Sune's Strings

Sune's Strings are the strings of Love, all types. Members of her priesthood have the ability to see these strings connecting people and determine what kind of love they may have with the other person. Strings are neither good or bad, and in fact those in a relationship with strings do not guarantee a happy one. Priests are forbidden from using string knowledge to try to force a relationship between someone, lest they harm it and cause the potential relationship to never blossom.

As you know someone you may gain more strings for them. Strings are spotted by looking into the person's eyes while they are awake, and cannot be used to lead one person to another from vast distances.

Strings are potential, not guaranteed and not immediate.

Roman has the ability to see strings, as does his mother Amaryllis. Remus, however, lost his ability after being cast out of Sune's temple when he lost his paladin-in-training status and his class changed to Barbarian.

Strings
⬜⬜🟥🟧🟨🟩🟦🟪⬜⬜

Strings are separated into Primaries and Secondaries.

"String Description"


 * Main string characteristic
 * Potential Drawback

Primaries: 🟥🟨🟦
Primaries

Red / Eros  🟥
“passionate love”


 * often sexual/aesthetic, always intense, fervent, and idealizing.
 * Puts your partner on a pedestal, and comes with a high risk of jealousy

Blue / Ludus 🟦
“love as a desire to to have fun”


 * the desire to spend time together, play games, and tease each other, usually competitive and high-energy.
 * Comes with a risk of being overbearing and/or dishonest

Yellow / Storge 🟨
“love grown from similar interests and commitment”


 * Grows slowly out of friendship, focuses on comfort, loyalty, and vulnerability. Desire to protect and emotionally comfort your partner and/or settle down together.
 * Risk of possessiveness and/or dependency

Purple / Mania 🟪
“ardent love” (Blue+Red) 🔵+🔴


 * Intense passion and idealism, desire to hold one’s partner in high esteem.
 * Often leads to madness, obsessiveness, and codependency. “the bad one”

Orange / Agape 🟧
“altruistic love” (Red+Yellow) 🔴+🟡


 * Yearning to commit acts of service, willingness to endure difficulty, unbreakable commitment and unconditional, selfless love.
 * You wish to take care of your partner, but are subsequently easy to get taken advantage of. “the good one”

Green / Pragma 🟩
“businesslike love” (Yellow+Blue) 🟡+🔵


 * Practical love, based on mutual interests and desires, trust, and openness. “the neutral one”
 * Can be love as a form of cooperation or symbiosis OR love seen as a burden or a tool.


 * (this is the one you're responding to modern day if you use dating apps to find someone ‘compatible’ with you)

Party Strings
These are the strings for current members of the party:

Non-Party Strings
These are the strings for everyone else!: 🟥🟧🟨🟩🟦🟪⬜

Several conversations with the characters (Mainly Roman) about the strings are collected here, to showcase what their definitions in-world are
Whisper: Not that I'm an expert or anything, but I really doubt the strings can dictate how you are attracted to Virgil. What, does all six automatically mean romance?

(finally back to talking about something Roman understands well, he smiles,)

Roman: Well, no. It just means you have the potential for a strong connection of some kind. Romantic or platonic!

Roman: Typically you start out with one, and as you spend time with that person and grow closer to them, more of them appear~! And the more you see at the onset, the faster you will grow attached to that person, in theory. All six is like… “Love At First Sight” types!

+++

Roman: Oh, well, that’s easy~! I’d never forget!

Roman: With Mama and Pops, it was orange and yellow strings, and they were strong, like rays of glowing sunlight~! They never confessed to each other, but I think they both always knew…

Roman: When I met Patton on the battlefield, I saw the same between us~! So, I knew I had to protect him! And then he took us back to Logan, and I saw green and blue strings between us!! And if that didn’t leave me winded, looking between the two of them and seeing orange, blue, and green. That right there is a match made in heaven, I don’t make the rules~

Roman: When I finally met back with Remus, I saw the same familial, platonic blue between us, and when I looked between him and Dee, I saw orange, green, and yellow! It was a little humbling, honestly, seeing them together, and really noticing how soft and devoted my brother could be. It was almost jarring, seeing him like that, but it also felt right. I never really trusted Dee, but if he made him that happy, I wasn’t going to complain~

Roman: And then, when I caught Virgil after that lightning flash, and for just a second before he passed out, we made eye contact? I saw six strings tying my hand to his, and I was terrified – I’m sure you saw it on my face! I mean, that’s not something you ever see!!

