ofdarklands

[ofdarklands]

HEY. HEY WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS. HEY.

[ofdarklands]

[ofdarklands]

ok so santa's elves aside, i would love a review of in from the cold from you

Short answer: I loved "In from the Cold" (for what it was)! I only wish it were a longer section of the game.

Medium answer:

I am completely neutral about "In from the Cold". Thinking about it in the context of your ask generated a whole list of complaints in my head, but almost none of them are actually about "In from the Cold" itself, and I can't blame "In from the Cold" for the issues of the template-based expansion development structure. But it does show the cracks in the formula where Endwalker is concerned.

Endwalker in particular needed to deliver on two fronts: it had to geographically tie up the loose ends that were constantly alluded to in past expansions from ARR onward, and it had to conclude the story on a cosmological level that surpassed what Shadowbringers accomplished. The Garlemald arc succeeds at the former; the fight against Zodiark accomplishes the latter. "In from the Cold" does its job to transition between these points.

I would even argue that "In from the Cold" does an amazing job at selling a few important story beats that the game needs you to pick up on. It brings the Garlemald arc, in a story sense, back to Zenos and Fandaniel; in a gameplay sense, it breaks from the slower and trudging (I've compared it to siege-based) feeling of the Garlemald arc in order to build tempo heading into the Tower of Babil. The gameplay is clunky, and I disagree that the clunkiness is intentionally supposed to be frustrating for the player. It's just meant to force the player to interact with the gameplay in a different way than usual. It's definitely subjective how well the gameplay is executed, but I'm willing to forgive it. I thought it was engaging.

However, Garlemald (as a zone) only gets so much screentime, and most of it is devoted to the incredibly-executed "find and rescue survivors!" arc. That means that the cutscenes surrounding "In from the Cold" feel a bit rushed as a transition. That could have been mitigated if Garlemald had been a larger section of Endwalker's story, but they had to shove Sharlayan and Thavnair in as well, which means none of these regions feel adequately fleshed out. Garlemald is the best of the three (so far!), though. I don't think "In from the Cold" contributed any positive points to my assessment of the arc, but it didn't detract, either. Therefore, I am, essentially, of a neutral opinion about it.

Long Answer: The FFXIV Formula and its Failings

Overview

"In from the Cold" is ok. I liked it as a duty with cutscenes. I'm neutral on it as a part of the Garlemald arc of Endwalker. I'm... discontented with its place in the broad scope of Final Fantasy XIV. It feels like a vestige of something that was supposed to be something else. Or somewhere else. Or somewhen else. The more I dwell on it, the more negative I become. So maybe I should really go with my immediate gut reaction and say it's great! Maybe I just didn't like the santa's elves arc so it looks better by comparison. Or maybe I didn't like the santa's elves arc which is making me really negative today! Who knows? Either way, dwelling on my opinion has brought up an urge to complain, so I'm going to try to be objective about things and break it down into analytical points.

Before I can fully give my thoughts on "In from the Cold" and the ways it either contributes to or detracts from my enjoyment of the Garlemald arc, I need to establish a baseline: what is such an arc, how does it function in terms of a typical formula, and what factors contribute to my enjoyment of story arcs across various expansions? This may not be a typical response to "In from the Cold," but for me I can't help myself from noticing story in everything. The unique gameplay features during the solo duty will also be addressed below, but if you were hoping for an in-depth (or even surface-level, tbh) answer about how the gameplay felt, I apologize in advance. I think of gameplay moreso in how it contributes to the cinema of the storytelling experience.

Ahem. Anyway. Something that never escapes my notice in games with content released intermittently is the way different releases either adhere to or abandon old design philosophies. I've complained at length about this in regards to the music composition for the various expansions. (Why do Sharlayan and Radz-at-Han share the same theme?! No, it's not because they're the only two locations where the Final Days are going to be relevant; that's stupid.) Everything about the game has changed dramatically since the ARR days. Back in ARR there were a lot of comparatively smaller and irregularly-shaped zones with ill-defined level boundaries, inconsistent dungeon/trial pacing, and a whole host of other issues that itch at me to no end.

From Heavensward onward, these things have been standardized. Each expansion has six zones included in it, all of which are large and typically conform to the rough shape of a square. These zones frequently consist of a single level range, or they might have a geographical split between two different level ranges, meant to be accessed at two different points in the story. Each base expansion includes 5 or 6 mandatory dungeons and 3 mandatory trials: a dungeon at every odd number level, plus one at the level cap; a trial at the levels ending in 3 and 7-9, plus one at the level cap. In this way, an expansion can roughly be divided up into six segments, typically every two levels.

