a thing I enjoy about FFXIV is that you can be running around in the overworld and come across Ser-Galadieux Brightblade dutifully making his way through the MSQ in his plate armor and his paladin heraldry and then fly 20 feet and run into Avocado Toast in a bikini with a frog head pickaxeing a rock

"Scion Fatigue" is so inherently funny as a concept that I think it should be applied to other fandoms. Like damn when is Kirk gonna separate from the crew of the Enterprise, I'm so tired of them shoving Spock and Bones and Uhura in our face all the time. Get a new crew and new stories already!

thancred and estinien would make for the most terrifying beach volleyball duo ever because they are two men capable of feats of altogether ludicrous gymnastic athleticism while possessing absolutely no concept of self-preservation send tweet

In stories I've written, he's forged a new axe for Marcel and known instantly that its name was "Strong", and he made a bow for G'raha and knew that its name was "Inspiration".

It's one of those things that's fun to think about, that if Niko was forging a weapon for someone, what name it'd have!

And so when Niko smiths and makes weapons for people, he brings that philosophy to his work and will not consider a weapon finished unless he's able to look at it and "know" what it ought to be named, or to show it to whom it's intended for and have them name it something he perceives as "correct".

It's nebulously along the same lines as like, if you're going to make a weapon, you need to do it with respect for the thing that you create, the potential it will have to take lives, the history and identity it will carry with it throughout its existence, and thus acknowledge its "name" / identity.

The keystone aspect of their education revolved around the Ananta concept that the things that you make must embody beauty in some fashion, which is not just "make thing pretty" but more like this except about smithing:

Without getting into ten thousand years of very niche shared headcanon, Summer and Niko were trained in their respective metallurgy crafts (GSM and BSM, respectively) by a group of Ananta they used to visit while they were growing up in Gyr Abania, specifically one they simply refer to as Boss.

Thinking about this tonight because I was rereading my headcanon about Niko and Ananta Weaponsmithing Lore, which in a nutshell is that every weapon forged already "has" a true name and it's really just on the smith or its intended user to figure out what that true name is. 🧵

A #wolqotd because it's one I also want to answer tangentially for myself:

Has your WOL given their weapon a name that isn't just the in-game Eorzea Database one? Which weapon and what name? What was their reasoning for choosing it and/or how did the weapon come to have that name?

and an obligatory thancred version, because i know what i'm about

making my triumphant return to bluesky with a g'raha tia shitpost

"So then the most powerful sorceror in all of creation pulls out a gun"

"A TEST OF YOUR REFLEXES!" (runs out of GP)

i dispute this only because i feel zenos would not meld doh/dol materia onto his crafting and gathering gear

alter this to "wastes 600 Savage Aim XI pentamelding his gathering gloves" and i would buy it 100%

Thank you, Squeenix, for teaching me that I'm not competent enough to do even your basic content. Feels great. I'll remember that.

Variant dungeons were literally my favorite piece of content in Endwalker and I can't believe that now not only can I not beat the normal mode, but I won't even get a mount for doing it! Because "go do the even harder mode"! Why would I when I can't even do the basic one?

Guess what! This isn't inspiring me to work harder or get better. How much harder am I supposed to work when I tried for 90 minutes straight but apparently one mistake can still ruin all my effort? The only message I'm taking from this is "fuck you, actually, you're too stupid to do this".

I realize this is just me being frustrated and annoyed but I'm honestly so fucking tired of Dawntrail and its "git gud casuals" mentality when I have literally never failed a lockout of the final boss of a variant dungeon before, yet apparently this too is now going to be content Not For Me anymore!

bringing this back in anticipation of the new #ffxiv variant dungeon tomorrow. WHERE WILL Y'SHTOLA'S SISTER FALL.

That just means it's wyrm-inclusive!

Tinder(box)

Summer, a redheaded catgirl, looks askance where she stands in Ultima Thule. She wears a black and white shirt with a red necktie, red hair ribbons with pink and purple feathered ornaments, and carries the beaded wooden staff of a black mage on her back.

girl pretty

it's so funny to me when people experience consequences for their actions and then are like "it's so disappointing to experience the consequences of my actions. i'm really uncomfortable with the fact that the things i do have consequences? it's very upsetting that people can't just agree i'm right."

Bonus Round: selfies forwarded to both Marcel and Thancred, the former to establish how much cake Summer will be getting from him this Valentione's Day, and the latter so that Marcel will remember the Ul'dahn Rolanberry Incident and threaten to stab him with a fork until he also makes Summer a cake.

POV: You are Koana and your dork-ass boyfriend is trying to send you signals about how he wants to spend Valentione's Day with you. (You are perplexed and mildly concerned by his apparent newfound fascination with fruit.)

Summer is trying real hard to get into Archon school and neither of the cats in her life is helping.

sir. sir please. come back sir. sir, i was dpsing those...

i feel like there's a corollary to "you pull you tank" and it's "if you, the tank, insist on collecting up all the mobs but then move them four literal separate times because it's not really a wall pull until you've mashed yourself facefirst into the barrier, then you can DPS them until i get there"

yeah it's absolutely emet/wol for this one because no one could possibly comprehend how desperately i keep trying to get summer into a narrative position to fuck that old man and it KEEPS NOT HAPPENING the aesthetic is so GOOD and the themes are so CHOICE and it KEEPS. NOT. HAPPENING.