MoM app THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA
Nov. 12th, 2014 04:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theveilisin〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Emi
AGE: 27
JOURNAL:sweetjerry
IM / EMAIL: alienGirlscout (AIM)
PLURK:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
sweetjerry
RETURNING: Nope.
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Luvander
CHARACTER AGE: Never stated in canon, I'd estimate it to his early thirties
SERIES: The Volstovic Cycle (Specifically Havemercy and Steelhands)
CHRONOLOGY: The end of Steelhands, right after overthrowing the Esar
CLASS: Hero
HOUSING: Opting in to be housed with others.
BACKGROUND: Luvander hails from Volstov, a pseudo-Russian country in a world which appears to be some sort of vaguely steampunk-y fantasy alter reality to our own Earth. Very little is told about his own personal backstory in the books, but happily the authors are rather forthcoming with extra details, and have implied that Luvander's parents were somehow involved in the construction of the mechanical dragons which a large part of the series centers around. Most of the dragon riders appear to have been trained specifically for the task from an early age, some of the few lucky of a large group of such young men to actually be picked by a dragon. But in Luvander's case, it was a complete accident. He came to check up on his parents' work - most likely while he was still a teenager - was spotted by one of the dragons, and was picked by her to be her rider. And no one seems inclined to argue with the dragons once they make up their minds.
At the beginning of the series, Luvander is therefore one of the fourteen airmen, chosen to ride dragons, kick ass, and defend his country against the forces of the Ke-Han (Ke-Han, Xi'An - yeah, it's China with a few extra parts of Asia thrown into the mix). They are lauded as heroes, but are also kind of problematic in a lot of way since they are more or less irreplaceable and therefore allowed to get away with a lot more than most men would. Meaning they have a tendency to act like huge dicks in public at times - and in private as well. Being a collection of rather strong personalities being confined in one building, the atmosphere at the Airman is fairly tense at all times, with everyone posturing and trying not to give an inch or risk being seen as weak, because that's an invitation to brutal hazing from the rest. They're also not the most enlightened group of people - or at least pretend not to be - and homophobic, racist and misogynistic slurs is basically the local language within the building. Yet at the same time, they are all extremely loyal to each other, and they all share an unspoken bond in that they put their dragons before anything else in the world.
A lot of shenanigans and politics happen in the book, but it ends with all of the dragon riders heroically flying out on what is most likely a suicide mission for all involved, trying to wreak as much destruction as possible on the Ke-Han capital and thereby saving the lives of the Volstov magicians which are under a curse. They succeed in their task, but it comes with a fairly steep bill: Only five out of fourteen dragon riders survive (well, actually six, but they don't know this for long while) and the few of the dragons that manage to not be smashed into bits are dismantled as a part of the peace treaty with Ke-Han. Luvander is one of these few survivors, although it's a close-run thing. He takes a hit from a catapult for his sergeant and goes crashing down with his dragon, but another of his comrades who also ends up surviving manages to somehow dive down and pick Luvander out of the rubble of the burning city, presumably carrying him to safety.
Book two is all about Ke-Han politics going terribly awry, book three concerns Rook and Thom backpacking around and trying to prevent some Ke-Han rogue magician from reconstructing Rook's dragon, Havemercy. The latter is somewhat relevant, since it leads up to how in book four, Steelhands, the ruler of Volstov - going by the subtle title the Esar - decides to start rebuilding the Dragon Corps. Except this time, he wants dragons and riders who are personally under his control, and since it's also a flagrant violation of the peace treaty as well as going against the wishes of the powerful council of mages, it's done in secrecy and using rather unpleasant methods - including picking the old dragons apart and making the new dragons from the scraps. When ex-sergeant Adamo asks the wrong people the wrong questions, the remaining airmen and a couple of University students decide to break him out of jail, accidentally bringing about a revolution and overthrowing their monarch, replacing him with his much more sensible wife. Oops?
As for Luvander's relationships, it can be assumed that he was in some way fond of and most definitely loyal to all of his fellow airmen, but you don't really see much of his relationship to those who died. He seems to care a great deal about those who survived the war, although the relationship aren't entirely uncomplicated. He seems to be closest to Ghislain, the man who saved his life, although their relationship seems to consist mostly of a correspondence via letters since Ghislain is out at sea. He seems to meet Adamo regularly, and still clearly looks to him as a superior and respects him, and although he understandably annoys the older man, Adamo seems pleased with how well Luvander has settled into his new life. Balfour has at the beginning of Steelhands been avoiding his old comrades, but the moment Luvander manages to get as much as a toe inside his life, he practically throws himself on the younger man, appearing to feel incredibly protective of him - both as the youngest member, as the one who was most severely injured during the war, and as the one who suffers the most obvious trauma of the incident.
