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Estober 5th Sun: Swimsuit

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i havent seen actual lyse hext hate but i can guess the shape of it based on her characterisation, and while i thought her stormblood story was really pretty good (with a few glaring omissions and underexplored themes), i think it's also really important to note that in terms of growth, she's fundamentally reactive. her whole story is told by bouncing her off conrad, m'naago, fordola, hien, gosetsu, and yotsuyu.

lyse is proactive in terms of actual plot; she's a major driver of events and does make decisions to go places and do shit (and is often advised not to in a mini-parallel of Alphinaud's arc, since squenix felt they did that well). however, she doesn't seek growth; she grows in response to the actions of others. she grows into former peers' expectations (of conrad and m'naago) in gyr abania, she grows into role models' shadows (of hien and gosetsu) in doma, and she grows into the person her enemies once needed (for fordola and yotsuyu) throughout the story.

characters like this tend to grow invisibly to the audience, because they never seek growth and their growth manifests as a bunch of tiny little aggregate habits and beliefs. alphinaud's growth in heavensward doesn't fall into this category because it's SO overt and he's SO vocal about seeking it, so you literally cannot miss it. lyse's growth doesn't show up until the end of 4.1, i would say, when you get the echo flashback to her freeing fordola. that scene is a combination of all her peers, role models, and enemies in one: she knows the expectations placed on fordola, she knows how to cast the shadow that nakes fordola feel safe enough to shine, and she knows when and why fordola needed someone like her twenty years ago.

it's such a crucial moment for actualizing lyse's arc, presented in such an action-heavy context that i worry a lot of people skimmed over it. i liked her character quite a bit because of hiw subtle and implicit her growth was; i'm always a fan of "growth as shutting the fuck up sometimes", and squenix took it to the next step as well by making lyse's main strength be her ability to know when and where her voice and hands are necessary (monk shit lol). that's why her little round table that got primal-bombed happened: lyse went "well now that ive learned to shut the fuck up, we gotta get some other people talking". and that's a fun way to do it.

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the world was on fire and no one could save me but you

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i love heavensward: a series of bulletin points

your last ally in all the city-states is an elf who would unironically lick the sweat from your armpits in front of the entire congregation. he begs his dad to let you couch surf. one of his brothers admits to your face that he wished you would die

two members of the swiss guard arrest your children so you punch them in the neck until the judge says you're free to go. the pope personally calls you to apologize for the trouble

ilberd tries and fails to hotbox you to death

a hot elf wife takes you on vacation to a nest full of cool bugs

anytime there's a serious moment estinien challenges the tone of the scene by pulling a giant novelty eyeball out of his pants which is played 100% straight every single time. not a single soul questions this or reacts in surprise

the prettiest elf in the world gets arrested trying to yell at his dad

Occupy The Vatican Right Fucking Now!!!!

the pope stances on the deck of an airship and flies away into the sunset after his eunuch traumatizes you

the emperor of garlemald shows up to call you a dipshit, leaves, and then you don't see him personally again for 1.5 expansion packs

we summon a naked catgirl and the first thing tataru does is give her a pair of louboutins and put a bow on her little kitty tail. she is the most deadly serious person in the entire organization

you take a quick detour to visit the angriest woman who's ever lived who calls you and everyone you're with a pointless dumbfuck moron shit idiot (affectionate). then she gives you a gun she invented that sharlayan banned for being too cool

theres a flying allagan war crimes factory full of broken robots who think you're stupid. an entire legion of garleans are abandoned here to form a feral colony with the escaped lab animals. the robots make fun of them

the dad of all the dragons on the whole planet calls you his favorite in front of his real child who he hasnt talked to in 4000 years

an evil wizard tries to get revenge on you for killing his cousin but the pope loads his soul into a bong and takes the fattest rip. the next time you meet him you mostly learn about how much his wife bullied him

estinien picks up a second eyeball. surprise development!: there is an angry dragon ghost living in the eyeballs

thancred gets punched in the face

you watch two dragon brothers fight because one called the other's dead wife a foul and trifling hoe

you save your friend through the power of friendship, and littering. as soon as he feels better he jumps out of a window and doesnt talk to you for two years

the guy from the box art wont stop trying to kill you because he is actually john videogames: astral traveler

after 15 hours of wondering what happened to all the scions and learning just the ones you've been able to FIND were flung into the afterlife, you discover lyse and papalymo are fine. they werent even hurt. they have been playing desert dress up with the ala mhigans while youve been freezing your pussy off trying to end a multigenerational religious war with the dragons and depose a corrupt head of state. they tried to send one letter and then gave up

the consequences of littering catch up with you. in eorzea, the fine is $Giant Dragon

