What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[FrogDog]

Ah but my opinion would be illogical, my positions wrong and my positive feelings towards Endwalker a product of bad writing and a desire to defend “mommy.”

Theo you pull this motte and bailey every time. You can say “you’re free to hold opinions” all you want.

But when you also say

You come off insincere.

I don’t think anyone here expects to really change anyones mind. This is just purely a thread to give our opinions on the expansion and what we think it did wrong. People are free to disagree, but as such is in a public forum or any debate space, people should be prepared to face opposition.I don’t think anyone has really claimed the things you’re saying they have about you.

As far as Theodric’s comment goes, i don’t really see it as insincere. People in the community do call her Crystal mom or Crystal mommy, he’s simply using the same terminology as them. Certainly isn’t any worse than the people who went around calling Villain fans genocide sympathizers or nazi etc. Of which people never really denounced or commented on. It’s only now that certain characters being under fire is an issue. Either way i suppose in the end my point is this, people are free to like or dislike whatever characters they want. As for your earlier comment though, i find it a bit amusing you act like the group of people in this thread ruined the forums discussion threads, and not accepting that you and the people that share your ideas aren’t also a part of the problem, what with the passive aggressiveness, death threats, and so on and so forth.

[kpxmanifesto]

You come off insincere.

This seems incredibly hypocritical, especially when you say right before that criticism "ruining" the official forums is merely voicing disagreement.

[EaraGrace]

I don’t think anyone here expects to really change anyones mind. This is just purely a thread to give our opinions on the expansion and what we think it did wrong. People are free to disagree, but as such is in a public forum or any debate space, people should be prepared to face opposition.I don’t think anyone has really claimed the things you’re saying they have about you.

I’ve had someone compare me with rape apologists, Theodorics compared enjoying Endwalker as being like preferring fast food over steak, people repeatedly discuss defenses of Venat as just simping. I’ve got beef with that, as I would expect anyone to.

As far as Theodric’s comment goes, i don’t really see it as insincere. People in the community do call her Crystal mom or Crystal mommy, he’s simply using the same terminology as them. Certainly isn’t any worse than the people who went around calling Villain fans genocide sympathizers or nazi etc. Of which people never really denounced or commented on. It’s only now that certain characters being under fire is an issue.

Ah so I’m not allowed to disagree when those self same people do what they criticized others for. Got it.

Either way i suppose in the end my point is this, people are free to like or dislike whatever characters they want. As for your earlier comment though, i find it a bit amusing you act like the group of people in this thread ruined the forums discussion threads, and not accepting that you and the people that share your ideas aren’t also a part of the problem, what with the passive aggressiveness, death threats, and so on and so forth.

I wasn’t party to the death threats nor were they at all justifiable. But I will say until I’m hoarse that passive aggressiveness given only came in response to passive aggressiveness received. Doesn’t make it right of course, but when you’ve been on the receiving end of insults since SHB by the same people in this very thread I do have to make my displeasure known.

This seems incredibly hypocritical, especially when you say right before that criticism "ruining" the official forums is merely voicing disagreement.

The lore sub forum is pretty much dead, and we have this thread now brigading Reddit discussions. Forgive me for having problems with that. I accept that my arguing did not help in the slightest and contributed to the flames. But I didn’t start the fire, and I won’t agree to disagree on that.

[kpxmanifesto]

The lore sub forum is pretty much dead, and we have this thread now brigading Reddit discussions. Forgive me for having problems with that.

Having a discussion about the writing of the story is online harassment to you?? What in the world? If you honestly believe its brigading on reddit then you need to report it. Reddit has five rules. "No brigading" is rule #2.

[Theodric]

I've touched on the subject of 'insults' before:

At the end of the day, it's just a video game. One many of us are varying degrees of passionate about, certainly, though I personally don't care for rivalries to form over something that is entirely fictional. As such, my stance has ever been to agree to disagree where common ground cannot be found. I don't care for endless arguments over morality and I'd like to think I've made it perfectly clear that if anyone has a problem with me, then they're very welcome to come and talk it out in a civil manner.

