gracie abrams
sheepfilms
will byers stan first human second
occasionally subtle
Not today Justin
The Bowery Presents
noise dept.
★
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ellievsbear
trying on a metaphor
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
𓃗
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
Origami Around
Love Begins
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Jules of Nature
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
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@domesticfluffsimulator
Kinda fascinated by the day/night cycle of this game where over the course of the game night starts setting suuuuper early like the sunset symbol on the UI appears at 2pm, but, sun keeps rising at 4am the whole time.
"Le soleil est en train de se coucher" "on devrait trouver un endroit où passer la nuit" il est QUATORZE HEURES
I purposefully did not do any of the extra tombs for now so I could take note of which ones are part of the main quest and the answer is wayyyyy lower than I thought holy shit. Technically only three are mandatory?????? Malmalam thicket is on the way to the main quest (when we carry Iris to Cap Caem) but it's still optional. So really you can reach Altissia having found only the ones in Keycatrich, Greyshire and the Disc. It's so weird.
More Altissia for @incendiaryroomba, this time about the sea levels changing from the entrance to the Altar! I tried to take some screenshots that would show it, but ultimately I couldn't get it to work so I decided a video would work better. As you can see, I started near the entrance and flew all the way across to the (very lumpy and unrendered lol) Altar (making sure to avoid a raised water island that got in the way), which proves it indeed does go up several levels as you suspected
I hope the quality is okay, I had to turn it down a bit to meet tumblr's upload limits because this game *devours* storage space for videos and I was just doing this quickly for now. In the future I may look at other ways to upload videos if more are requested so they can be better quality and longer :D
Feel free to use, no credit needed!
Faut que je demande parce que je me souviens plus. Est-ce que c'est Titan que la VF appelle "L'Ordonnateur" ???
Several questions plaguing me as I take notes for this AU I want to build
- if I want to have an extended starting cast that can't reasonably fit in one car, is it more interesting to make it an escort of cars or a van/tour bus kind of situation? A lot of this game revolves around the car and having or not having the car to move around. An escort might make us lose the specific stranded feeling, but would also allow for the extended cast to be reduced as part of them could be going around separately. It could also maybe be used to handwave away some of the less narratively interesting travels as "someone else goes to do it". But we really lose the specific vibes that come with Having One Car.
A tour bus would allow us to keep those. It can break and be stolen and put a lot more people in a tight spot. It can also be used as a camping spot which makes moments when it is unavailable even more annoying. However 1) I am not sure even 10 people can move a bus? So we might have to change/ditch the opening scene which is a shame, and consider alll the logistics differently. 2). I'm not sure even the most luxurious looking bus can compare in vibes to what the regalia looks like. And that simply doesn't feel right.
Ok mais ça me fait avoir des idées.
Un SUV 7 places un peu fancy à l'américaine avec beaucoup trop de place dedans et besoin d'une marche pour monter ça pourrait le faire, ça respecterait l'ambiance et ça peut avoir l'effet impressionnant de "la belle voiture de la capitale". Mais la plupart d'entre eux ont l'air assez démodé en vrai. Mercedes a quelques SUV électriques qui pourraient faire le taf, éventuellement?
Ou alors
L'infrastructure du Lucis à trente ans de retard sur la capitale à cause du Mur. Au moment de faire sortir le prince en road-trip avec son escorte la couronne est obligée de réquisitionner un véhicule quelque-part qui fonctionne encore au diesel et peut faire le plein dans les stations coernix, alors que toutes les voitures de collection du garage de Regis sont électriques. Et du coup. On peut les mettre dans un vieux van Volkswagen de 1990 dégueulasse qui tombe en panne au bout de 20km et que personne ne sait réparer.
Several questions plaguing me as I take notes for this AU I want to build
- if I want to have an extended starting cast that can't reasonably fit in one car, is it more interesting to make it an escort of cars or a van/tour bus kind of situation? A lot of this game revolves around the car and having or not having the car to move around. An escort might make us lose the specific stranded feeling, but would also allow for the extended cast to be reduced as part of them could be going around separately. It could also maybe be used to handwave away some of the less narratively interesting travels as "someone else goes to do it". But we really lose the specific vibes that come with Having One Car.
