#R'atohna Tia

[pepeangogoan]

I’m not dead (yet)

Hey remember that time I disappeared from tumblr for a while and then came back and said I wasn’t going away again... and then I went away again? Good times.

Just like before there are a number of contributing factors.Tumblr for some reason not responding whenever I try to upload anything (I REALLY hope I’m able to upload this one). Real life starting to build up again. Finding it hard to motivate myself to do anything in Final Fantasy XIV. Not that I like the game any less, I still love it, but some days all I can really do is log in maybe do a roulette or a raid run... and that’s it. Though with the recent patch introducing new Blue Mage spells I do find myself staying on a bit longer now.

But due to all this and more it’s been hard to actually get anything posted on this blog. This is a shame because I really wanted to conclude the Pepean VS R’atohna stuff. In the past I’ve started plenty of lore things with my characters and I haven’t finished them (bringing up that Eliza’s father is still alive being the first example that comes to mind), and I really wanted to break that cycle this time... but sadly I ended up falling back into it. I may not have a huge following, but I do like sharing my ideas and finishing what I start. However, as thing stand right now I really don’t think I can finish the Battle of the BFFs stuff.

That said, this is partially the reason I wanted to do this post. Instead of just abandoning it outright I thought I’d give a basic summery of what I was originally planning to do. So if you’re one of the three people who were actually interested in where I was going with my characters please feel free to read on. Otherwise thank you for reading this far, and I’m sorry for my absence for so long. Hopefully I can make a comeback in the near future, but we’ll see.

Right so, I believe the last post I did on this was Pepean staring at Eulmore and monologuing about how he’s likely going to have to fight his best friend again when they assault it. I did have panels on their interaction before this inevitable fight made, but as I said before: tumblr wouldn’t let me upload them. It would have taken place just after the final battle with Ran’jit and would have Pepean making one final attempt to reach out to his friend, only to find that he’s still completely in Vauthry’s control. The two would fight once again with Pepean ultimately being the victor this time, leaving R’atohna unconscious.

After Vauthry escapes and Eulmore is liberated Pepean would find his old friend again, now free of Vauthry’s control. It would turn out that when the two of them crossed over into The First something happened to separate them on the journey through. While Pepean got sent to the Crystarium, R’atohna landed in Eulmore. Seeing the light within him Vauthry knew he could use him, so brought him in and started feeding him meol, R’atohna being completely unaware what it was made of. Just like with his other servants, this gave Vauthry the ability to control the Miqo’te’s mind, and after having him test his combat skills against Ran’jit he made him one of his generals. While R’atohna had no control over what he was doing his Echo made him completely aware of his actions. Now free from Vauthry’s control he heavily regrets his actions and begins to question whether or not he’s still worthy of being a hero and fighting by Pepean’s side. However his Lalafell friend is quick to give him a pep talk, reminding him that his actions weren’t his own and that there’s still a chance to make things right. With that R’atohna agree to rejoin the fight, with he and Pepean shaking hands as they acknowledge each other as “Brother”.

After this the main story didn’t give me a heck of a lot to work with as far as incorporating Pepean and R’atohna went, though I thought it would be best to have R’atohna on the sidelines for a bit, still injured from his fight with Pepean (he’d even joke that “For such a little person... you hit hard!”). He would of course help out with getting the giant Talos built where he could, but would be unable to assist in the assault on Gulag. From here the plot would have played out pretty much how it did in the main game, with Pepean defeating Vauthry, only to find himself becoming a Sin Eater, to the reveal of The Crystal Exarch being G’raha (with R’atohna even noting that he looks like him, because I partially based R’atohna on G’raha), to Emit-Selch reminding everyone “Hey, I’m the bad guy remember”, to the whole “I’ve got a sympathetic backstory so you can’t totally hate me” stuff, to the final fight with Hades, The First being saved and so on. Like I said, I didn’t have a heck of a lot to work with in terms of Pepean and R’atohna interaction here, especially now that I’d had R’atohna become free of Vauthry’s control.

