hellobitchlet

[hellobitchlet]

My current thoughts on Nod Krai atm, mainly focused on the recent 'behind the scenes' video that was just posted;

- the concept of Nod Krai being made to deal with some of the things they wouldn't otherwise have time left for is... actually good. I am actually pleasantly surprised by this. I am... tentatively hopeful that there is going to be some good things about Nod Krai. That being said, I am not allowing myself to get my hopes up for anything genuinely good, for obvious reasons. Just because they are promising things that are good for the game in theory doesn't mean that it's suddenly going to become well written or anything.

- I noticed that they were referring to things like Varka's expedition and the moon sisters as 'loose threads', which felt like an odd choice? These are things that seemed so important that most day 1 players assumed they were future plotlines that Genshin was planning. Them emphasizing that Nod Krai was made for 'loose threads', and then showing important stuff that should've already had a place in their story, implies that they either didn't plan their story ahead enough or weren't planning on making them into plotlines in the first place.

- this doesn't surprise me, because it's very in line with how the game has been written so far. We have spent so much time with either useless filler, or overcomplicating lore for no reason (remember when a decender was just someone from another world?). They expect you to read books from filler updates and limited 5 star weapons to understand lore that is never mentioned in quests. Of course they didn't think very hard about these things.

- I know I shouldn't be taking a translation of a language I don't know at face value, but the entire section explaining why they were making Nod Krai was filled with this emphasis, so it's far from just one specific English term that may or may not have the same meaning as what they're actually saying.

- they were also putting emphasis on "we wrote the lore/story like this because it's sooooo hard to keep track of what the fans do or don't know yet" which... if an entire team is failing to keep track of a storytelling element as basic as 'what the player does and doesn't know', then DON'T CONSTANTLY ADD SO MUCH NEW STUFF MAYBE???? MAYBE STOP RETCONNING OLDER LORE???

- despite all of this talk about Nod Krai being the nation of connecting loose threads, there is a distinct lack of the Abyss Order. Again. For the 6th time in a row, out of 7 story chapters. They are supposed to be one of the main antagonist factions. How does the main antagonist faction that you have barely acknowledged for years not count as a 'loose thread' while the fucking Treasure Hoarders are getting attention?

- and then they also made over half of the factions they started teasing in the Song of the Welkin Moon be brand new factions that are solely tied to Nod Krai.

- WHY IS THE ENTIRETY OF HOYOVERSE SO OBSSESSED WITH FACTIONS?????

- I'm trying not to comment too much on the lore bc we haven't even seen it in game yet, but how the fuck does the Wild Hunt count as a faction while- again- the Abyss Order isn't even mentioned?

- I'm also not a fan of the Wild Hunt having a completely different aesthetic from pre-Fontaine Abyss stuff. I specifically hated the new Abyss enemies in Natlan for this exact reason. I mean, they look SO different, and we don't know much about the Wild Hunt yet- but the Natlan enemies had NO reason to look like that. Since Fontaine, they seem to be moving the Abyss's colour scheme from black and dark purple to darkish-but-not-really purple, just like how the rest of the game has been moving into a comically marketable, bright, cartoonish aesthethic since Sumeru. I could make an entire essay about how much better Mondstadt-Inazuma's aesthethic was (and closer to what many fans actually want!) than Sumeru-forwards.

- the text in the corner of the video: 'this game has nothing to do with real life people or places'. The people in the video: 'actively discussing what mythologies the new factions take inspiration from'. I think there was some miscommunication about our lying here, guys.

- seriously though, I fucking hate the insistence that Nod Krai is about people and not civilizations, which is totally different from how they wrote the rest of Genshin (it's not). Civilizations ARE people. Groups of people ARE civilizations. Do you not understand the definition of a civilization?? It reeks of the common defence fans have for Sumeru and Natlan, that culture is separate from the people who made it- and therefore it's okay to use cultural inspirations without representing the people of that culture. And that is making me deeply worried.

- they... they acknowledged that the technology in the newest nations are way different from the beginning and that Mondstadt feels like medieval Europe... and claimed that it's because of the factions in each nations... and used it as an excuse to claim that Nod Krai should be MORE ADVANCED THAN PREVIOUS NATIONS?! They doubled down on the WORST decision they have ever made, that has gotten them SO MUCH HATE and made Natlan the least liked nation in the game. For no reason. What the fuck is wrong with you.

- coming back to a more positive note, I do actually like the idea of a nation focused on the moon more than a nation focused on dragons and retcons, or a nation focused on the Primordial Sea.

