#i will never be over heavensward

[nekkyousagiart]

FFXIV - Estinien Wyrmblood

Nekkyo Usagi Art (c) 2023 - ARTSTATION | INSTAGRAM | KO-FI

[seithr]

baldur's gate 3 oc guy rambling + someeee act 3 Offhand Sidequest Guy spoilers. me when rhere is a guy who is a dragon 🐉 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️

executive decision made abt arque if he had a ingame questline it would b The Dragon's Song about finding something in his archives about a fragmented song-spell created by an alliance of ancient dragons(?) that could grant one's greatest desires (he is literally looking for a granted wish yeah) but the kicker is that Arque is ultimately a man who does not know why he lives and persists and was hoping that along the way he would find OUT what that heart's desire was at all, if he had one meaningful, if he would deserve something at the end of it or is spending all these anguishes on the road just to hope he does something good and memorable for someone else again.

AND obviously in this hypothetical there are more dragonborn in the story. Maybe a travelling band of dragonborn mercenaries in the local area, a clan that prods him about well tell us when you find the dragon's song and return it to us as is Right. No we wont help its not real. But you should return it here. Your kin are everything aren't they we deserve the treasures of our enemy. And Arque is like well oh uh i guess i can . Do this for us (us is a group of people only tangentially related to him but he feels the obligation regardless.) (his *us* has always been his actual folks in baldur's gate but he's been away on his own for so long now he jus.. has no one and needs the connection...)

Arque sorc/bard multiclass canon bc he mentions by the second or so collection of the dragon's song may actually be DOABLE by mortal hands, not only a myth to keep up for story records, should they be magically gifted (and his blood IS, so with pinpricked bloody fingers he picks up his lute) and has to lock in. progressing his story unlocks, evolves a class action/bonus action where he plays fragments of it to different effect a la bardic inspiration—healing/buff or silence/damage, etc—he can "play" without instrument as a pure sorcerer but verbal alone and incomplete somatic gives him a bleed debuff (can't prick your fingers for magic blood? the song makes him cough it up.)

ruffles arque around in my head i'm still thinking how else it'd continue but I'd love an excuse to incorporate Ansur/both him and Arque being "ouuughh the storm of the gate"/storm sorceror-type theme. can you see my vision can you see my thoughts on this guy. what lays dorment rise to start wake thee now the dragon's heart

[ponett]

Bobby's 2023 Media Wrap-Up

So! Like I said before, this past year I kept a running list of everything I watched, every game I finished, every new album I listened to, etc., and wrote one-paragraph blurbs with my thoughts on every single one. Please enjoy this journey through everything I liked, or didn't like, in 2023, with my favorites of the year listed at the bottom.

(Yes! This is long!!)

Some notes:

I mainly only included things I finished. Exceptions are marked with an asterisk.

I included some YouTube stuff as "TV shows" - mostly particularly long, high effort video essays and documentaries.

I was a bit less adventurous than I'd like to have been this year. Part of this was just that I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up with Big Releases I felt obligated to check out, and part of this was just executive dysfunction from burnout. Wait until you see how long it took me to beat Mario Wonder lmao

Yes, I need to read more books. I don't read a lot of books these days. I need to get back to Discworld.

COLOR KEY

Video Games • TV / Web Video  •  Movies  •  Comics  •  Music

January

1/15: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (MSQ) - Very slow at times, the Primal shit is generally extremely lame to me outside of the boss fights themselves, but god if the quality of life improvements over WoW, the JRPG energy, and the fact that it Actually Has A Story carry it pretty hard.

1/18: Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island miniseries - One of the most creative and compelling uses of the Sonic IP… ever? Fantastic little self-contained arc about the struggles of Eggman’s abandoned creations that gracefully weaves between heartfelt optimism and moody horror with some of the best art ever seen in a Sonic comic.

1/18: Mega Man X4 - Glad I finally actually beat this after never even beating any of the Mavericks as a kid! I can see why it’s a lot of peoples’ favorites. The gameplay has very little of that X series bloat and is just fun, especially after getting X’s armor upgrades. (But the story really is a long series of missed opportunities.)

February

2/2: Donks - Felix Colgrave continues to be an exceptional artist. The sound design on this is fantastic and really sells this short as something unique. Had to go back and watch his older stuff again after this.

2/4: Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (3.0 - 3.3 MSQ) - I get it now. I get why people say this is just a proper mainline Final Fantasy game built into the framework of an MMO. That shit ruled. Not even walking back the drama in Ul’Dah from the end of ARR can sour me on it because the main storyline was so strong.

2/8: Disneyland's Forgotten Sci-Fi Rock Band - Live From the Space Stage - A nice and honest tribute to a group of artists who could have easily been forgotten. In hindsight this feels like a precursor to Kevin’s Disney Channel jingle video, a tribute to the unsung artists pouring their hearts into “lesser” art for a megacorporation, art that was designed to be transient but sticks with people nonetheless.

2/9: Metroid Prime Remastered* - Not gonna finish because I just played through the Wii version in 2021, but still. Very, very pretty remaster.

2/16: Theatrhythm Final Bar Line - It’s more Theatrhythm. What more could I want

2/17: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean (anime) - Probably the best part of the anime so far (assuming they continue on to SBR). A near perfect mix of the more structured plot of part 5 with the goofiness of parts 3 and 4 that crescendos into a fantastic, bombastic, emotional, bittersweet ending. The use of footage from the original opening and the new ending set to Roundabout in the finale were perfect, and made me intensely nostalgic for the early days of my JoJo fandom between seasons 1 and 2 of the anime.

2/22: Aggretsuko Season 5 - I don’t really know what to make of this one. Once you get past the agonizing initial arc all about Haida where Retsuko has to be his overbearing mommy GF who flips out and starts spying on him when she’s left on read and chides him when he misbehaves, it feels like an improvement over the previous seasons. But I don’t know how much of that is due to the extremely low bar set by season 4. And then the ending is extremely rushed and anticlimactic. They got legally married and the only acknowledgement was a shot of them signing the paperwork in a montage partway through the final episode?????????

2/24: Double Fine PsychOdyssey - God, what a journey the making of this game was. I already loved 2 Player’s past efforts at documenting Double Fine’s process, but this takes it to a whole new level. This feels culturally significant. The depth and honesty with which they depict not just the nitty gritty of making a game, but also the inherent struggles of working on a collaborative creative work for years at a time, is astounding. Not to mention that they were there to capture the shift from office life to remote work as COVID hit. So much of this would have been nightmarishly stressful to watch if I didn’t already know how successful the game was, but that’s just because they really didn’t sugarcoat it. And yet even after all that, it leaves me feeling optimistic about video games as an art form in a way that the constant headlines about cynical live service games don’t. There are still people out there pouring their hearts into making real art, and this is their story. Everyone who plays video games should watch this.

2/25: Cracker Island (Gorillaz) - New Gorillaz albums feel like less of an event these days, but after Humanz it feels like they’re just more chill with the project and their ambitions with it. Every couple years we get some more laid back jams from Damon along with some fun new collabs. Hard to complain. Favorite track: New Gold

2/25: Pool Kids (Pool Kids) - I discovered this band because Derek knows them and was excited when they got a song added to Fortnite through the Bandcamp collab. Always down to find more cool indie rock bands I can vibe with. The mix of dreamy vocals and energetic riffs on some of the tracks here almost fill the Crying-shaped hole in my heart. Almost… Favorite track: Conscious Uncoupling

2/25: Insane in the Rain (insaneintherainmusic) - I thought it was really funny timing when Carlos announced that his first original project would be a jazz fusion album inspired by acts like T-Square and Casiopea right as I was getting into those two specific bands. The final product does not disappoint. Favorite track: Insane in the Rain

2/26: Get Up Sequences Part Two (The Go! Team) - I’ve never been one to believe that a band’s sound has to remain exactly the same forever, but it really does hit you hard that the first two tracks here sound like classic The Go! Team. Their more recent cleaner sound is still here too, though, for a nice mix of old and new. Favorite track: Divebomb

2/28: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Season 1) - Oh my god. Oh my god. I got distracted around the time I was finishing SLARPG, but finally catching up now, wow. My assumption that the seemingly lighter tone of the series compared to the prologue was there to lull us into a false sense of security before twisting the knife when war finally breaks out was spot on. This is peak Gundam.

March

3/4: Pizza Tower - One of the best platformers I’ve played in a long time. It transcends its blatant Wario Land inspirations with the sheer speed at which Peppino can move and the way things like the level design, his wall running, and even the hidden ability to do a second lap around the level reward getting into a flow state where you’re just constantly moving. This is the type of game that wants to turn you into a speedrunner. My only real complaint is a few iffy enemy designs that I wish would get patched.

3/6: Bloons TD 6 * - I bought this before bed one night on a nostalgic whim and then the next morning woke up and saw the Steam receipt email on my phone in one of the most “what did I do last night” moments of my life. I like when the monkeys pop the balloons.

3/7: The Book of Boba Fett - I put off finishing this show for a very long time but finally caved upon the release of The Mandalorian season 3. This show spends four episodes failing to make me give a shit about Boba Fett trying to be “the daimyo” and drive the drug trade off of Tatooine, then just gives up and becomes season 2.5 of Mando, which in turn feels like it undercuts the main series. It fails as both its own story and as a spinoff. I know that finishing this after Andor did it no favors, but WHOOF.

3/12: Obi-Wan Kenobi - Some interesting ideas in the first half hinting at a more introspective show, but it’s mostly swept aside in the back half so it can become a generic Star Wars adventure remixing things from A New Hope and Rebels (and apparently Jedi: Fallen Order). Action scenes have zero stakes because you know nothing can happen to any of the returning characters and none of the new ones are particularly interesting. Why there’s a second climax hinging on a Luke Skywalker death fakeout eludes me. Obi-Wan throwing the rocks at Vader is one of the funniest things in Star Wars history. But it was still better than Book of Boba Fett, I guess.

3/19: The King of Braves GaoGaiGar - Wow, cool robot indeed… GaoGaiGar isn’t going to blow anyone away with its writing, but sometimes you just need a really fun monster of the week mecha show with great action and lovably goofy characters. This is a show where like 20% of every episode consists of recycled transformation, combination, and signature attack sequences and I ate it up every time because they look fucking cool as hell. I don’t care. I’d watch Final Fusion another 49 times.

3/21: The Last of Us (HBO) * - Watched the first two episodes out of curiosity, but I’m not sure if I’ll continue because I don’t give a shit about The Last of Us. It’s definitely a well done adaptation, though, even if I know it’s inevitably going to devolve into miserable torture porn with questionable politics if they adapt Part II faithfully. The ending of episode 2 also lines up perfectly with where I stopped in the game in 2013 lmao

3/27: The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse (Folding Ideas) - Another banger from Dan Olson. This time the premise inherently gives him more time to just show off a bunch of stupid ugly bullshit made by crypto guys, which is fun. My main complaint was that I wished he would’ve brought up Second Life more as a point of comparison (a thing I basically always want out of discussion of “the metaverse”), but he at least did touch on it in the last section.

3/31: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - I can’t believe after years of begging for the supporting cast to get more and better material in a Sonic game I got my wish in the form of a freeware murder mystery VN released for April Fools. This kicked ass.

April

4/7: Berserk - Completed Miura’s run and caught up on the chapters that have been released posthumously. It’s hard to say anything that hasn’t been said about Berserk, universally agreed upon as one of the greats of manga and fantasy fiction as a whole. What begins in its first few volumes as a nihilistic and edgy action comic built to facilitate as much sex and gore as possible quickly evolves into something deeply human and vulnerable and beautiful, both figuratively and in terms of its lavish art. The world sucks and is immeasurably cruel, and you will see that cruelty illustrated in graphic, sickening detail repeatedly throughout the series. (Perhaps a little too often throughout the Golden Age, where it feels like Miura never misses an opportunity to threaten Casca with sexual assault mid-battle.) But the point isn’t to wallow in that misery. It’s the story of a victim of horrific abuse learning to slowly open up to others, having those people he cares about torn away from him in the worst night of his life, hardening himself into a cold killing machine, and then slowly learning to open back up again, even if it means leaving himself vulnerable to more hurt. Anyone who says that the series peaked with the eclipse and went downhill in the “Guts’ JRPG Party” era is missing the point. Guts needed to find new people in his life to care about, to begin to find happiness again. Because no matter what unspeakable things Guts has gone through, it’s still possible for him to heal and to be loved. It takes time, but eventually you stop and realize that life has moved on.

4/8: Dedede’s Drum Dash Deluxe - Skipped it upon release because I didn’t particularly care for the minigame in Triple Deluxe, and I didn’t miss much. It’s fine as a little distraction, but not as a standalone rhythm game with only seven songs. If you don’t bother with the hard modes or chase after high scores this game is 15 minutes long. Oh how I yearn for Kirby to get the Theatrhythm treatment.

4/10: The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL - Eh… It was okay. Lots of cool robot fights, but said fights are stitched together with a mediocre plot that tries too hard to be more “mature” than its unabashedly schlocky kids’ show predecessor. Not crazy about the ending, either, which tries to be a bittersweet farewell closing off the series once and for all while also teasing that maybe there’ll be ANOTHER sequel after the OVA series they literally called “FINAL.” Ah well.

4/11: The Owl House - Sad to see this one go, but it’s hard to imagine them doing a better finale than this, even if they had gotten the six seasons they deserved. I’m not as obsessed with The Owl House as I probably would’ve been had it come out when I was, like, 20, but it’s a really fantastic show for all the reasons people always say. Great characters, great world, great story. I love that this starry-eyed fantasy story about a teenager finding love and a place where she belongs is also set on the rotting corpse of a titan with Hieronymous Bosch-inspired scenery and freaky monsters everywhere. What a great mix. If anything, I just wish I would’ve watched the first season as it aired so I could’ve had more time with it.

