are you gonna promote death of the author?
I mean, just because a writer or artist didn't
intend for something to be in their work doesn't necessarily mean it
isn't there.
I personnally think that most murderboners are an overreaction, and
I don't care for Riya much.
Imho, whether Riya is actually racist or not is irrelevant, because in the end she acts racist and
does and says racist shit (or rather specist, whatever), and that's enough for me to despise her as a person. I don't care about her motivations for doing so.
That certainly doesn't mean she is a badly written character, or that other people can't enjoy her.
No one is forcing you at gunpoint to interact with Riya in any capacity whatsoever. She doesn't stop you if your walk in her tile. She doesn't shout mean words at you if you walk in her tile. She's just there.
I think one of the problems with Riya is that she is stationed on the very first location that the player had access to, ie one where new players are probably gonna explore extensively and talk to every NPC.
Plus, there's no warning that she's gonna be unpleasant to characters who aren't pure humans. That's hardly anyone's idea of a warm welcome to the game.
That could probably be fixed if her tile description says that she occasionnally gives you dirty looks or glares when she catches you looking at her when the PC isn't pure human, to warn off the player.
But Riya would probably still be complained about, because who even
reads descriptions in a text-game ? /sarcasm