senespera-ffxiv

[senespera-ffxiv]

The thoughts for Retsarra have coalesced a little bit, at least enough for me to come up with a fic idea so I will attempt to express both my actual thoughts on his character in tandem with the fic idea because they're related. Idk I put characters in torture matrices to extract the Sauce from their characters for better understanding. Why am I like this

The tl;dr if you don't want to dive under the break for the full thoughts (which are a lot) is that Retsarra is a wild place to explore both political apathy fueled by late-stage capitalism and feelings of cultural estrangement, not to mention the isolation that a lot of bisexual people feel when they are misunderstood or rejected by both gay and straight people.

The fic is really just my WoL Shura'li having a conversation with him that compares their experiences and differing worldviews that goes wrong near the end because Shura'li is a blockhead who doesn't understand bisexuality. Shura'li cringe compilation. Retsarra cringe compilation. Everyone is kinda cringe, everyone has understandable reasons for being cringe. Life traumatizes people in different ways that brings them into conflict with each other. No one is wrong. No one is right.

Retsarra has a list of identities that also all play into his character so in no particular order, the relevant ones for my fic/analysis are

Alexandrian-born Turali (Parents were forcibly colonized, very likely that he was either the first or second generation of those colonized people to grow up within Alexandria)

Bisexual (He has a thing going on with Hector, he's Eutrope's boyfriend, it's basically canon)

Entertainer/Ring Fighter (Self-explanatory)

Politically Apathetic (I'm extrapolating this based off his actions, where instead of trying to break out of the system that's actively killing him he clings onto it because it's comfortable and defines him. You could also say that he's conservative because of this, but idk if I'd go that far considering he changes his tune pretty quickly after getting his ass beat, like I think he just really needed that push)

Anyways the fic idea is really just a conversation he and the WoL (I'm referring to the WoL instead of my actual WoL's name until it's relevant because I think the interaction is non-WoL-specific and works for pretty much any WoL honestly) are having after the events of the Cruiserweight Tier. They're kinda just drinking together, trying to at least relax a little while they sit around waiting for the Heavyweight stuff to start, and they start talking a bit about each other's respective histories.

The idea here, really, is to just compare and contrast the mindsets of someone who is in a position of power and someone who is powerless through the way they tell their respective histories. The WoL will likely end up emphasizing their struggles and how they overcame them, they'll talk about how they've saved the world from evil despots and world-ending threats alike, and how even though it seemed impossible, they knew that they had to do something about it. And then Retsarra comes along and he has no power, not really. He can't change systems of government, doesn't have the influence to sit at the negotiation table, doesn't have the ability to fight those world-ending threats. His mentality, then, is one of passive critique and acceptance: the world sucks, it's slowly killing him, but he can't do anything about it so he'll just strive to be the best he can within those confines.

To the WoL at first glance this is going to look like pure unbridled cowardice and apathy. What do you mean you can't do anything about the shitty system? Change it! You have to to do something about it, even if it seems impossible. But slowly, over time, the WoL is going to realize that they only have that mentality because they have so many experiences of making the impossible possible. They face off against gods for fun. They have the power, Retsarra does not. And what does someone do when they don't have the power to do the impossible? They do the best they can.

In more political terms, the WoL has the power and influence to enact real and meaningful change within pretty much any state that knows about their existence, if not through diplomatic means then through the systemic dismantling of the fascist system. Politicians fear them, this is like the ideal scenario for anyone who wants to do a revolution. Retsarra, on the other hand, has no real way out of the system. He's stuck in a dead-end job that's actively killing him and is stuck in a capitalist system that has conditioned him from birth to be reliant on it. He genuinely does not see any way out until the WoL comes along to give him the courage to actually do so. So he does his best to hold onto his morals and his ambitions within the confines of the system he was born into.

