#i was on her taking gposes so she is the first one to get flowers and she would never but also

[prudentfolly]

"Do not mention this."

[starrysnowdrop]

I know this is a little late, but here’s my New Year’s post where I’ll discuss what my plans are for 2025 and some of my thoughts heading into this new year. I’m assuming that I might be a little long winded, so I’ll put the rest under the cut. Have a happy 2025 everyone!!

First of all, I wanted to thank everyone who reached out to me after the attack in my hometown of New Orleans. As I mentioned before, no one I personally knew was there on Bourbon Street when it happened, but it nonetheless left me feeling extremely distressed, and everyone here in Nola is grieving together, so we are taking it one day at a time.

Because of the attack, I wasn’t in the right mindset to write out this post, but I’m finally alright enough mentally to get these thoughts out.

Next, spurned on by my new profile picture, I decided that I wanted to change up the look of my blog a bit. There’s lighter, brighter colors used, and along with the new colors, I decided to make some new banners for my pinned post. The new banners are already being used in my pinned post, but I’ll attach them below in case you haven’t seen them yet. The background is a painting of snowdrop flowers! Don’t worry, the starry banners that were there previously will still be used interchangeably with the new ones when I answer asks.

Speaking of Hali and her ships, I have plenty of things that I want to gpose and write for Hali, and at the moment I’m still going forward with Hali having two ships in separate universes, but I’m not going to lie: I’m extremely inspired to write for Hali x Themis at the moment.

So does that mean that I’ll drop the Aymeric ship in the future? Well, I don’t know that yet. I’m still very happy with what I’ve done for the Hali x Aymeric ship, and even in the Themisverse, Aymeric is her first love. The only difference is that Aymeric pushes Hali away so that she doesn’t have to be stuck in Ishgard with him when she’s an adventurer, so they never get together in the Themisverse. So Aymeric would still be a very important person who plays a very important role in Hali’s story regardless if they are in a relationship or not.

However, my mind just will not leave me alone when it comes to Themis. I currently want to explore Hali’s experiences with seeing Themis in her dreams and not knowing who he is or why she can’t stop dreaming of him, and also having a Deja vu feeling whenever she encounters Elidibus but neither of them recognizing each other nor remembering their past love for each other. And of course, there’s much to write about Hali’s personal story during the events of Pandaemonium when they start falling in love with each other.

On the gpose front, I already have made some great strides with getting back to doing some more complex posing and using some shaders and presets that broke in the DT graphics update that I FINALLY got around to fixing! So once my son is back in school and I have more free time to practice, I’ll be getting back to do more gposes and especially more Hali x Themis shippy stuff!! So please look forward to it!!!

Alright, so let’s move onto Yume and Zenos (her side blog is @firelightmuse). I’m going to continue housing Yume’s stuff on the separate side blog even though all of my other OCs will be on the main blog, and that’s because Yume’s story has some darker content and themes from her backstory and her relationship with Zenos that is very different from Hali’s story and what I’m planning on for Sohna’s story.

There’s already several WIPs on the Yume x Zenos front, and I will be going forward with what I’ve wanted to explore with Yume for a long time: Yume will be heading home to Hingashi and facing what’s happened to her home since she left over a decade ago. It’s a storyline that I’ve been planning for a few years now but I finally feel confident enough in where she’s at that I’m going forward with it finally. So there’s much more that will be coming out from Yume’s story this year, so once again, please look forward to it!!

And lastly but certainly not least, I’m still going to be exploring Sohna’s story and developing her relationship with Alphinaud, but that’s going to be slow going, because Sohna is from Tural, and her story is so tied up in Dawntrail’s MSQ that I don’t know how much of a role she will play in the events going forward. I do know that down the road I want her to join the Scions and obviously she will grow closer to Alphi, but I’m not sure how I want to approach all of that just yet. Just know that I still love them greatly and I’m excited to see how things progress this year!!

And with that, those are currently my plans for 2025, and I have so much on my plate that I want to accomplish, but I’m really motivated right now and I’m excited to start working on it all. If you’ve read this far, thank you so much for your time, and feel free to ask me anything that I didn’t cover here or if you want more details on something. Once again, thank you, and here’s to a Happy 2025!!!

