#original clone character: mog

[mamuzzy-creates-stuff]

Civilians are just like tubies, Mog thought. For them, every possible bad occurence were the worst of the worst and they expressed their pain so outwardly, it made him wonder: is it them who are broken? His brothers never cried. They all hid their tears behind the helmets. Mog too, occasionally.

Wordcount: 507 No beta.

It would have been rude to get up as soon as the zabrak girl arrived to sit down on the bench, though Mog wished he did. She slammed the colorful flimsybag down as if it had been caused all her misery, while the real culprit probably was behind the otherside of the comlink.

She was trembling from anger while yelled to that someone; Brother? Boyfriend? Mog couldn't understand too much, the zabrak spoke huttese but the tone and painful expression, as well as the recognizable "cunt"-s and different variations of "fuck you"-s told him what he needed to know: this situation was well above his paygrade.

The girl was just loud and hysterical but on larger scale, she didn't disturbed peace. And Mog hurt enough civilian for this week.

The conversation ended abruptly as the girl stood up, yelled a last one into the comlink, then throw it before her feet and stomped on the device, one, two, three-times until it was an unrecognizable junk beyond repair. Now littering was something he should have spoken up but...

He wasn't here as a Guard now. He was just a guy on a bench, doing nothing in particular besides contemplating on his life.

Besides, the girl started sobbing so miserably, even he didn't have a heart to tell her off.

Civilians are just like tubies, Mog thougth. For them, every possible bad occurence were the worst and they expressed their pain so outwardly, it made him wonder: is it them who are broken? His brothers didn't cry. They all hid their tears behind the helmets. Mog too, occasionally.

He had no idea what to do, but couldn't help just watching her.

The girl eventually stopped crying, until her pain tamed to silent sniffles, and Mog still didn't know how to react. What to say. How to comfort.

She eventually looked up, blinking the tears out rapidly from her grey eyes, and Mog recognized something in her expression that looked like apologetic. Mog smiled back awkwardly but before he could say anything, the girl just took the flimsybag from her side and put it between them.

"Would you... would you please accept it?" she spoke now in clear basic. "Doughnut. I don't need it anymore" her voice still trembled despite her shy smile she tried to maintain. "And it's too expensive to end up in the trash."

Mog looked surprised from this gesture, though his eyes wandered from the bag to the destroyed device on the ground but decided maybe it's not the right time to make a comment about value assessment. By the time he looked up, Mog could only stare at the back of the leaving zabrak.

He pulled the bag in his lap to check the contents, finding two boxes with the same color, and by opening up the lid, he indeed found doughnuts inside: round, fatty sweets in many colors and fruity scents it made saliwa collected in his mouth.

The girl was right. This was indeed valuable. He may have as well accepted it.

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

FFXIV: Endgame

Mild Spoilers for the magic system of Final Fantasy XIV. Okay? Okay.

So FFXIV has a thing where - whether this is a natural state of the world or something the Big Bad is actually doing to the world to sow chaos - the magic system has Summoning Primals as a spell people can learn. But the word Summoning isn’t accurate; This is the great lie of the Ascians (who are a bunch of Organization XIII-looking assholes who go around teaching this spell to people). The truth is that what’s called forth is an extension of your own will, not a true creature in its own right.

The primals are bad for two reasons: First because they’re generally born of fanaticism and based on people’s gods or heroes, there’s the direct consequence of most of them being violent monsters. And that’s bad. But more insidious is that they aren’t energy-neutral. Where normal living things have a sort of breathe-in breathe-out relationship with aether - the lifestream of this mythos - the primals need enormous amounts to maintain their form, like a fire sucking up oxygen to keep itself going. Also like a fire they’ll eventually destroy everything if not stopped.

With that primer out of the way, here’s what I think would be the most badass possible closer for FFXIV.

We’ve established that the primals aren’t real. They aren’t being actually summoned from somewhere but created from a cocktail of belief, some kind of Ascian secret, and a boatload of crystals (which are condensed aether - in other words, energy).

We’ve established that in addition to gods, any kind of hero can also be cloned as a primal if they’re venerated by enough people. Shiva, King Theordan, The Good King Moggle Mog XII (may his pom-pom never fade) - The people “summoning” these primals aren’t confusing them with gods.

More interestingly, when Gilgamesh summons Enkidu in this way there’s a very real possibility this means the original person doesn’t even have to be dead for a copy to be made of them. And when you look at the way it works, that makes sense. Why would they? It’s harder to become enough of a legend in your own time to be venerated by that many people, but it’s by no means impossible.

Which brings us neatly to what should be one of the final bosses of the game: You.

Your primal.

The Warrior of Light, as believed in by the people of Eorzea. You’ve helped multiple nations. You’ve killed gods for them. You’ve saved cities. You’ve toppled tyrants. When everything goes to shit, everyone turns to you. All it would take is the Ascians telling them they could summon you with a spell - perhaps wearing the guise of Scions at the time so people aren’t like, “I just figured that guy in the red mask and black cloak was a real stand-up guy who wanted what was best for me!"

The programmers could have a single outfit - The Warrior of Light outfit - wearable by all classes. For each player, the game then feeds back Your Character Model wearing that outfit and twenty feet tall (yes, this is more proportionally jarring on a lalafell, but standardizing the height to 20′ makes it easier to make the moves look right and anyone will look like a proper giant at that size) and have a specific moveset for the boss.

Nobody else - not even the generals or lords of the Garlean Empire - has the kind of legend surrounding them to become candidates for primal summoning within their own life. But you do. And how ridiculously badass would that be?

I mean, every primal in the game has this big lead-up, and you kind of make a game out of guessing who the next primal will be (”Lady Iceheart, leading a group of cultists stealing crystals OH SHIT IT’S SHIVA WE GET TO FIGHT SHIVA”), and who’s more iconic, more central to the series, than The Warrior of Light? But I bet most people - even those trying to guess it - wouldn’t guess it. It would be an actual surprise reveal. And I don’t know about you but when the primal was revealed to be ME? My character, that I’ve been playing? I would Lose My Shit.

And can you imagine a group of streamers all getting into that cutscene together and realizing that it’s showing each of them their own character?

[mamuzzy-creates-stuff]

About Mog: I don't know this guy either.

He just appeared at my door like a sad wet cat to be fed and keep him warm. He is a riot trooper, working in the prison, occasionally sent out to the streets to keep anti-war marches at bay.

But also he is just a guy who sometimes rob the "evidence room" for civilian clothes and stroll through the streets of Coruscant to be alone.

[mamuzzy-creates-stuff]

MY NEW OCS <33333 THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING ABOUT THEM!!!

I actually started to write a continuation for that snippet !!! ^^

Mog lifted his right hand and did a lazy two-fingered salute. For his surprise, the girl awkwardly reciprocated the gesture. As if she caught herself doing something weird, her tattooed cheeks flushed immediately and lowered her gaze to the ground, along with her hand. Mog huffed in amusement because he had no idea what went through the girls brain in the past few seconds. He gestured toward the bench. “May I?” The girl nodded with a quiet "Hmm".

I love my new son. I want to explore him more. <3

[mamuzzy-creates-stuff]

Mog got so much love today <3 I'll see if I can conjure up more about these two in the weekend!