#zoraal ja x wol

[mrlarkstin]

Is this a safe space?

Post bad end AU DT edition.

"remember...you belong to me now"

Haha, what if...Zoraal Ja won?

[fourteentheart]

Zoraal Ja and Eirika for @dandylatte here and on birdsite!

This is the first from the batch of experimental comms I'm working on for the foreseeable future. 😊 I asked to experiment with more non-tender vibes and the submissions did not disappoint lol

[galvus]

Adoration. ☀️

[iron-sparrow]

"I FUCKED YOUR DAD, SHITLIPS!"

Inspired by this meme and my friends.

[wildheartffxiv]

His Faithful Servant

[freckledbastard]

there are currently 0 gulool ja ja, zoraal ja or bakool ja ja x wol fics on ao3 atm......

(is it gonna have to be me. do i need to be the change i wish to see in this world)

[verrottweil]

what's your favorite dawntrail rarepair? npc/npc or wol/npc doesn't matter.

anyway mine's zoraal ja x taapu aka the blind viera in heritage found lmao

[radigalde]

Saw a mention, and couldn't stop thinking about it ever since: Dawntrail really looks like two expansions badly mushed together. Even with post-story patches.

The first one is the expansion we were promised: low stakes, search for the Golden City, watch the Dawnservant contest, eat tacos, etc. - the content of 90-95 MSQ basically. And then it ends with a new Dawnservant, a big celebration cutscene, and a hook for the next part in the form of the Golden City gate which is still locked.

Then we have interim 7.x quests with WoL traveling with Erenville, while in the background the plot with the gates starts to unfold. Then we have that final stinger with Alexandria's invasion. Even with a place for a dungeon with a run through burning Tuliyollal, kind of like The Ghimlyt Dark or Paglth'an.

And then the next expansion: Alexandria and all its problems in the supposed 8.0.

But it all was thrown together and became 7.0.

In a similar situation with Endwolker (which was confirmed to be several expansions combined), the problem with the resulting pacing was in the separate parts being rushed, as they didn't have enough screen time to show everything planned. But in Dawntrail it feels like the writers struggled to stretch their idea of each half for 5 levels of MSQ content, not to mention the entire expansion. So, on release, we have tons of forced padding, endless (pun not intended) repetition, main characters being horribly underdeveloped, major events and story points being glossed over, old conflicts being resolved in an instant in 3+ saturday morning cartoon fashion, and tons of other issues. As if the plans for MSQ were in the form of a draft under ~300 words, and somehow this draft ended up being the final script, without any further developments. Oopsie.

On top of these problems, the writers seemingly tried to rely heavily on the successful elements of the previous expansions and cram as many of them as possible into the plot, without sparing a single thought. And flopped in that as well. Like, hey, fellow players, you liked Zenos? Here, have a dollar store version of Zenos in the form of Zoraal Ja, we even did his arc dirty as well. Did you like Emet-Selch and the reveal of the recreated Amaurot? Here, we present you Sphene and the Living Memory, could you pls not bat an eye on the crucial details. Did you like the dungeon Amaurot and the Dead Ends? Hoo, boy, we have the story-within-a-story-walk-the-memory last dungeon just for you, even if it really wasn't needed at this point.

[jossambird]

I think I might fuck around and write a Zoraal Ja x Wol time loop fic where with each loop, we see what’s happening and reach out to him. The ‘Can I fix him’ type of fic 🤔

[tsunael]

What was their initial impression of Sphene? How did this change as the story progressed?

Dawntrail OC Questions | accepting!

Somehow you managed to ask the exact same one as @/aethergazing so I'll be answering a random one!

17. The theme of family and legacy is repeated throughout Dawntrail— did this theme resonate with your character? Were there specific moments relating to family that impacted them?

Obvious Dawntrail spoilers below.

It did, and I'm really happy about it, honestly. As much as I, personally, didn't enjoy DT I think the themes fit her very well.

If I were to think of her as canon, Stormblood really began her arc.

This expac brings back the proverbial ghost of her mother as she travels to her ancestral home. This begins her journey of understanding where she came from, and confronting her past. We would learn about what she was doing before ARR--and what had her running to Eorzea to begin with.

Shadowbringers continues where Heavensward leaves off. Her personal feelings are brought to the forefront when she is forced to contend with her own mortality. She still hasn't learned to stop running as she nearly takes Emet's offer.

Endwalker forces her to stop running and face what she fears most. The world is now so much bigger than she could have ever imagined and there is more at stake than just her homeland. Her past comes up again when she runs into her father, and when she finds her mother in the Aitiascope. This is where she can say her farewells.

6.x is about her healing: mentally, physically. She wants to run away from it all again and almost commits suicide because of it. So, she quits being a Scion and they are disbanded. She resolves to live for herself for a time.

