Once I make my excuses and run the search, it does not take long before I find two names: Sebastien Messaline, Sr. and Sebastien Messaline, Jr. Messaline Senior died recently, and seems to have been an importer and exporter of rare goods. The genuine variety, mind you, and not the euphemism. Messaline Senior checks out as a fair, noble and honorable man, which may explain why he died broke.
Messaline Junior, on the other hand, needed a lot of money to pay off hospital bills and lots of other debts. I cannot tell what he did, as a lot of this is not recorded, but I am getting the impression that a helluva lot of money changed hands so that Messaline Junior would bring something highly illegal into the States. I do not know what this something is, but evidentally Sebastien himself bringing the stuff is not enough, because the manifest of the plane he was on says that there were two Messalines on board-Sebastien and Violette.
And Sebastien and Violette have the same birthday.
Twins. Well, no bets on which one we've got. What interests me is that the two are apparently identical. You don't get fraternal twins who are also identical twins. You can't. Two people who come from two different cells are not going to be doubles.
I find the answer online in a copy of an yearbook photo. Junior's name, ten years ago, was Vivienne Marie.
I am, I will admit, impressed. Everything I've found says that Junior has done everything in his power to become the kind of guy he wants to be. A business degree from a top-notch university. Fencing lessons. Gun club. All stuff that takes a lot of time and hard work. He just made one misstep, and that seems to have been more out of eagerness to pay off his dad's debts than anything else. It was stupid-don't get me wrong. But I have heard of worse reasons for doing stuff.
Also, I am beginning to get why Cesario did not mention that her name was Violette Messaline. Her plane did not crash, but it sure ended up in the middle of nowhere. And as of now, two passengers are accounted for.
The flight crew isn't.
Whether the guy connected to the rival Family was helpin' to fly the plane or whether he is just someone that Sebastien happens to know is not clear. But he seems determined to keep Sebastien alive. Maybe he is just a good and loyal friend-it happens--but I am going with "protecting his Family's investment."
It has been a long day, but I am feeling pretty satisfied, all things considered.
This was tricky, because I needed to supply a lot of backstory fairly quickly and I didn't want it to be an infodump. At the same time, I wanted to say something about Curio, because though he presents himself as a bodyguard and not a particularly well-educated one, he's a very shrewd and observant man with a very dry sense of humor. Here I had him do the research about Violette and Sebastien because, while he could have delegated the job without causing any problems, he's genuinely curious. He wants to find out.
The information was on a scanned yearbook page because no one remembers that yearbooks are documentation. But Curio thought of it. He's just that thorough.
As for Sebastien's original name--I had just finished re-reading Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, so the name Vivienne was fresh in my mind. I just put Marie after it because it's a very common middle name and, since the Messaline twins were from Quebec, I wanted the original middle name to be French but simple at the same time. (Sebastien has changed his middle name as well, naturally, and has adopted his father's middle name--Charles.)
I also had to explain how Violette and Sebastien could possibly look so much alike. I know that Half Identical Twins is a trope...but, for my own peace of mind, I had to make sense of it. The logical solution, as far as I was concerned, was that Sebastien was trans. I had known that since the beginning, but this was the big reveal.
I did have one person complain that Curio should have been more shocked by Sebastien and that he shouldn't have been so aware of the myriad possibilities with Cesario. This person felt that he was too politically correct for a Mafia member.
But for me, that was the point. Curio isn't a stereotype. He's not particularly fussed anything sex-related or gender-related, though he gets a trifle flustered by the OT4 at the end. He genuinely admires Sebastien for becoming the person he wants to be. I'm not sure he quite gets why Sebastien wants this--but he wishes Sebastien well. (And you'll notice that he never mentions Sebastien's past as Vivienne in the story. He'd say that that's Sebastien's business--it ain't his.)
The combination of exposition and character development was why I picked it, actually--because that's something I struggle with as a writer and you've done a fabulous job of it here. And trans!Sebastian does make so much sense.
I agree, too, with the way Curio reacts--we've seen throughout the story that he really doesn't care what other people do in their private time so long as it doesn't interfere with his job. His only real criticism of Orsino chasing Olivia is that it was giving Orsino problems.
