@historypowered landed on EVA. // muse roulette. // accepting.
Not Demons, she realizes too late, too far past the threshold to retreat. No, Demons don’t make this world beautiful, with one exception. For all the oddities she had heard about this region, no one had warned her of this strangeness being quite so... charming. So deep into this idyllic land, dotted liberally with spring greens and vibrant flowers, she had to face facts.
Not Demons. Fae. She’d bet her bike on it, would that not prevent her from getting the Hell out of there. For now, it didn’t much matter. The only way out was through now, through this Paradise, trying not to piss off whatever had come to this place. She was trying too hard to forget blustering into this place, ready to fight whatever she found. She could be long gone by the time it realized she was ever there--
“Oh.”
Turning her head to look at the figure, Eva froze before luminous eyes and golden hair. A prettier sight than a Demon, sure, but somehow more frightening. Opening her mouth, shutting it, she struggled to recall anything she had been taught about these creatures besides keeping a wide berth.
“Nice garden,” she said casually, self-loathing building at the base of her brain, “Love the honeysuckles. You come here often?”
for mum: what is it with lothric and his obsession for eating eggs?
Mom or Dare. ll not accepting.
“I have been told that, in the last age, the Stone Dragons would devour some of their brood. I imagine that much the same situation plays out in my daughter’s court, though this time it is only some kind of savage genetic memory.”
@atonings landed on ARIA. // muse roulette. // accepting.
“They can’t be all bad.”
The Commander’s tone is not one of condemnation, nor of acceptance. Speech flows as fact, casual as the swing of her legs against her stony perch, or the flick of her pointed ears. Loghain is not wrong, she knows, and in his position she might put up the same shield. The what if stings. If their positions were reserved, he might prove a more able hand with her men, and she might at least charm his Orlesian Wardens to blunt their tongues and insufferable pride.
“They have their uses, surely. A weapon’s only as good as its wielders understanding of it.” This keep is, if nothing else, an armory of metal and flesh alike. An old hand like Loghain should know what to do with that. Looking out over the rest of the Wardens, she eased her voice, grinning impishly. For a moment, they might not be former enemies bound by shared service, only a cheeky girl and the old man whose composure she found offensive.
“And if the blades prove too dull.... They can always be used as bad examples.”
There is absolutely nothing suspicious about the evening at all.
No, the Warden just happens to be sharpening her blades in proximity to one of her recent companions. The foreigner can do as she likes, and it will not matter to Aria. In this moment, all that occupies her is the keen song of iron against a whetstone. With her hood pulled up, none could tell how her ears twitched in the direction of Daeris’ movements, how silvery eyes followed the sway of her shadow. At last, satisfied her blades would glide through Darkspawn and hunters like butter, she sheathed them, incidentally turning her attention towards the other.
“So, I’ve got a dullard’s question--”
She sent up a prayer to whichever god was listening, though they seemed to have shut their ears towards her of late. Let her be more of a talker than Sten. Let her be a bit more to the point than Leliana.
“I’ve never heard an accent like yours before. Is it Northern?”
We already have Sif. // artoris&gwynevere // @abysstaken
“Certainly, she is our beautiful daughter, my love. I know your bond with her is beyond even our own. Still, I pray you indulge me for a moment.”
Trailing her fingers along her knight’s arm, the Princess put on her fairest smile. With golden eyes alight, Gwynevere played beautifully at persuasion. Her wide-eyed stare and girlish grin would soften even the hardest of hearts.
“You and I, curled in my solar at the end of a day. We sit beside the fire, sipping the sweetest Astorian wine, speaking of the next day’s plans. Sif reclines nearby, keeping watchful eye on her sibling. He has his father’s dark curls and my golden eyes. We have put him in a mortifying but no less precious imitation of Alvina’s fur, hood pulled up to give him diminutive cat ears.”
Softening, she presses on gently.
“We have a nightly discussion on when you might be allowed to teach him the blade.”
mom, will you take me seriously now that I've replaced my father as the head of the pantheon?
Mom or Dare. ll not accepting.
“Thou speak’st as though I have any choice, Majesty.”
