#shadowbringers spoilers???

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 14 :: Night

Let me remember thee what thou hast promised, Which is not yet performed me.

Ashes fell like snowflakes as the red moon rose above the city of Allag for the last time. Even now, at the end of all things, the dragons of Meracydia were merciless in their vengeance, tearing and ripping at the city’s edifices as if they were made of paper. The Crystal Tower rose above it all, crowned by the eerie glow of the Cloud of Darkness. The smoke and screams of the citizenry fell away as Medusa ran up the stairs of the tower, desperate to reach Amon and Emet-Selch before it was too late. There was nothing left for her here, nothing more to learn or steal or hold close to her heart. Sounds fell away as her echoing footsteps were at last muffled by the rich red carpet that led to Amon’s theatre. A stage of horrors and heartbreak, she thought, recalling Scylla’s warnings. If only Scylla herself had heeded them.

She slowed as she approached the carved doors that separated the theatre from the rest of the Tower. A sudden, unexpected apprehension gripped her for a moment. What if they had already fled? Emet-Selch had kept the secret of Ascian teleportation from her, even after all these years. He wasn’t a fool, as much as she’d like to think of him as one. But he wouldn’t leave her. Not her, Medusa corrected. She wasn’t the person Emet-Selch thought she was, but his desperation to see her in Medusa had been an intriguing bargaining chip between them since he had freed her from the prisoner camp in Meracydia. She reached for the door, cautiously. Freed was a funny word to use, she decided. The Court was just as much a prison as that muddy swamp. At least death in Meracydia would have been swift, even merciful. She shooed another memory of Scylla’s howling screams from her thoughts. The past is the past, and she was ready to take on the mantle of Halmarut’s seat. She opened the door.

She saw Amon silhouetted against the red sky, his head hung between his shoulders, already garbed in the robes of a Paragon. His mask was gone, but his face remained turned from her as he ascended the steps towards Xande’s throne. Some unfinished business to attend to, undoubtedly. She looked around for Emet-Selch, and found him watching her from the stage, half hidden by shadows. The austere robe he wore draped strangely on him in contrast to the decadent, intricate costumes of the Court that she had always seen him in. As she approached, she saw his face likewise held none of the typical mirth she associated with him. She smiled at him, more out of nervous impulse than the relief she felt that he hadn’t left her here. He didn’t smile back.

“Strange meeting you here!” she called, an attempt at humor she immediately regretted. His face softened anyway, and he held out a hand for her as she crossed the raised bridge that connected the stage to the ballroom floor. She glanced down for a moment: she couldn’t see the ground at the bottom of the great spiral stairs of the tower. The fires and smoke had grown too thick. She took Emet-Selch’s hand and he pulled her up onto the stage, where they both stood for a moment, facing each other without anything to say.

“I take it you still have the Crystal?” he ventured, finally. She nodded, and produced it from her pocket. She half-hated the thing, a weakness she turned to in the darkest nights: to live someone else’s memories, a person who was admired and loved and safe. All things she wasn’t and couldn’t be. Not in Allag, anyway. Emet-Selch shook his hand, impatiently, and she handed the crystal back to him. Back in his palm, he closed his fingers over it and exhaled slowly. “It’s all getting a little out of hand out there, isn’t it?” he mused, still unsmiling, his shoulders hunched.

“Quite.” Medusa frowned. “Given the imminent destruction of the realm, I think I’ve fulfilled my vow to you.”

“So you have.” He tucked the crystal away within his robe and straightened his back. Medusa could not recall him being this tall, as he opened his arms to her. That apprehension was back. She was missing something, or something was off, but she was so close to escaping Allag, to freedom from pain and mortality as she understood it. She embraced him, and couldn’t remember the last time they themselves had been this close. 

“I promised you a reward for your faithfulness, did I not?” His voice was close to her ear, hushed even in this empty place. “A place among your peers and the power of the Paragons-”

She felt trapped as he held her closer, his grip on her shoulders suddenly strong and worrying. She tried to squirm away, but he had her now.

“I’ve been thinking,” he drawled, “in light of your excellent performance of savagery, that Allag suits you far more than I had anticipated. Someone as wretched and empty as you could only thrive in this pit of vipers. You’ve set the stage for a brighter tomorrow, Medusa.”

Her eyes grew wide - he had never called her by her chosen name. She could feel her pulse pounding stronger and more urgently as she struggled against his embrace. She had outlived Scylla, wormed her way into Xande’s graces, even reached a begrudging understanding with Amon, only for the one man she thought she could trust to turn on her like this, at the end, at the end of all things, at the end of her duty. No. No, it couldn’t end like this. She wouldn’t let it. She kicked against him, thrashed her shoulders and head to knock him, and tried to dig her fingers into his back with force. His clawed gloves sunk into her shoulders as he held onto her and floated up above the stage.

