#i just think people online are blowing it out of proportion at this point

[holydiever]

People have sorely exaggerated pokemon's glitches tbh.

Not denying there are some but i look online and everyones screaming about gamebreaking stuff and im here like ??? I get a bit of pop in and some camera glitches but its miniscule and nothing game breaking or even all that distracting. Frame rate issues are there as well but its not enough for me to care about. Esp not in a game where the main battle mechanic is turn based.

Itd be worse if the battle mechanics were different (action rpg this wouldnt fly) but idk nothing that these games are doing is game breaking in the slightest here.

Also i have the old ass day 1 switch so its not like i have the better switch hardware or anything to effect my consoles ability to play it 🤷‍♂️

Basically, these games are rekindling my hope in yhe pokemon franchise and im actually having fun and memerable experiences with the games for the first time since like.... gen 5...

They are no sword and sheild (those games made me so mad i almost returned them ejejehe) theyre a genuine step up for pokemon and all I want now is for pokemon to keep improving on the open world idea.

And they better not treat gen 5 remakes like they did with diamond and pearl. Better yet, just leave gen 5 alone if yall arent gonna put in any effort for those remakes 😡 (i hated BDSP if you cant tell lol,,, id rather they give gen 5 remakes to fucking bethesda than do whatever they did with BDSP)

[five0twooleanders]

I think that the whole “Anti Lando”, “Anti Oscar” situation is getting really out of hand.

Some “fans” (Can they really be called fans of Formula 1 when they are ready to jump at another driver’s throat as soon as he crosses their favourite?) are getting way too comfortable with blowing things out of proportion and spreading hate online to drivers who are quite literally just doing their job, and this can go from calling Lando an arrogant crybaby and Oscar an asshole to the shitload of hate that the McLaren strategists and Zak Brown are receiving for the way they are handling their drivers; let me be clear, I am all for critiquing a driver’s character or a team’s strategy while maintaining civil tones, for example I am the first who disagrees with Max’s tendency to blow his top off like he did in Hungary, and I also somewhat agree with what Nico Rosberg said about the McLaren drivers situation, but the key here is in the ‘maintaining civil tones’ part.

Is Lando just now fighting for wins after many years spent in the midfield? Yes. Is it thanks to the rocket ship of a car that McLaren built this year? Also yes, there is no denying it. Does this mean that he is less deserving of a championship than drivers like Charles, who have instead been consistently at the front of the grid for the past years? Maybe, (that could be my inner Tifoso talking) but what is he supposed to do? Just throw away wins and podiums because he supposedly doesn’t deserve them?

This is all part of the sport. Formula 1 is born from the simbiosis of the driver and the car, it has always been like this, that is what makes it different from mono-brand series and it’s the fine engineering that is needed to build those cars that adds yet another layer of beauty to F1.

And people are really getting mad at Oscar for overtaking someone and scoring more points, the thing that they are literally paying him for? He said explicitly that if the team had told him not to fight with Lando and instead defend him from Charles he would’ve done so, but they were free to race, so he raced.

Friendly reminder that those are my opinions, but I tried to be as neutral as possible. Also, please don’t come at me with the “You’re a Ferrari fan, you benefited from the fight in Monza, that’s why you say this” because before being a Tifoso I am a fan of whoever makes the Grand Prix interesting.

[vtoriacore]

✧ it was just one magicam post!

note: this is just kinda a place holder piece before i post some yandere halloween stuff abt twst hehe but anyways, love writing semi jealous vil 🤭

synopsis: It had all started when you accidentally double tapped one of Neige's magicam posts while mindlessly scrolling through to pass some time, but a certain someone noticed a little too soon.

To you, it wasn't even that big of a deal and personally, you couldn't say you cared for Neige. He was just another big celebrity you would occasionally see every now and then on your for you page. That was all there was to it.

But of course, a certain someone had to blow it out of proportion and accuse you of favouritism a mere two or three minutes after you had liked the picture, still accidentally mind you.

"So this is how it's going to be, prefect?" Vil furrowed his eyebrows slightly, crossing his arms in the process.

"Be serious please, it was an accidental tap Vil. And besides, I'm allowed to like the pictures of whoever I want. I don't need you to try and direct who I'm allowed to follow or not," you rolled your eyes amidst all the frustration you felt, and your dearest friend seemed to take it personally.

"Oh? I'm directing you now, am I? I never once said you're not allowed to interact with other people's posts. This isn't about that," your own eyebrows furrowed at the statement as you felt a wave of confusion and even more indignation wash over you.

"Then what is the probelm? What could you possibly be so hung up over that you come to my dorm in almost no time to complain about me liking Neige's post?" you faced the blonde fully, maintaining eye contact which could only be described as tense.

"It's not important anymore. Now that I think about it, it doesn't matter." Except it clearly did matter with how sharply he turned his back on you, and how quickly he tried making his way out of your dorm. You weren't going to let him get away though, so naturally you stood up and followed after.

"Nu-uh. You're staying here and explaining what's bothering you, because it clearly is important," you grabbed Vil's wrist, preventing him from walking further as he turned around, a mixture of both bewilderment and slight agitation.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?" Vil sighed out, using his free hand pinch the bridge of nose, although he made no attempt to pull his other hand away.

"No. You brought it up and you will explain to me," your gaze bore into his lilac eyes.

You however, did not expect the blonde to avert his eyes from yours. And what was even more shocking, was the twinge of crimson peeking from underneath his foundation; it was clear he felt embarrassed which really made you realise that his coming over was a spur of the moment kind of deal.

"Well . . . You seem to like his pictures faster than you like mine," with a clear of his throat, Vil completely refused to look at your form as you couldn't help but let the fact that he, the Vil Schoenheit, was feeling jealous over something so minuscule (in your eyes, anyway).

"Vil . . . How do you even notice the timing, much less some random account liking pictures?" at that question, the celebrity standing right in front of you seemed down right offended as his eyes snapped back up to meet yours. With a scoff, he freed the wrist you were still clutching and just glared at you.

"That's all you have to say?"

"W- It's a valid question!"

"But it wasn't the point of my statement!"

"Well, I'm so sorry I want to know why you're stalking my online activity."

"What a ridiculous notion, as if I would do that. My notifications are simply on."

With a groan, you leaned against the wall, disbelief clouding your mind at this dumb argument. How did it even start anyway? Actually, you didn't want to remember. You just want to resolve this conflict and make sure that you and Vil are still on good terms at the end of the day.

"Okay, listen. The only reason I like Neige's pictures faster is that they always show up on my feed first. That's literally all there is to it," you took it upon yourself to break the silence as you observed Vil who seemee both relieved and hesitant at your answer.

"So you're not dat- Nevermind. I . . . Didn't mean to blow this out of proportion," although not really an apology, seeing how vulnerable your blonde friend seemed in that moment was enough for you to look past this silly argument.

Although the first part of his statement greatly intrigued you; Vil thought you were secretly dating Neige? A smile crept up on your face at a sudden realisation that answered your previous questions on all of Vil's actions up until this point.

"You know, you don't have to worry," you started, observing as Vil looked at you inquisitively, "about me dating someone else. I already have eyes for someone."

The grin on your face fully broke out as the lilac eyed boy cupped a hand over the lower half of his face, clearly not expecting a somewhat indirect confession. And you, being you of course, couldn't help but laugh at the state you put him in.

"D-don't say things of this magnitude so carelessly prefect! But regardless . . . I am glad to hear that, although I would've preferred a more romantic setting for such impromptu confession," from the way he was failing to hide his smile, you knew Vil was only teasing.

"In my defense, I was not expecting to get this kind of burst of confidence and basically tell you how I feel," the corners of your lips tugged up into a smile. You found yourself walking over to where he was standing, little pep in your step. The blonde could only watch in anticipation of what you were going to do - and it wasn't anything he was expecting, finding himself surprised for the nth time this evening by your actions.

However, when he felt your arms gently encircle his back, he couldn't help but immediately respond with an embrace of his own as the contentment he was previously longing to feel with you filled him to the brim.

"But you should also know something."

"Hm? What would that be?"

"I am absolutely never letting this go because it's actually kind of funny. Seeing you all frustrated over this and all," you snickered upon hearing a scoff.

"Tch. Well, I'm not planning on you letting your feelings known in such an atrocious manner either," there wasn't a single twinge of annoyance in his voice, and yet you still felt somewhat offended at the remark. I mean, he was basically the cause of your confession!

"Whatever, I still have the high ground here," you muttered with a smile, finally moving to pull away. However, you were stopped in your tracks as Vil only tightened his hold.

"Not so fast dear, you're going to make up for all the time I've spent trying to get your attention. Now come with me, we have some talking to do," taken aback by the statement, you let yourself get dragged out the door.

It's interesting how such a miserable start to the day could end up going in a such a good direction and all you had to thank for this was silly little Neige's magicam post about some strawberry lip balm Vil would've discarded upon 3 second of inspection.

[blockgamepirate]

When we talk about "innocent until proven guilty" I think there are levels of how much proof is needed depending on the context:

In a legal context the standard must be the highest possible and I would rather let a guilty defendant go than have even the smallest chance of convicting an innocent person (I mean I also have my opinions on judicial systems in general but I won't get into that here)

The next level would be a case where there's no court case but the accused party would be in a significant risk of disproportionate consequences due to the accusations, such as if they are an already marginalised person in a precarious position

I'm not gonna make a whole tier list here, you get the point

But on the other end of the spectrum, if it's just a case of deciding to stop supporting someone who is already in a position of significant influence and wealth, then I think it's fine to act on a level of evidence that's convincing, even if it's not absolute proof

Obviously you still want to have a reasonable amount of information to make that call, and you wanna be conscious of possible factors that might mislead you, and I still like to have a healthy level of skepticism in general, because we know that sometimes online mobs blow things out of proportion, dig up old offences that are no longer relevant, or are in reality just a part of a hate campaign, but it's not like you need to have a full trial before dropping your support for a public figure, it's fine

In fact it would be fine even if you did it only based on a suspicion or even for no reason in particular, because they're not entitled to your support

(Although to be clear, I don't believe in retributive justice and I don't think the crowdsourced version of that is any better. Harassment is a form of violence and I don't think violence should ever be used for punishment. This is not a pacifist statement: violence can be necessary, but punitive violence is by definition not necessary. Which is a very long way to say: don't harass people, it doesn't help the victims)

And yeah this post was inspired by a specific case, but this is my take in general, it's not just about this specific guy. I've been thinking about these things a lot recently, even before this, because it's been pretty topical again, both within the MCYT community and outside of it. Obviously we've seen a lot of malicious campaigns to cancel people and it's sensible to be careful, but there's being careful and then there's being in denial

So yeah, "innocent until proven guilty" is a good rule and yes I default to it too because the alternative could be horrifying, but not every situation requires the same levels of proof, and I definitely get the sense that some people like to use it as an excuse to keep stanning their favourite celebrity

