#bard text

[dinnerburger]

I'm like if a boything was a girlthing

[dinnerburger]

Been doing some reflecting, and I have to say that I think one of the worst character misinterpretations by FFXIV fans is easily Venat. I frequently see her depicted as very warm and motherly in much the same way as Hydaelyn, while some of the more interesting and darker aspects of her character are sanded away or forgotten.

The game very explicitly shows you her limping along through the end of her own people, enduring eons of misery just to later help the WoL save the world in some far-flung future, at the cost of her own life (twice over if you consider that she sacrificed herself to become Hydaelyn's heart). She doomed her own people and fractured their world into over a dozen others filled with suffering, all in order to save the world as a whole from a greater threat. She's the only one who knew what was going to happen, and despite her pleas very few people would listen. She is a complicated character who by her own admission caused untold suffering just to delay the calamity. But I feel like these aspects of her are frequently forgotten in favor of "she's my mom," which to me feels far more like a role she was forced to take on as Hydaelyn due to circumstance, rather than anything she ever would have wanted (but that's just my own speculation, though I also feel reducing her to her motherly side is a blatantly misogynist read of the character regardless).

Not enough depictions of her even consider simple things, like how she is shown to he both adventurous and mischievous. Emet-Selch even states that he considers his summoning in Ultima Thule to be a final prank from Venat. She is the character who haunts the narrative from the literal moment you start the game, but she's only ever mentioned by name a small handful of times, and most people will only ever see her as Hydaelyn, even when referring to her original self. (As a final note, I do think this is thematically resonant with how Hydaelyn hides her true form behind the image of the Mothercrystal, but that's an entirely different rabbit hole that deserves its own post in the future).

[dinnerburger]

I'm happy to report, ma'am, that your facial feminization surgery was a success! Unfortunately, we may have... missed. No, really. One of the nurses drew a little face on your tummy in marker, like with the belly button for a mouth, and it was so damn compelling me and the boys went and made it real. Now that'll be your entire life savings.

[dinnerburger]

After many months I fear that I am once again thinking about Jerry Mouse - Any Pronouns

[dinnerburger]

Forcefem? No. Force lightning. Get electrocuted idiot

[dinnerburger]

The one thing about internet interaction that i find genuinely wonderful is that i can get my point across so much easier than when i am speaking to someone in person. If I'm trying to tell someone something in person I often just word salad and side-tangent my way through a five minute Whole Thing that may or may not be comprehensible and I feel bad about by the time I'm done. At least when I'm typing my thoughts out I can look at what I wrote before posting and spend a little extra time making my meaning clearer

[dinnerburger]

I've seen a lot of complaining about the Valkyr rework but honestly hysteria was like, insanely boring prior to this. Pressing a button that just makes you invincible just doesn't feel good to me, and idk how it wasn't expected they were gonna change it. I also just don't really see a world where she needs her invincibility to perform well outside of like, level cap survival, which is niche content like .1% of the community actually does.

[dinnerburger]

Wigs me out how often I see trans people actively and gleefully participating in the surveillance state that is actively trying to harm them