Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Allegor]

I think we're applying human standards to a race that isn't human. The idea of what's considered masculine and feminine is different when it comes to the viera. It's not that the male viera are feminine, it's that the males and females look similar, therefore making them androgynous. I guess with this logic, the female viera would too be considered androgynous within their own race because they look similar to the males. Obviously to us players, the female viera are clearly feminine supermodels, but it may not be viewed that way in the game's story. I hope I'm making sense.

That was my point though, female Viera are clearly not androgynous, so male Viera would have to intentionally make themselves look feminine to even be confused with one past puberty, and that's only assuming they even have beauty standards. [just in case my wording is hot garbage, I'm not saying males should be more masculine or anything, just that the "they look like each other" doesn't hold water when females are very clearly females, so it's the males that get the short end of the stick in that context.]

Also yes, it's hard to not make real life association when the way they're designed doesn't go far off real life conventional beauty either - female Viera don't only look feminine, they look hot, male gaze power fantasy feminine, even when in the game's universe not all of them may look like that.

my lizard brain read that as Bitchounen.

But how do they look bishounen? They just look like twinks to me-- Unless bishounen is a type of twink.

Twink is basically how the west describes bishounen, they're not exactly the same word because 'twink' has its roots in gay guys, but uhhh... "aesthetically" they're pretty much the same

[Senn]

That was my point though, female Viera are clearly not androgynous, so male Viera would have to intentionally make themselves look feminine to even be confused with one past puberty, and that's only assuming they even have beauty standards. [just in case my wording is hot garbage, I'm not saying males should be more masculine or anything, just that the "they look like each other" doesn't hold water when females are very clearly females, so it's the males that get the short end of the stick in that context.]

Also yes, it's hard to not make real life association when the way they're designed doesn't go far off real life conventional beauty either - female Viera don't only look feminine, they look hot, male gaze power fantasy feminine, even when in the game's universe not all of them may look like that.

So I just want to say that female viera clearly look like women. When I look at a female viera, I see a woman, plain and simple.

However, talking about this in terms of the ingame universe and lore: the female viera could be considered androgynous within their own race/species since they look similar to the males and vice versa. Not entirely so, there are some differences. But those differences aren't as big as some of the other races in the game (not including lalafell). I'm just strictly talking about the point of view inside the ffxiv world itself, not real life. And I don't think the male viera got the short end of the stick, they are just born that way. That's their baseline. Just to reiterate, they don't look feminine, they look like male viera. This is just what they happen to look like. Our human standards of femininity and masculinity probably don't apply to them.

Edit:

Twink is basically how the west describes bishounen, they're not exactly the same word because 'twink' has its roots in gay guys, but uhhh... "aesthetically" they're pretty much the same

Oh... good to know loool I don't know where this whole LGBT thing is coming from.

I've had it explained to me that Twinks are young men between 18-25 who look young? Like the best way I could describe someone as that word is Ezreal from LoL

I see, got it.

Thanks for explaining guys.