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PARADISA APPLICATION
Application progress. Currently unfinished.
NAME: Jenn
JOURNAL:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fanfare
EMAIL: supergirl prime [at] gmail [dot] com
AIM: a great fanfare
WIKIA: Fanfare
CHARACTERS: Clark Kent, Damian Wayne
--
CHARACTER NAME: Ezio Auditore da Firenze
FANDOM: Assassin's Creed
CANON: As he leaps off the tower after being officially inducted into the Assassin Order. It is 1488, and he is 28 years old.
LOSS: Ezio has lost his Eagle Vision, this bizarre (but incredibly useful) ability that lets him "see" hidden messages/details in objects, as well as identify who is a civilian, who is an enemy, and who is his target. Losing it serves a dual purpose; it's important to him in that it allows him to "cheat" when working and it makes unlocking secrets child's play, so he'd certainly be frustrated without the ability to use it (and have to put in some elbow grease to still do his regular stuff) but also because it's damn hard to translate into Paradisa's mechanics.
ABOUT THE CHARACTER:
The official description of Ezio's character is this:
"Ezio Auditore da Firenze is a young Italian noble who will learn the ways of the assassins after his family was betrayed and he looks to seek revenge. He is a lady's man, a free soul with panache, yet has a very human side to his personality. Through him, you become a master assassin."
But it goes much deeper than that, doesn't it? No character can truly be described in so few sentences.
Born into a wealthy Auditore family in 1459, Ezio began his life on a good foot, going as far to believe that his life was “the best”. Having grown up as the son of a banker, he wanted for little, and he was very close to his family. He was encouraged to learn and explore and live an active, happy life, and true to Florence in the middle Renaissance, his family was a part of the blossoming interests in science, art, religion and politics. He was not particularly interested in following in his father's footsteps as a banker, but he apprenticed for the job nonetheless, remaining quite unaware of his family's other profession –– his father, mother and older brother being members of the Assassin Order, a brotherhood of assassins dedicating to protecting free will and the progression of new ideas and individuality. Had his life not been flipped over when he was seventeen, Ezio most certainly would have been indoctrinated in the Assassin Order in the coming years, but unfortunately, that was not what transpired. Ezio became an Assassin by taking a different road.
Family is very important to Ezio; even at a young age, he was very much a family man, and he was very close and protective of his family. His older brother, Frederico, taught him to free run and move about the city unseen. Though they still fought on occasion, as brothers often do, the two shared a close bond –– they often raced, got into fights with the neighborhood boys (and won), shared stories about each others' "conquests", and looked out for each other. Ezio also shared an outspokenness and drive to succeed with his younger sister, Claudia, and that bond followed them into their later lives when they worked together to maintain the house of Auditore. Ezio also enjoyed playing with his younger brother, Petrucchio, and helped him collect feathers. While he did not see his extended family too often, his relationship with his Uncle was always on good terms, and he held a great deal of respect for the man. He regularly ran errands for his parents, happy to help his mother and his father with their work, and his parents always had a way of knowing what he was getting into (or who he was getting into). Because of it, their family was tight-knit, and Ezio enjoyed a lot of security because of it. He was allowed a childhood free of the secrets that surrounded his parents and their work with the Assassins, but was never sheltered.
Unfortunately, even if Ezio remains dedicated to his family to this day, the closeness did not last. When his father and brothers were executed on the orders of Uberto Alberti, the Gonfalionere of Florence, for a supposed treason, Ezio was forced to take up his father's assassin robes and move his mother and sister from Florence to Monteriggioni, where his Uncle Mario resided in the Villa Auditore. There, his mother fell into a deep depression and did not speak for many years, spending all her time praying at her bedside, while Claudia was put to work in managing the city's finances. Driven by revenge and the urge to make things right, Ezio spent many years with only passing contact with his mother and sister between assassination contracts, while working to ensure their safety and collect feathers, like Petrucchio did, to bring their mother back from depression.
