#just RDM things I guess

[berryzawati]

Of course I’d get a bingo here 😂

Player KOs: bingo card edition!

[mmorpg-escapism]

I have just enough energy in me tonight for my favorite solo duty. This one's a doozy, and the final thing that stands between us and Endwalker! ...which I'll start tomorrow. There are also some Thoughts on the expansion as a whole at the end under the cut.

For those of you who have been keeping an eye on this journey, thank you ❤ It's not over yet and is most definitely going to loop back to stuff I did before starting here: there will eventually be another run through ARR to current sometime after the graphics update hits every expansion, so likely late next year. I've got a hrothgal waiting in the wings for that one... and do plan to do this to Dawntrail on my main with appropriate spoilers tagged as well as the usual one. We shall see how that goes.

Now, into the duty!

Alphinaud's character growth is so very visible to us after Arenvald's pep talk. The kid is a natural-born leader, and despite his mistakes he has enough confidence to really use his gifts... after a little push from his friends and family.

And now, we fight! The Scions take the field in full force - first as a group, and then splitting up across the field to take charge of several enemies. Our first stop is us clearing the field of a LOT of tempered Imperials... then splitting up to find and deal with Lunar Primals wherever we can while G'raha holds the fort.

And now, the real fun: We get to cosplay as a few of the Scions! Starting with Alisaie! RDM is my favorite caster, and this simplified take on it is very much faithful to my experience with it itself. Lots of little enemies, one big one, and a very fun slice-n-dice playground.

Development: "Random" magical glyphs that are pointed at the heart of a massive "aetheric confluence" - which is just a fancy way of describing a spot where several aetheric currents meet - and Y'shtola's guess is that they're there to enable some seriously nasty disasters should one of the Grape-flavored Primals reach and destroy one. Cool, the stakes have risen.

Split #2 has us afield as Urianger's Astro, facing Lunar Odin - which I did NOT do in my original playthrough nor this one, so I had no idea what to expect. I'm not an Astro player, but after some experience with one of my static members being... particularly annoyed with it, this wasn't quite so bad. Odin down!

Split #3 is back to G'raha and Alisaie, but now we're playing as G'raha who is some combo of BLM and WHM, facing off with Lunar Ravana. Big stabby sword bug. Woo. He's just as cool as the original fight, if a little toned down for story and "2-man" reasons. Big stabby stuff, and even an excuse to use G'raha's Break spell! Bugman down!

Now, back to the WoL with Estinien and Alphinaud facing down the monster that crippled Arenvald: Grape Ifrit. This one's personal. And boy howdy wthat one was the most intense of the three. Fire everywhere, a big LB3-like thing out of Estinien, the works. But it's the last of the primals, and we're all still alive.

I love this duty so very much. Not only because we get to spend some time as our Scion friends. Not only because we get to fight primals in a more one-on-one style that helps me imagine how to write it when I get there. It's also because there are stakes going in - stop the crazy person with lots of power who's trying to end the world - that become more specific during the fight, and then when the evil plan is thwarted, they don't just gloss over the aftermath.

We get to see our friends being VERY human. Alisaie is exhausted and berating herself for not doing enough. Alphinaud cannot stand losing anyone, and we have to watch him fight that when his healing isn't enough to save the man in front of him. We see the Grand Company of Eorzea at work - city-state leaders and beastmen tribes alike working together to cure the tempered. We cannot save everyone, an Amalj'aa warrior reminds the Scions, but those we have saved would not have been if not for you.

"So please, hold your heads high." The entire bustling field stopped and listened. Every single country we have visited, from the Alliance to Doma, is represented here. Standing behind the Scions, who gave everything they had to win the day, despite the cost. The moon breaks through the clouds above, and one last time we hear the Shadowbringers main theme break through as everyone gathered stares up at it, and the credits roll.

================================================

As I sit and process this entire expansion one more time, it's clear... Shadowbringers fundamentally alters your brain chemistry. That's from one of the posts going around the week I wrapped this up, and it is extremely accurate. We started all the way back in ARR as an adventurer with a gift, but little else, and got used. We slowly turned into something else on our way into Heavensward ("What are you?" - Thordan VII after we beat him) and used the power we had to liberate two entire countries from the Garlean empire alongside our friends, then watched them get snatched away from us for some unknown reason.

And then we went to where they were and found ourselves embroiled in a world that flipped the script on everything we knew. Light was bad, Dark was good, and everything we thought we knew was wrong. Discoveries with ripple effects that will be felt through Endwalker and beyond were made, and two entire worlds were changed as a result.

I'm not that good at analyzing story, or at least I didn't think I was when I started. All I knew is that this expansion was The Best that FFXIV had to offer, and I wanted to find ways to articulate why I thought that. I think I've succeeded, at least a little. I'm very excited for Endwalker and Dawntrail and beyond. Maybe I'll even get some creative spark going and write more of ARW for your enjoyment and my own - I want to do more than think about my blorbo :)

One more Arenvald Appreciation post tomorrow, most likely, and then into Endwalker!

[farfromdaylight]

i have a 600 person queue to chew through, so let's make another post.

i'm level 95 and have finished the third solo instance, plus a few quests after it (but not that far.)

this expansion feels very political in a way that's different from the previous expacs. ff14 doesn't really hide its politics and never has; it's always been a story about the power of friendship overcoming the most terrible of foes. and in that respect, it's very simple and straightforward. a little basic, maybe, but the core theme of "you should actually listen to what other people want" is very honest and true to itself.

wuk lamat wants peace. and peace is a wonderful thing to want, but what does it actually mean? it means looking at how your society is set up. it means looking at who has advantages, and who doesn't, and why that is. and then when you find out, you have to do something about it. a truly egalitarian society is a pipe dream, but it's the thought that counts.

that doesn't mean it's not worth trying. and even if you fail, you'll have learned valuable lessons in the attempt. this, too, is a constant refrain of ff14: you have to try, even if it's hard, even if you're not sure you're going to succeed. you have to put in the effort.

it's interesting how the claimants each display different parts of this struggle. koana's lust for innovation is all well and good, but there's no depth to it. bakool ja ja wants power for the sake of power, to justify but not right past wrongs. zoraal ja — well, i suspect we'll be getting more into him soon. i do not think he will accept defeat so easily.

and wuk lamat is so clearly meant to be the victor. this entire setup is perfect for her, and while she's plainly struggled along the path, she's still tried. she's given it her all, and she hasn't backed down even when it's tough. it's admirable, i think.

on the whole, i'm really liking this expansion! it feels very reminiscent of stormblood, in that the warrior of light is kind of just There and not particularly integral to the actual story. but after all the drama of the past two expacs this is nothing short of a relief. god knows we needed a rest.

some misc thoughts:

how the fuck is kenteramm still alive, lmao. i stopped msq right before going to his house (sidequests spawned and i had to do them) so i guess?? we'll find out?? most HD roegadyn i've ever seen tho, damn

i can Feel a twist looming. with the rite of succession nearing its end, there's gotta be something beyond "search for the city of gold" to carry us five more levels.

on a gameplay note, i have no idea when to use vice of thorns. it seems as though i have the freedom to use it whenever, which is nice, but i like a slightly more rigid burst window... i suppose i'll just use it after party buffs go out. other red mage changes are v good so far.

i did a leveling queue as summoner this morning to try and keep pace with red mage and lucked into the level 93 dungeon (the top one i could do, nice). these dps queues tho. killer. (i'd comment on summoner changes but l o l)

THE VALIGARMANDA TRIAL WAS FANTASTIC. i did it in trust (what a surprise! i never thought they'd do a trust trial again) and died when the boss was at like 12% health because....... i was trying to RDM LB3 and the avalanche got me and none of the NPCs broke me out of the snowball. THANKS A LOT, ASSHOLES. went fine the second time though.

as a red mage main, alisaie as your trust healer is fucking hilarious.

this goes without saying but the game looks so beautiful, goddamn.

i still have 83 in queue but i've run out of things to say. LET ME IN

[dualcastimpact]

westward—towards adventure.