[ninjasmudge]

oh don't worry! people have already flipped their shit on her. she asked very politely for people to stop stalking her and there was insane backlash

no i saw that, everyone on tumblr applauded her for that and rightly so, i also think all people have a right to privacy and boundaries no matter how famous, im just saying im mostly expecting her to say something ever so slightly off color in a few months to a year (bc she is a human being), and then everyone on here to suddenly turn on her saying they always knew, and feeling betrayed bc they were doing the hero worship thing.

to be clear i have nothing against her, and ive never even listened to a song by her. i dont know anything abt her other than she wore a knight outfit for a music video or promo or something, its just when you see people putting someone on a pedestal you have to watch it, bc if that person does anything wrong it feels personal to fans and they often react really bad, especially in todays online climate of blowing everything out of proportion.

my main point is just that ppl on tumblr are just as prone to parasocial relationships and cancellations as twitter is, they just get mad at different things

[butchhamlet]

hi it's me again im the anon who dropped about 800 words about ocd hamlet a couple weeks ago (maybe longer, time has been weird for me lately).. it made me soo happy to see it resonated with you and with some other people who reblogged it as well!! i've been projecting on hamlet ever since i read it and it feels like every time i read it i learn more about him AND me... and ever since Symptoms showed up he's been even dearer to me and im just so glad people like my interpretation as well :)

i hope it's ok for me to do this again because i want to talk about what if lady macbeth has ocd also. and i know this is sort of well. dangerous if that's the right word because 1) lady macbeth IS the villain in her play even if i love her from the bottom of my heart and i support everything she does and ocd is already an incredibly stigmatised and misunderstood 2) hand washing is possibly THE most stereotyped compulsion that sort of epitomises this really warped view of ocd in the public consciousness. i personally do not have handwashing as a compulsion or really any physical compulsions that are direct responses to my intrusive thoughts so i will try to be really really careful when im talking about this. + other disclaimers: again while i have definitely experienced symptoms of ocd i do not know if i have it and i am NOT diagnosed + ocd experiences are different for everyone + you cannot diagnose a character because they are not real + this one is mostly projection and is more a frame of reading than it is an interpretation grounded in textual evidence (esp since i will be talking about the sleepwalking asleep a LOT and she is technically, well. sleeping.) so just. take everything with a pinch of salt and please let me know if i ever overstep!!

im mainly going to be drawing on experiences close to real event ocd even though i know that typically real event ocd is defined by the fact that the sufferer blows their past mistakes way out of proportion and/or question their memories, and i guess i cannot say that lady macbeth’s guilt is completely unjustified because uh. she did kill a man.! but i do think her behaviours after the murder reflects what i’ve seen people speak about online as well as some of the experiences i’ve had. 

guilt as illness

this is more general to the whole play i guess but i wanted to point out how the consequences of the macbeths’ regicide is absolutely portrayed as a disease. there’s a LOT of foreshadowing in lady macbeth’s advice to her husband in the immediate aftermath of their murder: she tells him not to “think / so brain sickly of things”, and says, “these deeds must not be thought / after these ways so, it will make us mad”. (2.ii) the doctor later alludes to “infected minds” (5.i) in relation to lady macbeth’s madness. the fact that the fixation on guilt is seen as an illness i think fits so well with ocd: whenever im having a bad day with intrusive thoughts and mental spirals it genuinely feels like there is something festering in my brain like a parasite feeding on anxiety. 

guilt is also so intrinsically linked to sleep in macbeth: famously macbeth comes out of the king’s chamber ranting about how he may “sleep no more; macbeth doth murder sleep”, and lady macbeth’s obsession pours out of her when she is sleeping (and this is exactly why a doctor is called). i would argue that fucked up sleep is somewhat presented as an illness in ‘macbeth’ too; or if not, at least unnatural. this idea is all over act 2 scene ii (right after macbeth commits the murder) but i think it’s best epitomised in act 3 scene iv: “you lack the season of all natures, sleep.” (lady macbeth) season as in both night-season and seasoning/preservative. so sleep is both a natural part of life, and something that keeps things the way nature or god intended. the doctor says too that disturbed sleep is “a great perturbation in nature” (5.i). nightmares are DEFINITELY depicted as illness: macbeth says that they “sleep / in the affliction of these terrible dreams / that shake us nightly” (3.ii)

insomnia is highly associated with ocd since the obsessions/compulsions prevent sleep and sleep deprivation increases the commonality AND duration of obsession. if a significant portion of your day is spent devoted to obsessions/compulsions, there’s a chance they may become assimilated into intrusive dreams, since dreams are generally regarded as a way that the brain processes memories. thus, we can see that the way guilt in ‘macbeth’ is linked to disturbed sleep parallels how ocd is linked to sleep disorders. so not only is guilt itself an illness in ‘macbeth’, it links to other disorders too

2. withdrawal from dialogue

lady macbeth stops being on equal footing in terms of number of lines with macbeth after the murder. from act 3 she really only responds briefly to what macbeth says, and she’s not even in act 4. i sort of see that as her being dragged under her spiralling thoughts and retreating further and further back into her mind. i know i definitely zone out a LOT more on days where im being absolutely bombarded by intrusive thoughts. she’s definitely disoriented by the begining of act 3:

nought’s had, all's spent, where our desire is got without content. ’tis safer to be that which we destroy, than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. (3.ii)

the whole soliloquy (if you can even call it that—it’s only 2 couplets) is riddled with paradoxes and confusing wording. her mind is completely scattered and it feels to me as if she’s just been arguing with herself. this might be reaching slightly (as if this entire post isnt kind of reaching already. sorry) but to me it kind of mirrors the absurd leaps of logic my intrusive thoughts and rumination can sometimes take: how can it be “safer” to be destroyed? how can “joy” be doubtful? it doesn’t make sense, and it’s confusing and frightening, but it feels absolutely real. (also note: as you’ve said before ocd is sometimes called the doubting disease. and lady macbeth calls her experience “doubtful”….

3. the mad scene

(disclaimer again i KNOW she is supposed to be asleep the entire time BUT i am going to. sort of. ignore that. sorry</3)

in the beginning of act 5 scene i, lady macbeth’s lady-in-waiting says,

since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed — yet all this while in a most fast sleep.

i’ve never experienced physical compulsions myself, but this sort of repeated, methodical act matches how i’ve seen people describe them. the doctor specifically calls them “actual performances”, which suggest, i think, something mechanical and dictated in some way; “perform” is definitely a word i’ve seen people use to descrive carrying out compulsions. (do correct me if i’m wrong!)

then let’s look at lady macbeth’s actual speech:

out, damned spot, out, I say. — one, two — why, then, 'tis time to do't. — hell is murky. — fie, lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard! what need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

the jumping around of her thoughts honestly feels exactly like my mind alternating between intrusive thoughts and desperately trying to justify why they aren’t true. she goes from reflecting on her debillitating guilt, to being anxious about going to hell, to replaying and checking her memories, to reassuring herself (and macbeth) that she won’t get caught, and then to thinking about her guilt again. it’s a rapid-fire, relentless cycle that continues throughout the scene. she’ll jump from reenacting a moment with her husband, to the obsessing over the blood on her hands, then back again. notably, in her address to macbeth, she never seems to be reenacting the exact same moment. she taunts him for his cowardice seemingly before the murder, then pleads with him, saying that “banquo cannot come out his grave”, then goes back to when they are fleeing the crime scene. i think this reflects the sort of distortion of memory that constant memory checking and ocd can cause. the moodswings and the flip-flopping between “everything’s fine” and “i’m going to hell” are also SO intense and honestly it’s exactly what it feels like on my worst days. 

in the entire scene, lady macbeth speaks in prose instead of verse: it’s obviously a sign of madness by itself, but i also think it reflects the complete loss of control she has over her thoughts and actions. in the beginning acts she is all about control: she demands “spirits / that tend on mortal thoughts” (1.v) to do her bidding, she tells macbeth to “leave all the rest to me” (1.v), and she tells him what to do at every moment. but at this point in the play she can’t stop the onslaught of regrets, guilt, and memories, and she can’t even control herself physically.

speaking of the elephant in the room: the excessive handwashing. i think of lady macbeth’s handwashing as less of a reaction to a genuine fear of contamination, but as something more akin to body-repetitive behaviours like skin-picking (dermatillomania) and hair-pulling (trichitillomania, which i think i have) which are associated with ocd.

i sort of headcanon lady macbeth to have absolutely horrible skin splits on her hands (<- this part is complete projection): and so following this interpretation, i think of her handwashing sort of as a form of self-flagellation because rubbing her hands continually will make the skin tear and bleed. (gore tw?) that, then, fits in with the blood on her hands: in her semi-conscious state she thinks it’s duncan’s, when it’s really hers.

i know that another common compulsion is counting: and lady macbeth does count (“one, two—’tis time to do it.”) one of the reasons people with ocd may count (and there are many reasons, this is not the be-all-end-all) is “attaching meaning to particular numbers where certain numbers will induce anxiety, while others will reduce anxiety. for example, if you assign special meaning to the number three, you might count your steps by threes, or lock and unlock your car three times before driving, or any variety of other action ruled by this magic number.” (<- quoted from nocd website)

i also know that repetition of words or phrases is another common compulsion. and these are lady macbeth's final lines:

to bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. come, come, come, come, give me your hand. what's done cannot be undone. — to bed, to bed, to bed.

4. her death

in your ocd hamlet post, you talked about how hamlet’s death is almost peaceful in his “silence”, and how horatio, despite knowing all his flaws and obsessions, believes wholeheartedly in his salvation. (that honestly means the world to me, by the way, so thank you.) the macbeths went through EVERYTHING together: the planning, the crime itself, the aftermath—it’s clear from their dialogue that at the beginning of their sufferings they saw each other go through sleeplessness, nightmares, and obsession. but over the course of the play, they completely fall apart. (i think the last time macbeth uses “we” to refer to the two of them is to say “we’ll to sleep” and “we are yet but young in deed”, which is the most ironic thing ever.) macbeth’s only response to lady macbeth’s death is “she should have died hereafter.” i honestly don’t know what that means in terms of the ocd reading, or in comparison with horatio's reaction to hamlet's death. i'd love to know what you think.

thanks for bearing with me!! i’m a bit less confident in this reading than i am for ocd hamlet, and it’s more likely i’ll get something wrong about ocd in this one, but sorry i just wanted to unleash this somewhere i hope that’s okay and genuinely please tell me if i say anything wrong or insensitive! i also typed this over 3 hours and went over the text as if this was a homework essay.....? and it is now almost 2am so i’m sorry if this isn’t coherent. i hope you’re having a wonderful day :)

hi same anon here i forgot to put this in but. i listened to verdi macbeth opera mad scene una macchia è qui tuttora the whole time i was writing that thing in case anyone would like to know...... i love it so so much my favourite video recording is by sylvia sass on youtube https://youtu.be/tP59Ox8MdQ4?feature=shared&t=319 AND there are full productions of the opera on youtube as well. thank you so much for reading!!!!

