there's a lot of gay coding going on between aymeric and estinien, especially within the context of them being knights + nobility. there's an Insane amount of medieval romance tropes happening to them but it's just so subtle from a modern lens it'd be easy to miss. it makes me incredibly ill.
was it on purpose? i don't know. i just know Its There and im Not insane.
+ the addition of the fact that you, as the wol, never learn estinien's past directly from him, in fact if you don't do the dragoon job quests, the only way you learn about it is via aymeric, who speaks of the matter in a way one would who was told directly by that person
what more is that — yes, i'm aware of ffxiv's tendency of avoiding romances of any sort all together, but they were never afraid to show, for example, thancred's philandering. nor are they scared of making a character's interest in the opposite gender explicit. with that said;
the thing that really sticks out in my reading of aymeric de borel being a closeted gay man is that he is Super popular among the ladies. he could genuinely have any pick of them. BUT that man is 32 and unmarried in a society where carrying on the family name is paramount. especially when he's the last of his line.
is aymeric and estinien's position in romances up in the air specifically to give room for people to play dolls? maybe. but from a strictly canon lens, we know aymeric's friends and acquaintances who have known him for far longer than the wol, and in every instance we know - both from aymeric and estinien - that estinien is aymeric's closest and — his own words — dearest friend.
don't even get me started on aymeric's dragoon-shaped ear cuff (!) that matches estinien's drachen textures
that his relationship with another man is so vital to his character and vice versa really bespeaks a level of closeness no other character can achieve.
all this to say — they share in each other a typical medieval romance which is hidden in the subtext of their friendship. and i think that's awesome especially when it's between two men. those knights are gay and in love to me.
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