#raraccepted

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, SIDNEY!

You have been accepted for the role of ALEKSANDER MOROZOVA. Admin Bree: Sidney, I can't even express how excited I was to see your app in the inbox! The Darkling is a crucial character to the movement of the plot and the game as a whole, and I worried that we wouldn't have someone to take him up once more and play him—correctly, at that, but you did it, and you did it so well. The changes you made made an already great application even better, and your understanding of him shone through in every word. I can't wait to see what you do with him on the dash. Well done!  You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST.Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER ALIAS: Sidney. PREFERRED PRONOUNS: She/Her. AGE: Twenty. TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: I’m in EST for the summer! I’ll have a lot more free time since I’m home. I do have a part time job, and occasionally I’ll pick up some double shifts, but it’s not too time consuming. I’ll be able to check in daily and I’m always around to plot. As for when the fall semester starts, I go full time and work part time, but I’m usually pretty good at keeping up with things. I can usually respond to threads within 1-3 days and am always around to plot via IMs or Skype! On a numerical scale, I’d say 7-8/10 in the summer and 6-7/10 during school semesters! TRIGGERS: None. CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: Right now, I have Lucrecia. And I was also recently in OSB with Octavian. And I have Rita now.

IN CHARACTER DESIRED CHARACTER: Aleksander Morozova. (This would be my second character. I wasn’t sure if that needed specification!!)

Aleksander( ahl-ek-SAHN-der): A name of Polish origin and a cognate of the name Alexander which literally means defender of man. Some could argue this shows the true nature of the man who is most infamously known as The Darkling, but as we all know, a man’s humanity can change as quickly as darkness can snuff out light. Most notably, the name descends from none other than Alexander the Great: a true leader, a true conqueror, a ruler of empires. And Aleksander plans to do exactly same, by any means necessary.

Morozova (mor-oh-TSOH-vah): A common surname of Russian origin which is derived from the word moroz, which literally translates into frost. Aleksander has never been one to manipulate the elements, never a squaller or a tidemarker, so the literal translation of his name has often eluded him. That is, until he fully grasped the weight of his own power, of the shadows he can cast, of the darkness that spills so willingly from his fingertips. Perhaps it is comparable to the bitter chill of ice leaving its mark. Just as the cold consumes and obliterates, darkness is just as powerful, if not more. He takes pride in his last name and in the meaning behind it. Though this name has many meanings and many different faces associated with it, it is his. He’s worn it since he was a boy and it will live on long after he’s gone. And he foresees no end to the legend it has become.

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER? I have been in love with The Darkling since the first moment I saw him come to life on paper! Despite his games and his lies and all his flaws, I truly believe in his goodness. It’s deep down, trust me. Deep, deep, deep, deep down. But I think he’s more human than he’ll ever admit, because after all, what’s more human than succumbing to greed? Nothing.

Power has not been all he’s ever wanted, all he’s ever dreamed of, but oppression has a funny way of changing a young boy’s mind. And furthermore, witnessing injustice and suffering first hand can do wonders for a young man’s ambitions. I truly believe at the root of Aleksander you can find a pure and inherently good motive. If one were to examine his life and dig into his past, I think an exact moment can be found when he finally decided enough is enough. And since  then, he can no longer stand idly by while people, blessed with immense power just like him, endure the wrath of those who choose to persecute that which they do not understand.

And while power may be the key to success in the act of uprising an entire people, it also corrupts as viciously as a knife cuts or an arrow pierces. It’s fast, you never see it coming and it is likely you will not survive. Despite harnessing that power for good and creating a way of life for Grisha within Ravka, being the most powerful and revered Summoner to ever walk the Earth, it still isn’t enough for him!  

He’s insatiable. Each and every day his stomach rumbles with a hunger for more, with an incessant need to consume. He wants more and he will always, always, always justify ends with ruthless means. No matter who it hurts. And for a time, he probably truly believed it was all for his people. He told himself each and everyday that no matter what happened and despite whatever he did, it was all right because it was for them.  

But where is the line drawn? At what point will he admit that simply gaining power has become more exhilarating than liberating his people? They may simply call him The Darkling, but in truth, he is darkness. He will stop at nothing; he will let no one stand in his way. And they’re right to be afraid for Aleksander surely will not rest until he has swallowed the world in his darkness.  

Basically, I’m just really obsessed with this character!

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND? ONE: CONTROLLING HIS SHADOW FOLD — No good deed goes unpunished, especially when it is fueled by greed. The fold is a monster, one of his own creation, but it is his baby. His own terrifying and ugly production as a result of being far too in touch with his humanity. And despite all the destruction it has caused and all the lives it has taken, he is convinced it is the answer. Perhaps protection is what it once was for, but greed lies at the root. Always wanting more and never satisfied, Aleksander unleashed a beast upon Ravka—the home of his people. And while a noble goal (to protect his people and strike fear in their enemies) may have been the original idea, a way to keep Grisha safe from those who wish to harm them, it has grown into a wild and uncontrollable creature. Living, breathing darkness. And in truth, it has only made life harder for the residents of Ravka. Many have tried, out of necessity not want, to cross the Unsea and many have lost their lives during the process. That was never what Aleksander wanted, but sacrificing the few for the lives of the many is what makes a great leader.

Gaining control of the fold, of his monster, has always been a priority to him and now with his sights on the sun summoner, it is looking more and more like a reality rather than a distant dream. The way I see it, Aleksander will never be sated in his quest for power. Yes, he has end-game goals, lofty ones at that, but will it ever be enough? No. So much has already changed since he was called The Black Heretic. He created the fold to control his enemies and has been searching for the sun summoner, the one to complete him and sate his quest for power ever since. Now that she’s been found, all that’s left is to move forward with his plan, yes? But then what? Even if every other single territory submits to the Grisha, to him, will it be enough? He’s spent most of his life with this unruly beast as his greatest adversary; it may be his greatest creation as well, but it, in a very real sense, cannot be controlled. I really think he will go to great lengths, as he has done his entire life, to grab the reins, so to speak. But the first step is undoubtedly to gain control of her: Gemma. And I would love to see him use his wiles, his natural charm as a means to gain insight into her as a person and try to lure her into a trap perhaps. He’s powerful, some would even go so far as to say he’s all-powerful, Aleksander included, but will Gemma see past all that? Or fall victim? I don’t want to assume anything about her or claim to know what she would do, but the fold and her are nearly one in the same for him in the sense that he needs to have both of them under his thumb. And though she may look like an easy target, I have a feeling she won’t roll over quietly. So, he must make the allure of power, of ruling an entire country as appealing as it can be and convincing a girl she’s special wouldn’t be the worst thing he’s ever done.  

TWO: MANIPULATION IS AN ART — Does this darkness have a name? Is it your name? He’ll consume the world with darkness until all that is left is himself. All his life his only true companion has been found in the dark, flowing from his fingers in a swirl of dancing shadows. Tangible and ravaging—his power. And just like Aleksander, it is ravenous. Hungry for more, always more. More of what? Destruction. Ruination. Power. While it is has always been clear he is destined to walk the Earth alone, and he’s accepted that no one will ever really understand him, a part of him still calls for something. Always searching, always hunting, always planning for the future, for his people. He’s embraced his given name by now: The Darkling, and he’s come to love the fear and respect it invokes. Darkness is who he is; it is who he will always be. Moi soverennyi, they whisper. Moi soverennyi, they call. Moi soverennyi, they scream. But still, Aleksander can remember what it was like to be the simple boy in his mother’s arms. Innocent. Loved. Despite his age, his greed and his manipulative default setting, I really want to see him struggle with his morality. After all, to control them, you must understand them. But has he lost sight of what it means to be the champion, the leader of his people? With a name like The Darkling, it’s not surprising. But does he use this title, against his own people? Or was it meant to strike fear in those who simply do not understand them?  

Aleksander knows what it means to be molded and shaped into something someone else wants you to be. He understand what it means when people label you as something dark, something evil, something to be feared. But he also knows what it is like to have a thirst for power—for darkness—take root in your soul. He still remembers the days his mother pushed him until all he could feel was darkness, all he could see were shadows, all he could taste was black. She held him in the palm of her hand, twisting and contorting him into the ruthless being she knew he could be. Ironic that he chooses to do the same to those around him now, isn’t it? He holds his people as an artist holds clay, sculpting them into what he wants them to be. He’s made Os Alta the Grisha capital of the world, but did he ask if this is what they wanted? I cannot stress enough how much I love the inherent irony in a character like Aleksander. A young boy, born with no more than his mother’s bosom to call his own, grew up loved and praised and exalted. But inside him, she instilled a hunger. Too much praise can cause a boy to turn sour in the blink of an eye. Too much power can turn a man evil in mere moments. Is there no line he won’t cross? I really would love to explore Aleksander going to outrageous extremes to get the thing he wants most: more power. Whether it be sacrificing those closest to him or executing deals with other nations, or even lying and scheming behind the backs of his own people.  

THREE: AMBITION IS EVIL — Ever since he was a child and he learned what he could do—what he was—he has wanted a better life for him and his people. He’s watched entire villages of those like him burned to the ground, witnessed massacres and had a front row seat to countless slaughters. He grew up knowing nothing but the stain of Grisha blood and the smell of Grisha flesh. But enough was enough. He wanted respect for his life as well as his people’s, and he didn’t think that was too much to ask. Instead, they were treated as pariahs, glared at and whispered about, taken and experimented on, and even worse killed for simply being what they are: Grisha. And despite being the only one of his kind within this group, he still feels for them. He still weeps when they’re slandered and burned at the stake. He still rages when they’re taken and sliced open in the name of science and discovery. Being different does not mean you are lesser; Aleksander knows this. Your difference is what gives you power, my boy. And your power is unstoppable. Words of his mother, of course. But oppression runs deep, no matter the source from which it comes. And changing the minds of a hundred people may seem doable, but convincing an entire nation and its surrounding borders is no easy feat. It’s taken him years to get where he is today, taken him more effort and time and money than he ever thought necessary.  

It’s a never-ending battle, this fight for equality. Sacrifices were made, some by him and many, many more by his own people. Hell, there’s even an entire book dedicated to the martyrs of those who walked the Earth before them, but it will all be worth it when those who once set his people ablaze and spilled their innocent blood bow before him.  There is nothing more important to Aleksander than that. They will kneel, or he will make them. Either way, they will. I find it fascinating that injustice lies at the root of his ambitions, which over time have morphed and, as a result, gone askew. Deep down, I truly believe a young Aleksander could never imagine sacrificing his own people for this cause he’s deemed as righteous: a liberation of all Grisha. But it interests me even more how far away he’s drifted from this goal. And I want to explore his struggle between managing his selfish greed and his once selfless ambition. Power corrupts and he is a prime example of how far one can be lead off course while in bed with sovereignty.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?: Yes! I’m always down for character deaths tbh! As long as the death and loss fit into and go along with the plot and it all feels organic!

IN DEPTH IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S): THEN: Fifteen years old His hands are numb. His fingertips twinge, bright red and stinging with pain felt all the way down to the bone. He’s spent the last hour with his body pressed into the freshly fallen snow, hiding out of view. His mother hovered a few feet behind him, keeping her head low as she knelt just inside the tree line. The small tent he’d slept in last night lay beside him in a heap atop the snow.  

Smoke billows from the wreckage, embers glowing every so often—every time the wind blows. It meets the sky with ambivalence, sullying the perfectly tame white sky with its taunting black cloud. Aleksander can’t help but wonder if people feel the same way about him, but the thought vanishes quickly when the wind shifts and the stench hits his nostrils. Not from the tents that lie in ruin just down the hill, no, but from the pile of bodies that lay at the feet of the soldiers.  

Burnt flesh.  

The realization brings a sour taste to the tip of his tongue and he swallows hard. The harsh, cold air makes it feel like sandpaper lines his throats and the urge to cough creeps up. It erupts from his lips before he can stop it and the soldier at the bottom of the hill snaps his head up in Aleksander’s direction. Silently, he curses himself and buries his head deep into the snow, but he should know better. It’s useless to hide; they always find you.

“Well, what are you waiting for, you lazy shit! Go get him!” The soldier takes off on a run, his boots crunching violently atop the snow and it grows louder lunging toward Aleksander. His heart pounds in rhythm with his steps, but he’s positive it seizes within his chest and renders him dead for a full minute when the soldier forcibly sends him down with the others.

He slams hard into the man who he’d only just met three days prior, effectively knocking him down. But the two are both yanked to their knees quicker than they can even think to lick their wounds. Something over his shoulder calls to him, beckons him to turn his attention as well as his head in the direction of his mother. She stands behind a tree, head peeking out every so often, and he swears he can see tears rolling down her cheeks—something he’s never, ever seen before; his mother crying.

“Well, well, well, what do we have over there?” The solder releases his gun; it falls to his side and, just for a moment, Aleksander thinks he can be quick enough to grab it. He can snatch it from the man, turn his own gun back on him and save his people. ”Is that your mother, boy?” The man’s words slice through his fantasy just as the villain always does to the hero.  

“She a freak like you?” The soldier next to him taunts, a menacing smile spread across his mouth. He looks from one to the other, slowly, with disgust apparent in his quartz eyes. “I’ll take that as a yes, then. Bind him. Now.” The man on the end takes a step forward as he reaches for the extra rope chained to his belt. “You—” he points to a third, “go get her.”

“She has nothing to do with this.” His voice is low, assured, but still it comes out far weaker than he intends; it’s filled with far more emotion than he should reveal at a time like this.  

“Ah,” the one in front of him notes, pulling up the fabric of his pants at the thighs and bending at his knees. He’s at Aleksander’s level now, eye to eye—villain to hero. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“No, please. Leave her ou—”

In the blink of an eye, the man raises his arm and lands his palm along Aleksander’s face. It stings, the slap to his cheek; it brings tears to his eyes, and he feels like surrendering. He wants to stop running; to stop hiding; to stop being hunted. Maybe resigning himself is the only option. At least if he’s gone, no other Grisha village will fall simply because he and his mother had arrived. But there has to be more than this, he thinks. More than running, more than hiding, more than just surviving.  

He wants to live.

He wants to fight.  

And with that realization, he pushes himself to his feet and stands tall. His power follows in tandem, growing just as he rises. It swirls within him, heading toward his hands, strong and solid—a deadly weapon to wield. He sucks in a sharp breath as he raises his right arm up above his head. Anger mixes with darkness to create an unstoppable force, and he summons it to the surface.

As fast as a crack of lightning, he slashes his arm down and across on an angle. It sounds like the snap of a whip, echoing along the trees and causing a hush among those around him. But they cannot look away, and neither can he. Blood begins to spill from the cut along the man’s bald head, seeping down and running along his cheeks. Slowly, his head splits in two, followed by his neck, then his torso. When Aleksander blinks and reopens his eyes, his jaw slacks and falls slightly agape.  

“The Cut.”  

Someone behind him whispers and he snaps his head back, glaring at them quizzically. The what? He goes to speak, but in the corner of his eye, he can see a soldier reaching for his gun. There’s no time to think, no time to weigh his options or beg for forgiveness. What’s done is done. His mother’s voice rings true throughout his clouded mind. If she could see him now, with a man split in two lying dead at his feet, would she think him a monster? Would she cower as the others that surround him have done? They’ve grabbed their children, pulled them close, yanked them as far away from him as they can get.

They’ll be afraid of you, Aleksander. But fear is good. Fear you can control.

A gunshot sounds. A Grisha falls to the snow, blood pooling beneath their lifeless body, tainting the once white snow with crimson, but Aleksander cannot see it as anything other than hatred, once again, invading his home. That familiar anger begins to creep in, but he welcomes it with open arms. He lets it engulf him; he lets it take control. Wisps of black billow from his palms, and with little effort, he commands it toward the soldiers—the rotten men who dare to take the life of his people. It envelops them in darkness, and they cry; they plead for mercy. But Aleksander cannot grant them something they do not deserve.  

And with one clench of his fist, the shadows clench around their throats. Tighter and tighter, until every last inch of life—of light—is stolen from them. He can feel it; he can feel their last dying breath in the palms of his hands.

He has all the control.

He can decide their fate.

He gets to choose who lives and who dies.

And with one swift glance to the people on his side of this mere battle; with one look at their faces, he basks in the triumph in their eyes and steals every soldier’s last ounce of life.

NOW: Age unknown “Moi soverennyi.” They greet him as he enters, heads bowed and hands folded identically. The only thing that sets them apart are the colors of their kefta. Distantly, he wonders if he’d assigned them that way on purpose. He remembers a time when all he could think of was inclusion, but it hadn’t taken long to split up a united people; for blue to mean something entirely different than red, or black. Of course, his is singular in color. He stands out. The only one to walk hand-in-hand with darkness.

With a flick of his wrist, he dismisses their stance of adoration as the door closes behind him. Murmurs begin, hushed voices enveloping the room once more as he makes his way to his seat. Naturally, it’s at the head of the table and raised slightly higher than the rest of the chairs.  

“Where are we with the expeditions?” He asks before he sits, and those deemed worthy enough to sit in his war room scramble quickly, rummaging through the papers before him. Frustration ignites and he shakes his head furiously. “Clear the table. Show me on the map. Now.”  

“Yes, Moi soverennyi,” one of them quivers, scooping up the country figurines and placing them along the map.

“Right away,” the other follows, and Aleksander watches him carefully as he places a caravan just south of Sikursk.

“They’re only at Sikursk? I was assured they would arrive in Shu Han by this morning.”  

“Yes, Moi soverennyi. I am aware, but we just received word less than an hour ago of their delay. Something about an attack while trying to cross through Koba.”

“An attack? What sort of attack?” No one answers him. They continue to squirm and shuffle, reading and rereading the same papers over and over. “Answer me.” He doesn’t shout; he rarely ever does. But he has a tone, one unmistakable to those who are closest to him. But still nothing, still silence, still defiance, if you were to ask Aleksander.

“Moi soverennyi, please,” a familiar voice cuts through the chaos of the room, along with slicing through his rising anger. “Allow me to explain.”

“Please do.”

“As you know, Shu Han has been the rather difficult territory to do business with. Yes, we may have worked our way into their leader’s pocket, but still—” he pauses, clasping an arm on a fellow corporalki, “there are…. shall we say, radicals.”  

“Radicals.” He echoes the word, chewing it uneasily between his lips.

“Yes, radicals. Those who deem it necessary to attack our caravan and injury seven of our people. Two of whom may not live to see tomorrow’s sunrise.” He pauses as he rounds the other end of the table, stopping briefly to lock his gaze with Aleksander, but as quick as their eyes meet, Altan glances back at the floor. “So, you see, Moi soverennyi, it was out of their control.”  

He shudders at the thought of his people being blindsided. He needs more information; needs to know exactly what happened. And more than anything, he wants the culprits found, tried and gutted.  

“Very well,” he says simply. “I’d like a briefing after, but in the meantime send Vera with a team of four and two riders.”

“Yes, Moi soverennyi. As you wish.” He nods and returns back to his post, walking behind Aleksander and taking the seat to his right.  

“And what of Novyi Zem? How many survived The Fold?” Aleksander sits, observing as the rest of the men place pieces all across the map. It looks as if it is a game, he thinks. One I intend to win, a much deeper and far darker part of him replies.  

“Not many, Moi soverennyi, but we have high hopes for the next car—” the man’s words are cut short by the slam of the door against the wall. He sighs with frustration, running his fingertips roughly along the edge of his jaw.

“Please forgive the intrusion, Moi soverennyi, but it is of the utmost impor—”

With a slam of his fist to the table, the wood cracks with a sharp snap and the mouths of every single person within the room slam shut, eyes wide with horror. But the one who spoke, Fyodor, looks more irritated than afraid.  

“Please, Moi sov—” he tries again, but Aleksander holds a hand up.  

“You do not understand, Moi soverennyi. Please allow us to explain.” This time it is Svetlana who speaks, her voice grating and unnerving as it dances along his very last nerve.

“Fine, fine out with it, Gavrikova. Speak.” He orders her as he’s done so many times before, but his eyes never leave the map on the table before him.  

“We found her, Moi soverennyi,” she pauses, head turning toward Adrik on her left, then on Fyodor to her right. Her cheeks flush with excitement as her gaze makes its way back to Aleksander and he takes note of her chest as it swells with pride.  

“We found your Summoner.”

“Now’s not the time for jokes, Svetlana.” He pinches the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb, a defeated sigh brushing past his lips slowly.

“I would never joke of such a thing, Moi soverennyi,” she takes another step toward the table, gathering more of her composure once she stops, slowly tucking her arms behind her back and nodding assuredly. “I,” she emphasizes the same way a petulant child does, “found her. She awaits your arrival. In your office.”

MOMENTS LATER — The Darkling’s Office He pauses in front of the door, straining his ears as he leans in for the tenth time. He hears nothing once again, but he still isn’t quite sure what he expected. Crying, perhaps? It is always so much easier to get them to cooperate when they’re motivated by fear—such an easy emotion to manipulate. It is the very reason he has stayed in power for all these years; he is revered by some, but feared by all.  

This girl, the one they tell him can take the eyes of men with only light must be quite different.

Deciding he simply cannot wait any longer, he pushes aside all reservations and lets the wave of childlike excitement wash over him—that of a timid young boy unwrapping a present on his name day. Charcoal hues land on her as the door swings open and she takes his breath away, this girl who hath summoned light, this anomaly, this Sankta, and damn if she was not the most beautiful creature he has ever laid eyes on. Gentle and delicate yet shoulders held high, chin risen and eyes narrowed on the ruler of his—of her—people.  

“What do they call you?” He takes a step toward her, nearly crossing half the room in one stride, but he stops in his place and chooses to lock his arms behind his back as he waits for an answer, for this interaction shall tell him all he needs to know about the girl.  

“Gemma.” Her voice is flat, emotionless, but Aleksander knows better than to trust a woman’s voice; they have tells, as does anyone, and he’ll soon learn hers as well.  

“And what do you know of us? Of your people?” It’s subtle, the inflection; an idea carefully placed in the midst of an innocent question. They will be your people soon enough.

“Not much,” she clears her throats and folds her arms across her chest, eyes still trained to the rug instead of looking to him with the respect he demands of all his pupils, a respect he has rightfully earned, but he cannot fault the girl for being uneducated in their ways.  

“Right, I suppose nothing is a more accurate description,” another step and he reaches her side, and with a small gesture of his arm, he cups her chin gently and forces her attention to him. “But you are very aware of what we—what you—are capable of.” It’s a statement and he speaks it with a coy twist to his lips, a subtle mention of her checkered past and the certain power she is capable of.

She doesn’t answer, not at first, and so they linger there in this moment, with her chin in his hand and their eyes locked. “Tell me, Gemma,” he drops her chin along with his gaze and turns on his heel, striding away in the opposite direction, “did you know the man whose sight you stole?”

“No,” she pleads, emotion breaking through steel composure, “but I did not mean to hurt him.”

“Of course you did.”

“No,” she says firmly, with an ever-so-slight nod of her head. “It was an accident.”

“Breaking a glass is an accident.” He stops once he reaches the other side of the room. “Dropping papers is an accident.” He turns slowly, rounding his neck quicker than his body so as to lock their eyes once more, and he narrows his gaze once her glance meets his. “Getting caught was surely an accident as well, but—” he lets the silence linger, a pregnant pause in anticipation of what words are to come, and perhaps she already knows them. “Blinding a man, well, that is surely no accident.”

She doesn’t answer and all that remains by way of a reaction is the small scowl she offers, but it would seem she’s fighting that rage, that very anger that got her here. And so he walks back toward her slowly, the only noise in the room is his boots as they hit the stone, but then he speaks again. “Tell me, was this the first time you summoned light?”

“Yes.”

“Never before? Have you since?”  

“No. Well,” she pauses, glancing away from him, “I haven’t tried.”

Interesting. He ponders a world in which someone awakens with power and then proceeds to deny it any life. “And what did it feel like? Can you remember anything about that exact moment?”

Her mouth falls agape, eyes slightly widened with what Aleksander can only imagine to be horror at having to recall a moment in which she took a man’s life, but he can no longer recall such a remorse. He’s taken too many lives, perhaps, to be able to feel any such thing, but he needs to inspect her motivations. How had she remained unnoticed for so long?  

“I’d rather not relive the moment!” He voice grows louder, angrier and a smile spreads slowly across his lips as he tap dances along her very last nerve, pushing her closer and closer to the edge.

“Of course not. I didn’t mean the moment when you hurt him, I meant the moment when you let the light take over. Do you remember it?” Do you remember the power?

He listens carefully at first as she begins, and it’s almost heartwarming how she stutters and hesitates to reveal just how wonderful it felt, like a warm hug from a friend or the kiss of first light on a clear day. So many metaphors, so many ways to describe the light, all of which he’s never experienced or witnessed, but each entice him more than the last. And the distant thought lingers as she continues on: does darkness even exist without light?  

“Show me,” he interrupts her with a stern voice, somewhat demanding, just as a child demands attention.  

“I… I don’t know how. I don’t even know how it happened in the first place!” She’s panicking, inching away from him as reality sets back in. No longer are the two sharing stories of power, but instead they have ventured back to prisoner and warden.  

“Well, Gemma,” he exaggerates her name with a flick of his wrist as he inches toward her slowly, “one of the benefits of being The Darkling is being an amplifier.” She stares up at him slightly confused, and suddenly it sets in just how uneducated she truly his about herself and the small science. “An amplifier, person or object, enhances the abilities of any Grisha. And usually my most trusted Grisha receive amplifiers as a gift from me,” he pauses for a moment, reaching his hand up to brush away a stray piece of hair as bright as the sun from her face, “for their service and to show how greatly they are appreciated.” Still, she seems confused, albeit less than she was before, but there is still a twist to her brow. “Amplifiers will help you project your power farther, it will enhance it and it will make you stronger, perhaps even offer you a bit more control.” He finishes with a small smirk.  

“But for now, all you have is me.”

He takes another half step and closes all the distance between them, but turns slowly so his shoulders are squared with hers. And with minimal concentration and a small dance of his fingertips, darkness emerges. It’s thick like smoke but far more buoyant, and it spreads like wildfire, engulfing everything within the room in blackness, including her. Gemma’s face falls out of view, but he reaches out to her, locking his hand around her forearm.  

“Show me.” His voice is low, deep, almost disembodied if it weren’t for the fact that his arm was latched onto her. But still, she struggles. She doubts herself and her abilities, but Aleksander knows this legend, this fairytale of a girl, and he knows exactly what she is capable of. She just requires a little push. And with that thought, he tightens his grasp on her ever so lightly, and calls out to that light within her. Show yourself, it says. Show me.  

And show it she does.  

It comes in short bursts at first, little spurts and flickers of light emerge from the end of her fingertips, so he focuses his energy, his voice as he calls to it, that power within her, and then it comes rushing out, flowing like a geyser of warm sunlight. And it isn’t long until her light begins to push away the darkness between them, consuming it and turning it into something better, something pure, something less dark. For a moment they linger, eyes locked as her light and his darkness swirl within the confines of his office. And if one were to ask Aleksander, he’d say black and white had never looked so good together. Like calls to like. And it was clear they were far more alike than he could have ever imagined. It was all so clear now, his path to righteousness and it is one he intends to walk with Gemma, the Sun Summoner, by his side.

“Now,” he starts, voice slightly raised to make himself heard over the swirl of light and dark around them, “take it all, Gemma.” He gives her another light squeeze, mostly for encouragement and her eyes fall shut. He watches in amazement as every inch of darkness, every curl of blackness is pushed away and all that remains is light—is her.  

Once the room is back to normal and the light begins to fade, he releases her arm slowly and heaves a happy sigh. “Well, that will certainly make for quite the show at the Fete. We’ll be the main attraction.“ He takes a step back and watches her closely. She’s breathless, but he swears he can see a distinct happiness in the corner of her eye. That’s right, he thinks. "With me by your side, Gemma,” he pauses, choosing his words carefully, making sure each phrase paints a precise picture in her mind, “only great things will come." But only he knows the true meaning: with you by my side, I’ll rule the world.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS: 1. ASTROLOGY: Sagittarius — Born a young, idealistic boy, Aleksander saw the world with goggles for most of his childhood, unaware of the tragedy of his kind, but he’s always been acutely aware of his and his mother’s own strife. But once he learned, and witnessed firsthand the kind of suffering Grisha can incur for simply being who and what they are, ambition and hope for change pushed him to achieve anything he set his mind to. Aleksander being the sagittarius he is, he has the innate ability to turn thoughts and ideas into concrete actions. He can also be unbearably impatient and ridiculously stubborn, but if you are on his side and agree with him, then it’s a good thing because he will always fight hardest for what he is adamant about. But when he’s not working far too hard in the war room, he’s plenty capable of having a good sense of humor and quick wit, he just reserves it for the rarest of occasions.

2. MBTI: ENTJ - The Commander — Confident and charismatic, Aleksander was born to lead, born to draw in a crowd and keep them listening. Ever since he was a boy, he’s been driven. Toward what? It doesn’t matter because whatever he sets his mind on, his determination and sharp mind are there to guide him toward success. Whether it be a small boy seeking a treat before dinner or a grown man hellbent on ruling the world. Despite all setbacks and regardless of any obstacles, both will prevail.

3. CHARACTER ALIGNMENT: Neutral Evil — Though I do believe Aleksander most likely started in a very different place on the spectrum of alignment (more along the lines of chaotic good), currently he’s a man who will do whatever he wants without any regard for anyone else. And though his word is bond and he will stand by what he promises, one can never be sure he’s telling the truth. If someone’s goals get in the way of his own, then crush you he will because nothing is as important to him as his own beliefs and ideals. He’s fiercely loyal when he wants to be and, in return, appreciates loyalty from his people. But the second you do not fall in line or share his same beliefs, you have signed your own death warrant and therefore become expendable.

4. STYLE: Aleksander keeps his facial hair short and neatly trimmed. Sometimes a five o’clock shadow can appear, but only if he wants it to. He’s rarely found ever sporting a beard, preferring to keep his face clean shaven always. His hair is parted perfectly, centered over his left eyebrow. It is combed on either side and slicked back. Few have seen him with his hair unkempt for he wishes to always give off a togetherness, an ease to being the ruler of an entire people. He’s a very reserved man and has very few ticks or bad habits. His nails are always perfectly trimmed and his skin is soft and smooth despite his age. And he rarely ever blemishes, but if he does, it is taken care of immediately by a healer. Image is important for someone like him. Vain? Perhaps. Necessary? Absolutely. You don’t become renowned by being an unattractive mess.  

5. DETACHMENT: Aleksander has lived a thousand lifetimes, each of them very different from the last, but ending the same each time. In devastation. In death. In destruction. He has lost a thousand friends, watched a thousand loves die. It is the very reason, for as long as he can recall, he dismisses intimacy. He bats it away like a pestering fly. He slays it like a monster who lurks beneath the bed. There are few he trusts and even fewer he tolerates for he feels—he knows—no matter what, no one will ever understand him. He walks this Earth alone. He fights his demons alone. He rules his people alone. He’s long lost all hope in finding a companion, a love to last. Too much loss, too much defeat can cause a man’s heart to grow cold and resign itself to darkness. And if he’s being honest, at this point, hope is a fairytale and all that remains true is power. if life were a book, his would be littered with pages upon pages of tragedies, of loss, of grief, but power—power is something that has always been consistent; always been reliable. He can lean on power, feel it as he holds it tightly in the palm of his hand. He can wear it like a crown, wield it like a sword against his enemies, donning it by way of a kefta on his shoulders (which is notably black and of singular design). Power has become his most trusted ally, his most honorable friend, his most dependable subject. And power alone shall be his companion.

6. GRISHA: Aleksander may have lived his childhood being the only one of his kind, but that does not mean he doesn’t have his people. And though his lips are normally set into a firm line and not a single emotion can be read from his face, he cares deeply for the Grisha. It should be more than evident in how hard he’s worked for them, grabbing them and thrusting them to the top. He’s made them revered throughout Ravka. And for as long as he can remember, he’s shared the same beliefs, the same dreams as his fellow Grisha: to be free from persecution; to no longer have to run and hide; to rise up. It took time to break free from the chains of oppression, to shed the horrid treatment they’d endured for centuries, but rise they did. An idea became a movement, and a movement became a home, and with a home came an army to defend it. Equality may have been the dream long ago, but now it’s a distant memory. He and his people deserved more; they know their worth. They may be the second army now, but it is only a matter of time until they are the only army.

7. MOI SOVERENNYI: Like any father, Aleksander loved his children, his Grisha. He showered them in gifts, in keftas, in palaces, in elegance, and in return they thrust him upon a dais and called him Moi soverennyi. And for years this was enough. The rewards bestowed upon him whenever he looked his saved people in the face, appreciation enveloping him in the the kind of warm hug he never received as a child. He became their ruler. Leader of the Grisha. Commander of the Second Army. The Darkling. And with time came results. His people were no longer burned and murdered, but praised and beloved. But time has shown him that love, despite its abilities and power, is never truly enough. While most have succumb to the Grisha, tolerating them, appreciating them, even going so far as to seek out their gifts, there are still those who refuse. Aleksander loves his people, cares for them as if they were his own kin—and to him, they are—but he will stop at nothing to make them see, every last one. Even if it means sacrificing a few for the good of the many. He will do anything to make it known to those from Fjerda to Shu Han, from Novyi Zem to Os Kervo: “Welcome to The Age of Grisha; we are here to stay.”

EXTRAS: I have a graphic I made here.

Connection Expansions: GEMMA — The long awaited equal; the sun summoner. There is no one else like us, he’ll whisper. I have waited centuries for you, he’ll purr. We can rule together, you and I, he’ll coo. Anything to convince the girl of her worth, of her power, of their likeness. He knows exactly what she’s capable of. She is an unruly thing, but Aleksander has never shied away from a challenge. He wants to guide her, to control her, to use her for a very singular purpose, but she doesn’t need to know that. For years, he’s wandered alone but now, finally, where he is darkness, she is the newfound light. Like calls to like. They have the ability to complete each other, to rule. And despite all her stubbornness and the headaches it causes him, still he finds himself fascinated, enticed by her elusivity and beckoned by her elegance. He longs to corrupt her, to stain her perfect porcelain skin with a hint of darkness. And though she may resist at first, he shall stop at nothing to draw her close.

ALTAN — Possibly the only person he trusts but definitely not fully; Aleksander would never be so frivolous with his loyalties, and he’ll never truly trust in anyone other than himself. He knows better, but Altan comes close. The heartrender has proven his loyalties time and time again. He’s worked his way up to the coveted role of Aleksander’s right hand, anyone and everyone is replaceable, even him. And regardless of how easily Altan falls to his knees before him and despite how loyal he claims to be, Aleksander knows that look in his eye. Fear. But fear is good, fear makes a man loyal. But fear also has a way of burrowing deep down in a man’s gut; it has a way of eating at him, making way for doubt to take root. And it most definitely has a way of letting betrayal slip right through the door.  

SVETLANA — She’s like a gnat flying and buzzing relentlessly about his head, irritating to say the least but he takes note of her strength, of her ability to conquer when the time comes. He admires the way men fall to their knees of their own volition for her; she never has to command them. Could she be useful? Time will tell. After all, she is the loyal oprichnik who brought him the sun summoner. Perhaps she cannot be as bad as he thinks. Only time will tell.  

ANYTHING ELSE? I made some changes, added some things and tweaked others (hopefully for the better!!), but I just genuinely wanted to give it another shot because I so thoroughly enjoy the series and the roleplay you all have created!!! And thanks for taking the time to read (again). :) My fave book is Catcher in the Rye.

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, MADS!

You have been accepted for the role of FELIKS BAZIN with an approved faceclaim change to Markel Williams. Your request to also age Feliks down has been approved. Admin Em: Mads, i was absolutely thrilled to see an application for Feliks, and my elation only grew the further i read into your application. You immediately proved you understood that he’s neither a good nor evil person, but a victim of his own shortcomings, and circumstances that were beyond his control. Not only that, but you also captured with stunningly, breathtakingly detail how his resurrection has affected him - it’s made him nihilistic, hellbent on revenge, and it’s marked him as an abomination. Thank you for such a wonderful application - I can’t WAIT to see Feliks on the dash. You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Mads

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: I have a slight preference for they/them, but she/her is more than okay with me.

AGE: 20

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: Now that I’m home, I’ll be on all the time. You can’t get rid of me!!

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: I think this is some of my best writing, and I don’t know why I didn’t share it before.

NOTE #1: Just as a forewarning, this app is a bit on the depressing side. It involves a lot of death (obviously) and some very concrete ideas on the afterlife that I don’t necessarily believe in. But, like, just so you know it involves very heavy concepts like that.

NOTE #2: If you prefer reading in a Doc format, here is the link to the Google Doc!

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER:

Feliks Makari Bazan: the outlier, the corrupt, the careless, the monster.

( FELIKS. ) Lucky. The name mocks Feliks’s misfortune, and he wouldn’t think much of it if it weren’t for his mother. “My little luck-bringer,” she’d say with her fingers entwined in his hair, “I prayed for you, and I prayed for you to live a good life. My lucky Feliks.” Now, after one poisonous life and one brutal death, Feliks thinks she should have prayed harder–or perhaps she should have known that a name and a few whispered words can’t shed light on someone’s life.

