Alora Ozuna - On dreaming and rest... or the stages of sleep
I got carried away with the HLMCOctober day 21 drabble prompt... its 700+ words so idk categorically what this is. but... who cares :D im posting anyways
I've talked about Alora's dreaming a lot so here is my attempt at describing it in one piece.
A few hours after midnight, cloistered between warmed stone and blue curtains, high in the second tallest tower of Hogwarts castle, Alora Ozuna sat wide awake in bed, hunched over her journal and scattered parchment. Her quilt, which always felt too suffocating in the stuffy tower had been pushed firmly to the foot of the bed, as if to ward off any latent desire she had to actually sleep in what hours remained before breakfast.
If she had to be honest, she would admit that she couldn’t remember what it was like to desire sleep, as the nature of her dreams – which were unceasing – made rest a useless effect of sleep. She found that her most successful “rest” happened somewhere in between wakefulness and sleep, a feat only achieved through her current (perpetual) state of both mental obsession and mental exhaustion. This balancing act of walking the edge of consciousness was an equation that had taken years of nightmares and exhaustion for her to crack. For her this was the one concoction for restful “sleep” that remains uncontested, by her standards at least (though the many mind healers she has seen throughout the years would disagree).
Currently, she is resolute in reviewing her investigation notes and not falling asleep, but sooner or later her eyelids will begin to stutter – not fully closed but never open either, while the lines of consciousness begin to blur – never revealing fully what lies between it, but softly whispering its truth into her ears. She will listen until she can recognize its voice as her own, and can pull each word closer and closer until the binding circle of her consciousness is filled with the nuance of “dream-speak” as she would call it – only then does her mind feel unburdened enough to experience the lull of rest. It’s a familiar trance, one she would relate to what she experiences during her piano warmups, where scale repetitions turn into improvised melodies turned into pieces she knows by heart. This was the rest she craved at the end of each day, the sweet-spot of a conscious activity and a hypnotic automaticity.
Otherwise, in the case of falling into deep sleep, she would be wholly consumed by the vivid world she constructs in her dreams. To which waking up from does naught to abate the weight of its presence, as it can only tower over her to be faced head on. In her waking thoughts, the scenes are not butchered, but they are not precise either. Their image isn’t as believing or truthful as they would have appeared in her sleep, affording a clarity to the real feelings which constructed them. There in her clarity, specifically devoted to re-tracing her dream, she’d swipe her journal from under the pillow and prop herself up on her elbow to stare down at the closed book. Staring and biding, and only until the lines and planes in her vision were reduced to blurred silhouettes and her cup of rumination would fill to its brim, would she finally feel her fingertips find her pencil and the rest of her body would follow in line to begin writing.
This was how she would fill the early hours of the morning after a night of deep restless sleep, churning out words like butter until her brain would begin to feel like it. Dissecting her dreams through writing is a necessity if she is to go through her day without it lingering through her mind, distracting and overwhelming her to the point of feeling something akin to panic. Though make no mistake, releasing her flood of thoughts does not stand in place for the lack of rest that her dreams bring her. In fact, all it ever does is drain whatever energy she had left to expend on her daily activities, leaving her feeling like a bird without feathers. Either she spends her days plagued by unyielding dreams or as an irate and aloof husk of herself.
She doesn’t know why this happens, seemingly only to her, or how it happened. You see, most of Alora’s life has been like this. the feeling of being split into two different entities; There is her island, where her life began, and then the tower that sits upon it, where her life is contained. She cannot leave the tower, and every window shows a different view. The walls thick in its permanence, and its joints which appear to be endless; A seamless container which works hard to confuse its relation with its surroundings, to separate her from the completeness of being.
She gets the feeling that her vivid dreaming is an attempt to illustrate this completeness, but they're always too broad, too unfamiliar, and often times too horrifying to bare any resemblance of real life. During the early years following the Ozuna's arrival in Scotland, this particular instinct would cause her to want nothing more than to sleep. She became obsessed with their mystery and persistence - their uniqueness known only to her. There, contained in her dreams, is when her hunger for the truth truly ignited, where she learned that there is no mystery greater than ones own life.
today i woke up thinking : I am VERY certain nearly all Wizarding households would raise their children with the age old common sense rule of "DO NOT - under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - touch the dark artifact that is beckoning you softly. As a matter of fact, dont even look at it." i feel this is the wizard equivalent to "DO NOT touch the stove top, dont even THINK about going near an open flame."
Now i really cant get over how Sebastian takes the relic without an ounce of hesitation and there wasnt even the option to slap his hands reproachfully. Bro gets a signed letter from merlin himself begging, imploring the world to NOT TOUCH THIS RELIC.
Sebastian: oh boo hoo *yoink* :3 Hey - MC, got any idea how this thing works?
