[Coldsaturn]

The roadmap in this thread still holds, we finish MOF to get into Xavier's spicy 5-star card. 
I will skip it just like caleb's birthday (which will come next) because I need to gather as many diamonds as I can for raf's new myths and the summer banners, so I'll be enjoying this on youtube soon as someone posts it, but you might want it, idk 

[ChicletPrime]

wow. um... phew. okay. when you said some of the 5* cards were spicy, you might have been underselling it JUST A TAD. and i am NOT used to looking at Xavier that way, holy crap.

/peeks at it again, wow wow wow

i'll be honest - if its a 5* in his dominant color, I'm probably going to want it, I have nothing for him or Zayne at all in their correct colors although i know, i KNOW i should practice patience. i should hold off for the myth(s). chiclet, hold off for the myths, you are not made of THAT much money and apparently the diamond situation is quite dire the farther you go.

[Coldsaturn]

You said you wanted for these cards and bond moments to hit exactly as they were intended to hit, so I'm not telling you ANYTHING :D
But yes, Xav has a reputation for being...interesting in bed. He plays the sleepy sweet guy and then pulls a 180 on you.
And this is actually tame compared to other contents in the game :DD

I'm still not finding a proper info on the color of the card. We'll know in a couple of days I guess.

P.S. I've found a good strategy to manage FOMO is to actually wait a bit when the event starts and watch the entire memoria on youtube. At that point I'll know if I feel satisfied with just that or if, even after watching it, I crave it desperately in my own game.

[Coldsaturn]

Ok I've watched the new card on youtube.
It's purple, DEF.
Way less spicy than I thought, that's all shown in the trailer already, literally nothing else added on that side, which is sad because Xav is capable of so much more than that. I guess it makes sense since it's set at the beginning of their romantic relationship. Lore-wise it follows Xav's main story branch Voyage of the Outcast and has some nice, very nice info in there setting up his next myth and main story plot line.

So I would say: important to watch on youtube, pull for it if you really need a purple def card for him

[ChicletPrime]

Thank you for your detective work, Captain ColdSaturn! I do not need a purple DEF for Xavier, I need his dominant colors first and foremost so I'm holding out for that, or anything for Sylus or Caleb for the same reason.

Would I be safe to watch the full thing now, or should I wait because of spoilers? I have done Voyage of the Outcast and read the Anecdote for when girlfriend was on Philos itself, so if those timelines are all that's covered, I should be good to go.

I have 19k diamonds right now, 5 golden tickets, maybe 10 blue tickets. The Xavier card asks for the golden tickets and says I have something like 37 pulls to earn my guaranteed five stars. My regular pool that takes the blue tickets is at 10 remaining pulls for 5 star so I've stopped there so hopefully (if i'm doing this right) I can use it on an event/banner thingie to maximize my gain while minimizing my committment.

[Coldsaturn]

There shouldn't be anything you can't watch now with the info you already have. Of course this is a card that is coming up now so it kinda takes for granted that players have had access to all the lore currently out. If you watch it after you read all the texts and watch the myths you will certainly have much more knowledge of what is being implied between the lines. If you watch it now you have enough info to put explicit things in context, and the rest will become clear in hindsight in the near future.
Still, if you want to be 100% sure there's nothing spoilerish in there, I can watch it again tomorrow morning (it should be while you sleep considering time zones) and get back to you with confirmation.

Limited pool and regular pool are separated. Solo banners, multi banners, and myths all go in the limited pool, whereas what is now xspace echo (regular pool) gets a new banner every once in a long while. I'm still gathering info but it seems like they used it to introduce the new companions (sylus then caleb), but for the rest it stays xspace. Still, so long as you're not in dire need of new cards and can get by with galaxy Explorer, keeping that pool close to a 5 star is not a bad idea.

[ChicletPrime]

too late, i figured if you didn't notice anything in your watch that i definitely shouldn't know yet, it would have stuck out like a sore thumb.

so i watched it on the way home after work! there were some very minor spoilers but nothing I hadn't mostly figured out and the one thing that was a little surprise (that Isiah had defected from Ever along with intel) wasn't a big thing overall. It definitely had a stronger dynamic with Xavier than I'm personally used to it, but overall that was a great read. I really enjoyed that girlfriend was holding Xavier to a higher standard than so far has happened in the main story, about the withholding of truth and lies of omission. even that she pointed out that when he said she could ask him anything, she wasn't going to because he will have rehearsed his answers. that was a lovely little knife twist.

i would have gone a little angstier at times, but that's just who i am. as a survivor of the world at large, nothing really comes without a bedrock of pain and hurt, no matter how sweet the result. when Xavier says "If you leave and my fever comes back in the middle of the night... what if I die? Will anyone notice?", i'd've played that HARD into what is likely a very real and bitter fear.

