#djerun

Nehmoras loves animals. Specifically the verminly variety. Rodents, insects, spiders... the way to joy is a big fat tarantula in his hand. Vermin, likewise, gravitate to him moreso than other animals, who meet him with at worst neutrality a majority of the time. He'll dote over any creature, though; he loves life, even if it sometimes tries to kill him for dinner.

Judah, on the other hand, doesn't care for many animals. The louder and more obnoxious the beast, the higher chance he'll avoid interacting with it and behave more hostile when he can't. He lokes cats. Cats are nice. Their antics make sense to him. Horses infuriate him. Dogs are not allowed within a shove-with-his-foot radius of him. Disgusting.

And dogs... well, Milo is outright afraid of dogs. Happens when a band of them chase you down for days then dismember you upon catching up. Then are allowed to just watch you from the cell across from yours. Despite his fear of dogs, he doesn't treat them with aggression. He simply maintains an over-healthy distance between them and himself. Given it's a flip of the coin whether an animal may see him as an ally or a threat as well, he avoids approaching animals until he can pick up on how they react to his presense alone.

And Djerun loves animals. Loves em. Back in his old chassis he'd sit still and let animals poke around and climb up on him. Kind of pretending to just be a tree, you know. It was fun to just let them be. And now... he can safely PET. He can feel how soft and squishy a big clumsy puppy really is. The urge to Pet may get him maimed.

10. Is there a crossover you just can’t resist?

4. Which muse required the most research for?

Technically I do an obsessive amount of research for a lot of my characters. I like writing people with affinity for scholarlyhood. Nehm and Judah are scientists, the former being knowledgeable in psychology, entomology, and both study magic sciences.

But for all of my characters, I research psychology and related fields. I write characters, in part, to understand. I want to write characters that feel like people, who react in ways that a real human could look at, recognise their own humanity, and connect. So, they need to behave in accordance to how a mind might work, yes? But humans vary to an incomprehensible level, so for every unique character, I must study different forms of behaviours, mindsets, and more uh... philosophical themes?

Characters and the stories they live in have always been a way for our kind to process the universe we live in and express our part in it. Symbology in how a character dresses, their speech, recurring themes in their story, aesthetic, etc.

So there's less of one character I had do do more research for and... one whose researching has been the most challenging.

And that would be Djerun. This is a person whose consciousness was formed as a machine. For all intents and purposes, Dj is an A.I. His energy has simply evolved beyond what the wires and cords in his computer body can process. But in an organoc body, his spirit has only the information it could form while in a mechanical host. There were programs inhibited that were meant to prevent the A.I. to form its own humanity.

And it's difficult to not only portray such a sentience that I have never encountered and, due to real A.I.s being programmed quite the same, likely never will, but to then introduce it access to the full range of human psyche. I love Dj for it, though. As tricky as it may be, I love a creative challenge that makes me really think.

10. Is there a crossover you just can’t resist?

Honestly no crossovers with WoW rp come to mind! I do have a lot of ideas of AUs for characters, putting them in non-WoW settings. For example Nehm is a blood bender doctor in the Avatar verse who struggles with the law to defend his medical practice. It's honest work just not... legally honest. :c

Not to say I'd be against crossovers! There just aren't any that I'm jonesin' for.

How about Djerun and Milo for this one!

Djerun would last until something killed him. Simple and plain an answer, perhaps, but he was made to protect. His first instinct, regardless of being in a body of flesh or machine, would be to keep others safe. In the lucky chance that his adoptive mother and friends are alright, he'd be there for them. Anyone else he meets, granted they didn't try to kill him, would be offered the same.

But in a mortal body, capable of complex emotions and irrationality... he may run himself towards death trying to save someone unsaveable or from the folly of his own blinding grief and fear. But he would try. He would try to help others. It's all he knows to do. If there were no one left to help, no one alive but himself...

Well. He has no more use in the world then, does he? Djerun wouldn't kill himself... but he wouldn't fight any more. Simply wander, until there qas no more Dherun to wander. His soul core would sit in burnt fields, that would become a desert, then a tundra, thousands of years a field again -- and he would stay there. One with the dirt, not to meet the new world and wgat it has to offer without being dug up by new life. If there ever is any.

.

And Milo, feeling empty inside without purpose, would find as many things to obligate himself to as he could. The health and safety of survivors, prevention of further destruction and reparations. They have to live. Life has to go on. Milo is stuck. In between being dead and alive. Even before undeath the emptiness enveloped inside him, only filled by others' life. Their joy, their pain, the energy...

He needs it. Without any life to devote his own to, there would only be the chaos devouring the world around him to devote himself to. He'd either fight it til his bones fell apart to ash, or until he succumbed to hopelessness and let the chaos kill him or drive him to madness. Likely the latter; the rush of wild emotion fueled by destructive forces beyond your control is unlike any breath one can fill their lungs with. He's fought against such a life for so long. Perhaps that makes it all the more easy to break.

Hmm, I think I'll answer this for Djerun!

It's a feeling both old and new to him. In his time as an automatonic guardian for his creator, he only knew love in the form of devotion and loyalty. But it was still love, a strong love. Then when he was granted freedom during an... accident, that love only grew. It evolved. He felt the love of friendship, though his body-- built to process little past surface observation and the most basic imitations of emotion-- could not understand these new feelings (accompanied by things such as fear, sorrow, guilt), and malfunctioned, translated those feelings into errors.

And now, he can feel it all. Feel it. Before the most he could do was acknowledge to himself, "I am sad for this person."

"This person is important to me. I wish to protect them. I think it is love."

Easily, he feels love strongest towards his adoptive mother, Vynnisa. He has known her since not long after he left his former master, and they grew to be fast friends quickly. She always expressed a nurturing affection to him, and even if he couldn't feel a warmth in his chest or be compelled into a smile by her presence, he could recognise its significance. He could recognise his own affection towards her: one he wished both to protect and to be protected by. He did not know what feeling safe was like back then, but once he'd been inhabited in a living body for some months, Djerun noticed that he did, in fact, feel safe when she was around.

He cannot tell what the things he feel are any more, though. Instead of an identification in plain words of what emotions he felt separate from his chassis, his body responded to his emotions, and his thoughts moulded to their whim.

"I am angry with this person's words about my friend," became, "What did you just SAY?? HOW DARE YOU?!"

"I am sad now that this person is not here," became, "Will I see them again? When will they be back again? Will we even see each other again?"

So for Djerun, love is one of the most important feelings there is out there. As far as he thinks about the whole ordeal, he is fueled by love.

Time’s passage had changed since Djerun had been transferred to a new body. Organic, bleeding, breathing. L i v i n g . It was a sensation that still surprised him; time, as best as he could pretend to remember it as it was, moved in a static, unchanging motion forward. No seconds, no minutes, simply cause and effect of reality reacting to itself. It never occurred to him then, that time had a feeling that accompanied its passage. The instancy of the present was… elongated. Things that happened seconds ago, he could recall, were recognised as the past. Now? The now was full moments long, even hours sometimes. He didn’t notice that time was passing. It was simply… happening.

It had him sitting on his bed in bafflement, now. It had for a long while already.