#all mondstadt character's referenced

[unearthly-doting]

the wind will guide you home

a/n: idk idk i just really like the anemo characters soso much. kept it pretty vague i think so you can decide if the reader is willing or unwilling. no faruzan or lynette bc i couldn't think of anything for them :(

includes: aether, lumine, venti, jean, xiao, kazuha, sucrose, heizou, and wanderer.

premise: you wandered a little too far away from your partner for their liking. maybe you were trying to escape, maybe not. but don't worry, they'll find you.

warnings: mdni, yandere content, gn reader, implied/referenced kidnapping, overprotective behavior, possessive behavior, obsessive behavior, implied drugging, stalking, unhealthy relationships, vague mentions of dependency, uh whatever the fuck is happening in wanderer's section.

AETHER — is immediately panicked the moment he realizes you aren't by his side anymore. he never lets you travel with him, it was dangerous and you were safer tucked away in the little area he kept you in, safe from the dangers of this mysterious world. it was his fault, really. he had forgotten to lock the door the last time he visited, having been in such a hurry for one reason or another. you, for some reason, had decided to leave even though he had told you time and time again that it was dangerous. he wouldn't waste any time looking for you, hurrying outside, and using everything he had to his advantage to search for you. if you have a vision, he's definitely using his elemental sight to track you down. and when he does find you, he's immediately latching himself onto you, clinging to you and breathing a sigh of relief. he was completely oblivious to the horrified look on your face, just glad to have you in his arms again. "let's get you home. it's not safe for you out here."

LUMINE — would more than likely notice immediately when you vanish. she keeps you at her side at all times to ensure that she can protect you, so you're rarely ever away from her. the moment she sees that you're gone, she's abandoning whatever it was she was doing to find you. it doesn't matter if it was a commission or some important task that will help her get a better understanding of this world. you were more important than that right now. you needed to be back by her side. her tracking skills were incredibly good, so you wouldn't get far before she had you in her sights again. it doesn't matter if you were trying to escape or if you were just distracted and wandered off, the grip she had on your wrist was tight once she caught up to you, and she refused to let you go until the two of you were back at whatever inn or camp you two were staying at. she'll bind your hands together and tie the end of the rope to her wrist if you try arguing with her. "i can't keep you safe if you refuse to stay by my side."

VENTI — is honestly the only one here that will find you like almost immediately. even if he isn't paying attention to you and instead wowing a crowd with his amazing bard skills, the wind will tell him the moment you're gone. he'll stop midstory at the news, politely excusing himself and promising to be back later with an even better story. he'll let the wind guide him, listening to the whispers as he hurries down the streets of mondstadt, picking up pace when the wind tells him you were heading for the main gate of the city. if he uses his powers as the anemo archon to cause a harsh gust of wind to knock everyone away from the gates of the city just so he can catch up with you, then... well... it's not like anyone will know it was him. other than you, of course. and the moment you recovered from hitting the ground, venti was at your side and helping you up. he let you keep your freedom, most of it at least, but he didn't want you to leave the city if he wasn't at your side. he doesn't let go of your hand as he drags you back, an upbeat smile on his face as he playfully spoke, "you're missing my performance! you know i can't perform without my biggest fan watching me." you miss the tightly concealed desperation in his eyes as he stared at you. you can't leave him. he won't let you.

JEAN — is so busy with work that she rarely has the time to keep track of every little move you make. honestly, she probably won't realize you're gone until kaeya or amber drop by and tell her that they saw you wandering outside the city, seemingly heading in the direction of liyue. she's immediately abandoning whatever paperwork she had been looking through, hurrying out of her office and rushing past the citizens in the city to get to you. her mind was running wild trying to figure out why you would even think about leaving the city, let alone leaving without telling her. she's almost out of breath by the time she finds you, the sun starting to set as she crashes into you in a tight hug while rapid-fire questioning you on why you were leaving mondstadt and if she did something wrong and what she could do to make it better. it isn't hard to calm her down, cutting off her questions and explaining that you were simply going to visit some family in liyue and that you had left a note for her at home because you didn't want to bother her when she was so busy. whether or not that was the truth, she didn't care. she was pulling you back in the direction of the city, shaking her head. "no, i can't focus on anything when you aren't here. i need you."

XIAO — felt a little hurt, finding you gone. he was one of the hardest to get away from, always at your side unless the traveler called him away or something happened that required his attention. he thought you had gotten used to him by now, seeing as you never shied away from him when he was around anymore. so yeah, he was real fucking hurt when he returned to the inn and found your room empty. not even verr knew where you had gone. he isn't the type to immediately panic, but he is tense and will gradually get more agitated the longer it takes to find you. if he finds you quickly, the most you'll get is a cold glare as he drags you back to the inn. if he finds you after searching for hours upon hours, he will cling to you as if you would disappear if he let go. his breathing would be heavy, his face buried in your neck as he grounds himself. you were back in his arms, and either way, he wasn't going to let you leave his sight until he was sure you weren't going to pull a stunt like this again. if you want to wander around, then just ask and he'll go with you. "don't ever do that again. don't... don't ever leave me like that."

KAZUHA — would feel torn. while he understands the need and desire to roam the world and take in all that one can process, he also felt uncomfortable when you weren't around. a sick feeling budding in his chest, wondering if maybe you weren't wandering off but instead trying to leave him. he wants to trust you, and most of the time he does, but... you've tried leaving him before. many times, actually, that he's lost count. so, as much as he would love to leave you to your own devices, he just didn't trust you enough. he would ask other travelers if they'd seen you by chance, and some would point him in your direction while others would shake their heads. no matter, he took any and all help given to him until he finally spotted you. his approach was quiet, and you were startled when you had finally noticed him. he didn't say anything for a moment, just staring at you. there was something about his gaze that felt more intense than normal. it was like he was studying you, deciphering your actions. it didn't last long, because the look was replaced with a soft smile as he held his hand out, beckoning you to take it. "let's walk together."

SUCROSE — also didn't immediately notice. similar to jean, she can get pretty busy with work and gets so invested that she'll often times forget her surroundings. it's only when albedo or noelle make a comment on you not being by her side that she snaps to attention, looking around with a puzzled expression. when had you left? how long had you been gone? when she had last spoken to you, the sun was high in the sky. it was dark now. she would stutter out a quick departure to whichever friend had told her you were gone before scurrying away to try and find you. she would have the hardest time finding you, nervously approaching strangers on the street and asking if they had seen you or not. one person mentioned seeing you at the barbatos statue, and she immediately darted off in that direction without sparing the informant a second glance. and she was damn near tears when she found you. she wouldn't understand why you had left without telling her first, wondering if maybe she had done something to upset you. she'd be apologizing, telling you she was sorry if she made you mad, and begging you to come home. given how you two were in public, you felt a bit out of place so you agreed just to stop having people look at you. she would hug your arm the entire time, refusing to let go until the two of you were back at her home. and then she'd offer you something to drink! as an apology! and, well... if she puts a little something in it to tire you out, then that's too bad. "o-oh, you feel sick? maybe you should try to rest... don't worry, i'll be here to take care of you."

HEIZOU — would be the second one to find you quickly. he's a detective, so obviously he'll be able to track you down with ease! your attempts at trying to cover were tracks were adorable but futile. he had found you probably a mere hour after you had gone off, though he didn't immediately make his presence known. he was curious as to why you had left so abruptly without telling him, wondering if maybe something had happened or if you were, perhaps, trying to leave him. but you wouldn't do that! right? either way, he's following you in secret. some may call this stalking, but he calls it... lovingly admiring from afar. this'll go on for hours, more than likely. he's not in any rush to drag you home, and he gets to partake in his favorite pastime! so, by all means, continue walking. he'll probably do a few things here and there to startle you, making noises by shaking bushes and branches or throwing rocks. he likes seeing you on edge; he thinks you're cute when you're constantly looking around, searching for him. of course, once you get too close to ritou for his liking, he'll bring the fun to an end and finally make his presence known by hugging you from behind, a cheeky smile on his expression as you tense up. "caught you!" he hums, pressing a kiss to the back of your neck as if to prove to you that he was actually there. maybe he'll lock you up at home for a few days just to keep you all to himself. y'know, as his prize for catching you.

