#hsr meta

[starcurtain]

I wish everyone collectively understood aventurine’s character like you…things would be so much easier! I genuinely don’t understand how people keep getting his motivations wrong??? Could it be because some of the most popular Aven fanfics were written prior to his release? That could have contributed to some of the takes we tend to see about him…thoughts?

I struggled all day to come up with a concise way to answer this and couldn't think of one, so here, have a long-winded ramble:

I don't think early fic writers have much impact in the situation with Aventurine's character now, since most people can look at when a story was posted and go "Oh, this was before we had ____ information."

I think that Aventurine's problem is being a male character in a gacha game. Gacha game characters are designed to sell. Hoyo can sell female characters very, very easily. Give her huge tits and a visible underwear strap and you're good to go. I love all my guy friends, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it: straight men are not the hardest audience to please. Hit a particular fetish (feet, spandex, dommy mommy), and you're gucci.

Nah, we all know why Jade's trailer is Like That.™

Male characters in gacha are harder to sell because women as consumers are a little harder to predict. Does every woman want a tall, ripped hunk? Shit, no, small cute boyish models like Aventurine are selling better now? Why?! Would a bad boy be more popular than a nice guy??? It's harder to account for women's tastes, especially because they are often (a little) less visually-oriented.

Hoyo is good at what they do though, and they've figured out that male characters sell very well when they possess at least one of two specific traits:

Endearing vulnerability/helplessness

Gay ship tease

Give a character both, like Aventurine? They might as well be printing money.

That sound you hear is Hoyo's stock prices rising.

So, from the very beginning, Hoyo is incentivized to create a character that appeals to people, a character people will want to crack their wallets open for. And they achieved this, first and foremost, by giving Aventurine traits that female players (in particular, but men too), find especially appealing: emotional and physical vulnerability.

We see Aventurine's pain. We sympathize with his grief. We identify with his struggle to make meaning of his difficult life. He's our woobie, blorbo, babygirl, whatever the hell they're calling it now.

He can't hide his suffering anymore. He's on the very edge. He's a dude in distress. He's surrounded by enemies! He misses his mama! He's been betrayed! No one understands him like you do, dear player!

The ultimate feeling evoked is: He needs to be saved.

When people talk about male power fantasies, I think they forget that women can experience them too, and "Emotionally vulnerable man that only I (or my favorite character) can fix" is actually a female power fantasy.

And from there it's really easy, right: the people who shell out cash to buy warps for their harmed-husbando feel like they've saved him; the people who are into mlm ships look for the nearest hot dude to be the savior Ratio was waiting for his time lol.

Morally and intellectually, this type of deep-down-golden-hearted, emotionally-wounded male character is very easy to digest. There is nothing to dislike about this type of character or role in the story: this character is a good guy who has just gone through so many terrible situations, whose victim status makes him endearing, and whose lack of agency means that any of the questionable or downright bad things he does are always the result of someone else forcing his hand, and never something he would have chosen himself.

His motivations are always clear and consistent: get free, heal, and live happily ever after.

Insert the Wreck-It Ralph meme: "Do people assume all your problems got solved when a big strong man showed up?" But to be fair, a big strong man did kind of solve Aventurine's problem, so--

Anyway, it's simple. It's straightforward. Morally, it's pretty cut and dry, black and white: Aventurine is our hero, which means everyone dictating the course of his miserable life is evil.

Hoyo is not remotely discouraging people from literally buying into this emotional appeal.

And trust me, I get it. I'll be the first to admit that hurt-comfort is its own entire genre in fandom because it is so appealing. People eat up Aventurine's tragic backstory like candy! The idea of watching a character go through hell at the hands of bad guys just to finally find a happy end is like the definition of everyone's favorite story.

In fact... people love Aventurine's suffering so much, they have invented whole new ways for him to suffer that aren't even in the game.

This is where we get all the headcanons that Aventurine was a sex slave, every single person he meets hates him because of his race, the Stonehearts are executioners holding knives to his throat, Jade enslaved him to the IPC with a lifelong contract, his material possessions belong to the company, the IPC is forcing him to take only the most dangerous missions where he is being required by his evil jailers to continually put his life on the line... You name it and I promise you, I can find a fanfic where Aventurine suffers from it. 😂

Bro can't even sleep in on his day off; life is so hard for this man.

Being serious: if the game is telling us that Aventurine is a victim... Why not make him the perfect victim?

Why not envision an Aventurine with no freedom, who bears no responsibility for any of the horrible situations he is in or any of the dubious things he does?

It's so natural to like that version of Aventurine, so appealing to see a totally powerless underdog use his own wits and charms to claw his way up to freedom. Or, if you're the kind who really relishes angst: It's even appealing to see Aventurine lose more. To delight in fics where he loses his wealth, where the IPC punishes him for past crimes while he's powerless to stop them... (I assure you, this is many people's cup of tea and the fanfics prove it!)

Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with liking characters who are exactly this straightforward! It's completely fine to embrace characters that are intentionally written to be morally above-board, whose primary role in the story is to generate angst by being a good person who suffers, or those characters who never show unlikable traits, bad decisions, or contradictory actions.

The problem is that that's just not who the game is telling us Aventurine is.

Hoyo may be capitalizing off people who love to envision poor Aventurine still living his life as a slave... But the game also needs to tell a complicated enough story overall to appeal to people who don't care about this specific husbando--Aventurine's role in the actual game's plot has to be interesting enough for almost everyone to appreciate it, not just Aventurine's simp squad. (Don't get mad, I'm in the simp squad with you.)

So his character doesn't stop at just being a pure-hearted victim who is still waiting to be saved.

Aventurine is not that easy to label, and I think the biggest struggle in this character's fandom right now is between people who prefer the even-more-angsty, still-a-slave Aventurine versus people who want a morally grey, self-destructive character instead.

To me personally, while I greatly understand the appeal of fanon!Aventurine and the joy of a really juicy angst fic where characters lose it all, I think that missing out on the depth that canon is suggesting would be a real loss on the fandom's part.

The character motivations that Aventurine shows in the game are complicated. They cancel each other out. They're basically self-harm! He makes almost every situation he's in worse for himself--on purpose.

He is a good person, but also a person who has done unspeakable things. He does have morals, but he's not above allowing those who don't have them to use him to their advantage.