( MAKARI. ) Feliks knows not of the meaning of his middle name, but his mother gave it to him because it means blessed. Blessed is all his mother ever wanted him to be. She was hoping for a Savior, a Messiah, and instead she got him: a sin, an abnormality. She hasn’t said it, but Feliks knows she regrets naming him anything at all.

( BAZAN. ) In Feliks’s village, anyone with the Bazan name was known to be modest and kind. They’re a simple and good family, but for every rule there is an exception. Feliks is the exception. His surname means very little to him now, and after his resurrection he only uses it out of necessity. He doesn’t belong to the Bazan family, not anymore, and the name tastes sour every time he speaks it.

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?

Feliks was originally my second choice, and the character I would have wanted if I didn’t get Stasya. I’ve always been drawn to him, and in my opinion he’s one of the most interesting characters in the rp.

As I mentioned in Stasya’s application, I’m usually drawn to characters with a distinct before and after. I don’t think Feliks’s defining moment could be any more obvious, and to me the most interesting part of his character is exploring the change that took place after his death. I love that he’s been so changed already, but that there’s still an INCREDIBLE amount of potential. When I read his bio, I see so many directions I can take him in. He really seems unfinished in terms of development, and that’s what intrigues me so much.

ALSO, I really wanted a character that was more morally grey, perhaps more troubled, than Stasya. I think any character in this roleplay would’ve fit the bill, but Feliks is interesting to me because he isn’t evil. He’s far from pure, but he’s also a victim of circumstance and is struggling to play with the hand he was dealt. This makes him exactly my type of character, but still SUCH a contrast to Stasya that I think he’ll be a welcome challenge. Like, I don’t often play remorseless characters, and I think Feliks is fairly remorseless and unarguably not a good person. I really wanted the challenge of making him more than what shows on the surface while not resorting to the “secret heart of gold” trope. SO THAT’S WHAT MADE THIS APP SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE OK THIS IS A VERY DIFFERENT CHARACTER FOR ME.

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

( ONE. ) Feliks really needs a hobby. I imagine he spends most of his time lamenting, going through the motions, and plotting revenge–so I’d like to see him take up something he really enjoys and cares about. Whether this is art or reading or something involving handiwork, I’d like to see him learn a skill from someone. He really needs something besides violence, sex, and alcohol to channel his energy into–and I’d like to explore how this would change him, and give him a bit more direction and purpose.

( TWO. ) Because he doesn’t have a hobby or anything to look forward to, Feliks spends a lot of his time bent on revenge. He hasn’t planned much, but he wants Altan to pay for his hubris. He doesn’t want to kill him, though–no, that fate would be too easy for him. Living is much harder than dying, after all. I could see this need for vengeance going one of two ways: Feliks meticulously plans out a way to knock Altan down a peg and acts on it, probably failing, but he won’t give up. OR, he realizes how much time he’s wasting on revenge. This is less likely, but I think with the right people and the right positive development, Feliks could grow to see the blessing in a second chance at life. Currently, he sees it as a curse rather than a chance to start over–but that could change. In that case, I think he’d end up pitying Altan for his hubris rather than despising him for it. I don’t think he’ll find enlightenment any time soon, though, so expect him to plot revenge for a while.

( THREE. ) I’d love for Feliks to care about anyone. He’s always been incredibly self-serving. Even now, when his opinion of himself is extremely low, he’s generally only looking out for himself. I don’t think he’s felt love for anyone in particular, excluding maybe his family who he still treated awfully. I really want him to feel close to someone for once, and love someone selflessly–whether it be romantic, platonic, or familial. I think finding some network of support would really help him feel comfortable in life, and I do really want him to find some sense of acceptance. Like, I don’t want all of his development to be positive, but I do want him to let someone into his heart at least once, at least a little bit.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?

Please kill him a second time. And then bring him back a second time. And then kill him again.

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

“I’ll see you on the other side,” Anatoly sent one last nod in Feliks’s direction before his blood painted the deck of the skiff.

Feliks buried three bullets in the Volcra, a final show of glory before the creature wrapped its claws around him, too. He didn’t feel any pain. The adrenaline coursing through his veins numbed every other feeling that was trying to claw its way to the surface. Airborne, Feliks felt a rush he’d never felt before: the rush of knowing he was about to die. It wasn’t scary; it was exciting. This was a soldier’s death, the only death Feliks had ever deserved.

Looking down at the skiff, he chuckled triumphantly. He kept his eyes open. He wanted to see the bloodshed below him, his brothers and sisters in arms suffering the same fate as him. He wanted to see his own blood, too–the gore that had become of his torso terrified him, but reminded him that he’d lived the violent life he’d wanted all the way to the end. One last chuckle caught in his throat as he lost his vision, as the world blurred around him. Before he had time to process his last moments, everything was gone.

Everything was gone–and then everything was back.

His vision was still blurry, but light flooded his sight. He could feel again–all of the unbearable pain and terror crept back, except this time there was no adrenaline to mask it. There was no glory, either. He felt so unlike himself, so unsure and so small.

There was noise all around him, voices he didn’t recognize and sounds he couldn’t quite label. When his vision cleared, there was an unfamiliar face. The light that had stunned him only moments ago was so much dimmer now, and Feliks comprehended that it belonged to the lightning of a storm. He lifted a hand–painstakingly slow–to his face, just to feel it. It felt numb; everything was numb now. The pain that had greeted him now escaped him, and he couldn’t be sure if that was because it wasn’t there or because some part of him wasn’t working correctly.

His eyes drifted closed again, but his chest still shallowly rose and fell. When he focused hard enough, he could feel the air filling his lungs. It was a disgusting feeling. He knew then that there was something wrong–this wasn’t supposed to be happening. He’d died in the air, looking down at all of the destruction. That was real. He remembered the rush he’d felt, the contentment. That was real.

Was this real?

For a moment he thought, maybe this is afterlife. But then a firm graze graced his cheek. His eyes snapped open with an urgency he hadn’t known he was capable of. There was the unfamiliar man again, with his unfamiliar fingers all over his skin. Feliks looked from the man’s hand to his own, the first recognizable sight since he’d woken up. This was definitely real.

He had died, he decided, but this wasn’t death.

Another agonizing pain ripped through him, this time starting from his chest–from his heart that shouldn’t be beating. It was heartbreak. It was the pain of being forced to relearn a truth. It was the realization that, after his death and before this moment, there was only an immense amount of darkness.

He’d always lived as though he believed in nothing, but that wasn’t entirely true. When he closed his eyes for the last time, he expected to open them again in another existence. In heaven or hell, as a ghost, as someone new entirely–it didn’t matter as long as there was something.

But there wasn’t. There was nothing.

This would have been a fine truth if he’d stayed dead. In nonexistence, he wouldn’t have been able to lament over his own nonexistence. But here he was again, in the land of the living, wondering what the point of it all was.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

( ONE. ) If no one is around to make the judgement, is a sin still a sin?

Growing up, Feliks believed two things: morality was based on whether or not you get caught, and there were no gods or saints to catch him. He nodded and smiled when the standard ideas of purity were presented to him, but he never bought what was being sold. He tried when he was young, tried praying to the saints and doing what he was told, but bad things still happened. And when he rebelled, good things still happened.

As a child, Feliks learned how to sin in private. He learned how to do everything his parents told him not to and still impress them with his beautiful smile and shining eyes. His favorite activity became stealing, and by the age of twelve Feliks had quite sticky fingers. He started by taking things no one would miss: pointless trinkets that he would do nothing with. He had a stash underneath his bed, a collection of items he had no use for.

As he got older, he got smarter. He started taking more expensive things, getting more and more stealthy with every year that passed. Instead of doing nothing with them, he would take the items to neighboring villages and sell them. The money he made was always his little secret–his parents never saw the coins and never suspected anything of their golden child.

Stealing was a simple, childish misdeed, but it kept him entertained during his time at the village. In the army, he learned the true value of sins. He learned how exhilarating it was to partake in everything his family told him was immoral. To this day, he steals things from time to time without thinking much about it. He no longer does anything with the items he steals–instead, it’s an impulse he can’t always control. It’s not satisfying in the way it was when he was a child, but he still gets away with the petty crime.

( TWO. ) As a child, Feliks was constantly bored. He was always wishing for more out of life, something that would define him. When he joined the army, he found the definitions he was looking for: sex, alcohol, and violence. He was easily entertained, really, and his life was complete as long as he had his fill of the three pillars. Even his death was thrilling for him. He’d never wanted to live for long. He lived fast, and he’d always expected to die young because of it. When he got exactly the violent sort of death he was hoping for, he took his last breath with contentment.

Waking up from that was the most painful thing he’s ever experienced. Since then, he’s lived life a lot more dully. Even the awful things he used to enjoy bring him no fulfillment. For a month or so post-resurrection, Feliks tried to live exactly as he did before, but sex and parties no longer bring him joy. He’s absolutely bored again, and maybe he always will be. He’s been subjected to the routine life of a guard–this life is a prison, and he supposes he deserves to be imprisoned.

Currently, the only thing that brings him joy is the concept of revenge. Something calculated and vicious, something to make Altan regret the day he set eyes on Feliks. He has no plans for his life beyond this. In fact, he still isn’t planning to live for long. A long life doesn’t seem fulfilling to him, and growing old is the last thing he wants.

( THREE. ) Feliks’s parents prayed for him for years. With every good deed, with every kind word, they hoped for a child in return. They were told it was impossible, that they should give up trying and take in an orphan. They prayed instead. And for their hard work and patience, they were rewarded with a son.

Feliks became his parents’ favorite subject, and they never let him forget the blessing that came with their devotion to a higher cause. He was a joy to the village, too: a lively child with a smile that spoke not of the mischievous acts he committed in private. His mother always told him he lit up the house, he completed the family. This show of favoritism didn’t end when his first sibling was adopted.

Artur joined the family when Feliks was nine. Those nine years gave him quite the head start–but Feliks never asked to be the favorite child. In fact, he would’ve loved to be doted on less. With less attention, Feliks could find more trouble. Every one of his three siblings had remarkable traits: Artur was sensible and intelligent, Erik was brawny and brave, Marta was helpful and warmhearted. But Feliks, the firstborn and the only one of their parents’ blood, was always admired the most. Feliks seemed to be the only one of the four who had a problem with this.

In fact, his siblings loved him just as much as his parents did. When he left for war, he left five broken hearts in his wake. He knew it was an awful thing to do, to leave his family to seek out death and glory, but he never once felt bad about it. His family wouldn’t love the real him, the sins that festered underneath his skin and the selfish desires that took over his heart. He didn’t mind this fact, either. He didn’t need the love–didn’t really believe in it. He was much more fulfilled by things he could touch: the naked human form, intoxicating substances, weapons of mass destruction. That was the life he was made for.

After his death and resurrection, the only true reward he found was the satisfaction of being right. He was right: his family didn’t care for any part of him that wasn’t righteous and pure. He’s been home once since the Grisha touched him, and his mother refused to greet him. Muffled sounds of her wailing came from inside the modest Bazan home, and his father scowled as he saw who his son had become. “Monster,” he spat, “you’re no son of mine.”

“I think you should go,” Marta said softly after their father had left. “And, maybe, never come back. I think that would be for the best.”

Feliks knows now that he will never see his family–or those who had once been his family–ever again. Good riddance, he thinks, I don’t care about them anyway. But the resentment that festers inside of him says something different. The resentment that festers inside of him says that he does care, that he wanted to be loved just as he is.

( FOUR. ) Feliks always believed that afterlife was a lie people believed in to help them get through life. He didn’t need lies like this to live life to the fullest. In fact, his lack of religious beliefs helped him live the way he thought to be the most fulfilling. He did anything he desired without a second thought, and he defined happiness as freedom. However, there was always a small voice in his mind that believed in afterlife. Whether he would go to a place like heaven or a place like hell he didn’t know, but he also didn’t care.

He would never admit the belief–not even to himself–but he felt as though his life would end and begin again somewhere else. Perhaps this was because he’d been told his whole life that virtue would earn him a life after this one, or perhaps he created the belief for himself. When his brother in arms, Anatoly, said that he’d see him on the other side, Feliks believed him. He’ll deny this if ever asked, of course, but he expected to open his eyes and see Anatoly there waiting for him.

The first thing Feliks saw after death was Altan’s face, a face that meant nothing to him at the time except for being the first sign of his life beginning again. There was nothing in-between his death and his resurrection, and Feliks has since accepted this nothingness as a universal truth. Never once has he considered that maybe it is just him who experienced nothing after death. Instead, he’s convinced that life is pointless, that sinners and saints face the same fate, and that it is only cruel coincidence that he is alive today.

This is not his second chance, his clean slate–this is only another pointless existence.

( QUICKSHOTS. )

- Feliks is bisexual. - This is definitely a loose headcanon, as I don’t know what you guys will think of it, but I imagine that Feliks’s body doesn’t function like most. I feel like his heart beats slower, he bleeds less when wounded, he’s a bit colder than the average person, and he might look a bit pale in the face sometimes. Of course, he’s still alive, but there’s a bit of abnormality to the way he functions that might set him apart (even further) from most humans. - Feliks has scars on his torso from the Volcra that killed him. He’s gotten them patched up a bit from a tailor, but he doesn’t want the scars to disappear entirely. He’s proud of the gore he once faced. - Feliks had been raised to believe that Grisha were all abominations. Like most of the beliefs fed to him, he didn’t accept it as truth. This isn’t to say he respected Grisha–he just didn’t care about them at all. Now that he’s been resurrected by a Grisha, most people in his village now believe him to be an abomination as well. For this reason he has been disowned. - He’s tried to convince himself that he doesn’t mind being alone, that he actually prefers having no family and no friends. The truth is, however, that he would love to be accepted unconditionally–he just doesn’t know that about himself. He’s convinced himself that he actually likes the disgusted looks he gets, and he snickers every time someone mocks his existence. But he isn’t happy to be alive. Most of him is ashamed, and the joy he takes from people’s terror is only to help him get through the days. - Sarcasm is a new defense mechanism of Feliks’s. Months ago, he was much more blunt, but now he spits passive-aggressive remarks at anyone who crosses him. - Feliks is a self-proclaimed nihilist, believing that there is no point to life. He doesn’t actively believe in love, or purpose, or much of anything. Before death, there was a spark deep within him that did hope for some of these things, but the nothingness he experienced during death convinced him of life’s pointlessness. - Feliks does realize that he’s lead an awful life and is an awful person, and he knows he doesn’t deserve much better than the hand he was dealt, but he isn’t doing much to change. Currently, he doesn’t see the point in becoming a better person. - Due to the strict rules of his childhood, Feliks has always had a problem with authority. He never cared much for who ruled what, who had power over him–and he was never good with loyalty. Now, after a few months as Viktor’s guard, he’s becoming loyal to him and him only. He would double cross any one of the royals–but never Viktor. Perhaps it’s because he sees a bit of himself in the man, but he believes the youngest prince is the most fit to rule. - If he could, Feliks would eat nothing but red meat and game for the rest of his life.

EXTRAS: Here is a Pinterest board I made for him!

ANYTHING ELSE? I’d like to change his faceclaim to Markel Williams, please! Also–I completely understand if this is a no-go, but I was wondering if I could age him down by just a year, making him 23. Markel is 21, and I have this weird personal rule that I don’t make characters more than 2 years older than their faceclaim. But, like I said, if you’d rather him stay 24, that’s definitely okay–I can break my own rule once.

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, KAT!

You have been accepted for the role of SHONA YUL-JUN. Admin Em: Kat, I was so incredibly touched to read how moved you were by Shona’s bio, and it completely showed in your writing. He’s an incredibly complex character, perhaps one of the most complicated I’ve ever written, and you understand all of his nuances perfectly - I would paste all the lines I especially loved that illustrate this, but then I’d have to paste your application twice! But I think this line struck me most: “ While he’s not afraid to pick someone apart for their wrongdoings and missteps, their faults and troubles, he’s also not afraid to build them up if they deserve such a thing. This is perhaps another reason for the pressure he places on himself, if he can see the flaws in others, can they see those in him? What insecurities lie behind that sharp tongue sometimes bitten so hard the blood pools like silver liquid behind his lips?” Thank you so much for beautiful application and welcome to Rule&Ruin! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

                                                             OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: My name is Kat.

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: My pronouns are she/her.

AGE: I am twenty-two years old.

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: EST & I’m currently on vacation visiting family at the moment but I couldn’t wait to send this application in because I just got super antsy, but I’d say a solid 6-8. I should be able to get on every other day if not every day to do replies. Once I get home it should definitely be every day solid.

TRIGGERS: OMITTED.

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: http://grchcmisms.tumblr.com/ http://leeheir.tumblr.com/ http://halogenq.tumblr.com/ http://williamalderson.tumblr.com/

                                                             IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: Shona Yul-Jun

SHONA Meaning: in the Grace of God

Shona’s parents were never particularly religious, but they have always believed in the power of the Saints. There was little thought to a proper name when their ‘Gods’ (due to definition I’ll be using that term simply for this section) graced them with another seemingly healthy child, because that’s what Shona had been in the eyes of mother and father upon birth despite their exhaustion; a blessing, a grace. In the first few years of his life, those fleeting moments of time before speech was learned and thoughts were shared, his mother found him truly an angel. Passive, quiet, and patient. He rarely ever cried and sleep came far too easily, but oh, if only his mother knew that the tears were always destined for her. Hands held up to the sky like a martyr, crucified by her own beliefs when she found her son changing almost as if overnight, screaming, demanding. Unpredictable and possibly even dangerous. ‘God’ had truly smiled upon her son, given birth to gifts that were shunned and abused by the society the child was brought into, but great power, nonetheless. Neglected and loved, treating his family with alternating endearment and aggression, childish mood swings, heartbreaking. Shona possessed a nature that was contradictory, and painful.

Shona, the gift of God, was not easy to love, but it never stopped those near from trying.

His mother tried her best, she showered her love as much as she could have but no matter how hard she loved him, she felt as if it would never be enough. His father, however, looked at his child with something near disdain. He didn’t hate him, not really, but he saw his wife, and his son, and all the things he knew he should feel towards him, and remained empty. How long can you truly try to get through to someone before you just give up? However, the void of feeling didn’t stop his father from mourning. The ‘Grace of God’ embedded in their son came to light and they treated him as if he had died in his sleep, because in some way, he had. His mother, the only person to have truly loved Shona in the purest, most honest of forms, sent him away to save the babe that never seemed to love her back.

“By the grace of God let this child be safe.”

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?:  I’m going to be honest, I’ve looked at this group and Shona specifically far too many times. I kept coming back, I’d read him, and I’d sit back and think ‘I don’t know what to do with you, I just don’t know’ and I’d leave. The first few times I’d read other opens, but this time I didn’t. I seriously, most literally, just spent 30 minutes staring at his biography and reading, and re-reading, and re-reading, and thinking, pardon my French, ‘what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck!’ Because I had no idea what to do because I just wanted him so bad but didn’t know what to do with him, what direction to take out of the thousands available, because while we all know that there’s a million ways to interpret a character, I personally believe there’s only one real right way for each individual writer, and I spent so much time trying to find that niche, that key factor I needed for him to truly come alive. And my God, I think I’ve found it. (At least my interpretation which quite hopefully aligns with yours.)

Quite simply, Shona makes my heart bleed.

Is it odd to relate to his mother as much as I relate to him? He’s so impossibly difficult to love with all his edges and superiorities but I found myself so enraptured to the point it was impossible not to. His complexities and detachments, his almost… levelheaded self-centeredness is purely intoxicating. He’s lost. He doesn’t understand human connections entirely, he’s not sold on it, he doesn’t get why someone would want to love someone else, would want to depend on them. He’s not necessarily insensitive or apathetic as much as he is confused and distracted. He’s caught up with himself, and he’s surface level indifferent, but always curious, even if only for a short time. There’s something about Shona that I haven’t quite seen or gotten to play before, he’s different, he’s thoughtful and pessimistic, and I like that. I like that a lot. He passively thinks he’s better than everyone, or he at least gives off that sort of vibe, and I find it almost comically insidious, because he really puts so much pressure on himself it’s a surprise his head doesn’t just explode. He wanted to be a good squaller, despite how disinterested and even occasionally bitter he may seem towards the gift. He didn’t so much as want to be useful as much as prove that he could be. Fighting alongside the First Army only made the weight he put on himself even heavier, it only made him want it that much more.

He hadn’t cried since he was a child, but that time spent battling on strange land was the closest he’d ever come, because it brought back the memories of being sent away from home, he was a child in adults clothing; alone, and undoubtedly scared. I think that whether or not he’s entirely aware of it, he definitely learned that his emotions were a big part of learning to control his ability, but despite that he continues to bottle everything up, decisive on that fact that emotions are just.. uncomfortable, unnecessary. He isn’t void of them in any sense, he isn’t sociopathic, instead he’s hardened, dismissive. He does all he can to avoid it, and his saying is basically ‘I’ll bottle all my emotions up right here in my chest, and then one day, I’ll die.’

Ah, but here we have arrived, the one thing my dearest Shona is known for, his tongue like a pair of brass knuckles tainted with that of poison and gold.

A misconception I feel a lot of people think about Shona is that he doesn’t know when to stop, to which I say false! He’s not unintelligent, in fact quite the contrary, he’s just sort of, for lack of a better word, an asshole. He knows when to stop, he just usually doesn’t. He takes truth and lays it across a table, pointing out the flaws and misdemeanors, probing and sometimes even manipulating through a strict regime of his own personal standards. He’s brash, a take no prisoners, hold nothing back, tell it like it is, man of his word, and somehow, he gets away with it. Shona’s filter is practically non-existent and should get him in more trouble than it does (though there’s still a fair amount of trouble, don’t get me wrong), but the positivity of his words, the way he believes what he says, paired with the charm, oh the charm, he seems to carry. Something about defenses just makes people all the more interesting, don’t they? Of course, this honesty goes both ways. While he’s not afraid to pick someone apart for their wrongdoings and missteps, their faults and troubles, he’s also not afraid to build them up if they deserve such a thing. This is perhaps another reason for the pressure he places on himself, if he can see the flaws in others, can they see those in him? What insecurities lie behind that sharp tongue sometimes bitten so hard the blood pools like silver liquid behind his lips?

My dear Shona, be honest, are you projecting?

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

·          Actions speak louder than words, but your silence is louder than both ↪

“Where’s Shona?” One person asks, and the other is immediately uneasy, almost uncomfortable as they hesitate and say, “Oh.. you know how he gets.”

Minutes, hours, day, sometimes weeks pass and Shona is nowhere to be seen. His voice goes unheard, and his sentiments, unshared. Sometimes his absence is hard to place despite being known, there’s silences that last just a moment too long and open spaces that are just a little too wide. Some may think he’s off wandering somewhere, getting his nose in where it doesn’t belong. Some may think he’s writing letters to a lover or friend, some think he’s spilled like colors over his art, practicing his squaller until the time of day is no longer relevant, but only those closest to him really know, even if they don’t understand. The light sometimes goes out. Shona gets defensive after the fact, he says it happens to everyone, he says he just needs a break sometimes. Just a break, which isn’t hard to believe when he comes back with a renewed vengeance, a little more energy than he had beforehand, but still, there’s just always something off. No one’s tired for that long, not if they aren’t sick. Of course, he begs to differ.

Episodes of sadness are bound to happen when you’ve lived such a confusing life, power is a scary thing, but it’s whispered in his mind that perhaps there’s a difference, perhaps something really is wrong. To Shona it seemed that no matter where he went, or how like him the people he surrounded himself with were, he would always have something wrong with him.

Highs and lows are a piece of life, but what separates Shona’s from the rest, and how does he cope when he doesn’t like the answer he finds?

·          Attachments make you human, dear. ↪

“What does the idea of losing them make you feel?” Teeth bit down on tongue, mouth not allowing anything too honest, too sentimental to slip past. He felt the emotions well in his throat, dripping off his teeth like snake venom before swallowing them down, eyes drawn neutral, not cold nor warm as the fabricated ideation slipped past his lips, echoing in the air then disappearing. Not everything to come from his mouth was true. “Nothing.”

Love, affection, attachment. Shona doesn’t fear many things anymore, at least not anything he’d make common knowledge, but his discomfort with not only his own but others personal endearments is almost obvious, his hesitation and disdain clear when particular situations arise. Despite this, there’s something hiding beneath the surface. There’s a heart under all the wit and venom, there’s a warmth somewhere in the pent-up emotions and internal power struggle. Somewhere inside of him, he yearns for what he once had, for a genuine connection, a love. He wants more than just sex or friendship, more than useless material things. Despite what he shows, sometimes attention like Farid’s can make his chest stutter, even if only an unnoticeable moment. Sometimes his dreams show him that of intimacy, of desire. These are things he isn’t even consciously aware of, not sure of why he’d want them.

Regardless he intends to keep such things at bay, but it raises a question that he’s not sure of the answer to.

·          Sate my hunger or we all starve. ↪

“What do you want from me?” Eyes shone liquid fire, a tongue swiping over sharpened teeth like a cat stalking a mouse, a smile equal parts intoxicating and intimidating. Hypnotizing. “I want everything.”

Greedy, gluttonous, hedonistic.

Those are all words that have been used to describe Shona, to describe his friends, too. Shona is his own definition of self-indulgent, not taking direct orders from anyone and living his life how he wants to as much as he’s able. He stuffed himself full of entertainment and curiosities, probing in people’s minds and lives before wandering away when he finds himself bored of them. Keeping his interest is difficult, but that’s perhaps a part of the charm and mystique of Shona Yul-Jun, it’s part of what draws people in, which pleases him immensely. Attention is a drug of choice as well as a burden, feeding into an ego and toxicity of internal demons and conflicts.

How much is too much? Such a thing doesn’t exist, my dear, at least not yet.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?: OH, how my soul aches at the prospect, but I’m entirely understanding of the fact that sometimes.. characters die, and if the plot calls for it, I’d certainly be willing to let it happen.

                                                             IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

After the Shona fought with the First Army he thought he could never be cold again.

It didn’t just seem improbable, it felt impossible. The cold had dug into his skin, whipped it red until the freeze almost felt like fire, so cold it was burning hot, sweltering. Face shining, skin and eyes screaming as it was beaten into some form of submission. He’d never been so weak, not even as child, barely old enough to truly be considered a person, sitting on the back of a caravan by himself, confused. The one defining trait, what had truly made the battling worse, was that he couldn’t cry in the most literal sense. He’d tried to cry, he actually tried, he had rub his face ten folds more raw, pushed everything to the surface in his panic to try to find a moment of serenity, of peace. His frozen fingers had clutched nail into palm, trying to make it bleed, to feel something other than cold numbness. Confusion. Lost in his own body he hadn’t had any sense of control over his muscles. Maybe it was his own persistence coming to light, his own bitterness. He never did like to do as he was told, and subconsciously he liked to think that might’ve been a part of it, a power struggle. If his muscles couldn’t move he couldn’t keep fighting, he couldn’t do as he was told.

But then, of course, he had. Desperate and lost behind his own body, he’d struck lighting.

He thought of the day more often than he didn’t, to his own chagrin, but he never spoke of it, not even when questioned. He was almost embarrassed, haunted by his past self that held more power than he could muster under usual circumstances. While he was stronger than even before, he was still held at even higher standards, by others as well as himself, because of the instance that happened what felt like several lifetimes ago and the memory of his panic stayed burned into his everyday conversations.

Still, he was still cold.

Shona’s arms were wrapped around his shoulders, something resembling a scowl with a bit more contemplation covering his features. It had been getting late, he should’ve been on his way back to the Little Palace, and yet he wasn’t. Someone was bound to have been looking for him, but still he stayed, sat by himself near the lake, staring into the water and thinking as he sometimes would. He didn’t feel much like talking quite yet, and there was bound to be questions. He had always hated explaining himself, it made him feel much like a child being caught doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. He didn’t remember too much particularly about his mother, or what life was like before living in the Little Palace, but he remembered one sentence, his father’s favorite. “What do you think you’re doing?”

It was a nasty phrase if you asked Shona, not only was there the connotation of ‘explain yourself’ but there was also that underlying notion that simply said ‘stop.’ It was that phrase in particular that had caused his first outburst, that phrase had brought his power to life, it had made him Grisha. He very much liked having reason to blame his father, considering he’d been the one whom had shown the most disdain. He wasn’t just upset at the realization, he was disgusted, and it was all his fault.

Of course, there’s a certain truth, and a certain lie, that comes with that, he knew that logically it would’ve come to light sooner or later, whether under different circumstances or the very same it had, but there was still something about it that made him smug, sure of himself. He took responsibility in his own mind, and he accepted it, but he selfishly enjoyed the fact that he knew his father would live out his life blaming himself. Bitter is a word that Shona had perhaps become comfortable with over the years. He used to stick his nose up at the prospect, defensive nature claiming that he held no grudges but it was obvious that was a lie. Nobody could hold a grudge like Shona could, get on his bad side and you’ll be made to regret it. However, there was always a forgiving nature somewhere underneath those layers, apologize, repent for your wrongdoings and the bad can be forgotten. He was made protective of himself, but not cruel. He’d learned from a young age surrounded by brothers and sisters that no one could stand up from him quite like himself.

He had been focused, practicing subconsciously and making subtle winds with swishes of his fingers, mind busy with other affairs, goosebumps noticing the chill that was not of his own making. He was getting tired again.

He heard steps behind him, a slow crunch of underfoot and he paused his ministrations, snapped out of his mental prism but not turning to welcome them, instead keeping his eyes focused straight ahead at the water shining in the late afternoon, the last remnants of sun finding it’s hiding place and the moon taking over the sky. He waited.

“Yul-Jun?” A voice rang out, a high feminine one soaked with hesitation. “You’re out late tonight.”

He didn’t recognize the voice like he was sure he should, had no idea who it may be standing behind him, but it didn’t really matter as it was all the same to him. “Yes.” He said shortly, already edging on his defenses. “Why, are you here to try and send me off to bed?” He said, voice not necessarily aggressive but taunting, verging on a scoff.

“No, I just wanted to ask you something..” The nerves in her voice already made it clear it was a question he wasn’t going to answer. He didn’t like hesitation or people who weren’t sure what they wanted. “About last week?” She added, and his defenses were up.

“If you aren’t sure whether or not it’s an appropriate question, it probably isn’t.” He said, tone hard and cold, unforgiving. He could make assumptions about other people, but he hated when they made them about him, it was hypocritical, but as were most of the things he did. Besides, she’d caught him in a bad mood, a reminiscent one, at that. Last week hadn’t been a good one.

He could hear her shifting from foot to foot, the sound the grass was making, crunchy this time of year as opposed to springy. She couldn’t hide, even without looking at her, whoever she was, he was judging her, almost sizing her up. Who was she to ask him about anything? It was none of her business, hell, he didn’t even know who she was.

A long silence stretched, and she fidgeted the entire time. Eventually he stood up, finally turning to face her. He’d seen her face before but it didn’t answer any questions. He looked her up and down, judgmental and offended, before scoffing, unimpressed. “You don’t even believe you have a right to an answer, why should I?” He said, eyeing her for barely a moment more before stepping around her, back in the direction of the Little Palace. The night had lost it’s draw once his trance was broken, however, he did find himself rather impressed that the girl had enough confidence, or stupidity he supposed, to ask him at all. It took guts, something not many people seemed to have anymore.

He mentally noted to find out her name, stifling a yawn as his own feet matted the grass with each step in the direction of the place that was the closest thing he had to ‘home.’

Perhaps it was time to go to sleep after all.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

·          Shona struggles with Bipolar Disorder. Sometimes his energy is exceedingly high, and sometimes his gluttonous, impulsive nature can surpass even danger and lead to that of a highly problematic nature, and other times his energy is low, so low that he sleeps for days, disappears for stretches of time, remains extremely secluded. He doesn’t talk about the depressive episodes at all, in fact, after they’re over he ignores them entirely, blatantly ignoring any questions that could come from them. He doesn’t quite understand the cause of these mood swings and gets defensive if anyone says anything about them.

·          He has a relatively quick temper, but doesn’t get violent as much as agitated. He tends to snap at people verbally, but with a calm, yet increasingly rude, manner. He has a problem admitting when he’s said something too far and doesn’t apologize easily, which can cause conflict in his life.

·          Shona is generally a very organized person, he has an ability to keep things well put together and knows where to find what he’s looking for. However, he doesn’t feel any particular way about other people’s disorganization, as long as it doesn’t effect his own things.

·          Shona’s loyal to his friends almost to a fault. He’ll defend them in any circumstance, even if it requires playing devil’s advocate, and is very protective of those close to him, though he’d never tell them that.

·          Shona’s highly intelligent, but his firm beliefs sometimes get in the way of that. He’s a true debater at heart, and will defend his points to the grave, usually to the point of offending those with alternating opinions. He enjoys arguments, always overflowing with a sort of calm yet cocky confidence and an inability to admit when he’s wrong.

·          If you need emotional support, Shona might not be the person to go to, however, if you need real advice on how to overcome an issue, he might be your guy. Shona is much more of a realist than a shoulder to cry on, and he can get out of his own head long enough to help someone if they’re a friend or someone he cares about.

·          For someone with such a strongly compulsive nature, he craves a sense of stability. He likes to take others by surprise, do things that are unexpected, but if that’s turned on him he finds himself agitated and even anxious.

EXTRAS:

·         Star Sign: LEO

“People born under the sign of Leo are natural born leaders. They are dramatic, creative, self-confident, dominant and extremely difficult to resist, able to achieve anything they want to in any area of life they commit to. There is a specific strength to a Leo and their “king of the jungle” status. Leo often has many friends for they are generous and loyal. Self-confident and attractive, this is a Sun sign capable of uniting different groups of people and leading them as one towards a shared cause, and their healthy sense of humor makes collaboration with other people even easier.”

Attributes:

Positive:

1.       Creative

2.       Broad-minded

3.       Expansive

4.       Faithful

5.       Energetic

6.       Loyal

Negative:

1.       Pompous

2.       Patronizing

3.       Bossy

4.       Interfering

5.       Dogmatic

6.       Intolerant

·         Personality Type: DEBATER (ENTP-T)

“An odd juxtaposition arises with Debaters, as they are uncompromisingly honest, but will argue tirelessly for something they don’t actually believe in, stepping into another’s shoes to argue a truth from another perspective.”

“Debaters’ unwavering desire for self-improvement comes in most handy is in their emotional development, as they may actually be willing to work on areas such as sensitivity and emotional communication with their partners.”

“The epitome of Debaters’ friendships is when someone can hold their ground in these arbitrary debates with valid, rational arguments.”

Attributes:

Positive:

1.        Knowledgeable – Debaters rarely pass up a good opportunity to learn something new, especially abstract concepts. This information isn’t usually absorbed for any planned purpose as with dedicated studying, people with the Debater personality type just find it fascinating.

2.        Quick Thinkers – Debaters have tremendously flexible minds, and are able to shift from idea to idea without effort, drawing on their accumulated knowledge to prove their points, or their opponents’, as they see fit.

3.        Original – Having little attachment to tradition, Debater personalities are able to discard existing systems and methods and pull together disparate ideas from their extensive knowledge base, with a little raw creativity to hold them together, to formulate bold new ideas. If presented with chronic, systemic problems and given rein to solve them, Debaters respond with unabashed glee.

4.        Excellent Brainstormers – Nothing is quite as enjoyable to Debaters as analyzing problems from every angle to find the best solutions. Combining their knowledge and originality to splay out every aspect of the subject at hand, rejecting without remorse options that don’t work and presenting ever more possibilities, Debaters are irreplaceable in brainstorming sessions.

5.        Charismatic – People with the Debater personality type have a way with words and wit that others find intriguing. Their confidence, quick thought and ability to connect disparate ideas in novel ways create a style of communication that is charming, even entertaining, and informative at the same time.

6.        Energetic – When given a chance to combine these traits to examine an interesting problem, Debaters can be truly impressive in their enthusiasm and energy, having no qualms with putting in long days and nights to find a solution.

Negative:

1.       Very Argumentative – If there’s anything Debaters enjoy, it’s the mental exercise of debating an idea, and nothing is sacred. More consensus-oriented personality types rarely appreciate the vigor with which Debater personalities tear down their beliefs and methods, leading to a great deal of tension.

2.       Insensitive – Being so rational, Debaters often misjudge others feelings and push their debates well past others’ tolerance levels. People with this personality type don’t really consider emotional points to be valid in such debates either, which magnifies the issue tremendously.

3.       Intolerant – Unless people are able to back up their ideas in a round of mental sparring, Debaters are likely to dismiss not just the ideas but the people themselves. Either a suggestion can stand up to rational scrutiny or it’s not worth bothering with.

4.       Can Find It Difficult to Focus – The same flexibility that allows Debaters to come up with such original plans and ideas makes them readapt perfectly good ones far too often, or to even drop them entirely as the initial excitement wanes and newer thoughts come along. Boredom comes too easily for Debaters, and fresh thoughts are the solution, though not always a helpful one.

