#//and endwalkers ending and shit still has me fucked up

[corseque]

On the scale of 1 (Rise of Skywalker) to 10 (Shadowbringer/Endwalker), where would you place Veilguard?

critical post

I’ve burst into enraged tears like 5 times since I finished it, which is not nearly even close to as many times as Rise of Skywalker, but still 5 times too many. Just the shallowness of the writing, the obviousness, the incredible frustration at the simplicity, the ignoring so much of my favorite character in order to make a stupidly simple plot work, the horrendous time I had trying to ignore Rook’s annoying stupid fuckass pov while just trying to self-insert myself into the end of my favorite fictional character of all time’s story after waiting 10 years. I screamed in frustration that I had to hear the painfully obvious commentary these brand newcomer characters who I did not give a shit about, explaining to me like a toddler how I should feel about revelations I have been writing about for 10 years, especially when what they were saying was stupid as fuck. I cried at the thought of so many cutscenes and so much effort went into stories I found very forgettable and went nowhere, while they were able to only scrounge up like 10 total animated shots reuniting Solas and Lavellan. I mourn that I could not make any decisions in a BioWare game. I mourn Solas’ story so much, and probably will for years. I will never get over the way they talked down to him and never listened to him for even a second, lest they actually have to write a branching path into their game. I hate that the theme was regret but Rook regrets nothing ever so (shrugs) regret doesn’t affect them or mean anything to them. I mourn the loss of the voice and point of view of his people, the ones he was fighting for, the ones who are alive. I mourn that it turns out that he’s just a stupid feral dog who is 100% wrong about everything always and he always has been from the beginning of time. I cried that the game said the answer was that Solas should NOT try to help his people and they never even discussed it as a philosophical question or the ethics of it or anything, or playing as a character so dense they never once even wondered if accidentally freeing the gods killed more people overall than the veil coming down would have. (We avoided this question like the plague, lest we feel less like purely Good Heroes who could talk down to the gods with righteous fury). I mourn that I’m never going to know what would have happened without the Veil. I feel so stupid for thinking that elves or spirits as factions would appear in any capacity with lines and perspectives in this game. I’m so angry at how safe and smoothed over everything in the setting is, and how it felt like the main characters never struggled with anything and have nothing to say. I can’t believe Dragon Age is so shallow and unsatisfying and head-empty. I mourn that the story of Dragon Age is Over to me and I will never play another game.

I’ve also cried a few times at the completely separated and individual imagery and music in the last scene. I’ve cried that my favorite character didn’t die in any world after 10 years of being at death’s door. I’ve cried at the thought of him being a little worm spirit, and that I was right about him the whole time. I cried when activating Felassan’s crystal in the final fight and seeing all the buffs. I cried when I turned the page and realized the default inquisitor was exactly the same as my personal Lavellan, down to hair style, eye color, hair color, vallaslin removed. I cried when I realized Solas thought he should have died as a spirit rather than be born. I cried that the main story Dragon Age has been telling the whole time has been about the reconciliation and freeing of my favorite fictional character. I cried that Solas and Lavellan got married in the end, when I genuinely wasn’t expecting either of them to even be alive. They’re both still alive and in love in every single world. I can’t wrap my head around that.

I have no idea where to put it. It’s a few high highs but some intolerably low fucking lows. It could have been so much worse but the bar is on the fucking floor. I go back and forth between moderate enjoyment to just being so angry. It could have been so much more and I do not know who to bite for it.

I have no idea.

[shera-dnd]

I have decided against my better judgement to be weird about the Dawntrail MSQ

and we can't talk about an expansion set in the fantasy americas without talking about

COLONIALISM

oh yeah, we're going there baby

So disclaimer that I may be brazilian, but my ass is white as hell, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. Also if any native americans have made posts on this please let me know so I can boost their analysis as well

Also also I'm more than happy to delete this post if I mess up. I'm genuinely trying to make a thoughtful analysis, so if I fuck up just say the word and this thing is gone from this website

Oh also also also, Dawntrail MSQ spoilers ahead!

So FFXIV has had a... messy relationship with colonialism over the years

The fact that the major antagonists for the first half of A Realm Reborn a literally called "beast man tribes" is absolutely not a good start to this story

Add to that the fact that The Twelve (Eorzea's gods) are shown to be kind all powerful deities, while the Primals (the tribal gods) are evil spirits summoned to bring destruction to the world

and yeah no ARR is not good with that shit. It's EXTREMELY not good. If I hadn't been told it got better later on I would have dropped this shit before I got to Titan

But they have been taking steps to unfuck things. First we're shown that even the "civilized societies" (in this case the catholic elves) can summon Primals, then that Primal summoning isn't an actual native custom but was introduced by foreigners with malicious intent, and that not all "beast man" practice that

Then they changed the names of the "Beast Man Tribe Quests" to "Tribal Quests" and then finally to "Allied Society Quest"

Which would have been an empty gesture had like half of the post-Shadowbringer patches, as well a lot of Endwalker, not been about forming alliances with those people and working together with them, recognizing that they have as much right to the land and to life as any Eorzean, this all culminating on the Primals being summoned with the express purpose of helping you protect the world you all share

I guess they realized that they couldn't have their big bad for most of the game be the evil expansionist empire, if they didn't like actually reflect in their own imperialist fantasies they were propagating

Then the teaser trailer for Dawntrail drops and everyone in the fandom is like "wait... are we gonna do a colonialism?"

And memes were abound of how all those lessons from before don't apply to the "New World" of Tural

THANKFULLY the actual questline leading to Dawntrail helped to settle some of those worries

We're not going to Tural to explore a new uncharted land, but are actually being invited over by the local royalty in order to aid them with their right of succession. We get introduced to the nation of Tuliyollal and how it's a thriving land with its own culture and not just a "terra nil" waiting to be colonized

Still there are some worries that this is gonna turn out poorly and that we're just gonna end up being white saviors

But I think they managed to avoid that pretty well

For starters neither the Scions nor the Warrior of Light are the protagonists of this story. You're all simply supporting character's in Wuk Lamat's story

A story that centers her people, her culture, and her family

And it's not even one culture. They don't portray Tuliyollal as this monolithic mish mash of every single native american culture

No, the lands of Tural are in fact comprised of multiple different people's and nations, each of them with their own customs and traditions which are informed by their history and the lands they live in

In fact learning about their cultures and partaking in their customs is the whole point of the Rite of Succession. It's all set up so that the next Dawnservant would be someone who understands and respects each of the peoples that comprise Tural

(I could, and probably will, write about what Dawntrail has to say about what makes a good ruler)

And our girl, Wuk Lamat, is shown to be the rightful heir because she really goes out of her way to understand each of the nations and show her appreciation for their customs

Putting her well above her Sharlyaboo brother Koana, The King of Unresolved Daddy Issues Zoral Ja, and whatever the fuck is going on with Bakool Ja Ja

(I joke, I love my two headed traumatized dumbass)

Tho I will admit that this does end up giving the tribes a somewhat "planet of the hats" vibe. Like their named NPCs are diverse and interesting, but you can just assume that most random NPCs of any given people are gonna act according to the stereotype

Which is unfortunate, but I have hopes that with the next few patches and the addition of Dawntrail's own Allied Society Quests, we'll get to see more to them

But that... is only up to lvl95 and the end of the Yok'Tural (southern Tural) segment

because then we get to Xak'Tural (northern Tural) and holy shit does it feel like they drop the ball there

Like they really COULDN'T keep themselves from making Shaaloani a fucking Wild West map

Instead of doing anything with the actual cultures and histories of Native North American people, they just do wild fucking west

Because there's ceruleum in them thar hills! And apparently Koana turned most of the region into Sharlyaboos too

So we get a bunch of Wild West frontier towns mixed with native american tribes and mud brick cities. We have trains and guns and a sheriff and a duel at high noon, but now everyone got native american names

At least there's one group off to the northern side of the map who seems to stick to tradition and live in harmony with nature, and that group is shown respect by the other people of the region

so we at the very least avoid the "cowboys vs indians" crap, but my god does that region just feel bad compared to everything else they had done so far

Then we get to the big twist: THE CYBERPUNK PORTION OF THE GAME

because yes, we go full fucking cyberpunk

so turns out that a whole segment of Xak'Tural got colonized by the kingdom of Alexandria, including the lands of the Shetona (Erenville's people)

And I feel like this is the most poignant section of the MSQ when it comes to colonialism

Because here we have Alexandria, an empire that has reached the limit of what it can do sustain itself on its own world, and so has decided to spread out and colonize others in order to gain resources

We see the Shetona and other natives of the region being separated from their families and kept in isolation from the rest of their people

And tho Queen Sphene is shown to be a kind and caring ruler who gives people a choice when it comes to joining the empire, WELL SHE'S STILL THE QUEEN OF A FUCKING EMPIRE

Like her form of kindness and just stagnant peace is put in stark contrast with Wuk Lamat's own love for her people and more proactive pursuit of happiness and harmony

(again with the "what makes a ruler theme")

Also the people that choose to be assimilated into the Alexandrian Empire? Yeah, they're doing so because Alexandria has advanced medical technology and you can only receive their aid if you're a citizen

Not only that, but you have to be a working citizen. We see later on a character being denied medical aid, because he lost his job, thanks to the King's decision and at no fault of his own

yeah this is cyberpunk, not just sci-fi

ALSO can we talk about how the technology used for that medical aid and the little gizmo they give you to signify you're now a citizen, will literally erase the memory of the people you lost

So the Turali who are assimilated into Alexandrian culture not only lose ties to their culture and their loved ones, but are not allowed to grieve their loss, because what they once had is slowly being erased

How their choices add up to survive on their own OR be assimilated

How this all takes place IN NORTH FUCKING AMERICA!

