#AND THIS DOESN'T EVEN TOUCH ON THE ENW RAIDS AUAAUAUUUAUAAUUUGH

[the-rogue-mockingjay]

Worst Part/Best Part of Ravi’s MSQ journey so far—GO!

OKAY UHHH. ALL OF IT

Jk LMAO

We're making a sandwich out of this, we gonna start with aspects of MSQ that she likes, put all the MSQ shit she hates in the middle, and then we're gonna end with which sections of MSQ she enjoyed the most! :> Buckle up, friends, and let me spin you a bit of O'ravi's tale! 🥪☕

Best part of MSQ, as in "the aspects she likes the most": getting to meet such a huge variety of people, see all these incredible vistas, making a positive impact on people's lives, the friends she's made along the way, just- the incredible depths of love that she gets to experience. In some ways, it's her ultimate dream come true- she set out to become a minstrel, she wanted to see the heart of humanity, to learn of other cultures, she wanted to just...it's hard to put into words, but she wanted to live life to the fullest. To experience fully, to understand fully, it's sort of like- you know how Y'shtola's dream is to uncover the truths and secrets that lie at the heart of the world? O'ravi's dream is very very similar, except instead of being like, based on knowledge of the star, it's centered around people- their histories, their folklores and languages and songs, the love and loss and hope, the rage and sorrow and despair. O'ravi loves the star, but her truest love has always been people, not unlike Venat. And being the WoL is the only path that allows this dream to be reality.

Worst part of MSQ, as in "the aspects of it she doesn't like": she has a whole ass list and it is LONG. Really long, and it includes watching people die, people using her for their own political ends, having to put up with people she fucking hates, being everyone's Ace In The Hole, people making her play the kingmaker, people acting entitled to her time and energy (this is the biggest reason why she currently dislikes and distrusts Wuk Lamat T^T*), having to kill people literally constantly, the pain that all the fighting leaves her in and the toll it takes on her mind and body (she used to ignore it/not give a shit but she can't do that anymore)... Long story short, there is a Reason(TM) why she's a dark knight ldfkjghdkjgh, and she might be a paladin now but that doesn't mean she's hung up the greatsword. Far from it. (She has hung up Shattered Heart (formerly Zephirin's sword) though, much to Aymeric's relief fdklgjhdkgj. Not sure what sword is her main one now.)

*IT'S NOT REALLY WUK'S FAULT, O'RAVI IS JUST REALLY FUCKED UP AND HAS BEEN BURNT TOO MANY TIMES BEFORE 😭 I believe that she means well and is just overenthusiastic but O'ravi 100% does not, tbh she almost resents Wuk Lamat for sins that she hasn't even committed yet, just on account of the way she, like, approached O'ravi like the fact that she was gonna agree to help her was already a done deal and assumed the answer would be "sure let's go" without really even considering the possibility that she could - and had the right to - say no....

Worst part of MSQ, as in "time that sucked the most": base Endwalker and Stormblood (base + patches). Somehow those ended up being a lot worse and a lot harder than post-Vault Heavensward, because at least in Heavensward she had the support of her friends and the Fortemps, it was a conflict she had very personal stakes in and no one was forcing her to be there (unlike SB), and she had hope that she could save Estinien. Endwalker was just....a different can of worms which I'm putting under a cut in a bit.

Stormblood was bad because she absolutely did NOT want anything to do with that war and she didn't believe for a second that winning it was possible (Nidhogg and the Horde had reasons she could understand and she was still semi-naive and optimistic back then, but the Empire felt incomprehensible and unstoppable and she'd become extremely pessimistic by then). She just wanted to go back home to Ishgard and be left alone to grieve her friends. To sum up her biggest issue with Stormblood: Hien found it odd that she was dead silent most of the time, and he once asked for her thoughts about his plan to flood Doma Castle. Her answer amounted to "I don't have any thoughts because there's no point in thinking, it's not my job- I'm just here to be a good obedient weapon and kill whatever you tell me to. Why would I waste my time having an opinion on something when what I feel/think/need doesn't matter to anyone?"

