Every Risky Topic Mihoyo put in Genshin!

[@CrystalRubyMoon]

Wow I never knew the censorship was that bad in China. Like I know it exists but to the point where Hoyo has to dance this line every patch is so wild to me. Good on Hoyo for having the balls to walk that line. Tech otakus saving the world for sure

[@kotarouinugami1745]

That's probably because it isn't as bad as some western alarmists claim. And Genshin Impact is proof of that.

[@kunzhang8977]

Nooooo... None of the topics in the video is any closer to the censorship line, they all are very common in the nowadays Chinese fiction works. Actually only line Mihoyo constantly tried to cross is exposing female body.

[@kunzhang8977]

Censorship in Chinese is pretty bad, however putting together a video without proper research to conclude that some basic knowledge like philosophy or ethics is dangerous topic for Chinese people is condescending at best, or ignorant if Im being frank.

[@elijoki99]

I knew some of what this video covered since I watch a channel called "China uncensored". My head does go thinking that there is nothing good in China because of it, but I have long understood that people, no matter where they are from, are just people, trying to live their lives. Also, when I'm watching that channel, I constantly fear any gaming news that may come up.

[@kunzhang8977]

@@elijoki99 Wow, You can definitely learn the truthful information about China from a Channel called "China uncensored".

[@baanfrey]

Being part Chinese myself the entire Sumeru Archon questline SHOCKED me given that it was a VERY strong critique of how corrupt governments use access to information and propaganda to control people. The whole time I was like “No way MiHoYo somehow got this story to slip past the CCP…!” 😧

[@dougligaming]

yeah it is not subtext in sumeru. it is THE text.

[@alexprus7953]

I'm curious if maybe the reason they got away with this is because it's happening in Sumeru, a region with no Chinese influence (at least that I'm aware of). Many people in the west like to call Hoyo racist etc, but to the CCP maybe that could be a positive thing? Makes it less likely for negative events, happening in other nations, to be seen as a critique of China. After all, genshin has Liyue portrayed as a nice, wealthy place with capable leaders, so surely Hoyo wouldn't try to bypass the censorship in sneaky ways, like discussing sensitive topics in other regions, right?

[@allenwalker4703]

Ok but they do have a point with that Ketchup law.

[@ffairysmyth]

i eat butter, syrup, ketchup, and pepper plain

[@dougligaming]

but does the government need to tell you you can't eat just ketchup? Should a person who eats a spoonful of ketchup go to jail?? I agree eating just ketchup is weird. But it's harmless and up to the individual if they want to do that. It shouldn't be a crime to do that if they choose to. Which was the point. To show just how involved in Fontainian's lives the laws were. You can't choose what random condiments to ingest straight from the bottle without risking jail time. Which again feels like a reference to something related to government overreach in china.

[@davidsabillon5182]

I actually think French fries are there to better eat ketchup.

[@MadDogRyan]

​@@davidsabillon5182fr

[@dreemurrinthenight]

sans

[@GenshinQuizo]

Cheveruse actually does have a lot of childhood trama that's really relateable. It was in the event quest for the movie event. She explains how she got so good at everything, it was because when she was a literal child, her father used to push her like some soldier and tried to hammer it in her head that she could only rely on herself or she would die. Hyper-independence, especially in developing years could really mess up a person well into adulthood and sabotage their relationships since building trust involves opening up yourself to vulnerability. Out of all the topics Genshin touches on, I think mental health is one of the most prevalent. Almost all the playable characters have some form of it, regardless of they're an archon or a human. Also about the censorship of movie endings and stuff, they actually do think audience is dumb and can't tell the difference. The officials are basically concerned people will follow what they see on screen like sheep (which is what they want, but not in every context, just as long as it makes them manageable). There were rumors before of people trying to off themselves or getting into dangerous situations in order to attempt to isekai themselves/time-travel after the rise of the genre. Afterwards, all mention of isekai or time-travelling disappeared from dramaland. They have to get creative when adapting IP or novels that have it.

[@dougligaming]

yeah Chevreuse is supposed to reference the "strict" parents that push their kids super hard. But what she describes comes off as abuse and almost child murder caused by neglect? Like the shock Chevreuse describes is a scientific fact. It's something that's talked about in safety psa's about what to do if you fall through thin ice. The fact that her dad just left means he had no way of knowing if she ever resurfaced. And she very much could have died in that moment like she said. And that very much could have led to Childhood related ptsd like Collei and Freminet. Which just snowballs into going through every character because they should all have trauma related to their pasts. . . Aw man I forgot about Xiao's eating disorder! Like I broke it down last lantern rite and then completely forgot about it for this part of the video. So I heard it as a rule against Time-Travel plots in video games because they didn't like the implication that you could go back in time and change it to where the CCP didn't take over China. I didn't realize that ban extended to Isekai or that it was related to suicide ideation. But I can definitely see where that concern would be coming from. Which makes the event even more interesting because it's also discussing that! a kid killing themselves to try to reach a fantasy world.

[@Aevasrealm]

Tadhla...

[@MorbidEel]

"Afterwards, all mention of isekai or time-travelling disappeared from dramaland. They have to get creative when adapting IP or novels that have it." that seems to have changed relatively recently. There was a movie about someone traveling back in time and meeting her mother's younger self. Also the just released(just 3 days ago here on YouTuBe) "Otherworldly Evil Monarch" adaptation kept the isekai bit without any change.

[@dougligaming]

@@MorbidEel that's cool! The timetravel rule was mentioned in the early 2000s. So Im not surprised it's loosened by now. I don't know when the Isekai ban started but it's probably been long enough for them to start letting those shows in too. Heck Genshin is technically an Isekai Aether just isn't from our earth specifically

[@8lefry8]

when you talk about chronic illness pls dont forget baizhu hes been here for so long and is always forgotten 😭😭

[@dougligaming]

I wasn't sure if his chronic illness was brought up in the 1.0 archon quest. Or if it was just explained when he was finally released. Even so Collei is the first playable disabled character as Baizhu is released after her. But yeah Baizhu hasn't been in a lot of events like lantern rite so the fandom doesn't have as many chances to get to know the character.

[@electrichydrangea]

@@dougligaming Actually, disabillity in Genshin is one of my favorite topics to cover. Speaking in terms of playability and by your definition of disabled, Chongyun could be the first disabled character, with his yang spirit. Qiqi also has canon severe memory loss, and I'm pretty sure she's been here since 1.0 but I only started playing in 1.6 haha I could talk about these characters for hours honestly. Yelan, Baizhu, Collei, Layla, and Xiao are canonically disabled. I love talking about it, I love seeing myself in them.

[@katiem.3109]

@@electrichydrangea Wait, Yelan is disabled? What disability does she have (admittedly, I don't know much about her character).

[@electrichydrangea]

@@katiem.3109 Thank you for asking!! In "Yelan's Troubles", she says that her physical fitness isn't that great, it being "something hereditary in the family". She adjusts her schedule to get enough rest so that she has enough energy to do everything, and she avoids doing extreme physical labor and to live a calm life. Other than the NPC Salsa saying that she has OCD, I don't think there are any real life disabilities actually said in-game. In Star Rail however, there's a newsletter that says the Genius Society is made up of people with autism (among others) :D!!!!

[@DreamyAileen]

@@katiem.3109 She's not, no idea what that other person is talking about

[@CutieTutie99]

As someone who deals with maladaptive daydreaming, I would like to point out that it does sometimes lead to suicide or suicidal ideations. MaDD is a destructive habit and it not synonymous with immersive daydreaming.

[@dougligaming]

Maladaptive daydreaming can be a symptom of other disorders, people with OCD, Adhd, PTSD, and depression can experience MDD. In those cases yes the depression can lead to suicide. But I did not want to imply that MDD on it's own could lead to suicide. MDD is horribly disruptive to the persons life and finding ways to lessen it's impact on your life is good. But I didn't want it to come off as a "dangerous" disorder to neurotypicals. And that if they think they know someone with it they shouldn't immediately assume the person is a danger to themselves or others. It's why I also tried to be careful of my wording when talking about DID and Schizophrenia. Most viewers on the internet only know the extreme myths and rumors about these disorders. And I did not want to feed into those unhealthy stereotypes. Which is also why I am grateful mihoyo didn't go all out in including schizophrenia as it's a conversation mine field and very hard to portray respectfully with all the stereotypes surrounding it. But as someone who deals with MDD I'm open to hearing your opinion about how i described it. And if you feel like I was stretching to far by saying Freminet might have struggled with it as a small child.

[@CutieTutie99]

@@dougligaming I understand why you kept your statement on MaDD (MDD is major depressive disorder) short in the video, and I'm not questioning your intentions. I also think Freminet used to or still does struggle with daydreaming. I just think your statement on suicide is incorrect. As you said, MaDD isn't classified as a disorder and isn't even studied well enough. I don't still it's possible to say for certain that there is no cases of it leading to suicide. I'm not trying to nitpick or bash on your video. I enjoyed your video. Just that one line irked me.

