#storm plays ffxiv

[lynbeck]

oh my god, sugar riot's theme????

[wolveragrace]

Winter blooms

[zahnffxiv]

hrothtober day 3: sanctuary!!

one of the best things of my home sweet hideaway is being able to enjoy the rain from the comfort of my bed!!

[lavampira]

can you be-leaf how menacing the fake spouses’ height difference looks under a parasol

d’alia + @hythlodaes’s emile <3

[elizabethrobertajones]

TBH re: Grerenville... I make Frog Canon in ffxiv strictly start from only what is suggested in canon and I can branch off and fill gaps but I don't go into anything too AU that needs to be kept track of, because I am really enjoying the Warrior of Light story as presented anyway and Frog is just the best and most special warrior of light (as is every WoL but she's mine so :))

Just because G'raha and Erenville have never met in canon doesn't mean they can't have bumped into each other given the occasional times they've been based out of Sharlayan since Endwalker. Like, it's humorous to me that they haven't crossed paths yet, especially when Erenville is now hanging out with Krile. But also that is just what we see on the surface so why not say they could have met.

Of course, then we get into the complex knot of relationships that is Frog's life, given that G'raha is pretty much The Boyfriend ffxiv hands you of COURSE he's Frog's main boyfriend (vs, like, Aymeric who is merely courting her in the sense that it's still like 90% show at public events with lots of bowing and dancing and chastely kissing the back of her hand, and 10% frantic meetings in the Forgotten Knight :P)

Frog has totally encouraged G'raha he can date other people if he wants and aside from getting very flustered about Aymeric when she takes him on formal trips to Ishgard, and getting tongue tied about Estinien, he's been hesitant to branch out (mostly because if I tried to hold in my mind the web that is Estinien's love life being Aymeric's ex and Vrtra's consort, if G'raha got into all that it would become some sort of unstoppable katamari ball of ship rolling over everything)...

But what harm could one friendly unattached Gleaner do to all this? :)

enter: Frog declaring Erenville her arch nemesis after the Toad Incident with the same level of devotion to the cause that Zenos took to her. And Erenville reciprocating as the arch rival from an high school anime role in her life with glee.

Yeah, sure. I'll just try shipping Grerenville in that atmosphere. It'll be fine.

[koukouture]

Zenos and Elysia adventures in La Noscea pt ?

"Would you stop following me around!?"

"I said I'd follow the thrill of the hunt wherever it goes; and here you are."

This was a fun one to figure out lmao. Posing them near the stairs was kinda hard, and as always when g-posing Elysia with literally anyone- she's just too fucking small 💀I wanted her to be standing over Zenos and I thought she'd look taller and more intimidating from a low angle but Zenos still looks so big compared to her 😭 Also posing Zenos's hand on her thigh was harder than I thought bc his stupid pauldron would keep clipping into the ground or warping weirdly.

Anyways, he's def looking at her panties

[azure-steel]

Maybe I'll come here for a lil bit, wanna play? 👀

[haellen-o]

"Ophelia likes to practice the violin and actually had classical/formal violin training"

The expectation: v

The reality: v

[feralkwe]

kit: from the bottom of my heart, fourchenault, what the fuck?

[anneapocalypse]

Ariane would be a perfect candidate for "having a rough time right now" at like... most points in her journey, but where I am right now (paused after 5.3) she's actually doing pretty good. Saved a world, didn't die, saved her friends. She's taking some time to enjoy her hobbies and learn new skills. She's in love! Things are going pretty great. I'm sure MSQ will in no way throw a giant wrench in all of this as soon as I pick it back up. 🙂

[lynbeck]

YEAAAH!! CRAFTING SUCKS!

[wolveragrace]

It's spooky season, bitches

I was having trouble coming up with pose ideas, so I decided to redo an old one. Behold, a 4 year old vanilla pose:

[catwhoisawizard]

Hello gposers of Tumblr!

