OC October: Clarissant of Orkney
Clarissant of Orkney and Lothian, Arthuriana
Technically Clarissant isn't an OC in the same sense as some of my others are. She does exist in Chretien, where she appears in one of his unfinished stories as a woman who was born to a dead mother in what may or may not be the land of the dead. (Probably there would have been some kind of reveal, but Chretien died when the story was maybe a third of the way on its way, so whatever was going on there remains mysterious.) But basically I did what so many an Arthurian storyteller has done, and while pretending I was merely embellishing on what was already there I uh.
Basically created a whole new character. *coughs *
I put Clarissant together by wondering what it would do to someone to be the culmination of someone else's dreams, especially when that someone is someone like Morgause - very intelligent and very manipulative and very bad about projecting her own self on other people. Clarissant's the daughter Morgause wanted (the daughter she hoped Mordred would be - so she pushes Mordred away in favor of her, which explains a lot about Mordred in a lot of ways), her last child, the much longed for witch. Poor kid. That's a lot to put on a child, and Morgause being Morgause she doesn't exactly do it gracefully. Clarissant kind of - goes quiet and submissive and childlike around her mother, even when she's a grown woman and a better magical practitioner than Morgause. (Morgause is not in any way bad at magic - but she hasn't focused all her energies into it like her daughter. She does other things. Clar is probably more talented anyway, but....)
Not that Clar resents her mother. She doesn't. This is not an emotional response to the whole thing that occurs to Clar.
Although she's angry a lot! She's very probably neuroatypical and has a lot of sensory issues which get ramped up a couple of notches by her strong extra/other/spiritual senses and sensitivities. Everything in her world has to be just so, by her own idiosyncratic standards, or she gets very anxious and upset, which frequently snaps into anger if anyone does anything she interprets as thwarting her. Consequently, she lives more or less alone. Things are better if she can control her space.
Her meticulous insistence on things being just so is partly magical - leave Clar in a space and let her do what she wants to it for more than a few hours and you will get a very very well warded space back. She works spells and protections appropriate to a piece of work's purpose into everything she does - and she's a Medieval noblewoman, so she does a lot of work. Knitting, (especially because Orkney in the middle ages was renowned for its knitting - they used big well trained sheep dogs to hold the sheep down and then harvested wool from them by plucking, rather than by shearing, which got a very fine quality of wool for knitting. Knitted garments were one of their big prestige market exports), fine sewing, embroidery, baking and cooking and dairying and accounts and herblore and other kinds of doctoring/nursing... they're all duties of hers and they're all a part of her magical practice.
And then she also goes out in the dark of the night to ensure the sun rises and storm ends and the evil things the rain keeps away don't kill everyone in their beds. And also negotiates treaty obligations with the supernatural inhabitants of the island, and sees to setting up in the world the people the youngest of her brothers, Gareth, sends her to protect.
Also she's gay. (In my More Or Less A Basic MA fantasy/romance type setting timelines she never has a stable long term relationship for a lot of reasons, including that her mental health is probably at its worst in those timelines, because Morgause is uh. Usually most screwed up in them. All the ways you can screw your kid over when you're insisting she's the thing you love the most in the world...) She's very popular with the woman identifying population, because for all she is, in some ways, super fragile and sharp and not always very nice, she's also strong and brave and kind and uh. A total flirt. (Hilariously she occasionally attempts to play the World Worn Weary Rose card, which never ever works for her, mostly because it always falls apart pretty quickly, and she reverts to Powerful and Courteous Lady of the Manor. Which is truer to her inner emotional life.)
And I have been writing stories with and roleplaying as and goofing around gooping about this woman for two decades, so I could probably go on and on and on - - -
but this is getting long, so I think I'll uh. Wrap it up.
Clar's kind of an attempt at an inversion of a lot of tropes about women and power and chronic illness and sexuality - she's the Mary-iest Sue-iest of all my characters, and I don't generally try to restrain them - and she always goes over really well. Not just with people who already know and trust me, but total strangers. I don't know what it is or how it works, but I'm glad it does because she is so much fun, and I enjoy her enormously.
This entry was originally posted at http://tiamatschild.dreamwidth.org/127531.html. Please feel free to comment there using OpenID. Or here! It'll be read either way, is what I'm saying.
