#ffxiv bard quest line

[greentrickster]

So, that Warriors of Darkness story line, huh?

(curls up around my plague mage plushie and sobs)

Friiiiiiiiick, that was really good...! TT^TT <3

[toadeyes-miqote]

FFXIV 7.0 job guess - Painter

Mythril foil hat disclaimer

Relm's painter = TMNT Donatello named after a painter + FGO Foreigner Hokusai fights with a brush + Magic class for bringing painting to life

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are name after painters (biggest hint and thought line for me)

Relm is a painter

Donatello fights with a quarterstaff

Foreigner class Hokusai (or his daughter Oi in this case... long story) fights with a brush!!! and her moves are really pretty!!!!!

That Stormblood raid - Sigmascape 2.0

Paint Emote

Finally quarterstaff without going Lancer!!! Alternate weapons, mop, fountain pen, pencils, brushes, broom, regular quarterstaff

Or quarterstaff is the melee job so..... covering base because Donatello

Can't just quarterstaff without stepping on Estinien's territory

My job mentor can't be a teenage ninja painter koujin or a qiqirn (Splinter) Is there a meme lord on the Dev team?

Job quest involves a young painter girl

Some Orthardian guy fixated with koujin soup

Do I have to shell out all my TMNT and FFVI memories just to guess this?

Stormblood got added to free trial because Teenage magic painter koujin's homeground in Tamamizu?

The Artist Alphinaud finds a magic paint brush and muscled in on the new job..... Well magic ranged

short of a location with Renaissance vibes for human painters quartet, Orthard folklore takes over with magic paintbrush found in Tamamizu? And we Donatello

Is very colorful job but I only have Bard for reference but see Enshrined Byakko lutebow for for inkblot reference

Depend on your brush for sumi ink black, oil brush colors, watercolor, watercolor pencils(?) pastel color stick (or makeup brush-ish)

Dry color vs wet color differences? I never Splatoon or Mario paint so I can only Urushi-e guess from Hokusai.

Return of the Four Lords

the ink kraken that we fight is not Ultros covered in ink, nope not at all

a sneaky reference to Ookami pops in because is Orthard after all.

Alternate dual wield brush and palette version

Dual stance - Little brush and palette switch to big brush equipment pending

Uhhh... Leofard's Granddad is one of the job quest people?

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind~~~~~` Is a dynamis job emotions given form

The totally totally off grid guess that it combines Geomancer because of sealing talismen (draw boulders, splash water, cast wind, throw flame)

Van Gogh, fellow servant from FGO also fights with gaint brush too

Hokusai is the Relm we have all along!!!! Quarterstaff -brush WANTS!!! There should be another fighting game character that fights with a brush (not exactly Ookami) but Hokusai is the most recent one in my memory because I'm playing the game currently

Dang it Exarch!!! Summon Hokusai!!!

FGO mobile version for Foreigner Hokusai fighting style

Arcade fighting game version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p5kROCRjLc

The earlier one that I can't remember Samurai showdown - Morozumi Taizan.

No I didn't forget, she isn't in my stable of servants. But Van Gogh(long story), who is a little less fancy but brighter paintwise than Hokusai

I haven't played Splatoon so I can't comment.

--------------

Post reveal - Leonardo is the dual blade viper combined to become quarterstaff Donatello. the fusion is unexpected since FFIX memories fuzzy. but the Zidane!! - Painting Pictomancer palette version bigger brush - a Relm referenced

[velnica]

What got you into writing about the bard boys? Love your works by the way! :D

Oh this is a great question and I apologise in advance if this sounds like a meandering trip down memory lane, but I have not actually reminisced about this in so long!

I'm gonna have to rewind to 25 April 2022 when I finally finished the Stormblood Bard quest. I practically inhaled both the HW and SB portions, and I was excitedly talking about it to some uninterested friends. I started trawling AO3 for all their fics, tried talking about it to other FFXIV players (which ended nowhere, as I was decidedly not in shipping spaces yet), and then I nearly gave up because no one wanted to talk about them as much as I did 😭

No, I did not go into Tumblr or Twitter yet because I was a dum dum and I could have skipped this initial heartache if I had lol.

ANYWAY someone in a lore channel I was in said that their initial tiff in the Nine Ivies look like two jilted lovers getting annoyed at each other and then an idea started forming. What if they were jilted lovers? What if they had met each other but subsequently avoided the others due to reputations, or unwillingness to commit, or whatever else? And then the smut writer in me started cackling; what if they had a one night stand and they remember it?

Before I knew it I had the first draft of Breathe In written in my gdocs. I posted it and then bam! there was no way to go but onwards. I started finding fandom spaces for ffxiv shipping, and then I found people who also ship the bard boys and the rest, as they say, was history.

To me this is really the story of how an interest that was fed and nourished can grow to be something that elevates my life. I enjoy the act of writing/creating itself and in the boys I found a subject that I want to explore through many scenarios which is I think just a match made in heaven. I also would like to think that they're cheering me on from between the lines, encouraging me to keep unfolding their stories in my own way and I think that's a really sweet thought that will keep me going in this niche space for a very long time 💖

[deastrumquodvicis]

FFXIV progress update

Just finished FFXIV: Heavensward, not the post-patch, but the pre-patch up to and including the eponymous climactic quest. Recordkeeping notes to follow:

I started with Red Mage, which continues to be my favorite overall. Weaver was first to 60 (it's my fav crafter, lol), with Red Mage not far behind. After that, I picked up Gunbreaker and Dancer and have yet to do anything with them. Astrologian is confusing and while there's a groove to be gotten into and I like the flavor, I still prefer Scholar for healing. Machinist is also fun, especially since, despite the logo, it's not just shooty shooty gun time, and I really like the combat animations on it. I think Dark Knight is my favorite tank--it certainly is thematically--with Paladin a close second, mechanically.

I've discovered PvP, and far and away for that I prefer to do it as a Bard. I pretty consistently get 0 kills, 6 deaths, and 11 assists.

Favorite class questline this expansion was the Dark Knight line, very cool thematically.

Total playtime on my main character : 20 days, 23 hours, give or take a few minutes.