Ideally, these segments slot fairly easily into what can be thought of as three discrete "story arcs" -- but perhaps that's naive idealism on my part. I am not, by and large, someone who dislikes things being formulaic. I'm incredibly formula-minded. My entire outline for HtGHA is based off of a very formulaic template that I repeat for each of my protagonists. But before you think this means I won't complain, think again. The only person more likely to complain about formulas than a formula hater? That's right: a formula fanatic.

So what is this formula, anyway?

Level X0-X1: Beginning with a split-path choice that lets you see part of two different zones, the paths reconverge before the mandatory first dungeon. In HW, Dusk Vigil is optional, to the detriment of the early story. (I feel like one drawback of Heavensward's story is the fact that ARR and post-ARR both have substantial Coerthas arcs, but that's a topic for later.) Ideally, the split path shows two substantially different settings and tones that the expansion will take. FFXIV perfected this step with Shadowbringers.

Level X2-X3: A new zone is accessed, usually as an intermediary point in between the start and the mid-objective: Dravania lies between Ishgard and Hraesvelgr; the Ruby Sea separates Kugane from Yugiri and Hien. ShB is a chain of Lightwardens, so Il Mheg isn't that special as an intermediary point, but it still is one, so. Yeah. The trial here is usually just a relevant but not-actually-that-special combat from the journey; Endwalker is unique by comparison. In Endwalker, this trial is unambiguously the end of the first Act. I talk more about how Garlemald functions in Endwalker's story down below. Overall, I think Garlemald is the best execution of this part of the formula.

Level X4-X5: The party arrives at the zone and works on the quest that secures their initial, mid-objective. This generally feels like the midway point, the meat of the expansion: Churning Mists, Yanxia, Rak'tika -- things are serious, the task is a committed one, lore is being revealed, but the pace is slow, plodding, trundling along. Typically this is one of the bleakest sections of the story. I feel like this was best executed in Heavensward -- the Churning Mists was HW's strongest arc, and Rak'tika was on the weaker end in ShB. Note: I just finished the Mare Lamentorum arc entirely, but have not made it to the level 85 dungeon yet, so I will only be discussing up to the quest "Returning Home".

Level X6-X7: The previous progress in the midgame has been insufficient, in a variety of ways: in HW, the vaccuum post-Aery has created fertile ground for unrest leading to The Vault, and true motives are slowly revealed. In SB, the momentum post-Bardam leads up to the crowning achievement of Doma Castle. In ShB, the steadily worsening Light Corruption and the now explicit war against Eulmore lead to the conflict with Ran'jit and Ryne's transformation. Frustratingly, the level X7 trials in HW and SB are not related to this at all; after the turning points of The Vault and Doma Castle, these trials are just primals in other zones unrelated. ShB moves the second trial to level 79 instead of 77, imo to the detriment of the pacing of late-ShB -- but that's a topic for another time. There's bits and pieces I like from each expansion here, but also bits and pieces I don't like. I would probably give this one to Shadowbringers by default.

Level X8-X9: Now solidly in the final act, the party has witnessed what stands between them and the end goal, and must complete one final detour to get to this end location. This is usually a "seeing the theme of the expansion from a different perspective" detour: While I don't think the Dravanian Hinterlands were used to their full potential due to the patchwork nature of HW's storytelling, the inspiration is clearly there. I think the one I like best here is Stormblood's march through the Peaks (and the Lochs) of Ala Mhigo. In this case, it feels less like "one final detour" and more like a slow, determined march towards the city itself.

Level X9-X0: Yes, level X9 is on there twice. That's because most of the time, this final zone lingers at the penultimate level for longer than it feels like it should. But this isn't "Dravanian Hinterlands" level 59, this is Azys Lla! This isn't "Mt. Gulg" level 79, it's the Tempest! It's Amaurot! Earlier expansions were really afraid of making substantial chunks of the MSQ require level cap. These zones usually feel distinctly otherworldly. They are (usually) completely thematically divorced from more mundane areas. Mor Dhona falls into a similar category for ARR. SB doesn't get one: the Lochs may be epic, but it's too natural.

