#Caitlin Plays FF14

[motheatenscarf]

quick backstory: forever ago, when I did the Ala Mhigo dungeon with my friends, we all got to stop and take in the scenery since we weren't beholden to randos in queue, and we noticed that uh

One of the Garlean soldiers who was MEANT to be fighting the Ishgardian soldiers had bugged out apparently and was instead fighting against his own people while standing side by side with Aymeric

and we joked that not unlike Lucia, this random goon from Garlemald took one look at Aymeric and went, "Nevermind, actually, I immediately defect and am turning my life around for you."

given that my own WoL was also from Garlemald and also had a similar reaction to Aymeric, we joked that if we just sent him to Garlemald for a week, they'd reform into a republic again

i know Garlemald is... kinda fucked forever now, but i have an idea to raise morale and shift the national consciousness towards the appropriate tone of "Boy, our country fucked up but we gotta rebuild now."

just

just send Aymeric

Ishgardians hate him, but Garleans LOVE him, just send him to Garlemald for a vacation to escape the repeated assassination attempts and he'll turn them around overnight

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #FF14 spoilers #Aymeric de Borel #Aymeric

[motheatenscarf]

Went estate touring today for some inspiration and found an item I did not know existed and listen.

Listen.

I love Emet Selch, but this?

Is Garlean propaganda!

Who the fuck IS this, where are the heavy bags under his eyes?! Why does it look like his spine doesn't suddenly bend at a 45 degree angle at the shoulders from his miserable slouch?! Where's the unhinged manic desperation in his eyes and deep frown lines from millennia of unchecked grief?!

Where's the CHARM?!!

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #i have OPINIONS about this don't try to retroactively make him some beautiful anime boy just because he was secretly tragic the whole time #he can be tragic and janky lookin! the POINT of expressive villains like that is to let them look interesting and distinct from #the array of beautiful 20 something heroes for fuck's sake

[motheatenscarf]

Aymeric cosplayer ran up, petted the Aymeric minion Talia had out and then blew her a kiss before immediately entering into the GATE and running RIGHT off of a cliff before I could respond

SPEEDRUNNING TRAGIC ROMANCE, I'll never forget u </3

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #i almost didn't beat the leap of faith gate i was laughing so hard #sorry to the aymeric tag this is for my own posterity feel free to ignore #Aymeric #Aymeric de Borel #what is it with ships in the night cosplayers and leap of faith and falling to their doom? #'i'd only have two nickels but it's weird that it happened twice.jpeg'

[motheatenscarf]

got the new heart-shaped chair and immediately had to throw it in Talia's Ishgard apartment and slap the most garish blue dye I could find on that thing for Reasons

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #FF14 spoilers #look emet is MY blorbo but aymeric is talia's i can't explain it better than that

[motheatenscarf]

"So your dad's Lahabrea, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Don't worry. Last time I had to fight about a dozen enemies in a row like this, I also had to counsel a ginger kid going through dad issues. Just gotta find you a goth gf, that seemed to fix her."

"..."

"A different one, I mean, I'm too old for you. Goth bf would also fix it; maybe better, in your case, there were rainbow crystals involved."

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #FF14 spoilers

[motheatenscarf]

I think I have to contact the retainer vocate and replace Talia's retainer, Lurch, on ground of harassment.

For like 3 days now all he's brought back are flowers, which is annoying, but he just came back with an eggplant. It's escalating. I gotta fire him.

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #I shoulda nipped this in the bud the 4th time he came back with flowers. A real shame. He's been great help til now.

[motheatenscarf]

DEVASTATED to realize that Talia's long hair clipped thru Clive's outfit, but I really really REALLY wanted it for her, so she pulled an Estinien and went to Jandelaine to pay 2,000 gil for a scrunchie

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #FF14 spoilers #Eschatalia Solanum

[motheatenscarf]

OH, before I forget amidst the booping, I finished Pandaemonium raids on Saturday with the help of a friend and he had to listen to me ugly cry about Themis live, so I don't have much to say on the Deep Shit that I haven't already said through a mountain of snot about things I liked about them, but yeah, I liked panda raids. 2nd favorite raid series, Eden's still top but Pandaemonium's good.

Athena's a unique brand of crazy and it's nice to see Terrible Moms now and then. Lahabrea's crazier than even I thought to start with but also, you kinda get why. Still, nice to know that Azem and Emet only had the 2nd worse divorce in the ancient world. Erichthonius is great, and I already felt terrible about what happened with Elidibus, but in the end he remembered everything to and said yeah, it led to the salvation of the star and I got to meet you and be your friend :)

and I

Cried

a lot.

Bcs if you say "I'm sorry," to Elidibus as you're first heading into Elpis, he's explicitly like, what, you want me to forgive you? You won. This is what has to be done. Tell Venat to enjoy the bitter loneliness of her champion's victory for me. I'm out.

And like, yeah, no, he's earned his bitterness, he and Emet both, it's a tragedy, it's meant to sting, and I felt REAL bad about it but it was good character growth and reflection opportunities for WoL.

So for him to like. Imply that he forgives them made me cry. Ancients are my kryptonite. Ancients and those stupid Ishgard elves. Those are my favorite parts of this game.

The writers have earned nothing but good will from me going forward and I've literally already preordered Dawntrail but I am sad that their stories are done. Here's hoping they can give me more things to care about that much though.

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #FF14 spoilers

[motheatenscarf]

played thru 6.55, and a few thoughts;

item number 1, i love Wuk Lamat, i'm so happy with how hrothgals came out and she seems fun and is so cute, look at the dumb cat smile

item 2, i love that she and erenville know each other, but there is no way "erenville" is a name from south america lol. it's fine, i'll take the contrivance, they have a cute dynamic and i really like erenville. please more women and characters with any melanin, ty.

