#and i love nahida as a character but i still hate her fucking design

[hy2ka]

see the thing about anime and anime-adjacent things is that i have given up on expecting them to do good on character designs on south/west/southwest asian characters

[c6jpg]

natlan 5.0 brain dump

i did this in a lot of small chunks so i already forgot all of my detailed thoughts so i'm gonna try to keep it brief

general environment/exploration:

first off music and scenery is 💯💯💯

i particularly like how much wildlife there is and i really love the saurian gameplay (for me its hydro > dendro >>>> geo)

i feel so awful every time i accidentally kill a capybara they should be immune like the rhinos

it makes sense that there isn't "one huge city" like the other nations since natlan is composed of tribes, and each tribe looks like it gets a decent amount of attention, but i was still kind of disappointed by how small the stadium of the sacred flame feels in comparison for being the "main" area. i feel like they could have done a lot more with it

archon quest:

tldr; it was... not good? or at least very underwhelming? especially coming off fontaine/sumeru which had incredibly strong opening acts

act 1 was particularly like. whatever. felt more like a kachina story quest that rolled right into a mualani (but npc-focused) story quest

like for how important the pilgrimage is it just felt so. underwhelming and anticlimatic. yes yes i know kachina is precious and everyone loves her but i wish we spent less time doing kachina support group and focused more on the pilgrimage itself like can we at LEAST see some of the other playable characters participating instead of just hearing about it in passing

literally was soooooooooo fucking annoyed with the entire atea plotline. i wrote a whole rant in my first write up but basically that entire arc only existed so that they could bring back the purification plot device which WE HAVEN'T SEEN SINCE MONDSTADT

i was just incredibly annoyed with how that was all handled lol atea is also just such a non-character how am i supposed to care about her. she didn't even die in the end!!!

also mualani's tribe's whole thing being super stereotypical hawaiian tourism left a really bad taste in my mouth i wanted to get out of there as fast as possible

act 2 was weird because like. i felt like they were saying a lot of things that were like "this is a serious national crisis" but it didn't... feel that way? and a lot of the lore itself was pretty glossed over

i think a problem with the natlan story is that you need the first acts to set up the stakes but we just spent the first act gallivanting around with kachina/mualani and then when they DID get to the "main problem" in act 2 it just info dumped so hard to the point that i. didn't care?

pacing in general just felt all over the place

the only investment they gave us is through caring about kachina and i guess hating the abyss/not wanting a nation to be destroyed on principle but idk. especially with the "nah we gotta wait for the last 2 heroes first" the stakes are Not there for me

reminded me of when nahida was like "yeah i needed you to figure this out for yourself bc if i told you directly your head would explode." but at least that one was fun/could just chalk it up to nahida being cheeky and didn't like. prolong the plot for too long

SHOW US DON'T TELL US DAMN IT. i might just have recency bias but i genuinely feel like natlan might be one of the worst cases of telling and not showing as far as archon quests are concerned

also capitano's appearance felt so random LMAO he really showed up, said some cryptic shit, got his ass beat, and then left. at least the cutscene was cool?

chasca girl i'm shaking crying throwing up somebody get that girl a full pair of pants and brown contacts PLEASE

i find it interesting how detailed/fleshed out chuychu (chasca's sister) is, both in terms of design and personality/character. it kind of felt like they originally intended for her to be playable but turned her into an NPC instead

also citlali is definitely some kind of faruzan situation where she's old but young looking

night kingdom was cool i guess nothing really to say here. i am very interested in the wayob lore though especially in regards to how it ties into the rest of teyvat/why natlan has particularly weak leylines

i feel like mavuika's younger sister might also become relevant in the future... in a bad way. like the insistence to not being forgotten/seeing mavuika again, the fact that mavuika doesn't "really" know what happened to her. also she also got a pretty unique npc model. or maybe she won't be brought up ever again idk

in general that whole reminiscence sequence with mavuika was like. fine but again you just info dumped the shit out of me i have no emotional attachment to feel anything about whats going on right now???