[@dougligaming]

@@CutieTutie99 it's fine! And I understand the opinion that the risk of suicide can't be 100% ruled out because of how little is fully studied about the disorder. People with mental disorders are more at risk of attempting suicide compared to neurotypicals. I only mentioned no current suicide connection because the child's suicide in the game was related to his day dreaming. But his suicide involved other factors like hallucinations. Meaning Mihoyo wasn't trying to imply he had just MaDD. So I didn't want to be the one to casually connect MaDD to suicide when mihoyo intentionally went through steps to avoid that.

[@iwillhavemora7656]

I wonder if i have this, i really love it to the point i will spend my time in my room for hours just daydreaming

[@insertnamehere1398]

I love it when part 2 videos make a whole segment about corrcting mistakes from their part 1

[@Vesperad0]

Gotta be thorough, and I appreciate them for it. Can be hard to admit when you're wrong

[@dougligaming]

so i debated making a short video between the two uploads. but worried i'd just get the same incorrect comments about Singapore on the second video because no one watched the video in between.

[@v0n12z]

okay i did not know alhaitham was rocking the noise cancelling headphones, hes so me

[@dougligaming]

there's a lot of early fics that headcanon them as hearing aids. Which i think would have also been cool. But once his quotelines came out saying they were meant to deafen the world that headcanon sort of died. which makes me sad because i love sign language being worked into fics its a fun exercise for a written medium.

[@Detective_Grav]

I genuinely thought that was just the askasha and Al just decided to keep them on. I have hearing aids so I would love representation for people with hearing loss, but I would have liked some sort of actual mention if that was the case instead of "oh this *might* be the case"

[@OpalAlice]

In addition to Her Majesty the Tsaritsa, The Abyss, and The Heavenly Principals we also have the Sovereigns as *potentially* a side we could side with

[@dougligaming]

oh true! see I keep thinking of the dragon sovereigns as all dead and off the table. But Neuvillette brings them back in as an option.

[@Iffem]

@@dougligaming and apep!

[@OpalAlice]

We know the dragon of hydro has returned, so it *might* be possible for the rest to return or to have already returned@@dougligaming

[@radovanszep]

@@dougligaming But most of them is indeed dead, including their leader Niebelung. Apep's mind was almost consumed by the madness from forbidden knowlege and Neuvillette came to the scene much later, when Heavenly Principles already established her rule.

[@dougligaming]

@@OpalAlice see the other archons would have to give what's left of their godly power to a dragon. For that dragon to become a sovereign. There's not an electro or geo dragon available for this. Azhdaha is to crazy for Zhongli to give his power to

[@amarylily]

I FORGOT TO SAY: about the psychology portion, I 100% agree!! It really is depicted in such a positive and helpful way and as someone who struggles with ADHD (and possibly other stuff) it means a lot to see it being represented here!

[@Hummingbird_335]

I watch till the end. The Fortress of Meropide reminds me of Australia. In the past criminals were ship from Great Britain to Australia.

[@dougligaming]

yes there is also that vibe from the prisoners becoming a mini-nation. honkai star rail just dropped it's 2.0 trailer. which is revealing a new planet called Penacony which seems to come from the word penal-colony. Which also makes me think of Australia. But it also has a mix of las vegas as the planet is supposed to be a party/casino place with an anything goes mindset. Vegas grew so big because it was funded by the mob in it's early years.

[@Hummingbird_335]

@@dougligaming If Irminsul change/remove information from people's mind in Teyvat does China do that too? Like change/remove information from history books?

[@dougligaming]

@@Hummingbird_335 yes they don't include a lot of things in their textbooks. One textbook only mentioned Mao in a one off quote that wasn't even by the man. And he founded the Party to begin with. The Tienanmen Square massacre just straight up doesn't exist on their internet. And is never talked about at any school level including college. They also stopped a shipment of Japanese textbooks because it had Taiwan as a different color than china on it's world map. Implying it was a separate country. even though Taiwan has it's own government and laws and just had it's own democratic election this month. But the Chinese government doesn't recognize them as a country therefore other countries aren't allowed to do it.

[@liliya_aseeva]

In Soviet Russia camps were also like that, they had their own currency etc, de-facto the state simply had no free hands to develop Far East, and nobody wanted to go there on their own. My grand-grandfather was a doctor while being thrown in a camp and returned home with a pack full of paper money. But then the financial reform happened and his money did not cost anything anymore.

[@Vesperad0]

​@@Hummingbird_335I think a lot of real world nations do that, actually, but it's more so altering history to make themselves look good. I mean, it's happening right now in the good old states, something I'm not very comfortable (as the main target) directly saying...there may be truth to history and science, but like that quote says, "history is decided by the winners". Pretty crap imo, as a lite-history nerd, but what can I do?

[@rajaryan-fe1oy]

"Behold worm, I Scara Mucchi is gonna show you a true God-"

[@mymikuu]

.

[@KyzenEX]

I thought this was a pun or an insude joke... I can't avoid laughing at hearing Scaramucci

[@mzitz]

​@@KyzenEXscaramouche sometimes translates to scara mucchi or something similar in other languages 😭 theyre probably using a translator. For me it turns into scara muccia 😭😭😭😭😭

[@KyzenEX]

@@mzitz if Genshin ever collabs with Starbucks we need Scaramuccino or smth,,,

[@mzitz]

@@KyzenEX i feel like rhat would taste actually so good

[@callmemim3007]

The most risky topic Mihoyo ever did was bunny girl, which almost cost someone life

[@KyzenEX]

To think the CN community can go that far... It's truly sad how brainwashed by the CCP the common individual is.

[@lopi3lopi3night72]

28:13 as someone with Autism, I heavily relate to his character even getting accused of thinking I’m above everyone when I had never thought that I was. My ex “friends” accused me of this and it had really hurt and upset me. I literally didn’t know what I did that made them think that. I literally thought I was in the wrong until hearing about this character and how I’m not the only autistic person who had been accused of this. I’m glad that I’m not the only one but sad that this is a common occurrence. Those ex “friends” are just a-holes and I have better friends now

[@chqnlix]

as someone with a very short attention span and ADHD i love how fast you talk , it makes me way more interested in the video

[@dougligaming]

I'mma be real I used to be worried about how fast I talk and if normal folks would be able to follow along in a video. (I still worry about foreign viewers) But how fast Red from OSP's talks gave me more confidence with the idea that it's okay to talk at my normal speed. I do edit out the taking of breath between sentences but like all youtubers do that and they don't sound that fast. So most of the fast pace is just on how fast I say the sentence. It's just nice to know it's an alright pace for fellow ADHDers!

[@hinleung7502]

1.25x speed is your friend 😉

[@chqnlix]

@@hinleung7502 very true!

[@larissabarros9793]

Well I am a foreigner and I've got... Half of what you said (so I needed to use the subtitles, but not a problem at all! With subtitles that's perfect) but HEY I've got ADHD and also a horrible attention span and I could keep up with it, Which was ✨ amazing ✨ Thanks for the good content! ​@@dougligaming

[@dougligaming]

@@larissabarros9793 I hope the subtitles were okay! I talk really fast and sometimes even google doesn't know the word I said. I sometimes go in and edit the words myself. But I didn't this time. I'm glad I was able to keep your adhd attention though XD

[@radovanszep]

29:18 My girl Layla - I build the special Sumeru bedroom set in my Serenity teapot just to get her more sleep🙂- and because she's currently my best shielder (no, I don't have Zhongli). Oh Layla, the stars will shine for you...🎶

[@ewilispanda9462]

Last honkai star rail story being about the flaw of order at all costs is pretty funny regarding the ccp

[@M.for_now]

I just wanna add really quickly that there are also quite a few other characters besides AlHaitham that could easily be read as autistic (like i.e. Chongyun, Lynette, Kokomi, Furina, Shenhe, Sucrose, Fischl, Albedo, Tighnari, Cyno, Freminét (even if the things mentioned in the video (also) apply), ... loads of others essentially) Especially as autism can present in loads of different ways, i think it's very interesting to see a variety of characters that can be read this way that all present in different ways. For some of the characters the interpretation of them as autistic is really easy in my opinion as for others it could be something else that presents with similar symptoms/ a similar outward appearance, but there really are quite a few genshin PCs that can be listed here. I've seen other people name other characters in their interpretations as well. Also, as someone who has maladaptive daydreams i want to say that i really appreciate that they didn't present it as something bad. It's true that they can turn into an actual disorder when they take up too much time and space in your life (i.e. wanting to neglect social relationships, work or basic chores, etc in favour of daydreaming) but at its most basic, it's a way to find a place of comfort and an escape from reality. I also like that his MDs are essentially "keeping him from being lonely", because for a lot of people with these daydreams, they include loads of different characters (imagine watching a movie that's part of a greater cinematic universe). So sometimes, when people talk about imaginary friends i think about wether that's the same. But yeah, idk i just wanted to add my thoughts i think^^" (And yes, one is always aware of what is a dream and what is reality with maladaptive daydreaming. It's like knowing that what you just read in a book didn't actually happen to you just now, but still being immersed in the story while reading)

