Au ra / Miqo RPers - the sliding scale?

[omnoriaaa]

If you RP Miqo 'te or Au ra, on a sliding scale of 'A human with non-important additions' to 'Half something else entirely', where do you fall?

It's always been a curious subject for me, because I meet a lot of RPers that seem to be on a scale of sorts and its interesting! Anything from half mumbling beastial Au ra to ones that are literally... Au ra that are just Hyur that look different. Some people have wild Miqo'tes with extended cat-like features, some don't. What sort of balance do you have between being 'human' and not do you have on your character? I really want to see what others are up to!

I myself RP my male Miqo sort of on the beast-y side. He's Thanalan born and bred and I totally abuse the 'wild' aspect of him, from felid behaviors (IE, ear and tail actions) to vocalizations and more. He's a seeker, so I splice 'lion' and 'common cat' sort of. Its sort of like, in the public eye, hes a perfectly composed and normal man, but at home or with people that know him well he tends to get a little too comfortable and ends up being definitely more feline in his actions. I do this because I PERSONALLY feel like SE really ... didn't think too much about Miqo'te and I adore the idea that they are more than just people with cat ears. I like the idea of a race that is proud of its diversity. As canonically spoken by Ysh'tola...

I am GREATLY in favor of the craze on tumblr of people drawing their Miqo's with more feline feet too, I adore it. Before anyone mentions anything to do with NSFW stuff, I'm sure some people love that aspect. But to some of us who just want to rp something slightly askew from lore, it merely makes things more 'interesting'. I don't expect lore fanatics to like this thread, so please, no hate or anger? Just discussion, thanks! Go wild. I really want to hear about other peoples chars! Dont be afraid to speak about your character. 

Thanks!

 

[Teadrinker]

Miqo are essentially Midlanders with cat ears and tail. Pretty much the same can be said for AuRa and their horns and tails.

People play things how they want to play them though.

[Maril]

Personally, I do not regard my Miqo'tes as being more cats than hyur, but I also do not disregard that they do have certain traits of feline origin and how that may have had an impact on their culture. So, I do regard my Miqo'te as having good balance, detail hearing, being more prone to being agile - but they don't go about saying nya, have a "cat like" personality or have a feral mindset. They were all raised under civilized conditions, though with their own culture, e.g the keeper who was raised in Ul'dah is civilized in a different way than my seeker girl raised by her tribe. Sometimes I toss in little fun cliches such as them liking fish or whatever but it's not meant to be seen as something that makes them more or less cat, it's just a little more fun when a miqo'te likes fish versus a hyur liking fish. 
As for my Au Ra, a xaela, I do not think about the fact that they are akin to lizards or beasts or whichever. The xaela culture and the rough climate in the steppes is the reason why my xaela can come across as a rough dude. But again I also do not ignore that they have horns and tails and that they may hear things in a different way. Overall it's nothing that overpowers in their descriptions or personalities. 

[omnoriaaa]

3 minutes ago, Maril said:

but they don't go about saying nya,

I haven't met a Miqo yet that has ever said 'nya', and I think thats probably a good thing.

 

11 minutes ago, Teadrinker said:

People play things how they want to play them though.

Totally! I totally respect how people play their chars regardless of where their char is. <3333 I don't really see there as an 'invalid' way to RP... it gets realllllly close to becoming gate-keep-y if you try and restrict the way a writer works. (Within reason of course, if a char is creepy or predatory because the rper is and is stepping out of bounds or harassing or being foul then I can understand, but as for how a character moves, perceives, thinks, feels and acts within themselves? Total creative freedom should be exercised. :P)

[Zhavi]

There's earth "feline" ... and then there's Hydaelyn "feline."    To me, the Hydaelyn "feline" has less to do with earth catlike behaviors, and more to do with social grouping instincts/behaviors that play off in tribal cultures but are socially learned.  Y'shtola's (instinctual) behaviors and actions, for example, are nothing that couldn't be found somewhere in our world, by a human and not anything I'd attribute solely to being catlike in the earth sense.  So that's how I roll!

But people can play whatever they like, yeah.  It's all interpretation in the end, and just like I like to delve into the grey areas of lore and do my thing sometimes, ain't skin off my back if people do the same in other areas.