A tour bus would allow us to keep those. It can break and be stolen and put a lot more people in a tight spot. It can also be used as a camping spot which makes moments when it is unavailable even more annoying. However 1) I am not sure even 10 people can move a bus? So we might have to change/ditch the opening scene which is a shame, and consider alll the logistics differently. 2). I'm not sure even the most luxurious looking bus can compare in vibes to what the regalia looks like. And that simply doesn't feel right.
I forgot I was making a list
- I'm not sure how to handle the marriage and the Oracle role and the messenger of the gods. If I have a flexible cast I think it is entirely possible to remove the marriage part, find some other reason to reach Accordo, and spread the tasks within the main cast, one guy with the crystal power and one guy with the divine invocations and one guy with the oracle magic. or something like that. And these people can be in separate places when it's interesting for us to have them separated. But it does mean reworking big chunks of the story potentially? With how little impact Luna actually has on the narrative I'm not even sure.
- a main character who is very about taking care of his body and listening to his body and honing his skills........ I'm not sure it won't be too much of a change compared to noctis' general... avoidance of the subject and avoidance of himself, sometimes. and throw the vibes off the story completely. I might have to think a little harder anyway about how the story is built/can be changed, what I want this fic to feel like, how it can work.
A character whose entire narrative revolves around Getting Sick At Some Point however... really good gift in this instance. Dunno what to do with it yet! But it's good that it's here
Several questions plaguing me as I take notes for this AU I want to build
- if I want to have an extended starting cast that can't reasonably fit in one car, is it more interesting to make it an escort of cars or a van/tour bus kind of situation? A lot of this game revolves around the car and having or not having the car to move around. An escort might make us lose the specific stranded feeling, but would also allow for the extended cast to be reduced as part of them could be going around separately. It could also maybe be used to handwave away some of the less narratively interesting travels as "someone else goes to do it". But we really lose the specific vibes that come with Having One Car.
A tour bus would allow us to keep those. It can break and be stolen and put a lot more people in a tight spot. It can also be used as a camping spot which makes moments when it is unavailable even more annoying. However 1) I am not sure even 10 people can move a bus? So we might have to change/ditch the opening scene which is a shame, and consider alll the logistics differently. 2). I'm not sure even the most luxurious looking bus can compare in vibes to what the regalia looks like. And that simply doesn't feel right.
Sigh. Fort Vaullerey is truly an example of horrible stitching to make the scenario work. No specific reason why we suddenly need to "capture a Nif commander" instead of just breaking everything in sight but like it's not a bad idea either so I'll let it slide. Sudden infiltration mission in a game with zero stealth mechanics but it kinda works. Caligo is speaking to himself for exposition - I guess supposedly he's speaking to the magitech soldiers walking with him but those guys never talk. I guess what he's saying is. It's fine. Alright so Ardyn hired Aranea to assist with the army who we know from previous gladiolus dialogue, "doesn't have the manpower to maintain themselves in the area" so sure. Makes zero sense that Niflheim "doesn't have the manpower" since they are dropping soldiers and MTs on me constantly but whatever! Fine! Caligo also thinks Aranea is here to spy on him for Ardyn which, sure. Probably part of Ardyn's plan of protecting me. Anyway, Ignis and I capture the guy, Ignis supposedly "leaves him with the Meldaccio clan" but in the same breath explains that "the prisoner escaped". He's hasn't even been away from the group long enough to drag Caligo's unconscious body outside of the base, let alone meet with the hunters and them losing him. Them Aranea fights us but of course leaves before either of us can kill the other because she's only being introduced. We don't get any sort of information on the weird plane we've seen entering the base which was the reason we knew there was a base in the first place. Like it doesn't not work but it also very obviously is made to work with a really big needle. Frustrating.
(Now is it more or less frustrating than the Ravus introduction in the previous base? Discuss in the comments!)
