#which i probably made playing hw

[birues]

Ah yes. Alphinaud and his collection of very functional adults

[sunny-flake]

wait omg analysis time bc I am LOSING my mind

I wanted to start with these two, because in the broad image they are looking at each other

In HW, only one song is played ever, and I feel like he may be a bit lost on trying to join in, and is looking to Four for help. Four has notices this, but doesn't understand why he's looking at him. Probably?

LEGEND. LEGENDLEGENDLEGEND LEG. THE LAD. Excuse me as I just- OMG HES USING ONE OF THE LA INSTRUMENTS ANAKAMSKKFJRJJDJD

Aside from that, he looks OVERJOYED to be able to play one of those instruments, and is just having a wonderful time. Good for you bud :)

These two made me laugh, bc I know that Twi had to probably go off onto the woods or something and come back to join in the only musical way he knows. To which Wind, who probably here still knows Twi & Wolfy as two different people. Confused small bean <3

SKYYYYYY THE BOYYYY!!!! In past comics, Sky has said that playing the harp helps remind him of Zelda, and whatever they are playing seems to give good memories

ALSO ARE WE GONNA TALK ABOUT THE WIND? Throughout the peice there seems to be wind going to the left. You can see this especially in Hyrule. But for Sky, ONLY HE, has a strong wind going to the right. Not sure what that implies but it's cool

I know I've already seen a few things talking about time and how he has the Zora guitar from MM, which I do think it's cool because it implies that Time still has the MM masks on him.

Not much to say about Hyrule, except for the fact you can see the wind I was talking about earlier, and I like the fact that he's playing a recorder, not a Flute, a flute would've gone to the side

Finally we have Wild, who is instrument-less and the audience XD

Petition to have Wild get out a bunch of stakes and some mallets and just be percussion in the bg lmao. No other words here

I imagine the Spirit of Cadence of Hyrule Link is smiling down of everybody

[sillybond]

As a send of here's my compilation of every detail/gag or pretty much everything that I loved about the Fionna and Cake finale.

First off, the lighthearded stuff.

First of all. That's Hunter!!! We finally get to see HW gender-swapped counterpart's design. Gotta say I love that they kept it the same, it does feel like it could fit anyone.

Talking about him, I LOVE that they are finally adding him to the gang. I didn't expect him to be so prevalent in the finale, but I couldn't be happier! It seems like the crew has finnaly learned to apreciate HW and they are inserting her (even if it's Hunter) whenever they can.

All the raw emotion of the lich would have been unheard of at any other point in AT's history. The depression and hopelessnes, such human emotions were amazing to explore in him. He poses himself as a "ceesless weel" a god-like beeing of pure destruction, but even he neels when he realices it was all for nothing.

For some time I theorized that Golb (and subsequently Golbetty) was, in fact, Scarabs and Prismo's Boss. Kind of like a ultimate deity, high up on the pantheon. But seeing how Scarab adresses her in such a careles way, emphasizing that she should "stay out of this" made me think about the real power dinamic between thees two. And thus, of the whole multiverse bureocracy.

This tittle card rips me apart. It's briming with thematic importance. But I feel so many emotions simply beacuse it says cheers, it's like a send-off, a happy cheerfull goodbye to all of us who enjoyed this show. It made me tear up a bit when I first saw it.

For thoose who aren't aware Pawn Swan's was created by Steven Wolfhard after CAWM alongside the pup kingdom. He has in his tumblr a gigantic amount of lore about it. I'm sooo happy they finally got to use his ideas and designs. Many of the pups seen all trought Shermy and Beth's sequence were in his drawings too. So go check that out!

I'm a complete sucker for happy endings and THIS was PERFECTION. I simply connot describe how much I obsolutely LOVE that they are able to comunicate and talk. it's just perfect, this show has me spoiled-rotten.

In pure Marceline fashion Marshal tries playing another song. And Gary is soo into this man it's unreal

But, also in pure Marceline fashion, he gets interupted. It kind of reminded me about Marceline's song to Bonny in Obsidian. But it's kind of the oposite outcome, Scarab isn't affected by it at all while Glorbo is finaly delt with.

Talking about Simon being happy. I'm just so glad that he has been able to reconect with Astrid!!! This man is such a DAD, I love him :,)

Before Fionna's world was finaly canonized we can see that it really just amounts to the city. Which makes sense because if you are trying to put a whole world in a dude's head, you are going to have to cut some stuff out.

Anyways, after they are made legit we can see that the city has expanded! And I also assume that now there's not only a city, but a whole world too!!

This really came as a surprise honeslty, but a welcomed one at that. I assume that since Jay agrees to stay in the city, even if it's not forever, Farmworld Finn must be fine. It doesn't make any sense for him to drop his 4 little brothers just to screw around in another universe.

The only sad part is that, since we don't see neither PB nor Marcy in the tank that means they are probably dead. In the end it does seem like they took eachothers life, together.

Now onto the heavy stuff!

"This is the world we want to fight for. The Scarab is kind of invincible. But we won't give up. If we die, we'll die together, as ourselves"

This cuts deep. At this moment Fionna was ready to die. She acknowledges that she had tried everything she could and that, in a way, it was her fault. But she also understands that this is what it is. And she's ready to depart. In what she thought were her last moments she found happines in thoose and that around her. Magic or not, they were all together, and that's what mattered.

"We made our choices. We could have made better ones, but I don't have any regrets. You were a wonderful experience"

We knew Simon had wronged Betty. She had put away everything for him. He didn't do it on porpuse, but he recognised he could have been more thoughtful. In the end, while Simon acknowledges his mistakes Betty doesn't demonise neither him nor the relationship that came bacuse of it. It's a very sentimental, heartfelt conclusion.

As humans we often try to make our best to navigate life. But with all the choices in front of us it's very hard to get it right. A lot of time might have to pass before we truly see how wrong we were. We realize that we hurt people, and that things didn't have to be this way. But once we acknowledge this we can finaly move on. At this moment, Simon realizes that it's okay to fail but, unfortunetly, we can't go back. We have to live with it and it can't prevent us from moving forward.

In the end all we can do is have compassion for ourselves, and for each other.

That was pretty much all of the details and highlights for me. There's some other ones but they are kind of too obvious to point out.

Thanks a lot for reading the whole thing! It means a lot :)

[eroslove88]

"She only wanted to lie beside him"

Pairing: Yan. Kenma x Fem. Reader

Warnings: Stalking, kidnapping, bondage, noncon touching and noncon implied

Note: WOAH!!! I POST 2 TIMES IN A WEEK. WILD!!! Uhm yeah, this is a guilty pleasure fic.

Turning on your computer you feel a bit... dumb? It feels useless to even message him- but yet here you are. Kenma messaged you, and that's not out of the ordinary. Actually it's pretty normal, it's been normal for like 6-7 months.

You got close to him because he was in a server with a mutual friend. He goes to your high school and growing up the most you said to him was something about project years ago. Senior year- you thought that this would be the year where you'd come out of your shell but that never happened. Anxiety crashed that thought early on. When you got on a daily routine of texting Kenma you thought he'd actually want to befriend you, but that's not what happened. Long late night conversations and not a word said to each other in real life. It doesn't help that you two walk the same way home either...

Maybe you wouldn't have cared so much if you didn't have a small crush on him.