[omnoriaaa]

7 minutes ago, Zhavi said:

There's earth "feline" ... and then there's Hydaelyn "feline."    To me, the Hydaelyn "feline" has less to do with earth catlike behaviors, and more to do with social grouping instincts/behaviors that play off in tribal cultures but are socially learned.  Y'shtola's (instinctual) behaviors and actions, for example, are nothing that couldn't be found somewhere in our world, by a human and not anything I'd attribute solely to being catlike in the earth sense.  So that's how I roll!

This is an extremely interesting way to think about things! FFXIV lore confuses me by how inconsistent it is sometimes. Under the 'fat cat' minion description;

'Despite convincing research by top academics from around the realm and beyond, most Miqo'te scholars refuse to believe that there may be some ancestral connection between their race and cats (fat or not).'

Confirming that there is research to suggest Miqo'te and felines are linked far back somehow, though it definitely suggests also that some Miqo's dont like being compared to cats too! Lord knows!  Interesting point though, thanks for the comment! 

[SapphireSkylines]

2 hours ago, omnoriaaa said:

I haven't met a Miqo yet that has ever said 'nya', and I think thats probably a good thing.

I have a friend who plays a miqo'te that says "myuun...." or something similar to it. I haven't had the guts to tell them that I think it's silly. It's easy for me to just ignore it anyways. 

Since my miqo'te wasn't raised in her tribe and was adopted by hyurs, she acts more human than miqo'te. She's still very much interested in miqo'te culture though and wants to learn more. As far as feline traits go.. she likes when her ears are scratched and she loves eating fish. That's about it. 

[Gerel Kha]

In terms of appearance? Gerel generally looks as she does in-game, give or take some lean muscle and height. But as for personality? She's got a kinder edge due to being Kha, and so has a good idea on how to assimilate into "civilized" society-- but she's still Xaela. There are "bestial" aspects that pop up when it comes to certain topics or situations, like battle and survival. You can take the Xaela out of the Steppe, and so on. 

It's a contrast I like playing with. For me, rather than emphasize physical characteristics, it's the culture and people that can push a Hyur-lookalike into something more interesting and engaging. Granted I've also seen some interesting RP that tackles the idea of Auri women being taller, more masculine, and more beastly (and they tend to use the male model for such a thing), or those who play a "sickly" guy who's the complete opposite and "defanged" in a sense (usually by using a female model).

Edited February 14, 2018 by Gerel Kha

[Xihsa'li Tayuun]

I definitely emote my keeper's tail and ears being signs of how they're feeling - their general mood. Being a keeper, I also often emote him seeing well in dim lighting conditions, and hearing well as well. He was born in a very secluded clan in the middle of nowhere, outside of civilization, but later travelled to Ul'dah and was civilized throughout his time there. Yet, sometimes his roots haunt him. However, I do not think about it from his species angle, as much as his background - a tight-knit clan of a few families, secluded, ignorant and set in their ways affects a person. His clan's culture definitely still affects him, but that'd be true for a hyur as well if they'd been raised in the same conditions.

So in a way, I do try to bring out my character's miqo'te qualities, but I feel that the cultural differences that are present in my RP aren't just unique to miqo'te. I also refrain from imagining my character as some sort of feline, because in the end... they are people. With all their "wilder" tribalistic hunter-gatherer society quirks, they grew up communicating in social structures that aren't that different from humans in real life.

Then again, joking about him behaving like a disgruntled cat is something I also occasionally have fun with.   To each their own. I suppose I am somewhere in the middle of that "people with cat ears and tails" vs. "proud race of felines doing feline things" scale.

Edited February 14, 2018 by Xihsa'li Tayuun

[Valence]

I'm probably going to pass for the lore nazi but I do believe that while the lore gives us enough of wiggle room to accommodate ourselves, I also believe that a lot of what is exposed ingame and in other sources tend to always point toward a general archetype that defines pretty well already what a miqo'te is, and to a lesser extent, what an au'ra is.

Before anything, they are part of the Spoken races of Man, and therefore, are human (and not beast, like beast tribes). Secondly, there is a clear distinction between cultural uprising and traditions, and racial traits that also play a part. For example, tribal miqo'te certainly exhibit a lot of characteristics born from their biology (the male/female ratio, the stamina/agility and acute senses, etc... in short, everything that is described again in the lorebook). Then we have many examples of city miqo'te that have totally forsaken most of their tribal culture as seen in Ala Ghiri or other places, and live in couples like other races instead of harems or keeper female families. In general though, most miqo'te characters we meet, like M'naago, who really come from a tribal background and are still more or less part of it, even if now intermingled with the resistance in her case, don't let anything transpire of said background and speak and behave like any other Spoken race. 

