#WoL PoC

[phylarch]

the last allagan.

#『 ♚ 』 𝙂𝘼𝙇𝙇𝙀𝙍𝙔 . #allagan #warrior of light #WoL #allagan royal #poc wol #poc warrior of light #I'M SO FUCKING PROUD OF HIM BARK BARK BARK #his hair. his face textures. his robe. his shoes. all my crimes!

[madqueenmomo]

Hiya folks. Todays the ffxiv hair contest winers were announced and of of the styles I made won.

The one who will be implimented in game will be Natural curls.

These were made with my friends in mind (because I love them and they deserve more actual natural curls) while taking into consideration the lack of curly hair, the textures I know they would be able to make and how it would look like on non poc wols

The winning hair

This was the first and more simple one I made. I started out with the base shape then painted it over with a natural curl hair brush.

I wanted to make a texture I felt i’ve seen the devs make in Highlander/Midlander hair but no where else.

I simplified it for the quickly drawn examples … I have a feeling the end product might be closer to those instead of the more curly version. Here is to hoping no.

The ones I made but did not win, so wont get in game

The curly swoop

This one was actually requested by one of my friends.

She wanted me to try a hair still she wanted to have in real life. Due to the reasons stated on top, i had to loosen up the curls of the swoop to make it work with what i knew was a texture they could pull off and also work with non poc characters.

Old school ponytail

This one was inspired by nostalgia from when I was in grade school.

I remembered those hail tie balls so well and associated them with fond memories.

Sadly I didn’t think i could do my original idea of the thick cute braids i associated these with in a way that the game would make it not look racist/work with non poc characters so I focused on just the curls. It ended up reminding me of Terra from FF6 but more curly.

In the end. I’m glad Natural curls won. I really hope they get the texture right and curly.

I still feel awkward cause i’m white woman who submitted these. But I did them with love and support for my friends and to yell at SE to add more poc hair (wich i saw a shorter dreads hair and also a really elegant brais with poofy curls won so i guess my plan worked?)

I just hope this will make them make more hair with poc in mind so the players can eat well.

#ff14 #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #ffxiv community #im still really sorry about having to tone the curls down just to make it work with white people #im really sorry #but seriously i just wanted se to make poc hair for once so my friends would be happier with actual hair that is textured like theirs

[larchelle-ffxiv]

i am not gonna be normal for the rest of my goddamn life chelle's curly pixie cut is REAL NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! a MILLION SMOOCHES AND THANK YOUS TO @rasplejax FOR DOING THIS!!!!!!!!! i've always hated that ffxiv has no frickin curly hair options (esp for miqos), and as a poc with a poc wol it's BEYOND FRUSTRATING. PLEASE look into rasp's work, she does INCREDIBLE STUFF!!! link for this hair (it's a bg3 port)!!!

#l'archelle gozen #l'archelle my skrungly #the cotton candy head is BACK BAYBEEEEEEEEEEE

[aotopmha]

Can Yoshi-P please stop justifying skin colour changes in his games with awkward walls of text?

First it's that "It's fantasy, but also reality."

But now it's "It's fantasy, so we're doing what we want."

The FF16 one is at least understandable considering the subject matters the game deals with, but it's still imperfect because you can do PoC without that baggage.

Saying "we mean no harm" after all of those flimsy excuses with Y'Shtola feels so dumb to me.

I can absolutely understand the 2.0 lighting issues. Fine. That change wasn't that extreme.

And I even defended this because in a bunch of in-game artwork in ShB she's still pretty tan, but I'll believe it when we see a concept art saying she's by design supposed to be tanned, not PoC.

I'll even believe they pay this detailed attention to character design.

It's so annoying because in a new panel for Dawntrail they also say they're paying special attention to PoC representation for this expansion because they've not always done it right in the past.

And there they mentioned it's fantasy, but there is the need to still respect the irl cultures they draw from.

It's a inconsistent mess because whitewashing is still fairly common and "they're just tan" is a pretty common excuse that Japan isn't immune from either, even if it isn't entirely delibrate or conscious. (In Japanese context there is also making characters "more Asian" by removing their tan.)

And then there are some of the disrespectful outfits in Mogstation.

I still get the sense the underlying implication is that the game got more popular and Y'Shtola's tan became "less appealing" from a marketing standpoint, but they just can't say it.

But hey, going by a good faith interpretation, they better be consistent with it.

Everyone should just be tan after Dawntrail.

Then I might believe it.

FFXIV has many good to great PoC characters with complex, complete storylines, but it still falls into some pretty annoying tropes.

Most of them either die (Teledji, Ilberd, Conrad, Ahewann), are written out after their story is basically complete (Hermes, Lahabrea, Ericthonius, Lolorito) or are pushed to minor roles or were minor roles to begin with (Raubahn, Pipin, Gaius, Arenvald, Lyna).

