#sad i wont get to watch my favorite videos or creators' stuff

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

farewell youtube... it was a Time...

[13uswntimagines]

I’m in Love With You Dumbass (Christen x reader)

Request: R are in love with Chris and she’s close with Chris and Tobin so she really think that she wont stand a chance. R is USWNTs videographer/content creator.

Authors Note: Special thanks to @literaryhedgehog​ cause without her this would probably still be trapped in my drafts. Also this turned into something a little silly and a little fluffy, and i really hope you enjoy it!

You blinked at your laptop, squinting as you processed the ten thousand pictures that you had taken during national team practice trying to decide which ones you wanted to put out for the fans. 

It was always a balancing act, giving them little glimpses at training and not giving your major secrets away, but you had mastered it over the years. 

You bit your lip as you swiped past several pictures of your best friend (who you totally didn’t have a crush on). The shot was perfect, well almost. Her green eyes were shining, and her dimples were showing. The only problem you had was that the smile was directed at one Tobin Heath instead of you. 

You were so focused on picking out a picture of Christen that you didn’t notice you were no longer alone in the dining hall. Hell, you didn’t notice anything until two hands landed on your shoulders. 

“Hey,” Emily yelled directly in your ear, you jolted in your seat, nearly falling as Emily and Lindsey cackled. 

You held your hand over your chest, fighting a smile of your own. You might not like being scared, but at least they were having a good time. 

“What are you two up to down here?” 

“Trying to fight the boredom of a lazy day. What are you up to?” Lindsey laughed, settling down into the seat beside you, and leaning over to look at the photos displayed on your laptop. 

“Just editing stuff for tomorrow’s release,” You shrugged, clicking so the photos advanced forward. 

“that last video has the fans going crazy,” Emily mumbled, leaning over the back of the chair to get a better view of the screen, and smirking when she saw a string of pictures focused on a certain forward. 

“Hmm, I’m glad, but it’s you guys who did all the work, I just shot the camera,” You hummed shaking your head. The women were so charismatic and funny that most of it took almost no artistry on your part. You just had to aim and capture. They were the ones giving you golden content. 

“Don’t sell yourself short, you edited like 15 hours of footage into 8 minutes,” Lindsey snorted, and you blushed just a little. Most people didn’t realize how much time a single clip took to put together, so it was kinda nice to have the acknowledgment. 

“But I have a question,” Emily said, her head popping over your shoulder as you began to edit one of the clips from today. It wasn’t anything spectacular, just Tobin threading a ball through for Christen. 

“Yeah Sonnett?” You asked, tilting your head, your tongue trapped between your teeth as you decided where to cut the clip into the one before it. 

“Why does Christen always get more screen time when she’s in those leggings?” 

You froze, the flush moving up your cheeks all the way to your ears. You weren’t that obvious, were you? She just looked so good in those pants, you really couldn’t help yourself. It was for the fans after all… 

“She doesn’t. I just pick the cool shots and stuff,” You grumbled, crossing your arms and slumping in your seat. 

Lindsey’s eyes softened. “If you ever wanna talk about it, you know where to find us,”. 

“There’s nothing to talk about. She’s my best friend and probably dating someone else anyway. I don’t stand a chance,” You mumbled, staring adamantly down at your twiddling fingers in your lap. 

You had known Christen since college, and you had had a crush on her for almost as long. Years ago you had been poised to make your move when one Tobin Heath entered the picture. She had all but swept Christen off her feet, and you knew you didn’t have a chance with the girl. Why would she want the shy camera girl when she could have one of the best players in the league. 

“Yeah, cause she totally doesn’t stare at you as much as you stare at her,” Emily snorted, patting your back. 

“I don’t stare…” You grumbled, pouting. 

“Whatever you say,” Lindsey cackled, a plan beginning to form. 

*****

Christen was not brooding. So she happened to be sitting in a corner, sipping on her beer watching you laugh with someone near the counter across the room from under her eyelashes. But that was not glowering, or even remotely stalkerish. Okay, but who WAS that that you were talking to, and why were they making you laugh so hard you almost choked on your drink?

“Hey Chris, nice view?” Tobin said, sliding into the seat next to Christen. 

