#i've been wanting to do something representative of the archon quests for a while

[c6jpg]

genshin impact ❖ teyvat storyline, 4/?

[chrysoula]

seals and wars

This is a bunch of musing I've been doing in the wake of 4.2AQ that I'm just dumping here. First, a brief history: Start with a 40 year war of subjugation (started by the Primordial One), ending in a covenant that allowed elemental life to continue to exist, and even thrive, at certain costs (maybe: Visions, an empowered Primordial governor). Humanity was unpacked and managed via the Seelie. But a rebellious conquered people sought for aid from afar, and brought in the Second Who Came. Eventually, the Second Who Came switched sides, and they sealed the Dragon King away. (I think somehow the Second Who Came ended up making the gods.) After this, Celestia makes them fight the Archon War for their promised 7 seats in Celestia, and just to make it fair (an actual threat), loyal elemental life was permitted to enter the contest. And that's the Archon War for you. (I think Egeria's people-creating privileges were revoked to stop Neuvillette from being born. Oopsie.)

Next: Khaenri'ah. The wrath of the dragon king infects the Eclipse Dynasty. An apocalyptic war results. The divine nature of the Third is harvested/sacrificed to make the Gnoses, which form yet another seal over the Dragon King. The world recovers. Remnants of the Third are left to wander around. The dragon king, who will not accept a world shared with the invader's spawn at any cost, still has hooks in the Abyss Order. He's the sinner and he's temptation. He's bad. All Khaenri'ah wanted was seats at the table, but that got warped until the worst of all wars happened. I'm pretty sure Teyvat can't handle another one. There are missing pieces here. Even if you can't see them, they're there. I'm going to represent the missing links with a random set of letters. Say, ISTAROTH. There's nothing actually there to see. They're just a placeholder for the truth we don't know. A marker for absence. You know, in most of the nations we've travelled through, we've encountered cults to dead gods. Havria, Orobashi, Deshret, Egeria... They're all over, these people who still tend shrines for gods who died centuries or millennia ago. That's not too much of a shocker, really. There's something about a dead god that you really feel you can connect to. A living god, well, they have a life, they're busy, they don't have time for you and your concerns, but a dead god can be a small, still voice in your soul (and they definitely understand suffering). Hey, where have I heard rhetoric like that in Genshin? Hello, Mondstadt, where you have the Absent God and an extremely traditional church that venerates him, as well as many references to "time and wind".

Decarabian doesn't have that. (tho ask me sometime about the storm watchers and their vigil).

Istaroth doesn't have that. Or.... does she? I've been wondering for a while if Istaroth was erased from Irminsul, and why we've still heard her. Are there ways to preserve history, in fables and songs, greetings and farewells, in traditions carved into stone? Is there a way to worship an absence? In fact. we know hints can be preserved and decoded. Consider this. What if truths you understand completely on your own can't be erased from Irminsul? And the only way to pass on certain knowledge is with quests, and puzzles, and curious absences? The stories that nobody tells you are the ones you can't forget. At least not completely. When Venti came back to Mondstadt, he was attacked by an Eye of the Storm. You know, those shields of wind around a vaccuum, that famously drop nothing when defeated? An absence again.

I can only conclude that Venti is protecting the remains of ISTAROTH (which might or might not be "Istaroth") in a giant vault below Church of Favonius. (The idea that Venti might be entrapping something is ludicrous, and hiding somebody else's worshippers as his church would make him laugh.) Although, you know. There's a lot of seals around Stormterror's Lair, and Venti got us to unseal each and every one of them. Right after that, the Tsarita started collecting Gnoses. I wondered what had triggered that. But if she's planning to unseal something, maybe she was waiting for a signal... ISTAROTH, huh?

[moonshinecanvasproductions]

Genshin Theory: Fontaine's State

I am by NO means a theorist, and I RARELY come up with my own theories for shows or films I watch. Also, by the time I'm writing this, I've only watched the teaser trailer twice. So please forgive me if this isn't super-duper in-depth or if it has any "holes" or whatever. This is mostly a fun thought I had that I wanted to get off my chest. More under the cut:

So... what will Fontaine be like? Given what we know so far, it's probably Belobog's Expy from HSR but like in France with the elite being on top and the others being underground.