[sorrel-haven]

A moment to come to understanding

Some context: A little drabble about Kore and Tofu after their public spat at Café Melodia. Tofu found out Kore has the echo and was acting very stand-offish and Kore was having none of it. She went home before him in a huff.

Tofu belongs to @ro-valerius and she took the gpose ^^

Drabble under the cut!

…

Kore returned to the place she had come to call home in her time in Eorzea, frustrated, upset, and needing to hit something. She had just the thing for that, a training dummy she stole from the archer’s guild. Silvairre had said some unkind things, so she took the one he usually practiced with. She never claimed to not be petty.

After all, she did just steal Tofu’s jacket right off his back for his reaction to her having the echo. She went over the night's events in her head with each knife she chucked into the dummy. She should be happy! She has a real lead on her lost brother! A genuinely solid lead, the first one she’s had in three years. But no, all she could think about was the look Tofu had on his face when he told her to never use that ability on him. It was cold, as much as his voice was. He never looked at her like that before.

She hated it.

She was still outside, now practicing her dance forms when Tofu returned to the flower house. Her ear twitched as she realized he was leaned up by the door watching her practice. She threw her chakrams at the dummy with enough force that one stuck before she could recall it. She huffed, tossing aside the one that came back as she walked up to free the other. As she pulled at the wicked looking circular blade she sliced open her hand and hissed at the sharp pain. She fell to her knees as she pulled off her half gloves to assess the damage.

“Are you okay?” Tofu asked as he approached.

“I’m fine.” she snapped, as she closed her hand, but the wince gave her away.

Tofu gave her a pointed look, and she huffed, but acquiesced. She wordlessly held her hand palm up for him, looking away from him. He let out a light breath and gently took her hand in one of his as he brought up the other to heal it. A cut like this, while deep, was within his abilities to heal. They sat in silence for a while like that. Kore’s face began to flush with frustration as Tofu healed her without saying a word himself.

“I’m angry with you.” Kore broke the silence.

“I got that much.”

“You were so upset with me! And for something I didn’t ask for! I didn’t lose my control on purpose. Sometimes a memory is just too powerful…”

“I kno-”

“And you went on to imply I’d just… Root around in your memories for fun! Oh yes let me just take a look into that head of yours I’m sure I’ll find more than just hot air.” She took back her now healed hand. She stared at it while she flexed her hand to get feeling back.

She scoffed, “The worst part is you’re right… I didn’t use my ability on you sure, but I would have. I have used it to track my brother since I got the power.”

“I hate that you’re right…”she said almost under her breath. “I-”

Tofu snapped her out of her own head as he gently lifted her chin to look at him. He smiled softly.

"I really am sorry. You want to find your brother, I understand that. I, too, would do anything to find Hana if she went missing. You, too. Any of you. I'd go through any lengths to find any of you if you went missing. I can't fault you. I shouldn't have been that way."

The smile faded as his social awkwardness kicked in.

It seemed he struggled for words. "I'm...still learning how to...be..." He shook his head, unable to find the phrasing. "I'm still learning how to trust."

Trust.

The word made her tear up as she thought about the implication.

“Didn’t you listen? You shouldn’t trust me. I would have peered into your memories! I would have done it purposefully.” She sniffled a little. “You’re right to be upset with me, I’ve looked into, so, many memories and the only reason I didn’t turn it on you was because I was… distracted.” Those last words seemed to hurt to say.

He sat down in front of her to meet her eyes. She met his gaze searching his eyes for a sliver of that disdain she saw before, and found only his neutral, but calm, expression.

“Then look.” A bitter smile crossed his lips. “And if you pity me after looking… So be it. I am a pitiful man after all.”

Tofu continued, “ But even if I’m pitiful, I’ll protect you. I’ll help you. I’ll trust you.” His expression softened. “And we’ll get you and your brother together soon, alright?”

She studied his face as she absorbed his words. She nodded in response, tears still threatened to spill. After a moment she spoke again.

“I think the only truly pitiful man in the family is Autumn. He’s like a wet leaf.” she sniffled. “Can’t even crunch.”

The joke landed its hit as Tofu laughed, caught off guard.

“Aw, cut him some slack, he can’t remember who he was!” he managed to get out between the laughs.

Kore laughed too as she wiped away a tear from her eye.