- and I do like what little we have of Nod Krai's overall aesthethic more than I liked Natlan's, as well. The teaser for the Frostmoon Scions and the Lightkeepers actually look really cool! Though, again, I am dreading what unnecessary technology-related bullshit they're going to throw at us, and the teaser for the Voynich Guild looks odd and out of place visually compared to the rest of them.

- I do hope that we're getting new Fatui enemies soon, as the Fatui teaser seems to be suggesting. It's really odd that the Eremites and Regular Natlan Tribespeople You Kill For No Reason have more enemies for them than the Fatui and the Abyss Order combined.

- they are hyping Varka and his expedition up A LOT. If Varka ever shows up and becomes playable, it's going to happen during Nod Krai. I'm very glad that they remembered the expedition and are going to finally do something with it. I hope Varka is playable and I hope that I like him!

- I've said before that their handling of the harbingers and the Fatui isn't great- and a big part of it is bc they don't have time to have more harbingers than they do story chapters. With how little we've done with the Fatui plot so far, there is a LOT that Snezhnaya needs to unpack at once. Nod Krai should lessen this load for Snezhnaya. Even if they only introduce one new harbinger as per usual, that is one fewer harbinger to introduce next year.

- I have literally no idea what the Hexenzirkel is going to have to do with Nod Krai, but I wonder if it's less about Nod Krai and more about the whole 'some people want to get Moon Powers' thing? It would make sense if one or more of the witches were interested in the moon, and it would give them an excuse to inevitably keep the Hexenzirkel out of Nod Krai's storyline (have you seen Penacony in hsr? Hoyo can't handle having so many active players with different motivations in one storyline).

- despite my earlier comment about the Treasure Hoarders, I am interested in getting new Treasure Hoarder related content. I'm worried about Traveler and Paimon being dicks to them as usual, but they are one of the less important things from the beginning of the game I wanted to learn more about. I mean, there are ruins everywhere. The lore of the game is built ON ruins and artifacts! You can do so much world building with them!

[hellobitchlet]

It doesn't feel like the people defending Varesa actually care about her when they don't want to talk about her interesting mushroom god situation just as much as the people who hated her guts on sight. Do you actually care about Varesa as a character or do you just like saying "she's so cute!!!" over and over again until it drowns out the criticism people have of your favourite game?

[hellobitchlet]

Varesa's entire character revolves around being a cutesy waifu and walking fatphobic stereotype from The South African But Also Spanish Wrestling Tribe? I was expecting that.

Varesa's story tribal quest is about a mushroom god who is the source of all of the other sentient mushrooms we've seen who traded human loyalty for special mushrooms and thinks that the archon war is still going on that Varesa was unknowingly protecting her tribe from by eating his clones which physically changed her and allowed her to talk to him which almost no one else can do, thus making Varesa's entire character revolving around being a cutesy waifu and walking fatphobic stereotype from The Wrestling Tribe feel extra forced because she feels like she should be a dendro mooshroom who mainly focuses on the farmer aspect of her character? Not what I was expecting.

[hellobitchlet]

Well, I knew from the moment I saw Varesa that I was going to either hate her or become super protective of her, depending on what happened in game. I have decided that she's one of my failed potential girlies and am therefore going to be protective of her. I am very pissed at both Hoyo for being fatphobic, sexist, and racist, and at the fandom for failing to properly identify the problems both times we mass redesigned one specific female character (the first time was us redesigning Skirk to just be a buff woman in a different lingerie instead of recognizing that the lingerie was one of the main problems). This is your warning.

[hellobitchlet]

A common interpretation I see of how Genshin writes male and female characters is that they purely write men to be interesting characters and women to be one dimensional (with a few exceptions). But if you look deeper into the lore of female characters, I feel it would be more accurate to say that Genshin is simply more interested in talking about the lore of the most popular characters, and most of the most popular characters are male because... I probably don't have to say why.

[hellobitchlet]

At this point, I think it's safe to cross off the 'Iansan is an adult' and 'Iansan's elf ears are never acknowledged' points on my bingo. Goddammit Hoyo.

I know I stopped doing bingo update posts, but I promise I'm sill updating them! I'm still planning on making a final post at the end of 5.X with the complete bingo.

[hellobitchlet]

Honestly, anyone who hasn't been sticking their heads in the sand (which is...most of the fandom. but still.) knew that Genshin wasn't going to turn out very well. No matter how much we glazed the writing to hell and back, or how many times we said "_ will happen LATER and it will be really good!", we were going to end up in the late stages of the game with an unsatisfying story.

