I know her eyes remain / At least I know she'll never fade / She moves about / I watch her move right across the floor and fade to grey / Belladonna lives inside us all in little ways
Headcanons:
I have never met a vampire personally, but I donāt know what will happen tomorrow: For an island that runs on blood, one would expect Victor to be a bit of a greater commodity. He is rotting from the inside out, his body turning foul and putrid as the very thing that kept him alive slowly drowns him, filling his lungs and eating him from the inside out as his body shreds itself, lesions he will never see coating his organs. And yet, despite that, he is permitted to remain on the ship, sailing it however far he can before going the other way again. Over and over this goes, and Victor has yet to be tied to a tree for the rot and blood that pulses within him. He canāt even remember the last time he had seen one of the islandās smaller, more blood-thirsty residents. It seems impossible that he could have made it this long without being expected to feed his new home with the very thing killing him. Perhaps he will jinx it by thinking such a thing. Is it bad how badly Victor wants to have jinxed it? Is it a note of his personal failings that he feels an obligation to the place that stopped the disease from taking him any further down the path to corpsehood? Perhaps. Perhaps he was always meant to find this place, to bleed himself dry in its thickets and on its thorns. He wouldnāt know. Victorās never been involved like that. And though he would rather sink to the sea floor than admit it, he wishes he could have been. A debt owed is a debt to be paid and Victor doesnāt really like the idea of owing an island.
A dream within a dream: There is a surreal, impossible quality to the island that taints every memory Victor has of the world beyond it. When that fog tinges his memories, there is a time when he forgets the beast that lurks in his lungs, curled around his heart and mind and he becomes, for a moment, nothing more than a pirate, a caricature of himself in some little boy-kingās imaginings. And then the heat and the wet of the island will come and turn his chest into a mockery of lungs and all he can do is cough and cough. It feels, at times, as if both sides are the dreamings of the other. One, the pirate sailing master that occasionally dreams a tragedy of his own. The other, a man touched by death and blood dreaming of nothing more complicated than the waves. They live within each other and sometimes, Victor forgets which is which. He suspects it may be avoidance of the reality he ran from, but why should that matter? He ran so far that death canāt touch him anymore. Perhaps a little avoidance is exactly what he needed. Perhaps there was nothing wrong with finding immortality with blood in your chest. And perhaps he is trying and failing to lie to himself.
Searches after horror haunts strange, far places: It had been sheer chance that brought Victor into touch with the crew of the Jolly Roger. If it hadnāt been for that gigantic vessel that radiated menace and promised suffering, Victor would never have thought there had been a chance like Neverland. But he would be lying if he said he hadnāt taken to the sea in a desperate attempt to find something, anything that would stop the rot inside him. Everyone knew that tuberculous spelled death and that there was no real hope beyond fresh air and exercise to slow the progression. A ship promise both in ready supply and as a sailing master, Victor was to spend more time on deck than almost anyone else, sextant and map in hand. He had no idea if it had slowed the disease enough to get him to Neverland, but God was smiling on Victor that day. The miracle cure had been found, though it held him more in a state of limbo than anything else. He stands now partially rotted on strange, forgotten shores and thanks anyone listening for giving him that much of a chance. It was more than his sister had gotten, after all, and though he never dared mention her out of shame and regret for running when she needed him the most, he was determined to make the most of it. He was the last of his family and while the same thing that had eaten them from the inside out now lived in him, there was a chance. One chance was all Victor had asked for and he was determined to make the most of it. The sea had delivered an impossible ask, after all.
And with strange aeons even death may die: So many of the people and people-adjacents on this island have never met death. Charlie has, as has Ace. Ace perhaps had the closest brush with it in a way that Victor would recognize, but it is something different to know you hold suspended self-destruction in your very body. There is nothing on this island but time. Perhaps, if Victor waits long enough, it will die before he does. Perhaps it will crumble to dust like some crew members have before his very eyes. He already has outlasted the one person that could spill his secret to the crew. Victor misses Tristan, of course he does. The crew is the only family worth having in this damned place, but Tristan was smart. Victor is convinced he knew and every day sparked a new fear that that would be the day the secret spilled out from Tristanās lips, that Hook would push him from the ship because he was wrong and diseased and entirely too dangerous to remain, lest he kill all of them from his own idiocy. Victor has outlasted Tristan, who was the second-most likely thing to kill him on this island. Surely he can outlast the tuberculous?
