for the pride asks:
4, 8, 11 and 21
Thank you so much for the questions! 🩶 Happy pride 😁🏳️🌈 ✨ from these pride questions :3
4. Is your oc's environment supportive about their identity? How does this impact them?
For Storm, his childhood family def would have been supportive if he had had time to explore his identity while they were still alive (😬). Later, he fell in love with a guy when he was 17 while living at the Open Hand temple, and because this is the Forgotten Realms and not real life, I like to think that no one batted an eye at that :3 Then, while living with the Bhaalists, he had way bigger problems than worrying about whether or not his environment was supportive of his bisexuality. Even if, in truth, I think that it was kinda frowned upon for him to engage in sex that was not to create more Bhaalspawns, so anyone without the capacity to bear children would have been looked down upon. But he didn't care AT ALL about what people might say or think. As I said, bigger problems. Like the fact that pretty much all of his partners died at his hands...
For Natavriel, it was also pretty supportive. Siovi called them a girl once when she snatched them away to the Feywild, to which Tav said "I'm not a girl", and that was that. Much much later, they explored their sexuality while being outside the Feywild. The family that took them in during their years of struggle after they got out was also very supportive of Tav's discovery journey. And that did help with the fear I'm talking about in the next answer, because they had a safe place to talk about these things.
8. Have they had struggles with their identity, be it due to internal or external reasons?
Storm hasn't. In general, his gender and sexuality aren't things he thinks about, much (there would have been room for stuggle, considering Bhaal's breeding obsession, but even then, Storm didn't think about it THAT much. If he had time to truly process his Bhaalist years, I do think some of the trauma would surface and make him struggle and question things.)
Tav on the other hand, has struggled a lot in their younger years. They are someone who will love quickly, deeply, and openly, and yet for most people, it never seemed to be enough. It is too much to stay into the neat little box of casual friendships that a lot of people feel comfortable with, and people will very often get the wrong idea about Tav's feelings, but it is not enough to satisfy most people. And so there was a point where Tav wished they would be able to offer what most people want and expect out of a relationship. The grand romantic gestures. The passionate declarations. The all-consuming desire. Because they do want companionship, and after the disaster that their first relationship had been (their partner got very jealous very often because Tav still cared for many of their other friends, would meet new people and be very affectionnate with them as well, things like that), they feared they might never find that. They did, eventually, but it took a lot of work to get past the fear and worries...
11. Is your oc open about their identity? Are they more lowkey or more blunt about it? Why or why not?
Storm is very open if questionned, nothing feels worth hiding, but he's also not talking about it that much. Non issue for him, he doesn't see why he would need to explain to others his identity.
Tav is a bit more secretive by nature. It's not that they're "in the closet", lol (not a thing in the FR, but you get the idea), but if offered sex, for example, they would simply refuse, without necessarily explaining why (cue to a very confused Astarion at the tiefling party because why on Toril would they refuse him?? Lmao). It feels safer. They're a bit more open about their romantic/sexxual identity if they become really close with someone (as with Storm, for axample) Gender identity they are very open about with everyone, though, and would take offence to misgendering.
21. Free ramble card wee
Okay, I guess if I get a free ramble card, I have to talk about whatever is going on between Storm and Natavriel :3 (again 🤭🙈) 🧡💛🤍🩵💙
Because the thing is, Storm is entirely allosexual, and bi, and in Tav's experience, getting the kind of emotional attachment they had for him with these types of people (aka sexually inclined and potentially attracted to them) is dangerous. At some point, inevitably, desire is going to poke its nose in the relationship, and everything will be ruined. If Storm had not so desperately needed someone to just be there by his side, Tav would probably had tried to keep their distance when they started to feel strongly for him (at like... day 2 of the journey lol). They did try, briefly, to be careful about the kind of affection they were giving him, without much success with their self control. And they were still scared, but not even once did he give hints thathe wanted something else than what they were giving him, so they already felt tentatively safe. And then, it became clear that he was pining after Astarion, and that indeed felt drastically different from the kind of physical affection he was returning to them. When I tell you, the amount of relief Tav felt then xDD I've often said that Storm and Astarion's relationship benefitted from Tav's presence early on, but the reverse is true as well, Tav became a lot less conflicted/scared that it would go wrong with Storm, once he was involved with Astarion. And still, he wanted the cuddles with them, too. Heaven for Tav, lmao. Pinnacle of safety. And Storm did not find this odd, maybe in big part because his memory is a giant black hole and he has no idea about what's conventionnal and what's not. Tav feels like a part of himself, being far away from them hurts him, being near them makes him feel safe, there is absolutely no reason in his mind to be conflicted about what's happening, and it is completely separate from his feelings for Astarion.