also we all know that was fucking ororon at the end with capitano like lmao come on. but im willing to bet both he + chasca are the last two heros bc like. who tf else do we have left LMAOOO

capitano was supposed to be cool but he's just giving goofy villain right now. sorry capitano fans they flopped so hard with him in this act

[eternal-moss]

its fanservice when women, super important when its men is ur takeaway from the summer event

Help the way I got one singular like and one hate comment for that post 😭 it’s fanservice when it’s fanservice dude. I found Scara’s behaviour annoying and cliché (“hehe ur kinda cute” [please leave me alone]), as well as laying on Nilou’s lap.

(The rest of this isn’t really me responding to you but just rambling about Alice, Rhine & the Hexenzirkel because it’s midnight rn and witches yeaag)

I’m a massive Hexenzirkel fan! I’m just annoyed that still after so long we haven’t gotten a single bit of reference to what Alice looks like so I can’t draw fanart of her. Like seriously, are we going to have to wait until Snezhnaya to finally see her?? I’m happy for any kind of Alice content but I’m always sad it’s mainly crumbs.

She’s an incredible inventor, she literally made both the gramophone & telephone. I want her to be super super overpowered, her strength is already alluded to by her seeming to have comparable power to Venti (changing Mondstadt’s landscape) but I want it to be m o r e.

More about Alice bc I love her. I love writing her into fics (especially crossover ones because she CANONICALLY TRAVELS WORLDS. WHY IS THIS NEVER BROUGHT UP.) and just one-shotting the antagonists with the full force of the sun lol. I really want to learn more about the Genshin ‘elves’ too because they’re just thrown in there without much explanation. (Layla literally never mentions it, or Nahida…)

RHINE TIME!!! I love Rhinedottr & all her fucked up children (although I wish we knew more about her past). I love how her motivation genuinely seems to be joy in her creations, and it ‘just so happens’ that most of them turn out to be catastrophic in some way 😭. I hope she’s more cold and reserved, but secretly a bit insane like Alice. I also really like the two of them romantically paired together, shout out to the 7 other Rhinealice shippers out there.

I like daydreaming about them going to magic school together or some kind of study (a la Farcille. Thank you Farcille for existing to fulfill my Rhinealice fantasies), and how they’d respond to Khaenri’ah’s fallout? Are they still in contact? Does Alice know if Rhine is alive? When was Albedo given to her? HOW OLD IS ALICE BRO 😭😭

In terms of physical features, I see both of them as being greying & looking in their 50s (only partially to spite the fact that 90% of the Genshin cast appear in their early 20s or younger. Xianyun’s the closest thing we have to an older woman. Playable Madame Ping when⁉️)

The Hexenzirkel is genuinely one of my favourite parts of the Genshin lore and I really hope they do it well. I enjoyed their teaser so much, and I hope we get to see more of that, as well as Venti’s allyship with them, something that was referenced as far back as the first summer event where Venti leant (lol) Dvalin for Klee to travel, presumably because he and Alice are friendly with each other.

I’m obviously interested in the other members of the Hexenzirkel (and other witches!!!! Like Lisa and Rosalyne!!!!) but we really don’t know that much about them, aside information from Mona who I don’t have.

Alice & Rhine are basically my OCs at this point, and when their designs are inevitably very different from my imagined versions of them, I might as well make them OCs lol.

So no, my takeaway is not men=interesting women=boring. My favourite Genshin character is Kokomi and I’m extremely sad they’ve given her little to no allusion to her lore for the past 3 years 🥲

I think it’s a bit rude of you to come into my asks saying something like that on anon, but I won’t deny I found the first 3 parts of the event excruciatingly boring, as someone who is slightly interested in Sumeru, and barely interested in Fontaine. I’ve always loved Mondstadt and Liyue the most, so of course I was interested for Mondstadt lore. AND DRAGONS. I LOVE DRAGONS DUDE.PLEASE CAN SOMEONE LET KOKOMI HAVE HER DRAGON LORE I BEG.

