Soo about the last ask I did about the Illusionist...
It's fine if you infodump about how Ainé got trapped in her body or vice versa idk, or any other lore :')
I just honestly like the freshness you give with the literal idea of this characters :D
*banging my pots and pans together*
THE FULL ILLUSIONIST BACKSTORY, COME AAND GET IT
tldr: Girl died and was so pissed about it she came back as a ghost wayyyy too fast. Someone revived her body without her in it, and she got stuck on the outside. She had to unwillingly watch the soul in her body brain-fog her way through an entire smp - WHAT SHOULD OF BEEN HER second chance - before giving up.
Then she figured out how to travel through dimensions, and became really evil about it when she met this cool spider guy and aided in the murder of an entire royal family.
full story under the cut :]
SOME CONTEXT BEFORE I GET INTO IT:
I've vaguely mentioned it before, but many of the characters featured on my YouTube are from role play servers me and my friends created as early as 2020.
Naturally, that means most of their writing was improvised, and very little was planned ahead of time.
Aine and Illusionist were made for Whispers and Kingdom, respectively. Whispers happened very organically out of a survival minecraft server, so a lot of the decisions about Aine's backstory were made on the fly. Kingdom's creation was a lot more deliberate, but Illusionist was retroactively fitted into Aine's backstory, so she shares the same writing quirks that come from improvised storytelling.
ALL OF THAT TO SAY, these characters were made purely for fun. They aren't my best work when it comes to cohesive writing; They're a little convoluted, a little messy, but they were a lot of fun to play, and that was the goal :)
THE GETTING INTO IT:
Way before the events of Whispers, there was a sleepy little town where a young woman named Erena lived. That town was razed in the middle of the night, and she was drowned in a river after being fatally wounded by none other than Amadeus, the Soldier [ jojenis on instagram]. Erena woke up at the bottom of the river, dead. Her soul had died, and she became a vengeful ghost. She was nothing more than the memories of her old life, but she had every intent to come back and return the favor to the monster that killed her.
Her plans were immediately halted. She watched as a fae - named Jophiel, the Lover [also jojenis] - picked up her dead body, and brought it to a hidden bunker. Jophiel successfully found Erena's lost soul, but could not return it into the dead and broken body. Instead, she tenderly placed the soul and the body into the roots of the largest surviving tree in the village.
It should have brought Erena back to her body, but the spell was incomplete. Jophiel was unaware of the ghost already haunting the village and only pulled the soul from death.
Without the soul's memories... The newly born Dryad became a blank slate. Erena's soul is living a new life without her in it.
Years passed, and Erena learned two important things:
1) she was physically tethered to the Dryad, so she couldn't leave or control anything, and
2) the Dryad was an oblivious idiot.
Erena has been quietly haunting this forgetful Dryad, but she couldn't see or hear Erena. She could instill emotions - dread, fear, sadness, or rage - into her, but nothing coherent enough to explain anything to the Dryad. She always just chalked it up to a deep seeded intuition that she couldn't quite grasp.
Then, the events of Whispers unfold.
The Dryad finally uncovers the truth of her origins through Amadeus's first hand account, and an old dusty journal that once belonged to Erena...
and the Dryad ignored it.
The Dryad read about Erena, talked to Amadeus, and experienced every bit of rage, fear, and sadness Erena wanted her to feel, but Dryad wanted to define her own life. She wanted to become her own person, and assume her own identity. She knew she was no longer the person that died all those years ago. She didn't have the experiences that made Erena who she was. Without knowing about the ghostly figure haunting her, Dryad decided to move on without looking any deeper into her past. Later down the line, the Dryad would finally become her own person, and pick her name: Aine.
This enraged Erena. After years and years of trying to communicate with the Dryad, she is just discarded. Erena didn't care that Dryad couldn't possibly know that she was still around. the Dryad decided that Erena's life was unimportant.
She had to sever herself from the Dryad. If her own soul wouldn't help her get revenge on the man that took her life away, then she would make her own...
Erena spent so much of her afterlife sifting through Dryad's head, she figured her influence must stretch beyond just Dryad's mindscape.
and it did.
Over the years, as the Dryad forged her own identity, the tether tying the two together began to decay. Aine was no longer part of Erena: she had become her own person, while Erena was still stuck as the girl that drowned in the river.
