#mikoto x lilja

[opteekaal]

Day 3: Swept off their Feet

[lynbeck]

Also my new favorite girlfriends. Need a 100k modern au about these two building a rocket

[hologramblue]

okay. ffxiv writer identity matter under the cut, spoilers for shaaloani msq and all prior xpac stuff.

my theories were debunked in places by an ishikawa comment from like a year ago that i didn't see back then due to lol

but i went from "i think hiroi might have done amh araeng?" to "hiroi absolutely did amh araeng" within like twenty seconds of not-magnus walking on screen. DT whipped the train freaks (affectionate) out of its pocket with an enthusiasm i'm used to seeing from ishikawa reminding us that haurchefant and ysayle existed.

the wife getting unfridged made a few things click in my head though and i can't really spell it out rn so i'm just gonna put a bunch of names next to each other and hope you see what i'm seeing about hiroi's characterization tendencies (i don't know where to draw the line in ivalice stuff btwn matsuno's work and hiroi's contributions so it's just vibes sorry):

1) guydelot and sanson, thancred and urianger, lyon and menenius, erichthonios and themis

2) mikoto, tesleen, lilja, misija, hegemone, athena, nitowikwe

3) the redbills, the trolley/train guys, the pandaemonium staff, claudien's team, jenomis' theatre company

with these two things plus some other in mind, i have two more theories abt hiroi's work: i think he did a significant amount of eden, and i think in EW thavnair was his pet zone

eden: "why wouldn't he get credited for this if he got credited for pandemonium" probably to avoid distracting from the star factor of Nomura Was Here? but also there's some strong ishikawa fingerprints on eden too so i'm not sure it was a single-writer thing. besides the writer signature shit, note how ishikawa worked on coils, alexander, and omega, then ascended to msq lead. and hiroi did panda before he became msq lead.

anyways in writer signs you've got the aetherology technobabble and story progression heavily grounded in material logic, the thancred-urianger rapport, and ryne's development goes in a distinctly Hiroi Heroine direction. i'm so much a fan of that thing that i'd actually forgotten how meek she is in msq, even after her name change. in eden she takes on hiroi's two favorite qualities in female characters: technical competence (she becomes, like, a mission-command aether-hacker!) and being brave to the point of hingelessness in service of her convictions (e8, final cutscene). also, the quests since eden that have gone back to acknowledge what happened in eden have all been (drumroll) void stuff. and who's the void's number one fan

thavnair: look at those three lists above and add vrtra and ahewann to 1, nidhana to 2, and the alchemists of the great work to 3. back out and squint at the overall flavor of thavnair and radz-at-han sidequests. consider the integration between the 6.x void story which was absolutely hiroi-and-WG (iirc they were credited outright?) and vrtra's character and thavnair and radz-at-han in general. also the weird lines between the mord souq food jokes, EW miner/botanist, and the goofiness about zero and spicy food

[porta-decumana]

5.55 spoilers below:

The MSQ was good.  I’ve been pretty critical of the MSQ since 5.0 (it’s pacing has left a bit to be desired imo except for 5.3) and 5.5 did not feel like the hype train it needed to be but 5.55 rectified it somewhat.  I still feel as though most of my hype is from the 6.0 trailers/info from Fanfest, not from how the story is presenting the next expac.  But I still enjoyed it overall and thought it was def above passable.  Just lacking a certain ‘oomph’ aspect I feel would’ve made it better.  Definitely an A- in my book.

The solo instance was by far my favorite part of the MSQ and probably the best thing about 5.5.  I loved getting to swap between the characters and revisit spooky lunar versions of our old primal friends.  I was very excited to see Old Lord of Crowns back again when I got to play as Urianger.  I hope that’s a sign that they’re revising the cards again, at least to give AST something a bit more for DPS rather than Malefic, Gravity, Combust, and Earthly Star.  I really miss old Lord of Crowns.  Critting that felt good.

Poor G’raha was probably traumatized by my awful BLM play.

Aymeric with the “I beg your pardon” line had me actually chuckling irl.  I am glad we’re finally putting to rest the beast tribes as secondary, passive antagonists.  It feels like a plot point overdue in terms of needing to be wrapped up.

Estinien dodging Aymeric just to fail to dodge Aymeric = good shit.  I hope Estinien is also ready to have Nidhogg roar when he’s in my Trusts.  What is that Koji?  He wants to make sure he doesn’t go too hard and hurt us?  He didn’t seem to care during the Carteneau instance.  .__.

Fourchenault was very much what I expected.  I feel like he’s sus though for reasons the characters have stated.

I’m still waiting for Fandaniel and Zenos to do something that feels pertinent other than vague about things as they have for the past 3 patches.  It’s been nice and we did get a tidbit more with the roar from the tower but... I was wanting a bit more.  Just a smidge.  Also there’s no way that roar isn’t Anima.  Having just watched FFX footage, the roar sounds the same but louder in FFXIV.  Runner up thought: the roar is some primal embodiment of Garlemald which terrifies me more because what if that means a primal version of Solus?  Anima seems more likely though.

Venat being the person at Silvertear feels basically confirmed now with Hydaelyn-like dialogue to go along with it.  I question why nothing more is made of that scene.  The WoL at this point is probably seasoned enough to be like “hey guys... there’s some shit going down, I just saw a weird glowing lady over there that sounds like Hydaelyn” but I digress, maybe that’s me projecting a bit.

I’m not done with Bozja yet (gotta do the new instance) but some thoughts after hitting rank 25:

I’m ngl, once I would’ve been all for the Mikoto x Cid stuff but since I have a friend who ships her WoL with Cid, I’m just... hm.  It’s reaffirming the fact that I like having the NPCs having ambiguous love lives instead of having shipping in the actual quests.  I think Yoshi P has made good calls in the past about being as open with stuff like that as possible so people can headcanon whatever they want.  So seeing it up front... has me with mixed feelings.  

Where is Nero, where is my boy.  This entire experience would be improved if 1 Nero tol Scaeva was present.

Gaius getting namedropped was nice considering the entire Zadnor arc feels super ARR-esque.  Gabranth feels like a younger Gaius with less indoctrination and a different end goal.  Gabranth was my favorite character in XII and I’m excited to see more of him.

Oboro and Tsubame being in Zadnor were both pleasant surprises.  As well as the Nagxia lore from the field notes.

Overall, Zadnor being the exact same thing as Bozja is just... I mean, I expected this.  They told us this.  But that doesn’t make it any more palatable.  At least the level grind isn’t too awful (looking at you Eureka).  The first area was abysmally flat and uninteresting but the rest of the zone is okay.  I wish if we were gonna continue to get instances like that, they would be... less bland and flat?  It just makes the slog seem more sloggish imo.

SHEMHAZAI <3

Lilja is growing on me.  I wish her a happy be in more content in the future and a very live through all of it.

I continue to be conflicted about Misija.  I think if I resent her at all, it’s because she kicked my ass one too many times in DR.  I’m... intrigued about what will happen to her, I guess. 

Fran showing up again with the speeder and giving me big XII nostalgia.

Cid coming back for this arc of Bozja ALSO felt really good.  I was sad when he wasn’t around for the last few installments.  I’m glad he’s getting to resolve his feelings about the Bozja Incident.