#mulchspeak

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hey gw2 players rb/reply with ur characters and ill possibly maybe per chance draw them

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people that play nonbinary/trans characters in the public roleplay scene are stronger than any US marine

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happy trans day of visibility, gw2 community! you should reblog and tell me about ur trans & nonbinary characters :)

iovitus & tinkk are both nonbinary, laoise is agender & intersex, and nero is bigender!

trans people are so awesome and i don’t feel like there’s a lot of trans/enby characters in the rp community, but i do see quite a bit on tumblr… so id love to hear all about yours!

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big fan of when a character’s view on otherwise common values (family, love, religion, morality, etc) are a little bit skewed actually. bonus points if it has to do with that character’s upbringing/childhood

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it should go without saying but my blog is NOT a safe space for terfs/ableists/zionists/transphobes/homophobes/etc. unkindly go fuck yourself and get off my page you are not welcome here

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oc introduction: iovitus rainbreak

TLDR: iovitus rainbreak is a 28 year old ex-blood legion soldier turned gladium following a traumatic event that left them without a warband and resulted in their expulsion from the legions. nowadays, they live with their older, also ex-blood cousin – gratta rainsunder, played by @rytlockdripstone – and are trying their best to move on from their past, but really, they’re just ignoring it and calling it an improvement

content warning: death, verbal abuse, bullying, ableism, drug use, mild torture, suicidal ideation

word count: 3049

born to two blood legion charr in a futile attempt to fix their failing relationship, iovitus was the second cub of lia windwalker (dame) and silas firekeep (sire). they had an older sister, eudocia, who died in infancy due to an unknown genetic illness. they were healthy for their early life and were sent to the fahrar when they came of age – things would quickly turn there, however, as a young iovitus soon fell into an intense illness – the same genetic one that had taken their sister, years before. it seemed to have sat dormant for a while, but the unfamiliar environment of the fahrar sprung it on. during their time spent in the hospital, iovitus would be visited by their mother whenever possible, though her visits were far and few between. she just wanted to see to it that her only remaining cub would survive – silas had been killed just a few months prior in a skirmish, so there would be no third chance. iovitus would survive this, but it left them permanently immunocompromised and threw off their hormonal balance, rendering them much smaller and scrawnier than their peers, and the young charr would never quite grow out of it. 

once strong enough to get back into the fahrar, iovitus had fallen quite behind their peers and had to work hard to catch up, all the while enduring relentless bullying for their comparatively scraggly stature and somewhat delayed social skills. to cope with this, iovitus eagerly seeks to prove themselves to their peers, taking on more and more dangerous dares and doing incredibly stupid things that a cub of their age should not be doing. in this time, though, they do make one true friend. he’s a year their senior, but the two grow very close, though doesn’t do much to protect them from the bullying at the hands of the cubs. in spite of this, however, iovitus continues to seek out validation from people who don’t have their best interest in mind, and this most certainly comes back to bite them in the ass. at one point around the age of six or seven, iovitus and a few other cubs sneak out of the fahrar’s grounds and explore the surrounding area; sometime during this, iovitus is either pushed into or falls into (they can’t really remember which) a ventilation shaft and breaks their right leg at the ankle. ouch! due to the nature of the breakage, it’s determined that the best course of action is amputation below the knee, so, goodbye leg. 

after spending some more time in the hospital to recover, iovitus is thrown back into the fahrar and continues their studies to the best of their ability, though they now have to walk with a mobility aid. no accommodations are given to them by their no-nonsense primus, tullia wildrush, which iovitus sees as some sort of punishment for their misbehavior, and begins to harbor a dislike for her authority, which will only continue to grow as time goes on. in actuality, tullia is attempting (for better or for worse) to push iovitus harder, knowing that if they do survive to adulthood, their opponents on the battlefield will actively target their newfound disability. the bullying they’d endured previously stalled briefly as the cubs had been harshly punished for their behavior by tullia, but it slowly fell back into where it was before – if not worse. before, iovitus might’ve been lightly pushed around, but now the cubs had something they could physically take from them: their walking cane. this continued till they were 10, when things shifted drastically: iovitus got into a physical fight with a girl who’d taken their cane and refused to give it back, pushing her down onto the ground and hitting her till she was still. oh. oops! after this incident, iovitus would be given a proper prosthetic limb by the primus, and the bullying died down – though it didn’t quite come to a complete halt, it was marginally less severe than it’d been previously. iovitus was never properly punished for the death of the other cub by their hands.