YES.... YES..... YESSSSSSSSSS I LOVE AN OCD LADY MACBETH... IT'S ABOUT THE GUILT IT'S ABOUT THE REPETITION DOES EVERYONE HEAR ME? TODAY WE ARE DOING GUILT AND REPETITION

i have had similar thoughts about the sort of inherent trickiness of it (oh, the lady who washes her hands a lot has ocd? whoa, totally original thought that has nothing to do with pop culture perception of ocd) (and also she did kill a man). but you really said it all with that ksdhfdksnfdsn. i will pitch in that i DO have handwashing compulsions and tbh. i personally think lady macbeth ocd reading is a net win even if it does trail a little close to stereotypes because if you dig even slightly deeper than "haha handwashing" it allows for an examination of ocd not just as an action but also as a manifestation of guilt and illness. which is SO macbeth. the body politic is sick the government is sick!!! again im taking the words right out of your mouth here this ask whips ass

shaking your hand on conceiving of ocd as something parasitical. really feels like there is some Thing up there feeding on my brain. (also on intrusive thought dreams. fucked upppppp like man leave me alone)

AND ON THAT NOTE i feel like even if she is asleep it can still be ocd. i say this with no medical training whatsoever and this isn't, like, me asserting that people actually do compulsions while asleep, but on a narrative level, the emotional processes happening to her character are petty clear even if she's sleepwalking, right. once again no medical training whatsoever

the jumping around of her thoughts honestly feels exactly like my mind alternating between intrusive thoughts and desperately trying to justify why they aren’t true. [...] the moodswings and the flip-flopping between “everything’s fine” and “i’m going to hell” are also SO intense and honestly it’s exactly what it feels like on my worst days.

YEAH. YEAH. YEAH. the ugly intrusive thought -> self-reassurance -> self-reassurance makes it worse -> intrusive thought (harder and worse) spiral. and literally this is EXACTLY what it feels like. me when i accidentally say something rude and then i'm evil for three days. except she killed a man

i sort of headcanon lady macbeth to have absolutely horrible skin splits on her hands (<- this part is complete projection): and so following this interpretation, i think of her handwashing sort of as a form of self-flagellation because rubbing her hands continually will make the skin tear and bleed. (gore tw?) that, then, fits in with the blood on her hands: in her semi-conscious state she thinks it’s duncan’s, when it’s really hers.

YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH. ON AN ANALYTICAL LEVEL AND A PERSONAL LEVEL. LITERALLY THE LEAPS I CAN DO IN MY BEAUTIFUL MIND TO BE LIKE WOW IM JUST LIKE LADY MACBETH (BLOOD ON MY HANDS). YOU N ME BROTHER

and re: her death and the macbeths splintering apart. that is honestly the most painful part of this play for me, as a lover of evil couples and also of their specific dynamic. the fact that they mesh so well at the beginning (i mean, they argue, there's friction, but they're clearly on the same page--they enter their first shared scene both thinking the same thing and a lot of their communication is in implication) and then they just. fragment. and i think with the OCD ladymac reading it's even worse, because the thing about OCD at least in my experience is that. at some point the people around you stop being able to understand what the fuck your problem is. even when they're trying really hard. because it doesn't make any sense! the compulsions don't make logical sense the self-flagellation doesn't make any sense none of it is SOLVING anything but it also does make sense, To You, on a level you cannot really explain to people that don't Get It*. and so like. the macbeths are already breaking apart because of their responses to the murder, and this is just one more thing coming between them. she is trapped in a cage in her brain that he cannot see.

*(i think not infrequently about the overlap between OCD and psychosis; i haven't experienced psychosis and obviously there are major differences, but i relate a lot to what psychotic people have said about, like, the ability to hold multiple contradictory truths at once. my compulsions will not actually stop disasters from happening, but they also will. you could maybe pull in something about macbeth's parallel loss of control + his hallucinations? but i'm not diagnosing macbeth with psychosis necessarily i'm just saying words).

anyway, anon, i am always extremely impressed by your dedication to writing out quotes and coming armed with evidence, and also your analysis fucking bangs. this is such a good ask i need to frame it on the wall your mind is huge. i hope you have a wonderful day as well :)

[amethystina]

at my big age, after reading many pieces of work both online and from proper published authors, I promise you I cannot tellthe difference between the quality of 2 chapters. If the story itself is a masterpiece overall, a less than ideal chapter will not change that. And knowing your talent, what you consider less than ideal is something we will eat up and be amazed by nonetheless because it is a product of your brain. It is only normal to be harsh on oneself, but please understand that you need not worry about any harshness from our end, we appreciate you writing for us, await it with great excitement, and we will love whatever you give us. Write however, and whatever you feel is necessary for the plot, pacing be damned because I promise you we will be frothing at the mouth at the chapter regardless of what you choose to do. Please don't be so critical of yourself💗 And please take care of yourself. Remember to eat and drink water and smile everyday💗

A part of me knows that, but another just feels so nervous, I guess? Because I've been getting comments saying that the story is beginning to drag or that it's not very exciting anymore and I know a chapter like this probably won't help. Granted that those people are still a minority but, sometimes, it feels like I'm just waiting for the chapter that will make people lose interest in the fic. Or the chapter that validates their claims, I guess? Which I know is silly because, again — they're a very small group and it's impossible to please everyone — but our brains don't always listen to reason.

And, admittedly, none of this is helped by my overall mental state right now, which isn't the best xD (but could also be worse, to be fair)

That said, I'm still going to finish the chapter because I know I'm just blowing things out of proportion due to insecurities and perfectionism. It can't be helped if this chapter is a little choppier because we're at a point in the story where there won't be any long, detailed scenes because Ga On and Yo Han aren't talking all that much. And it's better to speed past those days of silence than drag things out just for the sake of what I think would be more appropriate pacing. It would just be boring — not to mention depressing — to draw things out.

And if nothing else, I want to get to what's beyond this chapter. Which means that the sooner I get it over with, the better xD

(But I admit I'm also kind of high-key struggling with the impulse to write on other Devil Judge things, possibly because I'm deluding myself that those would be easier or quicker. Or maybe a part of me still yearns for the emotional catharsis that would come from writing Yo Han's POV after chapter 39 because I know for a fact that I'd get a good, solid cry out of it (I say as if I cry often when I write — I really don't. It's an incredibly rare occurrence that only happens once in a blue moon. But I would definitely cry while writing that). But I'm going to try and be disciplined and write chapter 41 instead)

Anyway. Thank you so much for the kind message. I'm so grateful for all the love and support you all show me, and I truly hope that I'll be able to get back into updating more frequently sometime soon. Not because I feel pressured or anything like that, but because there's still so much ahead of us and so much story to tell and I just can't wait to share it with you all.

Thank you again and you please take care, too! 💜

[arabian-batboy]

in your opinion, which stans of the Batkids are the most toxic?

Short answer: All of them, when a character has hundreds of thousands of fans online, then there bound to be a portion of them that is toxic. They might be a small percentage of the over-all fanbase, but their toxicity makes them appear larger in numbers than they really are, but for the most part there’s really not a huge margin between how toxic different fans of the Batkids can be.

Long answer: I have been in the fandom for a couple of years now and I have interacted with my fair share of people across the fandom, so based on my own personal experience, from most toxic to least toxic, they are:

1- Tim’s stans:

To be fair, when Tim’s fans are cool, they’re REALLY cool and very fun to interact with or talk about comics. Unfortunately though, cool Tim’s fans that don't take themselves seriously are hidden gems and a huge amount of them are very very very obnoxious and their shortcoming is that they view Tim through main-character-lenses where everything has to be centered around him and everyone else is a secondary character.

The biggest reason that makes them #1 in my ranking is that they have a serious issue with thinking that Tim is simultaneously the best character to exist while also being the most oppressed character to exist, even though he’s definitely neither of those things and its just really annoying to hear someone go on about how their favorite character is so perfect and better than everyone at everything, while also crying about how their favorite character doesn’t get any love and are constantly mistreated (especially when in reality they actually get more love from DC than anyone in Gotham beside Batman & Harley)

2- Dick’s stans:

If you asked me this question a couple of years ago, they would have definitely been way lower in the list, but I don’t know what happened in recently years that made Dick’s fans so overly-defense and hostile. I understand that fanon Dick has done more damage than any other fanon interpretation of any Batkids, but attacking everyone who make the smallest light-hearted joke about Dick isn’t it.

There’s also those who are so desperate to portray Nightwing as an A-class superhero who’s a master at everything he does and is a total loner edgelord who doesn’t need anyone or has anything fun or cheerful about him and...... just stop, what you’re doing isn’t that much better than fanon portraying Dick as overly-bubbly and I know you think it makes Dick sounds cool, but in reality you just make him sound like a discount Batman.

3- Cassandra’s stans:

They’re very similar to Dick’s fans in that they used to be chill, but in recent years they decided to make their dissatisfaction of DC’s treatment of Cassandra to be everybody’s problem, which includes them popping up to anyone who’s makes the smallest complaint about how their favorite character is currently being treated to yell: “YOU THINK THEY HAVE IT BAD??? LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENED TO CASSANDRA!!!” even if the character they’re talking about literally has ZERO things to do with Cassandra’s character.

Basically their anger is always misdirected and rarely has any positive results or discussions coming from it.

4- Damian’s stans:

I’m a Damian’s fan myself, so I might be biased, but its honestly hard to judge them because I feel like Damian’s fanbase has the most “variety” of any Batkid’s fanbase and it reached a point where some groups stan completely different versions of the same character with each group being toxic in their own special way, so I decided to put them in the middle.

I’m not gonna talk about each of them, but I feel like what all of them have in common is that they tend to over-react to things, even if they are in the right about something, they usually end up pushing too far in the other direction to the point where it blows out of proportion (but to be fair, if you leave them alone, they generally will not bother you)

5- Barbara’s stans:

Lets talk about the elephant in the room from the get-go.........almost all toxic Barbara’s stans are DickBabs shippers, I don’t know why that is and I don’t think everyone who ship them is inherently toxic, but boy are they a loud minority.

If we’re just judging Oracle’s fans then they would probably be the lowest in the list, but stans of Batgirl!Barbara and DickBabs shippers really pumped them up, especially during TT’s run of Nightwing.

6- Jason’s stans:

You know what, I never noticed this before I sat down and wrote this list, but have you noticed how most Jason’s stans are surprisingly very chill? There might be some inner-fighting going on between them, but for the most part they usually stay in their lane and don’t bother anyone unless you came for them first.

7- Duke’s stans:

Again, for the most part they are very chill and usually have great takes for all characters equally, but I feel that just like Dick’s fans, their frustration about Duke’s treatment can get the best out of them and sometimes they might go off on someone who didn’t deserve it because they didn’t like what they were saying.

