All this to say.... wow Obojima team. Congrats on sinking right to the bottom of the barrel with that take. ^^

They were part of a corrupt, badly written empire, but they were always shown as *people*. Second Edition's most memorable comic to me was an honourable Dragon Blooded warrior trying to do what's right and questioning his own past deeds. Empathy for the other is the line's one saving grace here.

As much as the books as written have varied, to put it kindly, the fundamental structure of Exalted is a mild redeeming grace. Because it's always made it clear that PCs could be anyone. The Realm had books, outlining it as a setting. The Dragon Blooded are playable as heroes.

But hey. I can now claim there's something that's not AS dumb as that out there.

Because Exalted *has* always had some degree of sympathy with the Realm. You were able to play as Dragon Blooded. We saw things from their perspective - the first edition did a whole line of books in their PoV!

And Exalted fans... no, there's no defence here IMO. The Realm sucks, as presented. You can make it suck less! But that is not the intent. It was written by the dev team as villainous. As colonial. As Empire. And the fact they coded the big threatening regressive Evil Empire as Eastern is Not Great

(I'm skimming a buuunch of tropes around its coding and presentation... the main one I'd add is that the rulers, the elemental magic using 'Dragon Blooded' are the only Exalted type who inherit their power, while all other types are divinely chosen and are significantly more powerful)

Oh, and it is a colonizing empire that the default PCs, assumed to be from other nations, should fight back against using the power of golden light. And the biggest successful example of this is a Viking coded guy called the Bull of the North. Because we couldn't make this worse if we tried.

The Scarlet Realm is an Edward Said *checklist*. Feminine, regressive, threatening and tyrannical. Fallen from its glory days, a threat due to numbers. A decadent culture, full of scheming backbiter aristocrats. Its faith is a lie invented by propagandists to justify their rule via divine mandate.

*shrug* I dunno if he gets sole blame, but I can see the throughline from the Jackson films to this. I don't think they remotely capture any sort of opposition to war. *Maybe* the Osgiliath sequence when taken in isolation... but 'fun epic fights' were the main public takeaway.

It's telling though, isn't it?

"Oh, I mustn't be criticised. Imagine if people laughed at me or thought I wasn't that great at what I do!"

That kinda vapidity takes a very particular upbringing. I'm flashing back to my school years surrounded by smug brats with too much money. The rage is growing.

Gubat Banwa's still in dev, can't count it yet but soooo many animal folk there ^^ Still looking forward to the core

*shrug* You've reached my limit of casual Hazbin knowledge I'm afraid Most of what I've been sharing is second hand, vaguely remembered accounts of other people's takes.

Glad you liked the show? ^^

Maybe they intended him to be lighter skinned and this is course correction. I recall some eyebrows at the stitched mouth and him having the collar on Husk

I... honestly dunno. I thought it was just 'they didn't think his normal design through'. He was first come up with back in Zoophobia, the project Viv was working on pre Hazbin. Not having his mortal life down might track. But 'he's half Creole' was apparently a known fandom thing by S1

There's a few bits that seem based on fan critique. Vaggie getting less chaste with Charlie, Vox's critique of Heaven, Sera swerving hard into horror once redemption was confirmed possible. That said, I recall Alistair's race being talked about by fans during S1, so IIRC it was always the plan...

But the databases! Oh, the weird databases are the real treasure. No AI will tell you about Fujoshi Deka, the obscure Japanese show about a cop lady who solves mysteries by fujoing as hard as possible.

The internet is made to explore ^^