the final final verse, for real this time

My interpretation of special NieR Reincarnation costumes for Zero's sisters. I started these back when the Automata and Replicant special costumes were found in the game code so they don't fit Zero's outfit at all...

Theme "The girls crash the NieR Reincarnation Release After Party" (One is pissed she wasn't invited and forced everyone else along) (Two was invited but didn't want to go) (Three is tired and lost her shoes) (Four tried a cute hairstyle but only Five noticed and made fun of her) (Five arrived drunk)

I also gave Five's chibi form one of those big fur jackets, because I think the design I drew was looking a bit bare..

To make one thing really clear - this is not an Ouroboros Theory. This isn't connecting lore dots about how a Limit Break, multiple cults worshiping a funny little serpent, a magical translator fish and the entirety of Naglfar hint at a world-eating serpent out to devour the horizon - No, those theories are around somewhere and they are very interesting and I hope they actually lead somewhere, but this is not that. This is a much lesser deal than anything like that.

This is about the Nature of Aetheris, about the capital-R Reality that our WoL and their little friends find themselves in. This is about the Worth of a Soul and what my WoL personally thinks about Azem - and that might sound like a very small, uninteresting detail compared to the other things in that list to you, but this post is also first and foremost trying to convince you why that's actually much more important than even Reality itself.

But first! Dawntrail.

I said I would explain the point of Dawntrail to you - and don't worry I will - but before I do that, I'll also answer the other question burning on everyone's mind:

Was Dawntrail Good?

The answer is very simple. The omnipresent Good-to-Bad Value Scale is a social construct. Despite us calling things good or bad all the time, there isn't actually any inherently set capital-V Value or capital-W Worth we could check to prove it, which means there can't be a definitive, objective answer to that question. Instead we just kinda subjectively make up rules to accept any conclusion that feels right - and those rules might even make sense! But unlike Color aka. Photon Wavelength, Size or Weight there is nothing we can actually arrive at, no concrete, easily accessible measurement that signifies something called Value - because what IS Value even, what are we talking about? - so any attempts to universally(!) qualify this Value or Worth of a piece of art, of a story, of a piece of interactive fiction is at the end of the day at the very least extremely complicated if not basically impossible.

That of course doesn't mean that it is pointless, that we can't still assign things Value despite all of that. You can quantify a lot of things, even emotional assessments, so why not do that with how "good" you think a piece of media is. You can still find things about Dawntrail that worked well, that you found interesting, that didn't work well, that you didn't find interesting and those assessments can help you formulate a somewhat systematic good-or-bad Value that you can stand behind and that you can communicate to other people - but you still cannot quantify a "true" universal Good-ness or Bad-ness in any form, because that Value will be focusing on what You think is Valuable. If at all, capital-V Value will only ever exist subjectively depending on what each individual person believes this Value to be.

In words by other people than me: The only person that ever knows if the question "Was Dawntrail Good?" was "satisfied"/answered correctly is the person who asked it - and that only person might even be you! isn't that nice - but it also means you'll have to figure that one out by yourself. Meanwhile I'll have you know that I have this line of thinking from a German book by a bunch of Catholics arguing about why God exists. now don't you feel stupid about opening this post huh i tried to warn you and it's only getting worse and worse from here

So why do we ask the question anyways? Why are we, the people, obsessed with capital-V Value when it doesn't exist and/or is a completely subjective thing that can easily be influenced by any of our oh-so-feeble emotions? Why do we care if the things we like are "Good" if there is no such thing as a universal "Good-ness"? Why do we try to construct this "Good-ness" anyways by coming up with things like 'rules of good design' so we can rest assured our assessments of "Good" and "Bad" are true? And why does everyone feel the need to tell the class that they thought Dawntrail was "Bad"?

Well, who knows. (it's mostly about aesthetics, it's about constructing an in-group to distance yourself from an out-group - aka "i find this bad unlike those guys over there who like this shlock, couldn't be me") I'm just setting something up for later here.

Let's instead go back to that other, barely more worth-while question:

What was Dawntrail's Deal?

What was the point? What did Dawntrail think it was doing? Unlike the other question, this one at least has a concrete answer, even if I can't factually prove it because I wasn't in Dawntrail's writers room. I can only make assumptions based on the text right in front of me.

Now, it's apparently really easy to miss, or maybe everyone did get it and just hated it, but, at least in my opinion, Dawntrail was in fact trying to be an in-depth look at what Legacy can do to someone. It's apparently really subtle, but it did look at most characters in its seasonal main cast and asked "Who did this to you?", "Why are you like this?" and maybe even "Did your parents drop you on your head as a child?" I doubt it asked these questions because it thought "What's wrong with these specific guys and how could we have fixed them?" but instead did that to try and impart the viewer with the message that, in a certain way, everyone was dropped on their head by their parents as a child.

Wuk Lamat was dropped by her multiple parents as a child, Zoraal Ja was dropped by his parents as a child, Erenville was dropped by his parent as a child, Bakool Ja Ja was dropped by his parents as a child, Krile was dropped (off) by her parents as a child and since all of these people were dropped by their parents as a child without even realizing it, chances are that even You might have dropped your parents as a child without realizing.

But regardless of how heavy a burden that drop turned out to be - maybe it didn't do anything to you at all, maybe it ruined your life, maybe it unlocked something deep inside of you that you're proud of to this day - regardless of the results, we are all in this magical web of "Dropped People" together. We all are influenced by the Trails others leave us behind in just as we leave Trails behind that influence those that are there to see them. All of us have to navigate these Trails if we want to or not.

Now. There is one specific main character they didn't do that with. A very important character with a very important and pressing key legacy that warrants addressing, whose lack of presence in this story seems to be quite contentious in the community actually - and wouldn't you know it, it's Eorzea's perfect specimen, the Warrior of Light themselves.

Well, at least it sure seems that way, doesn't it. In an expansion about "the ones who came before and the ones who come after", nobody in the story brings up the elephant in the room - the WoL's relationship to Azem - nobody interrogates how they feel about any of this, the characters themselves certainly don't talk about it, WoL Dialogue Options addressing Azem that could signal our character to care about any of this are far and few between - We could certainly make the case then that the writers just kind of forgot about someone here, couldn't we. Maybe the people are right, maybe the expansion wasn't enough about the WoL.

But... Well... So, how do I explain this to the people who believe this - you know how Azem is the Sun, right? You know, that bright ball of light that rises every day during the Dawn? We all caught that, right, that's why Azeyma (who isn't Azem, but is named after Azem) is the Sun Goddess, that's why Azim is the Dawn Father, the Azem Circle Symbol on their crystal is the alchemical symbol for Gold... and the Sun. We have caught on to the fact that symbolically Azem is the Sun, right? I'm not losing it, right, this is a thing we all know, right.

And now with all of this in mind, let's revisit the Full Japanese Title of Dawntrail, Golden Legacy.

This fucking play is about us, you guys. Like. I don't know what to say if you didn't think Azem would show up, because they've been here in the room with us for a while and they really tried to make it obvious.

