#arr spoilers

[diadoescomics]

= Solo Duty: Midgardsormr=

Realised I never posted this before I got sick.

I'm reviving my sprout journey comics (as soon as this stomach bug goes away) and while I have a list of moments from the game, feel free to ask my impression or experience with any part of the story and who knows maybe I'll make something out of it (no promises tho).

All my comics are made possible with the support of my patrons

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #final fantasy #ff14 #lalafell #wol #warrior of light #arr #a realm reborn #midgardsormr #keeper of the lake #comic #comics #fanart #ffxiv fanart #ffxiv spoilers #arr spoilers

[anneapocalypse]

Yet another reason Ysayle should have lived is she ends up being such a major piece of foreshadowing for the truth about Hydaelyn. Ysayle summoning Shiva into herself is the first piece of evidence we get that a person can become a primal, which is the setup for the eventual reveals of Hydaelyn and Zodiark's true nature. For her to be there when we finally meet Hydaelyn in the aetherial sea? It would have been an amazing full circle moment.

Also I think that as a treat Ysayle should have gotten to mutter under breath, "Oh, but everyone made a fuss when I did it."

#ysayle dangoulain #endwalker spoilers #ffxiv stuff #afk by the aetheryte #hydaelyn #arr spoilers

[snail-drop]

Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie

(she weighed nothing in your hands)

#ffxiv #noraxia #arr #arr spoilers #the first time this game made me cry u__u #just picking her up and then having to take her back to little solace ah #it was the quest title that got me

[theninthlaw]

In celebration of Pandaemonium... テミス

I am actually really, really excited to see what is in store for us in the finale of Pandaemonium ... siujefhiusadfa...

#FFXIV #FF14 #FFXIVART #Pandaemonium #Themis #テミス #arr spoilers #heavensward spoilers #stormblood spoilers #shadowbringers spoilers #endwalker spoilers #HWspoilers #sbspoilers #shbspoilers #endspoilers #Elidibus

[birues]

So yeaah... I arrived at that part of the game

#ffxiv #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #warrior of light #midgardsormr #arr spoilers

[kraefishh]

fucked up AU idea where instead of Minfilia falling into the lifestream to give her life source up to Hydaelyn, the WoL does it instead?? Like the WoL sacrifices themself for her in spite of Minfilia protesting. Or maybe they were called instead of her.

But then the rest of the story is Minfilia being forced to step up in the Wol's place because she's the only other one who has an Echo power that rivals the WoL's (perhaps its even stronger!).

Think of the potential that this would bring. The scions' devastation over losing this shard's last Warrior of Light before Minfilia picks up the helm and through sheer willpower takes the WoL's place. The WoL becoming the 'Word of the Mother' and the utter agony that that would bring. RYNE INSTEAD BEING A MIRROR OF THE WOL INSTEAD OF MINFILIA..... GOD. Like if you put your WoL in that place instead of default Meteor Survivor (love him to death) you could make some damn cool designs and not to mention pain with that.

Anyway this is getting a little away from me but I've been pondering this for like a solid few hours.

#idk if this is even worth something #but figured i'd post it instead of keeping it locked up in my goblin brain #ffxiv spoilers #arr spoilers #heavensward spoilers #shadowbringers spoilers #just gotta cover my bases #ffxiv #minfilia warde #krae plays game #<- that one is a stretch #anyway

[faragonart]

"Alas... I can no longer walk this path with you... so promise me this. Tell me you will live your life, make friends anew, share your heart with someone special...

...for this is only the beginning of your long, long road..."

#ffxiv #ffxiv spoilers #arr spoilers #Hw spoilers #post heavensward #au ra #ridel moonshadow #minfilia #minwol #tales of loss

[3starart]

my friend's telling me to post on tumblr dot com again

#i played through the feast like a solid two weeks ago by this point and uh hey #what the FUCK #anyway here's humour as a coping mechanism i guess #ffxiv #ffxiv spoilers #ff14 spoilers #ARR spoilers #a realm reborn spoilers #y'shtola #thancred #minfilia #wol #threest argins

[viiioca]

Send 🪩 to see them in their best dance party outfit.

"All I wanted was one night of drinking and dancing, but perhaps it was too much to hope that Ul'dahn politicians wouldn't be so tedious."

estelle is significantly more annoyed about having to escape through the sil'dihn sewers than she is about the betrayal, which any fresh-faced debutante in the courts could have seen coming. once lolorito reveals himself behind the bloody banquet, estelle sends him her ruined dress and a bill for a new one; to the man's credit, he does pay.

thank you for the prompt!!

