I appreciate Square Enix supporting LGBT rights in FFXIV.

[SeverianLyonesse]

There is another rather important point all the naysayers seem to be missing.

The ORDER of the colors on the crystal. They didn't have to be lined up exactly like the pride flag (and yes they are in the EXACT order. Not even reversed with violet on top). In fact, there were two BETTER ways to do it if we wanted to make a less conventional rainbow in-keeping with in-game lore:

Elemental wheel: violet-red-amber-cyan-blue-green (or some rotation of that)
Order restored (which I think should be the stronger argument): blue-amber-violet-red/green-cyan.

The fact that the game takes neither of these approaches certainly weakens the argument that it is *just* elemental crystal.

ALSO in this particular rainbow, we have a pretty significant band of yellow that doesn't correspond to any of the elements. So the design quite literally is pulling from more than just the six elements as defined by the game.

The thing that gets to me is when people start saying it factually when there in all honesty is very little pointing in that direction. Like the crystal theme.

This is really poor literary analysis, frankly. Nothing in Matoya's cave or the story surrounding it creates a context where a rainbow might mean something else.

The Eden raids craft two stories in parallel that both contextualize the crystal:

1) The restoration of the empty.
2) The development of Gaia and Ryne's relationship (friendship, romance, whatever it is).

Both are built up over time, and in particular the latter is absolutely at the forefront of contextualizing everything in that story arc. The rainbow crystal at the end pretty much acts as a stamp at the end of the story signaling completion. The fact that it is at the end of a same-sex relationship seems pretty on the nose to me as to what the devs were intending, and it proves to be very elegant writing.

how two friends who've basically just met each other are clearly very deeply in love with each other and not just getting to know each other

There are many stages and forms of romance and many ways to tell that story. I never said they were deeply in love. So please continue to mischaracterize me just like you are the entire Eden raid.

Also, what is it with you people and lacking legibility? Capitalization and punctuation, please.

[SeverianLyonesse]

ok mr catman, who is the sole authority on what constitutes as gay or not

Also, I'm not the one saying what can and can't be gay. That would in fact be you.

I've been observing the ambiguity and subtely of the story and its various interpretations. You are the one insisting on a single interpretation that happens to be gay-exclusionary.

[Fukuro]

I think it‘s okay to have your own headcanon, but until it gets confirmed it‘s basically just that - fanfiction/headcanon.
I just don‘t know how to feel about people obsessing over it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Izscha]

Also, I'm not the one saying what can and can't be gay. That would in fact be you.

I've been observing the ambiguity and subtely of the story and its various interpretations. You are the one insisting on a single interpretation that happens to be gay-exclusionary.

Lmao you're the one making assumptions based on what you believe, nothing more than that.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

There is another rather important point all the naysayers seem to be missing.

The ORDER of the colors on the crystal. They didn't have to be lined up exactly like the pride flag (and yes they are in the EXACT order. Not even reversed with violet on top). In fact, there were two BETTER ways to do it if we wanted to make a less conventional rainbow in-keeping with in-game lore:

Elemental wheel: violet-red-amber-cyan-blue-green (or some rotation of that)
Order restored (which I think should be the stronger argument): blue-amber-violet-red/green-cyan.

The fact that the game takes neither of these approaches certainly weakens the argument that it is *just* elemental crystal.

ALSO in this particular rainbow, we have a pretty significant band of yellow that doesn't correspond to any of the elements. So the design quite literally is pulling from more than just the six elements as defined by the game.



This is really poor literary analysis, frankly. Nothing in Matoya's cave or the story surrounding it creates a context where a rainbow might mean something else.

The Eden raids craft two stories in parallel that both contextualize the crystal:

1) The restoration of the empty.
2) The development of Gaia and Ryne's relationship (friendship, romance, whatever it is).

Both are built up over time, and in particular the latter is absolutely at the forefront of contextualizing everything in that story arc. The rainbow crystal at the end pretty much acts as a stamp at the end of the story signaling completion. The fact that it is at the end of a same-sex relationship seems pretty on the nose to me as to what the devs were intending, and it proves to be very elegant writing.



There are many stages and forms of romance and many ways to tell that story. I never said they were deeply in love. So please continue to mischaracterize me just like you are the entire Eden raid.

Also, what is it with you people and lacking legibility? Capitalization and punctuation, please.

The order of the colors on the crystal is literally the colors of the spectrum from ultraviolet to red, seen through a prism, which existed LONG before the pride flag.

[Phaty]

So just queerbaiting. And look they even added a rainbow colored crystal. Thanks for the exploitation SE, real classy.

You know ppl can be friends without being lovers or any romantic connections, right? Queerbaiting is a pretty terrible term made up, it makes yall sound like ppl in the 90s that called ppl gay for being the same sex and good friends

[SeverianLyonesse]

The order of the colors on the crystal is literally the colors of the spectrum from ultraviolet to red, seen through a prism, which existed LONG before the pride flag.

Completely missed the point.

The elements as they are arranged in XIV do not follow a prismatic rainbow. Not in any "order" they are presented in.

So the decision to line them up that way is not only arbitrary, but also somewhat *against* what the colors actually represent in game.

[Caurcas]

This is some cork board theory crafting.

[Izscha]

"Hey i want to help my community to get more acceptance, let's insult the majority again and again until it works"
I've never get this mindset, you're the minority within a minority ( western world ) and you act all cocky about being right and how others are dumbs and useless.
Keep doing that i'm pretty sure you would change a lot of mentality that way ( No you wont, only increase any ressentful feelings one might have about the community you try to help, good job ? )
Hopefully ppl like you are not the lgbt standard which is full of wonderful ppl, but like everything it gots its bad apples.

[Shironeko_Narunyan]

In the end, did the rainbow-colored crystal add or subtract anything?
If they made it intentionally interpretable either way, that's fine. It means they let go of the story's "ownership" and transfer it to the reader.

This is called "death of the author" and means that no one interpretation is right.