#kore tsiphone

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

I can't draw well enough to make this happen, but a vivid idea of an Azem-centric animatic to the chorus of No Longer You from Epic the Musical just popped into my head and I wanted to type it out so y'all could share my vision.

I see a song of past romance...

Now this one depends on how you headcanon your Azem's relationship with other Ancients, but in my mind it's Hades, Hythlodaeus, and Azem (in my case Ariadne) together and having a good time on a busy street in Amaurot. Hythlo's presence in particular is important.

I see a sacrifice of man

Image of the same street, but it's now the Final Days. The sky is dark, and Hythlodaeus and half the people in the background are gone, replaced with outlines where they once stood. I personally would have Hades and Ariadne clearly arguing in this as well, but again, there's a lot dependent on personal Azem headcanons.

I see portrayal of betrayal...

Azem stepping down from the Convocation. They take their mask off and drop it...

...And a brother's final stand

Only for it to become one of many masks on a dark background. We now see Hades, Emet-Selch, during the second half of the fight against him at the end of Shadowbringers

I see you on the brink of death, I see you draw your final breath

This is the biggest variation depending on personal Azems, but it's effectively where were you when the star was sundered. In Ariadne's case, it was probably somewhere far from Amaurot fighting something... maybe a shot of her falling back as (and this is important and universal) everything fades into light.

I see a man who gets to make it home alive...

The light coalesces into the Mothercrystal and in its light we see a humanoid silhouette...

But it's no longer you

Of the Warrior of Light

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

I feel like Kore would do oddly well on Great British Bakeoff, actually. Baking isn't usually her strong point, but she is a pretty damn good cook (CUL is the one crafter she canonically has levels in) and is very good at working under pressure. She's not gonna win, but I feel like she might have a shot at the quarter finals depending on challenges.

They probably wouldn't be able to use a lot of her footage because of swears, though.

Quick! The first OC you think of is dropped in the world of the last movie/show you watched. How are they faring?

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

I swear, Dawntrail was written to appeal to me specifically.

Vague but major spoilers up to level 99 MSQ content below the cut

It's the anthropology expansion what with all the learning about different cultures and the reasons behind their beliefs and whatnot, and that's something I'm really into

There's a lot of family themes, including found family/family of choice, which ties into the backstory I've put together for Kore (in particular there's a dialogue choice where you can say whether you've got someone you consider family despite not being related by blood, and she 100% talked about the ship captain who was her father figure there)

Somehow in creating a bevy of headcanons about how my Azem is out running around having her own adventures after Endwalker, I managed to land on pretty much exactly how Dawntrail establishes souls and memory work (I need her to be present in DT so bad)

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

OC Smash or Pass: Kore Tsiphone

Tagged by: @yloiseconeillants (technically she tagged anyone who hadn't been tagged yet, but I fall under that umbrella, so thank you!)

Tagging: gonna spread the love and say anyone who hasn't been tagged yet but wants to do this :)

Rules: pretty self explanatory. include physical descriptions or pics, and propaganda. the “other” label can be used for “sexuality misalignment” (ie: oc is femme and you’re gay, vice versa or you aren’t into smashing but a specific thing you wanna do with them like perhaps hug or study them under a microscope idc).

Quick Facts:

Height: smol (about 4'9" I think?)

Age: Mid-late 20's (time is a weird soup)

Pronouns: she/her

Gender: cis woman (but also angy)

Sexuality: pansexual

Pros:

Ride or die for people she cares about. Feeling down? She will drop everything to give you a hug. Need to move some boxes? She's your gal (she will put off hugs if she's holding a box). Need to bury a body? She's down. Need to make a body? Greatsword's already out, baby.

Always down for a good adventure, misadventure, or shenanigan.

Surprisingly good culinarian, will cook for you (especially if you don't mind her getting a little experimental).

Borderline encyclopedic knowledge of what there is to do for fun in any particular area. Admittedly sometimes her definition of fun is wrestling wildlife that's not particularly fond of being wrestled, but don't tell me you've never wanted to see a tiny au ra punch a bear (and more often her definition of fun is something like a kickass picnic spot or a festival or a really good place to get food).

The above said, she is conscious of what people around her are comfortable with, wants to be sure they remain comfortable, and if there is danger, she will stay between you and it as long as she is physically able.

Cons:

Flighty and allergic to one-on-one commitment. She's not looking for anything serious and probably will never be.

