FFXIV Shenanigans

Kevin in Eorzea. This is where I dump game-related stuff. Meowdred Surana (Jenova) is my main!

[meowww-ffxiv]

Meowdred: *jingles when he walks due to, once again, Baubles*

Theodore: Mister Meow... We already have a little jingler in this house. Please distinguish yourself somehow.

Meowdred: Eh?! Who!

Black baby coeurl that Theodore brought home due to its remarkable resemblance to the other guy: ^.^ *jingles as she walks by*

Meowdred:

Meowdred: I got two legs and she got four. You can hear the difference.

Theodore: No I cannot when you run! You are so quiet! That accursed shinobi training, surely.

Meowdred: Then she shouldn't wear that collar!

Theodore: But she is of the right size to be stuck in vents and you are not. She will also most likely be stupid enough to, too. Do we not agree that out of the two of you, I need to know where she is more?

Meowdred: Guess I'll go stay in my Goblet apartment then.

Theodore: Wait, hey now--

[entropii]

kiku, oh, stonehearted kiku!

another friend for yuzu and perhaps ume. pre-arr (left), stb (right).

[yoildayday]

TACOCAT

[meowww-ffxiv]

(preparations for Evercold)

Meowdred: Awesome the new suit of armor is done. Now wear this an' fuck off to the cold skies o' yer homeland until yer sure it won't give ye frostbites.

Theodore: ...You are testing for its efficacy by putting me into danger...?

Meowdred: You're a dragoon. Cold thin air's like, yer thing? No? Anyway, in Limsa Lominsa, admiral tested soundness of our smithed armor by tellin' her favorite blokes to wear 'em and then shoot 'em full of lead.

Theodore: [aristocrat scream]

(the armor was just fine)

[dammitperseus]

fun urianger i did

[meowww-ffxiv]

Meowdred attempting to write down a proper scholarly article for the Sharlayan place on how the different Umbral Calamities and ages altered aetheric abundance in the world, therefore affecting animals and plants from which crafting materials throughout the ages were deprived, therefore explaining why recipes and schematics passed down from other Astral ages, even if they survived, would not be able to 1:1 reproduce the items even in the hands of extremely learned artisans.

And realizing that the bottomline evidence to all this wasn't really admissible, since it was really just........ "trust me bro".

How did Meowdred know? Well, his Echo ability allowed him to pick up the emotions, motions, and intentions of items that he desynthesized or repaired. He could recreate most things that were handcrafted. But when he actually DID make the mages' outfits for historical purposes -- the white mages' garbs, Nymian scholars' raiment, black mages' robes -- he realized even with supposedly the same crafting materials, they were different. They weren't as impressively mana-conductive as they were said to be in historical records.

Meowdred: This is never going to pass the board review, Raha! I wasted six days working on this paper for NOTHING. Q_Q

G'raha: I'm sure we can create a primary source by having a third party witness and record your ability with the Echo, though?

Meowdred: Nae, that takes too much time. And effort. They only paid me 50,000 gils for this paper.

G'raha: .......That's a lot of money for a paper.

Meowdred: An' it's not enough.

[meowww-ffxiv]

It's a shame that black mages and white mages had moved away from scepter-and-shield after like. 10 initial levels. Because Meowdred would have been a scepter-and-shield guy, I think.

Then again, his being on the staff complements Theodore's spear very well. ^w^

[meowww-ffxiv]

Meowdred: We used to make shield stew.

Theodore: I am not eating anything out of a shield that you put your sweaty arm through the leather loops inside for.

Meowdred: Whaaaat. The stew's cooked! It sanitizes.

Theodore: I do not want to taste ANYONE'S arm sweat in my stew, thank you.

[meowww-ffxiv]

It's a shame that black mages and white mages had moved away from scepter-and-shield after like. 10 initial levels. Because Meowdred would have been a scepter-and-shield guy, I think.

Then again, his being on the staff complements Theodore's spear very well. ^w^

[ffxivxd]

G'raha enjoys being outdoors. As a student, he used to curl up under the boughs of a shady tree and read until sunfall. It's also known he has a beautiful singing voice, performing melodies that have been passed down through his family

[meowww-ffxiv]

Evolved Black Mage should have a button that toggles their spellcasting into a shotgun. We already got a place to LOAD the shotgun bullets:

[meowww-ffxiv]

My cats:

Sushi - >:[

Mochi - o.o

Sunny - O.O

[meowww-ffxiv]

Meowdred: *jingles when he walks due to Baubles attached all over him*

Theodore:

Theodore: Jingle, jingle, little nya--

Meowdred: B( .......Keep going. And then what?

[meowww-ffxiv]

A streamer video brought this up but I wonder if they won't just power up the gear SLOT in the next expac and we just put whatever we want in there.

