thanks for the answers! honestly looking around the "balmung is necessary" consensus seems well-earned, most of the interesting characters or plots i've seen have been balmung... it seems i might have to make an investment after all. hopefully pre-planning and buildup here will suffice until the paycheck hits and i can justify it haha.
it's such a relief to hear about the accepting community -- all my time in ffxiv i've only really interacted with my close friends, and the sparingly few times i've met a friend of a friend, they've been major bigots lmao. turns out the same person brought all the bad eggs in, but it still had me nervous to enter a totally new community! (and while i have nothing against those whose characters are pants-focused, i won't have to worry about that myself, so i'm not concerned)
it's such a relief to hear about the accepting community -- all my time in ffxiv i've only really interacted with my close friends, and the sparingly few times i've met a friend of a friend, they've been major bigots lmao. turns out the same person brought all the bad eggs in, but it still had me nervous to enter a totally new community! (and while i have nothing against those whose characters are pants-focused, i won't have to worry about that myself, so i'm not concerned)
![[Image: 2q3axb6.png]](http://i67.tinypic.com/2q3axb6.png)
     imayosh | Mercury Sanguinaire
