#including genshin (story and world quests)

[welcometoteyvat]

also my child's eyes are fine what do you mean

[blueskittlesart]

i kinda really wanna see a big ol vent/rant from you about genshin now lol. I would read an essay

I'm not sure you understand the insanity you just unlocked in me but ok

genshin impact is probably the clearest modern example i can think of of capitalism absolutely eviscerating a creative project. For context, I started playing genshin in 2021, just after the 1.4 update. it was venti's first rerun/the first windblume festival if that means something to you. and I really genuinely thought that it might have had something special. It was a gacha that didn't FEEL like a gacha, which was a huge feat to me.

it began with a very simple story pitch--you, the protagonist, are one of a set of twin siblings traveling through space. you come upon a seemingly unassuming world and your attempts to continue your journey are suddenly stopped by a mysterious, all-powerful figure. you are separated from your sibling and wake up alone on the shores of this planet you were attempting to leave together. throughout that opening cutscene and scattered through the world and your character's dialog there are implications that all is not as it seems, that your character is something unique to this world and that they possess powers and abilities that you've yet to unlock. You are told that you must travel the seven nations of this world in order to find your sibling, which is great--a simple, zelda-like objective which drives the player to explore the secondary narratives of the world. none of this is bad on the surface. in fact i'd argue it's pretty good. there's a ton that can be done with these story bones. even at launch the map and combat system were full of potential as well.

Note: for ease of reading, i'm going to label the different storylines of the game now. A-plot refers to the central objective of the entire game; the find-your-sibling plot and everything that encompasses, including the abyss order/dain, the heavenly principles, the fake sky, etc. B-plot refers to the secondary objective present in each new nation, usually meeting the archon and/or solving a problem for the archon. (A and B-plots will occasionally intersect.) C-plot refers to any story, location, or background information which remains in permanent gameplay but which isn't directly related to the A or B-plots, such as dragonspine, the chasm, enkanomiya, etc. D-plot refers to any story, location, or background information which is confined to limited-time events and does NOT remain in permanent gameplay, regardless of its connection or lack thereof to the A and B-plots, such as the golden apple archipelago, the infamous albedo/dragonspine event, the infamous kaeya/diluc event, etc. Lore as i will refer to it in this post refers to any information which is present in permanent gameplay but which is not directly told to the player within the A or B-plot story quests and objectives, including books, weapon, artifact, and item descriptions, world quest dialog and puzzles, etc.

So now we're in mid-2021, there are two nations' worth of B-plot story quests released in full, and we've run into our first problem, which is that the game isn't finished yet. I don't have any actual information about how the game was/is written, but based on what i've observed over the past few years, my best guess is that the A-plot has been fully written since the beginning, at least in some form. there were very early-game events and information pertaining to the A-plot that would take years to see any actual payoff in the main story quests (kaeya's origin story, the 1.3 scaramouche fake-sky drop, the flowers in lumine's hair, etc.) but those kinds of A-plot story easter eggs very quickly dropped off when the game absolutely EXPLODED during the pandemic.

this sudden burst in popularity was the true beginning of the end for genshin, i think, because suddenly they had a HUGE fanbase that desperately wanted more content faster than they could pump out new A-plot or even B-plot story quests. one of the most pervasive complaints about the game when I began playing in 2021 was that there was nothing to do between story quests. update 1.4 (which was the update I started playing at) was important in that it was the first time since genshin's release over a year before that players recieved any new A-plot, in the form of the archon quest We Will Be Reunited, also known as the quest with the most fucking misleading name of all time. you'll never guess what doesn't fucking happen during this quest. anyways. we were a year into gameplay, two nations out of seven released and a third on the not-so-distant horizon, and it seemed obvious that players were owed some sort of A-plot payoff. and that's very much what WWBR was advertised as, from the quest's name to the banners full of art of the twins staring wistfully at each other. The thing is, what i'm describing as A-plot payoff was actually. not really A-plot payoff at all. WWBR was the reveal that the protagonist's sibling was working with the abyss order, and that the abyss order was connected somehow to Khaenri'ah, which at this point casual players would only have known about from THAT QUEST and MAYBE kaeya's character descriptions if they were diligent enough to get him to friendship level 10 (which, btw there is no indication that you should do to get important context about the story of the game, because kaeya is a 4-star starter character and the only character in the entire game that actually has genuinely important story hidden in his character descriptions.) So what I'm calling A-plot payoff felt at the time a lot less like A-plot payoff than it did like an abyss sibling cameo in an attempt to satiate everyone who was begging for more story. We actually gained almost net 0 information. this is very quickly going to become a pattern.

As I've already alluded to, the motives behind this writing decision are transparently obvious. Genshin is a free gacha game which relies on a consistently active and engaged userbase to make its money. With fans getting restless about the lack of engaging story at the time and a new, very ambitious B-plot quest gearing up for release that would require major support from that fan base in order to remain profitable, the writers were backed into a corner. they HAD to throw the fans some sort of bone in order to keep them engaged with the A-plot, since it was originally pitched as the driving force for the story as a whole, but they were also clearly not at a stage of the writing process where it was prudent to give the player any REAL information about the A-plot. This is how we ended up with a 10-second abyss sibling cameo and an offhanded mention of Khaenri'ah, a nation whose plot-relevance was at that point still basically unknown.

The real problem is, WWBR worked. at least, it worked as intended at the time. It satiated story-focused fans in the interlude between B-plot nations, as hyv was gearing up to release inazuma, which required a lot of time in preparation. WWBR was followed almost immediately by the C-plot golden apple archipelago in 1.6, widely regarded as one of the better events of version 1. GAA was memorable especially because it was the first event that involved an entirely new, limited-time-only map, meaning the event had much more longevity than the standard events players were used to. This is, imo, most likely the update combination that led to the standard formula which hyv uses for its quests and events nowadays. the back-to-back release of WWBR and GAA satisfied both fans who wanted A-plot story AND silenced criticisms about the game lacking endgame playability, which at the time must have seemed like a goldmine to writers desperate for a solution to their content-to-fanbase ratio problem.

From here, genshin started following a standard method of release for their next three nations--inazuma, sumeru, and fontaine. the formula generally went as follows: one major version update (usually version x.0) containing a major map update which included all B-plot relevant locations in the new nation, and the first chapter of the B-plot story quest relevant to that nation. this would then be followed by 2-3 version updates which would each contain the next chapter in the nation's B-plot story quest, sequentially. After the nation's B-plot quest ended, during the downtime in which the next nation's story and map would be finalized, subsequent updates would be largely C-plot, and would contain minor expansions of the map to increase endgame playability via exploration and world quests. This is how we ended up with updates like the chasm, the several extra islands in inazuma, and the quite frankly ridiculously large sumeru map, as well as the offloaded maps like enkanomiya and the sea of bygone eras. with the possible exception of the chasm, none of these areas are A OR B-plot relevant. hyv has realized that artificially inflating the map makes their game technically more engaging during the downtime between nations. However, this comes at a price. While the scenery and set design of the game remains consistently beautiful, the actual, mechanical gameplay that populates that scenery very quickly became mind-numbingly boring if not borderline unplayable. While the 1.0 questlines were not perfect, there was at least an emphasis on the player actually DOING things. 1.0 B-plot quests would have you going to mini-dungeon temples and completing challenges which would acclimate you to the combat system while also serving narrative purpose. There were quests that required you to navigate open-world dungeons. Because your characters were lower-level, combat challenges that arose during these quests were CHALLENGES, rather than two-second buttonmashing segments. By the time we get to sumeru, though, both B-plot AND C-plot quests have become little more than moving your character from location to location and tapping through (usually unvoiced) dialog. there's no GAMEPLAY in the quests anymore, because gameplay isn't what makes money. What DOES make money is giving players 300 hidden chests to find in an open-world map segment, each of which gives them 1/80th of a gacha pull. And so the story suffers and the map gets bigger.

Along with the map expansions, downtime between nations usually also nets us one A-plot quest, usually involving the character dainslief, who was the driver of the initial WWBR quest. This is the second half of hyv's magical formula for keeping fans happy between major releases. the A-plot quests will, as a general rule, give players either very little new information or no new information at all, but will dress up the delivery in such a way that it ALMOST feels as though the protagonist has moved forward somehow. the most recent example of this writing style, the 4.7 quest bedtime story, amounts to about an hour and a half of gameplay and, while it DOES contain a segment in which the protagonist finally actually has a conversation with their sibling, that conversation literally begins with the line "I have so many questions, but for some reason I don't want to ask them right now," ensuring that the sibling will not actually be required to give away any plot-relevant information whatsoever, and the quest ends with the protagonist FORGETTING THAT THE CONVERSATION EVER HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

As I think I mentioned before, the cardinal problem of genshin impact's writing is that fans want answers faster than the writers are prepared to give them. I don't doubt that there's a game bible or relevant equivalent somewhere within hyv which contains the explanations we are currently lacking in regards to the A-plot. the game is consistent enough in its storytelling for me to believe that this isn't all just being made up as we go along. But I'm also certain that a lot of the late-game A and B-plot that is planned (especially if the Khaenri'ah is truly planned to be the 8th nation of the game) hinges on the player knowing very little about the A-plot. this would be fine if genshin was a standard single-release video game that players could work through at their own pace, but it isn't. it's unfinished, and each nation in the game releases months to years after the last, leaving the writers to scramble to fill in the gameplay gaps and players struggling to remember plot-relevant information when it's brought up literal years after they last heard it mentioned. Not only does the time between updates leave players frustrated about the lack of A-plot, it makes the A-plot harder to understand when it is brought up, because the writers are required to throw in so much dense C and D-plot just to keep engagement high enough to make the game profitable in its downtime. we joke about the insane convolution of genshin's lore, but that is first and foremost a byproduct of its financial model. the game requires engaement to be profitable, and adding lore for players to look into drives up engagement. The fact that having so much story with so little plot relevance muddies the waters and makes the A and B-plot stories considerably harder to understand doesn't matter as long as money is being made.

I want to take a quick detour here to talk about the release of sumeru specifically, because this is when I really began to clock the fact that genshin was declining. on paper, racial sensitivity issues aside (Not that they're not important, but i'm doing this deep dive from a storytelling and game design point of view, nothing else. that's a whole can of worms i don't have time to get into here) sumeru was a really promising addition to the game. The new B-plot quest which was set to drop in 3.0 was highly anticipated for several reasons. Two fan-favorite characters (kaeya and scaramouche) were expected to play major roles, because of earlier C and B-plot quests, and much of the nation's scenery that was teased in trailers and promotional content appeared to tie into the A-plot. the most exciting draw about sumeru and version 3.0, though, was the major update to the combat system.

Arguably genshin impact's most interesting feature upon release was its combat system. The map was basically a botw clone at that point, and the story quests, while decently engaging, were rough around the edges to say the least. What genshin DID have going for it was a unique real-time combat system that rewarded strategy and quick thinking.

Genshin's combat system is elemental, and on release there were 6 elemental affiliations: anemo (wind), cryo (ice), pyro (fire), hydro (water), geo (rock), and electro (electricity.) in a sort of pokemon-like system, certain elements were weak to other ones, but more importantly, certain combinations of elements could drastically boost combat stats. Players got to construct four-slot teams of characters, each with an elemental affiliation and certain "skills" which would match their element, and you were encouraged to use the interactions of these elements to build teams. very quickly, a huge community formed dedicated to optimizing teams and tiering characters. People would even make a game out of building teams specifically to do high-level damage with "bad" characters or characters who weren't designed to be damage drivers (my 100k jean burst was an incredible moment fr.) this was, of course, also a picture-perfect driver for the gacha aspect of the game, which was how players obtained new characters.

Pre-3.0, combat was... well i won't say it was balanced, but there was no elemental reaction that had any MAJOR advantage over the others. when you actually ran the numbers, i believe vaporize was the best reaction in terms of damage output, with the best team being raiden national with kazuha for EM buffs. but a well-built freeze or melt team could do similar numbers, or even better numbers depending on your artifact rolls. (ayaka permafreeze you will always be my #1.) Despite a steady stream of new characters with each update, characters from the earliest version of the game like xingqiu and xiangling were still topping the charts in terms of usefulness and versatility in teambuilding. However, as early as 1.0, players had been teased that a major update to the combat system was planned. There was a seventh element, dendro (plants) which pre-3.0 only existed as an elemental affiliation for menial enemies. there were no playable dendro characters, and the only elemental reaction that existed relating to it was very low-level and not particularly useful in combat.

Originally, dendro was projected to be added to the combat system somewhere in version 2, but its release was delayed substantially, meaning it came out along with its affiliated nation, sumeru. And as soon as it came out, it basically broke the combat system. I assume that the scaling they ended up going with may have been out of fear that players would be hesitant to integrate a new element into their pre-established team builds, and thus they may have been worried about sales on their dendro character banners, and i assume that the fact that 3 elements are required to get the highest-level reaction was an attempt to make the meta more balanced in the face of that scaling, but, well... it didn't work. At this point, the genshin impact combat meta is basically "if you're not using hyperbloom what the fuck are you doing." there's basically no reaction in the game that comes close to it in terms of both damage and ease of use. you are not going to beat a hyperbloom team with anything other than a better-built hyperbloom team. combat is now very heavily skewed in the direction of dendro, meaning that if you DON'T want to use a dendro team, you're going to be doing significantly lower numbers. And since enemies are added with each update, post-3.0 combat becomes difficult and annoying if you don't have a hyperbloom team on-hand.

