#ㅤ��✦𓆪 ㅤ: ㅤ❛ㅤ𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐍 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑 / out of character.

[viaetor]

alright, and what if i create a wholeass mythology and universe for aethers background. what then.

[viaetor]

new dash icon is up! (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶) and with that, here's a quick announcement: i'm officially distancing aether from genpact as a whole. he will have an appearance that differs from his original source, other priorities personality-wise and he will be extremely canon-divergent in many instances. i will still have a traveller verse for him on genshin, and i will continue my current threads, as well as his current relationships and developments. however, i'll be heavily investing in the lore i came up with for him, so i'll prioritise threads and people interested in exploring those and other fandoms, bc honestly? i need the breeze of fresh air, and i haven't been accompanying genshin ever since arlecchino dropped orz. i will also remake his graphics and carrd soon to reflect these changes. i understand if people want to unfollow this blog because of that, and that's totally cool! i just really wanna officially oc-ify him and have fun.

[viaetor]

not to toot my own horn, but i've been so happy with the graphics i've been making over @aedearly lately. ;w;/ i think i've evolved a lot and gods, all my clients thus far have been such gems to work with!! like augghghghgh .. ....... if i could live off this, i kind of think i would . .... designing is so fun !!

[viaetor]

to do, in no particular order and as soon as i have more breathing time: 0) reply to messages!!! 1) make a masterlist post with all important notes and stuff regarding aethers lore (thank you sm riley for this idea i owe u my life), 2) update some tags, 3) make verses for these fandoms: soul eater, league of legends/arcane, bg3, kingdom hearts, modern (split into 2), 4) reply to some inbox things, 5) reply to threads so i can kill some people with feelings, 6) make a post about aethers weapon forms, 7) draw aethers appearance bc its gonna diverge from canon highly, 8) update carrd regarding my utter oc-fication of aether.

[viaetor]

when people ask me about my level of insanity towards aether, i will show them the sketches of aethers lore and screencaps of my 48 pages google doc. ALSO, this cool looking fella is gonna be either thalnor, god of dreams and lies, or xe'st, goddess of the forgotten things and void......... they like aether! in their own weird way. if indulged even Slightly, i will absolutely also commission or draw his weapons forms, the crystal palace he grew up in and the other starborn creatures he lived with. actually wait, i probably should already. hm. anyway,,

[viaetor]

hi it's pride month, y'know what that means!!!!!1!11!! (i'm writing your favourite pan alien aether genshinimpact again, that's what it means).

[viaetor]

hi everyone! i hope you're all doing well and taking care of yourselves and having good days. i haven't been very active here because of my surgeries, but i plan on being more active soon since i've been missing writing a lot. before that though, i need to state something very important for my blog going forward: i will not be interacting with any natlan characters/blogs or characters related/inspired by the region (including ocs), only if they're canon divergent. this will not change with the release of the archon quests. i will simply take whatever i feel is relevant to my aether and that’s it. my reasons for this drastic decision will be explained below. please take this post not only as an announcement but as well as a vent and an attempt to call for awareness, especially since many of us are not only roleplayers but writers, artists and content creators. i'd appreciate it if you could all read this post in full.

this post is also not directed at my mutuals or any people i have contact with. this is just me trying to make my boundaries clear, explaining them, and hoping you can understand (and perhaps relate to) my hurt. read this post and make your own judgement. i appreciate your time regardless. 

i'm latin american, proudly born and raised. my parents fought in the dictatorship of our country, my grandparents were of indigenous settlements. i'm a history graduate with honours, and before that, i studied social and political sciences. i've been a part of political movements in my university to guarantee equality and education, and i only stopped being part of some of them because i received threats by alt-right extremists targeting my family. even so, i still continue to be a constant participant in assemblies and projects. i'm an avid volunteer worker in local schools, and i worked in hospitals, too. i speak portuguese, spanish, french and english with varying levels of fluency. i've lived most of my childhood and early adolescence in villages. i've participated in many religious rituals, invited by practising people of those beliefs, and i've shared so many wonderful memories with people from so many latin american backgrounds that i can't even make a cohesive timeline of all my adventures. 

i'm saying all this to emphasise that i'm speaking from a place of experience, knowledge, and culture. my word is by no means the law, but i sure do believe it holds weight. you're free to disagree with me and think otherwise, of course. but i do think that, if that's the case and you have very strong positive feelings regarding natlan as a whole, it'd be best if you would unfollow and block me for both of our sakes.

