senespera-ffxiv - Tumblr blog

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//there's no explicit spoilers but I'm gonna tag it as dawntrail spoilers anyways lol

I think it would be very funny and totally not sick and evil and twisted if, after finishing Dawntrail, you go back to Amaurot and it's just gone

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Estinien is so fuckin funny

Having just gone through Dawntrail on Ruhka and now poking into Heavensward on Quinn and just reaching Estinien for the first time (dragoon quests notwithstanding) the whiplash of his character development is just hitting me.

Heavensward Estinien- moody, twitchy mfer, running on rage and hate 24/7, Ishgard's nuclear option, ready to throw hands (especially with Ysayle) at the drop of a hat, never takes off his uniform even when it's caked in blood through a good part of the story.

Dawntrail Estinien- Shows up in fantasy texas in the fantasy equivalent of a ratty t-shirt and torn work jeans "oh hey, what's up? you should try the cactaur here" and "Oh uh, yeah that looks like some like, super fucked up 'change the way we interact with the multiverse' shit, or something, I don't know, anyways I saw a beast on the way in I'm gonna go try and eat it now. Later."

Like he literally went from Halone's favorite killing machine to fantasy diner, drive-ins, and dive guy. This is not a complaint, I love it, 10/10, no notes.

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what i say when i'm trying to get people to play ffxiv: there's such an incredible amount of content that there's something for everyone. you get an intricate jrpg plot with fantastic characters and worldbuilding that also makes YOUR character feel like an actual person somehow despite the limitations that come with customisable pcs. there's 21 different combat classes which you can all do on one character so there's always something new to learn and improve upon, but if you want to specialise that's totally cool too! there's raiding obviously but if you're not into that there's all sorts of side things like crafting, fishing (yes this is its own category), housing, island sanctuary, pvp, and so much more i can't even list. the music goes so hard. people are generally super friendly to newcomers and yes it's a meme but there's a super generous trial up to level 70 with no restrictions on playti—

what i should say when i'm trying to get people to play ffxiv: look at this

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AN IDIOT PIBIL - By ZA_Zariel

SOURCE

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one thing I think ffxiv nails about its depiction of fascism that other works of fiction tend to miss is how fucking patronizing it is

take the negotiation scene with varis at the end of stormblood for example. every single person in that room (except alisaie) is a whole-ass adult, yet varis spends the entire meeting talking to them like they're children who couldn't possibly manage their own shit without him to tell them what to do. it's extremely insulting and very much on point

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i finally hit level 100 cooking in ffxiv and these recipes are getting a little silly

oh i need to make some vegetable soup let me just gather uhh

1 carrot from the moon

2 cloves of garlic from an alternate dimension

1 potato from the past

1 onion from the furthest point in the universe

1 head of broccoli from fucking HEAVEN

salt

and youre done 👍 enjoy the minor damage buffs

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one thing i really liked about wuk lamat that i havent seen anyone mention is how when we learn about the banditry problem in kozama'uka, she immediately identifies it as a symptom of some kind of systemic failure that she'll need to address instead of just writing them off as being inherently bad people

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Unfolds a long string of photos from my wallet, but instead of children it’s pictures of my OCs

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also this is the only time I'm gonna post twice in a row but I finished up my thoughts about dawntrail in my media list so I'm posting them here completely unedited

//spoilers for like all of dawntrail

a more detailed rating is that this is like a 4.7/5. It’s a solid story, if a bit boring and cliche for some of the first half. I do enjoy how clear-cut the story is in terms of thematic content, though, and how through and through it is an exploration of differing cultures and the ways in which you can understand them

The second half was also an interesting continuation of said exploration as it gives you a culture that is in direct opposition to you with ways that are so alien, and yet continues to ask that you understand them while also criticizing the more inhumane effects of those cultural practices

making it about me again but it’s basically just my stance about criticizing China. A lot of the criticism becomes extremely sinophobic because it simply rejects the culture without first trying to understand it. It’s a bit easier for me since I’m deeply steeped in said culture, but I do think it’s possible for someone who isn’t Chinese to criticize China in a non-sinophobic way

Idk just a lot of the way Wuk Lamat and the others handled their reactions to Alexandria felt like a good way to do that to me

Like it’s nowhere close to being as insanely character-driven as shadowbringers and endwalker, nor is it as interestingly politically technical as heavensward, stormblood, and certain parts of endwalker, but it’s still definitely Good. Just not as good in comparison to the rest (and even then I’d rank it above Stormblood lmao I didn’t have any moments where I was actively annoyed at the characters for losing brain cells and shit jksdlfhskldjf)

My ranking for the expacs would be something like this

Shadowbringers > Endwalker > Heavensward ≥ Dawntrail > Stormblood > ARR

Gameplay-wise, though, oh my God this Fucks. This Fucks So Hard. Way better than Endwalker.

