#yok huy

[vulpinmusings]

"Average Yok Huy stands four Elezen tall" factoid untrue. Average Yok Huy stands only two Elezen tall. Gurfurlur, who leads the Yok Huy as High Luminary and stands half a malm tall, is a statistical outlier adn should not have been counted.

[mythriteshah]

Pg. 2 - Blessing of Moonlit Snow

MODEL: Isja "Coldgaze"

Lording over Urqopacha’s chilly peaks is the great mountain known as Worqor Zormor, and living within this sacred Yok Huy domain are a whimsical species of ice elementals that are born only when the moon kisses the snow with its light. 

Though they come in a myriad of sizes, the largest among them - the Ryoqor Terteh - became the focus for a cozy little addition to the T.A.E.  The Blessing of Moonlit Snow is a hooded robe made with light-yet-durable materials that are well-insulated for a wintry night.

The adorable snow spirit’s features can be seen virtually all over the robe, from the periwinkle gloves and boots, to the lavender diamond patterns, to the snug fur collar and trim.  It even comes with its own set of ears for those bunny lovers in the fashion realm!

The Blessing of Moonlit Snow also comes with its own set of innerwear, but can be worn separately at the wearer’s discretion.  This robe will leave a stark statement regardless - whether it’s looking for a nice Starlight gift or braving the tundras of Ilsabard and Coerthas.  Look cute, and feel warm!

(Credit and thanks to Cluora Stefany for the creation of this masterpiece!)

[lully-jo]

Dawntrail is a perfectly enjoyable expac, too many of you just have absurd expectations.

You cannot expect the introduction of a new arc to be at the same emotional and narrative highs as the climax of the previous one. I would argue this expansion is as good as Heavensward (and Heavensward is very beloved for me).

[impossible-rat-babies]

they look like ur cool friend’s dad who wears bead bracelets + sandals 24/7

[mimiyanna]

Hear me out.

[eleventhcircle]

location discovered: indelible passage, urqopacha

[elizabethrobertajones]

my roe is sleeping in a circus tent now, thanks :(

what if we'd gotten back from Elpis and the Embiggening enchantment Emet-Selch put on us didn't go away. what if we just had to stay ancient-sized forever

[tritoch]

it took me until the pelupelu quests to really get what dawntrail is trying to go for with the moblins of earthenshire.

the first time through MSQ, the feat of pots stuff really didn't land for me. a lot of emphasis is placed on the relationship between the helphands and the potsworn in a way that ends up being pretty straightforwardly and kind of boringly about the importance of artisans, craftsmen, and other skilled laborers to civil society. after the collapse of the yok huy empire, earthenshire used to abduct potsworn under exploitative terms, gulool ja ja shows up and says "not only will hiring and caring for living workers keep people from wanting to kill you, it will also lead to the production of finer arts and crafts," the moblins agree, there is much rejoicing. in the present day, wuk lamat favors gulool ja ja's "let's all benefit from peaceful urbanization and governance" approach while bakool ja ja reverts to direct violence. it's not a bad bit of story, i guess, but it's also not much, and it's soon overshadowed by wuk lamat's abduction.

but the pelupelu society quests highlight it in a different light. it emphasizes not just the potsworn, but the fact that the moblins are facing the question of how to handle a bounty of natural resources.

the moblins of earthenshire were previously oppressed and exploited by the yok huy specifically for the natural riches of southern kozama'uka. what kinds of natural riches? well, gulool ja ja specifically calls out "the quality of the materials used" in earthenshire's goldwork, so we can guess probably gold.

another big answer is staring us right in the face, in the form of earthenshire's architecture: high-quality clay (and feldspar) for ceramics, and probably a characteristic glaze known to earthenshire's artisans. the blue-green color and "cracked" quality of the finish makes me think FFXIV's writers and designers had celadon in mind, even if the final hue is heavier on the blue and lighter on the green than the color celadon is usually associated with in english.