When the writers show us how Wuk Lamat and Koana and Zoraal Ja are both uplifted and crushed by the blinding Legacy of their Perfect Father and all his heroic deeds, they're not only talking about any abstract person with an important dad, they're also talking about Us and Azem. When Krile and Wuk Lamat learn about how exactly their lives have been impacted by their birth parents' decisions - people they do not know and now met exactly once - they're not only talking about any abstract adopted person and their relationship to their unknown birth parents, they're also talking about Us and Azem. When Erenville and Sphene and Gulool Ja learn that there's no rule in the book that they have to fulfill their parents' expectations of them and then they choose to do it regardless on their own terms, they're not only talking about any abstract person taking over the family business, they're also talking about Us and Azem. (Just to be clear, they're of course also talking about all of those abstractions. But not only.)

It sure is convenient that out of all the little legactic stories we follow during Dawntrail's MSQ, pretty much all of them could directly be applied to the relationship between the WoL and Azem. I feel like that's not something that just happens on accident - it's almost like you're supposed to learn something from this. Have some thoughts. Hear, Feel, Think or something.

All that to say that I fundamentally disagree that Dawntrail wasn't enough about the WoL - because to me, Dawntrail's entire deal was to try to make You, the Player, ask yourself how you and your WoL feel about Azem and their Dawntrail.

Like - You stand there watching all of these people learn how their birth alone has set them on a certain path because of their parents' choices. You watch them either struggle against or walk in tune with their legacies, you watch them formulate their point of views towards their parental figures, their "actual parents", the legacy they've been born into and the decisions those people made on their behalf. You might even notice (big might because most people apparently didn't) that all of this talk about Legacy is clearly trying to make you - I'm pointing at You in particular! - think.

And then they hand you Azem's Key, Ethos.

I mean 8/10, no contest. They did it, They wrote a video game. What else do you people want. They could have shaped Ethos like a Brick and some of you guys still wouldn't get it.

Now, as much as the above speaks for my love of Dawntrail as a narrative, there is one glaring scene and sub-plot that I genuinely do not like to the point it cost it 2/10 points - okay i love what it makes me feel but i hate it because i'm 88% sure they didn't mean it like that and that makes it weird - It's the Soul-Cycle Stuff in Solution 9 and with it one specific scene in Heritage Found where you're introduced to how the Regulators work and where you're introduced to how the writers want you to feel about it. There, Alisaie makes a remark that made me feel a genuine ick that left a lasting stain on her character for me:

"Having seen the beauty of the aetherial sea firsthand, I simply can't accept what they've done here in Alexandria."

Imagine being the WoL. I know, hard ask, barely anyone without a wolship does that when it's not time to make fun of moon logic, but let's imagine for one second: You hear all of these stories about legacy, about following a path you didn't choose. You see these people take agency where they can, even if they just straightforwardly choose to continue their predecessor's memory (this is another of my few meh-points I have with DT, I feel like there should have been a few characters (specifically Sphene and Gulool Ja) who instead of following their preordained paths chose a new path for themselves that still 'honors their predecessors' in their own way). You hear a lot about how important it is to honor the past and protect the future and as of yet decidedly little about the present, about what is left for You.

And then you hear all of these people talk about Souls. should they also have shaped the souls like bricks?

You already know that you have the Hero Soul of most import. You have already learned that to the Universe - to the beauty of the aetherial sea - you're not really your own person, you're an expression of a splintered, recurring soul, an archetype, as is everybody else except for like four+twelve people who have at this point all died. You're a direct reincarnation that looks and behaves mostly, maybe even exactly like another guy. It's not that nothing about your situation and your decisions really matters to what makes up the person that is You, but the one thing that does definitely matter even more than that is your Soul - or rather

Azem's Soul.

Like, symbolically the Idea that Azem, Ardbert, Visna's Sister Not-Lightning (i'm manifesting), all the other Azem Shards and Us are just recurring expressions of the same Ethos would theoretically follow all of those lessons from above, right? We are alike but not the same and as such we as the WoL can learn from Azem's path to choose our own.

In practice however that symbolism doesn't actually track because of the introduction of Shard Duplicates. We know that Shards of the same Soul like Magnus and Wawlika tend to reincarnate as basically the exact same people down to their friends, their loved ones and their interests simply on the basis that they both have pieces of the same sundered soul. That would be a fun little haha what a coincidence multiverse worldbuilding moment anywhere else - but the aetherial sea is a closed system of souls. Since the same souls get reincarnated and reincarnated and reincarnated, that does imply that these soul shards that independently reincarnated that exact same person with the same friends, loved ones and interests will continue to do so again and again and again and again.

Unless there's some hyper-specific ultra-convenient side-rule to reincarnation - maybe something about how the aetherial sea reincarnates connected shards all at the same time and only each wave of reincarnations are the exact same person, every other reincarnation of said soul is completely distinct and unique from each other - unless they come up with something like that retcon-style then this ultra-specific but recurring coincidence does kind of imply that the aetherial sea kind of just keeps producing basically the same existence every single time said shard soul is reincarnated - Again and Again and Again.

And it also means we aren't in fact just "someone like Azem." It means we ARE Azem in the same way that Magnus is Wawlika - of course not the same, but, you know, the same.

And I know in the grand scheme that ultimately doesn't really matter, a lot of people already have something like that as their Azem head canon anyways. And sure, You too (not the wol, you you) have parents that dropped you as a child, you didn't get to decide how you look in our world either, so what if everyone in this fantasy world is exactly like someone that already existed, your current experiences still make you a different person than the reincarnation before and the ones beside you. "So what?", I make you ask.

Well, not only do I personally find that so fucking scary, but a Soul as a concept is supposedly the thing that makes You You, it's the thing that makes up your unique existence, it's the intangible core that keeps together your entire being - but to the WoL more than most, the way all of this is constructed makes it the complete opposite. The soul is the thing that isn't theirs, it's the thing they have from someone else.

To the WoL their soul is the #1 thing why they matter, why they are special and it only matters because this soul isn't considered theirs, this Soul is to this day 12000 years after their death Azem's Soul. They're just one of 12000 years worth of other guys times 14 repeating their existence but slightly different, 14 times lesser, exactly like them but not really, and if I'm going to die, that guy is going to be reborn again and again and again - that soul. Them and not me. Nobody is going around calling it Ardbert's Soul even if it's just as much his while we would call Magnus's Soul or Wawlika's Soul theirs - no, he is first and foremost Azem's Shard. i mean technically azem is also at the mercy of their own soul and just reincarnated from whatever archetype their soul stands for in the grand scheme of the universe but that's advanced soul thoughts let's just blame azem for now

And then 7.5 comes around and thanks to the sticky note they left on their key you now know that they planned all of this! They knew all of this would happen and they planned around you like you're a resource for them that they can use to fix problems they couldn't fix themselves in their time.

I guess you can decide what to do with that sticky note, I guess we can all pretend that we could just simply not follow Azem's Plan for us and do our own thing, but... you know, You won't. You won't decide. There's nothing to decide unless azem genuinely turns out evil which they won't do lol. You get to finish what they started and save the world (if you want to), isn't that nice.

