#antanasia

Antanasia: YES. Her ability to get away with serial murder is actually a major plot point of Unquiet Bones. Antanasia is a necromancer who has been convinced her powers work on essentially a tit-for-tat basis, meaning that for every person she resurrects, someone else has to be that missing death. She has been getting away with this for years on the basis of living in an analogue to a medieval city where the concept of a serial killer is not really known or understood. Given that the city she lives in is near-constantly expanding and overcrowded, and she specifically targets "undesirables" who live in the slums, she's been getting away with it for quite a while.

Lucia: NO. The polar opposite of Antanasia, her inability to get away with murder is a plot point. To be fair, she was like... seven, and it wasn't exactly intentional. Lucia was brutally bullied as a child for her (unrecognised because, again, medieval times) autism. Unfortunately, an autistic meltdown combined with untrained magical powers ends... explosively. As several tormentors find out to their detriment. Lucia's solution to this was to hide in her house's pigeon loft. She was quickly found, very nearly had extemely bad things happen to her, and was saved and sent to the College of Constellations to be trained as a magus. Given her intensely negative experiences at the CoC, it's... debatable whether this was really salvation.

Damian: Has never tried to kill anyone, but theoretically could get away with it by virtue of being King of Haelgavaard, and his life being sacred (at least until he sires an heir to continue his royal bloodline): his servants and intimates (namely, his sworn knight Sir Beladon) would go to extreme lengths to save him from consequences, and likely believe that anyone he killed was "lesser" than Damian, and so his continued life and happiness and security was worth more than any other person's life. Fortunately, despite his many and legitimate stressors and frustrations, Damian is not the murdering kind.

Varnius: YES. Kind of. Like Antanasia, Varnius is a priest of Ysa-Munda, the goddess of death, and also like Antanasia, he has a body count. Unlike Antanasia, all of Varnius's "victims" were willing and... not really victims at all. Varnius operates a hospice some miles outside of Haelgavaard and unofficially offers euthanasia to patients who experience intense suffering: physical and mental. By the time Unquiet Bones opens, Varnius has helped many patients find peace but is still conflicted -- he believes in his heart he is doing the right thing, but his actions directly contravene the doctrine of Ysa-Munda, which states let no mortal hasten or delay the hour [of death]. He has a lot of secondary trauma that he has no real way to process, which is driving him further and further towards caregiver burnout and an accompanying decline in safeguarding when it comes to making sure his patients are sure about ending their lives.

Other OCs:

Madeleine: YES. Madeleine is an OC I've used in a wiiiiiide variety of stories at this point. In her OG incarnation in You'll Be Free (If You Truly Wish To Be), she's never put to the test, but in numerous other stories she can and has gotten away with murder, usually on behalf (or in vengeance of) someone else, and often with the help of her right-hand woman, Siobhan, whose past is both shady and blood-soaked. Madeleine is not inherently bloodthirsty by any means, but she is fiercely devoted to those she loves, and if killing is the only way to protect or avenge her loved one, she will plan and execute it both brutally and exquisitely.

54. What’s their instinct in a fight / flight / freeze / fawn situation?

Antanasia/"Tansy" - As a secret necromancer keeping the king alive since they were both young children, Tansy got comfortable with asserting herself early. This was not entirely intentional (the previous king and the High Priestess of Ysa-Munda the goddess of death would have perhaps preferred her more malleable), but when you take a child, tell them they have special powers and the entire fate of the kingdom and possibly the continent rests of their shoulders... Well, in Tansy's case you get someone who learns the meaning of "immovable object" real fast.

King Damian is not exactly happy with the resurrection carousel that is his (un)life, so Tansy often goes toe-to-toe with the king himself to ensure he gets the care he needs (in her opinion... it's highly debatable whether what she's doing is ethical in the slightest). So in most verbal confrontations, Tansy goes cold and stern and tries to assert herself with logic. She does know when to fold 'em, but usually that means just abandoning the head-on approach and finding a more sly solution.

In a physical confrontation, she would probably be more inclined to flee. Tansy is very tall but thin as a reed and has little to no muscle; she'd go down fast and easy in a fight and she knows it.

Lucia - By the time the story opens, a combination of freeze and fawn. Lucia is intentionally coded as autistic in Unquiet Bones, although it's not explicitly called out in the text, and is based off my own experienced as a neurodivergent individual in an academic setting.