Eventually, after the tether disintegrated, Erena found a way to travel in-between realms through the Void (evil worldbuilding shenanigans, just go with me for now).
She successfully left the realm she used to call home, and ended up settling in Illador, where Kingdom takes place.
She spent her time hopping from mindscape to mindscape, learning about her newfound abilities. She learned she had a particular affinity with nightmares since her dip into the Void, and noticed she began to feel more present, more focused, and more powerful with every new victim.
She kept haunting people's nightmares until she crossed paths with a young Midas [@peitalo]. He proposed a deal that if she helped murder his father, the ruling king of Illador, he would help make her a new body that would be hers. No Dryad, no soul. Just a vessel to possess.
She accepted the deal. She killed his father, killed his mother, and aided in the murder of his older brother, leaving Midas to be the sovereign of Illador. As promised, King Midas helped conjure a vessel that would become a physical shadow that she could control.
She would don a porcelain mask, and would adopt many names:
The Night terror, The Cleric, The Queen of Illador...
Hi, so I'm wondering what exactly the Illusionist's powers are? Like electrokensis or eldritch ink manipulation?
Is the woman she haunts actually the woman she eventually possesses as her vessel?
For her comedy mask, is she also a theatre nerd and I wonder what her and King Midas' relationship is like?
First question:
At the height of Illusionist's power, she could do quite a bit, but the general "thesis", is that she's a ghost that can influence the minds of others. She's not entirely corporeal (to her dismay), can disguise herself as others, walk through people's dreams, and trap people in nightmares of her own design.
In the animatic, she is trapped in an incorporeal realm that she can influence, so she has a humanoid form that resembles how she appeared when she was alive, and the green magic on display is a mix of sending out her nightmares, but also her own theatrics... which I guess, in turn, would make her a theatrical person, but I wouldn't go as far as to call her a theater nerd.
However, I did get a kick out of that :]
Second question:
Oh boy. this one has a surprisingly long answer, but I'll give you the super short one for the sake of brevity: The woman the Illusionist haunts, Aine, is not her vessel, and she never possesses her. If the Illusionist ever could, half of her problems would be dealt with.
Unfortunately, Aine is in Illusionist's body, and the Illusionist just wants it back.
(if you want the longer explanation, just let me know, I'm working on a way to explain these two somewhat succinctly </3)
Third question:
Imma be so honest, I designed her with the comedy-adjacent mask because I thought it looked creepy as hell, and was the vibe I wanted for an unnerving villain. The retroactive, diegetic explanation is when trying to find a way to hide her ghastly lack of face, a younger Midas grabbed a porcelain mask from an old stash of costumes and called it a day.
Fourth question:
A direct quote from @peitalo ; "their relationship is like. Um,".
A translation; Midas and the Illusionist bring out the worst in each other, but it works for them..? They both have an affinity for power, revenge, and bloodlust, and that - I guess - means they have romantic inclinations and are horrifyingly loyal to one another. It also is not helped by the fact that the Illusionist was lonely for a long time before meeting Midas. Being seen, helped, and heard is an easy recipe for attaching yourself to someone, especially when he does care about you.. in his fucked-up-evil-agenda kind of way.
It's romantic in some ways, and disgusting in most other scenarios. They are not good people, and their relationship - on all accounts - is not good either.
It is fun to put under a microscope though. Rattle them around in a jar and go "what the fuck".
I can't do commissions sorry. Are you taking any tangled the series Varian art or comic requests please let me know 🤩!?
Unfortunately, I don't do requests unless I explicitly ask for requests, but I do have an old comic ! I think it's still up on my instagram but I'd love to post it here ! :
Do all your OCs live in one setting or are they just... there?
If they do then is the Illusionist, like the main antagonist also... who is the guy next to her in the character sheet?! Is he against her or with her?
All my OCs do no live in the same setting, it's scattered through a few older Minecraft RP servers (cringe is dead, and i am free) that I've just run wild with, as well as D&D, and one of my personal stories :]
When it comes to Illusionist specifically, she's a villain among one of the RP servers, and the character next to her on her ref sheet is @peitalo 's King Midas !
They are "In love" in the most wretched way possible, and we love to hate them.
