrous, but he doesn't think he's a good person.

He's met monsters, literal and figurative. He's worked for sociopaths, chevaliers who keep elven teeth as trophies, dukes who lash their servants with glee, marquises who suggest the murder of a child with nary a bat of an eyelash. He's witnessed the work of bards who get off on the violence, the thrill of the hunt. He's killed a few, when the opportunity's arisen.

He's not like them, he knows. But he's still a schemer, a deceiver, making money off wrecking people's lives. He knows his Chant; he knows the Maker looks harshly upon men like him. And he can't repent, not truly, not when he's financially supporting Gaubert and Lautilde and tapping out of the Game would leave them all on unpredictable earnings. For all his careful contingency plans and savvy, he has no exit strategy there.

He's not a good person, and he feels he has to accept that.

(He can't.)

Pravin Winscliff II

Future: Losing the people he cares about--namely Shara and Vector.

He's a wanted man rubbing shoulders with criminals on the regular, but he's not terrified by that, all things considered. He's faced hell, really. He knows how to resist torture. He's reasonably confident that he could finagle his way out of an arrest or break out of prison if he needed to. There's nothing they could do to him that would top what he's already endured--unless his enemies came for the people he loves.

Reuniting with Shara really gave his life direction at a time when he had little purpose beyond vengeance and was desperately trying not to think about his choices, about the home he left behind. And Vector's always been there, through his worst lows, meeting him in his mess and gently nudging him towards better things. He'd gnaw off his own arm for either of them, and even when he doesn't care as much about his own well-being beyond paranoia-fueled compulsions, he does take pains to keep those people safe, whether it be through shelling out for encrypted communication methods, plotting out evasive travel routes, or careful vetting of the places they'll stay together.

Ghost: Pravin has a shitload of untreated PTSD, more than his DA counterpart: hypervigilance, vivid nightmares, triggers, the whole shebang. Sometimes he wakes panicking from some horrid recollection and can't parse where he is for a few minutes. Sometimes he's watching an artsy holofilm and has to nope out because the surrealist elements look a bit too much like the hallucinations he endured.

He's haunted a bit, too, by some of the things he did as an agent--not so much the big decisions but the shortcuts, the little horrors, the choices under stress that had seemed necessary at the time but aren't so clear-cut in retrospect. He killed that young gangster on Nar Shaddaa in the interest of covering his tracks. He tortured a guy for intel once. He has a merciful streak that rests in the memories of those experiences more solidly than in objective notions of right and wrong, not wanting to relive them.

He lives with all that through alternately trying to ignore it and doing drugs. He slid into a stim addiction during the mind control arc as a means of staying awake and alert when he was sleepless with anxiety and never got over the chemical dependency; I imagine he's trying to now, for Shara, but the withdrawal is rough and getting high is just easier than enduring inconvenient feelings.

Mistake: Leaving the Empire at the end of his class story.

It's not an impulsive decision; it's logical enough for him--he tries to resign immediately after the events of Chapter 2, fucks off to Hutt Space, and only gets convinced by Vector to return because having actual untreated brain damage isn't really conducive to one's survival as an international fugitive. He and the Minister more or less broker a deal where he'll get care and won't be charged with desertion in exchange for him helping to hunt down Hunter. It's in ImpInt's interest to contain knowledge of such a horrendous OPSEC breach to a handful of people, after all, and Pravin's one of the few who's aware of it.

The matter of his resignation gets tabled at that point; a 'we'll address that when we're done putting out this fire' thing. And then, well. Intelligence falls apart.

By the time Pravin's future comes to the fore again--when Hunter's dead and most of the Cabal's leadership is taken out--it's not clear what'll become of the agency. He's just run an unsanctioned op with the Minister, who himself isn't sure whether a career's worth of accumulated blackmail is going to spare his neck at the end of it. While Pravin's probably going to escape the heat--especially given that the Minister can play the "I sure did coerce him into this using his keyword which is totally still active" card--it's entirely likely that Pravin's going to find himself on some shit assignment helmed by some idiot Sith lord again, like he did on Corellia. And as far as resignation is concerned--there's a war on. Whoever's calling the shots would be stupid to let a valuable asset like him leave.

He could stay, weather the fallout, and see what happens. But he's so, so done at that point. Exhausted, embittered, sick of the bullshit.

So he goes, knowing that he's burning his bridges, that his home country will never be home again. He goes, leaving Shara behind. But it's fine. He's got Vector, he's got old contacts in Hutt Space, and espionage is a skill in high demand in those shadier climes of the galaxy. It's fine. He's fine.

"I’m so good at lying that I can even lie to myself and believe it. I can convince myself time and time again that I’ve got my shit together, that I’m better off in every way, when—I don’t know what I’m doing."

But it's not the grand walk into the sunset he wanted. He still has the PTSD. He finds that he misses his country, his friends from Intelligence, the woman he was in love with (despite all his protests to the contrary.) He misses having purpose beyond his own immediate desires and a vengeance sidequest. What's the point of freedom if you're sad and lonely and don't know what to do with yourself?

It takes Lana tracking his ass down and recruiting him into a mission to rescue Shara for him to even hit the point of admitting that he maybe isn't 100% okay with his choice, because it's frankly a sunk cost thing after a while and he knows there's no way back for him unless he's specifically proffered one by someone in leadership. And yeah, while he continues to be all 'but my freedoms' except where his romantic relationship is concerned, I dooooo think he's going to end up more and more entangled with SithInt as time goes on, lol.

#ask meme #pravinquisition #pravin winscliff ii #my man's a mess and i love him

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