#I never finished the exploration in Mona’s island 🥲

[genshinchica]

As an autistic player, something I REALLY loved about Golden Apple 2022 was that Fischl’s lesson was not “you should stop pretending you’re a fictional character” and instead “you should embrace this thing that brings you joy and makes others cringe.” There’s something very genuine and loving about how the story was like “no this thing that others find weird is actually a part of yourself and who you are and you don’t have to compromise that for others and there are people who will love you for who you are and happily participate in it with you.”

I feel like it would have been really easy to have Fischl “grow up” and tell her the same thing people often tell autistic kids about their special interests or their behaviors, but instead they chose the surprisingly wholesome and nuanced take which I ❤️ and has left a special place in my heart. I’ve seen people be like “that was an unexpected lesson,” but I hope framing it this way may help people who felt that way about the ending reconsider it.

Fischl means a lot to a lot of trans and autistic players and not having her compromise who she is was really a good service for them!