And so, during this, Ezio grew from being a boy to a man. Ezio began his career as an assassin seeking revenge for the death of his father and brothers, and so much of his earlier years as an assassin were motivated entirely by revenge. This came with a lot of anger, and a lot of rash actions –– it didn't make him a great assassin, as his overconfidence and short temper prompted him to take a lot of unnecessary risks, but he never succummed entirely to blind rage. His uncle encouraged him to take his time to learn to fight properly, and even if it kept him in Monteriggioni for a few years, Ezio was grateful for it by the end. His uncle also stressed the importance of never becoming like those he hates, and Ezio took that lesson very seriously. Though his line of work is certainly violent and dangerous and deadly, Ezio has never come to enjoy killing, as he still values life. He does not kill innocents under any circumstances and lays his victims down with respect and well-wishes. However, he also believes that death is often necessary to truly make change, and that those who inhibit progress can seldom be reasoned with.
That said, it took many years and a lot of grappling with himself to understand the true purpose of the Assassin Order, and why it was so critical to maintain free will and dismantle oppressive powers. He eventually shelved his thirst for revenge and came to see his work as a means of protecting people, but that doesn't mean his short temper is completely cured; he certainly still punches out the odd irritating minstrel, and his work is hinged on enough violence to make anyone a bit brutish at times.
With women, Ezio is quite the ladies' man. Though he has never been in a traditional monogamous relationship, his sexual conquests have been numerous. Notable, too, is his great respect for women; while he is prone to cavorting about with courtesans and he seldom sticks around to make any woman an "honest" one, he holds women in a high regard and is very protective of them. He has a love affair with women that has lasted his entire life. Courtesans are just as much his allies as they are his playmates; they know each other so well that the ladies gladly help him move about the city unnoticed, and those who would harm them meet a swift death. He makes himself available to women are mistreated or disrespected by their promiscuous husbands and beats the scoundrels until they promise to show better behaviour. He also does this for his younger sister, Claudia, whose fiancé decided to cavort with other women. He's a bit hypocritical in this sense, too, or at least is biased in a woman's favour; he dislikes men who cheat on their wives, yet is perfectly willing –– even eager –– to sleep with married women.
But no matter how quick-witted and silver tongued he is, Ezio's charm isn't for women alone. He enjoys the company of people in general, and in the presence of friends and family he is jocular and lighthearted. He possesses a sort of ease and relaxedness about him, which is an extraordinary help in his work; it allows him to blend into any situation and soothe suspicions about his intentions through action alone. He can talk to almost anyone, and his easiness with danger and trouble often puts him in the middle of any situation. His sense of duty and accomplishment is almost magnetic to people, too, and he often finds himself leading missions and uprisings and helping people take back what is rightfully theirs. He doesn’t really credit himself with these things, though; the effect of helping people is almost unintentional, and while he moans about not having gotten retribution for his father and brothers’ deaths after ten years, his lover Rosa has to remind him of how much he has changed life in Venice and other states for the better.
This almost single-mindedness about his assassin work means he is still prone to surliness, and he sometimes even sulks about these things. He also doesn't particularly like to be lectured, or being bossed about or made to take orders, however, he very often follows them regardless. Despite the fierceness and passionate emotions he feels, he is still very easily won over by logic and reason. It is easy to talk sense into Ezio, though he may not always enjoy it. As he grows older, he very much becomes a commmander, but he dislikes it when people blindly follow anyone. He firmly believes that people should have agency and make their own choices for whatever is best for them, regardless of what that may be.
However, he still has much to learn, himself. Ezio thirsts for knowledge, like any true man of the Renaissance, and he likes surrounding himself with new places and faces and ideas. His closest friend, Leonardo da Vinci, has routinely made him the test subject for new machines and inventions, and it certainly speaks to Ezio’s faith in science (not to mention sheer recklessness) in that he decides to test-run technology no one has ever tried before, like a flying machine. He isn’t really confined by traditional or religious ideas of the time, even doubting Christianity in an era where the Pope is the single most powerful force in Europe. His interest in progression and new ideas far outstrip any concerns about being an outcast or facing adversity for his ideas of decisions.