Truth is, Y'Shtola is the only character that truly has gone through this pretty noticably, so this adds credence to her "just being tan", but I think she's also the only main character who could be 100% read as PoC along with any PoC WoL designs because she was "tan" for so long.

Currently, only Arenvald, Raubahn, Pipin, Gaius, Vytra, Cyella and Lyna could potentially become relevant in the future without "bringing them back" and as said, half of these are pretty minor characters or also have pretty complete stories.

Erenville looks to have a more major role in Dawntrail, at least.

And I think Cyella and the entire group on the First might end up getting a secondary plotline restoring the 13th along with Zero after Zeromus is defeated.

(That 6.5 screenshot is super intriguing.)

XIV is probably better about PoC than 90% of popular fantasy, but it still has its flaws and wierd justifications like this really don't help.

#Final Fantasy XIV #Final Fantasy 14 #FFXIV #FF14 #FF #Final Fantasy #Y'Shtola #Y'Shtola Rhul

[frozen-way]

FFXIV Poc WoLs when the lighting is slightly dim! (I swear to god if I still can’t see Aurora when it gets slightly dark when dawntrial releases I will cry)

#ffxiv #meme #please let the lighting on darker skin be better I’m begging

[kumaggi]

join me in celebrating La Creatura!! i'll also be streaming the event on twitch (twitch.tv/kumaggi) for those who wanna hear my witch cackle/wol brainrot in real time B) Rules and More Info

this is a poc/lgbtq+ safe event!! ♥♥

rolanberry glams are NOT REQUIRED!! but for anyone interested in wearing chelle's color, i'll have a bunch to give out ;w;

may start the stream as early as 7-7:30 pm with some of my irl pals, since a couple of them are still in post hw-stb

post ur pics w/ #ChelleDay23!

no fave character hate pls, don't be that guy lol

#ffxiv #ffxiv meetup #lgbtq streamers #ffxiv streamers

[baidar-oroq]

A random discourse on FFXVI's story

I finished FFXVI earlier in the week, and given the strong connections that it was with FFXIV between the devs and a lot of the story, thought I'd wax eloquent here. Spoilers behind the cut:

I think the most interesting thing about the story of FFXVI is pretty much how it's another take on the basic story of FFXIV and the Ascians; Ultima's motive is to destroy all life on Valisthea in order to recreate the lost world of his people, which is not too far removed from the Ascians wanting to destroy all the shards to rejoin them with the Source, and Clive as Mythos being the vessel through which that will happen is a couple of steps to the right of the WoL becoming a sin eater and causing a rejoining. Variations on a theme, if you like. In a lot of ways, FFXVI's story feels almost like an AU of XIV, one where Hydaelyn is conspicuously absent-or perhaps, given the role of the Mothercrystals in the story, a story where She is merged with the Ascians to create Ultima. Had Hydaelyn turned out to be really sus, could this have been a direction that FFXIV could have gone in?

Probably not, and the reason I think that is Clive's final speech to Ultima as he lays dying, because it is the perfect encapsulation of Venat's philosophy of "you will suffer and die, but you can rise above that to find hope and joy." That philosophy stands in stark contrast to Ultima's fear of death, selfishness, and his inability to understand why his creations have surpassed him. Like the Ascians, he does not believe in his lessers, can not understand why Clive is capable of defeating him; like Emet-Selch, he is so lost in the desire to rebuild the world he lost that he can not see the world that could be made by his creations.

Plus his last form straight up has Emet-Selch's Elpis hairstyle, lol.

I heard a lot of complaints about side questing in the game, and they stemmed, most likely, from the early MMO style fetch quests. And that's a shame, since as you progress further and further into the game, whole character arcs and subplots are resolved in the side quests. The most romantic scene between Clive and Jill happens in a fucking side quest! Vast amounts of character development, full on story arcs, are resolved there. If you haven't played FFXVI yet, don't sleep on the side quests, they tell a lot of the story.

Which is good, since the main story, on occasion, is a bit underwritten. It's not really confusing, or bad, but the first two-thirds of the game, focusing on the Game of Thrones styled wars against nations, loses a bit unless you plunge heavily into the lore (and to be fair, the in-game lore options are AMAZING) since you have to keep track of a variety of nations that aren't particularly well defined (the pagans with Iron in their name, the traditional fantasy British-esque empire, and the Norse kingdom.) In the end, the various warring nations take a backseat to the machinations of Ultima, so this isn't as big a knock on the story as it could be, but it is still there.

Now to one of the controversial points of the story, it's lack of POC and the whole, rather sad explanation of "well it's Medieval Europe!" People have theorized that there are no POC because of the story's slavery subplot, where magic using Bearers are shunned and enslaved at birth, and having POC in a world with slavery would look bad.