We can all pretend that the WoL has a choice, a choice of flavor, maybe, they can decide their job, they can decide their hairstyle and their hair color, they can use a Fantasia and be whoever they want to be - but they have no choice but to follow this quest line, quite literally, because what is the other choice? Death by Hanging. Colonial Fascism. Unmitigated Climate Change. The Accelerated Despair Death of the Universe. More Colonial Fascism. More Unmitigated Climate Change. Closing the Game and never opening it back up again. No choice, all because of their Soul. which is an absolute banger accidental 'lore reason' for why the msq doesn't have branching ngl

And then you come to a place that decided that the soul isn't what makes you unique. You have a soul - and yes, maybe it does inform your being just like all the other things that make up your Dawntrail - but it's just a part, not the part like it's usually seen as, not the part that everything else revolves around and it's up to you to decide what to do with it. You can take it from your body and use it for science if you want to and nobody can stop you. You get to decide that and not the guy before nor the guy after. These people suddenly allow the WoL the agency of a being that isn't systematically inferior to Azem/the Archetype of their Soul on an existential level. Now you are on an even playing field with Azem, You can in fact take agency of your soul in the same ways that you can take agency over your past - this soul has happened to you, just as it has to Azem, but you can now decide what to do with it.

You watch these people decide to take that level of agency, make decisions about their souls on the basis of their souls, decide that they would rather use their soul to make sure someone they love right now is saved even if there's a chance their soul breaks doing so, even if there's a chance there won't be Another You ever again. It gives you a choice to escape this cycle of repeating that one's existence again and again and again and again if you wanted to, if you had an informed reason to. You don't - you don't have much of a reason to not follow Azem's plan - but now you could.

And then Alisaie comes out to say that Um, Actually Souls are Public Property, you can't use them like that, that's morally bankrupt and spits in the face of other generations. She says that this system in which a finite amount of people are recycled and recycled and recycled by choice* and without any strings attached to whoever receives that soul next is unacceptable - unlike her system that recycles and recycles and recycles a finite amount of people without a choice, which creates people like the WoL who are always and forever at the mercy of someone else's one and only path. That system is beautiful, actually.

Every Solution 9 quest line is drenched in this condescension, this forced reading by the writers that none of these people would make informed decisions about this because what's there to care about besides convenience? No, all of these people should feel bad about "playing around" with their souls like that, about removing their souls from the pool because what about the past, what about the future, you short-sighted people. What would those that come after feel? What will your rich parents who "gave everything up for you" feel? What will the unborn child feel that you deny the opportunity to live? What about your Dawntrail??? another right-wing nepobaby moment for the twins

I think the WoL is in a very fascinating position that only few other people in-universe have ever been in. There are only a good handful of people in the story that know just how escape-less this Ultimate form of a Legacy feels like and most of those characters weren't able to live long enough to really come to terms with it.

People always love to call Zenos the WoL's Foil and I just simply cannot care less about something like a Foil. Everyone is a goddamn Foil if you try hard enough, Deryk is our Foil, Wuk Lamat is our Foil, Lyse is our Foil, Alxaal is our Foil, Elidibus's body that he left behind after digging up Ardbert's corpse so he could possess him is our Foil, or at least to my WoL in my personal wolship writings. Great, you found a foil, tends to happen when a story is about something, but I think this whole "That I can't deny" thing about how we are just like him for real because we play this game for fun is not necessarily stupid or dumb, but just incredibly tacky. Yeah, compare me to a multi-national serial war criminal for enjoying the video game you made. Video Games Are Art.

There are elements about Zenos I do find intriguing, I will always love a Fictional "Psychopath"(i will explain this wording in a second stay with me) in concept because the struggle to be born without something everyone else deems as foundational to the human experience as emotions is just fascinating to me, there's so much in there to interrogate and interact with, to show how condescending the concept of Normality can really be. Zenos is why my Azem doesn't feel Pain so Amaurot can condescend to her that "Pain is a foundational part of the Human Experience you freak" before summoning Zodiark to get rid of it.

But most stories about Fictional Psychopaths - and Zenos's Story certainly applies - are only ever about them trying to become "normal", about escalating violence to try and feel something, anything really, instead of, you know, maybe letting them realize that there is no such thing as an "essential Human Experience." You know, hot take, but maybe Feeling Emotions isn't necessary to be Human - impactful, sure, not feeling emotions would certainly make a difference - but maybe not necessary. Nobody assumes losing a leg will make you some kind of Inhumane Monster because you can't participate in the essential part of the human experience called Walking anymore - but without Feelings, suddenly everyone's like, well, good luck not becoming a serial killer, you monster, there's no way you could live without that one. Might as well not call you human anymore, you sick freak! (this is all your soul's fault)

Add to that that the concept of Psychopathy, or rather, People who don't feel Emotions and/or Empathy, is a massive oversimplification of what's actually at play (that's why I'm not using correct terms like Antisocial Personality Disorder here, i'm not talking about the real thing) and you just maligned an entire group of actual real life people with a completely different affliction just to make up a guy so you can tell yourself that you're doing better than him for... feeling emotions. Look at this guy! Unlike him, we know that Murder is bad and shouldn't be done, isn't that nice. What an achievement for us, we have felt something today! Unlike us who clearly don't need therapy, this stupid guy didn't even try therapy and even if he did, it wouldn't work anyways because he's just so broken :( Might as well stop trying and lock himself up or something. Are we not glad that we aren't abuse victims? (this is all his soul's fault)

The reason this whole thing about how "Don't you see, this monster is just like us, we too like a thrill" falls completely flat on its face for me is because... well, I already knew that. Water is wet. We are like everybody. Zenos might be monstrous but he's still a human and every single human shares more things with each other than they don't simply by being human - and that's even without the "We were all dropped by our parents as a child" of it all. I already knew all that before Dawntrail and even before you came up with this ending for him in Endwalker - I wanted all of this to happen at the End of Stormblood so he can find a way to live by the end. I thought you gave him a different body so he can join our group and find a way to live a somewhat stable, fulfilled life.

Instead you had him continually do an escalating amount of war crimes to construct an utterly believable character whose motivations I can't help but care about (sarcasm if that needs to be pointed out, i don't know why out of all the things from stormblood people think zenos is one of the good parts), all so he can eventually die crying to me about how he's jealous of us because of his pathetic sob-story of a life, a sob-story you made him carry out because you didn't even let him try anything else. Yes, how sad for him, he just had to do all of these war crimes you wrote him doing and he just couldn't figure out how to human because vaguely gesturing to Garlemald. He's so much like us, don't you feel bad about thinking he's evil, but also he's not like us at all and he should die. Anyways...

If you need someone to foil us so bad, maybe let's start with the people that are actually like us, the people that could adequately talk to us about how the WoL might feel about Azem (outside of the other azem shards ofc), let's start with the other people you refuse to let die because "We need an antagonist", you know, the very enigmatic bunch known as... the Ascians. You know. The Bad Guys, who you refuse to let us actually talk to without them just condescending to us about how we wouldn't get it. Specifically also, the people born as Sundered Convocation Members that aren't yet overtaken by their old memories - People like Gaia.

