#naoki yoshida is a coward and a liberal

[dungeonenvy]

The thing with FFXIV that keeps a grip on my brain and sends my blood pressure skyrocketing when I think about it, is that they keep getting *so close* to saying something real before backing away in favor of liberal interests.

Nanamo is willing to stand up to capital and gets almost killed for it. She then backs down, capitulates utterly, and makes nice with exploitative capitalists by encouraging them to exploit people recovering from war.

Garlemald has a vocal anti-imperialist faction, the Populares, that push back against the constant warmongering and imperialism that defines the Garlean Empire. But they get sidelined in favor of trying to make us feel bad for people who commit war crimes.

The Ascians have manipulated history for thousands of years to kill millions(if not billions) of people just so they can reclaim their glory days. When we go back to their glory days, we see that even before the world was sundered they were racist pricks who didn't recognize personhood outside of themselves. But the story insists, over and over, that the glory of the past was worth it and we should sympathize.

The people of Alexandria erased death from their lives by feeding on other worlds, but we still have to pay lip service to their Queen who loved the people so much to the point where she married a guy who would just casually kill and abuse her people - EXPLICITLY so she could consume other worlds. But she was nice so we have to respect that.

The Limsan Armada explicitly broke faith with the Kobolds, but when Merlwyb talks to their high priest she acts like it's a technicality. She never offers their land back, or asks them what they want. She just says "hey you can be capitalists too"

Over and over and over and over and over again, they ask me to sympathize with the perpetrators while they bury the victims in the background. It's so fucking twisted. But ARR wasn't like that(before they started cutting content over and over). You spent time with the victims and the suffering. You call out the people in power for what they're doing. Even Heavensward tried to change Ishgard for the better, maybe they didn't move the needle enough but damn that city improved from where we started.

But stormblood and onwards? Miss me with that fucking shit

I could go on! But I won't!