5.       Dislike Practical Matters – Debaters are interested in what could be – malleable concepts like ideas and plans that can be adapted and debated. When it comes to hard details and day-to-day execution where creative flair isn’t just unnecessary but actually counter-productive, Debater personalities lose interest, often with the consequence of their plans never seeing the light of day.

·         Temperament: CHLOERIC

“Your temperament is choleric. The choleric temperament is fundamentally ambitious and leader-like. They have a lot of aggression, energy, and/or passion, and try to instill it in others. They can dominate people of other temperaments, especially phlegmatic types. Many great charismatic military and political figures were choleric. They like to be in charge of everything. However, cholerics also tend to be either highly disorganized or highly organized. They do not have in-between setups, only one extreme to another. As well as being leader-like and assertive, cholerics also fall into deep and sudden depression. Essentially, they are very much prone to mood swings.”

·         Alignment: True Neutral

“A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn’t feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most true neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil after all, he would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, he’s not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Some true neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run. True neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion. However, true neutral can be a dangerous alignment when it represents apathy, indifference, and a lack of conviction.”

ANYTHING ELSE? My favorite book is actually Fight Club, which is probably a super basic ass answer, but the novel is just.. so good. Chuck Palahniuk is a force to be reckoned with. ANOTHER NOTE: In this application I did not direction mention or bring up the fact that he is trans but I AM 100% acknowledging and keeping that in, I’m not trying to erase it or ignore it in anyway possible, I can’t stress that enough, I just didn’t find a particular place to put too much information about that in this particular application, as it doesn’t really define him. While yes, he is trans, first and foremost he is a man and would like to be seen as such (as I’m sure many transgender people agree), and I felt that was the more important part to cover. I will, however, expand on the transgender piece in the future if given the opportunity. (I also have questions about how transitioning works in this universe which was a part of the reason I didn’t delve into it quite yet but I intend to talk all that through with you if I’m accepted!)

ANOTHER NOTE from Kat who spent approximately 36 full hours working on this and is now reading it over now:Okay, so, I had an epiphany. The thing is, the way I really see this character is that he’s a lot like who I was before this year. Self-indulgent, bitter, angry, overwhelmed, emotionally closed off, and way too hard on himself and people around him. It’s a hard place to be in, and even harder to get out of. Shona enraptures that perfectly, and it’s strange because the reason I think I was really so drawn to his character was because I looked at him and thought ‘I want to help, I can help.’ Weird, yeah? I don’t know, from the beginning I was just so extremely attached to his character it made my head hurt, the past three or four days since I finally decided to actually apply I’ve sat down at my computer from when I wake up to when I go to sleep, just writing this application. Of course, you’d assume it would be longer, but I mostly kept going back and erasing and re-writing until it all felt just right, at least to me. Even if I’m not accepted, which is entirely fair and just and I would genuinely have no hard feelings (I want to see him in the best hands as much as you guys do, I promise!) I just wanted to say that I had such an interesting and involved process when writing this whole thing, and I mostly just wanted to thank you for giving me the chance to do it at all! Your characters are all absolutely amazing, as someone who admined a group and tried writing that many biographies before, kudos for being able to do it so eloquently. Anyways, sorry, I’m babbling again, I hope you all have a great day and I’m excited to hear back from you!

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, CAS!

You have been accepted for the role of FYODOR DRUGOV. You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, JEM!

You have been accepted for the role of LUKA MRAVINSKY with a faceclaim change to Francisco Lachowski. I’m screaming because our bratva group is nearly complete! Jem, you breathed aching life into Luka. Your application was a culmination of highs and lows -- of crescendos of joy and sorrows. It was a beautiful thing, to watch you deconstruct Luka then put him back together again -- pulling him apart while making him whole. You captured his voice, his motivations, his contradictions, and his commonalities. There was a depth there that I was hoping would be captured, and you did it in one fell swoop. You’ve killed us with Luka’s tragedy, his sorrow, his potential for redemption or damnation. All in this singular application. How you managed to fit the whole of (arguably) Ravka’s most tragic pyro, I’m not entirely sure. And for that, I thank you. I can’t wait to see him unfold on the dash! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Jem!

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: She/her.

AGE: 23.

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: I live in EST, and I’d say I’m about a 6 or 7 in terms of activity! I’m always able to plot and respond to messages a few times a day, and I try to crank out replies every day or every other day.

TRIGGERS: OMITTED

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: Y’all already know: alexanderrallis (active), cygnusblck (inactive), and thesaintofsin (inactive).

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: Luka Alexei Mravinsky.

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER? Luka, Luka, Luka!!!!!!!!!! Oh, Luka. To be frank, Luka sort of snuck up on me, and I bounced around between a bunch of different characters before finally settling on this sweet, sweet Sankt. When I first began writing Luka’s app, I was a little stuck, and I didn’t quite knowwhat to do with him, how to interpret him. And it was a bit frustrating, to be honest—trying to solve Luka, who, at the time, seemed so unsolvable to me. But I couldn’t let him go, I really couldn’t, and so I kept studying him and learning him, and here I am, utterly in love with Luka Mravinsky. I think I initially struggled so much with understanding Luka’s composition because his composition is incredibly complex. In many ways, Luka is an anomaly—a haphazard bundle of contradictions that shouldn’t be, but is. He’s soft and gentle and kind, but he’s also damaged and tortured and miserable, and for all his altruism, he has a tremendous capacity for destruction—and that was all a little difficult to navigate at first. How do you decode a character who aches for tenderness but was bred for cruelty? A character who wants desperately to be a Sankt but whose curse has damned him? I don’t think you can decode a character like that—I really don’t. I was searching for some Luka-esque inspiration material and discovered this little gem, and it all sort of just clicked for me—Luka can’t be known, not really; he can be learned, but never fully known, never truly mastered, because he hides—from others, from himself—and I think Luka was written in such a way that he can never be definitively decoded. Like a sad, lovely Frankenstein, Luka is a monster of creation, not a monster of origin—he is a product, a result. Half of his parts are missing, and the ones that aren’t missing are foreign—unfamiliar limbs and organs that do not belong to the sweet-natured boy who played in the trees and picked wildflowers for his mama and stole scraps of food from the dinner table for the horses and sat on his papa’s soldiers like a boy-king. The sum of Luka Mravinsky is this: no heart, no smile, wrong hands, wrong head. He left his heart in his village, buried it between the corpses of his mama and papa and left it to rot in the dead soil of the graveyard he’d erected—a shrine to his monstrosity. He left his smile in a chasm of memories stowed away somewhere between his ribs—an endless loop of crisp spring mornings spent in the garden with his mother and cold winter nights spent reading the Istorii Sankt'ya near the hearth with his father. His hands are all wrong—they ache in perpetual want of blood, of sin; they were made to destroy, and Luka was made to restore. His head is all wrong, too—it urges him to do things he ought not to, to indulge in the embers that smolder between the lines of his hungry palms, to stop fighting his nature and bow to the inferno he’s neglected to stoke for so long. So much of Luka is lost, and so much of Luka is not Luka, and so much of Luka is dead. It’s no wonder, then, that the boy knows so little of himself (angel, Sankt, darling); it’s no wonder, then, that the boy hides what little he does know of himself (monster, killer, demon). In short, I’m not certain Luka knows who he really is anymore, and if Luka doesn’t know who he is, how can anyone else? Once I was struck with that idea, everything else just sort of fell into place beautifully, and I became enamored with the prospect of exploring all of the parts (present and absent, belonging and foreign) of Luka Mravinsky. And maybe he’ll recover some of his old parts, and maybe he’ll discover some new parts, and maybe he’ll reconcile with some of his wrong parts. And isn’t that such an incredible creative adventure—to be able to take a character and learn and unlearn and relearn of the parts of their makeup until you find the right combination? He’s so stunningly complex, Luka, and so heart-achingly tragic. A benevolent destroyer, an otkazat’sya-loving otkazat’sya-killer, a lamb in wolf’s clothing, a beautiful boy steeped in tragedy, a tragedy steeped in beauty. He, a Grisha, a god, envies the mediocrity of humanity, aches in want of death, in want of relief from the curse of the Small Science. A lovely, frightening boy capable of lovely, frightening things. Feared by those who know of the monster that razed an entire village to ash; pitied by those who know of the sad almost-Sankt who tirelessly fights his nature, growing paler and hungrier and more tired each day; scorned by those who know of the fair-weathered Grisha who moons over otkazat’sya like they’re something to be admired, to be treasured. Nothing makes my muse sing like navigating a character that’s full of contradiction and complexity, and I think it would be an incredible creative journey to try to put Ravka’s very own Humpty Dumpty back together again (if such a thing is possible, of course—poor Luka had an awfully great fall).

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND? SAD SOLDIER BOY: A CAUTIONARY TALE  Like calls to like, and the damned call to the damned, and Valerian Petrov calls to Luka Mravinsky. Luka’s heart beats in threes: once for Shona, once for Arsen, and once for Valerian. He doesn’t think he remembers how to love, not anymore (he was very young when he last loved, a spritely boy whose mother kissed him often and whose father praised him well)—but he remembers (only just) how to be tender, and so he shares his tenderness with his brothers. Arsen has never been a particularly amenable recipient of soft things (he’s sharp-tongued and sharp-toothed, and he has too much blood in his mouth to know the taste of tenderness) and matters of sentimentality don’t seem to appeal to Shona, not much and not often. Valerian, though—Valerian isn’t tender, not really; he never was, not even before he was robbed of his Juliya. But he’s tender with Luka, as tender as men like Valerian can be. Arsen prods Luka tirelessly, always eager to provoke him, to summon flame, and while Shona tolerates Luka’s gentle disposition, it’s clear that he’s not too terribly keen on it. But Valerian—brightly-burning, jagged-edged, wildfire Valerian—has expressed to Luka on more than one occasion how very fond he is of the sad soldier boy’s stark oddities—of his quietness and his tenderheartedness. He’s always been tender with Luka, Valerian, but Luka fears that his pseudo-brother has razed his own capacity for tender things. Passion has given way to lifelessness, love has given way to grief, tolerance to impatience, and tenderness to cruelty. Grief—it’s a death Luka knows well. The hero of Ravka has fallen, baptized by atrophy, stricken from legend to tragedy, from god to broken-hearted boy. Luka has been treading the brutal current of grief for years now, and so he’s learned well how to navigate these waters. But Valerian is drowning, and Luka fears that his lungs are filling too quickly with too much water, too much grief. He needs a lifesaver, Valerian—not an anchor, but abuoy; someone to keep him afloat, to teach him how to swim in waters as treacherous as the Unsea—and who better to school Valerian in the ways of wading than the sad soldier boy who’s been swimming in the channel of grief for a lifetime? Luka has never saved someone before. He’s well-acquainted with the ways of damnation, but redemption? Salvation? Foreign concepts. Alas, Luka cannot and will not stand idly by and watch grief make a pretty tragedy out of Valerian Petrov the same way it made a pretty tragedy out of Luka Mravinsky. If anything good is to come of Luka’s tragedy, let it be this: the cautionary tale of the sad soldier boy. Woe to all who follow in his steps.

FORGIVE ME NOT Luka is a creature of passivity, a being of indifference whose once-bright passion and once-brighter heart atrophied from lack of use a long, long time ago. But Aarvas Rai summons passion from Luka as easily as the Tidemaker summons waves. Of course, the sort of passion Aarvas invokes is certainly not the kind of passion anyone with a will to live to wants to be on the receiving end of. With Aarvas, gentle Luka is not so gentle, and kind Luka is not so kind; he is hotheaded, and cruel, and brash, and bitter-tongued. Arsen practically dances with glee whenever Aarvas sidles up to Luka, for the Tidemaker has a knack for inciting the ugliness in Luka that Arsen has been trying to pry from the tenderhearted boy for years now. A sinner forged in fire and a Sankt forged in water were never meant to be fast friends, surely, but the blind, consuming animosity that buzzes between the two Grisha goes beyond elemental polarity. Who does this righteous pseudo-Sankt think he is? Preaching redemption, promising salvation. Sanctimoniously hailing the Small Science as a holy relic when he should be condemning the pitiable curse. The road to hell is paved with odinakovost and etovost, and the only fate that awaits Grisha is perdition. That Aarvas Rai has crowned himself savior of all damned Grisha is laughable. They share the same curse, he and Aarvas, abominations of water and fire, and to glorify the Small Science, to laud Grisha as heroes of the new world—it’s blasphemy. Luka is irredeemable, and he seeks no salvation, no decree of absolution from the Sankts. He wants Death’s kiss, and he wishes to wait for smert in solitude (misery doesn’t love company, it seems). But Aarvas is persistent, and stubborn, and mad, and even sad soldier boys have their limits. Tread carefully, Sankt Aarvas—do you know what happens when you push an already-broken boy to his breaking point? Do you want to find out?

GLUTTONY, THY NAME IS GRISHA He’s a glutton, Luka—all Grisha are. It’s easy to forget that sweet, soft-spoken Luka once turned an entire village to ash; it’s easy to forget that gentle, quiet Luka was once so gluttonous, so eager to taste flame and soot, that he ignored his parents’ warnings like Adam ignored God’s warnings and danced with fire like Adam danced with Eve. It’s easy for you to forget, maybe, but it’s easy for Luka to remember. He remembers every day what he did all those years ago, how he surrendered to gluttony, how he fell prey to temptation; how the fire bewitched him, enchanted him, spellbound him. He’s an inferno, Luka, always burning, burning, burning, and he tries—oh, he tries—to smother, smother, smother, to quell the flames that lick at the barren wasteland of his ribcage and gnaw at his ash-laden palms. He fights this battle from dawn until dusk, each day, each night, always trying to temper himself, to douse the fire that refuses to die. He’s always rigid, always clenching his fists to keep those damnable hands of his from playing with matchsticks, always disengaging and dissociating from those around him to eliminate the catalyst of emotion. He’s a glutton, an addict, and try as he might to rehabilitate his nature, a wildfire is a wildfire is a wildfire—they must consume, or die; there is no happy medium for wildfires—no ending but death. Luka’s regimen of restraint is uncharacteristic of an Inferni, and his rather un-Grisha-like behavior is bound to draw someone’s attention, be it the Darkling’s disapproval, his peers’ judgment, or the Ravkan court’s suspicion. After all, what use is a boy of fire who refuses to play with fire? What use is a gun with a broken trigger? Wildfires must eitherconsume or die, and so, too, must Luka. Fair-weathered Grisha don’t fair well in Ravka, I’m afraid, and It’s only a matter of time before someone forces Luka’s hand in the matter. Soon, he will have to make a choice: surrender to his gluttony and reconcile with fire and flame, or perish. What’ll it be, Mravinsky? Live a sinner or die a Sankt?

HUNTED Luka’s loyalty to his bratvas is true and steadfast, but he is not truly beholden to anyone. He is too much a monster to owe fealty to otkazat’sya, and he is too full of self-loathing to owe fealty to the Darkling, soverennyi of Grisha and champion of abominations. As it stands, he is exclusively loyal to Valerian, Arsen, and Shona, but there are, unquestionably, Grisha and Ravkans alike who have their sights set on Luka Mravinsky—namely, Luka Mravinsky’s knack for razing villages. If wielded properly, he’d make for an extraordinary weapon, no? His brothers would never use him as such, but others certainly would. Rhea hunts him, and while the she-wolf is certainly the most transparent of all of Luka’s suitors, he suspects she’s not the only one waiting in line to have a go at making a proper weapon out of the Inferni. Best wishes to the fools who seek to wield Luka Mravinsky—you can’t break what’s already broken, you can’t tame what can’t be controlled, and you certainly can’t win over the heart of a brokenhearted boy.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE? Likely not, but if you admins felt strongly about using Luka’s death as a plot device, I’d certainly be open to it! (Do it for the Angst™.)

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE:  “Luka.” His mothers warnings were always gentle, never stern, and even in her admonition, her maternal love shone—a bright, dazzling thing full of honeysuckle and sun. A small flame leapt from his thumb to his forefinger, dancing about like a riotous storm. He was good-natured, Luka, and obedient, too, for the most part, and so he yielded to his mother’s call, a soft “mama?” springing from his upturned lips. “Dostatochno, moya lyubov.” Enough, my love. The flame flickered once, twice.

“Luka.” Like a lark, Arsen always sings, even when they’re being cruel, but their song is rougher today, a little more exasperated than the sweet, lilting serenade Luka has grown accustomed to. A faint breeze sweeps across the Summoners’ Pavilion, and Luka is grateful, for the chill smothers the heat in his palms some, and he feels anchored once more. Arsen makes a sound of impatience, and he reaches into the bag of flint hooked onto the belt of his kefta, crooning, “Bolshe, bratva.” More, brother.

Instinct bade him to play a little more, burn a little more, destroy a little more, but his mother bade him to stop, and so he stopped. Or he’d meant to—he really had—but some wildfires cannot be quelled, and some hungers cannot be sated. It began with a single wildflower. His mother loved wildflowers, and she would’ve been sad to see her sweetling lay waste to a thing so lovely if she’d lived to bear witness to her would-be-Sankt’s mighty fall from grace. He willed the flame to jump from pink petal to pink petal, from corolla to stem, and he watched with morbid, Icarus-like fascination as fauna fell and turned to ash. It was the first lovely thing he’d ever destroyed, but it would not be the last.

Instinct bids him to bend to Arsen’s will, to indulge in his true nature, to stoke the fire he’s too long neglected. But to trust one’s instincts is to trust oneself, and Luka pities anyfool who deigns to trust Grisha. His instincts betrayed him all those years ago, and he’s since abandoned reliance on intuition, instead favoring the instruments of restraint and control, suppression and solitude. It’s safer this way. But it’s also agonizing this way, and his body aches and groans in protest, angry at being denied nourishment time and again. Hunger gnaws at his stomach, and his hooded eyes are so eclipsed by shadow that he’s beginning to resemble the Unsea. Such is the price to pay for monstrosity; such is the price to pay for penance.

The first lovely thing he destroyed was a flower; the second was a freckled girl named Irina. She was sweet-natured and sweet-toothed, and she was always cold. Her home was near the meadow of wildflowers Luka often played in, and what first consumed one wildflower next consumed a dozen of them, and then hundreds of them, and then the homes surrounding them. Like dominos, lovely flowers and lovely girls and lovely homes fell victim to the ravenous monster forged in the embers of Luka’s palms, and he watched with anguished, Atlas-like horror as home and hearth fell and turned to ash—a blazing pyre of one man’s sins, a monument to one monster’s savagery, a graveyard for one boy’s ghosts.

Arsen sighs, and it’s a mean sound, but Valerian, from across the Pavilion, pins them with narrowed eyes of daggers, and Arsen is almost immediately tempered. To Luka’s left, he sees Iskra, who’s dancing so intimately with flame that you’d think the girl and the element were age-old lovers. She speaks the archaic language of inferno, takes to flame like the stars take to shine, and she’s effortless in her art, a master of that which cannot be mastered. He isn’t sure if envies her or admires her or hates her. To his right, he sees a small crowd of Tidemakers and Squallers alike, and they watch him with a peculiar mix of pity and contempt. Sad soldier boy, they lament. Broken Grisha, they sneer. Pitiable Sankt, they sigh. His traitorous hands ache in want of liberation, but Luka is captive to the ghosts who haunt his barren ribcage, and he will never permit himself the privilege of freedom, not ever again, not even in small doses. He looks to Arsen, and then to Valerian and Shona, and he marvels at how lovely they are. The first lovely thing he destroyed was a flower; the second was a freckled girl; the last was his his family. He will destroy no more lovely things. And so he smiles, faintly and apologetically, and exits, leaving Iskra to her fire and his fellow Grisha to their judgment and his lovely brothers to their loveliness.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

Of the four bratvas, Luka is the least troublesome, but certainly not the least capable of trouble. Kinder than Arsen and gentler than Valerian and quieter than Shona, he’s often mistaken for a wingless seraph, a pitiable, impressionable boy who falls victim time and again to the whims of his bandit brothers. And although Luka is kind, and although Luka is gentle, and although Luka is quiet, he’s also wicked, and whip-smart, and dangerous. He’s less inclined than Valerian and Arsen to incite trouble, surely, but he makes a fine bratva nonetheless—always using his pretty eyes of melancholy to deflect suspicion; always using his sad birdsong to cajole victims of Arsen’s tongue and Valerian’s fists (sometimes—at Arsen’s insistent bidding—using his sad birdsong to lure prey for Arsen’s tongue and Valerian’s fists); always using his intellect to talk his brothers out of trouble. He’s lovely-looking, Luka, and no one ever expects lovely-looking things to be capable of anything but loveliness. And lovely he is, and kind he is, and gentle he is, and quiet he is. But boys of fire always burn—it’s all they know how to do; they burn, and burn, and burn. Lucky for Ravka that Luka Mravinsky drowns in misery each dawn and each dusk—pain makes for a handy leash.

Misery burgeons in darkness, and so, too, does Luka. It’s only fitting, then, that what’s outside matches what’s inside: shadows. He’s always swathed in shadows, Luka, bathed in the dreary dusk of tragedy and the moonlight of melancholy. His eyes are always rimmed with dark crescent moons—a result of his negligence, surely, for he does not stoke the inferno stowed in his palms as often as he ought to, and it shows. Rawboned, dark-eyed boy of shadows, hide your fires; let not light see your black and deep desire.

Luka is relatively neutral in matters of politics and prejudice. He holds no particular grudge against the Ravkan court, and he doesn’t subscribe to the overarching Grisha axiom of human inferiority—and why would he? Luka is a well of self-loathing, and he aches to be ordinary, to be human. He thinks himself cursed, thinks otkazat’sya lucky, and so the only ill will he feels for humans is this: envy. He remains neutral in all areas regarding the disparity between otkazat’sya and Grisha, and he has no stake in the game of politics. Because of the brotherhood he shares with Shona, he’s also quite accepting of those who hail from lands outside of Ravka.

Ravka is a treasure trove of secrets, a shrine of gossip and hearsay. Among the well of rumors that spill from lips to ears in Ravka is the great tragedy of Luka Mravinsky. He was a mystery to them at first—a sad, soot-covered orphan boy plucked from the bedlam of war. But mysteries never remain so for long, and soon, tongues were wagging about the pyro who started the great fire, wiped an entire village. “Angel smerti,” they hissed. Angel of death. “Smert kosoy,” they whispered. Reaper. And he’d been certain—so certain—that the three boys he’d learned to love as well as any monster could would hiss the same, whisper the same; leave him to perish in the hearth of his own flame. And he’d been wrong. Every cruel whisper aimed at Luka was met with a crueler barb from Arsen’s crueler tongue, and every mean hiss at Luka’s expense was met with Valerian’s meaner fists. Shona followed in suit, and soon, residents of the Little Palace (and the Grand one, too) learned not to whisper or hiss about Luka Mravinsky, for to do so was to incite the wrath of fire and storm. To this day, most who live in the Little and Grand Palaces know of Luka’s story, but few discuss it plainly for fear of the three hellhounds that follow the sad soldier boy around like guard dogs.

Because of his consuming fear of losing control again, Luka has learned to depend less on his powers than other Grisha, and he has, in turn, committed himself to the study of hand-to-hand combat. His fellow Inferni wield flame with much more precision and ease than Luka, to be sure, but there are few Grisha who can best Luka in the training room, where the use of Small Science is forbidden and Grisha must rely on fists and reflex. To maintain constant restraint, Luka trains and meditates religiously, for he finds that exercising the most human and most base parts of himself keeps him grounded (and keeps the monster in him at bay).

Much in the same way that Luka has learned to depend on hand-to-hand combat so as to relieve his dependence on flame and fire, he’s also taken to academia. Every hour spent avoiding the Summoners’ Pavillions was, in turn, spent in the Grand Palace’s library, where Luka read voraciously and studied even more so. Because of this, he’s certainly one of the more intellectual Grisha. He’s well-versed in Grisha theory and militant strategy and is able to speak Kerch, Suli, Shu, and Fjerdan as fluently as he speaks his own mother tongue.

Of course, his excellence in academia and combat training have yielded an obvious deficit in his ability to summon and wield fire. Despite his great capacity to wield flame (as is evidenced by his burning of an entire village), his obsessive need to retain control and his reluctance to call to the fire that betrayed him all those years ago make for a poor Inferni. He can’t summon nearly as well as Arsen can, and he can’t wield half as gracefully as Valerian can. Many other Etherealki sneer, call him weak-willed and bare-boned, a broken Grisha who’s about as useless as otkazat’sya. They’re wrong, of course—Luka Mravinsky might yet be one of the greatest Inferni Ravka has ever known if only he’d embrace his nature. But he’s got no qualms about the sneers and whispers, really. Better a broken Grisha than a monster.

Luka has a tattoo on his left bicep that reads: XCIII. It’s the population of his mother village; the number of people he killed, the number of ghosts that have taken up residence in his hollow body.

Luka has crossed the Unsea many times, perhaps more than any Inferni of his age. Those who don’t know him might call it a grab for glory, but those who do know Luka know that he cares nothing for glory. He has nothing to prove, and his dreams of earning the title of ‘Sankt’ have long since perished. Those who don’t know him might call it a quest for redemption, a voyage to do enough good to make up for all the bad he’s done, but Luka thinks himself irredeemable; to try to pay penance for the 92 lives he stole is, he thinks, a fruitless quest. Why, then, does the almost-Sankt so readily volunteer to travel the Unsea? Why not? Men who have nothing to lose are dangerous creatures, beings of fearlessness who know not the confines of survival or self-preservation. They call him fearless, courageous, bold—but he doesn’t care what they call him. He’s not fearless, or courageous, or bold—he’s dead, a ghost among the living. Perhaps it’s luck that he’s not yet been made a victim of the Unsea; perhaps it’s penance, a sentence of purgatory that manifests in the flush of his cheeks and the stubborn beat of his heart. Or perhaps he’s escaped the clutches of the volcra because the ghastly beasts feed only on the living, and Luka is only half-alive, too hollow to feast on.  *All headcanons are, of course, subject to player discretion!

EXTRAS: You can find a mockblog for Luka here! MBTI: ISFJ. ASTROLOGY: Pisces (February 24th).  HOGWARTS HOUSE: Hufflepuff. MORAL ALIGNMENT: Neutral Good.

ANYTHING ELSE? OMITTED

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, LEXX!

You have been accepted for the role of DMITRI ALEKSEEV. Admin Rosey: First of all, Lexx, I’m so sorry for the wait! I was so enthralled by your application that I lost track of time reading it, and truthfully, it took me longer than it should have to put what I loved about it into words, because there was so much! Your plot points were amazing and so well thought-out; as if they alone weren’t enough to show how well you know him, your samples blew me away. You captured his voice perfectly, and with your words, you painted a picture of Dmitri I’d never seen before. Well done! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER        

ALIAS: Lexx        

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: she/her        

AGE: 21+        

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: 6 -7: Typically I am around for plotting/chatting daily, as for IC interactions, it might depend on how RL affects my muse, but even so, once 1-2 days I should be able to write at least one reply.  This is sort of a worst case scenario, because on top of having a full-time job, I typically leave town most weekends during the summer months, and I have a holiday coming up between the 14th and 24th of July, but things should slow down after that, and my activity should stabilize to at least 7/10. My timezone is GMT+2, which could also affect my real time responses as I’m 7+ hours ahead of American RPers.       

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: n/a - they’re inactive          

IN CHARACTER        

DESIRED CHARACTER: Dmitri Timofey Alekseev    

DMITRI– like the earth goddess he was named after, his mood swings have the capacity to influence all around him. He gives, and he takes away.  He dabbles in people, rather than nature, but like entire harvests are crushed by hail, so too can he bring immense devastation with the flick of his fingers. If he’s unhappy, everyone suffers. When he is content, others may be, as well.    

TIMOFEY – “honoring god” and there’s no greater one worthy of worship than him. He is the first in his family in generations to be Grisha, what further proof would he need of his significance, of the importance of his role in shaping what is to come? He is designed for critical and magnificent things, he is a creature capable of affecting the very molecules that keep humans together, and that can be nothing other than further evidence of his preeminence.    

ALEKSEEV – a family name, a human name, but it suits him, as at the Ravkan court one’s ancestry is vital, and his is exemplary. A noble, strong household. Diplomats and politicians and advisors, people versed in manipulating others for their own ends, of twisting the situation to their advantage, people whose subtlety of thinking brought them as close to power as anyone without royal blood could get. But they are not him, of course, for he is altogether more. Where they did not excel in a country at war, where their silver tongues did not turn to bullets, and they had to flee in order to maintain their relevance, Dmitri would show the rest of the world that he can be a warrior, he can be a killer, he can be the worst monster of them all – as calculating as he is cruel.    

DESCRIBE THE SAME CHARACGTER TWICE      

TO FALL IN LOVE WITH THEM      

There is no indulgence he refuses himself, he knows what he wants and he knows how to get it. He turns hedonism into an art form. He’s suave, confident and sultry, unafraid and uninhibited. He’s his own blessing, he is the only god he worships, and such supreme aplomb turns everything he does into a game only he knows how to win. He’s deliciously amoral, unencumbered by sentiment, or personal attachments. He’s the center of his own universe, and he makes all around him dance to his tune.      

TO BE REPULSED BY THEM      

With confidence, comes vanity, but that is, perhaps, the least among the plethora of mortal sins he dabbles in. His gluttony is devastating enough to eat the whole world raw, the force of his lust would bring angels to their knees. He thirsts for blood, for the rush he feels when he has another’s life at the tips of his fingers. He’s both sides of the coin, capable of bringing maddening pleasure, and cause immeasurable pain, and indeed, more often than not, a coin toss is all he needs to decide.      

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?    

A deity born of unworthy clay, and oh, how they knew it. If blame could be placed on anyone but himself, then his parents are responsible for much of his pitilessness. Adored and spoiled rotten from the first moment he drew breath, Dmitri grew up with all the advantages of a privileged birth, with all the gifts nature could bestow on a creature. Beautiful and charming, and so incredibly cruel. He isn’t weighed by principles. His disregard for other people is fascinating. He is a rotten thing with an angel’s face, and he thinks the world is his. That it was made for him. He’s never suffered hardships, what he wanted he got, always, and he’s smug and self-serving and greedy.      

He takes everything for granted and he takes everything as his due. Even his power, which is why he uses it so freely, so carelessly, taking when others aren’t willing to give. People are his playthings, the world is his stage, and he’s never known the taste of refusal.    

As someone who has no ideal in the world but himself, he lacks consistency and has no worthy goals. Whether the world ends in fire, or in ice, he does not care as long as he sits atop the pile of bodies. The future is a distant, unimportant detail to him, the legacy he seeks to leave has a more immediate effect. He wants his name to be on people’s lips now, and he doesn’t quite care how it gets there. There is no negative publicity in his mind, which is why he does not care that people whisper “the Darkling’s bitch” as he walks by. At least they’re talking about him, and he sees whatever attention they grant as his due, even if it will never be enough to satisfy.    

I think a significant part of his character is his absence of feeling, and this is something I would like to delve into further. He can be brought low by circumstances, and he’s capable of negative emotions, but there is no denying he is almost enamored with himself, and he has the ability to find precedence in things, he is aware enough of his surroundings and how to put them to use to achieve maximum satisfaction, but this is done in a distant, conniving way, and he is maladroit at considering anyone else a ‘person’. He sees people as a means to an end, sometimes for a minor purpose – for pleasure, or his own amusement – and others as steps to climb on in order to reach greatness.    

He’s empty, he is a beautiful lie, his eyes are ice, he’s covered in blood, his skin is silk kissed by worms and if they were given a choice, if they could see him for what he truly is, no one would touch him. But he is the flame, and people are just moths. Even the devil was an angel once – the most beautiful angel of them all. He is Conquest, their bodies are his battlefield. He is Famine, always hungry, leaving them starved and begging for more. He is Pestilence, he would find his way into their blood, and he would waste them away from the inside out. He is Death, THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS.      

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?          

[Disclaimer: these are only suggestions as it is far from my intention to GM anyone else’s characters and I would be happy to discuss these plot bunnies further and adjust them where needed]  

ZERO SUM GAME – Dmitri’s been using his power longer than he could talk, longer than he understood that he was different, or had a notion of right or wrong. It comes as naturally to him as breathing, it’s a sense he’s never been without, and he doesn’t know – nor does he want to – how to turn it off. He sees the world through the sound of hearts beating, through feeling someone before touching them. And while at first it’s been crude and inelegant, the reactions he caused too strong, leaving signs of his presence in their bloodstream, he’s had years to hone his skill, to perfect his craft to the point where he’s almost unnoticeable. There is no denying he has a superiority complex – especially when it comes to the otkazat’sya. When it comes to fellow Grisha, he’s more reluctant to unleash his power against them, based on his belief that they are not to be quite so easily discarded. The Sun Summoner, though, is untrained, untested and raising too quickly above her station that it grates at him. He wants to drive a wedge between her and the Darkling, and for the time being, while she’s fresh and gullible, there are a number of options. Should he incite her to betrayal by pushing her into Anton’s arms? Once that happens, he could tell the Darkling that Viktor plans to supplant his brother, the information would surely hold more weight then, than it does now.

Or rather, should he befriend her, seduce her, make her believe he’s indispensable to her, and use her as the way back in the Darkling’s inner circle? His resentment of her is quite great at this point, but ultimately Dmitri  won’t be easily swayed by personal feelings if he has more to gain by ignoring them. If he finds himself back in a position of favor, will he grovel and apologize and worship the Soverenyi, or will he still nurse his wounded pride, and plot against him? If, or rather when, he finds out the Darkling is looking for the amplifiers, will he want to get to them first, and if he succeeds in that, will he hand them over or keep them for himself – will he, once he figures out what Aleksander wants, involve Viktor in his quest to improve his odds? He needs time to break Lantsov’s will, to wear down his resistance, if he wants his work to last, he has to be subtle and rushing a job, especially this job comes with great risk. For the moment, he prefers weighing his options, testing the waters, tugging at strings in one direction or another just to see which would be the easiest path to getting his due.

THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS – to look upon the Darkling was to look into a mirror. At least on Dmitri’s part, seeing all the things he thought he was, laid bare. To see people gaze at the Darkling, was to finally, finally find a definition for the black hole inside him. The mix of fear and respect, awe and wariness – it was all he fancied himself he was and more – because it was real, it was acknowledged and reinforced by others. He became one of the many shadows dancing around him, at least for a little while. He took those first steps willingly, accepting him as his lord and master. He had his taste of real power as the devil on his shoulder, whispering everyone’s darkest secrets in his ear. Everyone’s but his. Even as he exposed others to the judgement of the Darkling, he suppressed, hid, kept himself to himself. He thought he belonged with Aleksander, but he could not quite convince himself he belonged to him. He imagined the Darkling would understand a creature such as him, a fellow god, could only ever be on the same footing, never on his knees. He was wrong, and the taste of failure is bitter in his mouth. He lacked his experience, his skill, something akin to wisdom and Dmitri had never been wise. His restlessness, his constant hunger for more, everything, always scrapping for a bigger piece of the pie drove him towards the wider world, seeking what the Darkling wouldn’t provide. Entertainment, meaningless and crude, a game with no stakes other than his own amusement. The weight of his own discontent, the Darkling’s disapproval could only be displaced by surrounding himself with lesser beings where his superiority was plain for all to see. He craves the idolatry of the masses, and the Darkling is so distinctly apart from all the humbug that his distant approval never could have  been enough to fill the emptiness inside him. He is still the best chance he has of seeing his ambitions realized, of seeing his name carved in flesh and blood on the surface of the earth, of having his name turned into a curse, of being seen for the famished, cruel god he is. But he’s drifting, untethered, away from his sphere of influence, each moment pushing him further away from meeting his goals. He’s rootless and simmering in the depths of his own resentment – at himself, at the Darkling, at all he holds in higher regard than him. He still collects secrets, hoards them like the selfish dragon he is, overflowing with the seductive, poisonous power of those things he holds close to his chest: Viktor plots against his brother; have you noticed how that Fjerdan prowls like a wolf? The king’s advisor is guilty of regicide, she stalks the Lantsov bastard like a bitch in heat; the princess is hiding something and I’m not the only one on their trail – he’s drowning in secrets that aren’t his, drowning as he watches his opportunities ever dwindling, pulling him, kicking and screaming, into obscurity. Can he do anything about any of those things without the Darkling’s help? Can he assert his own power without assistance? Or is he already doing it, and all he’s good for is fucking confidences out of people? The thought rankles, it sounds unjust, and if he could only untangle one of these knots without help, perhaps he can prove he’s been misjudged. But his pride, his bitterness, keep him languishing on the edges while others take precedence in the Darkling’s plans. He fails to see the appeal of Altan – nothing but a butcher, with as much finesse in his whole being as Dmitri could scrap from his perfectly polished shoes. He dismisses the oprichniki out of hand – they’re only human, and so easily replaceable for all they might think otherwise. And the Sun Summoner is getting a little too friendly with the crown prince. But then again, what else could one expect from a mere peasant when she finds herself in the presence of royalty, tarnished or not? She must be a bastard herself. Truth is that Dmitri believes that he alone can help the Darkling with the finer points of his plans, and it bothers him that the other man doesn’t think likewise. Exposing everyone else's deficiencies to Aleksander is beginning to sound more and more tempting. He would start with the Pavlova girl, and bide his time until she missteps. And keep his eye on the petty power grabs of humans and their silly, meaningless crown, as well.  A fact made easy by having placed himself in a Lantsov’s bed. His manipulation is subtle, thorough, taking small steps to extract information from him, planting ideas in Viktor’s head, though he really doesn’t think the bloodhound would require much of his assistance to turn to fratricide.

