#+ my issues with hyv and the sumeru characters

[harmoniouseclipse]

This is so disheartening to see. It feels so weird to add a whole new cast of characters to Genshin and have only one of them be dark skinned. Granted, Iansan will be the darkest character in Genshin when she releases, but I did see a particular issue while talking with my friend; here is the chart I made going in depth about why her skin still feels so off to me (as an artist).

I feel like they are trying (somewhat) to push more out of their comfort zones, which I applaud them for. However, when you release a trailer filled with a whole new cast and only one of them actually has dark skin that isn't pale to medium tan, it creates a bad look imo.

And regarding their other games, it's so odd to make Arlan's whole thing be named with things referring to slavery. I think the devs maybe thought that they were giving empowering representation since most of them have to do with breaking free from oppression, but it really comes off as weird and disjointed. And I also feel like they could have added much better representation regarding Penacony. I don't play HSR so I was very surprised when a friend of mine told me that Boothill was based off of Native Americans, because as an American myself he is very much reminiscent of stereotypical southern country people. Of course I'm glad they didn't go the alternative route by making him a stereotypical Native American, since I have multiple friends who are and they are all very different people, none of them acting like how Hollywood portrays that culture though. And I also have never played HI3 but again, when my friend told me about one of the character's whole thing being that she hates her dark skin and bleaches it I was again shocked. But again, since I don't play these games and I know that HI3 was still one of their earlier games I wonder if it was just the early stages of development and poor aging kind of like old movies. Not as a way to excuse it, but as a way to understand why they went with that choice and from what I have seen they haven't copied that character plot(?) in any of their other games, thankfully.

E made an incredible video regarding the topic of Genshin's colorism so I'll link it here for you to watch since she does a much better job of explaining it than me lmao

I'm gonna end it here but I do have some extra points in the tags I wanna bring up briefly, and I might continue this in another reblog if I have time but for now these are the main thoughts I had ✌🏻

So, I hopped on here and saw nobody talking about the atrocity that is what genshin is doing to Natlan and since it was suggested we move the boycott to where others may not be able to hear Twitter specifically I decided to post something which I've normally never done.

Genshin has taken inspiration for Natlan from a bunch of different ethnic groups around the world, including but not limited to the Aztec, the Mayan, the Incan, the Māori, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, and the West African.

The reason this is so dangerous is because it is literally covering up and whitewashing cultures. Hoyoverse promotes itself as a "diverse" and "worldwide" game, but if you can't even represent the people you're taking from properly, then what's the point? When it comes down to it, Hoyo can make beautiful representations based on cultures. One that I find consistently mentioned is Yunjin, who has a popular Chinese opera singer singing for an idle animation.

This extends outside of genshin, too, though. One point that particularly enrages me is the point of one Carole Pepper. Now, I haven't played much HI3, but from what I've heard, this poor woman hates her skin so much that she bleaches it. And to add insult to injury when I showed two side by side pictures of Carole to a friend of mine, said friend pointed out that she dressed more feminine the whiter she got.

Arlan's skill names have also been a cause of concern for a while now. With HSR releasing another person of color, I also beg you to consider the following: "Why did no playable characters on Penacony have darker skin? It was heavily based on America's Jazz Age, so wouldn't they include the people who created said music?" Another point is that of both Aventurine and Boothill. Both of these men were influenced by minorities and heavily whitewashed. Aventurine was based on the rromani peoples, and Boothill was based on Native Americans. Neither has an once of melanin.

I'll be posting more about this issue later but for now I'll leave it at that. I'll be reposting some art I've seen that incorporates more of these cultures and studying up more on what has been portrayed through this new trailer.

[outivv]

I’m so disappointed with the natlan teaser because like. Girl. All of those characters would straight up look better if they had even the tiniest bit of melanin don’t even lie hyv.

I’m gonna go on a fat rant here so below the cut, fair warning because it’s messy as fuck I’m just pissed off

No because how are you going to straight up take the inspirations, and clear liberties from Aztec, Māori, Qichwa, Nigerian, Hawaiian, Native American, And Mayan (according to this image from @ HYVboycott on Twitter highly recommend btw they have good info imo)

