The closest I've come to that is being on my period, which is awful. I've learned to bless that it comes in waves, every fifteen, thirty seconds or so, and it only lasts for one day. I don't know if chronic pain comes in waves like that, but if it doesn't I think going insane is a good option.

I have not finished EoD, unfortunately. I've maybe gotten halfway? Real life and higher priorities keep getting in the way. And I guess I'm not as... thrilled by this expac as the others?

Perhaps it's because the game lore has diverged so sharply from my own understanding of it from core through HoT. I am fully aware that the game is about challenging preconceived notions of what magic and the world and dragons themselves are and how they work and interconnect, but I sort of liked my interpretation better. (That dragons are forces of nature, unable to be reasoned with, and unstoppable except by unity. I would have been fine with the fallout being huger than imagined, with having to replace the dragons with something better, and the replacement might have to be a personal being, an ally, and that's why the replacement is better, but having the dragons themselves be personal creatures to begin with, creatures we can interact with on a relational level? I'm slightly disappointed.)

Or maybe (because I don't think my disappointment is big enough to warrant disinterest) it's because the game has stopped focusing much on peripheral elements; as the world ages past 1325, and changes of major historical import occur (quite apart from dragons dying, I mean things like Balthazar's death, the charr civil war, and, as several of my reblogs recently have been about, the norn and their reaction to IBS), I want to see a lot more effort put into ambient worldbuilding, updating old maps and dialogue or at least creating new ones that address wider issues and not just the map conflict/meta. Instead, the new expac has moved us to, not just a new continent, country and culture, but a place that has been completely isolated from our home continent for so long that it has completely different history.

In addition, the ending of IBS was unsatisfactory, both because 1. the defeat of two Elder Dragons should be more of a climactic win, and 2. because our main story antagonist, Bangar, goes without justice entirely. In that light, moving on to EoD basically means skipping the resolution of some huge major story points and trying to introduce new things without resolving all the emotional tension that's still tied up in the IBS arc.

Combining that with the problem of not updating old worldbuilding and introducing a completely new continent with different lore, and further building upon lore changes that I've been resistant to already, and EoD just feels like something different altogether, maybe even as different as a Guild Wars 3 would be.

And, of course, there's the idea that maybe this is just going to far for me to take, as someone who still likes writing PS-era fic, obsessing over the ending of HoT, and angsting over S3. PoF and further are still interesting stories with characters I know and love, but the further things go the more I've had to rush and cobble things together to understand how my Commander fits into it all, and eventually it's going to stretch too far, and maybe that's what's happening.

Also, I'm not invested in Cantha. I'm not a GW1 player, so it doesn't have any appeal to me as a player, and as for my Commander, Cantha has been off the radar for her. Everyone fights for a reason, and Commander's reason has been "some must fight so that all may be free" for some time now. Well, Cantha is free. They have a nice Elder Dragon and haven't had to deal with a hostile one in centuries. It honestly feels like my Commander is interfering in otherwise-peaceful Canthan operations without much knowledge of what's going on, simply because she can, and she feels like her experience (and fame?) give her a say. This level of pride doesn't feel in-character for me, although I could probably retroactively make it so, but I can't change the fact that her motivations are all centered on making the world a better place, and Cantha is the last place that needs it. She washed up on their shores basically an illegal alien, and I don't know (or don't recall) why they let her hang around - they could have deported her and Kasmeer and there's nothing anyone could have done about it.

It could be one of these problems or all of them. However, I rather think even all of these problems couldn't keep me away from my babies Taimi and Gorrik, and my eternal love for magic and dragon lore even if it isn't quite to my taste. More likely, I'm just busy, and all of these reasons have raised the barrier of entry to EoD just enough that I don't feel a burning passion to get through it, and therefore am capable of focusing on real life for now.

This theory is supported by the fact that I also have not played the new S1 re-releases, and I'll usually obsess over any fragment of S1 lore I can get, much less a full playable version.

