meowww-ffxiv - Tumblr blog

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No particular reason why he's asking

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Know our places, for worth is wordless

Evanescent, this writing on the wall

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thought about relaxed viera ears becoming completely floppy..

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Summoner mains, what do you think we can add to our arsenal for level 100?

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ok so like. imagine. you're a high-ranking government official and one of your colleagues has announced his decision to step down and retire, and named his successor, so you and your coworker-bestie-husband(™️) go on an official administrative business trip to go meet said guy. and then you arrive and you find A Cat in the bushes outside the office. it's in poor shape but its microchip says it actually belongs to your other colleague-and-friend. you are bullied into taking the cat to the vet AND letting it tag along despite your protests. and you finally find the guy you were supposed to meet and the cat is like. staying in the room. where you are supposed to conduct aforementioned highly confidential job interview. and you try to shoo it away but the guy you're trying to interview is like No i want the cat to be there. Because i'm nervous. About the job interview. Let the cat stay. I trust him because my pet bird loves him :). so the cat gets to stay. and then you keep going and you bump into yet another old acquaintance of yours (now retired and living her best hippie life) (which is highly frowned upon) and she goes Oooooh! Is that my cat you've found? :) and you're like, what the fuck is the deal with this goddamn cat, but you can't say that outright because you are a government official on a very important mission, so you go "i wasn't aware you even had a cat? also the microchip says it belongs to our other colleague" and she goes "oh well no i don't but clearly this cat is wearing the collar i give to all my pets so it must mean he's come from the future :) where i will own this specific cat :) hi little kitty! pspspsp!" and you're like, what the fuck is wrong with everyone today? and then the cat looks at you and says "she's right. i come from the future. when everyone has been turned into cats since the world ended. also i will kill you in about twelve thousand years from now. fucker."

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Industrious Meow.

He's been trying to make sure everything left behind will be OK once he and Theodore leave for Tural.

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The Yo-kai Watch event is upon us!

Tip for early in the event while there are 50 people in the area all killing fates: if you swap to tank and use your ranged attack, you'll be building increased enmity for fate credit while doing less damage, meaning more people will get to participate before it dies!

Also, if you're on blue mage instakilling fates in low level areas during this time period, when lots of people want to participate in the event and fates are dying within moments, I don't respect you at all and you will not see Hydaelyn's light!

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ahhh slkdjfs drew this bc of this bunny video

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One thing that really gets me about Urianger comforting Minfilia in Amh Araeng is that when she says Thancred hates her, Urianger never actually says, no, he doesn't. He says instead, none of this is your fault, and the original Minfilia wouldn't hold anything against you, and in typical Urianger form he says some things about fate and faith, and his words are kind and beautiful--but he also completely sidesteps the question of how Thancred feels about her.

And I think this moment is very reflective of Urianger's relationship to Thancred and child!Minfilia as a whole. It reflects what we see when we first see all of them together in Il Mheg.

Urianger knows that the way Thancred behaves toward the girl is hurting her. He's spent enough time around the two of them to see that plainly. Theoretically, he could say something to Thancred about it; they're obviously close friends, and if Thancred was going to value anyone's opinion, it would be his. But he doesn't say anything, because he still feels guilty and responsible for all of it: about their Minfilia going to the First and what happened to her there, and thus for what both Thancred and child!Minfilia are going through now. Even though Thancred has never outright blamed him for it (however he may feel privately, which I think is hard to say), it seems like Urianger still feels like he has no right to say anything.

So he tries to compensate instead. He's kind to Minfilia, connects with her in his own way and gives her books, and by the time we see them together he's obviously become something of a familial figure to her. I would say that he and Thancred aren't so much raising her together as they're doing it... around one another. Thancred is gruff and cold and holds Minfilia at arm's length emotionally so that his protectiveness comes off harshly even when it's well-meant, and Urianger dotes on her and tries to make up for it all while avoiding the actual problem.

So that conversation in Amh Araeng is both touching and maddening to me, and it really drives home what's maddening about it when, upon overhearing it, the Warrior of Light turns to Thancred to ask him if he has anything to say to Minfilia--who has just said, out loud, that she thinks Thancred wishes she was dead--and Thancred just says, "Not today."

And so they both go on avoiding the actual problem, for just a little longer.

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starcrossed It's written in the stars.

This was what the planetarium show in Japan was like to me.

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Mordred disliked mentioning it, so no one mentioned it, but his health had never been good.

Asthma was common enough, even among those who risked their lives for gold like adventurers. For the first few years that Theodore knew Mordred, it wasn't even that bad. His triggers were specific -- cold fronts, and noxious gasses. So long as they avoided those things, or Mordred had ample warning and could cast his bubble-head filter spell, he was fine. He was careful with physical exertion and always carried medicine on him. His health was therefore tacitly declared to be his own problem and no one else's.

But then there had been the Bloody Banquet. The Dragonsong War. Ala Mhigo. Doma. Battlefields crawling with the dying and the screams of warmachina. Stress and crying made Mordred's lungs seize. Y'shtola, her senses heightened since her Lifestream strip, pressed her hands on his back and said quietly, "There is scarring in your lungs."

"From the fire," Mordred rasped. He already knew.

The fire?

"Calamity. When everything burned."

