Lovely pp by https://lancestandford.tumblr.com and Header picture by qxrubes.tumblr.com 2ducking1(since 22.11.)&♀&Austria&scorpio&loves henry to much tbh :3
I find it hilarious how pretty much almost every elder dragon is a "bender" of some sort, but Nergi in particular is just an elder dragon because he's angry enough to throw hands with literally anyone lol
Could you give more insight on how genshin treats trauma survivors? I know furina's treatment was messed up but I haven't noticed anywhere else
It’s been a problem since the start of the game, and there’s a lot of crossover with how “palatable” towards the Traveler the playable characters are and a prevailing attitude I want to bring up that isn’t even exclusive to Genshin. There’s been patterns in the way the game (and by extension, the fandom) treats playable characters who went through some shit, whether it was in the past or still ongoing. A lot of it does have to do with whether they appeal to the Traveler’s power fantasy (for otakus by otakus) and it clashes with how much the game also tries to put realistic depictions of trauma in the characters alongside it.
Characters like Kaeya, Furina, Sayu, and even a guy who’s just tired of dealing with social graces like Alhaitham touch upon some pretty realistic reactions that people might have to traumatic events. In the case of Sayu, Kaeya and Furina, they all have the double whammy of having grown up with multiple bad days to the point of being used to it and had to deal with a massive and recent event that changed their lives. All of them also have something in common - their reactions and everyday behaviors aren’t “pretty” enough for a lot of people, and that clashes with the Traveler fantasy meant to appeal to players. They don’t instantly melt after being around the Traveler, they still have their walls up even after spending multiple quests with them and it’s a slow process for them to lower them for the Traveler. (Let’s put a pin in that cause I have a long explanation for why a lot of trauma survivors will come off like that further down). In the game and even in real life, this kind of thing tends to get treated like something that the right person (TM) needs to swoop in and “fix”, or gets oversimplified into “hurt people hurt people” while depicting them as behavioral problems that can’t ever be humanized or given a chance. Especially if they’re not immediately warming up to someone who’s trying to be “nice” and the other person took it as a personal blow to their ego and precious moral image of themselves.
And this is only one part of the issue - it’s supplemented by how characters who act extremely bubbly and eager to please, and even those who aren’t friendly but still get attached to the Traveler almost instantly are treated so much more sympathetically in-game. I’m talking about characters like Xiao, Diluc, Eula, Shenhe (with her it’s especially noticeable because she had Cloud Retainer and others in her life before the Traveler - and it’s only after she meets them that those people who have been there all along are suddenly at her side regularly as if the Traveler’s some magic catalyst). Some even have their legitimately worrying issues downplayed by the narrative because “omg look how much they simp for the Traveler! Look how much they want to please others often to their own detriment! So moral and good and will totally be rewarded by having their lives magically changed by the amazing and good (TM) Traveler!” Characters like Jean, Barbara, Kaveh (who ironically actually started falling out of this when he got hangouts with the Traveler so I’ll give them this one), etc. Even without the Traveler involved, there’s still plenty of stories between characters who are treated like they just need to keep getting forcefully helped and their personal space invaded by some “ray of sunshine” type character enough times before they melt their icy heart and learn to accept the love in their lives (the most egregious being Collei’s manga story). The reason I have issues with these types of stories is because of how they’re often approached from a surface level, from an outside perspective looking in that doesn’t consider the nuances and can even be dangerous to survivors. And it’s not just a Genshin issue.
Analogy time: a hard pill to swallow is that 95% of the time what looks like ice around a trauma survivor’s heart isn’t actually ice - it’s a multiply locked safe that the owner isn’t giving away the keys to anytime soon. You can use fire to melt ice, but you know what happens when you use that on a safe? You’ll just end up creating a bigger mess and not only is there a high chance that you haven’t opened up the safe, but you’ll end up with an even more pissed safekeeper who now has more reason to not give you the keys.
A lot of trauma survivors won’t instantly fawn over someone after one round of being nice, because especially right off the heels of a traumatic event their nerves are on high alert and will interpret everything around them as a threat no matter how small, and it’s more important to them that those triggers aren’t touched than to have someone show them now “nice” they can be. This is why even well-meaning actions that might work on someone else could cause a breakdown in a trauma survivor, such as hugging without asking or making even small decisions for them - as someone who’s been there, those specific actions can make someone feel trapped physically or mentally, respectively. And their first priority is often to try and escape this repeat of a bad situation they’re all too familiar with, which doesn’t leave any room to register how “nice” someone is being and why so many trauma survivors look “mean” or “aloof.” Sometimes they’ll even go the extra mile and act in a way that’ll drive everyone away before they have a chance to cross their boundaries and send them into fight or flight mode again, because that shit’s a bigger deal than people realize. Trauma triggers can even seep into someone’s physical health if tripped multiple times. It’s never about any personal vendetta against any helpers, and it’s not set in stone - the more time they spend in an environment that doesn’t step on those nerves and getting professional help, the faster they will be able to recover and heal. Don’t expect overnight results though even then, a lot of people take about 2-3 years to get used to a different status quo, some even longer (and that’s okay - hang in there. No shame in taking longer).
