#elven's swtor headcanons

[joiedecombat]

Muse Meme

(Electric Boogaloo)

I was tagged by @greyias! ...also a while ago.

I will return to my regularly scheduled yammering about SWTOR characters very soon, but this time I’m going to mix things up a little with a character from one of my perpetually-simmering, never-cooked original WIPs.

This is partly an excuse to air this concept out, and partly because I looked at the questions and couldn’t think of any answers for Maia that I haven’t already talked about in previous meme posts. <_<

Your Muse’s Name: Alsandír. “San” for short, at least among a fairly select group of people.

One favorite picture/face claim of your muse:

(Édgar Ramírez in Bright, a direct inspiration.)

Two headcanons you have for your muse:

He’s the rebellious liberal kid of his family, not that anybody could tell it from casual observation. Most of his relatives hold the fairly common attitude that magic should be controlled by elves; meanwhile San, who has had firsthand experience of the kinds of Bad Things that can happen when magic goes wrong, is really not keen on seeing anyone use it and is not so much on the elven superiority train. (Comparatively. He’s still kind of an elitist snob, just not as much as you’d expect if you have much personal experience with elven culture.) He’s also a lot less ambitious than his family would prefer, since he prefers being out in the field where he can take direct action rather than being focused on climbing the ladder to a position of greater power. All his means his relationship with his family is kind of strained.

As a child he wanted a pet jackalope. They’d venture out into the lawn and garden of his family estate sometimes and he liked watching them.

Three things that your muse likes doing in their free time:

Logic puzzles, mostly sudoku and unnecessarily complicated variants on sudoku. It’s a way to occupy his mind whenever he has to sit around waiting for whatever, which is a frequent occupational hazard. 

He’s an astonishingly good cook, which he claims is in self-defense because it’s impossible to find decent cochinita pibil anywhere on the east coast. (When you’re as long-lived and fixated on lineage as most elves, the family recipes - like pretty much anything else involving elven family lines - become Very Serious Business indeed.) Plus relying on someone else to prepare all his meals, whether it’s takeout or a personal chef, would ultimately be a security hazard. It’s more convenient for him to be able to feed himself, and if he’s going to do it, he’s damn well going to do it right.

Reading up on cold cases and supernatural history because he’s a workaholic nerd with a fairly barren personal life.

Seven People your muse loves/likes:

Here’s where I admit that the overall concept is not yet really developed enough for me to list many specific characters, but...

His family, despite the increasingly strained relationship mentioned above. Elves tend to be clannish, multiple generations sharing a household, so while he doesn’t have siblings he does have cousins (several branches removed in some cases) who are basically like siblings, an absolutely terrifying (great-)grandmother, etc etc. He doesn’t necessarily see them often (since most of them live on the opposite coast) and he mostly tries to avoid talking about his work or other sensitive subjects because he’s the rebellious liberal black sheep and that’s a great way to start an argument, but they’re important to him nonetheless and nobody else had better say a word against them.

His team in the Department of Magic Regulation*. Mostly humans, mostly subordinates rather than peers, but they’re pretty much all people he trusts and are honestly the closest thing he has to friends for the most part (that barren personal life I mentioned). One of them is very loosely based on Pete Wisdom because of reasons.

Co-protagonist Raine Mallory, who is in essentially the same line of work (magic regulation) but way on the other end of the spectrum (underpaid county employee vs elite federal agent) and ends up presenting him with all kinds of new perspectives on quite a lot of things. Because yes this is ultimately a romance, why do you ask?

*(Actual official name still to be determined.)

[chaoticspacefam]

Better-late-than-never mini lore post.✨✨ (Obligatory spoiler warning for the Jedi Consular storyline, if you're a newbie to the game and/or for whatever reason haven't played JC all the way through yet and don't want spoilers, don't click under here)

I can't remember what her name tag was (sorry kiddo) but man, I always feel bad for this poor kid ;;-;; Gelan why did you have to do this to her she didn't deserve this. And I think This Is It for Aria. She's been a ruthless, "remorseless" (or so she likes to try and convince herself, *gestures at the PTSD*) killer since she was Just A Kid. But THIS kid (I'm operating under the assumption that this kiddo is a rookie. She sounds young to me, so I'm guessing she's absolutely no older than 20 tops) gets to her in a way that every other Jedi Master she's been killing for her father/Darth Noctis ever could have to this point. Maybe because it's a little bit like looking into a mirror of sorts....could that little hesitation and turn back be...some guilt, perhaps, Ari? 🍵

[chaoticspacefam]

