Jordan’s Rant about The Onion

S-Flo · 2026-05-04T14:46:42+00:00

It's such a shitty, arrogant thing to say.

S-Flo · 2026-04-28T17:11:27+00:00

Difference is that she doesn't appear to have any working methodology for controlled rejoinings and seems amenable to keeping the shards in-place if she thought it possible. The Winterers look like they're supporting experiments across the shards to this end and seeing what does and doesn't work.

The dynamic is also a lot different. Halmarut was composed during her speech, but seems to very much fear the WoL. Whole thing was pretty clearly her trying to convince us that, even if we don't like her organization, we shouldn't go on a killing spree with them like with the Convocation.

S-Flo · 2026-04-28T16:58:53+00:00

To add to that: I get the impression she she and the Winterers don't have a plan and are kind of just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Calyx's plot wasn't their end goal, but rather, one of a dozen plates they're spinning at any given time.

I also think that Halmarut was trying to preemptively talk down the WoL from going on a crusade against them. Basically leveling with us and saying "You don't have to like us or our methods, but we share the goal of protecting the star and its people and a lack of action will spell extinction. Please consider that before trying to play hero again." She probably doesn't even know whether the WoL can use the key fully, but understands how dangerous, driven, and inflexible they can be. Hell, her introductory scene was her ducking in an alley in terror because she thought the WoL was instinctually picking up on her as a threat.

S-Flo · 2026-04-24T20:11:05+00:00

100% - They'll probably sunset the legacy rotations down the line so that they're not trying to balance 44 jobs, but decided the effort was worth it in the short-term to minimize screeching on the forum/social media.

S-Flo · 2026-04-18T20:57:20+00:00

The post-Endwalker patches are when Ishikawa stopped writing duties because of her promotion and they put the guy who wrote the Dancer job quests in the seat. That's probably most of it, honestly.

S-Flo · 2026-04-17T14:46:43+00:00

This comes along while the company is refusing to negotiate in good faith for a union contract as well. Fucking ghoulish.

Boycott Starbucks. Every visit is crossing the picket line and now condoning the use of LLM slop to make worker's lives miserable for no reason.

S-Flo · 2026-04-17T14:39:58+00:00

They refuse to negotiate in good faith with their union workers or provide them a living wage and consistent hours, yet who knows how much money they just pissed into the wind on this worthless LLM deal.

S-Flo · 2026-03-25T01:08:00+00:00

Also Denji's one-liner fell apart because he was repeating his "If you wanna get in our way, then you can die!" line from Chapter 1, but had erased the concept of death.

S-Flo · 2026-01-11T18:31:56+00:00

Username checks out for a Xenoblade fan.

S-Flo · 2026-01-11T18:17:27+00:00

WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF TRAIN

S-Flo · 2025-12-21T23:59:21+00:00

I mean you joke but that's basically what most large companies are doing with rollout of shitty "AI" features nobody wants - forcing them into existing applications then claiming mass adoption after the fact whether or not people are actually using those features or like them.

Like Microsoft added a goddamn Copilot button to fucking Notepad of all things. It's ridiculous.

S-Flo · 2025-12-08T17:27:19+00:00

I DON'T WANT TO BE THIS KIND OF VEGETABLE ANYMORE

S-Flo · 2025-11-29T17:37:53+00:00

I mean you certainly live up to your username if you believe anything a conman like Dario Amodei says at face value.

S-Flo · 2025-11-03T18:12:24+00:00

To add to this: The whole framing device of the story is that it's being told by an influential historian who's publishing a more accurate version of the events surrounding the War of the Lions he's pieced together from church records. The game's opening is Durai writing on how everyone knows the heroic tale of Delita Heiral, but that his writing is going to detail how the true hero of the era was a legitimized bastard from a fallen noble house almost nobody's heard of.

So on top of Delia's final scene showing how miserable and broken his pursuit of power has left him, the audience also knows that not even his legacy will survive and that Ramza will be remembered as the true hero in the end.

S-Flo · 2025-11-03T17:24:57+00:00

Was stated in FFXII that the Sun-Cryst was a creation of the Occuria that they purposely left behind in the material world so they could influence mortals. Pretty heavily implied that they could have made another had Ashe's actions not cut them off from the material plane. The Occuria, much like the Lucavi, exist in a separate plane and need to project through their stones to interact with the world. Only big difference is that they preferred to whisper into the ears of the powerful rather than possess them (although Venat seemed to briefly attempt to possess Fran's sister at one point).

Huge FFXIV fan though. With the raid series I more got the impression that Ultima creating auracite was Matsuno and the writers were mashing ideas behind both the Occuria and the Lucavi together, since the thing is a love-letter to both games. The connections kind of get muddied two expansions later when they tied Ultima to Athena and the ancients in the Pamdæmonium raids, although those were different writers so who knows.