So at this point I'm introducing Shura'li's name again because in order to properly explore the hellspace this man is in I need someone who is gay and maybe not fully cognizant of the diversity of LGBT people to really show just how isolated Retsarra feels. At some point during their conversation Retsarra (due to being kinda tipsy) offhanded mentions that he loves Hector and regrets not being able to save him. This confuses Shura'li a little bit because clearly he has not heard of the concept of bisexuality (Everyone in his family is either gay, straight, or ace and the straight guy's latent bisexuality crops up very rarely and is effectively invisible to Shura'li) and ends up asking Retsarra why he loves Hector if he's straight.

This. Uh. Does not go over well. Remember that Retsarra is, in my beautiful mind palace, in my conception based off the clues that the writers have been dropping for me, both bisexual and Alexandrian-born Turali. By virtue of both of these identities, he feels very isolated like 99% of the time. He does not relate to Alexandrian culture nor can he comfortably understand Turali culture. When he hangs out with straight people, they find his attraction to men off-putting, and he barely even has a chance to hang out with gay people because he's out here in a (I assume) Very Public Relationship with his girlfriend, like he just kinda passes as straight to everyone. So at this point he just breaks down because this person who he was hoping would understand him, this man who had the power to conquer two tiers of the Arcadion and is intent on saving as many people from the dangerous usage of feral souls as possible with his powers, who told him that he's gay and was therefore at least theoretically a member of one of Retsarra's communities, just does not understand a fundamental part of his existence. And like obviously he's a little bit drunk so he's catastrophizing, but at this point he's starting to think that literally no one will understand him. I mean, the only two people who did are dead and kidnapped respectively, so he just kinda starts crying and it sucks and Shura'li feels super bad but still doesn't quite understand so his little brother (Shura'sae) has to take over and console him. Fic wraps up after that.

The point of this fic is, primarily, to explore the differences between how people with different political power levels conceptualize the world around them and sort of illustrate the difficulties of actually inspiring revolutionary sentiment. Heavensward patch quests touched on this a little bit with the Eorzean Alliance literally having to get their asses kicked into high gear by Ilberd to do anything about Ala Mhigo, but that was a lot more of a birds eye view of things and I want to explore how the average person interacts with a system that they are aware is bad for them. Metatextually (because Alexandria is pretty clearly intended to critique American Capitalism) this is also an exploration of why US leftist politics is in the state that it is and how capitalism ensnares everyone in it. I can't remember which CJ the X video this was but at one point they said something along the lines of "Oh Industrialization, you fickle bitch. You gave us cell phones but took away our souls." and that's basically what I'm getting at here. When you depend on the system that is actively killing you, interesting things happen to your mentality. And Retsarra represents that, I think.

Secondary point is to explore the very specific sense of isolation that both bisexual and PoC people in America experience. By using "Alexandrian-born Turali" I am purposely calling to "American-born Chinese" (because I'm an American-born Chinese person and I know the feeling lmfao) which I'm not actually sure if that's the actual academic terminology for it or if the graphic novel has just permeated popular culture so much. Anyways. I'm not completely bisexual and (thankfully) all my friends do not fall into biphobia out of ignorance, but I definitely absolutely feel this with regards to whether I consider myself more American or Chinese. Baby me did not have a really good way of resolving this, so I ended up having quite a lot of weird feelings about this that only got weirder as I continued to be exposed to more and more American and Chinese culture alike. It also made it pretty difficult to relate to basically anyone that wasn't in a similar situation as me (which I did have at least one friend similar to me thank fuck lmao) because it's not like I had the typical american childhood experience nor did I have the typical chinese childhood experience. So that sense of isolation, extrapolated to an adult, is interesting to me to explore and Retsarra is honestly kinda perfect for me to do that.

(btw if you're interested in reading more about my takes on this kind of cultural estrangement it was more or less the focus of a post I made a while ago about Yotsuyu that keeps making the rounds tl;dr there's a lot of self-hatred going on)

Bonus observation that I'm not sure where to add into the fic (probably at the end when Shura'sae is consoling Retsarra) but I'm pretty sure Retsarra was intending to kill himself with that fight against Shura'li. The shit that happens in M8S kinda soft confirms this, but like. That's really dark man. His boyfriend died and at that point he still thinks that his girlfriend dumped him so like. He's just in a bad mental state. Like there's this lyric in the M8 theme that's barely audible where he says something along the lines of "maybe I should go with them" and that was the thing that really solidified this interpretation for me. Nefarious, deeply traumatized voice in the back of your head telling you that it would be better to follow your loved ones to the grave than fight to live.

