In Another World
On my return to substack after a year of titanic life change. But mostly, my return to the video game that got me through 2020.
Hey cool friends! It’s been awhile.
A lot has happened since I last posted. I did not intend to take such an extended hiatus. Long story short, there has been an extended illness and death in the family. I feel like I have been a custodian at the end of the world, and I’m trying to remember how to live with another vocation.
So I started playing Genshin Impact again. I first played back in 2020 on the Asia server as a way to spend time with my brother while he was in grad school in Korea. This time I restarted on the America server to play with my nonbinary neiphew* who lives in Maryland. Though I have to confess at this point, I am mostly playing it for me.
Genshin Impact is a free-to-play open world Chinese fantasy RPG that takes place in a fictional world called Teyvat. You play as The Traveller, one of a set of twins from another world separated by a mysterious god and searching for their lost sibling. Teyvat is comprised of seven nations based roughly on real-world cultures and mythology. For example, you start the game in a nation called Monstadt which is based on fantasy medieval Germany, and next travel to Liyue, based on mythical ancient China. You visit the nations of Teyvat one by one and get roped into this larger story woven of the aforementioned cultural fantasies and gnostic mythology and anime waifus. But I don’t want to get into all that. I’m here for treasure hunting and side-quests. My neiphew helped me navigate to teleport points in nations that I usually wouldn’t have reached.
Teyvat is littered with ruins that are a delight to explore. On many occasions I have paused the game and called my partner so he can watch as I discover an underground pyramid or restore a crumbling palace that is also a giant harp. These ruins are filled with monsters and treasure chests, of course. They are also filled with tales of their builders’ demise. There is a buried civilization whose goddess turned her people to salt when she could not save them from invaders. There is a sunken empire whose citizens became stone golems trapped under the ocean neither living nor dead. The ruins tell story after story of the hubris and failures of men and gods and monstrous creatures. Every time I log in, I see this little red exclamation point pop up, reminding me that I have a main quest where I’m supposed to be helping the resistance in the nation of Inazuma so that their Archon does not freeze her citizens in an unfeeling eternity. And I still have to figure out what’s up with my damn sister.
The more I play the side quests, the more I know how the game will end. Not in detail, but in substance. The time of the Archons of the seven nations will end. A new world will rise. The end of the main quests I have completed repeat this same story: The people of Teyvat have outgrown their gods the way that children outgrow their parents. The end of the world always signals the beginning of something new. And the story of the side quests suggests this: This cycle will happen again. In the narrative of Genshin Impact, the downfall of nations is more disastrous to those nations who try to defy fate and freeze a moment in time.
This spring, my partner’s family and I had finished cleaning out the old house for the day. We opened a bottle of wine decorated with sugar elephants that I think had once been pink, but were grayed with dust. It had been sealed since 1975, left as a memento and a beautiful object since it was gifted to his father by an uncle. We looked out to the disappearing sun behind the familiar amber field for one of the last times.
“Why does it feel like we are drinking to the end of the world?” I said with a small laugh.
“We kind of are,” said his brother.
The wine was strong and sweet. My eyes watered, but that time I didn’t cry.
Stay Cool!
Theo
*We have yet to settle on a good word. We both agree the actual gender neutral terms “nibling” and “pilling” are kind of gross sounding. They call me their “twisted ankle” because I think it is funny. I call them my “knee”, but I guess that doesn’t help explain our relationship to other people.