Random OOC Thoughts:
Victor fancies himself the dodger of death and the incarnate of rot among the pirate crew thanks to his disease. I do think itās thematic for him to be weirdly close with the concept of death, which doesnāt exist in Neverland the way it does elsewhere. If it did, though, I think Victor would be the closest to it. If he were a Magnus Archives character, make him an avatar of the Corruption. Horror media that make me think of Victor: Annihilation, The Babadook, and above all The Last of Us. Also, he's very Karna from The Ravening War to me. I won't even lie about that.
character flaws: quick-fused, untrusting, guarded, confrontational, unafraid to turn to violence, manipulative when necessary
headcanons
in the eyes of hook, wendy darling is the textbook case of stockholm syndrom, and whilst wendy doesnāt remember coming to hook requesting aid when she was youngerā¦ hook remembers it. he remembers the moment of realization melting into her expression as he begrudgingly informed her that he, too, was trapped here and couldnāt be of any assistance getting her home. it hurt him more to inform her of that fact than it probably was for her to hear itā¦ because in the young girlās eyes, he saw sally. his first and only love, the melody lilting along with the steady rhythm of his heart beat, and he wanted so badly to help her as he had with sally. yet, seeing her naively returning to peter all those years later, completely oblivious to the mountains of harm he had forced her to climbā¦ it filled hook with a sense of complete and utter loathing. did he loath her for being able to dismiss the evil that was peter pan? Or did he loath her for the way she looked at him, now that she had returned, as if he wasnāt the one she had turned to in her time of desperation? hook himself couldnāt sort that out, and it fills him with waves of turmoil if he dwells on it for too long.Ā
hook is the sound of a tsunami, not when it crashes against the shore, but the sound as itās beginning to swell and bloom in the distant pit of the ocean, miles and miles away from the visible eye. he is the hum of the water as it begins to form a catastrophic wave, ebbing chaotically out where no one can see it, fueled by the phenomenon of nature as it prepares to rise so high itās body could make the tallest mountain look like a thumbtack. the distant rumble is one everyone is aware of, but unable to pinpoint precisely where itās coming from.
hook takes betrayal incredibly seriously, being as he gave his hand- literally- to give even the opportunity of escape to those in his youth. he is a bastard, a trauma-riddled husk of who he was when he was a small, blissfully unaware childā¦ but within his core there is a hair of need to protect. he would sacrifice a lot just to prohibit those who show him loyalty from suffering any harm, but the moment that bridge of trust is brokenā¦ the effort made to repair will cost more than an apology. sometimes, it costs fingers, it costs feet, it costs eyes, other senses, or tonguesā¦ he is ruthless in his pursuits to protect, but he is just as ruthless in the consequences of betraying him.
hook is the smell of a long abandoned whiskey barrel beneath the floorboards of a ship, the wood still carrying the smell of liquor complimented by the aroma of the sea. though the barrel is old, worn, and beginning to rot... it carries a sweet and chest-warming musk from the brew it once held that not only soothes the senses, but jump-starts the heart. he is the smell of the metal bands that held the bent planks of wood in their shape, rusted and decaying but complimenting age with bursts of iron and salt that have clung to their surface.
hook's draw to peter pan is one of obsession, as there is not a moment in his mind that is silenced from the echo of guilt he still feels from getting sally killed and putting charlie's life at further risk than it already was due to tempting the hands of the eternal demon. his need to destroy him is one that makes up every fiber of his being, and it is not one he likes questioned. crew mates that dare attempt to ease hook off the ledge in regards to peter are ones that hook sees as betraying him; he is slow to trust and quick to anger and it doesn't take more than an attempt at a consoling comment to have him holding his knife at their throat. as fiercely loyal he is to those who show him respect, he is fiercely loyal to his cause of destroying peter pan and neverland all together.
a glimpse into hook's head....