He's both the victim and the victor. He's his own worst enemy. He's a lost little boy who's been making terrible decisions for himself since he was like eight years old, and a grown ass man who is barely managing to fake his way through an existence that destiny is not letting him quit.

This kind of character is a lot harder to embrace. He's done things that most people would find appalling--like willingly joining up with the organization that let his entire race be massacred. He's invented a whole new peacock persona to frivolously flaunt riches he doesn't even care about (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 101). He actively plays into racist stereotypes about his people to manipulate others through their preconceived expectations. He's made a mockery of his mother's and sister's hopes and dreams by endlessly trying to throw his own life away.

He has flaws! He bet everything he had on a ploy without doing his homework to find out if the people he was risking his life for were even still around. (Maybe he already knew, and couldn't bear to admit it, even to himself.) He's intentionally off-putting and obnoxious to everyone he meets (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 102). He terrifies everyone who gets close to him by (seemingly) carelessly throwing himself into the jaws of death without the slightest provocation.

He knowingly allows the IPC to exploit his power and talents for profit. Did everyone forget that his role in the Strategic Investment Department is asset liquidation?! Like, his actual day-to-day job is ruining people's lives. Canonically, Aventurine kills people when his deals go bad.

His motivations change off-screen in two lines of story text. We're told in one line that his biggest reason for joining the IPC was to make money to save the Avgin, then in the next line we find out that's impossible. And... then what? What motivations does he even have now? The whole point of his character arc from 2.0-2.1 is that he was on the edge of giving in to utter despair and nihilism because he couldn't even perceive a single reason to stay alive. He has no purpose in life before Penacony, and that didn't start with the Stonehearts at all??

People keep saying Aventurine was held in the IPC by golden handcuffs, but how do you tie down someone for whom profit is meaningless? What can you offer to a man whose only desire is to bring back something already lost forever? How do you imprison someone whose only definition of freedom is, canonically, death?

Working for the Stonehearts is obviously not healthy. But that's why Aventurine was doing it--because taking dangerous missions allowed him to put himself at risk. The job that he originally pursued hoping to save his people became a direct means to self-harm, and the IPC's only real role in that was just happily profiting off the results.

The journal entries for Aventurine's quests are there deliberately to tell the player what is on his mind, and none of it has to do with escaping from his job:

Like... Work is the least of this man's problems.

At really the risk of rambling on too long now, he's also just a massive walking contradiction:

Aventurine is among the most explicitly religious characters in the game, yet he's one of the only people in the entire game that we have ever seen actively question his people's aeon.

You might be tempted to think Aventurine's risky gambles with his life as an adult are a result of giving up after finding out about the Avgin massacre... Butttt no, Hoyo makes sure to tell us that even at knee-high in the Sigonian desert, Kakavasha was already willing to risk himself in a fight to the death against monsters because even back then he found his own life to have less value than a single memento.

He's the "chosen one" who will lead his people to prosperity... except they're all dead.

He's explicitly suicidal... andddd also a pathstrider of Preservation.

He wants to die... He doesn't want to die. He wants to make it end, yet goes to staggering lengths to continually survive. (Every plan risks his life on purpose--but every plan's win condition is also to live.) He life is the chip tossed down, but his hand is trembling beneath the table. When faced with an otherwise unsurvivable situation, Aventurine literally became a winner of the Hunger Games. He beat other innocent people to death with his own chain-bound hands just to come out alive.

He knows the IPC failed the Avgin and left them to die... and he still willingly sought out a position of power in their organization. Maybe he really is after revenge... but maybe not.

He starts his journey in the IPC with a truly noble goal in mind: to help his people using his newfound wealth and power. He's a good guy who did genuinely want to save the Avgin and repay all those who helped him. But once it became clear he was too late, once it was obvious he would have no use at all for that monetary wealth and power he risked his life to get... What did he do with it? Unlike Jade, we don't see him over here donating to orphanages. (I'm not that heartless; I'm sure he does actually do a lot of good things with his money on the side, but the point is that the game does not show us that--it shows us, over and over again, Aventurine putting on a wasteful, over-indulgent persona toward wealth. We've supposed to feel how meaningless money is to him, how meaningless everything is becoming to him.)

He outright refuses to use underhanded tactics or to cheat at gambles, which is meant to show us that's he's more morally upright than his coworkers. There's an entire exchange where he says that he'll never stoop to using manipulation the way Opal does. But... he doesn't have any issue fulfilling Opal's exact agenda. He was never remotely morally conflicted about denying the Penaconians their freedom by dragging Penacony back under IPC control.

He's willing to risk his own life, which is one thing--but he's also willing to risk other people's well-being. Topaz accuses him of constantly egging their clients on into dangerous situations; we've actively seen him shove a gun into Ratio's hands and pull the trigger with no care for how Ratio would feel about that on their very first meeting... Dragging the Astral Express crew into the entire Penacony plan in the first place was exceedingly dangerous...

To me, I just think it's vital to understand his character through the lens of these contradictions because they demonstrate the extreme polarity of Aventurine's life: from rags to riches, from powerless to empowered by multiple aeons, from willing to kill to survive to killing himself... He has quite literally lived a life of "all or nothing," and while he is the victim of many terrible situations out of his control, his arc as a character involves facing the truth of himself and the future his own actions are hurtling him toward.

Frankly, the Aventurine that canon is suggesting is a little annoying. You want to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and say "Why are you like this?!" And he won't even have an answer for you, because he doesn't even know why he's still alive.

In the end, to me, this is so, so much more interesting. I can read an endless supply of hurt-comfort fics where Aventurine escapes the evil IPC and Ratio is there to fill the void in his life with the power of love and catcakes and be a perfectly happy clam online, but I want canon to continue to serve us this incredible mess of a man who constantly takes one step forward and two steps back.

Who is fully aware of his role as a cog in the grotesque profit-wheel of cosmic capitalism and still manages to say he never changed from the rags-wearing desert rat of the Sigonian wastes.

Who over and over again flirts with nihility but, ultimately, even if he has to wrest it from the grip of the gods themselves with bloody, chain-bound hands, chooses life.