#ffxiv #my wol: estelle #roegadyn #femroe #gpose #ask meme #going to the most obviously terrible party in your life for the 1% chance it will be normal #but you are never that lucky #not the first time she's witnessed a murder at a banquet #nobles will be nobles #ARR spoilers

[anneapocalypse]

More things I had forgotten from the ARR patches: how Alphinaud basically accuses Aymeric to his face of manipulating the Scions on behalf of the Holy See for their own ends, and Aymeric just calmly looks him in the eye and is like, Wise up, kid. You and I want the same things here. It's such good foreshadowing for the fact that Alphinaud really is not as politically savvy as he thinks he is. But it's also such a great character moment for Aymeric, who is seasoned in politics and knows when to speak and when to keep his mouth shut and how to gracefully work around the obstacles laid in his path. By his measured response to Alphinaud (whom he undoubtedly recognizes as a precocious teenager shooting his mouth off thinking he's being clever), and his amiable response when Alphinaud relents and apologizes, not only does he preserve the arrangement with the Scions but he comes out looking like the magnanimous one in that situation, with the other party contrite and eager to demonstrate their cooperation.

#afk by the aetheryte #aymeric is Good at This is what i'm saying #he ably proves himself to be what alphinaud wants to be #arr spoilers #ffxiv stuff

[ecosystem-administrator]

the road to Horizon

I was watching a video recapping someone's journey through FFXIV and it made me think back on the start of my own, so I have some thoughts to ramble here, on my departure from Azeroth and arrival into Eorzea. From the perspective of a WoW refugee who arrived before the big waves of exodus, who left before all the bad news broke at Blizzard.

I don't talk about it much. At first it was because I was still grieving what I'd left, adjusting to the new normal I'd found for myself and trying not to be that person who compares everything to their only other experience in the genre; then, it was because the news had broken about all the things broken in Blizzard behind the scenes, and suddenly it no longer felt cool to have ever enjoyed what they were doing. But I started playing WoW during Wrath of the Lich King, and I continued to play until somewhere in the patch cycles of Battle For Azeroth. 2009-2019, a full decade of investment in the lore, of anticipation and disappointment, of theorycrafting my way around plotholes so I could keep enjoying the things that were enjoyable.

At some point, there was a news announcement coming, and I found myself anxious, dreading the possibility that the plot would focus on some of the characters I'd come to like, and in doing so wreck the stories I'd been building in my head. I had to stop and replay that moment for myself: I was dreading my favorite characters getting spotlight time, because I was afraid of what the writers would do to them. This is, I had to finally admit to myself, no way to live. I had reached my limit. My trust was broken, years of disappointment having finally dismantled my hope. I had to walk away. I wouldn't uninstall, not yet - but I would instead try out that beautiful Final Fantasy game my fiancee and some of her friends had started playing. I had watched over her shoulder one time a good while back as a tiny pink cupcake of a girl drank a goblet of poisoned wine, and at the time I had envied the power of the scene on display. Perhaps starting fresh with a new story would help ease the grief of finally stepping away from a decade of giving my heart to a game that was simply no longer giving back.

It takes time to adjust to a new game, of course. New controls, new abilities, what do you mean crafters are classes just like combat classes, wait what's the difference between a class and a job, how do I know whether I'm where I'm supposed to be, what do you mean dungeons aren't optional content, etc. I stumbled my way through the start of ARR, increasingly enthused to be learning a whole new set of lore but still anxious about how new I was. In FFXIV, we call new players 'sprouts' and tend to them; but I hadn't yet learned that mindset. I had to be told not to remove the sprout icon that flagged me as new and learning, because to me it looked like a 'kick me' sign on my back, a bright waving flag that said "Fresh Meat". That's what it would have been, where I had come from. I didn't know any better yet.

I made my way out of Gridania, around the capitals, through the baby dungeons, back to Ul'dah to get my invitation to the Scions, doing my best to absorb new lore, new controls, and new attitudes simultaneously. So it wasn't until I was leaving Ul'dah and headed out into Western Thanalan toward the Scions, on foot because I hadn't unlocked mounts yet, because I hadn't yet gotten the Horizon aetheryte, that I suddenly had a series of revelations.

I couldn't see player levels just by looking at them. I would have to click on a player and examine them in order to identify what level they were. Conversely, no one could see my level unless they went to that effort. They couldn't tell at a glance if I was overleveled or underleveled, if I was out of place in a zone or where I was meant to be.

The plot I had been through so far had gradually converged on this point in a way that suggested the story was melding with the starting storylines from the other two cities. In WoW, there are overarching plotlines for zones sometimes, but the presence of a Main Plot is a very recent development. Players rarely take the same path from starting zone to max level; but here, we were all walking the same road.

There were no factions. We were all walking the same road, and this was what struck me the hardest. From level 1 to level 70 (at the time I started lmao), every single player around me was somewhere on the same plotline. No one was a threat. There was no world PvP. I would never be ganked, griefed, have to wait for critical NPCs to respawn after max-level players from the other faction had come in and killed them.

Me, to me, at level 15 as the light began to dawn:

This is really how it felt, after all those years of WoW. The road to Horizon was the place where I finally realized I wasn't a soldier anymore, an erstwhile mercenary trying to dodge getting drafted back into a forever war. Of course there were still enemies, but all of the enemies were NPCs. I didn't have to worry about enemy PCs coming in raids, about staying out of their way or deciding to stand and fight. There were no such thing as enemy PCs. The war was, finally, over.