It's hard to judge how close his relationship to Raphael has been/is, since Luvander's reactions are understandably colored by the fact that the other man has been missing and presumed dead, and now has miraculously returned. But from what you see of their interactions in less emotional circumstances, they seem to get along well and appear to be of fairly similar temperaments, although Raphael appears a lot more emotionally scarred and openly melancholic about their losses.
Luvander does not seem particularly attached to Rook, and even appears fairly glad not to have him involved in the whole jailbreak, probably because the man at times has the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
As for Luvander's relationship outside the group of airmen, it's hard to tell, but there are some hints. He seems to get along very well with his customers as well as the other traders along the street where his shop is located. He is friendly and open toward Toverre and Laure when they get involved in the conspiracy going on in his hat shop, although he's fairly liberal in his ribbing toward them and also seems to clearly treat them like outsiders in a lot of ways - most particularly Toverre, once Laure proves herself useful to the group. It's also hinted in Havemercy that he is on friendly terms with the proprietress of Our Lady of a Thousand Fans, the city's fanciest brothel. Considering how open the airmen are about visiting such places, and considering the culture at the Airman, it could be speculated that this friendship arose from Luvander needing certain help concealing his sexuality from the rest of the airmen. All in all he is a very social creature who seems to make connections easily, though perhaps not always very deep ones. He also seems in general to get on well with women, seemingly happily devoid of some of the rather archaic views of ladies which seem to be a fairly prominent part of the Volstovic culture still.
PERSONALITY: If you want to be charitable, you could definitely call Luvander eccentric. Since most of the people he knows are not much interested in being charitable in the first place, it’s more likely to hear him referred to as being crazy as a soap teacup. A more accurate assessment would be that he is a man who has figured out his own personal peculiarities while living within a group full of equally colorful men, and has worked out how make them work to his advantage – and that he’s just a little bit insane, just like all the other airmen.
Most noticeable is probably the fact that he never shuts up. He appears very fond of the sound of his own voice, in fact, and is extremely prone to meandering monologues which are most of the time both colorful and nonsensical in nature. He doesn’t much seem to care if what comes out of his mouth is entirely suitable for the situation, or makes sense at all, or even if it makes him come off as either hugely insensitive or just plain weird. Since his attention span is also a little bit erratic, it’s not unusual for him to jump from one subject to another without warning. All of this might seem like traits solely belonging to someone rather incredibly self-centered, but as Adamo points out, it’s actually often a case of Luvander trying to fill up the silence so no one – presumably including himself – is going to have to feel awkward. Regrettably this doesn’t always work, especially in the case of more timid and cautious personalities, but that doesn’t change that it is just as much an attempt to make people feel included as it is a symptom of verbal incontinence.
Despite his blatant weirdness, he is also among the most well-balanced of the motley band of madmen he belongs to. This is made particularly obvious if you compare him to the other surviving airmen after the war, and how well they seem to cope. Balfour is quite frankly neurotic, shows signs of suffering from PTSD, and describes himself as suffering from 'phantom airmen' in the absence of his dead comrades; Adamo feels uncomfortable with his new place in life and is generally angry with the world; Rook escapes the city and is an absolute mess of grief and rage after losing his dragon; Ghislain also leaves to become a pirate. Meanwhile, Luvander manages to wriggle out of any responsibility toward the government which might otherwise limit his career choice, buys himself a hat shop right next to the great big statues erected in the honor of the airmen, and names the shop after his dragon. While the others seem caught up in their past lives, unable to move on, Luvander seems to have landed on his feet and is adjusting admirably to life as a civilian, and although he clearly mourns his dragon and the people he lost, he seems to have put that part of his life to rest.
He has been described by the authors as being a natural caretaker due to having a fair number of younger siblings growing up, and this is made rather obvious by his behavior in Steelhands as well. The moment he realizes that Balfour is having trouble with his new prosthetic hands, he - without waiting for consent - tracks down his address and invites himself over, apparently to make sure the younger man has a proper breakfast, but probably also just to check that he's okay. And once he and Adamo decide to keep an even closer eye on the younger man, he seems to take very naturally to it. All the later secret meetings are held at his hat shop, it being a neutral location, and despite the tense situation he also seems to rather enjoy his role as a host. It could be speculated that a man who at first comes from a very lively home, only to spend years and years living at the Airman, might find that living on his own all of a sudden feels a bit empty.
