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thebmatt · 4 years ago

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FFXIV Write 2021 Prompt #25: Silver Lining

Silver Lining – an advantage that comes from a difficult or unpleasant situation

The date had snuck up on him.

Dahkar rolled out of bed feeling grumpy and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why. He had no plans for the day, no diplomatic engagements that he would have to suffer through, no foes to deal with, no responsibilities he found boring. The day was his to do with as he pleased.

So why did the prospect of leaving his room seem so daunting, so pointless?

Something tugged at his mind, a nagging feeling that he was forgetting something. He looked over to the calendar on his wall, a simple one that Tataru insisted all of their rooms in the Rising Stones have.

Oh.

It was the anniversary….of the day the man he loved died.

Shite.

He’d forgotten. With everything that had been going on, he’d somehow let himself forget that the worst day of his life was approaching.

He’d forgotten him.

No you haven’t

He groaned and flopped back first onto his bed. I’m really not in the mood for this, Fray.

Too bad. Whether you like it or not, I am a part of you, here when you need me. Right now, you need me.

He rubbed his temples. Can you not just let me be sad and lonely in peace?

Not if you are going to lie to yourself, no.

I’m not lying to myself. I haven’t thought about him in moons what with everything going on. I’ve forgotten him. I almost forgot the anniversary of the day he died. I claim to have loved him, and this is how I’m honoring his memory. I deserve this misery and you damn well know it

Are you done?

Oh will you just fuck off. You told me you didn’t think we’d ever talk like this again and here you are. lying to me.

I told you I didn’t know. I didn’t. I certainly didn’t think you’d tell lies to yourself thinking you needed to be miserable. As if that’s what he would want. As if ‘not thinking about someone constantly’ is the same as forgetting them. What a lode of shite, really. I thought we were smarter than this. Clearly you still need me.

Dahkar scoffed What the hells do you know about what he would have wanted?

Do you really need me to answer that? Or should I say ‘need us’?

Dahkar screamed in frustration, covering his face with his hands to muffle the sound.

Feel better?

No, but since you seem to have all of the answers, what do you suggest I do?

You’re being petulant, and you know it. My suggestions are still you knowing exactly what to do. But if hearing me say it will help you realize it, then fine. Get up, get dressed, go to his grave, leave some of those lilies, and tell him how much we love him and miss him. And then move forward. We both know he’d be quite cross with the idea of you holding yourself back from real happiness because of what happened to him. So accept it and let yourself love again already.

He sighed. For being my inner darkness, you’re weirdly romantic.

Do I need to drag us back to the Sea of Clouds so you can hear the moogle’s song again, or are you going to accept that because I remember it, you certainly do?

No, Gods no. Fine I’m going. And I’ll….think about the rest

That’s what you’ve already been doing.

Shut it.

A few hours later, Dahkar knelt at Haurchefant’s grave. While he still carried Nothung on his back, he’d eschewed the dark plate armor he normally wore as a Dark Knight, instead donning the mail of a House Fortemps Knight that he’d worn the Grand Melee with the Eorzean Alliance. It felt like a fitting tribute to the man he was here to speak to, even if it was so light he almost felt naked.

“Hey, Haurche. If you’re watching,I reckon you’re probably yelling at me. I’m sorry for letting myself be miserable with sadness. I know you don’t want me to do that. You’d probably tell me something like ‘You have so much love to give, let yourself do so!’. And you’re right. So I’m gonna try my best. There’s actually this girl in the Scions, she-“

The loud CRACK of a flintlock discharging interrupted his words and his side exploded in pain. He screamed and went down.

“Well well well, boys. Look what we got here. Another bleedin’ heretic comin’ to pay respects to his heretic kin.”

The voice was young, male, angry, but strangely somewhat refined. He rolled over to look at his attackers, trying not to cry out at the pain the act caused him. A group of elezen youths, four boys and a single girl, all well dressed too. The leader held a flintlocke, still smoking, pointed at him. “What…” he coughed. “What the hells are you doing? This is no heretic’s grave!”

“Oh it isn’t? Oh, well my mistake then. I thought this was the grave of that bastard Haurchefant Greystone, who brought outsiders into Ishgard that up and utterly destroyed the very foundations our great nation was built on! Now we have another bastard as our leader who let fucking dragons into the city and let the fucking commoners have a voice equal with their betters!” the leader spat, lowering his gun. His cohorts nodded or shouted agreements,

“Ah, I see.” Dahkar spat blood onto the snow, trying to get to his knees so he could at least defend himself. The shot was well placed, though, and he was struggling to overcome the pain of it. “And what might you plan to do if it was?”

“Well first, we’re gonna gut you and spill your blood over this place. Then we’re gonna dig that bastard up, shatter whatever bones he’ s got left in there and spread em around so the beasts can have em, and whatever’s left of you. Then we’ll shatter that stone and toss it in Witchdrop where it belongs. How’s that sound to you, heretic? Don’t answer, we don’t care.”

The group all drew a series of blades, knives and daggers, and slowly advanced on him. Dahkar tried in vain to get to his feet, or at least his knees, any position where he could try to draw his sword and defend himself, but the strain was getting to be too much, and he nearly blacked out. A splitting headache overtook him as he tried to block out the noise in his mind.

Noise that he belatedly realized was a booming voice

GIVE ME CONTROL. LET ME IN, DAHKAR. I CAN END THIS, GIVE ME CONTROL

“WILL YOU SHUT UP, FRAY?” he screamed. He seized the darkness within himself and pushed it out, as if trying to excise the voice from his head.

Miraculously, it worked. The yelling stopped. He sensed a growing pool of darkness nearby. Opening his eyes, he looked over. A pool of dark aether had gathered next to him. From it rose a shadowy form of a hyur, glad in black and blue, gold-trimmed armor. On his back was a Deathbringer made of darkness. The Shadow looked to him with glowing red eyes

“Neat trick” it said in his own voice.

The youths had began to back away, screaming threats or oaths. He used that time to reach into the Armory and summoned his plate armor. With a flash of light, it appeared on him, the damaged mail gone. The cuirass clamped down on the would, reducing the blood loss.

The shadow offered him a hand, and he took it, getting back to his feet and drawing Nothung.

“Don’t kill them.” he said to it.

“Mercy? They’d have shown you none.”

“They’re angry and stupid. Everyone should get one chance to move beyond that”

The shadow, Fray, laughed. Or Dahkar did. It was impossible to tell, and in the end it didn’t matter.

Both lept at the elezen youths, who screamed in terror.

#Final Fantasy XIV #FFXIV 2021 Writing Challenge #Dahkar Darkspear #fray myste #or is it really?

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dragons-bones · 5 years ago

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5 Questions for Writers

Tagged by: @frostmantle (thank you!)

Tagging: @ishgard, @starsandauras, @twelveswood, @autumnslance, aaaaaaand YOU (because I cannot keep track of who’s done this or not XD)

1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

----

Cut for length!

1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?

I am, of course, obviously quite fond of snarky, quick-witted characters, and my OCs banter a lot. Dialogue is one of my favorite things to write, so chatty characters in general I find easier to approach. It’s fun slinging sass back and forth! (This tends to be why I focus a lot of Synnove and Rereha most often--they’re the snark queens of the Squad and the most likely to turn the sarcasm filter off and just go off on someone. Which further reminds me I need to have Thancred and Rereha trading jabs, too, at some point...)

I’ve also really been enjoying writing Aymeric specifically, even if it is intimidating to do so at times. I obviously headcanon him as ridiculously smitten with Synnove (the feeling, of course, is mutual), and finding the right balance of “deeply in love with a Warrior of Light” without it coming off as overly saccharine or out of character is a great mental exercise. Also of course I enjoy indulging my personal fantasy of having a handsome man be a badass, deeply in love with his lady, and perfectly delighted to kick ass beside his lady!

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

Food porn. My mother’s Italian, I grew up being taught to enjoy food, I love sharing my enjoyment of food. Plus it’s usually accompanying some happier moments, or domestic ones, and is basically a cue to the readers that the story is meant to be light and fun.

I have no idea what the proper trope name would be (and going to TV Tropes to asking to start a rabbit hole dive I shouldn’t begin), but as we all know, I love Shenanigans. I typically write them in reaction to how serious the setting is; I deeply enjoy stretching how far I insert some humor and levity without it becoming crack. I think it provides some fresh air; I enjoy angst and hurt/comfort and dark themes, but frequently it’s not something I prefer to write for myself.

I also enjoy found family, battle couples, magic-as-science... Anything that gives me an excuse to write character interactions and/or worldbuild. The great fun of fanfiction, particularly in a setting like FFXIV, is that we’ve got a bare bones foundation, with some areas more developed than others, but otherwise there is a ton of room to grow my own ideas. I personally like to work within lore, but it is hugely enjoyable for me to figure out how to get certain concepts to work with the lore rather than against it. (See: my approach to arcanima.)

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?

