#reporting for duty!!!!!

[yangjeongin]

😪😪😪

[nevermind-i-dont-wanna-know]

We all know Wymack would have easily accepted Jean as one of his players and I have no doubt that he already considers Jean one of his kids. But like, you can’t tell me that man didn’t almost fall to his knees in relief after realizing he won’t have to deal with the PR nightmare that would have been Jean and Neil doing press duty (and Kevin “I’ve never been skiing” Day) Like he’s been exposed to Jeans sass and I just know that man sent the Trojans coaches a nice bottle of liquor each with a note that just says thoughts and prayers

[ministarfruit]

day 1: if only ♡

(femslashfeb prompt list)

[spicyvampire]

Is it real romance if he hasn't cuffed you to something?

MANNER OF DEATH (2020) EP. 10 THE HEART KILLERS (2024) EP. 8

[ddarker-dreams]

any sunday crumbs for us? 😽

He's doing it again.

If you were conscious during a brain surgery, this is what it'd feel like, you think. The general anesthesia would render you immobile and deny your body the ability to process what it's being subjected to. But on some level, you would know. The metal implements poking and prodding and pulverizing defenses never intended to be breached.

Get out, get out, get out!

Squeezing your eyes shut, you fixate on memories that tie your intestines into knots. Your first love's puzzlement over who you were. The looming threat that the same fate could befall others you care for. How not even your mind is a haven in this padlocked 'paradise.'

The pressure in your head recedes.

"... You're upset," his voice is as soft and smooth as velvet. "It's understandable. Still... you should be able to tell. There's no malice behind my tuning — only consideration for your wellbeing."

You rub your temples, still throbbing from his abrupt departure. Even a perfectionist like Sunday wavers when confronted with the sheer depth of your loathing.

"A lie is a lie, no matter how pretty you spin in," you reply. "I think... I'm supposed to be mad at you. I am mad at you, I just can't remember why."

You turn to face him and smile wryly. "That's clever. Pulling the problem up from the roots instead of trimming it down. You learned from last time, huh?"

"Easing your resentment isn't solely for my sake," Sunday deflects your accusation. His countenance is solemn, like he's bearing a burden you couldn't begin to understand. "You're torturing yourself to make a point. If you'd just let me—"

"—Oh no, you don't get to sound fed up," you march up to where he stands and jut your pointer finger against his chest. "Acting all— righteous and like... like some kind of a martyr! I'm so sorry I'm not tripping over myself to thank you for fucking around with my head!"

You're trembling with fury, every vein in your body boiling. His countenance is neutral, if not a touch stern, but he allows you your cathartic outburst. Eventually, you pull your hand back, slumping over from exhaustion.

It's then that you throw in an additional jab for good measure.

"No matter what you do, or how many times you do it... I'll always find a new reason to hate you."

Sunday's eyes gleam as he replies:

"And I'll be here all the same."

[wulfhalls]

sister // my dearest brother

[askfordoodles]

Ok, fellow Emmrichmancers, I need to defend my girl Harding here for a bit, cause she's been getting some disdain and eye-rolling for being the supposed 'discourse-mouthpiece' (ie. being the only one calling out the age gap thing).

Listen, ... when she first brings it up, that's what it SOUNDS like she's doing. Harding has a tendency to struggle with wording things well, she's life-smart, not book-smart - so that first banter does read as though she's worried FOR Rook in that patronizing way like a parent or older sibling, who thinks they know better... (heck even Emmrich potentially falls into that trap during the argument)

but then there's follow-up banter and it becomes clear that, no, she's not worried Emmrich might be taking advantage of poor innocent younger Rook; it becomes increasingly clear she's worried about HIS feelings. She's always addressing her concerns to HIM, and worrying about how they're "going too fast" (even IF he's made the promise to Rook to move slowly during their first dinner-date).

Harding's making observations about how he's becoming noticeably "mopey", she can TELL something's worrying HIM. (mind you, not even Rook seemed to have picked up on this)

And in turn he's very honest with Harding about how, despite defending himself against Davrin's juvenile jabs and appreciating/enduring Taash's sentiments and all that jazz, the age gap thing DOES secretly bother him. (the fact that he doesn't start moping straight away suggests that Harding was right, they DID go a bit too fast and Emmrich especially, was blinded by the honeymoon-phase so to speak). He does end up genuinely thanking her for her concern and advice, to try and think ahead about the relationship.

(Although sadly it still takes their potential impending deaths for him to reach their crisis-stage of needing to address his worries and I could do a whole essay alone on how he chooses to handle it, but others already have, so not now)

Say what you will about her, out of all their mutual friends, Harding was the ONLY ONE to see the pre-battle argument coming from A MILE AWAY, and she was trying to gently warn them; to try and nudge her two friends to have a serious talk about the consequences ahead, rather than blithely avoiding it.

tl;dr: Harding's got that serious emotional intelligence, and y'all best RESPECT her relationship advice.

[cedric-k-rossignol]

[yangjeongin]

[i-dont-know-how-this-site-works]

It's the domicilegate

[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!

[tthoroughfare]

thinking about abby dealing w her nightmares and goddd i just wanna take care of her

it would be a regular occurance of her waking up in the middle of the night, taking in a sharp, involuntary gasp. she always tried to calm her breathing right away, immediately aware of your presence next to her. back in the real world, the only problem to deal with in the moment not wanting to disturb you.

sometimes, you'd stir a little in your sleep at the movement, then settle again. sometimes, it would wake you up.

she always felt awful when it did, apologizing profusely as you asked her if she was alright. voice tinged with tiredness, urging, "it's okay. just a dream."

"i know, i'm sorry. i didn't mean to wake you. i'm sorry."

you'd just nestle further into her side, dusting a few kisses to her cheek. your eyes would crack open, taking in her profile as she stared upwards, jaw set and brow slightly furrowed.

you'd reach out, running your fingertips over her cheeks, her forehead, before gently pressing them into her brow. "relax your face."

she'd blow air out of her nose as she did as she was told, bringing a hand up to cup your wrist.

then, you'd move to her eyelids, ring and index lightly swiping downwards. "close your eyes."

yours were already shut by this point; you were exhausted, but you didn't mind. "are they closed?"

"yeah."

"m'kay. now think about something good. something happy."

she'd hum in reply, taking a deep breath and turning onto her side away from you, allowing you to wrap your arms around her. you'd always languidly run your hand over her side before giving her forearm a squeeze, tangling your fingers through hers.

the hours after that had a tendency to be the best rest she got. although she hated waking you up in the middle of the night, she liked when you looked after her.

and when you told her to think of something good, it was always you.

[mschismosa]

sketch request: dahlia hawthorne x april may toxic yuri

I'll never say no to yuri!!!!!!!!!

This was SO funny thanks for the ask 🩷

[vividblaze]

Can you believe that I'm coming from drawing mostly anime/gacha husbandos to a hard pivot of whatever label this game falls under lol

[084392]

doodling hc designs for gti characters as they show up(in person) in my replay<3

[ricky-olson]

What? You do riddles for fun? No, I’m autistic. Solving The Hardest Riddles We Could Find | Smosh Mouth 82