FOR KING & COUNTRY – and of course, the questions are which king and why should he restrict himself to just one country, when he can have the whole world? But he is quite impatient, and impulsive. He’s never learned to be persevering, not really, so far no objectives he’d set himself have been really that difficult to surmount.  Learning to deny himself immediate satisfaction is a struggle. And while there is no refuting the fact that the Darkling has the advantage of being Grisha – a state of being Dmitri himself considers far superior – his snubbing of the favored son was a bitter pill to swallow, whether it had been warranted of not. Dmitri wants back in his graces, but how long would he have to suffer, and be ignored until his resentment becomes greater than his infatuation? He was not made to waste away in the shadows, he was supposed to thrive in the darkness. Ultimately, it’s a matter of his own welfare, and there is no doubt that he values that above all else. He finds a match to his savagery in Viktor’s bloodthirstiness, and in truth, Dmitri’s brand of manipulation works far better on the Lantsov hound than on the Darkling. His strings are easier to pull, and his role as the puppeteer is well known and comfortable. But the man is presumptuous enough to imagine he’s superior simply because he’s a prince, and Dmitri might find that amusing now, while he dances to his tune, but there is no denying his pride will not allow him to remain content in this position while Viktor is so openly derisive. At least the Darkling once offered him the recognition he so craves, and for all the Grisha are classified as secondary Dmitri believes that the one capable of turning the tables on the measly humans, for all their greater numbers, is Aleksander. Still, he could switch camps, if the opportunity presents itself, to be the only one of his kind, to be singled out and adored, but the devastation would have to be complete. He finds plenty of allure in being the sole Grisha, there is immeasurable power in the concept, more so even than what the Darkling has to offer. To be known as the one who reduced the Second Army to a mountain of corpses is a treasured prospect. His footnote in history would be final, his transformation into a destroyer of worlds, complete and irreversible. The mere idea is enough to get him drunk on power. But first, Viktor has to prove himself worthy of such attention, of the privilege of being the object through which Dmitri’s machinations will be realized. And he is a mere pup, letting his bastard half-brother steal his crown while he sits idly by, sulking like a child, unappreciative of a greater power and impertinent where he should be reverential. The Grisha is even less patient with others than he is with himself, and while he will try to steer the man in the right direction, should he prove belligerent, he would have no qualms to eradicate him as a nuisance and throw his lot in with the Darkling.    

CROWN THE BASTARD – Dmitri sincerely doubts Anton would be first bastard on the throne, as well versed as he is in the intricacies of lust, but it just goes to show that to name something is to define it. The line of Lantsovs on the throne has been unbroken – or so they claim, but what he knows of the base nature of people belies such boasts. He’s stuck between wanting to laugh in their faces, and kill them all for their stupidity. Nothing should matter in this world, but power, and ever since the crown fell on his head, Anton seems to believe he has it. That he is prepared for the task at hand, that he will succeed. It’s easy for a heartrender to see through the lies at court, easier still for one such as him, attuned from infancy to the beat of others’ hearts, but the crown prince’s confidence seems quite a steady melody. He will claim other reasons, of course, but in reality, Dmitri has chosen to fuck with him, first and foremost, out of spite.  It is so easy to stay out of his line of sight in a crowded room, so easy to exert his influence from a distance, making him believe he longs from something at one point, or imagining he’s nervous by a sudden rush of blood, confusing his instincts so that people who might genuinely want to help him appear as rivals instead. He can follow the threads of want and wanting all the way to the object of their desires. There are no secrets that are truly safe from him. They might all wear their glittering courtiers’ masks, but they cannot hide the spike in their pulse, the small catch of breath, the unsteady stutter from a heart who fears and wants and betrays them to him. He pays special attention to the crown prince, seeing the advantage of making him unsteady, falter and fail. He coaxes his body to small treacheries, a twitch here and there, an ill-timed blush, or a brief bout of bleariness when he ought to be paying attention. He’s careful, for he cannot be close enough to hear what he says, and he must always choose his moments wisely. But he wants to acclimate Anton to his effect, step by tiny step so that when the time comes and he needs to strike irresolutely and without mercy, the man would be too tangled in all the ways he cannot control himself that he’ll think the blame lays with him. He does not want him on the throne, not as he is, so focused on the Sun Summoner, seeing her as the hope of his nation, and belittling everyone else. Corporalki are the chosen of the Grisha, they alone have the option to create or destroy, to shape their power to their will, and seeing an Etherealki – an inexperienced one at that – raised above him rankles. At least the Darkling appreciates the subtlety of Dmitri’s science, at least the Darkling has lived long enough to master his skills beyond all others. That chit of a girl with her pretty, empty lights cannot hope to threaten the divine order, and a human involving himself with Grisha power structure is a challenge that cannot go unanswered. One day, he will choose to betray the secrets he gleans from the bastard – oh yes, he knows, he can feel the queen’s distress whenever she looks at him, can almost smell the doubt on Anton –  to the highest bidder, and he will rejoice in his downfall.    

THE HEART OF RAVKA – it’s right there in the name, they fall right into his sphere of influence. Dmitri knows how hearts work, at least from a physical standpoint. Their language is easy for him to understand, and he knows how to make them sing. And the heart of a princess isn’t something he could claim ownership over, just yet. But he can see the appeal of such a prize, the lure of lifting himself above his humbler beginnings. Marrying a princess makes him a prince, does it not? A title that Viktor, for all his appeal, cannot and would not grant him. A title the Darkling cannot grant him. There is power in words, just as there is in sinew, and power is something he could never resist. Their innocence is not an insurmountable obstacle,merely a nuisance. He would have them if he wants them. And, in turn, they will teach him endurance, how to bide his time, and how to bend to their desires first, rather than have them bend to his. His coldness will have to be tempered; he cannot take without giving something in return, in this case. He must be cautious, and serene. He must prove he has a heart, even if it’s just pretend. As he feigns vulnerability, he will reveal his shortages, even if only to himself. For all his mastery of the carnal, he never did comprehend the emotional, or saw much of its use – at least not to him, but others place great significance in it, so he would try. He has the ability to cure their bleeding heart, or at least convince them he did. He can affect grief, and humility, thoughtfulness and comprehension. He could be a cheerful companion, or a shoulder to cry on. It’s a long game, and he must be infinitely watchful, for if he puts on too much of a façade, he will lose them to the rumors at court that paint him as anything but a caring man. He must be discreet, but at least with that he’s had plenty of practice. It’s an interesting notion, to boost himself not through carnage, but through gentleness. He isn’t convinced he won’t grow bored, eventually. But still, having their ear would be an advantage, and should he tire of them – well, he’s always looking for new ways to hurt. Breaking a heart without leaving physical damage is a mere honing of his skills. And theirs is already so cracked, it wouldn’t take much to crumble at all.    

THE POWER & CHANCE OF DOING PROFOUND HURT – all things living must die, disintegrate and rot and sex might be the height of life, blood pumping, heart thudding, skin singing at the barest touches, but death has just as much allure to Dmitri. Bodies talk to him in a language better than words. He can track the veins all the way to their hearts, he can see the organs beneath the veneer of skin, he feels lungs that aren’t his expanding with breathing. It is so easy, so ridiculously easy, for him to play with that, to tug at people’s strings, one moment making them feel alive, another luring their deaths closer, delighting in the rush of panic, the last, desperate attempt to draw in another breath, to force a heart to beat one more time. He’s hungry for death, for the taste of fear in another’s bloodstream. He is Grisha, he is a soldier, he was born to kill and there are simply not enough opportunities around court to do what he was meant to do. He wants chaos, he wants bloodshed, and he is willing to pick fights with little lambs in the hopes that they might sprout claws. It might not be enough to slake his thirst, but he finds her infinitely frustrating – they are like gods and she chooses to serve, instead, making a mockery of her fire. He does not mind being the instrument of punishment – the eagle rending her liver piece by delicious piece – for daring to deny her nature. She can reshape him in her fire, though Dmitri doubts she knows how, and he can tinker with her flesh, they cut themselves on one another, dogs with a bone, and so far there’s been no winning in their war of tug. Not many people can resist his siren call, and it’s discomfiting that she’d managed to for this long. Perhaps he’s losing his touch, perhaps he never had it – merchants, humans all, might not have been the challenge he’d originally predicted. But he can, at least, hone his skill on her, until she’s his, or until she’s destroyed by it, and he can divine something from her ruin.      

APEX PREDATOR – Dmitri does not like to see his prey hunted by others, he’s never been one for sharing his toys. And there’s something about Sergei that doesn’t sit right with him – he’d grown up with his ambassador father, after all, a man bred for the task, and the Fjerdan fits the role like a round peg in a square hole. There’s a restraint to his movements that speaks of barely contained violence. He is not who he claims to be, and given his nationality, Dmitri is willing to wager he’s not Anton’s biggest problem, but theirs, instead. The Practitioners of the Small Sciences. He plans to ingratiate himself to the man, to use his unique brand of seduction to confuse and confound him, to negotiate a position better suited for uncovering his secrets, for striking first, should he be given reason to. And he does not like how Iskra – the one Grisha away from the safety of the Little Palace – has drawn his attention. He cares not for the girl, but he cares even less for a druskelle, and if there is anyone who ought to discipline an errant Grisha, then the task should fall to one of her own.  

I HAVE BECOME DEATH – Dmitri revels in the subtlety of his craft, the careful waning and webbing of blood, the way nerves respond so eagerly to his coaxing. He sees his power in all the ways he can hide his influence, not in the obvious tearing of the throat, not in how easily the clench of his fist obliterates a heart. He’s insidious, refined, like the shrewdest poison. To be poison is what he craves; to not only see people die by his will, but to know he’s hidden his tracks well, too. To be capable, if the need arises, to shift the blame on someone else. He would be eager to find an Alkemi, to learn how to replicate the symptoms of clever venoms through his skill. He would seek out someone as interested in all the ways bodies can break and work together, to uncover a new facet of his ability that would serve in the environment of the court – if only to strike panic in the hearts of its residents. He’d learned long ago that fearful creatures are much easier to manipulate and subdue than those whose will has never been tested.  

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?: To be honest, I can easily see how his story would end in tragedy. He is the villain in his story, and he’s too greedy, too power-grabbing and impatient to ever feel satisfied. The subtlety of his powers, and his ambitions might keep him in check for a little while, might make him a difficult enemy to remove, but in the long run, his unpredictability and obsession with chaos could prove to be his downfall. I would definitely be interested in exploring his character while he balances precariously on the edge of his mortality, and losing control of all the strings he's been trying to pull. Will it happen gradually, or all at once? Will he cease to merely consider betrayal and set himself on a course of action that would bring about his demise? It could even be something as simple as fumbling his grip on one of his toys at the wrong moment, or breaking someone beyond even his ability to contain.  

IN DEPTH        

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):        

[tw: underage scenes of a sexual nature; graphic language; age difference]    

i. THE ORCHESTRA PLAYED FAINTLY IN THE CORNER, a soft rhythm so as not to distract people from mingling, and the candelabras glittered magnificently in the dance of the candles. He lounged lazily, bored with the sumptuousness surrounding him, bored with all these small little people and their petty requests, and their dull black clothes. He left the priceless crystal glass fall to his feet, unconcerned with the damage it did to the hardwood floors, or the servants who’d have to labor on their knees to rub the smell of alcohol out of the rugs.      

Like a serpent, he weaved between people, not touching them, not having to touch them to leave a little mischief in his path. A lady breathing champagne through her nose there, a stuffy gentleman sneezing abruptly in his companion’s face, fingers losing their grip on drinks, or food, expensive silks stained and ruined. He caused a man’s muscles to cramp as he lecherously leaned closer to admire an exquisitely fragile necklace, breaking the delicate chain. He had no doubt the woman would have thanked him, should she have known it was him who gave her the opportunity to storm away from the grubby philander in a huff. Dmitri was familiar with him, he was all show, and even on that he had a lot left to work on.      

He caught his father’s eye as he turned, and the man nodded suggestively at him, causing Dmitri to huff as he glanced in the direction of his mark, eyes washing over the somber clothing. His suit looked like it could have benefited from a little less starch, in his opinion. But he wasn’t exactly ugly, if a bit coarse looking. Strong jaw, big hands – big everything probably, considering how his clothes strained to contain him. A bit like a farmer, were he entirely honest. With an open face and sincere, solemn eyes, and a mouth whose lips pressed a little too tightly together, as if ashamed of their lushness. Yes, perhaps Dmitri could see the appeal. These type of things always worked better when they coincided with his desires.      

And the man was truly a bore, a staunch, pious pillar of society, who wouldn’t be caught dead seducing a mere boy. Luckily, he didn’t have to do any seducing, and Dmitri stopped, still far away from him as to not draw his attention prematurely. He’d need far more alcohol in his system if this was to work, so he found his pulse and raised it, coaxed heat to rush through him as he teased the cells in a frenzy, so that his skin would break into sweat. He waited until the man grabbed a glass of wine to dry his throat, made his tongue swollen and awkward, and when he brought the drink to his lips, he gulped it greedily, draining it in seconds. It didn’t help, Dmitri made sure it wouldn’t, and he smirked triumphantly as he reached for a refill. There was only alcohol to be had at this function, and he gave him no choice but to consume it.      

Now it was time to make him tremble, to make his heart seize in his chest as his common hazel eyes gazed uncomfortably around, alighting on him. Dmitri’s smile suddenly became unaffected, his eyes rounding with feigned interest, and he made himself blush as he glanced away for a second, before looking back, as if it pained him not to admire the man before him. He backed away, too shy to approach such an esteemed specimen, even as he kept him in thrall to his caprices.  His blood would only get hotter, and yes, of course, he reached for another glass, tugging viciously at the restricting cravat.      

He could see the sweat glitter on his forehead, his hair dampen and the man moved away from the candles, as though that was what made him so warm. He walked to a window, inspected it with eyes that were already beginning to show their whites in panic, and opened it, but the cool breeze that came from outside, carrying the pungent smell of the port wouldn’t help at all with a heartrender still stalking his prey. The merchant glanced towards him again, and Dmitri was ready for that, his appreciation reduced by a layer of anxiety. He had the man’s heart in his palm, and with a twitch on his fingers, caused it to clutch in his chest when their eyes met. Cautious, concerned, he made his way closer to him, heightening his turmoil with each step he took towards him. “My lord,” he stopped a respectable distance away, but still close enough to touch him, and he gave him a smart bow. Just an amiable host, making sure his guests were comfortable. His eyes flicked to the open window. “Is something bothering you?”      

The man gasped, fighting for words as well as breath, and Dmitri’s fretful frown increased. “Perhaps you are too warm? I’m afraid the room is quite airless,” he offered, reaching out, not quite touching him, but enough for the breeze caused by the movement to be felt. He withdrew his hand when it was a mere breadth away from the man’s elbow, but made certain the rush of blood hurried to his loins as he did so, delighting in seeing him tensing suddenly at the sensation. A most ridiculous blush covered his whole face, making him look like a tomato. Dmitri had to press his lips together not to laugh in his face. “Would you like to step aside for a moment?” he let his eyes fall, his long, thick lashes fluttering down bashfully.  “I could show you to the veranda, if it pleases you,” his tone was earnest, no innuendo coloring it, his skin unblemished by self-aware blushes. He did not seem the type who’d fall for the coquette, and Dmitri struggled to appear guileless.      

His fingers twitched again, the heart in the merchant’s chest thudding painfully. He could hear it. Better yet, he could feel it, warming his own blood, the power coursing through his veins, so close to the surface it made his skin glow, like he was a holy thing. He could see the effect he had on him and it made his whole being sing with intoxication. “Y-yes,” the man gulped again, parched, and Dmitri, ever solicitous, grabbed a glass of champagne and handed it to him.      

“Follow me, please,” he turned, looking over his shoulder, willing his muscles to move, to trail him like a dog brought to heel. His superior smirk blossomed as he cut a clear path through the room, giving his father a brief nod as the man tracked his progress. Ten more minutes, he meant. Ten more minutes and the merchant’s pockets would open to them. Dmitri pushed open the glass doors and stepped outside, taking a deep breath of the fetid air. He much preferred being inside, where he could hear people’s hearts, feel their blood moving through their bodies, their heat dissipate into the air. He felt almost blind without them, as if he suddenly were alone in the world.    

He turned to the merchant, raising an eyebrow. “I’m afraid the smells are better inside,” he allowed the man a brief respite, but only because he was looking at him, something almost like awe in his eyes, to see Dmitri washed into the pale light coming from the moon. He stood up straighter in the darkness, prouder and more assured. The merchant would be cold now, not too much, but enough to prompt him to come forward, drawn to the only other source of heat on the balcony. Dmitri made sure they were hidden from curious eyes by stepping to the side. He smiled, reserved and self-conscious. “Are you feeling better now?” he asked, as if anxious to get his approval.      

He wouldn’t, of course, his heart was still beating too fast, his skin ran too hot, or too cold in turns, and he saw him teetering, uncertain. All of them were so surprised to realize they weren’t in control of their bodies as much as they thought they were. Dmitri pushed a little more blood away from his head and towards lower regions as the merchant nodded, already so eager to please him, and he allowed his lips to curl into a beaming smile. “I’m glad,” his voice was so sincere, he could have laughed at himself. Merely playing at seeking approval brought hilarity. As though he’d ever grovel in front of mere men. But the merchant was eating his act up, tentative and hopeful both.      

Dmitri stepped closer, his smile fading a little, as though he wasn’t sure he’d be welcomed. “You’re Master Aling.” he made sure it wouldn’t be mistaken for a question. “Gerd Aling,” his eyes glimmered when the man nodded, and he cast another wave of pleasure towards him. He couldn’t control his thoughts, but he could, at least, make him wonder whether the recognition pleased him or not. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance,” the words came out in a rush, as though he couldn’t stop himself from showing his excitement. “You are on the Council – I’ve always admired the work you are doing,” he stammered, only a little, suddenly embarrassed by his evident enjoyment, and stared at his shoes. The man hesitated, and Dmitri realized he couldn’t summon the courage to touch him. Or perhaps his will was slightly stronger than he had expected. He glanced back at him, struggling to remain composed, and reinforced his assault. To look upon his face was to feel parched, starving, unfulfilled. He made his knees weak, worried that the man might turn and run cowardly rather than act on his urges. It was better if he stayed right there, if he kept his eyes glued to his perfect skin, his bright, warm eyes, and his Cupid’s bow lips. Dmitri’s breathing grew shallower, and he made sure the merchant’s did as well.    

Surely he wasn’t as simple minded as to assume his hunger could ever be satiated by food. It wasn’t a drink he thirsted for, it was the taste of Dmitri’s lips. He almost narrowed his eyes, but chose to widen them instead, chose to take another step closer, the gap between them dwindling to nothing. The merchant’s knees were still trembling, if he’d been skinnier, he could have heard them knock together. He had him right where he wanted him, in his web, and he reached up on his toes – Dmitri wasn’t short, but the merchant was built like a fucking tank, and pressed his lips on his, making sure that brief touch granted him immeasurable relief.      

For a few glorious moments, it worked, the man suddenly grabbed him, pulling him into his chest, his mouth feral and ravenous, and Dmitri let himself be manhandled, turning to putty in his arms. The kiss ended, just as violently as it had started and he was jerked away abruptly. “No,” he sounded as though it hurt him to talk – and it did, for he was being punished for refusing an offering that was too good for him in the first place. Dmitri heard his heart stutter, felt the wave of dizziness wash over him, and the fingers that were keeping him in place tightened in discomfort. “I’ve had too much to drink, you are just a boy…” he almost rolled his eyes at the tired speech, and reached out his arms to hold him up as the muscles in his legs failed to keep Gerd upright. He didn’t want to be crushed by this brick shithouse though, and he did not push his luck, keeping him on a knife’s edge of self-control, even as he forced the blood to rush through him in a too-hot torrent.      

“I am not a boy,” he wanted to swear at him for daring to underestimate him, but instead added a hurt undertone to his edge. “Really, I’m not. I’m old enough to know what I want,” Gerd’s hand traveled downwards, not fighting Dmitri’s encouragement as he stepped closer once more, their breaths mingling together, maddening the other with desire just as it left him unaffected. A small, pleased smile lightened his features once the merchant’s hand rested just below his waistband. “See?” he made sure to make his question innocent, but even with no verbal reassurance, the man looked down, and Dmitri could have laughed at his victory.      

“Oh,” the exclamation was breathed, rather than spoken, and he glanced at him once more, a brief nod from him enough to have him return to mauling Dmitri’s mouth. Had he had any intention of bedding him, he’d have trained him on how to do it properly, commanded his body to please himself, but seeing as that was not the goal here, he allowed himself to be pushed into the thin railing, the metal burrowing into his skin. He feigned enjoyment and Gerd’s grip on him tightened, breathless whispers of yes please, and more falling from his lips, as he  leaned back, giving him access to his throat. He could feel his father approach, just out of his periphery, and he rolled his eyes to the heavens, partly relieved at the respite, partly piqued from having his toy taken away before he could properly teach it how to play nice.      

“What is the meaning of this?” his father almost boomed, but cast a nervous glance at the lit house, as though he didn’t want to draw others’ attention to his son’s shame. Dmitri shrugged, hiding an attempt to wipe the slobber from his neck through the motion, but managed to look properly horrified and chastised at being caught. The merchant stammered beside him, having jumped away from him at the sound of another’s voice. “Father, I…” he began meekly, not looking at him, suffusing his face with blood as he shuffled awkwardly.      

“Silence!” it wasn’t much of a command, his father had actually managed to sound too pained to be imposing, but all that changed as he turned to glare at the councilman. “You dare to come into my house and attempt to debase my son?” Dmitri nearly cleared his throat at that, trying to direct his father’s attention to his final touch, to the cherry on top, but he didn’t have to resort to such obvious ploys. Instead, he merely pushed his father’s eyes downwards, at the merchant’s crotch. Black was not really the best color to make his shame easily observable, but then it didn’t have to be, if one knew what to look for. His father sputtered, overdoing his indignation, Dmitri thought, but it was no longer his show, and he kept his head down, and his cheeks rosy, scurrying hurriedly back inside as his father dismissed him.      

He’d asked his father for a challenge earlier, no more perverted old fucks who would follow him around dicks out before he even had a chance to toy with them, but as it turned out, the positively saintly Gerd Aling hadn’t been much of a trial either.      

[tw: death]    

ii. HIS EYES FOLLOWED THE MAN CURIOUSLY FROM HIS SEAT, a little out of the way. The flash of blue from his ratty sack had drawn his attention, certain he’d recognized a kefta’s colors, but he wore mismatched clothes, his trousers too big for him, while the shirt was too short at the sleeves, and strained across his chest. He watched him try to push the sleeves up, apparently uncomfortable with the stiff materials. He tilted his head sideways thoughtfully, before gracefully uncurling from his spot, to wander closer as it was his turn at the counter, wanting to know what his business here was.      

“I would like to sell my indenture,” he spoke with a strong Ravkan accent, and Dmitri tensed, looking around hurriedly to see if others had heard him. “I am a Squaller,” he had lowered his voice further as he said it, but not low enough for Dmitri to miss the words. His eyes narrowed, washing once more over him with renewed concentration. His boots were different colors, and one was noticeable smaller than the other. His teeth gritted, and he stepped back into the shadows, aware he couldn’t really do anything about it in a room full of people.      

But he waited, and paid attention, and followed the man out as he brushed past the crowd, stuffing a paper in his too tight shirt. He focused on the sound of his heart, clung to it, to make it easier to shadow him as they emerged into the street. From the look of him, he wouldn’t have found rooms in the nicer districts, and they soon entered the swarming, dirty alleys of the Barrel. This area suited Dmitri’s purposes just fine, and he hurried to catch up, needing only the smallest opportunity – an empty side-street, or reasonably empty, at any rate. No one here would intervene.      

“Hey you!” he called in Kerch, his accent indiscernible from that of a local, and he swaggered towards him as the man tensed. “Heard you were looking for a job.” he smirked knowingly, his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t dressed garishly enough to competently pass for a gang member, but he didn’t look like a merchant either, and he’d mused his hair and clothes so as not to look too evidently a noble. “Why would you want to sell yourself, when you can be a free man and still get fed?” he carelessly leaned his shoulder against a sooty building, unconcerned about his jacket. He had countless others back home. “Merchants are a bore, stuffy and proper and completely out of their league. How would you like to work for the Lions, instead?” the man frowned, struggling to keep up with his fluent Kerch. He could switch to Ravkan, but it wouldn’t make for a street rat to know the language. “Come on. You’ll be paid. We could use someone like you. Running away from something? We can hide you,” he grinned dastardly at him.  The man shifted, clutching his sack.      

Dmitri’s attention focused on that. “Anything of value in there? I can tell you where to sell it,” the material was riddled with holes, he could still see the blue occasionally showing as he shifted, even in the darkness of the alley. The houses on either side of them looked just about ready to fall over. The man hesitated, looking ready to bolt. “Now, now,” Dmitri straightened, raising his arms to the side to show he came in peace. It was a wholly human gesture, he thought, Grisha would push their hands forwards, when focusing their power. “I mean you no harm.” his tone became confidential. “Are you a deserter? Heard those Ravkans treat their soldiers like shit. They’re nothing but cannon fodder. Even the Second Army. And they couldn’t possibly afford to feed you all that well, either,” he wrinkled his nose in apparent disgust, and rolled his eyes at the folly of all those paper pushers who made decisions without having to suffer the consequences. “I can help you,” he let his arms drop, and stepped even closer. Surely the man’s Kerch was passable enough to understand that last sentence.      

His mouth opened and closed for a few times as he considered his options. “H-how?” he stammered, in strongly accented Kerch.      

Dmitri straightened, smug. “By putting you out of your misery,” his arms shot out, a split second before the soldier tensed, eyes widening in realization, and tried to attack as well. But by then Dmitri had his claws in him, twisting the muscles in his fingers, closing his hands into too tight fists. His upper arm cramped, the noise of bone breaking like a gunshot in the muffled silence of the alley. The Squaller screamed, falling to his knees, lifting his eyes to glare hatefully at him. “Heartrender,” he hissed in Ravkan, and Dmitri feigned confusion.      

“Heart?” he asked, switching to his mother tongue. “What heart?” he squeezed his fist, and the man seized, eyes rolling back, as he crumpled into the dirt of the alley. Dmitri walked closer, straightening his vest, and reached with his boot to push him on his back. “Oh, that one,” he commented casually, his head tilted sideways in interest. But a dead body couldn’t hold him in place for long, and he turned around dismissively. Traitors were not worth longer than the time he took to kill them.      

But the man did make an idea bloom in his mind, a thought he’d considered before, though never as fervently as now. Ketterdam had become boring, and there was only so much pleasure a man could take before even that lost its luster. Perhaps it was time to go home. He rather thought he’d be excellent at killing.          

iii. THERE WAS A SYMPHONY PLAYING IN THE DARKNESS, all around him, within him, for him. Dmitri wasn’t surprised, not really. He’d been made for the True Sea, why should the Unsea be any different?  Indeed, why should anything in the world not be for him to pluck and inspect and toss aside should it bore him? He was, and the environment would simply have to adjust to the irrefutable fact of his being, and reshape and bend to his indubitable will.    

He stood on the deck, unmoving and resolute, eyes closed against the annoyance of the Ifernis’ flames. He wanted to enjoy this, he wanted to stick out his tongue and taste the power of the Shadow Fold for himself. The screams, human and Volcra alike made his ears ring, but his blood listened to him, obeyed his commands, a steady, cool flow beneath his skin. His heart – he knew he had one, for all they whispered heartless as he walked by, he could always feel it beat, betraying its presence – was steady and subdued. He wrapped himself in a blanket of chillness, drawing from the air around him, becoming one with the void. It was so easy, and such a delight, to feel his power cocoon him so, making him invisible to the predators swooping in all around them. The screeches of their death throes buoyed him. Their wings buffeted him, but they did not know he was there. He could feel them, sense them, burning as bright as any flame in their absence, not quite alive, but not of death either. Something else altogether, something unfamiliar, and oh, how he exulted in finding new toys.    

He never doubted he’d survive the trip. The Fold could not take what didn’t belong to it, and he would never belong to anything but himself. He blinked in the light, even night time seemed so bright after such a complete and all-consuming darkness, dazed, but calm, as he willed his body to move, to become warm again, to resemble a person and he stepped down from the skiff, ignoring the tallying of the dead and the sobs of the survivors. He might not have been born on its shores, but Ravka was home. He could feel its call in his bones, stronger now that he was finally here. Its son of glorious crimson.  Its collector of hearts.    

Dmitri recognized in the Darkling a kindred spirit, an equal in brutality and ambition. It was a revelation, as though he was the first of his kind he’d ever seen. And it wasn’t far from the truth, indentured Grisha back in Ketterdam were not like him, like them, wretched, servile creatures that they were. Later, but not much later, he understood his true brilliance. The Darkling was not like him, the Darkling was who he would become. Powerful and feared and revered, for all his darkness.    

They’re lying to you, he’d whisper in his ear, always at his side; they’re scared; they will desert you; they’re hiding something; that question – there – press the matter. He never failed him. He couldn’t read minds, but he could read bodies, and the longer he spent in their presence, the louder they spoke to him, spilling their secrets like blood from an open wound. The Darkling’s own lie detector. A truth potion made flesh, more accurate than the Alkemi could hope to concoct with their foul smelling substances, in an altogether prettier package.    

He hadn’t expected his vanity to be his downfall. Indeed, he had not expected to have one, to be weighed and measured and found wanting. It created an ache in him, unfamiliar in its keenness, in its failure to be filled and plugged as any other need in him.  It humbled him – humbled! – and that only made the sting grow worse. Dmitri was made to be favored, he wouldn’t settle for less. He wouldn’t settle for anything. Not even the Darkling, with all his aloofness, could keep him under his heel for long. He gouged others’ needs as easily as he drew breath, he couldn’t understand the seemingly impenetrable wall that rose between them.    

It was a betrayal of their covenant – but he could not tell who it had come from. Who had blinked first, who had ruined this thing they had between them. Did he not gather secrets to lay them at his feet? Did he not needle and coax and turn people to the Darkling’s side with sure hands and poised smiles? His accomplished recruiter, working within the Grisha’s ranks to exhort their commander’s virtues, to bring his enemies low. Had he not uncovered countless plots against him and his before they came to fruition?    

So what if he allowed himself to get distracted by the dazzling Ravkan court? So what if he sometimes woke late in the day, groggy and irritable after a long night of debauchery? He brought the courtiers’ secrets to the Darkling, whispered of their petty machinations, and still turned many a tide in their favor, even as he filled his rooms with glittering trinkets and left a trail of disillusionment in his wake. He would play his own game, too, he needed the distraction – deserved it, for all his hard work. It wasn’t his fault that those paltry nobles grew increasingly more tiresome, less useful the longer he spent in their presence. What more could they expect of the otkazat’sya? They were as small and insignificant as the meat that contained them, and just as prone to Dmitri’s guidance. It wasn’t his intelligence that grew weaker, it was simply that they were worthless.  

“What of the Lantsovs?” the Darkling would ask. “What are they doing? What are their plans?”  

“To put a bastard on the throne,” in hindsight, perhaps his tone had been a touch too dismissive. But everyone knew that, didn’t they? It was no secret. They did not need to have it spelled out for them when it was right in front of their noses.    

The Darkling’s frown was unforgiving. Dmitri stood at attention, a disgraced soldier in front of his superior, chaffing at his shackles, even as he yearned to feel them return to what they once were – proof of his worth – people kept under lock and key only what was valuable, did they not?    

And yet, the Darkling dismissed him from his presence with only an indifferent flick of his wrist.    

[tw: sexual content]

iv. DMITRI LEANED BACK AGAINST THE WALL heedless of the bite of the cold in the corridors, unconcerned with the beauty of the night sky, where stars glittered sharply, distant and lovely, made even more piercing by the gloom of winter. Frost covered the great window he lounged in front of, glazing it with delicate lacework that clung to it, thickest at the edges. His fingers flexed impatiently as the hall remained accursedly silent, eyes set sightlessly ahead in his stubborn vigil.  

He’d never liked quiet, never craved the solitude he now suspected he’d been tricked into, removed from his playground purposefully and purposelessly, to wait in the shadows for a tryst that was not going to happen, simply to satisfy the prince’s galling propensity for one-upmanship, his perverse tendency to pretend resistance to Dmitri’s lure.  

He could not – he would not – be denied. And whether the blood flowing through one’s veins was red, or blue, they all answered to his call when he turned his attention to them. Whether it’d be sooner, or later, he would cloak himself in patience even if he sweltered under its cloying weight, and in the end, they’d suffer all the more under his yoke, until they accepted his bridle.  

And finally, finally, he tilted his head to the side at the sound of footsteps, his attention hooked at the edge of his sight. The darkness of the hall might have confused him momentarily, made him wonder at what he  saw, but he was attuned to Viktor’s heartbeat as he was to his own, and he recognized the tumultuous storm of his blood before he turned to fully face him, no trace of annoyance on his expression, as he smirked at the other man. “Loath to leave the party?” he questioned, raising a skeptical eyebrow even as his voice remained reverent. “I shall endeavor to make it worth your while, my prince,” his tone did not change, remaining solicitous, though his countenance was anything but, something predatory filling his gaze as Viktor came closer.  

Dmitri did not need his assistance in getting to his knees, his earlier frustration pushed back as he gave the other man a look full of dark promise before sinking gracefully to the ground. His hands made quick work of the laces of his trousers, lips pressing hard kisses from hip to hip, making sure that every light touch of his fingers would send shivers down his spine. It was easy to use more than his skillful tongue to bring Viktor off, easy, as he was this close to him, to sense every single shift in the man’s body, to ride the wave of desire with him and enhance the experience with well-timed jolts to his nerves, or an opportune stutter of his heart.  

He reveled in the feel of rough skin under his fingers, of hard muscles and marks of battle, the prince’s ruthlessness written all over his body in a language that called to Dmitri’s own understanding of violence. He rejoiced in the power he had over a Lantsov, in the ease with which he could make him tremble, and moan and bite his lips helplessly as he struggled to keep the pleas from slipping out. He was granting him unbearable pleasure, part punishment for having made him wait, part promise of even more ecstasy, should he return. He was drawing out the man’s frenzy, his body a mere instrument in the hands of its master, who was tuning it to the perfect frequency so that when Dmitri tasted his seed, it felt almost sweet on his tongue, coated as it was in his sense of victory.

“You have the tastes of a king, Your Highness,” the pretense at deference had left him completely as he licked the corner of his mouth, almost thoughtfully, not raising from his obeisance. He glanced up at Viktor, chin tilted up, a dark lock of hair artfully fallen into his eyes, and smirked.  

“Don’t you mean I taste like one?” Lantsov gave a harsh laugh and Dmitri raised, confident now that the man’s muscles had loosened, his limbs grown heavy with his exhausted desire, and firmly pressed his lips against his, the slant of his mouth harsh and demanding, fingers resting against the nape of Viktor’s nape, pulling him even closer. The split moment’s resistance was dealt with swiftly, firmly, and soon there was nothing preventing Dmitri from taking what he wanted. They were both breathless when he drew back, heated and dazed, and he blinked once, languorously, before glancing in Viktor’s eyes, an insolent grin on his lips.  

“Do you – my liege?”  

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:        

SPOILED BRAT – waited on by servants his whole life, Dmitri is incredibly careless about his things. His rooms are a mess, his writing is atrocious, all his books, barely read as they are, have broken spines and dog-eared pages. He has no idea how to pick up after himself, and indeed, the mere notion that he has to, offends him.        

KING OF HEDONISM – he’s accustomed to having his every whim indulged. He doesn’t refuse himself anything, be it food, drinks, expensive clothes, or people. There is no vice he hasn’t tried, no line he hasn’t crossed. He does as he pleases, and he will never refuse himself anything. He isn’t made for moderation.      

CHOSEN ONE – travelling the Unsea was a revelation, a revelry. To be surrounded by darkness and not be touched by it was a heady feeling. Then again, he never lets anything that matters touch him. Why should the Fold be any different? He isn’t scared of shadows – he isn’t scared of anything. And his power makes him invisible to the Volcras. He became cold, his blood turned to ice in his veins, his heart quiet in his chest, unmoving and unbreakable. Like a tailor bleeding colors into pasty skin, he took the darkness into himself, wrapped himself in it to become a shadow. Invisible, unreachable, undefeated and undaunted. Why would someone like him ever have to experience fear? He is a disciple of the Order of the Living and the Dead, he carries the greatest power of them all, and what is strength but a tool in his hands, to make the whole world take the knee?      

