tarot headcanon prompts
@helhund asked: the fish ; the bear // for aventurine!
the fish: the fish becomes lost without clear goals and intentions. forever swimming in life’s current…is/was your muse lost? what are their intentions and motivations to keep moving forward?
Aventurine has been extremely lost for a long time. He's always found some way to keep moving forward and keep persisting despite everything life has thrown at him, but that's really all he's been doing—fighting to continue on, but with no real understanding of why he even wants to continue when it seems almost impossible some days.
All the guilt, sorrows, regret, and pain take their toll on him on a daily basis. Each time he's able to take another step forward, it's because someone else has given him a reason to do so, and that's his only real source of direction. He leans on others for this far more than he'll readily admit, even if it's in the most simple or subtle of ways:
Buttering up a new client for work could give him the motivation to go out for a nice fancy dinner with them, or he'll see Ratio doing research on something and inadvertently pick up a new interest if it catches his attention. Maybe he'll notice Topaz is running low on treats for Numby and stop by a store before or after work the next day, then remember he needs something for himself too. With the exception of dangerous gambles and games of chance, in his eyes, his goals and needs always, always come second to those around him.
His biggest reasons for continuing on in spite of it all are, in fact, the people around him. Even when he had no one else, he still had the promise he made to his sister all those years ago. When his only other comfort was that the blood on his hands wasn't his, he kept going for her, to honor her memory—to protect himself and keep the Avgin alive.
the bear: after a long winter, the bear arises from deep slumber…when has your muse been on the cusp of new directions and personal transformations? how did this affect them?
The progression of 2.1's story and its conclusion from Aventurine's pov are the obvious answer here, but since what's next for him is still somewhat up in the air, I'd like to talk about something else for now.
By the end of his trial (which imo was really just a formal private meeting that looked like a trial so that Diamond and Jade could say they dealt with him appropriately if asked), Jade basically agreed to do everything she could to help him if he'll work for the IPC in return—which he more or less agreed to himself the second he said he wanted to talk to Diamond.
And with that all established, she told him to go pick clothes that he likes and choose a new identity for himself. We don't get to see or hear his response to this, as the scene ends a few seconds later, but even with him gambling on the outcome of working for Diamond, I doubt he expected "pick the clothes that you like" to be part of the deal. It's a minor detail in the grand scheme of his fate (more on that later bc tbh it deserves its own post), but it's also immediately giving him a form of freedom that he'd never had before.
He'd never been able to just...go shopping and get what he wants, no matter the price, with no concern for his own safety. To him, it was such a newfound luxury that he probably hardly knew how to handle himself at first. With Diamond and Jade supporting him, I imagine he was given the equivalent of the company black card in order to remake himself—new clothes (including some custom tailored pieces) and accessories, a whole array of skincare and makeup products, a hair stylist appointment to fix up his hair, official documents for his new identity, enough food that he shan't go hungry, even a whole home to himself and his choice of furnishings for it; probably a nice but standard apartment at first and then later one of the cloud-top mansions (akin to luxury penthouses, imo) on Pier Point once he fully became a Stoneheart.
This was a major turning point for him, because although he's still beholden to Diamond, it automatically made his circumstances vastly better by comparison. It was a chaotic whirlwind of an experience to go from slave to prisoner to pampered employee, and as long as he does his job, he'll never want for money or lack worldly comforts ever again. This is why he's loyal to the IPC—or more accurately, to Diamond (and Jade, by extension) specifically.
The tragic truth underneath all this newfound glitz and glamour, however, is that at the end of the day, it doesn't mean much to him. Sure, he's still extremely grateful, and he recognizes that, on a surface level, his life is vastly better than it used to be.
But he's got no one to share it with; no real reason to just sit back and enjoy it once in a while. Putting on fancy clothes and sipping expensive wine won't change the fact that he used to have manacles around his wrists, not jeweled bracelets. Using skincare products and makeup to minimize or hide any scars won't erase the memory of the injuries. Bathing in the finest perfumed bubblebath and soaking in hot water for hours can't truly wash away the blood on his hands.
And so he gambles with himself and his newfound wealth, chasing the temporary highs and lows and hoping that one day, he'll learn what true happiness feels like.