This obviously changes all the time, but there’s a couple I really love:

From Pearls of Wisdom:

It was one of the most basic principles of magic, not just arcanima: astral elements and umbral elements. It was such an accepted, unquestioned foundation that she had never even considered that the three elements most commonly used by arcanists for their carbuncles were not all the same primary polarity. Every element could manifest as either polarity, but Roksana Blackspark was correct, now that Synnove properly thought about it: wind, earth, and fire were much, much more likely to be found in a stable state. Even the Guild’s enormous aether batteries, all the way down in subbasement twelve, had been initially tricky to install until they found the right combination of overgrown elemental clusters, with most of the problems coming from the water, ice, and levin clusters.

Of course trying to infuse any sort of gem with those three elements specifically was going to fail, they were fucking overaspected to astral or umbral. The equations didn’t fucking work as they should because they were built to account for elements that naturally occurred in stable states, and so the infusions fizzled and the gemstones cracked and no carbuncles could manifest.

But.

But if she did account for instability, or, in fact, deliberately found crystals with which to infuse gems that were of opposite polarities so that the final infusion was stable…

A new thought made itself known, and Synnove stuffed the rest of her cake in her mouth, set the plate and fork aside, bookmarked her spot in the journal, and opened up the note taking program, yanking the stylus from the side of the case. As she chewed, she began scribbling in frantic shorthand. Perhaps in addition to ensuring stable aetheric polarity, she could also try infusion over time as well? Even when artificially infusing emeralds, topazes, and rubies, the stones still cracked every one time out of eight. Certainly, working with water, levin, and ice aether would benefit from a slower infusion speed, as it would allow her to keep a better eye on maintaining polar equilibrium, and if that issue was what was affecting the failures for wind, earth, and fire, then that would be two problems solved.

…Perhaps three, Synnove sucking in a deep breath and her heart pounding as she wrote. A proper balance of aetheric polarization combined with a slow enough infusion potentially meant that she could, theoretically, infuse any precious stone she desired, not just ones with a specific hardness and durability. Of course, the equations would need to be further adjusted to take into account the specific chemical properties of the specific gems and how they would need to interact with different elemental aether, but that, while difficult and tedious, was still doable.

Writing characters smarter than oneself is really difficult and intimidating, but I think I did a really good job showing Synnove’s thought process, and based on some of the feedback I’ve gotten, I succeeded! So I’m really, really proud of this passage.

From Suffer, Promise, Witness (FFXIV Write 2019 #19):

The ground shook, suddenly, and Synnove whipped her head around to the direction from which it originated, staring in shock. In the distance, an enormous red…key, for lack of a better term, pulsing with blue aetherlight, had struck the ground. The dust cloud kicked up rose immediately into the air and began obscuring it, and even from here she could see that the force of the strike had knocked down allies and foes alike around it.

Then a roar of sound—a deep, resonant thunder of triumphant, all-consuming rage—engulfed Carteneau, drawing every eye skyward, to see Dalamud’s outer shell, glowing with more of that sickly blue aetherlight, cracking open.

And Dalamud exploded.

The shockwave hit her first, throwing her and every other living being on the Plains still alive and standing to the ground with a force that punched the air from her lungs. The sound came next, shaking her bones and cracking the stone around her in an awful crescendo of combusting, howling aether. Her ears rang—or maybe it was just the screams of terror from every damned soul on the Carteneau killing fields all blending together.

The sky was aflame, and then the first of the pieces of Dalamud impacted the ground. Molten earth flew into the air, and then again from another impact, and another, and another, until the heavens and the earth were indistinguishable from how they both burned. Synnove desperately tried to sit up, feet scrambling to find purchase on the broken ground, as Galette and Tyr converged on her, eyes wide with fear as they tugged and pushed on her to get her upright.

Honestly I love this whole piece, but trying to describe what’s basically a trailer from another perspective (while also trying to portray the passage of time in an accurate manner) was difficult. I’d been dying to write the Synnove at Carteneau piece for a long time, and I just let myself write without worry. I think it came out pretty well! (Everyone screaming at me after the fact certainly boosted my confidence. :D)

From Assessments (FFXIV Write 2017 #25)

He did not attempt to step softly, as it was always a poor idea to sneak up on any warrior, never mind a Warrior of Light, but apparently Synnove was deeply enough engrossed in her text to not register his approach. Tyr, however, looked over as soon as he noticed the loud clacking of boot heels on stone floor coming closer to his mistress. He perked his ears up and came to meet Aymeric, shoving his face into the elezen’s hands.

“Maow!” the topaz carbuncle said, deep and echoing like a brass bell, only a little bone-rattling.

Aymeric laughed softly and obliging scratched behind his ears. Tyr thrummed happily, enjoying the attention for a few moments, before he disengaged and went back to Synnove. He braced himself on the rungs of the ladder and reached up with his paw to tap her foot, chirruping quietly.

“Hmm? Whazzit, honey?” Synnove said, voice distant and distracted. She did not look up as she turned the page.

Tyr sat back on his haunches and said, “Maow!”

Aymeric hadn’t the faintest idea of what Tyr had said, but Synnove most certainly did, as her head jerked up in surprise. (He winced sympathetically; when she had straightened, her spine had made an awful crack.) She frantically looked around until her gaze settled on Aymeric. She blinked rapidly, quite obviously not yet comprehending what she was seeing, until a smile finally bloomed across her features, her green eyes crinkling at the corners. “Well, fancy meeting you here,” she said, her cheerfulness tempered by the slight slur of exhaustion in her voice.

There were dark circles under her eyes, her hair was obviously unkempt up close, and her fingers were ever-so-slightly shaking from the particular combination of too much caffeine and not enough sleep, but Synnove Greywolfe was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Aymeric grinned up at her, not bothering to disguise how besotted he was with no witnesses about to see, and said, “What brings one of the celebrated Warriors of Light to Ishgard a bell before midnight?” He took a few steps closer to the ladder and held out his arms.

Synnove winced as she closed and shelved the book she had been reading. “Thal’s balls, that late?” She slid to the edge of the ladder’s seat, pushed off with her right hand and foot, and unceremoniously dropped into his grasp.

He tightened his hold on her as he caught her, drawing her close, and he dropped a kiss on each of her eyelids, relishing the giggles the action elicited from her. Another kiss on her nose, one to the beauty mark at the side of her chin, and then he finally kissed her properly. Synnove, in turn, languidly draped her arms around his shoulders and ran her fingers through the hairs on the nape of his neck, practically purring as she did. He hummed appreciatively against her lips, and they both ended up laughing into the kiss.

(Next to them, Tyr sighed, and rolled his eyes.)

Aymeric reluctantly drew away and set her on her feet, keeping Synnove steady as she wobbled and her spine cracked yet again. His beloved immediately leaned back into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and slouching so her cheek could rest over his heart. He smiled and returned the hug, resting his chin on her head. He closed his eyes and swayed with her gently, enjoying the familiar and much-missed comfort of her presence.

An older bit, but I love these two goobers, and I love writing them being physically affectionate and just basking in each other. Fucking cuties.

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?

FUCK I HAVE TO CHOOSE. Okay, let’s start with Pearls of Wisdom again:

Rereha threw open the doors to Aymeric’s office, shite-eating grin firmly plastered on her face as she skipped inside, and sang out, “Congratulations! It’s twins!”

Two things happened.

First, as soon as the doors opened, but before Rereha even opened her mouth, Lucia, she of finely honed Frumentarium instincts and years of friendship with a lalafell infamous across the realm for her Theatrics and Shenanigans, reached out and yanked the multitude of reports on the desk in front of Aymeric out of the way.

Second, Aymeric, who had been taking a sip of tea at the exact moment Rereha entered the office, choked and spat out said tea across his desk—and where all of the paperwork had once been not even a second before—in the most glorious spit take Rereha had ever engendered. A tiny part of her was saddened at the waste of perfectly good tea, but, wow, that had been spectacular. She gave herself a mental pat on the back and came to a stop in the middle of the office, grin widening to manic levels.

Lucia pounded Aymeric on the back between his shoulder blades as he coughed and sputtered, stopping only when the Lord Commander wheezed out, wide-eyed, voice high-pitched and halfway to a full-blown panic, “WHAT?!”

THREE YEARS THIS LIVED IN MY HEAD. THREE FUCKING YEARS I HAVE WANTED TO WRITE THIS STORY AND BEGIN IT WITH THAT LINE. THREE YEARS AND IT’S FINALLY OUT IN THE WORLD AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

From Needling (FFXIV Write 2019 #17):

Merlwyb drained her cup dry and poured herself a fresh serving (no whiskey this time, however). Grudgingly, she filled a second, and slid it over to Synnove, along with the bowl of maple sugar cubes and jar of cream. The arcanist doctored her tea as she preferred it—three lumps, generous dash of cream—and took a luxurious sip, humming in satisfaction.

“Why are you here?” the Admiral finally said, tea cup in hand and elbows braced on her desk. She wedged her feet a little firmer beneath Tyr.

“Mmmm, we had to bodily force Thubyrgeim to take a vacation,” said Synnove. She took another slow sip of tea. “Accounting realized she hadn’t taken a proper one in nigh on three years. So, we kicked her out of the Gate, with the caveat that she wasn’t to come back until next moon, and then we divvied up her usual responsibilities among the lot of us. I volunteered for the pleasure and delight of taking over our dear Guildmistress’s sennightly meetings with you.” Here the woman batted her eyelashes.