WANDERER — thinks it's amusing, honestly, that you think you can sneak off without him noticing. he'll let you go off on your own and let you think you have the freedom of doing so, but only because he has other pressing matters to attend to. he'll take is time too, going about his tasks at a languid pace, not at all worried about where you may be or where you might go. some people may ask about your whereabouts since you're usually almost always with him, and he'll just offer them a smile that... well. it puts them on edge, to be honest, and it makes them drop the topic. he'll even occasionally take breaks, enjoying a drawn-out lunch with nahida and even deciding to indulge the traveler a bit and walk with them through the city. but the moment he finishes all of his tasks for the day, he's going after you. you've had enough freedom today, and he wants you back at his side. it's where you belong, after all. he won't lie, it's exciting, searching for you like this. he wonders if you know whether or not he's after you. maybe you've been looking over your shoulder the entire day, wondering if he'll be right behind you. the thought alone fills him with an almost gleeful joy. and when he does find you, he's not wasting a single second before grabbing you, lips twitching upwards slightly at the startled shout you let out. "did you have fun?" he'll ask, though it would be hard to tell if he wanted a serious answer or not. he doesn't really care, in all honesty. you're back in his arms, right where you belong. his prized possession.

[thatdeadaquarius]

Hello there, friend I'm here for fluff

OK, this has been on my mind for a while

But like

The reader is just becoming the biggest parent to the Benny's adventure team kids

And the wolfs

We are like a parent of like 27

Knitting and making food brushing razors hair(let's be for real, you would hear a crunch when you brush it)

I'm not gonna lie

Do these kids know what spices are?

Cuz when I think about it

Razor hasn't had shit so he's has the least tolerance for spice

He would probably cry if you feed him a pepper

Bennett has tried spicy food but does go well with it

And not completely sure if fischl has had a spicy food before

But what flavor does mondstadt add to their food??

These kids need the damn flavors

AHDHAKALL FERAL ANIMAL AQUARIUS- ANOTHER PLATONIC ASK AAHHHHGGGGDJJSFHSAK!!!!!

AND ITS YOU!! ITS- ITS- ONE OF THE WRITING RULERS OF SAGAU (FOR ME AT LEAST) <3 !!!!!!!!

You cooking in genshin all anime studio ghibli style looking like food from god (literally): ⬆️

Sun: Reader (you/they/them)

Orbit: Headcanons-ish

Stars: Benny’s Adventure Team! (Bennett, Fischl, Razor), Diluc, mentions of other Mond characters

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: mild cussing, & Trigger Warnings: none known.

Please comment if I missed any. /gen

☆

^^ The posts being referenced in ask, (OG Razor ask) (Benny + Razor) and a more direct sequel, a part 2? a part 4 atp?? of this post (Imposter/Not Dark AU + Razor + Diluc) ^^

OMFG

ALRIGHT LISTEN UP BITCHES

SINCE UR IN TEYVAT

YOU GONNA COOK LIKE TEYVAT

AS IN-

SHIT BE SUPER EASY TO COOK, AND MASS MAKE DEPENDING ON COMPLEXITY OF DISH

(So, like Zhongli's special Bamboo Shoot Soup is like getting made... once a year if you read the little desc. for that dish 💀)

AND THEYRE ALL LIKE-

ANIME GORGEOUS FOODS ✨️❤️‍🔥

OKAY SO

PROMO TIME-

U GUYS HAVE TO WATCH THE ANIME "CAMPFIRE COOKING IN ANOTHER WORLD"

Bc that's mostly where this inspo gonna come from to both be realistic cooking + best parts of video game cooking

A guy gets isekai’d and instead of hero powers he just gets the skill of "online grocery shopping" LMAO

and ofc he gets insta gifted whatever he orders and starts making dishes and adding spices and regular stuff you know. like soy sauce.

but the best part is the food in that world is like British medieval soup shit

like barely salted, no spices definitely, no sauces, its barren

so he ends up attracting all kinds of interest that want to eat his cooking ofc

And it gives buffs too!

dw i didnt spoil anything u don't learn in the first episode, but that's just to say that's exactly whats happening here

u DO have to manually collect more ingredients but its so worth it, also u can just buy in bulk or put a commission thru the adventurer guild

tbhhh now that i say that, that could be how u end up drawing in Benny’s Adventure Team even more, bc they just take all ur quests for collecting ingredients around Mond!!

(u have to actively sneak behind their back and whisper to Katheryne that you want to put in other food quests in other guilds tho, silly kids will absolutely go running around Liyue and crazy shit just to have an adventure and do smth for you + eat ur banger food lol)

omfg the first time u barbecue smth???

the wolves, Razor, and Andrius??? Go feral.

Fischl and Benny who were already on their way to u guys to hang out again start booking it thru the woods, dodging hilichurl camps (thatve since settled down and been v peaceful to the wolves + anyone in the woods of Wolvendom after u started living there)

they knowww ur cookin smth fucking amazing

(and u even have some hilichurls and mitachurl that wander close to Andrius’ edge of the woods to shyly beg for scraps,, u give them a portion)

Razor was actually lookin at u like u hung the stars just for him when u gave him a homemade barbecue sauce to put on his food

(u acc may have done that to Teyvatians according to Andrius + the stories u overheard from Springvale…)

ok but the amount of begging u get for desserts like-

No, Razor u cannot have chocolate cake/cupcakes after every meal, u need to take care of ur teeth

(u use ur collection of mora-monster-donations for comms for more ingredients and living supplies like fabric + furniture, u cant afford dental on top of that for ur boy)

Fischl dutifully declares you the “best chef in the kingdom” and writes down all ur recipes (u have them auto-stored in ur settings obv but it cant hurt to have a physical copy, and they look so happy doing it, u don't have the heart to tell them its not necessary-)

Benny insists on both giving u extra ingredients when he takes ur commissions, and giving u handmade trinkets or weapons for the meals!!

No!! He will not take “im good” for an answer!! ur sharing ur home-cave with him, taking care of his best friend Razor, and now feeding him food better than Liuli Pavilion!!! There’s no way he can just take all that and give nothing back!!!!

and theyre not the only ones getting some food tbh

when the knights begin patroling near Wolvendom and slowly all of Mondstadt to search for their “All God”, u break up the beginnings of a fight between 2 confused knights and the now peaceful hilichurl camp at the edge of Wolvendom

U offer some snacks u were going to give Benny’s Adventure Team when they got back (u made little triangle sandwiches, rice balls, etc. finger foods, and u made plenty extra bc u kno their teenage appetites lol)

the knights and hilichurls nearly cried with appreciation, which made for a hilarious sight when the teens actually showed up lmao

ur wearing ur cloak, bc u dont wanna take on that whole “creator of worlds” title just yet, and the kids helped verify u werent anyone suspicious (Benny + Fischl keep ur godly secret, theyre the best like that 🥰)

the knights just swing by for snacks occasionally (they also either pay u in trade or with mora, theyre not bullies)

another person who gets flavored food privileges is the lazy librarian witch herself

u also sometimes pick Razor up from Lisa’s tutoring and bring “the best tea and tea snacks in the world” along with to share with Lisa and him

(she is also fully aware after awhile of meeting u of what u are, and fully believes this is why the food must be enchanted to be so good, but u dont want to be treated super reverently she can tell, so she keeps ur secret too and is just extra flirty when u come by lol)

(Razor refuses to let his pare- Lupical move out of ur cozy cave to the library, so he sometimes hauls u away when Lisa flirts too much LMAO)

…and the moment you've been waiting for.

