#oc: lennox warryn

[idrisofficial]

what does lennox think about at 2AM

his homosexual fucking ass.

if he’s up at 2am, he’s either drunk and wallowing in his misery or in a state of burnt out but tireless effort to run the country despite everyone else’s incompetence. so if he’s not thinking about work, he’s thinking about how gay he is, how fucked he is, how much he misses natal, or all of the above.

[idrisofficial]

what do other people say about lennox and nesrin. what’s their relationship to outsiders

oh this is a VERY interesting question and not one ive really considered.

most people are very intimidated by lennox because he intentionally positions himself as a cunning politician to earn fear and love and respect and everything in between (niccolo machiavelli would love this guy). and anyone smart enough to catch onto his occasional usurping of the throne understands that he means business and will probably do anything to get what he wants.

nesrin is kind of an enigma to the court and she likes it that way. she makes sure people know what she’s capable of (physically and politically), but she won’t let anyone really get to know her as a person aside from lennox and kaia, and those relationships are kept as private as possible. most people don’t question the narrative surrounding her sister’s death, but there are a few quiet rumors that she was responsible for it, generating some fear towards her—it contributes to a ruthless image.

put those two reputations together and you have a power couple. people are aware they hated each other for awhile, and then at some point they started being seen together more frequently. most probably guess that they fucked about it and then everything was ok.

their alliance seems a little dangerous to people with how ambitious each of them is. people assume that they do a lot of scheming together, but mostly they come to be each other’s only friend so their discussions often aren’t political. it does come across as strange that they usually don’t interact with each other in group settings—some probably think it has to do with power dynamics and lennox wanting to seem absolute in his knowledge and nesrin likely challenging that. but nesrin only speaks when necessary in groups anyway, so it’s not too suspicious.

overall? people think they’re an extremely well-matched pairing full of manipulative potential and are kind of glad the two of them aren’t a more united front at court. no one has any idea as to the nuances of their feelings towards each other.

[idrisofficial]

Which characters/character do you feel most personally/emotionally involved with and why?

oh this is a very difficult question and i appreciate it very much. as any creator would, i’m inclined to say all of them in different ways…but that’s kind of a cop-out.

i think i’ll say brinne and lennox. they’re not the characters i relate to the most, but i do think i feel the most emotional connection towards them. a lot of what draws me to them is their silent suffering—both of them live in glass prisons of their own making. a lot of this is mental illness related, but their natural dispositions are also of great influence (although lennox’s natural disposition is extremely debatable when you consider nature vs nurture).

brinne was the first of any of my idris characters to exist, and the depth of her development definitely follows suit. her transition from a manic but deeply idealistic teenager to a reticent and self-interested monarch through the buildup of her childhood trauma and the final straw of her near death experience is so deliciously heartbreaking. her loneliness, her codependency with adrian, her sexual and alcoholic coping mechanisms, her deep uncertainty in the religion that gives meaning to her entire life…poor girl can’t catch a break. brinne has always been the focus of idris, and i’ve had fun and i’ve had pain hurting her like i do. most of the actual writing that i’ve accomplished revolves around her, and for good reason. she is at the core of the conflicts plaguing idris’s centuries-old culture and still just a twenty two year old girl who never really got to grow up. sometimes i act as though her teenage self and her adult self are two separate people, but the truth is that they are painfully intertwined. brinne’s suppression of her idealism and desire for change in service to her desperate attempts at self-preservation is what drives her motivations throughout every iteration of this story. she cannot escape who she is, try as she might. and i think there’s something so, so compelling about that for someone in a position of such horrible power like she is.

lennox is layer upon layer upon layer. the fact that he was originally inspired by byakuya togami? we’re not gonna talk about that. lennox has also come a long way as a character, the third to exist after brinne and adrian. he’s an og. lennox was a nice kid up until about age six, where the kindness was quite literally shattered in him to make room for solid perfection. a machine with style. he grew into the role almost too perfectly. the pinnacle of competence, a voice of absolute reason and logic amidst his generally wild and dysfunctional generation of nobles. here is why i feel such connection to lennox. he is ice on the outside, ice on the inside, speaks only when necessary but controls the conversation, and casually usurps the throne from time to time. he has studied these same people for sixteen years, understands most of them sickeningly well, and appears virtually flawless aside from his mansplainer bullshit. but my god is he grumpy, bitchy, flamboyant, perfectionistic to the point of petulance, and baselessly sadistic. he’s the second most powerful person in the country and he has constant migraines from dealing with others’ bullshit. he loves his siblings. he’s one of only two characters to understand his sexuality and he’s deeply afraid of it. he gets no bitches. he’s still mourning the death of the cousin whose death he was responsible for and who he was boyishly in love with. he’s sensible as all hell, but my god, he is fucking losing it. nobody gets that. even the people who hate him don’t get that. they hate him for his pretentious swag but don’t understand how much of a loser he actually is. anyways. i’m on a tangent now. he’s flawless. he’s horrible. there is no changing who he is, but would he ever have turned out like this naturally? lennox is a product of both what others have made him into and what he has forced himself to embody. there is no lennox that isn’t a diamond formed under absolute pressure.

[idrisofficial]

ok lore drop time! finally.

so, the months following artemis’s massacre were an utter mess. the monarch has been crowned at 17 after she’s woken up from a coma, and the nobles in charge of the country now range from ages 13 to 17. not even a year later, natal has been discovered to be a traitor to the monarchy and imprisoned.

this was shocking to everyone (barring grace, who already knew, and lennox, who had his suspicions), and was a major catalyst for brinne’s development of severe paranoia. she wanted him executed even though he was only 15 years old and idrisian law does not permit the execution of minors.

even if natal wasn’t lennox’s close friend, lennox would have questioned the legal validity of brinne’s desire, but considering lennox’s big fat gay crush on natal, he fought like hell to search for alternate solutions.

while brinne and lennox were in the midst of this week-long debate, another noble died. 13 year old juno theoris had been thought to have been very ill from trauma following the massacre, but after she died, it was revealed that her systems were full of slow-acting poison.

