#fandomferns

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Everyone jokes about Zhongli being #old and not understanding internet meme culture but I really need to stress I think if you explained internet meme things to the Archons, Zhongli and Nahida would make “technically correct but hilariously out of touch with internet meme culture by virtue of being very well adjusted + offline” applications of internet terms in the Exact same way

Like if you explained the definition of “skrunkly” to Nahida what’s going to happen is while walking with her in the rainforest you’re going to hear her go “awww :) the skrunkly!” and turn around thinking she saw like, a cute animal or one of her Aranara or something only to realize she is referring to a specific species of plant she spotted that she thinks is nice

Meanwhile Hu Tao sends Zhongli a funny message and he responds with nothing but a very carefully taken photograph of a rock. And she is incredibly confused and after 5 minutes of decoding this goes “Zhongli are you…using this picture of a rock as a reaction image?” and Zhongli is like yes :) I am. And she’s like “why” so Zhongli sends her a very thoughtfully detailed message explaining he found this rock on a morning stroll outside the harbor and thought it has a very “humorous and engaging shape” and had little flecks of color that reminded him of a kind of jewelry accessory that was popular in Liyue 300 years ago that was often a gesture of good humor and friendship, so he found it “a good choice of image to use in a humorous interaction with a companion”

And Hu Tao is just like okay thanks Zhongli you are so interesting. Makes sense. (She thought it was just bc the rock was kind of shaped like a laughing face if you squinted)

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The concept of people being transphobic to Wanderer Genshin Impact is really funny to me because I think he generally considers himself a man but if ppl are being weird and prying about his gender he just says he’s a puppet and this always pisses them off bc they’re like “what the hell does that mean you’re either a man or a woman and that’s that” So then Wanderer without a word casually grabs his head and abruptly twists it 180 degrees with a very deliberately uncomfortable inhuman metallic cracking noise that prompts everyone to start screaming at the top of their lungs

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Nahida is kind of the funniest person alive for seeing Scaramouche’s memories and then deciding to compare him to a sad little kitten. She canonically poor little meow meow’s him. Then after he accepts he is kind of poor little meow meow and not a being of pure evil she enrolls him into college as part of her plan to help him gain a sense of emotional stability. Incredible

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HI… I MADE A GENSHIN QUIZ… You guys should take it and tell me what you got

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I LOVEEEE the idea of Wanderer being Nahida’s right hand who covers her lack of physical combat prowess by fighting for her. I need Nahida to have enemies who glower about needing to watch out for The Dendro Archon’s Attack Dog and Wanderer being far more snidely enthusiastic about the concept of being a weapon for Nahida bc he loves feeling useful & physical violence while this always makes Nahida feel inclined to gently remind him that while she does appreciate the help & protection, seeing him as a weapon would make her Very Sad because she Values His Personhood and Friendship (wanderer thinks this is absurd and a very inefficient way to utilize him)

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If you inverse the dynamic of Wanderer as Nahida’s standoffish stray cat she adopted off the street that she’s trying to properly socialize, my opinion is you get a modern AU where Nahida is this tiny fluffy emotional support rescue cat that forces Wanderer to babyproof his entire apartment because she is Very smart and every week she figures out how to open doors (because Wanderer barricaded himself in his room to rot in bed and she wanted to cheer him up by keeping him company) or take apart a quarter of his kitchen because she decided she was very curious about the logistics of saucepans and which one is most suitable for her to take a nap in

She also keeps somehow stealing Wanderer’s keys and charging out of his apartment to explore, prompting Wanderer to have to chase her down and very awkwardly interact with the other people who live in the Genshin Character Apartment Complex because she always goes and bothers them (which they do not mind because they absolutely adore her especially since he lives on the same floor as the Sumeru cast). Wanderer is starting to suspect she does this in hopes of making him friends but whenever he accuses her of this as he marches them back to his apartment while holding her like a sack of potatoes because she ran off to say hello to that Tartaglia guy who just moved in and keeps asking Wanderer about his experience in hand to hand combat she just purrs at him with a very friendly :3 face because she’s literally just a little kitty. But also this is definitely what she’s doing and it’s working because now people say hi to him in passing and invite him for tea bc they are very amused by the prickly mysterious loner on their floor with the incredibly friendly white fluffball of a kitten