Xavier is doomed to just fall into stardust, under conditions that haven't yet been reached or that we don't fully understand. instead girlfriend kind of laughs it off as him pulling a Rafayel pout-stunt, which is fine as far it goes and maybe at this point in the story she doesn't have those dots connected, but I would have gone (as a writer) for just a little pathos right there and a little more underscoring.

Also that the choke collar on his neck causes him to conk out so often was so obvious, I don't know why I never actually put that together. I thought it was just for control, but apparently that control is "stop spending your evol/energy so frivolously, there is no energy bank to tap into anymore you idiot, you're going to have to replace this naturally so time to sleep, sweet prince, before you drain yourself to death!" Which implies that Xavier is constantly walking along the edge of a graveyard, considering how often he sways on his feet or is simply asleep when we look for him. I guess we could even go further and say that the longer he's disconnected from Philos proper, the smaller his personal reserve gets, shrinking and constricting, until he finally reaches a point where there's not enough to sustain any life at all and that, I suppose, is the poof-point.

I make light of it like the girlfriend did, but holy cow, that would be horrifying. In your last act, you save the girl, but expend so much to do it that all you have time for is a single smile.

Also also, the design on the loungewear looks like a man praying. tin foil hat? you decide!

Also also also, the slight flush on his cheeks is totes perfect.

[Coldsaturn]

Isiah defecting was a spoiler for all of us, it's literally the new lore drop of this card! Can't remember now if you knew that Isiah was working with them to begin with though. But congrats, I think this is the first time you learn something together with the fandom! ;_;
Since it was a LI-specific card, you get the fully unadulterated version of their dynamic compared to main story Xav which is slightly more neutral. So in this card they're already early romantic with each other. And yes to MC throwing in his face that he just won't tell things to her. Good for her.
Can't help but agree on the angst, too. "what if I die? Will anyone notice?" is TRAGIC for Xav considering his time-travel status where people are literally not supposed to know he exists for long (or they're going to figure out he's near immortal). But all Xav's cards tend to be more subtly sad than outright angsty.
About how much MC laughs it off rather than understand the full implications of what is being said, as of now that's part of the angst for all the LIs with more memories than she has. I think Zayne is the only one without that baggage.

Your interpretation of the collar is on the positive side, like something meant to protect him, but let's also remember when it appears. It's when the first MC he meets (school classmate) is dying and he disappears for a long while looking for a specific protocore that could save her. When he comes back with that protocore it's already too late, but he has the collar on.
And that collar has ever's logo on it and is a suppressor. Knowing ever, should we think it's a collar meant to protect him from using too much of his evol? Why should it be a problem suddenly when he was using it apparently to its full extent before that mission for the protocore? I don't have a definite answer here, I'm throwing info as I remember it.

Yes to side effects to being away from Philos.

[ChicletPrime]

If Isiah's gone crazy somehow, that might have something to do with the Tunnel although I don't see how. They have mentioned that being on long voyages inside Deepspace will fuck with your head to the point of insanity; I just don't see how Isiah would have ended up on a Fleet ship, but it's not like I am up on anything other than he's a former crewmate of Xavier's who fell in with the first crew for whatever reason.

I am speculating that Xavier just didn't tell anybody what his real plan was until they got there and he couldn't hide it anymore?

I need to go back and read that Anecdote about how they met on Philos - I've obviously misplaced some detail because I don't remember that he had the collar at the end at all. E for Ever(lasting!)

[Coldsaturn]

Put a pin on how Isaiah is acting, how it seems to be affecting his personality and memories (Jer mentions explicitly that he's lost memories).

"It's Xavier. He's running. To me. He stops in front of me. It is only then that I notice the wounds on his hands and face. Catching his breath, he holds out his hand, showing me a small, glowing Protocore. This is the first time he's looked at me with desperation in his eyes. When he moves closer, I notice a ring of light around his neck. It's a striking, suffocating red.
"...Did you exchange your freedom for this?""