Parrhesia

Anything still alive as it makes it to my plate.

shit, same um im just, gonna update tonight like nothin g every happened

Yeah, there is that kind of transition in the lategame to 'all the pure damage-dealers suddenly have a way of dealing 250 damage'. Rodanu's geomancy Flair, Yoana's Sneak Attack, Pummel/Doubleshot from Cid/Ursla, situationally Sidewinder from Wolfe... and Wolfe and Pyrrh are both learning Ultima (to join !!half Mana cost!! Dillan) but it's leaving them crippled in the interim, the Seventh Heaven has poor range while Pyrrh's... is a sword. Still, as it stands, every unit in the army is at least situationally good and, on average, mediocre. Hurdy is probably the weakest, followed by Lawrn, but they're both very strong units in situations that fit them. (Well, right now, it's Pyrrh, but he's kind of... only got one skill.)

I think in general early hunters are still really good just for being archers that can damage, tbh. Hard to compete with Snipers, though, since, well. Doubleshot.

lol tbh

I love the motherfucking Auctions. Not much to say about dispatches, really - the issue is they usually require much better guys than the rank, and I want to complete things onstage. All I use dispatches for is clearing out boring things like the stamp quests, re-completing already covered things and THE FUCKING DIPSHIT CASANOVA QUESTS which as mentioned I will not be able to complete without Cheating. I know how to cheat Nofilia up to 99 at least so if I have to I can at least throw her in at the end and sack Alde in the interim. But yeah, like... things like the rank-22 recurrent speed battle, none of my guys can better than walk against and I don't even think there's a dedicated preferred class! So yeah tl;dr it's the 'this is a trivial challenge and I want to just complete it offstage' mode.

that time where there were six at once because the tetrarchy was a really stupid fucking idea

I've run out of buffer, been pretty exhausted like all of December, so I'm taking a week(ish) of breather. 78 daily updates in a row is pretty good though, I reckon! This does, of course, offer the opportunity for viewer participation. What do we focus on now? And, more broadly, other things you'd like showcased or... whatever.

CHEN LOVES MUSIC sorry i've been inconsistent lately, just been Not Doing Too Hot lately

Most of her pity parade consists of 'my life was shit because I was so good at everything' and that is absolutely not something I can sympathise with. Nobody questions her departure or her theft. And, at the end of the day, what's she ever done for us? I'll still be doing her questline though, soon enough. [spoiler=Update 78 - Torjin] Let's get this straight, Adelle, you're a liability. ... Oh, c'mon, don't you sulk at me too. Wolfe was livid at me, Kyrie sticks his beak up at me... look, I made the call, alright? And it was my call to make. ... Fine. I'll just talk at you anyway. Not like you've anywhere to go. Fact is, if we'd let Alys die - or worse, left her for dead and had her live - then this damn war'd never end. I just want my peace, and I think deep down so do the rest. As long as we're in pole position; and we are in pole position! I know Guinness is with me on this one. And Cid, and Nathala and Nofilia were there and they approved, Yvet seemed on the fence... Caul agreed, Rodanu, I ain't asked, but I know he'd've done the same, and that's most of the old guard right there. Anyway, she opened the fight... by blinding herself. She needed the help. Fight was easy, in the end. Got a lot of theft done, too - Gren lined all our pockets. The blind girl was never in trouble. And, you know, I kinda think we might make a breakthrough! This war's not gonna last forever, you know? Anyway... look, I know you don't like it, but those pirates need bringing down. We just gotta track 'em down. We've got our clients working on it. ... Still nothing to say, huh? Well, look, I know you're bored. But, hey. You kinda stole all our shit and then walked out on us and then fought us when you found us again. We don't trust you. A few gifts might turn Guinness' head, maybe Cid's. And, hell, I reckon you're fine, now, but. A few of the others, they don't forgive so easy. Anyway, whatever. Just figured you'd want an update on the fighting. No end in sight, but I reckon they're schisming. Then we pounce - maybe even bring some of 'em under our wing. For now? We got a crew heading for Nazan. The boss wants you on board. And if you try anything, I'll be watching. Don't fuck this up. Next up on FFTA2:

Feel entirely free to chat about your run here! Or discuss the game in general, really.