Also, he free-runs and free-climbs across Italian cities without a harness or rope, wearing only a single leather glove and, apparently, guts of steel. We’re talking scaling ten stories of an ornately decorated building, often using only inches of a ledge to support his entire weight and climb. He will JUMP to reach higher ledges, knowing that missing the grab could mean plummeting to his death. He will fling himself off buildings in ten-story swan dives into only hay below. If that doesn’t speak to just how carefree and ridiculously confident this man is, I don’t know what would. God damn.
ABILITIES:
Ezio may be human, but he certainly pushes the boundaries of being one. As a teenager he learned to free-run and what do what another time period would call “parkour”, making it virtually impossible to chase him down, as he will simply run, jump, climb and swing to get wherever he needs to go. Everything from garden fences to a 25-story tower can be scaled and surpassed, as long as there’s something to grab onto. Rope? Pffft. Ezio has never used a tool to help his climbing in his life.
Hand-in-hand with his ability to get himself anywhere is his ability to get there unnoticed. He’s swift and quiet as death, and he adheres strongly to one rule of the Assassin’s Creed –– hide in plain sight. He’s skilled at moving with crowds to go virtually unnoticed, and it certainly helps him get up close to his targets and then retreat with minimal ruckus. For someone with such a loud personality, he is surprisingly good at being anonymous.
And then there’s combat. Ezio is armed to the teeth with everything from swords to hammers to axes to throwing knives to his personal favourite, dual hidden blades -- wrist-mounted blades that retract into his gauntlets and pop out at a tug of a finger. He’s skilled in the use of all of these, as well as using smoke bombs and a primitive hidden gun.
Icing on the cake? He’s damn good at hand-to-hand combat. He’s been brawling and playing at fisticuffs with neighbourhood boys since he was old enough to mouth off.
Also he’s a talented lover. ;)
THIRD PERSON SAMPLE:
There are a number of ways to approach this. The difficult possibilities occur to him almost instantaneously –– he could scale the walls outside, find a window and let himself in, and then drop from the rafters blade-first into the back of the target's neck. He could work his way through the crowds inside, blending in among the people until he was close enough to cut the target's throat. Or, if he wanted to avoid a scuffle and a frantic scramble to get back out of the banquet, he could simply wait until it was over and kill the man when there were fewer people around.
But Ezio knew he had an opportunity now. There was no point in waiting when he had a window open, and things could always change against his favour. He'd done riskier, more foolish things and still emerged unscathed. It was better to just hide in plain sight and approach from the ground now, while God still smiles on him.
Getting past the front gates won't happen –– he'd have the kill the guards in front of dozens of visiting nobles, and there's no way to do that and not cause a ruckus. Instead, he chooses to head around the back of the villa, sure that there will be a back entrance in the garden. He can find a passage to the banquet hall from there.
The back is quiet, save a single guard. Ezio dispatches him with ease, stepping out of the shadows and securing an arm around the man's head and neck, hand over his mouth to muffle any noise. His other hand thrusts the hidden blade into the guard's spinal column, and within seconds he is lowering the body to the ground, behind some bushes. He relieves the guard of his coin-purse before he continues on.
Through the door is a long, dark hallway, and at the end, Ezio can see the flickering firelight of a kitchen stove and hear the sounds of pots and utensils being moved around. He listens and watches as he approaches, soft leather boots making no sound on the stone floor. There are voices -- a man's and a woman's.
"I'll fetch more water," the man's voice says, and he rounds the corner towards Ezio. It's dark enough that Ezio feels no concern at being seen –– he just strays closer to the wall, and the man passes by, blissfully unaware. Ezio watches his silhouette disappear into the courtyard and then continues into the kitchen.