Technically Clarissant isn't an OC in the same sense as some of my others are. She does exist in Chretien, where she appears in one of his unfinished stories as a woman who was born to a dead mother in what may or may not be the land of the dead. (Probably there would have been some kind of reveal, but Chretien died when the story was maybe a third of the way on its way, so whatever was going on there remains mysterious.) But basically I did what so many an Arthurian storyteller has done, and while pretending I was merely embellishing on what was already there I uh.
Basically created a whole new character. *coughs *
I put Clarissant together by wondering what it would do to someone to be the culmination of someone else's dreams, especially when that someone is someone like Morgause - very intelligent and very manipulative and very bad about projecting her own self on other people. Clarissant's the daughter Morgause wanted (the daughter she hoped Mordred would be - so she pushes Mordred away in favor of her, which explains a lot about Mordred in a lot of ways), her last child, the much longed for witch. Poor kid. That's a lot to put on a child, and Morgause being Morgause she doesn't exactly do it gracefully. Clarissant kind of - goes quiet and submissive and childlike around her mother, even when she's a grown woman and a better magical practitioner than Morgause. (Morgause is not in any way bad at magic - but she hasn't focused all her energies into it like her daughter. She does other things. Clar is probably more talented anyway, but....)
Not that Clar resents her mother. She doesn't. This is not an emotional response to the whole thing that occurs to Clar.
Although she's angry a lot! She's very probably neuroatypical and has a lot of sensory issues which get ramped up a couple of notches by her strong extra/other/spiritual senses and sensitivities. Everything in her world has to be just so, by her own idiosyncratic standards, or she gets very anxious and upset, which frequently snaps into anger if anyone does anything she interprets as thwarting her. Consequently, she lives more or less alone. Things are better if she can control her space.
Her meticulous insistence on things being just so is partly magical - leave Clar in a space and let her do what she wants to it for more than a few hours and you will get a very very well warded space back. She works spells and protections appropriate to a piece of work's purpose into everything she does - and she's a Medieval noblewoman, so she does a lot of work. Knitting, (especially because Orkney in the middle ages was renowned for its knitting - they used big well trained sheep dogs to hold the sheep down and then harvested wool from them by plucking, rather than by shearing, which got a very fine quality of wool for knitting. Knitted garments were one of their big prestige market exports), fine sewing, embroidery, baking and cooking and dairying and accounts and herblore and other kinds of doctoring/nursing... they're all duties of hers and they're all a part of her magical practice.
And then she also goes out in the dark of the night to ensure the sun rises and storm ends and the evil things the rain keeps away don't kill everyone in their beds. And also negotiates treaty obligations with the supernatural inhabitants of the island, and sees to setting up in the world the people the youngest of her brothers, Gareth, sends her to protect.
Also she's gay. (In my More Or Less A Basic MA fantasy/romance type setting timelines she never has a stable long term relationship for a lot of reasons, including that her mental health is probably at its worst in those timelines, because Morgause is uh. Usually most screwed up in them. All the ways you can screw your kid over when you're insisting she's the thing you love the most in the world...) She's very popular with the woman identifying population, because for all she is, in some ways, super fragile and sharp and not always very nice, she's also strong and brave and kind and uh. A total flirt. (Hilariously she occasionally attempts to play the World Worn Weary Rose card, which never ever works for her, mostly because it always falls apart pretty quickly, and she reverts to Powerful and Courteous Lady of the Manor. Which is truer to her inner emotional life.)
And I have been writing stories with and roleplaying as and goofing around gooping about this woman for two decades, so I could probably go on and on and on - - -
but this is getting long, so I think I'll uh. Wrap it up.
Clar's kind of an attempt at an inversion of a lot of tropes about women and power and chronic illness and sexuality - she's the Mary-iest Sue-iest of all my characters, and I don't generally try to restrain them - and she always goes over really well. Not just with people who already know and trust me, but total strangers. I don't know what it is or how it works, but I'm glad it does because she is so much fun, and I enjoy her enormously.
This entry was originally posted at http://tiamatschild.dreamwidth.org/127531.html. Please feel free to comment there using OpenID. Or here! It'll be read either way, is what I'm saying.