#Perspective: Inezra

[hubbery]

Patience

Title: Patience Characters: Inezra Thamus, Dialus Bolrik POV Character: Inezra Thamus POV: First Person, Present Tense Originally written in 2018 for @sleepytrolls.

—

She asks you a million and one questions from the barstool set up at your counter. Sometimes she swivels around with raised arms, or her nails tap against the laminate in time to your strumming. You’re more than a little lost when she asks you what you think of her, and the expression on your face reveals your struggle. 

The guitar has never felt so useless in your hands—and a string snaps. A part of you willing to see the humor in it thinks that tracks, but you don't have the heart to put it down. You need something to hold.

In the silence between words; she stops, she listens, and without hesitation she tells you, "Take your time."

You don't know how long it is before you give her an answer. 

You know the way your voice cracks and your face heats in shame on the first try. You’re intimately familiar with the emotions that surge forth afterwards, the mortification that has your hands clenching and skin pulling taut around your knuckles. The creaking and splintering wood in your hand is secondary. You owe her a response.

“I think I like you.” I think I like you—and you’re surprised that you managed to say it aloud. Your mouth shuts quicker than your eyes do at the ensuing nausea. Took you long enough. You’re thinking it's almost pathetic, and your internal monologue barely has a chance to get worse before you remember you don't really have an in-the-midst-of-schoolfeeding-wrigglerhood-crush to fall back on to compare against this embarrassing level of sincerity. You were too busy being violent to feel much.

Then you’re not thinking about anything at all, words spilling out in a rush while you finger the few unbroken strings your guitar has left. 

"I think about you too much, and I like that you listen and that you sit there and wait out the stops. I like the way you look, and the way you sound, and I'm sorry that sometimes I don't know how to say it in words."

She crosses the distance between you before another hour can pass in silence, peels your trembling fingers from the strings of your guitar and holds your hand like you'd always hoped she would.

[scumscuttlers]

A really normal person who is just an asshole.

— @coralcalypso describing my character, 2024.

Inezra as a character has been around since 7/28/2014. She doesn't have a super long history though because most of what I did have was lost to hard drive failure. So, lol. I ended up reconstructing things pre-2018, and have been trying to flesh her out by interacting with more people.

If you're curious what writing I'm referencing, her writing tag is over here.

Personality

Inez is obsessive. This isn't always a negative.

Inez is too smart for her own good and frequently thinks herself into knots (as evidenced from some of the conversations and interactions in recent / old stories). She is absolutely yanking on people's chain when she pretends to not know or understand some things. Key word: Some. Somewhat at odds with the brawns over brains presentation she has. It's easier not to think about things. Imagine how happy you would be if you stopped thinking too. (She's still not happy.)

That said, she's also allergic to being honest about herself and her feelings. She doesn't lie out of habit. It's more likely she'll omit information or deflect by making a joke. This makes it easier to slip in actual requests for information. You just never know if she's fucking with you or not.

Rarely does she reconsider whatever she thinks the "best" option is. Gleaned from Dialus' perspective in old writing and conversations with my friend @sleepytrolls.

She has a kneejerk reaction to new information, but will also keep asking for details until she's satisfied that she knows enough about it. She's then incredibly likely to turn around and make fun of your character for their perspective. This makes her not fun to talk to. She knows this. She also doesn't care (most of the time).

Has a penchant for violence that's hereditary and probably in part caused by brain damage. From all the concussions, your honor. She has poor emotional regulation normally. She also does not have a moirail or very many trolls willing to put up with her, so this is just bad soup. She's gotten better but not better fast enough.

She has standards and a conscience even if she goes to great lengths to pretend she doesn't. There are absolutely lines she won't cross and she's sensitive to people not being receptive to her bitching, but that's new. Notably, times in the watch party chats when she's switched tack mid conversation based on someone's responses. You won't catch her apologizing though.

She tries to tone down her assholery depending on the person, or tailor it specificly to them to make their day worse. It depends.

