#oc: ryuu tenshi

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I am obsessed with how your WoLs voidsent avatar is 7 sisters who ate each other. What an interesting detail :D

Yes! There's more actually; they were all gifted singers, and even went by the nicknames Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, and Ti. During the Contramemoria, they slowly turned into Sirens, and used their voices to lure others to their doom; after the Flood of Darkness, that was how they continued to survive and grow strong.

During the Allagan Empire, Amon captured them and turned them into something he called the Voidsent Pipe-Organ, which I based on the myth of the Cat Organ (CONTENT WARNING: ANIMAL CRUELTY; thankfully hypothetical).

They remained trapped there for millennia after the Crystal Tower sank. At that time, they were still separate, because the ambient aether of the Source was enough to sustain them.

Turns out in the Black Rose timeline, the Sisters had *still* been in the Tower when Garlond Ironworks began their work, and remained there when it was transported to the First; they'd been mostly ignored because they were a) still trapped in the damn pipe organ and b) not very dangerous anyway. Unfortunately, the Light aether of the First was painful for them and threatened to be overwhelming, so they began to devour each other to protect themselves, renaming themselves Astarael.

When Ryuu was trapped on the First at the same time as Thancred (she got Isekai'd; she's co-WoLs with Kian, who was the one that the Exarch was trying to reach), she sought the power of Darkness in order to protect herself. She found Astarael and made a pact with her. When she returned to the Source, the original Astarael came with her, and her equivalents on the Source chose to merge with her to get out of the tower.

I named Astarael after the seventh bell/Bright Shiner from the Abhorsen series by Garth Nix. In game, I use the wind-up Succubus to represent her; I'd rather use a Siren but there isn't a Siren mini :(

[selene-ffxiv]

more onswers to thonkers

----------------------- CHANGES

7. Have they gone through any physical changes? What scars have they collected, and how do they feel about them? Did they sprout horns or other features as a result of spells or pacts gone wrong? How did light corruption impact them? Or have they walked away miraculously unscathed? Are they more peculiar for how eerily unmarred they are?

Most noticably, Kian's got a scar on his cheek, picked up during Operation: Archon. While he used to hide it behind his hair for a while, he barely even thinks about it anymore these days. Then there's a whole number of smaller scars on his arms, he picked up in fights while still living in the streets. Then there's the mark on his ribs left by Zenos during their fight at Rhalgr's Reach.

8. What is one of their biggest regrets? Has it had an effect on how they act moving forward, for better or worse?

His biggest regret happened before he even really set out on the whole adventurer thing. He had a falling out with his best friend Ryuu, and while it lead short term to him trying to avoid forming new connections altogether, eventually it just meant he values friendship and love much more now.

9. The Warrior of Light has been through quite a lot, but what is a moment, big or small, that bolstered and renewed their spirit? Was it a cup of hot cocoa or a lovingly crafted sandwich? Did someone give them a few words or a gesture at just the right time that meant the world to them? (Of course, this can be a canon event or headcanon!)

Every damn time somebody steps up although they are not the Warrior of Light, Champion of Eorzea, blessed with the Echo. Seeing people try their best, especially if they are no fighters.

10. What does home look like for them now? Do they still return to the home where they started, and if so has it changed at all? Or have they found or forged a new home? Who do they live with, if anyone? What sort of things do they keep in their personal space?

Home is where the heart is, so it's with wherever with Ryuu and in Ala Mhigo with Lyse.

11. Despite everything, is it still you? Has the core of who they are as a person remained true through everything, or have they been changed by what they've experienced and learned, for better or worse?

He'd like to think he's a better person now. And he certainly is. His days are much brighter now, though at night, when his guard is down, nightmares sometimes pounce.

[tycutiovevo]

ask me questions about my ocs im thirsty for questions n i want to draw my babies

here’s all their names if you wanna ask stuff (and i’ll put same story characters in parenthesis groups): (winter, marsh, celeste, autumn, polar,) (sammy, jackson,) (gabriel, will, june, jasper, roxy, mercury,) (yuu, hiro, ryuu, tenshi, katsu,) marzio 

[capriccio-ffxiv]

Penumbra, the Herald of Darkness

Once a week, she read to the children of the Crystarium, something they all looked forward to.

"Miss Penumbra! Miss Pen!" they'd say, "Tell us about Minfilia again!"

This was a favorite story, even if it was a sad one, because it was about a young girl.

"Once upon a time," she said, "A stranger came from another..."

But today, the door opened. Today, in walked a ghost. The last she'd seen of him, he'd rushed to her side. Held her while her head split with pain. Then he—and everyone else, save Thancred—was gone.