Point the third, i know i just said "please give me more women in the story" and I like Krile fine, but BOLD move to make room for her by having one of the most beloved characters step back.

like, it's good characterization for G'raha to have him volunteer to stay so Krile can go. he NEEDED to go on his adventures with the WoL when he first showed up, but he seems less insecure about that now. which is good, he's a multifaceted character, he is both the quiet dignity of his 300 years of wisdom and also "hehe, catboy fluffye," but he's also the best. and i love him. and i want my fluffye :(

point 4, pictomancy! ... looks cute. definitely not for Talia, that's viper and beastmaster, babey, but i'll probably try it on an alt someday

item the fifth, I'm cautiously optimistic for how they seem to be handling Tural. I'm Mexican, I don't have time to get into it, but I am hopeful in seeing what their take on un-colonized fantasy South America will be.

i'm not touching the discourse until i play the fucking expansion and see for myself. i've already seen people calling it "stormblood 2" which... okay? i didn't like base stormblood either, but we haven't played it yet. and base stormblood had redeeming qualities, and by the patches it was genuinely, unironically good. also it gave me Zenos. He might not be a good character, but what a character. Holy shit.

final thoughts, it looks like Thancred and Urianger are getting a competing offer to champion a different member of the Tural royal family, so that'll be a potentially very fun dynamic/rivalry, i'm excited for that. I trust they'll find a way to get Y'shtola over there too, and Estinien's involvement is shoehorned as always, but I like Estinien, so I don't care

i have 1 last thought, but it will be its own post, so yeah, cautiously optimistic

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #FF14 spoilers

[motheatenscarf]

OH, okay, that's why Pandaemonium looks like that, we're just going all in on the silly because artists want to make things that look fun and the ancients were too monolithic in their culture, clothing, and outlook to make a unique looking raid series. and the rest of 6.x was all about the void anyway, so, this means we don't have to throw out those designs we weren't using on anything else so those man hours weren't wasted :V

anyway, this man is an entire vampire. at least we know the ancients weren't eugenicist enough to use magic to fix people's eyes and people wore glasses....

unless he's wearing them AND the fangs for fashion because he's hedonistically embracing style, that's funny and stupid and will accept it as an alternative answer to "we didn't want to throw out some of these designs"

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #FF14 spoilers #i was told these are good and i'm hoping we'll get there bcs for now they're just... silly. not bad but very very silly #and not intentionally so

[motheatenscarf]

waiting, waiting, waiting for queue to pop because i don't want to run these first time as healer or tank, so it's taking forever

but i have noticed that he

is also kinda short. she's standing contrapose so you can't tell, but Talia's a few inches taller than him, so he's under 6 feet. or. well. okay whatever talia's been scaled up to, if you scale him DOWN to normal size, he's under 6', which is small by ancients standards, they're all lanky and spooky like elezen.

why are you both so short?

istg if it's because you're both like 17, i'm gonna SCREAM, i am at CAPACITY on kids i can babysit!

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #FF14 spoilers

[motheatenscarf]

Oh no, I like Venat, I like her dynamic with Hythlodaeus and Emet A LOT, I like the implied dynamic between all of them and Azem, it's like she's their mother in law and Hyth is her obvious favorite but she still likes Emet but has to give him shit and he clearly feels put upon but cares about all of them AND Azem and oh no, they're sweet, and she's vibrant and fun and playful and this is just a little family, and OH NO

WHAT'S THAT?

she IMMEDIATELY figured out that you're from the future?

oh, and the blessing of light i've been SO CONVINCED and paranoid was just tempering?

it's just a protective spell from your past life's mom!

i thought it was mind control but it's just a hug and a kiss and a warm sweater for a big trip

huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #FF14 spoilers

[motheatenscarf]

I'm getting a good grade in FFXIV!!

#no high greater than clearing a dungeon and getting a clean sweep on the comms #Caitlin Plays FF14

[motheatenscarf]

On the topic of ffxiv ships tho, shout out to people who are exclusively women likers, lesbians in particular, you are the strongest people I know if you can spin a feast from the table scraps they give you.

I'm at the ass end of Shadowbringers, ready to start Endwalker as soon as the word go is uttered once my friends catch up, and there have been to date literally 2 plot relevant main cast women who survive and get enough screentime and character development to work as believable WoL ships.

T W O.

#Caitlin Plays FF14

[motheatenscarf]

I know it's nothing new to say that the music in FFXIV is god, but GOD the music in FFXIV is so good.

I keep listening to The Final Day on repeat to motivate myself to write my D&D session recap. Love the reincorporation of so many themes to audibly spell out what it's all been leading to and what it's all for. I love when people put care and thought into narrative and character, yes, and that is what I am best trained to appreciate, but my god is it elevated to the extreme when the score is just as lovingly constructed to serve the story.

I still can't make out everything that's in there, but starting out with how joyous and triumphant Shinryu's theme is not just because YA BOY is here, but also because hey! This is what it's all been leading to! Enjoy it! This is still a game, it's fun! Have fun! Then going into THE Final Fantasy theme, Ultima, Heavensward, like a tour of where you've been, how far you've come, building up into that Hades theme to invoke the memory of the ancients you've been tasked with remembering, with making sure their sacrifice wasn't for nothing by overcoming despair incarnate.

God, it's so god.

#Caitlin Plays FF14 #FF14 spoilers

[motheatenscarf]

I have to write the session recap today but I finally figured out how to unlock scrip and deliveries in ffxiv and now all I want to do is fish and fish and fish and fish and fish and fish and fish an

#caitlin plays ff14 #i spent THREE HOURS spearfishing yesterday instead of doing my roulettes help me