the symbolic potential of handwriting in ganqing
this essay is adapted from some notes i wrote to myself when scribbling out some thoughts on an as-of-yet unwritten ganqing fic that has come to be called "the chalk wall au" for its premise: the setting is complicated, an almost-reincarnation au of sorts where teyvat is in the modern era, and while Visions and the like existed in the past, but no longer in the present day. ganyu, as an immortal adeptus, has lived from the archon war to this present day.
the premise essentially goes as such: college students ganyu and keqing frequent the same café at different times to work on essays for a class they technically share, but attend different lecture times for, because the café's walls are massive chalkboards, and they like to take advantage of the café's gimmick to outline their essays on the walls. their ideals clash as they scribble notes n rebuttals all over the outlines they each leave behind, but even after the first essay is finished n graded, they continue to communicate through notes left on the café walls, eventually realizing they have a lot in common and falling in love w/o ever realizing that the person on the other side is the girl with whom they are always arguing in their discussion period n have sworn they would never understand.
it is also impossible to talk about these scribbles without also mentioning that they draw heavily on my thoughts n experiences as a half-taiwanese.
originally written 22 may 2022.
for the chall wall au, could probably have keqing write entirely in "the standard modern shorthand" or w/e as ganyu prefers to write mostly longhand, referencing simplified n traditional charsets. like i could just straight up call them that, and i'm sure some people would find it more culturally authentic that way, but as someone who is culturally taiwanese living in a world where china dominates the language, i have too much pride in the traditional writing.
ganqing is abt two people coming to understand that they are similar at heart. this can be portrayed by them holding similar cultural values and views at their root, but are simply shown/acted on in very different ways. but for as minor as a thing as charsets should be, i can't help but to hold onto it out of defiance. so few people even realize there is a difference btwn charsets at all, let alone the history behind each one, so presenting ganqing as putting it aside in front of that kind of audience feels so… "you (the audience) don't have to think about it. it's ultimately not that important." but it FEELS so important to me!!! it feels like letting outsiders reinforce the idea of simplified as the default!!!
localizing it gives me a layer of separation from the issue. it makes it feel less like a betrayal if ganyu were to eventually come to stop looking down on it as a degradation of culture and just a different way of writing.
ganyu is just so important to me culturally, as a mixed taiwanese. there's an intersection btwn being mixed, minority status, heritage and culture, and guilt all the way down… god i can't imagine how guilty a character she must be all alone or with other adepti. genshin is stupidly important to me too for the representation it has given me specifically, even if it's probably not even intentional. i've never felt allowed to talk abt some of these feelings through characters until i had genshin, so i'm really digging at some things for the first time.
the struggles of holding onto pride and heritage… i genuinely believe in the importance of holding onto your history and heritage, so i understand why keqing would absolutely rub ganyu the wrong way: it can look like keqing is just tossing away her history, and how prideful that must look!!
but what keqing is doing is not throwing away her history or her heritage, but examining it with good faith and her whole heart, picking out its spirit and not its body and honoring it for its intent, the very values the traditions are based on. and keqing coming to realize that ganyu is not simply blindly following an action uncritically, but instead has lived through its founding and honors its intent with every fiber of her being when carrying out tradition, smth unattainable to most humans who have collectively let the memory grow fuzzy, and therefore kq coming to accept the role of tradition itself in being human, seeing its beauty and value as smth that is shared btwn people out of love… obsessed w the idea of them coming up with traditions together after a while, blending the old and the new like that.
this is the compromise i eventually arrived at when representing their handwritings for this fic.
originally written 3 november 2022
ganyu is obviously still thousands of years old n is writing in perfect, beautiful Traditional— but she also still served as a secretary for thousands of years, a perfect n detailed note-taker. she obvs probably writes at blinding speed, but it would be cool if her method of shorthand was just writing in perfect Classical chinese!! using all these obscure n obscenely specific words, omitting anything that can just be implied through context…
canonically, she is said to be forgetful due to her old age, but i imagine that's at least in part due to the increased pace of human life, esp compared to all her time in existence, so i imagine that it's more her memory for what's in ~Fashion~, specifically, that she struggles with. her foundational skills are untouchable, laser engraved into stainless steel by this point.
keqing, on the other hand, has already been decided to write in "modern standard shorthand"— i.e. rather than liyue undergoing a Cultural Revolution of some sort for some reason, the words have naturally shifted, simplified, n combined through time until eventually, there came to be official standardization of it, taught in schools alongside their traditional equivalents (which come a bit later, like cursive in the west). This IS To Make Me, Specifically, Feel Better.
anyway, i imagine their simplified equivalent is more prevalent in private handwriting, with kids/things aimed at people w/lower literacy, and when smth wants to have a casual, handwritten feel; while their traditional equivalent is much more often typed, or exists in literature where that kind of nuance can be important. like shakespeare n classical chinese, to (hand) write in traditional would typically associated with high class n high education (and all the snobby gatekeeping that is presumed alongside it).
what these things therefore imply abt ganqing is indeed their ability to perfectly mutually understand each other outside their vastly different presentations.
ganyu's ability to read kq's scribbled, shorthanded slang/common vernacular (白話) perfectly speaks to her years of experience n her presence amongst humans as she watches them change. xiao, who likely was never much of a reader, probably struggles to follow along w/things written entirely in shorthand, n yanfei is unlike ganyu in that the former defaults mostly to writing either in shorthand or traditionally-written common vernacular (白話) (though probably a mix of both tbh).
anyway, it also speaks to keqing's education that she can understand exactly what ganyu is saying in the Classical Way™. it means she has studied n learned the classics very well!! she is simply making the Educated Decision to disagree.
they speak/write the same language, but in a way that shows their different origins in time, basically, and reflect the way they view the world as a result.