Unfortunately that just so happens to clash with the way Genshin wants to depict the Traveler and their amazing ability to have people gravitate towards them. Depicting trauma survivors realistically and in different ways means acknowledging that character wouldn’t be someone who exists solely to make your player character (or some stereotypically helpful other character) feel amazing about how much of a good person they are. Because building rapport with such characters would actually require time, work and actively listening to what they say and respecting any boundaries they might put up, and accepting that these characters won’t and will likely never end up kissing your shoes - stuff that completely clashes with a lot of the player fantasies like “Aether’s Harem”. And when it’s a game that all too often wants their player character to have their cake and eat it too…
Those characters I mentioned above that don’t just trust the Traveler or “have their heart melted” in a short period of time? It’s not because they don’t understand morality. Oftentimes their repulsive traits are deliberate (I’ve discussed this about Kaeya and Alhaitham a lot in the past) because they don’t want their boundaries disrespected, so they’d rather people leave them alone or continue to think they’re untrustworthy rather than deal with people hurting them time and again. Survival strategies =/= broken morality.
-Like with Alhaitham, who gets shit on for existing around certain people and would rather completely avoid interaction with academics altogether or talk back when he feels disrespected. This goes against what’s expected of him as an academic in Sumeru and in general social situations. Long version here that I wrote up a long time ago
-And Furina, whose persona was specifically catered to throw people off her trail while she’s holding in so much for 500 years just to save Fontaine. Even after the truth is revealed, the real “her” isn’t the most friendly and open person in the world - and it’s completely understandable. She’s a pariah in the public eye, the Traveler and Paimon spend most of her Story Quest crossing her boundaries (since they are actively trying to build rapport with her in her Story Quest and the Traveler knows of her history of deliberately acting repulsive to make people leave her alone, whether they were right or not during the trial they are still some of the last people who should be overstepping while she’s trying to heal from 500 years of trauma) and we’re treated to them still acting like she’s actually a brat and treating her like she’s the bad guy for not opening up so easily after they try to “help” her in a way that actually hurts her…again, using a blowtorch on a locked safe. The biggest gripe I have with her arc is how she’s forced to “get over her shit” by many the same people who had a hand in severely hurting her, and is treated like she’s completely fine with it afterwards. As much as I love Furina a lot of her story elements give me the ick for this reason.
-This was originally going to be a section on Kaeya, but since it turned out longer than I anticipated like all my other thoughts on him I wrote a separate post about it and linked it here.
-To date I think they handled this best with Yoimiya and Sayu in the Mikawa Flower Festival. Sayu rebuffs everyone whether they try to set her straight, praise her or even help her, and it’s understandable. Whether those interactions were positive or negative on a surface level, they didn’t truly address what she needs - to give her space to deal with the loss of her sensei, to let her rest so she can not only grow but take a breather from all the pressure she’s under for someone her age, and for someone to defend her for once and not always treat her like she’s a problem. Despite what everyone says, she doesn’t need to be constantly supervised and shoved into doing the right thing and needed someone to realize that enough to loosen their grip on her for five minutes. In her hangouts, she’s shown to have developed her own sense of values even without needing someone to push her - she won’t let an innocent get hurt if it means sacrificing her nap time, and she chides her fellow ninja for leaving their stuff out in the open where it could be taken or hurt people and animals that come across them. Also, a kid that age dealing with training, missions, chores, unsympathetic adults, peer pressure and losing someone who understood her? That’s someone who really needs some damn rest (especially with how fuzzy her mind seems to be whenever she shows up) and the last character who should be the butt of yet another one of Genshin’s “haha lazy character, good and moral Traveler needs to bring them to their senses” punchlines. To me, she doesn’t come off as a brat or wanting to make people’s lives harder when she runs away or acts aloof - no one’s listening to her and if she can’t make her case, then maybe getting away from them might help her get some of that precious rest.
Initially, even Yoimiya gets rebuffed by her for getting too much into her space even though she’s trying to be helpful - and that’s not an issue of Sayu or Yoimiya’s characters, it’s something that commonly happens when a trauma survivor isn’t at their best. And yet, not only does Yoimiya never take this personally or continue doing the same thing until she “lightens up”, she does become more receptive to Sayu’s needs, ends up defending her from unnecessary criticism in the Mikawa Flower Festival and offers her breaks without any strings attached. This meant enough to Sayu to the point where she decides to continue the competition for Yoimiya’s sake, entirely of her own volition. After seeing how everyone tended to act towards Sayu and how frustrated she could get over it, this was absolutely cathartic to watch. They’re not best friends at the end of the Festival by a long shot (also understandable - even after defending someone building trust takes time) but they definitely have an improved relationship and I’m looking forward to seeing more of it.
I’ll be the first to admit that I liked the hangouts even when they didn’t seem relevant to the overall plot for this reason, especially the ones they released after Inazuma. Because they involved building rapport by listening to the starring character and respecting what they specifically needed from the Traveler to trust them. And I liked the variations in how they played out, from losing rapport easily for characters they just met (Chongyun, Diona - you get brutally penalized for not listening to her instructions in one branch) to not being able to lose any with someone who’s been there for them since the very beginning (Kaeya). They don’t always hit perfectly, but when they were good, they were GOOD (like Yun Jin’s and Kaeya’s). The Traveler was at their best characterization-wise in the hangouts for this reason as well.
That was such a long post, but I hope that was an adequate explanation.
When I was but a wee baby high schooler I made this on my school issued chromebook and posted it to my og tumblr blog and I just knew in my heart it would do numbers but alas it got 1 note. (me on my other blog)
origamiaround
germansingergirl
janainaart
kaledo-art
romaincrisis
