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Sanguinia posted:
i mean god imagine that you and your twin get into harvard at 11. you already feel weird about it; you're at harvard at 11 and everyone knows who your grandpa is. then on the very first day of class he's like "i'm going to save the world and everyone on it". i mean, the target that would put on your backs. you probably make fun of him for it for years and years after. then imagine less then a decade later you split up with him while traveling for your study abroad and while you're separated he saves the world twice. loving horrendous. that's a lifelong sibling L you can never overcome.
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Mar 9, 2024 19:36
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dyslexicfaser posted:Isn't that guy the worst!? I went into Shadowbringers hungry to shove that nerd in a bin and roll him down the nearest hill. All you have to do is throw wide the gates
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Mar 9, 2024 19:55
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FuturePastNow posted:All you have to do is throw wide the gates The only thing that jerkoff makes me want to throw wide is THESE HANDS. 
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Mar 9, 2024 19:57
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The moment Shiva stomps your face and the music goes from orchestral to J-Rock is when FF14 goes from Good to Great. The Warrior of Darkness’ line about doing everything right and still failing is where Great becomes Excellent. This moment right here is where Excellent became The Best Game In My Life. And would you believe there are still more exponential moments ahead? At this point, you should.
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Mar 9, 2024 20:09
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Can confirm that there was chuckling to be had at your expense.
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Mar 9, 2024 20:28
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Valentin posted:i mean god imagine that you and your twin get into harvard at 11. you already feel weird about it; you're at harvard at 11 and everyone knows who your grandpa is. then on the very first day of class he's like "i'm going to save the world and everyone on it". i mean, the target that would put on your backs. you probably make fun of him for it for years and years after.
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Mar 9, 2024 20:31
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Varis is extremely open-minded about all possible solutions to the world’s problems, so long as they don’t involve anything crazy like him not being emperor any longer.
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Mar 9, 2024 20:38
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I literally am on the edge of my seat for each update now. I had forgotten quite how high-octane these patches were. I'm ready looking forward to Sanguina's end of expansion round-up/predictions or whatnot for what is ahead.
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Mar 9, 2024 20:45
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Sanguinia posted:
For historical point of fact, there was division when Shadowhunter showed up in 4.3, because people - even in these forums - had long written Gaius off as dead, doubly so since the Encyclopaedia Eorzea seemed to corroborate it, and tried to justify the mask in some other way. The leaker that spoke of the Alphinaud role-playing duty in advance of the patch's release also finally directly stated that it was van Baelsar, because they weren't getting enough belief in their leaking at the time. Sanguinia posted:The parley is held in an impressive tent, a marvel of Garlean technology equipped with a portable air conditioning system (as evidenced by the piping near the floor) and electric lights. Even in No-Man's Land, Varis plays politics astutely, presenting an image of out-of-place grandeur and attempting to subconsciously intimidate his opponents with his wealth and scientific achievements. The predominant color is grey, giving everything an industrial feel, and the area where the negotiation table has been placed could easily accommodate a lot more furniture, leaving the Alliance delegation to feel uncomfortably isolated by the empty space until Varis arrives.  Bit fewer creature comforts, though.
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Mar 9, 2024 20:46
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It's okay, Sanginia. Now that Gaius is a DILF we can fix him. Also Varis' ideology of "If we let the Ascians do what they want we can defeat them as ubermensch!" has the issue of, you know, not knowing what the Ascians want out of all of this. Who knows, maybe after they reach their goal they'll go "Good work everyone" and go take a nap. That said really nice analysis of Varis' monologue, Sanguinia. Honestly gave me a new light on his (still crazy fascist) character.
