Possibly stuck on Mermaid quest.

[Tifa]

It's my first playthrough,I did not play the original versions.

So I was playing through the quest and she did the 3 dances,my quest log updated to meet her in the inn but she's nowhere to be seen,I have seen some guides saying it has to be a male emperor,in which case I guess I can't complete it?

[nekohybrid2017]

Unfortunately no

[FizzyBunn]

has to be male emperor and the quests needs to be done within one generation. if a timeskip happens before you finish the quest, its over. maybe reload an older save if you really want to get the dancer/mermaid

[unskilled-]

You can still get the mermaid if you purify the lake. You'll just miss out on the dancer (yet another high speed high dex magic caster) and dancer's formation (if you make them emperor).

[Vapor]

You can also abdicate if you already started the quest as a woman and don't want to reload an old save since it doesn't skip a generation. Still, I find those gender based restriction in games to be really annoying especially since the game doesn't outright tell why you can't progress. I legit thought the game glitched since the quest was telling me to sleep at the inn but nothing happened.

[Shiro]

Is there any guide/video that explains this quest in detail? With commentary if possible?

[Farukon]

If you didn't start the section after the 3 dances as the male emperor you can still change emperors and complete it with full rewards
I also started as a female emperor and just had to change to a new one to finish it and got both dancer and mermaid