Over the glowing hill

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!

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Is Lokrian Persephone having a renaissance? Why am I seeing multiple posts about this all of a sudden?

I’ll link the posts containing the articles that I’ve already shared: post1, post2, post3 — all of those are about Persephone, though the first one also includes Aphrodite. That’s 4 monographs on this topic that I, someone who’s not an expert at all, enjoyed a lot.

For Aphrodite, I admit I hadn’t done a lot of research about her in this area, but Stephanie Lynn Budin’s The Origins of Aphrodite has become my manual when it comes to her, so I think this bit is a good introduction:

“7.367 ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA

Say that I am the corpse of Italian Egerius whose eyes when he went to meet his bride were veiled by a dim cloud, which extinguished his life together with his eyesight, after he had but seen the girl. Alas, O Sun, that heaven allotted him such a fate! Cursed be that envious wedding torch, whether unwilling Hymen lit or willing Hades.”

“7.547 LEONIDAS OF ALEXANDRIA (ISOPSEPHA)

Bianor engraved the stone, not for his mother or father, as had been their meet fate, but for his unmarried daughter, and he groaned as he led the bride of twelve years not to Hymenaeus but to Hades.”

- Greek Anthology Book 7

“9.245 ANTIPHANES

By the unhappy marriage-bed of Petale at her bitter bridal stood Hades, not Hymen. For, as she fled alone through the darkness, dreading the first taste of the yoke of Cypris — a terror common to all maidens — the cruel watch-dogs killed her. We had hoped to see her a wife and suddenly we could hardly find her corpse.”

- Greek Anthology Book 9

“[Chorus]: Your son has taken his place in heaven, old woman. I will not accept the story that he went down to the house of Hades, his body consumed by the dread flame. It is fair Hebe whose bed he shares in that hall of gold. O Hymen, two of Zeus's children have you honored.”

Innocence . 02072026