#ALSO! MY AVENTURINE STELLE FRIENDSHIPISMS

[mymarifae]

completing the 2.2 trailblaze mission gives you new daily text messages from aventurine if you have him.. 🥹 so you're Not just left with his scheduled post-suicide-attempt farewells. and it's a really nice conversation too. he plays it off like a game buuuut he loses on purpose every time so really he's just opening up of his own volition

(i'm still alive, and i'm happy about that 🥹 his conversation with acheron really left a profound impact on him oh my godddd)

aventurine... of all people... reaching out and talking so honestly about what happened and how it affected him... and seeing a therapist of sorts (bit of an oversimplification but that's basically what the doctors of chaos do so like). sometimes all you need to start learning how to value your life again is to uhh ..literally get cut in half

[akutasoda]

Hey, I want request Aventurine with Noelle reader.

Imagine the trailblazer use Noelle reader to get Aventurine home.

Stelle/ Caelus: “Aventurine, I have your little sister.. please come home”

Noelle reader being held by Stelle/ Caelus: “I think it won’t work—“

*Insert Astral train door open with yellow glow..*

Aventurine pop out from train: “My little sister? Where is she?”

I think some achievements for them

Aventurine/ Noelle reader in battle will achieve “The gambler and his little maid”

Or Aventurine/ Topaz/ Ratio/ Noelle reader will achieve “Here come the IPC”

a jewel and a maid

synopsis - when he meets someone who reminds him all too much of a familiar familial feeling

includes - aventurine

warnings - gn!reader, fluff, slight crack, maybe ooc, found family kinda?, wc - 655

a/n: i love the achievements!!

the IPC wasn't exactly the best place to work but they were somewhat tolerable - more so for thise fortunate enough to be valued and given higher positions. you're position was so so to say the least, you had been assinged to work under someone of similar level to P47 which wasn't that bad compared to some others. you didn't exactly have high expectations but you'd still try and apply yourself to the best of your abilities, maybe then your job would be easier.

it was extremely fortunate for you to be placed under aventurine's sector within the stonehearts. it's not like he really needed many people working under him or that he wanted them to but he wouldn't really have room to argue when diamond himself arranged it. over a surprisingly short period of time, you had proven yourself to be quite the valuable member of the IPC - despite you not really vying for their attention, you just wanted to do your job and lay low.

aventurine recognised this and he didn't exactly blame you. normally your kind of skill would easily be swooped up by the IPC and used to their advantage, not yours. he too once had been snatched by the IPC, fortunately he managed to weasel something out of them in return. so you both were quite content to continue on as is, to which you were thankful.

during your time working with aventurine, you naturally had become much closer than simple colleagues. you two acted as if you'd known eachother for years. although you didn't exactly act much differently, still content to simply do your job, but aventurine became noticeably more friendlier. he acted much more cordial with you, more favourable and you did appreciate the familiarity.

when he caught himself actually acting so familiar with you, he stopped. he'd never really gotten so close and comfortable with someone before - well there were a few exceptions but with you, it felt more familial than a friendship of such. it had been an extremely long time since he had felt as such and it admittedly scared him a little.

however as even more time passed, it became much more natural for each of you to see the other in a much more familial way. again, it still felt odd to him but atleast he knew he could come sround to it eventually. for now, he could only look after you as if you were a sister to him.

---✩

'i don't think this will work-' you tried voicing your concerns but you were shushed by the trailblazer.

'you might want to listen to them' dan heng tried to interject but it seems that his words also fell upon the deaf ears of trailblazer - or they more likely just ignored him.

the only response either of you got was the trailblazer opting to pick you up and hold you toward the express doors with a declaration 'please! come home! look who's waiting with us!'

this time it was march to look rather concerned over at the trailblazer before adding 'i have to agree, i don't think this will work...' she looked at you with pity as the trailblazer practically triumphed you in the air.

right before you could get another word in and ask to be put down, everyone stopped and stared at the gilden light that emerged from the door. the trailblazer held you out even more in a desperate final plea as 'please' repeatedly fell from their lips.

not too long after, the express doors slammed open and a rather excited, maybe franctic, aventurine became present. despite the trailblazers excitement, aventurine ran straight to you to.

taglist - @little-miss-chaoss, @frankiesteinn

[crystallinestars]

I saw the banner and it’s kinda relief that Kaveh isn’t pulling up with Haitham, even though the community I’m in is absolutely losing their marbles over this ahahah. Hopefully he will be with Nilou instead, I want them both 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

Though OMG I saw one of the voice lines from new Sumeru guy Sethos regarding Haitham and Kaveh and the ship pandering that you’ve mentioned before, it’s so real 🙁 Like it’s along the lines of “Something about those two guys hanging out together, you just can’t look away.” Apparently the original CN line doesn’t even carry the same implication, like it focuses more on the fact that ah, these two famous people are hanging out and it’s eye-catching (?), iirc. For some reason English translator wanted it to look more sus ig. And the fandom is gobbling it up… haizzzz 🙄

