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elfyourmother · 3 years

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Runar for the askbox meme~

How I feel about this character:

He's Baby. Just the sweetest thing. Not just because of the adorable crush on Y'shtola but also in how quietly strong he is. He's been the spiritual leader of his people through so much hardship. The Night's Blessed are honestly one of my favorite if not my favorite factions of the people we befriended in Norvrandt if only because they remind me an awful lot of how I always used to write the Müllenkamp cult and the Dark as religion, to the point I actually toyed with Sydney being the one who founded the sect and Gisele running into him out in the middle of the forest somewhere. But I have a lot of hcs about this group based on that, and Runar is the epitome of Dark is Not Evil.

He's also incredibly resilient. Obviously Y'shtola helped them a ton, but at the end of the day those are his people. He's the caretaker of this beautiful little community of people trying to do the best they can in a really rotten world. He finds beauty in that world despite everything. And he's very clearly the heart of Slitherbough to me.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

I don't actually ship Y'shtola with him even though it's adorable, if only because there's only one way it could possibly end and it breaks my heart too much to think about it; I cried enough in 5.3 about it. And while I think she is very fond of him, I don't think his feelings are especially requited in that way, which also makes me sad. Y'shtola's too pragmatic and I really think that despite her obvious fondness for him, she deliberately kept a certain amount of emotional distance because she had a mission to carry out.

So I would much rather see him end up with one of the Blessed or some nice Viera huntress from Fanow or something. I really love the idea of the Viis opening up and befriending them, especially in light of the beast tribe storyline bringing the peoples of the Greatwood together (man does that story hit different in a Covid world).

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

Y'shtola all day long. He's kind and compassionate and while he isn't stupid by any means, he is a little guileless--something that I think throws her for a bit of a loop, because Shtola's used to dealing with clever scholarly types who know how clever they are. There's nothing ulterior about his motives; what you see is what you get with him, and he always has a kind word and is easy to trust. He's incredibly comforting. And after her very pointed conflicts with the Exarch and her understandable frustration over the lies and manipulation and secrecy, I think meeting Runar was exactly what she needed.

I also brotp him with Ysayle, for many of the same reasons. In my headcanon she became a Scion and thus got yoinked to the First and she spent 5 years living among the Night's Blessed with Y'shtola, helping to lead them--she was known to them as Lady Vidofnir. She took it upon herself to train them in the same guerilla tactics she used so well, and that was 100% why they were able to hold their own against not just the splinter sect of evil goths but the Eulmoran soldiers when they came calling. Runar was incredibly grateful of course, enough that he didn't pry about how she came across this knowledge. Eventually she told him though, and he was humbled that she trusted him so much.

Ysayle's whole "hat" was that she was looking for companionship, a place she could truly belong, and the Night's Blessed were everything the Harriers weren't. They weren't fanatics hanging on. They were a bunch of goth hippies. And Runar represented the best of them. On his part, Runar rather astutely saw the quiet sadness in Ysayle. Their friendship was very healing for her, same as it was for Y'shtola, and in ways I don't think either of them anticipated or even realized.

Runar performed Ysayle and Gisele's handfasting, too. They didn't even have to ask him. And long after they leave the First, Ysayle still keeps certain rituals of the Blessed. She finds them a comforting reminder of her time there, and does it to honor him.

My unpopular opinion about this character:

Are there even any?? Probably that I don't ship him and Shtola tbh.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.:

That we had gotten more on him, honestly. Was he born into the sect, or did he seek them out to join them?

Also I know it's not very likely but I really do hope at some point we get to check in on our friends on the First, including him. The self-contained nature of that story kinda precludes it though, and it makes me sad. I've kinda resigned myself to just seeing Ryne and possibly Gaia again, though "resigned" is probably a bad term because I love those two and hope to see them again. I just wish we could see the others too.

#askbox memes #character opinion meme #i really need to write more about ysayle and shtola's time there #that's more fic on the backburner #ice wife #cat wife #father beefcat

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