we are told some of earthenshire's traditional industries: underground mining, fishing, alluvial (stream-bed) mining. under the yok huy empire, moblin society was focused entirely on resource extraction. the tour guide says that without the yok huy, the moblins were bereft of both "providers and protectors," suggesting that under the yok huy the moblins were neither producing their own goods nor exercising many traditional powers of government. in many ways, they still don't!

what gulool ja ja proposed, and the moblins have enacted, is now almost an inversion of traditional metropolitan-hinterland relations. under the usual paradigm, the hinterland, resource-rich but unable to resist the interference of foreign powers, is exploited by the metropole, both in terms of its natural resources (which are extracted and shipped back to the metropole for use in the production of goods, as luxuries, etc.) and its people (who are oppressed and forced to labor in extractive industries for the benefit of the metropole). and of course as is usual in colonial relations you expect the metropole to impose itself culturally on the territories it controls. that kind of exploitative relationship between foreign powers and indigenous labor & resources is exactly what some people feared in the run-up to dawntrail (if you weren't paying attention at the time, some of the initial imagery out of shaaloani made some fans leery at the possibility that FFXIV was about to do an "old west" plotline about ceruleum extraction by eorzean powers in turali lands).

by contrast, the moblins of earthenshire control their own natural resources, and the relationship is that they take skilled labor from the metropole (tuliyollal), assimilate those artisans culturally and economically into their society, mediate their access to the natural bounty of kozama'uka, and sell their wares back to the metropole as products of earthenshire. it's all a bit hand-waved in the classic fashion of ffxiv (where are all the moblin miners?), but it's clear enough what's intended. even with the yok huy gone, the moblins have largely maintained their previous way of life, but in a way that centers and celebrates their culture and allows them both civic control and a sort of intellectual property control over the products that result ultimately from their extractive labor. it inverts the traditional "resource curse" narrative in which small, resource-rich countries are "naturally" inclined to be colonized and exploited.

it also pushes back a bit on ffxiv's usual paradigm around resource extraction and arts production. disciple of the hand quests, outside of their specific storylines, often broadly celebrate the ingenuity and labor of the individual artisan. disciple of the land quests, on the other hand, are often about the relationships between labor and the land (with an emphasis on natural stewardship and learning respectfully from local cultures about their local lands) or the importance of extractive labor to broader society.

on the subject of art, what earthenshire does is uniquely honor the role that extractive and reproductive labor play in the creative and artistic process. though the craftsmanship is certainly exceedingly fine, that's not what is truly unique about moblin society or earthenshire's wares. ffxiv is well aware that art cannot exist unless we compensate artists properly (and the existence of the cracked cistern works to complicate our picture of earthenshire along these lines). but what earthenshire truly celebrates is all the labor that goes into the creation of the art that often goes unremarked: the labor of the miner and the porter, of the cook and the launderer. that is the labor which makes each and every good made there not just a product of the individual artisan, but a product of earthenshire.

[supermarioterrarium]

I've got a pet theory for the ongoing story in FFXIV.

There are lots of little bits and pieces that alone might just be cute nods, but together make me think that FFXIV is and has been laying the groundwork for an eventual Chrono Trigger-inspired expansion or at least a more significant plot beat.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR FFXIV THROUGH DAWNTRAIL

One of the key elements is the infamous "keening from the earth" mentioned in relation to the Final Days by one of Emet-Selch's Amaurotine simulacrum Ancients. I say "infamous" because come Endwalker, it felt like a dropped detail -- Meteion didn't really fit that description, and nothing we're told about how those Final Days played out really brings it up again.

But I think another plot element is being hinted at in other places that could very well provide us with the source of that "keening".