If you boink, you will end up with bruising or bite marks

Occasionally forgets that she has an unusually high danger threshold and needs to be reminded that not everyone is as much of a thrill seeker as she is.

Will not open up emotionally until she's at a boiling point.

Probably drinks a little too much and thinks she can hold her liquor better than she actually can.

Details:

Spent almost as much of her early life at sea as she did on land--still very comfortable around boats and a capable sailor.

Non-monogamous and prefers on-and-off flings to longer commitments.

Big fan of erotically charged sparring matches

Hilariously bad at dirty talk, her actions in bed speak a lot louder than her words. Big into battles for dominance.

Not particularly touchy but tries to maintain a similar level of physical touch and affection as what she receives from a partner.

Prefers to keep relationships private--not a fan of big public displays of affection.

Really likes being on top because looking down at people is a novel experience.

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

wolqotd

Tell 2 truths and 1 lie about your wol! Reveal the lie in replies or let your followers guess it.

taken from @nights-at-crystarium

Kore learned armorcraft specifically so she could repair her own armor

Kore is a skilled sailor and helped out where she could on all sea voyages taken for MSQ

Kore wrote "In case I become a Lightwarden" letters to the Crystal Exarch and the Scions before heading to the Tempest

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

Dawntrail Ariadne Thoughts

Post-Endwalker, Ariadne has a physical body again (thanks to the creation magics that Venat banked in the Azem stone), and has gone off to see what Etheriys is like now

And also because Kore is still (justifiably) pissed at her for the whole attempted bodysnatching thing (which, to be clear, Ariadne does regret), so putting space between them is probably the best course of action for everyone involved.

So she actually ends up heading to Tural before Kore and the Scions do and is just kind of there vibing for a while

I was trying to land on a reason for why she chooses to go there first, and I've tossed around a few ideas, but I really like the idea of her being somewhere there when the Sundering happened.

My logic for the above is that by the sound of things, Tural didn't get hit as hard by the Final Days in Endwalker as everywhere else did, so it was probably one of the later spots to get hit back during the original Final Days, which would have made it a good spot for Ariadne to find monsters to fight and people to save after her big fights with Hades and Venat (there is logic there. trust).

She's there for all of Dawntrail, but Yok Tural is a big place and Ariadne's keeping a low profile, so she and Kore don't really cross paths until, well...

We're descending into second half of Dawntrail spoilers here, so adding a read more

Ariadne is in Tuliyollal when Shit Goes Down. It's triggering. She helps as much as she can and has flashbacks to the Final Days while doing so.

At this point her presence becomes known to Kore and the Scions and some awkward introductions are made

I don't know if Ariadne is part of the train stuff to get into the dome, but she definitely ends up in there either at the same time as or shortly after Kore and Wuk Lamat and them

Mostly I need her to be there for the last chunk of Alexandria, for a couple of reasons, namely:

Ariadne is a copy of the original Ariadne's memories (and some of Hades' memories of her) inhibiting a body created out of creation magics. There are an uncomfortable amount of parallels to be drawn with the Endless (ngl, I screamed when I realized how well I'd nailed down the way that souls and memory work in xiv)

I need Kore, Ariadne, and Sphene debating the ethics of wiping out one people to save another like I need oxygen. Like, Kore has had or been around this argument enough times that she's fucking sick of it, and Ariadne is the one who rejected both Zodiark and Hydaelyn (by which I mean the WoL and the stable time loop) as solutions because she was convinced she could develop a solution that fixed the core problem without anyone going extinct.

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

What was their experience like in Living Memory?

OHOHOHOHOHO I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED

Dawntrail spoilers below the cut

So, one thing I don't talk about much when it comes to Kore is that she started adventuring as a way of coping with/running away from her grief when her mother died. Kore's mom got some kind of aether sickness from fallout from the Calamity [I'm treating it like getting cancer from radioactive fallout] and gradually wasted away over the 5 intervening years. Kore took care of her until the end, then had no idea what she wanted to do with herself. She wanted to hurt something and she didn't want to stay in one place for long, and adventuring was a perfect way to accomplish both of those things.

So on a personal level, seeing everyone have these tearful reunions with their mothers or mother figures in Living Memory was like a opening up an old wound and pouring a gallon of lemon juice on it. I think she probably had a conversation about her situation with G'raha somewhere in there, and she had to step away from the conversation between Erenville and Cahcuia at the end. (later, after everything had calmed down, she invited Erenville out for a drink to talk about it as much as he was comfortable with).

