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Fair if that's how you want to take it, but "No one alive loves him more than I" seems extremely clear. The Buduga's admiration of Hien, Cid and Nero, Samson and Guy, all of that's subtext. This is actual text.
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Oct 13, 2023 20:17
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dyslexicfaser posted:The Buduga's admiration of Hien "Mmm, firewalker, carry these boxes for me *bites lip* I would kidnap that guy all night long" is beyond funny to me. An entire nation of Hien Simps.
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Oct 13, 2023 20:22
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Thundarr posted:For what it's worth I never once interpreted Asahi's fixation on Zenos as being romantic or sexual at all. Characters that are zealously loyal to a feudal lord or military officer to the point of being unhinged about it are also pretty common in fiction, and that's what I figured his deal was. Yeah, if anything I read it as a intense fixation on a replacement paternal figure. You take a little weasel like Asahi who has either rejected or been rejected/disappointed by every family member in his life and have him be saved by Zenos - the walking posterboy for the Garlean's brand of Strong Man Fascism - and suddenly you've got him imprinting like a baby duckling, absolutely ravenous for the approval of their new father figure. The tragedy is still that it's intensely one-sided and incapable of any healthy resolution but it aligns more neatly with the patch's awkward exploration of familial and pseudo-familial relationships. That being said: dyslexicfaser posted:Fair if that's how you want to take it, but "No one alive loves him more than I" seems extremely clear. I can definitely see why it would be read as romantic/sexual.
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Oct 13, 2023 20:22
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That was my read on it too. If Asahi is rubbing one out to Zenos, its incidental to how fixated he is on him. Loyalty so fierce and devoted that love is the only descriptor that comes close.
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Oct 13, 2023 20:24
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dyslexicfaser posted:Fair if that's how you want to take it, but "No one alive loves him more than I" seems extremely clear. Sometimes text can be even less obvious than subtext (also people being used to LGTB+ stuff being subtext only because writers are cowards)
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Oct 13, 2023 20:25
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Yotsuyu being a child has issues but it's also the simplest way to get across the key point that this is 100% a different person, she is not pretending, this is not a clever trick. Players are already primed to distrust her, would anyone believe she wasn't loving with them without the disarming aspect of becoming a little kid? Then again, some people actually believed that the most obviously evil little creep of all time Asahi was on the level.
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Oct 13, 2023 20:27
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Asahi's situation is kind of similar to Gaius and Livia in ARR. A lot of players interpreted that one off-hand line from Gaius, combined with Livia's rant before her boss fight, to mean that they were sleeping together (even though the devs insisted that wasn't the case and Livia was just loyal to the point of derangement). Honestly the main difference here is that Gaius at least seemed to put some effort into giving his subordinates reasons to look up to him. Zenos can't possibly give less of a poo poo about that, which makes Asahi's attitude seem even more unhinged than it would have otherwise.
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Oct 13, 2023 20:28
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it's a russian taunt
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Oct 13, 2023 20:32
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That is the kind of one sided loyalty that fascism breeds and wants from its people, however.
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Oct 13, 2023 20:35
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Sanguinia posted:"Mmm, firewalker, carry these boxes for me *bites lip* I would kidnap that guy all night long" is beyond funny to me. An entire nation of Hien Simps.  That coat off the shoulder look always gets me. FFX's Auron showing up during my teenage years may have permanently damaged my sense of fashion. I would not recover in this lifetime. Thundarr posted:Asahi's situation is kind of similar to Gaius and Livia in ARR. A lot of players interpreted that one off-hand line from Gaius, combined with Livia's rant before her boss fight, to mean that they were sleeping together (even though the devs insisted that wasn't the case and Livia was just loyal to the point of derangement). Honestly the main difference here is that Gaius at least seemed to put some effort into giving his subordinates reasons to look up to him. Zenos can't possibly give less of a poo poo about that, which makes Asahi's attitude seem even more unhinged than it would have otherwise. dyslexicfaser fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Oct 13, 2023 |
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Oct 13, 2023 20:39
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Pwnstar posted:Yotsuyu being a child has issues but it's also the simplest way to get across the key point that this is 100% a different person, she is not pretending, this is not a clever trick. Players are already primed to distrust her, would anyone believe she wasn't loving with them without the disarming aspect of becoming a little kid? I think that would work better if she weren't magically cured of her amnesia and back to her normal self at the end of the storyline. Make Hien and Gotetsu keep having to shield her and live with this constant reminder of both the failure of pre-invasion Doman society, and the pain that was caused by her as the viceroy! That's the thing that bugged me most about this questline. It feels like it was a trick, because it ends up being undone so easily. Either have her die an innocent and everyone feels bad, or keep her around as a reminder and hope for the future. This just wraps everything up way too neatly.