The major gripe i have with dendro isn't even the scaling, though. I mentioned offhand earlier that the 1.0 B-plot questline had a section which taught you the basics of the combat system via mini-dungeons. These mini-dungeons, of course, taught you the version of the system that existed pre-3.0, so there's no tutorial for dendro reactions. Rather than integrating the tutorial into the story and world like they did in their early quests, upon playing 3.0 for the first time players were given a popup that explained, very wordily, how dendro reactions worked. there was no opportunity to test these reactions in an environment without consequences--if you wanted to try them you'd have to remember the relevant information, build yourself a team, find an enemy to try them on, and just hope you got it right. This lack of integration is something i began to notice more and more with genshin as it progressed, especially in sumeru. where in mondstadt and liyue open-world puzzles would be explained to you by an npc or via environmental context clues, in sumeru you'd be stopped while exploring every two seconds by a popup explaining some puzzle or another which, of course, you wouldn't read, because you didn't want to do the puzzle right that minute anyway, and then by the time you DID want to do that puzzle you'd have no in-game way of figuring out how to do it. The puzzle popups may seem like a small thing, but it's one of the clearest examples in the game to me of the fact that the player experience is so clearly not being prioritized here. the game doesn't even TRY to be immersive anymore. they have no qualms about pulling you out of the story to read a paragraph about how the puzzle works. they don't care how your character, in-universe, is supposed to have acquired that information. they don't care why your character, in-universe, is doing the puzzle in the first place. because they know the reason YOU are doing the puzzle, which is to unlock a hidden chest that gives you 1/80th of a gacha pull.

That was not "a quick detour" was it lmfao. ok anyways. back to the story. Now i want to talk about D-plot, meaning limited event stories, and lore as i defined it earlier, meaning contextual details not present in quests or playable story. This is where i think genshin's story becomes completely inaccessible.

Already, we've covered the fact that in order to consume the very basic story, players have to be willing to wait years between A and B-plot quest releases, punctuated by irrelevant map expansions and interlude quests. I mentioned before that genshin's incompleteness is one of the major problems of its story. the fact that players have to wait years, remembering plot-relevant information that they have no way of knowing will even BE plot-relevant, for the payoff of these narratives is frustrating at best and actively malicious at worst. But in theory, there should be an obvious way to circumvent this. One could just wait until the game IS completely finished to play the whole thing. Sort of like buying a game in early access but waiting until it's actually finished to play it all the way through. that's theoretically possible. but, as i have been hammering home this whole time, genshin is a free game, and therefore genshin relies entirely on a consistently engaging fanbase in order to remain profitable. if genshin does not have a base of players who are willing to log in every day, or at the very least once every update, the game's financial model collapses on itself. therefore, genshin puts on limited-time events. this is a standard in gacha games, as a way to keep the fans consistently engaging. What is not standard, however, is the way that genshin uses these events as vessels for its story. about 19 out of 20 limited events in genshin impact will be useless menial bullshit with no effect on the story or really even the player aside from maybe making you fucking angry. 1 out of those 20, though, will be innocuously named, with nothing in the banner or event description to indicate that it's special in any way, but it will contain serious A or B-plot relevant information that exists nowhere else in the game. My personal favorite example is the infamous 1.3 scaramouche appearance, in which he showed up, told the protagonist that the sky was fake, and then immediately fucked off again. Scaramouche did not show up again until at least 2.0, and the fake sky wasn't so much as MENTIONED again until 3.2, almost TWO YEARS LATER. but there are others, such as the (almost equally infamous) albedo doppelganger event in which a major character's loyalties are called into question, or the event where major biographical information is revealed about kaeya, the only playable character with major known connections to the A-plot and Khaenri'ah. With all of these events, once the event period ends, the information contained within them vanishes from the game completely. there's no way to replay old events that you've missed, even sans rewards, so if you miss a plot-relevant event the ONLY way to catch up on that story is through word of mouth. again, this is a transparent way to keep genshin's userbase engaged during downtime between B-plot quests; if you don't log in and play every event, how will you know if you've missed something important? You might not be able to fully understand the future story if you miss out on the D-plot now!

The D-plot problem is something that I think could, in theory, be circumvented by dedicated record-keeping. if the wiki had anything resembling an easily accessible event database that marked story-relevant events and contained summaries or gameplay videos, at the very least you wouldn't have to fear being completely lost on the off chance that a random throwaway line in an event from fucking 1.3 becomes plot-relevant. but hyv obviously doesn't want that, because it undermines their financial model, and the sheer number of events and the amount of rerunning of irrelevant events they do makes the task of recording and categorizing them all daunting if not impossible.

Then, of course, there's lore. this is arguably what genshin is infamous for in certain circles of the internet. You know that unraveled video where bdg reads every book in skyrim? if you tried to do that with genshin the video would probably be about 10 hours long. and it's not just books; genshin hides (potentially) plot-relevant information in weapon and artifact descriptions, in random hidden world quests, in character bios... the list goes on. and 9 times out of 10, the information is essentially written in code. Plot-relevant characters will have multiple names, or the relevant information will refer to them as vaguely as possible, presumably to further the "mystery" and encourage theorizing among fans. but the sheer amount of information like this that exists within the game makes it all but impossible to determine what is plot-relevant and what isn't. For a topical example, the most recent A-plot quest bedtime story mentions the name Rhinedottir in connection with events in Khaenri'ah, suddenly making that name A-plot relevant. Rhinedottir is an alternate name for the character Gold, whose existence you would only have known of before this point if you'd unlocked and read the character Albedo's character bios. (Albedo is a limited-run character who hasn't been available since november 2022, btw.) the only other information about Rhinedottir permanently available in the game comes from the description of the weapon Festering Desire, which was only obtainable from a limited event back in 2020, anyway. So basically, if you wanted ANY context for that remark, you'd have to have been playing the game since AT LEAST 2022, AND you'd have to have taken the time to go over your weapon and character descriptions with a fine-toothed comb. keep in mind that as of right now (june 2024) there are 85 playable characters in this game, each with 10 unique unlockable character bio sections, and over 150 weapons, each with their own unique descriptions, not to mention over 50 artifact sets, each with 5 unique artifacts, which all have their own unique descriptions as well. there are also 51 different collections of books which contain written lore as well. the idea that any player could keep up with all this, or that anyone could even sift through it all to pick out the important things that they NEED to keep up with, is insane, especially when the game makes a point of withholding crucial plot information from its players within the A and B-plot quests. this amount of written lore only exists, again, to drive up engagement in the hopes of subsequently driving up profit. Even if the average player isn't reading and absorbing all this information, the fact that it's there coupled with the fact that the writers consistently refuse to reveal anything beyond surface-level A-plot information means that there's basically ENDLESS theory fodder. and THAT means that people will be posting their theories and talking with each other and getting into arguments. it means "genshin impact" trends on twitter. it means engagement, and engagement means money.

basically what it comes back to is that everything is so transparently money over player experience with this game. I think what we're witnessing with genshin is what i would call an end-stage gacha game--a gacha game that's gone on a little too long and gotten a little too popular, and so the veil has started to slip a little more than usual. Gachas work primarily because they operate by toeing the line between what is fun to play and what is a predatory mechanic. As long as the actual gameplay remains engaging and rewarding, players can ignore the unsavory business practices underneath. At this point, genshin has swerved too hard into the money-hungriness and is still hoping that they can use their old tried-and-true engagement farming methods to remain popular regardless. currently, it seems like those methods are still working, unfortunately. Like I said in the post that prompted this, i really can't wait for the hyv writer NDAs to expire 10 or so years down the line, because I can only imagine what an insane shitshow writing for this game must be. I want to see the tell-all articles. I want carnage.

That being said, I played genshin impact religiously from 2020 to 2023. I loved the game. Despite myself, I am still really, REALLY interested in the A-plot. I want to know what's going on with the protagonist and their sibling; where they came from, what happened to them, what the heavenly principles are, what role celestia plays in all of this. I want to know Kaeya's full backstory, what role Khaenri'ah plays in the overarching story, and what happened to it in the past. but I don't really have any faith that I ever will, because I know that as long as keeping their fans in the dark and stringing them along remains profitable, that's what hyv will continue to do.

Do I think genshin impact is unsalvagable? in its current state, yes. If I was given the ability to turn back time and convince a bunch of executives of the profitability of this venture, I would change almost nothing about the story of genshin and completely rework the mechanics of its release. I would make it a series of single-release self-contained games rather than a constantly-updating gacha. Each game would be one B-plot quest, or one nation, eight games in all, preferably released once every year. Removing the gacha mechanic, players would be given access to a certain pool of characters to build teams at the start of each game, and then periodically unlock new characters as the story progressed. for example, if you were playing the inazuma game, you'd start out with only your protag, and after progressing to a certain point in the story you'd get a pool of inazuma 4-stars to teambuild with freely. Then, as the story progressed and you met plot-relevant inazuman 5-stars you'd add them to your pool. I'd change basically nothing about the combat system except for a properly integrated introduction of dendro when it makes its appearance in sumeru. Once you completed the story in that nation, you could move onto the next game in the series if it was out, or if it wasn't, you could continue to explore the open world while waiting for the next release. Would this be as profitable as the gacha model? probably not, but what it WOULD do is allow for much more consistent pacing and writing, with the added bonus of not making your userbase feel like you'd shoot them in the head for their pocket change.

[m1d-45]

my love, my god

summary: the ‘tomorrow’ you’ve been putting off finally comes, but not how you expect it to

word count: 2.6k

-> warnings: spoilers for baizhu lore/story quest, you have several nosebleeds

-> gn reader (you/yours) and aether as the traveller

taglist (+those that asked for a pt 2): @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yuus3n || @esthelily || @turningfrogsgay || @cupandtea24 || @genshin-impacts-me || @chaoticfivesworld || @raaawwwr || @fleurdawn || @extremelytoastybread || @ambermondy || @loyal-to-dottore

<< first part || < masterlist >

living with aether was supposed to be easy.

you’d established a routine, your days simple. you spent your time in his library for plausible deniability, surprised at how expansive his library was. a lot of the books seemed like gifts, with little notes scrawled in the front covers. you honestly spent more of your time reading the notes than the book themselves, tracing over the handwriting.

barbara had given him a copy of a medical handbook, with notes in the margins from both of them for replacement herbs since the book was intended for use within mondstat. you didn’t try to memorize it, just skimming for a few details. some you knew, like wolfhooks or onikabuto helping to close wounds, but some was new. apparently, a diluted solution of cor lapis shavings in water could help heal broken bones, though it was noted that this shouldn’t be used in excess if the receiver didn’t have high enough elemental affinity.

a book of liyue’s local specialties, given from someone with exceptionally sloppy handwriting. there was a whole row dedicated solely to various recipe books, the one from liyue with a few extra pages tucked in.

aether liked to write in his books, you noticed, even the fiction ones. you had yet to encounter a single book that didn’t have at least one note in the margins, each in his sharp, quick writing.

‘cut lavender melon thinner than you think.’

‘who actually talks like this?’

‘when cooking for paimon, add slime concentrate to the broth.’

it was endearing. you saw so little of him in the game, most of the dialogue given by paimon. while you’d certainly gotten to know him in your time here… it was different, seeing his notes like this. it cemented the idea that you were really in your game, since what dream of yours would include the fact that ningguang had given him a journal of advice on how to deal with various poisons someone might try to use on him?

despite his expansive collection of books, he had very few historical records. the ones he did were well worn, filled with pages of notes as he tried to decipher the history of teyvat. it was sad to see, his writing becoming more desperate the further through the books you got.

‘ask zhongli for clarification.’

‘kokomi doesn’t recognize the name ‘istaroth.’ ask miko?’

‘dahri = khaenri’ah?’

‘ask zh ask dainslef. where would i even find him?’

‘even if i knew everything, would it make sense?‘

tears pricked at your eyes, and you closed the book in your hands before you smudged the writing. you wiped at your eyes, sniffling as you put it back on the shelf. it was hard not to feel bad, but even if you told him everything you knew about teyvat, would he believe you? would he still be as kind to you as he was? he was your one real anchor here, what with the world in chaos after you stopped playing… you couldn’t even point him in the right direction, since even that would raise suspicion.

maybe that was enough reading for today.

you wiped at your nose, walking for the exit to the library. when you reached for the handle, however, you spotted a smear of glittering blue across the side of your hand.

it took another drop of blood hitting the wooden floor before you realized what was happening, quickly plugging your nose and rushing to the bathroom. you took care to wipe up the drop that landed on the floor, both so it wouldn’t stain and so that nobody saw it.

you weren’t trying to die today. and even if, somehow, aether was fine with your constant lying to him, you didn’t want to ruin what you had.

not today, thank you.

despite it being where you’d first ‘landed,’ you had never been to mondstat. ever since your run in with zhongli, it was the nation you were avoiding going with him most, second only to maybe sumeru. venti, kaeya, and diluc, three of the most perceptive people in game, all in one place… it was a recipe for disaster.

unfortunately, aether was an excellent cook.

he’d decided to take his commissions from mondstat today, and only one required combat. plus, he wanted you to see the city.. and you couldn’t exactly say no to him without reason.

the first was helping wyatt find his key in dadaupa gorge. you’re not sure why he was drinking out there, but you’re not gonna ask too many questions. the gorge was beautiful in person, cranes nearly everywhere you turned… though that might just be because you were there. the wildlife had been getting more daring lately.

the second was delivering connor some mist flower corollas, carefully moved from aether’s inventory to a thick, special made bag. you got a strange look or two from the maids, but within a few minutes aether was teleporting you to the city, tunner‘s prescription in hand. mondstat was much more lively than in the game, though you supposed that was for convenience. having hundreds of npcs roaming the city, each holding their own conversations, would likely hit performance.

paimon told you all about the city, though all of it was things you already know. there’s the adventurer’s guild, there’s bennett—you both waved—and there’s ellin! that’s the statue of barbatos, boasting a height of…

paimon scratched at her head, looking up at the statue. “how tall is the statue?”

aether shrugged, holding one hand to block the sun as he tried to guess. “nobody ever said. do you think one of the sisters would know?”

