LITERALLY THE WHOLE AFTERNOON AND EVENING but now I can. Come down from that hopefully lmfao.

oh boy

IT WAS A LOT

99% excellent and the other 1% was Zenos (I do not judge Zenos likers I'm happy they get something out of him but he only started to compel me with the Final Duty uber and then he beefed it again lmfao)

I just think that if he was so rabidly committed to pushing himself to the final limit he'd have taken up a crafter job

BUT, MAN.

The perils of demanding an empirical answer to a question that can never be empirical

I really enjoyed the final area and I earnestly recommend that everyone who played EW read The End of Everything, Astrophysically Speaking by Katie Mack because she in fact covers a lot of that ground and it was super interesting to see that in a fantasy game (albeit one that does lots of SciFi But It Works By Magic things)

there were a few existential texts referenced in Endwalker from my understanding

I can't remember the titles right now though

Oooh yeah, it definitely felt like that

Like I have read about Heat Death (probably watched a NOVA episode or two about the Potential Ends of the Universe) and it's really interesting to posit the question "what if someone could do something tangible about that conclusion"

besides just think about it at 3AM sometimes

it was fictional texts I was thinking of actually, for some reason I keep thinking about a forest

like the quote/book has something to do with a forest but I can't remember the title or the quote

oh fuck I found it

The Dark Forest Theory (SPOILERS)

that's one of them at least

but yeah I hope you enjoyed Endwalker!!!

elaboration in case you wanted it! there's no spoilers beyond the end of EW

Oooh yes

I really did! I was absolutely shocked that they 1. decided to go into the Fermi paradox and 2. chose the bleakest answer

and yeees the Omicrons especially embody that Dark Forest idea

"we were subjugated on our own planet until we made ourselves capable of subjugation and prevailed, now that we have conceived of life elsewhere, this is our best option"

I also still feel like someone in the JP writing team has read Discworld because of the quote of Granny Weatherwax's, "what don't die can't live, what don't live can't change, what don't change can't learn"

because it applies to so many immortal characters in XIV

Nidhogg and Hraesvelgr, the Ascians, the dragons at the end of the universe, the Ea, Meteion

and the ones that don't fall into that, it's because they struggle against it (like Midgardsomr and Vrtra)