Yes, Diluc got to try ur food that night he was searching Wolvendom for signs of the god of Teyvat

tbh Diluc was half-convinced that shit was a fever dream.

a bunch of sleepy wolves, a coffee table in the stone colosseum, a giant spirit wolf licking a big plate clean, the wolf-kid glaring at him, and you.

you with gold eyes, staring right thru his soul, like you already know everything there is to know about him, (like the way Kaeya looked at him that night),

like he doesnt even have to introduce himself

and he doesnt, u just lightly smack Razor’s hands until he gets rid of his claymore w/a pout, since Diluc had long since dropped his,

and grab a plate, piling on what leftovers u could, and turn back around from the coffee table to smile at him, patting the cushion-seat beside u for him to join

The giant glowing wolf licks his lips and watches him, the wolf-kid’s creepily watches him, and you, with eyes gold in teh light of a simmering bonfire just past the table, watch him

he just sits down and begins to eat.

its the best food he’s ever had, its his dad’s favorite dish, but not realistically, but the way memory embellishes a dish so much it can never be tasted again, except its right here. in front of him. u pour some wolfhook juice for him, and offer him a napkin to wipe his mouth and eyes

Diluc visits often after that, obviously.

u give him snacks too, and when he lets the staff try some, Adeline will not stop harassing him abt gettin ur recipes/ingredeints so u get him to pay Fischl to get a copy of their recipe book :)

including blank pages for future entries, and Fischl is literally glowing with happiness, would not stop monologuing abt ur food for weeks (send help Oz wants some peace and quiet sometimes)

Oh Diluc absolutely told the Favonius knights he found you. But he’s not saying where LMAO

Jean is actually begging him, Diluc ik u hate the knights but this is an international investigation-

this is the closest Diluc has ever gotten to getting under Venti’s skin.

when he told him this at Angel’s while bartending, he just casually ofc said this, just his smug little smirk, and the anemo god cracked a glass and everything- esp when he said he tried ur cooking??

he's gotta start looking over his shoulder in the city bc not only is Venti stalking him, the entirety of Mondstadt’s citizens are glaring at him in envy everywhere he goes LMAOO

(Venti now has a bar glass or too on his tab to pay off as well)

mans is literally paying u in weapon/artifact materials/mora to make him lunch one day and Venti nearly lunges over the counter

(Diluc purposefully ate it in front of him 💀)

ur food is the ultimate, “u could make a religion out of this!” /ref

like Diluc fully gives u offerings of ingredients he can pay for shipping from other countries + along with regular materials after grinding in domains

does the rest of Mondstadt + the world find out where u are?

only if Diluc lets them tbh. LMFAO

☆

bk trashfire my beloved <3 love ur ideas and stuff, goes without even saying im so sorry i took actually forever to respond :’(

hope u have a great weekend and i did this little side story justice for you

Safe Travels BK Trashfire,

💀♒

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(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/[specifically this AU/fandom] please!")

♡my beloveds♡

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@kiyomi-uchiha777

[alneedssleep]

Some Natlan 5.0 archon quest thoughts (SPOILERS)

So I just finished playing through the new Genshin archon quest and I have some (badly organised) thoughts. This isn’t a theory so much as it is a bunch of interconnected ideas which I feel will be relevant in the future but have no idea how. 

Mondstadt / Venti is referenced three times – once when seeing one of the dragons and comparing it to Dvalin, once just after breaking the device thingy saying they wish Venti was here to fix it and, of course, the traveller getting a flash back to Mondstadt and the purification ability they have. This is notable when no other character or nation is mentioned outside of Natlan / Natlan characters the ENTIRE quest. 

Natlan / pyro also has a lot of resurrection stuff going on. some examples are: 

Some Natlan natives can be resurrected. 

The archon was revealed to have basically been resurrected. 

The Natlan section of the story is literally called ‘Incandescent Ode of Resurrection’. 

Signora’s backstory involves her being reborn through her flames. 

Arlecchino is able to cause a memory wipe (which she likens to a form of death and rebirth). 

Just as Natlan and pyro are connected to resurrection, Venti and anemo are connected to death. Some examples are: 

Venti is inspired by / connected to Orpheus who was known for going into and leaving the underworld alive in Greek mythology. He also shares a lot of similarities with Hermes who was, amongst other things, a guide of the dead. 

There is a belief in Mondstadt that the wind carries the souls of the dead which is partly confirmed by Venti’s story quest. 

Venti’s entire story quest is focused on death instead of freedom, unlike all the other archon’s first story quests which are about their domain. (Do I think Venti is a death god? Yes, anyways.) 

The fact death and freedom are connected both in and out of game. 

Istaroth, the thousand winds, may very well be the god of death. (see theory here cuz it’s super interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AajyhNchuRI) 

Even that meme about all anemo users having dead friends. 

While I love Genshin lore, I am no theorist so I honestly have no idea what all of this might mean beyond anemo=death and pyro=resurrection aka life. 

The only thing i can say is that the Aranara basically call the abyss death. And Venti is the only one of the gods that looks angelic. And *points to the upside-down world theory*. Venti = abyss somehow??? 

Honestly I have no idea. Second Venti story quest when??? 

[beehiveofblorbos]

been brainrotting Venti recently and all of his lore so just gonna put it somewhere that’s not my head

Some basics on Venti: he is the Anemo Archon of Mondstadt, with connections to wine and song, but with the official dominion of Wind, and his ideal is Freedom. He currently disguises himself as a carefree bard. His character story and Neuvi’s voice lines also declare him to be a god of hope.

when we first meet him he teleports away in a flash of Anemo (he can teleport!!) and we learn when we enter mond that the god Barbatos (an original member of the Seven) has been MIA for a long time. He’s not the one running the place, the Ordo Favonius are, but he does have a church and Mondstadters habitually give each other blessings from the wind. He himself has a habit of sleeping for long periods of time.

okay, cool. Venti himself helps us save Dvalin, casually revealing he’s the Anemo Archon just to get hold of the Holy Lyre. He breaks it when we’re on the quest, but returns it to Barbara magically fixed (and implies that she’ll find it broken again soon). His Gnosis is stolen (guys he can Teleport!!!) from him, but he returns to Windrise to recover.

He also gives us the basics on Teyvat’s elemental powers, and tells us a god’s power is based in how much control they exert over their nation (this is later contradicted by Nahida + Focalors,,,, so chances are that he was lying!)

then we also have Carmen Dei, the only archon story quest to not have a part 2. In “Should You Be Trapped In A Windless Land” (and we’ll explore what wind means in Teyvat), Venti uses his godly powers to help Stanley, a boastful adventurer who has taken on the face and identity of his friend in order to carry on his memory. The friend died in Mare Jivari, the ‘windless land’ likely referenced by the quest title.

Venti then sings the story of how he, “a single thread of the thousand winds” (Venti character story), became an archon. He reveals he too has taken on the face of his friend who died among the revolt against Decarabian in Old Mond that ended with Venti being seated as the god.

(Guys he has associations with death!! It doesn’t stop here, Weinlesefest and Mond legends about your spirit being guided back home by the wind, even the connections in events to Hu Tao like !!!)

He hasn’t appeared much in main story, honestly. But there are so many crumbs that lead back to Barbatos and his homeland of Mond that one HAS to wonder: what is going on with him?

His drip marketing? oh he’s the “prodigal son”. son of who???

(“she was the moment. she was every moment… every second of joy, every moment of rage, every instant of longing, every flash of delirium”)

furthermore we’ve got more from his demo: “full of mystery, born from the branches of time / a history of glory and sorrow, and witness to the divine”.

so he’s the “prodigal son”, “born from the branches of time”, who is “full of mystery”, has “a history of glory and sorrow”, and serves as a “witness to the divine”.

what do his character stories have to say? a LOT. they call him “a single thread of the thousand winds”, “without a shred of divine dignity” (pre archon war). And they claim he became a god once the rebellion succeeded (it kinda makes sense, he was the spirit most associated with them after all, and as we know - gods of Teyvat draw power from their believers)

The 5th story remarks that Venti both should and should not be given credit for Mond’s prosperity, since it’s the doing of the Four Winds (which he established lol) but also he’s the one ensuring that the tales of their deeds are passed on.

ok let’s break this down. he’s the prodigal son? the question of his parentage seems to have found it’s definitive answer. Mondstadtian sayings commonly associate the wind with the passage of time, and there are temples to time and a god of time in Mond, which have now come to ruins. They were worshipped alongside Venti for a long time, but their significance diminished and eroded.

Now, in Enka we discovered records of Istaroth, who was also known by the Enkanomiyans as their Goddess of Time, and is the premier candidate (by lore enthusiast consensus) for the god that would’ve been worshipped alongside Venti.

She is also (I’m convinced) Venti’s mom. Remember, he was said to be “born of the branches of time” and “a single thread of the thousand winds”. What was Istaroth’s epithet? She’s the Thousand Winds. We are literally told he was a part of her.