I would like to get to know you all better and get more involved in the FFXIV community here on tumblr! My particular blend of brain weirdnesses make it difficult to be consistent about making gposes myself, but I do it when I can. I haven't made any recently because I've been on a bit of a hiatus from the game for personal reasons, but I want to share some of my older shots as a start!

So without further ado, here's a short introduction to my current cast of characters! Please feel free to leave comments or send asks with questions about them!

Name: Zhera Anki

Age: 35 (as of DT)

Gender/Pronouns: Cis female, she/her

Orientation: Polyam Lesbian

Canon combat jobs: SCH/WHM/SMN

Canon non-combat jobs: BTN/CUL/ALC

Homeland: Limsa Lominsa (raised there), Ala Mhigo (born there)

Notes: Mixed race Keeper/Seeker. Her Keeper family is descended from survivors of Amdapor. Her Seeker father was a member of the Fist of Rhalgr. She is autistic and has utilized her hyperfixations and special interests to learn multiple difficult skills quickly. Buff.

Zhera is a former Storm Captain and veteran of the Primal Wars, the Garlean War, and the Final Days crisis. Now retired, she became an Archon (her specialty is aetherology and Allagan Summoning) and now spends her time raising her adopted child Hhemetso and working as a freelance botanist. She is close friends with her worldline's WoL, but played a secondary role in most of the events of the MSQ.

Name: Retha Othan

Age: 84

Gender/Pronouns: Trans female, she/her

Orientation: Polyam Pansexual

Canon combat jobs: RDM/SGE/WAR

Canon non-combat jobs: ALC

Homeland: Tenth Shard

Notes: Was AMAB, but learned alchemy and transitioned by using transformative potions similar to Fantasias that she made herself, and continued to make them to help others transition. Was an Archmage of the Red in her prime, but an injury caused her to lose the ability to use magic, and she didn't get it back until getting her new body in the Source. Was happily married to a man named Tavel and had multiple children and many grandchildren.

Retha is Zhera's reflection from the Tenth Shard. She was her world's primary WoL and saved it several times over, but living a hard life eventually caught up to her in her old age, leaving her frail and unable to help when the Ascians made their final move to Rejoin her Shard. She escaped by volunteering for a desperate last minute plan to use experimental magic to send someone's soul to another Shard in the hopes of bringing back help. The transfer succeeded and she found herself sharing a body with Zhera, her counterpart in the Source, only to learn that she was too late: due to unexpected temporal weirdness in the Rift, she had arrived 1500 years after her Shard was already gone. She has since gained her own body and is now building a new life in her new home.

Name: Kjet Anki

Age: 143

Gender/Pronouns: Non-binary, he/him

Orientation: Asexual

Canon combat jobs: WHM/BLM/MNK

Canon non-combat jobs: BTN

Homeland: Hingashi/Gridania

Notes: He is a Viqo'te, as his other mother was a Viera. He is the reincarnation of Deudalaphon and was forced to take on his predecessor's memories against his will; he developed his time travel spell by adapting techniques used in one of her abandoned experiments. He briefly tried to learn the Dark Knight arts, and his Ascian memories took form and consciousness as his Fray before he accepted them; she is now his headmate, calling herself Hephaestia, the name of the previous Deudalaphon prior to taking the Seat.

Kjet is Zhera's son from a separate timeline than her. In his timeline, Zhera lost the war with her depression when he was about 20 and she gave in to despair. In an act of desperation to fix the world, she summoned a perfected primal using her own soul as it's core. The resultant entity was a fusion of her at her lowest and Ifrit at his strongest, calling itself Zhera Ifrita. Following her mandate to "end war by any means necessary", she started a campaign of political manipulation via tempered thralls and eventually outright conquest to unite the entire world under one state, with herself as something akin to a god-queen preventing war via tempering and draconian social policies. While extremely talented with both White and Black magic, Kjet is ill-suited for violence, and was forced to spend over a century in hiding as he watched the world around him succumb to the monster wearing his mother's identity. Finally, in an act of desperation, he managed to develop a primitive time travel spell and used it to travel back to before Zhera lost her hope, but unintentionally made a split timeline in doing so (the method he used does that to prevent a paradox). He has since started building a new life in this timeline, but the threat from his home timeline is not gone...