Merlwyb eyed her. “You have an ulterior motive,” she said, enunciating clearly for emphasis. “You always have an ulterior motive.”

“I enjoy the faces you make when you are confronted with the stark reality that every single one of your arcanists is capable of rewriting the laws of creation but are, simultaneously, godsdamned lunatics who should be taken out back and shot.”

“I should start with you.”

“Start with aetherochemistry; they just invented a new plague.” Synnove took the top folder from the pile and slid it across the desk to the Admiral.

“Of course they bloody did,” Merlwyb growled, opening the folder and skimming the abstract on the first page. Dear gods, did they really decide to mix malaria and consumption? Always so busy wondering if they could they never bothered to consider if they should. She plucked her reading glasses from their usual spot, sliding them on as she turned the page to the formal report, written in the aetherochemistry department chair’s tiny, cramped hand. Absently, she said, “And no, we are not testing it on the faculty of the University of Radz-at-Han.”

Synnove pouted. For the first time that afternoon, Merlwyb cracked a grin.

Merlwyb doesn’t get enough love, in my opinion, and of course I imagine she’s a salty bitch underneath the cool, commanding exterior. Couple that with Synnove probably letting loose the Full Sass (she would never behave such with Raubahn, Nanamo, or Kan-E, but she’s been an assessor for fifteen years, she knows exactly how far she can poke the Admiral and is well aware it’s tolerated only because she’s been an arcanist for so long) and the “out back and shot” line is my single favorite sentence from the whole of FFXIV Write 2019, and this is my favorite character exchange that’s I’ve done in a long time.

From Of Taunting and Tales (FFXIV Write 2019 #25)

Knock knock a-knock—knockknock! “Guess who~.”

A loud groan answered her. “Go away, you debauched scandalmonger!”

Rereha poked her head into one of the private rooms of the Rhalgr’s Reach infirmary, wicked grin firmly in place. “Now, now, Mr. Scaeva, is that any way to speak to the lady come to relieve your unending boredom?” she drawled.

The former tribunus laticlavius of the XIVth Imperial Legion raised his arm, hand up and middle finger extended, without lifting his head from his pillow.

Rereha cackled and stepped into the room, shutting the door behind her. A disgusted sigh came from Nero’s direction, and he flopped his arm back down on the mattress with a characteristically overdramatic wave of his hand. She grabbed a chair sitting by the wall and dragged it behind her as she waltzed towards Nero’s bed, the wood shrieking angrily against the stone of the floor, and whistled a cheery little ditty deliberately out of tune. She could see his jaw clenched in annoyance as she set the chair up near the head of the bed and cackled again as she hopped up into it. She placed the book she had been carrying on her lap and folded her hands primly on top of it, beaming.

“How are we feeling today?” she chirped.

“Like I’ve been run over by a flock of rabid chocobos.” Nero stubbornly refused to open his eyes, instead folding his hands on his stomach in unknowing mirror of her. “And then sat upon by a buffalo.”

“That’s an improvement! Last time you said you felt like you’d been chewed and spat out by an enraged king behemoth!”

“Rereha,” he sighed, still not opening his eyes. “Why are you here? Garlond and Greywolfe are infinitely more stimulating conversationalists, for all their damned sanctimonious self-important morals and ethics.” He spat out the last word like it was a particularly loathsome curse.

“I’m hurt, Nero,” said Rereha, placing her hand on her heart. She pitched her voice to express layers of emotion: disappointment, regret, sadness. “Genuinely hurt. A friend of mine has been grievously wounded in the course of his attempts to safeguard not just Eorzea, but Hydaelyn as a whole from an interdimensional entity of vast and unfathomable power. I come in my spare time to bring some light and laughter to his dreary hospital room as he heals, and he insults me and wishes for the company of others.”

A long silence descended over them both. Finally, Nero arched one golden eyebrow and cracked an eye open to stare at her incredulously.

Rereha pursed her lips together and said pensively, “Laid it on a bit too thick, didn’t I?”

He raised his hand and held his forefinger and thumb a quarter of an ilm apart.

“Damn,” Rereha said, crossing her arms. “Ah, well.”

Rereha basically exists to let me write Sass and Irreverent Humor. Nero is full of Salt and Sass. Together they could flay someone with words alone. I also really enjoyed writing Nero being a sassmaster without using words. Wordless dialogue is fun!! :D

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

One day I’m gonna get over my hesitation about writing (and sharing) smut and fucking write the first time Synnove and Aymeric had sex. I know exactly when and where and how.

...Also Synnove getting ravished in one of the Neo-Ishgardian dresses. That’s, like, second on the list. Ooohh, and the Vacation Fic; maybe I should write that one as scenes and worry about connecting them after the fact. I think because that one will require chapters and I’m more of a one-shot person is a reason I have yet to start it.

#meme stuff #writing #dt's writing

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squirtle-bro · 6 years ago

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Gen 7 Review

I played Sun, Moon, and Ultra Moon and thoroughly enjoyed them my first time through. Though, as I've replayed them, I've found they do move a little slow and are more tutorial-geared than I'd like. It's great to give new players the tools they need to succeed, but it's really tedious when you just want to start a new playthrough and GO. I liked the new pokemon, but looking back there weren't that many I grew a huge attachment to. There's very few I don't like, but the vast majority I'm just neutral towards, and that's not fun. Like, Rockruff is super cute and Lycanrc is really cool and I love the split evolution similar to espeon/umbreon, but I never bothered to try them because Rockruff is hidden behind a Rock Smash wall and you don't find Lycanroc in the wild till late game, plus why bother with generic new rock types when I already have an attachment to Gigalith or I could use one of the dual-type fossils instead? There were just so many great returning Pokemon, I never felt much of a draw to seek out the new ones except for a moral obligation to give some of them a shot. What about the regional forms? Absolutely great additions. Super fun typing changes, great connection to regional lore, and of course it set a precedent for more regional variants into the future. Granted, none of the alolan variants interested me because most were Pokemon that I didn't care a whole lot about the originals so I didn't have that nostalgia drawing me to their new forms. I ended up using Alolan Ninetales on my team and she was fantastic, so I know the variants were great Pokemon. The selection of Pokemon just wasn't for me this time around. But I'm so excited for the potential of one of my favs getting a revamp, especially since Galarian Zigzagoon shows it won't be only Kanto. The storyline worked fine for me. The Aether Foundation rubbed me the wrong way the whole game, but their twists as a group and as family connections still surprised me and it was a great ride. Team Skull was a delightful return to small-scale villains like Team Rocket, while still posing as a decent threat, though comically impotent. I loved experiencing a region at the dawn of its Pokemon League and really seeing all the connections between side characters across the islands. But when it came to all the Ultra Space stuff, I lost interest. It was just too sci-fi for me, but I thought it was still executed well. I liked the Nihilego superboss and ultra Necrozma, but they just felt like average big bosses and I didn't think much more of them afterward. But back to the Ultra Beasts. They worked well and I liked the otherworldly designs, but I wanted more out of them story-wise. They were mostly post-game legendaries and had no in-game lore. Just powerful Pokemon because the team you trained from pups isn't good enough. Many of the ultra beasts look very similar to main characters; I wanted something to happen because of that. Whether it's body snatchers or Lillie is actually a Nihilego, I just wanted more significance from the uncanny resemblances. All in all great game, great animation, and great connection to a variety of side characters! There was definitely a surplus of dialogue but I still enjoy myself. It was a refreshing switch-up from the usual Pokemon formula and I really like the games.

#pokemon #gen 7 #alola region #sumo #usum #mine #review

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zrbillings · 5 years ago

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Pokemon Sword & Shield - Review

So it’s been a long time since I’ve reviewed anything (years in fact) and since video reviews take such an exorbitant amount of time and COPPA has made Youtube this very scary place right now; I figured why not do what I know and write a review.

So with that out of the way, let's talk about Pokemon Sword & Shield. These games appear to be super devicieve you’re either in #gamefreaklied #bringbackthenationaldex camp or you’re a ‘defender’. I find that I have a bit of a unique perspective on the game so I wanted to share my thoughts. I’ve just completed Pokemon Sword, and just so you out there in internet land know my qualifications because to Pokemon fans that seems they only real way to justify having a different opinion.

I was born in ‘91

Pokemon Blue was my literal first GB game.

If point 2 wasn’t enough I collected everything Pokemon and grew up watching the show, often playing the games while I did.

I’ve completed the National Dex

I’ve completed the Kanto Dex like 3x over.

And I’ve played various other spin-off games i.e. Colosseum, Stadium, Gale of Darkness, Trozie? Trozae?

And if you couldn’t put it together I’ve played through nearly every mainline game the only exceptions being. Alpha Sapphire, Diamond, Fire Red, Let’s Go Pikachu, Sun, Ultra Moon. Basically at some point if I owned one version that’s all I needed.

