WoW has more LGBT characters than FFXIV does how does that make you feel fellas
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Amused because their LGBT characters in WoW are akin to the Spongebob meme where he points at his forehead going “THERE I AM, GARY!”
Pelagos was pretty respectfully put, and the gay and lesbian couple are just kind of there. And that’s still 5 more LGBT characters in slands than FFXIV has in its whole 11 year history fml.
ehhh at bare minimum there’s an entire tribe of au ra that are all basically genderfluid (because they believe they reincarnate in a newborn baby when they die, with no regards to sex or gender).
Dotharl don’t care what form someone had in their previous life but I’m not sure that really counts as explicit, conscious genderfluid rep.
See here’s the rub in my own personal take but…
If your representation is some NPCs throwing kissy faces at each other with no dialogue, a mythical angel person who died however long ago and you can only meet them when you’re dead or going to purgatory, and two talking mystical animals…
I am not particularly interested in your LGBT representation.
That said, I did enjoy the short story between Flynn and Shaw.
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Part of me feels like it should bother me more than it does, but WoW’s LGBT characters are so bland and separated from the main narrative (and dead) that they barely even register as characters.
Flynn is probably the only one with any personality, and even then he’s just… well, an archetypal swashbucklin’, wisecracking rogue. And of course they pared him with another white human dude who honestly looks like he could be his older brother. 
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And also while the characters are in the game their relationship isn’t.
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I wouldn’t file the slands characters under “bury your gays” because they aren’t removed from the story simply because they’re dead. They’re there, they exist, you can actively interact with them. You outright go and help the lesbian couple’s marriage proposal along through a quest chain.
Yeah it’s a shame, and there’s a long way to go. Them existing is already leagues ahead from any FFXIV LGBT rep at least, which is flat out absent or clearly mistranslated because the implication or statements don’t exist in other localizations.
Oh like the lesbian couple in the Zandalari story which never came up ingame? 
Pepperidge farm remembers
That was less of a “bury your gays” and more “complete and utter irrelevancy outside of SL” because you will literally never interact with the Talking Blue Gay Animals unless you’re part of a specific covenant. The Lesbian thing is also a side quest that you have to go out of your way to find and do, which most people aren’t since it isn’t Leveling Efficient so unless you’re going for a full clear achievement its skippable.
I agree that FF14 doesn’t have nearly enough LGBT relationships, but they also allow same sex marriage and Yoshi P has already stated multiple times that he’s pro-lgbt and has done such things that would otherwise get him backlash (this includes that in-game marriage I mentioned earlier) from his peers.
Unlike WoW’s, where it feels more like corporate trying to appease the gays for Pride Month.
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…oh.
also does anyone else see a good amount of q-word-baiting in 14? cid and nero, and then the eden raid come to mind.
Ah, yeah, that’s fair enough. And LGBT rep outside of Shadowlands is like “these two nelf women doing /blowkiss at eachother might be lesbians!” or “Jaina froze 2 female goblins that might be flirting with eachother during his one quest”.
Same sex marriage ingame is nice, I just wish that the acknowledgement of LGBT relationships would go beyond game mechanics. We can headcanon that Gaia and Raine have a thing for each-other as much as we want but that doesn’t make it an actual thing. I’ll concede that SE has a much different relationship with its LGBT players than WoW does: I’m sure if I tweeted YoshiP asking him if it’s ok if I have a gender neutral or genderfluid Viera he’d be like “oh that sounds cool, go for it”.
Yeah this is sorta what I’m referring to. The Buduga straight up stalk Hien and it’s implied that they’re all prohibitively horny for him, but they never actually take a step and go “yeah these dudes are actually gay for Hien, not simply jazzed for him because he’s a powerful warrior”.
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This is my own personal take, but no.
Good friendships and rivalries don’t always have to translate to relationships. I personally don’t “ship” either of these characters and take their relationships at face value.
Do I think it’s cute if they were? Sure. But I did not get that feeling of what you described from them.
I am also just one gay and my opinion is not universal so ymmv.
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YoshiP actually discussed romances a bit in an interview this week, at least in regards to the WoL. They don’t want to set hard romances for your WoL because it will limit the stories they can tell in the future. Which is pretty much all but saying “Yeah, some of these guys are probably going to die so, uhh, don’t get too attached.”
That said, they aren’t exactly subtle and push the bounds of what the still-conservative JP government will allow. The latest raid series was super gay, and it’s pretty heavily implied in Rak’tika about a few couples there. IIRC there are a few sidequests out in the world, as well, but I haven’t caught up with those despite everyone saying sidequest stories are often as good as the MSQ in a lot of cases. I’d love to see more rep, but then you’re wandering in Japanese politics, and it’d probably be best for locals to try and explain that mess.
As for the playerbases, I don’t think there’s as much overlap as people think. There’s definitely some, but I know a ton of my RL friends are hardcore competitive and stick with WoW. Meanwhile, the giant FFXIV discord I usually hang in has a ton of people that haven’t touched WoW since at least Cata but play FFXIV because it’s a Final Fantasy game. Maybe the gap is narrower on RP servers, but there is absolutely a separation of players between the two that’s a fairly hard line for a lot of people.
e: I also forgot FFXIV had a float at Sydney’s G&L Mardi Gras parade which was a pretty big deal
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I suppose in the end the question is which is more important: having LGBT+ characters in your video game, or actively taking steps to protect your LGBT+ players.
Because Blizzard might have the former, but the latter, uh, needs some work! FFXIV’s LGBT+ community is likely as big as it is solely because Squenix will actually take action if someone calls you a slur.
Seeing the various Warcraft fansites tout The Homosexual Ghost Deer as this, like, big win for LGBT+ rights was honestly really funny - and obviously very emblematic of just how starved we are for any sort of genuine representation.
STRONG “Disney’s lesbian cyclops cop with one line is SHATTERING the pink ceiling and HOMOPHOBES are PRESSED” vibes.
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Take a shot for every time Disney has announced their First LGBT+ character in an online article, and you’ll be dead within the hour.
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Player stockholm syndrome + abusive partner Blizzard, name a more iconic duo
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in the future, everyone will be disney’s first ever gay character for 15 minutes
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New disneyland ride sounds great
i noticed that a lot of people are using carrd since mods like trp/xrp aren’t a thing, but i had such a hard time making one that i liked. i gave up and went to refsheet instead. refsheet .net/wildrose/ophelie
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