GW2 Commander of your Heart Zine

[gw2-zine]

Commander of Your Heart; a free Zine made as a love letter to all of the Commanders (and non commanders) all over Tyria is now available to download!

We are proud to present COYH. We would like to take this time to thank every single contributor, aritist and writer alike, for taking part in this Zine. We appreciate each and every one of you from the bottom of our hearts.

If you would like a copy of Commander of Your Heart simply follow this link to download the PDF!

Guild Wars 2: Commander of Your Heart Zine by gw2zine

A community-created fanzine for Guild Wars 2.

Once again we thank you all and hope you enjoy!

Love, The COYH Mod Team!

[ashalsdream]

My piece for my zine @gw2-zine I'm incredibly proud of all of the art pieces! Please do check out the finished piece, I'm honoured to have been the host for it!

This is my piece around Ashal, my commander, and her story! including a lot of my friends characters!

includes: @commandertollwife @pinkplantmakesstuff @luseminias-dream @the-three-idiots @shiverpeakstraveler

Thank you for letting me use your babies! Two versions including the alt colours!

[alchemists-sketchbook]

My piece for the Commander Of Your Heart @gw2-zine!

[marmaruuu]

The champion’s return to Salma ✨

A piece for @gw2-zine

[synchros]

[Image ID: A digital painting of three figures set in a snowy action scene from the game Guild Wars 2. The viewing angle is set at a diagonal. A large mechanical construct, the Twisted Marionette, looms over a female norn holding a hammer and a customized mech themed after a steam minotaur. They are set against a snowy mountain background with dust and smoke in the foreground. /.End ID]

My entry for the @gw2-zine CoYH! Featuring Halla Balkakin and her repurposed steam minotaur AJ (or rather, AJ-02 here) in their early days when she was just a homesteader in Lornar's Pass. The whole Twisted Marionette incursion was a very unwelcome affair.

[miss-oranje]

here is the comic i made for “Commander of Your Heart” @gw2-zine, about pepa preparing for what feels like the impending, certain losses of her taimi & aurene

[guildtree]

Now that the zine is out, I'm officially allowed to post the full version of my contribution! My norn Commander Loretta gets to ruminate on her past and her relationship with her revenant Legend Kalla Scorchrazor, all while dealing with an enemy that inspires rage in both of them, even across the centuries.

Fun fact: the mix of blue and red in this was really fun for me to balance, and I aimed for a gradual transition from entirely blue to almost entirely red over the four pages to show Jormag's influence waning and Kalla's growing.

Totally check out the full zine here at @gw2-zine! So many amazing creators in there!

[pinkplantmakesstuff]

My finished piece for the @gw2-zine ! It was a wonderful project to work on and I really enjoyed drawing my boys being sappy and in love together 🥺

[starlightsuncrow]

Now that the @gw2-zine is done and free to see(please check it out!) I hope everyone can enjoy all the joy and love we all put into our pieces! Here's a small corner of serenity with Drasyil ( and my main sillies in bkg)

[ilona-art]

My piece for the "Commander of Your Heart" Zine from @gw2-zine that got released a few days ago! Check it out here! https://gw2zine.itch.io/commander-of-your-heart Featuring Enya helping Ace over his fear or heights by exposure therapy. You can read the full description in the zine itself. Thank you for letting me be part of it! <3 Sponsored by ArenaNet

[chickaburra]

My humblest contribution to the Commander of Your Heart fanzine 🐟💕

If you enjoy incredible writing, artwork, and Guild Wars 2, please check out @gw2-zine !

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GW2 side blog @commander-chicka

[cathedralofeternalradiance]

my future will listen to me

Summary: Alysannyra meets her patron goddess, Lyssa, at long last. Content warnings: None Spoilers: HoT & LWS3 Note: My piece for the @gw2-zine! Go check out the world of my lovely collaborators, and go follow the zine blog! Happy zine release day!

I 

Everyone’s dressed the same, in the same white robe. It’s designed so that it’ll never be worn outside of the ceremony and outside of this one moment in a child’s life, which makes the fine silver embroidery on it that much more meaningful. Alysannyra cannot fathom how it was made - they’d just taken her measurements one day and three weeks later, this gown appeared on their door. She doesn’t even try. Instead, she wears it with as much pride as she can, not knowing where her blessings lie yet. She wears her hair down like everyone else and she tries to not hate how it blends her in with a whole generation of eight-year olds in the watchful eyes of the high society of Divinity’s Reach. 

