#this was a rly good char development exercise :3

[nectar-cellar]

RQOTD:  Where is your OC from? What is/was their life like there? Do they  consider this place their home? What ties them there? Have they moved on  or do they stay there for their entire life, why or why not? (Feel free to answer and/or forward this to more people ♥)

I’ll answer this for both Amir and Dani since they are the only OCs of mine (so far) who are a couple, whose lives are intertwined. ❤️ The answers are based on a story I’m perpetually rewriting so please excuse me if there are any plot holes. I tried to mix realism with TS3 lore. A very long response is below the cut!! I don’t expect most people to read it all but if you do, just know that I appreciate you very much 💖

Also, the pics are unrelated, I just wanted to dress them up all fancy and take some pics of them together since I haven’t done that in a while hehe

Amir: Amir is from Egypt. His life there was materially comfortable, but his upbringing was very traditional and governed by rigid expectations. He never felt free to be his authentic self and always felt like an outsider in society. He does not consider Egypt his “home” in the truest sense of the word and he hasn’t visited his family in years, always citing school and work as excuses.

Several years ago, he came to the town of Sunset Valley, Simerica, to attend university on a scholarship. The Sunset Valley Institute of Technology (SVIT) was hardly prestigious, but he hadn’t been accepted to any of Simerica’s more famous schools because of his good-but-not-great high school grades. Still, he saw this as his one chance to leave his strictly controlled life in Egypt and see the world, so he took it.

His career goal is to become a journalist covering hard-hitting political and human rights topics. He wants to eventually move to a big urban city like Bridgeport, where there are more professional opportunities and a more progressive and open-minded culture. A recent graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism, he is currently employed at a small local publication in Sunset Valley, writing mundane stories about the town’s goings-on, and he has no passion for it whatsoever, but at least it pays the bills. Amir feels disconnected from his family, his country of origin, and the white picket fence suburbia that is Sunset Valley. His co-workers are nice (some of them), and he has a few friends from SVIT, but the only reason that compels him to stay is because his first love Dani is here.  

Dani: Dani’s mother emigrated from China to Sunset Valley to pursue her career when Dani was just a baby. Dani grew up in Sunset Valley but doesn’t consider it “home”, because they have almost zero friends here and their relationship with their mother has always been strained.

After high school, Dani went on to attend SVIT because it was the nearest and most affordable post-secondary institution available, and there they met Amir. The two fell hard and fast for each other. Unfortunately, since they were both emotionally immature young adults, their relationship didn’t last. Their whirlwind romance ended on rocky terms. Despite that, they have a hard time forgetting each other, what with being each other’s first loves and being what feels like the only 2 queer people in a small town and all...

A recent graduate like Amir, Dani currently works a dead-end food service job in the town centre which just so happens to be near Amir’s place of work. Nothing ties Dani to Sunset Valley. They have always wanted to leave, and the only thing they care about is saving up enough money to make it happen. Amir often sees Dani around town in passing, but only dares to watch them from afar, since for all intents and purposes they are strangers. Unbeknownst to Amir, food service is only Dani’s day job... their secondary source of income pays much better, and has allowed Dani to build up a large amount of cash savings in a relatively short period of time.

By the time Amir musters up the courage to reconnect with Dani, to try and start over, it’s a little too late. Just when their relationship seems to be improving, Dani disappears with suspicious circumstances, leaving Amir with a million questions and only a few clues. Curious, perceptive and determined to get to the bottom of things (he’s a journalist after all), Amir is soon hot on the trail of the one person he can’t let go of. (I don’t want to spoil the rest of the plot hehe.)

For Amir, Egypt is not home, not in a physical or emotional sense, and neither is the town of Sunset Valley because he’s an outsider with no roots here. For Dani, they have no strong social ties to Sunset Valley, and their house doesn’t feel like a home even though they’ve lived here their whole life. Their familial roots may be in China, yet that is a place they’ve never been to.

One of the reasons why Amir and Dani are so attached to each other is because they both don’t feel like they belong or fit in anywhere. Sunset Valley is just a place they’re both living in for the time being. Neither of them has a place to truly call home, given their personal histories. But with that also comes the freedom for them to redefine what “home” means. Perhaps “home” can just be the peaceful apartment you return to at the end of the day. Perhaps “home” is not where you were born but where your chosen family is. Perhaps “home” is something you have to create for yourself, over and over again as your life goes on. Idk, it’s just an interesting concept to think about, especially for queer people, immigrants, and people with complicated family relationships.

I wrote such an in-depth answer because the topic of “home” is central to Amir and Dani’s story arc. Thank you for such a thoughtful question @lazysunjade and thank you, reader, if you made it to the end of this VERY LONG ESSAY :)