“hm, paimon thinks our best bet is venti! he sits up there all the time, doesnt he?”

you looked over the statue, taking in all the details not present on it’s in-game model. even from ground level you swear you could see individual feathers carved into the rock. “you said he flies, right? i think we should ask the knights, they-” copper landed on your tongue, and you put a finger to your top lip. it came away blue.

shit.

you covered your nose quickly, the other two thankfully getting the message without you needing to talk. a napkin was pressed to your hand, and you were careful not to let any of the blue show as you switched your hand over it.

two nosebleeds with barely two weeks between them. were you sick? were the foreign bacteria finally showing face? you didn’t feel sick—if anything you’d been feeling much better physically, since coming to teyvat—but what if you were? what if it was some illness that only targeted outlanders- no, aether would have told you about that, he was too kind not to. but then why…?

you were sat in one of the pews of the cathedral, paimon sitting by your side. your eyes tracked aether to one of the nuns, but were quickly distracted by the beautiful stained glass set in the windows. shades of blue and green decorated the walls, coloring the inside of the cathedral. you couldn’t quite make out the scenes depicted, but it gave the room so much more *life* than its model. it was lived in, not just another location on a map.

“my my, traveller, you look different than i remember.”

you’re given little warning before kaeya speaks, his steps having not made a single sound. both you and paimon turned, her hands lifting in a wave while yours tightened around your stained napkins.

“hey kaeya! what are you doing at the cathedral? paimon doesn’t remember there being a service today…”

“just going for a walk.” his eyes shift to you, and you look away, in the direction aether left. the nun was back, but he was nowhere to be found. he wouldn’t leave to the winery already, would he? “who’s this?”

“a friend.”

a hand sets on your shoulder, and you jump. was it some unspoken rule not to let your steps be heard in a cathedral, or did it come with the territory?

aether passes you a small vial of a clear blue liquid, moving to stand between you and kaeya. “i talked to barbara about your nosebleed, this should stop it. a small sip will do.”

you don’t ask why he did that, instead just doing as he said. kaeya gave you an odd look but you were quick to follow paimon out of the cathedral, leaving them to it. soon enough aether joined you, and you all went back to the teapot for lunch.

it was a fluke. it had to be.

it wasn’t.

you were sitting at a table at wanmin, listening to xingqiu talk about his latest idea for a novel. paimon had helped you order, picking you out a minty drink that was as refreshing as it was delicious. you took a sip, sharing a look with aether over the rim right as a drop slid down your top lip. thankfully, the blue streak was explained by the tint of the drink, though chongyun did give you a few more odd glances than you preferred.

running into the arataki gang in inazuma city, itto excitedly showing you and aether the new beetles he found earlier. he stuck by your side, holding your hand in his as they switched to talking about tcg. they patted their pockets, searching for the cards they’d won today. a cough into your elbow was all it took for blue to mark the inside of your sleeve, and shinobu was quick to pass you a napkin coated with onikabuto dust. it felt funny against your fingers, but apparently the gang used them to patch wounds all the time when a friendly wrestle went too far.

the more people were around, the worse they were. your nose was near constantly itchy, like the world was channeling every irritant in a mile radius right into your face. any minor bump would cause at least a drop to spill down your lip, leaving you overcautious and aether forever worried. the bottle barbara gave you ran out quick, and though she ended up giving you the recipe, it was clear that something more serious was going on.

you laid on the couch, pinching a napkin around your nose while you waited for aether to finish your medicine. he’d gone outside to get the rest of the ingredients with paimon, leaving you to your thoughts.

you hated teyvat for doing this to you. you’d bet good mora that simply showing him the color of the stains on your napkins would solve whatever phantom illness ailed you, but you didn’t want to. you were happy with the life you had! you didn’t need a shining palace or the worship of the world, you just needed aether. him and paimon and your teapot, with the small herbs growing in the windowsill and crystalflies fluttering outside. why was the world so determined to get you to spill your secret? it wasn’t like he’d hate you for keeping it—at most he’d be surprised, or maybe even a bit apologetic himself.

it was stupid. shouldn’t you be the one to decide whether this was shared or not?

you sighed, the sound of the door pushing that train of thought aside. aether tapped your shoulder and you sat up, accepting the medicine thankfully.

“sorry about the delay, baizhu was dealing with another patient.”

“you went to the pharmacy?” you hand him back the bottle, looking away as you wipe off your nose.

“yep! when we got there he was mixing up a nasty smelling poultice for some other lady—paimon swears she can still smell it, even after all this time!”

“really?” you look up, satisfied you got it all off, but freeze. aether is standing beside you, and paimon’s sitting on the arm of the couch, but behind them is baizhu, changsheng loosely coiled around his shoulders.

oh no.

“one of the ingredients in barbara’s medicine is qingxin,” aether explains, “i only had so many, so i started buying them from the pharmacy. he got curious and asked about you… i hope you don’t mind?”

you barely hear him, focused on the lift of changsheng’s head as she whispers something into baizhu’s ear. he looks surprised, mostly, but also confused, and you know exactly why.

after all if he can sense god remains, he can surely sense the god.

“is there a problem, doctor?” you ask, and wait until both aether and paimon turned to him to raise a finger to your lips.

keep quiet. don’t tell him. i don’t want to lose this yet.

he looks between you and aether, clearly conflicted.

please.

after a moment, he sighs, shaking his head as he adjusts his glasses. “nothing is wrong, my apologies. changsheng, if you will..”

he begins to search through his inventory while changsheng slithers past paimon, curling around your wrist. baizhu takes out a notepad, pulling over a chair.

“aether, you’ve been coming to the pharmacy for qingxin for a little over 3 months. is that a good estimate for the length of time this has occurred?”

he glanced at you, and you nodded.

that was a lie, technically.. but it was for the greater good. baizhu would mark you some anomaly, recommend you just keep taking barbara’s medicine, and everything would be okay. you’d be fine. no stresses of godhood, no giving up your peaceful life in the realm within, nothing.

changsheng uncoils from your hand, climbing onto aether’s shoulders to get to baizhu. he doesn’t so much as blink, letting her wind back into place. what did she go to you for, then? “do any other symptoms come with them, such as nausea or headaches?”

“no, not really.”

“have you noticed anything strange about the blood? clots, maybe, or discoloration?”

you meet his pointed look, ignoring how your heart picks up. call it selfishness. “nothing.”

baizhu sighs. “are you certain? if you want this to go away, you need to be honest.”

at least you were right on one front. to get back the life you had, you’d need to give it up. while you knew neither aether or paimon would resent you—they’d dealt with gods disguising themselves before, surely they couldn’t hate you—their attitude toward you would certainly change.

your silence is clearly worrying, and you shake your head before anybody asks questions. “i’m certain, there’s nothing.”

he again looks conflicted, and paimon looks between the two of you, frowning. “uh, is paimon missing something…?”

“i’m sorry,” baizhu says finally, “but it’s for your own health.”

before you can protest, he reaches up towards changsheng. she shifts, revealing the napkin you used earlier hidden between her body and his, clearly marked with blue.

when did she-?

baizhu flicks out the napkin and paimon gasps. “i can tell they’re getting worse, and while i understand it’s your choice, i value your life more.”

aether turns to you, and you can’t read the expression on his face. “is that really yours?”

“…yeah. i put it together that teyvat wants me to tell someone, but i didn’t want to lose what we had.”

he smiles, holding out his hand. when you took it, he pulled you up off the couch and into a hug.

“you’ll never lose me,” he promised, “not even if you’re a god. not even if you’re my god.”

[mielwriting]

My thoughts on the 5.0 livestream

Disappointed Mavuika appears to be another pyro claymore. Was really hoping for a 5 star pyro sword. Would also help make connections to Bennett, since he's the only other pyro sword.

Props to those who predicted Il Capitano would be a cryo user!

Also props to whoever predicted the Archon Quests would follow the pattern shown in the Mond prologue: that is, first we learn about the Abyss Order as enemies, then we focus on the Fatui for a while, then the Abyss Order comes back into focus closer to the final showdown. It seems they’re getting a much bigger focus in the Natlan archon quest!

Also, wow, so we already know Natlan and Mondstadt have weird connections - Now we know they have another one: Natlan and Mondstadt are the only 2 nations the Abyss Order is interested in. 

Hey look a pale npc with dreadlocks

Love the greater focus on the Mandarin language! Very nice for a learner

Furina wasn’t biologically an archon, so her hair didn’t glow - she had that glowy fabric in the back of her outfit to kinda hide that. Mavuika is a really nice contrast - her entire head of hair glows very bright! Not just the tips like previous archons

Was noticeable how they reframed the player feedback: “everyone’s very interested in our inspirations for Natlan” as a corporate translation of everyone’s anger over the whitewashing and Spirit Halloween-ifying

Still disappointed in the pyro archon’s leather biker suit

Someone more familiar with Genshin’s music look into this - but around 34:10 when they started answering the question “will someone be resurrected” does the music resemble more the music from La Signora’s funeral video?

Wonder about the original Mandarin titles for the Archon Quest acts - Because “Flowers Resplendent on the Sun-Scorched Sojourn” sounds so cool - and then Act 2 is “Black Stone under a White Stone”. It’s just comically simple compared to the big words that are usually in genshin titles

Also really interested in the Ancient Names thing. I’m almost certain it’s something taken from a real-life culture, and should really research more into that. 

Did I understand that right? They’re gonna give us Kachina for free, just like we got Amber and Kaeya and Lisa back in Mondstadt? 

All 3 of the new 5.0 characters mark regional specialties, and also have additional exploration benefits!

Wow you can really see the effect that Wuthering Waves had on Genshin

And Test Run finally lets you test out the effects of the characters in an open-world environment!

Traveler will not get the pyro element this update - but it sounds like that’s a possibility for once the Archon Quest has finished?

So I noticed that the 2 new Geo characters we’ll get - Kachina  and the tall lady - both come from the same tribe - the one associated with rocks and such. Makes me wonder if it’s possible to even get a vision that doesn’t correspond to your tribe’s element. 

Really seems like the cultural elements here are more simplified “everyone in this tribe loves music” “everyone in this tribe loves extreme sports” “everyone in this tribe loves mining” where’s the complexity. 

I shall add capybaras to my teapot!

Yay another Dodoco event! I really enjoyed the one last year

They’re also giving out extra rewards for completing archon and story quests within the 6 week release - including giving us a lot of the ascension materials to get to level 60!

Did find it funny when one guy was explaining all the new benefits and the other is like, “wait, this is Genshin Impact? All this cool stuff is in Genshin Impact?” Like yeah Wuthering Waves bred innovation!

FREE STANDARD FIVE STAR EVERY YEAR

I already have Tighnari, Dehya, and Keqing. I don’t really want any of their constellations, so my choice is between Qiqi, Mona, Jean, and Diluc. I don’t want Qiqi, and I don’t need Mona since I already have Furina. It’s down to Jean or Diluc. Jean’s ability to push people away looks really fun, and I can certainly think of places where I would’ve loved to have that skill. However, I have wanted Diluc since the very first time we played him in that trial run during the Mond archon quest. I also already have Kaeya, Rosaria, and Venti, so completing the Angel’s Share team would be cool. My only hesitation is that his gameplay will probably be outdone by Mavuika. But leaks have said she might not release til January, when I was expecting her in November (however leaks also said Emilie was part of Hexenzirkel they aren’t always right).

Love that Oratrice Mechanique d’Analyse Cardinale made it into the stream

BEFORE Khoi Dao repeated that phrase, I did not know he spoke French. But I could hear his actual good French-speaking accent when he said it, and turns out he does indeed speak it! Cool!

Yippee!

Zach Aguilar and Khoi Dao are a great comedic duo

LOVE to hear Brittany Lauda talk about relating to her character, Chiori, for both being seen as intimidating - I specifically relate to Chiori for her basic facial expressions, her bluntness, her acceptance of her quirks, and difficulty making friends because of those traits. Just really glad to hear I’m not the only one. 

The English voice actor for Lumine actually has a twin brother?! 

Amber Lee Conners appeared at the end of the stream, so this is a good place to say how AMAZING her voice acting as Furina is. Just listening to her voice lines and hearing the difference between her acting confident and her actual, recovering-from-depression self is a clear display of talent. Always a treat to listen to. 

Jenny Yokobori (Yoimiya VA) having worked as a pyrotechnician! Cool! 

And her sharing the bond with her character for their dads. So sweet.

Let Erika Harlacher-Stone sing as Venti more!

The Clorinda VA Crystal Lee also loves Tabletop Games!

[cat-downthestreet]

hey, listen! this is a rant post about neurodivergent characters in Genshin and my frustration with the fandom's reading comprehension skills. if you're in a bad place or just don't like angry rants, please don't force yourself and go read something else instead. <3

Okay, so, I watched this video recently, and let's just say, I have some thoughts.

https://youtu.be/tYK3297p4rk?si=eMaf8NF57HFlUhfd

This isn't just a Xiao problem- the entire fandom is terrible at characterization. The example that makes me the most angry is the mischaracterization of neurodivergent characters.

Take Alhaitham for example. He's often seen as rude and narcissistic by the fandom- which is especially apparent in Haikaveh content, where people portray him as straight up abusive.

You wanna know why this makes me so mad? The supposedly narcissistic and rude traits Alhaitham has are actually just exaggerated symptoms of autism.

Like, come ON, people. Don't skip dialogue. Better yet, go read through his story quest again. He straight up tells someone who sees him as narcissistic that he doesn't see others as less than himself. Also, his voicelines basically confirm this- he's extremely socially inept and he doesn't care. He has difficulty showing emotions as readily as his peers- that doesn't mean he doesn't have them, just that he expresses them differently. He comes across as rude because he doesn't get that people don't like to hear what they're doing wrong, and he probably doesn't care because that's not his problem. If people don't like how blunt he is, that's their problem. At least, that's how I think he views the world.

And like, there are SO many hints that he's autistic. He wears sound-blocking earpieces, for crying out loud. Hell, the ENTIRE REASON why he helped out during the Archon quest was because he didn't want his life to change too much. Preferring routine is an autistic trait.

And the worst part is, when I talk about this outside of neurodivergent groups, people tell me I'm wrong and that he couldn't be autistic DESPITE THOSE PEOPLE NOT BEING AUTISTIC THEMSELVES.