it wasnāt often hook abandoned the sanctuary that was his crew and his ship, though he solemnly used that word to describe any element of his existence. even his own mind wasnāt a sanctuary, riddled with visions of his youth, of faces he had lost, of battles he had won, of tears he had shed desperately attempting to make sense of why peter was the way he was. long had those ravines of emotion ran dry, materializing themselves in other shapes and forms that had Hook feeling manic more than it didnāt. even his own name brought about discomfort, the lilt of peterās voice as he sang it with praise ringing in his ears at a decibel that was near deafening whenever it was spoken. however, he had heard about the arrival of a particular individual that had gotten him off the ship for the first time in weeks. no, it couldnāt be soā¦ with how desperate they had been for escape, the very idea that theyād return for any reason of their own free will was unfathomable. hook had been desperate to leave Neverland for what now felt like eternityā¦ and the concept of someone being rewarded that freedom and choosing to returnā¦ it threw brush into the dying fire in his chest and sent its flames reaching for the very heaven he knew he wasnāt making it to. crossing through a familiar yet foreign path, hook cut through the winding vines that had slung themselves across tree-trunks due to how long he had left the space between them abandoned. there was weight to his walk, his boots meeting the ground with such an intensity the twigs were snapping before he even set his foot down. however, his stride was brought to a devastating halt at the distant sound of laugher. delicate, whimsical, laughter like the fairies themselves were carrying each note from their lips to hookās ears, and he almost braced himself against the nearest tree due to how hard the crash of realization came against his chest. āĀ peter, stop!Ā ā yet the voice wasnāt one pleading, it wasnāt accompanied by an agonizing scream or the sound of a sword ruthlessly swinging against a limb. it wasā¦ delightful, it was cheery, it was playful and innocent and beautiful. āĀ i can't breathe!Ā ā but she wasnāt suffocating, for if she was the sounds of laughter would have dimmed and the hum of the island fueling the power of pan and absorbing the residue of a ceased existence would have replaced it. the shrill cries of joy continued, getting louder and louder, sending hook back into the shadows he always sought out, his lungs grasping at each strand of oxygen he was allowing them due to how hard he was holding his breath. she had returned, the beautiful fool had returned, and just as blindly as she had came upon his ship seeking aidā¦ blindly had she returned to the allure of peter pan and the false promises of eternal life and escape he promised each child who blindly trusted that by life, he meant livingā¦ but james knew peter. peter knew james. wendy darling, as it so appeared, knew neither of them.
Okay, Iāve gone rogue. IāveĀ taken on a second character--and I cannot wait to set her loose on yaāll.Ā
Meet ššµšŖš·šŖ. Sheās the complete opposite of Bandit in every way, my sunshine girl to my grumpy raincloud of a Neverboy, my sweet daughter to my problematic little meow meow.Ā
She's the happiest hellspawn youāll ever meet. Think Glinda theĀ āGoodā Witch--but still a witch nonetheless. Just because she tries to hide her teeth when she smiles doesn't mean they aren't there; she just fights the urge to use them.Ā With her naturally sharp claws and sharper smile, she's spent well over a century on this island taking life from the innocent to sustain herself. Itās in her nature. She certainly hasn't been able to survive this long off of fish alone (much to her dismay)--but no more! This time, itās going to be different. She swears it.Ā This moon cycle will be the last time she feeds on humans! Really!! But itās ... hard to stay determined and focused on that goal when sheās just .... so.... tired....
Some thoughts to get those ideas flowing:
1) Ever dream of owning a dress-up doll as a kid but your parents could never afford one? Meet your new Makeover Mermaid! Alana loves to accessorize (especially anything that goes with her dazzling ruby tail) and is always sporting a new look. A necklace made out of sea flowers? For sure. A crown made out of seaweed? Bet.
2) Enjoy a good story but start losing focus halfway through? That's no problem! Alana will start four stories in a span of five minutes, get distracted, and not finish any of them. :~)
3) Looking to get rid of your old junk? Bring it to Alana! She "collects" pretty much anything--like a crow but with less taste. Her cove is filled with random bits and bobbins she's found around the island. No she does NOT have a hoarding problem
4) Alana is thirsty--FOR LEGS. Specifically, having human legs of her own so she can see the world. There's so much out there that she can't access right now, being confined to the waters. She would miss her stunning tail, of course, but that's a sacrifice she is willing to make in exchange for so much more. It's been said that true love can morph one's tail to a pair of human legs, and by golly she's going to hold onto that myth until it comes true, dammit.
