#this is at least the second time I've rewritten this and I'll probably rewrite it again when i get around to posting the full story

[donttouchmeimwriting]

Arc 4: Suffering

815 words

The dust settled gradually, making the stale air of the chamber even harder to breathe. Gethin stayed low, forcing himself to calm down before he faced his next challenge. He wanted nothing more than to find an easy exit from this bizarrely personal hell of a labyrinth, but he knew in the progressively sinking pit of his stomach that it was only going to get worse.

"You've made it further than I thought you would," a thin voice emerged from the darkness ahead, "The Mastermind promised you would be a tough nut to crack. I must admit I'm impressed, Gethin of Valenwood."

Gethin pushed himself to his feet, resisting the urge to cough.

"Who's there?" he called out, "Show yourself!"

"Very well."

Torches burst to life along the walls of the chamber, revealing it to be far smaller than Gethin could have hoped for, given its occupant. The tall Altmer who stood mere paces from Gethin wore loose, faded scarlet robes, emphasizing his unnaturally emaciated frame. His pale golden hair hung in lifeless strands around his long face. His cheeks were sunken and shadowed, his eyes an unnerving blood red. A chill gripped Gethin's spine as he realized what creature blocked his path to escape.

"Vampire..." he whispered, feeling a tremble enter his hands. He clenched them into tight fists to hide it.

"Indeed I am," the Altmer confirmed, "Quite ancient and skilled in the arcane arts, as you have seen from my welcome party, but fear not. I will not harm you until you have been given time to prepare to meet me in combat."

"I'm assuming this isn't optional," Gethin cautioned, not comforted in the slightest by the vampire's words.

"If you want the piece of the mask I guard, you must take it from me by force. I will give you time to find a suitable weapon, but when that time runs out, if you have not reached the final chamber, I will hunt you down wherever you hide and drain you of every drop of blood you possess. Have I made myself clear?"

Gethin swallowed, a lump of fear lodged in his throat, and an icy sweat trickled down the back of his neck.

"Perfectly," he answered, uncomfortably aware that the vampire could sense his every microexpression of mortal terror, "How much time do I have and what am I looking for?"

The skeletal Altmer gave what could be considered a smile, but its sinister intent was far too palpable.

"I will give you thirty minutes to find your way through the passages behind me, retrieve your weapon, and meet me in the final chamber," he explained, "This is more than enough time if you don't dawdle. You must select a weapon suitable to you - I cannot tell you which is the correct choice for obvious reasons. In the final chamber, you will find the piece of the mask shrouded in ash and blood. I will not restrain myself in guarding it. You will need to kill me if you want to escape."

"Sounds straightforward enough," Gethin commented, "I imagine there's a catch somewhere?"

The vampire glided towards him suddenly, faster than Gethin could blink. He towered over him, his sanguine eyes piercing through his very soul.

"Gethin. Has anything in your life been easy or straightforward? Have you ever been able to trust someone's word at face value? Have you not been betrayed by every person you believed in the most? Consider my task. I shall be waiting at the end."

Gethin froze solid as the vampire lingered, but managed to keep his voice steady.

"I have one more question for you before we begin," he said, "How do you know me?"

The vampire chuckled and reached into his robes, producing a bound lock of wavy, honey blonde hair, which he dangled tauntingly over Gethin's head. Gethin's gut wrenched at the sight of it. He would recognize that hair in any context.

Alaia.

"Aside from the research done on your history, I have been following your group at the request of the Mastermind for some time now," the vampire revealed, his voice somehow even airier than before, "I know you care for them, despite the front you put up. I know you care for Alaia most of all, and I will take great pleasure in tearing her apart should you fail here."

"Keep her name out of your filthy mouth," Gethin growled through gritted teeth, surprising himself with his burst of courage.

"Her name won't be the only part of her in my mouth if you don't hurry."

With that, the vampire vanished into a fine mist, which then swept into the doorway at the far end of the chamber and out of sight. Gethin's heart pounded hard against his ribs, his breaths becoming uneven and strained. He had to survive now, if not for his own sake, for Alaia's.

[pyrrhicraven]

How long is the next chapter of the fic that is being updated gonna be?

