#ialyn

[kerra-and-company]

character spotlight, day 24: ialyn

“They don’t get to take away the things that made--that make--me happy. Not ever. I won’t let them.”

[kerra-and-company]

Kay I give you uhhhhh Violet Moonstrider, she's a sylvari who's really tall and chipper and giddy about everything. She awakened and immediately died, then mallyx brought her back - but she doesn't let that dampen her mood :) she's pink with blue eyes that stare into your soul like a bug and has a white petals pixie cut and plant freckles that glow in the dark. She also miiiiight be slightly Glint-branded!

I have a new character that I instantly love, thank you so much :D :D

For Violet, I give you Ia! She's a sylvari sprout, meaning that she's still little (physically looks--and also acts--somewhere between 9 and 11 post-EoD), but she would think Violet was incredibly cool. Ia's an elementalist (weaver specifically) who loves to pull pranks and is a menace (/affectionate), and she's afraid of not being strong enough to protect herself, even though she already is. I think she could learn a lot from Violet (both good things and less good things) and that she'd enjoy spending time with her as long as Violet didn't mind!

[kerra-and-company]

OC Question Hour! For whoever you feel like sharing about.

What are they skilled at to the point where it installs a sense of confidence? Do they rely on it often to get by or boost self esteem?

(@uselessidiotsquad)

Oh thanks a bunch for the OC question hour!! :D <3 I'll use the random thing picker, so let's see... For Tanza, that's probably her connection to the Mists and especially to Owl. She didn't fully realize her revenant abilities in particular were skills rather than personal quirks until around 1328-1329, but once she does, said abilities definitely help instill confidence (and add a boost when it comes to her fighting skills). They don't exactly rely on their Mists connection--except when it comes to Owl. A very large part of the reason they're able to reach her (in the first place and after my 'verse's version of Ryland's attack in Snowden Drifts) is because of said connection. For Ia, it's her ability to summon fire. She's an elementalist (and will eventually be a weaver once she's at level 80 in-game), but she never had to train in order to use fire; it comes naturally to her. At first, most of the confidence/self-esteem she gets from it has to do with either a) her proficiency in magic in general or b) the fact that she can use it to basically make her hands into Iron Man thrusters and thus doesn't fear heights. After her interactions with the NMC, it becomes more of a getting-by thing since she turns to using it more as a weapon/shield/defense. If she wants to be left alone, she can and will just encircle herself with fire until people leave. Brook is a revenant like Tanza (and will be getting the vindicator specialization when EoD releases), but they don't see their magical abilities as essential in quite the same way she does. Don't get me wrong, they value their revenant skills, but they value their ability to fight in general much more. It's in part left over from when they were younger and in the fahrar--magic wasn't looked upon highly, and they were able to hide their power for the most part, so they did just that. So...basically, the answer to your question for them is their physical fighting prowess, no magic involved. Since they're either in Tyria or Elona depending on the point in the timeline, they definitely use it to get by. And they're proud of said skill, too, so yes, it's a self-esteem booster. (Related to this, they're a Very bad patient when sick or injured, haha.)

[kerra-and-company]

hey, I'd like to see 2, 9 and 15 from the cute commander asks for whoever you want to answer for :)

@purple-saladleaves

Sure! Thanks for the ask! :D I used the random thing picker to choose a few different kiddos!

2. How do they like their coffee?

Weylon enjoys the the smell but can't stand the taste, so...basically it's enjoyed on the basis that he never has to drink it xD

9. Do they prefer rainy weather or sunny weather?

Lifa much prefers the sun, unless she's inside and has no need to go out. The sound of the rain is nice, but she can't stand being wet; her fur takes forever to dry properly.

15. Do they collect anything?

Ia collects rocks! Pretty much any kind--she tries to get one of as many kinds she can find, though she steers clear of trying to find any bloodstone on strict orders from her parents.

[kerra-and-company]

🖊️🖊️🖊️ for any beebs you wanna gush about <3

Sounds like a plan, thank you so much @i-mybrunettelady! :D <3

🖊️: A while ago you asked me about how Minei joined the Vigil, and I never actually gave you an answer (because Brain and also School, fun times), so I'll take this space to do that!

(Putting this and the other answers under a cut because this got much much longer than anticipated asldjk;fasdf)

Since Kerra's my commander but very much not human, she doesn't ever earn the title of Hero of Shaemoor--instead, Minei ends up involved in that fight. Her adoptive father had been attacked by bandits, and she was traveling outside of the city to grab some specific medical supplies. She jumps into protecting Shaemoor when the city comes under attack, along with a decently-sized group of others, which is how she first meets Logan Thackeray. He recognizes that she's young, but based on her necromancy skill and mannerisms, he and the others at Shaemoor assume she's a young adult rather than a barely-15-year-old kid.

