phoenixglacier

[phoenixglacier]

Venti is my favorite character in Genshin Impact, and I think part of the reason I like him so much is that his intended character flaws and Genshin's unintended writing flaws synchronize quite well together.

My biggest issue with the way Genshin writes characters is that they are almost always static characters. With a tiny handful of exceptions, mostly within the main story, Genshin isn't interested in advancing character's arcs or showing them changing. Once we know their circumstances we know generally how they are, and parts of their story which seem to be hooks to further plot and development tend to fizzle out.

Normally this is something that stops me from really liking a lot of the Genshin characters, even if I think they're interesting; it frustrates me when the game seems to set things up and then refuses to follow through. But Venti, to me, is the exception, because a huge part of his central issue, in-universe, is that he is stagnant - that he has refused to move forward for 2600 years.

Venti's personal quest, "Should You Be Trapped in a Windless Land," is fairly up front about this. It involves the NPC Stanley, whose guilt over his friend's death decades ago has left him unable to move forward, clinging to the past. Venti spends most of the quest prodding and pushing at him, forcing him out of this mindset. But it is fairly clear that he does this in part because he sees himself in Stanley, that their situations are direct parallels, that Venti is in exactly the same place that Stanley was. When Venti says that he wants to see how Stanley will act when being forced to live in the present, it is in part because that is something he has never been able to do.

And so the story ends on a bittersweet note and an open ending. It's implied that Venti is going to be watching Stanley's progress closely; he can almost be seen as something like a test case. But what this will result in is deliberately obscured. If the player tracks down Stanley in the overworld after the fact, we learn that ever since the quest - which he has written off as a drunken dream - he feels happier and more fulfilled; he has resolved to himself that he does not have to choose between remembering his friend and living life, and has resolved himself to do both. So for Stanley's part, at least, things are going well. But as for Venti, things are less clear.

After all, he never actually says that he will change anything about his own situation, no matter how the Stanley situation resolves. Sure, he says he'll be watching, and that he's curious about how things will go. But to be honest, I always read this partly as wistful - that he wishes that he, too, could change, but that he feels that it is impossible for him.

He was the one who set this plan in motion - he knew exactly what Stanley's problems were, and how to go about helping him. Despite his carefree and lackadaisical attitude he is both experienced and self-aware; unlike Stanley, who denies that anything is wrong and cannot see the ways in which he is hurting himself, Venti clearly understands that the way he is grieving has long crossed into the realm of self-harm, and has known for a long time. But his friend died 2600 years ago, and hurting himself in his memory has become almost more familiar to Venti than the bard was. It is a key part of his self-conception, in a way that he cannot bring himself to shake. And he has multiple human lifespans to come to terms with this; to become comfortable as he is.

Which means, uniquely among the characters, that Venti's arc doesn't really have a burning need for a conclusion. There's no ticking time bomb that needs to be addressed. He doesn't have big interpersonal problems that constantly beg to be untangled like Kaeya and Diluc, or big future plot hooks like how Albedo worries that he will become a threat to everybody he cares about. He isn't in a situation where if the game ended today, players would feel like he never got his story told. Because in a way, already have an arc for him. It's a deeply sad one, is all; one where he acknowledges that he's been stuck for a long time, and will remain that way.

Certainly it is possible to continue his arc. It's very easy to imagine a future writer giving him a happy ending with a storyline where he tries to find hope in the future again, or even a tragedy that makes it explicit that he will probably be reliving the past forever. But it isn't strictly necessary. This I think is a big contributor to why I still really like his character, even though the game hasn't really done anything with him for like 4 years - because with him, it doesn't feel like a flaw.

Genshin doesn't like advancing character arcs, with rare exceptions involving pivotal moments in the archon quests. They prefer to leave the characters static as they are, so they can be pulled out and advertised for events whenever needed. With certain characters, when their plot threads remain unaddressed, and the game endeavors to shove their arcs to the side and bury them under the rug, it can be frustrating - I start to feel like what I liked about them was more their potential than anything that was actually executed. But Venti manages to avoid this, because if he refuses to talk about his problems, if he stays the same from year to year, then this tracks, that is exactly his problem. It's doesn't scan as out of character behavior, or the writers not wanting to touch it. His reasons to stay the same are spelled out in the text. I don't think this was an intentional choice by the writers, but it has led to an interesting result where the tendencies of the story feel justified.

[phoenixglacier]

Spending time with kids always reminds me how much I love the way they play. I’ll be like “hey kid look, this little bug is called an isopod it’s related to crabs and it eats dead plants” and they’ll immediately respond with something like “cool let’s play isopods we have to collect dead leaves as fast as we can and if we don’t get enough we die of starvation and have a bug funeral”

What an amazing way to process new information or explore an idea! It’s important to remember these kinds of games are not random or pointless; playing is how kids learn.

