#it's so corny lmao

[boneskullravenriver]

I find it hilarious that every other episode has Kirk engaging in a "romantic" way with a woman and it just feels so unbelievable. Like... Okay.

[teh-inggris]

aw seriously

[tritoch]

i know a lot of people (very understandably) dislike the paladin job quests in ffxiv, particularly HW, but i do think it's fun that, now that the pre-ShB MSQ revamp is complete, paladins now have a very cool and thematic in-game storyline that happens without a word being spoken: the development of passage of arms.

none of the below is directly stated in the script, but imo it's a fairly obvious gloss on what the game presents, if you assume a paladin warrior of light. spoilers for all expansions through the end of 6.X.

in the new version of steps of faith, as vishap breaks through each ward protecting ishgard from attack, lucia mounts a final desperate effort to hold him back, with a very familiar looking animation:

but even lucia can't hold back vishap's flame alone, so the temple knights surge forward to assist her. their efforts make the shield visually more powerful and larger. the temple knights here band together in defense of ishgard, and their knightly resolve to protect their home is the difference between victory and defeat.

lucia and the knights do ultimately succeed in defending the last ward, as you have to defeat vishap before their shield falls or you lose.

later in heavensward, obviously, we will get ffxiv's most famous (failed) attempt at blocking something with a shield.

this moment can be read as fairly impactful on the warrior of light's development; as i've noted elsewhere, after the trauma of watching haurchefant bleed out in their arms at level 57, at level 58 paladins learn to channel their magic into healing (and it's called "clemency," or mercy. mercy for whom? who was guilty?), and as someone pointed out on that post, at level 58 dark knights used to get "sole survivor", letting them heal in response to a marked target's death.

for a time, you literally carry haurchefant's shield with you, and 3.3 very much literalizes in genre fashion the idea that even when you are standing alone, your fallen friends stand with you. you don't need to call any allies to stand at your side and raise their shields with you because they are already there, in spirit.

stormblood marks a pretty important turning point in the warrior of light as a combatant, in my opinion, and the text makes this clear in several ways. first, in pretty much all your jobs, you've now far exceeded your trainers and are pioneering new techniques. this is no less true of paladin, which for 60-70 abandons any trainers at all for you to show off your peerless skills in a tournament.

second, stormblood is straight up a story about you getting stronger. at level 61, zenos kicks your ass. at level 70, you kick his ass. why? because you fought and got stronger and developed incredible new techniques and became a one-man army.

for a lot of classes, this story lines up nicely with the big rotation changes or flashy new finishers on the way from 60 to 70. SMN is now busting out bahamut and casting akh morn; RDM gets verflare and verholy; DRG starts harnessing nidhogg's power directly through dragon sight and nastrond.

the tanks are divided in two: warriors and gunbreakers get huge damaging upgrades at 70 in the form of inner release and continuation, each of which lets them hit the same button many times for lots of damage and satisfying animations. paladin and dark knight get more protective abilities; dark knight gets the blackest night, and there's been plenty said about that already by pretty much everyone.

paladins get passage of arms. instead of a relentless new attack (and you get requiescat at 68, which is a way bigger deal for your dps rotation), your big reveal at 70 for zenos in your fight in ala mhigo is a superior way to protect your party, a shield that lets you stand for your allies so they never have to fall for you again. it's lucia's same shield, except you need no allies' shields to reinforce you, proof of your martial prowess and your ability to transcend limits, and perhaps in truth a reminder that you never really stand alone.

in many respects passage of arms should really feel like a paladin signature move to you now if you are playing it at this point, because you should be popping it in pretty much every fight (you are using your mits, right...?). basically every FFXIV fight has at least one big AOE with downtime that warrants passage of arms usage, usually after the mid-fight add phase with slowly filling bar. since that AOE usually drops during downtime, there's no reason not to pop passage of arms (which otherwise restricts your movement and actions), and even on normal, sometimes every little bit counts on a damage check even if it means dropping DPS (thinking here of harrowing hell P10N on release, which was...less consistent for a lot of roulette parties than you might hope).

so from 70 onward, passage of arms is in a sense a paladin warrior of light's signature move, and certainly the one a player gets to most actually enjoy (since if you're using it, you're by necessity not doing anything besides moving your camera and admiring your sick animation). it doesn't have any competition in terms of spectacle until confiteor, and those you're usually throwing out in the middle of movement.

it's such a signature, in fact, that the only other person shown using your one-person version of passage of arms is your greatest admirer, who studied your legend for over a century.

and it's when he fails (should've popped arm's length, bud) that the warrior of light decides they can't let their friends fall for them, and sends them away with the transporter beacon. this is all wrong: you were meant to die for them, not the other way around. yours is the shield that stands between your allies and defeat. it is you who will win this passage of arms and break your opponents lance. and you do.

and then later, when they need to quickly establish zero's domain as a place of fallen grandeur, the home of someone who once believed in heroes but is now a cool and cynical vampire hunter d, what do they use? a decayed statue of someone in the paladin endwalker gear doing the passage of arms animation, of course.

from a visible instantiation of knighthood as a joint effort to defend what is sacred, to a tribute to the fallen friends whose memories stand by you and animate you, to a symbol of the wol's power as emulated by their allies or darkly mirrored in other shards.

not bad for a mit button you hit once per fight and otherwise never think about!