(Also, an important distinction here--Minei actually doesn't take the title of Hero of Shaemoor either, in part because her experience of the event is more a group effort than the in-game version. The reason that this distinction is so important is that she doesn't get the fame that goes with the title, but she does become friends with Logan. If she had earned the title and consequently become more famous, she never would have joined the Vigil--in that situation, it's far more likely that someone would have realized how old she actually was and wouldn't have allowed her to join.)

Logan agrees to help Minei track down the bandits responsible for attacking her father, and they manage to bring them to justice, but her father eventually succumbs to his injuries. Petra stays with family friends, and she ends up more or less in charge of the tavern with Minei supporting her and training alongside the Seraph. Minei considers officially joining them to help keep her sister and herself afloat, and Logan is supportive of the idea, though he tries to assist them as well as much as he can.

The turning point towards her joining the Vigil is her helping Logan and the Order representatives to kick the Risen out of Lychcroft Mere (which follows a similar but not identical storyline as the human level 30 personal story, the main difference being that Minei is more an assistant/trainee than an Advocate of any kind). She learns that the dragons are a serious threat, and she learns to respect the ideals of the Vigil as well as their representative, Crusader Hiroki. The Seraph are directly loyal to Kryta and the Queen, while the Vigil fights the dragons and isn't loyal to any particular nation. Minei cares about Kryta, but she's far more loyal to her sister than anything else, and the thought of dragon minions (specifically the Risen) taking Petra away is particularly terrifying to her. She knows death magic and how dangerous it can be. Zhaitan's corruption isn't the same as her necromancy, but it's close in some ways, and the similarity, oddly enough, is what frightens her. Considering all those factors, when Hiroki asks her if she'd perhaps like to join the Vigil, she says yes.

🖊️: Because this is the Minei space now, you also asked me about her and Grenth (and just her take on the Six in general), so have some facts about that! :D

She received Grenth's blessing when she was almost too young to remember, approximately four years old. Her birth parents both passed away at the same time*, and she, being a grieving, untrained child who only really understood that they'd gone somewhere she couldn't reach, tried to bring them back. All she succeeded in doing was becoming so exhausted that she ended up on the brink of death herself. Grenth was intrigued by this child who was so young and yet fought so hard for her parents, reminding him just slightly of himself. He could not return them to her (lest he return all parents who left behind young children), but he did help guide her back to her body**, and she was left with a strong connection to death--and, in a sense, to resurrection as well. It's the reason that raising minions is what comes most naturally to her.

The reason I compared her to Edward Elric from FMA before (who had the experience of "I met basically-God and still am agnostic", though those aren't quite her feelings on the subject) is that she understands that she was given a gift and is thankful for it, but she's also irreverent at the same time, an attitude brought on in part from growing up more-or-less alone for five years. She believes wholeheartedly that the Six exist and that they are powerful, but she doesn't see the need to worship them for it. Respect them? Absolutely. Worship them? Not really. It's a bit of a thin line to walk as well as an outlier point of view amongst humans, and she learned early on to stop sharing it lest others become scandalized, angry, or both. Her sister Petra is one of the few people who's come to accept her POV, though Petra doesn't share it.

*Minei doesn't know the reasons for this, and she's never really thought to ask. To her, them being gone has been a fact of her life, and she's had so much else going on that she's never thought to question why that is.

**She would have eventually found her way back on her own, but it would have taken longer. She basically got a god-chaperone, which has to be pretty neat.

(Side note: I bet you've read these, Nero, but I just went through all the Parables of the Gods on the wiki, and if you haven't read them please do, they're fascinating.)

🖊️: To switch this up and give you a brief bonus fact about someone else, I've mentioned a couple times now (or maybe only once? unsure) that Ia runs into some trouble with the Nightmare Court. While Kerra (and Rhi) and Dragon's Watch and the Pact are in Cantha, the NMC tries to kidnap the sprout twins. They succeed in grabbing Ia (but not Tev), and they manage to hold onto her for about a week before Cyprian manages to rescue her completely by accident. (It should be noted that the NMC who took her are VERY lucky that Cyprian found Ia first before her parents did. They're dead either way, but one encounter would have been SIGNIFICANTLY worse for them.)

[kerra-and-company]

For the drabble list, what about 23. “I immediately regret this decision.”!

This is from what feels like forever ago, and so sorry it's taken me so long to write a thing for this, but I finally got something I like written! It embodies more the sentiment rather than directly using the quote, but I like it anyways. Have some sylvari sprout siblings @commander-triangle and thanks a bunch for the prompt! :D

Warnings: none, I don't think, but let me know if I'm wrong!