The woman has her back to him, and is elbow-deep in gutting a pheasant. Ezio glances towards the door at the other end of the kitchen, the one that would likely lead to the banquet hall, and then at the woman. He keeps walking, silently, taking the widest path around her.
"Felipe?" she says, suddenly, and she starts to look up.
Ezio is already going through the doorway. He feels her eyes follow him.
"Who are you?" she demands, "What are you doing in here?"
He pauses to look back at her. She doesn't see his eyes, courtesy his hood, but she does see his mouth curve into a slight smile. His finger moves to his lips in a silent "shh", and she is stunned or fearful enough to fall into silence. His other hand goes to his belt and produces the coin purse he lifted from the guard.
He offers it.
Her eyes move to the purse, but she doesn't move forward. He doesn't have time to waste; he tosses it to her, and she catches it. Both hear the jingle of the florins within. She watches him and he smiles again. When she pockets the coins, he vanishes into the hallway.
Ten minutes later, he returns to the kitchen, the chorus of distant screams and uproar far behind him in the banquet hall. The woman looks up, expectantly, her expression a mixture of alarm and disbelief. The Florentine crimson of his robes hides the blood splatter. Ringing through the halls behind them are the screams of "Assassino! Assassino!"
Ezio strides across the kitchen, unperturbed, and when he passes the woman, she says, "You have a lot of nerve, messere!"
He just gives her another smirk and replies, simply, "Piacere, bella." (Nice to meet you, beautiful.)
And then he's gone, sprinting across the courtyard, up a window frame, and across the rooftops. Gone.
FIRST PERSON SAMPLE:
I have been here some weeks now, and I remain unconvinced that this is not some sort of trick. How am I to believe that a building is alive, or that this is not some dream? What do you take me for, an idiota? This is ridiculous!
blah blah expand on this
INTENT:
Ohhhh oh god here we go.
So I've been interested in this character for a while, having played with two of them in Paradisa just enough to get a taste of his character. I've wanted to play the game for years but couldn't get my hands on a PS3. Ironically, we had no more AC characters in the game by time I actually got my hands on Josh's PS3 and managed to play the game himself. Tragic, right? I hemmed and hawed over this because a) I had CR with him that I really enjoyed and it'd suck to let it go and b) I really wanted to try writing the character myself. What to do?
Well, Kaye tempted me by offering Claudia, Ezio's sister, and then I said "aww fuck it let's go." So I'm giving up my CR with Damian and Ezio, but that's okay. Damian has lots of other CR.
So here's the thing: I love this character, and he has a lot of elements that I had in previous characters that I miss that are making him like catnip to me. Azula had an old-world factor about her, as someone from a world only just entering the Iron Age, and I'd like to play with that aspect with Ezio: he's from the fucking Renaissance, lots of social conventions and technical things are going to confuse the hell out of him, but he's nothing if not adaptive. It'll be fun to get him interacting with everything from microwaves to modern-day people. Cassie was a healthy balance between Damian and Clark: someone who sees the value of life but is not bothered by having to kill when necessary, and Ezio has the same thing, though in a completely different context. Fran, like Azula, comes from an "old world", but I miss the language and archaic speech patterns she had, which would be fun to play with again –– the Italian jargon, the sometimes-prosey language. I miss Bad Girl's ability to talk to and get involved -- ahem -- with anyone. Ezio... can do that too... ha ha...
So there's a mixed bags of things I miss playing that Ezio happens to fulfill.
Otherwise, for him personally, I think he's a really cool character. I looooove likeable bastards and Byronic heroes; I eat that dark and mysterious stuff up. I like that he can be friendly and has a good sense of humor. I love his relationship with his family. That said, in canon, I feel that there's too much emphasis put on his work and not his everyday life and interactions. In Paradisa, I hope to give him some exercise in that field. Ezio isn't exactly a blank character, but I feel there's a lot of ground to cover to "fill in" missing experiences in his life, and god knows I love to take minor characters and flesh them out... it's even more fun with characters who walk that line between super established and completely unknown.
tl;dr I love this dude and want to write him.
