OTP confirmed (Eden spoilers, re: 5.4)

[KayRadley]

i dont agree with you ergo your a troll

Fix'd that for ya.

[Delily]

Ryne and Gaia are gay. It is confirmed. I am loving it!

No? This is a cultural thing. In Japan, it's normal for two girls who are close friends to do things like hold hands, sleep over, etc. It's doesn't mean they're gay.

[SavishSalacious]

Context is everything. I've played the Eden raid, and all the clues are in there. Also, I never said they were lovers, I said they were gay. Equating being gay with sex is something homophobes have pulled for too long, and it's Not A Good Look, My Dude.

A gay man is who said that too you. Calm down. It's called reality.

Also: There are no clues that there is anything more then friendship.

[Tsiron]

We're quickly approaching MGS "its a russian taunt" levels here

[RyuDragnier]

Not that it matters either way, but girls holding hands does not necessarily imply there is sexual attraction. Maybe if they were guys, as I don't think I've ever seen male friends holding hands, but it may depend on the culture as well.

In Japan (if I recall right), close friends hold hands too. It's not strictly a lovers thing, and they're probably going for close friends.

I do ship the pairing btw, I'm just saying what is likely the intended meaning behind it.

[Esmoire]

I love the people preceding their posts with "as a gay man" to present their queer card like preceding their message with that lends some kind of validity. This is the FFXIV community, like one of the most queer dense communities for an MMO of this scale. I haven't met anyone offline or online related to the FFXIV sphere who has blinked when they see me with my girlfriend. There is nothing special about us and a lot of the people posting here will be LGBT+ so it's not like you need to state you have some kind of relative experience, especially since even within the queer community our experiences and perspectives can be radically different based on where you live, your age, etc. Somebody bi like me for example will suffer very different kinds of prejudice within and outside of the queer community, while a gay male might face greater barriers of homophobia in general. It's a bit silly to hyper impose yourself on some teenage girls from a fantasy world.

[Yandere-chan]

. . .

For one, they're cartoon characters in purposely over the top fiction most of the time in anime. That's on purpose and we tend to enjoy that aspect of it. Most anime is not trying to be realistic at all. There are ones that do but they are the exception to this. Both can be great though, but they are aiming for completely different things. Neither is at all problematic though and it's a bad take to present it as such. The expectation that they are trying to be realistic depictions of anyone falls flat on its face. It doesn't mean of course that nothing at all will relate to reality, but the goal of such series doesn't really care about doing so either. It's a "criticism" akin to "I hate horror, it's always trying to scare me! It's trash!." Completely out of touch with what it is. Your message clearly has an extreme bias against girls who are happy go lucky while being relatively attractive and loose in such contexts. It's a mix of poor understanding of what the cartoon show is meaning to do and a great prejudice & hatred of a female character who simply doesn't embody characteristics you put on a pedestal with just a pinch of sex negative outlook. Such characters that you disparage can be great and are great to many and there isn't anything negative about it.

I don't believe you understand that anime has existed far before it's gone mainstream. It wouldn't even be here as it is now if it weren't us older hardcore fans of it who proved it could be successful overseas. We absolutely had a lot to do with the particular open mindedness that stems from the anime community, and your jaded prejudicial outlook you've formed doesn't change that in the slightest. We were merely one other source for the overall shift. Perhaps our origin is especially sex-positive vs. some others who are clearly sex-negative, but that's a bonus that our culture is in desperate need of, clearly. Also, "collectives" as an end point of a group identity don't really exist. Individuals who are loosely connected to one another by convenient demographic coagulating is a more fair description of the idea of a collective in reference to vague things like "the LGBT community" or "anime fans" or what not. We are just as diverse of thought as anyone else at the end of the day, despite the tribal groups that seem to be on the prowl online.

Actually, religion is still extremely prominent in the West and most of the world in general, like massive parts of our population. 70%? Or was it more? It's way more of a factor than you may realize, even if it's not something people wear on their sleeve. It just doesn't come in the form often stereotyped. You are taking something specific, and framing everyone who took issue with it as some sort of collective when it was just random people who had an issue with it for various reasons. I personally, as a gynesexual woman, obviously had no issue with it. It might of been pandering, and if it was in part I would condemn that aspect of it, but I would do so without saying it shouldn't exist, and certainly I'm against the notion that it is "too much," pish posh, if anything it wasn't enough. Go all in would be my thoughts on that. Reddit is the same exact way if not worse. Subreddits purposely cultivate bubbles to be of certain frames of mind. If you take the time you can find whatever group with whatever perspective about most things if you look enough. I would caution about being too assuming for even that though. There are likely multiple factions in such places and they are all individuals at the end of the day. It's better to take any conclusions drawn on any level of that with several grains of salt.

