Please no more Square, I am at my (character) limit lmao

Endwalker: I sleep New furniture: real shit @kasunshine and I finally finished redecorating the FC house! Based ofc on the Mt. Gulg dungeon again, and Eulmore in general. The original build can still be seen here.

Pure White Dye continues to bully us, but not nearly as much as the Forgiven Whimsy centerpiece. >:T

Paradise Lost <Lost> FC House Crystal DC/Mateus server Mist ward 21/plot 35 Please visit anytime!  ⸜( ˙˘˙)⸝ ♡

Yoshida: *farting fantasy Primals from his ass* but PoC didn’t exist in medieval Europe

More moon bun

٩( ᐛ )( ᐖ )۶ Me and @kasunshine did a thing, so <Lost> has gained a couple of gremlins! Hey, Dwarves are part of Kholusia >> Now to just....get NieR raids done....win rolls on the pod pets....farm MGP to get pod mount....find a Formidable group or two... Still worth it lol

New nonnie, yeah? Again, you do you. I’m not here to say you can’t “detest” characters. 乁(ツ゚)ㄏ I’m here to point out some of the reasons people give for “detesting” this particular character don’t line up with what we are told directly in the game, or the game logic doesn’t hold up. Like “the poor selling themselves into indentured servitude". That is directly contradicted by the game dialogues, and our own WoL's experience alongside Alphinaud. I got thoughts on the “drugging and murder” thing too, but first things first: Gate Town.

Poor as in poor decision making? Yes. Poor as in, the poor of the Brume, with absolutely nowhere else to go, nothing to their name, completely at the mercy of the nobility who sit snug in their warm manors with all the Ishgardian muffins? Nnnnnnnnnnnnnno. Nonnie, how is any of the dialogue above Vauthry’s fault? I know the narrative wanted very much to push the “rich terrorizing the poor” trope again, but how does this line up with that? Alphinaud himself said he offered the denizens of Gate Town/The Derelicts alternatives--likely working for the Crystarium, or literally anywhere else instead--and they refused all of it. Even Kai-Shirr, allegedly a "matter of life or death", refused. But keep in mind, The Crystarium also required you work, if you wanted to stay.

Does that make their arrangement "indentured servitude" also?

Eulmore was looking for workers skilled in certain jobs. It wasn't some rando lottery for the amusement of the upper crust. When the jongleurs were sent out, they were looking for particular specialties, like painting, on behalf of a patron. Only the rich were required to give up their wealth and holdings for a place in Eulmore, to maintain everything as free for all living in there. Yep, including free for the workers, who outnumber the formerly rich by a lot. It's implied that in addition to all the freebies, workers were also paid well, and later in the story, they were loudly dissatisfied about Vauthry-- or, at least, his way of running the city--being gone. While Vauthry was still there, it was the city's official stance that they be recognized and respected for all their efforts.

Cruel patrons did exist in those twenty years, to be sure. Amity is full of workers who fled them. But cruelty was clearly not sanctioned nor encouraged by the city proper. Does the fanbase blame any other allied city-state leader for the heinous things their bad eggs do, or as ruthlessly? Not in my experience. (In fact, they often seem very forgiving of far, far worse.)

Also, remember how Amity was afraid that Vauthry would send the Eulmoran Army after them? He never did, in all 20 years of his position as Mayor. Why do you think that is, Nonnie? If his default was tyrant, why this? Why wasn’t he in control of all that was left of Norvrandt, not just serving as Mayor of Eulmore? He apparently offered his leadership to The Crystarium, who declined. He didn’t go raze the city, which he could have, especially considering the WoL was not on The First back then. All he did was clearly hold a dislike for the Exarch, who he calls insincere, and do things like....hire a bouncer for the Beehive, to make sure the patrons kept a hands-off approach with the dancers, a.k.a. the workers. 

Sick burn, your Lordship.  Until the events of ShB--which made it very clear Vauthry was becoming increasingly unstable--even workers who committed crimes were only exiled, not ordered to yeet themselves out a window.

Why did it change? But, TL;DR: "The hopefuls" left a reliable life for a gambler's chance in Vegas, and that in turn left their former neighbors in Wright and Stilltide struggling to maintain the workload that “the hopefuls" left vacant. But Stilltide and Wright were still selling their foodstuffs to Eulmore, so unless gil was more important to them than actual food, they were doing well, aside from the absence of "the hopefuls".

