Open Letter to the Devs Regarding Eden's Verse: Reflugence [Spoilers]

[Liam_Harper]

To be fair, it was a rather baffling plot decision.

The whole thing felt rather forced just to create a thin excuse for Ryne to be Shiva. Thancred strongly objected but not really and their plan was vague at best. And of all the characters to stick in a Shiva outfit they chose Ryne.

They could have gone with a hundred different plot twists, even as far as something like unintentionally bringing Ysayle's spirit back with Edens power and having one last talk at the end ...but nope. Whatever floats their boat I guess.

[AncientCrystal]

OP needs to get a damn life. Most people don't care man. Get over it.

[RyuSaarva]

Sorry, but what? Raubahn and Aymeric aren't sexualized at all. Never at any point in the story are either characters put into revealing clothes or put into a position where it might be sexual.

Men and women can be sexualized. But more often than not women are sexualized far more. Everyone has seen games where men characters are all dressed in reasonable clothing and then their female counter parts are all were skimpy outfits.

it's almost like most people who play videogames are male and like the female form.

[Korten]

There’s an unfiltered google search that would like a word with you. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Are you seriously using fan art as an argument? News flash there is porn of everything. That doesn't stop women characters being far more sexualized (in official media) then men characters.

Fucking hell, do you remember how pissed people were getting when the Main character of Mobius Final Fantasy, a guy, showed some skin? SE literally changed the design.

[Darkpaw]

Are you seriously using fan art as an argument? News flash there is porn of everything. That doesn't stop women characters being far more sexualized (in official media) then men characters.

Fucking hell, do you remember how pissed people were getting when the Main character of Mobius Final Fantasy, a guy, showed some skin? SE literally changed the design.

Are you seriously discounting fan art as not counting towards sexualization of characters, let alone suggestive dates with Aymeric in game, This community’s obsession with haurchefaunt, and any other number of instances. There are about as many cases of intentional female sexualization in this game as there are of males.

And far more evidence of respect for women. Every woman of power in this game has not been sexualized in the slightest in official media, and most are depicted as strong or stronger than men.

Yshtola, Merlyweb, Alisaie, Gaia, Kanna e senna, Livia, Severa, Yugiri, Lyse, Rowena (ultimate character in this game) Jun (Hildy’s mom) they’ve shown amazing development of Ryne herself (but lets throw all that character development away over a not even that revealing outfit) Lyra, Hilda, the list goes on and on, but one artistic design choice and all that goes away because “toxic white male gamers only care to sexualize women.”

This is exactly why we gamers hate this political shite in gaming.

[Korten]

Are you seriously discounting fan art as not counting towards sexualization of characters, let alone suggestive dates with Aymeric in game, This community’s obsession with haurchefaunt, and any other number of instances. There are about as many cases of intentional female sexualization in this game as there are of males.

And far more evidence of respect for women. Every woman of power in this game has not been sexualized in the slightest in official media, and most are depicted as strong or stronger than men.

Yshtola, Merlyweb, Alisaie, Gaia, Kanna e senna, Livia, Severa, Yugiri, Lyse, Rowena (ultimate character in this game) Jun (Hildy’s mom) they’ve shown amazing development of Ryne herself (but lets throw all that character development away over a not even that revealing outfit) Lyra, Hilda, the list goes on and on, but one artistic design choice and all that goes away because “toxic white male gamers only care to sexualize women.”

This is exactly why we gamers hate this political shite in gaming.

Yes, I am discounting fan art because everything has lewd fan art. By your logic literally everything ever can be considered sexualization because fan art of it exists.

And you know what? FFXIV has done great job. No one is saying FFXIV has done a bad job of it's female characters. In fact in comparison to many Japanese games it's one of the best. That however doesn't suddenly make it above criticism or perfect.

Also politics? Yeah, we need more apolitical stuff like Metal Gear Solid, Bioshock, and FFXIV: Stormblood! (Fun fact: All of the games you play have politics in them as they're made by people who exist in societies that are shaped by the political landscape.)