I know there have been Alanas in the past, and I will not step on previous iterations of the character. For those of you who had threads/plots with her previous writer, feel free to DM me. Maybe we can incorporate something similar moving forward so all your hard work isnāt lost. Ya'll know Iām always happy to chat.Ā
If youād like to know more about my new daughter, Alanaās skeleton is here, her Pinterest board is here, and additional headcanons can be found here. I sincerely hope I do her justice! See you on the dashĀ š
" Sun in the sky,
I am stopping you from burning,
All we need is stars and moon.
Clock on the wall,
I am stopping you from turning,
Or this night will end too soon... "
IANTHE - Merfolk leader, for better or worse.
Dependant roleplay blog for NeverRPG.
Ianthe has an abundance of confidence, itās no secret. By design, her reputation as the one of the most brutal and cunning merfolk is known all over the island. Wielding her stunning beauty as a powerful weapon, she has absolutely no trouble luring in her prey, she is always well fed. Iantheās throne is made of bones, carefully crafted over the course of decades as sheās climbed to power. Those unlucky enough to become her prey just become another one on the pile for her to perch upon. Countless Humans and Merfolk have fallen to her merciless hand, of whom Ianthe holds no remorse for. Perhaps not every one of those deaths was necessary per seā¦ But she took enjoyment in each and every one. Blood and water are such a beautiful combination. Ianthe thrives in mind games. The island to her is akin to a chess board, one she looms over as she twirls her hair and watches the pieces move around, shifting them in her favour whenever given the opportunity. Peter, Hook, theyāre all the same in the end ā pawns.
The newcomer to Neverland, Nin is eager to settle in and find her way. The first step is to learn to approach those tasty humans who keep exploring the lagoon... but can she?
BIO | TAGSĀ |Ā PINTEREST | SPOTIFY | NEVER | VADA RAY, SHE/THEY, EST
Anoukās two most favorite tricks to play on humans are inspired by French folklore. The first is that if someone were to kiss her once a day consecutively over the span of an arbitrary number of days, sheāll be transformed into a human herself and will be able to live with them on land. In truth, she just really likes kisses and making humans look foolish. The second is that she can transform into a dragon. Thereās usually some condition offered in explanation for why she wonāt do it on the spot.
Wanted connections.Ā Ā
COURTLY LOVE, OPEN TO ANYONE: Thatās right, I want this cold-hearted babe who sees love as nothing but a shallow game and has never felt any kind of true romantic feelings for anyone in her very long life to find someone on the island who feels pure, sweet, chaste courtly love towards her. I think itād be most likely to be one of the merfolk or small folk, because Iām looking for someone who sees the games she plays with mortals for what they are and appreciates that about her. Someone who knows when sheās being genuine with her affection and when she isnāt. But it could potentially be a human instead! Maybe Anouk will return their love one day, maybe itāll be unrequited forever; either way it will drive her absolutely mad!Ā
More coming soon! And of course I am always looking for more humans to fall prey to her mock kindness and charms! ; )
lost nameĀ : Noland Donald Galloway
nicknamesĀ : Nod
ageĀ : oh honey,
gender identityĀ : cis man, he/him pronouns
sexual identityĀ : presumed heterosexual but that doesn't explain the bedroom eyes he gives marlowe.
familyĀ : Foley Owen Galloway / "Fog" ( twin brother, deceased ), Jamie "Hook" ( older brother figure ), Charlie ( younger brother figure )
personality traitsĀ : loyal, swashbuckling, reliable, playful, boyish, charismatic, evasive, cocky, nonchalant, cool-headed, flirtatious, sarcastic, seemingly optimistic, internally pessimistic, romantic, chivalrous, valiant, gossip queen, humanitarian, candid, nosey curious, patient, steadfast. Which is all fine and good, except that he's been losing sleep and possibly losing his mind and will progressively become more undone, sloppy, and testy until he addresses the problems he keeps suppressing.
weapon of choice : Dual daggers (second one originally belonged to Fog), but most prefers to lay traps with fishnets, rope, and loose planks or shallow holes around the Pirates Camp to keep Lost Boys at bay in nonviolent ways.
likesĀ : sea shanties and folk songs, card games, darts, redheads, fruit, grog rum, friendly competition, lifting heavy things and generally showing off muscles he's been honing for an ungodly amount of years he's spent on this hell island, getting a smile out of Victor or Isadora, lightheartedly messing with Lost Boys (riling up Rufio or Davie and then leading them into a trap to get them off the battlefield, annoying Bones and Curly in the boneyard, 100% used to teasingly flirt with Fiona when she was rolling with them), dancing, fishing, haggling for goods with other ships (he's a class act schmoozer), collecting postcards and maps of places he'll never get to visit.
dislikesĀ : looking Small Folk in the eye.