However, as an alumnus of the bro culture at the Airman, Luvander does appear to have a somewhat unkind sense of humor at times. He mentions how he at one point in the past put fire ants in Balfour’s clothes – most likely underwear by the sound of it – and in Havemercy his only remark when Thom is miserably lamenting the ink handprint across his face is that he thinks it looks dashing. Adamo also recalls that he has a tendency of innocently resolving a situation – Raphael’s missing books, in this case – that he probably caused in the first place, suggesting that he perhaps strives to be somewhat more subtle about his pranks than some of the rest of them, but that he nonetheless finds amusement in them. And some of the jibes and jokes he makes are definitely on the insensitive side on the whole. Yet you never get the feeling that there is any true malice behind his actions, but rather a somewhat skewed sense of humor, cultivated in an environment where not picking on others in one way or another were seen as signs of weakness. This, coupled with a temperament that compels him to not let go of a joke unless more or less forced to, seems to be the cause of his sometimes disrespectful behavior, rather than outright cruelty.
Even when things start to get serious, Luvander seems to be unable to stop running his mouth or simply making light of the situation in ways which understandably are taken as rather offensive by some. On the flip side, you can definitely tell that sometimes, this very way of acting is a kind of defense that he employs. It appears that he’s not good at – most likely not comfortable with – expressing anything that touches him on a more personal level, and making fun of a situation or telling random anecdotes allows him bypass having to deal with actually talking about his feelings. Balfour notes that for someone with an extremely expressive face and lively mimicry, he very rarely expresses any genuine emotions at all, and the best way of telling if something has gotten to him is usually via the absence of any expression at all.
That is not to say that he's emotionally deadened or compromised as such, and some things definitely get under his skin. Often this is hinted at by a flicker in his carefree demeanor, a pause that goes on just a bit too long, or as mentioned above, him simply going still and unmovable, suddenly devoid of hyperbole and absurdities. He is certainly capable of serious moments and speaking directly about important/emotional matters when he feels the situation calls for it, most particularly out of empathy for others. However, the only time you ever really see him properly break character is when the dragons and his comrades are concerned, and when there is a direct risk of actual, right-this-moment physical danger to people. When faced with seeing what’s left of their dragons disassembled and ready to be built into new dragons, he definitely displays open rage, even if it’s expressed through a helping of venom and sarcasm and an inability to move or look away, rather than a lot of shouting and punching people. When Raphael turns up after having been presumed dead, Luvander is noticeably moved to the point of actually being speechless, something that really doesn't happen often. And when it looks like they’re going to have a fight, he immediately and unthinkingly gets in front of the civilians, clearly focused on the task at hand, even if he might still let a glib line or two slip.
And of course, being a trained soldier, he will not show a moment’s hesitation in putting himself in danger for someone else, or even giving his life if he has to. This is obviously best demonstrated by him taking a direct hit by a catapult with his dragon rather than letting Adamo get hit from behind, but also by how readily he and the others decide to break into a prison and defy their on ruler for the sake of a former comrade. He does seem more inclined to think before he leaps than some might be, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t still leap with gusto once he’s figured out what he’s supposed to do next.
Word Of God from the authors has made clear that all the airmen are “somewhere on the Kinsey scale”, but that Luvander is definitely gay. In Steelhands he tells Balfour that once he’s holding a secret, it’s gone forever, and that indeed seems to be the case. Even after he leaves the Airman and the oppressive environment there, he still keeps making oblique comments which seem to suggest attraction toward the fairer sex, and it doesn’t seem as if anyone else is aware of his orientation (except possibly Adamo, but if he does it's probably because of an educated guess). After all, if you spend enough time playing a role, that role is sooner or later going to become a part of you, and telling yourself apart from it might no longer be possible. Perhaps this is another reason for why Luvander seems prone to acting carefree even in face of serious situations, and why expressing himself without his perpetual jargon seems to come so very hard. Generally speaking, leaving yourself open and showing your true feelings in the Airman was more or less an invitation to merciless bullying, and Luvander had more to hide than most.
