#definitely hit me when i saw it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yuesya · 3 months

Note

I'm eager to hear your complaints about Fontaine's last story segment.

Haha Fontaine complaints! (Cracks knuckles)

Also: Spoilers ahoy! If you’re someone who plays Genshin Impact and has not finished the Fontaine archon quests, then I do not recommend reading any of this.

I’d also like to add: Fontaine’s main story definitely had some bright spots for me, and there were various scenes and tidbits that I enjoyed. That said, I also had several complaints by the end of it all. This entire thing also... got pretty lengthy, whoops.

… Anways! Without further ado:

1) Furina’s Trial

Personally, I am not a fan of the way that Furina’s trial was handled.

Firstly, the setup involved in luring Furina into their initial trap: The boat/house that was transported to the opera house courtroom. This was accomplished through psychological torment and manipulation, in which people were purposefully incited into targeting her.

When the walls eventually fall down around Furina and reveal her standing inside the stage of the courtroom, the Traveler has a line somewhere around there when she tells Furina that she had her last chance to come clean with her secrets to them, right before these walls came down. Here, I just wanted to ask –clearly there was already a full house in the audience seating, and they literally brought Furina onstage. Even if Furina did decide to come clean in those last few moments, what were they expecting to do? “… Hey everyone, sorry there’s no trial happening after all! You can all go home now, the show’s over!”

Moreover, the trial itself. Furina was driven into a corner and put on the spot, and she was publicly grilled and humiliated in front of an audience. The Primordial Seawater test was also… just, why would you do that? Bringing in a harmful substance and forcing someone to test it on themselves in front of an audience? Sure, it might’ve been diluted to a ‘safe’ level. But instead of just saying that and informing Furina that a Fontaine person would show corresponding symptoms anyways, Traveler & Navia chose to present it to Furina as a lethal substance. Aside from causing mental anguish, I fail to see the point of it.

“But this trial is necessary! Furina won’t tell us what’s going on otherwise.”

Alright, then let’s just commit to that. It’s necessary for everyone to take on an antagonistic role in order to drag Furina to court and make the truth come to light.

But can’t we still… address things, in the aftermath? You can argue that Traveler & co. were trying to act for the ‘greater good.’ The fate of Fontaine was at stake. Still, even if the tactics used in bringing Furina to court and trialing her were necessary, lying and manipulating and gaslighting someone is not the right thing to do.

Except does anyone properly acknowledge that in the aftermath? Is there anyone who admits that this is a terrible thing they’ve done, and makes that clear? Did anyone apologize to Furina for forcing her through such a traumatizing experience? (Side-eyes Paimon in Furina’s character quest.)

Nah, instead we just save a country and give ourselves a pat on the back for doing a great job.

Happy Ending!

2) Focalors’ Death

I want to preface this by saying that I understand Focalors is the Hydro Archon, so in order to get rid of the Hydro Throne her death was probably inevitable, from a godly perspective.

From a human perspective, however, Focalors is innocent. She was not the one who committed the original ‘sin’ of using the power of the Primordial Sea to turn Oceanids into pseudo-humans. And yet she is the one who must pay for it. The only resolution we have to this is that Furina now gets to live her life freely as a human. Now, it might just be me, but for all that Furina was split off and created from Focalors’ humanity, the two of them are essentially seem to be two separate, different beings.

3) Humans vs. Gods

Thematically, Fontaine’s story seems a little mismatched when compared with the other regions.

In Mondstadt, its people play an active role, as seen in how the Knights of Favonius (and Diluc) join Venti in helping Dvalin and restoring peace.

In Liyue, we see the people stepping out from the gods’ purview. With the ‘death’ of Rex Lapis, the Qixing declare that the age of humanity has come, and it’s the people of Liyue working together towards a new future.

Inazuma has people literally fighting a war and rebelling against their archon; in the end, Raiden hears the cries of her people and she is the one who changes, in response to her people’s hopes.

In Sumeru, Nahida is locked up by her people (the Sages) but also saved by her people (Alhaitham, Cyno, Nilou, etc.) And in the fight against false god!Scaramouche, Nahida connects the Traveler to her Akasha terminal (?) and literally uses the collective wisdom of all of Sumeru’s people to assist in the fight.

For all four of these regions, it’s the people who step up and play important roles in resolving their respective nations’ crises.

In Fontaine, we do see its people also tackling various problems –Navia with her Spina di Rosula, Wriothesley and his flying ship– but in regards to the most important issue that’s the ominous prophecy hanging over their heads?

Neuvillette, a Dragon Sovereign, is the one who saves Fontaine’s people from Primordial Seawater by turning them fully into regular humans. Focalors, the Hydro Archon, executes herself in order to give Neuvillette the power to do so –and that’s not even mentioning her meticulous plan to fool Celestia, and the 500 years of silent suffering that Furina endured.

Focalors’ sacrifice is essentially what saves Fontaine, in the end. Divine intervention.

4) Meropide Detective Arc

This is a lot more minor, but it feels like we spend a lot of time running in Meropide looking for clues and learning about useless things that didn’t play any significant role towards the main plot of the archon quest.

