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I just want to tell you off
Again, a sort of bizarre story. Mostly meant to highlight Roi's strange approach-retreat behavior when it comes to sensuality - he will abuse it on stage and in music, but is nearly a prude in every other aspect (...but not entirely). Probably breaks too much fourth wall to be a true canon story.
Series: Arcadia (maybe only a month or so before he gets to Eurydice)
Character: Roimata
"I don't trust passion," Roimata stated. It was late one autumn night, roughly an hour after his set was over.
"Really?" The student he spoke to, a young woman named Isa, rest her chin on her palm and cocked her head. "An attitude like that, and you still land gigs?"
He smiled, offering only mystery, and sipped again on his drink. He suspected that the grapes in Heracles grew on poison ivy, but still drank the wine as to not be rude. With both his tips and the wine in such a poor state, Roimata didn't plan on staying on the planet longer than two more weeks. Besides, the military facility seemed to loom over him, even if not in its actual presence. He found this all to be a shame because the people of Heracles were becoming his favorite to converse with. The young people did not live in idleness and did not hunt for idols, but understood the meaning of work, and when he played they understood that he was doing his job, and by and large did not harass him after his shows. On this night, he only had a little blonde barmaid hovering around his table, and another young woman, about his age, sitting with him and offering from her bottle of local port.
So far, he had enjoyed her company, especially her insight about the planet's politics. He noticed Isa giving the little blonde barmaid some stares that would not be approved by Sin's prescribed social code, and in turn he felt more at ease to speak with her. Not like the wine hadn't had some small influence. Roimata bent an arm behind his head, and gave away only a fraction of a smile.
"I don't trust it," he finally continued, "but that doesn't mean I won't still sing about passion, and what it inspires. Besides, if an artist prescribed to everything he sung about, we'd all be singing in jail cells."
"Passion is a kind of violence?" she asked.
"Nearly. Passion is an exaggeration of emotion, a storm of disregard bent only on swift personal gratification. It shouldn't be acted on any more than a rage should." He took another long sip of his wine, out of habit letting the acid taste of it roll over his tongue. "It all leaves about the same damage."
Isa leaned forward in her seat. "What emotion is passion an exaggeration of?"
"Love, lust, understanding." He leaned back in his chair so that his neck was tilt back into his folded hands. "But those distinctions become confused in passion, so you can't tell if love guides you rather than lust. Lovers may meet through a profound understanding, then later dismiss it unrightly as only physical. Or, more commonly, they meet in a passion, only to find no emotional quality to satisfy them after."
She remained quiet and thoughtful, though briefly. "Understanding. Is it so important to you to know exactly what your lover feels and thinks?" As Isa spoke, he heard her shuffling in her seat. Perhaps out of it, though to where he could not guess. "To predict them?"
Roimata couldn't pinpoint the unease her words inspired in him. "No. At least, I don't think-"
One of her fingers pressed over his lips then, silencing him. Isa leaned close to him, smiled at him, then her hands folded over his shoulders, and she closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his. His hands and feet twitched up in the air, hesitated, then sunk back into his seat when he decided he wasn't being murdered. Her mouth was an open invitation, goading him in his moment of hesitation until he felt won over by her utterly. She grazed the hair at the back of his head with her fingers and he had to stop himself from groaning rudely, though he did move his hand over her back and clutched her in turn, taking a handful of her shirt.
And right then, she abruptly withdrew what she had offered, taking back the gifts of her lips and fingers alike. Though she smoothly removed herself back to her seat, this all struck Roimata as a jarring blow. Unaffected, Isa smoothed out the front of her dress shirt and trousers, and sat down at her seat once more. He watched her, his eyes absolutely stunned out of their usual heavy-lidded gaze. When the barmaid came back around (undoubtedly more from curiousity than professional courtesy), Isa called for a glass of water. Roimata kept his hand over his chest as she waited, not believing the little heaves he still breathed in.
"You speak prettily, but I rather think that you have a problem with control," Isa stated. He also could not believe in the cold, casual tone she suddenly lectured him in. "You don't like any sensation that even resembles a loss of control over your will. Even if you had not explained your idea of passion to me, your body language would have told me."
