@koopytron
Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't a set like this help expose people to cultures that they might not have known about? What about players that live in that country and want to dress up in their traditional clothes, are they not allowed to?
I’m responding over here mostly because my reply got a bit long.
First off, I’m no authority on the Sámi. I want to make that very clear - I’m just echoing what has been said so far by people who have a vested interest in this gear’s removal. And again, I want to reiterate by pointing out that for information your best bets are the initial letter to Square Enix, as well as this thread by a Sámi player.
The argument for exposure looks nice on paper, but usually isn’t ever executed well - especially in the case of the Far Northern attire. FFXIV isn’t set up to teach people about cultures (unless it’s Stormblood and the two different fantasy Japans), it’s set up to use cultures as an aesthetic to give each nation a bit of flavor. Thavnair is India, Ul’dah is your typical desert city, the elves are French, Ala Mhigans are Kurdish and Armenian, Xaela are Mongolian etc etc. And how much care that goes into representing and educating players about these cultures varies depending on who it is and if Square cares about them. And every instance of an indigenous culture has been the exact opposite. Even their treatment of the Xaela and Ala Mhigans are extremely demeaning, but that’s a different topic altogether.
If Square had any interest in exposing people to Sámi culture, they would have contacted the tribe for a collaboration and make them have more of a presence in game than just a glam item that costs $18USD. They would’ve also done research into what gákti actually look like, and maybe named each piece appropriately. Instead, we have an offensive caricature that costs $18USD, doesn’t have any cultural presence in the game, and is nothing but a disconnected costume meant to line their paychecks. And as a reminder: the Sámi were never contacted, Square has not reached out after this demand, and they’ve received no money for Square using their material culture for profit. What’s sad is Disney did better than them after Frozen, as they similarly appropriated their regalia and even took their music. Frozen 2 saw them collaborating and the film was even released in one of the Sámi languages, though I’m not entirely sure if they ever saw any amount of the film’s revenue - if someone happens to see this and they know, feel free to correct me.
I think the more important thing here is: do we even want Square to be exposing players to Sámi culture? Because they do not have a good track record when it concerns portraying indigenous cultures. Anyone can feel free to add in stuff I’ve missed, but there are plenty examples through the entire Final Fantasy franchise - including, but not limited to: including monsters that have roots in nativist imagery (anthropophage) but naming them after a particular spirit in Algonquin folklore that people keep asking to not be named or included in media; the entirety of Red XIII’s character (even the name he’s introduced by, despite him actually being named Nanaki); the initial portrayal of the Ronso in X (that then got “sophisticated” into the suddenly Icelandic Hrothgar); and the palewashing of Viera (mesoamerican indigenous coded in XII) in the jump to XIV by only focusing on the palest of individuals and making most of them white-looking.
And then there’s the stuff in XIV. Most of the Tribes (which up until recently were literally known as beast tribes) up until Stormblood are based in some racist depiction of indigenous peoples - like Square did all of their research through racist American movies from the past century. Many speak in the stilted English you’d see in racist advertisements and media (eg. the Vanu Vanu, and the yoda-like speak of the Ixal), they’re all anthropomorphized animals to some degree and not at all...y’know, human; you spend a significant amount of the game hunting them and being rewarded for doing so (especially if you do daily Clan Centurio marks), many are based on real cultures (Ixal are clearly meso-/south american, Vanu Vanu literally have totems and everything), and the Amalj’aa embody the entire Noble Savage trope to a T (only source for this is unfortunately Wikipedia because everything else was paywalled or didn’t touch on how racist this is). We only saw this shift in not calling them “beast” tribes anymore around Stormblood because we suddenly got the Kojin (respected merchants based on Kappa), and the Namazu - techincally also the Lupin, but the shared factor is that they’re all predominant Japanese cultures that they’d never bastardize because the entire Doma half of Stormblood is them drinking the Japanese Imperialism kool-aid (again, another topic altogether and best discussed by someone like the journalist, Kazuma Hashimoto - who goes into it a lot on streams). After that, we saw a deemphasis on indigenous cultures in the tribe quests and the removal of the name once Dwarves, Pixies, Arkosodara, Loporrits, and Omicrons were added. Qitari are loosely here because they are the First equivalent of the Qiqirn, but they’d still “fit” in the old category by Square’s measure.