[@thesmilyguyguy9799]

: )

[@dougligaming]

Yes there are plenty of other genshin characters people with autism have identified with. I've seen lists also include Xiao and diluc. A lot of Neurotypticals like to argue if a character is "really autistic". So I went with the one character that had the most hints and most solid "evidence". But because of how varied Autism traits are plenty of characters exhibit a few Autism traits. It's just whether the character has enough traits to convince neurotypicals. Trust me I have plenty more neurodivergent headcanons based on other characters and how they act in the game. So I went with the umbrella statement of "everyone needs therapy!" to imply there are other neurodivergent characters. It's just harder to explain that vibe to Neurotypicals. I didn't go into it in the video. But learning about MDD honestly made me realize I probably had it as a teen. I cannot remember most of Middle School and High School. But I can still give you a vague outline of the 3 different "storylines" I spaced out and "wrote" in my head during class and at home. I know I disassociated when things "got bad" at home. But I never put together me daydreaming step by step through a plot that grew day by day in a chronological order mirroring my life was part of the disassociating. I don't do it now. I have days where I disassociate at the kitchen table thinking about the next video/discussion post i want to write. But the every day long overarching daydream has stopped. Even if me mentally healing to a place where I don't daydream like that means I never had "real" MDD. I at least understand how comforting those worlds can be and also how disruptive. So I tried to be extra cautious in my wording to not "villianize" it. Which made me appreciate how careful mihoyo was in bringing it up.

[@Vesperad0]

Me personally, I tend to be a lil cautious when it comes to perceiving a character as autistic, mainly because I'm uncomfortably aware of a lot of stereotypes surrounding autism, so for me seeing some people see Alhaitham and Diluc and Xiao as autistic kinda felt like...they assumed autistic people were somewhat mean, in a way? But then again this could be a bias on my part, seeing bluntness or not being afraid of confrontation (as an AuDHD dummy with a huge fear of confrontation) as a bad thing. I dunno, I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist, these are just some thoughts I've mulled over in my attempt to question and prevent stereotypes from affecting my writing. But Cyno, Kokomi, Fischl, Lynette, Freminet, and more are definitely autistic to me. I immediately, especially, clocked it with Lynette and Cyno...love them

[@dougligaming]

So for Al haitham, Diluc, and Xiao the reason i've seen some actual autistics give for seeing them as some form of autistic is definitely not the jerk angle. Obviously they're just as tired of the Jerk autistic stereotype as we are. But instead their reluctance to socialize. So even tho they are blunt and too the point that doesn't mean they want to be in a conversation that gets dragged out into a confrontation. Diluc is very polite to strangers when running the bar, it's only Kaeya he's rude to and that is because of the fear Kaeya is only approaching to mess with him. Even those interactions have gotten less antagonistic. He's just very to the point with strangers. He's not here for small talk. Which reads as rude to some people. Which is how Al haitham is as i pointed out. Xiao has the reluctance to socialize but i'd almost say it's ptsd related? he has a valid concern of he karma corrupting weaker human souls but he also has the trauma of the last group he bonded with being the Yaksha's that are all dead. So keeping people at arms length even if they can't be corrupted by his karma can be seen as a defense mechanism. So the big trait for Xiao is actually his food sensitivity. Which I have written posts before about how nice it is to see traveler and everyone supportive of Xiao and his food sensitivity last lantern rite. But basically Almond Tofu is Xiao's "safe food". Which is a very common thing for autistics to have. Meanwhile his reason for not liking other foods has to do with their smell and texture not just taste. So for these three I can see a concern that the autism label comes from jerk stereotypes. But if it's an actual autistic person identifying with them it's definitely because there is more there. But with how different autism is for everyone it's not a surprise different characters feel more relatable to different autistic people. Cyno struggle to understand what qualifies as a "funny" joke and so falling back on puns is such an autistic vibe. also as someone with yugioh as a hyperfocus for the last 15 years I completely understand his obsession with Genius Invokation TCG.

[@M.for_now]

@@dougligaming i really appreciate the constructive comments and conversations, not just here but in the entire comment section (from what i've seen) It's really nice to have a safe space to talk and understand other people's views^^ And I do understand (now better than i did before) why it makes sense to only discuss AlHaitham as an example of an autistic character in the video. I think I was aware of it before, but I didn't think too much about what would be easier or harder to explain to neurotypicals since my circle of friends that i talk to about genshin are all neurodivergent ^^" Thank you for your reply!

[@threethymes]

Excellent video - so ,much information packed into a short run time. Hoyo is an amazing company to create such a beautiful world with so many dark stories (and wonderful music). I'm glad you mentioned the sewers area in Fontaine. This has worried me since we first saw it as I assumed the main story would involve some kind of rebellion from this underclass of people. But that didn't happen and I find it very odd that nothing was changed about that area after the archon quest was completed. So basically there are three underground areas in Fontaine - the prison, the sewers and Poisson and people are still living without natural light in the sewers - unless most of them died except we weren't told about that. Fontaine is really a horrible place with such a stratified society.

[@darkomiku8902]

I am really glad someone recognizes and makes a video about all the unnecessary risk hoyoverse goes through to prove a point.

[@aaaaaaaa3553]

I'm sorry but I can't get over the scaramoochie part 😭

[@woahitsfranco5286]

12:11 technically speaking if you count how the plot was largely adepti vs humanity it could also be viewed as a form of revolution as the adepti were originally the main leaders of liyie.

[@dougligaming]

but neither side fought the other and the government wasn't overthrown in anyway. the humans were already in charge of Liyue harbor. The Adepti just assumed it was their duty to step in after Morax's death and stepped back once they understood the humans had the situation under control.

[@MorbidEel]

It wasn't a versus situation. They still had the same goal of protecting Liyue. The adepti's only issue was doubting the humans ability to protect Liyue.

[@gaerekxenos]

@@MorbidEel Which then becomes a thing of questioning the CCP to some degree, funny enough

[@Zhonglily_99]

21:30 : while I do agree these silly laws might be a critic, it might also be a reference to old French laws. For instance, there is a very old law that says you cannot name your pig Napoleon, while in Fontaine Neuvilette says you cannot name any pet Furina. Tho I think the reference and the critique can coexist together with this fact.

[@dougligaming]

Yeah I've heard the Napoleon one before. But there's definitely an overlap with that one specifically. Because game developers are required to reject usernames with Xi's name in them. Along with not allowing it to be sent in game chats. So not being allowed to name things after the leader is just a thing in general in china

[@vnree]

Wow this is such an interesting topic honestly, I've been wondering abt this & rmbr reading some ppl discussing this on twt, yt comments, etc. but never in an actual vid where everything is listed & elaborated like this. Thank you for this! Tbh I have trouble actually relating events/ideas in game (wtv medium in general tbh) to real-life events, like looking beyond what is literally presented yk? Even identifying parallels within the game doesn't automatically register to me usually. Likely bcs I'm not knowledgeable enough/lack the perspective to fully understand certain nuances to connect them so I always find this kinda thing interesting

[@dougligaming]

That's sort of my goal with the videos I make. find topics that have vaguely been brought up on multiple posts over the years and bring them all together into one video. Figuring out if something is a reference to the real world or pop culture can be hard sometimes. especially if the creators are putting references to a culture you aren't familiar with in. Like I said i'm sure i'm missing some of the references because I don't know enough about chinese culture and i'm someone who sat down and researched possible links.

[@rusope1050]

god i am so glad i watched this after seeing a video of how ppl are mad at hoyo for not giving them enought free stuff and endgame content xD friendly reminder why genshin is so great! i reeeeally love all these little hints (sometimes a bit more than just hints xD) and details they put in a game! so often i can rly just hardly believe this is a CHINESE game :D also BRUUUUH it never occurres to my that alhaitham is autistic! woah this explains so much! especially how i could never bring myself to not liking him even after hearing so often from others how he's basically a jerk. love your video

[@dougligaming]

I was working on this before the lantern rite drama started. But you are right that it is more positive than other recent videos about Mihoyo. Yeah a lot of people write him off as a jerk in the fandom. But even Kaveh admits that he has feelings and if all you see is cold stoic responses you aren't a close enough friend yet. Which to me sounds a lot like masking (autism and adhd thing) to come off a certain way around strangers and then dropping that mask around people you trust.