NAME: Jenn
JOURNAL:
fanfareEMAIL: supergirl prime [at] gmail [dot] com
AIM: a great fanfare
WIKIA: Fanfare
CHARACTERS: Clark Kent, Damian Wayne
--
CHARACTER NAME: Ezio Auditore da Firenze
FANDOM: Assassin's Creed
CANON: As he leaps off the tower after being officially inducted into the Assassin Order. It is 1488, and he is 28 years old.
LOSS: Ezio has lost his Eagle Vision, this bizarre (but incredibly useful) ability that lets him "see" hidden messages/details in objects, as well as identify who is a civilian, who is an enemy, and who is his target. Losing it serves a dual purpose; it's important to him in that it allows him to "cheat" when working and it makes unlocking secrets child's play, so he'd certainly be frustrated without the ability to use it (and have to put in some elbow grease to still do his regular stuff) but also because it's damn hard to translate into Paradisa's mechanics.
ABOUT THE CHARACTER:
The official description of Ezio's character is this:
"Ezio Auditore da Firenze is a young Italian noble who will learn the ways of the assassins after his family was betrayed and he looks to seek revenge. He is a lady's man, a free soul with panache, yet has a very human side to his personality. Through him, you become a master assassin."
But it goes much deeper than that, doesn't it? No character can truly be described in so few sentences.
Born into a wealthy Auditore family in 1459, Ezio began his life on a good foot, going as far to believe that his life was “the best”. Having grown up as the son of a banker, he wanted for little, and he was very close to his family. He was encouraged to learn and explore and live an active, happy life, and true to Florence in the middle Renaissance, his family was a part of the blossoming interests in science, art, religion and politics. He was not particularly interested in following in his father's footsteps as a banker, but he apprenticed for the job nonetheless, remaining quite unaware of his family's other profession –– his father, mother and older brother being members of the Assassin Order, a brotherhood of assassins dedicating to protecting free will and the progression of new ideas and individuality. Had his life not been flipped over when he was seventeen, Ezio most certainly would have been indoctrinated in the Assassin Order in the coming years, but unfortunately, that was not what transpired. Ezio became an Assassin by taking a different road.
Family is very important to Ezio; even at a young age, he was very much a family man, and he was very close and protective of his family. His older brother, Frederico, taught him to free run and move about the city unseen. Though they still fought on occasion, as brothers often do, the two shared a close bond –– they often raced, got into fights with the neighborhood boys (and won), shared stories about each others' "conquests", and looked out for each other. Ezio also shared an outspokenness and drive to succeed with his younger sister, Claudia, and that bond followed them into their later lives when they worked together to maintain the house of Auditore. Ezio also enjoyed playing with his younger brother, Petrucchio, and helped him collect feathers. While he did not see his extended family too often, his relationship with his Uncle was always on good terms, and he held a great deal of respect for the man. He regularly ran errands for his parents, happy to help his mother and his father with their work, and his parents always had a way of knowing what he was getting into (or who he was getting into). Because of it, their family was tight-knit, and Ezio enjoyed a lot of security because of it. He was allowed a childhood free of the secrets that surrounded his parents and their work with the Assassins, but was never sheltered.
Unfortunately, even if Ezio remains dedicated to his family to this day, the closeness did not last. When his father and brothers were executed on the orders of Uberto Alberti, the Gonfalionere of Florence, for a supposed treason, Ezio was forced to take up his father's assassin robes and move his mother and sister from Florence to Monteriggioni, where his Uncle Mario resided in the Villa Auditore. There, his mother fell into a deep depression and did not speak for many years, spending all her time praying at her bedside, while Claudia was put to work in managing the city's finances. Driven by revenge and the urge to make things right, Ezio spent many years with only passing contact with his mother and sister between assassination contracts, while working to ensure their safety and collect feathers, like Petrucchio did, to bring their mother back from depression.