[senespera-ffxiv]

doing an apology video with genuine tears sobbing and wailing ripping my hair out and clawing at my face until i draw blood but i simply cannot describe what i did without laughing

[senespera-ffxiv]

I'm still organizing my thoughts on this so something more coherent will be coming later but Retsarra in the second tier of the Arcadion raids is making me lose my goddamn mind (spoilers below the cut)

like idk there's something about his intense desire for self-determination within the confines of a system that is actively killing him. Something something the problems with attempting to stir revolutionary sentiment in people under a system that comfortably kills you. Shura'li would be beefing with him so fucking hard.

Also bisexuality. Something with bisexuality idk look at these lyrics

Also also, and this is actually the main fucking point but I got too lost in the tragic yaoi sauce because that's like kryptonite for me but THIS MAN IS PROBABLY PART OF THE FIRST GENERATION BORN UNDER A SOCIETY THAT COLONIZED HIS PEOPLE. The experience obviously has gotta have tons different from the experience of a first generation child of immigrant parents but there are still definitely similarities and I Can See Them. Something about the tension between wanting to retain your ancestors' culture and being inevitably subsumed into the culture you were steeped in growing up. Something about always feeling like you're in between, never actually belonging anywhere because you aren't fully Turali or Alexandrian. Never actually finding acceptance anywhere because you aren't fully gay or straight Do You See My Vision

We stan a politically apathetic bisexual gay trucker catboy or something idk, he makes me feel insane there's like five different things I want to explore so in summary I'm just gonna list them out

Bisexual experience

Cultural estrangement experience (whether as the child of people who were colonized or people who immigrated to a different country)

How capitalist systems breed political apathy

The merits of finding agency within confines you cannot possibly hope to break because you simply do not have the power

Why The Fuck Doesn't Anything In Dawntrail Talk Explicitly About The Discrimination That Is Most Likely Happening To The Turali People Who Are Stuck In A Society Of Mostly White Hyurs That Colonized Them (I actually do need to confirm this but I swear I do not remember that many PoC there that weren't pretty clearly from Tural)

Okay but seriously why is it that like 90% of the fighters in the Arcadion have been Turali so far there's something there I just don't have a good handle on it. Something something exploitation and objectification of minority groups while simultaneously "elevating" them in order to hide the racism (see: "model minority" stereotypes about asian americans in the US)

It's like 1AM so apologies if this sounds like I'm doing this

[senespera-ffxiv]

ma they gave coke to my white mages

[senespera-ffxiv]

>ffxiv dev team saw the mixed response to Wuk Lamat and their takeaway was "we didn't do good enough of a job to show how great she is, we need to give her even more screentime so everyone will like her"

lmao

[senespera-ffxiv]

I need to add to this cuz I had Additional Thoughts regarding Dawntrail criticisms (not exactly original, they were inspired by a now-deleted twitter thread by sabattons that was very good and I wish they kept it up but oh well)

Again, spoilers below the cut

So sabatton's criticism of dawntrail in that twitter thread was that it spends an inordinate amount of time on the colonizers of Xak Tural (Alexandria) and it got me thinking about why that didn't come to mind to me, specifically, and I think it's partially because I am not native american and also because I was gunning for another interpretation

The way I read it was that the game needed to spend an inordinate amount of time on Alexandria because it was directly tied to the expansion's central question, specifically: What do you do when a civilization's ideals cause them to be in direct conflict with you?