“But he’s so whiny about everything, like he’s so burdened by it all.” She joked… mostly.

He reached out with a gentle smile, cupping her face with one hand and wiped away the tears she missed with the pad of his thumb. Kore sucked in a breath at the touch.

"He could be and we don't know it." It sounded light hearted, but there was some truth to his words. "In any case, it's late. Get cleaned up and get some rest, yea?"

“Okay.” Kore felt her face start to turn red and tried to hold it in.

She quickly got up to head inside. She brushed off her skirt in case of any stray grass and noticed that she was still wearing his jacket that she stole. She stared at the cuff as she stooped to retrieve her chakrams. She couldn’t just give it back just like that. No, he would not win this night.

“You know. I do think Yinn was right.” she said as she headed towards the door. “This jacket does suit me better. I might have to keep it.”

Tofu groaned as he stood up.

“But I need that for Eòlas!”

[the-rogue-mockingjay]

9, 15, 21 + o’ravi for the pre-DT questions? 💚

ty dani!! i'm gonna answer these out of order because the answer for 9, what's in wol's bag, got really fucking long 😂 (there is a gpose in there 👀 and a lot of Ravi lore)

15. what would your wol be if they weren't the wol? what would they do as a job or career? would they be happier?

O'ravi would've just kept doing the stuff she was doing pre-ARR- namely, traveling the realm as a minstrel, and supplementing that with her skills as a huntress if she didn't make enough gil with music. She would've been SO much happier with that, but it wouldn't have filled the hole in her chest that longed for purpose and deeper meaning. (Obviously, the pursuit of art and sharing it with others does have meaning, but she still wanted more, if that makes sense.) She would never in a million years have been a Scion- as it is, she very nearly turned tail and ran after first meeting them ldfkjghdjgh. (She felt very small and stupid around them in ARR, and she felt like an outcast among them up until the end of base ShB.)

21. what does your wol do to unwind? any hobbies? reading? sewing? croquet? sitting in a dark room in complete silence?

Laying on the floor in a dark room is how she calms down when she's overstimulated/having a panic attack FDLKGDLHGJKH

To unwind, she always goes somewhere very quiet, maybe wraps herself up in a big soft blanket if temperature allows. She'll read letters, perhaps write some letters, do some embroidery or make a tiny stuffed animal, or literally just sit there doing nothing and maybe doze off lmao. She used to refuse to do any weaving as a "fuck you" to what her tribe/family expected of her, but she takes it up again post-ENW now that she doesn't have to worry about her work being compared to her mother's masterworks. She also likes to people-watch from rooftops or balconies or wherever else people are unlikely to notice her.

As far as hobbies go, perhaps her favorite is music. She plays the lute, the harp, violin, and later, the piano. The piano and harp are the most calming for her to play.

Other hobbies are:

collecting flowers during her travels and pressing them in journals

collecting mammets (specifically, the wind-up little guys you get in-game; she has probably a dozen different wind-up O'ravis at this point, as well as minions of her friends, enemies, allies, the entire First Brood, and random others)

collecting plushies (her collection includes the stuffed Estinien and Hraesvelgr, as well as every single adorable little thing on the market!! tonberries, chocobos, baby dragons, sheep!!)

drawing her favorite locations (she is bad at it. this does not stop her)

collecting orchestrion rolls and sheet music, as well as a small collection of musical instruments which are of a dramatically nicer quality than the ones she started out with FDLKHGKJH

gardening and tending to animals

riding chocobos (she's a horse girl without the horses LOL)

Now, lore time!!

9. what's in your wol's travel bag? any trinkets? any vital items they can't go without? do they travel light and figure stuff out on the fly, or do they bring way too much with them?