If you want more stuff abt their world specifically, check out #kingdomsmp ! A bunch of us have posted things in the past, if you want to dig through the lovely art everyone's made :]
13. What color does Erena think she looks best in? Does she actually look best in that color?
Erena didn't wear a lot of vibrant colors before she died. She was rather practically minded. She wanted clothes that were sturdy, or at least easy to replace if she stained it or got them destroyed beyond feasible repair. Most of the times that meant she was wearing white or earth tones, which she definitely didn't mind. When she did dress up, she stuck with those tones and threw in some dark green for good measure. She always thought she looked nice.
However, she's very quickly embraced purple. Goes well with green, wouldn't you say?
20. If she was asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would she do so?
It would be an odd question to pose to the faceless cleric, but less-so to the woman behind it. However, both answers would parallel each other in an uncanny manner:
Erena would tell you love is a show of loyalty. Romantic, platonic, familial - all of them were some level of choice and some level of deep desire to be around them. Platonic is accidental and widespread. You could meet a friend in the strangest places and not realize you're becoming friends until you refer to them as such.
Romantic? somehow one of the messiest but deliberate choices you can make in your lifetime. You can accidentally fall in love, but it's always such a deliberate choice to chase after that feeling in your chest. Erena would never be able to tell you what made it different besides the methods of which you fall into these relationships.. but she did always stumble into them.
The Illusionist would tell you much of the same: love is loyalty. However, she'd say relationships are purely transactional and raising romance to something greater than it is, is simply naïve. If you were to ask her about Midas, she'd lie and say there was nothing special about it. Their relationship was simply transactional: she'd secure his throne, and he's secure her freedom. Nothing more.
43. If someone asked her to explain her sexuality, how would she do so?
She'd hang her head, put down the potion bottle, exasperated.
"Of all the questions you could ask in exchange, that's the one you'd choose? Fine. In the past, I've observed it to be primarily the masculine. It seems to be somewhat flexible, but I haven't the desire to explore that side of myself. Besides..."
She'd pick up the elixir once again, with a misty hand, as she spat ,"I have much more pressing matters to attend to."
Long-winded answer short, the Illusionist considers herself straight, but her attraction to Midas's character lends to a bit more depth to that question. However, it's not something she's particularly willing to spend her time deliberating.
8. What was Erena told to stop/start doing most often as a child?
"Get away from the furnace, you're going to burn yourself, child."
It was always from her father. He was a weaponsmith, and from a young age, Erena took an interest in that moreso than her mother's trade. He'd let her watch from a distance, but she was a hands-on learner. Which also meant she had hands-on experience with why you shouldn't touch hot metal the same way papa does with his calloused hands. Mr. Adelaide eventually gave her a set of gloves, and some small project for her to tinker at whenever she sat to watch. It was always something she could do without dangerous tools, or a raging furnace, at least until she was older and had some level of impulse control. Obviously, accidents would still happen, but they became fewer and fewer as she grew older and more adept with her father's trade. She'd take full responsibility for that business for nearly two weeks while her father was away.. but those weeks turned into a month... and that month revealed to be Erena's and her father's last.
19. What is her favorite number?
Three. A simple, nice round number. Third month of the year marked the spring, three ingredients in most simple potions, three members of her family. Three members of a family she aided in their murder, three accomplices in her ghastly fate. A simple, nice round number.
37. Does she have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)?
She never had the memory problems that her soulful counterpart had, frankly she had too good of a memory. She wrote down potion recipes, kept logs of important conversations, and the strange things always ended up in some sing-song melodic hum. Her working memory is a point of pride. It's really all she has left of her past identity. She puts it to good use.
40. How sensitive is she to her own flaws?
She does not see her own hypocrisy. She cannot see that she is the monster she swore she'd never become. She can admit, for all her coldness and calculated thought, her actions are brash, explosive, and destructive. But in her eyes, everything she does was completely justified: The entity that nearly destroyed her world, turned into her means of escape. The enthrallment of the nightmares, were simply a means to strengthen her form. The deal she made with the bloodthirsty prince, was so she could put physicality to her form. Her continued desperation to keep it? The fact it was taken from her in the first place. And on and on she goes, until she cannot see the vengeful creature of malice she's become.
