Reasons to read this book :
- I like to talk with people about ships
- I don't ship problematic ships
- My ships are nice and can make you discover cool things (edits, fanfics...)
Reasons not to read this book :
- Most of my ships are gay, and if I'...
Tropes : Eternal love, Friends to lovers, Opposites attract, Divine date, Light feminine and dark feminine
Song I associate them with : I wanna be yours, Arctic Monkeys (kinda the song for all the genshin ships tbh)
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(Miko on the left, Ei on the right)
Do I play Genshin ? No, absolutely not.
But I have some friends that do, and since it seems impossible to make them talk about another topic, I got along with it and asked them about the thing that interest me : the lore.
Of course, just in order to find new ships. God I'm so weak
It's really convenient for me, if you think about it. Everything that interests me (characters' background, most shipped pairings...) without the hours spent on farming or playing.
But I'm gonna be honest : my knowledge of the lore is still very poor. Even for this ship, there are elements of their story that I don't get when I read canon compliant fanfics. that said, I'm sorry if I write wrong things, I'm even less a specialist than usual so if you're a Genshin Impact expert, feel free to correct me.
So, this ship.
Did I already tell you that I like PAIN ? Like truly, what trop can pride itself of making you feel more conflicted emotions at once than hurt/comfort ?
And oh boy, this ship has potential in this area.
Let's just sum up their relationship, with a big SPOILER ALERT /!\.
Ei, goddess of Inazuma, and Miko, her faithful (and most powerful) servant, were friends that cared deeply for each other. Yet, because of the death of her sister and of her friend during a war, Ei abandoned Miko and became obsessed with her quest of eternity, letting Miko take care of her empire instead of her, chosing to ignore that Miko was grieving too.
During 500 years, Miko stays loyal to Ei, while Ei makes some experiments with dolls, which I would be totally unable to explain to you. I can just say that, by doing so, she created Scaramouche and hurt more people (the reason why some people don't like this ships is usually because they don't like the characters, especially Ei).
Finally, the Traveler (Genshin Impact main character) and some other people, helped by Miko I think, stops her because her experiments went too far (she created a doll of herself that did some bad things, I think). Ei ends up redeeming herself.
After this poor sum up, Ei can really look like the bad guy. And that's what is interesting : she did bad things, no point denying it, but she's just a stubborn woman who got too convinced that she knows better than humans how to deal with grief and with the passage of time.
And of course, there is a lot to unpack in her relationship with Miko, loosely inspired by fanfics I read:
- both are and feel lonely as fuck
- Ei is attached to the past, and relies on her relationship with Miko to be the one thing that will never change. Yet it changed, for the better and for the worse, and Ei don't know how to deal with it at all.
- obviously, even if she tried not to be, Miko was hurt by her god's abandonment and is a bit resentful of the fact that Ei left the burden of her empire in Miko's hands.
- some issues regarding the fact that Ei is Miko's god and therefore that Miko should obey her, while obedience is not really in Miko's ways (despite her faithfulness)
- Miko is a very proud person, not one to admit her feelings or to admit that she's hurt, someone who always plays it off, while Ei is really dense and oblivious to the exterior world and to her own emotions sometimes.
- so definitely a lack of communication !
What also makes their dynamic interesting is that Miko is flirty, sharp with her words, deep down very attached to Ei but too scared to be left alone again to truly herself to really get close to Ei; while Ei is soooo oblivious and soooo dense.
Even in a fanfic with just fluff (not my favorite ones, as you may know), it's incredibly entertaining if the writer gets the characters voices on point.
Both of them can also be pretty scary, but they have a soft spot for each other, which is the cutest thing to witness.
So yeah, there might not be a lot of banter (sorry) because even though Miko is witty (and also cunning and a bit of a liar due to her kitsune origin), Ei is blunt and straight-forward, one might say tactless. But this is still incredibly fun to see them interact, I promise, and in my opinion we were a little robbed by the game because they should have had more scenes (in the future, hopefully).
I think I said everything I wanted to say. If you have anything to add, please write it in the comments.
Let me know also what is your favorite Genshin Impact ship in the comments, and feel free to write a whole rant to defend your fav. I'm genuinely interested.
I leave you with the fanfic that inspired it all : (Oh) for the love of God by seultoki. The other fanfics were either too sexual, centered on other ships or AUs, so not really my type, but this one... perfect
And I thought we could use some tiktoks since we're still gen z kids, but apparently we can't share tiktoks or links on Wattpad :( so just check the external link at the end of the chapter if you want to see one.