We also have evidence to support Venti having time-based powers. Remember the Weinlesefest memories brought by the wind? He also “knows all songs, past and future”. And furthermore, he might have just rewound the Holy Lyre instead of actually fixing it permanently.

The real question up for debate is whether or not Venti is part of her or a completely unique entity. Both are possible, honestly. I mean, they coexisted. It’s just that the phrasing “a branch” bothers me because it was the exact same phrase used to reference what Nahida is to Rukkha but that much could just be coincidence.

I think we’ve established by now that he’s seen a history full of glory and sorrow, and that he’s full of mystery. So what’s left?

He “knows all songs, past and future” and he is a “witness of the divine”. And his character story supports that, highlighting the importance of his role as a witness to the history of Mond and the feats of the Four Winds. In light of the Sumeru and Fontaine AQs, where we learned that info can be erased from Irminsul and can only be preserved either through the memory of a Witness from outside the world or the creation of an allegorical tale that seems just fictional enough to bypass the Irminsul censors. Also, the importance of what we see being the truth.

(Oh yeah: forgot to mention that he also tends to play this role in history, where he doesn’t interfere much himself but he picks a hero to address a task and then supports them however they need to get the job done. This traces back all the way to his time with Decarabian; he didn’t fight in the war itself, but he watched the Nameless Bard and his countrymen do it, and recorded it in song. Same for Vennessa and the Revolution against the aristocracy).

(guys he is a god of hope and of freedom)

Carmen Dei the story quest does not have a part two. I fear for the day it does, frankly, because we will learn a LOT about this silly little man.

[azaenya]

Thinking about Fischl, specifically in reference to The Wizard of Oz

I used to think that that was what she was primarily referencing, but there were some very well-written dissections connecting her more to Norse mythology and stuff

But why don't I just do it anyway? It's just for fun either way

But before I get to Fischl, I want to connect some other relevant characters to Oz as well. Mostly people that are paired with Fischl often: Noelle, Bennett, and Barbara. Unfortunately, no Razor. I don't know where to fit him in, so I figured keeping him out would be more respectful than making him fuckin Toto.

NOELLE as The Scarecrow

The Scarecrow's issue is that he wants to be wise, but he, quite literally, lacks the brains to be so. Of course, the twist is that, even without a brain, he had wisdom all along. I feel like that encapsulates Noelle very well. Her deal is that she wants to be a Knight of Favonius, but she never makes the cut. So she constantly studies and helps others, trying to gain a "brain," if you will. Of course, my reading (/headcanon) is that she was always capable enough to be a Knight, and it was an external issue that stopped her. A bonus point is that, in the book, the Scarecrow is a stand-in for the common farmer, looked down upon for not being "educated," but has the valuable skill of common sense. And I think we can extend that metaphor to low ranking jobs, like maids. You see where I'm going with this.

BENNETT as the Tin Woodsman

The Woodsman, while kind and gentle, desires a heart, so he can feel love. Bennett, because of his bad luck, feels like he drives everyone away, and he is in search of friends and connections. He wants people to like him, and just like the Woodsman, they both always had it from the very beginning.

BARBARA as the Cowardly Lion

This one's a doozy. The Cowardly Lion wishes to have courage like how lions are commonly portrayed. Barbara is of the Gunnhildr clan, (also associated with lions) but she was never able to display the strength necessary to satisfy her mother. So she always felt like she came short of the expectation of what she should have been. But even now, as a Pegg and a pacifist, she has always been worthy. She displays her noble nature through her kindness and compassion for helping others.

(Mihoyo did her dirty and she deserves better)

FISCHL as Dorothy AND The Wizard of Oz

Fischl is complicated because I feel like she is able to embody both Dorothy and the titular Wizard, Oz. In Oz, Fischl likes to portray herself as the great and powerful Prinzessin, but in reality, she is acting out that role. Now, the book paints Oz out as a conman, the adult who tells lies, but I'd rather not say that's what Fischl is. What she is doing is harmless, and she should be allowed to do it. Where you might put the conman part is in people's reactions to her. Her parents most certainly don't support her Fischl side, feeling like "the lie" has gone on too long. And that brings us to Dorothy, the young girl from Kansas, swept up by a tornado, who just wants to go home. "Home," in Fischl's case, isn't literal (one would sure hope not), but rather a place where she can be herself and be respected for what she chooses to do with her life. The Found Family, mwah 🤌 And the way home had been by her side all along.

Looking at this, I'm wondering how much of this is intentional, because it hasn't escaped me that a tornado was the inciting incident that lead Dorothy to The Land of Oz. And... well... Mondstadt. The place associated with wind. Yeah.

Anyway, not sure if you can connect other characters to the book, but I'll always encourage others to try.

I can't wait for a 9 page essay on how Diluc is the Bumpy Man. 👍

[eternal-moss]

its fanservice when women, super important when its men is ur takeaway from the summer event

Help the way I got one singular like and one hate comment for that post 😭 it’s fanservice when it’s fanservice dude. I found Scara’s behaviour annoying and cliché (“hehe ur kinda cute” [please leave me alone]), as well as laying on Nilou’s lap.

(The rest of this isn’t really me responding to you but just rambling about Alice, Rhine & the Hexenzirkel because it’s midnight rn and witches yeaag)

I’m a massive Hexenzirkel fan! I’m just annoyed that still after so long we haven’t gotten a single bit of reference to what Alice looks like so I can’t draw fanart of her. Like seriously, are we going to have to wait until Snezhnaya to finally see her?? I’m happy for any kind of Alice content but I’m always sad it’s mainly crumbs.

She’s an incredible inventor, she literally made both the gramophone & telephone. I want her to be super super overpowered, her strength is already alluded to by her seeming to have comparable power to Venti (changing Mondstadt’s landscape) but I want it to be m o r e.

More about Alice bc I love her. I love writing her into fics (especially crossover ones because she CANONICALLY TRAVELS WORLDS. WHY IS THIS NEVER BROUGHT UP.) and just one-shotting the antagonists with the full force of the sun lol. I really want to learn more about the Genshin ‘elves’ too because they’re just thrown in there without much explanation. (Layla literally never mentions it, or Nahida…)

RHINE TIME!!! I love Rhinedottr & all her fucked up children (although I wish we knew more about her past). I love how her motivation genuinely seems to be joy in her creations, and it ‘just so happens’ that most of them turn out to be catastrophic in some way 😭. I hope she’s more cold and reserved, but secretly a bit insane like Alice. I also really like the two of them romantically paired together, shout out to the 7 other Rhinealice shippers out there.

I like daydreaming about them going to magic school together or some kind of study (a la Farcille. Thank you Farcille for existing to fulfill my Rhinealice fantasies), and how they’d respond to Khaenri’ah’s fallout? Are they still in contact? Does Alice know if Rhine is alive? When was Albedo given to her? HOW OLD IS ALICE BRO 😭😭

In terms of physical features, I see both of them as being greying & looking in their 50s (only partially to spite the fact that 90% of the Genshin cast appear in their early 20s or younger. Xianyun’s the closest thing we have to an older woman. Playable Madame Ping when⁉️)

The Hexenzirkel is genuinely one of my favourite parts of the Genshin lore and I really hope they do it well. I enjoyed their teaser so much, and I hope we get to see more of that, as well as Venti’s allyship with them, something that was referenced as far back as the first summer event where Venti leant (lol) Dvalin for Klee to travel, presumably because he and Alice are friendly with each other.

I’m obviously interested in the other members of the Hexenzirkel (and other witches!!!! Like Lisa and Rosalyne!!!!) but we really don’t know that much about them, aside information from Mona who I don’t have.

Alice & Rhine are basically my OCs at this point, and when their designs are inevitably very different from my imagined versions of them, I might as well make them OCs lol.

So no, my takeaway is not men=interesting women=boring. My favourite Genshin character is Kokomi and I’m extremely sad they’ve given her little to no allusion to her lore for the past 3 years 🥲

I think it’s a bit rude of you to come into my asks saying something like that on anon, but I won’t deny I found the first 3 parts of the event excruciatingly boring, as someone who is slightly interested in Sumeru, and barely interested in Fontaine. I’ve always loved Mondstadt and Liyue the most, so of course I was interested for Mondstadt lore. AND DRAGONS. I LOVE DRAGONS DUDE.PLEASE CAN SOMEONE LET KOKOMI HAVE HER DRAGON LORE I BEG.