The words dripped with a certain venom, something that this girl ought to understand too well, dark eyes downward cast lest they strike. Her own daughter had been usurped by this accursed creature, the Dark Sun eclipsing more natural light.
Her daughter was always a fool for the youngest of her father’s brood, but Leocadia had never reckoned her to surrender control to the pox-pale whelp.
The proper speech burnt her tongue so long as it was leveled at Velka’s daughter.
KARIN LINDHOLM // 20s // HYPERCOMPETENT SECRETARY, FULL-TIME FRIEND.
A local girl who answered the help wanted ad for a secretarial position on the office side of the island, Karin showed up fresh out of college and eager to start paying off student loans. Mr. Molloy was friendly and approachable without being unprofessional, and she’d admit during the job interview she was ready to work for him wholesale. For his part, he admired her work ethic and glowing record and hired her nearly on the spot. Karin had no way of knowing it at the time, but the job interview with a vampire was the prelude to the worst time of her life.
Had a ‘minor’ breakdown by the standards of a mortal existing around Vampires in her second year of working for Daniel, exacerbated by oddities she witnessed and had written off by her boss’ mate. This coupled with a generally upended schedule to best serve the bloodsuckers who employed her gave her a relatively short span to go completely around the bend. Disappeared for a year to Europe doing what those who uncover the truth usually do -- Was eventually steered right after an involuntary hold in Germany and being returned to the States.
She made her way back to the Island to try and bury the hatchet, though whether that was going to be in a certain devil’s back or purely metaphorical was up in the air up to the point she boarded the elevator. Ended up getting her old position back with the caveat of her boss being a little more open about the goings on of the place. She also gets allotted mental health days she can call upon to freshen up when the realities of the island become a bit much for her mortal psyche.
At some point became aware of her employer’s nature and, since her life is already God damn weird enough, took it with as much grace as she could muster. Has become a devoted student of the fact and lore of his kind in order to serve him better, and stands as a woman who can hold her own against the hoards of the night. A veritable encyclopedia of Vampire knowledge. Often stands as either early warning system or the wall between those of his kind who wish to see Daniel and the writer in question. She rules her little atrium with an iron fist even against the undead.
Daniel’s actually pretty indebted to her in ensuring that things run smoothly professionally, and admits he’d have lost it already without her there to make the transition into modern technology and media easier. He’s exceedingly fond of her and tries to cut her a break whenever he is able. He’s pretty much the only member of the Coven who is wholesale nice to her, because the rest either ignore her or, like a certain ginger, like to toy with her.
Outside of this aspect as Nominal Vampire Chew Toy, she is pretty feared on other circles of the Island. If she ever has to come down or place a call and comment on something, it’s because this is a fuck up too minor to bring the bosses down -- but still needs dealing with. She’s almost mythic for her place within the ‘inner circle’ of upper management, and being the gatekeeper between the owners and anyone who wants to come calling. It makes fraternization really difficult, in fact.
Actually her entire personal life has kind of gone belly up ever since the job started taking a toll on her. At this point she’s so desperate for connection she’s started crushing on her boss’ husband who routinely subjects her to indignities just because he can’t be asked to do something himself.
If you take her outside of work, she’s not nearly the almighty professional. A sweetheart who does her best in every facet of her life, she’s got big dreams and hopes to write the next great American novel. In spite of her struggles, she remains optimistic towards her future and the networking opportunities that working for Daniel presents. He’s already taken her around the world a few times by the modern era, having her act as his agent in the daylight hours for international business.
canon divergences for the worst muse of my career:
harris wrote a deeply problematic origin story. he wrote a lot of deeply problematic stories into this franchise, but some of the race relations and treatment of women/girls in the backstory is especially sour. it’s honestly in this era leading up to his capture by graham that you’re going to find a lot of my divergence.
ok first off the *rientalist stereotype, not in my fucking house. i am not opposed to his having some female character integral to his character between mischa and clarice, but not like this. if i do include murasaki, it is likely to be a complete rewrite because there’s so much that simply cannot and should not be salvaged by me, a white person. whatever figure i do use if i go ahead with this idea would likely be the ‘mother’ in his schema, just as clarice replaces mischa as the ‘sister’ or ‘daughter’ figure. idk why harris had to add a romantic angle to literally every woman he runs into post-war but i ain’t having it.
hannibal never got his revenge. it’s a pretty pipe dream and was a goal for a younger man, but he never got his catharsis on those who ruined him. they were all either already dead, out of reach, or too powerful for him to pursue. there was no justice on these men, not at our villain protagonist’s hands, at least. his taste for blood and lack of peace came about due to a lack of, rather than as a result of, a chance to avenge mischa.
