#solo appearance

[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!

[marinamar4]

i think the most unreal thing about the sequel trilogy isn't anything about rey… it's the fact that ben didn't know his grandfather

and i don't mean the fact that he was vader, but that, having proven the existence of force ghosts, i'm 100% sure that anakin would have done the impossible to keep an eye on his only grandson

(and cry to obi-wan for being so good to leia that he even named his son ben. obi-wan keeps an eye on him too, but less, he's dealt with enough skywalkers in life to continue stressing out in death, even if baby ben doesn't do any crazy maneuvers yet)

(i imagine him flying toys and spaceships over baby ben to make him fall asleep, and when he grows up, teaching him mechanics and how to deal with r2-d2 and c3-po)

(leia wouldn't be too happy about that, but hey, she's a free babysitter and she knows how to deal with a sensitive little one. the force. anyway, if anyone can figure out how to shoot a ghost with a blaster, it’s her)

(luke has played mediator more times than he can count between father and sister)

so when snoke starts whispering to ben, well, the kid doesn’t pay much attention. he’s heard enough stories about the dark side from his grandfather anakin and his grandfather obi-wan to believe him blindly

and then the darth vader reveal happens. and the first thing ben does is not demand answers as to why he wasn’t told sooner, but laugh. because he finds it funny that one of the most feared creatures in history is the same one who disappears when his mother gives him a dirty look, who looks like a scolded puppy when his friend tells him something, who runs away from a green goblin so he doesn't hit him with a cane, and seriously, why doesn't anyone believe ben when he says he's seen darth vader's ghost cry during sad moments in romantic holo-movies?

and when snoke insists that his grandfather would want ben to continue his "legacy" of oppression, ben dismisses him and says "yeah, no. all my grandfather wants is for me to continue flying spaceships and fixing droids. oh, and also, the only thing he agrees with my mother on is that I should get a good girlfriend, marry her, and have lots of babies. for something they both agree on, i'm not going to ignore that!

[atlantis-area]

TAEMIN Guilty (Behind the Scenes)

[umbrellajam]

y'know what let's do it. have Jack Drake accused of murdering Janet for a different flavor of drama and whump

he was in a coma and then wheelchair-bound for weeks/months after the incident you say? he was FAKING, it was all arranged, a ploy to appear helpless and sympathetic, how else could he have woken up and recovered so smoothly from the same poison that killed his wife

new evidence is produced of a suspicious payment trail from before the hijacking, leading from Jack's DI funds to accounts that appear connected to the Haitian cult/cartel responsible for the Drakes' kidnapping and Janet's tragic demise

the widow of the Drakes' personal secretary, Jeremy Whatzizlastname, and other employees all come forward and wag their tongues about the alarming frequency and escalation of the fights between the deceased and her aggressive, belligerent husband in the lead-up to that final fateful trip - how they were openly arguing about divorce

mysteriously, this relentless mud-slinging media blitz only begins after Drake Industries starts to go downhill and CEO Phil Marin comes under investigation for embezzlement/insider trading...

since it's post-NML the scandal blows up even further. the press hounds young Tim Drake, the iconic NML Kid known to all as the face of re-opening Gotham after the quake. muckrakers gleefully tear apart the recent image of a desperate, loving father who was broadcast on national television putting all his resources and influence toward bringing his lost son home

...actually. doesn't Drake Industries going broke happen right in the middle of Bruce Wayne: Murderer? (checks notes) aha, Robin #100 so lmfao yes, it does.

GOOD EXCELLENT PERFECT, Tim's father figures can both be accused of murder simultaneously 😈 and then the Bats have to divide their efforts and resources between exonerating Robin's dad and attempting to clear the civilian name of an infuriatingly uncooperative Batman…

[lycheelovescomics]

This fella... does he take you dancing?

Ororo + dance

[dailydamnation]

Oh, all right, then! Mark Brooks just posted the entire series of Animated-Style Variants himself, that works too!

I want it. And I want it now.

[virtchandmoir]

Photos: SpecialOCanada

[casscainmainly]

Hi! ✨ I was wondering what you thought about Duke's part in the latest episode of WFA?

