#[ endwalker kind of... made me love them. endwalker made me love them a LOT.

[tenebriism]

// Hypothetically... if I were to add Emet-Selch and Zenos Yae Galvus as muses, would A) anyone be interested, and B) would anyone be willing to be my guinea pigs for writing?

#[ endwalker kind of... made me love them. endwalker made me love them a LOT. #emet ESPECIALLY. zenos is more of a 'i want to explore and expand him more.' #but i love him too. they're both such interesting and well written characters ugh. #when will my obsession with ffxiv men END? ] #ooc ; out of character

[dainesanddaffodils]

okay so I think I have maybe like 2 mutuals who are ffxiv enthusiasts, but I gotta yell into the void about my warrior of light and the fact that, in true oc fashion, she went and did her own thing without my consent and now I gotta deal with all the feelings it is giving me

so, my partner finished endwalker last year and Had Many Emotions about it and afterword I said, sure, put me in Character Creation For Fun I Won't Do Anything About It

but then I made a cute little Au Ra and named her Cimorene to reference my fav childhood book series and I was like, oh no I love her I guess I'll have to put her through The Trauma that is this whole game

(I know there is much trauma, again, because I witnessed my partner finishing endwalker and she also would tell me things about what was going on, vague enough - and long ago enough - that I'm not like SUPER spoiled on what I have ahead of me, but like, enough that I know shit is Sad)

but ANYWAY I was still pretty casual about this because, friends, I am not a Gamer. The last game I played, that wasn't a Mariokart/Mario Party/Smash that I've played at a friend's house, was like... on my family game cube 15+ years ago. I want to be a gamer but my brain can't find time for it... until now

so I'm casually trucking along through a realm reborn doin my little white mage quests and meeting the characters my partner has cried about, especially this one guy called thancred - of whom I had heard quite a lot about and my brain had already decided, I want that one.

(he's voiced by Taliesin Jaffe at first, he's a pretty white haired anime boy with trauma, he's got horrible coping mechanisms, what was I supposed to do? to quote Richard Gansey, "Crushed and Broken, just the way women like 'em")

so that was like in the back of my mind because obviously my little baby wol has to go through a lot and he has to go through a lot (most of which I am well aware of) before that's going to take off and even then I already imagine it's going to be a sort of background tension they refuse to actually speak on but both just Know for like, ever (yes my favorite ship is Roy and Riza from FMA why do you ask)

but then I'm like a little over halfway through this first installment and a bunch of awful things happen to my baby for the first time and I'm kinda invested in how she's having a kind of terrible time and the first group of people she'd felt some kind of belonging with are in danger and she feels lost and helpless -

and my partner is sitting next to me watching me play and starts getting excited about the fact that I'm close to meeting another character

that character is haurchefant

and I had never heard them talk about him before so I didn't really know who he was, but he's the first person to be genuinely kind to my warrior after several very bad days. they're in a fortress in an eternal winter and he's still the warmest person she's met in a very long time...

and I thought, oh that's so nice I'm glad she got someone in her corner now after all that shit, anyway moving on

but then, like for the following few days I kept. thinking about it. about how much that would have meant to her, about how lonely she had been feeling before meeting him and how, now that she's found that, she kind of just, wants to be around him

and it hit me that, without my own consent on it, Cimorene had said, I want that one.

so now I have to deal with my baby's first love (which, judging by my partner and her friends reactions when I told all of this to them, is going to be a fucking tragic first love) when I hadn't expected to deal with that at all and now I'm like really really invested in this dumb game

(this got way longer than expected, I just had to Yell. also this is probably a precursor for things to come. I may be reblogging Final Fantasies up in here before long)

#ffxiv #final fantasy 14 #a realm reborn #haurchefant #anyway I hate this I want to write fucking FANFIC #and I'm not even in heavensward yet I have So Much to go through lmao

[aotopmha]

Endwalker lvl 83 spoilers!

Did Tower of Babil, the Zodiark trial and made it to the Loporrits.

I really liked Tower of Babil for how all three sections of the dungeon were different and the final boss in particular was a lot more substantial than some others.

This kind of escalation is a fantastic way to build finality and then pull the twist the story did.

This "fake" climax the story built up to is a massive part of why this twist feels so powerful because even if you can logically look at the level and see the 83 in the quest box corner, it still feels final, so you are still surprised and then questioning where the story could go from there.

It's a fantastic fakeout even with the really obvious context.

More than anything, though, I never, ever expected to like the Ascian imagery. To me the cloaked villain group trope always ends up really uninteresting because in my eyes it often impedes the individuality of the villains.

It works for the followers of more interesting-looking villains, but not the key villains of a story.

And I was dying of second-hand embarrassment almost every time one of them showed up in ARR.

And here we are in the lead-up to the Zodiark trial, where this story makes seeing the nature and first confrontation with Zodiark the most meaningful, powerful, tragic moment they possibly can.

An ancient hivemind seeking salvation from the greatest tragedy in history.

I did not think they could give these stupid masks any kind of presence or (more importantly) meaning, but they did. They did in Shadowbringers and they did here.

And Fandaniel snuffing each and every one of those voices out to take control of Zodiark is made a disgusting insult to their sacrifice, their self-appointed painful, tragic purgatory.

This scene left me in awe.

And it wonderfully continued the subversion of the idea of darkness as something inherently evil.

The fight itself is crazy cool mechanically, too.

I was terrible with reading it, but the fact that controlling Zodiark is equalled to literally manipulating the platform, reality itself, is so good thematically.

The only sad part of this is that we never got to see Zodiark at full power/with Eldibus as the core. It would not make sense for us to beat him at full power, but it is a shame regardless.

Future Ultimate material in some form, at least?

In the end, before he returned to the Aetherial Sea, Fandaniel/Amon did ask us to prove him wrong, so despite everything, there was a spark of hope in him. It was hidden, buried deep, but it existed.

And, as a consequence of all of these events, the world is screwed.

Time for bunnies!

This is another divisive part of the story, but I personally like the Loporrits because the humor that comes with them is very much leaning into the darkness of the situation. The nonchalant, blunt nature of it immediately endeared them to me.

But I know I would have probably very much disliked them if it wasn't for this element. I think if they had gone even with just a little bit more cheery humor, I probably would've disliked this whole thing, so it just barely makes the "just right" column in terms of tone in my eyes.

It's a necessary respite after all of the heavy stuff in relation to Garlemald as well.

Finally, I want to mention my love for the space-castle aesthetic. I love it, and everywhere I see it, it is immediately an highlight for me. I hope we see another location that employs it at some point.

The moon is up there in terms of zones for me just because of this. Another location in the game (among many, perhaps even all) I can't wait to see post-graphical update.

And well, Endwalker continues to be really, really good.

#Final Fantasy XIV #Final Fantasy 14 #FFXIV #FF14 #FF #Final Fantasy #Endwalker #EW

[pallisia]

hello, gg! I had your flower fella in my head while I was gposing around some flowers in Elpis, and it brought a question to mind. How did you feel about the Elpis arc in Endwalker? On my first playthrough, it absolutely blew me away, but on my replay, I feel like parts of it retroactively cheapened Shadowbringers (if that makes any sense). idk, I'm curious to hear your thoughts, if you have any to share. :>

sure. i feel like i mentioned a while back that i'm not crazy about endwalker for this exact reason. like, i had fun playing through the msq and i acknowledge the difficulties of trying to wrap up a decade-long story for a massive fanbase with varying expectations, but it just didn't land for me. especially the elpis arc. this is going to be really long and full of spoilers, so i'll keep the rest of it under a cut.

arriving in amaurot in shadowbringers was easily one of my favorite story beats in all of ffxiv. i loved that the ancients were portrayed as kind strangers, the anxiety about the final days from their dialogue, the vulnerability from the villain; it was all just great. one of the things that helped sell amaurot to me was how little was concrete about it. it was a faint memory of a place that didn't exist anymore. we couldn't see anyone's faces, we couldn't feel like we actually belonged there in any meaningful way. and when you confront emet-selch, it's like, "sure, it's sad that this happened to you, but we're here now, so you have to let it go."

looking back, i feel like elpis is the polar opposite of all that. i smiled at hades' beautiful wife and shitty haircut as much as the next guy, but it just felt...unnecessary? where shadowbringers said "the unsundered world is not coming back, you have to get over it," endwalker said "Bring It In, Guys !!" and showed me more of the ancients than i ever really wanted to see. i didn't need to go back in time and run around with my pal emet to sympathize with him. and again, he's beautiful, but i didn't really need to put a face to hythlodaeus, either. i thought he was much more compelling when i didn't know anything except that he was nice and emet-selch loved him.

this is more personal preference than anything, but i was also let down that the ancients were just...humans? i was hoping that the origin of all the sundered races would have more varied features to reflect that, and the way they were portrayed in shadowbringers allowed me the freedom to imagine them that way. 

anyway, going back to the the time travel... in shadowbringers, i loved the bittersweetness of the doomed timeline continuing even after g'raha tia fixed everything. elpis changed how time travel works within the story to tie everything up with a bow. i know it functions the same way in the alexander raids, but i thought it was bizarre to rewrite the rules within the main scenario right after the expansion where it was a big deal. (using the same time machine, even!)

venat was fine. i didn't really consider her to be the same character as hydaelyn at all, and it felt like a stretch to equate the emotionless crystal god voice to this nice, cool lady we spent an afternoon with. also, explaining the echo the blessing of light as a "traveler's ward" was such a letdown, man. it was a tremendous deal when hydaelyn and zodiark were revealed to be primals, but endwalker essentially threw out the concept of tempering, so it didn't matter at all. again, i get that retcons are inevitable in a decade-long mmo storyline. but the way she'd been built up as a morally questionable figure as early as heavensward made me hope for more flavor than what i got from venat. 

hermes was a pretty interesting character. i liked meeting someone who didn't fit in with ancient society, and even resented a lot of what was considered normal for them. he just didn't get enough time to cook. i probably don't have to harp on the stupid amnesia machine, so i'll skip that part.

meteion was... well, getting back to the point of your question, i kind of hated that the final days ended up being "a bird in space is beaming us with nihilism energy." i'm not sure what i wanted the final days to be, but the mystery of it was so much more intriguing than the explanation. the idea that the ancients' creation powers went out of their control was so cool! but, oh, it was because they were too aetherically dense to transform into monsters, i guess... okay...

maybe that's my overall problem with elpis, that it eliminated all mystery for the sake of neatly wrapping up loose threads, even when the mystery was more fun. every subsequent dev interview really drives this home, to the point where i wish they'd stop explaining things altogether. i'm feeling the same way now with the alliance raid series and its explanation of the twelve. of course, that storyline is still going, but i don't have high hopes for the last part.

wow that was long. sorry. thank you for your question i've been bottling this up for like a year lmao

#txt

[hollowtones]

Spent a huge chunk of this year playing FFXIV and I love going back to your presentation you did on it the night before Endwalker dropped. Do you have a fun backstory for your WoL? I remember you talking about your old character being a female Roegardyn pirate.