[neighawolf]

(I'm basing this on D&D or Baldur's Gates classes as I think thats the one most people are familiar with...outside of FFXIV. I might include Warcraft ones if I have them)

Rornir: Bard/Monk (there are more ways to play bard than just singing. I have a sword dancer bard. I play Bards like international spies lol) Urianger: Wizard/Priest (because books required and also channeling some Gale energy) Alex: (she has a lot because I've had her in a lot of universes...) Paladin/Blood Hunter. She was a paladin and the chosen to Kelemvor and became a blood knight (based off the witcher class, built by Matthew Mercer). In Warcraft she was a Death Knight. In BG3 specifically she was a War Cleric to Kelemvor. Thancred: Bard. That's totally how he's introduced and refered. Bastian: Ranger (Gloomstalker. it slaps better than a rogue. Fight me) Marcechamp: Druid/Ranger (hard to say since he's so rare he has like 3 quests in the game. but I've claimed him and I say he's a druid lol) R'aurora: Artificer (based off of Alex's daughter in the campaign lol) G'raha Tia: Sorcerer. (Hard to class honestly. he does so many roles...but because sorcerous bloodlines are a thing, and his whole Alag thing. plus there's a subclass of Sorcerer called Divine Soul, where you can dual cast healing spells or bump an action to a bonus action with points) Sera: Paladin (crown) Real easy lol Y'sthola: Sorcerer. Pure hecking magic. no books needed. Saoirse: Same categories as Urianger. She did actually train and her archon's privilege under the same tutor as Urianger. Estinien: Fighter (Battle Master) you get more interesting battle maneuvers. And its pretty straight forward lol Mizu: literally the same as Estinien. Himbo dragoon lol Sidurgu: Somewhere along the same lines as Alex. Blood Hunter/Witcher type of build. Sorn'daer: Warlock. He started as warlock of the tome in D&D, bound to the Great Old Ones. In ESO (Elder Scrolls) He's an Arcanist bound to Hermaeus Mora. In Warcraft he's a Void Elf destruction warlock (give me purple fire, damn you!) As much as I enjoyed playing him as a BLM from ARR to SHB, RDM and SMN are better and closer to warlock. Heather: While technically Heather does have the echo in FFXIV, she isn't a battle person and prefers her job as retainer, housekeeper and wife. She's the super powered housewife to the Silver Souls (my OC group) that Tataru is to the Scions. Without her, they'd be lost. and that's the perfect job for her.

Because answering this on tweet site is gonna be hard I'll try and make a thread lol but feel free to ask me here!!

I stole from fren <3 Please ask me about my ship dynamics and/or ships (including all the others that aren't Rorianger/Thanlex) they are: Rornir/Urianger Alex/Thancred Bastian/Marcechamp R'aurora/G'raha Sera/Y'sthola/Aymeric Saoirse/Estininen Mizuki/Sidurgu Sorn'daer/Heather (oc)

[ladyramora]

I forgot about how much these two disliked each other.

[ultimablades]

Your WoL for the character ask game!

HER

1: sexuality headcanon: Bisexual

2: otp: I don’t ship Jade with anyone atm, she’s very much not interested in a romantic relationship rn

3: brotp: Estinien is one of her best friends in that you don’t always have to talk constantly and can go months without seeing one another but when you do again, it’s like no time has passed at all. She likes him too because they can just sit quietly together and enjoy a silence.

Sanson and Guydelot are also her besties, whenever she’s in Gridania they hang out together. She loves them both, even if they sometimes drive her nuts by being oblivious to each others affections.

4: notp: kinda along the same lines as otp, since I don’t ship her with anyone, I’ve never thought about who not to ship her with lol. I guess of the really big ffxiv WoL ships, grahawol is probably the closest to a notp but because of how I view their dynamic in my specific wol’s story. (Basically he’s gay and idol worships her the same gay boys love a female pop singer, she wishes he would chill and just be her friend lol)

5: first headcanon that pops into my head: she’s originally from the north shroud and grew up as part of the A tribe, so her first name is actually A’jade but when she goes to Gridania, she just goes by Jade

6: favorite line from this character: I am blanking on every WoL quote atm but I like dialogue options that let the WoL be a lil unhinged. I always choose “it’s bullshite” and “he sure has stones” when I replay bard quests lol

7: one way in which I relate to this character: Jade has a lot of her heart and always tries to be there for everyone who needs her, she is very worried about letting people down, which is something I also fall into.

8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character: she is originally a dragoon, so anytime she’s backflipped off an arena

9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?: shes perfect ❤️❤️❤️

[w-e-chard]

Hey I've noticed you've been reblogging a lot of FFXIV stuff lately and it looks gorgeous... I've been thinking about getting it for a while now but I much prefer to play solo. Do you have to play with others or would you still get the good of it playing by yourself?

I'm gonna answer this under the read more

So FFXIV is an MMORPG, but it's more RPG than MMO. You can play by yourself if you want, but with most dungeons, raids, and trials, you will be playing with a temporary team to clear it. You can do good playing by yourself, and become a powerful player. You can also join an FC if you want after reaching a certain level. I actually did go through the majority of the first part of the game before I joined my FC. If you join an FC, how much you interact entirely depends on you. FC's are able to give you boosts to different things, and both the boosts and cultures of the FC vary depending on the people in it. Once again, it's entirely up to you if you join one. They've also added to the dungeons that you can tackle with a party of NPCs in the game. I actually made it to level 40 before I did my first dungeon in the game, since I was more focused on the side quests than the Main Story Line when I first joined. I also later discovered, thanks to an FC mate, that you are able to remove the level and party limits to some dungeons. So you could even do some of the dungeons solo at a higher level than the default for the dungeon. So if you want to play on your own, you will be able to do that most of the time. There are dungeons that you will need to go through that are easier with a party than on your own. You also upgrade the fighter jobs after level 30, but you need to be at the appropriate point in the main story line to be able to. The first dungeon I did at level 40, was meant to be tackled in your 40's as the upgraded jobs. Did pretty well for the beginner healer job, but would have been easier if I was a Whitemage instead of Conjurer.

