#boycot hoyoverse

[yaffyna]

I wont speak for the POC about representation of their cultures (I will have my fair share when they will make Snezhnaya), but what I got to say is I always draw Kaveh about 7-10 shades darker than in canon and he still looks as white as me, though I can never find my foundation shade because Im way too pale. I dont think thats acceptable.

[iodrawsandtalks]

communicating something i thought was very obvious. Hoyoverse are Zionist benefactors.

- a benefactor is somebody who can pay money to support brands. If you pay a benefactor they can pay boycotted brands to compensate for monetary losses.

Hard to balance handling social media and people with 0 cares for your mental health but this is something that has to be confronted. Yeah, the CEO hasnt said they love Israel or anything, but I’ve gotten sick of them announcing collaborations with Zionists despite making billions of dollars that could save billions of people. And then twitter activists cheering them on. Never mind their pro colonization rhetoric found in two of their games. I digress.

not pictured:

I know SO MANY people love their games but lets be a little more guarding of where our money goes.

Maybe pick up fishing if you need some game to calm yourself. Go fish. Especially the invasive ones.

[rooksamoris]

hoyoverse: here’s a character inspired by afro-caribbean deities that are worshipped in west africa and south america because the slave trade created a mixing of religions (as seen in cuba with santeria being directly tied to yoruba and influenced by roman catholicism as well as what remained of indigenous religion after colonization)

their skin color: ⚪️

hoyoverse: here’s two female characters based off of rulers and warriors from africa, one being meroitic (sudan) and the other being amazigh (north africa). each of them were known for not only their strength but the way in which they ruled and protected their lands from invaders. one of them then literally has colored depictions of herself from ancient meroe

hoyoverse: they get whitewash and the belly dancer outfit/barbaric mercenary treatment

[troythecatfish]

[outivv]

With natlan out I wanna remind everyone to not spend, don’t top up, don’t get the battle pass, don’t refresh welkin, don’t even play if that’s what you’re deciding.

[living-la-vida-lesbian]

i like to think i'm entertaining at times

[tomatopers]

about the hoyoverse boycott

i just wanted to put my two cents out there, as a South Asian:

We knew, from before anything was out, that Natlan would lack skin tone diversity at bare minimum, so it came as no surprise when these characters showed up; To preface my post, this does not make what happened and what's happening okay.

Why are people mad? Obviously, the skin tones are a big part of it. Yes, lightskinned people exist and live, etc, in these cultures- no, they do not make up 100% of them. What Hoyoverse is doing in Natlan is blatantly profiting off of poc cultures/religion in a disrespectful manner, and they have [once again] failed to acknowledge this. A really obvious example of this is the character "Ororon." I am no expert in Olorun, but as many have said, this character is meant to be based off of the deity.

This is awful- there are NO similarities, "Ororon" looks like my gacha life oc from seventh grade, and the disrespect towards the Yoruba people is insane.

As a twitter user whose tag I forgot mentioned, the majority of the Natlan Characters shown so far have been lighter than Lois Griffin [Family Guy].

Onto the boycott itself- If you are going to boycott Genshin, I recommend also boycotting other Hoyoverse games- being f2p isn't hard either, if you do not want to stop playing completely.

Additionally, I will link a petition to the bottom of this post, as well as some other things you can do to protest this.

I do wish I could have seen more of my and my family's culture in Sumeru, and that this backlash could have also occurred there, but in my honest opinion they did worse with Natlan and I'm glad we as a community are choosing to do something about it.

As a closing piece, I would like to point out the frequency of darker skintones in npcs, specifically enemies; The aggressive POC stereotype is both harmful and obviously incorrect, and people like me do not exist just to be placed constantly in secondary/antagonistic roles. Thanks.

