We're in the Ifirt arc now. New cover art was needed.
Link to LIGHT PARTY AU: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45748804/chapters/115126792
DEAR READER
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Love Begins
Stranger Things

roma★
Monterey Bay Aquarium
TVSTRANGERTHINGS

pixel skylines

ellievsbear
Three Goblin Art

★
art blog(derogatory)
Cosmic Funnies
d e v o n
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
trying on a metaphor
hello vonnie
One Nice Bug Per Day

tannertan36
Game of Thrones Daily

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@lightparty-fullparty
We're in the Ifirt arc now. New cover art was needed.
Link to LIGHT PARTY AU: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45748804/chapters/115126792
WIP
healer dot descriptions are so wild. you’ve got the sadly flavorless sge:
the ‘look what i learned from garuda’ whm:
ast channels the nocebo effect to great effect:
and then there’s sch, who has multiple unique ways to destroy their opponent’s body:
ffxiv is so fucking funny because relatively few people in this playerbase understand how good they have it (which is a fine thing overall because it means the game isn't horrendously flawed). like in my browsing just now I went from a long discussion about roulettes and whether they should be tweaked to change player incentives to a destiny 2 postmortem where someone's explaining that part of the game's problem is they just straight up ripped out large chunks of it as they went and you simply cannot play "the main story of destiny 2" in any meaningful way.
like on the list of things that make FFXIV insanely good to play is "most content except seasonal events should be evergreen and always playable, and there should be incentives for endgame players to go back and do it." you would think this is the most basic player retention and growth thing ever and yet the other mega-successful mmos don't actually do it (which is not to say it's totally unique, waving to my eso friends here). class dps balance issues which make people frustrated here wouldn't even register as issues in most games, which have significantly higher deltas in damage output between the best and worst performers.
which is not to say people should not complain about and critique FFXIV! only that sometimes, listening to the complaints, I feel a bit like I'm in the front room of a nice house, and someones pointing to and complaining about a crack in the window, and it's not that they're wrong—the crack is real and should be addressed—but they don't even realize the finger they've pointed at the crack is also pointed at the dilapidated apartment building across the street I used to live in, which I can see through the window, and I can't really follow the complaint anymore because I'm just like "wow it's soooo much nicer not living there anymore"
like, could FFXIV pvp be better? Yes! Was the feast really bad for a really long time? Sure was! But imagine if FFXIV had a mode that's like crystalline conflict only you have to win SEVEN MATCHES IN A ROW for the really desirable stuff, and also some of it is still random drops, and despite everyone repeatedly pointing out that winning seven matches in a row is a completely unreasonable goal that makes it impossible to have good matchmaking, they refused to ever change it. AND your gear affects your damage. This is a real mode destiny 2 players suffered through discourse about for years!!!
my headcanon for a long time has been that souls have a degree of control over when/where/how they're reborn. that's why the same souls keep returning to the Dotharl tribe: they choose to.
it also provides a logical explanation for some people (Gerolt, Rowena, the trolley crew) looking exactly the same across reincarnations despite one side of my brain screaming that that doesn't make any sense with either real life genetics or how even in game, people end up looking more or less like their family members. perhaps souls have a preferred form that, within limits, they can facilitate being reborn as.
(the soul having some role in determining physical form would also dovetail with dragons' system of asexual reproduction and personal evolution; despite them being from a different star, they still ought to operate under the same natural laws)
at the same time, the key would be that it is a choice — and that allows the WoL to be anything. you don't have to look like Ardbert, because why wouldn't Azem, the traveler, counselor to the people, want to be someone different, live somewhere different, have totally new experiences, in every new life?
just because you havent seen me post about The Character in a while doesn't mean i'm any less insane about them in private
i'm never gonna be normal about this song again thank you
finished endwalker. i am very normal about him
By this point the WoL can just go “I know a guy” in about 98% of all situations, but like the guy in question is
Just some guy, kind of the weirdest thing is that they know the WoL
Just Some Guy, but like. There is something distinctly off about them, like maybe they have been living in the wilderness alone for 15 years, who knows, but like. They do the job!
An expert in the field. Makes sense, you probably run into those saving the world and whatnot.
