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yukieSome of this is copy/pasta'd from a meme I did ages back and expanded on, so if it looks familiar that's why. XD
A BUNCH OF WORDS ABOUT VARIAN AS I TEND TO WRITE HIM
Note that I make no excuses for his asshole moments here XD He can be quite the douche wagon; I'm just explaining where the big dork I write is coming from, how he thinks, and how he diverges from canon.
This may make sense only to me XD;;
ALSO SPOILER FOR WHO THE NEW DEFIAS LEADER IS. If you don't know already, the last entry in the list spoils that XD; Be wary!
***
1) A lot of his issues with Sylvanas and the Forsaken come as a result of what happened to Arthas. Varian wasn't very aware of this at first, but it's a significant issue. Sylvanas and the Forsaken are, for him, very much a reminder of how far his friend fell - and how he himself was unable to do anything because he didn't notice Arthas starting to come unwound. (Varian kicks himself a lot and I'll get to that later XD) While there is some of the 'nnngg' that some Holy Light followers have about the undead in general, for the most part, his twitchiness is because of his direct emotional involvement with the reason the Forsaken exist. When he wanted them to go away dammit, it was much less really being convinced that the Alliance had a right to the city (he knows damn well those are Lordaeron's people and that it is for all intents and purposes still THEIRS) than it was badly wishing to not face the evidence of Arthas having gone bughouse crazy. Sylvanas in particular gets the strongest reaction because of why she is the way she is. She is, to him, proof that he failed someone he cares dearly for. She paid the price for his failure. He may have shot his mouth off and fussed and called her stupid things, but at the root he feel GUILTY around her and he'd get agitated and thus get defensive and start acting resentful and assy. Varian, this is called 'being a derpass'.
(A lot of this, too, is tied up in the fact that he wouldn't acknowledge that he loved Arthas. (Yes, I went there; suck it up, I like bara.) He was AWARE of the crush but didn't know if it was mutual, and besides he thought that feeling that way made him an unfaithful jerk, so he repressed it. On top of that--well, Stormwinder culture isn't HUGELY dickweedy about m/m relationships, but there's somewhat daft assumptions made about guys who swing that way. The assumptions get slightly more obnoxious when you start getting into inter-racial relationships. But I digress! Overall, gay relationships were UNDERSTOOD in Stormwind and nobody thought much about stuff like a couple of old queens running a haberdasher or tea shoppe, but it wasn't something you necessarily talked about at length. Plus, there's a standards-and-practices-of-machismo thing going on that assumes that...well...old queens WILL probably go into business as haberdashers or tea shoppe owners. In short, gay dudes are assumed to lean on the femme side and lesbian ladies on the butch side and people who don't fit into these boxes neatly get thought of as "eccentric" or "attention-getters". And bisexuality just gets confused looks. So yeah. This is why Varian didn't say anything or act on the crush--and his not doing so is why Arthas was able to TROLOLOLOL LOLOLOL LOLOLOL him so badly during the whole business at Northrend post-zombie-invasion.)
Incidentally, the "logical" conclusion (we're talking sleep-deprived dreamstalked-by-the-Lich-King Varian logic here, which isn't quite of this planet) of this self-blame is Varian mentally assuming responsibility for Bolvar's death. His brain did this: if I'm responsible for the Forsaken being as they are because I didn't stop Arthas, then I'm responsible for Putress going completely pheasant-plucking crazy on account of the mental duress he was no doubt under, and therefore I'm responsible for the PlagueWTF indirectly, which means Bolvar's death was, ultimately, my fault because I couldn't save Arthas. So that touched off the Roaring Rampage of Revenge directed at Putress, and the entirely STUPID Leeroy Rush to Undercity.
Yeah. Varian has a tendency to take on a much bigger burden than he can actually carry and brush off attempts at help because A KING'S GOTTA BE STRONG FOR HIS PEOPLE and this often leads to a faceplant.
That leads me to number 2...
