From SuspireWiki

Historically Speaking

1954

Breathing and screaming when the doctor smacked my rear, I was born. I couldn't tell you my thoughts on the matter at that time. Carcosa was a different place then, still in the process of dreaming big, I was part of the population explosion - congratulations to me.

1960

I join the public school system. What a mistake. If I'd had a choice in the matter, I would have much preferred not to live with the decision of public schooling in Carcosa. If you think public schooling is poor in general, then you should know that public schooling in ethnic neighborhoods is generally... worse. I was luckily too young to know any better.

1970

I see someone die for the first time. It was someone I didn't know, but I knew who it was that killed him, local boys trying to prove their mettle to the gangs. Initiation. It was the basketball courts in broad daylight. Arrogant punks. They knifed a kid until he was cold right during school hours, I was taking a letter from one of my classes to another one when I saw them. Luckily, they didn't see me.

Later, when the police showed up to ask questions of the student body, they got the tapes of the area and happened to see me. When I was pulled in for questioning, I wouldn't speak to the officers. It'd long been ingrained into me not to trust the authorities; they always wanted ill from us. I wouldn't help them.

I should've.

On my 16th birthday I got a car, but it wasn't from my parents. In fact, I didn't know who it was from initially. It wasn't anything special, really, but it was wheels and I wouldn't have been able to get one on my own. So, I didn't get rid of it like my father wanted. I was one of the only 16 year olds with a car at that school - it was awesome.

1971

Approached by the same people I saw do an initiation the year before, they said they paid me back for not ratting them out. I said it was something I'd have done any time, and they told me that they wanted to give me a job, but that I'd have to join them. I asked them then about the guy I'd seen them take out, and they told me it wasn't an initiation at all, but that he had turned traitor and broke one of their oaths.

I declined to join them.

A few weeks later, they approached me again, and this time they had baseball bats. When I declined the second time, they beat me enough so that I had two broken ribs.

Two weeks later, they came back with baseball bats. This time they had a friend of mine. They beat him just like they'd beaten me, then they beat me again for good measure. They said the next time they'd bring my mother.

I agreed.

1972

I've long sworn my 36 oaths by now, and I've long been categorized as a 49 (it's a soldier) for the triads; I haven't been given anything too important, because of how I was initiated, but my break comes. There's a house in the developing part of Cabbagetown that has some amazing vehicles in it. I'm not much of a car thief, but we've been paid a lot of money to go pick up this old t-bird.

They send two of us, one's the lookout, one's the sparker (the one who does the work) and we get in no problem past the security systems. Back in the 70's, security kind of was "iron gate" and "dog", we tranq'd the dog, slid open the gate and got the car. Too easy, really.

Congratulations, you've gained prestige.

After that, I had the fast track, and I suddenly didn't really care about how I was initiated anymore. We were marketing heroin and my pay finally became "long" (long pay never gets taken away so long as I stay in the good graces). After I have to take part in subjecting a traitor to the myriad of knives, I get a plane ticket to New York for a meeting over New Years.

1973

I get back to Carcosa. Now, my life is suddenly a lot more complicated. I'm no longer a 49, now... I'm a lot more responsible. I'm a Straw Sandal and I've got to deal with being the messenger, as well as dealing with the endless bullshit of gang fights.

Having dropped out of school, I was still never not busy. You'd be amazed just how many fights are actually prevented from occurring; you'd think these kids had nothing better to do with their time than use their pieces. People who use blades still are more honorable. That's law.

1974

Luckily, with my new position, it keeps me out of direct trouble. Carcosa police occasionally get a hair up their asses and decide they haven't made enough riff-raff arrests to keep up their public image. The southside Chinatown gets sacked by the police. Rumors fly about the blacks, hispanics and whites, but really... it's just because there was an idiot in charge.

Not me, I just work here. I count my lucky blessings, too.

Unfortunately, I do get picked up for a misdemeanor assault for spitting on an off-duty cop that picked a fight in one of our places. I wound up put away for just a couple months for that, but friends pulled strings and I was released for good behavior. As soon as I was out, I went and carved an outline of a triangle on the chest of that cop, so he wouldn't forget.

Why would I kill him when he could serve as a living memory of stepping too far out of line? Exactly. Victims serve their purposes only if they live to tell about it.

1975

I'd been working closely with a smuggling group because of my earlier work. I knew the best docks for offloading people, and they were still getting their feet wet. Pier 52 was the normal spot, but something kind of went horribly wrong. I'm not sure what it was, but the group got spooked, and when a bunch of short fuses get spooked, well...

