Topic on Talk:Malik Destiny

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Hi. I may be new to this thread but I am no stranger to Blaseball discourse about the cultural background of non-white players. I read through these posts and really feel like many people who are set on keeping the jrpg background to alt!Malik are overlooking what Orientalism actually is. I want to make it very clear that I am not condemning enjoying jrpgs and specifically FFXIV or asking you to reconsider your personal connection with FFXIV and jrpgs at large. What I am asking is for you to look around any personal connections in this moment. Please consider the broader scale of Orientalism and it's ramifications on alt!Malik's wiki. To aid in what I'm saying I have a paper specifically about Orientalism in FFXIV and a video lecture by a professor on the basics of Orientalism which I will link below. In total they should take under 20 minutes to look at both. Orientalism hurts people. It gets real people physically endangered and many different ways. Frankly, given what many people defending alt!Malik in full have said, it doesn't seem like this is understood. Please work to understand what you are feeding into and condoning when you defend these ideas. There are many ways to keep alt!Malik's adventurous spirit and rebellious nature without falling into Orientalism. I want to believe you can even keep rpg elements. But those at not mine to suggest. If you have a deep individual attachment to the jrpg alt!Malik that you don't want to give up, well no one's gonna rip it from your mind. The wiki is often the first place people go to to learn about a player. Don't let the first impression of alt!Malik be one that feeds into Orientalism.

Thanks.

https://obiter-dicta.ca/2021/11/08/politics-culture-and-orientalism-in-final-fantasy-14-endwalker/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kaq-k1PjvsE