The game needs to spend the time to confirm to you that Alexandria's ideals are, indeed, in conflict with you before the question becomes relevant, which is why I think they spent such a huge amount of expansion time on it. Alexandria as a whole has this completely outlandish system of beliefs that you have to spend quite a while to get to grips with and fully analyze, and then once you do finish analyzing it you come to the conclusion that their beliefs directly lead to unhealthy overconsumption of everything around them, you included. Hence why it took them a bunch of time empathizing with the colonizers before rejecting them

This works for Alexandria specifically because they are, on the whole, relatively nice (put a pin in that for later). They're reasonable, you see Sphene's love for her people, Wuk Lamat finds a like-minded person in her and wants to believe in her. This is all well and good For Alexandria Specifically. However, when you start to apply this as real-world parallels and critiques, it falls apart just a little bit for reasons that I think are obvious.

While it isn't directly stated, I do think Alexandria is an attempt at criticism of consumption cultures in general, specifically capitalism and other forms of cultural organization focused on material wealth and status symbols. The value of souls in Alexandrian society has been warped to a point that seems so outlandish to us because everyone in Alexandria has had (I think) centuries to slowly acclimate to this idea that souls are just another commodity that can be used and repackaged and collected en masse. And I do think this is a commentary on how, in consumption cultures, it becomes very easy to simply accept that you're supposed to have The Thing without properly understanding why you want to have The Thing (not the thing that Alexandria is critiquing) or how The Thing came to be (the thing that Alexandria is critiquing).

The thing about consumption cultures, though, is that they aren't exactly nice. The USA is the most obvious and easiest example I can come up with (likely the intended one too) and you can see how concepts like Manifest Destiny and our extremely nosy international policy stem from a culture entirely centered around Having Things. We need to have Things, so we go seize resources for Things without any care for the people who are living in the places that have the resources we need for Things. This is the exact situation that Alexandria finds itself in-- they need resources to keep their dead person simulation alive, so they travel to the Source in order to get more Things and immediately occupy a huge chunk of Xak Tural regardless of whether the people there want them to be there or not.

And I think it's worth mentioning that the timeskip seemed to be there specifically so they wouldn't have to deal with the short-term Rage of everyone within Yyasulani getting displaced and isolated from the rest of Xak Tural. Yes, it does also give Zoraal Ja time to get Much much worse, but I personally think they really should've rewritten it to get rid of the timeskip because exploring the reactions of a group of people who have just been violently colonized is far more interesting to me than any of Zoraal Ja's issues (I still love his issues I just want the colonialism analysis). It gets really bad when you consider that your first thing you see from the indigenous people is "oh, no, Queen Sphene is super nice, all hail Queen Sphene" like that was one of the first signs I got that something was Not Right. But the thing is, they never really tied up that plot thread in the end. No one was fighting to try and get out of the thunder dome, any possible escapee resistance would've been long crushed at that point in the timeline inside the dome, and all we get are a group of people that want to put a stop to Zoraal Ja, but didn't specifically want to Fucking Leave the place they got trapped in because of the timeskip.

And so what I'm getting at the moment is that dawntrail doesn't really have much to say about colonialism other than "well I mean I guess it's fine as long as the people getting colonized are getting treated fairly and aren't being discriminated against." This sentiment is only even remotely fine in the situation where you're already in a region with a colonialist history (read: America) because that's literally the best you can do in the short-term: reparations and attempts at apologies. The long-term goal is still decolonization, restoration of the land to the indigenous people, and hopefully some form of coexistence in the far future.

I should note that I am still holding my breath on this part because I'm hoping that the patch quests can do something about this, but as it stands right now this is a major hole in Dawntrail's USA analysis. I do think they know that the colonialism part is something important to consider, but for some reason or another they just did not dig deep into it. Fingers crossed on the patch quests (but if we're gonna be honest I'm not expecting much, especially after seeing the trailer for 7.1 and how it's still got a lot of focus on Solution Nine and Sphene without any mention of the people from Xak Tural).

As an extra note I do think that most of the characters in Xak Tural are intended to be indigenous, but I can't confirm that because I don't know enough about native american languages to really confirm more than what some of my linguist friends have speculated (specifically that a lot of the names in Shaaloani like Sheshenewezi Springs or Hhusatahwi are inspired by Athabaskan Languages [so languages like Navajo, Plains Apache, etc.)]. And like, it barely matters anyways cuz the story then pivots to Alexandria and you're just like "oh this region was actually about Fantasy America and not the indigenous people at all."

