#fun fact: while i was making him the placeholder name for lysander was 'darrell the transgender'

[anarchosimdicalist]

entries for @slothseasims love is blind challenge! biographies and image descriptions under the cut.

Lysander the Monstrous

Age: Somewhere in the realm of 600 (appears early 30s) Gender: Trans man (He/him) Location: Forgotten Hollow Sexuality: Gay Occupation: None (living off mysterious vampire money hoarded over the centuries)

Adrian Judith "AJ" Blum

Age: 24 Gender: Nonbinary (They/them) Location: From Henford-on-Bagley, living in San Myshuno Sexuality: Bisexual Occupation: Aspiring photographer, actual retail employee

Lysander has been kicking around a long time, and he's done all the vampire-y shit you can think of. He's led armies in wars long forgotten about; ruled lands that no longer exist; drained more people than you've met; been woman, man, both, neither and man again; fallen in love over and over - and, of course, outlived every last one. He learnt to compartmentalise, learnt to get used to grief - but what goes up must come down, and when all the loss built up in him, he holed away in his castle to do the most vampire-y shit of all: mope around like a big loser and think about death for a few decades.

But no more! Last year, Lysander found out about a fascinating new invention called "tele-vision" - and it gave him a new lease for life! Now, instead of gazing dramatically out of his windows for days at a time, Lysander could gaze instead at his fancy new television. In particular, he took an interest in Love Is Blind. When he realised, to his delight, that they were looking for contestants for their new season, he didn't hesitate. It singlehandedly pulled him out of his stupour, and he's been a new man since. He's dyed his hair, got a whole new personal style going on - all because he's ready to fall in love again, and this show is going to help him! No, he doesn't know what a midlife crisis is. Stop asking.

AJ would like to make it clear up front that they don't usually go in for this sort of thing. As far as they're concerned, this is a bourgeois exploitation of human emotion, all for the bottom line of a streaming company that only cares about people like AJ when it makes them money. They spent a month watching the show every night after work - ironically, of course - and, quite wine-drunk, signed up as a joke. That's all. And sure, they could have backed out by now. It would have been easy. But...

Okay, fine, so there is no "but". So they're a hypocrite. The truth is, moving out of their parents' house to San Myshuno has been harder than they thought. They told themselves they hated Henford-on-Bagley, hated its oppressive small-town sweetness, hated the inescapable green of it all. But now they're out of there, all they want is to hike through the woods again, look for birds, see familiar faces every day. San Myshuno feels so big, and they feel so small there. They can be as cynical as they like - it doesn't change that the city makes them unbelievably lonely. So maybe marriage is a patriarchal scam, and maybe this show is an exploitative performance of it. But maybe it'll be fun. Maybe it could be good for them to meet someone.

[ID: two images, the first of Lysander and the second of AJ. In the first, tinted pink, Lysander is floating on his back in a swimming pool, wearing floral-patterned swimming trunks. Superimposed on top of this are the words "Lysander the Monstrous" and "erratic, childish, adventurous" in pink, and two further screenshots of him - one on the left dancing in a hawaiian shirt with a banana pattern and trousers with a wavy blue and orange pattern and one on the right drinking a plasma jane in a black fishnet shirt under a red crop top that reads "bite me", and heart-shaped sunglasses. Lysander is a slightly chubby vampire with long wavy pink hair, a beard, and off-white skin. The second, tinted sepia, follows a similar structure. The background image is of AJ in a green jumper, grey fanny pack, and brown tartan trousers, crouching down to pet a brown rabbit in front of some overgrown ruins. The text is in green and reads "AJ Blum" and "loves outdoors, slob, art lover". In the left screenshot, AJ is jogging, wearing a green long-sleeved shirt and yellow dungarees. In the right, they are sitting in a red armchair, reading a book with a hammer and sickle symbol on the cover, wearing an open green dressing gown with a floral pattern and green trousers. They are a thin sim with a light brown mullet, an angular face, tanned white skin, and tattoos on their forearm, collarbone, stomach, and hand.]