hii d, h, s, w and z for gnarl and siruud 💌
d. Do they have an unexpected talent? How did they cultivate it?
Hm I was going to say “well slight of hand is their most carefully cultivated talent” but that’s not wildly unexpected of them. I guess their most surprising talent is their general domestic abilities: cooking, cleaning, general intimate thoughtfulness that most people who work with them wouldn’t expect. They do work hard to not show that side of themself to others that haven’t earned the level of trust they need to really demonstrate how certified Soft they are.
h. Are they superstitious? Do they have any beliefs that most of their surrounding community might find odd?
Gnarl is absolutely peak game day football superstitious, and people find it about as odd as they usually do. There’s no real source or reason for it besides just that classic compulsive “well I did it like this last time so I better do it again forever”
s. Are they sentimental? What sort of value do they place on material objects?
Gnarl still have gifts purchased for their tenth birthday, never underestimate how deeply, profoundly sentimental they are. They’re full on I have a locket with a picture of my beloved sentimental. Sentimentality is the only real value objects have to them outside of pure comfort/convenience. They’d rather have more than less, but the only things that matter to them are the things with meaning.
w. Do they have any odd habits? Any weird little mannerisms?
Nothing out of the ordinary. Some more compulsive hoarding behaviour than others have but they got a handle on it— as much as anyone can have a handle on their compulsions. They’re just more inclined to save, recycle, to grin and bear low quality, poor quality, expiring, and/or well used and beaten down materials right down until they’re completely useless rather than give them up.
z. Just talk about them. Something that’s important to them, or to you.
It’s actually really important to me that they come across as NB. Like I’ve read far, far too many VNs where the NB characters have big NON-BINARY arrows pointing to them in the sense that they look NB but never too NB and it’s all so… flagrantly written by people who don’t have that experience or who have some deeply held ideas about gender that they either unconsciously can’t or purposely won’t let go of in order to do a good job writing characters like this. And of course the other end of this spectrum is when like, in side interviews the devs will be like “oh yeah they’re NB” when there is absolutely no indication in-game that they are not cis (ie rather than not having those big LOOK AT THE GENDERQUEER CHARACTER WE MADE arrows, they literally just have a fundamentally cis character they think they can spice up by labelling them).
IDK I just have a lot of experience writing NB characters in fanfiction and I’ve saved every single message from anyone I’ve ever received that go wild for NB characters I write because it feels good to be able to achieve that kind of realistic representation that I have never personally felt?
d. Do they have an unexpected talent? How did they cultivate it?
He’s a dancer, but like a technical dancer. He learns the steps, he cultivates his rhythm, and he’s very invested in the whole passion and movement of it all. How he did so isn’t so wild; when you’re alive forever because time isn’t a concept that applies to you, you have plenty of time to do whatever you feel like.
h. Are they superstitious? Do they have any beliefs that most of their surrounding community might find odd?
He really isn’t, because he’s the thing most people are superstitious about. He’s also lived through a lot of human superstition and he isn’t impressed, frankly. Like it was all well and good when civilization was young and couldn’t think to themselves well certainly removing blood by way of leech is probably not doing as much as we think. As time goes on and you watch a few empires rise and fall, though, it makes a man cynical.
s. Are they sentimental? What sort of value do they place on material objects?
His answer is no, but the real answer is that it depends. He doesn’t collect objects himself that remind him of anything in particular, nor is he inclined to; part of it is that he believes firmly in impermanence and the idea of losing something that means something to him unnerves him. In reality the answer is that people come across meaningful, sentimental objects entirely at random and even he isn’t immune to hanging on to things.
w. Do they have any odd habits? Any weird little mannerisms?
He doesn’t take great pains to exist within society’s sphere— any society— so he can come off as odd or overly familiar without necessarily intending to. He’s a man who likes to be comfortable and doesn’t see why he shouldn’t be.
z. Just talk about them. Something that’s important to them, or to you.
A major part of Siruud’s character and by extension your relationship with him is based in the player’s ability to grow and unlearn some things they take for granted, and Siruud being afforded the opportunity to learn that he isn’t alone. He’s a lot of bluster to protect himself, because he has a lot of vulnerability that he’s been alternatively irritating, trying to destroy, and aggressively protecting. So this relationship, while of course largely following him just due to... I mean, ideally y’all will love him if that’s your inclination, but it’s also just be aggressively trying to prove that people can be change and earn the privilege of trust in a relationship.