[somethingsomethingstarward]

no but like. if we are going to be talking about the yaoqing trio-

feixiao and moze are in the middle of a crisis. they came to secure a prisoner, and not only is that prisoner not secure, he has in fact escaped! and is now holding their ambassador hostage! and that's if said ambassador is even still alive- for all they know, hoolay might have decided it's not worth waiting and killed him anyway. they are dealing with not only a massive diplomatic issue, but a massive threat to the security of the entire xianzhou alliance, especially to anyone who's foxian. the only silver lining is that hoolay is, for reasons they don't know, still on the luofu, but that also means that they cannot afford to make mistakes right now, because it's basically their only chance to prevent this from spiraling completely out of control. they absolutely have to be at their best here.

and also- that's their friend. he hates coriander and he makes them hot pot and he's had his heart broken too many times. he mourns every person he's ever healed and sent back out to die on the battlefield- and he came back anyway, to try and save someone who he knew was dying. how long do you think it took for him to believe that caring about them wqs worth the pain? how long do you think the two of them spent trying to figure out how to walk the line between being a soldier and having someone to come back to? how long do you think it took, for a general and assassin and a medic to decide there was something worth caring about anyway between the three of them- that even though they knew it would hurt in the end, it was worth trying?

and now one of them- that wasn't even a frontline fighter, that was never supposed to be in this position in the first place- is either dead or captive with the worst enemy of his entire species. if he's alive, then he is actively experiencing the effects of a fear toxin and surrounded by enemies who think he's property at best. so if they want to get him back, he's going to have to survive all of that and give hoolay a decent reason to keep him alive long enough for them to rescue him. and maybe the worst part is, if they have to choose- and I think all three of them know this- they cannot prioritize his safety over neutralizing the fact that hoolay presents.

on some level, of course, they had to be prepared for this. fexiao is a general. moze and jiaoqiu are her retainers. you are inevitably going to end up in a situation where one of them is in danger and the other two just have to deal with it. it comes with the territory. moze was ready and willing to leave jiaoqiu behind, and i think that's not because he doesn't care, but because that is the deal you make when you choose to care about somebody within this situation. your higher priority has to be the safety of your general and the xianzhou, in that order. and feixiao, as the general, has to prioritize the safety of the alliance above either of them.

but i think about what it must be like to try to make those plans, knowing all of this. because they were never going to be safe- not as the general of the yaoqing and her retainers- but none of that changes the fact that feixiao and moze know, keenly, that somebody they care about is being hurt. and they might, if they get this right, be able to save him- but the damage is being done as they speak, and every second they take is another second jiaoqiu suffers.

i think it must kill them, just a little bit. 

[kosmic-autokrat]

at some point some people simply have so much baggage that it is genuinely so, so hard to pick themselves back up. and that's not a moral failing! what sunday wants to do here is make sure they dont have to get to that point ever.

what he fails to take into account is 'true harmony'- people banding together in order to pick each other up from that point. but he does have a point. humans are selfish. they don't want to pick each other up. so what he wants to do is ensure 'happiness for all'.

'before the moment of despair, remove that which troubles them so they never experience despair' so no one will have to pick each other up. they won't get left behind at the wayside. it won't be on them, but on him to do so.

--to become a 'star' no one can reach in place of Robin, who he wishes to remain alongside people. he alone will watch over everyone, allow them to explore their desires in a safe and controlled environment... honestly, his dream is beautiful. their dream is beautiful.

he views this as a sacrifice someone must make. and if not him, it will be robin. he cannot let that happen. so, control. it's not that he views himself as righteous and above all. he's seen suffering, experienced it, and is jaded.

he doesn't think paradise exists if not made with their own hands. a world without aeons, a world made good.

'And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because that in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made.' he wouldn't ever rest. the sabbath- sunday, is a day of rest. that 'rest' would be for everyone else. he'd keep working, tirelessly, for everyone...

ah sunday the man you are

[buqbite]

it's kinda fascinating to me how welt has been "at the end of his life" for like. several decades by now. he goes on and on about how old and weary he is and how "his job is done" and his story is over but- oh wait i just realized i can phrase this in a very funny way- he's kind of sorta immortal now because he got the herrscher core back, so he's really just stuck in the epilogue for all eternity

[arleqwinn]

jingliu is still good tho 😭😭

[aconfusedkitten]

the medicore compared to the geniuses

so i'm writing a lot of hsr fic right now, and i noticed something really interesting about the genius society and dr. ratio, who are characterized pretty similarly.

they're both treated as this very cold, very distant kind of thing that a lot of people don't understand, and in a lot of ways, that makes sense! ratio's teaching methods don't make sense (logically or in a meta way), and the genius society is so separate from ordinary people. even with someone like asta, who works with herta, there's a degree of separation in her voicelines.

the really interesting difference to me relates to their paths!

1. play style

herta and ruan mei, the two playable genius society members, follow the erudition and the harmony, and both of them specialize on aoe attack/support. herta does almost all of her damage on her own, aside from triggering her follow up, and ruan mei can fit into any team, since she buffs all damage and break effect, but in the end, all of her skills rely on her. they're amazing in situations where you need to look at the full picture and take on a lot of enemies at once -- like pure fiction, as an example! -- but when it comes to one on one fights?

they definitely don't do as well, coming from someone who's built them both and played them in divergent universe.

on the other hand, ratio follows the path of the hunt. his ability to hit multiple targets is non-existent, regardless of which one of his traces you use. unlike herta and ruan mei, he thrives in one on one combat, and his ability to do so relies on his teammates almost as much as it relies on his own build. while he can trigger his own follow up attacks in his skill, wiseman's folly can only be triggered by other teammates. it isn't hard to trigger it, since all you need to do is attack his target, but ratio interacts a lot more with his teammates, despite what you may think from the hunt.

2. interacting with knowledge

we also see them interact with knowledge in extremely different ways.

the genius society has a very big picture idea of how knowledge works. with both of the examples we're given, their research is just that. their research. there aren't any plans to share this knowledge or to make it widespread, or if there are, they aren't told to us.

herta will occassionally let another genius work on her simulated universe, but it's so the trailblazer -- her only test subject -- can learn more about the aeons and other beings in the universe. in the case of the swarm disaster ruan mei, though she will tell us about her projects, has little regard for the lifeforms themselves. between the cat cakes, who we are left to care for, and the propogation swarm clone in herta's basement, we are given no reason to believe she feels strongly about people.

in many ways, ratio is the exact opposite. i have few good things to say about his teaching methods, based on the information we have from his character stories, but they make all of the difference. ratio is in no way lacking in knowledge, and yet, rather than using it for his own studies, he instead uses it to share knowledge across the universe. a lot can be said about the way he goes about it, but the distinction is still very clear. ratio's overall goal is to share the information he has gained, and he's almost single-minded in this pursuit.

you can even make an arguement about divergent universe, a project ratio is implied to have influenced heavily.

while herta's original simulated universe is meant to provide her with information about the universe -- and the player is reliant on the characters and paths they have built -- ratio's divergent universe practically helps teach the player themselves. we are able to use any character, regardless of their build, and learn how they work, both as an individual and as a team. according to screwllum, ratio's project was intented to focus on 'the every day person,' and it definitely shows.