Likes

Fighting. As 5lux put it, Inezra was hatched to hate. She doesn't need much reason to fight people and will go so far as to injure herself to get another lick in during those fights. There's something going on up there in her pan. Don't ask what it is.

Being a dick. This is just a precursor to fighting. She doesn't really do blackrom or she'd be in a quad with the whole world. If you hate her she likes you.

A cool cigarette to ease the pain.

Reading, but only sometimes, and she doesn't like most contemporary writing.

You'd think music would belong in this list but it doesn't. No I won't be elaborating on that right now.

Quirks

You can earn her honesty. Ways this has been done so far includes: fighting her and making it fun, having a spine, making her laugh, or being upfront about feelings (that last one doesn't always work). This is usually only for a limited time. You get one glimpse into her functioning troll brain. Just one.

She smokes. A lot. If she were normal she would probably have had two types of lung cancer by now, but she's suspiciously okay.

Whatever

Stuff that doesn't have a specific place to go yet.

Inezra doesn't relate to anyone in her age group. She finds it very strange how Sefoni & co (how she mentally refers to that entire extended friend group) seem wrapped up in other alien's cultures. It's somewhat alienating to be the only "real" troll, which as we all know is a feeling normal people react to with anger. 😀 (She's not actually normal.)

She actually did dodge the draft. That piece of trivia isn't punk posing and will probably catch up to her at some point.

The game doesn't exist in her universe. Every time she sees somebody talk about the game and adjacent topics she thinks they're taking FLARPing too far. It's the cognitive dissonance for me.

Thanks for making it this far. Maybe I'll vomit words again soon.

[hubbery]

Reverence

Title: Reverence Characters: Inezra Thamus, Dialus Bolrik POV Character: Dialus Bolrik POV: First Person, Present Tense Originally written in 2018 for @sleepytrolls. Content edited.

—

I wonder how she works.

I wonder what the underlying reasons for her actions are. I wonder why she smiles at me, teeth sharp but expression at odds with that display. Her expression is soft, the corners of her eyes divided into the smallest of wrinkles. It doesn't take me long to realize I'm taken with her.

It takes less time to catalog all the ways she's captured my attention, my love for her, and sent me falling down a hole I won't (can't, and don't) want to pull myself back up from.

i. Her music ii. Her movement iii. The quirk of her mouth iv. The snap of her wrist v. Her love for me

i.

She plays songs less for me and more for me to hear. She sits with her feet on the coffee table, fingering strings that will snap the next time she plays in anger. Her music is the only language she knows how to speak, and she speaks it well. She doesn't sit with the posture she should, back hunched as she plays chords I can only guess at, but that's part of how she plays.

My only guess is that sitting straight hurts when you never learned how to play the proper way—when you've never learned how to express yourself without contorting yourself and your feelings into odd shapes.

I know that beneath her shirt, on the arch of her back, are marks I've left. She gives me a mixtape the week after we play our first song.

ii.

I watch the way she walks with interest. She has a wide gait, slightly swaying shoulders, and a self-assured look that's only a small gateway to her inner confidence. I know the falter in her step when she's tired, the stiffness in her back from working all night, and the rhythm of her steps up the stairs she'd kissed me on. It wasn't the first time.

iii.

She smiles at me like I'm only a sweep younger. She smiles at me like I know all the secrets to the universe, like what I'd said was the funniest thing she'd heard all week. She smiled at me like she loved me, and it took me too long to realize that the feeling in my chest was the same I'd gotten when she'd played for me. She doesn't smile often, not with feeling.

iv.

She fights the same way she plays music, without pause and with a visceral quality that reveals her feelings. She never fights me how I see her fight others. She doesn't want to break me. She leaves her bite to her words and I leave mine on her flesh.

I'd asked for it the first time I'd met her and I hadn't known just who I was getting involved with; what kind of troll looked back at me over the blaze of a cigarette and tired eyes. Now I know it was the kind of person who could love me like she loved feelings she didn't have a name for.

