#robffxiv

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y'shtola: good but mean driver. refuses to let people merge. goes 90 on the freeway. if you spill something in her car you have to get the wet wipes from the trunk and clean it up. public radio, the classical station, or science podcasts and will not share the aux. does not make you pay for gas unless you're thancred. has a really nice sedan that smells good. don't ask about her insurance premium.

urianger: genuinely hates driving and only barely got a license at age 18 because moenbryda's parents wanted them to have some form of ID that isn't their passport. passenger seat princess bc they get carsick easily, but also isn't a very good navigator. if they have to drive they go 10 miles under the speed limit and will only take surface streets, no freeways, and will pray to the crystals they keep in their tote bag for protection against malicious forces. will play weird music that isn't great for driving if you let them have the aux.

alphinaud: very good driver, assiduous turn signal user, but drives his dad's tesla (he will eventually get his own prius). always listening to some podcast but will share the aux if you ask (and if there isn't a new episode of pod save eorzea). wants you to pay your share of the gas money.

alisaie: got herself an old used jeep and loves it to death. loves going fast on the freeway. lets you eat in her car and shares her car snacks. has been burning CDs of her playlists so she can play her music in the car. would share the aux with certain friends but nobody carries around CDs. pretty decent driver but can get distracted occasionally, but also probably the most fun to be driven by. wants you to talk with her if you're carpooling with her.

thancred: drives like a dad. will let you have the aux, which you should take because he just puts on whatever rock/alt station he can find and doesn't switch off it if imagine dragons starts playing. has a dented dusty SUV so he's always the one hauling stuff. should probably vacuum it. yells at people when they cut him off.

ryne: still learning how to drive and is extremely anxious about it, but does kind of enjoy it. she gets nervous about driving a big SUV and has been getting some of her hours in with y'shtola since her car is smaller and her corrections make her less anxious than thancred's. a good navigator/copilot. is going to put a beanie baby up on the front dash when she gets her own car.

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it is an often-repeated fact that alphinaud and alisaie are the youngest entrants to the studium ever at age 12, and like it's crazy that these infants got into harvard, but the narrative does not seem to remember/notice/care that thancred was an archon by 17 (he has the archon marks in the 1.0 ul'dah start flashbacks, where minfilia's 12 and he's 17). also he got picked up by louisoix as "an adolescent" so he had spent at most 7 years in sharlayan by the time he got his PhD in "espionage and survival". SHAKES HIM. WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU LITTLE MAN. WHAT DID YOU GET UP TO IN SHARLAYAN SPY SCHOOL. DID THEY MAKE YOU A TOOL, BOY. DID THEY HONE YOU INTO THEIR SHARP OBJECT

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personally one of my favorite things about the bard quests is that both of them could just be lesbians. guydelot with the shitty self-cut short hair with a bad dye job and 3 days worth of eyeliner caked on. sanson with the Sensible Low Ponytail who runs this bard unit like it's the god damn navy. i know these dykes they could be my coworkers

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anyway im intensely bored by most depictions & characterizations of moenbryda being Perfect Angel Deadwife like booooo let her being the one who got left behind in sharlayan be a part of her character. what hasnt she unlearned from within that ivory tower? what resentments have built up? also she's taller than urianger by two inches. also so much art of her just doesn't draw her looking like herself - where are her nose and brow?? but noooo so much boring ideal-femininized fridged woman. BORING. WHAT ABOUT A PERSON

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emet-selch was Wrong but whom among us would not risk it all for hythlodaeus. he was right for that one

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so in ffxiv teleportation prices are determined by in-game geographical distances. it costs more to go to another continent then to the city-state next door. i love this detail and what it tells us about the planet.

the cheapest tp from elpis is the crystarium at 210g. makes sense: that's where the time portal is. the next cheapest are lakeland and raktika, at 252g and 256g respectively. il mheg is 286g.

the other tp from elpis less than 300g is mor dhona! a couple theories why for funsies, which could all be true:

lakeland = mor dhona between shards. it's the same distance, just in different dimensions from the "parent" dimension. (similarly, tps from areas in shb are cheapest to their source counterparts - it's cheaper to teleport from kholusia to la noscea than to the shroud, for example)

the crystal tower is also in mor dhona, so the time-tunnel to elpis is also lock on to that.

elpis is (above) where mor dhona(/lakeland) will be on etheirys.

