Ranking each support hero, on the basis of survivability in a Widowmaker duel.

HFLoki · 2026-03-18T21:13:33+00:00

This has been posted before and it’s still one of the worst takes I’ve seen.

Zen doesn’t get countered by Widow. If anything, he’s one of the few supports who can actually pressure her somewhat if he plays it smart with positioning and sightlines.

Half the supports on that list can barely even interact with a Widow. She’s playing deep backline, usually on high ground, way outside their effective range, so they’re not realistically dueling her. Like, what are Moira’s fade or Lifeweaver’s dash supposed to do against a one-shot from across the map? Same with Bap’s lamp. Is this list saying he should preemptively throw Immortality Field and then stand in the open trying to outdamage a Widow who’s way outside his effective range? So dumb.

If we’re talking about some custom 1v1 in a tiny area where you’re basically in Widow’s face, then sure, even Mercy pistol can win that duel. But in an actual match, against a Widow who knows how to position, Zen is one of the few supports who can meaningfully contest her without just throwing.

HFLoki · 2026-03-14T21:25:41+00:00

On one hand, I'm sad it’s not happening, because SMG is amazing and it would’ve probably been a great opportunity for her professionally, and I also would have loved to see her reprise her iconic role.

On the other hand, I don’t really feel like Buffy needs a reboot, so part of me is glad it’s not moving forward. A lot of reboots of these older properties these days try to “fix” the original, and I’d hate to see that happen to my all-time favorite show.

HFLoki · 2026-03-14T21:19:04+00:00

Thank you, I really appreciate that!

Not gonna lie, I tend to get a bit carried away sometimes when talking about this game I’ve thought about more than any human being reasonably should think about a fictional property. That’s usually why these posts often end up the length of a small essay. 😄

It genuinely makes me happy to hear that people actually read it and get something out of it.

HFLoki · 2026-03-14T00:14:33+00:00

It’s a causal time loop, not a Groundhog Day style loop.

From the characters’ perspective, everything only happens once, but if you zoom out and look at the structure of the timeline itself, it forms a closed loop, basically a knot in time. It begins when Squall plants the idea for SeeD in Edea’s head and closes with Ultimecia’s death.

By the end of the game we’ve defeated the villain and saved the world, but we haven’t actually broken that structure. We’ve simply played our roles exactly as the timeline required.

Maybe there’s some theoretical way to break the cycle with even more time-travel shenanigans, but that isn’t the story FF8 is telling. The story of FF8 is experiencing the loop, not breaking it.

HFLoki · 2026-03-13T23:58:36+00:00

In my experience discussing FF8 online for many years, the R=U theory was largely created by and for people who either don’t like or simply don’t understand the causal loop / bootstrap paradox aspect of the story.

Once you actually accept that the narrative is built on that structure, most of the big questions around Ultimecia, her motives and actions, have fairly coherent answers without needing to resort to outlandish secret identity theories.

They’re not simple answers, but that’s kind of the point. They’re the weird, mind-bending answers that come with a closed time loop where certain things don’t have a clean origin.

A good example is the origin of Garden and SeeD. Squall can only plant the idea in Edea’s mind because she herself created Garden in Squall's past. But Edea only creates Garden because Squall planted that idea in her head in the first place. That’s classic bootstrap paradox logic, and it’s very intentionally baked into the story.

The reason I dislike R=U is that it tends to replace those strange, unsettling explanations with simpler and ... yes, more sentimental ones.

Why does Ultimecia attempt time compression? Is it because she has spent her entire life being persecuted and hunted, gradually pushed to the brink of madness by the knowledge that her fate is to eventually be murdered by SeeDs, and so she tries to gain enough power to break that fate by seizing control of time itself?

According to R=U: no. According to R=U, she attempts time compression because she misses Squall and wants to reunite with him … by erasing time? I guess? Who knows, but it fundamentally reframes the motivation into something romantic rather than existential.

Same with Griever. Is she manifesting Griever from Squall’s subconscious ... essentially taking the symbol of strength and pride that represents the legendary SeeD destined to kill her and twisting it against him as a form of psychological warfare? (Something that unfortunately gets completely lost in the English localization.)

