hellobitchlet

[hellobitchlet]

Thoughts on Skirk's story quest;

- I was surprised to start off with Traveler and Paimon going to Baizhu? I'm slightly confused that they didn't go to Tighnari (as we would presumably be in Natlan rn and he's the closest doctor we know) but considering how little screentime he gets, I'm not complaining.

- I have no idea why Traveler was describing what was going on on-screen during the dreams in excruciating detail?? We can... see it??? You're not in a book, you're in a video game with visuals and sounds...?

- I like Skirk's personality in the beginning. I was afraid they would make her sound nicer than she was in Fontaine (and they do, but I'll get to that later) so seeing her leave a stupidly tiny amount of mora for the drink and leave with "Settle the bill for me, will you?" was reassuring. And "The weak and the lowly have no right to remember me"! Sadly, the rest of the quest shows that Genshin was trying to go for 'she's just pretending to be an asshole bc of trauma and is actually really nice and well meaning like everyone else'. Which... sucks. We were so close...

- CONSTELLATION LORE!!!!!!! THANK YOU SKIRK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- and thank you for actually getting to the point when you talk, too. She's so straight-to-the-point that even after a brief detour to chill with Baizhu in the beginning, we actually know what the quest is about less than 10 minutes into it, and thank god for that. I don't know if I would've been able to take her seriously if she were as overly dramatic and talk-y as most of the important 5 stars.

- I'm glad that this didn't take place in Natlan, honestly. I am so bored of Natlan.

- it's been a while since Paimon gave out a nasty nickname, huh? Considering how sexist Genshin has been towards Skirk, I... don't like that her nasty nickname is something pointlessly gendered like "ice queen".

- the Abyss looks super cool! But uhhhh... of all the ways we could've ended up in the Abyss for the first time... we go with 'Skirk reappears and becomes playable out of nowhere, and casually brings Traveler to the Abyss to train them for a bit'? That's the best you could've come up with?

- Keqing (among others) definitely did not make this much of a lasting impression on Traveler. I am very confused about the whole 'Traveler thinks about the 'sword masters' they've met' thing. We've only fought alongside some of these characters once. Did we ever even fight with Nilou? Kaeya, Ayaka, and maybe Kazuha I will accept, but Keqing, Lynette, and Nilou are really weird choices. You didn't go through all of the sword characters, so why this selection specifically...? I would've at least had Jean.

- watching a backstory scene about someone committing genocide against Skirk's people and calling them savages during one of the top racist nations filled me with rage. Hoyo, you know exactly what you're doing when you pull racist bullshit. You knew exactly what you were doing with Sumeru and Natlan. You know what you're doing with the hilichurls. You know this is bad. You have no excuses.

- not to mention, hsr made multiple characters who survived the genocide and destruction of their planet already. You know what happened to them? The main characters befriended the genociders, and the protagonist acts really shitty towards Boothill for being openly against the genociders in question.

- how convenient that the Romani and Native American genocide survivors got racist treatment, while a genocide survivor who doesn't seem to have real life influences didn't :)

- spending an excruciatingly long time bouncing back and forth between 'training' with Skirk and being told about her backstory is... a very boring first experience within the Abyss.

- all that time, and how do we figure out who took part of Traveler's soul or whatever? Skirk finds him for us off screen. Come on.

- I'm okay with the concept of Skirk being from another world, but "there is a space faction committing space genocide that one of the Sinners may be a part of"? WHAT THE-

- WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?! THERE WAS NO POINT TO ADD THAT TO THE STORY?! 'ALIENS GO AROUND KILLING PLANETS' WAS THE PLOT HI3 WAS SETTING UP FOR HSR THAT YOU SCRAPPED!!!! WHY WOULD YOU SCRAP IT TO MAKE HSR MORE LIKE GENSHIN AND THEN INTRODUCE IT TO GENSHIN INSTEAD???????????????????

- the least you could've done was have Skirk be connected to the recent deep lore about the crimson moon dynasty's Khaenri'ah making an orphanage to take in aliens for -mysterious reasons-. That seems like a pretty important thing that people should know about from a playable character that we actually care about and not a random book from a filler update, especially with the hints that the House of the Hearth may be connected to that orphanage.

- Skirk and Surtalogi ended up being exactly like I feared, which is 'new male character is More powerful and More important than this powerful and important female character you've been excited for since 1.1, she purely exists to give you lore about the male character.' Which is annoying as fuck.

- I feel like we got much more actual gameplay from this story quest than we usually do. But again, despite being in the fucking Abyss, what we ended up doing was.... essentially a playable montage of the protagonist training with their mentor to Get Stronger, except that Traveler is already super Strong and Powerful and Amazing, so there's no reason why they needed to train. Skirk was just like "you're powerful already but our enemy is more powerful so train" and Traveler was like "okay".

- they tried REALLY hard to convince you that the situation was tense but like... the person attacking us stopped and waited for us to decide to run away before he attacked. The enemies he summoned as you were leaving were regular ass hilichurls. I ran past them when I was leaving and only got hit by them once. I actually found it easier than the last training segment.

- most of the quest was training segment > Skirk backstory > training segment > Skirk backstory > training segment > okay we're done and Skirk found the culprit off screen > very mild confrontation.

- goooooood I hate this stupid 'Surtalogi and the narwhal are soooo super duper strong and surely no one from Teyvat is as strong as them!' thing. I DON'T care about random planets outside of Teyvat, actually. The only one you could even convince me to care about is the twins' home planet, and that's because it's important to their stories.

- (paraphrased) "Paimon has a feeling Skirk doesn't like being around new people- let's bring her to our friends house!" Paimon that doesn't make any sense.

- wdym we stayed in Baizhu's house for DAYS, and never saw him?? He wasn't there?? Neither were Changsheng and Qiqi??? Why did we go to Baizhu's house if we didn't want to write the 3 of them meeting Skirk????

- the seelie thing bringing you to Skirks 'mindscape' without her consent and them and Traveler literally TELLING you everything they already showed you was just. So stupid. I KNEW what was happening WAY before this point, Genshin. I'm not stupid. The only new information we learned from that was that the humanoid figure from the narwhal boss was Surtalogi.

- fuck spaceship lore. Fuck intergalactic trading. I don't give a single shit about any of this. This is what hsr is supposed to be about.

- they're going to use this space faction to make Celestia 'sympathetic' and excuse all the shitty things they did one of these days, aren't they. I swear to god, if this turns into "Celestia was trying ro protect Teyvat from the space faction, and the leaders of Khaenri'ah sided with the space faction so it's their fault that Khaenri'ah was destroyed actually" I will be so mad.

- I guess, at least the whole 'being from another world' thing allows Genshin's attempts to force a 'special' relationship between Traveler and New Woman to actually kind of make sense? But between how horrible the game usually is towards any woman they do this with and how shitty Traveler is as a person, I still don't like it.