And then you’re not gonna represent them in terms of their skin color??? Yes there are pale people in all these countries and pale people apart of these cultures, HOWEVER the vast majority of people, or the native people are not typically fucking white. I am white and I literally am darker than the majority of the genshin characters, even in winter when I don’t fucking tan. Like the genshin characters don’t even look ALIVE for Christ’s sake. Hyv are a bunch of cowards who take inspiration from poc, and don’t properly represent them, even in their other games like honkai Star rail. Boothill is Native American. Blatantly. “Oh, no he’s not!!” Yes the fuck he is, his entire backstory is based off of native people, he’s also part Hispanic because the original cowboys were Hispanic people called vaqueros, his home planet in the original CN version of honkai Star rail is literally two native tribes put together I believe. He is Native American, and Hispanic, and hyv TOOK that inspiration and that culture and then was too much of a coward to AT LEAST make him tan. Don’t even get me started on aventurine. So it’s not just with genshin that they do this shit, it’s a hyv problem as a whole, but with genshin it’s so like… common, and genshin has so many issues that make it feel like a cash-grab kinda game, and like the devs are just spitting in our face CONSTANTLY, especially when it comes to characters, and representation. It’s so depressing to see a game that at first had so much fucking promise, now just be such a fucking letdown after like what? 5? 4? Years? Like you’ve built up so much hype, and lore, and excitement just for Sumeru and Natlan not having any representation like fuck off. Hyv CAN fix these issues, they just don’t want to and they have expressed that time and time again by making dark skinned enemies, and enemies with dreadlocks. They know that they can, they just don’t want to because they’re too pussy. And it’s not because they’re a Chinese company, I mean obviously I understand that there is a complicated relationship with tan skin and China, HOWEVER that is no excuse because genshin, honkai Star rail, zenless zone zero, and honkai impact 3rd are all worldwide games and they need to appeal to their WORLDWIDE customers, and I’ve seen plenty of CN players fucking just as pissed off that there isn’t any actual diversity for like any of their games. Plus other Chinese companies have made diverse games, like Dislyte which I’m honestly a huge fucking fan of because of their diversity. Having diversity would BENEFIT hoyoverse a hell of a lot, but they are just trying to appeal to greasy old white men who are the same men who have a tantrum while making a reaction video to a game trailer and go “OH MY GOD SHE ISNT GOT ENOUGH!! LOOK AT HER!! SHE ISNT SEXY!!”, “OH MY GODDD THEY HAVE PRONOUNS NOW!! THE WOKE SNOWFLAKES GOT TO THEM”, and “OH MY GOD ASSASSINS CREED IS MAKING A BLACK SAMURAI THE MAIN CHARACTER!! NOOOO THATS NOT HISTORICALLY ACCURATE!!” Because they’re all pathetic, and that’s who hoyoverse is trying to cater to.

Okay I’m done, this went all over the place but I’m so pissed off so fuck hyv, give them the feedback they deserve, have a great day.

[actiniumwrites]

i went back and forth on speaking on the natlan issue (in detail) because i like to keep this blog centered only around writing and less of the fandom related stuff, but honestly fuck it because it’s insane what hoyoverse is doing right now. i think it’s important everyone is aware of this and willing enough to help try to change it before natlan is released. i’ve already shared my opinion on a few other posts, but here we go:

so, in case you weren’t aware, natlan is primarily based on latin/mesoamerica with some indigenous and african influences. i’m not 100% educated on each and every culture that the characters and region are each based on, but i think it’s abundantly clear that they aren’t supposed to be white. and as a white person myself, some of these characters are paler than me. that is absurd.

they’ve once again made npc’s and enemies darker than the in game characters. here’s a screenshot of an npc from natlan versus the playable characters:

speaks for itself doesn’t it?

if you’re interested in a more detailed comparison of the characters and the cultures they’re derived from, here’s a twitter thread that covers each of them in depth: the link

anyway, hoyo issued a statement today that really showed where they stand here (in case the colorism wasn’t enough). this is from their official twitter page:

they’re paying attention. natlan has been trending on various apps, specifically from people calling out hyv. yet, yesterday when they changed neuvillette’s charged attack, people were so quick to call them out on the nerf that they backtracked within 12 hours and have decided to issue everyone a 1,600 primos (a ten pull) because of the outrage. so they can change something that won’t even affect most players, but not the skin tones of their characters which have been complained about for not just natlan’s release, but sumeru two years ago, and even at the start of the game which came out four years ago now.

interested in helping change this problem?

here’s a link to a post that has lots of information and options on what you can do to help bring more attention to the problem. i’m also going to reblog it (should be the post before this one).

the more we speak out and let hyv know this is an important issue that’s making players less inclined to play the game, the more they’re going to be willing to change it.

there is still 6 weeks left until the release of natlan. it’s not hard to change the skin tone of their characters. we still have time and i highly encourage you to take action if you actually care about this game

[demdems]

kinda told myself i wasnt gonna post about natlan for a while since what else is there to be said but here we are

so pinocchio, how's that nose growth going

talked about natlan before in this post [written after the first trailer dropped] and this one [written after the 5.0 livestream] if ur one to be curious

i sent smth to my friends and its the basis of this post so for simplicity's sake i'm pasting it here in its entirety then I'm seeing what else i have to add