i've been playing genshin impact since its launch, and ever since the release of inazuma as a region, i've been discontent with how the game has been progressing in design. i've also written and published scientific articles about the inherent colourism, racism and orientalism found in genshin, specifically in sumeru, while also nodding in acknowledgement to some of the research that the design team put in some characters—namely al-haitham, nilou and cyno. i know the issues we are seeing today are not new. however, it for sure has gotten worse. 

with these disclaimers out, i'd like to put some of my grievances out in the open. 

when you play genshin, you can feel that liyue is china. mondstadt feels like germany. inazuma resembles japan. fontaine is an ode of love to french steampunk and was very well designed. even sumeru, with all its issues of blending all of swana in one single region, has some research done when it comes to the islamic golden ages and pre-islamic mythologies. so if you see anyone arguing that hoyoverse is “just a videogame company”, know that they can and have done better. as their popularity and revenue grow, as players—free to play or otherwise—we are entitled to expect the same quality or more from them.

i don't feel the same way about everything we've seen of natlan so far, and i've been feeling more and more disrespected. 

i was sceptical when natlan was first announced, and some leaks were happening. i expected the worst, and honestly, it sunk even deeper than i thought. the names of the characters we've got, alongside some leaks, suggest that the characters we will be getting are based on the north, central, and south americas, africa, and oceania. this worried me very, very deeply and today, with the newest released trailer, i just gave up hoping for anything good, really.

although some people may (ignorantly? optimistically? blindly?) claim that all these continents are connected—and they certainly have many influences on each other through religion, culture and economics, born from colonisation processes—, it's at best stupidly naive to believe that one single entire region in an online videogame will tactfully tackle complex non-western and non-asian cultures and customs. because, yes, those are non-western and non-asian societies: we are progressively denied a place in western politics and cultures, we are treated as lesser, and we do not participate in global economics. when did you last buy a chilean videogame in the united states or europe? or a fiji pair of shoes? or a nigerian movie ticket in your city theatres? if you've answered "never" to just one of those questions, you've proven my point that these countries and regions are not "part" of the west or even asia. we are outsiders. we have always been treated as outsiders. while these european and asian powerhouses were allowed to stand as their own regions, genshin muddled all these cultures and ethnicities into one melting pot that they are calling natlan. the game is quite literally a global phenomenon now. imagine the impression natlan will be projecting to an audience that is none-the-wiser to the cultures natlan is meant to be inspired from.

so, again: when it was announced that natlan would take inspiration from all these regions, my heart sank. it feels like we're all being put together in one single frying pan of "exotic," "distant," and "unknown." everything that is considered "tribal" (because that's how westerners and asians tend to see us) is being thrown in natlan. it's demoralising. 

this is not to mention the clear money-grabbing and capitalist recycling of character designs going on with some of the characters—something never seen before in genshin impact’s history, by the way! they always came up with new concepts—and the abhorrent colourism that has been intensified. 

the disrespect has been getting rampant. some of the already shown characters have tribal tattoos that are used by some of the indigenous people for important rituals. the patterns of clothes they've shown also mix many cultures and peoples (sometimes even historically rivalling ones, to top that off) that are disrespectful. they went for a streetwear/biker kind of look that looks completely soulless and unimaginative, instead of doing the bare minimum of researching beautiful contemporary indigenous-owned fashion companies. because it's easier. i think it’s also easier to hire voice actors who aren’t latines, right? we must be “scarce, barely existent”.

and, what kicked the bucket for me, after trying so hard to give genshin the benefit of the doubt: an important deity for the yorubá people, iansã/iansan/oyá, has been shown as a fucking child in the game. she… and olorun, who you might know as ororon if you play in english, even though in all other translations (japanese, korean and chinese), his name is written correctly as olorun. but of course, the english translation team for hoyoverse, as usual, couldn’t do the bare fucking minimum. because it’s a nigerian name, right? why do they/you care? but just so you know, in case you’re the least bit curious: iansan and olorun are two of the most important orixás/deities in african and african-latin american religions. they’re worshipped to this day. they’re real, representative religious symbols. not tokens. not your average dead gods. i want to ask you, sincerely: what would you think and how would you feel if genshin named a guy "mohammed", or "allah", or “jesus christ”, or a girl "mary magdalene"? what do you think happened when cod vanguard showed the quran's pages on the floor? people were pissed. and of course, people should be pissed. and don't try to "oh, but people do that with greek and egyptian gods". don't be disingenuous, i know you’re smarter than that and that you know there's a difference and creeping power dynamic here. 

