#or they say they're not wanting XIV spoilers

[miqojak]

Friendly reminder that if you're going to reblog an ask meme from someone, you should send an ask first! Or, if you REALLY don't want to interact in the RP community, reblog it from the source! It feels pretty bad to have someone come by just to take from you, when you're trying to make connections! (Plus, that's just the etiquette here: reblog karma!)

Also! Many folks have some rules, or requests at the top of their blog page - and having had someone freak out at me recently in DMs and insist she shouldn't have to read the info of every person she follows? No. You do. You should. I specifically, in fact, only really have one request of followers: to not use me as a resource blog (i.e. simply taking my OC's aesthetic posts and RP ask meme posts without interacting with me/my OC at all.) I do share some resource posts now and then! Those are rather obvious, however, and I don't mind those being shared - I want to help! But part of why I left, in fact, and am only recently back from hiatus- was that I was at a point where no one interacted and would only come by to take from my blog for themselves! It feels real bad to feel like people don't care about your creativity or the fact that you're really trying to meet people and RP... they just want the aesthetic and asks.

So be kind to your fellow RPers! Think about how the way you're interacting might make the real human being on the other side of the computer feel. And practice good reblog karma!

[iapetusneume]

this post does not have spoilers in it

So, I want to say something quick about Final Fantasy XIV that I hope everyone will listen to, not just my fellow FFXIV fans. I want this to reach all my friends, for those who might be considering playing the game, and for those who may be aren't but hear their friends considering playing the game.

The game is currently being review-bombed by transphobes, especially on Steam.

The main character NPC of the new expansion - Dawn Trail - is trans. I literally didn't know this until I was talking about this with my wives, because issues regarding her being trans have not been relevant to the plot. But it's something that's mentioned in supporting material, and it was important enough that Square Enix hired a trans voice actress for every language that had voice acting.

(Also, not to get into the minushae of gender representation in the game, because this is not the point right now. I think they're doing a great job on that front.)

There are so many reviews that say the only reason why the game is so "bad" is Wuk Lamat. So many of the reviews go into the ridiculousness of the series "going woke," questioning if trans people should be in a game that minors are playing*, and pretty much all the disgusting things we're used to seeing transphobes bring.

So. If you (or someone you know) is considering picking up Dawn Trail but have been hearing that it's been getting bad reviews. I would beg you to reconsider. It's valid to potentially wait to buy to avoid server congestion**, or obviously if RL is making it difficult to play games at all.

But please don't write off Dawn Trail because of supposed "bad reviews." These are bad-faith actors at work.

.

.

* - So, I feel like little children shouldn't be playing any part of FFXIV in the first place. I'm not going to say that I don't think minors should play, but I feel like this is something that parents/guardians should seriously consider. I would say minimum age should be 16, maybe 14 for a very mature kid.

But also, I don't think a character being trans is a reason to seriously consider not letting a kid play. There is some seriously dark content in the base game and every single expansion that should be giving a parent/guardian pause on when a kid is mature enough to handle it. Someone being trans is not one of those issues.

Also, I don't trust anyone who uses the "think of the children" reasoning. Its a dogwhistle.

** - One of the only criticisms I have about Dawn Trail right now is that sometimes it can take up to two minutes for the quest marker to appear above an NPC's head. But I also know that part of this is that the game just launched, and that it's not going to be like this later. I've seen some discussion that this might have been able to be avoided if the coding had been done different, but yeah.

I know it won't be forever, and also that Square Enix will take this criticism seriously. They put so much work into not having another Endwalker Queue fiasco, and the queues have been pretty good. The only reason that queues are starting to get worse now is that the game is being DDOSed. I have faith that they're going to address the issue and/or it will resolve when the servers are no longer so congested.

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 14

Chapter 13: Interview with the vampyre

This is a short chapter and also a good one. If you were a fan of Henry Bannerworth Knowing That He Is In Dracula, this is the chapter for you.

I'm going to tag this "cannibalism" for real-life reasons, and also "unreality" because I want to talk about an aspect of fiction that might not be great for you if you don't feel like you're on solid ground. I mean, if people are using that tag for Goncharov, this is the high-octane stuff.

Chapter XIV.

HENRY'S AGREEMENT WITH SIR FRANCIS VARNEY. -- THE SUDDEN ARRIVAL AT THE HALL. -- FLORA'S ALARM.

To catch you up, the Bannerworth family's new neighbor has offered to buy Bannerworth Estate, since the family obviously will not want to live there now that a mysterious vampyre is harassing them by night. Upon arriving at the neighbor's house, Henry Bannerworth discovers that said neighbor: is the fucking vampyre. Like just chilling there, in a dim room, vampyring. Henry promptly starts having a very apparent breakdown, all while his kinda-uncle Marchdale is like, "Shhhhh, Henry, it's rude to tell people they're vampyres."

I. Still interviewing the vampyre

The unnamed servant brings the unnamed refreshments that Sir Francis has called for—unnamed but for "a glass of wine."

"You take nothing yourself?" said Henry. "I am under a strict regimen," replied Varney. "The simplest diet alone does for me, and I have accustomed myself to long abstinence." "He will not eat or drink," muttered Henry, abstractedly.

I grew up with the impression, and you may have too, that vampires specifically don't like wine, but why? I spent way too long googling this without getting a solid answer, as you will remember from our Public Domain Wine Dot Com digression. But I have finally learned that the "I never drink......... wine" thing was not in Stoker's Dracula, nor anything before it; much the way that Nosferatu (1922) introduced the concept of sunlight crisping vampires, it was the Balderston-Deane play adaptation (1924) that introduced the line, which was then adapted by Tod Browning for the screen (1931):

Both the line as written and Bela Lugosi's delivery put an outsized emphasis on it being wine. He could have been saying he didn't drink coffee after dinner. I'm spending an hour on google trying to figure out if it has anything to do with communion wine—nope. It ain't blood. That's all. As Henry points out, Varney doesn't eat or drink, period, and that's the underlying premise here. Because, you know. He's dead. That is the story that James Malcolm Rymer has going at this point in time, and he might or might not stick with it.

I'll wrap this segment up by noting that Henry is absolutely sure that the painting and the person are the same, because they both bear "the mark or cieatrix [a transcriber mistyped cicatrix?] of a wound in the forehead, which the painter had slightly indented in the portrait, but which was much more plainly visible on the forehead of Sir Francis Varney." A cicatrix—[sic]atrix?—is just a scar. The dude has a telltale scar.

II. Will u sell the house tho

Varney still has real estate on his mind (one wonders if this gave Stoker any ideas):

"I cannot yet," answered Henry, "I will think. My present impression is, to let you have it on whatever terms you may yourself propose, always provided you consent to one of mine." "Name it." "That you never show yourself in my family." "How very unkind. I understand you have a charming sister, young, beautiful, and accomplished. Shall I confess, now, that I had hopes of making myself agreeable to her?"

OH

NOOOOOOOOO

This is already bad for both Flora and her devoted Charles Holland, obviously, but you have to remember that Varney was inspired by the template of Polidori's Lord Ruthven, who was, pop-culturally, the Dracula of his time. And (SPOILER), the way the story ends is that Our Hero Aubrey is unable to prevent Lord Ruthven, who he has discovered to be a vampyre, from marrying, murdering, and vampyring his sister:

When on the staircase, Lord Ruthven whispered in his ear—"Remember your oath, and know, if not my bride to day, your sister is dishonoured. Women are frail!"

That is to say, in the context of 1819 rather than the consumptive Victorian "angel of the house" trope, morally "frail": the unnamed sister was willing to have premarital sex with Ruthven. Meanwhile, Aubrey has a literal rage stroke and is unable to tell anyone what Ruthven is, until after the marriage has been solemnized. These are the actual final lines of the story:

Aubrey's weakness increased; the effusion of blood produced symptoms of the near approach of death. He desired his sister's guardians might be called, and when the midnight hour had struck, he related composedly what the reader has perused—he died immediately after. The guardians hastened to protect Miss Aubrey; but when they arrived, it was too late. Lord Ruthven had disappeared, and Aubrey's sister had glutted the thirst of a VAMPYRE!

Welp. We're gonna need to call in some wellness checks on Henry, I think. But notice that we are in the 1840s—the Victorian era—now, and Flora has thoroughly been coded as both pure (to possibly a racist degree) and physically frail (except for when she's blasting vampyres). We are assured over and over that Flora is the very soul of goodness, and entirely worthy of that paragon of manhood, Charles Holland. I think the two of them might be in for some trouble, but it won't be "moral" temptation. Probably.

"You make yourself agreeable to her? The sight of you would blast her for ever, and drive her to madness." "Am I so hideous?" "No, but -- you are -- " "Hush, Henry, hush," cried Marchdale. "Remember you are in this gentleman's house."

Marchdale manages to drag Henry away before he can insult the vampyre who wants to continue stalking Henry's sister any further, because that would just be uncouth.