THE CYBERPUNK CITY IS LITERALLY SET IN THIS WORLD'S EQUIVALENT TO THE UNITED STATES

So yeah, I don't think is is accidental. I genuinely thing that they're making a point about the realities of imperialism and colonialism, as well as taking some shots at the US while they're at it

Of course this part is still centered around Wuk Lamat, and instead of having a moment of "the only ones who can stop the evil white europeans are the GOOD white europeans", we have Wuk Lamat be the one to save the day, defeat Sphene, and save her people from the colonizing empire

So I would like to argue that everything that happens from lvl97 onwards is them picking up the ball again and making a real point

buuuut that comes at the cost of us being unable to engage with the native peoples of Xak'Tural outside of the context of colonialism

Which genuinely fucking sucks, and I hope it will be remedied with the post-Dawntrail patches

As well as handling the whole shared land situation they ended up with and how this might end up in a Land Back sort of movement, and oh boy can they mess shit up royally there

So in conclusion FFXIV has had a messy relationship with colonialism and imperialist fantasies and tropes, but the devs seem to be making a concerted effort to undo their mistakes and show respect in their depictions of american natives

They still fuck up

boy do they

but they're at least trying, and I'd say Dawntrail so far has been quite well executed

so yeah, look forward to more insane rambles like this one I guess

[wundergeek]

How I explained G'raha Tia to a friend the other day

"His backstory is. ...convoluted.

Like. Imagine if Kingdom Hearts made sense.

That level of convoluted.

It's all like. Very logical given the established lore and how shit works. But the place you get to is "my boyfriend has super trauma because he put himself into stasis, woke up in the apocalypse timeline, merged his essence with a magic supercomputer, traveled to an alternate dimension 100 years in the past, and became an immortal but benevolent king so he could prevent the timeline where I died'

Primary side effect of merging his essence with the magic super computer that is made of crystal? He's fucking turning into crystal. And then he sacrifices himself and FULLY CRYSTALIZES.

So then you do some soul magic, go back to your world where he's still in stasis because the apocalypse that woke him up hasn't happened yet, and are like - here have this other version of your soul where you were half crystal and lived a hundred years and experienced the end of the world twice.

And he's like whoa okay. That's fucked up. Not super sure who I am anymore, this is kinda wild. But you don't find out that's what he's thinking until subsequently when you travel to the literal edge of existence and he TRANSFORMS HIMSELF INTO CRYSTAL AGAIN TO SAVE YOU.

And it's just like. G'raha. My guy. I get that you're having a hard time but fucking stop it.

AND ON TOP OF ALL THAT god dammit he's just the fucking most wholesome nerd. Like "I got too excited about books and forgot to eat or sleep for 3 days" nerd.

And there's this WHOLE SPEECH he does when he's still the Crystal Exarch right at the end of Shadowbringers where he's like, what are you going to do when this is all over? And I'm like rest lol. (Yeah right) And he's like - so I've got this friend, and I'm keeping secrets from [insert your pronoun here], but they're fucking rad and I'm hoping sempai will notice me and maybe we could go on an adventure together? And it's SO FUCKING OBVIOUS he's talking ABOUT YOU in an "all right, keep your secrets" kind of way.

EXCEPT THEN YOU FIND OUT THAT HIS BIG MASTER PLAN WAS: get the WoL to kill all the Lightwardens and absorb their light which will save both worlds, but no one person can hold that much light and live, so I'm going to take it from them and then teleport myself INTO THE RIFT BETWEEN WORLDS AND DIE.

And the only reason he doesn't succeed is because HE GETS FUCKING SHOT

So. [ahem] Yes. I think it says a lot about me that I am like. Yes. The nerdy twunk with super trauma who is OBSESSED WITH ME is my boyfriend.

I took GREAT SATISFACTION in dying for him for a hot minute at the end of Endwalker.

[4th-make-quail]

For the favorite character thing, 3 and 5 for Quintus and/or Gaius (depending on who you feel like doing or like more or w/e :3)

OOOHHHH THANK YOUUU :DDDD I WILL DO BOTH!! and use the excuse to spam y'all with my Garlean old man faces 🥰

Quintus

3. What first drew you to this character? ngl...... he's old, he's Garlean, he's tragic, he has A Big Snoot, he was basically made for me 🥰🥰 there was a lot of like, mystery leading up to his reveal where we were convinced he was gonna be Nerva (and i have to say i had a FIRM tinhat he might be Noah van Gabranth cos i'm nothing if not hopeful apparently!!!) but in the end, i'm glad it was Quintus.

also, clearly cos he's my fave, he's also very disliked in the xiv fandom, which made it depressing as FUCK to navigate after Endwalker without coming across suicide jokes constantly

5. If this character were a woman, would you honestly still like them? Or in reverse, what if they were a man? i would, tbh!! i am obviously VERY biased towards old men, but i would have fallen for Quintus in any form I think... god this makes me wanna make fem!Quintus to go with fem!Gaius..... MUCH TO THINK ABOUT

Gaius

3. What first drew you to this character? oh, his VOICE 🥰🥰🥰 i always liked him in ARR (the sexy armour.... the dramatics..... LAHABREA!!!!!) but the Shadowhunter reveal just cemented it, holy fucking shit. he's so HOT. also again, old? check. Garlean? check! good nose? YEA. tragic? TO ME.

i just love him so much!!! i love how complex he is, and his story arc, and his relationship with Estinien ofc >:3

5. If this character were a woman, would you honestly still like them? Or in reverse, what if they were a man? ohhh my god would i ever!!! ofc knowing ffxiv if he'd been a woman he prolly wouldn't still be alive (ANGRYCRY EMOTE), BUT!!!! after making my fem!Gaius the other month i'm feral for this idea now...... stern old lady Black Wolf.... HRRGHHH, CASSIE I THINK I MIGHT HAVE DIED???

anyway, in summary:

[honest favourite character asks]

[senespera-ffxiv]

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

[hollowtones]

i can't find the vods for the rest of your endwalker playthrough (if you even did stream the rest) so i was wondering, what were your opinions on 6.0? (also what were your reactions to That urianger scene)

I think I only did like one or two streams of it. It ran kinda bad when I streamed it, people didn't want to watch it, and I wasn't getting much out of streaming it compared to just playing it on my own time. That and I think I had a really severe depressive episode at the time (for unrelated reasons).

IDK if anyone's still trying to avoid spoilers but I'll throw it under a read-more.

It's been a while since I last played so my memory's kind of spotty. I liked it, though. It felt like a satisfying conclusion to what they've been getting at since 2.0 MSQ, and a nice little dialogue on despair and exhaustion and depression and hope, and finding ways to carry on and keep living and keep loving and keep trying. I feel like that's when the game's overall writing and theming tends to be at its strongest (yes I liked the Dark Knight questlines haha).

I remember having mixed feelings about how they pulled off the Garlemald segment & the "Alphinaud and Alisaie's shit head dad" plotline but I don't remember enough of the specifics to really elaborate on that.

Alisaie has lesbian college admirers and I thought that was funny.

I came out of 5.5 MSQ expecting White Woman Jumpscare Hydaelyn to be a little trite but I ended up really liking Venat. I felt kinda whatever about Emet-Selch coming back, but I didn't hate what they did with him I guess, and his earless-Viera boy toy was fun. Fandaniel felt like The Joker but he still felt like a fine first-act villain. The way they write him (& Meteion) in the later chunk of the game felt more interesting to me, & felt like a fun play on "Shadowbringers"-era Emet-Selch's whole "AMAUROT, BABY! GREATEST CITY IN DA WORLD, BABY! SLIMES ALL OVER DA STREET, BABY!" nostalgia. It was funny when he was The Joker, though.