4/29: Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue Version - FINALLY beat this via the new collection, 20 years after playing it as my first Mega Man game. (Technically my first was White, not Blue, but whatever.) There are more annoyances than I remember - lots of really really bad forced backtracking sections where you have to revisit every previous part of the internet, low chip drop rates, some really aggravating bosses like BubbleMan and KingMan, etc. But it’s still a great time overall. It’s Battle Network. In the back half the story gets surprisingly emotional, too. I was always under the assumption that the Hub stuff never came back up much in the story after 1, so I was pleasantly surprised with how relevant it was to the emotional arc of 3.

4/30: Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun * - Yeah I’m not playing through the whole thing lmao. I just wanted to play the first couple hours for nostalgia’s sake, and as a baseline for how much better the rest are. Even before getting deep in the game and having to deal with all the shit gated between doing two new game+ playthroughs, it’s immediately obvious how much of a downgrade this one is. Tons of glaring errors and typos all over the script, blander music, a way more boring aesthetic for the internet, and a premise that mostly just recycles the tournament idea from 3.

May

5/14: The Venture Bros. - Glad I finally sat down and watched all of this with Anthony after having seen one (1) episode as a teenager and a bunch of random clips in the years since. Great show. Some jokes in the early seasons haven’t aged gracefully, but what the show grows into over time... man. Hank and Dean go from being the butt of the joke to being characters you actually sympathize with - while still also being funny little goofballs. And the journey Henchman 21 goes on throughout the show. Man. Amazing that a comedy like this could run for 20 years and maintain its level of quality. Can’t wait for the movie.

5/18: Future Me Hates Me (The Beths) - Okay yeah I’m now just discovering bands through Fortnite lmao. I can’t complain really, they pick some really great indie artists for the in-game radio stations. Anyway: It’s very easy to win me over with a combination of energetic power pop, catchy guitar riffs, and earnest lyrics like this. One of those albums where three or four tracks in I know I have to buy it. Favorite track: Not Running

5/18: Jump Rope Gazers (The Beths) - Ditto. Favorite track: Dying to Believe

5/18: Expert In A Dying Field (The Beths) - Another good album. (I’m listening to these in release order.) I’ve been a bit slower to warm up to this one, initially thinking it was a little too mellow overall, but it might be my favorite after a few listens. Some real high highs. Interestingly, the lead singer’s New Zealand accent is also coming out more in her singing? Favorite track: Your Side (or maybe Head in the Clouds)

5/19: The Super Mario Bros. Movie - As a Mario fan, I think I enjoyed it? As a movie, less so? It was decent, in spite of feeling like they came up with a list of fun action setpieces first and then wrote the absolute bare minimum possible for the story scenes tying it all together. Full thoughts here. (This is the first movie I’ve seen this year, huh? I really don’t watch a lot of movies.)

5/23: Don't Know What You're In Until You're Out (Gladie) - I feel like I don’t like Gladie as much as I should. Their style of noisy indie rock is very much in my wheelhouse, and I do enjoy listening to them, but I dunno. Maybe it’s that the particular style of vocals makes it more monotonous to me. A good album nonetheless, if not 100% my thing. Favorite track: Nothing

5/24: City Slicker (Ginger Root) - Yes I am still making my way through Bandcamp artists I heard on Fortnite don’t @ me. Any excuse to get me to listen to some cool city pop-inspired funk like this is a good excuse. Favorite track: Loretta

5/24: Rikki (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: Why Try

5/25: Spotlight People (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: The Classic

5/29: Succession - A good dramedy series that increasingly focuses more on the drama than the comedy as it progresses, but it’s hard to complain about that since the drama is so compellingly produced. I enjoyed it. That being said, I kind of rankle at the claims that it’s The Greatest TV Show Of All Time. It’s great, don’t get me wrong. Amazing performances all around. But the show LOVES to spin its wheels, to repeat itself, and to let most of its interesting dramatic developments fizzle out before anything really comes of them, almost as if the show is constantly getting bored with its own ideas. To some extent this is intentional - Logan Roy is the untouchable billionaire, his kids fail at everything (but will nonetheless remain billionaires), and in the long run none of them really give a shit about anything other than their own status. But it’s not like things tend to visibly impact anyone else, either, be they supporting characters or the world at large. Even the Big Scary Election, where the Roy siblings are directly responsible for plunging the nation into chaos, ultimately has zero impact on the finale a mere two episodes later. Certain Other Things do have an impact in the last season, though, allowing things to meaningfully change for the cast and for the show to sit with the ensuing drama, which has stopped me from souring on Succession more. There was finally a payoff for something. But it does still kind of feel like a show that goes in circles until it’s ready to call it quits, even if those circles did contain a lot of great acting and music along the way.

5/29: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - I’d watched the first 12 episodes when they originally released, but I guess the Netflix binge release and the fact that all three “seasons” came out in one year led to me waiting until it finished… and then I just never got around to finishing it. Glad I fixed that! Really fun and stylish cartoon with an art style reminiscent of Teen Titans, a hip hop-filled soundtrack, dynamic fight scenes, and a colorful post-apocalyptic world filled with mutant (mostly anthropomorphic) animals. I’ll admit that at times I do kinda roll my eyes at Kipo’s unshakeable belief that everyone can be friends in a way that I don’t necessarily with similar shows like Steven Universe, and not every joke lands, but I dunno. It’s a kids’ show. That’s to be expected. It doesn’t detract from the overall package for me.

June

6/1: Craig of the Creek (Season 4) - It’s been years and I’m still processing the fact that kids can turn on Cartoon Network and hear Jeff Rosenstock. Anyway! Craig continues to be one of the best cartoons on TV, consistently funny and creative and way more engaging than a show about a bunch of kids LARPing in the woods has any right to be. This season turned into One Piece with the gang effectively hunting down the Poneglyphs in search of a legendary treasure. The kids think it’ll be magic. It isn't. An increasing number of cartoon logic gags aside, this show is firmly set in the real world. Does that make it any less interesting? Hell no. Season 3 turned a game of capture the flag into an all-out five episode war between the heroes and villains, filled with dramatic turnabouts and a climactic guest appearance from Del the Funky Homosapien. I’m sure however they wrap things up in the (sadly shortened) final season, it’ll be great. (Also? I would watch a whole show based on that “what if” episode that jumped forward to everyone’s 20s.)

6/6: Barry - Holy shit, what a show. I ended up binging it in less than a week in a cycle of “okay, just one more episode.” The way this show is able to swing between tones and genres while still feeling like a cohesive whole is truly masterful. It’s a layered character drama, a tragic crime thriller, a farcical comedy, an understated action series, a surrealist morality play, and a scathing satire of Hollywood, all in one. Even within the criminal underworld subplots the show ranges in tone from Breaking Bad to Paddington 2. And it works! While the show naturally gets bleaker over time as it confronts the repercussions of Barry’s murders, it never completely loses sight of its comedic roots. My favorite episode was easily season 2’s “ronny/lily,” a mostly self-contained episode that somehow manages to keep throwing the perfect curveballs to escalate its dark comedy.

6/12: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition) - Y’all heard of this movie? Pretty good, it turns out. (I’d seen the theatrical cut before, but this was my first time watching the extended edition. I’ve also only seen parts of the other two movies, so it’s time I finally watch all the extended cuts. The Gollum game pushed me to this.)

6/13: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended Edition) - give it to us RAW and WRIGGLING

6/17: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Extended Edition) - I’m not crying YOU’RE crying

6/22: Clone High (Season 2) - While the first episode being about “cancel culture” (or, more accurately, a teenager from 2003 being transported to 2023 and putting his foot in his mouth a lot) put a lot of people off, I ended up enjoying the new season of Clone High. The new clones grew on me as the season went on and their roles in the web of teen romance melodrama crystalized, and it made me laugh a lot, and Cleo/Frida is galaxy brained. Also they played one of my favorite Antarctigo Vespucci songs like a minute into the first episode. I don’t think I could really ask for much more.

6/28: The Mandalorian (Season 3) - I'd been watching this weekly but put off the last episode for no real reason. Responses to this season have been all over the place, but my blistering hot take is… it was fine. Is it as good as the first season? Probably not. But Mando no longer needs to carry the whole franchise on its shoulders and set the bar for how good the live action Disney Star Wars shows can be, because Andor exists, and it’s never gonna top Andor. The Mandalorian is free to just be a pulpy space adventure show where Giancarlo Esposito plays a scenery-chewing cartoon villain and a little puppet does wire stunts. These are things Andor cannot and should not do, but that’s Star Wars, baby. It’s delightful. I could watch Grogu get underhand tossed like a sack of flour all day.

July

7/2: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (Season 2) - LOVE WINS. (More nuanced take from way later: It definitely feels like a lot of the more messy political conflicts in this show got swept aside by the big final battle where some more easily resolved family conflicts take center stage. I’m not sure the ending is the most satisfying. But also this show only got half the episode count that damn near every other Gundam show ever made got, so that might be a factor here. Idk. Still one of my favorite Gundams.)

7/4: Final Fantasy XVI (watched Anthony play) - I had to write my longest Medium article ever about this one because I was so frustrated

7/10: Home Movies - “Things I like that I’ve never seen in full” has certainly been a recurring theme this year. Home Movies remains an all-time classic of animated comedy that went out on a high note before things got stale or the characters became parodies of themselves. While it’s mostly known for its funny improvised banter, throughout the last season you can really see the arc where Brendon no longer enjoys making movies, yet he feels obligated to keep using them to escape from the real world. In that light, the ending where the nature of their dysfunctional makeshift family is cemented, Brendon’s camera suddenly breaks, and life moves on really does feel like the perfect note to end on. Truly one of the best to ever do it.

7/15: The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom - Wow. Just… wow. I had serious doubts about TotK in the months leading up to release due to how close Nintendo was playing their cards to their chest. I didn’t want this to be a Saints Row IV, where the game is fun enough but the recycled map makes it feel like a rehash. Instead, I found a game that made me look at BotW’s map in a whole new light, brimming with so many more things to do and people to meet. Add on a better, more versatile set of tools, more varied dungeons and bosses, and a story that I felt was told somewhat better and we’ve got a real contender for my new favorite Zelda game. It was hard to tear myself away, but as this list shows, it’s been basically the only game I’ve played since it came out.

7/16: Sonic Prime (Season 2) - I liked the parts with Shadow and Chaos Sonic, but I’ve come to the sad conclusion that most of this show is just mediocre. More thoughts here.

7/18: We ♥ Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie - “I’m a dog, but I love Katamari Damacy.” Truer words have never been spoken.

7/19: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts - Pretty good! It didn’t blow me away, but after how bad the Bay movies got I’m just thankful to have a decently cohesive Transformers movie where the human story is okay and I like the bots (although half of them needed more screen time), even if it is just another Hollywood blockbuster about two sides fighting over a macguffin that devolves into a big CGI battle against an army of nameless monsters in the third act. This is basically a mid-tier MCU movie but with Transformers, which won’t do much for most people, but again: the bar was underground.

7/22: The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart - God DAMN. A phenomenal ending for the series. While I would have loved to see a full final season to get some more one-off episodes in there, this doesn’t feel creatively compromised in any way–either due to the time constraints, or due to a desire to make it more marketable as a movie. It really does feel like they just took their outlines for the canceled final season and gently massaged them into the shape of an 84-minute movie, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s completely on par with the previous seasons. A hilarious and fitting sendoff for one of the greats of adult animation.

7/23: Beautiful Katamari - This was one of my first Xbox 360 games, but a frustrating temperature-based level made me put it down for 16 years. “Maybe it won’t be as bad now that I’ve beaten the first two games and am better at Katamari,” I thought. Nope! Still an absolutely dogshit level. But also, turns out the whole game is only like two hours long lmao. It’s still Katamari, so it’s still fun - the final level in particular, which seamlessly takes you from ground level all the way to space, feels like a logical endpoint for the series - but beyond that it just doesn't have the same soul without Keita Takahashi's input.

August

8/4: Doom Singer (Chris Farren) - I’ve been waiting so long for Chris and Jeff to do another Antarctigo Vespucci album, but god damn. This is the best of Chris’s solo work, and a contender for his best record, period. Every track’s a banger, with more energy than some of his previous solo work but also a good deal of variety. Favorite tracks: First Place, Cosmic Leash

8/4: Transformers Earthspark (Season 1) - This show had a bit of an uneven start, unsure if it wanted to have the emotional maturity of a more serious action cartoon or a preschool cartoon where the characters have little kid mood swings and outbursts and learn basic lessons. It also felt like it was speedrunning its Wholesome Found Family Dynamic with characters who just met, which didn’t feel earned. While these problems never completely go away (see: the cheap and corny way the otherwise very dark season finale suddenly resolves), the show improves quickly, and the positives outweigh the negatives. It’s so great to have a Transformers cartoon that feels fresh, giving us a post-war setting with a bunch of new characters and new dynamics between the Cybertronians and the humans. The returning characters are also uniformly great as the old veterans overseeing the new generation. (Reformed Megatron! Danny Pudi as Bumblebee! Steve Blum returning as Starscream! Keith David as Grimlock!!!) And those super dynamic action scenes! I can nitpick, but Earthspark’s a ton of fun, and easily the best new Transformers cartoon since Prime and Animated.

8/5: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (remaster) - Everyone who told me this game was a masterpiece was right. I had played the first chapter when it dropped as the demo for the iOS version years ago, but never went further than that until now. What a game. Absolutely incredible through and through. Great story, great twists, great characters, great puzzles, great art direction. Everything comes together so perfectly to form a totally unique, unforgettable package, a top tier video game murder mystery. Everyone should play this, preferably going in as blind as possible.