time passes, and iovitus continues to train hard in the fahrar, doing exceedingly well with both the longbow and throwing axes. as they shift into a teenager and are enveloped in the throes of puberty™, they go through what could be called a rebellious phase, purposefully going against what their primus says just for the fun of it – it earns them something of a respect amongst their peers, and iovitus relishes in that feeling, doubling down on their misbehavior. they also begin whatever the fuck the tyrian equivalent of hrt is, deepening their voice and earning them a neat little row of spines down the back of their neck, amongst other things. it’s only taken temporarily, as iovitus is satisfied with what they get out of it and don’t feel the need to continue. iovitus acquires a lot of piercings during this angsty bout of teenagehood. it is also during this time that they are introduced to the realm of illegal substances, doing whatever fun little hard drugs they can get their paws on. it never becomes an addiction, however, and iovitus is still keen to do well in the fahrar, despite everything. additionally, their close friend comes out to them as a trans woman, taking on the name cassia. she seems much happier afterwards, and the two blossom into a couple. win for the gays! 

soon after, the two of them graduate from the fahrar – cassia, despite being a year older than iovitus, stayed behind an extra year so the two of them could graduate together. rather than forming their own warband, however, they are invited to join the rain warband, as the both of them were amongst some of the best combatants in their year’s crop. iovitus took on the surname rainbreak, and cassia, rainsong. the rain warband was a spec-ops unit, operating as a sort of jack of all trades, doing whatever was needed of them – which usually meant killing what needed to be killed, interrogations, search and destroy/rescue missions, et cetera. all was well for a period of time, and cassia was quickly promoted to second-in-command, despite her young age. her prowess with the blade was incredible, as were her quick problem-solving capabilities and general badassery. iovitus also fell out of their drug usage during this period, though still did so recreationally whenever there wasn’t much to be done. things were good for a while, but they didn’t last long, thanks to the brewing conflict between the legions. wartime was fast approaching.

due to the nature of their warband, iovitus was spared from ever having to fight directly on the front lines, but that does not mean they are out of harms way; the rain warband is constantly moving from area to area, securing different zones, conducting quiet cullings, extracting information where they can, and doing whatever was needed of them without asking any questions. cassia was promoted to legionnaire after her predecessor was killed in a run-in with some flame legion soldiers. life went on and it kind of sucked because war sucks! iovitus gained a few cool new scars, so on and so forth. in the brief downtime that they have, iovitus and cassia talk about what kind of a life they’d like to live together when everything’s said and done. eventually, 2 members of the ‘band would be killed in an escort mission gone awry, leaving only 6 members alive. still reeling from the death of their previous legionnaire, this would hurt – but it was nothing in comparison to the event that would perspire in just a short few weeks time, so close to the end of the civil war. 

responding to a distress call from a nearby allied warband, the rain warband would find themselves locked in combat with a much larger, well-prepared set of flame legion soldiers. the warband they had been responding to were all already dead, so any attempt at rescue was out of the question. overwhelmed and underprepared, iovitus’ bandmates slowly fell till it was just them and cassia left – the flame legion warband had taken a few hits too, however, with a generous number of their bandmates dying. exhausted and grieving their fallen bandmates, iovitus and cassia are captured by the flame legion soldiers – rather than just killing them outright, however, they are tied up and beaten half to death in a futile attempt to squeeze any information out of them. being a spec-ops unit, however, they don’t really have access to anything they’d find useful, leaving the flame warband dissatisfied. there was no point in keeping the two of them alive, so they make the easy decision to just cut their throats and be done with it. cassia is first, and iovitus can do nothing but sit and watch as she bleeds out in front of them, coughing and sputtering, choking on her own blood. it’s an image that’s permanently burned into their head, and they watch the life slowly disappear from her eyes.