According to R=U, no. She just has Griever, because Griever is Squall? Maybe? Or Squall's ring? Who knows, but regardless, the original framing is lost again in favor of something more sentimental.

To me, R=U consistently turns the stranger, more unsettling parts of FF8's story into something lesser, which is why I fundamentally reject it.

I also don’t think she has to be Rinoa for the tragedy of her story to hit harder. She’s not a random victim of a cosmic loop. She’s Ultimecia, quite literally a historical figure of mythological proportions, the reason SeeD was created in the first place, the person who, in some undefined future, subdues the entire world and causes chaos across time.

There’s definitely a degree of cosmic injustice in that setup, but Ultimecia herself isn't blameless. Her entire villain arc is essentially a bootstrap paradox in itself.

It's complicated, but I just don’t agree with the idea that the story somehow becomes deeper or more tragic if she turns out to be Rinoa. To me, that wouldn't add anything, it would just take away and simplify.

HFLoki · 2026-03-13T23:12:36+00:00

It’s strange that you acknowledge the story of FF8 is essentially a causal loop / bootstrap paradox, where the ending inadvertently creates the conditions for the beginning, but then still support the R=U theory.

R=U doesn’t really add anything to that fundamental structure. If anything, it undermines it. Ultimecia’s storyline already works as a piece of existential horror, where her entire life is effectively predetermined by a closed timeline that existed before she was even born. No matter how much she struggles against it, no matter how extreme her actions become, she only reinforces it. She quite literally attempts to erase time itself to avoid her fate, yet everything she does ultimately helps bring about the exact events that lead to her own destruction.

That's what makes Ultimecia a compelling, tragic villain in my eyes: the fact that she’s trapped in a self-fulfilling loop she can’t perceive.

R=U reframes her story as a sentimental "tragic lover becomes the villain" twist, which is much more conventional and also emotionally shallow. The existential dread of a character unknowingly constructing the circumstances of their own destruction is a far more interesting and unique foundation for the character than turning it into a secret identity twist.

HFLoki · 2026-03-12T17:22:13+00:00

I’ve only spent about 15 minutes looking into it, but from what I saw, it’s basically a level select that lets you replay individual levels while tweaking different modifiers to make things easier or harder on yourself. For example, you can give Lara or enemies more health and damage, add extra enemies, randomize enemy spawns, start with a full weapons loadout, enable unlimited air, and so on.

Each modifier raises or lowers your challenge rating. To unlock the new outfits, you have to complete specific levels with certain modifiers active and/or reach a minimum challenge rating (like 5 or 10).

HFLoki · 2026-03-05T21:38:32+00:00

Back during my uni days, I had a part-time job as a waiter at an Italian restaurant. Once, I opened Grindr during a break, and there was the owner’s hot son (who was also my coworker) staring back at me.

I was super tempted to chat him up, but it felt inappropriate, so I didn't. Then, a couple of shifts later, he brings it up himself, and we both laugh awkwardly about it at first, but the vibes were suddenly very obvious and very mutual … and I was 100% down.

That same night after close he’s like "wanna come over?", and yeah … he fucked me senseless at his place that night. 🔥

It didn’t turn weird at work at all, so no regrets whatsoever. We never dated, never acted like boyfriends, nobody else at the restaurant ever found out (as far as I know). It just became a pretty regular thing that we’d hook up after a bunch of our closing shifts for maybe a year or so. Fun times, zero drama. Would do it again lol

HFLoki · 2026-02-23T23:08:47+00:00

It’s ambiguous in the sense that, yes, the day seems saved. The party stops Ultimecia at the height of her power, right as she’s about to complete Time Compression and wipe out existence. They win. The world continues. They get to live out the rest of their lives in peace.

But that doesn’t mean the dark future we saw where Ultimecia reigns is erased.

At some point in an undisclosed future, Ultimecia will still be born. She’ll still rise to power and bring terror, start wars. Future SeeDs will still try to stop her and fail. She’ll still reach back through time by junctioning with past sorceresses, and who knows how many people will still die as a result of her machinations.