Petition: https://www.change.org/p/stop-cultural-appropriation-and-whitewashing-in-mihoyo-games

Twitter posts about sending a feedback email [and template]: https://x.com/alsoknownasaki/status/1542216133734010881

Update bc I did not research ahead of this like a loser: Sumeru is not any better than Natlan actually!!!! Found out Nahida/Kusanali is likely based off of the Persian goddess Nahid and/or the Hindu goddess Saraswati! Sorry 😭

[cor-lapis]

Boycotting Genshin

I don't feel comfortable playing through Natlan and doing quest summaries + other fanart for the region. Unless something changes, I will be boycotting the game, since I don't want to support this level of insensitivity. I would encourage anyone reading this to do the same/go F2P/sign the below petition.

Here's all the designs/edits I've found for the Natlan characters so far which aim to portray the characters more accurately to their inspirations, along with other resources:

Mauvika: xxxiiv (Tumblr)

Chasca: artbymanyy (Twitter) NGreentail (Twitter) Fanart of NGreentail's design by FantaMiix (Twitter)

Xilonen: idkwhatevs1 (Twitter) inebyoonei (Twitter)

Kinich: chururira2da3 (Twitter) pam0537 (Twitter)

Mualani: mikrys_art (Twitter) fremelleCEO (Twitter)

Kachina: With Mualani and Kinich by kattkeyy (Twitter) With Mualani and Kinich by TioFarofeiro (Twitter) With Mualani and Kinich by foogie_boogie (Twitter) With Mualani and Kinich by eleiwitch (Tumblr) fruberry01 (Twitter)

Olorun: foogie_boogie (Twitter)

Citlali: NGreentail (Twitter) beubeubbu (Twitter)

OC: keadeharaaa (Twitter)

Notes on inspirations for in-game designs: DailyNatlanBR (Twitter)

Guide to complaint emails to Hoyoverse: sakura_branches (Twitter)

[binaryvamp]

im all for the enstars boycott, but if you're just gonna treat like a trend and an excuse to hate on everything, that's kinda messed up. i have seen several fans get death threats for not being able to fully drop the game, and i'm just staring at my screen like "wtf has this become?" I dislike when people peer pressure others into dropping the game because hyperfixations, special interests, emotional attachments, and other connections STILL exist. You can't just simply tell and definitely not FORCE someone to detach from the game, it's harmful and pretty ableist tbh. There have been loyal fans of this franchise since the VERY beginning, and if you are just boycotting to "join on the trend" rather than wanting to see the company get better writers and improve, I really hope you do just leave enstars alone and go to something else. I love promoting other music projects, but only to those who ACTUALLY WANT TO DROP THE GAME. If you can drop the game, good for you, but leave the others alone. You can still like a game without supporting the company or giving them money, it's basically like Disney and Hoyoverse games. You can still be a f2p enstars player without giving them money; most people buy official merch second-hand anyway.

tldr: stop sending death threats to enstars fans that aren't able to drop the game completely, and start treating the boycott seriously rather than a trend to just hate on everything if you wanna see improvement

[primofate]

I'm torn when it comes to Boycotts and enjoying Genshin fanworks.

On one hand, I'm trying not to sink into Nilihism. I've been around when Boycott Genshin was a thing for the anniversaries and their rewards, for Dehya, as well as Sumeru. Nothing happened despite the Boycott moniker going around and around for years at this point. Nothing's really changed with Natlan. The international community can talk about Boycotting all they want, but if past "boycotts" have shown anything, it's that it doesn't really work.

On the other side, I'm glad people are getting more aware of Genshin and Hoyoverse's racism in their games. It's been a thing for a long time, and I'm glad it's getting more attention. Not to mention, the additional exposure that's been taking place regarding the issues for Diluc's English VA (Sean Chiplock) and the upcoming character Moze's English VA (Chris Niosi), is helping other players get educated about the accusations and the issues surrounding them.

Whether or not the issues stop others from playing the games is not my determination to make, but it is nice to have all the information out there so that players (new and old) are aware of what they're getting into. Genshin's not a perfect game, and there are valid critiques.

That being said, fanworks are also something that I'm conflicted on.

On one hand, Genshin's fanwork community is incredibly large. It can be argued that with so much fanworks floating around, it's free advertising. It is possible that fanworks can cause someone who may not be interested in Genshin, to check it out. That could lead to more money for the company.