- I never want to see that stupid seelie looking thing on my screen ever again. I don't care that it's also Skirk. Oh my god the amount of dialogue this thing put me through.

- I still agree with what I said earlier about the first run in being super easy, but the boss was slightly difficult, which is nice. I was surprised to get a boss at all.

- of COURSE the person who was responsible for all of this was a friend of Surtalogi who immedietaly starts monologuing about him. Of course he and Skirk just end up talking about Surtalogi for a long time.

- and of course Super Special And Powerful Surtalogi can casually break the curse of immortality. Of course he left because he doesn't care about Teyvat anymore. Why not. Why not trivialize everything in all of Teyvat just to prop up some random new npc over literally everything else. Why not.

- this is Elysia levels of shilling, oh my god.

- man, the cold, egotistical version of her that I liked did not last long. I already don't like the nice Skirk who makes generic monologues about hope and kindness just like everyone else in this game. I was hoping that she would, you know, remain a unique character?

[hellobitchlet]

In light of 5.7, let's review my theory

On one hand, I'm relieved that Dain came out of the traveler quest generally unscathed. But on the other, Skirk.... got the exact treatment I was afraid she would.

I'm kind of pissed that the man got so much more focus than in the past 2 tq's- just for that screentime to be him being propped up massively while being a complete idiot- while the woman actually proved herself to be strong and intelligent but was put down at every other moment with "but look at SURTALOGI! Look at the UNAMED SPACE FACTION! Look at SURTALOGI some more, isn't he so powerful? Skirk is nowhere near as powerful as SURTALOGI!"

Plus, Dain was allowed to act angry and uncooperative, but Skirk got a (pointlessly gendered) nasty nickname from Paimon for not being super nice right off the bat, and the writers tried to cool that down with "oh, she's like that because of trauma, Traveler! It's nothing personal!" just for.... being slightly cold and unapproachable.

Not that I would call "goes out of her way to help Traveler, trains them, and does literally all of the work finding the person who took part of their soul from them" cold, but u know. Maybe Genshin did that on purpose bc they didn't think a 'cold' woman would sell well (despite Arlecchino).

[hellobitchlet]

Maybe I was slightly overreacting about Traveler very briefly mentioning having a spaceship, but can you blame me considering how much Genshin has been retconning it's older lore lately? And everything going on with Surtalogi and Skirk?

Maybe I'll explain my feelings about all the unnecessary sci-fi ish space lore in more detail soon.

[hellobitchlet]

Thoughts on A Space And Time For You;

- SPACESHIP????????????

- S P A C E S H I P ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

- WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE TWINS CAME HERE ON A SPACESHIP WHAT DO YOU MEAN TRAVELER HAS HAD A KEY TO A SPACESHIP ON THEIR PERSON THIS WHOLE TIME WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY'VE ALREADY TOLD PAIMON ABOUT THIS

- that is such an infuriating retcon to make, especially over halfway through the story. You are YEARS too late to make this retcon. And in the middle of fucking Natlan, too...

- from the moment I saw the word spaceship, I knew Genshin had lost it's individuality from Hoyo's other games for good. We're never going back to Genshin Impact the fantasy game, are we.....

- the Abyss Order is planning on going to war with Natlan, but the archon quest had to be about completely different Abyssal entities. Come on guys, just let the Abyss Order do something outside of the traveler quests! I have no idea why post-Mondstadt Genshin decided that the archon quests can only focus on the Fatui, it makes no sense when you could've had a wholeass war against a character the players actually care about!

- Iansan is very casual about her tribe suddenly being attacked. Like, extremely casual. And so is Paimon and Traveler? Why are we leaving to ask the archon why they're attacking them instead of helping and asking the Abyss Order themselves?

- (sarcasm) man, standing around talking about the fights that are currently happening sure makes me feel like I should care about it.

- Mavuika, Iansan, and Citlali knowing about Traveler's sibling isn't going to matter at all, is it?

- speaking of Hoyo losing all of it's individuality, Direidyth looks literally identical to an Amphoreus npc. Wrong game, girl.

- actually, this would've been a pretty neat introduction to a playable character who is actually part of the traveler quests... if Direidyth was playable.

- except the waifu bait. Why are we making waifu bait with an npc?

- seriously, the 'Abyss Order attacks Natlan' plot was made for the archon quest- not a traveler quest! I don't want to be walking back and forth checking in on how everyone is doing in a traveler quest! None of the other traveler quests focused on the nation it's in, why did it have to change for NATLAN of all places?! Why are we repeating the archon quest instead of directly tracking down the Abyss Order?!

- thank you, Citlali, for actually wanting to take the initiative and not drag things out. Oh my god why isn't anyone else trying to like. Actually do something. About this.

- aaaand then we get a cutsy little jealous waifu moment.

- "Sorry if that came across as paranoid. It's just hard not to be suspicious of everything when we're in the middle of a war" says Iansan, who just had to be reminded that they need to actually do something about the 'war' by Citlali.

- Direidyth would be a cool Adventurer's Guild character. She would totally be an official adventurer if she was allowed to.

- I'm so tired of Genshin having Traveler and Paimon loaf around doing nothing for an hour, and then giving Traveler a Very Convenient Dream that gives them the information that they barely even tried to work for. This isn't even the first time they've had a Convenient Vision about their sibling giving someone an inteyvat in a traveler quest.

- "all these years, the Abyss Order has managed to either stay hidden or fiercely defend their position... This may be the first chance I've ever had to finally make a serious dent in their forces." Dain, sweetie, you've been fighting the Abyss Order for god knows how long, and not only have you not done much damage to them- but the first time you got a chance to is when a group of bumbling idiots found them for you??

- I like the detail that Dain deals a lot of damage to elemental shields, something that most Abyss Order enemies have. If/when he becomes playable, I hope they keep that detail.

- so the whole time we were replaying Natlan's archon quest through a traveler quest, we could've been dealing with Abyss Sibling using the Loom of Fate instead. Great. Good to know. That could've been the final act of the archon quest, with Abyss Sibling as the weekly boss instead of that fuckass dragon, but okay...

- slightly off topic, but I played through Deltarune ch 3 and 4 in between my last post and now. I won't spoil anything, but man, does Genshin refusing to let it's story actually go somewhere feel even worse after Deltarune did... that only halfway through the story. If you want a game that actually challenges you, gives a shit about the characters it makes, and actually goes somewhere- I would totally recommend Deltarune.

- back on topic, at least we fought a boss? He's the easiest world boss we've gotten in the past few years, but still a boss.

- as soon as Traveler and Paimon leave, Dain and the npc loredump for like 10 minutes. Great. This is totally the best way this could've panned out. Totally.

- and then Traveler goes back to Direidyth and Abyss Sibling shows up- again, with Traveler having put very little effort into finding them- and loredumps for another 10 minutes.

