△ Gaius, what was the stupidest thing you cried for?
△ really invasive question aimed at my character
Gaius would give this a 5, because it's an incredibly vulnerable question, but he's not really bothered by being vulnerable under the right circumstances. He's got a bad history of not being very well-tuned with his own emotions, and that's probably his biggest issue.
[Like you, I'm gonna give it a go at being in-character, playing with the same scenario you set up.]
Gaius brow furrows as he considers, deeply, the breadth of the question Aurelia's asked him, and moments stretch for an extended period, the bar noisy while the old centurion squints into the middle distance. His grizzled paw grips his empty tankard, but he pays it no mind.
"I don't really cry," he grunts. "So I can't think of a lot of examples of something stupid."
His attention returns to Aurelia, his pale blue eye focusing once more. "But I had a best friend, years and years ago now. Met him while I was in Blood, working as head strategist for some infantry warband what spent its time fighting ghosts. Nothing serious."
"But Albus and I met fighting the ghosts, group of warbands, outnumbered in some crypt out near the Wall, you know? It wasn't anything special-- my legionnaire, some bastard named Shanktooth, called them to attention to hear my plan of action. I wasn't super well-respected, back then. Only about 24 summers under my belt, and Iron-born. But the plan worked: we wedged through the ghosts and fought tooth and claw to get outta there, taking as many of em with us as possible."
He raises a paw to call for top-up, but doesn't stop his story. "That's not really the part that matters-- met Albus in the aftermath; apparently I'd been by his side for most of it. He heard my plan, heard me yelling orders, and watched me holding the line."
After a bit, the bartender fills his tankard, and the old charr takes a sip to wet his lips. "Albus was the picture of Blood, bloody huge fucker. And anyway, I couldn't shake his ass, after we got out of there, he latched on like a tick. I didn't really try that hard, anyway."
"After every deployment, we'd meet and shoot the shit. It was mostly him talking, but he'd always get this awed look whenever I told him about an engagement I'd planned. All our free time was spent together, really. Our oldest cubs are the same age, even. Then I transferred back to Iron when Shanktooth died."
"And then we didn't talk as much. Wasn't time for it, and I was trying to climb, but we sent letters. Then he got himself killed fighting ghosts a year or two before Zhaitan and Orr."
He shrugs in a manner potentially meant to indicate 'ain't that the way?' "But, few years back, my twins were born-- grand coincidence, they're his grandcubs--but anyway. Was going through some stuff in my office, and found a letter from him. A letter he had to have left himself, cause I never saw it. Just wedged into some old book of mine."
He shrugs again, as if Aurelia is familiar with just how many books are gathering dust in the shelves of his office.
"The letter said that he loved me. And I realized, I had no idea when he left it there-- old Bloodie would die before dating a letter accurately." He makes a face at that unintentional bit of humor and slurps his ale loudly. "Anyway, realized he'd died never knowing I cared, you know? Probably thinking we fell outta contact cause he told me."
"And I cried over that damned letter, cause it'd been twenty-five damned years, and if not for everything I've been through, I wouldn't know I'd loved him too."
The battlefield most nominally-- he's a business first, pleasure later. On that topic, the old man's got a strict no-sex-in-the-office policy! He's even pretty darn good at adhering to it!
16. Describe their least favorite/most embarrassing sexual encounter.
If Gaius has an encounter he would consider particularly embarrassing, it's likely to be his first. In spite of his reputation as Dad of All Iron, it had to start somewhere, and he was definitely a one-pump chump early on-- and that's after his bandmate finally got him to realize she wanted to smash.
22. Favorite thing/part about sex—intimacy, role-playing, etc.
For Gaius, intimacy and sex is about pleasing his partner-- it doesn't have to be explicitly sexual, he's all about doing or filling the roles that make his partner(s) fulfilled, excited, or content. Mr So Versatile He's Basically A Bottom-- Except When What You Want Is For Him To Top is really good at doing exactly that.
a big thing about him is that he doesn't necessarily even have to be into something in order to enjoy doing it; with the caveat that you kinda have to lead unless Him Doing What He Wants is what you want, he's usually down for Whatever.
Oryen, what do you think about your wayward daughter? Is she living up to your potential? What would have had her doing instead?
The russet-furred charr spares you a minute glance as he continues adjusting the bands holding the tufts of fur along his jaw--and indeed ignores you as he replaces the black ones with new blue ones that match his eyes.
"Lucasta, I presume is to whom your inquiries are directed," he says in a sonorous voice. "Where to even begin?"
"Rumor has it she is even involved in a cultural exchange project between Greetsglory's Flame and Iron-- the Luminary project, I hear. She will do well with it." Oryen folds an arm while resting his elbow on it to prop up his chin. Although he seems to be genuinely considering your question, his answers are elaborate; delays are intentional, not due to him need to think particularly hard.
"She married a rat, so any of her value has been flushed--no matter the potential for her skills and ingenuity... Had I had my way, she'd have cubs nearing adolescence by now--and if they're anything like Gaius's brood, they'd have all the talent a new generation of Flame would need for the times to come."