Problems with the Formula: Zones and Geography

So, each expansion adds six zones. No problem. But how are these zones divided? Each expansion takes a different view of how the geography for the new content should be laid out.

For the most part, Heavensward is the most similar to ARR in terms of geography. Both are locked to Eorzea (unless you don't count floating islands, in which case half of Heavensward is not, in fact, locked to Eorzea). ARR explores zones in La Noscea, the Black Shroud, Thanalan, Coerthas, and Mor Dhona. Heavensward explores more of Coerthas, then Dravania, and chains of floating islands across Dravania and Abalathia's Spine. The final section, Azys Lla -- like Mor Dhona, the final section of ARR -- is teeming with Allagan, Garlean, and Ascian obstructions to eliminate. It is very visually and tonally different from the rest of Heavensward, but it ties the themes of war between dragon and man back to the Allag-Meracydian war.

Heavensward's immediate successor, Stormblood, takes a different route entirely and situates half of its zones in Gyr Abania, and the other half in the Far East. Here's where that works well: Stormblood makes a big point about parallel suffering of the conquered lands under Garlean dominion. Ala Mhigo has been haunting the narrative since 1.0, and it deserves, imo, the bulk of attention here, lest Stormblood feel like it's focusing instead on an entirely new setting. However, the disconnect comes from the fact that the Far East is a lot more culturally and geographically distinctive than anything in the Gyr Abania zones we get to access. This means that at some point, the Ala Mhigo arc starts feeling repetitive and monochromatic. The East gets the nations of Hingashi, the Ruby Confederacy, Doma, and the tribes of the Steppe, while an equal amount of land in Gyr Abania is devoted to just former Ala Mhigo.

What's wrong with the proportions of focus these two regions get, you may ask? Well, nothing, really; it's just evidence of a shift in design philosophy. Everything in Heavensward covers an essentially contiguous area, while everything in Stormblood covers two such areas, separated by an enormous and logistically improbable distance. Stormblood marks the shift toward the global, extending the Scions' reach beyond Eorzea for the first time.

Looking back at Heavensward and Stormblood, I don't think all of the zones added are used to great effect in the storyline. Especially considering how other relevant nations that exist could have been incorporated. Sharlayan could have been added in Heavensward, as the Scions flee the ravages of the Bloody Banquet and seek safe harbor, or as a tie-in to the ruins left by their exodus from Dravania, or in any way to offer a sharp rebuke of war as pointless and barbaric during the expansion whose theme is the pointlessness and barbarity of war.

Stormblood could have featured Thavnair as a more interesting and more relevant pit stop than the Sirensong Sea, especially because Thavnair's neutrality toward Garlemald is a significant point in Hingashi. Stormblood could also have condensed the Fringes, Peaks, and Lochs into two zones, with the split path at the beginning being between, say, going through the Fringes (like normal) or to the coast of Werlyt. Either or both of these changes would shift the focus from pure geographical continuity on a small scale, to large scale geopolitical involvement and thematic focus on Garlemald.

Why Garlemald, though? The Garleans are the main antagonists on a tangible, geopolitical level throughout 1.0 and ARR (even while they're being manipulated around by Ascians), and, though largely absent from HW, they are central to SB. I don't think SB needs to feature actual Garlemald in order to be good -- but I think it needs to do more setup in advance of EW's Garlemald arc in order for "In from the Cold" to be good.

Zones and More Geography: How Norvrandt Changed Everything

Unlike Heavensward and Stormblood, Shadowbringers takes a macro level view of geography. Instead of saying, "Ok, here's two zones for Coerthas, two zones for Dravania, and three zones for the floating islands above the Coerthas-Dravania area," it says, "Here's an alternate universe. The equivalent for this northern region, which in Heavensward has enough land for a major city and several wilderness zones, is all shoved into one single zone with three aetherytes."

I used Coerthas/Il Mheg as the basis for comparison because that's the only Shadowbringers zone equivalent that was developed during an expansion following this formula. Of course, the Dravania analogue was consumed by the Flood of Light, so it's not completely accurate. But based on the drawn/painted maps, my point stands: the five zones of continental Norvrandt are extremely small. They are also very distant. Not as distant as Kugane and Rhalgr's Reach -- Norvrandt is still just a reflection of the continent of Eorzea -- but travel time on the First is not something that the story reflects on the nitty-gritty.