I think smth that bothers me about this natlan thing [read the comments on some short now I'm cursed] is that an argument is that people are only getting upset about the skin color part of cultural rep which to them reads as shallow but the thing is, people did get upset at everything else in sumeru and natlan like even before the characters got revealed people got mad that hyv was hodge podging several cultures into one fictional culture for those two nations but at most the other nations took inspo from like, two or three, and people got upset about the really poor interpretation of cultural clothing, and they got upset about real life names getting tacked onto white characters. Just is that now w skin color being a debate point, they can use a loud minority of "pale skinned people from these cultures exist too" to support their point

ive seen people actually be upset about more than skin color with natlan & sumeru but it's apparently just much easier to vilify people over wanting dark skinned characters vs wanting characters to be dressed appropriately or wanting characters to not take names from real life figures

Like even outside these two nations ive seen people get upset over more than just skin color but as long as u can slap on the excuse of "other people think it's fine" or something similar, then it gets swept under the rug [like it's been years and i still think raiden & miko have some of the worst designs in inazuma just because visual appeal was overprioritized, but its impossible to critique how inappropriate/disrespectful it was for genshin to effectively sexualize traditional japanese outfits without getting shredded to pieces if u post ur thoughts in the wrong circle]

I digress, back to my main point.

[most] people who are criticizing genshin have their issues run much deeper than simply, i want a character with dark skin. real life cultures are incorporated in many different ways in genshin, but character designs in genshin hugely draw on clothing, names, and skin color [for the very few characters who don't get sentenced to #FFFFFF]. thing is tho, even with all the real life inspiration to draw on, the design team still majorly drops the ball.

nahida's white on white on white is a crime against character design, tighnari's palette made me consider dropping art forever so i never have to even attempt to color pick the seven million colors in his splash art, several natlan characters are walking talking fashion crimes who have a severe lack of overall cohesion, dori

people very much did drag character designs apart from their skin colors, and they were justified since the design team seemed very pick and choose when it came to deciding who gets the good design and who gets the not so good one

My point is, there have been people who've had issues with genshin's inclusion/depictions of real life cultures since the beginning and it's been more than just disliking pale skinned characters being the majority in regions that would have more than the two skin tones included in game [white and off white], and anyone worth their salt in this discussion about genshins colorism and appropriation understands that skin color isn't just something to toss into the ring willy nilly to stir debate cuz if you wanna have an actual discussion u gotta know what ur gonna be talking about

These are just my thoughts though, sorry if it's very scrambled i wrote as i went, if i managed to shoot myself in the foot and say something terribly egregious please lmk

[cheap-jumpscare]

here's my thinks on the Natlan update

[PT: Here's my thinks on the Natlan update /end pt]

disclaimer i do not support hyv i simply like genshin let me BE also spoilers (mild- I haven't rlly done the archon quest yet) obviously. and typos too I just don't care much. the Grammarly browser extension hates me :3

p.s. i added image descriptions just to make this as accessible as possible! it was difficult but I hope it works aa

NEW FEATURES

[PT: new features /end pt]

FIRST THING I DID was check the free character. you can choose between jean, diluc, qiqi, mona, keqing, tighnari, and dehya. if you don't know who to pick; TIGHNARI IS EXTREMELY STRONG FOR A STANDARD. just a nudge in his direction

I also wanted to mention; CHARACTER TRIALS ARE DIFFERENT FOR KACHINA AND MUALANI. you collect pyro particles while beating up dudes along the trail. not too difficult but MASSIVE WHIPLASH. For other characters you get the old trials, which are really nice. I didn't want to get TOO many changes so it's something they ease you into.

Next is our awesome artifact thingy; the Artifact Transmuter. To get it, you open the 'book menu' (someone tell me what the actual name for it is) and it'll be there after you complete a prerequisite or two that I.. Did not pay attention to. I cannot find WHERE I got it exactly, I just received it for free. Afterward it'll appear in your gadgets.

As for how to use it; you use up your existing 5-star artifacts to get Sanctifying Elixir, which then can get turned into the artifacts you want. You need a LOT to get just one. Two highish-level artifacts brought me up to 29 points, and you need 100 to get ONE sanctifying essence.

After you do that, though, it's pretty straightforward! Lucky me, because I am admittedly not bright. The flowers get fixed main stats; otherwise, you can make custom artifacts! As far as I can see, every artifact set is craftable. Good news for us! Checking the wiki we run into an issue, though... You can only make one artifact of each set every cycle. Okay, not too bad hearing just that, right? This cycle is gonna last for over a month. 41 days as of this post being written.

Now that's absolutely fucking insane and kind of the dumbest thing ever. Seriously genshin you were doing SO WELL. But admittedly, I understand why they thought such a long wait would be necessary. To be entirely fair, it makes building characters HUNDREDS of times easier. You can just pick their best stats immediately and not have to perform more gambling than just leveling up the artifacts. Still.. That's not reasonable at all to me. I don't think the Chinese fanbase will be normal about it.

