off to another adventure!

So, you might or might not know that Hali is actually not my first WoL OC. Before Hali, I had made an Auri Hingan Samurai woman named Yume Aino, whom I first created back in 2019, shortly after the release of Shadowbringers (Yume’s blog can be found here: @firelightmuse). I didn’t realize it at first, but because of how I had written Yume, as a stoic, no nonsense warrior through and through, but also someone who was dealing with a lot of trauma and trying to find purpose in her life, I soon had a really hard time shipping her with anyone. Over the years I had tried shipping Yume with Cid, G’raha, and I briefly thought of Artoirel, but I now have found her perfect ship with Zenos. Before any of them, however, my first choice of an NPC ship was Aymeric.

Why Aymeric? Well, it took me quite a while to realize that a huge part of me wanting to ship Yume with Aymeric as a first choice was a very personal one. Aymeric was the first character in FFXIV that I completely fell for. Though I enjoyed the characters of Cid, Haurchefant, and G’raha in ARR, it wasn’t until we meet Aymeric in the Pre-HW patches that I had gotten attached to the world and the story through finding a favorite character of my own. Aymeric is so special to me, and that made me try to ship my only WoL at the time with him. But as you can see, that ultimately didn’t work out.

It didn’t work out because Yume and Aymeric didn’t vibe well with each other. There was a severe lack of chemistry between the two. I had realized that Aymeric is much too polite and respectful of decorum to break Yume out of her shell to make a deeper connection than just comrades that respect one another, and I didn’t think Yume was the kind of person that Aymeric would come to love either, as she would likely remind him of the many Ishgardian nobles that he was around all the time, for many reasons which I won’t elaborate on here due to brevity. And as I didn’t have any other OCs at the time, I just continued developing Yume and an NPC ship with Aymeric was discarded. Although I personally was very saddened by that, I thought it was the right decision for both characters.

Yet, I continued having trouble writing any kind of ship with Yume over time. After a few years, as I kept getting frustrated with the ships I was trying to write for her, I got inspired to make another WoL OC that would be different from Yume in every way. She actually would end up being much more of a self insert than I ever expected, but nonetheless I fell in love with the pink haired, happy go lucky Lalafellin woman who would become Hali Aloke, my pride and joy.

As I got Hali through base ARR and into the ARR patches, I didn’t have any intention on trying to ship her Aymeric and to try a WoL x NPC ship with him a second time, as I actually had intentions to ship Hali with Krile later on in her WoL journey.

But everything changed once Hali met Aymeric in 2.4, the lead up to Heavensward. I saw them in the cutscenes together, and as ridiculous of a height difference they had, I still couldn’t help but giggle and squeal whenever they were together. They just were incredibly adorable, and I couldn’t hold myself back. I just had to try to ship Hali with Aymeric.

So I decided to try to write a few prompts with them together and see how their dynamic was. And it was even better than I had expected. Their chemistry was so amazing, and the dialogue between them flowed quite effortlessly. Not only was I highly impressed and kept getting inspired to write more and more, but I got a ton of positive feedback from so many people telling me that they loved Hali and Aymeric together.

And I guess that was that. I have never looked back since. Hali x Aymeric are my everything (well besides Yume x Zenos now of course); my ship makes me so damn happy. Just looking at them makes me smile and want to write and gpose more. I can’t get enough of them. It’s to the point now that I don’t know if I could ever write a ship better than Hali x Aymeric. And you know what? I don’t even want to try at this point.

I still can’t fully comprehend how a pink haired, bubbly, sunshine of a lalafellin woman and a noble, brave, and charismatic Ishgardian knight could be such a beautiful and dynamic couple that would not only bring me endless joy but also keep inspiring me far more than anything else I’ve ever written. It is utterly beyond my comprehension, but somehow it works. And I am forever grateful that I just followed my heart and wrote what I wanted, and not for anyone else’s approval, but my own.

I somehow hope this helps inspire someone out there to not be afraid and just go for the ship they want to write for, despite what the fandom at large says. Trust me, it’s worth it.

also tho