[kaeyazuha]

Bestie I just finished the archon quest and I only have a couple questions..the uh main one as HOW THE FUCK DO PEOPLE STILL SIMP FOR DOTTORE!?!!!?? HE DID NOTHING BUT MAKE MY BLOOD BOIL ANYTIME HE SHOWED UP ON SCREEN LIKE WHAT!?!!?!??

Secondly UN HELLO SCARAMOUCHE!? MY POOR BBY CRYING OUT WHEN NAHIDA WAS TAKING THE GNOSIS LIKE!?!?!? ACTUALLY SOBBING RN JSEKDOAK

Thirdly I almost started crying when Nahida did I was like plz stop cause im bout to start cryin 😭

ARCHON QUEST 3.2 SPOILERS

BAHAHJAKH YESS I was playing the scene with Nahida and Dottore with my sister and when we showed up we both starting yelling at him, I've raised her well. Though I must admit, Dottore has a pretty impressive character and design. I still hate the guy with all my heart but I respect the effort put into him. ooh the plague doctor reference (bird on his shoulder) is pretty cool too

YES HIS VOICE ACTOR IS INCREDIBLE which language do you play in? I play in Japanese and I love it sm- also the way Nahida is taking care of Scaramouche after all this makes me so happy omg I'm so happy for both of them- I feel like he'll help her be more selfish while she helps him be more selfless :D

HER CUTSCENE WAS SO GOOD The pain in her eyes and voice before she killed her was perfect-

[pwnyta]

Genshin character Judgement after all these years of playing. I will judge looks, personality, and say my favorite voice! Now with 5-stars, alphabetical order PART 2.

(under the cut)

Definitely a a better looks than Ganyus... Cloud Retainer whats going on with you that your daughters are dressed this way tho... BUT. I love Shenhe. Her story was so good... her song still makes me cry. Its a shame she doesnt exist anymore LMAO.

Her CN and KR voices are best IMO. I dont mind her EN tho.

Cute design but I wish she was a regular Melusine. ALSO HYV sure has the nerve to do a 'RACISM BAD' storyline with her but still fucking refuse to add a playable character with dark skin or a different hair texture... especially in NATLAN which is based on the precolonial Americas and Africa... ITS A CHOICE. Really the only time we see darker skin characters with locs are ENEMIES. Fuck off. Sigewinne this isnt your fault baby close your eyes.

I dont like her EN VA at all but the rest are very cute.

King dripless. My god. Also he was WAAAAY to easily forgiven for what he did... But his personality is fun so I cant hate him.

His EN voice too is kinda goofy... but his other VAs have sexy voices. So good for them.

UGH.

UGHHH His EN VA got replaced because the old one was a creep but they replaced him with such a generic voice it kinda sucked. LMAO. Not as bad as his JP voice tho... why does he sound 12?

Venti my boy. It took me awhile to warm up to Venti but I like him a lot now. I WILL SAY... there a quite a few people who will tear down Zhongli for him and I hate them. To mischaracterize Zhongli to make Venti look better is crazy... for what? VenXiao? Its a choice. Its not Zhonglis fault hes got a better relationship with Xiao... also if Zhongli got people drunk without their consent or brushed aside Barbaras stalkers youd ring his neck.

THAT ALL SAID. Ventis fun. Good guy mostly. Im fairly certain he'll have a 2nd story come Natlan considering his connections to Vanessa.

I dont mind any of his VAs.

Biggest glow up in Genshin history. I kinda dont like that he deleted his misdeeds from the history of the world... BUT.... hes getting better and hes putting in effort to be better so I got over it. He was really great in this Summer event. Wish he wasnt fuckin BLUE tho. Ya know now that I think about how Scara deleted himself from the GI memory I guess thats why Nahida has a digital vibe.. I guess the tree IS like a computer... (I still think its weird) Also I named MY wanderer Galilei! To go with the Bohemian Rapsody theming hes got... also I chose Galilei over Galileo cuz 'Lil Ei' since hes one of Eis puppets. IM SO FUCKING GOOD.