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Mar 9, 2024 21:06
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The Gaius reveal took me completely by surprise, it was probably not that shocking for people who ran Praetorium regulary but it had been years for me, and probably the last time I did it was in the weeks before Heavensward, where the cutscenes could be skipped, so I had absolutely no memories of Gaius' mask or his gunblade, and absolutely believed it was just another ascian mask. With insight now you can clearly see the devs going "hey look it's Van Baelsar" with the huge zoom to the white mask at the end of the 4.3 duty. Aaaaanyway, looking forward the next MSQ write-up  Are you going to give your thoughts on the trailer in the stormblood thread or the new one ? Well, if you're watching it.
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Mar 9, 2024 21:19
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dyslexicfaser posted:The Varis scene is so fun. The pomp and showmanship of it, him in his gigantic chair in his fancy tent, holding down one side of that long-rear end table. In the end, he is Solus' heir. Drama kids make drama grandkids, I guess.  Oh I'd just like to say this is a sick DRK look Zomborgon fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Mar 9, 2024 |
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Mar 9, 2024 21:28
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GiantRockFromSpace posted:It's okay, Sanginia. Now that Gaius is a DILF we can fix him. I was going to say the same about Varis, but after further thought I realized that we don't know if he knows the full Ascian plan or not.
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Mar 9, 2024 21:39
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Rand Brittain posted:Varis is extremely open-minded about all possible solutions to the world’s problems, so long as they don’t involve anything crazy like him not being emperor any longer. i mean, he'd probably be okay with him not being Emperor anymore if he could be assured Garlemald wasn't going to immediately eat poo poo in the aftermath. oh hey check it out grandpa set things up so anything that's not continuing to hit the Imperial Expansion button guarantees Garlemald is immediately going to eat poo poo in the aftermath you understand why Varis keeps a bunch of clones of Grandpa on tap- shooting him in the head is probably the only catharsis he ever gets
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Mar 9, 2024 21:55
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Zomborgon posted:
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Mar 9, 2024 22:12
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Sanguinia posted:Awww, don't name the shield after Seiryu! He's the worst one! He's not even from Doma! Byakko lives right by your old base. We could call it the Bulwark of Byakko! It's got alliteration and everything! Poor Seiryu. I mean, you're not wrong, but still. Sanguinia posted:YOU WERE ALL LAUGHING AT ME, WEREN'T YOU?! ADMIT IT! Today's Headline: LP Writer in Absolute Shambles. Maybe a little bit.  Sanguinia posted:The fact that Solus timed his 'death' with the explicit intent that it would cause an Imperial Civil War is wild. I can't imagine what he had to gain by doing that, but it makes me think hard about how the Mystery Voice's very first message was that triggering a second Civil War would bring sorrow. There's something funny about Varis being increasingly stunned at how mean grandpa is to him. I believe I mentioned this to you on Discord already, but this whole scene is based on a similar scene from Final Fantasy VI where, after the good guys release a bunch of Eidolons to stop the Empire's rampant conquest, the Emperor invites you to dinner as a sign of surrender (but not really). So kind of Merlwyb to provide the noose for her own execution.  Sanguinia posted:I legitimately expected Varis to turn to Senna and say something like, "Oh, you'd be happy to embrace the Ixal as equals? How are things going over in Racism City right now? Throw any Duskwights in prison for Driving While Black today?" Hey now, if Garlemald's usual mannerisms are any indication, that's probably the one aspect of Gridania he actually likes! I think he actually ends that conversation calling everyone savages before he takes off with his whole "Our next meeting will not be at the negotiation table." line. Thundarr posted:Somehow in the back of my mind I'd thought you put the clues together and realized who Shadowhunter was. Turns out I was wrong! "We can never cooperate because we are too fundamentally different. The only way we can be as one is to become the original Master Race, a perfect race without war. And so I call upon you, my fundamentally different allies, to cooperate with me and become the Master Race once more so we can go to war with the Ascians, who will presumably also be part of this Master Race!" 