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Lyney (the most outgoing sibling) probably has to do the “excuse me, they asked for no pickles!” thing for Lynette and Freminet often and I’m specifically imagining he goes up to the McDonald’s cashier or w/e expertly flipping his gay little magician’s card deck in his hands and goes…good day to you, monsieur—I hate to cause any trouble…but I couldn’t help but notice my dear siblings’ meals included *flicks his hand to reveal two cards with pickles on them* pickles, when in fact I’m quite sure they both ordered….*snaps fingers and makes card vanish into thin air with an assortment of sparkles* no pickles! Do you think this could be amended? Thank you kindly! ✨

Meanwhile Lynette and Freminet who had been content to sullenly eat their wrong orders because they didn’t want to cause any fuss are like half hiding behind him going oh archons…..he’s doing it again……

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I like to imagine there comes a point all the Archons realize they can’t leave Nahida & Zhongli alone together when they’re all hanging out because the two of them will in fact get locked in an endless loop of deep philosophical discussions and mutual infodumping that’s nearly impossible to get them out of. Additionally when they DO manage to get Zhongli and Nahida back to the same plane of reality as everyone else they’re faced with the harrowing ordeal of both of them leaving the conversation having absorbed each other’s speech mannerisms

This has resulted in Venti resorting to drastic measures (threatening to collaborate with Hu Tao to be as annoying as possible on purpose) to stop Zhongli from “corrupting the youth” (he asked Nahida if she wanted something to drink and she went on a long poetic waxing monologue about how “at her age” one of the finest joys in life is enjoying a simple cup of tea on a porch while greeting the accompanying sunrise as an old friend) (she needs to wait until she is At Least 2.5 thousand years old before she can talk like that)

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Wanderer doesn’t hide the fact he likes Nahida

I totally get Wanderer being snarky is a funny punchline but sometimes I see Wanderer portrayed as being super snappy and mean in response to Nahida trying to be nice to him and I can’t help being like no!!!!!! He wouldn’t do that to her!! :(

Often people seem to think their dynamic is Wanderer being grouchy & mean & telling her to screw off all the time because he doesn’t want to admit he ~actually enjoys Nahida’s company~ but man like. Wanderer isn’t some edgy moody teenager that Nahida has to keep on a leash and scold regularly whenever he acts out—he’s a grown man who’s actually pretty emotionally perceptive/intelligent when he wants to be in my opinion—he’s just very blunt and cynical and often rude/harsh as a result

Wanderer hates sugarcoating his emotions & if him liking Nahida is majorly because he feels she’s proven it’s more or less safe to trust her, i don’t think he has any reason to hide the fact he genuinely respects her and is regularly open about this when he interacts about her in canon. He may grumble about her requests or emotional earnesty because, well, it’s Wanderer, but imo if he were regularly snappy/mean to Nahida even in an “all-bark-no-bite” way we would’ve see them interact like that on screen already—but we don’t, and the fact that’s now how does treat her is a part of their dynamic I find very endearing and enjoy a lot—so I want to highlight it!

Like…look at how he talks to/about her even just going off of inversion of genesis alone:

I feel hes noticeably more cordial and cooperative with Nahida compared to say, Traveler & Paimon—he doesn’t try to intentionally provoke her for fun (or out of spite in the case of early IoG) the way he does with us/Traveler, both in Inversion of Genesis and Parade of Providence. He spends all of PoP intentionally trying to act suspicious/up to no good to mess with the Traveler & Paimon whenever we run into him—and then we get to the end of the event and find out Nahida just… asked him to monitor the event to make sure there wasn’t any trouble (+ wanted him to make friends LOL).

Like we literally see Nahida playfully tease him on screen and he doesn’t snap or get really grouchy with her…he just tolerates it like a mildly disgruntled cat

Which is…cute! I think it’s very endearing, especially when I don’t feel Nahida is usually playful like this unless she considers them an equal/friend—it feels like maybe she picks up on his energy a bit and adjusts her sense of humor/friendliness accordingly so it’s more intuitive/comfortable for both of them

Everyone jokes about Nahida dragging Wanderer into socializing and making friends right—which is true and something I think is very silly & fun, but again…while Wanderer may grumble about it I don’t think he’s actively mad or fighting with her about it even hyperbolically. Look at how he responds to Nahida telling him she wants to help him reach out to people in Parade of Providence:

This, combined with how he mentions feeling about Nahida not wanting him to isolate & be lonely in his birthday letter (“I can see that she was looking for a chance to make my life more fulfilling, but has she ever stopped to think about what an "experience" it is for others to meet me?”) gives me less an impression Wanderer is outwardly indignant and grouchy about Nahida trying to help him and more like…openly appreciative of the gesture but just doesn’t really think he’s worth the effort

