#and it getting worse and worse by the time of stormblood patches

[wildstar25]

The scions hanging out in the Rising Stones post stormblood. Y'shtola is talking to Tataru and Thancred near the main desk when the door from the tavern creaks open. Before they can even see who it is, Arsay's voice rings out with a cheerful greeting. "Rising Stones ahoy~ Is everyone having a wonderful daaaaaaayAH, Y'shtola, you're up and about! There's something I wish to ask, if you have a moment."

Y'shtola turns to face the on coming Warrior of Light, ready to lend an ear and her expertise. Thancred smirks and leans over to Tataru.

"It appears someone's happy to see our friend." Y'shtola's ears flick back, picking up Thancred's teasing whisper. "I've not once witnessed her tail shoot up like that, have you?"

Tataru replies with a light chuckle, "Now that you mention it, I don't think I have."

Y'shtola shakes her head, "You two clearly need to bolster your observational skills." She glances back at them with a sneer. "Arsay’s tail could be used as veritable dowsing rod for any one of us. In my opinion, It's quite childish for someone in her posi-" Y'shtola cuts her statement short as she notices the very tip of her own tail from the corner of her eye. In an instant the dots connect. They were talking about her. Y'shtola's tail had risen at the sound of Arsay's voice reflexively. How completely and utterly unbecoming of her.

Reprimanding herself will have to come later; with Arsay only a few paces away resolving the current situation was far more important. Y'shtola's tail drops just as fast as it had risen as her sneer turned to glare. "One word... One word and you will both rue the day. Do I make myself clear?" She hisses under breath. Tataru and Thancred both nod furiously as they cover their mouths unable to contain their laughter. Y'shtola could feel her blood pressure rising.

"What's so funny, did I miss a good joke?" Stopping herself barely an ilm away from Y'shtola, Arsay chimes in with a curious smile.

"Yes, a very good one indeed." Thancred manages to spit out a reply between laughs.

"Uh huh!" Tataru wipes a tear from her eyes, "oh that really was something."

"Oooh, tell it again, won't you Y'shtola? I'd love to hear it too." Arsay raises her fists to her chest in anticipation. Which made her all the more confused when Y'shtola spun her around and began pushing her back to the Rising Stone's main door.

"Ignore them, Arsay, they forget themselves. Come, I'll take your question somewhere where the madness can't reach us." Y'shtola marches them away, doing her most to not allow even a hint of anger carry through in her tone.

"Aw c'mon, I wanna know what you said~" Arsay complains as she lets herself be walked out. "Tataru tell me later, okay?" Arsay calls back as they cross the threshold of the scion base.

"They'll do nothing of the sort!" Y'shtola slams the door closed behind them.

[lilbittymonster]

Thoughts on Thancred and Kitali's relationship that no one asked for but have been buzzing around in my skull and it's maintenance so I have nothing better going on lol

So Thancred's whole "I have to do More, I have to be a better protector, I should've been there" complex goes all the way back to Ascilla's father dying in the goobbue attack (it's not his fault but he has no way of knowing that) and we see him as early as Ifrit getting tied up in knots about not being there for Kitali when it counted.

And in ARR they really aren't friends. Kitali took one look at his easy-going playboy persona, saw it for the persona it was, and wrote him off. And Thancred just could not get a read on her personality or sense of humour or if she even had one and so he kept his distance just. Trying to sort her out. At this point he's mostly trusting Minfillia's judgment, and if she says that Kitali's worth protecting and following then that's what he's going to do. This is the Light that Master Louisoix promised them, after all, and his word is as good as gospel.

And then he has the whole added guilt after Prae of getting possessed and killing Kitali with his own hands (even though he can't remember it, he was told it had happened) on top of the usual "I need to Protect More Better" strain he puts himself under. Fast forward to the Bloody Banquet and him and Y'shtola getting yote into the Lifestream and finding himself popped out somewhere in Dravania. Hell, they might've been in the Forelands at the same time and just never crossed paths, for all they know!

So there he is, stewing in his own regrets and feelings of inadequacy for months until he finds them dealing with the Warriors of Darkness. And I know that he's a blue DPS for the Antitower, I haven't gotten that far in my replay so no spoilers, but I like that they made a pretty seamless transition for him to pick up an actual tank job for Shadowbringers here in Heavensward.

The whole reason I'm thinking about this in the first place is I finally got around to writing their morning after scene during the HW patches. And they wound up there because they were both using each other as a coping mechanism and a distraction. Kitali's lost her almost-fiance, she's lost what was becoming her close friend, she's lost another person with the Echo who could've possibly helped her get some actual fucking answers, and she's miserable. Meanwhile Thancred is looking at her and Alphinaud and Tataru and Y'shtola and just cannot stop thinking about how much he has failed them all in various ways and both of them are at rock fucking bottom. Both of them have dropped their pretenses that had kept them so at arm's length from each other in ARR and actually managed some sort of interpersonal connection. A few drinks and a room key later, here they are.

I briefly considered trying for a wolcred ship while I figured out how to make the intended wolstinien happen while Estinien skipped town, before I got blindsided by Mister President Cop Aymeric My Most Dearly Beloved, and this one night stand was about as far as they got before looking at me and shaking their heads. So they became my brotp instead.

I don't remember a ton from the latter half of Stormblood, since I was still coming off of the high of finally fiiiiinally getting Xaela lore, but I do remember the interactions with Thancred losing their smarm. The dialogue hadn't changed but the dynamic had. There was an unspoken but understood "I've got your back" from him and that hasn't changed since.

I went through ShB with Thancred at every opportunity. He is solidly Her Tank now and she trusts him with her life. But once again, with her turning into the Lightwarden at Mt. Gulg, he feels that he's failed her yet again and continues the cycle of self-flagellation over it. He feels incredibly responsible for her now and every failure feels worse and worse.

And this is where I sort of thread him and Estinien together. Because Estinien also feels responsible for Kitali, and had made an oath to Aymeric to watch over her and keep her safe. But Thancred didn't ever meet Estinien. All he saw was the raw gaping wounds that his absence left in Kitali and Alphinaud, and formed his opinion of him based off of that. So when Estinien joins the Scions, Thancred is the one who gives him the shovel talk over Kitali's safety and emotional well-being. His exact words were "she may have forgiven you, but I haven't."

Estinien is completely unphased by it, and if anything he's grateful to Thancred for keeping an eye on them where he could not. Thancred is too busy posturing to cover up his own anger and guilt at watching Kitali almost die on his watch to figure out that they're on the same damn team here lmao. He mellows out on Estinien eventually, mostly during the Garlemald arc, and almost finds it relieving that he's so similar to Kitali since he already knows how to deal with a surly dragoon. They end up with a sort of understood but unspoken "I will protect her, because she's incredibly important to me, and I know you know that and will do the same."

Thancred is the only adult Scion from the original group that Kitali has any sort of positive relationship with. And everything that I could say about their relationship sounds like it should be a romantic one, the whole "I would kill for you, I would die for you, I trust you implicitly, you're one of the only people I feel safe around" that's reserved for over-the-top romance novels. But nah, they're just real bros. The love is there it's just incredibly platonic and they mean so much to me.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk

[the-rogue-mockingjay]

When's the last time your OC hurt someone emotionally? What did they do?