2) The other persona business. In the AU-verse, this is an understood social phenomenon in Stormwinder culture. (I don't know how much of this applies to Lordaeron and other places, but according to the dork monarch in my brains, this is how Stormwind does things. Basically, everything I 'learned' about Stormwind that wasn't on WoWpedia comes from writing Varian and learning through him as I go XD;; ) You have your public face and your private family-and-friends self. How you present depends on what's appropriate and where you are. The difference between "King Varian Wrynn" and "Varian lazing on the sofa with a book in mauve bedsocks (shut up they're warm) when no one is looking or hanging around with Anduin" is--it's in essence like the Japanese concepts of 'honne' (true feelings) and 'tatemae' (public face). Varian doesn't have DID. Gladiatorpants!Badass McMonarch!Varian is not an alter, but rather a role or state of mind Varian takes on when he's presenting himself to his people, or he needs to be the strong one or provide support. He'll cram his fears and worries into his back pockets, square his shoulders, and be The Bossman, because thats what a king does. The origins of this go WAY WAY back (which I'll get into next paragraph), though after the whole routine with Onyxia (which went down differently in the AU than in canon, and which i also need to write about), he started leaning a little harder on this role to support himself when he felt vulnerable. King Varian Lo'gosh Gladiator Snarkpants ofUlmStormwind is the tatemae. This is where you get the deadpan wise-assedness and a little more of the swagger. Varian is at heart a good leader, and one who cares deeply for his people.
Anyway. About his 'tatemae'--it's not only social protocol that he was taught, but also conscious consideration that gave shape to the 'King of Stormwind!' face. That started to take shape when he was a wee little kid; the seeds of it were sown when Stormwind went *CRUNCH* all those years ago and he witnessed his father's death. Varian was an empathetic sort of a kid, and when he saw his fellow Stormwinders morose in the aftermath of the disaster he decided he'd better be the kind of inspiring king his dad was and Terenas was, and all those heroic monarch types in books he liked were. And for the most part, he is. It works.
...Usually.
Sometimes, though, it absolutely does not. Sometimes there is no more room in his back pockets for what's eating him and everything jumps out onto the floor. When he's stressed all to hell and exhausted and vulnerable and, let's say, an undead monarch is dream-stalking him...yeah. It's basically like leaning on the image what you think you should be, and pictures aren't crutches. That can collapse out from under someone in a tearing hurry. People who know Varian well can see this collapse start to happen in changes in his actions and mannerisms--he gets a lot cockier, a lot more snarkLOL, much more prone to witticisms, WAY more stubborn, and kiiiiind of fricking annoying after a while. Push him past this point, and everything crashes down and you get stupid things like LEEEEEEEROOOOOOOY-ing to Undercity and totally shooting his mouth off at Thrall and Sylvanas. THIS is the point at which the bad temper, impulse issues and less-than-logical thinking come out--when Varian's out of gas.
He does have a slight natural inclination to foot-in-mouth and leaping before he looks, but when he's rested and calm he can roll with this, apologize, fix the problem, and smooth things over because he'll MEAN it when he says "my bad, I'll watch my step more carefully next time." He's aware of his flaws. Most of the time, this serves to keep him from getting a swelled head, but when he gets worn out--yeah. He becomes HYPER-AWARE of all his weaknesses and then quickly gets prickly, snarky and defensive because he's afraid of being seen as a wuss and letting people down. Once Varian starts doing this junk, you KNOW he's circling around about to descend the whirlpool into explod-ville.
(NOTE: The Varian in this AU did not declare war or threaten genocide. (In fact he gets queasy at the idea of both.) He did explod and was an asshole, but more a run-of-the-mill somewhat ig'nant lost-temper sleep-deprived asshole than a racist malicious dickweed asshole. And there was a lot of "IF ARTHAS WASN'T BREATHING DOWN MY NECK SO HELP ME arr rarr rarr etc." but no "WE R WAR NOW *grunt*" because--yeah. Varian's impulsive and irrational when he's exhausted, and he has a short fuse when he's at the end of his rope, but he's not dumb as a box of hair.)