- whyyyyyy couldn't Direidyth be playable. I don't know why, but I liked her more than the last 2 npc's the traveler quests threw at us. It certainly helps that she has a meaningful part in the siblings story, and a decent design despite the Amphoreus resemblence. Even a small role in the twin's story (that gives us a surprising amount of Khaenri'ah worldbuilding) is better than the other two having a completely unrelated story. Just... come up with something other than a fucking spaceship key to have her keep, and don't force waifu-isms onto her, and poof! Perfect playable character!

- she was so hopeful that the Savior would come and save her nation but the news she gave them caused them to make the opposite decision :((( ough Direidyth you could've been everythinggg to meeee.

- it's hilarious that she put so much more effort into reuniting the siblings than the siblings themselves (or at least Traveler?) have though oof

- Abyss Sibling's monologue about how they could only use the Night Kingdom's ley lines for the loom, and that they got the Lord of The Night's permission to do so, doubles down on how Natlan's archon quest should've been about this instead of just... random abyss enemies attacking Just Because.

- same with Citlali's explanation. Wdym Abyss Sibling had been here and was making a new Khaenri'ah during the archon quest? I would've LOVED to hear how Capitano would've felt about that. Or Enjou.

- I spent literally the entire quest waiting for Skirk to show up, and now I'm ten times more confused about her being made playable out of nowhere than I was before. What was the point?????????????? I assumed the point was for her to be part of the traveler quest, because why else would they wait until the traveler quest update specifically to release her??????????? When Iansan said someone beat up all of the abyss enemies with ease off screen, I assumed it was her and not the borderline useless wet rag that is Dainsleif (no offence dude but like... come on). I haven't done her story quest yet and I am deeply afraid to.

Edit;

- I'm surprised that I forgot to mention this, but I am glad that this quest had some actual decent characterization for the twins, even if it came in the form of Abyss Sibling showing up out of nowhere, infodumping for a bit, and then leaving. I mean, I didn't really care about Traveler's stuff bc their normal behaviour made me hate them a LONG time ago, but the Abyss Sibling desperately needed some more expansion on their own story. Sooo there you go- that is one positive point I have for this quest. I liked it more than Paralogism, that's for sure.

[hellobitchlet]

Before we get to 5.7, I have a little theory that I don't want to happen, but am worried that it's what they're leading up to with Skirk-

Are the 5 sinners going to be handled like the Hexenzirkel was before Sumeru? As in, is sinner lore just going to be their students/younger relatives popping in to talk about them every now and then?

Hear me out! The main thing that makes me think that is the handling of Skirk, the narwhal, and Dain since Fontaine.

Before Fontaine, Skirk had been built up in Childe's character stories as his mysterious and powerful teacher who lives in the Abyss, which implied that she was important. Since he came out, many people have been interested in her and the narwhal. But then when they actually appeared for the first time, Skirk literally just talked about a......... brand new character we've never heard of before who is her teacher, and left.

(Fast forwards to now, we recently got her drip marketing and it was also focused on her master. More than herself.)

A few updates later, we got our yearly traveler quest- Bedtime Story. Before Sumeru, traveler quests focused on Dainsleif a lot. Caribert and Bedtime Story, on the other hand, didn't seem to care about him very much, and chose to focus on new npc's instead. In Bedtime Story, he introduces us to the 5 sinners, and reveals that his brother (who we had never heard of before) was one of them, as well as the new master of Skirk.

So long story short, in the span of a few updates, we took 2 characters who people have been interested in for a long time- who were clearly made to be important- and had them introduce new important characters that they're connected to instead of expanding on their own stories.

This is similar to pre-Sumeru Hexenzirkel bc Albedo, Mona, and Klee used to do this with their teachers/parents all the time, and sometimes they still do. Before The Hexenzirkel Cutscene, all we had to go off of with the Hexenzirkel was Mona's story quest and the 3 talking about them in events occasionally.

Being connected to an important teacher figure is not bad- that's not what I'm saying. Rhine's kids certainly benefitted from it, and so did Childe. But Klee has always just been 'the cute kid who is everyone's little sister', and the last time we even hinted at Mona getting her own plotline was in 1.1. Both Klee and Mona (especially Mona) have spent a lot of time just... referencing their masters, or being in the room when their masters are mentioned.

To list some examples- Klee's mainly played a big role in GAA 1 and Bottleland because her mom invited her there. Her Bottleland skin was literally a costume of her mom. Mona appears in Fontaine's aq out of literally nowhere JUST to drop Hexenzirkel lore and dip. They both only appeared in Windblume 2 to be there for The Hexenzirkel Cutscene. Etc. Etc.

(Side note, notice how the 2 with less notable content are the girls and the 2 with more are the boys. I feel like Klee works fine not doing anything bc she's a young child, but god I wish we continued what Unreconciled Stars had going on with Mona :( )

Hoyo's writing has changed since they wrote Shadows Amidst Snowstorms, and it's changed to prefer the kind of writing they did with Klee and Mona- connecting a character to something important, but then just using them to convey information about Important Thing to you, instead of building up an actual plotline about them. We rarely see anything meaningful come out of characters related to the lore Hoyo is building up- all we get is disconnected info to theorize on.

In recent times, we've seen this with Cyno and Sethos with the Temple of Silence. We've seen this with Neuvillette and dragon lore. We've even seen the House of Hearth kids doing this with Arlecchino and their orphanage! It's been quite a while since we've gotten an Albedo.

This is already a shitty way to handle things as is. It always has been. But if they do that to Skirk and Dainsleif? That's even worse.

Skirk was the female teacher of a male character, who many were excited for because she would presumably be a 'cold', badass, important female character in a game where few playable girls are allowed to be important or have less-than-super-nice personalities. And yet, when she finally comes out, she's suddenly all about this MORE powerful, MORE important male character we had never heard of before??? When her male student always stood on his own as a character, and never even mentioned her before Fontaine??? When he was able to reveal info about other characters without it becoming his whole personality???

And Dain is also an important character, one we've known since the beginning. He's supposed to be a character we meet up with throughout the main story, who is actively involved in the Abyss Order plotline. He's one of the only characters who was practically guaranteed an actual storyline of his own! Despite that, due to the snails pace the alleged AO storyline is going, he's barely done anything. For Genshin to finally decide what they want the traveler quests to be, just to further delegate him to the role of standing around info dumping about other characters... this time about his brother doing things he could've done instead...

That would just be. Shitty. For both of them. And that's not even going into Albedo's future after the bullshit that was Paralogism, since he's a 5 Sinner's student as well.

Again! This is a personal theory and analysis! Don't come after me for making observations that don't assume the best! I know I could be wrong and I hope I am! But hopefully you can see that the way they've handled Skirk and Dain since Fontaine is shitty and suspicious.