its their turn now, but just as the blade is put to their throat, their impending execution is interrupted by another blood legion warband – the tremble warband, who’d come to their aid, also having received the distress call from earlier. too little, too late. they are able to find and cull the remaining flame legion soldiers and rescue iovitus, but iovitus is, naturally, very upset. they’d just lost their entire warband in the span of a few hours and their partner – a staggering amount of grief overtakes them, and they’re not thinking properly. iovitus begs the tremble warband to kill them and be done with it – they reason that there’d be no witnesses to know what truly happened, and iovitus’ death could just be attributed to the fallen flame legion warband. the tremble warband refuses, obviously, no matter how much iovitus pleads for them to change their minds and reconsider. if they’re not going to kill them that easily, maybe iovitus can give them a proper reason to take them out. without any inclination as to what they’re doing, iovitus lashes out against their fellow blood legion soldiers, striking true with their axes – they manage to kill three before they’re knocked down onto the ground and hit hard enough to fall unconscious. iovitus wasn’t given what they desired – the release of death. they tried their hardest, though, having taken down the legionnaire and two bandmates.

following this, iovitus was brought to the blood legion homelands where they were put on trial for treason. iovitus didn’t care to fight the case, admitting guilt, hoping they’d be thrown into and die in some sort of gladiatorial combat. for whatever reason, however, the newfound legionnaire of the tremble warband, omiros tremblecut, decides to withdraw his case, instead allowing for iovitus to live freely as a gladium, much to the dismay of his bandmates. they are still found guilty of treason, though, and are expelled from the blood legion. at the time, iovitus did not know why the legionnaire did this. if they were in the place of the tremble warband, they knew that they’d certainly press for a painful death. iovitus knows now, though: the life of a gladium is a difficult one, ridden with grief, constantly followed by the things that they have done, knowing they can never return. there is no second chance; word of their crimes would spread, and even if iovitus was permitted back into the blood legion for whatever reason, they’d never find a warband willing to take them. it was a sentence worse than death, in a way.

leaving with nothing but the clothes on their back and a (stolen) raptor, iovitus wanders tyria for a few weeks, surviving off what little money they have on them. they don’t know what to do with themselves – it’s a brand new, unfamiliar, and quite terrifying world, and they have to navigate it all by themselves. part of them hungers for an easy death, but iovitus is too much of a coward to actually do anything. eventually, their funds run dry, and iovitus takes on a few odd jobs to get by. they purposefully pick and choose jobs that are dangerous, like mercenary work, hoping they’ll have an unlucky accident and end up dead. despite their best efforts, however, it doesn’t happen, and time slowly goes on. during this time, iovitus develops a fear towards other charr, avoiding them to the best of their ability – really, they avoid most social interaction in general, only talking to people when they absolutely have to. they’re also technically homeless, sort of just camping out in the woods when not actively enrolled in a job. life is miserable. iovitus takes out most of their piercings and begins smoking more regularly – it’s an easy distraction from their thoughts. they know it’s bad for them, but they do it anyways. maybe on purpose. since their expulsion, iovitus has actively worked to distance themselves from their charr heritage, taking on a more passive approach to life, and harboring a distaste for violence. 

at some point, iovitus picks up a job as a ranch hand, and discovers a previously unknown love for and skill with animals. iovitus takes comfort in them – sure, they have their raptor, but she wasn’t something iovitus really thought too hard about before. she was just kind of there. from here on out, iovitus begins to take on more and more work that deals with animal care and studies, slowly making a name for themselves in the community. the gladium begins to do their own simple research on genetics on the side, though they’re never confident enough to post anything they find. it’s all kept to themselves. time passes, and iovitus continues to work, pushing aside any thoughts of their past and pretending their heritage is nonexistent. they gain a few new companions along the way – first is meatball, an undead, underbaked minion of zhaitan who is too small to really do any actual harm. he’s free from the control of zhaitan, and sort of just acts like a bitchy cat most of the time. then, the aptly-named meathead, a smokescale whom iovitus rescued in maguuma after he’d broken his leg. meathead is trained in combat, and acts as iovitus’ companion. their most recently acquired little beasty is a griffon. he’s gifted to them as an egg by one of their coworkers, and though iovitus is hesitant to take him at first, they concede, raising him from a hatchling. he’s named W.P., and don’t ask what it stands for, because iovitus will never tell. 

