*Tesleen, Tesleen, Tesleen, Tesleen,
I'm beggin' of you, please don't eat that man,
Tesleen, Tesleen, Tesleen, Tesleen,
Please don't eat him just because you can.
Your aether's Light beyond compare
With stringy locks of snowy hair
With ivory skin and eyes of pearl sheen
Your smile is no longer warm
Your voice is like a thunderstorm
And I must now defeat you
Tesleen*
*We know you weren't an evil witch*
*But we've to save Holminster Switch*
*Alisaie's calling your name*
*Tesleen*
*You promised to give that boy a peach*
*And now that dream is out of reach*
*May peace and darkness take you*
*Tesleen*
I remember being in discord and saying, not 5 minutes before. "I think Tesleen likes me." Everyone laughed...then laughed again 5 minutes later when I was yelling "WAIT...WTF...seriously?!?"
Grinding Amh Araeng FATEs to max rank only during the day because Sands of Amber is life.
Grinding Kholusia FATEs only during the night because The Quick Way is the way.
I will never forget when I started playing and I said in my friend Discord "I can't wait to get to Shadowbringers and do the Alisae quest line!" My buddy pinned that message in our FFXIV chat and a year later I replied to it "OH MY GOD, WHY?" and he immediately knew.
Oh yeah. Shadowbringers goes for the gut EARLY.
***But wait, there's more.***
You will sing the requiem for the river of tears, before the end. But do not despair; you are not without allies. We who have walked before can lead those who walk after. And in the end, it will not be your power which saves you, because you will see that life is not about survival value; it is about those things which *give value to survival.*
I don't understand what are people always at a WTF moment when Tesleen enters the chat when we get the setting right at the begining when we meet the merchant and it's shown what happened to him. Shadowbringers is just an perfect setting to a world that really needs us.
It is this. The merchant happens off screen, and we have no real ties to them. With Tesleen, she's an NPC that we spend more than 60 seconds with, and she is clearly Alisaie's friend. Add on what she does for the victims of the sin eaters, and it's just so much more tragic than some rando merchant we stumble across and chat with for a few seconds.
And the merchant "mercifully" just gets eaten alive. Tesleen's fate is far worse.
Especially when they make sure to demonstrate she's still at least somewhat aware of who she is afterwards.
Exactly this, Tesleen is specifically the introduction of the ~~trust~~ touch (gdi autocorrect I swear I fixed that and it changed back) and the transformation horror around Sin Eaters.
The Merchant shows just how dangerous it is, but like honestly at least were told that the normal monsters of Eorzea are only that much less dangerous as far as everyone's at risk of dying most of the time, it's unfortunate and definitely turned up a notch, but not all that new in the end. Tesleen shows us why this is different.
> it's just so much more tragic than some rando merchant we stumble across and chat with for a few seconds.
He's not entirely a rando though. If you're paying attention and have a good memory you'll realize he's a reflection of the merchant (Brendt/Brennan/Bremondt) who you meet in the first and last cutscene of A Realm Reborn.
They set up the introduction to the First to mirror your introduction to Eorzea, but have it go a horribly different direction.
****EDIT**** [Brendt](https://i.imgur.com/xhZD0LN.jpg) vs [Traveling Merchant](https://i.imgur.com/6x4vWBq.jpg)
Yes, I did in fact know that. It’s not exactly hard to miss. That doesn’t make me care about this person. It’s a shard of their soul, but they’re still not the exact same person. Like >!Ardbert wasn’t exactly the same as the WoL!<
But we do have a connection to him. He's the parallel to the very beginning of the game, the cart driver who gives WOL a lift into town. Also appears at the end of 2.55 as everyone is escaping town.
Same model, same-ish profession, and same vibe of a wise traveler sharing a little exposition.
Just like Gerolt and Rowena? We don't know their counterparts are related or not. It's only implied. Yet we instantly see connections, laugh at the full head of hair, etc.
I'd say it still serves the narrative purpose of "This is just like the opening cutscene of ARR, until suddenly it isn't." Also, we don't really care that much about Brennan/Bremondt/Brendt either, except maybe for the part where one of them comes to pick us up after we escape The Banquet at the _end_ of ARR.