[hellobitchlet]

Not a fan of anything else going on in this event either, really.

Brown skinned npc's from Natlan, one of whom has a black hairstyle, goes to a white European nation to do illegal shit as soon as they got the chance to leave their own nation.

Kinich, a pale skinned playable character from Natlan, going out of his way to sneak into Fontaine because he "thought they were shady" the moment he saw them, and being praised by other pale skinned characters for telling the white police about them.

Chevreuse, a cop, allowing Ajaw and Kinich to beat someone up right in front of her without even mentioning it, because the person was a criminal.

Insulting GAMBLERS in a gacha game?????? Insulting the very people you want to play your game????????????? I get that it was because of Kinich's trauma and it makes sense for him to feel like that, but it's plain stupid to say that about your own customers?????????????

Traveler joking about Iansan whipping her trainees out of literally nowhere!!!!!! That was so uncalled for!!!!! First you give her the Xinyan treatment of having her show up as little as possible, now you're giving her the Kaeya treatment too??

Not a fan of Genshin using the deliberately ridiculous law that can get innocent people arrested and sent to jail over nothing as a punchline. Unironically. When Neuvillette has had the ability to change laws for over a year now. And can't hide behind the 'Furina is in charge, not me' excuse anymore. And has created laws when he actually wanted to keep someone- the melusines- safe even before he officially became the only ruler of Fontaine.

And joking that the police officers after Caucucu are shooting at him. For flying. As a bird.

How is Genshin SO tone deaf at all times...

[hellobitchlet]

Actually, here's some more thoughts now that I've gotten to sit and think about the overall quest:

- the entire framing of The Plan that the quest was focused on, and ppl like Albedo, Venti, and Jean perfectly executing it, was clearly the Hoyo tactic of 'trying to sound smarter than they actually are'. But uhhhh..... this was an extremely stupid plan. How many innocent civilians died in the MONTHS that the knights waited??? And how many died during the attack that obviously would not have been as big if you had taken action sooner???

- another stupid side effect of Genshin hyper-focusing on The Plan is that they spent SO much time on it that they didn't have time for much else. We could have dedicated all that time spent on the useless 'investigation' to Durin instead. But no! We spent like an hour on the 'investigation', and like half an hour after that info dumping! You're told over and over again that Durin is a big bad threat, but then your just fighting normal mobs (most of which you can literally choose not to fight), and everyone reacts unnaturally calmly to the situation. No one acts like Durin's a threat, so everything falls flat.

- for as cute as Alice was in this quest, the shoehorning in Hexenzirkel lore when Rhinedottir was the only one who was relevant to the plot also contributed to this. The only witch we needed to hear from- if any- was Rhinedottir herself. Alice and Barbeloth don't have anything to do with this, let alone the random chess board that we've NEVER heard of before! Why would you make the big boss of the Durin Threat quest anything OTHER than Durin??

-imagine for a second; Durin may not be able to move his corpse around (presumably), but what about his blood? Imagine a massive dragon the size of Dvalin, that is entirely made of bloody mist and crystals. That would've been SUCH a cool boss! Imagine what mechanics you could do with sheer cold, and using Durin's blood-body to stay warm, or needing to stay near him to prevent yourself from freezing.

- actually, if Hoyo wasn't so lazy, this chess themed boss would've been a pretty cool unique boss for the Imaginarium Theatre. Imagine if Genshin's endgame content wasn't so dam lazy. You know why the Elysian Realm is so popular in hi3? Because it comes with BOTH endgame content AND an actual story! That is what we need here! Some sort of Imaginarium Theatre questline would've been a great place to utilize Albedo, Mona, and Klee in permanent content- and a much better place to have Dodoco Alice and Barbeloth. Why couldn't we have done that?

- I don't think I emphasized enough how ooc Diluc is from his original appearances. For as shitty as the writers treat Kaeya, at least dumbing him down didn't include throwing away his /base personality/. Diluc, though? He actively expresses his hatred towards ppl constantly, and has actively DONE stuff against the knights on screen. So he has to be changed COMPLETELY if we want to avoid conflict. Now, he's a good civil servant who actively helps the knights and goes to them when he sees illegal things happen!! Which is. The exact opposite personality.

- and for Kaeya, while his surface level personality hasn't changed as much (bc he's not a born hater like Diluc), he still greatly suffers from the same problems. However, their relationship turning out fine despite everything has been happening for years, and Kaeya's personal stuff wasn't brought up in this quest. So, not as much to say about Kaeya for once. Which is probably a good thing.

- speaking of being ooc, I never would've thought that JEAN of all people would handle this matter in such a... dare I say Kaeya or Diluc like way? Last I checked, she would never allow civilians to be killed while knowing who the culprit is. Literally- the time we saw her go against the 'normal' way a knight would handle things in the aq was bc she knew they needed to act quickly for the safety of the people!

-even talking to Albedo and Venti was annoying! I have NEVER felt that way about Venti before. EVER. And that is really bad!! Like, REALLY really bad!! Venti has always been one of the most fun and interesting characters to interact with in the whole game- if even he is being sanded down and beginning to feel the same as everyone else... we're doomed. I'm serious.

All in all, the biggest takeaway I have from this quest is that it should never have existed. I cannot find a single good thing to say about it. Half of the characters involved act ooc at best and are ruined beyond repair at worst. It would have honestly been better if Albedo, Subject 2, and Durin's plotline from Shadows Amidst Snowstorms had been forgotten about completely. At least then, it wouldn't have been destroyed.

Thoughts on paralogism:

- starting off the 'expecting everyone to know event lore' quest strong with having you show up in the middle of the Windblume Festival.

- god, Genshin is SO bad at subtly. You go straight to Katherine and she TELLS you that somethings off and the game FORCES you to watch npc's act Not Normal for a good 5 minutes to set the tone as Something Is Off.

- what is the point of the storytelling mode? Is it really just to add Windblune decorations to Mondstadt and make a court room? It's not like Mondstadt's aq didn't temporarily change the city's appearance already without it. And the Wibdblume festival is largely irrelevant to the plot anyways.

- "A trial? But, this is Mondstadt, not Fontaine..." Paimon what are you talking about?? Other nations have legal systems too, obviously???

- the first trial was just talking. There isn't even the stupid court minigame they had you do in Fontaine or a thinking minigame because Traveler wasn't participating in it! Thankfully, though, it wasn't that long by Genshin standards.

- ...Amber knows that there are two Albedo's. Eula knows that there are two Albedo's. Bennett knows that there are two Albedo's. Two of those people are with the Knights of Favonius. We SAW that Eula was a part of the investigation team working on this case before the trial even started! The didn't-play-the-event bandaid recap even acknowledges this! Even when making a trial 10 minutes long instead of an hour, and the investigation was seemingly finished BEFORE the trial (fuck you for being so bad at your job Neuvillette), the mystery is still appsurdly obtuse if you think about it for more than a second.

