#dendro dragon

You ask me THAT? You ask the Xiuhcoatl's simp that scoured every crumbs of his mention in the game??? Of course I do.

Personally, I don't agree with the ship, but why do they have to heterofy it😒 If they want to ship them so bad, at least commit to it and make it a DOOMED (and optional: toxic) YAOI as God intended😤✊️

But if you want to hear my copium-riddled brain's opinion... it actually makes sense. Not that Xiuhcoatl is actually female, but in a way, he also embodied femininity.

(TW: Mentions of pregnancy. Nothing graphic though.)

Take a look at other confirmed sovereigns:

• Neuvillette: He's pretty feminine, actually. Not just in appearance (long hair with a bow tie, superb eyelashes, his name having -ette, a feminine suffix, etc,) but also in narrative. He's regarded as the father of the melusine, and his love for them are nurturing, almost maternal-like. He forgave the Fontainians and made them into real humans with real blood, almost like pregnancy turning an embrio into a real flesh and blood. He also has a Persephone theme going on:

He's the Persephone to Focalors' Hades, who tricked him to dwell in Fontaine (the Netherworld) and care for the Fontainians. He's also the Heart of the Primordial Sea, the sea that birthed Teyvat's original lifeforms.

And his sourcewater droplets have dna-looking thing in them, almost like an egg cell/ovum:

So yeah, Neuvillette is MOTHERING😤

• Apep: The dragon has female voice. 'Nuf said/j. But joking aside, she indeed have many life-giving aspect of motherhood:

Elemental lifeforms were born and nurtured inside her, and she planned to release her "children" after they matured... this is literally pregnancy. Warden of Oasis Prime, her immune system's second boss form holds an embrio, in a pose almost like a mother holding her child:

And it's attacks are littered with DNA imagery:

So yeah, Xiuhcoatl being feminine isn't far-fetched. In fact, I expect him to be so. It seems Sovereigns act as the life-giving forces of the original world, and Xiuhcoatl is no exception. The fanfic writers probably catch his feminine side and run along with it.

Plus, if he's the one who created Huitzilopochtli, that's actually pretty cool. Because not only it reversed his position as Huitzilopochtli's weapon in the myth, he also embodied two important female figures in Huitzilopochtli's life:

• Huitzilopochtli's mother (if we go by Codex Florentine), Coatlicue. She has many snake imageries, and Huitzilopochtli is practically her weapon against the stars and moon, the night, which we can take as a metaphor for the Abyss in game.

Coatlicue is represented as a woman wearing a skirt of writhing snakes and a necklace made of human hearts, hands, and skulls. Her feet and hands are adorned with claws and her breasts are depicted as hanging flaccid from pregnancy. Her face is formed by two facing serpents, which represent blood spurting from her neck after she was decapitated. According to Aztec legend, Coatlicue was once magically impregnated by a ball of feathers that fell on her while she was sweeping a temple. She subsequently gave birth to the god Huitzilopochtli. Her daughter the goddess Coyolxauhqui then rallied Coatlicue's four hundred other children together and goaded them into attacking and decapitating their mother. The instant she was killed, the god Huitzilopochtli suddenly emerged from her womb fully grown and armed for battle.

- Wikipedia "Coatlicue"

• But considering Xiuhcoatl's moon imagery, and the fact that he was killed by the Huitzilopochtli's equivalent in game, Xbalanque, he could also embodied Huitzilopochtli's sister, Coyolxauhqui, the Goddess of the Moon.

On the summit of Coatepec ("Serpent Mountain") sat a shrine for Coatlicue, the maternal Earth deity. One day, as she swept her shrine, a ball of hummingbird feathers fell from the sky. She "snatched them up; she placed them at her waist." Thus, she became pregnant with the deity Huītzilōpōchtli. Her miraculous pregnancy embarrassed Coatlicue's other children, including her eldest daughter, Coyolxāuhqui. Hearing of her pregnancy, the Centzonhuītznāhua, led by Coyolxāuhqui, decided to kill Coatlicue. As they prepared for battle and gathered at the base of Coatepec, one of the Centzonhuītznāhua, Quauitlicac, warned Huītzilōpōchtli of the attack while he was in utero. Hearing of the attack, the pregnant Cōātlīcue miraculously gave birth to a fully grown and armed Huītzilōpōchtli who sprang from her womb, wielding "his shield, teueuelli, and his darts and his blue dart thrower, called xinatlatl." Huītzilōpōchtli killed Coyolxāuhqui, beheading her and throwing her body down the side of Coatepec: "He pierced Coyolxauhqui, and then quickly struck off her head. It stopped there at the edge of Coatepetl. And her body came falling below; it fell breaking to pieces; in various places her arms, her legs, her body each fell." As for his brothers, the Centzonhuītznāhua, he scattered them in all directions from the top of Coatepec. He pursued them relentlessly, and those who escaped went south.

- Wikipedia "Coyolxauhqui"

(Btw this supports my copium theory that Xiuhcoatl-Xbalanque are Natlan's symbolic twins. Having similarities with both the mother and sister of the God of the Sun and War... damn.)

Fake drip marketing for my Apep and Xiuhcoatl fan design

Full versions under the cut