And then of course the Whalaqee, the entire New World nonsense, how they portray the Mamool’ja (who are from the “New World”), and the entire racist premise of the BLU questline. Which is literally just “White Savior is the only one who can save this dying native tribe from evil oil ceruleum barons who brought diseases over, and your main reps are two animal looking guys and a very pale native boy like the tropes from the old movies”. And yes, this is where the racist New World gear comes in, because that’s the clothing every single member of the Whalaqee wear despite it being a disgusting caricature of ceremonial gear with the war bonnet and everything. The Mamool’ja are also frequently depicted as unintelligent and only suited for war, and are extremely sexual and there’s a fate where one gets kicked out of the Camp Bronze Lake baths for being too sexual. Which again: nativist stereotypes that don’t just apply to indigenous tribes of the Americas, but also Japan’s own indigenous peoples - especially the Ryuukyuuan!
The New World gear wasn’t put in there to expose players to indigenous cultures. They included a racist caricature so people could play dress up with those pieces, and locking their (racist) context behind a side quest most people skip or ignore. And what ends up happening is whenever I do see players wearing it, it’s almost never people of those cultures doing it “for their own sake” - as it’s a racist caricature and not actually their cultural clothing or what they’d wear - it’s instead people playing out the racist caricatures. I’ve seen white catgirls with neon pink war bonnets and bikinis, I’ve seen literal red-skinned players in the full get up, and many other offensive costumes that’s come as a result of this set being in the game.
But that set is obtainable through normal gameplay. The Far Northern set is paywalled, making this especially egregious that it’s a racist caricature of Sámi regalia that they’re making a load of money off of.
There is no in game “Far Northern” culture - it’s just a racist costume for players (and they’re designing this for the majority white, and Yamato Japanese player base) to play dress up with. They design the game with dominant cultures in mind (hence why everything is so heavy handed with European and Japanese aesthetics and gear, but there’s a suspicious lack of Korean and SWANA names, material culture, etc. when both exist in the game in their own ways through “Far Eastern” attire and Ala Mhigan stuff). If they’d had any intention on exposing the players to Sámi culture, they would’ve contacted the Sámi for sensitivity or even just copyright issues.
But they didn’t.
Exposing and teaching other people about cultures varies depending on who you’re talking about. It’s especially sensitive when you have a matter of appropriating not only a minority culture, but one that’s being suffocated by colonization and majority culture appropriation. It’s why it’s not really an issue that places like Ishgard are a few mixes of European stuff, or that Hingashi is based in Japan pre-border opening, but it’s a major issue for them to bastardize Mongolian, Armenian, Kurdish, and the various indigenous cultures that they have in their inclusion through the Xaela (described as barbaric, and “will eventually be their own extinction” according to the Namazu quests), the Ala Mhigans (who are not treated with the same level of dignity or respect as the Domans, and are portrayed as aggressive and lower class), and the ARR-HVW tribe quests + the Whalaqee (see the above).
It’s fine to want to expose people to other cultures. You just have to do it on the terms of the cultures themselves. And going behind the backs of the Sámi people and creating a racist costume that costs $18USD isn’t exposing anyone to their culture (if they did, it’s through discourse like this); it’s just Square making money off of a racist costume so people can play dress up with regalia that isn’t theirs.
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Everyone always talks about John "share my wife" Price but what about Kyle "our girlfriend" Garrick???
18+
It starts with you and him on the couch together. You've got your hand in his pants and he's got his tongue down your throat. You're pumping his cock while he pants into your mouth when his phone rings- someone is video calling him. You glance at his phone sitting beside him, discarded on the couch cushion when you first crawled over to him to kiss his neck. The icon on the screen is a familiar one: a mischievous grin with a mohawk on top.
"Answer it," you say as you slide down the couch and onto your knees in front of him.
"What?" He asks, his eyes wide as saucers as you hand him the phone.
"Answer it," you say again with a devilish grin, still stroking him slowly. With a shaky breath to school his expression, he answers it.
Gaz tries his best to stay nonchalant, not even listening to Soap's chatter through the phone, but you have other plans. Gaz let's out a surprised grunt and jerks when you take his cockhead into your mouth.
"You alright mate?" Soap asks after a momentary pause.
"Yeah-yeah," Gaz answers too quickly. "Muscle spasm. Got a- ah- knot in my shoulder." You can't help but smile around his dick as you bob your head up and down his shaft. He glances down at you with a frustrated huff. Soap makes a noise on the phone.
"That's rough, mate. You should ask your girl to help you rub it out." You nearly choke at the unintended double entendre. "Where is she anyway? Wanna say hi."
"Uh... she's-" whatever half-baked excuse Gaz was about to spout off is cut off by the sudden sucking noise your lips made on "accident". Gaz freezes, looking past the phone at you, and Soap is silent on the other line. You continue to swirl your tongue around Gaz's tip.