Once I make my excuses and run the search, it does not take long before I find two names: Sebastien Messaline, Sr. and Sebastien Messaline, Jr. Messaline Senior died recently, and seems to have been an importer and exporter of rare goods. The genuine variety, mind you, and not the euphemism. Messaline Senior checks out as a fair, noble and honorable man, which may explain why he died broke.
Messaline Junior, on the other hand, needed a lot of money to pay off hospital bills and lots of other debts. I cannot tell what he did, as a lot of this is not recorded, but I am getting the impression that a helluva lot of money changed hands so that Messaline Junior would bring something highly illegal into the States. I do not know what this something is, but evidentally Sebastien himself bringing the stuff is not enough, because the manifest of the plane he was on says that there were two Messalines on board-Sebastien and Violette.
And Sebastien and Violette have the same birthday.
Twins. Well, no bets on which one we've got. What interests me is that the two are apparently identical. You don't get fraternal twins who are also identical twins. You can't. Two people who come from two different cells are not going to be doubles.
I find the answer online in a copy of an yearbook photo. Junior's name, ten years ago, was Vivienne Marie.
I am, I will admit, impressed. Everything I've found says that Junior has done everything in his power to become the kind of guy he wants to be. A business degree from a top-notch university. Fencing lessons. Gun club. All stuff that takes a lot of time and hard work. He just made one misstep, and that seems to have been more out of eagerness to pay off his dad's debts than anything else. It was stupid-don't get me wrong. But I have heard of worse reasons for doing stuff.
Also, I am beginning to get why Cesario did not mention that her name was Violette Messaline. Her plane did not crash, but it sure ended up in the middle of nowhere. And as of now, two passengers are accounted for.
The flight crew isn't.
Whether the guy connected to the rival Family was helpin' to fly the plane or whether he is just someone that Sebastien happens to know is not clear. But he seems determined to keep Sebastien alive. Maybe he is just a good and loyal friend-it happens--but I am going with "protecting his Family's investment."
It has been a long day, but I am feeling pretty satisfied, all things considered.
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This was tricky, because I needed to supply a lot of backstory fairly quickly and I didn't want it to be an infodump. At the same time, I wanted to say something about Curio, because though he presents himself as a bodyguard and not a particularly well-educated one, he's a very shrewd and observant man with a very dry sense of humor. Here I had him do the research about Violette and Sebastien because, while he could have delegated the job without causing any problems, he's genuinely curious. He wants to find out.
The information was on a scanned yearbook page because no one remembers that yearbooks are documentation. But Curio thought of it. He's just that thorough.
As for Sebastien's original name--I had just finished re-reading Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, so the name Vivienne was fresh in my mind. I just put Marie after it because it's a very common middle name and, since the Messaline twins were from Quebec, I wanted the original middle name to be French but simple at the same time. (Sebastien has changed his middle name as well, naturally, and has adopted his father's middle name--Charles.)
I also had to explain how Violette and Sebastien could possibly look so much alike. I know that Half Identical Twins is a trope...but, for my own peace of mind, I had to make sense of it. The logical solution, as far as I was concerned, was that Sebastien was trans. I had known that since the beginning, but this was the big reveal.
I did have one person complain that Curio should have been more shocked by Sebastien and that he shouldn't have been so aware of the myriad possibilities with Cesario. This person felt that he was too politically correct for a Mafia member.
But for me, that was the point. Curio isn't a stereotype. He's not particularly fussed anything sex-related or gender-related, though he gets a trifle flustered by the OT4 at the end. He genuinely admires Sebastien for becoming the person he wants to be. I'm not sure he quite gets why Sebastien wants this--but he wishes Sebastien well. (And you'll notice that he never mentions Sebastien's past as Vivienne in the story. He'd say that that's Sebastien's business--it ain't his.)
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I agree, too, with the way Curio reacts--we've seen throughout the story that he really doesn't care what other people do in their private time so long as it doesn't interfere with his job. His only real criticism of Orsino chasing Olivia is that it was giving Orsino problems.
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