#astrolevitation

1. Someone they fear

There is something about the ability to pierce the mind that makes Liam uncomfortable Kowa wasn't the only one who had done it to him, but she was most successful. The fact that Kowa had not only used compulsion on him but also forced pain onto him through the grinding of his bones and tossed him so effortlessly into the water made him realize that, in his current condition, Kowa could have killed him without needing to lift a finger. It was only due to Lucetta that Liam was granted any reprieve -- and seeing her in full dragoon regalia ready to answer to Kowa's every beck and whim was secretly very sobering. It was not fear in a panicking sense, but it made Liam realize how truly powerless he was.

3. Someone they Miss

both tbh

I can’t understate how utterly opaque and incomprehensible this storyline is to anyone who hasn’t played those games. it really well and truly exists solely for people who have played these games--games that are not final fantasy games, games that tonally & aesthetically do not look or feel like FF games. it’s like they copy & pasted something entirely different onto XIV-world. it does not fit it at all and doesn’t even try. i straight up skipped all the cutscenes the last time, and the only other instance where i’ve done that in this game is with werlyt bc the descriptions I heard were triggering

the raids themselves are a nightmare from an accessibility standpoint. I can count on one hand the times I’ve run them, quite literally, and that’s combining the first and second raids. together i have run them less than 5 times. I have depth perception issues and boss fights in the first one were triggering my vertigo and overstimulating me, i haven’t even unlocked the last one yet because I heard it’s murder on folks with similar issues even worse than the first 2

it also doesn’t help that the last time I talked about this I got a bunch of nier stans getting super defensive and jumping on me for it bc how dare I esp. as an Ivalice diehard hate on it (never mind that Ivalice is an actual legit FF setting and that XIV had a ton of Ivalice connections even before RTI came out and a bunch of the XII devs specifically work on XIV, including Matsuno himself)

🌷 “No one’s ever done anything like make a meal for me, specifically, unless it’s their obligation to. It was... a significant gesture in my eyes. I appreciate the care of such a thing.”

🌹 “Is it backhanded if I say that I wish I could wear my turmoil on my sleeve like you do? How palpable it is, how easily you convey it? I wish I could be that kind to everyone. I keep trying to dress it up and tell them in a pretty way and it just leads to things stinging all the more. I see you sad, but I see you relieved in the suns after, too.”

Jaaster, for Esen: “Huh. When I said we should go hunting again, I didn’t think it’d be in the city. Feels right, though.”

I had to think about this one because there’s miles of difference between what I originally intended for the characters versus what has actually shaken out in rp…

Lux thinks her default and most desired base state is to be left alone with nothing. So her form of jealousy manifests when she thinks she’s about to lose something she wants (someone’s attention, some title or role) and often results in “I’m the one who left you / you’re not the one who left me” & “You can’t fire me / I quit” maneuvers.

Privately, she likes doing the opposite - vying for attention and playfully swaggering for rank (she told a friend once that she gets off on jealousy like any thaumaturge who ever looked at the stars and was struck by the desire to take them in hand) - but it takes an immense amount of trust in the other person for her to actually try to hold onto what she has instead of simply letting go.

I intended for her to be more of an obvious gold-digger who was covetous of other people’s wealth - a dragon hoarding obsessively for the Order - but I actually don’t often play her alongside characters who actually have wealth so I haven’t gotten to express this side of her often ldkhgs

Word prompts!

The request will come via a nervous knock on Kowa’s door at the Free Company, not a message on the linkpearl. It’s late, the evening staff quietly attending their business - there’s no one in the hall. Rain drips off of the wide brim of Adi’s hat, running in frantic rivulets down his shoulders and the leather tatters of his coat. His usually-slouching posture is bent as an old man’s, and he leans heavily on his staff. The sharp smell of blood is mixed with something rotten and vegetal. The most immediate source of the smell is the blood trickling from his nose, smudged across his pallid gray-blue face and his sleeve. Both his eyes are glowing white with aethersight. Adi casts ghostly, moving shadows on the polished floor of the hallway. Those strange shadows might make the injuries hard to see: faint, black, rootlike structures all over his skin, spidery-fine.

“Director,” he wheezes and launches a hacking, bloody cough suddenly into his sleeve. “There’s someone--” He braces the doorframe, but it isn’t enough to hold him up. His legs give out, he crumples in a faint.

{Esen wins! Mainly because x a e l a}