And so, during this, Ezio grew from being a boy to a man. Ezio began his career as an assassin seeking revenge for the death of his father and brothers, and so much of his earlier years as an assassin were motivated entirely by revenge. This came with a lot of anger, and a lot of rash actions –– it didn't make him a great assassin, as his overconfidence and short temper prompted him to take a lot of unnecessary risks, but he never succummed entirely to blind rage. His uncle encouraged him to take his time to learn to fight properly, and even if it kept him in Monteriggioni for a few years, Ezio was grateful for it by the end. His uncle also stressed the importance of never becoming like those he hates, and Ezio took that lesson very seriously. Though his line of work is certainly violent and dangerous and deadly, Ezio has never come to enjoy killing, as he still values life. He does not kill innocents under any circumstances and lays his victims down with respect and well-wishes. However, he also believes that death is often necessary to truly make change, and that those who inhibit progress can seldom be reasoned with.
That said, it took many years and a lot of grappling with himself to understand the true purpose of the Assassin Order, and why it was so critical to maintain free will and dismantle oppressive powers. He eventually shelved his thirst for revenge and came to see his work as a means of protecting people, but that doesn't mean his short temper is completely cured; he certainly still punches out the odd irritating minstrel, and his work is hinged on enough violence to make anyone a bit brutish at times.
With women, Ezio is quite the ladies' man. Though he has never been in a traditional monogamous relationship, his sexual conquests have been numerous. Notable, too, is his great respect for women; while he is prone to cavorting about with courtesans and he seldom sticks around to make any woman an "honest" one, he holds women in a high regard and is very protective of them. He has a love affair with women that has lasted his entire life. Courtesans are just as much his allies as they are his playmates; they know each other so well that the ladies gladly help him move about the city unnoticed, and those who would harm them meet a swift death. He makes himself available to women are mistreated or disrespected by their promiscuous husbands and beats the scoundrels until they promise to show better behaviour. He also does this for his younger sister, Claudia, whose fiancé decided to cavort with other women. He's a bit hypocritical in this sense, too, or at least is biased in a woman's favour; he dislikes men who cheat on their wives, yet is perfectly willing –– even eager –– to sleep with married women.
But no matter how quick-witted and silver tongued he is, Ezio's charm isn't for women alone. He enjoys the company of people in general, and in the presence of friends and family he is jocular and lighthearted. He possesses a sort of ease and relaxedness about him, which is an extraordinary help in his work; it allows him to blend into any situation and soothe suspicions about his intentions through action alone. He can talk to almost anyone, and his easiness with danger and trouble often puts him in the middle of any situation. His sense of duty and accomplishment is almost magnetic to people, too, and he often finds himself leading missions and uprisings and helping people take back what is rightfully theirs. He doesn’t really credit himself with these things, though; the effect of helping people is almost unintentional, and while he moans about not having gotten retribution for his father and brothers’ deaths after ten years, his lover Rosa has to remind him of how much he has changed life in Venice and other states for the better.
This almost single-mindedness about his assassin work means he is still prone to surliness, and he sometimes even sulks about these things. He also doesn't particularly like to be lectured, or being bossed about or made to take orders, however, he very often follows them regardless. Despite the fierceness and passionate emotions he feels, he is still very easily won over by logic and reason. It is easy to talk sense into Ezio, though he may not always enjoy it. As he grows older, he very much becomes a commmander, but he dislikes it when people blindly follow anyone. He firmly believes that people should have agency and make their own choices for whatever is best for them, regardless of what that may be.
However, he still has much to learn, himself. Ezio thirsts for knowledge, like any true man of the Renaissance, and he likes surrounding himself with new places and faces and ideas. His closest friend, Leonardo da Vinci, has routinely made him the test subject for new machines and inventions, and it certainly speaks to Ezio’s faith in science (not to mention sheer recklessness) in that he decides to test-run technology no one has ever tried before, like a flying machine. He isn’t really confined by traditional or religious ideas of the time, even doubting Christianity in an era where the Pope is the single most powerful force in Europe. His interest in progression and new ideas far outstrip any concerns about being an outcast or facing adversity for his ideas of decisions.
