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im totally going mad with power over the things I can do when turning a traditional line drawing into digital

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trying to figure out how to draw these guys in my style

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You're Bald...E.G.O Dante I drew for my brother in return for him clearing a tough part of Library of Ruina for me

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I have to say I love the way Project Moon approaches the theme of sacrifice/self-sacrifice - in LobCorp Carmen's death is sometimes framed as a heroic sacrifice but in many ways it also wasn't, and it brought so much harm to the people around her. Ayin dissapearing into the Light at the end of the game is also treated as heroic except all his efforts are undone by Angela because she doesn't want to sacrifice herself for a world that she was never allowed to be a part of. And in the true ending of Library, Angela would have sacrificed herself to undo everything the Library did if not for Roland chosing to save her. The theme shows up sometimes in Limbus too, like in Canto 5 where Dante declares that they'll never treat the lives of their Sinners as ruthlessly as Ahab sacrifices her crew.

I feel like a lot of works of fiction, maybe thanks to Christianity-influenced culture, tend to venerate heroic self-sacrifice, and maybe that works for some stories, but I love it when other stories look at it without that sort of golden veil and reveal that self-sacrifice is often tragic, unessacery, selfish even though it's done for the sake of others. Sometimes choosing to continue to live in the world is braver and more heroic than sacrificing your life to save it, in my opinion.

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in Library Angela is sometimes called "The Pale Librarian", her hair is also the same light blue as Pale damage, the rarest damage type in LobCorp. Pale damage also corresponds to Repression work, which is associated with "denial of the meaning of existence" and "the nature of the soul".

Angela was created with the capacity to feel human emotion, but denied the freedom to express it by Ayin insisting that machines should only act like machines. She was created in the image of Carmen, Ayin's lover, but denied even the tiniest bit of positive attention from him, so in return she destroys the Tree of Light Project that had become the meaning of his existence after Carmen's death.

The damage types in LobCorp are based off of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, with Pale representing the Horseman of Death. It suits Angela even better if you think not of literal death but metaphysical/metaphorical death, like the tarot card Death that represents major change and transformation, like Angela's dream of becoming a human.

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Big question I have now is what the heck, if anything, has Ayin been doing since he became part of the Light at the end of LobCorp

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I did it. i cleared Library of Ruina

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trying to clear Library of Ruina on the day before I have a dental surgery is certainly not one of my better ideas that I've ever acted upon but I think it is adding to my sense of immersion like wow i really am facing the fear building the future

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messing with my brother who has played LoR but not LobCorp by making him try to guess who the Sephirah of the Architecture Team was and watching him just not get it over and over again

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I think it would be fun to ship Roland and Angela because Angela has the possibility to be either tsundere or kuudere depending on the moment but if she was being direct about her feelings it would be something like "I like you, Roland. As a friend and romantically. and also carnally" while in Roland's case if he realized he had affection for anyone after Angelica he would probably have another breakdown

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2024: the year I posted lots of FF14 meta

1. 2,244 notes - Feb 18 2024

Shadowbringers is a ghost story, it's a love story, it's a post-apocalyptic horror story, it's a high fantasy that turns the...

2. 1,913 notes - Feb 26 2024

Point #1: The first thing we learn about Emet-Selch, even before we learn that Solus zos Galvus is Emet-Selch, is that Solus...

3. 1,562 notes - Apr 1 2024

in the ShB role quests, we watch each of Ardbert's party members make some sort of personal sacrifice, forced to discard their...

4. 1,295 notes - Feb 23 2024

5. 1,069 notes - Jul 25 2024

thing that breaks my heart everytime is thinking about G'raha's story from his own perspective - like going from the end of the...

6. 1,044 notes - Mar 8 2024

think of all the times an NPC will praise the WoL up and down before giving them a quest to do something really unpleasant -...

7. 692 notes - Jul 1 2024

WRT the Garlemald portion of EW: I'm sure that for a lot of FFXIV's history players have been wondering what it would be like to...

8. 669 notes - Mar 13 2024

9. 575 notes - Apr 7 2024

all of the stuff I've said about the WoL's suffering and dehumanization as a result of being chosen as Hydaelyn's champion, but...

10. 561 notes - Aug 2 2024

everything post-Endwalker hinges on the idea that even after saving the world and being released from their duty as Warrior of...

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man I cannot believe that all of these were just this year

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instead of spending New Year's Eve mindfully planning for personal growth in 2025 or whatever I'm trying to beat Library of Ruina. happy new year

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another LoR strat I'm working on is one where I just yell at my Librarians to roll better numbers, surprisingly they don't seem to listen

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When photography first began to be popularized, many painters were worried they'd be out of a job. This might seem ridiculous to us now because we think of photography and painting as two different mediums with their own strengths and weaknesses, but that's only thanks to decades of technological and cultural development in the meantime. Even early photos could capture portraits and landscapes far quicker and easier than any painting, so in response painters began moving away from direct representation of reality and narrative and towards abstraction. Various movements and ideas that had been in development beforehand coallesced into what we now call "Modern Art" and everything that entails: abstract art, cubism, surrealism, color block, so on and so forth. And regardless of what you think of modern art it has solidified and stuck around.

Common knowledge says that history repeats itself, and the same thing goes for art history since it is a part of history. What we see now with the rise of AI "art" is the established forms being challenged by new technology. The painters of the 20th century ensured that painting survived by defining what was essential and unique about painting that other mediums couldn't do; what all artists of the 21st century have to do now is define what is essential about human-made art that AI can't do. What does it mean for a piece of art to be "human-made" - why is it important that it's "human", what does it mean that it was "made"?

To be honest I'm not sure how creative jobs will survive in a world that values profits over meaning. But I think it's absolutely essential to emotional/mental/spiritual survival as an artist to learn to love the process of making a thing more than the finished product. Because AI can make a finished product, but it can't make it: it can't make decisions and follow impulses in the moment, it experiences none of the psychological benefits of achieving the flow state or the satisfaction of working with your hands. That's what it's all about, that's what will keep us human, not just art but the act of making art.

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I'm sorry to everyone who thought I was a sane and reasonable FFXIV-poster but I often have warm and fuzzy feelings at the guy who tried to destroy the world

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when you do your first Floor Realization for Roland and have that moment where you realize he's actually legit depressed

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trying a new strat in Library of Ruina called "Rapid Gashes", it's where I use Clone on Rapid Gashes and then I play Rapid Gashes and then I play Rapid Gashes again and then I gash the enemy, rapidly