"Adieu," said Sir Francis Varney, and he made one of the most elegant bows in the world, while there came over his face a peculiarity of expression that was strange, if not painful, to contemplate.

Peculiar in what way? I have filed this away for later.

III. Coping: not even once

"Marchdale, it would be charity of some one to kill me."

"This man, Varney, is a vampyre." "Hush! hush!"

"I tell you, Marchdale," cried Henry, in a wild, excited manner, "he is a vampyre. He is the dreadful being who visited Flora at the still hour of midnight, and drained the life-blood from her veins. He is a vampyre. There are such things. I cannot doubt now. Oh, God, I wish now that your lightnings would blast me, as here I stand, for ever into annihilation, for I am going mad to be compelled to feel that such horrors can really have existence."

Honestly, I think half the problem is Marchdale telling him to shut up and not rock the boat. Everyone would feel a lot better if they could just gear up, ride out, and—

"Nay, talk not to me. What can I do? Shall I kill him? Is it not a sacred duty to destroy such a thing? Oh, horror -- horror. He must be killed -- destroyed -- burnt, and the very dust to which he is consumed must be scattered to the winds of Heaven. It would be a deed well done, Marchdale."

—yeah, that.

But how do you just go do that? This isn't Count Dracula, who lives in a spooky abbey and then flees home to his spooky castle and gets dealt with there. This is a dude who's going around the neighborhood being friendly and asking to buy estates. He's got servants, he's throwing around money on properties, he's trying to court your sister. How do you just go in and murderate him? What if, somehow, he's not a vampyre, and you were Extremely Mistaken the whole time, and now you're on trial for homicide?

Two examples from my taste in television come to mind:

One is the Hammersmith Ghost episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved: True Crime, in which a man decided to go hunt down and shoot a Boo Ghost™ harassing a district of London in 1804. It ended with one Francis Smith on trial for the murder of a bricklayer who happened to be wearing an unfortunate amount of white. I am sure Smith absolutely believed he was shooting a real ghost, right up until it became tragically apparent that the ghost hadn't already been dead.

The other one is the FASCINATING "Hunting Vampires" episode of Expedition Unknown, in which Josh Gates visits rural Romania to get scared by a cat and talk to a man who actually... well. Let me quote the fan wiki (content note: technically necrocannibalism?):

The next day, Josh meets Petra Rotar, a local journalist, and they drive to Craiova where they meet Daniela Barbu, a prosecutor. She had to charge six men who desecrated and exhumed the grave of Petre Toma. After Petre died villagers began to get sick and have nightmares with Petre in them. Six men went to the cemetery and pulled out Petre's heart, grilled it and prepared a potion from the ashes and everybody who was sick drank it. The villagers' jail term was suspended […] . Petra and Josh go to Marotinu de Sus and to the cemetery where they find Petre Toma's grave. Two angry villagers come but they are able to calm down and one of the men, Florin, is related to a man who dug up the body. Florin and Josh row across a lake to meet Florin's cousin Mitrica Mircea, where Mitrica [one of the six men] recounts the story for them and believes what he did was the right thing.

Like. This happened:

'No one is bothered who did it, it's their own business,' declared 80-year-old Tudor Stoica, shading his face with a fraying hat. 'This ritual often takes place, but in secret, within the family. The problem comes when the police get involved.'

This happened! And they're all sure they're doing the right thing! And I'm tagging this post "unreality," so if you have issues with certain kinds of ideations, I'm gonna say skip down to the next pull quote, but I'm trying to describe a certain quality in fiction: 

Of course I want to say that Mitrica Mircea wasn't doing the right thing, this is real life, there are no vampires to go around staking. But it's a funny thing, how people in genre fiction have to realize they're in genre fiction and things are real, and people in real life have to remember they're in real life and things aren't real, but also, the nature of consciousness is such that a fictional character might express the belief that they live in the real world, and a real person might find themselves in a traumatic moment thinking, This feels just like a movie. Do you ever find yourself in real life saying, "This feels like that moment in movies where the characters don't believe in monsters, and that's why they get eaten?" Can you, then, understand a character in fiction going through the same thing? I can't believe this is really happening, but it is.

Except that they are wrong, because it is fiction.

But they can't know that.

I feel fairly confident of my reality, and I'm confident none of my neighbors need to be staked. But I'll stop there in case anyone else isn't.

"Yes; but reflect, Henry, for a moment upon the length to which you might [have to] carry out so dangerous an argument. It is said that vampyres are made by vampyres sucking the blood of those who, but for that circumstance, would have died and gone to decay in the tomb along with ordinary mortals; but that being so attacked during life by a vampyre, they themselves, after death, become such." "Well -- well, what is that to me?" "Have you forgotten Flora?" A cry of despair came from poor Henry's lips, and in a moment he seemed completely, mentally and physically, prostrated. "God of Heaven!" he moaned, "I had forgotten her!"

H E N R Y.

IV. Marchdale what is your deal

Kinda-Sorta Uncle Marchdale pleads with Henry to not curl up and die because Flora needs him! Possibly to stake her someday! No, Marchdale, Flora has Charles Holland now! HUMPH, says Marchdale to that. As you will recall, Marchdale and Charles Holland loathed each other on sight for literally, in the literal sense of literally, no reason, and Marchdale stands by that:

"I, therefore, now prophecy to you that Charles Holland will yet be so stung with horror at the circumstance of a vampyre visiting Flora, that he will never make her his wife."

Bro, why are you like this. On one hand, Henry insists that Charles Holland is the soul of honor:

"You are, you may depend, entirely wrong. I cannot be deceived in Charles. From you such words produce no effect but one of regret that you should so much err in your estimate of any one. From any one but yourself they would have produced in me a feeling of anger I might have found it difficult to smother."

On the other hand, one might perhaps become concerned that the text keeps raising the issue of whether Charles Holland is trustworthy or not.

V. Anyway, when do we kill him

Henry and Marchdale agree that they won't tell the family that their new neighbor is the vampyre stalking Flora, because that always works out just fine. Marchdale declares, in fact, that there is no way that "this Sir Francis Varney, or whatever his real name may be, will obtrude himself upon you." Obviously, Varney will be intruding on them anon. Should he try such a thing, Henry announces that he will kill Varney really most sincerely dead:

"It would be fatal, so help me, Heaven; and then would I take especial care that no power of resuscitation should ever enable that man again to walk the earth." [Marchdale, very helpfully:] "They say the only way of destroying a vampyre is to fix him to the earth with a stake, so that he cannot move, and then, of course, decomposition will take its course, as in ordinary cases." "Fire would consume him, and be a quicker process," said Henry.

Well, I hope to fuck that they know where the matches are.

Varney the Vampire masterpost

[soliloquy-unforgotten]

Final Fantasy XVI - Martyrs, Individualism, and other Review-like Stuff (Spoilers!)

As one might suppose by the title, I've recently finished Final Fantasy XVI. Playing the game I had a lot of Thoughts, which isn't uncommon, and happened to encourage me to create this little blog for me to store these thoughts for posterity. Therefore, while I'm not yet sure who this introduction is even for, at least it's over. Onwards!

I will start this by getting the easy part out, which I have prior dubbed "the Review-like Stuff" - how "good" are the game's, y'know, things. I'll be pretty direct on this paragraph: visually and musically, the game is a whole meal. The scenarios look amazing, the big magical effects look, well, big and magical (in the best way! also very colorful). I just don't dig the character design all that much, personally, but it does deliver on the sort of realistic medieval fantasy air they set out to deliver - and hey, Jill's clothes actually look like functional female fighting clothes! Progress, I suppose. And the music, of course, delivers just as well - Masayoshi Soken, not content with putting out banger after banger for Final Fantasy XIV (the critically-acclaimed MMORPG, etc) decided to grace XVI with a series of adequately epic-sounding tracks, going as far as to reference musical motifs from prior entries in the series and toss us franchise fans some delicious treats. Yum.

Alright, onto the meat of what I actually wanted to write here - the story and gameplay. I'm gonna bundle both of these up because I think they're intertwined to an extent - or at least, some of the criticism I have about the gameplay is a direct product of how they wrote the story. But I suppose I might be putting the cart before the horses here so let's take a step back.

When playing FF XVI, you control a single character - Clive Rosfield, Ifrit's Dominant and certified Chosen One. You get other companions fighting alongside you here and there, and for most of it you're also accompanied by bestest of boys Torgal, but you never get to control any of them, they have no customization in terms of equipment, and actually the effect they have on gameplay is very minor - mostly making it less annoying to fight large hordes of enemies. So much so that you also never choose who's tagging along, they just join or leave the party automatically according to the story beat.

I recall being a bit disappointed when the previous entry in the franchise, XV, came out - because I had three buddies with me for the journey but I never got to play with them, only edit their equips and perform some dual techs with them during fights. XVI seemed to double down on this departure from party member control, straying even further from the molds of a party-oriented game and coming closer to the likes of Devil May Cry, the Witcher, both of the Nier games, and so on. I should note the influence of the first I cited is quite noticeable.

