Hanif!
Full Name: Hanif Nejem ibn Karim
Gender and Sexuality: Bisexual (but probably heteroromantic?) male
Pronouns: he/him
Ethnicity/Species: Crown Redguard
Birthplace and Birthdate: The 2nd of Sunâs Dusk, 4e 142, in Ska'vyn (Skaven), Hamerfell
Guilty Pleasures: Hookah
Phobias: The Aldmeri Dominion (more of an intense loathing than a fear, though), mind-altering magic such as illusion, vampires, necromancy
What They Would Be Famous For: After the war he became locally known in certain neighborhoods of Sentinel as the man who would f*ck up anyone who messed with a certain troupe of street performers.
What They Would Get Arrested For: Hanif is a generally law-abiding citizen, but he might land himself in the occasional brawl. Other than that, I canât imagine him doing anything worth involving law enforcement.
OC You Ship Them With: Dimah DimaH DIMAH his beautiful wife â€ïž
OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Good luck trying
Favorite Movie/BookStory Genre: War stories and Yokudan fables
Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: When magic somehow conveniently solves the heroâs problem rather than the hero working it out for themselves. Thatâs lazy. Thatâs cheating. Hanif wants none of it.
Talents and/or Powers: Hanif is a bit of a natural leader, and his time in the army honed that aptitude considerably. Heâs skilled in battle, talented at teaching, and possesses a libraryâs worry of knowledge surrounding ra gada traditions and culture.
Why Someone Might Love Them: Heâs sweet and thoughtful, in his own quiet way, and goes out of his way to look after the people he cares for. A man of few words, but when he chooses to speak itâs always with sure, iron-willed conviction.
Why Someone Might Hate Them: Yeah, âiron-willedâ isnât always a good thing. Hanif is stubborn to a fault, unwilling to shake his beliefs or attempt to see anotherâs point of view. His leadership abilities can sometimes result in a bit of an Alpha-male mentality, where heâs more likely to ruthlessly bull other people into submission than take the time to understand them. He has deep-rooted prejudices, with valid reason in some cases, but he clung to those biases until the day he died.
How They Change: Hanif was injured in the war and found himself very taken with one of the women who helped nurse him to health (Dimah and several others wound up volunteering to assist in the hospitals towards the end of the war). He married her practically as soon as he was physically recovered, and all of a sudden the middle-aged career sellsword was a family man. A family man with a large number of in-laws, most of whom werenât even related to his wife by blood.
Why You Love Them: This guy. This guy.
Another very flawed individualâ his deep-rooted bias and bigotries rubbed off onto his impressionable stepson, (causing Alhusayn to grow into the hardheaded butthole he is today) but Hanif never saw it that way. His intentions were goodâ he took a fatherless boy into his home and under his wing and raised him the way Hanif himself was brought up, with a great reverence for Redguard tradition. Hanif loved the hell out of Dimah, and that extended to the rest of her family. I love him because of the role he took on, completely willingly, to provide for his wife and her child and everyone else in their ragtag little troupe. He took on way more than he was obligated to without even being asked, and he had such an enormous impact on the man Al grew up to be (for better or worse). Itâs funny, to me, that even my âgoodâ characters, this inherently selfless, generous guy⊠is still really effing problematic in a lot of ways. I like that dichotomy, to be honest. I like it a lot.