3) He cannot remember for the most part W in TF Onyxia and her cronies did to him. He knows it wasn't pleasant, since he's got some significant scars from it and his memory's been permanently affected in parts - but the specifics elude him. He sometimes has twitchy nightmares about this experience but they're vaguer than all hell. Also, Onyxia being a jerk left him with somewhat weakened mental defenses. Though, while it might be easy to START reading his mind, CONTINUING will prove hard as he's good at punting. XD
The one who taught him to do this? Jaina. XD Whom he does have a crush on, but again, he fumbles with his thoughts, like this: "Do I like her because of who she is or am I just projecting my feelings for my late wife onto Jaina, because if I am that makes me a jerk--Jaina isn't Tiofania and if I expect her to be I'm a jerk AND a nut. ...And what about how I felt (lolVarianindenial) about Arthas, is THAT influencing how I feel about Jaina? If THAT'S the case I'm a double-jerk and twice the nut." This leads to Varian banging his head lightly on the desk/wall/door.
4) Family and the people dear to him are VERY VERY important. The loss of his dad, his wife, and then his dearest friends - to an assassin, to a tragic accident, to evil and to betrayal respectively - hit him very hard, and as a result he can get really overprotective and fretty and sometimes annoying! If anything bad happens to someone dear to him, he will immediately assume responsibility and kick himself (see: blaming himself for Arthas's battiness, blaming himself for what happened to Bolvar, LOATHING himself for being unable to negotiate with the unions whose riots resulted in his wife's death...). When he's not being silly like this, though, the depth of his love for people is his main inspiration. As a king, he loves his people. He ADORES his son. Varian's love for people will inspire him to Leeroying heroics or mother hen antics sometimes, but for the most part it's a healthy motivator.
5) He has no idea why Thrall is so well adjusted, and is envious if the fact that Thrall TRUSTS PEOPLE, still, in spite of the BS he endured (which--again, I AUed this to hell, but rest assured he's got issues for valid reasons). This one is less apparent and, for a time, wasn't so clear to Varian. The two of them have very similar pasts and experiences, but where Varian was left wary, insomniac, cranky, jaded and wary of orcs, Thrall never stops believing in the basic good of people and never lost his trust in humans in spite of many of them being douches to him. He believes that peace is possible, and Varian's not so sure about that. His thought pattern used to be 'how the hell come this guy from this crazy barbarian culture is more well adjusted than me!?' but now it's more 'I need to figure out what he's doing to keep zen.' While he thinks the Warchief can be a reckless optimist and too naive, by the same token, he thinks that optimism's not necessarily such a bad thing.
Thrall is incidentally one of the reasons Varian stopped self-medicating in order to sleep. (I know--a lot of people make a hash of this trope, but as someone who knows a lot of recovering types who are epic, I wanted to actually depict this sort of thing respectfully and properly and without bullshit ableism.) Varian is very mellow and sleepy when he's got a little too much wine in him (which doesn't take much wine at all--for a big guy, he's a lightweight), and when the Onyxia-rooted nightmares were causing him to wake up panicking and scare Anduin, he started having a glass or two before bed to shut up the dragon-noise in his brain. Over time he started turning in that direction to shut up occasional triggered flashbacks that knotted up his stomach with this nameless creeping dread he couldn't pin down a cause of. Eventually, though, he realized that this really was NOT the way to go about taking care of himself at all. So he started taking little surreptitious glances at Jaina, who is a master of stress-handling--and then at Thrall. Because, hell, if anyone knows how to handle the aftermath of Jerks What Break Your Brains it's Thrall, right?
So now Varian meditates. XD Usually, this works. it didn't when going into a mindful zen state led to LICH KING KNEADIN UR BRAINZ but for the most part it does.
