head in hands. the way sphene's arc is a perfect tragedy but nobody starting with the writers themselves seems to realize it.
imagine the horror of waking up after practically the most traumatic events conceivable, leading up to nothing less than your death, only to find out that they made - without your consent or knowledge, of course - an AI version of you, using your likeness, voice, memories, and core personality traits tweaked to fill the needs of the nameless, mysterious puppeteerer holding the strings in the shadows, who is only keeping the aspects of your personhood that fit his agenda at any given time. and this - extremely sophisticated - AI is, as far as you can tell, sentient and aware of her nature and fate, but unable to do anything about it, agency being denied at every turn. and the thing is - people love her. her people - your people - adore her. she's endlessly (hah) doting, gentle, caring, the sister to every child and mother to everyone, a perfect doll to be deployed to pacify and placate the feelings of anyone. she has no needs nor even preferences of her own, the better to accomodate that of others. her algorithm - to which she is, as an AI, completely bound - even pushed her to self-destruct and violate every single principle she held, even though it cost her the small fraction of agency and personhood she had managed to build. she was stuck in what was effectively an abusive marriage of convenience for survival for three decades. that copy was eventually erased, then remade with slightly different parameters in order to follow a slightly different agenda, and nobody sees the difference. nobody even remembers the former iteration. you can, however. you never met the original AI - whom everyone including your newfound (and only) friends loves and clearly grieves, including someone you may or may not be falling in love with, who clearly was in love with the unauthorized AI version of you. eventually you manage to reclaim your agency, your personhood, you fight the shadow puppeteer, you even win! - and then, what happens?
you're back to square one. the people are grateful and they love you oh so much. everyone just looks up at you with hopeful, expectant, wet puppy eyes. they need you! by which, obviously, they mean they need the old version of you, the AI that only ever served them, even though they swear it's not the case, that they've changed now; was your own education, in a bygone era, when you were reared to assume this duty (and enthusiastically rose up to the challenge) anything different than a cold algorithmic decision? can you even tell the difference? programming is programming, isnt it? you have your duty. you need to protect and serve these people. who are you to refuse their wishes? yet something feels unfair, something buried very deep inside you. so you hesitate. you bow and examine the tiara - a girlish accessory, even though she was about 400 years old at this point - which was used to monitor your AI predecessor's every thought and action, spy on her constantly, and presumably give her orders. things are different now, they say. things are back to normal. the cycle has been fulfilled. only this time you are dimly aware of the personhood you're being so efficiently denied. or are you? is anyone? nobody seems to see anything wrong with this state of affairs. your newfound - and only! - friends encourage you to accept this role. for the sake of continuity, says the woman you may or may not be in love with. you are all standing in an illusory, impossible, computer-generated landscape. you slowly put the tiara on. THE END
Nice mirror/foil to the Warrior of Light, too. Some lady wakes you up and tells you to "hear, feel, think" while everyone around you talks about some Big Damn Hero who may or may not be you but since nobody, including you, can remember, theirs are the only pair of shoes left for you to put on, and then your new (only) friends are subtly, then not-so-subtly, pushing you towards taking up that person's weapons as well, and stepping onto a battlefield because you're the only one who can do what you do, but is it really you, or is it that you can only do what *they* once did, so you Big Damn Hero it out until you face Despair itself (after clobbering the ex of the lady who wouldn't shut up and then the lady herself, at her own request) and by the time you're on a boat to a whole 'nother continent, you don't even remember what you look like, either because all you see is the Big Damn Hero blocking the view.
In the fan favorite expansion of critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, Shadowbringers, at one point you go to the DMV. Not a regular DMV either. It's a ghost DMV. It's the bittersweet memory of a long dead civilization's DMV crafted from the mind of the only surviving member of that civilization, who is apparently the kind of guy who takes great comfort in meticulously recreating the fucking DMV. And you have to wait in line, despite the fact that you and your companions are the only living beings there and everyone else is a ghost. At the ghost DMV. Because that's what you do at the DMV, obviously.
