#Farewell Stormblood

[tsunael]

What was their initial impression of Sphene? How did this change as the story progressed?

Dawntrail OC Questions | accepting!

Somehow you managed to ask the exact same one as @/aethergazing so I'll be answering a random one!

17. The theme of family and legacy is repeated throughout Dawntrail— did this theme resonate with your character? Were there specific moments relating to family that impacted them?

Obvious Dawntrail spoilers below.

It did, and I'm really happy about it, honestly. As much as I, personally, didn't enjoy DT I think the themes fit her very well.

If I were to think of her as canon, Stormblood really began her arc.

This expac brings back the proverbial ghost of her mother as she travels to her ancestral home. This begins her journey of understanding where she came from, and confronting her past. We would learn about what she was doing before ARR--and what had her running to Eorzea to begin with.

Shadowbringers continues where Heavensward leaves off. Her personal feelings are brought to the forefront when she is forced to contend with her own mortality. She still hasn't learned to stop running as she nearly takes Emet's offer.

Endwalker forces her to stop running and face what she fears most. The world is now so much bigger than she could have ever imagined and there is more at stake than just her homeland. Her past comes up again when she runs into her father, and when she finds her mother in the Aitiascope. This is where she can say her farewells.

6.x is about her healing: mentally, physically. She wants to run away from it all again and almost commits suicide because of it. So, she quits being a Scion and they are disbanded. She resolves to live for herself for a time.

(Don't ask me if the void quests are canon for her I haven't decided lmao).

So, for Dawntrail's theme to be legacy and family... it ended up being amazing for her story on paper. It definitely made her reflect on the recent past.

As for moments that resonated with her... Zoraal Ja's misplaced hatred for his father certainly, and Wuk Lamat and Koana watching on as their father passed would have opened wounds that have yet to close for her. As an aside: I haven't decided if I'll kill her father (Kartal) off yet but Tsuna also held him in her arms as he was near-death, so it would have been a mirroring-- especially if Wuk Lamat is meant to mirror the wol's (or Azem's?) journey.

Tsuna has extreme daddy issues is what I'm trying to get at here.

Any others were inside Living Memory. The entire concept would have left her inconsolable, if not extremely anxious and uncomfortable. Certainly not the strange, morbid joy ride the game made it out to be.

Cachiua and Erenville having one last moment together probably gave her a lot to chew on. Like a misplaced jealousy or an envy, but also a deep empathy.

What Tsuna leaves with... and the message she learns having gone through it all though...? I still gotta think about that :T

[ramyeonguksu]

Never One For Emotional Farewells

Rating: Teen & Up Audiences

Words: 2,116

AO3: linked here

Summary:

As if pulled by Nymeia's strings, Estinien finds himself fighting against Garlemald at Ghimlyt despite wanting to avoid seeing the Warrior of Light.

Contains Post-Stormblood MSQ spoilers.

Back on my bullshit with more Rifrastinien :')

[dualcastimpact]

All That Glitters is Blue + BLU Lore

I'll never level cap BLU, I said. I'm too nervous to do group content for spells, I said. Masked Carnivale is too hard, I said.

ALL THAT GLITTERS IS BLUE, BAYBEEEEE

Whoever it was that decided the thunder AoEs should have a random pattern better sleep with one eye open from now on, that's all I'm saying. The achievement wasn't even hard to get because I always forget to use Sprint anyhow, it was just a matter of using every element and not destroying the crystal — the real challenge was beating him in the first place! Screw Goldor Rush, honestly.

Anyhow – beating Goldor and finishing the ShB BLU questline made me want to write a bit about how it really went in Raginmar's canon, so that'll be under the cut!

The first thing to note about the BLU questlines in Raginmar's canon is that they did not happen with Raginmar. The real BLU mage in this canon is Marzanna:

She's the one who heard rumours of a strange new magic in Limsa Lominsa and got roped into Martyn's shenanigans (and thus the BLU questline), becoming Azuro the Second. She easily gets exasperated by Martyn's shameless gil-grubbing and spineless kowtowing, but she genuinely respects and admires him for giving her a new direction in life when she felt she had nothing else to live for.

There are some deviations, obviously — in the Stormblood BLU questline, Marzanna is unfamiliar with Gyodo and Kageyama (because Raginmar was the one who met Gyodo in the Stormblood MSQ, and he was the one who drove off Kageyama from Kugane Castle) and in the Shadowbringers BLU questline, Latool Ja says some hero went and saved the star and Martyn gripes about how he could have helped.