“You made me do this,” he hissed, his voice growing louder now and more manic. “You thought you could just pretend to be her, that just seeing her memories was enough? It didn’t work! The crystal didn’t work on you the way it worked on the others-”

“Hades-” she sobbed, clinging to him now as the fires in the tower beneath them grew closer and closer.

“You will not use that name!” he spat, his voice echoing off the distant balconies in the empty theatre. “You are fundamentally broken. Unworthy of her legacy, and unworthy of this power.” He drew in another breath and held it for a moment, while she scrambled to hold onto him above the drop. When he spoke again, it was with a concentrated effort to remain even. To be fair. “Worry not, my dear. The stage has been set for a Rejoining. If you survive the Ardor, you will be stronger. More clever. More complete. And if you don’t-” he smiled, loosening his grip on her, “we will meet again.”

He let go and she fell, screaming, past the ballroom floor, past the winding stair, into the thick smoke below. He froze, hovering above the stage, until her screaming grew faint and then ceased altogether. He sighed, wearily, and opened a portal to the Ascian’s realm as the dragons grew closer and closer. Next time, he promised himself. The crystal would work next time.

[shalpilot]

last night i had a dream

[layerafterdusk]

Hades in Hades' style

[tritoch]

the other thing I find very funny about trying to write a canon compliant wol is taking all the wolship hints extremely seriously.

I don't really wolship because I'm just fundamentally not that kind of fan. But I know for those who are, the sheer number of romance hints FFXIV throws at you can be overwhelming to parse in a context where you have a preferred/intended wolship, particularly if you're not attracted to the gender the hints are coming from in the first place (a particular tip of the hat to wlw fans navigating the g'raha of it all). I've seen plenty of people write around them or write them out or be like "no aymeric was for real inviting my wol to a nice platonic zero-subtext dinner," and God bless all of you.

But it's really funny to imagine them all as all-too-real but unreciprocated or perhaps unreciprocatable. The sheer scale of it is comedy. Spoilers for all of FFXIV follow.

Oh God, the Lord Speaker wants to have dinner, just the two of us, at his family estate and not a government building. I hope he doesn't bring up his crush on me. Thal's balls he's about to bring it up—oh thank God there's an emergency. Oh no someone got hurt! Oh no it's the teenage girl with a crush on me.

Your life is a cosmic joke. You watch the Sultana get poisoned and all your friends probably die to save your life and it's kind of all your fault in some ways, I mean at the very least you should've spoken up when they gave the teenager a private army, and then the teenage boy speaks up and is like, "hey, I guess we have at least one ally. What about if we go visit that guy who is really obviously down unbelievably bad for you and wants to lick the sweat off of you." and you have to be like, yeah, Alphinaud. Great idea. Let's do it. I'll call him.

(brief interlude: also haurchefant's DEATH hits so good if you don't reciprocate. It's okay. He gets it. You're going through a lot and even if you had time to sort through your feelings maybe you're just not into him. That would be okay! You can love someone, or the idea of someone, without needing it to be romantically reciprocated. That's chivalric, even. Knightly. So he won't ask you to lie to him and say you love him as he lies dying in your arms. He's not so low as all that. But could you smile for him as you used to? That true hero's smile of yours. And you do, and he dies. And you both know he died for a lie, in a way, or a flight of fancy. And he's okay with that. Are you? Should you be? Should he?)

Then you're into Stormblood and it's like wow, okay. That last part was all high fantasy, of course there were loyal knights and elegant princes. But this is war. Imperialism. Grim business, surely there's no way—oh no BOTH handsome young revolutionary leaders seem to have a special interest in you?! And so does the Crown Prince of the Empire? Come on, man. I should get to do the whole horrors of war thing without having to also deal with this. Gaius sucked and it was weird that he let his foster daughter run around being openly obsessed with him but at least he never made it my problem.

You can't even get away from it across dimensions. Shadowbringers is a horror story about going on a teambuilding camping trip with your work colleagues for some reason except they all suddenly got really hot and they keep touching you affectionately on the shoulder and being like "I care for you and your happiness. Truly." And also you're being stalked for the whole camping trip by two old men who are obsessed with you. The false climax of the story is that the one old man tries to betray you and give a dramatic monologue about how he loves you but the two of you are doomed by the narrative and then the other old man shoots him in the back like "no actually its MY turn to betray them and give a dramatic monologue about how our love is doomed by the narrative." Then the real climax is old man #1 backstabbing old man #2 in the middle of said monologue before old man #2 dies and gives ANOTHER wistful monologue about his doomed love. Then for the patches they're like okay so we have this even CRAZIER old man who's gonna strike when you're weak and give a dramatic monolo—

and that's without even getting into the literal soulmate ghost only you can see

my warrior of light never felt more betrayed than in that scene where Y'shtola is like "haha Alisaie and G'raha have crushes on the warrior of light." Like I thought we were COOL, Y'shtola! I work here! This situation is already in such a delicate balance! Right when I got here I met Alisaie's "friend from work" who was like oh haha so YOU'RE the one she can't stop talking about and we never followed up on that because the woman died horrifically like five minutes later right in front of us! Then when Vauthry got away and we had to do all that shit with the dwarves, G'raha kept pausing every ten minutes to be like oooooh I'm so old I'm gonna die soon...at least I got to spend some time with some people who are really important to me...in fact here's what I'd tell the person who's most important to me...actually u know them really well haha. And I just had to sit there and be like wow, dude, crazy.