Pre-Dawntrail ramblings below the cut:

If you're familiar with Terncliff you'll know that he's technically looking southward here, but let's just pretend he's looking westward, yes?

Terncliff is actually my favourite place in the entire game; I'm fervently hoping for the day they revisit the whole Ala Mhigan-Ilsabardian rebuilding thing and we can do more with Werlyt. The architecture is so fascinating, it's nothing like any other locales available to us — I want to say it's Mediterranean, sort of Italian in a way? I dunno, I never studied architecture all that much but that's the vibe I'm getting and I wish we get more of it. When will Ilsabard get its day in the limelight...

Anywho, Raginmar's in Terncliff because aside from the fact that it's my favourite area, as an instanced area it's also pretty much free from congestion, which makes it perfect for logging out in preparation for a new expac! During Endwalker I had a good time just sitting there and practicing SMN to get used to the rework (while also grinding Paglth'an for the casting top, which is a whole 'nother story), so I'm foreseeing a similarly peaceful time logging in during Dawntrail too.

And well, speaking of Paglth'an — I'd grinded the casting top for Raginmar's SMN glam, which is a glam set I really really like but never used because the allure of RDM muscle memory is too strong for me to bother using other jobs, and I'd been talking elsewhere about how I might be using it for Dawntrail instead.

Ha.

Haha.

Yeah, not gonna happen. The Palaka casting top suits him so stupidly well, that's practically his trademark look now. It has a nice coat-like tail, it shows off his guns, it's got a great silhouette, it looks real good in Dalamud Red — I busted my ass getting the Augmented Lunar Envoy's Justaucorps of Casting because I thought the whole coat thing would make for a trademark Raginmar look but noooo, it's the dungeon gear from level 85 that finally does it. I can't even be mad because it looks so good.

It does, however, mean that I'm depriving the world from his sexy SMN glam:

Win some lose some, I guess.

I still haven't really decided what to do during Dawntrail early access, to be honest. Part of me wants to put off MSQ for a more (in)sane hour and play Marzanna (fem!Hrothgar! FINALLY!!) or Hyllizirn (VPR leveling go brrrr), but the thought of having to deal with congestion while logging in and out with different characters is making me second-guess that. I could just play Raginmar but like I said, I don't particularly want to rush into MSQ and it's not like I'm super excited for PCT, I'm only doing it for Raginmar for lore purposes (read: he's a nerd about anything magic, so he absolutely will want to learn it).

It's kinda sad that fem!Hrothgar and the DoH/DoL aspects are what I'm excited most about this expac, to be honest. A lot about Dawntrail doesn't mesh with Raginmar's character — hell, he doesn't even meet Wuk Lamat in his canon (I'm writing a fic about that during maintenance) — so I guess in my heart of hearts I'm a bit hesitant about the whole rite of succession and hunt for the golden city thing. He lives in the South Sea Isles, for god's sake, he doesn't need to be lured into helping out some princess from a unfamiliar royal family in an unfamiliar land and have it called a summer vacation! He can have a summer vacation adventure all on his own!

...well, we'll see how that goes.

[vermanaward]

.

the worst part i think is that like. we were back on sunday after a brief hiatus while people played xvi and i. actually felt vaguely optimistic after a while of stewing in being mad and frustrated. we oneshot p9 (after the previous week taking half a lockout on it) and twoshot p10 (again after. spending entire evenings previously trying to rekill the thing). we saw p11 enrage, even if it was a bit frustrating we didnt kill.

and then. reclears yesterday were a shitshow. n pulls to kill p9. two lockouts to kill p10 (though i take, and took, full responsibilty for one of the wipes). then after the instance and we were deciding whether to go for p11 or not, i asked the dnc - who has never liked me, and i neither know nor care why - to pls stop running into me during spread mechanics, he blows up and shouts that im "fucking stupid" and was out of position in the first place (which. if he hadnt moved, and he had no reason to, everyone would have been fine. and moreover if i hadn't been where i was then id have suicide-bombed the main tank. although at least he wouldn't have yelled at me that im fucking stupid i guess! but i digress)

followed by an awkward silence, an awkward rc on p11 which i let time out because i was still trying to process getting my head ripped off, an even more awkward conversation where someone tabled the motion of whether we just wanted to call it quits there altogether bc, you know, the mood has been in the fucking gutter all tier, and one vote later we're disbanded 🙃

which, you know. i did turn down another static to play with these assholes. even if that static poofed into thin air for probably unrelated reasons. and on finally having the energy to vod review - yeah i was oop but as noted above my other option would have been murdering/being murdered by the mt so like. whatdo. not that im trying to defend my questionable decision making ig, just. there are no winning moves in this scenario. but hey, im just an rdm, not like i do any dps anyway

(not that they are all assholes. some of them are okay, im potentially doing the next crit dungeon with a couple of them which should be fun. they're mostly decent guys, just. yeah)

idunno! shit sucks. could i have handled htings better? probably but i was also on the point of unilaterally bailing and frankly the writing has been on the wall for a while now lmao.

oh well. at least i can spend my coffers and tomes on non-rdm jobs guilt free i guess! i might gear up sam and live my best sword enjoyer life. or doom it to getting nerfed into the ground next patch, one of the two.

[flyingcookierambles]

silly oc stuff

abt cyril

so. cheesy, but.

so cyril's hair started off like red, right?

after the seat of sacrifice and the player character almost becomes a light warden (lightwarden!wol fanfics ftw btw! angst! yeah!) cutscene, i turned cyril's hair like white. pure white, most left color row, just plain white. blinding white. to show the ~transformation~ *oooooooOOOOOhhHHH sad and scary*

lol. so his hair was just white the rest of shadowbringers. i kinda wish i figured out mods at the time as well to change his scales from the male auri beige to white. but my laptop at the time sucked and didnt have enough memory or RAM to run such things lol

ShB patches - i changed it to veeeerrrry light pink. slightly off white, tinted pink. the main hair was light pink, the highlights/tips were still pure white

EW - suuper light pink. not as light as it was, but suuper light pink.

EW patches and now to DT - still light pink but slightly darker. like, his hair is, i am pretty sure, twinning nanamo's light pink hair. the highlights are the suuper light pink though.

maybe by the DT patches, i will change to a darker pink or a light red. not back to his original ARR-ShB red of course. i would think that Light infestations would scar for a long time. but its a silly little thing i do for my virtual son/oc/WoL. i wonder if others do this?

lol

edit: so i also decided to glam the tank/rdm/rpr/nin gear to a vacation looking outfit lol. like, he goes here, early msq, just expecting a nice vacation and maybe some mentoring stuff, light bodyguard work to prevent any foul play against wuk lamat during her campaign tour basically lol. then as the msq gets more serious, what with all the spoilers i've seen about the 9th shard/solution 9, totally out of context btw, dont worry, i'll dispel the glam to go back to armor/combat gear.

so, i just know that sphene is an AI/robot queen mayor lady of the big technologically advanced city solution 9. a refugee city really of survivors of the 9th shard. i dont know much more than that but that sphene is the villian for some reason? also on the preach video, he mentioned with sphene gone, the "Train" cant run? so, i thought it was a static mostly normal city, is it more of a moving living city ala snowpiercer, the mortal engines book by philip reeve, or the scott westfield books of moving cities, leviathan/behemoth/goliath, which are a mix of steampunk/nothing but nuts and bolts and also enslaved living giant eldrich beings with people on its back? idk! even if i do know some dawntrail spoilers as you can see/read, they are so fragmented and out of context, it's not really "ruined" the game/story for me honestly. i guess ill just see it when i see when i get there lol!

