The Rising made me realize something.

[Mainasu]

Hydaelyn, Zodiarc, the Ascians, even the Twelve are just...gone. They even neutured the threat of the savage beast tribes. The world just doesn't feel mysterious. It doesn't feel dangerous. It doesn't feel like anything. A world that was once looming, with strange creatures, hidden dieties, undecifered riddles, beastman threats, ....now feels empty.

The future is a blank slate, but all DT taught us is that, there is nothing out there to really make us wonder. I am not theorizing and trying to put the pieces together about what may be coming next. I am just hoping they don't muck it up and make Mercidia into a slapstick episode of captain kangaroo, a mockery of the world that once was, like they did the new world.

I don't think we need another world ending threat, but we need mystery, we need intrigue, we need something other than this sad sanitized world.

It's been something that's steadily been chipped away even since before Endwalker came out, I feel. We don't have an antagonistic force looming in the background anymore with the Garleans and Ascians gone, and we have no political enemies to speak of. Most problems that have been a part of the identity of the starting City States are seemingly resolved, or not talked about anymore. They seemingly have scrubbed away any rough edges in this world, one piece at a time.

This is the first time I've had no idea where the story is going, but simultaneously I can barely speculate on any of it either, and my confidence in the current writing team is just not high enough to expect anything truly exciting, mysterious, or dangerous. I really want to be proven wrong.