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thancred "i hate myself so fucking much, i think i'm a useless piece of shit, but i have this overwhelming trait and skill of Survival so i won't die. i'll dig in my heels and survive because there's people i need to protect(/serve)." waters VERSUS y'shtola "i am perfectly secure in myself and i like who i am more than i like any other person, and this self confidence has me act very boldly and throw myself into the jaws of death constantly because i personally think it's the best/most effective course of action and i don't really care what anyone else thinks, they need to work around me" rhul. hating yourself so much that you live VERSUS loving yourself so much you constantly nearly die

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so much of ffxiv is about feeling that you've been scooped out and replaced by someone else. ysayle with shiva. minfilia with hydaelyn. lyse with yda. ryne with minfilia. graha with himself. gaia with loghrif. elidibus with zodiark, with his duty. venat with hydaelyn. the watcher. amon with fandaniel. the wol, maybe, with azem. imposters and replacements and transformations, often brutally. such as it is in a cycle of rebirth + suffering

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this endwalker culinarian levequest text makes me smile so much. im imagining fourchenault's moon escape plan happening in a different timeline, he's so proud of himself for being right, and then he gets to the moon and the loporrits only have his least favorite food. serves him right

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every day i struggle between "i should be nicer to thancred" and "i should be meaner to thancred", as im sure every woman in his life constantly does

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erenville does have a lot of trans vibes. i do believe in trans dude erenville. however i do interpret the deal with his names to be more along like... just like situational names rather than something more like a deadname. he canonically started using erenville in sharlayan to fit in better, to assimilate (speaking in a neutral sense). there are cultures in the real world where you use different names depending on the setting, the relationship, etc. i can completely understand people having discomfort with cahciua using erenville's childhood name rather than his sharlayan name - i also think it is totally possible to interpret it more as like a cross-cultural thing. erenville and elene'shpya can both be his names. one is appropriate for his mother to use, and one is appropriate for his coworkers(/friends) to use. and it's not worth nothing that his turali name is in his indigenous language (that is based off a real world indigenous language!) (and again, as i have reiterated, i am not seeking to invalidate anyone's personal interpretations. im just discussing my own.)

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what people misunderstand about the hvw patch urianger plotline is that urianger's greatest sin in that arc is not sending minfilia to the first. he didn't actually do that. what he did is set up a confrontation between the wol and ardbert's party without elidibus' knowledge so all the crystals of light from the wol and from ardbert's party would allow them to talk to hydaelyn and minfilia. that is what he did. then he presented his solution to the first and source's dual problem, and minfilia AGREED and so did hydaelyn and so minfilia chose to go over. minfilia was already lost in the sauce. the wol and the scions knew that, they saw her in the antitower as the vessel of hydaelyn as The Word Of The Mother. she was already in there and it wasn't going to be as easy to get her out like they did y'shtola and thancred - or maybe even possible. what he arranged is a meeting that had the ability to conclude in the way he wanted - which was a way for the first to survive, and for no calamity to happen on the source. and in that, he allowed everyone to see minfilia again and speak with her. so he could ask her if she was willing to do that. he didn't punt her over there! because even when he's taking action, he is still a really passive person lmao. but he gave minfilia the option to save two entire worlds, which she was happy to choose to do.