I like his CN voice the best.... WHYD JP GO WITH THAT VOICE THATS SO FUNNY. WTF

Hot. There was a concept design where he had darker skin and an eyepatch... we coulda had it all. But he still looks great. WHAT WAS WITH HIS PAST THO!? WHY IS FONTAINE SO FUCKED UP IDK. ALSO WHY WOULD HE BE GUILTY OF KILLING HIS CHILD MURDERING FOSTER PARENTS?! WTF IS WRONG WITH FONTAINE!? LYNETTE GOT FUCKING SOLD TO SOME CREEPS! THEY ALSO LOCKED UP A PREGNANT WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH IN THEIR AND DIED AND WE HAD TO REUNITE THE GRANDDAUGHTER WITH HER GRANDFATHER AND I ONLY JUST REALIZED RIGHT BEFORE AND WAS LIKE 'WAIT A MINUTE IS THIS THAT RANDOM NPCS GRANDDAUGHTER!? IS THE REASON SHE NEVER WROTE HIM BACK CUZ SHE FUCKING DIED?!' and thats exactly what happened. HUGE fridge horror moment for me right before it was revealed in game. LMAO..... .... anyways.

No complaints on the VAs.

MAN I remember seeing her design leaked and being... just infatuated. Shes a rare W vs her concept design which gave her like bellbottoms and I was scared for a moment that THAT might be the design they went with BUT NO! We got THIS. Beautiful. Her personality is also SO fucking cute. Shes so cute. I love that she acts tough until someone is nice to her and she gets all flustered.... Shenhe saying she thought of her and Xianyun being all touched about it... ;w;... But also her badly haggling was so funny and she was cool with that one dude being kinda rude to HER but the minute he doubted Zhongli she got so mad in his defense... Shes so cute... I love her.

EN VA clears. I think she does the best illustrating Xianyuns personality.

My mans Xiao... I thought I wouldnt like him since Im not fond of tsundere characters but hes a good boy. Also hes a Zhongli stan so how can I NOT love him. His quest in the Chasm was particularly good... ;w; the way I cried when Paimon shouted 'XIAO!!!!' LMAO.. that hurt my feelings even though I knew HYV didnt have the balls to kill him.

I think his EN VA sound SUPER petulant mostly but the deranged way he says USELESS and DISAPPEAR!!!! makes me laugh so I dont actually mind it... that said the others all clear him.

I dont like Yae as much as I thought I would when I first saw the Inazuma cast leak... but I still like her and her relationship with Ei (and Gorou) but im not that attached.... like I guess thats sorta how I feel for more of the Inazuma cast TBH.

JP voice clears... I am not immune to ARA ARA

Yelans outfit is so fucking GOOFY. Shes pretty tho... just wish she had better clothes.... Her character is great too but shes probably one of the characters Im LEAST invested in Liyue.

Her EN voice is sexy as hell.

MY FAVORITE INAZUMA GIRL!! The babiest. I love her so much. Shes so damn cute and lovely and her quest with the Aranara was weird... but adorable and I love her. Shes the only bow DPS I even TRIED to pull for. They could never make me hate you Yoimiya!!! Ive loved her from the minute I saw her on the leaked Inazuma cast lineup.

I like her JP voice the best~

AH. Finally... the TRUE BABYGIRLEST. My handsome dad, my beautiful son, MY BEAUTIFUL SUN, MY PRINCESS... MY QUEEN. I love Zhongli so much... I can never leave Genshin no matter how annoyed I get with it because this demon right here. Hes got me by the heartstrings. Like with Navia (GEO STAY WINNING) I know when hes got a part in a story they just cant fuck it up. Hes also dripped out to hell. I hope SOMEDAY we actually get a story about YOU instead of random history... not that I havent enjoyed the blasts from the past (especially Azhdaha my second favorite character) but like... WHAT ABOUT YOU SPECIFICALLY TELL ME....

