Rogue Sloth

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Of course Jacob already knew why Caspian had been hiding Iris away in the hotel. The Aspirian king was smitten with the girl he’d rescued from the woods. However, that didn’t mean that was all there was to it. He was too cautious to assume Iris shared the same motive and that the two were just young and in love. She didn’t strike him as a conniving criminal who was sidling up to the ruler in order to whisper lies into his ear, and she hadn’t given him a reason to believe she wasn’t telling the truth, but it was always safer to rule out the possibility, no matter how slim it was. Startling and threatening her, while cruel, was an effective way of getting her to slip up if something deeper was going on.

He knew he was being harsh though, so when she said that he was hurting her, he reluctantly loosened his grip on her arm. Admittedly, part of the reason why he had reacted the way he had was because he hadn’t expected to see her on the other side of the door. For the last two or more weeks, he hadn’t heard Caspian mention anything about Iris, so he had assumed that she had actually escaped back to the districts. In retrospect, he should have known better. He had seen how much the young king had grown to care about her, so he shouldn’t have been surprised to discover that he was still holding onto her.

Truth be told, even though he had agreed to keep their involvement a secret for the sake of not aggravating Atlas nearly a month ago, he wasn’t fond of the fact that Caspian was so absorbed with someone who had been involved in the rebellion. He had been hoping that the issue would resolve itself, but clearly that wasn’t the case. Whether Iris was using him or they were genuinely only interested in each other as romantic partners, she could only bring the fledgling king trouble. Now that he knew they were still meeting in secret, he wasn’t sure what to do, so he had reacted more aggressively than he probably should have.

As Iris went on about losing track of the days and not wanting to cause any trouble, Jacob had to admit that she wasn’t acting like a person who had been caught in the middle of something devious. She looked beaten down and afraid of being sent back to the prison. He studied her in tense silence before following her gaze to the kitchen, where there were piles of uneaten food. The room looked more like a cage for a hostage than the secret meeting place for two people in love.

Calming from the initial outburst, the guard relinquished his hold on Iris’s arm, though he continued to stand between her and the door. “If you don’t want to be here anymore, then why did you and the king come up with such an elaborate plan to allow you to stay in the capital?” he interrogated her with a skeptical expression. “I was under the impression that you two claim to be in love. Have you changed your mind about him?”

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Even as he gripped Iris’s arm to stop her from wriggling out of his hand, Jacob’s mind was racing as he pieced together what was going on. He remembered that Caspian had taken an interest in this girl before any of them had known that she was a rebel, and even after she’d turned him over to her comrades, his infatuation hadn’t seemed to die out. Apparently he was still so taken with her that he was willing to betray the trust of his military and his people in order to keep her around. If anyone else found out he was hiding a member of the Scourge under the soldiers’ noses, there would be irreparable consequences.

So, even though he harbored some respect for the young king, he wasn’t going to take this situation lightly. The more Iris fought against him, the tighter he held her arm, determined not to let her get away. It didn’t matter to him that Caspian was interested in her. She was an enemy of the state and a threat to the monarchy. He was especially concerned about the influence she had over Atlas’s son, since they were meeting in secret where she was the only voice in his ear. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that she was planting seeds to turn him against his own kingdom or to convince him to do something he would regret. If either case was true, he wouldn’t hesitate to drag her out of the suite and lock her in a prison cell no matter what his liege had to say about it.

When Iris began talking, the guard was slightly thrown by her claim of wanting to go home followed by a mention of how it wasn’t possible for her to leave the capital. She didn’t sound like someone who was very invested in whatever sort of arrangement she and King Caspian had brewed up. However, he wasn’t going to simply take her word at face value. She was a fugitive who had just been found by someone who had every right to arrest her on the spot, so it could have been a desperate ploy to escape.

“Yes, you shouldn’t be here,” Jacob growled. He didn’t care about her comment about being unable to leave, but he could at least acknowledge that she’d gotten one thing right. If she was going to be in the capital, then she should have been locked away where she couldn’t do any more damage. But he wasn’t just there to slap her on the wrist and walk away. “I want you to tell me exactly what’s been going on between you and the king,” he demanded roughly. “We can start with when this charade began. How long have you been hiding here?”

