In today’s spotlight we get to talk about a member of a group of Vtubers we’ve seen time and time again. Throughout this series we’ve mentioned quite a few of the myriad of Vtubers that make up The Strays. It’s a group that has actively supported me for some time so I’m always happy to talk about them and today we get to hear all about the story of the werewolf Vtuber, Illia Rieka.

Sometimes it’s hard to really take that first step into content creation. For Illia, she has the support of her partner who encouraged her to make the venture as she loves to share her love of games with others. To make her Vtuber model she took inspiration from quite a few things she enjoys. The initial model started as the one she used for her Final Fantasy XIV character. Over time changes were made to reflect more of her interests. After the Halloween set came out she started wearing it all the time as she liked wolves and werewolves alike. Throughout the years the model continued to change bit by bit as she incorporated elements from her favorite characters such as Felicia from Darkstalkers and Krystal from Starfox. That was how her design ended up as what we see here today.

Her streams are a blast from the past and heavily inspired by the retro era of video games. Everything from how her stream overlays look to the games she plays is a love letter to the games of old as she plays titles like Super Mario Brothers 3 and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. She looks for titles where she can hunt for Retro Achievements, but she’ll add the occasional newer title as well from time to time. You can check out her streams right here on her Twitch channel.

If you want to support her work you should head over to her website. There you can find a link to her Bluesky as well as her Discord server the Wolves Den where you can stay active with all of her updates as well as her community of fans. If you love her work and want to support her further she has a Kofi where she’s currently raising money for an emergency surgery and every donation makes a big difference.