[@rusope1050]

@@dougligaming just so much more proof how hard it is for neuridivergent people to live in our world, with normies just misinterpreting some behaviours. i wanna give althaitham a hug now - and he woud hate that so much haha ;D

[@Vesperad0]

Well, there definitely can be two truths at once! I'm not a gacha player so I wouldn't know if the rewards suck, but I've watched a few vids and it does seem to be a problem especially cuz genshin doesn't have any prominent competition. I'd say for every positive there's two and a half flaws, most of which I think lies with development/QoL and not the story. Like some characters are incredibly boring to me (Ganyu, Keqing, Mika, etc) without much of a personality, but then there's characters I cannot stop thinking about because of how enjoyable they are. That part is more so my opinion, but I do think everything else is objective. You can appreciate a game while being critical of it's flaws-as long as you aren't the wishy-washy type who bullies devs that have no part in rewards but then harasses anybody who makes fun of the game...those people are the worst.

[@dougligaming]

@@Vesperad0 oh yeah i definitely have an idea for a QoL comparison video. To point out what QoL improvements they have added in since launch. Along with the big one's they should probably add soon. No game or company is perfect and genshin has always had issues with low value anniversary rewards

[@whythough5305]

About Freminet's section: I believe it's no longer called "selective mutism", and rather being "non-verbal", and to that extent, I'd also argue he's also autistic-coded I hope they (Mihoyo) don't get into trouble but the video was informative

[@dougligaming]

Ah I should have checked for that! I've certainly heard the term "going non-verbal" in autism spaces. But I assumed selective mutism was still the medical term. And yeah as I was playing through the event I at first labeled them as autism traits too. But looking deeper they seem to come from childhood trauma and the impulsive desire to fall back on habits that brought you comfort during those stressful times. He can definitely be seen as autism coded too tho! You could say the helmet serves a similar role to al haitham's headphones for example. And Non-verbal is a thing autistic people struggle with fairly often

[@nuruu]

being selectively mute & non-verbal r two different terms!! selective mutism is not related to autism (even though a lot of selectively mute ppl, myself included, r also autistic) selectively mutism works in have freeze episodes in certain environments where u physical cant talk due to anxiety, and going non-verbal in autistic ppl is a whole like complex thing abt neuro-pathways and stuff but generally (if theyre not completely non verbal) is a response to understimulation or overstimulation. this is a rlly common misconception and as someone whose selectively mute and autistic with non verbal episodes

[@dougligaming]

@@nuruuokay I thought they might be slightly different. At the very least I knew Nonverbal was specifically an Autism thing. While Selective mutism can happen to just anyone usually because of trauma. A lot of folks myself included have headcannoned traveler as having some form of selective mutism. Specifically because Yoimiya calls Paimon basically a disability aid that she wishes her father could have.

[@columbinadamselettefan]

help the alhaitham part made me realise how simular he is to me😭😭🙏 (as an autistic person)

[@dougligaming]

I'm glad I could help you find another character like you! It's always nice to find characters that fit autism or adhd. Because it's still not common in media for them to be just a part of the cast instead of the "autistic one". Al haitham fits autism but is also allowed to be just another person traveler knows. Which is what I enjoy about him

[@ArbitraryOutcome]

I'm seeing some similarities between Alhaitham and I myself. Helps he's pretty, too.

[@qiwunu]

al haitham is so relatable

[@BlazingTonk]

never knew those topics are worth the hearing. Good job!

[@Beztebyo]

the name of the elements in Genshin comes from ancients greek unfortunatly i don't have ancient greek keyboard so i can't name them but as someone who studyes ancient greek i can confirm

[@dougligaming]

yep that's why words like electric, geography, hydraulics, and pyrotechnics also use them in relation to those elements. And Venti's name is latin for wind. I know that because of Ventus in kingdom hearts lol

[@Berylviana]

This video makes me have some more respect for MiHoYo after the questionable things they've been doing. This game is not only about the fictional story and exploration, but the lives of real people living under oppression. Damn... Thank you for this video, this changed my impression of Genshin. I somehow like it more.

[@dougligaming]

Great! That was my intention. it's easy to judge genshin based on western standards of representation and feel like they fall short. But when you really look into the restrictions forced onto Chinese media it's clear they are pushing so many more boundary's than one might expect. It's a perspective I felt was important to share with other players

[@khanhquocvong]

Tech Otakus really are saving the world

[@leymons1236]

gotta say these longer videos are amazing ngl

[@dougligaming]

thank you! I was concerned with how long this one was honestly. but there's also places where I feel like I still could have gone into more detail.

[@suzuneechan]

Multiple comments! There were a lot of things I didn't even have a surface knowledge of re: the extent of Chinese censorship (or discouragement of noncensored content), some cultural norms, specific history on media being censored etc etc. The discouragement of covering a lot of academic topics I take for granted here was particularly surprising (Even as some local commentators imply it's not that complete a barrier as the video might suggest). Personally, I do have a few "Yay, you talked about the thing!" kudos to give and a few expansions to offer. Naturally as someone with many things myself [notice how damn long this comment is and think about it in that context :P ], I appreciate the mental health topic section and had already picked up some of it in play (but not all of it, so you did good work) and do have some expansions there: Hoyo in /general/ seems to have a deep fixation on identity and multiple concepts of self, whether DID, more benign forms (this one being one of the Things I Have), or just generally using it as a metaphor (I've seen people biiitch about it in comments threads). Like, consider the Seeles (which the 'dark' one is a different name, Vel-something... I don't play it personally) from HI3 as a really really major example. Ei's entire second story quest plays out a metaphor for an internal argument in such a system, spicing it up by making it very damn external. Layla is particularly nice for having a less explicitly magical explanation, too. Religion and myth... I'm as big a fan as I am because Hoyo cannot even remotely contain the urge to make deepcuts constantly. Genshin being specifically about well-researched fantasy-equivalent nations means you can basically use the endless stream of references as a goddamn reading list - the Persian story of Shirin and Khosrov? Sure, it's scattered throughout Sumeru lore! A practice of not naming a child until the fifth day of their life in some eras of Japanese history? First heard of it in song lyrics. Francophone youtubers have gone "Wait, I studied this poem/novel/etc in school" at name references in Fontaine. It goes on forever and as a culture and myth nerd it's /intoxicating/. ...And as a Sumeru and Nilou fangirl I'm glad the implications of what she did in the story were properly treated in the section on revolution. :P

[@ShowMeLoveFilms]

Amazing video! And no, the length was great for a discussion video!

[@faith4disney]

Not to mention the amount of (suggested) cults this game has 😭

[@islemtrabelsi8369]

Narrissizen Ordo is implied cult for exemple lmao

[@Amethyst.i]

I’m actually really happy Hoyoverse does this, the Chinese government should not censor things they don’t want people to see and people need to speak up about it

[@lsxu149]

hoyo also has its own party branch, they have good relationship with government.

[@asscheeks3212]

​@@lsxu149 for now. Singapore is a good back up

[@amarylily]

Thank you so much for this video and the last one on this topic! I delved into your sources and it’s so fascinating to me, especially the Censorship wiki. It’s to be taken with a grain of salt of course but it’s interesting to see the sheer amount of works/topics/words banned, temporarily banned, or modified and etc in China. I’m an Asian (Chinese and Taiwanese) but I grew up primarily in America and I feel like there’s still so much I’m learning and relearning about my culture and where I came from. I’m honestly really glad to appreciate and remember what freedoms I have here. This game means a lot to many people and I’m really glad that the story and characters are able to reach so many people in different ways! I didn’t realize how risky and important a lot of the topics covered in Genshin are! Also just wanted to say incredible job on the research and work on this video!!! It’s so thorough and well scripted! Seeing the long list of sources made me very happy haha Also if you have enough energy or interest, would you consider doing something similar to this for Honkai Star Rail? If not I totally understand (making something so detailed and nuanced takes a LOT out of you) but it would be an interesting topic if you’re interested in it! Overall, amazing video! It really shined a new light on the game for me!

