I said I had an art idea for just Ikona, and somehow I managed to actually see that through...even if this took two months to complete (rip, my life has been busy lately).
So yeah! An official art of my design for Ikona. And, I have a handful of assorted headcanons for her as well:
I think she was a kinshi knight, because every one of the Hoshido siblings has access to kinshi knight as a class; also Hinoka's Legendary Hero alt. in FEH has Queen Hinoka as a kinshi knight, with an updated design that mixes the design of the kinshi knight (definitely not Sumeragi's) class and priestess (Mikoto's) class. For Ikona's kinshi knight design I merged the design for kinshi knight with archer/sniper, as I also headcanon that she originally wielded the Fujin Yumi (I know the lore states that the Fujin Yumi was passed down through the royal family, but given that it's a choosy weapon, it might have "chosen" Ikona after she married Sumeragi, or else she may have come from some far-flung branch family).
Ikona was the first person, probably, to show Ryouma, Hinoka, and Takumi the basics of archery, although Takumi took to it more readily. She would have continued to mentor Takumi as he grew older if she had survived long enough to do so.
Ikona shares her hair and eye color with Takumi, and Takumi was the only one to inherit these features (as Ryouma takes strongly after Sumeragi, and Hinoka and Sakura both inherited hair/eye color traits that both Sumeragi and Ikona had, but where recessive; I know hair/eye colors aren't Mendelian per se, but I promise this made some sort of sense when I was trying to map out how everyone's genetic traits might have been inherited). However, Hinoka and Sakura share Ikona's rounder face and eye shape; Ikona was also a bit shorter than Hinoka and a bit taller than Sakura. Takumi and Sakura also share Ikona's straight, silky hair, whereas Ryouma and Hinoka inherited Sumeragi's wild and unruly flyaway hair.
I think in terms of personality, that Takumi and Sakura's anxiety troubles probably came from Ikona (as did Hinoka's shyness as a child). As a notable noble, and later queen, Ikona would have found a way to mask her social anxiety, but it doesn't change the fact that she was much more comfortable around her close friends and family. Ikona probably came off as somewhat awkward or aloof at times as a result though, despite all her etiquette training and careful masking. If she had lived long enough, Ikona might have been able to pass down some techniques to Takumi and Sakura for handling their anxiety.
Ikona could have shared Hinoka's inclinations towards being a warrior, although Ikona would have had the etiquette training to balance this out and mask the fact that she was more comfortable in armor than silks. Ikona's desire to protect others probably led to her untimely death as well (I don't have a solid set of headcanons for this, although I think she probably died before Sumeragi did; stat-wise I think she would have had a glass canon build, with strong offensive capabilities, both physical and magical, and weak defenses--if she was a "dive in to save people" type, her weak defenses would have been Ikona's undoing).
I also think it's possible that either Reina or Yukimura were, at one point, one of Ikona's retainers. I know from a developmental standpoint that Orochi and Reina were originally one character (at least I seem to remember reading that somewhere), and therefore Mikoto would have had Yukimura and Orochi-Reina as her two retainers, rather than having three retainers. And I know Yukimura serves more as Hoshido's tactician rather than a retainer...but I figure if we have the characters to go around, that one of them could have served as one of Ikona's retainers, but survived her death (and made sure the Fujin Yumi returned to the royal family), and that her other retainer died with her.
Ikona fell in love with Mikoto first. I'm not entirely sure how their entire thruple thing worked out eventually, but I feel like Ikona was the first to fall in love. She would have been so awkward about it too.
Not a headcanon, but as an aside I originally planned to have her outfit's color palette feature more oranges, the way her yukata was orange in the first artwork I made of her, but uh...she ended up looking like an orange creamsicle. Using the strong reds that appear in most of the Hoshidan character designs made her look a bit like Inuyasha though, so I eventually settled on more muted pinkish colors. I might change the palette later if I can make the oranges or reds work, but overall I think I like how off this palette feels when compared to most of the Hoshidan palettes. It feels like Ikona was sort of a last-minute thought to the writers, which makes her feel forgotten in the story itself. Ikona having an unusual color palette reflects the fact that she ended up not really getting to be a part of her own family in life or death, and in time became something of an aside even to her own people.
So...yeah! As I've said before, I have a lot of thoughts about fictional dead moms who get shafted by the writers of the stories they're supposed to be a part of. Ikona is no exception, and I really enjoyed coming up with a design for her and trying to weave headcanons to flesh her character out a bit. I've been thinking about her since Fates released, and I'm sure I'll be thinking about her for years to come.
—————————————————————————
2024, Winter (Beginning of Year)
Digital (Adobe Photoshop)
Design for Ikona is my own. Ikona is a character from the Fire Emblem series, and belong to Intelligent Systems.
Artwork belongs to me.
This image (published by the artist to deviantart.com/plaguelily, plaguelily-art.tumblr.com) may not be reproduced, copied, edited, republished, reuploaded, distributed, or redistributed in any way, and I do not give permission for the creation of any sort of derivatives of my work including the use of the work in datasets used for generation of AI art or any other sort of procedurally generated image program or software. Thank you.