Likeeeee literally Ravus doesn't beat us to a pulp even though he could because Ardyn intervenes and tells him that they need to leave, that all the Nif forces are withdrawing to go to Altissia. Ravus doesn't protest it despite "finding the prince" being an important enough objective of the army that they killed Jared for it. Extending grace to this story through gritted teeth, Ardyn obviously wants to keep us alive more than he wants to follow orders and maybe Ravus doesn't want to kill us either so he goes along with it even if it's a very obvious pretense. Whatever! Immediately afterwards we find another imperial base that, despite receiving a visit from the same flying machine we saw in the previous one, apparently hasn't received the memo that they should withdraw and stop looking for the prince and instead a Nif commander is competing with a mercenary over who gets to find me faster? Who's giving your orders! I know your emperor is a husk of a man hallucinating on his throne and your chancellor is a scheming bitch but really! Who wrote you guys like this!
Also the radio keeps saying that four suspects were captured in Lestallum. Is it real and we're just leaving four random people be arrested on our behalf or are we (noctis lucis caelum) supposed to assume this is a lie, or are we (player of ffxv) supposed to just not ask questions about it? Like the amount of "oh whatever I'm just glad we're not in more trouble!" that this game asks of you for the narrative to kiiinda work is. It really gets to me this time around.
Extending grace to this story, the radio is telling me that Ravus is essentially The One Giving Orders at this point, and that he has left "contingents of soldiers in several caserns all over the country". So I guess fine, point moot.
Sigh. Fort Vaullerey is truly an example of horrible stitching to make the scenario work. No specific reason why we suddenly need to "capture a Nif commander" instead of just breaking everything in sight but like it's not a bad idea either so I'll let it slide. Sudden infiltration mission in a game with zero stealth mechanics but it kinda works. Caligo is speaking to himself for exposition - I guess supposedly he's speaking to the magitech soldiers walking with him but those guys never talk. I guess what he's saying is. It's fine. Alright so Ardyn hired Aranea to assist with the army who we know from previous gladiolus dialogue, "doesn't have the manpower to maintain themselves in the area" so sure. Makes zero sense that Niflheim "doesn't have the manpower" since they are dropping soldiers and MTs on me constantly but whatever! Fine! Caligo also thinks Aranea is here to spy on him for Ardyn which, sure. Probably part of Ardyn's plan of protecting me. Anyway, Ignis and I capture the guy, Ignis supposedly "leaves him with the Meldaccio clan" but in the same breath explains that "the prisoner escaped". He's hasn't even been away from the group long enough to drag Caligo's unconscious body outside of the base, let alone meet with the hunters and them losing him. Them Aranea fights us but of course leaves before either of us can kill the other because she's only being introduced. We don't get any sort of information on the weird plane we've seen entering the base which was the reason we knew there was a base in the first place. Like it doesn't not work but it also very obviously is made to work with a really big needle. Frustrating.
(Now is it more or less frustrating than the Ravus introduction in the previous base? Discuss in the comments!)
Likeeeee literally Ravus doesn't beat us to a pulp even though he could because Ardyn intervenes and tells him that they need to leave, that all the Nif forces are withdrawing to go to Altissia. Ravus doesn't protest it despite "finding the prince" being an important enough objective of the army that they killed Jared for it. Extending grace to this story through gritted teeth, Ardyn obviously wants to keep us alive more than he wants to follow orders and maybe Ravus doesn't want to kill us either so he goes along with it even if it's a very obvious pretense. Whatever! Immediately afterwards we find another imperial base that, despite receiving a visit from the same flying machine we saw in the previous one, apparently hasn't received the memo that they should withdraw and stop looking for the prince and instead a Nif commander is competing with a mercenary over who gets to find me faster? Who's giving your orders! I know your emperor is a husk of a man hallucinating on his throne and your chancellor is a scheming bitch but really! Who wrote you guys like this!
Also the radio keeps saying that four suspects were captured in Lestallum. Is it real and we're just leaving four random people be arrested on our behalf or are we (noctis lucis caelum) supposed to assume this is a lie, or are we (player of ffxv) supposed to just not ask questions about it? Like the amount of "oh whatever I'm just glad we're not in more trouble!" that this game asks of you for the narrative to kiiinda work is. It really gets to me this time around.