They also have Gathering and Crafting jobs and quest lines for players that are not as interested in fighting, or want to create their own supplies instead of relying on NPC merchants and dungeon drops. If you like gambling, there's the Golden Saucer where you gamble, play mini games, and can even race chocobos. If you want to build a home, once you meet certain requirements, you can buy a house. Before then, you can buy apartments that you can decorate. If you want to perform music, after you upgrade your archer job to Bard, you can perform any time using a variety of instruments. Just make sure you check what songs are basically banned, cause the devs want some songs you get in the future to be left as surprises.

On Youtube, JoCat's videos labeled "A Crap Guide Final Fantasy XIV" are funny and informative for beginner players. Lucy Pyre has videos that, while cringe, do give a somewhat basic overview of some of the different aspects of FFXIV. Jesse Cox's videos on FFXIV lore are good summaries of the main lore of the game if you have some trouble understanding the lore in the game. He also gives a good explanation to what FF XIV is like as a game in his "15 Years of WoW vs 1 Year of FFXIV". FF XIV is more story driven than some games, like most Final Fantasy games. Some cut-scenes have extra content if you are a certain job while going through it. You can also rewatch cutscenes in the game while you are staying in a room of an inn.

As I mentioned earlier, I did my first dungeon at a higher level than most people because I was so focused on side quests. The side quest lines are great ways to take a break from the main story. You can also use them to level up other jobs faster, and get some quick gil in the game. Some of the side quest lines are absolutely hilarious. Like the quest lines for Hildibrand Manderville. The expressions and shenanigans during it are GLORIOUS! Some side quests are also required to go further in the story line, or give you more abilities/skills. You can also get more emotes with certain side quests

So to recap, you can play solo for the most part. There will be times you need to play with other players to get further in the game, but the community is mostly full of amazing people who just want to also have fun. You can play the game however you want to. If you decide to join, I hope you enjoy the game as much as I do. And if you want to be friends in the game, just message me your screen name and server, and I'll send you a friend request.

[bubblesthetherapyfish]

i fuckig forgor to send this but

🗡ffxiv🤨

🗡smt 5

🗡uhhm tell me about lotr.

🗡ffxv???

ok see ya *jumps out of your window*

ffxiv (derogatory): i dont think i really hate gaius enough to sell him for a corn chip (i'd take a bag of sour cream and cheddar chips at the very least) so i will go with racist gridanian in the bard quests and racist gridanian telling catgirls he'd love to kill them if he could and racist gridanian in the markets and lolorito

ffxiv (affectionate): emet-selch because it would be funny and he'd just come back immediately to kick my ass and also nero for ghosting my dad and taking the tea kettle in the divorce

smt5: abdiel also because it would be funny and ironic but given the route im taking maybe she's into that shit idk also the stupid birds that divebomb you in the first area fuck those little shits i'd PAY satan to take them from me

lotr (derogatory): i'd like to read the books to get a bigger perspective on characters but for now i think grima should just not exist

lotr (affectionate): gandalf for making you distraught.png with his little prank

ffxv (derogatory): i legit don't think somnus actually adds anything important like sure we needed an explanation for ardyn and maybe we coulda not gotten the noctis we know down the line if somnus didn't girlboss his way onto the throne but who knows i just feel like somnus is there to cause problems on purpose and not even in a hot way-

ffxv (affectionate): like i don't hate ardyn at all besides the usual villain did a bad thing but if i had to 1v1 him i would absolutely send his ass to eeby deeby before he could get a sound in im not hearing your funny little words magic man or imma turn homophobic 🔪

[semi-imaginary-place]

when I first started playing ffxiv it was just a couple months after finishing an campaign with Alaris and I was in withdrawl and went "what if i made alaris a catboy lol" and thats how aurele started. You can see that they share a conceptual origin, yet have become distinct individual characters. the reason alaris has soo many more bubbles filled in that aurele on the character sheets is that alaris is like 40 years older than aurele and has had more time to pick up skills.

what's funny is that they're both perpetually poor. Alaris because things just keep falling out of his pockets and he doesn't care and Aurele because gig economy. Both would probably be decent at seduction if they tried but neither really care. Alaris probably accidentally seduces people (because high cha bard) but I'm not counting that. mmm perhaps i should cross out seduction and write charm, both are quite charming people. Aurele being illiterate is still very funny to me but like aurele's just a farm boy. i mean do you really think eorzea has a functioning universal education system? Aurele (like Alaris) actually likes new things and learning and in time line C (out of A-E) when he joins a certain adventuring party and goes side-questing, he probably does get bullied into literacy. Aurele probably learned to write his name and not much more.

aurele novae is more like a professional name, its not quite a fake name but tis not quite his real name either. its what he signed up under for the adventurer's guild. aurele's not stupid but he does have a soft heart and wants to do things for other people (this is central to his character arc), so he's easy to bully but you'd feel bad about it afterwards. funfact! He uses "Aurele Novae" because his friend was in thd middle of an elf weeabo phase at the time. in ffxiv the elves/elezen are french, so aurele novae is using french orthography. you actually meet an elf aurel in game later. His birth name is pronounced the same but under conventional eorzean standard orthography it would be rendered N'uuhrel Tia. also its technically Aurèle but ffxiv doesn't allow diacritics. Out of universe he's names Aurele for his heart of gold. So after Aurele took the fall for his little sister and received a dishonorable discharge from the maelstrom he decided to get away from it all. Izaikil is a traveling magic scholar and also a character that i made when i was 12. the two of them initially met in limsa, aurele was on shore leave and izaikil was studying at the arcanists guild. when aurele was looking for where to go, izaikil was in gridania studying history and conjury so feeling a bit lost aurele decided to go to gridania on a whim. so while he's from la noscea, he signs up for the gridanian adventurer's guild.  Elezen are the only race native to eorzea (canon) so in studying eorzea's history izaikil learns a lot of elezen history and ends up picking up some Old Elezen (this language(french) was eventually replaced by Eorzean Common(english)), so when Aurele mentions that he's thinking of signing up under a slightly different name, Izaikil proposes transcribing it using Old Elezen(french) orthography.

