Shadowhunter:
I'm not going to say he's not Gaius. That is the most likely conclusion that can be reached given the (veritable mountain of) evidence supporting it, and what I am running with until we get explicit confirmation or denial.

I'm just saying it's possible he's not Gaius. How? Well... there are endless possibilities and "What if?"s that can be raised to answer all those. The most probable conclusion is that he is Gaius, but the possibility he's not, however slight, lingers.

How has he been killing Overlords? How did he get from Eorzea to the Burn? Unknown, but I suspect those questions will be answered in time. He may just be killing the hosts; they need to use their Dark Crystals to return to the interstitial world between dimensions; if they're stopped from using them as Thordan did that's not an out, and if there is a way to prevent the possession of a living person they're no more invincible than the black masks.

Perhaps totally-not-Gaius will be our in to Garlemald... but given Gaius is a disgraced and presumed dead legatus, I doubt he has much power there anymore. That he's hunting Ascians is a good thing, though.


Yotsuyu / MSQ
The whole thing just feels like an unmitigated tragedy; like we should have been able to stop it, but couldn't. Asahi's designs became pretty apparent during the Echo flashback through Yotsuyu's father, and considering the Warrior of Light (a.k.a. the Eikon Slayer) was there and she still summoned anyway I can't help but feel like she wanted us to kill her. MSQ was pretty damn emotionally draining. Not quite 3.3, but close.