POWER: No canon power. His power in MoM will be the ability to summon the soul of his dragon, Yesfir, in the shape of a dragon appearing to be made of a pearlescent substance (literally the soul of a dragon made of pure magic in canon) and fire, rather than her canon metal counterpart. She'll be able to breathe fire and fly, and Luvander will be able to ride her, but to anyone else she'll be as insubstantial as mist. She'll be exactly the same size as she was in life, which is to say slightly larger than a horse, body-wise, with a wing span large enough to support her and her rider. (The only dragons with any lines in the books are Havemercy, Steelhands and Inglory, meaning that of course Yesfir is not an appable character. If her speaking is nonetheless a problem, I'd suggest that Luvander would communicate with her on a more telepathic level.)
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
Bastion, I thought this week had already been pretty damn strange, but I suppose there is no upper limit. Although being kidnapped, brought to this rather strange and unsettling place, and on top of that being told that this is a world completely separate from mine? I'd have to say this passes straight through 'excessive', and ends up being downright ridiculous.
[The man on the screen, despite his words, seems fairly unshaken by recent events. He's smiling pleasantly, comfortably leaned back in an armchair. The clothes he's wearing look distinctly Victorian and rather smart, albeit perhaps excessively colorful for a man from that era.]
Not to mention, I find myself faced with something that can only be described as a bit of a conundrum. You see, I am already well acquainted to this manner of work for which we've all been recruited. I have been allowed to be a hero through the good graces of my government - or rather, through the grudging ill graces of the same, and the much kinder graces of a rather special girl. I won't say I didn't enjoy the experience, or that I won't long on occasion for the glory days of yore-
[There is a flicker, now, of his expression growing tighter, a hint of some sort of emotion pulling momentarily at his lips, but it is gone far too quickly to properly decipher. He makes a soft noise at the back of his throat, amused and somewhat exasperated, and shakes his head.]
But being someone's pet idol and political advantage has with time and certain recent events lost some of its appeal to me, and I can't deny I find myself uncharacteristically hesitant to return to life as it used to be. Not to mention, I rather miss my hat shop. So what is a small trader and old soldier to do? I was informed that the purpose of these devices is communication, so some advice would be appreciated.
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
It was true that it had been jarring to have the world as he knew it snatched from him, only to have it replaced by some addlepated, upside-down place where little was familiar and less still made sense. But Luvander had never been the sort to let himself get overwhelmed by even the most unsettling of events, like poor Balfour locking himself up in that bleak apartment of his underneath the elephant neighbours. Melancholy didn't suit his temperament very well, and if he was frustrated and agitated - he was - he was far too simple-minded, he suspected, to not try to do something about it. And while he was no Adamo, and could think of no brilliant battle plants in the wink of an eye, or even like Adamo's friend the clever Margrave, he objected most strongly to being ill-informed as well as misplaced, and was sensible enough to know that he would achieve nothing through ignorance.
And so Luvander let himself out into this brand new world, to learn what he could and at the very least pretend to understand it. He'd always had a fondness for gossip, and what could be better, really, than having a whole new society to pick apart, thread by thread? It was important to look for the silver lining.
Besides, it was not as if this world did not come with certain... advantages. He really wasn't the sort to cling to what was lost and gone, but he would've had to have a heart of stone not to be swayed in favor of any place which somehow, miraculously, had given him his dragon back. It was true she was not the same as she once had been, but he knew it was still her, as surely as he would recognize his own mother's voice even if she was hiding behind a mask. It was his very own Yesfir, and even when she was not at his side, he could feel her, waiting for him to call.
The loss of what he had left behind was softened by the gain of what he thought he would never get back. He would find out what he could of this world, and pass judgement once his mind was more clear.
And so Luvander did. He learned what he could about the exotic politics of this strange country, though he suspected he might never fully grasp the fine nuances the way the natives did. He researched popular opinions, scandals and recent events. He noted the strange looks he was getting from the natives around town, and since the reason was not hard to guess at, he appraised himself of the fashions most current for his new home as well. He learned, and he carefully filed the information away for further use, happily presenting the face of polite interest, because it was so much more pleasant than that of caution and mild paranoia. He bided his time, because time seemed to be all that he had at present. And, he decided rather shortly after his arrival, he would do as he was told. Say what you want about being someone's tool, but at least it meant you'd be right in the thick of it once things started to happen for real. And there was no place an airman liked better.
FINAL NOTES: In the FAQ it says that imPorts have a built-in translator via the nanites, but I assume this means that Luvander (who probably speaks some kind of bullshit fantasy Russian) is rather incapable of communicating with the general populace until he learns English?