Adelle is introduced as an unrepentant thief who fucks over the party a couple of times. She is caught attempting to fuck over the party a third time. Showing no signs of remorse, with Cid and Guinness not actually forgiving her, she recruits herself. There are no consequences for her actions. She's immediately assimilated into secondary protagonist status, despite showing no real character development at all. You could argue that she seems to care more about people, but this isn't the case, because when she has some flashbacks to a conversation she had many months ago - a conversation which entirely consisted of her humblebragging about how much better than 'normal' people she is - she decides to skip town and steal everything that isn't nailed down. Well, unsurprisingly, she ends up falling in with Khamja and fights the party with full intention to kill them. She is then completely forgiven for all of this. The only part of this that will ever come up again is the fact that Inheritor is a special class we can and, for completionism's sake, will get for her, so she can humblebrag about how much better than regular people she is some more. (Integrity reckons she sounds like a badly-written attempt at Yuffie Mk. 2 but he doesn't actually follow the LP and I've never played FF7 so I can't say for sure.) I gave Adelle a fair shot but she really is a fucking awful character.

For clarification, there is no way to refuse her. Also, talking to her three times also ends the fight but it's like, the same dialogue and the same effect. No extra prize or anything.

(I don't know the other submission we missed but Gui missed his cutoff so I'm just going to belatedly post what's next) KNIGHT FALCHION I found out about this song through this animation and it really grew on me. Her voice took some getting used to but everything else was so fun that I had to listen again and again. The animation is also good, so added bonus

[spoiler=Update 77b] And the mercenary bitch has come with friends. OH, I CAN THINK OF A FEW WAYS. Right. This should be easy - the law's against archery, which, I mean, that sucks, but. We bring six, we can ditch Cid if we want. Still, Adelle's just a two-trick pony, right? Two swords, two brain cells, two personality traits... Oh. That's new. Look, the title Mary Sue is by its very definition linking to a long tradition against empowered female protagonists in media, as any connection to destiny or exceptional trait is often turned against them while the public doesn't blink twice at a male protagonist having the same traits. Despite the long-held and rarely-challenged tradition of the humble farmboy going on the heroic journey, chosen by destiny and inexplicably being good at everything he puts his hand to, these things only become bad when women pick up a few of the same tricks. This can also be seen in the FE fandom, where Micaiah - not especially powerful in her own right, never particularly portrayed that way either in game or in lore, but straddling the fairly standard role of oracle with her duty as protagonist, is criticised relentlessly and held unfavourably to other protagonists in the series who, unlike Micaiah, never fail and are never questioned by prospective recruits as they guide every right-thinking man-at-arms on the continent (bar one or two tragic enemy generals) to their side in pursuit of victory. Ike's seamless transition from young, unproven sellsword, junior-most in his entire organisation, to general is never questioned, while Micaiah is crucified for having a small bird. I've been giving the story a fair go, letting it state its points, been quietly surprised by its quality in places. This is a moderately well-written game by video game standards, and I will not let the myth that female protagonists should never have their time in the sun (which holds deep roots in, essentially, dismissing women as a whole) overcome my judgement. That all said; Adelle is a Mary fucking Sue. And diplomacy has failed. Cid is one of my most rude units. Master Monks have pretty good firepower with their bare hands. And high evade. Cid is dual-wielding shields and has a coin-flip chance of evading everything. Whatever. You're done. Done. Guinness laughs. She runs forward and hits him. Ill-advisedly, under the circumstances. He hits her back. This is going badly.

[spoiler=Update 77a] You join us back at the scene of yet another crime. I didn't pick that strong a side, I really hope that our reinforcements will b FIUCK fuck moorabella was there no other clan was there no other fucking clan Almost immediately the boss is reduced to 1 health. They can't die, though. Can the other guys? I don't know. They're good at fighting. Mysteriously this is the quickest of all to be completed. TWO turns before round 3. Wonder why? Oh, well. It is a mystery. By the way, there's something unfortunate about this LP - I'm going to need to cheat to finish it. Because apparently you need to be level 75, which we may never reach due to using more than six characters, in order to beat one of the final quests. Also boosting Alde's level to fuck will help boost enemies. Now, there's a maximum level cheat! And... it has a laser-guided eye for Nofilia. For some reason. Yes, even when I switch the unit order around. help Anyway, let's sort out a couple of quests in Kthili. Anyway, Adelle's probably dead without us. Suckers. Impressive place, the Sands. Let's go do some cleanup. Oh. It's you.