And I'm not saying that every autistic person relates to Alhaitham, but I certainly do. And I'm actually quite friendly because I'm anxious about being rejected. Alhaitham isn't, and I'm so jealous of him for that. He's living his best life.

Finally, back to the Haikaveh thing... Alhaitham isn't abusive. He doesn't say horrible things to Kaveh, and the one example of him doing that I could find, he immediately backtracked and subtly tried to make Kaveh feel better. Hell, Alhaitham doesn't even actually care about making sure Kaveh pays rent. He says it as a joke, but because he's autistic and his tone of voice doesn't give that away as well, he's portrayed as abusive and misunderstood as narcissistic. Y'all just don't like neurodivergent people and it shows.

Yes, neurodivergent includes Xiao. PTSD is often viewed as a form of neurodivergency, and there are many MANY characters in Genshin that have PTSD or some other form of neurodivergence. Yet people refuse to see them as such and mischaracterize them as "edgy," "narcissistic," "unapproachable," "weird," and the like. Yet none of these characters are any of those things.

You wanna know the true narcissists? The true edgelords? The actually rude people? Might I direct your attention to Scaramouche, Childe, and Dottore, whom everyone makes out to be as misunderstood pathetic little meow meows that need love.

Reminder that only two of those three are actually redeemable, and one is STILL an edgelord who is more rude than Alhaitham could ever be, while the other is a certified insane person with a weird set of morals.

(Side note: I love Scaramouche and Childe as characters. I'm just tired of people acting like they aren't worse than the autistic characters. Scaramouche is extremely rude, but he's trying to be better as Wanderer thanks to Nahida's help. He has severe PTSD, and Childe does, too. But both of them are actually messed up and have done horrible things, yet people portray them as better and more in need of love than the characters with unlikable (read: neurodivergent) traits.)

Don't even get me started on how people portray Kokomi, Sucrose, Fischl, Diluc, Zhongli, Cyno, Furina, Neuvillette, and Albedo. Especially that last one- I WILL get mad if one more person tries to tell me he's just emotionless and rude.

Also, if anyone is wondering where I've seen people misunderstanding these characters, it's mostly on Hoyolab site discussions. There's one too many posts talking about how "rude" and "annoying" these characters are.

With Alhaitham especially, I see many people writing him as abusive in Haikaveh content. I see people arguing about the ship being toxic because Alhaitham is "abusive," "unfeeling," and "cruel." Even people who like the ship portray him as such. And I've seen too many people comparing him to Dr. Ratio, who is literally just a narcissist who views others as beneath him. Don't get me wrong, I understand the comparison. It's just... very obvious that people skipped dialogue during Genshin's Archon and story quests.

And it's frustrating because I've been misunderstood in the exact same way. I've been called "rude," "annoying," and "unfeeling" in the past and it's screwed me up. Seeing people do the same thing to a character I so deeply relate to makes me lose confidence in both myself and people around me.

If that's how you view a fictional character with autistic traits, how do you treat real people with the same traits?

Thanks for reading this far. My previous post seemed to get a lot of attention, so I felt more confident about posting my full perspective on this subject. Can any of you think of other characters that have been constantly misunderstood in the fandom? I'd love to hear about it.

[trashcanlore]

Kabbalah in the Worldbuilding of Genshin Impact; Part 1: The Tree of Life, the Universe, and Everything

Edited for clarity, 12/6/23

Written by Schwan (@abyssalschwan on twitter) and Sabre (trashcanlore, @paimoff on twitter)

During the Sumeru Archon Quests, we learned that the Irminsul is a (real! (ish)) tree that grows upside down, seemingly underground, and that the roots of the tree are the Ley Lines, which extend throughout Teyvat and the Abyss. Irminsul stores all knowledge and memories in the world, and the Ley Lines are the mechanism by which the tree acquires this information. Ley Lines move elemental energy through Teyvat, and this energy acts as both a storage medium for information but also a resource that can be utilized for combat, alchemy, an energy source (Azosite), etc. 

The origin of the name Irminsul (unique to the Western localizations) in combination with the many names from Norse mythology associated with Khaenri'ah, suggest that the inspiration for Irminsul is Yggdrasil, the world tree and central axis of the cosmos in Norse mythology. Here we propose an additional inspiration for Irminsul and the associated worldbuilding and elemental system of Teyvat: The Kabbalistic Tree of Life. In this model, Teyvat’s elemental energy is comparable to the creative energy described by Kabbalah as the foundation for the creation of reality and the spiritual world. Specific attributes of elemental energy can be channeled by unique individuals in Teyvat and these attributes manifest as distinct elements, which can be directly compared to the 10 sefirot, or emanations, described in Kabbalistic literature.

What is Kabbalah?

Kabbalah (lit. received, tradition) is a school of thought originating in Jewish mysticism. In general, Kabbalah focuses on the relationship between the infinite (God) and the finite universe and how it was created. The goal of studying this mysticism can vary depending on the school of thought and their motivations. Many of the esoteric and religious influences on Genshin lore and worldbuilding were influenced by Kabbalah, or vice versa. These include Gnosticism, Hermeticism, alchemy, Freemasonry, the occultist branches of Theosophy and Thelema (Golden Dawn), astrology, symbolic interpretation of the tarot (also specific to the Golden Dawn) and more [2]. In short, Kabbalah is everywhere. Additionally, its concepts are used as symbolism in several pieces of media that directly or indirectly inspired Genshin and other games in the Hoyoverse.

If you have frequented Genshin lore topics, you might have heard that one of the main sources of inspiration for its worldbuilding is Gnosticism. The problem is, Gnosticism is a bit vague or contradictory when it comes to how the world was created and how the whole existence thing works. At this current moment in the storyline of Genshin, we have very little information on the very beginning of existence in Teyvat. This information seems to be a crucial part of the “truth of the world” and appears to be purposefully hidden by powerful factions like Celestia. This entire theory was born out of trying to make sense of what little we know about the creation of Teyvat and comparing it to esoteric commentaries on the well known creation myth of the Torah (Old Testament). The “Biblical world structure” interpretation of Teyvat has been around since the early days of Genshin lore and with good reason; there are frequent mentions of the firmament, as well as the name Teyvat sounding very similar to the Biblical Hebrew word for ‘ark’ (although the grammar is a bit mangled). There are also several references to stories from the Bible in in-game texts, including Before Sun and Moon.  

Kabbalah literature spends a lot of time trying to understand and describe the process of how the world was created and the underlying principles of reality, as well as how spiritual practice can change that reality (either metaphorically or literally). Kabbalah intends to describe the “true nature of God,” which is equal to the entirety of existence, as something very vast and completely impossible to grasp. This incomprehensible infinity emits an “limitless light” that is the origin of all creation. Elemental energy (the ubiquitous source of everything in Teyvat) is often found compared to light, something we’ll discuss in more detail later. The “limitless light” of Kabbalah is way too powerful for existence to bear, much like how elemental energy is to normal, non-Vision having humans. That’s why this light needed to be “filtered” down. This happens through the process of creation, which passes the light through the spiritual attributes that form the Tree of Life, which is like a sort of diagram for how the universe came into being [3].

The Tree of Life

The tree of life and its 10+ nodes, known as sefirot, is one of the most well-known concepts from Kabbalah to make its way into popular culture. As mentioned previously, the tree has been used as rule-of-cool symbolism in anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and Fullmetal Alchemist, two pieces of media that likely are significant influences on Genshin (If you doubt that HYV loves NGE, play some Honkai). The sefirot are also depicted on the floor of the Schicksal HQ map in Honkai Impact 3rd, for some reason.

The sefirot and their organization and interactions with each other can be found depicted in many ways, such as the tree format that is the most popular, or a spiraling nested scheme that is really cool, or even very stylized, like the work of Robert Fludd.

Sefirot

Sefirot comes from the root word in Hebrew meaning “to count,” but you can also find it translated as “sphere” in some texts. The term originated in a book on Jewish mysticism called the Sefer Yetzirah, or “Book of Formation/Creation.” which describes the combination of the “sefirot of nothingness” and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet as the foundation of reality (remember the hypostasis codenames?). 

The Sefer HaBahir (lit. the book of brightness, 13th century France) introduces the idea that the sefirot are emanations of the divine. Interestingly, this book refers to the sefirot as ma’amarot (sayings), which builds on an important concept in classical Jewish philosophy – the idea that God spoke the world into existence. [We’ll get back to the Sefer Yetzirah and the role of language in creating the world in a subsequent part of this theory]. Fontaine 4.2 era edit: HELL YEAH stay tuned for more about Oceanids!!

Historically, Kabbalah might have taken this rough concept from a very different school of thought: Pythagoreans or neo-Platonists. Briefly, the connection between the Pythagoreans and the Kabbalistic sefirot is that both groups considered the world as being made of numbers. This ties back into Genshin worldbuilding because of how much Platonism is related to Gnosticism. Something else to keep in mind is that Pythagoreans (who had a cool history that connected Egypt and Greece to the magic of ✨math✨ but also hey Genshin lore hello Deshret) were known to use lyres as their instrument of choice while making mathematical studies of music. More sus Venti lore for the collection? This is also interesting to consider in the context of Nahida, who is deeply connected to the Irminsul, and has animations that are reminiscent of computers.

Later in the 13th century, the Kabbalist Isaac the Blind would 'canonize' the list of sefirot (there’s still some variation to this day) and organize them into a sequence that would become the basis for the famous Tree of Life structure. His writings described the sefirot as attributes of the divine and their role in the creation of the world. In his model, the sefirot originated from lights that emerged from a primordial soup of potential, and these sefirot/lights would then ‘flow’ and emanate into each other. His student, Azriel of Gerona, expanded on this with a neo-Platonic lens and introduced the concept of the Ein Sof, the infinite nothingness that cannot be comprehended and is the origin of everything. In this model, being flows from an infinite resource of potential, which the divine can utilize through the framework of the sefirot, eventually creating the world [4]. In simple terms, the Ein Sof, which contains everything, emits a primordial light that then differentiates into the sefirot. In our Genshin analogy, this primordial light would be like extremely pure elemental energy that differentiates into elements, like light passing through a prism.

Moses Cordovero, an important figure in the development of Kabbalah, described the process of the sefirot differentiating with the analogy of light shining through a stained glass window: 

Imagine a ray of sunlight shining through a stained-glass window of ten different colors. The sunlight possesses no color at all but appears to change hue as it passes through the window. The light has not essentially changed though it seems so to the viewer. Just so with the sephirot. The light that clothes itself in the vessels of the sephirot is the essence, like the ray of sunlight. That essence does not change color at all, neither judgment nor compassion, neither right nor left. Yet by emanating through the sephirot -- the variegated stained glass -- judgment or compassion prevails. (Pardes Rimmonim by Moses Cordovero, translated in Essential Kabbalah by Daniel Matt)

Cordovero considered the sefirot to be completely independent of each other, but the later Lurianic school of Kabbalah (we’ll get into them more in later parts) considered the sefirot to be constantly dynamically interacting with each other and also assigned them personas. 

Achievement grinders amongst us may recall the descriptions of the namecards you get upon completing the Elemental Specialist achievement series:

Achievement: Colors of the Rainbow: Light can refract into countless colors, but people stop at seven because they're too lazy to count. Perhaps the elements are like that, too. Achievement: Seven Lights: Anyone can play a tune that belongs just to them, and like the dew under grass, can reflect the seven lights of heaven. 

Another example of the elements being compared to light is the Latin text found on the magic circles on the door of Mona’s future house in Mondstadt and generated by the hypostases during their missile attacks. The text reads:

Ex culmine lucis in magno elementorum, which translates to "From the peak of light, to greatness of the elements."

It’s interesting to see this text appearing in association with the hypostases since they are described as “life forms which have completely abandoned their former appearance and biological structure, making them able to reach the highest level of elemental purity. They are ultra-compact structures with a high mass, and are the highest forms of elemental structures.” The hypostasis code names are also all Hebrew letters, as mentioned earlier.

Mona’s astrolabe during the Unreconciled Stars event features a similar text:

Ex culmine locis in magno elementorum; Lux se effundat in mentes dei, which translates to "From the peak of light, to the greatness of the elements; May light pour out, into the minds of god."

The Abyss Lector catalysts contain a text that mirrors these two examples:

Ex culmine lucis in mango obscuritas. Lux se effundat in mentes abysso, or “From the peak of light, to the greatness of darkness. May light pour out into the minds of the abyss.”  

The Genshin elements are also described as flowing. For example, a loading screen tip specifically describes the Ley Lines as “A mysterious network that links the whole world together, within which flow the elements.”  The Silver Twig description states: "All knowledge, memory, and experience flow through this giant tree, just like a stream flows into a river, the river joins a sea, the sea turns into clouds, and the clouds rain onto the ground — just like life itself."

Sefirot and the Genshin Elemental System

The 10 (sometimes 11) sefirot are: 

Keter: Crown (this one is even more symbolic that the rest, is described as “the most hidden of all hidden things" in the Zohar, represent things that are above the mind’s comprehension and the very beginning of the process of turning potential into reality)

Chokhmah: Wisdom

Binah: Understanding/Reasoning

(Da’at: Knowledge, as a fusion of Chokhmah and Binah)

Chesed: Loving Kindness or Mercy

Gevurah: Strength/Severity, (sometimes Din, Judgement, or Pachad, Fear)

Tiferet: Beauty/Harmony, is associated with balance of the Tree of Life

Netzach: Eternity/Endurance

Hod: Splendor/Glory

Yesod: Foundation (as in, foundation of reality)

Malkhut: Kingdom/Sovereignty

You’ve probably noticed by now that while we are claiming that the concept of the sefirot applies to the elemental system in Genshin, there are 10 sefirot and only 7 elements (for now). Fortunately for us, the Kabbalists love metaphors and categories. In addition to the sefirot representing the procedure used to ‘emanate’ and create the world, there are other methods of interpretation that further subdivide and rank the sefirot. For example, one metaphorical interpretation of the Tree of Life assigns each of the sefirot to a part of the human body.