However, the next advancement I’d have for my characters would come in their return to The Source. Upon arriving and reuniting with their friends again, Pepean and R’atohna take a much needed rest. Pepean would return home to a loving reunion with Eliza but would quickly find something’s still not right with him. He can no longer communicate with nature. He can’t create Aetherial being anymore. He’s unable to harness the power of the elements. Pepean lies awake at night realising a horrible truth... he’s no longer able to use magic. Upon further examination it turns out that the light of the Lightwardens he absorbed did more damage to him during his corruption than he thought, namely disrupting the Aetherflow within his body. Pepean would consult his friends on this, his heart sinking as he realises his dream of becoming the greatest magic user has now been torn away from him. Thing is, I wanted to show more of a character to Pepean, rather than having him just be an upbeat Lalafell. I wanted to show him vulnerable, scared, and even disheartened. I wanted to advance his character a bit and I thought a good way of doing that would be to take him out of his role as a White Mage and into the role of a Gunbreaker. This gives him a bit more tragedy in his life (not that he didn’t have enough of that already), now his dream, the thing he lived for, the whole reason he became an adventurer in the first place, has been torn away from him. This would just be a lore thing however. While I love Gunbreaker, I still plan on maining Healer roles within the game itself and mastering all magic classes. This is just a lore thing to advance Pepean a bit more for this blog.

While Pepean’s friends do try and comfort him during this difficult time, it’s still a heartbreaking situation for him. But hope does come to him from a very unlikely outcome. As Eliza, Terry, and Selaine try to comfort the depressed Lalafell, R’atohna comes in wearing his basic adventuring clothes (the starting gear) again, with Misago by his side. He says he’s thought long and hard about it, and he’s decided to quit the life of a Dragoon once again, though this time for good. The life brought him nothing but difficulties, both during the Heavenward stuff and after being used in the role to fight his best friend. He says that with the Dragonsong War over, Ishgard no longer needs an Azure Dragoon, something he understands Estinien realised as well. Pepean its quick to point out to him that he had a dream of being like a lance wielding hero who saved him as a child, but R’atohna explains that he has a new hero he wants to be like now: his best friend. He’s decided that if Pepean can’t achieve his dream of being a great magic user then he’ll do it for him, saying that if Pepean’s going to defend them as a Gunbreaker he’s going to need someone by his side to keep him healthy. As such R’atohna is now pursing learning healing magic (with my intention of having him become a Scholar). While Pepean does say he wishes he could be there to teach him everything he knows but he’s unable to now, R’atohna tells him not to worry as he looks to Misago and says he has a great teacher already, to which Pepean agrees. So the two begin pursuing new paths, with Pepean promising to become the best Gunbreaker he can be, while R’atohna promises that no harm will come to his friend as long as he’s around. 

At first it seems like Pepean is in a similar position to Thancred, being unable to enchant his ammo, he eventually develops his own work around to it which he calls “Drawing”. While he can no longer use magic he’s able to find a way to Draw it out of the creatures he fights in order to charge his ammo (yes, this is meant to be a homage to Final Fantasy VIII).

If you’ve actually read through all this thank you very much. This is as far as I’ve gotten with character lore stuff so far. 5.1′s MSQs didn’t give me a whole lot to work with in regards to moving this plot forward. I imagine Pepean dealt with the stuff in The First alone, while R’atohna began his training at the Arcanist Guild. Soon I obviously plan to incorporate Eliza, Terry and Selaine into the story, having them come to The First too, but I thought it better to suss things out with just Pepean and R’atohna first. Pretty much any posts I make going forward are going to be continuing on from this lore. I hope you enjoyed what I’ve come up with and will continue to support my blog. Now, hopefully I can get this posted and get back to work on more FFXIV related stuff.

Thank you all so much.

[pepeangogoan]

Part 3-1 of my Brainwashed R’atohna Saga. This obviously takes place during Thancred’s fight with Ran-jit, just before Minfilia meets with her namesake.

You know, I’m really lucky with how things worked out with Vaurthy’s powers! I’d always planned to do this plot with R’atohna being brainwashed in The First since Shadowbringers was announced, but little did I know there would actually be founding for it within the plot. From the outside looking in it probably looks like I planned it all around the revelations about Vaurthy, but no I’m actually just extremely lucky with how it worked out! :P

Got a lot more going on this time around, now that Pepean knows it’s his best friend he’s been fighting all this time. Naturally what he wants more than anything is to snap him out of it. Unfortunately that’s easier said than done, as he quickly finds out, and once again the two come to blows... in a battle I’ll leave up to your imagination because, as I said last time, I don’t have the skill to edit one together.

There’s a second half coming to this addition to the story, which hopefully won’t take too long to go up.

EDIT: Fixed a typo!