And the guy's dead wife is there. At the ghost DMV. The dead wife is a ghost and he's the ONLY ghost who knows he's a ghost. In the ghost DMV. You make friends with the guy's dead wife (while waiting in line) (at the ghost DMV) and he tells you that the lunatic immortal wizard who's making you defeat his seven evil bureaucratic processes while you die of magic cancer before you can even fight him directly is really just a silly sentimental fella.
Then in the next expansion you get to live through the dead wife flashbacks yourself. You get to meet the dead wife when he's alive in the past, outside of the DMV. And it turns out he works at the real DMV, in the past. And he has pink hair. And he and the past-self version of the insane immortal wizard (who sent you to the ghost DMV) pull off a sick prank to help you close the timeloop.
Later, you run into the dead wife's real ghost on the moon, which is actually a spaceship full of immortal bunnies.
#and one of the best moments is when the insane immortal wizard in the past#says 'pshaw i will for sure not become an insane immortal wizard. i would never do that'#and then due to Fuckery ends up forgetting all about that until he dies#and then presumably has a beautiful moment of 'oh fuck i DID become an insane immortal wizard'#ffxiv is truly the game that keeps on giving via @kratosaurioned
My favorite is when you later meet the past self of a -different- insane immortal wizard and tell him about his future and he's just like "Yeah, that sounds like sort of shit I'd do, actually,"
And that different insane immortal wizard also pines for that lost "perfect utopia" of a civilization where *his* dead wife turned out to only be Mostly Dead and in spite of the fact that he had to off her for abusing their kid, still thought it was a great idea to raise their kid inside a prison. Which you had to do a stint as a prison-outreach volunteer inside, alongside of the -other OTHER- insane immortal wizard who was also senile (and with whom you ended up in some kind of weird, shared-custody arrangement over a kid who couldn't take off his Spider-Man mask) but who turned out to be kind of a nice kid and developed a bit of a hero-crush on you and twelve thousand years later, you're wondering if that was the catalyst that influenced the immortal wizard to go around making superheroes on the down-low throughout history, all because you let him tag along on your prison-outreach volunteer program.
Then you start wondering if *you're* an insane immortal wizard with the way you seem to be the architect of your own problems to solve in the future because you just couldn't keep your big fat mouth shut in the past.
i was thinking this morning about how i categorize fanfic authors that i enjoy like AKC breeds and decided to share my rubric with you:
the specialist: this author has a favorite kink or trope and has written 80% of the content in that tag. you know exactly what you’re getting. they have A Brand™️. no matter what other traits they display, dedicated rare pair authors belong here.
the chocolate box: essentially the exact opposite. this author will try anything once. they have 80+ works in the fandom with no discernible pattern. the shortest one is 268 words and the longest is well over 100k. this breed of author may or may not be related to:
the renaissance fan: they’ve written three things in your fandom: your favorite fic, your notp, and a bizarre crossover with a show you’ve never heard of. you hit “expand fandoms list” on their author page and have to scroll down twice to reach the bottom. whenever you curse the fact that you can’t legally commission fic writers, this is the author you’re thinking about.
the horn dog: they’re here for one thing and one thing only. if someone’s dick is not in another character’s mouth within 500 words, they apologize for it in the author’s notes. they have one (1) g-rated fic.
the rookie: this writer is usually young, new to fandom, or just got a beta-reader for the first time. their fics are a little all over the place, quality-wise, but you’re excited whenever their name pops up because their unique voice gets stronger every time. you feel a personal investment in their development, like you’re an old man reading the local high school sports page and saying “this kid’s the one to watch.”
the live streamer: the most prolific author in the fandom. their works are all over the front page when you sort by kudos. you have no idea how they generate this much work, and have seriously wondered if they have access to an extra-dimensional time portal. their stories are usually un-beta’d and the characterization varies wildly, but their best works are inspired and you’ve read them 30 times.
the cryptid: this one comes out of nowhere every two years, drops the best fanfic you’ve ever read, and disappears. fifteen months after you left a three paragraph comment about how they changed your life, you get a message in your inbox that just says “thanks.”
the novelist: we talk about “filing off the serial numbers” when someone reworks their most popular story to pitch it as an original novel; this author somehow does the reverse. their fics are excellent, usually long-reaching multi-chapter AUs that have almost nothing to do with the on-screen characters except their names. i’d like to extend my personal thanks to this breed of author because it’s the closest i get to reading an actual book.
the reunion tour: this author wrote some of the most popular works in the fandom, but either moved on to k-pop or burned out when canon took a turn for the worse. they put out one new thing a year, often an old draft that’s been haunting them from under the floorboards. their last six author’s notes all say they never thought they’d write this pairing again and “this will probably be the last time.”