I said I would talk a bit about whenever I find Aria picking the Light-side option over the Dark-side options, so coming at you with another headcanon post! This one is less of a surprise to me, but it’s still interesting enough to make a talk-y post about so here we go: this Imperial scientist...medic..whatever guy, on Hoth. The Light-side option is to heal him and let him run off, Dark-side option is to let him die of hypothermia. Of course, in this instance, Aria picks the LS option. Not necessarily out of the goodness of her heart but purely because she is, after all, a sleeper agent and she understands that letting this guy die means one less medic for the Imperials. Therefore, healing him up and letting him go is a no-brainer for her. Also as far as the scientist guy goes, from the Consular storyline. I do headcanon that she lets him live for the same reason, although he never actually gets to the Republic as a prisoner of war, as instead Aria’s father sends someone to “intercept” the soldiers taking him prisoner so he is returned to the Empire to work under her father; because again...why kill him, or risk letting him go to the Republic where he can squeal about the Empire’s secrets to the Republic/the Jedi when Noctis can just as easily send another Sith (possibly Vano, but not sure on the timeline and how that would line up. So it might be Vano in the final draft or it might end up being some other rando depending on how that works out as I get to writing that part lol) to pick him up and ensure none of this gets to their enemies ;)

[chaoticspacefam]

There’s quite a few points in the Consular story where it’s honestly really hard for me to determine what Aria would do, and sometimes the answer is a WEIRD one. This bit on Taris is one of ‘em.

So, you’re offered a choice between saving this woman, Laria (Light-side) and saving the Jedi holocrons with a bunch of medical data that could save “thousands” of lives - supposedly (Dark-side). I always thought Aria would be the “pick to save the holocrons” gal but strangely enough after agonising on the decision for a few minutes....I ended up concluding she’d save Laria. NOT out of the goodness of her heart though (sorry Laria, I like you pfft🤣) but rather because, well...on one hand, Darth Noctis (her father) would certainly have interest/be invested in getting his hands on those holocrons full of information he might be able to eventually use to his advantage. But on the other...letting the holocrons explode means the Jedi don’t have access to them either. Considering Aria’s whole schtick is “sabotage the Jedi from the inside out so that by the time we hit Tython at the end it’s almost a clean sweep” I feel like objectively it makes sense for her to “choose” Laria over the holocrons in this instance.

It’ll be really interesting from my perspective to see where else in this story she ends up choosing the “Light-sided” dialogue options except in Subterfugeverse canon it will be entirely for fucked up and selfish reasons so, you know, objectively it is NOT a light-side choice at all for that reason. 🤣😛

[chaoticspacefam]

Headcanon: Old Sith Gods - Chirikyât

CW: possible body horror (WAY too many eyes), general creepy vibes,  do not click below the cut if sensitive to that theme!

(Obligatory disclaimer that this post and its contents are MY personal headcanons for MY SWTOR world and by no means meant to be decreed as “the ONLY version”. If you don’t like them, that’s fine, go make your own then. Any attempts to stir the pot will result in liberal use of the block/blacklist function.)

Forgot to post this dude here when I finished him the other week!

Please DO NOT repost my art! It’s MY art, not yours!! (unless it was a gift/commission of your character, then you may ofc repost as you like as long as you credit me for the art)! Reblogs are always appreciated <333

You can view more (temp info is all that’s on there rn but this will be expanded when I have time!) info, including a better res of the image (so my writing may be easier to read), and design notes, on its toyhou.se >HERE<

My version of (one of) the Sith Gods. (”will you make more?”, yes, eventually. I need to do a LOT more reasearch on polytheism/polytheistic beliefs to ensure that I can represent such things properly & respectfully before I actively create any of the OTHERS, but it is somewhere in the near ish future!)

Some theme songs/ “Vibes”(w/ youtube links!) : The Yawning Grave - Lord Huron, Whisper - Burn The Ballroom, Lunatics and Slaves - Sin Shake Sin, Bones - Emily Finchum

Chirikyât (He/It) | Hssiss (technically...) | The patron god of House Ahaszaai. God of Battle (NOT War, this is an important distinction for later ;)) and Death.

I only gave it a semi-thumb bc honestly he’s fucking terrifying enough WITHOUT opposable thumbs, and I think giving opposable thumbs to a Force-eating Eldritch horror entity would be making it a bit TOO op XD

Further inspos that I couldn’t fit on the page bc my writing is Huge and I didn’t want the file to get too big JUST for writing djhdjdg:

Charon/The Ferryman (Greek mythology)

The Banshee (Irish mythology)

Mimics (D&D)

Seems to “draw in” Force energy, may or may not be a Derriphan... (unconfirmed, and he would never tell ;))

It doesn’t have an official/canon Voiceclaim yet, I’m still searching for one that fits (tm), but its voice echoes, and I imagine it to sound very...rough, like the kind of pitch you’d expect when you imagine “rusty nails on a chalkboard”.