3. wrapping up

for all of their surface level similarities, ratio's core values are very different from that of the genius society members we know, and (a topic for a different time) why ratio hasn't been acknowledged by nous.

after all, how do you get accepted into a group focused on learning the big picture of the universe when you'd rather spend your time sharing information with any person you meet on the streets?

[lostlegendaerie]

Veritas Ratio and Autistic Representation

Chances are you know autistic people in your life; autism itself is a fairly recently coined term, dating back to 1911, and can encompass a wide variety of symptoms and eccentricities which have existed since the dawn of humankind. (The 'fey-touched' child or changeling in European lore shares a lot of traits with autistic children.) Autism is a spectrum, encompassing and overlapping a lot with ADHD and other neurological disorders. There are probably millions of people out there, especially from older generations, who are on the spectrum and have no idea. I did not even get my diagnosis until I was 27.

So it is entirely possible that the creators of Veritas Ratio from Honkai: Star Rail did not intend to write him as autistic and based him on people they knew in their own lives, who, diagnosed or not, are on the autistic spectrum. However, the point of this piece is to talk about the ways in which Veritas Ratio is good autistic representation (in my opinion as a autistic person), and how people who want to write characters like this can take a page out of Honkai's book in their own work.

1) SPECIAL INTEREST. Ratio shows a *staggering* amount of dedication to the pursuit of knowledge and his quest to cure the world of ignorance. This quest of his tends to supersede everything else in his life, with no mention of any friends, family connections or romantic partners in his character story. (Said as a Ratiorine shipper - not sinking any 'ships, here) His dedication to education started early, with reading college undergraduate education levels while still in middle school - seven or so years ahead of his peers. Autism is considered a disability, yes, but it does not exclude you from being smart, and the fixation on your chosen topic(s) can be extremely useful in motivating you to reach the top of your field. His path being The Hunt also outlines this dedication; he is seeking his target without rest or distraction.

2) SENSORY ISSUES. Ratio very explicitly can become distracted and disgusted by the feeling of dirt or sweat on his skin, something that tends to be more prevalent with specific clothing textures but absolutely can manifest in a need to feel clean. He also can apparently become very irritated and overwhelmed by lights and sounds, and wears his plaster mask as a way to deaden and deafen the amount of sensory input that he receives. This allows him to think better, and is a fantastic example of what it feels like to suffer from sensory overload. (If you find yourself getting stressed in crowds, try bringing earplugs and putting them in the next time you're in a noisy restaurant and see if doesn't help you out.)

3) STRONG SENSE OF MORALITY. Autistic people tend to suffer from a somewhat black-and-white feeling of right and wrong, and can hold themselves and other people to an extremely strict moral code. This does not mean that they are always correct in what they believe is right and wrong, but it means that they can be extremely passionate about following those rules. Ratio's beef with the Genius Society and their selectivity is indicative of his unwavering passion towards sharing knowledge with the masses, but the tactless way in which he wishes to cure ignorance bleeds into our fourth point.

4) DIFFICULTY WITH SOCIAL CUES. In one of his earlier conversations with Aventurine (where he is clearly irritated at how careless Aventurine seems to be about their entire mission), Ratio inadvertently insults Aventurine's his lack of education and parents. He apologizes afterwards, stating he did not intend to come across that way, but he maintains the same imperious tone of voice. Autistic people often, but not always, struggle with social cues and can often be considered rude when we are trying to be direct and easily understood; and we can especially struggle with understanding sarcasm or sounding sarcastic when we intend to be sincere.

With my reasons for believing Ratio to be Autistic coded firmly established, let's move onto why I think he is good representation. The two most important parts of representation, in my lived experience as an Autistic person, are RELATABILITY and EMPATHY.

Ratio exhibits some of the same mentalities and symptoms I've had, such as being misunderstood and accidentally offending people and becoming extremely stressed in large crowds due to overstimulation, so he checks off the first box. But the way that the other characters in the game respect him and do not ridicule him for his eccentricities marks the second. Whether in marketing material or in character dialogue options, Ratio's love of baths, his plaster bust, and his ceaseless drive to educate other people (whether they need it or not) are seen as charming and generally positive, and those attributes are not constantly brought up (and mocked) in his interactions and dialogue with other characters. Aventurine doesn't constantly ask Ratio if he needs to leave the Dream to take a bath, and the TB's text conversations with him allow you to engage with his special interests such as his requests for problems to solve and debates to wage against you. He is canonically seen and respected as a brilliant individual, and not reduced to a joke or viewed as comic relief (e.g. Sampo, who almost exclusively is given negative dialogue options for the player to use when interacting with him and who almost every character in the story openly despises.)

Some of you are going to disagree with me in the comments (which is fine, it's my opinion), but for the few of you who read this all the way through, thank you. I hope that this helps you view Ratio and Autistic people overall in a new light, and I am excited to see where else we go from here with him and the rest of the cast!

[iridescentscarecrow]

going to be real most of jade's character can only be framed & understood through her emphasis on mutual respect & understanding (percieved, artificial) before a deal. this mutuality/equality is something she deliberately tries to assert in her conversations too...

she initially brings this idea frame of herself up in her convo with oti & this, alongside "kids/chessboard" are world hooks to compare her w. NPC stories too. further, very fun how aventurine & topaz reflect aspects of this as imbued teaching...

the devil who grants deals, empowering the weak by forcing them onto the same bargaining table through both assumed equality [contractual base] & desires sets itself against sunday's offer to the weak: the latter erasing agency, underlining weakness to enforce desire granting.

i think setting aventurine as a central medium along which this build is concieved makes the parallel between the jade - sunday conversation & the sunday - aventurine interrogation ring quite hard. image attached is my response to an ask a while back so it's quite messy but yeah.

re: mutuality : the "i've been in your shoes before" above & the "we're equals" to topaz. if you want to get additionally crazy, the way she insists on calling aventurine "child" & her voicelines about him, particularly compelling. because at so many levels he wants to be her.

he imitates her & wishes to be her & be more than her & i think *this* unsettles her. the weak seeking power by /becoming/ strong, abandon the pretense at the root of the contract base. aventurine incessantly cutting himself into shape for that table he is "qualified" to be at.