Instead of wasting even more screen time by trying once again to make Zenos's whole mess of a character retroactively finally make sense - it won't, give it up, if he actually comes back i'll write a very pointed german forum post about your character focus choices - maybe finally get Gaia out here so I can ask her about how she's doing. Tell me what Gaia feels knowing that there's a Legactic Lesbian somewhere deep inside of her that thinks Gaia's entire being belongs to her. Tell me what she thinks about having her Memories taken by Mitron who didn't care a single ounce about what the new Gaia as an existence represents. Also, tell me what she thinks about Mitron conveniently being a Man in his only in-game appearance, I won't let you live that down you homophones. Tell me what she feels about being a play-ball to a Reality that manufactures people exactly like her on repeat, knowing that others like her went through the same shit again and again and again. Tell me what she thinks her responsibilities towards her Ascian powers are. Tell me what she thinks her responsibilities towards her future incarnations are that are bound to go through some version of this stuff again and again and again, all because she didn't decide to stop it.

Tell me what she thinks about the Beauty of the Aetherial Sea.

Gaia is the only person we know that in-universe is actually like us and it's completely ignored. Gaia and maybe Halmarut - who I would also love nothing more but to share a nice long chat over tea with - but Halmi seems to know too much to not have reawakened. also ysayle and shiva kinda fit too, wouldn't it be nice if we remembered her or literally any other of the 50000 characters in this game instead of zenos of all people

Given that Evercold has more than enough hints already that it deals with Azem's Legacy in a much more confrontational way than Dawntrail already did, I think it's reasonable to assume we will meet our Shard Sibling just to explain my manifesting, i think the 4th azem shard is visna(=serah)'s sister(=lightning) who disappeared before we(=noel) get there to join up with visna to find her ff13-2 style, someone who will be able to have all of these thoughts out loud. Hopefully they will know (vague) things about Azem we won't, maybe they will even have interpreted things differently than us and will oppose them. Maybe they'll even see us as a sibling-in-arms against the yoke of Azem's Legacy and we have to find a compromise about what Azem's deal means to us.

The problem is of course that the Solution 9-brand Soul Cycling won't fix the WoL's problem, it won't fix any shard's problem, because all it would do is to, well, end it. The existential system of inequality, this system that does in fact ascribe capital-V Value or capital-W Worth to a soul since it can and will make people important to the universe just because of it, it will continue to exist and doom people that can't find a way to escape reliving someone else's life. Instead, maybe it would be better to change it. Maybe it would be better to devour the aetherial sea and replace it with something else.

All I'm saying is that maybe Ouroboros should take the wheel. Maybe Ouroboros should be a Serpent Devouring the Metaphorical Horizon. Maybe just as we will rejoin the planet our way, we could replace the Horizon with one that actually gives reincarnated souls the freedom to be their own existence and not just an archetype whose Value to the universe has already been decided.

And if Azem doesn't conveniently have an almighty pet snake ready to do that - maybe we need to don the mask of blind betrayal, become the head that devours its tail...!

lol, no way they would do that, but could you imagine. the people that are already completely overloaded by the new clearly legally distinct rejoining just because they called it the same thing as the Evil Rejoining (TM) would combust if we killed mommy's crystal heaven.

So, I just want to start this off saying that in-universe this piece is intended as an admittance to blasphemy - Fuck the Gods, they're stupid, I made my own - and I just want you to know that that's what Paper Menphina is about to me.

Anyways, after struggling two years-ish to even just finish 3 out of 12, something possessed me to power through all of them in two weeks, including Actual Dalamud, Thalaos and Perykos, Nophica's Racist Kids, the Monkey and the Horse. That's the Power of a Deadline for you. I hope you're proud of me because I was in fact not even struggling that hard, I just fail to execute without pressure. Isn't that fun.

To get myself some head start I initially planned to do something to do with Paper Menphina meets Trails of the Heaven for the Art Contest before it was even officially announced, at first I was thinking about doing an actual Paper Diorama but with at most the Euphrosyne Gods to save myself some work - but then I realized No.

So I did this instead. It did help that the Twelve are our longest Companions so they fit the theme perfectly... but just in case nobody got that I also drew companions from each Alliance Raid just to be sure. I guess I also knew most people wouldn't draw companions as niche as Unei and Doga and I wanted to honor our other B-Side Alliance Raid NPCs at least a little bit this way.

Llymi was by far the hardest one to get right, not even her serpents but just her, I needed almost 4 attempts when I got the others down in ~2 at most - but I think it shows, she's by far my favorite

I included sketches of Halmi and Calyx because they walked all this Trail to my Heaven I already had those ready and at the end of the day I am in fact lazy efficient.

I thought about including G'raha and Krile in particular, but tbh it felt weird giving them 'screenspace' when I already struggled to cram Unei and Doga in there. With that in mind I do question my choices to give sketches of the Twelve that much real estate (looking at the almost 1-to-1 thaliak in the lower left there)

The Sketch Menphina in the upper right corner is the actual first Paper Menphina I've ever drawn just copy-pasted right in there. I hope you'll understand why I didn't include Chain Chomp Dalamud, yes all of this is supposed to be a Paper Mario reference, don't tell SE

I also hope you appreciate that the Sketch of Nophica behind Llymi's trident is glaring at the Sketch of Halone who couldn't care less about it (it doesn't actually look like she's looking in that direction, but she sure does in my heart)

I think I could have done better on the spacing/proportions of everything... I think it looks really good on here when you see it up close, but on the line up next to all the other submission, it feels a little lost :/ I could have made all of them a little bigger, which would also have helped with some of the gaps in-between them. Some of them (Oschon) also lean a little too much for my liking which is :///

I also should have gone a little bit harder on the elemental deco, especially the Earth stuff on the lower right. I was just too scared that it might hide my Implication of 2P... also, that's supposed to be the Red Girl Smile but as Emil, i thought that was funny

Actual Anogg and Konogg, btw :))) #AnoggForGhostsOfDesire #GetInTheEvaKonogg. It did hurt me physically that I didn't have the time to draw a bigger/better EVA. I did watch all of eva last week-ish btw, thoughts/evercold speculation are maybe coming soon.

Also, I nailed Ramza in a way I didn't with Alma...

Also, I drew Leofard. Guys, I drew Leofard. Look, It's Leofard. Anyways, back to forgetting that Heavensward exists.

I do remember stopping to gauge "where my eye is drawn to" like they tell you to do and stuff - but well, right now it's drawn to that "4 feet apart, they're not gay"-Gap between Oschon and Byregot and it really stands out to me now. Why didn't I give him his Hammer, I have it in my sketch, I ended up removing it to give the monkey more space, but I should have still drawn it anyways in that little gap right there. He's the only one who doesn't have something extra too ://// Really left my man hanging...

I can't unsee that Rhalgr looks like he's taking a very feminine nude candid holding his naked breast, but I still think that's too funny to fix.