Temp Bio/WIP Info:

Has a long-standing and VERY personal beef with Zildrogg & his worshippers (Zildrogg knows what he did /jk its a spoiler ;)) Bound to the ruling Ahaszaai monarch and/or their heir(ess), may only be commanded by them (however, WILL be tolerant of the monarch's family members/loved ones i.e. will not eat them on sight, just don't tell him what to do lol). Said to have blessed the Ahaszaai family with the gift of Psychometry, and their loyalty to him is what ensures another of their line "inherits" the gift.

If a member of the Ahaszaai is particularly responsive/receptive to his communication and actively interprets the Visions given, they may be bestowed the title of Rhak-skuri, the Dream-singer. Why dream singer? Due to the fact that Chirikyât can communicate with anyone it chooses, telepathically, while awake, but while it's sleeping, it seems to only be able to reach those who possess Psychometry; and often will reach out to them in their dreams. (Saarai did not sign up for this but here she is /lh)

[chaoticspacefam]

Elven Rambles About Character Builds

So! As we know, SWTOR’s body types (especially for the women) are sorely lacking in proper variety in-game. It’s something that’s always bothered me, and I have specific images in my head for how I imagine each of my main girls to look in terms of their figure. But the problem is, for all of them, none of the in-game body presets that are available come close to their actual builds, I’ve just had to settle for “eh, I guess this is as close as I’m gonna get, whatever”

I’m putting the rest under a cut because it gets quite long, I do talk a little bit about the slavery plot point of the Inquisitor storyline so that’s something to be aware of before proceeding, but it’s mostly just a lot of me rambling about my dumb space children so be prepared for a lot of reading, I guess (there’s pictures too tho!) haha

Aria is certainly the “worst” for this, because while she has a “baby” face, her torso is a lot chunkier, and most importantly, she’s short, ya girl’s 5 ft 1 for God’s sakes! I don’t know if it’s just my eyes, but to me, BT2 looks the “shortest”, so even though BT4 is probably the “closest” I can get in game to her overall structure, it’s too tall for her. So, I’ve ended up having to “settle” for BT2 even though it makes her look way too slender, really. (honest to God, can we have someone on character design that doesn’t insist on every woman having a perfect hourglass figure because “they have to be that way or they’re not attractive”, PLEASE Bioware! Bigger, round or square, or pear-shaped or whatever, ladies, can still be beautiful too!)

And let’s not mention that there’s such a vast difference in all the different male body type options (look at male BT2 and male BT3 for instance) And yet for the ladies, the differences are so subtle that I honestly have to squint to see them (and yes, I have kinda crappy eyesight but it should be more easily noticeable, if you can do it for the men you can do it for the women, you fucking cowards) because that’s a whole other rant. ANYWAY

SO, Ela shared the link to this site in our wonderful SWTOR content creator discord that I’m resident in and of course my brain went “wait a minute, I can use this”

So I did. It’s certainly not perfect but it’s good enough to give a much closer representation of how I imagine their builds/shapes to look. As mentioned I have a general idea of how I want them to be shaped in my head, but it helps to have a visual reminder when I’m trying to draw them, so now I have been making these silhouettes to add to their (new) ref sheets when I get round to em

This is more along the lines of how I imagine Ari to look. She’s smol, and very square-shaped, with a fair bit of fat on her lower half especially (it all goes to her hips, I feel ya girl XD) So, I reiterate again, BT4 would be “correct” enough in terms of the pudge and the general shape, but it’s way too tall-looking in all the cutscenes I tried it in. So, BT2 was what I “settled” with, but this is the sort of build she should have.

and then in-game, Vano, Ni’kasi & Saarai are all BT3, because it’s the only “tall” option, but there’s a big problem with this because as the only option, it means your character has to be “tall and perfectly hourglass” which is....not the case really for any of them. There’s literally no options to have a “tall/big” lady but also have a different build or muscle structure and it frustrates me to no end, because even though they’re very close in height, their body types couldn’t be more different.

Exhibit A, the twins, put side-by-side to really show the difference between them:

Saarai is a 6 ft 3 wall of pure muscle, she’s a literal tank & even though she’s fit, she’s very “broad” in stance & stature, she does have a sort of hourglass dip on her hips but it’s very subtle because she’s just that muscly (thanks dad, she’s definitely your kid pfpfpfpf) Ni’kasi, on the other hand? She’s only 6ft, she took more after mom than dad height-wise, and there’s no way for me to show it easily on this silhouette (I’m working on other stuff & don’t have time to make an edit in Sketchbook just for this post), but she actually did get Kissai’s broad shoulders...the problem is, that unlike Saarai, Ni’kasi hasn’t had a steady, healthy diet after she got turfed down the social ladder into the slave pits. Poor diet (and a shortage of enough food, too, they had to keep her in line & stop her escaping somehow, obvious solution: “make sure she’s too weak to even think about it”) means she’s a lot skinnier and more “twiggy” than her twin. She’s not grossly underweight anymore, obviously the Overseers and Zash had to make sure she was fed up properly to gain enough strength to be able to train & then run around the galaxy killing things at Zash’s bidding, BUT because of the malnourishment she suffered at that point in her life, she’s never going to get as much muscle as Saarai did and even though she’s a healthier weight now, she’s still slender. She has more of an hourglass than her twin, but her hips are much narrower than her shoulders, so it’s not as prominent (and even this silhouette has too much of an hourglass for her as is, but as I mentioned earlier, don’t have time to make the edit myself rn, will do it later XD)