[anneapocalypse]

"Koana should have been Dawnservant alone" belongs right alongside "Stormblood shouldn't have been about both Doma and Ala Mhigo" in the sense that both are saying they should have thrown out the entire theme of the expansion.

[anneapocalypse]

Since I'm nearing the end of my Stormblood replay I'm gonna say more about this. It is a pretty major theme of Stormblood that Ala Mhigo cannot throw off the imperial occupation alone. If they could, they would have done it already! It's not for lack of trying that they haven't succeeded. Doma is in the same boat. The common people of both regions are skeptical and even hostile to resistance groups not because they're apathetic or cowardly but because they've seen what happened to those who tried before. For a quarter century Garlemald has just been too powerful for any isolated resistance force to stand against alone. There is a reasons we've had refugees from both regions flocking to Eorzea since ARR. Even the Eorzean Alliance has lacked confidence in its ability to hold off Garlemald until very recently (with Operation Archon and the defeat of the Ultima Weapon). There's a reason the leaders of the other Eorzean city-states have been looking east and wringing their hands for decades while the imperials built castrums within their borders because the Alliance couldn't stop them.

There's a reason winning freedom from the Empire requires more than the Warrior of Light showing up. This is the real importance of Zenos in Stormblood, and frankly, I think there's too much focus on how his obsession with the Warrior of Light makes them special and not enough on what he represents about Garlemald. When Zenos shows up at Rhalgr's Reach, his narrative purpose couldn't be more clear. He represents the strength of the Empire when it turns its full attention upon a problem. He represents the reason you cannot win. He will also come to represent the Empire destroying itself from within, and in some ways that should be just as terrifying as the way he strikes you down at Rhalgr's Reach. Because if Zenos actually cared about the Garlean Empire more than he cared about his personal ambitions, it's entirely possible that even the joint rebellion of Doma and Ala Mhigo would not have succeeded.

From a Watstonian perspective, could the game have given us a story about how actually Ala Mhigo just needed the Warrior of Light and a pep talk to drive out their oppressors? Sure, they could have, and it would have been a much worse story.

[anneapocalypse]

I do think Stormblood fumbles some things with regard to Ala Mhigo, in particular a) the tendency to give plot-relevant characters lighter skin/hair/eyes relative to most background Ala Mhigans (and this didn't start with Stormblood but it's still a problem), and imo b) not making Ala Mhigo the endgame hub so that we would spend more time there and it would feel like a real inhabited city, a frankly baffling decision.

The theme that standing up against imperialism requires solidarity and allyship, though, is a good theme, vital to the story Stormblood is telling and in line with the themes of the game as a whole.

[meowww-ffxiv]

I have a vague feeling that Calyx in his end of 7.5 speech, was kind of perspective-shifting his side of things and the WoL into a parallel of us vs. the Ascians, the Ancients, but I'm too tired to articulate it...

Something about how he derided us for a future that no one would remember us, while he and his side would be vindicated by those (few) they would be able to save and theirs would be the story that was told?

The Ancients were all gone. We knew so little of them as simply people, rather than fragments of their culture or scientific findings. To the point where Emet-Selch's final request of the Warrior of Light was, "Remember that we once lived."

Calyx said, "We will be remembered, but you won't because you tried to save everyone and will inevitably fail."

Actually...I think it's more an in-story parallel/reminder of us and Venat? Who knew about Venat save for us and our pals? Maybe Sharlayan. But she was only Hydaelyn. No one remembered her as a person. Except for us. The Ascians would get more mentions for all the shit-stirring that they did than her (though they were similarly stripped of their ability to just live as people, chained to their Convocation roles).

Also, the fact that it was canon that no one remembered what the Warriors of Light who fought to defend Eorzea at Carteneau look like or what their names were.

Would you continue fighting on for a world that would forget you? Just because you loved it and the people in it? We spent 5 expansions and the last 3 patches of the previous one talking about the importance of legacy and every being's right to it, and liberty too. What about you, Warrior of Light?

I honestly don't think the story would go there. It feels more like we're reclaiming the footsteps of the person we were as Azem. But also who the fuck knows about Azem? We don't even know their ancient name and they were us. So maybe at the end of this road, that question would still be posed.

[yyymmmrrr]

it was my first time ever drawing on a tablet with a screen so i decided to not draw anything difficult. that being said, here's my daughter Meteion

[meowww-ffxiv]

Alisaie also really liked Meowdred because whenever he opened his mouth, he made her somewhat unkind thoughts sound much better in comparison.

He wasn't anyone's anger translator but he sure was the Anger Amplifier.

Meowdred: How 'bout we kill those guys.

Everyone: No Mister Meow.

Meowdred: OK, OK, but if we change our minds--