I love all of Zhonglis VAs. I like EN and CN the best tho.

---

Again with Natlan I dont know the star rating Im just guessing.

Pretty my guaranteed 5-star... I liked her design a lot more before it was pointed out that her zipper goes all the way up her ass... now her outfit is kinda gross. Also nothing about it really reads like the cultures Natlan takes from so similar to Nahida... Im kinda disappointed. Shed also look better with at least a tan...

Im so surprised people on Twit are obsessed with this design... its so fuckin boring... her animations are super cute tho.

I guess its fine. Like with Nahida... i dont like the weird digital-ness of him. The color palate is pretty great tho. (hed look better with a darker skin tone tho)

Shes so damn hot. A rare W from the Natlan cast. She'd look better with a darker skin tone tho.

UGH.

Capitano.... please... Please look good by the end of your story. I have such a sinking feeling youre Ororon... Please dont be. Id be so disappointed. Hasnt Natlan done enough to disappoint me.... I know you wont be playable if youre the spooky faceless monster I want but at least dont be fucking boring... PLEASE.

[kaeyazuha]

Plz I would probs hate Zhongli irl with a passion but in game I cant 😭 he just makes cackle everytime he opens up his dumb old man mouth like my mans is a boomer in a game 💀He defs is a terrible 'father' figure but tbh none of the Archons werent that great if you think about it. Venti got his ass best in 2 secs and is an alcoholic, Zhongli is...himself...and the original Dendro archon is..eh?? Like Nahida and MAYBE Raiden are the ones who are actually decent

Raiden lost her sister, had to abandon Scaramouche because of his softness and still feels guilty about it, and her one friend, Yae Miko did absolute jack shit. I feel like Sara was more of a friend to Raiden then Yae Miko was. Raiden is still trying to fix her mistakes on Inuzuma too! At least she is TRYING

Now if anyone needs a break, its Nahida! She was picked as the new Archon AGAINST HER WILL and people soon forgot about her?? While all she could do is sit back and try to her best??? Like people literally only hated on her because of skin tone, which is still an issue! But guys..SHES A FUCKING CHILD???? She is literally trying her best to be the best Archon AND not getting upset that her birthday cant be celebrated because the other Archon died??? Fucking excuse me?? I think Nahida should meet Klee and they should be best friends >:(

(I dont mind sharing my opinion on here because I feel like most of the Twitter Genshin community has left my page alone lmao)

FRR HE'S HILARIOUS it's the only reason I tolerate him- again I only hate how the fandom glorifies him, I do like him as a character haha

Honestly I love Venti bc of what he stands for. He didn't just abandon Mondstadt, he taught his people how to raise a nation and then let it run itself! "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. " And the parallels between him and the unnamed bard sljgs delicious

FR And despite Ei being a total tyrant, she was doing what she thought was best for her country after experiencing so much loss. If nothing else, I see that in a lot of moms, so I like that ideology being used. Doing what you think is best for someone but finding out it hurts them later on, and then she's actively trying to change and improve by listening to the people :')

YES FINALLY YESSS I adore Kusanali! I do dislike her design because I'm tired of Mihoyo's colorism and creepy sexualizing (especially with the kids) but I love her character! Especially in the new archon quest, she's so sweet, considerate, and does her best to help out wherever she can. And to have the mentality of a child while doing this? She's incredible! Kusanali and Klee solo the world yes PLEASE

ooh okok that makes sense- I was more worried about spamming people haha

[citroncynique]

Honestly thank you so much for adding onto this haha

I genuinely love Dori for her bastardly personality. She's a deeply flawed person who became so because of trauma. None of her actions are excusable, but all of her actions are very much intentional. She's unapologetic and puts up a hefty façade to trick everyone, including herself, that she's entirely remorseless about what she does.

