Minthara's happy trail

thank u c:

she's me. an idealized me, but still me. I made her when I started playing XIV in 2013 with ARR's release (holy shit that's almost 10 years ago.) and I never changed her since then - aside from mod additions to bypass vanilla limitations. she was everything the depressed and suicidal 17yo that I was wanted to but (thought she) couldn't be.

_{left: the oldest and least crunchy pic I have of her, from end of 2013 or early 2014 - right: her now}

and the funny thing is, I'm pretty sure all of the above was entirely unconscious at the time. as a character I created she obviously appealed to me but back then I could never have explained to anyone why.
finding an old picture to make the comparison above was actually a struggle because I never really took pictures of her until recently. I took a lot of picture of the game, but her? barely any; even after the introduction of GPose at the end of 2015. then it hit me. I came out as trans in 2019, at 22, and started taking pictures of her in... 2019; coincidentally just a bit before taking my first selfie. turns out I was never really comfortable with her until I got comfortable with myself because all along she was me. I think that's why I could never and likely never will change anything about her besides hairstyle and the very rare hair dye to match a particular glamour.

idk what i'm gonna do with her. wish i could put gills on her, might look into how if i do end up using her