For the problem: I think it's a combination of the 4 archon quests so far. With the Archon's ally being corrupted, the Archon trying to help us, the Archon is the antagonist and the country's citizens are the problem.

We know that there was a previous Hydro archon before the current one and from Dainsleif that:

The God of Justice lives for the spectacle of the courtroom, seeking to judge all other gods. But even she knows not to make an enemy of the divine.

And another clue implied from Nahida and Lazurite stone is that Focalors is a person who hides the truth behind the spectacle and to protect her country, she makes them too engrossed in spectacle to care about the other things from Celestia's eyes.

So the innocent are living the high life while the convicted are underground (think Livin' It Up on Top from Hadestown).

What do the citizens have to do with the problem? Well... I think the judging jury/equivalent to their government is currently run by 'nice people TM' instead of good people. Let's be honest. Nice =/= good.

People can do nice things without being good people and it's mainly the motivation and intention instead of actions. The judges probably have their pre-determined image of what a person is and ever will be regardless of what they've done. Basically, a double standard where if someone deemed a villain does a crime, they're punished but if it's a 'nice person TM', they'll get a slap on the wrist.

So has Fontaine always been this way? I don't think so. After Khanreiah's destruction where the previous Hydro Archon met her demise, Focalors was kinda like a mix of Zhongli and Ei: locking herself away and trusting the people know what to do when her attention had to be turned elsewhere.

Once, Fontaine was probably a utopia but after Focalors gave her country free rein, the court decided to twist her own words and make it a dystopia. The upper-class court probably decided that since they live in paradise, why bother with the lower class?

So they twisted her words to fit their self-serving agenda and exiled anyone to the underground area to those who don't fit their ideals, thinking they've already had their chance for forgiveness and are doomed for life.

Maybe the Traveller and Paimon will meet Focalors face-to-face, an emotional wreck and dishevelled. They will show Focalors what Fontaine became in her absence and maybe they'll work together to rework the system: allowing the guilty to live a 2nd chance and for those truly beyond redemption to be punished as well as creating representatives for both sides and opening the bridge between the under and overworld.

So yes, like I said at the beginning, this is by no means meant to be a perfect or a flawless theory, but it was something fun to think about, and if you hadn't considered this before and would like to add it to your personal headcanons or correct me, go ahead! Just remember where you got the idea from. :D

[trans-xianxian]

apologies if this is like. putting too much authority on u so u can ignore it

i used to be really into genshin & i love a lot of the characters/story but esp with the newer stuff (i say "newer" but i left before sumeru came out) i've been getting really uncomfy w/ the lack of fat, disabled, or darker skinned folks and i wanted to ask if you think they got/are getting any better in that regard?

this got incredibly long so I'm going to put it under the cut!

for one I'd say that one of genshins biggest problems is it's complete lack of dark skinned characters. there are, what, five playable characters who aren't death pale out of the 70 something in the whole game currently? and my white dad gets darker than all of them in the summer. and then almost every single one of the darker skinned npcs in sumeru, with the exception of like three, have either been lying tricksters trying to con us, or aggressive and "brutish". they are also framed as being evil, unreasonable, and dangerous for wanting their ancestral lands back and trying to practice their culture. they couldn't even make candace, who is BASED OFF OF A REAL BLACK ETHIOPIAN QUEEN, dark skinned. sumeru is based off of swana (which, there are also problems w sumeru being based off of a huge geographical area w a plethora of different cultures while every other nation in tyvat takes clear inspiration from One singular real world nation and culture), but almost all of the characters, npc and playable, are super pale? this is obviously not to say that Everyone from a certain region looks the same way or that there are no light skinned ppl in swana nations irl, but like. cmon. they had an opportunity to represent darker skinned ppl w a nation based off of an area where a lot of darker skinned nonwhite ppl live, and they dropped the ball. not to mention the fact that out of all of the sumeru npcs, I don't think Any of the scholars from the akademiya have darker skin. there's obviously cyno as a pc but I feel like his academic side wasn't as focused on as it was w the light skinned characters. I think that the positive addition of a collection of darker skinned protagonist playable characters and npcs in sumeru sadly doesn't outweigh the fact that these characters are still ultimately whitewashed, and negative treatment of so many of the darker skinned npcs in the nation and the way that, even when those characters aren't being portrayed in a negative light, harmful stereotypes are still being perpetuated. there were quests that I could barely get through because they made me so uncomfortable. I do however know that hoyo has gotten a good deal backlash about this issue, at least from north american players, so we'll see how they handle natlan