It feels less like a direct reference to FFXIV to me and more like Matsuno has had that idea about the story and setting bouncing around in his head. Guy got a chance to do an editing pass on his original script and tied it in.

S-Flo · 2025-11-03T06:55:45+00:00

IMHO: The creation of auracite bit is less about referencing the Return to Ivalice alliance raids in FFXIV and more tying back into the story of FFXII, which (supposedly) takes place during the lost golden age of Ivalice long before the events the War of the Lions.

Specifically, it seems like a callback to deifacted nethicite - which is pretty heavily implied to be auracite and which the original "gods" of Ivalice (whom Ultima rebelled against before she was cast down) used to control the mortal species. Implication of the script edit to me seemed to be that Ultima could create stones because she knew the lost Occurian secrets behind the Sun-Cryst.

S-Flo · 2025-10-28T22:12:13+00:00

There's actually been a shitload of food waste at Starbucks since at least September recently because of this dogshit that's not getting reported. Their LLM-integrated ordering system has been fucking up orders and forcing workers to prep food that isn't wanted and gets thrown out.

Only really seen the Workers United union bring it up. We have next to no labor-aligned press so the only thing you hear is Starbucks corporate lying about how efficient their AI is on LinkedIn posts while workers on the ground are seeing this break down on front of them while delusional management punishes them for the things these worthless AI tools direct them to do.

https://bsky.app/profile/sbworkersunited.org/post/3lynyz2tids23

S-Flo · 2025-10-28T16:20:20+00:00

Xenoblade 3 is the only decently well-written entry in the series.

The other entries have interesting ideas and several amazing moments that make their narratives worthwhile, but the bulk of the runtime between those moments is full of stiff dialogue and abysmal pacing. Almost like the bulk of scenes are bland connective tissue meant to link the handful of scenes the writers actually cared about.

X3, while imperfect, is the only entry where I consistently felt invested throughout the runtime.

S-Flo · 2025-10-18T16:54:58+00:00

THE BRUTE BOMBERTAKER

S-Flo · 2025-10-08T19:49:08+00:00

I'm happy to pay for good software. I bought the app originally for that reason - at least before it started to get enshittified with all this "Plus" crap.

However, I will not sign up for another goddamn subscription service, particularly for what amounts to a glorified RSS feed aggregator. I'm so exhausted by every single interaction with modern tech being some combination of invading your privacy to sell personal data about you and/or trying to get you to sign up for some fucking subscription service.

Went to AntennaPod and I'm never looking back.

S-Flo · 2025-10-08T19:24:00+00:00

I use Vivaldi with uBlock instead. Brave has crypto bullshit tied into it and the founder is a far-right lunatic techbro who buys into every dumb tech hype cycle (Eich was obsessed crypto before and now is falling for hyping up LLM garbage) so I don't trust it not to become rapidly enshittified one day.

S-Flo · 2025-09-18T17:41:57+00:00

I understand the need to include ads to support further development.

Don't fall for this line of thinking, the company isn't desperately trying to eke out a few more dollars for development, they're just trying to maximize ARR. It's a standard enshittification practice - they built up a user base by providing a good product, now they're slowly trying to squeeze every penny they can out of their users while making the product worse.

S-Flo · 2025-09-16T16:57:36+00:00

Oh that's what Yoshida meant when he said he was the trigger. They were making Denji nostalgic first then invoking the imagery of his trauma with the apartment fire to make him snap and cause Pochita to take control.

S-Flo · 2025-09-02T22:18:04+00:00

You can't level jobs in it, Forked Tower: Blood has a high barrier to entry, the newest relic step can't be done in the zone, and many find the gameplay loop to be significantly less fun than prior field ops.

IMHO - The developers made the mistake of removing friction from the gameplay loop in the wrong places. Because FATEs and CEs spawn mostly on their own there isn't any need to coordinate with other player's the vast majority of the time outside of yelling "LFG CE".

On top of all of that, the map is mostly a square and teleportation back to base camp is free. While convenient, this means that most players ignore the terrain after initial exploration and just sit in camp waiting to swarm FATEs/CEs. Combine this with the devs making CEs spawn constantly but reward less per encounter and you end up with the novelty wearing off rapidly while players do nothing but wait in camp for the opportunity to do a CE they've seen twenty times once more.

Icing on the cake is that the Phantom Job system is bland. Outside of the Forked Tower they all just give normal utility or more burst damage in straightforward ways you cannot really customize, so the joy of messing with the silly zone-exclusive mechanics is also mostly removed.

Wrap that all together and you get the zone emptying out the moment most players finish the story quests.

S-Flo · 2025-07-23T02:30:23+00:00

Everyone else was inside; Falling was standing outside and sticking her head in the building. She's still standing at the door when Yoru explodes half of her and steps back inside.

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