Otherwise, Living Memory was the first time during Dawntrail that she really got into the "just keep going and get the job done" mindset that comes with more difficult tasks she's had to face. Despite that, she was ultimately glad that she got to meet some of the inhabitants and that they were mostly fine moving on, because otherwise thinking back on it would have kept her up at night.

One additional note about me (not Kore): I like going around and doing all of the sidequests in zones, and the last one I did in Living Memory was the one with the librarian who asks you to bring back books that were still out then says she's going to go maintain the collection until she fades away. As someone who has worked in a public library for years and is planning on having a long career in libraries, that made me cry.

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

I swear, Dawntrail was written to appeal to me specifically.

Vague but major spoilers up to level 99 MSQ content below the cut

It's the anthropology expansion what with all the learning about different cultures and the reasons behind their beliefs and whatnot, and that's something I'm really into

There's a lot of family themes, including found family/family of choice, which ties into the backstory I've put together for Kore (in particular there's a dialogue choice where you can say whether you've got someone you consider family despite not being related by blood, and she 100% talked about the ship captain who was her father figure there)

Somehow in creating a bevy of headcanons about how my Azem is out running around having her own adventures after Endwalker, I managed to land on pretty much exactly how Dawntrail establishes souls and memory work (I need her to be present in DT so bad)

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

Quite a bit, actually, given that the Azem crystal she retrieved in Amaurot contained a copy of (most of) Ariadne's (Azem's) memories and Hades's memories of her that manifested as an aetheric construct akin to Ardbert in Shadowbringers. (Mechanically, this was all based on my understanding of how the Unsundered "awaken" Ascians, particularly insights given during the Eden raid storyline; as you can imagine, certain revelations in Dawntrail made me flip my lid).

This means that Kore spend a good chunk of Endwalker with Ariadne's memory-aether-ghost hanging around her offering insight... and, unfortunately, that after Elpis, Ariadne recovered more of her memories of the Final Days, decided that she was the only one she could trust to solve the problem, and attempted to bodysnatch Kore, Ascian-style. It ultimately didn't work out, and out of some combination of pity, understanding, and not wanting her Ancient past self in her head anymore, Kore ended up using part of the creation magics Venat put in the crystal to give Ariadne a physical body of her own.

So now Ariadne (who calmed the fuck down after the whole Final Days thing was settled) has decided she wants to see what Etheirys is like now and is just out and about traveling the world like a normal adventurer. She and Kore get along... okay, but there's definitely a weird tension there.

7/24/24

Does your wol(oc) know anything about their Azem/Ancient?

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

Kore definitely taught the twins new and exotic swear words. Sometimes even on purpose.

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

I realize I keep making headcanons based on Kore's tendency to get sweary, but I just thought about her almost getting in trouble during Heavensward by saying "Halone's frigid left tit" or something similar in Ishgard and it made me happy.

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

Kore talking about her retainers like:

"This is Cosette, she came highly recommended from an Ishgardian agency. And this is Valinari, I found him digging through garbage in Ul'Dah and asked him if he wanted a job."

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

Kore is taller and her hair and limbal rings changed color*! I've got this thing where there was a sort-of ghost of Ariadne (my Azem) attached to the soul crystal**. She was around offering insight during Endwalker and briefly possessed Kore and started to go Full Ascian upon her (Kore's) return from Elpis (long story short, her memories of the last chunk of the Final Days were spotty, she regained them, realized what Hermes had done, and decided that she was the only one who could resolve this correctly). Between the Scions subduing possessed!Kore and Kore herself beating Ariadne in a battle in the center mind (with help from Fray and Ardbert), the possession was only brief, but it did result in Kore gaining a few ilms and her hair highlights and limbal rings going from orange to blue.

She also cut her hair short after that in hope that it would grow back the way it was, but so far she hasn't had any luck in that regard.

*screw you Square they're not cosmetic

**technically she's an aetheric construct consisting of Ariadne's memories leading up to the Final Days shortly before the Sundering, which is connected to how I think Ascians work, but for ease of reference she's a ghost

What's the biggest physical difference from ARR to Dawntrail in your WoL?

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

WoL questions: 10, 15, 60, 63, 97

10: Does your WoL have an arch-nemesis? Who? Why? If not, who would make a good nemesis?

