I have to say, I hadn't expected Lalafells to be one of my favorite races when I began playing FFXIV. My reaction at first glance was they were meant to be comic relief or maybe halfling inspired. Halfway through ARR, though, I kept telling my daughter that they had all the classic traits of dwarves, a race I do love to play (she managed to suppress her snickers until I hit Shadowbringers...) And I'm not sure you can get as far as the beginning of HW without realizing that Lalas are just as complex and diverse in personalities as the other races. Pretty sure two of the top five most hated NPCs are still Lalafells, while there are definitely a couple in the most beloved (Tataru, for instance).
And they give Lalafells every bit as much loving attention as the other races, whether it's clothing, animations, expressions, or camera angles in cutscenes. OMG, Kass has some great clothing. And I was really surprised at just how GOOD the expressions are.
Possibly my favorite one of Kass...
And some other fun ones
Everyone looks *at* Kass when speaking to her. And in some cases, they even adjust body angles in a very Lala-specific way so it feels friendlier.
Or they change the camera angle, above and behind an NPC so Kass is more clearly in the scene.
There's never a moment when the game doesn't treat a Lalafell WoL as a serious adult. Not that people don't sometimes comment on your size. Lots of moments where it's funny when people react in terror to a Lala WoL. Or the Lalafells in the group are out in front to defend the non-combatants
Sometimes, the comedy of a scene is just that much funnier with a Lalafell. I'm convinced they chose the warrior trainer location with a Lala warrior in mind:
(SPOILER FOR SHADOWBRINGERS)
And of course this moment...
Even more than two years after starting to play, it's hard to explain how much that still means to me. Because more than a decade ago, I fell in love with Dragon Age: Origins. The dwarven origin stories were two of my favorites, and I particularly loved that the men and women dwarves had the same build. In fact, they absolutely HAVE to have the same build for the commoner dwarven origin to *work*. A fact which they completely threw out by the time they got to DAI (there weren't really any women dwarves in DA2 which was honestly a human-only game anyway.) Dwarves in DA: I were a very reluctant afterthought with that reluctance made clear because it was too much trouble to change camera angles, etc. for scenes with them, with the result that in a huge number of scenes, the camera was above the head of dwarven NPCs or there was furniture in the way. And they suddenly gave them extreme sexual dimorphism---my first thought on seeing a woman dwarf for DAI was that they introduced hobbits while men dwarves were at least twice as wide in the shoulders as in DAO, sigh. Which of course broke that DAO origin. Honestly, it would take a lot for me to get seriously interested in a DA game again because I felt I was sold such a subpar game as someone who played dwarves by preference.
So there's never a time I'm playing Kass in FFXIV that I don't appreciated the loving attention to detail, even if it's nothing more than an NPC looking down at her when she walks past.
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Sometimes, your idiot ex-boyfriend gets himself killed by Tav and the rest of your allies, and you have to just make a deal with an undead dragon and pledge your soul to the only god ever to have defeated Bane in combat and become some kind of corrupted valkyrie so you can invade Banehold and get your idiot ex-boyfriend's soul back from the God of Tyranny
You know, a normal Tuesday for the Dark Urge
The phenomenally brilliant @kimageddon went above and beyond the call of duty on this work of magnificent art. The details on her armour! The sword! The way she holds him! Do you need an exquisite picture of your favourite characters or pairing? I CANNOT recommend her enough. Just absolutely gobsmacked by the final piece (and you KNOW I'll be printing it for the wall)
And if you're interested in knowing how Kass got to this point and whether she's successful in fighting Bane, you can read my fic!
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Ok to go with my ~theory~ about their lifespan… rito grow up fast but stay adult-elder for a very long time, their several molts are also how they keep their clothing making business going… their adult colors begin to come in more vibrantly with each molt too 🪶
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