To which I frankly call "bullshit." The obvious answer to this problem is to make none of the slaves POC. Hell, there's a desert area with rather Arabic architecture in it, make it (1) full of POC and (2) the one place in Valisthea where there are no slaves. Ahh, but expecting Japan to think laterally about that sort of thing is likely too much to ask.

But I'm still gonna.

There are other complaints; Jill is occasionally underwritten, and her trauma arc is somewhat buried under the main story, and while she doesn't die like I expected (c'mon, you know this team's record with female characters, ESPECIALLY ones connected to Shiva) she does suffer a sort of death by giving her Eikon powers to Clive. Most of her trauma is thankfully implied rather than openly stated, but as per usual for this crew, there is a lot of sexual abuse and assault suggested around her story. (Though she does get to kill the man responsible for it, in the end.) And I wish we could have had more time with Cid, who is a fantastic character, but given his role in the story he bowed out at the right time.

I am, however, still waiting for Uncle Byron to die, because he had "the comic relief turns out to die heroically" written all over him, and yet he survived!

Plus Torgal is the best wolf, love and praise him

#ffxvi #ffxvi spoilers #ffxiv #i have a lot to say about the similarities between ultima and emet #but this is not the time

[strengthhonorcompassion]

Fancasting got me thinking I should send a fun ask out, so here we go. If they made an FFXIV movie and lets just say one or all of your OCs could be a part of it either as the main WoL or as a side or background character and you had your run of any actor or actress. Who would you choose for it? If you got enough time, go ahead and explain why. If not, no problem. Have fun!

Sadly I'm not good with Actors or Actresses, I don't keep up with celebs or such, but I'd insist on trying to find an actor who matches Hero's background. He's supposed to be mixed race- specifically Half-Black Half-Japanese.

More PoC actors and actresses need to have their chance in the spotlight anyway.

#thanks for the ask! #I appreciated it #asks answered #FFXIV content #HeroHikara-WoL

[cervidaedalus]

Now that I think about it, I vaguely remember takes about Vierapril and Aurapril being a slight to Lala players when these monthly events first took off, too. From what I recall it was mostly because of how these events were started by Roe and Elezen players to give more spotlight to them as lesser-played races, so I see how two of the most popular races sharing April might SEEM like a slight but... it isn't. The organizers of the lizar and viera events in April didn't sit down and commiserate over a collective hatred of Lala and their players, it was just a cute, fun trend that had just started to take off and everyone wanted to get in on it regardless of the popularity of their race of choice, so there happened to be some overlap. Frankly I don't want to see people arguing over who gets what month and how X month is a slight on Y race- that's playground banter- I want to see more of these monthly prompts, quite frankly. Mixedmay, a month for PoC-inspired WoL's and their PoC players, disabled WoLs, Garleans, Alagans, specific xaela tribes, specific seeker clans. These events were designed to connect the community, not create contention between it.

[fourteenth-seat]

i really do love paion immensely and i am proud of the immense lore, backstory and intricate design i’ve given him. but i feel at this point it's worth mentioning that i am strongly considering giving up writing him due to the sheer lack of interaction outside of two or 3 people, and another Issue within the rpc at large that has been bothering me a lot lately.  i don’t think a lot of people realize how discouraging it is, penning an unambiously black character character as a black mun. getting much in the way of genuine interaction with paion has honestly been a war of attrition. getting people to interact with him (outside of like maybe the same 3 people, who i love immensely for their appreciation of him) has been like pulling teeth, and it's really not a mystery as to why. it's not because the he isn't visually appealing, and it’s not because he lacks content and aesthetic to be referenced; and it isn’t because i don't go out of my way to follow people, rb and send memes, and avidly communicate, or to post opens -- because i've done all that and continue to do it on the regular, and not to toot my own horn or anything, but it's sure as hell not on account of a lack of overall writing quality, meta, or detail on my part. nah. i know Exactly what's going on here (and to be fair, it's far worse on twtr.) i’m really tired of people either calling me slurs or telling me that azem has to be white/cis/feminine/perisex and cannot be black, nonbinary, or intersex. and dont think i haven't noticed the preference given to white/cis/perisex azems and wols, because i absolutely have.

people will often try to hide their c/olourism, r@cism, tr@nsphobia and i/ntersexism behind the excuse of "selectivity" and "preferences"; and while the concepts of selectivity and preferences are completely valid in and of themselves, using selectivity and preferences as an excuse to justify r@cism, tr@nsphobia, etc. is really fucking gross and has no validity whatsoever.