It's a little odd that we got another Ronka-esque dungeon at the end of Tender Valley this expac, complete with its own serpent! The Yok Huy simply.. finding the ruins suggests that this ruin and the Ronkan ruins on the first share a common origin -- meaning their inspiration probably comes from before the sundering -- perhaps even from before the Ancients themselves, considering its architecture doesn't really share any similarities with structures we know the Ancients built. That period is a blind spot for everyone.

We learned about something else that existed prior to the Ancients in Endwalker's patches -- The Heart of Sabik, AKA the Black Auracite. It came from somewhere not of Etheirys -- somewhere else in the Sea of Stars -- from, or at least from the same place as, the being known as Ultima.

It's interesting, then, that when Pallas Athena manifests, her arena / realm is not only wreathed with the eye motif from the previous fight with Athena, but also with.. what seems to be the body of an unimaginably large serpent.

To rephrase the idea here, through P12S, the concept of the Serpent is connected both to the Ancients -- beings who lived and worked in places like Elpis, which shares more than a few similarities with the Kingdom of Zeal -- and with a dread being that hails from outer space.

That's what I think is "keening". A great serpent that, long before the disaster of the sundering or even before the Ancients' civilization was the dominant one on the star, burrowed its way deep beneath the crust of the planet.

That's a thought, though: what about the sundering? If this serpent existed beforehand, it would be in a similar state to the one we ultimately find Zodiark in, right? Well, before Dawntrail, we know that the star's been rejoined to its reflections seven times, meaning it's 8/14ths of the way to being "whole" again. And now in Dawntrail, we have Heritage Found, a partial "dimensional fusion" between a shard and the Source.

If this counts as a rejoining without a corresponding calamity, then perhaps in the coming expansions, Preservation will use Dimensional Fusion in their conflict with the WoL and, inadvertently, rejoin the serpent as well. Zero and Golbez's efforts to rebuild the 13th, in combination with Dimensional Fusion, could mean that a total (partial) rejoining actually becomes possible!

So, if you've played Chrono Trigger and you're convinced by all of this, why don't I just come out and call the serpent Lavos?

Well, I'm not sure if SE's going to be quite that explicit.

After all, Krile's parents were named Alayla and Robor, not Ayla and Robo. They have the good sense to obfuscate it at least a little.

[siderealcity]

More Dawntrail narrative thoughts, this time about the Golden City. Spoilers below.

There are several layers to the Golden City as a plot device in Dawntrail, and I think they're interesting enough to just unpack them all and look at them.

The first time we hear the term, it's from Hades in Endwalker:

"Tell me, have you been to the ruins beneath the waters of the Bounty? Or the treasure islands beyond the frozen waters of Blindfrost, in Othard's north? The fabled golden cities of the New World? The sacred sites of the forgotten people of the south sea isles?"

It's telling that he groups that with the sacred sites of the south sea isles. The plot later tells us that they are explicitly connected to one another, but why does it call them "citiies," plural? Where's the other one, Hades?

(Also, we haven't yet been to the treasure islands in the north, but every one of those locations in the quote above has to do with cross-rift travel. Every. One. So, that may be something we see again later.)

But apart from their lore and plot significance (and potential foreshadowing), the Golden City is, from the first time we hear of it, a lure. Bait, dangled before an explorer, enticing them to go onward. It is, for lack of a better word, a promise of things to come. In the specific case in Endwalker, it's a promise that your story isn't over yet, there's still more to come. Even though you are, at that moment, standing in front of the amassed dead of countless worlds. Death is not the end, it's the beginning of new life.

The second time we hear the term, it's from Wuk Lamat. Who is, again, using it to entice us to join her. We don't know at that point that her actual title is, in fact, Promise. And that is significant.

It is, likewise, the bait for Krile's involvement in the story. The thing she knew her grandfather had been asked to study, the secret he'd kept out of the records of the Students, the promise of a connection. To the past, to someone she loved who is now gone.

But then there's the Rite of Succession. And it changes the meaning of the plot device entirely.

