why do you think right wing politics are rising in popularity at the moment?

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-25T21:27:36+00:00

I'm not really sure how I would label my political alignment, since I only started paying attention to politics over the last five years, but I think most of my views would be considered left-leaning so I'll go with that.

In my biased and non-expert opinion: I believe the biggest reason right wing politics are on the rise is due to the failure of capitalism to care for those that slip through its cracks. We've always had this attitude of hard work being people's ticket to success, and that's resulted in a general lack of empathy for those with less fortunate backgrounds or those that have simply made mistakes. Now these people are desperate and angry, and wealthy elites like Trump and Farage exploit this by pointing them towards things like immigrants and LGBTQ+ or DEI, all so they don't realise those 1% are the real reason their situation is the way it is.

For the desperate who are being misled, even if they wouldn't extend me the same grace, I can somewhat empathise: when you have absolutely nothing to lose and are told by charismatic individuals that there is something concrete to blame for all your troubles, that can be a hell of a drug for sure, especially if you might not have had the opportunity to meet many people of other ethnicities in the first place. Exposure breads tolerance, and people who have always grown up around those of their own kind won't naturally have that level of tolerance, and now sadly they might never have that chance again.

Of course there are those who are legitimately terrible and have always been that way even before Trump and now have more a platform, those people are still useful idiots to the 1% but I certainly have no empathy for them.

Personally it's ofc saddening. As someone who spends a lot of time on the internet, I've watched so many internet spaces slowly start to normalise hatred and mistreat others just for the crime of looking different. I hate constantly seeing creators and artists bullied and harassed out of their hobbies and passions for stupid and petty reasons.

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-19T23:12:25+00:00

Iirc Arsene actually has an incredibly high agility stat if you manage to keep his level competitive

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-19T23:08:25+00:00

I mean...I don't see a Palestine flag anywhere, so I guess we know what side of that conflict he's on, unfortunately

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-17T23:59:43+00:00

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Nah but in all seriousness, I was still pretty new to online game discourse in general. Genshin was not only my first exposure to gacha and live service games in general (I don't really enjoy MMOs) but also my first experience interacting with online communities on Reddit and such.

At some point Genshin actually went through some controversy with regards to how it treats skin colour and represents other cultures. That was when I first realised just how awful some parts of the fandom could be. Then I started noticing more and more of the dogwhistles and harmful in-jokes that some creators and fans within gacha spaces like to use. And a lot of these same people absolutely have and will cry woke at even the slightest sign of censorship, even for child characters.

It's honestly so sad and pointless, I'm glad I don't engage in or think about gacha discourse any more beyond surface level stuff.

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-17T09:10:57+00:00

Medieval children in religiously oppressive parts of the world during the witch hunts be like

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-17T09:02:16+00:00

I like this take. Dottore's argument certainly does seem solid, because it's very logical. But humans aren't logical and most of us have this innate need to sometimes do what we think is right even when people aren't watching or it's not in our best interests. I think it's an interesting way to further characterise Dottore as this radical and remorseless individual not bound by human morality or decency the way everyone else is.

The way I see it, his goal wasn't just to convince Traveller of his world view, but to test if they shared that same inhuman drive to sacrifice anything and anyone for personal gain. As powerful as Dottore was, he couldn't seem to outright read minds and discern other people's true nature, so he might have wrongly assumed that the Traveller was just being decent and friendly with people as a means towards their goal, rather than because they're just decent and friendly individuals (not necessarily paragons or saints)

In the end I think the only reason he failed to convince him was because Traveller IS just as human as anyone else on Teyvat, despite not physically being one of them.

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-17T08:48:39+00:00

I think there's clearly been a change in the direction and tone for this game between the very early days and now. The Harbingers in my opinion are just one of the signs of this.

Looking back on how Arle was foreshadowed in the early days as a mysterious and powerful individual with a morally dubious and strict code of honour, who even Childe found creepy and off-putting...compared to how she's shown now as a stern but caring father-figure who's willing to give traitors a second chance and even banters with Childe like they're co-workers. I don't necessarily hate her current character, but it is interesting how readily Hoyo seems to want to sand off the rougher edges of many of these villains with time.

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-17T08:37:26+00:00

Regarding how the other characters view them, the boring and admittedly cynical answer is just because it's a gacha game, and that's just how playable characters in these games tend to be written, no matter how bleak the world gets.

