Aisha Arcana Headscarf Discourse - Tumblr Posts

Regarding Aisha’s Sprite Change

@/fifthpilot on Instagram made a post regarding the problematic representation of Aisha as a Hijabi. I’ve been informed that this is what motivated the devs to alter her design towards pagan Muslims. I highly recommend checking it out and spreading it around. It goes in-depth on why Muslim fan were unhappy with her portrayal.

We should take this time to support muslim creators like fifthpilot and @/bluetart.png, the one who educated me on the topic.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJzX-C0HMrG/

I completely understand the outrage since Nix Hydra hasn’t proven themselves to be anything other than untrustworthy, though. I think this situation highlights Nix’s consistent failure to listen to the voices of the cultures their essentially appropriating. If they’d just asked for the perspective of the groups they draw from (and compensated them)  from jump then they’d be golden.

I have a lot of thoughts and feelings on the Aisha Alnazar situation that I don't quite know how to express. And the discussion is probably too nuanced for me, as someone who is western, white, and not familiar with Muslim culture, to really be able to address.

But I find it frustrating that Nix Hydra will heavily code their characters as something- like the Devoraks and all of Nevivon being Jewish, or the Alnazar family being Muslim- and then not label them that way. And hide behind this "we want them to be open to interpretation and relatable to everyone" excuse to not label them.

And I find it frustrating that their solution to people expressing concern that their Muslim characters were poorly represented was to actively try to make them less Muslim.

And I find it frustrating that they pulled inspiration from real world cultures, but didn't take the time to try to represent all of those cultures accurately or reasonably.

And I wish they would have at least made a more public announcement about her design change, and that they would have handled the criticism they received better.

I don't know what the best solution to everything would have been or what all they could have done better, but at the very least, they could have made a public apology for her representation and started a discussion about how best to represent different cultures in the game and have announced they were changing her and why before they did it.

Beyond that, I'm not in the position to really give good feedback or criticism here. But I think this could have been avoided if they listened more closely to the voices of people from the cultures they pulled inspiration from and maybe took more time with their character designs before they made them.

I'm not going to say much else on this since it's not really my place, but I've been keeping up on different arguments for and against their changes to her design and I am hoping next time, they do better.

Soooo like was there any official statements from Nix Hydra, the Arcana team, or individual writers/artists about the change to Aisha’s sprite? Even a mention of the fact that they made a change? Or did they just make this overtly harmful and Islamophobic change silently in the night and hope no one would notice? Also, the fact they did this the week after releasing the Nevivon tale where they make direct mentions to (AT LEAST) the grandmas practicing Jewish traditions? And let’s not forget that they dropped that tale on the weekend of Asra’s birthday and then cut his infinikey weekend off the night before his ACTUAL birthday??? Wtf is going on, dude? Does NH have investors with a bias towards the Israeli forces or something?