Also, he free-runs and free-climbs across Italian cities without a harness or rope, wearing only a single leather glove and, apparently, guts of steel. We’re talking scaling ten stories of an ornately decorated building, often using only inches of a ledge to support his entire weight and climb. He will JUMP to reach higher ledges, knowing that missing the grab could mean plummeting to his death. He will fling himself off buildings in ten-story swan dives into only hay below. If that doesn’t speak to just how carefree and ridiculously confident this man is, I don’t know what would. God damn.
ABILITIES:
Ezio may be human, but he certainly pushes the boundaries of being one. As a teenager he learned to free-run and what do what another time period would call “parkour”, making it virtually impossible to chase him down, as he will simply run, jump, climb and swing to get wherever he needs to go. Everything from garden fences to a 25-story tower can be scaled and surpassed, as long as there’s something to grab onto. Rope? Pffft. Ezio has never used a tool to help his climbing in his life.
Hand-in-hand with his ability to get himself anywhere is his ability to get there unnoticed. He’s swift and quiet as death, and he adheres strongly to one rule of the Assassin’s Creed –– hide in plain sight. He’s skilled at moving with crowds to go virtually unnoticed, and it certainly helps him get up close to his targets and then retreat with minimal ruckus. For someone with such a loud personality, he is surprisingly good at being anonymous.
And then there’s combat. Ezio is armed to the teeth with everything from swords to hammers to axes to throwing knives to his personal favourite, dual hidden blades -- wrist-mounted blades that retract into his gauntlets and pop out at a tug of a finger. He’s skilled in the use of all of these, as well as using smoke bombs and a primitive hidden gun.
Icing on the cake? He’s damn good at hand-to-hand combat. He’s been brawling and playing at fisticuffs with neighbourhood boys since he was old enough to mouth off.
Also he’s a talented lover. ;)
THIRD PERSON SAMPLE:
There are a number of ways to approach this. The difficult possibilities occur to him almost instantaneously –– he could scale the walls outside, find a window and let himself in, and then drop from the rafters blade-first into the back of the target's neck. He could work his way through the crowds inside, blending in among the people until he was close enough to cut the target's throat. Or, if he wanted to avoid a scuffle and a frantic scramble to get back out of the banquet, he could simply wait until it was over and kill the man when there were fewer people around.
But Ezio knew he had an opportunity now. There was no point in waiting when he had a window open, and things could always change against his favour. He'd done riskier, more foolish things and still emerged unscathed. It was better to just hide in plain sight and approach from the ground now, while God still smiles on him.
Getting past the front gates won't happen –– he'd have the kill the guards in front of dozens of visiting nobles, and there's no way to do that and not cause a ruckus. Instead, he chooses to head around the back of the villa, sure that there will be a back entrance in the garden. He can find a passage to the banquet hall from there.
The back is quiet, save a single guard. Ezio dispatches him with ease, stepping out of the shadows and securing an arm around the man's head and neck, hand over his mouth to muffle any noise. His other hand thrusts the hidden blade into the guard's spinal column, and within seconds he is lowering the body to the ground, behind some bushes. He relieves the guard of his coin-purse before he continues on.
Through the door is a long, dark hallway, and at the end, Ezio can see the flickering firelight of a kitchen stove and hear the sounds of pots and utensils being moved around. He listens and watches as he approaches, soft leather boots making no sound on the stone floor. There are voices -- a man's and a woman's.
"I'll fetch more water," the man's voice says, and he rounds the corner towards Ezio. It's dark enough that Ezio feels no concern at being seen –– he just strays closer to the wall, and the man passes by, blissfully unaware. Ezio watches his silhouette disappear into the courtyard and then continues into the kitchen.
The woman has her back to him, and is elbow-deep in gutting a pheasant. Ezio glances towards the door at the other end of the kitchen, the one that would likely lead to the banquet hall, and then at the woman. He keeps walking, silently, taking the widest path around her.
