OTP confirmed (Eden spoilers, re: 5.4)

[Esmoire]

I hope it's not queer baiting. Holding hands is indeed not conclusive but if they end up together that's awesome. They are a cute couple.

Oh, and for the peanut gallery in the back, who somehow make the leaps of logic that is romantic connection between two characters = sexual attraction = they are underage so it's bad, please stop projecting. You should get help. Either after this pandemic is over or at least use one of those phone services to talk to a professional. There is nothing unnatural or wrong with kids having feelings for each other. There is nothing inherent that indicates anything sexual. Kids have crushes on each other from like age 6 or something. It is completely innocent and you need to get counselling if you are immediately assuming something inappropriate.

[xxmiamorecadenza]

Oh, and for the peanut gallery in the back, who somehow make the leaps of logic that is romantic connection between two characters = sexual attraction = they are underage so it's bad, please stop projecting. You should get help. Either after this pandemic is over or at least use one of those phone services to talk to a professional. There is nothing unnatural or wrong with kids having feelings for each other. There is nothing inherent that indicates anything sexual. Kids have crushes on each other from like age 6 or something. It is completely innocent and you need to get counselling if you are immediately assuming something inappropriate.

They’re probably the crowd who got really triggered when Katara and Aang kissed in Avatar the Airbender. Probably frothed at the mouth the moment the Powerpuff Girls kissed the Rowdy Ruff Boys on the cheek. Folk like that are hilariously unaware to a painful degree, and I agree with you on your perspective.

[Yandere-chan]

...

Everything about your reply is completely off and just oozes sex-negative falsities. There is nothing sexist about sexual expression in female characters or relationships, regardless if they are homosexual or not, or if it's a large amount or a small amount. Of course I eat it up in Japanese content, as I'm not a sex-negative ideological zealot who sees the world through a distorted lens that demonizes anything in relationship to sexuality.

How can you not be seen as intolerant when you attack successful examples of lesbian relations being accepted by a broad audience? All the while it has only served to expand the number of those who are open to accepting such relationships as a positive thing. Why not win over people with sexualized media? It's a common natural interest point that gives emotional drive for people to look past bigoted traditional culture ingrained with religious dogma. It's puritans who sought to stifle our sexual liberation through domination in culture which has persisted even to this day, albeit (thankfully) at a much lesser extent through such media.

What are you even saying??? It's not religious radicals who sit around and watch anime. The anime community has ever been expanding in accepting such relationships as positive if not desired to flourish. It's ideological radicals looking to reintroduce sex-negative control that are the issue on that front. Rather than destroy it, they wish to wield it in place of radical religion for corrupt control at the expense of our sexual freedom. Be it from the right or left, these groups are an enemy to all. You clearly are looking at fringe elements in such communities and using them to unfairly generalize the entire thing when the vast majority of veteran anime fans love such things and have no issue with characters like that existing. It's really quite the opposite as you have described. But, anime has a very broad following overall, but the type you bring up are a small minority within it at best.

I think it's possible you are mistaking those who are simply against Marxist based social justice zealots which unjustly demonize majorities with those who are actually anti-LGBT. The former will attack what they deem to be an attempt to pander to those types of groups if they believe that to be the case. They aren't at all motivated by being against LGBT people though. They just are against prejudice, demonization, and discrimination against majorities and minorities both. The ones who just hate LGBT things are different types all together. As far as anime goers go though, there are all types into it. Things aren't nearly as black or white as you describe it though, in which sexuality is a positive force, not a negative one, in regard to it.

[Lium]

Can we get Gaia as a trust?

[Shougun]

Saw the cover, instantly thought friends. Depending on where you were the same could be said if males we're doing it (like skinship stuff in Korea). Definitely not the US though lol. Two men touching, at least when I was growing up, would be full scale gay alarms with the parade and fireworks - simply by holding hands .

Not that I would mind if they were, but I definitely don't see it as conclusive evidence. Heck if I was wanting to troll with players I might do that with a male couple but purposefully make it clear they're just friends in the story. Shouldn't really matter and people shouldn't be getting upset if their leapt to conclusions are wrong (not accusing OP of that).