- (I know that Eula was taking part in the plan, but you were still supposed to think that an actual investigation was going on. The whole purpose of the investigation stuff was still pointless with how obvious it was that Albedo wouldn't be the killer)

- the writers will forget that they had Rosaria say something as suspicious as "Time is like the wind- it waits for no one" about Venti, with all the connections between time and wind. Rosaria is one of those 4 stars who just... randomly says stuff that makes her sound suspicious/important all the time and nothing comes of it. This isn't important to this quest- the sus line just reminded me of it.

- I'm not sure how I feel about Dahlia. He's an unnecessary addition to the cast, and the concept of his role being to 'communicate Barbados's will to the people' doesn't fit in with Mondstadt's story. What happened to Venti letting his people choose their own path unless something goes horribly wrong? He doesn't tell his people what to do- if he wants something done he does it himself. I want to be happy that new Mondstadt characters feel more important than most other new characters from older nations, but there is so much more you could've done than... basically ripping the concept of Venti's friendship with Rosaria and Barbara away from them.

- also I liked Dahlia's original design more. The only reason I was ever interested in him was because the original metal design on his chest looked similar to an Abyss enemy, and despite everything, I had the tiniest of hopes that it was actually intentional. I don't know why I ever thought that.

- there's finally an upstairs in the kof headquarters!! Rejoice!!

- HOW DID IT TAKE SO LONG FOR TRAVELER TO EVEN REMEMBER THAT THERE WAS A SECOND ALBEDO- "oh, I almost forgot!" HOW DO YOU FORGET THAT?????????????

- it also sucks that the return of Albedo's plotline- and arrival to permanent content- is Traveler casually walking into a situation that has been happening for years off screen. The fact that most of the quest is boring exposition of what Traveler missed is expected but disappointing.

- Albedo KILLED Subject 2 off screen. Are you fucking kidding me. I and many others have been interested in him for YEARS. He was one of the main focuses of Shadows Amidst Snowstorms, one of the best written quests Genshin has ever made, and one of the VERY FEW plotlines that actually had a chance to START going somewhere. And you. Killed. Him. Off. Screen. I am so pissed off. Fuck you.

- the sudden explain-a-thon of "actually, nothing went wrong and everything is under control and here's what's actually happening" did not help my investment in this stupid quest. This quest is 80% explaining what's going on 20% pseudo substance.

- still annoyed at the treatment of hilichurls. Nothing else to be said here that hasn't been said before.

- the Ragbros.... Genshin has been dumbing down and retconning their relationship conflict and personal conflicts since Diluc's skin event in Inazuma AT LEAST, to avoid actually writing their conflict. How do people still think that there's a conflict to be resolved.

- and of course, we had to throw in some hints of "Diluc doesn't mind the knights now, let's not acknowledge how he acted towards them in the beginning" as well. Give me ONE reason why he would've stopped using any excuse to insult them off screen, in the time between his story quest and paralogism.

- I feel like they mostly just put Kaeya in the marketing for 5.6 and made him Albedo's 'lawyer' bc ppl expect him to be a part of important Mondstadt stuff, and Kaebedo is Albedo and Kaeya's most popular ship. He didn't appear nearly as much as Albedo, Venti, and Jean outside of the trial.

- a team of just Amber and Mika was. Not fun. I had to use an attack boost food and I was fighting two normal hilichurls.

- it occurs to me that this is Mika's first appearance in permanent content. Mika himself is a plot point you were supposed to know about from events lol.

- the tripartite conference confuses me severely. When tf did Venti wake up in present times if he was around while Varka was still here? It's really hard to talk about the timeline of events in Genshin, but it feels like Venti wakes up whenever there's a disaster in Mondstadt that his people are struggling with, which made it seem like he woke up bc of Dvalin to me. But surely Varka didn't go on his expedition in the middle of that, right...? Surely the events of the manga (where he had already left) didn't take place at the same time as the situation with Dvalin that was never mentioned...?

- and again, this sudden angle of "Barbados doing stuff for Mondstadt as Babados in modern times" is very specifically NOT how Mondstadt works??? They're the nation that ISN'T led by their god in any capacity. That was a big thing.

- that is how you're choosing to introduce Varka? Over a bomb shaped phone? It was actually kind of funny that he casually mentions "I'm surrounded on both sides with a group on my tail looking to turn me into mince meat" and the writers chose to focus on him having a stash of alcohol. He sounds like a fun character. Please please please let me like him Genshin...

- I groaned out loud when Toy 'Durin' showed up. I'm sorry, but Simulanka sucked and I don't want some random new character who is not Durin but is named after him and was tacked onto Scara solely because he's popular. Just give me real Durin as himself, not a new character. I mean, the writers clearly didn't care about Toy Durin either, since they immedietaly shoved them into the stupid amalgamation of Durin and Subject 2 as well.

- they really made a Dodoco version of Alice to avoid showing us what she looked like. In this case, it's actually more funny than anything else, especially since no one (Paimon) is being all over-the-top surprised about it. I wonder if showing up in odd forms is just a normal Alice thing? If so, I like it.

- aside from the part where they're trying to drag the kof into it for no reason, I do like that they're doing something with Venti's relationship to the Hexenzirkel. It's nice to see Venti and Alice interacting on screen, and casually acting like friends. I was certainly more interested in that between Venti and Alice + Varka than I was in a new character.

- wait, this is the first time we're hearing Alice in a permanent quest too, isn't it? It's almost amazing how incomprehensible this quest is going to be to new players joining after all of this stuff. Like- they made a 'recap' of Shadows Amidst Snowstorms, but didn't realize that you ALSO need to know 2023 Windblume, Weinleslfest, and Simulanka AT LEAST to truly understand the quest. The writer in the Nod Krai video wasn't lying when he said that they couldn't keep track of what ppl do and don't know.

- Alice saying to Albedo "I find you facinating" is also so cute to me. That's how I think about my favorite characters too!

- I also like the concept of killing Durin again and reviving him as a human to prevent Mondstadt's destruction. I just hate Genshin killing off Subject 2 (possibly bc they could actually make proper ch vs ch conflict, now that I think about it), and then fusing Durin with him and the stupid fake Durin. Like, that's just making a new character. You made a new character out of the remains of older characters. If you liked any of the characters used in this process- fuck you! You don't get to have them! How the fuck did the writers even come up that and how did they think that was a good idea????????

- this weird not-Durin is like 50% boring Toy Durin, 40% unrelated matter, 10% the Durin this actually SHOULD be, 0% Subject 2.

- even with my anger at the treatment of Subject 2, I would have pulled for a human Durin SO hard if only it was the Durin I actually cared about. This Toy Durin, I... I never want to see Toy Durin become playable, ESPECIALLY if it comes with us acting like he IS Durin.