A world-renown expert in the field. Still makes sense, but wow you were not expecting that for your silly problem.
A world-renown person. Like, everyone’s heard of Cid Garlond by this point, what do you mean you have him on speed dial.
A world leader. You thought the Elder Seedseer never left Gridania except in times of crisis, but ok!
A dragon, quite possibly of the first brood or otherwise quite old. This feels like overkill.
Something you weren’t even expecting to be sentient, like the plushy chocobo and its robotic friend. Extremely weird.
A literal cryptid or person you thought was entirely mythical. Sure, this might as well happen.
You never meet ‘the guy’, because apparently ‘the guy’ lives in a different world/dimension. Somehow still gives excellent and applicable advice.
The WoL, but this time in a different outfit (silly hat included)
Dragoon headcanons
1.) The WoL's brand of Dragoon is slightly different from everyone else's because they are partaking not just of Nidhogg's essence, but of Midgardsormr's.
2.) Also since the WoL isn't Ishgardian (at least not by default), they're probably not descended from one of the bloodlines cursed by Ratatoskr's murder, which could make Nidhogg's essence fight against them a little less? 3.) When we use powers with a distinctly Red hue we're drawing more directly on Nidhogg's essence, whereas Blue powers are more aspected to Midgardsormr.
Blue: Mirage Dive, Gierskogul, Battle Litany, LB3, active Blood of the Dragon
Red: Rise of the Dragon, Nastrond, Stardiver, active Life of the Dragon
Both: Wyrmwind Thrust
Neither: All the Spear Stuff that we learned with the Lancer's Guild that's just normal ways to channel aether through a polearm without any Draconic influence, but that fits together nicely with all the leaping strikes that we pick up after exposure to the Eye of Nidhogg.
4.) This is not to say that Estinien is inferior in the Dragoon arts to the WoL. Estinien became so saturated with Nidhogg's essence that Nidhogg was able to be temporarily reborn using his flesh, and a generous portion of that essence is clearly still in there. If anything the WoL needed a boost from the Father of Dragons to catch up.
5.) Nidhogg's still in there for real. Not just a memory, not just an energy source, but a presence, an intelligence. Mostly dormant and submissive to Estinien's will, but it may grow in time. Probably not into another catastrophic Rage Monster though. I fully believe that if we came back to Etherys in two or three thousand years, there would be five living members of the First Brood once more, just one of them would also remember having been an Elezen child in Ferndale, having been a knight in service to Ishgard, having been one of the heroes who saved the world from the Endsinger, and the lived experiences would temper the new gestalt entity. I think Estinien knows this, and is at peace with it.
6.) I think the rest of the First Brood know this and are also cool with it. Nidhogg's essence is going through an unexpected phase, but the Dragons of FFXIV are weird and absurdly complicated. Azdaja and Midgardsormr are also rebuilding themselves basically from scratch after mostly dying, so Nidhogg being a current of aether inside of this mortal isn't that weird.
7.) Speaking of currents of aether, I think Ratatoskr is still in the people of Ishgard. Maybe just the tiniest sliver, maybe not enough that she could ever truly regain memories or any sense of continuity with the Ratatoskr that was, but enough that one of the Ishgardians who have been transformed into dragons by drinking dragon blood might some day re-evolve into a new Ratatoskr.
8.) I think Bahamut is irretrievable though. The Allagans were thorough as fuck, and what essence of his lingered on may have been caught up by Tiamat's summoning ritual and incorporated into the Primal. And if being absorbed by a Primal is enough to kill one of the Unsundered Ascians, I'm going to say it could erase any possibility of an ancient dragon coming back as well.
9.) If the WoL can draw strength and abilities from their connection with Midgardsormr, pacts with other dragons could be forged that don't require the dragon's eye to actually be popped out of their head first. In fact, stealing their eye is probably just a way to force such a pact from an unwilling dragon.
10.) The surviving Knights Dragoon might just figure this out, as Ishgard and Dravania establish closer ties. Rather than the Dragoons dying out, they could be reborn from a partnership where young Ishgardian knights seek out a specific Dragon to form a personal bond with.
11.) Bonds with other First Brood, or with particularly ancient and potent dragons from later generations, would also deviate from the baseline job as its manifest by the current Knights Dragoon.
A Dragoon of Hraesvelgr might manifest ice and holy light instead of searing flames, and have themes of self-sacrifice and preservation of allies. They might even be a Healer instead of a DPS job!
A Dragoon of Tiamat might have characteristics of exceptional, unwavering durability and resistance born of long penance, and be a Tank job.
A Dragoon of Vrtra might be much more teamwork-oriented, although probably taking the greater burden of risk in a fight, as a Tank job with support elements not unlike a Paladin.
