A little pain never hurt anyone

happy mama's day + happy Black Fae Day!

Oyuun found herself seated upon a powerful black mare as she galloped across the cracked and broken earth. Bodies of her brethren were strewn about wherever her eyes landed. It was useless to look away, for she only found more when she tried to avert her gaze.

A memory of the past, she quickly realized, though it felt just as real as the first time she experienced it.

Oyuun swallowed hard, her gaze focused between the horse's ears as she pressed on. The deeper she rode into the capital of Amaurot, the more twisted abominations she found. Oyuun followed the trail of bodies their warped creations left behind, her eyes welled with tears as everything she held dear was engulfed in flames.

A dark reflection of a world that could have been.

ala mhigo was torn by garlean invasion, their entire people scattered and forced to leave to the rest of eorzea. there are so many displaced ala mhigans that LITTLE ALA MHIGO EXISTS, FULL OF ALA MHIGANS WHO COULD NOT LIVE WITHIN GRIDANIA OR UL'DAH

Rejected by the elementals of the Twelveswood and unable to adapt to Ul'dahn custom, Ala Mhigan refugees eventually settled in southern Thanalan. In exchange for supplies, the residents allow the Immortal Flames to maintain a presence, and Little Ala Mhigo now serves as a post whence to watch the movements of the Amalj'aa

you literally interact with meffrid in A REALM REBORN

IN FUCKING GRIDANIA

WHERE THE PALACE OF THE DEAD THING IS. IN THAT SMALL CAMP. BECAUSE HE TOO WAS FORCED TO FLEE

how can you look at lyse in the eye and see stormblood in a vacuum and not understand that the entire point of lyse becoming the face of the resistance is the fact that ala mhigo does not abandon her children, regardless of where they are and who they are? that she rejects this position of power over and over because she understands she's unfit to lead as someone who didn't fight for her own homeland?

THE LITERAL GYR ABANIAN ANTHEM THEY SING AT THE END OF THE MSQ EXPLAINS IT. COME YE WAYWARD BROTHERS, BEREFT OF HEARTH AND HOME

this is why lyse is tied with hien, because he was born DURING garlean occupation. he has never seen a free doma, this is something they insist upon on his side of the story. they are linked because hien has never seen the country his father died for and yet he is here to continue the fight and ensure doma is liberated. its the exact same for lyse. hien's life hinged on the desire for freedom, if his own people didn't want to be free then he was going to kill himself because there is no point in him fighting for and existing as a symbol of freedom. both of them had their people acknowledge they're needed!

wayward brothers! in the lyrics of gyr abania's anthem!

wayward daughter! as the theme for tsukuyomi!

this is why yotsuyu is also important! why fordola is important! they are still, at the end of the day, daughters of their own countries who matter as much as anyone else who embodies the perfect upstanding citizen! it matters that yotsuyu is treated as doman (even after the questionable decision of giving her amnesia which just. feels like an easy "feel bad for her bc we couldn't figure out how to make a victim turned perpetrator seem empathetic"), because her pain and suffering came as a result of doman patriarchy. it matters that fordola grew up as a "priviledged" ala mhigan child within garlean camps! because neither group accepted her or her family in the end, because she was always going to be seen a traitor and a savage regardless of what she does and what she accomplishes!

on the other hand...

In A Realm Reborn we get the cocky, self-righteous Gaius and the mad scheming Lahabrea

In Heavensward, we have the ever raging and prideful Nidhogg, the power hungry and corrupt Thordan and the Heavens' Ward, we get the revenge driven Estinien possessed by the uncomprimising Nidhogg reborn, coupled with the stoic Igeyorhm and a different version of Lahabrea, one more calculating and yet severe.

In Stormblood we have the vengeful Yotsuyu, her bumbling brute, the complicated Fordola, and the disinterested but honed Zenos.

In Shadowbringers we have the driven Ran'jit, the self-absorbed Vauthry, the melancholic and cruel Emet-Selch, and the zealotry of Elidibus.

In Endwalker, we have Zenos returned but seemingly even more ennui than his Stormblood encounter, he seems more inwardly inspective yet seems to miss the point of us, we got the nihilistic Fandaniel, and the cruel to be kind Meteion.

In Dawntrail, we have the boastful Bakool Ja Ja, the self-assured yet waivering Zoraal Ja, the scheming Sareel Ja, the polite Sphene, the diabolical Sphene, and the cold Calyx.

Now with the upcoming patches they've pitched the cold calculating Calyx with the solemn yet accepting Halmarut.

No two villains are truly identical. They could of seen Elidibus and Emet-Selch's popularity and tried the past few expansions to recreate the lightning in a bottle. But they continued to add nuance or a greater element. Even with Zenos returning, he doesn't seem to be the same Zenos as the one in Stormblood. He feel uniquely grown and different from the past. Though he is trying to hit the same beats as he did before, the story is different so things are thus as well. Its a nice change of pace, that he is trying to recreate what he THINKS drew us to fight him in Stormblood and while being introspective and galling of Jullus but completely missing the entire fucking point of our past conflict.