nomoraamongfivearchons

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

genshin players are so special

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

It's been one of those weeks, pass the yuri‼️

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

a person with chronic illness saying “I wish I could ravish you right now I’m just very tired” is extremely sexy and romantic

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

i depend on you

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

why we should get rid of 'mom-hida'

Okay, I pestered Alina ( @nomoraamongfivearchons ) into helping me co-write this, so, here we are.

We hashed out some things and I think we need to really talk about this and give it the seriousness it deserves.

So. "Mom-hida." That is, people seeing Nahida as Wanderer's new mom, now that he has Sumeru citizenship.

Let’s talk about that. And why that evokes such a negative emotion in me whenever I think about it.

!! SPOILERS ABOUND !! Read at your own risk. If you haven't done everything up to the Sumeru Archon Quest or past the Inversion of Genesis, this is gonna be... a lot.

“Model ≠ Maturity.”

The main argument made in favor of Nahida's maternal role is the model one. At least, that's the one I see most often.

Nahida's character model had some clashing responses upon release due to... allegations of whitewashing and Orientalism. Fair enough.

But in this case, people are using Nahida's role as Archon and God of Wisdom and commonly known shrinking powers as an argument that just because she looks like a little girl does not mean she has to be. As a god, she has more than warranted the respect of her people and should be treated as a figure of authority.

The highest seat of authority most people can give her is Mother. Put a pin on that.

Her characterization demands that you acknowledge her immaturity

The biggest problem with the character model ≠ character maturity argument is that her immaturity is ingrained in her character, coming in from the Archon Quest and right up and past her second Story Quest.

It's not an emotional maturity, per se, but more of a warranted ignorance.

For the past 500 years, the only people whose dreams she can visit and the only people she can communicate with at length are children. The only knowledge she could accumulate are through snippets of conversations and interactions whenever she decided to possess Katheryne, practically stealing knowledge.

Her vast amount of accumulated knowledge is not backed up with practical use, meaning that she has never acted upon what she knows. This is exemplified by the delight she takes with trying to trick the Traveler into pranking scholars with a poem in the middle of an academic conference.

There are multiple instances of this in her first Story Quest, where her lack of emotional maturity and experience leads her to fumbling with people's insecurities and problems about their dreams.

In her second Story Quest, the actions she tries to take is exemplified by her lack of prior experience. She tries to do what her long-forgotten predecessor once did-- sacrifice herself in service of Sumeru. She doesn't know how to ask for help, and she doesn't know that her power and presence in Sumeru is vital to Sumeru's current political climate.

These are just instances of her fumbling actions signaling towards not necessarily pubescent immaturity but a lack of experience that the expectation of a highest seat of authority in all the land should have.

But that doesn't necessarily warrant not calling her a Mother, would it? What about Wanderer's actual mother? In comparison to her, she seems much more emotionally mature!

“Ei and Nahida are both Archons, Wanderer is just a creation.”

The second most popular argument is this: Ei and Nahida hold similar seats of authority. Ei and Nahida are both Archons who have been isolated for the past 500 years.

Wanderer, by all means, is their junior.

Wrong, go replay the Archon Quest

Wanderer has the depth of knowledge neither Ei nor Nahida have-- extensive human interaction.

Wanderer has gone through heartbreaks, tragedies, losses, and ugly bouts of grief and self-destruction. Though both Nahida and Ei themselves have experienced loss and grief, they do not have the experience to internalize those experiences and move past them.

This is especially evident with Ei's response-- self-isolation.

Nahida, on the other hand, handles grief well not because she is much more mature than both Raidens. No, it's because she doesn't remember what caused her grief, and she doesn't see the 500 years she lost in her cage as a loss to begin with. You cannot miss what you do not have.

Despite Ei creating Wanderer in order to use him as a proxy god, that does not mean she should be interpreted as a mother. A mother nurtures, a mother intends to have her child grow, a mother actively participates in her creation's life.

She not only "set him free" and eventually forgot about him through Wanderer's own actions, she also does not see herself as a mother. She barely sees herself as a person-- if you were playing all throughout 5.X, you will know this. Ei saw herself primarily as a weapon and now only a God with a dominion. She is not a creator, she is not a mother, she is Inazuma’s Raiden Shogun.

Point being: the mother aspect is something Wanderer read into her, not something she claimed herself. Interpreting her that way would rob Ei of her power and agency because she never chose to be seen that way, she just created this puppet as a prototype.

If you want to get bogged down in the semantics, compare Ei and Nahida to actual adoptive parents in the game– Professor Cyrus, Cloud Retainer/Xianyun, Neuvillette. Adoptive and parental roles are chosen and claimed, never assigned.

In acknowledging Wanderer incorrect interpretation in Ei’s alleged motherhood, remember that he clearly does not read the role into Nahida. Because Nahida did not create him and, even if she is an active part of his life, she is not nurturing him. Nor is she choosing to be the one to guide him to his fullest potential.

So, if not mother, what is she?

“Wanderer as the older brother is Not Feminist.”

Here's the real discourse. Mom-hida truthers do not like Sister-hida as an interpretation because, primarily, of the previous two reasons. The issue gets much worse when we brush up on this next one.

People seem to think that denying Nahida the role of Mother robs her of agency and power. As already discussed, it does not work that way.

But here’s the argument: if in the LoDish dynamic, Wanderer was the older brother, then Nahida would be seen as the immature girl that needs his guidance or relies on him (none of these people have siblings IRL, methinks). If, on the inverse, Nahida was the older sister and Wanderer the younger brother, then, well, that's a thematic dissonance because- because-

I genuinely can't see a downside to this specific interpretation but that could just be me. But, let me give you the actual details here.