NAME: Emi
AGE: 27
JOURNAL:
sweetjerryIM / EMAIL: alienGirlscout (AIM)
PLURK:
RETURNING: Nope.
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Luvander
CHARACTER AGE: Never stated in canon, I'd estimate it to his early thirties
SERIES: The Volstovic Cycle (Specifically Havemercy and Steelhands)
CHRONOLOGY: The end of Steelhands, right after overthrowing the Esar
CLASS: Hero
HOUSING: Opting in to be housed with others.
BACKGROUND: Luvander hails from Volstov, a pseudo-Russian country in a world which appears to be some sort of vaguely steampunk-y fantasy alter reality to our own Earth. Very little is told about his own personal backstory in the books, but happily the authors are rather forthcoming with extra details, and have implied that Luvander's parents were somehow involved in the construction of the mechanical dragons which a large part of the series centers around. Most of the dragon riders appear to have been trained specifically for the task from an early age, some of the few lucky of a large group of such young men to actually be picked by a dragon. But in Luvander's case, it was a complete accident. He came to check up on his parents' work - most likely while he was still a teenager - was spotted by one of the dragons, and was picked by her to be her rider. And no one seems inclined to argue with the dragons once they make up their minds.
At the beginning of the series, Luvander is therefore one of the fourteen airmen, chosen to ride dragons, kick ass, and defend his country against the forces of the Ke-Han (Ke-Han, Xi'An - yeah, it's China with a few extra parts of Asia thrown into the mix). They are lauded as heroes, but are also kind of problematic in a lot of way since they are more or less irreplaceable and therefore allowed to get away with a lot more than most men would. Meaning they have a tendency to act like huge dicks in public at times - and in private as well. Being a collection of rather strong personalities being confined in one building, the atmosphere at the Airman is fairly tense at all times, with everyone posturing and trying not to give an inch or risk being seen as weak, because that's an invitation to brutal hazing from the rest. They're also not the most enlightened group of people - or at least pretend not to be - and homophobic, racist and misogynistic slurs is basically the local language within the building. Yet at the same time, they are all extremely loyal to each other, and they all share an unspoken bond in that they put their dragons before anything else in the world.
A lot of shenanigans and politics happen in the book, but it ends with all of the dragon riders heroically flying out on what is most likely a suicide mission for all involved, trying to wreak as much destruction as possible on the Ke-Han capital and thereby saving the lives of the Volstov magicians which are under a curse. They succeed in their task, but it comes with a fairly steep bill: Only five out of fourteen dragon riders survive (well, actually six, but they don't know this for long while) and the few of the dragons that manage to not be smashed into bits are dismantled as a part of the peace treaty with Ke-Han. Luvander is one of these few survivors, although it's a close-run thing. He takes a hit from a catapult for his sergeant and goes crashing down with his dragon, but another of his comrades who also ends up surviving manages to somehow dive down and pick Luvander out of the rubble of the burning city, presumably carrying him to safety.
Book two is all about Ke-Han politics going terribly awry, book three concerns Rook and Thom backpacking around and trying to prevent some Ke-Han rogue magician from reconstructing Rook's dragon, Havemercy. The latter is somewhat relevant, since it leads up to how in book four, Steelhands, the ruler of Volstov - going by the subtle title the Esar - decides to start rebuilding the Dragon Corps. Except this time, he wants dragons and riders who are personally under his control, and since it's also a flagrant violation of the peace treaty as well as going against the wishes of the powerful council of mages, it's done in secrecy and using rather unpleasant methods - including picking the old dragons apart and making the new dragons from the scraps. When ex-sergeant Adamo asks the wrong people the wrong questions, the remaining airmen and a couple of University students decide to break him out of jail, accidentally bringing about a revolution and overthrowing their monarch, replacing him with his much more sensible wife. Oops?
As for Luvander's relationships, it can be assumed that he was in some way fond of and most definitely loyal to all of his fellow airmen, but you don't really see much of his relationship to those who died. He seems to care a great deal about those who survived the war, although the relationship aren't entirely uncomplicated. He seems to be closest to Ghislain, the man who saved his life, although their relationship seems to consist mostly of a correspondence via letters since Ghislain is out at sea. He seems to meet Adamo regularly, and still clearly looks to him as a superior and respects him, and although he understandably annoys the older man, Adamo seems pleased with how well Luvander has settled into his new life. Balfour has at the beginning of Steelhands been avoiding his old comrades, but the moment Luvander manages to get as much as a toe inside his life, he practically throws himself on the younger man, appearing to feel incredibly protective of him - both as the youngest member, as the one who was most severely injured during the war, and as the one who suffers the most obvious trauma of the incident.
