ethereal refuge

this page is for my OCs! i was hesitating about making this, because i already have toyhouse, but i decided to write about them here! i need to put worldbuilding and OC pride flags/pronouns somewhere, right?

this OC universe is called ethereal refuge, because that's what it is to celeste (and they're kinda the main character of this whole thing). the plot is still very hazy, even though i've had these OCs since around 2021.

only two other characters listed here directly affect the main plot. the rest are just in the main world chilling. they may be avatars of the main three, actually. i thought about that once and it was cool. if you're wondering, claudia is definitely related to despoina, which leaves carson and wren on the human side and celeste/vox to the immortal side. i would say that wren is more likely to be related to vox and carson to celeste.

oh wait, who's despoina and vox? the answer is: they're cherine and athene. they get more than one name because of their funky lore. despoina and vox are more like epithets than names, though. i'll call them cherine and athene because those are the names their friends call them.

cherine and athene are like gods, in a way. they represent about half of the world each. cherine gets things like art, fluidity, emotion, chaos. athene gets logic, law, order, peace. you can infer their personalities from that. if you're a nerd, think of them as the dionysian and the apollonian. if you think about this for more than a few seconds, this breaks down, because they must share custody on a lot of things.

if they're gods, someone has to worship them, right? i sure hope people don't apply patriarchal gender roles to them, transforming cherine and athene's images against their wills- oh, i haven't thought about this enough to talk about it yet. maybe i'll start doing social commentary about butch/femme dynamics, trans people , personhood, the construction of the self, and more, once i actually read theory. they're a bit parental to celeste, which makes sense, celeste is literally 14 or something. let's talk about other OCs because i'm not ready for this yet.

aura and soki are there because they're the OCs from my beloathed gacha life/club days that i've decided to keep, along with carson. aura's an elf and soki's a cat thing. for brevity i should make soki a sort of cat mimic that's technically an elf, but i honestly don't think soki is the type of person to care about that, so i won't either.

carson may be one of the best OCs i've ever made. i've been thinking about him for over the span of about 4 years at time of writing. the only reason that aura migrated from wherever my gacha OCs live (i had, like, 40 of them and maybe 8 personalities between them all) to ethereal refuge is because she was friends with carson in there and i didn't want to bring him alone to etheral refuge along with soki. he was a gacha OC that didn't know soki at the time because carson was gacha life and soki was gacha club. it would've been awkward! so aura and carson, already besties, will go along with soki. carson was in a batch of OCs who i wanted to make a horror gacha series about called Broken Ties (that fell through after one episode because i didn't create a plot before i started recording). soki was in a different batch of OCs which i forgot the name of...

*checks google docs*

huh. i never named the batch of OCs that soki was in. apparently i renamed soki to SACHI at some point? i guess it makes sense, but she's soki to me forever now. i made the name by smashing syllables together, so she probably did that in-universe, that's my justification for keeping their name as soki. this document is extremely insightful to my mind in 2021. it's a bit scary how revealing it is. i'll call them the sapphic searchers because they're mostly queer girls lol. it's hilarous how i made the characters i cared about queer, but didn't know i was queer myself.

but i digress...

apparently i had two OCs called aura in my gacha days, but i think the older version was just a draft, so it doesn't matter. when i transferred carson to gacha club when that game came out is when aura was created. she didn't have any lore at the time other than being an elf. her first version had purple skin like celeste, fun!

i made celeste, cherine, and athene in late 2021, basically 2022. i stopped playing gacha life/club and left that community in the early months of the year, where i got new friends and was eager to drop any of the old hobbies that i thought were 'cringe'. at that point in time, i didn't really care about my ocs anymore anyway, except for soki, carson, and aura, which i revived in 2023. wren and claudia are unique, in that they're completely human ocs that i made when my gacha phase was long gone. all the characters i created after my gacha phase were divine in some way. well, wren and claudia are both trans feminine, which makes them divine in their own right!!!

wren and claudia may actually be younger than soki, carson, and aura. i think of wren and claudia as being in high school or recently graduates, while soki, carson, and aura are all older than that. they're also the only OCs i have that are dating. carson and aura may be in a QPR, i haven't decided yet, while cherine and athene probably are in a QPR if you wanted to assign that to them, which defeats the whole purpose of a QPR.

if you've actually gotten to the end of these paragraphs, i am mildly concerned. how are you here? how did you get here? what are you doing? wait, don't click the links, they're broken- NOOOOOO!!!

personality: they can seem very absent when you're talking to them. you'll often find them staring at nothing. they'll be very energetic and happy with vox and despoina (they're a teen at heart), but will try to intimidate everyone else.

likes: star loves star-gazing and is entranced by nature (landscapes and rivers/oceans). however, animals avoid celeste and plants wither while star's near. no one has seen her eat or drink, and if you try to ask her too many questions about it, she will stare at you. ominously.