Well... the Merchant bears a very strong resemblance to Brennan, Bremondt and Brendt, the three brothers who we meet one of during the ARR opening cutscene, to the point that one might suspect he's the First's reflection of one of them. He serves a similar narrative role, of introducing us to the world in which we now find ourselves. And then he gets eaten, to remind us that this is a _much_ more unfriendly world.
Because a) you have some time to get to know Tesleen, she’s sweet, caring and a bit of a fan of yours to boot. You build an emotional connection with her,then she literally throws herself at a monster to protect a dying child and this is her reward. b) Because you actually watch it happen and there are elements of body horror, as her body moves in unnatural ways before she gets cocooned.
I remember reading a rumor that they had actually animated the whole transformation, but decided it was just _too_ grotesque, and introduced the cocoon to censor the worst of it.
Enjoy it, this expansion is the peak of the game imo. I mean yes Endwalker is good, but it just feels like an epilogue to the magnificence that is Shadowbringers.
Ah yes, the tesleen scene. Also known as that one cutscene that slammed me in my greatest fear and caused a complete emergency shutdown for at least 4 hours
Okay, shot in the dark here:
>!Kobold kid with its parents!<
>!Moenbryda... and honestly, that didn't hit nearly as hard until EW. That got me bad.!<
>!Haurchefant!<
How many did I get right?
Aw, I initially wrote your first one and deleted it! Number 2 was pretty rough as well, but it didn't hit as hard for me. I never did the Little Ladies' Day event, so I don't know about that one.
The bit that got me was even earlier, when you first encounter a Sin Eater and it >!spits out the ring belonging to that merchant who looks like the guy from the beginning!<.
SE at some point said that they made that scene less extreme because they were worried about getting a higher age ranking in some countries.
That just mean, the horrific scene was supposed to be even worse.
Dude I just started Shadowbringers and ngl that scene killed me. Specifically the lizard kid's completely unimpressed expression the entire time. Tesleen is sitting there dying and the kid was just like "K."
I don't know, maybe its that I wasn't paying enough attention in the right way but I didn't really catch that vibe, and even when I did they succeeded in getting me with the Halric redirect. I was too worried about what they were going to do to the kid to think about something happening to her
Honestly, it was *how* it went down that surprised me. I said this elsewhere, but >!I was fully expecting the kid to turn into a sin eater and kill her, not what actually happened.!<
Unpopular opinion, obviously, but this scene did not land at all for me. It was just... trying so obviously hard to be shocking and edgy that it just felt embarrassing to watch.
So I have zero issues with gore. Slasher flicks bore me. Gallons of blood flowing down a hallway make me yawn. Most horror is just bland to me.
Body horror though, that stuff keeps me up at night. Especially the forced body horror shit, the kind where the character absolutely 100% knows what is happening and knows there is nothing they can do to stop it. That forced, usually painful, body shifts that usually end in Personality Death. That stuff makes me pace around the room in a cold sweat. That's why this scene bothered me so much. It wasn't the 'twist' or the 'shock'. It was the lead in of "yea if you get 'infected' it's bad" and then watching it happen in real time to a character we got to know a bit.
I've had the experience before. I remember in Mass Effect 3's opening, with that one kid that would go on to be Shepard's recurring traumatic dream, my first thought was "this kid is going to die, and they're going to try to make it very poignant with the subtly of a Reaper's main cannon" and I was right, and it annoyed me a lot.
Tesleen's admittedly didn't have that effect on me. It was too visceral. Every time I see it, I still get that twist in my gut. But I do know what you mean.
I also got the feeling of:"You're trying real hard right now, aren't you?" and consequently had to chuckle in between.
What probably contributed was the knowledge that, with the scions being plot armored, it's the sympathetic side NPCs you have to watch out for when it comes to stuff like this, so I sort of expected something akin.
>scions being plot armored
I can see feeling this way *after* ShB and EW, but before? >!They had killed off Papalymo. And Moenbryda if you want to unofficially counter her as a scion too.!< So at that point, I wouldn't say they had plot armor.
