DuskDream.8042

Rai ✿ Genderqueer + Bi ❀ she/they Tarnished Coast : DuskDream.8042 ~~May post 18+ material~~

[spiderfeathers]

some warm-up doodles, thinking about how i draw asura hands and feet. i usually give them thick curved claws, and picture the end of the toenail worn flat where it meets the ground. the foot itself i imagine as pretty flexible, with splayed toes while bearing weight and a more "paw" type shape when relaxed. i think some asura must have narrower/more delicate toes, hence the market for some of those shoe models with them bound.

[shroomlet]

karaoke rats cuz i miss anims so much 🥺

[system-architect]

Complex Inquest Character Asks

wanted to self indulgently make an oc ask meme that might help ppl develop their inquest more in depth :-) ik there's at least one other inquest ask post out there but i wanted one with particular sorts of probing questions! feel free to reblog obvs

Have they been an Inquest loyalist since the start, or did they defect from another faction? Is there a risk they'll defect away from the Inquest in the future? (If already defected: If it were possible, would they go back?)

What is their rank, and how did they attain it? Did they WANT that rank? Do they wear it well?

Related to above: Are they SATISFIED with their rank, or do they want to keep climbing the ladder? Do they feel they deserve better than they've been given?

How well do they perform their job? Do other Inquest respect them, or are they on the chopping block?

How is their relationship with the concept of violence? Do they view it as a necessary evil, avoid inflicting it where possible, or even enjoy it?

Do they have a guilty conscience? How do they cope with or personally reconcile the continuous stress and horror?

"Fun" one: What's their uniform like? Is it a generic-issued uniform, or custom tailored? Are there any features built into it that assist with their job?

Have there been any times their loyalty to the Inquest was shaken? (Are they that loyal to begin with?)

Have they ever been involved with an experiment that could be considered truly immoral-- or, even had one performed on them? What's their attitude towards that event?

How do they feel towards Inquest leadership? (Optional: How do they feel towards Kudu and Kuda?)

What are their feelings towards the Arcane Council and Peacemakers? Have they ever been arrested or questioned?

What's their life like outside of the Inquest? Do they blend in with society well, or are they flagrantly a member of the metakrewe?

What was their real motive for joining the Inquest? Whatever their job or area of research is, why is it that they feel they can't perform it within normal society-- why do something so extreme and push moral boundaries?

It is said that the Inquest view the Eternal Alchemy as "a thing to be mastered and used, rather than merely understood, for the ultimate purpose of establishing asuran dominion over other species". Do they believe this-- is there a psuedo-religious/philosophical element to their Inquest loyalty? How do they feel towards other races?

Were they involved with any of the canon GW2 events that involved the Inquest-- Thaumanova, Crucible of Eternity, Sorrow's Embrace, Rata Primus, etc? (Optional: How'd they escape when the Commander rolled in?)

[system-architect]

oh hey i just remembered this, it never quite took off but perhaps with VoE...? feel free to add new developments to questions 10 and 15!

[fivebrights]

The Commander's cry for help

[system-architect]

psa.. they stealth added nice glasses w/ dyeable lenses into the wizard vault but it doesn't advertise it. just buy the weird beach wizard hat and you get them for free

they default to extremely dark on most colors, but dyes that 'pitch up' like the electro and glint dyes will give you neon or transparent lenses 👍

[system-architect]

the biggest gift anet has given to me this xpac actually is an instanced inquest area in an incredibly quick to clear story chapter that is also full of furniture and tiny rooms. i'm going to roleplay the fuck out of this place.

[timberline-falls]

*clambers out of a pile of dusty old characters and ancient RP logs*

new instanced inquest area HUH???

[frogayyyy]

idk i just really want everyone to know about the word vermiculation

[eulers-biggest-fan]

Would you still love me if I was vermiculated

[timberline-falls]

toxic asura yaoi prelude

(part 1 here) (reminder that my fics are often 18+ so be advised)

Tezzin fell backward, hot breath exhaling as the pillows caught him. He heard his partner's amused giggle as he regained his breath and felt the cool subterranean air soothe his sweaty forehead. Though he rested his eyes, Tezzin's ear caught her movement, twitching weakly in response.

Kezza crawled over him, and took in the view of afterglow flushing his features before nuzzling his cheek. "What a scintillating surprise," she smiled against him. "Can I infer your presentation went well?"

An exhausted chuckle came through a sigh from the spent asura below her, "I-I suppose it did, y-yes."