And so I trod onward lighter, still on foot until someone saw fit to give me a chocobo, my faction tabard abandoned in the dust of Thanalan, only an adventurer at last.

#ffxiv #thorn rambles #arr spoilers #there isn't really a point to this #except gratitude I guess #and personal journaling as I track the journey of my life #somewhat melodramatically

[theninthlaw]

もっと強く抱き締めて僕が消えないように… 僕が消えないように… He’s still there-- a top the tower.

#FFXIV #FF14 #Final Fantasy XIV #Final Fantasy 14 #ARR Spoilers #shbspoilers #Graha Tia #Crystal Exarch

[paintedscales]

Moments in Time With the Scions

#ffxiv #ffxiv screenshots #my screenshots #ffxiv oc #oc: nomin tal kheeriin #i'm just going to say there's spoilers for all because locales and a particular shb individual #arr spoilers #hw spoilers #stb spoilers #shb spoilers #ew spoilers #minfilia warde #papalymo totolymo #tataru taru #alphinaud leveilleur #lyse hext #alisaie leveilleur #thancred waters #ryne waters #y'shtola rhul #urianger augurelt #g'raha tia #estinien varlineau #why angry with lyse? #because the moment i chose was when nomin confronted her and expressed she doesn't know who lyse or even yda is after the reveal

[tishinada]

Spoilers for ARR

I’ve wondered at what moment Thancred was possessed by Lahabrea. I did notice with Zas and Kass that he started giving me this answer when I clicked on him:

And that was the only thing he says in the Waking Stones when you click on him until post-ARR, so I feel that’s actually Lahabrea. But I have never been able to narrow a window between the last time I was sure he was not possessed by Lahabrea and the first time I got that answer.

But...New got that line for the first time just after she went through Toto Rak. Just before the final boss in Toto Rak, Lahabrea appears and talks to the WoL. At this point, Lahabrea looks like he’s using Thancred’s body, and the voice when he switches to Eorzean could be Thancred’s (hats off to his VA if so!) But I’m not nearly good enough at facial features to decide:

I knew he didn’t have the amulet right after Bowl of Embers when he tells you what will happen to the Tempered, just before you leave for the Remembrance ceremonies, then the induction/rescue of Wedge and Biggs, followed by the Sylph missions/Toto Rak. So the earliest he was possessed was while the WoL was being inducted into their GC, and the latest was during the short time after Toto Rak while the WoL is delivering reports before reporting back to Waking Sands. To try to narrow it further (and see if that was Thancred’s body in Toto Rak,) I dug into the cutscenes. Here’s Thancred when you report back after fighting Ifrit, just before you leave for the Remembrance Ceremonies:

No amulet.

Thancred is present right after you return from being inducted. And he’s wearing the amulet, I think, but I couldn’t get a closeup. This is immediately after that scene though, just before you leave for Gridania:

And there’s the amulet! Lahabrea was using Thancred’s body in Toto Rak.

So, Thancred was possessed between telling you about the tempered Ul’dahn soldiers having to be killed and you returning from rescuing Biggs and Wedges/induction into your GC.

EDIT: this is a pretty narrow window, maybe a couple of days, I think. My sense is that it happened during the Remembrance ceremonies themselves, mostly because everyone's attention was elsewhere. And from that point on, he's symbolically separate from the other Scions, occupying a location that's perfect for hearing and seeing everything going on at the Waking Sands.

He literally stood there, listening, while the Scions set their priorities and sent the WoL to deal with the sylphs. And almost certainly was responsible for Nero and crew showing up, then chasing the sylph leader into Toto Rak. The other times the Ascians appear involve a primal summoning. This time there was no summoning. But Lahabrea already knew you were there because "Thancred" could hear everything going on.

#ffxiv #arr spoilers #spoilers #thancred waters #lahabrea #ffxiv lore #possession #What can I say #I get obsessed with solving timeline mysteries sometimes lol

[amalthea-felsblood]

Day 2 ∘ Faith

*⋆"I thought about a lot of things, like...where I was, what I'd got myself into. I started to feel...light-headed, and then, sleepy. ... I think I had a dream—a dream of being alone. I wanted someone—anyone—beside me, so I wouldn't have to feel alone anymore."⋆*

#final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #ffxiv screenshots #my screenshots #my wol #ffxiv gpose #gposers #ffxiv healer #marian varlineau #ffxiv hyur #febhyurary #my homeland #arr spoilers

[sainsa-in-eorzea]

okay look at me tearing up again

I didn't really enjoy the raid series, but the story was so very good, and seeing the cinematic of Louisoix fighting Bahamut was incredible. I am glad I did this in the end because it helped me understand why everyone adored Louisoix, and I feel like it helped me understand the twins better, too.

#ffxiv #ff14 #final fantasy 14 #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv screenshots #louisoix leveilleur #alphinaud leveilleur #alisaie leveilleur #arr spoilers #ffxiv spoilers #ff14 spoilers