as much as iovitus loves their animal companions, they are getting more and more lonely – it’s been a few years now. they are more social with their coworkers now than they were before, but don’t form any real meaningful relationships – most jobs are just a one-off thing, and iovitus loses contact with anyone they work with after they’re done. they crave the comfort of a warband – or, really, just anyone in general. the thought of another romantic relationship is overwhelmingly painful for iovitus to even consider. iovitus isn’t really sure where to start looking for companions. they don’t really like the limited feeling of living in a city – besides, the kind of work that they do requires them to move from place to place constantly. living in the woods also means iovitus has all the space to do whatever the hell they want and they don’t have to worry about neighbors or anything. it's fun! sort of. they do have to worry about bears and stuff, though, but that’s manageable. 

as terrifying as the prospect is, iovitus begins to look into their own family heritage, tracking down bloodlines and listing out all of their still-living relatives. charr don’t particularly care for their families, but iovitus doesn’t know where else to look – and they’re already not a very traditional charr, anyways. they have no siblings, so that’s out of the question. most of their aunts and uncles have been dead for a while, but iovitus’ mother is still around, as are a handful of cousins. well. it’s better than nothing, they suppose. it takes months of them building up the courage, but iovitus sends out a bundle of letters to any relatives they deem worth it, hoping they are unaware of their status as a gladium or don’t really care too much. most of them don’t respond, but iovitus does get two letters back – one from their mother, a harshly-worded response calling them a slew of insults and a blemish on their bloodline. ouch! thanks, ma. the other is from an older cousin – legionnaire gratta flashshot of the flash warband.  she’s unaware of the things iovitus has done, but knows of their gladium ranking. she doesn’t seem bothered by it, and the two grow close, spending more and more time with each other as time goes on. iovitus seems happier. are they? uhhh lol

gratta sort of moves in with iovitus, and eventually she leaves the legions altogether to live with them full time, all while iovitus continues to work – though at a much slower pace than they had been doing previously. they also spend more time in the human city of divinity’s reach, having made a couple of friends due to gratta’s unintentional influence. they have yet to connect with any charr outside of gratta in any meaningful way, still put off by the thought. iovitus also doesn’t really talk about their past unless prompted to, but there’s some things they haven’t told anyone – and they’d like to keep it that way. the thought of their friends – and, primarily, gratta – finding out of their crimes and wrongdoings terrifies them. so they’ll just bury it deep inside of them, and that’s that. it’s not healthy, but iovitus pretends it is. recently, iovitus has learned of their cousin’s occupation as a rift hunter, and are worried for her. it’s dangerous work, and she’s been doing it for a while. iovitus would much rather be doing it with her, to ensure she doesn’t get herself killed. they just don’t really know how to ask. oh, yeah, they also smoke a shit ton of weed, i guess

and that's where things stand currently! who knows what's in store for this kitty cat! wow i sure hope nothing bad happens to them!

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psst hey guildwarsers would you be interesting in hearing a bit about my ocs….? most of them don’t have super duper expansive lore but it gives me an excuse to make some more

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oh i still hate eparchs design btw why does he look like that ??????? i get most of his power is magical and not physical but he just looks so weak. i could snap that guy in half. his silly little pointy feet

meta spider-eparch looks so much cooler than what we got in the story. and his fight is more fun too….

