I'm not a fan on how the game handled the relationship between Ochette and the human travelers. First because she's an adult who provides for her village and the very soon to be leader of her people and second none of her people treat her like a child but as a respected adult but when it comes to her interactions with the human travelers she is infantilized and takes the role of a "savage". It reeks of colonial stereotypes of indigenous people, a "savage" that has to be "civilized" by "civilized" people.
In the banter "Agnea the Chef", it is revealed that Ochette doesn't know anything about cooking, despite her befriend art showing her doing that and the gameplay mechanics tied to her class. In that banter she eats a fish raw and is awestruck when Agnea shows her that meat can be cooked instead of being eaten raw.
Her relationship with Castti comes off as a bit weird, first because both are adults in their 20s and second because the way it's written Castti comes off as someone who is ignorant and forcing her ways instead of being a maternal figure. In one of the banters Castti forces Ochette to eat vegetables "for her own good" but if we take a look at context clues the game heavily implies Beastlings are carnivores. The Mercantile Manuscript Beastling foodways section only mentions meat and never vegetables nor fruit, the Beastlings of Beasting Village trade vegetables for meat with the human villagers, and third Ochette has a disdain for vegetables. All these imply they're carnivores and Castti not respecting Ochette as an adult and forcing her to eat them and ignoring her culture comes off as an act of bigotry instead of a motherly action. In the banter about her ears Ochette thinks that Castti is taking an interest in Beastling biology but the thought bubble at the end reveals that she isn't which makes the banter about vegetables that much worse. There's also the optics of a white woman with blue eyes and blond hair being the maternal figure to the only adult, brown, indigenous coded party member. It reeks of noble savage nonsense.
The banter about language between Ochette and Temenos paints Temenos as a huge bigot who doesn't think the Beastlings are capable of talking "properly" and their lack of a language. This is contradicted by the existence of "Old Beastling" as well as the game implying the Beastlings have their own contemporary language with Ochette's name spelled in a unique alphabet in the select screen, only Hikari and Ochette have a different alphabet used, which is shown in the art book. It's only made worse because Ochette agrees with Temenos. Again, bad optics when you have a priest saying the indigenous coded people need to be educated on how to "properly" talk.
These are the examples that stood out but I'm sure there's more to point out. Point is that Beastling writing in general is a hot mess in this game chalk full of racist stereotypes about indigenous people right down to the "Tonto speech". Being small animal people doesn't give them a pass.