I don’t know anymore honestly, when Mihoyo tosses the bait, the fandom will absolutely latch on to that stuff and make sure to rub it in everyone’s faces. “Ah, they are GAY for each other and everyone else who doesn’t feel the same way is WRONG” kind of thing. As far as I’ve seen, the only other ship whose fans get so insistent and up in arms about their ship and the sexuality HCs is a certain pair of Inazuman women (and even for these two idk if Mihoyo has baited as hard as they have for Haitham and Kaveh???). To many fans, close same-sex friendships are no longer viable; they must be kissing and getting hitched next week. And as usual, bisexual people do not exist in Hoyoverse fandom’s eyes. They’ve locked me out of Pride Month 🤣

Also, I was thinking about how pushy the fans could get and I wonder if it’s something that’s exclusive to the English-speaking fandom? IIRC I’ve also seen other nationalities such as the Indonesian fans who say that their part of fandom is not any better 😅 Cos I’m genuinely curious if the CN/JP/KR (or any other nationality) fans get so aggressive about ships, sexuality HCs, etc. I remember another anon mentioned how shipping as activism has become a thing and it seems like it’s really big among American fans in particular (and at this point, probably other anglophone fans).

I don’t even play HSR (cos no space on my device) but I’m just absolutely eating up the AvenStelle and AvenPaz feasts in lieu of what NL crumbs there are for Kaveh because hot DAMN Aventurine is just so fine. 😭 And Stelle, Topaz… they’re soooo pretty (it’s a digression but when I was at the con, many girls dressed as Stelle, and I observed that her fit looks good on pretty much everyone). I find it kinda interesting that even though Aventurine has a popular BL ship and a fandom that also likes to do the “he can’t be anything but gay because of his looks and personality” thing, he also has not just one but two popular NL ships. The tags for both on Twitter are alive and kicking, compared to if you go onto KavehLumi, KaveLou, etc and it’s a very, very small trickle of activity in comparison.

Not quite ready to stop playing yet because I need to build up my new team with Layla, Faruzan, Scara but maybe after I’ve done this, I’ll take a break to cook Kaveh food on AO3 ahahahah.

I think that I lack the ability to write short asks… Hope it is not too painful to read (and sorry for negative vibes 🙁).

-🍓

Welcome back 🍓 Anon! No worries, I like receiving long asks ^_^ They're not painful to read at all, trust me. Nothing will ever top the pain that is reading academic research papers 😐

In the same vein, I hope my super long responses aren't too much for you. I can't keep them short even if I tried. And don't apologize for negative vibes, I get that sometimes you want to vent your frustrations and thoughts with someone who can relate. I would even say that between the two of us, I'm more negative haha 😅

I legit wanted to celebrate with a bottle of champagne when it was revealed Kaveh wasn't on Haitham's banner. Finally a win. I know the community is having a meltdown, but truth be told, their tears water my crops, clear my skin, and and extend my life by 10 years. 😊 I'm having a good day. If I actually bothered to look at their comments, I'd grab a bag of popcorn and have a field day.

And yes, I also hope he's with Nilou! I always thought they'd be together since they're both bloom-based, but some people speculate he might be with Furina/Sigewinne. Guess we'll see. Kaveh has been gone for over a year, which is so unusual for a 4 star. I though they were withholding him because of the deletion glitch a hacker did using him, but it's been a good while since then...

Regarding English localization... it has been established since a while ago that the English translation for Genshin and HSR leaves much to be desired. There have been multiple instances of mistranslations and butchering of characterization. Rhinedottir, Nahida, and Arlecchino had masculine pronouns in the beginning before the translators realized they messed up. Characters dialogue is often translated to sound more aggressive than it actually is, or subtleties get omitted entirely. It's a mess, basically.

I also wouldn't be surprised if the English localization team for Hoyo is trying to push their own agenda using their translations. Over the past year, I've seen proof that English localizers for anime and Japanese video games push their personal beliefs by butchering the original source material to suit their political standpoints.

The fandom doesn't even need poorly-translated dialogue to gobble up ship crumbs. They twist and misconstrue official media to try and push their ship being canon. Basically make their own crumbs haha.

I would agree with you that the only other same-sex ship that gets as much gatekeeping and toxicity as the Roommate Ship TM is the one with the electro Inazuman ladies. I would also go as far as to say that yes, they also get almost as much pandering, though maybe a tiny bit less? Just a bit. At least both of them can be seen solo or interacting with other characters frequently, and don't have forced moments of interaction for ship bait.