What kind of RP mood are you in?

I'm really craving to do a RP with a character who is disguised as the opposite sex. Either a female character dressed as a man to get into an all-male group of some sort (Mulan-esque) or a male disguised as a woman in an arranged marriage scenario (for a MxM story). I love the hilarity of the awkward situations the character has to go through to avoid being discovered.

Unfortunately, I have too many active RPs to pick up any more, so I'll have to sit on this idea until some of my current partners slow down or drop.

Tips for writing POC, LGBT+, and other minority characters in RP

On the flip side, women tend to make men controlling, dramatic, and incompetent. There's about 8,000 YA novels with a male protag who gets angry with no provocation haha.

@POOHEAD189

To add onto that, I've noticed a lot of women writing men have a trend of giving male characters wild sexual histories including lots of past partners and one-night stands. It's not like your character can't be a playboy (and there are definitely good settings for that kind of thing), but virgins and guys who prefer monogamous, longterm relationships exist too so it doesn't make them less realistic or less masculine to have those kinds of backstories. I know plenty who don't have raging sex drives and want to connect emotionally with a partner in order to have a physical relationship!

Tips for writing POC, LGBT+, and other minority characters in RP

Spin off question (I'll update the original post too): What are obstacles you have to writing characters who are a different gender/race/sexuality/any other quality as yourself?

I notice a lot of people in the 1x1 section seem to stick to writing as their own gender and want to open this thread up further for discussion and advice for anyone who might want to branch out from their niche, whatever that may be.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

As the seconds passed, Jacob glanced over his shoulder idly, waiting for someone to answer the executive suite door. There were no other people in the hallway, and he hadn’t told any of the other members of the security team where he was going, so it was unlikely that word would get out that he was snooping behind Caspian’s back. At least, not before he found out what was going on and could confront the king, himself. He didn’t plan on hiding his actions forever, after all. Loyal to the crown, he only wanted to make sure that the ruler of Aspiria wasn’t walking down a path he would regret later on.

The sound of a door handle turning jarred him from his thoughts, and he turned back to the suite, slightly surprised that someone was actually inside. Knocking had felt like a stretch, so he’d only tried it as a precaution, and for half a second the thought flitted through his mind that he could have been wrong about Caspian’s involvement at the hotel. If someone else was staying in the executive suite anonymously, he could have just landed himself in legal trouble for hunting them down. His heart felt like it skipped a beat, but the worry was replaced in the next instant with shock when he saw who was on the other side of the door: the rebel girl he’d seen with the former prince before.

It seemed she had been laying low in the Sunset Veil all this time, which must have been why the soldiers around the city had never been able to find her, and she hadn’t turned up on any of the cameras around the capital’s borders. The pieces were all falling into place, especially when she carelessly gave away Caspian’s involvement with her question. Now he had the evidence he’d needed to prove that his leader was the one who had been harboring this war criminal. The king of Aspiria was still behaving like an irresponsible teenager.

In a flash, the door was closing in his face as Iris tried to get away from him, but Jacob still had the reflexes of a trained soldier. He barred the opening with his boot and wrenched the door back open with a forearm, forcing his way into the room without asking for permission. Closing it again behind him, he stood with his body between the rebel and the exit, so she would have to go through him to escape. He also grabbed hold of her arm with his free hand to stop her from running further inside.

“Not so fast,” he said sternly, eyes narrowed as he pulled her roughly toward himself. “You’re going to tell me what’s going on here.”

Tips for writing POC, LGBT+, and other minority characters in RP

@Mrgrimjaw In my opinion, telling minorities what terms they should use to describe themselves is dangerous territory, as I said my minority friends are the ones who use the terms to talk about themselves and their life experiences. If some people find the terms offensive, then I'm happy to adjust my language for them, but I don't see this as a one-size-fits-all case.