Which brings me to this point about the Shadowbringers BLU questline: most of the new spells are from the First, right? So how in the world did Martyn know about them?

In the level 73 quest, we actually see him use Deep Clean on Trachtoum — a spell learned only from the Seeker of Solitude, a singularly unique individual on the First! There's no equivalent enemy in Eorzea, so 1) who added spells from the First to the blue magic spellbook? and 2) how did Martyn even learn them?

We can't answer the second question — maybe Martyn figured out how to get to the First, maybe he got whoever it was who added the spell to the spellbook to teach him, we don't really know. But from Martyn's statement, we can conclude that the adventurer responsible for adding those spells would be someone who's travelled so much that they've even gone to distant shards. There aren't a lot of people who can claim that, and fewer still who are blue mages.

In fact, there's only one person who fits both bills.

It's Raginmar.

But hang on, you say. Raginmar's not a BLU mage, you said, it's Marzanna. Well no. Raginmar isn't a BLU mage, meaning he's not the mage in the BLU questline, but he is very much a blue mage. Sometime in ARR, Martyn needed help with an issue or other and Marzanna introduced him to Raginmar, saying that he'd help for the low, low price of a BLU job stone and the most basic of instructions. Chaos ensued, but eventually they did get to the instructing part — when Martyn's Mamool Ja assistants summoned a Kraken for Raginmar to learn Water Cannon from, instead of the comedic beating the player character (i.e. Marzanna) got in the starter quest, Raginmar dodged the Kraken's attack and one-shotted the thing with a burst of lightning. He then turned around and fired off a Water Cannon at a nearby tree, snapping the trunk in half and sending it toppling to the ground. "Not bad," he said, then nodded to the dumbstruck Marzanna and Martyn, said his farewells and left.

Unlike Marzanna, Raginmar isn't a particularly dedicated blue mage. Marzanna actively goes around the realm searching for stronger enemies to fight and learn spells from; Raginmar only happens to pick up spells from enemies he happens to face. He never went back to the BLU guild — I'm not sure if he even knows Martyn ever set up a proper guild, but Raginmar does end up writing to Martyn every once in a while, detailing new enemies and attacks he'd learned from them. He's probably responsible for most of the spells listed in the spellbook, even.

"He say it is gift from adventurers who travel to far away lands. Maybe someday, you will see these lands too."

Ignoring the fact that it's Raginmar in the screenshot, this line ties in perfectly with the idea that Raginmar is the one who shared those spells from faraway lands that Marzanna had never seen. Raginmar's been to the First; Marzanna has not. Raginmar is the one who fought Titania and Innocence and learned devastating new spells from them, and shared them with Martyn to add to the blue magic spellbook. It all works out, and I personally love it.

Anyhow: the Shadowbringers BLU questline revolves around Martyn searching from a new nemesis for the acclaimed Azuro the Second, as the Celestium has begun losing viewers due to many finding the matches boring. Eventually it's revealed that Martyn himself is a very skilled and powerful mage; he demonstrates his prowess in a match against an Ishgardian dragoon and ends up playing Goldor, Azuro the Second's latest nemesis.

This is more or less what happens in Marzanna's BLU canon, save for one rather important change: in the original questline, they're looking for someone who can challenge the BLU mage who's also the Warrior of Light. In Marzanna's canon, the BLU mage is not the Warrior of Light. In other words, the Warrior of Light himself is a perfectly viable potential opponent for the great Azuro the Second!

Marzanna does tentatively suggest this to Martyn and Royse; level-wise this would be at the beginning of the questline, likely level 71. She explains that the Warrior of Light, the selfsame one who went and saved the star from certain destruction, is a member of her adventuring party. She's not certain he would agree to performing in the Celestium, but she thinks it wouldn't hurt to ask. Royse agrees and dispatches Martyn and Marzanna to find him.

