Clover

"K'nahli!" As the beast seemed ready to attack the fallen huntress, a slightly younger female ran towards her as fast as she could. K'mih hadn't witnessed the moment K'nahli became injured, but suddenly finding her on the ground, whimpering and broken, set all kinds of alarms in both her head and stomach. K'mih positioned herself right in front of K'nahli, facing the beast. Nervousness, fear and determination decorated the young girl's expression as she clung to her axe; she was there to save her sister, but she was no saviour. K'nahli had always been a much better huntress than her; how did K'mih actually expect to do well where K'nahli had not? Salvation appeared in the shape of a stray arrow. In the midst of the battle's chaos, it seemed to come from nowhere. Albeit it hadn't succeeded in killing the beast, it did manage to steal its attention; more than enough at that moment. Quickly, K'mih bent down towards K'nahli and tried to pass one of the injured girl's arms around her neck. She needed to take her sister out of the way as soon as possible, before any other animal decided to crash against them. "K-K'nahli, we must leave!"

It seems we all have a more or less clear idea of what our Au Ra's personalities will be like. I hope the lore will be released soon, though I'm not counting on it before patch 2.5 (>_<)

It's very cool that people have started playing their Au Ras already! I tend to do that a lot, I RP characters and plots before whole games are even released *amused*. I'm very eager to RP my Au Ra(s) too, in fact, but this time I'm going to wait until I know a bit more of their lore. It'd be awesome to have any sort of common plot we can build together, and I'd be up for RPing in-game. However, I know that all the in-game important events will be done in NA timezones, so if there's any sort of common plot in the making, I know I'm automatically out of it.

Merry Christmas in the real world, everyone!

And thus a new hero has been born. Thank you very much for the notice!

The Sultana is about to do an important move (which apparently is what her enemy is expecting), so I also think the plot will be heavily focused on Ul'dah, perhaps with an ending to the story. I admit that what I care for the most right now is the matter with the new race. Now that Au Ras have been revealed, it's safe to assume that Yugiri will also reveal her face. I would love for more Au Ras to actually appear as a huge tease for what's coming, and also as an indication that they are going to become more numerous in Eorzea soon. Otherwise, 3.0 might feel like some sort of invasion *sweatdrops*.

The menu is very cute, indeed! I'd want to try out anything with White Mage in its name.

The whole Yugiri story would have to be changed, as right now she's supposed to be the first Au Ra to step into Eorzea. They could just make her display her face from the beginning, but some dialog would have to change as well. If they leave things as they are now, it'll be strange. I'm considering creating a random troll character right now and levelling them up while I wait for Au Ra, so that I can Fantasia this character later on. But I think I'll wait until we get a confirmation regarding the possibility to use Fantasia. SE can be a bit unpredictable sometimes, I don't want to risk it.

I know the pain; my Au Ra would actually be the 5th character who goes through the main story for me, but I'm willing to endure that, haha. I've been thinking... the main story doesn't really make sense from an Au Ra perspective. Do you think there's a possibility that Au Ra might have their own story? If that were the case, perhaps using Fantasia wouldn't be possible with them (?). It's just a thought.

Both Clover and K'mih's experiences with love are entirely the familiar kind. -The main focus of Clover's innocent affection has always been her grandpa. Even after his death, he's still a very important figure in her life; the most important, without a doubt. As for any other kind of love, I realized ages ago that Clover was asexual, but now I also have reasons to think she's also aromantic. She's just been unable to feel any sort of romantic tension, even around people who seemed to display it towards her. -The only real love K'mih has experienced is towards her family. She has a puppy crush on the Nunh (who happens to be her father), but I don't think she's prepared to actually understand romantic love, mainly due to Sunseeker's weird culture. I'll never understand a culture that pushes real feelings aside and sees relationships as mere business, but I guess that's how she's been taught (?). -K'rahto Tia, a third character I've been RPing in this forum, is my only FFXIV character so far who has been able to experience the romantic kind of love. In a very platonic way *sweatdrops*.

Looking at the bright side, the less people play the race, the more unique our characters will be! (Though I actually have the feeling that everyone and their mother is going to make an Au Ra. Tumblr will explode).

I wish I could have attended the ball event, it looks like a lot of fun. Trying the moogle outfit on K'mih and Nonopi. Too scared to try it on the males *sweatdrops*.

Everyone is going to use Fantasias? Will I be the only lv 1 newbie Au Ra? ;_;

I've been saving a character slot all this time, just in case I liked the new race. I literally can't wait for them to arrive >_< I'd never dare to change any of my current characters. Each of them is important.

This actually summarizes my thoughts about you *sweatdrops*. In any case, I'm sorry for intruding on your thread. I won't do it again, so let's be in peace now.