But...you know what? I don't think anyone could have predicted like. anything that has happened between 4.8 and 5.5.

[hellobitchlet]

Please please please make the next Traveler Quest be in the Mare Jivari and focus on a character I actually care about like Dainsleif or Enjou. No more boring Sumeru surface quests without permanent Abyssal areas. The Chasm Traveler Quest was so much more fun than the Caribert questline. Please.

[hellobitchlet]

Ifa design pros;

-downturned eyes look cute

-has some scars

-scar on the same eye that Cacucu has an eyepatch. They match!

- neck tattoo that looks like a choker

-4th playable character to have sort of actually brown skin! Considering that Iansan's design comes from around the time Kaeya and Xinyan were made, he's actually the first one they've shown since Xinyan in 1.1.

Ifa design cons;

-by 'sort of actually brown skin', I mean gray-brown skin... just like the three that came before him...

-what the fuck is that colour palate

-millionth white/pale haired brown skinned Hoyo character, on top of Iansan already having white hair and Mualani having pale blue hair. Seriously, just off the top of my head I can also think of Cyno, Carole, Arlan, Sugilite, Oti, that new woman in hi3 part 2...

-judging by how the rest of his tribe is, I can already tell that there's nothing cowboy-like about him, which makes the cowboy fit odd

-seriously what the fuck is that colour palate. Why does it have to be the brightest white hat, hair, and jacket possible with bright teal and orange accents. Forget Varesa, IFA needs a brand new colour palate.

[hellobitchlet]

The goddam Inazuma update was about a new filler waifu and an event where they reminded you how much of a sad lil waifu Ei is and reiterated some lore we already knew but in different terms

And then they made a teaser OUTSIDE of the game, during said update, that implies that Makoto and Ei are related to the moon sisters. And that their eternity concept that has remained poorly explained at best for LITERAL YEARS may also be related to the moon sisters. And gave more evidence to Ei being connected to the crimson moon specifically. WHICH IS NEW LORE THAT COULD BE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT-

This game............

[hellobitchlet]

I wish I was around for the beginning of Inazuma, back when criticism about Genshin's gendered writing was "male characters are written better, while female characters are written to be palatable waifus, they should write female characters like how they write male characters" and not "male characters are better than female characters, how dare they make fewer male characters!"

It's interesting how the fandom feels more sexist after a 2 year long period of treating female characters better, than it was during the first period of waifu-ing women (and teenagers like Noelle and Barbra). Which isn't to say that this fandom wasn't always full of fans who only cared about male characters, but like... at least you can FIND people who were complaining because they actually cared about the pre-Sumeru women being affected. Other than the occasional redesigner, I can't find anyone who actually cares about the treatment of 5.X women. It's all wHy dOn't ThEy mAKe MEN aNyMorE (read: there are 2 fewer male ch's than there was in Fontaine).

They're not complaining for female characters. If this was about the blatant sexism, the entire fandom wouldn't have glossed over Dehya defending her male rapist friends all the way back in Sumeru, or pretend that women have good designs in this game. They're complaining because waifu-y content implies that they won't get as much content with male characters.

[hellobitchlet]

I hope that discussion about Hoyo's racism with Iansan doesn't overshadow Varesa, and I hope that discussion about Hoyo's sexism, racism, and fatphobia with Varesa doesn't overshadow Iansan. I also hope that we start acknowledging that Iansan's design also features some pedophilia. This is all that I ask for.

[hellobitchlet]

Reminder to Genshin fans that Varesa is not, in fact, the first time Genshin has gone out of their way to make a playable woman use their butt to kill people.

The first time was with Ganyu. One of the only times her being an Archon War veteran has ever been mentioned is a part of her character stories retelling how she choked a monster to death with her butt when it tried to eat her because she was fatter at the time, and she somehow found that experience embarrassing because she was fat instead of... you know... traumatizing... because she almost got eaten alive?

The only difference here is that Ganyu was made to lose weight so that she could be the same size as other playable women, and the point of her being fat was to shame fat women, while Varesa is currently """fat""" (not potentially underweight like the other short women + with huge boobs), and the point of her being fat is to sexualize fat women and stack fat stereotypes onto her.

[hellobitchlet]

Question for Chinese fans,

Is Lanyan Miao/Hmong? Because that was my automatic assumption based on... admittedly little research. The decision to give her silver accents despite Hoyo's insistence on giving everyone else gold accents is very specific, too specific to just do it for no reason. There's also her saying that Chenyu Vale locals wear silver accessories, even though Gaming (who is Cantonese ofc) doesn't, and apparently some Miao people live in the area that Chenyu Vale is likely based on.

