#susano was especially ridiculous and i actually was annoyed by the lampshading there

[elfyourmother]

She does! (Again if the white boy can why can’t she?) A good example is when she was fighting Shinryu in Between the Seconds. Off the top of my head, she swapped between Red Mage, Dark Knight, and White Mage in that.

Cutting this because it got really, really long.

Quick reminder of her canon Jobs:

Red Mage

Astrologian

Black Mage

White Mage

Summoner

Scholar

Dark Knight

Samurai

Dancer

Yes magic works somewhat differently on the Source as compared to Thedas’ shard but not a whole lot (in my verse Lyrium is just crystallized aether, and Red Lyrium is corrupted aether). Gisele being an omni-disciplinary mage as the WoL makes a hell of a lot of sense, because it’s what she was in Thedas. Circle Mages are trained that way—my ex-British Traditional Wiccan is showing again but I’ve long stolen the old Gardnerian maxim “the witch who cannot hex, cannot heal” and attributed it to the Circle in my DA verse. From the very beginning of her existence as a character, Gisele has been about that duality of being capable of immense destruction and powerful healing by turns. In DA:O/A she was an Arcane Warrior/Spirit Healer (Battlemage was added in Awakening) and her style was about big elemental nukes as much as healing. She identifies as a healer, but her signature move was Storm of the Century after all (as homage to Ororo). 

The hilarious thing is I always wrote Gisele’s Arcane Warrior style as being exactly what XIV’s version of Red Magic was like, years before it was even a thing, even though DA:O’s vanilla game mechanics really didn’t lend itself to it without balance mods. I always envisioned it as akin to the old 2E AD&D Bladesinger kit for Elven Fighter/Mages, which is very much RDM style. But this is an example of what I mean when I say that Gisele really belonged in FFXIV all along, much more than DA, and I didn’t realize it until I brought her into it.

So of course she would seek to learn as much as she could, in Eorzea. It fits her and it makes sense--Gisele is ravenous for knowledge esp. of magic and none of these disciplines would be terribly foreign to a Circle-trained mage. Black Magic is just the Primal school stuff she mastered, White Magic is Spirit + Primal. And while they’re not the same by any means, Gisele’s favorite subject in the Circle was Tevinter astrology so the Sharlayan flavor would naturally be of interest. Gisele always had an affinity for spirits in Thedas, even if you take into account that the main “spirit” she always worked with was actually Hydaelyn, so Summoner and Scholar make perfect sense, especially with the latter’s emphasis on tactics and strategy given Gisele’s strong interest in those aspects of combat.

One of the cool things that I really like about FFXIV’s version of the Job system from a lore standpoint is all of them are “magic” somehow, in the sense that aetherial manipulation is involved to varying degrees even in the melee & ranged Jobs. So her picking up more overtly physical skillsets isn’t at all weird like it would have been in Thedas. I chose the ones that make the most sense aesthetically, personality wise, and what meshes well with her story. Dancer in particular fits her so well it hurts, given that I’ve long described her fighting style as resembling dancing anyway even in DA:O, and the Kriegstanz from a metaphysical standpoint is very much about healing. (I get why people were upset DNC wasn’t another healer Job. It certainly feels like it should have been, after doing the quests)

She starts off the ARR story as a thaumaturge and transitions into Black Mage as normal, and picks up the others as she starts traveling to the other city-states, but generally is a Black Mage main for most of that story. During the 2.x Seventh Astral Era quests is when she meets X’rhun Tia and starts studying Red Magic; by the time of the Bloody Banquet it’s her preferred Job. She becomes an Astrologian after getting to Ishgard and Dark Knight happens at some point* along the way. Samurai she learns from Hien and Gosetsu, in SB. And she becomes a Dancer and joins Troupe Falsiam between Haurchefant and Alisaie getting yeeted to the First (that was at the end of Ghimlyt Dark) and hearing back from Cid’s folk re: the beacon.

Anyway, depending on who she’s with, Gisele typically defaults to Red Mage and adjusts if/as the fight demands. With all due respect to a certain catboy she was the original “All Rounder”, changing Jobs as needed. She’s much more likely to swap between the magic Jobs as those are her bread and butter. Like for instance in the Aery she was Estinien’s pocket healer for 95% of the dungeon and then swapped to Summoner and let Titan tank Nid while Estinien drew on the Eye. When she and Ysayle fight Primals she’s again RDM and will change as needed. In ShB, Gisele had much more of an even split switching between magic and phys, and actually tanked Innocence and a large portion of the fight against Hades as DRK.

I really treat the Job Crystals as more like FFX-2′s Dresspheres. Gisele wears them as a charm bracelet, usually glamoured to be undetectable so that it’s not a tempting target for an opponent. What we have as saved gear sets for each Job from a meta gameplay standpoint, she has attuned to each of those crystals. All she has to do is reach out with her will, focus on vibrating with the aether of the crystal in question and boom, instant henshin sequence. At first it takes a lot more concentration, but over time Gisele is so practiced with it, it’s muscle memory and instantaneous just like White Boy’s instant changes in the ShB trailer.

Tbh, being an omni-disciplinary mage is really easily supported with canon if you care about that kind of thing. Red Magic straight up has Black & White as a foundation and lorewise can’t be mastered without knowledge of both schools (this is actually an important plot point in the SB Job quests, wrt Arya). Summoner and Scholar share the same base class and can very easily be handwaved given that they level up at the same time. Hell, I play very fast and loose with the lore on this and Gisele has devised her own multi purpose grimoire/codices--she’s an Alchemist, why not? Sharlayan astrology’s contrasts and similarities with earth-based healing magic is literally the whole theme of the SB era AST quests so a healer with a conjury background picking it up makes sense to me, from the “as above, so below” standpoint.

I also headcanon that WoL’s stupidly OP nature compared to other characters who share their Jobs is a result of having a more complete soul than most, so being able to master many Jobs makes sense. The potential is there, they just need to have the opportunity to a) get the Crystal and b) practice. Gisele is a magical prodigy with insane raw potential but she’s also extremely driven and studious, and that’s a trait she’s had literally since childhood. That’s what makes her the strongest mage of her generation, in both worlds.

I’ll save the numerology stuff for another post because this is already enough diarrhea of the keyboard for one post.

[*Dark Knight is the one that I’m still really unsure about--I never intended for Gisele to have a tank Job, like at all, and figured if she ever had one it would likely be Paladin because she’s such a strong healer. But then I leveled DRK and realized that lore wise, it deeply fit her--the whole “flame in the abyss” concept is 100% quintessential Gisele. Love is what empowers her, always, and she’s the first to say it.

But the thing is I still haven’t figured out how to reconcile the DRK quests with the rest of her HW story. Haurche and Ysayle surviving isn’t actually what’s thorny to me about it, because gods only know Gisele has a world of pain she could draw on instead (hello Thedas). It’s very, very easy to make Myste an amalgamation of Alistair and Leliana instead, for example. But her closeness with Aymeric makes a lot of that ish with the Temple Knights...problematic, to put it gently. And Gisele is too politically savvy to be running around doing vigilante shit while she’s a known Ward of House Fortemps trying to ingratiate herself to the city--she has to tread lightly enough as it is wrt the AST quests and antagonizing House Durendaire, she is incredibly conscious of how her actions reflect on Edmont, it’s at the forefront of her thoughts always. Gisele might have been born in Ferelden but she’s Orlesian to her bones and that didn’t change after she died. So like, I know it’s sacrilege because that story is so universally loved but I don’t see how the DRK story works for Gisele without some pretty hefty revisions.]