There's a lot of reasons why people don't like her, and imho some are more valid than others.

Criticism of her orientalist design is one reason I will always agree with. No questions asked. It is the most valid reason to dislike/hate Dori as a concept.

The only caveat is that, on the subject of orientalism, Nilou was very quickly forgiven because she's a pretty anime girl.

(If it were entirely up to me there's... a lot of stuff wrt Dori's design that wouldn't be like that. I really wanna work on a redesign for her.)

If the issue is her personality, I can get that too, she's not for everyone- though on the other hand, a lot of Genshin fans who play Honkai Star Rail are very much into Sampo (who is quite literally Hot Man Dori. I'm sorry, it's true.)

It's speculated that Pantalone might be very much similar to her with regards to how he handles money. We won't see people hating him as much. People like who they like and all, and that's valid!! It's just. If it's the tropes you dislike, double standards are there.

I think the Dori hate also comes from a very performative form of virtue signaling for people who wanna show that they aren't into l*li type characters. People were mad that Nahida was the chibi model, people were angry way back when some theories that Shinobu would have that model popped up. There's always an initial loathing for those types bc it's sus for people to be excited for chibi model characters.

It's entirely understandable to want to distance yourself from that kind of stuff if you're averse to it. I've had to sift through a lot of content I'd rather not have come across if I wanted to see some Dori art that wasn't done by me lmao. I like Dori the way people like annoying little mascots and whatnot, personally.

There's something uncomfortable with how vitriolic some people are about Dori. It escalated to the EN VA being sent death threats and being accused of being a white supremacist (when they're. not a white person. nor are they in any case responsible for design or writing of this character. They just do Dori's voice and their delivery is absolutely stellar imho).

There's hate towards the character and towards the VA, but criticisms against HYV themselves have just. Faded away. The fandom was fed pretty characters and whatnot, and moved on. Soon enough Dori hate stopped being about (rightfully) criticizing a character for their orientalist design and inspirations, and just became a punchline.

With that being said, HYV didn't do Dori any favours. Her backstory makes room for a lot of complexities that just... aren't used, narratively, on actual on-screen quests. We barely see her genuine grief and anxiety aside from teapot companion voicelines. Everything interesting about Dori is stashed away in her character stories (and one of Kaveh's character stories- and the Kaveh+Dori business partnership is a whole other can of worms. I'll touch upon it at some point if prompted lmao)

Re: Kaveh, all I'll say for now is that HYV hasn't made their arrangement clear. Many people still think Dori scammed Kaveh, when the situation is far more complicated than that (and doesn't involve scamming at all).

I feel that HYV may have held back on writing more for Dori bc of the general backlash received. Instead of rounding her out, they flanderized her and kind of.... used her as little as possible.

I appreciated her in Cyno's SQ, I kind of wish we had a little more meat to her writing in Kaveh's hangout, but aside from that she hasn't been used to her full narrative potential. Fuck's sake, she's friends with Alice, of all people, use that! Her design is extremely reminiscent of Liloupar's bottle, and she has a little Jinni as a familiar- what's going on there?

I have a bunch of Dori doodles I never actually posted bc I knew how hated she was, and it's unfortunately only now that the Sumeru versions are coming to a close that I'm daring to post more of her haha (this isn't an act of immense bravery or whatever, it's just how I personally feel about my own art)

ANYWAY.

TL;DR Dori is disappointing as a character bc she's a waste of narrative potential. Also Orientalism is bad. Also people are quick to forgive the flaws of characters who are conventionally simpable. Also people can like or dislike whatever characters they want!! If you still hate Dori after reading this diatribe, godspeed!! I'm just throwing ideas into the blue void of tumblr and you owe me nothing! *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Thanks for coming to my TEDxTalk. I swear I was not sponsored by the Almighty Merchant Lord Sangemah Bay to write this PR piece for her.

I decided to give Dori a snazzy outfit (to go financially extort Kaveh with what a girlboss)