However, when I do get around to finishing EoD... well, I've had a sneaking suspicion since IBS that my Commander was killed by Bangar's arrow, and one of my other OCs took over. All my problems with IBS - and several of the issues with EoD - would be much less significant if there was a less experienced Commander involved. (Although, Bangar getting off easy probably wouldn't have happened if he'd successfully killed the Commander.)

Anet's been focusing on new players quite a lot in Cantha, so having a brand-new Commander and telling a new and different story with her feels most accurate. (My Commander, like me, has been resistant to the new dragon lore, but I can see a fresh face having a more "progressive" take on it.)

Well, this turned into quite a detour and broad examination of myself and GW2 without getting bogged down by too many details, but I'm happy with it. Thanks for the ask!

a;lsdkjfasdf thanks for the ask!! I'll go with Tiffany Commander :)

Also I haven't played EoD yet, so I'll be answering from an end-of-IBS standpoint.

2: Who is your Commander closest to now?

That now gets me, I don't think about this too much. I'm still stuck pre-HoT XD. However: I'd say Braham. Commander and Braham got to know each other again in S4 and worked closely together in IBS. Commander sees herself as Braham's mentor, as Trahearne was hers, and spends a lot of IBS trying to teach him how to handle responsibility and lead, since he seems to have been thrust into that role.

3: Who was your commander closest to prior?

Prior to what? Just kidding ;) Before S4 Commander would have said the friend she valued most was Taimi, for sticking with her all through S3 when nobody else did. Before that, of course, it's Trahearne, through and through.

6: If your commander could revive one person, who would it be and why?

Now this is tricky. I have a sneaking suspicion that Tiffany Commander has... healed... from Trahearne's death, and that just maybe any interaction between them now would be rather awkward. She would still think of him and choose him immediately, though, and just deal with it if there was any awkwardness.

But there's another consideration that Taimi or Aurene might suggest: Glint. Since we're working off of the bare minimum we know from Glint's and Vlast's prerecorded messages and what little the Exalted know, having Glint herself here might advance the effort to replace the Elder Dragons significantly. In fact, Glint could even replace one herself immediately.

I have no idea which one my Commander would choose. It would depend on how convincing Taimi and Aurene could be. (Although if Aurene plays the I-never-knew-my-mother card, Commander might just cave.)

10: When alone, how does your commander handle grief?

I honestly don't know the answer to this one. Tiffany Commander finds comfort in company, so being alone might make it worse. The real problem for her is when she's not alone... but the people around her don't care and she doesn't feel like opening up to them. What she really needs is a shoulder to cry on, and remember memories with.

12: How does your commander feel about Braham?

Tiffany Commander sees Braham as a rising star, a legend in his own right. He's a powerful fighter and also has a good amount of willpower and sense of self. He helped her fight in Mordremoth's mind.

But he's also still young; not really a child, not after all he's been through, but young. They both lost someone in the jungle and that should have bonded them, but various factors worked against that. (I'm not sure those factors make a ton of sense for Tiffany Commander, but I have to poke at them a bit more before I decide for sure.)

And then of course he had prophecy thrust on him. Commander doesn't fault him for the whole Tooth of Jormag business, or at least not the aftermath of it with him leading a guild out and all that. She isn't sure she would've done better in his situation, at his age, with nobody to guide her.

Oh, thanks for all the questions! Let's see how long this gets lol.

Tiffany Commander

11. How do they see themselves: as smart, as intelligent, uneducated?

When she was younger, she saw herself as smart - and she is - but time has humbled her. No plan lasts after first contact, or whatever the saying is, and she's had the best-laid plans backfire in her face (e.g. Tonn, all of HoT, a good chunk of S3 and PoF, Aurene right left and center, etc.)

Pretty much she's lost all confidence in being smart or smarter than average or IQ points or whatever - she just does her best, and a lot of the time her best is better than somebody else's best, but most of the time it doesn't matter and all her plans can do is leave more salvageable piece afterward. But! She always does her best and hopes for the best, because sometimes it works out alright. (Looking at you, Dragonstorm.)

