What lore do you ignore?

[Iscah]

It's something I don't think XIV will ever go into but it'd be the perfect excuse for a gender dysphoria story, as a Viera believing their whole life they were one sex just for puberty to hit them with the other one. However, this sounds too... complicated that I don't think CBU3 will attempt to try.

The thing is, they're not going to "believe" they're either sex until they reach the age where they develop and find out what they are. Before then, they might have particular hopes or about what they'll become, but they're not anything yet.

Personally, I think the fun part to play with is how they would regard this foreign-to-us approach to biology and gender perfectly normal, while our normal is bizarre to them.

At least as I headcanon it, my Viera is still rather unsettled at the prospect of other races' children having visible genders from birth – to him, it's as if they were born with adult features

[Cilia]

Which I pointed out is a blatant retcon. It's fiction with writers, not a document of events.

Is it really a retcon though? The order in question is literally the only thing Gaius ever directly says to Livia. His view of her was never clear until Werlyt, because the reality is they barely interacted in A Realm Reborn.

In my opinion interpreting the order as a booty call comes entirely from a lack of understanding military culture and people having their minds in the gutter.

... but I can't tell people what and what not to believe.

[SannaR]

Which is kinda fine considering they get like 20x as old lol

Its always nice when they consider such things.

It's not even the 1st time the devs have done this. You know how the further away you are from a shark mob when it's ramping up its slam into you attack the more it does? That's mirrors the same way how it works in real life. Scientists have figured out that part of why a shark bite is so nasty is because the shark was able to put some kinetic energy into via the speed they were able to get up to prior to the bite. Course this also applies to most other ramming attacks. All but the 1st boss in Bardam's Mettle work that way. And yet most of the playerbase just runs away and gets hit for a lot more damage than they would have if they kept the barreling attack short. Course the 1st boss of Dusk Vigil still needs at least one more person to help soak up the damage in its running attack. Not that anyone ever listens to said mechanic explanation.

[Vyrerus]

The appropriate "subtext"

Having served myself, real world reprimands generally take place in an official office, generally not in a personal quarters. And unless you're being made to wait as part of the punishment, it generally doesn't take an hour, let alone an hour within the office where you're being reprimanded.

That stated, the Garlean Empire was not above reprimanding officers in front of others as shown by Zenos killing an officer in front of his other officers, including Fordola, at the start of Stormblood. It's also unusual to have the villains in a story actually care about morale of their subordinates. There's also the example of him hurting and belittling Yotsuyu in front of Grynewaht.

Of course, we'd need the two sentences in other languages to see if it carries across translation, or if it's an EN thing.

In the end, it was more for Livia's character arc than for Gaius's, as back in ARR they did not have any intentions on having either of them live past 2.0. Changing Gaius's reciprocation is an easy retcon having everything to do with humanizing Gaius for the Werlyt arc. Which honestly just makes ARR Gaius weirder, since he doesn't even mention Livia's death at all in Praetorium and such. With how much he's shown to care about Alfonse and the other adoptees, this weirdness does not go away. (Like I mean, seriously, the WoL directly killed one of his protege's, how does that not bother him enough to even mention it?)

It's all just sort of handled clumsily with a passing acknowledgment and shooed out of the story asap.

[ThorneDynasty]

Is it really a retcon though? The order in question is literally the only thing Gaius ever directly says to Livia. His view of her was never clear until Werlyt, because the reality is they barely interacted in A Realm Reborn.

In my opinion interpreting the order as a booty call comes entirely from a lack of understanding military culture and people having their minds in the gutter.

... but I can't tell people what and what not to believe.

Which only makes the few times they depict their interactions more significant and representative of their relationship. Again, nothing in fiction is coincidental.

[Anonymoose]

On the Livia topic, I think the assumption comes from the context of the rest of ARR's dialogue, not that one line in a vacuum. From Nero saying "Beware a woman in love." in the Ifrit arc to Livia shouting about how Gaius's (depending on the language in question) will, lips, body, etc. belong solely to her, there's a great deal of focus on a more-than-chain-of-command connection between the two, so in my opinion it did (at the time) appear intended to be a suggestive (but not explicit) line from Gaius, especially given how he waited until everyone else was gone to say it and the text had an ellipsis lead-in. I'm not surprised people made that assumption, but then again - as I said - I was one of the people who thought it looked suggestive by design in the first place. If the writers want to say it was all one-way and all in Livia's head, in retrospect, then that's the lore, now, regardless. Whether that was intended all along or InTeNdEd aLl aLoNg, I don't think we'll ever know for sure barring an official comment (which if nothing else would have a lot of entertainment value, lol).

[typeaxiom]

I'm pretty much ignoring the entirety of the last EW alliance raid plot. As far as I'm concerned, everyone is still around and my WoL has new friends.

[Lousis]

Everything, mostly because all of FFXIV's setting + Lore would drastically improve had it been set in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. Evil Emperor Zurg > All FFXIV antagonists.

Also solves the Sundering debate by having it as a result of the Heed 'infecting' the Star's very Aether core with Profane rituals, forcing the surviving Ancients off to another planet(guideded by Hades) while Venat sunders the planet to prevent the Star from falling into Heed hands. Zodiark was conceived to fight off the Heed(which worked) but was unfortunately semi-compromised by the machinations of the Invaders once the Heed were fully driven off from the world. Hermes while excited to meet his first alien species/race, was unfortunately the first to be killed by Guzelian himself.

Meanwhile the Meteions basically continue to find new species to meet whilist documenting other stars to understand each culture, not knowing the first alien species that they introduce to Etheyris would also be their last for several millennias. On the plus side, thanks to the Little Green Men(LGM)s the Meteions could manage their Dynamis alot better.

[Keichi]

We know what FFXIV writing inappropriate sexual situations is like. We especially know what that was like during ARR, and it wasn't wink-wink 'you know what this means' subtext about a very specific trope. If they wanted that to be part of the text around Gaius it would've been written in twelve-foot tall neon text on the wall of the Praetorium. You wouldn't have to dig for that treasure chest.

What example are in ARR with that context?
I know/remember only 1 scene. And that is after a fate at the sun beach, where you has to protect a dancer, who was going to the east part of the Coast. And where a male npc say, that both could wait inside a building, until its time for her job. And both walken very fast to that building. Where it looks heavy cleary, what both would probably do there.
The only other moment, where a slightly hint of that exist, would be the elezen, near Ishgard, who is helping us later.
That he says at last in some languanges things, as if he is interessted in us and want us to be in his sleeping room later (what is interrupted by Alphy, who missunderstand that). At last, how i remember the scene (i need to replay that part, and it is at last my head canon, that there was happening something, if your WoL is female, the same with Zenos interesst in you, if you are female -in addition of his lust of hunting and fighting-)

[Ancalagon_Blacktalon]

I personally ignore job stones, I understand their gameplay purpose but on a story level the idea of "get this rock and you know immediately how to do all of this specific stuff" is pretty dull to me personally. The stones with the memories of the ascians at least serve some kind of practical purpose that is brought about by the vast time abyss their job is taking, but most of the time in the job quests the stone is just There for gameplay purposes.