#but this is not the time

[lunapwrites]

Have throbbing headache. Make mental note that I should probably take something for said throbbing headache.

Brain's immediate response? "Alexa, play Every Time We Touch by Cascada."

[baidar-oroq]

A random discourse on FFXVI's story

I finished FFXVI earlier in the week, and given the strong connections that it was with FFXIV between the devs and a lot of the story, thought I'd wax eloquent here. Spoilers behind the cut:

I think the most interesting thing about the story of FFXVI is pretty much how it's another take on the basic story of FFXIV and the Ascians; Ultima's motive is to destroy all life on Valisthea in order to recreate the lost world of his people, which is not too far removed from the Ascians wanting to destroy all the shards to rejoin them with the Source, and Clive as Mythos being the vessel through which that will happen is a couple of steps to the right of the WoL becoming a sin eater and causing a rejoining. Variations on a theme, if you like. In a lot of ways, FFXVI's story feels almost like an AU of XIV, one where Hydaelyn is conspicuously absent-or perhaps, given the role of the Mothercrystals in the story, a story where She is merged with the Ascians to create Ultima. Had Hydaelyn turned out to be really sus, could this have been a direction that FFXIV could have gone in?

Probably not, and the reason I think that is Clive's final speech to Ultima as he lays dying, because it is the perfect encapsulation of Venat's philosophy of "you will suffer and die, but you can rise above that to find hope and joy." That philosophy stands in stark contrast to Ultima's fear of death, selfishness, and his inability to understand why his creations have surpassed him. Like the Ascians, he does not believe in his lessers, can not understand why Clive is capable of defeating him; like Emet-Selch, he is so lost in the desire to rebuild the world he lost that he can not see the world that could be made by his creations.

Plus his last form straight up has Emet-Selch's Elpis hairstyle, lol.

I heard a lot of complaints about side questing in the game, and they stemmed, most likely, from the early MMO style fetch quests. And that's a shame, since as you progress further and further into the game, whole character arcs and subplots are resolved in the side quests. The most romantic scene between Clive and Jill happens in a fucking side quest! Vast amounts of character development, full on story arcs, are resolved there. If you haven't played FFXVI yet, don't sleep on the side quests, they tell a lot of the story.

Which is good, since the main story, on occasion, is a bit underwritten. It's not really confusing, or bad, but the first two-thirds of the game, focusing on the Game of Thrones styled wars against nations, loses a bit unless you plunge heavily into the lore (and to be fair, the in-game lore options are AMAZING) since you have to keep track of a variety of nations that aren't particularly well defined (the pagans with Iron in their name, the traditional fantasy British-esque empire, and the Norse kingdom.) In the end, the various warring nations take a backseat to the machinations of Ultima, so this isn't as big a knock on the story as it could be, but it is still there.

Now to one of the controversial points of the story, it's lack of POC and the whole, rather sad explanation of "well it's Medieval Europe!" People have theorized that there are no POC because of the story's slavery subplot, where magic using Bearers are shunned and enslaved at birth, and having POC in a world with slavery would look bad.

To which I frankly call "bullshit." The obvious answer to this problem is to make none of the slaves POC. Hell, there's a desert area with rather Arabic architecture in it, make it (1) full of POC and (2) the one place in Valisthea where there are no slaves. Ahh, but expecting Japan to think laterally about that sort of thing is likely too much to ask.

But I'm still gonna.

There are other complaints; Jill is occasionally underwritten, and her trauma arc is somewhat buried under the main story, and while she doesn't die like I expected (c'mon, you know this team's record with female characters, ESPECIALLY ones connected to Shiva) she does suffer a sort of death by giving her Eikon powers to Clive. Most of her trauma is thankfully implied rather than openly stated, but as per usual for this crew, there is a lot of sexual abuse and assault suggested around her story. (Though she does get to kill the man responsible for it, in the end.) And I wish we could have had more time with Cid, who is a fantastic character, but given his role in the story he bowed out at the right time.

I am, however, still waiting for Uncle Byron to die, because he had "the comic relief turns out to die heroically" written all over him, and yet he survived!

Plus Torgal is the best wolf, love and praise him

[beardedmrbean]

just some lads, being fellows

[secondlina]

New Crow Time 🐦‍⬛🦊🌟

[skipppppy]

I think she’d respect his methodology

[qrowscant]

its been about 6 months

[cartoonsinthemorning]

Since you guys liked Marcille as Kermit that much, it seems fitting to thank you for my 12k milestone with MORE Kercille. And this time, Miss Falin is also here.

Thank you so much again everybody! MWAH 💗

[roboticnebula]

Pros of re-reading your own fic

a good time;

Has exactly the tropes you like and the characterization you want to read;

Gratification: yes you did finish a thing and yes you did do good;

just a very fun time all around.

Cons of re-reading your own fic:

Is that another TYpO

[teffiebell]

[kokii-omii]

dungeon meshi ah dungeon meshi

[alocalfrog]

Can you imagine suing Boeing and coming home to find Boeing's faulty plane parts washed up in your backyard?

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Knowledge Revenge.

[copepods]

leitmotifs never get old to me like holy shit dude there’s this melody that corresponds to this one guy and if you hear the melody it means the guy is there. holy shit. and sometimes it refers to ideas too not just guys. has anyone heard about this

[stemmmm]

bad youtube clickbait thumbnail that reads "I think I just had a therapy session with a DEMON???"