as for fat characters... I feel like in general, genshin does pretty well with fat npcs. for the most part they're treated the same as other characters, appear in a variety of roles, and I haven't noticed any fatphobic jokes. I could very much be wrong and I wouldn't be Surprised if there were one or two but it hasn't been so much of a glaring issue that I can think of specific examples or remember it as a huge overarching problem. there was a fat npc in the most recent archon quest that played a pretty minor but positive role. sadly, I don't think there will ever be a fat playable character in genshin. there is barely any body type variation in the pcs anyway, ignoring the complete lack of fat ones. at the end of the day, genshin is a gacha game. the most popular one in the world currently. every playable character has to be marketable to the largest possible audience, and to be blunt about it, as fucked up as it is, fat bodies are not marketable. I just Know that if there was a fat pc there would be insane backlash. the amount of people losing their fatphobic minds would drown out anybody celebrating it. now, there Are instances of hoyo doing stuff w character design despite previous backlash - lyney being so blatantly gnc despite all the shit they got for venti comes to mind - so Maybe there's hope, but I honestly doubt it, unfortunately

hoyos relationship w disabled characters is.... complicated. there were two pcs in sumeru who I would consider disabled - collei had a fictional chronic illness and another character named layla has what I'd argue is narcolepsy or at least chronic fatigue. you could argue that what's happening w dainsleif is a chronic illness and I know baizhu is sick in some way but I'm not informed enough on the details to really speak on it. the pc dehya Maybe has a prosthetic arm? but it's incredibly unclear. there are of course a few characters with eyepatches. there's an upcoming character in hoyos other game, star rail, who has a prosthetic arm, but in the same game they have a blind npc who turns out to be a villain with her blindness being an obvious aspect of why she chose to be evil. in genshin a lot of the characters with sort of ambiguous health problems are treated... fine? like dainsleif is obviously isn't supposed to be a villain but I feel like his chronic illness doesn't actually affect his every day life in a significant way and it's just sort of a looming plot device. from what I remember from our interactions with layla, nothing glaring stands out as being problematic, and I think the portrayal of her illness was decent but I also don't really Remember a lot about how she acted or was treated. eyepatched characters don't get outwardly ableist treatment but it also doesn't seem to really matter to or affect their characters. and then there's collei. collei could have been so good, I was So excited for collei. the treatment of her chronic illness was surprisingly well handled, and there was a plot significant npc with the same illness who I appreciated the handling of as well. it could have been So good. but then due to plot events that chronic illness magically disappeared and wasn't a problem for anyone anymore. I was so disappointed, it felt like such a cop out like oh this playable character whose whole life has been affected by her illness and who has had to build different strengths than others due to her disability? who experienced medical abuse and was taken advantage of because she was sick? yeah all that's magically whisked away now. like it didn't even matter. honestly it's embarrassing. hoyo had been handling it so well and then they fumbled at the end. for a popular piece of media, I think genshin does alright with disabilities, there are some positive instances I can think of, but I also think they've made some real blunders in this regard. I don't know if I would call recent updates any Better about disabled characters, but I guess there's More of them

