Alright gather up and let me explain why the #KaeLuc ship ISN'T incest.

1. Genshin Impact is made by a Chinese company. The writing and all that was originally done in Chinese. They do have very good translators, but there are always NUANCES that are lost during translation.

2. Much of the language around familial relationships, in Chinese, is NOT SOLELY LITERAL. Eg. if you call someone your "brother" in Chinese, it can mean a) your literal blood relative, b) your step brother, c) your cousin, d) your sworn brother, or e) your good friend.

2a. There are also many words in Chinese that contain a character denoting familial relationship (eg. 父 father, 母 mother, 兄 elder brother [respectful form], 哥 elder brother [casual form], 弟 younger brother, 姐 elder sister, 妹 younger sister, etc), but are METAPHORICAL.

Examples: an older female schoolmate is your 学姐, or school-elder-sister. A younger male schoolmate is your 学弟, or school-younger-brother. Kids can call their parents' friends Uncle/Auntie [surname], and call friendly old people in their community Grandpa/Grandma + surname.

In older times, if you're apprenticed to a man then he is your 师父, or teacher-father. His wife would be your 师母/师娘, or teacher-mother. Other students under the same master are your teacher-brothers/sisters. This isn't really in practice today, but appears a lot in fiction.

Therefore, SOME FAMILIAL TERMS IN CHINESE CAN BE METAPHORICAL, and it's the CONTEXT of the sentence/word that determines whether it's referring to literal direct blood relation, or something else.

3. "Sworn brothers" is a huge, and I do mean HUGE trope in Chinese historical fiction, both classical and modern. It is depicted most famously in Romance of the Three Kingdoms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_the_Peach_Garden

People don't really take such oaths nowadays, except perhaps in gangs...

But the concept of sworn brothers is still very much alive today in people's minds. And it's especially popular in contemporary Chinese fiction that also has a lot of homoerotic subtext.

Due to censorship, mainstream media cannot display explicitly homosexual relationships...

But if creators keep things just ambiguous enough to fly under the radar, they can make content with lots and lots of homosexual ship tease and get away with it... mostly.

A lot of recent popular Chinese historical novels and dramas do this. Nirvana in Fire, The Untamed, etc.

Therefore, sworn brothers are not necessarily familial, and ESPECIALLY not in contemporary media that is set in a historical time period.

Of course, Mondstadt is not a historical Chinese setting, but Mihoyo is a Chinese company that is very much in touch with popular trends.

They KNOW sworn brothers is a hugely popular shipping trope. They KNOW their audience.

They KNOW KaeLuc was going to be shipped. And they're very much leaning into it, giving people plenty of fodder for the ship while still staying within the constraints of governmental censors.

4. On a related note, """incestuous""" relationships are not new to Chinese fiction. Jin Yong, the most famous Wuxia writer EVER, had a lot of such relationships in his novels. Eg. girl in love with her dad's sworn brother, guy in love with his childhood semi-adopted sister, etc.

There is a very simple reason for this: 男女授受不亲. In ancient China, men and women weren't allowed to get too close if they weren't married or related in some way. So you can't really gift stuff, talk directly, touch, etc. without following certain etiquette rules.

Jin Yong was a 20th century writer, but his novels were set in ancient China. So, if you want a man and a woman in ancient China to have a "legit excuse" to spend lots of time together and develop feelings, you have to make them somehow """related"""... but not too related.

Hence all the sworn sibling / adopted sibling stuff, to keep the historical setting believable while still having enough time for compelling relationship development.

This mainly applies to heterosexual relationships in modern historical fiction, but it's still important context

We've finally reached the last point.
5. ONE CHILD POLICY

China's One Child Policy lasted from 1979 to 2015. While it didn't apply to absolutely EVERYBODY (some groups qualified for exceptions for various reasons, look it up if interested), a lot of people have no siblings.

Most people of the One Child Policy generations have no siblings. We don't know what it's like to have blood siblings. We don't really think about having blood siblings.

We call our cousins "siblings". We call our friends "siblings". We're actually very isolated and lonely tbh.

This means that the words for "brother" and "sister" are even LESS literal than they already were, because there's so much flexibility in how they can be used.

It's even normal - and not at all uncommon - to call someone by a sibling term as a form of FLIRTATION. No, really.

It isn't considered incestuous, because the words themselves don't strictly mean blood siblings ONLY. Sibling terms can be terms of endearment. You could use them to convey affection, or affection mixed with respect if you're calling someone elder brother/sister.

IT'S NORMAL.

Also, just... do the math. Most Mihoyo staff are probably belonging to the One Child Policy generations. This is how they grew up. This is how I grew up. THIS IS OUR CULTURE.

SIBLING TERMS IN CHINESE ARE NOT NECESSARILY LITERAL.

Also Mihoyo knows what shippers like to ship.

Also, just to add on, if you personally don't like KaeLuc that's totally fine! Everyone has ships they don't like, that's super normal. Like the most normal thing ever.

But if someone decides to HARASS people who do like KaeLuc, then they are horrible people and also ignorant.

Also if you want to call it pseudo-incest I think that's fine, but bashing the ship for being "incest" is silly...

And also, IT'S FICTION LMAO.

Lots of people like fiction to have some taboos, else there wouldn't be so much "what are you doing stepbro" out there HAHAHA

Oh yeah btw when I say Chinese in this thread I'm mainly referring to mainland Chinese. Chinese people in other parts of the world may not have similar experiences regarding the siblings thing