backtracking a little-- the debris of artemis’s massacre left nesrin completely traumatized. she was afraid that not only would the government quickly collapse, but that she would be rendered politically powerless in the new generation of acting nobles. the complexes which her parents had instilled in her as a child that she was essentially a marriage prize seemed ever the more likely to become reality, and nesrin wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing about it. so she slowly and continually dosed her sister’s food with poison over the course of ~8 months. juno being the third child and nesrin being the second, nesrin would inherit the power that came with her sister’s domain and position after her death.

while nesrin had originally planned to play off juno’s death as terminal illness, natal’s imprisonment provided her a strategic opportunity. to avoid garnering suspicion, she framed natal for poisoning her sister as part of his treasonous crimes before he had been imprisoned. this easily fed into a narrative which appealed to brinne’s paranoia and her hope to prematurely execute natal.

lennox plainly could not argue against the accusation. as much as he wanted to and tried at first, there was ultimately little he could do to counteract what nesrin had set up. he lost that battle, and natal lost his life. lennox hated himself for it, and he hated nesrin more. consumed by grief and envisioning their future marriage to be a living nightmare, this was when he started drinking.

lennox did not confront her about the framing for two years. in that time, he developed an image of her as unprincipled and voraciously power-hungry in a way with which he could not reconcile. he feared immensely how the politics of their marriage would play out, not to mention his dread of its sexuality. nesrin despised how lennox basked in his unfettered power and felt jealous of his familial relationships. recognizing how lennox wanted nothing to do with her brought her another slurry of emotions--while it assuaged some of her anxieties, she also resented him for denying her the one significant degree of power she had been promised since childhood.

by the time he was 20, lennox was up to his neck in alcoholism. on one particularly bad night he went to confront nesrin while viciously drunk and she ended up saving his life. both of them got much more off their chests than they expected to the following day, and they found themselves with surprising inklings of respect for each other. finally able to stomach the other’s presence, they started spending more time together. the immense resentment took a long time to heal over, but especially after managing to communicate to the other that they were gay in a society with no concept of it, the two of them felt much more able to trust and confide in one another.

nesrin also developed her interest in kaia as she became more comfortable with lennox. im not saying the quiet part out loud but there is something very fucked up about nesrin murdering her younger sister as a teen and then years later running to smooch another noble who is not only from juno’s sibling-generation but also younger sister to her fiancé and a younger sister figure to her. something something nesrin making up for what she killed, something something can’t escape the cruelty of love, something something oedipus.

long post. i am literally insane about this. hugest lore drop in a long time. thanks for reading my insanity </3

[idrisofficial]

actually, expanding more on this. the main difference between what they actually believe is that lennox thinks he’s in the right for separating his theoretical belief in freedom from what he actually does, while brinne knows she’s wrong.

lennox wanted to be his parents’ number one from day one. and he was. and he received all the positive attention in the world for it. because of that conditioning, he never thought of his ideals of closer equality as something to genuinely work towards. it’s academic to him. in his mind, yes, the people deserve better conditions and real rights, but that could never happen. it’s just not right for their country and the social upheaval would be disastrous. it isn’t worth the cost in general, least of all factoring in the cost it would bring to him. it was never even a possibility.

brinne always believed so strongly and stubbornly in change for the people. as heir to a near-absolute monarchy, she didn’t ever doubt that she could be capable of being the one to turn things around. economically, socially, all of it. she would find a way. but following her trauma and the investiture of the nobles whose power suddenly seemed so daunting, she felt like there was no way forward for her except to preserve what was already in place. the visceral fear and risk of danger associated with giving the people more power with what had happened to her absolutely shattered the convictions she had had for so many years. but the time had passed for her to genuinely internalize the propaganda behind the law. she purposefully tries to immerse herself in it, but after disputing it throughout her whole childhood, she doesn’t really buy it no matter how she tries to convince herself she does. she knows what she’s doing is wrong. and she hates herself for every minute of it. but she wouldn’t stop it for the world.

fucking heartbreaking, honestly. rowen completely and totally fucked that one up.

[idrisofficial]

🚨 all 3 warryns

🚨 (siren) - What’s your character’s relationship with the law? Have they ever been arrested? What for? What are their opinions on law enforcement?

lennox: lennox sees the law as a means to maintain order. he has no particular affinity for idrisian laws themselves, and brinne has certainly convinced him that there’s little merit in a monarchy. he could take or leave the theocratic laws; he understands them as a means of controlling the people and respects their purpose as thay. obviously he’s never been arrested, although theoretically brinne probably could have him jailed for his assumption of her royal duties while she’s depressed. she won’t do that. lennox is fascinated by political structures and from a point of morality does feel bad that idris’s happen to fuck most of its citizens over. at his core, he does believe in freedom more than most other nobles. but he considers his self-preservation and the country’s prosperity much more important than any real positive change for ordinary citizens. primarily, as the leader of the house of justice, he wants to enforce the law that exists and keep the population in line so that the country can prosper as best it can in accordance with tradition. the fact that he doesn’t personally give a fuck about tradition has little bearing on the work he carries out. he’s good like that. separating his own ideas from the ideas he knows are right (ha) for the country.

mikhail: mikhail is not immune to propaganda. when he bothers to care about how his house’s decisions actually impact people, he’s mostly supportive of increasing governmental power and stabilizing various legal hierarchies. censorship laws in particular make perfect sense to him because of how they reinforce his elite status—of course common people aren’t allowed to speak badly about government officials, but it’s perfectly fine if he does it, because he was just born one of the gods’ favorites. he listened to what he was taught in lessons. he doesn’t fully buy that the law is the product of divine ordination, but it’s a convenient explanation and mikhail is the most well-steeped in social conditioning of his siblings (meaning he’s also the most religious of them, even if he’s not exactly devout). he thinks countries with laws that differ greatly from idris’s are foolish and harbor their own self-destruction, even when they’re overall much more successful nations compared with idris. but in general he doesn’t feel too strongly about it. he just follows his siblings and spends the rest of his time basking in the hedonism of nobility. no cause for arrest or anything of the like here.

kaia: kaia is the least religious of the three, practically atheistic. she holds little regard for halcyonism personally or as an institution and in terms of law is much more driven by her inner morality. said inner morality, though, is bad. having been only thirteen and still majorly developing at the time of artemis’s massacre, her stance on law enforcement is pretty brutal. she’s not very popular among the public and for good reason. kaia and brinne don’t have a very positive relationship, but brinne has a shred more respect for kaia than she does for other nobles because of their agreement on national security and harsh criminal punishment. this is one of the few things kaia and lennox really argue about. it drives a wedge in their relationship, especially with the silent reminder of natal’s execution that permeate the conversation. she is often frustrated by the law, though. she thinks a lot of the restrictions placed on the public generate a genuinely unlivable environment, but she’s stopped too often by bureaucracy and her own aversion to risk-taking to be able to change them. halcyonism’s influence on the law feels entirely convoluted and unfair to her, but she doesn’t really see any option but to work around it. the last thing she wants is the trouble of being called a heretic. with the way brinne is becoming, she probably could be arrested for it.

