#I didn't post about ffxiv back when I was levelling but she was big on the Of Aiming version of this hat and I mostly played Of Aiming jobs

[elizabethrobertajones]

OKAY this time I am ACTUALLY logging Frog out next to Erenville while ready to set off on adventure whenever the Queues allow me back in :3

[crossroadsdimension]

Friend, amigo, fam Plz tell me about your OC, I'm all for that stuff 🙏

@metalmewtwo-kxb, I hope you know what you have unleashed.

Time to talk about the two characters I've made for FFXIV!

To preface -- you can have multiple characters attached to one account for this MMO without paying extra per character slot. Since I'm paying the Entry-level of that, I can have a total of 8 characters, 1 per server. I really don't need more than that, since I was planning on having just my main and that's it, but then I got interested in a defunct FF mobile game, and I needed to play through the story on a fresh save. So that's where #2 came in. (He'll get a separate post, if people are interested in him, too.)

Anywho! Let's get this ramble rolling -- under the cut cause it's gonna get long.

First, I'm gonna talk about my "main" character, the one I've been playing for the last two and a half years and have done...almost everything on, at this point.

I don't have any screenshots of her because I don't mess around with gpose that much and only figured out recently how to take screenshots on my PS5. Sooo -- here's the profile picture from the Lodestone for reference.

Behold, Cross Sylvan!

I didn't come up with a lot of backstory for her when I first started the game back in October 2021, right before Endwalker's release. Because miqo'te -- or cat people -- have naming conventions that have an apostrophe in their name after a "clan letter" (i.e., Y'shtola is of Clan Y, and is only Shtola to her friends), I wanted to pick something that would have something of a pun involved, and I like the word "Cross" too much to leave it out.

So she's M'Cross (pronounced Macross), but dropped the tribe letter for her own reasons. Her parents were booted from the M tribe, you see -- her mom married a male miqo'te who wasn't the leader of the tribe, and because the two of them broke tribe rules, they were kicked out.

(Further context -- the leader of a Sun Seeker tribe, the Nunh, gets to lay with every single female miqo'te in the tribe. Yes, they get a harem; no, I'm not making this up. This is in-game lore. Moon Keepers, a different group of miqo'te, tend to do it in reverse.)

Anyway, Cross' parents left their home in Gyr Abania and moved to Thanalan, a desert region located at the southern region of the continent of Aldenard, which contains the region of Eorzea (If it helps you picture the region, the continent is basically shaped like Africa, with some differences in climate). They raised her there, and Cross' father eventually left to become an adventurer, while her mother stayed at home and focused on becoming a half-decent merchant in the Silver Bazaar.

And then the events of FF14's 1.0 happened. I'm not gonna go into detail here because I didn't play 1.0 before they shut down the servers and restarted them with 2.0 as the starting point, but suffice it to say that Cross' father either died or vanished during a big battle in a place called Carteneau. During that big battle, something happened that wiped out everyone's memory of how that battle ended. It had the side-effect of preventing everyone in Eorzea from remembering certain people clearly. Including Cross' father.

So you can imagine how confusing and distraught she would be to not only realize Dad wasn't coming home -- but also that she couldn't remember his face, his voice, the sorts of things he liked to do...very traumatic.

Cross leaves five years later -- the start of 2.0 -- to become an adventurer herself. Mom got overprotective and more than a little overbearing after the Calamity, and Cross wanted to get away for a bit. She still likes her mom, she just wanted space to breathe. That, and something's driving her to travel. See the realm that her barely-remembered father sacrificed himself for.

And then the game starts, and Cross gets rapidly pulled into events that...might have been what her father had been involved in before his disappearance. She wouldn't know, much less remember.

Backstory out of the way -- time to talk about Cross as a person!

Cross is a sponge when it comes to absorbing knowledge. She's naturally curious and wants to get her nose into everything -- different jobs, cultures, food, history...you name it, she's probably got a cursory knowledge of it. As a result, that means I can say she's at least picked up every single job in the game, but she has her favorites.

Her parents taught her archery from a young age, and she has some magical talent as well. She prefers Black Mage over Bard, and between fighting melee and ranged, she'd prefer ranged. She didn't have a healing job that really clicked with her until Sage, and out of the tanking jobs, she prefers Dark Knight and Warrior. Paladin is in a strange position with her, because she believes that's how her father used to fight, and she made an effort to learn the style, but it hasn't sat right with her.

She's also picked up all the crafting and gathering jobs, but she prefers the hard work of botany and miner over the patience of fishing, and likes weaving and leatherworking more than the rest of the crafters.

As Viper and Pictomancer are the newest jobs added to the game, I haven't figured out if they're going to be among Cross' "favorites" yet, but since I like Pictomancer a lot, she's probably going to like that one, too.

Cross has a little bit of snark, a little bit of a temper, but neither really show up unless you've pushed her buttons (temper) or she's comfortable enough to let down her walls around you (snark). She's been known to trade banter with the young twins who are a part of the NPC main cast, for example, or join in the berating of other characters if her fellow miqo'te mage (another NPC) is unleashing a rather nasty burn in someone's general direction.