For Ravi, Rian, ans Ysera :>

ohhhh boy this one is kinda difficult to answer LMAO

For Ravi: most likely, she ruffled Wuk Lamat's metaphorical feathers glfdgj. Their relationship has been rocky from jump and O'ravi's visceral hatred of Solution Nine - and Alexandria as a whole - did not help. Anytime they're there or it gets brought up in conversation, O'ravi gets really impatient and bristle-y and she tries to leave the conversation or, if in S9, she wanders off- and Wuk Lamat is just kind of sick of dealing with her prickly ass. The situation between Alexandria and Tuliyollal is delicate and O'ravi is NOT helping (she's not making it worse? but she's not helping!!). I think Wuk Lamat is also still pretty hurt by O'ravi not trusting her; Rian keeps assuring her it isn't personal, but that doesn't stop it from stinging, especially when Real Sphene isn't met with that same lack of faith (Real Sphene seems to have been a proven leader prior to whatever happened to her, and she also reminds Ravi of G'raha a bit, so Ravi has an easier time coming around to/trusting her) (which may not actually be fair, but).

I could write a whole essay about O'ravi and Wuk Lamat's relationship but for brevity's sake, it boils down to O'ravi seeing her ARR era self in Wuk Lamat, which she just isn't prepared to deal with and reacts very badly to. It really has nothing to do with anything Wuk Lamat did, O'ravi is just traumatized and lashing out about it :')

----------------------------

For Ysera....I haven't actually finished figuring out what the hell she's up to in ENW and DT, so off the top of my head, the most recent moment for her is either at or after Mt Gulg when she screams at Urianger and berates his plan (or lack thereof). The gist of it is "THIS was your grand plan? Let G'raha kill himself? You gambled with O'ravi's life and now she's on death's doorstep, are you fucking STUPID????" and it makes a hard situation even harder for everyone :') not least of all poor Urianger, he's already having a horrible day because he didn't want to do this to begin with but there wasn't much else in the way of options- and Ravi is very dear to him so seeing her broken and bleeding Light is a nightmare, so Ysera going on this tirade is just salt in the wound. Which, granted, he feels he deserves, but still :(

---------------------------

For Rian, things have gotten better between him and his family since ENW but he's still having times where he avoids them, but that's something that's been ongoing since ARR so I'm not sure that counts? Prior to that....hmmm. I'm not sure! I think the most recent hurtful think he actively does is break up with Kurenai at the tail end of the Stormblood patches lfkjhglkdjfgh. He says it's to protect her and to set her free so she doesn't have to wait and watch the horizon hoping he'll come home, he doesn't want to leave her bereft if he dies in the upcoming war- but it's a bit late for that, isn't it? She already cares about him a lot regardless of their relationship status! That, and he isn't trusting her, he's thinking she's not capable of shouldering emotional burdens and weathering difficult times alongside him. If that makes sense? He says he's protecting her- he's just being really presumptuous and unwilling to be fully vulnerable and unwilling to trust her. And she knows that. And she is not pleased to be treated like she's made of glass djlfgdfjkg.

(I might come back to this if I can think of anything more recent for him but for now that's what I've got!)

ty for the ask, meg!!!! /dote

[likemosaic]

Wanna know more abt hien and chiyo... was it an arranged thing after she saved the day(tm)? Do they love each other or are they just hoping for the prosperity of doma? Do they co-lead behind the scenes or does Hien mote openly support chiyo being a politicking badass?

rainbow's cool headcanon asks / re: chiyo & hien. spoilers for ffxiv: stormblood and onwards. @/windcovet focused as always. lots of oc x canon so don't read if you can't have fun @heirbane

hien (@/windcovet) and chiyo's main verse is not as happy as their au/chiyo's companion verse. in chiyo's main wol verse, he essentially loves her from afar since they were kids in monzen, but never asks her to marry him, because he knows she's an adventurer! she's the khagan! why would he cage a bird for his own amusement?

they sleep together multiple times, and it culminates in the level 89 ranged phys quest in doma: they sleep together again at plum spring after the canon cutscene, and hien takes that moment to confess that he loves her. except it's too late, because chiyo's already invested in rescuing zenos and would never settle in doma. she has to let him down. after that, hien puts it to rest and chooses to marry for politics. neither of them are really happy about it but there's just no good ending for them. chiyo gets embarrassingly drunk at his wedding to kurenai/the ruby princess. he never really fully moves on but he does come to love kurenai and their family together, and becomes a fond uncle to chiyo's children. hypatia as an adult susses out that hien still loves her mother. hien moves on from hating zenos because of the kids. it's a whole thing.

....which is how me and gale came up with the hienyo au because that is so fucking sad lmao. it eventually became chiyo's companion au because it's a fun place to take her story when there are multiple wols (more than two usually; i think two is the limit before i start hienyo-ing it up). it also adds a bit of intrigue and fun and throuple shenanigans!

LADY CHIYO AU: chiyo is fucked up after/during stormblood and, as she does after every expac, wants to stop being the warrior of light. she corners hien and essentially asks if he'd marry her/do fake marriage with her; explains that she wants to leave the scions, she wants to settle down and have kids, and they can do that as friends while pretending they're in love (chiyo not necessarily wanting this, an adventurer at heart, but just wanting to escape the horrors). hien, desperately in love with her and a LIAR is like "oh yeah we can pretend we're not in love and get married. i definitely see you as just a friend. hell yeah. sure". chiyo peaces out and leaves her co-wol to do it all alone (in j'tanga's case with gale's wol, chiyo has faith tanga can do it on her own by now; in alta's case it's probably a lot of "youll be fine" while alta is like WHERE ARE YOU GOING?????????????).

they get married and have tsuyu & kaien pretty quickly (hydaelyn allows chiyo to have children knowing that it won't distract her from her duties). fake dating always turns into love and it does turn into love, eventually. thancred tags along to doma to take care of his wife/join her latest shenanigans and gets burnt out as fuck doing scion work on top of that. thancred and hien work together well though. we stretch the timeline out to have more time during post-patch for shenanigans.

chiyo spends her post-stb plot doing politics in doma. which is not good. shes SO BAD AT POLITICS. she's too aggressive and uses force to get her way too often! hien is amazing at politics and recognizes that their best bet is to do a good cop bad cop dynamic; he takes all the credit for the bad decisions and she gets all the credit for the good ones, at least in the eyes of doma, because she's the liberator. it enables him to do more with her at the helm while he does things behind the scenes, but chiyo really has no idea what she's doing and needs him to guide her.

worse, chiyo's ideas are far far too progressive for doma. she wants to solve misogyny in one fell swoop and while hien does too, he knows that's not entirely possible and has to temper her expectations. the traditionalist sect of domans respect her and love her, but also think she's just an outspoken woman and that hien needs to learn to discipline his wife. which lol. he knows damn well he can't do that.

they both join the fight at ghimlyt dark and chiyo is able to correctly identify that something isn't right with zenos, due to her incredibly high perception.

chiyo may or may not go to the first depending on the co-wol. hien doesn't. unlike her main verse, chiyo would be pulled from her body and need to be cared for in doma. emet-selch finds chiyo's current situation amusing for cossutia reasons and is...unusually intrigued by her children.