Varian will also on occasion talk to himself under his breath when he's alone; less-savvy people overhearing this might assume he's gone a little funny in the head...yeah, he has detractors. A lot of them. Some of them think he's an impostor, some think he's nuts, but whatever their motives, they claim he's not fit to rule and that Stormwind ought to be handled by Anduin, a regent, and the House of Nobles. (There are one or two tinhats thinking he's ttly liek sekritly an Black Dragon but everyone ignores them.) Varian thinks the House of Nobles should go pound sand down a rat-hole.
6) Varian does still have Issues About Orcs, but he recognizes the root of them. He doesn't see the Orcs as animals or savages or sub-personhood, but as a group of people who are just innately a whole hell of a lot WILDER and coarser and harsher and stompier than humans. He knows why they went WAAAURGH in the first place and knows what happened with Grom, but there's a constant 'what if it happens again?' fear that gnaws him a great deal. This is ESPECIALLY prominent with regard to Garrosh, who seems to embody a lot of Orcish 'bad habits'--might-makes-right, ruthlessness, stompin' everything, pushing people around, barging in and breaking shit, and so on. He's not aware of Garrosh's constant grappling with his feelings about his dad (yeah, my Garrosh is weird like my Varian XD) and of his bone-deep fear that he WILL go off like his dad and only be able to redeem himself in death. (Death got scary to Garrosh up in Northrend.) He looks at Thrall not as a dumb brute but as a fundamentally decent guy who happens to be huge and green and who is liable to get played because he's so damn nice XD; So...yeah, still problematic in that human-socialized Thrall and 'good Orcs' are kind of the exception that proves the rule to Varian.
There's more to the Orc Hangups but this is getting long as hell and anyhow Varian's Bogus Journey requires a whole nother post...
7) He isn't oblivious about Westfall or the Defias. (This is a BIG diversion because canon is like DUMB. The relationship between the Defias and Westfall probably diverges from canon too, so be prepared.) In a nutshell: Edwin and Co. rebuilt the city and asked for pay, House of Nobles gave the finger, Edwin and Co. went WHAT THE SHIT, Tiff started twisting the nobles' arms verbally (of the two of them, Tiff was the more savvy about political chicanery, since her dad expected her to Be A Lady and that means you Bene Gesserit your opponent into the floor (note that she's not two-faced, just INCREDIBLY damn eloquent, a badass strategist and epic at reading people) instead of raising your voice), Varian attempted to mediate in the interim between Edwin and the Nobles and got nowhere fast, and then the riots broke out because Onyxia wirepulling, and...yeah. Once again we see Varian blaming himself for a loved one's death, and for being unable to help. He's the KING for pity's sakes isn't he supposed to be able to do this stuff? And so on, and so on.
So in his opinion Westfall's issues are his fault, which--to some extent, yes they are, but not entirely. So he is trying, but it's very difficult to deal with the Red Wall of Bandannas--especially since it was the Defias whom Onyxia hired to yoink him. So there is that. Principally, though, it's the relationship between the people of Westfall and the Defias that makes things so damn hard. A LOT of the Defias are from Westfall. Westfall was a farming and trade community. And though some of the people consider the Defias hooligans and renegades and ne'er-do-wells...they're THEIR ne'er-do-wells. So--how do you ask someone to help you stamp out a 'menace' your niece or cousin is a part of? Yeah. AWKWARD. So the Alliance and Varian now have the utterly thankless and difficult task of proving themselves to a community that feels very much abandoned, and that has no reason to turn over their own people to some authority that left them to be preyed on by jerks. Varian really has his work cut out for him; undoing all the damage Onyxia did will take a lot of time.
Incidentally, regarding the new leadership--Varian absolutely doesn't condone Vanessa's actions and is insistent that she and the Defias be brought to justice, but he refuses to be an asshole about this. After all, she saw her father die--an experience Varian knows the full unpleasantness of. Had he known Vanessa existed, he'd have done things a lot differently. He considers that entire debacle a HUGE ball-drop on his part (Varian, it was SI:7, not you).