When they do find him, Raginmar predictably refuses on the grounds that he's not interested in performing for coin, and also he takes combat too seriously to put on a show the likes of the Masked Carnivale (in that same vein he refuses to spar with anyone because he doesn't really know how to pull back enough to not kill his opponent; he just goes all out). Martyn takes the refusal graciously (and gratefully; someone as legendary as the Warrior of Light would be expensive to hire) and leaves, but Marzanna hangs back when Raginmar motions for her to. At first he questions why they're seeking someone like him when they have a powerful mage already, and when Marzanna expresses her confusion, he explains that through his sensitivity to aetheric signatures, he could tell that Martyn is a master of magic, possibly at the level of archmage. Marzanna is doubtful at first, but the arcanist she meets in the level 73 quest confirms it:

Addendum: this is also why Raginmar is exceptionally good at blue magic without much trying. Raginmar is a master of multiple schools of magic — black, white, and red that combines the two, in addition to advanced arcanima and ancient Nymian scholar arts and summoner magicks — which means like Martyn, he has the requisite knowledge to properly master the Whalaqee's blue magic.

Addendum #2: it's a little hypocritical for Martyn to be baffled by the Golden Goliath using different types of magicks simultaneously back in the Stormblood BLU questline; in the level 78 quest duel against Ser Alaimbert, he's shown to use multiple types of elemental spells: wind and earth (white magic), lightning (black magic) and gravity (Astrologian magic?). There's only one other person who's capable of that sort of feat — Raginmar.

But I digress. Point is, it was Raginmar who first pointed out to Marzanna how strong Martyn actually is, but it wasn't until the level 78 quest that Marzanna (and Royse) believed it.

And there you have it, the BLU questline as per Marzanna and Raginmar's canon! I'm really looking forward to Dawntrail and what it could mean for BLU; I don't particularly enjoy the Masked Carnivale (actually I don't enjoy it at all) but I do love the lore and I'm looking forward to possibly meeting the Whalaqee for ourselves!

[motheatenscarf]

Melee dps Endwalker role quest done!

.. meh. These are doing their job of wrapping up loose plot threads on locations we won't be seeing as anything more than set dressing in MSQ for a long time. That's fine, it's a natural progression of the story.

Some are, naturally, gonna pay off better than others. The effort they put in with the planting is gonna determine the value of this payoff now.

Heavensward cared so much and bought so hard into its own premise, so I care about the mage DPS role quest a lot.

The Doma arc of Stormblood was mangled and uninterested in its characters and so I am mostly still angry about how there was potential here that was just. Wasted.

And ARR was kinda rushed and they didn't spend the time building up faction leaders who weren't Nanamo and Raubhan. And like, if you can only pick one, thems the ones, but it means Merlwyb isn't particularly fascinating. And she doesn't need to be, not every character needs to be dynamic or deep, she facilitates the story well enough as is.

So, it feels a bit silly to try and shoehorn an emotional arc for her in the last 5 minutes before we never have reason to see her again lol. She had her moment coming to terms and making peace with the kobolds in Shadowbringers, all she needs here is to repeat that with the Sahagan and that would have been enough. Trying to make this a farewell to the Company of Heroes, whose only memorable trait thus far has been how tedious they are, and then tying them in by adding some convoluted half-baked trauma about her tempered father is... clearly forced. Like, no... no, I know her, this doesn't matter to Merlwyb, this was just filler.

And as filler, I'm givin it a solid C.

It gets the job done and if you are invested because you started in Limsa or you've just decided Merlwyb is your giant pirate queen waifu, I can see someone enjoying this. Personally, I have no strong feelings either way.

[charlottedabookworm]

Dawntrail Day 7+8 (part 2/2)

spoilers up to: lvl100 msq quest Dawntrail

original draft date: 4-5/7/24

scheduled release for: 31/7/2024

i managed to hit tumblrs image cap on part one of this post so. since i can't do a reblog of a post in drafts, here's part two!

part 1/2 is HERE

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she added her birth name as her middle name

her name is krile because it is the name galuf gave her but maya is the name her parents gave her and she wants to keep both

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and now just erenville remains

to erase the living memories of his mother

this expansion is really a love letter family and especially to parent/child and sibling relationships huh, good and the bad adn the ugly, blood and adopted adn chosen

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yeah

i feel that

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...i cannot believe your mum is calling your out like this erenville

at a time like this

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that's fair. it's not fair, not really

inside the dome, thirty years passed over the number of days. you went home expecting to see your mum and by the time you made through the dome she was already gone

already gone and hiding it from you because her memories are still here, speaking to you, and that means she isn't really gone at all right?

except she is and she will be because you have to stop sphene and this may be the only way and you don't want her to go

she's your mum and your mentor and you don't want her to go so you don't want to help

(if she never fulfils her wish, surely she won't go?)

but i think- i think you'll regret it for the rest of your life if you don't, erenville

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one last adventure with your mum erenville

one last happy memory

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just gotta finish the msq and i have flight everywhere again!

