Child of Woad

5/8

"Another downfall we will survive together"

"I hope he doesn't blame me"

"This is my fault"

"Am I allowed to be worried about them?"

5/15 part 1, Thavnair

"I trust you. But do not throw yourself to the monsters in my absence, alright? We are partners."

No commentary just Estinien looking cool.

I 100% thought they were going to kill this baby in front of our eyes.

Soul tie canon? Because there is no way for WoL to know in game that Estinien helped them.

Post battle debrief with alcohol

5/15 part 2, Elpis

So happy they let us see Ryne! Also Elidibus it sure sounds like you are cursing WoL instead of Hydaelyn bro.

Mood WoL, that was also my reaction to seeing actually attractive Emet-Selch

As a zone I love Elpis!! It is so freaking pretty. Reminds me of the first time stepping into ARR.

Emet-Selch x WoL shippers...I see you.

Yay! Another daughter for me to adopt! I sure hope she doesn't turn evil! (if you've been keeping up with my blog you've seen my theories about Meteion). I actually adore her though

I also like Hermes. Autistic king.

5/20

Nice moment to acknowledge WoL's pain and loss.

Dumb, dumber, and dumbest over here. At least WoL pulled a weapon.

This was a real shock! I guess I should've assumed. I didn't expect her to be so much of a chaotic good trickster.

"So, I am not sure how to say one of you is going to sacrifice yourself to create a dark god, one of you will become a megalomaniacal emperor of death who serves that dark god, and the third one is going to become a goddess to oppose the other two. Also your world is going to end...sorry for saying anything."

They do such a good job of writing Venat. You can totally see the beginnings of Hydaelyn and how they make her even more inhuman looking than anyone else in Elpis. Also just like...AH feelings. A warrior of light standing face to face with the goddess she has sworn herself to, who has helped her sunder the monsters of the world. And here they stand as equals on a quest to save the world. I can't help but imagine what Nadya would want to ask her despite knowing she isn't aware of the future. "Are you proud of me? Have I done enough? Am I worthy?"

4/7

Starting immediately with some heartbreaking dialogue! Urianger has grown on me a lot. I am glad they kind of pointed out the fact he hasn't had much solo time with WOL despite clearly admiring them. This day was super short (mostly because I was meant to be packing LMAO)

4/26

Was so excited to get the Elpis tease

#wolpleasegotosleep The next section I replayed to get all the interactions so I'll only include my favs

Lil bro Alphinaud being worried about WoL. Cute!

Is this the scene all me WoLxEstinien homies were preparing me for? If so, amazing! Especially after seeing all the other scenes, this one is wild in how explicit it is. I think I may go back to primarily shipping these two. HOWEVER

G'raha Tia is almost as endearing. I kind of wish they hadn't "aged him down" as much, as it were. He is fairly consistent with his Crystarium version, and I think portraying his anxiety is great, but he is just a little bit too unsure of himself for someone who led a nation for a century. But maybe I am thinking on it too much and it is just a way to show he is excited and isn't sure if he is supposed to defer to the senior scions?

I am glad somebody has brought the body thing back up!!! Seriously Sqenix, I feel like that should've been treated as both way more violating and way more of a concern than it has been!

In my mind this confirms that Sadu is for the girls.

It has been two weeks, but I do not remember struggling too bad with the Tower of Babil. I liked that it was another unqiue dungeon style with the vertical portions.

I appreciate the consistency that Estinien is straight up OP. Not quite WoL level, but way way above the rest of the scions.

I do love the development that the scions now care about sending WoL to their death alone. That used to be like a tuesday for them.

Nadya aura farming. The lighting here was so good, 100% will return to gpose at some point.

YES MY FAV we love you Hythlodaeus. Also I hope we don't find out Azem was terrible cause I really want to get a tattoo of their soul crystal.

This shit was crazy to me. Like the Lightwarden, it does make me want to imagine a WoL as Zodiark AU. I cannot believe Zenos really is so insane that he destroyed the empire to be able to release Zodiark for WoL to consume, even knowing they would probably say no. Also that he really thought they would be able to control Zodiark, who is essentially a god.

WoL utilizing the power of Azem will never not be the coolest shit ever.

I died twice here. Felt so bad for our healers. I was really struggling with the platform rotation.

Fuck you Fandaniel I wish we could've killed you ourselves. Good riddance.

"I'm going to kill this man the moment I am able to"

"Thank you for finding us. You better get the twins out of this."

Happy they are continuing the theme of Estinien adopting the twins. As contrast, holy fuck I did not expect them to show almost all of that scene. Little triggering but well written and made sense for the character.