a fridge, which contains a freezer section

[spoiler=Update 76] We're in town for the Death March - regrettably - but you know what they say about ripping bandaids off quickly. There's one of these for every settlement, and precious few quests left in Loar. We're doing Graszton's, Camoa's and Moorabella's. time to kill this highly-rated group with exactly three tiles of movement at a time !! i forgot to re-equip green magic on yvet, kill me Disabling is better than blinding. ... oh, turns out they can do that, too. Turns out death is a better status to inflict than disable, though. And for the final blow? TWO SPACES. MISSION OVER. FUCK OFF. Wolfe becomes our first level 40 guy. Oh, hey, we get friends! Four goblins in four rounds. Law against distant units, so I plumped for the Move +2 law. Chita and his daves are really well-equipped, appropriate level and are, generally, no slouches! They beat the living fuck out of these two goblins while Yoana watches on. One of them has the right idea by backing himself into a corner, but then shoves Yoana away to make room for the next guy to take a swing. Juuust before round 3 starts. Well, it'll take a while to figure out. oh, good. So this works quite well from a story perspective! Since we burst onto the scene, we've kind of eclipsed them. But the Braves never stopped being a thing - they try and outauction us locally, they fought us a couple of times... But you'll have noticed that of late the world's really started to go to shit. Duelhorn want to dominate everything, Khamja are leaving the shadows and the wildlife is going into Revelations mode. They're small fish, and we haven't... really left Camoa in any danger, have we? So, hell, why not fight with us? As before, they're quite capable and start with good initiative. Welcome back, Caul. The last turn of round 2 last time - the first turn of round 3 this time. Weird. But this update is going overlength... ... and we just finished Quest 200. Next up on FFTA2: Regrets.

A frozen Hawaiian pizza a fortnight keeps the doctor away -ght

[spoiler=Update 75b] It's what we DO, Cid! Yes. Killing them will be. And yet, battle is joined. We need to keep them away from Calea. So - Khamja. There's a lot of them, they're all good classes. Yet again, though, unnecessary complexity - the seer is a healer with illusions, the arcanist has no secondary abilities. But the Lanista - Tobai - has a lot of stats on him, and the parivir and master monk are nasty. We're solid up front... ... and Lawrn inflicts maths on the foe from a distance. I need to get him darkness absorption. They fight back, to mixed effect. But we're just stronger where it counts. Rodanu has the lightning and ice versions of the thing that guy used, and guess what? He does triple-digits. Cid shadowpunches him to death. We're bigger, stronger, harder, better. And typical overthought Khamja - when the monk has the option to just punch Yoana in the back, he instead uses a 50% accuracy damage-for-lost-life ability that doesn't actually kill her. Pyrrh's only action over the two quests. But what of Tobai? There we go. Oh, good! More of them! Another failure gets bailed out. And as before, Horeme follows. After this point, we are still free to do the repeatable donate-to-Carm quest. Not all of FFTA2's plot points come off - for instance, fuck Adelle - but this is genuinely pretty clever, and it does paint Khamja in an intimidating light. Helps that they have done a good job of living up to it, thus far. Let's kill them. At least the people are on our side... but no quests show up. For now, Khamja's lying too low for us to take a direct swipe at them. Next up on FFTA2: Milestones.

[spoiler=Update 75a] Grosso is Italian for 'fat', by the way. Anyway, yeah, we're just clearing out the quests in Loar. I apparently didn't save the screenshot but there was a third one - a Carm Mercantile worker's gone missing. I only realise it in hindsight, but the monsters screaming 'Gull'eeee!' at you... well, Clan Gully is the default name. Anyway, no fire - you need to uphold the law, and since heat spoils the flavour, well... There's a malboro king, by the way. That's a thing that exists in this game. It sings. With sound effects to match. My Bad Breath theory gets demolished when, ironically, Rodanu gets Poison/Blind/Silenced. Wait for it... There we go. Three of them now. Yes. Oh, shit. Cid and Guinness are mandatory, the law forbids Harming the Weak, and Guinness is Level 38 while the enemies are 36 and 37. Ooh, this one drops Velvet! they are floating eyes. they deal 10 damage to cid and 3 to yoana. And Calea's alright. Not selectable in any way, by the way. But suspiciously, we all get 30 experience... A new challenger arrives!

what

one

fuccboi technically 2 songs, but one of the best songs of the decade, so i'll let myself slide

[spoiler=Update 74b] Now to help Mayhew with the... ... burglar... ... problem... um they have seen too much Minimal force. Right... but why's your storage in a fucking swamp? We pick this up en route back to Loar. Inexplicably Lezaford, an idiot, doesn't connect the legend of the Big Mysterious Magic Book to the Big Mysterious Magic Book we specifically hunted him down to talk to him about. This is if you fuck up with Yew - the dialogue isn't different for giving him a chocobo for the wrong colour, either. That's... cute, and if I'm reading it right, disgusting. Still, these are adorable and characterful quests. Hey, look what we prepared earlier. The failure dialogue is basically identical, only he mentions them being good at running instead of flying. And then Caul went back to animism. He's been a chocobo knight for a bit, and the support was useful, but... honestly, the damage just couldn't keep up with the rest of my lads. You know the drill. Nah, you want a chocobo knight or a beastmaster. Alde, you owe this man your fucking livelihood. Now off to Meena, who I miss a screenshot of her asking if we have her letter. The background scene is great and inexplicable. :)