Isidora has been on my mind lately, so i had the idea of drawing her like Joan of arc and i think it turned out pretty good (also finally learned how to color with watercolor and Im so happy with the result).
And fun fact Isidora actually lived on the same Century as Joan of arc (15th Century ye i did the research).
and ive been cooking, i just need to reconstruct my brain as academia has the propensity to melt it away more than anything. I thought higher-education was supposed to make you a better person or smthn like that?
Finally decided to pull my head out of my ass and create an Ao3 account but what the hell is this about an invitation??? waitlist?? whats next an interview??
so jealous of people who can draw symmetrical eyes.
My brain refuses to understand.... i try everything but no matter what i do, theres always just one single eye that looks normal while the other is slightly larger or smaller, or somehow ended up in the wrong position.
ive worked my way around every aspect of the face ive had trouble with, quite successfully i think, except for these DAMN ORBS e.o
reminder to worldbuilders: don't get caught up in things that aren't important to the story you're writing, like plot and characters! instead, try to focus on what readers actually care about: detailed plate tectonics
Hello :D tysm for gracing my inbox ;u; <3 lets go!
What was the original thought that led to the creation of this character?
hmm well i wouldn't attribute her to a single thought, she was mostly born from the somewhat parasocial attachment i immediately formed with her since my first playthrough - the mystery of MC haunted me until i decided to go online and see about this fandom business i kept hearing about.
My desire to write a story for her is in one part, to write about and understand (ancient) magic, and to bring to life the buried imagination of my childhood self >:3 I have strong memories of my thoughts and feelings as a young child + nostalgia plagues me daily. So much of this has turned into inspiration for the direction of my story.
What was the first thing you decided on, the character's name, appearance, personality or their role in the story?
RAVENCLAWWW !!!! It was my first pick (since i think i would be ravenclaw) but after playing the game, I felt ravenclaw fit the story too well... thought that's probably because I already formed an attachment - i haven't changed it since. I tried all houses but could never get past the first trial because it didn't feel right to not have Hecat as head of house or to only have a fleeting connection with Olivander.
Bonus question: share any additional thoughts, art, favourite scenes, anything you've been waiting for a chance to ramble about
THE OZUNAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Her family!!! They are everything that she is! The whole family embodies independence and resilience, attributed to not only their small origins but their devotion and loyalty to each other - through land and sea they are there always with each other. Alora is nothing without them and she has a deep attachment to them.
Giving the Ozunas life was paramount to writing her HL story. I tried doing a vague and ambiguous introduction just to start, but couldn't get past it because it read as complete nonsense garbage to me hahaha. Now that I've more or less established them fully, my writing feels soooo much more cohesive and i keep getting more and more ideas (which is slightly troubling)
They will get their very own introduction post before i DARE to drop the fic because they deserve nothing less and i really like the idea of having character summaries/introductions, like in a play.
These are more focused on the background stuff rather than the usual "what would the character do in XY situation" kinds of asks. I've been looking for something like this for quite a while and in the end decided to make my own. Feel free to use, go wild, enjoy
What was the original thought that led to the creation of this character?
How long was the process before the character reached its final version? (or a version that would be clearly recognizable as the character?)
What was the first thing you decided on, the character's name, appearance, personality or their role in the story?
And reverse, which one of the four things did you struggle with the most?
How did you choose their name and why? Was it simply based on vibes or is there any specific meaning behind the name? Are the reasons behind their name different in- and out of universe?
What was the thought process behind their appearance? Did you go mostly for the aesthetic or are there other reasons they look the way they do?
What is an aspect of their appearance that you like the most?
What is the origin of their personality? And let's be honest - how much of it is projecting?
How big is their role in the story? Do they make a frequent appearance or are they a character with little "screentime" but big influence? Or are they just a favourite background guy?
What is their main character arc in the story? Where do they start and how do they develop? Do they get a happy ending or is their story a tragic one?
Is there any existing character from other media that your character resembles? Was the resemblance intentional or was it a coincidence?
Do you have a playlist for the character? What songs do you associate with them and why?
Do you have a voice claim for the character? What do you imagine the character sounds like?
Do you have any quotes tied to the character, either from the story itself or from another source that fit them?
Have you ever made a moodboard for them?
Is there any memes or running jokes associated with the character, both in- and out of universe?
Are there any motifs or symbols associated with the character? How are they represented, in their design, personality or in some other way?
Does the character have other characters connected to them? Do you have a family tree and "offscreen" connections made up for them or do they exist in a vacuum purely for the purpose of the story?
What is your general favourite thing about the character? What is your least favourite?
Bonus question: share any additional thoughts, art, favourite scenes, anything you've been waiting for a chance to ramble about