In some Kabbalistic traditions of interpreting the tree, the 10 sefirot are divided into two categories: Intellect (Keter, Binah, Chokhmah) and Emotions (they’re actually more like character traits), which contains the remaining seven. These categories are meant to parallel how the soul is also divided into the intellect and emotional components. The first three sefirot are also referred to as the “three mothers,” because they are the source of the lower seven [5].

Having a group of seven sefirot is very convenient for comparing their traits to the elements and their ideals, but what about the role of the higher three in Genshin worldbuilding? This next section requires a bit more conjecture than some other comparisons here.

The source of all elemental energy in Teyvat, whatever that actually is, could be compared to Keter (crown), the most hidden and incomprehensible of the sefirot. (Big stretch, but think of the crowns over the Irminsul trees in domains.)

Next, we have the Ley Lines, which contain dreams and memories (these are basically the same in Teyvat, see Dream Solvent description), and these can be compared to Binah (understanding/reasoning) and Chokhmah (wisdom). During the Sumeru Archon Quest, Rukkhadevata says that dreams are the source of the wisdom she upheld as her ideal. Memories play an important role in discerning the truth of the world, as the traveler has now found themselves to be the only person to remember certain people/events, and has been told to trust their memories rather than what they can see.

Comparison of the 'Lower' Sefirot to the Genshin Elements and Their Ideals

Chesed (loving-kindness); Cryo (unknown, theorized to be love)

The Cryo Archon’s ideal is theorized to be love, as it’s the only characteristic mentioned in relation to her in the Travail trailer. Wanderer’s voiceline about her directly mentions love and describes her as being kind and benevolent, while Childe describes her as extremely gentle. These are the characteristics of Chesed, which represents the trait of completely selfless love: the all forgiving, all giving love of a god towards their creations. When it comes to the Cryo element itself, two things are worth mentioning: one is the way that all of Snezhnaya is perpetually covered in snow, as if this were the (ironic) physical expression of the Tsaritsa’s love blanketing them. The second is the promise of a world-encompassing snowstorm that will envelop everything as the Fatui advance on their war against Celestia. Although it’s hard to find one absolute constant in Vision granting stories, it’s notable that most Cryo users got their Vision at a moment when they had to selflessly be there for others (Diona, Chongyun, Mika), or after a decisive moment where they put aside their personal comfort for an ideal that would result in benefit for others (Kaeya, Eula, Layla).

Gevurah (Severity); Hydro (Justice)

Gevurah is associated with divine judgment, the kind that punishes humanity and causes world-altering catastrophes like the flood or the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. The Hydro Archon organizing her nation around a Court that attempts to judge both deities and humans parallels this. In a more positive sense, Gevurah is also related to moral judgment that allows one to tell good from evil. Likewise, Hydro in-game is often associated with purity and separation of clean and unclean matter. When it comes to Hydro Vision wielders, one common characteristic is that they all live by a personal ethical code, and their commitment to it is what granted them their Vision.

Tiferet (Beauty/Harmony); Anemo (Freedom)

Tiferet balances the other sefirot on the tree and has direct connections to almost all of them (except for Malkut). Similarly, Anemo can facilitate many elemental reactions via its Swirl reaction. In our opinion, something almost all the Anemo characters share is that their moment of receiving a Vision coincides with a moment of balance and harmony with themselves or their environment. See Jean and Kazuha’s Vision stories and the cutscene where Scaramouche/Wanderer gets his Vision. As an aside, comparing harmony to Anemo is funny because Venti is a bard and harmony is also a musical term: in music theory, harmony is the way we analyze the interactions between different voices that can be heard at the same time.  

Netzach (Eternity); Electro (Eternity)

The quality of “Eternity” in Netzach is related to victory against enemies, referring to eternity as being the most powerful combatant remaining among defeated adversaries. Likewise, in Genshin the story of the Electro Archon features many battles during the Archon War where Ei and Makoto ended up victorious. As for Electro users tend to have their Vision granted at a moment when their ambition “defeated” the obstacles of reality, as was the case with Fischl, Kuki and Lisa. Cyno’s Vision story makes sense when you compare it to the illumination of Buddha during meditation, and how this was victory over the temptation of the demon Mara.

Hod (Glory); Pyro (War)

Natlan and its Pyro Archon are possibly the most mysterious of all the regions, so we can only speculate. We know that the Pyro Archon is called the God of War, and that the Pyro Gemstone mentions battles, pilgrimages and truth. The sefira of Hod, translated as Glory or Splendor, is linked to being able to connect with God and therefore also associated with prophecy (as in the way a human can carry a message from God). In the Travail trailer, the Pyro Archon tells the traveler that “the rules of war are woven in the womb.” It's also theorized Natlan will be based on Mexica culture (where sacrifice of both enemies and self sacrifice was a way to connect with the gods) and via Iansan's name, the Caribbean diaspora version of Yoruba religion (where many rites involve the gods making themselves present in the material world). 

Yesod (Foundation); Dendro (Wisdom)

Back when we started to think about this theory during version 2.8, we decided on Yesod largely via process of elimination. One piece of our rationale was that in the Jewish tradition, each of the lower seven sefirot are used to represent a primary personality trait of seven archetypal figures in the Torah. The person related to Yesod is Joseph, who is well known for his prophetic dreams, and because of the events of the Golden Apple Archipelago, we decided that was close enough. However, the 3.x version confirmed that a) Irminsul did actually exist, b) Dendro as an element has a deep relationship with the tree, with the Dendro Archon acting as its avatar, c) the ideal of wisdom as both Dendro Archons interpreted it has a lot to do with dreams, and d) Irminsul and the Ley Lines act as the foundation for how reality is perceived in Teyvat. Yesod is also associated with biological life, as it represents the reproductive organs in the human body scheme of the sefirot.

Malkut (Kingship); Geo (Contracts)

Malkut is associated with the connection between the spiritual "above" of the Tree of Life and the concepts it contains, and the "below" of the material world, where these concepts manifest into material reality. For this reason, Malkut is associated with the earth [6]. In many Geo item descriptions, like the Geo Hypostasis drop or Albedo's elemental skill, the motif of geo trying to reach the sky is a constant. From a religious POV, the relationship between the divine and humans living in the material world has also been one of "covenants," or "pacts", in a similar way to how the Geo Archon is the God of Contracts. Furthermore, contracts are the basis to have a working state (government), and a kingdom is one of the first forms of a state. Malkut also being related to earth and everything material parallels how Geo is an element that works in making constructs. Geo Vision users are likewise involved in making or maintaining structures, like the Knights of Favonius is for Noelle, or the tradition of alchemy is to Albedo, as well as opera to Yunjin and in a way, even the Oni identity for Itto.

The Origin of Evil and Why Irminsul is Upside Down

Tighnari tells us that Irminsul is a tree that “grows downward rather than upwards,” or in other words, it’s upside down. This isn’t the only time that we’ve encountered things in Teyvat being described as upside-down or mirrored, and as it turns out, there is a similar scenario described in Kabbalah. Throughout Kabbalistic discussions on the origin of evil in the world (both material and spiritual), a central idea developed is the existence of a mirrored or inverse Tree of Life that forms the demonic realm of evil. The Zohar, a foundational work of Kabbalistic literature, spends a considerable time discussing the origins of evil - there are more than 5 creation myths for the concept of evil! Two of these myths describe the formation of an inverse Tree of Life, called the Sitra Achra (literally “other side”). This tree is constructed out of corrupted fragments of divinity that did not make it through the creation process, and therefore became evil forces [7]. Evil is typically represented as either a shard (like of broken pottery) or as a husk/shell (Qlippoth in Hebrew). Sound familiar? We actually have an enemy with this name in-game; the "shadowy husks" (the CN name for these enemies literally translates to "empty shell"). 

Unlike the very well defined 10 sefirot of the Tree of Life, Kabbalists don't agree about the identities or number of the demons that form the Sitra Achra. Some names for these demons are consistent; such as  Lilith, Samael, and Asmodeus, who make a sort of "mother, father, son" trio. As for the rest, scholars generally agree that Kabbalists blended traditions from nearby cultures depending on where they lived, leading to Arabic, Spanish and Germanic legends mixing into the Jewish tradition [8]. There's a strong possibility Hoyoverse did something similar and filled in the missing names with the names of the demons of the Ars Goetia, creating a system where the mirrored sefirot are “ruled” by demon gods, aka, the Archons. This implies that the reason Teyvat is upside down is because it is actually on the “other side.”

Neuvillette, About Us: Witness: Since you hail from beyond the stars, I invite you to be my witness as I judge this upended world…”Though we live in a world of disarray, I shall undertake to restore all that has been broken”. 

[Fun Fact: The Zohar describes the construction of the Sitra Achra as a series of knots that arrange the demonic equivalent of sefirot, called either crowns or “breaths,” into a mirrored Tree of Life configuration [7]. ]

The primary goal of the Sitra Achra is to steal and absorb the divine energy of the Tree of Life to maintain its existence, in the hopes of gaining enough energy to destabilize the system [9]. The way Genshin's Archons use their Gnoses is similar to this system. In the Flower of Paradise Lost artifact lore, the Goddess of Flowers explains to Deshret and Rukkhadevata that when the Seelie race was disgraced, they lost their connection to Heaven and their power of "enlightenment". Later, Celestia would facilitate the Archon War with the promise that each winning god would be granted a Gnosis that would give them exceptional power. Both Nahida and Venti have described the Gnoses as being a very advanced tool that concentrates elemental energy. So far, Archons have had inherent elemental powers related to their nature, but when it comes to using large amounts of elemental energy through their Gnoses, they aren't creators but channelers of it, just at a much larger scale than humans who have Visions. Edit: and yes, there is the most recent revelation about the origin of the Gnoses that is extremely relevant to this comparison, but deserves its own space to be properly expanded on.

However, this doesn't mean Teyvat is condemned. Just as the Traveler has slowly been setting the chaos of elemental energy back into order (by, for example, returning the elemental Oculi to the Statue of the Seven, among many other things), so too is there a concept in Kabbalah describing the importance of righting the wrongs of the universe so that the sefirot are stable and creation is in harmony with the divine. This is called Tikkun Olam, or the repairing of the world.

Stay tuned for part 2 where we go into wayyyyy more detail about what this means for the Traveler's journey through Teyvat! 4.2 Edit: and of course will we will be talking about the most recent Gnosis revelation, as well as the Narzissenkreuz Ordo antics :D

References:

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/170308/jewish/What-is-Kabbalah.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetic_Qabalah

Kabbalah - Origins of the Sefirot and Tree of Life - Isaac the Blind Saggi Nehor & Azriel of Gerona

Mystical Concepts in Chassidism - Schochct, Jacob Immanuel, chapter 2

  Mystical Concepts in Chassidism - Schochct, Jacob Immanuel pg 66-67, Tanya ch. 3

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Likutey Moharan I, 12:1 via Wikipedia

The Origins of the Klippot / Qliphoth & Sitra Achra in the Zohar - Kabbalah on the Problem of Evil

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/demons-and-demonology

9. Evil in Early Kabbalah - Emanations of the Left Hand Side - Origins of the Qliphoth / Klippot

[gold-rhine]

What is your fav genshin world quest? And do you think world quests suffer from not including playable characters in them? Or is it better for them to only have NPCs? Like I know some people have critiqued enkanomiya world quest with "where is Kokomi" since this is basically her place.

i think making blank statements like "world quests suffer from not having playable characters" is reductive and short-sighted. i dont care if characters are playable or not if they are well written and if they work within the quest. in fact, some archon quests suffer from having too much playable characters in them. we absolutely did not need ayaka date in inazuma archon quest. i wrote that post about collei bc i think her conflict fits aranara quests perfectly and current npc in that quest has no character and does nothing, except wake up and get dendro vision for free. its not about whether collei is playable or not.

actually enka is one of my fav world quests. and no, it absolutely did not need kokomi in it. and i rewrote entire inazuma archon quest, giving her actual character development and strategist arc, so i'm speaking from kokomi pr brigade perspective.

when we're talking if character should be in a quest or not, its not about whose place it is bc they like live here. its about what they would bring to this specific quest. what are the themes and POINT of the quest. and what is the development arc is for this character, does it fit this quest, what this character's presence would meaningfully contribute.

so like. what is enka about? its about enjou intrigues, its about lies and gaslighting, about how clever assholes like him can frame the narrative to make you see white as black and black as white and manipulate you into doing what he wants. and to echo this, the deeper, hidden narrative, is about meta players perception of the lore. its about how celestia are actually the invaders who conquered teyvat by force and then pretended to be creators of this world and killed anyone who even learned the truth, like orobashi, despite them having heavenly aethetic. how orobashi went to fight raiden knowing he will die as a part of celestia's punishment, even tho before we were told he wanted to destroy inazuma. and the deepest buried lead was that despite us being told that vishaps are evil dragons attacking humans, mindless brutal animals, they are in fact sentient beings, and in fact, real natives of this world who were invaded and then framed as evil for fighting back. like, before enka i didn't give a fuck about vishaps, but after it i became dragon lore enthusiast for this exact reason

at the core of that quest is how kokomi ancestors sucked horribly, mistreated their own people while presenting themselves as glorious empire, and also did horrible eugenics and warcrimes on vishaps, who they KNEW were sentient beings, because they could learn human language and talk. and they captured children of these sentient beings, grafted corrals into their flesh, kept them in captivity in a deepest cave for decades, just to then slaughter them and take the bloodsoaked corrals off their dead bodies to use it to revitilize watatsumi bare earth. and it was repeated again and again, generations of torture, literally soaking blood of dragon children.

and this all is kinda buried under the narrative of "defeating evil monster dragons to save the island", because this is traditional fantasy narrative and its structured like that to obscure the reality from players without ever lying to them. you have all the facts, but you need to realize that YOU are playing the villain here by yourself. just like enjou manipulating the truth without ever actually lying.