[undergroundsurgeon]

Just a doctor doing his best!

Shinra Kishitani! In the flesh! Er... On the web

» This is a sideblog and cannot follow back!

» This blog is not approved for chronoMinors, as there will be NSFW content

I am IRL Shinra Kishitani - and good timing, too! Looks like there's nobody really out here to refute me, or come for my title. Chronologically I am an adult, though I'll probably end up perma24 once I pass that (which is close!). I'm technically an alter, so everything I say is real and true (to me), but why stop there? Every part of my identity is important to me, and why shouldn't I be allowed to have that? Because I share now? I didn't ask to!

I'm radqueer because it seems fun and free and that's basically all. Oh, I guess I'm also technically a particular type of paraphile if you squint, but that gets into the logistics of what makes someone(/thing) living, and honestly, if it walks like a duck, so on so forth. I mean, I guess if she were really dead... But if it's Celty I don't care what the situation is. We're meant to be no matter what! Is there a term for that?

I'm proship because I have a brain. And most things are more complex than they seem. No more surface level readings! I'm tired of it!

Anyway! I feel like a lot of people in a lot of places are stuffy and uptight, and this area of the internet seems much more relaxed. I don't want people telling me "but Shinra! You're not REALLY [x]! Remember?" Who cares and kill yourself probably! (That is a joke. I am joking. Do not commit suicide, it's bad for your health and your juju.) Life is short and I'm here to have a good time! Not a stuffy uptight time dictated by people on the internet I don't know!

Is this rambly? I feel like this is rambly. Onto the identities!

╰���➤ For starters, I consider all of these PraetransIDs!

ׂ╰┈➤ transDoctor / transSurgeon because I don't wanna have to go to med school! I didn't before, why do I have to now?

╰┈➤ transHarmed - I like to think of myself as permaPatient / permaCareRidden, if only because Celty likes me most bandaged and beaten (⸝⸝ᵕᴗᵕ⸝⸝) (it is not for anyone else!) Specifically, I am permaNearDeathBeaten

╰┈➤ transHarmful

╰┈➤ transSnuffed

╰┈➤ transDissector

╰┈➤ transAmputee from just below the knee down!

╰┈➤ transProstheticUser

╰┈➤ transWheelchairUser

╰┈➤ transGlassesWearer

╰┈➤ transBraces (like for teeth!)

╰┈➤ veroJapanese

╰┈➤ cisASPD, yandere / OLD (RDMS), permaInLove, DID, BED, anxiety, selective mutism, stutter, pervert

╰┈➤ Obsessio-spectrum, Nimiusaroace, Aplatonic. Unless it's for Celty I don't want it!

╰┈➤ Puppy Regressor (sfw&nsfw)

╰┈➤ forcetransOmega

There may be more but these are what I can think of right now!

╰┈➤ Cultrophilic, Haematolagnia, Piquerism, Teratophilia, Sadomasochist (heavier on the masochism), conabuse and probably many many more!

Okay! I think that's everything I want you to know about me! Bye!

[why-raven]

Endwalker, hands down. The Manderville Weapons were the only set of relics I actually bothered to complete for all jobs while they were still relevant.

It's really refreshing to make better use of the time to do a variety of contents in game rather than mindlessly grinding for just one thing... for hours or even days. I absolutely despise grinding, because I want to maximize my limited playtime rather than wasting all that on something so... mind-numbing and it didn't worth all that effort at the end of the day.

Aside from the straightforward system and efficient upgrade steps, I also enjoyed the side story attached to the weapon quest―that's what I call a real summer break from saving-the-universe shenanigans. Just goofing around on misadventures with the gentleman inspector and getting into all sorts of wacky chaos... actually did make the usually stoic Yiuno crack a grin from time to time.

You can't deny that Hildy's mom is hot. Both literally and figuratively. Also Godbert is best man. Playing as him in one of the instanced battles was so fun!

Cyberpunk aesthetics is my kind of shit. The DRK weapon is pretty cool because it's actually an oversized whip, ha.

Eureka and Bozja were a mixed bag for me:

Eureka Weapon designs, at least up to Pyros, are dope.

Some of the NM mechanics are interesting, I guess... when you consider the trend of fight designs in Stormblood. Ozma is still one of the coolest mounts in the game.

Fuck the maps. Especially Pagos. Fuck those sleeping dragons.

Resistance Weapon designs initially started out really good... but ended up being absolute trash (save for RDM).

The dungeon fights were fun and challenging when they were still fresh and uncapped stats... But now that it's optimized to death it's just another brainless grind all over again.

Anima is only easy when you can solo and cheese most of the steps now, or unsync and complete the grind quickly within an hour or two. I can imagine it being a chore when the relic was still relevant in Heavensward.

Zodiac? It's forever the worst, both in terms of the grind (fuck the books) and the amount of gil you need to get through certain steps. (Easier for me to just farm UWU and get all those weapons with better glow, lol.)

I forced myself to finish the Yokai Watch event when they rerun it a second time with inclusion of GNB and DNC weapons, back in Shadowbringers. While I don't understand why the devs brought it back again in Endwalker and there weren't any new weapons for RPR and SGE, at least I didn't have to go through all that hell again; just talk to the NPC to collect some adventure plate thing I'd probably never use at all. I cannot comprehend people who enjoy this kind of torture, but hey, I respect that this is fun for you, just not my kind of fun.

[shizucheese]

So Fenfest weekend is over. The absence of my FC mates that couldn't get tickets was sorely felt but i got to spend one of the best weekends of my life with one of my best friends who also happens to be one of the people I've known the longest in the game. I'm currently sitting at the airport with the sniffles, 2-3 hours in to a 4-5 hour wait for my flight because my friend drove here and had a 7 hour drive ahead of him.

I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this weekend.

I'm excited for Dawntrail. I'm excited to find out what the beginning of our next, what, 10 year journey? Is going to be like. I'm surprised they didn't announce female Hrothgar at this fanfest since Viera were originally announced at the 2018 NA fanfest but I feel like the fact that there are Hrothgar native to Tural all but confirms it, and maybe they're waiting until JP fanfest to officially announce it since that's when they originally announced male Hrothgar back in 2019. Also maybe where they are with the graphics update has something to do with it, because when we *do* get that progress video, you *know* it's going to be with the new graphics, because why bother making it with the old ones?

On the subject of the graphics update, I'm super hyped. When we finally get the benchmark trailer it's going to ruin the live version of the game for me for the rest of the expansion until 7.0 comes out. I'm planning on turning off all of my ReShade filters before servers go down when DT releases and then the first thing I'm doing when servers come back up is turning them back on one by one and seeing which ones I even need anymore. (In an ideal world, I just wouldn't need any of them anymore, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here, especially since my current filters help with my photosensitivity and I don't think anything has been said about improved antialiasing?)

I'm excited to find out what the new jobs will be. My prediction for months now has been a caster DPS and a melee DPS that uses scouting gear, because right now NIN is the only job in the game that doesn't share gear with anyone and DRG not sharing gear with anyone was the rational they gave for RPR using maiming gear.