[autumnslance]

FFXIV Write 2024: 1 Steer

“Steer clear of that one,” their fellow merchants said, watching Aeryn scowl as she tried to study in a crowded room. “She’s got a temper like a penned guhasaya, and it’s set off by the strangest things.”

“People teasing her friends or younger cousins isn’t so strange,” her stepsister said dryly. “Nor is being annoyed by being pestered while she’s busy. Haven’t you anything better to do?” And she shooed them away, giving Aeryn’s shoulder a squeeze.

It was nice to have the support, but Aeryn still bit her lip to hide how it trembled. She wasn’t all that bad, was she?

-

“Steer clear of that one,” the young men sneered, watching another try to flirt with Aeryn, who had missed it entirely. “Clueless as a hamsa, even if you can get her to notice.”

“What can one expect, when she was born in Coerthas? Frigid as her mountain goddess—”

Aeryn slammed her book on the table where the boys were joking. “A war goddess,” she snapped. “An aspect of Asura and patron of my birth. And what girl wants to kiss you, Rushid, with your breath like an asvattha? Go swive each other if you care so much!”

She whirled and stormed away, ignoring the attempted jeers as they tried to regain their swagger.

That two of them were boys who had gotten her notice, that she had kissed—and more, with one—because she had tried, she had, but she still did not understand why this was such an issue.

To the hells with all of them. She had studying to do and her mother to help.

-

“I’d steer clear of that one, if I were you,” the smarmy scholar said, a wicked grin playing on his lips as he leaned on the bar near the chattering adventurers.

The miqo’te woman snorted and rolled her eyes. “Why, you tryin’ to charm her tonight, Waters?”

He scoffed and raised his mug. “She’s out of my league. Out of yours, too, when it comes to the sort of jobs you lot take on.” He swallowed the last of his ale. “Unless you’re looking to be carried through jobs given by the Sultana’s offices, but I thought you had more pride than that, P’anaela.”

She snarled, tail puffed and ears flattening, but Thancred ignored her and her comrades to watch as the adventurers he had pointed Aeryn’s way stood with her, agreeing on where to meet to handle this mine issue Papashan had.

Aeryn gave him a disgruntled side-eye as she passed, having apparently caught some of the conversation. He gave her what he hoped was a disarming smile and a small salute. There was something familiar in that glower that had him on edge and also strangely sad, but that was a concern for later.

If this job turned out half as well as they hoped, anyroad.

-

“Steer clear of that one,” the Garlean soldier said, voice a mix of fear and anger. “That’s the savior of the savages, the one they call the Warrior of Light.”

The other soldiers exchanged looks, postures stiffening. The one who had been reaching out for the supplies Aeryn offered dropped his hand.

She sighed. “We’re not enemies now. I’m here to help, like the rest.”

“We don’t need your help!” the soldier spat. Her face was pinched from lack of food, and she shivered from the cold, her uniform worn and patched, as night fell and there weren’t enough working heaters.

Aeryn counted internally, biting back the sharp retorts that sprang to mind. “Right. I’ll just leave this fuel and food here. You can decide what to do with it, or not.” She set it down carefully and backed up a couple yalms before turning and striding away, head high, steady and certain.

At least until she was well out of sight, taking a chance to sag against a wall and rub her face, aching from more than the cold.

-

“Do try to steer clear of trouble,” Ameliance teased, grinning as she handed Aeryn a farewell treat pack, the same as she had for the twins.

“That’s the problem,” Aeryn admitted, grinning in return. “It finds me anyway. But usually not right away, at least.”