8- Stephanie’s stans:

I don’t have much to say about them, but I mean come on, when was the last time you saw a Stephanie’s fan-account picking fights with other fans or insulting other characters? I personally haven’t seen one do such a thing before and while similar to Cassandra’s fans, they might give you a sob-story about Stephanie’s treatment, I feel like they’re much better about directing their frustration to DC instead of random people online or other fictional characters.

[nikadd]

gonna complain abt biphobia for a second so if you think im automatically annoying bc of that it’s ok, just scroll past. idgaf

for the past few weeks on twitter and in the past on tiktok and im assuming here as well (im just not verging into those waters on here) i’ve seen a lot of weird and annoying things being said abt bisexuals and bi women in general and it feels like one of those things where somebody picks a specific type of a member in a community (here being “a white cis bi girl with a white cishet boyfriend”) as like the so called representative of the entire community and bc it’s like the supposed closest person to being the oppressor then all of the criticisms get to stick. it’s like when ppl add “white” in front of “woman” to make their criticisms not sound misogynistic.

like there are lots of things that are very much issues that bisexuals face in higher numbers than either gay or straight ppl do (such as ipv, for example), and nobody is talking abt it, but if we ever just express annoyances abt micro aggressions or negative stereotypes abt us (that feed into the material oppression we face! the stereotypes abt us being sex-obsessed and promiscuous freaks actually does lead to ppl thinking we can’t say no to sex and that we would cheat on them which leads to physical and emotional abuse!), then suddenly everybody is like “why are yall complaining abt it” “i wish i had your issues” “biphobia isn’t real, what you’re complaining abt is homophobia” “yall chose to date men” “who’s stopping yall from dating men” and it’s like…

we (cis bi women) understand that if we are dating men or somebody who is read as a man on the street then we benefit from being read as straight, but it’s weird when ppl keep talking abt “the real life” when we are talking abt how we are treated within the queer community or we want to address specific things. like many of us DO understand the sense of scale of things, we are not equating homophobic hate crimes to the micro aggressions, but if everything we say is conflated to just being micro aggressions we are blowing out of proportion, then it becomes difficult to address actually important things!

and i do think some of my fellow bisexuals have fallen into a weird pick-me-girl meme within the community, e.g. “i’m attracted to every woman ever and like 3 guys” which sounds like we are supposed to suppress our attraction to men to feel accepted in the queer community and act like it’s such a chore to be attracted to or be in a relationship w men. and im not even talking abt many of them coming to realize they are lesbians, which is good for them! but it just became one of those annoying things ppl just regurgitate and i don’t actually believe that it is an actual way many of them view their attraction, but they want the good queer points so they say it.

and i understand many lesbians’ frustrations w newly-out bi women expressing how they are intimidated by the idea of approaching a woman, but i think sometimes ppl are too quick to call it lesbophobia and that we think that lesbians are scary bc THEN apparently we aren’t living in “the real life” in our heteronormative world where we are taught how to be w men only? like i guess in this situation we don’t care abt what goes on outside of the community. and im glad many queer women are able to overcome it but we often forget how difficult it is to figure it out! and ppl online keep talking abt how weird and homophobic it is for bi women to say this when we should actually be scared of/intimidated by men bc they are more likely to abuse us… which is such a piss on the poor type of misreading of what we are saying. but also victim blaming once again.

like i’ve been out as bi for like 9 years now, had VERY strong feelings for multiple girls over this time (like i’ve had to tell some ppl im bi and not a lesbian), currently in my first ever relationship - and yes it’s with a man. and if i was some kind of famous person on the internet, people would be saying im settling, or im faking my queerness, or looking into my past relationships and seeing nothing there bc ive never dated anybody before. so what then? suddenly im not bi bc i’ve never gone out w a girl? like in my case i never even dated men before bc i rarely like somebody enough to want to go through w anything AND i need to know that they like me first as well so im actually always surprised to find out that ppl date ppl often but that’s neither here nor there.

like all those tweets abt billie eilish abt how she “chose to date an abuser before she ever dated a girl” or dove cameron “making a song abt being a better boyfriend to a girl and now dating yet another man” make me so upset like do they need to go out and date a girl for some kind of queer points for ppl to shut up abt it?

another thing i saw was like “a girl is gonna go to a queer bar or pride, dance and flirt with girls, and then go home to a boyfriend 💀” and it’s like okay so yall don’t want us bringing our boyfriends to queer events, that’s fine (not that my bf is straight and might also enjoy going to a queer event as he’s also queer but who cares abt that, right?) but then we also can’t go to a queer event by ourselves either? like not all queer events are singles-only events! and flirting doesn’t mean you’re being led on! sometimes ppl flirt just because! why does it mean that i need to stop going to queer events that i’ve been going to before dating my bf just bc im w a man now?

like ppl act like it’s not even worth to come out for a bi woman if she’s gonna date a guy / already is in a relationship w a guy. like maybe my identity existed before my relationship and might even exist after it? like im my own person or something?

like i’m so tired of ppl online being “heartbroken” over a hot woman (bonus points if she “looks” gay) being w a man - as if you ever had a chance w her if she was single! or acting like being w a bi woman means that she’s gonna leave you for a man! like it sounds weirdly incelish when i see other queer women online being like “oh ofc a girl i was dating left me for a man 🙄” and it’s like maybe she just started dating a man after you but you’re making it sound like she hated being with a woman and cheated on you with a man and you get to have this high horse about it. like im sure there have been instances where two women broke up and then one ended up w a man and even got married or something but i’ve seen too many ppl paint these situations like ultimate betrayals. like if she left you for another woman it would have been better?

like i know that there are some bi women who Have said/done things that led to these thoughts/complaints, but like the way we (queer women as a whole) have been engaging in these conversations has been very alienating. like there ARE things we need to address within our community (e.g., “everybody is a little bi”, “hearts not parts”, “don’t worry i’m bisexual” when dating trans ppl, etc) but i genuinely often feel more comfortable talking to other bisexuals abt it bc i think some things SHOULD be addressed within the bisexual community first bc it shouldn’t be on other ppl to address these things like we gotta clean our own house yk but it’s often difficult to do so on the internet bc anybody could chime in and divert the attention and take things out of context.

tldr i hate these conversations and all the jokes abt biphobia bc ppl think it makes them more progressive or feminist or whatever and seriously addressing these things suddenly makes me “one of those bisexuals” or whatever. like i know im saying all the stuff we’ve all already said in 2014 in all those “reblog if you believe that bi ppl are bi and not just half gay half straight” but i feel like ppl only agree w this in theory and not in practice and actively believe that every bi woman is a lesbian in denial or a straight woman w a fetish. and it’s fucking annoying.

and yeah it might sound like i’m a chronically online tumblr sjw abt it but the internet queer spaces are like a third space for many ppl and it’s disheartening to see these things and then feel like ppl are just keeping their mouths shut abt it offline but still believe and think this way.

…AND THATS ALL JUST ABT BI CIS WHITE WOMEN.

[planetsano]

one last thing! then I won’t be talking about this anymore! 🩷

in regards to user @/startitties

“the mods talked behind my back.” yes. someone contacted a mod about how she felt because she was uncomfortable. the mods then had a staff meeting about the correct steps to take the relayed the information to me, to which I then asked you about.

if you’re upset about that, then I genuinely don’t know what to tell you because we have a system set to handle situations like this. its a very normal way to handle it. i’ve been running servers for a while now and I learned through trial and error.

if you’re saying that you wanted to be included in a mod’s conversation about a complaint they received about you, but you’re also saying you feel.. “ganged up” on when I spoke to you privately one on one. let’s be serious.. that wouldn’t have gone over well with you at all.

the screenshots are there. I approached you with respect and I was very polite and professional to you. I gave you a chance to say what you were feeling, you said everything was fine but it in fact, was not fine. people cannot read your mind. if you pose as though you’re fine.. everyone is going to think you’re okay if you don’t speak up. sub posting and being passive aggressive is a shady way to move no matter how you look at it. and unfortunately, a member was made uncomfortable and spoke to a mod about what to do.

this is feeling like a.. “you can’t be uncomfortable with me because i was uncomfortable with you first!” kind of situation and it doesn’t work like that. i’m also not invalidating anyone’s feelings, I was completely open to hearing what was going on with you but you weren’t trying to understand or hear anything from me because you immediately put yourself in a victim’s role.

i understand not being comfortable with confrontation because i’m personally not, however, if a mod comes to you asking about a situation, its not blaming you or pointing fingers. you didn’t communicate anything to us and it blew up way out of proportion. yes? it’s trivial because it could have been solved through communication. we all have attachments to our themes because for a lot of us it’s our online persona.

you say you were “perfectly content” but you take to tumblr to blow a situation up, lie and spread a completely false narrative. you were “perfectly content” but you said there were “bad vibes” in a friendly atmosphere to which all active members can a test to because we really cut up the that vc channel. i’ll attach just a couple of everyone’s interactions with you.

going on tumblr and outright lying and spinning a very false narrative in your comments/to your followers is not how you handle situations, and unfortunately, that’s what happened on Stella’s behalf.

to blow up all this drama over the glitter divider and the pink spinning heart gif that everyone has or has used on their blog at one point seems really... immature, I’m sorry. We all love ours themes and we all work extremely hard on them but for all this to drag two, almost three months is wild.

to go online make these outrageous claims like calling us ableists for approaching you about the situation in a very respectful manner isn’t okay. Especially when half the mod team suffer from their own mental illnesses and the other half are neurodivergent themselves.

to make disgusting implications behind us “not doing ID checks” (when the mods and I do research on a blog to determine if they really are said age) when you’re in your twenties and you’re okay with interacting with and allowing 15/16 year olds on a nsfw blog you run is nuts.

this isn’t her first offense with accusing others of stealing from her— it just seems like a pattern. If you dig through, she’s made multiple accounts and the same set of issues have been following her.

the victim complex is ultimately what’s making this situation with me speaking to you as an admin and doing my role, the issue.

i’m not an enforcer, i’m an informer. you left on your accord and i’m happy you did yourself that favor.

UPDATE 10/18/23 — we all know you’ve been sending hate messages and threats to our inboxes. please stop.

good luck.

[double-fake-royalty]

Lauren James shouldn’t be harassed online for that, but I think discussion about maturity, mentality, & consistency is still fair play. They have been talking points that have followed her for a long time already, but you’ve just done that in front of the whole world.

Women of color, and especially black women, have been overly criticized and racially discriminated against in sport and other public arenas for being ‘emotional’ for a long time (the Serena Williams vs Naomi Osaka US Open final comes to mind). Also not to mention the FOX commentator calling the Nigeria team ‘belligerent’ because wtf. And I fear this will open the door for a lot of hate being sent her way, especially by the British press.

Though I’m also seeing a lot of people saying it was just a mistake which doesn’t sit right either. Things we do intentionally are not mistakes. That was a choice. You can call it a split second choice all you want. Still deliberate.

