Laon dela Alas is a character still in the works who has big boots to fill, being a potential replacement to Hikaru as Cassara's love interest.

Laon is a tiny young bartender from the Eastern Shivic Free Cities with large ambitions. While good at putting up an innocent, naive front, Laon is clever and subtle in her social interactions. At worst she could be accused of being selfish and manipulative. Born to a poor family, Laon's survival instincts make her claw to keep anything she can get her hands on, from possessions, to jobs and opportunities, to even people.

Despite this, she can be sweet and caring. Her possessiveness can cause her to care deeply about friends just made. She can also be weirdly generous despite her selfishness. Most of her friends speak very highly of her, while many former employers, coworkers, and exs have less flattering impressions.

• Compared to comparatively pure and good natured Hikaru, Laon is designed to be more of a foil. Someone of frustrates and vexes Cass, but she keeps feeling herself drawn to.
  • Laon feels the same way, she just... doesn't handle being jerked around very well (we'll get to that)
• Currently working at a bar tender at a strip club (That's Bunny, another character, blurred out in the back). This has been a good way to get a number of characters I needed co collate into one spot.
  • Playing the innocent naive girl at the strip club is probably a great way to sucker tips out of people.
• Laon is skilled at fire magic, a family tradition!
  • ... Fire magic isn't good for much besides killing people. At least in terms of making money.
  • Good for lighting cigarettes (She smokes).
  • Sometimes uses it for show when mixing drinks.
  • Putting together a Fire Dancing routine, likely with Bunny's help.
  • Her skill is 100% control, where Cass's fire has almost no control but has incredible power output. Over time she teaches Cass how to control it.
• While she has AMBITION, it is very unfocused. Marry someone rich? Become some sort if "star"? Run a business? Whatever.
  • This would seem naive if things didn't keep working out for her.
  • While kinda unearned, this gives her a cool confidence.
• Her worst traits soften over time. It takes her awhile to accept that her life is stable now and she can stop hustling and the people in her life aren't going to vanish.

Ethnically, she's part of eastern Simeria (maybe the neck, which links down to Akanis). While of course everyone is pretty mixed in Brave Earth, her hold world ethnicity would largely be Filipino.

• Coming up with a name was hard. Filipino names are largely Spanish, and Tagalog names are rare. While ethnically ambiguous looks and names are very fitting Brave Earth, I didn't want to use that as an excuse to get lazy.
  • Cool, valid names like "Mayumi Lim", a 100% authentic and Filipino name were passed cause they sounded like names from other places. Mayumi isn't a Japanese name, but there is an over-representation of Japanese sounding character names, especially in that area.
  • Laon is not a tagalog name that was in any sort of fashion in the "old world" (or now), but we're 400 years in the future, and "Old World Language" names have some prestige.
  • I wanted a "dela [blanks]" in there because Filipino names contract the particles into one word (as upposed to "de la"), which is a way to indicate it's origins is Filipino and not Spanish.
• I was pretty happy with how her face came out in Koikatsu. Managed to give her an actually kinda distinct, non-anime blob face.
  • I thinking of a more realistic version of her having a distinctive face in general. The type where it's a not of features not traditionally associated with "hot girl" but are hot because she owns herself so well. I think about her contrasted with Makoto, who, despite being a bit big, is actually very conventionally attractive and struggles to come off that way because a lack of confidence.
• Body wise she's tiny. 4'10, probably sub-90 lbs. The type of body that almost refuses to put on weight.
  • Probably one of the things she doesn't like about herself, but I don't think she's insecure about it either. But she tries to put on weight.
  • ... Maybe Cass helps her put on some muscle?
  • Like her personality, gaining weight gets easier when she's older 🙃
• Fashion wise, she tends to maybe be a little bit gothy.
  • Likes big platform boots to give her a few extra inches.
  • Style gets more expensive as she gets older and makes more money.
• In general her whole style/look gets more expensive and sophisticated. She definitely invests in herself and is very confident about ways she chooses to style herself.

The dynamic between her and Cass definitely isn't helped by Cass being kinda feral (what kind of lesbian goes to a strip club to pick up girls??).

• Laon is definitely attracted to a big strong lady with good style and big arms. Cass is probably hits both sides of Laon's bisexuality.
  • "A hot girl who is big and can cradle me and carry me around like a big strong guy???"
  • I don't think Laon is actually Cass's type like that, at least, initially. Cass gets dragged in by the personality and appreciates the "tiny girlfriend" aspects later.
  • ... This might lead to some initial bad feelings on Laon's part?
• Cass is always coming and going. While this is with good reasons, this leaves Laon feeling jerked around.
  • Laon is jealous and prideful, so this doesn't go well.
  • Cass is ALSO prideful, and has to reconcile her perception of Laon vs the reality.
  • ... She still finds the reality hot, of course.

This is (mostly) the baseline for what I got so far. Honestly Laon sounds like a handful to the point where I don't know if they'll last, but they don't need to. I no longer need Cass to get married and have a magic-god-baby with someone. She's the end of her line. In the rest of her immortal life, there will be other girls after Laon, so it will end at some point, even if its in death.