[tamorax]

I had an idea

There is this fan animation , a long, long time ago from when i was in the TFG1 fandom of all the characters doing this three frame/picture dance. And i thought "i wanna see zhongli do that dance".

First of all the artist that did that video has been gone nearly a decade and suddenly i find out that not only are they back, but they are making genshin animations

Secondly

Im biting off more than i can chew :)

Im doing them all. This is but one of 182 (91 characters so far) drawings I'll have to do. Starting with mondstadt.

Anyway please show some love to

Jino san

Because i referenced the pose and chibi style from their video, and i still love them and I'm so glad they've gotten into genshin. And their animations have gotten even better I really recommend watching their old videos and their new shorts.

[ao3feed-dilucnkaeya]

All of it, a Piece of me (And None of it at All)

Read on AO3

by vansee

All of those facets had become a part of him. But at the same time, none of them really were or ever would be. He was just an actor on the biggest stage there was.

 AKA: Kaeya is my miserable little guy.

Words: 8161, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen, Multi

Characters: Kaeya (Genshin Impact), Jean (Genshin Impact), Rosaria (Genshin Impact), Diluc (Genshin Impact), Genshin Impact NPCs

Relationships: Kaeya & Mondstadt Characters (Genshin Impact), Jean & Kaeya (Genshin Impact), Kaeya & Rosaria (Genshin Impact), Diluc & Kaeya (Genshin Impact), Jean/Lisa (Genshin Impact)

Additional Tags: Fluff and Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Canon Compliant, Bittersweet, Friendship, Character Study, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Minor Violence, Minor Character Death, Friends With Benefits, Mental Health Issues, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Addiction, Self-Esteem Issues, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kaeya Needs Therapy (Genshin Impact), Kaeya is Not Okay (Genshin Impact), Kaeya is a Mess (Genshin Impact), Aromantic Rosaria (Genshin Impact), Best Friends Kaeya & Rosaria (Genshin Impact), No Beta Wie Die Like Kaeya’s Will To Live

[winifred-stormborne]

My Genshin OC, Winifred!

I have a Genshin OC that I'm absolutely autistic for. Lowkey nervous to share this stuff, but hey that's what this blog is for, my various Genshin brainrot hehe

So uh fun fact, I can't draw people for shit so I hope y'all like furrified Genshin OCs and characters >:3c

Anyway, here she is, my namesake and OC, Winifred Stormborne!

Different art styles, but both pieces are drawn by me! The first piece is my natural art style whereas I tried to mimic Genshin's art style for the in-game portrait I made for her. Really really happy with both of these, she makes my brain go brrrr

A bit about her while I'm still figuring out lore, story, and her relationship with other characters, Winifred is the daughter of Dvalin. I'm not sure of the specifics of her birth, but I know it has to do with excess magic from Dvalin forming a magical egg that eventually hatched. So strictly speaking, Winifred doesn't have a mother. Her birth name is actually Tyrfäng, but unfortunately, very early into her childhood, Dvalin was swayed and taken over by the Abyss Order, becoming Stormterror and leaving Tyrfäng without a parent. She survived in the wild for a long, long time, and with no father to teach her to harness her Anemo powers, she took on a more humanoid, anthro form.

Just a sketch for now, but this is what she looks like in her true form, smaller than Dvalin by quite a bit, but still a very fierce Anemo dragon.

Tyrfäng survived in the wilderness of Mondstadt for awhile before being discovered and taken in by the Adventurers' Guild as a child. There, the various Guild members that raised her would officially give her the Mondstadter name, Winifred Stormborne, a name she actually prefers to go by nowadays. Growing up, she formed close friendships and became an older sister figure for Bennett, Razor, and Fischl, and is now a full fledged member of the Guild as well as an apprentice of the Knights of Favonius. Who's her mentor? Kaeya, of course, and they're besties :3

I'm still figuring out a lot about her and working on a Toyhouse page for her that will have all of her lore, in-game abilities and statistics, etc. I'm going all in with this one, even gave her a signature weapon!

Her weapon is a polearm called "The Promise" and I swear I will sketch something Genshin-related for someone if they know what the weapon's name and flavor text is a reference to 👀

The Promise - "One who sails the seas of life believes that the storms will lead them home. But these open roads call to you with a promise... You will walk this land alone."

PLEASE TELL ME SOMEONE KNOWS WHAT I'M REFERENCING WITH THE WEAPON PLEASE I WILL DRAW SOMETHING FOR YOU

Oh yeah and uh of course I had to do the thing with her in-game portrait and now it's my current pfp hehehe

I'M TELLING YOU THE BRAINROT IS SO REAL

All art here is made by me obviously minus the Tartaglia McDonald's image so if you repost or take inspiration, please credit me!

Also I wanna see more Genshin OCs, I know they're out there somewhere so please if you have a Genshin OC, share them with me, I will adore them forever ;v;

[xinxiaogato]

— live to tell the tail

summary. you unfortunately lived in a universe where general gorou had found out ms. hina was… himself. and just your luck: gorou’s first impression of you was a crazed devotee of the ms. hina fan club, but you had only been in the wrong place at the wrong time. will you live to tell the tail?

love interests. gn!reader x a watatsumi general, an inazuman vagrant, the balladeer, and the kreideprinz.

warnings. infinite pet puns, referenced character death, weapons, swearing, blood, alcohol, harassment, and mentions of war.

note. “nibi” is a gender-neutral title i am using for a parent in this chapter! also, the child could have been delivered by a gestational surrogate.

word count. 1,044

chapter eighteen ⌇ pawternal instincts

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when scaramouche came up to your table for help with a child pincering the hem of his shorts, your katsu sandwich went down the wrong pipe hole. you downed half of a bottle of dango milk to help you recover from the shock.

“i would’ve never guessed that you had a kid,” you jested, wiping your lips of any excess, but scaramouche was a far cry from being entertained.

“very funny,” he said flatly, neglecting to conceal his true colors at this point. “what was in your food to make you say that?”

the little kid’s big eyes shone at the sound of “food” and locked onto the manifold delectables atop your plate.

“i-i’m hungry…” he cheeped, rubbing his tummy.

“you’re hungry?” you reiterated to which he frantically nodded, bouncing on the balls of his feet. his mannerisms reminded you of a red burny girl back in mondstadt, who occasionally showed up at good hunter to snatch a tiger grilled fish stick from you. “c’mon, it’s all yours, champ.”

the boy waddled away from scaramouche and clambered onto the adjacent seat. as his eyes swept across the mizu manjuu, egg rolls, and fish-shaped cakes, your concern proliferated. you smoothed back the sprig of cowlick on the top of his head and inquired of him, “where are your parents, buddy? did you come to this restaurant with them?”

he paused before pointing the tip of his tri-flavored skewer at you. “nibi…” and then right at scaramouche. “papa…”

and that was when you noticed: the boy’s hair that you were patting was a similar color and texture to yours, and his eyes reflected the same intense purple as that of scaramouche’s. in your chair, you rotated to face the man with robotic consistency.

“kuni… this may sound farfetched, but what if, in the future, we actually ended up in a loveless marriage and this is our child who went back to the past to stop us from falling for each other?” you proposed.

…

scaramouche was appalled. you weren’t fazed by the intimate moment he created earlier—lips against your ear and everything—yet you have already shaken him more times than he can count.

“i’m leaving,” he snapped.

those words from scaramouche seemed to set off an alarm in the child. he dropped the skewer and outstretched his hands with teary eyes, confining scaramouche in one place.

“papa, please don’t go!” the little kid’s bottom lip quivered as he turned to you for help. “n-nibi, can you stop papa?”

seeing him in such a crestfallen state made your chest clench painfully. you quickly gave the child a reassuring smile while whipping up some sort of convincing explanation. “aaactually… your papa is off to get… your stuffed animal from our room!” you blurted out, catching scaramouche’s eye. “right… honey?”

scaramouche, a sinner whose face could school itself into deadpan amid a sea of rotting bodies, was flabbergasted at this unfolding of events. a stuffed animal? he hadn’t seen one in his life, but the glimmer of hope in the child’s eyes forced scaramouche to raise his shoulders into a noncommittal shrug.

