Lennox Canled

Lennox

Lighting up the world around, shining without falter

Lennox is a character in my titular story project, which goes by the placeholder name of The Siblings. As the oldest of the six main characters, he serves as an important and iconic presence to the other characters, which influences their actions and behaviors throughout the entire story.

Originally made as a take on the mentor, big-figure character, Lennox has ended up developing into a somewhat strange but fascinating and unique character. Though at first sight he seems straightforward- a mature and intuitive person who's dedicated to protecting those close to him- he gives off this peculiar feeling that always makes you feel like you don't know everything, that leaves this sense of wondering behind, despite always staying true to his intentions. His main role is being an important figure of the sibling story, whether he's actively there or not, but he will occasionally tread outside those native waters. Whatever it is he's doing, there will most likely be some sort of intrigue to it.

Story

-There will be a link here to explain the universe someday, but not today; therefore, content warning for abuse, violence, and murder-

As the firstborn child of the Queen and King of the Celestial Tower, Lennox had a lot of expectations placed on him from an early age. Though his parents did act nice and loving towards him, and he came to be the favorite, it was less because of him and more because they wanted to morph him into their own image of what they wanted him to be.

As it ended up, he turned out to be quite different from that. His precociousness helped him to realize and pick up on a lot of things at early ages, and he ultimately lost a lot of his innocence at early ages as well. He was able to notice how his parents didn't treat his other siblings as they came to be and aged the same way as they did with him, and how his parents had the specific image in mind for him. Because of it, he took it upon himself to be the one to provide emotionally for his siblings and try to shield them from harm, seeing to it that they felt loved too. This only became more prominent the older he became. To deal with not being the image his parents wanted, he ended up putting up somewhat of a façade towards them; they knew it wasn't true, but they believed it anyway, so he allowed them to love that idea of him rather than the actual person, and instead focused on protecting his other siblings from them as best he could.

When the story begins, he retains this position as the sibling that all his siblings look up to for guidance, with the added expectation of him to be able to take over for his parents when they die and fix what they turned into a tyranny alongside his other siblings, something the rest of them look forward to. But as a regrettably bad story decision I will fix in the next version of the story, Lennox winds up dead by the fourth chapter, as the other siblings wake up to find him the victim of an assassination, which begins the fear that this is the start of a rebellious uprising.

Though it takes the other characters some time to learn the truth of this tragedy, he learns it minutes after death that this had been planned in part by one of his younger brothers, named Elmir, that had aligned himself with the rebels in hopes of being able to get rid of his parents and take control, casting his siblings aside in the process. Left alone in an unfamiliar realm of existence with this knowledge, Lennox helplessly watched the terrible events that continued afterwards happen one by one. 
That is, until he couldn't bear to live with his helplessness any longer; with one half of his siblings living now in a forest after being driven out planning to return and force Elmir out of his position, and knowing this would not go down well, he appealed to a system of afterlife entities with higher power about being granted the ability to perform a single divine intervention; a difficult process that rarely succeeded which involved making his case using everything he could to back it up.

It worked, but not in the way he had wanted it to. Instead of allowing him to appear to Elmir and rewire and manipulate his state of mind to make him give in to his own guilt and try to fix things, they were not sympathetic to Elmir's case and allowed Lennox instead the power to, if it came down to it, kill his brother in order to save the lives of his other siblings. Horrified at this verdict, Lennox could only hope he wouldn't have to use it, but several weeks later as his siblings' plan unfolded, and the situation quickly went downhill as Elmir trapped the others in a room and proceeded to try and murder them, Lennox waited until he knew there was no hope of stopping this and his anger had built up enough to carry out the only thing he could do.

The regret was instant and the experience traumatized him, but left now in the same realm of existence again as this person he had cared about that had helped to do the worst thing possible to him and everyone else he cared about, Lennox made the decision to forgive him anyway.

As the third installment to the story begins, Lennox appears again in person, as it shown that he and Elmir have been living together in the house Lennox had created for himself. Lennox serves as the deuteragonist of sorts to his brother; though the obvious issues and tensions between them have been talked out a few times, Lennox chooses to assume his typical cheerful and stoic demeanor as if nothing happened, but still brings it up out of concern for his guilt-ridden and emotionally unstable brother. Had the story gone on, it's uncertain the specifics of what Lennox would have ended up doing; though one thing that is for certain is that he would soon begin to propose a more concrete way for the two to talk through what had happened by holding sessions of sorts comparable to therapy sessions. In the end, he would have helped Elmir to find a way to forgive himself and try to move forward, as the two of them watched over their living siblings in hopes of their eventual reunion.