(hopefully) no more distractions!

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i love erenville and cahciua debating over the animal being scalekin or beastkin

they're just. interacting. probably how they have a thousand times before

(how they never will again, after this)

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awww erenville apparently met baby krile, not that either of them remembers it lol

i'm just sad they didn't give us baby erenville in the cutscene he woulda been so adorable

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oh

the final aether current

i can't be far now from the final quest dungeon and trial still to go notwithstanding

i guess both of those will be on the dawntrail quest? that's how they usually do it iirc

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i am not emotionally prepared for the end of this quest

fuck

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i dunno erenville. but she's asked you too

fuck

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fuuuuuck

okay imma put ending this quest off and go walk the dogs

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so

i got distracted by life shit like dogs and food and parents and it is now 10pm

i'mma finish dawntrail tonight anyway wish me luck i don't wanna be up past 1

also i gotta remember to cry quietly so i don't wake anyone up

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oh no i don't need to start crying already

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fuuuuuck

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screaming crying throwing up

fuuuuck yep i am emotionally devastated fuck you square

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still sobbing but-

the curtain falls, the final act begins

dawntrail

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i'm ready

this expansion has already broken my heart so many times surely it can't do it any more

surely

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alexandria

it looks so much like in ffix

but-

'to the memory of better days i bid farewell' this is definitely gonna be like in endwalker and shadowbringers right? we're gonna have some time hops to go with our narration

ahhh ye here be calamity stricken alexandria

lovely

annnd the last stage is after the barrier was put into place, probably after sphene died?

cool yeah okay definitely after sphene died

final boss time!

And the final dungeon of 7.0 is done

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bets on sphene becominh a giant boss who sits at one side of the arena with a huge hitbox?

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yeeeep there she is

I suppose why mess with a pattern you’ve had since uh- stormblood?

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excuse me did you just fucking delete my friends who gave you the right to do that

so fuckinh rud-

wait have i really gotta queue for the first time this expansion at gone 11 at night? Fuck this maybe wasn’t my best idea

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sphene: brings out the milalas key

me: i place my ‘azem stone’ in defense mode!

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okay wow that was legit one of the best trials i’ve seen in game

there were so many cool mechanics there were arena changes genuine chaos int he middle it was fucking great

like i can absolutely understand why people are saying they’re already improving fight design cos that was amazing

And then the victory lap in the end was nice to see

i cannot wait to see that in ex

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we are all pitiful selfish creatures, sphene

all of us

born and created

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of course we will

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love this

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annnd credits!

loved the expansion very much

new dragoon is interesting, i don't hate it, the story was a little slow to start but of course it would be, it wasn't a world ending threat (until three quarters of the way through) and it definitely made me cry more than once

loved seeing more of erenville

and i love that raha got his taco in the credits! and esti being surrounded by children tugging on him as alphi laughs!

great expansion, can't wait to see what happens next

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erenville is gonna stop being a gleaner?

oh

i wish you the best erenville

make sure to invite us on a few of those, yeah?

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(i hit the image cap again fuck i'm not making another post it can just deal)

"And what of you? Any new adventures in the offing?"

well, wuk lamat, in a little less than two weeks i'm apparently going to be joining a fighting tournament

not sure why yet but it should be fun

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....sphenes crown

her crown that was her regulator

her crown that was her regulator glowing?

might possibly have just figured out why we're entering a tournament

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I will definitely go on another adventure with you erenville

whenever you ask

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alpaca mount!

thanks wuk lamat!

they're so cute

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kay no tihnking about it sphenes crown is probably story related cos the arcadion is open for buisness again and it doesn't seem to be related

anyway bedtime for me it's gone midnight lol

[thathomestar]

so last night i was sitting in castrum oriens waiting for one of my friends to begin stormblood, and a random guy walked up and sat next to me, so we start chatting about the game and other stuff, we add each other to friends and say farewell

cut to just now, i teleport to my personal house after doing a DT boss fate and i see him jumping around down the hill in front of my house, turns out he has also been my neighbor this whole fucking time i am going insane how does this happen twice

fun ffxiv shenanigans

[hithren]

Farewell Stormblood The end of a journey is the start of another.

