FFXIV: Girls’ Night Out (AKA. Fun with the Bun)
Posted on August 12, 2025 by Aywren
One important update that FFXIV Patch 7.3 brought was the ability for Viera and Hrothgar to wear a fairly wide variety of hats. For those who have been playing Buns for quite a while, this was something years in the waiting.
My History With Buns
I’ve dabbled with both Buns and Hroth over the years. Back during Blaugust of 2022, I wrote about creating a Bun alt that served to represent a character more like myself. This was Fljot Radljost, and her overall design became the Bun character that I used going forward.
I eventually renamed her Aywren Sojourner somewhere down the line. And then, when I decided I wanted my main to use my name again, my Bun became main. However, as Dawntrail came upon us last year, and FFXIV began showering us with free fantasias due to character graphics changes, I started to doubt my choice in races.
As much as I really, really loved my Bun’s look, she could not wear hats. With a new Red Mage outfit releasing for the expansion (and Red Mages being known for their glorious hats), that bothered me. I decided to fantasia her to Elezen (which I often use, too), and left the Bun life behind.
That was, until Patch 7.3 tempted me once again with the gift of hats for Buns – the main reason I’d moved away from the race. By now, I’ve already changed my main (yes again) to be one of my RP characters, so I repurposed one of my Mateus alts to become Fljot Radljost again.
This particular alt has been through the wringer when it comes to identities. She’s been around for a very long time, and has so many miscellaneous unlocked jobs from so many failed RP character starts. Anytime I want to repurpose an alt to be something on Mateus, this is usually the character slot that gets picked on.
It happened again, but this time, I decided I wanted to experiment with Pictomancer.
This character has also perpetually been at the start of Shadowbringers for many years. I likely used a boost to get her there and just haven’t had the motivation to make progress. I did unlock and level Reaper on this character last expansion in order to have a job high enough level to unlock Picto.
The goal had been to use this character as a Picto, but once Dawntrail released, I lost a lot of motivation. Picto seemed a bit tricky and unintuitive from the start, rather than fun and whimsical as I was hoping. I just didn’t move forward with the original character concept, and left the character slot to Shadowbringers purgatory for yet another expansion.
Or so I thought.
Rerolling Fljot to this character slot and forcing myself to pick up Picto to give it a learning chance has really revitalized not just this character but my FFXIV experience the past weekend. I started to remember why I enjoyed Shadowbringers (though I’m still just speed running it at this point as this is my 6th time through), and after watching a couple of guides on Picto, I had a better grasp on what to do with the job.
In fact, I finished up the Lakeland zone – where this character has been stalled for years – and went through to finish up Il Mheg as well. Unexpectedly. Syn helped me through Titania (which is far easier than I remembered), and even on an unfamiliar job with mid gear, Picto performed well during a trial I haven’t run in years and hardly remembered.
All this bodes well, and I expect to continue making steady progress on Fljot. I have some glam ideas for her, too!
A Return to Zuri
I noted in my 7.3 patch overview that I was also considering working on moving some of my alts through Dawntrail again. I currently have four alts who are level 90, geared up, and are sitting at the start of Dawntrail. It’s just my motivation that’s been lacking.
Of the four, Zuri is the one I’ve chosen to make progress on, mostly because I adore how the Dancer AF gear looks on her, so I want it as glam. I also think at this point, my confidence in playing harder content in FFXIV has increased ever so slightly. I find myself looking back on older content and judging it as so much easier than I used to simply because the newest fights in Dawntrail have really pushed me out of my comfort zone.
The fact that almost all of Dawntrail can be done with Trusts is a big perk, too.
While I really shouldn’t be trying to progress Zuri while progressing Fljot, I’m taking Zuri a bit more slowly. I’ll clean up a bit of MSQ at a time and put it to the side. I’m trying not to let Zuri hit a dungeon or fight and fizzle out, however. That seems to be a habit of mine, where I’ll put the game down because there’s a dungeon blocking my progress and I just don’t feel like dealing with it.
Everything Else
All this is also in conjunction with my regular play. Tad is my current main, and I’ve been practicing White Mage during Alliance raid with Syn’s help again. I’m also trying to learn the two dungeons for Expert Roulette because I want to gear Tad up in this patch cycle.
Meanwhile, both Tad and Amon are back to daily Frontlines PVP for series rewards. Also, for leveling. Tad only has a handful of jobs left to level to 100, and Frontlines is a main XP maker for me.
Aside from that, I’m doing daily map gathers for as long as the new maps remain worth gathering to sell. I’m also continuing daily crafting turn-ins for Tad because despite him being my main, he has less gil than a number of my alts!
Anyhow, I’ve been quite a bit in FFXIV since patch 7.3. I’m happy to have something to work on, for as long as I feel motivated to make progress. It would be really nice to get the Fljot character slot through Shadowbringers as that would only leave one more alt on Mateus that far back in the MSQ.
As I always say, we’ll see what happens!