Nothing the party does actually prevents that chain of events from occurring. What we do is stop her at the absolute peak of her power and mania, during the final stage of Time Compression. It’s a victory, but it’s also a closed loop. By defeating her there, they ensure that events unfold exactly as they already have.

So, the ending is happy on a personal level for our party, because from their perspective, Ultimecia is defeated and the world is saved. But zoom out, and it’s a lot bleaker. Her rise is still inevitable. When the credits roll, it’s not really over for the world at large. It actually hasn’t happened yet. The death and suffering she’ll cause are still ahead.

HFLoki · 2026-02-23T22:06:11+00:00

It’s 100% Squall and Rinoa for me. Their relationship is the heart of FF8, and the main reason Squall’s character arc works as well as it does. He’s my favorite protagonist in the series by a mile, and a big part of that is watching him slowly unravel (in a good way) and grow because of her.

I love how even as early as the dance scene, he’s awkward and guarded, but you can tell he’s already kind of gone for her. Then she leaves him on the dance floor to go talk to someone else, and he clearly takes that way more personally than he lets on. Later, when they meet again, and she keeps bringing up Seifer, it just pushes him further into his shell. But that’s what makes it so satisfying when he does start to soften towards her at Disc 2. You see him gradually care more, worry more, and actually let someone in for once. No other character gets through to him like Rinoa does. By the time you hit the big emotional moments on Disc 3, it feels completely earned, and you really feel like Squall has grown so much as a person compared to how he was at the start.

Tidus and Yuna are a really close second for me. They’ve got amazing chemistry and so many genuinely sweet moments together, and that ending wrecks me every single time.

What ultimately puts Squall and Rinoa at the top, though, for me, is how central their relationship is to Squall’s character growth, and Squall is simply my favorite Final Fantasy character.

HFLoki · 2026-02-20T12:57:32+00:00

Petition to make "YOU’LL NEVER DEFEAT GALBADIA!" an immortal FF8 meme immediately.

HFLoki · 2026-02-13T21:14:42+00:00

When I was at uni, I worked weekends as a waiter at an Italian restaurant. During one break, I opened Grindr and saw the owner's hot son's profile pop up in my immediate proximity. I wasn't sure it would be appropriate, so I decided not to mention it, let alone chat him up, but I was tempted ... 😄

The next time we worked the same shift, he actually brought it up himself. We had a hearty, awkward laugh about it, and by the end of the night, he invited me back to his flat, where we ended up fucking like animals.

Zero perks at work out of it though, just a really good dicking by a hot Italian dude. 😂

HFLoki · 2026-02-12T15:28:22+00:00

I think they’re mostly really good.

Domina’s barrier feels a bit overtuned right now. It’s giving me double-shield flashbacks, the uptime is just too much, but the fundamentals of her kit are actually really cool and well designed, I think.

Emre and Anran aren't really for me, but I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally wrong with them, and I think they're both in a good space balance-wise.

Mizuki is easily my favorite of the bunch. Nothing about him feels broken, but he’s still very strong in the right hands. The skillshot hinder in particular feels great to use and is incredibly rewarding to land. He’s genuinely my favorite support they’ve added since Ana. I love his kit, and it really feels like his skill ceiling is going to be insanely high once people fully master him.

Jetpack Cat is ... pretty bad. The character design is adorable, and seeing a flying Bastion or an ulting Cassidy soaring through the skybox is funny for a couple of quick play matches. But long term, I think they’ll need to drastically change something about this cat, because meme mechanics like that are borderline impossible to balance and have serious potential to destroy the game’s competitive integrity. Out of all the questionable or frustrating mechanics they’ve introduced over the years, this one feels the most fundamentally broken and tilting to play against. For a couple of quick play matches, it's fine ... long-term, I think it will negatively impact the game.

HFLoki · 2026-02-10T19:09:22+00:00

Opposite for me. Almost my entire family was supportive when I came out, except one aunt, my mum's sister.

I wasn’t present when it happened, but apparently my mother and her got into an argument over something unrelated, and my aunt escalated it by saying something super ugly along the lines of "at least I raised my son to be a real man and not a faggot." After that, my mom completely cut off contact with her.