(The first time we fought I screamed at her. I don't understand it. I don't understand her. I don't understand why she makes me feel this way, why she doesn't yell back, why she smiles, why the expression on her face and the emotions hidden in her eyes stops my heart in my chest. Why I stormed out.

For once in her life she leaves me be.)

v.

She loved me in stages, and she revealed parts of herself to me in the form of memories and friends, mix tapes and yellowing pictures, song lyrics and notes hurriedly scribbled on the backs of napkins. She loves me like she loves the way I make her feel. She loves me in the way she hesitates to hold my hand, to have her skin touch mine, to let the three words that stutter and stop in her throat reach my ears.

I know she loves me, and I know I love her, maybe more than I should.

Her world is a machine I want to take apart and understand. I want to know the pieces of her life as intimately as I know the marks on her skin and her emotions based on the sound of her voice; as intimately as the sound of her playing a song just for me.

[hubbery]

Blame

Title: Blame Character(s): Dialus Bolrik, Inezra Thamus (Mentioned) POV Character: Dialus Bolrik POV: Second Person, Past Tense Originally written in 2018 for @sleepytrolls.

—

You've shared every wriggling day for the last three sweeps with her. It's no wonder you thought this was real. You'd been so willing to forget that she'd left you without anything to your name. She'd packed her belongings along with yours in so many boxes, ghosted with the duffel bag you bought her (the only one she ever uses, because it's from you), and presumably closed that chapter of her life.

It made so much sense for her to be kissing you or for her to be saying so many nonsensical apologies. Inez doesn't apologize. Inez is righteous. It was what attracted you to her in the first place. Then, when you'd met in that corner between her world and yours, you had only an impression of who she was. Smug, certainly. You hadn't been expecting the intelligence or the ability to keep up with you or her understanding. You didn't know what you had until you lost it. You can only beat yourself up about it so much before there is no more anger left.

There isn't any anger when you wake to cold sheets and bleeding crescents in your palms. You're too tired, too defeated to feel ashamed of still wanting the person that had knocked you down below the worst you had ever been.

You feel ashamed when she shows up like you had been proselytizing in your dreams, but she doesn't hold you in her arms, doesn't kiss you with apologies on her tongue and a hope of reconciliation. She doesn't look like the her you knew. There's nothing roiling in the depths of her eyes, those emotions you used to be able to read. She looks better than you've felt in months.

She sounds better too. You would say she puts as much thought into her words as she always did because you come away hurting. This isn't a fight you can win. You lost when you entered this relationship, when she'd had the self-awareness to warn you before you became something she didn't want to let go.

She told you that you'd end up hurt and it had sounded like so many clichés. She was the big bad high blood in the situation and you? You were the weak low blood, an unimportant stain of excrement. She was supposed to protect you from everything that could hurt and she had, but you hadn't listened.

“It's fine. I guess it just wasn't meant to work.” Words fall from your lips as an afterthought. There is a roaring in your ears that you wish was anger, the sign that your world would turn red and you would fight and make up as you always had, but Inez is silent. There is no repentance hidden in the depths of her eyes. She came to give you closure.

She came because you hadn't listened, the first time, the second, as many times as she had given you chances. You hated it. You hated that she had been right. You hated that she had waited for you in the beginning, waiting for you to catch up to her and pledged herself to you even though you know she hadn't thought you ready. You'd asked her to. You could pretend it was her fault that she had listened.

If the woman at her door was the same as the one she knew there would have been hesitation when she was asked to leave. You're forced to acknowledge that she's changed when she turns her back to you.

She left like you asked. She didn't look back. She didn't glance at you from the corner of her eye the way she did before, when she hoped you'd change your mind about something. You are forced to acknowledge she's changed the same way you forced her to shut you out of her life.

You can almost blame her for your mistakes.

