#this also makes me curious as to how Ayato and Arlecchino would interact

[queenphanessa]

Why do people criticize the House of the Hearth (and Arlecchino) for taking in orphans that can be Fatui agents when they grow up?

Remember Klee? The Spark Knight? The kid who plays with bombs and causes property damage?

Klee is a little girl, and yet she's officially considered a Knight of Favonius even if she's the only kid there. She might be cute and her destructive tendencies might be played for laughs, but she's officially a child soldier.

Edit: I legit forgot about Mika

Mika is a kid/teen who's an official member of the Knights of Favonius who Grand Master Varka brought on an expedition. He's an older child soldier than Klee.

Edit: I also forgot about Diluc who was a teenager when he joined the Knights of Favonius, as per his father's wishes for him to become the most esteemed Knight of all for the sake of their home, which lead to him becoming the youngest-ever Calvary Captain. And Diluc explicitly quit after his 18th birthday when his father died. So yeah, Diluc was also a child soldier for the KoF.

Bennett and Fischl are both teenagers (Fischl, I'm a little unsure of, but I'm pretty sure she's a teen), and they both have jobs as members of the Adventurer's Guild, with commissions/quests that can range from benign to dangerous. Bennett is especially notable since he was orphaned as a baby and raised by a bunch of senior members of the Guild before he himself became a member. So Bennett and Fischl could also be considered child soldiers.

And then of course there's Sayu. You know, the child ninja for the Shuumatsuban? An Inazuman organization that reports to Ayato and deals with espionage, combat, and assassinations?

Remember how Lyney said that betrayal was not tolerated at the House of the Hearth?

And remember what Ayato had to say about the Shuumastuban?

And look what Sayu's character details say.

For those who have played Sayu's hangout quest, remember that she was given a mission to assassinate the Traveler. And she's a kid.

And the man who gave her the order was surprised and horrified that she actually carried it out before finding out she and the Traveler had tricked him. He wasn't surprised because Sayu, a kid, had allegedly killed someone, it was because he thought she would be too lazy to actually do it.

As lazy and silly as Sayu is, it can be easy to forget that Sayu is indeed a child soldier. Ayato and the Shuumatsuban are the most similar to Arlecchino and the House of the Hearth, but I haven't seen anyone throw shade at Ayato, who in spite of being one of the good guys, is a scheming and manipulative person when need be. So why do people side eye the House of the Hearth, but not the Knights of Favonius, the Adventurer's Guild, and the Shuumatsuban for having child operatives? Because the latter three are on the protagonist's side? Because they're treated in a lighthearted manner or only elaborated on in character stories that not everyone reads? A lot of fictional stories (especially fantasy media) have teen and child heroes who act as warriors/soldiers and it's not like Teyvat/Genshin Impact has any qualms about having children be fighters. In fact, Hoyoverse in general has no issue with having child and teen characters, protagonists or antagonists, be soldiers in their games (in Honkai Impact 3rd, there's a whole school dedicated to training teenagers to be soldiers to fight against the Honkai), so why do some people have an issue with the House of the Hearth? Especially since in Lyney, Lynette, and Freminet's character stories, there's no mistreatment by Arlecchino?

[petorahs]

Hello! Just wanted to say I'm a huge fan of the way you draw Wrioney, so very tender and cute 🥺 Your artstyle is overall quite nice to look at as well!

Also, seeing how the dynamic you set up for them in your art is somewhat different to how they interact canonically, I was curious if you could share how you felt ab them after 4.1? Did their "bickering" discourage or inspire you with new, fresh ideas?

hey there! thanks so much for liking my art of them :") it means a lot! and also thanks for wanting to know my opinion of the ship itself and not just the art, too! warms my heart.

short answer: the 4.1 archon quest did leave a bad taste in my mouth, yes, but i got over it and realized wow. i love wrioney so much and i would rather have this than any other cookie cutter "perfect/wholesome" dynamic

long answer/explanation under cut!