8/15: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Season 16) - Wow! Recent seasons of Sunny have been kind of up and down, with some interesting experiments (Mac Finds His Pride, the Ireland arc, etc.) paired with some comedic duds. Most of this latest season is standard fare for the series with fewer big creative swings, but it’s just hit after hit in terms of comedy. Not a single dud, whether we’re seeing Mac and Dennis try to start a rental business for inflatable furniture or watching the gang meet Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, believing the entire time that the latter is Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle. Even the attempts at topical comedy landed better. Easily the funniest season in years.

8/16: One Piece Film Gold - It’s easy to see why this one has kind of been forgotten in the wake of Stampede and Film Red, which revolve around established fan favorite characters, but this was still pretty fun. Perhaps a little too long, but it’s fun to see the Straw Hats fool around in a giant casino and do a heist. They definitely cranked the fanservice up even more than usual in this one, though, as I probably should have expected for a movie made alongside the anime’s adaptation of Dressrosa.

8/17: One Piece: Stampede - This one goes for a different kind of fanservice. While most One Piece movies are isolated from the ongoing plot and its expanded cast of characters, Stampede instead asks “What if we just put damn near every active character on the same island and had them fight?” The answer: a fun time! It would get old if all of the movies were like this, but after a bunch of movies that are just like “the Straw Hats are gonna land on another new island and fight some more weird guys” it’s fun to see characters like Law and Buggy and Smoker get in on the fun. It’s also nice to get a movie with the Wano era art style, and Usopp surprisingly gets some really good character moments in here.

8/18: One Piece Film Red - This really is the best of the One Piece movies, huh? (Baron Omatsuri is a close second.) It really feels like a change of pace after the last four with the most interesting and emotionally engaging story out of any of them. And even if the events of these movies are never canon, it still feels significant in my understanding of Shanks as a character as we move into the final phase of the manga.

8/21: Pikmin 4 - The opening hour of the game made me really question if they’d changed too much, with all the focus on your new dog unit over your Pikmin and the extremely dull, drawn out dialogue scenes with your new companions back at the base. But once I got into the swing of things I had a blast. This is probably my new favorite Pikmin game. There’s a great mix of activities here to keep things fresh. I also really ended up liking Oatchi’s role as basically your second captain who can also serve as your tank or a rideable mount. The Dandori stuff and nighttime missions in particular show off how useful Oatchi is for your multitasking without necessarily overshadowing the Pikmin.

8/22: Never Get Tired: The Bomb the Music Industry! Story - I literally backed this on Kickstarter eight years ago (my name is in the credits!) and then never got around to watching it for no reason. It’s on YouTube now, and Jeff’s got a new album out next week, so now feels like the perfect time to watch it. And man… what a great documentary. Obviously I’m just a fan of the band, but this also really spoke to me as an artist. Jeff wanting to stick to his principles and give out his music for free and play cheap all ages shows, his discomfort over the idea of selling merch, and the struggles that come with not playing the game like that… It's hard. They readily admit that Jeff is an idealist, that people fight him on this stuff, that he’s missed out on some big opportunities because of these stances, and that he’s had to compromise a bit on some of these things over time. But that incredible climax with their final show, including a full opening performance of the slowly building “Campaign for a Better Next Weekend” and the closing performance of “Future 86” where the whole audience is singing along as the members of the band are hugging and crying… it’s beautiful. This may have been a band where the members had to go back to their shitty day jobs after every tour because they weren’t selling out arenas, but their art meant something to people, and that makes it all worth it.

8/25: Nimona - I haven’t read the original comic (yet), so I can’t compare them too much, but it’s nonetheless pretty apparent that some things were softened and easy kids’ movie jokes were added by the studio to squeeze this graphic novel for teens into a PG animated movie. Regardless, the emotional throughline hits REALLY hard, particularly the very blatant trans allegory and the climax. (It’s no wonder Disney was afraid of this movie seeing the light of day lmao.) The animation is also very squishy and fun to watch throughout. Great movie.

8/26: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - Spider-Verse really has done so much for animation, huh? This one was as good as everyone said. Beautiful use of stylized color and lighting throughout, and every time this movie very conspicuously shifted to different framerates for a flashy fight scene it owned. Very cute and heartwarming story, too, which thankfully gave its second act plenty of time to explore the cast and let them go on their journey, unlike a certain plumber movie that came out a few months later. Also I would let Death [redacted]

8/28: Holocure: Save the Fans! - This isn't really something I can beat, but I've been addicted to Holocure lately. I don't even watch VTubers aside from maybe seeing a funny Korone animation every now and then, this is just a really, really good freeware Vampire Survivors clone with a huge roster of varied characters to pick from.

8/31: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock) - A new album from Jeff is always a major event for me. If there were any worries that he was starting to go soft at 40 (because one of the three singles off this album was a gentle acoustic piece), the frantic opening of this album put those worries to rest. The first two tracks are Jeff screaming out for help as he’s pulled in a million directions by the chaotic state of the world, a theme that becomes the thesis of the album. I’d say it lags slightly in the middle, but overall this is another extremely well-rounded record full of bangers that’s unapologetically Jeff, with possibly my favorite closing track he’s ever done. Favorite tracks: I WANNA BE WRONG, 3 SUMMERS

September

9/3: One Piece (live action, Season 1) - They did it. I can’t believe it, but they did it. While I have my nitpicks (Usopp and Sanji don’t get enough big moments to shine), this is an extremely solid and faithful adaptation of the first few arcs of One Piece with a great cast. For the most part the changes feel smart and logical, and the big emotional beats of the story are all there and executed very well. I doubted it a little in episodes 2-4, where the Orange Town and Syrup Village arcs saw some major changes to shift the action indoors, and the increased focus on the drama in favor of repeating every gag and battle from the manga 1:1 took a bit of getting used to, but by the end I was having a blast. It’s a different take on One Piece, but it still feels like One Piece. Genuinely very excited for season 2.

9/4: Pseudoregalia - A great little N64-style 3D Metroidvania focused on platforming and very satisfying movement. I always love entries in the genre that are less prescriptive in what order you have to tackle areas in, a la Symphony of the Night or Hollow Knight, and this one’s great in that regard. While there are a number of new moves to find, most of the map is open to you very early in the game, and smart use of your moveset can allow you to “sequence break” without even realizing it. (You would not believe how long I went without getting the wall run.) I do wish it had a map, but that’s already being patched in.

9/6: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk * - Not a bad game at all, but I quickly remembered how bad I am at skating games, so like… eh? Not sure I have much desire to play past chapter 2. Also the soundtrack is sadly kinda hit or miss for me outside of the obvious Naganuma tunes.

9/9: The History of the Minnesota Vikings (Dorktown) - Jon Bois never misses. Even as someone who doesn’t actively follow sports, Jon Bois is a master storyteller, using graphs and statistics and funny anecdotes to explore these deeply human stories. He can convey why people care so much about these teams, these people, and sports in general, and how our popular sports reflect on American culture. He could tell the story of just about any team or player in any sport and I just know I’ll come out the other side a misty-eyed fan. And what a fascinating cast of characters we have this time, with origin stories for everything from the Hail Mary pass to a Minnesota state supreme court judge to the Griddy. Nine hours well spent.

9/10: Timespinner - A fun and highly polished Metroidvania that maybe doesn’t quite have enough of its own identity in its quest to replicate Symphony of the Night…but also, like, this was pitched as a Symphony throwback on KickStarter in a pre-Bloodstained, pre-Hollow Knight world, so I can’t really blame ‘em! Stopping time to avoid boss attacks is fun, the pixel art is gorgeous, and I liked the dark science fantasy story about warring empires and meddling with time a lot more than I thought I would - lore journal text dumps and all.

9/14: The Decay of Sam & Cat (Quinton Reviews) - All the stuff at the end with Matt Bennett (the actor who played Robbie on Victorious and Sam & Cat) in this was really good and sweet. It’s that kind of thing that makes these videos feel like they’re still worthwhile on some level. But the padding and the things Quinton chooses to spend the colossal runtime on does drive me more and more insane with each passing Nick sitcom video. I don’t know how much longer he can keep this schtick up. I hope he’s able to move on to other things before too terribly long instead of continuing to extend this “miniseries.”

9/19: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales - AKA Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 1.5. It’s fun for the same reasons Peter’s first game was fun. I had a good time swinging around New York again in preparation for the sequel, and there’s a lot of cute stuff with Miles becoming Harlem’s neighborhood hero, but WOW did the Underground v. Roxxon conflict fall flat for me.

9/20: I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson - I understand so many posts now.

9/25: Spider-Man (2002) (rewatch) - It’s you who’s out, Gobby! OUT OF YOUR MIND!

9/25: Futurama (Season 8) - I was ready to be a hater, recalling the fact that Futurama has already had three “perfect endings” with the show getting a little weaker with every revival. Then I watched the first new episode on a whim and thought it wasn’t bad, so I was like, eh, sure, I’ll watch the rest. Overall Hulurama is hit or miss. There are chuckles to be had, and it sure as hell beats modern Simpsons, but almost every episode is either a belated take on an overplayed Topical Issue (the pandemic, Amazon, cancel culture, etc.) or a direct sequel to an old episode people liked. Or both! It’s also really noticeable that certain voice actors sound way older - Billy West is struggling with the Fry voice in particular, and it hurts his comedic timing. But just when all hope seemed lost after the nigh-incomprehensible toy-themed anthology episode, possibly the worst episode of the entire series… the last episode, where the Planet Express crew explores whether or not the universe could be a simulation, was really, really solid. Great note to end on to make me not regret my time with this season as a whole.

9/26: Spider-Man 2 (2004) (rewatch) - Once the GOAT, always the GOAT.

9/27: Spider-Man 3 (rewatch) - Revisiting this movie for the first time since I saw it in theaters… it’s not bad. It’s fine! It continues to have the heart and sincerity that make the first two movies work. It’s just not as concise with three villains vying for the spotlight, but I also wouldn’t cut any of them, necessarily. I guess Eddie/Venom would be the easiest, but Peter getting the black suit and giving in to his resentment feels too central to cut. (Yes, even with Emo Peter becoming a meme.)

9/28: Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake - I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this one, especially since I was never really a fan of the genderbend episodes in the original show. (At the time they mostly just felt like an excuse to crank up the teen romance stuff to 11.) But MAN. This was a fantastic coda to the original series. It made me care about Fionna and Cake and their friends as their own characters separate from their original counterparts, it gave the Simon/Betty arc a much more satisfying (if no less bittersweet) resolution than the original finale had time to do, and it even managed to be a multiverse story that didn’t make me roll my eyes in 2023. A+ all around. Makes me wanna rewatch the original show again. [spoiler: I did]

9/29: Meanwhile (aivi & surasshu) - It’s been a whole decade–they were busy with, you know, all the music in Steven Universe, among other things–but we finally have a new aivi & surasshu album! Their chiptune/piano fusion style is familiar, but they’ve definitely grown as composers in subtle ways. Favorite track: Time Travel

October

10/1: This is Financial Advice (Folding Ideas) - A lot of the nitty gritty finance law stuff turned into white noise for me, but still, great video. I had no idea that the GameStop stock craze devolved into this bizarre cult that thinks they’re going to crash the global economy and rise from the ashes as the new kings with the value of their GME stocks. Glad this video exists to try and balance out the narrative.

10/5: Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon DLC - Good ideas, absurdly frustrating and tedious execution. Full thoughts here.

10/10: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (rewatch) - I didn’t plan this, but very fitting that I would end up rewatching this on 10/10.

10/12: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - ha he! (Seriously though, that finale was a fucking masterpiece. The RTVS crew has an incredible knack for using the framing device of video game livestreams to blur the lines between comedy and horror, or ironic anti-humor and complete sincerity. I’ve never seen anything else like this.)

10/15: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - Not sure how much I can say that hasn’t already been said. The most visually creative movie I’ve ever seen, grounded by some really excellent storytelling about Miles (and now Gwen) that’s probably better than his actual comics. But it also does feel like it’s about to end and then the movie just keeps going like ten times over lmao. Can’t wait to watch this a second time on a better TV.

10/20: Sonic Superstars - A mostly really solid and fun 2D Sonic game that’s unfortunately dragged down by an extremely hodgepodge soundtrack and some overly drawn out boss fights. I spent HOURS trying to beat the final boss of the bonus scenario (which is required for the true ending in this one) before giving up. Really a shame that that’s the note I’m leaving the game on, because I otherwise enjoyed it, but ah well. More thoughts here.

10/27: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 - Another good Spider-Man game from Insomniac. Liked the story more than the one in Miles Morales, but maybe not as much as the first game. Extensive thoughts here.

10/28: Venom - Was in the mood for more Venom after the game. As expected this was not a very good movie, but the dynamic between Eddie and Venom made it a fun watch. Tom Hardy is constantly about to shit his pants in this movie. It’s great.

10/28: Venom: Let There Be Carnage - I had a way better time with this one. Is this a good movie? No. But it cranks the insanity of the first movie up to 11. Goofy as fuck in an extremely watchable way.

November

11/5: Pluto - An absolutely masterful series that anyone interested in sci-fi needs to watch. The anime adaptation was great, and I immediately understand why people who’ve read the manga speak so highly of it. Really makes me want to get into Astro Boy more, and also read some of Urasawa’s other works.

11/18: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off - Wow, just wow. When news of a Scott Pilgrim anime broke I was cautiously curious to see if we’d get a more direct adaptation of the comics, and instead it veered off in the exact opposite direction in the best way possible. This is almost entirely a different story, one that’s in conversation with the previous versions (sometimes in very meta ways), and I think it’s really valuable to see O’Malley revisiting these characters with new things to say about them. The major story divergence gives us a chance to examine the characters from a new angle - particularly Ramona, who’s the real protagonist of this version, and the evil exes, who completely steal the show. This was a great reminder of why I fell in love with this series as a teenager. I now genuinely hope we get more Scott Pilgrim.