A SCRIBBLE WITH FANGS – a selfish, demanding child, Dmitri cannot pinpoint the exact moment he’s come into his powers. There must have always been there, lurking beneath his skin, fashioning him into the hungry being he’s become. It started off small enough, as a call for attention, for his nannies, for the servants, for his parents. He wouldn’t be ignored, or denied, not without dire consequences, sweats, and tremors and dizzy spells. He had to have everything just right, and he had to have it now. Like dogs reacting to the whip, he’d taught those around him to bend to his whims, by giving them treats, or taking them away until everything was the way he wanted. Colors, materials, food, even the temperature of his milk. A tyrant in diapers, smiling sweetly whenever he saw them flinch, king of his own little kingdom, and cruel to the bone.      

BATTLES OF THE FLESH – he was a precocious child, growing into a precocious teenager. Not studious, not particularly curious about the world either, but when it came to bodies, to what they could do, the pleasure they could bring, or the pain that brought them to their knees, he was an ardent pupil. He began early, not quite an adolescent, but old enough to get a taste of what he could take from others. He manipulated and beguiled, and later on, blackmailed, for his own purposes, but they just so happened to coincide with those of his parents, filling their coffers, and even Ravka’s. Kerch had too much money, anyway, greedy and grubby bottom feeders that they were, and he used his gift in service of himself, just as much as in the king’s.      

PLEASURES OF THE FLESH – to call him a skilled lover would be to do him a disservice. Indeed, it’s almost an insult. Dmitri is flawless, capable of intuiting what his partner wants before they realize it themselves. He’s pansexual and non-discriminatory in his choice of sexual partners. His libido would put an incubus to shame. To partake in his talents is to never be satisfied by others again. He is sublime and brazen, and he enjoys exerting his influence long after he’s grown bored with his conquests, just for the pure joy of watching them waste away in longing. He’s a storm, taking others by surprise with the suddenness of their sheer need for him, or a subtle poison, torturing them with overpowering feelings and inexhaustible longings, toying with them mercilessly until he deigns to bestow his favor, or deciding to leave them unfulfilled and miserable until the urgency of their desires drive them to their knees, ardent supplicants at the altar of his decadence. He loves the flavor of their desperation once he gives them what he wants, the ease with which their brutalized flesh yields to his manipulations, buoys himself with their momentary relief, and finally finds his own pleasure in their complete surrender.    

LEVIATHAN – his time at sea is one of his fondest memories, if one such as him could experience fondness. He took longer than necessary to get himself to Ravka, given his enjoyment of captaining his own ship, sowing terror on the waves. His mastery of his body meant he suffered no sickness, even as inexperienced as he was with the motions of the boat. Ships sailed a wide berth around his, protected as it was by the ambassador’s flag. But one, unwise and desperate did try to attack in the dead of night. He bathed their deck in their own blood, taking exquisite pleasure in watching them squirm under his eyes. Theirs were not quick deaths, not good deaths, they lived with no dignity and they would die as they have lived. It wasn’t the first time he’d killed, but it was the moment his hunger for it ignited, and he turned his ship around, a hunter in a sea full of helpless little fish, wanting Ravka to know of his coming long before he stepped onto their land. The prodigal son returned after washing the True Sea in blood. A god that would not deliver them from darkness, but teach them how to live in it.      

NOT FASHIONED FOR LOVE – there’s no bigger motivation for Dmitri than boredom. In fact, his willingness to avoid falling into that state is what drives most of his actions, including twisting the purposes of his power in untried ways. He’s used it for giving pleasure long before he’s killed with it. Oh, he knew how even then, of course, he could sense the sickness lurking beneath people’s skin, the fragility of their organs, the inelegance of their bodies’ design. He could make a muscle twist in the most embarrassing way when going down the stairs, he could make them choke on their food with a mere inopportune hiccup. But he had no need for death when he was young, for his hungers lay elsewhere, and so he became something altogether different. Heartrender he may be, but he’s also a heartbreaker, and the latter provides more amusement in the halls of the court.

EXTRAS:        

[DISCLAIMER: He is unapologetically vulgar. He’s quite graphic in his lewd comments, and whatever redeeming qualities he exhibits, they’re likely just a dissimulation in order to ensure he gets what he wants.]  

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS: He’s left handed – indeed, given his dominant hand is the left, he sees being the Darkling’s left hand as no demotion. However, he is a self-taught ambidextrous. He can use both hands to manipulate his power, or just one, and in this aspect, there is no difference in ability or the accuracy of his aim. When it comes to other skills, like writing, eating, or fighting, he shows a preference for his left hand. The more menial the task, the more he will use his left, but at physical fighting, such as firing a weapon, or fencing, the difference is quite small – noticeable only when one knows to look for it. He’s brown eyed and black-haired and while he doesn’t go out of his way to exercise, he can control his metabolism to burn fat at an alarming rate. His body shape falls into the lithe and svelte category. His muscles are well-defined, but lean. He’s 6’2’’. Like all Grisha who consistently use their powers, he is alluringly beautiful, and healthy and his skin is unblemished. He has no distinguishing marks like scars, birthmarks, tattoos or piercings.  

POWERS & ABILITIES: While Dmitri can kill, and do it in quite creative ways, and he has a moderate talent for healing (he can heal small cuts, bruises, and mend broken bones if they’re small – e.g. fingers) his true talent lies in subtly affecting a person’s bodily functions. He can excite nerves, he can fake the symptoms of medical afflictions, like heart-attacks or asthma, he can induce panic attacks, or incite people’s lust. He can modulate his own voice to make it higher or lower, control his and others’ body heat and he can forge people’s writing to perfection – he has to actually watch them write in order to do this. His muscle memory is impressive. He can mimic mannerisms, or mirror fighting stances effortlessly on first try.  He has a minor ability for surface tailoring – best shown by the ease with which he can make himself, or others blush (by using his power, rather than by trying to embarrass them, I mean).    

TARGETS: Even when he isn’t using his power to influence people, Dmitri still reaches out with it to better gauge their reactions. He’s so well versed in this and is immensely subtle, that it’s highly uncommon for his marks to realize something is amiss. He works in steadily increasing, but small increments to allow them to acclimatize to the changes as not to raise their suspicion. Most humans never find out that he’s doing it, even the ones he sleeps with. There are few, precious exceptions, usually repeat partners. He’s more willing to let other Grisha know that he’s using his power on them if they’re having sex – it’s in service of increasing both their pleasure, after all, and he finds they respond more easily when they’re expecting his guidance and are willing to be influenced by it – however he draws a line at Corporalki, not wanting to betray the secrets of his trade. They alone have a similar understanding of bodies, and if they’re crafty enough they might manage to replicate the effects. He is already sufficiently sunk in the Darkling’s esteem so as not to add fuel to the fire by further lowering his worth and unwittingly training his replacement.  

STAR SIGN: Scorpio [November 13th]         MBTI:ESTP [The Doer]         MORAL ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Evil [The Destroyer]     HOGWARTS HOUSE: 100% Slytherin    

[PINTEREST] [tw: blood, nsfw content]

[MOCKBLOG]

[SOUNDTRACK] [instrumental]

ANYTHING ELSE?    

I modified the last plot idea, expanded on my activity and my answer about the possibility of Dmitri’s death, and I replaced the fourth para sample. Other changes to the original application are minor.  

FAVORITE BOOK: Deathless by Catherynne Valente||The Secret History by Donna Tartt    

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, ALYX!

You have been accepted for the role of ANASTASIA LANTSOV. You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, BEX!

You have been accepted for the role of VALERIAN PETROV with a faceclaim change to Roberto Sipos. Admin Bree: "You look like a shitty tiger.” If the rest of your wonderful application wasn’t enough to convince me you were right for the role, Bex, that line alone was. You showed, from start to finish, that you understand Valerian as he once was and as he is now, and I enjoyed reading every word of it. There was a wonderful contrast between the past and the present throughout, and I loved it, because it truly captured the difference grief has made on a boy that was once so joyful and full of life. You’ve done so well with him; I can’t wait to see where else you take him! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Hey there! The name’s Bex PREFERRED PRONOUNS: I go by she/her pronouns AGE: I’m nineteen years old TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: I live in the CST (soon to be EST), and I would say my activity level is about a 6 or 7. Next week, I am flying off to a summer festival where I will be for six weeks playing classical music (holla). Even though my daytimes will be hectic, I will certainly be able to dedicate at least 3-5 hours in the evening to the roleplay! CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: Redacted.

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: Valerian Aleksey Petrov Valerian - Strength, valiance, courage, everything he needed to be built up as the hero. His name was as resilient as his skin, tough as armor. He would be the hero everyone wanted, the boy who would rise up from the ashes, like a phoenix. Aleksey - A helper, a defender, a guardian of people, a boy who was willing to share with others, to help them recognize their worth. Petrov - Substantial, reliable, a name as solid as it sounds rolled off the tongue. This surname was given to the boy, but he was able to adopt it into his nature. It was there to serve as a completion of his name, but give him the strength a full man needs.  

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER? I discovered this roleplay about two weeks ago and of course was immediately interested in the complexity and beauty it alluded. However, in the beginning, I didn’t really spend a lot of time reading through it diligently. There was one night I spent going through the characters and skimming over their biographies, trying to get a taste of who I would be interested. Obviously, this didn’t work. So, I dedicated an evening to just sitting down, and reading every little, last detail on the roleplay. I opened every single character up on my laptop from the masterlist link (and this part is very vivid because my six year old laptop was very angry at me for doing so) and began reading. Valerian is one of the first characters to appear on the masterlist, and I couldn’t help but decisively compare his biography to every character after that I was interested in.

What drew me to Valerian was the huge contrasts that occurred in his life that were incredibly vast, but still believable considering his yearnful circumstances. The fact that he was an orphan stuck with me, partly because I’m re-reading Harry Potter and want to throw a fit whenever Harry imagines the love he could have had with his lost parents, but also because of how optimistic of a child Valerian was in spite of it. He was the hero with a heart that all the orphans in Keramzin looked up to in awe. Val knew what was right from wrong, even as a child, and had no trouble defending those in need. Even when he was collected and sent to the Little Palace, he was determined he would be destined for greatness. His concentration in harnessing his power was unparalleled, and even better than that, it did not go unnoticed. Being praised in powerful rooms, in the eyes of the Darkling, was all the ammunition Valerian needed to keep going, to keep succeeding with the gift that resided in the tips of his fingers.

And this is where it gets dirty, the part that bounced off my screen and embedded itself in my poor heart. The girl. There’s always the girl, the one, the counterpart, the equal, the missing piece. I live for happily ever afters, but love dying for the inconclusive tragedies. Valerian had it all, a semblance of family he found in his band of brothers, an acceptance he felt in the glory of his power, and someone he cared enough about to share with. She taught him how to be level-headed in the heat of his glory with the coolness of words. She pushed him into the depths of her roaring waves, but was able to bring him back up above the surface. And, she loved him so ferociously and truly that Valerian felt complete, a feeling he had never experienced throughout his whole life.

But of course, all happy stories must come to an end. Juliya was taken away from him as suddenly as she came. Upon seeing her mangled, burnt corpse, the sight sent a hot stream of air into the embers of his soul, causing them to erupt in violent flames. He is a changed being now, unlike any semblance of man he was before. Before, he was pushed by an inspiration of coddled by the ignorance of his past. Now, he knows that love, hope, and life can be taken away in an instant, to crush a man’s soul without a second glance. And that vengeful nature, ignited by the stripping of his beloved, consumes his existence. That change, that heartbreaking change, is what drew me to Valerian.

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

THE SHADOW OF THE FLAME: He knew he was always admired by the Darkling, always pranced around as his puppet to show off strength and might. He couldn’t help but like the attention, the attention that was brought to bask in the flames of his power, a bright light flickering madly over stunned faces. The way he was able to grab the gaze of any individual with the tips of his fingers was mesmerizing, even to him. However, no matter how gallivanted he was for the amusement of others, Valerian knew to keep his powers contained, for the discipline of only mercenarial conquests. But clearly, as the cards were dealt, this was not what he was destined to uphold. Destroying an entire village, enemy or not, with the swiftness of his palms was devastating, but almost pleasurable in light of what the village had taken away from him. An eye for an eye, or rather, an eye for a body. Valerian knew he always had the power, and it was just a flick of a finger that caused all of his will to turn into rage. I see Valerian at a sort of crossroads in his life. In terms of his alignment, I can easily see him siding with the Darkling, needing a way to cope with his pain and abusing his powers in order to just feel something again. The Darkling would surely take advantage of his vulnerability, and Valerian would succumb to help ease his grief. But, we cannot forget how Valerian has lived most of his life. If steered in the right direction, there is a possibility he could overcome this enormous barrier in his life. Right now, he is blinded by the notion of mortality, realizing his loved ones can be taken in a flash of light, as well as himself. He is trying to figure out what would be the best for him: to defend his own life from getting ripped apart, or allow himself to accept inevitable and unchangeable fates.

A STIRRING FROM THE PIT: It has been a year since the incident, the reversal of his life. He was so young and full of life, and so was she, but now he is stale. He is a bitter corpse, walking without a pulse, breathing without a will to. His companions know not to talk of it, his enemies know it’s his Achilles heel. He is simply cruel to those who he can see of flicker of her deep, blue eyes in, not wanting to remember his greatest loss. I truly want Valerian to find someone to mend his broken body, but it cannot be easy by any means. It would be ridiculous for him to look at a girl and just entirely forget about Juliya. She is such an integral part of his life, his first true companion who he was able to learn from and love from.  Whoever might be the person to help Valerian back into his once golden self would have to be as resilient as he is stubbornly cold. It would not be easy, he is so attached to Juliya that replacing her with someone else is a true fear of his. He needs to learn that finding someone else does not mean vanishing her from his mind, because regardless if she is physically gone, she is a part of his essence. Will Valerian ever learn this? He might not, he might be too unforgiving and too bottled up, but it isn’t impossible.

A RISE IN NUMBERS: Word spread about Valerian’s prowess almost as quickly as the flames that engulfed the infamous village. He was previously known as a spectacle of great talent, of untouchable skill and poise with the gift he was given. But now, he was a beast of wildfire, capable of death and destruction with just a wave of his hand. People flocked him for his infamy, but began to get scared of the deadly look in his dark eyes. They were once beacons of deep warmth, subtly crinkled around the edges from laughter. But that had vanished with the death of his beloved, replaced with dark, motionless orbs. More people feared him, but unbeknownst to him, more people revered him. For me, I can see Valerian becoming a figure to those who seek power. He is letting go of restraint, becoming full-fledged with his harnessed capabilities. I believe that Valerian would be willing to help train or be a mentor of sorts to those who seek to fulfill their potential, but only for the selfish reason of needing a challenge. He’s aching for what Juliya provided him: a reputable opposite that could terrify him.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?: As much as I want to say no, as much as I want Valerian to find love again, to find the goodness he once had in his soul, I would be willing for him to die. It would make him even more of a tragic hero, right?

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE:

His hand, rough with calluses and discolored with blackened ruin, intertwined itself with her smooth, cool fingers. He was angry, his teeth clenched and grinding with his gaze searing to the fertile ground beneath him. But he kept his hand light, needed to, in spite of his glowering facade, not wanting to crush her delicate fingers. Her breath, crisp and welcoming, whispered into his reddened ears, softly churning her sweet words into his conscience.

“Please forget it, Valerian. It was a mistake, you didn’t mean to-”

“How can you say that when your arm looks like that?” he hissed, shifting his eyes quickly to run the length of her arm, tattered and singed while revealing a deep, blistering burn. He averted his eyes back to the grounds of the garden, shameful of his outbreak, not only with his tone, but with their training. He didn’t know what overcame him; it felt like a deep surge of ecstasy from the depths of his frame, the only release of its full potential was an eruption of fiendish fury. It felt so right, but he knew damned well it was not a good sign. “You look like a shitty tiger,” he said with a softer, guiltier voice. “I’ll have Vera look after it right away, okay? We should go find her.”

They had been practicing, like they always loved to do after hours, when training was long forgotten to the majority. They tested each other, pushing one another to further test their limits without stepping over bounds. It was a nimble dance with soaring feet, a careful battle with grinning sides. But tonight, unlike most nights, ended in a fall.  

He stirred in his seat, attempting to stand up, but she pulled him right back down next to her with her bad arm. She didn’t even wince.

“I’m fine. I think I’m more than capable of putting a few bandages on myself. For heaven’s sake, look at me!” She pinched his jaw with her index and thumb, forcing his gaze to look directly to her face.

It was hard for him not to catch his breath every time his eyes locked with hers. Her eyes were not of shimmering turquoise, but rather a deep cerulean that he could get lost in. There was always a glint behind her irises, some deep secret swirling in her bottomless eyes that he wanted to unfurl. He stared at her intently, seeing the truth in her gaze, and muttered an apology.

“You can’t hurt me,” she told him sternly, wrapping her arms around his torso and resting her head on his heated chest.

His hands, rough with calluses and scorched from hellish intensity pummeled the hot earth with indignation. He was blind with rage, screaming into the oblivion that was completely opaque with ash.

She was gone. Forever.

She gave him a reason for control, to build a mutual respect with the heat from his heart. There was always a need for balance, for restraint. But now, her mangled body was etched upon his dark irises, shielding him from any notion of self-restraint.

He was free. He was vindictive.

Valerian hands slammed on the ground for a final time, ash billowing around him from the impact, his body shaking violently from his heavy sobs. He grabbed everything that was around him, the hot dirt, the blinding ash, the scorched ruins and furiously pounded them together, trying to make sense of his destruction, trying to comprehend his fatal loss.

He gave up, throwing away the residue and falling to his side. His cheek was searing from the heat of the ground, but he didn’t care. His voice was cracked and nearly gone from all his rage, but he managed to utter one last thing to the obliteration that surrounded him.  

“I can’t hurt you, but you never said others could.”

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

ORPHAN: (tw death) When Valerian was born, he wasn’t given a name, but was rather given away. Left upon the steps of a nearby apothecary, Valerian’s parents left in a vanish and without reason, never to return. The owner of the place was an elderly woman by the name of Yekaterina who took the infant into her home without a second thought. She tended after the child as if her own, but knew from the start that he was different. He rarely cried as a baby and whenever she went to go pick him up, there was an unnatural warmth to him. Thinking it was a fever, she fed him countless herb remedies, but upon seeing that they had seemingly no effect on his happy demeanor, she knew what he was. Grisha.

But Yekaterina was not afraid. No, she was determined to raise this boy the right way, with the gift he was given, the gift people of Caryeva hardly ever saw. She paved his early childhood in honesty, informing him as soon as he could comprehend where he came from, what he possessed, and the greatness that he ought to strive for. She coaxed the heat of his hands carefully, but warned him not to show them off. A gift this special must be used wisely.

It wasn’t until Valerian was five when Yekaterina fell frightfully ill. She was already feeble and frail when she first handled him, and now she was dying, plain as the eye could see, she would often tell her boy. Valerian was taught not to be afraid of death and spent half the year helping the woman who rescued him from her doorstep. It wasn’t until springtime when Yekaterina told him to stop, for she had a different plan for the two of them.

The pair travelled slowly from Caryeva to Keramzin, the village known for its orphanage, the village examiners would take careful watch of. Yekaterina knew this was the only option for Valerian, hoping that what she had taught him would serve him well as a member of the Grisha army. Yekaterina died before they had reached Keramzin. Valerian kissed her forehead, leaving her in the herbs she so dutifully cared for over the years, knowing that his future would make her proud.

Valerian arrived at the orphanage, stating he had no parents, which was true. Yekaterina was not his mother as she had told him, but he rather liked to believe she was his guardian angel. He deeply valued this new start Yekaterina was giving him, knowing he was indebted to her forever. He never told the orphanage where he came from, who Yekaterina was, or how he got there, believing that it was their shared time together, and really no one elses. And he wore it all with the same, warm smile.

BROTHERS: Valerian was born an only child, but never felt that way entirely throughout his life. The orphanage was the first time he was surrounded by others than Yekaterina, and actual children his age. He treasured the fun they were able to share, despite the cold dreariness of the orphanage. But, he found it peculiar when he witnessed others trying to forcefully disperse their rings of laughter. Did they find it amusing to break bonds they were not a part of, to kill happiness the just because they could? Val, needing to know these answers, stuck his chest out to the bullies, demanded their intentions and commanded their reprise. He would not stand for outright cruelty without reason, and for that, the little children of Keramzin huddled around their Val, hugging him by his legs and kissing his cheeks.

And then he was moved to the Little Palace. He was afraid he would not be able to find the same love the orphans adorned him with, but in fact, he found better. The close group of friends he was able to form over the years of training in close quarters brought a new light to the term brother for Valerian. They were more than the giggling children that surrounded him at the orphanage. They were his closest companions, ones he could discuss ambitions with, ones he could argue with over their differences while maintaining grins on their faces. They were his blood brothers, not related by birth, but strung together by heart. Valerian would defend them, fight for them, die for them by any means necessary. They had brought to him a familiarity he was never accustomed to with the absence of a true family, and for that, he truly owed them everything.

AMBITION: There was always something subtle but pronounced in Valerian that stirred in his very bones. Perhaps it was because he was an orphan, given up to fend for himself, that gave him the blinded will to want hope and success. There were always pieces missing from his past, giving away to dark crevices that he desperately wanted to fill: he wanted to reach his full potential, whatever that might be. Being taken in by the Grisha examiners was eye-opening for the boy, realizing that this was the way to make his life actually have meaning.

But there was something else, not just self-worth that was inherent to Valerian. Even though he wanted to succeed, there was never a part of him that wanted to be above others. This was his journey, not anyone else’s. So, he was charming to others, almost encouraging, and never because he needed to be, but because it felt right. He felt the warmth that ran through his veins and wanted to see it in others.

TRAINING: Regardless of how amiable of a person Valerian was for most of his life, his drive for cultivating his gift was consistently incredibly intense. He would be the first one there for training, and the last one to leave. Of course he would be competitive with others, to test their combat and practice his power, but there was never an inkling of sabotage in his actions.

This, of course, changed about a year ago. Now, Valerian wears a mask of apathy and disgust for the training grounds, reminding them of his ignorant and pointless youth. He arrives whenever he wants to, only to exert his strength to the maximum, and then leaves. There is no point to attempting to control the fury of his flames, it’s much easier to just let go.

HUMOR: Quick wit and playful tongue and cheek was the general style of Valerian’s speech when he was young. With a smirk etched upon his lips, the boy loved to make others laugh with each carefully constructed quip. Now, his humor is generalized in cynicism and resentment. His demeanor may be completely different now, but his sharp tongue is still very much a part of him.

EXTRAS:

Here is my mockblog for Val!

Here is a playlist I made for Val, and I’ll provide below a few key lyrics I think are important in embodying him from a selection of those songs. Enjoy!

Un dernier (Pour la route) - Beirut

No, but I Learned of time By your hands And in shadow water’s end I learned not to swim But to lie

Hunger of the Pine - alt-j

Sleeplessly embracing Yawn yearns into me Plenty more tears in the sea

You - TV on the Radio

True We’ve demolished a thing or two But it seemed like the thing to do And you’re the only one I ever loved

Eventually - Tame Impala

Wish I could turn you back into a stranger ‘Cause if I was never in your life, you wouldn’t have to change this

PERSONALITY ANALYSIS:

Honestly since I think there’s such a big shift with his personality after Juliya, I’m going to provide a before and after for some of these bullet points

Astrological sign: Leo (August 15th)

Ambitious

Creative

Show-people

Love of attention

Can be stubborn, even intractable

Considerable willpower, yet

Resistance to change (sometimes even if the change is for the better)

MBTI Type: ENFP (The Inspirer) / INFJ (The Protector) Moral alignment: Chaotic Good / Lawful Evil Hogwarts house: Gryffindor / Slytherin

ANYTHING ELSE? Yes! I was wondering, would it be acceptable for me to change Valerian’s fc to Roberto Sipos? I don’t know why, but I can just see a younger, happier Val with his face. I think his freckles give him a certain reckless youth and his red hair resembles his red heart. But, after he is corrupted, he still has that strong face and brooding eyes, but there is no undeniability that his past is still etched on his skin and a part of him, not totally forgotten.

However, I understand that Roberto is 21, which is a bit of an age gap from Valerian’s 26. If it is acceptable for me to change Valerian’s age to 24, I think it could work! But if the admins really cannot see him as Valerian, I would be very happy with him remaining as Max Irons (love him to death)!

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, FOX!

You have been accepted for the role of RHEA TERESHKIN . Admin Rosey: This was an incredibly unfair thing to do -- choosing Rhea. Both applications were so close, so cruelly close, that I spent a good 30 minutes just looking from one to the other helplessly. The tie breaker came from the most unusual places. It actually came from the plot points, after I read them over for the umpteenth time. Yours, Fox, just kept on pulling me back. I think it was this line here: Born to be extraordinary, but ultimately she bloomed something lackluster. There. That was my Rhea in a single sentence. When it comes down to it, she is unextraordinary. But upon that foundation, ruination can build its home. Although this decision was incredibly difficult, I am pleased to welcome you to Ruile & Ruin! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER ALIAS: Fox PREFERRED PRONOUNS: She / Her AGE: 21 TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: EST / With university at a pause, I’ve definitely got a lot of time on my hands to be dedicating to activity so, muse-willing, I should be able to crank out replies everyday or so. The only inhibitors would, of course, be work and travel, but even those shouldn’t keep from the dash for long. However, when school does resume for me, my schedule might be subject to change, but I should able to keep myself active and posting regardless. TRIGGERS: OMITTED.

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS:

ecravcn 

haleroth

hlevett

IN CHARACTER DESIRED CHARACTER: Rhea Tereshkin WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?

Honestly, I adore a scorned character; I’m always drawn to the feral ones, to derided hearts, I think I always will be. Though, of course, I tried to make myself go for a ‘good’ one this time around, thought it might a nice change of pace. Until, that is, Rhea happened. Volchitsa — she-wolf draped in sheep skin, disguising the lethal edges of her mouth with saltwater tears and a close-lipped smile. Gadyuka, l'vitsa, medveditsa. All things savage and brutal come to mind, and she’s definitely the one in the bestiary with the deadliest bite, a saccharine kiss to preface. I’m in love with the façade, most especially the complexity and depth behind it. Rhea isn’t the villain, not the hero either; there’s a lot of moral ambiguity that I’m drawn to, and that I’d love to pull apart. I want to know the dimension of her character, to understand her capacity for humility and hubris, her ethics and their constitution. Then, I guess with a minor in criminology, it’s only natural that I want to peel back the infinity of her: to discover what raw brutality lay buried there, and the surprising humanity. I don’t think Rhea is without conscience, as she’s not without ambition, but I do believe it has the capacity and tendency to be self-serving. She had marred herself with sacrifice and shame for so long — excessively long, and there were too many fragments of her being which had been lost in practice of subservience, by the hands of others. This, the face she betrays to the court: fragile avian with the broken wing, made cavernous by the absences left in her heart and in soul, missing pieces of herself as children missing teeth – gap-toothed and yet, cheery still. Little do they understand that she has fashioned herself into granite, into gunpowder and gasoline in those places left hollow once, that she had filled them with a ferocity unchallenged. Little do they understand that she is in violent possession of all her teeth and more ( that she might have a pyro’s too, if he broke well enough ). A child cultivated into a quiet, hateful vendetta; a girl, and later, a woman with something to prove, I sympathize with the archetype of her character. Morality, isn’t it meant to be subjective? Does murder in defense of dignity and pride echo inhumanity? Rhea’s the sort that brings about a lot of questions, and ultimately, at the end of my rambling, that’s what drew me to her. Her ambiguity, her mystery. I’d love a chance to get my hands on her!

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND? NATURE V. NURTURE

Born to be extraordinary, but ultimately she bloomed something lackluster. Indistinguishable in a manner which encouraged disdain and fostered shame, she was not, by any means, presented to her parents — to the world, in the way in which she had been desired. Then, later — bred to be demure, to epitomize the saying: ‘be seen, yet not heard’, but she defied this expectation as well. Just beneath her clenched fists, the crescent moon indentations of her palms, lay a phoenix. Her heart had nurtured a firebird, wings tucked close and searing her at their heated proximity, until she unfurled their greatness and hurled flame down on her enemies: loud, unabashedly ( though she had been raised to be the very opposite ). Routinely, she defied expectation — laughing when she was meant to cry, screaming out when she was told to quiet herself. Had her existence been shaped around her stubbornness? Would something else be born out of her now that her vendetta has been satisfied, met with the price of blood which it demanded? Certainly, Rhea has the capacity to surprise, lingering just beneath that veil of mourning with a cheshire grin hooked on her lips and ambition hardening at her heart, with curiosity mingling somewhere there as well and a hope to be better than she is. All she needs is a push. 

UNTIL YOU HAVE NO SHELTER BUT ME

She knows the game, playing two steps behind but being five — ten moves ahead, they all know it: the quiet predators, whom the halls keep like a secret until they’ve struck, crooning their names as the hunt is picked from their teeth. Rhea understands its guidelines, and its players next. Aleksander Morozova. From one wicked thing to the next, she knows he has the capacity to raze and ruin, perhaps to rule. Is the desire there, however? That much, she finds shrouded by uncertainty and the misdirection of purposefully reconstructed intent. What she does see, though, is the violent undertone of the Ravkan court on the opposite end of the spectrum, the threat in every smiling word. It’s in their nature there to savage each other for the opportunity to rise, even the ones with their wings tucked in, feigning injury. But she’ll be damned if she be left to the wolves, as had once been the intent of her marriage. He knows she keeps close, herding him toward the edge with the snap of her jaws at his feet, his heart. To see her teeth and to defy her still, however, she has half a mind to latch onto his neck. Luka may doubt her in it, but she has been more than gentle in coaxing him into submission. Protect me, service me. If he continues to attempt escape, she will have no other option but to be cruel — and he would not like her then. Rhea has been practiced in ripping people from what they love; she will not hesitate to do it again. 

I BURN, AND I RISE

Millennia of scorn, of disdain and ridicule have rested at her shoulders, broken and healed her back in grotesque ways, but she rages still. No longer, though, does she rage silently. She will burn until all has tasted her flame and reeled back at its ash, the bitterness which breaks on their lips as a result of her fury. Ah, how they said she would not amount to much, passing her off to the first thing with teeth that they found in the hopes it might devour her, but she would defy them all. No longer can she be the daughter, plain and useless as the dirt stepped upon, not when she has been reborn. Rhea Tereshkin, no man’s daughter and though the law argues her this, no man’s wife either. The world had made a monster of her, and she’d show it what she could do with her teeth — devouring the world from its summit, and tearing down the court one scaffold at a time. She would rise, as all phoenixes do: gloriously, terribly. But would that be in benefit to the court, or would it serve an impediment? She supposes, she’ll decide that as the game progresses — one move at a time.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?:

In some capacities, yes — in others, no. Rhea’s definitely a very complex character, capable of much deception and wisdom and elusion, and I think to outright say that I can see her dying isn’t something I’m able to do. Could I see her falling victim to her ambition, her short sightedness in underestimating others? Certainly. Though, I don’t think Rhea will be an easy foe to fell by any means — if that makes sense.

IN DEPTH IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

Strange, the unsettling twist of fate — slow, prolonged, and beginning with minutiae. Rhea Tereshkin, changed within her first, gasping breaths and the stretch of her small, insignificant hands towards bodies which cringed away from her. Maybe she would have been soft, if she had been held a moment longer to her mother’s breast, if the effort of her had not felt wasted by the woman who eagerly passed her off into another’s arms. Perhaps there would have been a flowering of innocence — the blossoming of it, if she had not been so violently exposed to the fact that she had been unextraordinary, or was seen to be so. There was no childhood, a disheartening lack of ignorance which she had been due and robbed of. Knowledge made her heart ache, and so she had cringed away from it, and they called her all the more stupid and useless for it. The ‘what ifs’ of her existence haunted her, an invisible thing she felt watching her in the dark, razing its hands over her body and whispering menacingly in her ear. They held her mother just as captive, and her father as well — spearing Rhea with the disdain of their collective gaze; the pair of them were a single glare, narrow-eyed and saturated with disappointment, focused on their daughter. Vermillion tablecloth knotted in her unsteady hands, a barrier from the unrelenting rage her fingers could imprint upon her palms, she kept her head down to avoid the scavenging looks. Though, her ears could not escape the onslaught — worthless, useless; the word blended together in common suffix: less. Less than, they told her, but she silently demanded that they find a fury that matched hers, a fire that scorched as horribly. But never aloud, no words were ever spoken in opposition. Hers was a silent hatred, kindled by the curses and jinxes held, the hands busied with slamming doors and clenching tight rather than hitting, scratching. Although, they were never silent, were they? When did her parents not assault her with disgustingly determined insult? Only in talk of business, of course, the both of them dragons with hold of golden hoards — the money they coveted, it was their singular pride. And their worthless daughter had sought to double it once, until she realized their lacking recognition once more. She had poured words into her head until savaged by migraines and headaches, danced until her feet grew bloody and sore, but it was all for want. Want of approval she would never receive. But only for one more night would she endure, she assured herself, fingers curling around the silver chill of her knife, slowly — learning it as a lover’s body, the text of a book. She’d known the weight of a gun once, but never this, the featherlight feel of a weapon in her hands when fueled by anger. The gun had been so quick, bucking into her shoulder with a bite in repayment for its service, stabbing a bird from flight in the time it had taken her to blink. Part of her believed this dagger she used in retribution would not be so swift, and part of her revelled in that. She’d practiced the tears, the aura of mourning, and she’d even deigned to make her companion — one who had once aided her against her mother and father, the villain of this narrative. Servants were subject to the whim of the nobles they served, wasn’t that right? “Goodnight,” she murmured — so meek, so submissive as she pushed off from the table, chair scraping as she rose ( as she would continue to: rise ). And as she went, she knew better than to kiss the crown of her father’s head as she passed, to squeeze her mother’s delicate hands with an adoring smile. They mourned her absence not, and that was something they would have in common. Red-streaked and vengeful, she emerged from their room that night gasping for breath as in birth, three bodies in her wake and serenity passed over her eyes. Her spine straightened, gaze unapologetic and set ahead as she screamed, and screamed. They thought she cried out in terror, her skirts splattered and hands run with blood, but it had been a battle cry she’d echoed that night. It caught in the halls of her home, which she had absorbed in her family’s death, along with their beloved wealth, exalting the freedom she found in that murder, the cauterization of a festering wound. The hearth had gone cold, but she was made anew from the flickering embers. Rebirth. No longer was she a wounded thing, a dove flapping its wings hopelessly. She was a phoenix, a firebird swathed in terrible flame; her very presence threatened ruination. Fire, to her, was cleansing. “Your family, to lose them must have been horrific. All the support of mine goes to you, Rhea.” Each sentiment mimicked something of the other, as her tears and quivering lip. She made it look a struggle, those months she forced herself to mourn, as was expected of her, but there was no mistake in that a burden had been lifted from her in that death. She flourished at court for it, a sun soaked rose with thorns lethal in pointed end. Never so lovely, nor graceful as some had been before her but she knew people and their fickle natures. She knew them as she knew practice of manipulation, with her with soft edged smile and gentle eyes, camouflaging the sinister look that lay just beyond. “Thank you, for your sympathies. What would I do without your support?” A rhetorical question, for she already knew: she would burn, and she would rise.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS: EDUCATION: It was, in no capacity, of ease to her. Not only scarred by knowledge, of her supposed inadequacy and stupidity, she also found herself struggling to decipher the words laid before her. As though they sought to spite her, to offer support towards the sentiments of her family in underestimating her, the words seemed to deliberately puzzle her. Disguising themselves with others of similar appearance, moving about the page from one spot to the next, it was irrefutably true that education did not offer itself up to her. Rhea took the knowledge with fair effort, the sweat and blood of hard labor — all the better for it. INTELLECT: For all the texts she assaulted with feral desire for knowledge, she gleaned a piece of history, its legend and lore — she learnt the culture of a thousand people, and the languages of a thousand more. By no means did this subsequent intellect surpass any other, however — it merely serviced Rhea in sharpening her talons, her diamond mind against all else, and especially within the court. A palace of so many varying peoples, a conglomerate of nations, it was no disadvantage to her to understand the customs of another culture, the honorifics and tendencies. Consistently, they were utilized in furthering her influence and establishing alliances, in staying one step ahead as had become habit to her and sabotaging those who rose against her. TALENTS: She may not have been the beautiful messiah of their palace, nor the sharp intellectual, but there were many things which Rhea Tereshkin was not. Would she fret over them, obsessing over her shortcomings as her mother and father had? No, never. She had her own talents, the secret aptitudes she withheld — the sort which could bring a world to its knees, if she only wished it. The capacity to deceive, as she so often did with her butterfly touches and demure smiles. More than this, she had become an unparalleled strategist — one had to be, to murder. As much as she read tomes, her gaze ripped into maps and battle plans. She knew of all the great generals, the inglorious criminals and she carried them in every move she made. The most devastating of them, however? The ease with which she could be met with affection, the sheer charisma which she possessed, and had to own in order to have alluded suspicion and disdain for so long. No matter her mephistophelian heart, she would be adored — loved, deified, worshipped. But was it not too late for that now? She wondered. EXTRAS: I have a mockblog for Rhea here, and any creations made by me will be in the tag here. ANYTHING ELSE? OMITTED.