so aurele's hometown is a little isolationist and xenophobic which is why his generation wanted to spread their wings and see the world. his village wasn't traditional in the miqo'te sense. they were sedintary, they did some hunting but also fishing and a lot of agriculture. and the village didn't have a traditional social structure. so his two moms (1) did not bring him up with a lot of traditional cultural practices. so as an adult meeting miqo'te who live their cultural heritage, there's an awkwardness amd a sadness that this is his heritage too, its a sense of loss for something he never had. its more like a vague acknowledgement of the different paths life has led us all on. Aurele doesn't have a big dramatic character arc like say the disaster lesbian duo have, he's just some dude there's nothing special about him, he's like a level 15 archer npc. I'd say he mostly deals with the same types of things most people in their 20s deal with, settling into one's own self, a solidification of identity, deciding what one wants to do with their life. He balances out his desire to take on the burdens of others with a wider perspective, and his ability to bring people together and build community really starts to shine. exactly what happens to him depends on the timeline. he mostly becomes a botanist, maybe he picks up some conjury and magic, maybe he builds a life in gridania, maybe he moves back to la noscea. he loves adventuring and meeting new people and seeing new places but i do think he settles down eventually. not quite sure exactly what he does. maybe he takes over his villages orange orchards? starts a vinyard? community farm co-op? who knows

mmmm how do I describe it... Aurele has very pretty eyes, very clear and bright, so while that green is the base color  they appear brighter/lighter in real life (fiction real life that is). And he has gold flecks in his eyes too, from afar his eyes are a light yellow-green (chartreuse???) but close up you can see they are green and gold. also he's got tareme eyes. Noyu's the one with tsurime eyes. Alaris has unusual eyes too now that i think about it. i may have a character design quirk... Alaris takes pretty strongly from the human side of his family but his eyes are brighter and more jewel like than a pure human's. I guess you could say his eyes are hazel but like an extreme elf-y version so they shift around different combinations of green, turquoise and gold depending on the lighting

[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #29: Stormsong

Prompt: paternal | Master Post | On AO3

Well, this did not go where I thought it would, and certainly isn’t crack. But I think I like it?

Anyway, SPOILERS for The Sorrow of Werlyt through the quest “Sleep Now in Sapphire” as well as the Omega Raid story line.

--

A late summer storm had roared up the coast, driving the residents of Terncliff inside their homes and the Ironworks engineers and Resistance soldiers down into the magitek facility. Most were in their commandeered bunks—at least those not on patrol throughout the town—while waiting for the storm to pass, but for the engineers at least, there was still work to be done in the warmachina bay.

For a given definition of work.

Valdeaulin rolled his eyes as Cid Garlond and Synnove Greywolfe’s shouting echoed down the hangar. He couldn’t fathom the reason why Greywolfe was here, for all that she had taken it deeply personally that she hadn’t been involved in the G-Warrior’s development; something to do with the warmachina’s systems, perhaps, or the recovered pieces of the Sapphire Weapon, currently in one of the secondary bays. He could follow her ranting about aetheric principles to a degree, but the similarities between thaumaturgy and arcanima rapidly ran dry when the arcanist also dabbled heavily in engineering.

From his spot close to the exit out towards the bay, at least, the pounding rain and crash of thunder mostly drowned out the engineers’ row (Greywolfe was standing atop the G-Warrior’s shoulder, yelling down at Garlond as they both shook their fists and waved wrenches at one another for emphasis, the other Ironworks employees not reacting to them at all). If he closed his eyes, he could imagine for a moment that rain was falling on the stone roof of his home rather than sheet metal, that the cool wind blew in from the dark depths of the Twelveswood, that the voices he heard were those of his wife and daughter. But then something would crash in the hangar, and he would be drawn back to reality.

With an annoyed sigh, Valdeaulin opened his eyes and resumed his work on a map of the region surrounding Terncliff and heading towards Werlyt. He didn’t have to do it, but there was precious little else for him to do with the weather so foul and the hunt for Gaius’ wayward foster children and their Weapons project temporarily halted. And it would make the lives of the Resistance patrols easier, at least.

He was making notations on one copy about the local patterns of aether for any Resistance mages—eerily dead, but with the occasional strange spot he could sense of high activity that might be a natural golem, or a pocket of minor elementals—when he heard footsteps trotting towards his position. His ears twitched and he looked up, eyebrows going up despite his attempt to remain stoic.

His time with the Order of the Twin Adders had been relatively short—perhaps two years, if that—but Rereha Reha had been notorious well before she and her sisters-in-arms had stumbled into bearing the mantles of Warriors of Light. Valdeaulin hadn’t served in her unit, but he had seen the fallout of some of her “shenanigans,” both good and ill, and his commanding officer had spoken of her with fond exasperation. Like him, she was an outsider to the Twelveswood, but for some unfathomable reason, she had been permitted beneath its boughs by the Elementals to live and learn in Gridania.

She hadn’t changed much, appearance wise anyway, since that time he had last seen her before Operation Archon: devious, almost smarmy grin, pink hear dyed with streaks of white, skin astonishingly blemish free despite a career outdoors that he had once overheard a Gridanian noblewoman hiss over in a fit of jealousy and left him struggling to disguise his laughter as a cough. She still favored sky blue for anything that wasn’t a uniform, going by her leather coat, but her usual matching stockman hat with its jaunty feather was suspiciously missing.

And…was that a hatchling dragon in her arms?

When the lalafell came to a stop before him, he grudgingly said, “Lieutenant Reha.”

“Ooooh, that’s Captain Reha now, Sergeant,” Rereha said, just shy of cackling.

Valdeaulin nearly dropped his pen. “Dear good gods, why do they keep promoting you?” he said in disbelief.

“Mostly to make me someone else’s problem,” she chirped, easily hopping up onto a stack of crates next to him. The dragonet in her arms croaked reproachfully as it was jostled, but she merely patted it on the head and continued, “I think the plan is to get me high enough that it forces Grand Marshal Brookstone to retire already. I am also, apparently, quite good at getting the job done even if it means someone goes prematurely grey from shock, mortification, or both.”