The short answer is 1000+ as I try to write every chapter of everything I write at least around that and the long and I do mean looooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnng answer is below 🤣

The Last Knight: Chapter 16: 1,466 words (which can change as I edit it) and Chapter 17 is currently in progress at 142 words.

Brooklyn Bros: Chapter 16: Currently sitting at 182 as I accidentally didn't save the chapter 😭(Apparently auto-save got turned off somehow 😵‍💫)

The Devil's Trap: Chapter 24: 156 Honestly I wrote chapter 23 and was trying to plan out what happens next 😂so I haven't actually worked on this much.

Red Windows: Chapter 8: 505 words in 😂 Why are words hard??

Oracle Of The Void Chapter 6: 439 also writers block issues

Is it really a Harem if the Main Character is Aro-Ace? chapter 5: 100 Not sure I like the pairing might change it because it's bugging me and I haven't written much for it.

Tangled Hearts Chapter 18: 643 words. writer's block got me on this one and I just haven't come back to it.

Nova Chapter 8: I've properly plotted this one out now and am in the process of rewriting this one. Most of the chapters are so far similar and have about the same word counts but I haven't written for 8 yet.

Never Be Your King Chapter 9: I've got nothing other than the chapter title as I put this fic on pause for a bit. (Though I didn't mean for this long yikes)

Beneath The Midnight Sky chapter 30: 734 is almost done then I need to edit 😊

Ghost In The Imperial Naval Academy Chapter 4: 593 but I'm also going over the plot and thinking about rewriting the first three chapters again. Not sure if I will or if I'll just post 4 when I'm done though.

Pac-Man Chapter 16: 498. I meannnnn how do you write this nonsense?? I know how-by throwing everything out the window lol

Angel Shrine Chapter 11: sooo Adrien is making a mess, I've rewritten this chapter twice already and hate both. Both are nearly 1000 words of garbage, so yeah probably going to rewrite it a third time.

Red Shift Chapter Two: 344 words currently even though I have it all plotted out (Rare for me) I got stuck if you will lol

Unintended Chapter 20: 292 This fic has been difficult, to say the least. Like wrangling cats really.

Savage Chapter 6: 581. I put this one on hold too due to the massive amount I'm plotting/writing at any given time.

Alchemy Chapter Two: 534 I added a twist last second so now I'm plotting over this one's corpse.

Blind And Frozen Chapter 19: 316 People are not seeing eye to eye for this one so not sure when I'm doing anything more for this one.

A Phantom Caress Chapter 18: 705 at a crossroads of sorts and unsure if I want to continue or run away screaming 😂

Blood Auction: 11,813 words

UNPUBLISHED OR FORMERLY PUBLISHED BUT DOWN FICS

These jerks live in my head rent-free and have done so for at least a year hence some of them with big numbers.

Everything You Need: 4582

Haze: 12,663

Monsoon: 3,323

Vlad:1,876

Emerald Waves:2,122

Darkest Luck: 2,320

Adored by the shadows: 1,832

Life Beneath The Universe: 272

Silver Veil: 300

Untitled Super Mario: 1,265

Rise: 2,656

Hunger: 524

Planet X: 222

[protect-namine]

okay, I think I finally pieced together the twins' timeline in teyvat so far, with all the knowledge we have up until update 3.3. gonna write this all down for my own reference because oh boy the game's lore really tries to be confusing on purpose.

first, because genshin's narrators are all unreliable, we have to establish a hierarchy of "truthiness" in our narrators. some narrators are more reliable than others, but in not so straightforward ways.

hierarchy of the sources of truth

I will first establish the traveler's memory as the most reliable record that we have. they have twice been shown to be immune to tampering from irminsul's rewrites (something not even zhongli can stop). zhongli also implies that traveler's memory is reliable, which is why he wants traveler to witness events so there's a record of teyvat even after everything else disappears. he even calls the traveler a "backup" of sorts.

the second most truth source of truth are the sword and wings of descension. these are items that came with the traveler, and the description describes their history pre-teyvat. moreover, the sword is "of unique craftsmanship. it does not appear to belong to this world." therefore, it is highly likely any irminsul rewrite will not tamper with these two items.

the third most reliable source of truth are fables and fairy tales, especially ones coming from venti (strand of time/istaroth) and nahida (archon of wisdom who is allied with the traveler). they are basically encrypted versions of history so that irminsul rewrites will not affect them. HOWEVER! by definition, they contain fiction/falsehoods alongside the truth. so it is up to us to discern what parts are false and what parts are real. we can only guarantee that they are allegories for the truth for the purpose of preserving the truth. thus, they are more reliable than documents and memories of other people, which have been rewritten by irminsul to conceal the truth.

