For our first Community Highlight, we delve into the world of a twitch streamer and role-player who's gone above and beyond within our community. Kaida's consistent appearances in role plays and playtests have been a delight and boon for Aexia's development. Her team's victory in our VR Role Play game jam whisked us away to a world where simple townsfolk faced whimsical challenges. The map she made for that game jam was so outstanding that it actively influenced Aexia's development to facilitate more like it.
I interviewed Kaida to discover who she is and where her enthusiasm for role play comes from. Join us as we explore the history of a streamer and trailblazer that lights up our community.
Zoey: "Why did you pick the username FlyingKaida?"
Kaida: "About 10 or so years ago, I had this third-party D&D book about dragons. Dragons are one of my favourite things. I really love dragons… Based on that book, I found one of the dragon colours that I really vibed with, [Brass Dragons] are one of the more social dragons. Years later, playing D&D again, I finally said, “Why don’t I actually make this character?” She is a Brass Dragon, her egg was stolen from her parents, and the egg was lost… When she hatched, she imprinted onto the very first person she saw, a pair of human farmers. She instinctively polymorphed herself into a human and grew up spending her childhood thinking she was a human until she started accidentally setting things on fire and not being hurt by flame. I named her Kaida, which is, I think, Japanese for little dragon. When I wanted to start streaming a few years ago, that’s the character that spoke to me… including being social and not knowing who you are at a young age. So I decided I wanted to use Kaida as my streamer name. Then I noticed there were at least 5 different Kaidas already. So what do dragons do? They fly. So FlyingKaida, I’ll go with that, Flying little dragon. I’ve been holding on to that name since!"
Zoey: "Streaming can be a journey; tell me about yours." Kaida: "I began two or three years ago… I’ve always felt like an outcast for most of my life until more recently; honestly, most of my life especially growing up in school, I always felt like an outcast. so much so that I had this small little group during lunches at school, and we would play board games and video games and whatever. I don’t want anyone else to feel this way, so I would keep pulling more people in to make this little group so they would have a place to belong. I kind of take that mentality into streaming. I want to make it a nice comfortable safe place for people to come and visit and hang out, no matter what walk of life you come from, especially in these last few years, people have become more and more shunned by certain aspects of the country I live in. I have almost 600 followers at this point which is not a whole lot, but it’s a good 20 times more than I ever thought I’d receive. It’s just a very fun thing to do. One of my reasons for doing it is not only did I want to make that nice place… I was very anti-social, and I wanted to work on my social skills a bit and figured I’d throw myself under the bus… [streaming] live for who knows how many people. That would be a good way to just jump in and work on my social skills, and it’s definitely got me there."
Zoey: "What got you into Role Play?"
Kaida: "When I was 10-12, something around there, I was at my babysitter's. I saw this child, her son, playing board games with friends, and I wanted to play. If I remember correctly, I played a halfling, and we were fighting invisible bears. I got all my friends into Dungeons and Dragons and into GURPS; it all started from that."
Zoey: "Outside of Aexia, where do you spend your free time in VR?"
Kaida: "Recently I just got SkyrimVR. I’ve already beaten Skyrim, and I have to add that it’s a total anti-dragon propaganda game and I don’t agree with that. I’ve also played a lot in VRChat, I even have my profile picture made with rigging for my streaming channel, and I was able to transfer my character into VRChat."
Zoey: "Your team blew away our game jam expectations; what had you all so motivated?"
Kaida: "I love world-building. I’ve done a lot of D&D and a lot of game dev myself, and I like making something that looks pretty. I like setting up the scene, making the map, and putting a lot of pieces everywhere. I just love worldbuilding and world designing… When I first heard about the jam, that was the only thing that I could think about I talked to my friend and asked her for ideas and asked who wanted to have their names in the game too. A few people in the game are named after my friends. We all collaborated until I had a good head start, and I was able to work with that."
Zoey: "How did it feel to realize your team had won?"
Kaida: "Shock. Okay, so it was my friend's birthday party. We had been invited a few weeks before, and it was the exact same time. No way, no way, no way, no way. I was freaking out at the party with everybody looking at me. When I walked up [on the discord stage] to do the quick talk, I was so shocked that I was pretty much speechless the whole time."
Zoey: "How does it feel to know that Ordinary Day In Oakengrasp has already helped reshape the development of Aexia?"
Kaida: "When I read on Discord how a couple of things were changing because of what I did, I was more speechless than the award night. I never imagined that whatever I had built would have any lasting impact."
Zoey: "Is there anything you’d really want to say to the Aexia community?"
Kaida: "Keep it up, let's build something beautiful together."
Final Thoughts
We thank Kaida for her contributions to the Aexia community and for this opportunity to better understand who she is. Kaida’s journey from feeling like an outcast to becoming a welcoming force on her stream is remarkable. With her passion for role-playing, world-building, and her team's victory in the VR Role Play game jam, Kaida has not only left a lasting mark on the Aexia Community but also influenced the development of Aexia itself.
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