Right, okay, where did I leave off a couple days ago... ah, right. Krile was about to talk to us at the little patch of emotion flowers

or rather, Hydaelyn was going to talk to us there through Krile, as it turns out

- who is the other soul??? who may yet have a part of play, depending on us, who Hydaelyn brought to the Source?

Emet seems like too obvious an answer almost, but I want to knoooow

- I find the Labyrinthos plot a bit frustrating tbh because it seems so painfully obvious that they're building a vault/ark and none of the characters has even brought it up as a possibility, despite the fact that all of them should figure this out immediately

y'all are from a city founded by the people who survived a flood in an ark for fuck's sake

I almost hope there's more to it just so that this can retroactively be less frustrating

- Krile's hair is super cute without the hood omg

- the twin's mum is great though, I love her

- the sage's tools that Alphi uses now are Forchenault's? I wonder what sort of memories Alphi gets from the soul crystal

- first dungeon was fun, although I... sort of just followed the trust party's lead instead of properly learning the mechanics. <.< The sisters throw a lot at you!

it has been too long since I played FF4 but even with that in mind I jumped when one of the cast reflect, haha

- "Name of the fountain? No idea. Do fountains usually have names?" Estinien best tour guide

- Vrta gave so many scales ;__;

"Keep your loved ones save" twins enter the room immediately oops that's not ominous at all

(so did that just refer to the collar episode in Garlemald, orrrrr.... this is the ff4 expansion.... but that again almost seems too obvious...)

- get you friends that bring you takeout from fantasy mcdonald's

G'raha and the burger, Alisaie putting her pickles on his table, the whole entire scene <3 <3< 3

and Krile basically going "come on, Estinien is an introvert give him some alone time" XD

Krile of all people!!

- I need to pay more attention to the little text under the quest picture when you take on a new quest. "Krile and G'raha Tia were having a pleasant conversation until you barged in" excuse me??

- I liked the little magic school interlude. Clearly I have not been in education for too long because I was shouting out answers to the exposition questions before the game even gave me dialogue options XD

but I am CONCERNED by the whole memory implications. I don't want people to lose their memories at the end

- that one female student from the sidequest with the Alisaie mammet!! "the woman who captured my heart from afar" indeed!

- all the many many characters that showed up for the Ilsabard Initiative!

too many to name, really but I was so in love

~several cutscenes will play in sequence~ that is not concerning at all!

that Duty was awesome though

I love everyone's winter clothes

fun fact: I don't like the level 82 healer robe, so I glamoured the rebel coat over it, but then the quest rewards you a proper winter cloak so I changed my glamour to that

only to find out that G'raha is wearing the rebel coat in Garlemald instead

my bunny is technically too tall for this but I'm still headcanoning that Raha stole his boyfriend's coat~

Metal Gear Thancred was also fun, but I think my favourite part are the portraits they've added next to the in-instance dialogue

"Remove from the field" was not a euphemism for "enthusiastically murder"
Y'shtola stop roasting my dragoon but actually don't stop

I'm enjoying the running gag of Sadu wanting to fight people to the death and Cirinna running after her going sadu noooo

- this plurk is considerably less eloquent than the first one and I can't bring myself to care

- "taking in the capital with his eyes for the first time, I recall thinking to myself..." Oh Emet.

"Ice fields! I love ice fields! ... Oh wait, no I don't." These dialogue options....

(I didn't pick that one but it was fun to see it there.)

Emmenalain looking through the telescope and going "is that an aether current? Ah, no, just a wind sprite." and I know that pain.

and its cousin "is that a sparkling quest objective or just someone's carbuncle in the distance"

- that radio music is haunting

- "on the coldest, blackest of nights... meagre though it may be, we must share the warmth of our fire" says the WoL in one dialogue option, and immediately flashes back to Haurchefant smiling with hot drinks in his hand

"oh" goes the Lym in front of the computer, "Oh."

(but also: Thancred's earlier dialogue starting with "There are nights black as pitch." The metaphor is clearly sticking around.)

- One of the garlean refugees in the train station is called Sabinius and I am looking at that train rather worriedly

- that one soldier going "If me going hungry means someone else lives to see another day, so be it. Least I can still serve in that way." hit me right in the heart too

- I loved the "chilled to the bone" debuff while searching the icy pond, and that it actually drains your health. The physicality of that is great.

(There's talk about the water stinking like rotten eggs and my first thought was "some people pay money for that!!"

because, well, I'm from a city with medical healing springs where the water is highly sulphuric and that's great and all but there's a spot in the city where some of that water flows through it and that's literally what it stinks of - it reeks like hell.)

- lots of FF15 vibes from that ruined city....

- the twins huddling together for warmth and the talk they have there <3 <3 <3

- oof, Quintus. That was a lot.