Yeah it was really fucked up lfdkjgfdghldk. (For the record, I do like Stormblood, this is all just O'ravi's feelings about it, and they're extremely negative because it was the lowest point of her life by a landslide. She was overwhelmed by trauma and grief and it kind of broke her, she was afforded no time to process anything that happened before she was thrown into war as the Alliance's #1 Weapon. Her opinions are not my opinions, please don't come at me FKJGLHDKGJH)

Endwalker fucking sucked because uhh.....well. She held herself personally responsible for the Final Days. The rest of this is going under a cut!

It's kinda hard to get into details but between the time loop and the fact that she personally slew Zodiark, not only does she believe the blood of everyone who became blasphemies is on her hands, she also believes she doomed the Ancients - and Azem, personally - and sacrificed them on the altar to save her own people, her own timeline, her own life. She considers herself the root of all Final Days-related suffering and death both for the Ancients and for modern Etheirys, and the whole time she's practically praying that she'll be killed to end the Final Days. She believes that fate demands it- that all she is MUST die to redress the balance. If everyone else were to flee on the moon, she would be obligated to remain on Etheirys until the bitter end, because she caused this. She burned the world. All of it is her fault, she deserves to die, and there is no ending to this story in which she lives. For her to survive would be an affront to the gods, to fate, to the people she's wronged, to everyone that ever lived. She adamantly refuses to listen to anyone who says otherwise or any evidence to the contrary fgljkdhk.

I know in-game the narrative treats the concept of WoL becoming a blasphemy as kind of a joke because in what world would that ever happen lol, but uhhhh, it does almost happen to O'ravi after what I call her day from hell (the Final Days of Thavnair, where Ahewann dies and Matsya's friends are killed and he and his friends' baby almost turn to blasphemies, etc). She has a breakdown after the meeting with Shirabaht and the dignitaries, and it takes the combined efforts of Ardbert, Estinien, and probably Fray to stop her from turning. The guilt and self-loathing and sheer fucking stress from all that happening just turned into wholesale despair. It only happened that once, though.

The only reason Endwalker DOESN'T rank as being a worse time for her than Stormblood is, ironically, her unshakeable belief that she had to die at the end. Because dying at the end was her best shot at redemption and atonement, and the thought of being able to atone, even if only in part, became the hope she could hold onto. She wasn't sure if she could save Etheirys, but being able to give it her absolute all without the distraction of being worried about her survival was sort of a saving grace sdkjfhlkdjgh. Idk it's weird!!! It's a lot!!! It was a bad weird time!!!

Her other saving grace was whatever the fuck she had going on with Aymeric FKGJHDFLJGHD. That's a post for another day but the tl;dr of it is they had a sort of star-crossed lovers thing going, she threw caution to the wind and decided to kiss him and be open about how much she loved him despite the fact that they'd never get to be together the way they both wanted, they were sort of just making the most of the scraps of time they had because time was running out

Best part of MSQ, as in "time she enjoyed the most": ARR patches and the first round of ShB patches. The ARR patches were her highest point for a long time, she had everything she wanted, all the adventure and purpose and thrills she could ever want. It was also before grief shattered her and she was made to pick up the pieces, before most of her idealism and hope was ripped away from her. It wasn't perfect, though, much as she used to think it was.

The first round of ShB patches were for the most part such a joyful time? Norvrandt never for a moment took her for granted the way Eorzea does, and they don't idolize her to the point of dehumanizing her either. There's a sort of kinship that she has with the people of the First, because they've known such horrible loss and kept on living anyway, same as she has. It's more of an even playing field, as it were. She can breathe easier there. She was also sort of drunk on the joy of being reunited with G'raha and the fact they both survived; the very complicated feelings she had about Emet and Amaurot were sort of buried under that fdlkgjhdgjk. She loved helping people, and then getting to go home to the Source and reunite with the people she thought she'd never get to see again (Aymeric, the Fortemps, and her family most of all!), and so that all outweighed the problems of Elidibus's Weird Stupid Bullshit by a lot. Most of the second round of ShB patches were good too, but she was so emotionally fucked up by the Seat of Sacrifice (as well as her own insecurities getting really bad) that she couldn't enjoy those as much.

tysm to anyone who read all this, and tysm for asking this meg!!!! this is probably more than you bargained for FGKJLDHGJH but you asked a very good question!!!!!!