THE OTHER STUFF (NATLAN ITSELF KINDA)

[PT: the other stuff (natlan itself kinda) /end pt]

So.. We're here. The meat of the update. Oh boy. Where do we start.

Another disclaimer; I HAVE NOT REALLY PROGRESSED ALL THAT FAR IN THE STORY! I HAVENT MET ANY CHARACTERS OTHER THAN KACHINA AND THE VILLAGE SHE LIVES IN THATS ITTTTT. Regardless.

I'm starting with a funny visual bug that I really want to know if anyone else's experienced. My daughter with every disease. She looks so stupid oh my fucking god.

Like.. Kachina what did they do to you. POV my little sister watching me explain things (she has no idea what any of the words I'm using mean). This is a sticker in me and my sister's discord server now because she looks SO SILLY. Kachina I love you forever and ever you're now the funniest child alive to me. Diona prepare to gain a sister.

After that conversation YOU GET HER FOR FREE!!! Giant surprise to me as I had not intook ANY Natlan content prior- completely blind going into it all.

For me personally, the map itself was easy enough to unlock. There's one creature you can take control of that can sort of grappling-hook around like those specific spots in Sumeru, so it was easy to get around. That being said, I have only gotten the Statues of the Seven and not the TP waypoints.. I think I'll do my sister's in exchange for her doing mine.. (And also bc she got me Kirara's costume and pulled Yelan for me)

Moving on to pyro traveler; You do not get them immediately. Or at all. Until you beat the archon quest maybe? (Or at least get to a certain point? I wouldn't know.) Regardless, Kachina shows you the Statue of the Seven, which does not grant you pyro powers like we originally expect it to.

That's really all I have for Natlan itself. It's good, what can I say.

IN CONCLUSION..

[PT: in conclusion /end pt]

I love the Natlan update. It's fun, the new features are fun, the ability to just SKIP TO NATLAN is AMAZING (because I will admit I still haven't gone through Sumeru's storyline.. Sorry) and also the characters are all really fun so far! Kachina my daughter. I love her so, SO MUCH. She's adorable and I'd kill and die for her. Amen.

I am very loudly and proudly dissappointed in the lack of melanin, but I've noticed that is a fandom-wide complaint with the natlan trailer. Where are the darker skinned characters, genshin.. Where did you hide the fucking melanin. WHERE ARE THE BLACK CHARACTERS.

One thing I am very very "HOYOVERSE WHAT THE FUCK" about is that one of the NPCs you first see when meeting Kachina has locs. Both NPCs talking to her are black (albeit horrendously ashy). The chief of her tribe has an afro. I just. How is it so easy to do with NPCs but so hard for the playable characters. Yes, Kachina and Mualani have tans which I HAVE NOTICED and admittedly do like, but oh my god how hard is it to make a character that's darker than Xinyan or Kaeya. How hard is that. I'm screaming at you, Hoyo.

That's the end. Hope you all enjoyed my screaming into the void.

[ac-liveblogs]

About your genshin rewrite, do you plan to make the abyss order more relevant in some regions? I do think I recall you mentioning something abt reworking it so the mechanizing god plan was in inazuma, though given the shipwreck that's probably no loner part of the plan. I do wonder though, does the "travel to sumeru by sea" plan mean the map configuration is different in your au, or is ir just bc it makes more sense for you to arrive through port ormos instead of that weird chasm passage?

Okay, so, full disclosure - I originally conceptualised most of my Inazuma rewrite back before Sumeru released, and I've been groaning about the way the map turned out ever since. I think that since I want to increase the negative effect the Withering is having in Sumeru, having the land route from Liyue to Sumeru be blocked off due to safety concerns is plausible.

The main issue is how far out Narukami Island is from Liyue Harbour - the Crux is more likely to end up near Watatsumi. I could reverse the order of the islands from left-to-right, or there could be some other reason the Crux ended up so far out (storm? sea monster attack from osial's big mad octo-wife?)

(But yeah, it is really weird there is no actual land route from Liyue to Sumeru that isn't through the Chasm or over mountains? There's a path from Mondstadt to Liyue! I wondered about Chenyu Vale being the intended route, but nope! I assume they must go by ship…)

I did consider putting the mechanised god in Inazuma, but I eventually decided that I want to ramp up the threat posed by the Abyss Order over the course of the game. The thing is that I'm 100% sure that HYV is going to play the 'this character isn't THAT BAD, they're nice and your friend actually!' card they always do when it comes to the Tsaritsa, which means they'll need another antagonist to replace her when it becomes relevant, and I think that's going to be Pierro/the Jester.

I also think the Pierro is probably going to end up linking the Fatui and Abyss Order plotlines - him being from Khaen'riah and going on about rewriting the rules of destiny is way too obvious a connection given the Loom of Fate thing, and they could his betrayal to try and make the Tsaritsa more sympathetic (or have her play him, idk). With that prediction in mind, I'm tentatively linking late-stage Fatui and Abyss Order operations, and sketching out a potential faction war between the Jester and Tsaritsa's loyalists.