11/22: Void Rivals (Issues #1 - #6) - The first arc of the new Robert Kirkman series that kicked off Skybound’s new “Energon Universe” is now complete, and I’m left thinking Void Rivals is… okay? I thought the first issue was a decent (if not particularly original) sci-fi comic with an appealing art style, which just so happens to also briefly have a Transformer in it so there can be a Big Surprise. And the series still hasn’t quite shaken that feeling to me. It’s an okay sci-fi series that arbitrarily dedicates a couple of pages of every issue to something from Transformers, but I’m not really sure what the shared universe stuff adds to Void Rivals, or what Void Rivals adds to Transformers and GI Joe. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

11/22: Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History (Defunctland) - Yeah, gotta be honest, I only got halfway through this one. It seems like Kevin just 1) really wanted to push himself creatively and 2) make a love letter to Epcot, and while I respect that, I think it suffers as a historical documentary. It’s Fantasia but for the creation of Epcot. That might be very impressive on a technical level, but it feels more like a piece of Disney propaganda than prior Defunctland videos due to a lack of context and nuance. 

11/24: Aperture Desk Job - A short, sweet, and funny little tech demo for my new Steam Deck set in the Portal universe. More effort was definitely put into this than was strictly necessary.

11/26: ESCHATOS - I am not good at bullet hell games, but I enjoy them from time to time and I really love this one’s FM synth soundtrack, so I picked it up on a whim in the Steam sale. I only beat it on Easy, but still, I had a lot of fun with it! It’s straightforward but very flashy, with the camera dynamically zooming around from set piece to set piece at ridiculous speeds and each level segueing directly into the next. The lack of a powerup system on the main mode in favor of just needing to know when to use your different shot types makes it feel very approachable.

11/27: Lunistice - A great little 3D platformer with a good soundtrack that I had fun hunting down all the secrets in. This is an easy recommendation for fans of games like Kirby or Klonoa - whimsical games set in colorful dream worlds where the underlying story can get a bit more somber. (Although the story in this one is mostly told through mildly cryptic lore dumps, so your mileage there may vary.)

11/28: Spark the Electric Jester 2 - The leap from 2D to 3D here is impressive, but this is very clearly a rough draft for Spark 3. Very, very fun Sonic-style 3D platforming, but the combat is lacking and the storytelling is just kinda bad. More extensive thoughts on this and the above two games here.

December

12/2: Fortnite (Chapter 4) - This was my first full chapter of Fortnite, after having been roped into the game by the siren songs of Zero Build mode and Goku during Chapter 3. This means it’s harder for me to compare this chapter to previous ones, but still, Fortnite remains a genuinely very well made Battle Royale shooter that’s a blast with friends. If I have any complaint about this Chapter, it’s that they would regularly introduce zany ideas and then slowly reel them back in, whether it was the Augment system or the increasingly mundane movement items. It also felt like it was a little too easy to get the perfect loadout in every match, meaning the final showdown would almost always be against players with Slurp Juice and gold shotguns. And I missed the smaller mid-season map updates of Chapter 3. But overall I still had a really good time, and look forward to playing more for the foreseeable future.

12/4: Plagiarism and You(Tube) (HBomberguy) - This will get written off by many as “YouTuber drama,” but this really is an excellent video essay that feels like the kick in the pants that YouTube needs. If video essayists are gonna be a major source of information for so many, then they gotta have standards. I also think it does a good job of highlighting the people that have been plagiarized and trying to drive more attention their way in an attempt to right those wrongs.

12/6: Transformers (Skybound comic) - We only got the first three issues of this in 2023, but I just HAVE to say something about how incredible this series is here. Daniel Warren Johnson is knocking it out of the park. This is the new bar for Transformers. The hand-inked art is extremely dynamic and full of character, and the story is using the familiar beats of G1 Transformers but doing very new things with them. You can tell this from the very first page, but the emotional scene of Optimus accidentally crushing a deer in the forest and realizing how fragile life is on Earth sealed the deal for me. And yet in the very same comics Optimus can do suplexes and clotheslines and lord knows how many other wrestling moves on Decepticons, and it doesn’t feel like tonal whiplash? These comics just fucking rule, and anyone with even the slightest interest in Transformers should be reading them.

12/8: What We Do in the Shadows (Season 5) - [spoilers] WWDITS has very much settled into being a status quo show. Every season has its own little arc where one or two things change to keep things interesting, but then everything returns to normal by the end. Guillermo finally becoming a vampire, only to become a human again in the end, might just be the most egregious example of this yet. But also… the show’s still really funny? And I continue to be happy that Kristen Schaal has stuck around as a series regular as the Guide. So it’s hard to complain. I could see the show running out of steam over the next few seasons, but it’s still hitting for me right now.

12/12: Pony Island - Finally got around to this since the trailer for the sequel dropped. I feel like playing this years later in a post-Inscryption world where Pony Island is a known quantity kind of lessens its impact, but still, it’s a fun and funny puzzle game where you try to hack your way out of a possessed arcade machine. I’m not sure I found it particularly scary, but I’m not sure it’s supposed to be? The way the game messes with you during the Asmodeus “boss fight” was probably the highlight for me. I also like being able to say things like “The part where you have to not kill Jesus was so hard. I kept getting terrible butterfly patterns.”

12/16: Breaking Bad VR but the AI is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - As always, Wayne and co.’s commitment to the bit is unrivaled. This kind of got interpreted as just a way to troll HLVRAI fans, but so many moments in this genuinely made me laugh out loud.

12/18: Soul of Sovereignty Prelude - As someone who would list Cucumber Quest as a big creative influence, I was naturally very excited for this first chapter of GGDG’s new visual novel. Their mentality of both scaling things back in terms of labor while also going more shamelessly self-indulgent in terms of storytelling after burning out on making webcomics has really spoken to me, and WOW, the end result of that new process of theirs is shaping up to be something really special. The art and music are sparse but extremely evocative, giving you the rough sketch of the world and letting your mind fill in the rest. The story blends literary high fantasy vibes with the style of fantasy seen in ��90s JRPGs (you can definitely tell this came from an idea for an RPG), but rather than constantly winking at the audience and making self-aware video game references it plays these storytelling ideas extremely sincerely, giving them real dramatic weight while still indulging in fun tropes to their fullest extent. While it’s a far cry from their most famous work with much more mature content, GGDG always excels at creating characters and worlds that immediately grab me. I can’t wait for the rest.

12/18: Barbie - I’m only… what, five months late for the whole Barbenheimer thing? Perfect timing. Anyway! On the one hand, I get the critiques saying that this movie is just a major corporation funding a self-aware feminist critique of their own product as a marketing ploy. And I kinda agree with that. And the movie is a little too long, and I don’t really know what to think of the way the Barbie/Ken conflict plays out. Anthony asked me to summarize what the story ended up being about, and I had no idea what to even say. But also… I did still like the movie? We don’t get a lot of cartoonish, absurdist, fourth wall breaking comedies like this anymore, and this is a good one of those. Also the whole cast is great, the set design is kind of stunning, and the cinematography is consistently appealing. I wouldn’t say it’s a revolutionary work of feminist filmmaking by any stretch, but it’s a good comedy movie.

12/21: Dr. Stone: New World - Man, Dr. Stone is great. I’ve said this many times, but I just love that this series uses all the trappings of shounen that would normally be used to hype up the protagonist learning a new move to instead hype up things like the protagonist building a loom or a hot air balloon. It’s shounen Bill Nye. I didn’t completely love everything about the Treasure Island arc this season, but it all built towards a really fun climax with a lot of satisfying turnabouts where the heroes use their ingenuity to just barely win.

12/23: The History of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out World Records (Summoning Salt) - Truly one of my favorite Summoning Salt videos ever, even with how repetitive Punch-Out can get to watch. It’s just so hard to beat “and that runner… was me.”

12/24: Super Mario Bros. Wonder - What more can be said that hasn’t already been said? It’s the best and most creative 2D Mario game since the ‘90s. The only real flaws are that it’s a little easy, the Search Party stages are annoying in singleplayer, and I wish that every boss prior to the final boss wasn’t just some form of Bowser Jr. fight. But those aren’t nearly enough to drag the whole experience down. It was a blast.

12/24: Do a Powerbomb! - Got this from Anthony as a birthday present. This is the previous series by the creative team currently doing the new Transformers comics I was gushing about a few entries ago. Even with the high bar set by those comics, Do a Powerbomb! exceeded my expectations. Holy shit. An absolutely entrancing fantasy wrestling miniseries full of dynamic, energetic action and tons of heart. These comics where a guy wrestles a giant talking orangutan almost made me cry. Twice. An instant favorite.

12/25: Adventure Time (rewatch) - We ended up finishing our rewatch of Adventure Time (the main series, anyway) on my 30th birthday, which feels appropriate. I already kinda knew this, but this rewatch has truly confirmed that Adventure Time is my favorite TV series of all time. The entire show is even better on a full series rewatch. In hindsight, even parts that annoyed me when they aired end up being important parts of the beautiful tapestry that is this series. The many low points of Finn’s adolescent love life are important stepping stones in his growth as a person, which leaves him in an extremely satisfying place by the end. Jake having kids didn’t get to be a huge status quo change because they grew up instantly, but then they did a bunch of fun episodes about Jake’s relationships with his adult children that deepened him as a character. And most of the big lore questions they kept teasing over the years (“Where’d the humans go?” “Who are Finn’s parents?” “When’s Finn gonna get a robot arm?” etc.) ended up getting satisfying and creative answers, because the show left itself the room to figure those things out later. This is a truly special, one-of-a-kind series, one that lasted nearly 300 episodes and yet still seems like it was over too soon. And yes, I did in fact cry during the final montage, like I knew I would. I will always cherish this show with all of my heart.

12/25: Olive the Other Reindeer (rewatch) - Haven’t seen this one since I was a kid! It was a favorite of mine back then, and while it might not be quite as funny as I remember it’s still very cute, with a 2D/3D hybrid art style that remains very unique and appealing. As an adult I can also appreciate the cast they got for this, with like half the cast of Futurama bolstered by guests like Michael Stipe from REM and The Sopranos’ Joe Pantoliano.

12/26: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio - Anthony and I capped off our Christmas with the most jolly and festive stop motion movie of all! Jokes aside, man, what a beautiful movie. The animation is immaculate, and we really just don’t get children’s animated films like this anymore. Ones that overtly feature real world politics and religion and so many other dark themes in a way that doesn’t talk down to kids or sugarcoat things. This one hits hard. We need more movies like this.

12/31: Oppenheimer - This was an interesting one. Despite being three hours, the way that first hour jumps around in time makes it feel like Oppenheimer is constantly being propelled forward through life at a breakneck pace, swept up by the rising tide of nationalism in spite of his personal left wing politics, never really reflecting on what he’s doing until it’s too late. Then when he’s no longer useful to the empire, he’s chewed up and spat out, only to eventually be honored as a national hero as a symbolic gesture. It’s a compelling story. However, I’m a little torn on how certain aspects of history were framed. Does the abstraction of the bombings detract from the true weight of those events, in favor of sympathizing with the man who built the bomb? Or is it clever a way to show how the realities of the war were compartmentalized away by people who were complicit in its most heinous acts of violence? One minute a bunch of physicists are talking theory, thousands of miles away from the theaters of war, and the next they’ve killed 200,000 people. So which is it? Eh, probably somewhere in the middle, I guess. But I liked it overall.

12/31: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe - I’ve been really surprised by how good this rerelease is. It kind of flew under the radar for me. I liked the original game, but at the time it also almost felt like the New Super Mario Bros. of Kirby. It was a straightforward throwback game where you went through a grass world, then a desert world, then a water world, etc., and also they added four player co-op. But returning to this one after the kinda mid Star Allies has made me appreciate just how solid RtDL is as a Kirby game. I really like the updated graphics, too - yes, even the new cel shaded outlines around the characters - even though I didn’t think it looked that great in screenshots. Also the two new copy abilities (Sand and Mecha) are fun, the minigame collection is shockingly fleshed out to the point that they could’ve sold it as a standalone eShop game, the collectible character masks are fun, and the new epilogue mode where you play as Magolor is one of the coolest bonus modes they’ve ever done. This is a top tier Kirby remake any fan of the series should check out.

Ongoing things I followed in 2023 that don't have a blurb:

Halo Infinite multiplayer

IDW Sonic the Hedgehog (main series + specials)

One Piece

Chainsaw Man

My Hero Academia (not caught up)

The JOJOlands (not caught up)

Things I started in 2023 that I still need to finish:

Freedom Planet 2

Hi-Fi Rush

Live A Live

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Picross 3D Round 2

Rhythm Heaven MegaMix

Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team ProtoMan

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Spark the Electric Jester 3

Sonic Dream Team

One Piece (Wano arc, anime)

Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 (I’ve already read the Shibuya arc already in the manga, though)

Astro Boy (2003 anime)

Futurama (original run rewatch)

One Piece (manga reread)

The Amazing Spider-Man (Lee/Ditko era)

Scott Pilgrim series (reread)

And finally... my favorites of 2023!!!

Overall favorite game: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Favorite indie game: Pseudoregalia

Games remastered in 2023 that are now among my all-time faves: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, We Love Katamari

Most pleasant surprise in gaming: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

Favorite film: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Favorite live action show: Barry

Favorite anime: Pluto

Favorite anime written by a Canadian guy and an American guy based on the Canadian guy's old graphic novel series: Scott PIlgrim Takes Off

Favorite live action adaptation of an anime that I still can't believe they didn't fuck up: One Piece

Favorite Western cartoon: Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake

Favorite older cartoon I only got around to watching in its entirety this year: The Venture Bros.

