The thing about lore is that it isn't concrete. It isn't a textbook that you can pick up and educate yourself on the undisputed facts of Eorzea/Hydaelyn. It's closer to picking up the Bible--everyone has a different interpretation on it. Two different roleplayers could be looking at the same paragraph of lore (I dunno, could be about a place or magic or Ul'dah customs) and those two different roleplayers are going to argue/discuss on these forums, theoretically, about how they are different and which interpretation is more accurate.
Hence why I've become increasingly dismissive of terms such as 'lore compliant' or 'lore following' etc. It doesn't mean much. Lore sources are subjective too. What is an acceptable lore source? I could argue myself that minion and mount descriptions don't count as lore since they're all ridiculous anyway. But no, really, I do think you are in your right to not see the tumblr infos as word of god.
I do so because social media is very entrenched in our society at this point and it isn't the first time I've seen lore spread around this way. (Twitter lore tidbits for example) We have so little in FFXIV that it is understandable that people would chomp at anything like that.
In the end, I don't feel as though the tumblr info should be used to say "No! You can't RP out fantasia!" but rather open dialogues such as : "How plausible is fantasia use out in the world?" "Is there more to it?" "What are the benefits and negatives of using it in our RP?" "Are there alternative methods of shape-shifting?" "What does fantasia mean for the RPC community?"
I've also personally seen fantasia as a good source of RP when it doesn't matter how that person transformed but that they did so. In the end, probably the real problem with fantasia potion is its widespread use in RP. That's just not something we can fix, as you noted. We can't help what's popular.
Hence why I've become increasingly dismissive of terms such as 'lore compliant' or 'lore following' etc. It doesn't mean much. Lore sources are subjective too. What is an acceptable lore source? I could argue myself that minion and mount descriptions don't count as lore since they're all ridiculous anyway. But no, really, I do think you are in your right to not see the tumblr infos as word of god.
I do so because social media is very entrenched in our society at this point and it isn't the first time I've seen lore spread around this way. (Twitter lore tidbits for example) We have so little in FFXIV that it is understandable that people would chomp at anything like that.
In the end, I don't feel as though the tumblr info should be used to say "No! You can't RP out fantasia!" but rather open dialogues such as : "How plausible is fantasia use out in the world?" "Is there more to it?" "What are the benefits and negatives of using it in our RP?" "Are there alternative methods of shape-shifting?" "What does fantasia mean for the RPC community?"
I've also personally seen fantasia as a good source of RP when it doesn't matter how that person transformed but that they did so. In the end, probably the real problem with fantasia potion is its widespread use in RP. That's just not something we can fix, as you noted. We can't help what's popular.