Ameliance tilted her head, considering for a long moment, until Aeryn finally asked, “What?”

“If I had to guess, you enjoy going to new places not only for the thrill of new exploration and adventure, but the relief of anonymity.”

Aeryn smiled sheepishly, shrugging. “That is the nice part of going to new places; most of the time, even if they’ve heard some stories, they don’t know who I am. It never lasts, but...It’s fun, for a little while, to leave the past behind and have no expectations or impressions. And it’s a way to learn about people, how they treat a random newcomer.”

“But mostly it allows you to explore unhindered, and find that trouble that always comes your way,” Ameliance’s tone was light, but her gaze was as sharp as ever.

“Something like that,” Aeryn said. She looked over her shoulder as the sailors called out. “Looks like it’s time to go. Take care.”

“Of course, you as well,” Ameliance said as they hugged. She turned to her children, spending time fussing and kissing and otherwise embarrassing them properly with all the emotion their father stoically held back until they could return to the privacy of the manor, where he could safely have his fit of worry.

She offered her own quiet prayers to the Twelve for a safe and pleasant journey, for her children, for their companions...and for the quiet, temperamental woman who sought both adventure and anonymity.

[fandaniel]

oh i noticed a weird thing in games i play. i tend to play the odd support class always. like the support for the support or in between support and dps. my mains are splattershot jr (splatoon), scholar (ffxiv), engineer (tf2), storm and adam (marvel rivals)

[shivapvoid]

Why the Pelupelu Allied Society Quests Are Bad

Disclaimer : I am not qualified to talk about these topics. It’s possible that I’m not right in some of these points, so take this with a grain of salt and do some thinking yourself. This is only my opinion. I have no doubt that there are more qualified people than me to make these points and talk about them, as I’m only an art student with little experience with the wider world. However, as I’ve seen very few people talk about the Pelupelu Allied Society Quests as a whole, other than hearsay of people on Twitter, I’ve decided to compile a few words about the below points.

P.S. When I was writing this, I hadn’t (and still haven’t) finished all of the Pelupelu Quests. As of posting this, my rank in it its still Sworn.

everything is under the cut.

Problem 1 : The Tourism Feel

The “tourism feel” in Dawntrail, and its sidequests, is a point that many players of FFXIV have pointed out. Whether it be the overuse of tacos as general food, even though there should be other foods that people enjoy eating, or the fact that the people of Tural (or should I say, the FFXIV devs,) flaunt their culture as if it is an exotic and mysterious thing that nobody has ever seen before (it really isn’t), the tourist feel that I myself have played through is pervading and invasive in Dawntrail’s entire experience to me, and spoils it entirely.

I will only be talking about the Pelupelu Allied Society Quests in here, so that shall be my main point of focus, not the main story. This brings me to my main point in these Allied Society Quests. The Turali Travel Agency in Kozama’uka. It’s framed as a way to make funds to fix the broken bridge between Kozama’uka and Tuliyollal, to help Kozama’uka rebuild from the great storm they had, and to help fellow Turali know each other better, as the different factions barely know each other, living so far from each other as they do. Now, this in and of itself isn’t a problem – until you realise that the residents and citizens of Tural are more than capable of rebuilding and knowing each other themselves.

So why is the Turali Travel Agency introduced? It’s because of a Pelupelu of course, by the name of Liplu. Liplu wants to take, in her words, a business opportunity to help achieve the goals that I stated above.

She states,

“Our goal is to help revitalise this community as it attempts to rebuild after the great storm. Promoting Kozama’uka as a tourist destination will provide a much-needed source of income for the region, and with it, all the benefits that follow.”

My first thought when I read this dialogue was “I didn’t realise income was the issue.” This nebulous problem of “money” never came up or was addressed when we first come to Kozama’uka in the main story of Dawntrail, or when you progress in the Pelupelu Quests. Sure, you could say that they were busy with the Rite of Succession, but the fact is that it was never a problem in the first place. Why am I so confident in this fact? It’s clear that the Hanu Hanu trade their reeds or fish to make a living, so why do they not simply continue with their way of life and rebuild their village that way? Why do they not ask the Moblins and their myriad of crafters to help rebuild the bridge?