“Ri-Ri!”

Rhi turned around, laughing as they caught their younger siblings in their arms. “Hey, you two!”

Tev unburied himself from where he’d run headlong into Rhi’s stomach, blinking up at them. “Tell us a story!”

“A story?”

“Story!” Ia repeated, clapping her hands a few times. “Stories are good!”

Rhi laughed again, gathering them into their lap. They didn’t quite fit, but they got cozy anyways. “All right, then! What would you like to hear about today?”

“Our rens?” Ia asked. “Or ‘Rene?”

“Hmm…do you want to hear about how ‘Rene got big?” Rhi bounced the twins a bit, and they giggled. “Or how Mom met Uncle Rel, or how Ren grew up in the jungle? Or how Dad—” They froze. “Um, maybe not that one—”

“What about Dad?” Tev tilted his head to the side.

“Um…” Shoot. Rhi had never tried to come up with a kid-friendly version of this particular story before. “How…Dad became a weapons specialist for the Pact.” Sort of. I’ll go with that.

“Spe-cee-a-list,” Ia said, sounding out the word. “What’s that?”

“It means he was good with weapons,” Rhi answered.

“But there are lots of weh-pons,” Tev said slowly. “Like Mom’s bow. And Auntie Cay’s knifes.”

“Knives, Tev,” Rhi corrected. “But yes, you’re right.” They bopped his nose, and he batted their hand away, making a tiny, happy sound. “Dad’s good with lots of weapons.”

“Does he have a fav-rit?” Ia asked, bouncing up and down.

Before Rhi could answer, Tev’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Dad likes, um…” His eyebrows scrunched. He brought his hands together, clenched his hands into fists, and opened them again with a pshh sound. “Those!”

Rhi blinked. “Wait, who told you that?”

“Can we make pshh things?” Ia said, suddenly excited.

Oh, great. “No!” Rhi said quickly and a bit too loudly. In an attempt to both dissuade them and be honest, they blurted, “Not till you’re older.”

“But how much older?” Ia asked. “A week?” Her eyes got big. “As old as you?”

“I’m not that old!”

Tev blinked in the way he specifically did when trying to be cute. How he’d learned to do that, Rhi had no idea. “Small ones?”

“Even small ones are dangerous—they can hurt you,” Rhi explained. “So no pshh, okay?”

Tev nodded, but his sister’s brow furrowed. A tiny glowing ball appeared in Ia’s palm. “But…I can make pshh?”

“That’s fire!” Rhi’s voice cracked. “That’s different!”

“Why?” Ia cupped the ball in both hands, making it larger. “I can make it go pshh, too!”

“No no no, not inside the house!” Rhi grabbed a pitcher of water that was on a nearby table and dumped it unceremoniously over Ia (and directly into their own lap). The sprout spluttered as the fire went out, blinking at Rhi in shock, and there was a beat of silence. Rhi winced internally. Oh no, I hope she doesn’t cry—

Tev giggled, breaking the tension. “You look funny, Sissy!”

Ia made a disgruntled noise, turned to him, and shook her head rapidly, covering both Tev and Rhi in water droplets and making Tev shriek-laugh. Rhi grabbed Ia and lifted the cackling toddler up in the air before settling her back on their lap.

“I’m sorry I dumped water on you,” Rhi said, just to make extra sure no one was too upset. “I actually have a better story—do you want to hear about the time I went to Divinity’s Reach instead?”

Tev stopped messily trying to dry his face with his hands and jerked his head up. “Okay!” Ia looked less enthusiastic, but she nodded.

Rhi sighed, standing up and helping both her siblings to their feet. “Okay. But let’s dry off first. I’ll go find towels.”

Ia tugged at their hand. “Ri-Ri, I can—”

“We are not drying off with fire!”

[kerra-and-company]

Happy vibes time! If you would like, share something about one of your characters that you love. Or multiple!

(@uselessidiotsquad )

(｡･ω･｡)ﾉ♡

<3 <3 Thank you for sending happy vibes! :D I am more than happy to do that! Let's talk about Ari, Tev, and Ia today.

If you've looked at screenshots of Ari, you might have noticed that she has gears/cogs/whatever those are called as horn decorations:

However, those are very Iron Legion, and Ari is very much Ash.

She wears them to honor her mom, although that isn't something she shares with most people. Her mother is not widely seen as someone worth honoring (for Reasons (TM) that I'm still working out the fine details of and therefore won't share yet). Ari disagrees.

Putting the rest under the cut because I use more pictures which makes the post a bit long!

