OOC Muse Inquiries 7: Awe and Wonder
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muse_academy, originally posted May. 29. OOC post.
Prompt Number: Prompt Week 7
Title: Muse Inquiries - Awe and Wonder
1. Would your muse consider himself/herself a cynic?
Absolutely. And most likely deeply embarrassed to be caught being anything but. Although, like many cynics, he has a deep, mostly hidden desire to believe in something.
2. What things make your muse emotional?
Q tries to hide his emotions -- he's willing to openly demonstrate that he's amused, or mildly ticked off, and he has enough of a temper that he has a hard time hiding when he's angry, but it's very rare for him to admit to any emotional vulnerability whatsoever. As I write him, though, he has deep emotions about his son, his people and the direction they are going in, humanity (particularly his favorite human, Picard), and his own changing role in life.
3. Does anything trigger a sense of awe or wonder in them?
Q is five billion years old. Almost nothing awes him anymore. But he craves it -- I once wrote him saying of the mortals he was interested in, "They have to see the universe with eyes of wonder, because I can't anymore and I need to, at least vicariously." He has come to greatly enjoy showing mortals things that fill *them* with wonder, because it allows him to experience through them what he no longer can.
He has also had some experiences he might describe as giving him a sense of wonder. Watching his son, the first Q to be born in the Continuum, grow up, or some bizarre experiences he had when the universe was ending (this comes from the novel I, Q, which I sort of treat as canon for this muse, partly because his actor wrote it in collaboration with the only really good pro writer of the character.)
4. What sorts of things impress your muse?
People standing up to him impress him. Q's omnipotent. He's used to scaring the crap out of people. People who actually have the nerve to tell him to get off the bridge impress him a *lot.*
5. Does your muse inspire awe in others? How do they feel about that?
We never see it in the series, but it made no sense to assume otherwise, so yes... Q is a god. In species less relentlessly agnostic than Star Trek's humanity, of course he inspires awe. And he doesn't really like it all that much... he prefers to relate to mortals as if they were other Q, except much less powerful (probably in part because for so many years he was low man on the totem pole in the Continuum, so having people to relate to as if they were people who he is more powerful than was something he craved... but it's also because he genuinely isn't thrilled with being anyone's god.) Q comes across to humanity as a jerk with superpowers more than as the ageless, all-powerful cosmic entity he is because he's *trying* to avoid inspiring awe.
6. What sorts of things immediately capture your character's attention?
Anything that he didn't expect. He expects the worst of everyone, so when people actually live up to their ideals, it draws his attention. Of course, if someone actually managed to be *worse* than he expected, that would get his attention too.
7. Are there things, whether secret or known, that are weaknesses in your character's defenses?
Yes. Q hides his feelings of affection for non-Q beings, but it's obvious from canon that he has them; he's much more emotionally vulnerable than he admits to.
8. Describe a moment when your character was truly humbled/awed/inspired by something in nature. Maybe it was the first time they saw the ocean, or the first time they saw a new life.
Q describes his first memory as an experience of awe and delight, as he woke up and perceived the vastness of the universe before him, and the Continuum that had formed him told him, "All of this is for you to explore." He says that it took two or three billion years for that joy and wonder in existence to fade as he discovered everything there was to know.
9. Does technology or science awe your character?
No. Mostly he finds it laughable.
10. Is your character more awed by that which they understand or that which they don't?
Definitely what he does not understand. His attitude toward the things he does understand is "ho-hum, been there, done that." Q appears to have a powerful need for novelty; as I write him, he was born to be an explorer, and then outlived the ability to explore as he and his people learned pretty much everything there is to know over the course of several billion years, and this has made him bored and bitter.
muse_academy, originally posted May. 29. OOC post.Prompt Number: Prompt Week 7
Title: Muse Inquiries - Awe and Wonder
1. Would your muse consider himself/herself a cynic?
Absolutely. And most likely deeply embarrassed to be caught being anything but. Although, like many cynics, he has a deep, mostly hidden desire to believe in something.
2. What things make your muse emotional?
Q tries to hide his emotions -- he's willing to openly demonstrate that he's amused, or mildly ticked off, and he has enough of a temper that he has a hard time hiding when he's angry, but it's very rare for him to admit to any emotional vulnerability whatsoever. As I write him, though, he has deep emotions about his son, his people and the direction they are going in, humanity (particularly his favorite human, Picard), and his own changing role in life.
3. Does anything trigger a sense of awe or wonder in them?
Q is five billion years old. Almost nothing awes him anymore. But he craves it -- I once wrote him saying of the mortals he was interested in, "They have to see the universe with eyes of wonder, because I can't anymore and I need to, at least vicariously." He has come to greatly enjoy showing mortals things that fill *them* with wonder, because it allows him to experience through them what he no longer can.
He has also had some experiences he might describe as giving him a sense of wonder. Watching his son, the first Q to be born in the Continuum, grow up, or some bizarre experiences he had when the universe was ending (this comes from the novel I, Q, which I sort of treat as canon for this muse, partly because his actor wrote it in collaboration with the only really good pro writer of the character.)
4. What sorts of things impress your muse?
People standing up to him impress him. Q's omnipotent. He's used to scaring the crap out of people. People who actually have the nerve to tell him to get off the bridge impress him a *lot.*
5. Does your muse inspire awe in others? How do they feel about that?
We never see it in the series, but it made no sense to assume otherwise, so yes... Q is a god. In species less relentlessly agnostic than Star Trek's humanity, of course he inspires awe. And he doesn't really like it all that much... he prefers to relate to mortals as if they were other Q, except much less powerful (probably in part because for so many years he was low man on the totem pole in the Continuum, so having people to relate to as if they were people who he is more powerful than was something he craved... but it's also because he genuinely isn't thrilled with being anyone's god.) Q comes across to humanity as a jerk with superpowers more than as the ageless, all-powerful cosmic entity he is because he's *trying* to avoid inspiring awe.
6. What sorts of things immediately capture your character's attention?
Anything that he didn't expect. He expects the worst of everyone, so when people actually live up to their ideals, it draws his attention. Of course, if someone actually managed to be *worse* than he expected, that would get his attention too.
7. Are there things, whether secret or known, that are weaknesses in your character's defenses?
Yes. Q hides his feelings of affection for non-Q beings, but it's obvious from canon that he has them; he's much more emotionally vulnerable than he admits to.
8. Describe a moment when your character was truly humbled/awed/inspired by something in nature. Maybe it was the first time they saw the ocean, or the first time they saw a new life.
Q describes his first memory as an experience of awe and delight, as he woke up and perceived the vastness of the universe before him, and the Continuum that had formed him told him, "All of this is for you to explore." He says that it took two or three billion years for that joy and wonder in existence to fade as he discovered everything there was to know.
9. Does technology or science awe your character?
No. Mostly he finds it laughable.
10. Is your character more awed by that which they understand or that which they don't?
Definitely what he does not understand. His attitude toward the things he does understand is "ho-hum, been there, done that." Q appears to have a powerful need for novelty; as I write him, he was born to be an explorer, and then outlived the ability to explore as he and his people learned pretty much everything there is to know over the course of several billion years, and this has made him bored and bitter.