"I knew you could do it," she whispered encouragement beside his ear, her breath still warm. "You were so nervous.. I'm proud of you." He felt their torsos meet, and he blushed at the sticky texture it applied to his partner.

Tezzin swallowed, but returned the nuzzling. Kezza took the opportunity to kiss him, and offered a slow rotation of her hips to tease his overstimulated body. He shivered involuntarily. "K-K-Kezza.."

That giggle returned, though Kezza then carefully withdrew herself from him, and sat down. Propping himself up on his arms, Tezzin saw she maintained the wonderous enchantment between her legs. It was a modest size, ever-erect and a shimmering glossy purple that dazzled the eyes. The mesmer had designed it after coaxing specifications from him, and Tezzin found it perfection. It was perfect, yet he wondered..

Tezzin stopped the thought in its tracks, but golden eyes flashed in his mind. His chest tightened with the truth.

Kezza tilted her head at the small shift in his demeanor. "Vinn? Is something wrong?"

"A-Actually, K-Kez, I-I.. There was s-something, I w-wanted t-to ask y-you about." Tezzin gathered himself enough to prop himself up on his hands, his knees bent. He ran a hand through his tussled hair to no tidying effect.

Kezza hummed and nodded, ears cupped forward with curiousity in her eyes.

Tezzin swallowed again. "I-I.. I en-encountered the Disaggregator, a-after m-my p-present-ation."

The mesmer tilted her head slightly before shaking it. "Gerik?" She sighed, "Did he give you a hard time about your lecture?"

Gold eyes pierced his memory. An echo of sensation under his chin placed a yearning in his body, one he could suddenly identify with clarity.. And fear.

"Don't mind him," she continued, smiling, "The mention of synergetics always brings out his contrarian side. He once argued with me for three hours about applied synergetic theory in his dynamics lesson plans."

That was right. The Disaggregator was the notoriously challenging professor young Dynamics students would extol about in the commons and crafting halls. Where in that imposing form and cruel looking eyes was there an asura capable of being an instructor?

He found himself inexplicably drawn to discovering the answer.

"N-No, it.. It w-wasn't a-a-anything l-like that. He.." Tezzin searched for new words, which his partner patiently awaited. "H-He act-actually e-enjoyed m-my presentat-ion! H-H-He st-stopped me a-afterward, t-t-to tell me s-so."

Kezza's ears lifted and her eyes brightened, and she placed her hands on his knees. "He did? That's fantastic, Vinn! I regret I was unable to be there personally," she frowned, and rested her chin on the back of her hand so it balanced on his knee. "May I request a private recitation?"

"O-Of course, Kez." He smiled, and it revived her own.

"So what was it you wanted to ask me?"

Tezzin's smile was wracked with nerves he hoped he disguised. "O-Oh, I-I, um," he shrugged, "I-It's n-n-not important."

She tilted her head, "You're positive?"

He nodded. "I-It was n-nothing," the lie passed his lips. In truth, his question had answered itself, making space for the new ones which rushed to replace it:

If given the opportunity, would he?

Should he?

Would he?

With Kezza's presence to soothe his worries, Tezzin decided to let go of wondering. It was all a fiction which lived only in his mind, after all. There was no rational cause to believe the Disaggregator felt such an inclination, let alone enough to consider him a potential partner of any sort. In fact, Gerik seemed to have made a point of letting him know his disdain. Even now, Tezzin could still feel the fear he instilled in him.

It would be wise to listen to the fear, he thought, and ignore the wayward butterflies in his stomach.

[guildwars-questions]

To hopefully start of strong,.guild wars community:

What is your favorite NON playable faction?

For example: the jade brotherhood, the inquest

[timberline-falls]

Under Siege - The Approaching Storm

"It is coming, you know."

The footsteps behind her came to a stop, along with their familiar resonance in the empty chamber. After a moment, he replied.

"I know."

He continued forward to where she stood on the overlook, stopping at her shoulder to share the view. The plume of black that had marked Divinity's Reach for the past week rose into the evening's dense clouds, far enough in the distance that she might have convinced herself there would be time yet.

A steadying weight fell on her shoulder, and after a moment, Kezza turned her head to regard him with a dim hope. "Do we have news?"

Her ears drooped under their ornate cuffs before he could formulate an answer, leaving the Disaggregator shaking his head.

"I should have issued the retreat sooner." The Magistrix stepped forward from him, placing her gloved hands to rest on the overlook's stone rail. "I should have been down there, Gerik."