And what a difference it makes! In Heavensward, the substantial middle portion of the story focused on the Alphinaud-Estinien-Ysayle road trip to talk to Hraesvelgr and/or slay Nidhogg. The road trip only took the party across two zones, the Dravanian Forelands and the Churning Mists, and yet even that was enough to carry the weight of travel, the sense of destination, and the uncomfortable truths of lands riven by war. Meanwhile, in Shadowbringers, every zone is its own dead end: there are no road trips through a zone. This goes hand in hand with the scope of the mission. This is no longer a small group on behalf of a city-state, nor a military alliance fighting an oppressive empire: this is a hero attempting to thwart a magical apocalypse.

This works for Shadowbringers for two reasons. The first is that these areas are reflections of zones the player is already familiar with. There is no required time to spend acclimating to the geographical environment of Amh Araeng. The player still needs to get to know the cultures there, of course, but even at a glance, its role as a blighted reflection of Thanalan is apparent. The second reason is that these zones are geographically contiguous, just on a larger scale. It just makes sense to go from Lakeland to Rak'tika. And, for the zone split choice at the beginning, it makes sense to choose between Kholusia and Amh Araeng -- they aren't too far apart.

This is where the geography of Endwalker falls apart for me. It reads like fanservice. The final* expansion of the original FFXIV plot arc revolving around Hydaelyn and Zodiark culminates here, and we haven't traveled to Sharlayan or Garlemald or Thavnair yet! Aaah! And, being of course beholden to the formula, that means three out of six zones must be mundane locations on the planet of Hydaelyn. Two of these have to be visited by the split-path arc at the very beginning. Not a whole lot of options there!

But on the other side of things, the power-scaling needs to continue at a logical pace. From saving the continent of Eorzea to liberating two-ish continents from colonial occupation and single-handedly shattering Garlemald's tenuous hegemony, where can our hero go? Why, to save an alternate world from an apocalypse! But since that wasn't the end, Endwalker needs to introduce a new threat: an existential, universal threat that predates the creation of the gods and the fall from Eden. Something so amazing that it takes the Warrior of Light to (as far as I've been spoiled; I could have the details slightly wrong) the extremely distant past before the creation of said gods, and to the edge of the universe itself.

I've heard a lot of really good things about Endwalker's story, so I'm going to assume that, post-santa's naughty elves and their lack of fashion sense, the pacing gets smoother and the story more cohesive. I don't have a problem with the disparate nature of these zones, all told. What I do have a problem with, though...

Breaking Down Endwalker: The Intro

...is the pacing at the start of Endwalker.

(Honestly, my problems with the pacing start in the 5.x patches, but dissecting that would make this exercise take even longer than the *checks clock* three hours I've already spent on this response.)

Now that tempering can be cured, surprise! Here's Fandaniel with an apocalyptic death wish! Here's some Telophoroi towers all around the world. Time to head to Sharlayan to ask them for help, because that sounds so logical, right? And of course then we have to be warped across the world to Thavnair, because that's incredibly relevant, isn't it?!

I don't have a problem with the branch split... in theory, and isolated from other context. What we see of Labyrinthos and Thavnair is only the first half; based on the levels of the FATEs in the unrevealed portions of the map I'm guessing we return to these locations for Level 78 and 75 respectively. That's all fine, I don't have a problem with it.

What I do have a problem with is the way the game is so blatantly including these regions because it has to. Having just finished the santa's workshop-ark arc, the thematic consistency between it and Labyrinthos is very clear. (Maybe too clear. Maybe a bit redundant.) And I'm definitely not saying they shouldn't have included Thavnair in the game. But the geopolitical situation going into Endwalker has been, up to this point, entirely predicated on Garlemald and its former colonies, its civil war, its tempered, its discontents.

There's way too much baggage with Garlemald to be summed up by one ice ambush, one high-stakes hostage situation, "In from the Cold", and the Garlemald Express.

In order for "In from the Cold" to shine, Endwalker needs to lead with Garlemald. Garlemald needs to be in the forefront of everyone's mind during at least one of the split path branches. The tough feelings about an incoming army, the nationalistic pride, the bitter survival, everything -- that all needs breathing room. It can't be condensed any further. I contend that "In from the Cold" needs breathing room as well for it to hit.