He is not Nahida's brother, she is Wanderer's God

You can see this in any language you play the game in. No localization ever, and I mean ever, makes Wanderer call Nahida ‘Buer,’ or ‘Nahida.’ It is always “Lesser Lord Kusanali.”

Even further, if you play in either CN, JP, or KR, Wanderer is never frank or speaking casually whenever they interact with each other. Almost always he uses polite speech when speaking to her.

They talk about this at length literally before the epilogue of Inversion of Genesis, Nahida is neither his warden nor his debtor, he has become-- from then on-- her confidant, her vanguard. He interprets this as her employing the cream of the crop, the best of the best, in order to further her own agendas. Because he wants to be instrumental to her goals, he wants to be of use to her, because he owes her a debt of gratitude for letting him remember his past lives and he wants a purpose.

Nahida is not a little girl or little sister or mother or anything of the sort to him, not explicitly. Lesser Lord Kusanali is his God and he is her little follower. She demands respect just by existing, she should be afforded nothing less than his best as thanks.

Hell, she literally initiates a moment between him and the Traveler to give him a name, life's first gift. She did not create this puppet, she did not shape this man from the ashes of his own self-immolation. He chose to reform himself after she extended him the choice, and he was so grateful he is actively trying to please her.

The Twins and Archon Quests

This is more or less my last point in this entire bit. You can interpret this as me walking back my previous points however you want but.

All Archon Quests have a central dynamic that is a direct parallel to the Traveler and their Twin. This has been a fact since the very beginning. Dvalin, Venti, and Mondstadt; Zhongli, the Adepti, and Liyue; Ei, Miko, and Inazuma; Nahida, Wanderer, and the Akademiya; Neuvillette, Furina, and Fontaine; Mavuika, Capitano, and Natlan.

These are all symbolic to Lumine, Aether, and Khaenri'ah. It has been this way since the start of the story, it will remain that way all throughout Nod-Krai as well, and I suspect Snezhnaya won't even be the end of it.

Point being: Wanderer and Nahida are primed to be sibling-adjacent because they're the central characters of Sumeru's Archon Quest. Wanderer is a misguided, bitter thing wanting nothing but destruction for the world, but Nahida is hopeful for both Sumeru and him, knowing that he will eventually realize that catastrophizing will only make life moving forward worse for him and everyone around him.

Whoever your Traveler is, it doesn't matter. It's always been about them since the start. And if you still believe that Nahida is his adoptive mother after everything I just said, after you've read through every single one of these, then that's your prerogative.

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

I'll be the first to throw molotov cocktails at readings that infantilize Furina but then I see takes like "Furina isn't childish she's basically the mother of all of Fontaine" and I experience a bewilderment so enormous I forget to be mad over media illiteracy for a moment.

First of all, at the very most Furina herself identifies as an older sister to her people, as evidenced in her story quest where she relates strongly to Aurelie, the director of a theater troupe who acted as an older sister to her ragtag group of misfits.

Second of all, there's this weird tendency in some fans to go "you can't infantilize this female character because she clearly plays a maternal role" like a weird Uno Reverse tactic. It presents a false dichotomy where a female character is either an adult woman who is a caretaker, or she is a minor relying on others to care for her, without any in-between.

Furina IS temperamental and flighty and volatile, AND she is caring and empathetic and self-sacrificing; none of these qualities necessarily make her a child-figure or a mother-figure. If anything, they simply make her a well-written character.

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

reblogging this because every day I'm reminded that mr cyyu promised a thunder bringer cover and never delivered

Thunder Bringers

In honor of Alejandro Saab (voice of Jing Yuan from HSR and Cyno from Genshin) doing covers of songs in Epic the Musical, I made an edit of Thunder Bringer with the two lightning-wielding characters.

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

some requests woo woo

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Red Ropes

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

Drew Furina's Salon Solitaire as humans for the Genshin pets as humans series! Gentilhomme Usher, Surintendante Chevalmarin, Mademoiselle Crabaletta and the Singer of Many Waters.

You can check out the video where I design these guys here.

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

I love when there's characters that are pair bonded and you know that wherever one of them is the other is also gonna be there.

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

im soo sorry im bad at drawing yeah i know but i just wanted to do something besides(?) edits and photoshop pics.......

can someone who can draw good do it better, huh?........

ref from @ mellon_soup

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

He means a little squeeze bottle with brine shrimp inside but… bottle feeding the loblings…

[nomoraamongfivearchons]

I’m really cheesed by the way the Durin and Scara dynamic seems it’s made a lot of ppl pay more attention to Scara’s soft spot for children bc it’s resulted in like 3 separate instances I’ve seen ppl say something along the lines of “wow I think it’s great we’ve seen him hanging out with male children twice but think it would be so cute if at some point in the future he befriends a girl child too so we can get #girldad scara.” bc you know i think these posts are really onto something. I think it would be pretty great if Scaramouche befriended a child character who is also a girl at some point in the story. That would be so cute. Like maybe genshin could even continue the trend of scara specifically befriending children who he kinda connects with emotionally and have this purely hypothetical girl child character also be a nonhuman being like him who’s experienced rejection and abandonment for their human qualities. I bet they’d have a really charming and endearing dynamic if such a thing happened. genshin should totally get in on this it would make fun material for perhaps an archon quest line of sorts