Hello! My name is Cryptic Whisper, I am a gay and trans man [he/him] and I'm a huge nerd for a VARIETY of fandoms. I draw digitally and have been for about 11 years now! (Funny enough I started out here on Tumblr LOL). I also love to create stories, original and fan made!
I wanted to make a pinned post to all my tumblrs cause I have a few and want people to know that they are also run by me!
Other Tumblrs:
@crypticwhisper - Main Blog!
@thewolfssummit - Art Blog!
@hesthekeytofreedom - Reblog/Random Stuff Blog!
@thenightbelongstothewolves - Witchy/Aesthetic Blog!
@takemetothe-ark - Marble Hornets Blog!
@children-of-tyria - My friend's and I's GW2 Fan-made Canon Story! @lotus-flower-moon - RWBY (Lie Ren centric) Blog!
Continuing the trend with 60+ Wysma facts (and some art)! Sorry to my bsky followers for the spam lmao
Wysma was a huge crybaby as a little progeny. It didn't take much to make him spill tears, usually on somebody else's behalf. As an adolescent he was a fairly meek and non-confrontational kid, which people often mistake for cowardice.
He's always wanted to know what hugging a Quaggan actually feels like thanks to having owned a Quaggan plush as a progeny. He has not found the correct social opportunity yet.
'Wysma' as a name leans traditionally feminine by Asura standards, the equivalent of meeting a guy named Ashley. This resulted in some confusion among his peers when he was very young. (ooc) He was named after a shopping mall where I live LMAO
Wysma attended the College of Statics! But only at the behest of his then-guardian, Qronn, who insisted it was the safest course for his accident-prone and academically mediocre self. Wysma has always been more of a Dynamics guy, though.
He is about 33/34 as of Visions of Eternity! He was 20 at the start of his personal story, which takes the route of the Synergetics path (being part of the krewe that created the translocator) instead of his actual College’s, Statics. He was also training to be a peacemaker on the side.
He only became Snaff Savant because his other eligible krewe mates either betrayed him (Varkk) or bowed out (Pol). Some peers wrote him off as a ‘charity case,’ made even more confusing by him somehow winning Zojja's approval. Truth is, she took a liking to him for his spirit and fighting potential.
Wysma has never met his bio parents. He lived under the care of the Progeny Protective Service agency until age six, when he was taken in by a Statics professor (Qronn) in need of a progeny-shaped social alibi to deflect suspicion from his wrongdoings.
By Asura standards, Wysma isn’t conventionally attractive. Too tall, too muscular (very bookah-coded), and his ears are too small. On top of that, he hasn’t earned a Council-recognized academic award since the Snaff Prize.
Wysma’s large appetite is only rivaled by his adventurous curiosity. He’s canonically eaten every edible HP point. He’s developed a taste for bloodstone cuisine. Tell him ‘don’t eat it’ and he’ll sneak a nibble anyway. Dragon’s Watch still gives him shit about the toxic bacon incident.
Pre and early Pact days, Wysma was sweet enough, but had little to no filter over his words. He never expected to become the politically-entrenched figure he is today. He was very vocal about things or people he disliked (i.e., Phlunt). These days, he’s learned the art of the diplomatic non-answer.
Wysma keeps his hair long because it reminds him of Aurene. He fiddles with it when bored, considers it his best feature, and secretly takes pride in that it’s proof of his combat skill. Keeping hair that long intact on the battlefield isn’t easy.
(ooc) His markings are supposed to resemble dragon wings! The theme's more obvious on his back (and hips).
Despite Wysma’s (positive) track record and Isgarren's genuine almost-respect, Isgarren pulled a batman and maintains multiple failsafes in case the Dragon Champion goes rogue. Wysma would be lowkey offended if he knew.
Wysma carried Caladbolg in Trahearne’s honor, planning to return it to the Pale Tree once the Elder Dragons were gone. It broke at Dragon’s End when Wysma nearly died, later reforged into Aurene’s Bite by her magic upon his revival; a greatsword only effective when he channels her magic into it.
