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

[Caurcas]

Are souls within the universe of 14 finite?

[KageTokage]

I think the lore forum is "dead" because we've largely exhausted avenues for discussion/speculation until 6.1, especially since we didn't get any teasers/cliffhangers at the end of the MSQ this go around.

It'll likely liven up once the 6.1 trailer drops, though.

[Jin-]

The Endsinger did nothing wrong

[Lauront]

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

Those who frequented the lore forum for some time might also have noted similar behaviour within it as well at times.

If by "ruin" you mean, debate my opposing views to the fullest then by all means yes! Pretty sure those who disagree don't have a monopoly on open discussion anywhere on the Internet.

It's just weird, really. People were linking it to give a flavour of some discussions on there. Many of us already frequent it one way or another. Apparently the fact that out of the 600k or so posters reddit has, a few of us expressing criticism of Venat on there is a huge problem, even if that wasn't really the intention behind posting the links - but people are adults and it's not really my business to police whether they do go on there to discuss it or not, nor do I see an issue with it. I tend to avoid 'discussions' on there as they often devolve into little more than shouting matches, and some users there can engage in behaviour that borders on stalking.

It's already an echo chamber in a different direction - redditors are often in the habit of downvoting any posts critical of the story, particularly if they're posted early on in a thread... and again, this sort of defensiveness was never present back in SHB, when reddit was full of threads that got quite heated about anyone who liked Emet (other than for those people who just liked shipping him...although even then I noticed some instances of it.) But with Venat we're just meant to roll with it and "move on". Strange. Should it be surprising that there is more pushback now given how EW concluded and the tidbits the Q&A clarified? I'd say no.

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?

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?

Quite frankly, a lot of people have little desire to discuss the lore until we get some clearer indication of where things are headed in the future and whether it's even something worth taking an interest in. There's already some good posters on there who either have quit or are on the verge of doing so, including amongst them those originally receptive to Venat as a character, so coupled with the fact that it's a quieter period, I am not surprised. Though as you say, said poster is free to set up threads on topics that interest them or participate in existing ones... but it's not like anyone has an obligation to keep the lore forum active or not cross-link reddit threads...

[Teraq]

Wait, so is engaging in a linked discussion against the rules of the internet now? Do I have to stumble upon the Reddit thread organically for me to obey the law? Or is it okay if I click that link then just nod politely and upvote everything? I am very confused. Also, I thought the notion of "brigading" involved some sort of numerical imbalance, such as mass vote manipulation. Oh jeez, beware the Ascian/Garlean stans who read page #203 of a particular thread on the official forums, the whole 8 of them are quite the force to be reckoned with, they might drown out Endwalker positivity!

For the record, I didn't engage in said Reddit thread. I went cross-eyed just glancing at the replies. I admire people who bother at all; personally I just don't feel like I have the mental energy to step out of my comfortable bubbles of comprehensive people just yet. I will fully admit I am right now a somewhat fragile person with a history of depression looking for a job, and honestly this thread has been fantastic group therapy! I feel less insane and alone. Maybe one day I'll be willing to speak to Endwalker enjoyers without feeling isolated and wholly inadequate (I am... not very articulate or good at arguing anything).

Personally, I jokingly refer to Hydaelyn/Venat as "Mommy" not in a mean-spirited way, but just because it's a bit of a fandom meme that grew into an habit (I would like to point out that the top comment on the Reddit thread previously mentioned is literally just "mommy"). Naturally, I would be 200% onboard with referring to Elidibus/Zodiark as Daddy for gender equality, but as it happens, the story never really featured the former as the latter (the whole deal apparently just being a plot device to justify a cool fight and retroactively give us an in-game excuse for why Elidibus never told us about Ancient history prior to 5.0 even though he seemed to be the best fit for it as mediator), and the latter by himself was revealed to not actually be a character but just the former's EVA unit. Alas, there appears to be very little legitimate ground to call him Daddy because this entire plot line is one big missed opportunity, never mind the fact that calling Babyface McShortking "Daddy" would feel a little weird.

[Lauront]

If anything, it is the forum which is the more susceptible of the two to such activity.

For me it's a matter of time commitment and effort. I purposely prevent myself from activities that threaten to become a non-value-add time sink to me, and reddit discussions very much fall into that category, by and large.

[kpxmanifesto]

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

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

Brigading is a form of online harassment. You should probably bother to look up the word before trying to argue the meaning of it lol. Also, by all means report it and tell me how that goes.

[Teraq]

The Endsinger did nothing wrong

Honestly, I agree, in the sense that she has always just been an emotion sponge with the apparent mind of a child, sent on a mission with a dubious premise that she wasn't properly equipped to handle. I feel like there is little to say on Meteion as a character because she just... doesn't feel like much of a character to me, beyond her being kawaii uguu before graduating to Amano artwork to fit in with the two other story trials. Meteion simply is what she was irresponsibly created to be, and I don't see much more to go on there. She's Hermes's Twitter botnet that was taught by aliens to RT nihilism, and his favorite hobby happens to be doomscrolling.

(For the same reason, her still existing at the end is probably a massive risk to everyone on Etheirys. I sure hope she doesn't fly over Ilsabard!)