In other AUs where everyone survives the events of canon, Lennox is typically assumed to end up with his other siblings in being driven out to a forest and in coming back to take everything down, in which despite living with the trauma of almost being murdered among other things, he continues to assume his ringleader position and help them through the events. As trauma gradually begins to lessen its grip and relationships begin to stabilize again, he along with his other siblings move forward and typically end up living together in one way or another, happy and united.

Though he's only been mentioned a few times by Elmir and hasn't had any roleplays, he's considered an NPC in Reverie Sanctuary, an AU in which he works in a manager's position, living happily with his siblings after having finally gathered the strength and resources needed to break them away from their parents and also legally sue them for child abuse. 

Personality

What's most notable about Lennox at first encounter is his confident yet somewhat reserved demeanor, often accompanied by a friendly tone and a voice that sounds like it knows what it's talking about. Lennox tends to fall in and out of two noticeable modes in social interaction- one where he opts to be quiet and listen, either in order to think and analyze or to take in what is being said, which is more often used in group conversations, and the other in which he is sociable and engages in natural conversation. For this reason, it's hard to categorize him as an introvert or extrovert- though he is an internal-thinking person, he also possess all the force of a typical extrovert. He generally is pleasant to be around, and is the caring and affectionate type, but he's also stoic by nature; not in the emotionless sense of the word, but in the fact that he tends to remain either calm or upbeat without showing intense emotions. Often in a situation where people have started to panic or get emotional, he will be the one to try to keep his cool and remain reasonable and sensible. He also tends to hide his emotional distress whenever he has it and keep it internal; he's the type who feels he has to be strong for everyone else.

Lennox is well known for his emotional intelligence and intuition, as well as for his decision-making abilities, and is typically the person looked to for advice or emotional support, though he possess intelligence in a lot of other senses of the word, and is naturally a thinking person. He likes to take time to process his thoughts and sort them out, and too much information at once can result in a mental overload or sense of being overwhelmed, and he hates feeling that his thoughts are a jumbled mess in his head. He is also the leader type by nature, and beyond people typically looking to him, he is the kind to step up and take charge without much hesitation if he feels that he is needed in that position. He's definitely confident in himself and his abilities and has a lot of self-esteem, but it's complicated by the fact that he puts too much pressure on himself and is too hard on himself for his own mistakes, which puts him at a complex between believing in himself yet being too hard on himself. He has trouble with his own limitations in general- he sometimes has trouble admitting when he's wrong, and his mindset can fall into a bad habit of thinking he can fix and solve everything, moreso on a subconscious level. He's also, though not arrogant or flaunting about his abilities, isn't exactly modest either, and will probably just agree with something instead of being humble about it.

Ultimately, Lennox is motivated by both the need to protect his loved ones from harm, whether emotional or physical, and by his strong and firm sense of morality, which revolves around the idealistic approach of always trying to do what is right and beneficial- to help enhance the world and people around him to be better, and to never take harmful shortcuts that hurt people in order to benefit others. He is energized by his natural positive spirit, and is sometimes characterized as being like a light source in the way that he attempts to spread this energy to whoever he can. However, survival for himself and the people he loves will have to come first before anything else- but he will do everything to try and ensure that it doesn't violate his morality in doing so. 

One of the more unexpected traits that he possess is the type of responses he has whenever he gets tired of dealing with a person's unfavorable behavior. Depending on the situation and person, he tends to either demonstrate a subtle and/or indirect level of sassiness, or purposefully disregard his usual filter and restraint and be more direct about his feelings. He also occasionally demonstrates a playful tone that has a light flavor of wit or small jokes.

Creator's Comments

I feel bad for having kept the character in the dark for so long, but when he finally got more time to be looked at, it was well worth it. My mother has told me before that she's 'never seen a character like him before,' a comment that has stuck with me. Heck, I'm still fascinated with the character to this day and I keep wanting to poke into him to see how he reacts to this or that. His element of unpredictability has still held true.

I'm pretty happy for him. He's able to be a role model, but not perfect, and be more interesting than he sounds. I keep wanting more of him and I don't get tired of it, and my friends seem to feel a similar way about him. I hope that it doesn't turn out to just be me who thinks there's a charm to his character.

Trivia Facts:
-The original idea for his personality was more of a gruff and rough character; as you may imagine, this would not have worked out well.
-He was also imagined with a beard at some point, but this got lost in time and memory.
-He was also originally envisioned with a lot less hair.
-His favorite color is brown.
-He almost never uses contractions when speaking.
 -The irony of his name meaning "Lives near the place abounding in elm trees" in some languages is a coincidence that comes about due to someone not paying attention to the actual meaning of names when picking them from a list for the story. 

Links

A writing piece specifically focused on him and an alternative timeline

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