Wysma once kept a residence/small lab near Rata Sum, though he was rarely home. But his presence kept Inquest scheming in check, especially after the destruction of Rata Primus. Since moving to the homestead though, Inquest activity in Metrica Province has been back on the rise.
(ooc) I had SOME idea for what Wysma's bio parents might've looked like. Although it's pretty old, so I may revisit their designs someday.
Wysma’s prismatic hair and eyes come from Aurene’s ascension. He and Caithe have long been subjects of Priory curiosity as Aurene's chosen, but since becoming Wayfinder he’s gotten extra odd requests from the Wizards to use his hair for crafting or research. His natural colors are silver and yellow. (old art warning below):
Qronn, a Statics professor, doubled as Wysma’s guardian and mentor for the first half of Wysma's life. When he died, Wys was reassigned to the slightly kooky Professor Blipp (Wysma's canon in-game advisor).
Wysma 100% made Aurene her plushie look-alike! After her ascension, he retrieved it from Tarir and now keeps it at his homestead.
Wysma can expertly commandeer any living mount, but put him behind the controls of something man-made and it’s chaos. He doesn’t crash so much as just barrel through everything at full speed. He’s the worst with skiffs, and nobody wants to find out how he pilots airships.
Wysma considers Qronn the closest thing he’s ever had to a parent. He’s long since come to terms with the paradox that Qronn wasn’t a good person... he was a bad person, who loved and cared for him best he could, anyway. He still doesn't know why Qronn died, however, or who was behind it.
Even with Aurene napping, Wysma can still tap on his lesser Dragon Champion abilities: manifesting her wings to glide, resonating blasts, conjuring crystal barriers. Being at ground zero of various magical fallouts also augmented his strength, he’s strong enough to throw Braham with some effort. (I sort of imagine his Dragon Champion abilities being literal skills on his hotbar with the cooldown and everything lmaoo--)
He’s got a bad case of RBF. What began as a stoic mask to cope with the mounting pressures of being Commander became second nature to hide his vulnerabilities. Even now, opening up is hard when hope relies on him always being (or looking) strong and unshakable.
Wysma considers raising Aurene to be his greatest achievement; greater than any battle he's won. The night she announced her departure, he and Caithe kept watch on the shore until they drifted off. By dawn, Aurene was gone.
Wysma fights like a tank. His size may once have fooled people, but fame ruined that surprise. He can take a lot of beatings, hit back twice as hard, and is hopeless at anything requiring stealth or subtlety. His hair was doing him NO favours during that one sneaky SoTO mission.
Wysma struggles with wanderlust and a lack of belonging. He can’t commit to living in one place for too long, and if the Asura ever returned underground, he knows he couldn’t follow; he’d miss the sun too much. He feels like he’s no longer Asura, out of step with his own people. He isn’t up to date with their ways, rarely returns to Rata Sum, and feels both isolated from and stifled by the idea of being ‘home’ there. Other times, he feels less like a Tyrian at all, and more like just /the/ Dragon Champion.
(ooc) I associate Wysma with dandelions: simple, but able to take root anywhere even under tough conditions. Transient in nature, but they spread on a breath of hope or a wish, and they’re actually pretty nutritional! Eating Wysma is not recommended, though. (Sylvari!Wysma would be dandelion-based)
He actually has no game 😔 Between fighting Elder Dragons and saving Tyria, he never had the time or emotional space for romance. Now he’s horribly inexperienced with dating and has no idea where to start, and his reputation actually makes it worse. Like… does he have to declare upfront that he’s the Commander, or…
He’s terrible at verbalising affection, so he shows it through actions instead. But because he’s too embarrassed to be direct, he disguises letters and gifts to old friends as reports or welfare checks. He is paranoid about intruding on their new lives, knowing that drama follows him like a curse.