I had a couple of ideas for the middle, I was considering a researcher group hang in Omphalos, but really didn't see myself drawing 3 to 5 people if I include the Roe with the nice hair (her real name btw) and Deryk. For the longest time I actually wanted to do Oschon's Stone with Wanderer's Palace in the background, but I misremembered the stone as standing right in the middle of that outcrop and not weirdly to the side as it does. Taking a look around all the other stones (I actually did end up taking most of that Pilgrimage in-game for this), I ended up doing Azeyma's instead even if my WoL has no actual affiliation to her besides the azem of it all ofc.

btw I did the entirety of that middle drawing with my WoL on the final submission date := With that in mind I'm actually pretty darn pleased with it outside of...

...the background, which I'm a little embarrassed by :/// I think it looks good enough, but I did use that Line Extraction Thing from Clip Studio and just laid it on top of the reference screenshot I took with some other effects and stuff and then drew some extra highlighting lines on top of it. I think it's perfectly fine to use those tools, this is in no means intended to shade to anyone who does, but I just feel like I could have done it better with a little bit more time (management) and/or confidence in backgrounds :/ also the coloring is supposed to make it look heavenly, but I worry it just makes it hard to get what you're looking at if the crystals aren't bright orange

Speaking of orange color, I will just never find that sweet spot where bronze-ish anime skin doesn't look full on orange on characters with light hair colors. I do actually look out for that, I have that exact same problem with my Azem, but then two weeks later I look at it again and am always a little mortified that I left it like this. Sorry to all the Blonde, Tan Greeks out there, I always let you down.

also to incriminate myself even more, i could have colored in leofard's skin a little more in that sketch, huh... i guess take that i colored in both prishe and alxaal (who is white) instead??? what was i on, that's actually pretty embarassing :/

I gave Ata a red pencil when I didn't draw the sketches in red

not condoning anything here this is not legal advice but if you're quick it's still up on y---

To get the negatives out first, I knew it wasn't particularly long so I didn't expect too many songs, but I did hope for more than one unannounced song :/// It's a really beautiful song but :////// i foolishly hoped they would end on a 106-only Dream Believers after the credits...

While I really like that Maika is the Main Character of the movie, the character balancing is a little off because the limited air time means they have to triage who else they care about. We thankfully get a lot of 102, but in turn Kosuzu and Ceras in particular just don't really have anything to do in the movie. Ceras at least has some banter with the other characters, but Kosuzu is literally just a background character oof. Like literally, most of her lines are intercom announcements spoken in the background of other dialogue, which they made really cute for her, but... I'm pretty sure Sachi-senpai had more lines than her. I mean, she's going to be in the 2D anime unlike most of the other characters in this movie so she's going to be fine, but damn. maybe that's why she gets tsuzu's haircut

Another thing I really didn't love is that they pretty much completely ignored the entire last year? They have this entire thing during the ED song of showing 2D Anime stills of notable story moments to reminisce Sanrenka's time at Hasunosora and the other two years get quite a lot of them while 105 gets an entirety of 2. Izumi and Ceras felt a little off-character tbh (then again I can't really judge too much because no clue what they were actually talking about), they didn't acknowledge that Izumi is kinda/sorta part of 104's Little Triangle/Star Square; While Sachi is in the movie quite substantially, Hiromi isn't in the movie at all (that's the one that really feels crazy to me) and they also cut around showing anything from the Final FesLive. I think what happened is that due to the production timeline, most of this was probably written way ahead, but it's still a little :/// to see how little of the year was actually mentioned.

Also, why was the third 106 girl not in the movie at all. I didn't expect her to do much, I didn't even need her to speak, I get that the point is that she's not going to have pre-established relationships going into the anime and therefore not a straightforward Kaho-bound backstory, but you still could have shown her existing in the background of someone else was watching BGP on their phone or something, idk, feels wild to leave her out completely.

That all being said, I do really appreciate this movie existing. It feels like a solid epilogue for the game and looking at it from that angle, I can't even mind that the movie is at the end of the day just a lot of standing around and talking. Very pretty standing around and talking, a lot prettier than the game for sure - sometimes even walking around and talking - but for a movie, it's still a lot of standing around and talking.

I love Maika, I'm so interested to see her as the new redhead MC in the future. I wonder what they have planned for her, she has such a different vibe to the other MCs. It will sting not having the space to develop her like the game would have allowed us to, but this movie gave me some hope that it will be fine. If the OG writers are involved, I'm 99% sure they will give everyone the time to shine.

As Ceras Yanagida Lilienfeld's biggest fan I am fine that she's not the biggest part of the movie, I'm a little bit :/// that she's once again Izumi's side character but, hey, Izumi is in the tough position of being the character with only two years at Hasunosora, she gets to have a little bit more focus. That being said, it really is time. We have to split up Ceras and Izumi and let them be actual members of the group, I'm kind of sick of them constantly getting treated as a duo in group songs, it just serves to make them feel like tolerated outcasts, lol.

Since we still have no news on Be Cera-fish, I am still wondering what's in store for Ceras' future. I am at this point firmly Team "Ceras should do a Sachi" where she switches groups for every single (1st single she's Ceribou, 2nd Dollke, 3rd Mirapa,...) because I think that would set her up perfectly for a devastating 107 graduation, but if she has to join only one group then I am 1000% Team Cerise Bouquet. Don't get me wrong, I love her relationship with Kosu, but you can't present the option of a Ginko/Maika/Ceras sub-unit to me and not deliver.

By the way!!! They have basically confirmed Izumi and Aoi are indeed related!!! I mean, not really, they said literally nothing about it, but Aoi conveniently leaves Maika to interview EdelNote alone so they never interact and in the scene right before she leaves, she adjusts her black undershirt collar that she shares with Izumi, too!!! Subtle Cinematography Hints!!! It's happening!!!

I wish I was able to understand what Ginko said at the end, I really want to see what they do with her next year as the club president, I feel like they could take her in some really interesting directions. I actually really grew to love her and her whole deal, the heavy "I wish my crush would look at me like she looks at her girlfriend" they had her do really worked, I love her.

Like, I know LoveLivers want to gaslight others and themselves that LoveLive has always been Yuri(TM) actually and not just milquetoast ship bait (i'm not doing this, love yourself and watch/read some real yuri), but I don't know, Hasu just hits different. I haven't thought about it enough to draw the line between a NozoEli and a RuriMegu, but maybe it's the actual Yuri writer and the wedding rings that make me more willing to call it Yuri-adjacent than the rest of the franchise.

But yeah, it's a nice little movie :) I will probably watch it again once someone provides good subtitles, but then again maybe I won't, it kind of already gave me everything I needed out of it.

What can I say. Cool.

So let's get right into it.

The Trailer

I really like the whole vibe and the setting, at first I thought it was going to lean more into a germanic witch aesthetic than it ultimately did, but the tapestry is a really cute choice especially with the Fate of it all (My Halmi = Ariadne stocks are rising) and I do love me a good Nordic Fantasy Aesthetic (and judging by some of the concept art it defo still has a certain fairy tale aesthetic to it too).