“yes, i will return,” he grunted after a moment’s worth of hesitation.

with herculean strength, he offered his newlywed partner and unplanned child an award-winning smile and left the restaurant, but once he was out of sight, his elegant steps turned into anger-driven strides.

i should’ve never decided to come kill this moron myself! he fumed, but rationality slowed scaramouche to a halt. 

it wasn’t a decision for scaramouche. for the first time in his godforsaken time on teyvat, scaramouche felt like he had no other choice.

as soon as scaramouche received the report that you escaped after eavesdropping on his henchmen in the forest one time, he already had lackeys on your heels. there was no need for him to get personally involved.

but his lackeys continued to be defeated one by one. those that managed to survive and crawl back to headquarters all described seeing “a dash of white hair” before a gust of wind ripped their comrades to shreds. they couldn’t get anywhere near you.

and do you wanna know about the icing on top? the salt to scaramouche’s wound?

you, reader, were a complete nobody with zilch information on your record that he scrounged up, yet you somehow got yourself implicated in his plan to incapacitate a general.

well, you didn’t completely thwart it. the divine priestess—a pawn he had fiddled with in the past—would still believe that the man who shot the arrow was an undercover shogunate officer… 

…when it was really a fatui agent sent on scaramouche’s behalf.

tension between the inazuma shogunate and the island of watatsumi was exactly what scaramouche needed to gain control of the nation as a whole. the same nation he was manufactured in would be the same nation that met its downfall by his synthetic hands.

but there was an unforeseen error: scaramouche was under the impression that you overheard the details of his plan to fabricate chaos in inazuma in the forest, thus throwing caution to the wind and taking an arrow to the shoulder for general gorou…

…but no one outside of the fatui organization was allowed to get away with that information alive, especially a being as insignificant as yourself.

due to how incompetent his servants were, he boarded this very passenger boat to get the job done, thinking you were some powerful entity, but scaramouche was quick to find out that you weren’t powerful in the brain or brawn department, which should’ve meant he had the upper hand. human lives were playthings to him, and he could easily strike you down at any given moment…

…but he was hesitating to kill you.

thrown so off-kilter by this, scaramouche knew there was something terribly wrong with his wiring. this abnormality was the antithesis of his crimes as the balladeer thus far, so he was on the verge of knocking down the shogun’s door and demanding her to fix him.

well, if he didn’t hate her so much.

scaramouche was aware that he wasn’t making any progress by idling around, so he stormed off to find a stupid, ugly stuffed animal to pacify that kid.

shit, where am i going to steal one?

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[randomnumbers751650]

You probably hear a lot of weird theories daily, so this is another addition to them, but my theory says that Natlan will be destroyed by Celestia at the end of the Fontaine. I’ll elaborate further. But, in short, it’s due to the lack of foreshadowing and the writers aren’t really doing anything to hype the nation and because of unconfirmed leaks that made too much sense in this specific train of thought. There will be discussion of leaks after Read More, so be careful.

So, I started to think of this after noticing how absent Natlan seems to be from everything in the current point. The game started with Mondstadt and Liyue. My friend who was starting playing from the beginning said that Inazuma was mentioned at the end of the Liyue story, but I’m not sure how other characters or just things from Inazuma were referenced.

Also, an interlude: before you ask, I’m not looking at additional material, besides the trailers. I believe these things have to stand on themselves in the main story.

Returning each nation has something to be hyped for:

Mondstadt: a quite vanilla pseudo-medieval European fantasy, even if I see it as analogue to Hong Kong, it plays safe to introduce the player to the world

Liyue: plays a safe Chinese fantasy, but kinda new to Western players, so it feels fresh, plus the Chasm is considered a great level

Inazuma: standard Japanese fantasy, but it makes new things with Watatsumi and Enkanomiya, and the Traveler is essentially Commodore Perry opening the country

Sumeru: combination of Arab and Indian fantasy in a pseudo-cyberpunk story, involving academic cadres, I feel this is where the writers did try to make something actually new, never seen before in the medium

I remember seeing Sumeru NPCs (there’s a couple right at Mondstadt) and various references to things that happen in Sumeru. But there have been references to both Fontaine and Snezhnaya.

Fontaine: a country with many travelers around the other nations of Teyvat, many acting as visiting engineers and artists, known for its technological progress and for being the nation of justice; I imagine its plot will involve parallels with the French Revolution, because the term “industrial revolution” is directly derived from the term “French revolution”, because it implied revolutions in technology the same way the French Revolution implied a revolution in politics; wasn’t there a guillotine in a recent trailer?

Snezhnaya: another country with many travelers, including both Fatui and non-Fatui – which is quite surprising, because the writers are exploring earlier how a lot of Snezhnayans are just normal people, most of them are traders so far we’ve seen –, this is more distant because it’s supposed to be the last nation, and is also technologically advanced. We have, however, an idea of what’s going to happen: after bullying other nations as an imperialistic power for so long, the Traveler is going to bring the war to the Fatui in their home ground and this will shake things up there, so there’s a lot to be hyped about

The problem is where is Natlan in all of this? We know that it’s based on Pre-Columbian America and Pre-1500s East Africa, but what else, besides its trailer (trivia: I saw the revealed character is called Iansan, which is the name of an African divinity worshipped in Afro-Brazilian religions like candomblé)? We have a reference to hot springs in Inazuma City. And Capitano, being based. And…and…that’s all I can remember. Not even in Sumeru I remember any reference, and they’d be interested in learning about it.

From what I saw from old leaks, Natlan is under something similar to the Sakoku Decree, no one can leave the nation. Not only that, but it’s also a country without civilization, just sparse tribes that gather around Aztec-like pyramids. We don’t know why, but it’s something Murata has decreed for whatever reasons, but it seems she’s acting on some sort of luddism… I think.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to have a Natlanese escape their home country and go explore Teyvat? Or having an explorer returning with stuff and maps from there (I think Venti did something to help there, but I forgot where I saw it)? And yet, it’s been four entire game updates and the references are so sparse. We have no idea of what to expect because the writers apparently aren’t doing anything to hype them up.

I even tried to hype it up, by saying we might get chocolate-related recipes (because it’s no news but cacao comes from its real life equivalent) in another post, but the only reaction was a rude reminder that it’s a nation without civilization. Why would the writers just make Sakoku Decree 2: Pyro Boogaloo? And yet nobody in the current nations of Teyvat seems to miss them, it feels they’re kind of invisible. There isn’t even stereotypes of them being savages, it makes me wonder if Teyvat is that socially advanced to just accept the Natlanese way of life as an equal to any other in the world.

What makes each nation unique is their unique civilizations. And then comes a nation that has no civilization. From what we had so far, we don’t know what to expect. The Natlan country might be a sparsely populated continent, like the Americas before 1500 – but even so the Americas had quite a number of civilizations, like Central American ones, the Andean ones, even less known ones, like the civilizations in the Mississippi basin (due to greater unpredictability concerning the Mississippi river’s flood plains, it was harder to establish a civilization, creating cycles of thriving and receding urbanization; the moment right before the Europeans’ arrival was one in a receding cycle) or even the Marajoara civilization at the mouth of the Amazon river. There was also civilizations, big ones, in East Africa as well, like like Songhan and the Mali empires.

We’ve seen the writers will borrow from real life story, even if they do their twists. There’s little that remains from Pre-Columbian civilizations writings, so one thing could be a reenactment of Maya myths (but we have more of East African writings). Or even make a story involving imperialism and colonization, using the opportunity to introduce a new alien faction – like, James Cameron’s Avatar is popular, they could borrow from it – that started colonizing Natlan and might be a problem for not just the Traveler but to Celestia itself.

The point is that there’s nothing in the current story that says anything about what to expect. It feels like an afterthought. And, summarizing everything, there’s also the issue of escalation. Leaks said that there will be 440 hydroculii in Fontaine – this means that Natlan will likely have over 500 and they need to create a lot of things for the player to do there. Given how used the player will be at this point with civilization, how are they going to fill the world map with quests? And they have to keep that for a year and the dev team must know at this point what works and what doesn’t to keep the player busy for a year. Unless, of course, they have a plan for de-escalation.

