Sami'a Nightingale

A Keeper White Mage, among other contradictions. Also home to a voidsent hunter au

[feral-nightingale]

Chapter 1-1: An (un)Faithful Encounter

Prologue can be found here.

"Hey voidsent!"

The hunter's voice echoed down the narrow back street of Ul'dah. Evangeline froze, thoughts moving at a million miles an hour. How could this have happened? I've been so careful and always checked to make sure I wasn't followed. Have I gotten sloppy? How much does he know? Is he alone? Who sent him?

She turned to face her would be attacker with a smile and a dagger poorly concealed behind her back.

"Are-are you talking to me? Can I help you with something?" Fuck Eve what a stupid question. Of course he's talking to you! You're the only one here!

The hunter laughed bitterly then started stalking forward. His icy glare pierced through his golden mask with the eyes of an amused predator stalking easy prey.

"Listen," Eve said trying to keep her voice calm and even. "I don't know what you think you know about me, but you've got it all wrong. I'm not a voidsent I'm-"

"A likely story," the hunter cut her off. "You reek of the void. So either you're a void researcher who just made a visit to the void and got corrupted, or you're a voidsent. Either way I can't let someone like you remain alive."

"Tch. What narrow thinking," Eve spat. He's almost in striking range, I'll only get one shot at this.

Eve sprang at the hunter and ripped his mask from his face. Luck was on her side, as the hunter was not expecting such an attack. She left the mask on the ground and sent a quick prayer to whatever god would listen this would buy her enough time to get away. Unfortunately, the gods were not listening if the rapid footsteps behind her were any indication.

She didn't get very far before before she felt a tug on on her sleeve. "LET GO OF ME YOU CREEP!" She shrieked, but nobody was around to listen. He yanked at her, knocking her off balance and straight into the hunter's chest.

And somebody got hurt.

[thefreelanceangel]

I saw this on Bluesky, and it's a really handy little tool! Especially if you don't have something like Canva or Photopea or the like available.

And it's set up so you can adjust the spacing between images, add a signature/logo, add the Square Enix copyright, and a lot of other stuff. It handling the auto-spacing for me made me LESS inclined to tear my hair out.

(The bitch looks good, too.)

[viiioca]

i think everyone who is worried about their skill doing content in ff14 should watch an ultimate world race. if you have ever felt like shit for not immediately understanding a mechanic you've never seen before, you will be Spiritually Healed watching the absolute best players in the world spend multiple hours and 20 pulls just to make it 25 milliseconds further into a fight. you will watch people just completely fuck mechanics that they have successfully done 30 pulls in a row for no other reason than they're tired and their brain shidded. no matter what your skill ceiling is, the trajectory of gaining competence follows pretty much the same arc. be soothed

[glysreia]

The one thing I wanna criticise ffxiv rn is the fact that they've become too scared to let characters die.

Not the villains, they always kill the villains, which funny enough only makes them even more interesting.

I'm talking about the "good guys"; imagine if Nanamo actually died instead of being poisoned, we could've had quite the interesting arc especially with what political regime would the country go with in the end.

Imagine if Y'shtola actually died. Wow, I know, Scion death?? We haven't had one since Papalymo and imo they picked one of the least fan favourites anyway. Y'shtola keeps death baiting every single time she throws herself into a situation and escapes through the aetherial sea or whatever. And each time I'd just roll my eyes and expect her to come back in one piece again. Ngl it's probably the main reason why I can't really stand her character, she just escapes situations that should have her killed, with the dumbest ways every time. She presents herself as such a mature genius who'll tease you with mom-like lines for saying you don't want to help on a mission, then she goes and throws herself into situations knowing "teehee it's okay I'll get lost in the aetherial sea again and one of you will find me". How about we let her stay there for good 💀 I'm tired boss.

Heavensward was so impactful to me cause we had Herchie dying to protect us. We had Ysayle sacrifice herself for the cause!!! Hell I thought even poor Estinien was going to die in the whole Nidhogg rampage!