hoyo has its own handful of biases and bigotry that are very evident in the game (especially when it comes to race and colorism), there's no arguing with that, but I do think a good chunk of it comes down to what is and what they perceive as marketable, and considering genshin Is a combat game, this is especially true for fat playable characters. people would throw a fit about fat characters being """unrealistic""" in a combat setting, and hoyo knows this. they know that certain disabilities could get similar backlash or at least not be seen as being as "cool", and they know that, especially in east asian countries where colorism is very prevalent, dark skinned characters wouldn't make as much money. people like to act like because hoyo is a chinese company, they could have no possible clue that any of these things are problems, which is it's own insane brand of racism/orientalism from fans, but ultimately they are a multimillion dollar corporation trying to make as much money as they can, they know exactly what they're doing

there are many parts of the game that you can tell are made with genuine love for the story and the craft, I'm not saying it's all a nefarious cash grab, they Do care about quality and storytelling - that's clear in the intricacy of the lore and the beauty of the game itself. genshin is a game made by people trying to make good art, and I want to acknowledge that, but those people also work for a multimillion dollar company that gets the final say. I'm not trying to be pessimistic and say genshin will Never change, or that they Always bend to fan service and marketability, I do think there's hope! they've gotten better about a lot of these things! but I don't think that any of the issues you mentioned are Fixed by any means, and sadly a lot of the positive improvements have negative and disappointing counterparts

[satorugojooo]

hi so i've recently done the sumeru archon quest and the entire time for which i was with alhaitham i couldn't help but keep seeing him as a peacock so i was wondering if you could write something with alhaitham where the reader keeps calling him a peacock because i just think his reactions would be funny

A/n: sorry for the late reply but I've been busy with a lot of things since I'll start my final school year in some days! I honestly agree so much like Alhaitham gives off peacock vibes he's literally just like one.

Pairings: Alhaitham x gn!reader

Warnings: just spoilers from the sumeru archon quest

You were a secretary in the Akademiya, you owned a dendro vision and you were pretty smart in everyone's eyes. You didn't know what was going on in Port Ormos but many scholars said that they got scammed by some Emerites, so for the sake of the scholars you were sent by the sages to get rid of these so called scammers.

As you walked around you noticed some Emerites talking to a boy from a foreign land, and another tall men that you barely knew about. His name was Alhaitham if you recalled correctly and he was working under the Akademiya. As you approached them you saw the Emerites throw some mora at the boy.

"This isn't over Alhaitham, mark my words." one of them said as you walked to them.

"Hm? Y/n, I don't think we had the pleasure to properly make acquaintance." Alhaitham said when he saw you stop in front of him.

"Yes we didn't, but I know of you. Tell me, we're those the Emerites that scam a lot of people and scholars?" you said and he nodded.

"Yes that's indeed true, do you have some business with them perhaps?" he told you and you just nodded.

"Yes, I was sent here on the behalf of the Akademiya because many scholars got scammed." you said and he nodded.

"What about we both track them down Hm?" he asked and you looked surprised. For alhaitham to help someone well, he had a very rational way of thinking and didn't let emotions affect him, so he surely wanted something out of this situation.

"Mmm alright, but how are we going to track them?" you asked and he just gave you a sly smile.

"With the help of this traveler of course." he said and he told you everything he knew abt this traveler. After planning everything the traveler left to see a merchant called dori.

As you and Alhaitham strolled trough the busy streets from Port Ormos you looked at him.

"So how does it come that I never got to talk to you even tho your working under the Akademiya like me?" you asked and he just shrugged.

"The sages always keep you busy, I couldn't even see you in the Akademiya, so approaching you was impossible." he said and you nodded.

"The sages can be... A bit weird I gotta admit but I have no choice but to obey them" you told him and he looked at you annoyed.

"Those sages are the shame of the nation, who would thought such people would represent the land of wisdom." he said and you couldn't help but chuckle.

"What's so funny?" he asked all of a sudden and you smiled at him.

"Ah nothing really you just reminded me of a peacock." you said and he looked at you shocked. It was the first time Alhaitham was left speachless by someone.

