Suggestions

I already made this suggestion in the apparel suggestions forum. Just wanted to see how many people support/deny it. Curiosity at most. Copy/Pasted my post here:

I have an idea. Maybe these could be familiars as well but... I'm thinking of something like the pets (cats/dogs/birds/etc). Only they're the animals of the Chinese new year. Like, year of the dog, year of the rabbit, year of the rat, etc. There could be animal companions accompanying the dragons (such as a tiger resting next to a bog= year of the tiger). Or it could be just animal ears with a specially themed cloth/sash (such as rabbit ears on a fae with a sash that has the pattern of a rabbit sewn into it.) These could also just be regular animals though, not based off the Chinese new year. I hope my suggestion sparks some kind of inspiration :3

I also had an idea to where there could be bigger animals to be used as apparel. Just like I suggest above, a tiger. Others could include an elephant, giraffe, lion, komodo dragon, horse, etc. It could help with lore, such as a dragon being a farmer, biologist, or zoologist.

Yes to the animal companions and the animal apparel.

Maybe not the chinese new years ones though - or at least not only them/not named like that. It seems like this 'cultural appropriation' thing (did I write this right?) Is a huge thing in america (and maybe worldwide) so FR probably needs to be even more careful when introducing new things from around the RW cultures. I know there was a huge stink with the nagas, wenigos and some other creatures. At the same time we still have sköll and hati and other mythological beings. So I'm not sure which cultural referneces/usage is allowed and what is a problem.

@Ismaiel
I never really thought about it that way o3o Maybe it wouldn't be like that if it just contained the same animals and had a different name?? Or they could just add the animals on the calender + extra animals that have nothing to do with it, so people can't say anything like that?? (I hope I understood your comment correctly >_< Or else, I probably made myself sound bad xDD)

[quote]These could also just be regular animals though, not based off the Chinese new year.[/quote] I'm not really sure why we'd go for the Chinese new year theme at all to be honest? Isn't there a year of the dragon? How would that work? Like. Bunnies and rats and chickens and horses and goats and bears and alpaca and A PIGEON PLEASE, yes. Even maybe familiars, like springboks, toridae, podids, whatever. But Chinese new year animals? Why?

The only time when cultural appropriation really going to stir the Asian players (more specifically, eastern Asia), is when you mixed up Korean, Chinese and Japanese culture together or confused one to another. Otherwise as far as I can tell we're more than happy and welcome the inclusion of more Eastern Asia stuff in any game.

For example, WOW had a panda warrior(?) playable character in line before (which ended up as an NPC for the reason below), but they put samurai armour on the panda. When consulted with their Chinese consultant, they told Blizzard that it's a bad idea, yet they decided to went ahead. I believe there was a huge anger from Chinese community and it was recalled? Anyway that character later turned into an NPC instead of a playable character.

What's the problem here? Combining Japanese samurai armour on Chinese iconic animal panda. That's an absolute no-no. But having samurai armours and panda animal apparels separately will not have problem with the Asian players.

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Okay I'm side-tracked too far. But what I want to say is, while culture appropriation is a big issue, it can be dealt with care rather than total avoidance. I know a lot of my friends (we're Chinese) had complaint about the lack of Chinese-themed apparels in FR, when there are a few dragons that are clearly based off Eastern dragons. They really want to have the chance to dress their dragons up in a more Eastern way. A lot of the time it's not the use of other culture that angers people, but the carelessness of using them without knowing what they mean is the main reason.

Although, in the case of having Chinese zodiac animals (as familiar or apparels), I'm not too keen on support, mainly because FR had tried their best to avoid direct relation between FR world and Planet Earth, so having animals that represent the zodiac from another planet is a bit bizarre. I do however support having more different animal apparels in general.

Maybe different series of animals then?? Like different kinds of bears, farm animals, dinos, zoo animals, etc.