"Yes, a moment of peace after all of this heartbreak. The heart of Ala Mhigo and the comfort of Ishgard even though it lies malms away."

"Does evil truly never rest?!"

So, I do think this sequence is incredible as a plot point and adds a lot to the story. It did cause me a bit of distress. TO ME IN MY OPINION it had S/A undertones. A lot of the Zenos stuff to me comes off as implying sexual themes through the hunting and appetite stuff. I actually think it is somewhat powerful to show that even someone like WOL experiences that, but it definitely was uncomfortable. It is also objectively body horror, which is a subject I'm very interested in because it really can allow the exploration of so many different things. Keeping that interpretation in mind, I am going to give Nadya's thoughts here, so WARNING if you think that might upset you.

"What the fuck have you done to me?!"

"i am not a monster. I am NOT a monster. I AM NOT LIKE YOU. Please. I did not ask for this"

"...What are you doing? What are you doing?! Stay away from my body!"

This scene was so fucking heart breaking. WoL dragging their broken unfamiliar body all the way back home to try and save the people they love. Not even worried about recovering their own body, except for the concern about what someone in their guise could do.

I was genuinely freaking out thinking they were going to kill one of the scions with WoL's body.

I wish I knew how to make gifs because I would want WoL throwing the sword so bad. For Nadya, I think she was 100% prepared to kill her true body and to die here to stop Zenos and Fandaniel.

Teehee this was a fun scene with some of my favorite characters. I'm very happy Estinien has finally joined the scions so we can see more of him interacting with other NPCs, which solidifies how differently he treats WoL.

All the boys see Nadya go running at nothing and still follow her. Loyalty.

Bad time to admit that I didn't remember who Amon was at all? I'm still struggling to understand the whole sundered Ascian thing. Also no freaking idea if we were supposed to know who the noble was but that's pretty fucked up.

I thought the Varshahn/Vrtra reveal was great!

Tower of Zot was pretty good! First dungeon I've done in a bit with no deaths. I didn't totally understand some of the mechanics but thats the joy of playing on support.

G'raha the GOAT! Him and Alisaie may be my fav scions at this point. I just love the way they write Alisaie's dialogue.

I will be reading this as jealousy on Estinien's part. Sorry

This was so stinking cute!!! It is so amazing how they've shifted the scions treatment of WoL to be something actually close to found-family rather than "friend group utilizes outsider who is the tool they need"

Okay not actually Endwalker related but I did the level 50 quest for botanist so yay!

I did not recognize who the narrator is supposed to be, but he was dropping some bars

"Thanks for letting me sleep and keeping an eye on the twins. I think the two of us can appreciate the need for a little rest more than anyone else"

For sure thought this was going to be like Elidibus where it was Venat herself, but it seems it is just Hydaelyn. I'm guessing she's going to be our ghost for the whole expansion like Ardbert

"psst what is the game plan if they don't let us in?"

Finished right before the quest split because it was already 3am. I think I am going to go Thavnair first! Very excited.

Gotta love these two dorks

Yeah it's super subtle that you guys like each other. Nobody could possibly guess. (I ship my WoL with everybody sorry guys)

Same here. Although i started working on a backup webpage of the blog after the *incident* and I think I have really hammered out Nadya's canonical relationships.

Gosh I cannot say enough how much I despise any of the upper level dragoon sets. Its so ugly. They get easily the best Lvl 50 job set and then it just gets stupid from there.

I straight up hope this dude dies in Endwalker

Are these two a thing now? I'm not totally mad at it (although the fact Fordola gets to just walk around free after being a murderer and hand of the empire is wild) I am very glad that my boy Arenvald didn't die though!

hell yeah! I love how much "all scions on the battlefield" content they gave us. HOWEVER I hated this battle. If you don't play a caster you are absolutely screwed. Playing astrologian for Urianger was actual torture.

I am assuming this is Venat. Very interesting that we are suddenly getting a manifestation of Hydaelyn after it was explicitly pointed out that we haven't heard from her in a hot minute.

Shoutout Estinien for being the only one that noticed that WoL didn't follow them.

I think this is going to be the new blog background through Endwalker because it is super pretty.

Bonus Content:

So let's get into it!

Urianger trying to walk on water rather than learning how to swim was funny enough, Y'shtola letting him do that while staring at the boat beside the dock had me rolling. Then cute little trio date to chill out.