Sigh. Fort Vaullerey is truly an example of horrible stitching to make the scenario work. No specific reason why we suddenly need to "capture a Nif commander" instead of just breaking everything in sight but like it's not a bad idea either so I'll let it slide. Sudden infiltration mission in a game with zero stealth mechanics but it kinda works. Caligo is speaking to himself for exposition - I guess supposedly he's speaking to the magitech soldiers walking with him but those guys never talk. I guess what he's saying is. It's fine. Alright so Ardyn hired Aranea to assist with the army who we know from previous gladiolus dialogue, "doesn't have the manpower to maintain themselves in the area" so sure. Makes zero sense that Niflheim "doesn't have the manpower" since they are dropping soldiers and MTs on me constantly but whatever! Fine! Caligo also thinks Aranea is here to spy on him for Ardyn which, sure. Probably part of Ardyn's plan of protecting me. Anyway, Ignis and I capture the guy, Ignis supposedly "leaves him with the Meldaccio clan" but in the same breath explains that "the prisoner escaped". He's hasn't even been away from the group long enough to drag Caligo's unconscious body outside of the base, let alone meet with the hunters and them losing him. Them Aranea fights us but of course leaves before either of us can kill the other because she's only being introduced. We don't get any sort of information on the weird plane we've seen entering the base which was the reason we knew there was a base in the first place. Like it doesn't not work but it also very obviously is made to work with a really big needle. Frustrating.
(Now is it more or less frustrating than the Ravus introduction in the previous base? Discuss in the comments!)
Kinda fascinated by the day/night cycle of this game where over the course of the game night starts setting suuuuper early like the sunset symbol on the UI appears at 2pm, but, sun keeps rising at 4am the whole time.
J'avais oublié "base de boloss".........
There's. There's ff14 related side quests...?
It's really sad to have to comment on the bad parts of the writing in this game because it's also really well written sometimes.
There's this radio retrospective of Lunafreya's work as the Oracle, when you're on your way to Cauthess with Ardyn. It has a little cutscene where we see her healing people from the starscourge and praying Eos. These three guys are listening to the radio which is how you can hear it too, and they commiserate about losing her, saying that they should have smuggled her out of the country before things got bad. One of them, outlandishly, says that he "would have thrown my wife out to take her in! Haha!" while I, future husband and king of lucis, am Right There. Immediately after, my friends start dissing me for having bad manners and awful decorum. Prompto tries to suggest that maybe it will be okay though, because after all, maybe "people will keep on not recognizing you!"
It's not the time anymore for wacky ffxv theories but 10 years later the thing about the Lestallum powerplant being women-led has something weird to it. Some of it due simply to the weirdness of the writing in general, some of it due to it being 2016 style "#feminism" but well. The implications. Iris talks about it with a sort of awe and a "it's very different than home!" that makes us assume Lucis/Insomnia has a sort of you know. Normal amount of patriarchy going on. Which we can certainly already infer from the monarchy. But you know like the base level of sexism in Lucis is the kind that makes it 1) weird and noticeable for a space to be women-led and women-exclusive and 2) possible for some sort of feminist movement to exist that makes Iris find the initiative inspiring instead of simply strange or neutral. An interesting thing to take into consideration. Also, it's scratching something in my head a little because I'm thinking again about Galdina having thrived under imperial rule because of the economical incentive, and like. I haven't yet gone and done all the powerplant quests and all I might be missing details here. But Lestallum is providing A Lot Of Places with electricity. Something that sounds like the empire would also want to have control over. And. Idk, do we think this is some sort of propaganda stunt? We At Niflheim Recognize Women's Value sort of thing? Do we think it is simply the conflicting rules that created enough space for the Lestallum WLF to take over the means of production? Like what's the angle here
From @inktail
I will eat up ffx theories 10, 15, and 20 years after it is irrelevant It almost sounds like Rosie the Riveter situation to me. During World War II the workforce in the US was so devoid of literal manpower that women were encouraged to take industrial jobs in factories. The only Lucian war forces we really see are the magical infantry of the Kingsglaive, but surely they're taking the Average Guys too, right? There should really be even more women dominant workforces throughout lucis tbh
You're giving me grounds to think on two different directions
OK so first, you might definitely be right about the Rosie the riveter imagery at least. Like, one thing this replay is making me realize is that a lot of the writing especially at the beginning is Just Vibes. We as a fandom have made this mess into a coherent thing at some point but honestly props to us because there's truly nothing in there. A lot of scenes feel like they are written like they are only because they prioritize Evocative Imagery over plot cohesion. So like, I think you might be right, that the square enix writing team pulled "Rosie the riveter" out of their basket of "extremely american-looking things we can use for this game" and made something referencing it and didn't bother justifying it. Absolutely.