All I know is that there were a couple others who showed up. They weren't a part of the plan, and efficiency is key, myself and another tagged up and approached this guy once he was alone and not leaving. We were going to make it short and sweet because we were on a time deadline, but my "partner" up and fled just when he was spoken to. Coward.

It was kind of surreal, looking at it from how I saw it then. I pulled the trigger of the little six piece, no more than a foot from the man's head and it hit him, blood and brain matter and bone splattered the wall behind him. I expected him to slump, but he just... looked at me.

Now, I'd seen some fucked up things in my short time with the triads, but someone getting a bullet between their eyes and standing there looking pissed off was a first. I was going to scream, but he said to be silent, and I was.

All planned that was. Apparently I was part of a deal with a demon. He needed someone who could manage some part of "observation" and they needed access to some sort of... well, I never did find out. I died and things became a whole lot different for me.

I still think I died too young.

1976

Life's ... well... Death's kind of a drag. You see, there's this terrible thing that's required, and of which I have little, internally. It's called patience. I don't really much care for all the kabbalah or whatever Alexander Castillo does in the Ordo Dracul, and I've certainly not got the patience to strive for it myself.

There's other things I want. Things I like to look at from afar. Things I want to touch, things I could never have before.

Like I said, I'm not patient, but I try not to show it on the outside. Alexander noticed, of course, and finally when he asked if I actually cared about his covenant, I gave him the answer he likely dreaded: no. Maybe he thought after a year I'd have come around, but I just... it wasn't right for me. It was too obscure. So, he released me.

It wasn't too long that Josephine took an interest. Now that I'm older and wiser, I know I was basically already hopping in the pan for that cooking. I don't really regret it. I bit, hook, line and sinker, and got accepted not too long afterwards. Money, respect, power. This is what I wanted, esoteric hobgoblin bullshit be damned.

One of the major reasons I chose to join up so quick was when my friendship and influence I'd cultivated over time from my time running through things took a hit. Initially, I wasn't sure what happened at all, then I figured it out: Landon Merrick had decided, for whatever reason, to kick me right in the face and let me know that I'm released, which means I'm free game. Prick. However, at the time, it really wasn't a good idea to pick a fight in return with ancilla Ventrue of the city (and as it later turns out, one of the ones to survive to become one of the elder ones later on...) so I just let it go. After all, what could I have done, anyway?

1977

Patrick White, a snobbish young Gangrel, childe of Joseph Fayweather, was assigned to my mentorship. To say I really liked him would be a lie, but he was my teacher and I needed to learn. Personally, then, I just wanted the money. I probably should have paid more attention.

1978

I'm three weeks from my manumission and White disappears. Three weeks! I'm still far too young to not realize it's not all about me.

After everyone else starts disappearing, too, the council elects to go ahead and handle my affair. It's not as glamorous as it should have been, but suddenly there's a problem in the city and they just don't have the time and places to spare. Let alone getting people to agree to meeting all at the same place. Paranoid, yes, but as it turns out... very deserved.

1984

After Anabelle Lee died, I knew I had my chance. You know what they say, one man's loss is another man's gain. Sure, a young Kindred died, but a lot of other Kindred had died too, so what's one more? Heartless, I guess, but I'd realized by that time that I was getting nowhere quick in this new fancy society that I was a part of, and all the work was going to other, more "experienced" and "oath-worthy" individuals. So, I decided to break the mold.

I approached Ainsworth to give my condolences and all that, then I dropped the bomb, a quiet hint that if he desired it, I'd swear an Oath of Defense to him in exchange for a little bit of a better view of my own abilities if it came down to it. I could get my own ghouls and people, I didn't want something so easily and readily available. It was sort of a gamble, but hey, scared money doesn't make any. He accepted and I was relieved.

1986

I got the call one night that Santos (shit, I don't think he actually had a name) was planning to make a move against Ainsworth and started by burning down one of his havens. Shit. There goes the good will I'd been trying to get with the elders via that goddamn oath. I take a few after the call to collect my thoughts. He's not dead, he just wants Santos gone. I can do that.

It took me about a week, but no one can evade us Chinese guys, you know? We know where the money is. Even the movies have it right. Santos was burrowing in the fucking Undercity of all places, along with a pair of ghouls, but only staying one night at a time down there. Psychotic fool. We went down, armed to the teeth, when he was spotted heading down and took care of the problem. The fight wasn't long - it never is - and as soon as body-hit-floor, I was out of there. I never did like the blasted Undercity, it rubbed me the absolute wrong way at the best of times. I'd heard too many wild-ass-stories for them not to at least have an iota of truth.