Um, I don't appreciate the way you're trying to turn this situation around. This isn't about you judging a product but about the way you chose to do it. Let's start with the beginning: you did open this thread to mock/complain about FF15 characters, calling them names like "dolls", "effeminate", and "unrealistic". To reinforce this, you didn't speak against any of the mockery that followed, which had more unsavoury references to how real men should be. And now you are trying to argue that you have not made or provoked such obvious references, and that your words are the most innocent. Now let's see if I can make my point across, as this is, indeed, a Western VS Eastern thing. I don't think that FF15 characters look effeminate or unrealistic. To me, they look absolutely normal. Japanese media is full of that kind of boys, they are the norm for the beauty standard there. They look effeminate from a Western standard of what a "real man" should look like, see what I mean? So, they're not unrealistic, for there are tons of Japanese celebrities who look like them. Example: And this takes me to the next point: does any Dragon Age character look like them? Nope, not at all. Dragon Age might have a variety of characters, but it's a variety within the Western standards. This is why I don't personally feel that Dragon Age characters offer the mentioned variety, the same reason why you don't find variety in FF15 characters while I do. And last but not least, it's not bad if you personally don't like them, but the mocking tone from this whole thread (from both your comments and other posters you certainly have not argued with) doesn't sound right. I'm a bit tired of people complaining or implying that Japanese male characters are "too effeminate" or "too gay", or that SE should make different males despite the fact that SE is a Japanese company, and they belong to a whole new culture where those boys fit the normal standard of attractiveness. (I don't want to continue arguing, so I hope I made my point clear ;;;. Let's agree to disagree?)

Sorry, I just want to add that Dragon Age games don't have a wide range of characters that gather to many tastes. All characters (even Fenris, who was an attempt at something different) look rough and bulky. And just for the record, I love the games, but I don't find the characters appealing in the slightest. With this I want to say (again) that people need to learn that Western tastes aren't the truest, the one and only, and that judging Japanese characters for not meeting your Western standard is a silly, very silly thing.

Well, no other race in FFXIV has very different males and females, so this one is different than the rest for that reason. Naturally, females follow Japanese beauty standards, which is expected (and in my case, appreciated). I know that many Western games go wild when creating different races, but those are created under a completely different mindset. I personally don't like the way characters look in Western games, even less the non humanoid ones. People might find the plants race from GW2 interesting, but I wouldn't dare to touch them with a stick. So, FF is a Japanese game, and as such it will follow its own beauty standards, and it's own standards of what's interesting and what's not. It is not the Western standard, which doesn't mean that it's *bad*; that's what I'm trying to say. If that race exists it's because there are tons of people who love that kind of design, and I personally don't find any appeal in the way people have described how they'd like the race to be.

But I don't consider it lazy ; I consider it a beautiful and inspiring design. I don't need uber complicated designs that would likely have no visual appeal to me, just for the sake of saying "oh, this is very original, I've never seen such deformity before!". SE was aiming to create visually appealing characters, and in my opinion they succeeded. That they look humanoid and there are other humanoid characters in-game doesn't mean that it's a lazy or uninteresting design. My problem is that the way people word this whole mess goes beyond simply saying that they personally don't like the race. Saying that a design is bad or lazy is quite a broad statement.

I don't know, the way people talk about this new race doesn't sound like mere personal opinions. Not liking it is a thing, but saying that SE is lazy or did a bad job with the design, or implying that people who roll this race don't deserve RP attention is a bit... harsh? I mean, I personally find it very beautiful, not lazy at all. SE hasn't been lazy about anything they do anyway. Also, I will definitely be RPing a character, and I don't see why anyone doing the same should have to feel guilty about it. Can't we all agree that a design is obviously not going to appeal to everyone, which doesn't mean that the design itself is bad? By saying that SE did a bad job with it, you're discarding the opinion of all the people who do like it (X_X)

Let's all agree that everything comes down to different tastes and different cultures. To me, all Western main (and secondary) characters look exactly the same too. Edit: Zyrus, wiser words have never been spoken *amused*.

Critiques about how the personal tastes from other cultures are wrong? Well, yes... (Interesting avatar, by the way).

Erm... I haven't read the whole thread, but the very first page is disturbing. Basically, Western people with Western tastes complaining about Japanese tastes? Why aren't you playing Western games then? (?_?) It's not that the "bishounen" type is an FF thing. They are just the kind of boy that's liked in Japan, which (luckily) differs greatly from the kind of males that are liked in Western lands. Thanks god, no one's personal taste on men is any sort of universal law, so please don't speak as if yours were *falls over*.

Same! And this is the reason why I'm loving Au Ra males. Castanics have always fascinated me, and I don't regard them as mere erotic material; I see them as dark, feral, yet beautiful creatures in all their monstrosity. Also, the Au Ra females just killed me in the best sense possible, they look so fragile! If we add the general atmosphere Heavenwards seems to have, I'm getting dark and even melancholic vibes from the race as a whole, which my brain translates into pure inspiration. What can I say? I'm in love. I need to know about their lore soon and check if it's anything like I'm imagining it to be. My mind has simply gone wild.

I LOVE the new race. When I saw it yesterday, I became so obsessed with them. It's one of those times that you see a character or a setting and suddenly inspiration hits you with sheer force. I'm personally very glad that SE decided to make such a beautiful race instead of monsters or furries; I wouldn't play those, and as Kat said, most people wouldn't either. At least not past the initial hype for new shiny things. So yes, the waiting is going to be painful for me, as I already know my character's personality and what she needs. I see a lot of potential in this race and the whole Ishgard setting.