elfblogger's elf blog

final fantasy fourteen elf blog

[elfblogger]

my annual FFXIV patch yapping

I only seem to use this tumblr for this lol. Enjoy!!

Patch 7.5 SPOILERS below!

-Y’shtola’s lil’ acid trip

G’raha I can’t believe you forgot to bring souvenirs for your coworkers

-TATARU I MISSED U

-Back in Garlicmold

smh they are never getting that stain out

-CHORT IN THE CLYT

-Yaay I missed Zero’s edgy fit

-Yo this Enuo music fucks

hi

Damn i found the real void

-omg yaaay we’re going back to Zero’s house

-nvm

-HALMARUUUUT. I really dig her English VA. Say what you will about FFXVI but it has an excellent English cast and I would love to see more of the VAs in XIV! If I was able to predict the exact location for NA Fanfest this year, maybe I can predict a Ralph Ineson role. 

This is juicy

POG FACE

-WHERE IS ESTINIEN

Makes me so emo to see everyone back here :’)

Estinien is the kind of guy who puts his phone on silent and loses it in the couch cushions

-Putting it in writing now, Halmarut is Demeter. She could also be a Persephone, but I’m leaning more towards Demeter, especially with the strong winter motifs.

-Love that Calyx shows up at the end to tell us he hates his coworkers

I’m really into the implication that we kind of sort of doomed all life by saving it. And I am curious if they will expand upon whether we think Venat knew of this possibility or not. A mutual on Bsky expressed how they liked that this was messy. That we can’t really comprehend the intentions of someone long gone. Even the gods are not infallible.

I think the dilemma over how and why we should interfere with the supposed coming Solstice is an interesting one, and I’m eager to see where the story goes with this. 

And damn, in hindsight, Fandaniel really was the arbiter of most of our woes. Gg buddy

ALLIANCE RAID YAPPING: 

Overall an improvement over Endwalker’s raids. (which i’ll always be bummed about, because it could’ve been real juicy lore-wise and everything was a wet fart) 

Story-wise, it felt a little winded at the end, and while I was delighted to see Shantotto show up in XIV graphics, her role really felt like an ass-pull exposition dispenser. I think maybe I need to temper my expectations re: alliance raid stories more. But I had fun overall! The fights felt just complicated enough to have the potential to be Sickos if things get out of hand, but not so difficult that non-sweaty gamers would struggle.

It was cute seeing Prishe and Alxaal around in the overworld between raids. I love that they’ve kept up having Alpha and Omega show up in places, and it was a missed opportunity to have Deryk and his monkey do the same. I like having my actions as the player change lil’ aspects of the world!

Overall, fun patch! I’m excited for the mini patches. I need the new OC map yesterday. I’m eager to see what we hear from the EU Fanfest at the end of July. 

[elfblogger]

spoiler embargo is up, I'm freeing my patch 7.4 thoughts into the wild

I jotted these down on a google doc while playing. Enjoy my thoughts

Spoilers below

-Yaaay actual character interaction, actually depicting how two characters we know and love interact with each other, yaaay

-Someone give poor G’raha a Ricola

-Erenville’s Irish Goodbye defeated by Wuk Lamat’s Midwestern Goodbye

-Omg Krile self reflection?? For Xmas??

-The buildings/doors repurposed to fit Lala size in Treno is a mega cute touch

-Lumull spamming the button on his device was very cute and got a chuckle out of me

-Oh I really like Lumull and Eyaney

-I get why it’s left up, but I miss when Krile would randomly take her hood down in Endwalker. Her ponytail is so gd cute ;__;

-FINALLY A HEART TO HEART WITH KRILE. NOT LIKE THIS HAS BEEN SORELY NEEDED SINCE FUCKING BASE DAWNTRAIL. AIR YOUR GRIEVANCES TO ME GIRL

-Krile a half hour after arriving in Treno: should I… move here?

-TRAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN

-Doomtrain is extremely fun and I was cackling with delight but trials like this are always funny to me in how they’re shoehorned into the MSQ. Post-MSQ patches don’t need to be one long buildup to the mandated trial per se, but it’s funny how it feels like we’re just talking about the weather and suddenly get an emergency alert on our phones about the Doomtrain. 

-Finally some good Krile lore

-They keep upping the ante with really good character animation. We’re so deprived of characters even physically interacting with each other in this game that it gets me hyped when it does happen. 

-Who is that lost Victorian aura child in the streets

-IT’S HALMARUT!!!!! =0 I am so smart

-Calyx is a babyfur now

-I dig this dynamic between Halmarut and Furry Calyx and am excited to see where they take it. Fun patch, def the most fun I’ve had in the post DT patches. It’s feeling more likely that we’re moving towards a Blindfrost expac, but we’ll see. I thought for sure post-EW was leading up to Meracydia after all 🤡

-Sad that 7.5 is gonna be 20 years from now :(

ARCADION TIME

-Ouh I love u

-I LOVE FEMELZEN WE RULE

-This little cyberpunk victorian orphan boy 

-It’s them, the brothers of blowjob(we got ddos’d during this fight and it was a pain)

Lmao

-He’s hot so i’m into whatever he has going on

-not this fucked up low poly cat again…

-the president is a worm

-the president is an evil worm. Very true to life

-Ok so the president is not evil just a worm and was doing it to save everyone but the evil part of the worm came back so everyone fights him and then Brute Bomber comes back and helps the WoL kamehameha his face and then the sexy elves come and kill him and we get:

Dragobal

-Yaoi moment :D 

-Brute Bomber moe moment. Best heel, best boy.

