The Starlight Initiative

Gallery

In appreciation for the gifts that we have recieved in turn from people that have come to our events, we are so grateful and happy to have a gallery to show off and credit all the people who have made gifts for us! All images are posted with permission, and given clickable credit links so that you may check out their personal art profiles and sites for yourself!

Altheria by Clover

Starlight Initiative (2023) by CoffeeHands

Starlight Initiative Members (2025) by humblemooncat ^(Tumblr)

Starlight Initiative Members (2025) by Usuii ^{(Bsky • Instagram)}

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Starlight 2025

Our third year of doing the Starlight Celebration, we managed to fulfill forty-one unique wishes through walk-ups or our Discord! It seems that thanks to our unfortunate timing, we managed to snag the weekend just before the 7.4 patch, and we encountered a lot of congestion as a result. But wishes fulfilled are wishes fulfilled! Moreover, we had one of the most exciting final day raffles we had not been expecting; fifteen total mounts versus our usual five were raffled off on our final day!

Starlight 2024

2024 saw the Starlight Initiative's second year of the Weekend of Gift Giving! We fulfilled fifty-five unique wishes that came to us either through our Discord or were made in-game at our venue! We also had thirteen exciting raffles with twenty-five prizes total! Many Figmental Weapons were distributed this weekend, and we hope that these figments may turn all our recipients' dreams into reality!

Starlight 2023

2023 saw the Starlight Initiative's very first Weekend of Gift Giving! We fulfilled forty-three unique wishes that came to us either through our Discord or were made in-game at our venue! We also had nine exciting raffles, all with unique winners who brought home awesome mounts and minions that are especially hard to get a hold of!

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The Initiative Presents:
Valentione's Speed Dating

The Initiatve invites you to a lighthearted day of speed dating taking place February 17th 2024 @ Crystal, Mateus, Empyreum, Ward 9, Plot 42 from 6PM - 10PM Central!This event is open to all kinds of folks, whether you're a seasoned RPer, someone dabbling in RP, or even just a casual event-goer that doesn't RP at all! Please be respectful to everyone who has signed up for this event, or is even just swinging by to see what it's about! Please note that this is not an event for ERP, so please do not come here expecting it.We stress that this event is lighthearted and is not made for the sole purpose of finding a date or romantic interest. If you end up finding someone who you click with, awesome! If you end up finding someone that you might even end up romantically involved with, also awesome! This event is just for fun, and we fully are doing this with the more of the intention of helping foster community and friendships.

HOW IT WORKS

Active participants will be assigned numbers and flower accessories that they will be required to wear in order to distinguish them at a glance for the event organizers and volunteers. You can either get these flower accessories yourself, or receive them at the door of the event along with a glamour prism to apply them if you don't want to just equip them. Flowers offered by staff that will be handling the event will be either white or red Dahlias or Oldroses that are hair accessories. Please specify which one you would like if you don't have a flower accessory but would like one.Participants will be separated by whether or not they want to RP. Non-RPers will be paired with non-RPers, and RPers will be paired with RPers.At the venue, participants will be directed into different FC rooms to meet with their partners, and given an itinerary. The use of FC rooms is to mitigate chat bloat for people that may have a difficult time keeping up with it if there are too many people. Each FC room will have one volunteer assigned to it to make sure nothing gets out of hand.

RULES

BlossomBlade :: bsky - tumblr

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Initiative News

December 11th, 2024 :: Extending the Starlight Initiative to the Materia (OCE) Data Center!

Hello! The Starlight Initiative has been working as best it can this year in preparation for the events coming up!First things first, we are not moving the event solely to the Oceanic server! The main events will still be on the North American Data Center of Crystal -> Mateus @ Ward 9, Plot 42 of Empyreum.We have been reached out to and generously granted permission to use a plot on OCE for the Starlight Initiative to extend our reach to every Data Center from a friend. People will be able to come to Ravana's Mist, Ward 22, Plot 1 to engage in the Starlight Initiative's Weekend of Gift Giving!We, admittedly, do not have people who have schedules that are more fit for the Oceanic side of things, though we will do our absolute best in doing what we can. If anyone would like to volunteer for the Starlight Initiative's event for those on and / or visiting the OCE server, we would most certainly welcome the help with open arms! :>We understand that this is also a pretty late update, though we hope that with slightly less than two weeks before the main event, this will be enough time to give the heads up!Of course, the Starlight Initiative is still -- and will always -- accept whatever help we can get! If you're interested in volunteering as an artist, writer, GPoser, raider, or general volunteer, please reach out!-Admin Prim

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2025's Creatives

Here is the page for our 2025 Starlight Initiative creatives!

