#justeasing

(PS: Turns into a bit of a rant... sorry about that. 😅)

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It's always irked me that Sumeru is so fucking white. It's also irked me with Natlan. Every other nation can kind of "get away with it" (even though it's bogus to assume there are no dark-skinned people in Germany, China, Japan, & France), but when you suggest an area is based on ethnic groups that're generally darker and then lighten them up, you should be flamed for it!

Not to mention, it makes it incredibly obvious that they don't know anything about the cultures/areas Natlan is supposedly based off of. For the rest of these nations' inspirations, it's feasible that the employees at Hoyo could've literally visited them. China (duh) is where they all live, Japan is literally right next to them, as is India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. (explaining Liyue, Inazuma, & Sumeru's cultural representation being more flushed out and well-integrated). Then there's Germany & France, which were both actually quite easy to access for most people when this game was being formulated (aka: pre Covid) as most European countries were. I also honestly bet that Snezhnaya will be banger because it's based on Russia, their upstairs neighbor.

Regardless, my point is that I doubt any employee at Hoyo (who matters towards production) has traveled to South America, the Caribbean, Mexico, Hawaii, or wherever the fuck Natlan is "supposed" to be based off of. In all honesty, it didn't take me very long to think, "This place isn't any of those! It's AUSTRALIA!!" after seeing the green marsupials bouncing around everywhere! The other animals & their focus, the landscapes, even the PEOPLE. It all just feels like Australia to me with some Mexican-style flare here and Hawaiian-style flare there... Yet, look on a map. What would be more easily accessible to China? Australia and the islands leading up to it, or South America? And the entire Hydro Tribe looks like the Sydney Opera House. It's really not hard to see. 🙄😞

But, I think you get my point.

There are game companies that ACTUALLY CARE and will travel and research and whatnot... and then there's Hoyo. They're really fuckin' lazy. They don't care. Tbh, they don't even care about Genshin at all anymore, but I digress...

Also, if I see another dark-skinned male with white hair (aka: using optical illusion to make them LOOK darker when they're not actually dark at all, referencing: Cyno, Ifa, Arlan, Nanook, etc.) I think I'm going to break something!! 😠😡🤬

...rant over.

tl/dr: I agree wholeheartedly. 👍👍

i'll be responding point by point since i'm not doing anything right now

for your first point (dark-skinned characters). yeah, i agree they could've definitely "gotten away" but plenty of characters also would've made more sense to be darker skinned, which is super disappointing. yaoyao, xiangling, amber, beidou, thoma, and so on). it's, in fact, incredibly common to see dark skinned east asian people (i am one). and yeah, they should be flamed for it.

i actually think a lot of sumeru isn't fleshed out culturally. they used a LOT of countries that are culturally islamic, but the chinese government really does not like islam (see: the uyghur genocide, just as an example). from what i hear from a couple of my uyghur peers, there's a decent amount of anti-muslim propaganda... i wouldn't be shocked if this anti-muslim was also incorporated into the game. but that's besides the point; sumeru takes way too much inspiration from different countries and hoyo tried to kinda "toss" the parts they thought were ugly. they utilized buddhism (which isn't as prominent in SWANA/MENA) and zoroastrianism (which isn't the predominant religion because zoroastrians are Pretty rare) without using practically the largest religion in those regions, despite them doing so with other nations (fontaine and mondstadt, as an example). a lot of it is very superficial in general. i don't think they really know much of anything at all for sumeru to say the very least.

i also think they know much of anything about any of the other countries they based their nations on. mondstadt inazuma and fontaine were all egregious, but they were covered with this kind of aesthetic illusion that was somewhat put together that made it look nice. mondstadt is idyllic, which is a pretty common stereotype of, like... medieval german i'd say. fontaine has this steampunk vibe so you kinda ignore all the random shit it pulled from. inazuma is pretty offensive in the sense that it's blatantly obvious that it's anime-japan, not japan-japan. also with its pretty bad representation of the tokugawa shogunate and why the sakoku decree was put into place in irl japan

And, who is your favorite 4⭐ battle-wise...? 🤔

story-wise i'm probably gonna go with ningguang mostly just bc she has the most main story relevance to begin with so she doesn't feel like a random side character. ayato can't relate.

most of the other 4*s are really just. hanging out (pun unintended but now that i realize what i wrote i'm patting myself on the back for that one). kaeya's whole deal is also very interesting but hyv hasn't put a lot of that into the main questline they're just edging the fuck out of us with him.

I've seen a lot of fans say they don't like Advent Children/'s "version" of Cloud, because he's so "emo", and "not cool like in the games", but I actually believe that movie's representation of his character to be more ACCURATE than the main game's portrayal of him, because in that, he's still emulating Zack!

The OG game isn't a good reference for who Cloud "really is" once you realize he's basically half-Zackified himself... That's just not the real him. The REAL Cloud is the one in Crisis Core and (I believe) the one in Advent Children. A man who's not very confident and bumbles awkwardly sometimes and just doesnt know what path he wants in life anymore because his dreams aren't coming true.

All that showboating confidence and heroism?

That's Zack. That's not really Cloud.

i'm sorry but i have to disagree on that... the only thing Cloud emulates from Zack are his mannerisms and the almost "arrogant" confidence he had, but that's about it. it was like... his perfect image of what a SOLDIER is, if that makes sense. Cloud is being himself even in the OG, he is awkward at times and tries hard to look ~cool~ in front of other people. granted the remake made a far better job with this, and i'm very glad! he of course has his character development later on, but that doesn't mean he was pretending to be Zack all the time. he acts like him in certain scenes due to his identity crisis, but i wouldn't say his heroism, for example, comes from Zack's. he is also heroic he just wants to keep his “i don’t care, not interested” persona, deep down he cares a lot.

(Obviously KhoraXHarrow for Heterotp)

Thoughts??

Pavo Noctua