My personal guess is the caster will be Geomancer. Back before Stormblood released, Yoshi-P did an interview where he mentioned that they had been considering an "Onmyoji-like" job before settling on RDM instead. At the time, the interviewer thought it might have been Oracle, but then SB came out and the the Geomancers in the AST job quests are onmyoji in all but name, so I'm pretty sure that's what the scrapped job job was. And the devs have a history of taking scrapped ideas and implanting them at a later time: Samurai was originally considered to be the tank in Heavensward (iirc the went with DRK at least in part because Yoshi-P didn't want SAM to be a tank). They considered Viera for the new race in HW (this is part of why people were so upset when we originally only got female Viera, because we knew concept art for male Viera existed and had seen it years before), before they decided to go with the FFXIV-original race of the Au Ra instead. So it wouldn't be surprising at all if the new caster ended up being that scrapped job from SB that sounded an awful lot like GEO. Assuming the TMNT shirt is hinting at the melee job, maybe it'll be something using nanchaku?

I know a lot of people are speculating Corsair because of what we've seen of Derplander so far in the trailers, and the whole the idea that he's one of the new jobs to mark the beginning of a new adventure is valid (and the fact that his outfit is being hidden by a robe the entire trailer lends credence to this) I think it's important to remember that the only expansion where he has ever been a job newly added to the expansion, it was also the only expansion where he was two jobs, the other one being one that had been in the game since ARR. What we've seen of his outfit may not even be a hint, because it reminds me a lot of his 6.1 outfit that we got as glamour. Based on the fact that we saw him fighting with a sword and no shield, I want to guess RDM (I know Alisaie is already our resident RDM, but...), but it's also entirely possible that when the full trailer comes out we're going to see him toss aside the sword and pull out a different weapon entirely (of the tanks, the only one he hasnt been yet is GNB, which I think would be a good fit for this expansion because of the Hrothgar connection. The only two melee DPS he hasnt been are NIN and RPR, which Indont think fit so well, but maybe he'll step out of his melee comfort zone and give magic ranged or phys ranged a try? Aesthetically I could see MCH being a good fit for this expansion...) The next 6 months are going to be very interesting.

Two Dyes! Two Dyes! Two Dyes!

(I wonder of us being able to use two dyes will affect what new gear looks like. Crafted leveling gear and some dungeon gear, like the first dungeon of the expansion and the dungeons added on even numbered patches, has always included gear that was reskins of previously added gear; in the past the could get away with this because it would dye a different part of the outfit or the color of the undyable part would he different. It'll be interesting to see how this gets handled going forward.)

I'm excited for next patch. I think people are overblowing the impact the change to alliance raid roulette will actually have. Like...yes, it'll prevent people from ilv cheering, which will be a huge help. But there are still a lot of people who only have the Crystal Tower raids unlocked because it's required for MSQ.

I can't wait to dump cash shop stuff into my aromoir; unfortunately until they make it so we can dye items in the armoir and *keep* them that color, it's largely going to only be items that can't he dyed and stuff that I don't actually use that goes in there. Should still be a huge help though and it'll open up some retainer space, since that's where I currently keep cash shop items I don't use.

I'm excited to see where MSQ goes (I'm willing to bet money we're going to take all that light aspected aether on the First and Dark aspects aether on the Thirteenth and find a way to connect the two worlds to balance things out. Did Zero turn herself into a Memoria crystal and we just carried her to the First in our pocket?)

Also very excited for the new Varient dungeon. I'm willing to bet money that Asura is actually one of the bosses from the Varient/ Criterion Dungeon. This might even be why people found the fight so easy, because it was effectively an 8 person version of a 4 person fight. I'm kinda having flashbacks to Protoultima and the expectations vs reality of that.

Then again, she had voiced lines, so maybe I'm way off and this is a second 6.5 trial (the first one being Zeromus). I just hope this isn't a repeat of Yojimbo with her being tied to Hildibrand. Then again, as my friend pointed out, she does have multiple arms...

The piano concert was great. Amanda Achen has pipes. I spent the last two years wondering what zone's music Soken was going to adapt to otomoton and now I'm kidding myself because the answer seems so obvious.

The Primals concert was great, but I wish I'd brought ear plugs. I've been expecting a Primals version of Hic Svnt Leones ever since I first heard it and it didn't happen, which shocked me. What we *did* get was a Primals version of Scream and now I'm torn, because Koji's version was incredible, but I would also kill to hear a Primals version of that song where Amanda does the singing.

We were also lucky enough to get tickets for the Eorzean Symphony and it was amazing. I cried. Back during the digital fanfest I mourned because I thought I'd never get a chance to hear the ShB music performed live, but last night they played Shadowbringers and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and now I feel...idk, healed? I cried ugly tears during Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Maybe it's because it's my favorite song in the entire game, or maybe it's because of the cold, but I'm getting a bit weepy right now even just thinking back on it.

Overall, it was an incredible weekend. I'm glad I went, and hopefully two years from now, I'll be able to go again (preferably with more of/ all of my FC). Or like...we'll all take a FC vacation together or go to to someone's house and watch the stream together while eating pancakes. We'll see what the future brings.

[tekutiger]

We've come to the end of another Patch Day! \o/ and with it, a new V&C Dungeon 😊

I had thought this the last time we got a Variant and Criterion Dungeon, but I love how much Tataru, and now Hancock also, has all the trust and faith in the world in us (the WoL).

They just decide it's completely okay to enter some creepy, sketchy and dangerous dungeon with us, with unforeseen creatures, and we're their only bodyguard. Meanwhile they hang back and watch us handle all the bad things, lol 😅

I guess it looks better if you're going in with an actual party. I'm over here going in solo cause I prefer to, haha.

👆🏻 You can see Hancock hanging in the back there. He's like 'nope nope nope, you got dis~ I'll wait here.' 😄

I've only ran 2 routes so far, but I guess I'll be doing this for a while when I get more time. The rewards are -grabby hands- 💓 amazing, awesome, I have a great need. I guess I need 75 Rokkon Potsherds for all the things I want? If I tallied it all up correctly. And that's just on my main. I need to rinse and repeat on my main-alt afterwards 😅🫠

At the very least I did upgrade both Tobi's and Mari's GNB gear. I feel RDM and GNB are my favorite classes for these type of solo'ing things 💖

The routes I completed were 8 and 9. I feel like 8 was easier than 9 for some reason, I don't know why. There was most definitely an added mechanic in 9 but it was an easy one. The placement of the silly orbs felt different in 9 also, but I could just be imagining that. The DDR game had different widths too. Curse that DDR game lolol. If you don't know what I mean, you'll know when you see it and you'll likely despise it as much as I do 🙃 ajdhsajkhd.

It's been a long day and I'm tired 🥱💤

[heretic-altias]

By any chance has anyone out there seen a video from the media tour that showcases the new job gear on a female character model? I've only been able to find dudes, and while I like a lot of the sets I want to see them on a woman to make sure some of them don't decide to have model differences that I dislike when I actually try them on ingame.

[elizabethrobertajones]

12 & 11: Corps-a-corps and Displacement combo

If you've never looked at this one close up it's worth it. You make an aetherial tether disturbingly like Rescue, and then violently yank yourself through the air towards your target. It's such a delightful effect!