It'd also be nice to return to some of the regions for smaller plotlines to try and thwart Abyss actions at certain points in the later stages of the game. At the very least, we'll be revisiting Liyue and Mondstadt. Also, I just… the Abyss Order got the Loom of Fate really easily… who even is Caribert… isn't there another tragic Alberich we could use for that instead…

[yioh]

I'm south asian and it infuriates me that I actually like the sumeru characters 😭 I feel like I'm betraying my own identity and it genuinely pains me to think abt their designs for too long

Tighnari is the worst for me bc he became my favorite character in the whole game personality-of and I've grown to love his design because of it but???? I just feel so guilty for it bc I know it's just not. Correct???? And on top of that the english voice actors being told to pronounce the characters names wrong deliberately to make it easier is just so gross ughhhh. And I feel like I'm a bad person for continuing to play the game and indirectly supporting hyv's colorism as a result but I'm so attached to this game and these characters and im :'(((

omg bro don’t worry at all askdbdjdb ur absolutely allowed to enjoy the game, that’s exactly why we play it in the first place right🥺 like sure genshin gets a lot of stuff wrong but there’s also a lot that it does beautifully e.g. the entire world building in sumeru and the environment design is one of my favourites in the whole game !! for me, i just have lower tolerance and can’t stand hyv’s colourism as well as orientalism

but like… as long as you can acknowledge that the issues exists and don’t pretend like sumeru is just some cutesy exotic place (as i’ve seen a lot of people do 😭) it’s really honestly fine imo

like i agree that tighnari has a very interesting personality, also i’ve seen a lot of people complain abt his design but honestly i think the amazigh inspiration is one of the most obvious in the game and think it’s so wonderful that amazigh people get to be represented through such a cool character🥺 not to mention how much i myself learned abt all these cultures that are usually never talked about in other media, it’s really really cool !!! i also think his design in general is actually very pretty lol i really adore the mesh of colours and how it’s an obvious reference to amazigh clothing,

there’s really no correct and incorrect way to think about it because everything is so meshed together and weirdly structured, we can definitely agree that the colourism and orientalism is very much an issue (as seen with dori and nahida mostly), treating many brown cultures as interchangeable is also really annoying in general because of how much it already has been done in mainstream western media and the effect it already has is amplified, (abt the english translation i don’t even play in english because 💀 i never liked how they translated stuff in general to english tbh even before sumeru)

but at the same time, hyv brought light to so so many under represented cultures and stories, even the music !!! them using actual instruments we hear in our own music like the sitar is so amazing !!!!

don’t feel bad at all for enjoying the game, i always play it to destress and will continue in the future, it’s not like the company will ever listen to complaints or critisisms by boycotting the game anyways so there’s rly no point and u might as well enjoy what u like yknow😭 i only rly have a bone to pick when people are able to just . mindlessly enjoy the game as if it doesn’t have valid issues (which clearly does not apply to you hdfjbdkdf)

i talk too much but also i just wanna mention that… as a southasian the colourism bothers me the most but i feel like a lot of my disappointment in sumeru mostly comes from an aesthetics pov😭 i think in general i just had a different vision for the type of characters we’d be seeing, seeing cultural references in clothing has always w spiked specific joy in me because the history behind all the clothing just makes everything feel much more real and impactful ??? whereas other then tighnari, nilou, kind of layla, candace and maybe cyno (i haven’t read much on his design) everything just looks as if it’s been inspired by some generic anime rpg isekai fantasy game🥲 like kaveh, nahida, dori etc etc ,,, so rather then sumeru being ‘wrong’ moreso what hurts me is the potential is what it could’ve been ?? i think that’s why it bothers me when everyone gets so excited abt kaveh’s design or whatever when i’m just here like wow… another blonde white boy with a feather in his hair 😭😭😭😭 they can use sanskrit language and panipuri as food but not have the southasian inspired archon with hindu motifs wear cultural clothing or have even slightly darker skin as a lot of southasian people do 🤨 ok this is just me venting again LOL but basically . don’t stress at all it’s really really fine to like the characters you do (i can’t support positive opinions abt nahida and dori tho MDBSKXND i may be petty) but u Defo don’t have to feel guilty abt enjoying the game 🥺 most of sumeru characters aren’t even southasian so you’re not betraying ur identity at all !! merely enjoying new cultures :’) just make sure to remain critical and be observant of how the people of those cultures being shown feel abt these things and don’t let your opinions be dictated by whether it’s ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ often times in these situations it’s never that clear cut 😭

[tenmissedcalls]

i love how in the video games i listed in the last post i have f/os from a majority of them HAHFDFKGD

[hematomes]

Send help I somehow ended up on Genshin tiktok and they're calling Paimon racist for "being mean" to Sumeru characters and having trouble with Aranara terminology.