In reference to the idea of Gaius becoming khan-ur, I wrote up a (mildly edited speech) several years ago for it, as it's been a goal for his character for a long time!
"We are, and will always be charr. What I'm advocating for as khan-ur isn't to abolish our individualism; we've worked together, loosely, for almost two decades now, be it in in Ascalon, in the Pact, or in our civil war. I want us to share our values with one another. Some of you may consider me biased, given my ties to Flame, but by that logic, I have ties in each legion. Burn me if I know how many cubs I have in Ash.
This, however, is my point. We've mingled together for twenty years. Do any of you know how many cubs we've mixed? How many of our cubs have died fighting one another? Do any of you really think our cubs should have to do that in this, more peaceful Tyria?
We've all wondered what comes next-- it's why the Dominion formed. My position is that by integrating the legions, and by opening our borders, we can better learn, teach, and protect not only ourselves, but our neighbors, because just as Ash fought alongside Blood and Iron and Flame, charr have fought beside sylvari, and ogre, and even human.
It is my position that khan-ur shouldn't be a position of absolute power, but an advising role for the legions in how to best protect ourselves and our neighbors. We have all fought and sacrificed for Tyria. All of our cubs, charr or human, deserve the chance to live for Tyria."
the character everyone gets wrong
Crecia Stoneglow is not nearly as much of a boss bitch as people seem to think? And it's really interesting to me because IBS really wants you to think she's super awesome when in fact she actually is pretty awful to everybody she interacts with. I have SO much I could ramble about in regards to this, but I don't really wanna get into it here. And to clarify, like. People are allowed to like any character they want, it's more an observation that I think she's pretty poorly written and portrayed and that I don't think people see that.
3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr
Bad takes are a dime a dozen, but I think the worst is that crowd after VoE dropped getting angry that people enjoy Vloxx? And this is not really a take insofar as another observation of people and how they engage--there was a lot of "why do you like him, he looks like a bloated frog," and conflating people's enjoyment of him with misogyny and "why doesn't anyone like this unnamed norn woman". As if the two are related at all.
10. worst part of fanon
Like with my Crecia note, I'm gonna preface this with like. People can like and do what they want, it's fandom and I wouldn't be better than other folk if I tried to police (or at least publicly ranted about) what others were doing. But in charr spaces I see a lot of folk develop characters without fully engaging with the circumstances of what the charr lifestyle is, ie like. Yes, we know the charr are pretty awful people and live in a military industrial fascist--and at least historically-- expansionist complex, and that sucks, but there's so much room to play with that and have a character grow. But often instead of having a character organically come to understand that, it's "I'm making a charr because [i'm furry, gay, like orcs, etc] but I'm shaking my head the whole time to communicate with others that I disagree with their lifestyles," and the character simply knows the system's broken and behaves more like the player wanting to show they know it's wrong and acting through the oc, than the oc experiencing the system and struggling with and against it.
Gaius! What does a normal day of training look like for the Horns?
"Oh," The old charr blinks as he looks up from his paperwork and fixes you with his gaze. "Are you interested in joining us?"
"It actually depends quite much on the day," he rumbles, though he continues scrawling along on the page in front of him. "Every warband in every legion has specific drills they have to run a number of times a month; as a centurion, there are several legionnaires who report to me, and it's not uncommon for the Horns to run these drills in conjunction with one or more of these subsidiary bands I run administration for."
"Most commonly are formation drills and gun drills, which I'm actually exempt from, a rare case of such." He looks a bit thoughtful for a moment before continuing, "Among the Horns, I insist on fitness tests once a month, and as such there are weekly physio days. Martial and magical drills, where bandmates are paired off to spar; I expect reports on what areas members are looking to improve in."
Now, finally, he puts down his pen. "Everyone enjoys Royale day-- because it's not uncommon for me to be mentoring others from outside the warband, or even legion, the Horns like the chance to show off, and also beat the fur off one another's backs."
He keeps going, gesturing here and there about one exercise or another, and training exercises he especially enjoys (apparently the old man is a big fan of tag-team exercises) or ones certain band members dislike (Augustus dislikes anything that makes him have to work against Oberon or Gaius himself).
There's a particularly long explanation about how due to the fact that most of the bands under his purview are engineers, they don't actually like to be much involved in the more physical exercises with the Horns, as they're something of an outlier for Iron Legion warbands.
Serving up a 3 with a side of 9 and 17 for Gaius with both Rytlock and Efram 👀
oho you started strong lmao putting it under a readmore cause it's a lot!
Gailock!
3. In what ways are they good or bad for one another?
Starting with what's bad: I think they exacerbate one another's worst problems; Gaius makes Rytlock more insecure, and then more fractious. Rytlock's obstinance then makes Gaius more reclusive and reluctant to communicate (which he's already not exactly great at) and he turns to others and focuses his attention--read, obnoxious old-man tendencies--onto them to make himself feel productive.
As for the good: Rytlock gets Gaius out of his shell, makes him do things, be a bit more spur of the moment. They have fun getting into shenanigans together--the charr tutorial, Barradin's Vault, was specifically Rytlock asking Gaius out on a date. Gaius meanwhile pushes Rytlock to face things and ask questions and focus on improving. It requires a lot of introspection, but he does admire that about Gaius, and after a while, he works to emulate that (IBS in Gaius-canon).