lady chiyo doesn't initially join the eorzean campaign into garlemald, but zenos throws an entire tantrum that she didn't come and she has to be sent for...or else. hien stays behind with their children as always because he is the house husband of the year. chiyo shows up in garlemald as she does in main verse: hands on hips, what are we doing? mom energy.

things play out about the same with ultima thule and chiyo comes home with zenos like surprise! turns out i see him as my possession so he just appeared on the ship with me!

zenos becomes a political prisoner of doma and they put him to work. he's incredibly fucking depressed but the manual labor is helpful to his mental state. seeing a healthy family unit is extremely uncomfortable for him but also kind of healthy. enters his chiyo's pomeranian of death era. hien is experiencing the ptsd of his father's death but dealing with it for his wife's sake, because this is clearly important to her (even if he can't understand her motive or reasoning). fun shenanigans. they'll all make out about it eventually. or kill each other. /thancred shrug

chiyo and hien will probably have more kids after endwalker they just got INCREDIBLY busy after stb. and some of those princes/princesses will have white or blonde hair and look suspiciously caucasian. weird.

hien and chiyo are also the swingers of all time in this universe and would fuck anything that moves and can consent. including co-wols. they're very polyamorous but in a lowkey way; duty and work comes first. chiyo still sleeps around as she does in main verse because you can't keep a bad bitch chained up.

bonus: you sending this from gaius is hilarious. "hey warrior of light what's up welcome to werlyt-whose kids are those?????" "THEYRE MINE, GAIUS, STAY ON TOPIC!"

[musesofawolf]

Day 17 - Sally

[Minor Heavensward and Stormblood spoilers]

"Hold the wall! HOLD THE WALL!"

Bryn's rifle cracked, the ball of super heated aether flying through the air, and through the black armored chest of an advancing imperial, sending him crumpling to the ground as others rushed forward still, desperate to retake Baelsar's Wall, the only separation between the captured land of Ala Mihgo and the Black Shroud. Bryn still had no idea how, or why, the Grand Companies had suddenly taken the wall, or why they had chosen to hold it, but when the desperate call for reinforcements went out, he answered. And now, in the fort, they had a tenuous hold. One that would threaten to break if they kept letting the Garlean's rush the gates.

Already, Magitek armor was starting to appear from the Ala Mihgo side, three drill equipped monstrosities, and Bryn knew they would make short work of the gates if they were allowed to reach them, but the alternative seemed somehow worse. He gritted his teeth, his green coat whipping through the air as he turned and stormed towards the steps off the raised wall, hollering to the soldiers he left behind, "Keep shooting! Don't let them close!"

He nearly skid down the stairs in his haste, boots hitting dirt as he found a group of spearmen already forming up on the gate, ready to poke back anyone who made it through with nervous energy, and their commander lingering near their rear. Coward. Bryn was in the midst of them in a moment, pointing at the two closest to the front. "You! Get ready, when I open the gate, each one of you take half of this force and take one of the magitek armor. I'll deal with the third!"

"This is my command!" The shrill, untrained voice that rose in objection was silenced with a glare of silver eyes, with a flash of the silver wolf patch on his cloak, and a growl that was more animal than man. A growl that served to get the spearmen into rapid position, even calling over a few archers for backup. Good enough. It had to be, especially since Bryn turned, and kicked the block out from the gear holding the gate closed, and it started to wind open with heavy clinks of metal chains.

For the Garleans, they saw the gates to their wall opening, welcoming them back into its safety, and they cheered with feverish delight. But those cheers were met with a roar of challenge, from Bryn and his commandeered unit, bayonet fixed at the end of his rifle as it spit aether and he charged out on fleet feet. The spearmen and archers that followed struck fear into the foot soldiers protecting the machines, turning and fleeing as the magitek marched forward with its orders firmly in place, only to find their way blocked by a sea of spears and rain of arrows. They halted, turning their attention to their attackers, but the large drills meant for puncturing armored gates was not well equipped to handle rapidly moving dragoons or distant archers.

And the third didn't stand a chance against the barreling soldier as the Eorzea alliance sallied forth, meeting their attackers head on in a defensive maneuver, and for the time being, stalling the recapture of the wall.

It was only after the metal and magitek machine lay wrecked at his feet that Bryn realized where he was standing. That after nearly eighteen years, he was standing in his homeland once more.

And for the first time since the fall of Dalamud, he felt hope.

[ryxmas]

for the wol think thonkers, 4, 8, 11, 18, 24, 27! i know its been a minute so i can link you the post again if you need it lol

4. What do they do in their down time? Do they have any hobbies outside of Primal-slaying and world-saving? Are these lifelong hobbies or recent interests?

The main thing is that Solara's a tinkerer! Before he came to Eorzea, he was working under (and eventually became) a Goldsmith in Kugane. It’s something he picked up when he was in his teens after seeing these items at Reunion from a foreign merchant that no one was interested in buying. So some of his downtime in ARR was spent with the Goldsmith's guild. Some of it translated well to machinery which he also found himself drawn to, especially after his time with the Skysteel Manufactory. A lot of his ARR and HW and early StB post patch was spent learning from and working with the Ironworks and Skysteel Manufactory. Which contributes to why those groups know him better than the Scions for most of the story. When shit really hits the fan and he doesn’t have the time to work with either the Ironworks or the Manufactory, he puts that creative energy towards his own weapons. Making and repairing stuff is how he eventually connects with the rest of the Crystarium. So some of the Crystalline Mean quests are canon since he does that during his recovery period in post ShB. And I imagine that he becomes a bit of an omnicrafter (sans Alchemist and Culinarian) over the game's timeline. I haven’t decided how post EW looks for him in terms of hobbies though. And I gotta think about some other smaller scale hobbies he might have lol. 

8. What is one of their biggest regrets? Has it had an effect on how they act moving forward, for better or worse?

Choosing just one of his biggest regrets is hard so here’s some back to back lol. There’s several that are kind of in the same ballpark. His behavior to the Scions during Shadowbringers are pretty up there (and more so the latter). And he works towards making amends throughout Shadowbringers post patch and Endwalker. Not quite as high of a regret are his interactions with Hien. He doesn’t regret interfering with Hien’s plans in Stormblood in the slightest, but he does know he took it a lot further than he reasonably should have, which is what he feels bad about specifically. And those two have a bumpier road to reconciliation. I've yet to explore how or if Solara's Myste would manifest (if they do) regarding his guilt over the people he could not save and the people whose lives he unintentionally negatively affected. And among his regrets competing for the top spot are Haurchefant and Ysayle's deaths. He didn't get to know some of the others (e.g. Minfilia, Papalymo, and Moenbryda) to have massive regrets over them, but Haurchefant and Ysayle were some of his closest friends during that point in time. And because Solara only becomes a tank after Heavensward, I think it would make sense if he picked up tanking specifically because of Haurchefant and Ysayle (both of whom are tanks) dying. But these events (and honestly Ishgard as a whole) feeds into his general distrust of city state leaders when he knows they’re hiding things, which affects his perception of and behavior towards Hien and the Exarch later down the line. And I want to say that especially after Ysayle dies is when Solara becomes a lot more hesitant to connect with new people in his life, at least until ShB post patch. 

11. Despite everything, is it still you? Has the core of who they are as a person remained true through everything, or have they been changed by what they've experienced and learned, for better or worse? 