And anyway, that isn't what this thread is about, so as the OP I'd appreciate it if you shut down the calling out of other participants and calling people racist for not using the language you've approved of. Thanks.

Tips for writing POC, LGBT+, and other minority characters in RP

@Mrgrimjaw I think a lot of that depends a lot on specific people and regions. Literally every Latino person in my life uses Latinx when writing (not in speech) and I live right by the border with Mexico, so there are quite a few of them. That could very well be different in other places/countries (I'm American), but making a blanket statement like that excludes all others who think to the contrary. Same goes for the preference of the term POC. All my non-white friends definitely make use of it when describing their life experiences.

Also, if there are people who dislike the term, what would be something those people groups prefer in alternative? The people in my life seem to dislike 'minority' more than 'POC' because it highlights social situations and injustices they don't like to think about.

Baseline point I'm trying to make is that everyone is different, and it seems best to ask individuals what they prefer rather than make assumptions, just like you would with a transgender person's pronouns.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Leaving the suite behind, Cas made his way to the elevator that would take him back down to the parking garage, careful to make sure there were no other hotel guests around to see him. Already, he wished he could stay with Iris or that she could come with him to the palace, but he had to be patient for just a little while longer. He was finally going to be meeting with the best person to help them with their situation, so the next time he saw her, he would be helping her pack up the few belongings she had to move out of the resort. He promised himself he would make that happen.

Resolved in his decision, he headed back to his car and drove it back to the highway, turning the music up on the stereo now that he was in a better mood than he had been when he’d left that morning. He’d stayed a few minutes too long at the Sunset Veil, but none of the police on the roads would pull him over for speeding, so he knew he could make up the time he’d lost on the way home. Hopefully when he returned, he and the warden would come up with a solid plan to rewrite his late father’s decrees, and the worst would be behind them.

--

“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t tell you that.”

Jacob pursed his lips as the resort’s CEO repeated the same answer to him again. Each time he tried to gain information on the king’s activities at the Sunset Veil, he was met with a dead end. Perhaps if Caspian had still been a prince, the workers there would have been more willing to give him what he was looking for, but because the royal was now the highest ranking man in Aspiria, there was nothing he could do to override his orders to keep the records private. He didn’t know what the monarch was doing, how long he had been coming to this place, nor what times he typically stopped by to visit.

If it had been anyone else, Jacob would have assumed he was there to meet a call girl, but he knew Caspian too well to jump to that conclusion. Atlas’s son wasn’t irresponsible enough to risk ruining his family’s reputation for a short tryst with a prostitute. There had to be another reason why he had arranged to be at the resort that morning, and he wasn’t going to be leaving until he figured out what it was.

“Is there anything you can tell me?” he asked, resting his chin on his fist as he held the CEO’s eyes across the office desk.

“No, sir,” the other man replied stoically. “I cannot confirm or deny anything other than that my orders come from someone above your station.”

Which means they came from Caspian, the security guard exhaled. The king was the only person who could bar him from what he wanted. He also knew that he was wasting his time by trying to pry anything more out of the CEO. The man obviously wasn’t going to betray the monarch, so he was going to have to find another way to approach the situation. Standing up from the desk, he frowned, “Well, I won’t take up any more of your time then. I need a smoke anyway… Have a good afternoon, sir.”

“You as well,” the CEO seemed to relax slightly, as if relieved the questioning was over.

Jacob exited his office and strode out to the front patio, fishing his carton of cigarettes from his pocket. The nearby fountains washed the area with a cooling mist, and he enjoyed the light spray for a minute as he watched other guests walk in and out of the building. There had to be something else that would help him. Maybe the young king had stopped by because of something about the resort itself?

With no better leads to follow, he pulled out his cell phone and looked up the resort’s website. For another few minutes, he puffed on his cigarette while he looked through the amenities and the unique qualities that the Sunset Veil boasted of—one of which was that they often hosted celebrities and other important patrons privately. Go figure. However, he paused when he came across a page that caught his eye. It was an advertisement for the hotel’s most luxurious room: the executive suite.