(Don't ask me if the void quests are canon for her I haven't decided lmao).

So, for Dawntrail's theme to be legacy and family... it ended up being amazing for her story on paper. It definitely made her reflect on the recent past.

As for moments that resonated with her... Zoraal Ja's misplaced hatred for his father certainly, and Wuk Lamat and Koana watching on as their father passed would have opened wounds that have yet to close for her. As an aside: I haven't decided if I'll kill her father (Kartal) off yet but Tsuna also held him in her arms as he was near-death, so it would have been a mirroring-- especially if Wuk Lamat is meant to mirror the wol's (or Azem's?) journey.

Tsuna has extreme daddy issues is what I'm trying to get at here.

Any others were inside Living Memory. The entire concept would have left her inconsolable, if not extremely anxious and uncomfortable. Certainly not the strange, morbid joy ride the game made it out to be.

Cachiua and Erenville having one last moment together probably gave her a lot to chew on. Like a misplaced jealousy or an envy, but also a deep empathy.

What Tsuna leaves with... and the message she learns having gone through it all though...? I still gotta think about that :T

[sigmundite]

my thoughts on dawntrail (SPOILERS)

FFXIV twitter has decided the spoiler embargo for DT is mostly over. While I'd like to share my thoughts about the expac there, I figured it was all too much for a tweet thread (and I was right). Decided to post it here because it's a blogging platform and I keep telling myself I want to come back one of these days.

To put it simply: Dawntrail is fine.

I love power of love/friendship storylines so the fact we got a shounen protagonist in Wuk Lamat was something I enjoyed. Shounen stuff tends to be dragged out too long for my tastes so I haven't dabbled in any of those fandoms, so I don't know if people hate modern shounen heroes with as much vitriol. I think I'd have seen it if they did? But the Wuk Lamat hate is a classic case of misogyny with a transphobia multiplier because gamers sure do enjoy stat boosts.

DT is the ARR of whatever the new direction of FFXIV is. It became clear to me during this MSQ that this is a commitment to a new beginning - specifically in the sense of 6.1 as a fresh starting point for new players. I understand and respect their desire to simplify new player onboarding (especially as someone with too many alts) but it's also the center of the pain point I have with 6.x and DT so far.

I'm frustrated with the direction of FFXIV in its current state. The Hydaelyn/Zodiark arc took one main story and built upon it over multiple chapters. I loved that arc and have varying levels of fondness for the characters and places that got us through it. I am the CEO of #FREEAYMERIC and will continue to be a pest about that as long as I play the game*. Aymeric was always a favorite of mine, and I've never forgotten his wish to go on an adventure with WoL someday. I want to take him up on that!

But DT follows SHB's example of planting WoL and the Scions in a brand new setting, far away from Eorzea and all its creature comforts. Norvrandt was still reminiscent of Eorzea, but beyond that focused on characters specific to its region and story. It made more sense then, considering it takes place on a different shard and overlap was damn near impossible. 6.x and DT are still on Etheirys, but are so self-contained that they'd rather avoid referencing old content if they can avoid it. I hated this in 6.x and I still hate it now. There's an entire world full of characters, places, and possibilities left to discover and expand on, but new expansion packs seem to be heading in the direction of dropping all that and focusing on a new set of toys. Tural will probably be done and dusted in 8.0, aside from a bit of side content here and there regardless of the response to it. Hell, SHB is so sacred to the fandom and yet we only went back for a bit of patch story and crafting relic quests during EW's entire run!

This sort of "okay, next" manner of storytelling is only one side of my issue. On the flip side is how eagerly they seem to want to retread certain tropes that worked in past expacs. So many people have commented on this being the fourth final dungeon in a row that shows the end of a society and how that feels so much more hollow now. Running Amaurot for the first time was a masterpiece of storytelling because it made the end of the fucking world more tangible. I hate running that dungeon because to me it feels like a panic attack, but I respect what it does. The Dead Ends was similar but didn't hit the same way (and tbh its payoff is mostly backloaded). Alexandria pulling the same thing stole all of the feeling from it. Like oh okay, we're doing this again.

It's not the only part of DT that retreads old ground. We have yet another scene where everyone comes together to overcome a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, and the only thing I found noteworthy about that is that it had shards of characters who had helped us do the same thing in SHB outside of the dreary context of Norvrandt. Zoraal Ja, one of the main antagonists, is comprised of retreads of other story arcs done better (including one in this very expac!). He's like Zenos Lite - a royal heir with violent intentions made into the perfect weapon of his homeland - but he's missing all of the things that made Zenos interesting and the screen time needed to flesh him out. The circumstances of Zoraal Ja's birth weigh heavily upon him, but Bakool Ja Ja covered that territory in one of the strongest parts of the MSQ. Zoraal Ja is such an afterthought that bringing him into the shared Dawnservant title isn't even considered. WTF.