Yeah, if this guy's 20, my max-height Elezen WoL is three lalas in a trench coat. On rollerskates.
(His VA is also Galuf Baldesion among others, so even more affirmation that this guy's been "20" for a long damn time. Probably even longer than the twins have been "16").
FSH Tyrant sends me every time. He is rapidly becoming headcanon. Plus, this artist's style is charming in a fluffy-yet-hard-to-describe-way. Like soft sculpture, but with armatures and a sweet color palette that surrounds you.
hey! i just wanted to say i just think youre one of the most amazing fic writers ive ever read - ive spent literally hours reading your peterick fic on ao3 and just..... your world building is just???? insane???? i wish i could tell you properly how much your fics mean to me but there are no words to explain. i just hope you know youre an insanely talented writer. your peterick fic means.. SO much to me...... like ive just not been able to stop thinking about your feral au and especially the second part where petes this weird rebellious omega that cant ever be held down ...... your elf au.... the fanfiction factory .... also the d&d oneshot you wrote about peterick roleplaying and then patrick saying 'my lady?' and pete being like NO WAIT I WANT YOU TO WANT ME YOU WANT ME RIGHT?? i just. woah. youre the kind of fic writer that reminds me why fic is so important. thank you for everything <3 thank you for making art and then sharing it with the world
Oh...wow. Gosh, Anon, THANK YOU SO MUCH for your SO KIND WORDS! It is every fic author’s dream (actually, every *author’s* dream no matter if you’re ficcing or writing catalog descriptions for patio furniture) to hear something like this. To know your creation meant something to someone is EVERYTHING. So thank you from the bottom of my ink-stained heart for letting me know how much you’ve enjoyed what I’ve created. Very sincerely, “Aunt Glitter.”
At some point the populace of Alexandria are gonna try to learn about the outside world, not just Tural. Once they get trade going they'll get to obtaining some history books. Imagine cracking one open and soon later going "why the hell is the arcadion champion in every chapter?"
They wonder if it's really them cuz the WoL seems to be involved in everything revolving the past decade. (Honestly Eorzea's recent years is a rollercoaster of historical events- like what do you mean the moon fell? And a dragon popped out??) Imagine they get their hands on Heavensward. Not even just in Eorzea but other continents.
I love imagining NPC's slow realization to the WoL's whole thing. It's one thing to be a celebrity but another to be a walking historical figure. Like oh ur coworker faught terrorists and deposed multiple foreign governments.
They've got internet. Do you think they'll start a wiki page for all the shi the WoL has done and still updating it. Are they making thirst edits from arcadion footage and suddenly wondering if they shouldn't cuz you might be a government figure.
I just finished the second dawntrail raid tier and it's so funny to me because in the game our WoL just kind of stand there whenever someone gives a villain speech but my headcanon for Sayu is that even tho she still loves adventuring and is a good natured person at heart she LOVES pulling the "I have killed more so called gods than you have fingers and toes combined. What makes you think you can stop me?" card followed by manic laughter like she is about to go off the rails and turn the 14 shards into 28.
Yeah this. WoL needed training so she *didn't* turn her opponents into gooey paste on teevee.
Also if all the fighters are really between 19 and 21, no wonder my WoL felt like a girl scout leader.
Vamp, we've already dealt with one sad flappy girl who went through a goth phase and hers almost ended the universe.
And boy did WoL feel awkward when Tyrant brought out Behemoth. *Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions--AGAIN." (She literally brought it on herself back in Elpis, telling that researcher to make his fluffalo more aggressive, give it a haircut, and let it use earth magic. She was being sarcastic, but they hadn't yet approved sarcasm as a concept. Don't fool around with time, kids. And don't believe Elidibus when he says you can't change history, either.)
A lot of people have been confused about whether the Unsundered were tempered (they were) and how tempering works.
Long post under the cut.