9. How do they feel about each other's exes and people who flirt with them? Is jealousy an issue in general?
Gaius is generally indifferent towards the idea of Rytlock's promiscuity, but he doesn't handle it as well when faced with it. He didn't need excuses to dislike Logan, but a more culpable example is Crecia; while Gaius is admittedly being swamped with things during the Rally, he's distinctly uncomfortable with Crecia, and a particular part of it is because they're actually rather similar, especially in their driven attitudes. However, he sees how she treats him, and worries a lot about how he treated Rytlock.
Rytlock meanwhile, I imagine is more open to Gaius's promiscuity; though he can be territorial, he's very capable of acknowledging their legion separation and how Gaius has an active warband he's with, and so on. In practice, he tends to weaponize the fact that he knows Gaius isn't having a lot of sex outside of Oberon, and taunt Gaius with his own promiscuity in order to spur him into action. This has led to several hookups when they were "taking a break"; technically they never talked about the breaks to begin with, but it just led to more arguments.
17. Is there a secret that they don't dare tell the other? Why? Will they ever say it?
Surprisingly, and this goes for both parties, I don't think so. Gaius's struggle with communicating is more an issue of his alexithymia making him struggle to recognize his emotions--he doesn't realize there are things he needs to communicate because he views things in a very methodical lens. Rytlock, on the same issue, simply just has other things to do, and doesn't really even realize they're in a situationship, so. There's no room for love there; they've got shit to do.
Efrus!
3. In what ways are they good or bad for one another?
I highlighted Gaius's issues with experiencing his emotions in the Rytlock section: the thing is, his return to the Legions for the Rally is his point where he's identified this, and is working on improving his habits of compartmentalizing things he doesn't realize he's feeling. During the Rally, and later after his success at the Rally, Gaius is basically assigned to interface with Flame, because Smodur's testing his loyalties (and also it's funny. your shitty dad is here? go make nice with him) and he and Efram basically hit it off well from the get go, whenever Gaius isn't getting dragged away by something else.
The other challenge Efram presents is that he himself is open about his interests, and it forces Gaius to be aware of his own, and try to match that openness. It's growth for him because he's constantly trying to pay attention to how he feels, and then communicate that.
Gaius is good for Efram cause he keeps him pregnant.
9. How do they feel about each other's exes and people who flirt with them? Is jealousy an issue in general?
As we don't know much about Efram's past relationships (though Prisca existing as a younger cub tells us he's at least relatively active sexually/romantically) I can only assume Gaius is at least surface-level as indifferent as he is with Rytlock. He's not an exceptionally jealous individual, and because they're talking, it's easier for them to establish expectations for a long-distance relationship. So Gaius is cool. Don't flirt with Efram in front of him, though.
Efram meanwhile is someone I imagine probably finds Gaius's situationships and lack of awareness quite funny. He probably teases Gaius about the crowds of charr (and other races!) he leaves in his wake, which Gaius assures him is not the case. Where Rytlock is concerned, I don't think he's super bothered by him.
17. Is there a secret that they don't dare tell the other? Why? Will they ever say it?
There's nothing that I can imagine! I'm tired, so I'm not going to offer conjecture with this one, but ostensibly, with how much more open Gaius is by this point, especially just with trying to be open, I can't think of any secrets he'd keep.
Gaius, does it bother you that you have cubs out there that might not have the lives they could have had if you had been able to mentor them?
Is there anything you wish you could have prevented for your cubs. Like the ones you met as adults?
Gaius's posture grows rigid at your question, but he takes his time chewing over how he wants to respond.
"That... is a difficult question. I don't know if I'm bothered by it--that is the nature of living, the nature of our lives as charr; I've sired many more cubs than a human might, but we're expected to."
Gaius places his pen aside. "I know that some I've met wouldn't thank me for interfering with their lives. I know that there are some who aren't alive who might be, if I could have. With the lifestyle of the Legions, I believe it's better to focus on improving the lives of those to come."
That's going to be where Gaius ends his acknowledgement of the question: I know it's not especially satisfying, but he's not interested in going into the minutiae of it.
The sort of problem is both how Gaius himself chooses to behave--he doesn't much like to think about regrets-- and possibilities are endless! It doesn't help him to consider what could be different if he'd had the power to do more.
He absolutely knows some of his cubs should have had better lots in life, but he's just very focused on his ability to change things for the better. I think there are complex things with your latter question, because we've discussed his views on Raevik and comparing him to Silex and other "super-soldier" types, and the thing is, Raevik isn't in a bad spot. He acknowledges Raevik is odd, but he doesn't REALLY think that Raevik has suffered overmuch--all legions, all fahrars, ever generations have unique quirks for how they raise the cubs and what the cubs are taught, and he doesn't think Raevik is a failure in that regard. The problem is that he acknowledges Raevik could have been a failure. He does not think he should have prevented what Raevik endured, per se, but that it should have been better regulated, thus a very complex opinion.
