Quantum Leek & GSO

GSO ~ Okay, to be honest I practically begged Quantum Leek to let me adapt this *laughs* it's just so good. she doesn't make her characters in this work Gary Stu/Mary Sue material(I'm not a big fan of people who do that in Fan or real writing. I'm not gonna name any names, but a certain series with vampires & Werewolves is just unbearable for me because of that trope. Ugh.)

​

Quantum Leek ~ 

"the inspiration came from playing the game and wanting to connect with characters on a deeper level. I instantly loved Regis (he's in there for like ten seconds and I was already completely enamored of him) and was kind of disappointed at how poorly Noctis' emotional reaction to Regis' death played out in-game, since a huge part of connecting with a story has to do with its emotional impact on you, as the gamer (or reader), and it's difficult to care about characters if other characters don't. The second motivation was that I, like many female gamers, am frequently disappointed at how poorly female protagonists are represented in the gaming industry. As I played the game, I couldn't help but think how easy it would have been for them to give the choice to either play as a male or female character (other games have and do pull this off well). So, originally, Reina (not originally named Reina) was a headcanon, gender-swapped Noctis. I think her first name was like... Nocta... because then I could justify other characters calling "her" Noct in-game. Obviously, this vaguely included a gender-swapped Luna (Lunis? I'm obviously so good at this naming thing).

 

It sort of expanded from there; I justified having a (hypothetical) choice between a male and female characters as them actually being twins so that both characters existed in-game regardless of which one you chose to play as. That was when her name changed, for the first time, to Astra--given Noctis' night-based name and the significance based around sky and star symbolism in-game. But I also realized that Noct's name had a specific meaning for him, and as soon as Rei was her own character and not just a fem!Noct, I realized she really needed her own place and her own purpose. Her new name came about because I always intended for her to be queen after Noctis died, so I gave her a name that meant "queen," electing to go with the Spanish version rather than the Latin (even though most of the other names are Latin words), because, honestly, who names a child Regina?

​

Honestly, though. if I hadn't started thinking about her relationship with her father, I never would have turned it into a fic and it would have remained as a headcanon and me playing through the game wishing I had a fem character. Yes, I had headcanon for Rei being involved with Ignis, but I started thinking about what life must have been like for them before--because, as I said, I instantly liked Regis as a character and my headcanon included a character who was deeply upset by his death--and it evolved from a headcanon to a daydream to me finally thinking "hey, I could actually write this all down."