There are two children before her. She can feel the stares of the proud parents in the shadows of the grand church. She can’t turn, not now, because the question she needs to answer can’t be found in their expectant and somber silence. Murals cast a green light on the pale hair of a boy next to her, but he doesn’t seem unsure. Nervous, maybe, but not unsure. 

Anyone would be nervous in the presence of gods. Their statues cast large shadows in their absence. And the children are to kneel before the one whose gifts they have and go into their church’s fold. It’s no small task, but if Alysannyra knows anything, it’s that she can’t cower under the burden of it. So she stands with her back straight, in a white robe that tickles her ankles from the early morning breeze, and she doesn’t turn to her family. 

Instead, she looks between Lyssa and Balthazar, trying to chase where the feeling in her heart is leading her. So far, the pull’s stronger with Lyssa, but Nyra doesn’t have magic. She isn’t worried. She’s only eight; nobody has magic yet. But some have a better idea of what it might be than others. A child walks over to kneel before Melandru. A priest accepts the handle they’d been carrying and places it by Her feet. Green magic swirls around them and it’s done. 

A clicking sound of hundreds of little heels echoes against the stone floor as they all make one step forward. 

A choice has to be made, and soon. Alysannyra carries her head high, taller than most other kids already, and stares at Lyssa’s graceful form in the center of the Six. Pinks and purples of the vitrage behind her twin forms cast an inviting light that seems to twist and bend in strange shapes, as if to spite the harmony that doesn’t seem perturbed by them. Balthazar’s helmet feels comfortable; Alysannyra, too, will one day wear a helmet, as a member of the Seraph. Its weight feels irrelevant, necessary, part of the regalia as much as the white robe is. She can almost feel the pressure of the hot metal in her bare hands and she feels the war call to her. 

The blonde-haired boy steps forward and steadily walks towards Grenth. He offers the candle, if a little clumsily, and kneels as an unsettling magic twirls around him. Alysannyra watches when his eyes widen just slightly, feeling the magic on his skin, and that is done, too. He is now a member of the Church of Grenth, potential necromancer in the making. He moves away with that knowledge, and now it’s Alysannyra’s turn. 

She doesn’t move quite yet. The limited time she had to choose wasn’t enough, but she can’t ruin this. Her family’s reputation, at least for a season, is at stake, and that little feeling in her chest that burns every time someone calls her Lady Ainsaph, too. She takes a deep breath, looks once more, stares into the eyes of the statues, and turns right. She is a daughter of Ascalon, a daughter of war, and Balthazar would be fitting. 

She lifts one foot off the ground when something in her gut screams no. She holds her head high as she suddenly turns left and walks down to where Lyssa is, candle in hand. Clamor of the people is silenced by the determined clicking of her heels, but she feels at peace. 

Come, daughter, the statue seems to say. Part of her knows this will make people talk, but in a strange way, she looks forward to it. She looks forward to the chaos a slight movement of feet will cause, and lifts her head even higher. 

And when she finally kneels and feels the magic seep into her skin, Alysannyra knows she’s made the right choice. Let them talk, let them gawk. 

At least she’s not just a simple Lady Ainsaph anymore, even if the rebellion is as small as this. 

II

Lyssa’s Reliquary is a fucking maze. Shelves of stone that house both man and monster shaped horrors would be enough to disorient most people, and such feeling is only made worse by the little portals that pop up like zits in the most random fucking places. Nyra hates them the most, even though she’s trying to stay level headed in the face of illusions that remind her of all the bad things she’s done and all the blood on her hands. 

But portals don’t disorient her. The chaos of the reliquary only bothered her for mere seconds before she found the rhythm in this place and she’s been riding it ever since. Renira tries to keep up, visibly struggling. Nyra traverses the sacred space like she was born to do it, and maybe she was. Maybe at birth, Lyssa watched from wherever She is now and pointed Her clawed hand (because in Nyra’s mind, Lyssa’s hands have always been clawed) in her direction so she could pass through Her reliquary once she grew up. 

It’s a comforting thought, in a way. It’s the only comfort she has when she slices through a tortured, gruesome vision of Apatia, dead by Nyra’s own hand. It’s the sole thing keeping her sane when she falls through yet another portal to escape the grasp of an illusory Mordrem Trahearne. 

“Where to now? How do we get down?” Renira shouts, wiping sweat off her brow. She swallows when she looks down at the ground below, but it’s the only sign of distress she offers. Nyra’s getting just slightly better at reading her. Or maybe she just lets Nyra see. Her eyes, golden like a cat’s in the stifling, dark chaos around them, don’t betray anything but a grim determination. 

“I think I know the way down,” Nyra says. “It won’t end with us falling to our deaths, hopefully. I’m getting quite a feel for this place.” 