even in the face of apocalypse you still gotta go back in time like 12,000 years and there's somewhere there who makes you sit and listen to his story which is that the purpose of his whole godlike immortal life was to be in a throuple with you and old man #2 from the camping trip. and you just gotta sit there the whole time knowing you/your past life is the one who broke up the throuple over politics. He's like come help me harangue the old man into streaking in public, he'll do it if you ask.

then you meet and fight and kill God and you gotta turn to the team and be like hey sorry guys can you give me a sec. I'm gonna call God by her real name because we met one time for like four days and after that the promise of meeting me again was one of the things that sustained her through her millennia of suffering. Not like that but like. Idk. Just gimme a sec!

It's a relief when you finally get to Lahabrea and he's like actually I still don't fuck with your vibe. Like thank GOD.

And my WoL is very obviously dad-shaped so Dawntrail had a very specific energy for me but I understand that for plenty of people your deepening rapport with Wuk Lamat had a romantic subtext (same for Koana depending on how you read a few of his lines). And personally I think it's the height of comedy to be like, noooo, babe, your highness, I know you and your brother the king are in love with me and want me to stick around and support you emotionally through this governmental transition haha. But it's just...the cursed wineglass, babe. I GOTTA go figure out what's up with this cursed wineglass.

It's a running gag in some of the more optional content that people are like "you have an unreasonable number of hobbies and side gigs" to the WoL from time to time. But if every time you tried picking up a new hobby some new elf started baring their soul to you, you too would be like Hey Jessie (or sometimes Krile or Tataru), my good friend who is one of the only people in my life who knows what professional ethics and work-life boundaries are, any chance you need muscle on a gig on the other side of the world? Ideally with only Cid and his ex so all libidinal energy in the room is directed towards machinery or someone who isn't me?

ironically one of the only places you get a break from psychosexual obsession is the nier content

[galacticsabc]

Let's haunt the narrative together!

[demilypyro]

This is my favorite FF14 npc btw (gay alcoholic dwarf girl)

[nephiieatsuranium]

With your unbeating heart, wish them well.

[celestial-bl00m]

I love when Emet-Selch enters a scene and all the scions are just like

[ikeimen]

custody battle (shadowbringers in a nutshell)

[anneapocalypse]

I think Shadowbringers is a great example of how knowing or guessing the "reveal" doesn't hurt a good story, and writers who understand that will write more confidently and tell better stories. That the Exarch is G'raha Tia is not hard to figure out. He has a distinctive lip shape, and he's the guy who was in the Crystal Tower! He's not even a very good liar at the end of the day. And none of that makes his arc as the Exarch any less powerful, imo. I don't think trying harder to obscure the Exarch's identity would make Shadowbringers a better story. Because the emotional core of his arc isn't in shock value. It's in the unfolding story of G'raha's journey, how he came to be here, why he is hiding his identity, why he pretends not to know you or who G'raha Tia is. It's in the culmination of a hundred years of planning and secrecy and loneliness, in how he's willing to die to save two worlds and you, in why it all goes wrong at the last minute, in how hard he tries to play the villain so you'll let him go, and in how unconvincing he is in that role. It's in the choices he makes when he realizes he doesn't have to die. It's in everything he chooses to be. He has a good story, and a good story doesn't lose its power when you know all or part of the ending, because a good story is about the journey.

[ahrisaamariyo]

also i keep thinking about this post and i felt the need to grab it. you piece of beloved citizens

[picaroroboto]

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

Point #2: Emet-Selch plays the villain with mannerisms so over-the-top you'd think he's about to burst into a disney villain-style song and dance number at almost any moment.

Point #3: He's self-aware enough to recognize that he is a villain in your story but a hero to his own people, and that whoever wins the battle will write history to declare the loser the villain.

Point #4: The Tempest, the zone where Amaurot is located, is named for the Shakespeare play of the same name, with other landmarks named after characters from the play. The BGM "Full Fathom Five" is also named for an iconic line.

Point #5: Amaurot feels so empty because it is, in essence, a set for a stage play. After the play is preformed it has no purpose.

Back to Point #1: Emet-Selch really loved theatre.

[agui-chart]

That's what happens when you skip Shadowbringers

[ciphox]

ghosts on the first

(alt under the cut)

[serennes-art]

come shadow, come follow me!

[alackofghosts]

but ardbert, dear ardbert, would not forsake his heart