She's obliviously rude to literally everyone and is portrayed to be a child, so she's gonna have issue with Aranara terminology (tbf it's hard to grip at first).

These ppl will reach for ANYTHING to scream racism jfc

oh no you're gonna hate me cries

i. don't think that paimon's racist ofc that's stupid the character in itself isn't racist at all. but it's not a secret that the company in itself is at least colorist (which makes "sense" in a disgusting way bc they aim for the beauty standard in china which is pale skin etc etc). and paimon would be an easy way to push their ideas bc she's comic relief and a child so no one rly questions what she says. but it's nothing concrete, as i said it could simply be comic relief (which doesn't make it better imo bc she still doubles down on micro-agressions)

anyway it kinda ticked me to see so many ppl talking abt it so i decided to research a bit and they're not exactly wrong on some parts. she refuses cultural food even tho girlie happily eats slimes, she made fun of the potion event girl's name (i won't mention the aranara bc it's a peculiar case & it's visibly meant to be "hard" bc that's how they communicate) and overall she's been kinda rude since 3.0. im not saying she wasn't initially, but she was.. less obvious and agressive? that's how i feel abt it anyway

then again the characters' attitude towards her is also very different from other nations. dehya, cyno and al-haitham keep telling her to shut up for some reason, so ig it kinda evens it out

ANYWAY MY POINT IS. paimon's rude and ignorant bc she's basically a kid, but it still feels like micro-agressions so i personally understand why they're pissed abt it. HOWEVER i still think calling her racist is weird and shows how a lot of loud genshin players are misguided and prefer hating on characters (or voice actors for some reason) than on the actual, real person's who created them that way.

then again im kinda biased bc my opinion on paimon is very inconsistent, i love her relationship with the traveler but otherwise she kinda irked me during the recent quests, precisely bc she's rly rude and also im still pissed abt her buying canned knowledge with my money even tho i refused ABDKAK

tldr; overall i agree with you abt how dramatic they're being but it's still a weird attitude imo, even for paimon, and i wouldn't put it past hyv to normalize micro-agressions as a form of comedy/comic relief

[catcze]

sorry if this is controversial but i want to know, does the racism and orientalism that hyv is doing bother you at all catte? personally its a really heavy thing with me, and i dont like... hearing about positive responses(? i do not know another term) sorry if this is uncomfortable to answer.

Discussion of leaks, racism and orientalism utc !!

Aight aight, I'm gonna try to make this as concise as possible because this is important as hell, and also to bring awareness to the ppl who follow me who might not be aware of the issue. 

It definitely does bother me–– what hyv is doing, generalizing and whitewashing a whole bunch of cultures and ethnicities present in the middle east is not okay. We've been knew that hyv is racist and orientalist, given their track record with the lack of poc characters despite long-time feedback and (from what I've heard) the stereotypical orientalist content in ToT. Although people were genuinely hoping that maybe everyone's negative expectations would be proven wrong and that more poc & culturally-accurate characters would be introduced in Sumeru, the leaks were a huge letdown. It was disappointing, but overall not super surprising.

Literally, if you look at the leaks, an absurd number of the characters are light-skinned. Their archon, who is typically viewed as the figurehead of the country, is a pale girl in a white dress. Nilou, Dori, and Dehya's designs are blatantly orientalist, almost to the point that you'd think their main reference for design had been Aladdin or smthn. Whatever, back to the point. Fact of the matter is that this company is perpetuating a harmful stereotype with these character designs, and they are inaccurately representing a very real group of people. And as it was pointed out on twt, this lack of representation feels all the more disrespectful considering all the care and attention given to Yun Jin's design, too.

Point is, the racism and orientalism is definitely present in Sumeru, and although I'm crossing my fingers that for once the complaints will be listened to and a change will be made, I'm not getting my hopes up. Disliking praise for the designs is a totally legit thing to feel, with all of this going around, and its a totally understandable thing to get upset about. 

[timdrakeslawyer]

no spoilers but regardless of all the issues hyv has with the character designs, I cant deny that the archon quest was AMAZING imo! especially the second part with you-know-what ;) the writing and storytelling for this specifically was phenomenal and it’s def keeping me on my toes. I know a lot of ppl might dislike there being so much dialogue but the situation itself was SO out of the blue that it kept me reading even though I usually tend to briefly look and skip (unless it’s one of my fav chars). Also, learning all the new mechanics in Sumeru in the process kept it interesting I still haven’t even opened all the waypoints so I’m excited to explore more! the music is amazing too i just wish they did better with the characters :( so much potential lost cuz they refuse to give darker skin tones, esp when chars like Candace are BASED on ppl with dark skin

[advencymoved]

No, I just genuinely don’t get it. Why take away from EA representation when you can just create your own OCs and media? Other black creators have created media like the Boondocks and black characters in anime do exist. I don’t think you get how off-putting it is to see an asian character be made black. It’s weird. It feels racist.

