How do the Masters serve the Bazaar? [Spoilers]

Fallen London
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[li]We all know what the Masters do with their day jobs (specialize in and control one category of trade), but they were also hired to serve the Bazaar. Why? To collect anything and everything related to Love. But, how do all of the Masters do it? Some are obvious, while others are not…
[li]This is all conjecture, so I may be wrong. Please let me know what you think.
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[li]Mr. Apples/Hearts - As Mr. Hearts, he sells you Imperial Redolance, which makes it easier for different animals to breed with each other to create unique offsprings. He may be researching interspecias romances… which can be useful for the Bazaar. I have not interacted with Mr. Apples yet, so I can’t really say anything about him.
[li]Mr. Cups/Mirrors - He is an interesting case. At first, Mr. Cups does not seem to do much related to love. However, he collects all the junk and refuse (Scraps) that floats around the city and sorts through it. He may be looking for items that tell the tales of Love that was lost and broken/discarded from the current city. While it may be counterintuitive to look for failure, you can’t understand success unless you understand why love can also fail. In addition, the scraps may be remnants of things from the previous cities, which he meticulously reconstruct (such as the Home Comfort item that you get from him). This can be useful, because it can let the Bazaar gain additional stories from previous cities that may have been overlooked previously. As Mr. Mirrors, he has dominion over Mirrors, which show the dream world, where people’s hidden desires are laid bare. Tales of romances that have not yet been, and may never be. Unlike Mr. Spices/Wines, he is just a voyeur, looking from the outside in when it comes to dreams.
[li]Mr. Fires - …no idea. He has too much fun running the Industry in the city to focus on Love. He does have some agents who manipulate failing relationships to keep them together, though, but as we learn with Mr. Spices (read below), manipulating love invalidates the stories, so this is not useful activity.
[li]Mr. Iron - Runs the &quotillegal&quot Knife and Candle leagues. Love through adversity?
[li]Mr. Pages - The Department of Menace Irradication. Using the pretext of &quotsocially disruptive literature&quot, Mr. Pages collects stories of love, both fictional and non-fictional, to put into whatever archive stores all the various love stories. None of the materials are actually burned (well, maybe duplicates).
[li]Mr. Spices - Attempted to manufacture Love Stories by creating a certain notorious immortal criminal, but they were deemed too artificial to count as real love Stories. Currently trying to gain love stories through dreams.
[li]Mr. Stones - …No idea. Everything that he does seems to be counterproductive to Love. As best as I can tell, he is amassing Wealth to acquire the next city, although buying it instead of receiving it through a love-based transaction does not seem like it would help the Bazaar.
[li]Mr. Veils - No idea… Too busy killing things to do anything productive. Runs the fashion industry, I guess. According to Zailors, he does have girls, though.
[li]Mr. Wines - Loves holding parties, which is a great way for people to meet and, potentially, fall in love. Alcohol also reduces inhibitions, which can cause romances to blossom between people who are normally too nervous/uptight to fall in love. Also runs the brothels, so love in exchange for money?
[li]Mr… Spices/Wines - Formerly the dominion of a different Master who shall not be named, Spices and Wines compete to control Dreams. Why is this important? Many people are uninhibited in dreams, and can let their true feelings show. Any love stories that the Masters collect from here are pure, even if they may be unrequited.[/li][li][/li]EDIT: Fixed some errors and updated info.

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edited by th8827 on 1/31/2016

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Mr Fires is absolutely not serving the Bazaar. He wishes to stay within London for however long is possible, and the destiny setting involving the Bazaar/Masters notably does not appear to feature him. His conflict of interests will probably come to a violent end.

Mr Iron also seems opposed to the Bazaar and other Masters’ methods of obtaining love stories. He does feature in the aforementioned destiny setting, however, so while he might be a thorn in the side for the others it is not something that requires him to be terminated.

Mr Stones…hm. Well, I feel it’s pretty safe to say that he doesn’t care about the Bazaar’s mission at this point. He just wants to reap what he can while he’s here and hasten the end of this whole business. Again, not enough of a problem to require drastic measures.

Mr Veils does not run the brothels - Mr Wines runs those. Mr Veils is involved in the clothing industry, so Veils’ girls are probably models. Since he has dominion over clothing he would provide the fabric for the brothel workers’ attire, but Mr Wines would be involved in the dyes. Well, one dye at least; not sure if he has any claim on dyes entirely.