“That sounds like a quote,” he said.

Rereha held a finger up to her lips in a ‘shush’ gesture, smirking, and waggled her eyebrows.

Valdeaulin shook his head and, to use one of Severa’s favorite phrases, decided to bite the bullet, gesturing to the dragonet. “And who’s your friend there?”

If he hadn’t once been the father of a precocious daughter (one who would be about the same age as this hedonist bard had she lived), he likely wouldn’t have noticed the very brief widening of Rereha’s eyes in the classic children’s expression of oh shite. But he did, and he kept his face studiously blank of anything except polite interest while the lalafell smiled bright and wide—too wide, just a hair—and said, “Oh, this little guy?”

She held the dragonet, a yalm long from nose to tail by his guess, up for inspection. He had black eyes, apparently all pupil, or perhaps his irises were true black, as well. His head was head was wedge-shaped, with fan-shaped protrusions on either side of his head of similar shape to his wings. The closer look showed that his scales were tiny; from a distance he had almost appeared smooth-skined. He was dark green, shading to a paler shade on his belly, and the undersides of his wings and ear fins, plus his extremities, were pink.

The dragonet was, quite frankly, adorable, despite the unsettlingly powerful glare. Something about his aether niggled at him, though; he could have sworn he had encountered it before, but that couldn’t be possible…

“I had heard you and the other Warriors of Light had brought peace between the Ishgardians and the Dravanians,” Valdeaulin drawled, “but I didn’t expect it had extended to babysitting.”

“Dragonets do what they want,” Rereha said with a sniff. “He usually stays in Anyx Trine, but occasionally he comes wandering to find us and beg for bacon jerky.”

The dragonet perked up at that word and he craned his neck and head back to chirp at Rereha imperiously.

She sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I got the goods.” She set the dragonet in her lap and slung her pack off her shoulder.

As Rereha rummaged around in her bag, Valdeaulin said mildly, “Does he have a name?”

“Hm? Oh! Yeah,” she said, popping her head up and triumphantly holding a wrapped packet. The dragonet began hopping impatiently, wings flaring, and Rereha shoved him out of the way, but he merely took that as an invitation to hop onto her head, lean over, and croak angrily in her face. She poked his nose and said to Valdeaulin, “He’s, ah, Deeh Sohm.”

His parental bullshite detector, as his Trisselle had called it, noticed the ever-so-slight hesitation, but as before, Valdeaulin didn’t comment on it. As hilarious as it would be to make Rereha Reha squirm, he assumed whatever it was that was causing her to react like someone with their hand in the biscuit jar, it some sort of Warrior of Light business.

Instead, he merely nodded, and went back to notating the map. Rereha, meanwhile, hurriedly unwrapped the waxed paper to reveal a pile of jerky and began breaking off pieces. For every piece she passed up to the impatient “Deeh Sohm,” she popped one into her own mouth, apparently as ravenous as her small companion. The jerky vanished completely into their stomachs in no time at all, and both dragonet and lalafell belched in satisfaction. A lick of blue flame accompanied the dragonet’s.

Valdeaulin did not comment, though he did briefly wonder if Lisie would have stayed as shamelessly irreverent had she grown up. The thought only hurt a little, this time.

Apparently now that snack time was over, it was time to sleep the food off: Rereha yawned once, laid down with her head pillowed on her back, and promptly passed out, in the manner of many soldiers and adventurers who learned to sleep whenever and wherever they could, with an inelegant snore. The dragonet, briefly dislodged from his perch atop her head, instead stomped down to her stomach, kneading it like a cat before he curled into a ball, wings tucked close.

Valdeaulin shifted just a bit on his own seat, shuffling back to make himself a better windbreak for the occasional stormy gust that howled into the hanger.

Suddenly, the dragonet’s aether signature…changed.

Valdeaulin very, very slowly raised his head, eyes wide. Before, the dragonet’s aether had felt dim, the faintest hum of a repeating tune of power, fitting for a creature that looked so young.

Now, though.

Now, it was a chorus of complex harmonies, of rhythms and tone and melodies that somehow blended into a coherent whole. It was heavy with the weight of antiquity, nearly crushing with how narrowly it was focused upon himself.

The dragonet stared at him, and now he would swear that fathomless, midnight gaze saw through him, right to the very heart of his being, weighing and judging and knowing. A loud, grumbling hmmmmmmm, almost two-toned with reverb, echoed in his mind.

Rereha snorted, though she didn’t wake entirely, and she patted the dragonet on the head. “Go t’ sleep, Dad,” she slurred.

Slowly, the ancient awareness folded itself away, bit by bit, until the dragonsong was muted once more to that simple cascade of notes of earlier. The dragonet blinked at him, yawned, and tucked his head under his wing to nap.

Valdeaulin stared at the pair for long moments, before resolutely returning to his work.

He did not want to know.

[thearcanatweets]

the arcana characters as classes they would be in ffxiv

asra - astrologian. though i could see him excelling in any position if it would aid you, much like how g'raha is an all rounder in shb trust runs

nadia - dancer. she reminds me a bit of the dancer npc from the quests (nasmeerah i think? idr the spelling). it's a graceful class that inflicts heavy damage but can also aid her allies. i could also see red mage; a combo of melee and magic with some flare. this is also me playing favorites bc i main these two classes

julian - machinist. not a class i have experience with myself, but ive obviously played w many who do. another ranged dps class, this one employing the use of mostly guns and down the line some things like flamethrowers and turrets. plus every machinist main i have ever met acts like him

portia - bard. 110%. ranged dps. allows her to strengthen her allies through song whike inflicting a good amount of damage. i like to think her and nadia would enjoy runs together for the song/dance theme!

muriel - monk. a close range dps class. another one i dont have much experience with. i thought about assigning him ninja for the sole reason that they can cast hide, but i think that monk fits better. i dont think he would opposed to tanking however if he had to

lucio - gunbreaker. he Only tanks. he wants all the attention on him. in alliance raids he always maintains top of the aggro list. gunbreaker mains are all like That too. look at thancred. when he runs dungeons w asra, asra is very much a "well you didnt die so whats the issue" healer bc he focuses on literally everyone else before lucio

[astroellipse]

writing *ranting about ffxiv while I wait for a queue to pop

I was so sad man... I’m just trying to do the Hildebrand questline- it popped in the middle of writing that oh my god.