[@dougligaming]

I'm glad you enjoyed it and found the sources helpful! It was very important to me that I didn't find just random news articles for some of these but actual research papers on the topic. Or a primary source from someone in china taking the screenshot. I don't want to be spreading western rumors about the east when there are actual areas of censorship Mihoyo has to sneak around. I've thought about star rail but it's been hard to see where they push the line to tell their stories. Star rail has completely different writers that for example made their ghosts aliens and implied ghosts aren't a real thing. Which plays into the rule of no ghosts or demons even though genshin has never hesitated to include ghosts or demons in the game. Meanwhile Star Rails villain group seems to be a corporate company using capitalism to interfer with sovereign nations rights. Which is something companies do but causes the whole thing to come off as anti-capitalism. Where genshin hasn't taken that strong of a stance. The Tsarista is just a ruling archon like all the other nations. Making Snezhnayas government not the problem but their goals as a nation the problem. Not to mention the scifi china nation insisting on hunting down all followers of one of the other paths aka a religious group. And the game not framing them as in the wrong for that? Because they introduce an abundance cult to prove them "right". I just don't have enough confidence in any argument i'd build this early in star rails story. But who knows maybe Penacony will change my mind. We'll have to wait and see

[@gaerekxenos]

@@dougligaming Instead of the main story currently for Star Rail, there are bits and pieces that happen behind closed doors if you interact with them. There are at least two potentially implied suicides, at least one instance of domestic violence, complaints about jobs and being overworked with overtime. But aside from that, there's mostly been a bunch of memes and jokes. You could possibly push something with Belobog's separation with the over and under worlds, but that might be stretching things a bit. There are hints there may be a few critiques, but it really isn't enough to really say much about them. Not sure how bannable these would be though, so I wouldn't latch onto that idea too tightly just yet - but you can probably expect a bit more to come out

[@dan2800]

They know how to cook it does make you realize what things you have in common with characters and what topics they show Genshin is a great game if you look at it from this view Take freminet event you know you probably need some help for mental health try talking to someone over come your social anxiety Also when playing you will most likely explore your own sexuality and more (referencing genshin impact is a playable anime video) There was a web event with black swan in HSR and some things there were hitting to reality pretty hard

[@willzhang1936]

im somewhat confused about the bans mentioned, because as someone who lives in china, even before i got a vpn, almost half of internet content i saw consists of content mentioned as "banned" in this video

[@dougligaming]

so some of these are based on what movies they wouldn't allow in the country and the reason they gave for not allowing it. While others were topics they would ban online based on the political climate at the time. tags about democracy usually get blocked around the gathering of the national congress for example. so not all the topics are permanently banned. Pretty sure there is zero bans on western philosophy discussions. But the party does want games to focus on Eastern and Chinese culture. In the hopes of spreading Chinese ideals to the rest of the world. So Mihoyo going "No we are going to include everyone's ideals and say they are also valid ways of living" goes against that goal of the Party. But I am curious about which specific topics are currently allowed. As the soft censorship was studied on search engines. I don't know how that is applied to social media sites. Weibo seems to like to ban tags as they start trending. Like when #friendscensored started trending to complain about the changes to Friends on bilibili only for that hashtag to get banned that night by Weibo. So some of the topics I mention are probably allowed in casual posts as long at the hashtag doesn't start trending and cause problems. I just don't have a Weibo or Bilibili account to test what content is allowed right now.

[@arturolaug306]

What I found interesting of this video is the fact that besides Zhongli getting put out of the power and the change of Liyue because of that All the censorship infringements are either in any region besides Liyue, or if it's in Liyue it has something to do with fatuis

[@dougligaming]

It's either intentional to avoided being accused of directly criticizing china's government. Or it's unintentional and just national bias. They are really interested in introducing Chinese Culture to foreign gamers and so focus on the good of chinese cultural history instead of the bad. But this bias exists in games made in japan with fictional feudal japans and america with fictional americas too. It's also important to note Mondstadt also didn't have many risky topics. Saying mondstadt was formed from a revolution isn't that risky on it's own. because so many European countries had a revolution at one point or another. Implying they played it extremely safe for the first two regions on purpose to get the game okayed for a release. Once the game became a big hit internationally they realized they had leverage to start working in riskier storylines. Now no matter what they work in the government is never going to tell them to close the game entirely. just tell them to remove whatever goes too far.

[@gaerekxenos]

@@dougligaming Conspiracy theory: They work to indirectly shut the game down by limiting what Genshin is allowed to hand out, or incite the public into negative opinion. I'm curious since I've been out of the loop, but what were the 2nd anniversary's rewards? First anniversary was a debacle, current anniversary is yet another debacle -- but somehow I don't remember hearing anything about 2nd anniversary. Not to mention... they should have learned from their first anniversary....? So why is there a repeat on of the same thing on 3rd anniversary? Some other strange things going on are... Star Rail managed to earn so pretty big awards - so it seems strange that Genshin gets nothing out of it as many other companies who run multiple big games will celebrate across *all* of their existing games for big milestones (not to mention it helps boost interest in those other games 'cuz "yay, more free rewards!!")

[@jnliewmichael4235]

Well, that's, decently comprehensive. While I do feel some of these points aren't really exactly relevant to risking Chinese censorship laws (mainly the psychology section), everything else is interesting, though I only know as much as anyone outside of China would, which isn't much.

[@dougligaming]

Like I said at the start of that section. Talking about mental health isn't banned. It's just extremely rarely talked about because of the stigma around it. It's considered shameful and embarrassing to need therapy in Asia. and so no one goes to therapy. meaning treatable depression or trauma end in suicide more often than not. So it's another place where Mihoyo is going against the norm to open up discussion about a serious topic with their players.

[@jnliewmichael4235]

@@dougligaming Yeah, therapy/mental health stigmatation is definitely true (true for here in Malaysia as well) Fair enough. I look forward to the next parts of this series.

[@destiny_ultimatedork675]

about the slavery thing i am pretty sure its mentioned A TON in sumeru especially the desert (yikes) , and liloupar.dont forget about the. her. yeah

[@dougligaming]

Yeah there's a whole section of ancient texts in the Sumeru desert that describe a guy's time in slavery and includes him describing being taken to a slave auction. The guy leads a slave revolt and becomes the next king outlawing slavery. But from the sound of it slavery came back a few kings after him. And yeah Liloupar was the worst

[@destiny_ultimatedork675]

@@dougligaming summed it up perfectly omg btw enjoyed the vid!

[@sthezh]

also sumeru canonically having universal healthcare, much more controversial here in america than in china but not common around the world, and especially not in video games

[@maryhassellpetty670]

It’s really cool to heard about all the small seemingly at first glance random things added to Genshin’s world to make it more real. And that it helps Chinese people learn a bit more past the censorship firewall is cool.

[@kingaxolotl262]

28:59 im glad you provided evidence for alhethim being autistic because im autistic and i get offended when people misuse autism/call people autistic as a joke its not funny! anyway im happy to hear that the autistic community gets some representation in genshin even though alhethim is kinda a jerk and im not as deep on the spectrum as him he's still autistic and im happy that i have an autistic buddy

[@yukichan177]

its good to put problematic topics in fantasy\fiction. cuz its another point of view on how its dealt with in another world... imo americans shows has far more censoring on those topics than china XDDD especilly in games and fictinal things

[@dougligaming]

yeah it's true american dub companies like 4kids heavily censored things. Sometimes worse than the China censors. But that was only a few companies deciding how they would present content they were trying to show to kids. Toonami and Adult Swim still aired the uncensored versions in the late evenings when kids weren't up. These regulations in china are supposed to be for all content regardless of the age of the viewer and is decided by the government for the companies. Instead of the companies deciding their content is for kids and censoring accordingly. If you want a funny story about American Censors look up Alex Hirsch's twitter. He has a thread about different corrections sent to him by the disney censors while creating gravity falls. google "gravity falls not approved by s&p" it was the funniest one and should lead you to the rest of the thread.

[@Vesperad0]

Literally bluey. Dunno how or why they censored bluey, but they did. This place sucks.

[@nilladrawsstuff]

​@@dougligamingGravity falls mentioned!!!! No but fr, the censorship disney gave GF is crazy. I'm surprised how much he actually got away with. (I'm looking at you, durland and blubbs)

[@sailorrinn6134]

Idk why there are so many inconsiderate comments. good video

[@MadelynRusco]

okay, you covered 3 things no one else i know of have mentioned in a genshin, DID w/ layla, and autism. and MDD! way to go. i will watch that Yu-Gi-Oh video, lol...

[@woahitsfranco5286]

28:13 i know this isnt about HSR but hoyo devs admitting in a section of their site saying that ones chosen by the aeon of erudition/knowledge typically have autistic tendencies is so cool to me. like i personally think almost all of the genius society is autistic or some degree especially herta and ruan mei.

[@aeris143]

sorry this is so late, but i’m surprised it wasn’t covered; wanderer - but especially scaramouche - can definitely be interpreted to have borderline personality disorder (i.e. a strong fear of abandonment, recurrent and fast changes in identity, unstable relationships both intra- and interpersonally, impulsive behaviour, s**cidal ideation or self-destructive responses to stress, and persisting feelings of emptiness/lack of purpose) imho it’s too strong of a correlation to be overlooked but technically isn’t canon so 🤷‍♀️ i’d love to see your take on this!!