29. What is your character’s weaknesses? Hubris? Pride? Controlling?

Hoo boy. As of IBS, I'm not quite sure; I don't consider her to be a main character in IBS - she's the old mentor to the new hero (Braham) - and I think her biggest weakness there is that she has too much confidence in Braham. She doesn't realize how not-ready he is, and she doesn't step up enough to coach him through it, and she doesn't take the reins and say "let me handle this." Maybe she believes failure is the best way to learn, maybe she half-believed Jormag and thought this was a good, low-stakes way for Braham to learn, who knows.

Pre-IBS, though... let's start from the beginning, since this all strings together! PS she could pull her weight in the military arena, but (as described in my last post) she was greatly lacking in the personal relationships department. Let's say Trahearne was as good (or better) for her as she was to him; but emotionally she was rather needy during that time because those needs had gone unfulfilled for years.

S1 through HoT she got cocky; she overconfident and thought she could handle things she couldn't; Scarlet, Mordremoth, Glint's egg, etc. and the result of that was in S3, after things had begun crashing around her with increasing regularity (Trahearne was the worst, but by no means the last), she was eventually just trying to do everything herself, culminating in Kiel's line "one individual against a God of War? ...I'm sure it'll be alright", mostly because she felt emotionally betrayed by everyone (except Taimi) who left for their own things when she was so emotionally vulnerable.

PoF she had to learn to trust her allies again, S4 was mostly about reforging all the old ties of unity, reassuming the role (if not the official rank) of Commander - but she had to work for it. She had to figure out why she believed in this so much, separately from her blind devotion to Trahearne... basically this was a coming-of-age for her, in a sense. Joko helped provide a counter-force that basically asked her: what are you trying to do? Why? Don't you know it's bad for the world? And I think General Almorra and the Vigil helped her re-form more consciously around those ideals (which she'd believed before, but more because she needed something to believe in and less because they were good ideals).

And then, yeah, by IBS she'd learned the same lesson about trusting her allies so many times that she forgot to differentiate between "large organizations" and "one individual with the burden of prophecy" who needed her help and direction.

That one got longish lol.

45. Is your character pragmatic? Think first? Responsible? All action? A visionary? Passionate? Quixotic?

Thanks for the ask! These look like hard ones lol, but I'll do my best.

37. How is your character’s imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Worried most of the time? Living in memories?

It depends on the timeperiod, honestly. She changes a lot. She has a good imagination, and she spent a lot of her early life daydreaming about the day she'd finally reunite with her father.

Once she hit late teens and joined the Seraph, I'd say she was living in memories a lot - it got better after she joined the Vigil and went away entirely after she met Trahearne, and then she was a very present-moment, grounded individual. She can be worried, yes, but more in a sort of 'I'm focusing rn' way and less of a pessimistic kind of way.

It all came back after he died though, and after dying and coming back she slowly started healing, so finally by IBS, I think Marjory says it best after the first strike in Bound by Blood: "Optimism, Commander? From you?" The whispers probably changed that a bit and she got more full of chronic worry - the same thoughts and concerns chasing themselves around in her head - and it got worse the nearer to the end of IBS she got. (It could've just been Jormag trying to keep her quiet and out of the way, but some of it was legitimate concern.)

47. Do they want to project an image of a younger, older, more important person? Does they want to be visible or invisible?

'Want'? I'm not sure. She is aware of her own importance - that moment when she tells Bangar she 'won't let him take credit' because she knows how influential she and her victories are and how much of an inspiration she is. So she very much 'wants to be visible' because that's part of her job, to present a positive front against the dragons despite all the bickering that tends to go on, e.g. during No Quarter and Jormag Rising. You'd also see it in the Commander's speech in Thunderhead Keep and her decision to manage anxiety levels to best of her ability in Bound by Blood.

Now, if we go back to S3, she was completely desperate. She was trying to present an image of competence to hide her own self-loathing for failing again and again in HoT, but she failed at that too, at least in her mind and to those close to her (Dragon's Watch), which may have been a contributing factor to why she ran off to Elona where nobody knew her.