I don't think I've shared screenshots of Tev and Ia yet, so let's talk about the twins and also give you some pics! They're both still tiny in canon, but thinking about them makes me happy :)

Tev (pictured above) is thief-class (no elite specialty yet because he is also Baby in-game; just reached level 30). For other character design bits, he has his mom Kerra's eye color and his ren Nisha's bark color. His hairstyle is a reference to three separate things: 1) his dad Canach's original model back in LWS1, 2) Malyck, and 3) Riannoc. Lots of people have that sylvari ponytail, haha.

I mentioned this somewhere before, but I'll mention it here too: Tev's the only one of Kerra's kids to inherit her empathic abilities. He practices a lot at both sensing emotions and shutting them out--he hopes one day to be as skilled at it as his mother. When he eventually reaches that level, he's quicker to use his skills than Kerra is. He doesn't have the trauma associated with his abilities that she does.

Tev masters sarcasm and deadpan very quickly and has a natural way with words. You do not want to get into an argument with him--he can and will manage to make you so turned around you forget your original point. Also, Tev and his sister Ia are the prank masters. She comes up with the ideas and gets whatever they need, and he sets it up and makes sure (or at least does his best to make sure) that they don't get in trouble for it.

Also, this is what he looks like with his glow; he's much more menacing at night.

This is Ia! She continues down the track her older sibling Rhi set of absolute chaos children--I think I mentioned in a previous ask that you sent (though it might have been someone else) that she's an elementalist who zooms around the house via fire and air magic as a kid. (She, too, is Baby in-game, so no elite specs yet.) Caithe sometimes does a double-take when looking at her, which is entirely my fault as creator since she has baby Caithe's hairstyle and Faolain's face shape (which is really her ren Nisha's, but they look pretty close).

For some fun facts about her: Ia learns how to bake when she gets older and she really enjoys it. I haven't settled on a job idea for her, but one possibility is definitely running a bakery while working with the Pact/one of the Orders on the side. She fights without material weapons for the most part, though Rhi designs a staff for her that's the only one she really uses. She also get super close to Kerra's fern hound Phil when she's little, which is very sweet. And for a perhaps slightly less sweet headcanon, she's the one who takes after her dad Canach when it comes to explosives, because of course she is.

And just to finish it off, have Ia with her glow! I really enjoy the way the tips of the leaves glow in this hairstyle.

[kerra-and-company]

Asks ahoy! ☾♡ൠ For 2 of your kiddos who you feel like don't get talked about enough (@uselessidiotsquad)

Thanks so much @uselessidiotsquad! :D Folks who don't get talked about, huh? Let's see...I feel like I spread out my talking-about-characters pretty evenly, all except my newer sylvari kiddos who don't have posts yet, so I guess this one's for them! That'd be Cyprian and the twins, Tev and Ia. (And yes I know that's three characters; I'm cheating a bit, haha.) Now that I'm out of class for a bit, they should (in theory) get posts soon too!

☾ - sleep headcanon

Tev and Ia are glued to each other's sides as kids. They have separate beds, but more often than not they fall asleep in the same one. As they get older, it happens less frequently, both from a mutual drive to be slightly more independent and because Tev will absolutely steal all the blankets and Ia will kick him off the bed as soon as he does.

Cyprian has trouble sleeping. It reminds him too much of the years he spent trapped in his pod, mostly but not completely unconscious and unable to get out. More often than not he stays up most of the night or all night unless he completely exhausts himself during the day to the point of collapse. No, this isn't healthy; why do you ask?

♡ - romantic headcanon

The twins are too tiny at this point for those, so I won't address that for them. As for Cyp, if he fell for someone, he would have zero idea what to do. He'd be overly attentive and try to help them with everything they were doing to the point of being (potentially) irritating. And if he were choosing a present for them, he'd give them either flowers (fairly standard) or fruit (slightly less standard, but he loves fruit, so it'd seem like a good gift).

ൠ - random headcanon

Tev is the only one of Kerra's children to inherit her empathy powers. He's sweet and small and can win any argument he's in, whether with his sister or his parents or a stranger at the market. Caithe teaches him how to fight with daggers.

Ia is an elementalist like her uncle Rel, but unlike him, she's not a healer. She favors fire and air most, and she definitely figures out how to fly around with that magic like she's Iron Man, which is a nightmare for her parents because she learns to use her magic very early. Retrieving the child that is alternatively making fire and lightning from the rafters is always a bit difficult.

Cyp is highly uncomfortable around asura. He doesn't want to be, but his pod was in the hands of the Inquest at one point, and he does not remember that time fondly, to say the least.