(aside: this includes before sun and moon, pale princess and the six pgymies, probably the story of fischl's origins)

bonus: this one is pretty hazy, but it is very likely we can trust venti, dainsleif, and alice's memories as well. venti is related to istaroth and uses ballads/fairytales to encrypt history so irminsul does not tamper with it. it's his way of fighting erosion. plus, he clearly knows a lot of things he's just not telling the player. I'm sure he has a lot of secrets to uncover.

we already know that irminsul did not rewrite alice's memories (from her narration of wanderer's collected miscellany). I'm not sure about dainsleif, but he seems to know a lot of things and was our main source of new information before nahida. however, he does have a bias against archons, the abyss order, basically everyone lol. so take everything he says with a grain of salt.

important: now are there some sources of truth that we absolutely cannot rely on? yes: irminsul. there are some grains of truth in it, but we've already seen it rewrite history twice so we really cannot rely on it to have a true account of history.

derived timeline of the twins

okay, now that we know what's reliable and what's not, I'll try to infer what the possible timeline of events are with regards to the twins.

first, let's establish something: are the twins from teyvat, or are they world-hoppers? according to the wings of descension, yeah they are.

at the very least, they've been to one world besides teyvat. the sword of descension even implies that their home world was already extinguished.

this is further corroborated by traveler's own voicelines when they chat with paimon. they will sometimes say lines that imply that they speak from the perspective of a true world traveler. e.g. "In many of the worlds I've been to in the past, alchemy has always been a secretive art." (about alchemy) / "teyvat's day and night both seem particularly short. the skies here are full of stars, but they aren't the same as the ones seen from my home." (about teyvat)

lastly, this is consistent with what the abyss twin also remembers.

so okay. what do we know so far? the twins came from a world that was already about to be extinguished. their "last and only home" was a place where they drew the sword of descension to try to prevent their fated doom. alas, they failed, and so they were given the wings of descension to escape their fate.

they hopped from world to world since then, finding new homes. one such world they stumbled upon is teyvat. there's an interesting passage about this from the sword of descension:

first, "the universe casts no shadows" on teyvat. pairing this with our earlier excerpt, this to me implies that teyvat has somehow found a way to circumvent the law of the universe that "all who exist must one day perish." for the twins who have "seen the birth and death of stars," this is a novelty! teyvat is a very special world indeed. and perhaps this is the very reason why they descended in the first place — to search for a world that cannot die.

they enter teyvat during some unknown time in history. it must be before khaenri'ah's destruction, but we don't know how long the gap is.

when they arrived, the traveler was asleep. it's possible that during this time the traveler twin somehow met venti, because venti recognizes them in his voicelines ("Ah, Traveler, we meet again! What? You don't remember me?"). they shared some mutual past enough that venti references the hands of the barbatos statue as their "usual place." this is colored in teal, the color they usually use for important terms and references. also, prior to this story quest (which was released at launch) there aren't that much events that would give the player the impression that they regularly hang out there in the present time.

it is also theorized that venti's poem from the windblume festival is likely talking about the traveler, since the text changes depending on which twin you chose. something to note as well that the adjective "noble" is usually a very unique reference to the traveler e.g. "the world opens itself for those with noble hearts" is a line that shows up when the traveler resonates with a new statue of seven.

so it is likely that, while the traveler slept (either during this time or after they got separated from the abyss twin), they met venti in their dreams (or some chaotic space).

while the traveler slept, the abyss twin traveled around with dainsleif "searching for their fate" (whatever that means).

then the cataclysm happened. the destruction of khaenri'ah threatened teyvat, so the abyss twin woke up the traveler so they can leave this world.

but the sustainer of heavenly principles (henceforth shall be called asmoday, to save me some typing) prevented them from leaving.

they get separated in time: traveler is sent to the future (present day in the game) while the abyss twin is sent back to khaenri'ah's cataclysm.