Hmm....a good question....well for starters,

she NEVER goes without her purple lipstick (she has a few different shades, and the worse she's doing mentally the darker the color she uses- for the record she doesn't do that on purpose lmao)

she also has a small array of jewelry that she pretty much always keeps with her. For practicality's sake, I like to think there's enchantments on them that prevent them getting lost or broken lkjfghdkgjh. She decides which things to wear based on either aesthetics, or which memories she wants to keep closest to her today

In ARR, she was always wearing a pair of fluorite earrings, which was the first thing she bought as soon as she had the money; in Heavensward, she had a set of opal jewelry Haurchefant commissioned for her; from the HW patches on, she always wears at least one piece of Fortemps jewelry, usually the earrings + choker; after ShB, she started wearing Amaurotine and Crystarium rings; and post-ENW, she has rings from Asphodelos and also her wedding rings! 💞

She also has the Dravanian earrings of aiming, which I like to think are shards of Shiva's ice (pretend they glow lol). The Orthodox ring that I think drops from the Aery is what I use for a wedding ring in-game lol- I like to think that she bought it from some random jeweler because it reminds her of Aymeric :> She also has Zenos's ENW necklace. Probably.

As far as more practical travel items are concerned:

she buys paper and ink just about every chance she gets, so she can write letters to people back home; she also has a journal that she keeps notes in. They're extremely disorganized

obviously, she has all her job stones; from the Zenos assassination attempt in Doma onwards, she fights the same way Meteor does in the ShB trailer, switching between classes mid-battle (in rapid succession, once she gets really good at it). The gear she's not currently using gets stored in the job stones, and she switches between classes by slightly shifting her aetheric attunement to the stones so that one takes priority over the others. This is all headcanoned bullshit based on my very limited understanding of how aether works, the gear set system, and the ShB trailer LMAO

whatever the Eorzean equivalent of ibuprofen is 🥴 probably some Thavnairian potions lmao

bandages and shit for cleaning wounds. She is very particular about not letting any of her injuries, no matter how minor, get infected!!

SOAP. for being an adventurer she actually hates being covered in blood, dirt, and sand so fucking much she cannot STAND it. Begone, damned texture!!!!!!

comb. She hates it when her hair gets matted (if her hair's a mess, that's a sign that things are Very Bad)

glamor prisms :> she will not prioritize fashion over comfort, so if she really wants to wear a pretty shirt/dress/whatever but it has a bad texture or something, she'll just glam it over something more comfortable. It also means she can shake up her accessories without needing to take the time to actually switch something out

Azem's crystal is with her at all times, no exceptions. She also has some other similar crystals that she's experimenting with (with the help of Y'shtola, G'raha, Urianger, Professor Claudien, and some folks back in Elpis who don't know the full scope of her project), with three main goals: enshrining all her knowledge and memories in them so that people who don't have the Echo can see her memories as if they did; preserving her history and journeys so that future generations will have access to the facts, no matter how warped the stories get; and tying these crystals as well as Azem's to her soul so that when she dies, her reborn soul will have a means of learning their past, if they so choose. Taking a page out of Erichthonios's book for that idea lol

if she anticipates an arduous trip or incredibly difficult fight, she brings a cane. Such things take a lot out of her post-ENW and she finds herself in need of a mobility aid at times. I think she also has a variety of potions and tonics to help manage her conditions, courtesy of Nidhana, probably.

In general, she's pretty meticulous about packing things ahead of time, and ends up bringing a whole ton of shit rdlkfjghfdgj. But she just gets anxious thinking about "I probably don't need to bring this but what if x ridiculous scenario happens and I do?". Pre-ARR she just grabbed a few things and made shit up as she went.

[starrysnowdrop]

Dawntrail Review and Thoughts

So, it’s taken me a while to not only finish the msq but also to gather my thoughts, but here’s my review of Dawntrail, as well as what my OCs and their ships will be doing during 7.0. I’m going to be doing bullet points and trying to be as concise as I can. I’ll try not to ramble!

As expected, MAJOR spoilers for the entire 7.0 msq ahead, so please don’t click below if you don’t want to be spoiled!

CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

What I Enjoyed

The graphics update really shines in the Tural zones, because everything is so beautiful!! The weather effects, the textures, god it’s all stunning! I took my time just looking around at everything, and over and over I stopped and just stared at flowers, or water, or mountains in the distance.

Even the later zones were outstanding, but my favorite zone by far is Yak T’el, especially the lowlands where the Mamool Ja are from. It reminded me so much of Macalania Woods from FFX, and I already have some gposes planned in that area for a reason. It’s probably my favorite zone in game right now.

The world building in DT is excellent, and I also loved learning all about the different peoples and cultures found throughout Tural. I actually liked how the WoL is learning about Tural alongside Wuk Lamat participating in the Rite of Succession. Though the msq was slow at times in the first half, I didn’t mind it really because I was taking my time doing side quests and getting all the Aether currents along the way.