It’s still hard for me to believe Shadowbringers is here. Or that so much time has passed already. I still remember the launch of Stormblood, and Heavesward for that matter, very vividly.

Stormblood was a ride. Here’s hoping Shadowbringers lives up to the hype, has fun dungeons and memorable trials, and gives me some damn good glams.

[little-ironworks]

Mirage Crown’s Farewell Stormblood Event - 06/22

[housefortempsknight]

Farewell Stormblood!

I’d like to call out a few very special people who has stuck with me for my many wild rp adventures.

@elezendad, you have been a firm supporter of my creativity and always brightened my day up with your kind words. I truly have appreciated your company and I look forward to it continuing on from today!

@rahelauillces, my sweet sweet Haurchefant and the cutest catte ever! You have been sooooo supportive of me no matter where I was, even out of game you have continued to be there for me and I adore you for it. I look forward to our relationship growing and I honestly can’t wait to visit you in person.

@scholarlostintime, my best friend from the start, Fennie has always been there for Nemi and I have always been able to share my struggles to you for wisdom. I do hope to see Fennie and Feldspar in the first with Nemi to go on wild adventures in ShadowBringers. 

@auliander-ffxiv, truly, one of my bestest friends on here. You have always been by my side, supported me in my trials and tribulations. And of course, have been a pure gem in both Nemi’s and mine life. I really do look forward to these two journeys as ShadowBringers comes up. Don’t forget that I love you so much.

Last but certainly not least, @louvel-roche, Dearest brother of Nemi and such an understanding friend. It’s always been a real struggle to find time for us, but when we do have time, it is always memorable and it makes me and Nemi so happy to call him brother.

There are a ton of people I could do this for, but unfortunately never had the time to meet you in person to take a photo with in time. But to all of you who have made an impact on Nemisae’s life, Thank you so much. And with that I bid you all farewell until the next expansion!!

[lookbluesoup]

While I LOVE the overall story of ffxiv to bits, and tbh the whole overarching story works really well for my guy, I have definitely had to tweak canon events a bit for Nahte to stay IC without completely upturning the Main Story xD Some of the bigger ones:

In ARR when you're framed for Nanamo's murder, absolutely no way in seven hells Nahte would have gone quietly. He'd have fought like a mad feral cat to get out of there! Especially because he and @seasaltandcopper 's A'mahl Tia are paired WoLs and would have been in the room together - giving Nahte someone else to protect who he loved. So we headcanon they were both drugged to incapacitate them, making it difficult for them to resist and allowing the guards to tie them up with restraints. (this is in large part where Nahte's reluctance to eat/drink anything he didn't see prepared himself, and his fear of being restrained, comes from)

When Doma Castle is destroyed in Stormblood and there is that. Extremely long. Conversation. With Gosetsu. While he's been shot and is holding up the collapsed portion of the room to keep you all alive and give you time to escape. Drove me BONKERS ahahahaha Like you DONT HAVE TIME TO HAVE A HEART-TO-HEART GOODBYE MONOLOGUE FOR 15 MINUTES HE'S DYING THE PALACE IS GOING TO COME DOWN ON US.

Nahte is a Summoner/Scholar and would have simply. Summoned Titan-Egi to lift the rubble Gosetsu was holding. Nahte would have healed him. They would all have escaped. So once again, he was forcibly removed from the action. In the collapse, he was injured badly himself and knocked unconscious. (But I still don't imagine that conversation actually happened that way, it was the most immersion breaking piece of MSQ I have ever seen. I know it was meant to be an emotional farewell but it was so drug out I was more just frustrated at the characters than anything sobs)

And of course overall there's a lot of just murder hobo stuff, especially in ARR, that Nahte wouldn't have been doing. Like when you have to steal the turtle egg and kill the mother - he'd have just Sleep spelled her. He would have tried to negotiate with the Giants in Copperbell Mine to prevent bloodshed. He'd also have probably NOT let the Maelstrom take over care of Ga Bu, that child would be moving into Nahte's house ahahaha

Being a Shroud-born-and-raised Moonkeeper, he was also already good friends with the Sylphs before they came into MSQ, and a lot of the runaround you have to do to get their trust he managed to bypass!

Good day everyone! I hope this day finds you well!

Once again, I have a WoLQotD question for you all!!

