Genshin Valentine's Art Drops the Ball? All Three Featured Female Characters Are Either Yuri or Incest-Shipped — ML Fans Are Seething

On February 14, 2024 — Valentine's Day, no less — the official Genshin Impact social media dropped three Valentine's character art cards featuring female characters. What should've been a sweet holiday treat immediately blew up in the faces of the ML (Master Love) crowd — fans who want characters to show romantic interest in the player avatar. Why? Because not a single one of the three characters has a clear romantic arrow pointing at the Traveler.

Let's break down just how questionable these picks were, based on the detailed character analysis (known as 'qiē guā' 切瓜, or 'cutting the melon,' NGA slang for thoroughly explaining a situation) provided in the comments. The first character — nicknamed 'Soybean Lady' (黄豆姐) — wavers between yuri and hetero fanservice in the main storyline, with only the faintest hint of ML content in her personal story quest. The kicker? After the quest ends, she literally tells you to forget about the romantic undertones. Even the devs didn't want to commit.

The second pick is the real bombshell. This character, Jeht (婕德), is an NPC — not even a playable unit — who stars in a major multi-chapter quest chain in Sumeru. She has unmistakable sapphic tendencies: if you play as the male MC, she'll call you 'my best friend'; pick the female MC, and she outright confesses her feelings. A commenter who provided the detailed breakdown noted that her dynamic with the Traveler reads more like a loyal gang lieutenant than anything romantic. Another player lamented: 'She was my favorite character in the entire Sumeru arc,' while acknowledging she's a bizarre choice for Valentine's content.

The third character, Lynette (琳妮特), is a starter character from the Fontaine arc and twin sister to Lyney (林尼) — the infamous 'black stockings magician boy' who already stirred up his own share of controversy. The two siblings are inseparable; even their birthday mail events are written by each other, not directed at the player. She's the textbook definition of a 'bro-con' (兄控) character with zero romantic chemistry with the Traveler.

The comment section went hard. One highly upvoted reply took a savage swipe: 'Guess the only ML characters in Genshin are the men. They really struggled to find female characters for this, huh — good job, devs 😏.' Others tried to be more measured — one commenter argued the first character is the type who'll eventually get both yuri and het bait (so she's tolerable), but the other two were genuinely 'hard to defend.' 'They could've at least picked Shenhe,' someone groaned. A more jaded player quipped: 'At this point, for current-day Genshin, NOT doing shady stuff like this would be the real news.'

What really poured salt on the wound was Honkai: Star Rail — MiHoYo's OTHER gacha game — dropping its own Valentine's art on the same day featuring Ruan Mei, Kafka, and Sparkle. While one commenter pushed back saying 'only Kafka really counts as ML,' the consensus was these three at least carry 'some ML seasoning,' unlike Genshin's picks which were completely devoid of romantic flavor. Same company, same holiday, wildly different vibes — the comparison was devastating.

Not everyone was on the complaint train, though. One contrarian fired back: 'What's wrong with this? If Xiao×Traveler is fine for the boys, why can't Jeht×Traveler (female) be fine for the girls?' — pointing out that Genshin has plenty of male characters shipped with the player. But this was clearly the minority view in that thread. The dominant mood was frustration and exasperation. At the end of the day, Genshin's playerbase will never, ever agree on which characters should be romantically interested in the Traveler — and that's the eternal copium/hopium cycle this fandom lives in.