& i think considering this next to sunday's oddly personal discomfort with aventurine: something that manifests in cruelty & violence. there's obviously the way the conversation is half self projection [do you love your family/manipulate minds] etc because sunday *identifies* himself with the weak. image: their respective ambitions. but aventurine's counter unsettles: he doesn't wish to be saved, or seen of as weak. he'd rather strike wagers (but notably: he doesn't wish to do so with jade.)

see: recieved her kindness, their convo at the end of 2.1.

* re: aventurine & jade the npc duo i mentioned in the sunday-jade convo i pasted above is pretty intriguing to think about alongside them. thomas specifically uses jade's "chessboard/pawn" investment methodology. i find erica's dialogues in response very brainrottey though. reasoning out chasing of wealth, disconnect/sense of imposterism from-in high society..

didn't put the exact dialogue in here because theyre buried in another notes document & this is mostly stream of consciousness paras.

[mikansei]

assorted 🦚 HCs i'm probably never going to do anything with and am thus releasing into the wild:

🩵 aventurine's hair is only wavy when it's humid - but coming from a desert planet, basically any humidity above 0% counts as such, so in effect it's now permanently wavy. (on sigonia it only showed when it rained, which was such an infrequent blessing that it was seen as good luck - which, at this point, is just another facet of that grand cosmic joke at his expense. permanently lucky, right?)

🩵 he doesn't hide his brand scar because it makes people visibly uncomfortable to see it, and he's never been a non-confrontational person. sure, he'll twist himself into all kinds of more palatable shapes in order to play a role or fulfill expectations - but there are some things he doesn't want people to be able to ignore. (if you want to look at me, you have to look at what the world did to me. you don't get to look away.)

🩵 he doesn't make it common knowledge that he never learned to swim; he'll happily sip mai tais under the shade of a beach umbrella, but no one's ever seen him get in the water. (ratio swims like a fish, but the "wet shirtless ratio" factor overrides any jealousy he might feel over this.)

🩵 he has mixed feelings about rain until he has to be In The Rain, at which point he becomes the world's saddest wettest cat about it. and yes, some of it's about evoking bad memories - but the sensation of cold wet clothes clinging to him is also just physically uncomfortable.

also this doesn't really fit here but i don't want to make a separate post lmao, the ingame descriptions of the avgins and the halovians are making me slightly insane

halovians:

A revered race esteemed for their enchanting voices and captivating appearance, widely adored throughout the universe. They seem born into the love and admiration of other species and peoples. Halovians are blessed with shrewdness and few can peer past their mysterious and elegant smiles.

avgins:

The Avgins are blessed with attractive facial features, beautiful eyes, and an innate wealth of emotional intelligence, all of which effortlessly endear themselves to any strangers. However, these inborn talents are the exact reason they draw jealousy and ire from others.

the descriptions are so incredibly similar and yet their reception is polar opposite!! i feel a very normal amount of emotion about this

[astrophyta]

I...really want to talk about dan feng.

spoilers at the end for imbibitor lunae's companion quest, but mostly the focus will be past content and ichor of two dragons

so, a lot of important stuff has been said already about ichor of two dragons, and to be clear from the get-go I understand that the short is about dan heng, his struggle with his past lives' sins, and specifically the story he has been told about dan feng. in imbibitor lunae's character introduction, he said that he has been thoroughly educated about his past life's sins by the totally-not-biased parties of the ten-lords commission and the preceptors (seems it was just the Ten-Lords Commission):

we've already established that "dan feng," or rather the image of dan feng constructed in dan heng's mind, was a mouthpiece for not only the messages dan heng received from these lessons but also his own fears and doubts about his ability to break free of the past. so, "dan feng" is a symbol to dan heng for something else.

despite this necessary context, I still couldn't help but feel there was a shadow of truth in the short about dan feng's own life being reflected by his mirror image. to explain that further, first we need to talk about dan feng and yubie.

dan feng was yubie's reincarnation, which was established during the todd riordan quest in patch 1.2:

Trailblazer: (Todd wants to see the high elder statue. I'll look for it in this area...) (After taking a photo of the high elder statue) Trailblazer: (This is an artifact left by Dan Heng... Errr, no, by Dan Heng's previous incarnation... Errr, actually, by his previous incarnation's previous incarnation... Seems I've made a remarkable friend indeed.)

yubie is mostly remembered for sealing scalegorge waterscape and suppressing the roots of the ambrosial arbor, which he did in part to return a favor to the xianzhou for giving the vidyadhara a new home.

we are already well aware that dan heng has been treated like dan feng's shadow his whole life, so it shouldn't be difficult to imagine being dan feng and growing up with a giant like yubie looming over your life as well. we heard a few mirages from dan feng's childhood on the way to scalegorge waterscape who call him things like "the chosen one" when he is still preparing to be the high elder of the luofu.

meanwhile, his previous incarnation has a whole statue dedicated to him and his life-defining decision, which was extremely important to the xianzhou natives and their relationship with the vidyadhara. I don't think it's venturing too far into the realm of speculation to say there was already an expectation to measure up when dan feng was still very young.

in truth, the vidyadhara were not all in agreement about yubie's decision. not everyone thought that the xianzhou deserved the sacrifice of their sacred lands:

Old Voice: Use Scalegorge Waterscape to seal the Arbor? Treason! Blasphemy! Old Voice: You've lost your senses! You think this will gain the trust of the Xianzhou natives? Those who are not of our kind can never be of our mind! Voice of High Elder: I understand your misgivings, but my decision is made. That is the course we must take. Old Voice: I... very well. In that case, I will report you to the Preceptors and have you stripped of the name and power of the high elder.

and another echo mirage from the trailblaze mission:

Young Lady's Voice: Young master, must we really forsake Scalegorge Waterscape? Voice of High Elder: ...Can you forgive me, Yueyan? Young Lady's Voice: I cannot say, young master. I feel resentment in my heart, but there are also... feelings I cannot put into words. Young Lady's Voice: The senior Vidyadhara say that the Xianzhou offered us this place — that we hail from another world. Is it time to repay them?

so basically, there's no winning when you're high elder, even when you get a statue made of you for your deeds. measure up to this person and the expectations that come with the role, but also you never will, because your predecessor never truly could either.

again, we know that ichor of two dragons is about dan heng, but humor me for a minute in recognizing how dan heng echoes dan feng's own rebelliousness and stubborn attitude, the high elder that the preceptors were "unable to control." much of what "dan feng" says to him could have also been said to dan feng, the same traditional messages echoing throughout time from one high elder incarnation to the next.