I again think the specific way his responses to her trying to help him emotionally are always worded again show a distinct respect he has for Nahida as a person, and he seems genuinely grateful by the fact she gave him a second chance when, given how internally harsh Wanderer is about things and himself and how much he’s internalized expecting to be used or disregarded by others constantly unless he fights tooth and nail to not be, he probably didn’t expect any sort of grace at all post losing the gnosis, much less having someone seem to genuinely believe in him & want him to be happy/stable when he took said offered chance

I just think Wanderer is someone who cares a lot about being straightforward, especially about things that really move him emotionally, and think it’s really sweet he feels moved enough by Nahida’s encouragement & goodwill towards him to genuinely want to try with life. I get so sad when It seems like people think Wanderer is too like, emotionally immature or jaded to ever care to express how he feels about Nahida even in his own blunt, recovering nihilist way (when he explicitly does in canon IMO) and have him be snarky & grouchy to Nahida constantly, or believe he’d find her being good naturedly silly/childish annoying and scoff at her for it (people seem to think he hates children when he canonically does not and is quite fond of them!! I personally think some of that soft spot comes from finding childish earnestness + innocence kind of bittersweetly cathartic/comforting to see and would be something he’d actively like about Nahida!!) 😔

This is something I always try to portray in my own fanworks of them I just like it a lot, I want people to see the vision!!! Their relationship is very mutual on effort put in from both sides & Wanderer is more open about respecting Nahida than you may believe—which means he actively tries to acknowledge her kindness towards him and she doesn’t have to babysit him or drag him into cooperating with her all the time! And I find it very touching and sweet!

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The way Wanderer & Nahida function on teyvat’s hypothetical social media to me is Nahida has like a public figure verified account as the Dendro Archon right and she posts either formal sumeru news announcements, or very earnest personal positivity posts split between telling ppl to practice self care and drink water :) or excitedly sharing cool fun facts about plants/hyper specific research niches she finds interesting. A majority of these posts are often rather confusing because she either employs her Weird Metaphors in them or is explaining trivia too complicated for most ppl to understand.

While a lot of ppl generally think this is very silly & r like thank u Devi Kusanali very cool she also sometimes gets a lot of irony poisoned “I love being a hater” types in her notifs ragging on her for being cringe and Emotionally Sincere—which she seems to barely notice. Wanderer, however, (who’s main social media presence consists of a small private account he only lets people he likes follow where he posts pictures of nice scenery he saw while wandering or incredibly smug selfies with people he just beat in a fight sprawled out on the ground behind him), sees this and gets on his only other account (a public burner he uses to argue with other akademiya students about research topics) and starts replying to the hate comments under Nahida’s post threatening to beat their ass in increasingly absurd ways because he thinks it’s funny

No one has any idea who’s running his account but it immediately becomes a running joke on the website bc everyone thinks it’s completely insane and it also causes discourse that results in Traveler (who posts once a month but accidentally goes viral all the time bc everyone thinks Traveler being on social media is really funny and half their posts about their everyday life read like dril tweets) getting ppl making “awareness posts” about them being mutuals with Wanderer’s burner account because it is “very concerning they support death threats”, to which everyone starts arguing about the ethics of being mean to gods on the internet and if it qualifies as child hating behavior if the child in question is 500 years old. Meanwhile Nahida has not been online for the last 3 days because she’s in the forest having fun with the Aranara and Wanderer does not care in the slightest because he just thought it would be entertaining to cause problems on purpose. Someone during the discourse gets particularly mean and nasty about Nahida and he replies by posting their full IP address and nothing else

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Furina probably spent her last 500 birthdays throwing a massive extravagant citywide party since it’s considered a public holiday in Fontaine, while Nahida probably spent her last 500 birthdays locked up in the Sanctuary of Surasthana with the Akedemiya neglecting the Sabzeruz Festival because they hate the arts and also that Nahida’s birth + existence to them is first and foremost a reminder of Rukkhadevata’s death than anything else.

