I've fallen in love...with an NPC

[Gwenorai]

Agreed on his design. There's two Miqo'te male faces I like - the one that X'rhun Tia uses and the one used by the Miqo'te guy that shows up in the latest seasonal event. I don't find the other two faces pleasant to look at.

Furthermore, there's a very concerning trend of G'raha being drawn as being even younger and more child-like in art than he is in-game. Which is pretty creepy!

10/char because hide boxes.

For the love of everything, why? G'raha Tia came across as mature and the likes because he was/is - he's an old man in Shadow Bringers, more than likely over 60+ years of age at minimum. Which is a lot since Miqo'te have a life expectancy of 50. Heck, he's even considered a grandfather to Lyna, who seems to be older than default WoL whose a young man in his early twenties. If it wasn't for the crystal tower he would have died of old age, explains the fusion to it. Since he's bound to that tower he's not going anywhere anytime soon and I doubt he'd ever leave the first.

The G'raha Tia on the source that some people are wanting to have 'awakened' hasn't gone through any of the character development that the one on the first has. If he wakes up, we'd be getting the ARR G'raha Tia - a young man who stole my freaking sand and made me want to pummel him. I dunno, hope people are willing to accept that. Unless Square does some weird writing where the one on the first and on the source now suddenly have the same character development and thus personality, even if one of them is lacking the experience that caused it. I hope they don't because that would be lame. I swear I think people forget that character development from life experiences and etc are what makes a person, or at least guides the personality.

[AngelCheese77]

Many people in this thread should go take a walk outside every once in a while.

So you never once, in your entire existence, had a crush on a character from a game/book/anime? I don't believe it.

[CrimsonThunder]

Jesus fucking Christ OF

[DarkMasamune]

It happened to me when I was younger — silly crushes on video games characters. Got too attached and really it's a bit much when you just know it's all fictional.

Now, I tend to really like a character, because their stories, personnalities or physical appearence really gets to me (Emet-Selch for exemple, Urianger too, especially in Shadowbringers lately, he seems more 'active' and I really enjoyed it) but it's not love. I just like that character so much, I wish we could get more invested in them (Like a little love story between our character and them ?) just for the sake of being closer to them, learning more about them or simply to see them under a new light.

That being said, I get the waifu/husbando mouvement and hey, you do you, as long as it makes you happy and dosen't harm anyone ♥

[Nhisso]

Aww. That's sad af.

[DiscoDuck]

So many judgemental as*holes here.

As long as it's not harming anyone, what's the big deal?

Some people use this as a way to cope, maybe real people broke their hearts too much. A fictional character won't break their hearts and won't get upset when they do find someone irl.

It's not "cheating" if your s/o has a husbando/waifu or 2. (like really, grow up! you are the same as those babies who say that if their s/o watches porn they are cheating)

It's a harmless hobby.

It's only bad if you start getting into "tulpas" and behave as if they are real, living, breathing beings.

But whatever, this thread is nothing but bullying the OP and people like them, with the few supportive posts being drowned out by "lol u must be autistic if u love fictional chars over real people EXDEE"

[Teraluna]

I don’t mind people being attracted to other npc’s.
However, just be aware that Aymeric is mine ALL MINE!

[Clover_Blake]

Albeit it hasn't happened to me in this game in particular, I know the feeling of being head over heels about a character. I feel you, OP!

[Iscah]

I don't see anything bad with pple loving NPCs but…

In this characters case, Mr. crystal was there during realm reborn, and no one gave a rats ass about him then.
But all of a sudden when he becomes one of the main chars. and looks fancier, pple notice him.
is this passing fancy or love? why you not notice him before?? ;_;

I seem to be in the minority here for having noticed him during ARR. He was annoying at the begining of the CT arc, but then he seemed interesting with his seeking the mystery of the tower, and I was worried about him having those painful-looking flashes of memory and what would happen to him in the end. And the conclusion seemed like a setup for future story development.