So tl;dr I'm realizing in hindsight that they did not do the colonialism angle at all, and what little they did do feels extremely handwave-y and not adequate for me. They did really good with fascism analysis in Stormblood and Endwalker, so I feel like they should have the ability to properly do Colonialism analysis. Idk.

also this is the only time I'm gonna post twice in a row but I finished up my thoughts about dawntrail in my media list so I'm posting them here completely unedited

//spoilers for like all of dawntrail

a more detailed rating is that this is like a 4.7/5. It’s a solid story, if a bit boring and cliche for some of the first half. I do enjoy how clear-cut the story is in terms of thematic content, though, and how through and through it is an exploration of differing cultures and the ways in which you can understand them

The second half was also an interesting continuation of said exploration as it gives you a culture that is in direct opposition to you with ways that are so alien, and yet continues to ask that you understand them while also criticizing the more inhumane effects of those cultural practices

making it about me again but it’s basically just my stance about criticizing China. A lot of the criticism becomes extremely sinophobic because it simply rejects the culture without first trying to understand it. It’s a bit easier for me since I’m deeply steeped in said culture, but I do think it’s possible for someone who isn’t Chinese to criticize China in a non-sinophobic way

Idk just a lot of the way Wuk Lamat and the others handled their reactions to Alexandria felt like a good way to do that to me

Like it’s nowhere close to being as insanely character-driven as shadowbringers and endwalker, nor is it as interestingly politically technical as heavensward, stormblood, and certain parts of endwalker, but it’s still definitely Good. Just not as good in comparison to the rest (and even then I’d rank it above Stormblood lmao I didn’t have any moments where I was actively annoyed at the characters for losing brain cells and shit jksdlfhskldjf)

My ranking for the expacs would be something like this

Shadowbringers > Endwalker > Heavensward ≥ Dawntrail > Stormblood > ARR

Gameplay-wise, though, oh my God this Fucks. This Fucks So Hard. Way better than Endwalker.

I imagine this is kind of what it felt like to play this game back in Stormblood and early Shadowbringers where things were much more complex and messy on the player side, except this time the complex and messy stuff has bled into the normal content boss design and I am enjoying it so goddamn much

(disclaimer: I started playing at the very tail end of shadowbringers so while I still remember some shit like old monk back when it had positionals on all of its buttons, I am mostly A Young'un. I did not have to experience the dreaded TP management, nor have I gone through all the stages of grief with Summoner getting reworked every fucking expansion lmao)

Part of the reason why I love doing EX trials is because at that difficulty level they aren’t afraid to do some just batshit things that would cause you to lose it in normal content

and now it’s bled into normal content hell yes

For reference my two favorite EX mechanics so far are the Biting Halberd combo from Zurvan EX (death puddle under boss → giant cone → baited aoes → tank cleave) and the add phase from Hydaelyn EX (both tanks get an add and have to pull them away from the glowing crystals while party dps’s them, rotate once the glowing crystals are dead)

Like obviously I’m biased cuz I’m a tank and those are largely tank mechanics (cuz yes if you forget to move properly in the Zurvan one as MT you just kill your entire party so I kinda count that as a tank mechanic) but more importantly I like them because of how dynamic the movement is.

And they’re dynamic in different ways, like Zurvan’s is extremely rigid. You will dance in this specific manner (back → tank right, everyone else left) or else you die. Hydaelyn on the other hand can be a bit looser and you have at least a bit of room to do different strategies (ideally it’s a “everyone focus down one crystal at a time” situation but the like three-five times I’ve done the fight the positioning has always been very loose as long as none of the glowing crystals are getting tethered).