What I was going to say is that I thought this queue for the quest line’s third trial was going to be 15 minutes like the last two but saw it was instead “more than 30 minutes”, and given the last time I queued for a trial that said that it took two hours, I was a little concerned. To my surprise it popped initially just seven minutes in... until someone backed out. Then I started writing this. Then it popped, I waited half a minute, and someone withdrew again. And a third time immediately after. On the fourth time I actually got in. That was ridiculous. I’ll still continue writing though, since finishing the first Hildibrand saga is a good breaking point.

That was, to be expected, hilarious. A lot of it, anyhow. Some of it just sort of hurt. The funniest moment wasn’t even during the questline, it was during the first trial with Gilgamesh. Both me and the bard were inflicted with confusion and just started blasting each other. Him knocking arrows and all but stabbing them into my forehead, and me casting ruin directly into his eyes at point blank range. That and the getting turned into a frog and getting chased by chickens. Literally nothing can top that encounter for me.

I straight up did not care about the mystery/plot the majority of the time, but I guess I should expect by now that I’ll always enjoy the characters more than whatever mediocre plot they’re tangled in. Just. The Coliseum quests specifically mostly pissed me off. The pervy tentacle monster. The needless racism. The whole thing with painting a poor person wanting to find an easy way to not be poor as undeniably evil which the game KEEPS doing makes me so fucking mad, in combination with stewing about these other themes in JRPGs especially with being all “boo-hoo, won’t anyone thing about how hard it is being rich and noble, all the responsibility, how dare these dirty poors even think about getting revenge on the very people that keep them down.

Why aren’t they just happy with what they do have? They should just put in more work if they want to eat a warm meal, even though we’ve already established there’s no work to be had. Like jesus christ I’d swear some of the shit in this game and others was being written by some 17 year old medieval lordling with too much free time between tutoring sessions. What is these peoples’ obsessions with nobility? Like I get it makes for good fantasy content but have at least a little bit of self consciousness.

I feel like I always see these games acknowledge some kind of class structure and how it negatively effects those in its lowest rungs then shrug it off as “there’s nothing anyone can do about it” and paint the impoverished as villains for being upset with the people that do have the power to change it. Sort of a tangent but this specifically is why I despised and kind of relationship between Dorothea and Ferdinand in Three Houses. She calls him out and rightfully so in the first support, then he makes a batch of pastries completely from scratch one time and this apparently makes her think that all nobles aren’t so bad? Going from straight up not wanting nobles to exist to thinking hey, they’re people too :). I hate that. I hated that FE3H characters were mostly nobles or come from notable/rich families or whatever.

Similarly I hate that FFXIV has such a huge focus on the upper crust and just completely discards and lower-class person. Like, there was a mission where I had to check on some scared refugees and they attacked me in self defense and it made me kill them? And I reported back to the guy who asked me to check on them and he just went “Ah well, what can you do.” Like what the fuck is wrong with these writers sometimes???

I was about to say this was more of an issue with ARR but remembered how the people of the Brume were treated in HW, like a mob of bumbling idiots in desperate need of guidance. What drove me insane the most on that front was when the people were on the brink of revolt after that one girl basically martyred herself, and to remedy this Aymeric decided his order and the grand companies would have their little sparring mach, because nothing sparks patriotism more like sports. Even though this left the city with significantly less protection. And that it was held in an area where not a single citizen could see it. Also, the group the people were supposed to be rooting for was the order of knights and their lapdogs (Hilda’s group) which. just. none of it made sense. It was stupid. This kinda shit makes me afraid to eventually get to Stormblood and into the thick of the Ala Mhigo stuff which they have handled TERRIBLY so far like it boils my blood to think about it. This game is so racist it’s unreal.

but. god. I was talking about the Hildibrand questline. The bit on Costa del Sol was probably the closest I came to caring about the plot, plus it had some pretty good bits. Wasn’t a fan of the big “man in a dress” at the end, though it did make me think that men should be allowed to wear dresses in this game like it would’ve looked fine without the goofy hair and makeup :/ And I completely checked out on whatever that last bit of story was no I do not care that that one girl we’ve been traveling with was the thief all along I have never liked her. Also she played into that class issue I just ranted about. The reveal of her sister was also cheap and stupid. The elezen inspector professing his love for her was also weird? My first thought during that was “jesus christ man she was trying to commit mass mur-” and then I remembered that I/my WoL was crushing on Ysale before she got axed which comes in at #2 for funniest moment in this questline. Him doing that still came out of nowhere save one or two short scenes in separate quests to me.

But I’m exhausted of this now. I might go and start the next saga but I’ll probably go to sleep early... if anything has made me rethink playing past the free trial it’s the shit above but I’ll be honest I am pretty darn likely to cave. I can only hope the writers sorted at least some of their shit out between expansions.

[karoiseka]

12 and 14 for the ffxiv meme!

12. Favorite beast tribe?

Hmmmmmm, I’d have to say Pixies.  I’ve had troubles getting to the story for almost any of the beast tribes because it can take SO LONG between stages to get to the story points if you don’t remember to do them daily.  The Kojin I’ve enjoyed as well.  Both of those I actually REMEMBERED to do timely, and as a result got through their “story” pretty quickly to remember the beginning when I got to the end.  Pixies were only the second tribe I did when relevant, so, that helps as well.  Most everyone I know had/has finished or just not started the other tribes.  I love the way the Pixies quests lined up with the different Norverant zones, and I liked the Kojin for the same reason--kinda wrapping things up in the world.

14. Your garbage favorite character(s)?

Uhhhh... I suppose that depends on one’s definition of a garbage character is.