The Rite is structured to follow the Tulliyolal saga--the journey Gulool Ja Ja undertook, over the course of who knows how many years, to unify the peoples of Tural into a single nation. A journey which notably has nothing to do with the Golden City. To the Turali, it's a fairy tale. It is so detached from the story of Gulool Ja Ja that Koana immediately has to ask if the city being the final goal means his father actually has some proof it exists.

The Rite itself, as Gulool Ja Ja later admits to us, is meant to be instructional for his children. They are not meant to simply find and cross the finish line, they're supposed to be learning how to be the rulers of Tural.

As we complete feats in the rite, we are awarded stories of the Golden City by each of the races in Yok Tural. And they all follow a significant pattern: The Golden City was the literal dream of the Yok Huy. The conquerers of every single people in southern Tural. The stories we are given are the stories shared by colonized people of their oppressors.

The conquest of Yok Tural is mentioned repeatedly. Every group we meet was displaced and enslaved by the giants during their empire, and the ultimate goal of that empire was to find the Golden City--a paradise of eternal life without pain or suffering. It is at this point that the Golden City becomes a warning. It is the promise of self-destruction. Searching for it ultimately toppled the Yok Huy empire and changed the giants forever. It displaced and disrupted numerous cultures and started centuries of war.

It is, ultimately, the reason why Gulool Ja Ja ever had to play the role of peacemaker and unifier in the first place. The divide-and-conquer tactics employed by the Yok Huy created every problem he set out to solve.

Why did he choose to make it the final goal of the Rite of Succession? A place he famously did not find before becoming Dawnservant? Was it, perhaps, as a lesson to his children, his Promises? Especially his son Zoraal Ja who had dreams of empire?

But interestingly, the Golden City was also set forth as the specific goal for Erenville to find by his mother. Cahciua wasn't present in the flashbacks to Galuf and Gulool Ja Ja and Kettenram viewing the gate, but we know that she met them afterward, and had Erenville with her. Was she with them the first time they'd found the gate? I have to think she was. The only people who seem to have known for sure about it, among Gulool Ja Ja's circle of friends and allies, were the explorers. The ones who would have been interested in searching for it purely for the joy of discovery.

I think it's safe to say that for Cahciua, at least at the time that she gives her son his quest, the Golden City is the Almost Impossible Dream. One that can, in fact, be found, but crucially, not alone. The Yok Huy, who searched for it for generations, and crushed everyone around them trying to get inside, had it in their possession all along. But they never even saw the gate. It took Gulool Ja Ja, who had friends to help him, who actually discovered the way in. It is the promise of discovery through love and fellowship, for her only son who was withdrawn and antisocial.

And then we actually find it.

It is not an accident that the way to reach the Golden City is through a cenotaph of lost hope. We literally pass through waters littered with the bodies of children who were never born--promises never fulfilled--to get to its gate.

And it's eating the Yok Huy ruin. The electrope spreads out from the gate like an infection, over-writing the Yok Huy stonework, erasing their culture.

And it's still... oddly beautiful? But in the way a poisonous mushroom is beautiful.

And it's closed. We don't go through it at this point, though we walk right up to the seal on the doorway. Because we're alive.

We're told by Erenville that many people have sought the Golden City, never to return. And of course they didn't.

Because this is the gateway to death.

Zoraal Ja is the first person we actually see go through it. The False Promise. Just to reinforce that this is, in fact, Zoraal Ja's role, Sareel Ja leads him to the gate and hands him the key with a speech that is wholly constructed of the same false platitudes about Zoraal Ja's magical birthright that have driven Zoraal Ja to be this self-destructive and miserable in the first place. And we can see how much the speech upsets Zoraal Ja, who just lost the contest to both his siblings. He knows every word of his inherent greatness and destiny is a lie. Sareel Ja hands him the key, and he grips it like it might be a bludgeon without even looking at it. And the second time Sareel Ja makes a "Resilient Son" speech, Zoraal Ja literally stabs him in the back.

