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Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would send him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam's neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing:
He missed the medieval grace
Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.

Edwin Arlington Robinson


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You ask me what is true, you ask me what is real, I'll tell you: not this; not here; not now. The shriveled world you call reality is but a shadow of life when life was alive. And we? We are human cattle trampling the infertile concrete and chewing cubicle cud day after day. Like livestock we allow ourselves to be forcefed processed slogans and oh, yes, bite-sized pieces are charming and convenient, but even while we grow fat on information, we are starved for truth. Vitamin-enhanced grain, but never green pastures.

They'll tell you it's for your own good. They make you think you need it. But you know what? Cows were cows before we penned them and supplimented them with un-grass. Cows will remain cows after we are gone. The difference is in living. Without us, it's true, they won't be buff macho-bovine with exquisitely-marbled flesh. You know what they'll be? They'll be cows, just like God intended. Mankind, without our daily injections of mass-media assuring that we are able to maintain a certain standard of interchangability among individuals, won't stop being civilized; society will not topple; we will not revert to lost wanderers unable to relate to our fellow beings because there's no Super Bowl to discuss over the water cooler. We'll be people. Just people. Just like we've always been.

We yearn for what no longer has a name. The words we once made for longing and for striving and for crusading have all been reduced to dusty rubble, because they could not be reduced to monosyllabic subliminal messages in fifteen-second commercials. The words we once had to express the essence of emptiness and the meaning of being complete were more than just words. They were poems, they were songs, they were tales our grandmothers told us, lore our elders spun. And more! They were words of transformation and travel. The phrase 'once upon a time' used to be enough to silence any room in anticipation. Once upon a time, by the time the storyteller took a second breath, the words of the tale would have already taken you back to the first time you heard it. We told our children stories that meant something. There was no sugar-coating. The fear was part of the story because it was part of the world. But as long as you were listening, you were safe. As long as someone could still tell the old tales, everything would be all right. Someone had come through. Someone had managed to beat back the darkness, enough for one more night, a crackling fire, the smell of thin stew and simple bread, the glint of father's sword above the mantle. All these things told us it was all right. There was a balance. But no more. What happened to mankind, that we now allow ourselves so easily to be led to slaughter? What happened that we no longer have dreams? Where are the princes? Where are the knights? Where is humanity in the mess we've made of living?

Where did all the magic go?



Stats:

Birth date: January 22, 1943 (Aquarius)
Age: 25 (also appears in the Bar at ages 10 and 38)
Height: Fuckin' short. D:
Eyes: Grey-blue
Hair: Black
Marital Status: Currently in a more-or-less monogamous relationship with dingdongdoodily
Milliways status: Unbound
Current Place of Residence: Los Angeles, 1995 (at age 38, Mordland, 2008; at age 10, Fishkill, New York, 1953)
Pets: D'Artagnan the kestrel (created by Estsanatlehi), Kate the puggle, and Axl the albino ball python (primarily owned by Pickles) (old-Miniver has a young python named Gilby and a German Shepherd named Jack)

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Background

See here for info on parents and childhood.

Miniver claims to be from anywhere, at any time, that fits his fancy. He is REALLY from Beacon, New York, two weeks into the year 1967. When he's feeling particularly noble (or drunk), he'll claim himself to be Lord of Bannerman Island. This is a real island on the Hudson River, and there's even a real castle on it. However, during Miniver's time, it is owned by the state, and in his near future will be ravaged by fire and condemned. The island is infested by snakes, anyway. Miniver considers this as good a reason as any to declare himself its Lord. After all, no one else seems to want it.

A little over a month after Miniver's arrival, he was given Wizarding world magic, by means of a wish ring, by Draco Malfoy. [Note: In subsequent canon, it was established that he may have laready HAD this magic, as all descendants of the Brennan family (Miniver's mother) are wizards.] He practices it with the skill of any 12-year-old first year at Hogwarts, and won't be prone to working miracles -- though he does conjure butterflies pretty well. Purple ones. Sometimes blue. His wand is 12³/₄" ash with unicorn tail core a branch of Yggdrasil decorated with runes, gifted to him by Toki Wartooth. The 38-year-old incarnation of Miniver practices magic basically never.

As a child, Miniver lives in poverty, is generally sporting visible bruises, and wears Salvation Army hand-me-down rags, mostly too large for him. Despite his age, he looks 5 years old.

Future-Miniver is the life-partner of Pickles the Drummer, of Metalocalypse fandom. He is also a musician in his own right, with his band called Blue Muse, famous for his poetic lyrics and stirring musical accompaniment. He owns vinyards in Morocco, Italy, France, and California, and a distillery in England. He co-owns the historical city of Thebes with the band Dethklok. He probably owns a lot more crap, to be added as necessary.

In late 1994, Pickles performed a spell from the Finnish Necronomicon, causing him to have a zombie liver, and granting Miniver immunity from chemical addiction -- meaning he can take any recreational drug he pleases and never become chemically dependent on it. PSYCHOLOGICAL dependence is another matter entirely, and is the reason Miniver continues to drink so much. Also, he no longer suffers any withdrawal symptoms from any drug he takes, and does not become resistant to medical drugs. Additionally, the spell granted Miniver a power he does not know he possesses -- to "broadcast" emotion through his singing. Normal people will feel what he feels when he sings, occasionally even more strongly than he does -- a phenomenon which has, in the past, resulted in some pretty weird shit at his concerts.


Older Miniver by Ysa at DeviantArt


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Disclaimer
Miniver Cheevy is the creation of Edwin Arlington Robinson, who is not me. This is a fictional journal created solely for the purpose of roleplaying in milliways_bar and all over the fuckin' place, from which no profit whatsoever is being made.

Young-Miniver's PB is Adam Green. Old-Miniver is Gilby Clarke.

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