...That's all I can think of for now. Hurrrfff my brain are totally melted from this week.
A BUNCH OF WORDS ABOUT VARIAN AS I TEND TO WRITE HIM
Note that I make no excuses for his asshole moments here XD He can be quite the douche wagon; I'm just explaining where the big dork I write is coming from, how he thinks, and how he diverges from canon.
This may make sense only to me XD;;
ALSO SPOILER FOR WHO THE NEW DEFIAS LEADER IS. If you don't know already, the last entry in the list spoils that XD; Be wary!
***
1) A lot of his issues with Sylvanas and the Forsaken come as a result of what happened to Arthas. Varian wasn't very aware of this at first, but it's a significant issue. Sylvanas and the Forsaken are, for him, very much a reminder of how far his friend fell - and how he himself was unable to do anything because he didn't notice Arthas starting to come unwound. (Varian kicks himself a lot and I'll get to that later XD) While there is some of the 'nnngg' that some Holy Light followers have about the undead in general, for the most part, his twitchiness is because of his direct emotional involvement with the reason the Forsaken exist. When he wanted them to go away dammit, it was much less really being convinced that the Alliance had a right to the city (he knows damn well those are Lordaeron's people and that it is for all intents and purposes still THEIRS) than it was badly wishing to not face the evidence of Arthas having gone bughouse crazy. Sylvanas in particular gets the strongest reaction because of why she is the way she is. She is, to him, proof that he failed someone he cares dearly for. She paid the price for his failure. He may have shot his mouth off and fussed and called her stupid things, but at the root he feel GUILTY around her and he'd get agitated and thus get defensive and start acting resentful and assy. Varian, this is called 'being a derpass'.
(A lot of this, too, is tied up in the fact that he wouldn't acknowledge that he loved Arthas. (Yes, I went there; suck it up, I like bara.) He was AWARE of the crush but didn't know if it was mutual, and besides he thought that feeling that way made him an unfaithful jerk, so he repressed it. On top of that--well, Stormwinder culture isn't HUGELY dickweedy about m/m relationships, but there's somewhat daft assumptions made about guys who swing that way. The assumptions get slightly more obnoxious when you start getting into inter-racial relationships. But I digress! Overall, gay relationships were UNDERSTOOD in Stormwind and nobody thought much about stuff like a couple of old queens running a haberdasher or tea shoppe, but it wasn't something you necessarily talked about at length. Plus, there's a standards-and-practices-of-machismo thing going on that assumes that...well...old queens WILL probably go into business as haberdashers or tea shoppe owners. In short, gay dudes are assumed to lean on the femme side and lesbian ladies on the butch side and people who don't fit into these boxes neatly get thought of as "eccentric" or "attention-getters". And bisexuality just gets confused looks. So yeah. This is why Varian didn't say anything or act on the crush--and his not doing so is why Arthas was able to TROLOLOLOL LOLOLOL LOLOLOL him so badly during the whole business at Northrend post-zombie-invasion.)
Incidentally, the "logical" conclusion (we're talking sleep-deprived dreamstalked-by-the-Lich-King Varian logic here, which isn't quite of this planet) of this self-blame is Varian mentally assuming responsibility for Bolvar's death. His brain did this: if I'm responsible for the Forsaken being as they are because I didn't stop Arthas, then I'm responsible for Putress going completely pheasant-plucking crazy on account of the mental duress he was no doubt under, and therefore I'm responsible for the PlagueWTF indirectly, which means Bolvar's death was, ultimately, my fault because I couldn't save Arthas. So that touched off the Roaring Rampage of Revenge directed at Putress, and the entirely STUPID Leeroy Rush to Undercity.
Yeah. Varian has a tendency to take on a much bigger burden than he can actually carry and brush off attempts at help because A KING'S GOTTA BE STRONG FOR HIS PEOPLE and this often leads to a faceplant.
That leads me to number 2...