[Darkpaw]

Yes, I am discounting fan art because everything has lewd fan art. By your logic literally everything ever can be considered sexualization because fan art of it exists.

And you know what? FFXIV has done great job. No one is saying FFXIV has done a bad job of it's female characters. In fact in comparison to many Japanese games it's one of the best. That however doesn't suddenly make it above criticism or perfect.

Also politics? Yeah, we need more apolitical stuff like Metal Gear Solid, Bioshock, and FFXIV: Stormblood! (Fun fact: All of the games you play have politics in them as they're made by people who exist in societies that are shaped by the political landscape.)

Yea what we don’t need is people trying to force their political shite onto everyone else. We dont need more sterilized conformist bs destroying yet another form of entertainment.

This is the issue. Criticism is one thing, but this isn’t criticism this is a call to change artistic creativity to fit someone else’s sensibilities. This is forcing politics of reality into a fantasy game people play to get away from this crap. We are perpetually bombarded with this stuff on a daily basis. Why is it so wrong for people to not want that in games?

You can dislike the artistic design choices, and as ive stated repeatedly, you could ask the dev team to speak out against the perceived sexualization of their work, ask them to clarify their design choice, disagree with their design choices, but don’t turn this into some social justice matter when it’s not.

Not everything is a crisis. Not everything has to be polarized. Not everything has to be us vs them. I don’t begrudge anyone for the opinions. I begrudge them for wanting to change someone else’s art and work because of their own forced ideals.

Priceless statues in rome were destroyed because a pope thought an exposed genitalia would incite lust in people.

If we start this censorship of artistic creativity now there’s no hope for true creative expression.

[SaitoHikari]

Yes, I am discounting fan art because everything has lewd fan art. By your logic literally everything ever can be considered sexualization because fan art of it exists.

And you know what? FFXIV has done great job. No one is saying FFXIV has done a bad job of it's female characters. In fact in comparison to many Japanese games it's one of the best. That however doesn't suddenly make it above criticism or perfect.

Also politics? Yeah, we need more apolitical stuff like Metal Gear Solid, Bioshock, and FFXIV: Stormblood! (Fun fact: All of the games you play have politics in them as they're made by people who exist in societies that are shaped by the political landscape.)

I’m pretty much in the same boat here.

Reading the room, the impression I get is that at the very least, no one sane except for Mr. ‘she has boobs therefore she must be old enough to have agency’ is pretending this is actually okay. The difference in opinion lies in how much energy we want to put towards pursuing this argument.

Considering the rest of the game is thankfully lacking in this sort of thing (and is otherwise light years ahead in writing and characterization compared to most games today), I’m of the mindset that there are better battles to fight.

[Darkpaw]

And let me be clear once again. My argument is not that it is acceptable to sexualize this character.

My argument is to put the blame where it belongs. With the people who are making the choice to sexualize a character and not punish the community who dont see this character that way and the artists who made these creative decisions by trying to over politicize this issue and force a change where one is not needed.

I’ve given other alternatives multiple times now and if you are so dead set on fighting for no other reason than you can’t see any view point other than your own.

I feel sorry for you and won’t continue to engage you directly. I’ve tried to be rational and point out why people are up in arms about a post like the OP’s but if you can’t stop yourself from politicizing this issue, then there’s little hope or point in debating you further.

[linay]

Fair enough, but people will often use the "it's not pedophillia it's ephebophilia" excuse to dismiss concerns over sexualization of minors. It's semantics and arguing in bad faith.

No, it's not. There is a difference between the two and ignoring that is arguing in bad faith. Otherwise, you would take the correction and simply move on with your argument. Ephebophilia includes late teens like 18 and 19, which would not be underaged or considered a minor. And that still ignores that the scene itself is not about sex or doing anything of that nature with a minor.

Reading the room, the impression I get is that at the very least, no one sane except for Mr. ‘she has boobs therefore she must be old enough to have agency’ is pretending this is actually okay.

Well, a sane person would realize that this scene is not about sex with a minor. And unless or until SE is forced to change this, then it is okay. I assume they had to pass the ratings board.