The words written in gold at the beginning about meeting your Fate and stuff... That's the kind of shit Azem would say, right? We're going to speak with Azem in 7.5(6)... right???? Or at least receive a message from them through the key or something like that.

For some reason the little spark at the end of the Rejoining Animation is really ominous and foreboding to me, but since I highly doubt they'll end this Saga with the WoL dying, I wonder if we'll have to give up our "Azem Ancestry" so to speak to make it all happen...

The second I saw Meteor and 1/3rds of the gang I kinda sighed, I don't know why I was still hoping we would finally get a (temporary) new main group and I do, genuinely, hate the Viper Gear, it looks so annoyingly bland and boring for a MC design, thank god he changed into Reaper at the end, that makes him look so much more appealing.

My Paulaner Spezi was left unopened, I had it ready to cheers to my girl Krile but she was nowhere to be seen... Hopefully she's in the Berlin Trailer with Halmi and/or Zero and/or Ryne (my two faves have yet to meet...)

I really love the Amano Logo, absolutely Classic Final Fantasy vibes, they really nailed it. I also have a feeling that the girl it is depicting is going to be (part of) the Big Bad, something along the lines of "When we get rid of the Gods, people will pray to literally anything else" (put a pin in that)

By the way, the German trailer is really good too, even if they for some reason only subtitled the English text instead of just replacing it. Maybe they only do that for the final one? Too lazy to check, doesn't really matter anyways.

I do like the title Farwanderer for the WoL, I think that's neat. I do by all means hope they don't do the Genshin Impact thing of having everyone address [our name] as Farwanderer in Voice-Over going forward, I hate stuff like that, there's something incredibly tacky about it that sucks away any identification I could possibly feel with [Player Character Titles].

The Fourth

I am in absolute love with the area designs, they're all so fucking pretty, always a sucker for Skybox Objects and they already showed so many of them, just imagine what they have in store for the Final Map...!!!! The scale and grandiosity of the architecture reminds me of FF13 in a way, I hope that's on purpose... I think Brynhildr or some kind of Fimbulwinter Odin based on his 13 version is definitely on the table as a Trial.

I do hope we'll see the white tree from the trailer tapestry in-game, that looks so pretty... Prime Real Estate for a Latter Half Map, imo.

I guess the plan is to do a Shadowbringers Night/Living Memory sort of thing where entire areas freeze over/thaw as part of the MSQ? The trailer narration talking about how the planet has already frozen over definitely does imply some sort of timeline shenanigans where she might not actually be talking about us but our shard back in the day or something like that.

The Big Monster Gods remind me so much of Tears of the Kingdom. I like it! Really weird in a fun way.

I also thought there were a lot a lot of Aetherites (or is it Eitheryte) in the concept art? I didn't count them all and maybe some of those were just additional artwork of the same location, but I am very open to the idea of more, but smaller maps. For the record, I would also be fine with another round of 6 Big Maps, I like the Big Maps.

That being said, outside of the cat dwarves, the three Au Ras and the storyteller in the Trailer, we have yet to see, like, anybody from the Fourth and how they look like, I wonder if there's some reveal happening about that in Berlin... On the topic of the praying Au Ra girl, I do want to throw Yeul & Caius FF13-2 in the ring as inspo for them. I doubt that's the reference they went for, buuut I just want to say it in case I'm right about my hunch.

I also want you guys to know that my Fourth Azem Shard OC is a Lunar Au Ra Pope Lady living on the moon, so she's perfectly ready to be inserted right into all of this (she even looks like Halmi and I designed her what, 2 years ago? I'm a visionary)

btw i also need you to know that i made designs for all of the azem shards. all 14.

The Crossover

Let's get this one out of the way - Just as a disclaimer: I'm legally not allowed to complain about this because I'm Y:DA's Number 1 fan. This is fine, this is fun, let them cook. Alliance Raids are just simply the best place to put Cross-Overs because they're the easiest type of content for casual players to get into and their scale is perfect to make things look really cool and impressive - so I'm sure it will be an experience like no other. I had the slightest hope it would be a Bravely Default Cross-Over, that's the only reason I'm disappointed.

That being said, I'm looking forward to another expansion of people complaining about YoRHa:Dark Apocalypse, I will never be free, this Cross-Over can be as good or as bad as it wants to, all paths lead to "Y:DA Bad". I might not be willing to call you people dumb for not getting it, but you sure as heck are annoying about it. Get over it, one quest line out of 15 thousand is not for you, we get it.

It's interesting that apparently they are going to write it themselves? I wonder if, since they can't really do the Y:DA thing of more or less copy-pasting settings into the FF14 engine (I don't really know what they would copy from "earth but kinda weird" that is big enough to theme an entire raid around), they'll make the Raids original high-fantasy locales on the Fourth that Angels or an Eva or whatever crash landed into. Maybe even fully original Fantasy Evas? Who knows. Just don't do the FF11 Best Moments Gallery thing again, give us something cohesive.

Actually, if they don't scale the Angels down to a more sensible size and let us fight enormous death geometry beyond comprehension on foot while there's an eva on the loose trampling over the battlefield I could actually get invested into this...

What I do know is that this 100% happened in the same meeting as the Yoko Taro Eva Anime, right. Who else at Square was in that meeting? What else is Evangelion planning?

Also, just to spite you people, I hope every single shard from now on gets a stupid Sci-Fi-Adjacent Alliance Raid Cross-Over. I'm already looking forward to the Steins:Gate Raid on the 11th in 9.1 and I'll applaud it when it happens.

The New System Stuff

It looks. Crazy? It's out there for sure. I'm not that bothered about it, I actually kinda like how it looks, I love that they want to make it customizable. Armory-wise all of those changes sounded sensible. Ngl, I was a little spooked by the Season Pass until I remembered I already pay money for this game and in my first impression the UI also looked very FF13 and as much as I adore 13's whole deal, the UI in that game can get very confusing to look at, at least to me.

I love the Character Customization Updates, the color wheel stuff was obviously already half-way implemented in Dawntrail's NPCs so glad to see that we get those now, too. I hope it does include new face options down the line even if they didn't announce that yet, but even just the armor toggle is such a big deal to me, I love it, the number of armors in this game with hideous shoulder pads and thingumabobs that ruin the entire thing is no longer too big. Action Skins sound tailor-made for Picto, big fan on that front - and I do wonder if that means we'll finally get actual Egi Glamours for Summoner.

The obvious thing that's still missing for me is a Glamour Catalogue of some sort, but I think even if it's not in the cards for this expansion that's clearly in the pipeline, they clearly know they have to do something about that and are working on getting there.

The Reborn/Evolved thing seems like it's bringing the PvP combat update into PvE content - which sounds fun to me, seems like a good idea - I just think it's kinda crazy that they're giving themselves the... challenge? of introducing 21 more jobs to balance around instead of just ripping off the band-aid, it's not like people aren't already complaining anyways.