"They got backlash for Nanamo dying so they had to change it and then they stopped killing good characters after Papalymo" I DON'T CARE ABOUT BACKLASH, GOOD PEOPLE DIE, BAD PEOPLE DIE, IF IT'S A STORY OF JUST THE MAIN VILLAINS DYING I'LL AUTOMATICALLY FIND MORE DEPTH IN THEM THAN IN THE SCIONS WHO HAVE PLOT ARMOUR. IT GETS BORING!! YOU CAN'T EVEN HAVE AN EMOTIONAL MOMENT OF THINKING THEY'LL DIE (LIKE EW) CAUSE YOU FUCKING KNOW THEY WON'T!!!!

Yotsuyu alone has more depth and is more relatable than all of the female Scions combined!!! And she's only a character for an expansion and a half!!! Hell even Fordola is more interesting, and she didn't even have to die for it!

My point is, the way they write villains has made so many of them be so much more human than the very Scions you're supposed to like and see as friends. And that includes character death.

I'm not saying to go crazy and kill every single Scion or good guy character in every arc, but it's becoming annoying that they'll bait people with deaths only to go SIKE NOBODY DIED.

Would it be so hard to have one well placed and important main cast death? Would it be so bad to have a relevant villain (I say relevant cause the two headed lizard guy from DT ain't even a villain, more like a fussy teenager bully) see a better path and become redeemed while staying relevant to the plot? I see you Gaius, they made you into a good guy and then decided to just kinda leave you where you are instead of having you appear more often or even aid the Scions from a side post EW.

As we stand I still cannot say I love either of the Scions. G'raha I like cause I formed a version of himself in my mind compared to his game one, and that's kinda it? I'm neutral to most and outright don't care about quite a few, and it's mostly cause I still see them as distant geniuses without much else going on. They don't go through moral dilemmas, they don't have changes of heart and possibly staying from the good path, they're each just their genius good at one specific thing selves aaaaaall the way throughout every single expansion.

Urianger and Thancred seemed to have some kind of arcs going on?? In ShB and EW? I say some kind cause they still just.... remained the same, and they only fixed some minimal aspects of them like the whole Minfilia thing and the Moenbryda stuff, but otherwise??? I really don't see how anything changed much.

Anyway that's the rant of the day. I just miss when the good guy characters had impactful roles in the game...

[feral-nightingale]

If Jonathon Baily steps away from G'raha Tia, I think they should just kill him off.

[alannah-corvaine]

Play any MMO long enough and eventually you'll be sitting in a rocking chair on your virtual porch recounting previous game patches like they were formative years of your life gone by.

[entropic-introspection]

Sometimes I just want more things that are the WoL passing by Sharlyans deep in theoretical discussions about the limits of magic and reality and just casually dropping the most insane bits of knowledge

Like, “Oh, time travel isn’t really the best option for like, anything. It takes so much aether as to be pretty unfeasible, it’s hard to control, and in my experience most of the time you make a stable loop with the present you started from, so it’s not really worth it.”

Or, “I mean, the void between worlds is just that- a void. There’s some kinda weird like, crystallized memories I guess? But yeah nothing much.”

“As far as I know, wave-kin can fly because of a really weird ancient in-joke, so trying to figure out the taxonomy there isn’t great.”

“Hey, I know some Nymian scholars, I could run that by them for a better translation- no, not scholars of Nymia, I mean literally Nymian scholars. Well, uh, they were cursed. Um. Have you heard of tonberries?”

“Yes, the black mage Shantoto really was like that. How do I-? I’ve talked to her? I am literally her student?? Yes I practice the forbidden art of black magic, I’ve also got permission from the Padjali to practice white magic and I learned red magic anyways- yes, I know that one is a nearly dead art, no I am not looking for students.”

[scarecrowdrugs]

...so do miqo'te get the zoomies?

[feral-nightingale]

Mine does

[tritoch]

I've also seen it suggested that Zenos is a flat character, and I think that's true! I think he is intentionally drawn both sharply and flatly to make him stand out and to play up his symbolic and thematic role. But I think, especially post-Endwalker, he is frequently reduced to the aspects that serve as metacommentary on gaming and MMOs and FFXIV itself, but equally important (and more important up through Endwalker itself) is his role as imperialism's final output.

