Dear Square Enix, can you remove the race restrictions on hairstyles?

[Shougun]

If it's not specific to any one race, then I don't think it's a big deal, personally.

What makes a hair logically locked though? I mean it's not like each race has it's own hair texture (I mean texture the feeling, not the computer texture), and while there is some lore/culture all the races are living together so as culture is very naturally shared in people living together.. the lore sort of fits in there too. I get having races look different is nice but is "hair" really what should be making the difference?

It's like when you research your heritage (whatever it is) and the clothing/style of your culture. If you see someone not from your culture, who looks very different from you, wearing or styling themselves after someone in your culture, there's something off (or wrong) about it. Keeping some things special for each race is a nice thing, it preserves a part of their "look and feel", especially in a game where these things are used, as a whole, to carve out their lore.

Culture adapts and changes, and imo in a small sense that I see it sometimes being pushed by certain groups.. needs to die lol. In older days because of slow communication/interaction/and heavy tribal attitudes we get these large differences, but as culture has ALWAYS behaved it shares and adapts at defining moments and is sometimes contradictory. For example MASSIVE amounts of non-Chinese Asian culture references and finds roots in Chinese culture, this is not a bad thing and for example you shouldn't feel like "kanji" isn't yours as a person who identifies with Japanese even though its pretty much Chinese characters but at the same time people who would suggest "Japanese" is only for Japanese.. hell no. (Language is just a very reactive living example of culture - just see how even in English we have different versions now, but if you wanted we could reference many Japanese myths which many have roots in Chinese myth).

Culture has and always will be a living growing body of memories that belongs to no specific person (even if specific people have large impacts), like a primal in FFXIV. Admittedly some primitive thought processes still exist where people are forced into a specific box, but if you live in an area that touts freedom and pursuit of happiness you should be pleased to tell those ideas to go evacuate themselves (to help vanquish foolish thought, boxes are silly). If you wanted to gather the energy (crystals) required and pray to the "vath" primal you totally could. You do not need to be vath to summon the vath primal. I do not need to Au Ra to enjoy Au Ra culture, I do not need to be Japanese to pray at a Japanese temple and wear traditional Japanese clothes and while I don't really do the later if I did and someone had issue with it I'd kindly tell them to keep it to themselves cause I don't care lol. I suppose I may need to be Au Ra to do X IF they actually had some special ability (can fly) or Eorzea is a place where behaviors are exclusive "NO YOU CANT WEAR THAT, YOU'RE NOT AU RA WHITE/BLACK!" XD.

Culture has been shared from person to person country to country, and you don't own it - you only allow yourself to breathe it in and out. Those who forbid you to breath the same/other air of culture because of your looks... ugh.. lol.

In a game sense It's not that bad I'm not actually annoyed (I think it's funny to see the races be racist in FFXI for example), but if we're using culture logic and we're in a civilization that is actually civilized then in a real world sense if someone uses that logic.. That significantly bothers me, as it ignores how our history and interactions have developed through time it ignores the very logic of how we develop and attributes things by default to people who may or may not have even done or experienced things that would relate to that culture. I guess you could example it like someone born in the US is an American even if they're not white right? And if you get crap and separated out because of your color it's called racism and isn't cool, you're one of us it's not about being white and people who use that tribal BS.. you know the drill. Similarly if I'm born in Japan as a white person I can if I so desire breathe Japanese culture, the Japanese blooded American does not have more "RIGHT" to Japan culture than the person who was born and lived there their whole life but happened to be white (except for circumstances of racism, in which case we should all know people make bad decisions but its due to the racism that they're denied right and not because they shouldn't have it).

Perhaps in game there is culture exclusion behavior between the three cities but at least as my character I've never felt like I was bound to any group of people, I was a foreign adventurer who became a member of the Immortal Flames but fight for all three groups and partake in FC as a freebody.

Tl;dr of that culture rant: Is there a strong level of exclusion and racism in the Eorzea region (discounting Garlean who we're not), because I don't recall.. and if not I don't think culture is a strong argument. If there is I missed it but then at least we have a strong story on why its separated. At least imo.