In response to this tweet

A tradition started on Twitter by aetherflows. But since I prefer using tumblr I decided to bring the fun over here!

How it Works:

1. I post new questions every Wednesday.

2. You answer the questions about your WoL or other FFXIV OC.

3. Answer at any time. It doesn’t have to be on the same day the question is posted.

4. Please tag me in your post! Tumblr hasn’t been playing nice with me with the regular tags and I don’t want to miss any posts!

Today’s question…

Tell me about what inspirations and influences went into the creation and development of your WoL/OC. Did you have a vision for them in mind when you created them? Or did it take time and experience to figure out who they were? Feel free to go into detail!

When I first made Eynar had so many different ideas but wasn't sure if I could implement them, especially since I was completely new to the game. I decided I wouldn't make any choices until after I'd gotten through at least ARR. I started my journey in Ul'dah as a Pugilist and I really liked the desert feel so I knew I wanted him to be from an arid clime like Ul'dah but wasn't sure I wanted to fit into Ul'dah itself. So I waited again and got kind of lost to the story instead of figuring things out which actually worked out well. Ala Mhigo was definitely when ideas began to come together and I started to really get into Eynar's backstory.

A little belated because I work and go to school Wednesdays, but! This is super cool. Please check out the original post from @mythopoet-of-amaurot​ here!

Tell me about what inspirations and influences went into the creation and development of your WoL/OC. Did you have a vision for them in mind when you created them? Or did it take time and experience to figure out who they were? Feel free to go into detail!

Astor is actually based on a mage OC I’ve had for several years now - starting as just a sort of generalized fantasy mage oc I used to RP with and then traveling with me to be adapted into the various fandoms I’ve been with over time. FFXIV being a fantasy setting, it was really only a matter of time before I brought him over. I had, actually, started my free trial with a Roe female character because I like to at least try out game-specific races when I have the opportunity to do so, but I made Astor shortly after, I think once I’d bought the full game before my Roe had even experienced Sastasha because I was already entranced, lol.

Anyway, his appearance has changed slightly, and XIV Astor is on the younger end of his 30s opposed to to the older end or even in his 40s because the timeline of things worked a little bit better for me that way for this XIV iteration, but he is, at his core, more or less the same. IIRC, “Astor” as a name has some sort of relation or meaning to hawk, and I had just been getting into the Avengers around when I made him, and Hawkeye was my favorite Avenger. So, Astor sort of started there, appearance and name wise. And then in XIV he ended up with blue eyes instead of gray like originally because I was just... I thought he was pretty, okay? And at the end of the day, what is the point if you’re not at least a little in love with your main?

I’m not sure if there was anything I specifically pulled from when I did his personality, but his core traits to me have always been empathy, compassion, and... a little too self-sacrificing for both, lol. He’s always been a bleeding heart, and he was actually always meant to have an affinity for healing magic because of it. But he very nearly started as an archer in XIV because it was my first MMO of this type, and the idea of healing terrified me. Ultimately, I caved in like less than a day, I think??? And I restarted him as a WHM because it felt wrong to his character to not go with the job that literally screamed his vibes.

And I always have to say, to an extent, of course there’s a bit of me or my wants in him, too. I think you always put a bit of yourself into characters you love, but Astor’s close relationship with his mother is probably because that’s my closest familiar relationship. I don’t really have one with my dad, but I didn’t want to entirely replicate, y’know... that part of the experience, so that’s how Astor ended up not really knowing him too well, without it being a major family dysfunction point.

And I have to crack the joke I always do before this gets too heavy for anyone, but I also like to say like... Astor is the kind of man I’d like to know and I haven’t always had a lot of male figures in my life that I felt comfortable looking up to, so... I made my own! He’s my comfort oc, for sure.

And then Shay is like my loving callout post to my friend. Because we made Shay and Airi together to replay the story, and they originally weren’t supposed to end up together, I don’t think, and I think I just kinda... subconsciously challenged myself to make it happen, lmao. Shay’s backstory is very loosely based off an rp character I had a long time ago that I never got to use much, but... admittedly, that character was not nearly as brooding about it as Shay, lmaooo. I kinda think I subconsciously tried to fit as many of my friend’s favorite character traits into him that I knew about as physically possible and it all just fell together so well... and that’s how we ended up with the emotionally damaged angry elf!

Okay, and I also wanted to make him slightly attractive to myself because you know, again, what is the point if you don’t like them at least a little? But he’s definitely just. A loving callout post made flesh. And we love him for it.

Alternatively, his biggest character inspiration that I worked a lot from is Toothless from the How to Train Your Dragon movies. From sort of the color scheme to the whole sort of monster impression, but actually just misunderstood starting points, a lot of it kind of started with Toothless, my beloved. He’s one of my favorite characters ever, so like unrelated fun fact, child me was really distraught and basically mad at Dreamworks for a while after the first movie because Toothless wasn’t actually real and they’d made him so lovable and I was just. So upset I couldn’t actually love on a Toothless. I still low-key like... kinda want like a cuddle sized Toothless, but I... haven’t been able to justify spending a couple hundred dollars on one off of Etsy and the retail ones just. aren’t big enough or made from like. Not cuddly materials. It’s been a struggle that I’ve kinda just shoved off as a wistful dream at this point, but... I still think about it sometimes, lol.

And there’s definitely several other characters who I’ve definitely drawn more specific inspiration from, but this is already getting hella long, god...

Like, just for quickfire kind of things, Ambrose and Ysabel’s dynamic is highly inspired by Dragon Age lore, particularly mages, templars, the Circles, and a little pinch of Tevinter. And I’m just gonna stop myself there because I have... too many characters to talk about.

Which reminds me!!! I am currently very slowly in the process of doing actual character pages for them, so please look forward to that. They are actual Tumblr pages now, so, unfortunately, they won’t show up on mobile, but I thought it was the best way to consolidate information on them instead of just leaving everything up to the tagging void to solve. Astor’s is currently the only one I have finished (though there are... several typos. One day I will go back and fix that. Maybe. >.>) and I’m in the process of working on Shay’s, so there is a link in my sidebar now for that base launch page. I’ll add links to their individual pages from there as I finish them. <3

Tell me about what inspirations and influences went into the creation and development of your WoL/OC. Did you have a vision for them in mind when you created them? Or did it take time and experience to figure out who they were? Feel free to go into detail!

Rose started as a picture of a character that I thought was so beautiful and had such a pretty palette. I took that palette, recreated it on a femroe (one of my top favorites races, if not my absolute favorite), and altered it to fit my preferences and the quickly forming vague idea of a personality in my head.

As I was making Rose in-game, I knew I wanted her to pull some influences from a former RP character of mine. The older character was also a femroe, and because there was so little lore on Hellsguard available I wrote a lot of it myself. I didn't want it to go to waste so its influences are seen in Rose. The lore I wrote also had to do with my journey of spirituality, so that was another reason I wanted to use it again. In real life, I've been interested in and learning about witchcraft, so that's another big influence on Rose's beliefs and personality. Outside of that, I just knew I wanted a big teddy bear friend mom type of character.

A tradition started on Twitter by aetherflows. But since I prefer using tumblr I decided to bring the fun over here!

How it Works:

1. I post new questions every Wednesday.

2. You answer the questions about your WoL or other FFXIV OC.

3. Answer at any time. It doesn’t have to be on the same day the question is posted. 

4. Please tag me in your post! Tumblr hasn’t been playing nice with me with the regular tags and I don’t want to miss any posts!

Today’s question...