"Alas, Daka, it could not be helped!", I hear you say. "For Clive is one of only eight people in the world who can freely use magic, AND even if he parties up other Dominants, he'll drain their power eventually! So it can't be helped!". Well, voice in my head who is trying to predict an argument, that's still just a narrative choice they made. Had they decided to make it a party-oriented game, they could easily have written the story in a way that doesn't have Clive strip other Dominants of their power (and even that's kind of finnicky, because Jill is still added to the party for the DLC, far after Clive absorbed her Eikon), or just strip them of the power to Prime but leave their magical ability intact. Or have his fellow party members all be non-Dominants like Gav. Or have them share Clive's power through some sort of covenant, like if he could donate them the power of any Eikons he's not currently using (you do end up with five more Eikons than you can wield in combat, after all).

All this to say that they made a very conscious choice in making Clive's journey be so solitary - he wields the power and bears the burden for it, since being magical in this setting comes with a side effect of slowly turning into stone. Even when he has his (long overdue and very awkwardly paced) romantic development with Jill, she doesn't even try to dissuade him from bearing all of the burden himself - just reassured him that she believed in him and would be by his side to the end. Kind of bold words when you're speeding your new boyfriend along the route of becoming an Ifrit-shaped piece of rock, but it sort of cements the narrative that Clive is the very special Chosen One, and it's useless to try to relieve him of his burden - best to simply give him emotional support when necessary and help in whatever ways a mere mortal can.

Eventually, the narrative reveals that what's been killing the land all along (through a drying out of all life called the Blight) is the usage of magic itself. It's been happening ever since a different race discovered magic, ages ago, in what one may call an Original Sin (!) of sorts. Clive's battle is to, ironically, amass as much of the capacity to use magic without crystals into himself as possible, to then destroy humanity's creator, who both discovered magic and gave humans the means to wield it, and finally use all this accumulated power to destroy the ("sinful") practice of magic and die in the process, overwhelmed by the weight of this feat.

So our dear protagonist is, to recap, a Chosen One, born to be the physical vessel of a godlike being, and he sacrifices himself to cleanse humanity of the sins that are plaguing them. You know who else reportedly did that? That's right, baby: it's Jesus Christ.

Did I write several paragraphs just to arrive at this allegory? Perhaps. But pointing out the symbolic connections between Clive and ol' J.C. is important to eventually arrive at my main argument regarding FFXVI and its place in the franchise: it is very Western. It is prominently influenced by an occidental zeitgeist and ideology (which are indissociable from Christianity as a cultural system of rules and values). This manifests in the narrative itself, yes, which also has a big focus on defending "free will" and rejecting what sort of amounts to what one might describe as, uh, spiritual communism; but it also manifests in the gameplay itself, which is both emblematic of this narrative (via having you control a solitary martyr upon whose shoulders solely relies success or failure), but also more literally influenced by the West - with the gameplay mechanics and quest dialogue structure more closely resembling western action RPGs than any other game in the franchise.

My intent here was not to say FFXVI doesn't have any community-oriented themes (many sidequest chains are explicitly about that), but to point out the ways in which the tone and feel of the game reflect certain staple Western values - individuality most of all - beyond the simple fact of the game's European fantasy setting. I'm also not saying that's a bad thing, just that it is a thing, and these are some of the elaborations I arrived at when I tried to ask myself questions like "why does this feel the way it does?". I'm also very particular about not saying things like "this feels or doesn't feel like a Final Fantasy game" because this is a franchise that loves nothing more than reinventing itself, and XVI was but the latest one to do just that. And for what it's worth, the game was great! I had a blast. I have my nitpicks about it but, hey, none of them was a dealbreaker.

...I do wanna have a party again for the next one though.

[rivenroad]

Thoughts on Dawntrail MSQ - Part 1 (roughly 90-95, general discussion of plot)

I finished it a few days ago now and I've been slowly putting together a record of my thoughts, here's the first part.

Some of you may remember my feelings about Endwalker and, subsequently, my hopes for the future of XIV's story. Mostly, with Dawntrail I was looking forward to the opportunity for change, a new start, and hopefully a return to one of the things that made me fall in love with the game to begin with - excellent world-building and lore to get immersed in. I would say it gave me those things.

I would like to discuss my thoughts about the story in detail, but at the moment that's a bit difficult for me. I think I would need to go through it again another time in order to properly solidify everything that I feel. But I still have a few points to make.

Firstly, as I mentioned above I was really looking forward to the chance to explore Tural and learn about it and its people, and of course, that's exactly what the first arc of 7.0 was all about. I had a fantastic time with it (and continue to do so, since there are still a lot of quests, exploration and so on for me to do), which was enhanced by the graphics update. I'm pleased to say that beyond a few minor things, most of my characters look the same or better than they did before, and the degree to which the lighting, texture and object density improved the environments is absolutely stunning. I'm really excited to draw the new places, they're incredibly inspiring from an artistic angle. I've spent so much time staring at new higher-definition plants, admiring lighting and weather effects...

I'm thrilled with the presentation of the Mamool Ja. I always found them intriguing, but until now we didn't really get very much solid information about them beyond a few scraps in ARR and the BLU questline. I absolutely love Gulool Ja Ja, he's definitely my favourite character in Dawntrail, and the others interested me a lot too. Very well done and the voice acting was great. I didn't expect to actually get to visit Mamook, but I love it, I really enjoyed all of their history and that of Tural in general... as well as the Mamool Ja, I'm particularly fond of the Yok Huy and the Moblins (long time goblin fan, of course) but I feel that all of the diverse people of Tural were interesting and it all came together very well.

I've seen some criticism of this part of the MSQ with regards to it being boring. I really didn't feel that way though I know it's just not what some people enjoy, which is fair. But Wuk Lamat was fine. The degree to which the "power of friendship/peace" message is stressed sometimes does feel a little silly to me when it's presented so plainly, people have compared it to a shounen anime from that angle and I would agree, but it's not necessarily a bad thing - just not my usual preference.

One thing that did bother me throughout the expansion, though, is one that I expected - I'm really quite tired of the Scions. Estinien is the most blatant example here - his presence in the story served absolutely no purpose whatsoever. I was rather disappointed that the story behind Thancred and Urianger's presence and supposed "opposition" with the others turned out to be... basically nothing of any importance at all, given how it was dramatised in the trailers and so on.

I am fond of many of them, but I'm very strongly in favour of retiring characters, concepts or anything else before they start to become stale, and unfortunately we're very much at this stage with those guys... Just because I like a character doesn't mean I want to see them pop up everywhere all the time when it doesn't really have a point to it. I dunno. Doesn't seem like they're going to drop it, though...

I'm going to continue the rest of my thoughts in a separate post since it involves more specific spoilers for the later half of the story.

[sharky-chan]

five comfort characters five tags

Tagged by @lipstickmata <3 <3 <3.

Not 100% sure what comfort characters are, but I'll just take a crack at it assuming it means "I was or am extremely fixated on them and/or I just think they're neat." Trying to avoid massive spoilers, but there may be some minor ones despite my efforts...

Nero tol Scaeva (Final Fantasy XIV) I am pretty sure my first comment upon seeing Nero in RR was "Who is this loser? Looks like a worthless midboss that won't even make it to the end of the game," and boy was I wrong (about making it -- 100% he's a loser and worthless midboss). Now, 4 expacs later, he's my forever baby girl thanks to his incredible arrogance, sassy mouth, and "uncomfortably in love with Cid while also being divorced from Cid"-ness...

Revolver Ocelot (Metal Gear Solid) Ocelot is the OG "war criminal loser who is completely amoral outside of being wholly devoted to a single person, for whom he'd give up everything" so I obviously love him for the same reasons I love Nero. Every time Ocelot shows up in an MGS game, it brightens my day even as it makes the day of everyone around him worse <3. Meow.

Akemi Homura (Puella Magi Madoka Magica) Hmm...looks like we're just on the "loser who will burn down the whole world to save the one person she loves" train, but it's a good train and I like it here! I wasn't a fan of the movie's take, but Homura's characterization (and magical girl powers) in the original show is simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking. Is it too much to ask that Homura be happy forever? No, I think it's not.

Sam Vimes (Discworld) I started with the Rincewind books, and while I do love them (and the academia references have only become more real to me over the years), imo the Nightwatch books are the heart of Discworld (yes, even more than the Death books, yes, I know this is contentious). Vimes is such a wonderful combination of rage, cynicism, kindness, and an unwavering adherence to justice.

Trico (Last Guardian) It's probably more fair to say all of the Team ICO games are comfort games, but a special shout out to Trico, who is the cutest kitty-bird-monster of all time despite eating those naughty, forbidden Trico Treats. I definitely had to lie down for a long time after finishing Last Guardian, and I was already emotionally prepared for having to lie down after finishing any Team ICO game ^o^;;

Not sure who wants to be tagged, so tagging @illuminesce, @songofkeys, @thistleburr, @penquinlori, and @poor-punctuation but feel free to ignore if you don't wanna play!