Younger and older don't mean a whole lot to her in general, since she's part-sylvari and even though she's mostly human, she's always been a little advance for her age; her age was never really something she defined herself with. Now, if she'd been more of a social person when she was younger (pre- to mid-teens?) she might have been more self-conscious about her advanced mind and tried to prove she wasn't as immature as everyone else her age, but as it was (shy, bullied all the time, etc.) she was never really concerned about it.

49. What about voice? Pitch? Strength? Tempo and rhythm of speech? Pronunciation? Accent?

Aw, I'm bad at these. I lump this in with visual things (art and whatnot) and call it 'I'm bad at aesthetic things' - I'm more of a mind person.

But there is one moment in early HoT that really characterized my Commander for me in this regard. This was my second time through HoT and I knew how it ended, but Tiffany Commander sounded so confident, so strong, so unwaveringly certain of success that she almost convinced me that things would be alright. I'm not sure when she began sounding that confident, but I'm gonna lump it in with social competence and say she learned it 'sometime after becoming the Commander' and 'sometime before the World Summit.'

Otherwise, she sounds just like the human female PC, because I'm boring lol. But human female PC is bold, strong, and confident - most of the time. The most notable example of a time she wasn't was the famous words at the end of All or Nothing - "I don't know." She sounded genuinely broken, applause to the VA (no idea how the other VAs did it but wow).

When she's not being the Commander - giving orders and organizing military action - her voice is warm and full of kindness, softer in a way but no less certain.

Now. There's one other thing about Commander's speech: she's bilingual. Trahearne taught her to speak Orrian, and while she doesn't have an accent, certain words she'll pronounce differently. These certain words are usually ones I've noticed Trahearne saying strangely - my favorite example is the time Trahearne was introducing Commander to Sayeh and he said "privacy is paramount" - pronouncing privacy with a short i, so [prih-VAH-see].

Now, on Trahearne it's far more pronounced, because he's immersed himself in the study of this language for twenty-odd years, but you'll notice an oddly-pronounced word from the Commander now and then.

Although, speaking of accents, she might have a slight British accent (which all sylvari have) due to one parent being a sylvari and them living together during the years she was learning to speak, although after he left it might've faded a bit. (Being around sylvari at any time probably draws it out a bit more, though - just subconsciously.)

50. What are the prevailing facial expressions? Sour? Cheerful? Dominating?

Facial expression! I'd pass on this except that I've said, repeatedly, how she has lines all over her body and never really expounded on it. These lines mimic sylvari patterns, so - if she were born more planty and less fleshy - they're basically the outline of what her leaves would have looked like. Very natural and beautiful on a sylvari, but very uncanny valley for humans, which is a reason she was bullied so much in her younger years and why Andrew and Petra were never that nice to her. (hey, maybe that can also be a reason neither of us click well with Kasmeer and Marjory!)

There are a lot more of these lines in her face, because faces are delicate things. I know most sylvari faces are smooth like humans', but the lore of that, iirc, is that sylvari heads, specifically, are formed of plant matter sort of packed together and pressed into shape properly. (Mordrem, afaik, don't really have very humanoid heads, and there are no naturally humanoid Mordrem, which means the Pale Tree had to work hard to make sylvari humanoid.) Anyway, these lines would, at least, denote where those leaves would before being pressed like that, and at best actually be what her face would actually look like if she were more sylvari.

And it's all very patterned, very symmetrical, all that cool stuff, which makes it extra creepy. No random lines going in opposition to anything else like scars; it's just eerily organized. It might remind some people of sylvari, but only the most insightful would make the connection consciously.

Ooh, Ridhais! Thanks for the ask!

I haven't quite gotten to Ridhais yet, I just know she does play a bigger role - in my current main fic which is about to go into the Orrian campaign, I'm going to include Ridhais because canonically she was there. Since I'm going to get into sylvari lore/headcanonry that also centers around Caladbolg, which will be a significant part of the story, yeah I'll be drawing on her expertise some, although I'm not currently sure how else she'll contribute to the story.

However, in the story of my Commander - I've spoken about Eveanin before and mentioned that she and Ridhais both have crushes on Trahearne (who is blind to that and has eyes only for the Commander). So that's a thing, and I don't think that'll exactly change when I get there with my main fic? It'll definitely be offscreen though because I have no idea how to write romance or anything.

