#oc: brinne alistair

[idrisofficial]

a separate peace >:)

a separate peace: which oc is the most envious

oh you’re terrible. this is actually a really hard question—most of the characters have rotating door egos, but they don’t feel much desire to be like other people. either they think they have it all figured out or they despise their peers too much to feel the admiration that underlies envy.

it comes down between brinne and adrian, but i think the clear winner is brinne. they’re the final contenders because adrian is the only character who’s truly deficient in self-respect, and brinne loathes both herself and everyone else, which is unique. brinne comes first because at her core, she feels hatred for others because she doesn’t know what’s so inherently wrong with her that she can’t be like them. whereas adrian is just mournful and accepting that he’s inadequate.

look into enneagram 4 social/sexual subtypes for more on brinne :)

[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]

can’t believe i forgot to post this earlier

HUGE thank you to @ratherfortunateghost for drawing this absolutely amazing and canon art of brinne. i’m so super flattered you made this and whenever i look at her i go EEEEEEE!!!! she looks so good.

[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]

cleric - brinne

paladin - rowen

wizard - zephyr

cleric: Does your muse believe in any god or follow any religion? What drives their faith? Or, if they're faithless, why? What would it take for them to find faith in something or someone?

brinne has an extremely complicated relationship with halcyonism. as a child, she took no interest in its restrictive and absolutist doctrine, and only participated in religious rituals when she was forced to or if she got to see adrian. however, post-near death experience, her feelings are much changed. hallucinating herself featureless as like halcyon while spiraling through afterlives was extremely traumatizing, and she knows she was lucky to survive being stabbed and mutilated. in brinne's teen years, she had crises over just about everything, and deep down she was very insecure about her lack of faith (how could she not be, considering her environment?). she became convinced that artemis's massacre was punishment for her sins, and immediately after healing took to halcyonism as the only thing that could redeem her. even still, her faith does not exactly come from a place of genuine belief; it's more that she forces herself to adhere to it because it validates her power as monarch and gives her some semblance of structure to cling onto. she doesn't believe that halcyon and his gods will save her, she believes that some gods Have To Save Her.

paladin: What does your muse fight for? What tenets or oaths drive them? Have they ever had to break a vow, and if they have, why?

rowen fights to be the master of her own destiny, fights so others can have the same, and fights in the name of those who can't fight. sometimes she's a little too liberal in extending "the name of those who can't fight" to people who fundamentally do not agree with her. she's kind of willing to twist reality to whatever she wants it to be for the sake of her ideals. she's deeply driven by feelings of oborligation to protect the oppressed, which is why her crowd is mostly starving children, immigrants, artists, etc. she's absolutely broken this vow lmfao, she literally burned down a school to escape it and demolish the institution it represented. yes, she created a somewhat viable escape plan for all of the other students, but there were definitely casualties, and most of the kids were traumatized abuse victims. not a good look. she'd never suck up to authority and harm the oppressed for her own sake, but if it advances her plans for the revolution or the "greater good" she'll do pretty much anything. you can then assess for yourself whether her vow can even be considered as such, which i won't pass direct judgment on.

wizard: What is your muse like as a student? Do they have the patience for studying? What do they like learning about? What do they most want to know?

zephyr really has no interest in academia. idrisian public school is basically just propaganda lesson after propaganda lesson, with basic mathematical skills thrown in. zephyr was perfectly happy to spend his life in the military doing practical things, because he is not one for the cerebral. geometry was probably the only thing he ever enjoyed in school, because he's good with visual representations (well...not anymore...) and applications he can understand. if he had the chance and the adhd meds, he'd probably think engineering was pretty cool. he's never really been shown the power of real education, and i think if he was he'd be a lot more excited about it. if he could make it long enough in school to get to how cool things like physics and architectural principles are, he'd be super interested in that.

[idrisofficial]

21 for brinne and adrian!

What common etiquette do they disagree with? Do they still follow it?

oh this is a fantastic question for them! thank you for the ask, you chose a good one :)

brinne: she hates the culture of bowing. doesn't like being bowed to, doesn't like bowing herself. the custom of bowing before and after noble conventions (meetings, dinners...) always gets on her nerves, and doesn't sit right with her when she knows everyone in the room would be all too glad to trample her corpse. the only occasion in which she doesn't really mind it is when it's for a prolonged moment of silence at the church altar. but she has to be alone in doing it, or it makes her feel itchy with dread.

adrian: i guess i'm not sure if this qualifies as common etiquette, but for the high priest of idris, it's a pretty basic function of daily life. adrian has to do a whole fucking lot of public speaking, and it sucks. he's never actually told anyone this, but he thinks the whole system would work a lot better if the high priest had some kind of associate or representative who spoke for them, and he only had to do private study and ritual leading. he's learned to handle--although barely--church services for the other nobles. when he has to give statements to the public or oversee any national holiday observance? forget it.

