Gender locked race?

[Fland]

I sure do. Link

Q38: In terms of new races, what kind of races are you looking into and will mixed races be introduced?

A38: I don’t think we’ll have mixed races for a while. Since it seems like Viera is popular around the world we have been proactively looking into this, but since having a rabbit male might be kind of weird, maybe we’ll look into having a separate race for the male counterpart.

I don't get it. Why is having male rabbit weird?

[Kupocoubo]

I don't get it. Why is having male rabbit weird?

Maybe some people kind of fetishize rabbit ? Is that a thing in Japan ? If I remember well, Dragon Quest and Bravely Default (both from Square Enix) have also some kind of "sexy rabbit". Is it related to Playboy ?
It would also implies that fetishize girls is ok but to fetishize boys is "kind of weird"

[Jaywalker]

Also, that thing I mentioned on tones? Super, super important imo. When I look at stuff I'm reading into the different impressions various races make as well as body types and facial features. Elegant is different from cute or tough or cool and so forth. Part of why I'm :// about the animal thing is because I think it falls into repeating tones by evoking closer to nature, bestial, etc. At least with rabbits, cats, and reptiles you have herbivores vs carnivores, mammals versus non-mammals, all that. It's more similar than I'd like, but I can kind of deal. If you have two mammal carnivores and they're literally both in the cat family, lions are pretty hulky so it would be more muscle when we already have a lot of big beefy characters, and Hellsguard can literally give the impression of big cats ANYWAY? To me that seems like a tremendous waste.

On silhouettes, I disagree that FFXIV is poor in that regard and would argue instead that it depends on where you look and what you're looking for. It is a thing that biological men and women build muscle differently and have fat deposits in different places. Usually (not universally, but usually) there is a more dramatic range in terms of how big or small a man's body might be compared to a woman's.

I'm also conscious looking at FFXIV that in Asia certain body types are more or less common as well. Have you noticed that a western plus size tends to be dramatically different from an Asian one? It's not because of being mean, it's because there's less demand for larger sizes in Asia.

I've already said I think female miqo'te and female au ra are too similar. I feel a bit on the fence with Roegadyn frankly, because while I like the female frames more than the male ones I think the sheer size of the male roes stands out in a good way. Part of me would like them to be a bit less dimorphic there. Similar kind of thing with highlanders. I think part of why I'm not bothered is because frankly bodies like that are not shown much, if at all, in some of the places I'm coming from. I'm used to femininity, conventional beauty standards, and biologically female bodies being absolutely demonized so my overwhelming sense here is relief.

A very tall, thin, willowy frame is one thing I wanted to help set female figures apart. I don't really expect and am not looking for female races to have the same level of height and bulky musculature as male races both because of Asian beauty standards and because biologically male and female bodies do have some differences in that respect. It's possible to be like "oh but what about the most extreme female body builders" here but those are not functional but show muscles and frankly there's an unhealthily low level of body fat for women on some of them that looks pretty steroid-y.

[Jaywalker]

I would have liked playable dwarves as taller than lalafells, shorter than miqo'te and female au ra. I would have liked to see a short, somewhat fuller frame from SE there and I'd still be interested in seeing how they might approach a body type like that with more definition than lalafells. With Viera having been hit, that's what I'd like to see from them next if Viera have both males and females available.

I'm squinting at you a little on the elezen versus viera thing though. Shoulders, hips, chest/bust, neck, those are all really big proportional differences. I mention the shoulders specifically since it's SUPER noticeable. Legs are different as well, and facial features/facial tone is huuuuugely different. Stuff like eye size/shape, nose size/shape, mouths and particularly mouth definition... I'm looking very, very closely at that. From where I'm standing they're substantially different.

I absolutely do not think a lion race would only need more narrow shoulders and different ears. The reason I mentioned ears for Viera is because they help emphasize height and bring the eye in a vertical direction to a degree other races have not matched the same way. Like I said the redundancy in feline features is a major issue for me, but so is having yet ANOTHER tall, buff race.

You think I'm applying a double standard. I've just explained in great detail and using a perspective you may not have considered (by virtue of not being psychic) why I'm not. To me, it looks a little like you're being disingenuous and neglecting a lot of major elements that to me are givens. I'd like to give you a benefit of the doubt, but I'm mentioning this because sometimes communicating through text can be tricky. If we are just coming at this from different perspectives, I'd rather take this as an opportunity for further understanding than some kind of confrontation.

[Jaywalker]

I think some of it is because rabbits tend to be seen as soft and cutesy and super gentle, and that's at odds with traditional masculinity. Also the stuff Kupocoubo said.

I'm willing to cut a little slack on the comment because it reminds me of how say, unicorns have a specific overly light and sweet connotation now but they didn't used to. Guy bunnies could be like Watership Down or could be taken in the vein of hares or jackrabbits where there's nothing jarring. At a certain point just gotta get over it imo.

[Kupocoubo]

I find it weird to associate some animals with "masculinity" and "feminity"... meh. Humans are weird

[Roda]

I find it weird to associate some animals with "masculinity" and "feminity"... meh. Humans are weird

What's also weird is that, at least in the west, I can really only think of masculine rabbit examples.
(peter rabbit, bugs bunny, roger rabbit, rabbit from winnie the pooh, Buster from Arthur, thumper, the white rabbit from alice in wonderland)

So like, "rabbits can't be masculine enough" is weird on a biological (and I do hate to use this word, but really rational) standpoint, but "female rabbits are the only normal depiction" is weird on a cultural standpoint as well.

[Kupocoubo]

What's also weird is that, at least in the west, I can really only think of masculine rabbit examples.
(peter rabbit, bugs bunny, roger rabbit, rabbit from winnie the pooh, Buster from Arthur, thumper, the white rabbit from alice in wonderland)

So like, "rabbits can't be masculine enough" is weird on a biological (and I do hate to use this word, but really rational) standpoint, but "female rabbits are the only normal depiction" is weird on a cultural standpoint as well.

Maybe it's a modern japanese thing. Tsukuyomi, the japanese god of the moon, is female in FFXIV, and has rabbit ears because the moon is associated with rabbits in Japan.

[Roda]

Maybe it's a modern japanese thing. Tsukuyomi, the japanese god of the moon, is female in FFXIV, and has rabbit ears because the moon is associated with rabbits in Japan.

Which is odd because tsukuyomi in real mythology is male @@

[Kupocoubo]

Which is odd because tsukuyomi in real mythology is male @@

Yes it's really odd, I don't really like when gods change gender in some video games, like Shiva in FF