The most important thing to note, however, is at the end of the day as they sit by themselves and think about how another birthday has come and gone they both feel deeply alone in the very same way

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Me explaining in terms of strictly how I read canon I think Nahida not severely punishing the Sages is just meant to convey that Nahida, even when wronged, is not a very vengeful or harsh person and makes the choice to be kind instead, but in my mind I have this idea of a Nahida interpretation which elaborates on that where her self punishing tendencies extend to her being someone who internally downplays her own experiences constantly, and as a result has a hard time feeling she’s allowed or justified in placing a lot of blame on the Sages for what they did to her So while she is following her own philosophies regarding teaching lessons/wisdom/etc in how to handle the Sages and genuinely doesn’t want to be really angry or punishing because of who she is as a person, her decision is also influenced by the fact she’s basically blocked herself out of grappling with how to handle people who hurt her by blaming herself for said hurt instead as a coping mechanism. And like this is all just me being insane about Nahida Trauma and not something explicitly implied in canon but also I really do think this isn’t a far stretch from her canon characterization especially when my vision isn’t to conclude that Nahida needs to be angry and vengeful but she should extend the kindness she shows others to herself and also every day I get tormented thinking about she was the mental equivalent of an average human child when the Sages found her and how they basically specifically discarded her for being a child and the idea of how Nahida would pick up on + internalize that and eventually need time to unlearn it

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I’m so deeply sorry to Childe fans who understand his mental illness(TM) the way ppl talk his #issues stresses me out SO much. They don’t GET it. like idk even when ppl misunderstand say Xiao or Scaramouche I feel there’s generally an understanding of the severity of their emotional baggage and how that impacts them as characters. However unfortunately Childe seems to have completely dissociated from the concept of his own trauma and thinks he’s just a little silly sometimes and everyone has FALLEN for it .

Do NOT let him fool you. That freaking white boy got dropped into a hole when he was 14 and was molded into a child soldier and weapon of violence who twisted his terror of being a child in literal hell into loving the thrill of violence and combat with the strangled remains of his childhood innocence so he could survive. Ok. Everytime I talk to him he starts dropping casual passing comments about how he loves being used as a weapon instead of being a person and how he loves compartmentalizing his sense of identity like he’s doing nothing but playing a good imitation of himself/Ajax/Tartaglia/etc in the middle of our mundane conversation, and I don’t even think he’s aware of the implications of this. You have got to help me

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The way some people talk about “misogynistic writing” with the female genshin archons—specifically Nahida & Furina— kills me a bit, because while i do feel there’s valid criticisms of genshin’s writing to be made (especially regarding Ei, who I do feel was done a massive disservice writing wise), often I see people seem to come from a place of not understanding the writing/characters well, and/or leaning into like…very reductive ideas of what makes a female character “good” that honestly says more about their biases than Genshin’s

For example, a common complaint I see against Nahida & Furina is about them being made to be “weak/unserious” and how this is bad writing because genshin is unwilling to take their characters seriously—but the way this is argued seems to suggest Furina & Nahida would be better characters if they were more physically powerful, mature, or “cooler” in some way. But I really dislike the notion of girlbossification being seen as the one standard of good writing for women. A girl being strong and independent and able to punch things really hard isn’t a marker of inherent good writing

Nahida and Furina not being physically powerful or completely sure of themselves is the point. Their lack of life-experience-based maturity and overpowering physical strength are intentional and points of strength for their character writing, not flaws or weaknesses:

Nahida is the God of Wisdom—her primary source of strength is her intelligence, which comes from her curiosity about the world that is intrinsically linked to her being very caring by nature. The reason Nahida is at a disadvantage in physical strength with the antagonists—Scaramouche and Dottore—and doesn’t have an epic moment where she brute force overpowers them, isn’t because Genshin is treating Nahida like an incompetent joke, it’s because her character highlights the overall theme in Sumeru’s AQ that power isn’t everything and strength/wisdom comes from many places.

She outsmarts both Scaramouche and Dottore through her ability to strategize—if you’re trying to sell Nahida as a character who embodies wisdom, it’s far stronger writing wise to have her use her wisdom and mind to overcome narrative conflict than have her be all powerful. If you don’t think Nahida revealing she’s trapped Scaramouche in a dream loop after he tries to rip her gnosis from her, or her standing her ground against Dottore and forcing him to bargain with her when he attempts to intimidate her into giving him what he wants doesn’t make her “cool” or interesting….idk ! Maybe it’s not the writing and just your personal preference for character appeal

Furina —without getting too deep into 4.2 spoilers—has an arc revolving around the loneliness & conflict of needing to mold yourself into a performance for a greater purpose, and grappling with personal identity and autonomy in the aftermath of performance and repression shaping your life. I really don’t understand how people watch how she’s handled and come away with the conclusion her character gets bent around Nuevillette’s man pain/the fact he’s just so ~much more competent than her unless you’re just really not interested in trying to engage Furina’s writing or taking it in confusingly bad faith