ā Despite growing into a steadfast right hand to the only good and honest leader in Neverland, his demeanor is still that of a boyish rogue. Heās prone to wandering into his own adventures or dragging one of his mates with him on his escapades when theyāre docked at shore, wont to tempt fate and heckle Lost Boys just before the point of provoking serious retaliation, or mingle with merfolk on nights he knows the moon isnāt too full. Heāll drink and play poker until sunrise with his crewmates if he knows the pirates are in a good, civil place with their adversaries and shouldnāt expect any emergencies that night. (Though sometimes he slips up when walking the tightrope of being the responsible yetĀ coolĀ older brother figure to his crewmates, usually around the times that he starts seeing his twin and reverts back to a less mature level of self-control, finding himself drinking a little too hard to dull his perception of the long-lost Lost Boy haunting his periphery. More on that later~ <3)Ā After aging up, he's developed a flirtatious cockiness, particularly around women. He is prone to holding up the departure of other pirate crews that the Jolly Roger is in negotiations with because he and one of the visiting shipās female crewmates scurried off into the first mateās quarters and walked back out giggling. It may put him at odds with Isadora, but heās responsible enough not to flirt with his own crewmates in a way they would take seriously. Hook probably wouldnāt approve of any inter-ship relationships anyway. And Nod may just be throwing affection at anyone to see if anything sticks. If he can fall in love with anyone who isnāt allied with Peter or Ianthe, maybe he can forget about the bloodthirsty, heartless, evil, siren-eyed, lovely, comforting, warm, kind mermaid he's dreamed about since he was a child.
ā Kind of extrapolating this interpretation of him from the line in his bio about how the merfolk are uncommonly fond of him, especially for a human: He has natural charisma. I think heās always radiated personality and confidence, and still maintains most of that, even after everything he's been through--- or at least, heās very adept at faking it, especially on the ship, where he feels most comfortable. Itās easy for him to be laid-back and reassuring to others when he isnāt the one burdened with the full responsibilities of the captain of the ship, and when he has more experience in Neverland than all but two humans. He makes for a good diplomat with the merfolk when Hook isnāt available to talk to Ianthe, and he knows the mind of a Lost Boy well enough to navigate encounters with them pretty smoothly when he has to. I can see him as the welcome wagon on the ship, as someone crewmates sees as extremely dependable and friendly. He values and cares for every pirate on the ship, in an almost active effort to foster a better community than Peter did with his disposable little strays. If Hook is the strong father figure to the pirates, Nod is perhaps the mother hen, albeit in his own rowdy way, as a lifelong ruffian. In the leadership on the Jolly Roger, I want him to be a foil to Hookās short temper. Iām going to say Nod grew into a very mature, level-headed, trustworthy man with a good sense of humor. If a crewmate has bad news to share or need to confide any kind of problem on the ship, I could see them coming to Nod with the information first, because heās least likely to snap at them, and everyone knows that Hook will receive the news better if it's passed on to him through his faithful best friend. Theyāve known each other for so long, I imagine Nod knows the best ways to navigate Hookās temper and keep him zen. I also need to ask Ashleigh how Hook would receive it if Nod still called him Jamie, if he should call him that at all times and even in front of other crewmates, if I should save it for more intimate moments between them, or if he wouldn't like it at all and I should just make it something that slips out accidentally.
ā Nod has never made physical contact with Alana before. He worries that he cherishes their friendship much more than he should, in the interest of being careful. Alana is the person he smiles with more than anyone else, but he knows that the loyalty of the merfolk will always skew towards Peter, and Nod canāt risk Peter using a vulnerable moment of trust against a pirate. He has a recurring nightmare where, the second his fingers graze her, she yanks him under the water and down to the darkest, deepest floor of the ocean and rip him to shreds. And yet, he canāt help but fantasize about finally running his hands through her red hair, even in the moments where he makes her laugh enough for her to reveal her sharp teeth. Against his better judgment, those are the moments he wants to touch her most.Ā
ā He looks forward to new moons, because thatās become his usual time to find Alana and talk for longer than a few passing friendly words. This has less to do with a fear of Alana being more dangerous or temperamental when the moon is full, and more to do with her fellow merfolk minding their own business and not giving either of them any trouble for fraternizing when they aren't in a lunar frenzy. He always arrives with a coy excuse as to why heās in the area, never admitting out loud that he came to the lagoon to see her. but they both know the truth. At this point, even he smiles incredulously at himself as heās explaining that heās just innocuously scavenging for food on a barren shoreline.