Now, the other thing is that like. In some sort of very funny 2016-esque game design, every faction in this game has like, One Woman. There were maybe two queens of Lucis mentioned? But the royal guard has Monica and the Kingsglaive has Crowe and even Niflheim has Aranea, and the Meldaccio clan has their matriarch. And like. Very obviously these women-in-mens-fields are exceptions, Aranea isn't even a real Nif soldier (the fact that their army is mostly clones also like. Let's not unpack the gender dynamics of that). But I think there is still a more obvious gender divide in the Meldaccio clan than the other ones, because we have no proof that women can become hunters? And given that the hunters are presented as the "police force" for all the abandoned territories of Lucis where there is no royal guard... your theory of conscription kinda holds in there. Gender roles enforced by the necessity of labour in an unstable and stressed country. All good men must go to war hunt and protect the population, and so it falls on the women to keep the lights on. (In some sense, this is still a traditional gender divide. These women still do housekeeping, just on a larger scale.)
Now, I don't think this is entirely supported by the text (whatever the text is). There are ambient dialogues in Lestallum that imply that the guys very much stay home while the wives go to the factory everyday, but. Well. They do complain about it so I guess it doesn't disprove it either? The war being decades long can mean that it started as "the hunters' wives go to the factory" and now it can be any woman and so the specific separation of labour is less obvious. If we want. And that makes random guys who couldn't hold a weapon to save their lives complaining about their wife having more job opportunities than them.
Something something accidental good representation of how fascist ideology flourishes in economic instability and war?
From @incendiaryroomba
It is always the time to open the engine compartment of a story and ask what it was doing, how it tried to do that, and whether or not swapping some parts out might make it run better. >:)
I mean, I love that everyone wants to excuse me for rambling but for the sake of honesty I do have to point out that I am not going for the intellectual exercise of game design study here, I'm just, like I was in 2018, making up enough lore and watsonian arguments to cover-up all the obvious stitches in the writing that the development caused. Which I think in 2026 is less excusable than it was when the fandom was active and everyone was just sandboxing in there.
You are obviously still very welcome here with any commentary you want to make! You might not find what you are looking for though
I suspect the intended design of Exineris as women led is less feminism and far more that 2016 game design bit--a parallel to the Legend of Zelda Gerudo. Look! a group of women who are wearing less than the other NPCs, for stoooorrry reasons, not for we like making scantily clad women assets... yes... just don't notice that the suits for the guys are different from the pants that Holly is wearing and hers are different than the chaps that the girls wandering around town have.
I can sort of see it as an earlier version of things, yeah. Like there is the design of the powerplant npcs that is much more revealing than what Holly is wearing but it kinda still works if Holly was meant as like, more of a """motherly""" figure for all the other girls, and there are some elements of the Lestallum worldbuilding, the pointedly hot weather and the fact that it's the only town where you can wave at randos, where like. I can imagine an earlier version of it where it was A Place Filled With Women where you could have been embarrassingly flirty, and then when the scenario changed they tacked the rest of Lestallum over it? Or maybe they never got to entirely creating this kind of place and it became Lestallum mid-development and that's why Holly. There is also all the assassin's creed event stuff with gladio flirting everywhere... more recycling of animation cycles that ended up not being used? You know. Array of presumptions type of situation.