It's hard to judge how close his relationship to Raphael has been/is, since Luvander's reactions are understandably colored by the fact that the other man has been missing and presumed dead, and now has miraculously returned. But from what you see of their interactions in less emotional circumstances, they seem to get along well and appear to be of fairly similar temperaments, although Raphael appears a lot more emotionally scarred and openly melancholic about their losses.
Luvander does not seem particularly attached to Rook, and even appears fairly glad not to have him involved in the whole jailbreak, probably because the man at times has the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
As for Luvander's relationship outside the group of airmen, it's hard to tell, but there are some hints. He seems to get along very well with his customers as well as the other traders along the street where his shop is located. He is friendly and open toward Toverre and Laure when they get involved in the conspiracy going on in his hat shop, although he's fairly liberal in his ribbing toward them and also seems to clearly treat them like outsiders in a lot of ways - most particularly Toverre, once Laure proves herself useful to the group. It's also hinted in Havemercy that he is on friendly terms with the proprietress of Our Lady of a Thousand Fans, the city's fanciest brothel. Considering how open the airmen are about visiting such places, and considering the culture at the Airman, it could be speculated that this friendship arose from Luvander needing certain help concealing his sexuality from the rest of the airmen. All in all he is a very social creature who seems to make connections easily, though perhaps not always very deep ones. He also seems in general to get on well with women, seemingly happily devoid of some of the rather archaic views of ladies which seem to be a fairly prominent part of the Volstovic culture still.
PERSONALITY: If you want to be charitable, you could definitely call Luvander eccentric. Since most of the people he knows are not much interested in being charitable in the first place, it’s more likely to hear him referred to as being crazy as a soap teacup. A more accurate assessment would be that he is a man who has figured out his own personal peculiarities while living within a group full of equally colorful men, and has worked out how make them work to his advantage – and that he’s just a little bit insane, just like all the other airmen.
Most noticeable is probably the fact that he never shuts up. He appears very fond of the sound of his own voice, in fact, and is extremely prone to meandering monologues which are most of the time both colorful and nonsensical in nature. He doesn’t much seem to care if what comes out of his mouth is entirely suitable for the situation, or makes sense at all, or even if it makes him come off as either hugely insensitive or just plain weird. Since his attention span is also a little bit erratic, it’s not unusual for him to jump from one subject to another without warning. All of this might seem like traits solely belonging to someone rather incredibly self-centered, but as Adamo points out, it’s actually often a case of Luvander trying to fill up the silence so no one – presumably including himself – is going to have to feel awkward. Regrettably this doesn’t always work, especially in the case of more timid and cautious personalities, but that doesn’t change that it is just as much an attempt to make people feel included as it is a symptom of verbal incontinence.
Despite his blatant weirdness, he is also among the most well-balanced of the motley band of madmen he belongs to. This is made particularly obvious if you compare him to the other surviving airmen after the war, and how well they seem to cope. Balfour is quite frankly neurotic, shows signs of suffering from PTSD, and describes himself as suffering from 'phantom airmen' in the absence of his dead comrades; Adamo feels uncomfortable with his new place in life and is generally angry with the world; Rook escapes the city and is an absolute mess of grief and rage after losing his dragon; Ghislain also leaves to become a pirate. Meanwhile, Luvander manages to wriggle out of any responsibility toward the government which might otherwise limit his career choice, buys himself a hat shop right next to the great big statues erected in the honor of the airmen, and names the shop after his dragon. While the others seem caught up in their past lives, unable to move on, Luvander seems to have landed on his feet and is adjusting admirably to life as a civilian, and although he clearly mourns his dragon and the people he lost, he seems to have put that part of his life to rest.
He has been described by the authors as being a natural caretaker due to having a fair number of younger siblings growing up, and this is made rather obvious by his behavior in Steelhands as well. The moment he realizes that Balfour is having trouble with his new prosthetic hands, he - without waiting for consent - tracks down his address and invites himself over, apparently to make sure the younger man has a proper breakfast, but probably also just to check that he's okay. And once he and Adamo decide to keep an even closer eye on the younger man, he seems to take very naturally to it. All the later secret meetings are held at his hat shop, it being a neutral location, and despite the tense situation he also seems to rather enjoy his role as a host. It could be speculated that a man who at first comes from a very lively home, only to spend years and years living at the Airman, might find that living on his own all of a sudden feels a bit empty.
