Sorry I think you're right that I might be misunderstanding you. You mean the shelling of civilian centers, including with cluster munitions, by the Ukrainian armed forces was BS? That is a verifiable fact though. That's why I thought you must be referring to something else.
It was reported on by the UN Human Rights Council and the NYT back in 2014/2015, back when such stories could still be printed, not exactly famed Russian-biased propaganda outlets or questionable internet sources.
Read most of these and some I agree with, some I don't.
Weeks is okay, but I don't think Night Angel is a "must read".
I liked the Dresden Files well enough, but I don't think it is must-read either. They were fun reads, but he wouldn't be in the top authors even of urban fantasy specifically.
I don't read them really, but Harry Potter seems influential enough that it should probably be on the list. I might make a case for some Scott Lynch and Robin Hobb to be there too. Sorta surprised neither Terry Brooks nor Terry Goodkind made the cut either, though I haven't personally read them since I was very young.
Apparently Russian civilians, and journalists at that, don’t count.
Disgustingly, I have definitely heard people make that case with a straight face, look at all the people celebrating a Russian civilian being killed by a shark. They only care about warcrimes from The Other Team.
Which part of their statement exactly are you claiming to be BS? The numbers or something else?
That isn’t true of Ukraine or it’s supporters.
Journalists have been jailed for exactly that in Ukraine and some NATO countries though, so it is definitely true for some of those places.
I wasn't a massive XIV fan at the outset, but there has definitely been a trend in the game design I didn't like as it moved towards later expansions. They continually moved away from any kind of player agency/customization, so everything is super homogenized now (or at least when I last played). I stopped around the end of Shadowbringers, never actually got into Endwalker content.
They used to have cross-class skills and things like that, so it really felt like a FF job system where you would play different classes to unlock skills for your main. I think any FF player should be pretty comfortable with that. They have since simplified that, which I am sure is great for newer players but I don't really like it. Now, if I am a level 80 warrior I am exactly the same as every other level 80 warrior, except for the number next to my item level. That kind of customization is a big part of both MMOs and FFs for me, usually.
Killer soundtrack though, Soken does good work.
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It's kind of a long standing quality of the series, since they are always trying new stuff that will resonate with different people. Outside of like actual FF2 (I assume you are talking about IV since you mention the SNES) I think I have heard people make a case for every FF being their favourite. Which is great, I am glad they try to shake it up every time.
Both of the projects Yoshida has been involved with I have been pretty lukewarm on though, so I am just a bit concerned if he is going to be the proverbial face of the series moving forward.
I love FF, played them all and generally liked every one to varying degrees. I am about there with you overall on XVI. I liked my time with FFXVI well enough, but in my overall series hierarchy it is basically smack dab in the middle. I thought it was good but it didn't blow me away like a lot of people are raving about. I certainly don't regret playing it, but I also wouldn't want to see this be the direction they take the series from now on.
I liked the characters a lot more than I expected. Story had pacing issues but overall it was good. Music was more atmospheric but generally quite well done, though thinking back to it now I can't really recall any of the music.
Gameplay-wise though, it felt like it was lacking a lot of RPG elements. I don't mind action combat at all, I am not a turn-based purist and I loved FF7R, but the combat in FFXVI seemed like a big step back. There really wasn't any itemization, levels didn't feel that impactful, and even unlocking nodes on the skilltree felt very low impact. About halfway through the game I had unlocked everything I would use until the end of the game, so skill points really ceased to matter. There were no resistances or elements, so even though the game makes a big deal about learning different magic-types (which are all 100% the same as each other), you can approach every single fight exactly the same. The big bombastic kaiju fights people loved were actually my least favourite part though. You were basically given a simplified version of the character you normally play, and they were all about 30% too long. They were a spectacle but weren't actually all that fun or interesting to play.
Unless you were on explicitly communist subs, reddit was extremely hostile to communists. You could definitely get banned from some subs just by association.
Porn was everywhere though, yeah.
They are communist in name only.
Russia hasn't been communist in even name since it was part of the USSR. The only people who really consider them communist are liberals who don't understand the difference between the USSR and the Russian Federation.
I am not the Official Spokesman of Communism, but most communities I have seen and participate in aren't pro-modern Russia. We might be against things like banning anything with "russian" in the name, but that doesn't mean we see them as the second coming of the USSR. The Russian Federation is still an imperialist capitalist nation as much as any of the others.
You have the patsocs and stuff that might be more on board with Russia, but we don't really claim them.
People have been saying this for over a decade. It hasn't happened. Heck, Gordon Chang's entire career is based off writing a "China is about to collapse" book every couple years. If anything, their economic position has continued to strengthen.