At its very core, FFXIV is a game about love and hope and journey.

i REALLY love stories where the main character can never go back they were someone else before but events have changed them so much they are someone else their friends and family will not understand who they have become because they were not there they did not experience it they did not see it happen

sorryf im being mentally ill about hallucination event right now SO in the LCSyS au, would there be something like it :o? Like after all of it's over or something, how crazy would it be if Jackalope tried to get them all together just to do one last concert?

Never apologize for being mentally ill about Milgram content 😌👍 We are all in it together 😔👍I'm combining this answer with a reply to @kikithedeceiver (and spiraling out of control from both)

I've had a lot of ideas about the project being public in LCSyS, but was holding off including it for few reasons – the audience’s voices would conflict with Es as their own character. Knowing the public was watching would change the way the prisoners acted (even if they thought they were acting natural). It’s a long time that the families would have to deal with the public knowing about their loved one’s almost-crime. I also like the idea of this au ending with the prisoners returning to very normal lives. 

Buuuuut it is such a fun idea, and popularity seems an essential part of an actors au. So, I’m not naming this as canon, but here’s a pitch if you liked that idea and wanted to run with it :3

The team doesn’t tell the participants that they’ve been recording/collecting certain material to release. If a translation is left out by accident, the prisoners just assume it’s for a foreign team member – they have no idea how close/far Milgram reaches. 

The third trial begins. The prisoners are inside the prison, and on the final stretch of the trials. On the outside, Jackalope contacts families for signatures to release the material publicly. The team thought about censoring names and things, but seeing current fans’ investigation skills, they knew it was a matter of time before they put pieces together anyway. This may be super illegal but for the sake of the story I’ll say that family consent is enough lmao.

Some of them are easy to convince to sign off on everything, since it can raise awareness for their loved one’s struggles. Muu’s family takes the longest, as it would risk ruining their reputation. (They’re only swayed because it truly is a great opportunity to show off Muu’s talents for those modeling scouts, and she didn’t actually kill anyone in the end.) Kazui’s family refuses to release his info, but Hinako uses sway with her marital status to sign off instead (I pictured things happening fast enough where she hasn’t gotten an official divorce yet). Hinako still struggles with what he did, but she thinks he’s doing something incredibly brave now. I’m not 100% sure what’s going through Amane’s father’s mind, but if the murder really was in line with the cult’s beliefs, maybe he believes that Amane will be be a shining representation of their religion. He wants to show her off as their little golden child.

The experiment is published in its current form: music videos, voice dramas, timeline conversations, interrogation questions, etc. It’s brought to more than just science/psychology circles, though. Jackalope has no shame in marketing it as entertainment, hence the stockholders mentioned. He assures the sociologists that this will be a major breakthrough for them. He tells music labels he's got the new hit thing for them. He leans into the excitement of releases and merchandise in the hopes of gaining attention for the experiment. Needless to say, it works. Even though the audience has no sway over Es’ decisions, they are encouraged to make decisions for themselves on what they would judge each prisoner. There’s the same types of theory/analysis/discourse posts passed around. 

When the trials end, the prisoners are released into the world to find they’re famous. Instead of trudging back to their lives feeling that society hates them, they find tons of adoring fans telling them how much they understand and forgive them. Even if their final verdict was guilty, they have hundreds of voices assuring them that they are loved. That they are not alone. This attention really helps Haruka, Amane, (and maybe Es) who don’t have a good home to go back to. Not only can they reenter society, they are welcomed with open arms. They are looked after and showered in love. Some of the adults realize they want to use this popularity to lead the charge of social change. They create/support projects meant to help people who are facing their struggles.

And of course, there’s the other type of fame as well. Yuno loves answering fanmail and turning her karaoke hobby into a music career. Kazui goes from a life of feeling rejected and disgusting to scrolling through comments upon comments of men oogling him. Mahiru gets offers from fashion magazines and blogs to write up sections about self-love. Amane gets to live out her dream of being a performer, hinted at in her first two mvs. Fuuta is flustered by all the positive attention his appearance/voice is getting. Mikoto… well, I just wish him luck when he opens tiktok…

Which brings us to the live event! The prisoners have tried to keep in touch while adjusting to their new lives as almost-murderers-turned-idols. They’re amazed at how well-recieved the trial songs were. Those were some of their most personal, shameful secrets, and people relate to them? People love singing them?? People want a concert featuring them??? Jackalope encourages them to get together for one last encore. Some are thrilled with the opportunity, others are still nervous about the whole thing. Some think it’s in poor taste, that Jackalope is milking them for entertainment. But with a bit of conversing amongst themselves, they realize they all want a chance to sing like that again, and see each other in one place again. (It’s ironic because in my head Mahiru is the one to convince everyone to come ;--;) 

It’s strange putting on the uniforms again. Es is unsure about putting on their guard’s cloak. But the minute they stop onstage, they’re met with wild applause. They can sing their fears and dreams to a huge crowd and see in real time how it’s reaching others. They hear the cheers after each song. They hear that it’s streamed all over the world. All of them have an absolute blast, and pour their heart and soul into their performances.