Having skipped all the lessons and warnings about the danger of pursuing death and destruction, Zoraal Ja walks through its front door.

And I don't think it's accidental that the dome appears in Xak Tural, even though the gate itself is located in Yak T'el, far to the south. Xak Tural is the land that defeated the Yok Huy advance without a single battle. The unconquerable land. This is the part of Tulliyolal that Gulool Ja Ja didn't have to fix because it was never broken in the first place. They very notably do not live in the segregated societies the people of the south do, because nobody imposed that on them. The towns we see are a mix of races living together, and probably served as the inspiration for Gulool Ja Ja to build Tulliyolal in the first place, differing people pursuing communal and sometimes conflicting interests together. These are the people Zoraal Ja has been rambling about nonsensically, "teaching the value of peace by the misery of war." The ones who don't need Tulliyolal, but merely want to be part of it.

He can make his mark here because his father never did.

When the dome appears over Yyasulani, we, the players, know it's Zoraal Ja's passage through the gate that caused it, but the characters don't learn this until after he's brutally slaughtered people. We players see the sequence of events as: Zoraal Ja, the Promise of Death, walks into the land of death and carries it out with him. But the characters are instead following the trail of death back to the land of the dead. We don't enter Alexandria through the Golden City. Not at first. We enter it through a swathe of destruction and desolation and a storm that never ends. That's our first view of it. The promise of ruin. We do not see the paradise that led the Yok Huy to their doom until after we know that Sphene, like the Yok Huy, is willing to lay waste to the lives around her to have her Golden City.

And then we have the vision.

I don't think it's an accident that the only people who have ever seen anything come out of the gate to the Golden City are the Warrior of Light, Gulool Ja Ja, Kettenram, Galuf, and indirectly Cahciua. All characters who inherently understand that life comes from death and the balance between them is vital. And it's symbolically significant that it's a child who is delivered from the land of the dead. Her parents don't come with her. The dead don't get to return, we get new life instead.

And then we go there. And it looks like Amaurot.

We call it Living Memory, but the resemblance to Amaurot, and the knowledge of what's actually here means that we immediately understand the lie. The Golden City, the cloud, the twelfth level of Everkeep, all of it has always been a false promise. Zoraal Ja, the False Promise, walked into the land of False Promises and became its king.

And Sphene, the Queen of False Promises, has always had the impossible task of keeping the dead alive.

As we make our way through Living Memory, it's notable that what we actually do is remove the beautiful, golden veneer from the land of the dead. The city is still there when we're done with it. We walk back outside through its gate. We do not have the power to remove death any more than we could destroy despair. But we take the lie out of it, we free the stolen life force to become life again. It's now just dead. No more promises of paradise or ruin to fulfill.

[remma-demma]

Thinking about people not liking what happened at the end of dawntrail like… hmm.

Did you not remember the stuff with the Yok Huy. Nobody is gone if you remember them. The phrase that’s been with us for nearly the entire game, “For those we have lost….” Emet Selch entrusting us not only with the legacy of humanity in general but specifically with the memories of the Ancients and Elpis.

Just because people are gone doesn’t mean they aren’t still with us.

But the people of Neo-Alexandria are kept from that. They can’t remember anyone they’ve lost because their memories were stolen and locked away in an eternal purgatory, unable to move on or be reincarnated. The quest where you go to the graves in Heritage Found was a big moment where I was like. Huh. This fucking sucks actually.

The endless are just computer simulations, and they exist because Sphene can’t bear to let them go. Can’t even let her living citizens mourn or carry on legacies.

And that’s not even mentioning the fact that she needs the souls of innocent *living* people to power this all.

I think it’s a really good metaphor for the digital age, becoming disconnected from our irl communities, uploading your entire life on social media. Profiles of loved ones who have passed on. AI chat bots providing temporary comfort but no real human connection. All of that technology requiring enough energy to slowly but surely contribute to the destruction of our planet.