And finally, Exhibit B, Vano:

Now, I would argue Vano would be the closest of the three to being pretty much BT3. But note “the closest”, not “exact”. Why? Vano’s 6 ft 2, so she’s only an inch shorter than Rai, but their builds are very different. Saarai’s a beefcake, but Vano’s a Mirialan, so she’s got muscle, but she’s lean and tall. Vano here is about 80% or so legs and 20% the rest of her body, she’s got legs for daaayss and that’s what gives her the height, but apart from a six pack, you won’t actually see most of her muscle, whereas Saarai could flex with her guns out and you’d totally notice.

This got very long, so if you made it all the way to the end of this post of me blabbing about how I wish the body types had more variety & why I want that for my girls, I appreciate you very much, have a cookie! 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪  < take one and pass it on as they say ;) hahaha

[chaoticspacefam]

Elven’s Headcanons: Funny Coincidences

Okay so the thing is. I know my headcanons aren’t canon, and I am always sure to state that just because there’s always someone that’s gonna try and comment otherwise if I don’t put a written disclaimer over them BUT

Then I get random drops like this out of either missions or the conquest rewards and I do have to stare at the screen for a second and think “OK hold on but is the algorythm reading my mind wtf 😳“

I have...some very specific headcanons regarding Ornamental Sith Blades relating to courtship and the fact that this is Imperial Memorabilia (which is Lana’s favourite) and Saarai got this drop?? The game is fucking with me, I know it is LMAO

Is she gonna hang onto this until the right moment to give it to Lana? You bet she is. Wait until the end of KOTET for the marriage scene who. 🤣🤣

[chaoticspacefam]

Subterfugeverse Headcanons: “Kallig’s” Ghost

I’m in a weird mood where I want to make art and content but also have ARTBLOCK (tm) so take some more random headcanons/worldbuilding instead!!

So, we all know the Kallig ghost introduction, but of course in Subterfugeverse, we’re canon-divergent anarchy SO Ni’kasi doesn’t get Kallig’s Force ghost. She gets her mom, D’leah instead. Sometimes I think Kas lowkey wishes she’d gotten Kallig; mom means well but sometimes she is A Bit Much

And I probably will make a follow-up doodle post type thing of this one day when Artblock Stops Beating Me With A Stick, but it always amuses the heck out of me that the default reaction is to...shoot Force lightning...at the intangible ghost...really, Kas??

And Kallig never really reacts to it, maybe he doesn’t care, but the thing is...D’leah would care. And I can’t help but think how fucking funny it’s going to be for Kas to have that (obvs heavily altered for my own worldbuilding/lore to fit into things) “flesh of my flesh beware of Khem Val and Zash” conversation thing with her mom; because while that will be the main point I’m sure before that there will be a tangent of “I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU TRIED TO SHOOT ME WITH LIGHTNING” “But I didn’t know it was you okay I panicked!!” “[not fully paying attention, off on a Scolding Rant] -the fact that you thought that would work on a spirit is frankly quite concerning, nevermind not paying attention to your surroundings in order to be surprised in the first place, I raised you better than this, you know AND ANOTHER THING how could you do that to me! I am hypothetically wounded” “Mother, please, I said I was sorry ;-;”

And you can bet it comes up again, too. I’m sure D’leah makes much more frequent appearances than Kallig does in a well-meaning attempt to help guide her daughter on the right path of course, but from Kas’s point of view it must be kind of annoying to have your mom there in your head popping up to be like *angry Sith mom muttering* every time something happens.

I imagine “Mother, I love you, but please shut up, for five minutes, and let me s l e e p” becomes a regular request as well. D’leah might even be able to “help” with keeping Horak Mul and the other ghosts “in line” a bit on Kas’s bad days. Ghost Mom was bossy in life and you can bet she’s bossy in the afterlife as well XD

I have some more ramblings (tm) to “fill in the plotholes” of how she’d be hanging around in the Dark Temple as well but y’know this post is long so maybe if it crops up I’ll put them down but for now, trust me, I thought about it and I do have an answer other than “just because” (not that it should matter because it’s my fanfic and I can do what I want but hey, just in case!) :’D