I wonder what Nemea and Pelodis would look in your style <3 Love their dynamic and rivalry, curious on your thoughts on them too if you wanna talk!
Okay so I was stuggling on comics and this ask has been sat in my box for months and figured I should finally answer it, though I'm still not sure on the colours so I didn't colour them yet. This is a bit of a long post involving some rants:
I'm going to be realllll I don't really like them. I liked them at first when I did the quest but the more I thought about them the more I kinda... wow you BOTH suck. I might be able to trick myself into liking them like I did Nikolon with rewrites but I do have to change some stuff because I like my lore with a little more spice and a little more consiquence.
Unfortunatly for Pelodis he suffers from the fact the quest has aged incredably poorly and now feels very AI vs Human so as an artist that makes me not want to root for him, also because he feels like kyrian Elon Musk mixed with my co worker who will not shut up about using AI. And what's worse is he's actually entirely god damn correct in his argument against Nemea just because there is less danger in a robot than a 1,500 ibs lion with wings.
Now onto Nemea whos' the one I like least out of the two. I'm a cynical person so this is an entirely personal viewpoint but I don't like characters who have animal companions as their main thing. Especially when its like some special bond or 'they just have a mutual respect for each other and understand each other' it's an animal. It's kinda easy to tell when the writer is leaning too much into anthropomorphism and it ticks me off. I've never liked it I've always been ticked off by these types of characters. It's because I love consiquinces, and these characters don't suffer any consiquinces of treating an animal like its a toy. Nemea is weird because sometimes she acts pretty decent like an animal handler and then she's like 'lol lets give you the 1,500 pound lion with wings and behavioural issues lmao'.
I very much over think them both and the more I think about them the more I'm like this could open intresting doors but it doesn't.
I wanted them both to be older looking to actually have experiance in their jobs. But also I imagine their jobs are super stressful and hold a lot of responsibility.
Nemea, I actually... make her behave like an animal handler. She's Loyalty as Bastion actually uses larions as a form of gaurd. She appears more visably stressed because she will be under constant scrutiny. Because Kyrians do not have a mutual respect for Larions that is a lie. We know this because they would litterally kill them to train aspirants before there where centurions.
I gave her a lot of scars because she will have to rear them from cubs or it just won't work. And yes as an animal handler she's very much been nearly killed by larions more than once, she accsepts this is something that can happen. I made her hair shorter because you do not want long hair around an animal that could very much grip it and drag you around by it or worse.
Now I imagine as the Larion handler for Bastion if there's any incident with a Larion then it falls on her head. She was in DEEP water with Tariesh's accident. It doesn't matter if its a domestic or wild larion its automatically her fault. She is supposed to ensure Larion saftey. Larion saftey like any animal would be taken extremly seriously more seriously than the averge kyrian knows.
Larions are dangerous, they have to be big enough to carry two kyrian thus they can knock over a kyrian. If a Larion is agressive at all it will be put down. Nemea can only work with Larions with a very niche tempriemnt because if one thing goes wrong that's it. Andira was probably a nightmare for Nemea because you've got a larion with anxitey. That's extremely bad. It's called behavioral euthanasia when an animal needs to be put down because of its behavour. This is usually in cases when a dog kills someone or is deemed too anxious that it is more ethical to euthanize it as it will have no quality of life.
As to imagine when you care about these animals so deeply it is heartbreaking every single time one of them has to be put down, becuase she feels she failed. This is also why I think the rivalry is less fun for her. Because at the end of the quest she actually kinda sounds upset if you choose Pelodis and it just, gives the vibe of everyones having fun then someone gets upset and the whole mood is killed. I feel this rivalry is a bit too persoanal for her because she wants to proove larions can be good companions and yes incidents happen SOMETIMES but it doesn't mean Larions are inherintly bad and yes most of these cases are caused by poor handling.
Pelodis is temple of Wisdom, he remains more the same but I do think it should be noted he's a bit of an ass and that's pretty common with Temple of Wisdom. However, like Nemea I think his job should be super stressful.
He's an inventor, I even made it so his headband actually snaps into a dual rular and level gauge. The issue for him is that the Phlanyx are actually a very good idea. Larions are unpredictable and any kyrian can have one if they just pass some training, but that doesn't change that a larion could have been poorly trained and maul someone. So they phlanyx seemed like a great idea as it removed this unpredictable risk.
The issue is when something goes wrong with them. People are less forgiving with technology, so Pelodis gets called in immedantly he doesn't even get days off if something goes wrong, to fix it. Worse is when they hurt someone (hand caught in gears, crush hazard from the weight, anima leak exposre.)
Which gets him scolded harshly, sure he doesn't suffer the hearbreak that Nemea does but it defenatly could put an end to his entire project, centuries of work if it they keep breaking down or having issues.
This is why he takes the rivalry less seriously, yes its his job but he can just fix a phlanyx if something goes wrong or reuse it. Nemea can't. And there's sort of an issue with their realationship here that I genuinely don't think he gets how this isn't exactly great. I could just be too sensative but I don't really like their rivalry it feels mean in places. I would be so upset if I had to keep prooving that my job was actually important.
But I also think they watch Lion King marathons together.
I don't have much of a story with them this is all very much first thoughts rambles but they are in a trio with Thales as he becomes Sphinx Master. (Phalynx Master, Larion Master, Sphinx Master.)
