#i've been waiting since shadowbringers to make this set

[travelling-hydaelyn]

waking up to a new dawn

going to sleep version here

[marcilled]

According to the votes on that poll, at least 70% of you want to hear about my FFXIV ocs (meanwhile, only 12% think i should sleep. so i'm awake still, typing this.) I'll ramble about them under the cut, but for the ~7% that said they don't know what ffxiv is, I ended up rambling quite a bit about what ffxiv even is, and why I personally enjoy it/what i recommend for anyone who's interested in it. (I made it easy to skip over if you don't care to read about that, though)

Gonna put this under a readmore since it got really long;

Cassern Qestir! my main girlie. she/it pronouns. lesbian .

she's the warrior of light. if you don't know what that means; it's the protagonist. if you still need more context:

(skip to the blue text if you don't want to read me explain ffxiv and why i think it's worth playing, i didn't expect to ramble this much about it...)

Final Fantasy XIV is a MMORPG by Square Enix. Most other final fantasy games aren't MMOs, but this one is. That means it's a multiplayer game with RPG elements. It's also heavily story-driven. While you might hear people complain about the story at times- and I'd be one of them- it manages to really leave an impression in spite of any contrivances, awkward writing, or plotholes. That's due to the fact that the player character is... well, whoever you want them to be.

Your WoL (Warrior of Light), the player character, is the protagonist of the story. And it really must be emphasized... They are so, so fully the protagonist, it's hard for other protagonists to even compare to the protagonist energy the warrior of light has. That might seem... dull or uninteresting to some, but eh, it's not like you can please everyone- the point is for you to get into character, and if that doesn't interest you, then hopefully the other characters in the story will. Personally I love this aspect- I've made the WoL my own oc with a really, really detailed backstory. Which brings me to my next point;

The Worldbuilding... The worldbuilding is probably the strongest point of ffxiv, aside from the STELLAR soundtrack it boasts. The worldbuilding is incredibly detailed, and is there to encourage roleplaying, as well as to help the plot along (tho, really, it works best as a means to encourage roleplay). I suppose I should be more specific here; it's the setting that's really the key point here- the world, the cities, each and every river and valley... But also the time period, the history, etc etc etc... There's a lot of material to work with, and I suppose you'll just have to believe me that it's really quite in-depth (if you're interested in that depth! totally fine not to engage with it, too.)

All of this isn't... going to grab or interest everyone, certainly, but eh, I've accepted that at this point lol. Don't force yourself to keep playing it if it isn't grabbing you, but for me, I started playing it for the social aspect- doing something in the game with friends, socializing in the game, making new friends through it... it's been great for that. What I didn't expect is how much the story would grab me.

FFXIV's story is very slow to start, but gradually builds on the humble roots of your adventurer until you're literally saving the entire universe. It's very, very gradual, and this slow pace might turn people off as well. Especially if you hear people say "it really gets good at heavensward!" "shadowbringers is unforgetable!" "just wait til next expansion--" these sorts of things are common to hear, but it's the same as touting that a game gets good "after the first 20 hours of gameplay", it's poison. Just try it out and see how you feel about how it plays. If the style of doing quests is interesting to you, if the combat feels engaging or shallow. etc. hey wait this was supposed to be about my ocs. ok i'll finish talking about the story and then get back to my ocs.

Anyhow. The story is really shallow at first, it's true. Even within the whole base game itself, (A Realm Reborn, aka 2.0), it can be a bit dull and contrived, and boy oh boy is the voice acting completely awful... It's rough around the edges. But if you're like me, you can really appreciate a series that starts out rough around the edges, and slowly evolves over time from humble beginnings into an epic tale that really blows away your expectations... It's about growing with the narrative, to me. If that sounds interesting to you, maybe you'll like it. I certainly did. In fact, ffxiv might be like... top 10 games to me, in terms of how its story affected me personally. Particularly the shadowbringers and endwalker expansions. But you can't skip all the way there, either- the context of everything that happened before it is crucial to understanding where you're at once you get to those expansions. The more you skip, the more lost you'll likely be. Take your time. Don't rush. And ignore anyone who tells you "it gets really good at (x) part!!!", it's a great way to set yourself up for disappointment if you end up not personally connecting with a certain plotline or character moment. I think, the thing that makes ffxiv really special... is.. it's YOUR story. The story of you- your warrior of light. And the parts that are going to connect for YOU, and for your warrior of light, are not necessarily the same as what connects for anyone else. You may end up loving the slow, humble beginnings of ARR, and feel alienated by all the saving-the-world stuff that comes later. Who knows! It's what you make of it. That's kind of the beauty of it. Now, I could talk all day about how I personally connected to shadowbringers and endwalker, (and some smaller moments, scenes, & questlines from earlier in the game), but you didn't come here for all this, you came here to read about my ocs. SORRY.