so like. what is kokomi supposed to do here. she can't realize the truth and try to make amends, bc at this point of the overall story players are not supposed to understand that dragons are people who were invaded by celestia. they are not supposed to see vishaps as sympathetic yet, enka is the first major lore drop to give this reveal foundation, but the reveal itself only happens in fountaine with neuvi.

and if kokomi doesn't realize the truth, then she's just being duped by enjou like the traveler, which makes her look stupid, and she does what? stands here and listens to the lore? kills dragons herself? so that after fountaine players could look at neuvi, realize that other vishaps are people like him too and go "wait, was kokomi doing warcrimes against dragons????" like, as of now, she has deniability bc like. she's never been in enka herself, she didn't know she's sending the traveler to kill what is basically dragon kids tortured and raised in captivity, for her its an ancient ritual to save her island. but like if you add her to the quest, it fucking crumbles.

tldr; characters should be in quests if they add something to them and have their own development based on quest events. kokomi should have had better written archon quest, she should not have been in enka. i do hope tho they revisit enka in future and then kokomi is here, bc now after dragon lore recontextualization, she can learn the truth and confront enka's legacy

[kazuhearted]

i think few future genshin exploration moments will top doing Jazari's Ruin Golem Quest after playing the Sumeru Archon Quest, seeing the doors on the cabin and immediately going. wait a minute. i recognize those.

they're the same doors used in Dottore's Shouki no Kami workshop, the one built under the Akademiya.

and immediately understanding two things. 1) Dottore has been here before for sure 2) he's explored Khaenri'ahn technology out in the field and actively uses it in his projects

and right afterwards you find his research notes on the Golem lol. it was such a good payoff.

hoyoverse doesn't need to include small details like these. specially for a character that isn't playable and likely will never be (for morality reasons). but they still do and it's what makes the game so enjoyable to explore. introducing a character like Dottore, about whom we know few things and even fewer of them are confirmed in-game. who is set up to be important in later story chapters. and still including these little pieces hidden in World Quests for us to chase his trail.

the way in which hoyoverse manages to make it's characters active parts of the world, leaving evidence of their presence behind, a hundred years, two hundred years or however much before the story starts but still there for us to find. the fact that the note is signed as Zandik and not Dottore but players are still expected to recognize it, that they trust the audience to piece it together. it's what makes Teyvat feel like such an organic world! it's tough to pull off, and yet i think hoyoverse manages to quite satisfactorily :)

it's a similar reason to why i enjoy the Narzissenkreuz World Quests so much. chasing Rene's trail and slowly piecing together his research is really entertaining.

[sh1-n0bu]

Okay third time's the charm before I go to bed, pass out and slumber.

For once this is not horny. (shocking, I know)

We know some genshin characters travel a lot. Can we talk about how that is just yaasified camping? Like in a traveling party that includes Klee and Albedo that has to be so fun. Sing campfire songs, make food together, tell spooky stories,.... bro I want to go camping with Klee and Albedo. Who cares if we burn down a forest on accident.

-🦝

✿ 𝙖𝙙𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚? 𝙖𝙙𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚! ✿

characters: albedo and klee, the twins and paimon, kaeya and diluc, bennett and razor with fischl x gn!reader

warnings: some light angst, spoilers to character stories, archon quests and hangouts, reverse comfort, domestic fluff, fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff andnjsjd

notes: wanted to try and up my writings since it was headcannons format. also i’m sorry my loyal 🦝 anon but i wanted to try and include every iconic duos (trios in some cases) and not just albedo and klee. this definitely turned out super duper long but i’m kinda low-key, not really proud of myself for making it lmao

the teens and kid characters will strictly be platonic, whether you view the ones with adults as romantic or platonic is completely up to you!

domestic and chaotic mixed into one

klee will unknowingly act like you and albedo’s child and it’s fucking adorable

did you notice that both albedo and klee have hoodie hats sewed to their clothes?

yeah and if your clothes doesn’t have hoodie hat then klee and albedo would scheme together to make an outer clothing with matching style hoodie hat

and yes it was your birthday gift and yes you shed a tear or two

when running away from jean, if klee sees you hanging around in the city she will climb your back and hide behind you, like a sloth cuddling on a tree

“shh please don’t tell master jean that i’m here okay, mx [name]? giggle”

look at her in the eyes to try say no

just try it

as for albedo, he won’t hesitate to drop his current work or experiment if you were to ever call for him for help

and if you’re taller than him even by a single cm he won’t blink an eye to use you as a ladder

if you guys are traveling to sumeru together oh boy

get ready to have your hair turn white due to stress not really

“big brother albedo! i want this cute fluffy dog as a pet please?”

“klee, wait! that’s a slumpter beast! *cue albedo making a mad dash towards klee*”

“big brother albedo! this cute mr fish wants to play with me!”

“KLEE NO! THAT’S A CROCODILE!”

but not every travel is not always stressful

during the nights, you would set the camp and tent up while albedo prepares some dinner all the while sweet little klee would be making flower crowns for her “bestest big brother in the world” and “bestest big sibling in the world”🥹

when it’s time to sleep, klee will always be in the middle of you two. and no she doesn’t wanna sleep on one side. she wants BOTH of her big siblings

when you wake up your one hand would be tightly clutched in klees hand while the other holds albedo’s

“i wouldn’t mind going for more travels if it means we’ll spend time together like this” albedo would gently smile as he pulls you two closer

let’s just act that they’re reunited

paimon would definitely act like the spoiled youngest sibling

she constantly wants to be held or cuddled by someone

while the twins areee…

…hold on

…are they fighting over the last cookie?

holY SHIT THEY JUST PULLED OUT THEIR SWORDS! FALL BACK! FALL BACK!

distantly you can hear a monstrous voice screech “MY COOKIE!” before a loud boom followed

you and paimon don’t wanna know

they fight over everything and yes i mean EVERYTHING

“aether back off! me and [name] are going together to sumeru city for food ingredients”

“well excuse me, darling sister. but me and [name] have already made a promise to go to port ormos to restock!”

“HEY! paimon and [name] are going together to visit collei and tighnari! so if you’ll excuse us- *gets bonked*”

who gets to cuddle with you, who gets to carry you, who gets to make dinner so they can woo you, even who gets to bandage your injuries as you bleed out with paimon having the urge to slap the twins

“*slap!* THAT’S ENOUGH! [NAME] IS BLEEDING OUT YOU TWO DUMMIES!”

cue the panic

lumine is the twin that always sticks close by in case a monster attacks, always on high alert and will do anything to cut down any monster that appears

while aether is the twin that will always hug your arm or hold hands with you so he can defend you if anything were to happen

and paimon is uhhh… well she’s just there for moral support

but no matter what happens, the twins and paimon will always stay with you through and through🥹

if tension were to be embodied by people it’ll be these 2

due to their past and what happened between these 2 there’s always lingering negativity in the air

kaeya will always jab at diluc and diluc will always have the menacing glare on his face

kaeya’s words may have a playful tone and air to it but there will be lingering hidden thoughts behind

diluc may not jab back with words but the cold, emotionless glare is enough of an answer

though they may fight constantly there’s a mutual agreement between these 2

and that is to keep you safe even if you can fight and protect yourself

both kaeya and diluc have lost important people to them, with their last line being cut by crepus’ death so they can’t afford to lose another

besides have you ever tried making a team with these 2 in it? it’s one of the strongest melt and reverse melt team

anyways

once you’ve had enough and scolded them to make up and left them glued to their spot

now thanks to your scary parent energy they try to work through their disagreements and they’ve been getting better

not the best but at least you can have a day of peace without one chatting your ear off and the other throwing cruel glances

“BURN!”

“kaeya i’ll be fine! it’s just a light scratch on my side. nothing too dangerous”

“but it’s still a wound. don’t try to resist [name]. we’re only worried about your well being is all”

“uh huh, then what of your head injury?”

“…”

“kaeya? kae- HOLY SHIT DILUC! KAEYA JUST FAINTED!”

probably one of the most wholesome group🥹

all three of them see you as their mentor/older sibling figure

razor will come to you if he needs help with human communication and he has already introduced you to his lupical

“lupical! i need uhh uhmm”

“it’s alright razor. take your time”

“uhmm right! i need help with battle!”

“do you mean training razor?”

“yes! that!”

“what’s the magic word?”

“uhhm pl-leashe?”

after some training with him or helping him with his reading and talking, he always expects you to give him a head pat

and he will just follow you around like a puppy all the while making the 🥺 face

give.him.head.pats.NOW

bennett will always try to be help for you in any way

whether it be as simple as collecting firewood for the camp he will do it without hesitation

“big sibling told me to collect firewood😄”

if you were to ever get sick or injured during ‘adventuring’ with them bennett will always blame himself

it doesn’t matter if your injuries are just a scratch that barely stings, bennett will blame himself and his unlucky self

“sniff… i’m sorry. it was all because of me big sib… sniff”

if you don’t hug him and comfort him i won’t hesitate to crawl through the screen and smack you-

as for fischl she’s a like a mix of both of the boys

she would ask you for her help with her elemental mastery and bow mastery while also cheerfully carrying out any help you ask her of

“the great ruler of immernachtreich has asked her highness, der prinzessin for help. no matter the time nor place, i shall always respond to the cry of my greater sibling. come oz! thy prinzessin order thee to cometh along!”

if you were to praise her for the smallest of things such as her clothes or how wast her vocabulary is, she will turn into a stuttering mess while her internal self is just jumping around, rolling on the ground, screeching, squealing etc

congratulations you have gotten yourself 3 more little siblings who will follow you until the ends of world

[yuuka-chan-twst]

Focalors/furina in twisted wonderland!!

Who have played latest genshin quest know about her.

This story includes ships

Twisted cast(not all of them just dorm members and leaders)x furina

Neuvilette x furina.

"Huh...?"

'wait am I in a coffin?'

Suddenly furina heard a voice

"Uhh I gotta get the uniform quick before someone sees me!!"said the unknown voice.

Suddenly the lid blew of the coffin and furina slowly stood up facing with a Tanuki.

"Huh..What is a Tanuki doing in Fontaine!?wait..where am I?"said furina.

"Hey human!!give me your clothes!!!!"

Furina scoffed and gave a smug grin.

"Do you have any idea who you are talking to?provoking a god is outrageous!"

Furina said as she walked out of the room ignoring the tanuki's ranting,making her way to library.

"Hmm,a library,it seems I'm lost."

Suddenly the tanuki appeared.

"hey you dumb human did you think you can get away from the great grim!?!now give me your uniform!"

Furina looked down and saw she was wearing a weird robe.

'what is this old fashioned robe' furina thought to herself.

"HEY DID YOU NOT HERE ME-"

She was about to bring out her weapon to decapitate the tanuki when suddenly a whipe attached to the tanuki.

"consider it tough love"

Said a man who oddly resembled a crow.

" Oh there you are!we have been looking for you!!"

*Time skip to the ceremony,furina found out neuvilette is here too by the way*

As Crowley and furina entered the ceremony hall,she spotted neuvilette standing next to group of people.

'is this a cult or something'she thought.

The Crowley started pushing her towards mirror and neuvilette realised that the person behind the robe is furina as he waited for her to Finnish so they could discuss what is happening.

*State the name*

Furina sighed because she was extremely bored, afterall she couldn't tease neuvilette right now.

"Furina focalors."said furina.

*The shape of your soul is...*

*is divine..she has no magic but divine powers of Water by her side ruler of ocean,The God Of Justice, therefore, Diasomnia is suited.

Everyone accept neuvilette stared at furina in fear.

Furina smirked at the drama.

Suddenly neuvilette approached furina and furina and neuvilette took of their robes.

Everyone was shock to see furina was a girl.

"I see what this is about..we are ina college and seems we got assigned in to the same dormitory." Said neuvilette as he walked towards furina,furina jumped on neuvilette and Said:"Oh cheif justice you are here too!! finally someone to nag while I'm bored!!"

Everyone just stared at them.

The were wearing quite fancy clothing as shown in the picture above.

(Part 1)

(i will continue this series)

[mania-sama]

find a time machine and take me back to when i was six

Nate - NF

➼ information ❧ Genshin Impact ❧ Pairing: Kaeya & Klee ❧ Tags: angst, hurt/comfort, gratuitous descriptions of pain, character study ❧ Summary: The story in which Kaeya is affected by the events of the quest, "Requiem of the Echoing Depths." ❧ Word Count: 938 ❧ Cross-posted from Archive of Our Own ❧ Original post date: 18 April 2022

It started as a pull in his chest. Kaeya ignored it in the beginning, figuring it was a simple spike of anxiety from the close quarters of the confinement room he and the Spark Knight of the Knights of Favonius were trapped in. Klee took his mind off of it as she told an incomprehensible story about Dodoco and Inazuma.

That was the thing about little kids– they don’t have a great sense of understanding of the world around them. When something happens, it’s hard for them to retell it back to an adult in a manner that makes sense. Klee was no exception to this rule, no matter her title and position within the Knights of Favonius. Kaeya found it entertaining nonetheless. At some point, Yoimiya had helped Dodoco draw a picture… he thinks. Sometimes it was better just to nod and agree as if he understood what was going on.

The ringing in his ears became apparent suddenly without warning. Kaeya couldn’t hear Klee anymore, only able to watch as her mouth moved in continuation of the story. The stone walls seemed to start to move inwards, closing the already tight space of the confinement room. He tried his best to hide his growing panic from Klee, although it was clear he wasn’t doing a good job of it. She looked worried and said something, but he wasn’t able to read her lips due to his blurry eyesight.

Gloved hand pushing against the stone wall, Kaeya attempted to stand up from his previous sitting position in the corner of the room. His muscles instantly began to burn, pulling him forward and backwards at the same time. It felt like all of his internal organs, his flesh and bones included, were trying to burst out of his outer layer of skin. He groaned involuntarily, gritting his teeth against the biting pain.