However, as an alumnus of the bro culture at the Airman, Luvander does appear to have a somewhat unkind sense of humor at times. He mentions how he at one point in the past put fire ants in Balfour’s clothes – most likely underwear by the sound of it – and in Havemercy his only remark when Thom is miserably lamenting the ink handprint across his face is that he thinks it looks dashing. Adamo also recalls that he has a tendency of innocently resolving a situation – Raphael’s missing books, in this case – that he probably caused in the first place, suggesting that he perhaps strives to be somewhat more subtle about his pranks than some of the rest of them, but that he nonetheless finds amusement in them. And some of the jibes and jokes he makes are definitely on the insensitive side on the whole. Yet you never get the feeling that there is any true malice behind his actions, but rather a somewhat skewed sense of humor, cultivated in an environment where not picking on others in one way or another were seen as signs of weakness. This, coupled with a temperament that compels him to not let go of a joke unless more or less forced to, seems to be the cause of his sometimes disrespectful behavior, rather than outright cruelty.
Even when things start to get serious, Luvander seems to be unable to stop running his mouth or simply making light of the situation in ways which understandably are taken as rather offensive by some. On the flip side, you can definitely tell that sometimes, this very way of acting is a kind of defense that he employs. It appears that he’s not good at – most likely not comfortable with – expressing anything that touches him on a more personal level, and making fun of a situation or telling random anecdotes allows him bypass having to deal with actually talking about his feelings. Balfour notes that for someone with an extremely expressive face and lively mimicry, he very rarely expresses any genuine emotions at all, and the best way of telling if something has gotten to him is usually via the absence of any expression at all.
That is not to say that he's emotionally deadened or compromised as such, and some things definitely get under his skin. Often this is hinted at by a flicker in his carefree demeanor, a pause that goes on just a bit too long, or as mentioned above, him simply going still and unmovable, suddenly devoid of hyperbole and absurdities. He is certainly capable of serious moments and speaking directly about important/emotional matters when he feels the situation calls for it, most particularly out of empathy for others. However, the only time you ever really see him properly break character is when the dragons and his comrades are concerned, and when there is a direct risk of actual, right-this-moment physical danger to people. When faced with seeing what’s left of their dragons disassembled and ready to be built into new dragons, he definitely displays open rage, even if it’s expressed through a helping of venom and sarcasm and an inability to move or look away, rather than a lot of shouting and punching people. When Raphael turns up after having been presumed dead, Luvander is noticeably moved to the point of actually being speechless, something that really doesn't happen often. And when it looks like they’re going to have a fight, he immediately and unthinkingly gets in front of the civilians, clearly focused on the task at hand, even if he might still let a glib line or two slip.
And of course, being a trained soldier, he will not show a moment’s hesitation in putting himself in danger for someone else, or even giving his life if he has to. This is obviously best demonstrated by him taking a direct hit by a catapult with his dragon rather than letting Adamo get hit from behind, but also by how readily he and the others decide to break into a prison and defy their on ruler for the sake of a former comrade. He does seem more inclined to think before he leaps than some might be, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t still leap with gusto once he’s figured out what he’s supposed to do next.
Word Of God from the authors has made clear that all the airmen are “somewhere on the Kinsey scale”, but that Luvander is definitely gay. In Steelhands he tells Balfour that once he’s holding a secret, it’s gone forever, and that indeed seems to be the case. Even after he leaves the Airman and the oppressive environment there, he still keeps making oblique comments which seem to suggest attraction toward the fairer sex, and it doesn’t seem as if anyone else is aware of his orientation (except possibly Adamo, but if he does it's probably because of an educated guess). After all, if you spend enough time playing a role, that role is sooner or later going to become a part of you, and telling yourself apart from it might no longer be possible. Perhaps this is another reason for why Luvander seems prone to acting carefree even in face of serious situations, and why expressing himself without his perpetual jargon seems to come so very hard. Generally speaking, leaving yourself open and showing your true feelings in the Airman was more or less an invitation to merciless bullying, and Luvander had more to hide than most.