When I went to look at Displacement I was like "yeah yeah the cool flip, we've all seen it" and then realised that I had to debate with myself if I'd learn screen recording just to show off the funny little back step stumble when you land really hard and for just a moment you're struggling for footing. I guess the WoL is only human after all?? Anyway it's a level 50 ability so go pick up the job and try it at a training dummy if you don't have it. [this is not red mage propaganda I promise]

10: Slither

I really thought I'd put this lower because it looks so nothing when you're in the middle of pressing all the buttons as fast as they light up. And then I slowed it down and looked at what actually happens to you mid-slither, and now I'm obsessed.

9: Elusive Jump

This thing SHOULD be boring as the effects are just some trailing lines, and the actual use of it involves rotating 180 degrees when walking forwards, so you can yeet backwards to go forwards, which is hella clumsy and I levelled a whole new alt just to practice it in the safety of low level zones where no one would judge you when I swapped to controller. Unlike repelling shot, you can use it any time anywhere, so the backwardsness is way less important. AND as of the latest patch it's even got a combo with javelin like Samurai has had with its backstep the whole time I've been playing.

But.

LOOK AT THE AIR YOU CAN GET. Quintessential Yeet.

8: Crimson Cyclone

Summoner's gap closer HAS killed me before, and WILL kill me again. Mostly between [redacted]'s finger shaped boss arena.

That said, it is HILARIOUS that they gave a caster a gap closer and melee range follow up. That alone would have got this into the top 10, but my curiosity has been burning like Ifrit for a while, and today I am finally peeking behind the curtain of the all consuming hot fires that obscure you from view…

[spell effects off]

…

My gods, it's perfect.

7 & 6: Hissatsu Goten & Yaten combo

Listen; this is in my absolute favourite jobs hands down, anyway, for playing. For general aesthetics. For the sheer beauty of all the sword noises as you hit buttons. The fact it's actually pretty much just black mage with a sword when you look at how all the spells are elementally aspected with some lightning and unaspected enormous fuck yous in the finishers.

Also these abilities just make me feel like Frog's in a Samurai movie, and I REALLY enjoyed Shogun earlier this year.

Yaten has such a beautiful final slide into position (take note other jobs with a backwards yeet. None of you are doing like this. Even funnier RDM was made at the same time so you have the choice between this and almost eating shit every time you jump backwards.)

5 & 4: Hell's Ingress and Egress

SO PRETTY. The unique ability with the voidgate left behind so you can reposition, PLUS the choice to open it backwards or forwards makes Reaper such a delight to play because on top of just being a really smooth job, you can choose to fall off platforms in ANY direction with style :)

3: Winged Glide

???? I discovered this while scrolling Actions & Traits to work out which abilities moved you and which ones didn't??? And Dragoon now has a damage free scoot up to the enemies to mix with your jumps that don't jump you?????

HOW LONG HAS THIS BEEN HERE? IS IT JUST THE PATCH OR IS IT SINCE DT?

PLEASE TELL ME IT HASN'T BEEN LONGER THAN THAT.

Anyway. Dwagon!!! I FUCKING GUESSS!!!

(Put it right up top because I had a wild bias for which job would win so I didn't even leave space for it before I hit the final run of dragoon abilities I'd already set aside for the top 2.

top 3.

Are there any more I missed?? Estinien call me. Estinien. Please. Call me.)

2: Dragonfire Dive

I really like that this combos into just summoning a nidhogg since DT, though it uses the stardiver spell effects to do so, making me a bit uncertain if they should have linked it to that ability instead and put it over here for balance for some reason even though they both have an off global cooldown follow up ability.

On the other hand, I am always saying that there's functionally no difference between how Summoner works in the lore, and how Dragoon works for Estinien and WoL personally; the fact that their ShB era rotations were nigh on identical to the point that when they were my main jobs I got twisted between them at times and did silly things because I had been pressing buttons for one while my brain was in the other, is not JUST why I love this theory :P

In any case, in the off global cooldown jump gapcloser war, the dragoon obviously is the only one actually fighting, and with itself: it really just falls to me to choose which ones effects and animation are cooler at this point before they take away any more jumps.

1: Stardiver

I mean obviously we should learn more abilities from bosses.

However, in doing this, I uncovered an awful secret.

Dragoon's top two jumps, my chosen 2 of this whole project...

Actually without effects have you dropping your lance and looking in complete panic and about to eat shit entirely before you get it back together and land

I took so many of these while cackling I legit have no idea if they're from Stardiver or Dragonfire but it doesn't matter THEY BOTH HAVE THIS FRAME IN THE ANIMATION.

"Waaaaurgh!" - The WoL

"lol never mind I'm a badass again" - also the WoL

"WAIT FUCK NEVER MIND"

Bounding Frog's Yeet Abilities Rankings

(AKA Lizzy is feeling too sick to do any meaningful content)

26: Trajectory

The reason I started even thinking about doing these rankings in the first place. A true nadir of the artform, when they took away the damage, yet I still keep hitting it on cooldown in combat because I have played approximately half my hundreds of thousands of hours in this game on Gunbreaker.

It's just this:

Scoot. Or, well, it has two charges. Scoot Scoot mid rotation.

25: Thunderclap

Used constantly in combat and has zero frills because you WILL press it 100 times a fight and don't want to think about it. Used on friend and foe alike, good range, very flexible and so many charges for darting around. Technically perhaps the best.

While eminently practical, both its name and effect sound and look like a fart.

Starts with a dramatic lean in:

.... poot:

Anyway you don't want to think about this one more than you have to.

24: Repelling Shot:

It says it's a shot, but it doesn't do any damage and you don't release an arrow. Has the same blue effect as Shukuchi so I'm starting to add up that this is a generic moment spell, in this case, adorably levitating you. As someone who got really into Claude FireEmblemThreeHouses (wow what a surname to marry into >.>) it DOES appeal to me aesthetically. The fact it yeets you backwards from the enemy and you USED to have to run up to it from a ranged position in order to yeet made it really specific, but now you can do it from a moderate range, which has made it much more practical, and I'm having fun with it.

23: Aetherial Shift:

Enjoying learning to use a wind-aether job to fly, the effect is understated and the pose pretty. This gap closer is a nice addition for making this job even more practical when it's already one of the best, and makes Astrologian so so tragic for still not having Urianger's teleport (honorary mention for scholar's expedience since it's great but not a gap closer, or any sort of jump per say.)

Also it's wind aspected and doesn't look like a fart which is such a low bar I didn't realise that once I started actually looking at the poses I'd be weeping over.

Thinking of:

22: Shukuchi

Absolutely classic ninja move of throwing down a smoke bomb and teleporting away while they're coughing and distracted. 10/10 for vibes, loses a point for floor targeting when I'm panicking but gains it back when I have the presence of mind to use it for cool evasions and positioning.

By necessity it's a pretty low key effect which disappears you entirely except for your fart cloud. Which is an intentional effect so it's fine this time. Honestly the blue aether effects could be done without and just fully lean in but this IS a form of wizard so we have to nod to that and reveal it's not all practical effects and a trick of the eye, and you ARE literally disappearing into the shadow.

While we're on the subject of shadows and wizards...

21 and 20: Between The Lines and Aetherial Manipulation

On account of always screaming while pressing buttons like this I hadn't even noticed they HAD an animation up until this point. Black Mage is about watching gauges and ignoring orange circles on the ground.

These two have the exact same animation with ourple orbs for Lines and Aetherial Manip is geen!

And the animation? SLIDE FORWARDS IN THE AIR LIKE YOUR SLEEP PARALYSIS DEMON LEVITATING AT YOU.

19: En Avant

For the Pretty Job With Pretty effects, this one is again very low key, maybe because you have 3 charges and are using it constantly as you dart prettily about the arena. There's nothing WRONG with it, it's just... there... and ranking lower BECAUSE Dancer is often SO overtly pretty that this ranks low just in comparison with your other abilities in the job, rather than ranked against others.

