SevereCatTrash

Like genuinely it’s so widely clowned on and I don’t understand it, I never have!

The whole thing plays out very similarly to like… you have someone from a colder windier climate (let’s say upstate New York) and someone from a muggy humid climate (let’s say Georgia) and the person from New York goes I love laying out in the sun when it’s warm enough, and the person from Georgia is like man it’s so hot and muggy where I am I stay out of the sun as much as possible, I actually really like the climate where you’re from because there’s more wind off the Great Lakes. Which is a normal conversation we’ve all been through at some point.

Like guys he didn’t just out of nowhere start ranting about sand. The scene is like:

Padmé: We used to come here for school retreat. We would swim to that island every day. I love the water. We used to lie out on the sand and let the sun dry us and try to guess the names of the birds singing.

Anakin: I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth.

So like… they’re on Padmé’s home world, in her home climate, at a place she’s reminiscing about. Padmé is like “we loved laying in the sand” and Anakin, who is from a desert and very understandably is not enamored by the concept of laying in the sand, is like “I really don’t like sand. But this place isn’t like my memory of that, everything is so much nicer.” He has a dislike of something there’s too much of in his home climate and is expressing appreciation for the climate he’s in—sure there’s sand here at this place but it isn’t what Anakin remembers, not what he associates with sand, which is a strong association since he lived in a desert for 9 years.

And it turns into the kiss scene not because “I don’t like sand” is an attempt at flirting or a pickup line, but because while Anakin is complimenting how soft and smooth everything that comes from Padmé’s home is, he looks over at something else that comes from this place—her, who he already loves—and her skin is as soft and smooth as the compliment he just gave her home and she looks up at him like her self control is hanging by a thread and then they kiss. This is unrelated to the sand line, more related to the continuous sexual tension between them throughout the entire movie coupled with Anakin looking at her like even though his compliment was to their surroundings, the compliment was actually meant for her, and her kinda being like screw it okay.

Yesterday Everything Returns Chapter 7: Eyes Full of Cracks

Here’s the drawing of the seventh chapter of Yesterday Everything Returns. This drawing is of Jiaoqiu talking to Stelle while he’s dying from poison.

This is me when I read:

You know, thinking about it in hindsight, it really is insane that back in Heavensward the Warrior of Light did in fact canonically fight all The Knights of the Round at the same time while they were powered by both eyes of Nidhogg, thousands of years of prayer, and having just drained the aether of a Unsundered Ascian and didn't just win, but mopped the floor with them so bad that Thordan freaked out and saw us as Azem.

Really should not have killed one of their closest confidants.

Got the link via @finalducc

Nero not only accepts that statement and his loss against her, but would have respected it to almost irrational degrees, if we hadn’t resolved Shadowbringers in the way we did.

In the sidestory about the 8th Calamity, we find out that Wedge tragically dies while trying to make a well (aka offer clean water in poisoned lands). The story ends with Cid making himself and Nero a coffee, using ‘a boilmaster’. At that point, Nero and Cid are around 70 years old, so Wedge’s Boilmaster was kept in working condition for at least 40 years. Sure, one could claim that this was all Cid.

But in Shadowbringers, we can enter the Crystal Tower and can find various notes and magitek creations. One of the enemies that protect the main center of the tower, the core where the very thing that allowed the tower to traverse time and space, THE most vulnerable and important part of the whole tower… One of the enemies guarding that center is called the “Mark CXLIV Thermocoil Boilbuster”. It’s a levitating watertank that attacks via boiling water.

So sure, one could say, that was probably also Cid. But Cid was never into things that can attack people. So maybe it was Wedge or his descendants? But Wedge also never had any interest in war machines unless they had a smart AI (which the Thermocoil Boilbuster has not), and this likely was the same for his descendants. Biggs is more or less like Wedge. But NERO. One of Nero’s main characteristics that Cid keeps complaining about is that Nero’s biggest passion is making weapons. Every time he creates something, it’s meant for battle. Every time he helps out, he can be caught suggesting uses for battle, attaching weapons, etc. He loved the Allagan’s Ultima Weapon, he adored Omega Weapon, he was jealous that he missed out on seeing Alexander, he is in fact very disappointed when the one time he doesn’t make a weapon and instead the brush during the Omega raid (decidedly not a weapon), he doesn’t get praised for it. As such, it is quite possible that Nero had either built or made the schematics for those boiler machines.

Why would he make boilers of that size and aggression though, when there would be much more efficient weapon designs than something trying to scald you with water? Because, as the shortstory mentions, the world is overrun by bandits and monsters after the 8th Calamity, there is sickness and a severe lack of food which led to the collapse of entire nations. A boiler can make clean water. Wedge DIED for clean water. The Mark CXLIV Thermocoil Boilbuster is as big as a Roegadyn, thus carrying plenty of water. It can spontaneously boil, so any impurities can be quickly get rid off. And it can fight, so anyone trying to threaten its water or those who have come to it for help can be fended off. It levitates, so terrain doesn’t matter. It has arms (and in fact looks like a mixture between Alexander and Omega, which Nero was obsessed with and which he and Cid researched as they neared the ends of their lives) so it might have been able to carry things, making it also a utility or perhaps even rescue machine. For being based on something as silly as a kettle, the Termocoil is incredibly strong, advanced and efficient. I’d argue that the Thermocoil and its previous iterations are one reason why people had survived that Calamity as well as they had, despite the tragically heavy losses. It also is likely one of the reasons why neither humanoid nor monster could mess with the tower when it arrived in Novrandt, having been deemed one of their best and strongest weapons, and thus sending it along to protect the tower. I’d argue that Wedge’s boilmaster was the small droplet that accumulated over the course of 200 years into giving people on the brink of survival the means to live and defend themselves, loooong after the man died.

Nero heard Tataru tell him that the best magitek of the Scions is a waterboiler. He shrugs but doesn’t say that her statement is false (likely because he hasn’t see said kettle). He most likely checked it out, and since we never hear him say something bad about it (which he loves to do) or tease Wedge for it (which he also enjoys), he likely acknowledges it as ok or even good. And we know he deems it a good kettle, because HE HAS IT. It’s with him and Cid during the Omega raids (or at least the same kind).

Ironically, through it he also learns first-hand that properly boiled clean water is imperative, when he accidentally drinks boiled sea water from it. I believe he (probably in cooperation with Cid) spent the rest of his life improving on the waterboiler as a side project, latest after Wedge’s death. It’s the CXLIVth Thermocoil. The 144th boiler. Wedge made 14 before he was proud enough to gift his to Tataru. And I think Nero went and made over 100 more iterations after Wedge’s death before he was satisfied…or died. Because he had respect for Wedge as an engineer. Because Tataru told him that it was the very best technology they had. Because Nero thinks Eorzeans are primitive, but he loves smart Magitek.

When the Scions all died, whose mission it had always been to keep the realm and its people alive? When, if not then, is a machine that gives clean water to the thirsty the most brilliant thing one could make?

Every single person on this planet thinks about dark and taboo things. It's literally the most normal thing in the world.