"Felipe?" she says, suddenly, and she starts to look up.
Ezio is already going through the doorway. He feels her eyes follow him.
"Who are you?" she demands, "What are you doing in here?"
He pauses to look back at her. She doesn't see his eyes, courtesy his hood, but she does see his mouth curve into a slight smile. His finger moves to his lips in a silent "shh", and she is stunned or fearful enough to fall into silence. His other hand goes to his belt and produces the coin purse he lifted from the guard.
He offers it.
Her eyes move to the purse, but she doesn't move forward. He doesn't have time to waste; he tosses it to her, and she catches it. Both hear the jingle of the florins within. She watches him and he smiles again. When she pockets the coins, he vanishes into the hallway.
Ten minutes later, he returns to the kitchen, the chorus of distant screams and uproar far behind him in the banquet hall. The woman looks up, expectantly, her expression a mixture of alarm and disbelief. The Florentine crimson of his robes hides the blood splatter. Ringing through the halls behind them are the screams of "Assassino! Assassino!"
Ezio strides across the kitchen, unperturbed, and when he passes the woman, she says, "You have a lot of nerve, messere!"
He just gives her another smirk and replies, simply, "Piacere, bella." (Nice to meet you, beautiful.)
And then he's gone, sprinting across the courtyard, up a window frame, and across the rooftops. Gone.
FIRST PERSON SAMPLE:
I have been here some weeks now, and I remain unconvinced that this is not some sort of trick. How am I to believe that a building is alive, or that this is not some dream? What do you take me for, an idiota? This is ridiculous!
blah blah expand on this
INTENT:
Ohhhh oh god here we go.
So I've been interested in this character for a while, having played with two of them in Paradisa just enough to get a taste of his character. I've wanted to play the game for years but couldn't get my hands on a PS3. Ironically, we had no more AC characters in the game by time I actually got my hands on Josh's PS3 and managed to play the game himself. Tragic, right? I hemmed and hawed over this because a) I had CR with him that I really enjoyed and it'd suck to let it go and b) I really wanted to try writing the character myself. What to do?
Well, Kaye tempted me by offering Claudia, Ezio's sister, and then I said "aww fuck it let's go." So I'm giving up my CR with Damian and Ezio, but that's okay. Damian has lots of other CR.
So here's the thing: I love this character, and he has a lot of elements that I had in previous characters that I miss that are making him like catnip to me. Azula had an old-world factor about her, as someone from a world only just entering the Iron Age, and I'd like to play with that aspect with Ezio: he's from the fucking Renaissance, lots of social conventions and technical things are going to confuse the hell out of him, but he's nothing if not adaptive. It'll be fun to get him interacting with everything from microwaves to modern-day people. Cassie was a healthy balance between Damian and Clark: someone who sees the value of life but is not bothered by having to kill when necessary, and Ezio has the same thing, though in a completely different context. Fran, like Azula, comes from an "old world", but I miss the language and archaic speech patterns she had, which would be fun to play with again –– the Italian jargon, the sometimes-prosey language. I miss Bad Girl's ability to talk to and get involved -- ahem -- with anyone. Ezio... can do that too... ha ha...
So there's a mixed bags of things I miss playing that Ezio happens to fulfill.
Otherwise, for him personally, I think he's a really cool character. I looooove likeable bastards and Byronic heroes; I eat that dark and mysterious stuff up. I like that he can be friendly and has a good sense of humor. I love his relationship with his family. That said, in canon, I feel that there's too much emphasis put on his work and not his everyday life and interactions. In Paradisa, I hope to give him some exercise in that field. Ezio isn't exactly a blank character, but I feel there's a lot of ground to cover to "fill in" missing experiences in his life, and god knows I love to take minor characters and flesh them out... it's even more fun with characters who walk that line between super established and completely unknown.
tl;dr I love this dude and want to write him.