(tangent: in the prologue, asmoday still calls them "outlanders". I am guessibg outlanders are not allowed to leave. maybe it has something to do with why the "universe does not cast shadows" on teyvat. if the twins leave behind a trail or mark of teyvat's existence, will they turn the universe's gaze on this world?)

our twins are now separated by time. following khaenri'ah's destruction, the abyss twin files a divorce on dain and becomes the abyss prince/ss and spends their time trying to "engulf the thrones [of heaven]" and orchestrating the "loom of fate" operation.

some time in between there was an irminsul rewrite — likely related to whatever triggered the cataclysm. how do we know this? well, because recorded history does not match the truth we already established thus far.

now, to rewrite history, irminsul has to make its narrative somewhat coherent with its chosen narrative. it already seems like celestia is trying to conceal anything about the universe outside of teyvat, but it also doesn't want outlanders who stumble their way in to leave.

so irminsul rewrites known history so that the abyss twin looks like they're from teyvat. and since they have journeyed teyvat already with dainsleif for some time, irminsul gathered enough data on them to make a false record.

this rewritten history is what nahida reads from irminsul. now there's something interesting I noticed when I rewatched the cutscene.

the information that "the abyss twin belongs to this world" is not a fact stated by irminsul. it is a conclusion that nahida draws from the fact that there are records of the abyss twin in irminsul.

conclusions are not facts necessarily. as much as I adore nahida and truly do think she is wise and intelligent and worthy of being the dendro archon... she might have gotten the wrong inference on this one.

at this point, the traveler asks if there's something wrong with their memories or if something happened to the abyss twin's memories. let's review the facts. we already established earlier that both twins remember their world-hopping days. moreover, we know from we will be reunited that the abyss twin still remembers the traveler's true name ("aether"/"lumine") instead of their civilian alias (the player-given name, which is the name used by paimon and the rest of the characters).

both twins remember their origins and true names. their memories were not tampered with; only their records.

now you might ask, what about the gnostic chorus? with the context of what we learned from nahida's irminsul search, it is likely that the battle pass story is an embellished fairytale narrated by venti so irminsul doesn't tamper with it.

now here's the confusing part. gnostic chorus implies that the abyss twin (the first heir) was deceived into being the abyss prince/ss. were their memories wiped from irminsul? that can't be, because they still remember the traveler's true name. they still remember their world-hopping days.

remember, fairytales must contain falsehoods/fiction for it to be untamperable by irminsul. this, I believe, is one of the falsehoods venti deliberately planted in the story of the gnostic chorus. based on our hierarchy of truthiness, the facts we derived from more reliable sources of truth are more likely to be true.

okay so now there was a history rewrite and the abyss twin was recorded in irminsul. what do the records say?

and there we have it. since this is a history rewrite, what nahida read from irminsul is not necessarily true. irminsul has rewritten history such that the abyss twin traveled teyvat after the cataclysm happened. this must happen because irminsul made it so that the abyss twin can only be recorded after the event; they are not allowed to exist in the records before. we don't know why this is the case, but we know that the abyss twin woke up before us and traveled with dain for some time.

perhaps something happened during their journey that is related to the cataclysm after all? hm, I wonder what dain meant when he said they partook a "painful journey searching for their fate" and why the abyss twin is now working on a "loom of fate" operation...

moreover, teyvat is "hidden" (somehow) from the universal law of destruction. perhaps they don't want outlanders to leave out of fear that they'll leave traces of teyvat's existence — for fear that they'll turn the universe's gaze upon them. after all, outlanders are not welcome here. if they let one leave, what if they bring back more outlanders, more technology to disrupt the carefully balanced status quo of teyvat? similarly, outlanders who get in are forced to assimilate.

anyway. as an aside, nahida says something interesting here as well.

the fatui do not recognize the abyss twin as a descender, which means their intel only dates back to after the irminsul rewrite. this makes sense because the tsaritsa wasn't waging her war against the divine before that event, so she wouldn't need this kind of intel then.

anyway, this means that although the fatui know a lot more than even nahida does in certain aspects (like the fake sky), they don't really know everything. with time, they may have found a way to circumvent future irminsil rewrites (maybe with dottore's segments?), but that doesn't mean they've uncovered the real history behind past rewrites.