No. Solara has pretty solidly changed on two major facets (and Shadowbringers was his "get torn down and rebuilt from the rubble" arc). The first is that events of the story wore away the ambition that he had before he came to Eorzea. And the way his initial dream of “I want to Khan and Khagan” became such a shitfest that he’s very averse to both ideas now. I need to figure out how long Solara is Khagan because the Naadam is a yearly event. While he doesn't want to, for the sake of being involved in the politics of the region, he might continue to participate until some time in Endwalker/Endwalker post patch where he decides to stop being involved in the Naadam (because I HC that each expansion is roughly one year). And even after EW, I think Solara is a bit aimless now that there isn’t a giant existential crisis. He’s picked up the pieces of his interpersonal life and has made a lot of repairs, but hasn’t really figured out what he wants for himself. The other is that Solara becomes a lot more selfless and heroic as a result of everything. This is a “The mask becomes him” situation where there was a lot of heroism that Solara did early on that grated against him because he thought that’s what he should do in his position (and what he thought his brother would do) and not necessarily what he wanted to do. But it slowly does just become the way he naturally thinks and sees things. Like I imagine early Solara to have thought processes similar to ARR Alphi, he just didn’t act on them because he’s just more aware of how to handle people and that behavior doesn’t suit the WoL image he was trying to craft. And I also have to give a lot of credit to the twins for inspiring him in this regard, especially Alphinaud because Solara sees so much of himself in Alphinaud that there’s a level of “Alphinaud grew and learned and succeeded in a way Solara wished he did”. And that’s not a tone of envy, but of deep admiration and beaming pride. 

18. How do they feel about the work they do? As the Warrior of Light they're tasked with quite a lot of violence, is it something that comes naturally to them or do they resist it? Are they merciless, do they try to spare as many lives as they can, or do they fall somewhere in between?

The first part of this question is already loaded, damn LOL. But I don't think Solara likes being the WoL. He'd really rather it wasn't him, but this is what the situation is and he has to deal with it. He likes helping people, or perhaps more accurately he's grown to liking it. He likes that he's making a difference. But he wishes at the end of the day, it didn't end up all falling to him. 

As for the questions regarding violence, I honestly think Solara's indifferent to it. To a large extent, violence has always been a part of Solara's life or at least hanging over him as a specter. From his mother taking him to flee the Garlean occupation of Doma, to growing up on the Steppes and losing his adoptive brother during a Naadam, to even the fact that his heritage from Doma is that of being bodyguards to the royal family. He just takes it as a fact of life and in a fucked up way, it comes naturally to him when he’s in a situation that calls for it. He isn't going out of his way to take lives, but he isn't making an effort to spare people (unless told to). Not including extreme cases like Zenos, (so mostly talking about foot soldiers on the opposite side of the battlefield here) it makes little difference to him if he takes someone out by killing them or knocking them out. With some exceptions I can think of being parts of StB (e.g. anything on the Steppes and also he might be more careful to not kill soldiers that might be conscripted from the nations he's trying to help free) and fighting tempered after they find a cure. 

24. How do they feel about Hydaelyn? What was their perception of the Mothercrystal in the beginning, and how did that change by the end, if at all?

I haven't put too much thought into Solara's belief system to be honest, or if he's even a religious person. I don't know if it makes sense for him to pay any mind to Hydaelyn until the initial calls though. And the initial calls from Hydaelyn and awakening the Echo were pretty distressing to him. And he's always had a buried fear that he might actually be tempered somehow due to Ifrit's comment back in ARR and the uncertain nature of the Echo. This fear only gets exacerbated during ShB. And also after shit hits the fan during late ARR post patch with Moenbryda dying because he doesn't have the Blessing of Light at that moment and then Minfilia disappears and becomes the Word of the Mother, Solara has a largely negative opinion of Hydaelyn for most of the story. And then Hydaelyn remains silent, which doesn’t help the situation. But contextualizing this over what he learns in Endwalker and thinking about Hydaelyn in the context of Venat makes everything click for him. He likes, trusts, and understands Venat. He retains complicated feelings over everything, but he doesn't have an explicitly negative opinion anymore. Because Venat the Ancient who chose what she thought was the best possible action in a slew of only terrible choices is a lot more easy to accept and forgive than Hydaelyn the faceless, unacting, Mothercrystal who intervened once to keep her weapon alive but not any of his allies. Hydaelyn made Solara feel like a tool and a puppet and Venat made him feel like a friend and accomplice, which made all the difference. 

27. How well known are they? Does everyone know their name as the Warrior of Light, or have they managed to maintain some level of anonymity? Do they prefer it that way, and do they have any struggles resulting from it? (Getting stopped on street corners VS awkwardly avoiding questions.)

Solara being a max height Au Ra is just going to get noticed lol. Especially since there aren't many of them outside of the Eastern regions, which are the regions he's most often in anyways lol. I don't think he can go anywhere after Stormblood, and especially after Endwalker, without being noticed. So it's probably an “everyone knows his name” situation, especially in the East because he was a political figure there for some time. He does wish he retained some anonymity but people generally leave him be. His resting bitch face is canon and deters a good number of people off. And also his (self) destructive behavior during Stormblood post patch was pretty public and also scared many people off. It's one of those situations where the people that do talk and interact with him (which are often children) say he's nice and friendly (late Stormblood post patch excluded) and everyone else is like ??????

[myreia]

1 or 17 for Aureia? 👀

Thank you, Rue! 💗

17. What is the worst thing you have put your OC through story-wise?

Ooooo, well, outside of XIV plot events in general, it would be Aureia's backstory and her behaviour throughout most of Heavensward and Stormblood.

Her backstory, briefly:

She and her twin, Kallias, were born in Corvos to military research scientists working for the Garlean military. They were moved around a lot as children as their parents were moved from post to post, following orders from their superiors. When Aureia's natural magical talents manifested, she was told to suppress them as her parents didn't want her to cause problems for them or their place in the military. There were talks of her eventually becoming an Imperial signifier, but her mother had a whole different idea.

Throughout their teen years, Aureia (then under her birth name, Kira) were groomed to be operatives. Their team was sanctioned for operation when they were 18, a process which involved passing the scrutiny and testing of Zenos. They spent almost a decade in the field working against Garlemald's enemies until the Calamity - the massive amount of life lost made her question her upbringing and everything she knew, eventually leading her to defect. She fought Kallias personally the night she left, and thought she fatally wounded him.

She fled to Eorzea, shed her identity and her history, took up the name Aureia Malathar and landed in Ul'dah to hide among the refugees. Her early days in the city were spent in fear that her former unit would track her down and kill her for defecting. That confrontation didn't occur until well after she was established as the Warrior of Light.

As for HW and SB, I keep pressing the "make it worse" button because she's an absolute mess.

Losing the Scions and getting exiled from the one place she called home really did a number on her and it had ramifications for her mental health throughout most of HW base. Sidurgu is one of the few people she actually forms a bond with in HW; there's a bit of confused feelings there that neither of them act on since she's too afraid of a relationship to actually do anything with it.

By the HW patches, she is very emotionally confused, uncertain where she stands with Thancred, watching Aymeric fall in love with her although she can't understand why. She and Thancred spend a good amount of time being generally nasty to each other. She starts a relationship with Aymeric because she pushes herself to do so; while she cares about him a great deal, the relationship was always a little uneven because he loved her more than she loved him.