Going from having the best game of your life against China to being so frustrated by Nigeria’s man-marking that you fully use someone else’s body to get up and step on them as you’re leaving…if she’d gotten a red for a bad tackle or something that would be one thing, but you just can’t treat people like that because you’re frustrated.

And making your teammates, who have already played a ton of minutes due to lack of rotation (rip Keira), play down a player for 30+ minutes. Extremely thoughtless in the waning minutes of a high stakes game.

I really hope she takes this seriously and finds a way to get a handle on it, because she could be a top name in the game for a long time.

Deeply frustrating to see that from her because people just got a taste of what she’s really capable of in the China game and the ‘not a team player’ allegations could have been put to bed in this tourney.

Also didn’t love the post-game ‘she’s the sweetest person’ from Wiegman…there needs to be a balance here between blowing this out of proportion resulting in online abuse/harassment & taking this seriously by not not brushing it off as a mistake because she was tired & inexperienced.

This type of thing happens, with some regularity, in this game and in all sports. People get frustrated and do something stupid. But if you want to be a top player, you have to know where the line is, and you have to take better care of yourself mentally so that you don’t get in those headspaces in the first place. Especially in big games.

I say all this as a Chelsea hater, but there’s no denying how skilled and talented she is. Truly could be a game changer for England. Her future is still bright, but definitely an interesting/potentially big moment in her career. I think how she bounces back from this will be very telling.

tl;dr - really bad from LJ, also don’t be racist

[inhumanliquid]

"It's not abuse if it doesn't break any bones" and other lies you can tell yourself

An incoherent(?) ramble(?) about the effects of certain "punishments" from the perspective of someone who realizes they didn't turn out fine

I was hit and yelled at from the age of about two to a time I have no memory of. I wasn't even a bad kid, I just didn't understand social rules (autistic) and got upset easily (little kid).

All I remember from when it would happen was the pain and fear. I don't know what I did to make them so mad. That's a problem.

Because they never bothered to explain what I did wrong, I didn't get that what I did was bad. I assumed that they didn't love me and that I was irredeemable.

Once, I was hit just because I was crying because I got yelled at for no reason. My mother likes to threaten punishments for showing emotions pretty damn often for someone who claims she's okay.

They used to lock me in my room. Now I do it myself so others can't do it for me. I'd love to feel safe going out without being scared of being forcefully isolated again.

I grew up with horrible self-esteem issues as a result. I hated myself and assumed everyone else hated me, too. I was suicidal from the age of around five (which I only know due to a diary my mom bought me and decided it was perfectly fine to snoop through). I got yelled at for that, too. It made it worse.

I still can't trust my parents because of what they did. Loud noises, especially literally anyone yelling, cause me to have panic attacks. I hate being touched unless I personally initiate it or the other person asks very specifically if the form of physical affection they're looking for is okay because it makes me anxious. I'm unable to communicate effectively with others and quick to resort to verbal or physical violence because, believe it or not, it's hard to get past things you internalize as a little kid.

Part of why I refuse to even adopt a kid is that I'm scared of being like my parents. I don't want to make another human being feel like they're just an object for people to take their anger out on or to teach them to view others in that way.

Because of how my parents treated me, I struggle to maintain stable relationships. I blow things out of proportion and make them the problem of people who were never involved to begin with. People are either totally evil (my parents) or completely perfect (the few people who actually stay around that aren't obligated to) with absolutely no in-between. I'm not a person, but a ceramic doll that's been completely shattered and then shoddily glued back together without all the pieces because some of them were either turned to dust or simply lost.

I dissociate a lot. Usually, it's derealization (disconnection from the world) or depersonalization (disconnection from the self), but it's also things like feeling like someone else got yelled at or hit or locked in that room for simply being alive.

Tangentially related to that point is that I just... don't have an actual identity. I can’t even answer basic questions like what my favorite color is.

My name is anything but my deadname, and my pronouns are any but the ones associated with my agab... which could easily be because of the association I have with that specific name and those specific pronouns, so I doubt myself on my own gender identity.

I could give you a list of things I do to waste time and call them hobbies, but hobbies are something you enjoy. I don't really enjoy anything at all anymore.

Online strangers, like MatPat and some of my Tumblr mutuals, and various fictional characters are more like family than my parents have ever been, or ever will be. Because they're actually nice to me.

So maybe think twice before treating a kid like they're subhuman just because they're young.

[hoodlessmads]

Who wants to read a long ass review of FFXVI?

I would give this game a 6/10. Here’s why. (seriously, it's long, I'm warning you)

SPOILERS for late game (I don't spoil the ending but I do mention characters and events through basically the beach scene - if you know you know)

First, I've seen a tendency to dismiss and/or mischaracterize people’s criticisms of FFXVI as them saying “I don’t like that it’s not turn-based” or “it’s not like other Final Fantasies” when that’s not at all what I’m about to say. Those aren’t my issues with the game. At all. So just getting that out of the way. Kingdom Hearts II is one of my favorite games of all time, so I am not at all adverse to this game having action combat. Final Fantasy XII is different from other Final Fantasies too, but that’s in my top 3 FF games, so that’s not my issue either.

To be honest, I haven’t actually seen anyone criticize the game for not being turn-based except in memes, so I can’t help but feel like fans are blowing this particular criticism out of proportion, unless I’m just in the wrong places online. Who is actually saying the game isn’t Final Fantasy because it’s not turn-based? 90% of people seem to love the game.

Moving on.

This is not...professionally written, by the way. I kind of wrote it in one sitting. Also, please try not to take my extreme language too seriously - that's just how I write. praying emoji

Credit where credit is due

The presentation is great – graphics, cinematics, voice acting, cutscenes. Some of the cutscenes in this game and some of the cinematic QTEs were actually insane. Completely bonkers. The game reaches extreme high points with its story and spectacle that had me yelling. I’ve never in my life cared about graphical quality or spectacle, but this game got me, and I think part of it is the way they successfully integrated the story’s most dramatic moments with the grandest spectacle possible gameplay-wise. Virtually all of the big story moments were dope as hell. I hope this integration helps these spectacular moments stand the test of time when they eventually become graphically outdated. (Because they will. Who cares about the FFVII motorcycle chase anymore? But it blew minds back in the day.)

Things I didn’t know I needed in Final Fantasy: Ifrit hanging off a crystal going, “Fuck.”

The combat is pretty good. It could be better, but it’s pretty good. Action combat-wise, it’s a huge improvement from FF15. I didn’t love it, personally, but I enjoyed my time with it sometimes, and would definitely count it among the game’s strong points. I like that you can control Torgal; it added a nice layer to the combat. I did find myself skipping most mob fights, though.

The story, like the combat, could be better, but overall I think it’s pretty solid. My issues have more to do with the execution and storytelling than the core concepts, which I think are really good. There are some really compelling and interesting ideas here. The story feels very “Final Fantasy” in a good way. I enjoyed it for the most part. I had one MAJOR issue with it that I’ll discuss in the negative section of this review but other than that the flaws in the writing, while there (especially the writing of some of the characters and the ending), aren’t huge detractors for me. I hated the moments I call “Game of Thrones bullshit” which is where I felt the GoT posturing got a little too on the nose, but otherwise, I’m a sucker for political storylines and the political machinations and such in this story were some of my favorite moments, along with the epic confrontations, of course.

Some of the characters: I like Joshua, Cid, Mid, and Dion. Joshua....what can I say. I’m obsessed with him? I’m hyperfixated on a character that is trapped in a game which I think is otherwise mediocre, and that sucks.

Overall, I'm actually really frustrated by all the things I like in this game, because similar to the last mainline entry, I feel like Square almost made one of the best games in the series, if not the best. Truly. But they kind of shat the bed instead.

Gameplay negatives

I could nitpick forever, but the main gameplay element that fully ruins this game for me, if I’m being honest, is the fact that there is no permanent party.

You have your dog, and sometimes you have Jill, but for most of the game Clive is alone. The game’s story preaches a lot about bonds with other people and togetherness and how that is humanity’s strength, but the gameplay doesn’t match up with that message at all. The gameplay sends the opposite message: that this is Clive’s sole journey. As a result, a lot of the story’s themes don’t land well. Also, because you are playing alone as Clive for most of the game, the game is pretty much made or broken on how much you like him. For me, I don’t like him. I’ll get more into why in the story negative section. But because I don’t like him, I have a hard time really enjoying my playing experience because I am forced to spend all of my time with him, and only him. This isn’t about not being able to play as other people, though that would be nice. It’s that the other people aren’t even there.

Final Fantasy XV is a broken mess of a game that I did not enjoy, with a messy story, but even that game understood this most basic principle of building a sense of camaraderie with the main character’s friends by having them all in a permanent party together all the way through until the very end of the game. When that game talked about Noctis’s bonds with others being his strength, it landed because of all the time I, as a player, had spent with the party members. I bought that. The game had earned it.

This sort of leads into my other big issue with the game, which is the virtual lack of RPG elements. Even when you do have temporary party members, they are (relatively useless) AI bots that you have no power to affect whatsoever. You can’t even change their equipment. In the menu, the only character is Clive (other than some cute sprites). It makes you feel even more alone in the journey. So there are no party members to outfit – what can you customize? The game’s customization options are limited to picking and choosing which abilities to give to Clive using earned ability points and an extremely bare bones crafting system. As for the abilities, I will admit there is potential to customize your combat based on which Eikon abilities you choose to outfit Clive with. But it pretty much stops there. The itemization and crafting system are utter dog shit. I don’t feel like I need to justify saying that...even fans of this game have to admit how tacked-on that shit is. In addition, there isn’t even something as simple as elemental weaknesses that might be affected by said tacked-on crafting system. This is a game where the story centers around eight Eikons for eight magical elements and yet there is no elemental affinity baked into the gameplay. I have to ask, what the fuck?

Some Zelda fans would probably get mad at me for saying this, but even though Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom also feature a solo journey without any party members, they legitimately feel more like RPGs than Final Fantasy XVI. Those games have elemental weaknesses and systems that force you to put some thought into your approach to combat, and they have a more worthwhile and involved gear upgrading system. It’s crystal clear that the developers of FF16 put a lot of effort into the presentation, the story and the combat and I applaud those efforts, but it really feels like they put zero effort into ANYTHING else outside of that because there is NOTHING to this game outside of the main story and combat. I would almost rather they hadn’t even bothered to try to pretend this was still an RPG instead of the linear character action thriller it wants to be.