We also have other miqo'te, especially set in ARR's quests, that definitly exhibit a lot of their tribal traits, even when they seem to be integrated into non tribal societies. I'm thinking of the commander of the Quiver's Ram in the Serpent Adders (Miah Molkot), who makes a heavy use of "meow" instead of "me" in her speech as a pun in the english translation. Some others like the Nelhah hearer from the black mage quests also rolls his "r" in the french translation, but isn't the only occurence of miqo'te doing that in both languages anyway). While all of those can definitely be a quirk of specific language translations, it's still said that most miqo'te names are hard to pronounce, especially the "h" sounds, that are unique soundings in the miqo'te tongue.

These are a few among many examples and while miqo'te are definitely not cats, and as shown by Y'shtola (not in Dissidia but in ffxiv itself for a better source), they don't exactly like being compared to cats either. They are human, but, they have a lot of little quirks specific to their race, as well as a specific biology. 

Regarding au'ra, it's a bit more vague but what we see of it doesn't seem to show that they are very different from humans either. Their specific reptilian parts can regrow and whatnot, their hearing works differently as well for the same result, but otherwise, at least for the Raen, their biology is similar to hyurs and whatnot, and their society is well integrated into the doman and hingan hyur culture (except for specific isolated settlement like Sui-no-sato, which aren't the norm: Raens are mostly comprised of proud vassals of doman daimyos and ji-samurai in eastern villages). 

For xaela, it's a bit different. We have a better example of something similar to tribal miqo'te at play: their biology is more different since they have more strength than any other race (including roes, just not the weight to match it). And their culture is very tribal, therefore very unique and with different shades of morality and values. 

But unlike miqo'te, we haven't seen them exhibit specific behavioral patterns and quirks specific to their race (yet?).

Edited February 14, 2018 by Valence

[Maril]

8 hours ago, SapphireSkylines said:

I have a friend who plays a miqo'te that says "myuun...." or something similar to it. I haven't had the guts to tell them that I think it's silly. It's easy for me to just ignore it anyways. 

Since my miqo'te wasn't raised in her tribe and was adopted by hyurs, she acts more human than miqo'te. She's still very much interested in miqo'te culture though and wants to learn more. As far as feline traits go.. she likes when her ears are scratched and she loves eating fish. That's about it. 

Some of the miqo'te npcs use that kind of language. Miah Molkot in the North Shroud is one such example when you take a certain quest 
http://xivdb.com/quest/66444 

However it's definitely in the minority and seems to be done for the fun of it. I certainly find it amusing  Using it constantly in RP though, I would never do that. 

[Zhavi]

14 hours ago, omnoriaaa said:

This is an extremely interesting way to think about things! FFXIV lore confuses me by how inconsistent it is sometimes. Under the 'fat cat' minion description;

'Despite convincing research by top academics from around the realm and beyond, most Miqo'te scholars refuse to believe that there may be some ancestral connection between their race and cats (fat or not).'

Confirming that there is research to suggest Miqo'te and felines are linked far back somehow, though it definitely suggests also that some Miqo's dont like being compared to cats too! Lord knows!  Interesting point though, thanks for the comment! 

 

Having common ancestry with a cat (or a primate, for that matter) doesn't mean you carry over all of the same biological traits.  Sure, I imagine some of the reactions to stimuli are similar (ear wobbling, tails for balance)...but to me that doesn't mean  that miqo'te have a flehmen response, or that their hair stands up in a ruff when they get startled or scared, or that they bare their teeth and hiss.  They're not cats in the same way we're not monkeys, imo.  The rest of it is just humor, to me!

[Gegenji]

1 minute ago, Zhavi said:

 

but to me that doesn't mean  that miqo'te have a flehmen response, or that their hair stands up in a ruff when they get startled or scared, or that they bare their teeth and hiss. 

I dunno. Their tails definitely straighten in their /angry emote. So I like to imagine their tails might poof out when sufficiently startled.

[Zhavi]

17 minutes ago, Gegenji said:

I dunno. Their tails definitely straighten in their /angry emote. So I like to imagine their tails might poof out when sufficiently startled.

I was thinking about the ruff behind the head, so like...head hair. 

