Name: Iolanthe
Nicknames: Io (but she really prefers you just don’t)
Gender: Female
Age: Appears to be about 16
Faction/Race Demon/Al Basti (Succubus-like creature)
Personality: Lore claims that Al Basti are the personification of guilt and that they feed on the guilty, making their victims sick and miserable. She can feel guilt in the air, like a heavy cloud, and it makes her hungry. At the same time though, she’s well aware that friends are not food. Being constantly hungry, and feeling guilty (oh, the irony) for taking ‘nibbles’ from her friends has left her irritable. On the other hand, she is also well aware that everything in her life is controlled by guilt. She resents the control this has over her life, the handcuffs placed on her by her very nature. She wastes a great deal of energy on simply trying to block out the tempting air of guilt that constantly surrounds her. Try as she might to resist or ignore the urges though, she always ends up succumbing to them, which just starts the process all over again. Unfortunately, she's also keenly aware of when someone has done something wrong, which can make her interactions with others.. difficult. It's hard to lie to her or hide something unless the liar feels absolutely justified in their actions. In the end, her resentment and irritation often translate into a prickliness when dealing with others, making her seem harsh and unfriendly.
She's more inclined to befriend males than females and does her best to avoid young children. Males are not as likely to express their feelings and in general are not as emotional. This leads to her being able to stay in their company longer and more frequently. As such, she could be falsely viewed as a flirt or a seductress - much like the Al Basti have been wrongly associated with succubi for years.
Underneath her struggle against her nature is her pride in her species. She is pretty traditional in her dislikes of lesser creatures and thinks very little of what she deems to be 'lesser beings' unless they go above and beyond to prove themselves to her. She looks down her nose at many of her non-demon classmates and wouldn’t be caught dead associating with them of her own accord. Some of this may also have to do with the fact that the less people she associates with, the less she’s around guilt and at least if she doesn’t know someone she can’t feel bad for mooching right? It's a self defense mechanism and hiding behind the demon tradition of elitism gives her a good excuse to avoid a large group of people without others asking questions. Some of it really just is elitism that she doesn't care to overcome because she has no reason to. There are the rare few she has made exceptions for over the years. These are usually people she has been forced to maintain close contact with for an extended time and she feels close to them either because they did something extraordinary or they simply proved that they were worthy of her acquaintance.
Anything that calms her down and makes her forget about her worries for a little while is gold in her book - it's the quickest way to overcome her prickly, elitist nature. If anyone can figure out a way to soothe her woes they have her loyalty forever because in the end, her need to function properly greatly exceeds her pride. Along this train of thought, she has a deep love of music – classical-esque, soft, flowy music because of her brother. Gabe’s gift with the violin is soothing and she could spend hours listening to him, despite the fact that they have a bickering relationship a lot of the time.
She’s also a shameless gossip, not only because she finds the endless chatter a good break from normal life, but also because.. well, she just likes to gossip. She likes to know who is in a relationship, who just broke up, who got in trouble with a professor and just about anything else worth talking about. For someone that doesn't like to spend a lot of time with the majority of the student body, she will talk about all of them endlessly.
Vanity is also another key point of Iolanthe's personality. She goes to great lengths over her appearance and spends a lot of time on upkeep. Primping is a good solo activity she can spend away from people and their silly emotions - plus, she just likes the way she looks in a mirror.
If anyone ever managed to get past her spiky outer shell, they would find that although it is a defining part of her it’s not the whole of her character. She is proud of her family and would do anything for them, even if she appears otherwise at times. She is a deeply loyal person, though it might be hard to earn that loyalty. She’s also a very serious student. For all her gossip and vanity, she always does her homework because she is absolutely serious about one day reaching the world of twelve.
Why are they enrolled in Amityville Academy? Being of a succubus-like nature, Iolanthe feeds on guilt. She dreams of going to the world of twelve, where guilt runs rampant for the taking! But, she and her parents also understand that Iolanthe is a prickly character that probably wouldn’t last more than an hour out on her own in the big buffet. So, she decided to enroll in school to learn more about the world of twelve, the people there, and how she could best blend in with them without calling a lot of attention to herself. This particular school was also where her brother, Gabrian, decided to enroll. Since they were small her parents have always depended on Iolanthe to look after him since she’s definitely the stronger of the two.
Natural Abilities:
Guilty Aura - Iolanthe has the ability to hone in on the thing that she (and all Al Basti) feeds on: guilt. She can sense it in others around her, though the way she feels it is a little hard to explain. It has no physical appearance to her but can feel it like a fine veil or aura that gets thicker depending on the wrong committed by the person or, in some cases, how guilty they feel about committing it.
Serpent Shift - All Al Basti have the ability to shift at will between humanoid and serpent form since they used both in the past to hunt and deceive humans. Iolanthe's serpent form is a hooded snake, similar in size and morphology to a king cobra. Unlike king cobras, her serpent form is done in the colors and patterns of her humanoid skin and she has no venom to speak of.
FEAR: Iolanthe is capable of taking in fear and using it to lengthen and strengthen her hair-tentacles, though she can only make it as long as she is tall. She can then use it like a weapon, such as a whip or a rope to bind. She can definitely feel attacks to her hair – it has nerve endings, though they are weaker than nerves in her skin. She is as protective of her hair (maybe more so) than she is of her fingers and toes and wouldn’t risk having it harmed.
Physical Description:
Eye Colour: Dark purple-ish
Hair Colour/Style: It looks kind of like a mix between tentacles and human dreads. They’re solid pieces she can move like extra fingers, so they shouldn’t be fuzzy or composed of tiny individual strands. The hair itself is dark (ranging from dark indigo to black near the tips) and translucent. The underside of her hair has small leg-like feelers (think millipede legs) used for grip.
Skin Colour: She looks like a dark, starry night. Her skin is a swirl of dark purple, blue and pink, with tiny star-like markings mixed in.
Clothing Style/Colours: Something similar to her brother Gabe in style and era. One idea is a sash-like corset that looks similar to this jellyfish (the bottom, lacey portion).
Extra: A long, simple snake-like tail in the same tones as her body and claw-like nails.
References: Bust shot by Tig.