[deathgamegirl]

a disorganized analysis/thinkpiece on danganronpa v3's ending

also known as: why drv3's ending was not the shitshow people think it is and what we can learn from its implications. spoilers under the cut (obviously).

i really do think that v3 was the best place to end the series on. to me it feels like some very poignant commentary on seasonal rot, fan reception, and the role of creatives in pop culture. like... in-game, danganronpa was in its 53rd iteration. there's no doubt that plenty of plot points were repeated over and over and over again— namely the continual reappearance of junko. "it's always junko enoshima", tsumugi says. and she's right. the shadow of junko enoshima looms over the entire franchise. she's omnipresent, seeping through every writing choice and plot beat for her brand recognition. i can only imagine that the writers behind the show in-game (and perhaps irl) were growing tired of having to do the same thing every single time.

the truth is, you can't keep a franchise going without it eventually growing stale in some way. all things must end eventually, no matter how great they are. and truthfully, so much of our media landscape is permeated by the same exact franchises, the same exact games, the same exact shows and movies. think for a moment about, say, games like final fantasy xiv and genshin impact (both of which i adore, to be clear). both games will eventually reach a natural end point, but i must admit that i fear the inevitable prolonging of both because they're popular and profitable. games such as MMOs and live service gachas are not sustainable forever. you can't expect creatives to seriously want to keep working on the exact same story their entire life. that's not even mentioning, say, the marvel cinematic universe or supernatural, with both franchises reaching a good place to end and then just... not.

that's the kind of thing that drv3 was trying to comment on. and frankly, the fan reception to that callout only further proved its point. i've been in the dr fandom since 2013 and was around for v3's initial release. people were furious at the ending— downright spiteful, i might add! after all, they weren't happy that the series they loved was so cynically turned on them! and while i can't blame anyone for being upset at that, i can blame those who did not critically look at themselves and the series, and only demanded more and more of the franchise. frankly, if dr had continued past v3, i don't think it would have been all that interesting or well-written. kodaka's already moved onto new projects, so why can't we? because we're so attached to fiction in the same way that tsumugi is, clinging to what's familiar and never branching out? valuing what isn't real over our own lives and well-being?

the truth of the matter is, everything ends. stories, events, good times, bad times, life itself. but the end to anything can be the beginning of another. and shouldn't life be full of wonderful, varied experiences?

and if we have to keep junko twelve feet under to do so, then i think it's worth it.

[coconutwaterbending]

10 characters | 10 fandoms | 10 tags (we'll see about that last one) I haven't made a text post in so long how's everyone doing. Thank you, rj (@sidprescot), for the tag! This was a nice surprise. :)

Gosh do I have a type and they're all Old Men and Tragic Ladies my beloved. Let's go!! 1. Varric Tethras (Dragon Age 2): he shot right through my heart with that crossbow THE LITERAL SECOND he came on screen and I've been cursing Bioware ever since. He is a nonromanceable short king and I have never wanted anyone more thx. 2. Nakmor Drack (Mass Effect Andromeda): the Tempest Crew is so freaking charming, and while I love my jelly fish cat aliens the Angara, my favorite character is absolutely this old cantakerous grandpa Krogan. Whom, much like Wrex, I wish I could romance. (p.s. there is a TEASE of a flirt option and u can imagine how little that helped my case) 3. Spock (literally every Star Trek iteration): He is my Everything. Nemoy, Quinto, and Peck all bring something unique to the character's portrayal. I love him in every universe and I can never get enough of this EMOTIONALLY COMPROMISED NERD.

4. Alicent Hightower (House of the Dragon): one half of my divorced lesbinems and I feel so much for her and the tragedy/complexity of both her character and the heartwrenching slow decay of her r/s with Rhaenyra. I cannot wait for S2. 5. Aerith Gainsborough (Final Fantasy VII): ooooough, beautiful, tragic, kind, funny, cool flower seller of my life. Remake!Aerith particularly stole my heart along with the show. There is this sad, beguiling mystery about her that draws you in, and she is so cheerful in spite of it all. I can't wait for Rebirth but also I am terrified lol. 6. Yennefer of Vengerberg (The Witcher): "How ravishing she is, he thought. Everything about her is ravishing. And menacing. Those colours of hers; that contrast of black and white. Beauty and menace. Her raven-black, natural curls. Her cheekbones, pronounced, emphasising a wrinkle, which her smile – if she deigned to smile – created beside her mouth, wonderfully narrow and pale beneath her lipstick…" I mean. C'mon. That is MY WIFE etc, copy paste rj's exact blurb. Anya Chalotra is the perfect Yen. She is everything and deserves the world and I will glady let her burn it all down and murder me if she wants to. 7. Zero (Final Fantasy XIV): [Endwalker patch spoilers!] who doesn't love an autistic badass goth half-human half-voidsent who has lived as a monster for so long she forgot her own identity and is learning how to be human again and finding her humanity via the power of friendship and delicious food, like. I needed more of her and I miss her already!!!

8. Kim Wexler (Better Call Saul): omg so hard to pick just one from this show (ilu nacho), but Kim Wexler SUCKER PUNCHES U IN THE THROAT with her awesomeness. She is this extremely competent, understated cool, calculating yet caring and earnest character who compliments Jimmy so well and whose nuances her amazing actress Rhea Seehorn manages to convey so masterfully. She is also tragic af, but hello it's Breaking Bad prequel lol. On that note... 9. Kim Kitsuragi (Disco Elysium): DOUBLE KIM WHAMMY!!! They're so alike it's not even funny. I'd say Kim has the stronger moral center between the two, but I love them for many of the same reasons. He is also extremely competent, understated cool, with a side of being totally game for Harry's antics once he warms up to him (my Harry build was 'himbo' so he did a lot of dumb shit but he was nice). 10. Irving Bailiff (Severance): firstable, if you haven't seen Severance yet, please do yourself the favor and don't let me spoil this for u!! Irving Bailiff is an Experience. He is a stickler for the rules and very much a stick in the mud compared to his colleagues, but his true self leaks into this version of himself slowly at first, then in surprising bursts of rebellion that become clear at the end when it is shown that his Outtie/true self is actively trying to bring Lumon down like a TOTAL FUCKING BADASS in the most delightful reveal. Also he has a whirlwind romance with another old man played by Christopher Walken.

phew!! this was fun. lol @ my answers getting longer. I'm not tagging anyone but consider this an invitation to join in on the fun anyway!

[sezja]

Febuwhump Day 27: Survivor's Guilt Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV Characters/Ship: Nerise & Ardbert Triggers/Content warnings: Shadowbringers spoilers

"I thought you were lying, you know."

Nerise is getting used to these little intrusions on her privacy; she supposes Ardbert's got nothing better to do. Haunting sounds dull. Given the chance, she can't deny she'd follow around the only person who could see and hear her, too. Still, it's been a long damn day - what with bringing the entire night sky back to Lakeland and the Crystarium and all - and she'd just as soon get some sleep...

With a sigh, she rolls back over, facing the ghost in her room.

He stands at the window, as she knew he would. She's left it open, the better to let in the dark. Overhead, the sky is clear as can be, alight with the gentle twinkling of stars instead of the blaze of eternal primordial Light. I did that, she thinks, marveling at it all over again. I did that...

"Lying," she repeats, sitting up. She doesn't bother to cover up; if he wants modesty, the sneaky lurker can go someplace else. "About where I came from, you mean?"

"When you came from." He starts to turn around, and realizes she's not dressed; he turns back to the window. His ears start to turn pink. "Ah-" He clears his throat. "We... we thought it was an act, all of us. As though we had room to talk, eh? Hailing from another world as we did. What's a thousand some-odd years?"

A thousand some-odd years. An entire war had been waged while she and Sohl Amh were adrift in time.

She rubs her drowsy eyes. "Aye, well. Stupid thing to lie about, isn't it?"

"Adventurers lie about their achievements and backgrounds every day," Ardbert points out, a wry smile in his voice. "Inflating their achievements to win free drinks at the pub. Lying about where they're from to charm a girl into a dance. It's part of the business, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"For some." He turns again, keeping his eyes resolutely on her face. "Then again, you already had a dragon at your beck and call, eh? Maybe you never needed to tell tall tales - the ones you were living couldn't get much taller."

She thinks of Sohl Amh with a pang; leaving them behind on the Source had been like leaving her heart behind. They would have loved it here... and she would have liked to have their counsel; there is so much about this world she wishes she could speak to her life-long companion about-

The smile on Ardbert's weary face fades. "Did I say something wrong?"

Damn it all. "No." Nerise hesitates. Milla once said it was easier to speak truths at night; the shadows kept secrets well. And who's Ardbert going to tell, anyway? She's sick to death of trying to be strong here, with no Sohl Amh to hear her doubts and fears and questions. She takes a deep breath. Sighs. "It... this world, it..."

He waits. He's had a hundred years of blind, ceaseless wandering to temper his impulsiveness; he can wait a few minutes while she gathers her thoughts.