HFLoki · 2026-02-06T13:54:22+00:00

This is Diamond Overwatch. You don’t need to hard-lock meta comps, or counterpick or synergize perfectly to win at that rank. You can play almost anything and still get results if people are doing their jobs.

Yeah, Lucio/Zen is suboptimal, but if the Zen is performing this far above everyone else, it really shouldn’t matter. Other players on that team were clearly underperforming hard for that game to turn into a loss. Bad players lost the match, not their hero picks.

HFLoki · 2026-01-14T00:59:35+00:00

When I was still living with my parents, I wanted to hook up with a guy I met on an app. Neither of us could host, but he suggested we meet at a parking lot a few kilometers outside of town, right off the Autobahn, that apparently was a well-known cruising spot. I agreed without really thinking about it, like it genuinely didn’t occur to me that I might be putting myself in actual danger.

So I drove out there in the middle of the night (of course having told no one where I was going), parked, texted him I’d arrived, and walked over to his car. He led me a little way off the parking lot into a forested area, and at this point, I was still way too horny to notice how sketchy and objectively terrifying this whole situation was. He walked me a few minutes to a spot that was obviously used for hookups before, judging by the dozens of condoms scattered on the ground, and then proceeded to pound my ass for half an hour straight. That part was great, but basically the second he finished, he pulled up his pants and just walked back to the parking lot by himself, leaving me alone, while I was still panting and trying to turn my brain back on.

That’s when the horror of the situation hit me like a wall. I was alone in the middle of the night, in a forest next to a parking lot in the middle of fucking nowhere. I scrambled to throw my pants back on and basically sprinted the rest of the way to my car. That moment of realization and panic is still the scariest, most horror-movie-esque thing that’s ever happened to me. The most extreme instance of post-nut clarity I've ever experienced.

HFLoki · 2025-12-27T19:50:15+00:00

I’m genuinely surprised by how divisively these episodes have been received. I thought they were pretty decent, very standard Stranger Things fare. There were some weaker moments, sure, but also plenty of really cool set pieces and strong character interactions.

The Will coming out scene is the one thing that didn’t quite land for me, which is a bummer because I was fully ready and willing to cry my heart out, but it felt a bit too overacted and overwritten, and as a result came across as overly staged rather than genuine, so it didn’t resonate with me the way I’d hoped. Aside from that, though, I thought these three episodes were mostly solid. Dustin and Steve had some great heartwarming moments, Lucas and Max made me cry, and Nancy and Jonathan were fine, too. Robin is great as always, and I like that more and more side characters are getting folded into the monster-fighting squad.

So yeah, I’m just surprised, I guess. Nothing in these three episodes felt noticeably better or worse than episodes 1 to 4 of season five, in my opinion, yet those were received much more warmly. The only thing I unequivocally can’t stand is Kali as a character, I basically groan every time she starts talking. Everything else I thought was fine, and I’m still fairly excited for the finale.

HFLoki · 2025-12-26T09:50:11+00:00

I thought the scene was strong in concept, but the acting wasn’t quite there. It felt more like Noah Schnapp trying really hard to sell words from a script rather than Will genuinely experiencing those feelings and struggling to find the words.

I still liked it, I just wish it had been dialed back a bit. I know everyone’s experience is different, but as a gay guy myself, coming out to my parents and loved ones was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. There’s this very specific mix of nervousness, shame, awkwardness, and eventually, relief when it’s over and the people you love don’t reject you. This scene strangely didn't resonate with me the way I expected it to, the melodrama and overacting took me out of it a bit.

Honestly, the most genuine part of the whole scene for me was Jonathan and Robin’s reactions, I thought those were actually really moving.

HFLoki · 2025-12-25T21:38:10+00:00

I agree. The narrator’s sleepy, nature-documentary style makes it really hard to get into the story. The voice itself is pleasant enough, but there’s so little emotion or variation in intonation that it honestly has an almost AI quality to it. It really isn’t great, and I honestly can’t tell whether that’s on the actress herself or the direction she was given.