"...Gaz?" Soap asks slowly. Gaz doesn't answer, his chest heaving in an effort to maintain his composure. "What's going on?" Gaz's eyes darted back and forth between you and the phone, silently willing you to stop so he wont get caught. Instead, you make yourself gag on his length, causing him to grunt involuntarily.
"Holy shite, Gaz... are you...?" Soap sounds suddenly breathless at the sounds he hears on his phone. They aren't unfamiliar to him, but usually they're accompanied by a little orange logo, not by his best mate on FaceTime. "Turn the camera around."
Gaz's jaw drops with a pant. Oh, he's so caught. He stares down at you, and you nod your head before sucking hard. With a shaky hand, he taps the screen, and you hear Soap groan over the speaker. You suck off Gaz's tip with a wet pop and smile.
"Hi Soap," you say conversationally, as if Gaz's cock wasn't there right in your face, as if you didn't have drool and precum dripping down your chin. You stare up into the camera phone as you stick your tongue out and lick up and down the shaft.
"Steamin' Jesus," Soap says, and there's a rustling over the speaker. "Garrick, you dog," he growls. You put on a show for him, pumping Gaz in your hand while you mouth at his balls, making him moan out loud. He's already been caught, no use hiding it anymore.
Soap gets himself off to it. You can hear his groans of pleasure over the phone mixing with Gaz's, can hear the wet sounds of him stroking himself. When you finally get Gaz to cum on your face, you smile at the pleasured moan Soap let's out. Gaz smears his cum over your lips with his thumb and with a smirk he says,
"What are you doing tonight, Tav?"
"I'll be over in an hour," Soap replies.
The three of you go at it for hours, round after round, multiple positions, every combination. And while you were the center of their attention for most of it, it was also incredible hot to watch them together, making out above you, jerking each other's cocks. By the end of the night, when everyone's needs had been met and you all were exhausted, you all agree it was the best sex of any of your lives. And you all three agree: there's no going back after this.
Soap comes over more and more often for threesomes, but a couple times it was just you and him, or him and Gaz. The three of you find a rhythm and balance together, happy and very well satisfied.
Gaz is out of the country when Ghost finds out. And. He. Is. Livid.
He'd borrowed Soap's phone for something, he doesn't remember what he needed, because once he saw the video of you and Soap on his phone he swears he saw red.
Soap had never seen his LT so angry, especially not toward him. Ghost has him backed into the wall, face in his face, barking at him like a mad dog.
"Have you gone fucking mad? You've got a lot of fucking nerve, Sergeant! Showin' your face to Gaz while you're giving him the runaround! Fucking his girl behind his back! You should be ashamed! He's our teammate, he's our BROTHER!" And in a blind panic, Soap shouts out:
"He knows!" It's enough to make Ghost pause his tirade for a moment, giving the shorter man an incredulous look.
"Bullshit."
"He does! He knows, I can prove it!" Soap pleads, and slowly holds out his hand. Ghost pins him with a glare but hands him the phone anyway.
Soap opens up the group chat the three of you share and turns the phone to show to Ghost. There's a variety of messages, some casual, some flirtatious, but what really catches Ghost's eye are the videos.
The first is the one that sent him into a fit in the first place: you're bent over in front of a mirror while Soap rams into you from behind. The video is sent with a message reading "taking care of our girl while you're gone x" The next video is sent from your POV as you bounce on Gaz’s cock. Then a video sent from Gaz's number that seems to be in the barracks shower of all places, the phone propped up somehow capturing the two Sergeants wet and naked. Gaz steps back from the camera and embraces Soap with a heated kiss. They each wrap a hand around both their cocks together and jerk themselves off to a simultaneous finish.
As Ghost scrolls through the chat, Soap, still pinned to the wall, takes notice of the way Ghost's breathing steadily gets heavier and heavier. And he DEFINITELY notices the growing weight pressed against his stomach. He gives an experimental grind of his hips. Ghost's eyes snap back up to him. They're still full of fire, but for a completely different reason.
"You got me stuck between a rock and a hard place, here, LT." He jokes with a gravelly voice. "But you know what they say... the more the merrier." In a matter of minutes, Ghost had Soap turned around, and both their pants are down by their ankles.
Gaz gets a new message in the chat later that night. The video starts focused on your face, your mouth deepthroating Soap and your eyes rolled back in your head as your body gets jostled roughly by... someone else. The camera pans down your body, showing you on your hands and knees, and a thick, wide body fucking into you from behind. A familiar tattoo sleeve catches Gaz's eye, and finally the camera pans up to show that infamous skull mask that he knows so well. The video is captioned: "found a new playmate for us... don't tell the captain ;)"
The captain, of course, does find out sooner rather than later. The team is gathered at you and Gaz’s home to watch a football game. Most of the sports terminology goes over your head, but you're glad to have all your boys together... plus their captain.