[phoenixglacier]

their friendship means sm to me

truly a severely underrated duo

also the fucking. jason being an exception to nico’s touch aversion SOBBING and he’s so respectful of nico’s boundaries

[phoenixglacier]

Genshin Impact | 2025 Birthday Artworks & Character Shorts: Cyno

Download Link (Google Drive) | Animated Ver.

[phoenixglacier]

I went to this Northwest Passage museum once where they had the white explorers' journals on one side of the exhibit and the native people's accounts on the other side of the exhibit and the explorer journals were like "our canoe had almost sunk when we encountered some kindly Indians" and the native histories were like "we watched a bunch of strangers come down the river in the shittiest canoe you'd ever seen. Also, they had no rain gear"

[phoenixglacier]

But there was a period of friction, when “hello” was spreading beyond its summoning origins to become a general-purpose greeting, and not everyone was a fan. I was reminded of this when watching a scene in the BBC television series Call the Midwife, set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, where a younger midwife greets an older one with a cheerful “Hello!” “When I was in training,” sniffs the older character, “we were always taught to say ‘good morning,’ ‘good afternoon,’ or ‘good evening.’ ‘Hello’ would not have been permitted.” To the younger character, “hello” has firmly crossed the line into a phatic greeting. But to the older character, or perhaps more accurately to her instructors as a young nurse, “hello” still retains an impertinent whiff of summoning. Etiquette books as late as the 1940s were still advising against “hello,” but in the mouth of a character from the 1960s, being anti-hello is intended to make her look like a fussbudget, especially playing for an audience of the future who’s forgotten that anyone ever objected to “hello.”

Because Internet, Gretchen McCulloch

[phoenixglacier]

[phoenixglacier]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[phoenixglacier]

Broke:

Belle has Stockholm syndrome because she falls in love with the Beast, her kidnapper.

Woke:

Stockholm syndrome was coined to slander a woman who had been in a hostage situation but openly criticized the poor police response which recklessly put her in more danger and escalated the violence. She was then belittled and discredited publically by the police for this.

So. Yeah. Maybe Belle does have Stockholm syndrome actually.

[phoenixglacier]

"Damian is a murderous brat", "Damian has murderous tendencies", "Damian shouldn't be in the Batfam because he's an assassin"

Damian the second he's allowed some agency outside the league:

[phoenixglacier]

Boop

[phoenixglacier]

may your journey know no bounds…

happy first anniversary, genshin impact! (ver 1.0-2.1) please click the images for better quality! <3

[phoenixglacier]

VENTI FIC Chapter 3: It Was An Anemo Vision Thing!

FIC IS COMPLETE AND UPDATES TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS. Posted 3 out of 7 chapters!

5 times Venti did a god thing + 1 time he couldn't gaslight everyone into believing it didn't happen. For HeirOfSerenity on Ao3 for the @drunktwinksummer Venti birthday exchange!

💚 Complete, posts Tues & Fri 🍎 3/7 chapters, 9k/30k words posted 💚 Fluff, humor, adventure, ensemble (details🔽)

LINK: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65948638/

✔️ PROLOGUE: The Request Jean asks a favor of Venti. ✔️ You Saw What? No, You Didn't. Venti escorts Noelle & Barbara to pick herbs in Liyue ✔️ It Was An Anemo Vision Thing! Venti escorts Fischl & Mona on a commission ✖️ I'm So Scared... I'm Traumatized Venti attempts to escort Eula on a mission to Dragonspine ✖️ It Wasn't Me?! It Was Jean! Venti escorts Amber & Sucrose on a scouting mission, and run into Klee & Jean on the way home ✖️ But Remember, Even Gods Are Not Immune To Bad Luck Venti goes to save Bennett and Razor ✖️ +1: Sometimes Things Don't Go To Plan, So If All Else Fails... All prior cast gather in one final chaotic adventure

[phoenixglacier]

“Lilo and Stitch” 2002

Deleted Scene

Lilo plays a trick on the tourists.

[phoenixglacier]

"Percy didn't think much of fates and prophecies, but he did believe in one thing: Annabeth and he were supposed to be together."

smoustart on insta

[phoenixglacier]

[phoenixglacier]

remember when deathstroke kidnapped damian and put him in a tank slowly filling with water and damian spent the entire time being like “your kids hate you and you’re bad at your job and you’re a fucking boomer” before finishing it off with “come in here and slash my neck then i can be your kid too”. fucking GOT his ass.