Biography

Dylan is a warm, hearty guy with a knack for finding the silver linings, so long as it’s in someone else’s cloud. His kind, with a touch of animated, attitude is always able to cheer someone up while also making them chuckle with his unassuming brand of mildly self-deprecating humor. You’ll typically find him either at the gym or napping, rarely being seen doing much else. He is the younger twin of Noah, and always has his back, no questions asked.

As a school-age kid, Dylan could easily relate to others as he has a high empathic capacity. His smile was “as warm as the sun,” according to his favorite teacher. Though he was loved by many of the adults in his life, his peers were not as doting. Constantly ridiculed for his pudgy appearance, the only people his age he was friends with were his brothers, Noah in particular. Dylan always looked up to Noah, since he was the only one who would defend him from his peers. “They’re just a bunch of jackasses,” Noah would say, trying to cheer his brother up. But no matter how much he tried to believe otherwise, he knew he would always be treated differently because of the way he looked.

Some days were worse than others, but no matter the inconsistency, one of the only things that brought him joy were the occasional gifts of glazed honey buns his mom would bring home from the convenience store. He wasn't exactly sure why, but he really enjoyed those honey buns. Like, really enjoyed them. When that high-fructose corn syrup danced upon his taste buds, all seemed right in the world; all of his worries would simply melt away. However, that small moment of bliss was just that, a moment. After that, reality would inevitably set back in.

As he approached his adolescence, his self-pity had slowly bubbled up to fits of self-loathing. He knew more about dieting, calorie-counting, and fasting than most adults knew about, let alone a 13-year-old. He stopped eating his mother’s cooking, as he believed that she was the one “fattening [him] up,” given her history of not allowing anyone to leave the table with food still left on their plate. She was quite tenacious about that rule. Whenever he couldn't eat any more, she would tell the age-old story of how she grew up in poverty, not even being able to have a home-cooked dinner many nights, so “I’ll be damned if any of my children go hungry!”

Some nights, after everyone else had gone to bed, Dylan would slowly creep his way down to the basement, particularly after a long night of listening to his mother's aforementioned spiel. He’d lock the bathroom door, run the tap, and with all his will and might, jam his fingers deep down his throat as far as his little finger could reach. Each time, his stomach would squeeze tighter than the last, until it could give no more. Head resting on the seat of the toilet, snot dripping out his nose and mouth, he would sit there for a few minutes afterward and just let the tears stream down his face. Once his tear ducts ran dry, he would stand up, clean himself up, and give himself a good, long look in the mirror. He stared deep into his bloodshot eyes and reassured himself that “this will make me happier.”

One night however, Dylan got sloppy. Noah had been noticing signs of Dylan’s bulimia, particularly his rancid breath the morning after. One night, Noah decided to follow his brother down to the basement, taking good care to not be noticed. As he approached the bathroom door, the faint sobs he heard over the running water confirmed his suspicions. Dylan had just so happened to forget to lock the door that evening, so Noah entered the bathroom. Both of them had tears dripping down their faces. No words were exchanged by those two that evening; they both just sat down against the bathtub and held each other until morning. The two of them decided to hold each other accountable for the other: Noah would keep Dylan’s bulimic tendencies in check, and Dylan would help ground Noah and his bipolarism. As they got older, they supported and uplifted each other, and always had the other’s back. Though they eventually shared their respective conditions with the rest of their family, they decided to keep some of the darker details to themselves, for everyone else’s sake.

Typically, you’ll find Dylan in easygoing, athleisure fashions. Wearing shorts and a tank top was something a younger Dylan could only dream about wearing, but with his brothers’ support and a joint lifestyle-changing journey, he much prefers wearing lighter, more breathable clothes. He says that they make him feel, “more free.” You’ll usually see him with his hair styled up with a pair of horns. They’re not actually real, but he likes how they match with the ones his husband has. He always tries to support and encourage others in their own issues, but still struggles with doing that for himself; he is still self-critical at times, but Noah tends to catch and console him.

His Abilities

Dylan practices Pyromancy, but with a wonderfully unique approach. He is naturally empathetic, so he can easily identify his own emotions as well as the emotions of those around him. He can then draw on those feelings to supplement his own abilities. His passionate love and concern for his brothers is the everlasting flame that burns within him, but that fire can also be affected by external emotional stimuli. You can tell when he experiences a mood shift because the color of his fire changes to represent a particular feeling. He used to have trouble controlling his powers, but as he became more emotionally mature, he can channel nearly any emotion he feels in a constructive way. However, if something does happen that manages to be too much for him to bear, he will become a destructive, emotional wreck (literally and metaphorically). This can manifest in a variety of ways, depending on the issue, and he must rely on Noah to help him cool down before completely losing himself.

Dylan fights using the Sigmund Style - a sword fighting style that doesn’t utilize a shield. This style emphasizes using less powerful, more rapid strikes to defeat opponents.

Unlike his brother, Dylan thrives in warm weather, always basking in the radiance of summer days. His sunny persona provided him with a predisposition to the Pyromantic arts, which quickly turned into proficiency and then mastery. He is very in-tune with his emotions, and having such great emotional fluency allows him to wield a much more unique and robust form of Fire magic with a far greater capacity than traditional Pyromancy.

Theme of the Pyromancer

Theme of the Infernal Arbiter