Qronn never expected much of Wysma; he was just a cover. But apathy became attachment, then concern. Fearing Asura culture would eat him alive, he became a micro-managing mentor, pushing Wysma into Statics to keep an eye on him. In the end, his last moments were spent worrying for Wys' future.
Wysma’s profession is Dragonhunter... sort of. Since becoming Champ to an ascended Aurene, he has an altered specialisation, let’s say. (ooc: ft. my low quality shitty rendition of his ‘profession’ icon)
When the airship went down in EoD’s prologue, he cast a shield over Gorrik at his own expense, being too far to cover himself at the same time. It’s why Gorrik was mostly unscathed by the entire ordeal.
He adores kids but never knows how to deal with them. Their blunt honesty cuts right through the “inspirational hero” persona he puts on around them and leaves him speechless. Aurene’s an exception, since their bond runs deeper than words. Young Taimi, however, was a prime example of the former.
Wysma kept shorting out the Canthan jade machines he was hooked up to while in his airship crash-induced coma in EoD. He was (literally) unconsciously draining their batteries to feed Aurene their magic, albeit initially at the cost of his own body. Luckily, they didn’t bill him for any of it.
Wysma still has M.O.X. at his homestead as a housekeeper. It tends to the cats, gardens, cooking, cleaning, even waypoint maintenance. Wysma knows it brought “little Webby” with it… which he has since lost track of. He still worries where the spider went and if it's hiding in his house.
If the Elder Dragons (and thus the Vigil) hadn’t existed, Wysma still would’ve left Rata Sum and all the lab work anyway, just later. He’d have joined the Lionguard and the Tyrian Explorers Society. He still wants to join the latter in canon, but he's a bit over qualified...
Wysma takes his public image seriously. Not out of vanity, but he feels it necessary to embody ideals and morals worthy of his influence. He’s even sworn off swearing, though back in his Vigil days he was a bit more potty-mouthed as any soldier would be (blame Forgal).
It was Professor Blipp who encouraged Wysma to explore his interests. Wysma had internalised his previous mentor Qronn’s insistence that fieldwork and fighting were for golems, but when he picked up a sword for the first time, things instantly clicked. Turned out he did have a talent for something.
Wysma stands well above the average Asura, at just a bit taller than the in-game max height, whatever that is in actual numbers. Unfortunately for him, it’s his natural build. In college, that meant always being the tall-shelf retriever and easy pick-out volunteer.
With Aurene napping, Wysma no longer feels her presence as strongly, but she still perceives Tyria through him and Caithe. Their lives reach her as misty dreams, like how Sylvari memories feed into the Dream. Wysma dreams too, but never recalls details, only a lingering warmth and comfort.
Cerus wrecked his Dragon’s Watch Regalia outfit, so the Wizards fitted Wysma with tailored rift armor (his new drip heh). Though he repaired his old Regalia, he now saves it for ceremonial use.
The Council had a tense truce with him after their Icebrood Saga blunder. They outrank him on paper, but they let him “clean up” Inquest unchecked, and he didn’t use his own influence to meddle in their work. Tensions eased since he left Rata Sum, and he’s on better terms with Ludo individually.
In the Elona fractal, the Wizards assassinated the fractal's Wysma to frame him as never returning, because he’d have never left Elona while Balthazar lived. To study a world where he ‘abandoned’ Elona, they had to kill him. He doesn’t know this, so he did worry if he really might’ve left them.
Wysma is still mortal, but his life is stretched by all the magic he’s been exposed to. He could reach nearly 200 years, twice the Asura’s norm.
After Zojja's absence post-HoT, Wysma tried to take Taimi under his wing for protection, but he was rejected for not meeting the scholastic standards mentors required. He did pull strings to keep Vorpp out, though. Luckily, Taimi’s far more independent than Wys ever was as a progeny.