First, I'm going to point at the exact line from Emet-Selch in Shadowbringers:
"He tempered us. It was only natural. There is no resisting such power."
I believe this was said in one of the ocular cutscenes, but explicitly in no uncertain terms--the Convocation was tempered. This includes the Unsundered. The tempering was, in fact, so powerful, that even after having their souls cleansed in the Lifestream Convocation members still make 'the best servants' according to Emet-Selch.
Zodiark was not only the first primal, but a primal on a scale beyond fathoming. This was half a star's worth of souls, billions of people. I'd argue that we also see what this tempering looks like in practice with Emet-Selch at The Ladder scene in Kholusia, where he is genuinely moved and expresses admiration of both the Warrior of Light and the people of Kholusia coming together only to be railroaded back to 'but the world as it was was better'.
That was not a natural thought pattern. That was tempering. We see further evidence in how Emet-Selch tried repeatedly to live alongside The Sundered and had only the most negative qualities amplified--preventing him from ever finding peace. Hell, it shows in his argument that the qualities of a soul diminish with sundering too. For one, the default quality in a person isn't positive. He frames things in terms of other shards becoming proportionally less intelligent for example, or less kind--but arguably cruelty should have been diminished as well. The civilizations and inhabitants of other shards are also, notably, not at a huge personally/intellectually different framework compared to The Source--where souls are more dense and would (by Hades' argument) have been more advanced and capable.
What we actually know of unsundered versus souls mechanically is that they are more aetherically dense. Being more aetherically dense, it takes more dynamis to influence them. The ancients still feel absolutely and are vulnerable to Meteion, but the sundered are probably a bit more reactive on the whole. It might also be like an inertia situation where once an unsundered starts to feel something it tends to continue and build. That's speculation though.
Zodiark's tempering appears to be closer to magically enforced mental illness in the sense that it warps thought patterns, elevates some tendencies and minimizes/negates others, prevents certain ideas, twists perception, keeps some memories or experiences at the forefront while diminishing or losing others, etc. Psychological wounds that are useful to the mission are kept open artificially well past the point someone would have naturally started to scar over. There is a reason I've been arguing that it's closer to coercion and insanity plea in terms of diminished responsibility. The tempered aren't even able to accurately understand the situations they are in due to thought warping, and claims that their position is reasonable amounts to a completely psychotic person claiming not to be crazy. It's not as simple as mind control from an external source. It's that the person's own thoughts and tendencies are manipulated in unnatural ways to form a cage forcing them into compliance with the primal's mission.
I'd argue it's also very suspect that Elidibus, the lunar shades, and (IIRC) the despairing post-Terminus ancients Venat encountered all separately repeat the exact phrase wishing for 'a world free from sorrow'. Lahabrea explicitly referring to Zodiark as 'the master' at Praetorium strongly indicates tempering too.
A major source of confusion stems from the following scene:
Creation magics are complex and highly sensitive, requiring a tremendous amount of focus. A single moment of distraction can change the outcome of creation. Hades creating his phantom Amaurot having an idle thought 'Hythlodaeus would know the truth' is enough to make the shade of Hythlodaeus aware, even if it wasn't on purpose. Even if it was a split second.
Zodiark was a creation that involved not only the sacrifice of half a star (so likely billions of people)--it also involved the active participation and focus of those people in the summoning process. We know from the environmental storytelling and evidence at Akademia Anyder that I cited in other analysis that Lahabrea was the mind behind the Zodiark concept. We know that the scale of the creation was enormous to the point that it would not function without elevating one individual to steer it--the Heart. This being Elidibus. But the actual summoning was still extremely complex and on a vast scale involving multitudes of people at different skill levels. Hythlodaeus, while experienced as Chief of the Bureau of the Architect, has very limited abilities in creation himself due to aether deficiency. He still sacrificed himself as one of the participants in Zodiark's summoning ritual.
Faith was necessary to simplify the process across that many people of varying life experiences and skill levels. The Convocation would have been handling the more technical elements and forms the concept would take, and guess who was at the head of the Convocation's efforts?
Lahabrea. Who has recently failed to contain Archaeotania despite his people's every faith in him, who we know to be extremely traumatized and has every reason to be terrified not only of the situation but of not performing up to the expectations placed on him. For god's sake, one of the last things Athena said to him involved calling him disappointing after getting full access to his soul.