Please don't get me started on same-sex dynamics in Genshin and HSR. It feels like you can ask any shipper of a popular same-sex ship, and they'll tell you that every single character is either gay or lesbian, no in-between. And if they do accept other sexualities, then characters can be anything but straight. NEVER straight (as a saw someone say about Aventurine while using his lightcone art with Ratio as "proof" that he can't possibly be straight, how dare you ship him with a woman).

So yes, according to a significant portion of the fandom, only homosexuality exists, all other sexualities be damned. And yes, characters of the same sex can never be just friends, they're only ever "implied to be a canon gay/lesbian couple". The worst part is that Mihoyo actively encourages their delusions by pandering to the BL and GL sides of the fandom, and the toxic portions of those rub it in everyone else's face, as you said.

It's ok 🍓 Anon, even if they locked you out of Pride Month, you can come celebrate it with me 😊 (I'm straight though, hope that's ok).

The English-speaking side of the fandom is definitely extremely toxic. They've become notorious for harassing artists from East Asia over ships, so they've got a bad rep there too.

As far as I've personally seen, the Japanese side is pretty chill. People liberally block and mute stuff and people they don't want to see, but they do it quietly to avoid conflict.

I have a friend in China, and she told me that the toxicity is just as bad there as it is in the West. Chinese fans don't fight over sexuality, but they do fight over BL and NL ships. I can't say anything about Korea since I haven't seen anything from them, but I imagine it might be similar.

I also want to add that I haven't seen any ship wars for the Russian side of fandom, but I might just not be looking in the right places. I'd be pressed to find NL stuff there, though...

Lmao, Aventurine converted so many players to HSR. I was one of them (thought I started before he was drip marketed). That man is simply too gorgeous. And oh my god, you cannot imagine how stoked I was that Avenstelle (and Avenpaz) became so popular! It helps that Aventurine is still a new character, so his ships are very popular at the moment, but for two NL ships to be so abundant? Mihoyo would be fools to shoehorn him with Ratio, like what they did to Kaveh. Lowkey, I hope Avenstelle can be as popular as Chilumi so Mihoyo does more with them in the story (and I can continue seeing fanart of them years later).

Kaveh is a tragic case, but I think that's mostly because he has two things going against him:

1) He's a "tall" man, and as we have all seen, Mihoyo loves to create "tall" characters in same-sex pairs.

2) He's a 4 star. 4 stars are always less popular compared to 5 stars, both in ship combinations and overall popularity (I would know, 90% of my fav male characters are 4 stars. There's so little solo and NL content for them).

Surprisingly, Kaveh has a lot of NL ships (with Faruzan and even Layla too), it's just unfortunate they're not popular. Kinda hard to be popular when Mihoyo gives no food for those ships, and the toxic shippers harass you for shipping him with a girl. Mihoyo isn't even trying.

On the bright side, though there isn't much regular content for Kavehlumi and Kavelou, there are dedicated fans for those pairings that still create things for those ships.

I run a Daily Kavehlumi Twitter account, and though it's not bustling (I'm just not good at garnering a following lol), it's got over 200 posts and I still haven't even gotten through the majority of all Kavehlumi content that exists on Twitter. We'll be hosting a Kavehlumi week in July, and I hope we'll get a few participants to make even more content to celebrate the ship. I'll be taking a break from posting on Tumblr this month to write some things for it.

I'm curious though, what kind of Kaveh food are you hoping to cook? �� Is it for a specific ship, or something else?

Anyways, I wish you luck on building your Scara team (Who is the 4th member, btw?), and may you have a good day! 😘

[mymarifae]

speaking of aventurine. did you know that in jp he calls stelle "hoshi kaku-chan" . as far as i can tell that's the only honorific he's ever used for anyone. (well caelus gets -kun but like you know what i mean) i can and will die on this hill that aventurine was genuinely charmed by stelle's oddball personality, and if it hadn't been for the whole "i need to trick you into letting acheron kill me because if you figure out what i'm trying to do you'll stop me and/or her, because you're stupidly brave like that" ordeal he would have liked to be friends with her. like For Real

[mymarifae]

making me emo about aventurine again :(

my bad. hey do you want to think about his cat cakes and how they're all black kitties

luckiest man in the universe takes in 3 unlucky babies :') ...

or like, the way he sought out stelle's company once he got his phone working again, and opened up to her of his own volition

he insists on playing it off like he's losing a game but Aventurine does not lose a dice game unless he wants to

so... he just genuinely wanted to talk to stelle. despite everything he trusts her. you have to be quite the special person to get him to be vulnerable. this is a friendship he wants for himself - not to complete a job for the ipc. and he seems to be the type to pull away the second he starts to truly Want anything because the risk of losing something he WANTS is too much. even for him. his brush with true death has really changed him... if he's now allowing himself to pursue these sorts of things

or do you want to think about the text conversation after this (that i do not have screenshots of on hand 💔), where he's at a gift shop and offers to buy stelle something. i personally chose the pajamas while going through this, but you have the option to say "i want them all" and he'll immediately agree to buy them all for her. no strings attached or teasing or anything he's literally like "okay cool!"