Favorite documentary: Double Fine PsychOdyssey

Favorite semi-improvised semi-scripted absurdist comedy/horror/tragedy Twitch livestream performance art thing: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware finale (wayneradiotv)

Favorite manga: Chainsaw Man

Favorite older manga that I only read this year: Berserk

Favorite Western comic book: Daniel Warren Johnson's Transformers

Favorite album: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock)

And that's a wrap!!!!! Happy new year, everyone! Here's to me maybe actually reading a goddamn book this year

[ahollowgrave]

WIP Wednesday Friday.................. (time isn't real) Tagged by: @ubejamjar Thank you !!!! Tagging: you (: If I have something to share next week I will be more direct but for now if you see this and have something you wanna share/need a boost to get something written down take this as that nudge!! Tucking it under a readmore, this is the build up to Prudence and Odette meeting. Near the start of Heavensward! I am not confident in my NPC dialogue so consider this a rough rough rough draft ! Thank !

“I'll hate her,” the promise slips out between your teeth, lips pressing it to the bare shoulder of your Hound. Her pleasure is a rumble deep in her chest. “Kill her, if you want,” you can't stop yourself. You do whatever she asks of you and plenty of things she’d never have to voice. You’d give her anything, everything, die for her or kill. It doesn't matter. Your hound. The Hound. Hilda. She snorted a laugh as she turned in your arms. In the light of the fire she is radiant; rimmed in a red to match the eyes that pierce you now. Considering. Weighing. Judging. 

“Nothing like that,” her hands glide over the freckled skin of your arms, shoulders, up into the rich brown of your hair. Your eyelids are heavy, half fallen things. “Just fact finding. She’s caused a ruckus.”

‘Ruckus’ was certainly a word choice. The Holy See had been most displeased by The Warrior of Light’s arrival in the city. And when that hornet’s nest was kicked it was always you and yours that suffered the sting. It made sense that Hilda would want to know more about her and her companions. Not many like her could just waltz into Ishgard. But she had. Through the gates and right into the manor house of The Fortemps Family

“You wanna see if she’ll help,” gone is the gooey sentiment in your voice; annoyance rushing to fill the space left behind. Aren’t you enough?  “Ain’t I enough?” The words are out before you can stop them. It’s unfair, this jealousy of yours, but you’d never admit that aloud. Of course Hilda wants the Warrior of Light’s help. Who better to lift the boot from their necks? All their necks.

“Don’t be like that,” her hands in your hair turn mean, drawing your head back so she can meet your eyes; stern stare for stern stare. “She’s got pull out there. Enough to have some pull here.” Another twist of her fingers and you’re snarling, head tipped with throat exposed. “I just wanna see what makes her so scary.”

You stay like that for a moment. Anger simmering in the sliver of space between you. You blink first. 

“And you,” She’s pushing you back now, turning your shared anger into a different shade of warmth, “Want to please me, don’t you?” 

Yes.

Later, this memory will hurt.

[dualcastimpact]

Just went through the confrontation with Nabriales and Moenbryda's sacrifice (again) and out of all the major deaths that the story keeps coming back to, Moenbryda and Papalymo's feel the least organic, at least in terms of building up that emotional rapport with the Warrior of Light and/or player enough for the Warrior of Light and/or player to be impacted by their passing. Haurchefant interacts prominently with the Warrior of Light and is a reoccurring character all the way from ARR and halfway into Heavensward. We get a whole expansion with Ysayle. We get a whole expansion with Ardbert. Emet-Selch gets TWO expansions, and even Venat and Hythlodaeus get two whole dedicated levels for us to hang out with. You can't argue the same for Moenbryda and Papalymo, who barely interact with the Warrior of Light and in fact never seem to have any significant one-to-one moments with them.

You could argue that Moenbryda's and Papalymo's deaths don't in fact affect the Warrior of Light all too badly like the others' deaths do—and you'd be right! Moenbryda's death is Urianger's grief. Papalymo's death is Lyse's grief. The Warrior of Light doesn't grieve them the way they grieve Haurchefant or Ysayle, or Ardbert, or the Ancients they meet in Elpis, and that's not the issue. The issue is that the game, especially with Moenbryda, tries to make the player feel something for their deaths when they've not allowed the player to engage with the characters enough for us to feel anything for their passing. I'd argue I feel worse about Wilred dying than I did for Moenbryda and Papalymo, and that's because we see so much more of him with the Little Ala Mhigo sequence and his interactions with us while he was in the Crystal Braves; we see him grow as a character, however brief and unrelated to us it was, and we don't get that with Moenbryda and Papalymo.

To make matters worse, Moenbryda's and Papalymo's deaths were driven by their connection to Louisoix: Moenbryda in wishing to understand his motivations for leaving her behind and sacrificing himself for the sake of some no-name place called Eorzea, and Papalymo in wishing to prove himself Louisoix's finest pupil, following his master's footsteps in sacrificing himself to temporarily seal the dread primal Shinryu. Again, that's not the issue—the issue is that ARR only gives us crumbs about Louisoix and the Circle of Knowing, crumbs that are nowhere near enough to make us care about him! Oh, Moenbryda and Papalymo are both paying homage to Louisoix through their sacrifice? Oh well, nothing to do with me! I don't know anything about Louisoix to warrant my caring!

It wouldn't be such an aggravation if the story doesn't insist on making the player care. You have a sequence with Moenbryda's parents comforting Urianger in Endwalker, and there's a sidequest involving Papalymo's father as well—their deaths are not forgotten! They're hearkened back to! They're even included in this image of the fallen made floating in the aetherial sea!

Clearly their sacrifice is considered as major as Minfilia's and Haurchefant's and Ysayle's, which would make sense if the game bothered to put in the effort to make us care about Moenbryda and Papalymo in the first place!

Okay. Rant over. I initially wanted to write about how Raginmar very likely called Kirika to help heal Moenbryda before he went after Nabriales and Minfilia—in-game it makes sense for the Warrior of Light to not be able to call anyone, but by post-ARR Raginmar's adventuring party is pretty established; they're all connected by linkpearls and can contact each other in an emergency, and Moenbryda getting blasted in the stomach by a column of dark aether very much counts as an emergency. There's one issue with that scenario, however:

Papalymo: "She was counting on the theory that a soul's aether burns brightest at the moment of its passing. A scholar until the very end..."

Moenbryda was dying when she gave up her life to temper the aetherial blade. That was the theory she was counting on: that her soul's aether, near its end, would burn brightest at the second of her death and be enough to augment the aetherial blade.

Thancred: "She gave her life to temper the blade of Light? I...I have no words."

If Raginmar was able to get Kirika to come and try to heal Moenbryda, that makes this plot point implausible. She wouldn't have been near death if a healer was at hand. A solution to that problem would be Kirika actually failing to heal Moenbryda and managing to only staunch the wound instead of healing it, but that's additional trauma for Kirika that I have to think about and work on, and I do not have the time for that— oh no— I can feel the brainworms coming—

[anneapocalypse]

WIP Whenever

Thank you @lilbittymonster for the tag! Tagging @farfromdaylight @orime-stories @calico-heart @gunbun and anyone else who wants to share.

Have a bit of sad elf fic. Spoilers for Heavensward.

***

"Urianger? It's—it's me. Pray forgive me, I know the hour is late…"

For a moment, the tremulous voice over linkpearl was scarcely recognizable as Master Alphinaud. Even as recognition pierced his weary mind—nay, he had not been asleep, late as the hour was, but certainly contemplating sleep—he felt the stab of alarm in his breast. Even as the words Is aught amiss? rose to his lips, he cast them aside, for rarely had he felt so certain that aught was, in sooth, amiss.

"'Tis I, Master Alphinaud. Pray, are you well? Are you safe?"

"I'm—" The lad fairly choked on his reply. Never had Urianger known Louisoix's grandson at a loss for words, and his alarm only deepened, before the next words came in a rush:

"He's dead—Lord Haurchefant is dead."

Urianger did his utmost to piece together what he knew of their exploits in the north with the halting tale Master Alphinaud now told. He was aware, of course, that Alphinaud and the Warrior of Light had returned to Ishgard following the restoration of the sultana, even as the dissolution of the Crystal Braves had ended the necessity of their exile. Several Braves whose loyalties remained with the Scions had returned to the Rising Stones, and one in particular, Riol, had been in contact, eager to assist in the search for their missing comrades.

Urianger recalled those "secrets long-buried" to which Master Alphinaud had previously alluded, though he knew not their nature, and from what spilled forth from the lad now he gleaned that the great wyrm Nidhogg had indeed been slain. Yet what followed was far from the nascent peace for which they had so hoped. Unrest in Ishgard, the well-intentioned pleas of the Lord Commander to the Archbishop. The storming of the Vault of the Holy See, the summonings—not of Halone, but of the Knights of Thordan, for which Urianger could hardly help but chide himself, for failing to pursue that avenue of inquiry.

And then the brave sacrifice of a knight of Ishgard, their stalwart ally to the end.

'Twas plain there was more to the tale, even then.

"Ariane…" Alphinaud said at last, followed by a long pause as though he could scarcely summon up the words. "She was… they were…"

Urianger's own reply was rather delayed, as it was a moment before he grasped what Master Alphinaud meant to imply. "…Ah."

"We tried to save him," Alphinaud said hollowly. "I tried… I did all I could, but the wound would not mend, and Ariane… she did something. I don't know white magic. I only know it nearly killed her, too. We had to carry her back to the estate, and I… I wasn't certain she'd awaken."

He understood, now, why Alphinaud had called. Shaken, in shock, the boy had turned to him not for counsel, but simply for some measure of comfort.

Would that he were nearer, the better to offer it. Would that words could ease the loss of such a treasured friend. Against his will, he recalled again the accursed letter he had penned to Wilfsunn and Bloewyda, filled with verse and platitude, as though to absolve him of his guilt.

Now was no time to permit himself to drown in his own shame. Not when Louisoix's grandson had need of him.

"'Dawn may banish even the darkest night,'" he replied, the only words he could draw to mind, and he feared that even now he had erred.

"'Yet ever shall primal desires burn,'" Alphinaud murmured, almost automatically. Well did they both of them know these words. "'Two swords shall vie to lay them low…' And so they shall. On the morrow we give chase… and gods willing, we shall thwart the Archbishop's schemes."

"The Warrior of Light yet lives, then." He knew it must be so, yet he would hear those words from Master Alphinaud for a certainty.

"She does. She…" Alphinaud went silent a moment. "I'm worried for her. But she lives. She did come to, some bells ago… She's in her guest suite now. Resting, I pray." He drew a deep breath, somewhat calmer. "'A blade born of Light and a blade forged of might…' I'd place my trust in her still, without question. Yet I fear for her. I hope…" He trailed off, sounding once again rather lost.

"So must we hope, Master Alphinaud. If there is aught I may do to aid you…"

"I thank you. Tataru said you've some promising leads on our missing friends?'

In truth, those leads were largely thanks to the efforts of Riol and Marshal Tarupin. With the Braves dissolved, at long last a full search of the watercourse could be undertaken, though of course some time had passed, and there was much ground to cover. Nonetheless, the Marshal had promised to report any findings, and at this particular moment, Urianger thought it best to remain optimistic.

"Aye," he said simply, "we have, and 'tis mine every hope that they shall bear fruit."

"I'm glad to hear it." Alphinaud let out a long breath. "I should let you go… forgive me again for troubling you at this hour."

"'Tis no trouble, Master Alphinaud. Pray, accept my sympathies for the loss of your friend. May the Twelve watch over your footsteps in the days to come."

"Yours too, Urianger. Yours too."

[myreia]

Sketches of Times Lost

Day 14: Telling

artoirel gives aymeric some undesirable advice. aymeric & artoirel, background aymeric x wol mentions. set during/post-heavensward patches. written for ffxivwrite2024. rated: teen 1600 words ao3 link

Song and laughter fill the air, and yet Aymeric cannot shift the heavy weight in his heart.

He lingers on the upper floor balcony overlooking the grand ballroom, watching the festivities play out below. House Durendaire has made every effort to impress tonight. Every corner of the manor has been bedecked with impressive topiaries and sculptures, and the faded walls are hung with banners. Floral garlands wrap around the pillars and decorate the entryways, adding a vibrancy to the hall that is reminiscent of spring and everlasting youth. Even a nod to Jannequinard’s astrologians makes an appearance with celestial ornaments interspersed between the crystal chandeliers. The most talented Eorzean musicians and bards were hired to entertain, and even a celebrated portraitist sits in the corner, capturing the events with swift strokes of his brush.

Too much, perhaps, to celebrate the marriage of a third cousin. But this is the first High House wedding since the end of the war, and there is more to celebrate here than simple matrimony.

Aymeric sighs and folds his hands together, leaning them against the balustrade. Below, Aureia cuts a striking appearance, her scarlet dress immediately recognizable amongst the sea of muted darks preferred by the older generations and the gentle pastels favoured by the young. She had been presented with a number of different gowns, including one of Borel blue, but she was keen to select something that spoke to her and not the sensible option. Silver sparkles at her throat and from her ears, and small ornaments scattered through her midnight hair, glistening in the ballroom lights like stars. She loiters on the edge of the dance floor, happy to watch, keen to keep her distance, and anything but a wallflower. Though she has declined every invitation to dance, the highborn youth flock to her regardless, hoping that one of them may get lucky.

There was a time when she may have snapped and them and stalked away, but now she accepts the curious looks and eager admirers with a smile and a nod and polite conversation. The confidence she exudes is magnetic. She has always had it, along with a certain wry charm, but now she has found her place in Ishgardian society—a saviour, a warrior, an outsider who walks the line between lowborn and high—it is even stronger. Few can bring themselves to look away from her.

He cannot blame them. He can’t look away himself.

“Skulking about in the shadows, are we? I never thought I’d see the day Ishgard’s most eligible bachelor would distance himself from the finest social event of the season.”

His lips twitch, holding back a reserved smile. “Skulking is hardly the word I would use,” he says, glancing over his shoulder. “And I have not been an eligible bachelor for some time.”

