Why-raven - The Blackest Night.

Did you design your OC with a specific aspect of RP in mind? Such as shipping, NSFW things, attending in-game social events, hosting events or entertaining others?

Little OC Creation Ask List. — OPEN

Thank you for the ask, @mimble-sparklepudding! I always love your ask questions for the thoughtfulness and insight, and I’m very happy to receive one from the OP (´◡`) To answer the question: not really, for the options stated in the question.

Whenever I design my OCs for storytelling (be it for writing fanfics or RPing with others), I usually go along with either my personal aesthetic taste, or if I already had a rough idea for their lore to pick something that would work reasonably. I don’t think about what other players would feel towards my muses because I didn’t create my characters for them in the first place. Great if you like my blorbos, but it’s fine if you don’t vibe with them. My characters and I aren’t here to please everybody. I’ve been writing and roleplaying in other fandoms for at least a decade, way before I even joined the FFXIV community, so I’ve never felt the need to create my characters around other people unless absolutely necessary.

So far, I’ve only shared two major muses openly on this site: Sora and Yiuno. Sora is a likeable sort of character, with her cute appearance and child-like innocence (we do not talk about her penchant for violence). She was the first OC I made when I started playing the game during Shadowbringers launch. I was fairly clueless about FFXIV back then, so I didn’t really think much about her character development and mostly went along with what felt right for her. I only started working on her backstory proper around patch 5.55, when I’m more familiar with the game’s lore.

As for Yiuno… he wasn’t created to be someone good and straightforward, like Sora. When male Viera is added to the game in Endwalker, I thought of designing a character who is multilayered, complicated, and fun for me to explore from various perspectives. Yiuno is a dangerous but broken man; almost nothing about him is particularly likeable as a person (except maybe his face, lol). Speaking of appearance, that was what I had intended for him—he has an idealistic beauty that could charm others to gravitate to him, until they finally realize the horrors he kept behind that pretty smiling mask (and by then it’d probably be too late). He’s supposed to be a hypocritical existence, the embodiment of paradox and contradiction.

The only exception created for shipping with NPC, I’d say, is Persephone, the other half of Yiuno’s Ancient self. The serious reason is my own take on the true motive that drove Emet-Selch to extremity in his actions against the Sundered on Etheirys to reclaim the Star for his own people (i.e. my way to fill in some blanks in the canon). The fun reason? I enjoyed the various studies on the relationship between Hades and Persephone in Ancient Greek mythology, and I want to do something similar with them. (Also, I stand by my personal headcanon of Emet and Lahabrea often lamenting about their wives after the Convocation meetings.)

While most people might be unwilling to admit this, our characters also serve as an extension of our real selves, particularly in a virtual world like Etheirys. I mean, we technically don’t see the real faces of other players in the game (unless you share your RL photos, that’s on you), so naturally the avatars that everyone sees in the game is a representation of the player controlling that character. I believe that ultimately people create characters for themselves, because they are the ones making the conscious choice and taking the necessary actions to fulfill that decision. Just my two-cents.

N O C T L U N A   W E E K

Day 6: Night and moon

Quote by: Frederick L. Knowles

video game scenery meme — [ 2 / 3 ] underappreciated locations

north shroud —hyrstmill

Sun’s sweet smile and wind’s cool breath, Both of these I send thee, To ripe thy fruit and spread thy seed, And nourish those that tend thee.

— Nophica’s Hymn, Final Fantasy XIV: Legacy