[Gegenji]

1 minute ago, Zhavi said:

I was thinking about the ruff behind the head, so like...head hair. 

... now I'm imagining a startled Miqo suddenly having a afro. And I don't see why this is a bad thing.

[Zhavi]

Just now, Gegenji said:

... now I'm imagining a startled Miqo suddenly having a afro. And I don't see why this is a bad thing.

 

It's not, if that's your bag.  The point I was trying (am trying, and poorly at that) to make is that to me having catlike features like slitted pupils or cat ears or a cat tail isn't synonymous with being a cat.  You might do things similarly, but to me the majority of those behaviors are cultural in nature, or else we'd see them blanket-wide across all miqo'te npcs because no matter their upbringing they wouldn't be able to help it.

But I'd never be one to witch hunt people for rping what they wanna rp, y'all should know that by now.

[Kismet]

11 minutes ago, Gegenji said:

I dunno. Their tails definitely straighten in their /angry emote. So I like to imagine their tails might poof out when sufficiently startled.

I personally think it makes plenty of sense for Miqo'te hair to fluff a bit when they're scared or upset. Maybe not to a dramatic degree, but in a way that's sill visible to whoever's paying attention. Why? Because humans actually do it, too! It's just not as pronounced on us as it is on animals, obviously. ;p

As for the discussion at hand, I tend to lean largely towards the "more human" side of the scale. I feel like I haven't seen enough adequate in-game evidence to justify feral behavior being a "norm" for either tribal Miqo'te or Xaela Au Ra, and even if it was present, I've crafted my characters' backstories in such a way that it wouldn't make sense for them to act as such.

However, I do use their features to put emphasis on their emotions or reveal hidden intent. Relevant tail/ear emotes, fur/scales bristling slightly, etc. (Even preferences for certain climates or foods, although I've attributed that a bit more to the regions they grew up in overall.)

[Gegenji]

1 minute ago, Zhavi said:

 

It's not, if that's your bag.  The point I was trying (am trying, and poorly at that) to make is that to me having catlike features like slitted pupils or cat ears or a cat tail isn't synonymous with being a cat.  You might do things similarly, but to me the majority of those behaviors are cultural in nature, or else we'd see them blanket-wide across all miqo'te npcs because no matter their upbringing they wouldn't be able to help it.

But I'd never be one to witch hunt people for rping what they wanna rp, y'all should know that by now.

Oh, definitely. I just thought the Suddenly Afro idea amusing and just wanted to share.

I'm of the camp that doesn't mind some mild catlike mannerisms in a Miqo'te. Ears and tails helping to display emotion and such. Maybe even a bit of purring since apparently there's an NPC that does that.

It just gets weird for me when I hear Miqo'te start talking about how they use litter boxes and the like. I don't know if they're just being silly or they actually believe that's what their Miqo'te use instead of normal facilities.

[Zhavi]

1 minute ago, Gegenji said:

Oh, definitely. I just thought the Suddenly Afro idea amusing and just wanted to share.

I'm of the camp that doesn't mind some mild catlike mannerisms in a Miqo'te. Ears and tails helping to display emotion and such. Maybe even a bit of purring since apparently there's an NPC that does that.

It just gets weird for me when I hear Miqo'te start talking about how they use litter boxes and the like. I don't know if they're just being silly or they actually believe that's what their Miqo'te use instead of normal facilities.

Yeah, agreed.  But that's the obvious biological function of those things.  I guess someone could open that can of worms into theoretical territory about biological functioning of this and that, but I'm not learned enough about cat biology to do so.  I just go by what makes sense to me -- using what appendages you have to communicate body language, help with better sensing, very basic stuff.

But yeah none of my miqo'te lick their hands and wash their faces or other body parts or sleep most of the day in patches of sunlight or chase yarn or that kind of stuff.  They're people with minor cat traits that are, most of the time, background noise in the overall scheme of behavior.

[Shiroyancha]

As an Au Ra, tails are used as indicators of emotion a lot! *angry tail thumping* is like a big thing. 

[Hilde]

As far as the RP community goes, it's pretty dependent on person to person and how they interpret miqo'te, lore strict or not -  people just playing male miqo'te steps over lore boundaries alone since they're rare by lore standards, and they're the most populated race in yearly server census. If someone plays a male miqo'te and they're strict about how you play them, it's hypocritical. 

