Complicated Love Story: How To Make It Work?

[TheCrystallineEntity]

In my new story, the main character [named Oeuyia; Oo-yee-ah] is a Serener, a semi-mythical being who uses natural light to transform/encrust themselves in a specific type of crystal or gemstone, which allows them to use magic. Anyway, Sereners are exactly like their name: calm, non-emotive, and, well, serene. They are also unable to feel love. However, a young girl named Kisa falls in love with and becomes extremely attached to Oeuyia.

I guess what I'm really asking about is tips or external ideas on how to make this love story genuine, despite Oeuyia being unable to feel love.

 

[skip.knox]

If she cannot feel love, then she cannot. End of story. Why are you creating this obstacle?

Now, if Kisa loves Oeuyia (also known as Vowel Lady) and that love is unrequited, that makes sense. Good tragedy, especially if Oeuyia is essentially kind doesn't want to hurt her admirer. But saying she cannot love, then saying she can, only undermines the initial proposition.

You could go the Spock route. It's not that a Serener cannot love, it's that they aren't supposed to. They are conditioned against it. Then, when she starts to have those feelings, she is faced with an existential crisis. She cannot both love and continue to be a Serener.

Why does Kisa fall in love with her?

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

"Vowel Lady". All of the Sereners have weird names like that, by the way: Yinxi, Na-ah...

At first, Kisa sees Oeuyia as a way to escape from a potentially abusive marriage, and their first interactions are mainly punctuated by Kisa's fear and desperation. Then, as they journey together to prevent the marriage from happening in the first place, Kisa allows herself to feel positive emotions for the first time in a long while, and becomes more and more in love with Oeuyia.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

In my new story, the main character [named Oeuyia; Oo-yee-ah] is a Serener, a semi-mythical being who uses natural light to transform/encrust themselves in a specific type of crystal or gemstone, which allows them to use magic. Anyway, Sereners are exactly like their name: calm, non-emotive, and, well, serene. They are also unable to feel love. However, a young girl named Kisa falls in love with and becomes extremely attached to Oeuyia.

I guess what I'm really asking about is tips or external ideas on how to make this love story genuine, despite Oeuyia being unable to feel love.

Well, if Oeuyia can't feel love, then this is a story of unrequited love. But, I'm a little curious about what it means to not be able to feel love.

Aren't all relationships based on some kind of love, even bonds between humans and their pets (My dog is sitting on the bed next to me right now; that's why I thought of it.)? It seems like such a character would be completely unable to form relationships, and it would be difficult if not impossible for me to relate to a character like that. Especially as a main character.

In fact, I would find it nearly impossible to write a story about a character like that. What motivations could such a character have that aren't purely selfish or else governed by some set of predetermined values? I'm confused about how one could write a story about a character who cannot feel love.

Or, is Oeuyia just unable to feel romantic love?

This might require some delving into what exactly "love" is.

 

[oenanthe]

how does it end?

there's no point in any of this mental wrestling if you don't know how it ends.

 

[skip.knox]

I'm glad you smiled; I was worried I'd been rude. And yet I wrote it anyway. Sometimes I just can't help myself.

 

[spectre]

The two could help mature each other's emotions. Oeuyia teaches Kiss how to feel for another again, and through understanding Kisa' s hardship, Oeuyia matures her sereneness into More irrational emotions like love, or rational ones like compassion.

Sent from my SM-G550T1 using Tapatalk

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

Part of the journey involves Oeuyia trying and failing repeatedly to feel any kind of love, as well as trying to make Kisa happy, to help her recover from emotional trauma she faced.

Oeuyia later remembers meeting Kisa once before, and the jealous and possessive Mio [the one who abused Kisa in the first place] found them, and broke Oeuyia’s heart [literally], scattering the pieces all over the realm. The seventh piece, though, Mio keeps for herself/himself, as a memento.

Eventually the other characters [Kisa’s family] notice how submissive and well, ‘doormat’ like Oeuyia is, and ask how that came about, and Kisa finally tells the truth about what happened that day. One part of Kisa’s personality is how fiercely independent she is, refusing to let anyone help her do anything; the reason for this being her strong desire to have helped Oeuyia somehow, instead of ‘standing there and being weak’, as Kisa herself puts it. Meanwhile, Oeuyia is intentionally blocking her own memory of that day, perhaps from a sense of failure for not protecting Kisa?

[By the way, I am pretty much making this up as I go.]

