#{{ her morals and values/priorities are different. in most verses she's at the top of that list. everyone is second or third or fourth

[acoldsovereign]

{{ To continue from here--

I know I run the risk of making her too sympathetic which is what I'm trying to avoid. 😭 I don't want people looking at her and then trying to be nice to her right off rip because She Will Bite You, look at you weird or some other third feral Saiyan thing (unless u/ur muse is into that, then go ahead PLS), but-- I guess what I'm saying is that she is, at the end of the day, a person. (A shitty as all hell one with few likable traits), BUT she is a person and the evil usually lies in the fact that she chooses the worse option/action most of the time which is why its surprising when she doesn't.

Because she could KEEP choosing the Not Shitty Option, so of course in-universe, muses/people are like "why doesn't she"????

Simply, because it is not fun or stimulating enough for her brain.

She is perfectly willing and capable of thinking about it and then going through with sacrificing your life/body parts/sanity/wellbeing to make hers fun for a couple of hours, forget what she did to you and then do it to another person. Does that sound like a good person to you????? I think not, in this essay I will--

[warwaged-archive]

I’ll just make a list or I’ll never get this done, but this is about divergences in how I write lor’themar. I am canon based (but as always also very reliant on my own headcanons to expand stuff and fill in blanks) up to Legion. 

he was friends with sylvanas once upon a time, but to make a call back to that after it has literally been ignored most of the time is lazy and the way it’s done just makes it seems like he didn’t care. his relationship with her is complicated, both because of what it was in life and because of their interactions after she died, with lor’themar not being able to trust her and the other dark rangers in silvermoon and sylvanas extending a hand then wanting more of his people to die on a battle they weren’t ready to fight. I don’t think there’s been trust from either side for a long time, but sylvanas is his oldest ally amidst the other leaders, in spite of how sketchy an ally she is.

honor, as a concept, is not in his top five priorities probably. honor helped them very little in fighting arthas, or dealing with kael’thas, or restoring their kingdom, and while lor’themar understands its value, he doesn’t place it above the well being of his people (see also: would switch factions in the blink of an eye if it guaranteed it’d best for the sin’dorei). 

he does have limits though, and burning teldrassil, murdering most kaldorei and making them undead afterwards just hits too close for comfort

like, deceiving the kaldorei so teldrassil would have a smaller defense force, then marching on it and taking it for the horde? sure. that’s all fine and good. but blowing up the entire thing and killing everyone and making the ones left undead is just. Too Much.

with all of that what I mean to say is: from that moment he has 0 allegiance to sylvanas. he doesn’t like night elves but what she’s doing would bother him enough I can’t see him not confronting her about it. it was different with garrosh, who he not only didn’t know on a personal level and had no ties to, but who he knew enough to be wary of from the start (and to know voicing his issues to would only make things worse). he knew sylvanas, he has some tie to her still, and even if he didn’t, there’d be the emotional reaction of seeing someone who was dear to him and who he chooses to remember fondly for what she was in life suddenly appear to be following on the footsteps of the very monster she gave her life to fight.

how she’d deal with it is ofc up to sylvanas. for the most part, it doesn’t change things heavily because in spite of that lor’themar wouldn’t withdraw from the horde. he has negative levels of trust in humans, thinks the alliance is in fact rather stupid to be following a child and is very aware that between the kaldorei and jaina there wouldn’t be much of a welcome to his people either. 

that’s all to establish this is the important thing when he switches sides. couldn’t give a single fuck about sylvanas raising humans against their will, she’s been doing that for a while.

still! given he voices his opposition at the beginning, wouldn’t it make a lot of sense sylv sends him to nazjatar, given she was sending people to die? so yeah! sends him on the boat with nathanos to fight the alliance

he ends up in nazjatar, as he canonically does. ends up leading the horde forces there when nathanos fucks off to do his thing. gets to befriend thalyssra somewhat while there. 

lor’themar’s decision to work with the alliance is one he does solely out of need. he won’t ever be truly friendly to jaina until she’s at least been held accountable for murdering his people in dalaran. walking away is a fine lesson and all ty taran zhu, but it’s not fair to his people that he let it go while jaina faced no consequences whatsoever. 

on that note, vereesa can choke he’s never making amends with her ever

windrunners stop fucking things up challenge

anyways! back to bfa! he respects baine, but his imprisonment is really just the last drop, not what prompts switching sides on its own. 

I just think it’s more fitting with him, as a character, to make this less about the horde and honor, given those are not the things that drive him as a character or even a leader.

ultimately it does lead him to the same realization that they can’t fight azshara and n’zoth or whatever while also still fighting the alliance, a goddamn lot of people already died in this war and keep it going will only make things worse, but sylv doesn’t care and is sending them to die and imprisoning those who oppose her so it’s time to switch sides ig

I know in canon he’s all like ‘I had hoped my old friend would see reason’ while talking to the PC but I think it’s also important to note that I don’t write lor’themar as being genuinely open towards anyone he doesn’t have some degree of trust towards. his feelings are private (and he often pushes them to second place when it comes to how he feels vs what must be done or just his job so). it’s not something he would speak of in general tbh unless prompted to, and even then it’d be more ‘I had hoped she’d never go that far’ more so than ‘hoped she’d see reason’

he really doesn’t feel guilty for saurfang dying idk what that was about

I maintain he’d very much be like ‘will you be warchief again, thrall?��� as soon as that was being discussed, because he won’t be warchief thanks but no thanks

is ok with signing the truce. keeping the war going is of no benefit to quel’thalas or the horde so

rip talanji but sometimes it be like that

he is very on board with the council idea. the sin’dorei have already suffered plenty under shitty warchiefs and the idea of a council making decisions instead is a big improvement on his opinion

thalyssra is a tentative friend at most. lor’themar doesn’t trust people easily to be quick in considering anyone friends fast. back in legion, he did not interact with her, liadrin did --- his friendship with her only begun after legion/early bfa, and while he does see her in a friendly manner, that’s it tbh

so like, I do not write him being in a relationship with her as canon has it

a moment in verse never happened

during what would be the shadows rising timeline he’d be very concerned with finding out what sylvanas is up to because she could be a threat to all of them and they have 0 clue what is her goal. 

anything that happens in the book in regards to him specifically, too, I do not follow. he wouldn’t be the one to suggest open negotiations with kul’tiras (did I mention jaina never faced any consequences for what she did and that’s unfair to his people)

he’d take a very personal interest in the council to guarantee the best for the blood elves always. 

the only way I can accept shaw’s spies catch him writing something like “My dusk lily bends more each day toward the sun.” is if he was aware he was being spied on and did that purposefully to give the alliance useless information tbh (and had a moment of lol what if I write some shitty poetry and make them think that’s how I spend my time)

other than that yeah no he’d not do that unironically 

lor’themar can be very diplomatic if he wishes to be, and he’s not prone to being open with his thoughts/emotions when he’s acting as regent lord, and by extension as a member of the council. he can also be a bitch when he doesn’t think diplomacy is necessary. 

he’s learned a lot being part of the horde, and definitely grew with it too. he certainly is a much more tolerant person he was in the past, and has come to see many of the other races in a different way than he used to. I do think he doesn’t want to leave the horde as he may have once, but his loyalty will always be first and foremost to the sin’dorei. his morals are not orc or tauren morals, and like, when it comes to do the honorable thing or what benefits his people, he’ll do what benefits his people. what I mean with all of this is: don’t expect my lor’themar to be crying about saurfang and yelling honor and holding hands with jaina kasndfkjsdfn

he also doesn’t look 5 thousands years old. let lor’themar be pretty like he deserves to be.