Miqo'te headcanon: Forehead booping!

[Valence]

Personally, if the lore never stated in the mi'qote description "feline characteristic", and seeker did not have those eyes, I would never especially have said "THOSE ARE CAT PEOPLE!". 

 

If anything, I might even have turned to canines rather than felines... I even thought at first that Keepers were inspired by the former.

:?

 

No offense but do you... "get" animals? I'm reminded of the infamous Pokemon "Legendary cats/dogs/beasts" argument, but... not realizing miqo'te are distinctly feline... ??????????

 

In any case I agree with some of the stuff mentioned late in this thread. I feel like people who don't want to say miqo'te are feline are people embarrassed by the cliches and such but still want to play one for some reason. Which is pretty silly. They're catpeople. They're some of the most catlike people in any anime/game out there.

 

Their emotes are feline, their attitude in speech boxes is littered with catlike behavior, their culture is feline, the list goes on. They're obviously catlike, what's up for debate is to what extent.

 

In Ashe's case she absolutely hisses and purrs and has a habit of wrapping her tail around another of her race when being affectionate. We've got the eyesight thing. Hearing, scenting, etc. She doesn't fill her speech with "nyas" and mews or whatever else.

 

But I mean, she's a cat person. Of course she's going to act like a bloody feline.

 

Whao, whoa there, let's drop the assumptions for a moment. I have animals and i'm pretty much attached to them... 

 

I don't care the slightest what they are inspired from ultimately. I'm repeating what lore shows to me, and lore doesn't show me more feline stuff than anything else beside the eyes of the Seekers. Maybe I missed something obvious though? Do you have any NPC in mind that would prove me wrong? Ultimately I see a race of men with tails and ears with unique habits and culture. Do they go around the night purring and calling for mates? Do they perch themselves on roofs while mewling? Do they pee everywhere to mark their territory? Well, maybe, but I have yet to see than portrayed in game...

 

I can find as many differences as you would find similarities. So equating them to mere cat-people is doing the lore a great, great disservice I think, where they seem to be a lot more than just that.

 

As for animations, seriously, they look more moe to me than any actual animal behaviour... If your cats are behaving that way with such manners, i'm wondering where they come from... And let's be honest, that's pure fan service here.

 

Note: cats do not have a monopoly on scent, eyesight, powerful legs, etc.

[Meishali]

 

I'm a Cat™ and Moe™ expert. Miqo'te, the feline race from FFXIV, obviously aren't cats. They're just moe. See? If you remove the I, the Q, the ' and the T from Miqo'te, it spells Moe.

 

 

Thank the Twelve I made a mini-summary of why the Miqo'te are a cat-like race. :dodgy:

 

No, Valence, it's not fanservice. They are a feline race. That is incontestable, no matter what you think, prefer, would like, and dislike about it. They have feline traits. And unlike "fanservice-y" races seen in anime and japanese pop culture in general I think they have more animalistic trait and were made that way 75% because the dev find it an interesting lore-dynamic. Imo.

 

This thread is not the place to discuss it in my opinion, but I suggest you open a RP discussion thread about how the Miqo'te aren't "cat-like" if this is something you think is very important to discuss. I'll gladly join you there.

 

I'm going to hop out from the thread and unsubscribe. I want to see more headcanons from Naoh'ra though! 

[Valence]

Ah well I think we may be misunderstanding each other there.

 

Nowhere I claim they do not have feline traits. Actually, it's written in the basic lore description. 

 

Miqo'te (ミコッテ, Mikotte?) is a feline race from Eorzea in Final Fantasy XIV. (ffwikia)

 

Though their presence in Eorzea is lesser than that of the other races, the Miqo'te are easily distinguished by their large, projecting ears and restless, feline tails.

 

 

The Keepers of the Moon are the more numerous of the two Miqo'te clans you will see here in Gridania. Even so, their kind are few enough, as many and more care not for life in the city.

 

They have the characteristic feline eyes and long swaying tails and I daresay that in comparison to the Seekers of the Sun, they tend to be a bit more reticent and reserved. Time was, our own Gods' Quiver used to clash with the Keepers that were out hunting in the Twelveswood. But these days we deal with them friendly enough, trading what crops and hides are to be had.

 

I took that for granted since day one, and yet, you really have to look for it to see clear allusion to "feline traits". The first one is just the general non official wiki, and the second ones actually speaks about the tails and eyes, not even the whole. And even for the tails and ears honestly, half of them visually are as much as canine than feline ingame...

 

So... yeah.

 

Now then, i'm not going to nitpick around that as it's rather obvious that a certain part of the visual and fluff for the graphic depiction of the race has feline characteristics. I don't think anyone tried to deny that. 

