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I'm less bothered by the Ishgard Restoration item descriptions for what they are and more for their precedent. Not for Ishgard- we're all making fun of fantasy Catholics, it's w/e, but I'm more worried how such jokes might take shape for other fan requested restoration projects
Like yeah, mock the fantasy Catholics for being repressed and feral- again, that's w/e. But if we ever get Ala Mhigan restoration of any kind, and SE's English localization does the same kind of wild, unhinged descriptions, that...hits different, in a worse, damaging context.
Fans of color have already spoken of their experiences with racism in the game- with instances of writing, as well as fan interactions. That's not my place to talk over them, and I don't want to. What worries me is if these kinds of English-specific writing were applied to-
A city-state that isn't Faux France/England/etc, but a place they've already coded with...some questionable representation, how different the fan response will be. How normalizing it would make racist comments/jokes that are already fairly normalized.
Look, I make no secret of my love for Ishgard, but I can look at those item descriptions and laugh bc they're clearly jokes, and the jokes have been largely centered on beloved NPCs from Ishgard and are lighthearted. But if something like that were to be applied to Ala Mhigo,
or another city-state/nation that is presented as drawing inspiration from non-white cultures, those kinds of jokes tend to morph from "haha we're having a giggle" to something much more sinister. And given fandom's widespread want to shut up discussions on racism that-
fans of color experience, I can't imagine any conversation *about* those jokes and how they might hurt people would be suddenly met with a different response than, "why are you making a big deal out of this, they did it to Ishgard too" when people discuss how they were hurt.
I don't say this *hoping* to be right. I *hope* nothing of the sort happens, and Ishgard gets to just be "those funny item descriptions we get to meme about" and it never goes beyond that, but given the English localization's penchant for adding more explicit-
moments of violence, sexual violence, and/or systemic violence against POC characters in the story than there already is, and how desperately fandom shuts down racism discussion as """""drama,"""""I can't pretend it isn't a Pointed Concern for me.