Zenos initially feints at being a certain kind of rounded villain. He has cool armor and a signature weapon (these things matter in a game like FFXIV), he's presented as a genuine believer in merit in juxtaposition to his sexist and racist officers, he's well-spoken and takes a personal interest in you. In fact, he's a lot like Gaius van Baelsar, whose brief but charismatic (and, due to MSQ roulette, repeatedly viewed) appearances in ARR suggested to some the impression of a noble figure in service to the wrong ideals, one of gaming's favorites kinds of Rounded Characters With Nuanced Writing.

It's possible to mistakenly believe through just about the Ala Mhigo dungeon itself that maybe Zenos will have a turn, that his relentless torture of conquered peoples accomplishes some greater end in his mind. After all, wasn't Gaius also fixated on violence and strength? Didn't he also believe that man raises himself up through conflict? And Gaius's Praetorium speech has fans and defenders to this day!

This is why the Royal Menagerie and the ultimate flattening of Zenos's character is effective, compelling, and ultimately necessary. Where ARR ends still pretending that maybe Gaius was an interesting dude with things to say, Stormblood finishes the job of (literally) stripping violent imperialism of its mask and showing it for what it is. Prosperity, the Roman peace, technological progress, all of those are incidental outputs to this, imperialism's true engine: the naked exercise of power and glorification of violence for their own sakes, as ends in themselves. Zenos fights so he can fight more. That's the punchline.

And importantly, Endwalker confirms it's always the punchline. Garlemald is drowning in recurring symbols and archetypes. Corvos and Goug and Amaurot and (after its destruction) Garlemald proper all at various points represent for different characters a mythical pre-collapse Eden, the reclamation or realization of which (through the right kind of violence applied to the right kind of people) is the putative goal of the empire. There's multiple ideal imperial men, multiple evil scientists, multiple conflicted collaborators. They serve to enrich each other's stories because you can set Yotsuyu's story against Fordola's against Gosetsu's and learn something from it.

But there is only one future for the Garlean Empire (distinct from the nation and people of Garlemald). Zenos is the Crown Prince when he enters the game, and (probably) the last direct male heir in the line of Galvus when he dies. He is the nameless assassin who commits regicide and the opportunistic tyrant who seizes power in the aftermath. He is both the last corrupt emperor and, through the Telophoroi, the barbarian hordes raging at his own gates.

Zenos is the endpoint of the Garlean Empire. Anyone who has survived him will be part of something different; there are no alternatives to him (most notably, Nerva never appears, except as a blasphemy, and Gaius explicitly declines further involvement with Garlemald). He is the nihilistic, violent dead end that lies at the heart of empire. If you feel his aims are hollow and venal, then all is as it should be.

[fandaniel]

people were upset with this person in the comments but honestly truth nuke

[glysreia]

I saw this line in a tiktok and felt like it fit

[voidsentprinces]

[voidsentprinces]

[seaseren]

By the way I remain firm in my belief that the only reason Alisaie comes across as less of a Rich Kid is that she lets Alphinaud say the Stupid Rich Kid Shit first (this is not hard because he talks VERY much) and then just. Acts like she knew that was Rich Kid Shit all along. I think it took Alisaie a Long While to not be mourning the loss of her huge gorgeous perfect bed but someone made fun of Alphinaud for mentioning the "insufficent conditions for rest" early on so now she can never say a thing about it.

[idalenn]

Is the ffxiv reddit "my group is falling apart" shitpost still common knowledge among the player base?

[idalenn]

[twinkle-art]

i know you had a soft spot for her😵‍💫

[booty-uprooter]

i feel not enough attention is paid to the fact that yshtola's first outfit was the medieval fantasy equivalent of a baggy sweatshirt, jeans, and tennis shoes

[booty-uprooter]

these are the same outfit

[mizra-asgardia-deactivated20250]

This totally changes everything. EVERYTHING.

[dayasan]

A collection of Final Fantasy Distant Worlds London wifi hotspots

[hopskipandarump]

oh i spent the entire pre-show just screenshotting these (with some extras from my group) hold on

and by far my fave

[unionizedwizard]

WOULD hrt have saved zenos, indeed. many are asking this

[statsdead-deactivated20200602]

“whos your main” is like “whats your sign” for gamers

[biodegradable-heart]

reblog this with your sign and main in the tags