Artoirel laughs, merry from the bliss of wine, and crosses the balcony to join him. “A jest, my friend,” he replies smoothly. “For as long as I have known you, you have never been one to skulk. Out of character for a man who makes public speaking a part of his daily life—or one so hellsbent on reform. And as for eligible bachelor, well…”

“That would be you, good sir, not I. How many ladies have caught your eye this evening?”

“None, for I’m afraid they are all to enchanted by your beloved below to pay much attention to me.”

He pauses, setting his wine down on a nearby table, and leans his back against the balustrade. “Aymeric,” he says slowly, lowering his voice. “Have you asked her to dance?”

“No.”

“Will you?”

Aymeric pauses. Below, Aureia smiles and laughs, touching the arm of a Manseauguel youth affectionately. Despite her refusal to participate in the dancing, she is already attracting a few glares from the surrounding matriarchs and matrons. Victoirelle, the Durendaire bride, sails past in the arms of her new wife, pink-cheeked and giddy, oblivious to all else. At least she is content. Her mother, however, is glaring daggers at Aureia and her accidental entourage.

His brow furrows. He can already feel the oncoming headache when he receives a complaint tomorrow that the Warrior of Light outshone the bride on purpose. Many of the older lords and ladies are not fond of her and what she has come to represent. Foreigner aside, seeing a half-Elezen celebrated in high society has been taken as a personal affront by some. Hilda Ware they can swallow, so long as she remains her gruff and coarse self, firmly on the outskirts and removed from societal events. But Aureia Malathar is a force to be reckoned with, and one that has forced them to confront a number of uncomfortable truths.

“You should ask her to dance, Aymeric,” Artoirel continues. “It would be the proper thing.”

“It may surprise you to learn this, but I have more on my mind than propriety.”

“My friend, how many months now has she been your paramour? Courtship has a natural conclusion; stave it off for too long and your intentions become suspect. Do what you will with your own propriety, but at the very least, respect hers.”

Aymeric stills, gnawing discomfort growing in the pit of his stomach. Slowly, he draws his gaze away from Aureia and raises his head, looking Artoirel in the eye. “We’re not speaking about dancing, are we, my friend?”

“No. I suppose we’re not.”

He exhales a long breath. “Then would you kindly speak plainly?” he says coolly. “I spend my days untangling the distinction between the said and unsaid, I would rather not do so among those I trust. Though I suppose whatever point it is you wish to make, you required two full glasses of wine to steel yourself before raising it with me.”

His heart pangs with fleeting guilt the moment the words leave his mouth. He should not needle Artoirel this way—especially not when drink is involved—but this conversation has quickly turned suffocating. He likes to think himself a patient man, but even patient men have their limits.

His only wish is that it was not happening here and now.

“Then I will be plain,” Artoirel says, equally cool. “Why have you not asked her to marry you?”

“I do not see why that is of any importance. My private life is my own.”

“Your private life is the concern of all Ishgard, as it is for all the lords of the High Houses. Until the matter of heirs and governance no longer depends on noble birth, this is the way of it.”

Aymeric’s mouth curves with distaste. “We are only burdened by the way of it if we choose it,” he says darkly. “Perhaps I should pass a decree unravelling these traditions. No more heirs, no more Houses.”

Artoirel pauses. “Come now. I know you do not mean that.”

“Perhaps I do. Perhaps I don’t.” Aymeric casts an eye out across the ballroom. There is no sign of a scarlet dress. “Regardless of whether I speak in jest or not, the sentiment remains the same. I will not ask Aureia to marry me simply because a handful of viscounts and barons are discomforted by the idea that she is my lover.”

“It is not she who makes them discomforted—”

“Please, Artoirel, I’m well aware of the snide remarks and gossip made behind closed doors—”

“They are discomforted by you.” He meets Aymeric’s eyes and folds his arms across his chest, his jaw set. There is no trace of his earlier intoxication. “You know what you have come to represent. The weight your name carries, for high and lowborn both. If the worst comes to pass, what then? Do you wish the legacy you have so painstakingly built tarnished because you chose to spite tradition?”

Aymeric stills, the words twisting in his gut like a knife. “I would appreciate if you did not refer to such matters as the worst that comes to past, Artoirel,” he says quietly.

He glances away. “It is a matter that must be considered.”

“Bastard or not, any child of mine would be loved.”

“If that is what you truly believe, then ask her to marry you.”

“Are you recommending or are you telling?”

“Neither. Counselling.”

“Words that could have been spoken by your father.”

“He is wise.” Artoirel pauses, and for a moment a faded, distant look passes across his face. “And, as you know, he has personal insights into such matters—”

Aymeric grimaces. “He was adulterous. His infidelity is not comparable to Aureia and myself.”

“Even so, you would do well to listen to him. He means well, and he cares for both you and Mistress Malathar greatly.”

I know. And yet somehow that makes it all the worse. No matter how well-intentioned he is, Count Edmont is not omniscient. Would his advice change if he knew the truth? That he has asked Aureia to marry him on more than one occasion, and she has declined each time? That no matter how much she loves him, this is the one thing on which she will not change her mind.

No matter how much she loves him, marriage is not for her.

“I will listen to your father when he chooses to speak to me himself, Artoirel,” Aymeric says firmly, pushing away from the balustrade. “And not when he chooses to send you as a messenger to leverage our friendship as a bargaining tool.”

It is not like him to leave a conversation abruptly—but admittedly he has not been feeling much like himself of late.

[sjofn-lofnsdottr]

for mercuriel: What is their main character arc in the story? Where do they start and how do they develop? Do they get a happy ending or is their story a tragic one?

My word, a Mercuriel ask! Thank you for that, I always feel like I don't talk about him much, but I do really like him too.

But ... brace yourself, because I suspect I'm going to wind up saying a lot more about him than I probably need to. This is going to primarily talk about Mercuriel in his WoL timeline, rather than his existence in the Dusk timeline (partly because I only have the barest of ideas as far as that goes).

Okay, so, when I was transplanting the post-apocalypse crew into Eorzea, while I was willing to completely jettison their backgrounds to fit better into FFXIV's lore, if there were ways for me to give little nods to their backgrounds that were lore friendly, I'd do them.

Mercuriel grew up in a cult before escaping and starting over, in the post-apcalypse. The Lambs of Dalamud were a thing in FFXIV. SO. Part of FFXIV Merc's secret background is that he was in the Lambs, fully on board with their "let's speed up the end of the world" agenda during the end of 1.0. Mercuriel was not in a good place in his life then.

Mercuriel had grown up a poor orphan in Ul'dah, fully immersed in the teachings of Nald'thal, where your wealth reflects how good a person you are and all that garbage. He could never quite crawl out of the hole that beginning put him in, so by the time the Lambs were recruiting, he was a pretty easy mark, for all the reasons people usually fall into cults. That it was eventually revealed to him that the goal was to accelerate the end of the world was a bonus, really, since he was ready to watch the whole thing burn by then anyway.

When Dalamud fell and it turned out the cult was wrong about everything, Mercuriel did a lot of soul searching about it. And around the time ARR begins, he returned to Ul'dah, having decided to give finding wealth and purpose and fame one more try. Because what else was he going to do? Just lay down and die without it at least being a blaze of glory? No thank you.

And also maybe he can do enough to make up for all the shit he did during the whole cult membership period of his life. Not that he cares.

So! I think of Mercuriel's arc as a sort of redemption arc for him, although he would never say he's looking for that. It more or less follows the WoL's arc, but certain things hit differently when viewed through the lens of someone who was so disillusioned with the world he was willing to try and help end it, who is now struggling his way towards a different, more hopeful mindset. All while being really annoyed it's so much work.

But of course it is, you know?

I've joked with friends that some expansions feel like they're specifically for one of my characters. Heavensward was for Dusk. Shadowbringers was for Errol. Stormblood had more for Bjalla than the rest of my guys. And Endwalker was when it was finally for Mercuriel.

He understood the type of despair and hopelessness they were dealing with far better than any of my other characters. And it was a big struggle for him to try and figure out how to articulate why he changed and why he thought that change was so worth it, as he is still unsentimental and cynical much of the time. But one thing he didn't struggle with was the question of wanting to save the world. He wanted that more than anything, and it was no longer just to make up for what he'd done when he was younger. He thought it really was worth saving, now, that life was worth protecting in spite of the less than stellar aspects of existing. And good for him, I say.

So, I think his ending in Endwalker was a good one, since he managed it! He's always going to have to fight against his more cynical instincts, but I think he's proven to himself that he can. Even better: he wants to.

Who knows how whatever post-Dawntrail stories will shake out for him. Dawntrail itself is hard to slot him into, to be honest, because there are so few points where it feels like the Warrior of Light absolutely needs to be there ... and even after everything, if Mercuriel doesn't need to be there, he's going to be off fishing or something instead.

[triumphantbass]

Dawntrail Retrospective

Okay, it's been two weeks since Dawntrail launched, a bit over a week since I've cleared it and have had time to think things over, wanted to do a big dump of my thoughts, a non-scored review of it all.

Full spoilers after the break.

So, I want to give this all a nuanced look; I know this has been a polarizing expansion; I did very much enjoy my time while still having some qualms, and I'll try to highlight both sides of that here.

Overall, while it would be low in my expansion rankings, that's not to say it's bad. Just as I probably bump Heavensward up a bit in my rankings because it did so much with so little (in terms of budget, gameplay tools available, story to build on, cast, etc.), Dawntrail takes a hit because I know what they're capable of these days.

But a 10 year saga is a tough act to follow, and I know if this was my first FFXIV experience (it might be a lot of people's one day, if the 'second saga starting point' for new players they mentioned ever gets implemented), I'd be going 'oh wow'.

Anyways, before I pick things apart, I'd like to highlight what really worked for me.

Sphene was my problematic fave. I know Artificial Intelligence tropes can be overdone, but I have a fondness for them because when done right, an AI is clearly authored by someone. Just like a biography, even an autobiography, paints the subject in a certain way, an AI really reflects the creators' biases.

Just as the soul technology was shown as a mechanical version of the aetherial sea, Sphene really felt like a sort of digital primal for Alexandria, the people's desires latched on to her, sort of a vtuber Zodiark.

I loved the development that her compassionate personality (taken from the OG Sphene) was distinctly incompatible with her unsustainable primary directive, protecting and preserving Alexandria's way of life (the directive from the people)

And I appreciated that part of the thesis statement of her character is "a Garnet who never traveled with Zidane would become a tool of Alexandria, her kindness taken advantage of as a figurehead''. Which makes it nice when Wuk Lamat breaks through during The Interphos to appeal to her.

She can feel like a bit of a rehash of Hades and Metion, but I do enjoy the contrast of her valuing life too much to Metion not valuing it enough; it's important to know how to live in spite of despair, but it's also important to accept that even memory is not forever.

Also while I'm here I have to say I absolutely respect the zone change of Living Memory from stunningly beautiful to hauntingly somber. I hope that change is not reverted in patches, as it's absolutely the starkest environment change in the game.

I like the idea of casting aside nostalgia to care for the living, and I thought this zone was a welcome surprise from the "Golden City" imagery a South and Central American expansion invokes.

(PS, massive Simulated Twilight Town vibes)

And I thought Cachuia was well done in this zone; I was a bit antsy earlier with how they made her into just a drone, but I liked the resolution between her and Erenvelle

But one thing I want to stress as I sing the praises of the last zone and change, is that neither half of this expansion works without the other, because unlike other split expansions (SB having the Gyr Albania and Yanxia halves, EW having Islabard then the Ancients), it felt clear in why it had both halves, and that was for the contrast of the same theme, Namely, the ideas of culture, tradition, and history, and how they affect the living.

When Wuk Lamat is giving her speech during her ceremony, she notes one of the societies taught her "they believe death is not the end, and we live on so long as we are remembered", which Sphene says almost verbatim of her people later, menacingly polite as that same belief is twisted.

There are some roots of this conflict in the first half too, with Koana's disinterest in culture and tradition, before realizing progress and culture weren't incompatible.

While Alexandria instead takes it to a logical, Black Mirror extreme, discarding culture and history, literally forgetting anyone who passes (while assuring themselves anyone who is lost still lives on) and living purely in the present moment; death itself removed from the public circle.

I don't think the Alexandria half, the modern, present-focused society works without first setting up a region with a rich culture and history.

In the first few regions, you see how those who walked before led those who walked after, while in Heritage Found... you see a heritage lost. On both sides of the divider there are abandoned buildings; a sidequest in the graveyard has the keeper note that memorials have fallen out of favor due to regulators, Alexandria had a perfect record of history (data, people, all stored in the cloud), but didn't use it; specifically keeping it away to prevent painful memories from affecting the present. While Yok Tural had an imperfect history (a lot in legends, retold/inconsistent oral history), but that history distinctly affected their day to day; even the painful memories, the tragedies, all played a part in shaping the present.

Even though it could make the pacing clunky at times, I did like that Wuk Lamat's basic setup of "learn about these people and understand why they make the choices they do" extended to Solution Nine and even Living Memory.

Garool Jaja was also a very good character, loved his performance, do kinda wish his solo duty where he confides the true nature of the contest was the very start of the expansion; I feel like it would have set the tone for this being the "The WoL is a mentor arc" better.

Also to wrap up the good side: every single dungeon and trial was ace. Dungeons finally hit a good level of difficulty for normal content, and were well designed and very pretty. Vanguard and Everkeep in particular were delights, as was the postgame dungeon Tender Valley.

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

And on to my more mixed feelings.

Wuk Lamat- I don't hate her, but I don't like her that much either. I tried to keep an open mind for the full MSQ, but ultimately she's not a character I really vibed with; I do get the shonen protag/Naruto appeal, but it's really not for me. She's been described as 'Lyse 2.0', and while I admit I have similar feelings about Lyse, I do think Wuk Lamat has a more natural progression. Lyse started Stormblood feeling like a 20 something on a mission trip, while Wuk Lamat feels like a reasonable candidate who just needs a little encouragement.