And if she is, then is there specific reference to a specific subgroup that I'm not getting, or does she just have general Miao vibes?

[hellobitchlet]

Even though a lot of the people interested in Phainon are hi3 fans, nobody has mentioned the massive elephant in the room that is... Acheron already killed hsr Kevin. There was an entire youtube teaser about it. She told Welt that she did it in the main storyline, albeit without name dropping him. Surely, I'm not the only one who noticed...? Cause I think it was pretty obvious.

The only ideas I can come up with as to what tf is going on here is as follows;

1- the theory that Amphoreus is a time loop of something that already happened is true, and Phainon somehow escaped Amphoreus, developed hi3 Kevin's personality, ended up in Izumo, and got killed by Acheron. Aka Phainon is a younger version of Acheron's Kevin, and he goes through a similar arc to hi3 Kevin. This would be surprisingly good foreshadowing for Hoyo.

2- this is some previous era-current era type time bullshit, and each of these Kevin's are from different 'eras' of hsr's universe. This implies that this mystery is set up to reveal that hsr's universe also has the weird time fuckery that is going on in hi3's universe. Also implies some Very Weird Things about Silver Wolf, seeing as she is a Bronya, and it's technically not confirmed that she's from another universe (yet).

3- either Phainon or Acheron's Kevin aren't actually from hsr's universe. Most likely Acheron's Kevin, as Phainon already has a childhood in Amphoreus, and a big part of his character so far is specifically "doesn't know shit about places outside of Amphoreus". This puts into question why Acheron was acting like her Kevin IS from this universe.

[hellobitchlet]

Rule #1 of interacting with a disabled person; you still need their consent to touch them.

Don't attach ableism to Aglaea like you did to Robin please...

I should start making a count of how many ableist things hsr does.

[hellobitchlet]

(this post contains leaks for Mizuki's kit animations)

My take on the Mizuki discourse is that... well, I feel like the people complaining about her sexualization have a good point, but aren't explaining themselves well? Or maybe some of them are literally just finding an excuse to shit on a female character, who knows. But there is a good point to criticizing her sexualization!

The thing is, Genshin defenders are entirely correct when they say that Mizuki's outfit is pretty mild with the sexualization. She doesn't have a chest or back window, and you can't see her underwear. A lot of people are directing their complaints towards her outfit, and she does undeniably have a sexualized design, but it's not nearly as bad as some of the other women and children in Genshin. So, why are so many people complaining about her when very few people complained about, for example, the literal children wearing booty shorts and crop tops?

Well, her main sexualization isn't actually in her outfit, it's her gacha card and burst animation putting her in a weird stress position that shoves her ass in your face. And the burst even has her looking you in the eyes and covering her mouth shyly, like she knows exactly what she's doing.

"but it's still so mild!!! Other gachas do so much worse!!!" I hear Genshin bootlickers who haven't read this far already typing in my notes. Here's the thing- Genshin doesn't do this type of fanservice very often anymore. That's why it's so noticeable.

Before Sumeru, well, they did do more fanservice. They made Ei's titty sword, and treated quite a few female characters like generic waifus instead of characters with potential. Even with Noelle, who explicitly states in her voice lines that she's not drinking age yet (aka a minor).

Except... a lot of people hated that. Inazuma was hated a lot. So they stopped for a little while, seemingly realizing that Genshin's audience has a lot more fans that don't like male gaze fanservice than they thought. They limited the sexualization to just the parts that fewer people were complaining about; the designs. They still did some weird things with female characters (see: Collei and Lynette being treated like props for their 5 star male family members a lot, Furina being infantilized, etc), but didn't specifically sexualize them outside of their designs. And the fandom let them, even when these designs actively pandered to pedophiles.

The way I see how Natlan has been going, stuff like Mizuki's ass-in-your-face-while-staring-you-in-the-eyes pose, Citlali getting a waifu treatment similar to certain other cryo women, and Xilonen's boob jiggle burst animation are all signs that Hoyo may be going back to how they handled female characters before. And... *sigh* yes, the lack of male characters also points to that.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is this- it's not that she's actually that sexualized, it's that she's more sexualized than others. Not because of the outfit, but because she's sexualized in multiple ways- and we don't want Hoyo to do that because it could bode badly for future characters.

(note; I'm not saying that everyone making this complaint is meaning the same thing. It's likely that some (not all, but some) people are just disguising their hatred for female characters. But I don't want all of this to be written off as just discourse for the sake of discourse)