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personally i think i should suffer no consequences for staying up till 4am playing with my WoL doll

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boba tea for gulool ja

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do you think with time the WoL has become a symbol of impending doom to people, like, they appear and everyone is like “ah, something truly horrible is coming for us if they’re here.”

I like to imagine it starts small with jokes, but as the story progresses people all across eorzea grow weary. They don’t shun the WoL, more like they ready themselves for the storm to come, or resign themselves to whatever they think fate has in store for them.

Would the WoL notice? Would it eventually get to them? I love thinking about it.

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Can you please elaborate on the original FFXIV getting blown up?

yeah so, in summary, when FF14 was first released it was helmed by an entirely different team of producers who were very much not interested in learning from developments in the MMO genre up to that point and kinda created a mess of a game. it wasn’t really due to one thing in particular that the game failed though, the entire production was highly mismanaged. people knew in beta that it was going to be a mess but they pushed it out anyway and it was a major flop critically and a big hit to square’s reputation. the producers were then removed from the project and another producer named Naoki Yoshida who had a lot of experience working on the Dragon Quest MMO was brought on to replace them and hopefully improve the state of the game.

when realizing just how fucked FF14 1.0 was at the time, yoshida gave square a bit of a hail mary option and was like “we can improve this game, but it will never be great in this form. let me continue making updates to the game… while also in the background secretly rebuild the entire game almost from scratch”. fucking miraculously square was like “yeah sure” and actually gave that idea the greenlight, with a 2-year window to release.

so that became the plan. improve the game in incremental amounts for players currently sticking with it, and then wipe the whole slate clean and release a FF14 2.0 that was a fundamentally remade experience, actually taking more design inspiration from other successful MMOs and other final fantasy games. they didn’t just decide to wipe the original game on a meta level though, they actually worked the destruction of FF14 1.0 into the plot of both games. and so, famously, the day that the servers for 1.0 were shut down was a day where IN GAME players fought a horde of deadly monsters spawning around the world until inevitably a giant moon crashed into the world and took the servers offline for good. and then when you play 2.0, they frequently reference this calamity in the early MSQ and players who stuck with 1.0 until the end actually got their entire character transferred over with a special tattoo, opening cutscenes, and special dialogue throughout the MSQ that connects them to the game that was deleted.

there’s a 3-part noclip documentary that goes into more detail, it is FASCINATING stuff.

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Dragonsong War

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Units of time/length measurement FFXIV

Ilm = Inch  Fulm = Foot (12 Ilms)  Yalm = Yard/Meter (3 Fulms)  Malm = Mile (1760 Yalms)

 Onze = Ounce  Ponze = Pound (16 Onzes)  Tonze = Ton (2,000 Ponze)

 Bell = Hour (1 Hour in game time = 2m 55s in real life)  Sun = Day (24 Bells)  Sennight = Week (8 Suns)  Fortnight = 2 Weeks (16 Suns)  Moon = Month (32 Suns)  Year = Year (12 Moons)  Epoch = 12 Years or one full Zodiac.

 Astral Era = Time when mankind builds up his civilizations. (Seem to average 1000-1500 years.)  Umbral Era = Time when mankind tears down his civilizations. (Length of time varies greatly.)

http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=13330  (main post) I highly recommend looking at the #5 post by Sounsyy!

(Also a thank you to Cam'nahl for finding this post for me <33)

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That's what happens when you skip Shadowbringers

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Fave

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Try your best to slowly withdraw From the darkest impulses of your heart Try your best to feel and receive

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sleep < elezen smooching

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I'M NOT A LOSER

(i got a new tablet thanks to loved ones' support <3 and first thing i drew was emet selch as squidward)

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"Enjoying the weather, aren't you? Honestly, nothing beats quiet times and clear skies."

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See you.

Inspired by the Pictomancer job quest line