if this is not enough for you, then please, enlighten me. where are the beautiful forests of natlan that could have been inspired by the amazon? where are the amazing deserts inspired in bolivia or chile? how about the colourful cities of el salvador or cuba? is it truly enough for you guys to have something slightly resembling the aztec empire and its continuous fetishisation? wouldn't it be easier to play crash bandicoot or the old indiana jones games? why are we celebrating this?

i'm beyond heartbroken. 

to my latine siblings, whether you’re celebrating/enjoying natlan in your own way and finding light in it or if you’re as disappointed as i am, we deserve better than this. 

to my usamerican, canadian, european and asian friends, please, please, please listen to people who have lived and loved latam and all the other regions. i already did what i could: i've sent tickets to hoyoverse, i'll be muting natlan-specific words, and i will not be rolling on any upcoming natlan banners. 

so this here is just the nail of the coffin: i will not be accepting anything natlan-related on this blog.

thank you for reading!

[viaetor]

i sadly didn't get to write a lot before one of my surgeries, but i have a funny story to share after my leg surgery. during the surgery, even if i had anesthesia n everything, i could tell there were lots of interns going around and i was so confused abt it bc gods, what's the need of it. after i was checked in to the room, i asked the doctor about it, and in her words, "we couldn't believe you've been able to walk so well with that fucked up leg for so long that we called and used your case as a practical experiment." and I was like omg!!! so flattering!!!!! they gave me candies to compensate for that. I'm now the fanciest patient in the block bc hospital candies cost $$$$, hooray to dealing with a fucked up leg for 4 years!

[viaetor]

URL CHANGE: @solasters → @viaetor !!

[viaetor]

just got off from a meeting with my university instructor regarding my master's, and we talked a bit about my work expectations, his future projects i wanted to be a part of, etc. all good and dandy! until..... (˶╥︿╥) him: do you plan on following the academic life, publishing more things, etc? / me: yes, i've written some articles we can publish, i'll link them to you!!! / him: i thought you were doing freelance work as a translator and graphic designer this month? / me: ... yes. / him: and you enrolled in computer science courses? / me: it's always good to have a plan D! / him: and why were you chatting with (cybersecurity professor)? / me: a plan F! ........ he gave me a vacation from his lab and projects. i thought i was already in one....

[viaetor]

about to go on a meeting with the university head chief and the biggest dick energy professors I've met so they can talk to me abt me being their bitch I mean hiring me as an official translator pls wish me luck

[viaetor]

but what if you made a kh blog/verse? what then.

[viaetor]

THANK YOU FOR 2023 AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

as this year comes to a close, i wanted to thank everyone that has been a part of my days. thank you for the conversations, for the plots, for the simple interactions, for your patience, for your caring, for your loving, for the ear pulls, for the fights, for the comfort. thank you for being you and for allowing me to meet you, partially or wholly. thank you! for the good memories, for the bad ones that turned into lessons, for the dreams, for just being around. thank you for everything! i will carry it all out with me, heartfully.

i hope that 2024 brings you kindness, happiness, laughter, cheer and good tears and so many accomplishments. i hope that next year you can face the difficult times with strength and love, with your chin up. i hope i can be there to see you being reborn into thousand other versions of you and that we can meet in the intersections of our roads. may we grow wiser, kinder, happier, more patient, welcoming and understanding. may we celebrate each other! may we write and fall in love with each other! may we find art in one another! may we meet!

thank you and we will see each other soon! i can't wait to meet more of you and mesh your art with mine. ♡

[viaetor]

(๑╥﹏╥)੭ ♡

[viaetor]

i updated my shipping tier list! you can check out my current brainworms there. ~ but also, i wanted to make it easily editable for future genshin impact characters and the like! so if you're a genshin blog and you wanna use this google doc as a template for your own shipping tier list (so you don't have to re-do your listing on tiermaker every time new characters come out lmao), please feel free to do so! and talk to me about shippy stuff, cowards.

[viaetor]

nyello !! i've updated my carrd, please check it out when u have the time! i updated some of my guidelines (small things, mostly abt my activity, the most important stuff is on the left) and my about + verses pages. i still have some things to adjust and i need to make an updated version of my shipping tier list, but that's for future me to struggle with AJSDKGJM ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