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Bethesda being pushed by the new CEO to get TESVI out after years of nothing happening isn't going to get you the long awaited next game in the Elder Scrolls series.

the cigarette company is your fucking enemy.

the cigarette company is a soulless corporation that wants you to be hopelessly addicted to a product that does nothing but kill you, but slowly enough that they can wring a meal's worth of money out of you every day that you could have spent on something more vital to your existence and happiness, but you won't, because if you have $10 in your pocket that's cigarette money before it can be anything else.

No one gets anything out of this exchange but some dickweeds getting richer and making you sicker.

I tell this story to everyone who will listen, but I smoked Pall Mall menthols and for a while there I noticed a piece of paper stuck to the back of the pack under the plastic that I kept not reading.

I assumed it would just be like, "cigarettes are addictive and cause cancer" etc etc and that had never deterred me yet so I didn't care. whenever people told me "those'll kill you" I'd do a big sarcastic "oh my god why didn't anyone ever tell me before?!" and take another drag.

One day I read the paper out of boredom. Paraphrased, it basically said "we were caught adding more nicotine to our products for the purpose of getting you more addicted and a judge ordered us to notify you so here you go."

They stuck the glue on the text side and slapped it on the pack so some of the words would rip off if you ever actually read it.

Up to this point the company had been an incidental non-entity in the margins of an exchange between me and the gas station clerk. Suddenly they were a very real player in my life with a vested interest in destroying my health and wallet at the same time until I die.

I felt like the company had just looked me directly in the eye while giving me the finger. They said FUCK YOU, ADDICT, GIVE ME ALL YOUR MONEY AND THEN PERISH with their entire chest.

And I was paying them over $7 a day to kill me

That's what made me mad enough to quit. And it still took me 2 years to actually achieve it.

I tried EVERYTHING. Nothing could make the cravings go away. Weaning yourself off is a joke, you never get to 0. I had to just stop cold turkey and suffer through it for a few months. And for a lot of that I wanted a cigarette every second of every day, until I didn't anymore.

And the way I managed that was by realizing that buying cigarettes is something I had to actively go out of my way to do, and if I didn't have any cigarettes I couldn't smoke them. Ergo, all I had to do was NOT buy any cigarettes.

It hurt like a motherfucker but it was still immensely easier for me to stay off them when I framed it that way: Making it through another day required me to simply do nothing instead of something. I'll take any excuse to do nothing, most of the time.

by the way, just so everyone knows what not to do, shift+r reblogs a post instantly

It's kind of funny when people say elezen are not proper elf-like/adjacent race when their lore blurbs take so many cues from stereotypical elven lore. Actually the wildwood description at least implies some wildwood communities in the forest, just many of them came to live in Gridania.

And even the descriptions of the genders sounds quite... stereotypical elven. Tolkien, even...

Although I think the closest to the game showing nomadic elezen are the Eschva, Clariccie's people.

In former times, the Elezen were the sole inhabitants of Eorzea, claiming dominion over her.

This interests me, because whenever we have flashbacks from Eorzea in the past, I feel like they always have to include a Hyur there because they struggle to imagine a storyline that does not involve the defacto humans. However, what is "former times"? We know that there were Hyur in Eorzea in the Third Astral Era due to the Allagan Empire, but could it be that there were no Hyur after that, until the Sixth Astral Era with the three great migratory waves? The War of Magi happened in the Fifth Astral Era, and the zombie mobs in The Lost City of Amdapor (Hard) use Hyur models, but that might also be standard lazy oversight. Even if not Hyur, we do know that there were Lalafells, because the Lalafells were the main citizens of Nym, and were a sizable portion of Mhach, considering (if I remember correctly) that the Dunesfolk are descendants of Mhachi refugees from the Sixth Umbral Era.

Now, the Sixth Umbral and Astral Eras lasted over 1'600 years together, and we know from various lands with colonial backgrounds that there are always some attempted delusions of history from that (like how there still is a certain belief in Japan that they have "always" been one language and one people, while the Ainu and descendants of other forcibly assimilated cultures watch from the side), so perhaps this is just Elezen propaganda? If so, why, and which believe it? I can imagine the Duskwights and Ishgardians believe this, but what about the Gridanians, whose existence is thanks to a Hyur, and are currently being lead by a trio of people who hail from Hyuran families?