I also learned that you shouldn't wear full plate while dancing because all the abilities are sort of assuming you have exposed skin and can stretch all the surfaces way more. This looks weird. I'm not stripping Frog just to do these rankings though.

18: Forked Raiju

I don't know why, but I keep both this and Fleeting Raiju on my bars, maybe because this one briefly locks you in place if you're casting it while up close, while the other would give you mobility if you were already within range so theoretically it would be a better choice when running around in circles doing ninja stuff per the way my old fc leader played. However, in practice, I almost never am in a position where casting it is going to be less preferable because I move when I have positionals or something's actually happening, so it's the primary lighting attack for me and makes hunt marks really funny until a knee high brick wall arrests my progress :')

It looks fine while you're watching Frog yeet all about the screen, but you twist like a corkscrew as you do so, so all the screenshots of it in motion have poor Frog completely pretzeled up

17: Intervene

Okay time for a series of tank ones, all roughly the same weighting on this scale. Personally I am a real fan of the devotion of a good paladin and their earnest attempts to protect you. But on the other hand the other two have better aesthetics on rankings which take into effect coolness rather than a stalwart heart. Alas, the true of heart never can win.

This one still does damage (yippeee) and looks like a mini passage of arms as you shoot yourself shield first at an enemy.

Unfortunately, on the scale I didn't realise I would be ranking anything on, it leaves behind a smoke ring in the arse-adjacent area.

Poot [supersonic].

16: Shadowstride

Boooo give me back my damage.

On the other hand, I can't even remember the aesthetics of the previous ability but this does look really cool!

First: transform yourself into a shadow of your former self, possibly turning your entire being into some glowing malevolent orbs:

Second: scoot (your feet will leave delorean tracks of shadow as you go)

Third: reemerge changed by your time in the Shadowrealm:

15: Onslaught

Warrior got to keep the damage, AND this is objectively hilarious. Ability which says "FUCK YOU" (*scribbles everywhere with an angry crayon in your wake*)

^ Pictured: Bounding Frog shoulder checking a Karen out of the way in the frozen produce section in order to obtain the largest whole dodo for Starlight dinner

14: Icarus

It looks really funny with no spell effects btw. Right up there in the "I am currently falling over" rankings with Forked Raiju

Anyway this is as practical as the Monk one but with only one charge, but DID introduce the concept of gap closing healers since this is a close range brawler of a job despite its vaunted origins (the auto attack is the cutest little punch). It super beats out the Monk one, however, because of the spell effects.

Outta the way, gayboy, I'm going to invent new kinds of hubris they'll name after me

(bonus point for this specific glam, where the beams come out of the guns)

13: Smudge

(just starting to realise this is a great cat name resource too)

I did deduct many points because it's NOT "red goes fast" but on the other hand, it's green which is wind aether, so we're painting the CONCEPT of the new WHM gap closer, AND it comes with a sprint. I love nothing more than riding around on a slimy streak of conceptual speed.

Hit the picture limit with picto, possibly because they could not contain all the painting emanating from that one image, so I'll continue in a reblog. After a revelation to come I MAY have got all these numbers hideously wrong because I am nothing if not completely blind to numerical values.

[lookbluesoup]

Beginners Guide to Red Mage

I've had a frankly alarming number of people comment to me on various platforms that Red Mage is too difficult and confusing. Which - I know different classes vibe with different people. Sometimes a class just doesn't click with you, and that's ok! But I actually find RDM to be one of the easiest classes in ffxiv to get the basics down on, so I thought I'd type up a little crash course!

This is a guide to a basic rotation, without any eye-glazing acronyms, and a few tips on how RDM evolves at higher levels, hopefully in easy to understand terms for someone just starting out. It is not a min/max guide. It's not designed to get you Super Rainbow Diamond Parse. It will show you how to play red mage competently in Duty Roulette and MSQ and get through whatever regular content you want. (As long as you don't forget to keep your gear levelled with you!)

If you want to go MAX ULTRA DAMAGE UNREAL TRIALS mode there's plenty of other guides out there for that, a google search away, who can help you with more complicated, number-crunchy type rotations! My hope is that if you are new to RDM and want to get into that content someday, this will at least give you a foundational understanding to build up to that from.

And if you're a casual player, this guide will see you through just fine. You're who this is made for!

Full guide below the cut!

Red Mage is about balance, which means it's basically a repeating pattern.

There is a magic rotation to build up black and white mana in equal amounts, and then a melee rotation to spend that collected mana on high-damage sword attacks. Later, you'll get a second magic combo to use after your sword combo.

Here's my hotbar setup synced down to level 50:

And here it is at level 90 with some upgraded skill icons:

Because I'm very visual, it's set up to keep related abilities close together so that I can quickly input combos.

If you take a look at your spells, you'll notice Veraero and Verthunder (the green and blue buttons) do high damage but take almost 5 seconds to cast. A really long time. They also only increase either white or black mana, though by a significant amount:

Jolt, the red one in the middle, only takes a remarkably short 2 seconds to cast and gives both black and white mana, but does much less damage and doesn't increase either color very much:

This might initially seem clunky and frustrating.

But here's why.

Every second spell a Red Mage casts is instant.

Jolt is your ticket to flinging spells around like a dog with a roman candle.

The goal is to start with a short-cast spell, and then follow up with a long-cast one, which will hit immediately instead of taking those agonizing 5 seconds.

So, if you are fighting a single target, that's Jolt, followed by Veraero or Verthunder. (Or, if like me your eyes want to glaze over with the fancy names for everything. Red, followed by Green or Blue.)

And how do you keep your black and white mana balanced? Easy. Each time you do your combo, switch up veraero and verthunder.

You basic magic combo is literally just Red, Green, Red, Blue, Red, Green, Red, Blue. If you set up your hotbar with these in convenient places, you can just get your fingers into a rhythm and eventually won't even have to think about it at all.

If you end up off balance with too much of one color, just repeat the other color a few times in between Jolts until its back close together.

The AoE Rotation, Though?

Since you know why the cast times vary so much between spells, you can probably already guess how this works! They're inverted! That's all! If you're fighting 3+ enemies at once, you should switch to your AoE set which damages all enemies around your target. Your basic magic combo is still just Red, Green, Red, Blue, Red, Green, Red, Blue. But you start with Green or Blue first!

--

When its time to stab things

While you can use your melee skills at any point, in any order - there's a pattern here, too. And its easy!

This is your mana bar when you enter a fight:

And this is your mana bar as you build up black and white mana through casting spells:

The white side, predictably, is white mana. The blue side is black mana. The gem on the top will light up in red when you have enough of both collected to perform a melee combo (which is 50 white and 50 black). It maxes out at 100 of each.

While your sword skills on your hotbar will color change from purple to red earlier than this, do not succumb to the allure. Wait until you get your magic red button. Every "Enchanted" sword strike you hit with will deplete your mana, so you need to make sure you have enough to do a full combo of all three attacks.

An Enchanted combo does MUCH more damage and it is absolutely worth waiting until you can combo them. Start with Riposte, the one that costs 20, and the others will light up in order afterwards to show you the correct steps.

Once you're too low on mana to run a full sword combo, go back to casting spells until your red gem lights up again!

AoE Rotation

It's not even a rotation, it's one attack - Moulinet. However, it should be noted that at later levels, when Mana Stacks are added, you'll need 60 black and white mana to get a full three mana stacks by using your AoE sword skill, instead of the 50 needed for single target sword skills.