After that was done, Ainsworth released me from my oath to him, via success, and that's when I chose to embrace. You know, kind of like a present to myself and my ego during all this tumult and bullshit: I needed someone to be a sidekick, at least until I released them. It was a good idea, you know, two being better than one? Well, the good idea was not well liked by the powers that be in the Invictus. Really, it started off a whole couple years of glowering, but more about that in a second.

Basically, I decided I was going to embrace, and no one - not even Josephine - were going to convince me otherwise. After all, I had the perfect plan to determine if someone were survivable or not... Basement. Check. Padlock. Check. No windows. Check. Scent of blood, but no meat. Check. Boar. Check. One small knife. Check. Silvia Bancroft, the recent embracee. Check.

You know, looking back on this method of finding out if someone was able to survive or not, it might not have been a good idea. But hey, it worked, and that's all that mattered. At least I wasn't running around worrying about my childe getting massacred every two seconds.

Really, though, I should have at least had a little respect for my elders. I think at that time I was old enough not to be learning the ropes anymore, and I felt comfortable, like I could do anything. You know the point where you're like "hey, I'm awesome, I could do anything I want!"? Yeah, that's about where I was. Man, it's a good thing luck was on my side, because that would have been such a waste of effort if not.

It put me in the doghouse with the Invictus, though.

1987

I knew they were going to pull that trump card at some point. I think everyone knew it, but no one figured they'd quarter us off into a small portion of the city. Hell, didn't they realize half of us were trying to kill the other half? Maybe they did. Maybe that's why they did it.

I was located in Chinatown with some investments into Hive Ward still around this time, so it wasn't like I could just pack up and go as they wanted us to. So, I thought about it for awhile and decided I'd hire someone not too worried about moving in and out to carry some of the weight. So, I asked around about some of the runners and I got back "Lili Wu, or one of her people". My luck: it's a Carthian broad. So, I call her up, but she says she doesn't handle that personally anymore, but can arrange for it. We work out an arrangement that's amicable, until I can viably move some of my things into the Hive Ward areas. She gets paid, I don't break one of my 36 oaths, everyone's happy.

1993

Ninety-three rolls around and I'm looking to expand my horizons again. The Invictus wasn't lying when it said it had the means to make oneself fantastically rich, but me? I'm always wanting more. I didn't want to be classified as just "another Chinese with a business made from gambling". I wanted something more, something no one'd likely be able to chart me as having my hand in.

So, when I heard about the movement to edge back into the Swamp, I decided that was the time and place to move on into a more legitimate business. I invested a good amount of money into the attempt to solidify the area, and even had part of a building partially created when the earth decided that was not to be part of a plan.

Fuck. A million dollars. Lost forever.

Going to take awhile to get over that, and it has.

1999

Things are starting to feel... wrong to me. I don't know, call it a sixth sense. I show up at an Elysium and the room goes silent - and it's all Sanctified and assorted supporters. So, I start sniffing around to find someone who's loyalty is a little purchasable.

I wound up stumbling onto the unfortunately named Sunshine and he says he knows a thing or two about what's going down. He wants a little money first, before he'll tell me. Call me paranoid, but I don't like forking over dough to someone I barely know at the hint of a possible bit of information. So, I tell him to fuck off.

Happens again, though. Like some sort of terrible Deja Vu. I walk in, the room gets silent and saccharine sweet. I know something is going on, so I contact Sunshine again, and I tell him I've got the money.

We meet up at the same place I died, which was his idea moreso than mine - the place still spooks me. He got his money, and I got my answer: Sure enough, they were planning a full takeover, and this time they had a couple Invictus on their side. For fuck's sake. I fortified my shit, and passed on the word to my childe and Ainsworth and prepared for the worst.

Sure enough. Just like Sunshine said, it happened.

2000

Call it understanding how Crones get off of their "tribulation" thing, but I decided to embrace again. After all, Silvia worked out so well, you know? So, I did it again. This time, I went for something more close to me than the moneyed white-girl, and I was asked for a favor.

What can I say? I pay my debts, even partially Masquerade Breaching as they may be. I sought out Quang and didn't give him much of a chance to argue. After all, if he was strong enough to survive, he'd surely be able to make the best of his new surroundings. Call it trial by fire - or, if you're of a more paganistic bent, call it tribulation.

I can only guess as to what was going on in Quang's mind when he woke up from his Dominate-induced sleep and then a boar was sorting around nearby him. I can only guess it because I know what I thought.

I guess I was looking forward to another branch on the Kien Zhao tree, another "Ha!" in the face of Josephine... I would actually bet that I was that petty then. Hell, I didn't have anything else to do around then, it wasn't like I was Prince or anything.