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, ISAAC!

You have been accepted for the role of ARSEN TARASOV. Admin Rosey: Truly, I could not be more over the moon with your portrayal of Arsen. It’s like you plucked him out of my head and brought him too life -- everything from what drew you to him to the smallest of headcanons had me saying YES, YES, YES. You showed me the perfect amount of what I expected to see, what I knew of Arsen, and those aspects of him I did not expect at all. By the time I finished your application, I knew it was the right fit. Arsen would be upset. I would be upset. The whole of Ravka would be upset if I denied them this Arsen you have brought to life. Thank you, so much for your beautiful application and welcome to R&R!  You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Isaac

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: he/him.

AGE: 22

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: 7 out of 10. I’m a college student with depression – muse can come and go, school can sap that life out of me. That said, I do my best to get online when every day and read through replies/communicate with other players, especially since school is over for the summer. There are times when I’m replying every day and times when it’s not so frequent but, for the most part, I’m good at getting my replies every 2-3 days.

TRIGGERS: OMITTED

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: @il-scarvves / @lxllian / @thxnecromancer, @bxgbadwxlf, @greybvck, @rjlcpin

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: Arsen Timofei Tarasov

ARSEN: if you changed one letter, what would you get? You’d get a raging fire; a fire that burned, that destroyed, cruel as death and all too intentional. Arson. The comparison was there, was made, and even it’s blue eyed subject couldn’t deny it. But arson is crude; arson is the action of a human seeking entertainment. Arsen is purposeful and he is anything but human. If Arsen wants to destroy for fun, he has a million ways to do it besides his flame.

TIMOFEI: what a joke. Timofei – one who honors God. Arsen is a devil with horns and the smile of a sankt. God? Angel? No. Never. Violence courses though him; Gods can be capricious, even cruel, but they don’t take kindly to boys with pride and boys with pride don’t take kindly to being told to submit. His parents tried, tried to give him a name that might humble Arsen. They failed.

TARASOV: not noble, not rich – when he was born, he was swaddled in rough cloth that grated his soft skin. If the name Tarasov means anything to anyone it’s because of Arsen, because of the boy that burns brighter than the sun and who has stars for eyes.

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER? How could I not be drawn like a moth to a flame? Arsen, as a character, burns with boldness and glimmers with beauty. Characters like his, who disdain all but few, who put himself above all if he could, who take delight in creating chaos – they’re just so much fun (and so, so irresistible).

As a character, those were things that drew me to Arsen – that vanity, beauty, and arrogance but also his love for his brothers and his fire. As a person, I was drawn to the fact that he identifies as a demiboy. I’m genderfluid, typically using male pronouns and presenting as masculine though not always. The fact this character that I fell in love with is also NB like me and uses fluid pronouns like me really meant a lot. He’s bisexual too but not specifically the guy who sleeps with everything that breathes; none of his connections are sexual in nature and while he’s described as a ‘creature of passion and indulgence’, it doesn’t necessarily mean ‘guy who slept with everyone’ – I was able to interpret a bisexual character who was sex-positive but not sex-obsessed and that’s really important too.

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

A CHILD’S GAME: when Arsen was young, he had a game he liked to play with his siblings. It wasn’t a game they were privy to, just unwitting pawns for him to manipulate. He turned one against another and delighted in the fallout, swooping in at the last second with a charming grin and comforting words. I don’t that think that changed when he was brought to Os Alta; just because they fanned his flames, gave him more outlets for his cruelty, doesn’t mean old habits died, especially ones he delighted in so. I’d like to see Arsen continue to play his games, to manipulate others, turn one against another with a sly look and a whispered ‘did you hear…?’ I’d like to explore the outcomes of past games; people who’ve caught on to his tactics, people who have fallen victim to them, and, most of all, the unwitting pawns for all his future plays. Maybe, even, someone to play these games with – a chess-master against another chess-master.

A MAN’S HEART: Arsen loves few and trusts fewer. There is Valerian, who he’d die for, and Shona and Luka who brighten up his days but, beyond that, there’s not much. But there could be and then there could be heartbreak and I want to see that disaster. I want to see him love someone in the way he does (romantically or otherwise) – that way that consumes him, makes him need them like air, makes him red-hot with jealousy – and then see it all fall apart. See his anger, his hurt, see it crumble his well-controlled flame, manicured facade, and stone walls. I want to see him break, I want to see him become ashes, and I want to see what rises from those ashes; he’s a star and I want to see what happens when the star dies – does he fade into a black dwarf, does he become a new neutron star, or does he become a black hole?

A DEVIL’S HALO: when dealing with a character with so much pride, you can’t help but think of the ultimate embodiment of pride – that, and what happened to him. What happens when his pride becomes to much? When one too many compliments sends the whole pile toppling? Does he resemble another star with too much pride or does something else happen? Wound his pride, is what I’m saying. Make him fail, make him realize he isn’t a heavenly being, and make him deal with that.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE? No, I don’t think so. I think everything short of death – every fall from grace, every punishment, every torture – I’d be okay with but I’d rather play Arsen through his falls and hardships. I’m attached already tbh.

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

She was a small slip of a girl with mouse brown hair and ruddy cheeks that starkly contrasted her snow-pale skin. It was an earthen look, one that was a dime a dozen around the Little Palace, and not something Arsen Tarasov cared for. In another universe, they wouldn’t have looked twice at her; they wouldn’t have looked twice at her here (they weren’t exactly fond of all the young Grisha in training – they were grating and messy) but she was everywhere they went. Lurking around corners, standing a hall-length away… It was getting unnerving.

Unnerving but not unsurprising.

It wasn’t the first time they’d attracted an admirer; shining as brilliantly as a star, as inviting as a flame, how could Arsen not attract a few hanger-ons? That didn’t mean they were welcome, especially not when they were stalking Arsen through the Little Palace, being everywhere they turned.

Valerian was the first to notice it, actually. They stood beside their friend, their brother by everything but blood, chatting and catching up in the gardens. Valerian had glanced over their shoulder and Arsen had rolled his eyes. How could anyone take their attention off of them? Especially when they were talking. The blond frowned and playfully shoved their friend’s shoulder.

“My eyes are here, love.” Their expression was twisted with one of those dramatic, faux-pouts. Arsen wasn’t upset, just mildly annoyed.

“And what beautiful eyes they are,” crooned Valerian in response, lips curled in a crooked grin. “I think someone else noticed too.” He jerked his head towards the opposite side of the gardens. Arsen huffed and glanced over, eyes scanning the scene until they noticed the girl half-hidden behind a column.

They noticed her freckles, like dirt, and her red cheeks that made her look like she’d just been exercising. That was all they cared to notice though.

“What about her?”

It was Valerian’s turn to roll his eyes which he did and then, to top it off, he shook his head. “Just thought you’d like to know that you’ve got a little stalker.”

“I didn’t.” If Arsen sounded annoyed it was because they were annoyed. They’d been talking, after all, about the other day when they’d embarrassed Rita. It was a much more important topic than that little girl lurking in the shadows.

…Said every petulant five year old ever.

And, like the parent of every petulant five year old, Valerian relented and let the subject return to what it had been. Not that Arsen was a five year old but they could be petulant at times, especially around someone they trusted like Valerian; this, of course, was not something the golden-haired Adonis would ever admit.

From there on, Arsen noticed her more and more in the places they went. The people they talked to did too – at least Shona and Luka did though because they’d actually noticed her or because Valerian had told them, Arsen couldn’t be sure. She was there nonethless, behind every turn, staring at them with wide, dark eyes. The only times she wasn’t there was when, they presumed, she was in her classes.

They learned her name from one of the others in the Little Palace: Nadzeija, Durast. She was young and Arsen wanted nothing to do with her. Despite the disdainful looks they gave her, that annoyed curl of their expression anytime she appeared in their line of sight, she didn’t give up. They applauded her tenacity even it annoyed them beyond reproach. They knew they were irresistible but couldn’t she get a hint? The fire is pretty but, unless you’re something special, you don’t play with it.

The straw the broke the camel’s back occurred on a snowy day. Arsen disliked snow. It put them in a sour mood from the moment they woke up and peered out the window. Seeing the white dusting on the roofs, the flakes fluttering through the air… Arsen glowered at the world outside like it had insulted their mother – or themself rather, they didn’t care much if someone insulted their mother.

Breakfast had been bland and the blond had felt a headache coming on as they sat at the long table, listening to all the chatter that surrounded them. Valerian was out that morning and that was just a cherry on top. As they were leaving breakfast, they ran headfirst into the mousy girl.

It was the closest they’d ever gotten. She wasn’t much different up close: freckles, red cheeks, pale skin, limp dark hair, and big dark eyes. The most notable thing was how short she was. They easily had a foot on Nadzeija, maybe more. She looked nervous too, standing beneath his icy gaze.

“Uh… I’m sorry for, uh…” she stuttered, looking down at her feet which scraped against the stone floor. Arsen rolled their eyes.

“For what? Running into me or stalking me?”

Someone snickered as they passed them by.

If it was possible, Nadzeija’s cheeks got redder; she certainly got quieter.

Had she really not noticed that they’d noticed her? Did she think she’d snuck up on them? Been able to steal glances and out-clever the fiery fox? If she had, she was more foolish than they’d originally thought.

Arsen could’ve left her alone in that moment; she was already shamed, already likely to go straight back to her room, bury her head in her pillow, and not be seen for another week. She was looking at the ground like she wanted it to swallow her whole. They could’ve let her go. They didn’t. Mercy might have been a word in their vocabulary but it was only one they brought out at the right time; other times, they were as cruel and wounding as a blaze. This time was the latter.

“It’s disturbing, you know. Looking over my shoulder and always know that there’ll be someone there, watching me. I can barely piss in peace. Look across the dining hall, you’re staring at me. Turn the corner, you’re there. Glance around, find you. It’s creepy, not cute.” With every word, the girl sunk into herself more, like a flower wilting. Arsen didn’t care. “Your dedication might be endearing if it weren’t some wildly misapplied; now you’re just a stalker. What’s the next step? Going to steal my underwear? Kidnap me? I bet if I looked in you’re journal, there’d be little doodles of me and little hearts with Mrs. Tarasov in them. What do you have to say for yourself, hn? What defense can your little brain come up with? A crush? Dear, that’s obsession. Well, I’m all ears.”

A silent beat passed, then another. Her head was still bowed, her bangs obscuring her expression. Her fingers were clutched into fists at her side though; no doubt, her heart was pounding in her chest. Arsen waited though, grinning like the cat that caught the canary – it was a cold and cruel expression, one that could cut through steel resolve. Not that she seemed the type to be so hardened; she looked like glass about to shatter.

Another beat passed and then she turned; her heals squeak on the floor and she began to walk away. They watched her go but she didn’t turn back around, didn’t even lift her head. She nearly bumped into someone again as she walked away – that someone had been Valerian. He watched her go then turned back to Arsen.

“What did you do?” he asked apprehensively, looking his brother up and down.

“We just talked.”

“You made her cry.”

Arsen shrugged their shoulders. “She deserved it.”

“I think our definitions of deserve might be a little different.” That was the last Valerian said on the subject though; there were better things to do than argue.

Next time Arsen looked over his shoulder, the girl wasn’t there.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

RED ROUGE: I can see Arsen being someone who likes to wear make-up – a red lip tint, something to darken and line his eyes, etc. While he’s already gorgeous without the make-up, of course (an angel loses their wings every time he admires himself I sweat. to. God.), he thinks it makes him prettier.

HEART-BEATING FAST: I mentioned that I see his love as something that is all-consuming, like an inferno. Allow me to explain: Arsen doesn’t love often but, when he does, it’s a sort of love that he’d die for. He put himself in harm’s way, in front of a dagger or another Grisha’s magic, if it meant saving those he loves. For someone so arrogant, so full of himself and in love with living, that’s something. It’s a dangerous something too, prone to anger and jealousy, ready to kill and even give up everything if necessary – again, he’d die for Valerian and death scares him most of all.

HONOR THEY MOTHER AND FATHER: since being sent to Os Alta to train, Arsen has had limited contact with his parents over the years, less so when they realized he wasn’t turning out how they’d hope. It’s no love lost, really; Arsen’s parents wanted something human and he was not. If Arsen gets or sends a letter from/to his parents, it’s a rare thing indeed. They’ve got plenty of other brats to serve their parental instincts. How many was it now? Five? Six? Arsen can’t be bothered to recall.

THE MONSTER UNDER THE BED: Arsen’s fears are spiders or heights, not thunderstorms or lightning strikes – the latter of those he actually likes, he’s neutral on heights, and while he’s not exactly fond of bugs, he’s not going to run screaming away from them either. So then what does he fear most? Death. It’s a terrifying concept to him, more so than being shamed or falling from grace – death is irreversible. The shroud cannot be returned from. He fears the deaths of those he loves too but less so than himself (except for, maybe, Valerian).

A SONG OF ANGELS: Arsen if very good at getting what they want. Why? Because they’re very good at saying the right thing. When they want something from someone, they can say all the right words, all the right praises, talk, and chit-chat. They’re good at gauging what someone wants. Of course, they’re better at it with people they know but they’re still fine at making those judgements in other situations. Anyone who ever goes shopping with them will find that Arsen never pays full price for something.

SEX AND GENDER: Arsen is bisexual. He likes men, he likes women, he likes everyone. It’s not that he’ll have sex with everyone but if he’s interested in someone then how they identify isn’t a factor. While he’s certainly prone to his sins, lust among them, he’s note quite the playboy some people peg him for. He’s not ashamed but he’s also discerning, if you get what I mean? Romantically, he’s bi as well but also demi-romantic probably since I don’t see him having romantic feelings more as an off-shoot of his platonic feelings rather than it’s own separate thing. He also identifies as demiboy and use he/him and they/them pronouns depending on how he feels at the time.

EXTRAS:

I made a mockblog!

I also have edits in this tag and incorrect quotes in this tag.

And here are some personality statistics:

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Slytherin

MORAL ALIGNMENT: chaotic evil or neutral. I had a hard to time deciding on this; while Arsen enjoys the whole ‘beauty in chaos’ thing and one of his favorite past-times is turning people against each other, he does good things if it serves him.

MBTI: ESTP

ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Scorpio (Nov. 2nd)

ENNEAGRAM: type three – the achiever

ANYTHING ELSE? OMITTED.

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, TRIS!

You have been accepted for the role of ALEKSANDER MOROZOVA. Admin Bree: We knew when we decided to include the Darkling as a playable character that he would be a competitive role, and as the character with the most applications for our initial acceptance, he certainly didn’t disappoint, and neither did his applicants. But Tris, you stood out. Your application was incredibly thorough and true to character, both by the standards set by his biography and the very core of who he is in the trilogy, and it’s crystal clear that you understand his motivations and desires, which is all that we could ever ask for in his player—your application was all we were looking for and more. Congratulations! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: 

Tris

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: 

he/him/his

AGE: 

21

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL:  ⌜ EST & 8 ⌟

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s been a long time since I could properly consider myself an active writer. I want to stress that there is no blame to be placed on my daily duties and the schedule of my life; unsteady as it can be, I have learned with age that my shortcomings are all of the self-induced kind. I don’t want to apply for this RP without being honest with everyone involved in the process. I’ve been in a group ran by the admins before, and I know that you’re all aware of how often I have faltered. Admittedly, it’s always been easy for me to lie to myself.

I see a popular RP, and I take notice of how everyone’s buzzing with anticipation and applying for the characters that have won their hearts, and I think to myself; ‘I can do that, right? Surely I can find a character that’s perfect for me and fall head-over-heels for them. I love the plot, and I’m already feeling so excited, so does that mean that this can be the RP that brings me out of my inactivity?’ 

I don’t want to lie to myself this time, so I’m not going to wax poetic and say that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m going to right all of my wrongs. I’m tired of telling myself that a special circumstance is going to come along and fix my issues without even needing to lift a finger. Fixing my flaws has to start with me. It has taken time, but I understand that now.

I don’t want to come into this with false hopes. I’ve done it before, and I’ve slipped many times, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t cautious. I respect RaR too much to pretend like I’m a wholly dedicated RPer who’s going to attack the dash with post after post in the chance that he’s accepted. Of course, I can easily tell myself that there’s a sincere possibility of that happening — and for all I know, it actually could. 

RaR could become the RP that finally breaks my curse. I could find myself being more active than ever before — but I don’t want to get my hopes up. And more importantly, those of others. I have so many friends in the RPC that love and encourage me despite all of my faults — but it’s hard being known as the guy who always gets accepted, then never goes anywhere with the role that he supposedly cared so much about.

RaR is not the first RP to make me feel hope. I’m not going to sit around and pretend like I’ve never felt this same rush of excitement that I feel each time I browse through the main; that I haven’t had this exact same chat with myself before. The one difference between then and now? I’m not sugarcoating anything. 

I’m not going to tell you guys that this time I’m certain I can be a perfect member. I hope against hope that I can be, but all I can do within my power is wait to see what will happen. I’ve been on a break since early April, and while it’s done wonders for my stability and my muse, I’m not going to place bets. I don’t want to let anyone down.

I come to you guys with all the rawness of myself and the truth of my imperfections openly presented. I don’t want to be judged for pretty lies that I tell myself I can back up in the back of my mind. I could list a thousand reasons why I think RaR could become the RP that will help me to get my writing career back on track, but I’d rather show you if given the chance. 

I’ve realized that actions are so much louder than words, and all that I wish to make clear is one genuine thing: for the first time, I’m taking accountability for my consistency. It’s no fault but my own when I fail to post and maintain my initial enjoyment. I desperately want RaR to be the RP that changes everything, that helps prove that I can be a better writer and person, but it has to start with me. I have to learn how to push through my boundaries and try even when I feel like throwing in the towel. Because it’s easy to give up, isn’t it?

I can’t promise you guys that I’ll be active without a single hitch. I can’t say I’m going to last until the end. I have hope, and I want so painfully to believe that things would go as perfectly as I want to believe, but I want only honesty between us. It’s what is deserved between admins and a potential member of their community. The one thing I can be honest about? The only thing that does feel certain to me? Is that I will try. 

For all the risk of repeating my infamous history, I know that at least I’m going to give my absolute all this time. I’m doing this for my love of the Darkling and the RP; not simply because I want to fix myself. If that happens while I’m on the journey with him? Great. The priority will always be Aleksander, however. That’s how it should be. And if I’m given this opportunity, I will do everything that I can not to take it for granted.

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS:  ⌜ here & here ⌟

These are my last two accounts from before my break.

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: ⌜ Aleksander Morozova | The Darkling ⌟

Aleksander — Greek;  its meaning is ‘defender; protector of mankind.’ ❨ The name of a peasant, or of a king; he has been both throughout the ages. ❩

Morozova — Russian;  a surname derived from the word ‘moroz,’ which means ‘frost.’  ❨ Heavier than his given name and more sacred than his alias, it is both his treasure and his burden. Grandson of a Sankt, maker of amplifiers and sire of darkness, who could deny that Aleksander was bred for infamy? ❩

The Darkling — his title;  the mononym that has taken place of his true name.  ❨ It came like any shadow. A slow creep that steadily consumed his identity. It’s as much home as anything could ever be; the only constant aside from the Unsea that survives alongside him each century. ❩

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?

Connecting myself to the Darkling was a strange process. Not in the sense that it was difficult for me to get a grasp on his character, but because I was taken aback by how quickly I fell for him. After reading his biography, there was just this sudden and overwhelming urge to want to portray him that took hold of me — something that I’d only ever felt for female characters beforehand, and it was surprising to see how attached I was steadily becoming to the concept of being the writer behind him. Away from his title and his ability, I believe the most enticing thing that Aleksander offers is his depth — so much that I’m left with an itch to explore him; the man he was and the man he is and the man that he’ll inevitably become.

There are certain roles that come along and challenge who we are as writers, helping us to grow and find levels of our skills that we wouldn’t be able to reach on our own, and I feel like the Darkling could be that role for me. He offers me something that I’ve never known before; a savagery and a hunger that I’ve scratched the surface of, but never the particular type that he calls his own. I’ve explored the hidden intentions of many shadowy figures and found the secrets lodged between their teeth — and I was never once afraid of being swallowed. No matter how terrified I should be of falling into the Darkling’s abyss, I only find myself being exhilarated. 

I understand him, but I don’t know him. I know what he wants, but he’s never explained why he has those desires to me. He’s touched me and whispered his secrets to me, but all I have when he leaves me are bruises and memories that are blurred. He’s not a character that I can take control of and assert my dominance over; he’s a role that has to be allowed to reign on his own outside of my influence. 

If I’m honest, I don’t believe that anyone could ever truly make the Darkling their own. He shouldn’t be warped by my mindset, or by anyone else’s. I’ve never had someone help me to realize that before; that who we are shouldn’t leave stains on the roles that we’re portraying. That some are meant to remain wholly untouched and to exist as their own entity.

All I want to be for the Darkling is a voice and the guiding hand that gets to uncover him, and I’ll never want to take away from the reality of who he is. I want to learn his secrets and to be told the truth of his plans, but I will not intervene even if I disagree with them. I want to step aside and allow him to follow the path that he has chosen for himself. 

It’s so wonderful and so odd; to be so taken by a character and to want nothing more than to just hold them for a single fleeting moment. The Darkling will never be mine to keep or to claim. He belongs to so many writers and to so many readers, and that’s what fascinates me. That’s what seems so painfully beautiful for me to experience.

A man of many lives, of eternities and endless wars. I just want to be his for one lifetime; just one of his many suitors. And then he’ll be another’s to claim, and I’ll be content with that. The Darkling is someone meant to test your abilities and to help you discover yourself, and he belongs to all of us. That’s what has me so excited. I can’t own him, and no one will ever look at this character and think that he’s mine; who he is will never be mine to create, and what he wants is concrete and beyond my reasoning. 

I want to write him because for the first time a role has offered the chance to find both them and myself at the same time, and it’s amazing. It’s brilliant. I want to share a moment of his infinity. I want to see the darkness and know all of its terrors. And then the light will come; and at the end of my time with him I know that I’ll be more than I was when I started.

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

⦁ first — ⌜ development with Gemma ⌟

Something that’s really important to me is the relationship between Gemma and the Darkling. Not in the sense that I believe they’re the most crucial characters of the RP, but because I can tell how important that they’ll be to each other’s development throughout the course of this RP. It’s amazing how many contradictions can be pointed out between the two.

She’s light and he’s dark; he’s an eternity and she’s like a newly born colt just rising up on its legs. How is it that they come together so perfectly, when most assume that they couldn’t be anything more alike? They’re total opposites — or at least, that’s the twist; that they’re actually more similar than either truly knows. Gemma is not Alina and RaR’s Darkling is a different man than the original, so what does that mean for these two?

I have a lot of feelings about the books and their end that I’d love to discuss with Bree in the chance of being accepted, and I’m so thrilled and excited by how unknown everything is. There’s so many possibilities that RaR offers; so much danger to run from and so many moments of a shrivelled heart being placed on Gemma’s lap. I want to know the story of our Sun Summoner and Darkling. I want to revel in its beginnings and I want to stand in awe as it ends. 

It’s almost magical; playing a canon character but knowing nothing that is in store for them. Even better, neither does the character — no matter how certain of things he claims to be. Gemma severed the normality of his life. It all changed when she became the most treasured piece of his hoard. And will he choke on the gold of her, or will he wear her on his shoulders until their lives have ended? A death that is so soon; so far away. Time’s an irrelevant concept to him by now.

⦁ second — ⌜ hunting the amplifiers ⌟

I’d love the chance to touch on him tracking down Morozova’s amplifiers for his cause of strengthening Gemma’s abilities. It was an exciting plotline throughout the books, and while some might view it as central to only the Darkling and Gemma, I could see it being a fun thing for several characters. A team is needed to track and hunt down the mythical creatures, so it’d be an expedition into the wilds in search of beasts that many believe are just fantasy. 

He trusts Gemma and he can see that she has raw potential, but regardless of the fact that the amplifiers are a necessity for her being able to combat the volcra within the Fold, he harbors a secret fear of losing her. He’s never held a disciple as closely as her; never felt the need to brand his name in someone’s skin and hiss at anything that stands too close to them. She is not his to own and she is not his to keep, but he cannot let her go. He does not want to.

Where would she go if she became too powerful of her own accord? Who would he be if he lost the one thing that had evaded him for so long? She’s here now, and he can forgive the absence that had plagued him. She has enough time to make up for it, and he wants to be there. When he looks at her he does not call it love, and he’s long lost the purest sense of the word lust, but she does something for him that no stimulant can do. A man who can use no amplifier beyond himself, but perhaps he’s broken the rules by taking a second. 

They feed off each other like fire and gasoline, and he wants nothing more than to make them more familiar. Their abilities are one thing, but he wants to see himself when he looks at her. He wants to see shadows in her eyes and indifference stretching across her jaw, and he will allow no one else to sit beside him when he ushers in an era of Grisha dominance. If slaughtering three glorified beasts is his only means of seeing that become a reality, then so be it.

⦁ third — ⌜ conquering the Fold ⌟

Last but not least, I have to see the Darkling conquer the Fold. I need to see him make it there and finally right his wrong; not necessarily by correcting his mistake and taking it away, but by finishing the task that has haunted him for so many years. He wants to end the suffering of his people, and he wants to carry them on his shoulders with Gemma pressed safely against his side. 

He can do that now. She can give Grisha light, and he can give their enemies darkness. Together they are damnation and salvation; the sword and the shield. A low growl catches in his throat at the thought of how perfect they are. How all the pieces of their puzzles come together to make one whole picture. Bloody and raw and frayed, but a masterpiece all the same.

Someday he will tell her what her purpose truly is. That it is not on her to save the otkazat’sya; that they are lesser and not meant to be dwelt on. No one is meant to be saved from the Fold. Grisha will be granted safe passage, and the humans will be given to the volcra as offerings. They are not his to claim and they are not hers to control, but whereas they refuse to submit to his will, she is able to ward them off in a way no one else can. She sends them flying away from him and onto the shores of their enemies, and he is grateful for that. 

He’s spent so long being a savior, being a king on a black throne with a dark kefta weighing him down, and he’s happy to have someone switch roles with him. He is hopeful with her. He is safe with her. He’ll take her hand and they will execute torture upon those who believe them to be a species that is second best. Not that she knows the genocide that she will assist with, but soon. He will kiss her ears and he will tell her what her role in all of this madness is. “To save me,” he whispers against her throat. “To damn them.”

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?

Given the plot of the main books, of course I would be! I’m sure that the Darkling has a critical role — although equal to all of the other characters in the RP — in many of your planned events, so I’m more than willing to follow the admins’ chosen route for his character.

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE:

He has since realized that his life is lived mostly in cycles. Phases that repeat until sufficient time has passed to allow for changes to the script. Always small, often expected, and rarely able to divert his attention from the worn path ahead of him. He has lived through enough centuries to know that all of his experiences are secondhand. He’s walked through the wilds of Tsibeya to the point of being able to remember a tree just by the curl of its branches, and he knows which of the clouds sliding across the Sikurzoi mountains will be the one to bring rain down upon Ravka’s thirsting soil. When the stars come, he needs only tilt his head upwards to catch sight of the first. He’s had years at his disposal to count them, but instead he only turns away with a sigh. Infinity is more comforting than the harshness of a set number. He lives in stasis until the skies bleed a shade that is foreign to him; until he stops knowing all the answers that he’s had so long to learn.

When word reaches of the Sun Summoner’s existence, the sky remains a hue of grey that mocks him; cast over in a way that proves not all miracles are capable of staining the horizon. He does not question the speed of it, how unceremoniously it arrives after an eternity of skinning his knees to pray for her, and the courier seems almost taken aback by the simple nod of his head at the news. His brow crinkles only barely, the line of his lips flat and his hands steady. 

He wouldn’t expect an otkazat’sya to understand his lack of a display — he’s learned not to scream until the knife has buried itself up to the hilt in his chest. He is a study in restraint. He can stay standing even as the world splits apart. Sankta Lizabeta never fell to her knees until they quartered her and left her pieces to rot in a field of roses. He’ll believe that the end of times has come when there is nothing; when his immortality has been severed.

“A woman?” he breaks the suspended silence with a question for the messenger, tongue scraping against the back of his teeth to apply a hiss to the tone of it. The man in front of him blinks in a justified confusion, so he clarifies the subject before he loses interest in receiving the answer. “The Oprichniki soldier who found the Sun Summoner. Were they a woman?” He inhales through his nose as he waits for the response, watching the human flip through his documents with trembling fingertips and sweat sliding down the length of his hooked nose. After a short pause, the courier lifts his jaw and inclines his head in a sign of confirmation.

“The notice of discovery was issued by a Svetlana Gavrikova, Moi Soverennyi. She’ll be the one escorting the Sun Summoner to camp.” A grin creeps up the side of the Darkling’s face not at the revelation of his guard’s identity, but at how uneasily his title of ‘Moi Soverennyi’ drips off the lesser man’s tongue. This creature is not his to govern and not his to protect; and yet still he submits to the sheer force of Aleksander’s presence. Just because it is the nature of things. Like calls to like — the hungry beg all beasts for a taste of their flesh when they are starving. The dirty wash themselves in anything that could provide comfort from the filth around them. He’s had enough lifetimes to learn that blood is just water by another name.

He doesn’t address Svetlana’s role in the Sun Summoner’s capture after all is spoken, though he places aside the proof of her loyalty for later calculation. When one of his Corporalki attendants steps forward, he does not twist his neck to face her and only clenches a fist at the sound of her clearing her throat. “Moi Soverennyi, should we plan something? For the Oprichniki soldier? A public declaration of her service?” He meets her gaze in that moment, allowing the arch of his eyebrows to sink low as he leans forward in her direction. The human standing before him sinks back with a startled breath, so he flicks his hand in a motion that grants the messenger permission to leave.

“Do we celebrate a farmer when he blisters his hands to reap his harvest?” he speaks to the Heartrender, gravelly and sleek all at once. “Do we praise a Squaller when she sends a skiff gliding safely through the Fold? Do we think anything of the bees in the meadow? Do the flowers thank them for keeping them alive?” The woman looks down and offers no argument against his words, and he sinks back into the cushions of his throne with an expression that is stoic and firm. “I won’t commend my guard for having done her job.” He leaves it at that, and the attendant accepts his reasoning. He does not dwell on the fact that she has no other choice; he has always believed in the natural order of things.

Still, he cannot dismiss his thoughts as he waits for the Sun Summoner to make her entrance. His Grisha soldiers whisper among themselves, pacing about the tent with hushed claims of suspicion and hope, but he does not engage in their conversations. If not for the intensity always buzzing around his form, one could almost forget that he was even there. The wielder of shadows is what he creates; will that be the same for the Sun Summoner?

Will she burn in her power the way that he can hide in his? Will she be the key that he believes her to be? It’s an already answered question. He knows how critical she is to his plans because for all of the possibilities he’s come up with for conquering the Fold, they all end with her. He cannot succeed without her light, and he licks the chapped stretch of his bottom lip like a beggar battling his thirst. She has him on his knees before he’s even had a chance to stand before her — and it must be true that he’s following his ancestor’s name. Sankt Ilya in Chains; Aleksander Morozova in awe.

And when she enters, he does not show any sign of being stunned. He only digs the blades of his shoulders deeper into the padding of his throne, sinking further and arching his neck skyward. This is not to intimidate the girl, however. It’s simply the nature of a hawk to fly. Those without wings cannot covet it for simply living its purpose. And hers, he finds himself wondering about more so than his own. He’s had all the time in the world to discover himself, to know himself and to hold himself and to comfort himself, but the Sun Summoner before him is a stranger. Something he’s wanted for so long that he almost feels her name burning on his tongue, but still he must ask for it.

“Altan,” he nods in greeting to the Heartrender that has brought his salvation into the room — though he gives credit where credit is due by lifting his gaze just long enough to catch Svetlana’s in the crowd. He spreads his right hand in satisfaction at the thought of those who serve him. How wonderful it is to have such loyal men and women at his back; a man that can take and give with a swivel of his wrist, and a trio that can break and burn and drown without any elements at their disposal. His fist closes all the same. He knows that it’s useless to praise them. They exist for a century and then they’re gone. He’s always been his only constant. There was a Svetlana before Svetlana, and there was an Altan before Altan. It’s only him in the end, until another comes to kiss the heels of his feet.

He’s never known a Sun Summoner, however. He sees so many faces when he looks out at the audience, but hers is hers alone. He has never craved a name more. “What do I call you?” he asks more softly than his voice is known for, but there is still a sharp urgency to it. He hears the wet parting of another’s mouth to answer his question, but he lifts a finger to silence them. “I want to hear from her. What is your name?”

“Gemma,” she answers, short and cutting and vague — yet he knows more now than when he started, so he’s grateful enough to smile. He’s felt what it’s like to have the anchor of a surname wrapped around himself, so he doesn’t apply any more pressure to her shoulders by asking for hers. He simply nods and keeps his stare locked to her own, blocking out all the others who are watching them.

“Is it true?” he presses, tone more guttural than he intends it to be. “That you’re the Sun Summoner? That you blinded a man?” She keeps her jaw steady, and for all of her composure, he hopes that the report is true. He could sculpt something out of all her stone.

“Yes,” she replies, and he tilts his head as he waits for the rest of her answer. It doesn’t come, and he has to rise to his feet to bring more out of her. “You know everything that I know.” He snickers, a laugh shooting up his throat and pooling in his mouth. How innocent of her to assume.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he starts, stepping around her to face the crowd of Grisha and silently inclining his head to address their presence. He could allow them to speak their opinions on the matter, but he’s uninterested. If this girl claims to be equal to his knowledge, then none could come close to what she knows. Maybe the two of them have always been destined to suffer alone; together only as halves of a whole. The thought comforts him more than it should. “Let’s settle it. See if the thief is deserving of something more than a severed hand.”

He can see an argument flash across her features, but she represses her rage and keeps her lips tight. He finds himself once again thrilled. “Pull up your sleeve,” he commands, and she stares at him until he repeats it. “Could you pull up your sleeve?” And she does, slowly, and he calms her with a single glance before she can flinch away. “Now hold out your arm.” Like a wounded doe to a hand holding grain, she offers herself with hesitance, but when he brings his hands crashing together, he can feel her go jolting back.

Darkness spews forward, crowding the space with a pitch black ink that absorbs all started cries, and he steps forward and grips the bone of Gemma’s wrist before she can run. “Breathe,” he reassures her in the way a man would a startled horse, and he rubs his thumb along her flesh with an inhale that goes alongside her own. “Do you feel it? Open your ribs and let it out.” He guides her hand upwards through the blackness, making sure her palm is faced forward. “Answer its call.”

And then the light comes, suddenly and wickedly and more devastating than any endless night. He does not gasp with the others, though his eyes widen and he removes his hand from her wrist without her needing to pull away. He has to remind himself to breathe when he turns to Altan. “We have her,” he says with excitement under his breath, before looking to Svetlana. “Ready my carriage. She’ll make her journey to Os Alta immediately.” Svetlana nods obediently, and the Darkling calls after her with a low bark of urgency. “Guard her with everything you have. She is mine in this moment. Give her all you’ve given me.”

He looks at Gemma as Svetlana grips her and starts to pull her away, and he sends a hiss through his teeth that is meant to be a lulling sound. “Go gently, Gemma. Girl who blinds. Girl who steals. I know what you are now,” and he smiles, sharp and cutting and so hungry for what is to come. “When you arrive at your destination, you will know, too.”

And she leaves, and he exhales — and the cycle creaks. It is broken, and someday, he will thank her for what she has done. They’ll have plenty of days together.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

⦁ first — ⌜ what demons we leash; Unsea ⌟

It was meant to be his greatest accomplishment. The king he served at the time believed that it would be a display of his loyalty to Ravka’s cause, but as with most of his actions, the truth behind it was veiled. He cared not for the tension between Ravka and its bordering countries — his only goal was to shroud all enemies of the Grisha in an indomitable darkness; plunging all otkazat’sya into a void that only he had the ability to control. It should have been executed as he had planned for it to be. For all the routes he had calculated that its creation could have taken, he never thought of what would happen the day he tested out his idea on the stretch of farmland west of Ravka.

The tendrils of shadows swallowed the farmers and their houses whole, and just as the king smiled with a beaming pride, so did he. His experiment was a success, and in that moment he confirmed that he had the power to cover a nation in an endless night. He could bring it, but he later learned that he could not take it away. Try as he might, he couldn’t absorb the darkness back into himself, and in the time it took for he and his men to travel into the blackness to look for a way to rid of it, he only barely noticed the sound of flapping. They came upon his Grisha and the king’s soldiers and he watched as they were carried off by creatures he could not name.

Leathery skin and clouded eyes, all he could notice was their screeching. Theirs or the victims’ he was not sure, but they were certainly inhuman. He fought back only long enough to get out of the Fold, and when he saw that they could not follow him into the light, he had never felt more in love with the sun. He fell to his knees and he looked at his hands, at all the destruction he had wrought, and he had never wanted what it became. What happened to the men and women that were corrupted by his darkness was not intentional, and what became known as the volcra were not his. They’d call them the children of the Black Heretic some centuries later, but he would never claim them. They became the one thing he feared. The only things he could not command. 

