Gender locked race?

[Shougun]

Before I leave, this could be cool.

I believe that's probable. If the leak about using the tower to travel through, and we milk the lion references from the trailer (kuribu's lore says they are made in the vision of people from another plane).

Would also make sense we haven't heard a lick of them until they've dropped pretty much (as you read in this thread "if they're real where are they, are they going to come out of no where?" evidently that might be a yes lol).

[Theodric]

Yeah, uhm... DQXI has a bishonen protagonist, Erik can also qualify as bisonen, not to mention Sylvando is particularily feminine, and those are 3 of 4 playable males. RE2 prettyfied Leon, reviews of DMC5 have explicitly used the word "twinks" to refer to the main characters. SC6 keeps Siegfried of the flowing locks, Mitsurugi, and Maxi, but removed THE bara daddy of the series, Rock (at least his body hair is still in CC). So, I wouldn't say "embraced masculitnity", in fact, in most of those games, the masculinity was always there: RE (Chris, since forever), MH (male hunters since, again, forever), DMC, SC (Rock, Mitsurugi, Algol...).

I mean, I'd rather male Viera were tall and decently built, but c'mon, man, you are deliberately stirring the pot :P

They're all distinctly male though. Ranging from 'classically handsome' to 'ruggedly handsome'. Very few characters are outright androgynous or feminine to the degree that some are requesting within this thread and painting as much more common than they actually are. Masculinity is a broad spectrum and need not be fixed on the 'bara' side of the spectrum.

Idk about that tons of people have requested young elezen

Tons? Some, sure. Though of those, a few appear to have dubious motives. Not in your case, since you've already clarified that you dig the 'young hero' aesthetic which is different.

[cicatriz313]

Idk about that tons of people have requested young elezen

I've honestly never seen it brought up before you lol. Some people perked up at the fanfest artist comment but that was because people assumed it meant the little bunny body type could be a thing.

[CoolDad]

No, I'm not. You're specifically requesting a child-like aesthetic and such a thing already exists in-game. You're also repeatedly claiming that we can't have another 'bara' race because they already exist. Surely the same argument can be made for the aesthetics that you desire?

It's pretty clear to me that they're just asking for slender/boyish aka what you see as the lead in nearly every JRPG and anime today. What you're telling them they actually want to play as is a tiny race of potato people, which this is not.
Body type they're asking for:

Body type you're telling them is close:


It's fine if you don't like or want that but it's not something that already exists in this game.

I think SE will just do whatever they please and lore and all that don't matter a lick in this game. They wanted more petite, cute girls so they made female Au Ra into that in spite of any lore reason. They wanted more tall edgy dudes so they made male Au Ra into that. They will do the same thing again if they want to.

That said, people can want something different regardless and I don't think they need to scan the lore to justify themselves. The only female races that look like THEY could use half the weapons in this game are femroes and maybe elezen but like, who cares? We've still got little lalafells out there guarding Limsa and female miqo'te acting as the protectors and hunters in their tribes. It's clear little in this game is modelled with 100% practicality and deep lore reasons in mind. If someone is a petite dude in real life and wants to play one in a game too why do they have to feel ashamed of that? And they're certainly not the first one in this thread to say the same thing.

[Also only like, the first half of this post was directed at the quote. The rest is a general response to the last ~5 pages of this thread.]

[SomeRandomHuman]

They're all distinctly male though. Ranging from 'classically handsome' to 'ruggedly handsome'. Very few characters are outright androgynous or feminine to the degree that some are requesting within this thread and painting as much more common than they actually are. Masculinity is a broad spectrum and need not be fixed on the 'bara' side of the spectrum.

When people are saying they want the male Viera to be large and muscular under the guise of "we don't need another small race" it pretty much boils down to the idea of bara.

I just want something on the opposite end. If we can't get the feminine and androgynous male at least give us a body shape that isn't a superhero. Lalafells are the only males in this game that don't have any sort of musculature. They're just fat and chibi.