She lifted two fingers. "You give yourself two options. You close yourself off from the possibilty of desiring another. Perhaps you seek perfection in another, chasing the unchasible and telling yourself you'd be satisfied with nothing less." He saw Isa's eyes flick over his shoulders and neck, and only then Roimata realized at how utterly he had tensed up.
"The second," he requested, coldly.
"Otherwise, you would rather have your will compromised so that you may argue you had no choice at all. You are waiting to be overwhelmed by the passion of someone else, rather than producing your own and risk being wrong about it later."
Even Roimata had to draw from some secret reserve of strength in order to maintain his grace. "And how would that protect my interests?"
"It protects your conscience, or pride. Whichever keeps you so uptight." She grinned as she chewed on an ice cube. "What regret could you have if you didn't make the first move?"
He kept silent and still, not betraying anything further to Isa. "You said you are a student of psychology?" he asked.
She nodded. Roimata then stood up from his seat, leaning forward so he could push his half-emptied glass back at her.
"Then I regret not asking about the strength of this wine when you offered it."
Meme questions!
9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.
I like taking and breaking archetypes, or at least using them and then rotating them around a little so that you see a slightly different angle. At best, I like characters who are difficult to distiguish as true opposites to their archetype or somehow redefining it. By that I'm trying to describe Warren, who on one hand is a HORRIBLE Prince Charming, as he is about as charming as a brick to the face. But at the same time, he is honestly valiant and honestly very concerned about the state of the world and of his kingdom, and wants to ride in and save it for reasons mostly unrelated to his ego. So at the same time his is a good Prince Charming. Perhaps just better at the Prince part than he is at the Charming. Similarly, I consider Galen to be such a cross-hatch of traditionally masculine strengths and weaknesses that it's hard to tell if he's a macho-man played straight or inverted.
Deon was created in two hours, and I still remember the process fairly clearly. First, I decided that Kingdom needed a summoner, and it also needed a jerk. I decided I wanted a Hispanic char too, cause that was different territory for me. I usually go for a name next, and since I actually thought he'd be a Clay element at first, I gave him the last name 'Barros', which means 'clay', 'mud'. But then I was flipping through first names and saw 'Deon' on the English list, and because that name is related to 'Zeus', I got a brainstorm (hurr) and thought that plasma might be a cooler road to follow, since it was again something in different territory than I was used to (I still rely on the Wikipedia article to figure stuff on it out). After that, I started puttering with his hobbies and hang-outs - I decided that he was in track early on, and from there I thought a javelin was a neat weapon. At the time, I was really into Death Note, so I actually took two aspects of Light for Deon - the idea of someone who takes to daemon-killing justice so eagerly because he is so bored with his normal life, and also he responds very strongly to challenges and opportunities to assert himself. Virtually everything else was inspired by the image of the super-stereotypical college jock boy - even the sideburns, cause I don't know about anyone else but I've seen more than my fair share of bad college-aged sideburns on guys trying to find ways to stand out. Bright orange hair because I was pretty sure that wasn't a popular hair color in RP - it honestly was not until Kol pointed out Ichigo that I realized the similarity.
I consider Deon to be both a stereotype, and at the same time a reversal of the stereotype. Stereotype in stuff like his slacking despite being smart and being disrespectful to everyone and SHOT WARS, but unstereotypical COMPLETELY in his very serious commitment to Hunting and relic-making, and his surprising lack of ego during the thick of battle (as he doesn't like to waste time in battle talking when he could be stabbing something).
So basically I shoot for some twists, but not enough to be absolutely obnoxious and Mary Sue about it. I can't really describe this well XD Also in RP, generally when I am going for a second or a third character, I aim to create a foil of the first. So you get Warren and Vay, who are opposites in pretty much every aspect, or Galen and Julian, or Kaz and Mulli, or Deon and Val. Novel characters operate in the same way - if I create the lead character, then everyone after him is probably the opposite of him, if only in one trait (in Pandora, the main character is notoriously lazy and passive, and by contrast everyone close to him is active and aggressive).