Roman: And, of course, after that, I spotted his ties to the others. There would be moments when he was half-awake, and he would mumble something incoherent and fall back asleep, but his eyes were open enough to catch a glimpse! He had green and yellow with Logan, and orange and yellow with Patton~

+++

Roman dear, I’m afraid I don’t know much about the six colours of love. If you have the time, could you please it explain it to this hopeless individual? (May I also ask how the kinds of love might affect someone on the Asexual and Aromantic spectrum?)

(TW: Nsfw mention, i mean we’re talking about attraction here)

Roman: Why, of course~! This is quite the long lesson, though, so you might want to grab a seat!

Roman: Oh, of course it affects everyone on the ace and aro spectrums! All of them can be totally platonic, they just take different forms based on different people! It’s more like seeing Love as a constantly changing force, that could mean anything at any time to anyone, but how you feel it for a certain person can fit into one of six categories.

Roman:  And, you can love hundreds of people in hundreds of different ways – or even all the same way – all at once! It’s different for everyone~ And, most people will have a ‘color’ that represents them best, or the love they connect to most strongly. I’ll use myself as an example when we get there~!

Roman: First, there are the three ‘General’ types of love. If you only feel one kind for someone, it will be one of these three~ The next three are actually combinations of these ones, and when I say I see ‘two’ colors between certain people - they look like colored strings tying your hands together - I see one of the secondary ones, which is made of two primaries, and the primary one that is most strong in the combination. When wedding ceremonies are held at the temple, the priests will typically tell you to wait until you have more than one between you, to make sure you marry someone you will really be happy with! The colors we see are predictions of how you will care for each other in the future, and you can never lose a color, but you can gain and grow them with work and dedication to your partner~

Roman: As for the secondaries, they are sort of… Ranked? One of these combinations is seen as the best and healthiest generation of affection, the second one mostly neutral, and the third…mostly very bad? It’s dangerous if left unchecked, anyway. If you find someone who has more than one of these secondary colors tied to you, that is a very good and very rare thing! And if you see more than that? Well, that’s the best you could hope for~!

Roman: The end goal in your life is to get a collection of people who, either romantically or platonically, bring all of the colors to your life~ So, polyamory and platonic marriages are pretty common! Who you love or how many people you love doesn’t matter, as long as you are getting enough affection to fill your heart~! Part of the Duties of a Suneite is to go out and find a new person each day, constantly seeking people you could make these connections with, and helping people find the ones they’re missing!

Roman: So, the first color is Red, and we call this one Eros, or “passionate love.” It… well, it’s the overtly sexual and aesthetic one, yes, but it’s also the intense, fervent one! It doesn’t have to be defined by sexual attraction - it is, at it’s basic level, idealizing your partner. People who connect best with this one want to know everything about their partner, praise them, be close with them (often emotionally and physically), and feel genuine agony to be separated from them. …Aha, if you couldn’t tell by this point, I do believe this is the one that resonates with me~ –Oh, and each color has a weakness, of what can go wrong when it’s taken to an extreme – for Eros, the flaws are a tendency for jealousy, and… uhh, let’s call it  'physical addiction’, you know what I mean I think…? Aha, moving on–