'hey did we hv hw' your computer gets a notification, Kenma. You sigh and type back, 'Yeah, the insert for this lesson.' you see that he's typing but he stops and doesn't respond until about 5 minutes later- despite being online. '👍' you couldn't help but roll your eyes and just sigh.

None the less he was an ok dude, he had offered to gift you things, games & chocolates- all of which you declined. You didn't want to feel materialistic and greedy.

'do you wanna play gungeon' you put your jacket on and replied quickly, 'Sorry, I'm going for a walk. I can play in an hour though!' you patiently waited and he replied quickly. 'k' huffing you closed your laptop, charging it before you left.

During the winter, the sun went down faster than usual. So around 7ish the streets were empty for walkers except for the occasional dog walkers.

The sound of quiet foot steps penetrated your mind. Snapping your head around you're faced with empty streets, probably paranoia you thought. You turned your music up walking down your usual route.

Even with the music playing you couldn't help but hear footsteps everywhere. You weren't so far from the park... just 3 more blocks.

The feeling of being watched burns your neck, you really should've turned around. Pounding footsteps come running towards you but you were too late. Your screams were demoted to tiny whimpers as you weakly try grasping the needle in your neck.

You were freezing, your arms and legs were duct taped together. It was a pretty lazy job, but whatever kind of tape it was was pretty fucking strong. Your vision was blurred with tears and you whimper into your gag and curled into yourself seeming to have missed the boy sitting at the desk across the room.

It wasn't until you heard the creaking of the chair and light footsteps that you felt panic. Your eyes remained closed even when he was right by your face.

The bed dipped down, "Don't worry, I won't hurt you" a small crying noise comes out from your gag as you try to beg him to stay away. He shushed you coming closer but all you could do was shake your head and try to move away, "Hey, it's ok" he spoke to you like a stray kitten as he slowly approached your trembling body, "Sh... It's only me" you knew that. But that didn't stop you from squirming in his arm as you tried pushing him away. He tisked at your pitiful attempt, " 'm really sorry for not approaching you" he mumbles kissing your head. "I knew you were lonely..." he chuckles, "But that honestly made things even easier" he let's you go and stands up. "I've been waiting a while to do this you know" he pulls out a black box. He opened it and paused "I've always been curious to see how your pretty face would look with a full pussy" he pulls out 3 big dildos, "and ass" he smirks pulling out a condom. "2 v. 2?"

[vurren]

Furbish From a Linguistic Perspective

hi! if you're familiar with furbies you probably know the very short conlang (a sketch fictlang in particular) furbish! furbish is the language furbies speak before you "teach" them english by taking care of them. i will only be covering the '98 language, as the 2005 and 2010 language updates break some of the language rules the '98 version sets up, and I don't want to deal with that atm. also, do note i'm not a linguist, i just watch a lot of conlang critic

Phonology

Consonants

furbish has 9 consonants, with one digraph (wh) counting as a consonant for simplicity's sake. these consonants are /m/, /n/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /hw/ or /h/, /l/, and /w/.

Vowels

furbish has 6 vowels (including 2 dipthongs): /i/, /u/, /eɪ/, /o/, /aɪ/, and /ɑ/.

Syllables

syllables are made up of vowels and consonants, shown in this chart. There are a total of 35 syllables in furbish.

Morphology

to make a word, syllables are put together using dashes, though some words are syllables on their own. additionally, new words can be created by putting a dash in between two existing words; like "ay-ay-lee-koo" (listen), a compound of "ay-ay" (look) and "lee-koo" (sound).

Grammar/Syntax

furbish seems to work almost the same as english grammar-wise, with a few differences. like many languages, it follows the subject–verb–object word order. for example, "i love you" would be "kah may-may u-nye". verbs have no conjugations and there are no tenses in furbish, along with there being no distinction between a singular and plural noun. most adjectives and nouns in furbish also work as verbs, and a word/phrase equivalent of "to be" does not exist. verbs have no conjugation, and adverbs go in front of the verb. it has two final particles, "doo" as a way to express that a question is being asked (similar to "ka" in japanese) and "wah" as a way to express excitement.

Proposals (Non-Canon)

i have a few proposals to make furbish a fuller language. for starters, making more syllable combinations for coining new words. secondly, a furby alphabet. each letter would represent a furbish syllable. another thing is filler words. i believe "ah" would be a great filler word, as furbies tend to say it a lot while being played with. i also suggest "doo", which could work as the furbish speaker questioning what they should say. finally, i've come up with a canon name for furbish in furbish. "kah-lee-koo", a compound of "kah" (me) and "lee-koo" (sound). roughly translated it means "my sound".

I'm autistic about furbies and conlangs fascinate me, so I had to make this!! I hope you all enjoyed :]

[aotopmha]

Being too exhausted to play has made me think about the Dawntrail story again.

I wanted to take a break, but it occupies my brain too much, turns out and I engaged with takes on the internet again.

(Some of it is really dumb and a negativity void with zero substance, which is, in fact, unfun and exhausting, as it is designed to be, so it probably is better to not engage with, but I also do very much enjoy discussing what I love and it offers fantastic springboards for that.)

Spoilers for the Dawntrail story!

You know the complaint that it's "not as good as Shadowbringers or Endwalker"?

Well, I think a lot of people have actually echoed this, but I really like that Dawntrail is not trying to one-up them.

It's really good that it's not only pulling back the scale, but also lightening up the tone.

In particular, there was a complaint I saw that said HW, ShB and EW were these "deep and dark" stories and had issues with DT not being that kind of narrative and I think a story being Endwalker all of the time would become boring in its own right.

If all you see is positivity, eventually it means nothing, but this is also true in the opposite sense.

If all you see is misery all of the time, at one point, it doesn't mean anything anymore.

Eventhough I myself mostly enjoyed it, I can see the argument that it went too far in the other direction and handled some ideas too simplistically, but I think the general idea to do this is a really good, refreshing move.

It's similar thematically (which is actually my biggest issue), but I really like that it mostly focused on new stories with new characters.

I also like that the Scions are taking a backseat.

I saw an opinion that "you can't have your cake and eat it, too" in regards of the Scions being minor roles and you should either write them out completely or entirely focus the story on them, but personally I don't see any issue with this.

They were set up to be support and behaved as such. I don't understand the take that they were "teased" too much when the setup was that it was not their story to begin with.

Now, I do think the friendly rivalry aspect was underutilised. I feel like getting to fight Thancred and Urianger in good fun would've been great, for example.

I love the vibe of adventure we haven't really had for such a long time, and I really think the mystery of the City of Gold might be one of the best ones in the entire narrative because many of the mysteries so far at least have some aspect of retconning to them.

The gate and everything with it is entirely new and didn't need any retconning to fit within the current concepts of the story, whereas you could always tell they had to slightly tweak everything with the Ascians once in a while.

I think the fact that most of the characters that people do like from this expansion are entirely new or characters we knew fairly little about before Dawntrail says it all.

People actually do want new stuff. I think the mostly positive response towards the actual gameplay content says this, too.

So I hope they don't give up on what they've built here despite some of the really loud negative voices.

Don't start trying to do Endwalker or Shadowbringers again before building a new bigger picture.

We've talked about legacy and memory and loss a bunch of times already; evolve from this and do something *entirely* new with new characters and ALSO entirely new theming.