Final area was thematically and visually really interesting. I'm excited we got more stuff related to Omega & I'm glad we got more "btw the dragons are aliens" stuff. I've seen a lot of people forget about that, for whatever reason. That one area right by the end that was completely desolate, with no people & no indication of who lived there, was a really good setpiece. The Namazu canonically suffer in all possible dimensions and all possible worlds and you cannot help but laugh out loud.

I kind of rolled my eyes at Zenos coming back. "By the way he's a Reaper now" felt like it amounted to nothing, but admittedly I never did the Reaper questline or the post-6.0 stuff. Getting to punch him in the face at the end was fun.

Music was good, I liked the way they played with different motifs & I really like how that comes to a head in the final boss fight.

I was expecting moon rabbits to be grating and insufferable but I liked them. I fucking love that none of this planet's moons are normal. Why are they both orbital prison-ships. I love it.

Zodiark's design owned and Hydaelyn's design was okay. Very Yoshitaka Amano design, which makes sense given how he did that one boxart for "A Realm Reborn" & she looks a lot like she does there, but I kinda wish she got to look more monstrous and weird. She kept talking up becoming a monster to do what she felt was right!!! I wish that had informed her design a little more.

Hamburgers exist & I do like that the animators got to livingly render G'raha Tia going to town on one like those weird clips of anime girls where it looks like they've never eaten in their lives.

I don't remember what you mean by "the Urianger scene". LOL

You didn't ask, but the crafting/gathering questlines were a lot of fun. I feel like they (& the guildleves) added some fun extra context to everything going on while I was going through the MSQ.

I liked it overall. I don't think it's the highest point of the game's writing, but I had a good time and felt very satisfied by the time it came to a close.

[exmeowstic]

as a FFXIV player I am VERY curious to learn more about bastion’s lore!!! Is there anything you’d be able to share?? Like, maybe for example.. what are his canon classes and when/why did he pick each of them up?

I hope that this is alright! And that you are having a good whatever-time-of-day-it-currently-is-for-you!~

WAAA hihi!!!!

SO this will maybe be kind of a partial answer because its an aspect of his character stuff im actively working on (ignore the fact i did write a small essay under the readmore)!! i wanna try to start actually answering asks or floating ideas even if its not 100% set in stone bc knowing myself ill get too caught up wanting to replay the entirety of msq and read everything three times to make sure i know Exactly what im talking about. and if i do that it will take 50 years to get anything done or answered <:3

that being said. tldr im playing around w the idea of his canon classes being

- realm reborn: acranist/summoner

- heavensward: red mage

- stormblood: samurai

- shadowbringers: dark knight/black mage

- endwalker: paladin

more thoughts under the cut :3 im certain i missed smth obvious.

for context before i start truly yapping in game ive mostly stuck with samurai bc i was too scared to branch out and have only Just started scratching the surface w other classes.... to say nothing of actually getting into the job quests and stories and whatnot. plus i played thru arr/hw/a lot of stb Literal Years ago before taking a huge break and only just returning recently... so a lot of early msq is truthfully fuzzy for me.. (=w=) all that being said.

the only thing set in stone right now is bastions starting class with arcanist into summoner!! #limsagirlies <3333 while esp early game hes not doing well and is terrified of everything, he is forever and always defined by a desire to explore and learn things and didnt necessarily have the chance to do that at all with his pre msq circumstances, so i think the moment he had the opportunity to pick up a book and start learning things he took it and ran <3 also i just think its very fitting for his first step to be the "summon a friend so youre never alone" class. you know arr bastion is emotionally dependent on his carbungle :3

i do think towards the end of realm reborn he starts realizing how much shit hes in and comes to the conclusion he needs to get physically stronger too so i could see him starting to dip into red mage for heavensward so he can really get his hands on a weapon. still gets to stick to using magic but now he has a Sord <3 also red mage looks really cool.....

his class around stormblood is definitely gonna be samurai... id like to replay this general part of msq to really refresh myself i dont have too much to say lol and it feels like a rly obvious pick since its my actual main class in game... i think stormblood got the worst of my memory problems tbh

for shb i could see him starting out picking up dark knight (im thinking back in hw he messed with it a little meeting fray and whatnot but wasnt able to fully embrace it until now) though.... i can make it sad. so i will. his classes have been getting steadily more into physical combat and big swords but i think as shb goes on and he gets progressively more fucked up lightwarden style he starts to regress back into wanting to stick with spellcasting/becomes too weak to reliably fight physically the way he has been. (bonus points what if he tried to pick summoner back up but got too upset bc his emotional support carbuncle now looks about as corrupted with light as he does :3c.....) no i think itd be fun for him to pick up black mage around this point. i think clothing wise he probably also uses it as an excuse to start wearing more long robes and clothes that cover up what is happening to him so no one worries <3

a little uncertain past this point for endwalker though im leaning towards paladin (it helps that the lb3 for paladin is quite literally called Last Bastion). something something finally comfortable living up to his name protecting and fighting for what he believes in <3 also i ahm. ummm. i like the idea of him looking like a dashing little knight <:3 im sure gwaha does too.

and final note i took a break after finishing endwalkies so i have no real thoughts regarding post edw/dawntrail yet...

(truthfully i was SO interested in you talking abt clio n lorenzas classes a while back. it was so so in depth and interesting and i love the idea of hybrid classes or just one class picking up skills and flavoring from another and how they blend togther... i do think i need to get the barebones of bastions Everything down before i get into finer details like specific stances and skills and styles of fighting. but i was super looking at how you break down clio n lorenzas classes its so so good!!!)

[catboxghost]

ok i saw someone talking about like. how the wol feels about everything going on, whether theyre having a good time or not being on this big adventure and i had some Thoughts, a lot of Thoughts, with regards to my wol and i need to write this down so it will stop bouncing around in my head (and i can finish endwalker)

spoilers for shadowbringers!!

at this point kitali is absolutely fucking miserable. just having a shit awful time. this is a psychological horror game to her. she had a pretty sweet life back in the steppe, doing fuckall, looking after her sheep. and then that was all ripped away from her by the empire, she lost her home and her family and was set adrift before coming to eorzea because it was the only place left to go. she ended up joining the scions because they had ostensibly similar goals to her, fighting back against the garleans and liberating the world, and possibly helping her find her mom and sister, which has been her goal for years by now. and so she gladly lets herself be turned into a weapon and be pointed at the nearest existential threat, and somehow finds herself able to overcome impossible odds again and again, much to her surprise. she even has a pretty good time for a little bit, and the scions really do become her friends. and then eventually she does find her mother and sister: her sister had been pressed into service as a maidservant at doma castle, and her mother married a wealthy imperial lord. she doesn't have to save either of them anymore. it's about at this point that she realizes just how badly she'd allowed herself to be manipulated and used. there's still two whole nations to liberate, but the resentment starts to simmer. post-stormblood she's kinda like "oh wow you guys aren't actually my friends, you're my employers" to the scions and the eorzean alliance. she can't really be mad at alphinaud because he's just a particularly idealistic kid whose desperation and naivete were also taken advantage of, but she's not a soldier, and she never wanted to be, and she's sick of being treated like one. and yet she will continue to be, because at this point fighting is all she knows. this becomes especially egregious in shadowbringers where the whole "living weapon" thing is placed front and center as every enemy she defeats literally starts to turn her into a monster; the more she fights, the worse she gets, and nobody can help her. this culminates in her having a big screaming sobbing breakdown in front of ghostbert and falling into a week-long depressive episode alone in her room. and this is before she starts throwing up blood from eating angels! (as an aside the whole g'raha/exarch "haha i was secretly manipulating you" thing hits so damn good in kitali's story, because he really did only ever know her as an unstoppable hero, and then she actually shows up as this shy, sad girl angry at the whole world, and now he's about to do the exact same thing to her that everyone else in her life did and make her go kill things he wants dead, and it makes him feel guilty!! and so at the end when he's about to make his big sacrifice, he's all like "aha yes, i used you the whole time, you were just another pawn to me" in hopes that she'll hate him, so that she won't try to stop him when he blows himself up. but it doesn't work because she wuvs him <3) post-shadowbringers she kind of starts to accept it, even internalize it, in a nihilistic sort of way. like "yknow what? fine. all i do is kill things. i am the hyper-lethal vector, the gun pointed at the head of the universe, hydaelyn's special little murder machine. my life doesn't belong to me anymore and apparently it never really did, so why fight it?" and so everything that happens in endwalker (so far) just kind of bounces right off of her. this does not improve her mood in any way.