"dan feng" tries to drown and silence the hope and rebellious spirit that dan heng embodies, and it makes me wonder if this same internal struggle was something dan feng ever dealt with, if he had ever tried to drown his own desire for freedom but was unable to do so, surprising even himself. that's more of a stretch in interpretation and just personal speculation, but it makes this scene hit that much harder for me:

so much of dan feng's life was constrained by the notion of futility, every choice nothing more than an illusion. even in the sedition, his desire to find a way out of endless rebirth for the vidyadhara and endless wars against the abundance seems to have backfired stupendously in ways he never intended it to. even so, his life reminds me of what kafka says to the trailblazer at the very beginning of the game: when you have a chance to make a choice, make one you know you won't regret.

if choice is an illusion, make a choice you know you won't regret...is it a paradox, or is there a greater truth within it?

also, one thing about the imbibitor lunae companion quest that I really loved was how every mirage that immediately recognized dan heng's power as dan feng's came at the expense of recognizing bailu's and her claim to the high elder title. it's a metaphor for the side of dan feng that was acceptable to the vidyadhara and the side of him that was not acceptable - the image that they desire of their high elder vs. the whole truth of them. dan heng says as much: bailu has the portion of dan feng's power she is meant to have, his gentleness manifested as abundance, the desire to heal the world and ease its suffering.

and there is something poetic about dan feng's power echoing both destruction and abundance, the same paths as phantylia, but being channeled so differently in both him and his reincarnation and successor.

the pain and loneliness of being a symbol before you are an individual is something that dan heng and dan feng can relate to in one another. in choosing to end that cycle and forge a new path for the vidyadhara and himself, even though it didn't go exactly to his plan, it's clear that dan feng wanted a brighter future for all on the luofu and he risked everything to realize it. with more time and additional perspectives, I hope dan heng can afford dan feng the same treatment he demands for himself - to be treated like a complex being with their own goals and motivations, and not as the echo of an immovable figure rooted in the "idea" of a person rather than reality.

[laseratingfist]

thinking again about how Luka's dad is only mentioned in one of his character stories and nowhere else. also no mention of a mom, so I assume she died when he was really little or is entirely out of the picture. (maybe that old blacksmith isn't even his biological father and was just taking care of him, though there's not really evidence for that.)

Luka seems to have been parentified, and developed his self-sacrificing tendencies at a young age.

while Luka is working the forge and making weapons for Wildfire, his father is only cleaning the shop sign. (I know this isn't explicitly a day-to-day occurrence, but this is a very specific snippet of Luka's life we're given! it's important!) when he thinks about his future, he can only imagine his father. he probably feels like he needs to be there for him, to take care of him, to keep running the shop for him. that he doesn't have another choice, "no matter where his mind wanders"

and then Oleg gives him an out.

Luka has spent his whole life dreaming of something better, something more. he's read books about the old world in between his work, he mentions this when he visits the Astral Express. Oleg recognizes that he's strong, he's responsible. maybe he feels bad for Luka. maybe they just need another pair of hands in Wildfire, and Oleg can see his potential.

but after this character story, Luka's dad isn't ever mentioned again. he's not mentioned in Luka's quest ("Mo Cuishle", which is the only Luka-centric quest we have, (edit: he is mentioned in Mo Cuishle, he just isn't referred to as Luka's dad! Oleg doesn't indicate that they're related in any way so I forgot 🙃) and Luka only shows up again in the Aetherium Wars event (no dad mention there either!)), or in any of Luka's voicelines, or any of the other character's voicelines about Luka. functionally, Oleg is more his father figure and mentor than his actual father.

I really wish Luka had more screentime, because I can only infer what he feels about things from his character stories. he is indirect about his own feelings if they're anything other than positive!

[starcurtain]

Interpreting Aventurine's Situation

(HSR 2.1 spoilers, watch out!) I think one of my favorite things to come out of Penacony is that the plot has left us with two completely opposite but equally valid interpretations of Aventurine's character. Is he a chosen child or just a "lucky" dog? The story leaves the door wide open for both possibilities.

Under a read more for space:

One Interpretation: Unfortunately for Him, Aventurine is Actually Blessed by an Aeon

If you work from the assumption that the Avgin mythology is correct, and Gaiathra Triclops is actually real (possibly a minor aeon of an unknown path or Ena, if you're on that train), then it's entirely possible, in game, that Aventurine has been blessed by a goddess to the point that he functionally cannot lose any gamble he makes. The odds are, literally, ever in his favor. In this interpretation, it doesn't matter how many gambles he takes with his life as the chip because he will always succeed. Despite how risky his behavior looks to everyone else, he's actually been perfectly safe all along.

But this is especially tragic because it means that, despite his mother's and sister's belief that his blessing will help everyone in their tribe, Aventurine's blessing has only ever extended to himself. He's not an omen of good fortune for his people. His luck was never going to protect his parents, sister, or friends. The goddess of the Avgin chose just one person and left the rest of her people to die.

This is where Aventurine's doubts stem from. He asks repeatedly: If the goddess can bless people, then why is life so miserable for the Avgin? Why do they have to live in pain, suffering, fear, and abject poverty if she could make them lucky enough to thrive? Why do people live if it's just going to be horrible?

(To be honest, I don't think this is out of line for the behavior we've seen of aeons so far. Even with aeons like Yaoshi, described as gentle and benevolent, with no intention to cause harm, their gifts often create horror in the human world.)