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Part of the journey involves Oeuyia trying and failing repeatedly to feel any kind of love, as well as trying to make Kisa happy, to help her recover from emotional trauma she faced.

Oeuyia later remembers meeting Kisa once before, and the jealous and possessive Mio [the one who abused Kisa in the first place] found them, and broke Oeuyia’s heart [literally], scattering the pieces all over the realm. The seventh piece, though, Mio keeps for herself/himself, as a memento.

Eventually the other characters [Kisa’s family] notice how submissive and well, ‘doormat’ like Oeuyia is, and ask how that came about, and Kisa finally tells the truth about what happened that day. One part of Kisa’s personality is how fiercely independent she is, refusing to let anyone help her do anything; the reason for this being her strong desire to have helped Oeuyia somehow, instead of ‘standing there and being weak’, as Kisa herself puts it. Meanwhile, Oeuyia is intentionally blocking her own memory of that day, perhaps from a sense of failure for not protecting Kisa?

[By the way, I am pretty much making this up as I go.]

It's all right to make it up as you go; that's how I do it, at any rate.

And this is very interesting. Does Oeuyia want to return Kisa's love? Is the desire in of itself perhaps some kind of love? All good questions, all good questions. Is Oeuyia ever able to heal?

If you're making up the story as you go, the answers to these questions may never show up until you're well into the writing. Sometimes it takes a little exploration.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

At any rate, it sounds like this story will be both beautiful and heartbreaking.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

^I have a knack for those kinds of stories. In fact, a lot of the love stories I am attracted to are beautiful and heartbreaking in some way [The Tale of Beren and Luthien from The Silmarillion, Nagisa and Tomoya from Clannad, Haku and Chihiro from Spirited Away, Sakura and Syaoran from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle...]
When I first watched Spirited Away, I actually almost yelled at the screen 'It can't end like that!"

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

I have no answers, only questions....

What does it mean to feel love? Why is Oeuyia compelled to try to feel love or to make someone else feel happy? If Oeuyia wants to make someone else feel happy, and it isn't because of some form of love, is it out of duty? If not because of duty or some form of love, then why does Oeuyia even have any thoughts about whether someone else is happy?

If Oeuyia can't feel love, how does she even have a concept of love, to know that she doesn't feel it? Is she going off someone else's description of love? If so, are they the same species as Oeuyia? If not, why should their description of love apply to Oeuyia?

How does Oeuyia care about anything? Why isn't she content simply to exist? I assume she at least has feelings of self preservation, but why would she want anything outside herself to be preserved? Why would she have a sense of failure about not preserving/protecting someone?

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

Her heart is shattered and scattered all over; her journey involves finding all seven. Once she regains a part of her heart, she is able to regain compassion, the ability to shed tears/feel sadness, romantic passion, peace, joy, and so forth.

 

[Coldboots]

If you don't mind my opinion, the order you set for regaining her emotional faculties sounds about right in the order you listed them there. Idk, just a random thought.

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

If she has no piece of her heart currently, what compels her to search for it? Is it purely instinct that drives her to search? If it is not purely instinct, if there is some emotional component to having her heart returned, what is the source of that emotional component?

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

She actually has the seventh piece of heart [reminds me of Legend of Zelda; anyway] hanging as a crystal around her neck [Kisa gives it to her], but she doesn't know that until the end of the story.

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

Does the piece of heart she has drive her to find the missing pieces on an instinctual level or an emotional level? Does the piece of heart she has grant her the ability to experience any emotion at all? If not, then again, why does she care if anyone is happy or protected, and why does she care whether she feels love? If it does let her feel certain emotions, which ones are they, and how do they grant her the ability to empathize with others enough to care about them but not possibly love them?

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

Um...It seems to me that the more pieces she collects, the more her emotions gradually unlock. As for some of your other questions...I can't seem to answer right now; my head hurts from thinking about this too much. It could be an instinctual level to help Kisa be happy. *shrug*

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Um...It seems to me that the more pieces she collects, the more her emotions gradually unlock. As for some of your other questions...I can't seem to answer right now; my head hurts from thinking about this too much. It could be an instinctual level to help Kisa be happy. *shrug*

Does she remember what she was like before her heart was scattered? Or maybe she sees others around her loving and she feels an emptiness and desire for that meaningful connection she can't explain.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

^Nope, she lost all memory except for basic functions [how to eat, walking, communicating, and so forth], but some residual, instinctive memory remains [a tiny bit of her willingness to care for Kisa, for instance]. That emptiness troubles her greatly in the first bit of the book.