[idrisofficial]

🍐- Grace, Lennox, Mikhail

🍐  :    how intelligent is my muse overall?  are they smarter than the average person,  or less than?  are they primarily self-taught,  or did they acquire most of their knowledge in school?  are they more street smart or book smart?  

grace: she’s very smart, but moreover aware in how she’s smart. grace’s intelligence shines best in situations where she knows how to use her knowledge. she’s not afraid to experiment, and after absorbing all the information she is so voraciously hungry for, she has to have somewhere to put it or she will combust. she’s definitely book smart in how active a politician she is, she just has to be careful about how she them in order not to become suspect (kind of ironic to call this “street smarts” because of the context, but that is what it is). she’s gotten a lot better at that since natal died. for the most part she’s managed to craft her image among the court as someone innovative who acknowledges that innovation will not always be popular, but still swears loyalty to the crown. but her continued belief in natal’s innocence does raise eyebrows. that’s not a lack of smarts on grace’s part; she knows the effect it has, but she can’t bring herself to compromise her honor of natal.

lennox: lennox is generally regarded as one of the smartest nobles idris has ever seen. he deserves a lot of that credit, but it is also a lot of manipulation and attitude. on how he deserves it: he’s a fucking nerd who spends most of his free time reading, he’s a genuine intellectual interested in just about everything, he’s adaptable, he only ever wants to talk about what’s most important and seems to have an endless stamina for debate about it. on why he’s not as smart as his facade: he doesn’t know what genuine human connection is like and that hurts him, he refuses to understand things far from his own perspective, he disavows anyone he deems lesser than him, and most importantly he buys into the lie that he’s the smartest noble ever to live. a lot of his arrogance genuinely hinders his intelligence. in that way, he’s actually a lot less smart than grace, who he often rivals—grace also has somewhat of a superiority complex, but she acknowledges her ego. lennox doesn’t. he did his job a little too well.

mikhail: so glad you included him in this ask. mikhail lets other people think he’s not that smart because it benefits him for others to see him as a stupid slut. well ok no one actually thinks he’s that dumb. but he definitely sleeps around and he definitely isn’t an intellectual like lennox or kaia, so he doesn’t mind if people don’t see his aptitude until he’s already taken advantage of them. although it’s rare, mikhail’s parents did raise him, the secondborn, with the same expectations they had for his siblings. they wanted him to be supremely competent—and he is, when he bothers to care. most of the time he makes himself think, “fuck them, they’re dead now, i’m gonna live it up.” he did the required reading as a kid and was a great student. he understands how to run a kingdom. but even more than mikhail is a master of hedonism, he is a a master of people. that’s a huge part of why he acts as lennox’s representative when dealing with other nobles. especially after knowing them for so long, he understands what makes them tick in a way lennox just doesn’t latch onto. and if they underestimate him, so much the better. so much the more fortune he brings to his house.

[idrisofficial]

WOOO FINALLY DONE WITH THOSE ASKS

geules

1 for zephyr

2 for rowen and adrian

3 for grace

4 for lennox and rowen

5 for adrian

1. Does your OC have any experience in the military? Perhaps they come from a long line of soldiers or army leaders? Or were they conscripted or press-ganged into an army at a young age? If they have not had a formal position in an army, then what is their view of the military mindset and hierarchies they have observed?

idris is the kind of fucked up where the public education system ends at 13 years old so that teens can be conscripted into the military, and zephyr happened to be part of the unlucky population to be drafted. his experience was…anything but pleasant. making good friends was never really his strong suit, so he ended up with some shitty acquaintances who more or less ordered him around to do their bidding. he also took one of his military mentors as a fucked up surrogate father figure, which really burned him when he was discharged after less than a year of service because of his explosives accident. it also instilled a lot of really harmful, nationalist sentiments in him which he’s still working to unlearn. zephyr in canon time is only 15, but he has a whole lot of military trauma attached to him from only a few months as a soldier.

2. Does your OC believe in the concept of a "just war" or do they believe that all conflict is to be deplored? Could they conceive of a justifiable reason for one nation to invade another - perhaps to free an oppressed people or prevent the development of a dangerous technology? Or would they only support a war of defence against an aggressor?

rowen: rowen is absolutely in favor of a just war. growing up in idris has taught her nothing if not that authorities will only suppress any form of subtle resistance, so violence and war are really the only way forwards to a better future. it’s easy to see how she’d already internalized this by her teen years by the fact that she opted to burn down her reform school at 15 rather than make a simpler plan of escape (also says something that evander let her!). rowen believes in a pretty black and white fashion that violence is always justified against tyranny.

adrian: adrian thinks of war in very removed, political terms. his only personal connection to the concept is through artemis’s rebellion, which he fears and deplores because he’s been propagandized against political dissidence from birth. war, to adrian, is a last resort to be taken when diplomacy between two countries has unequivocally failed and cannot be reconciled. in adrian’s eyes, civil war is pretty much never justified because of how severely it upends society as a whole and causes patriotic confusion and domestic chaos. most other nobles share his same opinion; for the most part, he doesn’t think very much outside the political propaganda fed to him.

3. Is your OC usually magnanimous in victory - whether against a defeated foe, or against a friend in a game or competition? Or perhaps they enjoy exulting in their success at the expense of others? Perhaps with ribald mockery or spiteful vengeance?