Aventurine's hands still tremble when he bets. He doesn't really believe he's blessed and still expects his own downfall at every turn--but it's never going to come because he is one of the few human beings in the entire universe with the direct favor of an aeon. Even Ratio, a skeptical, evidence-based genius, seems to think this might be the case.

(Choosing the Chinese because the text is a little clearer than the English, but basically: "This guy always has a way of dragging himself up out of the abyss, which can't be explained by just 'good luck.' Everyone is waiting to see him fail... Maybe even he's waiting too. But as time passed, I couldn't help but wonder: Will that day really come?")

This means Aventurine has lived a life of fear and uncertainty for nothing. He's spent his entire life awaiting a failure and painful death that will never come. He can't recognize the love of his own goddess nor trust in the faith of his own family.

The central question of this interpretation becomes "What does it mean for a single human to be favored by an aeon?" Can Aventurine really be called lucky after losing every single thing that has meaning in his life--all because an aeon chose him and only him? Should that be called a blessing or a curse?

The Opposite Interpretation: Aventurine Isn't Lucky At All, He's Just Skilled

On the other hand, the story leaves the door open to interpret Aventurine's situation in the complete opposite manner too. If, as the IPC seems to think, Gaiathra Triclops isn't real and Aventurine isn't blessed at all, then that means every single risk Aventurine has taken has actually been life-threatening--and that every single achievement he's reached has been by his own merits alone.

If Gaiathra's blessing isn't real, then Aventurine's life becomes one long self-run psyop: Everyone tells him he's blessed, he's lucky, he's favored--so young Kakavasha starts gambling early. Banking on this idea that he's favored, that he's chosen, he starts paying attention, he learns the tricks of the trade, figures out how to slip cards up his sleeves, how to word things just right so people will take his bait--he practices, practices, practices, until he can spot winning odds a mile away, until he can predict every possible outcome, until he's seen it all before.

In this situation, every single gamble he's ever made or will make carries a very, very real risk of failure--but Aventurine continues to succeed because he's just that quick-witted, just that aware, just that good at reading people. (He's been doing it for so much longer than everyone else he meets, after all.) He is the gambler extraordinaire, the archetypal charming rogue who can squirm his way out of any tight spot he gets into, time and time again.

He fears every gamble he makes because he has good reason to--there's literally never any guarantee that he will succeed, and he's constantly just flipping a coin to see what outcome he'll get. His personal skill and quick wit continue to turn things in his favor, but it's inevitable that one day he'll meet a situation that outwits him, a gamble where only a supernatural force could have saved him. And if you take this second interpretation, Gaiathra isn't real, so there won't be one.

This story choice would be interesting because it implies a greater degree of responsibility for everything that happens. If it's Aventurine's own quick wit and skill that continually save him, shouldn't he be able to help others with that skill? Shouldn't he have been able to help himself? How was he able to save himself from death but not from slavery? If it was skill, not luck, all along, then who do you blame for all the misery he still experienced?

This interpretation leads to greater questions of self-doubt and anxiety: Is it actual skill or just sheer dumb luck? Does Aventurine have what it takes mentally, psychologically, emotionally, and even physically to always come out on top by his own merits, or is he just the benefit of the wheel of fortune--statistically speaking, a one in a million chance still has to come through for that one, right? And when it all comes crumbling down eventually, will he have only himself to blame?

A Life of Uncertainty

The story doesn't actually give us any firm indication whether Gaiathra is real or not, or--even if she is real--if Aventurine is actually genuinely blessed. We just don't know, as players.

And Aventurine doesn't know either.

His faith in the goddess of the Avgin is shaky. He seems to want to believe and hold on to his people's mythology, but he has valid doubts that a goddess would choose to bless one person while leaving everyone else to suffer.

Is he the chosen of an aeon? And if he isn't chosen, then what meaning does any of it have? Is he just unbelievably skilled? Has he merely been lucky up to now? When will this blessing or luck or skill finally fail him?

Aventurine's most defining character trait is the extreme uncertainty that has plagued his whole life. What is true? What should he believe? Is he blessed or cursed? Does he have the talent to back up his massive boasts? Should others put any faith in him--should he put any faith in himself? Should he cling to his people's beliefs or reject the goddess that left him the sole survivor of a cultural extinction?

He can't trust anything. He can't trust his family's faith; he can't trust that he's actually a "chosen one" (because how could he chosen and his family be left to die?). He can't even trust that he's lucky because maybe it was just the years of suffering practice he put in. Then again, he can't trust in his own skill because maybe he's just blessed?

Which is it? Which is it? Which is it?

Nothing is certain. Nothing can be taken for granted. Nothing can be proven empirically true or false. There are no guarantees for Aventurine.

Every single thing in his life is a gamble, and none of that is his fault.

What an amazing character. What a great story. Thank you for the treat, Hoyo!

[fanfairywren]

okay i've had some time to think about hsr 2.3 and i think my thoughts can basically be summarized as "whether or not this update's quest was underwhelming entirely depends on how they use the stellaron hunters' script in future quests"

like. they've been kind of building up firefly's three deaths throughout the penacony quest. so to have it just be "surprise! sparkle put a bomb on the ship and only firefly can stop it and she might die ;)" was disappointing to me? especially compared to like, the drama of her first death. it felt anticlimactic

the message we get from sparkle afterwards does recontextualize it but i was still kind of annoyed at first. but thinking about it further, it's kind of interesting? she was hired by someone, one of the other stellaron hunters, to make sure firefly's death happened safely. in other words, her purpose was to fabricate a scenario that allowed the script to play out without any real consequences. the reason this is interesting to me is that based on some of the dialogue between firefly and blade in the car scene and firefly and stelle at the beginning of 2.2, this is something firefly tries to do semi-frequently... with no success. in fact, it was kind of implied that that wasn't possible? but sparkle did do that.

regarding who hired sparkle, the main people i see being discussed are elio and silver wolf. i think it definitely makes more sense for it to be silver wolf. she was firefly's partner for the mission and the person who hired sparkle was a friend she made while gaming, which is silver wolf's whole thing basically. also, i don't think elio "hiring" sparkle would've been referred to the same way. he very specifically made deals with the stellaron hunters, that's been emphasized a few times. not sure how common the theory that it was elio is but i figured i'd address it while i was discussing this.

so, assuming it's silver wolf: how did she do that. i don't think it was something she was told to do, but i could be wrong. but if she wasn't, then she went behind everyone's backs to change the events of the story and make sure firefly was okay (sidenote, that's wholesome as fuck, i love the stellaron hunters so much), which seems to go against what was previously established about the script.

hopefully, this is something that they'll bring up again in the future, and wasn't just an excuse to not kill firefly (not that i want her to die!! she's one of my favorite characters!! but i thought 2.3 was kind of a letdown story wise) because it's got some really interesting implications about how elio's prophecies work and how the stellaron hunters both work with them and feel about them. have any of them done something like this before? are they gonna do it again? will it cause problems somehow?