At last, she manages, "It... reminds me of Dravania, a bit."

"Dravania," he repeats, surprised. "How so?"

She stands, wrapping a blanket around herself against the night's chill, and joins him at the window. "It's... all these ruins, all these lingering traces of a glorious past. You... you remember when those ruins at Laxan Loft were a thriving kingdom-"

"Ah."

"And even this place - the Crystarium? It's built on old bones, like... like Bahrr Lehs, restored by the moogles. You look at those ruins, and all you see is... is-"

"Is what I failed to save."

"Is what you failed to save." She thumps a fist on the windowsill, throat tight. "And it's like that everywhere, isn't it? Everywhere we go, we'll find old cities you weren't there to save, and you'll remember the people who were there..."

Milla...

Ardbert can't touch her, of course, but he rests his own fist on the windowsill beside hers. "As I understand it," he says, quietly. "The world as you knew it came to an end a hundred years or so after you vanished. Time and more for you to have been dead and gone, Nerise. I was here. I caused this world's destruction."

"There might have been something I could have done," she persists. "Something I could have done to change the course of history. Something."

He's quiet, letting her simmer in it. She leans forward, resting her forehead against her fist. She doesn't godsdamned want to be comforted; she wants him to see why this world and everything about it burns her worse than dragonfire. It's like breathing life back into a corpse. But if she doesn't do all she can to beat back the Light... well. She remembers Urianger's vision. She, her friends, even Sohl Amh, extinguished like so many candles, and the world gone dark in their absence.

Saint Shiva, preserve me.

She straightens, heaving a heavy sigh. "Maybe I can change the course of the future here, at least."

But when she turns, Ardbert has vanished, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

[ot3showdown]

azem/emet-selch/hythlodaeus infodump (ffxiv spoilers up to and including endwalker abound)

these three are regularly described as emet-selch's closest relationship. emet's got terminal old man tsundere disease in the body of a 20 something and he has two partners(not canonically romantic but definitely implied enough that most read it as such) who lovingly bully him abt it relentlessly. while we do not see azem on screen, the way they are talked about by other characters regularly confirms this, and we see it directly with hythlodaeus. despite emet bitching about it, hyth literally tells the player "just say please emet selch and he'll do what you want" when he's reluctant to do a task

when the world ended and azem was split into multiple guys and hyth was sealed away in the ancients' god, everything emet-selch did was to bring back his people from his memories, which heavily involves his love for these two. honestly after seeing what a beautiful man hyth was who can fucking blame him lmao. dude was literally causing world ending catastrophes for those he loved

additionally depending on ur wol u can get reincarnated lovers trope with azem as azem is reincarnated again and again, including as ur wol when u meet him

when emet recreates the ancients' city for u, he also made shades of everyone who lived there. however, hythlodaeus was made with the fact that emet knew hyth so well that he knew hyth would see through the fakeness of it, and so the shade of hyth is fully aware he's a simulation of the original

in ancient society, someone chooses when they die, and it is typically when they've fulfilled their purpose in this world, after which they release their aether back to the world. it's seen as a beautiful thing by most in that society, even if its a little fucked up to some of them+outsiders. hythlodaeus however only has the goal of helping the other two achieve their dreams, at which point he wants all three of them go together

in short, your honor they're poly and i love them

(im gonna do the same joke again bc my brains broken today)

wow all this happens in critically acclaimed mmorpg final fantasy xiv which has a free trial and includes the entirety of a realm reborn and the award winning heavensward expansion up to level 60 with no restrictions on playtime? Cool.

[turtersblade]

Final Fantasy XIV

Caught up June 23

Spoilers! Oh man, its been a journey. As some background info, I started playing this in 2020. For years, I was super interested in this game for some reason despite never playing a Final Fantasy game before. So I started playing. And while I thought it was fun enough, man I hated the MSQ. The quests were boring, the story was boring, I just really liked the music and the MMO aspect.

Eventually, I pushed through and started Heavensward. Immediately I became way more interested in everything about the game. The story grabbed me, the characters grabbed me, everything. I hated Alphinaud in ARR. Just couldn't stand his stupid voice and his stupid face, smug know it all. Then Heavensward starts and I'm like "huh?? this dude is cool??". I really had a good time with the base game. The patch quests were pretty cool, but I dropped the game in the middle of the Warriors of Darkness plotline. It was 2022, and some cool games were finally coming out after the pandemic slowed down the industry. I hop in every now and then, but I hold off on the MSQ because I know I don't have the time to commit to it just yet. Then April 2024, Clive comes to the game, and Dawntrail is coming this summer. It's go time. Get through the Warriors of Darkness plotline at last, and I'm wondering what the point was? Was this just filler? I wasn't offended, just thought it was a weird filler plotline. Anyway, now Heavensward is over.

Stormblood

I always heard stuff about Heavensward, Shadowbringers, and Endwalker, but never Stormblood. The least good expansion I assume. I'm really vibing with this Ala Mhigo plotline though. However, now its time to travel to the East and meet up with Gosetsu, who I quickly fell in love with. Dude is awesome. So first dungeon and oh my god the music! Every final boss of a dungeon, every duty felt so grand and epic with this song! This is when everything about XIV truly sinks in for me and I truly become a fan. The combat is more advanced, bosses are more involved, the story is really truly hitting, I love all the characters alot, the areas are so interesting, everything. Zenos was an incredible villain, and easily became one of my favorites in gaming. I finish Stormblood, and I'm just in shock. This expansion was amazing. One of the ultimate highlights of the entirety of XIV to me is the Nadaam. Truly incredible. Sometime between Stormblood and Shadowbringers, I also grind for the Rathalos mount. That fight was honestly really really cool. I have played a little bit of Monster Hunter Rise and World in the past, so I really appreciated the little touches in the fight. Being able to cut his tail off, and having to use Monster Hunter potions was a nice detail. I also grind for I believe about 20 hours for all the Yokai Watch items.

Shadowbringers

Wait. Wait. Wait. A world engulfed in light...? They're following up the Warriors of Darkness storyline?!?!?!?! It took me a little bit to realize it but as it started clicking I got even more excited. I genuinely did not expect this at all. What could I even say about Shadowbringers that hasn't been said before? This isn't even peak Final Fantasy XIV, this is just flat out peak Final Fantasy. The world building, the lore, everything. The bosses became way more difficult and I found that really exhilarating. Story had me in tears at parts, it really nailed its emotion. I won't say much more about the core expansion itself, because I truly cannot do it justice. I just want to say that at this point, I have played multiple Final Fantasy games, including FF1 and Stranger of Paradise, so I was very hyped about things they did here. After beating Shadowbringers, I wanted to do something that I wanted to see for myself when it was released, the Nier raids. I love both Nier Replicant and Nier Automata, so I had to see this.

The raid was everything I could've imagined and more. It's such an insanely good love letter to fans of both Nier games. The remixed music, the bosses, the areas, all of it blew my mind. I would absolutely love to see more crossover raids, as someone who has not really touched raids at all in this game. So finally, there was...

Endwalker

I want to preface this with: I was satisfied with Endwalker. It ended the entire ongoing story in a very good manner. It was really hype! I just think its rather flawed, and I also just have personal things that did not click with me here. The pacing just felt sloooow. I checked, and while dungeons and trials were given out at the same pace as Shadowbringers, it just felt off here. It felt like an eternity between these. I feel like the questing also nose dived here. I found myself utterly bored for extended periods of time here. So many quests were "Search big ass red circle for sparkling point" and then you would eventually find it, just for it to be "uh actually thing you're looking for isn't here, search a new big ass red circle again!". There was even a point towards the end where it was "Talk to 8 NPC's in big ass red circle" but you would find an NPC, and they'd pretty much say "Not me, sorry" and it wouldn't count for the quest. I'm fairly sure some of them wouldn't spawn unless you found other NPC's too, so this took an eternity. This was so frustrating to go through, and it's what most of the MSQ feels like. I also wasn't even too terribly interested in the patch quests, but I'm still looking forward to what becomes of that after Dawntrail.

I also did fall guys during Endwalker lol

Culminating Thoughts

Now I'm left here wondering, "How is Stormblood considered the worst expansion??". While I recognize Shadowbringers is clearly better than it, I personally still have Stormblood and Shadowbringers tied as my favorites. There are so many things about those two that I did not get into that I loved so much. I liked the lore of Endwalker, and I like how it all culminated and ended, but for the most part I just felt generally meh about the whole thing? I really hope Dawntrail fixes the pacing and questing issues of Endwalker. Either way, I still truly love Final Fantasy XIV. This is definitely one of my favorite games I've played and I've barely scratched the surface of the content it has. I'm going to have brain rot over Shadowbringers for a very, very long time.