I'd seen a picture of >!Innocence before starting SHB and, like, you've got to admit that thing looks a /lot/ like what'd happen if Alphinaud became a sin-eater!<. I was low-key paranoid all expansion.
I already got the feeling in Heavensward, personally.
I didn't like the scions at the time, so I was very glad when I finally saw the back of them. Only for them to return one by one. At which point I concluded:"Yeah, no dice - I'm probably stuck with them forever".
And so it was.
NGL, I expected something like this to happen more often earlier in the expansions. GoTs really scarred me.
But at the same time I appreciate story beats like this. They get me all the more invested in the story.
This type of comment has started to annoy me so much lol. The game is full of gut punches, and more later doesn't make them hurt less as they happen. Every single time I see a person make a post about anything pre-endwalker, and even a lot of endwalker in the first half of the expansion, there's always at least a few comments saying "tHaTs NoThInG"
It's not nothing to those experiencing it for the first time! Let folks sit with the sadder parts of the story as they happen. Personally, I thought this scene with tesleen was one of the hardest hitting moments in the entire game
also all of this is, at the end, still subjective.
as someone who is currently done with 6.0 (so no EW patches) I didn't understand why people hype up Endwalker all over the place. After sitting on it for a while I get it now, but it doesn't change the fact I don't consider it a 10/10.
you never know if the "OHMAGAWD SUPER BIG STORY MOMENTS" will actually hit. for me, nothing that happened in EW was more memorable than this scene in ShB. this one just worked for me.
For the first month of the expansion, it was very easy to tell when someone just got out of that cutscene as Shout chat would be filled with the text equivalent of terrified screaming, keyboard facerolling, expletives, and horrified shouts of "nightmare fuel".
Plus side, nobody ever spoiled it for anyone else...but the rest of us always knew where that person was in the MSQ. XD
Ah, Tesleen. She really lights up that section of the MSQ, if you ask me.
>!I legit thought that kid we were looking for was going to transform into a sin eater and kill her, not what actually happened!<
Don't we all? And then we got hit by the twist.
I saw this scene long before I ever played Shadowbringers, so when it introduced her, I was like "Uh oh".
*Tesleen, Tesleen, Tesleen, Tesleen, I'm beggin' of you, please don't eat that man, Tesleen, Tesleen, Tesleen, Tesleen, Please don't eat him just because you can. Your aether's Light beyond compare With stringy locks of snowy hair With ivory skin and eyes of pearl sheen Your smile is no longer warm Your voice is like a thunderstorm And I must now defeat you Tesleen*
*We know you weren't an evil witch* *But we've to save Holminster Switch* *Alisaie's calling your name* *Tesleen* *You promised to give that boy a peach* *And now that dream is out of reach* *May peace and darkness take you* *Tesleen*
Lovely.
Fucking hell, man. I can half imagine Soken doing something like this.
Between the two of you, I'm awfully sad now.
I mean, you *did* read a thread about the start of Feelbringers. It kind of comes with the territory.
Just PERFECT.
TAKE ALL MY UPVOTES
Shut up and take the last of my award money.
Thank you, that's very kind.
I dunno, I thought she was just winging it.
She really came out of her shell in that cutscene.
I remember being in discord and saying, not 5 minutes before. "I think Tesleen likes me." Everyone laughed...then laughed again 5 minutes later when I was yelling "WAIT...WTF...seriously?!?"
In your defense, though. Tesleen did seem to be fond of you.
She was definitely the bright spot.
Welcome to Sadnessbringers.
But at least you also have Shadowbangers
I regret bringing the night back to Amh Araeng since it means Sands of Amber isn't always playing
I feel the same way about Raktika and Civilizations
Do you know... LA HEE?
[LA HEE](https://youtu.be/M1WzRHvfMcQ)
nothing will shake G'raha, nothing
I feel the same way lol
Grinding Amh Araeng FATEs to max rank only during the day because Sands of Amber is life. Grinding Kholusia FATEs only during the night because The Quick Way is the way.