in all fairness? i would vastly prefer to have people interact with paion because they genuinely want to interact and care about/notice the fact that i put an immense amount of work into his character, but let me tell you, when all the muses you interact with are white/binary/cis/perisex, it's painfully obvious to me what's informing your "preferences" lmao...and these "preferences" are especially hurtful to me as a mun of colour who pens a character of colour. (and i could write an essay about how ppl will more readily support more eurocentrically-appealing/ethnically ambiguous poc-coded characters, especially ones that essentially look like white people with a darker skintone slapped on...whereas unambigously nonwhite characters, ESPECIALLY unambiguously black charactes, get left to the wayside, but this post is already long enough as is.) it’s also incredibly painful to know that i’d recieve a lot more support if my ocs were white and/or lighter-complected in general.

as an actual black intersex trans person who writes an unambigously gay black intersex nonbinary muse, i have zero illusions about the fact that anything i do is bound to be on the bottom rung of the list in terms of what's going to be preferred by a predominantly white/cis/perisex/binary community...and quite frankly, that's not a good look?

 "but tea!" you say. "there aren't a lot of muses of colour!" and yeah but like. why do you think that is? this is EXACTLY why, my dude. i feel like muns of colour often feel unspoken pressure to pen white/lighter skinned muses, not to mention the overall shortage of unambigous characters of colour in fandoms such as x/iv for us to enjoy.

anyway. i said what i meant and i meant what i said when i said in a previous post that i don't jive with this bullshit, and at this point, anon is gonna stay off for a while, and i will be unfollowing people both here and on twtr who are repeatedly given me this vibe. it's not subtle, especially when some of you are straight up sending anon hate. and like if you’re gonna be r@cist, tr@nsphobic, etc. then don’t bother being subtle about it? you might as well just openly declare that you don't wanna interact with black people on your rules page and move on. at least then, we’ll know with certainty where we stand...

#☉:ﾟ* 𝕄𝕌ℕ ℂℍ𝔸𝕋𝕋𝔼ℝ . #negativity cw #long post #rant //

[abimee]

i'm a poc and i still consider fourchenault very much light skinned. then again, i also ship my wol with him so i think that's a different convo

oh yeah totally i call fourchenault darker skin as in he has darker skin in relation to the majority of the cast/his wife because i know since square enix is a japanese company full of japanese people that their characters are made for a japanese audience and japanese people can have a wide range of skin tones and features, so i dont know which characters they have made specifically to be white or who are just pale, so i try to steer away from claiming characters specifically as white or not as much as possible, but if its incorrect wording/confusing i can find a different way to do it absolutely

[candies-n-collars]

                                       “Care t’join me?”

PoC WoL Week Day 1: Vacation

#pocwolweek #FFXIV #FF14 #Balmung #Crystal Data Center #WoL PoC #Miqo'te #Zurri Jysal #;my edits #pics #lets see if I remember to do all 7days

[shroudkeeper]

Rivienne enjoying some time away from her heavy armor.

poc wol week day 1: vacation

#poc wol week #elezen #ffxiv #Pocwolweek #[ the golden lady ]

[twofaced-xiv]

“Me, take a vacation? That’s funny! You’re funny.”

poc wol week day 1: vacation taken by @eligos-venator! 

#poc wol week #pocwolweek #she'd rather read than go to the beach #booknerd #midlander #ffxiv #ffxiv screenshots #juliet bertram

[veils-and-hearts]

I have always been shy about my ethnicity.  Growing up, compared to my family, I was fairer skinned but I grew up in a Latinx household where I grew up hearing Spanish and English, I celebrated Latinx traditions and this was all normal to me growing up.  When I started school, in a mostly white neighborhood, I found out just how different my family was.  When you’re children, different is strange and I was told that my family was strange.  Despite being fairer skinned, I had features that my classmates liked to point out and tease as being different and, therefore, ugly.  My nose was too big, my hips were too wide compared to my more willowy classmates, my eyes were too dark and not sparkling blue. I transferred to a mostly Latinx junior high because it got so bad.  But it wasn’t any better there.  In my new junior high, I wasn’t Latina enough.  I didn’t talk with an accent so that made me ‘white.’  My Spanish wasn’t the ‘correct’ Spanish (we spoke Tex Mex at home).  I was quiet and shy.  I was isolated again. High School came and it got a little better.  It wasn’t until college where I could finally just be happy with myself and people got over their stupid fixations and focused on being adults. I struggle a lot with my self esteem but it’s beautiful to find people who want to reach out and say ‘you belong and you’re beautiful the way you are.’  Thanks for letting me take part in POC Week.

#poc wol week #pocwolweek #ooc

[thebeatingofdrums]

POC WOL WEEK 1 ~

v a c a t i o n ♫

#pocwolweek #poc wol week #keeper of the moon #mhih jomalah