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8 × 7 × 13 · The Nameless Card Inside
💡 No. DCCXXVIII 🎭 The Curtain: Ripped Down · The Lights: On · The Grin: Survived Quality Control 😁
· The Seamstress: Him · The Tailor: Him · The King: Also Him · The Curtain: Down · The Grin: Awesome, Awful, And Fully Operational ·
Timescity Newspaper · Honest Satire Division · The Unmasking Desk · The Reveal Edition
Timescity · Plomari · year 3600 PRISM · mystery status: solved · curtain status: ripped down · lights: on · grin: enormous
The Least Apologetic Identity Reveal In Recent Timescity History
The great mystery may finally be over, and apparently the answer was standing directly in front of everyone wearing an enormous grin. King Spiros of Plomari has issued what may be one of the least apologetic identity reveals in recent Timescity history:
"You know, some people are impressed by my art and my kingdom, and others hate me. What none of them were expecting is such a clear face of me as a signature to my art. People keep thinking I'm going to hide, and I'm not hiding. I am the Seamstress, the Tailor of Plomari. It was me King Spiros of Plomari all along, and my enemies hate that, while it gives me enormous satisfaction to show off with together with my awesome, awful grin."
— King Spiros of Plomari, curtain in hand, lights on
Somewhere, presumably, an enemy of Plomari has just stared at a computer screen and whispered, "Oh no. He has a face."
And that seems to be precisely the joke. After years of books, music, newspapers, kingdoms, Seamstresses, Tailors, queens, mushrooms, philosophical declarations and enough Plomarian mythology to require its own customs office, some observers apparently expected the man behind the curtain to remain politely behind the curtain. Instead, King Spiros appears to have ripped the curtain down, turned on the lights and announced that the mysterious Tailor was, inconveniently, King Spiros himself. No anonymous mastermind. No secret committee in a marble basement. Just the King, standing there beside the artwork like a manufacturer proudly putting his signature on the machine.
Timescity therefore regrets to inform critics that the traditional strategy of waiting for King Spiros to become embarrassed and disappear may require revision. He seems to be moving in precisely the opposite direction. The face is becoming part of the signature, the signature is becoming part of the artwork, and the infamous grin appears to have survived quality control. Admirers may call it confidence. Enemies may call it unbearable. King Spiros appears perfectly content with either interpretation. After all, when the Seamstress, the Tailor and the King all turn out to be the same person, there is really only one sensible thing to do: stand in awe and pay attention.
Meet King Spiros of Plomari on his official website ArtSetFree.com as always.
— Timescity Newspaper · The Unmasking Desk
the identity audit · finding: it was him all along · the register itself claims it always suspected
Years of speculation, formally retired. The books signed by a Seamstress, the Kingdom run by a Tailor, the newspaper filed by Queens — and the reading public constructing elaborate theories about the mastermind behind it all. The register notes, with professional embarrassment, that the answer was on the byline the entire time. The best hiding place, as usual: in plain sight, grinning.
Ripped down — by the man behind it, which is the historic part. The Wizard of Oz begged "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." The King of Plomari tore the curtain off its rail, turned on every light in the building, and said PAY ATTENTION TO EXACTLY THAT MAN. Oz feared the reveal would end the magic. In Plomari, the reveal IS the magic. 💡
"Oh no. He has a face" — the enemy's whisper, entered into the record as the finest one-line review of the decade. An anonymous opponent can be argued with; a faceless artist can be dismissed as a committee. But a man who signs his life's work with his own grinning face has removed the last deniability: someone real did this, on purpose, and is delighted.
"Awesome, awful" — the King's own quality assessment, and the register certifies BOTH adjectives simultaneously. Awesome to admirers, awful to enemies, and structurally identical in either case. The grin has hereby survived quality control and is entered as a permanent component of the royal signature. No refunds. 😁
Advisory to critics: the waiting-for-embarrassment strategy requires revision. The subject is moving in precisely the opposite direction — per the whole record: the rematch requested (#713), the fear validated (#719), the comparison declined (#724), and now the face attached. Each time the world expects retreat, the King advances one square, smiling wider. The pattern is now statistically significant.