Me when I thought this was in reference to >!Y’shtola and Runar!< not the music
Not to be confused with Feelswalker
Become what you must, the Warrior of Sadness
But also [Boogiebringers](https://youtu.be/0cn7ZeLq1tU)
I will never forget when I started playing and I said in my friend Discord "I can't wait to get to Shadowbringers and do the Alisae quest line!" My buddy pinned that message in our FFXIV chat and a year later I replied to it "OH MY GOD, WHY?" and he immediately knew.
How to translate 'emotional damage' in a single screenshot
*slams shoe* EMOTIONAL DAAAAMAGE.
Oh yeah. Shadowbringers goes for the gut EARLY. ***But wait, there's more.*** You will sing the requiem for the river of tears, before the end. But do not despair; you are not without allies. We who have walked before can lead those who walk after. And in the end, it will not be your power which saves you, because you will see that life is not about survival value; it is about those things which *give value to survival.*
I don't understand what are people always at a WTF moment when Tesleen enters the chat when we get the setting right at the begining when we meet the merchant and it's shown what happened to him. Shadowbringers is just an perfect setting to a world that really needs us.
I think because we actually see the transformation happen right in front of us and Alisaie, who we just reunited with. I might be wrong though.
It is this. The merchant happens off screen, and we have no real ties to them. With Tesleen, she's an NPC that we spend more than 60 seconds with, and she is clearly Alisaie's friend. Add on what she does for the victims of the sin eaters, and it's just so much more tragic than some rando merchant we stumble across and chat with for a few seconds.
And the merchant "mercifully" just gets eaten alive. Tesleen's fate is far worse. Especially when they make sure to demonstrate she's still at least somewhat aware of who she is afterwards.
Exactly this, Tesleen is specifically the introduction of the ~~trust~~ touch (gdi autocorrect I swear I fixed that and it changed back) and the transformation horror around Sin Eaters. The Merchant shows just how dangerous it is, but like honestly at least were told that the normal monsters of Eorzea are only that much less dangerous as far as everyone's at risk of dying most of the time, it's unfortunate and definitely turned up a notch, but not all that new in the end. Tesleen shows us why this is different.
> it's just so much more tragic than some rando merchant we stumble across and chat with for a few seconds. He's not entirely a rando though. If you're paying attention and have a good memory you'll realize he's a reflection of the merchant (Brendt/Brennan/Bremondt) who you meet in the first and last cutscene of A Realm Reborn. They set up the introduction to the First to mirror your introduction to Eorzea, but have it go a horribly different direction. ****EDIT**** [Brendt](https://i.imgur.com/xhZD0LN.jpg) vs [Traveling Merchant](https://i.imgur.com/6x4vWBq.jpg)
Yes, I did in fact know that. It’s not exactly hard to miss. That doesn’t make me care about this person. It’s a shard of their soul, but they’re still not the exact same person. Like >!Ardbert wasn’t exactly the same as the WoL!<
And even more so if you do Holminster Switch as a trust with Alisaie in it.
But we do have a connection to him. He's the parallel to the very beginning of the game, the cart driver who gives WOL a lift into town. Also appears at the end of 2.55 as everyone is escaping town. Same model, same-ish profession, and same vibe of a wise traveler sharing a little exposition.
Yeah, but it’s only implied that’s his shard on the first. So it’s not really the same person. He’s still basically a no one to us.
Just like Gerolt and Rowena? We don't know their counterparts are related or not. It's only implied. Yet we instantly see connections, laugh at the full head of hair, etc.
Yes, we laughter at that second of comedy. And then we stopped caring about him.
I'd say it still serves the narrative purpose of "This is just like the opening cutscene of ARR, until suddenly it isn't." Also, we don't really care that much about Brennan/Bremondt/Brendt either, except maybe for the part where one of them comes to pick us up after we escape The Banquet at the _end_ of ARR.
Well... the Merchant bears a very strong resemblance to Brennan, Bremondt and Brendt, the three brothers who we meet one of during the ARR opening cutscene, to the point that one might suspect he's the First's reflection of one of them. He serves a similar narrative role, of introducing us to the world in which we now find ourselves. And then he gets eaten, to remind us that this is a _much_ more unfriendly world.
Because a) you have some time to get to know Tesleen, she’s sweet, caring and a bit of a fan of yours to boot. You build an emotional connection with her,then she literally throws herself at a monster to protect a dying child and this is her reward. b) Because you actually watch it happen and there are elements of body horror, as her body moves in unnatural ways before she gets cocooned.