Okay! So with all that out of the way, let’s talk about these games. Plain and simple if you just want to know if it is actually bad, no it’s not, it’s good, one could argue great, I wouldn’t, but you could. If you like Pokemon, get over the National Dex and “It ShOuLD LoOk BEtTeR” and play it, it’s fun it’s Pokemon with some new gimmicks. 3 out of 5 I guess if you want to be critical. Okay so for the rest of you, the ones who are more critical and want to know what SUCKS, and what ROCKS. Keep in mind going forward I’m not addressing the whole stupid delemma of cut Pokemon or graphics, at least not in depth, you want to talk that crap just @ me I’ve got the time. So graphically it is undoubtedly the best looking in the series you literally cannot argue that, should it look better? Well, I don’t know, I think to expect it to makes you look stupid no matter what reasoning you want to bring to the table. Pokemon has literally NEVER shown interest in pushing graphics, they’ve almost never made massive leaps forward, the amount of times they have can be counted on one had, so to have expected more that’s on you, not them. I find them to be gorgeous, yeah there’s things here and there that could be better, but if you go looking for a problem in anything you’ll find it, you could find ugly stuff in Skyrim too, or even Final Fantasy 15. Characters are definitely more expressive than they’ve ever been, the towns are stunning and I feel unlike some of the more recent games definitely come off as more memorable even if you can’t name them, you can instantly picture them. Animations, while I totally agree should be better, shouldn’t have been expected to be more than they are, again this is Gamefreak they literally improve at a snail’s pace justified or not. That being said, while Pokemon aren’t particularly animated in battle, the game overall is the most animated in the series, and here’s why. Again characters are far more expressive, and are constantly moving even in battles when a Pokemon attacks the trainer makes an action, you have overworld Pokemon, you have each and every Pokemon able to do a handful of different animations in Pokemon Camp. You have the world itself that is filled with movement i.e. NPCs, scenery here and there, a good example being the town Ballonlea the Fairy-Type gym location in case the name doesn’t sound familiar. So yes while the animations aren’t particularly impressive, I would say they’re still the best in the series AS A WHOLE (can’t believe I need to specify that). The big draw of this game is the open are called The Wild, this is sort of what people who hate these games wanted an entire game to be like, but better. And I think while they could be bigger, they feel the right size in correlation to the size of the rest of the map, there’s plenty to explore and it is genuinely fun to roam around in especially online. That being said, the game definitely (at least for me) chugs a bit while online, but I wouldn’t say it ruined the experience at all for me. It was so cool to see other players setting up camps and running around, I will say however that while these things are cool, they could have been developed further. You can’t interact with these players if you engage with one they just give you a stock response and then hand you some sort of cooking item, which okay getting cooking items this way fantastic! But why not let trainers customize their greetings? A little especially while in camps? There’s just more they could have done here, I can understand not wanting to create a system where interacting with someone dead stops them in place in order to trade or whatever, that could get really annoying. But I find, there’s not enough here that really push this feeling of a shared space, like why not have brought back Secret Bases again? And had your friend’s bases show up that way if you did want to hang out and chat (through the terrible Nintendo App, or whatever superior option) you could! Like can you imagine? Instead of just having to camp outside and hang out with friends having like your own space to hang out, battle, trade. You could have made this space like an area where if you interact with a trainer a menu for those sort of things could be triggered. The Wilds overall are fun and they’re cool to explore for new Pokemon, I just feel they could have been experimented a little more with. I won’t prattle on any further, but just saying I’d love to see Gamefreak take this and push it harder next game. As an ending note I do fine the placement of The Wilds fine, at first it looks odd, but once you start playing given it’s function it makes sense, I think if the whole game were The Wilds like some people desperately want, you’d run into a lot more problems, with things like trainer placement, and how to limit progression, not saying it can’t be done, just that we’re a ways off from anything like that happening yet. I will say this though (sorry last thing I swear) I DO NOT like how the progression system of The Wilds works, the moment you enter it you can explore 90% of it, which fine, EXCEPT! The problem becomes that while you can explore nearly every nook and cranny of it you can only catch Pokemon in designated areas because if a Pokemon is over a certain level and you don’t have enough badges you just straight up can’t catch it. Which okay I can understand, but then I SHOULDN’T EVEN BE ALLOWED THERE! For example (and why I’m bringing this up) there is an area where you must cross a bridge to get into the next section of the lands, cool I think this is great it visually queues us, “hey this is a different section so logically the Pokemon will be stronger here.” The problem! Is while we in theory can piece this together literally nothing stops us from crossing, the reason this bothers me is because on the literal otherside of the bridge is I SHIT YOU NOT a MF Snorlax! Just chillin, doesn’t wander just stands there, while okay this is a great reference to other games. WHY WOULD YOU NOT! Just put him sleeping on the bridge like in every other game in this scenario, it bars the pass and players don’t waste their time exploring an area before they can get the most out of it. Plus! This game rewards you special Acorn Balls at each Gym, if you don’t know what these are they were in Gold and Silver they’re special Pokeballs that in this game are one of a kind that have awesome effects, the one I want to reference specifically here is the Heavy Ball which works better the heavier a Pokemon is i.e. “this ball was invented for catching Snorlax.” So it baffles me how Gamefreak didn’t do something like the last Gym before you’re able to wake up Snorlax and pass the bridge allows you to get a Heavy Ball thusly not only letting you finally progress into this new area, but also gives you an item as a sort of reward. Wow, sorry moving on. I find where this game really misses the mark is the story and the characters, outside Hop (who is insufferable early on) are really bland and sort of lackluster. I feel like this is a bigger thing to be upset about than animations and Pokemon count. Hop is one of the only rivals to truly go through a character arch which is amazing! He goes from this arrogant, insufferable, condescending, ass, to someone who just wants to be the best, but doesn’t act like he already is, he knows where he’s at and strives to be more. This huge development really, really shows how poor the rest of the cast is, the professor this time is boring, not even a professor really at least not like were used to. The champion is fine, but lacks any real charisma like the game wants you to believe he has. The other rival Bede is...under utilized? Like he comes around and it’s like, “finally! Gary Oak 2.0!” and he just sort of disappears about half way through the game and then pops up at the end. I’m not going to go through the whole cast, but everyone is more or less this same sort of doesn’t bring much to the table. As dumb as Team Yell are I actually like that they’re not the evil baddies of the game, they’re not even Team Skull level, they’re just kind of a bit of inconsiderate fanboys, they work well as a level progression block? System? Their use for impeding your progress until you’ve done the right thing works well is what I’m saying. The big thing with this game is it really lacks an evil team, it’s like The Aether Foundation all over again, except infinitely worse, while The Aether Foundation sort of slowly unravels at some point, the ‘evil team’ or in this case just two baddies, kind of feels like it comes completely out of left field and only happens because Gamefreak wanted a cool way to introduce the legendaries. It just felt super random and unsatisfying and that the motivations really didn’t make sense and happens right in the middle of the Pokemon League so it kills all momentum, and any tension the league did have. Which is another thing the league is shit, it’s bad, the idea is really good, it’s inspired by the show it feels like a proper tournament, but since you can heal and swap out Pokemon between each match there is 0 tension, and since the story just decides to interrupt it, it just doesn’t feel satisfying. Beating the champion doesn’t feel like an accomplishment because you’ve already beaten the big baddie just before him, and all the other trainers before him in two different sessions, it doesn’t feel like you went through this gauntlet of really tough trainers to reach him and prove yourself, it feels like no matter what you were always going to beat him, the game did literally everything it could to make sure you beat him! I felt fucking bad beating him, because it was so easy, I literally gave him a handicap, I used 0 healing items and beat him with two Pokemon to spare and that was also because I gave him another handicap where I didn’t switch out once I threw out a Pokemon! Gyms are back, but they kind of feel like they belong in Sun and Moon because you have to do ‘missions’ before each one before you face the leader which is fine, but I personally could have done without them, for the most part they're just glorified obstacle courses. I guess they feel like the same old stuff, but I think it’s the nature in which they’re handled that actually bother me and less of having to do them myself. I think in a way given how this Pokemon League is set up it would have made more sense to just completely do away with them, maybe put something else there in its place. The gym leaders are all really colorful and actually really well designed, they all have their own very defined personalities which is cool, It would have been cool to have actually seen more of them somehow. The last thing I’ll talk about as this review is already overly long is Dynamaxing. It’s fine, I will say that if it were up to me I would have changed how it’s handled, I think the raid battles are great, they’re really fun they make grinding for levels a fucking joke and I love it, it helps you find really cool Pokemon and strong Pokemon for your team it makes Online feel like there are actually other trainers out there in the world taking on this gym challenge besides just you, it’s cool, but I feel outside of the raids there really pointless. Each Gym Leader uses it always with their last Pokemon, and it never feels like it matters so long as you Dynamax yours at the same time and have type advantage it’ll feel like KO-ing any other old Pokemon except it’s big af.If it were me I would have changed it to Mega Evolutions, because they actually feel like they matter and then they could have introduced new megas and I’ll do you one even better! What about when after you beat the Gym leader they gave you the same kind of mega stone that they used! Maybe in place of TMs, or in conjunction with them rather than them giving you Gym uniforms you’re never going to wear. That’s more short and sweet two cents on the Dynamax system, it’s great for raids pointless for everything else. Kind of like the clothing in this game, and that’s all I’ll say about the clothing that and I think the uniform thing was dumb and should have only been used for the Pokemon League rather than every single Gym battle. And that’s it! That’s my very thorough review of Pokemon Sword & Shield. Like I said at the beginning, these games are fun no doubt, but they definitely aren’t even in the top 5. I think there’s a lot of wasted potential or cooler directions they could have taken these. There are definitely cool things like the different gyms for the two versions, The Wilds are fun to hang out in and run around, the new Pokemon are actually really cool, I love that they added more regional variants and not just for Kanto Pokemon, the towns are very visually memorable. But outside that, I’m kind of hard-pressed to think of much else, I can’t speak on the post-game either, but it doesn’t seem like there’s any if at all. This game simultaneously feels like the largest Pokemon game to date as well as one of the smallest.