Or better yet, why not just requisition funds from the Dawnservants, who would be very eager to help, to rebuild the bridge? It doesn’t make sense. The Pelupelu Allied Society Quests are simply a way to shoehorn the Warrior of Light into helping something that doesn’t need to be helped. Simply put, the Pelupelu Society Quests are effectively useless and an incredibly lazy way to storytell, since the Warrior of Light is not needed here, but is still being framed as ‘being useful to the region’. They, as a Warrior of Light, do not know this region. They are not a citizen of Tural. They do not know their way of life. To be framed as a paragon of ‘knowing culture’ because the Warrior of Light has traveled far and wide is a false statement, and effectively turns the Warrior of Light into a foreigner meddling in matters outside of their jurisdiction.

If you are not convinced, let me compare the Pelupelu Allied Society Quests to a rather similar Allied Society Questline from the last expansion of Endwalker. The Arkasodara Allied Society Quests. The Arkasodara Allied Society Quests are only similar in a surface level – The Warrior of Light is enlisted to help a wayward band of Arkasodara who like to race with hippos. The player then find these wayward souls and bring them to Kancana, who gives them work to do, namely, which is delivering packages to other people.

The Warrior of Light, here, is simply helping them bring packages to and fro. There is no other involvement whatsoever in their work other than in key moments, not because they are a Warrior of Light, but because they are an adventurer. There is a clear story being told in the Arkasodara Quests, involving the Hippo Riders and other Gajasura who were previously living alone without outside help in Thavnair.

While in the Pelupelu Quests, the Warrior of Light is constantly lauded as an individual who can fix anything – a deus ex machina, almost. This is evident by the fact that the Pelupelu Quests open with Liplu giving lipservice to the Warrior of Light’s achievements in Tural.

“The mighty warrior who traveled the length and breadth of Tural, taking in its myriad sights, sounds, and smells─even those within the otherworldly dome!? The savvy haggler who helped the Third Promise acquire a saddle worth ten pel in the thousands column, despite starting with a mere hundred!?”

This is the key difference between the Pelupelu and Arkasodara Allied Society Quests.

This, also, brings me to my next point.

Problem 2 : The Lack of Conflict

There is little to no conflict in the Pelupelu Allied Society Quests. There is no problem to be solved, there is only progress. There is no driving force – so to speak – that drives forward the plot. It makes for an overall boring, bland and uninteresting story. Now, I realise its a big ask of an mmorpg to make a goddamned sidequest interesting, but the standards have already been set by the previous Allied Society Quests before this. The Stormblood ones were better. The ARR ones were better.

It’s just not an excuse, that the FFXIV team simply couldn’t uphold the quality of the storytelling, especially when millions of players pay 15 USD or more every month just to play the game. There’s no excuse for the drop in quality of storytelling at all.

Even if the story was meant to be “relaxing” like a vacation with low stakes, even a story with low stakes can feel interesting. Take, for example, the various sidequests peppered around the map. They’re short, sweet, and still catch my attention for the few minutes that I’m doing them. The Pelupelu Allied Society Quests feel like someone’s buried the stakes in the ground and burned them to ash for good measure. It just doesn’t feel engaging at all.

Conclusion :

I don’t really know how to end this. This started as a rant towards how I felt about these quests and it still shows in my writing. Feel free to reply to this if you can. I guess... what I’m trying to say is that this isn’t worth what I’m paying FFXIV for. This isn’t what I signed up for. No amount of complaining to Square Enix can fix this. As of writing this, I’m planning to unsubcribe. If you want things to change too, I suggest you vote with your wallet, not your words. If not, keep enjoying the game, I guess.