“Peachy,” Christen said sarcastically, not looking away from where you were standing. Apparently, that girl you were talking to was interested in cameras, as you were currently showing her yours. Bitch.

“Hm, then why are you glaring at the nice rookie who is buying Y/n drinks?” 

“She’s a lightweight. If Sophia Smith buys her another one of those Long Island Iceteas then Y/n won’t be able to drive home,” Christen grumbled, sipping her beer. If Kelley could get you drunk with three margaritas, they were definitely in for it with the 3 long islands you had consumed. If only the rookie knew what a stupid move it was. 

“So she’ll order an uber.” Tobin shrugged with a smirk. Christen balked at the notion. You were a handful when drunk, and she wasn’t going to leave you alone in the hands of some poor college students. 

“Uber has unethical business practices.” She dismissed Tobin’s suggestion easily. 

“Maybe one of the Riveters will offer to take her then. Are you really going to sit here and pretend this has nothing to do with the fact that you’re head over heels for our favorite photographer?”

Christen rolled her eyes. There was no way in hell she was going to let you get in the car with one of your fans. No matter how supportive they were. 

“Maybe.” She pouted, crossing her arms. 

Tobin rolled her eyes at the reaction. God the two of you moved slower than Sloths. If you kept going at this rate you would be 70 by the time you finally got together. “So are you going to sit here and pout, or are you going to go get your girl?” 

“What if she doesn’t want me?”

“Trust me, she does,” Tobin snorted. Your crush was pretty obvious to anyone with eyes, as was Christen’s on you. The team had bets about how long it would take the two of you to grow the balls to ask each other out (and who would do the asking). 

Christen held Tobin’s eyes for a second. Then she set her drink down on the table and walked over to where you were standing with Smith. You turned to look at her, your eyes taking a second to refocus before you recognized her. 

“PRESSIE!” You screeched, then ducked down and whispered “sorry, too loud.”

“How many of these have you had?” Christen said, casually taking the glass from your hand. 

“Just two- you know that two-drink Y/n has problems with volume control!” You said, laughing at your Brooklyn 99 reference as you stole your drink back and took a big swig. “Don’t worry, I’ll switch to water next.”

“Right. So are you having fun talking to Sophie?” Christen said, not sure how to start the conversation. 

“Oh, sophies nice! Like she’s so funny. She pretended to be interested in photography so I could talk about it since I didn’t know any of the television shows she was talking about. Apparently, I need to watch she-ra or something, but I just don’t have time. And I already promised to watch that thing with you. You know that period drama thing. And you’re nicer. And really pretty. And you give really good cuddles. Even if you always like the villain characters in movies best, like a weirdo.”

“Just because I said Tom Hiddleston was hot one time-”

“It’s Okay, Pressie. I acknowledge that you have a terrible taste in men, you bi disaster you, and that’s okay. I love you anyway. Boop” and with that, you tapped her on the nose. 

Christen rolled her eyes, “Okay, let’s get you home before you profess the rest of your love for the team,” 

“Hmm, don’t love the rest of the team. Just love you, even if you love Tobin more,” You sighed, leaning your head on her shoulder. 

Christen tensed. “What?” She asked. Her and Tobin were strictly friends, and anyone with eyes knew she was hung up on you. 

“I wanna date you, but you’re dating tobito. That makes me sad. She scooped you up before i could profess my undying love, ” You pouted, scrunching your eyebrows together. You meant to tell her after Standford beat North Carolina so many years ago, but they had lost and she had gone to congratulate Tobin. 

Christen shook her head. “I’m in love with you dumbass, not Tobin,” 

You sat up and blinked owlishly at her, suddenly more sober than you had been 20 seconds ago. “You are?”

She rolled her eyes at you, kissing your nose lightly. She wasn’t about to argue with you about who she was in love with while you were drunk off your ass. She would investigate more later, profess her love when you were both sober, and make up for all your lost time “Alright, i think you’ve had enough. Let’s get you home hot stuff,”

[mettic]

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward, a personal retrospective.

jesus i put a lot of hours in this game. something finally managed to beat dota on my steam hours, maybe because people wont play dota with me anymore but thats a different issue.