Fast-forward to Stormblood. Aureia's filled with righteous rage, desperate to kill Zenos since he symbolizes her past to her, and she's got it in her head that if she kills him, then she kills her past and Kira can stay dead for good. When that doesn't happen, she ends up in a downwards spiral. She pushes Aymeric away; their relationship doesn't formally end, but it is strained.

She has a very brief fling with Fordola, one of the only people she has opened up to about her past and with whom she can actually be herself. It's a one-time thing that happens accidentally because her mind is in a really bad spot, but she's wracked with guilt about it because she and Aymeric are on such rocky ground and she still loves him, but she doesn't know how to talk to him anymore.

She spends a significant amount of time with Sidurgu and Rielle inbetween SB patches. He's a breath of fresh air, she loves Rielle dearly and is deeply protective of her (relates a little too much with having a mother who wants you dead), and it's good to be isolated from all of the political ongoings. Her mind is its most clear when she is with them, but that also means that all of the buried feelings come bubbling back up. She and Sid have a very brief relationship before she calls it off because she doesn't want to hurt him and she knows that if they started anything in earnest, the foundation would always be cracked because she hasn't properly ended things with Aymeric.

The SB patches is when Aureia is at her absolute worst. She has a very hard time sorting out her emotions and figuring out where she stands when she's balancing who she is now against who she was formerly. It's all one big jumbled identity crisis and unfortunately people she loves very dearly get caught in the crossfire.

Some very hard truths need to come out before she can get better.

[edgy/misc ask meme]

[magesnmiceys]

so i was thinking about gearing in xiv

i feel like with the set of content we have right now (that being exploration zones, savage, ultimates, and alliance raids), the gear structure could (and should) be changed to make progression a bit more horizontal. being able to do difficult content or long grinds and get worthwhile gear that could be bis (and having multiple outlets to get good gear) is a good thing, and i wish square would see it as such

savage gear could probably be the same as it is now - ilvl 665 (6.4 numbers, of course) gear that's better than most stuff out there.

however. there should be gear that's on par with savage that's just as difficult to get - whether that be through content that's just as difficult (criterion savage) or through a super long grind (exploration zones). a potential patch structure could look like this:

x.0 - raid tier, usual savage gear

x.05 - criterion savage, alternate left side gear with different stats

x.1 - alliance raid, more alternate left side gear that's slightly worse - more of a catch-up, like it is now, but a bit higher in ilvl. closer to savage, maybe 5 ilvl below?

x.15 - another criterion savage, alternate right side gear with different stats, with an alternate way to get tome augment materials

repeat from there until whenever the exploration zone comes out, where relic is started and becomes bis at the end of the expansion, but with a relic gearset that evolves with it, and some pieces become bis at the end of the expansion. eureka did this well, i think - i remember BLU specifically having elemental gloves of casting +2 as bis for one of the sets (and that counts as another point for stormblood being the best expansion gameplay-wise i think)

i feel like having a more horizontal progression, with savage being the main focus (as it comes out before anything else), could be really beneficial to the game, not just because it lets more players get geared - it also provides players with more things to look forwards to and more things to do in the downtime between patches. done with savage? wait until the .x5 patch and then get some more gear that could be better!! want to get in to savage next tier, but don't have the gear for it? do criterion and the alliance raids to get left and right sides and augmented tome materials and catch up!

the mentality that good gear should be savage raid tier exclusive kinda sucks. i really wish they'd consider having more outlets to get stuff like this - i feel like it'd bring a lot of life to the game in downtime where it needs it most and would be a lot of fun for players who want to grind and get that best gear at all times, and it'd give a lot of incentive to do all the content in the game

[semi-imaginary-place]

ffxiv 4.1

why's kugane the hub city for stormblood. Narratively Ishgard made sense for Heavensward because Heavensward is the story of Ishgard and the location features prominently in the plot. However the story of Stormblood is the story of Doma and Ala Mhigo's fight for independence if anything the two cities should have unlocked after beating 4.0. Kugane also makes a bizarre choice for a hub city from a lore perspective given how Hingashi is known to be isolationist

msq time! yeah i was wondering about the leadership question for ala mhigo. narrative direction seems to be going towards lyse but i do not think lyse makes a good leader and then she'd have to drop out of the plot and scions. politically raubahn makes a lot of sense for reasons i have already stated so far the writers haven't hinted they're going down this path

I wonder is skalla preserved anything the same way the dead sea scrolls were preserved by the salt.

the choices foldora's parents made mirror some of the choices we saw the domans made in that it really was the only way to survive, but doing so also further ensnared their nation as a whole and worsened the lived of everyone. watching your kind loving father get stoned to death by an angry mob would traumatize anyone really. its foldora's mom that has completely bought into the garlean propoganda and when its perfect that when she goes to them for protection when she needs then the most the garleans let her husband die to the mob and her daughter be stoned.

and how do you think the non hyur or the beastmen feel. i understand her mother though, she sold out ala mhigo so to protect foldora so that her daughter wouldn't be conscripted and wouldn't be forced to fight and there she goes joining the army anyways.

this probably got the strongest emotional reaction out of me out of the entire game so far

oh we are having a raubahn arc! as much as raubahn makes sense as a leader ala mhigo would unify under there's a lot waiting back for him in uldah. he's got many positions and responsibilities from the flames to the syndicate. his son is there and nanamo is basically his daughter. but at the same time they're both grown and pipin has proven himself capable of leading the flames.

can I say that nanamo's really brave. she's not a fighter she got fake assassinated/poisoned for months and she still wants to participate in politics.

you want me to go to the literal other side of the world to talk to a merchant instead of literally anyone in uldah the city of merchants. besides the east alderd trading company is run by lolorito you can't walk 3 steps without running into one of lolorito's men in ul'dah.

oooh girl do not help the monopoly. you got the advice now look for smaller salt businesses.

I'm surprised by the lack of fighting in this patch. i guess this is a shift in game design from arr where they wanted you to fight everything. for example in salt town the devs could have had you demonstrate to wildred how to kill monsters instead of just pointing out the weakpoints.

hmm so in the end it was personal. nanamo saved raubahn's life by chance but that was likely one of the darkest periods of his life and he swore an oath. if only the paladin quests could be this interesting.

representative government! republic! (ahhhh now if only doma did the same...). i do like how they showed a little bit of the messiness because real world tends to be messier. most irl revolutions devolve quickly into a series of worse military dictatorships.

huh what happened to that bit about letting him choose. i mean i guess raubahn felt like he had to honor his oath instead of doing what he actually wanted.

hmmm. wait we're not putting raubahn to work. he's one of the best generals on the continent if not the world and ala mhigo is in need of 1. an army given eorzea's stance on garlemald. 2. any sort of law enforcement, security, or organization given the power vaccum left by the imperials. 3. really any security look what just happened at the first council meeting. 4. governance raubahn has experience on the syndicate now too. oh no i wouldn't let him go back to being any old mercenary you aren't getting away.

yeah good they putting raubahn to work.

the rooftop garden is still intact? didn't the battle with zenos and the giant primal trash the place. hey there's a unique chamber orchestra arrangement of the ala mhigo theme up here.