Her name's Wilberga Havard but she goes by Willow for short. She's a Hyur. Her dad's an Ala Mhigan refugee and her mom's Gridanian and she was raised in Thanalan. She's a construction worker by trade and she specializes in stoneworking and metalworking for houses and buildings, so she's Passionate About Rocks. She can't read or write super good but she's good with math and numbers and engineering. She's kind of a meathead. Her favourite thing to do after a long day's work is to knock back a couple drinks and get into fistfights to let off stress. Getting into the Pugilist's Guild on a whim is what eventually sets her on the path of the main story, & at first she mainly uses the whole "go to the other city-states" parts as an excuse to improve her handywoman skills and find new drinks. She gives most of her money away to people she thinks need it more than ger, and spends the rest on food and drink, so she's usually broke & ends up in a lot of situations of "oh fuck, well I can't afford the inn fee, will you let me sleep here if I do your dishes or fix your roof or something"

Her soul's weird. She has basically no ability to channel elementally-aspected aether. Her inner magical reserves are Abnormally High, though, and studying to be an Arcanist (which she gets into because she wants to be better at bookkeeping for the sake of not being broke as much LOL) clicks very quickly for her because it's Unaspected Magical Geometry & she likes math. Her version of the Echo... kind of doesn't work properly. She's got the immunity to tempering and all, but encounters with primals and the like cause aspects of them to manifest in her soul. This is a long way of saying Girl's Haunted. Makes her very good at Summoning! I like to imagine all the elementally-aspected attacks in other jobs are her mixing it with Summoner and channelling the power of the relevant primal. Her thoughts and dreams are a little noisy and crowded because of it, though. This was something I came up with on a whim while I was going through "Heavensward" because I like the idea of a woman who is haunted. Then as I played more of the story I kept getting plot events & world/universe establishing moments that continued lending more and more credence to my silly little idea. I always win. Willow's soul is a retirement home for The Friends We Made Along The Way.

Her main fightin' jobs are Dark Knight, Scholar, Monk, Bard, and Summoner. Her main Actual jobs is crafting and on-site resource procurement, but she keeps getting pulled into world-shaking conflicts, with a mixture of "AWESOME I WANT TO PUNCH A DUDE SQUARE IN THE JAW" and "COME ON MAN I AM TIRED I WANT TO GO BACK TO BUILDING HOMES FOR PEOPLE".

#My old character's name is Wilthuv Geisskyfwyn and she's legally the head of a merchant vessel fleet. Don't ask about the guns. #Or where she sources her material. She's one of my retainers now so she lives forever on the open seas.

[anneapocalypse]

Thoughts Before Endwalker

As I'm about to start Endwalker, I thought it was high time I actually write up some closing thoughts on Shadowbringers, and since I really haven't done this for any of the other expansions, this has turned into a general "thoughts so far" kind of post! And also long. This is not any kind of an essay, just a big long thoughts dump. Spoilers for everything through the end of the Shadowbringers patches.

And I trust I don't have to say this to my own followers at least, but just for the record: please do not tell me anything about Endwalker here, even if you think it's minor, even if you want to hint at something I'll like. I know very little and I'm looking forward to watching it all unfold.

How it started!

It's been a year and change since I started playing this game in the fall of 2022. I didn't actually expect to play very far (I only picked it up in the first place because I was helping a friend set it up! I swore I would never play an MMO! I hated multiplayer games!) and I certainly didn't ever expect to get as deep into it as I have! ARR is very handholdy for new players, which was exactly what I needed to enjoy playing and keep playing. I love the story and the characters and the world and while I do enjoy the solo aspects of the game very much, I've also ended up really actively enjoying playing with other people! I enjoy dungeons. I enjoy raids. I run roulettes more or less every day. Free Company life hasn't always been smooth sailing (long story I won't get into here), but it's also brought me a lot of fun times and some new friends, as well as seeing me step into an active leadership role and not hate it. Who am I? 😂 I don't know! It's not that I've never tried to step out of my comfort zone before when it comes to games and hobbies, it's just that most of those experiences haven't been good and I've ultimately walked away from them. I don't know why this has been different, but it has. It's challenged me to tackle and let go of a lot of old insecurities, which I'm glad for (and grateful to friends who've been patient with me along the way). It's also just been a really good time, and continues to be.

How it's gone! (ARR through Stormblood)

So here I am, in 2024, about to start the last current expansion! Shadowbringers is easily my favorite expansion thus far, but I have really enjoyed the whole ride.

I enjoyed all of ARR, because while I don't think it has the strongest writing and certainly not the strongest characterization, it's really more a very long introduction to the world and its major players and conflicts, and while slow-moving, it does serve that function, and for someone brand-new to MMOs like me, slow was okay. It gave me time to get my bearings and learn the game.

I did really love Heavensward. It hits on several aspects of Fantasy Politics that I enjoy (generations-long war, class politics, structural reform), and postwar Ishgard, while maybe still a little rosy, still doesn't shy away from the growing pains of social change. Also the dragons were cool. I loved Haurchefant a lot, and was heartbroken by his death even as I knew it was coming; I also wouldn't change it. I think his death was meaningful and the natural culmination of his character. A Knight lives to serve. I think Haurchefant was always going to go out sacrificing himself for someone else. If it hadn't been the Vault, it would have been somewhere else. He was a delight and I miss him dearly, but it was a good narrative beat and one I wouldn't change.

Ysayle, on the other hand, I really don't think needed to die. She undergoes a fascinating character arc in Heavensward which I think the writing really drops the ball on at the end. Ideally, I think Ysayle coming to terms with her missteps while continuing to fight for what she believes in would be fantastic. She could have been a meaningful figure in Ishgard's reforms, and she would have made a great Scion. Her death also simply isn't treated with the same reverence as Haurchefant's, and I think that's sad. Heavensward has a bit of a Women Problem, in that it really doesn't give us a lot of female characters who are central to the plot, in contrast to a lot of great and memorable male characters. And the one who is most central dies with a lot less fanfare than WoL BFF Haurchefant. (And I'm not knocking Haurchefant, whom I love dearly, or Aymeric or Estinien! The imbalance is just very noticeable and I wish it wasn't so.)

Stormblood tends to get a bad rap among FFXIV's expansions. It's so common to hear people say it's their least favorite, it wasn't as good as Heavensward, etc. It came up recently in a server I'm in, where a newer player said they were having a bit of content fatigue after Heavensward, and having heard that Stormblood wasn't very good, they were considering buying a story skip. Other responses were, not outright negative, but mostly lukewarm, and I felt like I was the only one who really came out for Stormblood's story. First of all, I don't agree that it's not as good as Heavensward! I grant you that not everyone is as enamored of Fantasy Politics as I am, but as mentioned above, Heavensward is also very political, so I don't really think that's the big difference. Stormblood is maybe a bit grittier in its depiction of war, and that's something I like about it; it's really about the horrors of imperialism and the cost of resistance, and it doesn't pull its punches on that.

Ironically where it does pull its punches is with character deaths, heroes and villains alike. It does feel a little like someone thought they might have hit us too hard in Heavensward, given that we haven't had a lot of major character deaths stick since. I'm not complaining about Gosetsu's return, as I liked him very much and was very happy he lived. I will grumble a little about Zenos, though I'll go easy because I know a lot of people like him. 😛 He just doesn't do much for me. Yotsuyu was a great villain, and I was really dubious when they brought her back, but was pleasantly surprised with how her story ended, to the point that I'm willing to eat a lot of what I said about memory loss as a plot device. They did well with it, and her ultimate death did feel appropriate. Yotsuyu was never going to have a redemption arc, because she didn't want to be redeemed.

It was very refreshing in Stormblood to have more female characters taking essential roles in the plot. Colorism issues aside, I do really like Lyse as a character, and I also loved seeing Yugiri and Alisaie taking prominent roles, especially Alisaie who really hadn't gotten to be in the main plot much before. Rolling around with the three of them was a blast. Raubahn is also a favorite of mine, so seeing him play a major role in Ala Mhigo's liberation and get some character development was excellent. I'm happy that he's stayed involved with the Resistance in the time since.

I also just think Stormblood's new areas are absolutely beautiful. Kugane and the Azim Steppe are particular faves, but I just think they did a great job with the environments and I loved exploring them, including the underwater bits! Eorzea and Ishgard are so European-inspired, and I really enjoyed seeing Asian cultural influences in a fantasy setting. It is after all a Japanese game!