I suppose, as much as I hate on it, the Bard quest boys are a pair.  I think they were fairly dull in the overall arc, and I had forgotten about them almost as soon as I had finished my quests.  Looking back, I probably am not being fair to them and will NG+ the hell out of my Bard quests when I can to give them a better chance to win me over.  I suppose when they’re trying to live up to Fray and some of the other class quests, it’s a bit hard.

Love them regardless of what others think though? Hmmm.... I have a bad habit of loving everyone for the most part. They’re all integral to the story, and that endears me to them overall.  I begrudgingly love Emet for everything that happens in  ShB, those it’s a wary, weary love.  Most of the other villains I just wanna punch in the face, so, yeah.  I really don’t know how to answer this one!! lol

[krahka]

The KleskizhAUs and their Poetic Styles

Under read more because lomg

SWTOR Kleskizhae

Ridiculous Sith Juggernaut. Excessively proud of his Sith ancestry but also ridiculously light side and somehow doesn’t see this as a problem. Loves lightsabers, loves the Empire but is a little less clear on whether he likes the Empire as an institution or the Empire as the people, and hint, it’s the people, he’ll pick the people if he had to.

Poetry: ALL CAPS HAIKUS FREE VERSE ASTRONOMY METAPHORS EXTREMELY VIOLENT REFERENCES TO ANCIENT SITH HISTORY BEAUTIFUL WORDS BEATEN STRAIGHT OUT OF HIS HEART OF DARK PASSION

DS!SWTOR Kleskizhae

Ridiculous and awful Sith Juggernaut. Believes himself morally and genetically superior to all others. Delights in toying with his inferiors, especially in breaking their hearts with his charm and facade of kindness. 

Poetry: Flowery and romantic and flattering. More or less copies of ancient Sith poems, but with the words changed a bit. They’re mostly for showing off how cultured he is and how much he loves you babe, so he doesn’t put in much effort. 

ESO Kleskizhae

Altmer Battlemage. A scion of the Direnni but not on great terms with his family due to his allegiance to the Aldmeri Dominion and his marrying a Bosmer because of Spinner shenanigans. Ambassador of the Queen and definitely not one of her Eyes nosir. Got pressganged into the Buoyant Armigers after impressing Vivec by exemplifying all of hir favorite virtues and vices just by accident.

Poetry: Sonnets. Ballads. Sexually explicit but it’s so purple that you can hardly tell just how sexually explicit it really is. Mostly about his own adventures and the people he knows. Melodramatic as fuck. The stuff he wrote when Vivec specifically was taking an interest in him is his best work, since he starts getting more experimental and tones down the silliness without losing that red hot emotional core that really elevates the verse to something that so many people try and fail to replicate in the future that it’s become its own genre. 

DS!ESO Kleskizhae

Altmer Battlemage what dabbles in necromancy. Believes himself the rightful king of all of High Rock with the Bretons as his rebellious subjects. Allied with Mannimarco because he promised him that when Planemeld happened, he could have his ancestral holdings all to himself, with all the people there living only to glorify him. The kinda guy you end up killing in the Daggerfall Covenant quests or in a Balfiera focused dungeon DLC. 

Poetry: Pretty similar to light side ESO!Kleskizhae, but if he thinks you didn’t appreciate his work he’ll torture you until you do. Try and critique it and he’ll just plain murder you and raise your corpse to grovel for his forgiveness and admit that you were wrong. Also his poetry is his annoying boss mechanic somehow. Didn’t read the books in his dungeon? Too bad because that’s how you defeat him. 

GW2 Klejskizae

Norn Herald. Skald, champion of Wolf, Lightbringer of the Order of Whispers. A Delight unto all people of Tyria! Your new best friend who is not using your friendship with him to learn your secrets! Come and listen to him channel the spirits and the Legends next Dragon Bash!

Poetry: Actually more into prose. Veddas. Stories about heroes, exaggerated for effect. Tales that he keeps in his mind that he tells differently each time he’s asked to tell it, depending on what he thinks his audience needs to hear. The poetry tends to be more personal, often taking the form of prayers to the Spirits that are between him and them. Also will write songs, also about heroes, with calls to action for the Pact. 

TES!Specifically Klejskizae

Nord Skaald. Traveling yeller. Delighter of audiences all throughout Tamriel. Follower of the Old Ways. Probably also in the Blades. 

Poetry: SCREAMING TAVERN SONGS. Great heroes, sometimes gets kicked out of taverns in Skyrim because he’s performing songs about non-Nord heroes but how can you not be excited by EVERYONE

SWTOR!Specifically Klejskizae

Mandalorian what will scream battle poems in your ear as he faces you in glorious hand to hand combat. Has some very weird ideas of what being Mandalorian is, but they’re closer to reality than his Sith version’s ideas of being Sith. 

Poetry: You thought Sith Kleskizhae’s poetry was gory and violent? You haven’t heard Mando Klejskizae. They are ridiculous. Everything ends with lovers embracing for the last time as they die in battle and their death is described in excruciating detail.

FFXIV Kleskizhae

Ishgardian adventurer. Dragoony Bard. Got kicked out for being way too scandalous for the theocracy and for talking too much about how he thought that maybe we should just smooch the Dragons? 

Poetry: The poetry isn’t why he’s not liked back in Ishgard, though that poetry was a means to transmit his unpopular and scandalous ideas and activities. The poetry specifically is why he’s distrusted in Gridania after he met an elemental and challenged it to a rap battle and it went very poorly. (Kleskizhae won and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise or that that’s not the point and there is no winning because he definitely won)

West Coast Fallout Klaus K. Zheng

Paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel. Sort of into the whole BoS thing of keeping dangerous tech out of people’s hands but also he’s into protecting people in any way he can, since they must protect those who will inherit the past, yes? That is what we’re doing, right? Right?

Poetry: He found a book of poems about Arthurian legends and they changed his life, as did Grognak the Barbarian which he’s sure is in the same canon. He’s also read a bunch of Shakespeare and only sort of understands it. So yeah, sonnets that are Shakespeare ripoffs. Casting modern topics into medieval terms. Sometimes it’ll get weird and his BoS worldview will come in and make them anachronistic but it’s unintentional because he just wants to write like the knights of yore. 