He was lauded as a monster worse than the beast he was before then, and he had no choice but to flee when word of his mistake spread out across the nations. He was a coward, but he was alive. Ravka choked and sputtered due to being locked by the Fold, and he heard whispers of the causalities that kept rocketing when Ravkans tried to escape the country by crossing the Unsea.  Not just humans; even Grisha. His people were slaughtered just as equally as the abandoned, and he was ashamed. He was frightened. 

He vowed to return and save them, and he’s been trying to. He came back a century later as a descendent of himself, and he worked through the fear he was greeted with to plant the seeds of the Second Army. There the Grisha would be safe, free from the injustice he had only served to further, and he was content for a time. Letting them be soldiers until he could let them be free. Someday, he knows that they will be. He finally has his key now. Ravka and his ambitions will not remain locked for long.

⦁ second — ⌜ hope comes wearing white; Gemma ⌟

When she came to him, it felt as if her first summoning of light had shot through his very soul. He hadn’t expressed it outwardly, but when he took her wrist and brought out what she had been repressing for so long, he felt his chest tighten and hadn’t hesitated with ordering her journey to Os Alta. Suddenly, she belonged to him; and at the same time he knew that he could never keep her caged. They made the trip separately, but he kept running his thumb over the air as if her skin was still there between his grasp. He’d amplified many Grisha before, but none that had ever returned the sensation onto himself. He basked in it. In that dual power and hope, and he left it to cling to his skin; festering and burrowing deep within the marrow of his bones.

He’s spent so long hoping for her that it almost feels like a dream having her so close. He’s waiting to open his eyes and be torn from it, but then he blinks and realizes he’s already awake. He hasn’t dreamt in so long that this can’t possibly be a return to his childhood innocence. He’s still just as cruel a man as he’s always been, with dark intentions and a hunger for destruction, but the difference is that he doesn’t have to run any longer. He doesn’t have to wait. He can send terror raining down, and she can be his shield. He will not harm himself and his followers this time. Only the abandoned.  Left behind by who?

By them; he and his Sun Summoner. She is the light slipping through naked branches, and he is the rot creeping up its bark. He owns her and wraps a chain around her throat, but in the core of himself he knows that she is an entity separate to himself. Her element cannot be contained. Trap it in a jar and it fades from existence. He cannot risk losing her. He refuses to wait another century now that he has her. So he cherishes her, and he praises her, and he lets her be soft while trying to harden her. He wants her to be ready; he wants her to stand at his side without flinching. And if their devastation troubles her, he’ll lick the blood off her hands. She won’t have to carry the burden alone.

⦁ third — ⌜ I am not ruined; hopelessness ⌟

When the creation of the Fold backfired, he fell into his own darkness and drowned in the Unsea that was synonymous with his failure. They called him the Black Heretic, and what was meant to carry his people out of oppression only served to make them more feared. He could have stayed to suffer alongside them, and it’s true that he could have made payment for his mistake by accepting punishment, but he was his father’s son before he was a heretic; so he disappeared from the picture when his siring of the Unsea was complete.

He spent years hiding in the Fjerdan mountains and more trekking through Shu Han valleys. Some rumors say a man strikingly similar to the heretic was spotted in Ketterdam and even seen as far off as Novyi Zem. It was strange; going from a peasant to a king’s right-hand to a feared fugitive. He wore his shame in his hair, which grew as straggly as the whiskers that went untamed across his face. When he lost his fire, he started to look his age. A hermit of a man with shame in his eyes, and no matter how often his mother sought him out and begged him to come home to Ravka, he knew he had to do so of his own accord without any pressure. 

She raised him to be everything. A frightened child and a battle ready man all under one layer of skin, and for so long of being told that nothing could stand against him, everything shook when the volcra tore his confidence away. It was a process of acceptance and discipline, finding himself in foreign places and helping the Grisha of more ravenous nations. He never stayed long enough to be thanked; he did not deserve his people’s praise yet. He would wait for them to speak their worship against the arch of his feet when he brought them out of the Unsea that he had poured. 

How peculiar. To kill those you wish to save, and to spend so long afterwards trying to resurrect them.  He returned and they were sceptical, but he won their favor with his wisdom and his charm.  He snaked his way back into the palm of another king, but this time he remained wise. This time he made no mistakes. He clipped his hair short and he trimmed his jaw, and he became youthful once more. Not hopeful; never bright and smiling like the child Aleksander had once been fleetingly. He was firm and he was stoic, but he was there. That had to be enough for his underlings. He was at least there to suffer alongside them now. The Grisha were not alone, but he was still missing a piece of himself. “Sun Summoner,” he’d whisper in his sleep with eyes wide open. “Come to us. Come to me.”

⦁ fourth — ⌜ I am ruination; plans ⌟

Now that he has Gemma, a missing piece of himself has resurfaced; the hunger he repressed while he was licking his wounds. She is the key that he has seen crafted behind his eyelids for the last century, the thing he has felt in his hand before ever having the chance touch the gold of its surface, and there will never be something more important than her in his eyes. Only two that could combat her. Himself and his people. But nothing draws him closer than those three things. 

She gives him light and he gives her darkness, and together they can finish what he could never complete. He wants to show the world what his intentions truly were. He wants to send the volcra to tear the Drüskelle and their wolves apart, and he wants to send a horde flying across the Sikurzoi mountains to feast on the Shu. Let the witch burners be bled out, and let the experimenters be torn open like they so enjoy doing to the Grisha. It’s the perfect irony. Let those he cannot control swallow the world, and let Gemma keep him and his loyalists safe. She makes him less afraid.

Not even his mother could do that for him. She gave him a spine of iron and made sure his lineage was an image of perfection by mating with the most powerful Heartrender she could find, but she never thought to give him softness. She never gave him love. She assured him that he was above all else, but never told him why that was. All he’s ever had is his power and his eternity, and all else is fleeting. His followers are always changing, and his king is replaced each century. He wants to hold something beyond himself. Beyond the mother who never asked him to love her back; who didn’t teach him how.

He wants to suffer with her, and he wants to prosper all the same. He’s been everything, and he wants to give her a taste of that. He’s going to see his goal be realized. The otkazat’sya will have no king to hide behind. There will be only one empire. Only one ruler and his mistress, should she agree to take his hand and reign beside him. She needs only allow him to lock his being around hers, and then no queen will ever stand higher. No empress could ever be closer to the sun. 

And it will be bloody. They will walk across ashes and wade through darkness, but she will warm him. He will guide her through all the terrors before them. The Grisha will live in peace, without fear beyond the two of their kind that are more than they. He’ll hold his hands in front of her vision should she ask to not see the carnage, but he hopes she’ll revel in it just as he does. He is his mother’s son. His mate can be no less than he. 

EXTRAS:

Here is where you can find my mock-blog for Aleksander.

⌜ PERSONALITY ANALYSIS ⌟ Astrological sign: Scorpio Moral alignment: Lawful Evil MBTI type: ISTJ-A (The Logistician) Hogwarts house: Slytherin

ANYTHING ELSE?

Thank you for taking the time to review this application. You’re always welcome to message me if any issues arise. My favorite book as of right now is Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente. It’s helped me so much with inspiration for each of the applications that I’ve worked on, and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t had the chance to read it yet. It follows a plotline that is rather similar to the Grisha Trilogy in some aspects.

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, KATIE!

You have been accepted for the role of VALERIYA VASNEV with a faceclaim change to Adrianne Ho. Admin Bree: Valeriya has always been a “piece of work” sort of character, in that she’s so terrible yet so oddly likable, at the same time, and you demonstrated that beautifully in your para sample, as well as throughout the rest of your application. From “Oh, they’re rioting again,” to her manipulating her “friends” into wearing unflattering gowns so that she might outshine them at the ball, you absolutely nailed her conniving attitude and pettiness in one fell swoop, and it was hilarious. I absolutely love your take on our duchess & princess-to-be, and I can’t wait to see what you do with her on the dash! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Katie PREFERRED PRONOUNS: She/her AGE: Eighteen TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: EST & Pretty high (in terms of numbers, perhaps a 7 or 8?). I’m on break and most of my days are free until my summer classes begin at the end of June. But even then, I’ve been in the roleplays during school and not, and I always find time to be on and be active. I should be on every other day at least, but I like super transparent about what I’m doing so even if I have to be away just for the weekend, I will probably bother you about my activity! CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: Unfortunately, not many remain as I have not been super present in the RPC as of late and have a (terrible) tendency to change accounts into new ones once I’m done with a character, but here is one.

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: The icon, the legend – Valeriya Vasnev

VALERIYA – meaning to be strong. And strong she was, a terrible little thing that left her mother, who never really wanted her neither the marriage to the Vasnev Duke to begin with, in labor for a week. The Duke had wanted a daughter to barter off now that he already had a son to rule his seat when he was gone; whispers said he had killed his first wife trying to get one. But, when Valeriya was born, she didn’t melt the icy hearts of her parents. Her father was off on a hunting trip, and she was handed off to the wet nurse and seen by her mother only when she wouldn’t cry. Valeriya was a family name, the name of her great-grandmother, who married as Lantsov prince just as Valeriya’s father had hoped, and soon arranged, she would. “It is destiny,” he whispered as he held her. It was sparingly, but more than her mother. “I will be the father to a Princess. Or, should I be lucky, a Queen.”

ADELAIDA – meaning noble one.

VASNEV – a name almost as old as the Lantsov Kings, and Valeriya’s father used to claim it was even older. They’d ruled over their lands for centuries as Dukes of the Court, sending their sons to be great, strong warriors and their daughters to be great, beautiful wives. In the Vasnev name, there is wealth, age and respect. They aren’t a family to question, and those who do often find themselves back at the bottom of the heap. Valeriya was born with a purpose, just as her father and his father and all their siblings and children were: to be beautiful, a Vasnev gem; to be intelligent and rule, as she will; and, to pass it all on to their children after. (And, of course, to be used as their parents see fit).

 WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?

 In the past two days, I’ve read every open biography, some of them multiple times. Honestly, I kept coming back to the few that Admin Bree threw at me to consider in my feedback. They were the first I read, and the ones I kept comparing others so, and mainly considering applying for. Of the bunch, Valeriya just stood out to me. Although I tend to go for softer characters, I want to expand my horizons and play someone a little different than I would normally jump for. Valeriya is a little more in my ball-park than Margarete was, so I’m hoping my interpretation of her will be better on tone! I think what most attracted me to her was how little has really happened in her life. Not to say she was underdeveloped in the biography, but compared to some characters, who have been orphaned or had to travel the country or whatever, she really has had such a mundane life. She’s been rich and doted on, lived in the palaces and engaged to a Prince–of course, she’s changed personalities, growing through the years, but event wise, there really hasn’t been much. In this, I see potential. Potential to not just fill in the gaps and throw some events in there to spice her up, but also for the future. Because she��s been through so little, I feel like I won’t hold back in throwing her into the world and seeing how she reacts. I feel the need to develop her and see some change, whether that be in redemption and growing and learning to care, or by going full Lady Macbeth (my personal favorite).

 WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

 Warning: none of these are really cohesive and many of them couldn’t happen at the same time, but I love myself some various outcomes. 

I imagine Valeriya will be feeling many things on the day she finds out about her Dear Prince Fiance (DPF™) fooling around with a Grisha. It will be a hit to her pride; she is one of the most wanted women in Ravka, who has offered everything to him to get his time of day, and yet he chooses to share his bed with a Heartrender. I don’t imagine much jealousy in her heart, because she doesn’t love Viktor. It will be bitterness and anger, confusion and outrage. While she is intelligent and realistic, knowing that even if she can win over his heart and soul, she won’t be the only person to ever share his bed (just like he won’t be the only person to share hers), she won’t be able to stop herself from feeling outraged that something she wants so bad doesn’t want her back. I’m also interested to see how it will shift her opinion on Viktor, due to her prejudiced views on Grishas.

Her engagement to the crown prince is intriguing, and I’d love to see where it goes, and if their marriage even ends up happening. At this point, Valeriya has accepted that the engagement will be put off until after the war is over, but she doesn’t mind so long as it all stays intact. But, I think it could be fun to shake stuff up sooner. Perhaps Ravka needs something inspiring to feast their eyes on and distract them–a Prince’s marriage to a beautiful Duchess would do. This could be after Valeriya finds out about Dmitri, or before; it’ll be interesting to see how she reacts to her husband’s affair with a Heartrender. In marriage, I’d also love to see how Viktor changes Valeriya. While I don’t see anything between them ever turning to love (they’re both so different and too volatile), I don’t think they’ll spend their time together just ignoring each other. She’ll go to the ends of the earth to be the only thing he yearns for. It is like a game to her, and she refuses to lose. In that, I’d love to see the destruction and war he puts in her mind and how it changes who she is.

Valeriya doesn’t feel sympathy. Any stirs of it in her have been quickly dissipated by other feelings about that person, leaving her to feel justified in not feeling bad for anyone, especially those lower than her. But, my headcanon for this is that she doesn’t have to face her apathy because it is hardly ever in front of her. It’s afar–people dying in the war far away, peasants outside the gates starving. She can say and think things when they aren’t staring her back, seen in how she felt sympathy for Vasily when he pleaded at court. I’d love for this cool cruelty she has, this indifference for those starving and dying in wars as long as she is happy and comfortable, to be thrown in her face. For her to have to see what her indifference means, to have to experience it and actually feel something for once. Although I don’t have a formal plot idea for how this could happen, I’m putting it under here because it’s something I want to happen in the future. I want her to be three dimensional beyond the cool, indifferent, beautiful Duchess. She is human, and I want her to have to face that.

Saving the best for last of course. A girl like her is easily bored, and because of her greed, she’s constantly wanting more before she even has what she wanted to begin with. Marrying a Prince and becoming a Princess sounded nice at the time, an impressive step up, a way to be remembered by the people and have her name down in history. But once marrying the third born son became the second, she couldn’t help but think - what if he was the first? Yes, being Princess sounds nice. But, being Queen sounds even better. And she’s just so close–it would be too hard to resist finding a way for her this new dream to come true.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?:

Oh, you know it. Although should she go, I’d rather it be later rather sooner? I feel like of a lot of the characters, she has had one of the least eventful (I can’t find the right way to word this) life, but with so much potential for chaos and everything, I’d love to develop her and give her some change and everything before she goes.

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE:

Valeriya was beyond exhausted of playing games with these little girls at the palace, who were bickering around her as they always did on their walks around the palace walls. They were her “friends”–or, rather, companions to the duchess she could not abandon because their fathers had done something for her father. Time spent with them felt like child sitting, and more often than not, she felt more like a nanny to babes rather a duchess to low-born women of the court. Apart from their words of validation when she desired them (“Oh, Your Grace, that gown is gorgeous on you. I’ll never be as beautiful as you.”), they were useless, and she could see their futures like they was already down in history: sparkly-eyed girls married to older, lowly lords, unhappy within the year, stuck with too many children and not enough gold.

 “What do you think, Your Grace?” Valeriya glanced at the two staring up at her with adoration in their eyes. She paused, giving them both a patronizing smile. Perhaps more than she loved their ability to build her up she loved her own opportunities to tear them down.

“Rosa is correct,” she glanced at Katia, who’s eyes went to the floor. In her side vision, she could see Rosa’s smug grin. Valeriya continued to walk around the corner, bringing up her parasol to shield her from the sun. “You would look terrible in yellow. If you wear it to the Ball, you will be an embarrassment. I w-” she was cut off by the sound of shouting, which quickly caught the attention of her two companions, who rushed forward to see the commotion. The Duchess rolled her eyes, unsurprised that such a simple distraction was able to sway the dull girls away so easily.

 “What is it?” “What are they-” the two were beyond predictable, talking excitedly to themselves about the spectacle below. Valeriya walked calmly to them, glancing over the edge.There was commotion and screaming at the grand gates, peasants slamming on them while the Ravkan guards held it shut and threatened them back.

 “Oh, they’re rioting again. How barbaric, don’t you agree?”

 “But, Val-” Katia caught herself, glancing at the ground, her complexion turned bright red. Valeriya only stared, waiting for the girl to continue. One of the rules of their friendship was the exclusive use of her title. It helped keep the distinction between friends and companions clear; she didn’t want the two getting any ambitious ideas. “My apologies, Your Grace,” Valeriya nodded, and Katia continued her initial question, although she didn’t meet Valeriya’s eyes. “Why are they rioting?”

 “Something about food, something about war,” Valeriya waved her hand, turning back around and continuing the walk. Hesitantly, the girls followed after her. “Nevermind that. It is nothing we should be concerned about, understood?” they nodded. Using power over them was easy and mindless, simple because they had so much to learn. Babysitting them was tiring enough, let alone teaching them the ways of the court. If she had to do anymore, she might lose her mind and defy her father. Perhaps it was time for them to learn something for themselves, the hard way. Valeriya wouldn’t always be there to help them, after all.  

“Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted,” she smile, returning back to her poised position. “Katia, perhaps you should wear yellow to the Ball.”

 “But you-”

 “I was confused,” she cut her off. “I was only half paying attention, and I thought you were talking about Rosa. She’s the only who looks terrible in yellow.” Rosa looked down at her yellow gloves, sneakily trying to take them off without notice. “I think you’d look lovely, my dear.”

Lie. Lie. Lie. She wasn’t confused. Rosa looked fine in yellow. Katia won’t look lovely.

At least they wouldn’t outshine her at the Ball.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS: 

Her Papa was a Duke, never around to play but always around with a warm smile and a “tell this man whatever you want, you can have it, my dear,” before running off to another meeting or hunting with his men. He taught Valeriya the best way to forgiveness is to give, displayed in the gallery of jewelry that adorned her mother’s dressing table. She was his second wife, but not the only woman he called. When one of those jewels would catch the young girl’s eye, Mama would throw it at her with a tired smile. She was doting, giving her only child everything the girl desired, but never warm. All the same, Valeriya grew up yearning to be just like the spoiled, bitter woman. And without any duties, her half-brother from Papa’s previous marriage taking on all the responsibilities that came with the Vasnev name, Mama she became, only colder. For, despite having things and experiences thrown at her from every angle, they never threw a hug or a word of praise. No warm talks by the fire, no bedtime stories when they tucked her into bed. It was all whispers in the halls, messages given from butlers. Combined, it all turned her to ice.

She was raised to hate and fear Grishas, to believe they are witches that will one day bring the world down. Around other humans, around her parents, Valeriya isn’t afraid to spew this hate and nonsense. But, when a Grisha is around, you won’t hear her say a single word of this. More than she hates them, she fears them, and even more so, deep down with other secrets she’ll never admit to even herself, she envies them. Even the weakest of them have so much power at their fingertips–power she can and will never have.

I’m aware that you made her bisexual, and even before stumbling upon that post of the set sexualities, that would be my personal headcanon. She desires beautiful people, and because of her bluntness in asking for her desires, she gets it all. However, her sexuality isn’t something she flaunts around. Apart from rumors she quickly denies, you won’t hear any word of her kisses in the dark corridors during parties or her visits to the most secret parts of the gardens, a suitor in tow. She’s an object people desire, and the objectification of her, the persona of the perfect duchess they all believe her to be, keep them desiring her. If they knew just how easy it was to win any affection, well, they wouldn’t try so hard. And that, to her, would just be oh so boring.

Valeriya isn’t the kind that admits to fears (or faults), but her greatest fear is so obvious it should be shocking that no one has tried to call her out on it. She’s afraid of being forgotten, of being the girl picked last, of being adored by no one. If she isn’t loved, she really might mean nothing.

Tutored by the best for years, Valeriya is far from stupid. She understands the wars happening and all the politics. When she lost out on advisor, she lost interest, pretending it was all so stupid to begin it. That was easier to feign that to admit the feeling of failure she couldn’t shake.

She’s a slytherin, lawful evil, and ENTJ. Also, such a Scorpio.  

EXTRAS: Of course I got myself a pinterest board. You can find it here. 

ANYTHING ELSE? I would like to request a FC change to Adrianne Ho, please!

 This is far from my greatest work due to a time crunch on my end with getting this finished and sent in (it’s basically just word vomit I’m hoping you’ll like)! Just so you know, I am going out of town this weekend to visit my roommate (why I’m rushing to get this in), so should I be accepted, although I’ll be able to send an account in within the 24 hours, I won’t be able to post until Sunday night! 

Not to be a screw up again, my fav book is the Book Thief. Beautiful, enchanting, captivating, etc. It never gets old.

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, ACE!

You have been accepted for the role of KONSTANTIN MIRONOV. Admin Em: Ace, your application truly has me so excited for Konstantin. He was one of my favorite characters to write, and I had high hopes for whoever would apply - and you definitely didn’t disappoint! I have to admit, the meaning of the middle name you gave him, in all its heartbreaking irony, cinched it for me. You managed to capture the hollowness within him as well as the festering vengeance he carries for his family, and I can’t wait to see how he develops in your hands - after all, he is not a passive force, ‘He is hungry - he is anything but calm.’ Thank you for this wonderful application and welcome to the Rule and Ruin family! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

ALIAS: Hey! I’m Ace!

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: She/her

AGE: I’m 18!

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: EST - I currently admin my own roleplay and am planning on applying for one more once it opens. In addition, I’m a college student taking summer classes, so my activity will mostly be in the evenings! I’m on the 5-6 scale, but can get to convos about immediately or every day and longer paras every other. I make sure to be extra active during events!

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: You can find my old account @dantexvicario and @sariaxyoung, and currently at @inkeriernouf ! I also admin @darknorthrpg

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER:

Konstantin - stable; steady minded

It is a name that one had to grow into. Konstantin - a name for a polished, proper man. Once a roguish and impulsive soldier with little to lose and all to gain, but now a man carved from stone. He is as level headed as he is deadly. Oh, but how appearances can be deceiving. He is calm and he is collected on his exterior, having seemed to conquer his adolescence, but the wild boy still lives within the man. And that boy is by no means steady minded, nor is he stable as his name declares. He is hungry - he is anything but calm.

Vrach - healer, physician

It sickens him now, his middle name. To be named a healer and have been unable to save his darling wife - the first and last woman he shall ever love - is like shoving hot coals down his throat and forcing him to swallow. Like thrusting a sword into his stomach and twisting the blade as he has done a thousand times. Not only can he not help but think of his wide each time his full name is spoken, he cannot help but think of the witch who sealed her fate. The woman who took his Anfisa from him - his flower… who took his child and turned his heart to stone.

Mironov - son of Miron; peaceful

Mironov is a name that Konstantin has never felt fits him. He is the first soldier born in a long line of peaceful men. His father was a horse breeder, his father before him a horse breeder, and his father before him. The Mironov men have always been kind and gentle, up until the moment Konstantin came screaming and red faced into the world. With his birth, the Mironov name is no longer gentle. It is feared and revered, not that of horse breeders and peace.

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER? Okay, honest answer, I have a severe problem with dark back stories…I have a similar character who also lost his wife and unborn child (by different means entirely,) so when I saw Konstantin’s bio, I died a little because it hit me right in the heart. But Konstantin has something I rarely see in characters. His bio is very open ended, and gives a lot to the imagination. Because of this, I have latched onto him as a calm man who -beneath all the glory of war - is actually just a broken one. A broken man who might have once been soft -  who has closed in on himself in order to forget his pain. But, he has not forgotten why he is in pain. He is calm, but if only because he is a ticking time bomb. He can only wait so long before the stone starts to crumble around his heart, before he can no longer hide his pain and wave off the waxen face of his dead wife that swims in his dreams each night. To his comrades, he is fierce and a god, but to the one person on this earth who knew the man behind the mask…he was a kind man, actually true to his surname. But the single flower in his life who knew this part of him has gone, taken from him by the fate he has always been able to take in his own hands. So he blames something other than fate. Konstantin blames something - someone - who is tangible, because if he cannot control his fate as he did when he became the general he is today, what is he to do?

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

I can’t wait to see the development Konstantin is going to face with the passing of his wife. In truth, I don’t think he’s quite accepted it yet. The wound is still too tender and too fresh. Part of him still waits to see her walk around a corner of the palace, a cooing child bundled within her arms. He expects to see her smiling face, beckoning him forward to touch a child who will never exist. He sees her in his dreams, feels her arms around him…but she is not there, nor will she be again. How will he finally understand? What’s it going to take to give up the only woman he loved? To sleep without picturing blue eyes and bronzed skin? His whole world was stolen from him, and he just wants her back.

Since the death of his wife, Konstantin has come to be weary of the Grisha. Not quite loathe them, but not quite like them anymore. Margarete he despises, of course, but the rest? Before the death of his wife, I don’t think he had much if an opinion of them - other than thinking them unnatural - but I’d love to see his opinion grow and change. Will his hate grow to be like the hate in Fjerda because of one woman? Or will she be the only one? We just don’t know.

This idea kind of sprang to me when I was answering the next question, and I find that it made me fall in love with Konstantin even more. Konstantin Mironov doesn’t fear his own death. Once, he might have, if only because of the child growing inside of his flower. But now? He is even more fearless than he was when he was a boy, but in a way that he just doesn’t care. If he dies, he sees his Anfisa again and the child he never held. But the hopeless romantic and Angst McAngst Pain I am wants to see someone make him scared to die again.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?: Um. HELL to the YEAH I am. Death is a total guilty pleasure when it comes to roleplays and writing, especially when it goes unseen until the last moment. Konstantin’s death could go so many ways, it could be angsty and sweet or ugly and painful to himself and others.

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

“When?”

Not a soul seemed to understand what he asked. He said it twice, once to the crowd of smiling faces and a second to the soldier who slapped him across the back. Konstantin’s hand moved like lightning, his scarred fingers fisting in front of the older man’s cloak. Konstantin looked him in the eye, jerking him closer as he felt his heart drop into his stomach. “When?” The man blinked, but merely chuckled. Just like the crowd, he took his question as excitement. As anticipation - perhaps pride. But pride was nothing, and title was less. Nothing at all when his flower was not in the room.

“You will take on your new title as soon as you are able.”  

The soldier chuckled again, placing a hand over Konstantin’s fist closed around his cloak. He gave a squeeze of congratulations and gripped his shoulder to give him a bolstering shake, but both gestures did little to calm the storm brewing within him. Konstantin’s mouth went dry, and with a snarl as great as a Drüskelle’s wolf, he shoved him away. His comrade stumbled, blinking in astonishment.

“No!” The hall went quiet, the laughter vanishing as the snarl left his chapped lips. All eyes moved to his face, to the anger and rage that was twisted upon his tanned and scarred complexion. Saints, how could they not understand? Was court truly that bloodthirsty, that cold? “When did she die.” Not a question, not raise in his voice. A demand. A demand as cold as the ice that was growing around the heart that his late wife had made beat. He had been waiting for her warmth when he returned, and now the only trace of it was the note crumped in his jacket pocket.

“Her condition worsened not long after she visited the healer - there was nothing to be done.” The soldier’s words gave him no comfort. He stuttered, nearly trembling like a frightened animal. Good. Konstantin’s anger was close enough to match a rabid one. Before he knew it, a barrel of wine had been knocked over. In his blind fury, he’d shoved it at the cowering soldier. In another flash of a moment, a table of glasses shattered to the floor as Konstantin spun out of the room. His shoulders heaved, and it was all he could do not to sob. He strangled the thought, and minutes later, he found himself bursting out onto a balcony, sucking down heavy gasps of air. Despite the words spoken to him, they were not what he could focus on. Instead, his father’s question swam in and out of his ears, echoing eerily.

“My son, aren’t you frightened?”

“I have no reason to be,” He breathed only to himself, shoulders and gaze going hard and rigid. Pained. “ I have already died.”

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

He called Anfisa his flower, her name sake. She blew into his life in a strange sort of way - she had no title, was no sort of nobility…but those eyes enamoured him, captured him in a way the First Army had. Konstantin had never been a weak man, but when Anfisa’s crystal eyes beheld him, he was no better than a newborn child.. She became his reason to live, her place in his heart seated right along side his lust for glory. The flirtatious glances became secret notes, and the notes became private meetings, until Konstantin began counting the days they were apart and the days until he could return to Os Alta to see his precious flower. On and on it went, and each time he asked for her hand, she would laugh and shake her head and kiss him breathless. But she had been afraid when he returned that spring. Anfisa’s tears and fright was enough to stop his heart, his joy faltering at the sight of her terrified face. “What will we do?” She’d sobbed into his arms. His worry fading, Konstantin had roared with laughter, kissing the freckles on her face.  His smile only grew as he beheld the look of confusion that crossed her perfect features, his hands pressing to the swell of her stomach.  “I will marry you, my silly flower. Now you can’t say no.”

Konstatin wasn’t always a badass. Once, he was still a little kid learning how to be a soldier. Before heb became the bloodthirsty general he is today, it took him some time to hone his skills. It was an embarrassing first couple months, but he was and has always been stubborn. Since his clumsy start, he’s beaten every person who ever laughed at him.

Konstantin couldn’t find the healer who had killed his wife those first few months. He didn’t learn her name until much later, and longer still to see her face. He hadn’t been angry the first time he saw her, not at first. He has been at the Little Palace, going over battle plans - a responsibility that came with his new title. She had not seen him, but he’d seen her…but he hadn’t been angry. Not until he saw her smile and laugh at some companions joke, and his face had hardened. He couldn’t believe that she had the audacity to smile and laugh when she had slaughtered a woman and her child within her. After that smile, the malice had been born.

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, LISSA!

You have been accepted for the role of MARGARETE STARIKOV. Admin Bree: Margarete is easily one of the darkest characters I’ve ever written, and I don’t say that lightly. Her darkness is the sort that’s so deep and depraved that it can be much more difficult to understand and put into words without romanticizing or excusing, and even when she was but an idea in the back of my mind, I worried we’d struggle to find someone to do her justice. But Lissa, you did so wonderfully! Her mannerisms, her ways of thinking, her sick little mantra, and even her love for berries—all of them painted a clear picture of the twisted little thing she is. Well done! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Lissa

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: She/Her

AGE: Twenty

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: During the summer probably an 8/10, though I might be taking trips throughout, but I’ll be sure to shoot the main an ask giving notice. As for when the school year starts, I can’t say for certain since I haven’t registered for classes yet, but hopefully it’ll be either a 6 or a 7 since my unit load shouldn’t be as heavy as it has been.

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: Redacted.

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: Margarete Vera Starikov

MARGARETE: It is such a lovely name for such a lovely girl, especially one who is every bit as treasured as her moniker implies—she is a pearl, iridescent and bright, but her outward appearance is a demure facade hiding a darkness thick, sweet, and enticing like syrup though closer to poison in composition.

VERA: To some it means truth and to others it means faith, but both are correct when it comes it to the doll-faced girl. For even though they try to hide her and make her someone else, she cannot fight her nature and has never once wanted to. But in terms of faith, it’s what she asks of others, to believe that she can be great and deadly. However, it also refers to the faith a Healer needs to do their job when the ill and the injured place their lives in their skilled hands. 

STARIKOV: It has been known to strike fear into people’s eyes because often it’s associated with an entire line of gifted Heartrenders who have served at the foot of the Darkling for ages at his beck and call. She is the first and only Healer in her family, something she believes is a great shame although her parents are convinced otherwise. It makes her bitter and brittle to know that she is unlike the rest in this sense, at least. 

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?:

I’ve never shied away from playing “evil” characters—in fact, I quite enjoy exploring moral gray areas—but in all my time writing, I’ve never played someone filled with such guiltless malevolence. Of course, one could argue that there’s a reason for it: she’s trying to prove herself, trying to be who she truly is, but then what does that say about her? Well, she’s a killer and fine, there are people who must kill in order to protect or serve, that’s justifiable. However, her victims are the wounded and the ill, the weak and the weary, and what she does is not out of mercy however sick that would still be—no, Margarete kills purely out of spite, bitterness, and pride. There is no nobility in her cause and because of that I think there is no chance for a redemption arc which is what draws me. She is so determinately set in embodying death and making an impression on the world that she cares little about what it does to others. Her search for infamy and recognition will leave a huge scar in her stead and I think it’d be such an interesting challenge to tackle because I don’t want her to be sympathetic, I want her to be the worst that she can be cause only then will she be, in her eyes, the best she can be.

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?:

She presses on Konstantin’s bruises by merely existing, but she has never been interested in inflicting the barest pain—instead, she twists the blade in his abdomen by wordlessly taunting him with her presence, situating herself firmly in his line of sight whenever she can. Let him come for her; let him try and prosecute her—when she fells a general, who then could deny her? So she hones her craft in secret, waiting for the moment he snaps like a twig in her vise grip. If he misses his dead wife and child so much, she’d be happy to reunite them, all he needs to do is ask. 

In stories it is usually the older that corrupts, but here the roles are reversed. Rita is so sweet it makes her teeth sorely ache, but how grand it would be to map out and see through her fall. They both know pretty things, but darkness obscures and death preserves, so there is a sort of refined beauty in both. Margarete wants to show the other girl that glamour will fade—that it is better to practice things that are much more definitive and permanent. 

This feels like dying and in some ways it is—to see who you could’ve been turn to ash in your hands. If she is forced to be a Healer for the rest of her long life, she will surely go mad. There are only two who can stop that from happening, two with the power to give her what she wants. The Darkling is a busy man, she escapes his notice, but Altan with his haughty gaze holds her whole world in his palms. If he can’t see it, she will make him, even if it means squeezing the life out of him for once. But how can a girl take on a monster? The answer is clear: she must become what she wants to destroy even if it means it destroys her as well.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?: As hard as it would be, I am open to the idea! Of course, it’d need to have proper justification, but if push came to shove I think I’d be able to let him go if it were under the right set of circumstances.

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

I think it goes without saying, but to be on the safe side TW: DEATH, STRANGULATION, and also just general unpleasantness so if that’s not your cup of tea look away.

                —I.

From their likeness, they sculpted five children, each undoubtedly theirs, thus Death was their birthright and murder their call. It was hard to argue with fate or, in actuality, genetics—they all had hair dark as a raven’s feathers and they all possessed the same taste for the metallic tang of blood. However, after their second eldest had fallen soon after their first, when the dirt was still damp on their marked graves, they realized there was a sixth to come. Stricken, they fretted over the future of their young babe, and when she was born, they sighed in relief for she was nothing like the others, nothing like them—with hair the brown of a wren’s downy body and eyes that were a bright, shining blue, Margarete or Molly, as they would come to call her, was sugar, spice, and all things nice.

What they had failed to realize in that moment was that although her looks were completely her own, she had indeed inherited their proclivity for blood. When they resigned her to her meager fate, they starved her of it and as a result she became ravenous and wanting. 

                —II.

She arrived with a ruddy guard in tow, about to jump headlong into a fever let in by a chill. Gaunt-faced, she knocked on Margarete’s door, begging for some semblance of relief if not for herself then for the poor babe kicking forcefully in her womb. It was a simple case in all honesty, one that could be resolved easily with no testament to her skill—except if the noblewoman were to veer sharply in another direction, exhibiting symptoms more resembling death than life. It was a challenge the young girl accepted readily, all too eager to prove her worth, but not as a Healer like some would believe, but as something else altogether.  

Her slender hands were placed protectively around her belly, half-swollen with a child’s growing form—the miracle of life, Margarete thought sardonically, though her face expressed nothing except insincere joy. “Don’t you worry,” she stressed, lips pressed into a sly smile, “I will take care of you, just put your faith in me.” 

The noblewoman shivered under Margarete’s scrutinizing stare—perhaps she knew deep down that this was end. As she tucked her long legs together and lied down passively, hands still hovering around her unborn child, she murmured a quick and simple prayer to her saints. 

Margarete was careful to go gradually—after all, her assigned guard was stationed outside—and beat by beat the woman’s heart slowed. It was a subtle feeling, not too unlike the apprehension she had felt in coming, so much so they were indecipherable from each other: the dying and the fear. 

First she fell into a slumber, drawn in by the lull, and then she gasped as her lungs struggled to draw a breath no longer propelled by the rushing of blood. In a matter of moments she had gone from living to dead and with a pleased smirk Margarete looked upon her hard-won triumph, now pale and still. Schooling her features to reflect a mask of terror, she peered out the door, her voice even trembling as she spoke, “Something awful has happened—quick, get your superior!”

He ran down the hall and around the corner, gone as soon as she finished her sentence. Then turning around, she looked back at the lifeless noblewoman—was this number two or two and a half?

               —III.

They called her murderess and gleefully she rejoiced. It was a nice change from what they used to say when they’d tell her she was like glass or a long bolt of uncut silk, but in their haste to compare her to fine things, they forgot that even glass could cut and silk could strangle in the right hands—well hers were ready, willing, and skilled enough to do just that. 

She felt his dark blue eyes bore into the back of her skull, likely wishing to crack it open on the granite floor of courtyard and spill the blood that pulsed within her. 

“I’m sorry Sir, for failing you so,” she told him one day when he insisted on knowing just what had gone wrong, “I am no saint, but if it provides you any comfort, her last moments were peaceful.” 

His jaw tightened, the muscles there taut and stretched; Konstantin was the very picture of restrained fury and she reveled in the ability to make a man—a general, in fact—feel so helpless and incensed. 