It's not a conspiracy, it's easily seen in today's business climate. While I'm no Marxist, I'm no hardcore Capitalist either. Billionaire soulless corporations generally have no morals. If they think they could get away with endorsing open murder and they could profit off it, most would go at it 110%. So, yeah, they would easily hop on board with Cultural Marxism (and they have) as they think it can get them a few more bucks here and there. If they fuck up the US in the process, they'll just hop to another country if they need to (coughChinacough). So, yeah, don't assume that those who are very critical of Cultural Marxism are blind zealots for Capitalism. We tend to be well aware of the dangers of overly powerful corporations who prevent needed regulation through ongoing government corruption and useful idiot consumers buying into their moral, social, political façades.

Yes, and on that note, the relationships Japanese animation depicts aren't typically meant to represent common instances in the status quo of relationships, sexual or not (not to say some relationships don't approach what you see, but I digress), but that isn't at all problematic. If anything would be problematic, it would be to assume every cartoon show is meant to be serious and realistic when most are trying to be neither, at least, not completely overall. That's often the point of the cartoon aspect in the first place, to make it easier to separate the two from reality since that's what it's trying to do at various extents. You are supposed to walk away seeing the characters as larger than life, exaggerated in ways that are fun and endearing and often attractive for many. Thus why so many into anime separate them completely when it comes to various outlooks. When they memeishly say 2D>3D, it isn't just the aesthetics, but the type of (purposely)unrealistic characters that they love in it that they are praising as more captivating than reality or the type of people typically in it. Even when we wish some aspects of our real life relationships mimic what we love about anime ones, it's often just our version of pursuing unrealistic ideals that most of us raise up when seeking out others generally, in which they are adjusted to work within 3D reality typically, despite still being unlikely to see manifest, at least, in full. But, that's hardly unique to the anime crowd as most people wish for unrealistic idealistic relationship partners or friendships or whatnot regardless. That's just how people are no matter where their ideals are inspired by.

But, so when things like what you said are spouted, it's clear that the speaker doesn't get what such shows are going for, and I wouldn't then be surprised if they themselves can't get into them partly due to that. To be fair though, it's not like it's anything new for certain facets of certain generations to just not actually get what another group of people are into, especially if one is hyper focusing on a negative experience with a single or small group of individuals from the hobby/interest in question. When in doubt, avoid assuming the worst of others and overgeneralizing. I feel that much of our present day social strife would quickly clear up if all people just gave one another the benefit of the doubt and were more open to actually having a real friendly open minded discussion about their hobbies and interests, even if there are ones we purposely don't really understand and are adverse to, and even if previous interactions with other individuals didn't go as well as it could.

[Shougun]

My reply had no hope of fitting within the character limit set for posts.

Avoid character limit:

1. write your post, save it somewhere safe (so you don't lose it and then look amazing with something incomplete lol)
2. make a post that meets the character limit
3. edit post
4. paste your actual intended reply into that edit
5. save

Edit: Yep, that!

[Yandere-chan]

Avoid character limit:

1. write your post, save it somewhere safe (so you don't lose it and then look amazing with something incomplete lol)
2. make a post that meets the character limit
3. edit post
4. paste your actual intended reply into that edit
5. save

Thank you, I didn't know I could do that. ♥

[Zysets]

A gay man is who said that too you. Calm down. It's called reality.

Pulling out the "actually I'm gay" card is silly, even if it turns out they're JUST FRIENDS, people are allowed to have fun with these characters and see them how they wish. Japan also treats younger lesbians like they're just "confused and just need to meet a real man" or that their relationships are "training wheels" for a relationship with a man, is that somehow validated as the truth for media interpretation for lesbian couples in japanese media, just because it's a cultural thing? Culture isn't a monolith and people within the same cultures interpret and see things differently as well, you really can't speak for others.

The whole argument is dumb they're fictional characters, people like to interpret characters differently, it harms no one for someone to say they see these two as a couple. If you see them as just friends that's perfectly fine, if you see them as a couple, that's fine, it's a video game with characters who connect to people there's no wrong way to enjoy it

Signed a gay woman