Hi!! So I was very optimistic given last week's We Are Robin intro, and my hopes aren't dashed or anything. (I don't have FastPass btw so I'm talking about the latest free one!). Duke was fine here, him pushing back against Damian is maybe the first time he's stood against anyone in WFA so it's definitely an improvement! The conflict fuels Damian's character, though, not Duke's, which is still disappointing.

Obviously in canon neither Duke nor Damian would've been so nice in their argument, but WFA is a universe where every emotion is halved so I'm not mad about that. I am a bit wary about Damian vs. We Are Robin kids, and the rhetoric about 'field training' and 'field readiness'; firstly, this is a watered down version of what we already got in Robin War, and secondly it shows a misunderstanding of what We Are Robin is. Having Damian beat up Riko and Dax, even if he's called out for it, just kinda fuels the image that We Are Robin aren't 'real' Robins and need proper Bat training. Idk this was an issue in Robin War too, but the point of We Are Robin is that they're not trained like Bats! They're something separate, and that is their strength!!

I just think a WAR + Damian story could be so good if you treated both sides as equals. They both challenge each other' ideas about Robin; Damian has relationships with both Duke and Izzy; in fact, a story about Duke's loyalty between Damian and WAR would be so intriguing! This episode uses Duke + WAR more or less as a prop for Damian, so it isn't the best, but hopefully it's just a temporary thing and we actually get WAR/Duke spotlight next.

Anyway I will stay tuned in as long as We Are Robin are here so I'm hopeful they'll have bigger character/story moments later!! This is just the second ep they've been in so we'll see. For Duke, the major things WFA has left to fix are: 1) his personality (we still need way less 'timid'/normal Duke); 2) mention his parents more!! 'i don't talk about my parents much' are you kidding; 3) differentiate his relationships a little more. He should not interact with Cass and Dick in the same way! But this is kinda a WFA problem across the board rather than a Duke-specific one. Curious to hear other Duke fans' thoughts!

[moltenhair]

that one time where they increased the frames and gave Jervis the best animated moment in the entire episode 👌🥹

[minjeongie]

SUMIN ☆ STAYC(스테이씨) 'Cheeky Icy Thang' MV.

[padmestrilogy]

really the mandalorian season 3 did not do half as well as it needed to justify making season 4 into a whole lore-dependent movie with a big theatrical release, and asking people to go to the theater is an entirely different commitment than asking them to watch your 45min slop over breakfast, but i’m gonna let lucasfilm realize that on their own time 👍

[namtanlovesfilm]

[atlantis-area]

TAEMIN - The 1st Stage Nippon Budokan GIFSETS ~ behind the scenes

[elevant39]

They callled him the Demon lord.

Here I am once again with my crochets, but this time I bring some other pics with Cipher and his buddy.

Pixy: When we face each other we can finally see our true selfs. Cipher:

[radioactive-earthshine]

It really is amazing how little of Bart's actual history is known of by even well read comic enjoyers; because while Bart is in a lot of comics outside of his own - much of what makes him him and events that are important to his own placement in the world are not really touched on in other comics like Young Justice.

You can read Young Justice in its entirety and not a whole lot about Bart's core character beyond his surface level personality (and some have argued it is ooc) is revealed with exception to one special where Carol guest stars in, the Sins of Youth Special, and his conversation with Cissie concerning Max.

This of course is true for basically everyone when they are in team-up books, but I find the depth and range of knowledge of Bart (and Kon too) to be strikingly not well known among fans of Young Justice, even those that love Bart and it is easy to love him when he guest stars in other comics.

It just reminds me of the ever popular iceberg meme.

What inspired this is casual conversations with Young Justice comic fans and discussing Bart as a character where some pretty basic things were unknown of. "What is he anyway? Where does he live? Is he an orphan or what? Who is Max?"

It's a delight to open the door for fans that have not read his series and I always get a little joy when the shock settles in that Bart does in fact live in Alabama during the Young Justice days, and is also technically an orphan and in a foster care/legal guardianship situation.

[burstbub]

They knew they could die at any given moment and they chose to go out SERVING