But recent leaks made me realize: what if it’s the point?

Leaks being leaks, they aren’t supposed to be trustworthy. I will be vague, but the leaks said that some characters will be resurrected (and be playable) and that Celestia will activate at some point in Fontaine. These are bombastic if true, to say the least.

But, suppose they are. I’m more interested in the second one for this theory, because it was foreshadowed – Rex Lapis stepped down and the Geo Archon job is vacant, it makes sense for Celestia to activate and elect a new Geo Archon.

Celestia so far has been treated mysteriously. They’re the ones that govern with an iron fist Teyvat. They wiped out Khanreiah for the sin of wishing for a world without gods (implied militarism notwithstanding – I know there are Nordic influences for the Khanreian founders, but it makes me wonder if the nation itself borrowed a bit from US, with its high level of immigration and isolationism, which used to be a feature of American politics). They curse Seelies and Hilichurls to suffer for eternity. They made the Traveler’s sibling, once a great hero, and the Archon of Love to adopt a “destroy using whatever it takes, lies, murder, conspiracy, ignore morality, kill everyone and let God sort who belongs to him” approach to fight against them. And, considering how Genshin’s story borrows from gnostic mythology, it’s more than obvious that they will be the final antagonist. In my personal theory, Celestia is already eroded and now just follows protocols, like a faulty AI, that is unable to realize the world needs to move on.

But, we’re shown, like what happened to the hilichurls in the Chasm, but these are indirect ways to show this. There needs to be an event that makes the Traveler witness with their own eyes how far Celestia would go and let the Traveler (likely) judge they’re beyond redemption – the moment they’re tempted to say “My sibling did nothing wrong!”

That moment would be the destruction of an entire nation – Natlan. Why? I don’t know why they’d choose Natlan, but there are some things I consider signs, with the apparent disinterest of the writers in trying to make the player excited for it. Why would you do that with, essentially, a disposable country?

Of course, I might eat my words in August 2024 and feel really silly when reading this again, and they make something good out of it. But, eh, this wouldn’t stop me from having these thoughts.

[phyneire]

The Art of Liquid Fire. Where did it come from?

A lot of people believe Rosalyne learned the liquid fire art through the Akademiya, I've always disagreed with this sentiment and this post expands on why.

The Akademiya Curriculum

Sumeru Akademiya is not a place you go to to learn practical elemental skills. We've heard from many npcs and playable characters alike, Spantamad focuses on the theory of the elements and observation and the other darshans aren't element focused at all.

All the alumni we've met, or know of, that have gone on to become vision holders did not hone these skills through the akademiya, rather they developed them externally, or after they'd completed their studies. While yes it made some of their studies easier, especially if they were a spantamad scholar, their practical elemental skills were developed after receiving divine recognition.

I don't know what Rosalyne studied at the Akademiya, we don't even know for certain what darshan she was in, Spantamad is most likely but it's yet to be confirmed. At the very most, her studies may have aided her practical elemental skills but the Akademiya did not teach them.

Very Little Is Known About The Art

Sumeru Akademiya is located in the nation of Wisdom, and since the Lawrence Clan burned down 4/5 of the Mondstadt Library, the akademiya has served (and still serves) as Teyvat's largest modern archive of knowledge.

It's very unlikely that the physical embodiment of the "Crimson Witch" was the art Signora learned,

"Rumour told of how she sacrificed her mortal body to become the embodiment of liquid fire herself"

instead her sacrifice seems to serve as the art in it's raw, most destructive and desperate form.

"And so the Crimson Witch continued to burn,"

The time it took for Rosalyne to turn into the Crimson Witch also indicates a gradual loss of control over her own powers.

It's an art that was supposedly once prosperous and reknowned, and only once has there ever been a Crimson Witch, I fail to see the Akademiya forbidding the knowledge because of the danger, and even if they did there would still be some evidence in the restricted section.

However its explicitly stated that the art was 'lost to time.' Implying this knowledge is no longer accessible at all, there's no one upkeeping a modern record of the art anywhere, and as a consequence it's been forgotten or abandoned in the process of social evolution and linguistic deviation.

Rosalyne's Youth

We know nothing about Signora's childhood, we have no confirmation she's from Mondstadt, and we have no mention of parents or siblings. We have only her name and her artifacts to go off of.

The etymology of her name has been discussed and dissected multiple times, but what stands out to me is not the meaning itself but the origin — this makes more sense later — "Lohefalter" is Old German, meaning 'blazing butterfly' showing her age by using Old German to source the etymology of her name.

Likewise, she's almost always exclusively referred to as a 'maiden,' meaning 'a girl, or (usually young), unmarried woman' given Rostam was most likely in his early 40s when he died I'm going to assume hyv is using the term maiden to refer to her marital status, or lack thereof, and not her age.

Aside from the one occasion she's referenced as an 'apprentice.' Given the fact that Mondstadt is based on the Holy Roman Empire and medieval Germany, I am working with the medieval definition of an apprentice, that being:

"An apprentice was a young person, most often male, who learned a trade by working for a guild master. Apprenticeships often began at age 12, and commonly lasted from two to seven years. Apprentices frequently lived at their master's house and were given room and board, but earned no money."

In comparison to 'her maiden years' Rosalyne would have been a young girl during her "Witch's Scorching Hat" days. This further extends her parallels with Childe as it alludes to a master or mentor whom she stayed with and worked under for a time in her adolescence. I'm inclined to believe Rosalyne was with this master for at least 6 years, as outside of this time period she's exclusively referred to as a maiden, making her at the very least 18 years old.

This makes sense with her timeline, and why Rosalyne appears to come out of nowhere, if she spent her youth outside of Mondstadt and moved there later after ending her apprenticeship.

Furthermore I always believed her comment in Liyue

"Just as a child quickly matures after losing their parents, so has Liyue matured when faced with the death of its deity..."

– to be about herself. We know from her artifacts that her mockery of Teppei's death, while it seemed like a morbid, out-of-pocket allegory, it can be reflected in her own story; and I don't believe her morbid comment about an orphan to be an exception.

[bellehalla]

Do you think you could describe the appearances of our main soldiers? ( heishi, weald, etc.)

hello love!! omg i hope you're still around

AHH i adore the main soldiers so much! I try not to give too much description when it comes to my characters since I let readers interpret them from their personality and character in the story instead. But there had been some questions regarding their appearances (like Ilya, which @escapismnotfound illustrated!! check out their blog and art!!) so I guess it's time I give some of them some faces. Officially leaving MC as the only faceless one lmaoooo

And oh boy, this is ONE LENGTHY post. I enjoyed writing it <3

Ewald

nation: Mondstadt

height: 5'4

shortest one in the company. idk if you remember but in chapter 1, he had facial hair but had to shave it off around chapter 3 when the program officially started. he's short, stocky, and kinda looks like a human version of a pug. he grew out his black hair which is probably the same length as MC's which reaches their shoulders, but you won't really notice it since he always have it up as well. he has accentuated jowls and his cheeks kinda hang that make him look tough. i referenced him from one of the characters in Mulan, Yao! (same vibe too)

Jurgen

nation: Mondstadt

height: 6'1

the Dad of the group. Jurgen's another Mondstadtian. he's tall, has broad shoulders and beefy arms that make him seem like he gives great hugs (he does). he's soft-faced, and has high cheekbones. every time he smiles his cheeks get so round. also has brown eyes. same haircut as Huffman, but has caramel colored hair.

Heishi

nation: Inazuma

height: 6'4

he already has an impressive height, but his face tops it all. he's slim-faced with prominent cheekbones and straight nose, framed by his midnight blue curls. he's more lean than buff, but he's trying to pack up some muscles. if it weren't for his military uniform, it's easy to see him as another man from a prominent family. his ruggedness is more from his VERY unruly hair.

Ira

nation: Mondstadt

height: 6'0

the clown of the group. Ira's very lanky despite his appetite. he's kinda cute if he knows how to dress and carry himself. with his sharp jawline, tall nose, and short ginger hair, he could really pull the ladies (don't tell him this). but alas his charm is in his crooked smile. take it as it is. he doesn't mean anything bad when he smiles big and wide.