HAHAHA this is a great one. grace absolutely likes to gloat a little. …maybe more than a little. it’s not particularly good noble etiquette, but fuck that, right? it’s exhausting for her to pretend to be stoic all the time in order to cover up her political opposition, so she deserves to be smug over her little victories. and her big ones. glory and mockery on planet grace.

4. What has been the most difficult thing your OC has ever had to forgive (assuming they have ever done so)? Did they do this of their own accord? Or only after they felt justice had been done or penitence suitably demonstrated?

lennox: this is a surprisingly difficult question to answer. i think i have to go with brinne executing natal. probably the only significant wrong in his life that he’s forced himself to forgive. he’s also had to forgive himself for letting it happen, but he doesn’t fault himself as much as he faults others, so that comes second. lennox fought for days on end with brinne to lessen natal’s punishment for seeking out artemis’s rebellion (which natal never even found), to very little avail. he was able to convince her that it was not within the bounds of the law to execute natal before he turned 17, but really all that did was stall his execution date. he really fucking hated brinne for that one, not even only because of his gay little crush on natal, but it was also one of lennox’s first meaningful legal experiences as the head of his noble house, and he lost. that was real humiliation. he only forgave brinne because he didn’t have another choice if he wanted to stay sane and in power within the noble court. he’s forgiven her just enough to not let it affect him and his job.

rowen: rowen doesn’t do a whole lot of forgiving. unless she has very good reason, she won’t trust or absolve those who have slighted her unless they’ve shown real incentive to rectify the harm they’ve done. the best example i can think of is her forgiving grace for her noble birth, which sounds pretty basic because it’s not something grace had control over, but it is actually a big deal. rowen’s prejudice against the upper class runs deep, and she really enforced the divide between her and grace for a long time. if not for her own gay little crush on grace, it’s hard to say whether she ever would have been entirely over their class differences and forgive grace for her upbringing.

5. Does your OC harbour resentment towards a particular person, group or faction? Or are they perhaps part of a widely resented group themselves?

yes to both, to some extent. from both a political and a personal standpoint, adrian really loathes artemis’s rebellion more than he’s ever loathed anything else. resentment is a bit of a difficult word when applying it to his political feelings, because on that basis there’s a lot more fear than anger, so the full spirit of resentment isn’t quite captured. from a personal perspective, there’s a lot of anger going on, especially from someone like adrian. if rowen hadn’t, y’know, mutilated brinne right in front of him, maybe he would only be afraid. but he wants them fucking obliterated for that. not the best move on rowen’s part! to answer the second question, idris’s nobility is largely respected by its population, and political dissidents are a minority, so adrian isn’t exactly resented by a large percentage of citizens, but the people who hate him really hate him. this goes double because he’s idris’s high priest, not just any noble. most people have a lot of respect for him, but some people absolutely despise him.

[idrisofficial]

14 lennox

14. What is your OC's "villain song"?

will you kill me if i say the fine print by the stupendium. because i have always thought of his villain song as the fine print by the stupendium.

[idrisofficial]

what’s your favorite bit of lore you haven’t posted to this blog yet?

this one is so hard for me but rn it’s the warryn siblings.

lots of feelings about siblings in idris: nova and kori, rowen and evander, grace and her brothers, and probably a few others, but lennox and mikhail and kaia are just. grrrrgh.

they all exist as completely different responses to the pressure and trauma they experienced growing up, and all of them are influenced by having witnessed each others’ development as people so intimately.

lennox’s position is unique because even though the hard businesslike shell was something created over time (it certainly isn’t the same on him at 22 as it was at 15, or even 17), it was always something that mikhail and kaia accepted as reality about lennox. of course, both of them know lennox’s true personality well enough to see which parts of the facade bleed into his true character and which don’t, but there’s sort of been this acceptance among them for years that how lennox behaves in front of other people isn’t actually how he is. this same behavior goes for all three siblings, honestly, but it goes the most significantly for lennox. it’s an immutable part of his personality.

an aside: in general, it’s pretty hard to catch the warryn siblings at their most genuine. lennox fronts unshakable capability and superiority (only some of which comes naturally to him), mikhail chooses to appear as someone socially appealing and attractive to further his own agenda, and kaia bottles everything human about her up so tightly that anything that comes out of her is a logical and controlled choice. what fucks me up the most about them is that there’s not a single moment when any of the three aren’t able to spot the flaws in the others’ performance, and deduce down to a science how much of what one of them says is what they actually believe.

mikhail took a lot of things from lennox. half of his applied intelligence he owes to lennox. he’s naturally conniving enough, and is undoubtedly perceptive, but his ability to use his skills for anything meaningful in the noble court would be severely hindered without the influence of his older brother. their relationship is fascinating because in contrast to lennox and kaia, who often explicitly discuss dynamics in the noble court and their place in it, lennox and mikhail communicate in social subtleties, even when they're in private. euphemism is a common language between them, and their interactions probably wouldn't seem very brotherly to outsiders— it would usually appear like they were any two random nobles with no significant relationship to each other. the truth is that the social facades both lennox and mikhail set up in front of other people and the social signals they send each other in private discussion are in fact entirely different. their public social appearances are manipulative more often than not, and always set with an agenda. while the two still aren’t casual with each other in private, their shared cognitive understanding of the other's unspoken thoughts and feelings completely restructures the pace and content of their conversations. in essence, they speak without speaking at least half the time. for mikhail in particular, that's kind of a nice side of their relationship— mikhail himself speaks and acts with such clear exaggeration of his personality around the noble court that having a more between the lines relationship with lennox is really still a mask-down situation for him. lennox and mikhail are just…over-social, formal people.