I imagine this is kind of what it felt like to play this game back in Stormblood and early Shadowbringers where things were much more complex and messy on the player side, except this time the complex and messy stuff has bled into the normal content boss design and I am enjoying it so goddamn much

(disclaimer: I started playing at the very tail end of shadowbringers so while I still remember some shit like old monk back when it had positionals on all of its buttons, I am mostly A Young'un. I did not have to experience the dreaded TP management, nor have I gone through all the stages of grief with Summoner getting reworked every fucking expansion lmao)

Part of the reason why I love doing EX trials is because at that difficulty level they aren’t afraid to do some just batshit things that would cause you to lose it in normal content

and now it’s bled into normal content hell yes

For reference my two favorite EX mechanics so far are the Biting Halberd combo from Zurvan EX (death puddle under boss → giant cone → baited aoes → tank cleave) and the add phase from Hydaelyn EX (both tanks get an add and have to pull them away from the glowing crystals while party dps’s them, rotate once the glowing crystals are dead)

Like obviously I’m biased cuz I’m a tank and those are largely tank mechanics (cuz yes if you forget to move properly in the Zurvan one as MT you just kill your entire party so I kinda count that as a tank mechanic) but more importantly I like them because of how dynamic the movement is.

And they’re dynamic in different ways, like Zurvan’s is extremely rigid. You will dance in this specific manner (back → tank right, everyone else left) or else you die. Hydaelyn on the other hand can be a bit looser and you have at least a bit of room to do different strategies (ideally it’s a “everyone focus down one crystal at a time” situation but the like three-five times I’ve done the fight the positioning has always been very loose as long as none of the glowing crystals are getting tethered).

And a bunch of fights in Dawntrail are doing stuff like this that feels like a dance

Like the first example I can think of is Ar1/R1/whatever we’re calling it when the boss flings out a sequence of like 8 aoes across tiles before hitting you with an uppercut that sends you flying into the air and in order to not die from said uppercut you need to position yourself so that you land on an uncracked tile

The second iteration of this where it’s the clone that does the uppercut and the main boss is hitting you with line stacks is my favorite because that’s where the amount of stuff you do starts to offset how slow the actual mechanic is to make it feel like you’re in a time-sensitive dance and if you step wrong you’ll fuck things up

Another good example is the final boss The Queen Eternal which just. aughhhh I love that boss. There’s so many fun ideas being thrown around in there lol. You can really tell that Zeromus from the Endwalker patches was intended to be a test run for some of the mechanics in this fight because both occasionally devolve into randomized Chaos as you try your best to just Not Get Hit by aoes can you tell I loved the mechanic when she deploys her drones lmao

LIke okay last thing to yell about but Absolute Authority is literally just a mini Relativity mechanic from E12S/Big Bang from Zeromus but more chaotic and I absolutely loved it

Plus the more chaotic nature of the mechanics in this fight serve a bit of a narrative purpose, especially when you consider how desperate Sphene is at this point in time

Like she doesn’t give a shit about keeping up appearances she will kill you as best as she can, “random bullshit go” included

And both of those mechanics also force you to do more dynamic movement, only now it's typically erratic and panicked compared to the more methodical and freeform dances of Zurvan and Hydaelyn EX respectively

We need more insane shit in the gameplay of the normal mode stuff keep doing it Yoshi-P

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//dawntrail level 95 and level 100 optional dungeons spoilers

this thought just came up in my head but genuinely I wouldn't want to spoil the progression of The Skydeep Cenote for *anyone* playing the game because the way the dungeon changes as you progress through it is just so magical

Like I mentioned this a bit in the post where I gushed about the music but moment when you first see the Golden City paired with the music swelling is such an experience and I love it so much

