#sdlfkja;slfdjasd sorry for posting early I keep forgetting there's a keyboard shortcut for posting a post

[loregoddess]

Temenos Mistral for the character ask game! (Because you were talking about them earlier!)

First impression: "Oh, he seems neat, wonder what his story will be about."

Impression now: I love Temenos, one of my top favorite characters from the game, probably my scond-fave after Ochette. He's such an interesting character and his story (gripes I might have with the pacing aside) was unexpected for a "cleric" story, based on what I'd seen with Ophilia and some of the clerics from CotC. Honestly I'd write up an entire character analysis if I had the energy to do so, bc there is so much going on with him.

Favorite moment: A few different ones, but I really like how any time that the façade he puts up starts to slip, this sheer force of anger slips through--that's good stuff. Love that his "In Pursuit of Truth" theme also sounds much more energetic and aggressive when compared to his normal theme song (and like, I'm not well-versed with music terms and stuff, but Temenos is also the only character whose "In Pursuit of..." song has a significantly different tempo and more aggressive melody when compared to the standard theme, if I recall correctly).

Idea for a story: Hmm, do the two rewrite ideas of his main narrative that I have floating in my head count? Like I've said, something about the general pacing of events and a handful of narrative elements in his story don't really work for me, and as a result his story arc doesn't seem as strong compared to the others' stories. Not all of it is "bad writing" or anything, like the writers clearly had a plan in mind, and I know some of it is just my personal taste...but yeah, I have a "canon compliant, trying to match the general narrative motifs and themes of the rest of the characters" rewrite idea, and a "mostly canon compliant, but definitely changing some things to fit my personal tastes which therefore go against one or two of the overall recurring themes and motifs" rewrite idea. I'll probably never do anything with them though bc it's more like...anytime I come across story writing that I thought was really good, I try to figure out what about it I liked and how the writers set it up, and any time I come across story writing that doesn't work, I do the same thing where I try to figure out why I didn't like it and then try to figure out how I'd write it myself, and this is like, a little mental enrichment I do just for fun and also to try and sharpen my own preferences and sensibilities for storytelling and writing. So like, I don't technically have that much beef with his story, and I don't want to come off as "I'm a better writer than the original writers" or even that I thought the original arc was bad (it really wasn't bad writing per se), it's more just a thing I came up with for myself for funsies and as a mental exercise in narrative, more so than an actual like, critique of the original story.

Unpopular opinion: I uh, I don't ship him with Crick...or anyone actually. In fact the Temenos x Crick ship really does not float my goats (nothing against anyone who enjoys the ship, you do you and all that, it's just not my cup of tea). I actually read and more or less headcanon Temenos as aroace, and even if I didn't, he's got like 2934820398432 unresolved trust issues, so I'd have a hard time seeing him be able to enter into a romantic relationship anyhow. But that's just my reading, again no shade to anyone who has a different reading/headcanons.

Favorite relationship: I love his interactions with all the other main characters, but I find his weird friendship with Ochette to be really, really interesting especially (I'd write up an analysis and list of thoughts on this too if I had the energy). Outside of the main cast, what little we get to see of his interactions with Jorg, along with what we learn after Jorg gets murdered, is really fascinating to me as well. They have a very unusual familial/professional relationship (although given that Benedict and Anna's wildly unconventional familial relationship is also super interesting to me, I'm thinking I might just be an enjoyer of unconventional and murky adopted familial relationships in fiction).

Favorite headcanon: I am fond of the idea of him being related to Alpates and Throne by blood, although as I've turned the headcanon over in my head and whittled it like a wood carving, it's developed into something really specific with basically no in-game source to back it up, so it's a 100% bona fide "I just made something up and went with it" headcanon that I keep modifying and changing. Basically, I think he's got a situation similar to Hikari's, but significantly more subdued since he doesn't have an evil shadow version of himself trying to talk him into murdering everyone, and that his blood ties to Alpates's bloodline are stronger than his blood ties to D'arqest. Some more specifics about that under the cut bc explaining myself requires talking about late-game spoilers.

(Specifically rather than being directly Claude's son, I think it's entirely possible some of the Blacksnakes were able to have kids of their own, like Father did, without Claude finding out about them and having the child killed, and that even potentially those kids might have had kids, thinning the blood ties to Claude further--so rather than being Throne's half-sibling, Temenos would be more uh...*checks cheat-sheet chart for familial ties* ummm...her half-grand-nephew, god I hate everything about that phrase why does anything relating to Claude have to be a string of "wtf??"s). I keep changing this headcanon slightly (I did originally start from the base of having him and Throne as half-siblings), so who knows just how much it's gonna change before I settle on something I'm really happy with, but I do like the idea a lot.