Even in that sense, it’s not particularly outstanding. The combat’s depth is questionable...I would have preferred if you could at least use ability points to, say, modify the base combo, which never changes. Shake it up just a little bit. Instead, the modifications to Clive’s combat as the game goes on come entirely in the form of Eikon abilities that are on timers and you can cycle through them as you want. I don’t get the feeling that Clive himself is growing stronger or better, persay. Each ability has a unique utility, but that utility is limited in any given boss fight due to the lack of enemy variety, and they mostly served for me as extra damage dealers rather than relating to any sort of strategy. The lack of combo modifiers and also the lack of a dedicated block mechanic other than the one Titan ability makes the combat feel a bit clunky and outdated to me. I don’t know how to say it, I guess, because Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom also don’t have combo modifiers and that combat isn’t particularly deep but it doesn’t feel nearly as clunky to play, so I don’t know what I’m saying...but FFXVI’s combat just feels clunky to me sometimes and you’re gonna have to believe me. (I'm not trying to compare these two games, I just feel like since I compared them in the last paragraph I should at least mention I'm not trying to make a double standard about the combat here.)

Lastly, a big issue I have with the gameplay is the exploration. It’s shit. Really. You get a couple of big maps but they’re empty. The coolest locations in the game are ones you either only get to visit once or ones you only see in cutscenes. This does a lot to alienate me from the world the game is trying to build.

I've seen a counter-criticism amounting to basically, "You shouldn't bring franchise expectations to the game!" when people criticize the lack of a party or the lack of RPG elements but I have to ask...why shouldn't I? Any game that carries a series title is going to draw comparisons with other entries in the series, and why shouldn't it - otherwise, what's the point in carrying the title? Every Final Fantasy game has always been "new" in many ways, but there has also still always been a thread connecting them, even a thin one. For me, this game just frays that thread a bit too thin. Through 12, 13, 13-2, Lightning Returns, 15, you name it, I've still always felt like "This is Final Fantasy." When I'm not even playing an RPG anymore, it's gotten too far away from the core of the series. I'm sorry, but it has.

Now here's the story negative section:

Final Fantasy XVI has a slavery problem

There are other story negatives, but for me, this is the big one. I haven’t seen people talking about it much (yet) and I don’t really understand why, because for me it was glaring and cast a pall over the entire story and many of the characters.

There’s nothing wrong with featuring slavery in your fantasy story and/or world; far from it. I think it can add stakes and a dark, realist tone to the narrative (as we know, unfortunately, slavery is a disgustingly frequent part of human history and still exists even today) as well as set up some political commentary. It just has to be done right. It’s obviously a sensitive, heavy topic. FFXVI completely bungles its handling of said topic and betrays that its developers seemingly did not have the historical comprehension or tact to appropriately handle it.

In the narrative of FFXVI, there are good slaveowners and bad slaveowners. (You can see where this is going.) The bad slaveowners are people like Clive’s mom Anabella, who view Bearers (magic users) as vermin and treat them abhorrently. Like, clownishly evil and violent treatment. The good slaveowners are people like Clive’s dad Elwin, who claim to want to make life better for Bearers and treat them relatively well by comparison—see them as human beings (theoretically)—but still keep them as slaves.

During the game’s prologue, you play as a teenage Clive who was raised as a prince of Rosaria in a slave culture where Bearers are branded and are forced to work in service to his father’s duchy. We are shown that Clive is nice to the slaves and wants to make sure they are treated well; however, he doesn’t see that there is much wrong with them being enslaved and is perfectly fine with the status quo. Clive idolizes his father, who is otherwise an evenhanded, astute ruler who truly cares about his people (at least the ones that aren’t slaves). I like Clive during these first few hours. He shows a bit of personality: he is earnest and loyal to a fault, he is fiercely protective of his brother, he is focused on what he sees as his duty to his father and his country, he is secretly devastated that his mother doesn’t love him and wants to earn his place so he has poured his entire life into making himself worthwhile in his own way, i.e. becoming the best swordsman of all time. He’s kind of giving a jock but with a sensitive side.

It’s uncomfortable that he is so comfortable with slavery, but that is exactly how a kid who grew up in a slave culture under a father he admires might think and behave. That’s why there is massive potential here to have his worldview shaken up in a big way – we know that Clive later becomes enslaved himself.  As an adult, how might he look back on his interactions with the slaves in Rosalith? How might he reevaluate the man he thought his father was, compared to the man he actually was: a benevolent father but a man who owned and sanctioned the owning of slaves?

There is one scene where, as adults, Clive and Jill are in Martha’s Rest having just witnessed some awful treatment of slaves, and they comment on how it’s crazy that they never saw anything wrong with slavery as kids. That’s it. The commentary begins and ends there. Outside of this moment, not once does Clive come to terms with his complicity in slavery as a teenager, and not once does he ever think to criticize his father for it.

On the contrary: throughout the game, Archduke Elwin is revered by everyone, and we the player are supposed to revere him too. There is one part of the game where Clive returns to a village in Rosaria and the mayor, recognizing him as the prince, offers him his father’s old Bearers back in a chillingly casual tone. Like, offers to give him his father’s old slaves back who have just been hanging out in this village ever since the country was taken over. Clive of course declines, but we don’t get any indication of how Clive feels about this reminder that his dad was, you know, a slaveowner. Clive also never confronts the mayor’s assumption that these people are things to be owned, just lets him keep on as he was. Clive then meets one of his father’s old kitchen slaves, who has become senile. The old former slave thinks he is still waiting for Elwin to return and take him back to the kitchens, where the former slave apparently enjoyed working. The old man apparently has no idea what to do with himself in the mean time and just hangs out by the well waiting for Elwin, day in and day out. The old man thinks Clive is Elwin returned to get him, and Clive plays along, but says the old dude should just chill out in the village until he’s done with his journey and eventually he’ll come back and get him.

Now...it’s not super clear what we’re supposed to get out of this scene. It’s not entirely clear if we are supposed to take the old man’s ravings about how great it was working in Elwin’s kitchens at face value. Obviously, that would be horrifying. I have to assume that we are supposed to sort of see this as a really dark and sad look at a Stockholm Syndrome-type situation. But the uncertainty that I feel is just the problem. Does this quest exist to show how great Elwin was and how much everyone loved him, including his slaves, or to show how fucked up slavery is? This shouldn’t be a question I’m asking. And the reason I’m asking it is because our viewpoint characters give us nothing to go off of.

Assuming for everyone’s sanity that it’s the latter, why doesn’t Clive have some sort of emotional reaction? This is his father we’re talking about. The great Archduke Elwin. And here is a devastating reminder of the horror Elwin wreaked on a man’s life and psyche. Nothing. We get nothing from Clive. If a normal person suddenly realized that the food they ate growing up was always prepared by slaves, you’d think they’d have some kind of reaction.

And like...is Clive serious? Is he actually planning on coming back to “get him” when he’s done with his journey? Does Clive literally just own slaves in this game? (I don't actually think so, but I'm just saying, the scene was weird.) In any case, it is clear that most of the current and former slaves in this game are completely helpless and will just keep being enslaved through inertia if someone doesn’t save them or at least come and explain to them that being enslaved is wrong, actually, and they should be free. (A portrayal of slaves that is more than patronizing...it’s revolting. Certainly many real life slaves were victims of this sort of brainwashing, but it just feels like...way too many of them are like this in the game, and there are almost no rebellious slaves to provide an alternative portrayal, so it feels very one-sided. The Hideaway folks don't count - I'm talking about current slaves that you meet in the wild.)

After the events of the following section, where a village is massacred, Clive and Jill are upset and suddenly decide they want to help Cid free all the slaves, even though up until this point they have been pretty lukewarm on the idea of joining the liberation effort. I don’t feel like the threads between events are clearly drawn to show how the characters changed their minds. Instead, it’s sudden. They see a massacre (that includes non-Bearers as well as former slaves) and decide slavery is wrong.

Normally, you’d think that since Clive and Jill have, you know, been slaves themselves for the past thirteen years, that alone would be enough to give them a new perspective on slavery. But apparently not. Apparently they had to go through a journey in Rosaria to come to the conclusion that all the slaves should be freed, and even then it doesn’t feel like a perspective change that is earned or that makes sense. The scene with the mayor could have been a great opportunity to show that transition – just have Clive be like “oh, fuck...my dad did this too” – and boom, his character arc starts to make a lot more sense.

Instead, Clive proudly wears his father’s old clothes and later goes so far as to claim that he is carrying on his father’s ideals. At one point, when viewing the atrocious crimes against humanity that Anabella’s men perpetrate against former slaves, Clive mutters something along the lines of, at least in Elwin’s time Bearers weren’t “spit on as slaves.” Fam, what in the world are you talking about? We literally just talked to one of Elwin’s former kitchen slaves? We talked to a man in the Rosalith courtyard in the prologue named “Slaveowner?” It would be one thing if he was in deep denial, but the game doesn’t play it like that. The game plays it straight, like we are supposed to take what Clive is saying as truth. Later, Clive tells Byron that he won’t take back rule of Rosaria, because instead he’s fighting for the world his father believed in, where all people can live freely. Clive explicitly tells us that his father’s beliefs and the goal of ending slavery are one and the same. This does not make sense at all.

I spoke with a friend about this who argued that Elwin did believe in ending slavery, but he didn’t outright do it because he would have had revolts on his hands and so on – it would have been too sudden of a change for the free people to accept since the hatred of Bearers was so entrenched (my thoughts: oh dear, not the free people having hurt feelings, not the revolts! Better keep those people enslaved to avoid such a horror), so he was trying to change attitudes over time. According to my friend, this is what Clive meant by following his father’s ideals - moreso in spirit than in actuality. I think this is a bit of a stretch to assume this is what Clive was thinking since the game doesn't really make it super clear, if I'm being honest, and it's still a very unflattering portrayal because he's essentially excusing his father's policies of slavery. I agree with my friend that such behavior makes perfect sense for Elwin as a character, but owning slaves is still 100% wrong, Elwin was wrong, and the problem is the game’s narrative never really acknowledges this. It's obvious to us, but the game needs to acknowledge it, and it doesn't. (Also, if the reason he didn’t end slavery was truly because he was afraid of the chaos it would cause (eyeroll...it’s giving Northern liberals in 1850s United States...), then why did he himself also own slaves? Surely that wasn’t required if all he wanted was to avoid revolts. It's because he needed to use them as resources and he'd rather use free human beings in forced labor than use up the meager supply of crystals they have, right? Isn't that the real reason?) I bring this up not to discredit this friend, who is great, but because I hadn't considered this perspective before and it helped me understand Elwin's thought process a bit more, so I thought it would be helpful to mention.

What we get, as a result of all this, is a main character who comes across as extremely putzy and tepid. Sure, Clive thinks slavery is wrong, generally. He definitely thinks treating slaves badly is wrong, at least. He probably thinks having them at all is wrong...probably. (Unless you’re his dad, Archduke Elwin.) But at the same time, he doesn’t bat an eyelash when he comes across random NPCs that are in the process of abusing their slaves. And I mean including after he takes over Cid’s role as the international slave liberator and removes his brand. He doesn’t even have an emotional reaction. He just moves on like it’s to be expected. Clive is the most powerful man on earth by this point and he doesn’t lift a finger to help any Bearers he comes across in the wild. Cid the Outlaw, everybody, Clive the great liberator of slaves. What a stand-up guy. If I were a slave in Valisthea, I wouldn’t want this guy to be the one advocating for me. Personally.