Just this week I finished the reconstruction of the Doman Enclave. As a player who's joined the game more recently, it's always bittersweet to learn about game elements that were temporal and are now lost to time, like the evolution of Mor Dhona during the ARR patches, or the Ishgardian Restoration in the Firmament. I can go hang out in the Firmament and craft and do fêtes and custom deliveries, but I'll never get to see the Firmament being built. It was done when I got there, which for me was after completing 3.3, very soon after completing the main story of Heavensward. The Doman Enclave goes in the other direction. It is a solo experience by necessity, but it's an experience that every new player can have: making their donations every week and watching the Enclave grow. Such things are always a trade-off for an MMO, but between the two, I would definitely choose the one that doesn't lock new players out of the experience.

And to give one last shout-out to Stormblood, I think it's pretty essential setup for what's happening when Shadowbringers begins. It's not just that the Scions are dropping like flies, it's that this is happening on the brink of a full-scale Garlean invasion. Said invasion is also critical to the bad future that G'raha is ultimately trying to prevent. The state and history of Garlemald is inextricably tied to the Ascians who are tied up in all of this. Stormblood is arguably more important to the events of Shadowbringers than Heavensward is, though Heavensward is also not unimportant, both with the continued presence of Estinien (reluctantly so if we believe him 😉), and with the involvement of Tiamat in the Shadowbringers patches. It's all connected!

How it's going! (Shadowbringers)

Urianger is, unsurprisingly, a big part of why I love Shadowbringers so much, as he gets some wonderful character development there and actually gets to be in the plot! But it's not only him—I like how character-driven Shadowbringers is overall, how much the major characters are driving the story and not merely reacting to events. ARR was largely driven by the world itself; the expansions are where the story starts to become character-driven. The driving forces of Heavensward's are much bigger than the main characters, but Haurchefant and Ysayle and Aymeric and Estinien bring a personal face to the conflict and a reason for us to be invested in it. Stormblood's emotional core is Lyse, Yugiri, Gosetsu, and their collective drive to liberate their homelands from Garlean occupation.

Shadowbringers, to me, really brought all of that home. It's not only character-driven but it brings a much more personal touch, I think, to the Scions themselves, with the major players being characters we've known since ARR but now get to know in a deeper way. I've always liked Y'shtola as a character but never felt I really connected with her, and Shadowbringers changed that, even as her story in Shadowbringers is in many ways about her isolation from the others, her (sometimes justified) mistrust and the way she closes herself off even to the people closest to her. Yet there is a deep caring beneath Y'shtola's prickliness as well, which we see in her leadership of the Night's Blessed, the new family she is willing to risk her life for. She's complex and difficult, sometimes angry and stubborn, and we all know I love that in a fictional woman. I really gained a deeper appreciation for her as a character here.

I've said my piece on Minfilia already, so I'll try not to repeat myself too much. I will say that Thancred is the main character I have the hardest time with in Shadowbringers. I appreciated the additional character development given to him at first, but as the story made Minfilia's death more and more all about him to the exclusion of everyone else, the more I started to kind of resent it. It really gets under my skin how he treats Ryne for like, the entire time until Minfilia Prime's final departure. The narrative kind of treats it like oh, he just has a hard time expressing how he really feels! and honestly I don't fully agree with that framing. I think Thancred's cold and harsh attitude toward Ryne does reflect how he really feels at that time—namely, he's angry and lonely and upset for valid reasons, but he's taking them out on a teenager who's fully dependent on him for her survival, to the point that she admits she thinks he hates her. His legitimate pain doesn't justify that to me, and it really kinda chaps my ass how everyone just agrees that he's the one with the most claim to call Ryne family, when Urianger was far kinder, gentler, and more comforting to Ryne than Thancred ever was. And Urianger was in pain too. He also regrets what happened to Minfilia, and his part in it. He was carrying a terrible secret that he couldn't tell his closest friends, which put one of those friends' life in danger. He just owned his feelings, instead of taking them out on a scared kid. I know my bias is obvious, and I swear I don't hate Thancred 😛 but I really didn't like his behavior here and I wasn't really satisfied with the way the narrative handled it.

Probably my least favorite part of Shadowbringers was Vauthry. I just do not like "fat" as shorthand for "evil" and I think there could have been better ways to design him that didn't fall back on that trope. Even Dulia-Chai, a very lovable character in the end whomst we stan, does fall into some fatphobic tropes, and it's unfortunate that in a game without much body diversity (not to single out FFXIV, that's a problem for games generally), we only got fat character models as signifiers for "rich person" (yeah, I get that "fat cat" is the joke, it's just not a good joke) and "repulsive, evil abomination." No love!

On a lighter note, the return of G'raha Tia as the Crystal Exarch was simply wonderful. G'raha was very cute and fun during the Crystal Tower story but his presence was quite short-lived, so we didn't fully get to know him then. I think it's pretty easy to guess that it's him under the hood; he has a distinctive voice and lip shape and also the tower is right there. So the question becomes why he is hiding his identity, what his true motives are, and that's all intriguing! The fact that his plan hinges on his pretending to be the villain at the end and he utterly fails at convincing anyone is… deeply charming. But one of the things I love most about him is the kindness he extends to the people of Norvrandt. Even though his primary mission is the salvation of the Source, he gets attached to these people, offers up the resources of the Crystal Tower freely to improve their lives, helps build a home and sanctuary, fights for the First and becomes deeply invested in their survival as well. He has a huge heart, and I love him. I'm delighted that he gets to return and join the Scions at the end, and it's already been a lot of fun to have him along on the patch quests.

And of course, Urianger my love. 💜 He really shines in this story and every scene with him was a delight, even when I was climbing the walls needing to know what he was hiding. He gets so much good character development in Shadowbringers I could go on for hours about it, but I did especially love the Echo scene where you see G'raha asking him to lie—and you see how much he doesn't want to do it. Urianger's really been on a long arc ever since Moenbryda's death, and I don't think that arc is over yet, but my biggest worry for him as the cracks started to form in his story was that we'd find he hadn't changed, and was lying here for the same reasons he did in the Heavensward patches, and as easily. And that's not the case at all. He hated doing it before, and he really doesn't want to do it again, but G'raha's reasoning is just too strong for him to refuse. I brought it up recently but I think Shadowbringers reveals an Urianger who despite his long isolation really doesn't want to be alone, and does want his friends' understanding and approval and their trust. The look he gives the Warrior of Light if they say they trust him, and then the way he submits himself to their judgment when things go wrong while begging to be allowed to help fix things… god. I love him. And I'll stop there for now, since I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say about him in the future. ;)

Emet-Selch is a fascinating villain, certainly the most interesting Ascian we've seen so far, and the one who finally turns what have been fairly two-dimensional powerful bad guys into a truly motivated and complex faction. My favorite villains are always the ones who believe they're the hero, and there are a lot of parallels between Emet-Selch and Solas from Dragon Age: Inquisition which will be obvious to anyone who's played both games. FFXIV being a more linear story afford the player a lot less choice in how they respond to their villains true motives and history, but there's definitely still an expectation that we will sympathize somewhat with Emet-Selch, and recognize the tragedy of what happened to his people.

Ardbert's ghost, too, was a welcome addition to the story. Between his presence and the role quests (which were 100% worth doing in their entirety), I felt like we finally got to actually know the Warriors of Darkness against which we briefly clashed back in the Heavensward patches, and I really felt the pathos of their story, all they fought for and lost, but also their friendship and how they cared for one another.

Shadowbringers is beautiful in so many ways. The design of the Crystarium is gorgeous. Il Mheg is probably my favorite location in the game so far. Eulmore is a fascinating dark mirror of Limsa Lominsa. The way the game takes the idea of "a world being swallowed by light" and interprets that visually is so stunning. The sky over Lakeland arrests you immediately upon arrival, and the crystallization of the Flood of Light where it was halted at the edged of Amh Araeng is a chilling reminder of how much the First has already lost. The music has also been a highlight for me! I really adore the Shadowbringers music, and it has prompted me to go about collecting orchestrion rolls more deliberately than I had before.

The more I sit and write about how much I loved this expansion, the more I think of, so while I could definitely go on, I think I'll wrap it up there. 🙂

Onward to Endwalker. I'm not making any predictions this time, because I have done my absolute damnedest to stay unspoiled for this one and I know very little about what's coming other than what the locations are, what's been revealed in the Shadowbringers patches, and that it's the end of the big story arc we've been on since ARR. I'm extremely excited.

#afk by the aetheryte #arr spoilers #hw spoilers #sb spoilers #shb spoilers #there is some #ffxiv critical #in here #and some #thancred critical #in particular #i swear it's not hate #just some stuff that sticks in my craw #but mostly this is positive! #onward we go #anne plays ffxiv

[paintedscales]

Describe how they communicate

and

23. Did you tailor your OC for the other in the romance?

Hiiii, thank you so much for the ask! ; w ; Sorry it took so long for me to answer it. TT u TT / ♥

ROMANCE ASKS

Nomin and Estinien have a lot of non-verbal ways of communication, both being people that tend to do via actions versus speaking. I like to imagine that from HW all the way to EW, Estinien took notice of Nomin's tail movements and started correlating them to certain emotional responses when he's not looking at her face directly.

So whenever Estinien sees the telltale tail signs ( :) ), he can use them to approach Nomin and comfort her. Whether they're the annoyed and quick flicks to the left, the stiffened tail with stiff movements when she's angry or scared, or the confused / uncertain / apprehensive slow curls, he can typically discern her emotions and approach her to place a gentle hand on her shoulder, or hug her if she's amicable.

