on a leaky raft

listen to me. listen to me. I’ve said years ago already that caster cu is a nonexistent servant. cu chulainn was never a druid and the wicker man wasn’t a real ritual but even so he appears as a fake druid with a fake noble phantasm because gae bolg is the representation of his (heroic) life and you need to make some leaps of logic to manifest a cu chulainn without it. he says himself that heroes and their noble phantasms are the same thing, and that he never manifested as a caster until the incineration of humanity, and he constantly complains about not having his spear. now setanta’s profile is outright telling us that a cu chulainn without either gae bolg or the skill “gae bolg user in training” is essentially impossible (a beautiful statement - it is impossible for cu chulainn to not hold pride as a hero)

the last time we ever even saw caster cu was in the kara no kyoukai event, where he recounts some of his training days in between running a scam casino and notably mentions that ferdiad is in the throne and that scathach has a second, far more powerful form to her. he pretends he’s not there to avoid scathach’s wrath and just disappears after that. doesn’t even show up in salomon despite being the literal first servant you meet on your journey.

until he appears in the new lostbelt opening that is.

He straight up tells you he's not a real druid in his Valentine's scene. Jokes remain the deepest lore, the prologue continues to get weirder and weirder in retrospect.

Looking at some other peoples’ (mostly tinolqa) posts got me to thinking, and thus extrapolating and trying to interpret observed data. Thusly…

RAMPANT SPECULATION MODE ACTIVATE

I think your observation about the elementals being more concerned with self-preservation than the specific preservation of the forest is particularly astute. The behavior demonstrated in the game is not exactly what one would expect from entities tasked with the protection of forests in general, or nature. They’re aggressive, territorial, fickle, and even spiteful- in 1.0, an elemental manifests that is representative of their collective wrath at perceived wrongs (exploitation of the forest and warfare among the spoken races), which when calmed by the player’s adventurer and convinced of intent for peace in mortals is attacked by other elementals which did not want to be stopped from enacting their wrath on the mortals. It might even be said that their wrath has been their raison d’etre since they brought about the Sixth Umbral Era. Additionally, the assumption that they protect the Shroud because it is good and magical and because Nophica told them so comes across as a bit of anthropomorphization on the part of the conjurers- assuming the elementals have motives that would make sense for a mortal to have.

Furthermore, it does seem downright bizarre that for all of the natural beauty and forests in Eorzea and Hydaelyn at large, it’s only the Black Shroud that harbors such aggressive nature spirits. There’s anecdata of Gridanians claiming that Thanalan used to have elementals, which were hunted and wiped out by mortals and caused the desertification of the region, but nothing actually suggests this is the true story. More tellingly, until 15 or so years before the present, the neighboring region of Mor Dhona was heavily forested- and home to a massive nexus of aether. Given that elementals are so defensive of the Shroud’s aether, even going so far as to apparently trigger the flood of the Sixth Umbral Era, isn’t it a bit odd that Mor Dhona did not have elementals, even before the landscape was altered by the release and subsequent death of Midgardsormr and the events of the Calamity? Coerthas, too, was a forested region before the Calamity, and it certainly still has trees. La Noscea has lush rainforests in the east- and neither of these regions are home to elementals, aggressive or otherwise.

So why the Black Shroud indeed? We know the Gridanians believe the region to be sacred to the Twelve and to Nophica in particular, but nothing other than the presence of elementals suggests that this is any more than self-aggrandizing propaganda for a nation that prides itself on purity and sanctity- and the elementals are ambiguous enough as to not serve as sufficient evidence. After all, Silvertear Lake and its aetheric nexus and seal aren’t there, but in elemental-free Mor Dhona. Everything else in the mortal world associated with the Twelve was put there by mortals- the church in the East Shroud and the carved stones made by Louisoix for his summoning ritual. So it is likely that the elementals are not necessarily a result of the the Shroud being special to the gods. What the Shroud does have, however, is a lot of magical weirdness.