‘eat the rude’ and ‘nothing happened to me. i happened to me.’ is all just pretty, prideful ways of ignoring his underlying emotional and mental trauma. in his crimes he reenacts this trauma, but in such a way that he is the conqueror rather than the victim. it’s not healthy and it’s almost a compulsion, but he’s still the master of his own destiny and has no excuse for picking victims so arbitrarily. i am not here to excuse this fucker, only to explain where he is coming from as more than ‘cultured grand guignol vampire straight out of a penny dreadful with class anxiety parable asserts his control over the masses.’ it’s both more personal and impersonal than that.
he started experimenting with his mo during university, the odd mucking about with and nibble of a cadaver, the manipulation and control of his peers once he had a solid idea of what he wanted from the, a few fumbling early kills to refine his work. by his final year of schooling, he was experimenting with marrying his interest in the arts in how he arranged and disposed of his victims. i would say by his thirties he had matured into an old world take on the vampire lore, an aristocrat preying on class horror to drain and destroy those he deemed inferior both literally and figuratively. as i play hannibal in his 40s, he definitely has a good handle on how he carries himself and goes about his crimes.
i like to imagine during the early period of his work, there was a young woman, some determined and durable ‘inferior’ who proved her mettle as his equal. just when he might have killed her, he arbitrarily let her go about her life -- foreshadowing of his ‘type’ when it comes to weighing and interacting with women who remind him of what his sister never became. there was no mercy in his actions towards her, merely curiosity and, at the end, a sense of amusement and perceived loyalty that persuaded him to turn her loose.
his moral compass is a fucking roulette wheel, never let anyone convince you my hannibal is anything but deeply unstable when it comes to interacting with others and evil all the way through. you upend what he thinks a situation should be and you become prey. you ‘prove’ yourself to him, however, and you win whatever passes as grace from him for a certain period.
he’s never had a romantic relationship. he tried for something purely physical in his university years and was unmade completely by the realities of lust. not merely enough to stop him in his tracks, the man dressed and left before the evening was consummated. if he was barely curious before he's wholly repulsed with the reality of sex. orgasm is a complete surrender of control, sharing a bed a bond of trust he cannot tolerate.
hannibal is a man that believes he is above animal impulses, even as he kills in attempts to assert dominance and power like an old world apex predator. even consumption of the flesh and hunting of his prey is definitely far more basic than he would ever believe himself to be. i truly believe if anyone made him out to be what he is, pure impulse and a desperate, ingrained need for control to assert his own worth, then he would really let loose and show what he is beneath the mask of genteel composure. whatever hannibal says he is, he is not.
his feelings towards clarice are a many meandering burden upon him, half the determined girl in the snow fighting to survive among the monsters, half the razor-sharp daughter he never had, the protégé he was robbed of by his time behind glass. in some ways, he evens sees a mirror -- his own doomed lamb screams his name in his sleep. he won’t admit to that ‘intimacy,’ however, and so he keeps to the scheme that clarice is a sort of echo of mischa. i do not ship it. i will never present it as romantic on hannibal’s side, and the ending to hannibal can kiss my ass.
likewise with will, while he was the worthy opponent, the only one that could have defeated him, he’s not really aligned to the show’s idea of their relationship. reminder that my muse is purely book based, so i won’t really engage with fuller’s concept of what they were. he thought he found a likeminded individual in graham, certainly, but would never sully it with mere human desire. after the dollarhyde incident, i don’t think he takes much interest in will and his family. he left his mark. he will haunt the three of them for the rest of their lives, and in his escape they will always wait with bated breath for retribution that is never to arrive.