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pinned post time

hi im levi! this is my gw2 blog and currently my only tumblr blog. i dont use any other social media outside of discord, toyhouse and artfight, but im not super active on the last two. i mostly post about my own (& my friends) OCs here, but i will reblog other people's art, screenshots, memes, etc pertaining to guild wars. heres a little bit about ... me!

→ 19 years old autism/adhd superworm

→ they/them pronouns preferred, but he/him is good too if we're mutuals

→ this blog is strictly SFW, i won't reblog or answer anything suggestive/nsft. artistic nudity will be tagged accordingly

→ oc asks are always open just dont be weird

→ paperclipdragon.2160 in-game, NA only. proud member of the mulchgang [MLCH] and crimson smoke merc company [CSRP]

→ i do a lot of in-game RP pretty frequently, so feel free to say hi if you spot me!

→ mutuals can ask for discord! i dont really use DMs a lot and im more comfortable chatting in servers but both are okay!

art tag - #my art

chit chat tag - #mulchspeak

OC & content warning tags under the cut!

OC tags

#iovitus rainbreak - main OC! ex-blood gladium & soulbeast

#astronomer tinkk or #tinkk - newly-grad lonely little asura

#nero wolfcaller - shy and stoic blood legion charr

#laoise of night - sapling sylvari who ran away from home

#ruckus gutsaw - blood legionnaire with a taste for piracy

all other characters i tag are either not mine or are NPCs ill probably get around to adding my NPC characters to this post eventually...

content warning tags - if theres something on this list that is not tagged and you would like me to tag it, feel free to ask! a lot of my OCs have pretty heavy topics in their backstories, so if thats not your forte, i suggest muting these tags!

#blood cw & #cw blood - blood warning

#cw nudity - nudity warning

#drug cw - drug mention/depiction warning

#death cw - death mention/depiction warning

#suicide cw - suicidal ideation/mention warning

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thinking about soto again. does anyone else feel like eparch feels a lot less threatening than, like, even cerus did in early soto? we hear a lot about how he’s this great tyrannical leader who eats his subjects and ooh ahh so scary!!! but we never really see that. we see the aftermath of what he’s done, which yeah sure, he’s a bad guy and i feel sympathy for the kryptis under his reign, but it’s not enough for me to feel like he’s a threat. i understand anet wanted to keep his design and grand reveal towards the end of the storyline but i feel like he could’ve been a much more effective villain than what he currently is if they did less of telling us how bad he is .. and more of properly showing it. we also don’t ever get to interact with him personally until then. even something minor like him talking to the commander akin to what peitha did would be nice. in some of the first story scenes with cerus, it establishes how strong he is in comparison to the commander and the way he can just so easily overpower us. eparch doesn’t do that. he suspends us in the air and knocks us back for like three seconds and then leaves? ok man

i think it would’ve been so much nicer if during the big confrontation scene with peitha, labris & eparch if eparch … ate labris. in front of us. and left. it’d show he really doesn’t care about his family/subjects and it would also just rock??? and make labris’ death much more meaningful than it was. and his design. it’s okay he’s cool looking and all but he looks so boring in comparison to cerus & deimos. he looks like he’s about to keel over and die whereas the big demon bros were intimidating looking. EPARCH LOOKS LIKE AN OLD MAN! maybe that’s the vibe they’re going for but id rather him be some big horrifying beast of a demon than what we got

maybe i’m alone in this but idk. i’ve enjoyed soto so far but there’s certainly issues

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"they were already dead by the time iovitus committed their crime" Maybe(likely) I missed an old post, but please, do elaborate 👀

tldr: iovitus’ warband was killed by enemy charr and they were the only survivor, a different blood legion warband came to assist them, iovitus asked the legionnare to kill them which she refused, so iovitus thought theyd force it out of her and it didnt really work. they just landed with a few murder/treason charges and got kicked out of the blood legion. oopsie!