lennox and kaia, as alluded to, are totally different in their interactions! you would expect mikhail to be the gossipy one because of how outgoing and interested in people he is, but really it’s when lennox and kaia talk that all the judgment happens. although mikhail has much higher standards than the average person, lennox and kaia’s standards are incomparably larger. in their relationship, the other is a safe space with which to dump all of their practical and intellectual frustrations with politics and other nobles. they also often go to each other for advice, and are pretty much the only people either of them is willing to take criticism from. mikhail would be included on that list too, but it’s not really within his personality; plus, he understands lennox and kaia’s meticulousness enough to trust that they know exactly what may be going on even when he doesn’t. there’s also a major element of protectiveness in lennox and kaia’s relationship. lennox feels an older sibling instinct to keep kaia from any harm (and in particular, scrutiny), and kaia understands lennox’s flaws on a deep enough level to recognize when he gets in his own head and is spiraling into self-loathing. lennox tries to limit his drinking as a coping mechanism a lot because of her. he’s not usually successful, but the guilt of knowing how concerned she would be definitely makes a difference. the four year age gap between them does impact their relationship meaningfully, and it would be impossible for lennox not to view kaia as his baby sister. surprisingly, lennox and kaia’s relationship is not that affected by nesrin and kaia’s gay little thing going on! lennox and nesrin ultimately have no interest in each other beyond a tentative alliance within their forced betrothal, and lennox has a lot of respect for nesrin both as a person and as a noble. basically, he approves of her as a partner to his sister if that’s what they want to do, and the subject goes otherwise unspoken about. lennox is a little bit of a homophobic, slightly misogynistic homosexual, but that’s a post for another time. i have a rant about that too. where was i?

the warryn siblings make me Feel Things. their writing as siblings is partially inspired by my own sibling relationships (as i’m sure you know, estelle) and they’re very near and dear to me. lennox was originally written entirely without siblings in mind, but i honestly think they add a lot to his character. giving him people he genuinely trusts and can be real with provides an even greater contrast with how he typically behaves, and also humanizes him more. he’s not only the ice coldness he puts on in front of the rest of the cast. he’s capable of vulnerability and affection, and also has people who share and understand the exact same trauma he endured as a child. exploring that side of him has done wonders for my own understanding of him as a character, and fleshes him out a lot more, i think.

[idrisofficial]

purpure

1 for lennox, grace, rowen, evander, nova, zephyr

2 for grace, nova

3 for brinne, grace, lennox

4 for rowen, evander, brinne

5 for brinne, lennox, grace, rowen

1. Does your OC find it easy to express deference or homage to someone of high social standing? Or is this something they would only do if it benefitted them directly? Or for the sake of a scheme or intrigue?

lennox: the only people lennox has to express deference to are brinne and adrian, which is definitely kind of a struggle for him because he regards both of them as sad pathetic losers. he manages with brinne, mostly for his own sake, but he really does his best to circumvent almost any interaction with adrian at all. although he does have interest in halcyonism and religion as a whole, adrian has effectively icked him out of pursuing it, because he wants as little to do with him as possible. when he's forced by circumstance to interact with adrian, he can deign to treat him as an equal, but not more than that. the things this man does for social advantage...

grace: grace has mastered the art of remaining respectful to higher-ups who she really despises. it's uncomfortable and pisses her off, but she's really damn good at finding ways to do it while still maintaining her pride. she'll defer when necessary, but she's not eager to treat anyone corrupt as though they're better than her. ...lennox is the only exception to people she'll force herself to defer to. she physically cannot bring herself to do it.

rowen: rowen simply Will Not treat people higher up with the respect she's expected to. she never has. she never will. this has gotten her in Extreme amounts of trouble. she does not care. she never will! it's up to evander in the most dire of situations to cover her ass for it. if he's not there? she's fucked. she simply Will Not do it.

evander: evander knows how to be smart about this. unless it's someone he really has zero respect for, he'll express what's expected of him, no more and no less. if the situation demands it with someone he really hates, he'll let self-preservation take over and go the extra mile to please whoever he has to in order to save a life or a freedom or whatever it is. he does exactly what he has to.

nova: look...nova just hates people. he was brought up to know how to socialize with people, and he's aware of the customs and the rituals, he just puts no personal effort into any of it. anything he puts up in front of people he's not close to is a result of forced practice and is far from genuine. so he doesn't really have trouble expressing deference, but he's so far removed from whatever he's doing or saying in those situations that it's not really representative of who he is anyways.

zephyr: this is when zephyr's military trauma kicks in haha! education system trauma, too. he has an ingrained awareness of the social hierarchies which might be operating in any given situation, and is quick to adhere to whatever is expected of him (he learned this the hard way). he's never been at the top of any hierarchy before, so he's well-versed specifically in knowing how to place himself downwards in order to show respect. it's really sad, actually.

2. Is your OC comfortable in the higher echelons of society, such as aristocratic functions or assemblies of the rich and powerful? Or do they prefer to avoid these events if possible?

grace: she's certainly not comfortable, but she has the experience to navigate the aristocracy successfully most of the time. with the disarray of typical noble events and entertainment under brinne's rule, she's not forced to deal with larger social gatherings as often as she otherwise would be, but it is still part of the job. there isn't much avoiding it, as much as she wishes there was. her girlfailure side tends to come out when she's surrounded by many aristocrats in a non-professional context, which isn't great for her. but to be fair it is incredibly attractive + bisexual of her.

nova: nova gets awkward at these things. as much as he's been trained for social events and the like, he can rarely translate what he means to do or say into what he actually does and says. this is especially true when talking to people similar in age/rank to him. being generally asocial and rather low-empathy doesn't help either; he'd much rather stay in his room and have kori be the family representative.

3. Does your OC feel that exchanges of ideas or customs between nations or cultures can be positive? Or do they fear the dilution or devaluing of one culture by another? Has there ever been a foreign cultural practice they have adapted for themselves? Or are they fiercely loyal to their own cultural inheritance?

brinne: idrisian cultural nationalism is real and brinne is not immune to it. she had a ton of curiosity about the cultures of neighboring countries when she was younger, but she was never really given the opportunity to learn, and now her paranoia has overwhelmed any remaining interest. it definitely impacts her politics, and makes her pretty xenophobic at times. nobody really challenges it.

grace: grace is fascinated by other countries' practices, and has a lot more exposure to different cultures than the average idrisian through natal. she's never been out of the country, but her discussions with natal as a teen about what he had experienced outside idris's borders were really formative for her. she's very interested in alya and her perspective as an immigrant, but considering their age gap and how closed off alya tends to be, there isn't a lot of interaction between the two of them.

lennox: lennox is one of the only nobles who has actually done his reading on other countries (exceptions: grace and natal's two siblings). he's interested in other cultures, but as a general statement, cultural exchange is not especially valued in idris, so it's not at the top of his priorities list. he's not concerned with cultural dilution by any means, though-- he knows that most people in idris are exceedingly ethnocentric.