1. OK SO BLASIANS ARE SUDDENLY NOT ASIAN ?????? the blackness suddenly cancels out the fact that they're east asian to you ???

2. mf several black creators have made their own ocs and media. I have done that and repeatedly we are attacked over and over again. just look at the way anime with black protagonists have been treated. black folks in the community literally CANNOT win and hoyoverse is already racist as fuck. look at how caroline in honkai ( a mixed black character ) was treated. look at how her darkskin mother was treated, how she was literally made to be a caricature of a black woman because white society has deemed black women to be more masculine than white women. not to mention look at how the only two darkskinned characters in genpact ( i.e kaeya and xinyan ) are both whitewashed. look at how kaeya is constantly sexualized by the fandom. look at how xinyan is profiled in her own country. NOT TO MENTION HOW SUMERU ( A REGION BASED ON THE MIDDLE EAST + INDIA ) HAS ONLY BEEN SHOWN HAVING WHITE NPCS . black fans cannot confide in hyv to provide good representation. i stg to a darkskin hu tao or venti edit is not going to fucking kill you

3. I KNOW YOU DID NOT BRING UP THE BOONDOCKS. but its so funny to see u bring that because one of the reasons the boondocks was created was to bring light to aa society and issues in media because black folks have constantly been deprived of that in a society that revolves around a white populace. it was literally revolutionary for black animation and creativity. you literally just played yourself

anyway if your racist ass wanna reveal urself or whatever im turning off anon. stop stalking / following my blog btw its so funny to see how you immediately responded when i pressed post. ok awful speaking 2 you. bye

[outivv]

i have to agree with other anon. pessimistic? yes probably but they aren’t wrong there is no hope which is unfortunate that a game this popular and well known(for better or for worse eek) is this adamant on not changing stance but that is the unfortunate reality and while i don’t think the people telling others to just shut up and carry on is right obviously it’s hard to not take a “pessimistic” stance when they had over a year since sumeru to take the criticisms seriously and improve yet didn’t

while i am critical of natlan on my own personal socials i acknowledge that them fixing natlan just isnt apart of the equation and that the best we can do is be vocal about the issues now,during and after natlan because actually expecting change from them is bordering on delusional at this point

I do agree to a certain degree that hyv is a lost cause, however how the other anon sounded at least (but I might be misunderstanding) was kinda like a “just shut up about it, cut your losses and move on” which is what I mainly didn’t like- I wanna keep talking about it even after natlan is over even. I think Hoyoverse is shitty as hell, and that expecting immediate change is rough, but I still want SOMETHING to change. Will we get it? Likely not in the way we want.

I still think something will change, simply because hyv will go “oh no we’re losing money” and then change just the slightest thing, be like “oh wow now a character is like tan but not too tan, is that good enough?” Kinda like they did with changing npc skintones, but again- I still wanna have some kinda hope that maybe maybe maybeeee will they go a bit further and actually give good rep. Am I gonna hold onto that too tightly? Not unless capitano is tan.

I mean my faith in hyv is dwindling day by day, but like just hopefully SOMETHING will change now…

[transxiao]

they made a post saying they will block anyone associating their posts with irl social issues and totally disregarded the blatant colorism in hyv's sumeru character design by saying it's just fiction. Absolutely horrible.

eugh i completely missed that part of their pinned... idk why they would be so proud of that... ill block them and delete their rbs from my blog, but ill make sure to note what they may have posted i havent so i can repost and share so u guys can still see. thank u for letting me know

[ninas-gf]

i’m excited to see collei in sumeru, not just bc she’s one of my favorite characters and i want to see how her personality has progressed since she left mondstadt, but also bc of the archon residue injected into her… cyno may have neutralized it for the time being, but it could also become an issue in the future. besides, since collei seemed to be an early test subject used by the fatui, it’s likely that we don’t really know the long term affects of archon residue on the human body. i’m guessing that the fatui are still experimenting on people, and i honestly wouldn’t be surprised if there were corrupt researchers within sumeru academia who practice unethical experiments in private. i’m just SO interested to see what hyv does with all this

[ac-liveblogs]

Hi, this is FGO recent player + Genshin disillusioned anon! I finished Camelot a few days ago & I can’t help but compare how Camelot vs Sumeru uses allies. In Camelot, our allies have personal reason to oppose Lion King, reflected in their decision. Not so much in Sumeru. It reads less of “we save Nahida because of personal belief/reason” and more of “we save Nahida because She Is Right.” I haven’t bought its emotional beat the first time but comparing them highlights Genshin Writing Issue (1/2)

