I appreciate Square Enix supporting LGBT rights in FFXIV.

[Alleluia]

Lol, I just had a fun-stupid thought. Rainbow = God supporting the LGBT rights, tell it to your local priest.

Anyway, people in this topic should chill the f out.
There's no queer baiting going on, there's no herero baiting going on.
There is general relationship baiting going on, end of the story.

FFXIV pretty much only hints at relationships in the MSQ, nothing is ever confirmed. Gender and orientation don't matter, there's a healthy mix of hinting in all directions.
This is a brilliant approach, leaving stuff to the individual to interpret, leaving it all to the person's imagination. As a bonus the MSQ is not polluted by lengthy romance quests which I bet would annoy a big portion of the players base.
We are here to kill dragons and evil gods, not watch two NPC's kiss. Find yourself nice waifu or husbando in the game and kiss all you want wearing chocobo outfits if that's your thing!

Hey, I was entirely here for Rhoswen and Carvallain's romantic subplot every Valentione's day those first three or so years. If there was ever a textbook case of "slap slap kiss", its Rhoswen/Carvallain. And Carvallain keeps flipping between being alright or endearing to being annoying, so that arc was hilarious to me. I ship it and still cackle about it to this day.

[Caurcas]

Modern stories are terrible. Look at the wave of 80s nostalgia, maybe that's warranted.

[SavingPrincess]

<3

[Lunalepsy]

Don't you just love increasing your post count?

[Knot_D]

Don't you just love increasing your post count?

And decreased after the thread deleted? Yes.

[Ativan]

This is a brilliant approach, leaving stuff to the individual to interpret, leaving it all to the person's imagination. As a bonus the MSQ is not polluted by lengthy romance quests which I bet would annoy a big portion of the players base.
We are here to kill dragons and evil gods, not watch two NPC's kiss. Find yourself nice waifu or husbando in the game and kiss all you want wearing chocobo outfits if that's your thing!

This is called queerbaiting.

[Starshower]

About the ryne and gaia thing, if gaia was a guy it would be pretty generally accepted they were young and in love. But since she's a girl now they're just friends. Funny how that works. People can be gay / bi. Get over it.

[Caurcas]

This is called queerbaiting.

No one is baiting you bro. What is presented in game is how they wanted to it to be presented. You are welcome to your own conclusion, but it's just that your own conclusion not SE's intention.

[Theodric]

About the ryne and gaia thing, if gaia was a guy it would be pretty generally accepted they were young and in love. But since she's a girl now they're just friends. Funny how that works. People can be gay / bi. Get over it.

I think it is a pretty subjective element, given that nothing is confirmed one way or another as to whether or not Ryne and Gaia are even in a relationship.

Plenty of LGBT players - myself included - have stated that they see nothing indicating a romance between them. Even a deep, sudden friendship emerging between two characters who knew each other for a matter of days is a stretch in the eyes of many. I think that'd be the case even if one between Ryne or Gaia happened to be male. Especially given the simple fact that they're both teenagers and aren't yet fully mature on either a physical or emotional level.

Of course, there's also people who don't care to speculate over the sexuality of children, fictional or otherwise, in the first place. I know if we get any confirmed LGBT representation within the game itself, I'd much prefer those characters to be adults.

[Nitelancer]

Actually the crystal is a reference to this