It is a bold choice to make the summary of the race be subjective belief that is actually wrong, since it is the first information that new players would learn about the various races, at any rate.

Traditionally a nomadic people, the tall, slender Elezen believed the realm to be theirs by divine right.

I agree with you, where are these nomadic people? I do like the idea that the Elezen originate from Eorzea, especially since we do not really meet many other Elezen in other continents (that is, when the head writer is not given free reign). During the Sixth Astral Era, either before or because of the Hyur remigration, there were Elezens that moved over to Ilsabard. There, they continued their nomadic traditions, not caring about borders, and they became the Eschva people mentioned in the Bozja content. I would wager that the other Elezens mentioned to be from specific Ilsabardian locations are either descendants or members of the Eschva that chose to stay in one place; whether they should be considered their own clan away from Eschva is up to interpretation.

Ultimately, the Elezen diverged into the two clans that exist today. The Wildwood Elezen took to the forests to protect their homeland, while the Duskwight Elezen withdrew to caves and subterrane, opting instead to avoid all contact with any but their own."

I love how this almost makes it out to be that the Elezen split paths when they chose their new "territory", with Wildwoods going to the forests and Duskwights to the caves, when it was very different; both clans went to the woods, then to the caves within the woods' areas, where they lived for hundreds of years, THEN half the elezens left the caves with some hyurs and became the Wildwoods. It wasn't even their homeland, technically, if they were forced to the Shroud by the hyur and then had to hide underneath the earth due to the elementals.

Also, what about the Ishgardian Elezen? Even if they use a mix of Duskwight and Wildwood models and nomenclature, they are stated to be their own clan, who split off from the "proto-elezens" way earlier. If anything, THEY should have gotten their own clan.

I think, if they were to do my long-prayed neverwillbe, the text would change to something akin to "Ultimately, the Elezen diverged into several clans that exist today; the Wildwood that protect the forests of the Shroud, the Duskwight that cling to the subterrane, the Ishgardians that stay in the northern snowscapes, and the Eschva that continue their nomadic traditions in the continent of Ilsabard".

"For hundreds of years, the Wildwood Elezen have lived in the relative safety of Eorzea's lush forests. With the formation of Eorzea's governments, however, many Wildwood ventured forth from the forests, drawn to the exhiliarating cosmopolitanism of nearby Gridania."

The Wildwoods became the Wildwoods BECAUSE of the formation of Gridania. I mean, sure, after Gridania was formed, there were camps and other settlements made under their rule, I guess they could refer to them? Wildwoods are specifically elezens who entered the pact with the elementals, so they WOULD have to be under Gridanian law and within their settlements, we have not heard of any Wildwood groups that are outside of this or traveling, outside of like a family here or an individual there who are elsewhere. Was the Gelmorra-information 2.0, and not something they had planned in 1.0? Or do they mean that Gridania exposed the Wildwood Elezens to the wider world, making them leave the forests? I guess it might be that, but at least for me, the wording is quite confusing.

There is minimal dimorphism between the two genders, though males are generally considered to be milder and more chivalrous in demeanor. Among their Duskwight brethren, Wildwood Elezen are referred to as Greens, for their love of the forest."

Again, in my neverwillbe, I would have cut away the gender difference talk and instead described something else, perhaps more typical physical traits since they will do away with hair, eye and skin colour restrictions in 8.0. Like, yeah, sure, you CAN have a Wildwood look green, but a short sentence could explain how that is not lorefriendly if the player cares about that (not that XIV cares about keeping lore, either way).

"Centuries ago, a number of Elezen sought out a life of peace and seclusion in the depths of Eorzea's caves and caverns.

Again, what? The "number of Elezens" were all of them left in Eorzea, ignoring Ishgard. They tried to go to the forests because the Hyuran migrations displaced them, then had no choice but to hide in the caves because of the elementals. Even then, they fought against the hyur that followed them for thirty years before they made peace to build Gelmorra. I mean, I guess "peace and seclusion" are correct, if those words are meant to be "the elezens were being outnumbered by the hyur and did not like that", but again, what a weird choice of words to introduce first-time players to the clans.

Today, they are called the Duskwight, though to their Wildwood cousins they are known simply as the Greys, after their preference for darkness and stone.