[charbunnies]

top 5 final fantasy xiv characters and why. go 🎤

okay some of this is hard and some of this is really easy. i'm sorry that most of these won't be super detailed but to be fair my memory is rusty on xiv and my favoritism in xiv tends to be based on vibes and how they relate to vett so 👍 i'm also gonna slap gposes in here if i have relevant ones. for funsies :)

ENDWALKER SPOILER WARNING

1. elidibus

EASY CHOICE. extremely easy choice. i normally don't pick favorites based on how i relate to them, but he's kind of an exception. i started paying attention to him at around the same time that i was really struggling with losing my memory, and i got SO attached to him that it helped me work through/come to terms with that. so he's really important to me. but, aside from that, i want to put him under a microscope, and i think he's funny, and the TRAGEDY of it all makes me insane, and my own headcanon stuff about him (plus the stuff i've done with him and vett and/or anteros) just makes it worse. he's just so interesting, there's so much going on and every bit of it makes me feel sick in the head. i will think about him holding those crystals in his little hands for the rest of my life i think. changed me permanently. i miss pandaemonium. i love you themis my scrinkly. that's my baby. have a gpose

2. alphinaud and alisaie (do not separate them.)

MY KIDS!!! MY LITTLE GUYS!!! they were the reason i actually started taking xiv seriously, so, also easy choice. izzy showed me the twins before i started playing and i got invested. i am very easily moved by teenage protagonists and also twin characters so alphinaud and alisaie were like catnip to me. i was waiting through all of ARR with bated breath for every moment that i could get of those little freaks and got attached to alphy so fucking fast. i've never understood the people who didn't like alphinaud through ARR because i always thought his spoiled-brat-ness was so fucking endearing. i was worried that i wouldn't like alisaie as much because she properly joins the party late, and alphinaud was my Favorite Favorite up until that point, but GOD i was proven so wrong. i love her so so much. that scene with her and ga bu on the cliff in post-heavensward is so vivid in my mind. like, branded there forever. both of the twins are just so so good, so determined to help people, so differently headstrong but they love each other SO MUCH... i have so many feelings about the twins. and don't get me started on their relationships with vett. alphivett makes me crazy but honestly alisaie and vett may make me even crazier (though how do you even quantify that?). THEY'RE FOILS!!! THEY'RE BEST FRIENDS!!! THEY CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT EACH OTHER!!! AUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!! THROWING MYSELF ON THE FLOOR!!! have some gposes :)

3. meteion

hard for me to put her third tbh, but i can't tie all of them LOL. oh meteion, my dearest little bird. i cried so so much over her. the fact that she was an endwalker original character and yet she's up here at 3rd is crazy. there's so much i could say about her, but i don't even know where to start. she and vett are just so much alike, it was impossible for her not to get a death grip on me. the instant i saw her i knew she was going to wreck me and i was so, so right. admittedly a lot of the reason why i love her has to do with vett (because everything in xiv is colored by him to me) but that doesn't mean i don't love her just as she is. she's just so little, and she meant so well, and she suffered so much for a cause she didn't even understand. i love her dynamic with hermes so much (AND I LOVE HERMES!!! SO SO MUCH!!!!) and i love her kindness and i love her curiosity. my itty bitty sweetheart 🥺💙 AND she's vett's best friend!!! i will be talking about her a lot in one of the other asks i got for my birthday so i will end this here but look at these anyway :')

4. estinien

yknow i was thinking about this list really hard. because after 3rd it starts getting muddy because i love so many of these characters so much. but estinien was a standout i think, so he gets 4th. i am enthralled by his autistic nature. i love him i think he's silly but also i started bawling over him in garlemald when he showed up to save the twins and he made me cry the hardest in ultima thule (aside from the twins but that's Different that was a whole different thing). he's comforting to me. he's vett's big brother. i love the ways he expresses his love + care for things (awkwardly). i love thinking about how he's changed since ARR. i give him identity issues and chronic pain and dragon traits because it's correct. i just love estinien so much. my stinky dragon. also one of my favorite gposes i've ever done was this one of him and vett so like Yeag. no one gets them like i do (sobbing into my hands)

5. g'raha

i agonized over this spot for so long you have no idea. however! grandpa tia won out in the end. he makes me feel the agonies extremely badly. yet another character with weird identity issues and chronic pain YAYYYYYY. also funny thing, g'raha is the only one here without a huge amount of baggage with vett! lol. (count yourself lucky that i didn't put hades 5th because then there'd be a whole ramble about THAT unusual baggage) instead i smush him and vincent together like barbie dolls and put them in the long-lost-childhood-friends-to-lovers blender and torment them. but yeah. i love g'raha very much. i think about the crystal exarch for a little too long and feel like crumbling into nothingness. also, fun fact, he's my mom's favorite character :) so that's fun. anyway look at my vinraha boy

but the TRUTH is. my favorite xiv characters. are my wols <3

i love you y'vett bhell. i love you vincent fowler. you will always be famous to me

[wannabeelf]

So I did not like the MSQ in the 6.55 patch for Final Fantasy XIV. I don't want to be too specific about why on the off chance that someone who is still trying to avoid spoilers stumbles across this. Suffice it to say, every single hint they gave about what to expect from Dawntrail is something that I personally find tedious and uninteresting at best, and actively turns my stomach at worst.

I'm sure that there will be more to it than they're hinting at now and I have hope that the things I currently find objectionable won't be as bad as I fear. If the worst case happens and Dawntrail is a flop for me, I'm confident that whatever the next expansion is, it will be something that I find more enjoyable. But it's probably about time I start getting to the actual point of this post.

The day before yesterday, I was having a really bad ADD day and could not focus on anything I was supposed to be doing. Instead I kept thinking about ways I might make 6.55 more acceptable to me. In the end, I was compelled to actually write out a little story that fixes one of the biggest problems I had with it. That problem being: given only the information she was given in those three quests, my WoL would not have accepted the job.

I spent much of yesterday obsessively editing and re-editing my story and I finally got it to a place that I'm really happy with. It's really short--only about a page and a half including the little background blurb/author's note--and probably about a third of it is directly copied from the cutscene that I jumped off of, but it's been years since I've written anything at all. And I don't think I've ever cared enough about something I've written before to do any editing beyond basic proofreading.

I know I'm the only person on the planet who gives a damn about the contents of this little story, but I'm really proud of it and it would mean a lot to me If i could get a few other people to read it. Spoilers up to 6.55, obviously.

Background:

Ember’s backstory is a bit weird in that she has two that are simultaneously canon.

In one backstory, she was born to a teenaged Duskwight mother after a less than willing liaison with a Garlean father. After witnessing her father beat her mother to death when she was around 7 or 8 years old, Ember fled and spent the rest of her childhood stealing to survive.

The other backstory is that real-world me got isekaied.

The backstories merge on the chocobo cart into Ul’dah at the beginning of ARR. In a process that left Ember disoriented and confused, the two entities became one person with the memories of both—including memories of playing 14. It took her a long time to process what had happened and even longer to accept the fact that she could change the details of the story, but not the events. She considers her foreknowledge to be a curse and is very cautious about what information she reveals when and to whom. But the Scions do know that it is a thing that happened.

The scene:

“I’d rather not get involved in politics.”

“If only others had the same good sense,” he responded. “If the prospect troubles you so, why not consider what you have to gain instead? That is, an exciting journey to a far away continent.” 

She gritted her teeth, willing herself not to roll her eyes. 

“In the course of seeing new lands and meeting new people, you might find yourself moved to help Wuk Lamat after all. And if not, well…you quietly take your leave. A brazen plan, perhaps, but one that befits a veteran adventurer, you must agree!” 

She did not agree.

“Such a journey would be the envy of many a scholar. Distant as it is, Tural remains largely unknown to us, with only meager records to be found in Noumenon. The experiences to be had—all the things you might hear, feel, and think… It’s enough to stir me to the core. Life is a series of journeys, my friend…”

We are not friends, she thought.

“…and there’s no telling what awaits us on the long road. But what’s important is to be true to yourself as you walk it. Only then can we hope to be content when we arrive at the end of one—and step forward into another. Ah, but there’s an idea! I have a matter to attend to at the Agora. Please go on inside—I will join you shortly.”

Good riddance.

Even though she’d known that it would happen, it still annoyed Ember that the others had out voted her when the question of inviting G’raha Tia to join the Scions had come up. He’d been irritating before he’d sealed himself in that damn tower, but now he was the man who had kidnapped and endangered the lives of nearly everyone she loves. And then he extorted a deathbed promise of a shared adventure from her. Twice. She doubted she would ever forgive him.

With a sigh, she walked to the side of the bridge and propped her elbows on the railing. She looked at the statue of Thaliak in the harbor for just a moment—allowing herself a bittersweet smile at the thought that he was now gone—before sliding her gaze over to the white-clad shoulder just barely poking out from behind a nearby tree.

“The only time anyone ever asked me why I became an adventurer, it was right after the merger when I was in no fit state to answer. Now everyone just assumes I’m in it for the excitement, or the joy of traveling the unknown, or some such nonsense. But the truth is I became an adventurer because I needed to eat.”

She looked down at her hands, picking at the skin around her fingernails. “Thievery never really sat well with me, but the skills it taught me seemed to translate well to adventuring and my only other viable option at the time was to sell my body. I wasn’t willing to do that, so, naturally, I chose to become an adventurer.”