As a single solo instanced duty, with a fairly strict timer, there's not enough of a chance to linger on the impact of "In from the Cold." In some ways, that's a good thing. It's a sobering slap-to-the-face that, as important as siege tactics and emergency response and peace treaties and reparations are, there are more immediately pressing matters. It's presented as a tough choice -- you have to be the hero, because every second you waste feeds into Fandaniel's plans.

It also allows "In from the Cold" to conclude with little to no dwelling on material repercussions.

(Btw, my suggestion for what the new zone alongside Labyrinthos should be instead of Thavnair? Corvos. It's a Garlean colony, with a direct link to one of the more directionless-as-of-now Scions, situated near to Thavnair, and is considered as (one of) the ancestral homeland(s) of the Garlean people. It would be the perfect place to get a first view of the Garlean Empire's collapse from a more neutral or diplomatic point of view before heading to Garlemald proper.)

Ludonarrative Harmony: Why "In from the Cold" Works

So, my biggest critique for "In from the Cold" itself, which I have wasted several hours of my life not talking about yet, in favor of instead going on unnecessarily detailed tangents, is the lack of consequences in its aftermath.

These consequences stem from the fact that the Warrior of Light arrives just in time to prevent their Zenos-piloted body from harming their friends, and then Fandaniel says, "Alright, playtime's over, bye-bye! Catch me if you can!" and then you head to fight Anima and that's that.

The commands that are available to the Warrior of Light within the Garlean soldier's body are extremely limited. There is an attack buff, a defense buff, and a single melee combo button. Later, the player obtains medicine packs for healing.

This is a perfect encapsulation of the struggle that you are supposed to face in this moment. It's not supposed to be harder to win than other content, it's still supposed to be well-balanced. But winning vs losing is supposed to feel different. The win conditions have changed.

FFXIV as a game chassis isn't the best equipped for stealth or stealth-adjacent missions. Also, the lack of control over character building that the player has during these controlling-other-people scenes can be very disruptive. The system is a bit clunky and can be frustrating. I don't think that form of frustration is intended, and I disagree with the assessment I've seen in various places that this frustration is supposed to mirror the WoL's emotional state after the body swap.

But the point of the gameplay is to represent the cinematic challenges that the script is pointing to. So, what challenges are the gameplay mechanics trying to replicate?

By the time "In from the Cold" starts, the Warrior of Light has defused an extraordinarily tense political situation involving hostages with shock collars, an attempted ambush, suicide of an extreme nationalist, and begrudging acceptance of provisions by a tired, hungry, injured civilian populace thoroughly used to war as the only state of reality. This incredibly hard-fought peace deal was not without its losses -- yes, there are former veterans with pride who cannot conceive of their identity should they accept aid from the peoples they fought to enslave, but there are also sick children who would rather take their chances against megafauna than risk having their wounds tended by strangers they know only as an enemy invading force. There are precious few survivors anyway, so every life saved is worth noting here.

The Warrior of Light distributes warm soup, and suddenly the tower springs to life again with its tempering shockwaves. This peace was always precarious -- you were trying to save the few downtrodden who somehow escaped with their lives, and you put so much energy into that goal, ignoring all else, that the big picture threat remains unaddressed. You've treated symptoms but not the cause.

"In from the Cold" serves, first and foremost, as a chastisement of the Warrior of Light for being kind and thoughtful and doing tasks for people. FFXIV hammers home again and again, in every expansion, that the WoL is canonically the type of person who does tasks for others out of generosity and selflessness. Fandaniel has bought himself time doing nothing other than putting people who need help in your way and trusting you to stall.

So, why bother with the kidnapping and the body swap? Amusement. For himself and for Zenos. I don't have a good enough read on Fandaniel to break this apart just yet, but Zenos craves the hunt, not the butchery. He complains that the spark would be absent were the two of you to rematch now, since you've already bested him and think him beneath you. What's important here is that he's not upset that you think him beneath you, he's upset that you wouldn't be putting your all into the fight as a result. He's not trying to turn the tables in order to cut you down while you're weak -- he's trying to turn the tables so that you struggle and sweat and bleed and feel the feral desperation that drives the climax of any good fight in his eyes.

This is summed up, very well, by the crawling scene at the end of "In from the Cold."