On the other hand though, Genshin fanwork creators are doing this for free. Most of them are not profiting off of fanworks, and are doing this because of their passion for the game. It's important to separate the fanwork creator with their opinions of the game. Yes, it is possible to read fanworks as tacit agreement of the game, BUT it is also possible that fanworks exist because the game isn't giving people the representation they want. There is a reason that fix it fics, fix it art, and edits exist.

Because of the nuances, I personally will not be fiscally supporting the game. But I'm more torn on fanworks.

There's no good answer here, and I know that's something I'm still struggling with.

See now this is an educational response. Unlike the previous one who gave me no information and attacked me head on. A lot of information on this post I was not aware of.

Well appreciated response! Thank you.

[ixiot-ghostrebel]

Some Stuff I Should Probably Address.

Alright, For most of you lot who knows what fandoms I write for, this shouldn't come off as surprising to you:

But yes, this is about the Demand to Recasting Certain Voice Actors, Natlan's Characters Being Whitewashed, and my personal thoughts about these matters. They will be under the "Keep Reading" cut if you wish.

TL;DR If You Want to Avoid This, But Want Updates About My Blog: I am closing requests for Genshin and HSR for the time being. I will still be open to discuss HSR and Genshin, but not controversy. I'm sorry.

People Waiting For "Barren Lands, Final Wishes" Letters:

They're on their way, I promise! Unfortunately I haven't been able to make time for them as much as I wanted to, but they Will be out soon!

Now back to more Serious Matters.

⌨︎ Warnings: The Follow Will Contain Mentions of Sexual Abuse, Abuse, and Whitewashing. If I Missed a Warning, or Wrote the Wrong Warning, Please Notify Me Immediately!

Alright, first off: The Voice Actors of Sunday and Moze.

I frankly am not the kind of person who indulges in drama, nor do I like reading/watching them in my free time, but it can't be overlooked at this point. Griffin Puatu and Chris Niosi are quite the controversy recently.

For those who don't know, here's a (probably oversimplified—apologies, on that part) basic idea of what's happening:

Chris Niosi has been accused with sexual and emotional abuse by his ex-partners, as well as friends.

Now, the real big problem, however, is that Hoyoverse, the company who owns the HSR character by the name of "Moze" has decided to hire Niosi to become his EN Voice Actor, which is sparking a lot of disapproval, for Hoyoverse is being blamed for not checking his background/history well enough.

(For More Information About Him: Click This For an Article About the Matter.)

Now, I don't have much to say about Griffin Puatu, who is the current EN Voice Actor of Sunday, but judging from screenshots and tumblr posts I have seen by the Reddit post he wrote, many people are not liking him as well because Puatu is standing up for Niosi.

Now, my Personal Thoughts on the matter, and, as much as I hate getting into drama (apologies, these personal thoughts will be a rant):

Just why? I'm unsure who was at TRUE fault of hiring Niosi, and I don't have full context of WHY Puatu is backing up Niosi when people say he hasn't changed, but seriously, why?

As much as I really hate to say this, but honestly, with this amount of controversy around a game people download to have fun and enjoy, all of it is pretty much ruined for me at the moment. I'm fed up with this—Again, I'm not sure whose fault it was, but they seriously need to be CAREFUL.

I also don't believe that Niosi should have gotten the role of Moze (HSR), but at the same time, who the hell decided it was a good idea to get/give him the role? As I live under a rock, I didn't know who Niosi was. At the time of Moze's drip-marketing, I really thought it'd be cool—for the first time in a while, I actually felt excited for a character rather than the plot of a game. After hearing all this, and taking time thinking about it, I really just don't want to touch HSR content anymore at the moment. It's annoying, because HSR has really good content—it has the potential to be great.

I seriously just can't wrap my head around who hired this guy. I'm not going into Puatu specifically because I don't know much about what he wrote, and (again) I don't like getting into drama. My apologies on that part, but honestly? I'm just done.