Lucia has a defining childhood experience where she was physically and emotionally bullied to the point of exploding (metaphorically and... kind of literally). The backlash she got for reacting as she did, even when it was to protect herself, was so harsh -- from family, friends, and authority figures -- that she became terrified of ever losing control to that extent again. This means that she has trained herself out of a fight reflex, but at the cost of being so afraid of conflict that she either fawns and tries to resolve the situation ASAP, even when she is the wronged party, or just shuts down altogether and waits for the storm to pass.

Damian - Damian vacillates between fight and freeze. As a king, he's simultaneously aware he holds ultimate power and he has a very specific set of behaviours he's supposed to follow for the good of the kingdom. As someone with what is essentially a deteriorating chronic illness, he's also become normalised to docilely allowing people to do things to him that he doesn't want because it's "for his own good".

So his preference is to roar and fight and defend his boundaries as well as he can, but it's also a question of whether he a) has the physical and mental energy to do so, b) is in a situation where he won't damage his own reputation or undermine the strength of his position by setting a boundary, and c) believes that the person/people he's arguing with will even listen to him, or just disregard what he's saying and physically overpower him.

Sometimes it's easier to just let whatever is happening, happen, and pick up the pieces afterwards.

(And that's not even going into the bodily autonomy horror of being a deeply closeted gay man who is married to a woman and expected to get an heir as soon as possible -- in fact, that's the main reason you're being kept alive, so your bloodline doesn't die out with you.)

He also fights (verbally) much more often with people he trusts, at least subconsiously, not to leave him. His wife from a political marriage gets cool, polite interactions. Tansy and Beladon, both of whom he's known intimately since he was a young child, get the brunt of the yelling and harsh words.

Varnius - Varnius was actually the hardest to answer this for! Partly because he's the least developed so far, I think.

Varnius joined the priesthood of Ysa-Munda, Goddess of Death, when he was thirteen. At the time, the Mother Superior of the priesthood took the word of Mother Death very literally, especially concerning that Her devoted worshippers were considered dead to the world when they took their vows. Varnius experienced very harsh conditions in the priesthood during his initiation and throughout his teenage years, leaving him with a profound lack of self-worth, and a conviction that his only reason for existing was to help others.

This means he avoided conflict as much as possible during his younger years. Questions were punished. Failure was punished. Crying because you were tired and cold and hungry and wanted to rest was punished. So he learned not to complain. He learned not to question the will of Ysa-Munda. He learned that he was as good as dead, a vessel who existed only to tend to the dead.

Then one day he met a priest of Xenith, the God of Life. Emil was warm; he was kind; he was patient; and, little by little, he put the shattered pieces of Varnius's psyche back together until he felt like a person again.

The upshot of this was that Varnius started questioning the priesthood again. Started considering if he could maybe one day find a way to leave. Then Emil died, and the resulting mental breakdown of grief that was then swiftly suppressed to fester turned Varnius into a man who looks far, far more mentally stable than he actually is.

Nowadays he still hates conflict and avoids it as much as possible, but he will stand his ground when it's for the benefit of others, especially those under his care at the convalescent home he founded, and where he defends his patients' rights to decide when, how, and if they end their lives.

Beladon - Beladon has been raised to be a chevalier parfait, the epitome of a chivalrous knight. He serves King Damian as a counsellor and close friend, pays the expected level of chivalric adoration to Queen Saveria, excels at the joust, writes heartfelt poetry... etc., etc.

Beladon keeps himself on a very short leash. Self-control is his primary virtue. He identifies the correct way to act in every situation and does not allow himself to deviate from that. His inclination is to fight, and he will throw down with anyone who insults his king and queen, but even that is done very correctly: a verbal warning, a threat of repercussions, and finally a formal challenge to a duel (to someone of his own class), or removing them from his presence (to someone of a lower class who does not merit a duel).

Interpersonally, however, Beladon fawns and fawns hard. He has been Damian's best friend and confidant since they were ten years old, and knows more about Damian than anyone else. He has been in love with Damian for a not inconsiderable number of the years they've known each other, and he cannot bear for Damian to think badly of him. So if he ever senses he's annoyed Damian, he immediately backtracks on whatever he has done or said, trying to please him.