Blueberry Pancakes fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Mar 9, 2024 |
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Mar 9, 2024 22:15
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Fantastic patch, fantastic update, and we're about to enter a fantastic dungeon. Gaius took me by surprise and...yeah it was almost exactly the same response at that, hahaha. "drat this dude can kinda get it. ...HE'S WHO?!" And yes. We were absolutely all laughing, at least a little. Out of the experience of having been laughed at ourselves, I promise! Varis is a great character. An utterly pathetic character, but that's what makes him great! The writers could've gone with the storyline very familiar to the West - the mega fascist empire has a kernal of a point somewhere and tried some "hard men making hard decisions" nazi bait bullshit. Instead, he's a complete fascist loser, whose dreams of unity are clearly derranged, and whose ideals of humanity are given not a singular point of agreement. I agree 100% that my main gripe is that my WoL couldn't have disagreed even more vehemently. Sanguinia posted:I legitimately expected Varis to turn to Senna and say something like, "Oh, you'd be happy to embrace the Ixal as equals? How are things going over in Racism City right now? Throw any Duskwights in prison for Driving While Black today?" ...Yeah...imagine if they actually came back and acknowledged Gridania's racism...
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Mar 9, 2024 22:34
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Varis's plan has holes big enough to drive a fat chocobo through. But the last patch has done a good job selling how the emperor of a world-spanning empire can also feel desperate for a solution at any cost with his back against the wall, right around when Grandpa is like 'Hey kiddo, want to join Evil Wizard Club? Participation may be mandatory' with that "something of a family enterprise" line.
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Mar 9, 2024 22:37
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Zanael posted:The Gaius reveal took me completely by surprise, it was probably not that shocking for people who ran Praetorium regulary but it had been years for me, and probably the last time I did it was in the weeks before Heavensward, where the cutscenes could be skipped, so I had absolutely no memories of Gaius' mask or his gunblade, and absolutely believed it was just another ascian mask. A number of people were bringing it up that it was Gaius back when that patch was new due to the fancy X attacks, his suspicious lack of voice acting for such a major scene, the mask, and so on. Personally, I thought his conversation with Alphinaud about how horrendous Black Rose was seemed like the most striking bit of evidence.
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Mar 9, 2024 22:40
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ProfessorCirno posted:. The fact that kan-e took the time to make a racially charged statement about the Ixal mid argument about this very topic is still very funny to me. They're really not beating the allegations
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Mar 9, 2024 22:40
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Sanguinia posted:Chapter 83: Antebellum Right here they make things as blatant as possible and even still people will say "Varis was right at the meeting. He completely wrecked the Alliance leaders with FACTS AND LOGIC!!!!" DoubleNegative posted:it's easy to forget that once 4.5 gets going, it really gets going! So much good stuff in so short a time. The thing I love about 4.4/4.5 is how "the leader of Garlemald was an Ascian who purposefully 'died' at a certain time for maximum chaos" was not even the wildest thing about the story.
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Mar 9, 2024 22:49
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Varis is very good at pointing out the flaws in the arguments the leaders of the alliance present. He also blatantly ignores that most of these flaws are present in his "solution" in addition to a whole lot more once he actually reveals how insane his plan is. It really would have been nice to have a better answer to him, but I understand why the WoLs answers are generally rather short and not that varied. Overall this entire part of the game is so drat good. Varis goes from a kinda boring nonentity to a worthy antagonist, and Solus continues to impress. And what little you see of Gaius is a good reintroduction to a character I ended up liking a lot.