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I could have sworn it was Veils… So, what does he actually do for the Bazaar? I can’t think of any rational explanation for him.

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Well, models are admired, are they not? Not to mention that everyone wants to make a great impression on their dates with appealing clothing, often following fashion trends that need to be made available for society to consume. Clothes are more than just utility - what you wear can make a big difference in a lot of ways.

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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/th8827?fromEchoId=7718112

I found the snippet that you mentioned. That may be what I was remembering.

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A real push, but perhaps ‘the girls of Mr Veils’ is referring to an Island Sisterhood? Although perhaps they wouldn’t have golden locks?

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I think Mr. Apples is going for a more… straightforward approach when it comes to manufacturing love stories.

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Don’t tell those girls
they’re Master Veils’
Don’t call them girls at all

I seen ships go down
seen women drown
say that and you’ll envy their fall

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No-one said it wasn’t a satire ;)

Don’t tell those girls
they’re Master Veils’
Don’t call them girls at all

I seen ships go down
seen women drown
say that and you’ll envy their fall
[/quote]

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Maybe Master Veils roofies the other Masters with Oblivion, then dresses them up in skirts and organizes a vaudeville performance at the docks.

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They don’t look like models to me.

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While Mr Veils himself might seem a like bit of a playboy. Veils Enterprises has done a lot of good for this city.

But to answer the OP :)

I think the different trades the Master deal in are what they are good at, commerce is their real role and so they keep doing that even in the Neath. They are mercantile by nature and like trading stuff. Collecting love stories is something that has been foisted on them by the Bazaar. They were never trained to do that, and might not even really understand exactly what it is they are trying to collect. They certainly seem a little confused by how exactly love works. Which might explain why they don’t always appear to be the best at their new job?

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edited by Charlotte_de_Witte on 2/1/2016

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Yeah, they kinda look like dancers there. Well, Veils does like music.

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Yeah, they kinda look like dancers there. Well, Veils does like music.[/quote]
Maybe Mr. veils is just generally the one for art and plays and stuff?

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[i]Wolfstack girls really knock me out
And take my rostygo-old
Drownie girls make me scream and shout
And Bugsby always covers me in — covers me in mo-o-old

YEAH let me drink that honey…
[/i]
edited by TheThirdPolice on 2/1/2016

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Now that I think about it, if veils is about performances, that might include e__t_c ones, so the song still makes sense, really.

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Can I just add to the OP that, in Ambition: Nemesis, Mr Cups/Mirrors is responsible for the murder of the loved one that causes the player character to come to the Neath in the first place. A story of love for one whom is lost is still a love story, after all.

–
edited by Sara Hysaro on 2/2/2016

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I recommend to spoiler tag the above post, even though the thread’s title includes the word “spoilers”.

This is a major spoiler for the very end (currently) of this Ambition.

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[quote=AmouryDeDomremy][…]Mr Cups/Mirrors is responsible for the murder of the loved one that causes the player character to come to the Neath in the first place. A story of love for one whom is lost is still a love story, after all.[/quote]
It is also synthetic and ergo useless to the Bazaar, for whom they collect love stories, as they have no reason to otherwise. You would think Mr. Cups/Mirrors would have realized that, since they had established that fact prior with Jack of Smiles. And they probably did, so I can’t imagine there isn’t more to it, but I haven’t read a word of Nemesis, and so can’t say.

edited by Sara Hysaro on 2/2/2016

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It is also synthetic and ergo useless to the Bazaar, for whom they collect love stories, as they have no reason to otherwise. You would think Mr. Cups/Mirrors would have realized that, since they had established that fact prior with Jack of Smiles. And they probably did, so I can’t imagine there isn’t more to it, but I haven’t read a word of Nemesis, and so can’t say.[/quote]
I’m not sure the nemesis story is useless to the Bazaar. The Jack of Smiles stories might be unusable because they are too common, too random and too pointless. So many people have been victims of Jack, there’s no real purpose or motive behind Jack’s actions, just killing someone and the nature of Jack makes it hard to bring some closure to it, being more of a symptom of an uncaring and impersonal system that’s broken. I think the nemesis creates a story that’s much greater than anything Jack has achieved, something that transcends the original cause.