It is incredibly difficult for me to emotionally connect with this character when this is how he is characterized, and when the slavery storyline is handled so tactlessly. Like it’s just tacked on to make the world more dark and fucked up, but the developers didn’t care to follow through with exploring it.

FFXVI’s portrayal of the badness of slavery is mostly limited to the cheap, low-hanging fruit of showing horrific atrocities and abuse being perpetrated against slaves by awful slavemasters. But it mostly avoids the true insidiousness of slavery, which is how normal it could be, and has been. How normal, otherwise nice people, could and have been complicit in it. Slavery doesn��t need horrific treatment to be bad. Owning other people is inherently bad. And FFXVI somehow doesn’t seem to get that.

There’s a fun, interesting, comedic relief type character with a lot more personality than most of the other main characters: Clive’s uncle, Byron. He’s wonderful. I wanted to love him.

Except - nagging at the back of my mind from the second we met him was the thought that this guy probably owned Bearers as slaves back in the day, and even if he was somehow the only noble in Rosaria that didn’t, he was close with his brother and could have made an effort to convince Elwin to end slavery, but didn’t.

You can’t have the fun quirky comedic relief uncle character also be a former slaveowner (or, optimistically, a guy who used to help maintain the system of slavery). Tonally, it just doesn’t work.

It would be one thing if Byron ever addressed his past, or his failure to act, or ever somehow recanted his former beliefs and complicity in a way the player can see. But he doesn’t. The slavery in Rosaria thing goes completely unaddressed. Byron easily slides into his role as the benefactor of the Freeing the Slaves Group as if he was one of them all along. It’s confusing and distressing to see the insidiousness of “good” slavery in Rosaria go totally unaddressed.

There’s also this uncomfortable feeling when you go around as Clive after he removes his brand and suddenly no one treats you like shit anymore, and you can’t help but thinking, “Are all of these NPCs actually racist assholes and the only reason they’re not showing it is because they think I’m not a Bearer?” Steph Sterling (The Jimquisition) has a great video where she talks about how everyone in the world of Valisthea comes across as an irredeemable bigoted monster and it makes it hard to care about saving the world. I agree. Like, saving the world is obviously still the right thing to do. I know this logically – but I don’t feel it. I don’t feel any attachment to this world or the awful people in it. This makes it even harder to connect with the “role” I’m supposed to be playing in this “RPG.”

Then the slavery storyline is forgotten halfway through the game for more Final Fantasy-like and less complicated nonsense like killing gods. (Probably for the best.)

There’s also the obvious issue of there being very few people of color in the game, and many of those being white passing to boot, but I feel that has already been touched on elsewhere better than I could say it. It’s obviously stupid and it makes their bungling of the slavery storyline even worse.

There are other flaws with the story, but I can’t even pay attention to those because the slavery thing overwhelms all the comparatively small writing problems for me. I feel like one of the 2.5 people on the Internet who is actually bothered by the portrayal of slavery in this game and it’s making me a little insane. Are people really not bothered by this?

Listen. The slavery storyline had a lot of potential. Episode 2 (or 3?) of Resonant Arc’s FFXVI analysis podcast series on YouTube goes into a really great deep dive about the portrayal of slavery in Valisthea and it made me realize it was more nuanced than I had initially given it credit for. Particularly, the fact that the reason people treat Bearers with such comic book villainy and abuse is because they have to buy into the idea of Bearers being sub-human in order to justify enslaving them and slowly murdering them, and they have to buy in hard. This is extremely true to life. In order to justify treating people like objects, they dehumanize them. There is probably guilt and shame involved over taking advantage of Bearers as a resource, which they have been brainwashed into thinking they must do in order to survive, so they channel that shame into hatred and abuse. Even many slaves themselves have been brainwashed into buying into this system, and as a result they value the “good” slavemasters compared to the “bad” ones. The system has been so entrenched for generations that there is buy-in even from the lowest rung. It’s realistic and true and I definitely get what the developers were going for, I think. But there’s still a problem:

The game never does condemn the “good slavery” in Rosaria. That coming-to-terms, that realization that it seems like the game should be building up to within Clive – it never happens. Clive never has the character growth he needs in order to make the slavery storyline land properly. By the end of the game, Elwin is still a great, admired guy, Rosaria’s slavery is still good, and it is presented as fundamentally different from, say, imperial slavery. This is really just...wrong. So all of that potential for nuance that I just discussed in the previous paragraph ends up falling flat.

Anyway, I don’t like adult Clive. I think he’s a loser. For all the game’s talk of strength of will, I don’t see much strength of will in Clive. He comes across as uncommitted and wishy washy in nearly every instance, with a side dose of angst. He doesn’t compel me in the slightest; in fact, he outright disgusts me at points, and I’d have given my left arm to play as his twinky brother instead.

The women

Okay, so I’m just gonna touch on it briefly. The women in this game...could be better. Like, they’re not bad, but I came out disappointed. Especially in Anabella.

Benedikta’s storyline has already been criticized a lot for being too short and not giving her enough depth so I won’t rehash all that, but we have to talk about Anabella. Clearly, the woman’s inspiration is Cersei from Game of Thrones, unless there’s another beautiful blond traitorous kingmaker who is a total monster that I’m forgetting about. But Cersei is a great villain because in spite of all the horrible things she does, she still feels like a real person. A fucked up person, but a real person nonetheless. Her past is carefully explored so we understand the institutional misogyny, insecurity, horrible monster of a father, and toxic relationship with her brother that led her to grow up into this person. On top of that, Cersei shows a glimpse of humanity – in spite of how she may feel about everyone else, she truly loves her children. She isn’t really a monster – she’s actually just a really fucked up, evil human being.

On the other hand, Anabella is a total monster with no redeeming qualities. We get an indication at the very end that she did genuinely love Joshua and Olivier in...her own way, perhaps...but it’s just a glimmer and then she gets killed off immediately. We watch her commit horrific act after horrific act with no idea why she would do such a thing for tens of hours, and we only just manage to learn what her motivations were the whole time when she spews it out in a rush right before she dies. And the motivations are surprisingly shallow. She was just tired of people gossiping about her behind her back in Rosaria, so she had them all killed. Cool. Why is she like this? I guess we’ll never know.

I love evil women, but Anabella doesn’t even feel like a real person. Such a missed opportunity. I still kinda love when she’s being deliciously evil, though.

*tiktok autotune voice* and I’m not saying she deseeerved it – but god’s timing is aalwaaays riiiight

Oh, you want me to talk about Jill? How did they do? You mean other than her entire life revolving around her love for a man? (Just kidding...sort of.) Well, she’s fine, I guess. Personally, I find Jill to be kind of bland as a character, but that’s just me. I think we needed to get more from her backstory than what we got. As it is, she’s too Clive-focused. She’s giving Dollar Tree Tifa but not in a good way...Tifa definitely still had her own goals and motivations independent of how she felt about Cloud, and she had much more personality. (I also don’t really understand how Jill had the patience to wait for this dude for 18 years, but we don’t really get to see how she feels about that. Or was he the one waiting for her to make a move, and she was the one hesitating? Unclear, but unlikely.) Jill is just totally gung-ho to go at Clive’s pace, in all things. The Hideaway’s goals, their relationship, talking about their feelings, anything and everything is whenever he wants and no sooner or later. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that if it makes sense for the character - We’re just never in her perspective, so we don’t know why, and I find that a shame. But I do love Jill’s design, her voice acting is great, and I like that the narrative treats her like an equal to the men when it comes to combat prowess and general agency. My problem with her giving up her powers to Clive isn’t unique to just her – I hate it in every case that it happens – it just happens to sting a little bit more since Jill is the only female party member in the game.

I like the Jive ship, by the way, even though I'm not very fond of them individually. Like many people (especially fellow adults lol), I appreciate the refreshing maturity and healthiness they have. Not exactly common in Final Fantasy (as much as I love other FF ships).

So close and yet so far from greatness

For those thirsting after Clive and Cid, I raise you, Barnabas? He’s weirdly hot, right?

I feel like fixing FF16 wouldn’t be hard. Not nearly as hard as fixing FF15. It would take some redesigning the way the story plays out a little bit to give us a permanent party, but it would be worth it. The party could include Clive, Jill, Gav, and Tarja for the duration of the game. Characters like Cid could drop out when it’s their time to drop out, and characters like Dion, Josh, and Mid could jump in after crossing paths with the party, and then stay there. When the characters go off on their little quests, like when Dion sneaks off and goes back to the Crystalline Dominion, instead of having them go alone, have the whole party accompany them. This would help organically build the bonds between the characters instead of just having the game tell us that they have bonds.

There are even classic FF archetypes to work with, if they wanted to balance the party accordingly. Clive is a knight/jack of all trades, Jill is a black mage, Gav is a rogue, Tara is like a white mage or an alchemist, Cid and Mid are machinists, Dion is a dragoon, and Josh is a red mage. See? Not that they have to be called this, but I’m just making a point that balance-wise, the party is RIGHT THERE. Then allow the player to outfit them with unique gear and maybe have a couple options for how they want the AI’s playstyle to be, like offensive, defensive, attack Clive’s enemies, attack enemies other than Clive’s enemies...just simple options (if I wanted to be really greedy I’d say add a gambit system but I’m trying to keep it “easy” here--).

But if I can be a bit greedy – how about you allow us to return to the areas featured in the one-off missions and, more than that, how about you actually let us roam around in the fantastical set pieces we only get to see in cutscenes, like Oriflamme? It wouldn’t have to be a big area. Just give me like one little town square. One tiny itsy bitsy little town square per city. Nothing too graphically intensive. Something, anything to help me feel more immersed in this world, because the game desperately needs it. The world is so cool, conceptually, but I can’t really immerse myself because I can't explore most of it.

For the story, just include some deeper revelations for Clive, Jill, Josh, Byron, even Dion, where they regret their complicity in slavery in the past (well, Josh was basically a baby so I wouldn’t necessarily call him “complicit,” but you get it, his family owned slaves, that’s a lot to swallow). Instead of having the boring ass side quests that exist now, create some side quests that are like Clive and gang actually going out and freeing more Bearers on the side, even while they’re dealing with the Mothercrystal shit, so that the freeing the slaves storyline can continue even after the plot shifts to be about the crystals. Have the quests be about unique, fleshed out characters where they have agency in freeing themselves and building a better life for themselves so it’s not all about helpless slaves with Stockholm Syndrome who need to be saved (because that’s both historically inaccurate and gross).

Of course, I think the RPG elements need to be fleshed out, but I think if you just change these two major things (a permanent party and improving the slavery storyline) the game turns from being a uncomfortable and often dreary slog into an absolute banger.