There are scars elsewhere too, Theodore thought. Under Mordred's skin, on the tapestry of his memories. But these were the ones made self-evident when one traveled with him for years and watched him unable to stomach or even smell roasted meat, watched him wash his hands until they were bleeding-raw. Mordred liked fish partly because it was his preference, partly because it smelled nothing like red meat or people or the horrific, metallic bitterness of Garlean machines' combusted fuel.

Mordred didn't say this to anyone either. He most certainly didn't say this to Theodore. It was just that, sometimes his soul wept and Theodore managed to catch the notes with his Echo.

The breaking Light gouged something else out of him; his body reacted to large fluctuations of aether far worse and far more dramatically now, as though his very flesh and bones remembered the searing invasion of that deluge of Primordial Light. Mordred inevitably went down with a high fever after every occasion where he needed to expend a large amount of aether. He had the reserves -- the question wasn't about his reserves. But rather how his body reacted whenever he set about using them.

The backlash also existed when Mordred transposed the flow of his mana to quicken its recovery, or from the Umbral phase to the Astral phase.

He told the Scions all this very calmly. And, for Theodore's and Estinien's benefit, who were not learned scholars, he added, "I can no longer use black magic without consequences." A sigh. "I'm not going to be as strong as I was before."

The room was silent. Not because they were especially worried about Mordred losing out on perhaps one-tenths of his sheer power, but rather because they had known him long enough to realize that for him to tell them about what amounted to a disability for him was significant. This person, who held his shattered innards together after battling Shinryu above the Ala Mhigan Quarters, and went untreated for hours just so he could reassure his comrades and affirm their victory, before finally collapsing.

Eventually, Alisaie said, "Thank goodness we are all here, then."

"Maybe we can even get a shot in edgewise, if the Warrior of Light can be compelled to hold back a tad like this," Thancred added, tone light.

Mordred stared at them.

Then he heaved a long, long, relieved sigh.

After, when it was just him and G'raha, he went to Mordred's side and sat with him, and said, "It feels good, does it not? To look around yourself and realize that you are among good friends."

"They already are," Mordred replied. "But I just thought... I think too little of them. I was worried that they'd feel nervous to hear that I'm wearing down. Like some weathered old pillar. But we've been holding this sky up together for years. It was me who patronized them."

G'raha chuckled dryly. He glanced out the window, his red eyes faraway. "Chessamine's mother thought the same of me when I first fell sick, in the Crystarium's earlier years."

Mordred tilted his head, thinking for a moment. "I can still use black magic, but--" he began.

"No," G'raha cut him off firmly.

"Fine. But arcanima is alright. The built-in arrays actually make it much easier to regulate the aether I'm expending." Mordred fiddled with his tail, trying to suppress the sulk from being scolded. "And white magic is, ironically, the best for me. Amdapori practices fortify the caster as they use their spells."

"That is all well and good," G'raha agreed, "but, Mordred."

"Yes?"

"So long as you understand that there is nothing you must do where we cannot help, that's the most important thing."

G'raha looked at him, expression placid and firm, leaving no room for doubt. There was none of the usual blushing nor skittering, not even the gentleness he always afforded Mordred, no matter the topic at hand.

Mordred thought of the young man who teased him in that arduous, cross-country fetch quest. He thought of the pouting and arguing about being allowed to go on the Crystal Tower's expedition, how Rammbroes had brutally shot G'raha Tia down, saying he was no fighter. How G'raha had sulked yet had agreed to in the end -- he had known his limits.

He thought about power bought with blood prices. Power, and agency, and the ability to change one's fate. The Crystal Exarch's sparkling neurosis. The Crystarium and all it had cost to raise that place up from the stasis of despair, brick by brick.

"Alright," Mordred said. "I will be counting on you."

G'raha smiled, with such warmth it brightened his heart.

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love how the WoL spends at least a couple ingame days thinking Thancred is a straight up traitor/spy before anyone remembers to explain to them what ascians actually are

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Thancred: How did two tall elezens lose track of a whole damn man.

Urianger: I beg thine forgiveness... I was inattentive.

Theodore: To be fair, he was very small.

(2 miles away)

Meowdred, fuming: Did they lose me on PURPOSE?!?!

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I like to think that G’raha is a complete nobody next to the WoL, that he was Just Some Ancient Guy, as opposed to Azem. That he was born with a legacy he can’t escape, he was supposed to be a mere key to the Tower, yet he learned several combat disciplines and generally became a WoL-equal, a massive badass, all on his own, thanks to his ambitions, competitiveness and curiosity (and the imposter syndrome, ah). That, in a way, he who likes the word destiny so much, defied it by becoming who he is now. His destiny was to perish several times already, yet the old man’s still kickin’.

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The way Final Fantasy 14 explores the themes and lore of its deities and other bosses through the song lyrics in their boss music is very underrated tbh. It's one of the best aspects of the game to me, yet I don't see it praised as much as other things.

And there's such variety, too. Menphina's theme is an upbeat song that explores how the world's cat people find safety and comfort in worshipping the moon. Sophia's theme is a sad parable that shows how the goddess' idea of balance is harsh and inhumane. Lakshmi spends her song trying to seduce you into accepting her ideology of blissful sloth. Shiva mourns her own plight. Suzaku sings of lost love. Athena sings about how she is the shit and she's gonna kill you.

It's all just really great.