We do get a line about the company being founded by a woman, so it's not really a WWII women filling the diminished workplaces (though that is a direction that should be expanded in for building out the rest of Lucis). There are token single girl characters for the Kingsglaive (Crowe) and imperial officer/mercenary (Aranea), the one or two Kings of Lucis who are actually Queens, and NPC women in the Hunters, so it's not that there's absolutely none... just that the ratio is nowhere near 50/50. You can build an in-universe reason fairly readily, or you can decide that there are more women in these fields, we just didn't get to meet them.
I mean, I already went over this with ink just above, so yeah.
As for Exineris and the Empire, there are recycled Exineris assets either placed unthinkingly in Zegnatus Keep (like how every single trash can/bin/tipper cart in the game is labeled Exineris, even it's in Altissia, where I doubt Exineris has the garbage removal contract) or Exineris has a standing contract with the Empire for industrial work. They didn't have to take over the power plant; they can buy what they want, including electricity. There's an entire loop of the ropeway from the power plant to... Fort Vaullerey, I believe.
Now this I think is the fun kind of interesting. I would handwave the trash bins off as asset recycling if I were normal, but, Niflheim is occupying Cleigne so by extension they don't have to take over the powerplant because it's been taken already, you know? The entirety of Lucis is, technically, under occupation rule. That's the basis I had for considering them hiring more women at the plant for propaganda purposes, like, yeah sure we annexed your land and you're being watched by our robot people but hey look! job possibilities you didn't have under Lucian rule! And given that it's a thing socialist countries tended to do during the cold war and that Lestallum is inspired by Cuba, like. It could make sense, you know? There's a world in which is was the thinking process behind it despite the execution not making sense at all for it.
But we have decided to move on from this line of thinking so, alright. Exineris was Exineris before the imperial rule, and they simply grabbed it as it was with the rest. I would now assume that the powerplant continues working because everyone needs electricity regardless of who the ruling power is, so like, unless the women at Exineris want to become a resistance force and cut off power to the logistics lines (and yeah there are ropeways to the Nif base, but it still seems kinda useless since Niflheim has its own flying force anyway), their continuous work keeps the lights on for half of Lucis. The terrible choices you make in times of war, you know.
However, I think we can argue that still, Niflheim now has the ability to absorb resources from Exineris to send to the empire, which is how you find Exineris stuff in Zegnautus, and I think we can argue that it would be beneficial to the empire to make commercial contracts with Accordo and then send them stuff that annexed lucian territories produce as part of those contracts. which is how you end up with Exineris stuff in Altissia. Especially because (I'm pulling this back out from 10 years old memories, it might just be headcanon?) it seems like Niflheim has some resource problems caused by half their country being snowed in and the war effort keeping all industries busy and the fact that their people are being turned into daemons. Like they might simply not have their own plastic-making factories anymore to make niflheim branded trash bins. and be entirely reliant on what they can squeeze out of Lestallum.
Hmm. Hmmmm.
The Crystal as the source of magic of the Lucian line, channeled through the ring but not requiring the ring to be wielded by the lucis heirs. Allows access to a sort of spirit dimension as the armiger and a capacity for warping and the whole. souls of the ancestors thing. Energy that can be bottled into curatives for universal use ; everyone's weapon is kept in the armiger and shared with the royal guard and the glaives. Particularly effective against daemons.
Sanctuaries as giant glowing slabs of stone that protect against daemons and monsters similar to crystal magic. Unclear of natural formations or man-made at some point in time. Surrounded by elemental magic which can only be absorbed and shaped by the lucis line.
Elemental magic appearing in specific stone/crystal-like deposits that also appear in natural underground locations (greyshire cave) implying a sort of underground current of elemental magic that simply emerges in some places, especially where protective magic is in effect. Can be bottled into materia or batteries (cf. Keycatrich ruins) for universal use. Not particularly good at keeping daemons away by itself though.
The six as representations of various elements.