- imagine what they could've done with Subject 2 and humanoid Durin as separate characters that were still themselves! Imagine Durin having to get used to his new body and face everything he and his corpse did to Mondstadt unknowingly! Imagine him meeting Venti and Dvalin! Imagine Subject 2 actually getting to fuck shit up!

- Dodoco Barbeloth looks cool too, but a Barbeloth intro without Mona :/?

- I thought Albedo saw all of Rhine's creations as his siblings? I swear I remember him saying that. I didn't hallucinate that, did I? What would be the point of retconning that? I mean, he immedietaly started calling Durin his brother again at the end of the quest!

- wait, why did Albedo make human Durin in the city?????? Why was it so flashy and big??????? Why wasn't he anywhere near Toy Durin or the materials he was using the entire time???????? How did a song and some fireworks prevent people from noticing that something was going on???????? Why did he do it in the city?????????

- of course the answer of the important mystery "what did Rhine mean when she told Albedo to "find the truth of this world"" was that she was just telling him to get a life. Of course. We wouldn't want a playable character to be involved in something actually interesting. Of course.

- that was the most random and boring way to reveal that Rhinedottir ATE THE SHADE OF LIFE they could have possibly made.

[hellobitchlet]

Not a fan of Genshin using the deliberately ridiculous law that can get innocent people arrested and sent to jail over nothing as a punchline. Unironically. When Neuvillette has had the ability to change laws for over a year now. And can't hide behind the 'Furina is in charge, not me' excuse anymore. And has created laws when he actually wanted to keep someone- the melusines- safe even before he officially became the only ruler of Fontaine.

And joking that the police officers after Caucucu are shooting at him. For flying. As a bird.

How is Genshin SO tone deaf at all times...

[hellobitchlet]

Thoughts on paralogism:

- starting off the 'expecting everyone to know event lore' quest strong with having you show up in the middle of the Windblume Festival.

- god, Genshin is SO bad at subtly. You go straight to Katherine and she TELLS you that somethings off and the game FORCES you to watch npc's act Not Normal for a good 5 minutes to set the tone as Something Is Off.

- what is the point of the storytelling mode? Is it really just to add Windblune decorations to Mondstadt and make a court room? It's not like Mondstadt's aq didn't temporarily change the city's appearance already without it. And the Wibdblume festival is largely irrelevant to the plot anyways.

- "A trial? But, this is Mondstadt, not Fontaine..." Paimon what are you talking about?? Other nations have legal systems too, obviously???

- the first trial was just talking. There isn't even the stupid court minigame they had you do in Fontaine or a thinking minigame because Traveler wasn't participating in it! Thankfully, though, it wasn't that long by Genshin standards.

- ...Amber knows that there are two Albedo's. Eula knows that there are two Albedo's. Bennett knows that there are two Albedo's. Two of those people are with the Knights of Favonius. We SAW that Eula was a part of the investigation team working on this case before the trial even started! The didn't-play-the-event bandaid recap even acknowledges this! Even when making a trial 10 minutes long instead of an hour, and the investigation was seemingly finished BEFORE the trial (fuck you for being so bad at your job Neuvillette), the mystery is still appsurdly obtuse if you think about it for more than a second.

- (I know that Eula was taking part in the plan, but you were still supposed to think that an actual investigation was going on. The whole purpose of the investigation stuff was still pointless with how obvious it was that Albedo wouldn't be the killer)

- the writers will forget that they had Rosaria say something as suspicious as "Time is like the wind- it waits for no one" about Venti, with all the connections between time and wind. Rosaria is one of those 4 stars who just... randomly says stuff that makes her sound suspicious/important all the time and nothing comes of it. This isn't important to this quest- the sus line just reminded me of it.

- I'm not sure how I feel about Dahlia. He's an unnecessary addition to the cast, and the concept of his role being to 'communicate Barbados's will to the people' doesn't fit in with Mondstadt's story. What happened to Venti letting his people choose their own path unless something goes horribly wrong? He doesn't tell his people what to do- if he wants something done he does it himself. I want to be happy that new Mondstadt characters feel more important than most other new characters from older nations, but there is so much more you could've done than... basically ripping the concept of Venti's friendship with Rosaria and Barbara away from them.

- also I liked Dahlia's original design more. The only reason I was ever interested in him was because the original metal design on his chest looked similar to an Abyss enemy, and despite everything, I had the tiniest of hopes that it was actually intentional. I don't know why I ever thought that.

- there's finally an upstairs in the kof headquarters!! Rejoice!!

- HOW DID IT TAKE SO LONG FOR TRAVELER TO EVEN REMEMBER THAT THERE WAS A SECOND ALBEDO- "oh, I almost forgot!" HOW DO YOU FORGET THAT?????????????

- it also sucks that the return of Albedo's plotline- and arrival to permanent content- is Traveler casually walking into a situation that has been happening for years off screen. The fact that most of the quest is boring exposition of what Traveler missed is expected but disappointing.

- Albedo KILLED Subject 2 off screen. Are you fucking kidding me. I and many others have been interested in him for YEARS. He was one of the main focuses of Shadows Amidst Snowstorms, one of the best written quests Genshin has ever made, and one of the VERY FEW plotlines that actually had a chance to START going somewhere. And you. Killed. Him. Off. Screen. I am so pissed off. Fuck you.

- the sudden explain-a-thon of "actually, nothing went wrong and everything is under control and here's what's actually happening" did not help my investment in this stupid quest. This quest is 80% explaining what's going on 20% pseudo substance.

- still annoyed at the treatment of hilichurls. Nothing else to be said here that hasn't been said before.

- the Ragbros.... Genshin has been dumbing down and retconning their relationship conflict and personal conflicts since Diluc's skin event in Inazuma AT LEAST, to avoid actually writing their conflict. How do people still think that there's a conflict to be resolved.

- and of course, we had to throw in some hints of "Diluc doesn't mind the knights now, let's not acknowledge how he acted towards them in the beginning" as well. Give me ONE reason why he would've stopped using any excuse to insult them off screen, in the time between his story quest and paralogism.

- I feel like they mostly just put Kaeya in the marketing for 5.6 and made him Albedo's 'lawyer' bc ppl expect him to be a part of important Mondstadt stuff, and Kaebedo is Albedo and Kaeya's most popular ship. He didn't appear nearly as much as Albedo, Venti, and Jean outside of the trial.

- a team of just Amber and Mika was. Not fun. I had to use an attack boost food and I was fighting two normal hilichurls.

- it occurs to me that this is Mika's first appearance in permanent content. Mika himself is a plot point you were supposed to know about from events lol.