#pokemon #bring back the national dex #gamefreaklied #pokemon sword and shield #review

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mellowfilmmaker · 8 years ago

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30 Best Mellow Frames (Part 3)

30-21

20-11

Sorry for the delay, here are the top ten Mellow Frames:

10. Steven Universe Characters React to Edgy Theories 3:

Remember the Steven Universe Edgy Theory Generator? It was an online generator that came up with absurd theories for Steven Universe. It was popular with the fandom awhile ago. I made three comics that were about if these theories were true. These comics were fun to make because I didn't have to waste time on set up or anything like that, I could get to the jokes quicker. The most popular seems to be the third one. The joke at end seems to be the popular favorite, which surprised me because I was very unsure about making the joke. However people did find it funny so I guess it did work. Raven Molisee, a writer and story boarder for Steven Universe, liked this post so I guess this is Crewniverse approved. Neat.

9. Just a Few Questions:

This is easily my most popular Mellow Frames as well as the most controversial. I do admit that I do have a few questions that could've been reworded ( "Where are my Limb Enhancers" should be " Am I ever going to get my limb enhancers back", " Did Rose have any humans before Greg" should be " Who were the humans that Rose had before Greg and what happened to them") Also there were some questions I should have asked like " Will Greg ever move on", " what did Peridot 'mean by Harvest me'", “Who owns the Big Donut”, and " where are the cops in Beach City?".

With that said I do think some of the complaints are funny. I literally said it was a metaphor, but so many people took it literally. I've seen a few post complaining about this comic specifically saying this is how ridiculous SU Crits are. That makes me a little proud. Many believe that this comic is anti filler, but really my intention was to point out that there is a lot of possibilities for interesting stories, but season 4 wasn't taking advantage of that. Though not all the questions were like that.

Honestly most of the people did like this comic and I'm proud of it. It's just not higher because I prefer the ones where I am telling more of a story.

8. Fuse, Marry, Kill:

Here's an oldie, but a goodie. It's just about the gems playing fuse, marry, kill (though in hindsight it should have been fuse, marry, shatter or fuse, marry, bubble), but Pearl is giving eyebrow raising answers. This is pretty much the birth of the character we call Problematic Pearl. Problematic Pearl is pretty much Pearl, but is blatantly unapologetic and her flaws have been ramped up. This comic did become a slight meme as I've seen people on Tumblr and Reddit reference it. I believe this one is all right.

7. Problematic Pearl: Pokémon Go:

For those who don't know, I have a secondary account called Ask Problematic Pearl. It's an account where I have people ask questions towards Problematic Pearl, which is the Mellow Frames version of Pearl. This is easily my most popular post on that account and I understand why. I feel like this one isn't cheating to put on here since it's done in a Mellow Frames sort of format. The ask I got for this came months before I answered. I waited so long to finally make this comic because I wanted to play the game for awhile so I can get the references right. I feel like it paid off. Also this is the only Pokémon Go meme I found that isn't either condescending to players or about team stereotypes.

6. Are You the People I’m Suppose to Kidnap:

I'm a little surprised that this one is as popular as it is, I guess people like Garnet drawing boobs. In hindsight it is pretty funny and the boobs did look better than I expected (I can't draw, but I know how to use Illustrator). Here's a fun fact about what seems to be everyone favorite line "I hope not", It was originally going to be said by Lars. I was thinking about doing a Mellow Frames on the Good Lars, where Sadie and Steven decide to get baked instead of helping Lars bake. While they're high in the basement, Aquamarine and Topaz come in and kidnap Lars. Aquamarine asked Lars " Are you my dad?" to which Lars replied with " I hope not." I ended up scrapping the idea because of time restraint ( and it not being that funny) so I gave the line to Connie. In hindsight, having Connie say it is a lot funnier.

5. The Lust Boat:

Well this one certainly has an erotic title, though it still accurately describes this comic. Not only is Jasper thirsty, but we have an added subplot about Pearl sailing out to hit on Jasper. I had quite a few people tell me that they hated this episode, but this comic made them feel a lot better. That makes feel a lot better.

4. Aether Foundation is Suspicious as Fuck:

I can't believe how right this comic was. Not only was I right, the game didn't even hide it. For a while this was actually the Mellow Frames with the most views, which is surprising because usually only the SU stuff gets notes (aside: I really need to start making Pokémon comics again since Ultra Sun/Moon are coming out). There was even a well-made dub of this comic made by Ravens Dub. They did a pretty good job on it.

3. Miss Problematic Pearl:

Mr. Greg was for me the episode that saved Pearl's character, however that's not very funny. What is funny is to put Problematic Pearl in the episode. So this comic is pretty much the episode except with Problematic Pearl and no musical numbers. This is probably one of the few Mellow Frames where I was laughing while making it.

2. Do You Mind, I’m Full of Education:

My best comics happen to be the ones on the episodes I like (people would think it would be the other way around). Mindful Education is one of my favorite episodes so Do You Mind I'm Full of Education is one of my favorite Mellow Frames. Despite the episode being so good, I still have a lot material especially with bitter misused Garnet. It seems people's favorite part is when Garnet asked Stevonnie the uncomfortable question. I was very worried about that moment since Garnet used an arguably offensive (some people told me the word wasn't as much offensive as it was archaic. With that said, I never use the word unless in relation to a famous trope), but nobody got offended. Fun fact: that scene has also inspired an original film that I'm currently writing. This one is just one I love reading and I hope you do too.

1. Peridot’s Hidden Escape Pods:

And here’s #1, it was #1 the last list and it’s #1 her too. This one asks an important question, what if Peridot planted escape pods throughout the ship. It really doesn’t work out. People love seeing villains fail, and it’s usually funny to see it done by their own volition. What makes this comic the best one is that it works even if you haven’t seen what it’s parodying. I showed this comic to my little sister who hasn’t even seen Steven Universe, and she laughed hard. I also liked the interactions between Japer and Peridot, which wasn’t really that different from the show. Until “Aether Foundation is Suspicious as Fuck” and “Just a Few Questions” this was the Mellow Frames with the most notes, and it really deserves it. Like the Aether Foundation comic this too has a dub that you should check out (I’m linking to my reblog because the dubber deactivated their account). Honestly this one is still the funniest in my opinion.

And that was my top 30 Mellow Frames. I would like to thank you all for following my Mellow Frames and supporting them too. Making these have been a lot of fun despite the lack of financial returns. Now I’m going to tell you all a little secret. So many people have asked me to do an abridged series of these frames, and I’ve usually said no. Now I’m going to tell you that I actually really want to, and I probably will eventually. Right now I’m trying to get financially independent, but after I accomplish that I’m thinking about making the SU comics into videos. I just need to learn how to edit an abridge series (though it’s not exactly an abridge series) and get voice actors since I can’t voice act (though I know a few people would be perfect voices). So it probably won’t happen this year, but eventually I would like these Mellow Frames to not just be comics anymore.

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sweetsweetnathan · 6 years ago

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Robyn and Evadaro, Chapter Four

[If you’re not caught up...]

Chapter Four: A Breath of Freedom

Evadaro's heart flew. It didn't occur to him until that moment that he had grown numb to his circumstances since he left Limsa Meada. The depth of the temple's offense only just then occurred to him. They were not simply depriving him of his freedom; the storm had done that. They were also taking away his ability to support his family. "I have to escape," Evadaro thought, "every moment I spend in this vile place is time I could dedicate to my brother, my sister, my mother... But most of all my father. What sorrow would visit my father if he found I died here?"

And so without even thinking of it Evadaro had taken steps to escape. The question was: Were these wise steps? Was it instinct that had him ask for help from one of the first people he served that night, or foolishness?

In either case Evadaro's gamble paid off. Or at least it didn't immediately bite him in the ass. Robyn hadn't done anything for him yet. "Help me how?" Evadaro asked.

Robyn took on a serious look as he said, "Simple. We go to the proper authorities." Robyn would like it to be that simple. He wanted to do the right thing by the situation he found himself in, and would've liked it to be a simple matter. But somewhere in his heart he felt foolish for thinking that it could be that easy.

Evadaro almost laughed. "Robyn, how did you get in here? Were you invited? Was the building hard to find?"

Robyn said, "No."

"Then it's likely that the proper authorities already know about this place, isn't it? They know about it and they don’t care."