I know this may be opening a can of worms for some people, but regardless; what action in the Canon story goes directly against how you perceive your WoL's personality. A choice made in-game that you, in the mindset of your WoL, would have done drastically different?

The ending of a life or the sparing of one? Keeping your silence on something or speaking out? Choosing to go down the path you see laid out, or forging your own?

This game is beautiful in so many ways, one of the most beautiful ways is that we all have made our own unique characters. Characters that differ in more than just a few lines of dialogue here and there, so different that they really are just different people altogether despite following the same path.

I'd love to hear about what makes your WoL's different!

[idanwyn-et-al]

I wanted to make this an eloquent post, but...

...better rambly & less eloquent than never posting it at all.

Stormblood (well, three months after it launched) marked my turn to FFXIV after a little over a year away. I had a painful situation on Balmung, and just couldn't take any joy in this game that I'd been playing since beta, not even on my old main Thessalae Soemrblyss on Goblin. However, good friends of mine eventually tempted me back, first to Thess and then, when the RP community wasn't really kicking off there (at the time, at least), back to Gwyn Trahaern, as Idanwyn still was at the time.

I brought her to Mateus, gave her a better name and a number of character adjustments, and just kinda sussed out the RP scene while catching her up on PvE & crafting/gathering. Eventually, almost 2 years ago now, I found The Halcyon Assembly and liked that their search info included a newspaper, since Idanwyn is a reporter. I went to their house unannounced, found a bunch of people ready to drop into character to hang out, and I've been happier here since than I ever was on Balmung. I feel like my character and I have really come into our own within the RP community now; she's so much richer and more fun to play, and I have a pack full of very dear friends in my FC (even if we don't always get along).

This FC is full of brilliant, creative people who work within the expansive lore of this game to create something that feels almost tangible; stories, characters, and experiences that linger long after the events have passed. I'm looking forward to interacting more with people from other FCs over this upcoming expansion, especially with the cross-world visits, but I'm also happy to be the editor-in-chief of our tiny newspaper as well as head chef for our lounge nights, and will always enjoy creating content for my little friend-family. Love the <HA:RP>ies.

This expansion has truly changed the course of my life, because it introduced me to real friends. It was also an amazingly beautiful world to explore with a very emotional storyline. Idanwyn has always spoken fluent Hingan (Doman, back in ARR/HW) and it was fun to explore that part of the character's life, to show that this chef and food & lifestyle columnist with the heavy brogue in Common was actually quite articulate, occasionally even poetic, in Hingan. My pale runt of a pirate-raised Roegadyn who is too cowardly to wield weapons nevertheless has proven herself to be warm, funny, insightful, kind, and even capable of lasting love, something I NEVER thought she'd really have. She also has a best friend in @ritzcraft 's Okuni, who is pictured in a bunch of the farewell screenshots above, and that's a friendship I treasure both in and out of character. (I love you, Saelzswys!)

I'm very much looking forward to Shadowbringers; it's all downloaded and ready to go. However, Stormblood will always have a huge place in my heart, and I will definitely still be visiting many of the achingly beautiful locales it gave us--to roleplay, to listen to the music, to reminisce and indulge that fluttering nostalgia twisting under my ribs that has already started.

Thank you all for being there, too, even if you're skipping over this now. This community is just the best.

See you in The First.

[heavenly-white]

First and Last screenshots of Stormblood

[biff-adventurer]

Raise up your hands and voices!  Let fill your hearts with pride!  Above the churning waters we  Stand strong and unified!

Farewell, Stormblood.

(taken by the ridiculously talented and creative @swordgrandpa)

[tainbocuailnge]

to elaborate, his line in german is "farewell, my only friend, my hunter" and it comes after him calling you his prey in your earlier encounters up to after you complete the ala mhigo dungeon, welcoming you to "[his] pleasure garden above the clouds" when you enter the royal menagerie and then explaining that the mad king had this built and filled with animals from his wife's homeland for her enjoyment and then showing you shinryu which implicitly casts you as his wife that he brought this animal from your homeland for your enjoyment (normal ways to court your prey), asking if you want to be hunting partners then rejecting the option if you agree then saying you're the only one he would take as companion and during the trial excitedly calling you his hunting partner anyway, and when you beat him he says the hunter became the prey and that it's literally never gonna get better than this and kills himself. I actually translated his royal menagerie lines for a friend the other day so you can check those out here if you're interested.