Trying to Adapting without just Copying

The challenge of roleplaying having characters that appear in games(even if that game isn't out yet, shut up) is they can develop meaningful relationships with characters that aren't yours. Hikaru and Cassara go back literal decades as a roleplaying couple. On an emotional level, Hikaru can never be replaced... but with my friend Emily isn't really around anymore. I can't really work with her like my other friend Karami (who owns Ashara and Ari, pivotal characters for Naomi and Sinlen). I'm kinda left with a character stuck in time.

I definitely wanted some aspects to carry over. The 6'2 Cassara and her tiny girlfriend is an aesthetic I'm very fond of. But where as Hikaru was... well, okay Hikaru was never quite as innocent and pure as she acted, she was still a "precious cinnamon roll". I wanted someone who could superficially seem that way, but very much wasn't. This also represents a change of goals. Hikaru in the many times we've RPed this relationship would represent the transition from Cass as a feral young adult to a cooler headed (if still fiery) adult. Moving her age down in the canon Brave Earth timeline (somewhere around Trevor's age, a bit older than Naomi... young 20 something instead of a tired 40-50 year old immortal), it felt more appropriate to give her someone messier. Someone who could change with her while they were both going through their own bullshitl

There are still shared aspect like "Bartender" and "Fire Magic", but besides that, I feel pretty happy making someone way different, who can also have a more active relationship with other characters in that area of the story (Makoto and Bunny, eventually Vayn).

The NSFW Stuff

Feel free to stop there, but if you want, I got some fun NSFW stuff too.

I definitely wanted a character I could put into more sexually explicit situations without crossing any boundaries (not that I'd get more pushback from Em that a comedic disappointed look)

• Laon is a serial cheater. She's the NTR queen. Part of this with Cass is driven by them never actually QUITE dating early on. Cool girl would come by for a few weeks, then fuck off for a month to do GOD KNOWS WHAT for a month or so, then come back like nothing happened.
  • So since they were not technically a couple, Laon would fuck around, take pictures or videos and kinda make sure Cass "accidentally" would see what she was up to while she was away.
  • To be fair, Cass likely was fucking around on the road too. But finding out that this seemingly innocent girl was getting into shit while she was gone definitely would frustrate her and make her jealous.
  • Laon always flirts with patrons at the bar for tips, but would do it in front of Cass especially hard to make her jealous, hiding it behind the plausibility that it's just part of her job.
  • IF YOU WANT ME, ACT LIKE YOU FUCKING WANT ME, BITCH. STOP MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARING.
• Laon would definitely flaunt gifts, and expensive clothing from other people she'd fool around with. This lends into her behavior to begin with -- that she is someone valuable, worthy of these gifts, and that wearing nice, expensive things signifies her own success... but it's another way for her to passive aggressively be like BITCH YOU SHOULD BE TREATING ME LIKE A QUEEN.
• Cass definitely gets furiously mad about this but never directly takes it out on Laon.
  • ... Well, maybe in the bedroom. Not being by being too rough, but by being really intense.
  • ... This awesome hard sex probably helps turn this into a fetish for Laon where she ends up enjoying the cheating. Playing up the innocence while being a whore about it.
  • I imagine this is something that Cass eventually has to confront, as like... a mature adult, and for them to get over, but hey maybe there's the version of these two where they both end up into it.
• They might end up open, but the fact Laon is so much better at it and getting around and juggling multiple partners catches Cass by surprise and rattles her.

There are other aspects that play into this too, especially where she works and the characters she ends up being linked to.

• Laon hangs out with sex workers. I think, to some degree, she's one too. She certainly takes chances to make money and would not be morally opposed to fucking for money if they conditions were right.
  • I think she prefers less risky ways to get money out of people she's dating.
  • Probably the Bunny strategy too, and I could imagine Bunny warning her to be careful actually doing full on prostitution work cause of horror stories she's heard.
  • Not that it's likely illegal near them, but it's just intrinsically dangerous, especially without any support around her.
• I think Laon might be the other plastic surgery girl besides Makoto. A more stable, progressive glowup, than Makoto's hotheaded manic crisis decision making it.
  • Even in the current pic, though you can't see it, Laon has braces. She's probably like 19-21 around now so this is like the first purchase like that she's making into investing in her appearance.
  • Can definitely work some stuff with magic too, which could lead to a fun difference in how Cass literally physically sees her vs how people see her professionally, especially if she gets into say, porn through Vayn.
  • Cass might not even RECOGNIZE her in porn.
  • I think there could be some fun crunchy bits where Laon isn't Cass's type at first, but Cass's preferences change... but while that's happening, Laon starts moving closer to what Cass's taste used to be (not FOR her, Laon has too much pride for that!!), and Cass is sad to see the change, but has to get over it because it's what Laon wants.

Laon would probably be a "soft power" bottom, she wants the top to feel in control, but she makes sure she gets what she wants. She's usually pretty happy with Cass though cause really loves eating pussy 😌 She might seem like a louse who will ditch her for months at a time, but she'll never leave Laon unsatisfied... though Laon might claim otherwise at times as a way to hurt Cass.

Anyways, here, have Laon pulling a trick where she knows Cass can see under her skirt but she can plausibly act unaware.