[voidsentprinces]

Its still weird to me how narratively selfconscious WoW and its producers got about FFXIV during the Shadowlands era. Like...you were World of Warcraft man. You've been pulling the same trick of providing interesting story beats and executing them poorly or underwhelmingly for years. Battle For Azeroth was just another step in a long line of grinding shit since Vanilla's initial release. But, now Final Fantasy XIV, a game who, even during Shadowbringers, was just regarded as just another MMORPG in a sea of MMORPGs. Was getting praise for taking years of story development and loose threads of shit they were just making up and starting to tie it up. And the Devs of WoW saw that and went, "WE CAN DO THAT TOO!" Here's an expansion talking about the afterlife with a desert of a ruined civilization, a faerie kingdom, and there are now angels involve! And then like...alright fine, its bootlegged Shadowbringers at worst and not at all related at best. Fine.

But then Endwalker came out or was going to come out and was actually going to make good on tying everything off and Shadowlands suddenly went from vaguely copying Shadowbringers' homework to having to be THE END OF A SAGA! EVERYTHING FROM WARCRAFT 1 TO BATTLE FOR AZEROTH WILL BE TIED UP IN THIS ONE EXPANSION! Because...Endwalker was going to do that? And just like every expansion before it. From the Death of Illidan in Burning Crusade, to "I see only darkness before me" Arthas in Wrath, from The Dragons Lose their Powers Cataclysm to Garrosh will get a trial in a book buy now, from We Will Never Be Slaves Grommash Warlords of Draenor to Teleport Sargeras away Legion and finally Golden Finger 3 second explotion N'zoth in Battle for Azeroth. Bald man being behind everything and saying there is a bigger threat on its way COULD of just been another underwhelming ending to a WoW expansion. BUT THEY HAD TO PLAY IT UP! LIKE IT WAS WRAPPING UP 30+ OF FUCKING STORY!

And I understand that Blizzard was going through 730,217,812,472,178 lawsuits, controversies and bad PR...and still are. But, like, SquareEnix was shilling crypto and N/F/Ts while trying to push Live Service Games because its board is still living in the Arcade Era where every "replay" was an extra coin in their pocket. And Shadowbringers and later Endwalker got moderate to great acclaim regardless of whatever the fuck was going on with...choose any of the past CEOs. And World of Warcraft could of done the fucking same. But, it had to bill itself as the END OF A LEGENDARY SAGA! When it was just Cenobite Mr. Clean and the people who created the afterlife were *checks notes* Robots.

Like, World of Warcraft. You could of ignored Final Fantasy XIV and we would still probably just be, just another MMORPG in the Sea of MMORPGs. But someone got a little bit of self doubt and now we're talked about with the same cadence as WoW in terms on impact on the market. Which...I mean I love the game. But, I do not think FFXIV has had as big an impact on the world as World of Warcraft has.

You're were Kanye West, getting drunk off your success and decided today that you were going to interrupt a Taylor Swift acceptance speech so now Final Fantasy XIV is a big superstar. If you had just let it ago we would of just been trucking along doing our own thing. But, because you got a little insecure for a split second, we're now forever going to be riding on your shoulders LIKE LALAFELLS SHOULD BE ABLE TO!

#letlalasride

[windupaidoneus]

hi thistle ! idr if youve talked abt it before but what were ur ideas for hildemet post endwalker ? i remember u posted abt meteion and them after endwalker but i wanted to learn more abt ur thoughts or how the ship develops ! idk if this makes sense i hope it does LOL (@dmclr)

hiii clara :3 ohhh post endwalker. (lies down face first) this one's a real doozy bc i have yet to properly work out the timeline of events... there are two ways it could go & i dont know which i prefer. oh under the cut as per usual. this is actually probably my longest ramble yet LMAO

either hildegarde really did go through with bringing emet back with his own two hands (& aether. & magic. but like it's intentional is what i mean) or emet chose to have another pass at life bc the time spent during post shb/edw up until elpis gave him that want again, & his soul would've held on until a suitable vessel was nearby (so like, very likely one of the solus clones bc he'd rather not go for possession if he can help it lmao). fuck i also thought of the possibility of like... just it happening without either of their direct involvement, maybe something that kinda just happened because of emet's longing but not in the way that he would've actively orchestrated his return so to speak - his soul just doing that i suppose.? because of the power of love sparkle sparkle or something. they all have something good... um.. i started typing before opening the game i think but then i opened the game & now it's like 12 hours later & my head hurts BADDD but i want to answer this.

in the case of hildegarde intentionally bringing him back is. it being intentional is very yummies & good to me. in the sense of defying fate itself & whatnot to bring a loved one back. i am a lameeeee romantic so that shit always gets me..... but at the same time there is a part of me that like, thinks maybe at that point in time it wouldn't be narratively satisfying? since he has messed around with necromancy before then gave up on it it coulddd be interesting to ahve him go back to it bc like he's still a flawed character who does questionable things & all that but this one idk if i want it to be the case all that much. i like when he gets a little fucked up but i dont know about this specific flavour of fucked up... but i DO want emet alive for dt. so much to consider.

for emet willingly coming back... i mean. points at "i am a lameeeee romantic". additionally i think it brings something interesting into play - because the way i see it his death was intentional to start with, the only possible end for someone who had done so much to reach his goal & thus backing down would mean it was all for nothing yet at the same time the awareness all those things he's done were awful, unconscionable, & no amount of work he could've done in the hypothetical rest of his existence would make up for it, in which case death becomes the only suitable consequence for his actions. (there's also a layer of "emet is putting on a performance as a tragic antagonist & is aware of his role within the story to a degree, as he is playing a role of his own volition, making himself more detestable yet likable at the same time in very intentional ways". not all of his endearing traits in shb are intentional but some are, & them being intentional doesn't make them less... genuine? he pulls at the wol's heartstrings or attempts to, but that doesn't make his own longing for the unsundered world any less real, basically. but this isn't relevant right now)

with that in mind if emet were to bring himself back to life fully... well. it would say quite a lot about.. him. as a whole. just. choosing to live once more to be by hildegarde's side, going against his own previous implicit wish for death (which, beyond the whole guilt thing, he probably would've wanted anyway! he'd been alive so fucking long & all of it had been miserable! death was both something he deserved & deliverance.), tearing himself from something that was punishment & relief to trade it for a different kind of punishment & a different kind of relief. living with the things he's done as opposed to being able to just dissolve into the aetherial sea & no longer worry about it all i suppose, but being reunited on more proper, less high stakes & "we have to kill each other" terms with.. pretty much his soulmate. i'm not big on soulmate stuff necessarily but um (gestures at the entirety of the whole thing with emet & azem/the wol in canon) they make it so easy.

oh fuck i got distracted from finishing my custom deliveries before reset oops. well anyway i'm TALKING!

yeah that. he would get to be with one of his biggest motivations for doing all of this in the first place, & while the source is not a perfect world i do genuinely believe he is lying hard as fuck when he pretends he finds no beauty in it. the harsher he says it the more convincing the performance, for everyone & for himself. end of edw cutscene to me says that he does have an actual appreciation for the sundered etheirys, & i also think without zodiark's influence he would be more amenable to properly acknowledging the flaws of the unsundered world as well. now. would he think he deserves to have a happier "second chance"? probably not. but that's where hildegarde's feelings would sway him... how could he not be influenced knowing the one he loves is grieving him so desperately? hilde has lost many, many loved ones & never really learnt to properly deal with his grief because it's just too overwhelming for him to feel. he continuously drowns in it & that'ssss something he has in common with emet for sure. & emet, knowing how horrible it feels (though in his case it was probably worse. still, he's sentimental & also a tank so i know he's got that protectiveness in him ☝️), would likely want to spare hilde that trouble if even a little. he can't bring himself to bring other souls back to life (too similar to what he did with amaurot, probably something he'd like to take some distances from & not recreate too closely...) but he could at least bring himself back. make hilde smile. that would be nice.