Onwards to “drugging and murder”!  ( ᐛ )b Gonna assume you mean meol when you say “drugging”, Nonnie. They never explain meol--instead, they seem to rely entirely on the shitty implication that this fat character eats people. I don’t know about you, Nonnie, but for me that trope was old long before Austin Powers. Anyhow, what we do know about meol: - It’s “made of sin eater”, even though sin eaters have no bones, blood, or meat--they explode into sparklies upon death. The narrative actually really emphasized the sparklies thing, sparklies are totally dangerous and will turn you. But the writers never even tried to explain how or why sin eater was made into bread. 

- In case you also meant meol when you said “murder”--and you probably did, you said “corpses”--it was never directly confirmed that meol was made out of sin eaters that were once people. 

Nonnie, Vauthry was Mayor of Eulmore for twenty years, and Kholusia as a whole had a small and seemingly stagnant population. If sin eater was people, how could that have been maintained?  Enough people disappearing to feed Eulmore for twenty years? The math doesn’t make any sense. There would be no one left. There would be a panic, rumors, at least whispers, not people circling the city like feral cats. 

But only one unreliable narrator--Thoarich in the Derelicts--implied ~people don’t leave the city, ooooooo~. 

Except people do leave the city. Like, all the time. Lue-Reeq does it to show up on my WoL’s doorstep at ungodly hours; someone in the Derelicts has a sweetie on the inside that comes out every day with delicacies; the guy waiting in Wright was sent out from Eulmore for booze; hunters getting their weekly marks; my WoL was bidden to “be free to roam to my heart’s content” by Dulia, etc.

- Meol was an entirely optional dish. No one was forced to eat it. Not even in  Gate Town/the Derelicts, because a.) Eulmore also gave out produce that was snubbed by fussy free citizens, and b.) there was all the meat and fish and Lemonettes in the field right there for the taking. No, I’m not talking about Bonefish, and their sad little description about how terrible they are to eat. You go twenty yalms to the left and you’re fishing up Kholusian King Crabs. 

Meol couldn’t have been part of some master plan, because there was no guarantee everyone would eat it, or eat it in the quantities needed to do....something. Mind control? Mind control that just makes the person stagger around and mutter incoherently? Makes total sense, very useful, that.

- Meol seemed to be a powerup or something for the Lightwarden, as consuming a lot of it caused the flesh of Vauthry’s back to rip off into tiny little meatwings near the end, leading to the Gulg dungeon and the Crown trial. But it couldn’t have been due to “living aether”, Sin Eaters eat that, they don’t have any of their own. Was it maybe the stagnant Sin Eater light aether completely tilting what was left of Vauthry’s living aether into Warden Time? But wouldn’t just being around all those Sin Eaters all that time have done that, without the middleman of bread?

- Alphinaud directly stated the citizens of Eulmore were in total control of themselves until the “mind control” incident. Nonnie, they weren’t helpless. The workers still knew their work, and most of them left to seek opportunities elsewhere after Vauthry was gone. Dulia was an accountant for Stoneworks. The nobleman who had no idea how to lace his shoes without a manservant was an exception, not the rule, and even that was not because of Vauthry.  Eulmore was the primary line of defense against the Sin Eaters for eighty years. All the loss from fighting that futile war broke their spirits. All the loss is why Ran’jit willingly followed in the lies Vauthry was raised on. They just wanted to live without fear before what they had every reason to believe was the end of their world, in a more lowkey parallel to XIII’s Yusnaan.  Tl;dr, again: Nonnie, meol is bad writing. Maybe you meant Ascension, too. Yes, I know, Alphinaud dramatically declared Eulmore was built on “the bones of the poor”. But since Ascension--a thing that Vauthry legit believed was real, Immaculate was the passion of his Ascension--since Ascension was only guaranteed to the (formerly) rich, if anything it was the bones of the (formerly) rich that built Eulmore. But why put logic in a stale trope, amirite? I doubt that any bones built Eulmore, though, since Ascension was implied to be every bit as optional as meol. Otherwise, why couldn’t the nice old man join the Weeping Warbler in hers, as he said he wished he could? He wouldn’t have been bullshitting us, would he? That’s sarcasm. Of course he probably would. But the fact remains no one was getting Ascended without asking.  And what do you know, as it turns out it was the Ascians who pushed Ascension as a (good) thing, and thanks to Ascians Gaia became an unattended child roaming Eulmore. Then there’s Cylva, who said it was the Ascians who convinced Vauthry to bring about the Virtues. It still boils down blaming the victim instead of, or harsher than, those that brought it all about. Nonnie, you say Vauthry had the least autonomy in his fate? He didn’t have any. 