2) The other persona business. In the AU-verse, this is an understood social phenomenon in Stormwinder culture. (I don't know how much of this applies to Lordaeron and other places, but according to the dork monarch in my brains, this is how Stormwind does things. Basically, everything I 'learned' about Stormwind that wasn't on WoWpedia comes from writing Varian and learning through him as I go XD;; ) You have your public face and your private family-and-friends self. How you present depends on what's appropriate and where you are. The difference between "King Varian Wrynn" and "Varian lazing on the sofa with a book in mauve bedsocks (shut up they're warm) when no one is looking or hanging around with Anduin" is--it's in essence like the Japanese concepts of 'honne' (true feelings) and 'tatemae' (public face). Varian doesn't have DID. Gladiatorpants!Badass McMonarch!Varian is not an alter, but rather a role or state of mind Varian takes on when he's presenting himself to his people, or he needs to be the strong one or provide support. He'll cram his fears and worries into his back pockets, square his shoulders, and be The Bossman, because thats what a king does. The origins of this go WAY WAY back (which I'll get into next paragraph), though after the whole routine with Onyxia (which went down differently in the AU than in canon, and which i also need to write about), he started leaning a little harder on this role to support himself when he felt vulnerable. King Varian Lo'gosh Gladiator Snarkpants of
Anyway. About his 'tatemae'--it's not only social protocol that he was taught, but also conscious consideration that gave shape to the 'King of Stormwind!' face. That started to take shape when he was a wee little kid; the seeds of it were sown when Stormwind went *CRUNCH* all those years ago and he witnessed his father's death. Varian was an empathetic sort of a kid, and when he saw his fellow Stormwinders morose in the aftermath of the disaster he decided he'd better be the kind of inspiring king his dad was and Terenas was, and all those heroic monarch types in books he liked were. And for the most part, he is. It works.
...Usually.
Sometimes, though, it absolutely does not. Sometimes there is no more room in his back pockets for what's eating him and everything jumps out onto the floor. When he's stressed all to hell and exhausted and vulnerable and, let's say, an undead monarch is dream-stalking him...yeah. It's basically like leaning on the image what you think you should be, and pictures aren't crutches. That can collapse out from under someone in a tearing hurry. People who know Varian well can see this collapse start to happen in changes in his actions and mannerisms--he gets a lot cockier, a lot more snarkLOL, much more prone to witticisms, WAY more stubborn, and kiiiiind of fricking annoying after a while. Push him past this point, and everything crashes down and you get stupid things like LEEEEEEEROOOOOOOY-ing to Undercity and totally shooting his mouth off at Thrall and Sylvanas. THIS is the point at which the bad temper, impulse issues and less-than-logical thinking come out--when Varian's out of gas.
He does have a slight natural inclination to foot-in-mouth and leaping before he looks, but when he's rested and calm he can roll with this, apologize, fix the problem, and smooth things over because he'll MEAN it when he says "my bad, I'll watch my step more carefully next time." He's aware of his flaws. Most of the time, this serves to keep him from getting a swelled head, but when he gets worn out--yeah. He becomes HYPER-AWARE of all his weaknesses and then quickly gets prickly, snarky and defensive because he's afraid of being seen as a wuss and letting people down. Once Varian starts doing this junk, you KNOW he's circling around about to descend the whirlpool into explod-ville.
(NOTE: The Varian in this AU did not declare war or threaten genocide. (In fact he gets queasy at the idea of both.) He did explod and was an asshole, but more a run-of-the-mill somewhat ig'nant lost-temper sleep-deprived asshole than a racist malicious dickweed asshole. And there was a lot of "IF ARTHAS WASN'T BREATHING DOWN MY NECK SO HELP ME arr rarr rarr etc." but no "WE R WAR NOW *grunt*" because--yeah. Varian's impulsive and irrational when he's exhausted, and he has a short fuse when he's at the end of his rope, but he's not dumb as a box of hair.)