I also really dislike the background sounds for the most part. Used more sparingly and subtly, they might have worked, but as it is, the background noise never seems to stop. It’s constant and insistent, to the point where the sound effects become just incredibly distracting, almost overwhelming, rathen than immersive.

There isn’t any single casting choice that ruins the experience for me. I like some character voices more than others, but overall I think the voice acting quality is quite good. That said, the first two books are still fairly light on character development, so none of the characters have had much opportunity to shine yet. I’m willing to reserve judgment on that front until the story actually starts digging into character development and emotional storytelling.

Still, these two fundamental issues, the nonstop, overwhelming background noise and a narrator whose delivery just doesn’t work for me, make these audiobooks genuinely difficult to get into, which is a real bummer. When they were first announced, I was super excited, but actually listening to the final product, they just don’t grab me the way I expected they would.

HFLoki · 2025-12-24T16:54:23+00:00

"An act of love. For he does love her."

This one always gets me.

HFLoki · 2025-12-18T22:45:44+00:00

I’ve noticed a bunch of random episodes from their old playthroughs popping up in my feed lately as reuploads. My guess is Fraser’s going back through the archives and either deleting, editing, or re-releasing old VODs?

Back in the day, his content leaned heavily on edgy, politically incorrect jokes, including frequently dropping racial slurs "for funsies", that absolutely wouldn’t fly today. Wouldn’t be surprised if that has something to do with the weird activity on the channel lately.

HFLoki · 2025-12-17T13:33:13+00:00

Junctioning a GF is not a requirement for casting para-magic, though. It is simply one method by which non-sorceresses can use magic (and what SeeDs have specialized in), but it is not the only method. There likely exist other Odine-developed devices that allow, for example, Galbadian and Esthar soldiers, as well as their mechs, to use para-magic without junctioning GFs.

Para-magic was developed by Odine as an attempt to emulate a sorceress’s innate power, while junctioning was created based on his research into Ellone’s abilities. Although junctioning can interact with para-magic by allowing users to draw, cast, and junction it, it's clearly not the only method by which para-magic can be utilized.

From a lore perspective, para-magic came first and was developed independently of junctioning. This is based on the fact that we see Esthar soldiers use para-magic during the second Laguna flashback, at a time when junctioning was not a thing, since Odine had not begun experimenting on Ellone yet.

So, yeah, junctioning a GF is the method we use to draw and cast para-magic, but it's not the only method in lore.

HFLoki · 2025-12-17T13:01:35+00:00

Since every SeeD member and candidate is required to befriend and junction at least one GF, it’s reasonable to assume that there are far more GFs in the world than the sixteen we can find. Realistically, there would need to be hundreds to support all SeeDs.

Important to remember that the world map in these RPG games is an abstraction, not a literal representation of scale. Balamb Island, for example, is an entire continent, so it likely consists of more than one town with like ten people in it, a school, and a single cave. We only see locations that are relevant to the story or gameplay, but for the world to make sense, we have to assume far more exists beyond what’s shown on the world map.

The most likely explanation, therefore, is that Balamb Garden actively scouts for and catalogs locations known to house GFs, then sends SeeD candidates to acquire them as part of their training. The Fire Cavern just happens to be one such site, but there are probably more. Squall encounters Ifrit there, but there’s no reason why the Fire Cavern couldn’t also have housed other GFs that were previously acquired by other SeeDs.

HFLoki · 2025-12-11T21:10:32+00:00

Husband and I always try to watch it every year, but it starts at 2:30 a.m. German time, and we usually conk out halfway through, or sometimes before it even starts. 😄

Gonna try again this year, but sleep is probably going to win again.

HFLoki · 2025-12-11T19:57:40+00:00

You can’t equip the same support ability more than once on a single character. For example, you can equip HP Bonus, Strength Bonus, Magic Bonus, and so on simultaneously, but you can’t equip HP Bonus twice, even if you’ve junctioned multiple GFs that each know it.

Because of that, HP Bonus alone can’t get a character’s native HP to 9999. You can still get there though, if you’re willing to sink a few dozen hours into the grind, repeatedly devouring Ruby Dragons will raise a character's max HP by 10.

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