[silvaswiftcast]

FFxivWrite2023 Prompt #27: Sole

Characters: Silva Cataracta, Ricmorn Cataracta, and Hien Rijin

Rating: General

Notes: This scene takes place sometime between the ending of Stormblood Patch 4.0 and the start of Patch 4.1. Silva and Hien are not together yet, but they know there is an unexplainable connection between them. Ricmorn and Hien have already talked about it and he is fine with seeing where it goes. Silva is still in denial that she has romantic feelings for him because feelings/emotions are complicated. This is also a scene that will be going into my longfic about them, but will look different by the time I get around to writing it!

Content Warnings/Additional Tags: Pre-Polyamory Relationship (V Relationship), M/F/M relationship, Playful Teasing/Banter, Mentions of Childhood Trauma.

Silva walked around the barren plot of land marked off by high stone walls as Ricmorn and Hien talked, their voices fading into the background. Her long tail slowly swayed from side to side, deep in thought. She never knew this existed behind Kienkan — the training grounds obscuring the view for the most part. It was almost a shame. A part of her surprised the young lord didn’t request the walls to be knocked down as renovations continued in the Doman Enclave.

That was until she learned the reason why they remained standing.

“I have a request for you, my friend,” Hien told her as he guided them into the space. “I would like for you to build me a private garden. You would have free creative control over it, and when my duties aren’t so heavy, I would be more than happy to assist you.”

A private garden and the young Lord of Doma offering to help her make it… Who would have thought? Not Silva, that’s for sure. She couldn’t believe her horns when she heard the words leave him.

And yet, the more she roamed around, the more she could visualize it in her mind. Lush greeny and vibrant, fragrant blooms. Tall sakura and Far Eastern wisteria trees provide shade and cover from the elements, filling the air with their sweet scent as the breeze catches their petals. A winding stone pathway to walk freely on and leave the plant life undisturbed and benches to sit on and relax. A small koi pond with lily pads and horsetails decorating the calm waters. Maybe even a few patches dedicated to growing local fruits and vegetables all year long.

Gods and Kami knew she could transplant a lot of her own seedlings and saplings from her rooftop garden in Kugane into this one with ease. Unbeknownst to him, he would be doing her a favor.

It would look beautiful — a place Hien could claim as his own and rest without being bothered by his duties.

“So… what do you think, Silva?”

“...Hm?”

The Au Ra turned around at the sound of her name, her train of thought breaking. She blinked, finding curious hazel and sky-blue eyes watching her, heat flooding her cheeks when both men chuckled.

And the smirk Ricmorn wore only made it worse.

“A-apologies, Hien!” she stuttered, shooting a quick glare at her husband before giving her full attention to Hien. “I was elsewhere for a moment. Could you repeat your question for me?”

He dismissed her apology with a wave, offering her an understanding smile. “Nothing to worry about, my friend. I was wondering what your thoughts were about undertaking this not-so-little project I suddenly sprung on you,” he explained, taking a few steps closer. “It’s quite the challenge — starting from the ground up. And I know you and Ricmorn are still on a break from your Warrior of Light duties, pray know I wouldn’t fault you for turning the project down.

Ah—

A soft hum left her. “I must say, I’m still surprised you came to me first for this. And I won’t lie to you. I already have several ideas on how to fill this space.”

As if she wasn’t used to challenges.

“Fair!” he laughed, amusement shining in his gaze. “But when I think of someone who has a great deal of knowledge when it comes to botany, you are the first person who comes to mind. One who is highly recommended by several members of her family.”

The unexpected compliment made her heart flutter, a rush of warmth filling her chest. She looked off to the side, toeing the point of her leather boot into the dirt. “The lot of you flatter me,” she mumbled. “Over a hobby, nonetheless.”

“A hobby we all know you take great pride in, my dear,” Ricmorn added, crossing his arms. “Something you have spent years perfecting.”

“Something that I used solely as a distraction from my troubles and depressive thoughts,” she corrected.

And yet it was something she continued with — that she loved. How it reminded her of better days with her mother, feeling the dirt crumble between her fingers and toes. Watching in pure childlike wonder as seeds turned into rich green sprouts, sprouts turning into lush plants sprouting colorful vegetables.

The joy glowing on people’s faces as they shared anything extra from their harvest to those more in need in their little village in Doma was something she would never forget.

How she still did that today.

“But… that’s not the only reason why I enjoy gardening, not anymore.”

Ricmorn raised an eyebrow, his beige tail twitching. “Sounds as if you’ve already made your mind up, Silv.”

“Perhaps,” she mused, taking another look around. “I’d certainly have my work cut out for me on top of everything else — helping to rebuild the Enclave, running all over the star for gods’ know what, personal matters.”

But she knew already there was no time limit on this project, that she could take her time with it and make sure it became everything she envisioned. She didn’t want to let Hien down. He meant so much to her. He was…

A friend — a very, very good friend. Not a handsome man who had somehow wormed his way into her heart and mind over the last several months and decided to stay there, plucking at the delicate strings of her feelings and thoughts.

He could never be— They could never be more than—

“You said I would have creative freedom to do as I please with this space, and there’s no rush to have it finished promptly, yes?” she asked the young lord after clearing her throat. She silently prayed the lilac blush staining her cheeks hadn’t deepened.

“Yes to both of those things,” he confirmed.

Silence fell over the three as she thought about it for several more minutes, even though… her mind was mostly made up the second he asked the question in the first place. Silva had her reservations about it, sure. The idea of staying in the land of her birth for an extended period after the trauma she’s suffered here as a child — a trauma she was still processing and trying to lessen the sting that came with it. It would be unhealthy for her to simply avoid coming here at all costs. She had family and loved ones living here, people who cared about her, not to mention her Warrior of Light duties, should Hien need her.

And something in her soul told her she would be here quite often in the future…

She took in a deep, calming breath before looking at Hien again. Hope, curiosity, and… something she couldn’t identify shimmered in his pretty peridot eyes. Whatever it was, it made her heart do flips inside her chest.

“I’ll do it. I’ll make you a garden that will rival the ones in all those Doman folktales we grew up with.

[sjofn-lofnsdottr]

I can't speak for anyone but myself, of course, but I suspect at least some of my feelings on it aren't unique. I've been through the MSQ completely five times now. I happen to be in the middle of Stormblood on a sixth! I agree that people are way too hard on Stormblood. And yet ... Stormblood is always the expansion I look forward to replaying the least, the expansion I am most likely to skip cutscenes in.

This got ridiculously long because I'm apparently In a Mood, so let me hide most of it.

For most of this, when I say 'Stormblood,' I'm primarily talking about 4.0 proper, and how I feel about it, looking back. I will touch on patch stuff a little, though!

So, I think the major issue with Stormblood is that it's the story arc that is least connected to the Warrior of Light personally, especially without the aid of headcanon. I think ARR and Heavensward do a better job of giving you reasons your character might be personally invested in the outcome, more than just 'well, people need help, so I guess I'm helping!' Your character doesn't talk much prior to Stormblood, but this possible distance was an important enough thing for the writers to acknowledge that you get a dialogue choice to say it's not your fight! So I suspect a lot of people just don't feel as connected to it, so a lot of the story beats get held at arm's distance, which makes them feel less powerful, leaving space to remember all the boring shit.