When Aurene was a hatchling, Wysma would read her to sleep. He never did finish a book though, Commander life meant he was out cold 10 pages in, sometimes before Aurene. When it was Caithe’s turn to put her to bed, she hummed lullabies sung by the Pale Tree (Wys doesn’t know any, oops).
Wys was content as Trahearne’s SIC, being brawn to his brain, proud to follow him into history. He imagined Trahearne one day standing shoulder to shoulder w/ other world leaders. Inheriting Caladbolg was both blessing and burden: his high hopes for Trahearne became heavy expectations for himself.
He actually has the same voice (Steve Staley) as in-game canon! Though I imagine a few octaves lower. He definitely has a bit of a rasp from all the battlefield yelling.
He sported a half-fringe from LS4 to EoD against his will-- Balthazar gave him an haircut and a nice scar across his face to remember him by. Wysma doesn’t really like having short hair, but he had to chop most of it off after his body got burnt to a crisp (his flesh was restored, but not his hair).
Initial intrusion aside, Wysma actually liked having Peitha in his head. During SoTO, he was feeling especially lonely with Aurene gone and Dragon’s Watch busy with their own lives. Peitha’s presence reminded him, in a way, of what it felt like when Aurene was still mentally connected to him.
It’s clear Wysma loves Aurene like a father, but he never calls himself such. He never had a (good) father of his own so the concept is still rather foreign, and the word feels too personal for a Tyrian to use for an Elder Dragon. He won’t diminish her identity to soothe his own, so Champion he remains, in this life or the next.
Wysma isn’t impressed by the Human Gods. Diplomacy keeps him quiet, but his experiences with 2 out of 6 of them were lukewarm at best: one went rogue and murked him, the other abandoned her people. Perhaps hypocritically, he thinks the only all-powerful entity Tyria needs is Aurene.
Wysma wonders if he should train a successor to his role as Aurene’s/Tyria’s Champion. He’s conflicted; he likes being useful, but knows the Alliance would lose a powerhouse if he fell. At the same time, it feels presumptuous to assume Tyria even needs another like him, so he avoids dwelling on it.
Wysma actually has little impulse control when the need for restraint isn’t dire. He’s a thrill seeker at heart and an adrenaline junkie who would throw himself into any extreme sport Tyria has to offer, so long as it scratches that need for danger. He acknowledges it’s maybe a little unhealthy.
Wysma was actually a terrible rookie Peacemaker, notorious for neglecting reports and protocol to act faster. His superiors found him troublesome despite his potential. One did want him to stay (his original recruiter), but at that point he believed he could do greater good with the Vigil.
Wysma refused a Pact pension after resigning so they could keep their resources... So technically, he doesn’t get paid for saving the world (he’s only a little salty). Still, he spends little on himself, has a small fortune from treasure hunting, and the Alliance covers most of what he needs.
Wysma owns several of Snargle’s novels (he’s supporting a friend, honest!!!), even the ones about himself. The latter is extremely embarrassing to him, but he also can’t help being morbidly curious about how much Snargle (and the public) get wrong about him… and worse, what they somehow get right.
An infant Wysma was delivered to a Progeny Protective Services agency by another, older child. The agent never got their name before they ran off.
Qronn disapproved of Wys’ worldly curiosity-- or just going anywhere without his say-so. Partly to hide things from him, and partly out of genuine fear he’d get himself killed. So, as a teen, Wysma secretly hoarded novels, biographies, and maps, and daydreamed about Tyria beyond Metrica Province.
Having ties to (or caused) multiple magical anomalies, the Wizards worry Wysma is like a beacon to Tyria for opportunistic Mist entities-- he did draw Kryptis attention just by existing. Since becoming Wayfinder, they maintain a ward on him. Wysma isn’t fully sure what it does, but he rolls with it.
Wysma is on the verge of an existential crisis regarding his role and relationship with Tyria. He wants to remain of use, but believes all he’s good for is fighting. He genuinely wishes for peace on Tyria, but if it ever truly comes to pass… what place will there be for him in it?