[@零號-y2o]

I would like to add something that i feel was sorta missed. I have a teacher who came from China and told us how her parents were taken from her while she was socially isolated and harassed cuz someone tattled on her family when she lived in China. This was heavily referenced in Wriothesley’s character quest and this sort of thing is still ongoing in China (+ Hong Kong) and wasn’t just from rly long time back. I’m not from China myself rather im from Taiwan but hearing stories from ppl i know from China and Hong Kong abt this sorta thing rly does scare me. And i was honestly surprised hoyo didnt get in trouble at all for making references to this ongoing issue in China in genshin.

[@dougligaming]

Yeah that was part of what i was leaving unsaid because it gets serious and complicated fast. It was easy to point to the public shaming because those are public. But the prison cell stuff is harder because of how much china hides about their criminal system. Wriothesley's stuff gets close to referencing the Uyghurs muslim "reeducation" camps. which is such a big nono topic I didn't want to claim they were taking that big of a swing if they weren't. But the hints towards such topics is definitely there.

[@leymons1236]

this video is so good omg, how are you only 1.8k subs?? this is great

[@TheCsel]

On dates the man usually pays, or if someone invites a group to dinner they might be expected to pay in certain settings. That’s when someone might use Going Dutch

[@EugenIsHere]

14:00 No, Inazuma is meant to ressemble a what if situation, what if the Shogunate compromised and loosened up before it was too late. Inazuma is a critique to Japan's extremism and extreme corruption, which was essentially also why Imperial Japan fell apart just like the Shogunate. China isn't anti japanese, it's anti the japanese government, that continues to share characteristics with the Shogunate and Imperial Japan. I wouldn't say that Inazuma is respectful or any other nonssnse, it's just factual, factual like all of China's complaints of Japan

[@davidsabillon5182]

Interesting...... Like commented and subscribed 👍

[@dougligaming]

Awesome, thank you!

[@gaerekxenos]

I was mildly aware of the references that Genshin had to RL stuff, but I never knew it was this deep. It's a bit of a pity I had to stop playing pretty early due to motion sickness. I think I can kind of get why they don't get to be as generous with their rewards now... CCP doesn't want people to be playing this game devotedly and start making all of these connections, and since it's so big... they can't just straight up and directly shut the game down. So they'll force Mihoyo to limit what they can hand out to have players lash out and quit on their own. Well played... well played indeed CCP... seems like they're getting what they wanted Another game that's been pretty gutsy is Arknights. I saw a few pretty pointed jabs here and there, though some of them they can get away with as it "isn't necessarily referencing CN/CCP" but some other country

[@Kiera_I_guess]

On the topic of health both mental and physical, id like to give mention to Chongyun. Just like Alhaitham, Chongyun, at least to me, exibits a lot of traits of autism as well as adhd. In genshin, these traits are instead worded as being symptoms of his "pure yang energy". He states how his condition makes him prone to acting on impulse and emotional outbursts (these actions often depicted as him getting very hyperactive, overly passionate, and/or agrivated) and that he needs to constantly keep himself from exibiting these symptoms. This, to me, sounds quite an awful lot like masking. Chongyun also shows a lot of the stereotypical autistic traits such as being awkward with social interaction/cues(seen when talking to test of courage npcs or playing with the kids in hangout), being gullible (believing Xingqiu's false leads and getting his money swindled easily), getting overstimulated easily (seen in various voicelines), feeling the need to follow strict tradition/rules (hating his yang spirit since it inhibits his ability to perform exorcism "the true way", still drawing spirits into the exocism book despite not seeing them to keep the tradition, refusing extra payment for not being able to perform exorcism normally), and lastly being overfixated or having a special interest (said in hangout that he never learned how to play since he was too focused on training martial arts and exocism, many voicelines including all his good morning, good afternoon, good night voicelines talking about training, etc). Not related to adhd/autistic traits, Chongyun once almost froze himself to death in an attempt to lessen his yang energy (character story 2 i think). Thats completely unrelated, but pretty messed up. Anyways, thats my poorly disguised rant about Chongyun finished. I really hope Hoyo brings more attention to Chonyun's condition and symptoms in future events.

[@handovermoney]

i need the same vid, but with hi3 or pretty much any other hoyo game

[@ArbitraryOutcome]

Yes please, especially given HI3 (and also GGZ/Honkai Gakuen) existing before Hoyo got bigger.

[@nitesy381]

The boundary pushing reminds me of how people used to talk about the state of games were in the 90's. Seems the CN industry has entered it. too bad they seem to be going into the direction of the industry globally which is just depressing corporatism. Fuck those 3 pulls.

[@day_se115]

Also i dunno if yall can agree on that with me, but as a person w ADHD i find Kaveh having a lot of symptoms of it too

[@cyaniire6924]

26:49 Key word "probably" I saw what you did there lol

[@KyzenEX]

12:04 I can understand mispronouncing Chinese, Arab and Japanese words, but "Natalan"?? Like c'mon, [consonant+L]s are common in english...

[@dougligaming]

So that's just my midwest accent poking through. I pronounce little Li-Tall. I even pronounce riddle Ri-da/oll with a mixed a and o sound in the middle of the dle. I know it's supposed to be na-til-lan. but the til feels like I'm tripping mid word to my brain. I guess I should just think of how you say Ritalin and swap the Ri for Na. I'll try to fix it for next time

[@KyzenEX]

@@dougligaming You got me thinking tbh, my first language is spanish so the "tl" sound is fairly familiar, and your understanding of Natlan's correct pronunciation seriously tripped me up lol. But I guess that if you say the "ti" part in "Na-til-lan" short and quick enough it does sound like a "tl" sound. For me, it's more like "Nat-lan", like Nat Geo's Nat and LAN Connection's lan, both together without any spaces.

[@Twocat5side]

19:37 Oh please.... Couldn't you have picked more better characters for this? Nahida, Kujou sara

[@dougligaming]

So I intentionally excluded the Archons as they have godly power behind their ability to lead their nations. I could have included Kujou Sara but she blindly followed the vision hunt decree with no awareness of the corruption and greed coming from the rest of the leaders in her clan. She eventually is convinced by Yae to go looking for the corruption, but it just feels like she's being used as a puppet for Yae's goals at that point. And Raiden's first Story Quest involves one of Sara's relatives fighting to restore the honor of their clan. Meaning she's not even in charge of it now that the corrupt leaders are kicked out, that other guy is. It just felt odd to put her on the list of independent women leading through change when she was perfectly okay with the status quo as long as it was the will of the Shogun. I should have probably included Ayaka, but her brother is the actual head of the clan. Even if she led the resistance movement on Narukami island during the vision hunt decree.

[@Keiki-kun]

Brooo I just discovered something about myself now Just like Alhaitham, I also use headphones to drown out noise, I literally use them even when I go to sleep

[@milicajakovljevic6288]

Chapter 11 EX: 👀

[@ancalyme]

I love this video. But also, it feels a bit dangerous lol

[@sthezh]

i do think this video is well made, although i think not every topic covered by hoyo is focused on china’s actions. given they’ve done heavy research into other parts of the world, they seem to still like basing these social problems on general historical critiques of other nations. for example, the mention of slavery in the lawrence clan and their obvious european influences, the largest prison population on earth in the US, colonialism of teyvat by the primordial one which destabilized the planet permanently, and the war crimes of the celestial nails, etc.

[@historicflame972]

Hey I recognise that tv tropes page

[@JinFX]

I would recommend not reading Wikipedia about China. If there is contradiction between Wikipedia and Genshin, which one is actually an important part of the real world?

[@dougligaming]

I used Wikipedia to get all the points in one image. For the actual points I went to actual articles and research papers on the subjects. It's why the sources doc is so long lol

[@JinFX]

@@dougligaming I did not say that Wikipedia contradicted actual articles and research papers. Let me put it another way in the following two sentences: You did well to notice the conflicting observations of the real China that is only known to people who write articles and research papers and of the clandestine almost illegal Chinese People's game Genshin that has a hidden agenda against the big bad Chinese Government. You did well to notice the conflicting observations of the hypothetical China written about in articles and research papers and of the real China that you experienced first hand through games like Genshin, which is still being made and played by "Chinese People" and is still being approved of by the "Chinese Government".

[@dougligaming]

@@JinFX ah okay I think I understand what you meant! That there's a lot of rumors and assumptions in the west about China. But if people played more games like Genshin it would disprove a lot of those assumptions. Which I totally agree! I'm sorry there was a bias on my part when it came to the Wikipedia comment. as the "recommend not reading wikipedia about china" came off as a criticism towards the video about some of the screenshots being the wiki summaries. And so I wanted to clarify that I avoided using Wikipedia as the primary source for any of my points.