I'm one of those people who felt like my WoL was a side character. I'm sure Zenos is intended to be that hook for the people like me, the thing that makes this revolution personal no matter what my feelings on it might've been before that meeting. The personal growth part of the narrative, if you will. At least, he's the only broadly personal hook I can think of that you don't need to fill any blanks in for.

But Zenos' intro sucked. It sucked for me. I didn't feel like he defeated my WoL on his own merits, it felt like he beat him because the game says so. I know this game has plot rails we need to follow, but it's rare it's so nakedly in our face. They were telling me Zenos was powerful and scary, not showing me. I love when my characters lose as a setback. It's one of my favorite things! But it needs to feel earned, rather than breaking my suspension of disbelief the way the first two duties facing him do (although I think the second encounter is better). So not only did it not feel earned, it was fumbling a trope I normally enjoy.

With that early failure to draw me into what it was trying to sell me, Stormblood also wound up lacking much tension for me. There was no question in my mind that I would kick Zenos' ass as soon as the game would deign to allow it, or that these countries were gonna get liberated, and I don't feel like the story of how we got there was enough to make up for it. There weren't really any twists in the road, and the stuff that did make me feel some kind of way was often passed over quickly or worse, undone later, robbing them of their weight when you look back on them. Krile being taken prisoner did make me feel tension! But she's pretty much fine after, and they don't do a ton with that plot thread down the road. Gosetsu's scene at the end of Doma Castle was one of my favorite things ... right up until a credits scene completely undid it. Zenos' ending in Stormblood was fantastic, and made me retroactively appreciate what they tried to do with him ... right up until they undid that. I actually liked how some of those turned out - I am someone who likes the Tsuyu arc, I wound up finally appreciating Zenos much much later, and so on - but when I look back at them, it still feels like a lot of those narrative beats either don't have much to do with the WoL, didn't really impact them very much, or weren't ultimately that important overall.

It's also a pretty black and white story, as far as FFXIV's stories go. The Revolutions are Good. The Empire is Bad. At best you get some glimpses of how different people deal with being subjugated, and it's interesting when they do that, but it's a pretty cut and dry story over all, at least compared to the expansions on either side of it.

To be clear, I didn't really mind it wasn't my WoL's story. My main WoL loves to support his friends in any way he can, and he absolutely would go along for this ride, so there were no problems on that front. Honestly, he'd prefer to be a side character in this, since it's not his homeland or his fight. I enjoyed Lyse's arc, I don't mind at all that she's the real main character of Stormblood (and I will go to the mat for her any day). I think Stormblood introduced a lot of really good characters! But the stuff happening around them just feels flat to me, much of the time. The emotional highs and lows just aren't that high or low in the long term.

So because I don't have that strong personal connection to the various plot things going on in Stormblood, because the emotional beats aren't as strong for me due to a lack of tension or the knowledge they get undone, even the mildest slowdown feels extra slow to me. I promise I remember that every single expansion has slow stuff (honestly, you want to talk about people memory holing filler, look at Shadowbringers), but Stormblood is the one whose slow bits stand out in my mind over the exciting narrative parts ... because even if they weren't undone later, there weren't a lot of exciting parts that affected my WoL personally, or felt earned if they did.

But to end on what I intend to be a positive note: I think another contributor to Stormblood getting pooped on isn't Stormblood's fault at all. I think people just ... forget how strong the patches were. I started playing towards the end of Stormblood's cycle, the entire patch MSQ was done by the time I got to the end of 4.0. I ripped through those way faster than 2.0's (A SLOG and I'm pretty sure is 95% of the reason older players hate on ARR) or 3.0's (fun, but once the Dragonsong War was officially over, I felt okay about meandering around doing bullshit instead of advancing the story), because I very much wanted to see what happened next. As reluctant as I sometimes am to replay 4.0, I have no reluctance with its patches. I personally think they're the best ones they've done, so far, and play a part in why Shadowbringers was so well received.

Sorry this got so long! I've just been thinking about Stormblood a lot lately, since I'm replaying it with a friend right now. I'm also married to a man who feels very strongly that Stormblood is hideously underrated, so it's definitely something I've chatted about before. :P

When I see people say things like "ARR and SB don't have the best writing" while conspicuously skipping over Heavensward, I do wonder what their memories of Heavensward actually are and how long ago they played it. Because, and this is true for me as well, I think there are a few big dramatic moments in Heavensward that stand out in our memories as emblematic of the whole experience. (Also, there are the hot elves. We love the hot elves. Myself 150% included. This is an elezen-loving house.) But when you actually go back and look at the plot structure of Heavensward, as I've been doing recently myself for fic purposes, it's... look. Generously, the pacing is not anything to write home about. It's the kind of pacing issues that are common to RPGs generally, so I hate to be overly harsh, but the thing where anytime something interesting is threatening to happen the plot grinds to a halt and you must perform a thousand menial tasks before you're allowed to proceed--Heavensward does that hard. And look, I enjoy menial quests where you help NPCs because I'm the kind of insane where I do all the sidequests. But it's not well-paced, I think maybe because a lot of those in-between stretches feel like they're there to delay you from reaching plot points rather than setting them up. All those dramatic moments we remember happen in the back half of Heavensward. I'd really like to New Game + it sometime to really get a better feel for it, but based on digging through a lot of quest transcripts recently... the pacing just isn't great. And I remember Stormblood's pacing being a lot stronger, setting up the stakes early with Zenos and raising the tension and doing a pretty good job of maintaining it. What is the fabled Bad Writing in Stormblood that doesn't apply to Heavensward? I genuinely have no idea. It's one of those things I see people say a lot and not explain.

[the-rogue-mockingjay]

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

OKAY UHHH. ALL OF IT

Jk LMAO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[lavender-hemlock]

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[theozilla]

Alright, after having slept on it, here are some of my (basically spoiler free) thoughts on base Dawntrail/7.0.