(except maybe for pierro, who was apparently from khaenri'ah... but there's little info on him now to definitively say anything)

what can we conclude from here?

so now let's summarize what we know so far:

the twins came from a world that has long been destroyed by the law of the universe that "all who exist must one day perish." they have since been traveling from world to world searching for a home that will not fall victim to such a law.

teyvat might be such a world, potentially, for "the universe casts no shadows here."

traveler is asleep when they arrived in teyvat. in the meantime, abyss twin traveled around with dainsleif "searching for their fate." then the cataclysm happened and they tried to wake up the traveler so they can leave, but the sustainer of heavenly principles stopped them.

sustainer separated the twins by 500 years, sending the traveler to the future and the abyss twin back to the destruction of khaenri'ah. during the cataclysm, irminsul changed recorded history to say that the abyss twin traveled the world after the cataclysm. it did so likely to hide the fact that the abyss twin is an outlander. the abyss twin's memories were likely not tampered with though, since they still remember traveling between worlds and their sibling's true name. in other words, irminsul did not brainwash them into their abyss prince/ss identity (can they even actually do that to descenders?)

abyss twin works with the abyss order to topple celestia and put into motion the "loom of fate" operation. the tsaritsa starts moving as well to wage her own war against the divine.

the fatui starts their own truth-seeking, but their starting point is from the newly-rewritten history of teyvat post-cataclysm. that's why they didn't register the abyss twin as a descender.

during those 500 years of slumber, traveler meets venti in their dreams or in some chaotic space (if they haven't already met in their slumber pre-cataclysm).

500 years later, traveler wakes up and starts their journey. they meet nahida; nahida reads the rewritten records from irminsil, assumes that these are the true recorded history, and incorrectly concludes that the existence of these records means that the abyss twin is from teyvat.

venti writes the gnostic chorus (battle pass story) as a fairytale to encrypt this piece of history. it's an allegory of the twins. it being a fairytale, some parts are deliberately false/fictional lbut close enough to the truth) so irminsul won't rewrite it.

with all the history rewrites and gatekeeping, it's likely that there have been more than four descenders in teyvat's history. the abyss twin is one of them.

uhhh yeah I think that's it? this was very long but it was mostly so I can keep track of what's true vs what's not... genshin's narration is really unreliable. on purpose!! aghhh

anyway, point is, nahida's conclusion that the abyss twin is from teyvat is probably a red herring since it contradicts a lot of the established facts we already knew and concluded from sources of information much, much more reliable than a tree that regularly rewrites its own database with lies and fiction

[nopoodles]

Normally when writing, I'll redraft repeatedly, meaning each scene that makes it to the final product (more specifically novel) will have been written and rewritten and changed up at least twice and vetted by other people before it gets signed off.

But with this pivotal plot piece shift in the second Guardian Cadet Series book, I've ended up drafting and redrafting the scenes that follow on a speed run and I... feel very strange about it. Because I'm feeling frustrated at rewriting this one scene 3 times (so far*sobs*) - but I rewrite everything this much, so the only difference is the time span.

Somehow having to do the rewrite immediately after first writing it is much more frustrating because I don't usually get frustrated even if I end up trashing 75% of what came before.

Again, to use GCS 2 as an example: with moving a huge plot piece, most of what remains in the story has been rewritten to such a degree that some stuff just doesn't fit anymore and I'm feeling quite celebratory about that. It's more of a "yay, I've figured out what works/is important". But with these final pieces, these new things that exist to follow the shifted plot piece? With those it's more of a "why the fuck can i not figure out the correct thing to go here!?" Where every experiment feels like a failure.

Idk, this probably doesn't make a lot of sense.