(back to xiaoven)

originally written 22 july 2022.

the other day nat n i were hanging out in blaze's genshin world, n we got to talking abt our biggest fears.

i mentioned that i'm HUGELY afraid of [possibly] going down to dinner w/my parents one night, n when they ask me abt my day, all self-control flies out the window n i start babbling abt xiaoven to them. like, the MORTIFICATION of that!!!

blaze tried to make light of it by joking that my parents would be pleasantly surprised n proud of my taste in fictional pairings, but i was like:

"nah, it's more like on the outside, they'd be confused, but inside, i know they're disappointedly thinking abt how they won't remember me after they die."

n like, obviously that is not gonna make a lot of obvious sense to most people, esp non-christians, so i had to further explain:

"when i was a kid, i asked my dad what happened to all the people we knew who ended up in hell, n he looked at me very seriously n said that all memory of them is wiped from our memory upon entering heaven, which is why you must make sure all of your friends are ~christian~"

obviously, there was a pause after that bc like. what the hell do you say to smth that's obviously religious trauma??? fortunately, nat diffused the situation by saying we could make a gay bar together in hell, n i was like, "and dedicate it to lil nas x, right???" n the conversation was saved!! huzzah!!

but it got me thinking anyway, of the absolute crazy serious shit dad's said to me through the years. like how "god has no grandchildren," meaning that just bc your parents are followers of christ, it doesn't mean you'll be automatically accepted into his grace either. now that's a fucked-up thing to say to a child!!!

there are a fair few religious themes that can be explored through xiaoven, n i'm not going to say i don't get a hell of a kick out of xiao describing himself as a sinner. like, they're no faults of his own, but he burdens himself w/their weight anyway, n then he has venti, who saves him w/his music, n suddenly he loves another god.

n venti rejects this form of love, this worship. bc he needs their relationship to be btwn equals.

smth smth, christianity n the whole, "i am incomplete w/o the love/mercy/forgiveness/grace/etc. of god n jesus," n my rejection of the idea that we as people are born incomplete, just as a grey-aro/ace. if we were made in god's image, why should we not already be complete?

[…]

i like xiaoven a lot as a rejection of a number of pretty ~christian~ things i learned n internalized growing up. smth abt falling in divine love w/a god who rejects that sort of thing in favor of being human– not bc it is human itself, but bc it loves humanity that dearly– in turn allowing yourself to accept yourself as deeply, perectly human, just gets to me, man.

xiao n ganyu's struggles w/faith, man. i should write a fic that parallels the way they put their respective gods (venti n zhongli) on pedestals, n how their falling in love (w/venti n keqing, respectively) forces them to rethink why they have faith, n what they are supposed to do with that faith. the way xiao comes to understand humanity a bit more, n sees that he is not so unlike them, n the way ganyu comes to understand the power humans have together, n how they are not so unlike her.