I agree with all of that regarding his characterisation. zenos' lack of personal capacity for enmity is also why he's so fascinated in seeing it in others, he explicitly says that he lets some people escape whenever he goes on a massacre because he's trying to push them into hating him so much they become strong enough to pose a challenge for him. when he offers fordola her echo he tells her that he's interested in her because of the way she will burn down everything around her including herself. stormblood is a chapter full of people whose passions push them towards violence in some way or another, be it fighting for a better life or to enact bloody revenge, and zenos stands in the middle of this as someone who completely lacks any passion of his own, but sees the way passion and violence are often linked in others and has thus put the cart before the horse and concluded violence is the goal of passion instead of a means. he has no distinction between love and hate, it's all this same [passion] that he doesn't understand but deeply longs to experience. he genuinely considers you his dearest and only friend because you're the only person who's ever made him feel anything at all, and he doesn't really care what it is that you feel in return for him as long as you feel something in return, because feeling anything at all for each other is the proof of friendship to him.

I think one of zenos' strongest qualities as a character is that he makes it really difficult to not have an opinion of him, because he just barges into the story and tells you what your opinion on him is and regardless of whether you agree or not you still have an opinion on zenos now. and he's not going to leave you alone until you have an opinion on him, and no matter what your opinion on him is he's going to be pleased with it because what he wants is for you to have an opinion on him at all, so there's no real way to back out of making it weird with him. funniest bitch in eorzea

Another thing that's... kinda odd about the English translation is in the DRK quests, Myste says "A reckoning will not be postponed indefinitely", which is a big line in basically a secret route of the browser game Fallen London. and yeah, it is a cool line and neat to hear it in FF14... it also doesn't really work for Myste? In it's original context, it's about the remains of a dead demi-god-like being, which was cast into a well, seeking a reckoning and leading the player down a route which will irreversibly destroy their character in pursuit of dark secrets.

Which is not what the Myste sections of DRK were about at all, lol.

oh I could rant for hours about dark knight translations. that questline is actually why I first went to scope out the german script, because I heard drk wildly differs between english and japanese and that german generally stays closer to japanese than english does. I translated some of the fray parts here actually, though you'll note I'm a lot more forgiving of the english script in that one because i hadn't reached sidurgu's parts yet löl

german fray and myste are just completely different characters from english. german myste is upbeat and energetic. he loves people who help others and feels a strong urge to help them in turn. he spawned from the dark knight crystal in response to the loneliness of countless dark knights stored within it so he could console them and be their friend, he's basically the will of the soul crystal itself. he tries to alleviate that loneliness by facilitating reunions with lost loved ones but grows frustrated that this only leads to more partings, so he tries to expand his powers to maintain his illusions forever, because more than anything he just doesn't want to leave his dear friends the dark knights alone. he represents the childish wish at the core of every dark knight for a world where nobody has to lose anyone again.

in the part of the quests where you take myste to the sea of clouds there's this bit where in english he talks about his guilt complex and lets slip that this is also your guilt. in german he tells you that he was always with these people who fight hard for others, watching from the sides, until one day he heard a cry of loneliness and since then he's been trying his best to help people too. that's the moment that for me really hammered it in that these languages fundamentally disagree on what it even means to be a dark knight.

in english myste is desperate to atone for everything he's ever done and fray is your self preservation instinct who is kinda mad that you let it get this far, but they have to forgive him because you're all you have as you walk this lonely and bloody path that you have to believe is right. in german myste is your ideal, the desire to comfort those who have no-one else, crying that maybe it's better to forget altogether if partings can't be avoided and fray is your human heart who agrees that parting will always hurt but that is exactly where you find the strength to continue the fight, because it is worthwhile even if it never ends, and the path may be lonely but you will never walk it alone when there are people who came before you and who will come after you who all share this same dream of a kinder world. of course you won't have to leave us, you're our ideal, you're what we do it all for, as long as we remain dark knights you'll be with us. this all flows very naturally into drk-as-shadowbringers-class and ardbert's deal too but since I haven't reached shb in german yet I don't want to say anything extensive about it yet

i still think english drk was cooking with even your repressed feelings being repressed + the part of yourself that wants to protect itself obviously trying to protect itself and thus not wanting to show vulnerability so en fray postures as the stronger one who will protect you instead, and that fray writing in the journal (and only being able to be honest in a place where you're unlikely to look unless you don't know where to go) is incredibly clever. but in the context of how english treats sidurgu and just the way they handle the entire rest of the game really i also don't think that they were intentionally going for this kind of subtlety, it feels to me more like they just thought sincerity is cringe like usual and decided to make everyone cool and edgy (and thus needlessly mean to each other) instead.