[@JinFX]

@@dougligaming I don't mean to support either extreme or call anything assumptions. There are a lot of contradictions in China and conflicting people and ideas. What gets collected by even Chinese observers can be distorted and incomplete. But in everyday life, a lot of complexities are just insignificant compared to the general atmosphere. When people are optimistic, it seems everything is just fine, and vice versa. Genshin really captures that Chinese vibe of a polished exterior with some dark corners inside.

[@reveriesend4668]

Here's the most cruel part about Chinese community: they hate whistleblowers when it's related to something that they like. aka don't whistleblow on something that you, too, enjoy. So yeah, we should be careful, too.

[@dougligaming]

whistleblowing is leaking content or work related quality of life. Everything I mention is public knowledge officially released. It's not new information to the censors

[@scaramouchestan]

Why isn't Scara in the psychology section?

[@dougligaming]

I didn't feel confident labeling Scara's mental journey beyond "he went through some shit". it's a situation of there's so much there and it doesn't all come from one issue. He had a god complex, but also self worth issues of believing himself inhuman and therefore not worthy of the sacrifice of real human lives. But also believes relationships only happen if you provide something of value to the other person. but also sees humans as naive weak little ants. Not to mention his abandonment issues that led to him turning his back on humanity. And then his mental break down at discovering it was mostly fabricated by Dottore the whole time. Leading to trust issues so bad he feels like he owes Nahida for her not killing him. He doesn't have that many ptsd symptoms, he doesn't have depression even though he impulsively leaned towards suicide, and I wouldn't say he's a narcissus because of his hangups about his lack of a heart. He's trying to become perfect but he currently doesn't see himself as perfect. All this to say Scara could definitely fit in the psychology section but it would double the length of that whole section

[@scaramouchestan]

@@dougligaming I see, thanks!

[@sciencerz7460]

Wooah I loved the video!!! U won a sub!!...luv 4m India

[@Jamelon]

This video is banger!

[@mox__art]

Girl with all respect but you should REALLY deepen some of your research into the culture and historical processes behind most of the stuff you are saying in the video, i Hope this doesnt come off as a mean or hate comment, im just trying to give some constructive feedback here, but as a marxist myself (not saying that i agree with everything that the CCP does) looking through your fonts i cant help but feel like you are limiting your research by only looking at the western media's point of view about the chinese regulations, while china itself is a complex country that has a Very different culture that was formed over a completely different historic background. Again, im not saying that i agree with everything that the CCP does, but your next videos would surely benefit from you taking a look at MLM theory and stuff, keep up with the content and research 💕✨

[@dougligaming]

So I did actually look up chinese articles for this one. The reason the font is weird in some screen shots is because that's the auto font for google translate. The articles were originally in standard chinese. The only western main source I used was the Censorship wiki which only lists actual instances of the media being changed for other countries. Not just China but Australia, India, Japan and European countries. It also goes in reverse and discusses 4kids censorship of anime. Like I said in the fontaine section I didn't go indepth about China's prison system because it's a lot of he said/she said outside sources. I'm not saying there aren't prison camps, just that it's way to complex of a topic for me to get into with so little info. Also I don't read your message as hate! I do admit I didn't go in detail on some of these and that is because I didn't have as much info from chinese sources. And again some of these aren't "banned" from being said in media. Just taboo or frowned upon to discuss for Y7 media like mental health.

[@mox__art]

​@@dougligaming np, thank you so much for the friendly response, im no china expert myself by any means but i do know most of the news that comes to us by western media are either completely false or very veeery inaccurate, im from brazil and i keep up with some other marxist channels that talk a lot about china, i dont think youtube comments are the best way to talk about these kinds of topics but i still appreciate you considering my comment, keep up with the content

[@dougligaming]

@@mox__art yeah there is a lot of "anti-china" takes in the news. The US is trying to ban tiktok right now just because it's parent company is Chinese. The hypocrisy of calling the CCP a dictatorship for controlling what's allowed on their internet while also trying to control what is allowed on the global internet is not lost on me. So I was very critical of any stories from US news sites unless it was a Chinese expat as the author and I could find similar info on the Chinese news sites. But things I say criticizing the CCP is not meant to be a blanket statement over all Marxist countries. No government system is perfect. Just some give the government more power over citizens rights than others. But yeah I don't mind chatting more in the comments. I've found youtube to be the easiest way to reach international viewers and I WANT to hear your opinions. I don't have experience living in a Marxist country so the positives aren't easy to find unless I talk to people actually living in those places. I wish I could talk to Chinese genshin players easier. I've reached China's youtube but you can't leave comments without an account and you can't have an account without a Chinese citizen id number due to minor internet laws. So I'll never be upset with getting corrected by someone with first hand experience. Learning new things is what I love to do

[@Aria-hv3kh]

19:33 if you're hinting at COVID 19, it was studied in a lab in Ukraine that was funded by Americans and was studied by Americans, the virus just first appeared in China, it doesn't mean it was studied and released in China.

[@dougligaming]

I'm sorry but that's extremely unlikely. Folks are pointing fingers back and forth about if it was the Americans or the Chinese studying it in a lab near Wuhan. But there's no feasible way for the American lab to be all the way in Ukraine and it somehow get as deep into china as Wuhan and have Wuhan be the outbreak point. We would have had cases popping up in multiple airports on the way from Ukraine to Wuhan if that was the case. China and America are too proud to admit which one might have been funding the research (probably both) but the outbreak started in Wuhan because of a lab near Wuhan. The Chinese government still swears it was because someone ate a bat. And so refuse to admit that it came from a lab even if it wasn't their research.

[@Aria-hv3kh]

@@dougligaming ok, I agree, but another point, were you hinting at COVID or something else?

[@dougligaming]

@@Aria-hv3kh covid as i was unsure about if the word still got videos flagged on youtube. I already say suicide and human trafficking in this video I didn't need more words that make the algorithm confused.

[@reveriesend4668]

4:30 I need to correct this: no, it's isolated to those who bothered to use their internet to read weird stuff =D it has nothing to do with China or not China. Yes, China maintains watch as a nation over their people. But it's not like they're going to send you to prison for being secretly gay. It will only be an issue if someone whistleblows you and it cause a ruckus. In that case: it's just practical politics.

[@Enomaru001]

Scara moochi?

[@windeen]

Yeah, that's kind of annoying.

[@dougligaming]

that's how it's pronounced in the english dub? I'm sure it's not the proper Italian pronunciation. I had to look up folks saying Arlecchino. But that's how Paimon says it in English

[@chongus1072]

@@dougligaming i mean ive always recalled it being more like scara-moosh but maybe im misremembering edit: so i looked it up and from what i can gather paimon (or anybody for that matter) has never audibly said "scaramouche" out loud and instead say "the balladeer" or something. the subtitles may have scaramouche by name but apparently it's a translation issue from CN. the only thing i found about somebody audibly saying scaramouche by name is this guy called viktor in a mondstadt commission or quest. basically he was bitching about scaramouche lol but when i went and searched myself i couldn't find anything of him mentioning scaramouche *at all* (audibly or just in subtitles) even if he is voiced in some quests. tl;dr im pretty sure it's scara-moosh and i cant find any info to prove otherwise (+ thats just the more widely used pronunciation if i recall correctly) so i would just go with that :)

[@bookswithike3256]

@@chongus1072 Dottore says Scaramouche in at least one of the version trailers. And he pronounces it scara-moosh.

[@chongus1072]

@@bookswithike3256 ohh thanks!

[@Jinni-iras17514]

basically dori is very based 😎

[@reveriesend4668]

Hmm... things you might not get with gacha games, in general, be it Chinese or Japanese or Korean: we love our non-religious study over religious stuff. We also love talking about political ideologies and their practices without directly referencing them. Because yeah: it gets boring when you openly say it's about politics. btw hoyo previous games like GGZ and Honkai Impact 3rd talked most of these topics first before Genshin.

[@ArbitraryOutcome]

Would love to see a deep dive on GGZ and HI3's takes on more taboo subject matter in Chinese societal context.

[@Jepleg]

idk whats going on lol

[@YukiTheOkami]

Natlas is the war region sooooo? Will we see how 5 of the 6 tribes attsck a tribe thst wants idependence?

[@dougligaming]

I don't know about independence. So far it's been described as them fighting for who's in charge. It's too early to guess how dark they are going to go with Natlan's plot. The cutesy pet dragons they showed off have me concerned they are going a lighter tone even though it's call the warring nation.

[@balsamicbasil]

I think this is REALLY topical now with loads of (mostly Western) Genshin players getting annoyed with Mihoyo for only giving 3 wishes for Chinese New Year and with the free Dr. Ratio in HSR. It's really inspiring and amazing that you're bringing attention to Mihoyo, and subsequently Genshin's, impact on Chinese citizens is massive, but it can also bring about things like Genshin overshadowing or putting negative light to smaller Chinese creators which is another controversy that might be ongoing on Douyin but I'm not 100% sure. That has been more of a rumour and my remaining braincell is having a hard time putting it all together but yeah. Thank you so much for covering stuff like this, it brings more awareness to Western players (including myself) and shows how important games like this can be!!