ā Once upon a time, before coming to Neverland, Nod and Fog were little musicians who performed in the street for money. Nod played the fiddle while Fog played the mandolin. They brought their instruments with them and used to play them around the bonfire while the other Lost Boys danced and chanted, and sometimes Nod would walk down by the lagoon with his fiddle and play for the merfolk. Nod still plays to this day, and keeps Fog's mandolin hidden in a chest underneath his bed (he went through a hell of a heist mission to retrieve it from the Lost Boys' tree in the week after his pirate heel turn. He finally tuned the old mandolin and has been learning it in the past few years, but he would never play it for anyone but Alana. He isn't as confident with it as he is with his trusty fiddle, which he loves to use to supplement sea shanties and boost crew morale.
ā Since becoming a pirate, Nod has taken to wearing the color blue much more, in a subconscious tribute to Fogās favorite color to wear. In truth, though, his favorite color, and the one he always loved to wear, is red.
ā As a rambunctious Lost Boy with a reputation to uphold, he used to wait until nobody could see him to try to feed, help, or otherwise befriend other living creatures on the island. During Neverlandās prosperous times, when the boys had so much food that they would throw away perfectly good excess, Nod would wait until dark to sneak away with their leftovers and leave it where animals could scavenge for it. During games where the boys were hunting and recklessly knocked down a birdsā nest, Nod would suggest that they split up to find their prey, and circle back alone to try to put the birds nest back on the branch it fell from without anyone knowing. And after a long time of watching merfolk from a distance and always being able to pick Alana out of a pack by her vibrant red tail, he thought of her when he found a beautiful red-speckled seashell along the area where the beach sand meets the forest floor. The first time he snuck away from Fog to visit the lagoon, he left the shell on the rock that he noticed Alana always seemed to rest on. Ā
It was silly, of course, to leave a seashell for a mermaid, as if the ocean-dwellers werenāt more than capable of finding their own. He realized that after the fact, and started to look for other things to leave the nice, playful mermaid. Any time he saw a red knick-knack anywhere on land, he would ever-so-discreetly leave it near the boulder he has dubbedĀ āThe Red Rock.ā Even to this day, he never directly hands his rare little red trinkets to her: marbles, rhinestones, flowers, exotic feathers, painted pebbles, a teacup with roses painted on it. Even as a pirate, bartering away his favorite boots to other ships in exchange for a red pendant necklace to leave on a rock, he doesnāt like to draw any attention to it; he just casually leaves it in his wake after they finish chatting, lest he address out loud how devoted he is to her. Alana has always known that he was the little boy leaving these gifts behind though, from the very first time he thought he was beingĀ veryĀ sneaky, placing his red-speckled seashell at her rest stop without any eyes watching him from deep underneath the surface of the water.
ā If Hookās bond with Charlie is described as paternal in this found family, then I want to lean into Nodās role as an older brother to him. I think itās especially interesting given the nature of their relationships with their respective absentee brothers. Nod would commit atrocities without a second thought to keep Charlie safe from harm and never lose a brother again. He loves having this boy he quite literally grew up with in his life after all this time, and heās at his absolute most lively with him. He can almost relive the way he felt with Fog when heās around Charlie; he loves him the same way. Heāll tease him like a brother and laugh with him about juvenile inside jokes that they beat into the ground. He might get caught up in a playful moment and go too far, though. At the end of the day, Charlie will always be very different from Fog. When Nod gets carried away and starts wrestling or roughhousing with Charlie the way he could with his unruly twin brother, Charlie might get flashbacks to his biological older brother, whose out-of-control horseplay sealed his fate. I could see this being the reason Charlie will probably never be as close to Nod as he is to Hook, but I also want to maintain that their relationship is still a significantly tender one. Nod is very quick to drop everything in the interest of lifting Charlie's spirits if he realizes he's been too quiet lately. He wants to keep his confidence high and do whatever he can to keep him from feeling too hopeless on this terrifying island. Nod also may end up at odds with Hook when he thinks Hook is being a little too overprotective of Charlie. He may let him get away with exploring a little more than Hook thinks is safe for him, because he wants to see Charlie stop filling the role of the baby of the ship and start growing up and branching out. If he catches Charlieās eyes linger on a crewmate of a passing ship, Nod may try to talk him up to the crewmate or evenĀ āaccidentallyā knock them into Charlie with a large barrel heās carrying during a trade.
