reverse isekai but it’s me at 6:45 pm in a car
-> warnings: spoilers for inazuma archon quest, depictions of modern organized religion(none are specified, none are in great detail, but talks of restrictions within those are mentioned. it’s only one paragraph but still), this is unedited and with zero (0) plot to it :))
-> lowercase intended
taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky
your world is loud.
from the moment the favored could see it, this was clear. it was loud, filling with screaming machinery that left trails of dust and buildings so tall it made their neck hurt to view.
it was bright, with lights that shone through the darkest of nights, reflecting off glass and the speeding machines and reflecting reflecting reflecting back into eyes to sting. your sun is so harsh, so unpleasant and overbearing, hot instead of warm and burning instead of soothing.
it’s cluttered, wires suspending from towers and running along your roads. glittering signs point out things they can’t read, the sacred script only giving them a headache. at night, they can find no comfort in the stars, something that sends them into a panic the first time they see it. it’s not clouds, it’s not anything worldly blocking their view, it’s that they’re gone, the ones they can see washed out and faded. they wonder how anybody can live like this, and if you blessed them with a night sky of such beauty because yours was so…
they can recognize some of it, the plants and trees and flowers, wild or not, call to them in recognition, but so much is frighteningly new. the style of the clothing, the kinds of jewelry on the people you pass. try as they might, they can’t locate a single vision anywhere, not even on you. they wonder if people hide them, like during the vision hunt decree, but even at home you don’t reach for it, you start fires with odd devices and plants grow slowly, the air and stone unmoving to your desires. you spill drinks. you freeze water using more strange machinery.
it’s so strange, because they can feel your world brim with elemental energy. their vision beams, shining so brightly with all of the potential suspended in your world. no matter how poor their elemental sight, your world glows, the air itself carrying a blue tinge. they try, in a world without visions, to use theirs, and their power springs in an instant to their fingertips. it dances across their hands, enveloping when they barely intended for a small spark, a small flame jumping across the dry grass of unspent energy in your world. they extinguish it quickly, tightening their hand into a fist to stamp it out before they damage something, and something like awe shines in their eyes. there’s so much, their vision so eagerly lapping it up, and you.. don’t use it?
you have machines for everything, devices to harness the wind and waves, boats to travel across water at impossible speeds, strange flying machines that you can hear from the ground, mere specks in the sky, and yet… you have yet to capture them in their most essential forms. you speak of elements, sometimes, but you use different names and there seems to be many, many more. you say that the air holds ‘nitrogen’, that you seal things with foil of ‘aluminum’, and you even say that water itself is composed of ‘hydrogen’ and ‘oxygen’, something that they struggle to understand. how can water be made of something else? how can hydro users bend more than one thing to their will? how can anemo wielders command such a broad spectrum of things? you speak of other elements in the earth, and though some are familiar, such as iron and gold, others’ names hold no meaning. you say potassium is in fruit, that there’s multicolored rocks called bismuth and poisonous liquids named mercury. you say that there’s 118 elements, when all they’ve known is 7.
it takes them a while to come to terms with that one, and even then they settle on it being inherently outside of their understanding. after all, they are in a world crafted by a god.
speaking of..
there are multiple religions in your world?
and it’s not as if they’re different ways or interpretations of the same god, no, it’s entirely different ones. not in the ways of teyvat, where everybody’s aware of all seven and follows the one of their nation, not even that much. they’re wildly different, with different policies and ways of worship, some with multiple gods and others with just one. some are strict, ways of lifestyle chosen and laid out, whilst others are lax. and even within the same religion, it varies from one place of worship to another? somehow? some religions specify clothing, disallowing certain parts of the body to be exposed- which they can understand to an extent. it’s when they learn of religions that police love, ones that write in harsh lines where and when and who somebody can love, that they need to take a step away.
so many parts of your world are confusing. so bright, flashy, new, rumbling in the walls and barreling down the roads with nothing but a scream to warn. lights are everywhere, every sign and post and building vying for your attention. this they could understand, as who wouldn’t wish to be the object of your interest, but the most dizzying fact that they learn during their stay is that you are no different than anybody else. everybody is subject to these sights, everybody is pulled in by a particular shade or cut of cloth, everybody is startled by the bright lights and loud announcements. everybody. you’re lost in the ocean of people so different and yet endlessly identical, nobody’s eyes lingering on you or calling your name specifically. when you step into a crowd, nobody notices you, save for the select, precious few to whom you are known. you have to carve out a place in your world, go out of your way to make sure your name, your face, your interests are kept in somebody’s mind, and even then people dare to forget.
that’s the worst of all. overwhelming lights, sounds, smells: nothing. it makes sense that they’d be out of their depth in a world built for the divine. but to know that you’re not receiving any of the recognition you deserve, to know that nobody thinks highly of your work in teyvat, to know that you were kind enough descend and build yourself a new life amongst the world, and to share your creation across said world, only for nobody to appreciate it. nobody thinks twice. people dare to complain over something you’ve hand-crafted, over something that, even after completion, you revisited with a traveller, doing your best to save one sibling and fix the problems that had cropped up in your wake. you’ve done so much, you’ve cared after it so lovingly, and you boosted the power of some of those you granted a vision to. as somebody who had experienced this love first hand, the favored could not find the words to express their anger at the situation. your world was wrong, it was cruel, and though they found beauty in the most hidden of places, it didn’t change the fact that it didn’t love you.
it only strengthened their desire to take you back to teyvat, where you would be truly loved.
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Who Is Scout's Ma?
She's a character we know extremely little about, however when you stop to consider the IMPLICATIONS of what little we DO know, things start to get interesting:
1. She lives in the roughest part of Boston ("if you were from where I was from, you'd be dead") but dresses quite elegantly.
2. She had 8 boys, all of whom she raised BY HERSELF, and yet somehow she finds the time to maintain this impeccable appearance.
3. Scout clearly loves and admires her to a point where it's one of the few things he'll drop his "tough guy" act for, and dialogue in the comics like "Ma's gonna kill me if she finds out" implies he also still fears her disapproval, despite being a fully autonomous adult.
4. Spy, despite what he likes to pretend, is clearly head-over-heels for her. He even had her likeness engraved on his fanciest gun! (Note the distinct hairband & hoop earrings) For a man who avoids attachment to the point where he never lets anyone see his face, that's an unusual degree of infatuation.
5. None of Scout's brothers left Boston while he was growing up, despite a few of them presumably being adults by then. Not only this, they were still all getting into fights together, implying they were both continuing to live with or near their mother and brothers, AND had reasons to brawl with others beyond just some adolescent street scuffle.
My Theory:
Scout's Ma is the matriarch of a Boston-based crime family.
It explains her elegant appearance, how she and Spy were able to meet, why their bond clearly goes beyond a one-off fling, why she was able to be in Scout's life so much despite the financial burdens of being a single mother of 8, and why all of said 8 were continuing to get into fights with other locals. They weren't just some street gang, they were enforcers. It also explains why/how Scout got into mercenary work, his many mafia-themed weapons, and why he continues to fear her ire even as an adult.
Plus, take a look at this unused angle of the last photo from Meet The Spy:
You'd THINK a single mother from the rough side of Boston wouldn't appear so in-her-element on a fancy date with The Spy, and yet her appearance and demeanour here just SCREAM "confident and in control."
Scout's Ma is Boston's Godmother, and I desperately wish to see someone draw her as such.
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