But I guess I'm wrong for wanting a male that isn't toting wide shoulders and any semblance of a six pack. Glad to know that parts of this community are as closed minded as modern NA politics.

[artyport]

It's pretty clear to me that they're just asking for slender/boyish aka what you see as the lead in nearly every JRPG and anime today. What you're telling them they actually want to play as is a tiny race of potato people, which this is not.
Body type they're asking for:

Body type you're telling them is close:


It's fine if you don't like or want that but it's not something that already exists in this game.

I think SE will just do whatever they please and lore and all that don't matter a lick in this game. They wanted more petite, cute girls so they made female Au Ra into that in spite of any lore reason. They wanted more tall edgy dudes so they made male Au Ra into that. They will do the same thing again if they want to.

That said, people can want something different regardless and I don't think they need to scan the lore to justify themselves. The only female races that looks like it could use half the weapons in this game are femroes and maybe elezen but like, who cares? We've still got little lalafells out there guarding Limsa and female miqo'te acting as the protectors and hunters in their tribes. It's clear little in this game is modelled with 100% practicality and deep lore reasons in mind. If someone is a petite dude in real life and wants to play one in a game too why do they have to feel ashamed of that? And they're certainly not the first one in this thread to say the same thing.

[Also only like, the first half of this post was directed at the quote. The rest is a general response to the last ~5 pages of this thread.]

Thank you!!

[cicatriz313]

When people are saying they want the male Viera to be large and muscular under the guise of "we don't need another small race" it pretty much boils down to the idea of bara.

I just want something on the opposite end. If we can't get the feminine and androgynous male at least give us a body shape that isn't a superhero. Lalafells are the only males in this game that don't have any sort of musculature. They're just fat and chibi.

But I guess I'm wrong for wanting a male that isn't toting wide shoulders and any semblance of a six pack. Glad to know that parts of this community are as closed minded as modern NA politics.

Lol. I don't think it's close minded to want something different than you. This isn't some gender politics talk, it's a forum about races in a video game. Of course some people want races that look strong for a fantasy game. You're not wrong for wanting anything but wanting the opposite of you doesn't make them wrong either.

[Gwenorai]

When people are saying they want the male Viera to be large and muscular under the guise of "we don't need another small race" it pretty much boils down to the idea of bara.

I just want something on the opposite end. If we can't get the feminine and androgynous male at least give us a body shape that isn't a superhero. Lalafells are the only males in this game that don't have any sort of musculature. They're just fat and chibi.

But I guess I'm wrong for wanting a male that isn't toting wide shoulders and any semblance of a six pack. Glad to know that parts of this community are as closed minded as modern NA politics.

Yeah, you're probably not going to get a race that doesn't have a 'sixpack' or a somewhat 'defined torso'- which is honestly a weird thing to want since a character like that is going to be not only skinny but lacking any sort of muscle development - goes against Viera lore on that one. Flat, maybe - but super skinny plus underdeveloped/flat? Yeah, unless there's a 'scale' then I'm certainly on the 'heck no' brigade for that.

[Theodric]

Glad to know that parts of this community are as closed minded as modern NA politics.

That's a pretty loaded statement to make in regards to a disagreement over something as trivial as a fictional race in a fictional setting. I'm not even American, on that note.

[WhiteArchmage]

They're all distinctly male though. Ranging from 'classically handsome' to 'ruggedly handsome'. Very few characters are outright androgynous or feminine to the degree that some are requesting within this thread and painting as much more common than they actually are. Masculinity is a broad spectrum and need not be fixed on the 'bara' side of the spectrum.

It's mostly that "masculine aesthetics" thing. Like, if masculinity is a broad specturm, then what are masculine aesthetics? (which, I mean, I know and agree with, I've written whole pieces about the gender spectrum, especially on how men's aesthetics and fashion has evolved since the friggin middle ages) I mean, I can understand not being fond of androgyny but saying that "recent games have embraced masculine aethetics", well...huh? Please elaborate on what those aesthetics are because on my end, the only thing those games have in common on the "masculine" side is that they star men... which is a given for most games out of Japan except, say, the Atelier series.