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.

My "favorite" was that it was just a cry of the Planet because the mean Ancients were abusing it with their creation magicks. You don't understand, I need to have them deserve it instead of the Final Days simply being happenstance tragedy so I can sleep soundly at night knowing the bad guys were definitely wrong and bad!

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).

Yeah, that sure sounded cooler at the time lol. In a way, I wanted them to explain at least a little what "rewriting the laws of reality" entailed, but now that it turned out to be so completely ... mundane?, I can't help but feel disappointed. To be fair though, this applies to most of my EW experience, but I'm still salty about the complete lack of Final Eclipse, both in the actual trial and in lore as far as we know. I wanted to see it.

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.

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 wish I could say I have no idea what you guys are talking about, because I don't interact with the general fandom much, but I have unfortunately seen this on FFXIV Twitter. People quote-retweeting or outright replying with snark and abuse just to insult other people because they project the other's taste in (villainous) fictional characters onto their real-life ideals urgently need to touch real grass, in the real world that is separate from fiction. My favorite example is one particular denizen of Primal who was apparently offended by SE posting Tales From The Shadows 7 "'Ere Our Curtain Falls" because its main subjects are "genocidal maniacs". This just in: please do not give your main antagonists backstory or the Twitter Vigilantes will judge you as an author.

Is it something specific to FFXIV fandom, or just fandom in general as of late? I mean, there's always been a decent amount of people preferring the villains, right? Sephiroth, Kefka, a handful of Batman villains, Darth Vader, movie characters that happen to be played by the late Alan Rickman – it isn't exactly new. I am just weirded out by how prominent the moral crusaders seem to be in here. I feel like I need some kind of licence to be allowed to like villains, all while constantly walking on eggshells to remind anyone I interact with that I do not condone genocide as an actual person in the real world. I didn't feel like this was the case when I was actively participating in the ASOIAF/Game of Thrones fandom around 2014. Good thing, too, else I would be routinely accused of being a manipulative, back-stabbing malignant narcissist grooming a teenager, and frankly that would be a little awkward.

[PawPaw]

Or is it okay if I click that link then just nod politely and upvote everything?

I'm pretty sure that would have been acceptable behavior.

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

Well, well, the irony of it all. Color me shocked.

Is it something specific to FFXIV fandom, or just fandom in general as of late? I mean, there's always been a decent amount of people preferring the villains, right? Sephiroth, Kefka, a handful of Batman villains, Darth Vader, movie characters that happen to be played by the late Alan Rickman – it isn't exactly new. I am just weirded out by how prominent the moral crusaders seem to be in here. I feel like I need some kind of licence to be allowed to like villains, all while constantly walking on eggshells to remind anyone I interact with that I do not condone genocide as an actual person in the real world.

I've definitely seen more of it in the FFXIV fandom than I have anywhere else. Maybe the RP and headcanon elements have something to do with it? As you said, villains tend to be extremely popular in many different kinds of media and video games are no exception. The number of times I saw people who dislike Venat and/or like Ascians being compared to literal nazis on reddit yesterday was absolutely hilarious. I can only assume that it's an inability of some to distinguish reality from a written narrative. They can only associate things they perceive as "bad" with whatever real-life example they can come up with, and it doesn't register for them that the comparison is simply a false equivalency. Liking Darth Vader does not automatically mean that one would support a real-life Galactic Empire. Possibly there is a belief in these circles that people who can see the good parts of "bad" characters must only be able to relate and empathize because they are "bad" themselves. Doesn't really matter anyway, there's a reason that villains are popular the world over, after all. Most people just don't take it that seriously and love characters that are fun and interesting. They're not real, at the end of the day.

[Kolsykol]

I think people are just more passionate about FFXIV's characters quite simply because of how much better they are and how much more time is sunk into them.
I mean what is there to be passionate about with WoW's characters for example outside of '' I like Garrosh cuz red muscle man Orc cool ''.
Or uh, the complete nothing that is the Jailer?
Sylvanas never says anything her monologues are a bunch of nothing lets be real here she gets carried ultra hard by the voice acting ( which is incredible, I love her voice ) and Jaina basically just stands around looking mad and says '' Anduin '' sometimes.
Whenever they talk it's either pointless nothingness or them doing the usual vidya gaem talk of just pointing out what's happening as if the player is brainless and has no eyes.

There's just not much to really get attached to while in FFXIV the characters are way more fleshed out and I think it makes people feel more attached to them and it can also have the opposite effect too if they don't like a character and then a lot of time is sunk into them or they get mad because of what those characters do to characters they like etc.
Generally speaking I'd say narrative driven games just makes people more emotional and passionate whether it's MMO's or not.
And then you combine that too with the usual Redditor and Twitterist shenanigans and yeah...

It's not really so much that '' FFXIV fandom = toxic '' in that sense it's that a particular type of person just might be drawn to FFXIV, they were already toxic to begin with.
I'd say the same for WoW too the toxicity tends to be more on the dudebro side of things, because I think a lot of those types of people are just turned off by FFXIV but like the muscle nipple men and huge space marine sized armor etc.