#THANKIE AGAIN i have one (1) very confused catgirl

[thefinalwitness]

3, 8, and 15 for miss l’aiha please 😌💕

thank u!!!!! 🥺🥺💞💞💞💞💞

3. What does their voice sound like, in a couple of words?

(How about a LOT of words sorry that's how we roll here.) L'aiha has always been well spoken, even when she's incredibly emotional or otherwise hindered. L'khilo thinks it's a clue as to the environment she might've grown up in prior to her amnesia—a scholarly, educated place. He's right, too!

Generally L'aiha is very soft-spoken, polite, and with a hint of 'elegance' or 'properness' in her tone. Obviously FFXIV is afflicted with the same disease as every fantasy media ever, where smart characters are always Fantasy British Accented, but ignoring that for a minute, I think her accent would still be notably miqo'te, especially on H sounds where that 'hiss' comes through. She was raised around very educated miqo'te, so they definitely sound DIFFERENT to your average Seeker or Keeper, but they simultaneously sound Less Different than, say, an educated hyur or elezen would.

I'm not great at putting 'mental voice' into a given accent, but based on L'aiha's upbringing, i'd say she possesses something most like a Spanish accent? (I can't tell EXACTLY what Gyr Abania's coded culture is, but it SEEMS in that ball park) Her maternal family are very recent immigrants from Ala Mhigo, and her paternal family, while generations-old Sharlayans now, still has a strong sense of culture and language predating their own migration.

So uh... Really Smart Spanish Woman Voice, I Guess. Even though her current voiceclaim isn't that, because I was trying to match the Fantasy British Accent. >_> Still would like to change that! But you can imagine how hard it is to find 'smart fantasy voice that ISN'T BRITISH FUCK' lmao.

8. What is their coping mechanism?

ISOLATION. ISOLATION. ISOLATION.

L'aiha has an admittedly bad habit of running away when things get REALLY hard. Tragedy, fights with friends, overwhelming news... Her impulse is to run and hide, and it's one she's still struggling with—her very hair color is evidence of a current episode, where she's trying to run back to a version of herself she doesn't even KNOW beyond second-hand accounts.

It's strange, actually, how often 'isolation' means she'll go somewhere NEW, UNKNOWN. she rarely runs back to what she knows, instead setting out on someplace she's never seen or barely knows anything about. (In truth, it's the bizarre clash of 'running away' and 'exploration'. She's always been a traveller. More so than I'm about to explain to a friend I don't want to overly spoil on FFXIV things. ;D)

15. Has their personality changed at all since they were a child? Why?

DEFINITELY. Ages 0-28, L'aiha was a hopeful and proactive sort. She was to some degree under the effects of the 'gifted child' phenomenon; she'd always been well designed for the difficult schooling and education of Sharlayan, rising to the occasion time and again, leaving little in the way of failures or disappointments in her wake. Life bordered on 'too easy' for her, and she ached for more.

After she left Sharlayan, she definitely FOUND more. She found a crisis on an apocalyptic scale; a problem she could not solve with wit or resolve. A problem that killed her and some of her dearest friends.

And though she doesn't remember any of it after she wakens in the Gyr Abanian wilderness, the failure fundamentally changed her. She became cautious, sometimes overly so, and though she still possesses a LOT of ambition and compassion, she struggles more to act on it. Something forgotten in her dreads to fail again.

She's very much the embodiment of 'once bitten and twice shy' these days, and she's learning how to overcome AND accept it, ESPECIALLY now that she knows who she WAS before. Brave and bold and unstoppable J'nhala Eiha, now the tentative and uncertain L'aiha Kh. Slowly, she's learning there's good in the change—she's more careful, more considerate, and most of all she UNDERSTANDS why someone else would falter for fear alone. But it's not the way of a gifted student or venerated hero. It's not what she was. And she's learning that that's okay.