The representation in the new Billionaires story is … messy

So a while back I had a beta version of this, albeit the author profile said Mystique. But it being the new Viola M story shouldn’t have surprised me. From the writing style to the directing (not to mention the abundance of A1 backgrounds).

Anyways, what bothered me more is the ethnic representation. Yeah, sure, each LI comes from a different country but there are some things which rubbed me the wrong way. I’m not necessarily talking about how most of the LIs are white, it’s whatever, but how the BIPOC are introduced.

For context, there are technically 11 possible LIs to date, but you can only 6 in a playthrough. You choose one each from 6 pairs (the last pair being the same British billionaire but with two different looks), and with the way it’s set up, the only Indian and Korean LIs are paired, so you essentially can pick a token Asian character. They are a former Bollywood star and a former Kpop idol - because there are no other ways Indian and Korean people can become rich. The Indian LI doesn’t even have a last name, just an exotic nickname.

Furthermore, there is a Black LI who is African … what is his country of origin? Who cares? He’s just African. It also just so happens that these LIs’ nationality gets mentioned way before their European counterparts, when their intro card with their name and whatever pops up during a date.

Not an LI, but there is a contestant who is a Middle Eastern oil baroness. Again, her actual nationality is not mentioned and with a stereotypical career too because oil. The other LI to have their nationality mentioned is the British one mentioned before, but idk.

This just makes me so disappointed as an Asian user. I’m not Indian or Korean but I can imagine it is frustrating to be tokenised and have a character be defined by narrow cultural markers. Again, all of the LIs are from different countries, but it’s kinda alienating that the BIPOC are highlighted to be more different than the rest of the cast.

I know I’m too mad at a story where all of the LI would have the same personalities because coding anyways, but am I wrong for wanting better diversity and representation?