She took a deep breath and looked back toward the tree. “So much has happened since then and I’m not the same girl I once was. The empire is gone and no one is looking for me. I have no reason to run anymore; I have new skills I can use to put food on the table; and I’m nearing the end of my curse. Within a few bells time, I will no longer be bound by the narrative.”

She looked out at the water, shifting her weight to her other foot. “If fate wants to keep me from retiring to my island, it’s going to need to give me a better reason to go to Tural than a lost city of gold that I don’t care about. Or backing a woman who I do not believe would make a good leader in a political dispute that I have no right to decide.” She paused.

“So,” she resumed, fixing her eyes firmly back onto the shoulder. “Short of Y’shtola running up right now to tell me she believes the key to reuniting you with your daughter is in that lost city, the only thing I can think of that might convince me to go is whatever this client of yours has to say.”

Ember smirked and raised an eyebrow as the surprised face of Thancred peeked around the tree. He shook his head with a smile, clearly embarrassed at having been caught, then stepped out and started to walk toward her. She pushed herself off the railing and set out to meet him halfway, confident that no matter how this conversation went, it would give her the reason that she needed to step onto the Dawntrail.

[aotopmha]

I'm having a blast with FFXIV about a week in.

So, FFXIV spoilers.

The advantage of having watched many playthroughs of the game because I fell in love with the story so much is that I get to skip anything I think that dragged on for too long.

I'm at lvl 34-35 MSQ, just defeated Titan and even with the skipping I really felt the drag of the Company of Heroes quests.

(The fight was good, but was way too little payoff for what you have to go through to get there.)

The big positive people always list with A Realm Reborn is that it lays the foundation for what comes after, but the Titan quest didn't even do that.

The Company of Heroes is a footnote that I think is barely given minor mentions after A Realm Reborn.

In comparison, the very first Ascian we see mentions creation magics, the Ala Mhigan fight for liberation is actually a really consistent plot thread throughout the entire story so far, even the Lambs of Dalamud at least get explored in a minor way down the line.

On the other hand, the plot thread that involves Gridania and the elementals kind of goes nowhere as well. Gridania is the most poorly handled of the three city states in my opinion, where Limsa and Ul'dah get some fantastic material to have them progress and grow past their racism.

It's unfortunate because I think aesthetically Gridania is the prettiest of the three. I've liked going through Gridania's environments the most - in that sense I don't regret starting with Lancer.

And of course, there is everything with the empire and that setup.

Laurentius, Riol and several characters at Little Ala Mhigo all become of some importance for the finale of the expansion and perhaps beyond.

Finally, while I get to skip what I don't care for, I also get to look at stuff playthroughs might skip out on, like the smalltalk between characters between quests.

I really like seeing Arenvald this early on, for example.

So yeah, even if it's not perfect, ARR absolutely lays some important foundations for what comes after.

All that aside, somehow, I don't know how, just hitting your main three damage buttons is incredibly satisfying for me.

Maybe it's that the better fights also have you dodge stuff, but I enjoy my three stabby buttons on Lancer.

Wish I had an AoE of some sort, but I do not expect any kind of satisfactory combat gameplay loop from MMOs to begin with.

My biggest experience with MMOs has been Runescape and I know that game has its own high skill ceiling, but it never did anything for me in its most base form when it comes to the actual combat gameplay.

I do not associate MMOs in general with good "gameplay" so to say, just as "second monitor" gaming, something to do while listening to a podcast or something you occasionally log in to see a number go up while running around aimlessly in a virtual sandbox.

And I think you can do that with XIV, too, but XIV very much feels like a "game", game to me.

You can technically spam your one button to get through everything, but engaging with the systems is much more fun (and quicker).

Aside from MSQ, I've dabbled in the Gold Saucer content, which is a collection of minigames and while I'm better at some vs others (Air Force One vs the Leap of Faith type of challenges or Fall Guys), they're a blast, too.

You absolutely can see the scuff in here at all points, but it's fun enough where it doesn't drag the game down for me.

I can't wait for the Heavensward stuff and getting Dark Knight unlocked.

(I really hope I like tanking because I'm unlocking it due to my love for the job story of the class. Tanking is supposedly fairly easy, at least, but I want it for the fancy armor and fantastic lore above all. Lancer/Dragoon is my fave out of the ARR starting classes because it just looks cool, too.)

All of my encounters with other players have been mostly neutral to positive, but I haven't gone out of my way to talk beyond thanking for dungeons and the like.

Conclusion: game fun, I recommend.

Btw, did you know that the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV has a free trial that includes the entirety of A Realm Reborn AND the award-winning Heavensward and Stormblood expansions up to level 70 with no restrictions on playtime?

[thecodeveronica]

I think Dissidia is kinda dead as a FF spin-off (Opera Omnia on mobile notwithstanding) after NT was so bad, but ugghghgghgh I want a new Dissidia game SO MUCH in the style of the PSP ones, with a heavy emphasis on singleplayer content again while also having online multiplayer like NT did.

SO I'm gonna wishlist what I'd want to cope with my sadness that it'll never happen (and spoilers for maybe multiple FF games are to follow, maybe, idk, I'm typing this off the top of my head):

STORY: Just reboot the whole thing. Nobody cared about the new gods they added in the Arcade and NT games, but the story of Chaos and Cosmos was kinda done, so just start the whole thing over fresh like the others never happened. Be freed of the shackles of the convoluted plot of the past, and create a new convoluted story lol.

Now, what I think would be cool would be some kind of partner system in the story. Two characters having to fight together and if one got defeated the other goes too. Would make for interesting interactions between characters from different games, both as partners and as having to outlast the other groups? I'm not sure what the end goal would be, but picking off characters pair-by-pair would be kinda fun IMO, even more so if some heroes had to be paired with villains. Maybe each pair that gets eliminated in some form (not "killing" per se, but you know) feeds the crystals energy for... something... that the gods want... yeah, I dunno.

Also, the pair thing would be more of a story thing than for gameplay. Keep the assist system from Dissidia 012 and have where the partners are assists in the story, but in other modes you could just pick whoever as an assist. And have some bonus, assist-only character like Aerith was in 012. I always found it wild that she was literally the ONLY assist-only character in that game and that they didn't do more as DLC. Surprising level of restraint from SQEX.

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ROSTER: Keep MOSTLY everyone who was in past games, including NT. I say "mostly" because I would trash Onion Knight and replace him with Luneth from the DS remake of FFIII. Sorry, I just have always hated Onion Knight's design and smarmy voice when FFIIIDS had better protag designs right there for the taking.

Some additions (in a reasonable number) for already-represented titles I'd add are:

Nothing for Final Fantasy I, II, III, V, or VI, sorry lol. The latter two already had 3 fighters anyway so they're fine. Also nothing for XI (never played it), XII (don't care about it and Vayne is already in from NT and he's the only one really worth it anyway), or XIV (never played it, though I am kind of fond of Alphinaud just because I had all his gear in FFRK and Opera Omnia so I guess him if anyone haha)

Final Fantasy IV Rydia -would be similar-ish in concept to 012's Yuna playstyle, but with different summons obviously and more regular magic spells interspersed in the moveset. I dunno, I just felt like one of the older games needed something and IV is my favorite of the pre-PS1 games. After Years outfit would be an alt ------

Final Fantasy VII Vincent Valentine -mostly ranged fighter with his guns and shotgun, though honestly I put him here just because I think it'd be cool fighting as him lol. His EX Mode would be when he turns into those monsters like in his Limit Break in VII. Also I'd love for him to have his Turk suit as an alt ------

Final Fantasy IX Beatrix -I actually kind of wanted Eiko or Garnet here but I'm not sure how they'd be different from all the other summoners either already in the games or that I want, so oof. Beatrix is cool and memorable and I think they could come up with something for her abilities in IX like Shock and all. Not sure what alt outfit she'd get since I don't remember her wearing anything else in IX? ------

Final Fantasy X Rikku -more of a X-2 rep in my mind since her thief dressphere would be her default IMO, but since she's in X as well I'll count her as both. Speedy melee attacker who would maybe swap to one or two other dresspheres for different attacks. Alt would obviously be her X outfit, though I'd also like her Songstress dressphere because I always though hers was cute. ------

Final Fantasy XIII Serah Farron -like Rikku, Serah is more of a stealth FFXIII-2 rep, but she was in XIII regardless so yeah. She'd obviously be able to switch between the bow and sword form of her weapon, and have some magic, probably Saboteur stuff because that's what I associate with her. XIII outfit as an alt for sure, though she also had some cute DLC outfits in XIII-2 that'd be cool

also in regard to XIII-2, I think it's kind of whack that Caius didn't get in as the XIII villain slot and they went with LR!Snow instead in NT, but I don't know that I'd replace Snow since I love his Lightning Returns design and he has that sick ice scythe, so RIP Caius, you deserved better.... ------