Roman: The second primary is Blue, or Ludus! It is “love as a desire to to have fun,” and it is characterized by the desire to spend time together, play games, tease, indulge, and play harmless pranks on each other. The acquisition of love and attention itself may be part of the game~! If a relationship materializes, it would be about entertaining each other; a mutual competitiveness and thrill between both parties, a need to challenge your partner and be challenged in return! This is one me and my brother both feel pretty strongly – to the point where it’s hard for us to show affection without coming off as… Rude. The weaknesses of this love are a tendency to keep secrets from your partner, to be a little overbearing, and a slightly higher risk of infidelity, when taken to the extreme…

Roman: Finally, we have Yellow, or Storge: “love grown from similar interests and a commitment.” Platonically, this is usually the de-facto love felt for a family member. He would joke otherwise, but I think this is the one that resonates best with Remus… Storge tends to grow slowly out of friendship, and typically focuses strongly on comfort in each other’s company, loyalty, and allowing yourself to show weakness to your partner. There is a desire to become a sanctuary and a protector for your partner, and a desire to build a life with them and settle down – You know how I said colors can change? Well, a lot of the time, blue and red will turn to yellow as both parties get older! This is the kind of love that is most likely to endure hardship, and remain strong or convert to platonic should a romantic relationship fail. But, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have it’s weaknesses: quiet possessiveness, and a slightly higher risk of dependency.

Roman: Now, we get to the specific ones! The secondaries are Mania, Agape and Pragma. Remember how I said one of them was bad, one was good, and one was neutral? Well…. Mania is the 'bad’ one.

Roman: Purple love, or Mania, is the combination of Ludus and Eros, or “ardent love.” It is characterized by a desire to hold one’s partner in high esteem, wanting to love and be loved in this way. This type of love often leads a partner into a type of madness and obsessiveness, where they feel like they “need” their partner, and makes one fall into doubt if your partner doesn’t express the same need. In excess, mania becomes obsession and codependency, and could come about as being very possessive and jealous…and even violent. This is like Phantom of the Opera and Yandere territory.

Roman: Mania is not inherently bad – it is, in it’s purest form, just extreme passion and idealism, which isn’t innately unhealthy! – but because it is so easy for Mania to turn Chronic, it is avoided. If the love you feel for someone is recognized as Mania, the Sunietes who noticed this will try and convince you to find love elsewhere, before it gets too extreme, and you end up hurting the person you care about. Or, they will try and see if they can foster some yellow into the mix, but that doesn’t always work…

Roman: Orange Love, or Agape, is the combination of Eros and Storge, or “altruistic love.” This is the 'good’, purest one, defined as the yearning to do nice things for your partner, and feeling fulfilled simply in the act of doing so~ You are willing to endure difficulty with your partner, and help them through poor circumstance. It is based on an unbreakable commitment and an unconditional, selfless love, that’s all giving. Total compassion and selflessness! Agapic lovers view their partners as blessings and wish to take care of them, and are characterized as forgiving, patient, understanding, loyal, and willing to make sacrifices. The weakness, of course, is that it’s easy to get taken advantage of, when you feel this way for someone who might not be right for you…

Roman: Last is Green, or Pragma: the combination of Storge and Ludus, or “businesslike love”. It is defined as the most practical type of love, not necessarily derived out of true romantic love. Rather, pragma is a convenient, rational, and realistic type of love. Pragmatic lovers tend to select and reject partners based on what they perceive as desirable, compatible traits. They want to find value in their partners, and ultimately want to work with their partner to reach a common goal. The practicality and realism of pragmatic love often aides longevity of the relationship, and fosters trust and openness. Emphasis switches to building a family, committing to a marriage, and settling down together~ Pragmatic love is seen as neutral because it can develop both immensely positive, being love as a form of cooperation or symbiosis, and immensely negative, being love seen as a burden or a tool. This is the one that usually seen in arranged marriages, or from people who firmly believe they have a 'type’ and search for people based on what they desire physically and emotionally.

Roman: And, if you feel all three of them for someone…. That’s a lot, and it could either be really, really good, or really, really bad. Like, ‘could kill you’ bad… But, there’s no way to know until you see where it goes~!