You spend days and days running around the prison, and in the end you find out it’s only important because Wriothesley wants to test your observational skills. My dude, that is really not the most important thing here!

Personally, I think Sigewinne’s thing with cooking suspicious-looking food would’ve made a better character quest than a side tangent in the main story. I don’t even remember what the betting ring was about anymore.

I think I would’ve liked a stronger focus on what we originally came there to look for –investigating Childe’s disappearance– which might’ve wrapped up the jail arc a lot quicker, true. But maybe we could’ve gone back and spent more time with Furina instead? Maybe discover for ourselves that Furina is hiding things, and talk to her more, get to know her better? … It would provide more context and an extra ‘oomph’ for the upcoming Furina Trial, at the very least.

5) Powerscaling?

Okay this is definitely a LOT more minor, but. Powerscaling. It feels like things just escalated very, very quickly in Fontaine.

Childe. We know he’s strong, we fought him back in Liyue. Except Neuvillette crushes him in his Abyss form in, what. Less than a second?

Eventually, we encounter Skirk at the end. We find out that the space whale responsibly for nearly destroying Fontaine is just her master’s “pet,” which implies a whole other level of terrifying power that exists out there, along with whatever faction Skirk happens to be a part of.

It would be cool if we get to learn about Skirk more in the future, but overall there seems to be a lot of higher power appearing after higher power in Fontaine. Maybe that's just me, though.

#QA #genshin impact #anyways #sorry for rambling hahaha #i had several gripes with fontaine's archon quest #that being said there were things that i liked #the case with girls disappearing and subsequently leading to the discovery of people dissolving into water?#definitely hit me when i saw it #navia's character was also well-written #except when she brought primordial seawater to furina's trial anyways #melus and silver protecting her even as oceanids was nicely done too #there were also cool cutscenes!#several cool cutscenes throughout fontaine storyline

34 notes · View notes

memorydragon · 4 months

Text

Some thoughts on Yan Xie

So I've written two posts about how normal I am about Jiang Ting, I figured I should at least make a post about Yan Xie as well. (If you're tired of my general unhinged-ness about these gay coproganda novels, I hate to tell you this, but you're getting more)

Let me start off by saying that Yan Xie is really not my kind of character. Like, yes, I'm unhinged about him too now, but it was definitely not a blorbo at first sight. I think I've said this before, but he's a dumbass, not a himbo. The distinction being he is very much not pure of heart, his hand is very dishonestly sitting in Jiang Ting's lap (listen, don't ask me why that line absolutely tickled me, but it did) and he's very much the 'straight male cancer' that everyone calls him. (English, please adopt this phrase from Chinese because it's such a good phrase)

When Jiang Ting asks him if he's ever cut an onion, he answers without a hint of irony that he's a man, of course he's never been in the kitchen. He comes from a fuck ton of money and is a criminal investigator because Chief Wei went to his father when Yan Xie turned 18 and said "He's either going to be caught by the police and put in jail, or he can join the police and catch criminals." Like, I honestly hesitate over calling it coprogranda, because it is definitely coproganda, but at the same time the novel has no problem with acab and boy am I twice as terrified of the police here. Yan Xie very much embodies that.

He's aggressive, a natural born brawler, domineering, pushy (which is where I often disconnected with him) and very much a rebel without a cause. One of the things I love about his character is that the author actually does give us a bit of detail of his first few years in the police as a low level grunt. Aside from being funny, it's also very charming, that's he's climbing through windows to help elderly who are locked out, and other completely minor things.

Then he chases after a thief and ends up catching a drug dealer.

This propels him into Jiang Ting's world, just briefly. It was stupid and reckless, but incredibly honest in a way Jiang Ting couldn't be. Like, I've called it a crush, but I don't actually think it was love at first sight for Jiang Ting. It's more of a very strong impression of yearning, but this is not a post about Jiang Ting, so back to focusing on the dumbass.

Yan Xie isn't actually stupid. He's got lousy grades, but he is actually very good at his job. So he fights for getting the merit for stopping the drug dealer when the other district tries to give it to someone else. Jiang Ting eventually allows the merit to go to Yan Xie, and Yan Xie gets promoted and very complicated feelings towards the captain of the narcotics unit. He wants to transfer, but Chief Wei forces him to withdraw the request because the waters are too deep and he's still the son of the richest man in their district. So he becomes a criminal investigator, moving up through the ranks to be a young vice captain.

Which is where we see him at the start of the novel. He's still aggressive, domineering, and a rich young master. He's rude and crass and while he's got a cause now, he's still very rough and incomplete. And that's when Jiang Ting walks back into his life.

I said at the start that he's really not my cup of tea as a character, but where he really rubbed me wrong was with consent and being super pushy. Like, it wasn't enough to make me stop reading, but it was there and definitely hitting my buttons.

The first read through I basically ignored these characterizations like Nick Fury ignoring the council. After the sex scene Yan Xie's pushiness was much more tolerable, and what really sold me on the ship was that he made Jiang Ting, a perpetual frowning trauma kitten, laugh. Like, okay, I can forgive most of everything before for that.