-AHHH cute final showdown cutscene. Dats wrestling babey

-Arcadion was very fun and exactly what I wanted from a lighter tone. It doesn't have to make sense, I just want to have a good time.

FUN PATCH OVERALL, I'm cautiously optimisitc for what's coming. We have more character-focused writing again...are we...back? Anyways I gotta draw some Halmarut fanart bye

[elfblogger]

stray patch 7.3 thoughts

SPOILERS for FFXIV patch 7.3 under the cut!!

First off, a reminder that my initial Dawntrail thoughts can be read here! This essay was written post-base MSQ, but before any subsequent patches. I've kept this essay as-is despite some of my opinions changing.

The following are are not in any particular order btw

Maybe it’s just me but this patch felt SUPER long compared to the others. Maybe it was cuz the dungeon and trial were relegated to the last quarter. But I started at like 11:30am and didn’t finish until 8pm! (just shave like 2.5 or 3hrs off for a lunch break and alliance raid)

I hope Erenville becomes a semi-perma member of the cast cuz I like him and I want him to be a little bitch again like he was pre DT. Also he’s like, one of the few non-white major NPCs, diversity win.

That final cutscene with Calyx was SO JUICY, that boy was sweating and he was BIG MAD and I’m like, yes, you lost at Fornite, rage my boy, rage. (his facial animation in that scene was gr8)

Also I am excited about more Ascian shenanigans because there’s still juice left in that lore tank, since there’s a few of them still unaccounted for. But also, loool, your low-res ARR armor. 

I hope we never have to listen to Smile ever again, ty

A surprising amount of blood in this patch, I feel like the game is very stingy with its showing of blood.

Wow they actually allowed Krile some agency as a treat.

(solemn reminder from base MSQ that told me Krile was not going to have any free will. this was immediately after she finds out she's from another fucking reflection bee-tee-dubs)

That scene with Krile and Graha doing paperwork was rlly cute. I am always a Students of Baldesion fan.

It’s still hilarious to me that Thancred and Urianger were on the fucking poster art for DT and yet they seem to have received the least amount of screentime of all the Scions in DT when you include patches. 

“We as the Scions will introduce Alexandria to the world’s stage!” My sweet boy didn’t we kinda sorta disband the Scions. What happened to that. It only lasted like a month. 

I think this patch was an improvement over the past DT patches and I think it’s because it gave the charas space to like, idk, talk about their feelings. And it actually acknowledged that this all basically started with Krile. 

Wuk Lamat in the Family Guy death pose on the ground as we’re all standing around her talking about the weather. 

Wuk Lamat and Sphene get their lesbian moment. Shale and Yshtola get their lesbian moment. Everyone gets their lesbian moments.

I clocked Geode’s death flag immediately lol, it became p obvious when Shale tells him to be careful and we’re suddenly getting lots of time and info w/ him. The game’s been afraid of killing characters for a while so I’m like, cool. But also we can kill a bigger guy if we want. (sickos)

There rlly was no reason for Estinien to be around for this plotline but I miss him, I hope he’s out in a cowboy town discovering weed. 

Can We Talk About how the final boss in the dungeon is just the Elden Beast. 

Hell yeah we re-piss-ified the final zone!!! I wonder if that was a story beat planned from the get-go, or if they changed it after hearing folks complain about how turning it drab and gray sucked. 

The cutscene quality has been improving a ton. Really good subtle character acting, etc. I was really digging Prishe’s acting in the alliance raid cutscenes. I would die for her. 

Sphene countering the regulator tempering by giving a rousing speech over the loudspeaker felt like such a cop out, esp since finding a counter to tempering was a story beat that spanned multiple expansions, and is even brought up in practically the same scene. Idk I think it’s cool that Calyx whipped up a Primal to temper folks but Sphene’s happy words healing ppl felt very………unsatisfying.  

In the end I am glad to be done with Dawntrail. I’m cautiously hopeful for what comes next.

Just plz don’t let Daichi Hiroi be lead writer again plz

[sewbro]

Gift exchange art for Ylva! @elfblogger

[elfblogger]

Hourly Comics Day was on Feb 1st, and just like last year, I did hourlies for my WoL instead of myself.

irl responsibilities prevented me from fully finishing this year, but I still had fun with it!

[elfblogger]

a quick y'shtola sketch

[elfblogger]

bashful g'rubhub

[elfblogger]

assorted margin doodles of my elf over the years

[elfblogger]

a very silly comic featuring my Azem who is very silly

[elfblogger]

Themis

[elfblogger]

ur mom

[elfblogger]

today is 11/11, which is Haurchefant day! Happy Haurchefant day to all my friends and family, may all your Haurchefants be bright

[elfblogger]

February 1st is Hourly Comics Day, where you draw short comics/vignettes about each hour (or chunk of hours) of your life that day. For Hourly Comics Day 2022, my FFXIV friends and I decided to make hourly comics about our WoLs instead of ourselves!

I'll probably do this again next year because my WoL leads a much more interesting life than I do

[elfblogger]

G'rubhub

[elfblogger]

McRib is back, after all

[elfblogger]

it's the twins

[elfblogger]

howdy

I don't know how much I'll use this blog, but in case Twitter explodes and/or implodes, this'll serve as my designated FFXIV zone on this ol' tumblr. I've had a "main" tumblr for well over a decade, but I'm an old lady and like having my fandom stuff be separate from my irl name these days.