OC Spotlight June: Malik // sfw

malik is a cheeky bugger. he's a scoundrel, a thief, a conman, a burglar, a liar, a pickpocket, a gambler, and in general just a hopeless but loveable piece of trash. he's fast-talking, witty, humorous, charming, and his own special kind of charismatic. he's good at getting himself into trouble, but also good at getting himself out of it, usually by talking himself out of whatever pickle he's in rather than fighting his way out--or by slipping out of his handcuffs, picking the lock, tricking someone into helping him out, and so on. he's skilled at what he does but also an incredibly unlucky person, who can pull off the heist of the century only to last-minute trip over a threshold and get himself caught. then again he also has his fair share of fool's luck, because really, with the enemies he's made throughout his career of lying and thieving... it's kind of a miracle he's still alive.

malik is, simultaneously, a comical and a tragic character. at the surface he's all confidence and carelessness, always with a good joke or a good lie up his sleeve. he's got a very expressive face and looks a little bit like a scarecrow, tall and gangly with sharp elbows and somewhat erratic movements. his mannerisms, way of speaking, and even his way of moving makes him appear very devil-may-care, cheerful, and tongue-in-cheek about everything. he's generally a good guy, who would only ever resort to violence if there's no other choice (he's not much of a fighter tbh). his friends love him (though they know to double-check their eye sockets after he's been around, in case he stole them blind), and even his enemies often find themselves unable to resist his charm. it may seem like he's got no troubles in the world--or at least that he's certain he can handle any trouble that comes his way, that he's happy with what he's got, that no bad luck or misfortune can bring him down. 

but--you guessed it--his backstory is not a happy tale.

and to be able to fully explain it, here's some worldbuily lore: malik is a thajir. the thajir is an original species that me and kubi created for one of our RPG worlds, which we built from scratch. they are a type of shapeshifting bird people and the beginning of thajir history is pretty dark, as bird of prey thajir used to hunt and eat other birds. the conflict culminated in the so-called Eating Wars, after which thajir cannibalism was outlawed once and for all. that was thousands of years ago, but there's still some inter-thajir friction, especially since the old aristocratic families are mostly birds of prey. 

during the Eating Wars, some scavenger birds (such as ravens, black crows, and vultures) were quick to abandon their habit of eating other dead thajir. hooded crows, however, allegedly kept feasting on the dead until the very last minute of it being outlawed, and only begrudgingly changed their scavenging ways. for this reason, hooded crows still have a bad reputation. they suffer prejudice and discrimination for the sins of their ancestors, as many other thajir still consider them untrustworthy, dishonourable, selfishly opportunistic, or just downright bad luck. you'd never find a hooded crow in the senate house or at the palatial court; most of them are lower middle class at best, and many struggle at the very bottom tiers of society. 

malik is a hooded crow.

he grew up at an orphanage with no idea of who his parents were or where they went, and he ran away while he was still a kid. he had big dreams, but in the face of the harsh reality of the streets he quickly had to abandon them. he tried to do good, find a job, he wanted to make a difference for other people like himself--but nobody trusts a hooded crow. nobody would give him a chance. 

he found himself forced to resort to pickpocketing, stealing, and lying to get by, and with time he grew really good at it. in a way, it made him feel good, too, as if he got his own kind of revenge on the unfair society that made it impossible for him to make an honest living. he felt that those who had money to spare could afford to have some of it stolen from them--actually, he thought they deserved it. he had grown up disillusioned and bitter, but bottled it all up and hid it away, out of sight and out of mind. most of the time. 

he's no robin hood (he's too selfish for that) but he does have a moral code of sorts, where he won't steal from the poor and suffering--those in which he can recognize an echo of himself. he targets the wealthy and the powerful, and is capable of anything between impulsively stealing a senator's purse on the street to spending weeks planning an elaborate heist. then again, whenever he does score a fortune, you can trust those riches to just slip through his fingers. he has absolutely no sense for money. he'll waste it on impulse purchases, gamble it away, buy drinks for half the city, lose far too many bets in a row, and so on. if he makes a fortune on a friday, odds are that saturday morning he'll wake up hungover, without a penny left, and with his pants missing.

he's still embittered with the wealthy and powerful, people who were born into a life of abundance and security and all those things he has never been able to take for granted (such as a roof over his head, somewhere warm to sleep, food on the table). he still dreams about wealth, because deep down inside him there's still a little kid who thinks that if only he was rich he would be happy, and he'd be able to make the world a better place. at the same time, of course, he knows it's not that simple, and that just makes him even more bitter about it. 

things turn really interesting one night when malik sneaks into a wealthy aristocratic family's home, for what was supposed to be a regular ol' burglary. sneak in, steal as many valuables as he can carry on his person, sneak out, and no-one being the wiser for it until days or weeks later. but fate would have it differently; malik is caught red-handed by yijun. yijun is a black crow who has lived the life that malik always dreamed of: his parents are rich, his everyday life has always been safe and secure and luxurious, he's never had to struggle to survive.

yijun hates it. he craves adventure, to truly live instead of being kept in a wealthy bubble, and basically says to malik to "take me with you or i'll alert the guards." malik goes "........ are you fucking kidding me you akjsnjng...!"

malik figures he can ransom yijun, so he sneaks him out, if only to shut him up and keep him from blowing malik's cover. malik is Not happy about it, and as you can imagine their first time together is characterised by bantering and squabbling with one another. yijun ends up discovering that the world outside the walls of the wealthy home he grew up in is not quite as romantic as he thought, which of course has malik gloating, but malik--in his turn--starts to realise that wealth and power isn't the solution to every problem, either. they help each other gain perspective, and what starts as a very unlikely and unwilling deal turns into mutual attraction and a budding romance.

yijun's parents pay the ransom and yijun returns home, but he's feeling more miserable than ever, and malik's life isn't the same without him, either. long story short, malik ends up returning to yijun's family's house, and this time his sole purpose is to steal yijun--and he does it literally in the middle of yijun's arranged marriage to someone he doesn't love. insert an ancient wisdom about true wealth here.

in summary, it's both an adventure and a love story--and, it's the kind of story where two people from opposite ends of society unexpectedly end up together, changing each others' world views in the process. 

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questions, thoughts, comments? leave them below, i'd be happy to answer! <3

// art + malik © me; yijun © kubi.