She likes writing music based on her surroundings. More than a few orchestrion rolls have shown up in shops based on some of her scribbles and playing around on her harp and the like. Some of the songs based on strange, faraway lands have gotten the attention of those who are too young to travel, making them want to follow in her footsteps.

She has a chocobo. His name is Cloudstreak, and she's considering changing his feather color to sky blue (yes, you can do this in-game, I just haven't done it yet). Cross has other mounts, too, but Cloudstreak is her first and favorite of the bunch.

Over the course of the first "book series" in the game (A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, Endwalker), Cross grew from a young adult who was somewhat inexperienced with the world outside Thanalan to a worldly woman who has traveled extensively, and grown in confidence, knowledge, and strength as a result. She's become a hero of the realm. The Warrior of Light in more than name, because she got that title way back in A Realm Reborn and has only reshaped its meaning repeatedly since then.

She is a Traveler, and Travel she will. There's a desire to see the world beyond what she's already seen, and she will see every nook and cranny of her planet.

If you get into the game and want to see a somewhat shortened version of her journey through A Realm Reborn...I've got a fanfic going for her. The Chronicles of a Young Adventurer is the first part of her series, which I'm separating out according to main expansion and patch content. It's mostly journal entries, letters, and the occasional scene that's been more written out, but I like what I'm doing with it so far!

[eemamminy-art]

👻💻 For the fanfic ask meme!

👻 What is one WIP you think you may never pick back up?

I had started what was intended to be the final piece to my daughters of ishgard f!estimeric oneshot series, which was going to be set post-HW after Estinien had left the way he normally does in canon. The idea was going to be that she came back to Ishgard surreptitiously in order to visit Aymeric, who is still waist-deep in trying to enact real and meaningful change in Ishgard. Estinien on the other hand, has opened her eyes to a whole new world outside the Holy See. While in Ishgard she might have forced herself into a binary male role in order to keep herself safe and express herself at all, in the outside world she discovers all sorts of ways to exist. When she comes back she's had top surgery, she's as masculine as ever, but in embracing those things as being okay and acceptable she's found the freedom to feel closer to her womanhood than she ever dreamed possible.

I wasn't really sure how to go about it, but that was the central theme anyway. As you know I have super mixed feelings on how the relationship in canon between Estinien and Aymeric went from 5.0 onward, so I was trying to find a good balance especially considering like, the entire rest of those fics are set pre-HW or during HW which is a completely different vibe. It also felt a little bleak that like, Estinien would come back with this profound new sense of self while Aymeric is still willfully keeping herself in chains in order to see a better Ishgard at the end of it. I didn't want it to be an unhappy ending, but in an already really bleak setting of this AU, maybe there was never any other ending possible.

So I let it sit a long while. At this point I've been made to feel so alienated and bad about the ship and the AU I don't really think I'll ever go back to it. I don't even feel like a maybe is fair to say. Never say never I suppose, but if I ever were to go back, I think it would be a long long time from now, if ever.

💻 Do you do research for your fics? What’s the deepest dive you’ve done?

I do! It's all fairly surface level for the most part, but I regularly look stuff up to make sure I'm being reasonable with what I'm writing. I look up quest dialog or replay quests in ffxiv pretty regularly when writing something relevant to it, and in my stardew valley fic I've looked up SO much stuff about homesteading, cooking, and sports lmao. I consider myself pretty well rounded in my interests and my dad was a country boy so I know a fair bit already about those topics but I've still double checked on a lot of stuff to make sure it was within the realm of possibility (allowing myself some wiggle room since the setting is technically not our own world so I can change things if it's more convenient). I've also been looking up character dialog a lot because I'm really worried I'm characterizing them all weirdly, like it's been genuinely a big concern of mine with this fic. Hopefully my concern will lead to me not writing them OOC, but I don't know! 😖

Probably the most in-depth research I ever did was taking notes through a replay of ARR with the intent to start writing Leigh's canon, since it's canon-adjacent and heavily focused on ARR and HW (ending at 3.4 before picking up again at 6.0). I ended up not writing that but I have a lot of notes saved of notable differences between the canon and how his story goes, if I ever do decide to do something with it.

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Fanfic ask game

[adanceineorzea]

Tagged: Getting To Know You OOC

NAME: Anglicised version of Guinevere. If you're an 80's kid you had at least 10 of us in every class.

NICKNAME: My main blog @wolftabard is the name I use in most online spaces but I generally abbreviate it to Wolf. I think that's the closest I have to an online nickname these days.

FACECLAIM: Do you mean my face? If you mean for my characters / muses then I don't really do faceclaims.

PRONOUNS: She/her or They/them are both fine! <3

HEIGHT: 5′10"

BIRTHDAY: I'm a January Aquarius

AESTHETIC: Flannel shirts, overalls, baggy shorts, tshirts I got from work, polo shirts, work boots. I want a tattoo very badly and I've been debating re-piercing and working on upping the gauge in my ears? HOT MESS FARM BUTCH, basically.