I'm done talking about FFXIV as a game now. It's time to ramble about my OCs.

FFXIV is really great for making OCs, if you like its setting. Square Enix doesn't like when you talk about it, but there's a pretty big modding scene that lets you customize your characters way beyond what the vanilla game allows for. This is often used for horny purposes, but more interesting to me personally is the gender euphoria I get from seeing my own body reflected in my own character. I gave Cassern wider shoulders, made her taller than any other au ra woman can be in vanilla, and gave her the horns that are typically only on male character models. She is so transgender. i love cassern.

Cassern Qestir is the warrior of light, meaning she's the protagonist that goes on to save everyone and everything. But at the start of her story, she's a budding new adventurer, completely new to Eorzea- her home is far to the east, in the Azim Steppe, where most Xaela Au Ra hail from. It started out casting spells, but picked up ninjitsu along the way, and quickly became one of the most skilled shinobi there is.

(she kills fascists lol)

she's also pretty socially awkward, in spite of her unparalleled combat capabilities... it lacked a lot of confidence early on in the story, too, but over time it got a lot of character development, and gained confidence. my little beepo. i have a lot of photos of it, but I don't want to make this TOO long... plus, it's difficult to give a spoiler-free overview of her character that's still approachable to people that don't know anything about the game. I suppose I could talk about her backstory, because most of my writing for her actually happens before the main game... but, eh, I'd still need to introduce a lot of settings and topics that wouldn't make sense if you haven't played before. tricky to do. maybe I'll attempt that one of these days. Anyhow... onto my next oc...

This is Samga Mol! they/them. bi.

Samga is a touchy, standoffish Xaela dragoon. (Dragoon means they fight with a lance- it's one of the many jobs in the game, like Ninja is. I'd need another long tangent to explain that in full.) Samga was actually close friends with Cassern in their youth, having also grown up on the Azim Steppe- but the two of them haven't spoken in years... I wonder what happened between them?

They're very edgy, as dragoons often are- but they also have a softer, gentler side that they don't often let show... They also get grumpy if you say they're cute. (Which is just even cuter, by the way.) They actually have a soft spot for animals, particularly chocobos.

But shhh, don't tell anyone you saw them like this... they have a reputation to uphold, you know. Tough, menacing dragoon that kills in the name of dragonkind and all that. Most feared heretic in all of Ishgard, strikes fear into the hearts of the temple knights... Wait, weren't they from the Azim Steppe? How did that happen?? Hmm, I wonder...

---

I have a lot more OCs, but most of them don't have cohesive designs and intricate backstories like Cassern and Samga do- and more often than not, mostly exist just to add more depth to the story between the two of them. There's a few others I have, like this mad scientist catgirl named Dr. Frankie. I'm still working on her. She's completely unrelated to Cassern and Samga's story;

stay tuned if you enjoy morally dubious scientist women with an ephemeral grasp on social etiquette. i'm already obsessed with this little freak, i just need to develop her a bit more before i start showing her off all the time. she also has an ... "assistant" that i'm excited to design. more on that later.