Robyn bit his tongue. "It does seem likely." He did indeed feel foolish. He racked his brain for another plan... "Alright, obviously no one is leaving through the front entrance," he said, "but did they bring you in through the back door? Whether they've paid the authorities off or not I doubt they want to be unloading slaves in the middle of the street."

Evadaro nodded, "They smuggled us into an alleyway, I could tell because it was quieter. Then they led us underground."

"So they have a cellar door in the back?"

"Yeah," Evadaro leaned in, his eyes shifting about the room. There was still merriment, singing, and noise. No one had yet noticed the pair conspiring to leave. "But it's a straight shot from here to the back door. There's a dressing room behind the stage. There's a passageway beyond that leads to our rooms. And on the other side of the rooms is the alley."

Robyn winced, "A straight shot means that it'd be easy to get cut off and caught." His head lowered and he began thinking again. When he raised it again he saw fear in Evadaro's eyes. "Don't worry," Robyn said, "I'm not giving up just because it's hard. They definitely have people covering the way out the back, and if there's no sneaking around them then we just need to get them away from the back door. Listen, do you have anyone that could help you? Someone that could serve as a diversion?"

D'aria's eyes were wide. Evadaro was waiting for her in the dancers' lounge behind the wine cellar. A young Hyur man with a heart tattoo on his cheek was with him. The room was long, with painted purple walls and red-burning torches adorning the walls. The furious light illuminated eight gauche, golden vanity mirrors that looked like they were pulled from a dumpster. Several dancers were dressing themselves for their performance, while others were becoming acquainted with men on a pair of couches near the back of the room. Occasionally one of the dancers would stand, the man's hand in hers, and lead him behind a silk curtain at the furthest wall. D'aria deduced that it was under this pretense that Evadaro had made his way down here with the Hyur.

"Evening, D'aria. You look absolutely beautiful tonight." Evadaro said.

"Evening, gentlemen," she said, her eyes still involuntarily showing signs of her inner panic, "have you had your fill of drinks yet? Because I would love a drink."

Robyn would have noticed D'aria's fear if he weren't completely overwhelmed by the environment he found himself in. He had never been in the presence of women in such states of undress; for a young man, the experience of simply being the presence of unclothed beauty can be akin to coming to the summit of a great mountain.

Evadaro could tell his new friend was incapable of speech. He patted Robyn on the back, "For this one, yes. Let's talk for a bit, shall we?"

They maneuvered to the couches. D'aria's eyes scrambled over the space to get an idea of how she was supposed to act. She saw a Hyur dancer, topless, chatting with a man in business clothes. The woman had put up her feet so that her legs fell across the man's lap. D'aria envied her; she wanted to look as confident and in-control as this woman. D'aria did not see herself as a slave as Robyn and Evadaro did. From her perspective, her tribe leader had not remorselessly traded her away, but dedicated her life to service of the tribe. She was far from home and being asked to do uncomfortable things with her body-- but she asked herself, was it so different from being sent to work in a mine? Would she not dedicate herself to the tribe's interests, whether she was allowed to leave or not?

Yet at the same time she believed this, she was still aware that her situation was not entirely in her control. So she asserted control by trying to be as strong and confident as she could be. She studied her dances rigorously, she dieted, and she smiled when she didn't feel like smiling. D'aria had no intention of being anything less than the best at what she did, no matter her circumstances. Now came her greatest obstacle, the task she feared would come, but was obligated to do as part of her duties to the temple: Sleeping with strange men.

D'aria poured Robyn a glass of wine then did the same as the other dancer, stretching herself out over Evadaro. Evadaro welcomed her, resting her arm on her thigh and leaning back into the couch. Robyn drank the wine, trying to remember how to breathe.

"D'aria, this is Robyn. He'd like to help us."

D'aria, still under the impression that Robyn and Evadaro were there to have sex with her, raised her eyebrows, "Oh?" With a shaky hand she poured her own glass of wine. She smiled and said, "Could you be more descriptive? I haven't been doing this long."

"There's a back entrance," Robyn blurted, every word seeming to take all his focus, "we're going to try getting out through there."

"Getting...out?" D'aria started gulping wine down.

"Yes," Evadaro said, "we're going to escape from the temple."

D'aria gasped, inhaling half a glass of wine, then immediately spat it back up all over Evadaro's chest. All the other dancers on the couches paused to look over and giggle at D'aria. The hyur woman said with a chuckle, "That's the first time I've ever seen the girl do that to the guy back here." That comment was apparently exceedingly clever, because the whole couch excluding Robyn and Evadaro began to laugh as D'aria continued to try and clear her throat.

Once D'aria was able to draw breath again the couch silenced, awaiting her reply to the Hyur dancer. D'aria knew what was going on. She was new. The group wanted to gauge if she would be defiant or submissive. To this, D'aria stood. She took Evadaro's hand in one hand and Robyn's hand in the other, then strutted off to the rooms beyond the curtain with both of them. Everyone on the couches, even the Hyur woman, cheered her on.

Beyond the curtain was the bedchambers of the servers and dancers. D'aria led Robyn and Evadaro past door after door of the marble-floored hallway, eventually reaching a staircase that led them down to the makeshift wooden hallways below the temple. Behind every door were the charged sounds of moaning, banging, some screaming, and once crying. Evadaro cringed to think of how long the temple had stood. He imagined what his life might be like were he a beautiful young woman, taken from her home and locked in a marble prison, being prayed upon in the dark every day until the fiery defiance of youth withered away, and all that remained was the numbness of submission. "Yes," Evadaro hissed to himself, "I will escape today. And someday, hopefully soon, I will return here and rip this temple from its very foundations."

As Robyn predicted there were guards: two at every stairway, and another two at the mid-way point of every hallway. He spotted the back door when they passed it on the first floor. Now the trick was getting back up to it without getting caught.

D'aria brought Robyn and Evadaro to a vacant room and locked the door behind them. She went to light a candle by tinder, but her hands shook too much to properly strike it. By now Robyn had calmed down. Wine was in his veins and he was focused on his goal: Free as many people as he could from the temple's grasp. He set his empty cup on a table beside the bed and said, "D'aria, was it?" Robyn approached her and set his hand on the candle. There was a flicker of aetheric energy, and the candle was lit. D'aria took a step back and sat on the bed. Robyn could tell she was threatened. He smiled and get down on one knee so that he was lower than her, then looked her in the eye and cooed, "No need to be afraid young lady. I have no intention of--"

"You want to escape, do you Evadaro?" D'aria ignored Robyn for his Mi'qote friend. Evadaro crossed his arms and leaned against the door.

"Yes."

"Why?" D'aria threw the question right at Evadaro's face.

He caught it and responded, "It isn't right for this place to keep people here."

D'aria said back, "Why not? The people here are being fed. Clothed. Sheltered. Do you really think they'll have a better life out there?" D'aria motioned to the ceiling. "Out there, how many of these people would be exploited? Paid too little to afford food, or lodging? Working here might actually guarantee a standard of living."

Evadaro's face was blank. He was frustrated that D'aria would even try to defend slavery, and at the same time baffled that he couldn't think of anything to say back.

Robyn stood and spoke up, "What is this if not exploitation?"

D'aria turned to him and said, "I am given everything I need to survive so long as I do the work assigned to me. How is that more exploitative than someone paying me too little for too much work?"

Robyn's response was immediate, and his tone measured: "And if they ask you to do something you don't want to do? If they ask you to dance longer, eat less, fuck more? What happens when you can't?"

"It's the same out on the streets!" D'aria said, "If I can't work more, they stop paying me!"

"If you can't do the work they ask you to," Robyn said, "in the real world, you can find another job. Or you can do less work for less pay. Or you can find other ways to make yourself valuable. But in this world, what happens?"

D'aria went about mentally accounting for the possibility. It wasn't hard for her to picture the situation Robyn described: Being asked to sleep with someone who was cruel, or possessive, or in any way evil. D'aria's eyes showed fear. She knew the price of defiance. "If I can't do it, they stop feeding me..."

"Indeed. No finding another job. No working less. No other ways to make yourself valuable." Robyn knelt again, trying to meet her gaze as her eyes turned down to the floor, "if you stay here, you will die here."

"There will be con-consequences," D'aria stammered, "for my tribe. If I leave, who knows what will happen to them?"

"There has got to be a better way to help your tribe than this." Evadaro interjected. He was suddenly very glad he met Robyn. He had expected Robyn to help him escape-- he didn't count on Robyn helping him denounce slavery. He didn't imagine that was necessary. But it was, and he counted himself lucky that Robyn was there to do it.

"I imagine your tribe resides somewhere in Thanalan." Robyn said, "Please, D'aria. Do not die so far from home."

Robyn could feel some small part of him tremble in fear. He was afraid before, when Evadaro first asked him for help, but he had bitten his tongue and offered assistance nonetheless. For a while he was able to keep biting his tongue, but now that he had calmed down he was back to normal: Afraid and uncertain about what would happen next. He told D'aria not to die so far from home. He didn't want to die either.

He spoke to try and smother the tension in his body before it could take control of him. He said, "Originally the plan was to utilize you as a distraction, D'aria. But I don't think that's an option. We can't use you without leaving you here, and we will not leave you here."