Don't give up on making content just a little more engaging.

That's my worry in light of these very loud complaints.

And the thing is, during the Endwalker patch cycle and even before, these are things so many people wanted.

People wanted a break from the Scions. People wanted the story to reset and relax after Endwalker because it had been within that dark tone for so long.

People wanted us to go back to being an adventurer.

People were tired of the increasingly same-y encounter design (and lack of stuff to do during patch downtime, which you can also see improved in terms of certain rewards; thing is what I've seen is people loving the new content so much they just like playing it and I feel the same way, so it isn't always even more grinds or rewards people actually want).

And that's exactly what they gave us.

Again, I don't know the overlap between audience groups here, but in terms of sentiment, that's the craziest part to me.

They kind of gave us exactly what we asked for.

And I really hope they stick to their guns and get braver from here because new is fun and even if it doesn't always succeed, you can look at what people like and don't like and go from there in a more nuanced way, rather than leaning on overcorrective decisions as they have in terms of certain aspects of the game. It just stops the game from stagnating and getting boring in all aspects.

[tirsynni]

So for the longest time, I refused to think of the original Hyrule Warriors as canon. It was a fun little hack-and-slash side bit and I adore Link with his blue scarf, but I didn't actually add it to my mental timeline when it came to the LoZ games.

Then I made the mistake of thinking too much about the game and its implications on the overall timeline, especially the implications regarding the Spirit of the Hero. Stay with me on this. (Yes, it is once again time for me to put far too much thought into video games, because why not?)

Arguably, the Spirit of the Hero became entangled with everything due to Demise's Curse in Skyward Sword: "Those like you... Those who share the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero... They are eternally bound to this curse. An incarnation of my hatred shall ever follow your kind, dooming them to wander a blood-soaked sea of darkness for all time!" Thus the Cycle of Hatred is introduced.

In dissecting it a bit, it shows three permanent players: an incarnation of Demise's hatred, the Goddess's bloodline (note not Hylia herself, but her bloodline) and the spirit of the hero (note in contrast to the previous line, not the hero's bloodline, but the "spirit of the hero"). So we have an incarnation of a demon god's hate, a divine bloodline, and... some dude. Sorry, Link. You really got the short end of the stick here.

Obviously, he's not just "some dude," but he is a mortal tossed into an immortal war. Even as the Goddess's bloodline is mortal, they forever hold divinity within them, descended directly from divinity. Arguably, the Hero's Spirit holds some divinity itself through Hylia's blessing, arguably Farore's blessing, and playing emissary to multiple deities and powerful spirits through the games, but it relies on external sources instead of being inherent. The root of the Hero lies within the mortality of the Hero. That mortality probably provides a great deal of flexibility, as LoZ seems to follow along the popular concept that immortal beings are stuck to certain rules and mortals can go places and do things immortals can't. Biggest example is the Goddess Hylia needing a mortal Hero in the first place to fight Demise.

Okay, so where does Hyrule Warriors come into this? Because while the concept of the Spirit of the Hero comes up in multiple games, it's usually through inheritance, stepping into the role of the Hero, etc. When Cia comes into play, her target isn't the latest Hero: her target is the Spirit of the Hero itself. Not the concept. Not the implications of the role. The identity of the Spirit of the Hero. She didn't look at Link in HW and become obsessed with him: she became obsessed with him specifically because he possessed the Spirit of the Hero. It changes things a bit when looking at his character in the game.

First, there's the question of what awakens the Spirit of the Hero. In the other games, there's a great evil on the horizon -- the incarnation of Demise's hatred, which doesn't necessarily mean Demise or even Ganondorf but the awakening of an evil influenced somehow by Demise's hatred -- which leads to a Hero being born. Evil stirs, the Hero is born, Evil acts, the Hero awakens to their destiny. In the case of HW, though, the only reason Cia attacks that era is because there was a Hero present. So what sparked the birth of this Hero? If this Link wasn't born, then Cia would have targeted another Hero. Considering she was interested in the Spirit, not the person, I don't think age would have been a factor, so any of the other Heroes would be open targets. Cia didn't need to go after an awakened Hero, though. Instead, this specific Hero was born (looking remarkably like the Hero from the SS comic with his pretty scarf and such) and becomes Cia's target. So does more than the curse cause the birth of a Hero? If so, was this particular Link set up as a target? Or are the Heroes set up with specific destinies? Just Like OoT!Link is connected with Ganondorf and Majora, was this Link's soul somehow connected to Cia's? How does it work?

Which leads to the next issue: the challenges and pros inherent to mortality. In most cases, the Heroes have a choice in their destiny. Can they be pushed? Guilted? Strongly encouraged? Yes. However, in the games, one of the first things you do is choose to pick up the sword. You pick up the weapon. You start on your path. Link in almost every other scenario gets to go, "I want to save these people. I want to save the princess. I want to save Hyrule." In HW, while Link has the option to choose to fight or not, he would be targeted by Cia regardless because he was born with the Spirit of the Hero. He does choose to become a Knight and fight, though, which awakens the Triforce and puts him right in Cia's path. Pro to mortality: freedom of choice. HW-specific con: even with that freedom, being born with the Spirit put a bullseye on Link's back.

Another con of mortality, one presented in multiple games: the dangers of corruption. Link is a mortal, albeit a powerful mortal, who through his role as Hero regularly deals with divine objects. In most games, he deals with at least one piece of the Triforce and the Master Sword. The Triforce is not a symbol of good: it is a symbol of harmony: Power, Courage, and Wisdom in balance. If it had some sort of inherent morality, then someone like Demise reaching it wouldn't be such a big deal. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Link's Triforce is just insane power. Combine that with handling the powerhouse of the Master Sword, among all of the other things Link deals with, and you have a mortal who is dealing with one hell of a threat and burden. The Hero is repeatedly warned against falling to that darkness and has to fight against symbols of his darkness, ie, Dark or Shadow Link. This is a vulnerability most others won't have to deal with. He is a mortal struggling with the weight of immortal, powerful objects and needs to not lose himself to them.

Now combine that threat of corruption with the emphasis on the Spirit of the Hero which occurs in HW. With the other games, the threat is Link being corrupted. In HW, Cia's target is the Spirit of the Hero. Link's just the pretty package. If she succeeded, Link would be corrupted, but so would Cia's target: the Spirit of the Hero. There are a couple implications connected to that: what happens when you corrupt something as ancient and powerful as the Spirit of the Hero, something blessed by multiple spirits and deities and something literally older than Hyrule itself? Something which has the ability to turn the tide of battle against impossible odds? When no Hero arose once, the Goddesses responded by flooding the world. When Link slept(?) for a hundred years in BotW, no one, no matter their ability, was able to replace him. The Calamity remained unchallenged and untouched for that century, with even Zelda's powers limited to just holding the Calamity. That's a lot of power to corrupt... and that can also be one hell of a boon to Ganondorf. If not just Link but the Spirit was corrupted, how would that affect the Cycle of Hatred? Cia would have her obsession and the Spirit could not be incarnated into a new Hero to fight against Ganondorf. One hell of a win there... literally.

WW proved that if it came right down to it, a Hero could forcibly step up by fulfilling their own Hero's Journey. After all, even the initial Hero had to come from somewhere. But that would be an insane blow against Hyrule and the Royal Family. That would also be an insane amount of power available to Ganondorf. No opposition and all of the power inherent in a corrupted Spirit of the Hero. Oof.