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Oct 13, 2023 20:43
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dyslexicfaser posted:Oh yyyeeeaaahhh... I forgot about them. The Buduga! Good call. Reading that as homosexual romantic or sexual is still entirely subtext in the exact same way as Cid and Nero so again, you wanna be selective to write it all off as the worst possible representation that's on you
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Oct 13, 2023 20:53
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there is actually a meaningful difference between a work using the word "love" to describe one relationship versus another, and the correct way to categorize that difference is textual. the fact that "love" itself has a range of expressions and meanings doesn't really change what they chose in that respect. love is specifically invoked between asahi and zenos in a way it isn't in those other instances.
Valentin fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Oct 13, 2023 |
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Oct 13, 2023 21:16
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Asahi using the word love puts it in a level of text not otherwise seen outside of confirmed couples, and the translation team would have realized what that would be read as in English. You have to argue away from it, not for it. Now, if this has different phrasing in Japanese I'm open to correction, but as presented Asahi lives in a different level of textual evidence. (And in any case, even if you insist on putting CidNero at the same level (it isn't), that's still including Nero, whose frothing one-sided rival-obsession with Cid is still part of the longest English cutscene in Praetorium and does not culminate in anything reciprocated until the Omega raids. It's not a great look!)
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Oct 13, 2023 21:22
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Like Clockwork posted:Now, if this has different phrasing in Japanese I'm open to correction, but as presented Asahi lives in a different level of textual evidence. you get the idea
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Oct 13, 2023 21:36
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dyslexicfaser posted:It is kind of an interesting question, since Japanese has some specificity in exactly how much you love somebody, and in what way, that English doesn't always have. Did Asahi use Ai or Daisuki? Or Aijou or Aikou? Or Renai or Koi or at the same time, the fact that this is working off the english script means something for canon, exclusive to the japanese. english fray is invisible to non-wols during heavensward, for instance--the canon events are literally different
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Oct 13, 2023 21:45
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a cartoon duck posted:it's a russian taunt
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Oct 13, 2023 22:44
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It might just be me, but between Yotsuyu's parents immediately trying to sell her into sexual slavery again after seeing her for presumably the first time in forever just so they can have a nice hotel room and Asahi running in to shoot/kick his dying sister while calling her a whore before laughing like a supervillain over ruining peace negotiations in front of the Warrior of Light felt a little bit over the top for me. These guys feel like they should be hanging out in the Hall of Doom plotting against the Superfriends.Sanguinia posted:Tsukiyomi might be one of the easiest bosses I've ever fought. Really? I think my party wiped about four times on this boss when it was current content. Akh Moon hits like a bus. I guess iLevel creep strikes again. Incidentally, the Triple Triad card for Tsukuyomi does note that the god is typically depicted as male, but male Viera didn't exist at the time of this patch, so y'know.   I do like Gosetsu popping up to be a positive indication and a sign that Yotsuyu did actually come to feel something resembling affection for him in response to being treated decently once in her life. That said, I still kinda wish the add phase was cut from the EX fight because it does kinda go on a bit long! But I feel like EX fights have a bad habit of keeping the long stretches of normal mode fights where you don't get to hit the main guy. Hogama posted:Though, I can mention that if the party fails the add section, Zenos wins (and wipes the party). Also yeah, this is a bit that I think I've seen a handful of times. Not sure if it was normal or EX, but you get Zenos striking down Gosetsu and then an extra line or two before Nightbloom kills everyone. a cartoon duck posted:it's a russian taunt
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Oct 13, 2023 22:49
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Honestly the thing that confuses me most about the “it was a garlean tuant” thing here is that yes yes I get that the themes of Asahi being a simpering little toady do not require him to be in love with Zenos but it is, in fact, way funnier if he’s actually in love with Zenos. Yeah he’s EXTREMELY problematic gay rep but the fact that he keeps getting cockblocked by his sister who is not romantically or sexually involved with Zenos in any way is great. He’s a year older than Zenos and that makes his desire for senpai to notice him that much more hilarious. Zenos’s hospital gown in the echo flashback has a relatively low neckline. I can go on.