So, funny thing: The lore always act like the Duskwights came to be after the Wildwood, but honestly, I would say it was the opposite; the Gelmorrans lived underground for four-five hundred years before Gridania was made, so if anything, the Wildwoods are the ones that "evolved" from Duskwights. But, that's not important.

The cave dwelling ways of the Duskwight persist, with some among them turning to robbery and pillaging to survive, earning them the scorn of their woodland relatives.

I would have taken away the "robbery and pillaging to survive", because the "survive" thing feels weird to add. Keep the scorn-thing, because that is true, but the robbery and pillage never comes up properly in any way that matters, so they might as well take that part away.

I am still curious about what they meant with the Wildwood comment of multiple forest people, though, because again, the Wildwood that reside in the Shroud are specifically under Gridanian law, I doubt there are many of them that live outside of Gridanian law. I mean, some do, probably, but those are more individuals, I think.

I am also curious if other forests are included, or just the Black Shroud. The Viera clans are usually separated by what forest their descend from, after all.

I've ruminated on the timeline as well and assume it must have been a very short while before hyur showed up that elezen had sole dominion over Eorzea.

Out-Dated Descriptions

It's just weird, because XIV has made it pretty clear they do not care about the CC-clans or Eorzean lore anymore, that they prefer going to other continents, other shards and even other planets rather than revisit older places, where the people are more often than not different. The lore for the races and the clans are not involved to the mainstory, so why are their descriptions so wrong, or at least easily misinterpreted? I think they have changed the descriptions in the past for Hrothgar, and if misconceptions about the races are not a part of the story, they should honestly just make the descriptions be straightforward. "Once a nomadic people across Eorzea before the migrations of the Hyur, the Elezen now mainly reside in the north of Eorzea, with a few keeping to the old ways, in Ilsabard." There, we get that the Elezen were widespread once and not anymore, and nothing about them being sole inhabitants since that is either no longer true, or there is no reason to mislead new players.

The more the devs try to say that players can do whatever, the more important I think it is that the descriptions are still accurate, so that the players that decide they want to be lore-friendly, can be lore-friendly. Not just a general handwave like I felt like they did for female viera's names (or how their culture is suspiciously similar to Keepers, according to descriptions).

The Hyur Problem

Ooooh, I hate the Hyur Problem, it is so annoying. One of the reasons I liked Dawntrail's Tural portion was that it did not feel like hyur was the default, but that they were their own distinguished group and culture, something we have not really seen much of, since they just basically handwaved it saying something like "hyurs don't really have a culture, their group's culture is the mainstream culture of the place they infestate". Then Alexandria appeared and yep, wouldn't you know it, the story revolves around hyurs again (also coincidentally a more Western style of culture... I sure hope the next Shard we visits will default to something else for once.)

And again, they do so little interesting with it, they are just regular humans. It is also one of the reasons I do not care about roegadyns much, because more often than not roegadyns are just "big beefy humans" without their own culture; sure, in Eorzea their names are different, but everywehre else they don't even have that, they really are just the big beefy hyurs with different skin colour. Or, from what I understand, they took a viera face, gave her human ears, and boom, Zero is a hyur, because why should she have been anything else? (I know the viera ears would ruin her hat; make her elezen, then, that way she is still tall but with workable ears, and we would have a female elezen in the important character roster.)

I would dare XIV to one day make a storyline with no hyurs, but I know in my heart they wouldn't be able to, just like they aren't able to keep to established lore if it would keep male characters from authority.

On Elezen Ages

Yeah, I also notice how there are many cases with viera that look young actually are young, except for that one tribe in the First who have been alive for a century while still looking young.

I do think one of the reasons, is that the devs do not want to limit players by saying the age ranges of races, but that just leaves confusion on why even bother. Just say that all races live for approximately 80 years unless magic or luxury is involved; don't make it needlessly confusing, at least that is how I feel on that. Then again, for me there is a certain limit before something goes from "this is up to player interpretation and "the player has to do all the work for this to make sense". When it comes to the roleplaying aspect of XIV, it feels like the devs basically want us to decide for ourself and want to give us freedom to do what we want, but that feels a bit weird, since this is THEIR world that is a setting for stories THEY make.