The second read through, it was easier to see Jiang Ting's affection. I know I said this wasn't a Jiang Ting post, but he's a very subtle character and his reactions to Yan Xie were the main thing putting me off. But the second read through, I know when Jiang Ting is lying (all the time). It's also easier to see Jiang Ting genuinely involving himself with Yan Xie as that original yearning turns to affection. So while I'm still not fond of Yan Xie being drunk and deciding it's about time their relationship progressed to sex or the 'he says no but means yes' inherent in that sex scene (yup, I'm still ignoring that authorial decision, that's probably never going to change), a lot of the earlier scenes hit my buttons a lot less. Yes, he's pushy, but Jiang Ting is genuinely sus. He's pushy because he's frustrated that Jiang Ting won't tell the truth.

Putting aside how much 'You think because you pointed a gun at my head that I wouldn't miss you?' makes me absolutely feral, what really got me genuinely liking Yan Xie despite all of that is because he's honestly a well written character. When he and Jiang Ting get together, Jiang Ting doesn't change him to be a better person. Yan Xie changes himself.

This is a man who went through 108 blind dates that all ended with the girl saying 'you're rich and hot, but no thanks.' Like, he is rich and hot. He really should have no trouble getting a girl friend because there's bound to be a gold digger willing to put up with him. If he actually wanted to go out and have sex like the straight male he thought he was, he would not actually have problems with one night stands. But he doesn't want that. He knows he's not good dating material and Mother Yan's despair at ever getting a daughter-in-law was so real that she even picked up a book on legal issues about gay marriage before her son showed a remote interest in men, that's how desperate she was.

He's had no real reason to change and better himself, aside from continuing to be promoted in the police force. But then he falls and falls hard for Jiang Ting. He follows Jiang Ting into the kitchen and learns how to wash dishes and chop onions, genuinely learning that he actually likes to cook. He knows even though he's fallen hard for Jiang Ting, he still has to wait to be picked (which was honestly such a great scene. I replace the sex scene with that mentally for my own sanity). He's still crude, still a dumbass who runs his mouth and pushy, but he learns to also to make way for someone else in his life, to support their choices (when he's not being a bride-zilla. For someone who was convinced he was straight he so takes after his mother). When Jiang Ting has to go back undercover, instead of being unreasonable he knows he can't stop Jiang Ting from getting revenge, so he tells him that whatever happens, he'll still support Jiang Ting's choice.

For all of his hangups about having to be the top in the relationship, I firmly believe they're a switch couple (sorry, author, but once Jiang Ting works out a way through Yan Xie's Straight Male Cancer, you can't convince me otherwise. Not that Yan Xie would ever admit to switching out loud, but they totally do from time to time.) Like, you've proven that he'd let Jiang Ting get away with murder, you can't tell me he'd genuinely say no to anything Jiang Ting wanted.

What really endeared him to me though were the scenes when he does both physically and mentally hurt Jiang Ting. Because he is still rough around the edges, prickly in ways that can't be sanded down. He pushes, and sometimes he pushes too hard. But what gets me is after the realization he's pushed too far, he apologizes. Not an empty apology either, but forcibly biting back his temper to be gentle. He knows when he's gone too far, and he can't always stop himself, but he will back off and wipe away the dirty water from Jiang Ting's ankles or tend his scalded feet. He doesn't promise to never do it again, but he does actually learn to better accommodate and listen to Jiang Ting, and honestly, I love Yan Xie a lot for that. He's far from perfect, but he's trying, and he's willing to accept Jiang Ting despite Jiang Ting flat out telling him that yes, he's seen all Yan Xie has done for him, but he still can't trust.

That and this scene.

Like, it makes me completely unhinged and feral every single time and lives rent free in my head. Yan Xie really became the Most Blorbo at that point and I love him for that. No, I'm really not okay about this scene, it fucks me up good.

In conclusion, Yan Xie is probably more of a dog breed, but due to my slight cynophobia I could not tell you which one. So I have to default to cats. And as a cat, he is the fluffiest and most majestic orange cat. Like, he's a menace and very clever about opening closed doors or getting into treats (he is very good at his job as a criminal investigator after all. He may not be able to explain it in the same way Jiang Ting can, but his instincts and logic are top notch and he figures out a lot even without Jiang Ting there), but he's also the dumbest orange cat you'll ever see. He will majestically knock off a glass of water, then fall off when he tries to get up and strut away. I love you, Yan Xie, but oh my god, please use your braincells for things other than being a cop.

#Breaking through the Clouds #huai shang #This is Mem's life #meta and things #I'm a lot more feral about Them the second time around ngl #like I mean it when I say he's really well written as a character #which is what drew me to him in the end #despite all my personal hangups getting hit #He may be a dumbass but he's Jiang Ting's dumbass your honor #and he becomes a domesticated dumbass #definitely had to grow on me though #and making note of Jiang Ting's own steps in the relationship helped #anyway an immediate second reread of the first book got so many posts #And we all saw how feral I went over Tun Hai in comparison #so you'll probably get a lot more of my gay coproganda bs #sorry not sorry

3 notes · View notes