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Oct 13, 2023 23:49
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dyslexicfaser posted:Oh yyyeeeaaahhh... I forgot about them. The Buduga! Good call. There's also the couple related to the Wanderer's Palace (Hard) Dungeon. Which is where we also learn that being two men in a gay relationship isn't considered an 'issue' - massive quotation marks here - in their relationship; it's that he's a Hyur and his partner is a Miqo'te.
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Oct 13, 2023 23:52
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Blueberry Pancakes posted:
Sanguinia's Rough Normal-Mode Trial Difficulty List: S-Tier - Cape Westwind A Tier - Odin, Sophia, Sephirot, Byakko, B Tier - Ramuh, Leviathan, Steps of Faith, Nidhogg, Susano, Seiryuu, Suzaku C Tier - Ifrit, Titan, New Ultima Weapon, Zurvan, Lakshmi, Shinryu, Rathalos D Tier - Moogle Mog, Shiva, Nabriales, Bismark, Tsukiyomi E Tier: Ravana, Garuda, Old Ultima Weapon
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Oct 13, 2023 23:52
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Both Steps of Faith (original and final) were absolute nightmares even just to get in a roulette on normal on release, as was Chrysalis. Steps/Chrysalis continued to be painful throughout most of HW. The one-two punch of more coherent job design and increasing player skill tapered things off in SB1. Nidhogg normal was, at its time, the very first time a new player going through the MSQ would encounter the now universal symbol for a stack marker
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Oct 13, 2023 23:59
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Mister Olympus posted:Both Steps of Faith (original and final) were absolute nightmares even just to get in a roulette on normal on release, as was Chrysalis. Steps/Chrysalis continued to be painful throughout most of HW. The one-two punch of more coherent job design and increasing player skill tapered things off in SB1. Yeah, I remember Steps on day one, and it was rough. Had several groups that just completely failed it, which was very possible if people ignored the mechanics. I believe you had to use the special dragon-killing cannon at the end, the boss just had too much health to burn down normally.
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Oct 14, 2023 00:02
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Finally, I'm able to post this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlFkzVmlVDE
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Oct 14, 2023 00:03
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I got some big "irritating little brother" energy from Asahi towards Zenos. Less "he's hot and I want to kiss him" and more "my big brother is perfect and I want to hang out with him all the time and be just like him when I grow up."
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Oct 14, 2023 00:18
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Bloody Pom posted:Finally, I'm able to post this video. The Stormblood flagship dungeon theme, the way the kicks upgrade from little kicks to full-hearted stomps when the WoL jumps in. The way it holds for at least 5 seconds longer than necessary for the joke, just to get a little more Asahi-beating time in. Wonderful.
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Oct 14, 2023 00:33
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Now we just need the Chinese version. Had to make sure I already posted this dumb old thing of mine.
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Oct 14, 2023 00:35
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I think whilst the nobody alive loved him more than I thing could be seen as ambiguous, the fact he focuses on Yotsuyu being a prostitute (unwilling) and that being somehow meaningful to why Zenos picked her in his mind lends itself to an interpretation that Asahi did indeed, want Zenos to pick him the way Zenos picked Yotsuyu in some manner. Also for what it's worth, Odin Normal is meant to be closer to an extreme than a normal in difficulty. Edit: I think for me to have liked this storyline more, Hien needed to actually change or Yotsuyu survive. As it is I ended up doing a review of Hien as a character and realising a lot of things are done for him, rather than by him, to succeed.