Anamnesis Anyder was very fun for the first pull. I love that you can really feel Square Enix in their stride with dungeon creativity this expansion. I thought the mobs coming to us was so cool! Unfortunately this was followed by me slamming my head into a wall repeatedly for Boss 2, Kyklops. On my life I have no idea what I was doing wrong. I would be clearly on the right tile and still die to the Terrible Hammer/Blade mechanic. I am not good at dungeons so I normally don't get too frustrated. But I was genuinely to the point where I had to take a break. I ran it with Ryne, Thancred, and Urianger.

I am really interested to see who Venat is, because I assume we will be seeing them again. Ironically I saw a post right before playing comparing them and Emet-Selch and went "Who is that??"

It is tough choice between Elidibus and Asahi for character I think Nadya had the most intrinsic desire to kill. Puppeteering the body of her soulmate while hurting one of the people she truly cares about? I think it would've been great if WoL was given an option to impulsively attack him here, even if it didn't do anything.

Also you are going to see these earrings forever now because I love them, they fit my girl so well. Early iteration of an RP idea I had for her was a half-elezen, but that was before we met Hilda who basically had the exact story I was thinking of haha. So these earrings are a fun nod.

"I don't give a fuck about your tragic backstory get your ass back here"

This was a fun fight, but its the only instance I've ever had a timer warning for.

So obviously I knew about the 14th bc I hang out here with you lovely folks (and I choose to do that knowing there could be spoilers!) but I am pretty blind to who exactly Azem was so I was PSYCHED for this scene. Also I hope we get a lot of Hythlodaeus in the next expansion, they are such an intriguing sweet character.

Heroes' Gauntlet was fine? I don't remember like anything from this. I do love when we get NPC cameos in dungeons though. I ran it with Ryne, Thancred, and Alphinaud.

Badass fucking moment. I do kind of hope Ardbert continues to be a voice we hear in battle.

This was a great send off for Hades...which is why I am very curious about seeing him get mentioned as appearing in Endwalker.

I was admittedly struggling to understand this. Is the implication that this Elidibus was a child or at least very young when he replaced the original emissary? He's got the deep Ascian voice but they made his model look very small and act childlike. I hate him but I did tear up a little here. As a history major, I get really emotional about the ideas of memory and responsibility for keeping memories alive.

Also I already made a post about this trial. I did not approach it the way I should have which @wildfyrevalkyrie rightfully pointed out. In the end it was a well designed duty and the story was great! I just need to be more patient and remember that the goal of an MMO is to have fun together.

Between these two and Ryne I cried my way through this quest. Again, memory makes me emotional!

"Look at these dorks, I can't believe we are responsible for saving the star."

G'raha Tia try not to be in love with WoL challenge failed.

I'll end it there because this is super long and I think I'm going to max out the photos haha. Like I said this took me an age but I loved the story wrap up here. I love when we get to work with the whole Scion crew, and I already love Scion G'raha (I think he has about as much anxiety as I do!) I think this whole expansion has given me way more of an idea about who Nadya is, and I'm sure a lot of people found their WoL here. I was so inspired to get creative here. I have been writing and learning Gpose and talking to other folks more than ever before.

I'd also like to say thank you to the community for welcoming me! I know I posted before this on my old account, but I barely interacted with the actual community on there. I feel like I am actually make friends now and it makes such a difference for enjoying the game. I love critically engaging and questioning my interpretations (crazy to think that at one point I thought Square was only making the scions treat WoL poorly because they were bad at writing!). I've spent four years and some of my darkest hours with this game, and now also some of my brightest moments. I have no idea why this section made me so sappy but I felt like a thank you was in order.

I like that the #numberoneyearner is talking about getting people home safe (which doesn't apply to WoL because she can already go between worlds) but makes DIRECT eye contact with her while saying so. You are not subtle buddy.

WoL has NEVER looked more ready to commit a murder OMGosh.

"I thought you were supposed to be good at this"

YES this was so good. I mean genuinely great writing, but also personally felt so much like how I imagine Nadya would react. I LOVE how genuinely anguished they make WoL during this. Puppeteering the corpse of their actual soulmate.

"Oh hello my fellow 'soul entwined by fate' very chill and cool to see you"

One thing I was interested by is that before you jump to Estinien's perspective, he says "Are you alright?!" but they don't put a quote bubble for it. I wonder if maybe that isn't included in other translations?

I also finally completed the Dragoon quests. I think it is a little stupid that they are ending these in favor of the role quests or whatever. IDK I normally don't ever skip dialogue or cutscenes, but I was so annoyed by having to interrupt my flow of MSQ that I admittedly did skip as much of that as possible for the quest line.