[hubbery]

Hive

Title: Hive Character(s): Dialus Bolrik, Inezra Thamus (Mentioned) POV Character: Dialus Bolrik POV: First Person, Present Tense Originally written in 2018 for @sleepytrolls.

—

I'm going hive. Despite everything I think I still have a chance at redemption. I'll forget everything that had me second guessing her devotion if it means she'll give one more chance.

I don't feel fear walking up the steps or when I get the key from its hiding place, taped to the underside of the handrail. I'm not anxious about putting the key in the door and turning the deadbolt. I'm worried when I am through the threshold to the smell of stale air. Things are not how I left them.

She is nowhere to be seen. 

I think that had she still been here with her things in hand I would have stopped her. I would have told her I loved her. I would have made her see all the things she meant to me and what I would do for her. Except she was already gone. 

The couch was pushed against the wall. The notes she kept on the coffee table had been cleaned and her folders of compositions were absent. Our hive--her hive (it wasn't mine anymore)--was empty. I took this all in with the key to the door loosely grasped between my fingers. I wanted to scream, to cry, to do something. The only one here to see it was myself and the boxes full of my things piled against the wall.

[scumscuttlers]

Links

Main Blog | Character Bio

Independent roleplay blog. Not mutual exclusive. If you need something tagged, please ask!

About

Blog style roleplay account written from my character's perspective.

The blog is canonically the defunct shared Grumblr account for the Scum Scuttlers.

Posts on this blog are in-character unless otherwise stated.

OOC posts are typically tagged with OOC.

Warnings

Content: Violence & Gore, Death, Profanity, Gallows Humor, Sexism and Misogyny, Prejudice, Microagressions, Ableism, Classism, Swears or curses, Talk of Superior Race, Trivializing Mental Illness, Escalating Violence, Suicide Baiting.

Character: Inezra is a dick liable to do things to your character such as, but not limited to, doxxing them, telling them to kill themselves, harassing them, and generally making their online and in-person experiences miserable. She's not always like this, but please be aware if you plan to start interactions.

Need-to-Knows

If you have topics that make you uncomfortable and/or that you would prefer not appear in our roleplay, let me know! I'll also tag stuff if asked.

General roleplay etiquette applies.

You don't need to be mutuals to interact with me.

I'm 18+. My characters are also 18+. Some topics likely to come up on this blog are not appropriate for minors.

I'm not really interested in roleplaying with minors due to the nature of this character. If you want to link character backstories or something, that's fine though.

Genuine NSFW content will be minimal on this blog. There will be the odd text post or artistic nudity in reblogs. Common tags are: nsft, blood, gore, etc.

I don't mind personal blogs reblogging non-roleplay posts or otherwise interacting (I enjoy people interacting with and asking questions about my characters), but if I can't tell what kind of blog you have and you're reblogging in-character posts I'll probably block you for my peace of mind.

Roleplay Preferences

IMs are open for in-character interactions.

I prefer threads with a couple of lines.

We don't need to do a thread for everything. Just a quick discussion about what our characters have been up to is fine!

Questions about something specific not mentioned here? Feel free to ask.

Tags

Posts are usually tagged with their type (Text, Poll, Reblog, Ask, Reply, Image) for easy searching and by blog interacted with if it's an ask or a reply.

In-Character

#Save: Stuff Inezra finds especially funny.

#Music: Music you can actually listen to.

Out-of-Character

#[META POST]: All posts discussing character(s), the setting, etc.

#[CHARACTER INFO]: Character analysis, trivia, etc.

#[SETTING]: Posts about the universe.

#[TESTIMONIALS]: Things other characters say or think about Inezra that I want to keep.

#[HEADCANONS]: Theories and headcanons other people have that I've saved.

#[ACTION POST] and/or #[OFFLINE]: Stuff Inezra is doing off the blog, usually as a reaction to things that are going on or just a glimpse into her life.

#[MEME]: Memes and imagery.

#[QUOTES]: Quotes from roleplay. Usually stuff from watch parties.

Other

#Prompts