It all seems pretty clear to me as an allegory but like, I guess some people just didn’t make that connection? Or maybe they just don’t think about all the AI stuff in the same way I do.

[furuzan-n]

Hayattan yorulup yıldığımı duyarsanız , Doğrudur ...

Ama yıkıldığımı duyarsanız inanmayın o Dedikodudur...

Yılgınlık gelsede zaman zaman , Öyle kolay kolay yıkılmam ...

Söz konusu yaşamaksa , Pes etmek gibi bir huy yok fıtratımda ...!

[faragonart]

The Walk Begins Again.

It's been a year since we lost our dear friend to appendix cancer, so we are once again hosting a walk on Primal: Levithan in his honor, starting on Saturday the 10th at 10:00AM CST from Proof in Urqopacha (the memorial site for the Yok Huy), going through Tuliyollal, Sharlayan, Limsa, Ul'dah, Gridania, and finally ending in our Free Company house (Empyreum ward 10, plot 42), where a memorial of him stands. Please join us in our walk, or simply donate if you can.

Thank you. <3

[autumnslance]

I really appreciate Gulool Ja Ja as a ruler, a father, and a hero in his own right. There were concerns about why the Scions, as outsiders, would be participating in a contest of succession, and everything we learn about Gulool Ja Ja's younger years, and his reasons for the Rite of Succession, neatly addresses that.

As a much younger man, Dad^2 traveled the lands of Tural with his own diverse group of comrades, from all races and walks of life. From Kettenramm as the foreigner, to Cahciua the long-lived Shetona wilderness expert, to Pelupelu and Yok Huy, to Hanu and Xbraal; especially given the animosity between some of those clans at that time.

And along the way, Gulool Ja Ja learned how much stronger they were together. Alone he is a formidable champion, but even Blessed Siblings can't do it all. He also learned about the diverse peoples and cultures of his homeland. It's not so far off from the Warrior of Light's journey; traveling with competent heroic companions as we adventured through the 3 Continents and lands beyond them for so long, loving people and places we found along the way.

But Gulool Ja Ja also became Dawnservant, and now as his years catch up to him, a new ruler must be found. And it's in the conversation after dueling the WoL that he bluntly states his reasoning, speaking to them as a peer:

Even this early in the contest, you must have realized…As potential rulers, all four claimants are lacking. This is why I elected to hold the rite of succession─not to choose a fitting candidate, but to cultivate one. And if no one has impressed me by the end of it, then to no one will I yield my throne. As a parent, I pray that my children rise to the occasion…With outsiders dragged into my game, I am also hopeful that the different perspectives you and your companions have to offer will inspire them to grow. I imagine you in particular have traveled many lands. Known many peoples and cultures─loved them and been loved in turn. Guide Lamaty'i as you think best. Walk at her side and, when needed, push her to walk ahead. Watch over her, champion. Koana's recruits are no less sharp─as one might expect of Galuf's countrymen. They saw the flaws in our claimants from the outset. The other two, though… They dismiss comrades willing to point out their shortcomings, and no good can come of it…

Emphasis mine.

We see this too, in the interludes to Team Second Promise, as Thancred and Urianger turn on their own Dad Skills and gently guide Koana toward his own realization: that innovation is all well and good, but so is taking into account the traditions and needs of his people. As he watches his sister's growth, and how the people love and trust her to respect their ways of life, to help them because it's the right thing to do.

And Wuk Lamat learns and grows, gaining confidence, learning when to rely on her comrades, how and when to face a challenge on her own. The Wuk Lamat after level 96 is a different woman than the girl we met in Sharlayan. She's not done growing and learning, not in so short a time, but the cultivation Gulool Ja Ja put in place succeeds in her and Koana--because they are willing to learn, and listen, and love.