first off, pre-4.1 wrioney's setup was just too good for me to pass up and hit all my fav points. cat (chat noir) + dog (cerberus) dynamic??? criminal x prison warden???? wriothesley's tareme eyes to lyney's upturned ones? cute! not to mention i liked how their color palette matched more than the other popular ships. they seemed like they were made for eachother. we also had 0 crumbs for wrio's personality at that point so i assumed he'd be the serious to lyn's playful flirt.

shipping in this game to me has always been a bit on the shallower side, and thats fine! some of these characters never get to "grow" with dynamic character arcs really and remain "static" to have their profiles make sense when you pull for them. they can never be directly antagonistic to the player and have to be "redeemed" in some way. 76++ characters and not all of them get time in the spotlight, either. thats fine too.

that all changed when fontaine came out. and even more when 4.1 did.

wriothesley's personality was a joy. i love morally dubious and fun characters like him, the kinds that dont really fit into a "box" or trope!! genshin's good at making characters like that, just as they are good at the tropey ones. i also didnt mind that he canonically isnt above torturing, too. heck, i mean i love kamisato ayato who is basically what the game sets up as the male version of arlecchino + diluc burning an abyss mage and kazuha's tongue branding comment were one of my favorite moments. i thought wrio being cruel was very much in line for a prison warden. it made sense. what didn't make sense was the way the game needed to show this.

i loved lyney the moment i saw him in the travail trailer. his thing with his family another one of the best things to come out of genshin. fucked up orphans and found family who are villains? actually so good. but because they are what the game wants us to see as "unequivocable villains", they also get... disrespected in the story a lot?

the way i saw it, the game wanted us to see wrio as the "cool/badass hero!!!! wow your grace you're actually so kind for not killing them!!! see guys he just looks cruel and antagonistic but he's actually so morally good!!!also here's like 3 cutscenes of wrio looking cool ^_^" while lyney's treated like an "overemotional kid" really rubbed me off the wrong way. everything else was fine. i just got tired of the game insisting that the fatui are so bad no matter what and the rest are ""good"" when their whole thing in fontaine was doing away with the black and white morality. the devs seek to promote greyness but they cant even write that right?

what wrio did to them truly probably wasnt even the worst lyney and his siblings have been through, i know this for a fact. honestly wrio could have killed freminet and it'd have been like. reasonable for him. but he's a big softie who has a thing for lyney i think which is why he thought a lot about them not coming to physical harm.

but after once again accepting that midhoyo just wastes a lot of potential and reconciling the dynamic of past wrioney i had in mind (also uh. writing a fic of them for closure when i've never done anything of the sort before)... i realized theyre the best thing ever actually

enemies to lovers isnt always my cup of tea, but for context i shipped shuake before this so i feel like that primed me for this genshin ship in a way LMAO.. i actually must thank wrio for showing this new side of lyney, the viciously overprotective of his family side that i thought would never be shown, only alluded to. its mesmerizing.

and the thought that lyney, mr. masks and fake-smiles-that-dont-reach-his-eyes wouldnt bother to keep up pretenses with wriothesley anymore since he coaxed that darker side of him effortlessly? really nice.

even traveler who lyney notoriously charms and flirts with gets the mask immediately after the confrontation at the duke's office, the second lyney recharges with his siblings by his side. the beautiful thing about lyney's character is that he is always fake.

but with the duke? i wouldn't be so sure. maybe his real side, claws and bared teeth, comes to light with him and him only.

and that... goes back to the "character going through dynamic arcs" thing i mentioned in the beginning that genshin lacked. now i may be reaching for crumbs here, but i'm pretty sure this ship is the closest thing we'd get for lyney ever going through a character arc. wrio too. when i say they were "made for eachother" i think i realized that it's because they both have parallel backstories. i wont spoil too much for wrio's stories and voicelines, but it's safe to say wrio also has trouble with trusting others easily. something him and lyney can relate on lol. not to mention the orphan thing... ok i wont say more.

i love that their personalities clash so catastrophically. i love that i can never predict what genshin will do next with them. this all makes shipping them so fun. i have literally never had as much fun with shipping for this game since.... ever! really. as the game evolves, the character writing and by extension their interactions with eachother do too. and i'd say it's an improvement. i'm hopeful for the future :]

@untildarknesscomes