Fight At Ultima Thule.

Just remembering Ultima Thule, as one does.

Bask in the spotlight and burn, baby, burn!!!! 🔥

Vrtra really said "Even here have we heard of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn" like he wasn't having Thavnair intelligence scooping up every detail of anything and everything to do with Louisoix Leveilleur the second he heard Bahamut hatched and was ready to glass Eorzea and Some? Mortal??? from Sharlayan managed to almost tank the blow

Ahewann, sprinting out of the meghaduta into the town square: I Need The Sharlayan Ambassador Right The Fuck Now

Five, six years later and the intel squads say the Scions have imploded, except whoops no they haven't they've snuck out of the regicide accusations into Ishgard and have disappeared into Dravania trying to end the Dragonsong War? pffff yeah good luck with that Nidhogg's been filling up my inbox for a thou- WAIT WHAT? WHO?? AND THE LEVEILLEUR GRANDSON???

Ahewann, sprinting straight to the Ishgardian consulate without stopping: Hey Uh Can You Tell Me What, and please understand this is very important, The Fuck

Then for a short bit family matters quiet down, again, maybe. Estinien "Not Not Nidhogg" Wyrmblood passes through Thavnair but moves on to Othard pretty quickly. Ahewann gratefully takes off his running shoes and Vrtra peels himself off the ceiling like a scared cat from worrying which would be worse to meet, Estinien or Nidhogg. Midgardsormr dies again but that's less of a big deal than it should be, he'll sleep it off. Tiamat is suddenly flying again for the first time in five millenia so that's . . . good, the world is ending but that's good at least. Estinien Wyrmblood may or may not have joined the Scions, no one can get a solid confirmation. Anyway he's got to get these scales to the alchemists, the Baldesion reps are coming soon, he can't focus on his own family drama right now-

He looks up and standing before him is an Archon astrologian in a bathrobe, another Archon nerd cosplaying as a gunbreaker, two Archons oh this must be the Baldesion group, [INSERT INSANE PLAYER CHARACTER APPEARANCE], well they look . . . interesting, are they imitating the Warrior of Light? and an Ishgardian dra -

Vrtra, malms away in the meghaduta: A

Vrtra: Ahewann

Vrtra: Ahewann we've got a Code Leveilleur situation here

Ahewann: What?

Vrtra: THE SCIONS ARE HERE

Vrtra: ESTINIEN WYRMBLOOD IS H E R E

Vrtra: GET YOUR SHOES ON AHEWANN HOW DID WE MISS THIS

Ahewann, spilling curry down his front, bursting out of the throne room with laces untied: Hey Everybody Come Help Me Throttle The Spymaster

Let's haunt the narrative together!

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

Pursue, unwavering

[ One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six ]

everything post-Endwalker hinges on the idea that even after saving the world and being released from their duty as Warrior of Light the WoL will seek adventure for it's own sake. They're still doing the same things they always do but this time purely because they want to.

And I don't think that change would have been possible without Zenos.

The final confrontation with him at the end of Endwalker, his questions spurring the WoL to think about why they do what they do, or the duel that serves to show them how fun it can be to fight without the weight of the world on your back. It's crazy to think that for all of the harm he caused the positive consequence of Zenos's actions was inspiring his friend to live freely.

FFXVI really takes your hand and says 'come with me', then shows you a world that is broken and full of pain and heartache and selfishness and cruelty. It shows you the terrible things people are willing to do to each other for no good reason, it shows you how how leaders can be short sighed and foolish in their earnest desire to do the right thing for their people, and that causes no less pain then when they are corrupted and arrogant and vain monsters. It shows you how people's cruelty all to often is born of a world that beats them down that gives them no other choice but to be cruel if they want to survive.

And then it asks: is this worth saving? Is this worth protecting? Wouldn’t it be better if you just let it all go? Let it all be destroyed, and broken apart, and lost? Wouldn’t it be enough to just end the pain? Wouldn’t that be salvation?

And in the same breath it answers, no because salvation isn’t the point. Humanity is cruel, greedy, fractious and hateful and it always will be. Just as humanity is kind, generous, united and loving and always will be. Even as the world falls apart The Dame fights to keep Northreach together, even as monsters beat down her gates Martha takes in refugees and escaped slaves and refuses to stop, even as nations crumble and bandits flourish the Dragoons still battle for the sake of their people and country, while the Crusebreakers keep struggling to free the innocent and protect the weak. Even as Joshua is hacking up blood, even as his body is shutting down he keeps walking forward at Clive’s side inevitably, inexorably to the end, because he loves his brother and refuses to give him up to Ultima’s scheme.

FFXVI tells you that there are no promises, not guarantees, that the only people who can promise salvation are the ones who want to sell it. FFXVI says that no one is assured victory, or safety, or paradise. The point is not to save the world from it’s evils. The point is that we fight to try and reach the next dawn with the people we love. Humanity can never create a perfect world because we are imperfect creatures, but the battle to make a better world, a kinder world, a more free world, a more gentle more fair, more loving world is what defines us.

underrated part of the early DT MSQ was

• finding out that the super epic trailer solo fight in a super epic ancient temple against a supervillain two-headed mamool ja while everyone else was out there enjoying their vacation was actually the wol equivalent of having a piña colada on the beach

• because said two-headed mamool ja is actually an honest-to-gods hero and also the literal king and he invited you to a friendly duel because he's got the Mamool Ja zoomies and can tell you've got the wol zoomies as well (or. nyaswell. for our miqo'te and hrothgar wols)

• the whole thing acted as the somehow non-creepy equivalent of conservative dads wearing shirts that go like "whatever you do to my daughter i will do to you. act wisely"

• directly followed by a very earnest "what do you think of my daughter so far. shes a bit cringe right? but i believe in her" and "please protect and guide her well" speech combo

• which was interrupted by said daughter, very angry at both her dad and you for secretly fighting behind her back (peak teenager moment) in a way that suggested (especially considering the ongoing "dueling as a metaphor for sex") she was actually doing her utmost to not go

at the wol to their face

AND HOW COULD I FORGET

• learning like three weeks later that estinien not only did the same thing, at the king's behest, but that he was paid for his services (😏) and so generously at that that even estinien "it's only one hair tie, alphinaud. what could it possibly cost? 9,800 gil?" varlineau thought it was A Lot. while all we got was a parent-teacher conference post-sexually charged nonlethal duel

12/10 funniest duty ever

And amidst deepest despair light everlasting.