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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025

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That's a pretty good argument, but I can't shake the feeling that there is something deeper to your complaint. There is an undercurrent of resentment to your position that twists the perspective you are arguing, not necessarily in your case, although that isn't to rule it out. In particular -

TIL the word for "basically white, or close enough that dark skin-fearing consumers won't raise a fuss".

Is an ironic inversion of the argument against mukokuseki in the early days of the idpol ascension, which was that mukokuseki was the word for 'Japanese but not so Japanese it upsets white people.' Either way it's white supremacy?

Maybe in the early days of idpol the white skin enjoyers were against Japanese but now it looks as if it got a big injection of "le based feminine Asian waifu" people. Either way, it's going to be the kind of people who complain that, checks list, Ghost of Yotei's protagonist does not look like a jade beauty, or Aphrodite's cheekbones too sharp 3/10, and I think that kind of grievance is retarded and annoying, and the grievance of those who want token rep of every ethnicity, gender and disability under the sun is also retarded and annoying.

Just make characters with character. Supergiants' Hestia has character, Asian Hestia doesn't, at a glance.

Ah yes, 'just make characters with character' but they can't be all eye candy, even if it's a video game, and it literally only exists for the purposes of escapism. And they can't all be white - even if it's historically accurate, even if the story takes place in a time and place where there were next to no non-white people and white people were actually racist, proper racist unlike the 'less comfortable with people who don't look like them' racism of today, the kind of racists who fought over nationality, you have to put some other races in or it's white supremacy.

As for mukokuseki, no, that's Whig history. In the early days of idpol 'the white skin enjoyers' were basically non-existent in terms of presence, especially in the anime scene. All the racists there were racist like me - at all times willing to talk to and work with and befriend and bang any other race but unwilling to self flagellate over imagined historical crimes.

That is why I am suspicious of claims Supergiant were 'just making characters' when they made a bunch of changes that all just so happen to appeal to the woke ideology. Maybe you are too young to be around for the start of this shit, but I'm not. I have seen the insidious 'just make characters with character, but also they have to follow these rules or you're cancelled' argument and the death by degrees it enables.

Also, at a glance. And yet Hestia is one of the most popular characters in that franchise, because she has character - despite being pretty. Why are progressives obsessed with looks?

Edit: accidentally hit post too early, added the last sentence.