now enter the "neither of them did anything about it it just Happened" path. this one is really just reliant on it feeling like an actual miracle. something that would probably bring emet some distress bc oh no he has to deal with all these things now & it's not on his own terms, buuuuuut... miracle of love 🫶 even if to be fair things would definitely be awkward at first. because they wouldn't really know how to approach each other after everything. they would work it out though, it's not unique to this potential timeline of events & they Will work it out no matter what. they have to! it'd be a miracle of love 🫶 all the same. ohh, maybe something kinda like sleeping beauty or something (loose comparison.) in which during the bit in garlemald in post edw hilde would look for the remaining solus clones in the imperial palace (not for any nefarious purposes if we're not looking at the "he does it himself" timeline it's probably just morbid curiosity at that point. also masochism a little honestly) & when chancing upon them emet's like... his soul would always be "near" hilde in some sort of sense, so maybe it could be made to inhabit one of the clones - kind of pulled into it? & yeah. bam. wakes up upon being observed. i don't know! it's an option. they're all options & they're GOOD & i haven't picked one & i don't know what to pick rahhhg. kicks a rock. Whatever... onto the actual answer to the ask now... (wipes forehead) this took a lot of .. preamble? not sure what i'd call that but the yapping before the ACTUALLY relevant yapping

the way they develop (chews on rocks) YAYYYY!! we got there!!! ohhh my god it's so AWKWARD in this room everyone is happy but wants to cry & feels guilty it's kind of beautiful.

emet keeps some reasonable distance & is actually decent at doing it this time since he's not tempered & not trying to get something out of hildegarde. came back for him but does not want to overstep by getting too comfortable too soon. hildegarde on the other hand really badly wants to have conversations & to be more open & vulnerable but he does not know how to even do that voluntarily. with anyone! he's really bad at being vulnerable! he's been able to do it "properly" with nero & cid (nero has big brother privileges so he's the one hilde & various other alters will run to if they are experiencing Too Much of life, & well. cid is cid. kind of cemented himself as an older sibling figure as well, even without taking into account the doozy that is cidnero) & perhaps surprisingly estinien (very detached & to the point, clear cut way of going about things, not judgemental the way others might be because he's not really giving a fuck abt that ascian business. his meatheadedness wins ☝️) but even then it was mostly him reaching a breaking point & having no one else to pretty much drop it all on.

the scions are great but busy all the time & while urianger probably would be best placed to hear of his troubles hilde rarely wants to tell him much of them because urianger's own problems always seem to far outweigh his own, & he doesn't want to put more on his plate. he's close to thancred but thancred would be the least understanding of his woes... & i think he really struggles with approaching y'shtola bc she hasn't exactly been vulnerable with him either. sucks bc he can tell she would probably be a fine person to be straightforward with but just... hasn't come up. he can be vulnerable with aymeric but aymeric is constantly busy & i do strongly believe if he hadn't been so occupied w his desk job they could've had something. he could be vulnerable with haurchefant but WELL. & the scions not mentioned are all younger than him so no way in hell he's relying on them emotionally when for someone as #unwell as him "relying emotionally" comes with SO SO MUCH shit.

i did ignore hancock & that's because i don't like him. (lying) no he can be vulnerable with hancock too on occasion. hancock is detached from this whole world so to be honest i don't think he gives that much of a fuck that hilde is mourning the loss of an evil immortal guy who was also the garlean empire's founder. on a moral level this has got nothing to do with him on an emotional level he's not sure when they ended up getting close enough for hilde to sob in his office about how he can't do anything right & so many people he could've saved he just didn't manage to & it's all his fault blablablah... but sure he'll do the comforting

but but, back to hildemet. it does happen eventually. hilde's not good at being vulnerable on purpose but he's also pretty earnest despite that... so without necessarily overwhelming emet with his emotions & thoughts he is at least capable of going, "hey. i want to talk. have conversations, about anything and everything. about the weather, about everything that happened. i am happy to come home and see you, and to know that i will come home and see you, but there is a gaping pit between us & i want to bridge it. i want to stand on that bridge with you & talk about the pit, how scary it is, & how we're going to overcome it anyway. can we do that? can i step closer to you, & will you return the embrace if i hold you?" which, he will, & he does. & maybe they even have a shared cry about it. emotions really catching up to them in the moment, not realising the extent to which they'd missed & love each other up until they get to really embrace each other fully. i know songs do this to me a lot i'll think i'm fine then suddenly BOOM i'm crying hard as fuck because holy shittt why didn't i tell myself this made me feel THINGS... horrible!

note that no matter the choice made earlier it's more than likely hilde did hold emet when they first reunited, in which case emet would've at most placed one hand on hilde's back without it being an actual hug. he's not really the "outburst of physical affection" type but especially not under such circumstances while he's Just returned & is parsing where he stands on what joys he deserves to experience in his newfound existence. because of course there's that too. he'll indulge if hilde reaches out for it but for a while it is only half-hearted & the guilt eats at him more everytime he leans into it, which fortunately isn't often by that point since hilde is working out how to go about everything. yay!! not very yay okay you got me

BUT THEY WORK ON IT they have to. the weird distance is unbearable & neither of them want it. they understand they now have a chance at this for real, & they have limited time to do it! emet does not have much of a limited lifespan still but he knows he's turning in the moment hilde dies. maybe he'll stay long enough to ensure hilde is remembered & honoured as he feels it should be but like that's It. hilde's gone he's GONE. & until then they get to learn to love each other all over again

which goes pretty great all things considered once the early stages of weird awkwardness are behind them. it would be easier & go faster if they were allowed to settle down properly but you know how it is when you're The WoL. hilde's wol duties can actually be a bit of a cause for concern for emet, which he himself was caught offguard by. probably chastised himself about it a bit too. being worried for the wol?? ridiculous. he's not capable of dying from unnatural consequences it's like he's got plot armor or something (looks into the camera). gets a bit embarrassed about his worries but they don't really go away, & it does lead into him attempting to keep hilde home more often & longer. hilde doesn't really catch onto it until it becomes a little too egregious to ignore but well. when emet expresses reluctantly that ooooo he cares & is worried about him & also a little bit lonely too it actually makes hilde laugh. because that man is CUTE 🫵 & he will in fact tell him just that. to which emet gets "offended" (did not expect a compliment of all things out of that, & compliments when he's not "in control" of a situation are the number 1 way to destabilise him in a harmless way. lest we forget he is the unsundered world's original tsundere) & denies & protests. & it's probably the point where they start acting genuinely more relaxed around each other, & subsequently emet gets less roundabout about keeping hilde around as long as possible.

he also gets the offer to tag along! which he doesn't want necessarily, it's a lot of effort & it would mean being around the scions (he doesn't hate them or anything but well if i was emet i would not want to be around thancred either. just like if i was thancred i would not want to be around emet either) who at this point in time are not aware of emet's presence in hilde's life & also more generally the world lmao. the twins, tataru & krile most certainly have bets on why hilde seems less available & perhaps even a bit flaky & while alphinaud is genuinely worried hilde might finally be crushed by the weight of responsibilities :( (buddy that was an expansion ago catch up) alisaie is like. scary close to the truth. she suspects hilde is trying to settle down but duty keeps getting in the way of it. this gets everyone involved very curious to potentially find out who he's settling down with of course because for some reason they're all willing to entertain that theory. tataru simply wishes hilde isn't trying to settle down with hancock of all people (close! It's Worse)

he takes it up from time to time. bearing a different appearance (keeping his face but he probably wears a face cover around the scions & doesn't speak much) & going by a different name to avoid being recognised, y'shtola absolutely works it out the moment she sees him buttttt that's why emet avoids hanging around if he knows she'll be there lmao her aethersight would clock him instantly

um. yeahg! my fingers hurt from typing this much & also that's like many paragraphs already oops. uhh. yep.! post edw hildemet. they have rough conversations about their respective places in the world & what they deserve & don't deserve to have. sometimes hildegarde gets very upsetting memories from lachesis' life & emet has to be there to ground him. sometimes emet is overwhelmed by the thought of his actions & hilde has to be there to distract him since ruminating won't really change anything.

they're also gossipy queens who go out to big fancy events to comment on the people they don't like there (in hilde's case it'd probably usually be lolorito & gegeruju honestly but it's fine emet can be irritated at minimum by most people for the both of them). they have to take care of each other delicately & they don't always get it right but they gotta keep trying so they do.

emet is a complainer by nature but he also complains in bad faith a lot & is quite unpleasant specifically when he's lying or dancing around the truth, which all remain true to his personality still, however when he allows himself to be entirely truthful & more open he is painfully romantic & loving. not without teasing here & there of course. it's very good for hilde though. getting to be flustered & giggly & just happy after the everything is such a breath of fresh air, very good distraction from the wol shit. he even gets to tease emet back & have it work! love can be so beautiful & augh! they make me sick

emet did not expect the many people hilde's adopted in a found family sense however. he does think he was a little foolish for not expecting it bc. lachesis. wanderer. the guy who makes friends everywhere all the time. but also how was he supposed to expect so many kids were out there calling hilde their big brother or sometimes even "like a dad"..... he's just pickin everybody up off the street at this point & emet's getting a little concerned about the amount of kids he's going to become a bad influence to just by following hilde around. lmao. & ofc the kids love him bc kids fucking love it when there's a guy who's kind of an ass

i keep saying "okay i stop typing there" & then i keep typing SORRY AHHH. i'm not even out of thoughts i just need to end the post somewhere sobs. i really need to sleep 😭 thank yoy so much for the askkkk wah

[kraefishh]

figured i'd post mine and my friends wols on main for the time being while im still stockpiling stuff for when i eventually make that side blog for em

basic stuff is - 1) there's more than one wol 2) by more than one i mean there are seven of them 3) each one/two of them are designated for a specific expansion 4) i have so much stuff planned for them all and have not even finished stormblood (please help me)

also im putting them under a cut so the post isnt naturally extremely fucking long

SO WE'LL START IN ORDER!!!!