3) He cannot remember for the most part W in TF Onyxia and her cronies did to him. He knows it wasn't pleasant, since he's got some significant scars from it and his memory's been permanently affected in parts - but the specifics elude him. He sometimes has twitchy nightmares about this experience but they're vaguer than all hell. Also, Onyxia being a jerk left him with somewhat weakened mental defenses. Though, while it might be easy to START reading his mind, CONTINUING will prove hard as he's good at punting. XD
The one who taught him to do this? Jaina. XD Whom he does have a crush on, but again, he fumbles with his thoughts, like this: "Do I like her because of who she is or am I just projecting my feelings for my late wife onto Jaina, because if I am that makes me a jerk--Jaina isn't Tiofania and if I expect her to be I'm a jerk AND a nut. ...And what about how I felt (lolVarianindenial) about Arthas, is THAT influencing how I feel about Jaina? If THAT'S the case I'm a double-jerk and twice the nut." This leads to Varian banging his head lightly on the desk/wall/door.
4) Family and the people dear to him are VERY VERY important. The loss of his dad, his wife, and then his dearest friends - to an assassin, to a tragic accident, to evil and to betrayal respectively - hit him very hard, and as a result he can get really overprotective and fretty and sometimes annoying! If anything bad happens to someone dear to him, he will immediately assume responsibility and kick himself (see: blaming himself for Arthas's battiness, blaming himself for what happened to Bolvar, LOATHING himself for being unable to negotiate with the unions whose riots resulted in his wife's death...). When he's not being silly like this, though, the depth of his love for people is his main inspiration. As a king, he loves his people. He ADORES his son. Varian's love for people will inspire him to Leeroying heroics or mother hen antics sometimes, but for the most part it's a healthy motivator.
5) He has no idea why Thrall is so well adjusted, and is envious if the fact that Thrall TRUSTS PEOPLE, still, in spite of the BS he endured (which--again, I AUed this to hell, but rest assured he's got issues for valid reasons). This one is less apparent and, for a time, wasn't so clear to Varian. The two of them have very similar pasts and experiences, but where Varian was left wary, insomniac, cranky, jaded and wary of orcs, Thrall never stops believing in the basic good of people and never lost his trust in humans in spite of many of them being douches to him. He believes that peace is possible, and Varian's not so sure about that. His thought pattern used to be 'how the hell come this guy from this crazy barbarian culture is more well adjusted than me!?' but now it's more 'I need to figure out what he's doing to keep zen.' While he thinks the Warchief can be a reckless optimist and too naive, by the same token, he thinks that optimism's not necessarily such a bad thing.
Thrall is incidentally one of the reasons Varian stopped self-medicating in order to sleep. (I know--a lot of people make a hash of this trope, but as someone who knows a lot of recovering types who are epic, I wanted to actually depict this sort of thing respectfully and properly and without bullshit ableism.) Varian is very mellow and sleepy when he's got a little too much wine in him (which doesn't take much wine at all--for a big guy, he's a lightweight), and when the Onyxia-rooted nightmares were causing him to wake up panicking and scare Anduin, he started having a glass or two before bed to shut up the dragon-noise in his brain. Over time he started turning in that direction to shut up occasional triggered flashbacks that knotted up his stomach with this nameless creeping dread he couldn't pin down a cause of. Eventually, though, he realized that this really was NOT the way to go about taking care of himself at all. So he started taking little surreptitious glances at Jaina, who is a master of stress-handling--and then at Thrall. Because, hell, if anyone knows how to handle the aftermath of Jerks What Break Your Brains it's Thrall, right?
So now Varian meditates. XD Usually, this works. it didn't when going into a mindful zen state led to LICH KING KNEADIN UR BRAINZ but for the most part it does.
