Rb To Give Your Mutuals A Silly Little Paper Valentine Card And A Red Heart Shaped Lollipop 💖

im sick of signing in to things

your gender is: those stained glass drawings you made in elementary school

Sounds good to me :D

1/2

Hello Pen Jr.

I agree! This made me have a completely separate but related thought. I hope it's okay that I share it with you and I'm definitely open to disagreements and other ways of looking at it!

I look back at the original "the curtains are just blue" meme and find the process of what it morphed into really interesting. Originally, the meme was expressing the frustration of American (and in my experience, Canadian as well) highschool asking you to examine the themes of writing without really being giving you the tools to do so. We're told what a metaphor (and the metaphor's cousins, like similies) is and how to use it, but we weren't taught about the principles of examining themes. In my english class, we were given a handful of assignments that surrounded analyzing surface level themes, but no projects that really delve into it. The student has no idea how you know when something is symbolism or when it's just a description, how a single object can be symbolic of completely different things depending on the context and characters interacting with it, etc. The student doesn't know that they don't delve deeper into this stuff because school boards are largely driven by industrialists who want school to be about preparing you to work and don't find things like media analysis nessecary, so of course it feels like the teacher is just asking you to do the impossible task of reading the author's mind.

But then, the "the curtains are just blue" meme kinda blew up and morphed into the version of the meme that you were (rightfully) complaining about (for lack of better words). It became very in-line with the views of the industrialists that (one could argue) caused the meme in the first place. Or atleast, caused the problem that inspired the meme. It became this idea that analyzing literature is boring, unnecessary, and does nothing to help you learn what's really important. A weird kind of cycle, yeah?

I'd like to do more research on this, but I really struggle to understand academic papers and stuff like that. I just think it's neat! Do you also think it's neat?

YES!

I felt very similarly about the story. Of course it's not unusual for the archon quests to feel unsatisfying when it comes to connecting with most of the characters, it's basically designed to introduce you to them and give you the option to follow up with their story/hangout quest later.

But yes, I definitely feel like we didn't really get to get close with the characters enough, which is ironic given all of the filler haha. I think it would be interesting if the Traveler began to question their bonds with the people they meet because of their fame, but tbh I don't think they'd really allow the Traveler to question any kind of playable character that isn't a Fatui.

Going back to your points, I agree that Natlan didn't hit the same "peak" or "hype" as Fontaine. However! It's true that Natlan made me cry a lot more than Fontaine. I'd say that Fontaine was a cool and epic story, while Natlan is about tragedy and sacrifice. While they both have a theme about hope, they approach it with very different tones. And yes, there are very sad moments in Fontaine, but I think the ones in Natlan were more relatable. That's why although the end battle in Natlan wasn't as thrilling as I expected, I don't think that it means the overall story was bad.

I also wanted to add something else that was great about the Natlan quest, the way it demonstrated the bond with Paimon and her separation anxiety. Every moment with her felt sweet and truly like we had been friends for as many years as we've known her irl. They could never get me to hate u Paimon <3

Additionally, Capitano perfectly encapsulated what somebody with a strong sense of honor looks like. It's a mixture of self-sacrificing, stubbornness, and deep respect for all life around them. I LOVE characters with strong honor, it's a trope that I'm kind of sad has faded over time. [Tbh it's kind of weird that I don't like Kazuha more, he's also a man of honor.]

Overall, I don't mind seeing harsher criticisms of the story. I could probably look back at my reactions in my servers and remember parts that I genuinely disliked, but I'd rather hear other people's thoughts. (Sidenote: once saw somebody who did a bad faith review on the final Natlan story, like...homie you had to have spent weeks of your life to get to this point in Genshin, why did you do this to yourself 😭 they made some good points but the vibes were atrocious haha.) Like with every new region, I had a good time after the first version, especially with all of that fascinating lore!

Friendship is magic, and buddy, I could kill an eldritch horror. <- the Traveler probably

Natlan review time!

Finished the Natlan AQ and Idk how to explain it but Natlan is the only nation where I grew an attachment to the nation itself rather than any one particular character in general.

One thing I liked about this nation is that despite the fact that like Fontaine, a plan to save the nation was already in place before the Traveler arrived there, however, unlike Fontaine, it didn't make the Traveler's presence feel like a passerby or a member of the audience.

It felt like their decisions and their contributions mattered. That the praise they received by the characters and npcs in Natlan was actually earned rather than glazing the MC just to make players feel important.

I think a consequence of Natlan being so late into the game (second last to Snezhnaya) is that they needed to shove as many answers about Teyvat and start tying all the plot points together to set up the endgame, which lead to not enough time spent on the main cast of characters.

The key theme of "No one fights alone" actually feels like it means something, and they actually live up to that and you get to see the contributions of the other characters, and not just the playable ones in your final fight with the abyss. Makes your victory feel earned.

I feel like people comparing it to Fontaine shouldn't really be doing it. It's not a fair comparison cause Natlan isn't going for the same thing as Fontaine did. They're two different stories, if they just did rehash of Fontaine it'd just be boring.

Natlan didn't reach the emotional highs that Fontaine did, but that's fine because not every nation needs to be an emotional sobfest. It's okay, to have a happy/hopeful ending sometimes.

(Although ngl Capitano's sacrifice got me a little teary eyes. MY GOAT!)

At the end of the day Natlan was about humanity coming together to fight against impossible odds and finding hope to continue fighting for a better tomorrow. Which they succeeded in conveying.

People will call the "power for friendship" thing corny, but imo y'all are just miserable and bitter. Cause fuck what all of you say, cause humans coming together to support each to defeat an godlike entity is hype as hell!

Truly the shounen arc of Genshin Impact.

Overall Natlan's AQs gets a solid 9.5/10 from me.

Ninja fever...

insane men covered in blood. you agree. reblog.

I'm teaching my sister how to play Genshin Impact on my account, and I've taught her enough to do a daily commission.

She doesn't know how far 2000m is.

I'm having a blast