OP
OP
Who the hell is gatekeeping here? You are the ones coming in a thread about gay representation telling people that it's all headcanons and shit. Put the thread on ignore and go on with your day.
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What’s the gayest Xenoblade game?
- Thread starter Aleh
- Start date
Gayness isnt just F/F, xenoblade 2 has Jin and Malos for M/M and even if you only count F/F there is Morag and Brighid that is super blatant
Eunie/ashera gets vastly overshadowed by Eunie/Taion tho unlike other queer ships
Morag and Brighid however is the otp
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You are *literally* telling other gay people they are wrong and what we should be reading in games we have played. As a gay guy who plays these games, I am allowed my opinion that they are not very queer at all, they suffer from real representation problems, and that I think lauding them as having gay elements is a mistake that leaves us grasping at crumbs when other companies have been doing better for literally decades.
You can't start a thread and then not expect other people to comment, and you can't tell other queer people they are wrong for what they see in the game and not expect pushback.
👁👄👁 Having a big queer fanbase doesn't reflect on the work itself being queer or even having queer themes. And like, Xenoblade has a little bit of subtext here and there at best.
oh it for sure does. All things considered it's kind of impressive how not homoerotic FFXV is. Fang/Vanille is practically canon by comparison.
So the gay people in this thread that disagree with you don't matter? Glad to know that it is you who get to decide what queer people think as a group.
Also the second paragraph is just straight up wrong. But hey, you like the XB games so it's fine.
And trust me, I blame myself for lacking the "maturity" to not even reply to your post but it is what it is. Hope the thread can move on from here and be more positive.
OP
OP
There's a difference between having different opinions and trying to push them onto others. Which is what YOU are doing. YOU are telling me seeing queer representation in Xenoblade is a mistake, in this very post. Don't get surprised when I push back on it.
Saying "I personally didn't find the games to have meaningful gay representation" is a LOT different than "These games are actually heteronormative and you are wrong for thinking otherwise". OF COURSE I'm going to be pissed off about this.
You literally said anyone who doesn't see the queer subtext in these games must be straight. You then say that "the queer community is all over these games" despite the fact numerous queer people are saying otherwise. If you don't get how insulting that is then you need to rethink how you communicate. Your entire tone in this thread has been hostile to anyone disagreeing, including other queer people. Whatever you think your are communicating, you are absolutely not doing when you make statements like that.
The fact you see gay subtext here is great - that's your view. But don't tell the rest of us we are wrong for thinking otherwise, or that we somehow don't get to be counted as queer because we disagree. Particularly about a series of games that has *repeatedly* been criticised for its excessive straight boy pandering and male gaze.
Xenoblade is my fave game series, and they have some of the best stories of relationships (non romantical), friendships and emotions but it's not really all that gay to me. There's characters I relate with a lot as a queer person though.
I was not the person who said that the queer community viewed these games as gay, and that anyone who didn't agree with that must be straight. That's what started this.
It was funny how people begin to ship those two after the first trailer, shame that reveal in the ending basically put it down for good
I've let myself hope for that for so many ensemble stories and I never seem to learn from the endless crushing disappointment. 🙃
OP
OP
I have been nothing but positive until people started using problematic rhetoric like "oh so now two guys can't be friends", give me a break. The first post about people not seeing xenoblade as queer coded being straight was tongue in cheek because simply put, a lot of straight people don't know or recognize those aspects unless they're explicit. It wasn't meant to say anything about other queer people not noticing them either or disagreeing.
Again, coming in a thread about celebrating representation just to act all snob and dismissive to people finding positive things about it is weird and regressive.
I would lightly push back on the idea that xenoblade is especially conservative, at least in regards to queer stuff. Yes, straight relationships are the focus of basically all the games, but I think you could genuinely make the case that it's most trans/adjacent major-ish rpg series outside of... maybe granblue? Roc is non-binary, Juniper is non-binary, Alvis is complicated (same), Nia is super trans coded... And that's without getting into headcanons based on vibes/character designs.
Final fantasy has some good stuff in it. I love Fang and Vanille. The honey bee inn section in FFVII Remake is great. There's a lot of great gendery character designs in the series overall. But Quina from final fantasy IX only goes so far if you're looking for canonical trans characters. And that's not a knock against final fantasy necessarily - I'm just saying I think Final Fantasy has been ahead of the game for years, and yet still has a lot of room to improve. Xenoblade compares well in this regard, even if Xenoblade also has room to improve.