But the major way I'm planning on characterizing her is probably going to be a mix of the two things we know about her: she's ridiculously young (younger than the sylvari Commander, imagine that) and has a Wyld Hunt relevant to Caladbolg.

Ridhais post-HoT gave me distinct 'tired veteran' vibes, like - she's only three years old at that point, she didn't even have early-PS buildup like the Commander had - she's still young and you can tell, but she's learned a lot and she's older.

One thing that's always puzzled me about Ridhais is how she knew all the stuff about Caladbolg that she knew; did she learn it in her Dream? I feel like it's not common knowledge, but it's definitely portrayed a lot like 'her Wyld Hunt magically granted her this knowledge' - almost as if they were trying to give her a similar role to Trahearne, but forgetting that Trahearne paid in decades for the knowledge he has and that Wyld Hunt does not equate to knowledge just by itself.

I mean, Trahearne's not the sort to say 'you are too young, go home and get some experience' because a) he didn't say that to the Commander, probably because b) it's her Wyld Hunt and Trahearne of all people would not deny someone the ability to get close to their Wyld Hunt.

I really hate how they added Ridhais in to the PS by word-alone retcon (they didn't actually go back and even just add her model in the background of the instances) and so they didn't even think about what would have been impacted by that. For example, the cleansing of Orr. If I were Ridhais I would have wanted to be there - quite apart from hero-worshipping Trahearne and being his literal bodyguard, this is a significant milestone for Caladbolg and she should've been there? But canonically she hardcore was not there and Trahearne even says that he and the Commander are alone!

Now, for my Commander's timeline, she and Ridhais have a stiff rivalry with regards to protecting Trahearne, so all the times Commander was there and Ridhais was not can be waved away with "Commander won the argument that time," and Ridhais won all the off-screen arguments where Trahearne was leading armies and doing map metas (which he absolutely did, you cannot change my mind) while the Commander was doing missions Trahearne didn't accompany them on.

But that only works for my Commander, so what about everyone else? I need to understand Trahearne's view of Ridhais during the PS so that I know how he would approach her as a character, because I work with systems; Trahearne has this system of thought regarding Ridhais that he had in canon (or that I made up for headcanon) and that system of thought then interacts with his systems of thought for my other characters and with the interactions of other characters, and that creates dynamic stories. All my characters have systems like this that then must interact with the unpredictability of life and other people.

Now, in greater scale than that, my Commander isn't in the main fic - I have a multi-Commander story and none of them are my actual Commander - and events are going to play out wildly differently from canon, so at that point I can pretty much make a case for Ridhais being anywhere at any time, regardless of where she was in canon.

But it's just really frustrating when a million tiny details about the PS and about my understanding of Trahearne's overall mindset (taking into account people he knows, places he's been to, information he has, and his opinions on those) change without, apparently, Anet putting in any thought whatsoever to what would change.

I've said it before and I'll say it now: there is a lot of information that maybe couldn't make it into the game for one reason or another, but they should have put it in a blog post or a Guild Chat or a livestream of any sort, especially something as major as adding in a whole new character to a pre-existing storyline.

Anyway... this devolved into me being frustrated at the lack of information, which is par for the course while I'm inventing new headcanons lol.

First | Prev

Note: when I first heard this song, I misinterpreted several lyrics in favor of this storyline (yes I did that despite there being lyrics on-screen shush) such as hearing 'the sky' instead of 'this light,' and especially 'hidden in the sign' instead of 'hidden in the sun.' I like these misinterpretations better than the original, so I'll use them here. Think of it as musical fanfic.

Trahearne always remembered Phillipe's last words: for Orr. For our Wyld Hunts. For Dreamflower. He took this as Phillipe's charge to look after Soulstrider, and he took it seriously. But he also felt an enormous load of guilt for Phillipe's death, and he didn't want to have to speak to Soulstrider about it. So, after telling Deborah in the Grove what had happened, he went back to Orr to keep fighting for his Wyld Hunt.