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Mar 10, 2024 00:05
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Mordiceius posted:Right here they make things as blatant as possible and even still people will say "Varis was right at the meeting. He completely wrecked the Alliance leaders with FACTS AND LOGIC!!!!" In some ways I can kind of understand how he hits some people sympathetically. His fascism and racial supremacism is almost bizarrely egalitarian. He's as willing to sacrifice his own people as anyone else to Return To Perfect. We're all equally untermensch in his eyes, but conversely, we are all equally worthy of inheriting the mantle of Master Race if we manage to survive THE GREAT PURGE and THE FINAL WAR AGAINST THE GODS. The thing I found so compelling about Varis in this conversation is that in the deepest core of himself he seems to be... for lack of a better way of phrasing it, "A good person." He doesn't want anyone to die even though he's accepted that its necessary. When Alisaie points out that his plan requires the complete oblivion of everyone living on the Shards, for a split second he can't hide how visibly upset he is about that fact. Even when Lyse said that willingly creating Calamities and just accepting the losses that will come with that was crazy, he didn't crack, but pointing out that he's killing every life on entire worlds, leaving nothing to survive, is too much for him to not express feeling about it. The implication is that his values are rooted in the most extreme form of Utilitarianism. He believes that he's saving lives in the long run by doing whatever it takes to destroy the Ascians. As long as SOMEONE survives, on the grand scale of history its a net gain once they're gone. It's why my big take-away was that this is a tragic situation. He thinks with every fiber of his being that he's doing the moral thing, but that's because his morals were defined by a society his enemy created to have warped morals. He thinks he's seen through their manipulation, but he's got puppet strings on his eyelids making sure he only sees the picture that will advance the Ascian's ends. As someone commented, I wonder if he even knows what the Ascians are really after. Did he stop thinking the moment he heard "We want to resurrect our God," taking that as an end unto itself? Seems likely. Obviously we're still very much in the dark, but we've seen enough to know that there's more to their schemes than just busting Zodiark out.
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Mar 10, 2024 00:28
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Its going to be a lot of fun to watch you go through Shadowbringers.
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Mar 10, 2024 00:30
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I can't wait for the next update, partially because I love the Dark despite having run it a hundred times in the runup to Shadowbringers, and partially because I haven't run it since the before the patch where they retooled it slightly for Duty Support.
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Mar 10, 2024 00:32
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Sanguinia posted:In some ways I can kind of understand how he hits some people sympathetically. His fascism and racial supremacism is almost bizarrely egalitarian. He's as willing to sacrifice his own people as anyone else to Return To Perfect. We're all equally untermensch in his eyes, but conversely, we are all equally worthy of inheriting the mantle of Master Race if we manage to survive THE GREAT PURGE and THE FINAL WAR AGAINST THE GODS. Yeah he's kind of like Senator Armstrong in that the wrong people will listen to what he's saying and draw the wrong conclusions. The main difference is that Varis is, deep down (deep DEEP, in my best Adora voice) genuinely an idealist, just one whose perspective is warped by an extremely twisted context that renders him unable to comprehend how, say, the Warrior of Light might have a chance against the Ascians where he might not. He's in too deep to realize that he's just getting played like a fiddle, and his entire rejoining agenda is functionally just to do what the Ascians want with emphasis on the ??? Stage of the plan to try to pull something out of his rear end.
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Mar 10, 2024 00:44
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I just assumed you knew who Gaius was, and since we have knowingly teased your blindness to future plot points decided to subject us to six months of trying very hard to keep our mouths shut while you danced around it. Because yes, his lack of voice acting in Japanese and the mask and the sword caused much of the community to correctly figure it out back in 4.3.Sanguinia posted:In my case, I was amazed because they'd just turned one of my biggest criticisms of Heavensward's plot into a strength. I had this cutscene in mind when we were in Heavnesward, I took note to point out the pains that Vidorfnir etc were not really doing well with Nidhogg fully dedicated to his revenge plot and Hraesvelgr as the wishywashy "better things aren't possible" centerist. Despite being almightly powerful in air war, they are almost helpless to lose their lands against the invasion of the Vath, as the adults are too large to fit into underground burrows and their children would make easy slaves, or worse. As explicit as Ishgard is bleeding out from centuries of war, the dragons