[pepeangogoan]

Thus began a clash between two best friends, unbeknownst to both of them. Yeah, thought I’d make a start of my integration of the brainwashed R’atohna into the plot. This is obviously meant to take place during the rescue of Minfiia. I imagine these two fought each other to a standstill, with neither one managing to get the better of the other. Though as they fought Pepean realised that this “mysterious” Dragoon’s fighting style was VERY familiar to him, and for a brief moment he swore he saw the symbol of Ishgard on his armour. However, he had no time to think on it with the arrival of Ran’jit.

Don’t know why I decided to turn Pepean into Wolverine in the last panel... just did :P

[pepeangogoan]

Part 2 in my Brainwashed R’atohna Saga. This event would take place during the events in The Rak’tika Greatwood. I did think about editing R’atohna into one of the shots in Il Mheg, but I didn’t think it worth it for an instance where he and Pepean didn’t even fight. It would have just been a case of Pepean thinking “That knight was with them again... I don’t know why but he feels so... familiar...”.

Sorry about the cop-out on a fight scene... in fact overall I think I could have done this whole thing a lot better, but I have some cool ones on the way, trust me. Just as before, before R’atohna can react to who he believes to be his enemy apparently knowing his name the stuff with Ran'jit goes down, and during the chaos R’atohna retreats.

Overall this whole thing was an emotional time for Pepean: He found out his best friend is in league with his enemy, thought he’d lost Y’shtola again and now owes an Ascian of all people for saving her life. Needless to say he had a lot to ponder in his talk with Ardbert.

By the way, am I the only person who finds Emet-Selch to be this game’s equivalent of Loki?!

[pepeangogoan]

Part 3-2 of my Brainwashed R’atohna saga. These events take place after Pepean’s third clash with his friend. Where previously they had fought to a stalemate, here Pepean actually managed to gain the upper hand. He even managed to hit R’atohna hard enough that some sense was restored to him, but as expect Vauthry interfered. But Pepean will not let this discourage him! He WILL save his best friend, no matter what it takes!

[pepeangogoan]

So I did something similar to this when Shadowbringers was first announced, but now that more information has come up I thought I’d do a slightly updated version. With the whole “needing to become the Warrior of Darkness” thing, I really like the idea of it splitting two best friends apart. Pepean has to do the hardest thing he’s ever had to do: Fight the one he once considered as a brother to him. But at the same time I don’t want to put forward the idea that R’atohna is so stupid he doesn’t realise things are different in The First (Darkness = Good and Light = Bad), so I thought “What if the light of The First has brainwashed him somehow? What if his actions aren’t his own?”. So that’s kind of my mentality with these pics: Pepean’s trying to see if he can get through to his best mate, hoping he’s still in there.

Now, surely The Echo would protect them from this right? Well yes, I suppose technically that’s true, but hey we don’t know a heck of a lot about Shadowbringer’s plot yet anyway. For now this is pretty much a “What if” scenario. Just something I’m doing to help hype myself up for it.

[pepeangogoan]

So... how about that Shadowbringers ey? I tuned in for the USA Fan Fest Livestream and I completely lost my shit with its announcement! So... Square want my adorable little potato to become a Warrior of Darkness?! NOTHING MAKES SENSE ANYMORE!!! Well, knowing this company it’ll be something to do with balancing one’s light with one’s darkness, about how one can’t exist without the other, something like that.

Still, the fact that Yoshida confirmed that becoming a Warrior of Darkness is an important part of the plot, that of course gave me tons of idea about how this would affect my FFXIV characters. I thought this could be an opportunity for me to create a rift among my heroes. Once a tight-nit group, they now begin to have their doubts about their mission and what they’re trying to achieve. You could even say this causes a sort of... Civil War!

So yeah, I did a small parody of the most iconic moment from the Captain America: Civil War trailer. Yes how the lines are delivered are different in the actual movie, but the versions in the trailer were perfect for marketing material (most likely what they were filmed specifically for), which is why I used them here. Kinda a mini-trailer of what may come in Shadowbringers. We may only have very limited information on it at the moment, but hey I can’t pass up a chance to do an MCU reference with what we do have. Have Alphinaud filling the role of Bucky here as in canon he is our character’s closest friend, and we still don’t know how we’re going to be reunited with him yet, or if it’s even going to happen before Shadowbringers. Heck for all we know becoming a Warrior of Darkness is tied into saving him. It’s probably not, but for now let’s have some fun and speculate.

Because I tied R’atohna so close to Heavensward’s plot I thought it would make sense for him to be the most adverse to becoming a Warrior of Darkness. Sure, Pepean is mainly a White Mage, but he’s also a trained Black Mage, so he’s delved into the darkness a bit already. He and Pepean were once closer than brothers... now they have to fight each other!