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Oct 14, 2023 00:38
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That Tsuyu "mind of a child" stuff, particularly in context of the bathing stuff is, uh... If only the 2023 crop of "actually the writing is bad now" discourse were able to remember that the game has always veered a little into cringe now and then.Sanguinia posted:Tsukiyomi is a contender for my favorite Trial because she is one of the most narratively driven enemies I've ever faced in a video game. It's amusing that even with DPS creep, you can see that Zenos's scripted 'hits' on Yotsuyu cause the enrage meter to rise, and there's simply nothing you can do about it. Also the lunar theme is interesting since Eorzea has it's own moon mythology established already, and the eastern lunar myth must be very old since it's only recently that the world had one moon: it wasn't until recent Garlean fuckery that people learned the smaller moon was an Allegan I still believe that Gosetsu and Yotsuyu surviving Doma Castle is tropey as hell, but I guess it was necessary given the expansion's uneven pacing to fit Why Yotsuyu Is Evil into patch content. Her parents are Lucille Bluth levels of cartoonish elitist villainy, it takes a lot to make the viewer indifferent to patricide and I guess they got it but the disgust was achieved through loony means. Likewise Asahi stretches credulity in happily sacrificing his own parents to gently caress around with imperial politics and get his sister killed in the process, but he's clearly supposed to represent that Patrick Bateman sort of Socially Acceptable Sociopath where he's an absolute monster who gets a pass from an abhorrent society for doing everything asked of him.
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Oct 14, 2023 00:45
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On the flipside, the player community has proved time and again that not going so theatrically over the top at times often either has points sailing over heads or views leaning heavily towards the abusers. They went harder on the Garleans in Stormblood because no actually the story isn't about how Garlemald is right and the Warrior of Light should have joined them. I can at least see the writers also not wanting a big response of "Asahi's parents had every right, why did they and Asahi have to die?"
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Oct 14, 2023 00:56
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Lord_Magmar posted:I think whilst the nobody alive loved him more than I thing could be seen as ambiguous, the fact he focuses on Yotsuyu being a prostitute (unwilling) and that being somehow meaningful to why Zenos picked her in his mind lends itself to an interpretation that Asahi did indeed, want Zenos to pick him the way Zenos picked Yotsuyu in some manner.  For all of his glowing opinions of Zenos, he certainly seems to believe the guy is willing to make decisions with his, uh, other head.
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Oct 14, 2023 01:08
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Probably because Asahi is hoping he himself can metaphorical printer-carry his way into Zenos's bed, tbh.
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Oct 14, 2023 01:17
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dyslexicfaser posted:In fairness, well, look at him! Sanguina, I think you may have gotten a really good group for the trial. If the last phase gets time to start combining the mechanics it can get messy very quickly.
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Oct 14, 2023 02:16
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buddychrist10 posted:Sanguina, I think you may have gotten a really good group for the trial. If the last phase gets time to start combining the mechanics it can get messy very quickly. Moon-doom in a random group will wipe at least half of them.
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Oct 14, 2023 02:27
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buddychrist10 posted:Sanguina, I think you may have gotten a really good group for the trial. If the last phase gets time to start combining the mechanics it can get messy very quickly. I will say for Screenshot Collecting purposes, I killed Tsukiyomi three times, and the third time we did almost wipe for some reason or other, but the MT stayed up and the healer popped off LB3, so we recovered. Up until that screwup though, all three rounds were about equally easy.
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Oct 14, 2023 02:39
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I always read the Buduga as positive rep because we are so used to western and eastern civilizations following very traditional structures and here's just a bunch of dudes duding and many of them are gay.
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Oct 14, 2023 02:46
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I really genuinely love the middle section of the Tsukuyomi fight, such a good way to mix storytelling & gameplay in the MMO framework.
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Oct 14, 2023 02:48
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Argas posted:I always read the Buduga as positive rep because we are so used to western and eastern civilizations following very traditional structures and here's just a bunch of dudes duding and many of them are gay. They're mostly played for comedy outside of their intro to the story but they're in the LoreTM a terror of the Steppe on account of the abduction they do to keep their ranks up. One of the Steppe sidequests touches on this, though I can't remember the involved character's name, as does at least one of the FATEs.
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Oct 14, 2023 03:16
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Tsukuyomi is probably my favorite stand alone trial of the game. God it's good. And yeah, Tsuyu being a child is...unnecessary, at best. But they are trying to fix the problems with Doma. The writers, I mean; the characters do kind of brush it off. Still, always fun to watch Asahi die. Hellioning fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Oct 14, 2023 |
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Oct 14, 2023 03:44
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I’ve gotta confess I do understand why people dislike the mandatory Lunacy phase in Tsukuyomi EX because it does drag a little bit but one time I joined a farming party and I was standing next to the Asahi shade when he got ganked and he goes “HOW CAN THIS BE  ” and it IS kind of hard to hear over the music unless you’re right next to him. But it did brighten my day because I laughed really hard so I can’t say I would really want to skip it.
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Oct 14, 2023 03:55
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