urianger's ACTUAL greatest sin in that arc is alisaie's poisoning by renda-rae's arrow. i don't know if urianger was with the warriors of darkness for that incident or if he was at the waking sands, and i KNOW he was probably horrified to hear about the incident and intensely regretfull and ashamed he wasn't there to stop it (like he stopped ardbert's party in the cutscene after xelphatol later on) but regardless, i don't think their relationship was ever the same after that. which makes me miserable, because right before this is the bahamut coils plot, where alisaie trusts urianger as her scion contact (not alphinaud!) because he's a close family friend, and he obviously respects her so incredibly much (he uses "you" for her!) and is so distressed when he sees her (and alphinaud) all beat up after the final coil. they never act very close after 3.4, aside from urianger presenting her with a custom-made rapier and a prophecy before she sets sail to kugane in stormblood. i think that is in part meant as an apology (and also so alisaie has an easier time casting), but they never really team up again like they did in the coils plot. this probably isn't intentional on the part of the writers, but it's an absence that feels conspicuous to me. when your childhood babysitter almost gets you killed.

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maxima is one of my dark horse favorite ffxiv characters because he looks like a completely normal guy. he looks, sounds, and acts like a high school history or math teacher. he has good politics and political exile swag. he's so normal. AND he's nice. it's so awesome. shoutout to maxima i hope you enjoy your caesar salad in the teacher's lounge today king

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scions ranked by most likely to eat a rat

thancred (duh. eat what you can eat. just cook it to make it safer, no big, and if you can get a couple herbs to season it, even better. definitely ate a rat or two out in the dravanian hinterlands. nutkin is lucky it got away without a bite taken out of it)

estinien (doesn't see anything wrong with it. would eat it raw)

ryne (thancred tried to find them more substantial, palatable food, but sometimes when you're living on the run… rat meat. she doesn't have a ton of hangups about it - literally any food besides prison rations is novel and exciting to her - but it's not the tastiest, and anyway she's found she likes sweet foods more)

y'shtola (the night's blessed probably threw some rats in the cookpot every so often. girl's gotta eat when she's living in a benign forest cult. has not eaten rats before or since)

alisaie (extremely easily dared into almost anything including eating a rat. plus would see alphinaud being squeamish about it and make a point to go MMMMM-MM SOOOO YUMMY even if she didn't like it)

g'raha (wouldn't think to eat a rat on his own, but extremely susceptible to "if everyone else is doing it, i want to be part of the group!" or if you threatened him with "someone else will have to eat this rat if you don't!!" he'll shove the rat in his mouth so fast.)

lyse (similar to alisaie in that she's easily dared, but she has no sibling (anymore) to engage in rat-eating rivalry with)

minfilia (the sort of person to go along with a lot of stuff in the name of being friendly. if someone sincerely offered her a cooked rat she wouldn't have it in her to turn it down and would take a polite bite)

alphinaud (the little lordling does Not want to eat a rat! foul! no! but if estinien was like "hey want a bite" then it is much more likely that alphinaud will try to look cool in front of his pseudo-big-brother and sample the rat)

tataru (no no no! no, absolutely not! she will NOT be eating a rat. this is why she stays AWAY from the front. but also she could whip up something scrumptious with some rat meat if she must)

urianger (this is not one of his safe foods. he doesn't wanna. he doesn't wanna. you can't make him. he's gonna find an excuse to mysteriously vanish)

krile (if you try to make her eat a rat she's gonna disappear like the isle of val.)

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so awesome how simply positive urianger and ryne's relationship is. that's her mommy and she loves her 🫶

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the vast majority the early mentions and depictions of radz-at-han and its people were as sneaky alchemists and traders who would cut duplicitous deals to get ahead and will betray and use people for their own scheming ends (for example, the hvw alchemist quest, stormblood hildibrand, other little mentions here and there in sidequests & levequests). or as Sexy Dancers. (both are orientalist, which sucks)

and then in endwalker we go there and actually it's a beautiful prosperous utopian pluralistic multicultural society full of kind and lovely people protected and guided by the world's most wonderful dragon who is a vtuber but more importantly Your Friend. i know the reason is that the aims and themes of the writing changed from ARR being like very thoughtless fantasy genre grittiness to SHB/EDW being very hopeful and compassionate about humanity, and more thoughtful about how different cultures are represented. but maybe also vrtra picked up all the assholes and dropped them on different continents so they wouldn't harsh the vibe of thavnair