 

I may also have overlooked or don't remember various tidbits encountered in the story or sidequests that depicted them as feline as well, either obvious hints or whatever else.

 

The thing i'm contesting however, is that people tend to assume out of very, very little clear allusions to specifically feline things (the lodestone allusion to tails, seekers eyes, hissing sounds for the names maybe?), and again, things I don't contest here since it's written in the lodestone, that because of those few specific feline things, everything about the race therefore HAS TO follow the wonderful world of cats.

 

Territorial behaviour? Cats yes, but dogs, even more.

 

Lone, reclusive wandering males? Wolves, not cats.

 

Alpha males and fights for mating? Lions, true, especially for seekers, but also wolves, etc.

 

Even that put apart, there is a strong layer of metaphor and transposition too. We are not speaking about cats, we are speaking about a human race that isn't elezen, hyur, etc, but mi'qote. Some of their cultural traits are inherited from felines, or else, but never on a literal level.

 

Never at all. That's a disservice to the lore, and I find it a bit disingenuous, or wishful thinking.

 

Do they purr? Maybe, not stated anywhere.

 

Do they hiss? Not really, only stretched clue could be the 'h' in their naming conventions. Doesn't mean that they hiss at hostile people.

 

Do they spit? Not seen any allusion to that. 

 

I could go on and on, really. 

 

Now then, you are free to do whatever you like interpretation wise of course. I'm certainly not going to tell you how to roleplay them, and if that's what floats your boat, go for it!

 

I'm just trying to explain my point of view here, and how I think people are making a lot of assumptions.

[James Rhymes]

Hey everyone, OP here.

 

Please take discussion about how miqo'te are cat or dog like or anything unrelated to the first post to another thread. I posted to share a headcanon that others can use and talk about that specific headcanon, not get into an argument about miqo'te being catlike or not. 

 

I thank you once again for the replies that were on topic, but I would appreciate my thread not being so derailed and off topic discussions being taken elsewhere.

 

Thanks for reading, I appreciate the passion some have for the race and I do take this into account and have read all the posts about it on my thread, but it was derailed from the start and I humbly ask that if further posts are made here they be about the OP and the topic at hand specifically.

 

Thank you!

 

--OP

[Momoka]

if miqote were racoon people instead Id fantasia EVERYTHINg.

[Pascaleret]

if miqote were racoon people instead Id fantasia EVERYTHINg.

 

All you gotta do is make a grey miqo'te with the black stripe face paint and then you can go around raiding FC house trash cans.

[Kellach Woods]

Only Miqo'tes deny that they are actually cats. Top academics from the entire realm have studied the link between cats and Miqo'tes and keep finding new ancestral links between cats and Miqo'tes.

 

That being said, ancestral link does not mean "clearly a cat".

 

* * *

 

In so far as forehead boopage is concerned, I'd say it'd be more of a regional/tribal thing. Like a certain region with different tribes did that, or it was related to a particular tribe, one that is likely closer to cats as their letter animal. I'd say a subsection of the Coeurl tribe maybe?

[FreelanceWizard]

In so far as forehead boopage is concerned, I'd say it'd be more of a regional/tribal thing. Like a certain region with different tribes did that, or it was related to a particular tribe, one that is likely closer to cats as their letter animal. I'd say a subsection of the Coeurl tribe maybe?

 

One of the best parts of the miqo'te lore is that you have all the different territories within the Seeker tribes as well as all the different family branches within the Keeper families, each of which can have its own traditions and behaviors. So, if you want forehead booping, you can totally do it. If you don't want it, then you can totally also do that, and if your character would think it's weird IC (L'yhta: "Hey! Stop trying to headbutt me! What's /wrong/ with you?"), that could be a source of some interesting RP.

 

In terms of connecting to the known lore, I think it would make sense for a group of miqo'te who were more feline. Since the different tribe names are related to the totemic animals of the tribe, it makes perfect sense that, as Kell points out, some Coeurl groups might do that -- not instinctively, but as a cultural tradition. Perhaps they don't even know why they do it, just that they do and they always have. After all, it's not like most Eorzeans are especially educated, and we're talking about a tradition that could go back to at least the Fifth Umbral Era. On the Keeper side of the house, one could easily have a family branch with that tradition for any number of reasons. Sadly, Keeper lore isn't quite as developed as Seeker lore, so there's less in the lore to hang the tradition on.

[Kellach Woods]

Hell, you can even change the meaning if you're so inclined. A Miqo tribe that has a charging animal as an letter could forehead boop as an attack or a challenge.