Varian will also on occasion talk to himself under his breath when he's alone; less-savvy people overhearing this might assume he's gone a little funny in the head...yeah, he has detractors. A lot of them. Some of them think he's an impostor, some think he's nuts, but whatever their motives, they claim he's not fit to rule and that Stormwind ought to be handled by Anduin, a regent, and the House of Nobles. (There are one or two tinhats thinking he's ttly liek sekritly an Black Dragon but everyone ignores them.) Varian thinks the House of Nobles should go pound sand down a rat-hole.
6) Varian does still have Issues About Orcs, but he recognizes the root of them. He doesn't see the Orcs as animals or savages or sub-personhood, but as a group of people who are just innately a whole hell of a lot WILDER and coarser and harsher and stompier than humans. He knows why they went WAAAURGH in the first place and knows what happened with Grom, but there's a constant 'what if it happens again?' fear that gnaws him a great deal. This is ESPECIALLY prominent with regard to Garrosh, who seems to embody a lot of Orcish 'bad habits'--might-makes-right, ruthlessness, stompin' everything, pushing people around, barging in and breaking shit, and so on. He's not aware of Garrosh's constant grappling with his feelings about his dad (yeah, my Garrosh is weird like my Varian XD) and of his bone-deep fear that he WILL go off like his dad and only be able to redeem himself in death. (Death got scary to Garrosh up in Northrend.) He looks at Thrall not as a dumb brute but as a fundamentally decent guy who happens to be huge and green and who is liable to get played because he's so damn nice XD; So...yeah, still problematic in that human-socialized Thrall and 'good Orcs' are kind of the exception that proves the rule to Varian.
There's more to the Orc Hangups but this is getting long as hell and anyhow Varian's Bogus Journey requires a whole nother post...
7) He isn't oblivious about Westfall or the Defias. (This is a BIG diversion because canon is like DUMB. The relationship between the Defias and Westfall probably diverges from canon too, so be prepared.) In a nutshell: Edwin and Co. rebuilt the city and asked for pay, House of Nobles gave the finger, Edwin and Co. went WHAT THE SHIT, Tiff started twisting the nobles' arms verbally (of the two of them, Tiff was the more savvy about political chicanery, since her dad expected her to Be A Lady and that means you Bene Gesserit your opponent into the floor (note that she's not two-faced, just INCREDIBLY damn eloquent, a badass strategist and epic at reading people) instead of raising your voice), Varian attempted to mediate in the interim between Edwin and the Nobles and got nowhere fast, and then the riots broke out because Onyxia wirepulling, and...yeah. Once again we see Varian blaming himself for a loved one's death, and for being unable to help. He's the KING for pity's sakes isn't he supposed to be able to do this stuff? And so on, and so on.
So in his opinion Westfall's issues are his fault, which--to some extent, yes they are, but not entirely. So he is trying, but it's very difficult to deal with the Red Wall of Bandannas--especially since it was the Defias whom Onyxia hired to yoink him. So there is that. Principally, though, it's the relationship between the people of Westfall and the Defias that makes things so damn hard. A LOT of the Defias are from Westfall. Westfall was a farming and trade community. And though some of the people consider the Defias hooligans and renegades and ne'er-do-wells...they're THEIR ne'er-do-wells. So--how do you ask someone to help you stamp out a 'menace' your niece or cousin is a part of? Yeah. AWKWARD. So the Alliance and Varian now have the utterly thankless and difficult task of proving themselves to a community that feels very much abandoned, and that has no reason to turn over their own people to some authority that left them to be preyed on by jerks. Varian really has his work cut out for him; undoing all the damage Onyxia did will take a lot of time.
Incidentally, regarding the new leadership--Varian absolutely doesn't condone Vanessa's actions and is insistent that she and the Defias be brought to justice, but he refuses to be an asshole about this. After all, she saw her father die--an experience Varian knows the full unpleasantness of. Had he known Vanessa existed, he'd have done things a lot differently. He considers that entire debacle a HUGE ball-drop on his part (Varian, it was SI:7, not you).
...That's all I can think of for now. Hurrrfff my brain are totally melted from this week.
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Date: 2011-12-11 05:36 am (UTC)