What FGO is doing here is pretty much Basic Writing 101 but Genshin does not even do that? An attempt was barely made, and that’s me being generous. I want to be interested in the characters but the game does not even give a shit. And fandom eats that? I do not get it, at all, and I wish fandom actually scrutinizes the writing harder. (As a sidenote, I know Camelot is great and I have seen the full game playthrough before but playing the entire story is an emotional ride! Bedi ;;__;;) (2/2)

BEDI………… 🤝🤝🤝 He's so great. I loved the Camelot chapter, it was the one that made me sit up and go "!!??" for the first time. Nasu's chapters haven't let me down a single time since then. I'm glad you're still enjoying yourself :) Babylonia is a real doozy heheh

But yeah, the thing is… I don't think anyone working on Genshin KNOWS Basic Writing 101? Or at the very least, they know Of it but not how to Do it. Like, it does feel like they're learning lessons as they go. They're learning the sorts of things they SHOULD be including, like having characters Talk To Each Other in meaningful ways, or actually bothering to get you attached to characters before trying to make you feel bad for them, making sure the playable characters are in the story and At Least Do Something... and they even finally apparently listened to my cries and actually wrote an investigation phase into their mystery storyline (resulting in the worst detective work I have ever seen in any story, ever. My standards are exceptionally low on that btw. I have seen a lot of Noddy, Toyland Detective.)

I just don't think they understand how story structure, character arcs or, heck Ace Attorney trials work before they start trying to produce or replicate them. They know what they like and the story they want to tell but not how to tell it. I think that's why they're so much more comfortable writing all the cool stuff into the lore dumps than the main storyline; books and artifact lore and letters are a lot easier to write than any of the things IN those books, artifact lore or letters. And I think that's because even if they do have writers, the ones they have are amateurs, and whoever's in charge of supervising/editing their work has no idea what they're doing!

I think HYV is finally starting to recognise their own weaknesses, because… okay, it might just be me, but doesn't it seem like Genshin's side characters have been getting more mundane? I think they've finally started to recognise that if they put Too Much Cool Stuff into a character's backstory, players will eventually expect them to actually follow through and they backed TF off real quick. Diluc and Kaeya's Literally Everything, Albedo 'destroying Mondstadt', Xiao Fighting Ancient God Ghosts, Beidou vs The Sea Monster She Killed And Won't Let Anyone Forget About, the bizarre personality traits originally imbued into the 4star characters…. doesn't it feel like Genshin's avoided writing things like that into its new characters?

The "shove all the relevant information into their backstory" game point blank refused to engage with Collei's backstory or offer any insight into Why Cyno Is Like That in their LORE, let alone the main story. Let alone the main story it should be suuuuuper relevant to. No one has any out there character quirks and there sure doesn't seem to be any implication that anyone is doing any Really Cool Dramatic Fights off-screen anymore, because the players might expect you to actually write those things!

Suffice to say that I am very curious how Lyney & Lynette's storyline will be handled going forward because it really feels like Genshin is afraid of their own cast.

Obviously, FGO doesn't have any of these issues. It's written by actual professional writers that can like, write. Even when they screw up, the structure of the story they're telling is still sound because they know how narrative structure is supposed to work. It's just that… Nasu is SUCH a technically skilled writer that he nails everything Genshin fucks up so cleanly it damns Genshin by comparison. It is especially fun to compare Inazuma to Lostbelt 6 because they have enough superficial plot similarities that make Inazuma's failings shine bright as day.

I think people are happy accepting it because uhhhh Genshin is played by a) a lot of casuals and b) meta-fans and c) lore nerds and that means that people often just accept the story for what it pretends to be instead of scrutinising it for what it is. I get that, sometimes I just wanna turn my brain off and only half pay attention to a story I'm reading and I definitely have a threshold for bullshit I'm willing to accept. Genshin just… even when I'm trying to be charitable, it always punches through all the allowances I'm giving it…

I think some people also just enjoy taking the character prompts and filling in the gaps themselves, rather than have the story do it for them, or that also low-stakes fantasy feel good fluff is appealing sometimes (and Genshin is definitely more comfortable trying to write that). On the other hand, I feel like I see people "filling in the gaps" for the story with stuff that isn't there, like their mind is auto-filling the missing parts of the story or linking up themes/information in ways that SEEM logical but aren't actually the case....

I've seen a lot of predictions or comments about the Oratrice that don't like up with canon, for example. But given the story that Genshin started setting up in Fontaine, those predictions/comments feel like the logical path the story regarding the Oratrice should be taking... or, you know, all the character arcs Genshin tried to write, I think there was a lot of 'filling the gaps' on some of the details of those!

Anyway, glad to hear from you again! I hope you keep enjoying FGO :) Just, uh, maybe skip through Agartha.