About That Locker

[Shistar]

That's kinda my point. It's weird that one of the likeliest instances of queer male attraction in the MSQ is a grown man obsessed with a kid.

I don't know how else to say this. I think you're the only one seeing something there. Dude is just obsessed with Calyx's genius mind, not the kid himself. If Calyx was an old woman, a supermodel, a Kobold or a worm, it wouldn't matter to Demetrius because he's not interested in the kid like that. The note mentions absolutely nothing about Calyx that could lead you to believe there's romantic feelings there. Could you please quote specific examples from the note so I can see it a bit more clearly?

One of the reasons I brought up Haurchefant is because even if you're playing a female WOL there's still the shirtless men in his office. Also the fact he gets Vaulted after becoming less of a joke character. Aymeric and G'raha could be positive examples, but it's more ambiguous with them since they're not as forward as he is and the queer implications are easier to miss depending on your character's gender.

I mean, I feel like getting Vaulted has nothing to do with his sexual orientation, Ysayle got Ysayle'd as well and she didn't even get a memorial, we didn't even see her corpse... Aymeric is just Ishgardian™ but I could totally see him having a romantic interest for the WoL but being unable to express it for many reasons, such as his personality, societal/political standing, conflicting lifestyles, etc. G'raha is mega on the nose. It's actually harder to see him as purely platonic sometimes LOL

I genuinely think Haurchefant is simply unhinged and, but due to the ishgardian generally patriarchal norms (head of the house is always male unless there's literally no eligible male to step up, in which case there is a Countess, which is extremely rare. Most women in Ishgard are found within city walls and dressed in dresses or robes. We literally don't know who birthed Haurchefant or his step siblings, not even by name. For every female soldier, there's at least 10 male soldiers. Modesty is strongly favored and not only due to the climate they live in. The list goes on and on.) it'd be much easier and socially acceptable to have his men train there than a scantily dressed woman. I don't think an ishgardian woman would willingly do that, and Haurchefant is not an asshole to force anyone to do it. There's also an inherently sexual component to having a woman in a bikini vs. a shirtless man, and ishgardians are terribly repressed people in many fronts lol

Considering the (female, in this example) WoL is a foreigner to Ishgard's standards and less likely to be as covered up or to follow the local standards of modesty than your regular ishgardian woman, I guess he's just doing his usual unhinged comments. I don't think it'd be a stretch at all to consider him bisexual at the very least, but I wouldn't consider him to be actually flirting with the WoL in a forward manner since there are many other unhinged characters in other parts of the game. I actually think that, as he gets to know us and become closer friends, he quits """"sexualizing""" us (a million quotation marks here, since it fully depends on how you personally interpret his dialogue) and becomes more interested in the WoL as a person and seeking to become someone the WoL can rely on, thus becoming rather positive queer representation with a bit of a rocky start depending on how you interpret his early dialogue. That's simply my personal interpretation of it all, though, and it is fair if you see it a different way.

(I did not realize I wrote this much. Clearly, I seem to have Thoughts about this character. Now I am embarrassed.)

I'm not sure I quite get your point of view, could you explain in more detail if possible? I think that if there is any possibly negative queer representation it wouldn't be Haurche, and he's universally beloved and his character arc makes sense to me personally. I can't think of any potentially negative queer representation off the top of my head except maybe Zenos, but he's also somehow very beloved by some sectors of the community for one reason or another.