You dont really realize how much you get into an mmo until you find one you really like. this is probably gonna be pretty long so im gonna put it under Read More.

How much experience did I have with MMOs pre FFXIV?

Basically nothing. I had done a trial of WoW during WOTLK but WOTLK was like 9 years ago man, I was like 12 at best

Part of my inspiration to start playing FFXIV was because Wildstar was drumming up some hype an I was on board because I could play as a cool robot. I was onboard with wildstar up until the open beta and then i played it and you dont have to be an MMO veteran to know what Wildstar was ass. I was actually SUPER salty about how bad Wildstar was and I think that dissapointment  made me say fuck  it and do the FFXIV trial.

While I like to say that i started playing FFXIV during 3.0 thats a lie. According to these oldest screenshot i started to play around 2.3. I actually did hit 50  and get to the end of the 2.0 MSQ but i didnt do much later and I think life started to catch up to me so I unsubbed. I wasnt even on Hyperion originally, I was Adamontoise! 

3.0, Heavensward

Cant exactly remind myself as to why I started playing again. Old screenshots state that I started playing again around october 2015, a few months into 3.0. I had time available to me again, I think Carlego had decided to try the trial and Vitamin had offered to do stuff iwth me if I went on hyperion so I said fuck it and dropped the bucks for HW and a server transfer and started playing catchup.

its not really worth talking about the leveling experience but I’d like to say taht i actualyl really enjoy questing and leveling in MMOs. Some people hate it but I love this shit, even if at heart its just a huge time sink. Probably the thing I’m most excitied about in Stormblood is to do questing again. maybe I’m a loser?

3.0 was also my first experience in doing  content that you actually have to try to clear, in Bismark EX and Ravana EX.  I dont have much memory of Bismark, we were already pretty overgeared for him by the time I got there, and I swear it only took me atleast one look out to learn and kil lit. maybe. It was like two years ago.

Ravana I had put much more time into, started setting up nights and shit for it. I sorta wish I had footage of me doing ravana because im sure i’d be furious at myself for how bad I was probably playing, but hey I cleared it so whatever. It was an accomplisment, I felt good!

next primal, not so much.

3.1, As Goes Light, So Goes Darkness

I have a theory, and it’s that if you are a person who does end game bosses in the more modern MMO settting, there’s gonna be a fight  early in your “career” that humbles you and forces you to actually really fucking try in future fights. For me that was Thordan EX. Thordan was humbling. 

For reference I did not clear Thordan during 3.1, and its still frustrating to me. There were a lot of reasons for that, we had some frustrating people in the group I did it with, I was pretty bad, Thordan Divebombs were racist agaisnt roes

man i get salty watching this video cuz i was standing on the exact same spot as some other people and get hit but the NIN who gets clipped by the particle  effects didnt. racist.

Thordan forced me to start actually really consider my cooldown usage  in the context of the fight, and all that SHIT.  I still consider Thordan easily the hardest of 3.X primals but I’m not sure if thats just me being bias enough. I got my clear after the fact but it was never the same.

If it wasn’t obvious, I did NOT do Gordias prog at all during 3.0-3.1. Gordias was a meme and I didnt beat Thordan during tis patch, gordias was NOT happening.

3.2, The Gears of Change

Sephriot was also an infuriating fight but for different reasons from Thordan. I was probably the last of the people in my static to get my Seph EX clear because we didnt do seph as much as a group and did a lot of PFing. I play WAR btw and this fight was an absolute nightmare as an OT because OT is easiest role in the fight but the fight had a kinda infamous DPS check so even though I have had this dumb fight down on the back of my hand and can probably still explain it piece by piece off memory to people, I had to pray to god that my PF dpses didn’t die and lose us the fight because lol sephirot.

my sephirot clear was PEAK Mettic Yelling

what a nightmare.

However, as you noticed if you kept watchign the video, I also started doing Midas Progression! Midas prog would be my first e xperience in doing raid progression and what a dream. But I’ll discuss hat more in the 3.3

3.3, Revenge of the Horde

Before I start talking about Midas, I’ll talk about Nidhogg EX. Nid is probably my favorite of the 3.x primals, I think that fight is super fun, especially as a OT as its a very OT involved fight. Fuck the Geirskyol tethers tho that shit was BS sometimes.