Underneath the echoes - this refers to Phillipe's Wyld Hunt being a sort of echo of Trahearne's, to help him cleanse Orr.

Buried in the shadows - Phillipe is a thief by profession. He's an introvert and likes to stay out of sight, staying in his corner of Divinity's Reach with his Dreamflower for the first five years of sylvari history, as you can tell by the fact that this Firstborn is never mentioned much by sylvari or even other Firstborn, at least not where players can hear them.

There you were - and yet, Phillipe left his family and came to help when Trahearne needed it.

Drawn into your mystery - this refers to the fact that Phillipe, a sylvari, has a biological child. Trahearne loved Soulstrider as his brother's child, and Soulstrider's childish joy and the letters she wrote to Phillipe sustained Trahearne as well.

I was just beginning/To see your ghost - after Phillipe died, Trahearne seemed to always be aware of Soulstrider. Phillipe's absence was her absence, and Phillipe had all but told him to watch after her.

But you must know/I'll be here waiting - so Trahearne did, the best way he knew how: he raised his hands to the stars as Phillipe had always done.

Hoping, praying that/The sky will guide you home - desperately trying to communicate that he was there for Soulstrider.

When you're feeling lost/I'll leave my love/Hidden in the sign/For when the darkness comes - 'the sign' here referring to the constellation the Hands of Lyssa. This star-ritual had been important to Phillipe and Soulstrider, and now it became important to Trahearne as well. It was his promise to Soulstrider: if she ever needed him, he would be there as Phillipe had been for him.

Now the door is open/The world I knew is broken - Trahearne saw Orr dying and was saddened by the thought he could do nothing about it, but he worked all the harder. He did not want Phillipe's sacrifice to be in vain.

There's no return - Phillipe would not come back and Trahearne suspected that Phillipe's Wyld Hunt had existed for a reason, and that Trahearne's own Hunt might just be impossible without Phillipe.

Now my heart is not scared/Just knowing that you're out there/Watching me - this is what Trahearne imagined Soulstrider was thinking. After he returned to Orr and mustered the courage, he sent her a letter explaining everything that had happened. Unfortunately, Deborah wasn't at home at the time and Andrew saw the letter first. He was angered by it and destroyed it before Soulstrider ever knew it existed. Trahearne didn't expect an answer; had written the letter in such a way that Soulstrider would not have to reply if she didn't want to - he didn't know if she blamed him for Phillipe's death.

So believe I'll be here waiting/Hoping, praying that/This light will guide you home - Trahearne waited patiently and touched the stars every night, waiting until Soulstrider was ready for him.

When you're feeling lost/I'll leave my love/Hidden in the sign/For when the darkness comes - this ritual comforted Trahearne, too: it gave him hope that someday Soulstrider would call on his aid, and he would be able to help her. He wanted to help her. He loved her as Phillipe had loved her, and he would do anything for her.

For when the darkness comes - he also knew that Soulstrider had wanted to come to Orr herself, but as months passed and there was no reply to his letter, he came to believe that she blamed him for Phillipe's death, and he began reaching to the stars as much for himself as for Soulstrider; to connect to Phillipe in any way he could. To apologize, in a way, for letting him down.

Be here waiting/Hoping, praying that/The sky will guide you home - If this story was canon, there would be a very special commune hero point in Orr somewhere with this lore to it - the place Trahearne communed with the stars and with Dreamflower, in the same place Phillipe once did. Of course, realistically, they did that all over Orr, but there would be a hero point at one of the spots.

When you're feeling lost/I'll leave my love/Hidden in the sign/For when the darkness comes - Trahearne loved and hoped and looked to the stars, and even when he believed Soulstrider had forgotten him, he stayed, waiting for her.

Hidden in the sign For when the darkness comes

~oOoOo~

And that is the end of this part of the Chronicles of the Tiffany!

Thank you @i-mybrunettelady for getting me moving on this, I've been wanting to post this series for a long time.

I do have a playlist for all of my Tiffany's life up to present-day, but this alone was draining so I think I'll wait a bit before starting on the next arc.