POWER: No canon power. His power in MoM will be the ability to summon the soul of his dragon, Yesfir, in the shape of a dragon appearing to be made of a pearlescent substance (literally the soul of a dragon made of pure magic in canon) and fire, rather than her canon metal counterpart. She'll be able to breathe fire and fly, and Luvander will be able to ride her, but to anyone else she'll be as insubstantial as mist. She'll be exactly the same size as she was in life, which is to say slightly larger than a horse, body-wise, with a wing span large enough to support her and her rider. (The only dragons with any lines in the books are Havemercy, Steelhands and Inglory, meaning that of course Yesfir is not an appable character. If her speaking is nonetheless a problem, I'd suggest that Luvander would communicate with her on a more telepathic level.)
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
Bastion, I thought this week had already been pretty damn strange, but I suppose there is no upper limit. Although being kidnapped, brought to this rather strange and unsettling place, and on top of that being told that this is a world completely separate from mine? I'd have to say this passes straight through 'excessive', and ends up being downright ridiculous.
[The man on the screen, despite his words, seems fairly unshaken by recent events. He's smiling pleasantly, comfortably leaned back in an armchair. The clothes he's wearing look distinctly Victorian and rather smart, albeit perhaps excessively colorful for a man from that era.]
Not to mention, I find myself faced with something that can only be described as a bit of a conundrum. You see, I am already well acquainted to this manner of work for which we've all been recruited. I have been allowed to be a hero through the good graces of my government - or rather, through the grudging ill graces of the same, and the much kinder graces of a rather special girl. I won't say I didn't enjoy the experience, or that I won't long on occasion for the glory days of yore-
[There is a flicker, now, of his expression growing tighter, a hint of some sort of emotion pulling momentarily at his lips, but it is gone far too quickly to properly decipher. He makes a soft noise at the back of his throat, amused and somewhat exasperated, and shakes his head.]
But being someone's pet idol and political advantage has with time and certain recent events lost some of its appeal to me, and I can't deny I find myself uncharacteristically hesitant to return to life as it used to be. Not to mention, I rather miss my hat shop. So what is a small trader and old soldier to do? I was informed that the purpose of these devices is communication, so some advice would be appreciated.
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
It was true that it had been jarring to have the world as he knew it snatched from him, only to have it replaced by some addlepated, upside-down place where little was familiar and less still made sense. But Luvander had never been the sort to let himself get overwhelmed by even the most unsettling of events, like poor Balfour locking himself up in that bleak apartment of his underneath the elephant neighbours. Melancholy didn't suit his temperament very well, and if he was frustrated and agitated - he was - he was far too simple-minded, he suspected, to not try to do something about it. And while he was no Adamo, and could think of no brilliant battle plants in the wink of an eye, or even like Adamo's friend the clever Margrave, he objected most strongly to being ill-informed as well as misplaced, and was sensible enough to know that he would achieve nothing through ignorance.
And so Luvander let himself out into this brand new world, to learn what he could and at the very least pretend to understand it. He'd always had a fondness for gossip, and what could be better, really, than having a whole new society to pick apart, thread by thread? It was important to look for the silver lining.
Besides, it was not as if this world did not come with certain... advantages. He really wasn't the sort to cling to what was lost and gone, but he would've had to have a heart of stone not to be swayed in favor of any place which somehow, miraculously, had given him his dragon back. It was true she was not the same as she once had been, but he knew it was still her, as surely as he would recognize his own mother's voice even if she was hiding behind a mask. It was his very own Yesfir, and even when she was not at his side, he could feel her, waiting for him to call.
The loss of what he had left behind was softened by the gain of what he thought he would never get back. He would find out what he could of this world, and pass judgement once his mind was more clear.
And so Luvander did. He learned what he could about the exotic politics of this strange country, though he suspected he might never fully grasp the fine nuances the way the natives did. He researched popular opinions, scandals and recent events. He noted the strange looks he was getting from the natives around town, and since the reason was not hard to guess at, he appraised himself of the fashions most current for his new home as well. He learned, and he carefully filed the information away for further use, happily presenting the face of polite interest, because it was so much more pleasant than that of caution and mild paranoia. He bided his time, because time seemed to be all that he had at present. And, he decided rather shortly after his arrival, he would do as he was told. Say what you want about being someone's tool, but at least it meant you'd be right in the thick of it once things started to happen for real. And there was no place an airman liked better.
FINAL NOTES: In the FAQ it says that imPorts have a built-in translator via the nanites, but I assume this means that Luvander (who probably speaks some kind of bullshit fantasy Russian) is rather incapable of communicating with the general populace until he learns English?