And a bunch of fights in Dawntrail are doing stuff like this that feels like a dance

Like the first example I can think of is Ar1/R1/whatever we’re calling it when the boss flings out a sequence of like 8 aoes across tiles before hitting you with an uppercut that sends you flying into the air and in order to not die from said uppercut you need to position yourself so that you land on an uncracked tile

The second iteration of this where it’s the clone that does the uppercut and the main boss is hitting you with line stacks is my favorite because that’s where the amount of stuff you do starts to offset how slow the actual mechanic is to make it feel like you’re in a time-sensitive dance and if you step wrong you’ll fuck things up

Another good example is the final boss The Queen Eternal which just. aughhhh I love that boss. There’s so many fun ideas being thrown around in there lol. You can really tell that Zeromus from the Endwalker patches was intended to be a test run for some of the mechanics in this fight because both occasionally devolve into randomized Chaos as you try your best to just Not Get Hit by aoes can you tell I loved the mechanic when she deploys her drones lmao

LIke okay last thing to yell about but Absolute Authority is literally just a mini Relativity mechanic from E12S/Big Bang from Zeromus but more chaotic and I absolutely loved it

Plus the more chaotic nature of the mechanics in this fight serve a bit of a narrative purpose, especially when you consider how desperate Sphene is at this point in time

Like she doesn’t give a shit about keeping up appearances she will kill you as best as she can, “random bullshit go” included

And both of those mechanics also force you to do more dynamic movement, only now it's typically erratic and panicked compared to the more methodical and freeform dances of Zurvan and Hydaelyn EX respectively

We need more insane shit in the gameplay of the normal mode stuff keep doing it Yoshi-P

[senespera-ffxiv]

//Arknights Babel spoilers

//Also FFXIV:Shadowbringers spoilers

//I have no idea if this is EDA spoilers but he's there

if I had a nickel for every time a video game character chose genocide over letting the new civilization built on top of the ruins of their previous one live I'd have two

Put their asses into therapy (it won't work lmao)

also my friend mentioned something about characters named the doctor who have amnesia and do genocide so we can add him to the list too lmao

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//there's no explicit spoilers but I'm gonna tag it as dawntrail spoilers anyways lol

I think it would be very funny and totally not sick and evil and twisted if, after finishing Dawntrail, you go back to Amaurot and it's just gone

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Estinien is so fuckin funny

Having just gone through Dawntrail on Ruhka and now poking into Heavensward on Quinn and just reaching Estinien for the first time (dragoon quests notwithstanding) the whiplash of his character development is just hitting me.

Heavensward Estinien- moody, twitchy mfer, running on rage and hate 24/7, Ishgard's nuclear option, ready to throw hands (especially with Ysayle) at the drop of a hat, never takes off his uniform even when it's caked in blood through a good part of the story.

Dawntrail Estinien- Shows up in fantasy texas in the fantasy equivalent of a ratty t-shirt and torn work jeans "oh hey, what's up? you should try the cactaur here" and "Oh uh, yeah that looks like some like, super fucked up 'change the way we interact with the multiverse' shit, or something, I don't know, anyways I saw a beast on the way in I'm gonna go try and eat it now. Later."

Like he literally went from Halone's favorite killing machine to fantasy diner, drive-ins, and dive guy. This is not a complaint, I love it, 10/10, no notes.

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what i say when i'm trying to get people to play ffxiv: there's such an incredible amount of content that there's something for everyone. you get an intricate jrpg plot with fantastic characters and worldbuilding that also makes YOUR character feel like an actual person somehow despite the limitations that come with customisable pcs. there's 21 different combat classes which you can all do on one character so there's always something new to learn and improve upon, but if you want to specialise that's totally cool too! there's raiding obviously but if you're not into that there's all sorts of side things like crafting, fishing (yes this is its own category), housing, island sanctuary, pvp, and so much more i can't even list. the music goes so hard. people are generally super friendly to newcomers and yes it's a meme but there's a super generous trial up to level 70 with no restrictions on playti—

what i should say when i'm trying to get people to play ffxiv: look at this

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AN IDIOT PIBIL - By ZA_Zariel