I don't mind too much our WoL taking a mentor role and taking a backseat, while downplaying their powers; but what I struggled most with was fatigue. Wuk Lamat was always there, like the memes of "Talk to Wuk Lamat" say. Like Shadowbringers was the expansion where Graha was the main character, and a lot of the time he was away doing city stuff or being mysterious. Wuk Lamat would have benefited from more time to breathe, especially in the back half of the game. She should still be there in the back half for sure, for the expansion to work she needs to be a player in all this, but I'll admit I sighed when I got to Solution Nine thinking I'd explore by myself (probably bumping into her at one of the locations) but instead needed to escort her. As I noted earlier, I don't mind the Interphos interruption (though I did appreciate the chance for the WoL to be at full strength) because Wuk Lamat appealing to Sphene's humanity fit the expansion themes well.

Succession- I'm happy this didn't go into my worst fear: a retread of the Azim Steppe where we actively interfere in another nation's politics by being their champion; but it left a bit to be desired. Notably, while I knew the Scion Civil War was a bit of a misdirect, it felt kinda pointless? Like Thancred and Urianger are here helping an alumni from their university out as he applies for the same job, but they're totally chill with you. And honestly there are no stakes to him getting the job, he's the only other qualified candidate to the point where you hire him later yourself.

I didn't want any longstanding inter-scion conflict, but for a character as frequently duplicitous as Urianger and driven as Thancred it just felt like a waste.

Also, GJJ clearly told the WoL that the keystones didn't determine the victor; he would pick a successor that was worthy- I kinda wish they just stuck to that. Having the "good' rulers and "bad" rulers paired together for the cooking challenge felt like a bit of a cop-out, , plus needing to win back a stolen keystone, etc. just felt like missed opportunities.

Zarool Ja and Bakool Jaja - I get what they were going for in the end with each of these: ZJ being the "impossible son of an impossible son, the weight of expectations causing him to shun those around him, and that loneliness twisting him", BJJ being desperate to help his people, feeling the major survivors guilt of his own life costing so many others.

but neither of their narrative arcs are smooth, and in the first half, especially during the trial, they seem to be doing comically evil Wacky Races Dick Dastardly behavior with no regards for a continuous arc. BJJ releasing Valigarmanda was the icing on the cake for me. He could have done this in a reasonable way, weakening the seal in an attempt to sabotage the trial, then feeling guilt over what he did in desperation, but no he walked up to the gate keepers like 'no I'm evil, I'm gonna destroy that now' any hints of ZJ sympathy come like, during his trial and from the Wandering Minstrel, who even notes most will see him as a one dimensional tyrant

I also think they could have distinguished both more from just being warmongers; in the same way that Wuk Lamat and Koana are somewhat aligned but have different visions, personally it would have made more sense to me if BJJ had a different brand of conservatism; putting a stronger emphasis on defense and isolationism rather than world conquest. It would fit his background better too, as someone who wanted to protect his homeland

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

My most negative thoughts are really just pacing. I would like to not have so many quests just running around talking to people, not learning much of note. I know there are only so many things you can do (stand in purple cloud and kill 3 enemies isn't great either), but at this point I'd honestly just take a shorter MSQ if it meant better story pacing.

I know the first half is meant to be like an abbreviated ARR, and I don't mind it being low stakes, just wish it had a bit more polish.

I will also say I felt a lot more limited in my dialog at times? Like I don't need every box to have "I'll kill your god if I have to, maybe even if I don't", but there felt like a lot of instances where you had two ways to say the same sentiment. I like it when the game lets you have opinions, even if the opinions are objectively bad (you can straight up tell Noah the Allagans were visionaries) A lot of that pacing was more actual story content than the quests though; the first three zones could feel like extended allied society quests (solid enough ones), which wasn't bad for a 'fresh start', but Shalooni is where things felt off. I liked the vibes but frankly the quests left barely any impressions at all.

(loved the trolley dig though)

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

Overall, like I said, I enjoyed my time. While it may not be a favorite expansion, it sets a good baseline for another ten years, and I hope they can refine it in the patch series and beyond.

There's a lot more I could probably say, I realized I didn't have a chance to touch on Erenvelle (very glad he tagged along) and Krile; but I feel I'll have more thoughts on both of their plotlines after the patch series.

P.S. though I rolled my eyes at some of the running jokes I genuinely got a chuckle out of Wuk Evu always freaking out then snapping back to polite with "well I won't overthink it then" and similar. Felt very Chocobo Racing GP.

P.P.S. Wood-carved owl nouliths are the best idea. A+ weapon.

[dungeonenvy]

The thing with FFXIV that keeps a grip on my brain and sends my blood pressure skyrocketing when I think about it, is that they keep getting *so close* to saying something real before backing away in favor of liberal interests.

Nanamo is willing to stand up to capital and gets almost killed for it. She then backs down, capitulates utterly, and makes nice with exploitative capitalists by encouraging them to exploit people recovering from war.

Garlemald has a vocal anti-imperialist faction, the Populares, that push back against the constant warmongering and imperialism that defines the Garlean Empire. But they get sidelined in favor of trying to make us feel bad for people who commit war crimes.

The Ascians have manipulated history for thousands of years to kill millions(if not billions) of people just so they can reclaim their glory days. When we go back to their glory days, we see that even before the world was sundered they were racist pricks who didn't recognize personhood outside of themselves. But the story insists, over and over, that the glory of the past was worth it and we should sympathize.

The people of Alexandria erased death from their lives by feeding on other worlds, but we still have to pay lip service to their Queen who loved the people so much to the point where she married a guy who would just casually kill and abuse her people - EXPLICITLY so she could consume other worlds. But she was nice so we have to respect that.

The Limsan Armada explicitly broke faith with the Kobolds, but when Merlwyb talks to their high priest she acts like it's a technicality. She never offers their land back, or asks them what they want. She just says "hey you can be capitalists too"

Over and over and over and over and over again, they ask me to sympathize with the perpetrators while they bury the victims in the background. It's so fucking twisted. But ARR wasn't like that(before they started cutting content over and over). You spent time with the victims and the suffering. You call out the people in power for what they're doing. Even Heavensward tried to change Ishgard for the better, maybe they didn't move the needle enough but damn that city improved from where we started.

But stormblood and onwards? Miss me with that fucking shit

I could go on! But I won't!

[nekkyousagiart]

FFXIV - Brothers of the Firstbrood

Nekkyo Usagi Art (c) 2023 - ARTSTATION | INSTAGRAM

[idalenn]

Lillian Kyo - Lore Details

Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to talk @elliewiltarwyn!! One day I'll write my way to some of these.....someday.

Under a read more because it's, uh, long.

--B A S I C S--

Name: Lillian Kyo

Nicknames: None given, unless you count "hero" and "kit" (though that last one is a bit of a Gridanian slur)

Age: Late twenties in ARR, just considered early 30s by the end of Endwalker. Stormblood takes up a good chunk of this time. (She's a year younger than she should be: Seat of Sacrifice and time spinning out of control because of Elidibus/The Crystal Tower/the flow of time between shards cause her to miss a year on the Source. The Scions' bodies sure don't, though)

Nameday: 16th Sun of the 1st Astral Moon

Race: Keeper of the Moon Miqo'te

Gender: Transwoman. Will never outright state so

Orientation: Pansexual, though more in theory than practice

Profession: Member of the Conjurers' Guild, member of the Botanists' Guild (on indefinite, and unpaid, sabbatical). Warrior of Light and current holder of the Soul of the White Mage

--P H Y S I C A L     A S P E C  T S--

Hair: Grey as storm clouds. Starts off short and unkempt in ARR, growing to her shoulders in Heavensward where it stays that length until Stormblood where she quickly learns combat and longer hair do her no favors. Once Temulun cleans it up, it goes to about neck length. However, Lillian has no experience in maintaining the Xaela-influenced appearance, so she keeps the general shape but leaves the beads, complex braiding, and oils out. She keeps this look until her story's end.

Eyes: a soft golden hue, often called "piss yellow"

Skin: a brownish-grey

Tattoos/scars: Oh boy. Lillian's most noticeable set are the ones across her face, the edges of her face, and striping her throat in service to some purpose others can't discern - the result of attempting facial feminization before the events of ARR with a knife, a hot flame, a basic grasp of healing magic, and a book on anatomy she could barely read with diagrams interpreted increasingly wrong as the night went on. The end result was mostly a success, though.

Other than those, she collects several over time. Notable ones include burns from dragon fire, being impaled on Zenos' sword at Rhalgr's Reach, being skewered on his sword again later but - unable to pull it out - instead pulling her body away so it cut it's own way out, and another across her front from shoulder to hip in their final fight (somewhat mitigated by a timely application of Benediction)

Healers can take a lot of abuse. No tattoos though.

--F A M I L Y--

Parents: Being a Keeper of the Moon, she has no knowledge of her father. Her mother, however, taught her child what she needed to survive in the world beyond the reach of the tribe knowing the day would eventually come where she'd walk that path and explore the wide, open world. Not seen since the day of Lillian's leaving.

Siblings: Grew up among a litter of siblings in which she was the youngest of all. Hasn't seen a single one since leaving the tribe.

Grandparents: The closest person to a grandparent was her Elder Mother, whom she much respected and loved and continues to be a source of inspiration. Taught Lillian the ways of the Conjurer and of faith in Menphina and the elementals. Likely found the same fate as the tribe.

In-laws and Other: Scions count, right?

Pets: Scions count, right?

--S K I L L S--

Abilities: Being born and raised in the wilds of the Twelveswood have made her specially attuned to the elementals to the point that she's often confused for a Hearer. While naturally a Conjurer/White Mage, the events of Rhalgr's Reach encouraged her to learn from Lyse in putting on some muscle and to take on pugilist training.

Hobbies: Dancing, but moving in general. Tribe life didn't allow her much freedom to dance in general and she was never allowed to take part in the rite of passage other girls enjoyed in which they sang and danced to a certain enchanting tune. Enjoyed playing the flute while living with her tribe, but hasn't done so since leaving.

--T R A I T S--

Most Positive Trait: Will always try to seek the best possible solution to any given problem, even at cost to herself.

Most Negative Trait: The most petulant woman you'll ever meet in her worst moments; absolutely taking pleasure in your pain. Uses the idea of "the logical choice" and removing herself from emotions as a defense mechanism, simultaneously confuses the believed results of these choices with the "greater good".

The decision she makes in Ktisis Hyperboreia is THE nail in the coffin for Meteion's outlook on life.

--L I K E S--

Colors: Different shades of greys and blacks with splashes of blue. The white associated with healers and White Mages does not appeal to her.

Smells: Overpowering floral scents. Lillian uses these to keep herself sweet-smelling in place of showering (unless forced) until Shadowbringers. Also enjoys the aroma of burning and ash in small amounts.

Textures: Woolen clothing and thick, inflexible metal plates. The heavier, the better.

Drinks: Spiced strawberry wine

--O T H E R    D E T A I L S--

Smokes: Not at all. The colored smokes of Radz-at-Han are appealing at first, but she can't be around them for too long or her eyes start to water.

Drinks: None at first, but she picks up the habit during celebrations at the end of Stormblood, which becomes a bigger problem at the end of Shadowbringers as she tries to cope with being a woman out of time and seeing how much the world has progressed and how much she's lost (The resolution of the Bozja conflict, peace with those formerly known as the "beast tribes", the twins' comatose bodies being carried off back to Sharlayan by their father, Y'shtola's being taken by Matoya to better care for her, etc.) By Endwalker she's thinking about picking up a glass of water and tasting wine before she knows what's happening.

Drugs: Not a whole lot of interest.

Mount Issuance: Unicorn babbyyyyyyyy

Been Arrested: Charged with regicide and, later, heresy; they didn't stick.

---------

For tagging (apologies if you get double-tagged by me) the OCs I haven't seen yet are @zoroarkthief @viiioca @candycryptids @sylaurin @reconditerune @amalthea-felsblood @arinaxiv @dreadwyrmz and YOU reader for making it this far!

[ramyeonguksu]

For the NPC ask game: Alphinaud!

Wrote a little ficlet from Alphinaud's POV for Post-ARR/Heavensward! Read under cut!

Note: Rifra will be referred to as Seren (her alias from ARR-SHB) for this fic.

The freezing cold of Coerthas wasn't something Alphinaud was accustomed to, and having to essentially be forced to trek through the ilms of snow made the little elezen shiver in his boots. It was all bleak; everything that he had strived for with the Crystal Braves was taken away from him, a mutiny against him planned right under his nose. He was humbled, to say the least, and for once he because acutely aware of his childish naivete that came with his young age. Which each step he thought of the Scions that placed their trust in him, that was starting to become a new family for him, left behind at the mercy of his own army and the Brass Blades.

At least the Warrior of Light Seren and Tataru were with him, and Lord Haurchefant's bottomless generosity was able to grant them refuge in the reclusive nation of Ishgard, yet what was he supposed to do at this point? Even if he wanted to clear their names at Ul'dah. what could he even do to achieve that? Being the top of the Studium students wasn't going to cut it anymore, and he no longer had his twin sister Alisaie with him.

Just where was she anyway? She had helped them, sending Brennan the peddler with a chocobo carriage to take them away from Ul'dah, but where was Alphinaud's other half when he needed her the most?

The elezen tripped as his mind wandered, landing face first into the stone floor. Hearing him fall, Seren immediately rushed to his side.

"Are you alright there?" The viera asked, helping him sit up and dust off the snow. It was a wonder how she was able to withstand the cold, dressed somewhat lighter than what one would expect in a frigid climate, but someone like her who grew up in the freezing mountain ranges would have no problem with the temperature.