A Dragoon of Azdaja would be weird as hell, and almost certainly reflect on the ages spent lost or imprisoned in the 13th with some frightening Darkness-Aspected powers.
A Dragoon of Bahamut, if one could scavenge enough of his aether to forge a bond, could just be a weird backwards way of becoming a Summoner? Probably more of a Caster than a Melee DPS in any case, Bahamut seems to have had more of a penchant for blasting the shit out of things from a distance than his siblings. Or that could just be a characteristic of the twisted Primal reflection of him.
A Dragoon of Ratatoskr could, like Vrtra, have a great deal more teamwork-oriented traits but be more focused on providing support where needed rather than being the anchor point around which the battle takes shape. I think a Ratatoskr Dragoon would be another Healer, but a "pure" healer while the Hraesvelger type would do shields with ice effects.
I can think of a dozen other powerful dragons in the setting who might grant unique gifts. Maybe an individual Dragoon could collect blessings from multiple sources, like the WoL already has?
Anyway, I have no real proof of any of this, I just like the idea that there may still be Dragoons in the future but they'd be dramatically different than the ones who were only empowered by Nidhogg's stolen eye (and possibly the lingering wisps of Ratatoskr's essence in most of their bloodlines).
🌹 Blackbosom 🌹
can you PLEASE expand on the forgotten stew scene…. ive done post arr six times and I dont remember that at all
of course!! this is before and after you go to confront shiva, a mission which is explicitly and repeatedly described as a suicide mission against impossible odds, and involves using an experimental aetheryte with 0 known case of success and a 100% mortality rate (if i remember correctly), to confront an unknown primal INSIDE an ice labyrinth, ALONE. aymeric literally recites your eulogy before you go. like, while your comrades are like "haha surely hydaelyn will not let you die :) i have a good feeling about this :) ummmm but you're sure you want to do this right? haha well yeah anywayyyyy it's not like we have a choice here so uh... good luck!" it's very much clear to everyone that you are not expected to triumph AND survive. as @viiioca also reminded me, this is put in a stark contrast with aymeric (whom you practically just met and is not yet an ally, and is shown as a shrewd diplomat and competent general), who explicitly tells alphinaud (in the wol's presence) that he values his men's lives more than the enemy's defeat. before you leave the rising stones, f'lhaminn tells you that "there will be a piping hot bowl of stew waiting for you!" but when you come back (and find - if i recall correctly - that only moenbryda stayed behind?) and return to the rising stones, f'lhaminn tells you that "there is no more stew because the others ate your portion. i'm sorry :("
like, to me, this and the leviathan part of the storyline are really critical to set up the wol's character arc, because in both cases it's an incredibly dangerous undertaking from start to finish, and the wol's cooperation and success are taken for granted, their victory not celebrated, and they receive no material support from the scions, who are established as "unreliable in matters of logistics and management" essentially. i think that's also why the drk quests are set up RIGHT after all this and heavily draw upon those feelings of resentment and abandonment, going so far as establishing the wol has ptsd from their encounter with leviathan.
khloe are you kidding me
hyperfixating on a fictional woman who went underdeveloped in canon is literally FUN and the 80-90% of fandom people who only do the same for background character men have no idea of the degree to which they are fucking missing out
no tumblr i have faith that this post will be found by the enlightened 10-20 percent
[ID from alt: the "post without tags" pop up. End ID.]
hour 1 of thinking about an underdeveloped woman: idk it would've been nice if she had more screentime
hour 100 of thinking about an underdeveloped woman: ok but despite having only eight lines of dialogue she is literally THE most interesting nuanced and tragic character in the entire series and these writers had no idea what they even had. how is no one else seeing this it's literally so objectively obvious
You have to understand that I think being a Warrior of Light is a vocation that requires a very particular person with an absolutely lunatic drive. You need to be a martyr. You need to be okay with murder. You need to think that punching god in the face is okay. You must love fetch quests. You must be willing to give all of you, every single piece, if it means it will keep everyone safe. How you approach dissembling yourself into your puzzle piece elements to hand to people like an active grenade to lob at their problems is up to you. But you must be okay with it.
You must think, when asked if you want to have a fist fight at the end of the world, that giving into your base instincts is the greatest mercy your always-enemy-always-equal narrative foil who rode the light of stars to find you can grant you
azure dragoon