SOURCE

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one thing I think ffxiv nails about its depiction of fascism that other works of fiction tend to miss is how fucking patronizing it is

take the negotiation scene with varis at the end of stormblood for example. every single person in that room (except alisaie) is a whole-ass adult, yet varis spends the entire meeting talking to them like they're children who couldn't possibly manage their own shit without him to tell them what to do. it's extremely insulting and very much on point

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i finally hit level 100 cooking in ffxiv and these recipes are getting a little silly

oh i need to make some vegetable soup let me just gather uhh

1 carrot from the moon

2 cloves of garlic from an alternate dimension

1 potato from the past

1 onion from the furthest point in the universe

1 head of broccoli from fucking HEAVEN

salt

and youre done 👍 enjoy the minor damage buffs

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one thing i really liked about wuk lamat that i havent seen anyone mention is how when we learn about the banditry problem in kozama'uka, she immediately identifies it as a symptom of some kind of systemic failure that she'll need to address instead of just writing them off as being inherently bad people

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Unfolds a long string of photos from my wallet, but instead of children it’s pictures of my OCs

[senespera-ffxiv]

also this is the only time I'm gonna post twice in a row but I finished up my thoughts about dawntrail in my media list so I'm posting them here completely unedited

//spoilers for like all of dawntrail

a more detailed rating is that this is like a 4.7/5. It’s a solid story, if a bit boring and cliche for some of the first half. I do enjoy how clear-cut the story is in terms of thematic content, though, and how through and through it is an exploration of differing cultures and the ways in which you can understand them

The second half was also an interesting continuation of said exploration as it gives you a culture that is in direct opposition to you with ways that are so alien, and yet continues to ask that you understand them while also criticizing the more inhumane effects of those cultural practices

making it about me again but it’s basically just my stance about criticizing China. A lot of the criticism becomes extremely sinophobic because it simply rejects the culture without first trying to understand it. It’s a bit easier for me since I’m deeply steeped in said culture, but I do think it’s possible for someone who isn’t Chinese to criticize China in a non-sinophobic way

Idk just a lot of the way Wuk Lamat and the others handled their reactions to Alexandria felt like a good way to do that to me

Like it’s nowhere close to being as insanely character-driven as shadowbringers and endwalker, nor is it as interestingly politically technical as heavensward, stormblood, and certain parts of endwalker, but it’s still definitely Good. Just not as good in comparison to the rest (and even then I’d rank it above Stormblood lmao I didn’t have any moments where I was actively annoyed at the characters for losing brain cells and shit jksdlfhskldjf)

My ranking for the expacs would be something like this

Shadowbringers > Endwalker > Heavensward ≥ Dawntrail > Stormblood > ARR

Gameplay-wise, though, oh my God this Fucks. This Fucks So Hard. Way better than Endwalker.

I imagine this is kind of what it felt like to play this game back in Stormblood and early Shadowbringers where things were much more complex and messy on the player side, except this time the complex and messy stuff has bled into the normal content boss design and I am enjoying it so goddamn much

(disclaimer: I started playing at the very tail end of shadowbringers so while I still remember some shit like old monk back when it had positionals on all of its buttons, I am mostly A Young'un. I did not have to experience the dreaded TP management, nor have I gone through all the stages of grief with Summoner getting reworked every fucking expansion lmao)

Part of the reason why I love doing EX trials is because at that difficulty level they aren’t afraid to do some just batshit things that would cause you to lose it in normal content

and now it’s bled into normal content hell yes

For reference my two favorite EX mechanics so far are the Biting Halberd combo from Zurvan EX (death puddle under boss → giant cone → baited aoes → tank cleave) and the add phase from Hydaelyn EX (both tanks get an add and have to pull them away from the glowing crystals while party dps’s them, rotate once the glowing crystals are dead)

Like obviously I’m biased cuz I’m a tank and those are largely tank mechanics (cuz yes if you forget to move properly in the Zurvan one as MT you just kill your entire party so I kinda count that as a tank mechanic) but more importantly I like them because of how dynamic the movement is.