[Eloah]

I don't think it's the new guy. It's Lahabrea's mask in the artwork, course it is just the artwork. My money's on Gaia being a fragment of Igeyorhm and getting flashes of Lahabrea in her memory. Also inB4 we just hyped this pic up, and Ryne and Gaia are just shards of Venat / Igeyorhm and we find out that Venat and Igeyorhm were sisters in Amaurot times or somethin'

Gaia being a fragment is interesting and makes sense given some context we know. But, wouldn't it make more sense for her to be a fragment of Altma since her namesake lines up better with Ultimecia. I forget the other female Ascian we know about, but Altima's name just makes more sense. Also in regards to Ryne, she can't be a fragment of Venat, as Venat wasn't sundered. Venat became the heart of Hydaelyn before the sundering.

[SnowVix]

It looks very much like an example of a Romantic Two-Girl Friendship, a VERY common trope in Japanese media, and one that's actually kinda harmful to the cause of ACTUAL Japanese lesbians because it's assumed to be just a phase of youth ("practice" romance, essentially), and one that the girls are expected to eventually grow out of (so they can form "real" romances with men).

Because shippers are a big part of any fandom, don't expect them to discourage folks from thinking these two might really be in love.

Because lesbianism is a taboo in many cultures, don't expect them to confrim that these two might really be in love, either.

It's a wishy-washy phenomenon that I presonally find rather crass. Either commit to it and make it clear that it is, or make it clear it's not. To just give winks and nudges and let everyone form their own conclusions - I find that to be rather pandering.

considering there's already a textual romantic pairing between two men (the hyur and miqo'te adventurer's who give you the Wanderer's Palace (hard) quest, i don't know that fear of taboo would keep them away from being textual with Ryne & Gaia. what i am worried about would be if they go to a damaging stereotypical route like they did with the Buduga where they played the all-male Xaela tribe as being predatory gay men toward Hien (which i'm unsure if it's quite so blatant in the original as it was in the English text).

[Cyreil]

Thirsty. I knew this topic was going to show up somewhere the second I saw that art.

I don't have a problem with a person's orientation but I am here to play FFXIV. I want to get away from this stuff, not listen to people who has made this their entire identity.

[SnowVix]

Thirsty. I knew this topic was going to show up somewhere the second I saw that art.

I don't have a problem with a person's orientation but I am here to play FFXIV. I want to get away from this stuff, not listen to people who has made this their entire identity.

you could have simply not clicked this topic instead of harshing people who are excited to see a relationship like their own be represented in media they love

[BokoToloko]

...

Oh, excuse me if you feel attacked because I don't buy into the representation of frail dumb bimbos with zero to no depth in character.

And it's beggars belief to think anime has played that big of a part when most of the Japanese media falls on the newer generations, who have grown up knowing about LGBT throughout education, in an age where you can learn about other collectives far more easily and a generation that has far more open than older generations thanks to a wide range of factors that can't be holed up as just Japanese media. Pretty hard to implant open attitudes on a population that has grown pretty open to begin with. Save the actual religious fringes that grow with strictly conservative families and hardly play either videogames or watch anime, and hardly become involved in the common scuffle about "meeeh meeeh not gay enough" vs "meeeh meeeeh 2 gay 4 me".

Because it's funny to believe the only ones who would be against depictions of lesbian relationships would be some sort of amish-like cult when the profile of intolerants is pretty wide to begin with. You can choose to believe those are a fringe but I highly doubt there can be many religious people playing Overwatch and, still, mount an overexaggerated reaction towards the depiction of a lesbian kiss... in a single panel of a comic. That's not even JK Rowling (yeah, yeah, something, something TERF or whatever) levels of pandering. And mind you, the argument isn't EVER "lesbians bad" but "showing excessive romance" and it hardly pops when it's hetero. That kind of thing doesn't fly. Most of them aren't as religious as you want to believe them to be and definitely they can . Browsing through Reddit or similar website with stricter moderation, but going to places where moderation is lax and there is no restraint at all, it's far far easier to see it.

Anyways, it gets pretty obvious this discussion won't go anywhere when you clearly buy the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory, when it's for the most part big corporations trying to ride the "woke" wave along with the hordes of consumers who would lick their boots, which doesn't reallty sound Marxist at all. Same kind of tiring nonsense. And we could go on and on discussing who hates and who doesn't hate LGBT but, alas, it doesn't come here nor there, since the point of contention was the Japanese frivolity towards depicting relationships (and, you know, I would also include hetero, since it doesn't fall far from there).