There’s Amdapor, of course, wiped out a millenium and a half ago in the War of the Magi and the subsequent flood the elementals (allegedly) started, then sealed away from the eyes of mortals until the Calamity weakened the elementals. According to the guard outside the Lost City of Amdapor’s entrance, the land there has lost its aetherial earth aspect, resulting in the state of decay it currently exists in. It’s also crawling with voidsent at its lower levels, apparently drawn by the overuse of magic 1500 or so years ago weakening the barrier between Hydaelyn and the void- or potentially summoned by the Amdapori themselves. The magic that ruined the city was something the elementals chose to seal away entirely until 500 years ago, then only allowed the secretive Padjal to access, and the city itself was off-limits for even longer. There’s also the matter of the similarly sealed Amdapor Keep. We know the Lambs of Dalamud which took it over are in the habit of summoning voidsent, as we saw in the Tam-Tara Deepcroft, but the voidsent are present far deeper in the dungeon than the Lambs seem to be willing or capable of going. Could they really have brought in the vodorigas slumbering as statues, or the Demon Wall? Were the succubi and ahrimans and Anantabolga their doing? The Lost City of Amdapor in particular calls that into question, which I think is very interesting.

But Amdapor isn’t the only “weirdness”. Spirithold, which is a Gelmorran ruin, is overrun with voidsent imps but has no cultist presence. Haukke Manor is similarly overrun, thanks to the indiscretions of Lady Dartancours- but where does a wealthy, vain duskwight even meet a voidsent to sell her soul to in the first place? There are revenants haunting both the exterior of Amdapor’s ruins and Amberscale Rock- a mysterious formation that was home to a number of vengeful elementals in 1.0. Dullahans stalk the North Shroud right outside the Ixal logging camp. I’d go as far to say that the Black Shroud has perhaps the highest concentration of voidsent milling about out of any of the regions the player visits. There are some ghost/revenant enemies in Thanalan and La Noscea, and imps tend to appear pretty much everywhere, but the only place that comes close is the underground regions of Coerthas- Dzemael Darkhold, the Ogre’s Belly, and the bottom of the Witchdrop, specifically. For a supposedly sacred forest, the Shroud sure does have a lot of voidsent.

I feel like the location that Odin was sealed in is worthy of note, to go back to your original point. Out of the whole of the beautiful, verdant forest that is the Black Shroud, the single most beautiful and verdant place is by far Urth’s Gift. It’s almost unearthly in terms of how radiant and overgrown it is, rivaled only by the depths of the Sylphlands, perhaps. Not even the Everschade itself approaches the singular magical aura that Urth’s Gift projects.

So why is the glade where an elder primal was sealed so lush? Primals are supposed to drain aether, not emit it. Why is this spot, connected with the warlike knight Odin, even more filled with natural beauty than the massive tree home to the most powerful elemental? Why does Odin, who seeks powerful foes just as much as Gilgamesh does, limit himself to the Shroud even after his seal was broken? Why does the whole forest glow with unearthly light when he rides through? Why don’t the elementals even react to him? Even in their enfeebled state in 2.0, they actively attempt to purge corruption and attack obvious threats, such as voidsent-related corruptions or people approaching the enraged Everschade. Why was Wiyu, an Allagan mortal, the one who sealed Odin, and not the elementals, who were more than capable of putting away Amdapor for over a thousand years? And once again- why is the Black Shroud home to elementals while Mor Dhona was not?

The sylphs have been, according to their own history, in the Shroud before any of the walking ones. Know how many fucks they give about the will of the elementals, whether the elementals will punish them or the touched ones for maltreating the forest, or what summoning Ramuh will do to the elementals? None.

It doesn’t even have to be that the Hearers are projecting anthropomorphic motivations onto elementals more concerned with their own self-preservation. I’d certainly believe the elementals do want to protect the forest. However, I’d also believe that hearers have a tendency to conflate “what’s good for the forest“ with "what’s good for Gridania” and the two are actually not synonymous. Remember, what was “best for the forest” 500-odd years ago was vicious maltreatment of future Gridanians.

Padjal are not born as such, but develop both their horns and their abilities at (roughly?) puberty.

All Padjal seen to date are of Hyuran stock.

Padjal culture and linguistic patterns seem to have their root in Gelmorran times. There’s no evidence of the Padjal in earlier cultures in the Shroud- namely Amdapor. They did not possess the tradition of white magic since the art was invented, but only since 500 years ago, when the elementals permitted the people of Gelmorra to return to the surface and found Gridania.

The age of Gelmorra was a time when Elezen and Hyur finally were forced to stop warring with one another and live together, united in fear of the elementals. This peace is represented by the Gridanian heraldry- the Twin Adders, or the union of Hyur and Elezen.