- the tripartite conference confuses me severely. When tf did Venti wake up in present times if he was around while Varka was still here? It's really hard to talk about the timeline of events in Genshin, but it feels like Venti wakes up whenever there's a disaster in Mondstadt that his people are struggling with, which made it seem like he woke up bc of Dvalin to me. But surely Varka didn't go on his expedition in the middle of that, right...? Surely the events of the manga (where he had already left) didn't take place at the same time as the situation with Dvalin that was never mentioned...?

- and again, this sudden angle of "Barbados doing stuff for Mondstadt as Babados in modern times" is very specifically NOT how Mondstadt works??? They're the nation that ISN'T led by their god in any capacity. That was a big thing.

- that is how you're choosing to introduce Varka? Over a bomb shaped phone? It was actually kind of funny that he casually mentions "I'm surrounded on both sides with a group on my tail looking to turn me into mince meat" and the writers chose to focus on him having a stash of alcohol. He sounds like a fun character. Please please please let me like him Genshin...

- I groaned out loud when Toy 'Durin' showed up. I'm sorry, but Simulanka sucked and I don't want some random new character who is not Durin but is named after him and was tacked onto Scara solely because he's popular. Just give me real Durin as himself, not a new character. I mean, the writers clearly didn't care about Toy Durin either, since they immedietaly shoved them into the stupid amalgamation of Durin and Subject 2 as well.

- they really made a Dodoco version of Alice to avoid showing us what she looked like. In this case, it's actually more funny than anything else, especially since no one (Paimon) is being all over-the-top surprised about it. I wonder if showing up in odd forms is just a normal Alice thing? If so, I like it.

- aside from the part where they're trying to drag the kof into it for no reason, I do like that they're doing something with Venti's relationship to the Hexenzirkel. It's nice to see Venti and Alice interacting on screen, and casually acting like friends. I was certainly more interested in that between Venti and Alice + Varka than I was in a new character.

- wait, this is the first time we're hearing Alice in a permanent quest too, isn't it? It's almost amazing how incomprehensible this quest is going to be to new players joining after all of this stuff. Like- they made a 'recap' of Shadows Amidst Snowstorms, but didn't realize that you ALSO need to know 2023 Windblume, Weinleslfest, and Simulanka AT LEAST to truly understand the quest. The writer in the Nod Krai video wasn't lying when he said that they couldn't keep track of what ppl do and don't know.

- Alice saying to Albedo "I find you facinating" is also so cute to me. That's how I think about my favorite characters too!

- I also like the concept of killing Durin again and reviving him as a human to prevent Mondstadt's destruction. I just hate Genshin killing off Subject 2 (possibly bc they could actually make proper ch vs ch conflict, now that I think about it), and then fusing Durin with him and the stupid fake Durin. Like, that's just making a new character. You made a new character out of the remains of older characters. If you liked any of the characters used in this process- fuck you! You don't get to have them! How the fuck did the writers even come up that and how did they think that was a good idea????????

- this weird not-Durin is like 50% boring Toy Durin, 40% unrelated matter, 10% the Durin this actually SHOULD be, 0% Subject 2.

- even with my anger at the treatment of Subject 2, I would have pulled for a human Durin SO hard if only it was the Durin I actually cared about. This Toy Durin, I... I never want to see Toy Durin become playable, ESPECIALLY if it comes with us acting like he IS Durin.

- imagine what they could've done with Subject 2 and humanoid Durin as separate characters that were still themselves! Imagine Durin having to get used to his new body and face everything he and his corpse did to Mondstadt unknowingly! Imagine him meeting Venti and Dvalin! Imagine Subject 2 actually getting to fuck shit up!

- Dodoco Barbeloth looks cool too, but a Barbeloth intro without Mona :/?

- I thought Albedo saw all of Rhine's creations as his siblings? I swear I remember him saying that. I didn't hallucinate that, did I? What would be the point of retconning that? I mean, he immedietaly started calling Durin his brother again at the end of the quest!

- wait, why did Albedo make human Durin in the city?????? Why was it so flashy and big??????? Why wasn't he anywhere near Toy Durin or the materials he was using the entire time???????? How did a song and some fireworks prevent people from noticing that something was going on???????? Why did he do it in the city?????????

- of course the answer of the important mystery "what did Rhine mean when she told Albedo to "find the truth of this world"" was that she was just telling him to get a life. Of course. We wouldn't want a playable character to be involved in something actually interesting. Of course.

- that was the most random and boring way to reveal that Rhinedottir ATE THE SHADE OF LIFE they could have possibly made.

[hellobitchlet]

My current thoughts on Nod Krai atm, mainly focused on the recent 'behind the scenes' video that was just posted;

- the concept of Nod Krai being made to deal with some of the things they wouldn't otherwise have time left for is... actually good. I am actually pleasantly surprised by this. I am... tentatively hopeful that there is going to be some good things about Nod Krai. That being said, I am not allowing myself to get my hopes up for anything genuinely good, for obvious reasons. Just because they are promising things that are good for the game in theory doesn't mean that it's suddenly going to become well written or anything.

- I noticed that they were referring to things like Varka's expedition and the moon sisters as 'loose threads', which felt like an odd choice? These are things that seemed so important that most day 1 players assumed they were future plotlines that Genshin was planning. Them emphasizing that Nod Krai was made for 'loose threads', and then showing important stuff that should've already had a place in their story, implies that they either didn't plan their story ahead enough or weren't planning on making them into plotlines in the first place.

- this doesn't surprise me, because it's very in line with how the game has been written so far. We have spent so much time with either useless filler, or overcomplicating lore for no reason (remember when a decender was just someone from another world?). They expect you to read books from filler updates and limited 5 star weapons to understand lore that is never mentioned in quests. Of course they didn't think very hard about these things.

- I know I shouldn't be taking a translation of a language I don't know at face value, but the entire section explaining why they were making Nod Krai was filled with this emphasis, so it's far from just one specific English term that may or may not have the same meaning as what they're actually saying.

- they were also putting emphasis on "we wrote the lore/story like this because it's sooooo hard to keep track of what the fans do or don't know yet" which... if an entire team is failing to keep track of a storytelling element as basic as 'what the player does and doesn't know', then DON'T CONSTANTLY ADD SO MUCH NEW STUFF MAYBE???? MAYBE STOP RETCONNING OLDER LORE???

- despite all of this talk about Nod Krai being the nation of connecting loose threads, there is a distinct lack of the Abyss Order. Again. For the 6th time in a row, out of 7 story chapters. They are supposed to be one of the main antagonist factions. How does the main antagonist faction that you have barely acknowledged for years not count as a 'loose thread' while the fucking Treasure Hoarders are getting attention?

- and then they also made over half of the factions they started teasing in the Song of the Welkin Moon be brand new factions that are solely tied to Nod Krai.

- WHY IS THE ENTIRETY OF HOYOVERSE SO OBSSESSED WITH FACTIONS?????

- I'm trying not to comment too much on the lore bc we haven't even seen it in game yet, but how the fuck does the Wild Hunt count as a faction while- again- the Abyss Order isn't even mentioned?