If you view HW as canon with its focus on the Spirit of the Hero over the Hero himself, it does lead to some interesting questions regarding the role played by the Spirit, what happens if something happens to the Spirit, and the the lines between the Spirit and the Hero himself.

...hey, The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy book, why don't you focus on these questions instead of the stupid ones you went over? Bastards.

[georgiapeach30513]

Yeah I’m going to go out on a limb and say it really annoys me how much people harp on CE and certain things he’s said.

Him not liking the word brand is not really a big deal. In fact I do believe he doesn’t like being a manufactured product to sell but he has to be because all public figures have/need to be.

Some really don’t know how far marketing goes to prepare and launch a public person or company.

But like you said, it’s probably better for Celebs to buy into things to avoid less controversy and things coming back to bite them.

Chris clearly isnt fit for the HW PR brand bs. It’s pretty clear to me. But he’s made a decision to stay in this industry and continue playing the game but I think sometimes it may have been better for him to pull a Josh Hartnett and truly walk away for a long break. Clearly - decisions were made and he has to reap what he sows. My personal opinion is that he’s spent too long in this industry and too much time in the marvel machine and when the pandemic hit - all of his insecurities and other concerns hit a breaking point and he made some panic decisions. He could also have a lot of strings BTS that people including his overly invested fan base aren’t privy to, so from the outside it looks like he couldn’t deal with not having the fame and fortune and had to keep coming back. But perhaps he simply doesn’t know what he’d do if he wasn’t acting. This goes for not just him - but everyone else too.

But also - Josh’s comeback has PR written all over it. He’s now made a name for himself as guy who walked away to avoid being pigeon holed and placed in toxic situations. People will applaud him for this but he’s still coming back to play the game. He’s getting a resurgence now and he gets to play the “I’m not so Hollywood” route but it’s still a brand to me.

I think you only truly leave the game when you leave the industry all together. And don’t look back.

But that’s just me. I think the guy who played the love interest in sixteen candles (I think he became a carpenter) and left the industry completely is an example truly walking away.

I’d also caution people to reserve judgement on these celebs even if it’s hard. Also - to not take their words to heart. They say what they have to say to get the point across and the job done.

It sucks but it’s what the business is. Business.

To me, that “Brand” 🙄 comment is just when I see his team shifting his brand. And it seems Chris wasn’t too happy about it, but I digress. Celebrities choose what to do in their career. And sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

I think there is a bit of a difference. I think Josh wants to act. He wants acting to be his job, not his life. He doesn’t necessarily care about the accolades. Look at Joseph Gordon Levitt, he doesn’t care about fame. He wants to act and be creative, it can be done. You can be a normal person. With Chris, I do think he does enjoy the celebrity part of it as well, even if there’s aspects he hates with it. Not everything is going to be something you love, so you have to weigh out the pros and cons.

I think too often people are looking at PR as such a negative thing. It’s not. It’s what you have to do in order to be seen. So why wouldn’t they spin Josh’s comeback? But yes, that is now part of his “brand”.

I think people need to realize we don’t know these people. We don’t know their day to day life. What they say and what is reality can be vastly different. You can say one thing, and you live a completely different life. Or you can truly be telling all the facts (which isn’t very likely). They tell us what they want us to know because they’re creating a narrative, or to protect their private lives. We may never know.

And yes, Hollywood is a business. Never forget.

[jazzpostsrandomthings]

Oh fuck I have a blog

Kinda forgot I did, exams are killing me haha. Ever since my last XIV post, the size of the cast has grown by a lot, I also started playing as Asami and Hjuki! Will probably make father Ajir once DT comes out.

Asami Akagane is a theater actress and a choreographer from Kugane and her parents came from Nagxia. She is 20 (postEW) and her father is a Hyur so she is supposed to be a half Au Ra (supposedly having less scales than usual which the model doesn't really show). Asami is very timid and anxious when she is not performing a role on stage. Also she has a pet cat who is a breed between a Nagxian Cat and a Fat Cat (So a Fat Cat with Nagxian pattern), her name is Mochi ^^

Hjuki Manasith (currently 71 as of postEW) is one of the Turalians who arrived to Sharlayan to gain knowledge once the trade route got established. Has an older sister Bil Manasith that studied at Sharlayan with him, although under a different teacher, while Hjuki himself was a student of Louisoix Leveilleur himself. Hjuki left Sharlayan with him in order to assist with saving Eorzea which also made him a member of Circle of Knowing. After his teacher's death, he went missing, only reemerging during late HW and joining the Scions right before SB, now blessed by Echo (which he obtained during the fall of Dalamud). He and his older sister also became Archons roughly at the same time, although Bil was the first one to do so. And both siblings are supposed to be AST, I just didn't reach HW as Hjuki yet :<

Hopefully I will get to write more about them (and other characters) in the near future!

[meowbomb]

Moon was always Vanny’s puppet.

dramatic title aside. The hw2 endings adds some context to things that were confusing in security breach and ruin. Specifically the daycare attendant.

(Fair warning: this might be a whole lot of stretches and really scuffed but hear me out and help wanted 2 spoilers. This was made for fun. Long post ahead)

In ruin, Cassie’s description of the sun and moon plush state things like “I never slept better than I did in the daycare” and “I used to have so much fun in the daycare” which are a bit different than what we’re initially presented with in the night terrors message in security breach.

Both of these differing statements are true. But it’s just when they take place. I think Cassie’s time in the daycare was before the glitchtrap virus stuff started going on. If it wasn’t happening at the time, Moon wouldn’t be acting up. The night terrors message was written during the time where Moon was infected with the virus, that’s why he’s scaring children to the point of making them afraid of the dark.

His default code wasn’t a problem. He wasn’t created to be evil. Moon was good until the virus took a hold and he starts following Vanny’s orders.

While yes, the glamrocks probably follow what Vanny asks. Moon specifically is the helper.

Handunit in hw 2 talks about the endos like they are children. They are built with mimicking technology and are taught by behaviour cards so they understand what’s expected from them in situations.

In Security breach the warehouse has doors with lessons for the endos. But looking around the place, it’s clear that all of these lessons were failed.

Why do they keep failing them? Because they believe the incorrect lesson is right.

The endo warehouse has so many things with Moon or relating to daycare. If endos are influenced by cards and lessons, what’s to say they aren’t influenced by Moon? If Vanny placed everything relating to him there, it’s because the endos should follow his lead, not exactly like the glamrocks. The glamrocks have behaviours and personalities that makes them well..them. Example Roxy will follow Vanny’s orders but she still takes the time to cry alone or how Chica will still binge on food.

With Moon, it’s not like that. Yes, glimpses of personality makes itself known like the cackling and clear annoyance with cleaning up. He has fun along the way but will still try to get the job done. He’s always tracked down Gregory’s location despite the kid being far from daycare.

In ruin, there’s endos in daycare because to them, it’s similar to the warehouse. They recognise Moon and if Vanny isn’t there to control things anymore, her head puppet is next best thing.

In the “final” endo warehouse lesson, there’s painted rabbit ears and an outline that can be glitchtrap.

Besides I think it’s very interesting the two notable characters who have beckoning animations at the player are glitchtrap and moon. They obviously aren’t the same person at all but it can be the virus in his code.