Otherwise, when speaking, both Estinien and Nomin are pretty blunt people who can comfortably share brutal honesty with one another without offense being taken. Despite their bluntness, they're also playful with one another, being able to tease one another and roast one another while finding amusement in themselves.

Since Nomin also knows that Estinien would rather backflip into the Rhotano Sea than be encumbered by reading most forms of writing, she makes sure he has a linkpearl on hand if he wants to keep in touch when he's off doing work in Thavnair at Vrtra's request because she does like hearing his voice (though this may be set to be rethought out pending how Dawntrail plays out and if we learn more about what Estinien gets up to outside of Radz-at-Han once we're in Tural).

As for tailoring my OC for the romance: absolutely not.

Putting the rest of the answer under a cut, because this actually got longer than I anticipated. But the sentence above is a perfect tl;dr.

I've made it no secret that I started off really despising Estinien, and I was annoyed with him throughout the DRG quests, and all of HW. I often was like, "man, if this dude dies, fucking good riddance. Fuck that guy." Even as he was laying in the sickbed and waxing poetic about his self-reflection, I was just, "GOD, CAN MY CHARACTER JUST WALK AWAY..."

Nomin wasn't tailored for Estinien in any fashion. When I made her, I made her because I wanted to have a dedicated Warrior of Light character that I wanted to go through content again with and make a story for. When I learned more about the Xaela and their tribes, and customs, I grew to love them -- especially because I LOVE seeing representation of people you don't normally see in media and video games. I'm happy for all the Mongolians that are so, so happy to see their people represented. If Square Enix makes a fantasy land with people that are representative of the Filipino people, I will genuinely LOVE that and make another dedicated WoL who represents half of my cultural roots.

When Endwalker started and we got to fucking customs, his reaction to being asked what his current occupation was...that was the "FUCK!" moment for me. Because I LOVE when powerful men show dumbass himbo mcbuffoonisms to the audience -- that makes them 10000% more endearing to me. (No, his admission of 'swinging a lance with nary a thought in my head' quote wasn't enough at the time because he still never really outwardly showed that kind of silliness in a way that was visible to me.)

#questions and answers #user: crowdsourcedloner #thank you ♥ #ffxiv #ffxiv oc #oc: nomin tal kheeriin #estinien varlineau #cinnamon ship

[gatheredfates]

Send 🎵 plus a muse and I will share a song from their playlist & some lyrics that stand out -- Z

OH MAN. Spotify blessed me on this day by deciding to randomise one of his main songs.

I have a lot of thoughts on EXUVIUM and how this album influenced a lot of my headcanons around WoL Kor, Endwalker and the void/Z in general. Justin explained this album in part is supposed to be a reference to an apocalypse, which is very fitting when you consider the themes of the game. I DIGRESS, however. I'll link the most applicable lyrics.

Wrap me tight in these swaddling clothes The newly born savior King and lord of the void

Before his fall to darkness and ascension as a voidsent, Z was a fairly ordinary man. He was pianist in the Fel Court of Trioa; a middle-class, forgettable figure within the gentry. What he lacked in status he made up for in confidence and charm - traits that would meld into egotism and arrogance when the darkness came.

However, Z as he is now has no memory of the Z he was. That man - his name, his face, everything about him - was lost to time. He was born in the same way many voidsent are born.

Alone.

He opened his eyes to a blackened sky and the screams of the living... and he loved it. He hungered for their aether; how they writhed in his hands, how they begged for their lives and how easily he could take them. He carved for himself inside those hallowed halls a kingdom he could never have in life, pantomiming the things he dared not allow himself before, with no memory of why they were important. Ary could goad him and say she preferred him when he was a pianist, the same way he'd come back to that same piano and play it over and over again, but he didn't have the memory to know why. The hunger overrode the sense.

He became the lord of his own void, consigned to the castle until he was freed to Eorzea. A literal king and lord of nothing.

And though we’re touching skin to skin Laying in threads of gold You softly whisper in my ear, “Darling you’re still alone.”

This is in direct reference to his lover, Ary. Just because Z's mind doesn't remember Troia does not mean his soul does not. He will dream of a court wreathed in purple and gold, where a lordling's daughter loved him. Perhaps he loved her, too.

In the weakness of the soul, in those small flecks of humanity, whatever is left of her - kindness, cruelty, sense or despair - reminds him that he still alone. No matter how much he is sated, no matter how much he takes, he has nothing. When he wakes from his walking nightmare, he will be alone.

No matter what he does, he is still alone.

#｡･ﾟﾟ･ — 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 : z #｡･ﾟﾟ･ — 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 : aryele #what did u expect u asked about z and ary i have many THOUGHTS #about these two and their lives and how they're intertwined #HELP

[rivenroad]

10 years ago today.

Despite playing the beta and loving it, I actually didn't buy A Realm Reborn on release for a few reasons - I was just about to start my third and final year at art school, didn't have much money and my laptop at the time struggled with the game, plus I knew about the server issues going on at launch so I didn't feel too bad for missing it. I owned a PS3, but I'd heard what everyone said about it being inferior to playing on PC, so I was hesitant, but a couple of weeks later I bought it for PS3 anyway because I really wanted it. I feel like that was perhaps the first time that FFXIV helped me to cast off the influences of others and make my own decisions.

The first character I made in the game proper was a Duskwight arcanist. He doesn't exist any more, but I found screenshots of him the other week when I dug out my PS3. Back then, I was excited by the amount of options in character customisation because I hadn't played an MMO before with the level of variety that XIV had. I played around with a whole lot of different characters, most of them being on the extreme ends of things - unnatural blue and green skintones, tiny Lalafells, huge Roegadyn women who towered over everyone else. I really liked that those were options for the protagonist of a game because I hadn't played many other games where they could take a leading role. The first character I took to level 50 and spent the most time on, to start with, was one of those, but it took me much longer to realise that I was playing a character who I wanted to exist in the world, but not one that I actually connected with on a personal level.

Early on I also messed around with male Miqo'te and Midlanders, and I made a couple I really liked, but I was reluctant to actually commit to them and I think it was because I felt like I "shouldn't" - because it was predictable to be an anime catboy or a plain old human man, it was boring, those things had been done before. In a game that allowed you to be some combination of traits that was hardly ever seen in a protagonist role, why would you pick something that was basically... a trope? That's kind of how I felt, or rather, had been made to feel. I was mildly embarrassed that I wanted to be a catboy, so I resisted it for a while.

Eventually, though, I did take the plunge to make one and level him alongside a friend who had picked up the game a few months later.

That was Ayin'a. That was really where things began to change for me. I was finally playing a character who I really felt a connection with, who I felt actually represented some part of me rather than ones who I absolutely loved being part of the world, but just weren't really "me". I started to write, to roleplay, to create, to form connections with people with him as my avatar. I was enjoying myself and I was inspired in a way I hadn't really felt... probably since I was a child, because I was doing things from the heart, rather than trying to follow an idea of what I thought I should be doing.

A lot has happened since then and it's way too much to go into here, but this for me was a huge turning point that provided me with inspiration and passion to hold on to in some very, very bleak times in my life. And from there, more came - with a better understanding of what I found interesting, what I liked in a character, what I was interested in exploring and writing... My identity began to solidify thanks to this process. After a long, long long and dreadful slump I started to make art again because of FFXIV. And now, I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where I can call making art my career, where I can look forward to what the future may hold for me as an artist, because of the experiences I've had with this game.

Incidentally, Ayin'a himself is now retired as of Endwalker, both in and out of character. For as much as he means to me, he was never intended to be "the" Warrior of Light, and as soon as I was able to make a character who suited that role (it only took 6+ years...), I started winding down his role as my "main" in a gameplay sense, because at last I had character who belonged in those MSQ cutscenes rather than having to feel mild uncomfortable as I watched them feature a character who would absolutely not be in that role.

Plus, when it comes to his own story, he's had enough too - he made a bunch of money, got married, settled down in his beachside house with a bunch of odd pets and his husband to be a reclusive and grumpy yet altruistic neighbour. He's still around, and always will be, both in FFXIV and in other worlds I choose to transport him too, but for now that chapter is over. I'll always have a soft spot for him and how he was the start of my journey to understand myself and find my place in the world, just as I'll always be grateful for all the many, many ways in which FFXIV changed the course of my life.

I'm looking forward to the next ten years, and there were times in the not so distant past when I had no hope that I'd ever say such a thing truthfully.

#final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #a realm reborn #endwalker #10th anniversary #the rising #ayin'a quist

[applecubeblog]

Head cannons about a friend's OC

I do not control the muses. When they offer me ideas, I can only hope I'll have the MP to write those ideas down, no matter what they may be. In this case, it was about my friend's Warrior of Light, Shio Shinju. You can find her over on @the-littlest-kojin. Now, despite looking like a Raen, she was raised by the Kojin of the Blue, and is one, far as I'm concerned. It did get me to thinking, how would other NPC's respond and react to learning that about Shio? Nice as it would be that they would all be lovely, supportive, and accepting, they are not perfect. As anyone who feels their body does not reflect who they are will tell you, there can be a wide range of reactions from people. Thus I present, a list. Please note, there are some names on this list that do not pop up until later expansions, including names that don't pop up until the latest expansion. The names for Endwalker I'll try to put put under the Read More. So consider yourself warned.

Minfillia- doesn't understand, "tries", messes up a lot

Thancred- doesn't understand, still tries, never messes up

Y'shtola- doesn't understand, asks a lot of questions that end up bordering on, to being, actively rude. One time, a Thancred that was already having a bad day snapped and started flipping Y'shtola's questions back on her. She quickly got the idea and the questions have significantly lessened. 