Artists

Alpacaduelist :: Bsky

CoffeeHands :: carrd

FreeJayFly :: Bsky • Cara • Tumblr

Hannyabou :: Website

Mim :: Bsky

Saeryn :: Twitter

Gposers

BlossomBlade :: Bsky • Tumblr

Habonia :: Bsky

humblemooncat :: Tumblr

knitbone :: Bsky

phoenyxmuse :: tumblr

Writers

Augitha :: Ao3

^{From Obsidian}“Obsidian is actually a really fragile stone,”“Hmm..?” The sound left Sidurgu mostly unbidden. He had been so, so close to succumbing to sleep when her voice cut through the pleasant haze. Groggily, he partially opened one eye to find her looking at him, the flickering light of the streetlamps outside filtering through the window and mingling with the orange glow of the dying fire in the hearth to illuminate her face. She was laying on her side next to him, propping herself up with her elbow, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her body but not quite touching him.He realized his mistake immediately. She knew he was awake, which meant she was going to keep talking.She talked too much.

^{From Satiety}The light clacking of sandals against metal grating drifted towards Poh, proceeding the greeting like a flicker of lightning before a thunderclap.“Ah, I thought I might find you up here,”Poh tore his eyes away from the darkening sky, pinpricked with stars, and looked up at the Crystal Exarch, who was now standing over his shoulder.“I wasn’t trying to hide.” He mustered a weary smile. The resolve he had amassed on the flight back from Ahm Arang had dissipated all too quickly upon touching down, and he found himself once again restless and anxious.It was times like these that he sought out high places, like the launch overlooking Lakeland. There was something calming about looking down on it all - seeing the vast world stretching out beneath him. It made his problems feel so small, so much more surmountable. At least, it usually did. This time, there was no forgetting that the scene before him was a sizeable portion of all that remained of this world, a tiny and tenuous bastion of hope. And somewhere beyond the horizon lurked Eulmore.

Reeclian :: Ao3

^{From ChocobroWrite 2025 - Chapter 1: Shade}She smears her thumb across the page, smudging charcoal over the bumpy, lumpy face peering up at her from her sketchpad. At the same time, the instructor hovers over her shoulder, considering her efforts with an uncritical eye."Such wonderful shading, Ermintrude!" he says, surely patting himself on the back for encouraging her progress. "Adds a certain sadness to their gaze, very artistic. Well done!"With a smile, she thanks him for his comments and watches him waltz off to give genuine feedback to a more practiced hand, then turns her attention back to her work. Sad eyes?She'd been aiming to highlight the cheekbones.

^{From Sweeter than a Calm Estate}The room is filled with the pungent tang of antiseptic herbs, and Zhett's nose twitches in disgust as Lejo slaps it on his hands."This is going to sting," is all the warning the viera gives before he rubs a thumb over the first wound, and it's enough for Ifan to rear up violently. Zhett's on him in a flash, pushing down on his shoulders and whispering angrily into his ear: what he says is a mystery, for Lejo has long since learned how to tune Zhett out if he thinks he needs privacy. He just keeps applying the liquid until Ifan's entire back is covered, the skin around each scratch and tear pink with anger.The cuts themselves are deep, and Lejo doesn't need Zhett to tell him they're the work of some desert beast, but sharing the tale gives him something to do other than worry as Lejo disinfects a needle and threads it with one of Lloon's alchemical fibres.

