#oh and my sexuality is vvv complicated but I generally prefer men so I would prefer not being shipped with a Genshin woman

[honeykaes]

Hello Chai! I’m awake at an ungodly hour by sheer accident, and I had been thinking over the ship question you asked the other day, and I think I have an answer I’m satisfied with now

I can only speak for myself really, but I think I boiled it down to a couple parts. First, I think its simply a matter of there being more material to work off of with Chaiya and Zhai. They’re the ones discussed the most, plus there’s galair’s art (always fantastic btw, hope to commission one day based on what you’ve posted here alone). It follows that those would be the ones people would gravitate towards the most, and for good reason! The way you write about them in particular is compelling, making them solid ships for you.

Secondly, I think its less a matter of appeasement and more…politeness might be the word? There’s a very subtle difference in my head, mainly having to do with intent. Its the fact that shipping involving two fictional characters, and shipping involving a real person are going to be slightly different. When it comes to two fictional characters, you can always fill in the extra info you need with headcanons, and with that more justifications for different pairings. That’s less possible when there’s a real person on the other side of the screen. From the point of view of an internet acquaintance, there’s always going to be things I don’t know about the other person, and so I have a less clear idea of different boundaries, or just simply likes and dislikes when it comes to romantic things. I try and keep a running document in my head, so to speak, to inform my answers for these kinds of things, but I only have a handful of months to work with or so? So with all of this, Chaiya and Zhai are safe boundaries to stay in because they have the clearest green light.

Additional personal notes that also might affect these two things, I confess that I actually don’t have much of an imagination when it comes to romance. My relationship with it as a concept has always been complicated, and that was even before any irl experience that didn’t exactly make things any better, since the way I think of things is apparently somewhat strange. Until I started trying to change it recently, romance just made me…sad I guess? So I can read and enjoy things other people write, but when it comes to trying to think of original things, romance ends up getting buried in several layers of something else, wether that’s body horror or one very specific concept from an Eastern Philosophy 101 class (fun fact Zhongli nearly made me quit the game for sounding exactly like my professor in the archon quest, but regardless became a leaping off point for a logistically complicated fic idea). Trying to excavate those layers is a lengthy process, but one I’m attempting to undertake, and being here is part of that (so thank you for making it a nice place to be).

That was probably more of an answer than you may have wanted, but I hope it made sense! If you’d like I can attempt to branch out shipping things in the future, just point me in the direction of things you might like in a person and I can go from there! (Plus, I do remember that you said once you have yourself unlabeled, so I wanted to ask if you would want ship responses to branch into Genshin women or not? Its something I want to be 100% sure on before going in that direction, since I haven’t been able to pick up a clear answer before)

—☁️ Anon

Haha no worries! This was really interesting to read and think about.

I think I worry just about people being nice vs honest with me when I prefer honesty a lot of times—which plants a seed in my head that it’s out of appeasement than politeness (not to say that I don’t respect it because I’ll take any crumbs of my selfship lmaoo)

When it comes to boundaries I completely understand but I’m more open because this concept really intrigues me!

But thank you for taking the time out to write all of this!