Urianger- went on a near poetic spree about how it's the soul that matters, not the flesh. Never messes up. 

Lyse- tries to understand, doesn't fully get it, but tries anyway. Sometimes messes up. "confused but she got the spirit" 

Papalymo- outright refuses. This earns him an earful from Lyse (and Thancred in private) every time. 

At this point Thancred is recognizing and standing with Shio on her identity just as much out of spite as anything. Part of it is still trying to respect Shio, but part of it is out of spite now.

Alphinaud- doesn't understand, trying to, but questions are worse than Y'shtola's somehow

Alisaie- kind of gets it, is trying since it makes Shio happy. Actually does her own research and chastises her brother. 

Tataru- very confused, but does try. She also messes up, but her apologies feel more genuine than Minfillia's. Incorporates little turtles somewhere in each outfit made. 

Krile- understands and accepts immediately, never messes up. Something something echo. 

G'raha- may be the worst. Says he understands, says he cares, but clearly has not, can not, and will not internalize it. His words and his actions blatantly at odds.

Estinien- kind of gets it? He assumes it's something akin to how powerful dragoons are basically part dragon. Having seen Shio's prowess in water, he assumes all Kojin are this amazing aquatic warrior race. This was all internal, so Shio may not be aware that was his logic, but he did seem to get it, and didn't mess up. When he was visiting the Far East, he did stop in Tamamizu, and upon talking with the Kojin there, came to understand better. He apologizes next time he sees Shio, saying only "for not fully understanding you". 

During Stormblood, Lyse and Alisaie comment on how Shio is "like a Kojin!", something they've both done often, not realizing. But this time it was within earshot of one of Shio's brothers, who pulls them aside and explains why what they are saying is wrong. Shio is not like a Kojin, she is one. Alisaie and Lyse understand, and feel awful, apologizing. Both do not make the mistake again. 

Hien, Gosestsu, Yugiri- immediately understand and accept, apologizing for ever messing up. 

Also Hein has a discussion with Shio late one night, after a bunch of sake, when he thinks Gosestsu and Yugiri aren't listening. He wonders if he might be happier as Xeala, talking wistfully and joyfully about his time among them in the Steppes, how now in this palace he feels out of place. He claims it was merely a joke. He's lying to himself. It was not. 

Aymeric- smiles, nods, doesn't understand. Gets what literature he can, but it only confuses him more. It's not until Estinien comes back and explains it to him, does he kinda sorta get it. 

Raubahn- at first, thought that's what Raen called themselves. It wasn't until meeting Yugiri that he was corrected, then had things explained to him. Understands better now, though also believes the Kojin are a powerful underwater warrior peoples. 

Nanamo- confused, asks questions earnestly, trying to learn. Thinks she gets it, and kind of does. Would like to see Tamamizu one day. 

Merlwyb- really does not get it for the longest time. She does eventually come around, and makes clear any sign of calling Shio anything but Kojin is a sign of disrespect, but it does take her a bit. She may be a force for progress and change in Limsa, but she's still Limsan. Stubborn as any of them. 

Kann-E Senna- genuinely hard to tell. Always keeps that same practiced smile on her face. She calls Shio "Kojin", but does she believe or understand? Unclear. 

Gaius- "Why would you ever want be one of those beasts-" gets cut off by angry turtle

Zeno- "If I gutted every beastman there, then would you fight me with that same fervor?" which threatening that does work, much to his joy

Feo Ul- first needs an explanation of what Kojin are. Then points out "well of course you're one! You swim better than any other, you have respect for the spirits, and I've seen my precious sapling take hits from those nasty lightwardens straight to her back and been fine! So clearly you must have a hard shell back there!" then after a moment. "[appropriate pet name], if you are displeased with your form, know that I can shape it into whatever will make you happy. I'll adore you no matter what shape you take."

Matoya- Doesn't care what Shio is (and that is how she terms it), just leave her alone. She does chastise Alphinaud and Y'shtola at one point- "Let people be who they are, and mind your own!" 

Ameliance- welcomes "Shio of the Blue", having already been told in letters. Does her best to be supportive. 

Fourchenault- very pointedly avoids referring to Shio by anything. Eventually is called out on it by Alisaie. 

Vrtra- accepts it. No big fanfare or anything, just accepts it

Nidhana- rolls with it easily, just wants Shio’s help and to research Shio

Meteion, Hermes, Hythlodaeus, Emet-Selch (past), Venat- have no point of reference for Kojin, so assume Shio is just what one is. Should be noted the description is eerily similar to Azem’s true form.

Emet-Selch (present)- knows what a Kojin is now, and that it is similar to Azem’s true form. He knows it should be Shio’s true shape, and that, if things were right, she could take that shape easily. The fact that she can’t disgusts him.

#ffxiv #shio shinju #applewrites #still trying to figure out this place after so long away #I'm sure I'm going to catch an earful for some of these #endwalker spoilers

[tinygamertris]

Jude kir Dravis

WoL/OC tag meme! Tagged by @ecosystem-administrator, thank you!

Tagging in turn: @nights-at-crystarium, @graha-stan-account, any FFXIV fans who see this and want to go for it!

(Choose whichever WoL/OC you want, do it more than once, ignore me entirely. what am I, a cop?)

B A S I C S

Name: Jude kir Dravis (kir for Veteran Medicus)

Nicknames: Hey Jude, Judy, Mongrel (Derogatory)

Age: 24 at the start of ARR so probably somewhere around 27-29 at this point

Nameday: 21st Sun of the Fifth Astral Moon

Race: Half Garlean half-Keeper Miqo'te

Gender: Male leaning nonbinary

Sexuality: Homosexual

Profession: Medic, Scientist and Engineer in a big ol' mess

P H Y S I C A L     A S P E C T S

Hair: Dark Brown, shaggy, formerly short but grew to jaw length during his time in Elpis

Eyes: Amber

Skin: Light dusty brown

Tattoos/scars: A scar on the left side of his face centred around a blade's cut with branching lightning-like patterns leading out from it, courtesy of Zenos yae Galvus in Doma. An Archon tattoo on his right shoulder post-Endwalker, for the studies he did on Akasa/Dynamis and how it manifests in Ultima Thule.

F A M I L Y

Parents: Father, a pureblood Garlean and head of House Dravis before the second Garlean Civil War; Mother (Mama), a Keeper Miqo'te who rose 'above her station' under Emperor Solus as a Medicus; Adopted Mother, his Father's pureblood Garlean wife. His Father and Adopted Mother have an open relationship and both have brought children and partners into the family through adoption.

Siblings: Three half-siblings through his father, one pure Garlean and two half Elezen. Two half-siblings through his adopted mother, both half Hyur. A sibling adopted from an orphanage after showing immense potential with magitek, pure Hyur (Gentian).

Grandparents: Father's parents, both pure Garlean, former heads of House Dravis, both deceased. Mama's parents, somewhere in Ala Mhigo, current status unknown. Adopted mother's parents, both pure Garlean, current heads of House Priscus. (Yes this means Maxima is a distant cousin.)

In-laws and other: No official in-laws but try telling House Fortemps that he's not family, they'll laugh in your face! Ameliance considered him family long before they met, and Fourchenault has been talked around to naming him a ward of House Leveilleur after seeing how much he adores and will protect the twins.

Pets: He had a pet cat called Scraps when he was young, but no pets since. He considers his life in Eorzea too disruptive (and downright dangerous since falling in with the Scions) to be a responsible pet owner.

S K I L L S

Abilities: Has inherited an empathic talent from his Azem, which manifested along with his echo during the aftermath of Carteneau. Two years training at the Magitek Academy in the Imperial City before transferring to Medicus training. Able to use a gun, gunblade and bow with decent proficiency, and a strong talent with the geometry and mathematics of the Arcanist and both its offshoots. Became a Reaper when the Telophoroi made their appearance with the full intention of returning to Garlemald and doing what needs doing to protect his people. Noble upbringing gave him some small diplomatic knowledge, but he prefers to leave that kind of thing to Alphinaud.

Hobbies: Cooking, sewing, reading, pretty much all kinds of crafting. Loves animals and has been known to spend off-days helping with chocobo stables all over Eorzea.

T R A I T S

Most positive trait: He has a deep, deep love for his friends and family, and will go to ridiculous lengths to protect them. If he decides you're one of his, you can expect him to go to the full extent of his abilities and then some for you.

Most negative trait: He has a lot of difficulty with life-long depression and anxiety, a habit of thinking that his problems 'aren't big enough' to try and get help for (he's on the spectrum but Garlemald doesn't have very good mental health anything let alone support), and these have combined into a nasty tendency to hide his negative feelings and bottle them up until he explodes.

L I K E S

Colors: White, black, grey and dark green.

Smells: Herbs from cooking and making medicine, mild soap.

Textures: Soft, fluffy, smooth and warm. Give him a nice soft fuzzy blanket and he's a happy lad.

Drinks: Cool to cold, fruity, sometimes fizzy. He loves lemonade with berries in it especially.

O T H E R    D E T A I L S

Smokes: Not a chance, he knows what that does to people's lungs!

Drinks: Only occasionally, he doesn't enjoy being drunk and tends only to partake at his very lowest or very highest moments.

Drugs: He's tried weed a few times - on Urianger's suggestion, which surprised everyone but the Pixies - and didn't mind it but he doesn't really see the point in seeking it out. And as for anything stronger, well, he's a Medicus. He doesn't want to risk holes in his brain!

Mount Issuance: Precious, their Grand Company chocobo, is still one of his most trusted companions and is pampered at every opportunity. Muffin, his black chocobo, lives a cushy life in Gridania and is often visited by Kan-E-Senna herself; Jude gets sick at the idea of the 'bo that Haurchefant raised getting hurt. He recently was gifted a flying crescent moon mount by the Loporrits and has great fun giving them all rides.

