(Fandom-only blog is @avtorsola, @sunderedazem is my personal!)
FFXIV OC Masterpost
Corrain Gealai de Fortemps
(ffxiv screencap, art by @/aazulean, art by @/minpage)
Age: 16 (ARR start), 22 (EW end), 24 (DT start)
Race: Keeper of the Moon Miqo'te
Gender: trans man
Sexuality: gay, polyamorous
Primary role: (the) Warrior of Light/Azem shard, lead OC
Primary ships: emetwolraha, azemet-by-proxy
Unsundered name: Helios
Character intro link: PENDING, intro game link here, WoL Template link here
Various AUs
Soulshards - Solo Warrior of Light universe. Not cowritten
your boldness stands alone among the wreck - AU in which Corrain is co-WoLs with @azems-familiar's Lelesu Lesu, and is a shard of Helios, the man who was once Azem.
in the shadow of the sun - Ascian Azem AU. In which it is @azems-familiar's Seleukos who becomes Azem, and Helios perishes in the Final Days. Corrain is reborn thirteen thousand years later- and Azem cannot stay away from the fragments of their best friend.
Inara Oronir Dotharl
Age: 25 (ARR start), 31 (EW end), 33 (DT start)
Race: Xaela Au'ra
Gender: cisgender, butch
Sexuality: lesbian
Primary role: Scion of the Seventh Dawn, Mercenary
Primary ships: Sadu, Cirina, and @azems-familiar's Yesuntei
Unsundered name: pending
Character intro link: here
Inara is a mercenary from the Steppe who possesses the Echo, and plays a supporting role in all of Corrain's (and Lelesu's) various AUs, though her role rarely changes. Originally a member of the Oronir tribe, she runs away to prove herself, and ends up working with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn until she (and Yesuntei) win the Naadam for the Mol, and she marries Sadu (and Cirina and Yesuntei).
Fraegeim Hezzfyrwyn
Age: 29
Race: Galdjent
Gender: cisgender
Sexuality: lesbian
Primary role: Warrior of Light of the First/Thirteenth (AU dependent)
Primary ships: N/A. Renda Rae, but never acted upon
Unsundered name: Helios
Character intro link: PENDING
Fraegeim is one of the fourteen disparate shards that Helios became after the Sundering, but her world of origin varies by AU. While she is always a shard of Corrain, and thus shares many personality traits with him- such as a love of mischief and laughter, a too-quick temper, and a childlike awe for the world in which she lives - whether or not she hails from the First or Thirteenth varies based on whether or not the AU is shared with Lelesu or Seleukos, mentioned above. When it is shared- she is Corrain's matching shard from the First (as Ardbert is Lelesu's matching shard). When he is the only WoL, she hails from the Thirteenth, and was slain much like Golbez was, after succumbing to Darkness.
Syewell Denman
Age: 39 (ARR Start)
Race: Hyur, Highlander
Gender: bigender, uses all pronouns
Sexuality: queer (otherwise undefined)
Primary role: Ala Mhigan refugee, companion and check on the Warrior of Light (possesses the Echo)
head in hands. the way sphene's arc is a perfect tragedy but nobody starting with the writers themselves seems to realize it.
imagine the horror of waking up after practically the most traumatic events conceivable, leading up to nothing less than your death, only to find out that they made - without your consent or knowledge, of course - an AI version of you, using your likeness, voice, memories, and core personality traits tweaked to fill the needs of the nameless, mysterious puppeteerer holding the strings in the shadows, who is only keeping the aspects of your personhood that fit his agenda at any given time. and this - extremely sophisticated - AI is, as far as you can tell, sentient and aware of her nature and fate, but unable to do anything about it, agency being denied at every turn. and the thing is - people love her. her people - your people - adore her. she's endlessly (hah) doting, gentle, caring, the sister to every child and mother to everyone, a perfect doll to be deployed to pacify and placate the feelings of anyone. she has no needs nor even preferences of her own, the better to accomodate that of others. her algorithm - to which she is, as an AI, completely bound - even pushed her to self-destruct and violate every single principle she held, even though it cost her the small fraction of agency and personhood she had managed to build. she was stuck in what was effectively an abusive marriage of convenience for survival for three decades. that copy was eventually erased, then remade with slightly different parameters in order to follow a slightly different agenda, and nobody sees the difference. nobody even remembers the former iteration. you can, however. you never met the original AI - whom everyone including your newfound (and only) friends loves and clearly grieves, including someone you may or may not be falling in love with, who clearly was in love with the unauthorized AI version of you. eventually you manage to reclaim your agency, your personhood, you fight the shadow puppeteer, you even win! - and then, what happens?
you're back to square one. the people are grateful and they love you oh so much. everyone just looks up at you with hopeful, expectant, wet puppy eyes. they need you! by which, obviously, they mean they need the old version of you, the AI that only ever served them, even though they swear it's not the case, that they've changed now; was your own education, in a bygone era, when you were reared to assume this duty (and enthusiastically rose up to the challenge) anything different than a cold algorithmic decision? can you even tell the difference? programming is programming, isnt it? you have your duty. you need to protect and serve these people. who are you to refuse their wishes? yet something feels unfair, something buried very deep inside you. so you hesitate. you bow and examine the tiara - a girlish accessory, even though she was about 400 years old at this point - which was used to monitor your AI predecessor's every thought and action, spy on her constantly, and presumably give her orders. things are different now, they say. things are back to normal. the cycle has been fulfilled. only this time you are dimly aware of the personhood you're being so efficiently denied. or are you? is anyone? nobody seems to see anything wrong with this state of affairs. your newfound - and only! - friends encourage you to accept this role. for the sake of continuity, says the woman you may or may not be in love with. you are all standing in an illusory, impossible, computer-generated landscape. you slowly put the tiara on. THE END
for those who want to know the url of the biphobe, it's @/nights-at-crystarium
after his blantant biphobia he has chosen to ignore people who have called him out and also has the audacity to act as a victim as if he is not the one who is outright hostile to bi folks. he also thinks if he grows big enough, his biphobia will be more acceptable.
i think my favorite ff14 narrative gimmick is that the savage raid unlocks are explicitly just the WOL having adhd daydreams about the cool shit they've done. the omega raids are even explicitly about cid trying to put on an ASMR tibetan meditation spotify playlist to calm them down but the WOL is unmedicated so it really only makes the problem worse
i like when they wheel estinien out to talk to dragons because the game will be like, estinien really has a way of talking with dragons! and the way he talks with dragons is like "are you a pussy or something" and then the dragon will be like "god you're such a bitch just like nidhogg" and, crucially, this works every time
estinien's character arc is letting go of his anger so he can stop being an empty suit of armor propelled by vengeance and go back to being a real person and he's by far the most chill of the recurring characters now that he's done that but one of his core tenets remains "there are things worth getting mad about and you should be getting mad about them" and it's funny every time when he comes across a dragon wallowing in defeatist self pity and has to go "god shut the fuck up and just get mad about it like a normal person"
#final fantasy xiv#estinien wyrmblood#nidhogg#he has taken his role as an older brother & uses it on 1) Alphinaud & 2) the First Brood & 3) other dragons as needed#<-prev tag from lyn#which is ten thousand percent accurate#dt's carbunc(queue)le
it would be really funny if the elfs from sharlayan werent nearly as fake french as the elves in ishguard so they would say their names with all the letters that would usually be silent and the ishguards fucking hate it
