#stepping into the light

[taechnological]

tae's tshirt in the live!! is it an old merch tshirt or is he just flexing his unreleased bts merch?

it's taehyung's mcdonalds doodle on his shirt !

[variousqueerthings]

I’ve nearly finished alan alda’s memoir (I’m dragging it out because I’m already feeling some kinda way), and once I have that’ll mark the third memoir I’ve read by an actor who started out in some kind of working class background, next to andy robinson and christopher eccleston

think something that’s interesting in all three of them, is that I find them to be some of the most affecting actors I’ve ever seen + all three were actors I first really saw at some big changing moment in my life, and so in my head I cannot help but think of them as (for lack of a better word) successful in what they do

and yet all three of these memoirs are -- amongst other things -- filled with frustration they had felt at several points in their lives that they weren’t “making it” in some way. and that’s not a disconnect from how I feel about their work (which, you know when an actor has a bunch of terrible movies and un-picked-up pilots that they’re not raking in the a-lister big bucks, and I tend to gravitate to those actors) so much as a context for where that work came from 

and it’s just a relief to read about. these people are rockstars in my head, because of the work they’ve put into their lives and art. their memoirs all feel like a celebration of that living (with all the things that also hurt), rather than a self-congratulatory pat on the back about what fantastic actors they may be. there’s a lot about connection in those books, and that’s just what comes from the living

as an artist, it’s something to think about. the art is important, sure, but the connection comes from the living

[ificouldflyhome369]

Love this. Good use of light

[kodasea]

Rendering step-by-step (2022)

[hyunpic]

240821 hynjinnnn instagram live

[koolaidashley]

Google says put him in a tank with plenty of enrichment

Ok… now what !?!?,? 😓😓😓😓

[vintagehomecollection]

Random steps. These steps are well proportioned, being neither too long nor too steep. The textured surface, retained by timber verticals, makes them safe in all weathers and additionally the flight is lit for night use. Vertical plant forms have been chosen to complement the horizontal lines of the steps.

The Garden Book, 1984

[mipexch]

been thinking about something wicked a little too much lately. no harm in romanticizing the ominous dreadful unstoppable force

[nezz-cringe-crib]

society is dumb draw anatomically incorrect yaoi.

if mia and light turner can make out during kira time then lawlight can too.

[taechnological]

Do i remember wrong or did you have a thread of spring day rising in charts every time a new song releases 🤣

if u ever feel like u have seen a thread of smth way too obnoxiously specific, pls feel free to believe that yes it was indeed me SHSJSKSK i have several such thread posts i'm the biggest fan of spring day rising from the dead each time bts male.a comeback

[numbuh424]

it's going to go exactly as written.

[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!

[iztea]

i think you're mistaken

[chasingrainbowsforever]

~ Black and Gray ~

[eighthwholove]

Regenerated.

[daily-dose-of-danno]

Season 1, Episode 6 - What You Want