Kaeya’s knees hit harshly against the floor as he collapsed forward. He could barely see Klee as she was undoubtedly shouting at him or to someone else. His head buzzed like a swarm of bees, effectively shutting off all his senses outside of the feeling. All of that, though, was being occupied by his nervous system.

He pulled at his hair, willing for the pain to stop and for his body to remain still. He was not aware of where he was in the room anymore, his uncovered eye squeezed shut as if it would help reduce his agony. Now, instead of combusting in on itself, his body seemed to want to go downwards. Kaeya didn’t know what was down, other than the damp cave systems already explored and unnoteworthy.

The palms of his hands pushed against his temples, and his breathing had become a pattern of uncomfortable hyperpnea. His entire being still wanted to go down, down where the ground would not give under his weight, so his body was retaliating against the pressure.

It got worse, somehow, when he felt the stinging of his covered eye. A thousand needles prickled against his eye, yet his two hands were already occupied protecting his head. Kaeya couldn’t apply pressure even if he wanted to. 

He was convulsing as he suffered nothing short of torture. Kaeya wasn’t sure how long it went on; it could’ve been a few minutes, an hour, a day. It was all the same to him as his soul tried to break apart every cell that held his body together and tried to scatter the stardust that made up his core being. It was with complete certainty, though, that he did pass out cold in the confinement room. Whether that be during the process of torment or after was of no difference. What mattered was the dreams of a distant life Kaeya’s mind supplied him during his time of unconsciousness.

Kaeya did not have many memories of Khaenri’ah. He was six years old when his life turned upside down, or rather, rightside up. He remembered the destruction the archons had caused as they laid waste to his homeland, but not the halls of the castle he once roamed. It was only during the times of sleep that he could recall what he once had before he was ultimately abandoned.

The past was the past, though. His eye was the only remnant of Khaenri’ah he still retained. Home was not the decimated nation– home was the little girl crying in his arms when he woke up in a comfortable bed. Klee took notice of the consciousness of the Cavalry Captain and immediately launched into a story recounting the events. Unfortunately, he remembered the agony all too well, and phantom pain prickled against his skin.

Home was the red-haired bartender, a man Kaeya still believed to be his brother, looking at him with a completely blank stare in the doorway. Home was the acting grandmaster sitting in a chair by his bed, making unsuccessful attempts at pulling Klee off of Kaeya’s extremely exhausted body. Home was the chief alchemist in a snowy land miles outside of Mondstadt, studying the alchemy that Khaenri’ah once excelled in.

Home was not Khaenri’ah, and Kaeya was okay with that. It did not explain why his body suddenly broke down and his soul attempted to flee his body. It did not explain why his unconscious brain only thought of the nation after the torture. However, not all things need an explanation. Kaeya was content with this information– if he received more in the future, then so be it. If he didn’t, then that was fine as well. As long as he could remain home, nothing else, especially not Khaenri’ah, mattered.

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

Now that CN is over I need more fics to read (I say as if I'm not in the middle of rereading CN and plan to reread ITYSG(AINLY) again because I'm literally obsessed with your fics). Do you have an recs? Also what's your favorite fics/comfort fics (you can include your own)? I always find it interesting to know what the authors of my favorite fics like to read when they aren't writing.

other than my other fics (babysitting in the apocalypse is my other zhongchi fic), i do have a some zhongchi recomendations! sadly i cannot actually go to my bookmarks atm nor provide direct links. i also don't really remember the authors' names of most of them? and you'd have to like.... save them for later, what with ao3 being down and all;; but here are some off the top of my head if you want to get planning:

(once ao3 gets back up i'll update this list with proper links and the authors' names and maybe more recomendations since i do have many more i just can't remember,,)

○ entirely out of spite by Bgtea - i generally assume everyone's already reading this one given how big it is (and how it was kind of my inspiration for cyanide even tho i never said it), but if you're not, holy shit are you in for a good one. literally anything bgtea makes is wonderful. this one is an au based on the premise of a different story, but you don't need any knowledge whatsoever of it to enjoy and understand eoos (tho consider it if you like the premise, bc it's also really good). the rundown is- a mondern ajax dies and wakes up in the body of tartaglia, the antagonist of genshin impact, a game he'd been playing before kicking the bucket. he is tasked by a weird isekai-anime looking menu to fill in the shoes of the antagonist or else, but he's not technically stopped from altering the story just a tiny bit or being ooc, so he goes about trying to play the tartaglia role without meeting the same end as tartaglia (who dies ingame). it's such a good fic i cannot recommend it enough - it's not complete yet, but the wait for each chapter is more than worth it, and bgtea always does an insane amount of research for everything they post.

○ literally any other zhongchi fic by Bgtea. there's this short one about pulcinella or capitano (i can't remember, it might've been pantalone) selling pictures of childe to increase morale in the fatui (something something pr strategies), that one is hilarious. there's another one about zhongli getting stuck as a dragon and childe taking care of him as the world slowly goes to shit from rex lapis being missing (a comment pointed out it might be called "ajax' adventure with dog-lizard" and it sounds about right for me). another one they have is the autumn winds are sighing i think. that one was posted WAY back, some of the info is a bit outdated, but it's still so, so good. i can't remember what it was all about, but i do remember it involves zhongli going to snezhnaya to meet childe's siblings. the pining and tension on that one is off the roof. i should read it again,,,

○ after everything by Amanveth (i think that's how their username is written,,) - literally palate cleansing fluff. there's really good angst as well but it's overall just very sweet and soft, very much a feel-good fic. it's about zhongli and childe going back to being friends after the events of the archon quest and slowly realizing they're in love. it's still ongoing but it updates shockingly fast, and it's a nice little thing to read before going to sleep.

○ the white cicada society by clementinesgulag. still ongoing i think, but i have paused reading it for reasons unrelated to the fic itself, so i can only really atest to the frist arc of it? but holy fuck is the first arc good. the angst is godly in this one, and i'm always a sucker for a good horror mystery. this one is about the gritty and slow reconciliation of post-archon quest zhongli and childe as they investigate a series of awful murders and terrifying paranormal shit (i'm pretty sure) going on in the city. (it might be revealed to not be paranromal later in the fic as that partiuclar plotpoint hadn't yet resolved when i paused it at the end of the first arc, but i wouldn't know. wouldn't make it any less good if it wasn't tho)

○ death became him by Merianon. also still ongoing i think, but part of the many fics i have paused reading for reasons unrelated to them (i have... way too many saved,,,). this one is about childe going back in time after dying and waking up as a god, and the fic starts there, so it's about how the events of the game go with childe as a god and not in the fatui. i can't remember all that much about it tbh, but i remember i really liked it, the concept was so interesting. i'm waiting for it to end.

○ a sight for sore eyes by ToumeiKyoudai. still ongoing afaik, but i paused reading it as of very recently (again for reasons outside of the fic). this one is the events of the game except childe is legally blind. you have no idea how interesting and hilarious this fic is, the premise is so simple but it's so nicely executed. i can't really say all that much more about it since it's basically just that- it's a retelling but childe's blind. and he's so fucking funny. it's all so fucking funny, and the worldbuilding is stellar, and i just really really like it i can't explain why exactly. it's not a comedy! but fuck it's so entertaining.

i have so many more that i wish i could put here but i'm not 100% confident in their titles nor which fic was which (happens when you have a ton bookmarked but have paused reading a lot of them), so i don't want to risk saying this fic is one thing when in reality it's something else completely different,,,

these last two i put below for reasons i'll explain in each of their blurbs, but they're still as recomended as those above!

○ lungs full of roses, by SecretlyACatLady. if this is the title (and i'm 99% certain it is, but i can't check), then this is hands down the BEST hanahaki angst i've ever read. i'm not kidding. this one is very specific in its angst tho, and i gather likely not what everyone is looking for in a hanahaki fic, but holy fuck. basically childe gets hanahaki here but knows he cannot afford to have anyone find out he has it (bc fatui) and also not that he died from it, i think? might be mistaking that particular plotpoint for another fic. anyway- he leaves liyue but zhongli goes to look for him bc he's confused and just wants to apologize for the whole tsaritsa's contract and all. it gets out of hand real quick when the ppl of mondstadt try to help by acting as pushy wingmen and it's so GOOD holy fuck. i've never liked when other characters try to push the main pair together and act all 'just kiss already we all know!' around them, and seeing it backfire as horribly as it could if it were a realistic scenario (tho enhanced bc childe) is so incredibly satisfying. the reason why i put it down here is 1) i'm not 100% sure that's the title and 2) if it hasn't been abandoned, it's been in hiatus for a while now. which is hearbreaking, but it's also such a good fic that i'd honestly recommend it regardless if only for the angst at the start. but i understand not everyone is in for something like that if it doesn't resolve/likely won't resolve (idk if it's abandoned tho but i understand that if a fic takes too long to update, people will fear the worst). so yeah,,

○ non-playable character, by Jouicifer. this one is here exclusively because i'm a sucker for horror mystery - it doesn't mean the zhongchi isn't good, but it's not as prevalent in the plot as in white cicada (another horror mystery), so i can't exactly put it with the other more zhongchi-centric fics? not that the zhongchi isn't here, but. hard to explain. this one is also hard to explain in general, i'm not sure if it's based on the premise of another story or if this is a highly-secific trope/sub-genre in china (i think?), but the author refers to it as 'unlimited flow', so look it up if you want to be sure. either way, much like with eoos, it doesn't matter if you know anything about whatever that might be to enjoy and understand the story. the rundown is childe and a bunch of other people are players in this sort of virtual-reality scenario hopper, where they get put in 'games' with other players where they can die (tho idk if die die irl as well). basically, in the newest scenario they get thrown into, it's a horror murder mystery about a haunted mansion, and their guiding npc is zhongli, whom childe has met in another scenario and whom he is an absolute simp for. god idk how to explain it, it's just so good; but you need to be there for the plot first and the ship second. the ship is there! it's just the plot takes presedence. but holy fuck is the plot good. the reason why it's down here, like lungs full of roses, isn't bc of the plot or the ship being secondary, but... well, it's also been in hiatus for a long while now. to this fic's credit in particular, it was in a long hiatus before, but updated! out of nowhere! and then it went into its current hiatus, so. again, i understand people don't like that, but i'm a patient person so i'm willing to keep it in my bookmarks for as long as it takes (and forever if it gets abandoned). it's just THAT good. and since there's not much horror murder mystery in this fandom (or in fics in general), i'll take whatever i can get. the mystery is good in this one, so it helps.

(edit: added some authors and a fic title, thank you archon-of-chaos and redwormonastring!)

[hellobitchlet]

Things from the beta/early on that I wish Genshin didn't forget about or retcon:

- pretty much every mystery and plot line that the Mondstadt cast was setting up. Not just Kaeya and the male 5 stars (but definitely including them bc. There's a lot of stuff) but also the 'smaller' stuff that never left 4 star character stories like Sucrose's species, Bennett's origins, and Amber's grandpa. And that's not even going into Lisa's Akademiya connections that made her look like she'd be important in Sumeru. Or Mona and Klee lore before astrology and elves were forgotten so much that Layla is treated like just another filler 4 star.

- the concept of a 'mutant' type of electro that is the same colour as the possible light element. And the concept of elements having subcategories in general.

- dendro being this pretty, darker shade and actually having stuff to do with plants, instead of this boring, neon green light that just makes pictures that sometimes looks like plants. I really like dendro slimes and the thorn wall attacks that the dendro samachurls have. Wtf is this dendro specter and these dendro mushrooms?

- this isn't quite an established thing, but speaking of dendro: I miss when it seemed like there was a point to not having dendro characters in the beginning. I miss when it seemed like dendro would be important at all. I miss when it seemed like Baizhu and Yaoyao would be important at all. I miss when it seemed like dendro not being available pre-Sumeru would be acknowledged in-story. And this is coming from someone who was barely around before Sumeru, who barely got a taste of Genshin before the racist dendro nation.

- the Abyss Order being equally (or even more) as important as the Fatui and not being so shafted by the writers that it's delegated to short, yearly quests and rare appearances in world quests. I mean, you would think that the antagonist group closely connected to the protagonist would be more important than the one that has nothing to do with them. Right?

- oceanids!!! Oh my god Genshin why did you expand on Oceanid lore through Idiya the update before Fontaine and then retcon it as soon as possible???? Idiya I'm so sorry bbg.

- the existence and importance of the afterlife? I mean, it was briefly mentioned in some Sumeru artifact description, but otherwise the afterlife has been completely forgotten about since Hu Tao's story quest. Which doesn't make any sense to me because without it, the archon war and the Chasm is the only significant thing about Liyue in the long term. Which is more than Fontaine, but the other nations have way more notable things about them. Liyue is seriously sustaining itself on Chinese culture and adding new stuff to it alone, huh.

-speaking of Liyue lore crumbs forgotten about in favor of focusing on the Adepti way too much, what was with Chongyun's yin imbalance? Is it really just a side effect of Hoyo throwing in bits of Chinese mythology that is disconnected from the rest of the lore? Really?

[genshinnrambles]

[4.1] The Primordial Sea Pt. 2: Creation as the Key to Sin

EDIT (1/20/2024): to you, reader of the future, past me was very very wrong about this theory! like, misunderstood the lore levels of wrong. so take this post as fanfic if nothing else, it is not correct especially in the understanding of how imagination played into Caterpillar’s creation. Sorry for the blunder!

In 4.0, I wrote two theories: one was a short speculative theory on the nature of the Primordial Sea, and the second was a theory about Rhinedottir and the reason she is considered a “sinner.” With 4.1’s release, including the Archon Quest and the world quest Unfinished Comedy, I believe there is now enough information for a short follow-up theory that synthesizes them and makes one more attempt to understand 1) what it means to be a “sinner” in Teyvat, and 2) what it means to be “born with sin.”