Hiroto

nation: Inazuma

height: 6'5

big and tough, a bit buffer compared to Heishi. long dark hair that reaches the middle of his back. unlike Ewald and Rin, Hiroto likes to let his hair loose, so sometimes the soldiers see it. square jawline and heavy brow ridge that makes him look angry all the time. though fun fact, he's very attentive to his eyebrows and prefers to keep them clean and plucked. there's just so much to know about this guy.

Kita & Kenji

nation: Inazuma

height: 6'2

they're not twins...as far as they know. but they do look so much alike save for their builds. when Kita first appeared (oh and fun fact again, Kita was the one that egged Rin on during their first day when she fought Ewald) he had short grey hair. Kenji convinced him to shave his hair into a buzzcut, so now they're sporting the same haircut. they're quite youthful in their appearance as they have a more rounded face. Kenji's face is sharper compared to Kita. Also, Kenji's upper body is quite bulky, but Kita's trying to catch up (he's almost as thin as Ira, so it might take awhile to bulk up).

Luka

nation: Mondstadt

height: 5'9

does anyone remember this guy? he's not that significant, but i have to balance out the count per nation lmao. he has yellow hair. handsome with his big round eyes, and high cheekbones. though he's more adorable than handsome, really.

[windcarvedlyre]

@vv-ispy

Yeah! Even if we choose to believe his 'I'm the weakest archon' lines, only referencing his capabilities after 'leaving' Mondstadt, we get:

His kit. It's all ranged/AoE attacks perfect for dealing with human-sized enemies. Freezing his legs would do nothing lmao? Why was that her strategy??

As a playable character he's also clearly fucking around and not straining himself. Even his death voicelines aren't serious. Outside of his burst he holds his bow terribly on purpose. He almost looks like he's dancing his way through battles.

He can dissolve himself into wind and leave.

He can infuse other people with anemo and have them do the fighting for him.

If he was really desperate I suspect asphyxiating people or even collapsing their lungs would be easy for him too. It's pretty clear that he either wanted to get rid of the gnosis or deemed it less valuable than the potential consequences of fighting her, either immediately or politically.

Venti truly is the epitome of "he WOULD fucking say that, as part of his facade, but you seem to think he would mean it genuinely" the fact that interpreation of him ranges from "drunkard, weak god, doesn't care for his people" to "he lied about being the weakest, his drunkeness is a facade, he's the best archon in regards to the management of his people" and everything in between. It's amazing, what a guy of all time.

Right??

He's fascinating, because he's such a black box that there are a variety of ways to get him really wrong but there are also a variety of ways to interpret him that are reasonable. How strong is he really? How emotional? Can he form truly equal relationships with mortals (edit: at least post-becoming-a-god) or will they always feel like children to some extent to him? Are his time abilities very limited, or does he fuck around with timelines like the player navigates hangout events, or something in between? Why does he sleep? What did he do in Khaenri'ah? What the hell are his long-term goals, if any?

There's a chunk of fan interpretations where I'm like 'bro you are being played, reread the source material'. The main example is people taking the Signora cutscene at face value; it gets more obvious Venti sandbagged the more you think about it lmfao. Fanworks that hyperwoobify him or lean really really hard into him being a god and treat any humility from him as a facade also feel wrong to me.

But then there's a lot in between that I might not vibe with but are completely reasonable interpretations. And we're probably all wrong considering we're missing major parts of his backstory and have no idea what the pov of a wind-spirit-with-time-powers-turned-deity would be like.

[keyboard-mang0]

Ok, I don't know where this idea came from, but I want it out of my head so now I'm making it everyone else's problem. Yall know the anime Zombieland Saga? To give a brief summary it is about an idol group made up entirely of the undead, specifically they are zombies, who disguise themselves as human in order to perform music. Its an amazing show and I truly cannot recommend it more highly, but that isn't the point right now!

What the point is is what if ya did something similar with a SAGAU? Could go either way of cult or imposter, but either is still funny.

• You have been living pretty comfortably in Mondstadt for some time, brought in by the allure of all that is entailed by the name "City of Freedom"

• The city already being home to one mysterious bard you decided on a differing route, the Adventure's Guild, to keep the mora coming in.

• While perhaps they found it odd how staunchly you refused to have anyone accompany you EVER, they couldn't argue that you clearly knew what you were doing since you would always get the job done and without a scratch on you!

• It was happenstance that started the decline, you were out doing your thing when I Mitachurl managed the blind-side you. Assuming you were alone you only groaned in annoyance as a massive axe neatly cleaved your head off of your shoulders.

• It wasn't until the shrill scream of Amber watching the incident that you realized you've been caught. So naturally, you let your body flop down as if you had died, waited for Amber to focus on the Hilichurls, and slowly crawled your way towards where your head landed and made your escape.

• Later sitting at Good Hunter with fresh stitches and a new layer of makeup to cover it, you were just enjoying your meal when Amber came stumbling back through the gates, looking more then just mildly traumatized. And then you made eye contact with eachother.

• Again she shrieked at the site of you, because she KNOWS she saw you get decapitated, and yet here you sit perfectly unharmed. This time she fients before she can properly convey that you are the reason why.

• Hiding away in your home you debate whether or not to consider the jig as up, and just start packing now. In that debate you praised any Archon that could hear you that when there came knocking on your door, you still had your make-up on.

• To say finding Eula glaring at you from beyond your door was frightening would be an understatement.

• You all but got dragged to the Knights of Favonius headquarters for questioning. Bwing met at the door with Kaeya's smirk, a visibly exhausted Jean, a barely conscious Lisa, and of course a terrified looking Amber.

• Apparently Amber had reported that you had died a grizzly death at the hands of Hilichurls, and yet there are dozens of accounts that you were perfectly fine less then an hour after Amber's reported time of death.

• You gave a silent apology to Amber as you pushed that it would be impossible for you to be able to sit here and answer these questions if you were dead. A point that they had no argument against.

• And so, a couple hours of questions and rewriting a report, and they let you go, but now a new problem arises, its started raining.

• In your tired daze, you didn't notice, not as your hair got soaked, and makeup began to drip and peel off of your skin.

• It was Lisa's alarmed noise that got your attention, and when you whirled around to look at her, the damage was done.

• The gathered knights watched in varying degrees of horror as what had appeared to be your skin suddenly flung off of your features in a goo-y mass. Leaving behind the palid grey-blue and green of your dead flesh.

• Amber even through her fear immediately saw the thick and messy sutchers that now held your head in place. As well as many other tracks of stitching that you've had to use in order to keep yourself in as few pieces as possible.

• Seconds are all you have to turn and run, that moment of hesitation upon seeing your true colors, literally, and the plethora of evidence that point to injures that by every account should have been fatal.

• A mad dash home, bar the door, lock the windows, and take these few precious seconds to try and pack as much as you can physically carry for your escape.

• In your panic you foolishly didn't listen that closely to what was happening outside of the rain. And so as you slung your heavy pack over your shoulder and ran out your door, you did so straight into the Acting Grandmaster's sword.

• And well... That's unfortunate.

• Jean had the closest view as you stared down at her sword buried in your chest, a drawn out quiet moment of the both of you staring at the impalment. And before she has the chance to pull it back out again, you've raised your hands up in exasperation, cause just COME ON, AS IF YOU DIDN'T ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH PROBLEMS!

• The shock of the situation was the main thing that stopped any of the multiple Knights and vision-barers from going near you as you began to pace back and forth in front of your house, Jean's sword still neatly secured inside your chest, as you shout into the rain about how you couldn't get a break anymore, how today has just been fiasco after fiasco.

• And by the end they all just had to wonder. What do you even DO with a person that can shrug off a beheading and treats being impaled as nothing more then an annoyance?

• And so you were permitted to stay in Mondstadt, under the circumstances that you have not been anything less then helpful since you arrived, and as long as you are careful about your disguise. The report of your death and the little show of your undead annoyance would be swept under the rug.

• Ahh, but if only there was a way to subtly silence that damned Bard that won't shut up about how he witnessed a Mondstadt citizen die a dozen deaths and yet still continues to live amongst them.

Ok, this was a stupid idea, poorly written on my phone in a rush to just write it down, thus the weird layout. But I hope yall enjoyed it anyway! I've not written in the headcannons format before, so this has certainly been interesting.