For the most part, I really enjoyed all the new characters that were introduced in DT, and I also loved that we learned about Krile and Erenville as well. I wish some characters had a bit more screen time and development, but overall the characters themselves were great, except for one that I’ll get to later.

The new lore that DT has established, especially with the key that allows travel between reflections, and now with a sort of merging/failed rejoining?? of a reflection with the Source via Alexandria, I am extremely excited to see where the overarching story is going from here. And you all saw that the key had the Azem symbol on it when it was activated, right? Yeah, that plus the fact that we got a LOT of new Lalafellin lore via Krile’s origins and such, I am eating all the lore up!! Azem AND lala lore??? I’m in heaven and I’m so excited to see how this will effect Hali’s story in particular moving forward (as she’s a lala and she is my Azem).

What I Didn’t Enjoy

I actually enjoyed the beginning of the MSQ with the rite of succession. The biggest complaint I had with it was that it was slow in some parts, but honestly that’s about it. The second half feels like it could be its own separate expansion really. But that’s also not really an issue.

After much thought, I realized that I was so disturbed by how the Alexandrian culture worked in the second half of the MSQ that the last zone didn’t hit me emotionally enough for me to care about the Endless.

I was vibing with the story up until Living Memory. I understand how Krile, Erenville, and even Wuk Lamat would be conflicted about shutting down the terminals and “erasing” all of the Endless as they say, but me as the player, it did not hit me emotionally like I suspect that it’s supposed to. I was like “okay, these people aren’t real, just shut it down. Why do I care?”

Another thing is Sphene as an antagonist. I just did not like her at all, and to me, she is one of the weakest antagonists we have had so far. I hated how the narrative was trying to convince us that Sphene was originally a good person who had good intentions, and that we should empathize with her, but it didn’t make me care at all for her in the end.

It goes back to my point before that the way the Alexandrians use souls as a commodity and don’t seem to care that they’re using other people’s souls to extend their own lives, and that they don’t even remember their loved ones because their memories get erased so they don’t experience the pain of death, it all disturbed me so much that I just did not have much sympathy for the Alexandrians or Sphene.

What This Means for Hali

For Hali, she has recently learned Pictomancy alongside Krile, and she will be the one who is helping Wuk Lamat with the Rite of Succession; Aymeric is going with her and remains with her all through 7.0 and potentially the patch content.

She will be with Wuk Lamat, Erenville, and the others throughout 7.0, and though she will have a really hard time dealing with the Alexandrians and how they treat souls, memories, and the like, as she will be highly disturbed by it all, but she follows Wuk Lamat’s lead nonetheless.

Hali is enjoying playing the Mentor figure and being the source of advice, comfort, and the muscle whenever she is needed, while Aymeric is a tremendous help for Wuk Lamat when it comes to learning about leadership and navigating through her first days as the new Vow of Resolve.

Overall, Hali’s story follows the MSQ nearly identically, except that Aymeric is with her and they both are advisors and mentors to Wuk Lamat. After the final battle, Hali and Aymeric stay in Tulliyollal for a bit longer to actually have their vacation time.

What This Means for Yume

(Yume’s side blog: @firelightmuse)

For Yume, her DT experience will be vastly different from Hali’s. As she will be in a committed relationship with Zenos by then after she saves his life following their duel in Ultima Thule, Yume will begin DT by wandering Tural with Zenos and hunting down Tural Vidraal as a newly trained Viper.

Yume and Zenos will not be assisting in the Rite of Succession for any candidate, nor will they be involved with any of the politics. However, they will show up to help in the defense of Tuliyollal both times that the city is attacked, and they will be involved with the final battle alongside Hali and the other WoLs (shoutout to my friends’ OCs Meeps @meepsthemiqo and Astrid and Arslan @traveler-of-light).

Following the final battle, Yume and Zenos will also remain in Tural for a while (for the patch content I suspect) before they head back to their home in Shirogane.

That’s all I have for DT reactions for now. If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for taking your time reading all of this! I’m super curious as to what all of your thoughts are, so feel free to comment or send me an ask or whatever! Once again, thank you!! 💖