- ~several cutscenes will play in sequence~ THAT IS STILL CONCERNING

STOP IT

(don't)

I laughed though because it starts with "Upon settling down for supper, several cutscenes will play in sequence" and then asks you "will you settle down for a restful supper?" and I'm like IF SEVERAL CUTSCENES ARE GOING TO PLAY IN SUCCESSION IT'S NOT GOING TO BE A RESTFUL SUPPER AT ALL

that first scene with everyone was really really sweet though

and then suddenly chaos

and then we wake up in the wrong body

("damnit, and I just fantasia'd....")

but seriously that whole experience is going to fuck my bun up some more

- the status effect is called "Borrowed Flesh: Forced to inhabit the body of another."

I had to do that duty like five times. >.<

first i failed the sneaking section

then I made it through that but panicked at the button mashing

(I always thing that "button" looks like a joystick and think I have to wriggle them around, but of course you can use any button and just the joysticks are nowhere near quick enough)

then I failed the stealth section again (but learned that there are many small openings that looks impassable in that city that you can actually walk through)

then I failed the button mashing again and really really wished for a checkpoint

and then I actually did it

- my bunny's /smirk is really attractive. thanks zenos.

- and now I have a dungeon to run!! (tomorrow)

- I also still have all the sidequests to do that opened up once you could attune to the Terminus aetherite and on the one hand, I want to wait until after the dungeon so that I can get flight quickly and do them more effectively

but on the other hand at that point the story will probably have moved on and be at a really interesting point again and I don't know if I'll want to return immediately to quest

will have to sleep on that

my scholar is so being on exp at this point though. barely halfway through level 81 when whm is halfway through 83 from the msq alone

(scholar is what I do the sidequests on)

I see you stopped exactly where I did

your list includes many things I forgot to include but wholeheartedly agree with

I loved the description on the alisae mammet. "It would be best not to mention this to certain members of your party."

but that dinner scene was so wholesome! I love scenes like that so much

everything with vrtra was fantastic, and one small detail that I enjoyed was: he speaks Eorzean common

normally great wyrms speak draconic and you get the little bubbly effect that shows your Echo is translating

but he's actually speaking whatever we're speaking

VRTRA

I am barely ahead of you but ALL OF THIS

I had just remembered I missed more than half of the 80 job quests (because they don't show in the MSQ doodad) so I speed ran them all right before the Ilsabard group gathered so I actually recognized people!

!! now that you mention it! I had not actually conciously noticed that Vrtra's speech was not draconic

(I wonder if that happens to the WoL a lot. Just like, "oh, that wasn't common and understandable to everyone present?" It hapens with the tiny troll in Labyrinthos too.)

in the big scene in ala mhigo, I was so happy that when A-Ruhn talks about Gridania sending healers, he acknowledges you as a White Mage if you are one.

same in advance of the first dungeon when you split into "healers" and "battle team" and it's like, yes Brin, don't worry, we know you're a healer too"

always such a nice touch

also,the more I think about it...
"on the coldest, blackest of nights... meagre though it may be, we must share the warmth of our fire"
is really just the theme of this expansion (much of the whole game, really, but especially this expansion) summed up in one neat line of dialogue, isn't it

when people around you are suffering, and so are you - what do you do? Bring more suffering because if you're hurting, so should others, or to feel something at all? (Fandaniel, Zenos) Actively remove yourself from the equation? (Quintus, Fandaniel again it seems)

Or do you come together like so many of these characters have chosen to do now, to make things better even if you cannot make them right? On the coldest, darkest night... do you go wading into a stinky, freezing pool in a park so that other people might stay warm?

--
Also, as much as I didn't appreciate the button mashing and was getting kind of frustrated with the Duty because I had a hard time limit for when I needed to stop playing yesterday evening and was running up on it more and more with each failed attempt, I love the thing.

And putting the WoL in that other body where they clearly can't perform their usual impossible feats. But at the end of the day, they're still the kind of person who'll crawl if they can't walk.

(The one thing I miss about being a male WoL for the first time now is that we don't get the sex swaps inherent in the female WoL version. Both with Ardbert being part of the same soul as a female WoL, and here with Zenos giving no shits about inhabiting a "female" body depending on your WoL.)

I really, really love everyone coming together for the Ilsabard contingent and like

there's one guy in the camp who says "why am I here? because in my occupied village there was one imperial who stood up for us even though it got the shit kicked out of him. I'm here for him."

Edgar Roni Figaro: the Empire's evil, but not all of its citizens are.

aww, I haven't found that one guy yet, but I'm going to keep an eye out for him

he's one of the named NPCs you can talk to whilst wandering around in the Ilsabard contingent camp

it's Good Actually

I'm going to teleport back there tomorrow just to find him!

(I finished all the sidequests there today, headed to the next map and did the big trial there, but now my brain feels like it has about the same consistency as these mashed potatoes I just made so I logged out. XD )

I found her! I was worried the dialogue might've changed because I progressed to plot too far but I'm happy to say it's still there

\o/