Anyhow, this was a really, really brief overview of my ocs, and I have SO many more thoughts on them, that I post about with much more frequency over on @azimsteppe ... when I remember to... (I usually use twitter for ffxiv stuff, but I'm sure you're all familiar with how that website is faring these days...) just be aware that there are spoilers on that blog, and although i try to tag them, you'll likely run into some spoilery stuff if you browse there long enough.

please let me know what you think!! it always makes me happy hearing what people think of my ocs and what interests them about them... :] and!! big thank you for reading all of this!! it was a lot of fun just to ramble lol, my ocs mean a lot to me. so i'm glad it interests at least some of you. take care!!

[motheatenscarf]

I've been working my way to getting all classes leveled up for Talia because... I'm insane and love to set impossible goals for myself. I haven't been talking about too many of them bcs I have nothing to say about most of them, but since I've played through 9 now

Here is a quick summation of my thoughts, ranked from least to strongest reactions I've had;

Paladin: This is boring. I'm bored. I don't care about any of these people or their dumb problems, let me kill class enemy lalafell.

Astrologian: I don't care about these people or their problems, I already know from MSQ and better job stories that Ishgard sucks. These outfits DO rule tho.

Dancer: Huh, that dance to cure people of the morbs turned out surprisingly relevant... too bad it didn't matter! Oh well. Who are these people? What are their problems? Nevermind, I don't care. Dancing scenes are pretty at least.

Red Mage: These outfits rule. But wow, I don't care about these people. I actually weirdly hate this amnesia girl? Not for GOOD reasons, just for like. Trope reasons. Not her fault, but still, I hate when she's here.

Samurai: I don't care until suddenly for 2 minutes at level 60 it stops just being fun Samurai movie homages and tropes and gets REAL with Musosai trying to suicide by WoL. A momentarily beautiful moment that reincorporates and recontextualizes a silly moment from earlier in the story, describing atonement through having to LIVE and make amends, arguing that remorse is what separates good from evil, and wow! This was great! I legit loved- oh, they immediately ruined it with the Stormblood quest to uphold the status quo of a corrupt regime and made Musosai's student morally in the right thus making his death and guilt meaningless.... well, I hate this! Least favorite class story now.

Reaper: I love a mean old battleaxe so Drusilla is rad as fuck and this is some fun lore on Emet and Garlemald in general. I choose to care about this because I headcanon that my own WoL is from Garlemald and this is relevant.

Ninja: This is boring and kinda sucks, but Karasu is here and I love him. An eccentric theatrical weirdo here to test the hero and cause problems for drama? Yes, I DO love trickster figures, thank you. Oh wait, he's not a villain, just a decent dude trying to get out of a bad situation and being cagey to cover his own ass and help you so you can get him out of this jam? Rad. But why can he control bats as his Children of the Night if he's not evil? ... Don't worry about it! I don't know if he's a GOOD character, but my god is he a FUN character. That's all I care about. Look at how much I love Zenos; I DON'T need depth to have a good time. That said;

Dark Knight: I am WEEPING inconsolably over Fray and Myste, chortling over Moogles and Sid, and Rielle is but one of my many, MANY adopted kids from this game. It is perfect. I could talk about Dark Knight for hours, I lost an entire day of progressing through story just having to be insane about the reveal that Emet Selch was a Dark Knight, perhaps the FIRST Dark Knight, because OF COURSE HE WAS. Dark Knights are about LOVE and grief manifesting tangibly, and oh my god, everything ties in together as a coherent whole. I'm not normal about Dark Knight. I'll never be normal about Dark Knight. It invades my brain and gives words to the Things I'm Trying To Say about characters and what I want out of stories. Finding out that the woman who wrote Dark Knight took over as lead writer got me through the worst of how much I HATED base Stormblood and thank god it did because it meant I stuck with this game long enough to play Shadowbringers and Endwalker and didn't consider Heavensward just a fluke. Dark Knight saved this game for me. Dark Knight is incredible. Dark Knight has more to say about storytelling, motivation, and a player's role in and relationship to a story than anything I've ever seen from a SINGLE PLAYER RPG, let alone an mmo. Dark Knight is fucking transcendent.

Fishing: This is the dumbest story so far and I fucking love it. I love traveling the world with this lunatic who took up work as an ASSASSIN to fund her fishing hobby. She has her priorities in order, she is the most correct about the point of this game and I love her.