About the races we have.

[SturmChurro]

It's not fear. They're just not the popular aesthetics they're made out to be when it comes to mainstream audiences and are vastly overrated by a very vocal portion of players who often have projected issues with conventional standards of beauty. Often because they're very obsessed with making a character look as close to themselves as possible or they're doing it because of niche preferences.

When it comes to feminine men there's the added baggage of some very creepy individuals having revealed themselves to the community at large by pushing for child-like models or making bizarre, weird statements about Alphinaud.

After all, Yoshi-P had to make a statement recently explicitly stating that child-like viera would never be a thing for moral and ethical reasons. In addition to that, I believe a major FFXIV Discord lost official recognition due to inappropriate art being posted there.

So, no - it isn't as clear cut as 'fear'. A lot of us are just well aware of what is really being pushed for in many cases after reading between the lines/seeing horrific comments in various threads and in-game chat channels.

That isn't applicable to every case. Some people are fairly innocent when making their requests for such things. Though Yoshi-P has thankfully ruled it out altogether to prevent problems later down the line.



It's not 'cowardice' either. Again, see the above commentary.

Exactly. It's like we always have to fill some "diversity" quota nowadays, and not everything is or has to be a political statement. Like so many people pushing for male viera to look 'feminine' or 'cute', makes literally no sense. From everything I have read about them, they don't come off like that in my mind. We literally have females to fill that niche.

[wereotter]

The request here is highly subjective. Depending on who you ask, the game has an over abundance of more femenine looking males as-is and sees only the highalnders and roegadyns as looking masculine, others will look at the same character models and classify the midlanders and au ra as looking too masculine.

So to that end, it's better that Square looks at whatever races they might add in the future and asks themselves "what makes the most sense for this race to look like?" rather than "is this going to fill X criteria?"

[Theodric]

Exactly. It's like we always have to fill some "diversity" quota nowadays, and not everything is or has to be a political statement. Like so many people pushing for male viera to look 'feminine' or 'cute', makes literally no sense. From everything I have read about them, they don't come off like that in my mind. We literally have females to fill that niche.

I think the people pushing for male viera to be feminine just aren't that invested in the race to begin with. There's also a very troubling and creepy slippery slope. It isn't difficult to make a very slender, feminine looking male character in this game. I see many daily whenever I'm standing around the market board. Yet it's never enough and the most fierce, vocal advocates seem intent on pushing the boundaries and much as possible. Reading between the lines I have some theories as to why that might be. Especially when you have people who are likely to be well into adulthood making creepy comments about Alphinaud whenever a thread is made about him.

I'm all for character customisation to be expanded. I just don't think it needs to go in the direction of accounting for every little niche in existence.

Let's fix things like the Highlander eyebrow situation first, I say!

[ScarboroughFairy]

Looks like we got a coward here, lads.

They're a coward for asking questions? Why are people so needlessly antagonistic? Good gods, they asked a question and you go out of your way to name-call, chill out.

I'm of the crowd that there's nothing wrong with wanting feminine men or masculine women, but I do not like when people insist that there's somehow something wrong with women being feminine and men being masculine. The thinly veiled sexism and slutshaming that came with Viera girls being released, referring to them as "sex-dolls that ONLY pleases the male demographic" because the devs had the sheer gall to make them gorgeous, refined, and elegant.

Same thing with the Hrothgar males. People take it as some sort of personal attack because the devs had the sheer gall to make them manly af and ferocious to boot.

[SturmChurro]

The request here is highly subjective. Depending on who you ask, the game has an over abundance of more femenine looking males as-is and sees only the highalnders and roegadyns as looking masculine, others will look at the same character models and classify the midlanders and au ra as looking too masculine.

So to that end, it's better that Square looks at whatever races they might add in the future and asks themselves "what makes the most sense for this race to look like?" rather than "is this going to fill X criteria?"

I think the people pushing for male viera to be feminine just aren't that invested in the race to begin with. There's also a very troubling and creepy slippery slope. It isn't difficult to make a very slender, feminine looking male character in this game. I see many daily whenever I'm standing around the market board. Yet it's never enough and the most fierce, vocal advocates seem intent on pushing the boundaries and much as possible. Reading between the lines I have some theories as to why that might be. Especially when you have people who are likely to be well into adulthood making creepy comments about Alphinaud whenever a thread is made about him.

I'm all for character customisation to be expanded. I just don't think it needs to go in the direction of accounting for every little niche in existence.

Let's fix things like the Highlander eyebrow situation first, I say!

Those are actually my thoughts! In my opinion, there are already a lot of options for making a feminine, or boyish looking character in the game already!

None of the males in this game appeal to me. People might call me names or something, but I actually like a male character to be the stereotypical western standard of attractiveness. I like western male hairstyles, I like them to be relatively tall and muscular - but not too much, and maybe a little stubble, like the WoL in the trailer. None of the males in this game are to my liking, so I play females (not that I don't do that in other games, I just go with what I like aesthetically). I am of the mind that the males in this game are actually too feminine, or at least too young looking, and the hairstyles - don't get me started on the male hairstyles! I have posted what my ideal male would be in this game in the male viera thread, and it's not in the game (modified midlander), to my standards at least. If I am going to play a feminine character I'll just make a barbie doll female to dress up.

They're a coward for asking questions? Why are people so needlessly antagonistic? Good gods, they asked a question and you go out of your way to name-call, chill out.

I'm of the crowd that there's nothing wrong with wanting feminine men or masculine women, but I do not like when people insist that there's somehow something wrong with women being feminine and men being masculine. The thinly veiled sexism and slutshaming that came with Viera girls being released, referring to them as "sex-dolls that ONLY pleases the male demographic" because the devs had the sheer gall to make them gorgeous, refined, and elegant.

Same thing with the Hrothgar males. People take it as some sort of personal attack because the devs had the sheer gall to make them manly af and ferocious to boot.

That's how it seems to be nowadays, wanting something masculine (if it's not a female) gets you shunned.

[Senn]

...

Your theories are being made in really bad faith. I don't think you should assume the worst in people.

I think we have a lot of masculine characters, including male miqo'te and even elezen. I don't care about identity politics, but I would like more variety for male body types. There's lalafell, but I don't want to be that short.

[Reitesu]

The thing happening over Alphinaud is disgusting. I do agree there are some creepy people out there but, my intention was to have everything more diverse. Why can't we have both genders able to be androgynous? I can only see a few, Lala, Roe women, and Highlander women are easily able to be androgynous. I wouldn't mind having masculine Viera or having them add male Viera's with the option of being masculine or feminine. I'm happy they went with not adding the childlike Viera it's absolutely creepy.

[CazzT]

People fear feminine men and masculine women (bonus points if they're tall). We're lucky we have the latter at all.

Who fears them? I've never met anyone who fears either. I see plenty of people being denigrated for not agreeing with certain groups, though. Usually by accusing those who disagree of "fearing" said groups.

[Kaethra]

Hold up, when did effeminate males equate to young adolescent or younger males?

[Senn]

...

And then you have people making thinly veiled accusations of one of the most disgusting crimes you could commit, which I'd say is far more damaging.