In any case, his appeal in Shadowbringers isn't anything to do with him "looking fancier" but his personality - however you want to interpret his exact feelings towards your character, they're clearly strong: everything from his grand plan to save your life to the way he fidgets nervously as he waits for you to answer the door, shows that he cares deeply about you.

That's what makes him an appealing character to me. I'm not 'in love' with him (though as I've discussed elsewhere, I think my character might be) but I feel... affection? appreciation? to him for all that he went through for our sake.

Furthermore, there's a very concerning trend of G'raha being drawn as being even younger and more child-like in art than he is in-game. Which is pretty creepy!

Not knowing what artwork you're talking about... are you sure it's not just the person's art style?

For me personally (though I haven't done any FFXIV art specifically) any characters I draw tend to come out younger and 'cuter' looking than they're supposed to be - it's nothing to do with intent, it's just how I draw, and I'm not trying to portray them as younger than they actually are. I'm just bad at making them look mature.

It's also probably about whether you focus on the image itself or connect it back to the character as they actually are in the game. If someone's art style made the characters "look like" children, I wouldn't assume the art was portraying them as children - I'd just think of the characters. Like... chibi art, or even games that use that kind of style to represent their obviously-adult characters in a way that doesn't look like an adult at all.

he's an old man in Shadow Bringers, more than likely over 60+ years of age at minimum. Which is a lot since Miqo'te have a life expectancy of 50.

I think spoiler tags are a lost cause at this point in the discussion...

And actually we know he's at least somewhere around 120 in Shadowbringers, not counting his time in stasis - he's 24 in CT, the Flood occurred a hundred years ago, and he arrived on the First not long after that.

The "life expectancy of 50 years" thing came up in another discussion recently, and apparently that's more to do with their living in harsh conditions as hunter-gatherers, and all the races can live a normal human lifespan.

The G'raha Tia on the source that some people are wanting to have 'awakened' hasn't gone through any of the character development that the one on the first has. If he wakes up, we'd be getting the ARR G'raha Tia - a young man who stole my freaking sand and made me want to pummel him. I dunno, hope people are willing to accept that.

I absolutely agree that the G'raha Tia currently sleeping in the tower is not the same person as the Exarch - but he's not quite the annoying guy who stole our aethersand and made us run all over the Twelveswood to get it back, either. He went through some character development and introspection over that original story arc, and "awakened to his destiny" as the keeper of Allag's secrets. By the time those doors close, he's a more mature person than the one we met at the start.

I still don't think we're going to be getting him out of the tower now though. As I've said elsewhere, the optional-ness of the CT storyline means that he might not even be in there yet, which is a bit of a complication for bringing him into the MSQ. The time-travel plot is basically necessary to get around that issue.

But whatever, this thread is nothing but bullying the OP and people like them, with the few supportive posts being drowned out by "lol u must be autistic if u love fictional chars over real people EXDEE"

You may want to re-read Fynlar's post, which I'm pretty sure is the only time autism was brought up in the entire thread:

I don't understand (or experience) any sort of attachment to fictional characters. Idk, might be an autism thing (speaking for myself, not necessarily anyone else)

That said... it's not necessarily an autism thing to not get attached to fictional characters either. Being a long-diagnosed Aspie myself, fiction was probably a big help to younger-me learning to understand how other people are feeling. Despite the stereotype of lacking empathy, that's not the case for me - but understanding how to process and respond to it is another issue entirely.

[Fynlar]

Since it's been brought up, I guess that I should clarify that in recent years I was diagnosed with ASD level-1, which is essentially Asperger's (they don't specifically call it that anymore though). I was nearly 30, which is a pretty late diagnosis and it could have been more useful to me had it been discovered earlier, but oh well.

I don't feel like I lack empathy either. It's just that I never get particularly invested in any sort of fictional setting (why? because it's not real o_O), and therefore that includes its characters. Maybe weird for someone who likes playing video games all the time, I guess.