Alidae Mendica -- ARR WoL. only one without a "traditional" name convention. SMN/MCH/GNB. bloody banquet happened and she got to ishgard and went "NOPE. I'M DONE." and goes and spends most of her time at the skysteel manufactory with garlond ironworks.

i love her very much she was the first i made. i nearly played an elezen but then really wanted to be small. so after finishing the opening cutscene i restarted and well!! shes here!! shes ready to kick some ass!!!

T'lyr Kho -- 1/2 Heavensward WoLs. is half miqo half garlean, possesses the third eye as well (hence the shaggy hair+forehead coverings). PLD/DRG/DRK/SGE. is never doing well at any given moment. he is (not) coping.

he's the one who made me spiral and make 3 more characters. i love him so so dearly.

Touya Kawa (@twisted-solace's wol) -- the other Heavensward WoL. WAR/DRG/RPR. the most shy and well spoken but will not hesitate to cleave you. works himself to death (quite nearly literally!).

i wish i had more to say about him other than he is very silly. him and t'lyr picked up lancer as a bonding experience and then got roped into dragoon lore (whoopsie!!)

Koren Cadoret -- 1/2 Stormblood WoLs. has 1v1'd Zenos too many times to count. very very protective of his sister and friends. MNK/SAM (plus blue mage and soon to be viper!!).

I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM!!!! punch first ask questions later. wants to be everyone's friend. separation anxiety got his ass in shadowbringers cause he was the last wol to be summoned to the first.

Raana Cadoret -- the other Stormblood WoL. took her brother and left her village the moment she was declared to be the next matriarch. DNC/AST/RDM. likes to give koren shit about his poor decisions.

she makes me go :) !!!!! we really cant decide if she picks up astrologian on the first or if she does it beforehand.

Sthallona Dhemskyltwyn -- 1.0 WoL and also Shadowbringers at the same time?? shes going through it. WHM/BLM. grew up the daughter of a famous pirate. Thancred's childhood best friend.

feigned death after the calamity until she gets pulled to the first and is like "AH SHIT. HERE WE GO AGAIN." she gives me perhaps the most brainworms.

AND FINALLY

Sarangerel Malqir (@trying_to_cosplay on insta's wol) -- Endwalker WoL while also being a whole can of worms by herself. was her universe's only WoL before shit collided in shadowbringers and she met everyone else

the love of my life-- ahem. currently only Warrior canonically because my friend is not even halfway through ARR. very much younger sibling energy to the rest of the scions/wols.

last notes - 1) t'lyr and touya are gay (lovingly referred to as 'the boyfs' by me and @twisted-solace) touya nearly fucking dies for t'lyr and t'lyr proceeds to go oh wait fuck i dont want to lose you. normal shit for their line of work. 2) koren canonically says "you wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid" to zenos. and zenos proceeds to get very confused. zenos isnt even who he ends up with koren just likes fucking with him. 3) raana went through 4 different wol/npc ship ideas before we finally landed on hien. that was hell. 4) alidae and cid are best friends!! stamp of approval right here!!! alidae also hates nero's guts. 5) if biggs and wedge (who i lovingly refer to as the 'lab boys') are around, alidae is not far behind. 6) alidae was named before i realized there was a character named alisaie. this is canonically a struggle for everyone. 7) sthallona swam her ass to sharlayan upon realizing that thancred had been taken under louisoix's wing. insert LET ME IN. LET ME IIIIIIN gif here. she wrote a thesis on how to combine conjuring and thaumaturge magic before ever knowing what a red mage was. (she is very stupid but also unnaturally smart). 8) t'lyr can't use magic. point blank. his third eye fucks that up for him. only reason he can be a Sage is because the magitek does it for him. on the bright side he's really good at parkour!!!

anyway if you got down this far thank you for looking at my blorbos. i am working (not very) hard to get that sideblog set up for these weirdos. i appreciate them very much they consume my every waking thought.

[ferrocyan]

top 5 memories!!

these are mostly abt my friends from my fc bc they make playing this game so much more fun and awesome (long post warning)

#1 so there's this guy in western coerthas whom you can challenge to a fight named alaimbert of the spiked butt. funny guy with a lot of butt jokes. one day i was leveling samurai and thought eh why not fight mr spiky butt? then i ate shit and died. and like. the moment i died i got a dm from a stranger. this player named "yuyu nekomata" was... asking me to join her fc?

fellas i have no idea how fc recruitments work. i don't know how this girl found me. so i thought. that this person. saw me get buttspiked to death. for no fucking reason, just being a shit gamer. and thought "yeah i want THAT guy to be in my fc, i gotta ask him to join right now"

i fucking lost it dude i laughed so hard i was fully crying. and then i said yes, ofc. best decision i ever made fr. also since i mentioned going to level my gatherers yuyu gave me like 10 sideritis cookies and i still have 6 in my inventory www

#2 i started playing in na actually, in coeurl, crystal bc dreamer was there and i wanted to meet him ingame haha. but the ping was horrendous and i could never avoid aoes. i started to suspect if orange aoes weren't actually unavoidable. i could only get through the hall of the novice "avoid aoes" training by using sprint (it has a 60 second cooldown!) and praying. and i thought man, i want to try raiding in the future, there's no way i can raid if i have to sprint out of every aoe. so i packed my bags and moved out to jp. basically just picked a dc and world at random? the english speaking jp server is elemental (literally every other indonesian ffxiv player is in elemental fml) but i went to mana instead. it's good out here though since mana has an active raiding scene and the queues are super fast :]

anyway the actual memory was when i remade my character and restarted arr and i went out into the world and aggro'd a monster AND I COULD STEP OUT OF THEIR AOE WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO avoiding damage has never felt so fucking good

#3 at a time when i couldn't play ffxiv, around after i finished base hvw but not the patches, i watched jocat's ffxiv stream vods on youtube. i kept watching until the last available video, when he'd finished the rak'tika section then detoured to do all the role quests. that was around endwalker's release so the guy was too busy streaming to upload the old vods. since twitch vods were only available for 2 weeks i skipped ahead and watched edw instead of waiting for more shb. i followed his streams to the very end, then went ahead and purchased ffxiv to finish shadowbringers on my own

i hadn't planned to play endwalker, for reasons. i finished 5.0, then i did the only thing left i wanted to do: the twinning. i wanted to jam out to a long fall, haha. and i did! it was a very fun run. i hadn't done alexander and omega yet so alex to me is a twinning boss first and foremost. the unlock quest's cutscene where we hear the message from the doomed timeline was so touching that i teared up. i felt satisfied. i was done with ffxiv! yay!

the story of why i decided to continue playing... is for someday in the future :)

#4 and so i did continue to play, and even finish endwalker. really though, the twinning wasn't the only thing i wanted to do. i wanted to try raiding, remember? and so i got to level 90, my first time at level cap, excitedly went to labyrinthos to try the pandaemonium raids, and

my item level is too low. noooooo!

i had no idea how to get gear. what the hell is a tomestone? why do i need so many of them?? i asked around to the raiders in our fc for tips. they told me some stuff about how to farm tomestones but i thought mannn that's gonna take so long though. so i went to the marketboard and bought the then-bis rinascita gear.

one of the guys i asked, koi, saw me at the sharlayan marketboard and went OH NO. i'd just bought the sabatons when he stopped me. koi told me, "this was supposed to be a surprise, but i'll say it so you don't waste your gil. actually yuyu has bought all the gear for you! please come to the fc house to receive it."

i was.. floored. i'd joined the fc while in the middle of playing shadowbringers, so it wasn't too long ago. i hadn't talked with anyone much, only saying hi when i see them pop in or out of the game. since i was too busy doing endwalker msq i couldn't play with the other members either (though we did go into the aitiascope and the mothercrystal together, it was such a blast). but they still gave me a ton of gear and raid food and gil for materia. man even now thinking about it i get choked up. these people are the nicest and i love them so much.

the time when i would have to stop playing ffxiv again was approaching, but i swore i would first clear at least the first savage trial of abyssos when it came out, to show my friends how much i appreciated their help. i'm still holding onto this promise now.