WHEW. I COULD GO ON BUT I HAVE WORK IN A FEW HOURS D:
Series: Arcadia (maybe only a month or so before he gets to Eurydice)
Character: Roimata
"I don't trust passion," Roimata stated. It was late one autumn night, roughly an hour after his set was over.
"Really?" The student he spoke to, a young woman named Isa, rest her chin on her palm and cocked her head. "An attitude like that, and you still land gigs?"
He smiled, offering only mystery, and sipped again on his drink. He suspected that the grapes in Heracles grew on poison ivy, but still drank the wine as to not be rude. With both his tips and the wine in such a poor state, Roimata didn't plan on staying on the planet longer than two more weeks. Besides, the military facility seemed to loom over him, even if not in its actual presence. He found this all to be a shame because the people of Heracles were becoming his favorite to converse with. The young people did not live in idleness and did not hunt for idols, but understood the meaning of work, and when he played they understood that he was doing his job, and by and large did not harass him after his shows. On this night, he only had a little blonde barmaid hovering around his table, and another young woman, about his age, sitting with him and offering from her bottle of local port.
So far, he had enjoyed her company, especially her insight about the planet's politics. He noticed Isa giving the little blonde barmaid some stares that would not be approved by Sin's prescribed social code, and in turn he felt more at ease to speak with her. Not like the wine hadn't had some small influence. Roimata bent an arm behind his head, and gave away only a fraction of a smile.
"I don't trust it," he finally continued, "but that doesn't mean I won't still sing about passion, and what it inspires. Besides, if an artist prescribed to everything he sung about, we'd all be singing in jail cells."
"Passion is a kind of violence?" she asked.
"Nearly. Passion is an exaggeration of emotion, a storm of disregard bent only on swift personal gratification. It shouldn't be acted on any more than a rage should." He took another long sip of his wine, out of habit letting the acid taste of it roll over his tongue. "It all leaves about the same damage."
Isa leaned forward in her seat. "What emotion is passion an exaggeration of?"
"Love, lust, understanding." He leaned back in his chair so that his neck was tilt back into his folded hands. "But those distinctions become confused in passion, so you can't tell if love guides you rather than lust. Lovers may meet through a profound understanding, then later dismiss it unrightly as only physical. Or, more commonly, they meet in a passion, only to find no emotional quality to satisfy them after."
She remained quiet and thoughtful, though briefly. "Understanding. Is it so important to you to know exactly what your lover feels and thinks?" As Isa spoke, he heard her shuffling in her seat. Perhaps out of it, though to where he could not guess. "To predict them?"
Roimata couldn't pinpoint the unease her words inspired in him. "No. At least, I don't think-"
One of her fingers pressed over his lips then, silencing him. Isa leaned close to him, smiled at him, then her hands folded over his shoulders, and she closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his. His hands and feet twitched up in the air, hesitated, then sunk back into his seat when he decided he wasn't being murdered. Her mouth was an open invitation, goading him in his moment of hesitation until he felt won over by her utterly. She grazed the hair at the back of his head with her fingers and he had to stop himself from groaning rudely, though he did move his hand over her back and clutched her in turn, taking a handful of her shirt.
And right then, she abruptly withdrew what she had offered, taking back the gifts of her lips and fingers alike. Though she smoothly removed herself back to her seat, this all struck Roimata as a jarring blow. Unaffected, Isa smoothed out the front of her dress shirt and trousers, and sat down at her seat once more. He watched her, his eyes absolutely stunned out of their usual heavy-lidded gaze. When the barmaid came back around (undoubtedly more from curiousity than professional courtesy), Isa called for a glass of water. Roimata kept his hand over his chest as she waited, not believing the little heaves he still breathed in.
"You speak prettily, but I rather think that you have a problem with control," Isa stated. He also could not believe in the cold, casual tone she suddenly lectured him in. "You don't like any sensation that even resembles a loss of control over your will. Even if you had not explained your idea of passion to me, your body language would have told me."