Anyways, Midas.  My midas progession at heart was awful. Over the course of two patches worth of our best attempts at consistent two days 3 hours each a week of raiding,  we only cleared A5S and A6S, the later we only cleared two or three times. A couple reasons, one of the biggest was probably that we lost close to one-two months worth of progression due to various reasons of people not being able to make it, and we lost tons of time inside the actual fight due to every reason I could possibly think of, from random 5 minute long DCs to someone thinking that someone’s trying to break into their house. IMO if we didnt miss that huge amount of time, we probably could’ve cleared atleast A7s, because our A7S prog when we got to actually do it was pretty good (I wanna say that we managed to atleast hit second set of cages over the course of our fight dedicated a7s night.) But then someone left and we had to start teaching someone A5S and A6S and we were clowns and didnt get far.

Midas was a nightmare. And also probably the most fun i’ve ever had in this game. The memes were out of this fuckign world.

and so many more were lost to time. Still sad that  we didnt record the time that we fugged a blaster tankswap that we used to vitamin would open on  brawler without 10 trillion magic vuln stacks that ended up with me yelling “NO WAIT” 0.1 second before he gets one shotted by the brawl autoattack. good times. Prog was ass but the memories will never be forgotten.

3.4, Soul Surrender

Won’t talk too much about Sophia. I really do not have much of a memory of the fight. It was a fight that gave me very little trouble in getting clear, probably second only to Bismark in clear difficulty. It’s a pretty good fight, but I got my clear and farmed it painlessly so whatever. 

Creator had a change in my static’s mindset because while Im sure everyone had a lot of fun in Midas, the lack of actual good prog was pretty fucking disappointing, and we had a lot of high hopes for our creator prog because A12S got killed on the second day of the patch, so everyone knew that Creator was easier than Midas.

AC still holds the title of Free Company That Does Everything  Everyone Else Does But Slower And Worst. We got A9S down on our second raid nigth, which  was kinda dooming cuz most groups had that fight down on day 1 but WHATEVER we got it at like 10%.

My screenshots and tumblr posts say that we took down A10s like a week later but it sure as hell didn’t feel like that. I think it was one of those things where we got the clear but didn’t stop clowning it afterwords, and we’d spend like an hour on raid night on getting a10 down before we could get back to progging A11S. 

My screencaps show that we got A11 during early December, so about two months after a10s clear.  These numbers are kinda depressing to write out, but shit hey we got it before 3.5. I remember that those winter months became a pretty big issue for people having to miss weeks, and we had a lot of weeks where we only got out a9/a10 weekly clears cuz people couldn’t stay for a11 and that kinda stuff. This would actually still be an issue into 3.5, if not get worst.

3.5, the far edge of fate

For EXs, I absolutely hate Zurvan. Probably my least favorite fight of 3.5, and I’m sure a lot of people sahre that sentiment.  The fight itself in of itself would already be one of my least favorites in a vacuum because I think think its annoying and the fire and ice tethers is a bad mechanic for a EX, which is designed to be done by PF groups with no voice communcation, but more importantly the community lost its mind on this fight because of that fucking tweet of good players beating zurvan a few hours after 3.5′s launch saying that it was easier than dun scaith. I gotta say really good palyers gotta stop saying shit is easy because it fucks up the PF scene with people having absurd expectations. Skipping Soar becoming common knowledge also helping fuck up the PF scene because peopel would do fucking anything to skip soar. 1-2-5 parties are the expectation for zurvans still, and lots of people even run 1-1-6 because GOTTA SKIP SOAR. not that I can blame them, soar was realyl dumb. Also people using Tank LB2 for second late phase soar is so silly. I do like that it was a fight that didnt require the standard 2-2-4 set up tho. 

It was easier than seph/thor and I think Ravana to get a clear but harder than Soph/Bis to get a clear. Annoying fight, Annoying scene, and Infinity is a wack song dont lie to yourself.