I like working out and discussing the 'how' and 'why' things happen in the way that they do in any given story or historical event, though my personal preferences drift towards characters and factions that have lofty stakes over those that have everything work out to their benefit most of the time.

One thing I noticed, however, was that some pretty spiteful and nasty accusations were aimed at anyone who ever dared to speak up in favour of the antagonists. This included death threats, homophobic comments and other unpleasant elements. Given that the offending posts were deleted, however, then such will have to be taken with a pinch of salt - though I'd like to think those who are being genuine and who have been around for a while will be aware of what I'm speaking of. Especially since some of the offending comments leaked into Reddit, Twitter and certain Discord servers.

The most fascinating thing I observed was that certain posters would repeatedly launch thinly veiled attacks and sometimes direct personal attacks at fans of the antagonists, implying all manner of horrible things about their person and real world morality. When finally those being assaulted had enough, even a minor quip in response would be treated as some deeply horrific crime and personal attack.

I will say that things have improved somewhat since then. Right around the same time that the game itself revealed that, yes, actually there was more to the Ascians and Garleans all along.

Ultimately any given individual is going to have their personal preferences and interests. I've never suggested that anyone has to like specific characters or factions. I only ask that the same courtesy is extended to others in turn.

In closing, I'd also note that the game attracts players from many different countries, cultures, backgrounds and belief systems. We all have different life experiences, so that is going to influence what we like and we don't like.

[PawPaw]

Having a discussion about the writing of the story is online harassment to you?? What in the world? If you honestly believe its brigading on reddit then you need to report it. Reddit has five rules. "No brigading" is rule #2.

Indeed. Let us know if Reddit considers the 5-10 random people that were on that thread defending their stances to be an organized movement.

[Rulakir]

Were you all aware that the people who don't like Venat have driven out all the "pro-Venat" or "not-pro-Zodiark" people from the Official Forums? Apparently we have a super-secret Discord that we use to organize.

A while ago this thread was suddenly brigaded by a bunch of Venat defenders and I heard it was because someone had posted the link in one of their Discords. :P

The lore sub forum is pretty much dead, and we have this thread now brigading Reddit discussions. Forgive me for having problems with that.

I believe I said that would happen when people in lore were complaining about the EW debate threads and hoping they'd stop so things could 'return to normal', which apparently means no or low activity. The most vocal about it were usually the most active in those threads too.

Not directed at you specifically, but I find it bizarre how upset people get because there's one megathread in general discussion where people can discuss their dislike of EW. Reddit has been one huge echo chamber of positivity until relatively recently and that cannot realistically be blamed on anyone here. I've heard Twitter and Discord are no better. It just comes across as no one is allowed to be critical of it anywhere.

[EaraGrace]

Having a discussion about the writing of the story is online harassment to you?? What in the world? If you honestly believe its brigading on reddit then you need to report it. Reddit has five rules. "No brigading" is rule #2.

Please tell me where I said harassment. Words do have meanings.

And sure I’ll by all means follow up on doing that

I've touched on the subject of 'insults' before:

This is, again, a statement I agree with which you seem disinclined to follow through on. I’m just asking you not reduce everyone who disagrees to Venat simps. Is that really too much to ask for?

I believe I said that would happen when people in lore were complaining about the EW debate threads and hoping they'd stop so things could 'return to normal', which apparently means no or low activity. The most vocal about it were usually the most active in those threads too.

The lore forum survived without Venat threads for about a decade, it wasn’t moving on that killed it. It was how utterly toxic those threads became over time.

Not directed at you specifically, but I find it bizarre how upset people get because there's one megathread in general discussion where people can discuss their dislike of EW. Reddit has been one huge echo chamber of positivity until relatively recently and that cannot realistically be blamed on anyone here. I've heard Twitter and Discord are no better. It just comes across as no one is allowed to be critical of it anywhere.