Disc of Cauthess as the impact point of a divine-caused catastrophe, perpetual fire rising into the sky in crystal-like spikes. Technically a meteor, sent into the earth from the sky. Contains/is held by Titan?
Taelpar crag, another divine-caused catastrophe, filled to the brim with blue crystals, and where spirits abound and cannot move on. As if already one foot in the otherworld?
Much to think about.
It's not the time anymore for wacky ffxv theories but 10 years later the thing about the Lestallum powerplant being women-led has something weird to it. Some of it due simply to the weirdness of the writing in general, some of it due to it being 2016 style "#feminism" but well. The implications. Iris talks about it with a sort of awe and a "it's very different than home!" that makes us assume Lucis/Insomnia has a sort of you know. Normal amount of patriarchy going on. Which we can certainly already infer from the monarchy. But you know like the base level of sexism in Lucis is the kind that makes it 1) weird and noticeable for a space to be women-led and women-exclusive and 2) possible for some sort of feminist movement to exist that makes Iris find the initiative inspiring instead of simply strange or neutral. An interesting thing to take into consideration. Also, it's scratching something in my head a little because I'm thinking again about Galdina having thrived under imperial rule because of the economical incentive, and like. I haven't yet gone and done all the powerplant quests and all I might be missing details here. But Lestallum is providing A Lot Of Places with electricity. Something that sounds like the empire would also want to have control over. And. Idk, do we think this is some sort of propaganda stunt? We At Niflheim Recognize Women's Value sort of thing? Do we think it is simply the conflicting rules that created enough space for the Lestallum WLF to take over the means of production? Like what's the angle here
From @inktail
I will eat up ffx theories 10, 15, and 20 years after it is irrelevant It almost sounds like Rosie the Riveter situation to me. During World War II the workforce in the US was so devoid of literal manpower that women were encouraged to take industrial jobs in factories. The only Lucian war forces we really see are the magical infantry of the Kingsglaive, but surely they're taking the Average Guys too, right? There should really be even more women dominant workforces throughout lucis tbh
You're giving me grounds to think on two different directions
OK so first, you might definitely be right about the Rosie the riveter imagery at least. Like, one thing this replay is making me realize is that a lot of the writing especially at the beginning is Just Vibes. We as a fandom have made this mess into a coherent thing at some point but honestly props to us because there's truly nothing in there. A lot of scenes feel like they are written like they are only because they prioritize Evocative Imagery over plot cohesion. So like, I think you might be right, that the square enix writing team pulled "Rosie the riveter" out of their basket of "extremely american-looking things we can use for this game" and made something referencing it and didn't bother justifying it. Absolutely.
Now, the other thing is that like. In some sort of very funny 2016-esque game design, every faction in this game has like, One Woman. There were maybe two queens of Lucis mentioned? But the royal guard has Monica and the Kingsglaive has Crowe and even Niflheim has Aranea, and the Meldaccio clan has their matriarch. And like. Very obviously these women-in-mens-fields are exceptions, Aranea isn't even a real Nif soldier (the fact that their army is mostly clones also like. Let's not unpack the gender dynamics of that). But I think there is still a more obvious gender divide in the Meldaccio clan than the other ones, because we have no proof that women can become hunters? And given that the hunters are presented as the "police force" for all the abandoned territories of Lucis where there is no royal guard... your theory of conscription kinda holds in there. Gender roles enforced by the necessity of labour in an unstable and stressed country. All good men must go to war hunt and protect the population, and so it falls on the women to keep the lights on. (In some sense, this is still a traditional gender divide. These women still do housekeeping, just on a larger scale.)
Now, I don't think this is entirely supported by the text (whatever the text is). There are ambient dialogues in Lestallum that imply that the guys very much stay home while the wives go to the factory everyday, but. Well. They do complain about it so I guess it doesn't disprove it either? The war being decades long can mean that it started as "the hunters' wives go to the factory" and now it can be any woman and so the specific separation of labour is less obvious. If we want. And that makes random guys who couldn't hold a weapon to save their lives complaining about their wife having more job opportunities than them.
Something something accidental good representation of how fascist ideology flourishes in economic instability and war?
