( video, un: lavieenrose )

[affectueux]

[ maybe it’s insanity. more likely, it’s the combination of the sanguis cycle and his upcoming birthday making him restless and impulsive. he can usually tamp down those urges when things are normal, but he also can’t recall a moment when things have ever been normal in lunatia.

maybe that’s a contributing factor, too. either way, here’s a video of serge—like the cycles before, he’s got little bear features. paws included, even if his hands are off-screen. ]

Er, bonjour. My name is Serge… I’ve cleaned many of your tables at Salon de Marie. [ it gets harder when he’s a bear, but that’s neither here nor there. ] My birthday will be coming up soon, and I—it—

[ he frowns, searching for the words. he should have planned this better, but again. the haste. ]

In my world, I’m set to inherit my family’s estate on my 18th birthday. I’ll be expected to get married and carry on the family name, as I’m the only child of my late father. [ he realizes something, and holds up a hand in brief fluster. ] I’m not saying this to brag! It’s relevant, I promise. I bring it up because there’s—a person. Someone I love. Someone I can neither marry nor produce a child with.

…this is quite heavy, isn’t it? I’ll try to get to the point. When your heart is in conflict with both duty and the expectations of society, what are you supposed to do? What can you do?

Merci, everyone. For your attention.

Comments

[ video ] un: sparkler

[liberaltus]

I'll preface this by saying I have personal experience to draw from [and then some] you have a few options open to you:

You can do what is expected of you - pretend. Wear fancy clothes, convince everyone around you that your something you're not. Then you can take up your father's position, live in a gilded cage, and desperately hope no one realizes what a fraud you are. You can spend the rest of your life screaming on the inside.

Or you can leave it behind you, decide that honest self is worth more to you than the lie you'll be forced to live.

[affectueux]

[ serge considers it carefully. the problem is that it’s so hard. his aunts, who made his life hell, no longer even live on the estate. he isn’t free from it all and he wouldn’t be if he returned now, but—it’s impossible not to try to justify it. ]

But what if my honest self is wrong? What if he’s just being selfish?

[liberaltus]

And spending your entire life screaming on the inside is the opposite of selfish? Marrying some poor individual and living a life of luxurious despair is the opposite of selfish? Trust me, my parents married because it was arranged for them as well and they resented each other. The coy insults were spectacular especially at parties, they've divided up the estate so they rarely had to be bothered with one another's company. They wanted the same thing for me: marry the girl, take up my father's position in the magisterium, keep everything unsavory locked away. My parents disagreed with my choices and I did not care for theirs either and so I left. It's not easy, it's hardly fun, it takes fortitude to turn your back on family and tradition...but it was either that or be as miserable and dimensionless as my parents. I'm far too clever for that

[affectueux]

[ serge has things waiting for him on the battour estate. he has angeline, and god willing, he has claude as well. it’s been years since he’s been back there, now, and he doesn’t know how much it’s all changed.

still, the passion of those words don’t miss him entirely. ]

You sound too clever for that.

[ he acknowledges, with a little smile. ]

My parents ran away to be together, and my father died before he could regret his choices. I don’t know if he even would have. [ in lieu of his own father, however— ] I guess you don’t regret it at all.