You state a position, people will disagree. Just as you have the right to dislike something, I have the right to say no I think it makes sense and isn’t bad. That isn’t what’s killing discussion. And the fact that you see a thread reduced to more shitflinging and another thread that never got above single digit upvotes as something wholly positive is telling. It seems like there’s not much interest in discussing these things and more interest in making everyone agree with you.

[Kozh]

(As for The Sound itself coming from the earth: I had just presumed it was Meteion's scream bouncing off the ground. I realise this is the most boring theory ever, but it's what we've got so far, and I doubt they're going to go back to that.)

Don't remind me please, I'm still angry that The Sound turns out is just some broken twitter bird (made by a totally-fit-for-chief-position guy) screaming at us. I remember going into quite a deep rabbit hole discussing the Sound back in ShB, ranging from simple "it's jenova", to "it's Pandaemonium", to something something with deep symbolic meaning. Same with how "zodiark weave a new reality", when it's actually just "put aether bubble" and "jump start the stagnated etheirys's aether" (I mean, it's still an incredible feat, but very much less cool).

I’ve had someone compare me with rape apologists, Theodorics compared enjoying Endwalker as being like preferring fast food over steak, people repeatedly discuss defenses of Venat as just simping. I’ve got beef with that, as I would expect anyone to.

And we have people constantly comparing us to genocide apologist, colonize apologist, people repeteadly discuss defense of Emet as just simping and lacking real-life morality, people who openly insults and to some extent using death-threat. All of this ever since day one since ShB dropped. Even way before if we change it into discussion regarding Gaius or other villains.


See, here's the thing, we make our defense (or sometimes attack) on a fictional character, you know, someone who isn't real. But then come people attacking us, real people, over some fictional character. Which one is worse?

I don't deny that at this point, both sides can be pretty toxic and stubborn. We may never able to reach compromise more likely (just like venat's and zodiark's faction lol), but why are you surprised when one side keep poking the hornet nest?

The lore sub forum is pretty much dead, and we have this thread now brigading Reddit discussions.

You ask people to stop whenever there's a little bit of hydaelyn vs zodiark debate outside of that one thread, people comply to that, then you blame us for making the lore forum dead? There's a bazillion ff14 lore that had nothing to do with Hydaely/Zodiark, and even if some people go rogue and post irrelevant debate on that threads, you can just ignore them? Go make your own lore threads if you're that concerned about it being dead lol. Lore forum being low traffic isn't weird, pretty much happen in other place too. Even lore discussion discord devolves into arguing over morality etc just like here or reddit, because when there's nothing new added, what should people discuss that haven't been done?

[Theodric]

At no point have I ever suggested that everyone who defends Venat does so because of the 'mommy goddess' aspect of her character. However it's hardly uncommon and I suspect I'm not the only one to notice patterns of behaviour emerging where certain posters are concerned.

Just the other day a poster cracked an innocent joke in the form of a meme and was attacked and painted as one of the 'worst posters on the lore forum'. I think that it's incredibly disingenuous behaviour - especially in a lore community actively known for sending people death threats for liking or disliking the antagonists.

Honestly, though? It's the hypocrisy more than anything that keeps me coming back to this thread. For years it was insisted by some that there was never an excuse for genocide, that no matter how sympathetic a character's reasons or circumstances happened to be then it was too high a cost and could never be justified.

As of Endwalker? The goalposts moved for many of those self-same individuals. Suddenly genocide was perfectly acceptable...but only within the context of Venat's actions and reasoning.

Of course, to many of us even a surface level examination reveals where her methods and reasoning is flawed. Not everyone will agree and that's fine - but at some point I do wonder why the genuine offer of agreeing to disagree isn't being taken up or why someone linking a Reddit post is being falsely painted as a form of 'brigading'.

Pretty much every social media site of note has a form of cross-posting capability implemented into its setup - and that's very much what linking the thread here happened to be. It wasn't an attempt to tell people to go and harass others and I'd most certainly be curious to learn who, exactly, is being accused of 'brigading'.