#this is pure insanity. hyv are insane.

[cujohcaps]

empyrean’s touch pv

[yinyuedijun]

hi mao!! what are your favorite parts of dan heng's design? (visual, personality/backstory, or both! it's up to you how you wanna answer!)

amira!!!!! thank u for the ask, what a fun question 🥺💞💞 I honestly could have written an entire essay abt all the visual elements I adore about his design, but I felt it was easier to just post some images instead 😇

his horns, his tail, the interesting cutout detail of his modernized changshan, his eyes, and his......hands.... I appreciate them all from a purely technical perspective of course. I find them visually compelling and I admire what hyv has done to incorporate chinese mythological elements into his aesthetics. I WANT HIM SO BAD AMIRA I FEEL INSANE LOOKING AT THESE IMAGES I mean halfsjka what who said that

in all seriousness though LOL I am actually. very enamoured with how much dan heng is inspired by chinese folklore. he is based on a literal real-life dragon deity like who wouldn't desire that carnally !!! im kidding IM KIDDING (sort of) but I do genuinely love how inspired his lore is by chinese religion/mythology it's just so cool

I also honestly am just a huge sucker for tragic reincarnation stories, like I will always eat that shit up and dan heng really does have one of the most tragic out there 🙏 HOWEVER hoyoverse unfortunately fumbled dan heng's character arc (and dan feng's character by extension) so I think there was a lot of missed potential with his characterization in general 😭 but there are still things I adore about him anyway... the fact that his past self committed a horrific sin (out of love!!!! YOU CAN'T TELL ME IT WASN'T OUT OF LOVE, HYV!!!!) and now dan heng has been suffering an insane level of punishment for it in this lifetime, yet he still turned out so kind-hearted despite all the trauma and ghosts chasing him...... I need to wife him expeditiously . horns and all 😔

[ac-liveblogs]

I cant believe that Ayato's grand plan to stop the wedding is to essentially march an army in and fake-occupy ritou. Instead of some fancy political maneuvering, he literally just drops the military in as a false threat. That's cutting off the nose to save the face isn't it?!?! (Especially for the Kanjou Commission, who now seem ambitious and violent. The only reading I can see is that its supposed to be Kamajis big sacrifice for his waifu. He gives up his reputation for her independence.)

Sad part is I did like the onscreen political maneuvering until it turned out that was the strat they were using. I was excited to find out how they were going to reframe the situation to their needs using symbols and information, not force. Sigh.

Also love that edo period sexism via exogenous marriage is canon to Inazuma now. it's realistic but it kinda clashes with the art and tone.

:) I wouldn't really call this 'political maneuvering'. I mean, Kanjou plotting aside, the sequence of events were Ayato noticing something was weird/disadvantageous to him, coming up with a completely correct hypothesis about it all, conveniently noticing some shady stuff happening, intervening (violently), threatens some people, solving everything off-screen (with the threat of violence)... profit!

There was no real delicacy involved on Ayato's part here, besides Ayato being a bit more verbose than usual and his threats being a bit more thinly veiled... ah, up until he threatens to do serious damage via a long-winded tongue-chopping metaphor, I guess. Twice. And figuring out what's even happening is down to Ayato's insanely accurate deduction.

Not that there's anything wrong with solving political issues with violence; it just... kinda has to make sense for the situation and characters? This isn't the kind of resolution that Ayato's own backstory implied he would come up with.

Ayato's great strength lies in his ability to handle such matters. The way he sees it, people are driven by interest. Find leverage, and the other side will cooperate.

Find some goal that will bring the other party around to your logic, then pacify them with a few choice platitudes for the occasion, and most problems can be resolved.

I see leverage here just means "violence". A little less impressive than ferreting out dirty secrets and doing some old-fashioned blackmail or bribery, that.

In sharp contrast, Kaeya lured a Fatui envoy into a basement so Diluc could torture him for intel (while I cannot definitively claim he would have survived this if not for Dottore, I somehow really doubt it). Diluc, reckless idiot, is driven by trauma, not logic. Kaeya, opportunistic sadist, purely has Mond's best interests in mind regardless of the cost and has both the means and motive to cover up any mess that may result. I can live with the lack of subtlety here! Diluc wears cosplay to do murder!

(God I miss early Mondstadt. Imagine how cool Mondstadt would be if they used the webtoon and character stories as a basis for the plots there. God can HYV please remember kaeya is meant to be a bastard sadist please god i am begging you)

Ayato, on the other hand, a supposed a political mastermind that salvaged his own clan from complete ruin via 'extraordinary courage and some first-rate tactics', immediately resorts to the threat of violence.

ok.

I still liked Ayato outright saying he doesn't see the point in investigating strange occurrences if they prove beneficial. Real tactical mastermind, that one. HYV, if you can't write smart people, stop writing mysteries, I am begging you.

Also yes! I also liked Inazuma's outrageous sexism, and also Ayato talking about how Chisato's life would be overrrr if she got married. It's very funny when Girlboss Island is the most sexist nation so far. Inazuma, country of eternity, including the preservation of gender inequality, I guess.

(2) Also did they really not give Ayato a fancy cutscene? Did Yelan and Dainsleif steal Ayatos cutscene for their archon quest??? Am I misremembering that every 5 star story quest gets a fancy cutscene except Ayatos? Or the worst option: was ayatos cutscene so lame it looked exactly like an in game model cutscene?

Oh, there was one! It's when you enter the Kamisato Estate and he's playing shogi - sorry, chess - with Thoma. It was kinda lame.

[hematomes]

theres this one youtuber i used to hate watch who makes videos like "why no one plays klee" and he made one for kokomi i was biting and killing him the whole time

he does say he's not hating on the character but like,, he's also straight up wrong about so much LMAO he was like "kokomi's healing is useless in abyss because shields are practically better, if you have a 40k hp zhongli you dont need kokomi"

girl there are two halves of abyss and only one zhongli. kokomi also applies hydro rly well and does good damage on her ult. theres literally meta teams with her in it SHUT UP

genshin youtubers are so fucking dumb lmfaoo the only one i watch sometimes is tuonto

also i bet this absolute loser feels very dumb abt "shields better" bc um. wolves? zhongli got massively fucked by the wolves while kokomi THRIVED so much

honestly kokomi is one of the best characters in the game, and ik im biased bc im Extremely connected to her but seriously. she's by far the best pure healer of the game with her scalings (except maybe qiqi), literally so good that in a permafreeze team with no fucking shield i don't have to use her ult in the 11th floor, her skill is enough??? LMFAOOO

and as u said her hydro application is insane,,, i also think she has the best range out of the 3 hydro catalyst users, iirc she has the same range as ning and yanfei

anyway. i can't tell u how many fuckers skipped her bc one meta slave said she was whack and everyone followed them before she was even in the game AND THEN started shitting tears when hyv brought the wolves

they just saw the -100% crit passive and decided that she was a bad character