[idrisofficial]

can u tell me more abt brinne :3c ? i love her already

so sorry it’s taken me so long to get to this- i wrote a whole response to this and then tumblr ate it 😭

brinne is special to me for a million different reasons but one of the things i really like to focus on is how she represents what a person can become if they’re isolated from all sources of social validation.

sometimes i almost say that she never had a chance at being a good person, but the thing is that she did. yes she was born to despicable people with the greatest power in the entire country, yes she was raised in a bubble that forbade critical thinking, and yes she grew up hated by both her peers and her superiors because of her neurodivergence (among other things). but it’s absolutely crucial to her character that by the time she was old enough to even think for herself a little, she was breaking down the walls of her society and trying to develop an idealistic worldview. despite everything, she pushed through for years. and ultimately it’s hard to blame her for falling through with it due to unbearable trauma.

it’s also pretty much impossible to discuss brinne without discussing adrian— so much of brinne’s development as a teenager happened through her rebellion of pursuing him. their relationship started when they were ten or eleven and neither of them having any actual friends despite their respective high statuses became much more obvious. they latched onto each other easily, and a lot of their dynamic was brinne dragging adrian along on secrets and misadventures. people only started whispering a few years later when they were absolutely inseparable. it wasn’t just running around avoiding lessons and hiding in the chapel anymore— they were making out in closets by fourteen and everyone knew it. the brinndrian rant on sexuality is for another time, but essentially, this was a Huge Fucking Deal. and most of the blame fell on brinne as the heir of the country, though they were both already betrothed. it was also around this time that brinne’s political radicalism got a lot more serious, and she was severely punished for this as well.

it only spurred brinne on. her coping mechanisms were not healthy by any means, and adrian helplessly enabled her. she was drinking heavily at sixteen and going wayyy beyond making out with adrian. her moral compass had fully solidified at this point too, and she had zero problem speaking out against her parents or any other noble contributing to the oppression of the people. it’s a little ironic that this is the part where she starts embracing others’ hatred of her. she ain’t seen nothing yet </3

then artemis’s massacre happens. and everything is turned absolutely upside down. brinne is left to die with a gaping stab wound and a bloody carving into her face. she miraculously survives (more on this later), but is fundamentally changed by the hallucinatory near death experience she undergoes while in a coma. she grows paranoid, self-isolates, and cuts off everything with adrian, her only real connection to anything. a pretty terrible time to be crowned monarch of the country, but with the entire older generation of nobles wiped out in the massacre, she has no choice.

the question of brinne’s culpability for her actions here is interesting. she still believes everything she always has about politics and freedom, but becomes so paralyzed by the trauma of the massacre (and her upbringing, which she processes as she grows older) that that she feels physically incapable of acting on her beliefs. because of her, the country descends into an even darker age of oppression and turmoil. she understands the wrongness of her actions, but can’t bring herself to ameliorate anything for fear of uprising. of course, she’s hypervigilant concerning the possibility of a noble coup as well—even as her politics conform to what they all believe, they only seem to hate her more as time wears on.

brinne also turns to halcyonism (idris’s official religion) to try to reconcile everything going wrong in her life. it’s a strange, awkward situation because of adrian’s position as idris’s high priest, which brinne attempts to circumvent by essentially pretending nothing ever happened between them. and while adrian has always had less spine than a jellyfish, there’s something about it he just can’t take. they angst about this for awhile and end up having steamy church sex about it. no further comment on this. halcyonism is also a major pillar on the hill of oppressive doctrine idris stands on, and is part of how brinne attempts to immerse herself in nationalism and tradition to block out every thought of self-hatred for what she’s doing to her country.

iiii am depressed about her always. she’s fascinating and there’s so much more to her than is even mentioned here (im telling you that sexuality rant could go on for pages). but i think the basics of her character and backstory in canon are enough to provide an explanation for who she is. she’s a tragic victim of her own circumstance and upbringing, yet still extremely in control of her own actions and effect on other people. i don’t even know what shade of moral she is anymore. i just know that it’s 11:30pm and my brain is full of brinne alistair blorbo bleepus

[idrisofficial]

do a gtn x idris analysis. can be about any aspect

my worldbuilding is nowhere near as impressive or fleshed out as tazmuir's but i kinda wanna focus on that comparison! i haven't talked/thought about worldbuilding in awhile so this is a pretty good opportunity.