#5 savage is hard. oh my god is it hard. i have to admit to giving up because my internet connection is very unstable, i get a lot of lags and disconnects, and devour is an extremely unforgiving mechanic with lag. i only went back to high-end content with golbez. his trial is extremely attractive for me to prog because the mechanics are mostly forgiving and easy to learn. the only one that has me by the throat is void comet rain (void stardust? idk i learned this from jp resources so) since that one is unforgiving with lag lol. and it took me a good while to prog this trial. i gave up again when 6.5 released with a new extreme, zeromus, and went for that one instead. actually getting to see enrage for the first time ever was very motivating, but i just... i like golbez a lot. i want to clear the voidcast dais extreme first, as it was the new goal i'd set after p5s broke me. so i tried again! and

i did it baybeeee hahahaha! we were a "learn from the beginning" party that was supposed to go on for only 1 meal. but at the 30 minute mark we got to like 7% and i was the only one left alive and i was like no, no we can't stop here LET ME SOLO HIM! LET ME SOLO GOLBEZ I'M A WARRIOR I CAN DO THIS IN NORMAL MODE SURELY EXTREME IS NO DIFF(explodes to void meteor)

we put it to a vote if we want to continue progging, and everyone unanimously agreed. so one final pull! in which i fucking died to void comet rain like a chump! but we ended up clearing well before enrage!! yaaaayyy!!! i got my first ever endwalker extreme clear, and also somehow the weapon coffer despite being the only one (probably) who messed up. sorry everyone ;p all the luck goes to the most undeserving in the party! now i just need to farm the mount and the golbez minion from the lunar subterrane and i will have my full golbez regalia. this is my current goal www

anyway since we're already here have a bonus sweet memory, last christmas one of the fc members, kou, gave us all drawings of our wols! look at the gang all here /;w;)/

answer correctly or else i will have to write more smut to set things right

talking about the other fc members under the cut www

from the left that's koi, one of our serious raiders. the guy is such a troll, he taught me by force to play better bc when someone else dares take the tanking role from him he will run off alone and aggro everything in sight, cuz fuck you. he did also accompany me progging both p5s and golbez and taught me a lot about tanking and communicating in pf :]

second is yuyu, our most wonderful guild leader! she's sweet and kind and loves to shower the rest of us with gil from her billionaire coffers. she's the best. beside her is hoshi, who is a pretty cool person but she's been taking breaks a lot. she's our healer for treasure map runs and it's always hilarious w her there

the bunnyboy is skyler, our most chill and cool guy B) he's a vtuber on tiktok i think? he maintains our main discord server and is usually the one organizing fc events with yuyu. also the sage main who always takes the job to heal the rest of us tank-dps mains www

lastly beside tart that's kou! i hadn't met her a lot at the start and that was because she has a very serious raiding static. she did the omega protocol ultimate, THE hardest fight in ffxiv, on patch. it was nuts. she was in that dimensional rift 24/7 lmao. she's also an artist and always has the best glams and has gotten into gposing too, a real ffxiv renaissance man. kou does old extreme/savage content for fun and often gifts the rest of us special crafted weapons that glow. like the tsukuyomi sword, my beloved

there are other members but that's all for now! thanks if you're reading this far hahah

[altaniadventures]

Prompt #1: Envoy

#FFxivWrite2023

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As always, spoilers for Endwalker. 

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"Hell no," Altani replied.

Alphinaud’s face fell and Alisaie’s expression morphed into a deep frown. Before the two could start their arguments or begging, the Warrior of Light got up from the table and walked out into the cold. Estinen thought it was best to leave the woman alone, but Alphinaud turned to him with a silent plea. Pursing his lips, he followed after the warrior.

Garlemald was a cold, desolate place. The rebuilding effort was well underway, but the scars in the snow were easily seen. The capitol was still a ruined mess, and the castle still looked like a black becon of doom. This place reminded Altani only of bad memories. The snow here wasn't like Ishgard. It felt hopeless and alien here. The peace between Garlemald and the Eorzean alliance was tense. People here didn't look at her with smiles and awe. Most were wary of her, and some were openly hostile.

Worse, it wasn't like she could do a thing about it. Everything was eggshells here. One friendly punch to the wrong person and it would all be for nothing. She wished the Twins hadn't begged for a visit. She should have known there was an alterior motive!

Altani walked around the building and headed down a ruined avenue into a ddestroyed park. The debris had been cleared from the area, but the place was still charcoal black. She was sitting on a stone bench when Estinien sat down next to her. He didn't say a word, only crossed his arms and waited.

"You can fuck right off, too," she said, but it lacked her usual bite.

"You've brought the Garleans supplies from other nations. What makes asking for the Steppe's cooperation any different?" he asked.

He was never one to beat around the bush, she thought. The twins would have speeches to debate and try to sway her to their thoughts. Estinen just wanted to know what her problem was.

"It's hard not to hate them," she said.

Estinen raised his brow, but waited.

"Watching the twin's faces after those two girls died in the snow. I'll never forget that. It's one thing to distrust us. It's another for even the citizens to hate the barbaric eorzean savages so much that they'd rather die than take our aid. Those girls had never met a foreigner before. It all comes from their damn military and ruling class."

Altani looked at him. "I know they're not all like that, and they have deigned to take our aid now. Julius doesn't treat us like that. But what they're asking me to do, dealing with their nobles, as their envoy to the Steppe..."

She scowled. "You don't know what I've seen, Estinen. The things they have done. The things they did to Zenos, to others, to Gaius' children. The horrific experiments to their own citizens, not counting war crimes. How can I as Khagan ask the Steppe for aid to these people who think them little more than ornery chattel? They spit on us because they never conquered us. Asking me to deal with those Garlean asshats is ridiculous.  Every time I look at them, I want to fight. They hate me, and I hate them. The twins are better at politics. Let them deal with it."

"Someone has to put down the weapon first. If not, we would never see the end of war," Estinen replied. "This one, or any other. And 'tis a sad fact that it shall fall to you, whether you wish it or not. There aren't any other khagans around."

Altani huffed. He was right, of course. "I could kill them all. Would solve the problem."

"You can't murder your way out of everything you don't want to do."

"But it a solution that we use more often than everyone would like to admit," she said, increasing in volume. "Everyone likes to pretend that I'm nice and considerate, and I don't enjoy fixing problems with violence.  No one asks me what I think about this shit, because they know they won't like the answer. I fight, I fix, and I fetch, and no one asks me if I want to do this anymore. I hate helping people who call me a savage behind my back! Nhaama above, I just want-"

Altani sighed deeply, leaning her head over the back of the bench. He could tell that she was tired. The weight on her shoulders had lessened slightly since their excursion at the end of the universe, but even he could see what a toll it had taken. She was a good woman despite her constant claims to the contrary. She had done a lot of work here, despite the constant stares of some of the locals.  She did the right thing, she just didn't always do it with manners. He didn’t blame her for losing patience with it all. Perhaps soon there would be time for her to get the rest she deserved. He watched her slowly sit up again.

"I'll go beg from the Steppe, but they can still fuck right off with being envoy. Alphy can do that. I never want to come back here again." The twins might balk at the change in plans, but surely they couldn’t begrudge their warrior a slight reprieve. 

Estinen nodded. "Tis something we can agree on," he said, looking around at the barren snowscape. "Not even a damn hotspring to liven up the place. I thought Coerthas cold, but this place would freeze a tit off a dragon."

She began to laugh and Estinen smiled. He stood up and offered a hand out to her. With a final chuckle, she took it and got off the bench.

[bnuuywol]

i am BACK and ON MY PUTER, so i can tell you my drk lore! which is... that it's not drk! at least, it's not the drk quests. my girl's drk is actually *dwn*, Dawn Knight, and she inherited the power from Hades/Emet-Selch!

(i actually made sure the weapon she's using is as close to the one hades uses in the lvl 87 dungeon as possible)

basically, at the end of endwalker when the wol summons hades and hyth, hades transfers some of the power of the Third Seat into her azem crystal. hades and ahrora have a VERY strained relationship, due to ahrora straight up not believing the ancients were real until the elpis stuff and her telling hades the memory of aumorat would die with her, and hades. well. trying to kill her in shb you know how it is, but also the fact that he REFUSED to see her as anything other than "azem's familiar" until now. this is his way of apologizing to her/accepting her own apology (he also gives her a never-wilting elpis flower bc UEUEUE). it's also him saying "Never Ask Me For Anything Ever Again", specifically saying that if she ever needs him again, the power in the crystal should be more than enough.

the first time she summons the powers of the third seat, she fully transforms into that outfit (kinda a combo of hades' idealization of the image of azem and the fact that azem had a penchant for dressing pretty sexy), with the weapon she instantly recognizes. all her attacks are very bright/starry, but all the shields look identical to drk shields. the attacks are hers, the protection is hades'. and her Living Shadow summon IS hades, shrouded in aurora borealis-like light. (first time she summoned it g'raha begged her to Put That Fucking Thing Back Where It Came From Or So Help Him and she was just looking like Tails Gets Trolled Dot Jpeg). she has to specifically call upon the Third Seat, so it never interferes with the azem crystal's actual magic. the crystal materializes into her gauntlet while she's dwn.

she's still very new to this power, so she's still learning how to Properly tank, but hades will forever protect her now. and hopefully she will Never Ask Him For Anything Ever Again! sorry for the rant it dosen't make sense but it makes sense to ME.

