Okay OP. I'm going to try to help you out. Hopefully you'll read this because it's going to be long.
I call this essay: Why You Don't Want to Be George Lucas.
BUT FIRST, Let's talk about Yuna.
Getting inspiration from a different character is actually a great idea! In fact, I understand your love for Yuna because I myself designed Armi after her when I first started MMO-RPing. I made a lot of mistakes with her too, mostly that I was trying to copy her 1:1 in a universe where she didn't fit. It made my character completely unrelatable (remember that word, it'll come up later) and she wasn't really a person, she was just a copy of someone I wanted her to be.
What do you like about Yuna? We may like different things about her, but for me if was her quiet strength. How she understood her role and chose to accept it, even to the point of never telling her friends how scared she was. She was brave, but she was vulnerable. I also liked the fact she was a Priestess and a Summoner. Summoner and Red Mage are too of my favorite jobs in the franchise so I was obviously drawn to that.
Here's what we know about Yuna.
One of the things you can see here is I didn't list her appearance. Her appearance DOESN'T MATTER. To be Yuna-like you DON'T have to make her look exactly like Yuna. For me, I tend to keep her somewhat friendly appearance in Armi, but I don't make Armi look exactly like Yuna. You don't have to, that "Yuna Aura" will come across if you do it right.
Now for the rest. There's obviously parts of that you should be going "Well, that won't work." There's no Yevon. There's no Sin. There's no world that need saving by one person (Well... Our Hero Mary Sue of Light I suppose...), there's no Summons in the way FFX has them. The rest are just personality traits, so those are easy enough.. but the others? You need to decide how important those are to you. If they are important, you need to be able to retrofit them into this world.
Which leads us to: Keeping a character grounded. How not to be like George Lucas #1
The problem a lot of people are having is your character is... alienating. Unrelatable. There's no real way to relate to a Queen/Summoner/Race Changing Hyur-Au Ra. In Fiction, it's really important to make sure your characters are relatable. You probably found Yuna VERY relatable which is why you want a character like her right? But you're stripping the parts out of Yuna that make her relatable (Her weakness and her vulnerabilities) and stuffing things in that make her less so (Being a Princess who became that way because of dancing, race changes for no reason).
Go watch Star Wars: A New Hope sometime. Then go watch The Phantom Menace. The first thing you're going to notice is how hard the latter lays it on us that Anakin is the super duper special. From the get go, we aren't really relating to Anakin as a character because he's only there to be "special". He can build robots, can race pod-racers, has all dem midichlorians, and may be the prophesied one! He just kinda goes with the flow too, he doesn't have much of a personality. His personality is "He's special" and that's what you're doing with your character.
In A New Hope - Luke isn't some chosen one, he's reckless and has a temper and he makes rash as hell decisions. We don't really know much about his traits - we don't know if he's an awesome Jedi because it doesn't really matter.
You always want to make sure your character is relatable. It's really important or you'll find yourself getting frustrated no one wants to interact with her. No one wants to interact with perfect. No one wants to interact with someone who is just "special"
So we get the the harder parts - what can you cut out to make her less special and what do you absolutely want to keep in?
It's cool so imma do it, How not to be George Lucas #2.
In the Prequels, it just kind seems like whatever George Lucas thought was neat, he was going to put in - whether it fit or not. It made the trilogy feel like "Wow look at backdrop I thought of, neat huh?". He thought Jar Jar Binks would work, not even caring about the tone of his movie. He probably wrote the most forced romance in the history of media. Anakin was barely a character, and his direction on how Hayden Christensen should play him pretty much killed that kids career. Hell, he told everyone to have that sort of wooden robotic acting because he said so, and the only person who made it unscathed was, arguably, Ewan Mcgregor.
You need to have consistency with your character. Don't throw in a bunch of stuff just because you think it's cool. Do you want to have a character based on a Queen or on Yuna? You can't really have both. Find the tone you're going for.
Also for the love of god, please come up with a different way she became a Princess. Make her capable! Don't make it because she looked pretty dancing. You're killing me here.
Listen to criticism, How not to be like George Lucas #3
The prequels were legit awful because George Lucas refused to listen to anyone when it came to his vision. He wrote the script for part one DAYS before it was to go into filming and he never let anyone look over it! WHY.
You need to be able to listen to what people thinks and find a happy medium.
Which brings me to - My idea for your character!
Just stay with me here.
None of this takes away anything you want to do, it just makes her more grounded in the lore of FFXIV. She's still like Yuna, she still a leader of her people.
Really think on how to make things work. For the love of God, don't be George Lucas.
I call this essay: Why You Don't Want to Be George Lucas.
BUT FIRST, Let's talk about Yuna.
Getting inspiration from a different character is actually a great idea! In fact, I understand your love for Yuna because I myself designed Armi after her when I first started MMO-RPing. I made a lot of mistakes with her too, mostly that I was trying to copy her 1:1 in a universe where she didn't fit. It made my character completely unrelatable (remember that word, it'll come up later) and she wasn't really a person, she was just a copy of someone I wanted her to be.
What do you like about Yuna? We may like different things about her, but for me if was her quiet strength. How she understood her role and chose to accept it, even to the point of never telling her friends how scared she was. She was brave, but she was vulnerable. I also liked the fact she was a Priestess and a Summoner. Summoner and Red Mage are too of my favorite jobs in the franchise so I was obviously drawn to that.