"... world?"

That had been five years ago; five long, strange years. She'd nearly given up hope that the Exarch would ever succeed.

"Kian?"

"... it's really you."

[capriccio-ffxiv]

Finally finished the little secret campsite/hideaway in Ryuu's Island Sanctuary <3

[capriccio-ffxiv]

oak :   who would your muse consider the strongest person they know ?

Ryuu: Probably her uncle Valdeaulain. Val has been through so, so much awful bullshit—losing his wife and daughter to Black Rose (Ryuu's aunt and cousin), losing then his in-laws in the Calamity (ryuu's parents, who he was actually fairly close to), then... everything else. But he kept on living, despite everything. She also felt she would have killed Gaius anyway, and considers Val to be incredibly strong for seeing the bigger picture and letting the man live.

Illyria: WoL!Illyria doesn't know anymore. What's strength? What's the point? What's anything? Serve save slay. One foot in front of the other. It doesn't mean anything.

Not!WoL Illyria... proooobably Edmont de Fortemps, especially because he's a big reason that she's not nearly as messed up as WoL Illy.

Hyperion: Venat. Straight up. There's no question. His elder sister went through more, endured more, suffered more than anyone else he knew and yet still chose to see the brightness in things... and that was before she took on the mantle of Hydaelyn. He could only hope to try to make her proud.

Dionysos: Strength is an illusion conjured by men in power to convince others that they are weak. The truly strong are those we consider the weakest. This worm, here, is the strongest, for it churns the soil, the aether of the earth, such that we may draw sustenance from it. Kill the worms, those things we call "vilekin," and watch as the aether stagnates. Who is strong, then? The one who kills himself by killing the weak, or the weak who hold up the pillars of the world?

[capriccio-ffxiv]

normal feelings about our WoLs here

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is it weird to get piggyback rides from your cousin

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With the fall of the old order of Ishgard and the followers of Nidhogg both, I feel as though I can, at last, embrace my heritage in full. I am Elezen, and I am of Ratatoskr's brood. These things are not in opposition, but in harmony.

[capriccio-ffxiv]

anyway, zz

[capriccio-ffxiv]

Nascent evening thoughts:

* finally writing more about the Twelve but kludging names as Data (Hyperion & now Ryuu's familiar) filling in gaps

* Ryuu begging the soul that's taken up residence in Data to move on & incarnate somewhere else; but Data insisting that even if it's the half-life of a mechanical "familiar", he wishes to spend it by her and Kian's side

* that even if he had no soul before the Sundering (because Hyperion went out of his way to prevent that, not wanting to accidentally bind a soul to such a state), those memories are still his, and he's still very fond of Hyperion and Selene

* so he will stay until they're both gone from this life; and then maybe, if he's lucky, he'll get to be with them as a person next time

(Hyperion sent Data forward in time to Ryuu; that act of love [even if it's an odd kind of self-love] broke the wards he'd tried to make to prevent it from gaining a soul. Even those wards were experimental & not guaranteed. Like idk, Ancient birth control??? Data was built as a literal computer; Hyperion didn't want to accidentally trap a soul in that state, no matter how loved his machine was) (but love is love and Dynamis is Dynamis and some fragment of something heard his wish of "someone will remember us; even in another time" and chose to make it so) (but whatever Data is, new soul or old, it was his choice to do this)

[capriccio-ffxiv]

don't mind me it's benchmark blorbos time

[capriccio-ffxiv]

Help me pick a beach glam for Ryuu.

poll roughly in order of the glams listing what sets/parts they are

Re: colors, Shisui is not dyeable so that's locked, though I'm working on getting the other Shisui glams (griiiiiind x_X), but I'm totally cool with other colors.

Note that if you pick Other, please keep in mind

1) I only created this character in the past year-ish and I would prefer not to buy cash shop items, so I don't have access to a lot of the previous holiday outfits

2) her Island Sanctuary is currently rank 10. I'm working on it! But it'll still be a while before I get access to the really fun beachy glams from there.

3) She only has 2 million gil total to her name at present and is only level 50 in most crafting disciplines, so some of the more expensive crafted glams are out of reach

4) I have limited patience for stupid-long grinds and RNG bullshit (eg, Eureka, Bozja), though I have been running Shisui to try to get the rest of those glams!

5) I do not have Rogue/Ninja leveled and don't really plan to so at the moment no Scouting glams please. I have one of each of every other armor type, though Samurai is currently only level 64ish.

[capriccio-ffxiv]

apple blossom :   how does your muse go about expressing or not expressing their sexuality ?