And it even works on people who actively pay attention to the lore because they're like consistently dropping mobs and architectural motifs from The Qitana Ravel in order to nudge you towards realizing that Ronka may have been The First's version of whatever civilization existed there before the Yok Huy, making the final region with the Alexandrian stuff a bit of a surprise lol

Speaking of which, the dungeon seems to be split into three sections

The part that the Yok Huy dug

A part that seems to belong to that Ronka-esque civilization

The Golden City and stuff that Alexandria built

Tender Valley appears to suggest that the Ronka-esque civilization is separate from the Yok Huy Empire since the Great Serpent of Ronka shows up as a boss there and the NPC afterwards (also the Yok Huy person who tells us about how they found the Great Serpent of Ronka) specifically mentions that they found some old ruins if I remember correctly?

Part of me wants them to follow up on this lol. But also I know they tend to not do much with the optional dungeons after they've released (for example Temple of the Fist was mostly a Monk lore expansion, Saint Mocianne's Arboretum has to do with Sharlayan proper in Eorzea and they haven't specifically explored that history yet, also The Stigma Dreamscape fleshed out a little bit more about the Omicron/Dragon war but I feel like there's maybe a bit more to be done there??? idk. Point being that a lot of the immediate post-expansion optional dungeons have either just fleshed out pre-existing lore beats or created threads that have been left just sort of dangling for now and they haven't really followed up on any of it, so I'm not exactly expecting them to follow up on the Ronka lore from Tender Valley but also plz Yoshi-P follow up on the Ronka lore I need to know

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Bakooling His Ja Ja's

Okay so this entire thing started when my friend and I started seeing posts about how Bakool Ja Ja would have two Ja Ja’s. And so I was like “hmm I wonder what lizards actually have” and here I am at the bottom of this rabbit hole wondering how I got here

I’m gonna split this into roughly three sections

The sexual anatomy of lizards (as explained by someone who knows about it through wikipedia)

The potential neural circuitry of a two-headed individual’s nads (as explained by someone who refuses to look up case studies that could elaborate on this so this is largely speculative)

The implications of the first two sections on what certain activities with Bakool Ja Ja would be like

//NSFW TEXT AND CARTOONISH IMAGERY BELOW THE CUT

//There's no actual things there, just badly drawn Ja Ja's lol

Section 1: The Sexual Anatomy of Lizards

Our journey starts with a thing called a Hemipenis. Now, when I first looked this up I was also severely confused cuz I was like “what the fuck is a hemipenis, is it like half a penis, like a fucking cylinder that got cut in half or something” well turns out they’re a little bit more fucked up than that

They are essentially inverted dicks that are pushed out by erectile tissue, and lizards will typically have two. They can also be ornamented with shit like spines, it all looks very weird unfortunately they very much do look like dicks on lizards so I’m gonna include one from a rattlesnake instead which just kinda looks like a spiny blob that way tumblr admins don’t kill me

The weirdest part is that the tube through which semen flows is Outside (unlike in the human penis where the urethra should be inside the penis) and is instead called the Sulcus Spermaticus. I can only assume this translates to “cum groove” in Latin.

I should also mention something about the spines cuz there’s multiple theories as to why they’re there. Cuz a spiny dick seems somewhat counterproductive to sex.

Theory #1 is that it’s involved in a lock-and-key mechanism to ensure that no one else that isn’t a lizard of that same species can fuck it. Female lizards have been observed to have cloacas with similar structures to male lizard hemipenes, etc.

Theory #2 is that the spines are there to promote longer and more successful reproduction for males. Make of this information what you will.

There’s also theories as to why there’s two dicks and it has to do with how female lizards can just kinda store semen for later, which does mean that it’s possible that even after fucking a male lizard won’t be able to actually have children. Thus, the two dicks come in for multiple consecutive fuck sessions, that way if one starts running out of juice the other one can sub in while the first one recovers.

Section 2: The Potential Neural Circuitry of a Two-Headed Individual’s Nads

I’m not looking up case studies for this so you’ll get my neurobio undergrad speculative theories on this shit, but there’s two possibilities I can think of for Bakool Ja Ja’s specific situation, and it has to do with how bifurcated his two heads’ nervous systems are.