he probably does view relationships through a distorted lens and thinks he has to always be providing and proving his worth or the other person will leave. but i also think he just genuinely enjoys spoiling people. he grew up beyond impoverished and the ipc provides him with like . exorbitant funds. wtf is he going to do with all these credits. why not give all that he can just because he can now? gift giving is probably one of his love languages - lack of confidence aside. the way people's eyes light up when he gives them a present they weren't expecting makes him happy

stelle is going to be spoiled ROTTEN lmfao

he's sweet, when he's allowed to let down his guard a little and be vulnerable. it's undoubtedly really scary for him, but he's ready to face those fears and stop hiding behind flashy accessories and empty smiles, carelessly gambling his own life and hoping that something will just fucking kill him already. he's ready to start valuing himself a bit more

[mymarifae]

just finished the trailblaze mission the other day and immediately went to your blog bc i knew you'd be sane about it 😭 absolutely baffling to me but somehow not surprising that no one seems to care about the mystery like???? there's so much weird shit going on and such interesting pieces of lore about memoria and different factions and how they interact in this absolutely huge universe??? i also loved firefly i'm so sad that people don't seem to care much abt her :( she was so sweet and the fact that they touched on chronic illness w her character and her using the dreamscape as a way to escape from that reality... this patch was so so good in so many ways and i'd love to hear your thoughts if u have any!! :) (also the MUSIC???? if i can stop one heart from breaking had me in actual tears)

I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE FIREFLY i got another anon asking for my thoughts about what happened to her and i'm still kind of wrapping my head around. That. so i'll save all that for later! she's definitely a new favorite of mine, though. we didn't get to spend too much time with her but like yeah she won my heart pretty immediately. she was so... genuine? sure she hid a lot, but she didn't seem like she wanted to. it was more like she had to. not for her own sake, but for stelle's

that was the other thing that really got me! the bond she formed with stelle. like oh my god. they CONNECTED... stelle ADORES her. they felt so comfortable in each other's presence despite the wall firefly had to keep up... stelle picked up on the thing i just mentioned above: that firefly wasn't entirely honest not to give herself an advantage in the game of penacony (like aventurine and, to a degree, black swan) but to keep stelle safe in the midst of it. and it was for this reason that stelle chose to trust her. and to offer her genuine friendship in return

the entire sequence of exploring golden hour and then dream's edge with her was sooooo nice. it just made my heart feel at ease. and also yes if i could stop one heart from breaking is BEAUTIFUL and i want it on spotify rn. so i can loop it for 58347685673453485734 hours

my thoughts about the mystery on penacony as a whole are like. well:

the key to what caused firefly (... ?) and robin's deaths lies with misha and a child's dream

not saying that in the way some other hsr fans are and theorizing that misha's evil, btw. i really doubt that. this comes off more as a ... ralsei deltarune situation. two genuinely sweet kids who just want to go on adventures and live their lives but got mixed up in the fucked up inner workings of the worlds they live in

misha's grandpa is obviously a nameless and i'm 75% sure he's also the watchmaker (i say 75% because someone - a random npc, maybe firefly, or someone else, i really don't remember whose mouth it came out of - says that clockie was designed in the watchmaker's likeness and i don't think misha's grandpa is a talking clock . so. um. ...)

clockie is going to be a bigger part of the plot than he is now and there's totally going to be something fucked up underneath the cartoony exterior

aventurine stresses that we can't trust acheron because she's an emanator, but an emanator of who, i wonder...? her connection to the dream world, her memory problems, and the way some of her dialogue varies from player to player (INSANELY COOL TOUCH BTW) makes me want to say fuli. or possibly... IX. mythus? i guess lan and nanook are possibilities but i kind of really really really really doubt that

idk like i mentioned in the tags on a different ask i gotta properly explore penacony and read all the things i've picked up that i ignored in favor of finishing the trailblaze mission! and do the 53873453465786837 side quests i got from tinkering with people's emotions. Help. it'll probably help me theorize more! lots of little clues and foreshadowing strewn throughout the game's text, hehe...

i've REALLY enjoyed this update though. definitely sunk my brain even further into the hsr interest than it was before. penacony's cast is really dynamic and interesting (firefly, misha, and acheron are my faves here). also, the dreamscape pass is such a clever feature. really makes you feel like a tourist AND it's got lots of little morsels of lore inside. love it. uhg. i can't wait for the next big update i'm going to explode