Alright, Second off: Natlan Characters—Skin.

I'm pretty sure most people are aware of THIS controversy, but to simplify: Natlan Characters are too pale and it's inaccurate.

Geographically, it makes no sense. They're in warmer temperatures, they should be more tanned. On top of that, their skin tone DOES NOT MATCH their cultures, or where they're taken inspiration from. Hoyoverse are being boycotted (from what I heard) for whitewashing and neglecting to represent the people of said-cultures/said-traditions.

My Personal Thoughts?

COME ON, HOYOVERSE. Do better! It was one thing to drop Natlan Teasers about the characters, but seriously? Please, try a little harder! Genshin Impact has GOOD POTENTIAL—EVERYONE SEES THAT! But you can't make them tanned? Why?

This was the first thing that has been bugging me BEFORE the entire Moze EN VA bullcrap. Come on, Hoyoverse, do better. You are losing respect out here. I am so disappointed, and even that is an understatement! You are losing your respect and recognition as a worthy company brand! What is going on in their building???? Hello???

Someone better fix this skin tone problem soon. I am so fed up with this. As much as I love the characters they just drip-marketed, it's also quite unfair: Take Liyue, for example. Their culture and their people are represented accurately, as far as anime can go.

Natlan? Yikes, suddenly they aren't able to create that same amount of accuracy potential. Why though? What's stopping them? Why are they not doing what is ethically right?

Everyone's waiting for a proper answer, myself included.

Alright, With that all being said—the final Part: What's Happening to the Ghost Rebel's Blog?

Well, for starters: I need a break. I am not only disappointed, but mentally drained. I am so done with all of this, and I need an utter breather. I usually go on Tumblr to cool down or read some nice, wholesome writing posts I find on some fandoms I like. Now, however, I am in dire need of staying away from Tumblr.

I'll be on a little bit of hiatus from writing so much—but not for now, as I currently have an event going on.

However: I am no longer taking any HSR and/or Genshin requests until these issues are either resolved or fixed. That is my stance, and I hope you can respect it.

Yes, this will mean my blog will decrease in activity. However, I am still open to Genshin/HSR discussions—so long as they are not about drama/controversy. I think I'm drained from all of this.

To everyone who read to the very end of this post: Thank you for reading to the end, and I apologize if you were also trying to avoid witnessing these kinds of controversies. However, some things can't be overlooked.

Hope y'all are doing safe/good. Have a good day/night.

[hellobitchlet]

Honestly, I don't find that fighting about whether playing Genshin ftp is boycotting or performative is helpful here. And I feel like us fighting with each other over how to protest 'properly' is just setting us up for failure. I have heard good arguments from both sides of the discourse, and I think that playing ftp and making it clear to Hoyo why and refusing to play completely are both good tactics.

That being said, there are some things that I think we should all be doing, regardless of how you personally want to boycott against/show that you don't support Hoyoverse. So, here are some things that we should all be doing:

-obviously, the biggest one is don't give them money. I shouldn't have to explain why, but just in case, I will say: this doesn't just refer to directly spending money in Genshin. I also mean no official merch or paying them in other games.

-don't talk positively about Hoyoverse or their games. This will probably get me some hate comments for saying it. To clarify, I don't mean that you're not allowed to have positive thoughts about their games! We all have things that we like about Genshin, including me! There are two reasons why;

First, hearing people talk positively about them or their games is basically free advertising, intended or not. The reason why their games are free and has ftp options are likely because, with Genshin especially, their main strategy to getting money is to please as many types of fans as possible. Ftp fans are still useful to them bc they can still make fan content that non-fans will see and be interested in. And the more people who play the game, the more people who will give them money.

Second, the more people keep talking about Hoyo stuff like we have been before, the more racist, sexist, etc. fans and Hoyoverse themselves will be able to keep up the illusion that nothing is wrong. Hell, I have a bunch of posts now and the vast majority of them are negative, yet my 2 most popular posts are some of my few posts that don't have anything negative in them. Trust me, a single post can mean more than you would think.

