rei

"You make a character based off Sher khan from the jungle, which takes place in India and gave him a Māori first name? Not to mention the last name is literally just the tiger he’s based off, you put zero effort into that and you knew which was why you immediately deleted everything as soon you got a single quote retweet from someone telling you that your oc was insensitive, and then you proceeded to private your account, you then ask for name suggestions and make it impossible to reach you, your own post that you deleted says the name is Māori."

"Saying your oc is “mostly Indian” and then you not being sure on what his ethnicity even is when that is probably the first thing you should have thought about when making said oc?? There was 0 effort and thought put into this character.

Making a biracial character is hard and yet your character that you said is mixed has no representation and you haven’t even decided what the other half is?? You should have worked on your character before writing them into a relationship because acting this surprised when someone calls you out on acting this ignorant is genuinely embarrassing, “making Taika was all in good fun” when making such a insensitive oc, in your own words you said “ I haven’t really decided on an ethnicity for Taika” and then you give him a Māori name? While not even knowing?"

"You then delete all your posts about Taika and private because you would rather run and hide then properly address your mistake at your grown age of 22 years old, you should know about stereotypes when making a oc of a specific background so you don’t stereotype them LIKE YOU MADE A VAGUELY POC CHARACTER AND GAVE THEM A NAME FROM A SPECIFIC CULTURE??? WITHOUT??? FUCKING THINKING ABOUT IT???? OR GIVING THE OC A SET ETHNICITY?????? like at best thats incredibly careless and at worst REALLY weird and racist. And acting like the victim when you made this mistake and then proceed to run away from the consequences of YOUR actions?"

To start off, context for anyone unaware. Welt Yang, also known as Joachim Nokianvirtanen, originally came to the HSR universe from the HI3 universe. He has an adopted son back home, but does not have a wife. Most people who rely on lore summaries and hearsay nowadays seem to think that he’s married to Tesla, based off of the fact that she is his son’s second legal guardian. I’m here to provide you with sources and explanations as to why that’s not true.

Honkai players who are adamant that Welt and Tesla are married will refer you to this conversation:

(HI3, APHO 1, Events, Base - Carole - Mr. Welt Is So Cool)

The main character interrupts Carole gushing about Welt to remind her that Welt is married. Evidently, people take this exchange as gospel instead of two teenagers gossiping and MC teasing Carole as he usually does (both MC and Carole have only just met Welt and learnt about his story - aka, they don’t know him on a personal level).

So, what happens when you select that (third) option? Well, Carole gets fussy about her preference in men, and then the conversation ends with this:

Again, we are reminded that Carole is a massive gossip girl, but the actual facts are written in their mission brief - Joey’s mother is, legally, just his second guardian. Not Mrs. Yang.

And in case that’s not enough for you, we hear it from the man himself:

(HI3, APHO 1, Events, Story - 1.6 Road from Fountain I - Before)

(“he” in this conversation is Joey)

Welt, in casual conversation with squad 3, decides to call Joey’s mother “his other guardian”. Not wife. Not even partner.

And Mei, the only other adult in this conversation, and someone who’s known Welt for well over a decade, doesn’t even comment on this - evidently, she knows about the arrangement and the nature of their relationship (or lack thereof). Meaning, Welt’s awkward phrasing is in fact just the plain truth.

And in case even that is not enough for you, let’s look at the relationship Welt and Tesla have before APHO.

We are never explicitly told how exactly Joachim first met Tesla (and Einstein), but his first appearance in the AE visual novel is as follows:

(Anti-Entropy VN, chapter 11, part 1)

Let me just clarify first that the VN is in the point of view of Welt Joyce - Joachim did not get the name Welt until Joyce's death.

From the VN, we learn that Tesla has known Joachim from before, since she was a coworker of his father (Elias Nokianvirtanen, codename Finn). Even in this appearance, Joachim is still a small child (8 years old), but has a very close relationship with the people at AE. It's therefore safe to assume that everyone at AE has known him for his entire life, or at least the majority of his life.