Where did the girl go; the one that was so full of sugar, spice, and everything nice? Well she was the first victim, strangled by her own hands and brute strength the day she donned that gray-sleeved kefta. She tried it their way through hard work and perseverance, but after that failed, it was time for her to show them what a grave miscalculation they made. Her proof was in the bodies and in each life that she took and she will continue until her heretic’s song is recognized as truth.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

She favors certain fruits, especially ones that are berries. When she bites into them, the juice drips down her chin and stains her lips and fingers red like blood.

In the more recent years, she has become cold and aloof—almost unrecognizable from what she used be, because in her quest to become her heart’s desire, she has sacrificed everything, even herself. All her old friends regard her with a great deal of caution, she seems off-kilter and slightly awry, so now she is more of a lone wolf which only further encourages her to spiral since there is no one really her stopping anyways. 

Although she wasn’t originally, now Margarete is more methodical in choosing her victims for fear someone will start asking questions about her less than stellar record. It wasn’t that she didn’t think of the consequences earlier, just that she didn’t care for them when the opportunity arose. In truth, she targets the fearful ones, finding their terror at her delectable. Often she’ll utter the line, “I will take care of you, just put your faith in me,” just to humor herself. 

She has never seen the Unsea, but oh how she yearns to. It’s a morbid curiosity of hers to see where so many have died, kin or not. While everyone tries to avoid it like the plague, she does not, but only when she’s rightfully a Heartrender will she visit the Shadow Fold.

EXTRAS: Nope, didn’t have anytime for them!

ANYTHING ELSE?: Either The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald or East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, HARANA!

You have been accepted for the role of DRUVIK JADEJA with a faceclaim change to Toni Mahfud. Admin Rosey: My sweet, beloved, incredibly flawed Druvik. I am absolutely thrilled to be entrusting him into your hands -- how could I not, after reading this beautiful application? From your promises to bring him to his knees, to your para sample that captured moments of his life more accurately than I could have imagined. Those moments, for me, were one of my favorite things about him. His moments with his family, under the blessing of the stars. Those, and the little headcanons that gave me a peek into what more there was to Druvik, are what sealed the deal. Thank you so much for beautiful application and welcome to Rule&Ruin! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Harana / K

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: she/her

AGE: 22

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: CST ! And I’m on summer break so i can get on pretty much every other day. Sometimes daily if the muse is strong enough. Weekends have a habit of being iffy for me (especially when the husband is home from deployment). But tbh I’ve never had issue with keeping up activity. If something RL comes up I always keep open communication with admins if I need to take a hiatus.

TRIGGERS: OMITTED

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS:

http://orionmassetti.tumblr.com/ (active)

http://havenromulus.tumblr.com/ (defunct)

https://militansdeo.tumblr.com/ (active)

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: Druvik Jadeja

D R U V I K : Musical, friendly, dynamic–named after his grandfather. And it was ill-suited for the man. Druvik’s grandfather was prone to drawn out bouts of silence, often sitting apart from the family with a pipe hanging crooked from the corner of his mouth, letting the smoke spill in lazy waves from cracked and parted lips. He preferred to leave Druvik’s grandmother to fill in the spaces of conversation.

But unlike his grandfather, the name suited Druvik. As a baby he’d toddle to the knees of strangers, charming patrons with his deep-set dimples and a wide toothless smile. And as he grew older, the meaning of his name dazzled in the crowds he captivated (dynamic), in the friends he caught, tangled, kept close (friendly). Even his most simple and innocuous movements seemed to follow the beat of some quiet song only he could hear (musical).

J A D E J A : The stories of the Jadeja clan extended as far back to the first stones set in Os Alta. The earliest have them in Caryeva, where the tales claim a golden goat blessed their family with their first herd, five animals for five sons and their families. From there, the stories traveled to Keramzin where the stars taught them to dance. In Os Kervo, the moon shared it’s music, the solid, slow slap of their feet keeping time in the dirt to the sweep of their arms and the swaying of their hips. Then Novo-Kribirsk, where the ocean waves gifted them with sea glass to sell and shells to weave in fabric and fine jewelry. The stories of their family flowed from Vlensk, Tsibeya, Os Alta, Poliznaya, then back to Caryeva again. While some of the nomadic families eventually settled in cities and small towns, the Jadejas made the entirety of Ravka their home, and would have continued to follow the path the stories of their forebears had set for them if it wasn’t for the Fold.

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?

Okay. I have a type. I enjoy them spoiled, over dramatic, clever, prone to exaggerated displays and using five words when one would have been enough. Granted, Druvik doesn’t fit all of those traits. But really–when I read his bio, I immediately added it to my bookmarks and said, “Yes. This one. Good.” Because I usually know after a first read if a character will fit my writing style. And Druvik will only bring me joy and pleasure to write.

And it helps that he has flaws I relate to. His impossible attempts to please and win everyone over. His difficulty saying no and his attempts to do the right thing, despite it not being exactly what is needed or even wanted in the moment. Druvik’s pursuit of personal pleasure has made him ignorant to the repercussions of his selfishness. And this leaves me with so much to work with.

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

I.  DRUG TW: The drug was called Magha. It came in small, clear and corked bottles, the liquid inside it a deep shade of violet, nearly blue while held up to the light. When shaken–glittering particles bubbled up from the bottom and swirled silver through the drink. Magha had a sweet flavor hitting the tongue. Not too cloying, more fluid than syrup but thicker than water. And once it settled in the stomach and seeped into the nervous system, saturating veins and weaving in with blood–oh, the impossible dreams it dragged out.

It was a clever little concoction. It’s makeup was based on a traditional Suli herbal remedy. But Druvik corrupted it’s natural makeup with the small science. It was disrespectful–tainting a medicine meant for healing, all to make a pretty coin. He was spitting on the history of his people. But Druvik didn’t see it that way. He’d convinced himself he was doing the people of Ketterdam a service. Magha dragged out pure joy from the most bitter of hearts. Any outside touch was pleasure. Any flavor to the tongue bursting and ripe. And for this small favor, wasn’t it his due that his pockets were made heavy with coin? The fingers that worked to bring them pleasure, surely they could be forgiven for bearing their weight in silver rings and milky and iridescent opals? And so Druvik lounged guiltless on his small fortune, a lazy and rapacious dragon. And his admirers slammed their fists on his doors, begging for more, always more, just one last taste of Magha.

And he abandoned them.

I want this sin to follow him to Os Alta. I want him to be forced to face the repercussions of his naive selfishness (he never intends to hurt). Druvik has strolled through life without a care of those caught in the wake of his self-centered world view, and I want it shaken by his past. He can only willfully blind himself for so long. There is a price for vanity, and perhaps it’s time for Druvik to pay it.

II.  All Druvik wants is comfort. After half his life spent suffering as a nomad, ill-suited for the sparsity of Suli life, he finally found it in Ketterdam. But he’s been forced to abandon it, slipping back to Ravka at the threat of discovery–both for being Grisha, and for manufacturing a drug so potent and addicting that once taken? Reality forever paled without it. And just the name of his new home–Little Palace–charmed him. Surely he would live like a prince? Instead, Druvik found himself slaving and sweating over poisons, his nails blackened by gunpowder and forced to serve in the Second Army as if he were something expendable and his face was meant to be scarred. It was too much like his past–the traveling, the grit, even if the Grisha were afforded a shabbier glamour.

So Druvik is terribly unmotivated. Careless and haphazard with his work. However if properly pushed, he is capable of creating weapons of extreme potency. Poisons that steal away the senses, and gunpowder that seeps into human skin, turning them into living bombs. But those moments are scarce. And he cannot always have someone at his side to push him to do his work.

So this can lead to dangerous consequences. Either his weapons backfiring and causing danger to those he works with, or his poisons proving unreliable, abandoning his fellow Grisha to precarious situations. He is a soldier now, and I want his eyes opened to the part he really plays as an Alkemi of the Second Army.

III. There is conflict between the First and Second armies. A rift between Grisha and those that see them as aberrations. But Druvik can’t be bothered. He thinks the rivalry is petty. He considers it something easily risen above, not even bothering to dissect the deeply rooted and historical reasons behind the division.

Druvik simply believes he is being the better man. That by befriending and loving both humans and Grisha indiscriminately, he is an example to be followed. But ultimately, he is Grisha. His usage of the small science will not endear him to everyone. I want him to trust someone who isn’t Grisha. To adore them, only to be used and discarded. For a man who abandons indiscriminately, I would like him to taste how bitter it is to be left behind, tossed aside, and seemingly forgotten by someone he considered a friend.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?: If it furthers the plot, of course! Murder away.

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

The day Druvik turned six there was a full moon.

Auspicious, his grandmother claimed. And the weather was mild, the winds cool but the sun hot, caught between spring and summer. Their caravan stopped for the day to celebrate, finding a small spring by a crag of rocks, shielding them from the wind. Auspicious, his grandmother repeated, and she pinched his cheeks.

Druvik’s mother took a handful of sugar and sprinkled it into a wooden bowl, the confection glittering like silver in the light (just as rare, just as precious) as she kneaded it into the flour and butter with hands that were calloused, cracked, worn. A Suli’s hands, ravaged by summer winds, the open sun, the constant tearing down of caravans and the chafe from the leather reins of mules. Druvik knew the sweet cakes would take all day to bake. And he hovered, breaking off little pieces with his fingers when his mother’s back was turned, crumbs catching on the corners of his mouth, the sweet bread melting on his tongue. He tasted nuts and dried berries, sugar and sticky honey.

For dinner his father cut generous slices of dried beef, frying them over the campfire. They sizzled and spit, sliding in their own fat like snakes. There was enough for their bellies to feel full. A change from the usual meager portions their family rationed out of necessity while traveling to the next populated place to perform.

They feasted. They sang. They danced. Not the gaudy and garish movements they performed for customers with the intent of earning coin. But dances passed down the line of Jadejas, each slow glide of arms, every shift of feet in the grass telling a story. Of life, of death, of love, of loss–and they moved in unison under the full moon and bright scatter of stars.

Later, when Druvik’s face was flushed from sipping his grandfather’s wine, he laid back on the grass with his head on his grandmother’s soft belly as she pointed to the stars. “That one. There, to the left. My gift to you, little Vik.” Bony fingers tracing back six stars, one for each of his years, the beginnings of the constellation the Suli called Magha–the bountiful one.

Druvik drifted off to sleep. He was half-awake when his father gathered him up to lay him next to his sister on the blankets. On his birthday, he felt important. Loved. Worshiped.

In the morning, the dream would melt in the beating hot sun and the unforgiving Ravkan plains.

—

Druvik was eleven when he first felt the stirrings of that desperate want, that growing appetite for more than the meager portions Suli life served him.

They’d crossed paths with a sizable merchant convoy, the cream colored tents somber and severe next to the mottled red, blue, green, and purple fabric his family tied down over their caravans to hold the attention of patrons. His grandmother knotted glass bells to their ankles. When they moved, there was music.

His mother told fortunes, face hidden by a worn jackal mask, practiced voice low and haunting as she sifted through the coffee dregs at the bottom of elephant shaped china. Her fingers held the teacups up by their trunks. Love, long life, wealth, prosperity–what their patrons paid with their copper coins to hear. And the merchants–Druvik tried not to stare as they stuffed their mouths full of fresh meat,  and filled their cups to the brim with wine. He turned his face when they carelessly spilled water while washing their hands, and observed with longing as they gorged themselves on cakes with white icing and biscuits topped with a generous scatter of brown sugar. More in one evening than his family divided among themselves in a week.

After dinner his sister danced, colored veils whipping like iridescent butterfly wings, her limbs gliding through the air like water. His father’s scimitars rolled off his muscled arms, spiraled through the air, landing on the tips of spread fingers.

Druvik’s performance was both danger and dance. And he picked up two small lamps by their chains, stepping up to a sizable group of merchants. A bow, then he whirled the fire through the air with the grace of falling stars, quick and bright and a bit too savage to be called beautiful. The flames smeared light in shapes of animals, flowers, harsh in the early evening shadows. Faster, faster, faster–until a thin sheen of sweat gathered on his neck, his chest, and he glowed like a young god in the slashes of light, the lamps spinning over his head, under his legs as he leaped over the merchants, their heads craning to follow as he landed lightly on his feet.

Druvik bowed low to the applause, little chest heaving as he snatched at breath. By the strength of their voice and the clapping of their hands, he knew he would earn well.

Later, as his family collected their coins, a man approached Druvik, kneeling in front of him with both fists extended.

“Pick one.”

Druvik tapped the man’s left hand, and it opened to reveal a silver dragonfly, its eyes green stones and its wings studded with blood red crystals. The man fastened it to Druvik’s hair.

“Boys as beautiful as you are wasted here.” The brush of stubble on Druvik’s cheek startled him as the man pressed a kiss there, before moving to join his companions.

Heart skipping, Druvik snatched the dragonfly from his hair and pocketed it. But his mother had seen. And as soon as they left to dress down into their usual cloaks she’d snatched it from him.

“But–that was given to me.”

“Everything in our family? We share.” She dropped it into their sack of coins. “What will you do with such a thing? Strut among the sand dragons and vultures?”

How terrible. How cruel. And Druvik swiped the back of his hand over his thick lashes, smearing the tears.

But it would haunt him–the man’s words.

Boys as beautiful as you are wasted here.

His chin stopped quivering. His mouth set, and his eyes grew resolute.

He deserved better.  

—

Falling in love was easy for a man like Druvik–who grew soft and pliable under attention. Whose devotion could be bought by trinkets and treats, metallic jewelry that reflected his pretty face and candies placed on his tongue, melting thick and saccharine down the back of his throat.

Druvik loved generously. But his attention was often spread thin, and he was fickle. Easily diverted. To have the undivided passion of his heart–there was a price. And fortunately for Druvik, many were willing to cater to the whims of a beautiful, young Suli boy, whose body moved like a large cat’s as he danced. Lithe, nimble, but with an undeniable force as his illusions scattered around him and the tent grew dark and dim, with only the fire in his hands to light the small space.

Many had claimed to love him, but only Darius had offered to take him away.

Ketterdam, Darius explained, was a city surrounded by the sea. Where buildings knocked against each other for space, and their doors gaped open to spit thick clusters of people out into the streets. Darius’ father was a merchant there, and at eighteen, Darius would soon follow suit. And Druvik listened as the man described the silks they would import from Shu Han, firebirds and dragons embroidered on the sleeves of robes, and the white jade bracelets that brought wisdom. Of Fjerdan metalworks, swords sharp enough to cut stone, rings with drops of blood stone, and marble rocks carved into wolves. And Druvik was charmed, eyes wide and dark in the flickering shadows of Darius’ tent.

“Someday–I want to see it.” Druvik lowered his voice, intimate and sweet. “For now, at least I have this.” He toyed with the white jade on his wrist.

“What if–” Druvik heard Darius shift, and he sighed as the merchant combed his fingers through his hair. Darius’ voice wavered in the dark. “Come with me.”

Druvik startled. How wicked. “Don’t tease.” Letting out a huff of air and drawing away.

Darius’ hand found his wrist, fingers tight, demanding, refusing to relent. “I’m not teasing.” The words came faster, as if he could stave Druvik’s doubt with a flood of promises. “I’ll provide your room. Your board. Anything you need. Just–please. Dance for me. That’s all I ask for.”

Druvik laughed, the sound low and teasing, but not cruelly so. And he pressed his open mouth to Darius’ collarbone.

“Dance with me then.”

The next morning, Darius went ahead. And as he promised, he secured Druvik passage across the True Sea several days later.

Druvik boarded the boat, fiddling with the white jade bracelet on his wrist. And he thought of firebird silks and of a city filled to bursting. Of how he could use his gift of the small science to draw the people of Ketterdam to him, devoted to the green glass bottles in his satchel, filled with his little magics, liquid illusions for them to suck into their lungs so everything brought bliss.

He did not think of his mother, father, or sister. Nor of his grandmother, weak and ailing

Stepping to the bow of the ship, Druvik simply saw the ocean. And it was beautiful, blue, and full of promise.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

-  Druvik is frightened of water. He never learned to swim, and stubbornly refuses to do so even with the lake so close to the Little Palace. He’ll dip his feet in, and gingerly descend until his waist. But if anyone attempts to draw him deeper he’ll quickly retreat. Surprisingly, this fear doesn’t extend to the ocean. He finds it too beautiful, and the prospect of new places waiting across the broad expanse of water diverts him.

- His grandmother was also a Grisha. As a young girl, another Suli had taken her in and trained her, their methods more in-tune with nature and the seasons. She tested all her children for the gift. Then her grandchildren. Only Druvik shared her skill of manipulating the elements. They made medicines to share and sell, crafted trinkets to catch the eye, and wove impossible details into fabric. Unlike the Grisha of the Little Palace, he and his grandmother never divided their skills into Durasts and Alkemi. They embraced their power as a whole. And their methods were unconventional, deeply rooted in history and tradition. Even now, as Druvik does his work in the Small Palace, his approach to Alkemi is seen as odd among his peers. He’s known to leave dangerous combustibles to steep for five evenings under the moon. For poisons to sit in the snow to freeze, taking them in to melt, then out to freeze again. Either there is meaning to Druvik’s methods, or it’s a testament to his skill as an Alkemi–but his poisons and powders have an undeniable potency.

- Druvik has always been the envious sort. He’s always pined for what he doesn’t have, and vies for things that others own. Clothes and jewelry, money and rare trinkets from around Ravka. This behavior extends not only to objects but to people. Druvik tends to gravitate towards the ones that shine brightest, stand tallest, those that take control and make decisions so all he has to do is shift along to accommodate. So it’s in his nature to sidle next to the more powerful Grisha. His adoration for the Sun Summoner and the Darkling is open and obvious. While he is Alkemi, he will often spend time he should be working in Durasts’ work stations, making small brooches of glowing, gold suns and white pearls for Gemma to pin in her hair or keftas, and heavy black rings with shadows swimming in the silver for Aleksander. Other Grisha might accuse him of currying favor. And he is, in a way. But he’d always loved the image Gemma and Aleksander present as leaders of the Grisha, and he’d never been very good at taming his affections.

- His work ethic is questionable at best. He has no love for creating weapons. He finds it barbaric. Tasteless. Druvik believes his small science was meant for pleasure not pain, to deliver bliss and not misery. So when tasked with Alkemi duties for the war, he often puts forth the bare minimum of effort. If given the right attention and motivation, he can be caught up in spurts of impulsive tinkering, afternoon hours bleeding into late nights until his work table spills over with pretty poisons and deadly, glittering powders. But he’s more likely to be found creating sweet addictions during work time than the projects he’s actually tasked with.

- He is notorious for currying favor among the nobles. They have power, prestige, but more importantly–wealth. And Druvik was always a man who enjoyed a good spoiling. So he is often found with small groups of nobles, earning an intimate spot in their circles with his pretty face and words dripping sweet and thick. He demurs when they offer gifts, but always takes them. He’s been known to find himself patrons among the nobility to fund the luxury he enjoys.

- He loves people. Adores them. Is devoted to many and lavishes each with positive attention. But ultimately, Druvik seems to only consider them additions to his own narrative. He’s never been tethered to anyone. Not even Darius, to whom he owes his escape from the Suli lifestyle, abandoned in Ketterdam with the rest. Ever fickle, ever advancing in that constant need satiate his appetite for life and lavishness, he is blindsided by his passions. He doesn’t purposefully ignore the repercussions he wrecks among those he leaves behind. Perhaps, despite abandoning his Suli way of life, it continues to reflect in the way he moves forward, never wasting time looking back.

EXTRAS: I have a pintrest board here.

ANYTHING ELSE? OMITTED.

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, CHARLOTTE!

You have been accepted for the role of ARINA ZAHKAROV with a faceclaim change to Eleanor Tomlinson. Admin Em: Charlotte, with each layer expanded upon in your application, it became clear you understood Arina perfectly. My heart fluttered at your para samples - you nailed her voice, her innate confidence that could be misconstrued as cockiness but is actually self-awareness, her complete disinterest in anything but the morbid, and perfectly described how, so far, she has been untested in her morality. But most importantly, you nailed her innocent, almost child-like fascination with death and all its tenets, describing her as beautifully as she would describe dying. I can’t wait to see Arina on the dash! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Charlotte

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: She, her.

AGE: Twenty two

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: GMT. In regards to my activity, I’d say that I’m a solid 6. I like to spend as much time as humanly possible rp’ing, but I do have a full time job and sometimes a social life. I can dedicate a couple of hours each evening, but I can be a more constant presence when I’ve got a day off work.

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: Calista, Fallon

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: Arina Zahkarov

Little doves decorated the nursery, which housed the flame-haired girl, a child Liliya and Anatole Zahkarov had longed for - the fruit of their long enduring love. Named for soft contentment, the line between boredom and excitement, an expression of happiness that could be found in the most gentle of natures. Her name was pocketed by her mother many years before, when Liliya had held dreams of having a daughter to walk in the shadows of her own footsteps, cut from the very cloth her mother swathed her own body in. But despite the restful state of her name, Arina’s mind has always been anything but peaceful. Others have often gazed at her so strangely. Perhaps they wondered how someone so odd, could come from a line so poised and admired. It’s true that whilst her entire existence caused uproar within her home, tranquility was found within her very soul, so she was not named poorly. Curled up by the fire, books splayed over her lap, that was her gentle solitude.  The mind housed within her body has always been curious, people using the word inquisitive as an insult thrown towards her - how blind they are.

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?

To say that there were an abundance of characters I gained muse for would be an understatement, the broad spectrum of personalities and plotlines made it difficult to choose the one. However, there was something about Arina that just kept tugging me back to her biography. For me, she’s a challenge, purely because she’s not feather light in her softness or drenched in the blood of her enemies, two tropes that I have an affinity for. Her oddball nature is beguiling, and I was certainly looking to break out of my comfort zone. I felt Arina was striking in the sense that I admired her curiosity and disinterest in worldly goods, but that is just a smidgen, or speck of who she is as a person. Her reliance has always come from intelligence, and resources surrounding her. She’s passionate, but not in a quintessential way. For someone steeped in life, the very core of her soul alight with passion and vibrancy, she found interest in something which tore away life from another. I see her restlessness which comes from mundane living, the desperation to constantly learn and uncover. There’s an innocence in her passion, her interest in the subject vibrant and her excitement for it untamed, and Altan’s offer was like giving her the cookie jar. You could say that her devotion to her interests is what drives me to apply for her, there’s something incredibly endearing about her.

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

ONE - Knowledge is power, it’s a motto that Arina has lived her life by. Malevolence is not in her bones, but curiosity certainly is. There’s a fine line between science and cruelty, at least where she is concerned. Her fascination with the way in which poison attacks the body, has driven her to accept an offer that she never thought possible. Never satisfied by the answers she’s gained, Arina has a lust for more information and that drives her every day living. Materialistic items may not have made her greedy, but information certainly has.  Thus far, this has all been a positive journey for Arina, and she’s never had to question her own morals in her process of discovery. Someone could very easily ask her to poison someone, not for the purpose of science, but as a means to an end. I want to see the other side of Arina’s choices, the reaction to every action. Perhaps her curiosity of poisons takes her to a new line she never thought she’d cross, and then from there it’s whether she will continue to fall down the rabbit hole. Afterall, it’s a slippery slope.

TWO - Self indulgences and the pleasures of the world have never been a desire of her’s, material items considered frivolous and the company of others only pleasant when stories, facts and resources are provided from the other. Relationships have always been a difficult task for Arina to manage, from the connection she had with her parents to even making friends. The world has viewed her as odd, and she in response  viewed it as a nuisance. I’d like to push Arina out of her comfort zone, more than it’s already been tested. Shona is a representation of her attempts to have some sort of connection with another person, but I’d like to see her in a setting where she’s forced to find kinship in someone she would not have expected.

THREE -  Arina has for a long time felt confident that she is best served where she is, studying as she does. Her interests have been unwavering since she discovered them, and her abandonment of them would certainly not be willing. At some point, I would like to see her needing to set aside her own passion for something deemed a necessity, that does not cater to her wants.  With poisons and knowledge, Arina feels comfortable and that’s where any confidence or wit is found, because her years of learning have provide her with the ammunition to have a strong view on her worth. What if she were moved from the Little Palace, to the unknown, where her studies are not as they are now.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?: Maybe. Aside from illness or a long life lived, I cannot imagine Arina dying. With some characters, those broken birds or bold beings thinking themselves god’s instead of men, I can see it. For me, Arina has a lot more to discover and uncover. I suppose it would very much depend on the situation because right now I can’t imagine  a scenario in which I would find it fitting for her to die.  I mean, I’m saying this, but if Arina would to ironically die by poison, I’d be down with that.

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

Triggers: blood, death, needles.

ONE

Water droplets fell in rhythm, a continuous tempo vibrating around the room, which seemed to echo every noise that fell into the void of silence, and came out louder and bolder.  Puddles splashed beneath her feet, licking the bottom of her Kefta as she descended down the stairs. Her fingers wrapped together, anticipation caused a bundle of nerves to flutter in the depth of her stomach. In all her dreams, she had never expected something so exciting to present itself as a viable opportunity. Taking chances did not come naturally to her, but she leapt forth and clasped with both hands, not allowing it to pass her by. There was something dark and dismal about the place, setting a melancholic aura over the room. In spite of this darkness, she felt a lightness to her movements.

Clearing her throat, she tucked the book closer to her chest, all her findings scrawled on the pages. She heard screams far off, which sent a string of chills down her back. Hairs stood on the back of her neck, but she did not allow her nerve to be lost. Whether she aided them or not, the fate of those she would work on had already been decided.The archway which led to the line of benches, presented a haunting sight - but she would never turn and flee. Her interests were particular, her passion deeply embedded within the talent that she’d collected. Poisons were her calling, and live test subjects were an unknown dream.

Stepping down, she walked with purpose over to where Altan stood. A concoction of potions had already been mixed, each one labelled differently. She wondered how it would affect the blood, the different organs of the body. When pouring snake venom into a dish of blood, she’d watched with fascination as it solidified before her eyes. Attacking the body with something so subtle was an art, beautiful, captivating and utterly beguiling. A wash of poison across the lips was enough to starve a man of  his life, taking away their last breaths before they even realised it had been planned.

Placing down her books on one of the benches, her head turned towards the subject, remorse void from her eyes. It was not as though she were taking the life of someone valued, someone worthy of redemption - each one was a criminal, bound to a death sentence. Not all poisons would be quick, not all would be painless, but that was the purpose of her tests. A discovery unlike any other, and she would be the one to uncover the secrets - that was her prize in life. Some could writhe in the fabrics of their riches, decorating their bodies with a thousand jewels, but it would be her who found a fulfilled life.

“Are you ready?” The voice of the Corporalki asked, looking at her with a sternness. Intimidation did not rise, for she merely pulled out a vial, trying to suppress the smile of excitement. To others it might have seemed foolish, but the rewards and self gratification which came from such tests  would give her fulfillment, she hoped. Arina did not know whether it would be enough to keep her entertained for the rest of her life, but the wealth of knowledge which had yet to be discovered, certainly would.

“Absolutely.” A haze of focus fell over her features, replacing girlhood with a professional and methodical outlook on the situation.

First, she set about examining the body that she would be giving poison to, ignoring the hushed pleas of the man who waiting for his lethal dosage. It was important for her to know the physical state of her test subject, in order to then fully assess the damage.

“Damn you.” The man spat with rancour, fingers twisting into fits.

Sometimes monsters must fight monsters. The thought was disregarded easily, she refused to go back to the moral line that she was crossing, for it was for the importance of science that she agreed.

No soft words left her mouth as she gazed at him, before then turning to her wooden box of glass vials. Each one shone in different hues, some completely transparent whilst others glistened in hues of red and gold. Her most lethal, reserved for a later date, was the colour of sparkling sapphires - certainly her favourite and most deadly.

“I’m glad you agreed to do this, Arina,” Darkness appeared to like the taste of Altan, for he too walked with a venomous gaze and sinister intent.  She rolled her shoulders, cracking her neck from side to side as her slender fingers plucked one from the box.

“It is well suited to my interests. You made a smart choice in me,” she responded with confidence, taking a moment to note down the details of the poison. Her notes would be a tool to refer to, when exploiting the various avenues which she’d descended, in order to achieve such results. Theory was surpassed by the practical approach.

Slowly dragging back the plunger of the needle, the contents of the vial were sucked up into the vessel. Focus stretched over her features, her brows knit together as she took a deep breath, before releasing it with a long sigh.

Injecting the poison into the man’s vein, she paid no mind to the patient’s attempt to shy away from her touch. It was only once every last drop was removed from the tube, that she then discarded the equipment and moved to collect her notebook once more. Everything needed to be recorded, each sign meticulously noted down, not a symptom missed. Her path to understanding death was just beginning.

TWO

Crumbs were brushed from her lips, powdered sugar leaving its trace across porcelain skin. If having a constant immaculate appearance was at the forefront of her mind, her own reflection would have been studied in the looking-glass. But instead, her head remained bent over the pages, fingers tracing dried ink, which embossed the once clean parchment. Words bled together, and despite the late hour, she could not staunch her fascination enough to retire to bed. Burning the midnight oil, heat pressed to her cheeks as she devoured the knowledge, wild flaming locks tumbling over her shoulder in a haphazard fashion. Aches formed in the shell of her neck, protesting from her need to bend over the desk for hours with no respite.

The clearing of a throat did not curb her interest in the pages. In fact, she simply leaned closer in an attempt to block out the blurring of people who brushed past her. Her interests meant very little to them, but she did not feel disheartened by it - she never had. Even as a child, when she’d shown more of an interest in literature than the soft sway of dance, and the dalliances of men hoping to catch her eye, the sneers others pressed to their tongues never once caused a tear to fall. She did not think them cruel, but ignorant instead. Her differences made her special, the encouragement fell heartily from her father’s mouth on many occasions when he’d heard the jibes of others - it affected him, more than it did her. It was not as though she’d ever seen fit to care about what others thought of her.

“Have you not given enough of yourself to those documents for one day?”

Despite the reluctance of her heart, she turned to face the intruder - for there could be no better word to describe them. Whilst the space itself was open to anyone who wished to wander through, she loathed being disturbed, unless she could pluck the mind of he who entered.  Wiping her hands down the purple fabric which encase her body, she lifted an expectant eyebrow.  Whilst she was not limited to two states, there was a clear divide in her nature depending on the situation. Either reserved and light in tone, or enthused with the passion for the subject, you could see whether Arina thought the conversation was truly worth her time, simply by the expression which painted her features - It was too often boredom.

“If I believed that, I would not be here,” she sighed, turning back to the documents. The listing of ingredients was intricate, like the skill she desired to master. Beautiful and deadly, her fascination for poisons spread like a virus, attacking each of her cells until she lived in hunger for the knowledge.

A melodic hum vibrated against her swell of her lips, attempting to ignore the figure, who seemed persistent in their decision to linger where they were not wanted.

“Is there something I can help you with?” She placed her fingers against the desk, agitation growing up the length of her spine. Time was better spent in other ways, and why waste it on the irksome task of meaningless conversation when her mind could be put to better use. Boldness licked the bottom of her lips, a lion creeping from the shadows to force another comment to leave her mouth, without full permission of her own mind. “Shouldn’t you be eating food and combing your hair, or doing any of the other mundane things that humans do?”

She caught sight of the arch of their eyebrow increasing, perhaps surprise had assaulted them. An intelligent mind was wrapped up in her head, a solitary voice barely used outside of the walls of The Little Palace. It was a sanctuary, her very own haven in which to learn and discover, she was not one for provoking the humans, even if she thought them uppity. Her parents were just the same, floating about with their wealth and prominence, her mother’s laughter carrying down the halls as she turned her nose up at those lesser. How cruel for her, that her own daughter should be labelled just the same.

“And I thought you were supposed to be intelligent.” Their name was known to her, since she’d been force fed the titles of those closest to the crown, and the inner circle titled as the nobility of court. Had she not been born with such gifts, Arina might have been forced to attend court - an arduous task.

Leaning against the dark wood, arms folded over her chest,she watched with minimal interest as Arisha walked forward, too boldly invading the space which Arina had titled her sanctuary. “That intelligence comes from books and parchments, which I’m trying to read,” she murmured under her breath,  curbing the need to roll her eyes in response. Who were they to her, really? Arisha was no master of small science, any source of intelligence had come from classic studies, and not those which seemed other worldly.

Witch was a friendlier term, when faced with many snide remarks growing up, not that her body had frequented the outdoors an awful lot to hear such slander. The closed, dogmatic views of those stuck in their old beliefs would never harm her, but that did not mean that she wanted anyone capable of such poison, anywhere near her.

“What are those that you’re reading?” A hint of curiosity laced the threads of Arisha’s voice, almost similar to the tones that caressed Arina’s own, when picking Adrik’s mind. There was nothing wrong in another being curious about her field of study, for it was a fundamental trait of her own self, but she felt mistrust over a human and the sincerity of their actions.

She did not answer the courtier, instead moving back to glance over the pages. In truth, the presence of another had disturbed the flow which she’d found, and tiredness had begun to fall over her. Whilst keen of mind, she was certainly not invincible.

Incensed by the lack of response, Arisha pushed forward to stand beside her - dark eyes bearing down on the mass of fiery waves that clung to the back of her head.

Pulling the parchments into a neat pile, lips set in a straight line, she continued to ignore Arisha, hoping that they would simply grow bored of trying and leave.

“I asked you a question.”

“And I decided not to answer,” she retorted, words clipped at the end. If she admired the persistance of them, no admittance would leave her tongue.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

ONE - Celebrations have never appealed to her, the significant one being her birthday. When she was young, her mother had made a grand affair of the occasion, her father sweeping her up onto his shoulder. It was the time when she’d worn pretty white dresses, with silk bows in her hair and been offered pastries and gifts until her hearts content. But it would not be long before she slipped away, even as a toddler, disinterested in the attention and frivolity of parties. After a certain age, Arina demanded that any mention of her birthday be ceased. It was not that she loathed growing older, but more that she did not care for the fanfare of the occasion. Her age would be marked down, but she refused to have a single well wisher utter words of ‘Happy Birthday’ to her. It became easier after she left her parents, for no one was interested in making the effort for her - much to her relief. Arina liked to be left to her own devices, in peace.

TWO - Despite her admiration for death and science, she does have a fondness for things that grow and the simplicity of animals in the wild. Perhaps because she too felt wild, free from the pressures of society that wished to act a certain way, when she declared that it would not be the case. With something of a green finger, Arina was the one to tend to the gardens surrounding her house and to admire the rabbits that frequented in a particular patch of land at the back. Others turned their nose up, calling them vermin and cackling at the thought of their demise. She admires the softness of such creates, comparing her own heart to theirs.

THREE - Being born into a human family has meant many changes came about when she was discovered, The biggest was her being uprooted from her family, although Arina felt certain that her parents would feel the loss more than she would, since she’d always felt like the outcast of the family. For many years she was their only child, and it made it harder to avoid their need for affection that she wanted to push away. It wasn’t that she was completely void of human emotion, or incapable or love…quite the contrary, but they didn’t understand her and therefore, she felt as though they never really knew her. She was grateful when her brother was born, completely human and capable of living up to their hopes, he was the prized child that they’d hoped for in her.

FOUR - Since childhood, Arina has gazed up at the stars with wonder, a vivid imagination creating stories in the constellations.  If the stars gazed back, what did they see? Years and years of history in the making, the study of death as she is now doing it. Even now, Arina loves to take her books outside and lie with the stars above her, and the grass below her - finding it comfier than the bed provided for her.

FIVE - After leaving her own family, Arina never considered having a family of her own. Given her choice of lifestyle, she could not imagine a world in which she would be forced to play wife and mother, not that she has time for such things. But even so, there is very little intention to fall in love, since she loves her books instead. It may stem from others perceptions of her, since they saw her as an odd-ball and not a beauty, but she’s not shallow enough to let it concern her.  Arina has always been more concerned with the unknown, and the questions that needs answers, than any form of romantic or physical attraction. She knows that the latter would not come without romance, but she has very little time for that . Arina is content with her virtue, she quite likes that there is a part of her which is still innocent.

EXTRAS:

Mockblock ( x )

Morality Alignment : Chaotic good. A chaotic good character acts as his conscience directs him with little regard for what others expect of him. He makes his own way, but he’s kind and benevolent. He believes in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations. He hates it when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do. He follows his own moral compass, which, although good, may not agree with that of society.

MBTI Type: INTJ. Have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, organize a job and carry it through. Skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance - for themselves and others.

Westeros House: House Arryn. The Arryns have often been men and women of true worth, both wise and honest. The house has given birth to gallant knights and beautiful women, all of whom could be relied upon to take their responsibilities to the Vale very seriously. Unlike many other nobles south of the Neck, the Arryns carry themselves with little ostentation.

ANYTHING ELSE?

Can I please request a faceclaim change to Eleanor Tomlinson?

Thank you for reading my application. I certainly admire this rp, and will continue to do so, even if it’s from a far. I wish you the best of luck, and hope that it will flourish.

Choosing a favourite book is extremely hard! Can I be really cliche and say Gone Girl? That one gripped me from start to finish, but I’ve got a list longer than my arm of books that I love.