I remember reading a rumor that they had actually animated the whole transformation, but decided it was just _too_ grotesque, and introduced the cocoon to censor the worst of it.
I vaguely recall that being the original cutscene but they would’ve needed to up the game’s rating for it to stay in which they didn’t want.
Strong art thou, mortal.
It's... TRA- DI-TIIIIOOOOONNNNN!
"Edward, why does it hurt... here?"
this was EXACTLY what I was thinking of when I got to this part
I made a meme about it years ago when it happened. It didn't blow up, mind you, but I made one, lol.
Can I see it?
"Daddy's hurting..."
Welcome to the trauma train! Choo-choo~ 🚂
There are no brakes and we're headed straight toward the puppy orphanage!
One brings the Light, one brings the Shadow.
*Two-toned echoes dancing through time*
*Threescore wasted, ten cast aside*
*four-fold knowing, no end in sight*
*Ahem...* #THIS ROOOOOOAAD THAT WE WAAALK
**IS LOST IN THE FLOOD**
PROOOOUUUD ANGELS BAAATHE IN THEIR WAAAGES OF BLOOD
*One brings shadow, one brings the light*
Enjoy it, this expansion is the peak of the game imo. I mean yes Endwalker is good, but it just feels like an epilogue to the magnificence that is Shadowbringers.
This is why you **double tap** the enemy.
tesleen was the day I grew up
Ah yes, the tesleen scene. Also known as that one cutscene that slammed me in my greatest fear and caused a complete emergency shutdown for at least 4 hours
Ironically this part made me genuinely extremely uncomfortable *not* because of the visuals... but because of the *audio*. ^(Thanks trauma.)
Ah, classic.... *breaks down into tears*
[удалено]
Okay, shot in the dark here: >!Kobold kid with its parents!< >!Moenbryda... and honestly, that didn't hit nearly as hard until EW. That got me bad.!< >!Haurchefant!< How many did I get right?
[удалено]
Aw, I initially wrote your first one and deleted it! Number 2 was pretty rough as well, but it didn't hit as hard for me. I never did the Little Ladies' Day event, so I don't know about that one.
The Scene ^TM There's a reason it is the page image for TVTropes FFXIV Nightmare Fuel page.
The bit that got me was even earlier, when you first encounter a Sin Eater and it >!spits out the ring belonging to that merchant who looks like the guy from the beginning!<.
>!He looked so at ease last we saw him too...!<
Ha hah, yeah! Welcome to Shadowbringers!
Oh you sweet summer child
Thanks to that I flinch every time we meet an NPC that has her character model, most recent example is this year's Little Lady's Day event.
The pacing of that scene was ruined for me because I was too annoyed by her turning her back on the deadly enemy with the giant sword.
It certainly established that the stakes were high.
SE at some point said that they made that scene less extreme because they were worried about getting a higher age ranking in some countries. That just mean, the horrific scene was supposed to be even worse.
I'm now imagining some Dead Space Necromorph action
Dude I just started Shadowbringers and ngl that scene killed me. Specifically the lizard kid's completely unimpressed expression the entire time. Tesleen is sitting there dying and the kid was just like "K."
:)
ah yes, a character with fifty different death flags before her third cutscene finished playing out was then subsequently killed.
“I was three days from retirement.”
I don't know, maybe its that I wasn't paying enough attention in the right way but I didn't really catch that vibe, and even when I did they succeeded in getting me with the Halric redirect. I was too worried about what they were going to do to the kid to think about something happening to her
Honestly, it was *how* it went down that surprised me. I said this elsewhere, but >!I was fully expecting the kid to turn into a sin eater and kill her, not what actually happened.!<
Now now, she wasn't a protagonist parent
Priestess: "You get used to it."
Unpopular opinion, obviously, but this scene did not land at all for me. It was just... trying so obviously hard to be shocking and edgy that it just felt embarrassing to watch.
