#come discourse me ive been through it already and ill kill us both

[splitpierrot]

saw a take on bedman so bad i had to make this

(*yeah i know we dont know his age but imo hes prolly not much older than delilah)

[aoiazamis]

im sick and tired of having to see discourse abt kaeluc luckae whatever the hell you want to call it bc as someone who likes both kaeya and diluc and is chinese and adopted i have to see so much of it so here are my two cents on it.

(very long bc its all the thoughts that have been stewing in my brain since i found out there was disk horse)

for context before we begin: i am chinese adopted by a chinese family living outside of china (my grandparents grew up in china). i have combed through diluc and kaeya’s dialogue, voice-over lines, and character stories multiple times and in multiple different languages, independently of the disk horse simply bc they’re both on my team and i like them a lot as a result. ive spent tons of effort trying to make sense of both character’s personalities, their conflicts, and what their motivations are.

ok lets start here. how do i view kaeya and diluc? as adopted siblings. why? less serious answer: because im adopted and there are already at least two adopted characters in the game so why not bring it to three. more serious/genuine answer: i personally think kaeya being adopted is very essential to understanding his character and how he views his relationship with mondstadt. i know everyone gets up in arms over the two-character chinese word “sworn brothers/adopted brothers” but even if they were to omit that line entirely, kaeya’s story is very reliant on him seeing the ragnvindrs as his family and a direct contrast to his birth father. here’s how i see it: kaeya was taken in and raised by crepus after appearing at dawn winery. it’s perfectly reasonable for kaeya to see crepus as his father and diluc as his brother. if i were in kaeya’s position, dropped in a whole new country with nothing but the clothes on my back and i was taken in my a dude and his son, that would surely be like my birth family to me.

now, i have read the chinese version, and from what i can see all the words they use to describe crepus and diluc in relation to kaeya are pretty vague (as far as i can tell). the phrase “sworn brothers,” while it refers to a popular bl trope, does also have the meaning of a literal adopted brother. the word used to refer to crepus could mean “adopted father” or “father in law.” (in japanese and korean, they use the exact same words in both instances, no real change.) if im gonna be honest? i think that’s intentional. the devs/writers specifically leave their relationship vague so it can be interpreted by fans however they like; because after all genshin is a gatcha games and partially relies on fan attachment to characters in order to profit. by inviting fans to choose their kind of relationship -> fans dont feel alienated or “wrong” -> more fans who are willing to whale for them or create fan content that will promote their game. im no marketing major so take this with a grain of salt but ive always felt that this was a plausible explanation for why there’s no definite answer and it all seems so vague.

so, do i give a fuck if a random given person on the internet ships them romantically? no. im not paid enough to. do i give a fuck if someone who ships them romantically follows me? no, as long as they dont come onto my kaeya and diluc content deliberately talking abt them in a romantic sense as i make it clear i dont like it. (essentially, “you’re welcome to stay here but idk how much of my content you’re gonna care for.”) “but tumblr user nowwhywouldyoudothat!” you say, “you just reblogged gen art from an artist who ships kaeluc!” i am also not paid enough to do a background check and every simple lovely general art i see of these two. i wont ever reblog anything thats inherently romantic for the two since i dont like it, and why would i reblog things i dont like? i will simply ignore that artist’s ship art and just enjoy the single gen art that i just reblogged. its simple.

this is already crazy long and i might have haphazardly explained things and ill clarify them if anyone even reads this lol. but basically, my bottom line is i dislike kaeluc as a romantic ship and think its strange and weird and i dont get it. when i create something about the two, i make sure to note that it is not intended to be romantic. i dont care if someone who does ship them interacts with it, so long as they arent going “KYAA I SHIP THEM SO MUCH” in the comments of my fic that examines their relationship as brothers. at the end of the day, its pixels on a screen, its not that deep. i am begging genshin fans to stop telling ppl to kill themselves or send death threats or doxx ppl over ships. you’re allowed to disagree with/dislike ships, problematic or not, but please at least act like normal human beings when doing so.

so yeah. thats it. a whole ass essay abt discourse. ive always wanted to say it but i never had enough word count lol or organization.