42. How badly does she want to reach her end goal?
I made Abbot when I was in middle school, so the initial inspiration is verry hazy. I think it was because I wanted a character who's presence would ask for trouble for the group, and runaway royalty felt like a no-brainer. Going forward, a lot of his tonal and character inspiration comes from the idea of "wonder" as vague as that sounds. He's an amalgamation of everything I grew up with that instilled joy, magic, imagination, and curiosity in me. As a result, he reads like a Disney prince, but sprinkle in my love for astronomy, fairytales like The Little Prince, and you get the superior starboy.
E) Are they somebody you would get along with? Would they get along with you?
I'd like to think we'd get along! Although, in full honesty, I'd be worried my first impressions of him would be negative due to his naïvety. I try not to let first impressions inform the rest of my relationship with someone, so I'd hope I'd give him another chance </3
F) What do you feel when you think of Abbot (pride, excitement, frustration, etc)?
Nostalgia, joy, and anxiety. The latter applies to any character apart of Nebula. I put a lot of pressure on myself to write these characters to be the best they can be, but as a result I end up talking myself in circles and never making decisions. I hope to break that cycle at some point. But the nostalgia and joy? That'll never go away. Abbot's been with me for nearly 10 years now, so he's filled with all sorts of memories. So many different iterations of his character exists through so many different iterations of myself. His character is more definitive and explored than my own at this point. I cherish him dearly, which makes him even more hard to share and talk about.
1. What's the maximum amount of time Kyra can sit still with nothing to do?
Surprisingly long! She'll fidget with her clothes, pick at her already short nails, play with her hair, but very content to sit in silence and enjoy it. Unfortunately, her brain, neither her lamp is rarely quiet. There's always something she's stressed about, something she's worried might happen, and it always leads to her nervously pacing, practicing, or running. Her mother practically lived in the back of her head. Not to mention the lamp's constant humming would always put her on edge, before she knew who was talking to her. Now, Yobee is just vocal for the sake of getting her attention and annoying her. She loved the guy, but would - unwisely - threaten to stuff him under a pillow if he kept pestering her in their downtime.
4. How easy is it to earn their trust?
Right in the middle. She's not naïve, but she has no reason to highly distrust people... until recently. Kippa was a harsh blow to her trust. She didn't know her personally (she couldn't imagine the betrayal Aven felt), but going forward, Kyra cannot trust people as easily as she once did. Checks and balances will have to be put in place even. Old mentors, friends, authority figures? She has little idea who to fully trust. She knew her family in Iphel, Oku claims to know his god, but Aven could of said the same thing about Kippa..
The anxiety in the back of her head must be given more room at the front. For everyone's sake.
43. If someone asked Kyra to explain her sexuality, how would she do so?
"Well, funny story... I had to come out to my parents that I was Bi, but it was because we all assumed I only liked girls..."
Kyra grew up with two moms and just assumed she liked girls too. She wasn't wrong, her first crush was on a girl in town, but In the end, her bisexual awakening was because of a certain boy she met when her mom became the royal mage. The bar was set high immediately. Just don't ask about her gender. She doesn't know yet.
10. What lie does she most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt her?
She's told lots of lies. She's kept them up for a long, long time: "No, I don't have magic", "I have a passion for science", "I'm fine", "It doesn't hurt to walk on", "I'm just going on a solo, I'll be back in a day or two".
She can't say the one that haunts her the most. She's half convinced herself it's true anyways. If she admits it's a lie, then her fabricated reality must come crumbling down, and she has to face it honestly and plainly.
31. Who is Astrid most glad to have met?
Alice. Alice met her when she was at her lowest, and she did not back down from dragging this depressed extrovert out to parties, museums, restaurants, and everything else they loved to do. Astrid worried they only did it out of pity, but at some point it didn't really matter to her what started their friendship. She was just grateful to have someone looking out for her... although, it made it harder to continue the lie.
H) What trait do you admire most?
Astrid is a bucket of bad traits and coping mechanisms borne of desperation, but I admire her determination. She wouldn't be doing anything she's trying to achieve if she didn't think she could accomplish what she's set out to do. It could be entirely impossible, but she'd try anyways. She's going to fix her mistakes, fate be damned.
