#always especially in ffxiv ever since i started the game i'd just always love taking pictures of her

[noxtivagus]

just gna share some pics i took earlier while testing out some stuff ( and admiring my wol 🥺 )

[idanwyn-et-al]

I wanted to make this an eloquent post, but...

...better rambly & less eloquent than never posting it at all.

Stormblood (well, three months after it launched) marked my turn to FFXIV after a little over a year away. I had a painful situation on Balmung, and just couldn't take any joy in this game that I'd been playing since beta, not even on my old main Thessalae Soemrblyss on Goblin. However, good friends of mine eventually tempted me back, first to Thess and then, when the RP community wasn't really kicking off there (at the time, at least), back to Gwyn Trahaern, as Idanwyn still was at the time.

I brought her to Mateus, gave her a better name and a number of character adjustments, and just kinda sussed out the RP scene while catching her up on PvE & crafting/gathering. Eventually, almost 2 years ago now, I found The Halcyon Assembly and liked that their search info included a newspaper, since Idanwyn is a reporter. I went to their house unannounced, found a bunch of people ready to drop into character to hang out, and I've been happier here since than I ever was on Balmung. I feel like my character and I have really come into our own within the RP community now; she's so much richer and more fun to play, and I have a pack full of very dear friends in my FC (even if we don't always get along).

This FC is full of brilliant, creative people who work within the expansive lore of this game to create something that feels almost tangible; stories, characters, and experiences that linger long after the events have passed. I'm looking forward to interacting more with people from other FCs over this upcoming expansion, especially with the cross-world visits, but I'm also happy to be the editor-in-chief of our tiny newspaper as well as head chef for our lounge nights, and will always enjoy creating content for my little friend-family. Love the <HA:RP>ies.

This expansion has truly changed the course of my life, because it introduced me to real friends. It was also an amazingly beautiful world to explore with a very emotional storyline. Idanwyn has always spoken fluent Hingan (Doman, back in ARR/HW) and it was fun to explore that part of the character's life, to show that this chef and food & lifestyle columnist with the heavy brogue in Common was actually quite articulate, occasionally even poetic, in Hingan. My pale runt of a pirate-raised Roegadyn who is too cowardly to wield weapons nevertheless has proven herself to be warm, funny, insightful, kind, and even capable of lasting love, something I NEVER thought she'd really have. She also has a best friend in @ritzcraft 's Okuni, who is pictured in a bunch of the farewell screenshots above, and that's a friendship I treasure both in and out of character. (I love you, Saelzswys!)

I'm very much looking forward to Shadowbringers; it's all downloaded and ready to go. However, Stormblood will always have a huge place in my heart, and I will definitely still be visiting many of the achingly beautiful locales it gave us--to roleplay, to listen to the music, to reminisce and indulge that fluttering nostalgia twisting under my ribs that has already started.

Thank you all for being there, too, even if you're skipping over this now. This community is just the best.

See you in The First.