So, what about everything in the middle? The parts where you have to avoid fighting whenever possible, scavenging for limited heals, using dilapidated warmachina just to buy yourself some time, allying with Garlean civilians fleeing for their lives who see you as nothing more than a faceless, nameless Garlean soldier? That's the part where I think the solo instanced duty fails to achieve all of its potential. The reason, in my opinion, is due to the time limit and the lack of checkpoints. This should be a slower section of the game in multiple segments, where progress feels slower but with less risk of immediately dying if you get spotted. It should feel more like a survival section than a stealth section.

As for consequences -- it doesn't have to be a "Zenos kills one (or more) of the Scions" level consequence. I would have enjoyed seeing a situation where you have to find, identify, and take care of the Garlean whose body you were possessing. Something where you have to go back and explain things to any of the surviving civilians from the fight. Anything that makes you recontextualize your actions in someone else's body against your own.

I think this scene especially should be longer and have more of an aftermath moment as a parallel to the other instances of Ascian possession in the game, and possibly even to Fandaniel hotwiring the vessel of Zodiark for his own ends.

Santa's Workshop: Why "In from the Cold" Doesn't Work

But if "In from the Cold" is the bridge between the Jullus arc and the Babil dungeon, the perfect parallel to the possession that happens at the moon, the scathing indictment of the WoL's predictable selflessness, and the view in the mirror of all the helplessness and hope driving the untamed beast that Zenos yearns for...

...then why does the game immediately have to jump to weird little mice and their carrots and their control complexes and subterfuge? Why does everyone suddenly have all the time in the world once Zodiark kicks the bucket? Why does Urianger think he's a model in that #toxicslutch outfit???

Tone shifts appear all over the place in FFXIV, this isn't the first time and won't be the last, I know. But the issue here isn't the tone shift, it's the excruciating slow-down of the tempo of the game. "In from the Cold" takes the plodding pace of a serious-but-bleak environment and ramps it up to a fevered beat, just for it all to die down?

Returning to the formula I discussed above, expansions usually take the form of three-or-so Acts, roughly split at each of the trials. This division would place the entire Garlemald segment squarely within the first Act. I don't think this works very well.

Why? Because of pacing. We've spent the first Act trying to convince heads of state to act, and then we led a global contingent to help aid the very nation that had put the entire world under threat of the sword. This is all rising action, this is all introductory, this is all the premise. That cinematic structure is only reinforced by Fandaniel's various threats urging us onward to the Tower of Babil, and, eventually, the Moon.

What this is missing and desperately needs is fallout. That's not me repeating my earlier comment that "In from the Cold" needs consequences -- I'm talking more broadly, the Garlemald arc needs to foreground what happens in the absence of the Telophoroi. And it needs to do so immediately. Maybe the MSQ does head back to Garlemald again at some point. But I know it doesn't do so on a large scale, because I've already unlocked the ability to fly there. And it definitely doesn't do so promptly.

Please don't misunderstand -- I absolutely don't think it all needs to be tied up with a bow. I also don't think Garlemald has to be the focus of the expansion to the exclusion of everything else. But the reason "In from the Cold" doesn't work (or, perhaps more accurately, the reason Endwalker isn't shaped well enough to contain "In from the Cold") is that it is a fierce crescendo leading immediately to being shunted off-world. The action is interrupted in a very unsatisfying way for the reader.

I think, based on my tentative analysis of typical expansion story arc segments, that it would be possible to rearrange things to give "In from the Cold" the resolution it deserves. But I'm going to save that sort of thing for when I've actually finished Endwalker.

So, Is It Good? What's Your Review?

Mmm, yeah, it was enjoyable. The gameplay was a little clunky but nothing prohibitive. And it felt inventive enough to keep me engaged without being too foreign or immersion-breaking due to grappling with the controls.

My brother also says that it was fine.

It definitely didn't steal the show, though. The Garlemald arc is #1 in my book entirely because of putting Alphinaud and Alisaie through the horrors.

Now, I think I've been typing for about four and a half hours now and I have to get up early tomorrow. I'm too tired to edit this, so you'll forgive me if I ended up rambling on and on, or repeating the same two points with different wording and thought I was saying something new.

All opinions are my own. Despite superficial similarities to an essay, I actually didn't research anything for this except the geography of Dravania, Gyr Abania, Corvos, Sharlayan, Norvrandt, and many other things. All of the information I got was from one of the several publicly editable wikis about the game and could therefore potentially be inaccurate.

Ok that's all. Good night.