And they’re dynamic in different ways, like Zurvan’s is extremely rigid. You will dance in this specific manner (back → tank right, everyone else left) or else you die. Hydaelyn on the other hand can be a bit looser and you have at least a bit of room to do different strategies (ideally it’s a “everyone focus down one crystal at a time” situation but the like three-five times I’ve done the fight the positioning has always been very loose as long as none of the glowing crystals are getting tethered).

And a bunch of fights in Dawntrail are doing stuff like this that feels like a dance

Like the first example I can think of is Ar1/R1/whatever we’re calling it when the boss flings out a sequence of like 8 aoes across tiles before hitting you with an uppercut that sends you flying into the air and in order to not die from said uppercut you need to position yourself so that you land on an uncracked tile

The second iteration of this where it’s the clone that does the uppercut and the main boss is hitting you with line stacks is my favorite because that’s where the amount of stuff you do starts to offset how slow the actual mechanic is to make it feel like you’re in a time-sensitive dance and if you step wrong you’ll fuck things up

Another good example is the final boss The Queen Eternal which just. aughhhh I love that boss. There’s so many fun ideas being thrown around in there lol. You can really tell that Zeromus from the Endwalker patches was intended to be a test run for some of the mechanics in this fight because both occasionally devolve into randomized Chaos as you try your best to just Not Get Hit by aoes can you tell I loved the mechanic when she deploys her drones lmao

LIke okay last thing to yell about but Absolute Authority is literally just a mini Relativity mechanic from E12S/Big Bang from Zeromus but more chaotic and I absolutely loved it

Plus the more chaotic nature of the mechanics in this fight serve a bit of a narrative purpose, especially when you consider how desperate Sphene is at this point in time

Like she doesn’t give a shit about keeping up appearances she will kill you as best as she can, “random bullshit go” included

And both of those mechanics also force you to do more dynamic movement, only now it's typically erratic and panicked compared to the more methodical and freeform dances of Zurvan and Hydaelyn EX respectively

We need more insane shit in the gameplay of the normal mode stuff keep doing it Yoshi-P

[senespera-ffxiv]

//dawntrail level 95 and level 100 optional dungeons spoilers

this thought just came up in my head but genuinely I wouldn't want to spoil the progression of The Skydeep Cenote for *anyone* playing the game because the way the dungeon changes as you progress through it is just so magical

Like I mentioned this a bit in the post where I gushed about the music but moment when you first see the Golden City paired with the music swelling is such an experience and I love it so much

And it even works on people who actively pay attention to the lore because they're like consistently dropping mobs and architectural motifs from The Qitana Ravel in order to nudge you towards realizing that Ronka may have been The First's version of whatever civilization existed there before the Yok Huy, making the final region with the Alexandrian stuff a bit of a surprise lol

Speaking of which, the dungeon seems to be split into three sections

The part that the Yok Huy dug

A part that seems to belong to that Ronka-esque civilization

The Golden City and stuff that Alexandria built

Tender Valley appears to suggest that the Ronka-esque civilization is separate from the Yok Huy Empire since the Great Serpent of Ronka shows up as a boss there and the NPC afterwards (also the Yok Huy person who tells us about how they found the Great Serpent of Ronka) specifically mentions that they found some old ruins if I remember correctly?

Part of me wants them to follow up on this lol. But also I know they tend to not do much with the optional dungeons after they've released (for example Temple of the Fist was mostly a Monk lore expansion, Saint Mocianne's Arboretum has to do with Sharlayan proper in Eorzea and they haven't specifically explored that history yet, also The Stigma Dreamscape fleshed out a little bit more about the Omicron/Dragon war but I feel like there's maybe a bit more to be done there??? idk. Point being that a lot of the immediate post-expansion optional dungeons have either just fleshed out pre-existing lore beats or created threads that have been left just sort of dangling for now and they haven't really followed up on any of it, so I'm not exactly expecting them to follow up on the Ronka lore from Tender Valley but also plz Yoshi-P follow up on the Ronka lore I need to know