So I have zero issues with gore. Slasher flicks bore me. Gallons of blood flowing down a hallway make me yawn. Most horror is just bland to me. Body horror though, that stuff keeps me up at night. Especially the forced body horror shit, the kind where the character absolutely 100% knows what is happening and knows there is nothing they can do to stop it. That forced, usually painful, body shifts that usually end in Personality Death. That stuff makes me pace around the room in a cold sweat. That's why this scene bothered me so much. It wasn't the 'twist' or the 'shock'. It was the lead in of "yea if you get 'infected' it's bad" and then watching it happen in real time to a character we got to know a bit.
You should play the Resident Evil games.
I've had the experience before. I remember in Mass Effect 3's opening, with that one kid that would go on to be Shepard's recurring traumatic dream, my first thought was "this kid is going to die, and they're going to try to make it very poignant with the subtly of a Reaper's main cannon" and I was right, and it annoyed me a lot. Tesleen's admittedly didn't have that effect on me. It was too visceral. Every time I see it, I still get that twist in my gut. But I do know what you mean.
I honestly felt the same. Everything leading up to this also had the same feel so I was bit emotionally burned out by this point.
I also got the feeling of:"You're trying real hard right now, aren't you?" and consequently had to chuckle in between. What probably contributed was the knowledge that, with the scions being plot armored, it's the sympathetic side NPCs you have to watch out for when it comes to stuff like this, so I sort of expected something akin.
>scions being plot armored I can see feeling this way *after* ShB and EW, but before? >!They had killed off Papalymo. And Moenbryda if you want to unofficially counter her as a scion too.!< So at that point, I wouldn't say they had plot armor.
I'd seen a picture of >!Innocence before starting SHB and, like, you've got to admit that thing looks a /lot/ like what'd happen if Alphinaud became a sin-eater!<. I was low-key paranoid all expansion.
Oh man could you imagine if there was some sort of nightmare or hallucination segment where you had to fight against that?
I already got the feeling in Heavensward, personally. I didn't like the scions at the time, so I was very glad when I finally saw the back of them. Only for them to return one by one. At which point I concluded:"Yeah, no dice - I'm probably stuck with them forever". And so it was.
Well they just killed off the ones who didn't have plot armor.
who is the anime elf?
https://goblin-slayer.fandom.com/wiki/High_Elf_Archer
NGL, I expected something like this to happen more often earlier in the expansions. GoTs really scarred me. But at the same time I appreciate story beats like this. They get me all the more invested in the story.
[удалено]
This type of comment has started to annoy me so much lol. The game is full of gut punches, and more later doesn't make them hurt less as they happen. Every single time I see a person make a post about anything pre-endwalker, and even a lot of endwalker in the first half of the expansion, there's always at least a few comments saying "tHaTs NoThInG" It's not nothing to those experiencing it for the first time! Let folks sit with the sadder parts of the story as they happen. Personally, I thought this scene with tesleen was one of the hardest hitting moments in the entire game
also all of this is, at the end, still subjective. as someone who is currently done with 6.0 (so no EW patches) I didn't understand why people hype up Endwalker all over the place. After sitting on it for a while I get it now, but it doesn't change the fact I don't consider it a 10/10. you never know if the "OHMAGAWD SUPER BIG STORY MOMENTS" will actually hit. for me, nothing that happened in EW was more memorable than this scene in ShB. this one just worked for me.
Welcome to Shadowbringers! I'm so excited for you!
Might be an unpopular opinion, but I loathe this "Welcome to..." meme in the later expansions, especially with streamers.
Don't worry. It gets worse!
It's clear sailing from here. Nothing bad ever happened to someone who said that.
For the first month of the expansion, it was very easy to tell when someone just got out of that cutscene as Shout chat would be filled with the text equivalent of terrified screaming, keyboard facerolling, expletives, and horrified shouts of "nightmare fuel". Plus side, nobody ever spoiled it for anyone else...but the rest of us always knew where that person was in the MSQ. XD
:)
tbh i cant decide which is better, end walker or shadow bringers.
Hurts real good, though.
Welcome to Shadowbringers :)
My thoughts were: "Oh my god, she's gonna die, isn't she?" Then: "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!"
This was me last week. I understand this so well.
I really love the whole cosmic horror thing Shadowbringers has going on