Why do all the Shining Nikki event plot lines always have to be so tragic?? Do they want my tears this much??

This dress-up game is always so dark LET THEM BE HAPPY SOMETIMES PLEASE!

Every event makes me want to go immediately write fix-it fics so they don’t have to be sad anymore but I also don’t want to undo the development they’ve had so I just sit here like 😭😭😭

ngl i love the naruto fic trend of 'kakashi goes back in time and has to try to fix everything'

I was watching a YouTube video about making zines and the person ended it with a call to action to be informed about Palestine and was like "And what better way than by reading zines???" There are. Um. Better ways...

idk i just hope the tournament organizers see this (and tbh probably inevitably rome also) as a real wakeup call as to how scheduling goes and how they need to give them a goddamn break. i honestly doubt it because i do not think any organizers really give a shit about the actual players (otherwise this would probably not have happened tbh) but i hope they get it together

it's kind of like amazing what being properly medicated and like leaving ur house and doing things with other people and like being a part of ur community can do for ur mental health.....

Engstars being unfair. Already dropping limited scout mer Hiyori in about a week & I have used up my dia to get both limited Ritsu & to push Jun event. I'm not ready for another limited scout that's probs gonna end up taking me almost 200 pulls. But maybe it's just the Sakuma brothers who hate me & Hiyori will come easy.

okay??

as a criminology student, i would honestly love to read an comics arc about the role of the police in vigilantism because i just think it's under-discussed for such a nuanced and complex topic.

JOHN KRAMER??? What are you doing in the sopranos season 3 finale??? Are you going to jigsaw tony? the mafia as a concept?

LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOO

*V1 voice* [LITERALLY SEETHING]

Owl what's your top three fave songs I need to know.

i dont really favorites tbh, i'm constantly changing around what i vibe with... and I usually forget how much music i like until i happen to stumble across it again by accident. but here's my eclectic binge of the week if youre curious

got back from the lake last night

it was a ton of fun and we spent most of it zooted out of our minds. but it also really hit me how much has changed in the last 8+ years. seeing a bunch of people that I hadnt seen since my teens or early 20s. it strangely put a lot of things into perspective for me, especially considering I feel like I lost time due to the pandemic.

all in all, a lot of relaxing and chatting and eating good food!

I've been thinking a lot lately about Delirium and the way she speaks. She talks around a concept, never hitting it head on but glancing off through a series of metaphors and related concepts that explain things far better than wording them straight might. It's very relatable, and I think that's why I like her; that's how I think.

To me, the world isn't composed of precisely defined concepts but a series of interconnected existences which can all, ultimately, be related to each other. I also experience things in the incredibly specific manner Delirium seems to. I have sensitivities largely untethered from aversions, meaning that while I don't often find things deeply unpleasant or intolerable, I still experience them with an unusual specificity which often defies concise explanation. The best way I can convey certain feelings or experiences is through other feelings, experiences, and concepts to weave together a series of approximations that through their similar and dissimilar traits narrow down to what I'm trying to describe. Delirium does this too, and it's treated as a part of her that's no better or worse than any other. There are those that don't understand and those that do, and those that at least try to are awarded for their efforts because finally and most importantly, she genuinely has something to say. Her speech patterns are deceptively rambling because she takes a long time to say what she means to say, while simultaneously saying exactly it.

Delirium is neurodivergent coded in such a cathartic way because of this. I feel her frustration and joy because I know what it's like to be the person trying to explain something that has no words to assign, asking all of the time if there's a word for what she's feeling as a rhetorical and genuine question so that she can explain something without explaining it and call into question why we feel everything must be precisely laid in the place of as few words as possible. She is incredibly intelligent, but loses track of all of what's happening in a far more obvious way than most because there's just so much to keep track of, which is also very relatable as a neurodivergent person. Without putting labels on the experience, she perfectly captures it. I just... I like Delirium quite a lot, and think she'd be very good at post-modern literature.