was working on the msq on Nhea tonight and took a ton of screenshots and hadn't actually launched bandicam before doing so so i got nothing T-T

guess :)

it’s ffxiv. of course it is. you can go now.

anyways. i created a new character and am waiting to queue for Castrum Meridianum and of course eventually Praetorium so I have plenty of time to write :)

I made an alt for a few reasons. First and foremost is trying to make better sense of ARR, since they were so so bad at explaining things. Also to try and figure out why people liked HW as much as they did. And just to replay SB and ShB because I Like Them :). Second reason is talking to all the side characters between quests, since I didn’t do that until... SB? ShB? Can’t remember. Third reason is because I wanted to make a short guy so I can play around with male armor and see what it feels like to not have some ridiculous scaling. He’s a midlander hyuy and originally he was made just to see if it was possible for there to be a hyur I don’t immediately hate, and it worked! Apparently the problem was it feels like every single person uses face option 1, including plenty of NPCs (Ardbert :/), which... it just looks weird now. To me that’s Ardbert’s face. idk man. Also he’s my height to give myself a better scale of how tall everyone’s supposed to be. AND. he fits into my little personal narrative I have with Secret, my main, but I will not explain that right now. he fits into my favorite archetype of “funny little man”. will kill you with a smile but not in an edgy kind of way. i adore the voice option i gave him the laugh is great.

I think the issue I have with Hyurs, midlanders specifically (though I have separate issues with highlanders) is that they look so inexpressive. Their eyes look glassy. It’s weird. My alt has this problem too a bit but I at least like the shape of his eyes, and having small pupils remedies it just a little bit. Maybe it’s that the glare is so apparent in their eyes specifically?

oh thank god it finally popped. granted. there are many cutscenes in this one too I think. I will be able to write again soon.

I will get a pic of him eventually. For posterity. Currently he’s wearing incredibly bargain bin glam (relatively speaking, the MSQ is flooding me with gil), but it’s at least better than... idk the artifact armor. Not that Secret has much of anything impressive either... I’m not very good at glam :(. Her DRK set is fine though. that’s just a mishmash of dungeon/tomestone armor :/

Anyhow. Particularly the speaking to characters between quests part really got me. The Waking Sands massacre hit a lot harder now that I know who the people were that died... the Baldesion duo, Arenvald’s friends the Miqo’te and Elezen, that supposed previous Scion and the masked man who I never actually learned the identity of. ALSO!!! I didn’t even REALIZE Arenvald was around from the very beginning!!! I love getting to see his own little personal story here!! And that he didn’t die with the rest!!!!! Seeing him fail Noraxia... I forget if we see more of him later here. Like in the beginning of the Rising Stones. I have no memory of him from before he became relevant to the plot.

There. that miserable nightmare’s done, now onto the second one! This one’s only a... 28 minute wait... even longer than the last one... huh

Back to what I was saying. I think that instead of all this stupid padding and filler some of the quests should have been dedicated to endearing us to the rest of the Scions. Including the main cast. Like, they had the material. Some of them have mini stories they go through even. But the first time I played this I just could not bring myself to care about any of them. It’s only now that I see what the kind of characters they’re setting up for that I care about them. It’s fun to see them talk about things that get echoed later, if not doing some actual foreshadowing.

Speaking of foreshadowing. “... Rush blindly forward without concern for your health, and you will one day pay the price.” Haurchefant said this. I’m going to reach through my screen and throttle him. I’ve made sure to give him a headpat upon every parting. Minfilia’s also said some stuff that made me squint my eyes, but they were more along the lines of ideas that would be echoed later, like everyone being of a single race and nation being Not Good Actually, but how they could transcend those things to come together for a common cause anyhow. I think this was more in reference to what the Garleans intend to do with Eorzea, but... it’s also of course very much in line with the Ascians. More so, I think.

I’m also still not so clear on the game’s lore concerning the Ascians. I could have sworn the Crystals of Darkness were supposed to be what allowed Ascian souls to return to the in-between dimension, but in ARR they’re described as being what allows an Ascian to posses people. Also I thought they were only used by lesser Ascians? Was it the other way around?? I mean. Breaking Lahabrea’s crystal would have the same effect of him being vanquished and removed from Thancred in either case. but I’m still confused. Guess I’ll just have to wait until it’s brought up again which... I think is in ShB. the next big explanation anyways. :l

27 minutes in... what else is there to say? I guess it’s been funny playing at a sprout level again. There’ve been a few people I’ve seen around that I recognize. The amount of ridiculously edgy names is funny. This character is on Adamantoise, and the difference from Faerie is fairly pronounced. Less scantily clad bara men running around. Nobody like Meat Sweats the cat man. I’ve noticed more shitty looking elf men but that might just be me and my growing hatred for them, or... no, actually it’s because I started in Gridania this time. Yeah, it was all the weird elf racism that was going on. Why’s every bit of media gotta make the elves racist?

Thank god it finally popped. Was in the middle of writing a incessant about how long it’s been, too. 31 minutes!

Man it’s weird how much of a focus ARR puts on Cid like 2/3 of the way through. It’s like they forgot they were supposed to have a plot or something. And then Cid is just sort of Around afterwards.

Actually scratch that thought. This Prae run is hilarious. There’s s chicken person who keeps making terrible jokes and a lesbian couple who got left behind and one of which subsequently became very lost. I think it was the cowboy roe woman. This is infinitely more entertaining that CidNero drama. They aren’t even new I don’t think either had sprouts and the roe’s armor is the peace lover’s which is very new and from the Firmament I think? Man I was writing about their antics but it was just too much.

It’s over now, at least. Well, there’s a cutscene going on but whoooo caaaaareeesssss. Well. i do since I haven’t skipped it yet. But still. Can’t believe Gaius didn’t die here. Completely unfair. My guy got blown up.

Aaanyways that’s enough for now. Time for post-ARR stuff. Eugh.