Their nervous systems are only really differentiated at the neck up (implies that their spinal cords merge at or just below the neck)

Their nervous systems are bifurcated across the entire body (implies that their spinal cords either don’t merge at all or only merge at the very bottom)

As an additional note I should mention that by spinal cord I mean the nerves themselves. Most likely even if their spinal cords didn’t merge, they’d be running in parallel and be shaped in such a way as to resemble a normal spinal cord, just with a gap maybe right down the middle

So there’s a concept in neurology known as a “Dermatome” which is essentially a region of skin that is innervated by sensory neurons from dorsal root of any given spinal nerve (of which the major dermatomes are defined by the spinal nerve they originate from).

Using this concept, we can maybe define the Dermatomes on Bakool Ja Ja similarly, and this is where the organization of his spinal cords matter. If scenario #1 is correct, then his dermatomes will look similar to that of a human. Sensory information is also most likely copied and sent to both heads, meaning that both heads will be able to sense what happens to their entire body

If scenario #2 is correct, however, then we have something slightly more interesting and it’s that each head receives somatosensory information from the contralateral (opposite) side of the body, similar to how the brain’s two halves receive somatosensory information from the rest of the body. Here’s a really low quality diagram from my kinesiology class that shows the ascending pathways for discriminative touch (orange) and pain/temperature/affective touch (brown)

You can see that no matter where specifically they cross over, both pathways do end up crossing over to the other side. Here’s a rough diagram of how this would work out for Bakool Ja Ja that I drew myself with the relevant “dermatomes” (these aren’t actual dermatomes I just highlighted which dick is wired to which head) highlighted

The three testicles were added for sexual effect, I don’t think lizards actually have testicles but I added them to Bakool Ja Ja. For you. Please recognize my sacrifice.

Suffice it to say I’m going with Scenario #2. Not because it’s scientifically accurate or anything (scenario #1 makes more logical sense in like every single universe), but because it has funnier implications. Speaking of implications—

Section 3: The implications of the first two sections on what certain activities with Bakool Ja Ja would be like

This section is going to get NSFW real fast so you have been warned

Using our conclusion from Section #2, we can see that Bakool Ja Ja’s two Ja Ja’s will only send sensory information up to their respective head. This means that if you’re doing anything to one of them, only one head will be feeling anything, meaning that this legendary tweet by @kwehzy is now mandatory so that you don’t accidentally blue ball one of the heads

Also DP or at the very least two consecutive fuck sessions will also be mandatory to avoid blue balling one of them. Unless if that’s your goal in which case more power to you.

However, the entire universe will be working to try and stop you from fucking that two-headed lizard man because his dicks have a decently high chance of being hooked and/or covered in spikes. This has stopped exactly 0 people from trying to fuck lizardmen anyways so I don’t know why I even mentioned this, just try not to break anything.

Given all of the evidence in Section #1, whatever you decide to do with Bakool Ja Ja’s Ja Ja’s will probably end up taking a really fucking long time, so enjoy I guess

That’s it, that’s all the analysis I had. tl;dr Bakooling his Ja Ja’s will be a lengthy and potentially dangerous affair with high potential to accidentally fuck over one of the heads. Have fun.

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Btw I swear I'm working on this I've just been held up by like 50 bajillion other things

interest check on an in-depth analysis post about the mechanics of Bakool Ja Ja's Ja Ja's from the perspective of a neuro major with too much time on his hands

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Dawntrail is really funny so far. Wuk Lamat is having her character development and meanwhile the Warrior of Light, the catgirl equivalent of a nuclear bomb, is also just kinda there. The villains want to 1v1 Wuk Lamat but they have to keep threatening hostages just so the WoL doesn't step in and solve the problem really fast. How do you deal with her bodyguard being a fucking superhero

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goddammit

interest check on an in-depth analysis post about the mechanics of Bakool Ja Ja's Ja Ja's from the perspective of a neuro major with too much time on his hands

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None of the Scions were around for the Crystal Tower story.

After the "call him by his name" cutscene at least one of the Scions had to come up to the WoL asking "Hey I know there's a lot of shit going down right now but who the FUCK is G'raha Tia?"

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Give soup!!

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interest check on an in-depth analysis post about the mechanics of Bakool Ja Ja's Ja Ja's from the perspective of a neuro major with too much time on his hands