On Divine Right Propaganda

I do not have any of the lorebooks, but based on a quick search on an unreliable wiki, this is what I figured out so far:

Third Astral Era: The hyur-lead Allagan Empire dominates Eorzea, there are elezens among the higher ranks so they might be on more equal standing in the empire. Most miqo'te, or at least the diurnal ones, were driven away from Eorzea, some becoming slaves/servants. No mention of lalafells, roegadyns, au ras, hrothgars or viera.

Fourth Umbral Era: We know little about this era except that there was an intense hatred of technology due to Allag's downfall, and the last princess of Allag gave her eye to a miqo'te so it would survive, which could be for many reasons (they have since tried to retcon it, but I will never forget G'raha saying the eye went from father to son... in a race that is 80% female and in a culture where only a few males are allowed to breed, lol), but could also be that the hatred or all things Allag included hyurs, and so the hyurs were driven out of Eorzea the same way the miqo'te were. So, let us say for funsies that the majority of Eorzean hyurs were driven/killed off.

Fifth Umbral Era: Due to the ice, the (diurnal) miqo'te return, becoming the Seekers of the Sun (no clue about the Keepers). No mention of other races as far as I am aware.

Fifth Astral Era: First mentioned visit of the Lalafells, who founded Nym and helped found Mhach in year 500. The wiki page for Amdapor says it was founded by hyurs, but there are no sources. EE1 apparently mentions that High Voidmage Cessair of Mhach was a hyur, but since it was mainly the lalafell mages of Mhach that were persecuted after the calamity, I would headcanon that there were not many hyurs. Roegadyns are mentioned through Nyunkrepf Nyunkrepfsyn but not much else I think. Other races are not mentioned.

Sixth Umbral Era: The few surviving lalafells of Nym leaves for their southern isles homeland, the surviving lalafells of Mhach are driven to the outskirts of Thanalan due to this age's hatred of magic, eventually becoming today's Dunesfolk. Amdapor and Skalla (not sure if Skalla was majorly hyur) were completely wiped out. Far as I can tell, other races are not mentioned, so we could perhaps assume that this is the time the elezens remember as them having taken over the land and being their sole inhabitants? At least it could begin the myth, because the hyurs are practically nonexistent, the roegadyns and lalafells hail from other islands, and they might not even know or care that the miqo'te that came in the Fifth Umbral Era initially were refugees from the Third Astral Era. No mentions of viera, hrothgar or au ra. So... yeah, I can sort of imagine why the elezens might grow in number and influence as nomads during this age. Again, since this is never relevant in the game itself, they should not word it like that in the CC description, but I can see why they would believe so. This especially if they were not the ruling race or the majority in any of the states that drove the War of Magi, so they could go like "none of y'all deserve to steward Eorzea after this."

Sixth Astral Era: The hyur migratory waves are mentioned, so we can at least assume that, if there were hyurs on Eorzea in the past, they were very few in comparison, and are treated like they come elsewhence. The elezens are pushed back, or at least they feel like it. First a group goes further and further north and will become the Ishgardians, and the proto-Duskwight/Wildwoods go to the Shroud and all that follows from there. I think I would then also say that a third group left for Ilsabard before Ala Mhigo's fortress blocked the migrations, becoming the Eschva (would I have liked them to keep to the naming theme of two one-syllable words bundled together? Yes but that's my problem.)

So, I could definetely imagine why the elezen at some point believed they were the rightful heirs of Eorzea... though why that is relevant nowadays, I wouldn't know. Also, I think the hyur migratory waves ruining the elezens' hold on Eorzea would matter more if the hyurs were not, you know, mentioned everywhere in Eorzean history to have a major presence there, lol.

Story without Hyur (Gelmorra)

Honestly, they could still easily have hyur be involved in Gelmorra; the underground state itself came to be due to elezens and hyurs coming together in harmony! Sure, lore seems to state that all the hyurs left Gelmorra alongside the soon-to-be-Wildwoods to found Gridania, but it's not like they haven't just casually changed lore before (look at miqo'te, there is not a single facet of original miqo'te lore that has not been ignored, retconned or changed at this point). Just say that there actually were hyurs that stayed behind in Gelmorra, becoming the Lowlanders. Heck, King Galvanth the Dominator does not sound Elezen, they would probably make him hyur, lol. Or do like with Ul'dah and have a hyur briefly take over the kingdom because again, can't have a state ruled solely by a non-hyur for a long amount of time, hahahah.