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Ruckus Ruckus Ruckus, who is she loyal to and why?

ruckus ruckus ruckus! well, it’s less of a “who” she’s loyal to and more of a “what.”

she’s a pirate to her core, which means she’s got an affinity for all things shiny and expensive — it’s her ultimate motive in life, to garner as much treasure she can and keep it to herself. part of it is due to growing up in the legions, where she didn’t have much of anything for herself in more ways than one: no privacy, no money, no sense of self, no choice in how she wanted to live her life. after ruckus graduated the fahrar, though, and started doing her own thing as a legionnaire, she realized that having freedom… feels kinda… good?!! she doesn’t care much for legacy, and despite having a number of cubs running around somewhere out there, she doesn’t keep in contact with any of them and thus they aren’t getting a whiff of her gold. ruckus also has a very good sense of self-preservation to the point of selfishness. she’s not keen on sharing things and prioritizes her health & well being over others.

she’s not really like the pirates you see in movies and media, with their hearts of gold and general well-meaning… which is something of a problem when you’re a legionnaire & first mate of a crew. that’s not to say she doesn’t care for the people around her — she does, but she’s not against double-crossing any of them if the need arose. she loves having wealth, even if said wealth is acquired by dubious means. she shifts around from place to place depending on what’s most lucrative for her at the moment. her centurion & bandmates aren’t aware of her side-gig as an airship pirate. well, all but one — agar (owned by @bannedaid ) accidentally discovered ruckus’ work and she gave him two options: die by her hand, or join her. needless to say, agar picked the latter. she’s a blood legion charr, but it means nothing to her, and her life wouldn’t change drastically if she were legionless

ruckus as a character is still fairly new, so some things are subject to change, but i doubt anything too big is gonna happen. i love my giant greedy woman.

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I'd like to know more about Iovitus and their cousin--I wanna know about their relationship and what exactly it is they do.

What is Iovitus' relationship to the main story of gw2? Has Iovitus had any significant others, or desire for such?

A potential big one, what was Iovitus doing during the Rally, and what are their thoughts both on it, and the subsequent Civil War?

(@commanderhorncleaver)

I'd like to know more about Iovitus and their cousin--I wanna know about their relationship and what exactly it is they do.

absolutely! i love talking about the cousins and i could spew about their relationship (iovitus’ side, anyways — gratta is not my character so im not going to speak for her here) for ages. the two of them have known eachother forrrrr roughly a year now? not 100% sure on that timing and i’ll have to look at the story timeline again but i'm pretty sure it’s been that long. gratta moved in with iovitus a few months ago and just sort of decided to stay which iovitus was more than okay with! they’d been living alone (aside from their pets & mounts — which i also need to talk about! i can’t believe i haven’t yet tbh their pets are very important to iovitus as a character) for a few years until then and it was kind of starting to take a toll on them. since then, the two have continued to grow closer and closer, with gratta surprising them with an actual proper house as a wintersday gift. well, proper is probably pushing it — it’s a charr tank that gratta refitted into a house. prior to this they’d just both been staying in a tent — iovitus’ lifestyle required them to travel a lot, so they didn’t really see the need to settle in one spot and lived on the road. they function as a legionless warband in a way, but iovitus doesn’t really want it to be seen like that; they share the ‘rain’ surname, but they’d rather just be.. family. not a warband. recently, they had a mutual friend of theirs move in with them as he was going through a break up and didn’t have anywhere to stay. gratta invited him to move in permanently without consulting iovitus beforehand and the two got into a brief scuttle but it’s mmmmmostly been resolved. as for what they do, gratta is in the process of starting up her own mercenary company and iovitus is acting as her second-in-command. it’s still very much in the early stages and isn’t really open to the public juuust yet. alongside her mercenary work, iovitus helps gratta with… other jobs. she does some side stuff with the astral ward, mostly acting as a hired gun. iovitus aids her with this when possible, and is technically currently in nayos getting their ass kicked by some kryptis. wonderful. iovitus still does their own work when possible, but currently they’re more focused on aiding gratta — not only because they want to, but also because work is a bit hard to come by for them with where they’re currently situated

i could go into more depth about how iovitus views their relationship but hrrmmphhg this post is already long and i might just save it for its own thing. overall, though, iovitus harbors an intense love & admiration for gratta and would do anything she asked them too if it made her happy, even putting themselves in harms way for her sake