Needless to say: I can’t wait for Euro Fan Fest (which I will be attending), and getting more information on Shadowbringers!

[pepeangogoan]

Pepean: ... Yeah... well... I bet the both of you wish you could cast spells as well as me!

The curses of a potato body!

[pepeangogoan]

R’atohna: Ah! My nipples!

[pepeangogoan]

Part 7 of the “Sister Saga”. This one is meant to take place a few weeks after the previous one. R’atohna’s had some time to think about his attitude towards his sister, meanwhile R’nebyano has enrolled in the Lancers Guild properly to begin her training. She figures if her brother won’t train her then the place that trained him is the next best thing.

This one’s an interesting take on my comic formula. This time I’ve got two separate events going on at the same time. While R’atohna looks for his sister she’s off in The Shroud getting lost. That’s one factor about R’nebyano’s character I kind of alluded to back in the first part: She has a TERRIBLE sense of direction and gets lost REALLY easily. As we can see here... it’s leading to some trouble...

Now, why is R’atohna wearing Ward Armour after all he went through with the Heavensward? Well there are two reasons: A: I wanted him to have a distinguishable armoured look as a Dragoon. 2: My personal headcanon is that he’s trying to start up a new order in Ishgard. Similar to the Heavensward only this time not living under false teachings. After all they’ve been through the Ishgardians aren’t immediately getting behind the idea, especially from an outsider, but the fact that it’s he’s a Warrior of Light carries some weight to it.

[pepeangogoan]

Part 6 of the “Sister Saga”. I’m on a roll with getting these out! Best friends though they may be, Pepean and R’atohna don’t always see eye to eye. R’atohna’s attitude towards R’nebyano (and Miqo’te in general) is one such case.

I threw in another small reference to R’atohna’s past in here, hinting at his reasons for becoming a Lancer (and then Dragoon) in the first place. Been going into R’atty’s past a lot lately which is great because it means I can flesh him out as a character more instead of just having him be “Pepean’s best friend”. As well as that I wanted to throw in another reference to how close he was with his mother, even showing he has some regret about leaving her behind when he came to Eorzea.

The only major edit here is obviously the one of Pepean standing behind R’atohna... and it could have been done better. He’s not angled perfectly to give off the impression that he’s looking at him dead on. It does bother me a bit so I may go back and re-edit that at some point.

Yes yes, I see the irony in Pepean saying he’s not going to lecture R’atohna on being nice to his sister... then lectures him on being nice to his sister. My idea is that Pepean’s trying a different approach to getting that message through to his stubborn friend. Giving off the same message but worded differently.

[pepeangogoan]

Part 3 of the “Sister Saga”. Yeah, I never planned to linger on that “Mishearing something and thinking it means something else” plot point from the previous one. I’d like to think Misago trusts R’atohna a bit more than that. Also thought it was best not to stay too long on the build up and get things moving along.

So yeah, instead of doing the whole “I’ll just assume I know what’s going on despite not having all the information and talking to the people involved about it” cliche that SO many do after what she overheard, Misago instead decides to just outright get to the bottom of it and confirm that she did indeed misunderstand. Oh, and don’t worry, she DID heal the Lancer recruits she was asked to heal.

Been a while since I did anything of just Pepean and R’atohna hanging out together as bros, just the two of them, so I thought this was a great chance to. Don’t ask what was going on before we joined them... it’s probably better to leave that up to the audience’s imagination.

I’m quite proud of the way I used the “/think” emote for R’atohna on the Linkpearl. It was the only Miqo’te emote I could think of wherein they have their hand up to their ear. Also quite proud of how each of the edits turned out in this one too. While again nothing earth shattering, I still think it all came out looking okay.

[pepeangogoan]

Part 10 of the “Sister Saga”. Things are drawing to a close now. I never intended to drag this story out longer than I needed to. As I’ve said before this whole thing has been a proof of concept for me more than anything, and I’m actually proud of myself for seeing it through like I have.

I didn’t want to end things with your typical “brother realizes the error of his ways and they become a happy family” cliche. Yes, R’atohna has realized he was wrong to be so nasty to R’nebyano before, but he also knows that he’s in no mental state to be a brother to her. The wounds his father left on him still run deep. I’d like to think that originally he was just going to tell her he can’t be a brother to her and leave it at that but when The Echo showed him her own gripes with their father that got him to realize he HAS to start taking steps towards ending this cycle of hatred. The best way to start that is to reach out to his sister, little by little. It may take a while before they’re as close as Pepean and Pepeze, but he’s will to at least start trying.