The Padjal are intensely secretive about their own traditions- any Hyur child that manifests Padjali traits is taken from their family to be “indoctrinated” (in the words of the lore team) in Stillglade Fane and given a new name.

Padjal children are born to a handful of specific Hyur families with a much greater frequency than to others. Given their longevity, we can’t hope to learn much about the parents of any Padjal, as they have likely outlived them.

A-Towa-Cant, a noteworthy eccentric among the Padjal who preferred to explore the world rather than stay in Gridania and who had a tendency to eschew the traditions of his city, order, and race, had visibly grey skin- a tone normally only seen in Keepers of the Moon and Duskwight Elezen. During the events of the White Mage questline, his ashes are stolen by the Redbelly Wasps, a gang of Duskwight bandits, for unknown reasons. His legendary staff, the Thyrus, is made of petrified wood- wood and stone being respective symbols associated with Wildwood and Duskwight Elezen in related lore.

Padjal have slightly pointed ears, though this is obscured by the headgear worn by Kan-E-Senna and A-Ruhn-Senna.

In late medieval/early-modern Europe, the rough historical analogue for a lot of Eorzea, horns are a symbol traditionally associated with cuckoldry.

Padjal are incapable of reproducing themselves- they are only ever born to Hyur.

so, water 7 + enies lobby is probably my favorite one piece arcs of all time: it introduces my favorite character, has that good character development, amazing villains, beautiful scenery. so ive frequently revisited it. and it always shocks me how much the cp9 don’t know. like, they don’t know jack shit. and i wanna talk about it. 

so, let’s review shall we? so, cp9 had four undercover agents: two as shipwrights (lucci and kaku), one w iceburg as his secretary (kalifa) and one in the town (blueno). they were sent to find the blueprints of the secret weapon, and were undercover for five years. this means that they started their work about 3 years after tom’s arrest and franky’s “death”. 

only eight years has passed since tom’s arrest. and tom was a well-known figure in water 7. he built the train that literally saved water 7 from poverty, and the people of water 7 know that. and even before then, he was known for being the guy that built the pirate king’s ship. and, on top that, he was the only (noticeable) fishman living on water 7, and given the sentiments on fishman, i doubt this went unnoticed. 

and people most likely knew about his apprentices too. people probably didn’t take too much interest in them, but they had to know they existed. franky and iceburg were always with tom, and they were prominently featured in tom’s arrest, franky especially, which was a highly public event! he bashed a government official’s head in, that’s the type of thing people remember. 

and yet- 

these guys barely knew iceburg was apprenticed to tom, and they only recently found out that franky even existed. and this baffles me because their boss was the one who got his face smashed. and spandam definitely holds a grudge over this, so he didn’t just forget about franky. spandam knew that there were two apprentices. and yet his underlings didn’t even know that for a majority of their time undercover. 

and! what’s more!! cp9 had never heard the name cutty flam before going undercover. the only reason their whole thing works and they get the blueprint is because cutty flam is written on the fake blueprints and they heard the name once when franky used it when he first returned to water 7. 

again, spandam knew who cutty flam was. he knew that cutty flam was apprenticed to tom, or, at the very least, somehow related. this was made very clear in franky’s backstory.

and he didn’t even think to mention that name to his underlings? cp9 knew that franky used the name cutty flam for four years, and they didn’t figure out anything until the very last second. 

though, i don’t think this is necessarily a plot hole or anything. there’s a simple explanation for why this happened and why cp9 didn’t know anything- 

and that’s because the government agencies are apparently really bad at communicating with each other. and spandam’s promotion to head of cp9 was more recent, so it’s possible that he didn’t deal with the agents that much. and his information was lost to the bureaucracy.

but, back to the title. this post is about how the cp9 are terrible at their jobs. im not saying they’re not strong, or that they’re not good assassins (tho i would say they’re not exactly quick and efficient), but they are terrible spies. like, their information gathering skills are the pits. 

they were in water 7 for five years. they knew that franky used the name cutty flam, and then went by a different name. lucci, kaku and kalifa all remember that moment. kalifa, at the time, even noted that the man seemed suspicious and definitely saw iceburg’s visceral reaction to the name-

and they didn’t think to investigate that?? they didn’t keep tabs on iceburg and follow him to that secret meeting he had with franky? those two discussed some very incriminating stuff in a unsecured location that would have been so easy to spy on. but no. 