SPOILERS: Fontaine Archon Quest up to the end of Act IV, Ancient Colors, and some dialogue from the end of Unfinished Comedy, which is a world quest with the NPC Caterpillar in the Fortress of Meropide. You have been warned!

edit: please excuse some formatting errors I’ve noticed that are only visible on mobile with some of the bulleted lists. on web, the post seems to be okay. I will fix these asap!

First I’d like to summarize the two previous theories and their main findings/points. They’re linked above if you’d like to read them in full, but it’s not necessary to follow the rest of this post.

In the Primordial Sea theory, I theorized that it could be either of these two things:

The blood of some higher being.

Who: Either Nibelung or the first Hydro Sovereign, based on the weapon ascension material lore from Fontaine

Why: 

The copious End of Evangelion references in the Fontaine AQ, including how Primordial Seawater behaves so similarly to LCL, which is the blood of Lilith, who is the progenitor of humanity in Evangelion

Several life forms in Genshin have arisen from a higher being’s blood too such as the Melusine and the Jinn (technically, in the latter’s case).

The “water” in Elynas is described as “blood” by Jakob, a very peculiar description given all of the above

The amniotic fluid of the egg that hatched the Primordial One

Why: Idk man it just seemed like a possibility at the time.

Needless to say, as time goes on I’m more convinced that it’s likely the first option, blood. I have even more reasons beyond the above to believe so, but they will be outlined in another theory I’m working on right now about the Urstone in Yoimiya’s second story quest.

In the theory about Rhinedottir and the meaning of “sin,” I used Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of dream interpretation as a framework to understand how Rhinedottir is “positioned,” so to speak, as an alchemist and creator of life. In summary:

Freud thought the psychological significance of dreams was to fulfill wishes that we haven’t fulfilled either because we have repressed them into the unconscious or cannot fulfill them in real life for one reason or another

He thought that the reason we dream is that the “wish” is attempting to be remembered and acknowledged by our ego – the dream is produced as the wish tries to cross the boundary between the conscious and the unconscious (and this boundary is “where” dreams occur)

A wish is, in essence, a thought – and dreams are the translation of a thought into images.

With this analogy in mind, here is how Rhinedottir and her dragon children fit into it:

Teyvat and everything under the rule of the Seven is the conscious/ego

The Abyss and everything outside of the rule of the Seven is the unconscious

Elynas and Durin and all of their unnamed siblings are repressed/unfulfilled wishes. A direct reference to this is actually made in the lore text for Festering Desire, where Rhinedottir does seem to explicitly refer to them as unfulfilled wishes.

Rhinedottir, then, is the “dreamer,” because she translates these “thoughts” into “images” with the power of alchemy.

The reason that this makes Rhinedottir a “sinner” is because “sinning” and “dreaming” have a pre-existing association in Genshin. An example would be the Sinshades of Tokoyo, which are afterimages of the strong emotions of Enkanomiya’s former citizens.

Freud believed these “strong emotions” are what underlie an unfulfilled wish.

The “afterimage” is a translation of the “thought” or “strong emotion” that Istaroth preserved into something with “form.” 

Just like a dream (if you exclude daydreams, I suppose) only happens at night, when the “censorship” that protects our ego from repressed thoughts is weakest, the Sinshades only appear during Evernight when the Hyperion sun is extinguished.

I largely stand by everything in these two theories still, but I think what Rhinedottir theory fails to do in its current state is make clear that sinning is about more than just "dreaming," but creating life.

The Meaning of Sin: Imagination

Caterpillar, the NPC who exists somewhere between the boundary of human and Hilichurl, has something very interesting to say at the end of Unfinished Comedy when we ask him about his master, Rene (who he calls “Narzissenkreuz”), and whether or not Rene “created” him:

Caterpillar: Also, it is not quite correct to say that he "created me." Traveler: How so? Caterpillar: Creation is a feat for a god... If we may call the one above a "god." Caterpillar: In the tenets of Narzissenkreuz, do you know what is most critical in creating someone? Paimon: What is it? Caterpillar: It's imagination. Imagining a person, down to the last detail, akin to an Oceanid imagining a creature in the wild. Caterpillar: There's a story that tells of a powerful mage-priest imagining his own son, only to realize he himself was the product of someone else's imagination.

Now, I cannot emphasize enough how huge this dialogue is for solving the Archon Quest’s mystery. “Imagination” is the key – it is, at its core, just like the process of dreaming: translating thoughts into images. The only difference is that dreaming is an unconscious process that happens when we’re asleep, while using your imagination is an active, conscious process.

The other key is that creation is a feat for a god, so if someone usurps that power, they have “sinned.” Creation is so closely related here and in general to using your imagination and dreaming, translating thoughts into images and giving them “forms,” so to be “born with sin,” I think, can’t be anything short of this: being created with a power that does not “belong” to your creator.

So, let’s think about the Primordial Sea again and the prophecy: the Primordial Sea is supposed to be the origin of all life forms, and just as it gave rise to them, it will someday devour them again and cleanse their sins. If Fontainians are the only ones who dissolve when they touch Primordial Seawater, then this origin from the Primordial Sea is either so diluted in other humans in Teyvat as to be inconsequential, OR this origin is truly unique to Fontainians alone. In other words, the specific way that Fontainians were created is fundamentally different from how other humans in Teyvat were created. They were created by a power that was “usurped,” meaning that their creator is not a "true god," if we go off what Caterpillar said.

At the end of Act IV, Neuvillette uses what remains of his Authority of Hydro to push back the Primordial Sea and overrule its imminent sentencing, if only temporarily. Now, I’m still very hesitant to say that this Primordial Sea/Blood belongs to the former Hydro Sovereign Scylla, if only because it seems that Scylla and the God-King Remus went to the Primordial Sea together in the Broken Goblet of the Pristine Sea lore. Otherwise, Scylla is kinda the prime suspect here.

But to be honest, I think I was also wrong to say the Primordial Sea only ever had one “origin,” though I do think even more so now that one of those origins is a Sovereign (whether that’s Scylla or Nibelung [hmmmmmmm] or whoever). What I missed from the weapon ascension material lore is the allusion that the primordial sea is a mixture of both pure water and “ichor.” It seems that what Remus, the Usurper-King, used to create his kingdom was the ichor:

“Combining the immortal stone with the Ichor essence extracted from primordial water, and carved into a race as black as iron— with arcane lithos for skin and Ichor for blood, never again fearing the curse of returning to the primeval past…” –Wine Goblet of the Pristine Sea

And that ichor that Remus extracted is likely abyssal in nature too. This is clear from the effects of Sinthe on people who ingest it - euphoria, difficulty controlling emotions, similar to getting drunk (which, yes, its namesake is likely Absinthe). As said in A Drunkard’s Tale: "What you humans call wine, we wolves call the abyss."

This also ties back to Rhinedottir and how she created her dragons. The “medium” that Rhinedottir uses to “dream” is her alchemy, and the ingredients she used seems to have been abyssal in nature as well, hence the special “blood” or “ichor” that ran through both Durin and Elynas’ veins. 

The Pure Water is likely what makes the Primordial Sea respond to Neuvillette’s authority, the “dragon” part of the Primordial Sea. So what’s up with the Abyss likely being in there too? What’s really going on here, and how is it connected with the whale?

I’m especially curious about this bit from Golden Bird’s Shedding:

“It was at this very moment that the golden era suddenly ceased, plunging down into ceaseless war and rebellion. The throne chamber was filled with cries of conquest and destruction and the agony of the barbarian tribes, and the God King awoke, startled.”

…because that sounds an awful lot like Deshret “waking up” amidst the wars in Gurabad, especially this short excerpt from Staff of the Scarlet Sands:

“"The Sand King sleeps alone in secret dreams, drawing up new theorems." "None shall have to drink salt water in the King's realm, for everything in the new world shall be good." 

Did Remus find Forbidden Knowledge too? And if so…where/how?

I said this was going to be short, so I’m gonna wrap things up here despite there being more rabbit holes to go down. But I think this is it - the bearer of the “original sin,” the original sinner of Fontaine if you will, was likely Remus, who usurped the power of creation. This is the only reason that I can think Fontainians are different from other humans in Teyvat . One last thing to note is that, from the Wine Goblet of the Pristine Sea, it does sound like the prophecy predates even Remuria itself and that Remus was trying to transcend that fate by creating his golems. Maybe Remus even first heard of this prophecy from Scylla when they went to the sea together. This is why I'm trying to be so specific - he was the first to try and transcend this fated end in Fontaine.

As for how or why these “sins” persist, why or how they keep being reborn after the great flood reclaims the "ichor" that was stolen from it....I think only the Golden Troupe and Rene de Petrichor knew. 

On the bright side, let’s say everybody gets dissolved in the finale of Act V and Furina really is the only one left, weeping on her throne: as long as she remembers everyone, can imagine them down to the last detail, she should be able to bring everyone back. But if it goes that way, the cycle would probably just repeat. Surely she has another plan?

Anyway, thanks for reading! If you have a different take I’d also be happy to hear it, as this doesn't come close to covering everything and I'm sure there's still a lot of holes re: Remurian civilization details.

[hiraya-rawr]

You mentioned reading alot of found family on Ao3? Could we have some recommendations? (I am starving for some good found family fics rn)

MY FAVORITE GENSHIN AO3 WORKS // ALL COMPLETED

// This took so long because I had to compile my absolute favorites for found family 😌 everything here is complete, everything here wrecked me. TW DO NOT READ WHEN YOU'RE BUSY BECAUSE I GOT HOOKED. OP I'm so glad you asked me-

Song of Resistance: Frostborn Loyalty by TheOpticalMouse

Song of Resistance: Flames of Defiance by StrangeDiamond

// Diluc and Kaeya and the rest of Mondstadt. The Fatui takes over Mond and they band together forming the resistance to take it back. They should be read together!!, includes a lot of other beloved characters, they're actually selling a book for it with illustrations by @f-ai-n and I'm planning on getting it (if it weren't for the shipping fee that costs more than the book). There's a specific order to read the chapters to make both stories fit together, please take the time to read it!

The Burden Of Memories by The Optical Mouse // series // DILUC GETS AMNESIA bc of the abyss AND THINKS KAEYA IS STILL HIS BROTHER. A LOT OF ANGST. WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED?? made me sob at 2am twice.

Watcher of the Night by nacaratskies // series // the reincarnation-turn back time AU with Diluc. He dies at 22, wakes again as a 17 y/o. Everyone notices he's changed. 17 y/o kaeya is worried but diluc doesn't give af. (lots of angst and screaming. poor kaeya, poor diluc, poor everyone, made me cry)

no love lost, not for him by li2 // series // familial hanahaki disease with Kaeya who doesn't believe he's loved and is dying from it. lots of comfort, unreliable narrator

Lost in the Underground by Quontice // series // for the horror lovers out there <3 Kaeya goes missing and something sinister lurks underground. Diluc tries to find him.

Home is Where my Brother Lays by Trashbin2020 // series // I CRIED. Two different timelines crashing. Kaeya "dies" and "lives again" in a world where Cavalry Captain Diluc lost his brother. Whereas, Diluc is desperate to get him back.

[COMIC] Voices in Ice and Snow by 4dango // art, comic // albedo gets corrupted by during, angst and action. made me love albedo, and fall for diluc even more.

The call is coming by actualromeo // fic // what if the chasm quest which affected the hilichurls also affected kaeya?

And here are some similar works that I've yet to finish but has the potential of being a favorite:

Oh, How Inconvenient by DiamondDove / series

The Rise of Diluc Ragnvindr by @richardgraysonpercyjackson / 4 arcs, a rollercoaster

Can Everyone in Mondstadt Just CHILL OUT For a Second?? by Anonemoni / series

Dawn's Alibi by Primarina / series

[lyss-sketchbox]

Yea personally I would not hold my breath dude.... They release a character's part 2 once in a blue moon, and it feels a little bit like they're spinning a wheel and throwing darts blindfolded to choose?? Like sure, archons make sense. But Venti doesn't have one. Then Yoimiya??? Cyno, could've chosen worse but STILL. But yeah uh. I definitely do believe they're not going to make sure everything is all neatly wrapped up by the end of 7.2 (which if they stick with the 5 act structure, would be when the khaenri'ah main story ends) if only bc they'll be releasing more stuff for the rest of 7.x versions.... To catch up they'd probably have to start sooner rather than later, releasing at Least 1 Character Part 2 per banner phase in order to catch up with all the characters we have and they continue to release.

Yeah. Yeah. Im coping ok. They clearly CAN make amazing stories (i personally think fontaines AQ is great not including the bloat). But they just dont because oop. Gacha game, gotta rope all these pretty handsome characters into the story somehow so people will roll for them.

Sigh.

And yeah they really just be throwing darts at who gets a 2nd story quest. I wouldnt mind if it was like.... important and lore relevant and all but Yoi? Look atleast cyno's 2nd SQ gave us some more lore about the temple of silence and king dehsret lore. Cool. But wtf does yoimiyas SQ add? That she is kind to kids, playful, and likes to help children keep their innocence for as long as they can? Thats all in her.... first.... SQ. Its literally the same thing but repainted in Sumeru but stretched out.

Justice for venti. Shouldve been his SQ and it shouldve covered him and istaroth or his old friend.

I genuinely dont think that all characters deserve a 2nd SQ. Some maybe because of their heavy involvement with the world's lore but that's it. If they have rolls to play elsewhere. Like.... albedo????? His whole clone and durin thing potentially destroying mondstadt??? More about Gold??? More about Klee and her mom??? Idk man some of those are alot more important than 'yoi plays with kids part 2'.

I am bracing myself for the shoehorned characters, the bloat, the stretching out, and for the genshin community to kidnap genshin's story to rewrite on their own whenever that shitshow drops.

Also i very much think they should voice atleast the MAIN WORLD QUEST FOR EACH AREA. Because clearly theyre important and often times ALOT MORE IMPACTFUL THAN CHARACTER SQ. Like dude i was HOOKED into the narzissenkreuz plot i was WAITING for updates for it to continue. They have better writing and better lore in general i think they deserve it.