“Of course you are,” Renira replies. “You’re about as chaotic as this reliquary is.” She gives a small smile. “It suits you, after all.” 

“Ever the charmer, Sulver,” Nyra shakes her head. In another life, they might have developed a romance following their brief hookup in Ebonhawke years ago, and the thought of exploring this place with a lover sounds romantic until she remembers she killed her actual lover in Maguuma. Now, it's a flaring ache that makes her look away in shame. 

“You’re alright, Nyra,” Renira says, strangely gentle. She places a gloved hand on Nyra’s shoulder and though she can’t feel the comfort, she feels undeserving of such sentiment. She’s never really emoted well, but she supposes a lifetime of spying on people makes it easy to identify emotions, regardless of expression or lack thereof. 

Nyra shakes her hand off. “Let’s go,” she says. Renira simply nods. 

But before they can make a single step, a big voice booms in the wind. “That is, in fact, the correct way, Alysannyra Ainsaf! It’s taken you a lot less time than I’d anticipated, too.” 

Nyra’s heart sinks to her feet. She doesn’t need to see to know who it is - the goddess Herself, as much in the flesh as they come these days, and She sounds more than a little smug about it all. 

It takes her a moment to find her voice. “Hail, Lyssa,” she says loudly. A part of her hates how uncertain she sounds, but to make up for it, she turns to the direction of Lyssa's voice. She can’t see Her, of course; mortals can’t see gods. Nyra remembers the story of Malchor. She likes her ability to see, thank you very much. She remembers how anguished his ghost was, howling Dwayna’s name like an injured beast.

And maybe she’s like that, too, alive yet forced to walk with guilt and grief eating away at her spirit and her bones. Because she tried to jump into the sea below not that long ago. In Lyssa’s temple, her mind cruelly supplies and Nyra shivers beneath her armor.  

Can she even bear to look Lyssa in the eye now? 

“Formal,” Lyssa says. “There is no need, daughter. I think you’re right at home. Would you be so formal with your parents?” 

Nyra sits down. Renira watches, unsure of what to do, and she signals her to do the same. “If I’m at home, goddess,” Nyra says, “then I’m sure you won’t mind if I bring a guest?” 

“Your mesmer friend? She can stay. Her magic is in my domain, though her blessings are, funnily enough, not. What is your name, mesmer?” 

“Renira, goddess,” she says cautiously. 

“Illusory,” Lyssa replies. “Just like it should be.” 

Renira stiffens and digs her nails in her gloves, but her face remains calm. “Yes, goddess.” 

Nyra wants to ask what that is all about, but knows she needs to tread cautiously, too. Her head’s too exhausted and heavy for two mind games at once. Besides, she needs Renira as an ally here and she’s not stupid enough to risk it by asking questions like this. 

“Lyssa, I have a question,” Nyra says. She swears she can see the wind around them move to face her and tilt a little to the side in curiosity. “You invited me here in a dream. You spoke to me when you sensed that we were backed into a corner in our search, so it stands to reason that you know what we’re after. If I may, what information do you have on Balthazar’s whereabouts?” 

Lyssa’s laughter echoes like a thousand drums, and Nyra digs her clawed gauntlets into her thighs to not cover her ears. She can feel Renira looking at her, maybe bewildered, maybe with that ever present calm, but she doesn’t want to turn away now. A part of her knows she should be more humble, now that she has blood on her hands that will never go away as long as she’s alive, but she’ll be damned if she doesn’t answer that little voice in her head that slaps the notion away like a gnat. 

“Oh, you’re brave!” Lyssa says as laughter dies on Her windy lips. “Humanity hasn’t produced a person this fearless in a long, long while.” 

“That’s what happens when you have nothing to lose,” Nyra says. Her throat becomes tight and her eyes prickle with tears. “I tried to jump from Your temple not that long ago. I think I’ve earned the right to ask questions directly.” 

“I know you did,” Her voice becomes quieter. Of course She knows. “Your mind is still in chaos. It will be until your death. You placed any peace for yourself at the altar of glory long ago.” The wind blows forward, and a ghostly hand cups Nyra’s cheek. It’s cold and unsettling and it makes her skin crawl. She breathes out and closes her eyes tightly. Her heart feels like it wants to beat out of her chest. “Was it worth it?” 

Nyra’s quiet for a while. Tears slide down her skin, burning, yet the ghostly fingers wipe them away. She feels the heaviness of her armor, the tickling of her hair that was once a flag behind her and that now barely reaches her shoulders. Her shoulder aches from the fighting, her heart aches from the evil she’s done, all in the name of her own glory and this fucking world that she’s judged to be worthy of Trahearne’s life. She feels claws softly digging into the sweaty skin of her cheek, as sharp as the ones on her hands. 