A single moment of Lahabrea being afraid and hoping everyone would be able to join together to save the star, to be on the same page, would be enough to cause tempering. He's not perfect, but he's been expected to be. He's expected to have perfect composure, impervious to normal human emotions. And of course emotions bled through at a time like that.
The same hope that others would join in to support the mission has bled into every subsequent primal summoning where tempering became a problem.
Venat's summoning technique is different from the summoning technique used by the Ascians. It's also different from the technique used by the Loporrits. Venat used standard creation magic without elevating faith as a tool. She had less people to worry about. The loporrits decided faith would be a useful tool for The Ragnarok insofar as the primals could help fuel its journey, but going off of pure faith rather than the hybrid of faith and strict procedure is dangerous. So they combined the two in a controlled environment knowing the risks.
What Livingway is saying is that using the hybrid technique that is being employed for the first time in that scene, a primal as powerful as Zodiark would cause a slight tug instead of the full force of tempering. Normally there isn't any sense of influence at all with that technique. Zodiark is on a scale and at such a monumental power level that even the safe method would try to influence its summoners along with any bystanders. Zodiark has the most powerful tempering of any primal that has ever existed.
I also want to take a moment to point at what primals are and how they work as distinct from standard creations.
When discussing creations, the shades at Hades' phantom Amaurot mention that souls are gifts from the star and cannot be artificially created. This is part of why Hermes claimed to be so distraught about the way concepts were being handled--there wasn't any accounting for dynamis as a factor.
Livingway mentions that Venat forbade loporrits from making anything possessed of a soul (impossible) or similar.
Here I'm going to point you back to the lecture from the ARR quest What Little Gods Are Made Of:
Primals, brought into being with faith rather than as pure technical concepts, have something like a soul. They are archetypes shared by the living and when they are slain, they aren't destroyed because archetypes can't be destroyed. They return to the aetherial sea, like souls, until they are called forth again. These archetypes reflect common human experiences and desires shared across many, many people. It makes sense that Zodiark would be built off of this premise in the first place as a way of creating common ground with that many participants.
It also makes some sense that something resembling a soul is advantageous, since logistically in FFXIV souls are sources of power in their own right. Thordan, Nidhogg, Shinryu, and The Alexandrians can attest to that.
I understand that there are people who prefer not to use tempering as a key factor in characterization of The Unsundered, and disregard tempering from their headcanons. Obviously this is allowed, but it's not canon. The game is explicit on this point and underlines it multiple times in multiple ways. Hades when told about what lies ahead is completely horrified and does not want to go down the path the Warrior describes--not just for his own sake but because he morally disagrees with it. His line about staying true to his principles at Ultima Thule is deliberately ambiguous--is he referring to pursuit of the Ardor? Trying to save his people? Trying to resist tempering as best he could despite being helpless against it? Giving the Warrior of Light an opportunity to mercy kill him? We don't know.
And regarding the memory of Lahabrea saying he can believe he would get lost trying to save his people to the point of becoming something horrific during Anabaseios... it's very, very important to remember that Lahabrea hates himself. Lahabrea just accepted for years that Erichthonios is better off with the idealized memory of his dead, abusive mother rather than the living father who rescued him. Lahabrea has been ready to commit pseudo-suicide throughout Pandaemonium. His entire Savage transformation design reflects that he thinks the only thing he's good for is being used for his DNA and serving to protect people as Lahabrea. He tries to shield his heart with his wings and the left arm representative of his personal self is long/at a distance, anemic, and basically non-functional due to too many joints. He doesn't want to exist as a person because he hates himself and he expects to be hurt.
And that's before everything to do with The Final Days.
Lahabrea is not a reliable narrator when it comes to questions about whether Lahabrea is a good person. He might be the least reliable source you could find. He is a guilt katamari who is ready to think the worst of himself given the slightest opportunity.
A huge part of what makes Zodiark's tempering interesting is that even if any of the Unsundered are freed, it's difficult to definitively answer the question of whether they might have made the same choices organically. Anything in their heads that might have given them tools to make another choice was taken away. And we know the sundered Convocation members were not tempered when they decided to join The Ardor as Ascians. Fandaniel was able to kill Zodiark because of this.