"I'm…" Alphinaud muttered, hesitation in his voice. "I'm fine, thank you."

"Make sure you don't get too distracted, Alphinaud!" Tataru warned him as she slowly approached him, fighting against the strong winds. "I'm already having a hard time getting through here, can't afford to have you struggle as well!"

Alphinaud didn't respond, the feeling of incompetence that was growing in him increasing exponentially.

Seren immediately took notice and crouched in front of him with her back towards him. "Climb on."

The boy refused. "N-no, I can keep going."

"You're exhausted, Alphinaud," Seren curtly responded. "A lot has happened today, and you need to rest. I'll carry you until we make it to a shelter in Ishgard."

Her head turned to face him, a reassuring smile on her lips. "Besides, I'm used to carrying my little sister home all the time."

Alphinaud pursed his lips together, his heart twisting as what remained of his ego fought to refuse her offer. However, today was not the time to try and preserve such, and he allowed himself to climb on her back before continuing across the Steps of Faith.

As he rested against her back, the boy reflected upon his experiences from the past several moons. Riding the same boat to Limsa Lominsa as Seren before getting to know her, separating from Alisaie over differences before finding her once more at the Coils of Bahamut, joining the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, forming the Crystal Braves… A lot, too much, had truly happened for a sixteen-summers-old child.

Alphinaud laid his head against Seren's shoulder, basking in her warmth as the cold winds blew against the three of them. When was the last time was he carried like this by anyone? His father Fourchenault began to drown in his work, and he was now too heavy for his mother Ameliance to hold him on her back like this. Without him realizing, Seren had practically become an older-sibling figure that he never had, a long-lost family member that he was supposed to have known all his life. Someone he could turn to for advice. Someone he could lean on for support...

Finding comfort in her presence, warmth against the freezing winds that threatened to stop them, Alphinaud drifted off to sleep.

[shiratamako]

How about ESTINIEEEEEEEEN (He's the Azure Dragoon!)

Impossible to Love // AO3 Link

1,286 words, Enemies, Hate/Love Set after the DRG lvl 50 Quest Pre-Heavensward

He held nothing but contempt for her within his heart. It kindled his body with intense fervour, driving him to wander the rimed wastelands of Coerthas in constant vigil over Nidhogg and the Dravanian Horde. In his solitary madness, he proved his resolve to Ishgard was true; that Ishgard was in no need of an outsider to be her saviour.

Ishgard did not need Shira. Alberic was a coward and a fool to take her in. The scaled, repulsive creature should have never picked up a lance.

To Estinien, she was the same as any heretic, if not worse. A damnable witch that awakened the Eye of Nidhogg with profane magic to force a second Azure Dragoon into being. Yet, she manifested Haldrath’s armour all the same, channelled his will and his might — in his mind, he determined it to be a grand falsehood.

For Estinien was still standing. If she truly displayed Haldrath’s might, then his life would surely have been forfeit, his body extinguished.

Estinien did not need Shira, even if he hunted her down obsessively. The contempt within him was the force that drove him, that kept his blood burning hot. Nidhogg chose a champion of his own to use against Ishgard — to bring about its downfall.

Today, she would be his quarry. He would claim victory and bury his lance into her chest as the Eye’s true chosen. He tracked her footprints in the fresh snow, even in the sleet. She was close to Whitebrim Front, near the Sea of Clouds.

Today would be the day she died.

Her black armoured figure stood out from the white snow, the Drachen mail’s highly polished surface exuding a wicked shine. The helm of her armour was off, as were her gauntlets. She was crouched down in the snow, her back turned away from him. Shira was doing maintenance on the armour, blissfully unaware of his hateful cathexis as he watched from a distance. She donned the gauntlets again, latches moving to cohere to her form, flush against skin yet showing the protruding spikes that mirrored his own armour.

Look upon the begetter of thine anger and to thy hatred.

A wraithlike voice roused within his mind. Its words coalesced into a singular goal.

Rend her flesh and channel mine power.

She turned her head, her blue eyes wide with false innocence. Her dark hair rustled in the frigid winds, white breath dancing from her lips. As she stood up, her tail swayed and swished with draconic mimicry. The fin-like horns protruding from her head disgusted him. Her cheeks and neck were covered in scales like a horrible blight. He was glad that the armour at least covered most of her body, in similarity to his own as perfect replica. 

He had never laid eyes on a being more ugly and impossible to love.

“Estinien?” Shira beamed at him upon seeing his figure. “It is you! Thank the Twelve,”

She ran up to him with blithe confidence that he was her ally. Estinien remained silent, stony-faced as he observed her underneath the helm of his Drachen armour. As she spoke, all he could fixate on were her pointed canines that gleamed from the cavern of her lips. How did these fangs escape the notice of Alberic? Of the Lord Commander?

All had been charmed. All save him.

She spoke as though he were her friend. “Alberic is still waiting for you. We can return to Camp Dragonhead together—”

“No. Only one of us will remain standing.” He readied his lance, pointing it towards her. “I will dispel your illusion, once and for all!”

He forced her to draw her weapon as he lunged at her with all his might, his aim and lance true. She blocked his blows, nimbly moving with the snow underfoot each step. She avoided his attacks, forcing her to be on the defensive as Estinien felt himself fall into the trance of battle.

“Return to ash!”

A surge of energy swelled through him as he charged to pierce her chest. His power was used against him as he remained open for a counterattack. Shira moved in close, attempting to raze him to the ground with a leg sweep, intending to incapacitate but not kill. He wove out of her attack, sweeping his lance to disarm her. It fell, buried in thick snow.

His victory was assured: he was resolved to kill her. Nidhogg’s enmity consumed him wholly with his one desire. A hand reached out to her throat to grasp it, throwing the other dragoon to the ground with all his hate.

“You are unworthy to wear the Drachen mail!”

He felt his voice was not his own, guttural and hoarse as he screamed at her in his frenzy. She gasped and choked under him, her face contorting with pain as she squirmed to be free. His hands moved on their own, as though gifted with fang and claw to rend and cut. With all his force, he tore apart the front of the Drachen mail, exposing her flesh. He threw the unneeded carapace away, dark fragments falling into the Sea of Clouds.

“I will tear you asunder!”

He gripped his lance, intending to drive it through her stomach, to end her once and for all. Instead of plunging through her flesh, his lance was met with resistance. Blood fell onto the snow, blooming with fresh crimson. Her hand had stopped the point of the lance as the other wrestled to keep it from piercing her. Her teeth grit tight, wincing through the torment he inflicted on her.

“Estinien—please—come to your senses,” she spoke faintly, in between gasps and clenched teeth.

Why did he relish the sight of her pinned underneath him? Why did it stir and mesmerise him so? His breaths grew heavy and ragged, mouth parted and jaw heavy with unquenchable, unspoken need.

“Ah…” Her lips parted for precious air. The way she seemed to sigh roused him. Her eyes met his. He realised this himself when he could see his own face reflected in her pupils. Her cheeks suffused with a rosy flush, her eyes wide with fear and curiosity at the discovery of the face beneath the helm.

He looked away. Estinien could not stare at her strange features any longer. As his bloodlust faded, he looked to where he pointed his spear. Her smooth, creamy white stomach; the alluring valley of muscle tone down her abdominals were in stark contrast with the sharp armour that still surrounded it. He was ilms away from driving it through her, to grant her an ignoble death.

By the Fury, what had he done?

Estinien clambered off her, staggering with grim realisation. As soon as he was off her, Shira sat up, breathing in the sting of the frigid highland air. He gave an awkward grunt, backing away as he felt the heat in his face. The smouldering hatred in him seemed to burn with something new and uncomfortable.

“You— you tore it clean off,” she exclaimed, looking down at her bare stomach as she patted it in disbelief with her unbloodied hand, searching around her to find if there were remnants of his destruction.

He could offer no apology, his voice catching in his throat. Estinien felt himself sweat like a sinner before the Inquisition. Uncertain as to what Shira would do, he readied his legs, tightly wound like a spring. He jumped straight up into the air, leaving the other dragoon behind as he retreated from this terrible meeting.

He needed time and space to reconcile his thoughts.

A lot of time and space — to reconcile if she was truly that ugly and impossible to love.

[paintedscales]

FFXIV Write 2024 :: Day Nine

Prompt: Lend an Ear Characters: Nomin tal Kheeriin, Lorha Keipah Word Count: 746 Warnings: Heavensward 3.3 spoilers, reference to family death

Master List

Despite everything that had happened recently, the chill in Ishgard still bit deep. Nomin felt the fangs of Ishgard's wind and frost just as keenly as she did when she first arrived. She stood in the stone gazebo, just a few yalms from Fortemps Manor, hands tucked away and clutching fire shards to keep her hands warm. Her gaze wandered across the other walkways spanning the abyss below the railing, issuing a quiet sigh that clouded into steam as she marveled at the sheer stubbornness required to build a city so precariously perched, always seeming a breath away from ruin.

A tug at her aether was felt, and Nomin slowly turned to look back behind her. Approaching was a familiar Keeper, her snow-white hair pulled back into a ponytail behind her to keep it from whipping all over the place. Her feline-like ears were swaddled in fluffy ear covers designed for miqo'te such as herself. A carbuncle, pink as sunrise, followed closely at her heels. When Nomin’s gaze met hers, the Keeper beamed and hurried on to meet her.

“Can never catch you unawares, can I?” Lorha said, chuckling softly.

It was Nomin’s turn to let out a huff of amusement. “You’d certainly have to try a lot harder, I’d think. It’s not like I go out of my way to feel when people are approaching me. Everyone’s feeling some kind of way that I can pick up on. Sometimes, pending how well I know you or am familiar with you, I can tell who it is.”

“But that’s simply the nature of your Echo, isn’t it?” Lorha asked, soon standing shoulder to shoulder with Nomin. Her gaze soon went out toward where Nomin had been staring earlier. Her eyes were more set upon the buildings -- how much more pristine and well kept they were compared to places like the Brume; nary a stone ever out of place. “Not mine, though.”

“I don’t think you ever told me how your Echo affects you,” Nomin commented. With all their battles against Primals thus far, Nomin had always been rather curious about Lorha’s… Hells, even R’ayzel and Ralne’s, too.

“If you’ve a mind to lend an ear, I suppose I could tell you,” Lorha said, her tail slowly curling left, then right.

Nomin brought a finger up to tap the side of her horn. “Not exactly an ear, but I have a horn to spare.”

Again, Lorha chuckled softly. Placing her own hands into her pockets, her ears flattened just a bit. “Whether it's by some cruel joke from Hydaelyn Herself or no because of how I would ignore my own to study… My Echo allows me to know what someone wants the most in the moment.” There was a moment where silence fell, a palpable weight between the two of them. And then, Lorha looked at Nomin, a frown set upon her lips.

“Like…how you want a cup of hot tea while you stand here to keep you warm -- but not just any tea -- tea made in the style you had on the Steppe. Or how you want to leave Ishgard only after knowing if Estinien will make a full recovery so Alphinaud won't have yet another friend to grieve.”

Nomin's lips parted slightly. She and Lorha had only been reunited for a short time since the end of the conflict against Nidhogg. She knew their history -- part of it at any rate. What Lorha had no idea about, however, was that Estinien had been admitted and cared for by the chirurgeons. Only that Nomin and Alphinaud had following the burns they received and were still recovering from themselves.

“... He's…been through a lot…” Nomin finally said. She turned her gaze toward the railing. “I don't understand how someone so fresh out of being considered a boy has the stomach for all of this. But his growth has been…admirable to say the least.”

“True…but there's another reason why you want Estinien to live, don't you…?” Lorha gently prodded.

There was… By the Night, there was.

“... I…” Nomin started. Memories played in her head. Such vivid memories of Esenaij being struck down before her as if she had only lived them yesterday as a girl of eleven summers. How he looked at her, a mix of fear and concern on his face as he choked out at her: “Run!”

Closing her eyes, Nomin shook her head.

“... Alphinaud sees him as a brother… I wouldn't…wish him to go through that…”

[anneapocalypse]

Then vs. Now: Ariane Clairière

If you're seeing this post, consider yourself tagged. :)

This is not the earliest screenshot I have of Ariane, but it is the earliest one with her glasses (which I decided were canon as soon as I got my hands on a pair, right around level 15 when she first left Gridania) and the first outfit that really felt like her (I'm still a fan of the Brand-new Robe), and I think it's pretty representative of her in early ARR!

Little has changed about Ariane's core physical appearance, other than her hair, which I've been playing with ever since I unlocked the aesthetician. She's had a whole Hair Journey, which has involved cutting it short for the Heavensward Depression Haircut, growing it out to Great Lengths over the next couple expansions, dabbling in bangs, and of late, settling back into a shoulder-length style. (While I still like her starter hair a lot, I will probably never return to it permanently as it completely hides earrings and I love putting silly earrings on her. Elezen ears were made to be adorned!) I also darkened her freckles a smidge (which you can do at the aesthetician since freckles are considered a face paint). The graphics update was also very kind to her. :) I've changed the color of her ear clasps a few times before settling on gold which is probably what they will stay, as I've found that gold works best with her coloring--a principle I tend to apply in her glamours as well. She's moved on from the round spectacles to other frame shapes, with the Elegant Rimless Glasses being the all-time favorite.

I don't use any appearance mods for Ariane; her face and body are fully vanilla and haven't fundamentally changed since her creation. She has undergone a lot of character development since then, and still is! For the most part, her character and backstory have developed organically along the way, but there have been a couple of major changes. I initially imagined her as an only child before deciding that she would have a sister. As a Gridania starter, and with little knowledge of the lore at the time, my starting concept for Ariane was "hippy dippy little wood elf," but she's since evolved away from that a bit as I've developed her backstory and personality and her complex relationship with Gridania and the Twelveswood and with conjury/white magic as a discipline.

It's a little over two years since I created her, and her adventures are far from over!