@windhoundz (sorry for the ping but it's been a while, so it seemed like a good idea)
So,
Luthaïs.
What an aesthetic, what a fun alignment! And none with left beef is A Mood tbh. Anyway.
I gots multiple questionses for you; if that's too many, just pick one.
So I get most of its dislikes... but why lizards?
Was it involved in raising its son? And if yes, what was it like as a parent? Because that must've been an experience for everybody involved... and if not, how much did its son know about his parent?
I kinda really want to know the chain of events that led to it trying to take a bite out of a raw potato. What.
Totally out of left field, but does it have a favorite color?
Don't worry, I can talk about my OC's ALL DAY LONG given the chance :D
Sorry for the late answer though, didn't get it quite finished yesterday and today was a little bit nuts :')
(also that's probably the first time somebody called anything I've ever written 'concise', so... hooray!)
Firstly; can I ask where his interest in botany stemmed from?
-> His parents had a nice big garden and there was generally a bunch of nature around their home - Absalom noticed very early on that gardens change a lot over the course of one year, beyond just "trees lose their leaves in autumn" - plants grow and wither, flowers come and go and they attract different insects... Absalom's first question - as young kids do - was 'why?' and after his parents had no idea about half of it, he resolved to figure it out on his own. Took note of all the changes happening in the garden, tried to remember which insects favored which plants... and then he was actually old enough to learn how to read and after that, there was just no stopping him. So, Baby's First Science, basically. Besides, plants are pretty and green is a nice color.
I can't help but imagine the quiet, unflinching Captain Hayes tending gently to his little plants - does he have favorites? (gasp) does he name them??
-> He tries not to play favorites with the plants (he'd feel bad about that), but there's an ancient scraggly olive tree right in the corner of the garden which he used to read under as a kid - he'd be devastated should anything happen to it.
He doesn't name them, though - mostly because he's pretty bad at naming things. Haven't done the tabs for it yet, but there's an AU in which he has a cat. He named it 'cat'. Just to put things into perspective.
Can I also ask about what makes him particularly enjoyable for you to write?
->That's an excellent question! I have no idea! Well, more like half an idea. Let's see...
First of all, Absalom is very sincere - he may not really advertise his innermost feelings, but cynicism and being cold and broody are foreign concepts to him - ask him about his feelings about his crew and you'll get a five-hour monologue about how every single one of them is 100% amazing; try to poke fun at his little plant obsession and you'll get a lecture on orchids and why they're Really Awesome, No Really.
Writing that can be really refreshing.
Also, putting him into crappy situations and figuring out how to get him out of there again is great fun - he is one smart cookie and trying to keep up as the writer is pretty entertaining. Especially because I get to write Severin freaking out in the background, which is also fun.
Balancing the whole emotions thing is a constant challenge, but I enjoy doing that.
There's more, probably, but How do I Word
(something deep within me TERRIBLY wants to ask about why he has trouble with emotions, and the Mystery Orientation - but that's up to you if you want to answer or not! :'D)
->The Mystery Orientation is pretty easily explained: The fancy magical arcanepunk universe of awesome he's residing in doesn't really do sexual orientation - they kind of view the whole 'gender preference' thing as another extension to 'having a type', along with a number of other cultural differences when it comes to relationships... which makes it pretty difficult to slap a label on 'em by our Real-Life standards. In Absalom's case, he'd probably be some flavor of demisexual anyway, which complicates things further. I figured that trying to explain that entire thing in Absalom's bio would be doomed to failure.
The emotion thing is more difficult to explain, especially because he's got emotions in general pretty well figured out, just not the actual face part - I'd say it's a mixture of natural predisposition, a lack of contact outside the family (which just figured that he was otherwise well-adjusted and there was no need to fix what wasn't really broken) in early childhood, and the fact that it worked out quite well for him, especially later on in the navy. The less you involuntarily grimace at a really unwise order, the less likely you are to accidentally annoy your superior officers. I don't think he's aware that it tends to creep people out a bit.
ALSO OH MY GOSH on the airship ordeal, in terms of conscience - does Absalom believe that they are sentient? And has he ever had a bit of a 'moment' per-se with the ACV Equinox?
->He knows that Equinox is sentient at least. Equinox understands a fair amount of what the crew is saying but doesn't have a way to answer - but she, uh... generally gets the point across pretty well. Equinox has a tendency to play favorites with the crew, which was what originally started to tip Absalom off, because he watches the crew just as closely as the ship does - and as it turns out, calling her a 'crappy old pissbucket' after a particularly bad night watch is a pretty good way to get your hammock dumped on the ground several nights in a row and have the ship mysteriously hit a turbulence every time you're trying to carry an open container with something gross and stain-leaving until the crew mutters about a curse. After a few months, it started being too much of a coincidence that the most well-adjusted crew members and the best deck-swabbers were sailing much more smoothly than the less hardworking and more foul-mouthed crew members... and from there it was pretty much a matter of "bang the cabin door twice if you can understand what I'm saying". It doesn't quite work well enough to have a proper conversation - the ship seems to lack the mental focus for it (almost like she was, say... occupied with keeping afloat and not dump everyone a few thousand feet onto sharp rocks) - but they're both perfectly able to get simple points across, and they both try to make life easier for the other... though they occasionally have differing opinions on what's best for each other.
FINALLY I hope this isn't too many questions or anythn' - but when it comes to Severin, can I ask about the dynamic of their friendship/relationship? ;A; they sound super lovely and interesting and if you wanted to talk about 'em, i'd love to hear!!!
->No such thing as too many questions :3 I hope any of this is actually coherent, though.
Anyway.
Their relationship - both platonic and romantic - has always been founded on communication - by necessity, since they could only interact by mail for most of it. Usually, whenever something's going on, they talk it out. They don't always see eye-to-eye on certain issues (Severin thinks Absalom's absolute commitment to doing as little harm as possible is stupid when it means constantly putting others first, for instance, while Absalom's not entirely okay with Severin's somewhat cavalier attitude towards fairness. Or the acceptableness of sauerkraut as dinner. Severin's in favor, by the way, while Absalom hates the stuff) but that's okay - they're more than willing to compromise (within reason). The only thing they didn't talk about for the longest time was their feelings for each other - they knew each other for almost half their lives by that point, risking that long a friendship for a chance at romance seemed foolish. Luckily, the crew and the ship had other ideas, and they eventually talked that through, too. They're quite similar in some ways and very different in others - similar enough to make their relationship a very harmonious one, different enough that both of them can contribute something to their relationship. That relationship is also extremely important to both of them: they're very sure about what they want, they took a lot of risks to get there, it's quite frankly a miracle that they stayed alive for long enough to get together, and nothing's going to come between them now. They both firmly believe that good relationships should take work - preferably an equal amount from both sides - and they're very much ready to live up to that.
(they're also both extremely tactile and will cuddle up as frequently as they can, just because they enjoy the physical closeness... so yeah, that's a thing)