Also, yes the straight stuff in xenoblade can be very straight, but it has its subversive elements. I said earlier that the straight stuff in xenoblade 3 can be gay - I stand by this. Stuff that's truly heteronormative normally focuses on Marriage, the Nuclear Family, reducing women down to just love interests. There are shades of this in Xenoblade for sure, especially in parts of xenoblade 2 (I'm thinking of the cooking stuff here which is straight out of something like Persona 4). But xenoblade in this regard is normally mainly about companionship, and finding yourself in another person, or indeed other people, and what you would do for those people. Not love for love's sake, but for the value of having someone in your life, no matter who it is. Maybe that's just called good writing, but Noah and Mio is a relationship I can get invested in as a queer person, in a way that I can't with 99% of other straight romances. I dunno! That's kind of gay to me.
Final fantasy has some good stuff in it. I love Fang and Vanille. The honey bee inn section in FFVII Remake is great. There's a lot of great gendery character designs in the series overall. But Quina from final fantasy IX only goes so far if you're looking for canonical trans characters. And that's not a knock against final fantasy necessarily - I'm just saying I think Final Fantasy has been ahead of the game for years, and yet still has a lot of room to improve. Xenoblade compares well in this regard, even if Xenoblade also has room to improve.
Also, yes the straight stuff in xenoblade can be very straight, but it has its subversive elements. I said earlier that the straight stuff in xenoblade 3 can be gay - I stand by this. Stuff that's truly heteronormative normally focuses on Marriage, the Nuclear Family, reducing women down to just love interests. There are shades of this in Xenoblade for sure, especially in parts of xenoblade 2 (I'm thinking of the cooking stuff here which is straight out of something like Persona 4). But xenoblade in this regard is normally mainly about companionship, and finding yourself in another person, or indeed other people, and what you would do for those people. Not love for love's sake, but for the value of having someone in your life, no matter who it is. Maybe that's just called good writing, but Noah and Mio is a relationship I can get invested in as a queer person, in a way that I can't with 99% of other straight romances. I dunno! That's kind of gay to me.
I'm leaning on to the side that Xenoblade games are very straight-coded and don't have lot of Queer topics in them.
That said, the answer is XB2 for sure. There's actual subtext in that game, albeit not much. Wish that subtext had been in a better game (I personally prefer 1 and 3 a lot to 2).
That said, the answer is XB2 for sure. There's actual subtext in that game, albeit not much. Wish that subtext had been in a better game (I personally prefer 1 and 3 a lot to 2).
Eunie is atracted to Taion but she flirted with a female side character too, Ashera, so Bi
Zeke and Pandoria have heart to hearts flat out showing Pandoria has romantic feelings for Zeke, though. If you have any example of the same with Jin and Malos, I'd have no problem with pointing out they probably have a romantic relationship or at least feelings towards one another.
And there's a difference between shipping characters and saying "yeah, they are obviously a couple".
Believe it or not, Final Fantasy 2 has an explicitly wlw character--though she's an NPC--and Leila's pretty easy to read as bisexual, though she's romantically interested in Firion
There's definitely ways to read Kain and Cecil in FF4, or Kain and Golbez, or a lot of what goes on in Troia, though that's more goofy-assed shounen nonsense
Faris from FF5 also has a lot of Gender going on, though it's not a sexual indicator
Even the older entries in the series have bits and pieces to pick up on if you're looking for them, I think
what is this math? something is gayer and gayer until it's properly gay and then it's not gayest? so gayest is like an asymptote and gayness is a singularity? where is the peer review
...I have no doubt someone could headcanon them, but it's a weak example. Cecil is in an established relationship, and Kain is an incel hung up on Cecil's fiancee.
No, its the other way around.
Super Saiyan, Super Saiyan 2 and Super Saiyan 3.
Or, Gay, Gayer and Gayest.
Oh yeah that's definitely the strongest read of the text; Kain as Cecil's jealous or sef-hateful brother makes the most sense, and you really have to lean into the idea of Kain wanting to be Cecil to get out of that. It's definitely subtext, and not just text, but I think there is a textual justification for people writing so many Cecil-Kain-Rosa sandwiches
I did think it was funny that you didn't object to the dynamic between Kain and the Sadistic Guy Who's Soft Mind Controlling Him
Oh, believe me, I about wrote about that too haha. But there's probably a stronger -- if offensive and gross -- reading there, considering Golbez is mentally dominating Kain.