What is Iovitus' relationship to the main story of gw2?

there isn’t much of a relationship, if anything! i don’t have any characters that pose as my commander/interact with dragon’s watch/etc. the closest they’d come to interacting with the story is just their legions work during the icebrood saga/civil war, and visiting nayos. they were never aligned with the pact or any of the main orders, though they have worked alongside the priory due to their current occupation(s). whenever i do stuff for the story i usually play as iovitus but that’s just cause they’re my main, both in and out of rp… and i love charr female voicelines so i can’t help it

Has Iovitus had any significant others, or desire for such?

yes oh yes. they’d been with cassia rainsong, their legionnaire, since before either of them graduated the fahrar. the both of them were devoted to one another. iovitus wanted to have cubs with her, but she died before they were able to ask. (even if cassia survived the civil war, however, it’s unlikely that they would have had cubs due to iovitus’ overall poor health. their body probably couldn’t handle a pregnancy and it’d likely just end up in miscarriage or iovitus’ own death) iovitus still mourns cassia to this day and can’t seem to move on from her death, holding themselves back from even considering any sort of new romantic relationship. they really really miss having someone to call their own but feel as though they’re being unfaithful or disrespecting cassia by moving on. grief is a funny thing! i think eventually i do want them to grow and move on and find someone new to love, but for now, they’re stuck in a sort of limbo.

A potential big one, what was Iovitus doing during the Rally, and what are their thoughts both on it, and the subsequent Civil War?

this is something i’d eventually like to make a post of its own about, so i’ll be brief here. their warband was originally planning to attend the rally in grothmar but weren’t able to due to an assigned mission going on a bit longer than they’d anticipated, as well as one of their bandmates being killed in the process. as for the war, well, war sucks! needless to say iovitus doesn’t think too fondly of it for all the people they lost (and other things) but i’ll expand on that at a later date…. :)

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2, 37, and 38 for Nero!

How does their social personality differ from how they act when they’re alone?

not very much, to be frank! nero is very quiet and hardly talks, if at all. she only ever really opens up to her warband, and even then most of her communication is done nonverbally, by means of vague gestures, body language, or, if nero is really feeling brazen, sign language. when alone i imagine she actually mumbles and talks to herself very quietly, just because it’s something to do. that being said, i don’t think nero gets a lot of alone time; she likes being around her warband and feels at home with them. when she’s alone, she feels sort of out of place and unsure of herself. the wolf warband is focused on finding, scavenging & selling old materials they recover from areas ravaged by war and/or elder dragon shenanigans, which keeps nero & the ‘band busy — so she’s not ever really alone. she definitely acts different when she’s with just her warband vs with other people, but the difference is pretty subtle. nero is shy, but not in a nervous or self-conscious way; she just doesn’t know how to interact with others which usually results in prolonged periods of silence and lots of staring…

How would they spend a lazy day when they have nothing specific to do?

sleep. or paint! nero is a painter. he’s usually busy with legion work stuff so he doesn’t get to do it very often, but he’s actually a pretty skilled artist. his favorite medium is gouache, and he focuses primarily on portraits! nero doesn’t really work on commission and just sort of does what he wants, which usually means he paints members of his warband. he also does landscapes, but he’s not as confident in his ability with them… nero was never professionally trained or took any art classes or anything, it’s just a skill he’d picked up over the years and continues to do in his spare time.

What do they usually do or where do they go when they need to feel comfortable and safe?

wherever her warband is. nero has a deep connection with everyone in her warband, seeing as they’re a really small group — iirc there’s only four or five of them right now? — and feels safest when they’re all together. one of her bandmates — aspity wolfbracken — was separated from the warband after being trapped in the mists for a while, so nero feels especially attached to them after their disappearance. aspity isn’t my character so i won’t go into too much detail about them … there isn’t a lot of times where nero feels unsafe or uncomfortable; she’s pretty resilient, having seen both the horrors of the civil war & the remnants of elder dragon destruction, walking away unphased from both. right? probably. haha. yeah. (not really, she represses a lot of the horrors she’s seen and kind of assumes it’s just how things are supposed to be … oh no….) she’s confident in her ability to defend herself and her bandmates, as she’s pretty tall — above average at least — and in good shape!