[ofdarklands]

finally got around to testing the B1 blue i mentioned didn't make green

turns out it does make greens, but only with some yellows. the fact it's a warm blue does have a part in making duller mixes the warmer the yellow, but i think with the Y42/43 yellows in particular there must the something else going on as well. those are the so called earth yellows, and i wonder if there's some chemical thing going on. couldn't really find much about B1 in relation to paint, so who knows...

it does make very nice purples too. honestly the only weakness of this pigment is that its light-fastness is so low; otherwise i love it. look at that range

[ofdarklands]

i am back on my tinfoil hat bullshit

ok so i know "x is a shard of y" theories are totally overdone but unfortunately i have a very specific flavor of autism that makes me go bonkers over similarities between characters

and i will be honest i'm putting a lot less stock in this one than the Wuk Lamat/Sphene theory in terms of how sure I am that I'm right, but! hear me out! (also even if this turns out to be absolutely nothing, i may still roll with it as a headcanon just for fun :3)

"but emcapi," you say, "they literally just look alike because they're both face 4 fem elezen!"

yes, i do fully admit this one might just be a coincidence!

but it's a really fun coincidence :D

additional points (thank you, Garland Tools, for enabling my tinfoil-hatting):

exact same iris color

exact same lipstick color

same bangs! (which I honestly didn't even realize until I put them side by side)

Now, narratively, this would actually explain a great deal about Shale getting pulled into the Main Character Squad at lightning (har har) speed. Which is that, specifically, I'm 97.5% sure that our next expac is going to be a joint Meracydia/Southern Seas + Void expansion.

Why I'm so convinced:

Fits with "patches playing setup for the second-next expac" pattern: see also, Doman refugees in ARR patches -> Stormblood, Warriors of Darkness in HW patches -> Shadowbringers.

We have very obviously not seen the last of Zero (I MISS MY WIFE, TAILS)

We are SOOOOOO obviously going to Meracydia it's not even funny.

It's like the only destination on Emet-Selch's itinerary we still haven't hit up.

AND we had all that business with the Milallas coming from the South Seas, and using the Mysterious Hourglass to do it, which OBVIOUSLY warrants some investigation.

Huuuge connection between Meracydia + Void via the war with the Allagans (which is how Azdaja got stuck in the Void in the first place)

With the context of all the other hints, specifically having Cloud of Darkness as the first chaotic raid is making me go 🤔🤔🤔 another hint, perhaps?

IN CONCLUSION: i have max brainrot debuff stacks BUT i am definitely on to something with the next expac, and i am either on to something or have made a VERY fun new headcanon with Shale and Cyella/Cylva.

[ofdarklands]

[ofdarklands]

i would like to propose a new accessibility feature for movies where every time a brown-haired white man comes on screen they tell me which one he is

[ofdarklands]

the more girly pop your fandom is the more funny they are you have to trust me i have never met a funny man who plays ffxiv

[ofdarklands]

DEATH IS A ONE WAY STREET BUT THAT DIDN'T STOP ME FROM COMMITTING ONE HELL OF A TRAFFIC VIOLATION

[ofdarklands]

I both kinda hate and kinda love that "this peace is what all true warriors strive for" is from fucking Zelda CD-i

[ofdarklands]

I think it's time we all got serious. Europe isn't a continent lmao and the only reason anyone thinks it is is because white people are too racist to share a continent with nonwhite people so they split it from Asia arbitrarily.

[ofdarklands]

i need you to be aware that you can make a giant batch of caramelized onions to keep in the freezer and defrost at will. that is legal and they can't stop you. they can't take this from you

[ofdarklands]

You are faced with some random problem and the only person who can help you is the main character from the last piece of media you consumed (you can also do favorite character if there are multiple main characters). You can stay in this universe or be in the universe of the character, whichever you prefer, but the problem remains the same and the only person who can directly help you is the main character. That character can call on the help of those they know in their media, but when it comes down to it, they are the only person really helping you. How do you react to this situation?

Spin to find out your problem:

[ofdarklands]

cursing about zodiark's piss right in front of elidibus for maximum awkwardness

not a liquid i ever dared wonder about. local cosmology considered

[ofdarklands]

not a liquid i ever dared wonder about. local cosmology considered

[ofdarklands]

damn, sir. i'm sure that last bit would not be relevant to the plot at all

an useful reaction image

oh! had not seen this guy before. very cool

[ofdarklands]

oh! had not seen this guy before. very cool