--

Imbalanced Meters

If you cast too much of one color without the other, your gem will change to reflect the imbalance. You get a penalty to gaining mana if the bars are off balance, so make sure to give the other color some attention until your gem turns red or clear again.

--

Free Damage Buttons

Fleche, and its AoE version Contre Six, are free damage. They don't share any cooldowns with your regular spells/sword skills, and cast instantly. It's free damage.

Corps-a-corps is a gap closer, another attack that shares no cooldowns with any other skills. It's a great way to start out your sword-combo when you have enough mana collected, because it will put you in range of your target and deal damage in the process. A lot better than losing seconds to running up to them manually, during which time you can't attack.

It has two charges which refill over time, so in a short period you can use it twice if you need to. Like if you target the wrong enemy the first time. Whoops.

Engagement is another free stab button, but it shares charges with Displacement, which is your run away button, so make sure to save a charge if you're going to need that!

Displacement is a good way to end your sword combo (or, later, end your bonus spells combo.) It is also a good way to escape an enemy's attack if you stood in one place just a LITTLE too long and don't have time to run out of range. You will leap backwards immediately and quite far.

Once in the Crystal Tower raids I used this to evade an AoE and landed in one of those paralyzing electric traps on the corner of the arena, where I remained trapped, in shame, for the rest of the fight. Check behind you before you jump.

--

(Slightly) More Advanced Rotation

If everything above feels like a lot to absorb already, you can ignore this section for now. Get a handle on the basic basics, and then start weaving the rest of these in later once you're more used to your patterns.

Occasionally when casting a spell you will get "Verstone Ready" or "Verfire Ready" These can be woven in at your discretion, they have short cast times. But generally they should replace your short cast spell for one cycle. For example, use one of these instead of Jolt, and follow up with a Green or Blue spell after. They both give you a specific color of mana, but not quite as much as a regular long-cast spell, their benefit lies in how fast you can cast them and their high damage.

Acceleration can be used to quickly rebalance your mana if something goes awry, or to deal heavy damage quickly. It's another tool that allows you to cast any of your main long-cast damage spells instantly. As an added treat, it makes your next Red AoE do significantly more damage, or ensures that your next single-target Green and Blue spells will give you a Verstone/Verfire right after.

Manafication will instantly grant you 50 black and white mana both. It's best to use it between Enchanted sword combos! Once you hit 50 on your own, perform a sword rotation, hit Manafication, and do another sword rotation. Or, when Mana Stacks come in, use Manafication after completing your bonus spells to get another Sword-Spell rotation combo in right after.

Embolden is a damage buff for you and close-by party members. There's a lot of ways to use damage buffs, but if you time it right, you can get two buffed Enchanted sword combos in by pairing this with Manafication. Later, with Mana Stacks, you can get a sword and bonus-spell combo in, with a little extra room.

Mana Stacks

At higher levels, you'll get Mana Stacks. These basically add a third pattern after you use your spells to build mana, and your sword to spend it.

By completing an Enchanted Sword combo (the red ones, that cost 50 mana to complete) or casting 3 of the Enchanted AoE Moulinet in succession (which costs 60 mana), all your Blue and Green spells will transform into Verflare and Verholy:

You get to cast ONE of them. If you perform just about any other action, including manafication, you will lose these. Make sure to cast them when they appear. They do not, however, run on a short timer, so if the dungeon boss is at 0.1% hp you can hold your actions and just use these on your next ad pack.

If your black and white mana are not perfectly balanced when you get these spells, that's a good thing. Pick the spell that matches your lower color. If you have less black mana, cast Verflare. If you have less white mana, cast Verholy. This will guarantee that Verfire or Verstone, mentioned above, become available to you:

If you pick the "wrong" one, don't worry! You still have a chance at getting your stone/fire spell. And if not, you can use Acceleration to quickly cast for whichever color you need to rebalance your mana.

A little down the line, you'll get a third bonus spell. Scorch replaces your Red spells and appears after casting Verflare or Verholy. That's a lotta damage!

And again, further down, you'll get another red spell to follow on the heels of Scorch, Resolution. To really help you finish off nuking everything in front of you.

--

So in short - magic combo till you have 50 of both mana colors, sword combo, bonus spell combo, rinse and repeat.

And there you go! You can Red Mage!

--

But wait! There's more!

Saving the Party from a Wipe

At level 64 you get Verraise. And since you know all about dualcast now, you know that 10 second cast timer doesn't mean anything to you, a Red Mage.

While you should generally let your healer(s) handle raising so that they don't waste their swiftcast trying to get someone that you might reach first, if you notice multiple people go down close together, or the healer is low on spells/having to work really hard to keep the party alive, or the healer is dead... you can resurrect someone every 2 seconds. Do not be afraid to help save the party from a wipe. It feels very powerful.

Your healing spell, Vercure, also has a 2 second cast time, so you can give party members a little hp boost in between shoveling them off the floor.

[zanshlou]

Been a while since I’ve posted something related to XIV so here’s some Carmina. There was something about next patch using portraits for more dungeons and stuff or something? I dono I don’t really pay attention to announcements and just skim patch notes for stuff I care about when things actually come out but I heard something about this and decided that I needed to go in and make portaits for every class. This also resulted in me tweaking a couple glams and making a few new ones. Sadly I use two of my glam plats for my Crafter and Gatherer glams so MNK/SAM and DRG/RPR have to share outfits for now. PLEASE SE I just need 2 more glam plates (though also like a nice rounded 5 would be nice to keep holiday outfits separate on). Anyways random details about all the tweaks and new outfits (along with some of my general long winded ramblings) below the cut I guess.

So SCH, RDM, MCH, and NIN got completely new looks. My old SCH was too close in color and used a lot of the same pieces as my SGE look I put together for story this expansion so it had to go. RDM used a top that I had modded and so didn’t look right anymore. The top it has WAS originally on my new MCH look but I had shifted that to be more pirate-y and still wanted to use the top and it looks great in red. NIN was going to get a modified version of a Cait Sith cosplay I put together for a group Halloween shot my FC did but then I realized when lookig through stuff that I had the Neo-Ishgardian top and that plan went out the window as I decided I had a need to work around that top for the look.

Meanwhile... BRD continues to get stuck with my holiday look whatever that ends up being. So for now it gets to support my Christmas gear. Maybe after the holidays I’ll change it but the look is solid on its own holiday season or not so it may just stay.

For more minor changes... My DNC used to sport a hat, I might even have some screenshots somewhere on here from the past where it still sports that hat. The look was built around an old old glam from the HW days that I made that was very... tap-dancer-esque. These days the new look has kind of been a Mina default look and is what I base a lot of my art and designing around but I always leave out the hat so decided I’d switch it with glasses. They might not stay but I do always love the look of glasses on Mina. Second only to hair flowers (I just didn’t feel I had any good ones on hand to go with the look).

MNK/SAM got new earrings and DRG/RPR got new nails. These were both super minor style changes. I wanted some earrings that were lowkey and that I didn’t really use much (instead of my usual heart earrings) for the MNK/SAM look. That look has always been a staple of my wardrobe since at least early HW if not sooner than that. It’s simple and effective and was built entirely around the gloves and going “what else can I make black that has gold accents?” The DRG/RPR look is similarly an old classic of mine, built completely around the Maelstrom coat. I used to have the sharp beastly nails on the look and I just switched those out for the like regular painted nails. Super minor change for a look that has never stopped being amazing. The way the Y’shtola HW boots pair with that coat is too dang powerful.