"À what now ??" he asked and you started laughing while going ahead.

"What you heard Mr Peacock~"you said and he walked up to you to hold your wrist. Exactly when you turned to him to look in his beautiful eyes as he looked at you, the both of you were interrupted.

"So uhm... Are we interrupting something?" Paimon said and you quickly snatched your hand from his grip looking in the ground.

"Ah traveler your back, well then did you manage to get dori on your side?" Alhaitham asked acting as if nothing happened.

"She said she will have some new products in some days, so that's when we will visit her again." Paimon said and Alhaitham nodded.

"Okay then, well see each other in 2 days." he said and with that the traveler left.

"Come" Alhaitham said and you looked at him quizzically.

"Where are we going?" you asked and he just shook his head.

"We will stay in the building owned by the Akademiya for now, we can't leave the Emerites without seeing what are they up too." he said and you nodded.

"Fine by me Peacock." you said and he gave you a sharp look.

"What do I have to do for you to stop calling me like that?" he said and you chuckled.

"I'm not so sure sir but it's a fitting name" you said and exactly when he wanted to approach you someone frowned.

"Seriously? Even here I bump into your annoying head?" the voice said and you looked only to see Kaveh. You knew that he was living with Alhaitham because he had huge debt but you didn't know more about that matter.

"What are you doing here Kaveh..." Alhaitham said with a straight face and Kaveh came to you. You encountered him a few times while he planned the library in the Akademiya and he was a very easy going guy.

"The question is why are you with y/n hm you really want to annoy them as well?" he said putting an arm over you and you just gave him a sharp look.

"Nice to see you too Kaveh." you said and he just smiled down at you.

"long time no see y/n!" he said and you nodded.

"Kaveh didn't you learn about private space? And you can continue your business here I bet you did not come here to meet y/n right." Alhaitham said pushing Kaveh lightly.

"Are you jealous or what now?" Kaveh said and you didn't want them to argue.

"Oh what about we calm down Hm? Kaveh, me and Alhaitham had business with the Akademiya so we should go to the residence owned by the Akademiya." you said and he frowned.

"Fineee, but be careful with this peacock y/n, hes à weird one." he said and Alhaitham gave him an annoyed look trying to go after him. You quickly placed your hand on his chest stopping him.

"No need to go after him, your smarter aren't you?" you said and for a brief second you saw him soften his look.

"Yes your right... I apologize that you had to see that side of me too." he told you and you smiled.

"It's okay, I won't judge you for that because I can't really agree with Kaveh, I think that your quite misunderstood by him." you said and he gave you a puzzled look.

"Oh? Does that mean I value something in your eyes?" he asked getting closer and you just shrugged.

"Maybee~" you said and started walking ahead him.

The next day you both were looking at the sunset together after you got to see how it is to work outside the Akademiya.

"Thank you for these days Alhaitham, I don't think I would had the chance to witness so much without you." you said and he just smiled.

"It's nothing really, I'm glad you enjoyed your time." he said and you nodded.

"I hope to see you even after this mess ends." you said and he looked at the sky.

"Of you want to see me then we will meet again no matter what." he said and you looked at him.

"Thank you Mr Peacock~" you said giggling and he gave you a surprised look.

"Oh come on I thought you quit with that nickname." he said while getting closer to you.

"Nope that's my way of saying that I care for you so I won't quit." you said and he looked at you.

"You... Care for me?" he asked and then you realized what you said.

"Uhh, I mean, I care for every friend... Yes that right!" you tried to mumble but seeing that he gave you a smile you lowered your head defeated.

"Oh come now no need to hide, after all..." he said taking your chin and making you look in his eyes.

"I care for you as well." he said as he closed the distance between you two.

The traveler and paimon approached Port Ormos in hopes to find Alhaitham and Y/n but when they did... They were quite stunned.

"Are those two... Alhaitham and Y/n??" Paimon said and Aether just chuckled as he shook his head.

"Let's go paimon, we don't wanna interrupt anything." he said walking away.