#i love any moment with alisaie but this is a classic

[brineffxiv]

Cid finds the password. It's "freedom". Ominous.

Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope

Owen here confirms most of what we've already suspected about tempering - how it stagnates the aether of the soul and taints it towards a particular element.

Have we ever seen this? Apart from sin eaters and voidsent, which are different, I can't think of an example of the tempered physically changing. Perhaps some of the thralls of the Warring Triad, like in this example, but not any of our "classic" primals, for lack of a better term.

Hey, I remember that guy. He's the guy with the extravagant hat in the Crystal Tower raid.

Memory transference might be the key to restoring the tempered, but we infamously couldn't figure that out on the First. Thankfully, the Source has ancient Allagan computers! With a little help from Cid and the Ironworks, we should be able to run simulations of the magic to crack this problem.

I'm off to Ishgard to secure a supply of ceruleum, and who should I run into but Aymeric! It is lovely to see him, but more importantly, he pledges his full support for finding a cure for tempering, and offers me all the ceruleum an airship can haul!

And here I thought building my own PC was impressive.

Hey, Nero! Long time no see! (If you don't count me kicking your ass daily in the Praetorium)

Nero's not in this for a tempering cure, he's interested in his alternate timeline's self's having conquered the mysteries of time and space. Should we tell him that he and Cid apparently carried out their love/hate relationship for their entire lives? Because they did. lol

Group /doze time.

Just as the machine finds the solution it begins melting down! Thankfully, G'raha manages to read and comprehend the spell before it blinks out of existence. Forever. Because we have thoroughly destroyed this machine and it will never run again.

Now for the moment of truth. Time to see if our work will have tangible effects.

First we have to imbue Angelo with the memory macigk, so Y'shtola and Alphinaud channel their aether into G'raha.

Who in turn enhances Angelo.

G'raha and Alisaie then take Ga Bu to a quiet room so Alisaie can focus while she performs the spell.

And then the little guy is healed!

It was an exhausting process for everyone involved, but it worked! We have a cure for tempering.

Now to work on making sure the results are repeatable.

Off to see Master Matoya, and hopefully build an army of porxies.

[motheatenscarf]

Beat Heavensward!

It's getting harder and harder to stop and post my thoughts as I come across them because... idk, I'm in a bit of a funk. And also because I find myself more and more just mentioning these thoughts to my friends who are also playing through the same story as I am and we all appear to be enjoying it differently and are having lengthier discussions there and I wind up not having the energy to post it here.

So, I'm gonna make a few posts in a row based on some screenshots I'm going through!

My most recent/immediate impressions are as follows;

I REALLY liked Ysayle and I was sorry to see her die but I saw that one coming a mile away. Also, god forbid they have any interesting women in this game. Sigh.

Lucia, all my hopes are on you, don't die, and Alisaie, maybe don't grow up anytime soon, I don't think they'll kill a little girl but all of the interesting women are doomed :T

But yeah, Ysayle did nothing wrong, she had nothing to atone for, her death makes sense from a character perspective, I understand why she FELT like she had to make up for her mistakes, but she did nothing wrong and I liked her a lot and am sad she's gone. I wish the narrative acknowledged her passing as sorrowfully as it acknowledged Haurchefant's, but I also get why it didn't do that.

At least Estinien commented on her passing favorably.

And uh, yeah, lol, the Estinien thing getting overtaken by Nidhogg's fury thing kinda came out of left field. I know it was something that had been telegraphed, but I was talking with my friends moments before I watched him turn into a dragon and saying, "Yeah, I really thought there would be more of a thing with him struggling to control his rage, but I guess they had other things they wanted to focus on." And uh... then he transformed out of no where once he had the second eye of Nidhogg.

And rather than taking it seriously, I just made.... .SO MANY jokes about Estinien and his balls because it was a deeply unearned dramatic moment.

But yeah, I was coming around on Estinien, we'll miss him, oh well lol.

Speaking of coming around on characters, I DID, grudgingly, come around on Aymeric and it makes me so angry lol.

I really wanted to hate him because he was a cop, but he's a good dude. It's a fantasy story, we can ride dragons and there can be ONE good cop who is actually tragically idealistic and morally upstanding. And we have to protect him or Isghard is gonna stay in the dark ages forever. I really wish we could have seen him confront his father in the final showdown, but that's an old issue I have is making the WoL face enemies alone.

I liked Y'shtola's mentor as well, but she was there for 5 seconds and my favorite thing about her was her enchanted broom that quoted Mr. Sparkle (there are A LOT of good classic simpsons references in this game, the Fates especially Jesus Christ), and also she uhhhhhh didn't matter apparently. I hated that whole time wasting detour and the fact that Y'shtola is here and she is as unflappable and emotive as a fucking rock despite essentially getting a terminal diagnosis for her time in the lifestream. Just not a single emotion behind those dead, dull eyes.