^{From Room to Grow}It’s hard to remain cheery in the face of that, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t give it his best effort.“Ah, well—certainly, so long as we define everywhere as… this,” he says, holding his arms out in front of him, barely even spreading them apart to mark the area available to them.Hythlodaeus gives Anthea a smile that he hopes comes off as convincing, but he can see the skepticism on their face clear as day - though it only lasts a moment. It seems it’s his beloved’s turn to be reassuring, even if their disappointment is plain.“It might be enough,” they say gently, gripping his hand as they kneel by the flowerbed. Down he goes with them, steadily leaning closer, til they squat shoulder-to-shoulder before their canvas. “At least, more than half, perhaps… i-if we put them close enough together.”

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The Initiative Presents:
Starlight Creation Gift Exchange 2026

Sign-Ups live!

Hello! New to the year of 2026, the Starlight Initiative is hosting a Secret Santa style event that we're calling the Starlight Gift Exchange! Starting on August 15th, we will have sign-ups go live, and these sign-ups will go on until November 30th!The itinerary will look like this:Sign-up Period :: August 15th - November 30th (ends exactly at December 1st 00:00 Central time)Pairing Period :: December 1st - December 7th (may end sooner pending how quickly we get through applications!)Creation Period :: December 7th - March 15thGrace Time :: Until March 31stThis event will be open to all types of creatives. So long as you want to make something that is 100% by you, you are free to participate! We happily invite artists, writers, GPosers, musicians, poets, and even physical media creators to participate if that is what they want to do! This event is about making something for someone else and hopefully making them happy once you've delivered it.This is an event that we have been wanting to do for a while, and it will be this year's newest thing! We hope that everyone who wants to participate has fun, and we hope that it's something that people want to see more of in the future!

Rules

• Absolutely NO AI generated contentGiven that genAI content is not something that is made by the person using it, and has a negative effect on a number of people and things, AI generated content will not -- and will never -- be allowed in anything Starlight Initiative hosted. We value human-made creations, and AI is not that, nor will it ever be that. While we have a rule in our Discord that straight up disallows AI, we're reiterating it here as well. People found using and sharing AI will be kicked from our Discord and events.• Only things created by youAs it says on the tin for this one. This event will only accept things that you yourself have created. The reason this rule differs from the one above is because we'd like to emphasize that we do not want to see you using someone else's work to deliver as a gift. This means that we will not accept things like user-made playlists made up of songs not by the person putting the playlist together, for example. We will not accept you using someone else's art or writing to deliver to someone that features a character they may have wanted, either. If we find out you have taken someone else's work to submit, we will not allow you to participate in any future events we host.• Do your best to be niceThis is a free and voluntary event. No one is benefiting financially from this. Please do your best to treat everyone as kindly as possible, and do not act entitled to anyone's time.• You must be in our DiscordWe apologize in advance for this one since we do hate having to enforce having people join the Discord for any reason. Due to the nature of this event, we want everyone to have an easy way of sharing their works and tagging the person that it's for. The easiest way to do this is to enforce everyone being in one spot. If you're interested in participating and are not yet in the Discord, a link to it is here.• If you have received a gift, please acknowledge itOne of the worst feelings is feeling like the gift someone took the time to make hasn't been seen or acknowledged. Please make sure to take time to leave a nice comment on something that has been made for you.

FAQ

• Why include other fandoms outside of FFXIV for gifting options?Not everyone who plays Final Fantasy XIV will always be, in the moment, invested in their Warrior of Light or FFXIV character. Maybe they only play the game to play with friends. Maybe they only play for raiding content and that's it. There's no telling what someone's main interest is, and if they want to participate in something to get something that they would adore, then that should be -- and is -- the goal of this event.• What happens if I need to drop out?We have people who sign up as pinch hitters in the event that someone will need to drop out for anything that may come up. All we ask is that you reach out to the Admins or Moderators of the Starlight Initiative in order to inform them of this so that we can move forward with that information to get someone else making a gift for the person who would otherwise be left hanging.• What do I do if I don't like the media content for the recipient I got, and therefore don't want to make it?Reach out. The best person to reach out to in this case would be Admin @FreeJayFly (shows up as Primam Chorus [Mateus] in Discord) so that they can see about swapping you with someone else that wouldn't mind the swap.• Do I really have to join the Discord?Unfortunately. It's never something we really like enforcing, but due to the nature of this event, it really is just easier on everyone if everyone is in the same place.

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