Evadaro nodded, "Alright. So what's the plan then? We still need to get rid of the guards near the back door."

"Indeed," Robyn said, "that's why I will serve as a distraction. I can just walk out the front door whenever I want. If I can create a distraction without getting caught, then you two can escape through the back door while I leave through the front."

"We'll be separated," Evadaro pointed out, "how will we know if your distraction even worked?"

Robyn lifted his hand and produced a puff of flame, "I'm going to set their wine cellar on fire. They will respond in one of two ways: Either they evacuate the lower levels, or they don't. If they evacuate the lower levels then you'll be taken out of here and you can escape in the chaos. If they don't, then that means they're diverting all their manpower to putting out the fire before it spreads to the lower levels. In that case the halls will be empty of guards and you can run for the exit."

D'aria raised her hand, "So there's a possibility in this plan that the fire actually does spread to the lower levels then? The lower levels which are made completely out of wood, and are therefore rather flammable?"

Evadaro reeled from this information; he hadn't thought about it, but if the fire did get out of control then they would be trapped. "Yeah Robyn, I don't know if I like taking that chance."

Robyn lifted his other hand and formed an ice crystal on his fingertip. He said, "No worries. I'm using my thaumaturgy to start the fire, I can use my thaumaturgy to extinguish it if it comes to that." Evadaro and D'aria gave him furrowed brows and worried eyes. They knew the danger he was putting himself in as much as he did. He said, "After you two escape, find me by the docks. There's a ship leaving for Limsa Lominsa tomorrow morning, and I bet I can get you two aboard with me."

Evadaro, just as aware of the danger Robyn was putting himself in, raised a hand to stop him. "Robyn, wait--"

"What?" Robyn turned to Evadaro with a caustic tone in his voice and desperate fear in his eyes. Evadaro's ears perked up when Robyn looked at him thus; there was something in the way Robyn stood, or the way his pupils dilated, or the way his voice carried, that informed Evadaro's animal instincts that Robyn was scared and vulnerable. Evadaro gripped his fists together. He wanted to believe Robyn's plan would work. But there was always a chance...

"If something unexpected happens things will get chaotic fast. If you're caught we'll have to fight our way out. In that case, call out for me."

"In that case," Robyn said, his eyes lowering to the floor, "you two should both make a break for it."

"I will not escape over someone else's dead body." Evadaro took a forceful step towards Robyn, "You're scared. You don't want to think about the possibility of failure because you think doing that will make you fuck up. But we have to have a plan if things don't go our way."

Robyn gritted his teeth. Everything Evadaro said was the truth. Everything around him made Robyn think of the ways he could fail. The wooden floors made Robyn imagine someone might hear him. The doors made him imagine someone might barge in on him at an inopportune time. Nothing was safe, and the price for failure was death, or worse...

Robyn whipped around and grabbed the doorknob, his intention being to get to his task before these invasive thoughts could make him doubt himself anymore. Evadaro slammed his hand against the door to keep it shut. "Are you going to call out for me if things go bad, Robyn?"

Robyn's stare slowly recovered from the ground, tracing up Evadaro's body, his mind racing to decide how to respond. Once he locked eyes with Evadaro it occurred to him: Why not just tell the truth?

"I could leave you here." Robyn hissed, "I could walk out and leave both of you here. What good does risking my ass do me? None. I think slavery is abominable. Everyone does. But do they do anything about it? Do they seek out opportunities to make that belief a reality? No. Most people don't give a shit whether they're actually living according to their beliefs. So why should I? Why am I here, doing this? Why don't I just not care?" Robyn realized he was raising his voice. He also wasn't looking Evadaro in the eye anymore. The room was silent. Everyone was considering Robyn's words, especially Robyn himself.

D'aria spoke up first. "You bastard," she said. "You're a coward! You would condemn us to slavery--"

"Silence, girl!" Evadaro bellowed at her, "Do not dare call him a coward. You may have forgotten, but he means to help us."

Through great effort Robyn lifted his eyes to Evadaro, who had turned around to face D'aria. Both Mi'qotes' fur was standing on-end. Robyn wondered: Was there any part of Evadaro that felt the same as D'aria? Was he only angry at D'aria, or did some part of him condemn Robyn's fear as well?

Evadaro went on, "It's a valid question. A sensible question. Why help us? Why care? Well... I don't have an answer." Evadaro looked ready to continue speaking, but no words came out. This labored pause allowed what Evadaro said to penetrate Robyn's haze of fear and anxiety. Suddenly it was like the air around him was clear of a fog he didn't even realize was there. It was sobering for Robyn to see Evadaro admit equal ignorance in the face of a great moral challenge. After a tense few seconds to collect his thoughts, Evadaro went on, "Who says he should care? Where is that written? We don't feed him. We don't look out for him. He loses nothing by abandoning us. And yet he came this far. Nothing is making him help us besides his own will. And nothing should." Evadaro laid a thick hand on Robyn's shoulder, "I do not know the words that describe your reasons for coming this far. Your heart carried you here. If this is as far as it carries you, if you choose to abandon us, then I also do not know the words that might sway it back to rescuing us. But I thank you Robyn, for the hope you have given me. Go now. Do what you feel is right. And if the plan goes ill, call out for me and I will help you."

Robyn made his way to the wine cellar with a tremor in his every step. His heart felt ready to explode. He couldn't remember ever being so afraid in his life. Yet even as fear made him shake from head to toe he felt himself remarkably in control of his own body. So dire were his shakes that he at first believed he was walking around during an earthquake; never stable, but still mobile. Guards in every hallway laughed in his face as he walked by, as they seemed to think he was staggering from the overwhelming sensation of having his virginity ripped from his body. Robyn welcomed their presumption. "If only I was so lucky," he thought.

There was a line of thinking of which Robyn had not yet reached the end, though he knew perfectly what that end would be: In his mind he processed a series of necessary fears. He knew that he would not submit to the fears-- indeed, he was in the process of acting contrary to them. But it was necessary for his body to feel these fears, and necessary for his mind to ponder them. "Am I the coward D'aria said I was? Should I be the coward she said I was? If I can do something bad that benefits me and get away with it, why shouldn't I do it? If the Gods are just, why don't they stop injustice? Are we the tools through which they stop injustice? Then why are we also capable of creating injustice? Without the Gods, where does 'right' and 'wrong' come from? Am I allowed to dictate right and wrong? Madmen use absolutes to justify madness... Are all morals madness? But without morals, with or without Gods, we have exploitative places like this..."

Robyn's mind went in circles like this until he reached the wine cellar. He sorted out the room in his head: The door to the dancers' lounge in the back and the stairway to the bar at the front. All he had to do was start a fire on one of the casks and leave.

He approached one of the casks and channeled his aether into a delicate flame in his palm. Small though it was the flame burned hot enough to ignite wood and alcohol. Robyn reached out...

"Sir." An imposing female voice sent a jarring chill through Robyn's body. His disrupted focus extinguished the flame. Robyn turned around and found himself not two feet away from a tall and powerfully-built Hyur woman draped in purple. The woman stood there, arms crossed, waiting for Robyn to address her. Her narrow eyes told him she knew what he was up to, but Robyn wasn't going to risk playing guilty or apologetic.

"Evening ma'am. I was just coming back from a rendezvous with one of your lovely dancers and I fancied a drink." Robyn's heart had gone from pounding to practically not beating at all. Every muscle in his body was tense; he knew that if he showed the fear he felt then she would sniff out the lie like a bloodhound.

"A drink for free?" The woman was quick and curt in her response. She did not blink.

Robyn said, "Terribly sorry, I'll go pay right away..." He turned towards the stairs and was met with instant regret. Two Elezen men descended the stairs, carriying themselves in such a way that their body types, career paths, and personalities could all be described with the word "Bouncer". Robyn's voice quivered as he said, "Come on, it's just a drink. Is this really necessary?"

The Hyur woman's voice chilled the air that carried it as she said, "If you had been with one of our dancers you'd know that you're not allowed to come back up to the bar without them."

Robyn's mind raced. In a split second he had so many questions: "When did this woman notice me? Is she aware of Evadaro and D'aria? Who is she and what are he capabilities? Am I going to die tonight?" Robyn concluded that none of the answers to these questions mattered in the slightest, at least not in the moment he was asking them. Some questions came too late, some too early, but none of them would help him survive whatever they had in store for him. Robyn took in a breath and said, "You're quite sharp for a slaver," then manifested a fireball in his hand and blasted one of the wine barrels with everything he had.

A deep thunder rumbled through the walls, followed by a cacophony of doors being thrown open, voices, and footfalls. Evadaro didn't need to perk up his ears to tell that this was the time. "D'aria, let's go," he grunted.

The pair of Mi'qote exited into the chaos of the hall, where the at-most-half-dressed patrons and dancers of the temple stumbled over each other, ushered into a panic by the guards calling everyone to "Move! Get to the back door! Now!" As Robyn had anticipated his plan was a nightmare scenario for the temple, forcing them to evacuate the lower floors before the fire spread. Evadaro grabbed D'aria's hand and moved with the flow of the crowd. It was almost appreciable that all the leches and criminals that plied the services of the temple were reduced to scared, gibbering messes at the prospect of being trapped in a burning building.

