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The FFXIV Community Twitter drama lately feels like a perfect example of what happens when folks who are Extremely Online™ get extremely bored during the pandemic.
2020 was like a blazing hot spotlight on the actual nazis and white supremacists walking the streets and instead of donating time or money to a cause, the battle some folks decided to pick was "this person draws their imaginary catboy with a video game villain."
Don't get me wrong. I am wary of anyone who seems a little too Pro-Garlemald OOC, because of my experiences with racists using RP as a cover for their fuckery in various MMOs. I tend to wait until I can tell someone is chill.
I also don't think every situation when it comes to ships can be handwaved away with "its just fantasy". I still think ships with characters with minors/adults are grossly unethical.
But I have also been around fandoms to know that, some people will just want a totally self-indulgent junkfood fix, because "villain is hot" and it doesn't really go much deeper than that.
When I was but a tiny, teenage bean, I thought Sephiroth was hot and I really liked Magus from Chrono Trigger. I liked them because they were pretty, strong, and ripped and that was as deep as it really went. It was superficial junkfood.
Social media was not really a thing at that time, so there weren't hundreds of strangers scrutinizing young me and deciding "bad guy hot" meant I was morally bankrupt, agreed with mass murder, and felt killing off most of the planet to ascend to godhood was a good time.
So while I am not really into any of the villains in FFXIV, I can get why some folks might be. Sometimes you eat healthy and sometimes you grab the junkfood and it is as simple as that.