I suppose after our initial "WTF" stage was over, we got along alright, but I quickly figured out that he just wasn't going to fit in with the Invictus. You know, I'm pretty sure that traditionally, I was supposed too be mad, feel dishonored, whatever, but I really didn't. I mean, I half feel like it's actually a good thing that sire lured him away to the Dragons.

The most annoying part? Josephine's smug little smile when she found out the news.

2002

Oh, what the fuck. When I said I wanted to get in good with the remaining elders with that oath I didn't mean I wanted to be the ceremonial lamb to the damn slaughter. Bloody "election" is what they called it. I totally said no. Not after what happened to Jurgens, no way, nuh uh.

...

So, I'm Prince Zhao now. I'm looking at my hands in the mirror, blurry things they are, and at my skewed circus-styled reflection that shifts and contorts with each muscle movement. What the hell am I doing? Why did I let them muscle me into it? I'm looking into the mirror to see if I can't see that huge neon sign over my head floating around that's flashing "Victim Here" over and over.

...

I need a plan, and I need it fast. I need it to work, and I need it to surprise everyone because I can't even trust my own covenant.

2003

It was no big surprise how pissed some people were when I made the decision. I heard murmurs of plans from Sunshine again about plans of continued destruction, even though the Sanctified were all but decimated. You know, I'll say that for them, they're terribly persistent. Unlike Jurgens, though, I wasn't going to ignore it and say I'd handle it when they came for me.

No, I struck first. I borrowed some ghouls for "security" from Josephine, Ivy Jane Carroll and others and took some of my own - I couldn't trust Kindred to know what I was going to do, because the Invictus had some of their membership still sympathetic to the Sanctified cause. It would have been too much of a risk, you know? The ghouls were all outfitted with guns and knives and given directions and addresses. One night. That's all it took. When I had them put onto the top of the Pillups building I didn't tell anyone.

The next night, people knew that Jasper Robbins, Peter Faulkner and his childe Rhonda Scarborough and then... the one who mattered: Lloyd Sanford, the Invictus, were all put out to die the day before. Some people were pleased, some were livid.

After that finally cooled down, Josephine and her cronies were incessantly nagging me to solidify Laws for the city. Why should there be laws? People know what is and what is not acceptable, innately! Tradition, she said. I can't argue with "Tradition", she knows this, I know this. So ultimately, I penned up laws, one of which became notoriously well-liked or ravenously hated: the law about the Sanctified, but not before I allowed people to openly submit their top bids to gain territories in the city. All of it was aimed to instigate a sense of some stability, and tourniquet the bleeding.

Some people were irritated about it, calling it "bribery" for domains, but who cares? They were just jealous they couldn't afford it themselves, or underbid too terribly, and jokingly, to be even taken seriously. Do I necessarily care who has the domain? Not at all. It's their problem to keep their people in line and in check. They can charge what they want, I don't feel like micromanaging the hunting and living of our small area - I have more things to worry about.

Alex Drake, wretched Nosferatu Carthian prefect from that wretched degenerate Nosferatu line, would not let it go. Unfortunately, I couldn't just ignore him, because of the fact that he lead the Carthians. We exchanged some barbs for awhile - in Elysium mostly - but finally I told him that it had to be done, and if not for it he wouldn't have his Domain, because the Sanctified would still be embracing shock troops to use in some kind of ridiculous childer army. That finally silenced the critics - they knew it was true.

2007

I was trying to get away and around from one part of the deal that those-who-knew-better worked out with our slavemasters (not that I’d ever voice that) wherein one of our kind are required to go to their farce courts as an “ambassador”. What a joke. Either way, I was ‘notified’ that as leader of “my people” and stable, I needed to continue the agreement.

How irritating. I dislike being told what to do.

Nevertheless, I started up by first sending sire, since he was salivating over wishing to go, then afterwards, when he came back and no one was killed, I was approached by Price. He wished to go to the next one, and well, there was no reason to not let him go after what he and I discussed. After that others requested to go, like Merrick, and Edwidge. After that, I got bored and secretly hoped that after I sent Josephine, she'd get mouthy and someone would, I don't know, turn her into a newt. No such luck, she was really bitchy after that for a couple of weeks though, so I'm not sure if it was worth it. A few other times I had to request, but not often.

After that started, I never received another notice. Pricks, how I hate them.

Boy's Toys

Gift from Josephine

Subaru Impreza WRX

狡诈的蛇 The Deceitful Serpent

Boy's Ink

Back Piece

Knuckles

Right Hand