[@dougligaming]

So it is Chinese players that started the protesting this time. No one in the west follows the Genshin Bilibili account and that's the one that lost a million followers. The west is just also making noise in support. Which is great to see! I don't believe Mihoyo is intentionally overshadowing smaller creators. They started as a team of 4 in college (the 3 ceos and 1 artist for designs). The company is also hiring hundreds of new people every year a majority of which are new college graduates. They also have a "group project" styled system going on. So if you are interested in the design of a character or region you can request to join that design team and add your input into the creation of the character. They had an entire team dedicated to getting Furinas French song written and performed. Along with Disney musical enthusiasts that helped with the 2d animation of that scene. I can only assume the decision to put you on the genshin or star rail team depends on if you like fantasy open world or scifi turn based games. So new game designers at Mihoyo are getting first hand experience with the amount of work it takes to make games of this quality. I'm sure some will leave someday to try and work on their own projects. But it will be like the Gravity Falls to Owl House creation line. The quality and style of story telling they learn from Mihoyo will lead to the gatchas they try to make also having deep stories. Increasing the quality of indie mobile games overall.

[@balsamicbasil]

@@dougligaming That makes a lot more sense, thank you so much!! I was a bit confused with what parts of the Genshin/Mihoyo fanbase were doing what, so thanks for that! Sorry, I didn't mean to say that Mihoyo was trying to overshadow smaller creators, I just think that they probably have a lot of authority over billi billi and other social media sites with prominently Chinese users. I think that the effort, consideration and hard work that goes into every story quest and every game that Mihoyo develops is very admirable and I'm grateful to all of the employees in Mihoyo for making such amazing games.

[@DrCocofruit]

Dear god, the list is so long in having trouble bringing up examples for each bit T_T

[@orion.6]

I cant tell if youre saying scaramouche like that as a meme or not

[@bluedragon1709]

Ok i watched the video but i just have one thing to ask like what is the point of the video exactly? Like say that a chinese offitial saw the video and decided to sue genshin i get that the video is meant to be informative but i feel like it can be very easily used against genshin the future

[@jadecoolness101]

I can assure you the CCP is not watching random english youtubers. If they were going to punish genshin, they'd ban it directly. Genshin itself is FAR more popular than a video with less than 4k views. They already know what's in the game.

[@bluedragon1709]

@@jadecoolness101 ik but its just kinda worrying like what if someone sees it and snitches i honestly think its a great video that has information even i didnt know but to other people who dislike genshin they will probablly snitch

[@jadecoolness101]

@@bluedragon1709 honestly, even if someone snitches, again, the CCP already knows. Genshin is such a massive game, known worldwide, they're watching genshin, and they've let all of this slide. We can only guess what their reasons are, but this is all publicly known info in genshin. If someone snitches, the CCP will just go "??? Yeah?? We knew this already? So what?"

[@dougligaming]

so yeah snitching shouldn't be much of a concern. Because it's all viewed by the censorship board before major releases for live service games 1.0, 2.0 etc. also I didn't point it out in the video because I didn't make the connection until after recording. But a good chunk of Fontaine's "risky" topics are showing up in temporary events. Meaning the content is there for 7 weeks and then gone forever. So even if the CCP does find issue with say the censorship hot takes in the movie event well Mihoyo has already "removed" them from the game. They also don't have a head Genshin story writer. It's written by whatever part of the company has interest in working on that section. The Lantern Rite stream showed us like 8 people that worked on Cloud Retainer and that's how it is for every character and every major world quest line. so there's no ONE person the CCP can point to and say "fire them". It's basically Anonymous writers which is a genius way for mihoyo to do it. Hi3's writers are known and sometimes they also get hate from fans that didn't like a certain arc. so the group writing teams is a new thing started with genshin's development

[@bluedragon1709]

@@jadecoolness101 yeah ig thats true they are probablly protecting genshin because it makes such high profits

[@YourRyeBread]

How did your pronunciations get so....

[@Coffin_House]

Oh my.

[@talonharibon8577]

Can't help but roll my eyes whenever I hear something associated with the term "with Chinese characteristics". As someone living in a country who's next door neighbor is Taiwan, and also having beef with the PRC doing a Russia by illegally taking a whole swath of sea for themselves, I can sure feel those "Chicom" (Chinese Communist) characteristics.

[@dougligaming]

I wasn't sure about using the term. But Xi uses it in multiple speeches talking about the Party's current goals. So it's just how they describe it. But their foreign policy has definitely gotten more bold in recent years

[@talonharibon8577]

@@dougligaming Don't worry the term has basically common and a meme within geopolitical and defense communities. I expect you would probably use it more as you further explore genshin's and mihoyo's "spicy" topics.

[@Snappukingu]

genshin's rewards maybe sucks, but their attention to details (and music) never miss, kinda reminds me of skyrim tbh.

[@reveriesend4668]

10:55 nor did HI3rd. We just have a clear antagonist, but even then they have reasons to be such. shouldn't read the law too rigid. it's a rule of thumb that applies to not just CN, but all the nations in the world.

[@spamserket]

Do you pronounce things wrong on purpose?

[@dougligaming]

um no I actively try to pronounce things correctly. I looked up names like Arlecchino or Diogenes. But when I talk quickly I slur words together, part of the Midwest accent. So if its a word outside of a persons name I didn't correct the "mispronunciation" because I didn't notice it as it's very hard to detect your own accent. If it is a name I mispronounced please feel free to list which ones and how they should be said and i'll try to say them correctly next time.

[@Dubstepper]

buddy has never heard of white people before /j

[@bookswithike3256]

@@dougligaming They probably meant Scara-moochi and Nata-lan. Both quite strange mispronunciations to make from an English-speaking point of view.

[@dougligaming]

@@bookswithike3256 but it's spelled Scaramouche? I know it's pronounced scaramoosh in the Queen song. But again I swear the game calls him scaramoochi in the English dub. So it really feels like people saying I'm mispronouncing something that they would know is pronounced that way in the English version if they just played the English dub.

[@bookswithike3256]

@@dougligaming You are definitely wrong about that. Because there is no one on Earth who pronounces Scaramouche that way, and the only time I can think of it being said in the game (usually he's called the Balladeer), Dottore pronounces it correctly. Also I would wager that the majority of your viewers played in the English dub.

[@reveriesend4668]

Metaphors are fine. Just don't be open with it.

[@SwobyJ]

Sounds like shit.

[@theorize999]

Great video I hope you didn’t get them in trouble though lol

[@qizeaqfile]

This is why I love Genshin story more than Honkai Star Rail as if I'm not mistaken Star Rail story is pro censorship.

[@dougligaming]

i don't know if I would go as far as to say they are pro censorship. Just that they take less risks in the types of stories they tell. But even then some will argue they have stronger lgbt references than genshin at this point.

[@ArbitraryOutcome]

@@dougligaming I haven't played much of Star Rail but that's interesting, given I don't think we'd ever see another true Kiamei, Sakukallen, or HI3 Bronseele type ordeal again.

[@hellomanul]

This was an interesting video until I remembered you think Kaeya isnt adopted and think kaeya and diluc are "secretly lovers!" Do better research next time! 💖

[@tyresesuri7431]

The way you explained al Haithams autism made me realize i probably am autistic 😭

[@dougligaming]

I always liked the icecream buffet metaphor for autism. The buffet has every trait possible for someone with autism and everyone with autism has their own bowl. I might have chocolate with sprinkles you might have strawberry vanilla with sprinkles, but we'd both have autism. Even though we only share one trait, the sprinkles. Which is why I like seeing different "sunday's" depicted in media because not everyone has the same autism. So fictional autistic characters shouldn't have the same traits copy pasted.

[@achikin4466]

good video bro

[@TierraD2021]

Thank you for this video! As someone familiar with the heavy censorship game devs in China have to navigate, I was always flabbergasted (and absolutely fascinated + amused) that Genshin has so many allegories and metaphors that seems very... defiant? 😅 And I've never been able to excitedly discuss my thoughts and theories with the peeps on the server I'm on so I'mma start sending them this video 😂 I do want to mention Shenhe's red ropes being a possible metaphor for taking medications for any mental disorders/illnesses, and having it affect your mood altogether as well. It is written as something that helps but slightly inconvenience Shenhe's life, but is generally accepted by people around her once she explains it, which I think is the kind of response we all need to have surrounding taking medications. Thank you for your hard work 🙏👏

[@lineseeking]

I love that Genshin is pro-Capitalism... they made so much money for China and attention that it gets away with so much libertarian points - I love it.