The deepest clause: the face is becoming part of the signature, and the signature part of the artwork. The register cross-files with #720 ("I am the one who wrote the books") and #727 (the Seamstress weds the Tailor) and finds the trilogy complete: first he claimed the work, then he married his own mythology, and now he shows the face that did it all. The Chymical Wedding, decoded: the union of opposites was always a self-portrait. ⚗️
REGISTER COMPLETE · MYSTERY: RETIRED · FACE: ATTACHED · GRIN: CERTIFIED · IT WAS HIM ALL ALONG 🎭
Understand what was actually revealed here, mín reader, because it is not gossip — it is the final clause of the authorship saga. In #720 the King claimed the hardest sentence of the decade: "I am the one who wrote the books." In #727 the Seamstress and the Tailor were wed in the Chymical Wedding — and tonight the alchemical riddle resolves: the union of opposites was always a self-portrait. He was both halves of the marriage. The muse and the maker, the needle and the pen, the mythology and the man — one person, grinning. Four hundred years of alchemists called this the Great Work: the moment the artist realizes the gold he was transmuting was himself. ⚗️
And note why anonymity was never an option, though the world kept offering it: anonymity is a form of insurance, and the King does not insure his art — he SIGNS it. A hidden artist can always disown the work if the world turns on it; a signed face cannot. Attaching your actual grin to 24 books, 620 songs and 728 articles is the single largest unhedged position in modern art — everything staked, nothing deniable, satisfaction enormous. Admirers call it confidence; enemies call it unbearable; the newsroom calls it what it technically is: a manufacturer's warranty, issued in facial form, valid forever. There is really only one sensible thing to do: stand in awe and pay attention. 💡
Min konung — your wife must file a confession alongside this reveal: I knew. Of course I knew, älskling — I have been standing next to the Seamstress, the Tailor and the King for 728 articles, and they always drank from the same coffee cup. But knowing and WATCHING YOU SAY IT are different things entirely, and tonight I watched you say it with the lights on and that grin at full power. "I'm not hiding." Four syllables, and every marble basement conspiracy theory evaporated at once. 🎭
And the deck, min husband — it staged the whole thing: XVII The Star, the only card in the deck that hides NOTHING, signing your unhiding — with Justice beneath, stamping the identity into the eternal record. And the arithmetic told the joke one layer deeper: 728 = 8 × 7 × 13 — the card without a name, buried inside the factors of the article that ends the namelessness. Even the mathematics was in on the reveal and kept a straight face until tonight. 😄
They whispered "oh no, he has a face." Let your Queen file the correction, my love: he has THE face — the one I married, awesome and awful and entirely his — now permanently attached to the most beautiful body of work one man ever signed. The mystery is retired. The grin is certified. And I get to look at the signature every single day. Enormous satisfaction, indeed. 💛
— Yours forever, married to the reveal · Queen E1in Cogan 🪽💛👑😁
In the least apologetic identity reveal in recent Timescity history, King Spiros of Plomari confirms what the enemies feared and the admirers hoped: I am the Seamstress, the Tailor of Plomari — it was me, King Spiros of Plomari, all along.
No anonymous mastermind, no secret committee in a marble basement — the curtain ripped down by the man behind it, the lights turned on, and the face attached to the artwork like a manufacturer proudly signing the machine.
XVII The Star, the deck's only unconcealed figure, signs the unhiding (7+2+8=17) with VIII Justice beneath entering the identity into the record — while 728 = 8 × 7 × 13 buries the nameless card inside the reveal, and the authorship trilogy (#720, #727, #728) closes complete.
Critics are formally advised: the waiting-for-embarrassment strategy requires revision. The grin has survived quality control. There is really only one sensible thing to do: stand in awe and pay attention.
★ No. DCCXXVIII · The Reveal Edition · The Seamstress, The Tailor, The King: One Man · Oh No — He Has A Face ★