Been Arrested: Only in MSQ incidents, although he's absolutely come close once or twice. Looking at you Asahi you colossal piece of shit!

#Jude kir Dravis #Warrior of Light #I love doing these! #Sometimes when Urianger and he are having bad days at the same time they do edibles #Anxiety boys protecting and grounding each other

[motheatenscarf]

thinkin bout endwalker thoughts, i liked the idea of each character confronting their own despair and overcoming it to pave a path forward, just don't love that it literally kills them to do so, even if they come right back

bcs like

the point of the existential despair is that hey, you have ONE fragile, wild life to live, so to throw it away, to as a society devalue it, uh, sucks.

it gave us a lot of good character moments, but it did feel a little cheap, to watch people sacrifice themselves with the promise that the WoL would bring them back at the end of it.

it's kinda like what emet selch went thru, huh? except instead of 10 minutes, it was 12 thousand years

which, speaking of, bringing emet selch and hythlodaeus back only for them to immediately choose death again bcs the world they knew and loved is gone and it's time to pave the way for something more is like

woof

idk, to me it's the conflict here between accepting death, which is something everyone has to do, and choosing death, which is something, that uh... people in this place at the end of the universe also keep choosing, even if the theme is that you can't give into nihilism and have to take the hurt with the joy

emet does seem hopeful to pass on the torch, to trust the future to the scions, like he finally accepts that he was wrong in denying the personhood of the sundered, even if he also says his principles were "inviolate, invincible" in trying to bring his people back anyway.

so him entrusting the sundered world to carry on and to lay down his burden isn't exactly the absolute "i am tired of living and want to die" kind of nihilism that all the shades in Ultima Thule long for that we have to overcome, but it's close enough to it that imo it kinda muddies the message a bit.

it's by no means a bad thing, just, you cannot play willy nilly with the forces of life, death, and resurrection, i know it's JRPG logic, but when the theme of your story is "Life is fleeting and terrifying and painful but still precious and worth living," then you CANNOT be so cavalier with characters dying and coming back and then stubbornly choosing to die again rather than heal and move forward.

idk, i'm dumb, and i'm bad at words, and i even still think it was a good moment, i just think it was a little... off-theme is all, even if i loved that the flowers they made got through to Meteion.

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #FF14 spoilers

[myrfing]

OK pandaemonium thoughts

random guy who eats. me too

not new but I love how all the souls have different colors in the aitiascope. rainbow stars

i liked how they had a whole frankingstein's monster thing going on with p10 pandaemonium. i think that's a fun thing to draw a parallel with re: ancients and their creations

i like themis and erich a lot. they're both children who long to be needed. themis has the gift of being something of a prodigy while erich was made to fail but they still found it in them to stand together cus they're just people in the end. how crazy it is to see where that privilege then takes elidibus in the future vs erich

i didnt realize it would hit in some weird way to see lahabrea see like...the reincarnation of his son living a very happy and fulfilled life as a mortal shard. so many complicated emotions in one quiet pause. knowing that you would have made the same choices that mirror athena's, knowing you spent this whole time casting judgement upon her, binding her, going back and forth on her, but seeing that in the future you'd take the same path. people born in one time leaving their scars upon people who don't fit in the mold like erich and then coming to terms that The Times have changed anyways. things you only made peace with in knowing it's been long over

athena's thing kind of makes me think they were expecting players to resonate more with endwalker's whole thing of you are not a tool and you are worthy of living even if imperfect based on past responses to the concept of the WoL. i think the raids straightforwardly reiterating so much of this is neat

it makes me so ough that erich's last words to athena were "and who made me that way?" but at the same time knowing he got sundered and some piece of his soul gets to live again in a world where he is allowed to be curious and silly and full of life...THE FACT HE WISHED TO MEET US AGAIN...what we know and what we don't know.........

hegemone gay as helllll. kind of ehh about how things went for her where she's like yes im sorry master lahabrea now

yeah #duty will never set you wrong

I GOT SOME OF MY AURACITE ANSWERS YAYY AND IT OPENED MORE QUESTIONS YAYY

interesting to know that ultima the high seraph isnt related to altima then?

athena seems like such an anomaly. what her existence and imprisonment says about the ancients is interesting but what we get of her is mostly through the lens of lahabrea and her evil i want to be god moment

weirdly soft epilogue with elidibus. I guess that's what people wanted to hear, that he doesn't hate us and finds worth in what bit of life he did get to live, but I kind of dont like how its so wol-centric? i still feel like we don't know who themis is exactly LMFAO and neither does he until he gets mulched. of course he's always had a natural curiosity and link to the wol but i just kind of ??? when was it about enjoying your time with me

OVERALLLLL i enjoyed pandermonium it was fun. the highlight really was erich and uncovering the thread of his existence was so satisfying and strange. reaching for yourself throughout all space and time. and i keep my opinion of themis as...i mean he even himself says it he doesnt know the elidibus of the future and can't speak for him. it was VERY enjoyable seeing the bits and pieces of him though

4pits

#6.4 spoilers #ffxiv

[spookfished]

sept+ oct media roundup

hi again :3 this month in september i was really busy with school so busy that i didnt make a media post for a whole month!!!! lol and also ive been getting back into FINAL FANTASY XIV: ENDWALKER grind lmfaooo so i wasnt really on that #mediagrind as much as i could be… but i still have some things to talk about :3 by sakshis (@.lilquill) suggestion, im also talking a bit about the music ive been listening to! this is also being crossposted onto my extremely barebones neocities

books/comics:

paladins strength by t kingfisher: m/m romance about a coroner and another former paladin! still psrt of the saint of steel series. i thought it was, once again really charming and grounded! also it involves a death room and i love those. the authors idea of 'these two characters are hiding something from each other' feels a little bit more contrived this time on pipers end, but i still had fun :3

home comforts: the art and science of keeping house by cheryl mendelson: nonfiction instructional manual on how to do various homemaking activities: cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc. ok ngl i got this book bc a book i was reading about 27/7 service..? was like "if you have never cared about housekeeping before this ones pretty useful." bc of various life and medical issues, the house i grew up in never really cared much about this kind of thing, except for cooking and self sufficiency. home comfort was written by a full time lawyer who was raised w the idea that she would grow up to be a stay at home wife, which i think is pretty interesting! it manages not to fall into tradwife ideas (imo?) by reframing these tasks as like.. a cyclical, rhythmic kind of self care that serve to make your home feel more safe and cozy. kind of like the marie kondo idea that folding all your clothes by hand puts like intent into your them; not practical for everybody, but sometimes a nice idea! also has a bunch of practical stuff, much of which is not particularly useful if you live in a college dorm. this book made me make my bed more often lol. i wish it had an updated section about tech (especially cord management)

the maid by nita prose (dnf): thriller about a (strongly autistic coded) maid who gets caught up in a murder at her hotel. i dont know i feel like i could have powered through this, but the way that the maids autism, and the way she interprets situations vs how the audience interprets situations is either played for pathos or laughs (its sometimes hard to tell which) rubbed me the wrong way. her life just… sucks? so bad? i feel like other people reading it may find some validating representation, and the voice is certainly interesting and brisk.

lolita by nabokov: doesnt really need much of an introduction. not going to lie, i read this bc i like nabokov but also to silently feel superior to all of the discourse girlies on tumblr. i did enjoy it though! in a way, at least? it's definitely a novel that can only be taken in small bites. i feel like a lot of the wordplay went over my head, and i'm not sure how much of that is due to me not knowing french and how much of it is due to the english language evolving so much after publication (and how much of it is just my own lack of knowledge. close reading is not really one of my strongest suits) . i was relieved to find that people call it funny, because it honestly was at some points. its really interesting when people can balance revulsion and humor and sick fascination, but that ratio is a pretty personal thing

she who became the sun by shelley parker chan: a retelling of the rebellion against the yuan dynasty, except the future ming emperor is a woman instead; part 1 of a duology. i really liked it! i liked the idea of like ummm sort of the two genders being Agency and No Agency. i thought baoxiang was pretty great love a fruity queerbaiting bureaucrat. thought it was pretty interesting that he continually tried to assert the importance of his own work and also worked really hard despite the fact that approval was obvioiusly never going to happen--so was it really that kind of futile endeavor, or for other ends….?! ooh so mystrious very excited to see him feature more in the second book. (spoilers for the book) some scenes that especially stood out were actually with some of the side characters! such as the mayors wife :3 the climactic scene with ouyang and esen was very delicious

he who drowned the world by shelley parker chan: sequel to she who became the sun! zhu yuanzhang has clawed her way up to her very own army and the yuans power has been destabilized, but everyone else is still racing for the crown. dude. i liked this book so freaking much. sooooo freaking cool it expands on a lot of the ideas and i also liked the development of the yingzi/yuanzhang relationship. additionally it managed to display the kind of like. trans horniness that (DISCLAIMER: I DONT FUCK) i dont really see in a lot of published books.. pretty cool! reminded me of when i went to a burlesque show and saw a woman (medical horror cwwww?) stick a needle through her hand lol. fantastically well balanced cast. do you think about the EROTICISM OF VIOLENCE? and GENDER ROLES? please read this book it made me so stressed. i really believe that at the end of the book baoxiang becomes a stay at home prisoner war

an unkindness of ghosts by rivers solomon: scifi about "exploring the conjunction between structural racism and generation ships" where medic aster uncovers a grand conspiracy! i thought the world building was reallyyy fun ship that has Been Voyaging Forever is an old and good trope, and this book goes hey but class and race will still exist though. to the point of like um recreating plantation dynamics i think? very anti utopian in a way i enjoyed. the mix of advanced scifi stuff and also having no resources was interesting :3 i liked giselle and theo a lot, and pretty much all the supporting (+sympathetic) characters besides aster? who took a lot longer for me to warm up to--shes definitely given a lot of nuance and life, but i think overly literal autistic/coded characters are a bit cringe..? im sure it meant a lot to someone (esp having a black autistic char?) just not me personally. oh but i really enjoyed the difference in voice between all the povs they were really distinct and fun. also aster and giselles rship! i think it would have been nice to have more intense moments, but thats also a personal preference for dramatics kind of thing--a lot gets glossed over in a 'past trauma' kind of way.. neil is right that i mostly have been reading books that blast you though lol. i really liked the scene at the end though like wow.. returning to the earth.. that was really good honestly. the stuff about archives and memory keeping was interesting --there was definitely like a thread through but i wouldn't have caught it w/out leo mentioning it. something about multiple interpretations..? something about history being passed from person to person rather than through physical means….?? its a strong debut i think :3 felt kinda movielike in an interesting way. rlly wish theyd went into The Gender more although i guess it mostly wasnt about that yeah and i wish the ending had more to do w like. her doctor stuff lmfao it was a little disconnected

video games:

13 sentinels: 13 teens intertwined stories come together in a story about love, mechs, and every scifi trope in the universe. also, the past and the future! the background art is sooo gorgeous i think my usual attention span for visual novels was increased significantly just by being able to walk around while dialogue was playing… if you have a low tolerance for heterosexual "pair the spares" type behavior, this may not be for you--i really liked some of the romances though, like with fuyusaka and sekigahara.. i liked the themes of like. idk you can try to relive the past, but all itll do is stall you from moving forward--we can examine past mistakes but we cant ever get a 'redo.' alsooo people were haters about the battle segments but i played it all on hard and really enjoyed it. tbh anyways would recommend!

boyfriend dungeon: dungeon crawler where you can date your weapons. well i 100%d this (except for the whip) but for all of the gameplay bits i was mostly thinking "man i wish i was playing hades". probably not a fair comparison, but it does lack some polish in that department, and overall. all the same, i enjoyed this game! it has a nice soundtrack and art, and i thought some of the love interests were pretty charming :3 also appreciated the flexibility in love routes. it really got a bad rap from the stalker plot huh…pretty solid game and worth playing if the initial concept grabs you. i did borrow neils copy though

hades: after beating bf dungeon i immediately redownloaded hades lmfao. sooo good theres not a lot to say about it. still havent managed to beat the final boss even after all this time bc im too stubborn to turn on godmode >:T

dave the diver: casual sort of dungeon crawler, except instead of killling monsters you catch fish for your sushi restaurant, which you also run. dave the diver stacks on a bunch of mechanics in a way thats… surprisingly manageable? and really charming honestly. im having a lot of fun with it :3 a few awkward boss fights that werent really that fun (and stealth segments..my enemy) havent gotten in the way of like all the rest of it i loooove exploring the ocean and finding new ways to get fish and all of the gorgeous pixel art and also the FALL GUYS GUY is doing the OST. this game is blowing up a little bit rn but honestly for good reason. such a good gameplay loop that also adds in variety over time

manga:

hirayasumi: slice of life about a part-timer working in tokyo who inherits an old womans house--its all about slowing down and enjoying the pace of life--and also how hard that actually is. dude hirayasumi is sooo fucking good im always trying to get people to read this manga i think its adorable and also beautiful and bittersweet. its about growing out of your 20s and the friends around you who are moving up or moving on or even just stuck in place. super awesome

ao no flag: romance coming of age w lgbt themes. a timid high school girl is trying to work up the courage to confess to her crush, and enlists the help of her crush's childhood friend to do it. the mixed-up shenanigans of adolescence ensue. man you know i really love the art for this manga (faces and expressions! so good!) and i think all the characters are really compelling! the trio just have such a cute dynamic and like all of the waffling over feelings honestly feels real. the ending was really disappointing though honestly. still worth a read imo but prepare to be mad. ok here is my longer rant about it (spoilers) ughhh ok its like. initially i thought masumi getting a boyfriend was SO fucking disappointing. especially given that she kinda got the least focus out of the main 4? some reddit comments were like "maybe her boyfriend is trans" but i think that something like that would be……….really complicated honestly? and something that id really want to have explored more outside of just a singular epilogue chapter? and i dont think the implications were that strong there. and given that it would have been good to see more indications that they were actually happy together bc its like the first thing you think when you see her is "oh, she gave up" WHICH IS SO FUCKING DEPRESSING AUGH and she never even confessed to futaba :| futaba and taichi breaking up makes a lot of sense and im like, whatever not really going to object to that esp bc the whole theme is like youthful love. but then on the SAME SIDE OF THE COIN its like it makes no sense for taichi and touma to get together either then!!!!!!!!!!!!! like what a copout. it kinda breaks the whole original premise. AND it feels like its just (whats that word thats like playing to? favoring?) fujos reading the comic and all those ppl are like the girl should DIE for getting in the way of my two gayboys. and aslo the convo with kensuke and the other girls and especially that other guy really felt like i was reading a reddit thread. or like some of the most frustrating conversations that ive had and overheard. like hmm i sort of get what it was trying to say. and i agree that peoples frustration and idea of whats 'right' usually isnt the best rhetoric.. and above all sometimes youre not focusing on your ideas of correctness Or proper rhetoric but having an honest and open communication? but its likeeee well i kinda dont care? sorry

nana: coming of ageish? nana, a flighty girl who's quick to fall in love, and nana, a tough rocker trying to make it big in the city, coincidentally become roommates, and become fast friends despite their disparate lives/personalities. this one is one of the classics! i still havent finished it yet (its also unfinished) but idk i really like it. always fond of flop women like hachi lmfao. the older art style did take a bit to get used to for me

i want to hold aono kun so bad i could die: horror manga about a high school girl who gets her first boyfriend--who then dies only a couple days afterwards. yuki kariya is willing to do anything to make sure aono stays with her, even letting her possess her body. but should the dead and the living really be so closely intertwined? ok the art in the first couple volumes may be a little offputting but this is REALLY good ok. and it has some really chilling panels that i love a lot. aono kun begins with the pretty classic "awkward loner girl x popular boy", but it quickly starts getting into ideas about like…. purity and "the filthiness of desire" and stuff like that. recently has been getting more into why the characters are the way they are? in some uh, really chilling and realistic depictions of abuse within a family. check the cws but mr chainsaw man recommended this manga so you should read it too.

movies/tv:

skibidi toilet: humor/action webseries?? ok so its about this war between the skibidis and the cameraheads, which escalates in technology over time as the cameraheads bring in other objecthead allies and the skibidis grow stronger. me and neil and alena watched all compiled 40 minutes of this in a straight shot, which was kind of like frying our brains in a microwave. kind of like those stickfight videos for a cocomelon generation, the relentless pacing will suck you in kinda like…. a skibidi toilet…. really well made imo but probably only worth watching if you really like cool fights and/or gmod

the shining: prestige? slash? horror a father and his family take care of a hotel only to find out things are FUCKED.. i really didnt know what this was about besides the here's johnny scene before i watched it :3 pretty crazy it really just is a good movie. sucks that the filming was so terrible though

fight club: ok so to me this movie is about colelctive action and gay people. like they had so many people mobilized for radical action and whatever and all they did was blow up a bank. LAME! anyways i really liked it a lot despite the everything. ive been entering my film bro era with neil i hope we watch pulp fiction next <3

music:

this is a couple albums ive been listening to over the past couple months!

THE CLOD(瓦合) by no party for cao dong: taiwanese post rock. im a big fan of this band so i listened to a bunch of the album tracks as they released!! like the first album, each track flows together into a coherent whole, and it retains the upbeat despondency from the servile. however, it feels like theyve also been more willing to branch out musically! especially with tracks like damn and daydream. overall, the album has a grittier, grungier feeling as well. also i know more chinese so i can sing along a bit now :3 (also, their lyric translations are always so good?) a few highlight tracks for me are lie (床) and the human the hole and the mountain. (人洞山).

CRAWLER by idles: british "crankwave", whatever that means. idles is also a band that i really like :3 sometimes i try and listen to other things in its genre and im like well…. this isnt idles though… sorry.. i like things that are the same forever…. i listen to this music a lot when im cleaning haha. it has such a feeling of overwhelm and tearing through rock bottom thats very satisfying! crawling hurts but it works for me and so on. with crawler and the clod both, every time i listen i have a couple favorite new tracks but rn i like the end and progress.

UMURANGI GENERATION OST primarily by adolf nomura: jungle music for a photography-based game (umurangi means "red sky" in te reo). i mostly end up listening to the tutorial + mauao view tracks. well….. i have a huge jungle music bias. unfortunately. but i think a lot of this music really captures the sort of "flow" feeling that you get when working on something creative! this game has an incredible sense of atmosphere i would really recommend checking it out. highlight tracks are swears in ps1 and BEAT THE POLICE

SCALES by king isis: indie pop. i saw them perform live at a concert this august!! so freaking cool :3 to me has all of the self indulgent sadness and rich vocals of an early mitski track but ALSO is an ''indie gem''' (this is their debut album). songs are fun to sing along to :3 my favorite songs from her are 4 leaf clover and im fine thx for asking! but apparently their new mv has sexy vampires in it so maybe go check it out?

as always if you read (or skimmed) to the end, thanks :3

#txt #you might say #hey. isnt it almost the end of november? #well yes! you are correct

[coconutwaterbending]

10 characters | 10 fandoms | 10 tags (we'll see about that last one) I haven't made a text post in so long how's everyone doing. Thank you, rj (@sidprescot), for the tag! This was a nice surprise. :)

Gosh do I have a type and they're all Old Men and Tragic Ladies my beloved. Let's go!! 1. Varric Tethras (Dragon Age 2): he shot right through my heart with that crossbow THE LITERAL SECOND he came on screen and I've been cursing Bioware ever since. He is a nonromanceable short king and I have never wanted anyone more thx. 2. Nakmor Drack (Mass Effect Andromeda): the Tempest Crew is so freaking charming, and while I love my jelly fish cat aliens the Angara, my favorite character is absolutely this old cantakerous grandpa Krogan. Whom, much like Wrex, I wish I could romance. (p.s. there is a TEASE of a flirt option and u can imagine how little that helped my case) 3. Spock (literally every Star Trek iteration): He is my Everything. Nemoy, Quinto, and Peck all bring something unique to the character's portrayal. I love him in every universe and I can never get enough of this EMOTIONALLY COMPROMISED NERD.