In hw2’s PQ4 ending Moon is the claw of the machine Vanny is playing. Vanny doesn’t get it herself, Moon is the one who gets it for her.

It’s almost like how Moon targets Freddy instead of Gregory. He has the perfect opportunity as Gregory is basically backed to a corner with Freddy being low on battery before this. He takes out Freddy for Vanessa to leave him immobile and without his head attached. Why go for Freddy? Because Freddy is Gregory’s only ally. Sure, Gregory could sneak but he’s alone and more vulnerable to the animatronics and Vanny getting him.

What does sun have to do with this?

Sun and Moon’s relationship early in the timeline is unknown. So we’ll have to go off on what the games give us.

I think Sun knows there’s something going on with Moon. It’s why he’s very insistent of lights being on. He doesn’t know if Moon will do something that will hurt someone or place them under risk of being decommissioned.

He can’t do anything to help himself or Moon because he’s stuck to daycare unlike Moon who has free access to leave. Thus their situation was always bound to get worse.

In arts and crafts: loft, Sun sits closely by a light under a fort. He insists you leave immediately after you’re done because he considers himself and Moon a threat to you and others. If the power in daycare is dwindling, he has no control over Moon coming out. Sun would rather stay abandoned and alone than risk it.

Ruin is where their situation reaches its peak. There’s no lights and Sun is a prisoner in his body. He’s stuck in ar world. Both he and Moon have lost it due to prolonged isolation. He pleads to be rebooted because it’s his and Moon’s only way to be at peace again. If they’re rebooted into safe mode, it cuts off Vanny’s control of them.

Sun and Moon’s situation parallels the Vanessa and Vanny thing. Moon is Sun’s Vanny. Moon and Vanny play with their prey and have red glowing eyes. Vanessa doesn’t like dark basements and wanted to follow instructions like how Sun doesn’t want the lights off and strictly follows rules.

I’m not saying they’re a one by one comparison. Both things are different here and there but still there is small things there.

Jack o moon and Balloon world

Notably, balloon world and Jack o moon are kinda similar. In balloon world, you have to follow the purple glitched path to get the goodnight from the eclipse in that game. In the Foxy log ride, you have to go through the alternate ar world path of the ride where you find Jack o moon.

It’s also interesting that in hw2 we play princess quest 4 but in security breach there’s messages of another person playing the games too. This person gets more and more fixated to where they’re begging to save the princess. Eventually their last message is in the loft next to balloon world.

It also should be noted that other arcade machine with balloon world in security breach is in Vanny’s other hideout in the Burntrap ending.

Look, who knows I might be entirely wrong but there’s so many questions left. Why is the warehouse linked to Sun and Moon? Who is the person trying to save the princess? Who are we playing as? What’s even going on anymore?

I know using stuff from hw2 is debatable considering the first game but I do think some aspects of the ruined sections of hw2 happened in the timeline. I can’t wait to be proven so wrong.

[scales-claws-and-thorns]

(Count)Down to Dawntrail Free Day :V

Look at me, actually doing all seven days, woo!

Considering one of the options for the free day was "talk about how the game and the people you have met have made an impact on your life", I'm going to go with that.

This is going to be a long one

I started playing FFXIV back in the ARR open beta. At the time, I didn't have a good gaming PC but I did have a PS3 and I saw XIV as an opportunity to play a game with my then-GF and roommate. I picked lancer because it would become dragoon and I really dug the armor. The character was a male keeper because fangs. I even dug up a picture.

Look at him. Obviously this is not lancer but of the few pictures I do have at the time this is probably the clearest one haha.

I had also picked Adamantoise as the world to be on :V

At some point, I joined an FC called .. I think it was Order of the Wild Rose? And I followed some of the people who were members of that FC on tumblr. This is important.

Anyway, I played off and on (I was terrible looking back lol), sometimes I would talk with other FC people, sometimes I would just .. do quests and try to figure out what I should be doing. But, my then-partner quit and so did my roommate and I just.

Okay, so, to try to get myself more attached to the game, I decided to try RP. I made a character on Balmung :) I joined a new FC :) and I even had my first ever RP with them!! And then I deleted the character.

:D

I don't know, I had this problem of becoming suddenly self conscious and afraid that I was doing things wrong and I would rapidly pull out of whatever I had tried to do. This was definitely not the first time I'd done this.

At that point, I had decided I might quit FFXIV. I didn't feel as connected as I wanted to and so maybe I would just let the sub lapse and move on. But! I did transfer that moon cat up there onto Balmung first because there was a brief thought of maybe trying RP on him. Which I didn't do. But now he lived on Balmung.

Fast forward ... I don't know how many months later and HW was releasing. I was still following some people I had followed back in that old FC and knew they had also ended up on Balmung. And I saw all of them be rather excited about the new expac coming out (you know, kind of like right now).

At the time, I was dealing with what would become my diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis and couldn't work. I desperately needed something to do and people to talk to because otherwise I would just be kind of alone sitting at home.

I decided I had three options: Elder Scrolls Online, FFXIV, or return to Destiny with a vengeance (I had played a ton of it and even was in a clan, I'd just quit by this point).

I ended up landing on FFXIV because... well, I was following people who played it! Technically, I had an in! Maybe I could even join that new FC of theirs! They seemed to be having a lot of fun!

So I get myself a sub, boot up the game, and fantasia that moon cat into a Xaela. And this is when Tai arrived!

It wasn't until I had gotten into Ishgard and then leveled Dark Knight that I started RPing. And it wasn't until a couple months after that where I did end up joining The Riskbreakers. But I did, in fact, end up joining that new FC of theirs. It turns out, they remembered my old character's name!

I met a lot of cool people through that FC. And many of them helped me out a ton a couple years later when I ended up becoming homeless for a time. I am forever grateful for all of their help.

But that isn't all of the cool people I met.

At the end that same year I joined the Riskbreakers, I joined another RP group called Rendezvous of the Stars. And it is through this group that I would meet my current girlfriend of .. it'll be eight years in July.

Several years after that during Shadowbringers, I would end up (through more connections) meeting my boyfriend as well! Along with one of two awesome roommates.

The other roommate was technically also through the Riskbreakers later down the line.

Man Risk has done a lot for me haha

I need you all to understand that if not for this game, my life would look so much different. I like to say that it saved my life, in fact. Maybe not directly, but through all the wonderful people I met who made such an impact on my life.

I can imagine that I will be continuing to play this game until they stop updating it entirely and then even then I'll probably still pop in from time to time until they shut down the servers.

It is just extremely important to me, in all sorts of ways. From the two best partners a guy could ask for, to every single fantastic friend along the way, and even to all the brief connections with strangers..

I don't think I could ever really put into words just how much this game means to me.

I hope to see you all in Dawntrail!