and yeah english fucking loves to just yoink lines from other media whether it's appropriate or not. they turned zenos' final words to wol into a hamilton reference in english, "my first friend, my enemy" is a hamilton line, he doesn't ever call you his enemy in any other language (in german he calls you his hunter though which yes is incredibly horny of him). I'll admit I'm not in a good position to judge whatever epic references the german script makes because I'm unfamiliar with german language popular media so I won't spot them unless someone else points them out but I do know that when german fray quotes fight club it just enhances their characterisation as trying to sound cool and intimidating but failing because they're really kind of lame and awkward and can't hide how stoked they are to hang out with you.

[motheatenscarf]

Still in Stormblood, just ran through Doma castle and then captured Castellum Velodyna, and I... would like to kvetch.

We spent like 8 levels in Doma and Kugane and the Azim steppe methodically gathering allies like we should have in Ala Mhigo and managed to unseat the viceroy there. And meanwhile Ala Mhigo, whose resistance effort was DEVASTATED for our "help" manages to recover enough offscreen that we can just come back and immediately unseat the acting military leader in Zenos' absense?

It could... NOT be more obvious how uninterested these writers are in Ala Mhigo.

And it's WEIRD because it really doesn't seem like they're terribly interested in Doma either?

I mean, the country maybe, to show you how cool Fantasy Japan is from this Japanese studio, but not like... the characters?

The Azim Steppe was an execercise in misery with the misogynistic nomads, and like. Look. I've read a history book or two. I know historically the Mongols haven't been... y'know, great. But someone made the conscious decision to write into their fake fantasy MMORPG that Lyse and a female Warrior of Light will get sized up by the leader of the tribe that just captured them and have him comment on their suitability as brides!

MAYBE THAT'S NOT GREAT.

Maybe that's not FUN for people!

And maybe it makes me kind of FUCKING HATE Hien, the character they need to be selling me on as a good leader capable of making intelligent decisions, and question his fitness for leadership, if he does not give a shit that his idea to GET captured so we could learn about these people is maybe gonna result in something BAD happening to his new allies.

That's to say nothing of the subsequent raid on Doma castle, which, uh, yeah, spoiler alert, Gosetsu dies.

After like... 20 fucking minutes of holding up an entire collapsing roof on his shoulders, also after being shot like 6 times, all while people deliver speeches at each other in their farewells.

Like. If you wanted to give this closure to Gosetsu, maybe you should have given him more to do before this. And if you want to make it seem like he doesn't get the closure he needs, and his death was too abrupt, then SHUT UP and let these people escape and they can have a quiet moment of introspection and grief when there is not a building collapsing on top of them.

Just... all narrative tension wrung out by the 3rd speech Hien makes.

All of this comes, of course, after the viceroy makes a very unnatural "Let me tell you my life story" moment as her buying time UNTIL the building collapses.

I thought the point of the echo was that we could show players past events and provide dramatic irony because only the WoL knows Yotsuru's horrible past and has context for why she is the way that she is, thus saving us from useless exposition dumps like this?

You can't show AND tell, this is not fucking kindergarten.

Anyway, Hien's a lousy leader, I hate the Azim Steppe even if it's beautiful and the music there is great, I'm SO disappointed that they wound up reducing a compelling motivation for their antagonist to "blood psychopath who gets turned on by violence against the people who hurt her," Gosetsu was barely a character and now he doesn't matter, does Yugiri even have a personality?

Whatever.

I don't care anymore.

I cann't believe this is the same fucking writing team that gave me Heavensward (B+) and the Dragonsong War (solid A), I'm tired of Stormblood, I want to give it a D, but there ARE enough endearing moments between Alisaie and Lyse that I'm bumping it up to a C- because if you can't be GOOD then at least be charming.

I still have stuff to do, too, but god, I'm so checked out already I'm just desperate to get through it all. Maybe the post-stormblood shit will be good.

[dreamangel-ren]

Aaahh, just hanging out with my FC buddies before maintenance...

A calm way to say farewell to Stormblood :)