It's also a little silly and pointless for Y'shtola's dialogue to disregard her being a cat, but part of the feline family because feline (feles, cat) is literally the cat family of the animal kingdom. 

[Teadrinker]

Honestly, I've rp'ed as a Miqo, and AuRa, and a Midlander and I've had the best times on the former two when I was just able to play them like people. Miqote fall into this hole a lot more than AuRa do from my experience. You get a lot more people trying to normalize catlike behavior into Miqote because it's chic or cute. Things like slurping milk out of bowls or mewing or pawing or their breeding lore or...whatever have you.

You rarely see an AuRa go "Ok guys I'm gonna go sunbathe on that rock for the 6 hours to warm my skin up." In fact, I've never seen any normalization of lizardlike behavior in AuRa. Probably because it's not chic or cute.

Honestly, I grew irritated with my Miqote and ended up rerolling her. She was so utterly dominated by the fact she WAS a Miqote by the rest of the community that wanted to see her in a particular light. She would so often get asked about her tribes (She was a Keeper), her breeding habits or her Sire or lineage that I just got so damn sick of it. Not to mention the times when she got treated like a weirdo ICly for raising an eyebrow at the yarn chasers, furniture sitters or milk slurpers. She was never allowed to actually be what I created and what I intended her to be and always got drug down into this muck of what people want Miqo to be.

In the end, people will play things how they want to play them. I prefer Midlanders these days.
 

[Valence]

Slurping milk and mewing is chic and cute huh? 

Yuck.

[C'kayah Polaali]

I mostly RP Miqo'te (with a brief foray into Auri), and I've honestly never done anything to make my Miqo catlike (or my Auri lizardlike).

 

C'kayah is a retired crime lord. He was a criminal throughout the entire time I played him, and my longest played character to date. Despite being born in a tribe he is very urbanized (in a superficial way - the appearance of sophistication is more important to him than the actual hard work of becoming sophisticated). He's a mixed Seeker/Keeper (one of his grandmothers is a Keeper), and has internalized certain cultural traits from Keeper culture.

 

Setoh was a nasty criminal for hire for the couple of years I played him. He was a Moonkeeper, and Keeper culture was very clearly the dominant foundation of his personality.

 

Savin is a Sharlayan Miqo'te. He's my most "mixed" Miqo'te, in the sense that he's a Sharlayan first and a Miqo'te second. He's very definitely a city Miqo'te - despite being a Seeker, he doesn't come from a tribe, doesn't have a Seeker-style name, and doesn't really follow Seeker tribal traditions.

 

Khaishan was a Xaela from the Ugund tribe. A poet who nearly died in an unfortunate boating accident, most of his RP story involved the psychological road that he travelled after he was rescued by a Raen. The Ugund, you see, are the tribe who bury the heads of their dead in barrels of fermented goat's milk, because the journey to the afterlife is so harrowing that it's better for the deceased to be drunk. Khaishan believed that he had drowned, and that everything that was happening after his rescue was actually part of the journey of his soul to the afterlife. Being a poet, he felt at a visceral level that "The ants are a metaphor. I understand. But tell me, after the council decides my fate, will you bring me the fermented goat's milk? Or is that just a metaphor, too?"

 

I never RPed with anyone who tried to insist that my characters had catlike (or lizardlike, in Khaishan's case) characteristics. I suspect it's because I never played them as if they did, despite them being very distinctly nonhuman characters.

[Tregarde]

The way I see it, saying Miqo'te are cats is about the same as saying Hyur are monkeys or apes. Sure, they share some characteristics, but that doesn't make them the same thing.

 

In the short time I've been in game, I've seen NPC Miqos run quite the spectrum. Some act very feline, have a slight 'purr' when they speak, and use terms like a 'litter' to describe followers. Others seem very 'civilized' (for lack of a better phrase) and do not exhibit much feline behavior and do not like being compared to domesticated pets. Miqo's have large ears and tails, so of course those will be expressive. It's natural, it's just a part of Miqo physiology. Hyur would have expressive tails too if they were born with them. Whether ears and tails act/react in cat-like manner depends on the Miqo.

 

It all comes down to how one was raised.

 

With us players, we are of course free to play our Miqo's however we want. The lore supports a wide range of styles.

 

And I imagine it's the same with Au ra. Though I haven't made it that far in the game yet.

Edited February 19, 2018 by Tregarde