Evadaro shoved his way through the crowd easily. For what he assumed were hardened criminals they weren't very strong. Perhaps a life of kidnapping young girls and sucker-punching drunk oafs had made them soft.

Evadaro made it to the same floor as the back door. He was confident in his escape when suddenly D'aria's hand clenched his. Evadaro went on the alert to look around for what spurred this reaction from her, and saw it being dragged across the floor: Robyn's limp form being carried by two Elezen with Madam Eliwood leading them through the crowd. Evadaro gave no indication of his familiarity with Robyn as they passed him. Neither did Robyn sound out that he was in trouble. “Of course he didn’t,” Evadaro thought, “that skinny-ass Hyur was dedicated to keeping all the glory for himself.”

The moment they were out of sight he yanked D'aria into a now-empty room with him.

"What the hell are you doing?! We have to leave now!" D'aria demanded. Evadaro locked the door.

"They have Robyn." He said. D'aria's expression underwent several shifts right before Evadaro's eyes. First she was scared, then sympathetic, then cold. Without a trace of emotion on her face D'aria said, "He knew the risks. But we might not have another shot at escaping."

D'aria went for the door. Evadaro put his hand on it. The gesture wasn't forceful-- Evadaro didn't presume to command D'aria. But he would speak what he felt, and she would listen. "We should help him. He knew the risks, and he took them for us without promise of reward."

"That was his decision." D'aria swatted his hand away and went to leave.

Before she could open the door Evadaro snapped, "He risked his life for us and if we don't do the same then we are cowards." He bit the inside of his lip after he spoke. He didn't want to show it to D'aria, but he wasn't as certain as he made himself sound. Freedom was within his grasp, all he needed to do was take it. He could walk out of the temple and into a new life. He bore no love for Robyn. If they hadn't met, maybe the young Hyur would've paid to lay with a woman. But they had met. And even if Evadaro could seize his freedom now it would always be stained with the most shameful cowardice were he to turn his back on someone who was so willing to sacrifice for someone else. "It was no ordinary thing he did. It didn't benefit him. He did it because it was right. D'aria, do you want to do what is right? Or are you just going to be the kind of person who only does what pleases you?"

D'aria knew the trap Evadaro was laying. If she said no, she must help him. If she said yes, she's the same as the people running the temple. D'aria retorted, "I am going to be the kind of person who saves my tribe. The Hyur boy won't help me in that."

Evadaro nodded and opened the door for her. "Very well," he said, "I suppose I'll see you in another life then."

Robyn found himself in a pitch-dark room, wrapped in ropes, the cold metal of a chair touching his naked backside. He tried and confirmed that he was bound up tightly with thick cloth constricting his hands. He mused, "I'm not dead, so that's a pleasant surprise."

At this point his psyche had gone far, far beyond the point of being afraid of his circumstances. It all seemed more like a dream than reality, as if he were watching a stage performance of his life rather than actually performing in it. A torch was lit somewhere far away in the dark, then brought near his face so that he winced from both the heat and the light. The deep voice of the Hyur woman from before spoke: "If you try to cast any more fire, the cloth around your hands will ignite. It's a fiber than burns twice as hot as gasoline, so don't get any ideas. Now...who sent you?"

Robyn grumbled, "I don't suppose you'll believe me if I say 'nobody'?" He dreaded what torture the woman had in store for him, but her questions at least indicated one thing: She had no idea of his conspiracy with Evadaro and D’aria. She didn’t know the relevancy of starting the fire to their plan, nor how evacuating the lower floors was helping them. Except for being caught, stripped, and interrogated, Robyn counted his plan as a success for freeing whatever slaves were able to escape because of it.

A leather belt flew out of the darkness and struck Robyn across the face hard enough to make his chair tilt in place. His captor continued, "Are you with the Empire?"

"What, the Garlean Empire? Why...and more importantly how...would I be with the Empire?"

Another belt strike across the face. Robyn felt dizzy. The skin around his left eye ached, then burned, then went numb. He started to wink to assuage the sensation but soon found he couldn't open the eye anymore. The woman barked, "Where are the imperial agents hiding?! Where's C'shya?!" Robyn noted that she demanded a Mi'qote name, then braced for another hit from the belt...

Calls of alarm rang out. Wood broke against a person's body. Even in the dark Robyn could tell that his captor was frozen in place, waiting to see the origin of the sounds coming from outside. They were abrupt, invasive, and obviously there for a fight. The woman threw the torch over Robyn's shoulder, its flame just barely avoiding contact with the flammable material that bound his hands, then sunk into the darkness. The door flew open.

Evadaro staggered in with the leg of a chair in his hand and bruises all over his arms and face. There were guards out from of the steel-doored interrogation room, but he was able to take them by surprise by charging them with the leg of a chair. Once he got in the room however he could sense someone else was inside. A torch lay at his feet, forcing his eyes to adjust to its light, though his feline eyes detected someone was moving in the dark even as no light revealed them. Robyn's voice suddenly called out, "Evadaro, look out!"

Evadaro lurched back as a knife cut the air mere inches from his throat. It was Madam Eliwood; she had slithered to Evadaro's flank as he examined the room and lunged for his throat moments later. He backed into the hall as she stomped after him, nearly tripping over the unconscious bodies of the Elezen guards he had subdued moments before. Madam Eliwood's eyes burned with fury even as her face remained utterly composed. Evadaro could intuit the fact that this was not the first fight Madam Eliwood had been in. She had made the choice to cut the throats of those who inconvenienced her long ago.

Robyn heard his captor's blade strike Evadaro's wooden cudgel and knew it was time to move. Knowing fire wasn't an option he focused his aether into chilling the fabric that bound him. It became bitterly cold against his naked body, but soon was brittle enough to splinter, then break. Robyn unraveled himself and turned towards the hallway to see the Hyur woman grappling with Evadaro. Evadaro's wooden cudgel was on the ground a few feet away, knocked out of his hand at some point in the altercation, while he had his back against the wall and the woman's blade inches away from his heart. All that held her back from ending Evadaro's life was Evadaro's own hand on the woman's wrist.

Robyn picked up the highly flammable fabric he had been bound in. Without a sound he darted out to the hallway and tossed it into the Hyur woman's face. She turned, confused. In that moment Evadaro was able to overpower her, ripping the knife from her hand and delivering a powerful kick to her abdomen. The air was knocked from her lungs and she staggered back. She clutched her stomach in pain, but only moments later realized that her face was wrapped in the cloth with which she had threatened Robyn. Before she could rip it from her person Robyn moved, conjuring a fireball that flew directly into her face.

Evadaro jumped in shock as Robyn set fire to Madam Eliwood. Her face erupted in flames, followed by her hair, then her clothes. The whole time she was running down the now-empty hallway screaming, making way for who-knows-what. At the end of the hall she disappeared into the stairway, where Robyn and Evadaro presumed she succumbed to the flames.

Robyn fell against the wall, exhausted. Evadaro was quick to catch him, though carefully, at arm's length, as Robyn was still naked. "You came back," Robyn said, "that was quite kind of you."

Evadaro set Robyn down and darted into one of the nearby rooms to retrieve a blanket. He covered Robyn and knelt beside him, "Well I couldn't be outdone by the bravery of a Hyur, could I?" Evadaro looked over the bruises covering the left side of Robyn's face. He had taken a horrible beating. Evadaro worried for the health of Robyn's eye. Robyn could see Evadaro's concern.

"There's nothing to it. It's either fine or it's not and I probably won't know until the swelling goes away."

"Mm," Evadaro grunted with guilt twinging in his chest. He knew he was stronger than Robyn. It seemed foolish to Evadaro that Robyn would have to be the one to endure physical torment when he himself was so much better suited for it. He nodded to Robyn's hands, "And what of that?"

Robyn looked down and saw that the skin of his hands was bright pink and peeled, with similar rough scabs decorating his arms. Robyn said, "Yes... Thaumaturgy usually requires a focus. A staff or a wand or something like that. It can be cast without one, but then you're exposing yourself to your own flames. I guess I overdid it when I..." Robyn got to the edge of saying "killed her", but didn't know how to say that without wanting to vomit. Did he really kill a woman? It was so easy for him to set her ablaze... Was it because she was a slaver? Because she tortured him? Or, Robyn had to wonder, was it because he was more comfortable with taking life than he expected?

"Don't think about it. We need to leave. The fire is still going."

Robyn and Evadaro hunted down Robyn's clothes, piled in corner of the interrogation room, dressed Robyn and went to leave. Flames roared just one floor above them-- if there had been an attempt to contain the fire while Madam Eliwood interrogated Robyn, it had failed. Strangest of all though was that Madam Eliwood herself was nowhere to be found. Evadaro noticed this and was sure that Robyn did as well, but neither was interested in commenting on it.

Almost in disbelief that their escape was a success, they shuffled towards the back door of the temple, from which they exited into the crisp air of the night.

Robyn and Evadaro breathed in as free men and made their way to the docks.

#ffxiv #fan fiction #my writing #robyn sawyer #evadaro amberwyne

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