[millidew]

some of yall are scared to be corny, but he was born on the cob

[36lessonsofvivec]

why can't you howl like a normal werewolf why do you have to do that

[twistedappletree]

[kristoffs-lullaby]

some varigos and a whole lotta varians :]

[vanmarkus]

i just need everyone to know that when you see posts about the new Zach Quinto show and how gay those doctors are for each other, we're being a 100% real, they are both canonically gay, this is actually happening

[creativity-deficient]

Yk sometimes I see certain creek fanart and think to myself “nah they wouldn’t be THAT cheesey” and then I remember they canonically orchestrated an entire power move together where they dramatically profess their love for one another surrounded by rose petals as their clothes fly off and then I shut the hell up 😭😭😭

[2ch9]

@sjslsjdodfbthishasapurposeiswear your yap got to the bottom of my soul

[bulbabutt]

Raphaella Meets his Match

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7

welcome to this idea that has stuck with me for months now but i finally feel able to take on, meet my rise mona lisa! she's heavily based on 87 mona lisa (obviously) so is she as sweet as she seems?

ive never made a proper comic before but if u never try u never get better ykno?

[steveyockey]

Niel Gaiman claims that since he is a part of the Writers Strike, he wasn't as involved in the promotional material as normal. You see the throughline here. Long arm of destial etc.

EVERYTHING HAPPENS THROUGH CASTIEL

[prettyboykatsuki]

toji wouldnt even think about letting a pretty woman dogwalk him honestly, he may be broke and with a gambling addiction but that man is a malewife through and through im sorry i have sub!toji worms in my brain

i agree with you and i also think toji generally likes to be settled down. he like gives up on it after mamaguro passes i think just bc its hard for anyone to compare but i think he's very much a relationship man he just like... doesn't commit out of grief mostly. and likes being stay at home. its very funny also to picture him in an apron for some pretty career woman who needs dick less than she needs like support or money LOOOOOL

[phatcatphergus]

I think something so wonderful about sunny is that she is such a little girl. The admin that plays sunny does such a good job of giving her a distinct personality but in a way that everyone who was a little girl can identify with. I’ve seen so many people talk about how they acted like sunny did as a kid or would remember specific memories with their dad that they made as a kid that sunny and tubbos dynamic brought back to the surface.

Sunny being a little firecracker and “spoiled” girl while also being incredibly shy and kindhearted and wanting to be friends with everyone. The way she has an idea of what people like (money, fame, respect) and trying to demand that because she wants to be someone important and respected like a leader or princess would but still giving “poor” members diamonds to become rich because she would never want to turn away a potential friend.

It’s genuinely so sweet and beautiful that so many people can relive personal parts of their childhood as a little girl/kid and remember the good times and awkward time and see how they’ve grown as a person just from a Minecraft egg. It’s so fun to watch sunny interact with tubbo and think of how often I would “help” my dad with projects or how I would demand wearing a dress over a skirt because I wanted to look fancy for dinner.

It really just reminds me how we are all people and all experience similar things growing up. No one had the same situation, or the same family or even the same country, but we all had the same emotions and feelings and we can all identify with them by watching a Minecraft egg as silly as it sounds

[tarttisart]

(tsh spoilers warning.)

one of the aspects of the secret history that makes it so timeless is the discussion of beauty, and how it alone is not sufficient in importance. valuing beauty above all else is a battle humanity insists on waging and never wins. yet, we continue to struggle with it quite obsessively. this destructive, fatal urge to be beautiful, to obtain what is beautiful, to only uplift and worship the beautiful. like richard, we do it at any cost, though we know better. it does not change anything. it never does.

because like with the book, even though we know at the beginning bunny's fate and that we are about to meet murderers, we still fall for their beauty. the gorgeous descriptions of fancy clothing, sophistication as formidable as a storm cloud. stunning intellect and striking features, from the princely to the angelic, inspiring devotion, conjuring awe.

and we fall hard. we fall for francis's countryside mansion, its surrounding nature and memories golden and ceaselessly warm. we fall for the sunday dinners in the quirky, welcoming home of the macaulay twins. the brilliance of henry winter. the allure of money and power and status; the comfort and freedom it inevitably grants, like some godly hand offering one the whole world. it enchants richard, making him believe he could have it, too. that he could abandon suburbia, its restrictive, monotonous curse; the abusive home, void of the vitality that this class appears rich with. we, like him, want the same otherworldly carelessness, liberty; that ability to only do what one wants to do.

but their beauty conceals cutting selfishness, and barbaric elitism that julian, their professor, only heightens. (you'll recall he even had a lecture where he says that the poor man and the rich man are not equal in any regard). suddenly "doing what you want" unearths a new meaning. like the greek gods they study, the class believes they are above the laws of common men. so they commit a murder to cover up a murder, displaying what georges laforge says at the end: "beauty – unless she is wed to something more meaningful – is always superficial."

because the beauty of the class was surface-level, unaccompanied by a greater love for justice or truth or compassion, the spoiled core living beneath pours out after the ugliness of what they had done. though their appearances saved them from the police and jail, providing social privileges, it rotted the foundations of their souls. they thought the worst fate was one of a prisoner, but they were wrong, as they realize too late, the worst thing to be is a murderer. (this is amplified by the allusions to "doctor faustus" in the epilogue). so henry dies, becoming a corpse, like the ones he created; francis suffers from intense anxiety attacks and tries to replicate on himself the deaths he witnessed; camilla turns into a ghost of herself; charles becomes an alcoholic and an abuser, as though housing the wrath of the dead. what once was beautiful decays, now horrific, hideous.

[darlingsart]

I LOVE your patrochilles family. If you're up for it, would you draw Achilles and his bump?

Aw, I’m glad you like my patchilles family, they mean so much to me so thank you!! 🥹❤️

Here you go!

+ A Modern AU shitpost bc I didn’t know which AU you’d want to see ^^