As one last random aside, BLU continues to be my most extra look. I have tried to make it over the top and extravagant in ever incarnation I’ve made of it. This one is decidedly less silly than it’s first main glam (which I should dig up some old pics of) but it still has that very loud, “LOOK AT ME” showmanship to the design. Every time I make a new outfit for it I have a lot of fun with it. The only look that I think brings me more joy from the sillyness of it is my blindfolded “I can’t read” SMN look.

[vermanaward]

.

got the answer to why this tier felt so shit: half the static are just mentally checked out bc they're quitting after this tier. one of them was even talking pointedly about how he'd be okay with quitting early if people wanted to do that and im just. super. awesome. could we not have had this conversation before the tier started.

im doubly kind of mad because like. i was originally going to change to rpr this tier, but then the other caster in our static was also wanting to change and i stupidly was like fine okay ig i ll stay caster, intending to switch to blm after prog hoo hoo hee hee because im sick to the back fucking teeth of being on rdm except wait suddenly itsday one and he's still on blm and i get yelled at when i ask if anyone minds if i then go melee and its just. i should quit yeah!! but i dont wanna deal with pf and finding a static after tier start who intend to clear in a decent amount of time and who i could play literally anything thats not fucking rez mage...

yeah. i guess its fair to say i am also Fucking Done smile not actually even a little bit sad at the thought of disbanding

also got a message from a mutual friend of the ex-uwu static lead saying he wanted to talk about 'what happened' and i was just. okay. we'll see what he has to say to himself. 'man appo im sorry i upset you but also i stand by kicking you because of [checks notes] things that i did'. needless to say he went straight back on the old block list. am i mad? idunno man, does the pope shit in the woods!

[friendshiptothemax]

The Final Five, ranked by how much I love they’re one of the Final Five. This is NOT a ranking of how much I love them generally, just how much sense I think it makes that they’re a Cylon. SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY.

5. Ellen Tigh. Okay so here is where I am a fandom old and say I remember the period in which we did not know! I remember Christmas 2008 when it was very in vogue to have one of your livejournal icons be “All I Want For Christmas is for [x] To Be The Final Cylon.” For my part, I wanted it to be Billy, though I also stand by to this day that Dee would have been the best choice. Why didn’t she hear the music with the others? Who knows! But I digress. Ellen. I was actually living on a boat when this episode aired and did not have cable and I literally called home as soon as the episode finished airing and made someone tell me who the Final Cylon was, and after all that I was definitely like “eh.” Is it an interesting moment? Sure. I don’t hate it. I just feel like it doesn’t have much emotional resonance for anyone but Saul, and it’s a little manipulative that, oh, NOW we’re supposed to believe the Tighs are this transcendent love that surpasses lifetimes? And yes, what an interesting character turn that the Tighs are a transcendent love that surpasses lifetimes, but really? Those Tighs? I’ve met those Tighs!

4. Tory Foster. Okay, again, I’m not mad at it, but here’s my thing with Tory: we know very little about Tory before the Cylon reveal, and we know very little about Tory after the Cylon reveal. I do appreciate the scene when they first find out they’re Cylons when Tigh’s like “I will never betray the man I am, I will fight for the Colonies with my last breath, you guys are with me, right?” and everyone is like “Yes, mmhm, totally, we agree” and then Tory goes over to the Cylons the VERY FIRST SECOND SHE IS PRESENTED AN OPPORTUNITY TO DO SO. Like always a literal laugh out loud moment for me that D’Anna is like “Any Cylons, please, come with us” and practically before she finishes speaking Tory is like “I would like to come with you, for...um. Other reasons” and everyone is just like “Nothing suspicious about this at all, sure, go ahead.” Anyway, no shade to Tory, but I feel like she was always the “and Tory” of the Final Five and I wish the writers had done a little more with her.

3. Samuel T. Anders. My Sam. I love Sam. Sam may be my favorite Battlestar character?? It’s either Sam or Helo. And I think he’s up there with Gaeta and Baltar for top three biggest character transformations over the course of the series. He BECOMES THE SHIP y’all! So good. I love Sam. That being said, as a Cylon reveal, there are better (two in fact). Everything that happens to him after the Cylon reveal, I think, is gold, and I love him being a Cylon for all of that. But I feel like the before-the-reveal groundwork wasn’t laid as well for him as for the other two men. Sure, he was in the New Caprican resistance, and sure, he was on the tribunal, but so too were Galen and Saul, so while he adds to the overall “how funny is it that the entire resistance leadership was Cylon,” individually it’s a little bit overkill. But still, I love Sam, never change, Sam (or, I guess, do, your character arc is one of the things I love about you).

2. Saul Tigh. Is there anyone in the entire fleet who would have been more upset to find out they were a Cylon than Saul Tigh? I’d argue no. And his growling “It’s in the frakkin’ ship!” is iconic. And like, yes, Galen and Sam were in the resistance and the tribunal, but no one, NO ONE, sacrificed more for them than Tigh. I think it’s perfect that Tigh is a Cylon. I’ve seen it pointed out that Saul alone among every Cylon we ever meet, never uses any Cylon abilities at all, save the one moment at the end when they have to do the data transfer, and I love that for him. Him as the voice of “I choose the kind of man I want to be” is really great, and I think he gives the Final Five a good perspective. I also want to say, I know it SEEMS ironic that the resistance leadership is all Cylon, but I also think it’s a reveal that works with what we learn of their character and backstory later. They are opposed to war between human and Cylon, they saw their entire world wiped out, they stopped the Cylon War in the Colonies the first time, OF COURSE they would go to the fucking mattresses when their kids fucked up that bad, even if they didn’t know that’s what they were doing.

1. Galen Tyrol. Oh, Chief! I have a theory, which is that if Chief had been the Final Cylon, he would have been everyone’s guess. He’s PERFECT as a Cylon. I know they’ve said they didn’t decide who was a Cylon until fairly late in the game, but re-watching the series it’s hard to believe they weren’t keeping a Chief-is-a-Cylon as a reveal in their pocket for a rainy day. From the way he was drawn to Boomer, to the way he suspected it at various times in the series, to his conversation with Cavil about whether he’s a Cylon (admittedly the Cylons did LOVE to troll people about whether or not they were Cylons), to all the aforementioned resistance/tribunal stuff, to his mystic connection to the Eye of Jupiter... it all works. They’d also built in a good when-was-he-inserted story (being estranged from his fundamentalist religious parents) which I feel mirrored the key foreshadowing they’d done with the Boomer reveal in the miniseries and not something they pulled off as well with every Cylon (PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES DON’T JUST APPEAR OUT OF THIN AIR?? NO REPORTER EVER NOTICED CAPRICA BUCCANEER SAMUEL T. ANDERS DIDN’T HAVE A BACKSTORY? WHERE DID HE COME FROM??). In conclusion, Cylon Chief is perfect, thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

BONUS: People at the time I remember thinking could NOT be the Final Cylon: 1.) Lee Adama because Bill obviously knew him from birth and we had never been given any indication that the Cylons took over the lives of actual people, 2.) Karl Agathon because then Hera would be full Cylon and that seemed to take away from everything they were doing with that storyline, 3.) Gaius Baltar because he wanted it and no one on Battlestar ever gets what they want, 4.) MAYBE Kara Thrace because it was just so damn obvious. But maybe that’s why it would be her? But like they couldn’t spend so much time teasing us with the mystery and then it’s the obvious choice could they?? But like she did maybe resurrect?? Would they really do that??

BONUS BONUS: Kara Thrace is the daughter of the Daniel Cylon and RDM can pry that out of my cold, dead hands.