Ultimately the Troia stuff is the only FFIV queer subtext I find particularly persuasive. Even Edward, the sensitive femmeboy, is established as straight.
FFV's Faris obviously plays with gender though for sure.
Eunie is 100% into Taion. I don't remember all that well her moments with Ashera, but I could see it as well.
I didn't read any romantic feelings for Ashera out of Eunie. She mostly just seemed absolutely mystified by how insane Ashera was.
This is a tricky one, because 3 has non binary characters, but it's also the most heterosexual game I have ever played. Heavy, heavy, overtones about how all these artificial people are living wrong and the world will be much better once everyone is liberated from their alternative lifestyles and has the freedom to pair off and reproduce in traditional families.
2 has Malos being a drama queen who'll burn down the whole world to make a straight boy happy, even though he's hung up on a girl and won't appreciate it. That is relatable gay content.
2 has Malos being a drama queen who'll burn down the whole world to make a straight boy happy, even though he's hung up on a girl and won't appreciate it. That is relatable gay content.
The relationship between Jin and Malos is such good writing. Could write an essay on it.
It also makes Malos confirmed to being in The Sword of the End (a weapon manifested by a straight boy hung up on a girl so much he'd doom the world) all the more hilarious. Someone else said it perfectly: He clearly has a type.
It also makes Malos confirmed to being in The Sword of the End (a weapon manifested by a straight boy hung up on a girl so much he'd doom the world) all the more hilarious. Someone else said it perfectly: He clearly has a type.
I'm not saying it's because his dad was religious and emotionally unavailable (due to being the elf pope), but...
The thing about FF4 is that it's very standard shounen fare, so Cecil/Kain have kind of the Naruto/Sasuke thing where masculine love in any form is read as being romantic. Cecil and Kain do love each other, even if Kain's is an ugly, complicated kind of love—it's just that it's not romantic in their case. But Kain's love for Cecil is just as big (bigger?) as his love for Rosa, which I think lends itself to restorative readings
Though you are of course right, that game's straight as Hell (except for fucky Kain/Golbez readings, which I will agree are dark but won't decry anyone liking it, and of course lazy misogynistic stereotyping in Troia)
If I wanted to keep it grounded I should have kept it to just the FF2 characters
Rex said he loves "all you guys", so clearly it's XC2.
But really, I do think it's 2. Jin x Malos, Morag x Brighid, Nia trans allegory, numerous queer-coded blades, KOS-MOS, non-binary/third gender bird, lesbian bathtub girl, etc.
But really, I do think it's 2. Jin x Malos, Morag x Brighid, Nia trans allegory, numerous queer-coded blades, KOS-MOS, non-binary/third gender bird, lesbian bathtub girl, etc.
None of them? I mean there's definitely some queer-coded appeal between some characters like Jin and Malos, Morag and Brigid and those are actually fairly good for what they are, but the series never really fully depicts that kind of relationship in clear detail. It's a somewhat frustrating element of the series.
It's probably XC2 of the games on a relative spectrum though.
It's probably XC2 of the games on a relative spectrum though.
I'd agree with you if the Gladios DLC hadn't let you unlock the shirtless "costume" for him (which I beelined for when it was released). That definitely didn't happen on accident...
Also there is dialog that outright states Ignis has no interest in women.
After the XC3 ending, it definitely became my head canon that Rex really meant ALL of them, and that Zeke and Pandoria were part of his harem too. (he also tried to rope Morag and Brighid in, but they respectfully declined)
Imagine playing through XC1/Future Redeemed and not realising Alvis/Ontos had thing for Shulk. The main reason A exists is because of Alvis' memories of his (their?) time with Shulk. And while it's true that Shulk goes on a revenge quest because of Fiora, Alvis def got him swooning.
Don't forget XIV. Everyone and their mum in Eorzea is drooling over you so it's already half-gay. If you play as a male character, Haurchefant feels like he's hitting on you HARD. He also does that if you play as a female character, which is, according to a couple of friends, creepy af.
There's also (big Endwalker spoiler) Zenos. The last battle against him after the Endsinger feels more like a metaphor for bro sex rather than a real fight with high stakes.