Caspian had always had a weakness for nice things, so if there was any room he would have booked at the resort, it had to be that one. Following his hunch, he put out the remains of his cigarette and stepped back into the lobby to approach the receptionist. The younger man noticed him and looked up from his computer, “How can I help you this time, sir?”

“I was wondering if I could book a room for the weekend,” Jacob lied, turning the screen of his phone toward him. “I just saw this ad while I was outside. It’s my girlfriend’s birthday on Friday, and I want to do something special. Is the executive suite available?”

“Let me check on that for you,” the receptionist turned back to his computer. After a moment, he frowned and looked up again, “I’m sorry, sir, but it looks like someone else is staying there right now.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Jacob feigned a disappointed expression. “Any idea when it’ll be available again? Maybe I could book it the weekend after next.”

“I really am sorry, but the person staying there now doesn’t have a check out date assigned yet, so I can’t make any promises.”

“Well, it was worth a shot, I guess,” the security guard shook his head. “Thanks anyway.”

And that was all he needed to know. Now he felt certain Caspian had something to do with the mysteriously booked suite. All that was left was to find out why he was paying to have it reserved indefinitely. To do that, he exited the lobby once more and circled around to one of the side doors of the hotel, waiting until one of the guests walked up to swipe an access card to get inside. He tailgated a family into a corridor of rooms, located the closest elevator, and with his own expertise with technology, overrode the lift’s programming that prevented regular guests from accessing the top floor of the building.

Just in case the hotel’s security noticed him, he flashed his ID badge at the camera in the corner of the elevator to deter questions and rode it up to the last stop before the roof. From there, he followed the plaques on the walls until he found the executive suite.

For a moment, he toyed with the idea of picking the lock to get inside the room. Based on the current time, it was likely that Caspian was no longer there. But he did wonder: What if there was more than one person sharing the suite? Just in case the king really had been using the room to meet with another person, he decided to try knocking first, so he lifted a fist, rapped three times on the solid hickory panel, and took one step back to wait for an answer from the other side.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

The rest of the hour passed more relaxingly than the start of it. For a little while, Caspian could almost pretend like there was nothing wrong between him and Iris, and he clutched at the feeling possessively as they ate and talked together in front of the TV. He’d missed spending time with Iris so much that actually being with her again was like relief from withdrawal, and it renewed his determination to make sure she could come to the palace with him as soon as possible. He just hoped the warden would help him figure out how to legally undo the decrees his father had made before he’d died.

By the time he had to leave the hotel suite, knowing that they had to part again stung. He walked with her to the door and wrapped her in a tight embrace, savoring the few minutes he had left before he would make the drive back to the palace. The only thing that made it easier was knowing that there was a chance he wouldn’t have to wait weeks to see her again the next time.

“Take care of yourself until I come back, okay?” he said, his voice slightly muffled by her long hair while he buried his face against the crook of her neck. After a few more seconds, he pulled away just enough to press a kiss to her lips and then stepped back to put a little distance between them. “I love you, and I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he managed a halfhearted smile. “Call me, please? I’ll let you know how the talk with the warden goes today… Cross your fingers he’s able to help me figure things out.”

--

Tailing his king to the edge of the city was by far the riskiest thing Jacob had done in all of his career. He knew it was within the realm of Caspian’s authority to have him fired for going behind his back, but his instinct told him he was doing the right thing. The fledgling monarch was hiding something from him and the rest of the security team, and that was simply too dangerous to be ignored. He needed to be able to make sure that the country’s leader wasn’t putting himself in danger with any reckless activities.

So, he drove all the way out to the Sunset Veil and parked in the lot. Caspian’s car was nowhere to be seen, but Jacob knew about the underground parking garage beneath the resort, so he didn’t bother looking for the vehicle in front of the building. Instead, he headed inside and approached the front desk, flashing his ID and requesting to speak privately with the highest ranking manager on site that day. He was going to get answers whether the king wanted him to or not.