Not that I ultimately care, I've played since the end of HW and always had fun with the combat while everyone else always seemed high-key miserable about the state of combat at all times no matter what - It's just... interesting to already see so many people fully doom-posting potential healer changes they haven't even announced yet and bemoan how they dumb down combat when... they left Reborn Mode right there. Why do you think they invested time and effort in doing both, huh. It's almost like they want you to use Reborn Mode if you prefer it. Congratulations, you are the target audience for Reborn Mode. what's not clicking

I will say I think it's still a bit early to judge certain parts of it, especially the complexity. Not that I think WHM will be much more complex than what they showed, but I'm pretty sure that what they did show was somewhere between the new Lv. 50 Base Version and Lv. 100, not the final kit with all of its features, it definitely didn't have any new 110 updates yet and they also didn't show every single skill option in the current prototype line up either.

Like, the idea that they got rid of Blood Lilies for example doesn't really track to me when they spent all of Paladin going "we tried our best not to get rid of the most iconic stuff." They might have axed it, I don't have proof they didn't even if I don't really see the point of keeping the Lily Gauge if they did, but in my mind he probably just didn't show it off because he didn't happen to proc it during his little exhibition and he probably just forgot to go out of his way to show that it was still there because he was clearly really nervous some of you people are so fucking mean lol how about you do a two-hour long public live panel about your mmo's eternally hated on combat design choices

Similarly, if the entire point is to give Jobs more pronounced Identities like in PvP there's no reason to assume they would get rid of stuff like AST cards, how does that logic track, that's kind of the exact opposite of what that entire segment implied, if anything they're going to lean in and make them weird and potentially niche busted like the new DRG Jump. I mean, we can be uncharitable to everything they say, sure, and yes, Healer Gameplay is a little bit too worried about entry level players, but considerrrr... that you people sound miserable, please look into a mirror and explain to yourself why you're this hung up about a video game you clearly don't like anymore not catering to your specific taste, this is getting weird.

On the other hand we haven't even seen how this change influenced Encounter Design yet either. Current PvP combat is obviously built around having to react much more dynamically to your situation than with our current static Overworld Enemies, so if they actually make bosses notably more dynamic like they said they want to, it might be better that the new combat system isn't quite as complex as before because you actively have to react to things and change your rotation around what's happening which is much harder to do if you have 5000 different buttons to worry about.

Either way, no MMO audience will ever not complain about the state of combat, so.... What do I care what joyless people think. Your problem.

The Jobs

We're getting the Two Shield Tank they talked about last Expansion, don't we. I was hoping we were getting Halmi as a Puppetmaster-esque Job but I think that's off the table since we're getting original jobs. Maybe a Fate-Weaver Ranged DPS using Puppet Threads as weapons? let me dream...

Another thing that popped into my head was a Ryne Job Change for the Ranged Job, no idea what kind of job though. I don't know why I'm doing this to myself and hope she'll even be in this expansion, but... please? If we get On-Demand Shard Travel in 7.5, can I have my girl and her bisexual goth gf back? I did really start to miss her ever since I thought of that.

The Clown

And I'm not talking about Tetsuya Nomura!!! (jk jk massive fan you could never make me hate him)

I assume he didn't just show up for voice directing, they didn't say it but yeah, we're getting a new Kefka form, right. Honestly, I love that he keeps coming back to 14, a game he has barely any connection to, to give us new designs for those old games he designed for, even if it's just for a relatively niche ultimate or a savage phase. It's just nice to get 'official' new designs by the man himself.

I wonder what weapons they'll use as base models for the rewards, surely not the weapons from that raid tier that have nothing to do with him in the slightest? Then again, what other weapons would they use instead. Also, iirc that tier's weapons are really pretty... yeah okay I changed my mind use those weapons please

The Story

First of all, I love that they have us do a Rejoining!!!!! I wanted them to do that but never ever thought they would shake up the world to that level, especially after Myths of the Realm decided to not reflect the Twelve's departure in any singular way in the Overworld. (this is not the Myths of the Realm section yet. keep the godlessness pinned)

But that's so cool!!! The sense of world scale I hoped we would finally get to. Looking forward to a fully new world map in 10.0 that still covers Ilsabard in clouds.

I don't know what's not clicking for the "But didn't we try to stop the Ascians from doing that?" people, clearly this is the difference between two trains slowly approaching each other so they can couple up and drive off into the distance together and a train crash at full force. Both involve the contact of two or more trains and only one of them results in a mass casualty. We're just going to merge the dimensions into one big world, maybe even multiple planets next to each other if they're too lazy to draw a new world map, and we'll do it safely and slowly (okay maybe not slowly) instead of letting them all collapse into havoc and destruction. Easy.

I also don't really get the "Just HW+ShB" Allegations, like yes, sure, on paper maybe, but like. I think that's a lot of assumptions from the first trailer alone - which I will add, never really reflected the actual story of the expansions in any meaningful detail anyways.

Clearly the Fourth is on a much different level advancement-wise than the First which had an entirety of two cities left on it, so the actual things we're doing there, the stuff that's going to stand in our way and the people we interact with are going to be driven by completely different motivations. We - as in the Scions - are also in a much different position than we were in both HW and ShB, that's going to make a giant difference in tone as well.

Sure, the overall concept and story outset is maybe a little bit too similar, I will give you that, they could probably been a little bit more creative on that front to make them stand apart more on first glance, but I honestly don't think that's going to be that much of a problem when we're actually in 8.0. We'll have that talk when we get to it.

I do wish we would go to the Fourth with anyone but the Scions - Ryne, Gaia, Zero and Golbez, I'll take anyone - but I think that train is long gone, somebody over at FF14 decided that this Game needed a Dedicated Main Party like the other games, one that's around at all points always and forever, right behind the current Expansion's guest characters and all that "The Scions have disbanded" ultimately really amounted to is to get Tataru, the best Scion, completely out of the story, lol.

Sure, specifically Zero is still somewhat likely to show up in one of the later trailers, but after how Alphinaud and Alisaie's send-off in 7.4 pretty much overshadowed Erenville's only for them to immediately come back into the story the next patch - It's over, they'll be here forever.

actually, since they said that what happens in 7.5 is in some way spoiled by the 8-man raid setting and there's only so much that can happen in 7.5, what if the 8-man raid is the extended void squad (ryne, gaia, zero and golbez, maybe even cyella and unukalhai if they actually get to be relevant ever again) readying another shard for the rejoining like how we presumably do it for the 4th in the msq?

Anyways, we should talk about The Godless Realms Saga. Because I have thoughts about The Godless Realms Saga.

The Godless Realms Saga

Listen, I'm so excited, I'm as happy as I can be about these announcements so far, I will be sat Day -3 or whenever Early Access starts and have the time of my life on this bus. I'm aligned with this game on a wavelength that makes me really easy to please because I just kind of get it, so even if I sound kinda mean or pissed or whatever, I'm enjoying myself, this is playful ribbing at most. I am not part of the miserable Post-EW Brigade that needs to tell you how I "do not recognize my favorite game anymore", no, far from it, at this point I don't think there's much FFXIV can do to get rid of me, not even be boring or stupid or whatever because it already was and I'm more invested for it.