Which, to me at least, speaks to the VAST improvement in the quality of writing that Y'shtola, the best character from ARR's scions, is notably the weakest element here. Alphinaud's gone through some great character development, Tataru is utilized well as an endearing element, and the new characters from Isghard are all of them genuinely interesting and compelling, even the cop whom it took me forever to come around on, I like Aymeric, I liked Estinien and Ysayle and Haurchefant. I LOVED the Dark Knight class story. The Paladin class story sucked, but even just regional questlines like the hunters in Tailfeather and the Vath and the dragons and the soldiers in cloudtop or Falcon's Nest or even the moogles in Moghome were all interesting!

Which is I think why I get so frustrated by the pacing sometimes is because it has all these fantastic elements if it would just give them the attention they deserve and not bounce around like crazy or handwave things that deserve time and focus.

It's fun and it's pretty good but it could be AMAZING if it would just fully commit to itself.

[pennyroyal-xiv]

Hope you don't mind me spewing my thoughts on this flavored with my headcanons, I'm just feeling yappy:

I love the punch in the gut of thinking about this moment. Personally I imagine Endwalker as a disastrous miscommunication blender of unrequited feelings, I shouldn't-but-I-want-tos, jealousy, envy, bitterness, old wounds preventing progress, and emotionally-fucked-up lashing out between WoL and Zenos.

By this point in the story my HC is they've come so close to having a Real Talk And getting their feelings sorted out, but each keep fucking it up in world-endingly disastrous ways (Zenos with his dinner date and joyride - dude you gotta stop taking advice from Fandaniel!) and WoL with giving in a little to their feelings, freaking out about it, and causing Zenos to think he's being spurned when they bolt.

So when Alisaie is chewing Zenos out, it's extra painful because Alisaie definitely knows that *something* was going on between them. Of course she doesn't think he deserves the time of day from WoL, and she reads him the riot act like any good bff would to their bestie's ex who hurt them. Rightfully so, she's pissed that A) her bestie cares about this asshole, B) that this asshole doesn't care enough for her, and C) That he's causing the end of the world for selfish reasons.

But WoL is standing there feeling this utter mindfuck of horrible emotions, guilt, regret, sadness, longing, the works. They wish that things had worked out and they could have reached Zenos in time. Now they feel like there's this huge chasm between them, a gulf that cannot be crossed due to Zenos starting the Final Days in a last-ditch attempt to win the WoL's attention and affections. He went too far. Where they could have bent the rules before, could have maybe connected despite their shared history, they can no longer. Zenos knew that as soon as he crossed paths with the WoL on the moon -- he knew he was in the dog house. WoL would barely look at him. His sun, the sole source of happiness and connection in this existence, had turned away from him. Zenos was left in the dark, in the cold, alone.

When Alisaie berates Zenos, he and the WoL are both at their lowest points. Out of orbit. Thinking they'll never entangle again, maybe.

He *is* maidenless. And he's finally at a low enough point to listen to whatever wisdom will get him what he wants more than anything, his emotionally-fueled battle that will eclipse all other experiences and burn away his life in a blaze of glory. Or, what he actually wants and doesn't know that he does: true emotional human connection with someone else.

Alisaie hands him the nugget of wisdom he needs, intentionally or not. He will never get what he wants as long as he's only thinking about himself and solely pursuing his own pleasures.

To say Zenos is smart is an understatement. As soon as this clicks, that for him to get what he wants, he needs to understand what the WoL wants (to be fair he's been on the edge of this realization at least since In From The Cold), his prodigy-level mind is already whirring.

That's how we end up at the end of the universe with WoL's ex coming in at the third act at their darkest hour to help them save the day after thinking about what he's done wrong and how he can fix their relationship. Isn't it almost a classic romance movie beat? Maybe it's just me.... 😆

If you view your wols relationship w Zenos as kind of romanticesque Alisaie basically tells Zenos that he's fucking cringe + L + he's maidenless during that one part of EW

[thecrystarium]

gtkmffxiv: favorite moments (6/?)

“The ritual is complete, my friends. You may now breathe in the depths as you would upon land.”

[eemamminy-art]

♡ - romantic headcanon for both Lyse and Alisaie. (Not together. )

Hmm, for Lyse I think she would be the type to be really oblivious to her feelings and those of any potential partners? Like she would be the type to spend every moment she could with the other person and to be really happy around them but it never clicks until something more dire happens and she throws herself into danger for them. Then afterward she is like “Why did I do that?? Wait a minute...”

I think Alisaie would be rather chivalrous! I see her as the type of partner who wants to spoil and protect whoever she is with. Honestly I see her as the classic butch, of someone who can be harsh or off-putting to strangers but is the sweetest, kindest, gentlest soul when she’s with the woman she loves. It always gets me because I don’t feel like there are a lot of characters to ship Alisaie with so I’m always like, I have all these strong feelings about Alisaie in a relationship but tfw no gf ;3;

[geekcurious]

Twin energy

gtkmffxiv: favorite moments (6/?)

“The ritual is complete, my friends. You may now breathe in the depths as you would upon land.”