and, they note that there are no records or anything on the apprentices. that makes sense, given that both of them were orphans or similar abandoned by their families. i doubt either of them lived in a orphanage or were ‘officially’ adopted by tom. paper-work wise, they were invisible.

but again, tom’s arrest was only eight years ago. that’s not very long. there has to be a public memory of those apprentices. again, one of them bashed an official’s head in. i wouldn’t be surprised if that was something people still talked about. at the very least, tom and his apprentices were common knowledge to the people of water 7. even tom’s trial and the details of it were public knowledge - that’s how spandam finds out about it. 

cp9 lived there for 5 years. even if they didn’t specifically seek it out, surely they would have heard something. something about the fishman who built the sea train, or his violent apprentice that based someone’s head in and ran around in speedos. blueno was a bartender, for pete’s sake! people tell bartenders everything! 

(and side note: someone had to make the connection between franky and cutty flam. yeah, franky changed a lot in his size and shape, but he was still a blue haired, speedo clad guy running around. and the speedo thing is definitely weird, people point it out all the time. so there can’t be that many guys like that around. someone in water 7 had to the make the connection. there had to be some sort of gossip mill running around about it). 

and yet, cp9 were completely in the dark about everything! i don’t think they did any proper spy work. they just waited until robin showed up and then got lucky with that fake blueprints. like, if iceburg hadn’t used one of the tom’s workers blueprints, cp9 would have never figured out who cutty flam was and would have never gotten those blueprints. 

You said you were giving me the money, didn’t you? I spent it all. Thank you.

take your time, they said.

volume IS very much a part of the american hospitality tradition, and Nobody Leaves Hungry is important. but you have to recognize that it’s not how we cook for ourselves, it’s how we welcome guests and strengthen community ties.

so in order to give you a celebratory experience and make you feel welcomed, family restaurants make the portions big enough that even if you’re a teenage boy celebrating a hard win on the basketball court, you’re still going to be comfortably full when you leave.

of course, that means that for your average person with a sit-down job, who ate a decent lunch that day, it’s twice as much as they want or more. that’s ok. as mentioned above, taking home leftovers is absolutely encouraged. that, too, is part of american hospitality tradition; it’s meant to invoke fond memories of grandma loading you down with covered dishes so you can have hearty celebration food all week. pot luck church basement get-togethers where the whole town makes sure everybody has enough. that sort of thing. it’s about sharing. it’s about celebrating Plenty.

Many restaurants have branded bags and boxes with the restaurant’s name on them.

When Americans eat crap, it’s often more about food deserts and a complete lack of reasonable public transportation than about our restaurants having insane portions.

A food desert is an area with no supermarkets or grocers where the only place that sells food is a convenience store with twinkies. It’s very common to not live within walking distance of a place that sells ingredients. In the suburbs, it’s normal to not only live outside of reasonable walking distance of food but also for that distance to be a huge highway with nowhere you’re legally allowed to walk. From conversations with friends, this sounds relatively uncommon in most countries. Every place has some farms in the middle of nowhere, but US style suburbs aren’t the norm.

Meanwhile, at least in some areas, we tend to have a lot of storage space, so it’s common to go to the supermarket only occasionally and stock up for the week/month with things that will keep. We’re not usually buying 800 servings at once because we’re actually going to eat all that right now.

The first thing I usually do when I get a burger is cut it down the middle and decide which half I’m going to eat, and which I’m going to save for a rainy day. Then, I divide the side-food in a similar way (be it fries, vegetables, or whatever). If I’m visiting the south, known for its hardy portions (texas, alabama, etc), I’ll actually divide it further, eating (for example) only half (or less) of the burger, and none of the fries– which means it becomes 3-4 days of lunches… for the family I’m staying with. Yes. You can give your leftovers to someone else. In fact, it’s considered really kind, if they like that kind of food. And since they’re usually the ones that took you to the restaurant, it may even be their favorite type of food.

Food is really a sign of affection, in every possible way, from the trope of “mother’s day means serving mom breakfast in bed” to “cutting the wedding cake is one of the most important wedding photos” to “one of our holidays literally has kids running up to every house in town in costume to ask for candy” to “BBQ sauces are a generationally-passed-down tradition.”