This point can also be customized to fit how you post. You could only post negative stuff as I do, or just stop posting about it all together. If you already don't post about them, great! If you want to continue making fan content that doesn't have to do with their problems, then maybe you could make a banner you can add to your posts saying that you don't support them. The point is to not have posts that Hoyo or their dickriders would be comfortable with.

-partially related to the last point, and mostly targeting content creators: don't portray characters with the exact same designs as canon! If you're not good at making character designs, that's okay! At the very least, portray characters such as the Sumeru and Natlan cast, some of the Chinese and Japanese characters, Boothill, and Aventurine with darker skin. And don't portray Kaeya, Xinyan, Iansan, Arlan, or Sugilite with gray-ish tones to their skin. I'd say that it's preferable if you did make your own designs that are more diverse, but it's okay if you don't know how. This can also be used as a way to show that you don't support Hoyoverse.

[sunnys-aesthetic]

so, im just as bummed out about this right now and I was really looking forward to playing genshin again but they just announced theyre indeed collabed with mcdonalds, a currently boycotted company that hopes to gain more more after loosing money for supporting israel and their genocide.

actually dissapointed in hoyoverse rn :(

[outivv]

Another fresh reminder is that boycotting Hoyoverse/ mihoyo ≠ quitting any of the games!!

Play the games, unless you are literally so uncomfortable with it that you can’t even bear to play which I can completely understand, but to further cost Hoyoverse money- it’s smart to play the game while not spending any money. Server costs will go up for Hoyoverse by more people playing the game for longer, while the income they roll in will go down due to not as much money being spent, which will land them in shit as a business and slowly cost them more and more and more money!! So, if you’re boycotting that doesn’t mean you have to quit, just stop spending any money or supporting hoyoverse!!

[rainedroplets]

I'm just gonna say this now with the Natlan situation going on and as a dark skinned person I want y'all to realize this:

BOYCOTTING ISN'T GONNA DO SHIT. I'm sorry to say this but it's the truth, this is a multi-billion dollar company and even if we boycott and don't spend money on it, THEY ARE STILL GONNA GET MONEY. Even if all the players stop spending on the game, they will still have money.

I'm personally not gonna be spending on the game anymore and sticking to being f2p, but I just wanted to get this out there.

I'm not saying to stop boycotting cuz if you wanna do it, that's fine but I'm just saying this now it's really not gonna do much. If anything, spam reviewing and giving it one stars is much better to do. But if the boycott does do something to them, then shit I underestimated it.

But in all honesty, y'all gotta understand that sometimes life just isn't fair and they will still be getting money no matter what we do. Why? Because the players who don't care about this situation, the ones who sexualize the children in this game (klee, sayu, diona, etc.) and the ones who are racist are gonna be funding this game. All the players who are on the bad side of this fandom will still continue showing their support and spend money on the game, giving Hoyoverse money.

That's my view on this situation and the boycotting because like I said, just because I'm saying it's not gonna do much doesn't mean you shouldn't stop it. Cause who knows, maybe it will do something.

[scara-blogs]

The amount of white characters in Natlan is honestly astonishing. And I can’t say anything more than others haven’t already but I don’t think I’m going to spend any more money on this game until I see some change. Because just wow.

When you are making a game where the whole premise is that your main character is going around the world to different nations and you’re bring real life cultures into it but refuse to put dark skinned people in the game is actually disgusting. We had this problem in Sumeru and now it’s an even bigger problem in Natlan.

I’m not going to ask you to do anything. Like boycotting the game or anything like that but if you care about seeing actual representation for people of color and their culture I suggest you stop spending money in the game like top ups and welkin until we see some change. Because that’s what I’ll be doing.

Hoyoverse as a company is not gonna care about your posts or likes about this problem they are only going to care if their reviews and sales plummet. STOP spending money and use the section of review in the game on the pause screen for Genshin to voice your complaints. I want to see change and we need a lot of people to see it happen.

Thank you.