"Kez.."

"You know I should have. This could not have happened if I had been present when we breached the city."

"You were needed here."

"They needed me!" She shot back, unwilling to turn again to face him.

"Pwitt needs you. Kez, I need you. So does the rest of the Krewe."

She was quiet, and eventually, her hands fell back to her sides in the same defeat the last few hours had trapped her in. "Their deaths are my responsibility, Ger."

As her ears curled back, Gerik joined her and took her hands in his. Though she would not face him, Kezza offered no resistance.

"They'll escape, Kez. Just give them time."

The press of his snout against her forehead sent welcome warmth to her chest, and she took a breath in hopes it would steady her.

Kezza exhaled. "Have you given the orders?"

He replied, without parting from her. "Yes, Magistrix. Preparations to ward the city cube are underway."

Magistrix. The title she kept, despite long surpassing its scope in the course of her career.

She drew his hands to her lips, kissing the knuckles of his gauntlet in thanks, and nodded. "Then, there is nothing more for us to do."

"Rest, I think, should be your current priority."

Kezza hummed, and gently nodded. "You're correct. As always, Gerik."

Finally, he gave her that same old smirk that would bolster her spirits. "Was there any doubt?"

Gerik gladly caught the kiss Kezza bestowed, soft and brief though it was.

"Take me to Pwitt," she requested. "I need to see my progeny before I can rest."

Gerik hummed, and pecked her cheek. "Yes, Magistrix."

[timberline-falls]

I want to ramble about something that I don't think I've really rambled about before. I've danced around it a lot, but I've always held back from being direct and focused on it.

But, as I'm basically retired from open RP, and it's still nagging at me, I'll just… start typing I guess, to the one or two of you interested in a little Kezza retrospective.

Playing Magistrix Kezza did not go as I planned. But I guess, what good RP ever does?

To start, I didn't think she'd be that much of an oddball. Her backstory was just being a young college grad, naïve enough to be taken in by the Inquest propaganda that was no doubt targeting students throughout their late education. If you've attended USAmerican high schools, you know the kind of recruitment efforts I had imagined.

Kezza, bright and well-meaning, was convinced of two things by the Inquest PR campaigns at the time of her recruitment: 1) Between the dragon below and the whole of Tyria above, asurakind existed in a small and precarious corner of a world that never wanted them and did not wholly welcome them. 2) The Inquest offered the best path forward for asurakind, securing a future that was worth any sacrifice, including signing her life away on the recruitment form.

So she did.

I didn't expect her to stay Inquest. I expected to either see her talked out of drinking the kool-aid, shown or realized the error of her ways through RP events, or.. That I'd just let her get killed off during one of the (many) times she was threatened or attacked by anti-Inquest (anti-Inq?) characters.

Her resolve was only ever bolstered. More on that later.

Kezza started off shy, and barely competent as a mesmer, but she had the spirit. So much so, that eventually, I realized the Inquest had a clever move to make with this pawn: Let this sweet face and bubbly personality front public relations. Her apparent innocence could sell the Inquest messaging like no one else. She could become a dream recruiter, and sweep in fellow idealists the same way she was swept up.

Kezza was joined by a more militant, cold and calculating scientist, named Gerik. He was to ensure plans with Kezza went in the Inquest's favor, whether that was acting as her bodyguard or dispatching her for being a suspected spy. (Gerik begun as a deeply self-serving bastard who planned to take Kezza out and usurp her department for his own gain, but was eventually so won over by her personality and earnestness that he loved her instead. Emblematic of things to come?)

The two would venture about, trying to recruit asura, and play foils to other characters/organizations in this snarky, Team Rocket esque, sometimes goofy or slapstick style we had for baseline RP. (we would adapt our tone according to RP, of course, and had no real limits-- As long as it could be accounted for in-universe and didn't contradict canonical events/tone it was gladly taken on. This would later become a staple guideline for [INQ])

These were my earliest days in open RP (boy do I miss the days of Tarnished Coast open RP). I was encouraged by how many whispers we got about people loving Gerik and Kezza and their hijinks. We made a lot of people smile and laugh, and it was really rewarding being the 'bad guys' in an ecosystem that lacked a proper Team Rocket style baddie. It was especially fun to be able to fill the baddie role for players whose characters needed an Inquest character to play off of.