Nonnie reminded me that I never did post Unna’s new look! Now more than ever, they look just as I see them in my head. wtf I love Summoner now, and that means Forgiven Dolor was given a new look too, since they can’t wear the thigh highs anymore. I’ve gotten a lot of nice compliments on it, I’m chuffed. 

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There could have been more time in the writing of the Eulmore arc, if the writers had been more clever and hadn't used lazy tropes to phone it in. But Yoshida bodyshamed a cosplayer for their weight live onstage at Fanfest 2014, so while I was disappointed, I sure wasn't surprised. Square in general loves shitting on fat characters.

So here we are, with inexplicably overpowered grandpa (who died in a duty), the totally plot twist Lightwarden Of Kholusia, and the "perverted paradise" that actually made the 1% foot the tab for their employees, before being replaced by the much more benevolent capitalism. (◔_◔)

By all means Nonnie, you do you, but you should consider that Vauthry was the original victim of the "cult", as you put it. He had no chance of free will since before he was born. Tempering/Light corruption doesn't work like that, and Tempering/Light corruption has never made an exception for anyone else, including the Warrior Of Light, who had Hydaelyn's Blessing protecting them. Vauthry was bound to the instincts and will of a Lightwarden his entire life. Or, as Emet-Selch, the actual founder of the Eulmore "cult", stated:

"Those in your company will likewise turn to sin eaters, and in time you will succumb to your base instincts and hunt innocents to feast on their sweet, sweet aether."

You think that whole situation was bad for your WoL? A lot of players go on in great length how horrifying it was for theirs. Loads of High Drama and Existential Dread. How do you suppose it was for a child alone, surrounded by people who were only using him for their own ends? 

The Ascians were there to guide their creation to do their bidding the whole way, it seems. It would only make sense, why would Emet-Selch corrupt a baby for such a crucial role, then leave him to do whatever on his own? 

Then you had his father, the Former Mayor, who obviously made up a fanciful story of why his son was born as he was, framing all who oppose him as villains who seek to destroy the peace he brought between man and sin eater. That unfortunately included the Scions and their allies, although even Emet-Selch stated he was surprised Vauthry sent the Eulmoran Army after us. That does imply it wasn’t common for Vauthry to resort to violent behavior in the past, if he resorted to it at all. The Eulmorans themselves definitely weren’t afraid of him ‘til the very end. You already know everything else I have to say on that subject, right? ( ᐛ )b

But yeah. We're talking being indoctrinated into this from birth. For those who dismiss that, I'd love to hear how they expected a child to know what was real and what was not at that point, carefully isolated from any life outside his false destiny. (Seriously. If any of you who subscribe to this mindset are reading this, DM me. Anon is obviously on. I really do want to see where the train of thought is coming from.) For the “well Vauthry was a spoiled rich kid” crowd, I don’t want to hear it--there are a lot of “rich kids” in this game that you love. Alphinaud, Alisaie, Hildibrand, Nanamo, the noble kids of Ishgard, etc. Think harder than that. Vauthry had to be convinced he was doing good for the world. He had all the power in the world to not care. Yet he remained mayor of one settlement, when he could’ve been in control of all of Norvrandt if he had even a fraction of Emet-Selch’s tin pot dictator ambitions. 

He didn’t. He hoped to "vindicate his existence" as the "half sin eater" the Ascians made him, as G’raha later said. But he died in bewildered sorrow because he "kept the people safe!" from the “villains”, never understanding everything he was taught was a cruel lie.

He did terrible things in the time we saw him, but blaming him for Light corruption he never chose and a lifetime of brainwashing feels like blaming Thancred for the fate of the Waking Sands. Would any of it have happened were it not for Emet-Selch’s direct actions? No.

Also, while I appreciate the compliments, Nonnie, why is "cuddly" and other similar terms always and only ever used for fat characters, smh. The fanbase tries to make Dulia everyone's maiden aunt as it is.  

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Biblically accurate angel axolotl

Hades has achieved the persona Megalomaniacal Madman! This was going to be a full parody of Hiimdaisy’s Persona 4 parody, but eh. So bonus:

Shut up, it’s an endearing character trait

Shot through the heart ♡ 

 Happy Valentione's Day! ⸜( ˙˘˙)⸝ ♡

"The Final Days builds character." - Venat, probably

Critter for worldbuilding things, is it a mount? Livestock? An apex predator? It is a mystery

Another rando I don’t know come to visit me in sleep deprivation, but gosh they are a mood