First thing I want to clarify, when I said that base Dawntrail is tied/almost tied with base Heavensward, I mean that more in terms overall game/expansion experience/enjoyment, if I was just talking about central plot engagement, I can more easily say I prefer base Heavensward (though I would also say Heavensward is also more dependent on its 3.1-3.3 patch MSQ to make it a complete story than the other expansions), but the age of Heavensward and some of its more tedious gameplay-story linked elements makes the overall enjoyment closer to a tie with Dawntrail. Now this isn’t to say that Dawntrail’s MSQ isn’t good or even great at times, but I also wouldn’t say it’s amazing and regularly great like ShadowBringers and Endwalker were more regularly, though Dawntrail also certainly isn’t trying to reach the same heights as the previous two expansions either. Anyways the first half of Dawntrail is relatively simple but it still has a good story and pathos and does some great worldbuilding in general. Wuk Lamat is most certainly the main character of the story, with the WoL playing a supporting role, which largely works. Wuk Lamat’s English voice acting is also pretty good and fine all around. I wouldn’t call her performance amazing, but it is in no bad or even mediocre. The English voice acting of the entire cast in general I’d say is par for the course in terms of quality, so I don’t agree with some of the sentiments I’ve seen that it is worse than the previous expansions. It’s not trying to reach the same emotional highs of the previous two expansions, so the vocal performances reflect that, so maybe that’s what some people have meant when they felt the voice acting wasn’t as good. Dawntrail’s plot gets much denser during its last third and is where the tension and intrigue really get going, and I’d say it largely works. While I do agree that Dawntrail has some similarities and some degree of repetition to the previously covered concepts and thematic thrusts of ShadowBringers and Endwalker, I would say that there still distinct and unique enough to stand as its own thing (while also having some blatant inspirations and homages to Final Fantasy IX). The only time where I felt the similarities felt overly repetitive was when the final MSQ dungeon ended up being another "traveling through memories" dungeon. Which to be clear, I am not opposed to that type of dungeon being a regular genre of dungeon in FFXIV, but I don’t think it should always be used for the final MSQ dungeon of a base expansion. On the topic of dungeons, the difficulty spike of Dawntrail’s duties was definitely noticeable for me, I don’t think I have ever wiped so much to dungeons bosses since when I  was first starting out with FFXIV in the ARR MSQ (I first got into FFXIV when the Stormblood expansion came out to be clear), though I don’t know if doing them on Trusts/Duty Support  makes them more challenging than if I did them with the duty finder. Now to be clear, the difficulty spike was not a bad thing, it was just right amount of increase in difficulty where it was more challenging/punishing than before but still fun to play and improve with, if the difficulty spike was much more it might have gotten to the point where it might have gotten a little too frustrating for me personally, but as of now it was just the right amount off difficulty increase to still be fun for someone like me who rarely does savages/extremes (at least not since the Heavensward content). I figure Dawntrail being the lowest rated FFXIV expansion (not counting 1.0 Legacy) is largely due to it coming off and after the extremely strong story showings of ShadowBringers and Endwalker and seeming more comparatively lesser in quality than it actually is, as it is definitely better than ARR’s story (and I say that as someone who likes ARR and its story overall, like it is a solid -B levels of enjoyment) and at least as good as Stormbood’s (and I personally find Dawntrail solidly better than it).

Just finished base Dawntrail/7.0 this evening. I will post some more in depth thoughts tomorrow. But for now I’d say I liked it more than base Stormblood/4.0 & it’s tied/almost tied with base Heavensward/3.0. (ShB & EW are still my top favorites, with EW slightly edging out ShB).

[amdapor-keep]

according to my observations, in ffxiv most of the patches have a singular focus. heavensward has ishgardian unrest, then specter of nidhogg, then soul surrender, then stormblood prelude set up in a pretty linear fashion, and stormblood, shadowbringers, and now endwalker keep that set up. Something that I like about post-ARR is that the patches don’t necessarily have a singular focus. I’m not 100% on where the patches split up, I’m just going by achievements, but the continued ascian threat, move to mor dhona because of ul’dahn interference, and moggle mog were all in one patch, arrival of the doman refugees and leviathan were grouped together (intro to teledji, primal menace) and the riots in ul’dah were grouped together with ramuh, and the concept of an ascian prison was introduced there too. Rather than focusing on one plotline at a time post-ARR sticks its hand inside and swirls them all together and I really love that as a prelude to the banquet. As things get worse toward the end of post-ARR you really get the sensation that something awful is happening in the background but more urgent things keep popping up and youre distracted until everything falls apart explosively....... I like it

[eemamminy-art]

I saw your response about ships and decided to see what you thought about some of the rare ones I like! I thiiiink you encountered these at one point on the book club but perhaps not.

Nero/Solus(rehydrated)

Nero/Exarch

Nero/m!wol

Varis/wol

Emet/Exarch/Nero

The Chais/wol

The Chais/Innocence (these here and below literally just occurred to me, but...)

The Chais/Exarch

The Chais/Emet

Innocence/Exarch

I'm actually not in the bookclub! But I have heard mention of some of these pairs!!

There's a lot here so I'll do a cut :3

Nero/Solus

When you say rehydrated I'm assuming you mean like, the more youthful Solus? I think if anything Nero would be way too fascinated by the allagan cloning and it was just irritate Solus gjdsgjds I could see them as like fwb but without the friends part lol colleagues with benefits I guess?? I get the sense Nero has a really hard time being emotionally vulnerable but likes to have fun physically at least

Nero/Exarch

Okay omg... I have to tell you... I had this like cracked AU idea before that like, Nero ended up as the exarch instead?? Like since he was really trying to stay inside the tower at the end of the CT quests I was like hey what if he did... So I don't think it's a stretch to imagine they both ended up in there! Hundreds of years of isolation with just the two of them, I think they'd spend a lot of time deep in their research and work but would eventually develop some sort of codependency. I think that would be interesting to see! :D

Nero/m!wol

I think it would depend on the wol's backstory but I think it could be interesting! Wol/npc stuff is always tricky to navigate because I think where it's great with one wol it doesn't work with another, so I think it's a bit hard to answer since one half of the ship is always going to be up to interpretation since it's an OC. But I think just looking at it from Nero's perspective, I could see it starting as another competitive sort of thing with Cid-- feeling like he's stealing the wol away from him, whether or not Cid had romantic interest in the wol or not, but just wanting to claim something against him in their neverending rivalry. I do like that you specified m!wol too because I can't imagine Nero with a woman personally

Varis/wol

So I actually do ship Varis with an OC! Not the wol though, the OC is Zenos' mom although I know technically she does have a name in canon now but I pretend I do not see it lol. It's a really tragic ship the way I do it because it leans into azemet kind of, where she wasn't Azem but was an ancient who was with Emet and is now sundered and married to Varis. To kind of compound their already bad family dynamic and make Emet sadder lol (affectionate).

But speaking of Varis specifically with the wol, I think that could be really interesting too! I think back to that scene in the stormblood patches where he absolutely owns the whole alliance and they're all scrambling like oh shit we actually know next to nothing about this guy what the fuck dsgjsdj iconic scene and one of my favorite parts of the game, but I would want to think that's where there's a turning point for the wol. They're like fascinated with him and feel so conflicted about everything. I think it would be a really good launching point for an AU where the wol switches sides and I would love to see it :D

Emet/Exarch/Nero

Well I love Emet/Exarch already so I think adding Nero into the mix would be interesting as well! I feel like it would be a combination of my answers above for Nero/Solus and Nero/Exarch. Possibly brings out the vindictive shitty side of Nero if he was already getting codependent with the Exarch (I could see him acting that way toward the wol as well) and I think it would be a really destructive relationship for the three of them. But that's sort of the appeal of Emet/Exarch anyway imo, that they make each other worse and I think adding Nero to that would just compound it

The Chais/others

I will combine these all into one answer because it is going to be the same (possibly disappointing) one: I love the Chais but I really don't see them having an open relationship. I feel this way about the Leveilleurs too, and I know it's popular with both of them to have it be an open relationship. I am just really passionate about being a monogamous wifeguy and so I absolutely project that onto m/f ships gdsjgjds Extremely weak for the devoted husband who is kind of insufferable otherwise but he's just a gooey sweetheart with his wife 🥺 it's too relatable for me so I can't bring myself to ship it as poly due to it having that personal sort of connection for me. I'm sorry!! 😭

Innocence/Exarch

I hadn't thought of this before but it's an interesting thought 👀 Sort of like a bad end scenario, I feel like? The Exarch was ready to throw himself away in that moment so why not let himself be corrupted? Or consumed? My brain immediately goes to body horror type of stuff for them and it's a lovely thought, I will need to ponder this one more ☺

I hope you found my thoughts on these interesting! Thanks for the ask! I definitely hadn't considered a lot of these before!!