Nyra tears light with them and makes it her own. If Lyssa draws blood, that too would belong to Nyra. 

Nyra opens her eyes. “Yes.” 

Lyssa runs a hand through her hair. “I’d hunt you down if you answered any differently,” She simply says. “I sent you that dream because I knew you would be able to stand up to Balthazar. You, daughter, and nobody else. You will either kill him or die trying.” She then lets go and Nyra catches her breath fully again, like a pressure has been lifted.

“I only need to track him down, then,” Nyra says, with a renewed fire in her chest. “So, tell me what you know, goddess.” 

III

She does find Balthazar in the end. These days, the memory of him doesn’t burn so painfully as it did at first. The scars he left on her arms and her legs and on the skin of her stomach and lower back remain hidden under clothes, but Nyra knows they’re there. 

She’s used to them, somehow. They’re her shrine to her heresy, after all. In her home chapel, his place is empty because she carries the reminder of him on her skin. And if she, in her grief-induced craze, had her way, she’d bring down every single statue of him in Tyria by hand. 

Let her be the only shrine he’ll ever have left, on a wartorn path to erase everything else. Sometimes, she remembers Lyssa asking her if it’s worth it. If she thought she knew pain then, when she stood before her goddess, she should’ve considered her answer a little more. 

But Nyra knows pain now. She knows the pain of grief, of loss, of a broken faith, and her answer remains the same. Gods have left Tyria, but this answer is the closest thing she has to a divine oath. 

It’s always worth it.

[storm-called]

Here is my full piece from the Commander of Your Heart zine put together by the lovely @gw2-zine

As it's the cover art, my piece did not focus on a singular or personal commander, but rather the concept of the title of Commander as a whole. It is comradery, companionship, and selflessness even beyond the heroic limelight — it felt important to highlight the commander not just as a hero returning triumphant from fight after fight, but also the person who saves the farm.

[beefsteaktempest]

"Note to self: Peppercorn steak for Kashiki."

"Around ten days ago was Archivist Avenfold's birthday. The thing I've learned about Human birthdays is that the occasion is either quite a big deal to them, or they make an even bigger deal about how they don't wish to make a big deal of it. It's also apparently considered appropriate etiquette to inquire a Human woman's age only secondhand. I have not known many Sylvari to commemorate the date of their emergence, as it's often a day as much of sorrow in the loss of one's deep immersion in the Dream as it is one of joy at the start of a new adventure. Furthermore, in the collective connection we are all being born every day, constantly, as each turning of the world a new part of ourselves opens its eyes.

We would be holding parties every single day, I believe is my point. It would really get in the way of getting anything done."

- - - - - - - - - -

My entry for the Commander of Your Heart zine (@gw2-zine)! A little bit of epistolary angst and musing about what is, what was, and what could have been, featuring my favorite salad.

Please enjoy the full piece on AO3 here!:

- Note: Peppercorn Steak by Laiska

And be sure to check out the full zine for a number of other wonderful submissions!

[ahrikima]

Hidden Path

This is my piece for the fanzine @gw2-zine Commander of your heart

this pieces is dedicate to my two friends zaspain and joel

Background story

me always was a fan of break maps is a thing that like for explore deep the things! but rarely i take people with me,, but many times was with them! i take them to many places that no many people know that there are and one of this is what is this piece.. A path of mushrooms!

Is one of my favorite places and many times i go there and take my time playing music alone

so i wanted to draw this, with my two friends, because this asura is not my commander and not my main, but for me my tow friends are my commanders of my heart, and always was a joy be with them

hope someday you guys see this piece... and hope you like...

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you like my work? so feel free to support me on Ko-fi

also you can check my card fo other things!

[awerzo]

My piece for @gw2-zine !!! went the emo route jalfkdsgd

[glitchpirate]

Happy @gw2-zine release! \o/

Having the freedom to not only feature Commander characters, as an asura artist I of course drew my main, Gliaster; a necromancer with neverending thirst for necromantic knowledge, who found it (and more) in their lover and not much later husband, Palawa Joko himself.

I had many ideas about my piece (which I'll hopefully bring into reality sometime), some of which featured more Joko, but I eventually settled down to something that has more of my actual character in it (especially as an asura artist, haha). And which was actually the very first idea that popped into my head back when I was reading about the zine! So lo and behold, Palawadan beloved! There's nothing like preparing to crush an uprising with some intimidating precasting~

Please go check out the full zine, everyone did such an amazing job and there are SO much good stuff in there! <3