Demake

Okay hear me out – a Switch demake in the pixel art style of, say, Final Fantasy VI (like the sprites we see on the menu). The party that I mentioned above exists. I don’t care if it makes sense with the story or where the characters are supposed to be located in the world. If you’re fighting, you’ve got the party. They’re just there, get over it. If you want it to make sense, you can play the original or watch a Let’s Play of the original. You can choose four of those fuckers at a time. It’s turn-based, for the hoes (I’m the hoes).

The Eikon battles though – the Eikon battles are a 2D side scrolling brawler. How fucking sick would that be? Hell, if they really wanted to keep it entirely action-oriented even in a pixel art demake, the regular combat can be a 2d side scrolling brawler too, and maybe you can control your other three party members with, like, their own assigned buttons. Kind of like TWEWY. So it would be chaotic but in a fun way. And maybe (also for the hoes) they can insert some of the epic cinematic cutscenes as FMVs.

Have I mentioned my emphasis on having a party?

Would this not be sick as hell?

Conclusion

I needed somebody to scream at about this and my only friends who are playing this game are still early in, so I turned to the Internet instead. I welcome discussion if you for some reason actually read all of this and feel so inclined. This isn’t a comprehensive review (in spite of being this long) and there’s room for debate and there are certainly more things that could be touched on.

I wrote all this about a 6/10 game because I love Final Fantasy that much – if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have this much to say about it. Ultimately, I love all Final Fantasy games, even the ones I don’t like. If you get it you get it.

[axiermundi]

Lately, I’ve been really irritated by Stephanie Soo.

I used to be able to tolerate her fake sweet and soothing online persona because the way she presents stories is engaging. But it’s becoming more apparent that she’s just another judgmental bitch. Every story she presents is exaggerated while she’s doing her best to look sincere. It twists the perception of the audience. She acts like she wants to raise red flags, but she’s being manipulative herself. She’s always acting like her morals are the only thing worth listening to. She pretends like she understands each side, but she presents a clear bias, even expecting perpetrators to think and react like normal people.

>omg see??? he didn’t cry on cue!! everyone should be experiencing emotions ALL THE TIME even while they’re shocked

The way she reads reactions are so fucking weird and always accusive too. This is the same woman who reads and watches true crime stories? She doesn’t understand the psychology of criminals??? It’s always “did you see how STRANGE that reaction is?!” and it’s just a mentally disturbed person who’s panicking while trying to hide their crime. People don’t always know how to fucking react to every situation, Stephanie. Not everyone behaves in the same cookie-cutter societal expectations as you. It’s like she expects everyone to have the same level of learned perception. Sometimes it’s not even a weird reaction, and she’s just blowing it out of proportion.

“Why isn’t the criminal showing tears after killing her baby? She’s only concerned about herself. Why didn’t she just ask for help? She traumatized the entire hospital staff!” Did you miss the part where her mom is a psychotic bitch who won’t let her make decisions of her own? Maybe she doesn’t even know how to ask for help. Not everyone is allowed to live the independent life that you enjoy.

It’s like. Yeah, I want that stupid bitch to go to prison too because she’s clearly unrepentant, and her lawyer wants to twist it into a feminism thing (it’s really fucking not) and calling her a good person and student??! (no one cares about your grades you stupid bitch) But Stephanie raised the wrong points so now I have to act defensive about the criminal. It feels gross and I don’t wanna fucking do that.

[meownotgood]

i keep seeing a lot of himeno hate recently and i wanted to ask some questions and kinda vent ig?

himeno offering a kiss to denji was supposed to just be her teasing him but did she explicitly know he was a minor at that point? even then, since she was kidding and no serious intention to romantically engage with him, shouldn’t that be okay? like it’s weird? but not im going to call the cops on you weird??

people saying she’s 30????? is that like kinda ridiculous, she gives me 2-3 years older than aki and aki in present time is like 21-22?

my question is something in regards to what ive seen so much online “himeno met aki when he was a teen so falling in love with him is gross” and “himeno only likes aki for his looks”

himeno commented on aki’s looks when he was a teen and she literally said she doesn’t like the whole stoic, cold people energy. she also is the only person that has a firm grasp on aki’s entire character?? so falling for him based on solely his looks is super surface level to me.

also himeno never expressed romantic feelings for aki when he was a teen, it developed throughout their time when he became an adult. it’s probably not even just a romantic love, but more platonic even as she built such an emotional connection and attachment around the idea of protecting him and keeping him safe simply bc she DOESNT want to lose him.

i think the bigger thing about himeno that people forget is how she doesn’t want to build friendships and memories and connect herself with people that will just ultimately leave. that’s why she asks aki about the new recruits and what he thinks about whether they will live or die. she’s scared about losing them.

himeno also prioritizing aki’s safety and her “love” and connection to him is probably one of the only motivations in her life and the thing that keeps her going ESPECIALLY in the line of work that she is in.

when he was a teen, she just cared about keeping him alive. her falling for him was most likely during when he became an adult. so is knowing him when he was a teen like really bad? / gen

the stuff about denji too. like it’s inexcusable. even if you’re drunk, you’re still responsible for the decisions you make. but as explanation (not an excuse) she did not want denji, apologizes the next day because she was not in her senses, and commented that she would have gotten arrested. she also NEVER wanted denji in the slightest. like yes she made a terrible choice and regardless of circumstance, it was gross and i would not be cool with it. but is she really a pedophile when she WOULDNT have made those choices without the influence of alcohol. she doesn’t want to date children.

i dunno thank you to reading this i needed to get my thoughts out. i DIDNT mean to pile this on you. i think himeno is a tragic character that plays a huge role in the story when looking at it at a literary standpoint. im a bit disheartened that she’s reduced to JUST this.

I totally understand why people dislike or even hate himeno, I just think a lot of people take it a bit too far, or fail to see the aspects of her character and writing because they hate her. I'm not even the biggest fan of her character honestly, but it's clear to see that people blow things way out of proportion

when himeno offered to kiss denji, she didn't know he was a minor (he didn't reveal his age to anyone until the drinking party). I definitely think it's weird, I don't think it's difficult to tell that denji is a teenager. but I don't think it was her trying to be weird towards him, she was just messing with him, probably like she does with all of the new recruits.

in terms of her age, it's definitely debatable. in my opinion, based on the flashbacks we see with her and aki, I think she's maybe 24-27? but obviously it's subjective (wish fujimoto would just confirm the actual ages....). I don't necessarily think her attraction to aki is weird or wrong, I just think it would be a bit of a toxic / codependent relationship, and I think perhaps himeno is too old for him? although, they're both adults so it's really not that big of a deal, not worth losing your mind over people shipping it, imo. save your energy for people who are shipping characters who are minors with adults instead of people who want to ship two grown, fictional adults together...

I think himeno never had romantic interest in aki when he was a teenager — I talked about this in length in a himeno analysis I did, but basically I feel as though himeno latched onto aki from the start because of her attachment issues and because of aki's determined personality. I agree with what you said: she became attached to aki because she was so terrified of losing another person. she only fell in love with him much later on, when she was able to see a different side to him.

also the thing about his looks? that's from the scene where denji and himeno are talking after denji stayed over at her house, and when denji asks why himeno likes aki, she answers simply: "his looks". I think it's pretty obvious she's only saying that to give an excuse to denji, not that it's her actual feelings. people who think "his looks" is the only reason himeno likes aki were possessed by the lack of reading comprehension devil

and obviously the stuff himeno did to denji is inexcusable. like I'd never try to defend it. being drunk is never an excuse. but yes, it wasn't because she specifically wanted to manipulate or hurt denji. it was a mistake — a horrible mistake that she needs to be held accountable for, but a mistake nonetheless. people saying she was after denji from the start or something like that are just plain wrong.

she's a very flawed character, and a very flawed person but sometimes people just take things way too far because they can

[uncloseted]

You probably don’t even care, which is understandable, but do you think Hailey Bieber gives off high school mean girl energy? I personally do think she is pretty and successful, but i also just hate going on social media and see ppl take everything and blow it out of proportion to pit her against Selena Gomez and think whatever she says or does is out of jealousy over Selena and/or shading or bullying her (like what happened with the tiktok she made with Kendall Jenner using a certain tiktok sound, or even what recently happened with her and Kylie Jenner with the eyebrow thing) I do think they both do their own thing and want to move on, but somethings i see online seem either coincidental or non coincidental. Its social media, obvs. God knows what these celebs really do or think. These people don’t even care about us anyway so we shouldn’t play the blame game over this 😂 Overall, ppl shouldn’t encourange this for the sake of Selena’s mental health, the internet just wants Hailey to plummet and find closure that she *is* a mean person, but like I said I see things online that make me second guess that Hailey is just… off at certain times. I have so much to say about this but I cant articulate it all in one message, so Im just gonna leave it here 🥲 I dont blame Selena for taking a social media break, and i should do the same when I really feel like its best

That's so funny, I had actually just finished reading a deep-dive on the Hailey/Selena/Justin situation when you sent this. I do think Hailey gives off kind of "mean girl" energy, but I feel like people really blow it out of proportion. I think a lot of people would react the same way that she has if they were in her situation- she's constantly being compared to Selena and told that Selena was better for Justin or that he still really loves Selena, and Selena doesn't seem be able to let the relationship go even though Hailey and Justin have been married for over five years. I'm not saying Hailey couldn't deal with all of this better or that she's not being kind of mean, but I do think that a lot of the internet's hatred of Hailey comes down to the fact that she's a nepo baby with a famous husband as opposed to her actions. If the internet liked Hailey more as a person, I don't think they would be accusing her of being a mean girl.

And for Selena's part, I think she somehow gets way more hate and way less hate than she deserves? Her PR team is truly excellent- they've patched over a lot of stuff that would have sunk a different artist's career- but almost because of that, it seems like there's a group of people who are obsessed with making her out to be a giant villain? I think in general, Selena comes across as being much more sympathetic than Hailey because Selena has really worked for what she has, did "start from the bottom", and has struggled with her health very publicly, while Hailey has been given every advantage. But I think at this point, Selena should be able to let the whole thing go, and she's kind of keeping it alive while insisting that she's the victim and "being kind" and "sending love". She's also not really discouraging her fans from harassing Hailey, even though she's taking the stance of moral high ground.

Meanwhile, I think the real villain in this situation keeps getting totally ignored- straight up, this entire thing is Justin's fault. If he had been normal about his breakup with Selena and his relationship with Hailey, this wouldn't be happening. But because he very publicly ping-ponged between them from 2014 to when he eventually married Hailey in 2018 (only 7 months after having broken up with Selena, and only 3 months after having gotten back together with Hailey), it makes a lot of sense to me that both of them feel insecure and threatened by the other. Plus, Justin could have handled the media frenzy around his girlfriends differently- to this day, telling his fans, "I'm very much in love with my wife but I have a ton of respect for all the women I've dated in the past. Please don't harass them or act rudely towards them," would probably make a difference.