The other two claimants, as Dad^2 noted, don't understand the reasons for the Rite, for the methods the electors choose, or what the Dawnservant is looking for. And they refuse to entertain perspectives that would attempt to point that out, surrounded by sycophants and cronies.

Bakool Ja Ja doesn't learn the same lessons, though he comes around; he was never shown kindness and understanding, never asked what HE wanted, until Wuk Lamat demands he say it out loud. His growth is a surprising one, and along a trajectory he could never have imagined.

And Zarool Ja...his arc is a negative one, and a tragedy of his own making. He works as an antagonist because his fall is entirely avoidable, but utterly inevitable. It didn't have to be this way, yet there's no other way it could go. He internalized all the pressure and potential, all the comparisons, until it ate him alive.

This is a story about the complicated politics and demands of leading countries, of there being no easy answer to peace even when you wish there was. But it's more a story about family, and legacy, and honoring the past while striving to build a better future.

The Warrior of Light sees their own story reflected in Gulool Ja Ja's history, and in the shaping of Wuk Lamat. To fulfill their love of adventure and exploration, but from a new perspective. And taking all that experience and skill and applying it in a slightly different way, though perhaps not so different from some previous side and job quests where we help others and introduce them to friends so they can continue to grow and help themselves after WoL's moved on.

Hydaelyn's brave little spark has long been a beacon of hope for others to follow. As inheritor to the Shepherd of the Stars, the WoL takes steps toward shaping their legacy, still an active participant, but also seeing how those other stars might shine, and like Gulool Ja Ja, finding that some of those stars need a nudge to find their own glowing potential.

[impossible-rat-babies]

tragic thought before going to bed, but like. eyrie and estinien first kiss moment

[unionizedwizard]

by far my main criticism about dawntrail is how uncannily nice everyone and everything is. i'm the #1 slower path/smallest stakes/fun cultural discovery narrative fan, but my problem is that they didn't seem to scale the conflict sources accordingly? they literally had to drop giant monsters on top of the characters' heads TWICE to give them an opportunity to act all heroic and cool when the narrative itself had constructed a (very good and nuanced) conflict in the first place, as a way to avoid actually addressing it and magically solving everything—the hostile yok huy faction being attacked by a giant bird right before worqor zormor (so that wuk lamat could save the day), and the rroneek reaver attacking the hhetsarro tribe (so that koana could save the day and also his own conflictual feelings about his cultural heritage out of NOWHERE). this is NOT how you do storytelling especially not when the seeds for inner/interpersonal conflict were right there??

everything gets resolved nicely, the cowboy town moneylander was actually nice and you dont have to pay him back riiiight now if you don't feel like it and he definitely doesnt charge interest rates (??) (sir how are you staying in business.). the exploitative bosses were not actually that bad and anyway everyone wants what's best for the company :) the decades-long war between the mamool ja and the xbr'aal was solved with one (1) feast and slavery was ended with one (1) round of negociations. don't worry about it 👍

like, you can't write a whole storyline about multicultural societies (especially YOUNG societies) without showing the uglier, more realistic aspects of it all; there has got to be tensions, more or less warranted by history, more or less addressed over the course of the story, you HAVE to have annoying, selfish, racist or conservative characters who don't get to change completely overtime—why are the yok huy genuinely and seemingly universally ashamed of their past as slavers and colonizers when it ended less than a century ago? that's not how it *WORKS*! why are the pelupelu genuinely good merchants and not even trying to establish a kind of capitalist mafia empire or something? why isnt there any CONFLICT??? WHY IS EVERYONE SO NICE ALL THE TIME!!!!! you can't have sappy well-intentioned speeches about the power of friendship when the worst set-back you've experienced is having to fight a giant bird that came out of nowhere, come ON

and don't get me started on gulool ja LMAO what the fuck is wrong with this kid why does he talk like a therapist while being (checks notes) like 8 and one of the most traumatized children in the entire game. COMMIT, damn it