❤️ ❗️ 🐞 for Oak and Tarylin
❤️ (heart) - Who is the most important person to your character? To what lengths would they go to protect this person?
In both cases, their family members!
Despite everything that family did to him, and despite questioning their methods on occasion, Tarlyn was loyal to his identity as an Icozrin and he lived in service of his den (as far as Oak remembers at least).
Oak loves their family deeply and can't fathom anything bad happening to them. They'd go to great lengths to protect them, including being away from them. This is one of the reasons they were itching to leave Jigow (so as not to risk the Icozrin coming after them there) and be on the move/adventuring.
❗️(exclamation point) - What was the scariest moment of your character’s life? Does it still affect them?
I'll keep my mouth shut abt Tarlyn for this one. 👀
For Oak, it was definitely when Ahlysaaria announced her plan to "return them to a worthy body." But being attacked by Anil and his goons was right up there too (and as far as they know, Anil was trying to get them to proceed with Ahlysaaria's plan, so it's the same fear again).
I think that the attempted kidnapping marked the first time Oak's ever fallen in battle. I might be misremembering tho cuz my memory sucks for these things. I even wanted to ask @skullhaver if they remember exactly what the goons used when Oak went down. Was it the Gravity Stone? (😂 The irony of Oak falling bc of their own invention is truly something.) I'm not sure force damage would leave a scar, tho. It was probably internal injuries that Espen healed.
But they sustained other damage in that fight. A lot of it. Some other goons stabbed them. Bad day. Not to mention the fact BOTH ESPEN AND MOXIE fell too!!!! If their friends had died bc of the Icozrin, Oak would have been so so so so sad. It was terrifying.
🐞 (ladybug) - What does a perfect day look like for your oc? What do they do? Who do they see?
For Tarlyn, the perfect day would have been the day Ahlysaaria said "You've worked so hard and you've truly honored your den, Tarlyn. I will always be proud of you." 🥲
Lmao I mean, that's the short of it. If you could have entered his mind and seen his daydreams, you'd have seen his perfect day looked a little like this:
Some magical invention of his is the breakthrough that revolutionizes weaponry manufacture in the Dynasty and puts the Kryn army at an undeniable advantage against their foreign enemies. He stands before the Bright Queen in the Lucid Bastion, she thanks him personally and by name, and as a reward, he is granted consecution and Den Icozrin is elevated into the ruling class. Everyone he knows witnesses this. His friends are jealous, Ymril is furiously envious, Galsariad wants him so bad; even Essek Thelyss, whom he's clearly surpassed on this perfect imaginary day, notices and admires him openly. His mother radiates with unmistakable pride. She cups his cheeks and kisses his forehead and hugs him tightly and lovingly in private, and tells him she'll always be proud of him. "You were absolutely perfect, darling," is the only feedback she gives him.
Poor guy (gender neutral). Every one of those delusions could have been reality and he'd still have been miserable.
Now Oak's perfect day would look something like this:
They wake up well-rested and in a comfy bed, and they're somewhere with nature, so they get to spend time outside, maybe foraging for some herbs (as they used to in Jigow), or harvesting them from a community garden (I can imagine Rosohna having some of these).
They have breakfast and smoke their pipe in enjoyable company (in Jigow that'd be their family, in Rosohna their roommates, and now it's the Moonlighters), and get "productive." While a perfect day could easily be a work day (especially if they get to learn something new or do something they consider worthwhile, such as investigating Ruidium/helping Alyxian with the Moonlighters), an ideal day is not too taxing (or deadly!) and they get time to dedicate to craft projects. They get really in the zone and they're proud of their own art!
Up until 10 days ago in game, Oak would have pictured making dinner, playing games and chilling with friends or family for the evening of a perfect day, but right now they would picture a date with Gal, having deep and nerdy conversations over dinner, and then they work on a spell or puzzle or a magical item or some riddles together. They talk loads and Oak gets to see sides of Gal few people know. There's lots of kissing, and they play with his hair and he hugs them tight. They cuddle.😳😳 (Oak kicks their feet picturing it)
No bad luck befalls them or their loved ones on a perfect day, and they try their best to live by their values (be curious, be questioning, be understanding, be compassionate, be kind and be true to yourself). They give plenty of affection, and they feel loved and cared for in return. ♥️
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Prompt 209
Now Jason was planning on, well, a lot of things, when he came back to Gotham. He had a lot of plans, several of which had to do with the old man and even more that had to do with cleaning up Crime Alley, making it safer and all that.
What he was not planning on was to find some sort of lab in the basement of where he was planning on setting up a safehouse. Nor was he planning on finding several literal children in cages inside said lab. Oh and Lazarus Waters- but children! With muzzles! Being experimented on!
Now he’d like to say he had a plan in what happened next, but if he’s honest everything had gone Green and he didn’t remember what happened next, only that he’s back home with said children and covered in blood. Oh and everything smells of smoke.
… And apparently there’s more of these things dotted around Crime Alley with the rest of these kids, er, siblings? Family? Fright does mean family? Okay kids, he’s not turning into Bruce but you can stay here while he deals with this… however long that takes.
He better not be turning into Bruce he swears-
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I started writing yet another tag essay in the notes of a different post where OP posited that the reason established relationships that are rock solid or functional are hard to write and find in fiction because there's missing tension due to the lack of will they won't they, and how one way to solve this in a story is to make the characters insane about each other. (The post is here.)
And don't get me wrong! I like when characters are a little or a lot unhinged about each other! and I also like relationships that self destruct, tragedies that end badly, and all that jazz I enjoy these things a lot! They're good things!
But I'm thinking about relationship tension again and how like, okay yes sometimes we want our characters confess they're in love with each other and get together and sail off into a soft epilogue, etc. This too is love!
But I think fundamentally to deny the fact that two (or more) people can love each other deeply, be totally committed to each other, and yet still have difficulties and life problems to tackle together is an underexplored facet of romance. The mundane of this is where the real romance lies on our day to day as people, and I find this so...rarely? tackled in fiction?
Maybe this is because I'm ace, but I feel that there's a distinct? vibe to these sorts of mature and enduring romances where like, the love is there, the commitment is there, but we still have moments we need to work for it because that's life and we work for it because we find each other worth it.
What is more romantic than compromise with someone you care for deeply? What is more romantic than tackling problems together and trying to come to an agreement and sometimes not being able to but still having done your best and accepted the outcome anyway?
What is a long lasting relationship that isn't about give and take and growing together or coming apart? Aren't those stories interesting? How could any long lasting relationship where people are deeply in love with each other be boring when like, to BE in a relationship with someone for ten, twenty, thirty, sixty years and come out the other side of that saying 'you're the one, you're still the one, you've always been the one' is one of the most wild and rare type of relationships to have?
What sort of sacrifice and compromise and work it takes to build that sort of relationship, isn't that interesting? To persist despite moments of doubt and periods of despair and all the work it takes in mundanity? all the trials a relationship like that has to survive and has survived, isn't that still tension? isn't that still interesting?
Maybe it's just me that I find this more interesting than "will they? won't they?" Either they will or they won't but when I'm reading a romance they mostly will! But do they have what it takes to stay there? And if they do isn't that one of the most interesting things in the world to look at?
Isn't that also love?
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