are implicitly losing what they have due to having a leader who is just as committed to the death cycle as centuries of Isghardian archbishops have. Thordan VII was actually unique in that while keeping everyone in the dark with the truth of the war's origins, he was not content to kick the stone further down the road and thought he could pull out a definitive win, albeit having to believe in Ascian promises to do it. And also remember that Aymeric's peace plan was, on it's face, sold convincingly enough that it forced Nidhogg to wound Vidofnir in front of an audience, turning again on his own kind and showing that the dragons side isn't one of cooperative effort but of an old man who won't let go of the war. Stormblood DRG even embellished this further by showing how much toil and suffering it takes for his brood to resist the war song. Like yeah, Midgardsormr sleeps it off, but he's older than everyone and has witnessed the full brunt of whatever armada Omega belonged to. A bunch of elves drinking the blood of one of his kids and plucking their eyes out like a war trophy sucks but is still pretty small potatoes compared to the possibilities in his past. quote:Years later, they've taken that subtextual friction and made it part of the text. Varis was offered a legitimate point that he's being dangerously rigid by refusing to consider that his dream might not be worth the cost, and he's managed to flip that into a claim that his opponent's ideals are rooted in a false premise. Conversely, what he's doing is clearly based on reality and, therefore, rational. That's some incredible character writing. This sort of "writing the future while looking over your shoulder" is what XIV eventually gets good at, although it's also responsible for the "well it's not good until later" problem the game has in picking up new people. Honestly, you probably can skip ARR and not miss much besides the Bloody Banquet showing the main cast at their most vulnerable near-defeated state; but if you put up with the initial bumpy road you get a small reward of a later piece of content pretending that they actually meant to do that all along. quote:This description took me back to my conversation with Ramuh. He claimed the world was once a paradise, and conflict only came into existence when Mankind appeared for the first time. Of course, we now know that Ramuh was a false deity, and his beliefs were influenced by the wishes of the Sylphs that summoned him... but then again, we still don't have a complete answer on what Primals actually are. Maybe the being the Summoning ritual called to put on the mantle of Ramuh knows something about the past that we don't, or perhaps the Sylphs have preserved some lost truth about the origins of mortals due to their unique nature as plants and their connection to the spirits of the Twelveswood. Sanguinia posted:Varis would condemn billions, including his own people, in pursuit of the idea that humanity can be made "better," and our problems erased once enough blood has been spilled. That is a path we will never walk. I always took Varis's speech as a kind of deliberate stoke-of-the-fire desperation attempt to go to war; like he is disappointed with the revelation that after trying so hard to become Emperor that his reward is to be an asset in the Ascian's cage, so he's spilling as much of their secrets as he can without being made a traitor. If Garlemald wins the war, his puppet rule extends to everything and everyone. If Garlemald loses the war, the Ascian plan is almost utterly hosed up because the outside world can replace their regime with one that brings stability and possibly sets them back for generations. He gets the last laugh regardless of outcome. They also tried their best to make him expressive within the confines of his ARR rigging. You can see how all the Hildibrand Comedy Face stuff has helped with characters like Zenos and Asahi, but Varis is mostly molded in place at the time of his first appearance and the most they can do is raise eyebrow ridges and maybe a psychotic smirk. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 00:51
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Craptacular! posted:I just assumed you knew who Gaius was, and since we have knowingly teased your blindness to future plot points decided to subject us to six months of trying very hard to keep our mouths shut while you danced around it. Because yes, his lack of voice acting in Japanese and the mask and the sword caused much of the community to correctly figure it out back in 4.3. There was a point between writing the updates for Shadowhunter's introduction and today's update where I learned the truth, but I keep contemporaneous notes to preserve my in-the-moment reactions as much as I can, so I can then translate them into the write-ups. I can honestly say that I wrote all those things that might have appeared to be teases in complete ignorance. I did not recognize his mask AT ALL and thought it might hint at some kind of Supreme Leader Ascian, I didn't grok to his Gunblade being Gaius' design, I didn't realize his lack of a voice actor was to hide that he was a returning character until retrospect, I really did think he was some kind of lower Legionary officer under Livia, etc.
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Mar 10, 2024 01:08
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I was delighted by your surprise, and I'm looking forward to your reactions to the reveals yet to come.