Joachim is shown to have an especially strong bond with Tesla and Einstein, whom he calls big sisters. Strong enough for Joyce to have picked up on it and give his own interpretation of.

Another thing we learn from the visual novel is what Tesla (and Einstein)’s canonical ages are:

(Anti-Entropy VN, chapter 2, part 2)

Which puts Welt Yang and Tesla at an age difference of 13 years, which would, no matter what legal system, be both illegal and immoral, given the fact that Tesla has had a bond with him since he was a small child, and she was a grown adult. The nature of their relationship prior to APHO has also given us no reason to suspect them of having any romantic involvement, aside from child Joachim wanting to dance with Tesla when he grew up, which some people have interpreted as him having a childhood crush on her, but that's both only mentioned and resolved in the Second Eruption manga, after which they dance together and that’s the end of it.

(Second Eruption, Ch. 22: The Launch, pages 5, 9-12)

Sidenote: his line of “you made me realize the beauty of humanity” is in reference to all the people he lists afterwards, not just Tesla. Please stop taking it out of context.

So in a way, Welt’s HSR line about wanting to return to his family has a much bigger meaning - AE are his family. The only one he has left (even though there aren’t many of them alive anymore).

(HSR, Welt’s Astral Express questions - About Welt - About Welt's friends)

Now, before anyone asks how I can be so certain Joey’s mother is Tesla, because her name is never mentioned - here is my evidence.

(HI3, APHO, Events, Base - Joffrey - Missing Mom)

(same source, alternate dialogue option)

Additionally:

(HI3, APHO, Events, Base - Carole - Mr. Welt and Joey)

From this, as well as Welt’s earlier comments about Joey’s mother easily getting angry, we can make out 5 things: she has red hair, she is a pilot, she spends more time busying herself with work rather than family, she has a short temper, and she likes to drink. So, while not being explicitly name-dropped, Tesla is the only established character that fits all those traits. She is a redhead, an inventor and pilot of mechas, a workaholic, extremely short-tempered, and routinely gets drunk, upon which Einstein has to drag her back home.

And if you’re STILL not convinced that they’re not married, let’s look at it from a storytelling perspective.

Welt Yang is a man who has lived his life pretending to be someone else since he was 8 years old. Little Joachim Nokianvirtanen first lost his mother, then his father and best friend/hero one after the other. He was given the core of reason and the name Welt, as well as the responsibility of protecting humanity. He became the sovereign of Anti-Entropy, and the vanguard of humanity’s fight against the honkai. He was never able to live for himself.

Until the ascension of the herrscher of finality. When Kiana Kaslana seized the absolute authority over the honkai from the cocoon of finality, Earth was finally freed from the threat of honkai, and the honkai was sealed on the moon. Only then was Welt Yang able to take a step back and ask himself who he really is and what he really wants out of his life.

His lore in HSR gives us a very clear answer:

(HSR, Welt: Story, Character Story: Part I)

So, he became the director of E. T. Studios and continued producing anime. All the while, Anti-Entropy took the time to tie up its loose ends before re-joining Schicksal, upon which they discovered a leftover clone of Welt Joyce:

(HI3, APHO, Events, Story - 1.2 Heroes I - After)

Welt Yang decided to give the young clone a chance at a “normal” life, whether out of guilt or simply because he missed his friend. The reasoning he gives to the MC in APHO is this:

(HI3, APHO, Events, Base - Welt - Name of A Hero)

So while Welt is trying his best to be a good father to Joey, and to not push onto him responsibilities of a legacy that he is too young to understand, his reason for adopting him in the first place comes from a selfish sentimentality. He is not trying to settle down and start a family, he just wanted to see his best friend again, even if it's not really him. It would make no narrative sense for him to suddenly have a wife and kids, when he is clearly still incredibly immature and unrealiable - leaving his son behind and blindly jumping into another universe to both save the counterpart of his former student (whose death he still blames on himself) and live out his childhood dreams of space travel and adventure. But that's a conversation for another day.