She lifted two fingers. "You give yourself two options. You close yourself off from the possibilty of desiring another. Perhaps you seek perfection in another, chasing the unchasible and telling yourself you'd be satisfied with nothing less." He saw Isa's eyes flick over his shoulders and neck, and only then Roimata realized at how utterly he had tensed up.
"The second," he requested, coldly.
"Otherwise, you would rather have your will compromised so that you may argue you had no choice at all. You are waiting to be overwhelmed by the passion of someone else, rather than producing your own and risk being wrong about it later."
Even Roimata had to draw from some secret reserve of strength in order to maintain his grace. "And how would that protect my interests?"
"It protects your conscience, or pride. Whichever keeps you so uptight." She grinned as she chewed on an ice cube. "What regret could you have if you didn't make the first move?"
He kept silent and still, not betraying anything further to Isa. "You said you are a student of psychology?" he asked.
She nodded. Roimata then stood up from his seat, leaning forward so he could push his half-emptied glass back at her.
"Then I regret not asking about the strength of this wine when you offered it."
Meme questions!
9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.
I like taking and breaking archetypes, or at least using them and then rotating them around a little so that you see a slightly different angle. At best, I like characters who are difficult to distiguish as true opposites to their archetype or somehow redefining it. By that I'm trying to describe Warren, who on one hand is a HORRIBLE Prince Charming, as he is about as charming as a brick to the face. But at the same time, he is honestly valiant and honestly very concerned about the state of the world and of his kingdom, and wants to ride in and save it for reasons mostly unrelated to his ego. So at the same time his is a good Prince Charming. Perhaps just better at the Prince part than he is at the Charming. Similarly, I consider Galen to be such a cross-hatch of traditionally masculine strengths and weaknesses that it's hard to tell if he's a macho-man played straight or inverted.
Deon was created in two hours, and I still remember the process fairly clearly. First, I decided that Kingdom needed a summoner, and it also needed a jerk. I decided I wanted a Hispanic char too, cause that was different territory for me. I usually go for a name next, and since I actually thought he'd be a Clay element at first, I gave him the last name 'Barros', which means 'clay', 'mud'. But then I was flipping through first names and saw 'Deon' on the English list, and because that name is related to 'Zeus', I got a brainstorm (hurr) and thought that plasma might be a cooler road to follow, since it was again something in different territory than I was used to (I still rely on the Wikipedia article to figure stuff on it out). After that, I started puttering with his hobbies and hang-outs - I decided that he was in track early on, and from there I thought a javelin was a neat weapon. At the time, I was really into Death Note, so I actually took two aspects of Light for Deon - the idea of someone who takes to daemon-killing justice so eagerly because he is so bored with his normal life, and also he responds very strongly to challenges and opportunities to assert himself. Virtually everything else was inspired by the image of the super-stereotypical college jock boy - even the sideburns, cause I don't know about anyone else but I've seen more than my fair share of bad college-aged sideburns on guys trying to find ways to stand out. Bright orange hair because I was pretty sure that wasn't a popular hair color in RP - it honestly was not until Kol pointed out Ichigo that I realized the similarity.
I consider Deon to be both a stereotype, and at the same time a reversal of the stereotype. Stereotype in stuff like his slacking despite being smart and being disrespectful to everyone and SHOT WARS, but unstereotypical COMPLETELY in his very serious commitment to Hunting and relic-making, and his surprising lack of ego during the thick of battle (as he doesn't like to waste time in battle talking when he could be stabbing something).
So basically I shoot for some twists, but not enough to be absolutely obnoxious and Mary Sue about it. I can't really describe this well XD Also in RP, generally when I am going for a second or a third character, I aim to create a foil of the first. So you get Warren and Vay, who are opposites in pretty much every aspect, or Galen and Julian, or Kaz and Mulli, or Deon and Val. Novel characters operate in the same way - if I create the lead character, then everyone after him is probably the opposite of him, if only in one trait (in Pandora, the main character is notoriously lazy and passive, and by contrast everyone close to him is active and aggressive).
WHEW. I COULD GO ON BUT I HAVE WORK IN A FEW HOURS D: