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 Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 5:13 pm
Name: D’io (Dio pre-Impression. He didn’t have much to work with there)
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Rank/craft Wingrider, vintner
At what age did they Impress? 19
History: Dio was never really that good a Ghenzan. Honestly, he was kind of lazy and self-indulgent from birth. His parents despaired, but luckily when he was old enough to start learning his father’s craft he rather enjoyed being a vintner and thus was willing to put in the effort. He especially enjoyed the tasting bit, and as he progressed he especially enjoyed tasting the wines he was responsible for, and sharing them with his friends... Especially pretty friends. Pretty females, or pretty males; he loved the company of both, and charmed plenty into bed. In general, at this stage in his life, he showed a preference for men, merely because then he didn’t have to worry about getting them pregnant and having to do something as horrid as settle down.
He could happily have carried on as a good vintner and poor Ghenzan all his life, but when he was nineteen and standing at a hatching a blue dragonet kicked languidly out of his shell, and sauntered over to the young man who found himself wondering how the heck he was going to make an honorific out of his three letter name. Liorth pointed out that he could go with D’io, D’i, or D’o, and that all but the first sounded ridiculous.
So, D’io and Liorth set off together along life’s course searching for the finer things that it had to offer. One would think that they might have grown up a little by now, but one would be one hundred percent wrong there. D’io has kept up with winemaking as much as possible, and now feels free to sleep around more than ever as he can just take a girl for a hop between the morning after to make sure there are no Consequences.
When the weyrlings and other folk from High reaches arrived, he was fascinated. At first his fears about illness kept him back from them, but when nobody keeled over and died he began to watch them more closely. Before he could get around to approaching any of them, however, the weyrlings departed. A few outsiders, however, remained and D’io is getting around to seeking friendship (or maybe even Friendship) with these interesting new people. Given that nobody died when they arrived, he has also begun to grow curious about the world outside Ghenza, but is keeping this as much to himself as he can; he knows he’s frowned upon by the higher ups quite enough as it is without adding more transgressions to his rather long list.
Appearance: D’io is one of those men who is hated by other men his age. With a full head of snow-white hair which falls half way down his back, a handsome chiseled face with matching handsome (roguish) grin, bright blue eyes, and a lean tough body he’s your stereotypical hot older man. He’s quite tall, too, just about scraping six foot, and carries himself well to emphasize his height. This isn’t to say he’s ramrod stiff, however, while some of his joints are starting to creak he always manages to have a languid, relaxed air about him; D’io could probably look casual running a marathon on fire, while being chased by twenty hungry felines that shoot killer bees out of their mouths and have saliva made of Thread.
In terms of clothes, whenever he isn’t working he’ll be dressed to impress; he’s related to tailors on his mother’s side and takes full advantage of this fact. Over all, to a lot of Ghenza he probably looks like trouble; the sort of man who’ll be a bad influence on young girls. This is, of course, entirely correct, but pretty young boys should be added to the list as well.
Personality: D’io is a bad, bad man. Not as in evil, or malicious; he’s one of those people whose friends will tell them they’re terrible through fits of laughter. He’s sharp, witty, charming, imaginative, and a champion of flattery, and sometimes false flattery at that (of course your arse doesn’t look big in that/what a lovely singing voice you have, are you sure you’re not harper trained?...). He’s also a complete hedonist, and rather selfish. He’ll work cheerfully, but only if he enjoys what he’s being asked to do. If he doesn’t like what he’s being asked to do, expect sloppiness and rather childish bad grace. Onto that selfishness; he can and does see things from other people’s point of view, but that doesn’t mean he acts on his understanding. In his world, he ranks above everyone and everything; he’ll go out of his way to help a very good friend or a pretty thing who might sleep with him but only if they actually ask him to help them, and have something to offer in return. Even for people he’s known all his life, even for family, even for his dragon he will not make an effort he doesn’t want to make unless you promise him something he wants in return. No, it isn’t the thought that counts for him, and just saying please and thanks won’t do; take a nasty job off his hands, sleep with him if he fancies you, or something along those lines if you expect him to do something he doesn’t want to for you. If what you want is for him to come flying with you or chill with a bottle of wine, however, he’s there free of charge because those things are fun.
While he’s very insistent when people owe him, he can be a bit lax when it comes to repaying the people he owes. This much, however, is not intentional; he always really means to square up with somebody who has specifically said ‘you owe me’, but unless they want something easy like a shag, free wine, or a dragon ride he tends to procrastinate on sorting out their dues. With repeated prodding he will get around to it, but if somebody is too shy to remind him again and again it could be months or even more before he repays them. If they’re too shy or too good-natured to even ask to be repaid in the first place, then they’re not going to get anything other than his usual charming demeanor. For those who just take reciprocity as a given this could really grate, especially how demanding he is when it comes to getting back what he’s ‘owed’.
When it suits him, D’io can also be a liar and a cheat. Yes, he will mark the cards or stack the deck if he thinks he can get away with it, and if he thinks it’ll get him out of trouble or bring him some other benefit he’ll certainly lie about whose fault something was, or twist the truth at the very least. He doesn’t set out to hurt anyone, he just means to help himself and sometimes there’s a bit of collateral damage; if somebody is too dim to figure out that he’s not being one hundred percent candid about whatever it is... Well, he might feel a little bad for them, but it won’t stop him doing it again, and in the end it’s their own fault for not being sharper. There are a select few people who he wouldn’t cheat, but even these nearest and dearest might well be lied to in a pinch; he wants to keep his life comfortable, and if the best way to do that is to swear to his friend that he had no idea said friend wanted him to keep away from a girl they might like... Well, a man has to do what a man has to do; lie like a champion in whatever way he thinks will save the most face for him will still being believable; ‘She came onto me!..’
For all his selfishness and laziness, however, D’io is a blast to be around. He knows how to throw a party, how to crack a joke or ten, and he can be an excellent listening ear for all your problems (mostly because listening requires very little effort on his part). Ever light-hearted, always seeing the bright light at the end of the tunnel, always with a smile and a good word for all D’io is a bounder, a cad, and a terribly bad man but he’s also undeniably nice in a social setting, and would like nothing better than for the whole world to get along and enjoy itself. Why bother with parties, with charming words, with keeping on good terms even with people he happens to think are daft gits? If he was left on his own, D’io would still have plenty of self-worth, but he’d be bored and lonely. Yes D’io loves himself, but he loves others to love him as well. He doesn’t need their validation to feel like a worthwhile person, but he does need other people around to have fun; laughter, wine, and staying up until more hours when you have to be on duty early is only any fun when shared in the end. D’io puts in the effort when it’s fun, and so as long as it continues to be fun to be around people (i.e. probably forever), he’ll make the effort to keep them there.
Dragon Name: Liorth (blue)
Dragon Description: By and large, Liroth is a deep, rich midnight blue. His markings are electric blue, and arranged thusly: almond shaped patches over the eyes (points facing backwards), and brindling on the legs and wing fingers/arms with the striping growing less dense closer to the shoulders/hips. His eyes are always bright and cheerful, please colour them either purple or a blue/purple blend <3
Dragon Personality: Liorth could be D’io’s twin. He’s bright and witty, he doesn’t like being told to do things he doesn’t enjoy, he chases every single green that rises, and he adores socializing. He’ll make a friend of anyone, be they human, dragon, or wher, and he’ll do his best to make sure his friends get the best in life along with him. If he can’t, however, you’d best be prepared to accept that Liorth comes first. He even puts himself before his rider, but that’s alright because D’io does the same. Luckily, the pair usually want more or less the same things, and want to avoid more or less the same things, such as boring watch duty. If Liorth can charm somebody into taking on a job he doesn’t want to do, and Liorth certainly has plenty of charm, then he will.
In his ideal world, he’d have a nice little bunch of adoring greens who take on all the jobs he doesn’t want to do, and want him to catch them every time they rise. They shouldn’t make it too easy, because Liorth likes a bit of a challenge, but equally if they make it so difficult that he fails he’ll have a huff; he hates to lose in flight, and in general actually. When life gets too tough, he’ll grumble about it and go and lie in the sun or eat something tasty; until he’s made himself feel good again, so help anyone but a gold who gives him an order because he’ll completely ignore them. If you really, really want this dragon to do something for you, you’d best be able to make it fun, or to offer him something for his trouble.
Why this rider? Essentially, these two are peas in a pod. They’re quite bright, they love the fine things in life, and they love chasing tail. What more need be said?
Anything else: D’io is an uncle to my wherhandler/tailor Alexius, much to Lex's disgust.
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Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 12:57 pm
Rofl I gotta say, it was an entertaining read. Old men ftw. <33
I'm just going to get you to tighten up the personality a little bit so I can get a better feel of what I'm accepting.
1. You've got a lot of "he's this but that" going on in this personality and that really downplays a lot of the flaws you're trying to give him. The reason I bring this up is because he's got a very large pool of traits that people could like him for. You've said he's sharp, witty, charming, imaginative, very good at flattery, blast to be around, knows how to make people feel good about themselves, and optimistic. But as far as flaws go he's lazy but only with certain things, arguably self-centered but he can see things from people's point of view, a liar/sneak/cheater but he doesn't mean to hurt anyone, selfish but if you're a friend he might do something nice for you (do you see where I'm going with this?). While arguably you can have as many virtues as you want for your two flaws, the more virtues there are the stronger the two flaws need to be to kind of compensate. The impression you gave from the history was that he was a lazy, self-centred man who thought he was pretty awesome and slept around a lot. I see some of that here but it gets mixed in a lot with the other traits in a way that sort of makes him come off as a social butterfly who only puts effort into things he enjoys doing (which I'd consider fairly normal human behaviour XD) and who generally cares for himself but not all the time. This leads me into my second point.
2. Character motivation. I know what you're thinking, laziness and motivation wut buuut what I need from you is a sense that he has a reason for being such a very good people person. If laziness is his primary flaw and a key part of his character, what is it that makes him want to seemingly go out of his way to be entertaining (by flattering people, by being charming, by being a blast to be around) when he could, instead, just let the girls come to him? What makes him want to be a good friend to people? If he's so lazy, why does he even bother? How does he decide who's a good friend and who's not, especially when you have him start to head down the road of the self-centered? I think you may be trying to use "lazy" in a way that doesn't necessarily imply what you mean. He comes off as more hedonistic than he does lazy, since he obviously can work hard and dedicate himself to things when he wants to. Being a hedonist would be a much clearer explanation as to why he does things because he'd do them only if he enjoyed them. A formula I like to follow for motivation is generally what does a character want --> what about their personality lets them get what they want (virtues) --> what about their personality stops them from getting what they want (flaws). In D'io's case it could be he wants to enjoy life to the fullest --> he's a natural charmer, he's a good people person, he has really sweet hair --> he's self-centered, he's vain, he's childish. Make sense?
3. Sweeping statements. You can get away with some statements that imply public opinion like "he throws good parties" or "some people seem to think he's a lazy a**" because you've shown in the rest of the personality that it's a reasonable, logical assumption and most people would probably agree with the statement. Making the judgement "lazy" on someone who sits around all day and does d**k-all is a fair assumption to make. It starts to get a little hazy at this part here " how to really really relax anyone who’s feeling stressed, and how to make you feel good about yourself again after you’ve been dumped, or failed spectacularly at something important to you." Instead of telling me he can relax anyone, show me what he does in the hopes of relaxing people. That way, people will better know how their character would react to his advances, rather than just having the sweeping statement of "he just relaxes them."
Like I said, it's just the personality that needs a little cleaning up and then I think he should be good to go! Dragon looks good to me <333
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Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 2:11 pm
^^ I've tried to clear things up; hope this is better! <3 My changes are in dark red.
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