All of this to say: Get your pin out from earlier - this is the Myths of the Realm section. This shit is going to suck ass!!! (I say excitedly)

I bet you that we have FF16 and the inevitable FF16-themed Expansion "Farwanderer" to thank for this, but this name promises me one thing and one thing only: This is going to be so. stupid.

Yoshi-P or whoever else is to blame for this over at Creative Studio 3 seems to have a thing for the theme of "Humanity doesn't need Gods." That's neat for him, technically I should like that, practically he and his writers sadly haven't yet demonstrated that they actually know what they're talking about. Maybe Evercold they'll finally getting it right, as far as I can tell the HW guy isn't involved which is a good sign, but either way - this is not about them.

This is about the fact that the writer of Myths of the Realm couldn't possibly disagree more.

To abridge my upcoming video essay "I hate Myths of the Realm as much as Nophica should hate Halone", the writer of that story line questions so little about what it means to worship and to pray that they have to be supremely religious or the entire quest line doesn't make sense or they just didn't think about it at all which is much more likely.

Like, this writer argued that it wasn't all that bad that a Lamb of Dalamud didn't leave their homicide cult because at least he stayed in it to honor the legacy of his favorite Love Goddess, neither of them noticing the obvious problem... that said Love Goddess would never want you to stay in a cult that does homicide in her dog's name, that is simply the furthest possible thing a Love Goddess could ask of you. This guy has clearly not thought a single second about what Menphina stands for and what praying even really does and why you do it, to him it's just some ignorant sense that Praying to your given god is "Good" and "Should Reward You Someday."

To our dear writer, the fact that this guy blindly "worshipped" her was more than enough, everything else is the other Lambs of Dalamuds fault. Thinking about if what he's doing aligns with her moral teachings in any way shape or form is really not that important, just follow the script you were given and you'll be fine. They even went so far to make Deryk reassure this Lamb of Dalamud of all people that he should just keep on doing what he thinks is best without any attempt of introspection whatsoever and then they made Menphina herself go so far as to break her hallowed vow of silence that she continually reminded you about beforehand just to pat him on the back even more.

On the other hand this writer also made this completely devoted and unreflected act of "Praying"/"Worship" a fundamental necessity to keep the world going by making up an actual environmental purpose for these gods (and only these gods) that is solely fueled by praying to them and instead of providing us with an actual alternative to fix this still completely unexplained problem without them, they instead replaced the Twelve with AI so we can simply keep on praying.

This is of course a major problem if you suddenly want to tell a story about how Humanity doesn't need Gods, because you just textually established that regardless of what they do for us (keep in mind that they did in fact just leave) we absolutely do need these Gods or at least their "Blessing" in not just spiritual but outright secular ways. Like, they're not just arguing that praying can make you feel good when you're down low so it's good to have Big Religion around for people that need it - they established that a notable amount of people absolutely need to pray to this One True God-AI or the Planet Dies. That is what Eulogia is. You did in fact just explicitly say that Aetheris is completely dependent on the Twelve and that we can't just stop praying to them, even now that we know for a fact that they left. fuck this quest line man who at any point thought this was a good end for the twelve and the world???

So now that Halmi introduces this Weltenwende in 7.5 (i'm too lazy to look up the english term sry), another existential threat to the planet that has to do with some spiritual force (the will of the planet) and which is therefore likely an allegorical stand-in for "We need to figure out how to approach Godlessness in these Godless Realms", Evercold has, in my mind at least, three options:

1) Establish that whatever the Twelve helped to fix was actually to prevent the Weltenwende but Eulogia either doesn't suffice anymore or still needs to be get rid of regardless.

Unless the writers come up with a really good explanation for how this was the plan all along, this would make the Twelve look really stupid. Like. Really Stupid. They really couldn't wait for another couple years so we could fix all of this with them there to help us, huh. They didn't tell us about the big problem facing us because they just thought it was going to be fine with their magic spell and it immediately turned sour. There would be no way around establishing that Myths of the Realm was a massive and profound waste of everyone's time and brain space, that the Twelve were in fact completely out of their mind in their approach to their departure.

The Academy of Sharlayan would need to open an investigation into Baldesion's scholarly practices, G'raha and the Roe Girl with pretty hair would lose their accreditations for failing to follow basic academic procedures, news about the Twelve leaving would reach the public and fuel a populist agenda about how academia is lying to the populous which ends up pushing at least one nation, more following rapidly, towards becoming a Fascist Dictatorship. Deryk, the Wanderer, would be hunted for sport because he of course knew all of this and a few WoLs who love white bread will be absolutely devastated by this development. All around bad times.

I really want them to do that so bad. I want them to get the Twelve in here front and center, I want them to give the Twelve the Lore Depth they deserve instead of treating them like Cardboard Cut-Outs That Love Us and have us actually confront getting rid of them. I want them to explain to me in detail what the fuck the Twelve even did in the first place. I want them to admit to me that "Goodbyes are hard but you don't have to do them" is in no way an adequate resolution for Deryk's character arc. I want Evil Twelve Primals, I want NPCs struggling to confront the Twelve Leaving instead of this bullshit "Blessing" that left us without a single reason for why the Twelve needed to exist at all, without even a singular trace in the overworld that they even left.

Needless to say that they're not going to do that.

2) Spread Eulogia

I mean we could just give all the Godless Realms a God in Eulogia and simply argue that "Humanity needs Gods" but that would be utterly Fucked In The Head.

3) Completely ignore that Eulogia exists

Unless Halmi really surprises me tomorrow, they will 100% just pretend that the Eulogia Blessing doesn't count even though its entire function is to be a Twelve-Stand-In so every NPC in the game can keep on pretending they exist. Maybe they'll even ignore the Twelve completely, but even if they do mention them they will just pretend that we are indeed Godless - which is technically true after all, all we have is a meager Blessing that does everything that they ever did without any drawback for anyone whatsoever while chaining us to religiously worshiping gods that do no longer exist.

That way we can proceed to condescend to the people of the Fourth about how unlike us enlightened few who can handle life without our Gods, they can't handle their Godlessness and are instead moved to pray to fuel a White Devastation like the pitiful losers that they are (this is btw what I think is happening in evercold, the whiteout was fueled by people praying to it for salvation and just imagine how much harder that would fuck if they made that whiteout a menphina primal)

It will be exactly like when Alisaie called the Soul Cycle Stuff in Alexandria - a cultural practice that everyone most* people have agreed to participate in - "unacceptable to us" after we spent the entire first half of DT establishing that you can't just dismiss cultural practices and their reasons and impact just because you don't get and/or like them. *she wasn't even mad at that part, she was mad at the idea that people view the value of souls differently than us

Or maybe they don't. Actually, it's much more likely that the God in Godless actually refers to Zodiark whose powers kept the Reflections in balance or something. He's probably the God we need to learn to live without - us too even if we never prayed to him - but that only occurred to me after writing all this so that's that. Either way: Halmi Saves!

Have a little WIP of Paper Dalamud for making it all the way down here.