PHEW that's a COMPLICATED one, for a lot of reasons!

So, up until very recently, I identified as asexual, and grey-romantic. When I created Illyria, it was with the express idea that I wanted to explore a character who is a lot more sexual than me; who is completely allosexual and alloromantic, and confidant about that. Illy is loudly and proudly bisexual; but for her, sex is very casual. It's just another fun interesting thing one can do with friends, there's nothing special or sacred about it. She's blunt and forthright about sex and sexuality, in a way that some of her friends find kind of awkward.

Ryuu... ha. Ryuu was based on a self-insert I made up when I was like, 15/16 years old. I re-tooled her as mostly ace but sapphic, in the way of "not sexually attracted to people, but romantically attracted to women, and willing to have sex with women." That... all changed over the course of RP with my RP partner, when poor Ryuu (... and myself) got "... shit, I'm bisexual" plus "... shit, is this what sexual attraction feels like!? oh no" She's still not terribly comfortable about expressing her sexuality around anyone but her partners (currently Y'shtola and Kian, her co-WoL)

Seshat: Seshat is so damn new and based on my Guild Wars 2 toon. GW2!Seshat was completely aro-ace and Seshat will probably end up the same. Every time I think about "who would I ship her with" I'm like "That cat doesn't have a sexual thought in her fluffy orange cat head."

Hyperion: Ryuu's Ancient. Hyperion liked to put on a pretense of Yep I'm a Totally Normal Guy in Normal Ancient Society, while... secretly changing his sex/gender all the time to see if anyone even noticed. When everyone has to wear the same clothes and masks and hoods, turns out, nobody does. It was a little game he played. Luckily for him, his wife thinks that's hot as hell.

Dionysos: Illyria's Ancient. Dionysos is based not just on Dionysus, but also on Diogenes and the Cynics. Unlike Hyperion, Dio never once bothered to hide or pretend that they were Normal, and in fact in their youth they were briefly Altima before being exiled for writing seditious plays (when they're not Azem, anyway). They were extremely lucky to *only* be exiled and not just executed; Emet-Selch was instrumental on arguing for their exile and not execution (the man was young, recently appointed, and still really liked Dio's plays. Even the seditious ones. Maybe especially the seditious, salacious ones...). Dio was the kind of person to have public sex just to scandalize people and to make rhetorical points about problems with Ancient society.

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Current EU playthrough stuff with my friend who is playing for the first time. We just cleared Elpis; I Fantasia'd Ryuu temporarily into Hyperion, her ancient.

Me: before we go any further I need to know your Azem's pronouns. I keep defaulting to she/her but Azem is YOUR character in this case

Kian: I actually really like the idea that she's a woman

So yeah Ryuu's Ancient is a man and Kian's is a woman 🏳️‍⚧️

He named her Selene, to match Hyperion, which is all kinds of lovely and ironic, because Hyperion was originally stupid jealous of Selene getting picked for the seat of Azem. But they later became best friends and on again / off again lovers. Hyperion is also what I call First Adjutant to the Words of Azem, so sort of the vice president I guess. Does all the paperwork lol.

Hyperion is also Venat's little bother by a LOT. He's not that much older than Selene. I like to think he was Venat's parents last big thing before they returned to the star, leaving Venat kind of like "??? You left me to care for your son??? *By myself?*" Which ultimately feeds into her need to not leave work unfinished.

Ironically Selene looks more like Venat's sibling than Hyperion does. Hyp looks like he's related to Lahabrea, which he resents.

Anyway. Sun and moon motifs. "And together, we are a glorious eclipse, bringing shade and brilliance both." Which I think is such a lovely call forward to Shadowbringers.

[capriccio-ffxiv]

Soft OC asks: 🍄 - food

Illyria: her dad makes these amazing ginger lemon cookies that she loves. She's a very good cook, too; used to spend hours in the kitchen with her dad. Unlike most people from Gridania she knows what spices are (in part bc her mom isn't from there; she's from Limsa)

Ryuu: She has a fondness for dried mangos, and she really likes everything she tried out in Hingashi and Othard. Ever since her vacation trip with Kian to Dravania, a breakfast of smoked fish, apples, Coerthan tea, mushrooms, boiled eggs, and Goblin cheese is something which brings up fond memories. She used to be a *terrible* cook, but she's gotten much better. Not near as skilled as Illy, but she can reliably make food that is edible now!

Bonus Ancients:

Dionysos: wine. ... But seriously they just like *food*. They'll try everything once and most things twice just to make sure.

Hyperion: also really likes mangos, both dried and fresh. Something which Ryuu inherited I guess.