[rawliverandgoronspice]

You kno, I always (since I started playing LoZ 20+ years ago+additional ideas that came later) assumed Ganondorf is green bc of Koume and Kotake's influence. They're two powerful witches, and the occasional depiction of witches being green has probably also spread to Japan, so from that to show Ganon's ties to them, they were all three turned shades of green bc magic. It also sounded in-game like those two were a big reason for why Ganondorf went power mad and pushed war, even tho the other Gerudo didn't want him to go that extreme. Doesn't explain totk Ganondorf since there's literally no reason or backstory for him, but maybe it's like "tradition" by now. I also know there's a Chinese saying "putting on a green hat" which means the same as being green with envy, so I could imagine smth similar exists in Japanese, smth that could have worked with Oot's Ganondorf's envy of Hyrule's life giving lands. Since TP and WW, and HW Ganondorf are all the same guy, that kinda still works? I know it's really being viewed critical why he looks like he looks w the green skin, so thought I'd share a thing I basically came up with as a kid. (Except the green hat, only found out later, but the green with envy thought I did have back then.) Green hat works more for Link in the literal sense, so maybe Ganondorf has a figurative green hat. 😩

Hey! Yeah, I assumed the same for a very long time, and I'm pretty sure it's still the intent today.

I still think it's worth mentioning the trend has been really exacerbated with time; even back in OoT, his skin tone is not... that off the charts. Like yes, it does lean green, but after doing some color picking, it still stands reasonnably in the brown. It is a little sickly/olive, and there is a big gap between the concept arts and the model in-game already then (and in Smash, he's pretty much in the browns in his default model too), but it *could* be somebody's skin color. It's the same thing for WW Ganon btw, where his skin is definitively brown in the concept art and got much greener once modeled in the game. TP Ganon is the one where the difference between concept art and in-game skin is the least noticeable, but he also has the darkest shade by far so it doesn't read super green, even if it is quite there if you color pick. TotK Ganon is the color of a spinach smoothie in comparaison; even in the concept art itself, which might be even greener than the model in-game (a first!)

To be generous and fair to the whole thing, I think it used to be a case of what looked the most dramatic in-game, and a green hue does look less natural, colder, deader and scarier than a red-base one, especially in extremely intense lighting situations where Ganon often finds himself in, where it is easy to use that base color for contrast, especially with the red of his hair or the gold of his eyes and his little forehead jewel. This coupled with the influence of Twinrova and the association with envy probably pushed this direction even further every time.

But again, it is also hard to extract these choices from the history, in fantasy and sci-fi, of how to still dehumanize archetypes of PoCs without actually having them "being PoCs", or using excuses of inherent evilness to make their treatment by the narrative more acceptable. I am not mad at this choice inherently, but I am critical of it in the light of every other choice made in the year of our lady Hylia 2023 and the fact that I *so often* see this being used as protection against criticisms of both orientalism and a lack of care for what it implies about the worldbuilding of Hyrule. In OoT there was the connection to dark magic and the Twinrova; but in TotK, the Twinrova are easter eggs at best, not an active part of what shaped our antagonist and made him who he is. His evilness is made profusely clear the second he grabs the stone and becomes basically Satan with very cool hair, in a design that does lean super red and black anyway; one would think he'd rather try to hide his true nature before this?

(there is also history of PoC being turned green to avoid direct critique in fantasy/sci-fi worldbuilding, I think Star Trek is one of the big culprits but don't quote me on that)

Again, it's the package that is weird; and even more than the package, gradually changing PoC features over time in a way that, while not maybe being the only reason for the change, does allow the heroes to clearly identify the source of evil as Unlike Them while also distancing themselves from the more direct racist implications instead of... kind of allowing this to complicate the conflict, and accept that the conflict *is already complicated* no matter what is retconned or emphasized or changed. But the priority is simplicity and cleanness, and so Ganon and the gerudos do bear the blunt of these choices more often than not; the green skin being one of the more visible examples.

[twistedwonderlandshenanigans]

Hi I love you @my-cursed-brain (if you want me to tag your alt in the future just lmk bc. I will probably split this into different posts just for the sake of organization) Anyways!! Regarding the Dance AU, I'll give you a little bit of bg information first. Night Raven Dance Academy is a prestigious school with availability for anyone from the middle class tax bracket right on up to royalty, but the difficulty and the quality of the lessons are dependent on your financial standing. (For example, Vil, Neige, Leona, Riddle - they all have the best teachers NRDA has to offer, with a rigorous training schedule and their academics are less of a priority than dance is in terms of personal goals, and are done via asynchronous classes to accommodate for their schedule. Ace, Deuce, Vizzie (OC), are still in a pretty intense dance program, but they still have their normal classes to attend in person). NRDA is divided by floors based on where you're going for classes. Now for Neige, Riddle and Vil. They are the queen bees, studying specifically ballet. Since Leona took a temporary leave from the academy after a dance related accident, the three of them have been competing to be the top dancer at the school. They've got a "Mean Girls" sort of dynamic going, where they treat each other like enemies as much as they treat each other like friends. Part of this is because they've known each other since middle school. Part of this is the (mostly) friendly competition between them. Part of this is the Gender Envy. Neige is openly gender fluid, with supportive (adoptive) parents. This somewhat irks Vil, not just the self expression and the support, but it seems to give Neige more flexibility as their instructor knows Neige is comfortable playing either a typically female OR male lead, resulting in Neige being picked over Vil for leads often, never due to skill, only due to the comfort level the instructor has been made aware of. However he has major imposter syndrome and nobody he can talk to about it because he knows Vil and Riddle will kind of tear him apart, but his parents don't really acknowledge his issues, just telling him he's perfect and he knows its not true. Vil can't say he wants the female lead. He has considered coming out to his father as trans, but overheard a conversation his dad had with Riddle's mom, and realized the moment he told his father he would be disowned, his reputation would be ruined, and his dance career would be over. So he stays quiet, silently seething as Neige gets the glory he wishes he had. Riddle is afab in this universe. She is in denial about being trans, as she knows her mother would not be supportive, which has severely impacted her motivation and passion for dance. Everything just Feels Wrong, and when she looks at Vil and Neige she wonders why she feels a sense of loss or like something's missing. So her performance hasn't been as good as it has in the past, leading to more issues and one-sided conversations from her mother, and empty promises that she'll try to do better but she really doesn't know what's wrong. Her mental health starts to wear on her quite a bit, but Vil and Neige pick up on it eventually.

There will be a day, eventually, in which the three of them are able to really talk to each other and sort their shit but it takes A While to get there. wheeee thank you for asking about it I love talking about worldbuilding and stuff and its a great reward for when I finish chunks of hw so I really appreciate it in that way too lmao

[thelongestway]

Dawn: Trailed

Now that the spoiler embargo is gone, well...

This is probably my favorite expansion. On par with, if not better than, HW (My personal rating otherwise goes HW>ShB>Ew=Sb=Arr). I went through it without reading anything about others' experiences, and you can imagine my surprise about the incredibly mixed reception!

I was even more surprised, because I was going in very burnt out on FFXIV, and had really been expecting to go in and say "eh, this was ok, sure, but nothing special."

Instead, I got exactly what I wanted or, dare I say it, even needed. That is to say, this:

So this review is going to be reflecting over the type of story this is and what made it so appealing to me specifically.

Tons of spoilers below the cut!

What I thoroughly enjoyed about Dawntrail:

the "not my circus, not my monkeys" vibe

the worldbuilding

the pacing

And I think these things are related. But let's start with the pacing.

My usual way of playing is "do story, do available sidequests as they pop up, a couple of fates along the road, etc". I usually wind up with a class fully leveled and a class half-leveled by the end of the story. My WoL is very thorough and meticulous, and a firm believer in "get the lay of the land" first.