[arataki-neato]

Resident Vidyadhara lore nerd here, I'm typing this all out at 3 in the god damn morning so I might regret this but I wanted to give my take on something I feel like a lot of people might have misunderstood or misinterpreted:

Hatching rebirth is not a cosmetic thing, it's not simply amnesia, it's not a way for Vidyadhara to escape taking accountability for what they did in their past lives, and Dan Heng is not in denial for believing himself to be his own person, distinct from Dan Feng.

There's this document in the alchemy commission you find as part of a quest with a compendium of medicines, and one of those is a treatment that, when administered to young Vidyadhara, allows them to begin to recall their past lives. This is most likely how it's done for High Elders.

However, there's the added stipulation that administering this to someone else without their consent is a punishable offense.

The Vidyadhara have a way of negating the memory loss caused by hatching rebirth, but they don't want it. The process of hatching rebirth and the strict separation between past lives is not only culturally sacred to them, it's an important part of their life cycle. The fact that it's done to High Elders is pretty much a perversion, but it's apparently considered important for the survival of the species.

The reason why is that there's just simply an upper limit to how long someone can comfortably live a single life--Xianzhou natives become Mara struck after about 1000 years, and while there's no real knowledge of what causes it, the general consensus is that their memories accumulate and become too much for them. Hatching rebirth protects them from this, it's an opportunity to rest and renew, to heal from old scars and past traumas, and most importantly, a chance for a fresh start.

Believing themself to be a different person than they were in their past lives is not an attitude unique to Dan Heng, it's consistent with pretty much every Vidyadhara npc you can talk to.

(Chunfen, the reincarnation of a famous Vidyadhara opera singer named Ling Jie, uses Ling Jie's notes as a guide on how to live an exciting life, but still talks about her as if she were someone else who left them for her and not as if they were something she herself had written)

(Jinyu, the Vidyadhara woman whose rebirth cycle is so accelerated she basically becomes a new person every month, has had many short-lived yet passionate love affairs, but she never remembers them and never has any interest in trying to rekindle the relationship)

There's the Vidyadhara Cong, who by chance or fate has ended up falling in love with the same long-life Xianzhou woman in every one of his past reincarnations, which she found romantic at first, but she has grown old and tired and has had to try to let him down gently because she can't force herself to try to fall in love with him again.

There are Vidyadhara who are reluctant to let go of their memories and try to bring keepsakes with them, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that most of the time, their future self does not attach the same emotional significance to it that they do, and it only ends up being a source of grief and a reminder of what they lost.

When Vidyadhara hatch out of their eggs, they are a child with no memories. Despite not being a true death, it is functionally no different than the death of the old self and the birth of a new one (and Dan Heng sees it this way, too, he even refers to it as his "birth")

And I think that Dan Heng is perfectly justified in not wanting anything to do with Dan Feng or anything related to his past life. All he knows is that ever since he was a child, he has been punished and abused and hunted and despised for something that, from his perspective, he didn't even do.

It's not like what happened with Scaramouche, which I feel like a lot of people are probably comparing it too--If Dan Heng suddenly and with perfect clarity got back all of Dan Feng's memories, it would not make him Dan Feng. They still wouldn't be his memories, and they wouldn't supersede his current life--He would still just be Dan Heng, but with someone else's memories on top. He really is his own person, and he deserves to have his own life to live.

[xueyiofficial]

thinking a lot about how in the description of the return to darkness lightcone hanya forgot that xueyi has a puppet body and in hanyas character story she forgot that huohuo became a judge recently and its all because she drinks the wine of oblivion (presumably every day) to forget the nightmares she sees during her work as a judge..... its kind of implied in the character story that the wine of oblivion has cumulative properties and eventually hanya will forget more and more but im choosing to believe shes just a little confused and if she doesnt have to take it her memory works perfectly fine

[aconfusedkitten]

heya fuckers, it is 12:30am, i spent an hour straight chipping away at aventurines boss with just stelle and gallagher and still managed to lose, so have some fairly unhinged commentary on aventurines trailer!

putting a cut here because there will be spoilers for some lines of 2.1, but nothing major.

i make no promises to how coherent this will be, but hey! i noticed a thing and wanted to comment on it, so here goes!

now, do we all remember the line about chips under the table?

cool!

so aventurine's trailer is gambling based, which makes sense! aventurine is framed a s a gambler, and until 2.1 that's supposed to be it. he's a shady gambler, not as open about the ipc as topaz, and not really someone we can trust.

however, this is what i noticed.

tying in the quote from above, if you pay attention during the trailer, the focus is almost always directed to aventurine's right hand. his left is usually out of sight or at his side, and while it could be an animation thing, it's also really interesting for a character who's so easily summed up using that quote.

putting some examples down below, so last warning to those wanting to watch the trailer! sorry for image quality, these were screenshoted off of youtube and i had to slow the video to take them, so they're not the best.

but we regularly see aventurine making these grand gestures with his right hand, while the left is nowhere on screen, or behind his back. to some degree, the same thing happens during his cutscene in the story quest, focusing on his coin tricks or the movement of his hat and glasses.

the really interesting thing is that almost all of the shots where you can see both of his hands are angled backwards. they're also usually quick transitions between actions, and in most of them, his left hand is still behind him. you can even argue that they're usually ones involving risk or manipulation, in many cases!

and of course, this could just be the way it was animated and nothing more than that, but when a character is defined as having "one hand clenched behind their back" and being a performer, all of the time, it leaves a lot of room for interpreting just how far that act goes! again, this could be me being a cinematography nerd and things like that, but it's definitely an interesting angle to analyze!

good luck to everyone pulling for aventurine, and special luck to anyone gambling on their 50/50!!