FUCKIN SICK!!!!!!!!!

The Living Shadow bit reminds me of the other AU I write with azemessence in which Phoenyx is a DRK without a soul crystal and his Living Shadow is Ardbert

But ye. Good shit good shit 👌👌👌

[motheatenscarf]

I think I'm almost done with Post-Shadowbringers stuff

I just did Paglth'an, so here are some catchup thoughts.

Holy shit, Alisaie figured out the cure for Tempering and between her, G'raha, Y'shtola, and Master Matoya, they've figured out how to mass produce this shit so that Tempering is basically no longer an obstacle. Go team!! Ga Bu's! little! voice! He sounds like he's about to ask if please, sir, he can he have some more porridge. Tragic little urchin. Outright Dickensian. So cute ;_; But more importantly,

This has led to the Alliance leaders finally, F I N A L L Y, making peace with and inviting the Beast Tribes to the table. They all seemed to start moving in on it at the same time, but credit still goes to Lyse imo for being the first one to insist, no, we mean everyone gets a seat at the table with the Ala Mhigan republic they're creating. Granted, they modled that on the republic Aymeric built and he was also talking to the Vanu, so. My goodest noodles. I love them so much! I liked Merlwyb getting some character development, but also the entire time she was talking about how to make amends to the Kobolds, I just sat there going, "Land back. You can give their land back. Land back???" But she managed to get them to agree to join up anyway, so... fine :T

Estinien's back! \o/ And he's maybe staying this time? We freed Tiamat and watching Talia, Estinien, and Alphinaud try to figure out how to put a software update on a 3,000 year old phone was way funnier than it had any right to be. Buncha dingdongs. Also, holy shit, Estinien meeting Alisaie was everything I hoped it would be and more. He mistook her for Alphinaud and gave her a noogie. She fucking H A T E S him. It was clear she was envisioning a heroic knight based on Alphinaud's descriptions and then Estinien made the worst mistake of his life. Amazing restraint on her part that she only yelled at him, I thought for sure that was the end for him. But he's actually grown a lot and had a good moment with Fordola where he basically said, "There are enough assholes out there who are good at killing like you and me, but what the world NEEDS is idealists like Alphinaud who actually plan to BUILD something out of the ashes we leave behind." Out of the Scions, I think Estinien is the one who groks Talia the most for this reason alone. That mentality of, I am not good. But you are. I was mostly joking when I said Estinien is her best friend/wingman now and he doesn't get a say in this, but yeah, they would definitely be the "We still never talk sometimes" kind of friends who can just chill in comfortable silence because they're on such a similar wavelength. Which I will say, did make me start to wonder about him and Aymeric and that very gay religious art way he was carried back to Ishgard. Like, oh no, do they maybe have some history there? But then Estinien said, verbatim, "I don't want to go to the Alliance meeting, Aymeric will be there and I don't want to be lectured," so... probably not! Also, the one instance where Talia can't relate to Estinien. Keeping the people you care about at arms' length because you're scared to let anyone in after what you've lost? Tired. Recklessly devoting yourself body and soul to protecting the people you care about because you'd rather die than be alone again after what you've lost? Wired. Get on her level, Estinien, in this house we listen to the Moogles' advice that the fuel powering dark edgelord shit is love.

Anyway, with the Tempering cure in the works, a LOT is shifting in the status quo, which I like. Fandaniel is boring and continues to be just... the fucking most, and I'm tired of him. I'm so tired of him. I have thoughts, but that's for another post.

Zenos keeps making a big deal about wanting a new weapon and they keep deliberately not showing it, and I know Reaper was introduced in Endwalker, so I think that's what they're teasing there, and if he winds up going Reaper I am going to SCREAM. He's already Talia's dark mirror and I already headcanon that her dumb Dark Knight sword that's too big for her was yoinked out of his stupid golf bag. So if he just goes "uno reverse, bitch!" and is now copying her by going Reaper, they are going to be in danger of being legit frenemies and I don't know how to feel about that! That is the exact kind of escalating rivalry I've wanted out of a good nemesis for her!

But also like, Zenos' plans seem so fucking stupid. I don't know what he's got in the works with Fandaniel, he says all he wants is to fight the WoL again, but I don't get how facilitating the apocalypse accomplishes that?

Like, buddy, if you want a fight, roll up and ask her. I brought a character who started her existence as a fucking Sith into this game, you are never gonna find another WoL more eager to drop whatever she's doing just to kick your ass.

[imperial-nuisance-rudje]

I feel like a lot of people forget that every single expac's x.0 story has really bad pacing issues somewhere in it and 7.0 barely registers on that scale given that The Ruby Sea and 2.0's mass culling of time-waster quests exist. Even 5.0 has parts that people widely deride for screwing the pacing!

I think people just didn't vibe with some aspect/disliked the clash between the out-of-game hype cycle and the actual story and the vast majority of them went for [insert problems literally every expac has in this game] instead of flaws in the writing unique to DT.

Going a bit into 7.1 MSQ spoilers and also just salt now so cut

Like, the tonal clash between halves I argue is actually necessary to make it land at all, but I can accept people saying that the writing communicating Wuk Lamat's conflict was fumbled a bit, or that they didn't do a great job with Northern American Indigenous rep (I can't comment on this personally, I've just seen it come up with evidence), or that the game is once again whitewashing a villain instead of embracing that they're a villain (the last one especially, it sucks that it looks like we're getting the shb Gaius/post-ShB Emet/6.x Garlean leadership treatment with Sphene bc the fact that she sucks as a person and is weaponized_colonial_white_femininity.exe makes her conflict with Wuk Lamat and the WoL so much more enjoyable, and even if I'm hoping that the 7.1 stinger is pointing to something that has her actively say "dude no i was a monster wtf" i'm capable of pattern recognition and will not hold my breath for it!).

What I will not accept is people who fell over themselves with praise for the exact same writing problems earlier suddenly having issues with the villain whitewashing when it's happening to a woman (every time i see someone praise the Weapons storyline's handling of Gaius or how heavily whitewashed Emet got over time but trash Sphene i want to pull out my hair), or people who were fine with co-leads in earlier expacs suddenly getting mad about the writers accepting the limits of a insert protagonist and having focus shift to a new gal when a lot of people were getting pissed about the writing twisting their arm about their WoL feeling specific ways during the entirety of 6.0!

Or like. The weird shit people are doing where they're forgetting that, as senior story designer, Ishikawa not only likely still has final or near-final say and is also actively writing still, but also that a lot of DT's problems are the same problems that happened under her tenure as a main scenario writer? People get so fucking weird about her, she's an artist and a human and treating her previous writing as without flaws is uhhhhhhhh fucked up? It's dehumanizing and gross to put her on a pedestal like that, so... don't, maybe!

idk, maybe the fact that i am dragging alts through the game without a skip (so i actually remember the older writing issues acutely) and ended up really disliking endwalker as a whole (tl;dr i think it was generally rushed and skeletal except for Elpis, which overstayed its welcome, a lot of the 6.0 solo duties felt bad, and 6.x mangled poor Zero bc god forbid a woman in this game be weird and offputting) and thus had None expectation higher than "2.0 but not made during hellcrunch" going into DT made me look on it more kindly. But so, so few people have actually addressed the actual problems with the expac and it's really frustrating even if I acknowledge that it's probably bc the chuds are so fucking loud that everyone else gets drowned out or doesn't want to be associated with them.

thanks to all the dawntrail criticism, i’m rapidly learning that what other people think of as “pacing issues,” i think of as necessary time spent getting acquainted with a new environment, its history and the folks that live there. what they felt was a slog, i felt was the equivalent of going on vacation and submersing yourself in rich, previously unknown cultures.

so basically what i mean to say is i have a true adventurer’s spirit and everyone who gripes about this expansion’s pacing is a loser. (SORT OF a joke. but also not really. but also really. but also n)