In most previous expansions, that meant there were spots where I went stir-crazy, because something about that flow didn't click; there were many places I was bored but also did not want to skip things, because while it felt bad to do them immediately, it would feel even more out of place to do them later. To wit: Moogles HW (even though I loved the crafter quests later), Ruby Sea SB, Twine etc ShB, Ultima Thule EW (yes, not Labyrinthos part 2 - sorry my friends, I love insane academics, while Ultima Thule really, really did not hit for me).

This was not the case in DT. There wasn't a single moment I felt truly bored. And specifically I enjoyed the vibe that you can come and go at any moment - the fact that the succession isn't really your problem helps with this a lot. This is why the amount of Wuk Lamat didn't particularly bother me - my WoL just went "oh, fantastic, any fallout is your problem, not mine - I'm just here to see the sights and talk to people". He got to have a good night's sleep without being interrupted, for gods' sake - unheard of!

On a player level, this worked wonderfully, because I hate it when writers try to raise the stakes by making it personal. Usually, I have a very visceral reaction to that, which is primarily "you do NOT get to decide what makes it personal for me", and I can count the number of times that kind of bait worked for me on one hand. In FFXIV specifically, Haurchefant and Ysayle in one expansion - and never again (although should anything happen to the twins, yeah, that'll work). Having another character take the brunt of "this has to be personal For Them" is really one of my favorite vibes. That said, I'm very much a worldbuilding-over-story girlie. Give me a world to muck around in, and I'm happy. And if I don't feel punished for taking my time, this becomes even better - I detest time-based long-term gameplay, I have enough of that IRL. Which means that for me, the vibe of this whole expansion was "excellent, I've got an excuse to be here - oh, we're moving on? You go on, I'll catch up". The last time I felt like this was really in HW, while the resolution to the Monetarist plot was brewing in the background. "Yeah, we can't really go back to our three home states for long. Great - let's explore the floating islands and see what the deal with the Dragonsong war is. We've got nothing but time." In both expansions, giving me time to fool around let me develop a personal connection - not to the characters, to the space. And by the time the plot picks up, I am hooked.

So aside from being my favorite type of worldbuilding, the feeling that "the plot is on pause and I have time to breathe" is unironically one of my favorite things in games, and what lets me feel like I've been relaxing while playing a game. And, well, I really needed a vacation from IRL bullshit, and I got just that.

It was one heck of a surprise for me to see that's not the case for most other players. To showcase this, I actually quite enjoyed one of the most controversial storytelling moments - which was "you've found the City of Gold! ...Now before you go in there, the current ruler needs to inform their successor about the bullshit going on down there, and you're not invited". My WoL's reaction was an amused "yeah, sure, I'm not in a rush - we'll get there (not that you can stop me from poking my nose in). Now, what else did you say was here? Xak Turaal?"I know a lot of other players got thrown out of the illusion of verisimilitude here; for a lot of people, the pacing here felt like a jarring stop. For me, though, it felt like breathing space; like a promise - there's no rush, we'll get there. Take your time, relax. It was like the game said "yeah, I see the load you carry normally. You don't have to for a few hours". And that was great.

It was the same with Wuk Lamat. The big cat wants all the bullshit I hate? She can have it, and my gratitude with it! The only time my WoL felt irked with her was the "invitation to be part of her government" - but even that moment was basically fixed immediately by the WoL's reaction! Which is: you stare at Wuk Lamat silently - silently even for the WoL, no gestures or implied responses, she sheepishly goes "you don't have to answer now... also I got you that pass to Xak Tural I promised?.." Only then do you smile. And you have the option of basically turning around after that and walking directly into Xak Turaal without talking to anyone except Erenville, which I found appropriate and more than a little hilarious. Finally, much later, Wuk Lamat even goes "ok, yeah, I get it now, the invitation was kinda stupid, sorry" - which is a big Point for her in my WoL's eyes.

And you get to just walk away! And there are no problems arising from that! And you walk into Shaaloani, doubling down on the "nope. I am On Vacation. Nothing but the wind and the vibes", and it was exactly what I wanted and needed. And then, after Shaaloani, once I've thoroughly relaxed, the plot picks up! I've had my rest, and now I get to do shit! 10/10 hit in the personal preferences, no notes.

All of this would've been enough to bring DT on par with HW and above ShB (which had the "new world exploration" down pat, but was also much more inconsistent in its pacing for me). But what brings it really... Above HW for me was the last zone. Because that zone hit stuff I'd been needing to have a good cry about, and I spent 8 hours doing just that: reading through and sobbing.

Now, this was a very personal hit in the themes. I mean, it was mostly coincidence that it hit that hard. But it was what I needed.

Dawntrail is an expansion that has two main themes: vacation (break, pause, freedom) and death. Death, while always present as an FFXIV theme, here is discussed specifically in the aspect of "leaving behind stuff for others to take care of". These two themes are bundled in extremely neatly, you keep going back and forth between them, and they reach a crescendo in the last zone, which is a memorial disguised as an amusement park; a memorial whose paperclip-optimizer managing AI was about to try and kill everyone it could reach in order to keep that memorial's lights on. So you walk into a deteriorating attempt to make the "between-space" of vacation last forever, and then you turn that vacation into death, and that comes as a relief.

I won't go into the IRL bullshit that made me cry over this. But the mix of "you can't capture happiness in a gilded cage" and also "you cannot exist in that liminal space where you temporarily leave your burdens - you shouldn't try to actually live there", and finally "someday you will have to leave your burdens to someone else, and you will never solve everything forever" - yeah, I needed that. I needed a good ghost story right now, and I didn't know I did. So the last zone hit insanely hard, and I loved it.

And it hit all the harder because the focus wasn't on me. For contrast, Ultima Thule was my least favorite zone of EW. It was a total, absolute miss for me - the exact kind of "the writers are trying to make it personal" that I hate. I think I have the exact feeling about Ultima Thule that most people have about Dawntrail: if the plot had been moved a few steps to the side, I would've enjoyed it - say, have the Scions lean into "we're building a bridge, and whoever gets to the end will have to handle the rest. WoL, though - you're gonna have to be the last one to go, we need you to bring us back. Let's walk into this with our eyes open" rather than into the "sacrifice" aesthetic. But they didn't, and it didn't hit for me. I felt sort of numb and irritated throughout.

Meanwhile, Living Memory - and its focus on a bunch of NPCs I didn't know, and then Krile, and then Erenville and Cahciua - let me experience what I needed to experience without also feeling like the writers are dragging the requisite emotion out of me with pliers. For once, playing through the story as a Black mage was amazing - I was very much "okay, time to put on my thaumaturge ritual robes and hold a funeral". It was a somber feeling, but also it felt like it should.

And then you get a multidimensional key out of it! And you end 7.0 alone, looking at a map with the key in your posession, and you can see the gears turning in your WoL's head as they plan... That's my personal perfect ending.

As a result, this expansion made me reflect very heavily on my own personal preferences on pacing and plot, and how the niche that I inhabit is probably smaller than I thought. Things that are absolute dealbreakers for other people are barely blips on my radar; while things that are absolutely monumental to me often go unnoticed. Good stuff to know for a writer - and I'm very grateful for getting a story that was written so close to what I like.

[autumnslance]

Hi Autumn/Lyn! First things first, as someone who's embarrassingly into WoLcred stuff, I wanted to say that I love your writing and I'm a huge fan! Thanks for sharing your work with us!