4. Does your OC have a strong belief in the importance of justice? If so what does justice mean to them? Do they follow the philosophy of "an eye for an eye"? Or are they careful in distinguishing between justice and revenge? Is this the case even if they consider themselves to be the injured party?

rowen: justice is rowen's strongest value. concepts of victory and justice become very intertwined in her eyes, where righteousness is retribution and achieving what's truly moral is framed as a constant battle. growing up in such a heavily restricted society has only amassed her a huge thirst for freedom, which certainly now borders on revenge for what has been done to her and her loved ones over time. intellectually, she tries to separate what justice and revenge mean to her, but in practice, they meld together much more often than she realizes.

evander: evander's perspective on justice is very similar to rowen's, as it was really founded for both of them during childhood and influenced by their parents. the main difference is that evander is not so grandiose about what he views as justice. for him, justice is only a means to the end of freedom. where rowen relishes in the hunt for justice as retribution, evander only looks forward to enjoying the bounty of their efforts after the necessary heads are chopped (metaphorically speaking? literally speaking?). he's not so keen on the idea of revenge as a whole, although it does bubble in him on rare occasions where his anger gets the best of him. he just wants a better, freer future after all of the dirty work is taken care of.

brinne: god, justice is not her highest concern by any means anymore. brinne's moral principles have mostly been abandoned in her frenzy of isolation and paranoia. she still believes in the rewarding of good deeds and the punishment of bad ones, but what constitutes a good or bad deed has shifted so drastically to appeal to her own self-preservation that it can hardly be viewed as an objective stance on justice as a whole. "an eye for an eye" often applies in situations she herself is removed from, which is a pretty common standard throughout idris. when she's involved, though, it's usually more like "my eye for your beating, bleeding heart." ...it's a little intense.

5. Does your OC believe that there can ever be fair and just relations between nations or tribal groups? Or do they assert that might will always make right when it comes to interactions between such factions?

brinne: yes, she believes that there can be equal and just relationships between nations. but the idea of catering to something so foreign and unknown is deeply frightening to her, so she tries to avoid dealing with other groups and countries as much as possible. when it is necessary, she tries to deal with the situation with as minimal, inconsequential exchange as is possible.

lennox: lennox is skeptical when it comes to the desires of separate groups. he's certainly a believer in personal and sociological ego, so it's difficult for him to trust that interactions between self-sufficient groups can ever really occur with the interest of the other party in mind. possible, sure, but typically improbable. something to be wary of.

grace: grace's views tend to be pretty similar to lennox's, actually. it's the combination of a similar environmental upbringing and the ways they share logic more than they want to admit. although grace is generally more optimistic than lennox is about the potential for equal compromise. she tries to be, anyways.

rowen: rowen believes that fair relations are usually possible, but not without a lot of dispute. she's sympathetic that both sides of a conflict will have demands so long as one group isn't tyrannical about their conditions. but if there's real malice between parties failing to compromise, rowen understands the need for military clash.

[idrisofficial]

vert

1 for evander, alya

2 for lennox, kori, zuri

3 for lennox

4 for kori

5 for lennox, brinne

1. Does your OC feel comfortable expressing feelings of joy - do they laugh or smile easily? Or do they have a constantly stern or dour countenance? If so is this entirely genuine? Or something they feel they need to maintain for the sake of appearances?

evander: evander tries to let himself be happy and show it as much as possible. he knows he lives in a bleak world and is putting himself in constant danger, so cherishing the moments of levity are really important to him. he'd rather not be exhausted from trying to stay tough all the time for the sake of the revolution, although he understands that that's often part of the job.

alya: alya has a harder time visibly showing her joy. vibrant reactions and facial expressions have never been natural to her, and she has a tendency to remain stone-faced regardless of the situation. she'll smile, or more commonly, express gratitude towards others when she's feeling joyful, but the occasion has to be significant for her to go further than that. zephyr is good at finding ways to make her laugh, though :)

2. How hopeful is your OC about the future? Do they see things as becoming better in general - either for them personally or the world at large? Or do they feel as if decline and disaster are inevitable and all that can be done is to delay the final end for as long as possible?

lennox: he's pretty depressed about this, actually! he doesn't let it show for obvious reasons, but he sees no positive or stimulating future for himself or for idris under brinne's rule. his future is essentially sealed to continue the cycle of abuse in his family and run the country within the oppressive atmosphere of the nation and the castle. there are various ways he tries to distract himself from this (alcohol, overworking, being a whore, etc), but there's no getting around it. nesrin shares a similar sentiment so at least they can commiserate about it together.

kori: kori is absolutely clueless about nearly everything, but it's in his nature to be optimistic, so he definitely has hope. at least he's aware that he knows nothing about politics, and his plan is to learn more so that eventually he can be of some help making things better. it's sweet. and so terribly, terribly misguided.

zuri: zuri is nervous about the future. she works with a lot of the cold numbers and realities of idris's population as part of her political domain, and she knows it's not doing great. and she also knows that with brinne holed up in her room or spending days in the chapel or drinking herself into oblivion, it's not looking up. she can't really find a reason to be optimistic, but she tries not to let it bother her and just do her duties like she's supposed to, hoping that following the status quo will work out for the better.

3. What makes your OC laugh (if they laugh at all)? Do they have an intellectual or ironic sense of humour? Or do they prefer ribald jokes or slapstick routines?

dear god if you can make this man laugh out of humor you have done the impossible. most of the time it's just sarcastic. he appreciates some good irony, though.

natal made him laugh

4. Does your OC believe in the importance of fidelity in romantic relationships? Or does it not worry them so long as a lover or spouse never discovers their peccadillos in this regard? Conversely do they worry or obsess over the loyalty of their partner or partners?

kori definitely does value loyalty in his relationships, evidenced by the fact that he's never even entertained a crush or relationship before brinne. for good reason, he's definitely a little concerned about brinne's relationship with adrian, but because the two of them are so on and off, he's never actually seen anything between the two of them, he's only been subtly tipped off by other nobles who feel bad for him. most of them who feel bad for him won't say anything anyway.