the dynamics between the houses remind me a lot of idris's noble houses, even if the political situation is entirely different. idris's nobles have no need to compete with each other because they all serve one government which they are (mostly) all loyal to. arguably the same could be said of the nine houses in regards to the emperor, but the goal of lyctorhood is framed as inherently competitive within gtn, their shared servitude is virtually nixed. but shit between the idrisian noble houses gets nasty too! the characters i have developed the most often have bigger fish to fry (i.e. the revolution), but for the nobles who are not first and foremost concerned with artemis, they engage in a lot of petty aristocrat drama just because they have the time for it! most want to grab power wherever they can, and step on each others' toes all the time to get it. they duel (yay swords!), they make political plans to directly antagonize their enemies, and they are completely cut off from the rest of civilization at large for the most part. it's part of why the nobility are so fucked up; the culture is and has been for hundreds of years to distance themselves from reality and engage only in what are deemed noble pursuits (religion, ivory tower academia, sparring, study of their political domain). this is, in a way, comparable to the transformations seen in first house when the adepts seek out lyctorhood and abandon their humanity in the process.

but really, it's what makes idris comparable to the ninth house. it's hard to know where to start with this in particular, because the biggest thing i have to go off of is Vibes. but the morbid, isolated feel of the house of the ninth is exactly what it's like walking around halcyon's castle. like ninth house, idris is a sparsely populated country, although idris does take up considerable land mass. only certain parts of it are really conducive to life at all, so cities become dense with people while forests and tundras are left abandoned. much like the ninth house, idris has been a sinking ship for a long time. the halcyonic values which idrisians are raised with breed a lot of patriotism, but anyone who examines the country's resources and poor international status understands that they can only go on for so long like this, with each new ruler only prolonging the country's slow death. the nobles are also raised with far too much pride to address the structural issues within government and economy. they're raised with far too much pride to even organize proper relations with other countries. unlike the ninth house, idris is not separated by planet from its contemporaries. but honestly? it might as well be. most nobles aren't even permitted to leave the country. idrisians have so much contempt for other countries' heresy that they refuse to engage even when given the opportunity. which, as far as i can tell, is also a pretty stereotypical ninth trait (although i wouldn't say gideon or harrow particularly embody it).

i do enjoy the harrow-brinne similarities as well. i love the way gideon constantly describes harrow's expressions as twisted or pinched or anything similar-- it's very brinnelike to me, even though brinne isn't really facially expressive. harrow's adamance about the face paint is a safety precaution throughout gtn, and it reminds me of two brinne things, the first being her veil. brinne's veil is obviously first and foremost her method of covering her facial scar, but it also represents her attempts to bring herself closer to halcyonic values and halcyon itself. it's not a coincidence that her scarring goes hand in hand with the nde where she hallucinates herself in halcyon's image (i.e. faceless). although the vision terrifies and traumatizes her, she becomes fixated on piety immediately following. masking half her face is a way of re-attaining the godliness of her nde, as well as keeping herself safe from the people around her. and like the reverend daughter's face paint, it is a way of altering the way she is perceived. the veil creates a similar imperviousness to the face paint.

harrow and brinne's loneliness and selfishness are also deliciously similar. they both come from childhoods where they were simultaneously idolized and isolated and that sure did fuck up their priorities! harrow is kind of a more extreme version of brinne's traumas. just one-upping her everywhere. where brinne was supposed to be the most divine of other divine children, harrow was her house's only hope for divinity at all. where brinne was expected to be the paragon among so many other living children (and failed), harrow was expected to make up for all of the children who died for her (an impossible task). where brinne was hated by all of the nobles growing up, harrow had no one left to be hated by, save for gideon, who did a damn good job at letting her know. but despite the disparities, i think the effects which these things had on them are similar. brinne is a failure to represent her lineage and her people, and the irreversibility of her blood is what prevents her from justifying herself in the first place. harrow is a failure to be worth all of the souls that died for her, a curse placed on her alongside conception itself. it's all very original sin-y.

ok im tired now and i should go to sleep but if i ever have the time and energy to add onto this i will. there are so many juicy comparisons between gtn and idris. it makes my brain go all microwave noises

[idrisofficial]

🐁 for ask game :3c

🐁 Capybaras are friend-shaped. What shape does your OC have?

brinne is just spooky shaped tbh. girl is honestly the essence of halloween and good for her.

adrian is catholic shaped. i will not elaborate.