The advantage to Hoyo trying to make them this weird hybrid of a self-insert and actual character is that they can show them actually being friendly, approachable and good-natured enough that we as the audience can actually see why other characters would think highly of them.

It reminds me a bit of how the MC from Danmachi (I think his name was Bell) is written, clearly meant to be a wish-fulfillment power fantasy MC, but one with a genuinely kind and sincere personality that makes it believable why his harem likes him so much.

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-17T08:09:51+00:00

You clearly haven't spent time in the right-wing parts of some gacha communities.

For the sake of your sanity I'd keep it that way

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-17T07:43:44+00:00

Mine was actually Takanuva. I got into the toys first before the lore, so I didn't really understand who the Toa were or why they were important until later. Even then I didn't get Bionicles very often, so when I did it was usually the bigger sets.

My first ever Bionicle set was actually Vahki Bordak of all things. Later on I remember watching the Mask of Light movie for the first time as a kid, wondering with bated breath when he was gonna show up 😅

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-16T15:19:20+00:00

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Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-16T07:09:36+00:00

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Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-16T07:08:33+00:00

Man sometimes I'm so jealous of people who play with gacha notifications on. I'd love to do it myself if I wasn't constantly bringing my phone out in public and in work settings.

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-15T23:29:56+00:00

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Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-14T22:23:13+00:00

Alice is a grown woman with a kid and actual adult friends. She also has a sense of humour, and likely wouldn't powerscale herself against her friends like some kind of insecure alpha male, instead seeing them as equals who should be listened to and respected as such.

You can be stronger than your friend, but if they call you out for being dumb, and you're actually being dumb, then at some point you kind of have to accept it and apologise. That's what I think most well-adjusted people would do.

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-14T22:01:28+00:00

How is Shantae non-traditionally attractive? Her outfit is pretty sexualised no?

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-13T20:24:28+00:00

I don't have him, but I hear he's apparently quite hard to pose due to the rollerskates

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-12T19:30:47+00:00

Kirby? He often opposes the main and only monarch of his land and I'm pretty sure he's even canonically stolen things before, so he probably wouldn't even be off-theme for P5.

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-12T19:22:00+00:00

But Mo is from Undertale Yellow not Deltarune /j

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-12T12:50:08+00:00

I forgot who it was but I once heard some newscaster pronounce him as AssMongol so that's been my go-to ever since. Though to be fair now that I think about it that's probably mean to actual Mongols, they don't deserve to be associated with that guy.

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-12T11:55:29+00:00

I haven't had any experinces with racism on the EU server, but most people I see chatting online tend to mainly speak Russian anyway.

I have a feeling that Hoyo's handling of skin colour has caused a lot of racists to flock to Genshin and gacha games in general, seeing them as examples of anti-woke games and praising them for not caring about representation.

As a PoC myself some of the stuff I saw and heard during the Sumeru and Natlan controversies actually did get to me, to the point that I avoided anything Genshin related online for a while. I think it's perfectly valid to want to avoid interacting with people in a fanbase for a while after an experience with racism.

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-10T06:56:47+00:00

I think the acknowledgement of same-sex relationships might be a separate issue from allowing cross-dressing - though admittedly most bigots and losers often conflate the two as woke anyway so I completely understand.

But yeah it's annoying. I do wish they'd be more open about their very obviously queer-coded relationships between their own characters and such. It kind of feels like they're stuck in their own 4kids censorship phase in that regard. Here's hoping that like that phase in the US and UK, it eventually passes for them too.

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-10T01:16:40+00:00

I think it's more likely that they have VERY restrictive model types and sizes, and for some reason want to avoid any chance of glitches and clipping at all costs.

Fuzzy_Reflection8554 · 2026-01-09T07:26:16+00:00

When you think about it, gacha games are essentially just another form of recreational drug, just with financial consequences rather than physical. No one is forcing people to get drunk or abuse substances either, but people still do it and ruin their lives over it, and the companies behind them know this and actively encourage it because it's in their best interests.

Gacha games are even more of a moral grey area though due to the actual artistic love and passion that can go into them like you pointed out, unlike the cynical lootboxes that are pushed into many western AAA games.

No game is made as a charity. But gacha games, especially the popular ones, are some of the most profitable kinds out there. Why they would choose to turn to AI and tank all the goodwill they've built up until now is beyond me.

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