You think you're being subtle about everything, but Price notices. His job is noticing things. Countless life-or-death situations have counted on Price noticing little things. So of course he notices your heated glances at Soap, the way you leave lingering touches on Ghost when you pass by him. You, nestled into your boyfriend's side with his arm around you while you make eyes at his teammates. It makes his blood boil.
He confronts you in the kitchen. You got up to fetch yourself a drink and he waits a moment before he follows you in. You turn around from the fridge to see him standing behind you. His face is impassive and unreadable. You linger there a moment in confusion. He's usually so friendly toward you. Finally he breaks the silence first.
"You know, Kyle really cares about you. Talks about you all the time, talks about how much he loves you. You've got that poor boy wrapped around your little finger, you know that?"
"Th-thank you...?" You stutter, completely caught off-guard. The cold tone of his voice doesn't match his kind words. There's an edge to it, a dangerous one. He shakes his head at you.
"He doesn't deserve this. He's a good man."
"Doesn't deserve what?" You ask, glancing down at the extra beer in your hand that you'd gotten for Gaz. He doesn't deserve beer?
"You think I don't know what's going on?" He accuses with a step forward. "You think I don't see it?"
"See what?" You ask, growing more and more worried with every passing second. Price scoffs.
"You know, I've seen this a lot. Men in the service go out and risk their lives, all the while back home their girl is running circles around them." He huffs, giving you a look you'd never seen before. It makes you feel... gross. "Thought you were different, though. Thought you could be trusted. And to do it with his teammates?" His eyes narrow and his nose wrinkles in disgust. You gasp in realization. He thinks you're cheating!
"John, you don't understand-"
"You think I'm stupid?"
"No!"
"What's going on?" Gaz asks from the doorway. He was wondering what was taking you both so long, but he didn't expect to find you close to tears cornered by his captain. Price turns his body toward him, but keeps his eyes on you.
"Do you want to tell him, or should I?" He asks. You open and close your mouth but nothing comes out. Your brain is overworking trying to figure out an answer. You can't tell him the truth, you'd get your boys in trouble! Should you just admit to it? Take the blame to protect them? Before you can come up with the words, Soap and Ghost enter the room behind Gaz. Price turns his attention to them, and you breathe out in relief to have his glare off you.
"Or maybe you two would like to tell him?" He proposes, voice slightly raised. The tension in the room is suffocating. Price stares the other two down as Gaz looks from one person to the other, putting the pieces together.
"Price it's not what you think," he says with his hands out in a placating gesture. Price tilts his head.
"Kyle, I'm sorry to have to tell you-"
"They're not going round my back, Price. I know." Price shuffles his feet a bit.
"You... know?"
"The four of us have... an arrangement." Gaz walks over to you and wraps an arm around you. "She's done nothing wrong, don't be cross with her. Neither have Ghost or Soap. She's not just my girlfriend, she's our girlfriend." Gaz holds Price's eyes.
"And the four of you are..."
"Together. Is that a problem, Captain?" Price quirks an eyebrow at his sergeant's challenge, but after a moment shakes his head.
"No. No, not a problem. Just keep it tactical on the field. Copy?"
"Yes sir." Price turns to Soap and Ghost.
"Copy?"
"Yes sir," they answer in unison. Price looks at you again and his expression softens, dropping his Captain persona for your sake.
"I owe you an apology," he starts.
"It's alright," you interrupt, giving him a shy smile. "You were just looking out for Kyle."
"You should've seen Ghost when he found out. Nearly bit my head off," Soap says, lightening the mood. But Price's eyes still linger.
"Game's still on," Ghost says, "if you all are done being dramatic." The five of you file back into the living room to finish out the game with you still nestled into Gaz's side, this time openly joined by Soap on your other side. Throughout the game, as the men banter about whose team is better, Price kept glancing over at you.
The game ends and as everybody winds down, Price watches the affection you gave the other three.
"I have to wonder, though," he starts, "what it is that's got all three of my men so wrapped up in you..." Your eyes dart from one man to the other as each of them catch onto Price's meaning.
"Well... it'd be a shame not to include that captain, right boys?" Gaz teases.
"The more the merrier-"
"Shut up MacTavish, fucks sake," Ghost huffs, still with a smirk.
"I still owe you a proper apology, sweetheart," Price says, beckoning you to sit on his lap.
And apologize, he does, in the form of his face between your thighs, pulling orgasm after orgasm from you. Eventually, the five of you wind up in the bedroom, tasting and teasing and fucking one another.
"We're going to need a bigger bed..."
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