As it stands though, none of the Unsundered were free. They cannot be judged by the standards of people who are.
10/10 analysis. My only addition would be that Elidibus, as the Heart of Zodiark, would have amplified the ever-loving fuck out of Lahabrea's desire for everyone to come together. Themis, as both himself and Elidibus, remained so focused on balancing and being the Emissary (aka the ultimate diplomat) that he would have naturally put a lot of heart and soul into a desire for finding common ground. What better way than to temper everyone's thoughts and feelings around "a world free from sorrow" to encourage that unity?
My personal theory is that when he separated from the Heart as the Ancients couldn't come together over the Third Sacrifice, that separation created a wound in Zodiark and Tempering became its scar tissue. The god they created couldn't handle a separation, even a necessary one, so it compensated as Elidibus would have. Elidibus would have taken common ground between opposing parties and enhanced their connection to that common ground.
Zodiark not being much of a talker did so by binding its faithful more tightly to it by using its influence and will to impose common ground with its function--the world was better as it was before, a world free from sorrow is the desire that must drive all toward the same actions (the only logical action in the minds of the Convocation, Elidibus, the people sacrificed in the creation, and the Primal itself). And of course, the only way to get to that was to make the Third Sacrifice (also in the Primal's own best interest because, Feed Me, Seymour).
I cannot stand the parodies of modern major general, they're overdone and simply not as good as the original. They've done them about everything, whatever topic, big or small.
And when i notice one of them my eyes will always start to roll.
The diction's always slurry when they rush the complicated words, and adding many fricatives will turn it so cacophonous. The slanted rhymes are silly and they keep just making more and more, please someone stop the parodies of modern major general.
The scanning of the lyrics in the meter is unbearable, they emphazise the syllables in ways that are untenable, in short in matters musical, prosodic and ephemeral, i cannot stand the parodies of modern major general!
"Why can't the freaks on AO3 just go and make a site for all the gross stuff and leave AO3 alone."
Because AO3 is that site. Because AO3 was that site long before you decided AO3 was better than the sites you bullied us off of before, and I can promise you if someone somehow comes up with a fanfic site you like better specifically for the 'gross stuff' you'll try to bully us off that too so you can benefit from it.
AO3's specific core purpose is to preserve fanfiction, yes, but it was also instigated as a host site for the fanfiction that kept getting yeeted off other platforms like Wattpad. Its designed to preserve all fanfiction, not just the fanfiction you, personally, think is 'allowed' to be written.
AO3 is the site for all the gross stuff the freaks make. We've been there just as long as you. We've been funding it just as long as you have. AO3 has specifically said you have a place here. The timeline was literally:
Wattpad/FF.net/LiveJournal purge fanfics > AO3 is born > The people who's fics got purged moved over to AO3 > AO3 gains popularity as the best functioning site > The people who pushed for the fics to be purged off Wattpad move to AO3 > The same people try to push for AO3 to purge fics.
AO3's source coding is open-access. You go make a polished, strict, rigid site where nothing 'icky' is allowed. You go make a site where you can control what is hosted. We already have our space.
AO3 was specifically made for the stuff likely to be purged from other sites.
It was built around "we need to own the servers" so we wouldn't have to deal with anyone else's judgment calls about what was acceptable in fanfic: Not corporate sponsors, not evangelical religious groups, not "save the children" activists... and not other fans who think that The Gross Stuff should be banned from public view, only shared via private email after you've sent in a request heavily laden with special keywords.
Some of the founders remembered when slash fanfic was kept under the table at the dealer's room, distributed with brown paper wrappers only to people who knew to ask for it specifically.
And they said: Fuck that. Our art is not a crime and we're not going to be ashamed of it. If you are ashamed to have your art next to it - there's a whole wide internet that's ready to host your G-rated genfic.
AO3 was built for the stuff that was unwelcome elsewhere.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, you do not decide which discworld book you're going to read first, the universe does. It's whichever one accidentally makes its way into your immediate vicinity, whichever one is the only one on the shelf at the library when you were actually looking for something else. It will find you when it's Time, it has something to do with wossname... quantum