LAST SONG YOU LISTENED TO: Ocean by Devon Baldwin

FAVORITE MUSE(S) YOU’VE WRITTEN: In FFXIV it's a tie between Cera and Lir. I've done a bunch of writing for both of them but I haven't posted much for Cera. I need to edit her stuff and clean it up, but why do that when I could just RP more, ugh.

–Getting to know the account

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO TAKE ON THIS MUSE:

Cerathil: Cera started out as a Night Elf in WoW, and I was still really pumped for her when I hopped over to FFXIV. I struggled mightily with adjusting her character for the game partially because I didn't know much about the FFXIV lore, but mostly because in WoW she had a lot of very WoW specific problems (demon hunter wife, anti-magic nelf stigma, fel addiction fears) so I ended up developing Lir and coming back to her later. She's almost a completely different person from WoW Cera, but this is mainly due to timeline differences. FFXIV Cera got out of the military and embraced her true passions while WoW Cera was stuck in a job she hated fighting a war she never wanted to be part of. Consequently FFXIV Cera is a lot happier, more fulfilled person. This makes her solidly outside of the type of character I usually play so I'm struggling a little with staying connected to her current story.

Dove: I really wanted to play a monk. I mained monk in WoW for years and Dove is partially inspired by an old Tauren monk of mine, although she's much more scholarly than Maha was. I haven't gotten hugely into her yet as I'm still developing her but I'm very excited to have a big buff bruiser lady again! Also I adore Roe ladies so it was high time I settled on one for myself.

Lirene: I wanted to make a criminal character to play with some friends that do crime shenanigans (/wave) but I also wanted someone that didn't have crime as her ultimate goal. Enter Lir. Who is inspired by any character with noble ideals and practical executions. She ended up being waaaaaaaay softer than I expected but that could be because her main plot line so far has revolved around meeting her wife, albeit through the manipulations of the cartel they're both involuntarily working for. I don't think she's worked out terribly well for crime shenanigans at least in part because she's so terribly protective and ended up liking playing by the rules too much. Oh well. I still love her tho!

Tristan: Machinist is fun, pewpew. I need to work on developing her more.

Hfyrn: I honestly just wanted a botanist before I realized I'd also have to level her adventuring class, but I love her aesthetic so she's staying even if I don't play her much. Enjoy the flowers and fluffy soft posts she brings this blog.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE ASPECTS OF YOUR CURRENT MUSE:

Just gonna answer this for Cera and Lir since they're my main gals at the moment!

Cera: I really like how versatile Cera is in roleplay situations. Because of her job as an entertainer and something of a spy she's always looking to either blend in and observe, or else command and direct attention to where it best serves her needs. She can be manipulative and deceptive, but she's almost never intentionally cruel about it.

I also adore the delightful relationship between her and her wife, Mhaelou Dhemoenwyn, because theyre' such glaring opposites. Lou is a huge, raucous, beast of a pirate woman that loves fighting, chaos and mayhem, but is generally against outright killing people. Cera is refined, elegant, thoughtful, and while she's a day-to-day pacifist she's also perfectly willing to kill if doing so will keep her family safe. Neither of them want to change anything about the other, and they adore one another in a way that's stupidly cute and soft.

Lir: Oh, Lir. I love Lir because she is good hearted, and strong, and capable in interesting ways that she doesn't fully realize. She thinks of herself as a lost cause. Someone that's not really worthy of the things she's gotten in life so far. She thinks she's defined by her failures and all the ways she's sacrificed her ideals on the alter of survival and practicality. She's just so fucking stupid about herself and can't see what makes others love her.

Lir is also a character that wants things and is afraid to reach for them, but has recently been given a big helping of motivation in the form of her amazing wife. (There is a trend here.) Shay doesn't seem to have any problem with reaching for the stars and Lir is gonna be damned if she's gonna let her wife down.

WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST INSPIRATION WHEN IT COMES TO WRITING:

Talking with my wife and friends about roleplay stuff! I'm certainly inspired by other things, movies, games, mythology, art, etc. But talking through potential plot ideas or bouncing things around with my friends is just... *chef kiss* The. Best.

Some of my favorite plot things we've done have evolved out of "OMG wouldn't it be funny if" conversations with my wife in particular. Then we have our characters end up in hilarious/ridiculous situations and they make us cry because they're so sweet and stupid and lovable.

FAVORITE TYPES OF THREADS:

I like juicy character development stuff. Just yeet my characters into a situation where they have to poke outside their comfort zone, or else confront head-on something they've been struggling with. Doesn't matter what the setting is. It could be an action packed situation where they have to confront their unsustainable relationship with violence, or it could be a quiet moment of introspection that leads them to a big revelation later on. I want my characters to be like plants - they always need to be growing!

Tagged by: @luck-and-larceny Thank you again, this was another great ind interesting ask!

Tagging: My wife who needs to check her tumblr.