I’m still hammering out the exact lore on necromancy for Unquiet Bones, but so far: it’s a power bestowed on Tansy (so those in the know believe) by Ysa-Munda, the Goddess of Death. Mother Josefina, the head priestess of Ysa-Munda, initially thought it more likely it was a gift from Xenith, the God of Life, on the basis that Ysa-Munda would be shooting Herself in the foot a bit giving someone the power to bring people back from the dead. But… she got shouted down. Because, hey, what would she know?

Some followers of Ysa-Munda have a very mild form of Tansy’s powers: they can search the afterlife for souls and occasionally perform seances to bring the soul briefly back to speak with loved ones. Even this, however, is seen as stepping of Ysa-Munda’s toes and only done in special circumstances -- e.g., if someone died in a sudden accident, then with a sufficient ‘donation’ to the temple, it might be allowed for the deceased’s family to contact their soul to say goodbye. This may or may not also be used to figure out inheritances.

(Sidebar: Ysa-Munda is also an unofficial patron goddess of lawyers/accountants, because nothing in life is certain except death and taxes.)

Tansy, however, can go much further than this: she can bring souls all the way back from the dead and place them back in their bodies. This is how she resurrected King Damian when he was dying as a child (and has done so multiple times since).

The downside to this is that Tansy is explicitly a necromancer, not a healer. The soul gets put back in the body in… exactly the state the body is in. So if, say, she resurrected someone who died of a virulent flesh-eating plague -- well, that would probably be quite traumatising for the soul in question.

The other downside is that Tansy requires a physical connection to the person she is resurrecting. For anyone not related to her by blood, this is satisfied by drinking their blood or, for a full resurrection, eating their flesh.

(Damian, oddly, is exempt from this; his father, King Theodoric, claimed it must be due to Damian’s royal blood: he is, via the divine right of kings, connected to all of his subjects. Nobody in the intervening years has seen a good reason to disclaim this, or an alternate explanation.)

Very few people, even within the cult of Ysa-Munda, are aware of the extent of Tansy’s powers, as Mother Josefina feared that widespread knowledge of a true necromancer would cause either a) mass hysteria and danger of violence towards Tansy, and/or b) that Tansy would be petitioned to resurrect multitudes of people. Mother Josefina , especially given her doubt even now that Tansy’s gift truly does come from Ysa-Munda, fears that Tansy using her powers any more than absolutely necessary would bring Mother Death’s rage down upon them all.

3. What is your OC’s fatal flaw? Are they aware of this flaw?

This is SUCH a good question because I was honestly stumped for a little while!

After mulling it over, I think Tansy’s fatal flaw is ultimately her inability to see situations from the perspective of other people.

For example, when Damian tells her again and again that he doesn’t want her to continue resurrecting him, Tansy assumes he’s just attempting to shirk his responsibilities as king and not realising how grateful he should be for a miracle (possibly because she heard this expressed as a child by other people).

Or when she asks Lucia to leave Varnius’s commune and come back to Haelgavaard, not understanding why Lucia would turn down someone who cares for her and is willing to provide for her material needs and why that wouldn’t be enough to erase her mental health issues.

Tansy isn’t malicious (although she definitely does some awful things), but she is someone who has rigid beliefs that are extremely difficult to change. She considers herself to be logical and is inclined to think people who disagree with her without (in Tansy’s opinion) a good reason are being controlled by their emotions. The solution, then, is to talk the person down until they realise how irrational they are and come around to Tansy’s way of thinking.

23. What emotion is the hardest for your OC to process? How about express?

I think both of these ultimately come back to fear.

Tansy was deeply terrified and traumatised as a child when her first attempt to resurrect her foster mother who died of the plague turned out horribly. Her foster mother suffered immensely until she was killed again to put her out of her misery, the rest of her foster family turned against her and denounced her as a monster, and she was then ripped away from the only family she had ever known and taken to do that exact awful thing again to a boy her own age.

She was then told that the fate of the entire kingdom rested on her doing that awful thing again, and again, and again, as often as needed. Even as the boy she grew to care about grew, in his turn, to hate her for being his tormentor. Even when she fled the kingdom, she was eventually dragged back and the metaphorical shackles put on again. There is no escape from her life except escaping her life, and the thing she is most afraid of in the world is facing Ysa-Munda when she dies.