[idrisofficial]

i don’t think you’ve posted enough about the fucked up love square between adrian brinne kori and zuri. also kori and zuri deserve to hold hands and blush

ohh this is true. i will now begin to explain it to my audience of probably one (1) who already knows everything about it.

heartbreaking: mentally ill star crossed noble lovers are betrothed to absolute cinnamon rolls who don’t understand why their fiancés don’t love them.

in all seriousness it is pretty messed up. brinne and adrian went through an abundance of childhood trauma together and latched onto each other like the codependent traumabonded almost-gays that they are. despite being the children of the most respected people in the entire country, all of the other nobles hated them during childhood, and honestly still do, so they’re all each other has ever had. after brinne started distancing herself from adrian following artemis’s massacre, she practically lost her mind from the sheer isolation without him. even when she warms up to adrian again, it takes time for her to be able to genuinely open up to him like she did as a teenager. they both just kind of vaguely angst and then fuck nasty about it in the castle’s chapel.

and then right in the middle of her healing kori enters. and it gets So Much Worse. brinne adopted naturally hostile responses to most people even before the trauma of the massacre, so you can imagine that her reactions to new people are not so welcoming. yes she was somewhat prepared to meet the person she’s been betrothed to since childhood, but she was not expecting him to be seventeen. she was not expecting him to be a golden retriever boy who everyone fawns over. she was not expecting him to fall head over heels in love with her two seconds after seeing her. he’s the perfect guy, and she’s pissed. she has no trouble making sure kori knows that the sight of him repulses her. kori isn’t entirely oblivious (brinne is blunt as hell), but he stays optimistic through all of this. he’s definitely upset that his fiancée doesn’t love him, but wants to do his best to make her at least like him, so he keeps shooting his shot. he does not have the mind for politics, and while most of the nobles love him, none of them care about him enough to really get to know him. he’s extremely lonely and misses home. he just kind of wanders around confused most of the time, making it look like he’s happy and well-adjusted. kori also knows nothing about brinne’s affair with adrian, even though the entire noble court knows. none of them have the heart to tell him.

zuri is adrian’s fiancée. she’s a little different. she’s reserved and sweet and disciplined, and has tried to foster a good relationship with adrian for years. they just…don’t click. they’re too similar in too many ways for their relationship to truly be comfortable. zuri was also extremely shy as a child, and adrian was usually busy, so the two never developed a relationship early on. she knows about brinne and adrian’s affair, and has been aware of it since only a little while after it started. brinne and adrian were by no means subtle, and the nobles’ whispers about it became much louder over time. everyone pities her deeply, but no one wants to actually say anything about it. zuri tries to ignore it. she seeks adrian out and does nice things for him and tries to make herself attractive to him in all different ways. girl has tried everything at this point. it’s not working, and adrian feels awful about it. unlike brinne, he has a real connection to his obligations, and he also just values zuri deeply as a person. he can see how hard she’s trying and he wants to like her so, so bad. his demisexuality gets in the way of a lot of it, too (not that he knows what that is). zuri has no comfort, no real friends, and no support. she is putting everything into a relationship she knows is doomed to fail. adrian and zuri are a tragic couple and if they were given time and a little more anger inside, they would probably end up something like the alpha couple from tmg’s tallahassee album.

see, brinne and adrian are deeply in love and ultimately have no romantic interest in their fiancés. and kori and zuri are both the sweetest people ever and are distraught that their fiancés don’t love them back. in addition to this, kori and zuri’s personalities would match completely and they would likely give way to a relationship that helps them grow as people. the age gap between them is also smaller (still not great but it’s a fantasy story what do you want from me) and their life ideals match so much better together. i should just pair them up and let them be happy together, right? right? that would solve all the problems? or at least a lot of them? right?

well. i refuse to let anyone be happy. hope this helps :)

[idrisofficial]

🌼 brinne 👀

🌼 (blossom) - When a stranger meets your oc, what’s the first thing they notice about them? What kind of vibes do they give off? Are they friendly and open? Cold and standoffish? Is the first impression people get accurate to who they actually are?

brinne projects exactly what she is comfortable with others seeing, which is almost nothing at all. although most idrisians usually bundle up, the only skin brinne exposes is her face above the veil she wears. she takes the cultural value of privacy to an extreme and has no trouble telling others through her appearance that she wants to be simultaneously invisible and imposing. her vibes are sharp and uninterested in conversation with you. that she’s only here because she has to be—she has no other place to go. she’s volatile and could kill you with a glance at any moment. she’s scary.

appearance is a large part of who brinne is, and her real mental illness + her projection of a darker personality have converged into one truth using appearance as a vessel. when she first started wearing her veil and dressing in black was when she first started to really change. when she first started to really change was when she first started wearing her veil and dressing in black. what she puts forward is all a very real coping mechanism, and slowly she embodies the darkness more, but that doesn’t mean it’s genuinely her. it’s only accurate to how she behaves.

[idrisofficial]

⭐️ brinne

⭐️ (star) - If your oc could wish for one thing to come true, what would it be and why? How would this change their life?

assuming it could be literally anything, i think she would find it in herself to abandon her shame and just ask to be loved. it’s really all she ever wanted. free therapy. gradual but certain healing. the ability to work collaboratively with her own allies. the end to how extremely she fears hatred and rebellion from her subjects. brinne is really still a child. with the body of a young adult and a mask to further conceal it. if she could wish to be loved by everyone, maybe all her suffering would disappear.

[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.