5. If your OC could be granted one wish for the future, but could only wish on behalf of another person, who would they choose? And for what would they wish?

lennox: i'm just gonna say it he would wish for the guaranteed wellbeing of his siblings and that's it.

brinne: any wish means you can make a negative wish. which means rowen is getting brutally executed and made an example of for the rest of the country. brinne might actually be able to finally rest.

[idrisofficial]

azure

1 for rowen, evander, brinne, grace

2 for brinne, lennox, grace

3 for evander, rowen, brinne

4 for adrian and brinne

5 for rowen, evander, grace

1. Does your OC have a guiding principle by which they live their life - such as duty, self-restraint or vengeance? Has this ever been tested by circumstance or challenged by another person?

rowen: i mean, justice. it’s been her life’s purpose since always to protect herself and others from oppression and fight for freedom. truth be told, she doesn’t really know what she would do without injustice to fight. the lines become a lot more blurred when you stop to wonder what exactly justice means in a given circumstance.

evander: i think evander’s guiding principle is best described as harmony. he doesn’t fight for the sake of fighting, and he'd really prefer not to in the first place. but he has an end goal-- a reason for what all of his work means, and it’s peace and success for a free society. that’s reflected not just in his political views and actions, but in his relationships with other people on a smaller and larger level.

brinne: security. this is obviously developed after her major shift of behavior and values following artemis’s massacre, where before that it was definitely self-expression. every action brinne takes as a person and as a political figure is to ensure her own safety no matter the cost. this typically involves ensuring the safety of the social order and the noble class, but she would sell any of them out in a heartbeat to protect herself. …save for adrian, who certainly would test her values in that situation.

grace: this is harder to answer (sorry for leaving you underdeveloped grace), but i think i’d have to go with progress? if that makes sense. a continued motion of improvement, both personal and societal. grace is someone who very much clings to her values and uses them to guide her actions. whatever she deems a step in the name of progress, she works towards.

2. Is your OC loyal to a particular nation, clan or social group? How far would they go in ensuring the safety and success of this faction?

brinne: brinne, for the most part, is loyal to herself. by extension, she usually acts loyally towards the noble and royal institution, but she harbors no concrete inner allegiance to the crown. as of late, she’s tried to form connections with royal customs and halcyonism, but it’s a weak bond at best. for her own sake, she would do just about anything to ensure the monarchy’s success and stability.

lennox: lennox is also loyal to the monarchy for selfish reasons, although he holds more of a connection to the institution through his family’s name. he’s fiercely loyal to his family, and understands that the success of the monarchy is also the success of the people he cares about (i.e. himself and his siblings). he would stop at nothing to maintain his own power, likely even at the cost of his siblings, although painfully.

grace: grace has made her immediate goal to ensure the safety and success of artemis’s rebellion, and is certainly willing to risk her own life and livelihood to see it prosper. a little boring to get three similar answers in a row, but so much of what forges the conflict in this wip is having central characters who are all willing to give their everything to see opposing ideals to their success. love me some characters with extreme ambitions.

3. How confident is your OC of the loyalty of their companions, lovers or followers? Do they ever feel tempted to test this through spying upon them? Or by engineering circumstances where their loyalty might be tested?

evander: the way evander sees it, he has no choice but to believe in the loyalty of his followers. idrisians against the crown are hard to come by, and it’s even harder to find people who are willing to fight against the tyranny. he stays wary of most people and only gives away what he has to, but he refuses to trap himself in endless wondering about betrayal and disloyalty.

rowen: rowen is more concerned about the extent of her followers’ loyalties than evander. “tests” is a bit of an extreme way to put it, but she definitely keeps tabs on who is willing to do what in the name of the revolution. any act of sedition is highly punishable in idris, so she makes it known what is expected of members and puts pressure on them to take risks and not shy away from illegal activity. rowen was a lot harder on grace than she typically is to new members, and grace definitely had to outright prove herself in multiple dangerous situations before rowen could even begin to trust her.

brinne: brinne is acutely aware of the reality of her noble court’s loyalties, which is that the nobles hate her, but need her. she’s been almost universally detested by them since she was a kid, and it’s only gotten worse as time has gone on. of course, they need a monarch, but brinne is in a constant state of fear that the nobles are planning some form of a coup. ironically, she’s too afraid of confirming the possibility that she doesn't set up any systems of ensuring allegiance. she’s always looking for anything suspicious, though.

4. Is your OC honest about their true loyalties? Or are they happy to feign belief in a cause or leader in hopes of material (or other) reward?

adrian: adrian tries to believe in the things he's supposed to. whatever he knows he should uphold, he tries to believe in. that's about it.

brinne: brinne is never fully honest about her true loyalties. like adrian, she now tries to believe in the things she knows will help her politically, but it's not really in her nature to conform. for the sake of her power and safety, she'll act as though there is no gap in her actual beliefs and what she's supposed to believe.

5. Does your OC believe that people should only believe or take inspiration from something if it is actually true? Or are there circumstances where a motivating lie is to be preferred to an awkward or uncomfortable truth?

rowen: rowen thinks lies are overall immoral, and usually dangerous when spread on a large scale or are about something important. however, she's not above using them if necessary or if it seems the potential benefits outweigh the potential cost. for the sake of organizing the masses, rowen definitely believes that a motivating lie is preferable to an uncomfortable truth.

evander: evander is on the same page as rowen, although his threshold for what constitutes "necessary" is much higher, and he has more moral qualms about it in general than rowen does.

grace: grace is all about the truth. after the swathes of lies and propaganda growing up, she wholeheartedly believes that people deserve to know political realities. she understands that this isn't always possible or in the most peoples' interest, but unless the truth will likely cause real harm, grace's principles are to be completely straightforward with people.