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Mar 10, 2024 01:10
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Sanguinia posted:I didn't grok to his Gunblade being Gaius' design To be fair, Gaius doesn't really have a fancy signature weapon like Nero's hammer or Rhitahtyn's gunshields. His gunblade is a pretty standard Garlean design that wouldn't look out of place on any random centurion or the like.
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Mar 10, 2024 02:27
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In fact, when Zenos gives Fordola a gunblade he makes some remark about "try not to end up like it's last owner", which made me think it was Gaius's gunblade recovered from the Castrum wreckage. He was in fact referring to that dude he murdered in front of everyone for cowardice.
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Mar 10, 2024 02:37
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basically the two things you need to understand to 'get' varis are 1. he's a dumb guy 2. he never had a chance to not be a dumb guy
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Mar 10, 2024 02:46
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Farg posted:basically the two things you need to understand to 'get' varis are 3. he will loudly and proudly insist that no, he’s the smart guy, and it’s you who’s the dumb one
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Mar 10, 2024 03:59
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The other key to understanding Varis is that he has the biggest hat and the biggest shoulderpads and he thinks he looks badass
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Mar 10, 2024 04:41
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I really love this parley scene, how many games would give us a scene like this where the good guys and the bad guy sit down at a table for an extended time and lay their respective principles like this? Very few come to mind. It's also the time where we get to finally see Varis take off the mask of "respectable authoritarian" (if such a thing existed), and start dropping the completely crazy and reprehensible stuff he truly believes about perfect races and how billions must die. And once he does it cuts through the fear and uncertainty among the Alliance and gives them the moral clarity they needed for this fight, finally seeing the evil they're up against.Sanguinia posted:Knowing that our assassin will probably get what's coming to him, who could say no to imminent danger? Of course, if I'm going to a diplomatic negotiation in my formal capacity as Champion of Eorzea, I'll need to dress for the role. I've got just the thing! Yes! Ah ha ha ha! Yes! Its a lot of fun to think about what your character would wear in a given MSQ situation, and I encourage everyone to come up with an official warrior of light look for official warrior of light business like attending state functions and slaying vengeful elder dragons. Personally I'm a big fan of the anime as heck Valkyrie Profile-like gilded armor look. I've probably posted these before but, well, its a compulsion at this point.  The one for my main.  The lv <50 one for my alt in the 2.x patch series.
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Mar 10, 2024 05:18
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Lazy Fair posted:Yes! Ah ha ha ha! Yes! I find it kind of amusing that I started doing this basically from the start even before I was earnestly LPing just because it FELT right. I think part of it is that the game starts by giving you a prophecy of the future in which you're wearing fancy job gear while fighting the 2.0 final boss in the very first cutscene, and then you can get that exact set of job gear before fighting him. There's also that early quest where you get invited to a party with your nation's leader and have to actually, physically equip a special piece of gear to get in. You're not REQUIRED to dress for big story events, but there's subtle prodding from the game that it's the right thing to do, and there's a lot of options to do it with because so many costume pieces are job agnostic and have no level requirements, even before you unlock the Glam system, which you get crazy early. Now it's become a regular part of my gameplay to put together special outfits as circumstances seem to call for them. Glam isn't even Endgame now, its just... game. Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 05:46
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I keep going to big in-story events in the Mandivile Coat set and it always seems to court disaster. Though in this case I went in a modified Yuna-based getup to represent my WoL's homeland. 
ConanThe3rd fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 08:32
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Sanguinia posted:
 "IT'S ME Sanguinia posted:
No! Nononono. No. Not at all. No. ... maybe a little. But in my defense, I got caught out just as badly when I played through this. Not going to lie, the Ghimlyt Dark is one of my top five favourite Dungeons in the entire game. It's just such a treat. TLM3101 fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 09:31
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TLM3101 posted:
 Aww, sunnova bitch...
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Mar 10, 2024 09:39
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Sanguinia posted:
WHAT?!
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Mar 10, 2024 10:17
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