East Coast Fallout Klaus K. Zheng

Enclave soldier, later deserter once he sees that oh shit killing everyone wasn’t supposed to be what they were going to do! He wasn’t listening to the quiet part! Ends up aiding synths because it pisses off the BoS and also saves lives. Still believes in America but it’s one that maybe never existed. 

Poetry: The Enclave did preserve a lot of good American literature in their databanks, though they’re kinda sketchy about distributing it to their soldiers since even before 2077 they realized that a lot of the American canon contains like, anti-war, anti-corporate ideas and they couldn’t have that in their new society. He read Leaves of Grass once and it blew his mind. He might just surrender to the Brotherhood if they let him have access to their books, because he needs those. But also he might not because they would probably kill him and he’s also spending his post-Raven Rock time helping synths out of the Institute and that’s something they’d kill him for. And probably also kill a lot of other people if they realized that the Railroad had ex-Enclave in there. And the Institute doesn’t care for the humanities, which is why they had to create machines to teach them how to be human and then proceed to do such terrible things to the humans they’ve created; because they are less machine than they are and they resent them for it. 

Modern Vlogger Klaus K. Zheng

Relationship advice vlogger, specifically as a counter-voice to all those shitty misogynist PUAs that are targeting lonely straight men. Also here for the lonely women and the lonely queers since he’s a queer man himself. 

Poetry: He’s got a Master’s in Poetry and he feels it was time well spent, even if he didn’t care as much for academia as he did for the writing and the reading. One of the rewards for donating to his Patreon at a higher tier is a short poem written just for you about whatever subject you wish. (Assuming that it’s not extremely objectionable. He’ll gladly write poems about all sorts of sex acts, but he won’t write one about the virtues of white power.)

HZD Kleskizhae

Carja Warrior. Participated in the Red Raids because that was what the will of the Sun was but he couldn’t take the violence and the genocide and ended up joining with Sun-Prince Avad to overthrow the murderous king literally as soon as he could. Has been on a tour of goodwill ever since. 

Poetry: Overuses the words “glinting”, “scintillating”, “resplendent”, “radiant”, “brilliant” and other words that mean A LOT OF LIGHT because he’s really into writing ridiculous songs about the Sun. A lot more personal and emotional than a lot of Carja poetry, since it’s more about love than about praising the Sun or the King. It’s a new dawn, and what the world needs is love’s shining rays to heal her wounds. With the help of some Oseram who wanted to promote the newly invented phonograph, manages to become the first real pop star after the apocalypse.

DA Kleskizhae

Tevinter Battlemage. Was sent off to the front lines against the Qunari to keep from embarrassing his family and his master. Accidentally ended up embarrassing them anyway. 

Poetry: So he’s really into bringing up the Old Gods in his poems. He doesn’t worship them, he’s a good Andrastian, but you know how in the Renaissance everyone was a huge Greeceaboo? Yeah, it’s like that. 

WtA Klaus K. Zheng

Fianna Galliard. He’s a werewolf poet who sings ballads of his pack’s glorious battles and lifts their spirits in the name of Gaia and Stag!

Poetry: He’s got a soft spot for dirty limericks. All of the Kleskizhaes will make improv poems upon request when they’re drunk enough but Fianna!Klaus is the master of the drunken on-the-spot poem. Like they get way better when he’s drunk and they’re improvised, as opposed to the usual thing where they’re charmingly bad.

VtM Klaus K. Zheng

Toreador. Got the vampire bug some time in the Victorian era, I dunno if he was actually British or what.

Poetry: Lord Byron himself once called his poems “a bit maudlin.” His sire was certainly fond of his work, but if he had more time in his peak living creative years he would have probably been a better known figure in the Romantic movement. As it is he’s fairly irrelevant and forgotten by all but a few intense scholars of the period, and even they consider him a minor figure. 

Shadowrun Klaus K. Zheng

Elven Street Samurai. Just wants to make the world a better place through the power of love and also katanas. Probably unfortunately involved with Aztechnology which is gonna end badly for him probably. 

Poetry: Machines and corporations have not yet conquered the metahuman soul, and that is why he writes. Has been banned from a couple of Runner BBSs for constantly posting about his latest runs in the form of epic poem, and that’s not what these boards are for, @GLORIOUSSAMURAI, please turn off your caps lock

Star Trek Kleskizhae

Romulan Tactical Officer. Fought in the Dominion War, joined the Romulan Republic after Romulus asplode, because they wouldn’t let him quietly desert and because he believes in the true Romulan spirit that can never be repressed!

Poetry: He’s trying to revive ancient pre-Awakening Vulcan poetic traditions whilst failing to recognize that lots of it doesn’t work in the modern Romulan language. He’s always been super into poetry but after the destruction of Romulus, he becomes obsessed with writing the perfect series of poems to describe it for the future, so that people will remember what it’s like long after everyone who remembers it is dead. He hasn’t been successful yet and it’s upsetting him but he can’t just not do it. He owes it to the dead. 

Bionicle Kleskizhae

He's a proud Skakdi warlord of Fire who is trying his best to unite his proud and noble people against the wicked deprivations of the Makuta and might also be in the Order of Mata Nui because sometimes Kleskizhae is a spy? But always he is very loud. 

Poetry: Extremely long and elaborate war chants with 40 verses that he’s trying to get his guys to chant into battle but no one else but him can remember it all and he keeps adding more verses. But also he’s written love poetry that’s gone all the way around Greg and made romance canon again! He’s done it! With the chiseling of the tablets he’s made love real!

[snufthebest]

Today @draigonis and i did the FFXIV Christmas Event! 💜❄️☃️ We had a lot of fun! 😁 The quest had a funny, but heartwarming story line, and we got some Chocobo Barding! 😄💜 Realy hope we can get back on this game soon! 😄💜 . . . ✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏ Tags: #ffxiv #finalfantasy #finalfantasyxiv #ff14 #finalfantasy14 #finalfantasy15 #ffxv #finalfantasyxv #chocobo #squareenix #mmo #gamer #games #gaming #christmas (at Holten) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6otB7rHCcE/?igshid=1b2mphuglyxn