Fourchenault Leveilleur. No, that's just a joke. Mostly. Honestly, were it not for the fact that she doesn't want to give Zenos the satisfaction, it would probably be him. Otherwise she doesn't have one single nemesis.

15: What is your OC/WoL's love-life like? Who were they in relationships with? Describe their relations?

Kore is on-and-off sparring partners with benefits with Estinien. It's strictly physical as neither of them want to be tangled up in a more involved relationship and mostly takes the form of occasional hookups when they're in the same area. It started around the time of the Heavensward Road Trip and is currently the worst-kept secret among the Scions.

60: What is the most unusual place they've fallen asleep?

Leaning up against the elemental converter on the way back from defeating Leviathan. Kore spent a lot of her childhood at sea, so she's very comfortable on boats, and that particular fight took a lot out of her.

63: Would your WoL fake an Echo vision for a petty/funny/random reason?

Absolutely. I'd never thought about this before, but I can now vividly imagine her doing the Echo vision pose then looking up at somebody and saying "Amazing. The Echo's telling me you've always been a dick."

Is your WoL an all-rounder? If so, what's their go-to for each job?

Yes! She defaults to tanking as a Dark Knight but can also DPS as a Dragoon (or Bard but Dragoon is her preference) or heal as a White Mage. She is, however, not very good at healing mid-combat and prefers to only get the staff out to make herself useful once the fighting is over.

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

4, 9, 22 for your wol?

4: Does your WoL scare easily? If so, how do they react?

Kore startles more easily than she scares. If she's in a spooky situation, she's the type to bluster through it but jump a mile in the air if you tap her on the shoulder and she's not expecting it. She will, of course, deny being scared and just say that she doesn't like being sneaked up on.

9: Does your WoL have any siblings?

Oh man, you've hit on a complicated question. The short answer is that Kore does not have any siblings that she knows of. Her family growing up was just her, her mom, and a ship captain who was not her father but ended up serving as a father figure to her, and later during the events of the game she ends up viewing the twins as younger siblings, but she doesn't have any blood siblings that she knows of.

She does, in fact, have a paternal half-brother in Hingashi, but she doesn't know that he exists and wouldn't be interested in meeting him if she did know.

22: What are some of your WoL's hobbies?

Cooking! She learned from her mother and really enjoys doing it in her spare time--she finds the processes soothing. One of her favorite things to do when she's in a new place is sample the local food and try to figure out how to recreate it.

She's also tried to learn an instrument as part of Bard training, but while she's a good shot with a bow and a decent (and emphatic) singer, she's not the best at playing an actual instrument. Doesn't stop her from trying, much to the chagrin of those around her.

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

Having more thoughts about Kore's retainers. They're still pretty loose, but I wanna set them down here anyway.

Ramblings below cut

She hired them both during the events of Heavensward

Cosette (Elezen, eventual Black Mage) was first, not long after Kore had gotten settled in Ishgard.

She'd had something she needed or wanted to do that involved going to Ul'Dah, was saying something about how she couldn't do it because showing her face in Ul'Dah was probably a bad idea, and Emmanellain or somebody was like "why don't you just send somebody to do it?"

Kore was like "YOU CAN DO THAT?"

Either Emmanellain, Artoriel, or both went with Kore to the Jeweled Crozier to introduce her to the wonderful world of retainers.

Cosette came highly recommended from a very respectable Ishgardian agency (I've got some vague ideas on her backstory, but nothing nailed down yet). Kore was definitely intimidated by her (and the whole concept) at first, but they eventually formed a sort of professional friendship (although that took a while; Cosette's a pretty formal person).

Valinari (Viera, eventual Botanist) got hired later on, and less officially, shortly after the whole Ul'Dah plotline was resolved.

I haven't nailed down all the details here either, but I do know that Valinari was in hot water with something that ultimately traced back to some shit that Lolorito owned (which, to be fair, is a significant chunk of Ul'Dah), Kore stumbled upon him in the middle of it, and she effectively hired him on the spot both to protect him and as a small middle finger to Lolorito.

I have this great line in my head where someone's trying to get her to turn Valinari in and she's just like "My retainer would no more do this thing you're accusing him of than your boss would poison the sultana." Which, like. Technically true.

The level to which Kore expects Valinari to actually do his job is not super high; she's a pretty chill boss in general. He still gets shit done, but at his own pace.

Also, Valinari and Cosette hate each other, but it's in that, like, office sitcom way where they snipe at each other all the time but will still bail the other out if there ends up being an issue.