ā Fog usuallyĀ āvisitsā Nod more often in his periods of distress. The harder Nod has to work to suppress any feelings of guilt, fear, and despair in the interest of keeping morale high on the Jolly Roger, the more Nod appears in his dreams to haunt him about allies he isnāt sure he should trust, or remind him of the atrocities heās committed after Nod keeps trying to brush off as a necessary evil or downplay by waving the Many-Eyed off as unfeeling monsters, and make sure Nod never escapes the very first hardship heās still never confronted after all these years: his survivorās guilt. He remembers Fog as being much more saintly than the little asshole probably was, back when they were such feral, snot-nosed, callous troublemakers that Nod felt he needed to sneak around to have polite conversation with the merfolk, lest his brother find out he wasnāt trying to pelt every living creature on the island with rolled-up balls of animal dung in a slingshot. He looks back on the unwavering trust and loyalty he felt with his twin, and sees it as the ultimate virtue after a lifetime of seeing constant tricks, traps, and betrayals on this God-forsaken island. For example, the Fog who exists in his head seems to haunt him by making him hear the unforgettable sound of Fogās death rattle any time Nod tries to abandon a Lost Boy in peril, but as a brutal kid, he would probably call a Lost Boy who couldn't find his way out of quicksand "dead weight." Maybe Nod assumes Fog would have turned out to be even more mature and compassionate than Nod is now if he had the chance to grow up, because when they were boys, Fog was the older, louder twin who seemed to be better at everything and commanded more respect, and Nod assumes he would have been better at being a good man, too.
ā I think Nod would get along with Canary Robb on the grounds of their love of local fauna. I donāt want to steal that characterās stride as the resident nature lover, but I love the mention in Alanaās bio that one of Nodās best qualities to her was his respect for wildlife, and I want to keep that as a major trait of his. Especially because it highlights how much heās willing to sacrifice when it comes to keeping Charlie safe. A lifetime of stepping around ant hills and leaving seeds for critters when Peter and Hook werenāt looking can be put aside if the extinction of an entire species is what it takes to save his little brother. Heās sorry it had to end the way he did, but he doesnāt regret it. If the choice is the life of one pirate over the lives of countless Neverlanders, heāll choose his crewmate every time. Really, he doesnāt even lose sleep over it. Nod isnāt haunted by the guilt of the massacre of two species or anything. Honest.
.....
..............Fog still seems pretty hung up on it, though.Ā
ā I want to encourage all OC applicants to feel free to throw Nod into their Connections! Heās a personable jackass, so he's bound to leave impressions (good or bad) with anyone he meets, and been around for so long, I assume he has some history with almost everyone, and would be widely known. I want to make sure to plot with every single character. I also want to fill literally every wanted connection I have ever seen on anybody's introductions, but I'll try to hold myself back. I'm going to say he's sociable enough (especially compared to other pirates who may be more closed-off) that he would directly ask Cecco about his history and warm-heartedly encourage him to open up about his history, so I'll leave the Secretly-Snooping-Through-The-Quartermasters'-Quarters connection open for somebody else and request that Nod fill his "Confidante" connection. I DEFINITELY think he would dance with Anna if she doesn't mind him getting too into it. He misses dancing from his time frolicking around bonfires as a Lost Boy, but she would definitely need to slap him upside the head when he sarcastically(?) praises her for being such a proper, enchanting lady. I think he's definitely up to the challenge of trying to win Tinkerbell over from Peter, even if he has a few "I-Killed-Your-Entire-Colony" penalty points working against his favor with her. I think that same chivalrous streak of his would prompt him to fill Wendy's "Cynicism-vs-Optimism" connection. As a former Lost Boy who used to idolize Peter, I think his heart would break seeing this girl be so naively taken by him. I also imagine him being very close with Bill Jukes on the grounds of him being a real pirates' pirate; I think Nod would've picked up a lot of the culture from him and really ran with it over the years.
