#nhsys

[varianwrynn]

Monday 14 January.

It begins.

[varianwrynn]

Secrets

Secrets!

Select a single gif depicting a secret your character(s) has/have that few–if any–know. Give zero explanation, be mysterious!

Sam

Tagged by: @i-am-the-inksinger Tagging: @grimlins-chaos @shalima-kaeaskavi @awryen @galleywinter

[varianwrynn]

#3 for sam! :D

This was a ploy to make me talk about No Heroes, wasn’t it, Anon?  I see through your dirty tricks!

In technical terms, Canon Sam is the AU here--of all of his storylines, it’s had the second-least amount of writing time associated with it.  Its tag (Some Pictures of the People We Forgot To Turn Into) is a reference to this, as if the whole thing is being watched by some other Sam wondering how Canon Sam’s life ended up like this.

By this point, there are arguably two main verses, though they influence each other pretty heavily.  The first is a closed RP between myself and @ask-logosh-and-friends, whom I have been woefully neglecting of late, that has by now grown to include rather a large cast.

The second one is a massive fanfic project that I am actually writing (looking to start posting next Thursday, so watch AO3), under the series title No Heroes (Save Yourself).  It’s an explicitly AU version of Azeroth where the PCs (and subsequently everything that was done in the name of game mechanics) don’t exist, a canon revamp that starts with Stormwind politics and intrigue during Cataclysm and the changes to the universe that happen as a result of that.  Though it isn’t exclusively his story, Sam is one of the main characters.  There’s a lot of focus on queer narratives, better worldbuilding (that lack of game mechanics thing gives a writer a lot of freedom), letting people be fucking happy for once, and kicking people who argue that Varian is a bad father in the face because fuck you.  The title of the actual fic is Aegis, and the summary:

In the wake of Deathwing's attack on Stormwind, the Argent Crusade seeks to bolster its presence in the city and sends young Knight-Captain Sam Blackwell to take over the chapterhouse and offer his assistance.  Caught between the nobles who insist they can manage without outside help and the Crusade's leaders who insist that ties to the kingdom must be strengthened, Sam will have no choice but to take his offer to the King himself.

The final relevant project is one where Sam is actually now Anduin’s senior bodyguard.  That’s a closed RP with someone not on Tumblr, and it’s on hold a bit while we wait for BfA stuff.  I lovingly call this verse ‘Canon-Adjacent.’

Sam also serves as Varian’s chief of staff in another RP I run, but he’s not an actual character--more a collection of administrative functions with art attached.

(And yes, No Heroes (/tagged/nhsys) is the Varian/Sam piece I keep rambling on about.)

[varianwrynn]

What made you decide to write this muse? Are there any characters that you love, but simply cannot RP?

--What made you decide to write this muse?

Sam has been a constant process of evolution over several years, starting with his creation as a character, not just ‘my WoW main,’ back in Wrath as a one-off for an RP event (an Argent Tournament thing, and we didn’t have enough people playing Argents so everyone had their main and also an Argent alt; Sam was my Argent alt).  His story (/tagged/nhsys) is considerably more recent, a long love letter to my boyfriend about a man who fundamentally believes that people can be better, and how even though that seems out of place in World of Warcraft (my boyfriend comments often about how dark the lore is, hidden behind colorful, cartoony graphics), it’s necessary and useful.  Sam as an RP character is an extension of that, and also a serious attempt at portraying a child soldier who was told “if you fight, if everyone fights, this will be over quicker and you can go live a normal life,” only to grow up and find himself not only still at war, but also not really able to adjust to that ‘normality.’

--Are there any characters that you love, but simply cannot RP?

I’m dreading the day I have to write Vol’jin for my fic (/tagged/nhsys), because I feel like there’s no way I’ll ever be able to do him justice.  He’s dangerous and clever, and in a much more veiled way than most of the other faction leaders.  People underestimate him, and never understand that their doing so was his decision, not theirs.  Conveying that sense of him being a few steps ahead of the game is going to be difficult.

(Contrast Varian, who is Xanatos Speed Chess personified.)