[idrisofficial]

eros 1 and 2 + storge 1 for brinne; storge 3 for lennox

possibly more to come, i feel like i’ll forget which questions i want to ask if i read the whole ask game at once

eros 1. Is your OC romantic in the traditional sense? Do they enjoy giving or receiving gifts of flowers or confectionary? Or are there other courtship traditions from their culture of origin that are important to them?

brinne tends to be extremely private about her romantic pursuits with adrian for completely understandable reasons, so she doesn't usually engage in any public displays of affection or tangible expressions of love. she's much more expressive and romantic in her words. she also tends to dislike or resent most traditional idrisian courtship traditions for a two related reasons: the first because of her dedication/borderline obsession with her unconventional romance with adrian. because of the "secrecy" of their relationship, a lot of the typical traditions of courtship aren't conducive to what they have going. this pairs with the fact that brinne generally looks down on most expressions of noble culture, and definitely has somewhat of a "not like other girls" complex-- she tends to reject most traditional rituals in general (also some really interesting parallels here with zuri, but that's for another post). this distaste for ritual is very different for present brinne at 22 because of how her trauma at 17 changes her, but the entire current brinndrian relationship is so tangled and inconsistent that it's also difficult to assess it at all in the current time frame.

eros 2. How important is sex to them in a relationship? Do they see it as something essential to their happiness? Would they be able to remain in a monogamous relationship with someone they loved without sex?

pretty important to her, actually. brinne's sexual expression is both one of defiance and one of acceptance. in embracing her own sexual agency, she refuses the right of royal tradition to control her life more than it already does. it's an act of rebellion and a welcoming of liberty. her relationship to sex is far from all positives, though. brinne also has a tendency to use sex as a coping mechanism, and she often has little self-control when it comes to giving into whatever her chemical imbalances demand of her. it would be a legitimate challenge for brinne to be in a relationship without sex, but for someone she really cared about (i.e. adrian, if he was really insistent) she would certainly try to figure it out. a relationship without sex would probably encourage some healthier behaviors on her part, but would also most likely cause other mental health issues. it'd be a toss up for sure.

storge 1. Did your OC's parents love them unconditionally? If so then has this helped them feel confident as an adult? If not then how has this affected them? What were the conditions their family attached to their relationship?

hahaha nnnno. there was little to no love in that relationship at all. brinne has extreme feelings of deficiency in her worth as a person, and has since she was very small. by adolescence she was able to mask most of it by acting out and being purposefully disobedient so that at the very least she could feel good about being bad. brinne at 22 no longer rebels outwardly almost at all, and in result her feelings of a lacking self-worth mount once again. at 22, for the first time in many many years, she strives to be good by what her parents' standards were, and struggles extremely along the way. she doesn't feel like herself, or know what she's doing, or know if she's succeeding by any measure. her parents are also gone by this point, so she has no one to affirm any of these questions. truthfully, even if her parents were alive to see it, they would still be viciously critical of her. brinne's parents' hatred of her was not born because of her defiance, although that escalated the issue significantly. its origins lie at the expectation for their child to be a thing rather than a person, and brinne's high-maintenance condition from birth was so dissonant from that standard that there was no chance from the beginning that her parents would accept her for who she is. even if they saw her making an effort to behave appropriately after her long childhood of defiance, she would never be good enough for what they believed necessary for their child. in a lot of ways, actually, brinne's parents were quite similar to lennox's in terms of courtly mindset and parenting. the main difference is that brinne comes from a long, long line of emotional people, whereas the warryns are frozen all the way down. neither are bearable environments for children.

storge 3. How far does parental approval (imagined or expressed) impact upon their current sense of self-worth? What might they sacrifice or attempt to achieve in order to ensure the approval of their parents?

now we're talking about lennox's parents, perfect segue! this is an easy one. parental approval dictates lennox's every word, action, and thought. he has immense pride for his family, and constantly upholds himself to the paragon of conduct which has been set for a person of his heritage and caliber. after his parents' death (which is a whole Other Thing), he replaces their guiding voices in his head with his own to some extent, but in most contexts they're indistinguishable, so it doesn't matter much. essentially, he is able to think for himself in a higher capacity after their death, but he is still so fundamentally affected by the biases instilled in him that most of the time his lines of thinking end up being the same as what he would have received parental approval for in the first place. relevantly, the times when he hears the actual voices of his parents in his head the most is when he is self-critical. of course, when they were alive, his parents had a lot of cruel things to say about him. lennox warryn at 16, 17, 22, is entirely a product of the mold his parents forced him into as a child by accepting no less than perfection in every area. by the time he was 16 or so, he had so solidly learned exactly what was expected of him that his parents' cutting criticism became less frequent, and negative comments turned into the refinement of details of his actions and personality, rather than rigid standards he was threatened into achieving. all of this is to say that lennox has taken great, great pains to become the person his parents wanted him to be. he is willing to do anything to himself or others* because he trusts so wholeheartedly (wow, he has a heart!) that whatever conclusions his parents, and thus, himself reach are correct. that's why he's so full of himself. fucked up.

*except for his siblings. this becomes extremely complicated and is also for another post.

[idrisofficial]

ooooh who's your favourite and least favourite charater voice to write

gosh it’s been awhile since i’ve finished anything, but the few times i’ve gotten into lennox’s head and inner monologue for writing purposes, it’s been really fun. i like getting to vicariously live out my dreams as an arrogant intellectual anime boy through him. he’s probably the character i think most about on my own as well- for as much fun as i make of him, i think the way his brain works is actually really compelling and nuanced. i really enjoy getting to work out the different gray shades of morality in his perspective. he’s my projection character in ten thousand secret little ways <3

[idrisofficial]

🤝 Does your OC have someone they want at their side when they are scared? Who?

🤝 Does your OC have someone they want at their side when they are scared? Who?

waaaa this is such a good question…hits right in the feels because honestly it applies to everyone

- adrian and brinne want each other because they’re codependent dumbasses who have never had anyone else to support them

- rowen and evander are both pretty independent and definitely trust themselves to be able to hand a fight (both of their fear responses). but evander will always feel brotherly obligation to protect rowen and rowen doesn’t really trust anyone other than evander for physical and emotional comfort (although her relationship with grace explores this)

- grace wants natal. good luck with that one bae.

- lennox wants his siblings which will never not emotionally wound me. he used to want his parents for guidance too but that’s faded away in the past few years.