Anyways Creator. To make it quick we did NOT clear A12S before echo, but imo give me like 1-2 more weeks I think we coulda got it. But at the same time it felt like I was saying “we get it next week” for like two-three weeks. A12S was the fight that made me feel like I should’ve been more proactive in helping raid members learn mechanics outside of raid night, something I’ll think about going into Stormblood.  We did however end up clearing it, but we cleared it at the start of april. That’s like a 4 month time inbetween A11S down and A12S down, which is pretty depressing. But in oru defence it was our most awkward season for missing days, and like midas we’ve probably lost like 1-2 monthsf worth of raid nights, and who knows how many “no a12s prog only a9-a11″ nights, and more importantly two of our regulars couldn’t run anymore and we had to find replacements from outside our group of friends. But thats just excuses, and TBH this fight gave a lot of people awkward issues, i’d say taht I know how to do this fight as OT off the top of my hand but apparently I fucked up first time stop positioning last night so idk.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t amped on actually clearing a raid tier, but getting it on echo it pretty disappointing. Creator to me was also never really as fun as midas even though our prog was much better, the memes weren’t there. But shit I as a player learned a lot from this, especially on optimization DPS in the context of individual fights

still too lazy to use pots tho.

FOR STORMBLOOD

My biggest personal goal for stormblood is to clear an omega tier before echo. I’ll be happy iwth myself if I can get that, and I want to be more proactive in helping raid members learn mechanics because mechanics is and what has always held my group back.

What I’m playing in stormblood is kinda up in the air tbh.  I really want to play Samurai because MY WEBBRAND but I also wonder if its worth it,  because I played almost exclusively WAR for EX and Raids in HW, so all my raiding experiene is on tank. Even on EXs I probably went as my sub class, BRD, less than 10 times over the course of HW. I’m gonna try to level all the melees going into stormblood to get melee practice and start taking my melee 60s to casual 60 content for more practice.  Tho I tell my raid members that I’m going SAM to Omega I’m not 100% against going WAR for the sake of getting a pre-echo clear. Plus none of these fuckign kids play war they just wanna play DRK/PLD. casuals.

get hyped for Omega!

anyways the important shit:  HW glamour.

3.0 glamour

Absolutely ador this set actually? It’s straight up vendor gear but it rules, and there isn’t a lot of good heavy armor set in this game.

The blue color is because its based on my favorite leveling set, the heavy iron set, and for reasosn I do not remember I dyed them all this color of blue. I think it’s a good blue!

3.1, The Behemoth King

A set inspired by old METTIC.TUMBLR.COM followers would recongize, it s bsaed on my favorite dark souls character I made, the Boar King, Which was the giants set with the iron boar helm. it ruled. I attempted to recreate it for FFXIV, and was the most effort I put into glamour because I sat for like 5 hours waiting for Behemoth for the helm. The gold was gaudy btu I love the gaudy. I also switche chest pieces during the patch cuz I was never really sastified.  I think I like the first one more if I ahd found better leg pieces instead of ones that show my fucking underwear. Might bring this back, I love the behemoth helm.

3.3

Probably my least favorite? I  designed it aroudn the chest that I saw the cape chest piece and really wanted to use it. The black and blue undyeable colors of the chest always put me off tho and I never found something that  really made it what I want. Good chest piece tho

3.4-most of 3.5

honestly my favorite leveling set in the game. I think this set fucking rules. SOmething about it just clicks with me. Also makes cutscenes really funny because you cant move your head with it on. 

I actualyl kept this unti llike last week, even through most of 3.5. I only changed it when i got the A12S axe cuz that one is cool

and I just painted it fucking red lmao. Kinda miss the blue but I’ll use this for a while. I’ll honestly probably be using this into 4.0 in some way unless some real dope shit comes out.

BARD 3-1 +

i leveld my bard and got this glamour in 3.1 and I dont think I’ve change it since. I like this set a lot, plus BRDs dont get a lot of full face helmets. Ive changed the weapon a lot tho, used the pruple ironworks for a while cuz i like it but i never really fit the aesthetic. Used the Lore bow  for a long time, and im currently using a purple a12s bow. Dont be surpried if im still using this in 4.0

see yall in stormblood!