I think this is also a good lesson for R’nebyano. Things didn’t quite work out the way she wanted them to, but in the end everything still took a step in the right direction. Such is true of life. Sometimes things don’t work out the way you want, but you take the little victories where you can.

It’s been really nice to give attention to another one of my characters and not focus entirely on Pepean. Heck, Pepean has barely been in this saga at all, only really serving as the voice of reason to R’atohna. It’s felt good to flesh R’atty out as a character a bit.

[pepeangogoan]

Happy Christmas Eve to you all! (I refuse to say “Happy Holidays” because I find it offensive). I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas (or whatever you celebrate this time of year), and a very Happy New Year!

For Christmas this year I thought I’d do something a little different and show how my Warriors of Light spend their “Starlight Celebrations”. For Pepean and Eliza this is their first Starlight Celebration as a bonded couple. Their friends and family thought it would be nice for the two of them to spend it together just the two of them. This was a wonderful celebration for Mr. and Mrs. Gogoan.

R’atohna has found a quiet spot with Misago where the two can just be together. Away from the hustle and bustle of the big cities during this time of year. For them silence is golden, and it’s nice to just take it easy.

Terry is getting drinks with some old friends of his to celebrate. He asked Pepeze to join him after hearing she wanted to give her brother and new sister-in-law some privacy this year, ergo was going to be alone. At first she declined, saying that she “didn’t want to intrude”, to that he told her “Nonsense! Ya Pepean’s sister, therefore ya MY sister as far as I’m concerned! Come join us an' have a drink and laugh lass!” She ended up having a wonderful time with everybody.

Selaine spend her “celebration” alone, closed off from everybody. It may sound depressing, however this is just the way she likes it. She’s happiest when she’s in her own company. Going out and being merry sounds disgusting to her.

I’m VERY happy with how each of these turned out, particularly the one of Terry, Pepeze and company. I worked really hard to get each of the separate images at similar angles in Group Pose to make it easier when editing them together. I think the end result was really good and worthwhile. I also really like the Squall jacket on Pepeze as a winter coat.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

[pepeangogoan]

Epilogue of the “Sister Saga”. I’ve had a lot of fun working on this and I hope to do more things like it in the future. With Patch 4.2 coming out while I was working on this saga I wanted to throw something in at the end to kind of tie it into that, indicating that the events of 4.2′s story take place just after this.

As said in the previous part, R’atohna’s now meeting with R’nebyano for tea so that they can get to know each other better and help to not only improve their relationship as brother and sister but also to help R’atohna let go of his hatred of the Miqo’te. I thought a good way to start that would be with him telling her about his adventures as a Warrior of Light, not missing the opportunity to take one final jab at Alphinaud’s oh so brilliant idea of chucking Nidhogg’s eyes into a ravine rather than destroying them.

The only ones of my characters to not appear in this saga were Eliza and Selaine, pretty much because I couldn’t think of anything to do with them in this plot. So I decided to have some fun with this at the end. Pepean’s not winning any “Husband of the Year” awards considering he forgot to tell his own WIFE about the fact that one of their closest allies has been reunited with their estranged sister! HOW he managed that is anybody’s guess!

Anyway, I hope those of you who’ve actually read all 11 entries into this saga have enjoyed it. As I said: I hope to do more in the future. Maybe I’ll do one that finally gives some resolution on this whole “Eliza’s father is still alive” thing that I’ve been going on about for ages. In any case, thank you very much for taking the time to read these and may you ever walk in the light of the crystal.

[pepeangogoan]

Happy New Year everybody! Hope you all had a great New Years whatever you did! Here’s to a great 2018!

So it stands to reason I’d do a “Heavensturn” image with my FFXIV characters. I threw around a couple of ideas of doing one big group photo but then I had the idea of making it more like a New Years party, with everybody socializing in different ways.

Pepean’s cracking the champagne open. Eliza’s reuniting with the Ashdale Brothers after not having seen them for ages, and is introducing them to Misago. Pepeze and Terry are having an... awkward moment of seeing each other again after their... Starlight Celebration mishap... This was the one I was sure I wanted to do from the get-go. I didn’t just want to throw that plot point away, it stood to reason that the two would find it hard to be near each other after that. It’s going to take some time for their friendship to be repaired. I’m honestly having way too much fun with this plotline. I feel it’s the most interesting thing I’ve done with my FFXIV character in a while.

Happy 2018 everybody!