Her struggling with lacking the physical power/competence a god “should” have is, again, the point of her character and they are very clear where that lack of ability comes from within the writing. Her narrative actions follow an arc that revolves around this internal conflict she has—she feels very established to be her own person and they certainty don’t shy away from expanding on Furina’s emotions without it only being done as footing for other (male) characters

I think Nahida & Furina were just not what people were expecting the Dendro & Hydro Archon to be like, I also see a lot of complaints that neither of them “act like gods” or “seem very godlike” but see, in my opinion, one of the central themes to genshin overall is to examine the relationship between humanity and the divine. Part of this also includes calling into question what a god should be, especially in relation to humans/having a sense of humanity

The center conflict within Nahida & Furina’s characters is that their sense of humanity is at odds with being held to what being a god “should” be. Nahida is imprisoned by the Sages who treat her with disdain for being a child and not being inhumanly perfect enough to be useful to them as a deity. We see Furina try to engage with her people earnestly in a more human way before realizing she needs to put up the performance that proceeds to shape her life & state of deep loneliness for the next 500 years to be taken seriously and fulfill her duties. You aren’t supposed to look at Nahida or Furina and think they’re all powerful otherworldly divine beings. You’re supposed to view the, as people—people who are young and inexperienced regarding their position in life. Venti and Zhongli act like people in the same way—the only difference is they have more experience and have had the time to accomplish more feats as original members as the Seven

Again, it’s not that I don’t think there’s criticisms to be made. Genshin to me sets up Ei to be a character who requires a lot of self reflection/growth and thought with handling her moral dubiousness, and then out of desperately worrying she won’t be likable enough, seems to bend over with trying to insist on Ei being palpably appealing while not following through on a lot of what her character really needs to feel well handled. (I feel they barely even address Ei needing to rebuild trust with her people and it’s only more clear when you now see Furina spend a lot of time handling something similar despite doing less um, government oppression thsn Ei did for instance HDJNDJDJ. But I guess me pinning where my personal dissatisfaction with her writing comes from is another post in of its own and more based in general issues with Inazuma vs viewing it as misogynistic writing alone) The trend of not letting a female character grapple with her morality and try to push her being livable at the expense of addressing her complexity does honestly feel it falls into a misogynistic writing trends. I am really bummed out with Ei’s execution when genshin has proven through other characters along with Nahida and Furina they are capable of handling a character like her writing wise imo

But I really think, again, if someone thinks none of genshin’s women are engaging or interesting, or that Nahida and Furina aren’t taken seriously enough narratively while seeming to not really understand the intent of the characters’ writing, or want to take them seriously unless they’re cool/girlboss-y enough, I feel it may say more about their ideas of handling women in fiction than it does about genshin. I get personal preferences and not being really into a character, but people so frequently frame it as a possibly misogyny pattern with how genshin writes the female archons and I can’t help but disagree. I think sometimes people don’t consider what the story is trying to say with the characters vs what they think is cool or want (and of course what we all think is cool or may want/expect narratively is always informed by our own biases). There’s a level of subjectivity in how you can interpret writing and narratives of course but they’re just not interpretations I feel fit into what’s presented in the text !

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Kaeya when he has to function around the existence of the brother he mourns his relationship with due to a volatile hurtful falling out born out of the crushing guilt he has about his own existence: 😎

Kaeya when he gets told he’s descended from the founder of the abyss order & deflects feeling any attachment or emotional conflict over his past: 😎

Kaeya when ppl arguing make the child he cares about sad for .2 seconds (he cannot bear the sight of Klee being subject to the confusing & seemingly pointless pain of familial conflict that he is so familiar with when (unlike himself) she does not deserve to have to accept it & learn to endure it all on her own):

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So my idea is that Nahida & Wanderer cannot stand each other’s tastes in sweet & bitter foods respectively but they do agree on enjoying spicy food. The problem however is Wanderer has had the experience of teasing Nahida for not being able to handle bitter/sour foods that are (in his opinion) very tame and mild, and then watched her devour the most steeped in chili-pepper-spicy-dish that even HE was struggling to fully tolerate with a perfectly content and happy expression like it’s absolutely nothing . He doesn’t know how she’s doing this . He has checked and she is not in fact immune to spices via being a god and has not been using her powers to suppress this while eating. Scary