Final Fantasy XV Ardyn Izunia -super obvious choice, to give XV an antagonist. Also because I think we all pretty much like Ardyn, right? He's cool, and I think he'd be great to see in cutscenes in a new Dissidia. Not really much to say here since I think it's pretty easy to imagine how he'd play. Alt outfit would be his white robes look from how he was before the time of XV's story

Ignis Scientia -if I'm giving some games that already had 3 characters an extra one, then XV gets 4, too. Ignis deserves it most because he's my favorite of the non-Noctis Chocobros :) Could do his magic-infused daggers and all that, which is kind of untapped potential for Dissidia. Alt is obviously his timeskip look ------

Final Fantasy Type-0 Machina Kunagiri -the only realistic option for an "antagonist" from Type-0 IMO. EX Mode would be his White Tiger l'Cie appearance. Also, his dual-wielded drill sword... things... are pretty cool and I think would be fun in battle. Alt outfit of the summer Akademia uniform

Kurasame Susaya -LISTEN I love Type-0 and I'll do what I want here and add a 4th character. And I love Kurasame SO MUCH and so he's here because I say so. Plus, Ice Reaper? Ice magic and an ice blade and his Absolute Zero attack? HELLO? He would be so cool to fight as in Dissidia. Alt outfit would be his past look when he was an Akademia student

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NEW GAMES NOT ALREADY REPRESENTED IN THE SERIES:

World of Final Fantasy Lann & Reynn (yes, together) -I also LOVE WoFF so I have to give it respect here. I'd have where you swap between Lann and Reynn (think Sheik/Zelda in the older Smash games), each with their own little monsters that they send out to fight. And Lann would have maybe a claw attack while Reynn uses her dagger. Not sure on alt outfits though

Final Fantasy XVI Clive Rosfield -duh, the main character has to be here, but also I like Clive a lot so that's A-OK with me :) He'd be in his appearance from when he is 33, because frankly he's hot there and it is his best look by far. Would play taking advantage of his multiple Eikon abilities, like having an attack from each one since his big defining trait as a Dominant was being able to use all the other Eikons' powers. EX Mode would be when he is semi-primed, then the burst would be Ifrit attacking. Alt would be his outfit that got added in the update (the black one), or maybe his 15-year-old outfit but like... refitted for his older self? That might be kind of cool

Barnabas Tharmr -between him and Ultima for the XVI villain slot, but Dissidia seems to like to err on the side of the more "human" looking characters, so Barnabas it is. Odin is SUPER COOL in XVI so I think he'd be a great fit honestly! His EX Mode would be when is semi-primed with Odin obviously. I dunno what alt outfit he'd have though? I thought his knight looking outfit, but that's kind of already being used for the EX Mode, so uhh... huh

Joshua Rosfield -3rd slot for XVI. This is totally favoritism to take him over Jill, but to be fair, Joshua is like, a LOT more actually important to the plot and practically the deuteragonist of the game IMO. And I can't separate my Rosfields man, you just don't do that. Since Clive would be focused on all the Eikons, Joshua would instead be the main "Warden of Fire" rep here and use Phoenix-related powers. Phoenix Shift maybe could just be his (though I know that power is very Noctis warpstrike-y, but they'd play different enough otherwise I think), some kind of Flames of Rebirth attack, and overall be more magic-oriented than his brother. EX Mode is, again, semi-priming with Phoenix, with the burst being legit Phoenix attacking. Alt as his extra outfit from that recent update, though I think giving him a modified version of his prologue outfit (just, ya know, redesigned to not look stupid on an adult) would be cute. Or a riff on Elwin's outfit since Joshua was to be the next leader of Rosaria

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STAGES

Just a short run-through, since most would just be returning from before

FFI - Castle Cornelia FFII - Pandaemonium FFIII - Crystal Tower FFIV - Lunar Subterrane (this is one of my fave Dissidia stages btw) FFV - Interdimensional Rift FFVI - Narshe Outskirts FFVII - Planet's Core (Midgar was too confusing in NT, hated it) FFVIII - Promised Meadow FFIX - Alexandria FFX - Dream's End (I liked Besaid in NT too, but I think I liked the PSP stage more) FFXI - Empyreal Paradox (never played XI but this place is SO PRETTY) FFXII - Rabanastre FFXIII - Sunleth Waterscape (Orphan's Cradle in 012 and Eden in NT both kinda sucked and I think this is more visually distinctive) FFXIV - Porta Decumana FFXV - Insomnia (I would make this stage set at night this time tho) FFT - Orbonne Monastery FFType-0 - Akademeia Courtyard (with the Tempus Finis background) New Stages:

World of Final Fantasy - Nine Woods Hill FFXVI - Twinside (this is a tough choice; I think Twinside is associated with one of the best segments of the game and visually pretty, though I considered Rosalith or that Interdimensional Rift where Ultima starts lore dumping on Clive and Joshua)

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SHOOT I meant to mention maybe Zack as a Crisis Core rep, but honestly I guess VII has plenty and I don't know how much different he'd play than Cloud, so never mind. I feel like Zack deserves a slot, though, you know what I mean?

On a related note, I also think Marche Radiuju from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (FFTA my beloved) would be nice, but I have no delusions that he'd ever have a shot, and to be fair, even in my own fantasy roster, I feel like he'd be kinda weird to have in-game from a story perspective when he was from a "real world" type situation. If you played that game, you get it

[jackidy]

FFXIVWrite Prompt 4: Off The Hook

Pairing: SidurguWOL (Sidurgu/Rino) Characters: Sidurgu Orl, NB!Vie'ra WOL (Rino Benitoki), Rielle de Cauignont Warnings: End of Shadowbringers spoilers, lvl 70 DRK job quest spoilers Rating: T Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV

Summary: "She's not here anymore, is she?"

Any other time Rino would have laughed and say Rielle was right there, ignore the questions relating to the void parasite in its entirety. Whatever had happened between Gyr Albania and now, had certainly opened Rino up to being more open about it all.

"No… Not anymore."

[AO3]

----

They seem different now, older and yet lighter, Sidurgu content with simply just watching Kiva - no, Rino, they were Rino now - as they devoured the food of the forgotten knight. 

Odd, really, they had always seemed to hate the 'bland' food of Coerthas and yet the other was eating it like it had been years not weeks since they were both last in Ishgard. 

"You know its rude to stare." 

It's not even the warrior of light who calls him out on it, both au ra and viera looking at Rielle, their ward, as she sat opposite them both seemingly observing them. He almost missed when she was quieter and less likely to point these things out. 

" I'm not star-" 

"You can ask abou-" 

They both pause, both staring at one another with surprise before Rino at least laughs a little, giving him that all too familiar reserved smile. "You can ask about it." 

He reaches for their face, gloved hand brushing against the light scales that decorated their cheeks. They used to be black, just like his, Rino having once commented that they hadn't always been that way. A throwaway remark that perhaps the other hadn't expected him to remember. 

"She's not here anymore, is she?" 

Any other time Rino would have laughed and say Rielle was right there, ignore the questions relating to the void parasite in its entirety. Whatever had happened between Gyr Albania and now, had certainly opened Rino up to being more open about it all. 

"No… Not anymore." They sound almost sad, leaning into Sidurgu's touch, catching the auri man off guard. Affection between them was never this public, never this open, both too shy about it to dare. 

"I feel emptier." Rino continues with a sigh but he can tell they're conflicted about it, doubting the feeling of that emotion in its entirety. "Zem was with me for over 13 years, everything is just silent now." 

"Is that not a good thing? You…" 

Compliments are still difficult, especially ones like this. It's too forward to state they now look as they always did to him, beautiful and content, finally relaxed and less akin to carrying the weighted fate of not just this star on their shoulders. As ironic as that statement seemed to be. 

"It is!" Rino suddenly exclaims, hands up in front of their chest in mock surrender and jolting away from him before curling in on themselves. As if to be louder than a murmur was a crime in this otherwise busy inn. "It is, it's just a change I'm not yet accustomed to." 

Sid frowns as Rino stares at their hands, noting the bow on their back as opposed to the usual tome at their hip and he inwardly swears at his lack of observation. The change was more than just a loss of a voidsent, could Rino even still summon as they did before, the constant presence of the bow seemed to state otherwise. 

"Y'shtola got me in contact with her sister, they're both looking into what I lost and what can be recovered." 

The answer is unknown then, at least for now, silence stretching between them but it's not stilted now at least, comfortable as it had always been. "I have to make my way to Gridania in a few days." 

That makes Sidurgu pause. The last time they had ventured south to the Shroud it had gone badly, the viera in a constant state of discomfort until they've crossed the border once more and the other had let out a heavy sigh and complained of elementals. 

"Do you want-" 

"We're going with you." 

Rielle cuts him off, smiling in that coy way she does when she's up to something - the one he can read clearly and then one Rino has always fallen for. "I would love to hear more about where you've been whilst he was worrying." 

She turns more and more into Fray with each day, Sidurgu folding his arms and sighing as Rino and Rielle talked. 

To Gridania it is then.