Idk if im gonna try and properly finish this but i tried slappin some colour on this \o/
She may or may not have magma running thru her veins
(as always i think i liked the sketch better lmao)
Also a lowkey oc playlist cause of COURSE ive been blasting music that i think would fit her this entire time lmao (its 99% vibes)
I really do need to give her Real Propper Lore Compliant Name(tm) cause ive just still been calling her Mini Air Fryer in my head whoops
Open to suggestions (or i'll just keyboard smash untill the letters fall together in the perfect way lmao)
Happy August, everyone! Summer is moseying along with all its crazy weather, I hope you're doing your best to stay cool and safe! This Saturday will be the first Saturday of a new month (as well as the first day of the month in general), which means it's time for another art party hosted by my guild, [VS] Verdant Shield!
For those not familiar, art parties are a concept carried over from Final Fantasy XIV: in-game get-togethers for artists of all kinds to hang out, chat, and create together! For GW2 parties there’s more of an emphasis on hanging out and gathering references during the party itself, and then in the days/weeks following to work on your creations at your own pace and then post to the shared art party tag. We’ve used the same one (#VSArtParty) since the very beginning so you can go allll the way back and explore what people have made! The most important thing to keep in mind though is this: the ‘goal’ of an art party isn’t to be drawn, but to draw others, and share with the community!
Time and /squadjoin information is below the cut, but will also be posted again on the day of the party as squads go up!
Location Information:
I've actually wanted to use Chaos Crystal Cavern basically since the very beginning, but have been talking myself out of it for 2ish years because there's occasional hostile enemy spawns in the area. However, the odd enemy aggroing on to the group hasn't stopped us before, so I'm finally going for it! It's one of my favorite jumping puzzles and also one I've dragged [VS]'s guild members through more than once back in the day for jp races, it's always a fun time! :D
If you've never been in the puzzle area before, there's a bush concealing the entrance in the little cliffs to the west of Old Piken Waypoint, just drop down and swim and you'll end up in the area - no mounts or funny business required!
(The area is actually way bigger eastward than I circled but I'm not redoing all my little notes again.)
Time/Squad Information:
The EU server party will begin at 9pm Central European Time (aka 3pm Eastern Standard Time or 4 hours before in-game reset). I’ll be hosting this one on my EU alt account, so please either /whisper or /squadjoin Stormcaller Nell for a taxi invite if you don’t end up on the right map!
The NA server party will begin 1 hour after the EU party’s official end, at 7pm Eastern Standard Time (aka 1am Central European Time or at in-game reset). I’ll be on my main account for this one, so please /whisper or /squadjoin Vaporwave Nightmare for a taxi invite if you don’t see my customary white cat tag hanging around on your map!
My Commander, Vladimir, retired cause he finished his wyld hunt to end the dragon cycle and the encounter with the Oni made him realize he needs to take a break from the battlefield and deal with his trauma.
He gave the mantle to his adopted son, Ciaran. Ciaran, while was happy to continue on his father's job when he can't, suddenly felt like he needed to uphold that heavy mantle. He knows that the title and Vladimir's legacy is well known in Tyria and the amount of hard work, pain, sorrow, etc that comes with the title. Ciaran gets anxious that he can't rightfully fill his father's shoes.
Cue him being transported to the Astral Ward area; the deeds he does that earns him the title "Wayfinder" makes him feel proud of himself. Cause its a title he has earned by himself. Ciaran still loves his father, mind you, but having his own title makes him feel like he's not in his father's shadow.
So when non Astral Ward npcs go "so is it Wayfinder for you now?" Ciaran will say yes. And people still call Vladimir "Commander " despite not being the Commander of his guild anymore and is more so Aurene's Emissary now
So I made a copy of Vladimir before his transformation from Aurene accidentally branding him in the first fight with Kralkatorrik (and also just easier to get references of the different outfits throughout the story)
And then I put his personal story outfit next to him in current events and I just ough....