TL;DR: This all comes down to FFXIV being torn between retreading well-tread story beats that have worked for them in the past while at the same time, willingly discarding almost everything you've come to love over the past several hundred hours of gameplay. They're trying to recreate their past successes by using shiny new pieces in frameworks that have worked for them in the past, and that rings hollow to me. My love for the old pieces overshadows my impressions of the new ones, but the structural similarity is so blatant that comparison is inevitable. As time goes on, the comparisons are less and less in DT's favor for me, but that doesn't mean it's bad. It succeeded in what it set out to do: expand FFXIV.

It's fine, but if FFXIV is a choice between familiar storytelling and familiar story elements, I'd rather they keep developing the friends we've already made along the way.

*Which may not be long, given the lighting issues introduced by the graphical update and the fact that doing certain things in game trigger IRL migraines for me. Still no official acknowledgment of that yet. The graphics update is the biggest step forward in DTm and yet its existence and problematic state make me play the game less. I hate it but efforts to get the devs to notice have been unsuccessful.

If you made it this far, please perceive my catgirl:

[mrlarkstin]

<.< >.>

Zoraal Ja and Jazu below the cut

Toxic relationship below cut!

"You know I do this for you...To keep you alive, without me you'd have perished long ago"

[singing-swan]

Aaaaand Dawntrail done!!

Overall I had a really good time with it! It isn't my favourite expansion but I went in with very little expectations beyond hoping for a lighter expac to have fun with, and that's what I got so I'm satisfied. I think they've also left a lot of interesting threads hanging that could be picked up later (like what's up with that key!!) so I'm excited to see what they do with them. It definitely felt like this expac was a new beginning setting the stage for more.

My favourite thing was definitely how strong the themes were and how perfectly they evolved with the flow of the story. From learning about cultures to learning about their people, to learning about people as individuals and that to know someone, you also have to accept to be known. And only through knowing and being known can you remember and be remembered in turn. How those we remember are an important part of ourselves and we are an important part of others, too.

I really enjoyed the new characters and new places too, the new zones were gorgeous! Though I have to say I enjoyed the first part a bit more as I liked the fun, low stakes adventures and I think that's the part that let the new characters shine best, Wuk Lamat in particular. It was really nice to see her grow through the rite, and I thought she was very loveable with a strong, if a bit cliché, character arc. They set the wol as her mentor, and I definitely felt proud seeing her use what she learned from her experiences during the second part. We basically helped train the new main character of Tural and that was just really fun hahaha

I do have two main gripes with the writing unfortunately, but I'll put them under a cut so people don't have to see negativity if they don't want to.

The main problem I had was the whole Heritage Found + Solution Nine section, or rather the Sphene parts of it. Those parts felt incredibly repetitive and slowed down the pacing enormously. I started feeling frustrated as it felt like I was seeing the same conversation over and over, when it served no other purpose than to tell us how much Sphene loves her subjects and how much they love her, again and again and again.... It was starting to feel tedious after a while. The pacing picked up again once you defeat Zoraal Ja and discover the Living Memory and she became more engaging once she was fully revealed as a villain, but that part definitely hurt how much I enjoyed her as an antagonist. I think she's full of interesting ideas but to me the execution relied a bit too much on telling rather than showing.

The second gripe is one I also had with 6.x, and it's the feeling that the writers weren't always sure what to do with the returning characters. It wasn't as bad as 6.x (especially as they were meant to take a backseat in this one) and we had some nice moments with them, but I definitely got the impression at times the writers are new to writing with such a big cast, with a tendency to overfocus on their own characters to make up for it, namely Zero in 6.x and Wuk Lamat in DT. And while they're both well written, I don't know if any character is well written enough to handle this amount of spotlight put on them if that makes sense? I have friends who thought she was too present and I understand where they're coming from. In the first part the focus on her was normal but in the second part I feel it'd have been nice to have the screentime shared a bit more, especially for Krile who didn't get enough of it imo. The last zone was a better on that front but it's a bit sad we had to wait until then.

Okay, complaining over now. Despite everything it didn't affect too much my enjoyment of the expac as a whole and I came out of it feeling mainly satisfied. Like I said, all I wanted from it was to have a fun time and I absolutely got that. I can't wait to see more of Tural and I'm excited to see where they take the story next, especially since it seems like shard travel will be a big focus and I'm very intrigued 👀

[kiloude-city]

I need to tell you your Who Laid Zoraal Ja came up in the tag above three separate WoL x ZJ ships, soooo... xD

[mrlarkstin]

Even in your dreams, he won't look at you...

[mrlarkstin]

Zoraal Ja x OC

Toxic relationship below the cut

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