#selis: death can not stop true love

[unfortunate-arrow]

"Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while." — Westley, The Princess Bride

[cavalier-life]

Hello, dear! You've been visited by the random character question fairy! :D ~☆

What is your character's worst habit that they don't realize is a habit? How has this habit affected them? If they ever realized said habit, would they try to stop doing it?

Hmmmm.

I apologize for taking a bit to answer this, but I was mid house sale (done and new Casa de Cavaliers done as well, wooo) and it was something of a hectic week. ;)

I am going to try to answer this for a couple of my OCs across some different universes (Behind a cut, because I'm long winded). Thank you so much for the ask! <3

SWTOR - Selirah, the reluctant Empress of the Alliance forces:

Being born and raised in the Empire and its ways, Seli is often blind to the fact that she unthinkingly positions fellow former Empire denizens as people that are automatically considered more trustworthy or competent than people who are from outside the Empire.

She genuinely does value competency and merit and skill in anyone she encounters.. but she unconsciously gives a mental head start to anyone from the background she is most familiar with and personally knows and understands. Their motivations are easier for her to connect to, and she finds them easier to work with (because they are less likely to challenge her as a powerful Sith and their Empress, out of an ingrained social training to view her as above all others, of course). This has led to her needing to see more out of people from other backgrounds, particularly the Republic, in order to give them the same level of trust that she gives an Empire-aligned individual by default. She is quick to make up that lost ground once she's gotten over that initial prejudice, but she doesn't often see how her behavior mirrors the way she herself was treated initially as a Twi'lek by the Empire.

And unfortunately, most people don't want to call her on it until they know her well enough to realize she won't summarily Force choke them for it.

At least, she -probably- won't.

As a ruler, one who values merit and skill and likes to believe she is fairly unbiased due to being an alien with all it entails in the Empire, it would absolutely be something she would make an effort to stop doing, or to catch herself in the process of doing.

WoW (Moon Guard) - Dareca Silverbrook, that Frost Death Knight with the cutesy Ardenweald moths perched on her heavily armored back and the Oh I Wish You Would expression on her face:

Dareca's worst unrealized habit is that she leaves when she's happy.

She's aware that she likes her space, is a loner, etc. But she doesn't really understand that she finds it uncomfortable when she's too content. There's always a good excuse to leave, one that she can make herself believe is necessary.

Her tendency to ghost when things are at their best has cost her significantly in friendships and loved ones. To her, it seems like they want to keep her on a leash. That they don't want to give her room to be herself. That they abandon her while she's just doing her duty to her people and the Alliance. But while that may in part be true, it ignores the fact that she leaves people when she's too happy with them, either out of an unconscious desire to test their affection for her and see if it lasts, or just out of a visceral discomfort with emotional closeness. Or sometimes both.

Would she change it if she realized that she had this habit? Probably not. There's old dogs learning new tricks, and then there's an old, solitary dog of her fairly venerable age. ;) She would probably try to do better, and might even succeed... she has managed to change a few very ingrained habits with her husband, to make things smoother between them, and he has learned to adjust to her ways as well.

But it's more likely that she'd just fall back into the old rut of familiar unconscious behavior after a while. That's usually how she functions, and she wouldn't see much value in fighting ingrained behaviors in herself.

She's not always very easy to live with.