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

[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.