Here's what we know about Yuna.
- A martyr who wants to do the right thing for the world, even if it means killing herself in the process.
- Quiet and reversed but also open to people she's very close to.
- A Talented Summoner trying to get all the Summons in order to get rid of Sin (At least for a time)
- Somewhat Naive. She constantly believes in finding the best in people even when she really shouldn't.
- Devout as all hell. Girl is a Yevon priestess through and through. At least at the beginning
One of the things you can see here is I didn't list her appearance. Her appearance DOESN'T MATTER. To be Yuna-like you DON'T have to make her look exactly like Yuna. For me, I tend to keep her somewhat friendly appearance in Armi, but I don't make Armi look exactly like Yuna. You don't have to, that "Yuna Aura" will come across if you do it right.
Now for the rest. There's obviously parts of that you should be going "Well, that won't work." There's no Yevon. There's no Sin. There's no world that need saving by one person (Well... Our Hero Mary Sue of Light I suppose...), there's no Summons in the way FFX has them. The rest are just personality traits, so those are easy enough.. but the others? You need to decide how important those are to you. If they are important, you need to be able to retrofit them into this world.
Which leads us to: Keeping a character grounded. How not to be like George Lucas #1
The problem a lot of people are having is your character is... alienating. Unrelatable. There's no real way to relate to a Queen/Summoner/Race Changing Hyur-Au Ra. In Fiction, it's really important to make sure your characters are relatable. You probably found Yuna VERY relatable which is why you want a character like her right? But you're stripping the parts out of Yuna that make her relatable (Her weakness and her vulnerabilities) and stuffing things in that make her less so (Being a Princess who became that way because of dancing, race changes for no reason).
Go watch Star Wars: A New Hope sometime. Then go watch The Phantom Menace. The first thing you're going to notice is how hard the latter lays it on us that Anakin is the super duper special. From the get go, we aren't really relating to Anakin as a character because he's only there to be "special". He can build robots, can race pod-racers, has all dem midichlorians, and may be the prophesied one! He just kinda goes with the flow too, he doesn't have much of a personality. His personality is "He's special" and that's what you're doing with your character.
In A New Hope - Luke isn't some chosen one, he's reckless and has a temper and he makes rash as hell decisions. We don't really know much about his traits - we don't know if he's an awesome Jedi because it doesn't really matter.
You always want to make sure your character is relatable. It's really important or you'll find yourself getting frustrated no one wants to interact with her. No one wants to interact with perfect. No one wants to interact with someone who is just "special"
So we get the the harder parts - what can you cut out to make her less special and what do you absolutely want to keep in?
It's cool so imma do it, How not to be George Lucas #2.
In the Prequels, it just kind seems like whatever George Lucas thought was neat, he was going to put in - whether it fit or not. It made the trilogy feel like "Wow look at backdrop I thought of, neat huh?". He thought Jar Jar Binks would work, not even caring about the tone of his movie. He probably wrote the most forced romance in the history of media. Anakin was barely a character, and his direction on how Hayden Christensen should play him pretty much killed that kids career. Hell, he told everyone to have that sort of wooden robotic acting because he said so, and the only person who made it unscathed was, arguably, Ewan Mcgregor.
You need to have consistency with your character. Don't throw in a bunch of stuff just because you think it's cool. Do you want to have a character based on a Queen or on Yuna? You can't really have both. Find the tone you're going for.
Also for the love of god, please come up with a different way she became a Princess. Make her capable! Don't make it because she looked pretty dancing. You're killing me here.
Listen to criticism, How not to be like George Lucas #3
The prequels were legit awful because George Lucas refused to listen to anyone when it came to his vision. He wrote the script for part one DAYS before it was to go into filming and he never let anyone look over it! WHY.
You need to be able to listen to what people thinks and find a happy medium.
Which brings me to - My idea for your character!
Just stay with me here.
- She just just be an Au Ra. Straight up. She's from Othard, there's nothing wrong with her being an Au Ra. Just keep it. There's no reason to overly complicate that.
- Instead of a Princess, have you ever just considered her being a spiritual leader for her Tribe? This ties into Yuna being a devout follower of Yevon. You can come up with all kinds of lore for this tribe. Maybe only women of faith can lead it and she was chosen for next in line. She's a protector and a guide, and is willing to sacrifice anything for her people.
- Instead of... dancing... she became the next chosen because she somehow stared down the face of Ifrit and came out of that alive and... with an egi! So she's a summoner. You'd have to work out the details with people who know more lore about where she would have had to go to find Ifrit, but she could have went on a spiritual journey and came back with an Egi. This gives her agency and strength. Makes her capable beyond... looking pretty and dancing.
None of this takes away anything you want to do, it just makes her more grounded in the lore of FFXIV. She's still like Yuna, she still a leader of her people.
Really think on how to make things work. For the love of God, don't be George Lucas.
![[Image: tumblr_n92fndN0EH1rujdn8o1_500.gif]](https://33.media.tumblr.com/449e130ac31106ec8aeda3d0f121d76b/tumblr_n92fndN0EH1rujdn8o1_500.gif)