backstory: celeste was born a human, but they were engineered to be stronger than average. they were raised in a facility by the people who engineered her, where she was trained to fight other children (and eventually teens), some of whom were star's own friends. when they were around 14, they were sacrificed so they could go to the immortal realm/afterlife and steal the gods' power for humanity- by killing Death itself (known as Lethe). vox and despoina found her. despite being made to survive the realm, she was still unable to live long, and failed to kill death entirely. vox and despoina changed her body so that she could survive in the immortal realm by merging her with Lethe, making her immortal. she was furious about this, because the purpose she was given since birth (bring the gods' power to humans) was now impossible to fulfill. she was now the new lethe, Neo-Lethe, the thing she wanted to destroy. star has to learn how to wield their power for good- the problem is, star doesn't know what their power exactly is, and star doesn't know what 'good' is either...

personality: aqua is usually very calm and easygoing, as well as kind. some mistake aqua's generosity as being naive or weak, but if you hurt anyone, aqua will make you regret it. aqua is very protective and loving of the people aqua comes across. aqua tries to be the best at anything aqua does and inadvertently stresses everyone else out with aqua's perfectionism.

likes: it's extremely creative with the way it uses its powers, transforming the water around it to anything from clothes to weaponry. its craftiness transfers over to the many other skills it has (tons of them involve wielding various weapons lol). being immortal means you have lots of time on your hands!

backstory: despoina is immortal. her domain is mainly to do with creation (life and art), as well as emotion and chaos. her counterpart is vox. despite her domain including chaos, her life was relatively boring before she encountered celeste [her backstory may be more fleshed out later, so this might not be true in the future].

trivia: she can control bodies of water, and always has some wherever she goes. when it's not doing anything it's either draped around her like clothes or around her feet. she can also store it in her weapon.

one of its names, despoina, means 'the mistress'. the name despoina comes from the cult of demeter and persephone in ancient greece.

personality: athene can seem standoffish and egotistical to people who don't know thon. they tend to not discuss their emotions or things going on with them in their daily lives, preferring to listen to others speak. he writes his observations down constantly, but if you try to see what he's writing, you'd probably get hit on the head by one of his rocks. when it speaks, it's usually offering a deep insight. gem knows a lot about others, but not many know about gem, unless you know to go to cherine with your questions about athene.

likes: thon likes reading/writing articles and observations, architecture, sitting in solitude with cherine, and creating technology. the rocks around him can conduct electricity, which can make his attempts at creating electronics easier... or harder :(

backstory: athene is immortal. their domain is mainly to do with technology, machines, and law; as well as logic and order. gem's counterpart is cherine. despite its domain including order, its inner emotional state is in turmoil, which hasn't been helped by athene encountering celeste.

trivia: their name used to be etho (reference intended?). he is named athene on this site, but only certain people like cherine and celeste call him that. everyone else calls them vox.

personality: on a surface level, he's energetic and social, always on the go! he likes to tease strangers and friends, and tries to joke around every situation. insults and threats don't seem to affect him, he just throws them back at the other person- but in extreme cases, he'll suddenly go quiet. some people call him annoying, some say he's just chatty. either way, you'll have an unforgettable experience talking to him.

likes: he loves overcast weather and often goes outside when it's cloudy or at night, because he's paranoid about going out in the sun- he thinks it will harm his skin due to his vitiligo, regardless of actual UV. he has an interest in clothing design and often buys clothes from local brands and specific designers. he has also begun to sew his own clothes! she used to like partying, but prefers going to other events like concerts nowadays- he still loves dancing! his friend soki creates demo tracks that he likes to listen to and give feedback on- they often dye their hair together. he lives with aura (who he's in a qpr with) and spends the daytime with either her or soki.

backstory: him and his family found out that he was intersex when he was a teen, and he also realised he was transmasc (he was assigned female at birth) shortly after. his parents didn't like the gender reveal very much. he doesn't like the medical system and partially blames it for what it did to his family. she tried to avoid her parents by staying out of the house for as long as possible, which involved parties. lots of parties. too many parties. soki finds him at one of the parties and is like "girl you're drinking too much" and through a lot of hard work, patience, meeting aura, relapses, and his friends encouraging him to transition, he ends up doing better.

trivia: her nickname is cara, but only aura calls him that :) he is also intersex and aromantic!

personality: aura is very peaceful and a reliable shoulder to cry on for her friends. if someone has done something wrong to her or her friends, she would rather try to make amends or cut contact, rather than retaliate. she gets tired easily, especially around people, but doesn't like showing it. she's very closed off, and only two people see her cry: carson and soki.

likes: when not reading on the couch next to her friends, aura likes lying down in forests or clearings, listening to live music and playing the flute, as well as metalcrafting things to gift to others. her guardians are trying to teach her metalworking, and she's a very studious apprentice. her jewelry and accessories end up with other people under convoluted circumstances. she also loves reading books. she especially loved reading them as a child as a form of escapism.