4. Alicent Hightower (House of the Dragon): one half of my divorced lesbinems and I feel so much for her and the tragedy/complexity of both her character and the heartwrenching slow decay of her r/s with Rhaenyra. I cannot wait for S2. 5. Aerith Gainsborough (Final Fantasy VII): ooooough, beautiful, tragic, kind, funny, cool flower seller of my life. Remake!Aerith particularly stole my heart along with the show. There is this sad, beguiling mystery about her that draws you in, and she is so cheerful in spite of it all. I can't wait for Rebirth but also I am terrified lol. 6. Yennefer of Vengerberg (The Witcher): "How ravishing she is, he thought. Everything about her is ravishing. And menacing. Those colours of hers; that contrast of black and white. Beauty and menace. Her raven-black, natural curls. Her cheekbones, pronounced, emphasising a wrinkle, which her smile – if she deigned to smile – created beside her mouth, wonderfully narrow and pale beneath her lipstick…" I mean. C'mon. That is MY WIFE etc, copy paste rj's exact blurb. Anya Chalotra is the perfect Yen. She is everything and deserves the world and I will glady let her burn it all down and murder me if she wants to. 7. Zero (Final Fantasy XIV): [Endwalker patch spoilers!] who doesn't love an autistic badass goth half-human half-voidsent who has lived as a monster for so long she forgot her own identity and is learning how to be human again and finding her humanity via the power of friendship and delicious food, like. I needed more of her and I miss her already!!!

8. Kim Wexler (Better Call Saul): omg so hard to pick just one from this show (ilu nacho), but Kim Wexler SUCKER PUNCHES U IN THE THROAT with her awesomeness. She is this extremely competent, understated cool, calculating yet caring and earnest character who compliments Jimmy so well and whose nuances her amazing actress Rhea Seehorn manages to convey so masterfully. She is also tragic af, but hello it's Breaking Bad prequel lol. On that note... 9. Kim Kitsuragi (Disco Elysium): DOUBLE KIM WHAMMY!!! They're so alike it's not even funny. I'd say Kim has the stronger moral center between the two, but I love them for many of the same reasons. He is also extremely competent, understated cool, with a side of being totally game for Harry's antics once he warms up to him (my Harry build was 'himbo' so he did a lot of dumb shit but he was nice). 10. Irving Bailiff (Severance): firstable, if you haven't seen Severance yet, please do yourself the favor and don't let me spoil this for u!! Irving Bailiff is an Experience. He is a stickler for the rules and very much a stick in the mud compared to his colleagues, but his true self leaks into this version of himself slowly at first, then in surprising bursts of rebellion that become clear at the end when it is shown that his Outtie/true self is actively trying to bring Lumon down like a TOTAL FUCKING BADASS in the most delightful reveal. Also he has a whirlwind romance with another old man played by Christopher Walken.

phew!! this was fun. lol @ my answers getting longer. I'm not tagging anyone but consider this an invitation to join in on the fun anyway!

#tag games

[greekromann]

1, 6, 12, 15, and 16! for the WOL ask meme!

👀 this is long so. Its under a readmore. Also ffxiv spoilers through endwalker below

1. Why did he become an adventurer? Glory? Money? ...?

The way Khalja grew up, his adoptive father made sure to instill in him a deep respect for the sacrifice his birth parents made to keep him out of the crossfire during the empire's expansion into doma. This was intended to convince him to stay safe and look out for himself, but it backfired into "im going to set out and do something about the empire. Personally", so his initial reason was really. To get stronger and find a group that he could join to combat imperial expansion. He'd heard about how the eorzean city-states drove the empire out of the continent from traders in kugane, so he figured hed start there

6. What did they think of Hydaelyn in the beginning? Did they change their mind about her since then?

He was actually initially pretty mistrustful of "giant crystal that talks to you", and couldnt shake the feeling that he was being used and intentionally kept in the dark. The mistrust turned into annoyance when he found out that she was the reason he had the echo (has considered it a curse ever since he awoke to it as a teenager), but through arr he found no reason to directly oppose her because she granted him the strength he needed to meet his own goals. When midgardsormr more or less broke her blessing, he found himself 1. Very fucking scared and 2. Missing her presence, at which point he realized that he had come to lean on her much more than hed ever intended to. He was kind of pissed about what happened with minfilia also lol. He just very much doesnt like feeling like he and every other person with the echo is a pawn in some cosmic game of chess. By the time shadowbringers wrapped up he'd become more comfortable with (or more accurately, resigned to) the idea that he would probably always be her champion, and that was fine as long as their goals were still aligned. Brief moment of panic where he learned that shes a primal, in the "does that make me. Tempered. Am i tempered" before realizing that thats stupid and the fact that hes Able to question that means he probably isnt. And then of course the events of endwalker completely tossed his idea of her on its head. He only wished that he got to spend more time with venat in elpis, but what little time they did have together made him far more comfortable with championing her cause. Khalja voice "venat my best friend venat"

12. What do they think about redemption and forgiveness? Would they forgive an enemy? Would they forgive themselves?

I think, prior to shadowbringers, he wasnt. Super into forgiveness and redemption. Like as far as he was concerned any crime needed to be answered for, and post-shadowbringers he definitely doesnt believe in like. Letting go of past offenses, but he sees a lot more nuance in these kinds of situations. [Standing in a room together with gaius post-stormblood] [gritting his teeth] This Is. Fine.

Ultimately he just wants to understand people's reasons, i guess? And he'll judge for himself whether those reasons justify their actions. Additionally, if someone proves that they're interested in doing better, or somehow making up for their past transgressions, he's going to try and look at them in the here and now, rather than as who they were before (with varying degrees of success)

As for himself... he's become acutely aware of the ridiculous amount of power he weilds, which means he's also Acutely aware of how devastating the consequences could be if he made a misstep. In an unhealthy way hes fashioned himself as the sole protector of his friends and loved ones, and so if any harm comes to them, he'll probably. Never forgive himself lol [flashes back to the vault]. Additionally, the body-snatching incident with zenos put a new fear of "what could other people do if they got their hands on my strength" into him. He's started to feel guilty for simply Being, on account of the danger it potentially puts other people in. But Its Fine Hes Fine Guys Dont Worry About It

15. How do they feel about the Ascians?

He has a very hard time hating the ascians after seeing them for who they really are. I mean that didnt stop him from stomping them into the ground whenever they posed a large enough threat, and nothing justifies the havoc theyve wrought in the millennia since, but he cant help but feel sympathy for them. After all, if all of the people HE loved and looked out for were killed, shattered, and transformed beyond recognition, he cant guarantee that he wouldnt also make some. Extremely terrible selfish decisions. [Throwing pebbles at emet-selch] Youre still an asshole [feels bad anyway].

He feels the most sympathy for elidibus, on account of. Teenager Thrust Into Govt Position And Turned Into A Primal For The Survival Of The Star. He doesnt really see him as responsible for the events that have followed since, even though he definitely. Still is. He sees a lot of alphinaud in elidibus gwjegdjd

He Does Not like lahabrea, but as of meeting him in pandæmonium hes weighing the pros and cons of attempting to Get Some gwjsgdjgdjd. Cons: hes actually one of the worst people he knows, thancred would kill him, thancred would kill him, he'll probably be rejected out of hand, etc etc. Pros: god lahabrea can GET it

16. Tell us about two major events from MSQ that left the deepest emotional scars on your WOL.

I MEAN. several gwjwgjdgd but the deepest scars......

the first would probably be the vault. Khalja felt that he owed a lot to haurchefant and he was kind of charmed by his extremely earnest nature, so losing him would have hurt enough on its own. Worse than that though was that haurchefant died protecting khalja specifically, which is something that he'd never had to. Deal with before. Up until then hed thought that the only person he'd hurt with his reckless behavior would be himself, but [watches haurchefant bleed out from a wound meant to be inflicted upon him] [has to go home and tell his family that hes only alive because their son/brother died] Oh. Oh This Sucks So Much Worse. Hes partly healed from that experience, but the guilt he feels has never left him (and likely never will), and it influences the way he handles situations where his loved ones are involved. Hes not willing to let anyone else take a bullet for him lol

The next would actually be the body-snatching experience with zenos. He'd never felt more helpless and terrified; the image of his own body about to strike down alisae and raha haunts him constantly, and while he understands that it wasnt him who did that, it definitely made him start to view himself as. A monster of sorts. Lol. When he woke up back in his own body and saw that none of his friends had come to harm he broke down sobbing in relief [he has not cried in front of. Most of them]. Post-endwalker, hes still afraid of his strength someday being used to hurt the people he loves. He would genuinely sooner die than let something like that happen again

#ty brittany i love. my special little guy #ff #ffxiv