- I'm also not a fan of the Wild Hunt having a completely different aesthetic from pre-Fontaine Abyss stuff. I specifically hated the new Abyss enemies in Natlan for this exact reason. I mean, they look SO different, and we don't know much about the Wild Hunt yet- but the Natlan enemies had NO reason to look like that. Since Fontaine, they seem to be moving the Abyss's colour scheme from black and dark purple to darkish-but-not-really purple, just like how the rest of the game has been moving into a comically marketable, bright, cartoonish aesthethic since Sumeru. I could make an entire essay about how much better Mondstadt-Inazuma's aesthethic was (and closer to what many fans actually want!) than Sumeru-forwards.

- the text in the corner of the video: 'this game has nothing to do with real life people or places'. The people in the video: 'actively discussing what mythologies the new factions take inspiration from'. I think there was some miscommunication about our lying here, guys.

- seriously though, I fucking hate the insistence that Nod Krai is about people and not civilizations, which is totally different from how they wrote the rest of Genshin (it's not). Civilizations ARE people. Groups of people ARE civilizations. Do you not understand the definition of a civilization?? It reeks of the common defence fans have for Sumeru and Natlan, that culture is separate from the people who made it- and therefore it's okay to use cultural inspirations without representing the people of that culture. And that is making me deeply worried.

- they... they acknowledged that the technology in the newest nations are way different from the beginning and that Mondstadt feels like medieval Europe... and claimed that it's because of the factions in each nations... and used it as an excuse to claim that Nod Krai should be MORE ADVANCED THAN PREVIOUS NATIONS?! They doubled down on the WORST decision they have ever made, that has gotten them SO MUCH HATE and made Natlan the least liked nation in the game. For no reason. What the fuck is wrong with you.

- coming back to a more positive note, I do actually like the idea of a nation focused on the moon more than a nation focused on dragons and retcons, or a nation focused on the Primordial Sea.

- and I do like what little we have of Nod Krai's overall aesthethic more than I liked Natlan's, as well. The teaser for the Frostmoon Scions and the Lightkeepers actually look really cool! Though, again, I am dreading what unnecessary technology-related bullshit they're going to throw at us, and the teaser for the Voynich Guild looks odd and out of place visually compared to the rest of them.

- I do hope that we're getting new Fatui enemies soon, as the Fatui teaser seems to be suggesting. It's really odd that the Eremites and Regular Natlan Tribespeople You Kill For No Reason have more enemies for them than the Fatui and the Abyss Order combined.

- they are hyping Varka and his expedition up A LOT. If Varka ever shows up and becomes playable, it's going to happen during Nod Krai. I'm very glad that they remembered the expedition and are going to finally do something with it. I hope Varka is playable and I hope that I like him!

- I've said before that their handling of the harbingers and the Fatui isn't great- and a big part of it is bc they don't have time to have more harbingers than they do story chapters. With how little we've done with the Fatui plot so far, there is a LOT that Snezhnaya needs to unpack at once. Nod Krai should lessen this load for Snezhnaya. Even if they only introduce one new harbinger as per usual, that is one fewer harbinger to introduce next year.

- I have literally no idea what the Hexenzirkel is going to have to do with Nod Krai, but I wonder if it's less about Nod Krai and more about the whole 'some people want to get Moon Powers' thing? It would make sense if one or more of the witches were interested in the moon, and it would give them an excuse to inevitably keep the Hexenzirkel out of Nod Krai's storyline (have you seen Penacony in hsr? Hoyo can't handle having so many active players with different motivations in one storyline).

- despite my earlier comment about the Treasure Hoarders, I am interested in getting new Treasure Hoarder related content. I'm worried about Traveler and Paimon being dicks to them as usual, but they are one of the less important things from the beginning of the game I wanted to learn more about. I mean, there are ruins everywhere. The lore of the game is built ON ruins and artifacts! You can do so much world building with them!

[hellobitchlet]

It doesn't feel like the people defending Varesa actually care about her when they don't want to talk about her interesting mushroom god situation just as much as the people who hated her guts on sight. Do you actually care about Varesa as a character or do you just like saying "she's so cute!!!" over and over again until it drowns out the criticism people have of your favourite game?

[hellobitchlet]

Varesa's entire character revolves around being a cutesy waifu and walking fatphobic stereotype from The South African But Also Spanish Wrestling Tribe? I was expecting that.

Varesa's story tribal quest is about a mushroom god who is the source of all of the other sentient mushrooms we've seen who traded human loyalty for special mushrooms and thinks that the archon war is still going on that Varesa was unknowingly protecting her tribe from by eating his clones which physically changed her and allowed her to talk to him which almost no one else can do, thus making Varesa's entire character revolving around being a cutesy waifu and walking fatphobic stereotype from The Wrestling Tribe feel extra forced because she feels like she should be a dendro mooshroom who mainly focuses on the farmer aspect of her character? Not what I was expecting.

[hellobitchlet]

Well, I knew from the moment I saw Varesa that I was going to either hate her or become super protective of her, depending on what happened in game. I have decided that she's one of my failed potential girlies and am therefore going to be protective of her. I am very pissed at both Hoyo for being fatphobic, sexist, and racist, and at the fandom for failing to properly identify the problems both times we mass redesigned one specific female character (the first time was us redesigning Skirk to just be a buff woman in a different lingerie instead of recognizing that the lingerie was one of the main problems). This is your warning.

[hellobitchlet]

A common interpretation I see of how Genshin writes male and female characters is that they purely write men to be interesting characters and women to be one dimensional (with a few exceptions). But if you look deeper into the lore of female characters, I feel it would be more accurate to say that Genshin is simply more interested in talking about the lore of the most popular characters, and most of the most popular characters are male because... I probably don't have to say why.

[hellobitchlet]

At this point, I think it's safe to cross off the 'Iansan is an adult' and 'Iansan's elf ears are never acknowledged' points on my bingo. Goddammit Hoyo.

I know I stopped doing bingo update posts, but I promise I'm sill updating them! I'm still planning on making a final post at the end of 5.X with the complete bingo.

[hellobitchlet]

Honestly, anyone who hasn't been sticking their heads in the sand (which is...most of the fandom. but still.) knew that Genshin wasn't going to turn out very well. No matter how much we glazed the writing to hell and back, or how many times we said "_ will happen LATER and it will be really good!", we were going to end up in the late stages of the game with an unsatisfying story.

But...you know what? I don't think anyone could have predicted like. anything that has happened between 4.8 and 5.5.

[hellobitchlet]

Please please please make the next Traveler Quest be in the Mare Jivari and focus on a character I actually care about like Dainsleif or Enjou. No more boring Sumeru surface quests without permanent Abyssal areas. The Chasm Traveler Quest was so much more fun than the Caribert questline. Please.