I really relate to your WoL Aeryn (I too am Thavnairian irl Indian, in love with Thancred, love reading, main RDM, etc etc), which is super funny to me because I don't identify at all with my own WoL, who was originally meant as a self-insert, even (I didn't know what an "OC" was so I just made myself but in-game?), but then had her own ideas and went and became her own person (example: she has dyslexia and hates reading). No clue how this happened, and I still love my daughter OC dearly, but… you see why I also love your Aeryn. Lol.

I wanted to ask, did Aeryn inherit her grey eyes from her father? Or does the Thavnairian side of her family have a tendency towards grey eyes too? Does she have any relatives other than Zaine who have grey eyes?

I'm not sure why, but I got fixated on this one little thing because I've always loved grey eyes (especially described in literature) and the idea of a South Asian fantasy-equivalent with grey eyes fascinates me. Anyway, apologies in advance if this is too weird and/or offensive! Also sorry about how long this ask got! Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great day!

Thank you so much, what a lovely ask to get! And funny how our WoL kids just do their own things, huh? Can't stop won't stop the WoL, not even their own writers. 😉

Aeryn did indeed get her eyes from her father (and it is mentioned most strongly, I think, in Bearing Sins of the Past), though there's probably some predisposition in her mother's side; her mom's eyes were very dark blue. I lean into the fantasy world's idea of "similar, inspired and influenced by, but not 100% the same" for the setting and characters, and am pleased Thavnair ended up labeled by the devs explicitly as a "melting pot" society (which makes sense for such a centrally located trade hub). Since I had Aeryn raised in Thavnair, with her reasons to return to Eorzea as an adult, but this was back in late Heavensward/early Stormblood before we had it in game, I had her mother's people be a more "recent" immigrant group (within the last couple hundred years) so they have mostly assimilated into Thavnairian culture, while maintaining some of their own traditions to give myself leeway, not knowing how the devs would go into the South Asian influences when we eventually got there.

Also I am very white, and know there's nuance I'd be missing, so while I wanted it to be a part of her character, and be respectful, I'm not trying to write about an Indian experience I have no inherent connection to, but a character whose upbringing includes similar influences to shape her. It's a weird and fine line when writing characters different from oneself.

There's also the meta where I based Aeryn's appearance roughly on the unused CGI Midlander woman model, though Aeryn's darker skinned (I'm still not sure if I want to adjust her facial features post-graphics upgrade or not, I might need to play around a bit). I wanted her to do some dragoon stuff for HW, but not just cuz "she's the WoL" so that got some of the backstory in there, which also worked with "she left as a kid and is now returning as an adult." And the idea that 1.0 WoL, based on Meteor (with some color shifts again), was her lost brother and it gave her a weird tie to Ardbert (before Shadowbringers even came out!).

Even the skintones for my FF14 characters are meta, as having played in earlier versions of World of Warcraft where the natural skin color options for humans/dwarves/gnomes/blood elves were "different shades of white", and my priest glowed like a lightbulb under Ashenvale's bloom lighting, seeing the sheer variety of the palettes in FF14 back in HW was a delight, and so Dark Autumn ended up brown cuz it wasn't an option at all in the other game (at that time). Even C'oretta's in the middle of the options for Seekers as my lightest OC...and Iyna being darkest Rava was playing in the Benchmark while annoyed at the examples shown by the devs at that FanFest.

What a character looks like, either in a visual video game or in a piece of writing, often comes early on to me, and in Aeryn's case, there was an appearance I wanted to adjust and build off of, and then went "OK, so what's the reasons for not only her looks, but also X and Y things I want to do with her story, and how would that work and shape her, and let's use the devs' trick of being a little vague here and there for now until the lore updates, and...."

I do fret sometimes, about how my characters look and how I portray them, especially with Thavnair having such a strong inspiring influence. But I mostly follow the game lore, fill in some gaps with light research, make up a few of my own things and remain consistent with them, and try to be true to the character and story I've written, and let the rest sort itself out. I can't and won't please everyone, but I'm always glad to hear from those who love my girls and their stories.

[stormbabylore]

Have I rambled incoherently about my WHM AU, yet? (★ᴗ★)

I only started playing WHM because I wanted that flipping unicorn mount. And then I only continued playing it once I'd maxed all my actual classes on free trial before I got to the end of HW (then the end of the free trial). For a long time, I just waved it off as not being a canon class for her and thought no more of it. Healing stresses me out so much, and it really didn't fit Aeryn's lore given that she flippin' can't use magic.

Later I thought, "Okay, but what if AU, though?" Maybe Aeryn doesn't wake up in Eorzea with a magic block at all, because the star magic didn't cook that way for her? I had already reasoned it out for her masculine self (Aeron canonically practices white magic as a main class), so an AU of her without a magic block could reasonably pick it up.

At some point I got the notion that rather than just being quiet/reserved, this version of Aeryn would actually be mute.

And at another point I decided that this version of her would meet and fall for Thancred, first, rather than have a slow burn partnership with Urianger. (Yes, that was mainly birthed of my quasi-obsession with the healer/tank trope. It gives me fangirl joy.)

Anyway, all those little threads are important, because it added up to a character that was very, very different from my Stormbaby. In all her other AUs, she's essentially the same person - just the same person who follows a different path. But WHM Aeryn was shaping up to be someone completely different. And that's how I eventually landed on the notion that WHM Aeryn isn't Aeryn at all, but rather the remnant of her star that fused with her in the final moments before the calamity that ended her reflection. In this version, though, Aeryn (the original) properly died, and what cooked up in stasis when Hydaelyn pulled her to the aetherial sea was a star in her last child's form, not knowing who or what she was. In that way, star-Aeryn still arrives in Eorzea (on the Source) with no memories. She is still learning and experiencing emotions from scratch, because she has no recollection of experiencing them before. She can't speak because, as a star, she had never done so before. And she is physically very weak and uncoordinated/gangling because she's legitimately never had a body before and just doesn't realize it.

She will likewise have a similar existential crisis at some point - once she's made aware of what she really was and how she has unwittingly inhabited a person's body - worse, the body of someone who died because of her inability to stabilize her core - and whether or not she deserves to be called Aeryn at all.

But otherwise her journey is very different. She starts in Ul'dah, to begin with, and due to her physical weakness and propensity for magic, would be directed to the thaumaturge's guild. But her gift for magic would intimidate even them, and fearing her capabilities (and her weakness, considering that might make her susceptible to suggestion by the dark forces she would learn to wield over time), Cocobusi and the others suggest conjury might be more her speed. They ask Momodi to help her find her way to Gridania with a note a recommendation - and Momodi calls in an old favor to request Thancred's aid in getting her there safely. Since Aeryn is still a new adventurer at that stage, she has no sway to help grant her any quick means of travel to Gridania, and so they go the long way together and get to know each other decently well on the journey, which accounts for them having some mild partiality toward each other long before Aeryn's journey as the WoL well and truly begins.

So that's the foundation of WHM AU: Aeryn is not Aeryn at all, but rather her star made flesh. I had been considering playing back through the story as her AU self one day - but I'm already iffy on whether or not I'll keep playing Aeryn after the graphics update, anyway, so this might never happen, now. Which is probably for the best? Skies know I do not need another alt.