That's where the guild came from. [INQ] was founded by myself and Balderdashing (Gerik), as a way to unite RPers whose stories were tied up in the Inquest one way or another. And as we grew the guild, I figured, so too would the stakes grow, including Kezza's notoriety within the metakrewe.

The Magistracy was intended as a fancy title for the paper jockey department. A bureaucratic mire where endless complaint boxes were emptied and never sorted, where challenges to Inquest activity could die with plausible deniability, and the accountability fell on the shoulders of a photogenic, earnest, and well-meaning PR head that would always take one for the team. 'Magistrix' was a title Kezza took to heart, but to the Inquest, she was a scapegoat at very best. In the RP ecosystem at the time, I didn't see anyone else pave this kind of path. Most Inquest affiliates were blatantly evil scientists, assassins, rogue experiments, and the odd mercenary or bookish nerd. I wanted to bring something different to the table, and broaden the avenues of RP for those interested.

Over the years Kezza climbed ranks, along with her subkrewe, and gained more and more responsibilities, up to earning (and a few times losing) her namesake title of Magistrix. The whole while, she was more and more invested in her subkrewe, her little department of Inquest 'baddies' whose lives were now her responsibility, and constantly under threat. Her life changed, over and over again-- She even had a kid! But her dedication to the metakrewe never faltered.

Why, is sort of strange to reflect on. I was always open to and even expected to some day find an RP encounter that would shake her, even if a little. A character to challenge her beliefs, or maybe just patient enough to say that hey, fascism is bad actually! Or that through some happenstance, she'd see an error in her ways, and be forced to recalibrate around difficult truths.

What happened instead was Kezza witnessing the violence levied on her subkrewe directly, on herself, on her family. On good days, asuraphobic slurs were an everyday reminder that she and her people were not welcome, even as other races made use of asuran tech or took asuran partners. She became more insular, more skeptical, more fearful.

Between her lived reality and the kool-aid she'd been sipping since college, I didn't see a way out for Kezza. She never lost her good heart, but the things she's had to see and do and sign off on are not things she'd have done if she knew there was a better way. And I know its corrosive.

I'd like to keep playing her, I think, if only to see where her story ends. Does she ever overcome and escape the Inquest? Does someone ever put her out of her misery? Does she grow to someday fully embrace the evil she's been serving?

I'm never really one to RP with goals in mind. Characters gonna character. Whatever happens, happens. But I'm still so curious about this little goblin's journey, and especially in the year 2025, I'm particularly drawn to her story again.

I haven't looked at how much the latest expansion packs cost, because I am broke, but I'm hearing rumors that make me reconsider leaving GW2 completely. Kezza and my other characters are still important to me and all have stories to experience.

so hey.. what do you think?

Save up some $$ to get the expansions I'm missing

Rejoin RP, with or without the above

Nothin'

Have some closed RP, here on tumblr or some such

Rejoin RP fully + get the expansions, rejoin the community!

Voting ended onAug 5, 2025

[vezimira]

no i will not be buying the world boss teleportation device, yes you will be hearing about my wizard fanfiction

[timberline-falls]

Would it be weird to pick up gw2 again just to give my little guys some new hair styles?

[bpdloop]

wow! your understanding of this character is so. . . Unique! just wondering by the way but when was the last time you directly interacted with the source media

[bpdloop]

respectfully to everyone whos been like Well have you considered idc about the source media and im doing whatever i want with my little blorbos <3 like... you know thats allowed right. like thats fine. i am not condemning you. But you have to accept the fact that nobody has that context besides you unless you put that disclaimer on everything you make. and youre not gonna do that. so if i go into a character tag and see someone call the character, who is canonically a cat, a dog with no extra explanation with their whole chest, i am not going to go Ohhh haha theyre just playing dolls! i am going to go Just wondering by the way but when was the last time you directly interacted with the source media

[spiribia]

i think of zhengyi wang's earlier concepts for jormag and primordus full bodies every day on this miserable and blighted earth

[timberline-falls]

if it were up to me asura would have cloacae. Their androgynous design, what we know of their biology and evolution, idk man. They may just be monotremes. How cute would an asura nest be? Open your minds to the cloacae.

[skydrifter]

Weird and off-putting sylvari my beloved. Sylvari who are beautiful in a distinctly nonhuman way that feels uncanny to stare at for too long. Sylvari who are enchanting in the same way following the fae into the woods is enchanting. The longer you spend in the Grove the more you feel the Dream at the edge of your mind, incompatible with non-sylvari but whispering in your peripheral nonetheless, and when you leave you feel like something is missing.