As promised, in honor of Naroni's fifth birthday, here's the first of the aspiration sub-type posts! I'll be going by family (plus off-shoots who don't fit into a larger family group, which is why Zareth is here), so there will probably be a buttload of these. A BUTTLOAD. Seriously, I might be posting these sporadically for months.
Anyway, I've included my thoughts on all the characters who are teens or older in my game at this point, though some will obviously be less detailed than others (by the time we get to certain Dovian families, I suspect these might as well just be Pokemon cards, only without pictures and not as cool).
For reference, you can view all the subtypes here (except I won't be dealing with Grilled Cheese, since no one in Naroni has it). I've made note of secondary aspirations, or at least what they would be if I had Free Time, but they're more for an FYI than actual content.
And without further ado, here be the Royals:
Yes, I realize how wrong that looks--and I think if Roderick had been born a peasant or a gentleman or even a lesser noble, if he hadn't left home with a reasonable amount and had cleaned up on the taxes, if he actually depended on his skills to make a living (like, if he'd been king of a country that required more management)... he absolutely would have been The Perma-Debtor. Roderick was the sort of personality who does not understand the value of a dollar, but he was lucky enough that he could afford not to understand the value of a dollar, so as a result, he's sort of like that "incompetent, yet successful CEO/entrepreneur" sitcom character with no marketable skills or ideas except for the apparent ability to shoot money out of his ass.
At least, this is how I think Geneva would have been if she'd been born in a world with more sexual freedom, how she was at her core. Her reputation and her inability to find acceptance in one place sort of resulted in her becoming The Hook-Up Master by necessity, but I do think she cared about many of her partners, as friends if not as more. She and Aldhein got along well. She was an emotional sanctuary for Searle the one time they hooked up. Even her disastrous night with Severin is arguably an example; that was a really shitty moment for him as a person, but for all he may have vilified her for being there, she was very attuned to his needs.
...but with room to grow, methinks, if she gets the idea to sell her produce. Laralita was born and raised into a class in which women are more or less expected to live off the men in their lives, and Laralita strikes me as the sort of character who has had difficulty forming her own identity and it's just been easier for her to assume the "default" role, which is I think why she reacted to Karlspan's death the way she did; she didn't love him, but he was her existence at the time. Add this to her expensive tastes and general disinclination to work, and she fits The Perma-Debtor mold quite nicely, at least so far. Characters do grow, however.
Ietrin used to be a Romance Sim in-game, but I ended up changing him fairly recently; he tends to use sex as a means of asserting himself, which I think is more of a Fortune or Popularity approach to sex than a Romance one. In terms of the Fortune aspiration, what sets Ietrin apart from his father is that he actually gets the concept of money. He doesn't make any more than Roderick did, but he limits his frivolous purchases to the absolute minimum level at which he still looks kingly (and buying just enough to look kingly would not, in Ietrin's books, be a frivolous expense). With Ietrin, this tends to reach a toxic level in regards to his dependents. The first thing he did after Roderick died was kick out his half-siblings and Laralita. It wouldn't shock me if part of the reason he pays so little attention to Dea and Gennie is that he just wanted his heir and maybe a spare, but here he is, stuck with these daughters he has to feed and clothe and dower. The Scrooge is not necessarily a jerk, but Ietrin is one of those Scrooges who give other Scrooges a bad name.
But I think it's safe to say that this is largely because of Ietrin. It's no secret that he's given her very little reason to care for him, and a ton of reason to resent if not outright hate him. Jeda is a thoughtful, protective, giving spirit, but by this point in her life, she knows a lousy target for her generosity when she sees it, so she focuses on her kids, who she loves and who love her in turn. If she were married to someone else, however--someone who actually respected her--she could absolutely be The Minivan Mogul.
Dea is young and still growing up, but I think this is the sub-type that fits her best at this point. She's very intelligent and very curious, but while she'd be happy to read a philosophy text front-to-back, I don't know if she's about to think too much about forming her own just yet. But we know that she's dissatisfied with the status quo, and I'm sure those feelings can only grow if she ends up being told the truth about her "brother", so it wouldn't surprise me if she became The Thought Pioneer before the question of Ietrin's successor is reopened.
When she was not much younger than she is now, I think Mona The Adrenaline Junkie--at least, she thought she was. She wanted adventure. She wanted to make her own way in the world and she didn't want anyone else telling her what to do. When Mona got her first taste of adventure, she found it wasn't what she'd hoped for, but while her thrill-seeking tendencies have cooled, her need to be her own woman is still going strong. Mona still does what she wants, but these days, what she wants is a lot more low-key. She still has her wild side, though, as evidenced by the whole breaking into Zareth's castle for sex/answers thing.
Like almost everything else in his life, Zareth keeps his finances under control. A lot of Zareth's motives seem to be rooted in his father's family, so I suspect that after his mother died, his father sort of footed Zareth's bills with evident reluctance, and maybe that stuck. Whatever the reason, though, Zareth could have a lot more possessions than he chooses to purchase. He has been loosening up since he and Mona got married, so who knows? Maybe one day, he'll cross over into Picture of Success territory.
Despite being his parents' son, I don't think Farilon cares about his reputation much at all, or at least not any more than the time and place demands he does. He's a good-natured, simple-hearted fellow who just wants what's best for the people he loves, perhaps at the expense of his own comfort (his marriage to Danthia is kind of a benefit to the family, after all, at least on a financial/political level).
The polar opposite of Farilon. For the most part, Danthia views the people around her as chess pieces (and perhaps herself as her side's queen), and while she needs a certain amount of social currency to move them about, she's not in the market for genuine friendship. That said, if you're one of the pieces on her side, she'll do her best to protect you as long as you're useful... or at least, more useful than the other person she might have to throw under the bus.
I'm pretty sure we haven't seen Conant since he was a toddler and I haven't thought about him much. That said, I imagine that he's sort of like his brother Farilon: not too bright, but generally harmless and a good person at heart. And very content. Not the sort to go chasing much at all.
We've only seen Lily once since she hit the teen stage, and she won't be marrying until she graduates from Naroni U(!!), but she does have a betrothed and now that she's living in Dovia, they would have met (though he's quite a bit older than her--he's been an adult in-game for a few years now, I think--so I don't know if their relationship is any more than a polite acquaintance at this point). My main reason for Lily's classification is that she doesn't have kids yet (or maybe she won't ever? There are a ton of fertility problems either she or her future husband could have... and that goes for all the currently childless characters, by the way), and that she's not really giving me any Traditionalist vibes. Things might change as she gets older, though.
I have barely thought about Oswald at all, but I would assume he's a lot like Farilon and Conant. Particularly Farilon, if the aspiration is any indication.
That's it for the day! If you're wondering about the rest of the princesses, they'll be covered under their husbands' families for the sake of keeping households together (as mentioned previously, Mona and Zareth are here because Zareth is the only Elstraid who isn't presently a fetus). Hope you enjoyed listening, because I love rambling. Sometimes.
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