[skrittkicking]

Asks for Iovitus: 1, 19, 38, 50

What first impression do they typically make? Are they likeable from the get go, or take time to grow on people?

hmm. for this one i’d say it kinda depends on who they’re talking to! for the most part iovitus tries their best to be easy and inoffensive, and doesn’t mind chatting with strangers. they’re very polite and have good manners, and are probably more of a doormat than they really should be … iovitus wants to be likeable from the get-go, and they’ll try to achieve this to the best of their ability. that being said though, their passive nature is a bit of a turn-off for some people; they can come across as spineless or cowardly which isn’t far from the truth i suppose…!!! iovitus’ social skills aren’t the best with people they don’t know, so generally they’re reliant on the other person carrying the bulk of conversation till iovitus becomes more comfortable around them. if they’re talking to other charr, theyre still going to be passive and digestible, but they’re way more closed off to the point where it comes across as rude — or, at worse, snobby. iovitus is just eager to get out of that conversation as quickly as possible, and don’t generally mean anything personal by it.

If they could change one thing about their past, what would they change?

i’ve thought about this one for a looooong while and i think if presented with the opportunity to change something about their past, they probably wouldn’t take it. it hurts so bad and iovitus has so much shame and resentment towards the things they’d done, but just changing one thing wouldn’t make them feel better — nor would it change much. instinctually i think their first choice would be to try and save their partner, but they already did try, and they failed. if iovitus went back as they were now and were given a second chance at saving her, they’d be less successful than they were in the first place; they’ve lost a lot of strength & weight, they’ve been neglecting their combat training, and they have other people that they care about too much to leave behind. it just wouldn’t really work out! if not that, iovitus might choose to stay with the legions — and, yknow, not commit a war crime ….. i think they would struggle to find a warband both due to their disability/stature, but also just because of their own demotivation; they’d just lost their own warband & mate after all … not very easy to move on from that. they might not even find a new warband, and take on work as a free agent, which kind of negates the whole point. either way, they’d end up just as lonely feeling and isolated as they already are

What do they usually do or where do they go when they need to feel comfortable and safe?

very minor warning for drug mentions/implications on this one!

uuuhhhmmm. well. home, probably. they like their bed …… it’s very nice and soft and they have a lot of blankets. but aside from that they like to go on walks and kind of get lost in the woods for a few hours at a time when they want to be alone — but that doesn’t happen very often. iovitus likes the company of their friends & cousin; their presence is enough of a comfort! as for what they do, they probably busy themselves with housework, or tend to/train/play with their animals. it’s a good way to keep themselves distracted from whatever’s bothering them. on the less healthy side of things though iovitus probably just gets high and then goes to sleep. don’t cope like that, that’s bad!

What are they really good and really bad at?

as a ranger, iovitus is naturally good with animals! they’ve got a green thumb, too, but they don’t utilize it to grow their own things most of the time, instead foraging and finding their own food. iovitus has lots of pets of their own, and they’re all very well trained (for the most part) and in good health. they’re a decent liar when they want to be, thinking quick on their feet and crafting lies that are close enough to the truth to sway any sort of suspicion that arises. iovitus also excels in combat, much as they try to avoid it — they’re easily overpowered when it comes to hand-to-hand combat though. weapons and fights to the death are much more their style; nowadays, though, they are more inclined to let themselves lose. as for what they’re bad at, iovitus is not very good under pressure when they’re with others — alone, they do fine, but if they are with people they panic and splinter. as mentioned earlier, they are pretty bad at brawling, primarily due to their small size and comparatively low muscle mass. they also aren’t very good at talking, often stuttering & stumbling over their own words, or mixing up similar-sounding words — especially when nervous!

[skrittkicking]

u should send me oc asks right now btw