But yeah, I do feel like Gelmorra could be a potential story. It could be a variant dungeon, or an alliance raid story, or like Bozja or crafter/gatherer areas. Those are just for if they do not want an expansion, but even exansions I believe could work; an expansion focusing on the West Shroud and the issues that Gridania has yet to cover the same way Limsa and Ul'dah has done in MSQ. Like, one or two zones in the overland of West Shroud, and one or two zones in the underground. One fifth zone I would have liked to be deeper in the Shroud that we do not get to see, where the Keepers of the Moon live or perhaps those Wildwoods that no longer are associated with Gridania, but perhaps we could visit Landis, too? Then there could be a sixth that would have to be a bit more finale-driven, perhaps the deepest, oldest ruins of Gelmorra where the big story would take place? It's not like they would have to change Gridania itself much, but have there be some resolution in how they treat others in the MSQ, and perhaps at least remove those unnamed NPCs that mistreat that Duskwight (or, if they genuinely cannot remove that for some reason, make a caveat in the MSQ how it takes time for old sentiments to change, if nothing else).

I am personally working on a West Shroud-focused story with my OCs, one of them a Duskwight, but I would have loved to see what the actual game would have done.

Wildwoods living outside of Gridania

Yeah, it seems like anyone who lives in Twelveswood but outside of Gridania are seen as criminals - looking at how Keepers of the Moon are treated in the Archer and Post Moogle storylines. Not that it helps that the few Keepers and Duskwights we see ARE usually treated as bad people in the narrative, unless they have publicly forsaken their roots and origins to fully migrate to the Gridanian culture. Since we do not see a large group of elezen outside of Twelveswood with their own distinct culture, bar Ishgardians and perhaps Ilsabard (I take everything from Bozja content with a ladle of salt because the main writer apparently was allowed to do whatever he wanted), it seems most Elezen in Eorzea outside of the Shroud either are Wildwood or descendants of them, and they either identify as such or have integrated into the local culture.

It still does not make sense to what the lore means about the woods. Again, it could mean that they lived under Gridanian law in the woods, but Gridania's position as a greater city state and international hub introduced them to the world outside, but it is so badly worded if so. And yet it would have been so cool to meet different factions! My favourite zones and stories are Azim Steppe and Shaaloani, two zones that portray many different factions with various relationships with each other and the outside (granted Azim Steppe soared where Shaaloani was tripped). I would have loved to see more actual tension and conflict.

This is a form of backdoor bigotry from both normative facts (there are more straight than gay relationships) and well represented bigoted beliefs (men are superior to women).

im in TEARS

I fucking forgot about this

Ren, light-poisoned out of his goddamn mind: yeah sure I’ll give it a try

The Twelve also has Nymeia as the spinner and the goddess of fate, so I think it would make sense that the Twelve would have ceremonies and believes centered around various senses of eternity. Sort of various cries for kings and emperors to live for a hundred, thousand, or ten thousand years; statistically unlikely, but still something they shout out.

The only time marriage traditions like that comes up, I think, is in Coerthas Central Highlands in the side-quest "When a Man Loves a Woman":

Lancefer: When a widowed man or woman takes back the ring of troth, the dead are free to wed again in the afterlife. She was young still and merry of heart. I would that she finds a mate again, though my heart cries out for her to wait for me…

So, at least in the Ishgardian branch of the Twelve, they seem to believe that the ring represents them being together in the mortal life and the afterlife, yet they also believe that there is a possibility to take the promised eternity back, to "free" the dead, as it were, to find a different eternal love.

There could be a mixture of "the ring is a symbol of our bond, that will be potentially eternal as long as we stay faithful and carry the rings" and "this ring symbolises that our bond is the Spinner's will, and we will find each other in every life."

So for me, it seems like the general belief in the Twelve's religion is that the Ring of Eternity is like an invisible handholding (which is funny since in-game the ring helps you teleport to each other free of charge); as long as they carry the rings, they are bound together by fate, and there are rituals to let go of the hand, so to say, though it seems like the power to do so lies within the living, even though the dead seemingly can then choose to wait for the living to join them once more.